Knitting projects I have completed or have in progress. My thoughts and review of the pattern, yarn, and outcome. Also knitting project ideas to consider or find for free.
Knitting a little Playdate cardigan for a new baby boy. Blue “Putnam” yarn from Miss Babs is perfect for this little gift knit.
I’m so happy to have a reason to knit the Playdate Cardigan again! This is such an awesome pattern, with very good instructions from Tin Can Knits. The first Playdate I knit taught me about pockets and button bands. I think it was also one of the first times I did the Kitchener stitch.
Now, I am knitting this cute pattern again for a baby boy. The first Playdate (pattern linked down the page) was not for any particular child and I still have the little sweater. This time a good friend’s little boy grand-baby is arriving in December and he will be the recipeint.
The Yarn
I chose blue Putnam yarn, in color “Coos Bay”, from Miss Babs. The yarn is made up of 75% merino wool and 25% nylon, and is machine washable. Skein yardage is 400 and this size (3-6 months) sweater uses 350. (If you want to knit with some nice yarn, check out Miss Babs.)
October 21st, I began the project using the Old Norwegian cast-on. First, I had to knit the two pocket liners and then I began the body.
Pockets are knit first
When I knit this sweater before, I used some merino wool with silk in it and the yarn was very slippery. This yarn is more suitable for a sweater. Playdate #1 page.
The more I knit with this yarn, the more I really like it! The shoulders of the Playdate sweater have been grafted using the Kitchener stitch. One sleeve is nearly complete.
I dislike using DPNs and began the sleeve with a 9-inch circular. Eventually I had to switch to wood DPNs but it is not a problem as there is plenty of room on each needle for the stitches.
Sleeve #1
Back and shoulders being worked
Cute little pockets
The inside of pocket which will be stitched down later.
Button Selection
Because of the small sweater size, I plan to do only four buttons. My choices are nautical designs, little tractors, or cute animals. I’m leaning toward the animals.
Once the pockets are sewn up and the buttons are added this little sweater will be ready to go. I have already washed and blocked it. Quite a bit of yarn is left which means a little hat or baby socks could be knit to match.
Knitting a simple wool chair pad to use up some heavy weight and worsted wool. This DIY pattern uses Fair Isle, colorwork that is simple and can easily be changed.
Five cozy scarf patterns to begin knitting this Fall. Keep for yourself or give to friends and family. The selection has small and long scarves, with many free patterns included.
Planning to knit the Easy V pullover pattern by Caitlin Hunter.
Having grown up in the 60’s there is some bohemian / hippy blood in my veins. I love a unique boho pattern and the “Easy V” sweater caught my eye.
The designer is Caitlin Hunter of Boyland Knitworks. I’ve knit a huge shawl of hers, which was a lot of fun (see it at the end of this page). Also my very first sweater knitting project was one of hers called “Umpqua”. It was a fail for me because I used the wrong kind of yarn (superwash) and it grew huge! I didn’t know any better at the time.
The Easy V has a colorwork yoke and colorwork on the sleeves. I believe it is meant to be a loose pullover. The pattern link is down the page if you’d like to see examples of the pattern and buy it.
Time to Cast On – Twice
I hope this is not a bad omen, but I had so much trouble beginning the cast-on. First I used the wrong needle size (I’m blaming that on the wine.) Before I realized my needle size mistake, I had decided to add some green mohair with the Plotulopi to give it strength.
I cut the yarn and didn’t bother to frog it. I began again with the correct size needle (size 4). This time I ran out of yarn in the tail of my Old Norwegian cast on! I finished it with a regular cast on.
Holding the two yarns together will be fiddly, but that Lopi yarn by itself breaks very easily.
I don’t know what is up with the cakes of Plotulopi as they are all attached together in the center. I have plenty of the yarn, so loosing a bit to that weirdness is okay. Getting a good color shot of that wool will be tough it seems!
Spincycle & Primrose Yarn Co.
Two Necklines Begun
After I had worked a bit on the green neckline, it began to look pretty large. I decided to begin again with a size 3 needle using some white Lettlopi yarn. It’s hard to tell a size on this sweater because the neckline is very unqiue. I did not do a gauge swatch mainly because I didn’t want to use up my hand spun yarn on a swatch. BUT… once some knitting had been done I did check my gauge and it’s very close. Of course the item has not been washed and blocked either.
I kept the green collar / neck and will end up making two of these sweaters!
I began the colorwork using the size 6 needle, but ended up going up to a size 7. This yoke gets large around with over 300 stitches on the needle. I’m knitting sweater size 3.
Working with this type of colorful hand-spun yarn can be tricky. I love the colors, but they can end up looking very different once knit into a project.
The yarn I chose for this colorwork yoke are: Primrose Yarn Company’s “Undergrowth” shown in the middle of the three skeins below. Also used the blue “Magic Hat” (below in skein and ball) and the speckled “Starling” (ball).
Looking at the skeins, I thought that “Undergrowth” would be more pink, but actually it is more tan / brown. Unfortunately you don’t really know until the item is knit. This yarn is too expensive to waste on a swatch, IMO.
