My Sweet Chickadee

10.21.2014

Facts you probably already know about me - I like red, garments with birds on them and anything that raises my core temperature above the freezing mark.

Fact you may not know - My favorite thing to knit is cardigans with colorworked yokes. A close second is cardigans that have decorative stitch patterns in their yokes instead of colorwork. Yokes, yokes, yokes! God I could go for some eggs right now.
Anyway, I'm all for trying new things, learning new techniques and knitting some crazy pattern just because you have a girl crush on the model.  But after you do all those things it's also OK to say, "You know, all I really want is a million yoked sweaters." Then proceed to knit the same sort of project over and over again. There's my knitting evolution in a nutshell.

When planning a little knitting for the Fall Essentials Sew-a-long it seemed smart to knit what I'd actually wear and use materials from the stash. My yarn stash isn't as big as the fabric stash, but that's not the same thing as saying "I have a small yarn stash". Oh no, pack ratting crafting supplies runs deep in my family. My grandmother build an extra garage/shed/purchased school buses to store all of hers. (That sounds like a joke but is 100% true.)

Back in my working days I amassed a healthy yarn stash, a bit heavy on the sock yarn side but still pretty good.  It hasn't depleted much since I started stepping out on it with the sewing machine. Sexy, sexy sewing machine......Oh sorry, drifted off for a minute. Annnnnyway, I popped the top off of the sweater part of the yarn stash and dug around to see what caught my fancy.  Why hello there bright red Filatura Di Crosa Zara, wanna be my main sweater squeeze this Fall?
Pattern is "Chickadee" from Ysolda Teague.  It's part of the "Little Red in the City" book which I purchased when it first came out and the proceed to knit NOTHING from it. Honestly I have a horrible reputation when it come to knitting pattern from books.  Is it the whole,"hard to transport compared a PDF" thing or that I just secretly like hoarding books?  Probably a little of both.
Back to the sweater.....there are plenty of DK weight odd balls laying around in a drawer, so I utilized those to do the yoke. Quick yarn break down for those that might be interested.  I think certain retailers were having a biggest yarn name contest.
White - "Biggian Design First Cross Merino DK."
Blue -  "Sublime Yarns Extra Fine Merino DK"  Color name "Plume"
Black - "Filatura Di Crosa Zara" (I think) could be a sublime yarn too. Who the heck knows at this point since I'm the worst at storing odd balls.
Unlike most of my yoke sweaters, this one was constructed top down. My brain was a bit cranky about knitting a chart "upside down" so to speak.  But I bribed it with some cookies and got the old girl working again. The chart is nice and easy to knit, very few areas where you need to trap the float on the back. The majority of the rows have only 2 colors, so you can put one in each hand and get a nice rhythm going.  After the chart is done the rest of the sweater is "TV knitting."  My shows of choice for this project were "Justified" and "Mr. Selfridge."  I bet Piven would love to play a gunslinger. "Nailing it!" - (Up Yours Downstairs Podcast reference. If you're not listening to their Mr. Selfridge recaps then do it this instant!)

I knit a size 38 because my bust measurement was between sizes and my gauge was coming out a bit small. The cardigan is knit as instructed other than reducing the amount of St St between the waist increases/decreases and adding an extra waist increase. The booty, aka extra cookie storage, always needs more increases. The only thing I would go back and change would be to make the buttonholes smaller than 5 stitches.  In my stretchy yarn they came out large and I had to go buy enormous buttons to match them.
Enormous buttons or not I've been wearing this sweater everyday. Anyone else do that once they finish a big project? It's like my brain thinks,"Now I can finally be warm. You'll never rip this cardigan from my back. NEVER!!!" *Clutches cardigan to throat and laughs manically*

In closing I'll leave you with this ridiculous outtake. Mother nature felt I needed a wind machine to spice up my blog pics. Woooooo KNITTING!

34 comments:

  1. Yes! I wore my one knitted wool sweater all winter last year. That winter than ran from October to May. I decided it was time to knit another wool sweater. I have the back and one front done.
    LOVE THIS SWEATER! It's beautiful! I hope it keeps you warm and cozy and I'm thinking I need to stalk you on ravelry now. And your perfect model photos! How do you do it?

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  2. Heather I am in awe of your knitting skills. I am terrified of intarsia, and pretty much anything that requires more than stockinette stitch. This looks amazing! And I love those little chickadees!

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  3. Great make! Those colours are fantastic and the red really suits you.
    I always find red so hard to photograph.

