Tag: Jane Ellison

Turkey Tracks: In Progress: Noro Iro Sweater

Turkey Tracks:  February 12, 2011

In Progress:  Noro Iro Sweater

Well, here’s my Noro Iro sweater in progress.  You may recall that I’m using a pattern from Jane Ellison’s book, KNITTING NORO.

I have run into gauge problems.  The pattern calls for a 7mm needle, which falls somewhere between our 6mm (10 1/2) and 8mm (11) American needles–which means the sweater will fit ok but is going to take more yarn!!!   Fortunately Helen at Heavenly Socks in Belfast, Maine, has two extra skeins since she so generously ordered the yarn for me, which meant she had to order 12 skeins and hope to sell the other 4 since I was only supposed to need 8.  She’s great that way!

 What you see here is the back.  The bottom is knitted in a textured pattern for about 11 inches.  Then you switch to stockinette.  Both showcase the yarn nicely.  I wish I had put that wide dark band fully at the bottom.  I do like the scalloped bottom edge.

Here’s the pattern I’m trying to do.  Notice how matched the yarn is on the sleeves and front body.

I have no idea how my sweater is going to come out because I can already see that the back will be different.  The back is twice as wide as either of the front pieces, right?  So, the yarn color on the front is knitting out twice as thick before changing to a new color.  In other words, the only way you could try to match color would be to do a lot of cutting of yarn.  And, I don’t think that’s the purpose of this yarn anyway.

Oh well!  It will be what it will be!

It’s feeling a little fussy to me though.  Like one of those garments that are wearing you rather than you wearing them!

Turkey Tracks: Three Knitting Projects

Turkey Tracks:  December 30, 2010

Three Knitting Projects

I have three knitting projects going on at the moment.

First, I bought this book at the Border’s in Portland when we spent the night before flying to Charleston at Thanksgiving.  I LOVE Noro yarn.   The colors are brilliant, vivid, and so much fun.  I’ve made two scarf Noro projects.  And, two matching hats.  But I’ve never worked with the bulky weight–Iro.   KNITTING NORO has a bulky cardigan that I really liked, and Helen at Heavenly Socks in Belfast helped me find an Iro I liked.  She ordered it for me forthwith AND gave me a 20 percent discount on it as part of her holiday discount special.

 

Amazon.com: Knitting Noro: The Magic of Knitting with Hand-Dyed Yarns 9780307586551: Jane Ellison: Books

Here is the yarn I chose.  You can see I’ve wound 5 of the skeins.  I left three so you could see how pretty they look, too:

I can hardly wait to start this sweater.  But, but, I have two other projects ahead of this one.  A silk/bamboo scarf–so I can master cables and an intricate pattern.  (I’ve already taken it out twice, but I’m getting the hang of it now.  And, some sock yarn (magenta and dark grey) that I’m going to use to try socks that start at the toe AND that use a 5-stitch pattern.

In addition, I’m working on 3 quilts in various stages of development and just sent one off in the mail today.  But more on that later.