Fire & Ice: The Final Chapter (Updated below)

Fire & Ice is finally done!
Yippee! Pass the red wine!
It's been a wonderful summer of scheming 'n dreaming, dyeing 'n spinning and, of course, knitting and more knitting. Between all the knitting was a fair bit of frogging.

She's finally done and I lurve her.
For those interested in the back story and the journey to this point, check out these entries.
For those that just want to look at knitting porn, I present to you the Fire & Ice final photo shoot!

Da sleeves. Initially it was going to be a basic steek and seam sleeve. Then I thought since I was knitting to fit my torso, I might as well knit the fit my shoulder as well. So I opted for short rows to create a bend to fit around my shoulder and then a few extra short rows to add some material for the side of the collar. It took a couple of evolutions to get the sleeves right but in the end it worked out grand!


Da forearm. Since the cabling was inspired by designs on Viking armour, I wanted to bring some of the warrior elements of their often violent sagas into the sweater. I created a sort of knitted wrist plates to echo armour.
The sweater as a whole was designed to look structured and sculpted. I wanted it to look solid, like it could hold it's shape even when I'm not wearing it, like armor.
Here's the torso and the two sleeves before seaming.








Here's it all put together!
Da front!










Close-up of da back.
The collar was done in a simple seed stitch to give a bit of texture. I opted for a square collar to echo the angular nature of the cabling.
As an extra bonus, the collar also frames my 'Tao' tattoo perfectly. So fitting to have that word framed by a sweater that carries the story of the joining of fire & ice to create the world.

My triquetra tattoo is also peeking out in the corner. The triple goddesses, (especially Morrígan) are definitely with me when I'm wearing this sweater!

Well, that's my 100 mile fiber project for the summer. Not a moment too soon. The evenings are getting chilly and I'm ready to get going on my next 100 mile fiber project!

Cheers!

ETA:The Inside Story of Fire & Ice










This photo is for you, Erin :P
Hop onto a ferry and get over here for your short row lesson!

Thanks everybody for all your warm and wonderful comments. It makes my heart melt to hear all these encouraging comments. To all those that can't fathom making such a sweater, I would like to point out that I haven't used any techniques that most intermediate knitters don't know.
In fact, here's a list of the main techniques used and links to some:
Knit
Purl
Long tail cast on
2x2 ribbing
Knitting in the round
Cabling (without a cable needle)
Stranding
Stockinette
Short Rows
Basketweave stitch
Seed stitch
3 needle bind off
Increase
Decrease

Even if you don't know the above techniques, you've already learned the 2 main techniques: knitting & purling. Some might say those are the most difficult of all knitting techniques because they are the first. They are the initial steps into a new world, one that is unfamiliar and often, awkward to navigate through. They are taken without any prior experience that this path will lead to anywhere but to a knarled up headache. They are taken with no promise of reward. Often they are accompanied with anxiety, confusion, insecurity and frustration.
But soon those steps become so familiar, many of us can tread the steps of knitting & purling without looking and constantly checking a map.

In my knitted heart I do hope to nudge, shove, kick other knitters into uncharted (pardon the pun) knitting waters and to inspire them to try things that aren't written down in patterns. If nobody tried new techniques or experimented we'd all be knitting big blocky garter stitch togas :P

I do hope my knitting encourages other knitters to join me off the beaten path. I would very much enjoy their company :) There's a vast and exciting knitting landscape for us to explore. With the learning of each new lesson, we all come back to the original blessing of when we first learned how to turn a couple of sticks and some string into something, anything and everything.

Be daring. Heck, be downright reckless with your knitting. Nobody died from knitting. Some might have been had their corneas seared by neon orange acrylic yarn, but that heals eventually.

In The Yarn Harlot's "At Knit's End" there is a quote from Henry Ford, "One of the greatest discoveries a (wo)man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn't do."

And as the Yarn Harlot says herself: Be Fearless with Knitting!

Icy sleeves for Fire & Ice

What? The end of August already? There're mooncakes being sold at Fairway and it's getting dark way too soon. Yikes!

I've decided to put off starting anything new until I've finished the Fire & Ice sweater. I've given myself the much the spring and all of summer to dye, spin and knit this sweater.

I've just finished spinning and knitting one sleeve:














The bottom half of it is in basketweave.














I love the diagonal woven effect. This stitch constricts since it's got a whole line of crossovers on every other row. With this in mind, I opened up the stitches to a stockinette right below my elbow. This allows the sleeve be fitted for my forearm an then to widen up for my elbow and upper arms without having to increase a single stitch! I'm not sure if that makes me smart or lazy. Probably a little bit of both :P

I decided to stick with just the ice colourway since I didn't want the sleeves to compete with the cabling on the body.
Here's the body up to near the armpit. It's going to be a yoke sweater. For once, I'm knitting a yoke from the bottom up. I did it this way partly because I wasn't sure how the cabling would fit on the sweater. But mostly I did it because I was undecided what kinda collar/neckline I wanted to use. I'm still undecided. I guess the yarn will tell me once I get to that point.














Close up of the cables:














Sleeves and sweater body together:














Last night I began spinning up the yarn for the second sleeve. Hopefully the sleeve will be spun and knitted up by the end of the week. However, I've got a pretty packed schedule and anyways, I still haven't figured out what sort of collar I'm going to use.

