Category: Knitting

Knitting information with posts about techniques, tools, tips and advice, and how to learn new things.

Beautiful Wool For Knitting From Sonder Yarn Company.

Here is a look at some new yarn I recently purchased from a new (to me) shop.

Sometimes I cannot resist a yarn sale. I’ve become much better at controlling my urges when it comes to yarn. I have narrowed my choices down to buying beautiful wool.

The Sonder Yarn Co. is located in Canada. I’ve been watching their yarn and knitting projects slip by on Instagram (I’m usually looking in the middle of the night when I can’t sleep), and I’ll tell you.. they have lovely colors!

You must spend a lot to get free shipping, and I just never wanted to spend the money. And then, I saw that there would be a sale on their pretty yarn. A very good sale too, at 20% off!

I had just finished knitting the Blueberry Vodka Lemonade sweater pattern and was seriously thinking of knitting another one. I needed fingering weight yarn for it.

My Wool Order

The Sonder Yarn company said there would be a bit of a delay getting all the sale orders out. I was in no hurry. Finally, I got an e-mail saying that my order had been sent to the wrong place. Instead of waiting for the order to come back to them, they were sending a replacement to me. So, altogether it took about three weeks to arrive.

The yarn did not come in the box you see in my photo – just stuffed into a bag. There was nothing extra, just a “thank you” on the order invoice. I am only mentioning this because some places add extras, like a free stitch marker, tissue wrapping, etc. – this place did not.

On the same day that the yarn arrived, another shipment of something arrived and came in this box, which fit the yarn very nicely. Perfect!

Sonder Yarn delivery with two colors and nine skeins.
Yarn delivery – (did not come in this box)

The Fingering Weight Yarn

The Sunday Morning 4 Ply yarn is fingering weight. It is made up of two types of wool; 75% BFL, or yarn from the Blue Face Leicester sheep, and 25% Masham wool. I ordered the color “French Press” which is a rich brown. Each skein has 432 yards!

Sonder Yarn Sunday Morning 4 ply in French press brown color
Color “French Press”

The DK Weight Yarn

The other yarn I ordered is Sunday Morning DK. It is made up of the same wool mentioned above for the 4ply. I choose color “Toast & Honey” colorway, and I love it! Each skein has 268 yards.

Already I have cast on and begun knitting a second Calliope pullover in this pretty golden color. My first Calliope came out too big, and the yarn was not right for it. I’ve been wanting to knit another for a while. I think this pretty wool will be just right.

sonder yarn skein in Toast and honey color way.
Pretty Toast and Honey yarn color.

Happiness

All in all, I am very happy with my yarn purchase. It’s tough buying yarn online but the colors shown on the website match very closely to what I got. The brown really caught my eye, but I ended up loving the golden color even more once I had it in hand.

I spent more money than I usually do, but I have gorgeous yarn and plans to use it. Also I got free shipping because of the amount, so that’s a plus. The wonderful color options may keep me going back for more, or at least keeping an eye out for sales at the Sonder Yarn Co..

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How To Sew Buttons on Knitting

Finally I have figured out a good way to sew buttons onto knitting.

One reason I haven’t knit many cardigans is because I have to make a button band and then sew on buttons. I love the knitting process, but the finishing up is not as fun for me.

sewing buttons on a sweater
Eva Cardigan buttons being added on the wide band.

Recently I knit the Eva Cardigan pattern which calls for four buttonholes with, of course, four buttons. I decided it was time to figure out how to correctly add buttons to my hand knits.

This page is being written as a reminder of how I added the buttons, and is as much for me as anyone!

There are a lot of videos, but I only watched one. It was very basic, but someone commented, below the video, that beginning from the FRONT of the sweater would hide the knot left by tying the yarn ends. I like that idea. I went a step further and pulled the little ends under to weave in. Here is how I did it.

buttons to sew onto a cardigan knitting project
Ceramic buttons for the hand-knit Eva Cardigan sweater

How to Begin

If possible, use the same yarn you used to knit the project. The Eva Cardigan was knit with a DK weight wool yarn. I pulled the yarn strand apart – in half – in order for the yarn to fit through my needle eye.

You will need a needle small enough to fit through the button’s holes. Then, you need to get the yarn through that needle eye. Figure that out first.

