Buttons for Kauni and Intention Yarn!

Nothing as exciting as yesterday's parade of Kauni, but I did want to show you the buttons I got for the jacket. They are fastened on it in the picture. Aren't they a good match? I really like this whole series of ceramic buttons. The red was my favorite shade, but it didn't come in the 1 1/8" size, so we took the green and blue. Thanks to Katie for her help in picking them out, and good luck to her as she tries to squeeze out a St. Patrick's Day baby tomorrow!

I'm still amazed at how nice the jacket came out. Lee just said to me he really didn't think it would end up as nice as it did, which is sort of what someone said on one of my email lists: are you sure it's the same jacket? Well, good for me. We'll see if the Itchy Shalom also comes out well. Right now I am just hoping I have enough yarn to finish it. I don't have but 400 yards of the Brindle Hill Farm Leicester Longwool, and it may not suffice. Ah well. It sure is SLIPPERY stuff. It keeps sliding off the needles because the yarn and the metal KnitPicks needles are both so slick.

In other news, at long last the first installment of the Intention Yarns club offerings has arrived. I don't usually do clubs, but I like the idea that these are dyed with thoughts of a particular wish going on as they are dyed. This first one is my favorite colors, and called Bliss. It's a wool/bamboo blend, again, my favorite. So it has already made me happy! They also sent a nice button that says "I love Yarn" on it, and some candy and a brown piece of cloth. Not sure what that signifies--there wasn't an explanation, but I could have missed the newsletter or something, since my junk mail filters are a tad "over zealous."

Thanks again to all of you who said such nice things about the jacket. It sure feels good when a project lives up to how you thought it would look in your mind's eye!

Now let's see how the other stuff goes!

A Birthday Treat

Thanks for all the comments on the Kauni Jacket. I spent last night doing the black crochet edging on it. I used some Cashsoft Cotton left over from a hat, and it looks wonderful. I also did a stripe of decorative crochet a couple of inches above the sleeve edge. It looks pretty good. Crocheting around the collar was a challenge, because I wanted the “front” of the crocheting facing outward all the time, which meant I had to switch directions on it. At least I found the little line I had skipped in the instructions, which said to sew the collar down. It’s a little bitty one, but I got it down! Tonight I plan to wash the jacket, with some fabric softener to soften the wool a bit, then just shape it up a bit. I think that’s the best way to deal with garter stitch—no hard blocking. I do need buttons.

I did want to share what a nice time I had on Saturday at the yarn shop. My big plan was to buy a cake and feed whoever showed up. It turned out that Sue Ellyn, a lady I help with knitting, had her birthday on March 3, so she chipped in for the cake, too. I went out to get an Italian cream cake for the few people who were there, and when I got back, more folks had shown up, with presents! I got some very nice cards, including another of Jen’s beautiful handmade ones that she stamps, colors and embellishes. She also made me a cute knitting bag in a neat spiral pattern, and inside it were two balls of KnitPicks Felici yarn in lovely subdued greens and blues. A really nice color combination unlike anything else I have. The yarn is nice and soft—their stuff has improved. Plus I got me a fine gift certificate to the new JoAnn’s Fabrics where Suzanne TCL works (hey, I need buttons!), AND some earrings. I felt like I actually HAD a birthday after all that. I also got Sue Ellyn some roses and a card, because she’s been really sweet and is always so kind to the people at the shop. I guess I need to open gifts for it to be a “real” holiday.

Now, I say that, but what did poor Lee get for HIS birthday (it’s tomorrow)? I didn’t even get to wrap it, because he met the FedEx guy, who gave it to him. It plainly said “I am a food dehydrator,” on it, so there went the surprise. I did get some strawberries today, so we can try it out for birthday treats!

I digress…what I wanted to say is that kindnesses like these birthday treats, the baby showers, and all that…they all remind me what fine and generous people tend to make up the knitting community. We are all so different, yet we share so much! I am so glad to have made some good friends over the past few years, and also enjoyed so many strangers and people passing through. If you don’t have a knitting circle, group or club, try to find one. Even if everyone’s a different age or socio-economic group from yours, you will find knitting truly brings people together, which then facilitates learning about each other in all areas. A good thing. And THANK YOU to Jen, Deana, Nancy, Pat (and the yarn shop staff) for making it such a nice birthday.

