Juno

After over a year (due to no fault of it's own), Juno is finished! No one was around to help me with modeled pictures of it when I finished it and being a black cardi, I really wanted pictures before the sun went down.

Details: The pattern is Juno by Amanda Crawford from the Rowan Book 40. The yarn is Rowan Yorkshire Tweed Aran in the Darkside colorway (I just love that color name!) I used 8 balls of yarn and made the 35 1/2 inch finished size. I added some length to the sweater so it hits more at mid-hip length. I took out the shaping on the body since the entire body is 2x2 rib. (I am of the opinion that there isn't much out there that's stretchier than 2x2 rib - maybe a slinky.) I also didn't put a button hole in the collar because I knew I'd rather pin the crossed collar ends. It also seemed to me that this would make the collar lie better, since I'd be pinning it after putting it on instead of trying to figure out the exact perfect place for a button while I was making it. (Yeah, it gives me adjustability for push-up bra days.)

Just in case anyone is curious, the pin is from R.E. Piland, purchased at MDS&W a couple years ago.

I love the way it fits and as soon as it cools off around here, I'll be able to wear it! (Hello, January!) Have a great weekend! It looks like Cassidy is your preference so I'll get started on it soon. For those of you that loved the other two, don't worry, I'll do them later.

Guess what this means?

Do you know what this is? It's the collar to Juno blocking!

Do you know what this means? It means I'm finished knitting on Juno!

All I have to do is sew it up and add buttons and I have a finished cardi. I can't wait to get this done. It really feels like I've been working on it forever, and I guess since I started it over a year ago and moved across the country while I was working on it, I maybe have been working on it forever.

As soon as the collar finishes blocking (dries), I can get finishing! I've already got a couple of things picked out for my next sweater, but I'll show you another day just to keep you in suspense.

Yesterday and More Juno

First of all, this is what we did yesterday:

Yes, Caleb got braces! He's been in expanders since the first of September and they are actually still in his mouth with the braces, but yesterday his orthodontist trimmed the top expander out some and put brackets on his top, front teeth. Caleb chose the red rubber bands. He'll get braces on his lower teeth next month when they take out his lower expander. He's very proud of them and has even shown them to Ramius. (I don't think he's shown them to Finn, but Finn tends to kiss whatever part of Caleb he can reach, so it might be best not to show Finn.)

I've also gotten a little more done on the Juno collar. I'm now past the 5th repeat. I haven't measured it against the neckline, but I think I've probably got enough collar for the right front and might even be partway into the back neck section. As I said in the last blog post, each repeat really goes pretty quickly. What I've found though, is that working in black yarn isn't very easy to do at night (we desperately need better lights around here) and in order to save my sanity and avoid frogging in the morning, it's better if I only work on this during the day.

The Juno Collar

I decided that the best solution to the cabled edge on Juno's collar was to follow the suggestion of the commenter and add a selvedge stitch to the inner edge of the collar. I frogged the few rows I had and restarted with an extra stitch. This means that there is an extra stitch on the outside of the small edge cable on the inside of the collar and not on the outside (which I totally could have compensated for if I had been thinking, or if I wanted to start a third time, but I didn't), but I think that since I'm working in black, it will just disappear and not be noticeable unless I point it out.

So far I've worked a little more than 3 repeats of the cable pattern and it's really going pretty quickly. I will probably just keep going on this (which means lots of blogging of black cabled stuff) until I get it finished because I'd really like to get Juno all done and wearable.

In doggy news, Finn and Barclay have become delinquents. We came home one day (Mom and Dad are back in town now) and found that they had dumped out the kitchen trash and chewed stuff up and made a big mess. The next day they got a loaf of bread off the counter and ate the entire thing (1-1/2 pounds of whole wheat - yeah that was fun). We've decided that Barclay is the brains behind the operation (Finn has never done stupid puppy stuff and he just isn't smart enough to carry out this kind of nefarious plot) and Finn is his henchmen - Barclay couldn't reach the bread on the counter - he's too short. Our suspicions were confirmed when we put Finn in his crate the next time we left and Barclay got into the trash again all by himself. Who knew such a cute little Sheltie dog was an evil genius?

