Adventures of a Desi KnitterAn academic juggles knitting, sewing, and other crafts in Kolkata

Doubletwist Baby Cardigan

§ May 28th, 2011 § Filed under Baby things, Screw ups, sweaters § 6 Comments

Thanks for all your comments on the Syllable Vest! The excitement of making things for M is also making me try out new patterns of my own, however simple in look and construction. Here is another one, made hurriedly during a trip to the hills where it was a lot cooler than I had expected:

It’s a cardiganized version of the “seamless hybrid” pattern – a mix of a saddle shoulder and raglan – from Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Knitting Without Tears, sized for a 6-9 month old baby, with some stitch detail. I worked it from memory, since I didn’t have my copy of the book with me, but it worked out alright, except that in this baby size, the saddle ends up rather short. I worked two small 2-stitch twists into the sleeve pattern extending into the saddle shoulder, one twisting right and the other left, hence the “Doubletwist” name.

I have written out a rough pattern below mostly for me to remember what I did this time round – I’d like to make another version of this, because this one turned out rather sloppy at the end. I tried to “kill” the acrylic into shape by wetting and ironing the patterned buttonband. But a moment’s distraction while the iron was hot meant I held it on the right buttonband for too long. Thanks to the slipped stitch at the edge, the band got overstretched, and now gapes at least a couple of inches longer than its counterpart. It doesn’t matter so much since there are only 3 buttons, but those too look gapey and unsightly.

Doubletwist Cardigan Quick Notes:

Pattern: Improvised cardigan based on EZ’s Seamless Hybrid.
Needles: Size 4 bamboo circular.
Gauge: 6 spi.
Yarn: Vardhaman acrylic (approx 3 skeins).
Size: To fit baby 6-9 months.
Finished Dimensions: Chest – 20″; Total length: 11″, Armhole depth: 4″

LT: Knit two stitches together as if to SSK. Pull yarn through both stitches, but before dropping them off the left needle, knit into the first stitch once more, then drop both stitches off together.
RT: Knit two stitches together as if to K2tog, Pull yarn through both stitches, but before dropping them off the left needle, knit into the first stitch once more, then drop both stitches off together.

Sleeves (2): C0 38. K2, p2 for 10 rows.
Setup Row (RS): K 14, p2, k2, p2, k2, p2, k 14.
All WS rows: knit stitches as they appear.
Next row: k14, p2, LT, p2, RT, p2, k14.
Knit 7 more rows as established.
Next row and every 6th row hereafter, inc 1 stitch each at both ends of the row.
Continue till you have a total of 50 stitches on the needle.
Knit 7 more rows even after the last increase row.
Cut yarn. Put the first and last three stitches on each sleeve on a piece of waste yarn, and set sleeves aside.

Body: CO 126 st.
K2, p2 for 10 rows.
Setup Row (RS): Sl1, k1, p2, k2, p2, k110, p2, k2, p2, k2.
All WS rows: sl1, knit the rest of the stitches as they appear.
Next row: Sl1, k1, p2, RT, p2, k110, p2, LT, p2, k2.
Knit as established till work measures 6 inches total.

Join body and sleeves:
RS: K2, YO, p2 (for first buttonhole) knit 25 in patt, put next 6 st on waste yarn, join and knit across right sleeve, k 56 st of body, put next 6 st on waste yarn, join and knit across right sleeve, k29 of body in patt.
Work one row even in patt.
Next row: Work 26 st in patt (right front), pm, SSK, k2, pm, k2tog, work 38 st in patt (right sleeve), pm, SSK, k2, pm, k2tog, work 49 st in patt, (back) pm, SSK, k2, pm, k2tog, work 38 st in patt (left sleeve), pm, SSK, k2, pm, k2tog, work 26 st in patt (left front).
Next row: work even in patt.
Repeat these two rows this way, working in patt to the 3 stitches before the markers, and working the raglan decreases on the RS, for a total of 24 rows (48 st decreased total).
IMP: Remember to work buttonholes at the beginning of every 10th or 12th RS row.