Here’s another good thing, a link to a lovely story about knitting in Peru that a friend sent me. It will cheer you up to read about another culture’s use of your favorite hobby! It really seems to empower women there.

It's a Jacket! Just Not Done Yet

Though it was a busy weekend, it ended up being a weekend where there was a lot of knitting time hiding here and there. So, I actually finished all the knitting on my Kauni jacket! Lee was in photography mode, so I even have action shots of Suna doing mattress stitch (two very, very long seams to try to keep even—my back is now reminding me of how I have to lean over to do that stitching!

In the stitching photo, I would like to point out that the beer bottle does not belong to me. Liquor and precision don’t go together, so I did not imbibe. The beer was a fine reward for planting a bunch of plants, which Lee did!


This picture shows one long seam sewn together while the other is waving around. Note that the horizontal side seems longer. It shortened up once I seamed it.

I had a bit of trouble with the small shawl collar. In fact, I don’t like the collar much at all. It would probably look less awkward in the yarn the jacket originally calls, for which is self-striping sock yarn, but even after I carefully plowed into my leftover skeins to finish the little collar flap that is left at the end of all the other knitting, there was nothing I could do about the fact that one half is blue and the other is yellow, nor of how hard it is to hide the seams. I seamed the collar parts so that the “right side” has seams, because the “wrong side” is what folds over to be the collar. Even my neatest mattress stitch still has an edge. So, I tacked the collar down and will probably end up with a little tack to keep it ending at the same spot on each side. You can sort of see the collar in the picture of the back of the jacket.



The back is another thing I hope resolves itself. Even the Asian lady on TV in the photo looks like she can’t believe how that jacket looks. Definitely the horizontal side is about an inch wider than the vertical side. I think a lot has to do with the different ways garter stitch stretches depending on orientation. That’s probably why the vertical side is a bit longer than the horizontal, too. My current thought is that once I block the jacket (which I will need to do anyway, to try to soften the wool and maybe get out some of the twigs that are still in it), I will be able to block it to the right measurements.


That brings me to fit—I did it! The jacket fits just right. It’s supposed to be fairly snug, and it looks like it will meet up exactly in the front, like it should. I am guessing it will fit a little better once I lose the post-wedding ten pounds I am working on, but it is fine now. After poor old Bridget, I am glad to see that I actually CAN get the right gauge and stick with it. Forgive my weird shiny face in the photo. It was a warm day and I’d been sewing under that wool jacket for quite some time. Not my best look, for sure.

I look forward to having true FO photos for you soon. Look forward in my next post to photos of birthday stuff, and a report on how nice my knitting friends are.

Kauni Jacket Progress

As promised, here’s a photo of the Kauni cardigan’s progress as of Sunday evening. I did manage to drag my knitting to a bar and knit while waiting for my son’s band to do their inaugural performance at an open mic night. It was sweet to see the rockers in their 40s and 50s applauding their hearts out for the 15 and 16 year olds playing 60s rock. And at least I got almost to the end of the vertical half of the jacket! Glad it’s garter stitch so I could knit in the semi-darkness.

The photo is a bit blurred, which should teach me a lesson for only taking one picture that night. I must have moved my hand. But you get the idea. Don’t the stripes look fine? One thing I did to make the cardigan symmetrical was this. On the back, I knit through to the purple part of the striping. That was I think 2-3 inches past where the cardigan divided for the neck. Rather than just picking up on the front from that point on the yarn, I re-wound until I got to the next place in the skein where the shade of red I left off on came in, and made a new little ball, attaching that when it came time to finish the front. Now the front striping will perfectly match the back. There are a few more stitches in the front, so I may go further into the purple on the front, but the sequencing will be the same. If I run out, I know I’ll still have more from where I ended on the back, so I can keep going. That little bit of extra detail makes me happy. I may end up with two partial skeins at the end, but the garment will look good.

And, further good news is that I am positive I have enough yarn for the project! Since I will have two whole skeins left for the other (horizontal) side, I will be able to keep the striping pattern flowing no matter where the first skein ends, too. All good. If I am feeling up to it, I hope to finish the first side and move on to the second this evening.