(there should be pictures in here, but I haven’t had time to upload them from the camera yet. I paid bills and balanced the checkbook last night instead. Also - future note to self, make sure you type in the "final balance" amount correctly when reconciling an account in quicken,or you’ll never get your numbers to come out right!)

Ok, so I wasn’t on vacation, just maternity leave (10 weeks), which are now officially over! I’m back at work today and getting back into things. What did I do while on leave?
1) Have a baby
2) Recover from having said baby
3) Clean up & Organize my workshop (new shelves, new workbench)
4) Knitting: Hardangervidda, started 2 new pairs of socks and finished nothing.
5) Organize my scrapbooking stuff
6) Organize my knitting stuff
7) Take a few naps
8) Play Thief 3 on xbox

In the Knitting world…
Hardangervidda is coming along great! I put it on two needles this weekend & had DH try it on. It fits - yippee skippee it fits! Here’s a picture of the latest progress:

[imagine great picture of Hardangervidda here!]

The zipper steek is started, and I’m soon going to have to start a steek for the neckline. I think I have an idea on how to do this, but will consult with my local expert (aka Judy) to make sure. I know that the pattern says to start back and forthing at the neck, but forget that!

Another thing that happened, I’ve decided to NOT knit Ingeborg at this time. Yes, I swatched like mad - and was pretty pleased with the results. However, the intended recipient decided she’d rather have a different sweater first. Yeah, I heard that "first" too and told her that we’d see about a second sweater. What will I be knitting? Bjerk from the same book as Hardangervidda in these colors:

[Imagine really pretty colors here -- light purple, dark purple, deep blue & burgandy]

I’ll swatch first to verify that the colors will work well together. I’m pretty confident though. I’m using Falk again for this - so the same yarn as Hardangervidda uses. It has the same exact gauge, but the suggested needle size in the pattern is much larger (must be because the model sweater is knit in Tiur). I’ll be measuring my gauge on Hardangervidda and deciding what size to make Bjerk from that. Another odd thought - when comparing Heilo with Falk, the Falk felt softer! I always thought that superwash yarns weren’t as soft as non-superwash yarns. This one will go pretty fast because there is very little colorwork in it even compared to Hardangervidda. I might have to make this twice - once for my mom and once for myself if it comes out really well.

I have some corrections to make to my original calculations. I guess it was really late last night when I wrote up that post. After checking with the source of my yarn (theknitter.com), I realize I didn’t take into account how much yardage was in each gram or ounce of the yarn I’m going to use. You really get different numbers when you do it that way! Here are my new calculations, assuming that I use Cinnabar as the border band & hem part (CC1):

MC (Claret): 400g
Saftey net: 50g
——————
Total: 450g

450g/50g per ball = 9 balls of yarn
9 balls * 155 yds/ball = 1395 yds
Convert into Maine Line yardage:
1395 yds / 140 yds per ounce = 9.9 ounces

CC2 (Cinnabar): 350g
CC1 (Cinnabar): 100g
Saftey net: 50g
——————
Total: 500g

500g / 50g per ball = 10 balls of yarn
10 balls * 155 yds per Daletta ball = 1550 yards
Convert into Maine Line yardage:
1550 yds / 140 yds per ounce = 11.07 ounces

Hmm.. very different numbers!!
Note that if you convert 450g to ounces you get 15.873284627041304 ounces. I guess the yardage does really make a difference. :)

Yippee - this means I can actually cast on for this project now!!!

Btw: If anyone sees any errors in these calculations, you must let me know ASAP!

What do you do when planning a sweater? Find a pattern you like. Find yarn that works with the pattern requirements (think gauge here) in some pleasing color combination(s). This is what I’ve been going through with Ingeborg. I like the pattern, have decided it would make a great sweater for my mom. I found some yarn that is pleasant to knit with, and has a good range of colors to choose from. My swatch came out well and I’m ready to get started casting on. But WAIT! There are a few more steps here.

