more progress on Applewood

On Friday I joined the underarms with 2" worth of stitches on each side. Ever since then this sweater has been knitting up very quickly! I love how it is turning out.

Notice something funny about the color?  One thing to consider with hand-dyed yarns such as Malabrigo is that no two skeins are exactly alike.  If this is a problem for you then you can knit each row from a different ball and have them blend together, but I prefer to play up this feature and ensure that my sweater is one-of-a-kind.  It's helpful to have a plan for how the colors will be distributed.  In my case, one of the three balls I have is much lighter than the other two.  I thought it would be pretty if there was a wide band of the lightest yarn (containing the most pink color) in the top-middle area, and having the darker (more brown) parts on the very top and on the bottom half.  I saved part of the light ball to pick up the sleeves and knit a few inches with it there too.

On The Needles

After the snowflake sweater I knit on size 15's, I was itching to knit something with teeny tiny stitches. And I don't care how long it takes me!  I had three 470-yard skeins of Malabrigo Lace (100% merino single ply) in the beautiful colorway Applewood purchased a few months ago and I am finally free to work with it as my #1 priority project.  I experimented with needle sizes and settled on a size 4, which gives a light airy look to the fabric while keeping the stitches small enough to not feel like I'm cheating satisfy my lace craving.  At my relatively tight gauge, I get 7.5 stitches to the inch.

Terry, the owner of the LYS where I work, let me borrow a very helpful book called Hand-Knitting Techniques, which was put out by Threads magazine in the early 90s.  It's a collection of focused articles written by various knitting experts.  The article I'm using is about knitting "designer raglans" from the top down.  Basically it talks about breaking from the traditional raglan shape by deciding on your desired ratio between the measurement across the back and the measurement of the sleeve width along the shoulder.  Beginning at the neck of a top-down raglan, you always increase at four points every second row to give the traditional sleeve shape. At any point there is a constant relationship between the two, explained by the formula

Back = Sleeve + D

so you can create a wide sleeve (where D is a smaller value), or a very tight small sleeve (where D is a larger value), and still use the simple top-down raglan technique to knit your sweater.

If I haven't lost you yet, I would like to show my progress on the sweater so far!  I wanted a very wide neck that is as low in the back as it is in the front, so I started by casting on 53 stitches  for each of two sleeves and increasing at the neck edges as well as the regular sleeve points.  Finally I cast on extra stitches at the end of each piece and began to knit in the round to join the two pieces and form the neck opening.  Of course to show the maximum potential of this gorgeous yarn I had to add in some lace.   I chose a sweet rose leaf panel that I believe works well in this colorway.  I guess I am really into sweaters where the front and back are identical - that's what's happening here! (Not unlike this)

One of the four sleeve increase points

Rose Leaf Lace panel.  I got the idea
for this and lots of other lace samples
here. I modified the first repeat
so that there didn't appear to be
the bottom half of two leaves at the neckline.

This is the best view of the whole thing
right now.  It's not easy to look at on the
needles but once I get to the underarm
it should start to look more like
a sweater!

Been Thinking...

The infrequency of my posting lately is definitely not due to any lack of knitting or other creative projects - I will get to those soon enough!  After my last update on the snowflake motif sweater I forced myself to bear down and work on that thing nonstop until it was finished.  But that really got me thinking about the direction I want to take with my work.  Commission projects mean a guaranteed sale, but they are not nearly as satisfying to work as something of my own choosing.  So at this point I am ready to put all of my focus on following my own instincts, creating things I love and then trying to sell those - rather than taking the safe route of the guaranteed sale.  Luckily with my two paying jobs, I don't have to rely on income from my sales yet.  So it will probably take some time to build a viable line, but I'm very excited about it.


Naturally, my antennae are out for a new name. Something beautiful, memorable, radiating an inexplicable, effortless wisdom?

Finishing a Sweater

I've noticed a sad but interesting thing about myself and, in my very rough calculation, this seems to apply to about 50% of knitters I meet everyday. Some projects, like hats, are very easy to finish, but those that require "making up" can sit, completely knitted, in a closet for years just waiting to be finished and shown off. Let us not fear success! Just think of all the compliments you will receive on your sweater, of the baby that is now six months old and in need of a hand knit blanket, or whatever the incentive that works for you.


If you haven't noticed, I'm trying to motivate myself here.  I have been working on a coat-style sweater on commission since October now.  In my defense, I had to take a break from it for my Christmas knitting, at which time I was able to finish several different projects, though mostly small ones.  But I finished almost all of the main knitting on this sweater about two weeks ago and I've just been avoiding the assembly of the pieces, the next necessary step.  So today I forced myself to sew the side seams and the sleeve seam of the one trial sleeve.  Note that it took no more than an hour.  Oh, and it didn't hurt at all!

My First Tag

Goin International

In the words of my sister, "business is booming" for my PennyMae shop this week.  I've made four sales to four different countries (Japan, Australia, the US and Spain)!


