Archives for December 2011

The first sleeve of Cromarty is nearly done.

Well, it’s a bit further along than that photo.

I am, however, making it shorter than directed in the pattern. This is because I plan to add a sewn-on cuff to match the sewn-on border I am planning for the bottom of the sweater. After I finish this sleeve, I am going to knit the border before I start the second sleeve. So I’ll have a photo of it for the next blog post.

The next blog post will be my first post for 2012.

Lucy is resting up for the big New Year’s celebration.

See you next year! 🙂

It has been dark and rainy all day.

The lighting is weird, buthere is a Cromarty photo taken without flash:

That’s the front. I’ve started a sleeve.

We’ve had a lovely Christmas here. Lucy got a fun toy from her Daddy.

However, the lure of the wrapping paper proved too much for her.

Lucy is waiting for Santa.

She plans to remain vigilant.

But it’s too much excitement for one little kitty.

Happy Holidays!

Today was my last day of work until January 3, 2012 (although there are a couple of things I’ll have to deal with remotely from home next week). But that is not the fabulous to which I refer in the title. It’s this:

This is Michael Pearson’s Traditional Knitting by (not surprisingly) Michael Pearson. It was published in 1984 by Van Nostrand Reinhold (a company acquired by Wiley a while back) and is out of print. You can find copies here and there but they are generally not cheap.

But this is a fabulous book and I think the best resource I have for gansey patterns. And I have a lot. The author traveled around the U.K., visiting remote fishing villages to find patterns and visit knitters who knit them. There are approximately 75 pages on fisher ganseys chock full of charts for patterns I’ve not seen elsewhere, as well as photos of sweaters knit using the pattern stitches.

There is a very nice techniques section in the front of the book with considerable information on the structure of these types of sweaters.

There are also sections on fair isle knitting and aran knitting. The fair isle section has some nice pattern charts, but I do have them in other books as well. The aran section has a number of cable stitch patterns (written out, not charted) and there are a couple I don’t think I’ve actually seen before.

So, all in all, a gold mine!

And I’m still plugging away on the front of Cromarty — I’ve got it about half done at this point.

Miss Lucy does not wish her nap to be disturbed.

Here are two different yarns I have purchased to potentially be used for knitting non-wool ganseys:

The yarn on the left is Luscious by Kollage. It is a fingering weight blend of 63% cotton and 37% nylon. It looks to me like a heavy fingering weight. The suggested gauge is 6 to 8 stitches to the inch.

It’s an interesting yarn — even though it has a high nylon content it doesn’t feel terribly stretchy in the skein. The Loopy Ewe currently has it on sale because they are going to stop carrying it.

Anyhow, I thought it might be interesting to try for a textured sweater. I checked out the yarn’s page on Ravelry — it gets mixed reviews, but there are many projects made from it.

The yarn on the right is Skinny Cotton by Blue Sky Alpacas. It is DK weight and 100% cotton. It’s suggested gauge is 5 to 6 stitches to the inch. I’m really looking forward to trying this out as I’ve heard lots of good things about it. Here is its page on Ravelry — consistently good reviews with a couple of complaints about it being splitty. There are many many projects knit from it on Ravelry.

As far as current knitting goes, I am working on the front of Cromarty:

While Lucy watches from her perch.