Tag Archives: ann budd

A Modern Miracle

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You guys. I can’t believe it. I actually finished it! I finished the kid’s sweater! After three whole months, I finally actually factually finished it. That’s right. It took me three months to finish a sweater for a 4-year-old.

And when you think about it that way, two weeks to put buttons on is nothing!

I found this amazing set of pinkish-maroon-y buttons, that went perfectly with the red yarn without being too matchy-matchy. They came from my Grandma’s old button collection, and are probably from the 70’s (according to a bit of light Googling).

I sewed those buggers on and blocked the thing! The ends are in, the buttons are on, it’s all really and truly finished. Thank goodness. I didn’t think this sweater was ever going to be done.

Of course, it’s approximately one bazillion degrees out now, so the kid won’t touch the sweater with a ten-foot pole, much less put it on for a final photoshoot. But, hey, we can’t have everything, can we? So, instead, I’ll style it by laying it on my unswept floor with a bunch of our ever-present Brio trains. (Seriously. They’re always out.)

I’m off to drink a celebratory LaCroix (it’s too hot for anything else right now), and think about what my next project should be.

What have you been working on lately?

And Done*

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*kinda.

After all that complaining about how long the kid’s sweater was taking, it turns out that all I really needed was about 2 hours and a couple episodes of Drag Race and…. Fanfare, please!

It’s done! I finished up the ribbing, bound off and even wove in the ends!

The sleeves are ridiculously long on the kid, but fit well enough when I roll up the cuffs, and the body is long, but not looong. I think (hope) that they’ll get a year or two’s use out of it (and I have plenty of extra red yarn, so I can always make the body longer as the kid gets taller). Although, at the rate they’re growing, it’s going to be too small for them by the time I finish typing out this post. Kids, am I right?

Now, just to get it blocked out and add the buttons. That certainly can’t take longer than actually knitting up the sweater. Right?… Right?

Have you finished anything big lately?

Slow going…

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I guess my days of banging out a sweater in a weekend are behind me (at least until my kids can fend for themselves for more than five minutes at a time, anyway). I’ve been working on this ding dang sweater for more than two months at this point. And it’s a kid’s sweater!!

Ridiculous.

I mean, sure, I’m busy. The big kid has decided not to nap any more, and the little one has decided that it’s hilarious to take my ball of yarn and try to run around the house with it, so I’m relegated to knitting only after bedtime. And yes, it’s been hotter than the blazes over here, so I haven’t wanted to knit. AND, sure, I’ve been doing some design work that’s been using up what little knitting time I have. AND, of course, I accidentally picked a size that won’t fit my kid for about 3 more years… it could practically fit a (small) grownup!

But still. I’m ready for this project to be done.

At least it’s turning out cute. I’ve just got an inch or two left of the hem, a bunch of ends to weave in, and buttons to add. It’s practically finished!

Ha. (Let’s see how many more weeks it’ll take for me to finish up. Taking bets now!)

What’s the slowest you’ve done a project? Did it ever get finished?

Christm-ish

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So, I went back and forth for a while about what color to get to finish off the kid’s sweater. And, while I was leaning toward the nice light green, or a neutral oatmeal/gray, they were adamant that they wanted RED.

I managed to talk them down from RED red, to this nice shade of “Black Cherry.” Not necessarily what I would have picked, but, hey, it’s not my sweater.

It took a while for the yarn to show up, so I haven’t gotten far, but I’ll be honest, I like it more than I thought I would. I figured the red + green would look so Christmassy, that I wouldn’t like it, but I’ve surprised myself that I don’t hate it.

(Would I have preferred not running out of green yarn to begin with? Yes. Would I have picked another color if it had been up to me? Yes. But, such is life with a preschooler.)

What new color combinations have you tried recently?

Another day, another stashbuster

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Now that my big project is done, it’s time to start fresh- and by fresh, I mean “with stuff that I already have in the basement”.

I’ve been itching to make myself another sweater- a simple pullover this time. I’ve basically been living in a uniform this winter (overalls, tank top and pullover), and I’ve only got so many pullovers (and they’ve all seen better days, if I’m being honest. The “nice” one has paint on the cuff from when I painted the basement last fall).

So, I dug around in the basement and found a bunch of KnitPick’s Swish DK from a pattern I was working on earlier this winter (keep an eye out for it next year some time). It’s a sweater’s worth of yarn in five colors that go pretty well together. (Do the colors look a little more Christmassy than I’d like? Yes they do. Do I care? Eh, not really.)

