Tweed Chaika

I finished one more sweater out of Natural Fantasy Condor - Italian bobbin tweed I was gifted by a FB friend. Instead of making another Hayward or other plain color stockinette sweater, I decided to combine the pink tweed with a remnant of the plum Natural Fantasy Condor tweed I used for this hoodie and make another Chaika. 

Chaika (sea gull) is a pattern recipe by Olga Kondratieva. Two years ago I knitted it for the first time for Gaby and it is one of her favourites, mainly due to the soft and warm merino yarn I used for hers. 

The pattern recipe is very easy to calculate and follow and the striped part is quite addictive to knit. I must admit I enjoyed knitting this sweater though I do not consider it a must-have and wouldn't have made it had I not had the gifted yarn - just now I have too many of these sweaters and no place to wear them - I prefer T-shirts at home.

Some technical details about the sweater. I calculated the yoke with little positive ease and knit it in the round, casting on with long-tail cast on and rolled hem at the neck. After the split for the body and the sleeves I shaped the V with short rows on every 3 stitches, until I reached the central stitch. meanwhile I slightly A-shaped the body by adding increases to the sides every 5 cm of length.

I hemmed the body with 2x2 split rib, which I cast off with purl over purls and knit over knits, to keep the hems elastic and not too wavy.

I knit the sleeves in the round, gradually decreasing every 9th round. Then I finished them with long 2x2 ribs and I-cord bind off.

 

Pattern: Chaika, based on Olga Kondratyeva's recipe

Yarn: Natural Fantasy Condor, 200g total

Yarn Content: 62% wool, 6% angora, 10% silk, 4% modal, 18% polyamide, 450 m / 100 g

Needle: 3.25 mm body, 3 mm hems

Time to knit: almost two months with other projects in between

As promised, winter returned with -16C and heavy snow. Last week I was out in a short-sleeved T-shirt and just a few days later it was freezing cold and sweater weather again. Luckily, the temperatures are expected to rise again next week. I think I had enough snow this year, so I'll be quite happy to see it melt and never come back until next winter :)

Hayward

I have a new sweater to show you  - Hayward, a simple raglan with elongated raglan lines, a lot of positive ease, boat neck and 7/8 sleeves, knitted in stockinette stitch in the round - the perfect tv knitting!

I was gifted the yarn by a Facebook friend, who had bought it, did not like it and noticed that I had knitted with it previously. In all honesty, it is my least favourite Italian bobbin tweed yarn I've tried so far, but it is of very beautiful color and definitely did not deserve to finish in the trash bin unloved.

I fought with it hard until I found the right pattern. Initially I bought the popular Harley and cast it on with this yarn, but midway the cowl I realized that this tweed was too stiff, too dry and too busy for the cabled Harley. And then I remembered that I had been planning to have a go at the Hayward for quite a long time and this was the perfect yarn - if I did not like the elongated raglan, at least I would not have wasted precious yarn on it.

To knit the sweater I followed the general recipe for elongated raglan by Olga Kondratyeva and my own measurements and calculations. And it all went very smoothly until I reached the sleeves. Then my perfectionist nature in evil combination with my ever hesitant self knitted and frogged endlessly one sleeve or another - long or short, how long, how short, how narrow, how wide - I couldn't decide and I had to try them all until I was finally satisfied with the result you see on these pictures. I do not regret a single frogged stitch, as at least now I know this is exactly how I wanted the sleeves! :)

The positive ease - I knitted the sweater with a total of 20 cm positive ease at the bust and I believe this is really needed to make the Hayward silhouette work. For the hem - I tried without ribbing, but it curled uncompromisingly and no amount of blocking or even 3-st I-cord could prevent it. Plus the wideness of the sweater around the bum, combined with the curling, was very unflattering. So in the end I unravelled the last 10 or so rows and finished the hem with 2x2 ribbing and I love it - it stays straight and pulls in the volume just enough to feel comfortable.

Pattern: Hayward by Julie Hoover

Yarn: Natural Fantasy Condor 3, 200 g

Yarn Content: 62% wool, 6% angora, 10% silk, 4% modal, 18% polyamide, 450 m / 100 g

Needle: 3.25 mm, 3 mm

Time to knit: about a month

 

All in all, I'm actually truly happy with the final result, the sweater is easy to wear and very light - only 200g, but quite warm. After washing the yarn softened and as you can see I am able to wear it right next to the skin without any itching or irritation. Now I have to decide what to make out of the two other bobbins of the same yarn in two other colors that came with it - more Hayward sweaters perhaps :)

Gibson Cardigan

 

I am finally able to show you a finished knitted garment - The Gibson Cardigan by Angela Hahn. Gibson is a free pattern, published by Knitty magazine, First Fall edition of 2018. The pattern calls for heavy weight cotton yarn, but lately I find that I prefer knitting with wool, even for summer. So I opted to knit it in an Italian bobbin tweed yarn I had around - Filpucci Tweedeco, 70% merino, 30% poly-amide, 450 m per 100 g.

Gibson is a top-down raglan cardigan with lace sleeves and a wide collar, which is knitted sideways. My first modification - as my yarn was thinner and my gauge smaller, I cast on the second size (S), aiming at achieving an XS and I had to recalculate the rows to add additional depth, as my rows gauge was also smaller.

 When I divided for the body and reached the high hip, I decided that I wanted the cardigan longer, so I continued knitting until the body under the arms measured 40 cm. However the long cardigan was rather narrow to cover my hips, even with the added collar. So I decided to add two lace triangles to the fronts. I chose a place above the bust to start the lace triangle and grafted it to the stockinette body as I went knitting it top-down.

 

I did not want ribbing which would pull in the end of the cardigan, so I finished the hems with broken rib and for consistency I decided to make the collar of the cardigan in the same style.

