1-2-2008

As planned, I cast on for my Elizabeth Zimmermann EPS Cardigan yesterday at SnB. Several of the grrls are starting an EPS sweater for 2008. I’m planning to do the Circular Yoke Pullover, but make it into a cardigan. Steeks – eek!

I’m using Patons Classic Wool because I had a bunch of skeins in burgundy that I bought with a gift card. I’ll be doing a fair isle yoke in black, white, and two grays. I’m currently planning on also adding a bit of duplicate stitch in gold, but I’ll make the final decision on that when I get there.

For the steek, I decided to do 7 stitches. I did some test swatches using 5 stitches, and decided that was cutting it a bit too close for comfort. First I tried doing a steek in all purls, since I’d read somewhere that it would help the fabric curl back on itself after cutting. And it did. But I gave up that idea after deciding that I’m going to crochet the steeks for neatness – since that’s done with the knit stitches facing, I’d be doing the crochets on the wrong side, and would have floats in the way in the Fair Isle section. It wasn’t fun. So instead I’m just doing the first and last of the steek stitches in purl (p1, k5, p1). Not only will that give me a nice fold line for the steek, but it also gives me a clear ridge between the steek stitches and the body stitches, to make it easier when picking up stitches for the button band. That’s my theory, anyway. I tried a swatch and liked it.

However, from what I’ve read, I can’t really count on the crocheted steeks to hold this relatively smooth worsted weight yarn in place, so I’ll be sewing it too. I did some swatches of that, but they weren’t too great. Between the heavy yarn, my crappy old sewing machine, and my rudimentary sewing skills, the machine stitching really stretched out the yarn. Either I’ll need to learn how to do that better, or I’ll be hand sewing.

I did 2 1/4″ of 2 x 2 ribbing, and I have about 3/4 inch of stockinette done. I was planning to do a fitted cardigan and shape for the waist, but I keep waffling on that. I guess I’ll just knit a little more and see how it goes. One thing that’s nice – the steek area is probably pretty close to the size of the button band I’m planning, so trying it on should still give me a pretty good idea of how it will fit.

1-8-2008

Short row headaches: I did 3 short rows across the back of the EPS cardigan, spaced a couple of inches apart. I had a lot of trouble with this since the sweater is worked in the round. I understand how to do the wrapping technique for the stitches, but I’ve never tried it in circular knitting before, and I couldn’t find any instructions on how to do it for circular knitting. When knitting in the round, by the time you come to the wrap on the right-most side, you have a bigger gap to fill than you would if you were knitting flat. I couldn’t figure out how to deal with the gap so that I didn’t get a hole. The first one actually went pretty well, but I don’t really know what I did. The second one was going to have a big hole, so I played around with how to knit the wrap, and although I didn’t have a big hole, I had some loose stitches that didn’t look too great. I think I just picked up the stitch from the row below and knit into it to help fill the hole. I tried to do that on the third one, but I just couldn’t get it to work out, and ended up with a hole. I finally decided to just ignore it and weave in yarn afterward to fill the holes.

As for progress, I’m about half-way done with the second sleeve, and have been looking over what needs to be done for joining the sleeves and working the yoke. I was just going to use the Fair Isle pattern for the Circular Yoke sweater in “Knitting Around”, but it looks like I’ll need to do a bit of adjustment since I’m using a worsted-weight yarn and doing a small sweater. I don’t think I’ll have enough vertical space to fit it all in if I don’t start the pattern until after the first decrease, so I’ll need to omit a few rows.

1-12-2008

Impasse!

EPS is at a standstill.

Following the instructions in “Knitting Around”, I kitted half the depth of the yoke, then decreased 25%, then started the colorwork pattern. (I’m using the Fair Isle pattern straight out of the book.)

Blech.

