Cascade yarn – Daily Fiber

Travel Project Frogged

Posted on July 16, 2024July 15, 2024 by Laura Kate

In my last knitting post, I was starting a pair of socks worked with stash yarn.

https://dailyfiberfun.com/2024/06/25/casting-on-to-travel/

The yarn in question is Roslyn, by Cascade.

Well, the long and short of this story is that Roslyn is unsuited for socks. (Some of my readers tried to tell me that.) When I really paid attention to how the yarn behaved, it told me that it wanted to be a shawl. So, before we left for our trip, I ripped the sock off my needles and cast on a shawl.

I would really like to share the pattern I am using but alas, it eludes me. I remember printing it, using the printout to get started, memorizing the stitch pattern and then putting the paper pattern aside. It’s probably somewhere in Canada.

**Photo taken in my Calgary hotel room.**

The good news is that my stash yielded four coordinating yarns in fingering weight to give color variation to this simple pattern for a point-to-point shawl with picot border. Since I was knitting on the fly, I decided to improvise the color changes.

There is no pattern just some rules. The olive-colored Roslyn will be the background yarn, continued throughout the project. The four colors will rotate in and out at a fairly regular pace. Every so often, I will throw in a ridge of eyelet lace.

Oh, and the bright red yarn will appear only in single ridges, separated by the background yarn. It reminds me of pin striping.

This shawl could easily go on for weeks at this rate. It is a soothing knit.

I reserve the right to change a rule here or there, if it suits me.

knitting

Cast on Monday, working my stash yarn

Posted on August 7, 2023 by Laura Kate

With the Sequences Shrug 99% finished, (This will be revealed on Friday) I have cast on another project, again, targeted at shrinking my stash. I first wrote about this one back in June.

The pink and purple Elysian yarns were left-over from Lu’s simple sweater, completed earlier this year. That blue alpaca yarn is just a place-holder. Ultimately, I decided to purchase a yarn better suited for the project in mind, which is a child’s balaclava, designed by Gretchen Tracy at Balls to the Walls Knits.

https://www.ballstothewallsknits.com/p/about.html

The stitch pattern was adapted by the designer from Barbara Walker’s diced three-color check pattern, found in A Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns.

After casting on, a skinny rectangle is knit with three colors of yarn. This weird-looking piece resembles a pre-historic but colorful creature from Unicorn World.

Knitting is continued by picking up around three sides and working in pattern until the helmet section of the balaclava is finished.

At this point, I am dubious about whether it will fit my intended recipient. But I’m willing to trust the designer and carry on with the pattern as written.

If it doesn’t fit Laura Lu, it will fit someone, somewhere.

To find Gretchen’s balaclava pattern, click on the link.

https://www.ballstothewallsknits.com/2014/02/kids-dice-check-balaclava.html

knitting

WIP: Child Sweater

Posted on April 13, 2023 by Laura Kate

It’s been awhile since I showed my progress on a sweater for Lu. In my last post, I shared the fun experience of watching Lu select a skein of yarn.

With her selection in mind, I chose this pattern, available from http://www.redheartco/uk.

Since this last post, I ordered two additional skeins of Elysian yarn in the colorway Ultraviolet. The three I purchased in St Louis didn’t provide enough yardage. Also, I needed a dark shade to balance out the tones of the variegated yarn.

I started by knitting the sleeves. This allows me to test out my color plan.

Encouraged by the way the gradation worked out, I cast on the body of the sweater and knit up to the body/sleeve split.

The project is on pause while I await some measurements of the giftee. But I am pleased so far.

Here is a link to this (very easy) pattern.

Click to access LW3852EN.pdf

knitting

Cast-on Monday (and hopefully cast-off too)

Posted on March 27, 2023 by Laura Kate

Spring is in the air and on the ground! Although we had frost on the roof this morning, it is warming rapidly. I was in St. Louis for the spring equinox. When I got home last Thursday, there were hundreds of grape hyacinths blooming in the yard and the flower bed.

While in St. Louis, we visited a LYS located in a suburb. We had promised Lu that she could pick out the yarn for her next sweater. Many thanks to the tolerant staff at Yarn Com while the little one whirled through the shop, looking at and picking up every skein that attracted her attention. She carried this on while talking softly to herself. Finally, she triumphently presented me with this hand-painted merino wool skein in her favorite shades of purple and pink.

Alas, the label was torn off and lost, so I don’t know the maker.

I paired it with some lavender Cascade 220 and a soft pink blended wool in Elysion by Cascade, quickly and quietly moving to the register before she added to the stack.

The washed swatch is very soft.

On Friday I searched Ravelry and chose a pattern that fit this yarn quite well.

https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/sweet–simple-cardigan

C2013 Coats & Clark http://www.redheart.co.uk

The other item I’m working is a scarf. It has many attributes, including travel knitting, mindless knitting, stashbuster and quick knit.

The brown yarn is a wool-acrylic blend leftover from Christmas sock making. The gray and white yarns are 100% alpaca. I was given the multi-hued natural colored skein from knitting buddy Kathy. The source of the white is forgotten and unknown.

To keep from being too bored I played around with different striping patterns. To achieve the diagonal stripe, you decrease at the end of the right-side rows and increase at the end of the wrong-side rows. I’ll knit until I run out of the shortest yarn. That could happen today.

Do you have a project in process that is inspired by Springtime?

knitting

FO Friday: Forestry Cardigan

Posted on October 15, 2021 by Laura Kate

I’m pleased to unveil this cardigan which I started back in May. In March of this year, I had visited Ewetopia Yarn store in Veroqua, WI. Noticing this yarn on sale, I picked up enough to make a sweater. In fact, I purchased all skeins available in this colorway.

Roslyn is a blend of 65% wool and 35% silk. It is so soft that I posed for this photo shoot wearing the sweater next to my skin – in other words, no shirt! The finished fabric is very drapey. It almost lacks enough structure to be used in a cardigan.

This pattern came from Vogue Knitting: a retrospective on seventy years of the magazine’s history. Forestry originally appeared in the 2008 Fall edition but it strikes me as having a vintage vibe.

I had some trouble with errors and vague instructions in the pattern. Even though I researched it in Ravelry’s database, I don’t think that all the errata had been discovered and corrected.

…….specifically, the shawl collar did not come out right. It was after I had finished my knitting and scrutinized the photograph closely that I realized I had placed the stitch markers for shaping the collar in the wrong location. By then I had lost all interest in ripping the collar out and starting over again.

I made adjustments in the best way that I could. I added a loop closure near the collar’s beginning so that the neckline wouldn’t gap open.

Despite its imperfections, this cardigan will be a nice addition to my sweater wardrobe. I have a vintage wool A-line skirt in a darker moss green color that will work nicely. Adding a chunky necklace like the one worn by the model and my brown leather boots and I’ll be good to go.