the trouble with cones...

there are so many different sizes and weights! I only save the cones that narrow to a point because they work with my Silver Needles Electric Winder https://knitwords.blogspot.com/2016/11/disaster-averted.html
and I mark the weight (mostly 22 to 26g) on the cone so when doing socks, I know exactly where I am. I never really thought about it but the other cones that have the bigger opening at the top – like Panama is wound on, are 40 to 44g! No wonder I was thinking I’d have enough yarn!

So, not enough yarn, or hardly any…what to do? Just need to finish the armholes and neckline. I definitely do not have enough of the purple to make the doubled stockinette bands that I’ve been using on most of the tank tops. My first thought was to use the ivory Panama, but I would hate that. The denim colour Panama might go but I’d hate that too. To me, it would scream, ‘she ran out of yarn!’
I do have a mostly-cotton sock yarn that has some purple shades in it, along with gray, navy and black but you know with sock yarn, can’t really tell what it will look like until you knit it and I haven't used this one yet. I could stop and knit a pair of socks just to see, or, I could make an armband, attach it and see if it goes okay. If it doesn't go, taking it off would be no big deal because you’re adding it to the selvedge edge so removing it won’t cause any grief or lost stitches and you’d be able to tell before getting into the neckline/open stitches whether to use it or not.
But then, I remembered those nice little crochet-look edges that I used for the armholes on the mother/daughter olive garden tops http://knitwords.blogspot.com/2020/05/saving-grace.html.

I might be lucky and have enough to do that for all three edgings.
Did you know that basically 3 times the width of the needles in work will be the amount used to knit one row of those stitches? The armband takes 60-0-60 stitches. You need to use the yarn triple stranded for the ewrap so I measure out that much (3X 60-0-60 ns, times 3) then another 3 times the width for the actual knitted row and then another 3 times plus a bit for the loose, cast-off row. I pulled this off carefully, folding it over on itself so it doesn’t get tangled and make a knotted mess. Don’t break the yarn, but clip one of those little clothes pin thingys on to mark the length. Do the same again to measure out for the second armhole and by now you should be able to see if you’ll have enough for the neckline which will be a slight bit more. It worked! This is so cute, if it wasn’t purple, I’d probably keep it!

started...

knitting and thinking, thinking and knitting…I think I left you hanging, with me starting each piece, knitting the oatmeal, taking it off, setting aside, starting the next piece…but while doing the pockets, I revised that concept – too much work rehanging and all that, so, went back to a more scientific or maybe I should say, educated, mathematical approach?
Sidebar - Oh man, so frustrating, I’ve forgotten how to spell or is it type? I have no auto-correct on this program and I keep exxcpecting it to fix mistakes like on my iPad!!! Arr-r-r-g-g-gh-h!
BTW, in case I never said this before, knitting at T9 on the LK is not exactly a soothing, walk-in-the-park experience, especially for the almost full width of the bed.  https://knitwords.blogspot.com/2011/06/my-tricked-out-lk.html

It requires yarn spray, elbow grease and a degree of zen-ness, and, space it out – you cannot power knit something like this. Your machine needs to be firmly anchored on a good solid table that is not swaying back and forth. The one I have is sturdy, quite heavy and not portable. If using lighter weight yarns and T3 to 6, this may not be necessary but for the heavy work it does need to be stable. If you’ve ever been knitting on one of those crummy stands where you’re trying to anchor the legs of the table with your own feet spread out, you’ll know what I mean!
Back to the current event, I draw my schematics out on metric graph paper, to scale, in centimetres. Notice how the sleeve underarm point matches with the underarm point of the body. Because I had 4 colours, I divided the overall length of the body (65 cm) by 4 and came up with 16.25 cm, rounded that up to 20 cm just to make it easy. The bottom of the body, pockets and sleeve with be oatmeal and covers the largest area. The next colour, denim, is to divide the oatmeal and smoke which really don't go together and, to use the ivory, I threw a 5 cm band of it between the 10 cm denim stripes, leaving the top of each piece to be finished of in the smoke/gray. Drawing the sleeve to line up with its position on the body shows me where the colour changes are so it all matches up when sewn together!
Oh man, still firing on all cylinders! The Back is done! I love it and I’m already regretting making this in MF’s size which means I’ll have to give it away! ;(
The Back weighs in at 274g!
Not bad for my 30g swatch times 10!