The colors are good together, but not really what I had expected. The white color area used up nearly one skein of my leftover Lettlopi, so the main color for the body and sleeves will be brown Lettlopi.
Easy V in Green
My second Easy V is knit with Plotulopi and mohair held together. The colorwork yoke contains some variegated lime green-blue, dark blue plotulopi and other yarns I am using up.
I will be writing another page about the completed knit of this pattern, but at least it seems I have finally decided on size and colors.
It turns out that this yoke had a line on the colorwork chart that used three yarn colors at once. I changed it to two for my yoke, but the designer has updated the pattern so they are all two colors.
More by this Designer – Moon Sisters – Shawl by Caitlin Hunter
The Moon Sisters shawl is a great way to use up yarn. It is done in mostly knits and purls with a fun bit of colorwork in the center.
The peaceful days of camping in the wilderness go perfectly with knitting. What could be better than having coffee outside, with knitting on my lap? We camped…
This slouchy watchcap pattern is worth the tedious knitting. It is also an excellent take-along travel knit.
It has taken a while to finish this watchcap pattern. The pattern is simple, but the knitting is tedious. Round and round we go with knit one, purl one. The decreasing is unique, and the end product is totally worth the monotonous knitting. See the pattern link down the page.
Hats are good traveling projects, and I knit a lot of this one in the truck while taking local trips.
I chose this orange yarn envisioning walks in the woods in Autumn when cool, crisp hiking weather coincides with hunting season. It is bright enough to work as hunter orange.
Yarn used: Camp Colors in Orange, fingering weight. Needles: Size 0 for cast on, Size 1 to knit.
If you dislike double-pointed needles, like I do: When the pattern said to transfer stitches to 4 DPNs, I used one type of stitch markers to divide for the DPN placement (little black markers). I used another type to mark the decreases (colorful pin markers).
Markers for sections & decrease stitchesKeeping the 16” circularKnitting in the truckGood traveling knit
This pattern can be made as a watchcap with a rolled up brim, or a shorter version with no roll. The longer hat can be worn slouchy. I had previously knit this hat using Camp Colors yarn in light blue.
The pattern is well written with directions that are easy to follow. Information is included for those who wish to do a tubular cast-on, which I did not do, but may try if I knit it again.
Remember that the hat is being knit with the wrong side facing.
Be careful weaving in the ends and remember which side will be facing, including with the brim rolled.
*Tip: I despise DPNs and knit nearly all of the crown decreases with circular needles. I kept the 16” circular for quite a while, then changed to a 9” circular. Eventually I went to 4 DPNs when there were fewer stitches to worry about.
Knitting is done on wrong sideCrown
The unisex design works for anyone, and information is given if you want to make it smaller around for the little ones.
I think this hat would look nice knit with any type of fingering weight yarn. A solid color will show mistakes more clearly, as you can probably see I made some!
Finished October 17th, just in time for Halloween!
A knitting pattern review of the Venlig sweater using Woolfolk’s Flette bulky yarn.
I chose to knit the VENLIG sweater pattern mainly so I could use Woolfolk’s Flette bulky yarn. This yarn looked (and is) so soft that I jumped in and bought the pricy pattern. Ten dollars for a sweater pattern is a lot. This page contains my review of an unnecessarily confusing pattern for a simple raglan pullover.
I have a link to the pattern buying page at the end of this post.
Making This Pattern Easier to Follow
Problems with the pattern.
First, pattern printouts should have readable type. My eyes are not good, but this pattern has the tiniest print possible! The teeny tiny print was very difficult to read. Come on designers – make your patterns readable on paper! It may seem old school to print out a pattern, but that is what I do. (Without internet and power, a paper pattern is necessary. I just came through a hurricane (Ian) and had no electricity for four days. Knitting was my sanity.)
I should have added it to Knit Companion on my iPad so I could read it without using a magnifying glass. But a bigger problem was the difficult to follow pattern. The way the designer separated the raglan sections and added increases, along with short rows – done as “wrap and turns” – was confusing.
Tip: Use a place marker on either side of the “knit one”. That is where the increases are made – before the first marker and after the next. It’s quite simple, but the instructions are hard to follow as you knit along and try to read the tiny print at the same time. Use the markers to guide you. Anyone who has knit raglan style sweaters will get this.
More Mods
I chose not to do the “wrap and turn” and did German Short row shaping instead. I couldn’t’ even understand her wrap and turn directions.
I also made all my increases on the Right Side row and did away with the “make one purl increase”. I used the Backward Loop as my increase and not the M1L and M1R. This was my personal preference. This yarn does not show stitches well, so I figured I’d make the increases as simple as possible.
Reviews of this pattern on Ravelry were unhelpful. Surely I am not the only knitter who had issues?
The Yarn
Once I had the VENLIG pattern, I waited and hoped for a Flette sale. (Be aware there is also a lighter weight Flette yarn, but you need the “bulky yarn” for this pattern.)