Saddle:
Work 32 st in patt, SSK, turn work.
Sl 1, work next 14 st in patt, k2tog. Turn work.
Continue joining right shoulder saddle stitches to the front and back stitches in this way, till you reach the right front pattern button band. Cut yarn.
Repeat for left saddle.
Neck: Work 8 rows in patt.

Put on baby, who is happy wearing it with or without a perfect buttonband!

Plain vanilla, with a pinch of nutmeg

§ June 2nd, 2010 § Filed under Screw ups, Socks, Travel § 3 Comments

You’d have thought that a caffeine shot would have energised my yarn into knitting itself speedily into fabric, but apparently caffeine doesn’t have the same effects on everyone. It took way longer for the Tosh Sock skein in ‘Nutmeg’ to turn into a wearable pair, and despite great initial ambition and effort, they eventually managed to achieve only a plain vanilla stockinette grade. (At least the coffee stains don’t show!)

I knit exclusively on this pair for much of April and May, a good part of the latter month on a glorious holiday to Mexico, recovering from a horridly busy semester. Apart from the Knotty-knice pattern I first tried for it, which ended up too loose on the foot and a pain with all those twisted stitches, I also tried a pretty cabled cuff and various other things. Alas, the photographs of those iterations (imagine my nutmeg cable climbing up the pyramid at Teotihuacan) and of the trip in general, are now with the person who found my camera on the bus after I kindly, thoughtfully, left it there and traipsed off. Long, winding, bus journeys through mountains apparently don’t just make me nauseated, they also make me lose my brains and valuable things.

SO, I had a fantastic and gorgeous time in Mexico; I just don’t have the pics to show for it. The spouse mounted a very spirited critique of photographic reproduction as a poor and illegitimate approximation of reality to cheer me up, for which I was very grateful at the time, quelling all inner wails about ‘but how will I blog about it?’ Now, with some distance, I too am philosophical about the ephemerality of possession, of material goods, of memory, but boy would it have been nice to share some of the pics with you!

In any event, none of the patterns I tried on these toe-ups were satisfactory either because they were too long, or too tight, or whatever, and I finally fell back on stockinette. But then I got obsessed with just using up all the yarn (a substantial 390 yards in this skein!) to see how long the socks would get. I increased 2 stitches along the calf every ten rows 8 times. (60 + 2 st every 10th row, 8 times = 76 st total at cuff).

Then I tried them on and realised that socks look longer when off, than when on your leg. I was confident the cuffs would kiss my kneecaps, but they barely managed the point in the calf where I was sure they would slide right down, so I added some scrap sock yarn I had to get them past that hump. Now they don’t slide down, exactly, but merely threaten to. If they do slip with some stretch and use, I might add more lines with another yarn to the cuff later. Still, it felt really good to knit right to the end. I have just a few yards of the Tosh Sock left, which does feel good.

They look like soccer socks, no? I looked at all the World Cup team colours, though, and these colours seem to fall right between Brazil and Spain. Actually, they look like the colours of another, magical team – a variation on Gryffindor’s quidditch socks.

Bad day

§ May 5th, 2010 § Filed under Food and Drink, Life, Screw ups § 8 Comments

You know your knitting isn’t going well when, tired of being frogged and carried around aimlessly for weeks, even your sock yarn needs caffeine. So badly, in fact, that it takes advantage of a sudden lurch in the car, and leaps rebelliously into a cup of half-drunk coffee and happily sits there, soaking it in.

Worst part was I had to let it sit there for miles until I reached my destination. I couldn’t bring myself to knit from it any more even though there was a fair bit between the ball and the needles. Instead I clutched the half-done sock in fear that it would jump into the cup too, and took a photograph of the soaking ball instead. Later I washed and squeezed it out, but that skein, and any sock that eventually comes of it, is always going to stink of coffee.

I pretended to be all upset about it, and cheered myself up by buying this cool implement, which I have long coveted. The wait for it to arrive is already killing me.