Finally finished!

It's finished! It's finished!

I started making the crocheted version of Lion Brand Flattering Jacket #668 about 1999 or 2000. I worked on it one winter and finished the back and right side. When it came time to do the left side the directions basically said "do the right side in reverse" and I couldn't get my mind wrapped around reversing the shaping of collar and armhole simultaneously. I threw the sweater down, tossed it in a box and sometime later unraveled it and turned it into a blanket for my grandson.

In 2009 I picked up some lovely Montera llama/wool yarn. It was just the color I wanted for this sweater coat, so I tried again. This time I would do the knit version of the pattern, #753.

My first winter's efforts got lost in a closet over a couple of summers. When I brought it back out I had to rippit back to square one and start over. I got the back and both front sections finished last winter. This fall I declared I would get the sweater finished so I could wear it all winter. All my sock knitting paid off! I found an extra long circular needle in the proper size to knit the sleeves and did them two at a time. Yep. The are exactly the same shape and length.

Oh, yes, I still found the instructions less than helpful for the left side of the front, but I started studying it and realized that there is no back or front to the fabric. I could make 2 right sides and just turn one over to become the left side when I sewed the sweater together. That's what I did. No stress. No trauma.  It would have been nice to have had a drawing of how the facings worked around the front and neck of the sweater. The directions essentially said, "Sew it together" and left you to your own devices. My first attempt didn't work at all so I pretty much said, "I don't care what they want, this is the way I think it should go." Everything came out looking like a sweater. I'm happy.

I finished the sweater on November 17, just in time to wear as the days get cooler and the house gets a bit chilly.  However, a year or more of construction time in a house full of cats and dogs meant the yarn was full of hair that never saw a llama. I know it isn't good to machine wash and dry wool. It will shrink and/or felt. On the other hand, as large as this sweater is, I would never get it washed properly by hand. I crossed my fingers, gritted my teeth and put it in the front-load washer on cold wash/gentle cycle and prayed that it wouldn't become a Barbie sweater. When it came out of the washer I placed it on towels on the kitchen table and allowed it to dry for a day before putting it back on Groomhilda, the dressmaker's mannequin, for final shaping.

It did shrink, and it felted a bit, but I'm glad it did. Had it not shrank it would be WAY to large for me. As is, the pockets fall just below my fingertips. The felting makes it warmer, but it is still an attractive sweater. Shaping the 90% dry sweater around Groomhilda allowed me to tug it into my shape.

Now if I could just find that shawl pin I bought a few years ago, I could even pull it shut in front and close it.

For more history on this sweater coat, see Lion Brand Flattering  Knit Jacket, Mom's White Sweater and Hurricane Carla posted May 20, 2009 in this blog.

http://www.lionbrand.com/patterns/khs-flatteringJacket.html

Lion Brand Flattering Knit Jacket, Mom's White Sweater and Hurricane Carla

Flattering Jacket from Lion Brand

Since I talked about my finished object, I'll add a note about my on-going project -- the Lion Brand Knitted Flattering Jacket. It's working up nicely with the Montero yarn. I'm about 1/3 of the way up the back. The stitches are more pronounced than they would be with Homespun. I'll need to check gauge again when the section is a bit bigger. The gauge seems right, but the stitches look tighter than I remember the Homespun working when I tried this before.

I started this pattern about eight years ago in the crocheted version, using the recommended Lion Brand yarn in "Denim." I crocheted the back and the left side of the pattern, but could never wrap my mind around reversing the left side instructions to create the right side. It just didn't work out. I ended up frogging the entire sweater and making a Basket Weave Afghan for Reyes. He loves it and still has it on his bed. At least the yarn wasn't wasted.

But I still really like the look of that sweater. When I was a kid, Mom spent nearly a year crocheting a white sweater. It was sewn together but never worn when Dad took a "road job" with Navion, in Galveston, Texas in 1960. (Dad was a tool-and-die maker who did contract work in the aircraft industry. Our home base was in Kansas, but the whole family might travel out of state for periods of time when he had a "road job.") Here is the whole family posing before the palm tree in our front yard. I'm the short one. :)

That fall, Hurricane Carla (a level 5 storm) was heading straight for Galveston. The neighbors told us that our house was high enough that we shouldn't worry about water getting too deep. If we put the important stuff up higher than, say 12", we should be fine. Mom put all of our clothes, including the white sweater, in the moving trunks that we always used. She tucked other valuables inside -- Dad's guns, any breakables she didn't want to lose, that sort of thing, and stacked the trunks on top the kitchen table. Since most of our possessions were still in Kansas, she didn't have a lot of things to rescue from the water. There was no furniture in the house that we were concerned about losing. The "good stuff" was in Kansas.

