WIP Wednesday

It's Wednesday again (already?!?) so here's what I've been working on craft-wise.

Finished objects
Spiralucious cowl: knit out of my hand spun for me :) I'm happy with how it turned out and it'll be perfect to wear under coats as the weather turns.

I forgot to smile hehe

Knitting

I'm like a half inch from finishing the sleeves of my Indifference Shrug. If I have enough yarn left I'm thinking I'll add a crochet border along the neck because I'm not loving how the edge curls. I'm thinking I'll give this to my mom when it's finished because even though it's hand spun I don't love the way the yarn knit up. It's just not my favorite colors for wearing.

I have barely worked on the East Village sweater for grandpa at all this week. I'm getting close to shaping the sleeves on the front, so maybe it'll finally feel like progress is being made/

I cast on some Vanilla Latte Socks for my dad. I love the vanilla latte pattern for boys. It's simple enough for interesting yarn but but a little more fun to knit than plain socks. I'm using more yarn that we got at Romni Wools when we were in Toronto in June. If you're ever in Toronto, serious check them out. It's the coolest shop, with sooooo much yarn. More sock yarn than I've ever seen in one place. It was heaven.

You can just barely see the start of the patterning

I've also been doing some swatching. Mostly for Titan Jacket for my sister but also for Willow Creek for myself. They take the same gauge so doing double duty. It's a bit bigger than I normally knit, 4 stitches per inch, so it's taken a few swatches and a few types of yarn. Hopefully I'll get it sorted today (my swatches are currently drying after being blocked).

Spinning
I finally finished spinning the singles of my BFL. They're resting now but later today I can finally ply them. I love plying, it goes so much faster than spinning singles and when you're done you get real yarn! I'm doing a 3 ply with this BLF. Maybe I'll do 4 ply with my next BFL that I'm already planning :)

WIPs Wednesday

I've made some good progress this week, but it doesn't show much in the pictures because it's mostly been just putting inches into sleeves and such.

Knitting

Indifference Shrug
I've put maybe 4 inches on the sleeves. I like two at a time knitting, but man it makes it feel like it goes so much slower. I finished decreasing (I think, I'll try it on again in a few inches), so maybe the end is in sight.

It's quite difficult to get a good picture of it right now since it's just curling all over the place

East Village
Again I put  few inches on the front but the progress is barely noticeable unless you're measuring it every 30 minutes like I am.

Yep looks pretty much the same but with worse lighting. 

Spiralucous Cowl
Finally, some visible progress. I finished the main neck portion and I'm working on the applied hem/edging. It was on time out for a few days as I tried to figure out how exactly the applied edge worked. I didn't do the provision cast on for extra stitches it called for because I don't like provisional cast ons, so I brought these difficulties on myself but I think I've got it figured out finally. I'm excited for this one to be done, it looks great and it'll be so cool to show off my hand spun yarn! (project bag by the lovely Maria from Stitched in Sweden)

Planning
I saw that some cascade heritage was on sale so I thought I'd get myself some for a sweater (less than $30 for a sweater's worth, yes please). So I was perusing ravelry but instead of finding a finering weight sweater I fell in love with Willow Creek sweater by Justyna Lorkowska. It just looks so cozy with that cowl neck, I need it in my life (with long sleeves because I'm always cold). So I added some cascade 220 to my cart but since the Heritage is on sale I think I'm just going to buy it and stash it for later. So I might be accidentally buying two sweaters worth of yarn. Oops haha. I have a few patterns in mind for it but I haven't decided yet, Familiar looks good, also by Justyna. I like empire ave but I was kind of wanting something with a v-neck (preferably a shawl collar) and I'm not quite sure I could make those modifications myself. Anne's cardigan looks nice but sort of similar to the last cardigan I made for myself. It's so tough to choose. I might just have to buy the yarn and wait until a pattern really speaks to me.

I'm also making my sister a cardigan for her birthday (which was yesterday). I almost never do my gift knitting ahead of time because I'm just that organized. We're still picking a pattern though. The one she liked initially I decided wouldn't be a great idea since all of the projects on ravelry seemed to indicate some issues with the pattern and I'd have had to do some modifications and it was just getting rather complicated. So we're still looking. And for those keeping track at home I'm about to be getting 3 sweaters worth of yarn. #notsorry.

Spinning
I did a few hours of spinning on the BFL my mom sent me from Maine. It's lovely to spin but I just haven't had a ton of spinning mojo. I've been all about the knits. I'm getting close to being 2/3rds done so maybe that'll motivate me to at least finish off filing this bobbin in the next few days. Then I just have to figure out what I want to knit with it. Maybe a shawl or something for my mom for when she visits in October. Being from Hawaii she is always freezing like me when she visits. And I know she'll love the fact that I spun it and that I knit it because duh she's my mom. 

How I modified a woman's cardigan to fit my dad

I love these buttons!

Over the summer I made my dad a cardigan. He wanted something more interesting than the typical men's sweater and he picked out Burrard by Glenna C. On Ravelry. It's a women's cardigan but I figured I could modify it to fit my dad. It worked out pretty well so I though I'd share how it did it. And of course the things I forgot and would do next time so that other people can avoid my mistakes.

Measurements and sizes

First I took my dad's measurements. Pretty much all of them: shoulder to hip, under arm to hip, under arm to shoulder, circumference of upper arm, length of arm, and of course chest circumference. 

I picked a size to cast on based on my dad's chest circumference and started knitting.

Modifications

For the back and front pieces I followed the normal pattern but added extra length to match my dad's measurements, which lined up with the largest size of the pattern. I also skipped the waist shaping.

For the arms I did the same thing but my row gauge was off the patterns so I got to the required length before I finished all my increases so I stopped increasing before the pattern called for it. But it was wide enough since my dad's arms aren't that big. 

The pieces blocking before I began assembly

I blocked all of the pieces separately before I sewed them together. I don't usually bother to block first but since this is all stockinet and the edges were curling I decided to test out my new blocking wires. They worked really well. Especially on the edges where I had slipped the first stitch of every row. That slipped stitch gave a nice loop I could just slide the wire right into. I did wish my set came with more of the T pins, but I can probably find extras cheap on amazon.

What I forgot to do

I forgot to switch the button holes to the other side of the button band, which would have been easy to do. 

I also didn't think about the fact that it's a V-neck and my dad is flat chested while this cardigan is designed for a women. So the V come out a bit deeper than it would on a woman because there are no boobs pulling the fabric forward. It would be an easy fix to just add one more button higher on the neck and it'd be a nice v neck. To fix it after the fact now I'm going to sew another button on and then attach a crochet loop on the inside of the button band where the extra button Joel should have gone. Hopefully that will secure the extra top button.

Me modeling the sweater

This was my first time doing major sweater modification and I think it turned out well. I heard from the knit girllls podcast that Amy Herzog has a new craftsy class out about modifying sweaters and I'm thinking about taking that class. I've been really into sweater knitting lately and I always want to change something so it fits a little bit better. I learned a lot from Amy's book knit to flatter, which I would highly recommend for anyone looking to knit sweaters. I don't know much about knitting/sizing/construction theory, mostly I just hope for the best and do what seems like it might work and her book really helped me learn some of the basics. Ok, I'll get off my Amy Herzog soap box and let you return to your regularly scheduled program. And as my friend Maria would say, happy knitting.