I tried on the sweater a few rows after the first decrease, and thought it was much too big around the yoke, but continued on, hoping that it would all work out. After another inch or so (about halfway through the first color pattern), the decrease amount doesn’t seem so bad, but there are other problems:

A) The chest area before the decrease is much too big. It looks to me as though I should have started the decreases much sooner – maybe at 25% of the total yoke depth instead of half.

B) The Fair Isle pattern is also starting much, much higher than it appears on the sweater in the book – it looks like it will be barely hit the top of my shoulders. Here’s a photo of the sweater as it appears in the book, but mine appears to be looking more like the top photo on this blog post.

I really don’t want the pattern starting so high. However, if I frog the yoke and start over, do I knit the first Fair Isle pattern (the X’s), and then do my first decrease? Arrrgh! And why is it that nobody else seems to have this problem? Have I messed up?

1-16-2008

The EPS Cardi will soon be 5 inches shorter, due to the fact that I’ll be ripping out the yoke and starting the color pattern 1″ from the sleeve join.

1-22-2008

I’m almost finished with the yoke on the EPS cardigan – just a few more rows to go. I’m very happy with the newer version. I was going to start the yoke patterning 1″ above the sleeve join, but then I decided to add two sets of short rows before starting the colorwork. Since I started and ended the short rows partway into the front yoke, it really made the colorwork start about 1 1/2″ above the join instead. I did chart A, and then the first decrease. Taking a look at where I’d need to do the second decrease, I decided to enlarge chart B by adding a couple of extra rows, so I could do the second decrease right after it. So far it seems to be going well, though I won’t know for sure until I get the entire yoke finished.

It fits well, and I like how it looks so far. I’m really glad I decided to do a cardigan – I think it would be much too hot for me to wear as a pullover.

1-23-2008

I’m finished with the yoke, and ready to start the steeking process. Well, maybe I’ll weave the underarms and all of the loose threads first.

Not that I’m stalling or anything. Ahem. It’s just that I’d like to admire it a bit before I start major surgery.

1-25-2008

The steek is cut!

After trying out a few techniques with the sewing machine (trust me, don’t even bother trying it with the feed dog down), I got the brilliant idea of using the walking foot I bought when I was quilting. Of course, I had to remember how to put the darn thing on my sewing machine correctly, first. But it worked out pretty well.

The biggest problem was the crocheted edging I had done – the presser foot had a little trouble with that thick edge, so I couldn’t sew as closely to it as I’d have liked, and my sewing line wasn’t too straight. But my sewing machine behaved pretty well and didn’t jam up, and I think it will do. I decided against doing a second line of machine stitching – mostly because I didn’t want to push my luck with either stretching out the yarn, or ending up with a big knot of thread on the wrong side in case the machine acted up on me.

I ordered the Meg Swansen DVD “Cardigan Details” and waited until it arrived today before doing the machine stitching and cutting. I’m glad I waited, because it was helpful to see how she did the stitching. And it was also great to see how she finished the cut edge – if I’d seen that first, I might not have bothered with the crochet.

Pluses of using the crocheted steek:

It makes a pretty edge.
It made the steek stitches really easy to see and cut. No fear!
Minuses of using the crocheted steek:

It made the machine stitching more difficult. Would it have been better to do the machine stitching first, and then the crochet? Maybe, as long as the stitching was done far enough away that it didn’t interfere with the stitches you’d be crocheting.
It makes a thicker and harder edging.
I think I probably knitted the yoke a bit farther up than I should have for a cardigan – the neck will be pretty high. But since I probably wouldn’t ever have it buttoned up all the way, I think it will still work out.

1-29-2008

I was originally going to get black buttons for my EPS Cardigan, but was having trouble finding enough of the same button – seems like there’d only be 6 in stock, when I needed 7. I ended up getting some burgundy buttons that match the color of the cardigan fairly well, though they’re not all that exciting. I needed to have SOMETHING so I could call the cardi “finished”, so I put them on but might look around for something better later.