Juno Returns

Once I pulled Juno out and figured out where I was, it was pretty fast to add the front bands. Here is a detail of the front bands all finished up! (the left front band is hidden behind the right front band.) I haven't put the buttons on yet because I plan to steam block the front bands and the collar - both before and after I sew it on the neckline. I've also sewn the shoulder seams together but I'm going to wait before I seam up anything else. I want to get the collar on before I add the sleeves (just so I have less to deal with while sewing the collar) and then I'll do the side seams.

I've barely started the collar, so I didn't bother photographing it for today (it looks like a tweedy black worm on a knitting needle - very exciting, no?) As I was working on it, I realized that the directions have you work a 2 stitch cable on the first two and last two stitches of the front. Why? I've got to use the first stitch of one side of the collar to seam it to the edge of the cardi. Isn't a cable there just going to make it almost impossible to seam well and look like a demented pelican did the finishing work on my sweater? Unless anyone who has done this sweater can give me a good reason for this, I'm not working the cable on the inside edge of the collar. I'll put it on the outside, but that's it. (I've already checked for any "selvedge stitches" that aren't given in the stitch directions but are there anyway to make sewing it up easier - there aren't.) I looked at the Juno's in Ravelry, but I only looked at about 20 of them and no one seems to mention this issue.

In other news, Finn has gotten protective of Barclay. Ramius seems to have had enough of the visiting animals so he's taken to randomly chasing Barclay and smacking him around (no claws). Ramius gets in trouble when I see him do it, but like any self respecting cat he doesn't really care about anyone else's opinion. The other night, he went after Barclay again and was chasing him down the hall, smacking at Barclay's rear legs. Finn was farther down the hall and he ran towards Barclay and Ramius and chased Ramius back up on the bed, away from Barclay. Barclay seemed to appreciate it, as he doesn't really understand Ramius' problem and he kept either Finn or me between himself and Ramius all night. The next morning, Ramius walked right by Barclay as if he wasn't even there, which is much nicer than chasing him.

Coming out of Hibernation

I didn't have a chance to blog yesterday because Mickael and I went to the surgeon to talk about his knee. He has a torn Meniscus. Basically the short story is, the tear is not in a place that surgery will necessarily help, so we're going to wait and see how he feels doing physical therapy and strengthening the surrounding area.

For today's knitting content, I'm bringing something out of hibernation: Juno. I started this sweater in September of 2008 (when we lived in Virginia). It got put away during the whole selling the house/staging/house hunting/moving mess and then I restarted it this past Spring. I got the back, fronts, and sleeves all finished and blocked and then put it away again because it was getting warm here and I knew I wouldn't be able to wear it any time soon.

Now that it's getting into cardigan weather (or at least considering it), I'd like to get this finished up. I have to sew the pieces together, do front/button bands, and do the collar and sew it on. I don't think any of this will be too involved, it's just a matter of doing it. The actual directions have you put a button hole in the collar to hold the ends in an overlapped position, but I'm leaning towards just skipping the button hole. The buttons I've chosen blend pretty well with yarn and won't be terribly obvious and the idea of featuring one right on the collar doesn't seem right. I think what I'll do is just overlap the collar ends myself and pin them that way with one of my penannulars that I've gotten from R.E. Piland at MDS&W (and if you're interested, they do do mail order). They have a Celtic feel to them which will go well with the cabled collar and putting a silver pin on the center of the collar ends just makes more sense than using the buttons.

A Sleeve and a Half

I've finished the first sleeve of Juno and I'm more than halfway through with the second sleeve. I figure I've got less than 2 hours of knitting to finish the second sleeve. I still haven't blocked any of the pieces of this cardi, so I'll do all of them together either later today or tomorrow before I start the collar. The collar is cabled and the stitch pattern is uncharted so I'll have to chart it myself before I start knitting it.