I’ve only got a couple skeins of each color, so it seems I’m making a stripy sweater, with cuffs and collar in cream (since I have extra of that). I’m planning on a raglan V-neck (a sweater I can almost work from memory, once I reference Ann Budd for the starting stitch counts).

I’m excited to get moving (and more excited to have it done- I want a new sweater!)

Have you started any new projects lately?

… Maybe Too Improvised

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So you know last week when I was so full of myself about my improvised sweater? When I was all “I love this sweater! I love figuring things out as I go! Measuring? Math? Who needs ’em? There’s no way this is going to go wrong!”

Well. As they say, pride cometh before the fall.

And boy howdy how I’ve fallen.

I had the yoke done, I’d split for body and sleeves, and had made it a full skein of yarn into my body. Then, I put the body on pause while I made the sleeves. That way, I’d be sure to make the sleeves long enough, and I’d know exactly how much yarn I have for the body. Smart. Or, at least a good plan.

Before I tell you what happened next, let me say that in my defense, I actually did a swatch. However, my swatch came to about 4.5 sts/in. My beloved Ann Budd book has the math done for 4 sts/in and 5 sts/in. So, instead of picking different needles or actually doing my own math, I’d just chose a larger size, and decided to follow the 4 sts/in pattern. Not a great plan, not terrible.

But, I forgot that her sleeves are a little slimmer than I like to begin with.

And I forgot that they’re also a little short.

And I forgot to try on my sweater as I went.

Once I had the first sleeve knit down to the cuff, I finally tried the sweater on. Y’all. It was bad. My arm looked like an over-stuffed hotdog that had been cooked so much it was about burst.

It was so bad, I immediately ripped it out. Which (while not a great move for a blogger, since I don’t have a picture of just how awful the sleeve was) is a move I stand by.

Anyway. Now I’m back to basically where I was last week. And after all that, I think the yoke and body will be fine, though the silhouette will probably be a bit more fitted than I had envisioned. But I’m definitely going to have to do some math for my sleeves. Sigh…

When’s the last time you had to re-do a significant part of a project?

Improvised Sweater

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You guys, I kinda love how this project is going!

After the swatch went so well last week, I couldn’t wait to start knitting my new sweater. Did I want to plan? No. Did I want to do math? No. Did I want to follow another person’s pattern? No.

I just wanted to start knitting!

So, I pulled out my trusty Ann Budd top-down sweater bible and set to work on a raglan sweater (my favorite) in 2×2 stripes of blue and handspun. After a few rows, I decided, “Yeah- it’ll be a V-neck.” I never make v-necks for myself, so why not give it a shot!

Then, when I got to the bottom of the V, I had to decide between cardigan and pullover. I literally hadn’t thought that far ahead. Which is wild. You guys know me, I’m always such a planner, especially when it comes to my knitting.

I sat for a few minutes, and thought about what I had in my sweater pile. I have a bunch of pullovers, but I really don’t know the last cardigan I made for myself that’s really wearable. The cardigans that come to mind are cute and all, but not terribly wearable day-to-day. They’re more of the “decorative” variety than the practical. And you know I’m all about practical garments these days.

So, I’m off to the races. I’m doing a v-neck cardigan!

My current goal is to be as efficient with my yarn usage as possible. I’ll continue in stripes until I’m just about out of the handspun, then do the rest of the body/arms in the solid blue. Hopefully, that’ll let me make the best of every last inch of my yarn.

Fingers crossed that it all goes to plan! (Even if there really isn’t one.)

It Has Begun

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I finally started my blue sweater- the one that I’m using my Knit Picks Provinicial Tweed for.  The one that I’ve been putting off, because I didn’t know precisely what I wanted to do with it.

Well, I still don’t know what I want to do with this sweater, but I’m not letting that stop me right now.

I do know a few things about my plan, however:

  1. I know my gauge.  I’m using my favorite US8s and they give me about 4.75-5 sts/inch.
  2. I know I want to make a pullover.
  3. I know I want to make a sweater with set-in sleeves.  (It’s been a hot minute since I did the whole set-in sleeves thing, and I want to give it a go again.)
  4. I know that I have a lot of yarn, so I should make something tunic-length or billowy to use up some yardage.
  5. I know that if I start from the top and work down, I’ll have time to figure out what I really want to do.

