Leigh's Fiber Journal: SSC

Showing posts with label SSC. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Shetland Sampler Cardigan Complete!

By Leigh

I'm delighted to announce that at long last it's done!

It's the best fitting sweater I've ever made for myself.

Project Particulars:

Fiber - Shetland, both American and British, from both fleece and roving. I had a total of 20 samples to work with and I have several people to thank for this:

Cathy, who donated a lot of fleece, both locally obtained and from Riverbend Farm.
Tina, who donated some of her own.
Sharon, who did the same.
Mim, from whom I got a sample via Sharon!

Yarn - 2-ply handspun measuring 16- 18 WPI. Photos of all 20 can be seen at this page of my Fiber Gallery. If you click the links under the photos, they will take you to blog posts with photos of the raw fleece and spinning details for most.

Sweater Pattern - Measurements were copied from my Rare Breed Sweater, with an adjustment made for the neckline. Though technically not true Fair Isle knitting, I did use a Fair Isle Stitch Pattern.

Stitch Design - From Anne Field's "Dyepot Fairisle Sweater," The Ashford Book of Spinning, pages 98 - 99. This required calculating yarn amounts for the color rows, details on how I did that here.

Knitting Details -

Gauge - 6 stitches/inch and 8 rows/inch
Technique - stranded knitting in the round
Needle size - US 2 circular for sweater body and sleeves, US 0 for K2P2 ribbing

Techniques Used -

I started the spinning for this project in June 2007. Swatching started in January 2008. I took my time and did not do any knitting during the heat of summer. I also set it aside at times to ponder various things I needed to figure out or calculate. Does it seem like it took that long? I can't tell. I lose track of time with a project like this. But I've learned a lot and I'm very happy with the outcome.

Sunday, March 08, 2009

SSC: Finishing Touches

By Leigh

Two things remain to be done before I can wear my Shetland Sampler Cardigan:

1. Sewing on the buttons.

2. Finishing the raw edges left after sewing and cutting the steeks.

You can see all the cut yarn ends on the left when I fold back the front band. Apparently there are several ways to deal with these cut edges. In her Essential Techniques for Serious Knitters Peg Arnoldussen described knit-in facings to cover them. When I read that part of her booklet however, I didn't really comprehend what she was saying until now (sort of an "Oh! So that's what she meant" moment.)

Another option would be to handsew a ribbon facing over the raw edges, but I was concerned that these wouldn't have the give that the knitting does. The edges can be covered with crochet, but I wasn't certain how to do this. Finally I opted for the method Alice Starmore describes in The Celtic Collection. This involves a cross-stitching over the raw edges.

Tacking down the raw edge with cross-stitch.

The raw edges have been trimmed and I'm tacking them down with cross-stitch. It's not easy to get a self-explanatory photo of, but hopefully you get the gist of what I'm doing.

OK. I'll finish these little things up and then get a photo of the finished garment!

Monday, March 02, 2009

SSC Sleeves & Cuffs

By Leigh

Now that the front and neck bands are done, progress on my Shetland Sampler Cardigan has picked up.

The Siamese sleeves have been completed for awhile now. I sewed and cut them the same way I did the other checkerboard steeks.

I really liked the Siamese sleeve technique and will definitely do it again. I sewed the sleeve seams by hand with some extra Shetland yarn.

I was delighted (and relieved) that they fit the armholes perfectly.

Overall, I am very happy with the fit. The only problem was that the sleeves were a little too long. And this is before the cuffs are added.

The solution was simple however. Since I used the COWYAK technique for casting on, I simply adjusted where I picked up the stitches to start knitting the cuff. I used a circular needle to do this....

Then I pulled out the stitches in the row above the needle. If you look closely at the photo below, you can see the plastic part of the circular needle, with my stitches safely on it.

I used it much like a safety line.

To knit the cuff, I had to transfer the stitches to double pointed needles. It is in the same K2P2 as the rest of the ribbing.

So. One cuff down. One to go.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

SSC: Bands Done At Last!

By Leigh

At long last I can report progress on my Shetland Sampler Cardigan. The front and neck bands are finally finished!

