Leigh's Fiber Journal

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.

Friday, March 13, 2009

Catzee's Cloth

By Leigh

OK. I admit it. This is a rush job of a post, but if I don't do one now it will be days before I can get to it!

I just wanted to share that my Catzee barcode weaving is underway.

It is a 6-block summer & winter draft and overall I am happy with it. As inspired by my tortie Catzee, it has a somewhat tortoiseshell plaid look with random tabby-like stripes. Here's a close up ......

Close-up shot showing the color variations in the cloth.

I used half of the draft for the threading, and the other half for the treadling. I have three colors in the warp, which rotate through the threading blocks. I am using the same three for the tabby weft, changing colors with each block. The lightest color is a slightly slubby rayon and I'm not sure if I like the effect, but oh well. What I do like is the subtle color blending that can be achieved by changing tabby colors. The black pattern weft is only slightly different in size (a 7/2 as opposed to the rest being 8/2s).

Now, off I go! I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

Posted 13 March 2009 at http://leighsfiberjournal.blogspot.com

Related Posts:
Inspired By Catzee
An Unexpected Wrinkle
"Catzee's Cloth" Made the Complex Weavers Journal

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!

Thursday, March 05, 2009

Inspired By Catzee

By Leigh

Way back when I first started playing with barcodes as stripe patterns, my first barcode was "Catzee", the name of one of my cats.

At first it was simply a word for an experimental barcode. But when I considered her lovely tortoiseshell coloring .....

...... the wheels started to turn.

Considering my recent self-revelation about designing and weaving summer & winter, I decided to use that barcode for my next S&W project. I also considered that even though the draft I had in mind (similar to my Fibonacci S&W) was easy to do out of my head, this would be a good way to begin learning DB-Weave weaving software.

Using the entire barcode resulted in a pretty wide draft, of which the screenshot below shows only shows part. You can click on the drafts to enlarge them (they're pretty big).

With the Fibonacci drafts, I only had four shafts to work with (and no weaving software). Now I have eight, so the patterns can be much more complex. Interestingly, the draft hints at Catzee's vague ginger tabby stripes.

Adding color to the draft made it much more interesting.....

Of course, I don't have these colors to work with, but it gave me the gist of what it might look like.

These are my actual yarn choices .....

A variety of 8-2 mercerized cotton & rayon yarns

They are the closest Catzee-like colors I could find in my stash. The golds and cream will be the warp and tabby weft. The black will be the pattern weft. I would love to be able to use the black chenille for this, but will sample first. The second black cone of cotton is on stand-by.

And of course, since this piece is inspired by Catzee, she reserves full rights to snoopervise the entire project.

Posted 5 March 2009 at http://leighsfiberjournal.blogspot.com

Related Posts:
"Catzee's Cloth" Made the Complex Weavers Journal
Catzee's Cloth - progress
An Unexpected Wrinkle - what happened after washing
More Weaving Software That Can Run on Linux
Stripes! - creating with barcodes
Summer & Winter: A Basic Definition

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.

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