The Knitting of Judith Harvest

all knitting done by Judith Harvest. Photos by her daughter Bodil and granddaughters Sivert and Freckle.

I stumbled across Judith Harvest's handknitting one day and knew immediately I had come across something special I wanted to share with you. Both her Ravelry page her Flickr photostream were created and are maintained by her daughter Bodil and her granddaughters (Ravelry names freckle and sivert.)

Judith was born in Denmark in 1908, and throughout her life lived in many countries such as Sweden, Finland, and Norway until settling again back in Denmark where she passed away in 1982. Throughout her life Judith created all kinds of handcrafts. All the work I've seen is evidence of her wonderful sense of color, technical skill, inventiveness and care. I've included a few photos of my favorite pieces, but check out her Ravelry page and her Flickr photostream for more examples of her work. (She made a baby blanket that is so amazing.)

These little cardigans made by Judith get me really excited about working with color. Her color combinations are so perfect! But mostly I love how obviously well loved and used her creations are. It's because they are so well made and made with such love that they have lasted so long. How lucky we are that Bodil and her daughters have preserved and shared Judith's work with us. Thank you Bodil for letting me share these photos! I am so inspired.

love me two times

Remember back in October when I won my local yarn store's monthly drawing for a $100 gift certificate? That golden ticket made me feel so so lucky. Well...



I won the drawing again last week. Here's my lucky little blue ticket. Do you think it helped that I drew that little heart on it? ;)



Seriously, this is crazy! I'm just feeling really grateful right now.



I'm going to hold onto this blue ticket for a little while and think about all the lovely, yummy possibilities. Some rich camel colored wool for a 2nd cabled cardigan is definitely an idea...because I have a weird dream of eventually designing and making 3 cabled cardis: one grey, one camel and one cream. I'd like to try knitting (and maybe designing) a lace shawl... Its been a long time since I've knit some socks...Or I could start early on holiday gifts...

I'll let you know what I come up with, of course. Have a sweet weekend, hope you find a bit of luck of your own! x.

marley

I finished Marley a few weeks ago now and it has become my go-to cardi. It might be my favorite thing I've made, ever.



During all the math and fussing with Margaret, Marley became an easy, cozy project to work on when I needed a break. Marley is my own design, knit completely seamlessly from the bottom up, with set in sleeves. I rather uncharacteristically took copious, exact notes while knitting Marley, so I can make more! I really need more classic basic cardigans, and I want them well made so they last forever.



I tried one little detail that I really like (see above): On the hem and sleeve cuffs is a little horizontal line of stitches that separates the ribbing from the body. I used a regular long-tail cast on to start the sweater and started right away with plain stockinette, leaving the ribbing until the end. Then with a crochet hook I picked up one stitch from each cast on stitch, making a horizontal line of crochet slip stitches. From there I picked up the bump at the back of each crochet stitch with my ribbing needles, and ribbed down as long as I liked. I think it's pretty! I think Mette did something similar on one of her sweaters at the neckline and I thought I would try it too.



Marley is really light with lovely texture but really warm too. The crazy thing is that I barely made a dent in the cone of black tweed I used (scored at an estate sale.) Since the cream alpaca got used up, I picked up some lovely grey merino to pair with more of the black tweed. Yup! I'm making another Marley. Maybe this one will be a V-neck... or a nice long pullover... what do you think? Also, how would you style a sweater like Marley??? I'd love to hear your ideas. x.

Making Margaret (3)

Hi! I've missed this space a lot. I've got something to show you:
This is Margaret's front....



She's made up of 4 different cables that I've named Pomegranate, Honeycomb, Swinging, and Simple. The boring bit of plain knitting at dead center is for the steek.

Here is the back... my favorite bit is the center panel, made up of 5 repeats of Honeycomb.



Lest you think I have suddenly become a size 0, remember that before blocking, a cabled sweater pulls in A LOT. Between each cable I've made a purl row that you can't see until blocked. These little purls will create nice quiet vertical lines between all the cables (and add the necessary width to fit me!)

So how did I get from a little test swatch to this? It was a funny process, and honestly I've put off writing to you about it because I was nervous it would be confusing or boring or both. But I committed to documenting the whole process, and who knows, maybe one of you will find it helpful when you make your own cabled cardi!

After I settled on what cables to use, I had to figure out 2 main things: how many cables to use, and how to arrange them in a beautiful way. By measuring my blocked swatch, I figured the final blocked sweater would get 5.77 stitches/inch. I knew I wanted about a 37 inch circumference, for a nice roomy sweater for my 34 inch bust. That meant I had 212 stitches to work with. It helped me to think of my stitches as currency: I only had 212 stitches to 'spend' on as many cables I could get. Pomegranate has (or 'costs') 12 stitches, Simple costs 4 stitches, and so on. I just kept spending and spending, arranging the cables in my sketchbook in a pleasing way, until I was out of my 212 stitches.



It sounds simple enough, but it was tricky in a few ways: I knew I wanted Pomegranate cables to fall roughly down the center of my shoulders, I knew I wanted only one purl stitch between each cable, I knew I wanted things to feel balanced and look nice. Sometimes I would end up with a few extra stitches and would have to rearrange again. I love to think with my hands, but this was a very theoretical part of the process. I couldn't knit up samples of what I was thinking because that would have taken forever. I probably came up with way more variations than I needed to, I think I was trying too hard to get it as good as it could be. I realized at some point that I just had to let go and start knitting, and have a little faith.



Here is a little map I made up of how I arranged the cables. I used this map as my starting off point: After a tubular bind on, and a few inches of ribbing, I used the map and my pattern book to know what to knit when. After a few rows, the cables distinguished themselves and I've just been knitting what I see, though Swinging cable is a bit of a pain in my bum, so sometimes I sneak a look in my pattern book to check that all is well.

More soon. I've even got a finished sweater to show you! Hope you all are fully enjoying whatever season you are in, and taking good care. x.