Yesterday morning was spent getting a knitting pattern together, so that Talyssa can have her very own fuzzy mohair sweater. I wanted to use a larger needle size since Talyssa is a bigger doll, and I didn’t want to be knitting her sweater for days and days and days on end. My mohair/silk yarn is lace weight and it is already quite “airy” for the smaller dolls, so I thought that holding two strands of yarn together to make a heavier yarn would work great on larger needles.
I started figuring things out by knitting a swatch with the same needle size that I use for Talyssa’s basic wool sweater and then evaluated it. The fabric was a bit dense and stiff, I thought. I knit another swatch on a size larger needles and thought it looked just right, nice and “airy”.
The next step was to start with Talyssa’s basic wool sweater pattern and adjust the stitch counts and rows using the new gauge. After some division, multiplication and number rounding, I had a pattern to start with.
I love doing this kind of math work! Who knows why! I would think that it would make me want to pull my hair out, but for some reason I find it mentally invigorating.
Now to knit. And, I did, all afternoon and evening on Tuesday, and hoping and hoping that it would come out perfect. At “bedtime” on Tuesday I only had 12 more rows to go, and it is all body knitting, easy! The sleeves got finished on Tuesday night, they seemed to take forever, turning my work constantly, it seemed. Talyssa has long arms.
I finished up Talyssa’s sweater before Wednesday afternoon started. I did a quick try on before blocking and it will fit her! Yay! Now I will get started on her dress. I took a photo of Talyssa’s sweater next to one for the Little Darlings to see the size difference. Yes, they are quite different in size, but what I thought was even more interesting was the difference in lot colors of the yarn. Talyssa’s was knit with a couple of skeins that I just received and the Little Darling’s was knit with yarn that I received earlier in the year.
2015 is going fast! My daily Mary Engelbreit calendar pages are almost gone!
Oh, I just heard it’s National Chocolate Day. Have you had some today? It’s my sweet of choice–I have some dark chocolate daily.
Bye for now and thanks for reading!
Cindy Rice Designs 
Oh how I wish you were my sister so you could teach me all this stuff! I’ve read through some patterns with resizing instructions and it is all Greek to me as they say. What beautiful little sweaters with both the whites so pretty!
Thank you Pennie,
Keep trying to figure it out. One day it may make sense. BTW, I would be happy to help you if you lived close by, sister or not.
You are so clever! Changing the pattern.
I am still learning, I don’t think I will ever be able to do that, ever!
They are so pretty.
Thank you, Judi. It is hard to take in too much information at once. You may find that you are able to understand resizing as you learn. I remember when I first started I kept getting mixed up as to either go up or down needles sizes if my gauge wasn’t right.
Thank you for showing the differences in sweater size and dye lot. Know you’re supposed to use same dye lot, but that is quite different. Congrats to you in the math department too! I would be no help with that.
Had a spot of rain here in northern CA today. Just enough to wet down the deck. Now sun’s out and is in the mid 70’s. Hopefully, we will see more rain next week.
Hi Joy,
It sounds like you had a beautiful day yesterday. We are starting our third day of dreariness, remnants of Hurricane Patricia; it has gotten quite chilly too, an angry day, so I hope to stay inside.
I looked at the label for the yarn and the new yarn is made in Peru where the older skeins were made in Italy. I agree they are very colors.
Hope you have another beautiful day!
Been to Peru. The yarn is wonderful. Maybe from Llamas? Italian from sheep? Maybe the difference? Would be very interesting to find out.
Hi again Cindy,
I am fascinated with numbers for my business, Google Analytics and all that, but knitting numbers would drive me over the edge. I guess you first have to understand knitting and then maybe the numbers would make more sense. You are a whiz I do believe. I liked the picture of the two sweaters side by side… Interesting to see the size comparisons. I’m guessing the fabric beside the sweater is for Talyssa? That will be sweet together…
You’ve certainly got more accomplished than I have….I cut up a watermelon sitting in a chair beside the counter. I have a new respect for people in wheelchairs…
Thanks for sharing your math skills us…
Blessings, Jeanne
Hi again, Jeanne. Well, cutting up a watermelon while sitting down takes a lot of strength; you don’t have the leverage you get while standing. I don’t think I could do it. I do hope you are up and around in not time. This is a time of forced rest, you get it even if you didn’t want it. You’ll probably figure out lots of things to do. I can’t see you stuck in front of the television vegging out. Hey, if you want to learn how to knit let me know…
The numbers and math with knitting really isn’t that hard if you have some quiet so you can concentrate. Like you said, though, you have to know what the numbers stand for first. It took me a long time to understand as much (or as little) as I do. The “stuff” sinks in little by little.
Feel better…