Summer Knitting

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Glancing over at my knitting basket, I can’t help noticing it’s taken on a distinctly summery feel.


I wouldn’t ordinarily have said I knit seasonally, as I am still making wool sweaters and heavy cabled things, but lately I have been craving softer, lighter colors, cotton and linen, and finer gauge yarns. I can also count on the summer for a major boost of start-itis, with three new cast-ons included (so far).


The first is a shrug that begins with a square lace panel constructed from the center out (I will sew that hole shut in finishing). It’s intriguing to watch the lace pattern build organically, and I’m looking forward to figuring out how to convert the pattern to be as fully seamless as possible.


Next is Lepidoptera, which I will admit I cast on in a total impulse because I couldn’t resist the beautiful soft pink yarn wound up in a cake after I used a bit of it to finish the candy pink Featherweight sweater I’ve been working on for years. I love the look of this pattern, and I know I will eventually enjoy working on it, but because the two lace panels are knit with two strands of yarn held together and there is an expanse of one-strand stockinette in between, one winds up juggling three balls of yarn at a time. I haven’t mastered the maneuvering yet, so this project is neither particularly easy or portable. I can’t help wondering why it wasn’t designed with two strands held together throughout, but I’m sure time will tell.



Lastly, a pair of Catnip Socks, a beautiful free pattern by Wendy Johnson that I have had queued since 2010, knit in this soft green hand-painted yarn that I love fanatically. I was chiding myself for casting on new socks when I have been trying to focus on sweater-knitting and have a huge pile of finished socks that I haven’t blocked or photographed yet, but I was able to justify them by the fact that I work from home and my apartment gets frightfully cold in the winter (and autumn…and often spring). Like most New Yorkers, I am nuts about not wearing shoes indoors, so I wear socks and slippers almost every day – they might as well be hand-knit, right?

These socks also gave me the opportunity to participate in my favorite sock-knitting group on Ravelry again, and I hadn’t realized just how much I missed the community and camaraderie there until I logged back in and poked around. When I saw the July-August challenge is lace, I entered some kind of fugue state where my hands were winding the yarn and pulling out needles automatically.

And on the theme of community, I have finally set up an Instagram account just for my knitting and crafts: @vickiliciousknits. I hope you’ll hop over and say hello – I’d love to connect with fellow knitters and craft-obsessives!

Summer break, so I’m knitting and thinking about clothes

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I did something today that was simultaneously unusual and utterly in keeping with my most ingrained habits and tendencies.

I cast on for a new project.

I’ve been at my job just over a year now, and I truly love it. I recently got a very nice promotion, so apart from the few weeks where I rarely left the office before 8pm, it’s going swimmingly. The downside is that its demands plus my still very long commute leave me with little time or energy to do the crafty things I used to enjoy so frequently at home. My company is closed for the next two weeks, so I am trying to take advantage of the time off to get my home life back in order.

While ordering Roman shades for my bedroom (I’ve been living with the vinyl blinds my landlord provided when I first moved in back in 2010… which I’ve since broken) I also did a little bit of online clothes shopping for some summer pick-me-ups. I’m pretty picky about the value of clothing, especially after working in retail and coming to really understand the vast difference between fabrication, wholesale, and retail pricing.

I bought two more pencil skirts just like the dozens in my closet, and while they were seriously marked down, I kept thinking, “These things have three, maybe four seams and a zipper. Why do I routinely spend so much money on something I could so easily make?!” I have owned a sewing machine for years (it may or may not still be in working order). Back in 2007, I bought two patterns and fabric (which has all since been lost or wrecked) with the sincerest intentions to learn to sew skirts and dresses. But I never sealed the deal, and I have no idea why not.

Another thing that occasionally troubles me when buying clothes (especially at such discounted prices) is that I can’t really know if they were produced in ethical labor conditions. I try to shop only from companies with solid reputations, but unless you are making the clothes yourself, you can’t actually be sure that no one was exploited or mistreated for your super cute new sundress (not that this qualm has stopped me from buying anything lately – but it does hover in the back of my mind). It is my hope that I can learn to sew basics like skirts and dresses, maybe even blouses, and that in addition to benefitting from custom sizing and choosing the fabrics of my dreams, I will no longer have a closet full of morally ambiguous textiles.

But I’m getting quite a bit ahead of myself. That aqua-blue yarn you see above? It’s cheerily on its way to becoming this:

The Viennese Shrug, from Interweave Knits Summer 2005. I’ve been wanting to make this lacy shrug since 2007 (I had a lot of good ideas back then) and just like my intended sewing projects, somehow never quite got around to it.

But that good-intentions-poor-follow-through habit is precisely the one I plan to break, starting now.

Whispering and Ribbing

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It would be a lie to say I’ve been knitting monogamously since starting this sweater, since I’ve actually finished two other sweaters while working on it (I know, right??), but for the most part, I’ve been obsessively focused on it, and it’s showing.

I’ve reached the “long rows” or skirt portion below the ribbed waist/collar, nearing the finish line on what has been an intensely enjoyable and lovely project.

The amount of time I’ve spent doing 1×1 ribbing in laceweight yarn this week is a bit staggering. It made me realize that on my last Whisper Cardigan, I stopped the ribbing half an inch short, with no memory of why I did that. I also noticed something about my 1×1 ribbing itself.

This is the outside, which frankly, looks a little cruddy. This photograph is obviously pre-blocking, so presumably the unevenness and sort of wonky appearance of the stitches should sort itself out.

But look at the backside. The knit stitches are so much more even, tame, and nicely spaced. These photos don’t show it, but the back looks much nicer when stretched too. Why is the wrong side of my ribbing so much nicer-looking than the right side??

When I accidentally picked up stitches backwards on another ribbing-edged project, I thought I could test an idea I had, that knitting my ribbing with the backside as the right side would result in a nicer edging. At first, it had the intended tidy, attractive appearance and I was very pleased with myself. But after stretching it a little in trying the garment on, the two sides are indistinguishable. So much for that theory.

I’ve always knit English (yarn in my right hand, throwing over the stitches), in part because it’s how I was taught and because I’ve read that it typically results in more even stitches and consistent gauge. I’m starting to wonder if I wouldn’t benefit from switching up how I do my 1×1 ribbing, not only for improved appearance, but for what I imagine would be a dramatic increase in speed.

Nevertheless, I’m thrilled with where this project is going, and I’m glad I soldiered through all that ribbing. I can’t wait to share some FOs with you soon.

What’s new is new, too.

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Lately I feel consumed with “catching up.” Perhaps a symptom of end-of-semester restlessness, I am suddenly intensely interested in finishing old projects, photographing and blogging what I’ve forgotten, working through my WIP baskets (yes, they’ve become plural), and in general, getting back in touch with my knitterly self.

Of course, I still like a new cast-on just as much as the next knitter.

It’s laceweight wool/silk, green, and one of my all-time favorite patterns.

You know I’m already in love.