The neck band was a breeze, but the front bands were a booger-bear to knit. Each side had to be done twice. I started with the button side, and used the same circular needle I used for the bottom ribbing, a size US0. This is two sizes smaller than I used for the body of the sweater.

I was careful to check both my stitch and row gauges, so that I could adjust the number of stitches I needed to pick up along each front edge. This is where I ran into my first problem. According to my calculations, I needed to pick up two stitches for every three rows, which I did. After knitting for awhile, something didn't seem right, so I transferred the stitches onto a string. Sure enough, the band was tight and pulled the entire front edge of the sweater into one big pucker. The second time, I picked up one stitch per row, which seemed to work perfectly with the K2P2 rib I'm using. That was re-knit #1.

Re-knit number #2 was the buttonhole side. When I bought the buttons, I arbitrarily figured on five, so I bought six buttons, in order to have one extra. However, once the buttonholes were in, I realized that the distance between buttons was too great. I should have planned on at least seven. Unfortunately, I bought the buttons out of state! So I pulled the five buttonholes out and put in six the second time.

I used Nancy Wiseman's revised one row buttonhole (pages 114 - 117 in her The Knitter's Book of Finishing Techniques.) I was going to say that they turned out fair to middlin', but the one in the photo on the left appears to be almost of invisible, so maybe they aren't too bad after all.

Next is attaching the sleeves and knitting the cuffs. I'm delighted to think that I'll be finished and able to wear it before winter is gone.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Shetland Sampler Cardigan Ribbing Update

By Leigh

I have pulled out the corrugated ribbing I started on the bottom of my Shetland Sampler Cardigan. It just wasn't working for me: it competed too much with the body of the sweater, it was too bulky, and it wouldn't lie flat. I have started again in a single color.

If you were in on the planning stages of this project, then you may recall that originally, I planned to do the ribbing in black, as I had plenty of that color. In looking at the pieces now that they're knitted however, I wasn't so sure about black bands. In the comments of my last SSC post, Wool Enough and Cyndy suggested the gray might be a better choice. I welcomed this because I had been considering it but just wasn't sure. Here are the results...

You probably can't see in the photo, but this is a K2P2 rib. I'm much happier with it and knitting progress has picked up once again. Hopefully I'll get this finished before warm weather arrives!

Related Posts:
SSC: Starting the Bottom Ribbing - first attempt
A Shetland COWYAK - why I'm knitting the bottom ribbing last
Dissecting My Shetland Swatch - calculating yarn amounts
Shetland Sampler Cardigan Complete!

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

SSC: Starting the Bottom Ribbing

By Leigh

Ready for some Shetland Sampler Cardigan progress? Me too. :)

After I completed the body of the sweater, I was ready to start on the bottom ribbing. That meant cutting off the COWYAK and picking up the left behind stitches.

Remember the COWYAK? (cast on with waste yarn and knit) If not, click here. To remove it, I slipped the needle into each Shetland stitch and then cut off the COWYAK stitch. Like this ....

Then I was ready to start on the bottom band. On a whim I decided to try a corrugated ribbing, which is a traditional Fair Isle technique. I chose black and gray, the two colors I have the most of. I had already calculated that I had enough black for all the bands, but I really wanted to try this anyway.

It didn't take long however, for me to realize that it was totally unsatisfactory. Here is a photo of what I mean, taken after I transferred it from the circular needles to some waste yarn....

The body of the sweater was puckering and the ribbing was flipping up. I was using a needle two sizes smaller than I used for the body, so I could understand the puckering, but not the flipping up. Isn't a smaller size needle supposed to prevent this? Pooh.

Now thinking that I should have done my homework on this before I started to knit, I figured "better late than never." In searching through my knitting books and the internet, I found the most useful information at Maggie's Rags. Under her "Knitting Tips" I found a whole page on Corrugated Ribbing: Problems and Solutions. Very helpful.

One thing I learned is that because corrugated ribbing is stranded, the end result is very tight. Consequently, a needle two sizes smaller isn't necessary and the same size needle as the body was knit with is recommended.