 

was totally stoked...

that I had a plan! Knit up a quick swatch of the ‘Briggs and Little’ Durasport – it is their sock yarn but is slightly heavier that the high-priced, balled sock yarn. It’s a one ply, 80% wool, 20% nylon, 4 oz/113g/430yds skein and although it’s been around for years, there’s only like 8 colours for some reason. I had made myself a hoodie with fairisle stripes https://knitwords.blogspot.com/2015/12/random-thoughts-confessions-rest-of-plan.html , wore it a few times and then abandoned it, not sure exactly why but I chalked it up to the yarn not being as nice as the Forsell 4 ply I was used to. https://knitwords.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-final-of-that-4f-thing.html Could have been no pockets, though - got fed up with it by then…
So now, looking at the leftover skeins, I initially thought I’d have more than enough for a jacket for a man. 400 yds times about 8 skeins means 3200 yds and on the standard gauge, you’d have plenty. I had made the swatch on the LK150, double stranded, T9, washed and dried it, liked the look and feel but something held me back. I had also wound all the skeins into machine-useable cones and somehow it didn’t look like quite so much. I was excited to have a plan and wanted to get going – on the bottom of the swatch, I had made a small, quick hem – starting off single strand, every-other-needle, just for the cast-on, then all needles and  at T4, still single, knit about 12 rows. I could see it was not the weight I wanted and that’s when the idea to go double-strand came to mind. So, hung the EON row to make a hem, added the second strand, dialed up to T9 and made the swatch. After laundering, I loved the little single-strand hem, it did the job of making a nice bottom, didn’t pull in too much and was totally easy. The other option I was considering was making 1X1 ribs on the standard gauge machine and transferring them to the LK. Thought that would be less bulky that going with the doubled stockinette bands of the original garment but wasn’t looking forward to the extra work of moving everything from machine to machine if you know what I mean.
Tempted to throw caution to the wind, I could just start knitting and see how far the first two cones would take me but the thought of having to unravel double-stranded knitting stopped me. Decided to be scientific about it. Weighed the swatch. It’s 30g. Took the swatch and laid it out on the tweedy pullover, counting how many swatches would make up the entire area of the sweater – 6 for each sleeve and 10 for each back/front, total of 32 swatches times 30g means 960g total – more than a little shy – considering pockets and hood and a cardigan should be slightly larger than the pullover! Back to the drawing board?
On the plus side, got both pieces made, successfully, for the Rib’nShrug and the pattern well underway! ;)

progress report and tweaks....

I have the back done and I'm very encouraged by the fact that the remaining cone looks almost the same! of course, the first thing I do is throw the back on my scale and it weighs in at 116g and that's with the waste yarn at shoulders and bottom edge! I weigh the cone and it has 424g remaining (started with 540g) so that translates to 116g for the back - not going to knitpick here and just call it 120g. I know that I had been weighing individual pieces in the past in certain projects for various reasons. On my second Omega hoodie (http://knitwords.blogspot.ca/2014/12/zipped-off.html)
I kept track - it was wool crepe deluxe (2200 yds per pound as opposed to the 1750 ypp for the linen) and a little different shape, but it will give me an idea of the ratio of the pieces. The back was 124g, back band was 20g, one sleeve with cuff was 92g, the hood was 74g and with band added it was 90g, front with pocket and band was 84g. That all adds up to 586g - take the bands out - they were all 5cm, doubled - that's about 70g for bands, so I'm very confident that I should be able to get this GFH done with pockets and hood, with contrast bands at least.
I've been thinking of you KAL-ing with me (hope springs eternal!)and figured I should add an extra consideration because this wouldn't be in the original MFH/GFH pattern as they are knit in stockinette. With the stitch pattern I am using, you may have noticed the vertical lines - there are actually 3 vertical lines separating the two reversed diamond-ish motifs. So I centred the pattern so the three lines run up the centre of the garment because that will look best but I wanted to remind you of my extra little tweak for patterns with vertical lines. After the underarm shaping is done for your size, or, actually before it is done, check and see where the vertical lines are placing in the shaping. Your finished garment will look much nicer if you can have a line (or two or three) running up the straight edge of the body after the underarm up to the shoulder (hope that makes sense). I did change mine - I made the shoulder wider by 2 stitches in order to have two vertical lines at each edge - of course, if you have chosen a stitch without vertical lines don't worry about this! :-) oh yeah and because of those three vertical lines, I added an extra stitch on one side, at the left for the back and will flip the pattern for the fronts and add the extra stitch at the right...and don't forget the yarn marks every 10 cm....oh, and I found a part cone of WCD leftover from Tobacco Road (KW#53) that is a very close match - instead of the beige linen...