Carla went in at Port Aransas, south of the Island, but it was the worst storm to hit Galveston since 1900. In today's parlance, it was equal to Hurricane Katrina. A young weatherman on one of the Houston stations did a master's effort keeping everyone informed and reporting the story of the storm. (CBS was impressed enough with his work to put him on national TV. He's still around. His name is Dan Rather.)

Dan Rather and the Weather Bureau told folks to evacuate and we believed him. We went west toward Austin, but danged if the Hurricane didn't follow us. We were in a building in a state park when the eye of the storm when right over our heads. The storm veered north and played havoc with weather systems clear to Canada for a goodly time afterward. We worked our way back to Pearland, Texas and stayed with friends until people were allowed back on the Island.

Houses tossed into a jumble by Hurricane Carla

The devastation was mind-blowing. They had taken bulldozers and pushed debris off the streets to allow cars to move. The piles that lined the boulevard as we got off the causeway were as tall as a building. Boards, mud, pieces of furniture, toys -- everything was caught in those piles. One-ton concrete benches that were bolted to the seawall had been ripped loose and tossed across a six lane road. Many houses were destroyed or totally gone. Murdock's Bath House, a landmark from the turn of the century, didn't survive. The Pleasure Pier with its drive-in theater over the water would never be the same. The picture posted here shows houses that sat on the beach below the seawall. They were picked up and tossed together like abandoned toys. The City was under martial law. We lived on the airport which had been a World War II military base. Armed National Guardsmen manned the gates just like in the war years and we had to prove we lived there to get inside.

The seawall held and none of the direct water from the storm reached our house, but Offat's Bayou backed up and got us from the rear. We had three feet of water in the house. When Dad opened the front door the kidney-shaped vanity from my room and my accordion were crumpled in the mud. It looked like they were trying to get out. The moving trunks that held all our clothes and important things had floated around the kitchen and the sheet rock was dissolved from the walls as high as the water had stood. Dad told us to watch out for snakes and be careful as we started cleaning up.

The snakes worried me. I was twelve and from rural Kansas, but I didn't like snakes. That first night, I pulled my camp cot into my brother's room and tried to coax his dog onto the cot with me. My dog was already curled against my legs. I don't know how fourteen-year-old Skip or his dog Dixie could have saved me from a snake in the night, but I was sure they would do it.

Dad and Skip grabbed shovels and started pushing the mud out of the house. Mom and I rummaged through the muck to salvage anything that could be cleaned. It took weeks. When Mom got to the trunks, the guns had rusted all over the clothes. The white sweater was ruined. She boiled it on the stove with Rit Color Remover. The fiber didn't felt, but it stretched badly. However, the rust went away.

I LOVED THAT SWEATER! It stretched to tunic length, had great boxy pockets and was warm enough to wear as a jacket. I grabbed it and wore it all through high school. I don't know why I didn't take it off to college with me. Mom, on the other hand, saw the sweater as a failure. She took it to Goodwill when my back was turned. Whimper.

So now, 40-some years later, I'm going to replace that sweater come Hell or High Water. It looked much like the Lion Brand Flattering Jacket. (If I ever find Mom's crochet pattern in her stash, I'll post the picture to this blog entry.) Since I didn't get the crocheted version of the Lion Brand sweater to work, I'm back to it with the knitted version. I'm using llama-wool yarn called Montera that is wonderful to touch. I just want to snuggle it! I purchased it at the Emporia Fiber Fest from Ann O'Neil. From her stash to mine...

Since Spring has arrived, I haven't done much knitting at home. Most of my knitting has been done in the car when we are running errands. I've found a bag big enough to carry the sweater, so it may become my traveling project. I'd really like to be able to wear it this fall. Hm... Reyes has all those baseball practices and ball games coming up... KNITTING TIME!!

Next Project Is About To Be Started

I know what I will make next. I have always wanted to make a sweater coat. Lion Brand has a pattern called Homespun Flattering Jacket. It comes in both a knitted and a crocheted version.

http://www.lionbrand.com/patterns/chs-flatteringJacket.html
http://www.lionbrand.com/patterns/khs-flatteringJacket.html

I tried making the crocheted version when I was in Texas and got bogged down on the directions for the second side panel. I could not get my mind around what they were telling me. I intend to knit the pattern this time. I will do both side panels at the same time on a large circular needle. That way everything should come out even. (Well, the concept almost worked with Pat's vest...)

I'm still stash-busting with this project. Sort 0f. The Homespun I purchased for the first effort turned into an basketweave afghan I gave my grandson. (He still keeps it on his bed). However, I purchased some llama/wool blend from Ann O'Neill at the Emporia Fiber Fest. It's a lovely blue -- a little more blue than teal. It is also wonderful to touch and so far Furball hasn't noticed that it isn't my usual yarn. (Furby wants to live in the alpaca yarn I bought. I have to hide it from her.)