Gauge
Measuring your gauge on the swatch is pretty important, so I (finally) did that. I’m getting about 7.5 st/inch. The pattern calls for 7 st/inch. I didn’t really measure in a very accurate way, so I might measure again. The best way is to lay the swatch out without stretching on a flat surface, then using a ruler mark two inches apart (or four if your swatch is large enough) with pins. Remove the ruler, then count the number of stitches and do the necessary division. I have a few pet peeves with gauge. 1) I never seem to get the same gauge on the actual garment as I do on the swatch. 2) Unless you do your swatch exactly like you are going to make the garment, same needles, same relative circumference for items in the round, you end up with problem #1. With Ingeborg, I’m close to the pattern gauge that I could probably start the body, and then a few inches in measure it to see if I’m close to the finished measurement. If I am, I’ll keep going, if not, then I’ll probably rip out and change the number of stitches I cast on.

How much yarn?
Once you have chosen the yarn, you need to determine how much of it you need. You can do this easily if your gauge matches exactly that required in the pattern. If you’re off (especially in row gauge as I usually am) then you’ll need more or less yarn than the pattern says. Ingeborg is a Dale pattern, and I’ve heard they cut it pretty close for the amount of required yarn. I always like to overestimate because I hate worrying about having enough yarn for a project.

For Ingeborg, I’m only using two colors. MC + CC1 = 500g in the size I’ll be making. Add another 50g for saftey and I’ll need 550g total. That’s 19.4 ounces or 1.2lbs of yarn. I don’t think I’m doing the frilly edging, but I will need 350g + 50g saftey for CC2. That’s 14.1 ounces. The yarn I’ve chosen comes on 1lb cones. Currently I have a not-quite-full cone of the MC/CC1. I have a full cone of the CC2. Oops, I’m definately short on the MC/CC1 needed.
Looking at my swatch, maybe I want to do the button band/border in CC2 instead. Still - I would need 350g + 100g +50g, and that’s still over a lb of one color. I’ll have to ponder this, but not for too long, as the Borg-along is supposed to start May 15th!

Needles
I realized today that the Borg uses the same size needles as Hardangervidda. Strange in some ways as Hardangervidda calls for a sport weight yarn, and Ingeborg is made with fingering weight yarn. The stockinette on Hardangervidda is knit with 3.0mm, and the patterning on the Borg is on 3.0mm. I had a moment of panic thinking I’d actually have to finish the body of the one sweater before starting the other. Thankfully the borg sweater will be much smaller around than Hardangervidda and I can use my 32" length circular just fine. Whew!

A few things to ponder in the color department - I need to get in touch with my yarn source and find out how long it would take to get the extra yarn in (or maybe they already have some in stock? Hmm). I’m bummed I’m not ready to cast on yet, but glad I did the extra calculations now! I can’t imagine how demoralizing it would be to get done with the body and part of one sleeve only to run out of yarn.

PS
As of 11pm Mon night, still no baby. :/

I did however make some good progress on Hardangervidda. It’s coming along great now!

I’m in the boring part where I just knit and knit and knit and knit and knit and knit and knit and … well you get the idea. Until the body measures 17 or so inches. At least it’s a totally mindless project for now.

I steeked my Ingeborg swatch, but I did it a bit backwards. After stupidly realizing my swatch wouldn’t fit over the sewing machine arm to stitch it in place before cutting, I decided to throw caution to the wind and cut first, then stitch (just so I wouldn’t have to worry about ends or being really careful with the swatch). Worked like a charm, and I didn’t even do any pre-steek-prayers or dances before doing it. Of course I knew this was only a swatch, so I wasn’t really even nervous about it. Here’s what it looks like cut open, then lightly misted with water and steamed with an iron:

It’s quite a sizeable swatch! I’m glad I did it though - and don’t feel that I wasted any time or yarn with this one. In addition to really letting me see what the colors will look like together, it gave me time to get used to doing two color knitting (one yarn in each hand) so I think I’m much more comfortable with it now than I was before I started. I think this helped when doing the 2nd color pattern on Hardangervidda as well. I know when it comes to cutting the real steeks on the real sweater, I’ll be much more nervous and measure a zillion times, but I have confidence that even if I just cut into the sweater without anchoring first it’ll stay put for a few minutes at least.

I have managed to aquire a Strickenfingerhut as seen on Kim’s blog. I haven’t tried it yet, as I got it right after I finished the borg swatch. I didn’t want to use it on Hardangervidda because I’m kind of in a groove with that right now doing the one yarn in each hand technique. I do wish I had this gadget for the one three color row I had to do; if I run into another three color row on the larger pattern I’ll give it a try.