I also learned the curling is typical of this technique, but there are measures to prevent it. One solution is to use a very tight cast on. However, I'm picking up and knitting downward from the sweater body. Other solution is an off numbered rib pattern such as K1P2 or K2P3.

In thinking through these, I also saw that the two-color ribbing is a lot thicker than the body of the sweater. I'm not sure I like that. So, back to the mental drawing board. I'm going to have to make some decisions and I may end up with all black ribbing after all.

Friday, December 19, 2008

SSC Shoulders

By Leigh

Progress!

Front and sleeve steeks are sewed and cut, and the shoulder seams are finished.

I used the "knit and bind-off technique"on the shoulders

Front and back of shoulder are placed on needles one size smaller than those used for body of knitting. Using a needle of the larger size, the front and back shoulder stitches are knitted together. Right needle through both, then knit together.

After two stitches, bind off one and continue until seam is complete.

Someone else can probably explain that better than I, but hopefully you get the idea.

Here's a view of the inside of the finished shoulder seam....

And here's what it looks like from the outside.....

I didn't plan it to look this way, but I'm not dissatisfied. At least both shoulders turned out the same!

One thing I didn't do was shoulder shaping, as I don't have a clue of how to do that in the round.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Sewing & Cutting The Steeks

By Leigh

Do I need a drumroll for this? Here are photos of sewing and cutting the neck and front steeks of my Fair Isle Shetland Sampler Cardigan.

The first thing I did was to test stitch tension on my sewing machine with a small knitted swatch. When I was satisfied with that, I sewed the actual steeks.

I followed the instructions in Peg Arnoldussen's Essential Techniques for Serious Knitters (see my review in this post). The stitch is straight and small. I think I set my machine at about 20 stitches per inch.

The line of machine stitches had to go either down the middle or between stitches.

Stitch lines on either side of where opening will be cut.

My front steeks were six stitches wide. For these I sewed three rows of machine stitches on each side. For the wound neck steek (which I actually did first), one row of machine stitches went down the center of the edge stitches, and another along the outside of the edge.

Then came the cutting between the stitched lines. It actually wasn't as scary as I thought it would be. I just reminded myself that this is only fabric after all.

Finished neck (wound) & front (checkerboard) steeks.

Here is the left upper front of the cardigan. You can see how both steeks turned out. I'll repeat this process the sleeve openings and my Siamese Sleeves.

The next step is to block this piece. Then I'll sew and cut the armhole steeks, stitch the shoulder seams, and then I can begin on the bands!

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Wound Neck Steek

By Leigh

Now that chilly weather has arrived, I have resumed knitting on my Shetland Sampler Cardigan.

You may recall that I put it down for the summer after completing the Siamese Sleeves. Besides the sleeves, the body of the sweater was largely done. Since it is being knit in the round, it was just too hot to work with in my lap. Now it's pleasant to have such a project on my lap (with or without cat).

I first contemplated knitting this project with steeks when it was still in the planning stages. With the help of a little book called Essential Techniques For Serious Knitters by Peg Arnoldussen (click here for more info on that), I've been able to muddle my way through checkerboard steeks for the front and sleeve openings. Those were fairly easy to master but now that I'm to the neck, a different type of steek is in order; a wound one.

Here's a first look at my somewhat sloppy wound steek.......

At first I thought I'd have to wind yarn the length of the neck opening, but it occurred to me, no I don't. The wound yarn ends up as waste anyway, so only a couple of winds around the needle are actually required. Because of that it doesn't lie flat for a photo, but that's okay too.

Since I'm not following a written down pattern, I'm pretty much having to wing it with just a written description of such a steek. I bound off the top of the front checkerboard steek, and also for the front neck shaping.

Now that I've gotten over the mental effort that the figuring out of this took, it's coming along fairly quickly. Before I know it I'll be ready graft the shoulders. I decided to go ahead and graft them, in keeping with Fair Isle knitting tradition (which this project is technically not.) After that comes the dreaded cutting of the fabric! (Or should I cut first and then do the shoulders? More decisions!)

I believe that this is the fastest I've ever knit any sort of sweater. If all goes well with the cutting, sewing, and band knitting, I may actually be able to wear it this winter!