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  4. "Hand over the sweater!" Why is it that the stuff you make turns me into an crazy lady who shouts things like this at my computer screen!! I shouted it at the kollabora page and the Flickr page and now here. Dang it lady you are good....this sweater looks amazing on you. Gorgeous as always.

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  5. That colour, the birds, everything is perfect! I laughed at the hereditary pack rat thing. My grandma lives in a 3-4 bedroom house and alllll the cupboards are filled with fabric!

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  6. This looks so great! I love you in red! I'm knitting my first sweater with colorwork right now... it's bottom up, though, so I have a little time to gather my courage before starting in on the colorwork!

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  7. Hi!! I just found your blog after searching for Gertie's Shirtwaist Dress. I recognize you from college!! I graduated in Fall of 2002. I poked around the blog and love your work. Just wanted to say hi!!! I am getting back into sewing after a few years off.

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  8. Great job! The red looks stunning on you, of course. I have a bit of a knitting book problem, too - so many books, so little time to knit all the things.

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  9. Excellent! Glad to hear that I'm not the only one wearing their hand knit sweater every..single..day.


    I was lucky to get a few good shots for this sweater. It was crazy windy and it seemed to pick up every time the self timer went off. Right now what seems to be working for me is to go out in the morning but take the photos on the shady side of a building. I usually manually set the exposure to be a little darker. Then put the camera on a tri pod and see what I get with the self timer.

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  10. Thank you Heather. I can tell you that a sweater yoke is a nice beginner color work project. You only have to futz around with a couple rows and then it's back to easy stockinette.

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  11. Thank you Vanessa. Know what you mean about photographing red. I've given up on photographing in any sort of sunlight. Here I did it in the shade with the exposure set higher so that it toned down the color.

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  12. Thanks Lizzie. Yes, I look at all my PDF's first as well. Then you get distracted by some new pattern and never knit from any of your books.

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  13. HAA HAA HAA!! You gave me a good laugh thinking about you shouting at the computer screen. So sorry. I promise you that I've done the some thing upon seeing your makes.

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  14. Thank you Siobhan. It is kind of comforting to be able to blame your genes for craft supply pack ratting. If my husband dies before me I'm so filling every closet with fabric. :)

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  15. Ooooo what pattern are you knitting? I kind of like doing the colorwork last because it's a little "treat" after all the St, St.

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  16. Don't laugh too hard: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/hestapeysa

    I'm trying to convince Man Friend that he needs a matching one and I don't want to jinx it, but he's almost agreed to it!

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  17. Not Laughing! Adding to ravelry queue for reals. If Man Friend agrees I will bubble with excitement for a big reveal.

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  18. Hello LaurCar. Have to give you the PU alumni high five. I took a few years off of sewing upon graduation too. It's good to get back into it, isn't it. :)

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  19. Thanks Bobbi. God, we all need more time. There is never enough for all the fun creative stuff.

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  20. I just cackled out loud as I scrolled down to the last photo - even though I've seen it a bunch of times! Love love love. And the sweater is great too! ;)

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  21. It turned out lovely! I'll try not to be too jealous of your woolly warmth. :) And yay for using stash!

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  22. LOL! That photo is a winner forever. Maybe I should email it to you at random....you know to cheer you up. ;)

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  23. Thanks Becky. Thinking I should try and work on the yarn stash next year.

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  24. No fair! You've tamed the sewing machine hordes and you knit like a fiend?! You are a textile superhero! Envy aside, this is a gorgeous top, and that last photo! Epic!

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  25. suck a beautiful cardigan!!
    and that last picture is just incredible, wind is your friend :)

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  26. I've sold my soul to the devil for textile super powers! ;) Or maybe froggie does it all while I'm asleep.

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  27. Thanks JuJu, that last photo did make up for all the ones ruined by the wind. :)

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  28. Gah! I wish I could knit! This is beautiful. I'm totes envious now. lol

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  29. Thank you Laura. Can I interest you in another hobby for all your free time? ;) Froggie will teach you how to knit even without any thumbs.

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  30. I knit some washcloths for my MIL several years ago. My first and last knitting attempt for now. Maybe once my children are all gone...

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  31. I love that colour on you. You are all set for the winter now :-)

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  32. Thank you Sandra! Now to plan the next sweater.

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  33. What an adorable sweater. I bet you'll love wearing it this season!

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  34. Thanks Elizabeth. It's gotten a lot of use already. :)

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