Three of my items were immediately relisted, but the last one (my Southwestern top) I couldn't, due to a hard-to-find yarn I picked up in Sequim, Washington.  However, I do have the same yarn in a different colorway, which is light pink and orange.  Keep an eye out for this one coming soon...

Yarn Bombing

I'm going through some big changes (back in Arizona for the winter...and I believe I mentioned my laptop has been down, et cetera) so I'm far behind in listing new items on Etsy as well as updating the blog here.

In the meantime, here is some inspiration for today!  Oh, I hang out at the Tempe Public Library every day now, and when I'm not using the internet I can be found wandering the stacks.  I rented an interesting book called Yarn Bombing.  I've never been lucky enough to come across this type of graffiti, but I have a feeling some people in my neighborhood might, soon enough!

The Next Level: Knitwear Design!

     Last year at this time I was working my trail crew internship at Baxter State Park and, in my spare time, knitting my first sweater (The Sublime Organic Cotton dk Pullover).  At that point if I so much as dropped a stitch off the needle, it would be a week before I would even look at the project again for fear of accidentally twisting the stitches trying to pick them back up!

It's encouraging to think how far I've come in the past year. When I opened my PennyMae shop on Etsy, I was just beginning to push beyond the basics of knitting.  In the next several months I filled my shop with many small projects using all of the new skills I was learning.  Now I have reached a skill level where I am comfortable enough to really move into the exciting world of knitwear design!  Despite my lack of recent posts, there are actually several things I have been working on that I can't wait to share.  Here are two of them:



Purple sweater vest using 100% local handspun wool from Chittendon, Vermont.
Since this picture was taken, I actually finished the main knitting (all except the edging along neck and sleeve openings).  However, I'm not satisfied with my decrease method on the sides of the sleeves, where you can see big stitches on each side, so I am going to redo it.  More on that later...





My favorite - I will go into much more detail about this item later.
Just a little teaser for now :)



Color From Nature

I absolutely love color and while there are so many colorful products out there, I am excited to try dying things myself!  Rather than buying from the store, I'm gonna start experimenting with natural plant dyes.


I knitted another one of these "boho bags" but this one is bigger and made with a natural off-white cotton.

Everything about this screams "blank canvas" to me.  So I've done a little research and I'm planning to use some of the beautiful beets Ned brought home from his co-worker's farm the other day, along with some strong tea, to dip-dye this handbag and hopefully turn it into something much more exciting!

Cat Crazy!

I love cats.  Lately, I would even say that I am a little...cat crazy!  I've been missing our two Siamese kitties who are with my mom in Washington.  Aren't they beautiful?

One night while I was falling asleep I had this vision of an idea for a sweater I wanted to design!

Since Fitchy-Bruu (behind) is kind of the leader of the two, I decided to make one for him first.  Here is a drawing of my original idea.

I called and got Fitch's measurements and I've been working on the sweater for a few weeks on and off.  Here is what I have so far:

I have just finished the armhole openings, which I will have to go back to with the darker yarn to pick up stitches and do a few rows of seed stitch (a staggered 1x1 rib) like you see at the bottom, where I started.  So I am close to being done, but there is a lot of shaping to do from here up to the neck, which is the most intimidating part for me since it's my first time designing a fitted sweater pattern.  I hope it ends up fitting and most of all that he likes it!  meow!

While I was working on this I happened to be spending some free time fantasizing about adopting a cat (don't worry, there's no way I could any time soon) from the Siamese Cat Rescue Center.  I just go through and look at all their cute pictures, and read all their sweet stories, and hope the best for all of these poor kitties who have found themselves in need of a foreber hoem.  So I thought to myself...if no one is yet buying any of my lovingly knit items...maybe a good start would be to just give some things away!  So I contacted the wonderful people at Siamese Rescue and applied as a crafter.  I just had my phone interview Monday night and have been approved!  I will be donating items to be sold in their online store as well as at cat shows in various states.  All proceeds will go to veterinary and other expenses for these needy cats.  In the process I hope to also get my name "out there" in the cat-crazy community and sell some things for my own profit too!

Of course full-size sweaters like the one I'm making for Fitch are a pretty big undertaking.  But I thought of one thing I can make in large quantities.  It's a cat toy.  I call it the "mini-mese".

note: these can be made to look
like any cat.  However, toys for
other breeds will simply be called
"mini me"

These are just the first rudimentary prototypes I did yesterday, so yes I do realize that the head is too small on the white one... among other imperfections.  But aren't their little tails cute?

I used a new (to me) technique to make these little pocket shapes.  In addition to Judy, I found another girl on YouTube who I really like.  Her channel is called PleasantSeas.  Here is the video I watched for knitting in the round on straight needles.

The amazing thing about this girl is that she sounds much younger than me, yet she is a very knowledgeable, proficient and quick knitter.  I know this video is seven minutes long but if you skip to about 4:30 you see that she notices a mistake, addresses it and fixes it without even stopping the recording!