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Siamese Sleeves Done!

By Leigh

I'm even amazed at this myself, because usually once hot weather arrives, I tend to abandon sweater knitting. But here they are:

The sleeves for my Shetland Sampler Cardigan. One of the steeks goes right up the center in this shot.

For some reason, it seemed that this was faster than knitting the two sleeves separately. This must be psychological, as I had to knit the same number of stitches either way.

Besides ripping out those two dark colors that I knitted too close together, I made one other color adjustment:

The two browns just didn't have enough contrast for that section of the pattern. Embroidering over the old stitches was quick and easy.

I'm not going to cut them apart until I finish the body of the sweater, which is knitted a little beyond the bottom of the sleeve opening. Then I'll do all the cutting and sewing at the same time. After I put all the pieces together, I'll do the cuffs and bands. The end if almost in sight.

Related posts:
A Contemplation On Knitting Sleeves - Which method?
Ready to Start Those Sleeves - Discovering Siamese Sleeves
Starting the Sleeves - Sleeve Increase Calculator
Technically Not Fair Isle - Defining Fair Isle Knitting
SSC Sleeves & Cuffs
Shetland Sampler Cardigan Complete!

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Starting The Sleeves

By Leigh

The Shetland Sampler Cardigan sleeves are officially begun!

The first thing I did was to click on over the The Knitting Fiend's online Sleeve Increase Calculator. By plugging in the number of rows to be knitted and the number of stitches in the first and last rows, instructions for the sleeve increases were automatically calculated for me. Here's what I got (click on the photo for an enlargement).

Should enlarge if you click the image

My next stop was Lucy Neatby's website to double check the instructions for the Siamese Sleeves.

Since I am knitting both sleeves at once, I had to double the number of stitches to cast on and add steeking stitches between the sleeves. This number of stitches was cast onto my 16 inch US2 circs with waste yarn (see "A Shetland COWYAK")

After a couple of rows of waste yarn, I started knitting with the yarn for the sleeves. I decided that I'd better use stitch markers to mark the beginning and end of both sleeves "just in case."

As long as I keep track of which row I'm on to get the increases properly placed, I should have properly fitting sleeves.

The other thing I've started on is the steeks for the armholes. These are technically checkerboard steeks, though as I mentioned before, the checkerboard effect is lost with the one color rows. The blue yarn marks the beginning of the steek, which is six stitches wide.

Wool Enough commented that the pattern appears to have black faced white sheep facing a brown fence. Can you see it? I'm delighted with that observation because like her, I too am rather wool obsessed!

Related Posts:
Ready to Start Those Sleeves - Discovering Siamese Sleeves
A Shetland COWYAK - Casting on with waste yarn.
Siamese Sleeves Done!
SSC Sleeves & Cuffs
Shetland Sampler Cardigan Complete!

Thursday, May 08, 2008

Ready To Start Those Sleeves

By Leigh

I've been wanting to share my progress on the Shetland Sampler Cardigan....

... which now includes these freshly spun yarns from the rovings from Sharon sent....

Three of them are from Sharon's own Shetlands, and the gray is from Mim's.

I puzzled over the sleeves, until Gertieanne sent me a link with the perfect solution to my sleeve problem. It is for Lucy Neatby's Siamese Sleeves.

Why is it perfect?

I can knit both sleeves at once so that the patterns match
Which means I won't have to worry about running out of a particular color
Plus I can use a provisional cast-on and knit the cuffs later

I'll need my circular needle, but now I'm at a stopping place on the body of the cardigan, so the sleeves are next. I'm pleased with my progress so far.

The next two photos are per request. The first one is for Tina, who was curious to see the backside of the knitting...

Even though the floats are only three stitches long, I still decided to wrap the yarns to keep them neat. You can find good instructions for wrapping stranded knitting (with photos) at KnitPicks (pdf tutorial here.)

The second photo is for Janet, who asked to see the checkerboard steek that I'm using. Unfortunately, mine isn't a very good example, since some of my rows use only one color, obliterating the checkerboardish pattern...

However, Lucy Neatby has a good tutorial on that too. Unfortunately, her website seems to exist no more.

