Where are my peonies?

Okay, it's three months later and this is the state of my peony border:


It's pathetic. I guess this kills my chances of having this done before winter was over, now that it seems I can finally stop wearing long johns. (I am still however, wearing a thick Fana wool sweater as I am typing this.) Wonder if I should start on the cotton camisole for summer now or keep on trucking with this.

I am including a shot the back of my sleeve to show the increases in pattern.



I usually draw in the increases on my pattern just where I can, like on the flower pattern, and then I eyeball the rest, but see comment from Kathy for a more thorough solution.



Also, on the Hisdal patterns I have looked at, there is no indicator for where to start your pattern on the sleeve. You just have to do a little counting to place the pattern in the center of the sleeve. Another good reason for drawing on the pattern. Not a big deal though, sometimes it's nice to engage the brain.

It's been so long since I posted, I had almost forgotten how to do it!

Works in progress

Apologies for rewriting the previous post on color dominance and consistency (the bad and the ugly) so many times :) I don't mean to make it sound as if my two handed method is the only way to go, it is more about the consistency in yarn placement no matter what method you use. I wish I could manage to control the yarns with both strands in my left hand, that would be ideal, but in addition to tangling the yarns, I can't control the tension that way. I'm working on it, though.

Liz and I have started a knit-along for our Poetry In Stitches projects. Becki has also joined us. If anybody else would like to join, they are welcome. I have yarn for one more Poetry project coming, the camisole in pale blue, so this will keep me going for a while. My goal is going to be able to wear the Brocade sweater this winter and the camisole this summer. It's no fun to finish something just in time for the season to be over, which is my usual strategy!



The Brocade Leaves sweater has had its peony border redone, so that's just now finished. I procrastinated a lot in frogging it, but then once I did it was fun to reknit the border. The big repeat kept it interesting, and I am liking the amount of detail in the flowers. It's a consolation for knitting with fine yarn where the rounds take a long time.



The Victorian Lace scarf has 17 repeats today, but yesterday it had 18. Funny how that goes. I don't know yet how long I will make it. The pattern calls for 20 repeats, but with my thinner yarn that is not going to be long enough, so I will just keep going for as long as I feel like. I am using one of my lovely new Addi turbo circular needles, which were sent to me by Kris. It's perfect.


For both Poetry In Stitches and Victorian Lace Today I have seen comments about of the lack of "names" for the patterns. It's funny how blogging makes it necessary to name our projects, I myself made a name for my "brocade leaves" only so that I could blog about it. I am fine with designers not naming their creations. Good designs speak for themselves. I sometimes even think it's a distraction to see everything named in a pattern book, it starts a whole subconscious process of wondering how that name fits the garment, when really what I should be thinking about is how the garment fits me. But giving something a cool name definitely makes people want it more. And having the names makes it easier for blogging. Maybe I should just go back to calling my sweater the "p124 sweater", it's a very pure kind of name.

It's a start

The Brocade sweater is underway, and I love working on it. The Hifa 2 yarn is great, it's very soft, and the colors are very saturated and rich. It's so cool the way the peony is revealing itself as I am knitting, because it's not a shape I am used to seeing while knitting, no straight lines anywhere. Since the yarn is thin, you get a lot of detail, but it takes a long time, the entire weekend was spent on these measly 5 inches.

I am, again, experimenting with my 16" (40 cm) long double pointed needles and knitting belt. They are defeating me! I am very unhappy with my tight and uneven stitches. I guess I should find a project to practice on, and this sweater I definitely don't want to be a "practice sweater". By now, I have a love-hate relationship with the long needles. They are so comfortable to hold, and so easy on the wrists and arms. But I have to sit upright on a straight-backed chair in order to maneuver them, otherwise the work is held too high. That's not what I want to do when I am watching tv knitting. I added a fifth needle from a different set, so that I am using four 2.5mm and one 3 mm, which is much easier than just four, but they are still awkward. I love these needles, and I will use them, but it's going to be back to the circular needle for this sweater.

I also started a scarf from the new book Victorian Lace Today. This is a great book, so I went ahead and joined the Victorian Lace Today knit-along. This book has such a wealth of information, and I can't wait to try more of the patterns. I am doing the scarf with No. 20 edging (p. 84) in Misti Alpaca Lace, color Lipstick. I have done two pattern repeats, and it's so much fun! I love knitting lace!

The pattern in the book was made with a heavier yarn than the lace weight, which makes a large 20 inch wide scarf, so I am guessing mine will be about 12 inches wide.

I wish you all a happy holiday!

Brocade leaves sweater - ready to start

I am going with the Brocade Leaves sweater this time (my name for it). The others are gorgeous, too, and I hope I can make them in the future. I have still not yet made more than one sweater out of any one book, but it's good to have dreams, right?

The saturated colors in the brocade leaves are just so beautiful to me.


The yarn came in 100g hanks and 50g hanks. I love yarn that comes in hanks like this. They look so sensual, compared to the usual prosaic skeins.

Gorgeous blues for the body

And the peach, pinks, green, ochre, and white for the border.

I leave you with some shots of my original Oleana jacket, which is the same one you can see in the sidebar. I hope they inspire. The colors are more beautiful in real life, among other things, the light colored stripe is a pretty green, but at least you can see the pattern. It's knit of a finer wool, so it is more detailed than the patterns in the book, and it has velvet trim. I loved it, and dreamed of it for years, before I managed to buy it.