You ask how can I be stash-busting if I bought this yarn a few weeks ago? Well, I'm busting Ann O'Neill's stash!

Now -- to get those last seams finished on Pat's vest so I can get started on this!

Look What Lion Brand Has!

http://cache.lionbrand.com/patterns/BK4K-0702003.html?noImages=0 Eco-Friendly Expandable Shopping Bag Lion Brand® Lion Organic Cotton GAUGE: 16 stitches by 24 rows = 4" (10 cm) with US #8 (5mm) needles BE SURE TO CHECK YOUR GAUGE.

BAG With A and smaller needles, cast on 59 stitches. Rows 1-8: Knit Row 9: Knit 1, *bind off one stitch, knit 1. Repeat from * to end of row - 30 stitches. Row 10-34: Change to B and larger needles. Knit. Row 35: Change to A and smaller needles. Knit 1, **yarn over, knit 1. Repeat from ** until end of row -- 59 stitches. Rows 36-44: Knit Row 45: Change to circular needle. Place a marker. Knit to end of row. Cast on 196 stitches. Join, being careful not to twist knitting. Rows 46-50: Knit Row 51: Purl Row 52: Knit Row 53: Purl Row 54-58: Knit Row 59: Knit 59 stitches, bind off until the marker is reached. Row 60-68: Change to straight needle, knit. Row 69: Knit 1, *bind off one stitch, knit 1. Repeat from * to end of row - 30 stitches. Rows 70-94: Change to B and larger needles. Knit. Row 95: Change to A and smaller needles. Knit 1, **yarn over, knit 1. Repeat from ** until end of row -- 59 stitches. Rows 96-104: Knit Bind off all stitches. When the piece is lying flat before assembly, there will be two sides and a continuous loop that is the handle. FINISHING: Thread a large-eyed, blunt needle with about 24 inches [60 cm] of A. Starting at the bottom of the bag, sew sides to handle. Where A is joined to A, one row should join to one stitch. Where the side row of (A) is being joined to (B), the center part of the (B) stitches is positioned every third stitch on the strap. Tie off, weave in ends. During assembly, the two sides are folded up along the loop and sewn so that the continuous loop becomes the handle of the bag

Lion Brand Chenlle Hood

I'm going to make hats and hoods for the grandkids this year, but I'm starting early! Here's the first hood. It's from the Lion Brand Chenille hood pattern, but I used a different yarn. It worked up a bit tighter, so this will be for one of the younger granddaughters. The boys will get double knit ski caps.
(I was outvoted. When I visited the Indiana/Illinois grandkids in March they all prefered socks, not hats. Poor Emmy. The shrug I made her was outgrown within weeks of Christmas. I gave her this hood. She won't grow out of it.)
Pattern Number: 867 http://cache.lionbrand.com/patterns/kctq-hood.html?noImages=0

Velvety HoodLion Brand® Chenille Thick & Quick® Wear as a cowl, a neckwarmer or as a hood! SKILL LEVEL: Beginner SIZE: Small, Medium, Large Circumference 24 (26) inches Note: Pattern is written for smallest size with changes for larger sizes in parentheses. When only one number is given, it applies to all sizes. To follow pattern more easily, circle all numbers pertaining to your size before beginning. CORRECTIONS: None GAUGE: 8 sts = 4 inches (10 cm) in pat. BE SURE TO CHECK YOUR GAUGE.

NOTEHood may be worked on circular needles or straight needles. VERSION A: HOOD (worked in-the-round on circular needles) Stitch Pattern Rnds 1-4 Purl. Rnds 5-8 Knit. Rep Rnds 1-8 for in-the-round version. Hood (in-the-rnd version) With circular needles, cast on 48 (52) sts. Join, taking care not to twist sts. Place marker for beg of rnds. Work in pat for in-the-rnd version until 23" from beg, ending with pat Rnd 4. Last rnd Bind off in purl. Weave in ends. VERSION B: HOOD (worked flat, back and forth on straight needles) Stitch Pattern Rows 1 & 3 (RS) Purl. Rows 2 & 4 Knit. Rows 5 & 7 Knit. Rows 6 & 8 Purl. Rep Rows 1-8 for flat version. Hood (flat version) With straight needles, cast on 50 (54) sts. Work in pat for flat version until 23" from beg, ending with pat Row 4. Last row Bind off in purl. Sew back seam. Weave in ends.

ABBREVIATIONS / REFERENCES Click for explanation and illustration beg = begin(s)(ning) pat = pattern rnd(s) = round(s) RS = right side st(s) = stitch(es)

Learn to Knit instructions: http://learnToKnit.LionBrand.com

Socks, Socks, and more Socks for 2007!