Related Posts: -
A Contemplation On Knitting Sleeves - Trying to decide on the right kind to knit
Starting the Sleeves - Sleeve Increase Calculator
Shetland Sleeve Update - A look at checkerboard steeks in progress.
Siamese Sleeves Done!
SSC Sleeves & Cuffs
Shetland Sampler Cardigan Complete!

Thursday, April 10, 2008

A Contemplation On Knitting Sleeves

By Leigh

My Shetland Sampler Cardigan is coming along nicely. I finished spinning the lovely sample from Tina....

Lovely yearn from one of Tina's own Shetlands.

.... and have already incorporated some into the body of the sweater. Here is my progress so far:

Since I'm going to add the ribbing last, the bottom of the sweater rolls up quite a bit, so I have to pin it flat to photograph it. It's 8 and 1/2 inches in length, so it's hard to lay it out in a single layer. Pretty soon I'll have to lay it out as a tube and pin the whole thing down in order to take a photo.

As I've been knitting, I've been thinking about the sleeves. There are two ways I could approach them. Since I'm going to steek the sleeve openings, I could wait until the body is completely finished, and then just pick up around the sleeve opening and knit them down to the cuff in the round. The advantage to this is that I would be sure that the sleeve would fit the opening (something I haven't always managed in the past.) Also, I wouldn't have to sew them in later. If I knit them in the round, then I could the jogless two color rounds that Peg Arnoldussen mentions in Essential Techniques For Serious Knitters.

On the other hand, if I knit them as flat pieces apart from the body, I could knit them simultaneously and keep track of which Shetland color I'm using for each row, so they would be the same. Also, I wouldn't have to wait until the entire body of the sweater was done to begin. That way I wouldn't have to worry about running out of a particular Shetland color. The main problem here would be that my gauge wouldn't be the same knitting back and forth. That might change the size of the pattern a bit.

So perhaps I could knit the sleeves in the round as separate pieces and sew to the body? That would keep my gauge the same. But if I want to knit them at the same time, I will need to get another 16 inch size US2 circular needle. Or maybe I could use double pointed needles. I have lots of number 2's. The idea of knitting both sleeves at the same time comforts my fear of running out of any particular color before I get both sleeves done.

One thing's for certain, I will need to knit from the wrist up, otherwise the pattern will be upside down and that won't do! So that means picking up stitches around the arm hole and knitting down is out.

For me, I've made pretty good progress so far. I'm usually a pretty slow knitter, but I'm enjoying this so much that it's easy to pick up and hard to put down. I doubt I'll be finished before our summer heat wave hits, but I'll at least have made good progress by then.

Related Posts:
Ready to Start Those Sleeves - Discovering Siamese Sleeves
Starting the Sleeves - Sleeve Increase Calculator
Shetland Sleeve Update - A look at checkerboard steeks in progress.
Siamese Sleeves Done!
Shetland Sampler Cardigan Complete!

Monday, March 24, 2008

Steeking So Far

By Leigh

I've finally made enough progress on my Shetland Sampler Cardigan to post a photo.

I have to admit that I had one false start; there was a problem with gauge. It seems that my back-and-forth gauge is not the same as my in-the-round gauge. In an email conversation with Peg Arnoldussen, I have learned that my style of knitting is most likely the culprit. I knit continental style, holding the yarn in left hand. Evidently, this often results in a tension difference between knit and purl stitches. I've been aware of this for a long time, but never realized what the problem was!

The COWYAK is knitted in yellow (I changed colors when I made my second start), and the natural Shetland color sequence is somewhat random; trying to plan where to use my 15 Shetland yarn colors of varying amounts is more than my poor brain can handle. I felt that I was doing good just to calculate how much I need for the ribbing! What I am doing, is using the colors for which I have the most yards for the larger color sections. Hopefully by the time I get to the end I will have had enough of everything!

And the steek? So far I love it! Of course, I haven't had to do anything scary with it yet, but I like knitting it in.

