All of our IRL features so far have been of our knitting projects. Luckily, Heather has come to the rescue to remind us there are plenty of other things to do with yarn, like weave!
Heather is sporting her very first woven piece, made on a 10″ Schacht Cricket rigid heddle loom. She used Garden 3 for the warp, and the under-appreciated Garden 10 Space for weft. I really love the way the Space looks when woven.
I am seriously impressed with Heather’s first weaving project. Overall her edges are quite nice, which tends to be the biggest challenge in weaving (for me, anyway!). She told me the experience was very meditative. And she was able to look over her project as she went, making note of the subtle things she was doing differently that made her edges appear consistent. It sounds like it was a great learning experience!
Although Heather’s “scarf” turned out a little short to be used as an actual scarf, she’s put it to good use as a headband. Heather says, “Peace out!” Drops mic.
Each year, hundreds of new designs are worked up to support our wide variety of yarns. Some of these die out when a yarn is discontinued or the design itself is not fashionable any longer, or for a number of other reasons. But others live on because they are beautiful and timeless.
The Jocelyn stole in Flax is just one of those pieces. Flax is such a great choice for a warm weather wrap. Linen breathes and doesn’t feel hot against the skin, and it softens beautifully with wear and wash. Originally released in 2007, this rectangular stole features 4 different lace patterns. The original version of this pattern included written text for the stitch patterns only, and did not contain charts. We also felt it was tough to tell from the single photo in the pattern what the lace stitches actually looked like.
Yonca, our sales director adores this piece. We often find her wrapped up in it here in our too-cool office during summers. She made a sales call to The Speckled Sheep in Pennsylvania last month, where owner Laurel fell in love with the Jocelyn stole as well. Laurel began making a store sample when she ran into some trouble with the pattern. After communicating with Laurel, we discovered that there were no outright errors in the pattern, but the way the text instructions were written was a little confusing.
In this updated version of Jocelyn, you will find three things that are different: 1) The text for each stitch pattern has been clarified and adapted to our current standard method of writing out repeating pattern stitches. 2) Each stitch pattern has been charted. 3) There is a photo in the pattern that clearly shows each stitch pattern, and is marked with the name of each stitch pattern.
We hope you love Jocelyn as much as we do. You can find the updated version of this pattern available for download now on our website.
Yonca never ceases to amaze me with her take on patterns. She almost never follows a pattern, and instead likes to put her own spin on things. Something else Yonca almost never does is to knit a gauge swatch. (Sorry, Yonca – you’ve been outed!)
But in this instance, Yonca’s excitement to dig in and start her project right away really paid off! Here she is in her version of the Boho Tank, one of the projects in our Bamboo Pop Adult ebook.
I can’t tell you how much I love the way this turned out. For her version of the Boho Tank, Yonca used one of our new yarns, Lumen, in color 108 Regatta. This deep blue color has been all over the place this season and I adore it.
Here is the Bamboo Pop Boho Tank, the pattern for which Yonca used as a starting place:
Yonca made a number of changes. Instead of a curved hem, she went with a straight one. Instead of the textured pattern on the body of the tank, she did the body in stockinette and used the texture on just the hem (so it wouldn’t curl) and the yoke panel. She decided to let the yarn shine and opted not to do any embroidery on the yoke panel.
The other big change she made as a result of not swatching was to add side panels. Yonca’s gauge ended up denser than she thought it would, and her top ended up being on the small side. She knitted a triangular shaped “gusset” for each side, and seamed it to the front and back pieces. It’s hard to see from the photo above, but these gussets transform the tank into a trapeze shape and give it structure.
Every day I feel lucky to have a job that I truly enjoy. If someone would have told me a few years ago that I would be working with yarn every day and earning a living doing it, I wouldn’t have believed them! Although I have a variety of duties here at Universal Yarn, when it comes down to it I’m really just a chick who likes knitting and wearing fun stuff.
For this week’s IRL, Heather photographed me in my version of the VeVe Tee from the Summer 2013 issue of Knitscene. I don’t often knit second versions of any of my sweaters, but made an exception with this one. The sample I made for the magazine was in Cotton Supreme 503 Ecru, but I decided I needed one in gray. I am a total sucker for gray.
This piece has a fun construction. First, the saddle shoulders are knit sideways. Then stitches are picked up from the sides of the saddles and the body is knit down. Twisted ribbing and a sewn bind-off finish things off at the hem for a virtually seamless project.
Cotton Supreme is such a great yarn for summer! What are you knitting in Cotton Supreme?
This week I’d like to share an IRL I spotted recently from Jen in our accounting department:
Jen’s sweater was worked in the decadent Fibra Natura Llamalini, a blend of Royal Llama, silk bourette, and linen. Can you say YUM? Here is Jen describing this project in her own words:
“I had an idea in my head of the kind of sweater I wanted. Top down, deep v-neck and some sort of simple lace. So I basically cobbled two patterns together to get what I wanted. I really wanted to work with the Llamalini, because its sooooo soft and nice to knit with. For this project I was actually a good girl and did a swatch in the round, and then soaked and blocked it so that I could determine my gauge.