Ok, so the title is really cheesy - but I just couldn’t resist. I must be getting a bit loopy waiting for the baby to deliver :)

Today I had to sit through a 2 hour meeting at work. Luckily it was a large meeting with no participation necessary by me except staying awake and paying attention. I took my knitting and discreetly made great progress on Hardangervidda.

I put it on two needles tonite and measured it - it’s coming out at 48" around at the hem part. This is perfect! I’m aiming for a 50" chest, and that should give me enough room to loosen up as I get into the stockinette portion of the body. After I finish the block ribbing, I’ll be doing the second pattern of colorwork. The pattern says to switch to 3.5mm needles, but I’m thinking of doing it on 3.0mm needles and seeing if I get any draw in which would make it necessary to switch to the larger needle for the patternwork. I would switch back to the 3.0mm needle for the stockinette part of the body anyway. Hmm… decisions decisions :)

I finished swatching for Ingeborg. I am practicing my steeking techniques and thought I’d try a crochet steek first. Here’s what the results look like:

I don’t think it worked quite right because I have floats in the steek zone and after I cut through them, they aren’t anchored by anything. I think I was supposed to do either a striped or speckled steek so that there wouldn’t be any floats in the steek area. Good lesson to learn on a swatch, that’s for sure. I also realized because my swatch is so narrow I am not sure if I’ll be able to get it over my sewing machine arm to machine stitch it down. I wasn’t feeling gutsy enough to hand sew it tonite - maybe tomorrow.

Here’s the run down of the colors I tried:

You see at the very far left that I did Natural & Snow. I drew a line so you could see where the cutoff from one to the other is. I can hardly tell the difference between the two depending on the lighting so I decided I didn’t like either. Although I do like how it looks, it’s too much contrast for what I wanted this sweater to look like. I checked with the intended recipient (Hi mom!) and she said the colors I picked looked fine, and we think we won’t do the pointy lacy things on it after it’s finished with button band. Speaking of button band - I’ll be using the Claret for the border & bands on it. So it’ll only be a two color sweater - but still fabulous!

I haven’t measured gauge yet. Whatever the swatch came out as, that’s what I’ll use as the main gauge and adjust the sizing of the pattern from there. No more re-doing the sleeve a zillion times for me!

Comments on Comments…
Ingrid and Judy both suggested using a DPN for the provisional cast on stitches, and only doing about 20 at a time to make life easier. This is a great idea, except for the fact that I totally messed up my crochet chain and it undid from the wrong end (gee, did I forget to mention this small fact?). So I had to put all the stitches on a needle in order to get back around to where I could get to the starting point. It was a good learning experience, and I’ll try harder next time to get my crochet chain going the right direction!

So I’ve swatched and swatched, and as Ingrid says in the comments - I should start on the real sweater before I have a sweater’s worth of swatch! I have decided I like the tone on tone the best - with the brighter red as the floral accents. The white is too bright, and the natural, which I thought I would really like isn’t so much different from the white once it’s knit up with the red. I definately like the subtlety of the red on red. It makes for a very rich fabric.

So I have been perusing the shade card for the yarn I’m using, and can’t come up with a band color that I like. The example sweaters in the pattern book show more muted tones as the main body of the sweater and a brighter color as the band. I am going the opposite way (or so it seems to me) and doing the brighter colors as the main body, so I’m left with a band that isn’t so bright, and that doesn’t really appeal to me. I’ll mull it over for a bit, but I think I’m going to go with the darker red as the band color as well. The way the sweater is done, you get a break before starting the pattern on the bottom with a stripe of the flower color. There is some lacy texture in the band, so I think this will look fine even without a second color. I haven’t decided if I’m doing the lacy pointy things yet, those would be put on last, so I can put off that decision for now.

No pictures today - hopefully I can steek my sample and get a shot of that for tomorrow. Oh, and I still have to measure what my gauge is :)

I have actually made quite a bit of progress in the past few days on all my projects (with the exception of the Critter blanket); but have been remiss in posting about it here. I won’t spoil it all by posting about everything in one day.