It is placed where the opening of the cardigan will be. All yarns are added and cut off there. Since the steeks will be secured with machine sewing, I won't have any ends to weave in! For that reason, I am leaving my yarn ends fairly short. I'm not sure how practical this is, but to me it means less waste, and that is important with handspun. I find that I have to snug some of them up when I start a new round, but so far the whole thing seems to be holding together fairly well.

I'm a slow knitter so I don't suppose progress will be very rapid. However, I really enjoy stranded knitting, and this project actually isn't too rumply, which is encouraging. My goal is to finish it by next winter; Good Lord willing and the creeks don't rise.

Related Posts:
A Shetland COWYAK - Casting on with waste yarn.
Shetland Sleeve Update - A look at checkerboard steeks in progress.
Wound Neck Steeks
Sewing & Cutting the Steeks
Shetland Sampler Cardigan Complete!

Friday, March 07, 2008

A Shetland COWYAK

By Leigh

Those of you who are members of Ravelry may already know what a COWYAK is. I'm not a member, but I learned about this while searching TECHknitting for cast-ons.

Even though I worked through the formula to calculate how much of each color yarn I'd need, I'm still a little paranoid about possibly running out of one of them (remember my Rare Breed Sweater near disaster?). To keep my stress level down, I've decided to go ahead and knit the body of the sweater and the sleeves first, and then add the cuffs, neck, and button bands last. In thinking about this, I decided that a provisional cast-on was probably what I wanted. Not remembering the "how-to's" of this technique, I clicked on over to TECHknitting and browsed through the subject index. That's where I discovered COWYAK.

"Cast On Waste Yarn And Knit." What could be easier! Perfect for an all-thumbs knitter like me, as it doesn't require any fancy maneuvering of needles and yarn. After casting on with waste yarn, a couple of rows are knitted with it and then the regular yarn is started. When it's time to add the ribbing, the waste yarn is removed, leaving loops to be picked up by another needle. The ribbing is then knit down from the picked up loops.

Here you have it....

... my attempt anyway. You can also see the beginning of the checkerboard steek that I learned from Essential Techniques For Serious Knitters.

For full COWYAK instructions, as well as who gets the credit for this clever term, click here.

Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Spinning & Knitting Update

By Leigh

I haven't blogged about spinning or knitting lately, because there really hasn't been much to write about since my last spinning and knitting post. But today I have two things to report:

1) Sunday, I finished spinning the last of the Shetland ...........

2) While contemplating the Fair Isle cardigan I plan to knit with it, I googled "Norwegian sweater patterns." Though I still have Fair Isle on my mind, I've been intrigued with Norwegian steeks every since I read this post on Alison's blog.

I have never knitted anything with steeks. It's been the sort of thing I have deliberately avoided. The idea of cutting into one's knitting is bad enough, but even worse, is the thought of having to weave in all those ends! Norwegian steeks however, use a different technique.

Thanks to my Google search, I found this little book, Essential Techniques For Serious Knitters, by Peg Arnoldussen. What a treasure this little volume is; it immediately took up permanent residence in my knitting basket.

This publication is actually a compilation of three earlier booklets by Peg, and more. I bought it for the section entitled "Scandinavian Cut Tube Sweaters," which explains the "how-to's" of Norwegian steeks: planning, placement, machine sewing, bands & plackets, and more.

Other sections in the booklet include: Cable Cast-On; French Hems; Seaming Techniques; Intarsia in the Round; Invisible Bind Offs, Cast-Ons, and Short Rows; Jogless Stripes in the Round; Kitchener Stitch; Knitting on Bands; Design Equations; Knitting Tips, and more.

Now that the spinning is done, my next step will be to finish measuring my yarns and to start planning where to use the colors. Then I can actually begin knitting! I'm very happy with the idea of knitting this in the round, but still a little nervous about the idea of the steeks. However, one can't walk on water if one doesn't get out of the boat, so here goes!

Saturday, February 16, 2008

What I Learned From My Swatch

Fair Isle swatch from my Shetland yarns.

By Leigh

WARNING! This post is loaded with math. Read at your own risk.

I have learned a lot from dissecting my Shetland Fair Isle swatch. And the funny thing is, the process is so logical and so simple, that I wonder why I didn't figure it out for myself.

