Knitting for a change

I haven't blogged about knitting since June, when I started Amsterdam Cardigan.

I finished the knitting Tuesday night watching Obama's acceptance speech and finished the seaming Friday while listening to the President-Elect's first press conference. As I did so, I thought of many reasons this is an Election-08 commemorative sweater.



Color: I dyed the yarn specifically for this project. It is a range of

• Browns -- 'nuff said.
• Orange -- when my biracial niece was little, she did not get why people were called black and white; it didn't match reality. She was adamant she was orange. OK, she was three, I was fifteen and it was the Seventies. I have to admit it was fun to hear her insist she was orange. I may have asked her about it a few times.
• Olive Green -- Damn, but we need a Green president! And olives? Well, we latte-sipping volvo subaru-driving elites like olives with our arugula.

International Cooperation: This Sweater has a passport.





The Blue-Faced Leicester is from England, milled in Italy and came to me via Virginia. (Thank you, Newly-Blue Virginia!) The pattern designer lives in the Netherlands, the stitch pattern is named after a French pastry.

Unity. I was going to run out of yarn, so dyed a second lot. The second lot was pretty close to the first, but not close enough. I only need about half a skein of the second lot, and it took work, some ripping and reknitting to unify the results.

All that unity meant that I had an extraordinary number of ends to weave in. I did much of the weaving in while at my doctor's office waiting for my annual check-up, which I am very privileged to be able to afford. May we all be so privileged in the future!

Conclusion: This is super soft wool in a super warm, comfy pattern. A great sweater to wear instead of turning up the thermostat. Knitting details on my ravelry page. (In the very off chance you care about the knitting details and are not on ravelry? Drop me an email.)

Cardigan math

I have 630 grams of BFL Aran to knit my brioche rib sweater. According to the pattern, it ought to take 750 grams of yarn. However, I am not using the recommended yarn or gauge. How close will I be, and if I won't make it, how much more yarn should I dye?

I have finished the back, which weighs exactly 180 grams.


Calculating from the pattern, I can figure the relative proportions of the back, fronts and sleeves.

Back: 7281
Fronts: 9082
Sleeves: 13518

total = 29881

means that back is 24% of garment and I would need 750 grams

Now if I make sleeves more narrow, reduce cuffs, make collar more narrow, I get it down to

Back: 7281
Fronts: 7970
Sleeves: 10536

total = 25787

means that the back is 28% and I need 637 grams. Sigh, so close.

Cardigan in progress

Wool2Dye4.com sells some nice yarns, including a BFL Aran that is just wonderful. However, it is not common for indie dyers to dye and sell this yarn. When they do, it is often hand-dyed in small batches in bright variegated colors.

It's not hard to understand why. While many folks will purchase hand dyed yarn over the internet, they usually want it for a one-skein project, like socks or a hat. There's too much risk in purchasing enough for a sweater. And cost. Hand dyeing is labor intensive so the cost of a sweater's worth of hand dyed yarn would be quite dear.

Why would indie dyers create sweater sized dyelots? That's another issue. I doubt there's much of a market. There's a lot of capital invested in dyeing a large enough dye lot of Aran yarn for a sweater. Most of the BFL Aran that gets purchased from indie dyers goes into knitting wool soakers. For those not in the know, that's diaper covers. They are awfully cute and seem practical but what a use for a premium yarn!




So I figured I would dye this yarn and make a sweater.




I had in mind a brioche rib cardigan, although I really didn't know how to knit one. I just love the brioche stitch and thought the yarn would work well. I figured the internet was my friend in figuring out the How.

Well, I found the gold mind! Brioche stitch heaven. Nancy Marchant has created one of the clearest and most useful sites on the internet. And a pattern for a simple brioche cardigan as well! Frankly, given all the information she provides for free, anyone who understands sweater construction could figure out that sweater on their own, but it was only five bucks, it would save some math and damn! She deserves the money just for the information on her website!





Of course there's something I hadn't considered. Brioche takes more yarn than stockinette. I am not sure I dyed enough for the sweater. Lots of back of the pattern calculations estimating square inches to knit and square inches per gram of what I have knit --- I may be really, really close.

I did take careful notes on the dyes used, I can probably dye another skein or two close enough to work -- maybe alternating rows on the sleeves, but I'll finish the back and do more calculations before deciding if I need to do that.