The only thing I don’t like about the sweater is the way the neckline came out. I used a smaller needle for the ribbing with the idea that it would cinch it up a bit, but it didn’t work out like I thought it would. If I do something like this again, I’ll definitely do ribbing instead of garter stitch at the bottom because the garter stitch keeps flipping up and its annoying; and instead of ribbing at the neckline I might do an applied i-cord to really tighten it up. All in all though, it’s a nice, comfy sweater to wear, works good for layering over a tank top or a long sleeve shirt depending on the weather that day.”
Sounds like this project was a good learning experience for Jen. It looks so nice on her, and I love the pop of color from the shirt she has layered underneath. Well done!
Our sales director and my boss, Yonca, is a very enthusiastic knitter. She always has at least a couple of projects on the needles, usually garments. Here is her latest creation, this lovely summery top made in Little Bird:
Yonca always has to put her own spin on projects, and this one is no different. She loved the lace patterning on this free pattern in Garden 10, but didn’t want a cardigan. Yonca wanted something she could dress up or down, and just throw on over a tank top or dress. So instead, she simply knit up 2 rectangles using the lace pattern and came up with this easy to wear piece.
It’s hard to believe, but this shirt really is just 2 rectangles with a few seams, and a little bit of garter stitch at the neck. Yonca knit this with a few inches of positive ease for a nice open and flowy top. I love everything about it!
Today we’re wrapping up the Rocked knitalong with the final piece of the puzzle, the buttons and button tabs. Just two simple pieces of knitted stockinette and a couple of buttons take this mesh shirt from “okay” to a really finished looking garment.
Although the instructions call for a cast-on of 8 stitches for the button tabs, I went with 10 stitches since my Garden 5 is a little finer than the Cotton True Sport.
(I love how Heather photographed my tabs and buttons into a smiley face!)
You know that thing that drives us crazy about stockinette stitch, the way it rolls? This top is all about taking advantage of that fact, especially with the button tabs. Because the stockinette naturally rolls to the inside along the side of the piece, our button tabs look like an i-cord or tube.
To attach each button tab, I sewed one end inside the sleeve at the pick-up line for the sleeve, and centered right on the shoulder seam.
I could have tacked the other end of the button tab to the outside of the shirt, but instead I just pinned it in place so that the edge just touched the sleeve pick-up line. I then layered a button on top of the tab and sewed it on, through all layers. It’s as easy as that! The button holds the outer portion of the tab in place.
Although I opted for a fairly boring button choice, I really like the idea of contrasting buttons on this shirt. A pop of red on a white Rocked, or chartreuse green on a gray version – there are many possibilities. Have fun with it!
Thanks to everyone who has been knitting along with us. I know there are lots of you still working on your Rocked tops. Don’t forget about our Ravelry group dedicated to the knitalong. I’ll be popping in here and there to see how you’re doing. And if you have a question, ask!
We are fully immersed in balmy summertime weather here in North Carolina. I look longingly at my heavy hand-knits every morning, knowing I won’t get to wear them for months. But with high heat also comes air conditioning, and we keep things pretty chilly here in the Universal Yarn office.
Many of us keep a lightweight sweater or jacket on the backs of our chairs for when the cold blast becomes too much. Heather, on the other hand, loves to knit and wear hats. She follows patterns sometimes. But Heather has knit so many hats that she is a hat-knitting pro and will often just cast on and start knitting, which was the case with this lovely hat in Poems:
I asked Heather to tell me about her hat, and here’s what she had to say:
“I was going to see Kingsman (loved it!) and wanted a fairly mindless project to work on in the dark, and hats are my go-to. To keep it a little interesting, I added a right twist every other row. I liked that technique in my Rocked Knitalong so it seemed like a good addition here. For the decreases, I did a p2tog every couple of rows in the p3 sections, then did did my best to keep the twists going as I did k2tog for the final decreases.
This hat will probably be set aside until I see what the Afghans for Afghans charity ( http://afghansforafghans.org ) is doing this year. If they’re in need of hats, that’s where it’ll go. It gets cold in those mountains!”
Heather’s hat took just one ball of Poems. We don’t have an official pattern for the hat, but Heather cast on 90 stitches with a US size 8 16″ circular and dove right into k2, p3 ribbing and worked a right twist every 2 rounds.
We talked about seaming our Rocked the other day, so now it’s time to cover picking up stitches for the sleeves and neckline. The end is near! But if you’re going at a more leisurely pace, then this post will be waiting here for you when you’re ready to tackle this particular section of Rocked.
Here in our office knitalong, we’re in all stages of completion. As we all know, hand knitting is not a fast thing. We all have other things to do in our lives and may not be able to spend as much attention as we’d like on our projects. But that makes us treasure them even more once we finish them. I know I do.
