It's a process...

29.07.2020  Everything is a process, particularly knitting.  I have been working on the End of the Road Gansey since June.  It should have been finished by now, but the progress slowed once I got to the gusset.  The sleeve was a bit generous in size than I wanted, so after trying it on last night I decided to frog back to the beginning of the texture stitching.  Instead of starting the gusset at that point, I opted to work just over an inch and then began the gusset.  Keeping notes is so important when not working from a written pattern.  Before undoing the shoulder seams and frogging the whole texture section, I made notes of the row repeats, the neck shaping section and length to the new beginning of the gusset.  Good thing I use a pencil with a good eraser!

A minor setback, but the sleeve will fit better.  The photo was taken before I adjusted the numbers on the schematic.

End of the Road

02.07.2020 On June 1, I started a pullover, using the schematic and notes from my Camp Gansey.  A friend gave me 15 skeins of Rowan DK Tweed in a lovely colorway aptly named Bliss.  After knitting g a swatch, I decided to use the same stitch counts as the original sweater.  Using smaller needles and yarn, the fit will have just the right amount of ease.  Yesterday morning was perfect for knitting on the deck before the heat set in.  I finally snapped a photo that captured the color of that beautiful yarn.  The notes and schematic jotted down two years ago were enough to recreate the new version, which I dubbed End of the Road Gansey.

The texture stitch pattern is Ridged Rib (2 + 1 stitches, 4-row repeat) and works well with the weight and texture of the yarn.  

The texture and tweedy bits make this yarn one of my all-time favorites.
 Sadly, it was discontinued years ago.
This is how the color usually photographs, even in natural light.

Using my new dot journal for the schematic.  It is nice to have the other sweater as a guide.
The time of day and the light were perfect for getting a good photo.

❤️

FOs

There are two finished objects for the end of July, the Gansey sweater and the handspun Polkagris.  Starting with the kerchief, I pulled some photos from a previous post (May 2013) to show how the yarns were created.  They sat in the stash for five years waiting for the perfect project.  Shortly before Grey Wolf in June, an email arrived from KDD with a pattern for newsletter subscribers.  It did not take long to choose yarns from my stash for the project.

Colorful wool roving and wool batts with some cotton yarn are pulled together.

The fibers are added to the bowl on the scale for weighing.  Joanne and I made 3-ounce batts.
Fibers used in both batts:  wool, silk, mohair locks, silk noils, sari silk, and cotton.

The fibers can be blended a little or a lot using the drum carder.  It is ready to spin!

The singles are plied with thread or yarn.  This was plied with a thin textured yarn.
This skein weighed 3.7-ounces after plying.  The white skein weighed 3.8-ounces.  Each skein was 200+ yards.
I should have enough left from both skeins for a small project.

The Polkagris kerchief by Kate Davies was the perfect project for the special skeins of yarn.
The shape of the kerchief fits nicely over the shoulders

The Gansey sweater was a rewarding project to knit.  It is a simple, wool sweater with traditional shape and style with extra ease added for comfort.  It will be a good piece for layering when it gets cold.  I have it on right now, as we are experiencing a cold front before the heat and humidity return.  

Before the knitting, I did my homework by looking through my personal library and studying photos of the design elements of traditional garments.  Body  measurements and measurements from other garments along with choosing yarn and swatching are so important.  One of my biggest take-aways from the experience was that less is more.  I planned for fancier textures at the top, but the simple, 2 +1 stitch repeat over four rows fit so beautifully into the design.  

Mary is just about finished with her sweater and soon we (Kathryn, Mary, and I) will have to take photos of our finished projects together.  

Garter stitch at the neck, cuffs and hem. Ridged ribbing worked well for the stitch counts for the body and sleeves.  

A bit of shaping on either side of the front neck and three-needle bind off at the shoulders.  The bind off was worked on the right side of the work and the purl ridge flows into the texture stitches nicely.

The two-stitch faux seam runs on either side from the hem, around the underarm gusset, and the to the  cuff.

Progress!

Progress on the Gansey style pullover is going well.  I have been adding notes in a notebook and also on my Ravelry project page.  It has been an enjoyable project so far and now I have to type up the handwritten notes so I can use what I learned, knitting without a written pattern, to knit another sweater.  My early sketches included various texture stitches, neck gussets, the split hem, etc.  The split hem was the first element to go, and then the various texture stitches changed to a simple and easy-to-adapt stitch pattern that fit well with my stitch counts.  The Ridged Rib is a multiple of 2 + 1 stitches and a 4-row repeat.  The second sleeve is in progress and the sweater will be finished this week.

By trying on the sweater while the sleeve was in progress,  I could easily customize the length and  the decreases.  

There is a new vendor at Anoka Fiber Works, Wether'sfield Wool Farm.  I purchased some of the Shetland wool.  Two 4-ounce bags of Emily's white washed wool, and one 3.1-ounce ball of Treble's moorit roving.  I had some black Shetland roving I bought when we visited the Faribault Woolen Mill's 150th celebration a few years ago.  I combed the white wool and it is just beautiful to spindle spin with my Moosie spindle.  Mary held a second bag for me when Jim and I were camping last week.  I will have to see how much yardage I can spin and figure out a nice project for the yarn.

Emily's beautiful washed wool

Combing was the perfect prep for the wool.  I used my Valkyrie (fine) wool combs.

Moorit is a mid-brown color between fawn and dark brown.

It was a good thing I waited to finish spinning the last of the black.  There will be plenty to add to the future project.

Beautiful natural colors.