It's Spring Break here so I've got a sidekick this week. Yesterday he was very helpful with the groceries and I think we're going to start unpacking our big fish tank today so we can start getting it cleaned out. We have a 10 gallon tank that we got when we lived in Austin, TX but we never set it up in Virginia. Caleb has been wanting to set it up so I think I'll let him help me clean it out and get it going. We'll see how much we get done today.

One Sleeve

Yes, this is one sleeve for Juno. I know, I always knit both sleeves at the same time, just like I did the fronts for this sweater, but I decided not to this time. Why? I'll tell you! Juno is knit at a pretty big gauge (4 stitches per inch), which means there aren't many stitches across each sleeve. If I'm juggling 2 sleeves and two balls of yarn at once, at this gauge I'm spending more time untwisting the yarn and sorting things out than I am knitting. (No, I can't knit with the yarn twisted up and the sleeves hanging wonky-like. It bothers me. I've tried, but I'm just too OCD to do it. I'm OK with this.) Realizing this, I decided, FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE, to knit the sleeves separately and just keep really good notes (which I already did for some reason). This is so exciting! I'm really pushing the envelope here, in a knitting kind of way. If you put knitting in envelopes, which we usually don't, but you know what I mean.

Who knows where this will go - fronts knitted separately, more sleeves knit apart from their twin, anarchy, chaos - who knows!

Have a great weekend, I'll try to keep things under control around here.

Fronts Done!

I have finished the fronts to Juno! Now I just have the sleeves and the collar to do (and the front bands, and weaving in the ends, and sewing on the buttons). I will probably block the fronts and back this week so I can get a good measurement on the neckline for knitting the collar. That way they can be drying while I knit the sleeves. Maybe I will get this finished sometime before Summer! It's cold and rainy here today, so I hope to get some knitting done once my caffeine kicks in and I get the house straightened up this morning. (The stitch markers are so I can tell which side is the right side of the fronts without having to really look. Theoretically, this will help me sew the pieces together properly. Realistically, this will be dependant on my caffeine levels on sewing up day.)

I'm ready to start designing a new pattern and to make things a bit easier on myself, I will be blogging the designing and knitting - come back tomorrow to see what's going on around here!

Armpit

Inspiring title for a blog post, no? I've actually reached the armhole shaping on the Juno fronts, so yes, I'm at the armpit of the sweater. On the next row, I'll actually begin the front neck shaping (Juno has a deep V neck), so then I'll be decreasing stitches on both edges of each side and I should be able to finish the fronts up reasonably quickly.

The main problem is that I don't have good lighting in the family room at night (must get a better lamp situation) so I only work on Juno during the day (the bad lighting combined with my general skittishness on this sweater due to monumentally stupid mistakes made while knitting with "moving brain" mean I just don't attempt working on this after dark at all). This has pretty much meant that I only get to work on it on the weekends because I'm usually pretty busy during the day.

I'd love to get these fronts done this weekend and move on to the sleeves. Actually, I'd love to get the whole cardi finished and move on to something else. I like the pattern, and I like the yarn, and it's not difficult to work on, but I want something lighter weight*, in a lighter color, and different to work on.

*I realize that knitting with lighter weight yarn means more stitches, which means longer knitting time, but at this point, I'm having a really hard time seeing why I need a heavy, black cardi. I'll be happy to have it in December, but right now, I'm just not feeling it.

Something You Haven't Seen In A While

I promised something new to look at today, but it's not really new. These are the fronts to Juno and I about doubled their size over the weekend. This is a K2, P2 rib done on big needles with big yarn (16 sts over 4 inches). Theoretically, I should have been able to crank this sweater out very quickly, but with the move and my inability to deal with much of anything other than the move, I kept messing up the ribbing. I started this way back before we got the transfer in mid October and honestly, I'm ready for it to be finished. I've finished the back of it and once I finish the fronts, I'll have sleeves and the collar to do. According to Ravelry notes, most people flew through the body of the cardi, but progress came to a screeching halt when they began the cabled collar. I'm hoping it works out the opposite way for me (otherwise I'll NEVER get the collar done). Fingers crossed.

