What I knit this summer

I'm realizing that I finished a few things this summer that never made their way to the blog (as it was hibernating). I thought I'd share them now.

I so enjoyed knitting my first Pandemic BSJ (for Baby Isaac down the street) that I made another one as a gift for an expectant mother at work. My strategy with babywear is to ask the mother what her favorite color is. If mama likes the baby sweater, the baby will wear the sweater. :) This mama said "yellow," so I found some sportweight Schoppel-Wolle Edition 3 with a strong yellow in the colorway (#2401):

(Schoppel-Wolle Edition 3 is a great yarn for babywear, by the way. It's super soft, but machine-washable, and well-made, and reasonably priced. Also good for neckwear!) The yellow seems less pronounced in the knitted fabric, but I still think it looks like sunflowers against a beautiful blue summer sky, and that's how I pitched it to the mama. This baby hasn't been born yet (to my knowledge) but I hope it will be snuggly warm as the temps drop. 

This is the 7th BSJ I've knit! It's such a comforting project. 

I also wanted to knit more handspun this summer, and the Mittens from the Mitten State pattern came across my radar at some point when I was feeling the "let's knit with handspun" feeling. So these mittens were knit: 

I did this project before I purchased a WPI (wraps per inch) measurement tool and got serious about measuring all my handspun. I just eyeballed the yarn and thought "yeah, this is DK, I think." Ummmm....it's not. It's probably worsted or maybe even aran, based on the tightness of the stitches. These mittens are quite dense (the slipped stitch pattern contributed to it) and will be plenty warm and sturdy for winter! I would not hesitate to brush snow off my windshield while wearing these. They sure are pretty, though. I made the yarn in 2016, and it was nice to use it for something.

 

I also knit a summer sweater. This was a first for me - I never really wanted to knit a whole garment out of cotton before, and I've also never knit a "tee." For some reason, the cotton version of Shakerag spoke to me and I ordered this beautiful aqua color of Rowan Summerlite 4Ply. (This yarn is very nice and quite reasonably priced, too, if you're in the market for a fingering weight cotton yarn for knitting.) I envisioned myself knitting around and around, without deep thinking, with cool yarn on the back porch. 

Ummm... some of the knitting was like that. But not all of it. Despite getting spot-on gauge with my swatch, the armholes were a bit too snug the first time I knit this. I ripped back the shoulder/neck shaping in order to add some rows to the front and back. While I was doing that, I realized that I had made an earlier error in judgement. After dividing for the front and back (and knitting flat), I decided to slip the first stitch of each row, thinking it would make a tidier finish. BIG MISTAKE, because later one needs to pick up almost every edge stitch to finish the sleeve. So I ripped back everything to the division point. This was tedious and tangle-y, but I persisted. If the piece had used a single strand of yarn throughout, this rip-out would have been a lot easier.

Eventually, I was able to reknit the front and back (not slipping the first stitch of each row). I added 8 rows each to the front and back.

When I tried it on the first time (before reknitting), the neck hole seemed HUGE and Flashdance-y. So I paid special attention to my bindoff on the second go (not too sloppy), and picked up stitches on the smaller needle (the pattern doesn't specify which needle to use and implies that you should use the larger one). Then I knit 4 ridges of garter. But surprise! That made the neck much too high and a bit funnel-y.

I ripped it out. In the end, I used the larger needle (US 6) and picked up all stitches. Then I bound off using applied i-cord rather than just a regular BO. This is fun and adds a nice finish.

Final step: sleeves. I followed the instructions and picked up 3 stitches for every 4 rows. This does not work, because I only picked up 60 stitches following this direction! The pattern suggests 66 for my size, and that's before accounting for the extra rows I put in. It was way too tight. So that came out and I did it again. Eventually I picked up 68 stitches on the first sleeve (I eeked out 70 on the second one and decided not to fret about the difference). I also finished these with applied i-cord.

In the end, I think I have a pretty nice summer sweater, but boy, did I have to work for it. 

I also knit a stranded colorwork hat (just as a stashbusting palette cleanser) and a pair of socks for Boy 1 (also a stashbuster), but do those even count?

So there's proof that knitting continued during the Pandemic Summer.

In related news, have you seen this article? What do yarn, RVs, exercise gear and snowshoes share? They all could be hot winter buys. (WaPo 10-6-20) This made me chortle. I have plenty of yarn to make it through the winter. But if you are looking for an excuse to buy more, there it is!