Decide where the button will go on the band – to match up with the buttonhole on the opposite side. With the threaded needle, go into the button-band from the front (no button added yet), and leave a tail – image below. Then, come up and go through the button hole and down through the other hole. My buttons only had two holes. Even if you have four holes, just knit the button on and ignore that tail until the button is secure.

sewing on a button
Begin sewing the button on

I went up and down through the holes until they were full – only a few times. Then, I wrapped the yarn around the base of the button for a bit more security. Then, using the two tails, tied a few knots tightly. They are underneath the button, and can’t be seen. Lastly, cut the ends of the yarn a bit short.

The commenter suggested that this would be enough, but on my first button I could still see the ends. And my buttons are fairly big! So I pulled the ends through to the back, using a small crochet hook, and then wove them in. For the remaining three buttons, I left my ends a little longer and wove them in on the back.

sewing on a button
Leave tails to pull through to the back.

Here is how the back of the button looks. It’s pretty neat looking and the buttons feel secure.

sewing on a button
Finished back side of button

I’m quite happy with this way of sewing a button onto a sweater knitting project. I would love to hear from experienced knitters who have suggestions for sewing buttons onto sweaters. Please feel free to help fellow knitters out by leaving a comment! Thank you.

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If at First You Don’t Succeed

Beginning to knit a new sweater pattern called Blueberry Vodka Lemonade, but I messed up and must begin again. It happens.

The motto, “If at first you don’t succeed, try try again” is one I have in mind after casting on for a new sweater, knitting a bunch, and then goofing up badly. I was so looking forward to knitting this new sweater, but I’m not as good a knitter as I had hoped! After knitting all the way through the entire neck ribbing of a new sweater pattern…. I ripped the whole thing out.

It was totally my fault and not the pattern. In fact, this pattern is written better than any I think I have ever knit. Everything is explained in detail, with stitch counts, measurements, etc. to help the knitter. I’ve never knit a pattern by this designer (info below) but wow, I’m impressed…!

sweater neckband
Starting over

I will be starting again, but it is disappointing to get so far and then mess up. I had no hopes of going back and picking up the rib stitches because the yarn is black and difficult for me to see. It’s part of knitting life to make mistakes… it’s how we learn to fix them, or learn to deal with inevitable re-starts.

The Pattern

This new sweater pattern is named Blueberry Vodka Lemonade and is a design by Thea Colman, who is also known as Baby Cocktails in the knitting world. I love the look of this pullover knit in raglan style, with split hem, and 3/4 sleeves. My last project (the Lakeland Tee) also had a split hem, and I really like the look.

The Yarns I Chose

I searched for a while before I settled on two yarn types I wanted to try. I’ve never used either before.

First, a beautiful black, fingering yarn by Sandnes Garn: Tynn Peer Gynt, which comes from Norway. It is really lovely.

The gorgeous turquoise blue yarn is color “Peacock” and is Shetland wool from Harrisville Designs. Another beautiful yarn, which is spun in New Hampshire. I have visited Harrisville Designs, as I lived in NH for many years.

The Shetland seems a bit heavier for a fingering weight. On the other hand the Peer Gynt seems pretty thin.

skeins of wool yarn Shetland by Harrisville Designs, color Peacock and black Sandnes Garn Peer Gynt.
New yarn order

The Swatches

Because the pattern calls for a size 5 needle for the main part of the knitting, I did two different swatches with that size. Both were too large. So, I knit up a shorter swatch with the black yarn using a size 4 needle. It was perfect. Usually I knit a larger swatch but I didn’t want to use up the yarn.

(I had to wind the Shetland, by hand over my knees, and it was very easy to do so.). The black yarn does not need winding. I pulled from the outside.

Knitting swatches drying
Swatches

Messing Up and Making Changes

I want to follow this pattern as it is written, so I used a needle one size larger for the neckband. I knit all the way through the set up row – for the raglan and then my issues began.

When I re-knit this, and I will soon, I plan to switch to the smaller (main) needle on that “knit around one row”. I found it difficult to switch needles while knitting short rows and making the lacy parts at the raglan. I kept getting confused as to which needle I should be using. This is probably just me and my inexperience.. AND the fact that I did something really stupid. When I made the short row turn, I began following the wrong part of the directions (mark your place !!!! – I’m yelling at myself here).