 

And finally - I decided to leave the cardigan open,  without buttons or other closure, as it is intended as a light cover during the summer nights or warmer spring and autumn days.

Although I had my doubts and hesitations, I am pretty happy with the end result - the cardigan is light, only 230 g, airy, yet very warm and comfy. The yarn is supersoft and pleasant to the skin.

 

 

Pattern: Gibson by Angela Hahn

Yarn: Filpucci Tweedeco, 230 g

Needle: 4 mm body, 3.5 mm hems and collar

Time to knit: 2 months

Tweed Hoodie

This year I started following one of Russia's knitting gurus - Olga Kondratyeva, who opened my eyes to a number of knitting designs and trends. One of her popular videos is on how to make a classic knitted hoodie - a sweater with raglan long sleeves, a large hood and a front kangaroo pocket.

Back in February, when I decided to knit another of Kondratyeva's designs - a tweed dress, I ordered 400 g of Italian tweed wool mix, but the dress only took 200 g. I had been looking at the bobbin and wondering what to do with it for several months until I finally decided to turn it into a hoodie. In the process I found that the 200 g would not be enough if I wanted the hood as large as I planned it to be (though I'm short I have a long neck and standard hoods usually come short on me, go figure!), so I ordered another 100 g of the tweed yarn (plus a couple of other bobbins :))))  The yarn is Natural Fantasy Condor 4, a wooly tweed with very complex composition - 62% wool, 6 % angora, 10% silk, 4% modal, 18% polyamide.

Pattern: Tweed Hoodie (personal pattern based on Olga Kondratyeva's video tutorials)
Yarn: Natural Fantasy Condor 4, 260 g
Needle: 3 mm (ribbing), 3.25 mm (stockinette stitch)
Time to knit: one month

The hoodie is very warm and comfortable - I wore it yesterday to my Spanish classes and though it was fairly cold in the room I was feeling almost toasting in it. The yarn in the bobbin was fairly uneven and quite coarse but after wet blocking it softened.

I finished the pocket edges, the hood edges and the ribbing with 3-stitch I-cord and I also added some ribbing to the sides of the body for better fitting and to enhance the sports vibe of the sweater. Now, that I'm looking at the pictures and considering the bagging of the elbows, I'm thinking of adding some leather patches to the elbows too. Might be cool if I can pull it off.

And a final note - although I knitted the hoodie for myself, I'm posing in the pictures and I've worn it a couple of times, I decided to gift it to Gaby - I think it is more in her style and she might get better wear out of it.

Saudade Dress

My latest FO and first dress for Gaby. It is seamless, top-down, saddle-shoulder raglan, slightly A shaped simple stockinette stitch dress, knitted in the round, perfect for our crisp spring days, as today.
And what is most important - she likes it and finds it warm and comfy.

The yarn is another Italian bobbin yarn - Natural Fantasy Condor 4, a wooly tweed with very complex composition - 62% wool, 6 % angora, 10% silk, 4% modal, 18% polyamide. It was rather coarse and uneven before washing, but as with most bobbin yarns, after washing and wet blocking the resulting texture is soft and pleasant to the skin.

Pattern: Saudade dress (personal pattern)
Yarn: natural Fantasy tweed, 200g
Needle: 3.25 mm, 3 mm
Time to knit: 17 days

The Chocolate Color

Let me start with the ascertainment that ever since I started dyeing yarn, I've overdyed every beige yarn I've bought, as well as a beige cotton shop bought sweater I had :) Beige turns out to be a color I'm drawn to buy but not to wear - neutral drab colors are not for me, it seems.

A few months ago I came upon Hipster - a shawl pattern by Joji Locatelli and I immediately fell in love with it. I've been following Joji's podcast and admiring her creativity a lot, she's one of my main inspirations to start sewing again, as apart from a talented knitter and designer, she's also a fearless beginner seamstress.
So, when I was browsing my favourite online yarn shop for tweed for another project I came upon a sale of this beige Italian bobbin tweed and I grabbed 200 g of it for Hipster. But the moment it arrived I knew I had to overdye it (again!). I experimented with at least a dozen of small cuttings from the yarn, shifting it from tobacco yellow to dark purple, until I settled on chocolate. And I'm loving it. This is my current WIP, but more about it and the yarn in (I hope) a coming soon posting :)

And while I still had chocolate color on my mind I finally decided how to overdye the viscose yarn I had bought for my mother. The result of another sale purchase - 6 skeins of baby blue viscose-acrylic yarn, three for me and three for my mother, were waiting to be overdyed. The yarn is very soft, the color is nice, but neither mother nor I would wear this baby blue. I had been struggling for a week with the decision, having in mind, that unlike the wool, which is so easy to dye, viscose acrylic blends take dye differently and more difficultly. And of course they require dyes for cellulose based yarns. 

To ensure good cover of the blue, I dyed these skeins in two steps - first I dyed the three skeins solid brown, washed them and hung them to dry to ascertain that they had the color I wanted (wet viscose looks much much darker than dry viscose and I wanted to be sure). Then I dip glazed them in concentrated black for a more variegated final color.

I think they turned out quite nice, with deep saturated color. Because I dyed each skein separately, there are some variations between the skeins and as with all hand-dyed yarns it would be recommendable to be knitted with alternation.

I was curious, so I made two samples to check the gauge. The yarn is thin - 400 m / 100 g, so it could be knitted with a single thread or with two threads held together. I was leaning towards the thicker option, but in the end I like the single thread sample better. Of course, it's up to my mother to decide which she prefers.

Now I'm off to pack all the yarns I dyed for my mom lately and send them to her to keep her busy during the coming months.