Knitting the Telja Sweater & Tundra Update

Three projects on the needles!  Right now the focus is a Lopi for a KAL at The Woolly Thistle.  I love Lopi yoke sweater designs.  All the colorwork added to a rather very simple design has always intrigued me.  I casted on the Telja Sweater which is a design from Jennifer Steingass.  I am knitting this sweater up in Léttlopi yarn which I have not knitted with this weight of Lopi yarn before.  I knitted up both sleeves first and did a provisional cast-on.  I plan to pick up those stitches and knit a hem to finish them.

The body has been a bit of a challenge!  I originally did a provisional cast-on which for over 220+ sts is a pain in the butt!  I then followed the colorwork pattern which I was thinking I should change but I pushed on through it.  Once I was done with the lower body colorwork, I put the body of the sweater on two needles to check the fit. I do this all the time no matter what!  This saves a lot of frustration later if you know your sweater is going to fit once done!  I put the body on two needles to see how this sweater is fitting! UGH!!!!!!!

I knew it was going to be too large!  Dang, it all!  Why is it I often don't listen to my gut feelings when knitting? I swear, I make more work than is ever needed when I ignore these little snippets of instinct!  I slammed on the knitting needle brakes and frogged all this work.  I totally readjusted my sizing and the design of the pattern. As many of you know I am a huge fan of Elizabeth Zimmermann and her EPS (EZ's Percentage System). 

EPS (from Wikipedia)

Zimmermann devised her "EPS" (Elizabeth's Percentage System) calculation for sizing garments based on gauge and desired body circumference.^[6] Her "EPS" is still widely used by designers: it consists of a mathematical formula to determine how many stitches to cast on for a sweater, given that the sleeves and body are usually proportionate no matter what yarn or gauge is used. EPS can be found in her books that are sold through the family-run business Schoolhouse Press.

Once I frogged out my work, I went right back to my gut instincts!  I quickly crunched the numbers again with EPS method.  Casted my new amount of stitches back on my needles with a Knit2, Purl2 rib.  I made several mistakes in the colorwork over and over again after knitting five rounds of gray!  All signs that I should have stopped long ago!  I removed the colorwork again and the five rounds of gray that went with this design. I did knit the five rounds of gray on the sleeves and I liked that look there, but I found on the body since I am not following the design it just looked off-ish. 

Low and behold all the color work for the body is now done! I only did two rounds of the gray to help tie in the design work. Everything is now spot on!  I can just knit mindlessly around in circles until I get to the where I will be joining up the arms.

Tundra Update! 

October 10th we saw heavy wet snowflakes mixed in with rain!  For me, this is always a great sign to know Mother Nature is doing her job and teasing me with a bit of the white stuff.

October 12th we are closing in on single digit daylight hours. I love this time of the year as we move into darkness with the hunkering down feeling for the arrival of winter.

The tundra always has some wonderful play on light.  I was biking last Thursday and was able to watch this play on light through the clouds and across the tundra.

Little Miss Tally sums up her day of beach walks, and a tundra walk . . . ah, bliss time to rest after dinner.

Thanks for stopping by!

Neck Opening!

This is what happens when you have knitted several (exact number hmmm not sure) Lopi/yoke sweaters!  You just knit around and around and around, tossing in wonderful motifs that fit into the mental picture I have of my new Nordic traditional sweater.  This sweater called Solstice (my name, my creation) is about snow, mountains, and cross-country skiing. Each motif has a connection to one of those three aspects of my world.  

HOWEVER! One will need a NECK no matter what!  I totally forgot about the NECK opening and how or what method would I use to design the neck opening!  YIKES!  The knitting trolls have been rather quiet but sure enough, they were scheming up their next plan of attack and the little nasty trolls once again arrived and tossed me yet another troll attack!  

I may have to frog back two rounds to start my neck work.  Luckily, I was not too far along before the troll attack!

I will use EZ's Kangaroo Pouch for the neck opening.  I now need to think about this, organize my assault, watch the DVD I have from Schoolhouse Press, and set up the Kangaroo Pouch which will be steeked.

Knit & Ski or Ski & Knit

A traditional Norwegian drop shoulder sweater using Bartlett sport weight yarn, EZ's percentage system, and motifs from a variety of sources.

2/16/18 Time for a blog post.  Our ski race for this weekend was postponed until next weekend due to our charming weather out here on the edge of the Bering Sea.  It never fails . . . when I felt the most organized for a ski race ever!  Bering Air said, "We haven't flown into Koyuk since last Friday, we are not flying in now due to weather: snow, blowing snow, and the death of airlines: Freezing Rain!  Now I will be honest, the last place I want to be stuck with 16 middle school kids is Koyuk!