I finished the Christmas shrugs! -- all but one. Renee's is 2/3 done, but I can't get into the spare room to get the last skein of yarn until Joe returns to college from Winter Break. He has the room stuffed with computers and other temporary items. He had to bring home a lot of the things from his dorm room because the staff was going to polish floors over the holiday. The spare room isn't very big to start with. We have the last of the unpacked boxes in there, my sewing materials, Joe and his dorm overflow. Trust me -- it's a case of "Go outside to change your mnd." Ah, well. Guess I'll just have to start a new project. Johanna has challenged the KansasKnitters to join her in knitting a pair of socks a month during 2007. I've never made socks before, so my goal will be 6 pairs in 2007. I started my first pair using Lion Brand Magic Stripe yarn in blue. Here's the pattern. I hope they will look like the picture on the yarn band. Here's the website for this pattern: http://cache.lionbrand.com/patterns/kmstripe-socks.html?noImages=0 Magic Stripe Basic SocksLion Brand® Magic Stripes GAUGE: 28 sts + 40 rows = 4 inches (10 cm) in St st (k every stitch in the round; k on RS, p on WS when knitting flat). BE SURE TO CHECK YOUR GAUGE. STITCH EXPLANATION: ssk (slip, slip, knit) 1. Slip the next 2 sts as if to knit, one at a time, to right needle. 2. Insert left needle into fronts of these 2 sts and k them tog. Grafting Holding the 2 needles parallel with wrong sides of fabric together, thread a blunt tapestry needle with one of the yarn ends and work as follows: Insert needle as if to purl into the first stitch on front piece. Insert needle as if to knit into the first stitch on the back piece. Then follow steps 1-4 as outlined below. 1) insert it as if to knit through the first st on the front needle and let the st drop from the needle. 2) Insert the needle into the second st on the front needle as if to purl and pull the yarn through, leaving the st on the needle. 3) Insert the needle into the first st on the back needle as if to purl and let it drop from the needle, then 4) insert it as if to knit through the second st on the back needle and pull the yarn through, leaving the st on the needle. Repeat 1-4 until all sts are gone. When finished, adjust tension as necessary. Weave in ends.

SOCKS Cuff Loosely cast on 56 sts. Divide sts evenly onto 4 double pointed needles. Place marker and join, being careful not to twist sts. Work in K1, P1 Rib for 1 inches. Work in St st until piece measures 6" from cast on edge. Place last 28 sts on a holder (instep sts). Heel flap (worked back and forth on 28 heel sts only) Row 1 *Slip 1, k 1; rep from *. Row 2 *Slip 1, p 1; rep from *. Repeat Rows 1 and 2 until heel flap measures 2¼" (28 rows), ending with Row 2. Turn Heel Row 1 K 17, ssk, k 1, turn. Row 2 Slip 1, p 7, p2tog, p 1, turn. Row 3 Slip 1, k 8, ssk, k 1, turn. Row 4 Slip 1, p 9, p2tog, p 1, turn. Row 5 Slip 1, k 10, ssk, k 1, turn. Row 6 Slip 1, p 11, p2tog, p 1, turn. Continue in this way, working 1 more st between dec until all 28 sts have been worked, ending with a wrong side row – 18 sts. Pick up sts for heel gussets as follows: Knit 9 sts; place marker (this is now the end of rnd marker); with another needle, knit 9 sts, pick up 19 sts along edge of heel flap, place marker, (with another needle, knit 14 sts of instep) twice; place marker, with another needle, pick up 19 sts along edge of heel flap, knit rem 9 sts – 84 sts. Gusset Rnd 1 Knit. Rnd 2 Knit to 3 sts before first marker, k2tog, k1, slip marker, knit to second marker, slip marker, k1, ssk, knit to end of rnd. Repeat Rnds 1 and 2 until 56 sts remain. Note Keep markers in place for toe shaping. Foot Work even in St st until foot measures 7½" (or 2" less than desired total length). Toe shaping Rnd 1 Knit to 3 sts before first marker, k2tog, k1, slip marker, k1, ssk, knit to 3 sts before second marker, k2tog, k1, slip marker, k1, ssk, knit to end of rnd. Rnd 2 Knit. Repeat Rnds 1 and 2 until 20 sts remain. Finishing Knit across first 5 sts of rnd. 10 sts will be for the top of foot and 10 sts will be for the bottom of the foot. Graft remaining stitches together.

ABBREVIATIONS / REFERENCES Click for explanation and illustration beg = begin(s)(ning) dec = decreas(e)(s)(ing) k = knit p = purl rem = remain(s)(ing) rep = repeat(s)(ing) rnd(s) = round(s) RS = right side St st = Stockinette stitch st(s) = stitch(es) tog = together WS = wrong side