Happy knitting!
Jen

Fleece up to my yin yang

I've been dying and spinning yarn for my Fire & Ice sweater every spare moment I've got. Though June's soggy and cool weather has put a damper on my mountain and ocean playtime, it has been perfect spinning weather. The west coast has been pounded with a couple of good late spring thunderstorms.

My dining room has been turned into a fleece factory. Instead of curtains, I have fleece hanging up to dry and the dining room table has been converted into a carding table/fleece 'painting palette'.

I've done most of the dying . I've got my Ice fleece:









and my Fire Fleece:









As my first big dying and spinning project, I'm using this sweater as an opportunity to learn and experiment with various dying and carding methods. I'm aiming for a navajo plied sport weight yarn but right now I'm just thrilled that it's spinning up relatively evenly.
Here's some batts that have gone through various carding techniques. I have about 3 basic shades of blue and some purple for the Ice colourway. For the Fire, I'm working with 2 shades of yellow, orange and a red.









By varying how I feed my drum carder, the number of times I card it and how I layer the fleece, I'm slowly learning that there is a plethora of ways to create different colourways.
Here's some of the yarn I've spun up so far:









Here's a couple of swatches of some pattern's I'm working on for the sweater. I was inspired by the patterns in Eslebeth Lavold's 'Viking Patterns for Knitting'. I wanted to a viking knot that was a tad more elongated and angular than the ones shown in the book so I took a couple basic knot ideas from that book, threw them together, added a pinch of this and that, gave it a twist and this is what I got:
They're looking a tad Elvish which is a good thing in my book. I did a basic outline of what I wanted onto graph paper and then penciled in the exact stitch pattern as I knitted it up. Once I'm done, I have a graph and a complete swatch to remind me of what I'm shooting for. Also this serves as my swatch and give me an idea of how the yarn will knit up like and how the colours will play against each other. From here, I've adjusted and fine tuned my carding and spinning to suit my tastes.

I'm really liking how the two colourways are playing against each other. I think I'm going to stick with the Ice colour as the background and the Fire for the cabling simply because I look better with cool colours next to my skin.

I know it seems like a lot of work to do up the swatches. I've learned that when I'm working out an original pattern with a few spicy techniques, it's worthwhile to do up a swatch and notate the stitches as I knit them, instead of drawing up a graph completely and knitting from there. I know there are knitting designers that can just draw up stuff onto a graph that looks just like what they want it be knitted up. They are the knitting equivalent of Beethoven composing the 9th Symphony when he was completely deaf, IMHO, and I bow down to them. This knitting monkey isn't quite there yet. I'd rather frog a swatch than half a sweater.

Technically, this is not cabling because both the cables and the background are all done in stockinette in 2 seperate yarns. So it's twist stitches with a few cable needle moves. I found in an earlier swatch that a purl background when using 2 yarns doesn't provide the same receding affect that occurs when using only 1 yarn. Stockinette provides the a nice basic background and as a bonus, it makes it super easy to knit up in the round. Though the end product looks complicated, the actually knitting is nothing more than stranding with a few twist stitches and the odd cabling move when it's done in the round.

To keep me from being completely obsessed with the Fire & Ice sweater, I've started a mobieus shawl with hand-dyed wild silk from Trish Moon at Moon Woven Studios.
Maybe I'll have it done in time for the Saltspring Island Natural Fibre Festival later on this month.

It's my no-brainer project for now though it being silk and a lace pattern, it has a 2 glasses of wine limit before it's in danger of turning into a rat's nest.

Have a great week!

The First Evolution of Fire & Ice

It was only a matter of time that my Scandinavian Fire & Ice sweater was going to evolve from a simple Scandinavian pattern cardigan knitted in the round to something absurdly complicated.

Initially, the Fire and Ice them was to be represented by Fire and Ice inspired colourways. The patterning was to be a simple 8 row Scandinavian pattern. All of it knitting in the round with a yoke finish and minimal seaming. I was planning to steek open the front but that was about as complicated as it was going to get.

Now, I've changed my mind about the Ice colourway. I've opted for a more sky blue than teal base for my cool colours. Which means I've been dyeing even more fleece. Don't worry, I'm still madly in love with the first ice colours, just not for this project. There are a few other knitters that I've already put dibs on some of the yarn for their own projects. Here's some of the teal colourway that has already been promised a home:









I've also decided to scratch the whole simple repeated pattern idea and opt for a mix of colour stranding and cables based on traditional Viking knots. Though to keep my sanity (as little as I have left) I've decided to not carry the multiple colours throughout but the keep it quarantined in one area. Not quite sure which area.

(Fire 100 mile fleece)

I have a couple different ideas. I could do a grand viking knot cable up the back with a 2 colour smaller version of the same cable for a border along the front seams. Or I could do the big grand cable in the back with the 2 colours. There's also the thought of doing the whole darn body in 2 colour cabling. Of course, most of these ideas don't translate well to knitting in the round. I've considered learning how to knitting backwards but I have enough trouble knitting forward that the thought barely registers before getting the boot.



(A whole couch of my new ice 100 mile fleece)







Oh yeah, and I've been thinking about knitting up flames along the sleeves. Big fiery flames because I'm a knitting fool.
Here's some of the designs I've been working on.








Between dyeing, carding, spinning, designing, knitting up samples, I won't have time to pull out my hair or curse the fiber goddess for filling my little head with such grand schemes.

Jen