One day, there in my inbox, was a notice of a sale from Eat.Sleep.Knit with some yarn listed that included Flette Bulky! Woohoo… I immediately grabbed up my four skeins with a savings of $4.80 per skein. That was huge! And I got free shipping… double win! Eat.Sleep.Knit is one of my favorite places for buying yarn online.
Flette Bulky by Woolfolk – ordered from Eat.Sleep.Knit
So how well does this yarn wind, and what about knitting?
Winding
I had to wind my skeins, which I do by hand, over my knees. And I was a bit worried because of the nubby texture. It wound very easily, but there was a tag attached and I mistakenly cut the yarn at the tag- I should have cut the tag – not the yarn! So I ended up with one small ball and used it to knit my swatch.
Don’t cut the yarn at the tag! And when making the swatch, know your stitch and row numbers because you will not be able to count them.
BoucleFlette swatch
This Flette yarn itself is pretty awesome. It is a boucle (pronounced “boo – clay”) which is a “yarn with a looped, or curled, ply”. It is quite different from anything I have knit with, and super soft. The skeins did have little knots occasionally. I cut out the first one, but decided to knit the others in.
Knitting
As far as knitting with this yarn, it was okay. Unknitting can be tricky and if you have a mistake many rows back there is no way to pick up stitches to unravel – you must tink, or unknit, your stitches. I noticed a dropped stitch and had to bring it up over 5 rows and that was not easy either!
Doing the 1×1 ribbing was tricky too. See my swatch above which has stockinette in the center with garter at the edges – it’s hard to tell what is what!
Below is a photo of my body ribbing. I’m doing knit one, purl one. Can you even tell the difference?
These are knits and purls – can you tell?
Suggestion For the Ribbing
Simply knitting around and around isn’t bad. When it came to the 1×1 ribbing, forget it. I had no idea which was a knit and which was a purl if I lost my place. I ended up placing markers every 10 stitches or so (an even number) knowing that I would begin after each marker with a knit stitch. It was the only way to keep track of my knits and purls.
Knit a 4 inch tall neck
The Sleeves
Because I was worried about yarn amount, I put body stitches on hold at 8 inches to knit the sleeves. I knit the first sleeve on a 16” circular to begin, then changed to DPNs. It was difficult. The yarn is slippery and keeping the stitches on the needles was a pain. On the second sleeve, I used a 16” circular for the entire sleeve after dropping stitches when one of the DPNs slipped right out of the stitches! I was not having fun. (I knit with Lykke wood DPNs, but switched to the same brand 16”.)
I don’t know how to do Magic Loop, but it is probably the best way to knit the sleeves. *Changes made on sleeves: Pick up extra stitches when taking stitches off the waste yarn to close up the gaps under the arms. Usually patterns will say to do this, but this one did not.
Venlig sweater try-on with one sleeve complete
After finishing the sleeves I picked up the body stitches with the smaller size 10 needle and did the ribbing until the yarn was gone – with enough to bind off. I would have liked a little more length, but the yarn was gone.
Flette Colors
On a positive note, Flette yarn has great color selections. Choosing my yarn color was difficult because I had many favorites! I’d have chosen the dark navy blue, but dark colors can be a challenge for my eyesight. I love the dark green and purple-brown colors as well. I’m not ruling out using this yarn for another project. In fact, I wish I had chosen one of the unique colors instead of gray.
Before washing
This sweater is probably my most favorite of everything I have knit. The Flette yarn creates a beautiful, soft fabric. The minimal yarn difficulties are completely worth the trouble.
My final opinion of this sweater pattern is to follow my own changes if I ever make it again. The pattern is basically a normal raglan with short rows. Directions were made difficult for no reason.
This pattern (and yarn) is NOT for beginners. Having sweater knitting experience will be helpful.
How Much Do Sweater Patterns Cost?
Here are some sweaters I have knit recently with the price I paid for the patternat the time. Sweater patterns can be found for FREE and up, but the general price seems to be around $7-$8.
The unisex Cobblestone cardigan, by Jared Flood, was also $10.00 but the directions were excellent. (I loved that the buttonholes were made while the sweater was being knit.) I would certainly knit this one again.
Meadow Moon, by Jennifer Steingass, was $7.00 and has colorwork and great instructions. This designer goes to great lengths to explain her patterns and provides helpful links.
The Carbeth cardigan, by Kate Davies, was around $8.00 and certainly gave me lots to learn. The construction was unique and the folded collar was something new for me. It was missing short row instructions, which I had to figure on my own (yikes), but the intricate pattern was worth the money.
The Calliope and Warm-up were both free patterns, with excellent directions. The Turtle Dove (free) sweater pattern from Espace Tricot uses Woolfolk Luft yarn, which is cheaper than Flette, but also bulky. The pattern is also raglan, and the sleeves could be modified to create a sweater very similar to Venlig, but for free!
Tin Can Knits also offers many free patterns including sweaters.
So paying $10 for this needlessly difficult, yet simple raglan, was too much in my opinion. I only chose it because no reviews of the pattern warned me away… and I wanted to try out the Flette yarn. I did search for other sweater patterns that used the Flette bulky, but did not like them as much.
New England's Narrow Road 