2/17/18 Staying home and weathering out the storm in my HOUSE sounds like a grand idea.  Only the storm hasn't been bad other than a lot of wind today which is Saturday.  Our first ski practice of the day was with the elementary ski crew grades 1st through 4th. A competent group of young skiers had the great joy of tackling winds over 20 mph.  UGH!  No matter what this is one of the hardest places to try to be skiers.  Between, winds, overflow, storms, cold, and lack of new snow for long stretches . . . we keep the village kids skiing.

Groomed and skiers skiing up Picnic Hill a long climb that is really fun to blast down!

The girls sitting and listening to the kids who are way down at the bottom that came out to ski on their own.  As you can see we groom and ski the drifts as the tundra doesn't hold much snow in winds over 30mph.

My husband who grooms for us.  We use an Arctic Cat BearCat and a YTS groomer.

This is Round About that we ski out to most days. I have started to call this "Candy Land." It looks like the game board when we get all the colorful cones and hoops set up for the skiers to use for games which build skills.

This would be "overflow" usually we ski across this area but on Wednesday we had a water obstacle to add more fun or is that challenges to our skiing.

Our older skiers which we call race Team.  This is part of the crew we travel to ski races with.

Knitting . . . I am loving my sweater which I named Winter Solstice.  The motifs are coming together nicely and I enjoy planning as I knit.  The overall theme of this piece is winter, snow, mountains, and cross-country skiing.  Each motif has a meaning that relates to the theme.  I have tried it on a few times and I can not say enough why this is so important!  I place the body on two long circular needles and slip it on.  I have been able to correct most sizing errors using this method. Trying on your knitting and measuring it all the time is really important I think to have a successful and wearable knitted item.

Village Happenings:  We have clean running water again.  Some major leaks have been found and work will be done on those in the spring or summer.  There is still a huge hole out by our place and that will be there for some time I know!  We have the Iron Dog Race about to arrive early this week.  The largest event the Iditarod Dog Sled Race will be arriving in March.

Our daylight is lengthening to over 9 hours of daylight and increasing daily.  Our daylight even seems longer as sunrise and sunset are rather exaggerated this far north.  The daily colors that greet us in the sky are just stunning!  We are lucky to have these stunning northern colors close our days, too.

Rough Start . . . Carraig-Fhada Vest

Oh my let me count the ways I can totally screw up a project and have so many restarts!  Really . . . how can I love knitting so much and yet just be tortured by the knitting trolls!  Last night, I may have won and sent the little buggers back into hiding for a bit!

A wonderful swatch with great tension and all things I love about knitting! This pattern is from Kate Davies Inspired by Islay, called Carraig-Fhada vest, knitted with Buachaille yarn.

I started off great with knitting the full recommended swatch but here lies the first ERROR!  I have a wonderful swatch and I could duplicate sts colors on it to see what I actually really did like and what caught my eye. DID I WRITE THE NEEDLE SIZE DOWN---NOPE-NO-NOT AT ALL!!!!!!! When will I get over this major personal flaw in knitting?  Why is it so hard to write DOWN NEEDLE SIZE 3.5MM?  Oh, I say, to myself all the time, "I will remember what needle size, of course, I will remember your size needle!" Do I remember the needle size . . . not often enough.

Then there was the issue with the twisted sts ribbing . . . too loose, I didn't go down a needle size or two. Which when I got to the colorwork was very loose and floppy. I don't care for that kind of knitting at all my knitting has to have "ganas" which is Spanish for balls meaning it needs to be a bit firm with some substance to the knitted fabric. I frogged and started the twist sts ribbing again on smaller needles and NOPE still didn't like it. I went back to the tried and tested true to the core ol'K2, P2 ribbing on smaller needles and reduced sts.  I am an EZ percentage system fan, I know I can redesign anything and make my knitting work for me. Although I am trying to follow a pattern, I am all about tweaking it to make it mine and to make it work for me! I know I can do these things when I am not screwing up the needle size!

The colorwork and the increase I picked just looked too messy, my knitting was once again just to loose and did not resemble my great swatch at all.  STOP!  What the heck is going on here?  Those dang knitting trolls! I know for a fact these trolls live and run around causing mayhem for us knitters. I imagine trolls rubbing their hands, chatting and grunting with each other and planning their attract when I am not looking. . . they are giggling at all my errors and loving the mayhem they are creating . . . but at last, I won!  I frogged a bit, fixed needle size, fixed increases, and did 2 rounds of colorwork correctly and set my knitting down for the night. Once you get the bothersome knitting trolls under control you need to leave them as they retreat to their den all pissy that they didn't win and can not longer torment the H-E-double-toothpicks out of you!