Once I did it incorrectly – with the yarn overs and such, I totally could not go back without making a mess. AND that dark yarn didn’t help … so difficult to see.

Before I gave myself some kind of stroke, I just pulled the needles out and said, “Oh well, I guess I’ll start over”. Keep calm and carry on… and all that. I’ll cast on again later today.

If you plan to knit this sweater, you will need to be good at yarn overs (YO) as that is how the open holes along the sleeves will be made. Purl Soho has a nice, short, to-the-point video to help with that. See it here if you need help: https://youtu.be/n6Bpde5wihE

cat and yarn image

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How Do You Know When to Just Give Up?

My first instinct is to rip the whole thing out. I’m talking knitting here, and looking at a big mistake, or a very tough and time-consuming mistake to fix. Are you calm, cool and collected and simply get on with the fix? Or, like me do you see lots of unraveling ahead – like the entire thing? How about tossing the project (and all at the yarn to go along with it) into a container, covering it up and hiding it so you can forget about the blunder.

All these things crossed my mind as I looked at the mess that was supposed to be a buttonhole on the Cobblestone #2. Eventually, I did use an embroidery needle with light blue yarn and attempt a row pick up. I was not sure any of this would work, but I made the effort. It took a lot of time, which negated all the time it took me to knit about 4 rows that were then removed.

Big note here: The problem was all me, and not with the pattern. I’m doing a completely different type of buttonhole, rather than the super simple one in the pattern. I’ve knit this sweater before, and had no problems at all. It’s a great pattern.

Even the video for doing this buttonhole is excellent. (I decided to change the buttonhole from the one in the pattern to make it stronger.) The Horizontal Buttonhole video is by Suzanne Bryan, and can be found here. What I did was try to follow my notes instead of watching her video again. (I’d already successfully made one buttonhole by watching and knitting along). Live and learn. I can’t trust my notes.

fixing knitting mistakes by the row
Lifeline and ripping back in knitting

What really upset me the most is that I’d already had trouble counting my stitches. YES… I have learned that I CAN’T COUNT.

Is this sweater cursed? I’m wondering that too. The increase rows call for a lot of increases at once. It is easy to lose count. Also, I have changed the pattern and am doing stockinette and not garter. For that reason, I am making my increases differently. I did it all correctly (I realize that the RRI includes a knit stitch), but when it came to counting the 200+ stitches, I simply screwed up. Then I thought I needed more stitches, added them on the next row, and counted again… wait, now I have too many stitches! So, backwards I go, unknitting my unneeded fix.

My exasperated conclusion: Quit counting stitches. Assume I am knitting it correctly and just keep going. This is not really a good idea, and I know it, but at this point I am quite mad at myself and have lost all confidence in my counting abilities. It was not a good day.

This sweater could take a year to finish because every time I knit, I end up “tinking” my work! Deep breath. Glass-es of wine, and try again tomorrow.

What Does it Take to Completely Frog a Project?

I’ve only once become so frustrated with a sweater project that I completely gave up. I don’t regret it to this day. When the knitting becomes a dreaded chore, it’s time to quit.

I was not at that point with Cobblestone. I know it’s a great pattern because I’ve already knit it once without a problem! Also, I did successfully rip back those three rows. Yay me!

I did give up when knitting the Oxbow Cardigan by Andrea Mowry. I’d gotten a long way with both sleeves finished, and much of the body – see my photo. I’d had trouble with the patterning on the sleeves, but managed to figure that out. It was the body that did me in. Whenever I thought about knitting Oxbow, I would begin to stress. Maybe the thing was too advanced for me, but I hated the pattern. To this day, I have not been inclined to attempt a textured pattern cardigan.

Knitting the Oxbow cardigan sweater
Knitting progress on the Oxbow

The following day I was back knitting my blue, Cobblestone #2. All went well and there was no “tinking”. I even managed to make my second buttonhole without a problem (knit along with Suzanne’s video). Lessons learned.

Here is a link to the Cobblestone Cardigan by Jarod Flood (link goes to Ravelry).

knitting divider cat with needles

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