Downton Abbey Swap 2015: Sent!

So, in my last post I told you all what I received in my AMAZING Downton Abbey swap package from Ravelry user goodstuff via the Subway Knits Downton Abbey swap. Now it's time to tell you all about the package I put together and how much fun I had doing it!

Teaser photo--here's what I sent to my partner moxydawg:

Downton Abbey Swap 2015: Received!

If you've been following over the past month or so, you'll know that I was involved in a Downton Abbey swap via the Subway Knits podcast. I've shown you all some of the items I've made, though not all, but now that I've gotten my swap package and my partner has received their swap package, I thought I'd take you through what I received (I'll talk more about the package I put together in a later post). It was an awesome swap and super fun and I definitely plan on participating if Maria decides to run it in future years.

First--Here's what I received from my swap partner:

Intrigued? You should be! Let's talk about all of this below.

WIP(again): High Tea Cuffs

As anticipated, even after blocking the High Tea Cuffs by Andrea Jurgrau that I recently finished are FAR too small, even for my delicate little wrists, which means they 100% will not fit an adult human being, so I am re-knitting them.

I'm still using the Knit Picks Imagination Hand Painted yarn in the Ruby Slippers colourway and still using the 3.25mm DPNs, I just decided to cast on more stitches. The pattern repeat is 18 stitches and the last time I'd cast on 36. This time, I decided to cast on 54 stitches, although I worry this will make them too big this time around. My swap partner has gotten back to me with their wrist size (which is bigger than mine, but not a LOT bigger than mine), so I 'm going to just knit one of these (they go fast) and see how big it ends up. If it's more than 3cm too big for me then I'm either going to have to scrap the idea of making the matching cuffs and scarf set or I'm going to have to hope that if I knit this on a 2.75mm needle, I can just make up the difference in row gauge by adding rows to the ribbing and that it will still work out okay.

The cuff on the left is the original one I knit with 2 pattern repeats and the one on the right is the new one, just for comparison.

I'm hoping to have these done by the end of the weekend, so here's hoping you'll get a good FO post by next week. Unless it's all too large and has to be re-done yet again and then I finally decide to scrap the project.

WIP Wednesday: High Tea Cuffs

Let me start out here by saying...these are so close to done it hurts! I can almost promise you that pending epic disasters you'll be seeing these again for FO Friday. I know I said that with the sweater and then it didn't happen, but if I can get the few internet things done that I need to do relatively quickly, I may even be able to finish knitting these tonight and get them blocking. Plus they should block much faster than a full worsted weight sweater.

I'm knitting the High Tea Cuffs (and eventually the matching Jabot) for my swap partner in the Subway Knits Downton Abbey swap (shh...don't tell!). The pattern is from the Unofficial Downton Abbey Knits 2013 and actually calls for laceweight (which I do not have and will never have), but I spent the better part of a week and a half swatching and am confident that my new adjusted gauge math works out just fine. I chose to knit them out of the Knit Picks Imagination Hand-Paints in the Ruby Slippers colourway that I had in my stash for a number of reasons. First...I thought the hand-painted nature of the yarn would add interest while still showing off the lace pattern. Second, my swap partner said they like royal colours and I figured Ruby was pretty royal! Third, it's fingering weight, which is a reasonable substitute for a laceweight. Plus the little bit of alpaca in the yarn makes them soft and gives them just a little of the halo. I really like how they're turning out and I hope my swap partner will too.

The only complaint/problem I have so far is that I did the bind-off as instructed in the pattern and it's WAY too tight. If it doesn't fix itself after blocking I'm going to rip it out and re-do the bind off with a stretchier one. I don't want it too stretchy because it should grip the wrist a little bit, but at the same time I can barely get it over my hand and I have tiny little hands/wrists so I figure that's a good sign I should make it bigger.

Stay tuned for more on Friday, I imagine.

Finished Object: Summer Aran Tank

This summer, the host of one of the podcasts I’ve recently started listening to, Subway Knits, was holding a summer “Armchair Knit Along” while she was in Greece for 5 weeks over summer vacation. The premise was that we should knit patterns inspired by Greece or photos of Greece or use yarn inspired by the same. At first, I wasn’t going to participate because I had absolutely no ideas and no yarn that I thought would work and even less time for adding another project to my days, but inspiration struck me and the prizes were SO AMAZING that I just couldn’t say no.

This was my first KAL experience and while I’m glad I got such a great FO out of it, I’m not sure I got anything much out of the actual social aspects of the KAL. I’m new to the group and I admit that I’m not sure exactly how one becomes part of the inner sanctums on Ravelry forums anyway, so maybe that had something to do with it, but in this particular KAL there wasn’t a ton of participation and I feel like the only chatter that was going on was by the moderator of the group and some incidental posting by a few others. On the other hand, I’ve seen groups with 4000 people participating in a KAL and I feel like it’s easy for your posts and what you’re doing to get lost and it’s even more impossible to keep up, so perhaps it’s better to have something smallish to start with.

The tank I knit for the KAL was the Aran Necklace Camisole by Caroline Bautista out of Interweave Knits Spring 2010. About halfway through the KAL, while not at all searching for inspiration but somewhat lusting after all the amazing prizes, I stumbled upon an idea. In my stash I had a few remnant skeins of Knit Picks CotLin from SO’s cardigan that I knit back in May, and one of the colours is a beautiful deep blue colour called Planetarium. This made me think about the night sky and how much reference to Greek mythology is (or used to be) in astronomy/astrology, which then felt to me like a pretty great tie-in to the KAL. I knew I didn’t have enough of the Planetarium colourway to make a full sweater, but when I found this pattern and saw that the yoke part was knit separately from the body, I knew I could supplement with the remaining Cashew colourway (a rich tan) to make sure I had enough yardage. Added bonus, the cashew colour could be reminiscent of the sandy beaches of Greece to fully round out the theme.



I’m really happy with this tank overall, and it was easy to knit and fairly straightforward, My only issue with the pattern is that a portion of the gauge swatch was done over the cable pattern so swatching for the yoke part of the sweater was overly complex and meant a bit of adjusting. It all worked out in the end, although I had to knit the yoke 3-4 times (some of this was my own fault for not counting rows correctly and trying to knit while I was in meetings and other social settings and losing track of where I was.) The only major mod I had to make to the pattern was that I needed to rip back the strap portions because of gauge and because I didn’t want the back to droop as low as it would have if I stayed with the pattern directions.

This was also my first foray into airplane knitting. I had finished the final iteration of the yoke while waiting in the airport (first time taking knitting through security in a carry on. Zero problems, but I was also flying out of the smaller terminal), and since I had a very short flight to get across the border to see my family I thought I’d see about knitting on the plane. For long flights, I don’t think I could do it because I get terrible pressure headaches on planes and I’m sure that hunching up in my seat to knit would cause more damage to me than good. Perhaps not. Perhaps I’ve now become an airplane knitter. Regardless, I managed to pick up for the back and get a significant portion of the back (down to the armhole joins) done on the plane with no problem whatsoever. My Knitters Pride Cubics traveled brilliantly and no one seemed shocked or annoyed by my knitting and all I had to do at that point was miles of stockinette, so I consider my first airplane knitting experience a success.