Let’s first talk about determining the rate of picking up stitches off of your piece. And before that, let’s clarify what it means to “pick up stitches” vs “picking up and knitting stitches”. What we are doing here is picking up and knitting stitches. This means we are using our needles to pull our working yarn through our piece of knitting (the seamed Rocked) in order to work edgings. This is different than simply picking up stitches, which would not involve extra yarn. Picking up stitches just means to take your needle and place stitches on it, the stitches from the piece itself with no extra yarn. There are sometimes patterns that call for this technique and it is different than picking up and knitting.
Let’s talk about the neckline first. The pattern tells us to pick up and knit 72 sts along both the front and back neck edges. We want to be sure to pick up these stitches evenly spaced, otherwise the neckline might pucker in a section where too many or too few stitches are picked up in relation to the surrounding areas.
I like to use my very favorite knitting tool, the mighty safety pin. Removable stitch markers work great, too. First, place a safety pin in the dead center of the neckline. Use a measuring tape if you need to, or count pattern repeats to be sure you’re in the center. Then, place a safety pin between the center pin and the shoulder on each side of center – you now have 4 sections of equal length along one side of your neckline. From here, you could start picking up and knitting. You know you need to have 72 stitches total on the one side, so you would pick up and knit 18 stitches in each of the 4 sections (72 / 4). Or, if the sections feel too large and you’re struggling to pick up and knit evenly in them, halve them with more safety pins so you have 8 sections and pick up and knit 9 stitches in each of these smaller sections.
The safety pin method is one I almost always use with a curved edge such as a neckline. But when picking up and knitting stitches from a straight vertical edge, along the side of a piece, I can usually just do a little math and figure out my rate without the need for markers.
For example, let’s take a look at the smallest size sleeve instruction. It says to pick up and knit 72 stitches along the side of the sleeve. If my stockinette stitch and row gauges match the pattern, then I have 5.25 stitches and 7.25 rows per inch. Knowing this is important, because it means I want to be picking up about 5.25 stitches for every 7.25 rows along the side of the sleeve. But that is not helpful, because how in the heck do you pick up 5.25 stitches?! You could throw in the towel and use the safety pin method – I personally will do this for vertical edges sometimes, too. Or, you could do a little math.
Divide the number of rows per inch into the number of stitches per inch, so: 5.25 / 7.25 = .724, or about 72%. If I were to pick up and knit 3 stitches for every 4 rows, this would be 75% which is just a little too much. If I were to pick up and knit 2 stitches for every 3 rows, this would be 66% which would be not quite enough. So my game plan would be to do this: alternate between the two, and pick up and knit 3 stitches, skip a row, pick up and knit 2 stitches, skip a row, and so on.
If your gauge doesn’t quite match the pattern, that’s okay. Simply pop your personal numbers into the equation and you’ll have your answer. You’ll want to note that if your stitch count is different than the pattern, you will be picking up and knitting a different number of stitches from both the sleeve and neckline. To calculate the stitches you need, simply measure the edge and take that number of inches x your stitches per inch.
Here is a short video showing how to pick up and knit from the side of the sleeve.
And here is my Rocked after doing both sleeves and the neck edging.
We’ll be back in a few days to attach the sleeve tabs and buttons. See you then!
I finished up the second side of my Rocked over the weekend – man, that felt good!
You’ll notice those long ends hanging off the finished pieces. When I know I’m going to be seaming, I like to leave generous tails both when casting on and binding off. It means I have less ends to weave in which makes me very happy.
Here she is all pinned up the dressform. The end is so near! But first, I’ve got some seams to sew. My go-to method for seaming is almost always good ol’ reliable mattress stitch. If you joined us for the afghan knitalong last year, you may have already read our post on mattress stitch. It is a way to produce an even, sturdy seam. Here’s that video again:
But mattress stitch is not your only option. You could also try the crochet slip stitch seam:
Or you could hold the pieces right sides together and whipstitch, although I find it difficult to produce a nice looking seam this way.
In the Rocked pattern, you are instructed to sew the shoulder seams first. Then, pick up and knit stitches for the sleeves, and then sew the side and sleeve seams. Personally, I’m going go ahead and sew all my seams first so I can knit my sleeves in the round. This will require the use of double pointed needles or a long circular needle in order to employ the magic loop method. If you prefer knitting your sleeves flat, then I would advise following the pattern instructions. But it’s nice to have options, right?
Regardless of how you sew your seams, an important next step is to steam them. This will help to even out any unevenness with the seam, and will smooth them down helping the garment to drape better. I like to take my iron, hold it a few inches from the seam, and shoot steam at it. I then take my hand and help to press it down and relax.
I’ll be back in a couple of days to talk about picking up stitches off of your Rocked to work the neckline and sleeves. Wherever you’re at with your piece, I hope you’re enjoying it!