I barely got any work done on the last Second Sock of 2008, but I'm still plodding along on it. I refuse to allow myself to start anything new until I finish that last sock.

A Little More Juno

I've almost finished the back of Juno. I'm at the point now where I'll start the shoulder and back neck shaping. I always think it's funny to look at ribbed pieces of knitting - they look so long and skinny because the ribbing pulls them in. As I was measuring for the length, I spread the piece out to what the width will be when I block it because when you open up ribbing, it will shorten a bit lengthwise. Just something to keep in mind for this or any other garment with lots of ribbing on it.

There was a comment the other day from someone who loved the Juno design but it wasn't written in her size and she wasn't sure she wanted to commit to making adjustments. I honestly think this would be an easy design to change sizes on. If you look at the sweater, it's basically a 2 x 2 ribbed cardigan with a V neck and set in sleeves. It's meant to fit with very little ease. (I'm making the size for a person with a 34 inch bust and the finished garment is only supposed to have 1-1/2 inches of positive ease at that size.) The thing that makes Juno interesting is the cabled collar - and if you look at the pattern, you see that it's just knit to fit the neckline (there are surprisingly few directions for the collar). My theory is that you could find a yarn that gets you the same gauge as the pattern (4 stitches per inch) and use it in any generic V neck cardi pattern. The Knitter's Handy Book Of Sweater Patterns would be a great place to start. You might have to tweak the numbers a bit for your ribbing (a 2 x 2 rib is a 4 stitch repeat + 2), but you could knit it in a size pretty close to your actual measurements (I would think that you could go up to 3 inches of positive ease if that makes you feel more comfortable than 1-1/2, because the ribs are going to draw in some too). Then use the Juno pattern for the collar and knit it to fit your own sweater.

Thanks for all the complements on my vest yesterday! There was a question about the size. The only size I know about is the one I knit and according to the pattern this size will fit up to a 38 inch bust. Since the fronts overlap, you just adjust the overlap more or less depending on your front porch situation (in the Department of Too Much Information, my own front porch is 33 inches, so this gives me plenty of room). If you need a larger size AND you want to add 10 stitches to the cast on, you might contact Colorsong and see if you can just buy 2 skeins of the Fleece Artist Scotia Silk and buy the pattern by itself instead of in a kit. This way you could add to your length and knit the pieces of the vest to your own personal measurements. The pattern is written to work from 2 balls of yarn at once (the kit has two half weight skeins in it for you to work from). I would definitely do a gauge swatch and measure it before and after washing - this yarn relaxes and changes after washing.

Juno

About a year ago (give or take), the Yarn Harlot blogged about a cardigan called Juno from one of the Rowan Fall books (Rowan 40). As soon as I saw it, I fell in love with it and promptly ran over to Janette's Rare Yarns and ordered some yarn and the book. (By the way, Janette is no longer an eBay store, she's got her own site.) I put the yarn away for a while, but over the weekend I cast on for Juno.

I'm using Rowan Yorkshire Tweed Aran in the Darkside colorway. (This yarn is discontinued.) It's a black yarn with tweed speckles of caramel, pine green, burgundy, and navy blue. In case you're wondering, I have already made changes to the pattern. I lengthened the body by 4 inches (don't worry, I bought a full bag of the yarn - I should have plenty to do this and still have some left over), and I eliminated the increases. As the pattern is written, you start out at the hem with fewer stitches than you have at the bust. I played with the idea of decreasing (since I started longer than the original pattern) and then increasing as the pattern is written, but even though this sweater is supposed to fit pretty closely to the wearer and I decided that the ribs could just do the shaping for me. (The actual shaping as written in the pattern wasn't much to begin with - it also allowed the ribs to add to the shaping.)

After reading Ravelry notes on this sweater, it seems to move pretty quickly through the body (the whole body is ribbed) but then it slows way down for the collar. I like cables so even though the collar will be slower to knit, I think it will be fun.