So that’s exactly what I’m doing.  I’ve started a top-down pullover with a crew neck and set-in sleeves, based on Ann Budd’s genius book, The Knitter’s Handy Book of Top-Down Sweaters: Basic Designs in Multiple Sizes and Gauges.  I love this book, and find it’s an indispensable tool when designing my own sweaters whether they’re one-offs, just for me (like this sweater), or they’re turned into published patterns.  She walks you through making a simple sweater (that you can jazz up any way you like) with virtually any gauge and any size.  I like math more than your average person, but the amount of math that Ann must have done to write this book boggles my mind.

Anyway, enough fan-girling (though, you really should pick up this book if you’re interested in designing your own sweaters).

I started knitting, following the instructions for the appropriate size set-in sleeve pullover, and I’m currently a couple inches down from the armpits.  And now I’ve got to make some decisions.My original impulse was to pick a few points around the bustline (maybe two points on the front and two on the back, or maybe just at either side along the “seams”) and increase as I knit down, making an A-line sweater, something that fit nicely through the shoulders, then flared out below the arms, like this:But, now I’m not sure.  That shape seems a little girly for me.  I’m now thinking I might just make the sweater straight and let it get extra-long (maybe hip length or longer), then splitting the hem and working in a little extra length (like this sweater, but even longer).What do you think?  What would you do?  I’ve pushed off making this decision for long enough!

 

A New Sweater On My Needles

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It’s time for a new sweater!  This one’s for my husband, and I’m not going to make it into a pattern or anything (which feels oddly luxurious- I guess I’ve been writing a too many patterns).

I actually ordered the yarn back in the fall, when the plan was to knit this sweater as a Christmas present.  Of course, things happened, and I ran out of time.  Isn’t that the way it goes?

Anyway, I ordered a bunch of skeins of KnitPicks Brava Worsted in Cobblestone Heather in their last big sale.

25697[1] Now, this is a 100% acrylic yarn, which is not something that I would normally use to make a sweater.  But my husband picked it out.  He tends to run warm, and Seattle basically never gets below 40 degrees, so he refuses to wear anything with wool.   (OK, maybe I’m being dramatic. But the point still stands, he won’t wear wool.)

Brava seems like a decent alternative to wool.  It’s nice and soft and squishy, and actually has a bit of wool-like spring.  Unfortunately, it has a bit of that “acrylic sheen” to it, so I think it looks a little cheap- but that’s probably something that only a knitter would notice.

I’m thinking of doing either a crew-neck or a heneley sweater, top down (because I love me a good top-down sweater.  Seriously, if you’re even thinking of improvising your own sweater, try Ann Budd’s book Top-Down Sweaters.  It’s the best!).

I want to keep the sweater fairly plain (because that’s what my husband likes), stockinette, but featuring some subtle texture across the shoulders and chest.  Something like this:OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThe top portion is a simple moss stitch, which I think would look good across the top part of a men’s sweater.  The bottom is just stockinette (so I can measure gauge).  In between, I tried a couple things to figure out the transition.  On the right, I just went straight from moss stitch to stockinette, and on the left, I added a couple rows of reverse stockinette.  I think I like the reverse stockinette stripe, I think it would add structure and a bit more visual interest to the sweater.

But I have a little time to figure it out before I get down to the transition point.

What do you think?

Speedy Sweater

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Whee! That went way faster than I thought it would! I guess when you make a cropped, short-sleeved sweater in bulky yarn, it goes really fast! Who would have thought?

This sweater, from casting on to binding off, probably took about a week! I should make all my sweaters like that–size 10s forever!

Like I said before, I worked this sweater as a top-down raglan with a V-neck, based on Ann Budd’s book, so I didn’t have to do any math. (Even math nerds like me enjoy a break from time to time.) And, as I went, I added cables and lace from my Japanese pattern book.OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Meanwhile, I added a little k2p2 ribbing to make the sweater a little more fitted without having to worry about doing actual shaping. It’s a trick I picked up years ago. K2p2 ribbing is the stretchiest/most elastic stitch pattern, so it can act as elastic, pulling the sweater tight, when you work it in panels on the sides of your sweater. I also added a nice wide ribbed waistband and cuffs.OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

I’m so happy with how it turned out! I have a bunch of high-waisted, summery dresses, and now I can wear them with this sweater and a pair of tights all the way through winter!

Ollie likes it, too!

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAHave you ever made a project in less time than you expected?