I decided to try a trick I’d heard about, but had never tried – putting a button on the reverse side for more stability. I have 3/4″ buttons on the outside, backed with 1/2″ buttons on the inside. It does seem to help a bit. .

When I first attached the buttons, I noticed that the garter stitch button band around the button holes was really distorted when the cardi was buttoned, and it wasn’t because of the sweater size. I finally realized that distortion was being caused by the buttons themselves, since the worsted-weight yarn was being squished around the buttons. Aha! I just needed to sew them on more loosely, so that there was enough space between the button and the button band to allow the buttonhole band to fit in between. I probably should have gotten buttons with shanks. But fortunately, my mother had taught me a great lesson on sewing buttons (which of course, I had completely ignored when sewing these on).

So I took off the buttons and put them on again this way, creating a yarn shank (the same technique applies when using thread):

1. Stick a needle or similar object(s) under the yarn when sewing on the button. This gives you some slack in yarn, while maintaining a nice, even tension.

2. After sewing on the button, don’t break off the yarn. Pull out the needle you used as a spacer. Stick your sewing needle up through the fabric under the button, and wrap the yarn around the button to wind it around the yarn holding the button in place. For yarn, once around is probably enough. For thread, wrap it around a few times. This makes a little shank for the button. Then stick the needle back down through the fabric to the wrong side and secure the yarn.

Voilà! A nice little shank to give your fabric some extra room.

1-30-2008

Done!

I did a little bit of waist shaping, and used 2×2 ribbing for the hem and cuffs (about 2.25 inches in both cases). It was knit in the round and then steeked.

I worked 3 sets of short rows across the back, a couple of inches apart. Then I worked 2 more sets right before starting the yoke pattern. For these, I worked them all the way across the back and sleeves, to a few stitches into the front yoke. Then I did another two sets after the colorwork was done. On these last ones, I just did them to the center point of the sides.

I used 7 steek stitches. The first and last stitch I did in purl, my own “unvention”. This worked out great – the purl column not only helped the steek facing to flip back neatly, but it also gave me a great ridge to follow when picking up the stitches for the button band.

I knew that a crochet steek wouldn’t be sufficient to hold the smooth, worsted-weight yarn, but I didn’t know how to deal with the raw cut edge of the steek otherwise, so I did a crocheted steek using a lighter weight wool (Knit Picks Telemark), but then also machine stitched it. After I’d already done the crochet, I saw on Meg Swansen’s “Cardigan Details” DVD how she tucks in the raw edge of the steek and tacks it in place – if I’d seen that first, I might not have bothered with the crochet. But since it was already done, I left it as it was.

I did the crochet first, and the machine stitching afterward, but it might have been better to do it the other way – I ended up sewing over the crochet in a few places. The crochet really makes it easy to see where to snip the threads, and it makes a very neat edge. For the machine stitching, I attached the walking foot I had from when I was quilting – it helped guide the sweater through a little bit easier.

The steek facing folds back very nicely, and after blocking, it lies flat and doesn’t even need to be tacked in place.

For the button band, I picked up a stitch for every 2 out of 3 rows on the front, and every stitch around the neck. I picked up from the wrong side, as suggested by Meg Swansen. I knitted 4 garter stitch rows (not including the pick-up row), and then bound off with a 2-stitch I-cord bind-off – this made a very nice edge. I did one-row buttonholes on the 3rd row. Also on the 3rd row, I decreased heavily along the back neck (K2, K2tog). Note: when I was knitting along the colorwork section, I noticed that I was getting little purl bumps in the colored yarn. Remembering that I saw a tip about this (not sure if it was the “Cardigan Details” or the “Knitting Around” video), I grabbed a crochet hook and reversed the stitches already on the needle to make them knits as they faced me, instead of purls. That eliminated the little purl blip of color that I would have gotten otherwise, and made a nice, clean line.

I really love how this turned out, and I learned a lot! Thanks to Margene for thinking up the EPS KAL.