I have been playing with colors for the Borg. Originally I was going to do a bright red with a grey pattern, and deep red for the bands. Well, now I’m not so sure. Here’s my swatch (done in the round, so I can practice my steeking):

It looks a bit "fat" at the center.. that’s only because it’s propped up funny for the picture. (ha - that’s what I say about _my_ pictures too!). The bottom two colors are Cinnabar & Arrowhead. The contrast just isn’t what I envisioned it to be. The next color combo is Claret & Arrowhead. Better contrast, but doesn’t quite speak to me. Next I tried Claret as the Main Color with Cinnabar as the patterning color. (No idea what color the button band should be). I also have Ecru, Snow & Natural to try as the pattern color with both different reds. Since this sweater isn’t for me - I’ll need to get a final vote from the recipient on what she likes. So far the tone on tone isn’t bad - but I think I might like the bright red with the snow white pattern color. That’s next on the list to try.

New Yarn
This weekend I went to an LYS I hadn’t been to before. It was about the size of my master bedroom closet (no, my closet isn’t really that big) and it had lots of fancy yarns in it. I was looking for something to make a bonbon with; and found a few different options. I chose the Timo because the color was better than the other thing I was looking at, and it’s already in ball form. (The other was more variegated in colors I didn’t really like, and in a very floopy skein) The price was about the same (exhorbitantly high). I got two balls which should be enough to make one bonbon plus a little. I need to test the color fastness and softness of the yarn when it’s wet though.

Isn’t the blue purty? I have no idea what I’ll make if the bonbon thing doesn’t work out.

I felt bad for just whining and complaining on Monday, so I thought I’d post some pictures today! I started color-swatching for Ingeborg today. I don’t have much done, but I’m not wowed by the first color combo I picked out:

Maybe as the pattern gets more defined, it will look more striking. I’m planning on trying a few different combos, so we’ll see as it grows. It kind of looks like a sock right now - since I’m doing the swatch in the round. I will probably do a practice steek to cut it apart and let it lay flat later. You can also see my magnetic board and part of the chart for this in the picture. I’m really really really glad I’m using the magnets on this one. The chart is pretty intricate (did I mention somewhere I’d be able to memorize it? Uh, yeah, right) so keeping my place marked is going to be essential. I only have this one metal board, I’ll have to see if they make them in smaller sizes to fit my knitting bag better.

My critter blanket is my current purse project, so I don’t work on it too often. Soon it’ll get too big to be shoved in there. I thought I’d share a picture of the blanket with an actual kitty:

This is our oldest Kitty - Thumper. I got him way back when I was in college. He’s got quite an attitude, but doesn’t usually mind sleeping under blankets or clean laundry. There are a few other people in my knitting group doing critter blankets. Judy has already managed to finish 2 of them! Hers are much smaller and more reasonable sized. I should have taken pictures of them on Saturday, but I spaced it!

Check out my new stuff:

The cones are my yarn for the Ingeborg knit-along. I’m going to be making the sweater for my mom, who just loves the color red. We picked out these colors while she was here visiting, but now that I have them I’m still undecided as to which color will be which part of the sweater. Originally I was thinking the bright red (on the left) would be the main color, the tan/grey (which actually is a bit more taupey than I thought from the shade card) the CC1, and the darker red the button band & hem.

Just looking at the colors together, I really like how the dark red and the taupe look together - I think that would be very striking! I don’t know how the brighter red would do as the button band then. Another option - doing a tone on tone using the dark red as the main color, the brighter red as the first contrasting color, and then the taupe or something else ???? as the button band. I have tons of the yarn, so I can swatch liberally to see what colors I like. Judy today suggested that I might want to use navy as the button band on one of the combinations. I actually have a small ball of that so I can try that out too.

I also picked up some really neat Cotton/Acrylic (75/25) yarn that I just love the colors in. The first one is shades of demin, the second one is a blue/green/light color combo. I don’t think the skein does it justice, so I’m going to knit it up and see what happens. I was thinking maybe a Rogue sweater for myself (once the belly recovers from having been invaded by growing another human being for 9 months), but am not sure I’ll like the color or the way the cotton will knit up. I got two skeins (two colors) to play around with.

Oh, and I’m sure you noticed the needles in the lower left of the picture. The are NOT for Hardangervidda! (although I could use them on the cuffs instead of the Pony Pearls I’ve already got). They are really for Ingeborg. I’m almost done with ball #1 (again!) in Hardangervidda… I’m staying on gauge, and swear I will NOT have to rip out again. :) Pictures of that tomorrow hopefully.