Stitching, Stitching

When the redbud blooms, you know spring is here. The bees have had a field day with this tree this year. They just had it covered the other day. I wonder where their hive is?

Light Knitted Summer Sweaters

I decided I might show some of the items I’ve made in the past. Surprise! I haven’t always knitted shawls. It just seems like I have. I used to knit a lot of sweaters. Here are three I made to deal with our rather warm weather in South Carolina. I made these about twenty years ago, and I can’t tell you now where I got the patterns or even what yarn they were made of, so please don’t ask. Besides, the pattern probably isn’t one you could find easily now, although you could easily come up with a similar sweater. I’ll tell you what I remember of them. I do know that they are all cotton, though.

I believe this ecru one was made with Phildar yarn; however, which one, I don’t remember. I have a partial ball of it left; there’s no label on it, but it does measure 21 wraps per inch, if that’s any help to anyone. With this sweater, I learned that this color does nothing for me. The color is a killer. So I shy away from it up next to my face now. I did wear it quite a lot right after I made it, though. It was comfortable, and nice to wear. I just hated the color. I probably should have dyed it.

This is a vertical drop stitch sweater I knitted. This was just made with crochet thread. I think it was a size 20. I had such fun making a stitch and then dropping it several rows further on. It’s a fun stitch to do. The first time I had to drop that stitch and watch it ravel down, I thought I’d have a heart attack. However, it never goes beyond where you made it to begin with, so it’s a controlled ravel. Although it doesn’t look like it in the photo, it does make an openwork fabric, and I had to be careful what I wore under it. Once it’s on the body, it does stretch out and open up. If you’re interested in this stitch, The Knitting Fiend has a good description of it and a pattern for the stitch at this site.

This is a closeup of the stitch.

This sweater is another thin cotton sweater, sort of a lace sampler. I believe this is also made of size 20 crochet thread, and the only problem I had with it was that it’s a bit short, and I should have used another stitch around the bottom. Ribbing in all cotton has no resilience at all. It just lies there. When I washed it, I’d block it nice and long, and when I wore it, all the blocking would disappear. It wanted to stretch out as I wore it, and it wouldn’t bounce back like wool. At the time I was a blind follower, as Elizabeth Zimmerman said, and I made it as the pattern had it. If I had it to do over, I’d make it several inches longer and make a hem with picots on it for the edge. Remember that if you put a ribbing in something made of cotton, all you’ll get is the design, not the elasticity.

Here’s a closeup so that you can see the stitch patterns. I enjoyed making this sweater. It was fun to try the various stitches.

Spirit of the Southwest Shawl

I finished the rabbits and the grass, and I have done two repeats of the edging and am continuing. There’s a lot of edging to put on the bottom two sides of the shawl, and then I have to work an idiot cording across the top edge. The squash blossom pattern isn’t difficult, and I think I might have most of it memorized before long. So I’m trying to do it when I have something interesting to watch on television. Until I get down to the center point, I won’t have anything different to do. So bear with me if you don’t hear more about this shawl for a while. The more work the edging calls for the more fun I’ll have knitting. I’m in no hurry to finish it.

Oh, I have the shawl on one of my Knitpicks Options needles, and I’m working the edging with one of my Denise Interchangeable needles. There is a BIG difference in the points. Denise, I’m sorry to say, is much blunter. It doesn’t really matter that much with the squash blossom edging. There’s not a lot of fancy work there, but I sure wouldn’t try a nupp with the Denise needles. I’d go for a sharper needle. I think I need to try those new Addis that have come out. They sound very nice.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 22nd, 2007 at 1:37 pm and is filed under Knitting, Spirit of the Southwest, Various Sweaters. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.