The Fair Isle pattern is from Anne Field's The Ashford Book of Spinning. The actual sweater in the book is a lovely bulky pullover knitted at 4 stitches per inch. Since I want a cardigan at 6 stitches per inch, I will need a different sweater pattern, but I've always admired this pattern.

For my swatch, I had trouble following the black and white chart, so I colored it in. There are 16 rows in one repeat, using nine colors. To figure out how much of each color I would need, I frogged my swatch and measured each length of yarn in one of these pattern repeats.

The swatch was 3.5 inches wide, so I divided the inches of yarn I used for each color by 3.5 to find inches of yarn I would need to knit for one inch of the pattern. I could then multiply this by the size I wanted for the cardigan (both body and sleeve width), and multiply that by the number of repeats I would need for the length of each.

Formula style, here's what I did:

Inches used ÷ swatch width = Yarn for 1" width

Yarn for 1" width x Sweater circumference
= Inches needed for one pattern repeat.

Yarn needed for one pattern repeat x number of repeats in sweater length = amount of yarn needed for that cardigan piece.

This amount is in inches, so divide by 36 to get yardage.

Calculate yardage for each sweater piece and total these for approximate amount needed for cardigan. Round up generously.

So, using the bottom (yellow) color on the chart as an example:
15" yarn used ÷ 3.5" = 4.3 inches used in one inch
4.3" x 42" circumference = 180.6"
180.6" x 10 pattern repeats = 1806"
1806" ÷ 36" = 50.17 yards
Rounding up, I need 51 yards of that color for the body of the sweater.

Next I'll calculate the amount needed for the sleeves as well. Adding these two together will give me the approximate yardage I'll need of that color.

I'll do the same for each of the nine colors used in the pattern, and then figure out what I need for all the ribbed edgings. From there I can choose the Shetland colors based on the amounts I have of each.

Whew! Did I say this was logical and simple? Well, maybe not simple, but it is logical. Even so, I feel better having at least some idea of the amounts I need. At the moment I'm finishing spinning the leftover Shetland rovings, plus some extra of Nikki's fleece that Cathy sent. After that, perhaps I can actually get started on the sweater.

Related Posts:
Shetland Fair Isle Gazzintas - Do I have enough handspun???
Dissecting My Shetland Swatch - Calculating for bands & cuffs
Technically Not Fair Isle - Fair Isle knitting defined.
Shetland Sampler Cardigan Complete!

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Dissecting My Shetland Swatch

By Leigh

In the last episode of my Shetland adventure, I puzzled over my swatch, and wondered how to know whether or not I had enough of any one color for the cuffs and bands. I received a lot of encouraging support in the comments to that post, and also some helpful suggestions.

Wool Enough suggested the "Rule of Three," which was new to me. The formula is this:

Measurement x 3 = approximate yardage per row

So, for one cuff, I'd measure my wrist, which is 6.25 inches x 3 = 18.75 inches, (but I'll round it up to 19). Depending on how wide I want the cuffs, I will need 19 inches per row of ribbing per wrist. Based on the width knitted in the swatch (12 rows), I would need approximately 228 inches, or 6.3 yards of black yarn for each cuff. The hips, neckline, and front bands could be estimated the same way.

Then my spinning and knitting friend Mary, (who isn't interested in having a blog but really should because she is a fantastic lace designer and knitter) showed me some information from June Hemmons Hiatt's The Principles of Knitting - Methods and Techniques of Hand Knitting. What a fantastic resource this book is! On page 429, it describes a way to calculate yardage of each color needed for stranded knitting. This was not especially useful to me because 1) I had already knitted the swatch and 2) I plan to be a little fairly serendipitous in my exact color choices. However, it gave me the idea of how to get an approximate idea of the yarn I would need for each color in the pattern repeat, as well as how much I had used for the ribbing. For that, I decided that I needed to dissect my swatch.

Hiatt's technique calls for knotting the yarn for the swatch at 5 yard intervals and keeping track of how many 5 yard sections are used. Since my swatch is already knitted, all I needed to do was frog the swatch and measure the amount of each color yarn used in the 16 row pattern repeat. From that I could calculate yards per inch, and from that, calculate the approximate yardage I would need for the total width of each border band. Confused? Me too.

