MOONSTITCHES

Seamless Yoke Sweater IV

The flu was in the house, also garter stitch obsession, Advent baking, wreath and lemon curd making. Only 25 days until Christmas!!! That's almost tomorrow, so it seems.
Time to get out the sweet winter/ Christmas movies, make a lot of cookies, think about presents. Yes, I am late with the presents, just like every year. I even think about starting some gift knitting although it a bit late for that... we'll see.
And then there will be the counting again in December... which is starting tomorrow! Oh, so little time for everything. Let's all slow down a little, shall we?

Today I want to show you the next Seamless Yoke Sweater.

This time without ribbing, closer fit (though still a sweater to wear as outer shell), knit in a nicer, cozy and warm wool/alpaca blend.

For the colourwork I used the pattern Elizabeth Zimmermann provides in her book Knitting Without Tears, like I did last time, but I varied it a bit and like it better this way. The yarn I knit with is fairly thick and any colourwork quickly looking quite bold. Disrupting the larger areas originally knit in one colour makes the pattern more fitting to this small sized sweater, I think.

We are both very happy how this sweater turned out and I hope I will be able to join Dagny doing silly things in lovely sweaters like this soon (have been ordering the very same yarn for a sweater like Dagny's!).
;)

Happy Monday!

As always more photos on Flickr and the details (number of stitches, de- and increases, information about the yarn on ravelry.

Seamless Yoke Sweater II

As you will see soon, this blog hasn't only become a slightly boring knitting blog, no, it is about to be turned into a Seamless Yoke Sweater blog.
The attempt to conquer this Elizabeth Zimmerman pattern ("pithy instructions") started out rather unsuccessful two months ago, but with this second try I think I understood a little more of how it works.

We have a new sweater in the house - which my girl likes very much - which is good to play with (this winter and about the next two or three following) - and which was really fun to knit.

The shape is traditional, ribbing at the hem and sleeves. The stitch pattern for the yoke was taken from Knitting Without Tears, the yarn came from my stash, quite old and nothing special.

It fits loosely and initially I thought it was way too big, and hurried to start knitting for another one, but actually it seems just fine.

More of that kind to come next week!

Have a beautiful weekend!

Sorry for the inconvenience with the comments... I don't know what is wrong. Sometimes it seems to be working, and then again it doesn't. I am trying to find out what is happening.

All well again!

Yesterday, After School

Two girls enjoying a beautifully sunny afternoon, peanut butter cookies and milk, working on Ma, Mo, Momo and the fourth Seamless Yoke Sweater.

The yoke, the final, fun part of the whole sweater. Not so before but I think I have come to like the drastic decreases by now. Started at the proper point and knit relaxed with the second thread carried behind the work loosely there really shouldn't be a problem with the yoke looking puckered and wobbly - I will re-read this sentence when having finished the sweater, ending up with just that... ;)
The yarn is a wool/ alpaca blend, soft but sturdy and great to work with.

The cookies:
125 g butter (soft)
125 g granulated sugar
150 g peanut butter
1 egg
150 flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 pinch of salt

Cream peanut butter and butter, stir in the rest of the ingredients, blend well. Put in the fridge for 30 minutes. Shape into small balls, place on baking paper covered sheet, flatten the balls a bit (fork or fingers) and bake for about 15 minutes at 190 °C

Looking Back

A posting I wanted to write just after my latest back in... but, funny thing, we were surprised by Autumn Break. A week off from school. I really need to get a big calendar to put on the kitchen wall to mark all the holidays over the course of a year. It's so easy to miss or mix them all up because Dagny is partly on German schedule in her German school and the husband strictly on Japanese.
Anyway, after that week I had to get back on track and simply fell off the wagon again instead. No surprise, you know me by now. It's so easy to just knit and be happy.

In my last posting I had been speaking about what this blog was meant for (other than creating a huge community of followers or getting turned into a book or something equally aspiring...), just for the record, a few of the things I have been making during summer.
Like a new kinchaku (traditional pouch) for Dagny to take to the fireworks. A little yukata for her doll Ulala-chan, crocheted hair elastics, gauze face masks... Dagny's yukata I made a couple of years ago, and this year might have been the last time she could wear it. I let out all hems and extra seams that were sewn to make it smaller when it turned out too big for my four-year-old back in 2007.

The crocheted flower elastics were asked. Earlier this year a dear friend gave us similar ones she had been making. Sadly one of those were lost or misplaced during our move, so I had the pleasure to get reacquainted with my hooks...

And then there was the request for some face masks in early summer when many people wore them because of pollen allergy.

I followed the instruction from an early (the first?) Ito Naomi book やわらか　ガゼでつくる　- making (things) with gauze. The masks turned out too thick but were worn despite this. Not really meant for protecting against something, more in the manner of dressing up.

Thank you all for your friendly response to my latest posting.
Thanks for the compliments on the second Neighborly and thanks for sharing your thoughts about the whole commenting matter. Made me feel more at ease. Also I found a way to use my mailer to directly respond to comments without sending my answers right to my blog... all is working out in the end. Nothing to really worry about.
What I actually do find worry-worthy is that in the meantime I got so inspired by the many, many beautiful things that are uploaded on ravelry every minute that I needed to cast on for a lot of new knitting projects. And I am planning on even more!
My stash is still fed well, yet I ordered new yarn I came across on ravelry...
I will upload a few yarn and knitting photos on Flickr and explain in my next posting. Basically it is all mostly grey-ish brown and often knit in the round. Working on conquering the Seamless Yoke Sweater again :)

Back hopefully soon with knitting news...
Until then!