Flint Knits

By far the most common question I get on Ravelry is “how did you make the Wicked cardigan?” And when Leslie pointed out that this week marks Fred Rogers’ 80th birthday? Well, in the interest of promoting Cardigan Love, I finally sat down to write out some instructions.

As I began, I realized that it might also be useful to have a much more basic tutorial for turning a raglan pullover into a cardigan. And while I get that those of you asking crave specific directions, seriously, you don’t need them. Just split the front of any pullover pattern down the middle, slap on some button bands, and you’ve got a cardigan. Do it! Show that pullover who’s boss.

But if that doesn’t quite explain it for you, there’s a general tutorial below for how to take a top-down raglan pullover and trick it out cardigan-style, followed by a more specific explanation of what I did to convert the Wicked pattern.

cardiganizing a top-down raglan

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Roscoe is a long haired chihuahua who lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Last winter was his first, and he spent it trembling, shivering, and staying out of the snow as much as possible.

So this year, his family asked me to make him a sweater.

And talk about your functional handknits? When it’s time for a walk, Roscoe now fetches his own sweater, and plays happily outside, neck-deep in the snow.

Wow, has it really been a month since my last post? Oh, but the semester! It is almost over! I’m into the home stretch now, with just a stack of exams to grade and some final math to do.

And even though I’ve been feeling like the semester wasn’t very productive in the academic/professional sense, when I think about all I did, it’s kind of exciting: teach two new classes; finish and submit an article for publication; re-construct a draft of one of the lost chapters of my dissertation; go to two conferences… I am quite not as lazy as I thought! Or at least, not as unproductive.

But now there are 857 (857!) unread blog posts in my Bloglines. I love you all, but I’m taking three precious words of advice from Laura, who heard them once from Rachel: “Mark. All. Read.”

Done.

And moving on. As soon as you all gave your input about the best baby knits (thanks again!), I started another Baby Surprise Jacket.

The Twisted yarn is fantastic to work with. Meg hand-dyes it here in Michigan, and there’s always a massive pile of it at Threadbear Fiber Arts in Lansing (seriously. massive. I call it Twisted Mountain). It’s one of my favorite indie self-stripers, because she does several different styles of striping/fading, and because it comes in heavier weights, along with the sock yarn.

(Also, I think she just updated her shop. So, go!)

I alternated between the self-striper and a solid brown merino, then did the trim and edges in brown. If it’s possible, I might be even happier with this BSJ than I was with my last one.

But I’ve also bought another supply of Hello Yarn Fat Sock, so a third is definitely on the way.

p.s. these photos were taken in November, after the first snow of the year. There’s not a trace of any of this greenery (or ground) left. Happy Winter to those of you in my part of the world!

You probably already know that Ashley is totally awesome, and superbly talented, right? But have you seen her fabulous patchwork scarves? Because they’re, well, fabulous.

She and I spent Sunday afternoon together, in matching Rowanspun sweaters, and did some serious burrito eating (Chipotle) and yarn shopping (Threadbear). And she gave me one of her brilliant new scarves. I might be in love.

Check out her post, because she took all the sweet photos, and both her camera and her prose are vastly superior to mine.

Threadbear has a great stock of Dream in Color worsted weight right now, and just happened to have the color I needed to finish my Elizabeth Zimmermann baby sweater. So I spent my Sunday night not preparing to teach on Monday, but watching two new classics of American Cinema (Slingblade and Ghostbusters II), and finishing up the sweater.

pattern: Elizabeth Zimmermann, baby sweater on two needles, from The Knitter’s Almanac

yarn: Dream in Color worsted, in Cool Fire
needles: US7 Addi Turbos

Then I cranked out a pair of two-hour booties. I don’t much like the look of worsted weight booties, but jeez, they’re fast.

pattern: Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, from Lion Brand.
[PDF from Dreamweaver Yarns]

Both the sweater and the booties are for my wee, adorable niece Claire who, as a twenty-first century baby, has her own blog.

They’re shown here on a table (actually one of a set of 5 TV trays) that my late grandmother Pamela Wynne (yep, I’m her namesake) made 30 years ago.

She was a photographer in the UK during WWII, and was one of the most talented artists I’ve ever known. She did everything — painting, sewing, knitting, sculpture, ceramics, home renovation, furniture building, dollmaking — and she did it well.

She was always game for any new thing (this led to some unfortunate periods in the 1980s that included plastic canvas needlepoint and puffy paint art), and she taught my mother and me everything we know about crafting.

This sweater is totally my grandma’s style — exactly the kind of thing she would have made, were she still around, for her great-grandaughter (though she would have used pale pink yarn and much frillier buttons, and probably added some matching satin ribbon).

Thanks for teaching me how to make stuff, Grandma. My life is much better for it.

After three full days of drying (and 1 hour on a warm oven), we have sweater!

This might be the fastest sweater I’ve ever knit.

Thing is, it was chunky, but not huge. And it doesn’t read like a superchunky sweater to me. My gauge ended up being about 14st/4 inches.

I still used the version of the pattern written for Eskimo, which called for a gauge of 11, but I knit a Medium instead of a Small.

Because I fudged the gauge and did almost no math, I had to change the look of the front — in the original pattern, the front plackets overlap completely, but I moved the buttons over a bit.

After blocking and adding the buttons, I ended up with a bust circumference of 32″, and a bottom hem of 40″.

In order to support the heavy leather buttons, I sewed them into smaller support buttons on the back.

This might also be the most wearable sweater I’ve ever knit. Great color, simple shape, not too fussy, but still interesting.

The Rowanspun Chunky isn’t quite as soft as the DK weight, but it’s still super cozy. I’m wearing it right now with just a tank underneath, and it doesn’t feel itchy at all. (Though I seem to be less sensitive to wool-scratch than some folks.)

In the Drops/Garnstudio photo, it shows a slouchy collar-up look, but the Rowanspun was a bit too stiff for that, and because of my gauge laziness, I didn’t have the overlap of the original. So it just didn’t lay right.

So we go for the collar-down, classic granny instead.

I think that’s all the relevant info. Oh, other than the fact that I LOVE THIS FUCKING SWEATER!! OH MY GOD, SO MUCH!!

Okay. That is all.