Here's a self-portrait of the me in the latest sweater: The Hyde Park Pullover. You know, it's really hard to take a good self-portrait with the auto-timer. Finally, I just gave up and figured that I'll have Scott take some better pictures on the weekend. This pullover was made from Valley Yarns (aka WEBS) Donegal Lambswool, which I bought from a local yarn store. It came on a kilo-size cone, and I have a lot left. I wouldn't give a strong recommendation for this yarn for knitting. When I first swatched it, the stocking stitch sample biased very strongly and quickly. It has a lot of twist and curls up on itself a lot. The oil that coned yarns are treated with (to work better in knitting machines) made it take a little extra effort to form each stitch. I used the Broken Rib stitch in part because the combination of knitting and purling on the right side of the fabric helped counteract the tendency to bias. This yarn, bought on a cone, is very inexpensive. Mine worked out to about $16 a pound, which is a bargain for a sweater's worth of yarn. The final product blooms a lot after washing out the greasy treatment. The yarn was much fluffier and softer after washing. If price is a strong consideration for you when choosing yarn, this would be a good one to try. But it wasn't real pleasant to work with.
In Other News
My older son, Owen, won his school spelling bee this morning. On February 11 he will compete in the city-wide spelling bee. Even when he's nervous, he stands right up there and speaks loudly and clearly. His final word was "chrome." I found this appropriate because one of my favorite lines in Sponge Bob is "Everything's chrome in the future."
11 comments:
Congratulations to Owen.
You look like you're ready to take off and fly ;)
I bet that sweater is very very warm.
Brilliant as his mommmy that Owen is...
Fly little starling, fly fly...the Silence of the Lambs reference is no reflection on your warm-looking Hyde Park pullover, just the awesome self-portrait.
I really like the look of the waist edge or should I say lack thereof.
Yay owen! You do look triumphant in the picture!
It's great to see the finished product! Congrats to Owen!
Congrats to Owen!! That's quite an accomplishment.
Hyde Park looks nice and comfy.
That's one of my favorite colors. I love it!
And congrats to little Owen!
I bet Owen is very proud of himself.
I like the sweater. Just out of curiousity, after swatching it, why did you decide to hand knit with the yarn instead of using your machine? Would the twist and bias have been a concern if machine knit?
See you tomorrow.
Thanks everyone!
Terby: It would have been even harder to avoid biasing on a machine than by hand. One reason is that I would have to use my single bed for this weight of yarn, and that means stockinette-based stitches, unless I wanted to do a ton of hand-manipulating. If I'm going to hand-manipulate, I'd rather hand knit. Also, it seems like the tension on the yarn and on the knitting on the machine worsens that tendency.
I've heard that it is a good idea to skein machine knitting yarn off the cone and wash it before hand knitting with it. Would that have helped?
Yep, it would have made the knitting a little more agreeable and a little less work. I'm not sure about the biasing problem. I think that extra twist is just there to stay.
I think I'll try that with the rest of the cone before I try to use it on anything else. It would also eliminate some of the "gauge surprise!" effect. In this case, I wasn't surprised because I washed my swatch, but figuring when things were long enough was a bit of a crap shoot. (I don't have a row counter for hand knitting: can you imagine?)
Way to go Owen! :)
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