To find out how much yarn I had used for the ribbing on the swatch, I unraveled and measured it. I discovered that I had used approximately 4 yards for 9 rows on a 3.5 inch wide swatch. Dividing yardage (4) by width of ribbing (3.5) I calculate that I need 1.14 yards for each inch of ribbing. Multiplying that by my wrist measurement (6.25) equals approximately 7 yards needed.

The two calculations are fairly close. Since I am using a fairly fine yarn, I will use the larger of the two for my yardage estimates. At the moment I am finishing spinning the rest of the black, in order to see about how many total yards I will have. Then I'll be better able to tell if I have enough to finish all the bands on the sweater.

When it comes down to the actual knitting, I plan to take Weaver Annie's advice. I will knit all the pieces using small amounts of black in the pattern, and then knit all the edgings last! I can make narrower bands if I think I'm going to run out of yarn. As you can see, I definitely plan to play it safe with this one.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Shetland Fair Isle Guzzintas

By Leigh

Well, ok. "Guzzintas" isn't a real word. It's something Dan says whenever he's doing calculations for a project. He does his "goes intos," as in, 4 "goes into" 12, 3 times. Anyway, it describes what I'm working on now, as I try to make calculations about all my Shetland yarns.

So far I have measured the yardage of the Shetland yarns I've spun, and have knitted a gauge swatch.

With my swatch, I basically just doodled with my Shetland colors. At first I was concerned about trying to group like colors together, for example grays, fawns, warms, or cools. The more I knit however, the more random I became in choosing the next color. After awhile, I decided that color order really doesn't matter; I like what I see no matter which color comes next! The various natural colors work together very well. I think that overall, I will simply need to focus a consistent ratio of alternating light and dark yarns.

Another thing I noticed, was how the colors from the same color category worked throughout the swatch. For example, the two silvers.......

From a yearling fleece on left, and Sass on right.

...... or the three whites .......

From left: an unknown sheep, Angie, and Aurora.

.... are subtly different when compared with one another. But when knitted randomly in the swatch, one can't be distinguished from the other. The subtle distinctions are lost in the whole.

Next I wondered what kind of yardage I would need in order to knit a cardigan. I found a very handy yarn estimation chart for sweaters at Elann.com (where you can also find lots of great free knitting patterns.) From my Fair Isle swatch, I measured my somewhat inconsistent gauge (after blocking) to average about 6 stitches per inch. (Ordinarily, I tend to knit tightly, but when stranding yarn I consciously loosen the tension to prevent puckering. Often I end up too loose, but hopefully someday I'll be more confident and consistent with stranded knitting.)

Anyway, according to that chart, I would need around 1800 meters (which is about 1980 yards) to knit a pullover or cardigan in my size.

Of the yarns from my Shetland fleece samples, I measured approximately 1809 yards. I also have an additional 4 ounces of Nikki's lovely gray fleece that I can spin if I need more. On top of that, I have the yarns from the three Shetland rovings, of which I've only spun enough to do some swatching. There is still quite a bit more roving left to spin. So overall, I should have plenty of yarn for this project.

My bigger question is, how many yards will I need for cuffs and cardigan bands? Does anyone have a ballpark guesstimate? I have to admit that I am more than a little paranoid after running out of green yarn for my Rare Breed Sweater with only inches to go. I tend favor the black for the cuffs and bands, which don't have to be wide. I may be able to manage enough yardage after I spin the rest of the roving. I'm also considering a traditional corrugated ribbing, but again, how yardage would be required? And wouldn't a corrugated ribbing use more total yardage than a plain one color ribbing? Questions! Questions!

Next, I need to start looking at Fair Isle cardigan patterns. I'm hoping to find something I like using the gauge I'm knitting at, without any further calculations on my part. I made my own design for my Rare Breed Sweater, and I have to admit that every decision was painstaking. I'd like to be able to simply follow the directions for this one. Even so, I usually end up changing something. I'll just have to wait and see.

Comments, suggestions, opinions, and answers to my questions welcome!

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