CustomFit Knitting

Last night I knit a swatch for a possible CustomFit sweater.  I bought this yarn last year

Blue Moon Fibers Rustica in Hot Rod Red.  It’s definitely red – a bit brighter than in this photo – and it definitely has a “rustic” very wooly feel.  I’m not sure I want to wear this directly against my skin tho when I blocked the swatch is softened a bit.

I still need to do some measuring and figure out gauge on this swatch before I decide what sweater I want to make.

You can see on my swatch I was trying out a couple different stitches — on the upper right is a four stitch twisted stich that sort of looks like a cable but is much easier since you are just twisting stitches rather than using a cable needle or dropping off stitches and rearranging.   On the upper left – a bit harder to see- a wide sort of checkerboard of knit and purl squares.

I’ve got a couple more yarns I want to swatch before deciding which to start with and what style of sweater I want to make – and which sweater I have enough of any particular yarn for.

In the running are:

1 – Another Charlie’s Cardigan – I love the one I made but it’s a really heavy sweater in Cascade 220(nonsuperwash) – heavy like too warm almost jacket like.  So I’d like a little lighter weight version.

2 – I think the Rustic yarn would look great in Carillon and show the stitch pattern well and I can use that pattern to generate a CF version of it.

3 – Yawl – a basic wear with anything sweater.

4 – Post and Beam – I love the simplicity of this pullover and have some tweedy yarn that would look great.

5 – Vines and Arrows Cardigan – I have loved this one since I first saw it.

If you’ve read my blog for a while you know I love the CustomFit program.  You don’t have to match someone else’s knitting gauge,  you can use whatever yarn weight you like, swatch it to get your gauge, enter that info and measurements and pick a pattern or create a basic sweater style in CF, and you get a pattern written specifically for you in your size.

Amy Herzog – knitwear designer extraordinaire (in my opinion) and creator of the CustomFit program, has just changed how the program subscriptions work (you can just buy individual CF patterns or there are two subscription levels for a small monthly fee).  Anyway , she changed how it worked (all to the users’ benefit for no rate increase) and I can now generated two free patterns a month – not that I knit that many sweaters in a year but sometimes you might decide you want to change something and regenerate a pattern.

Anyway, the long and short of all this subscription change (if you’ve stayed with me this long) is I have extra “credits” I previously earned before this change to generate CF patterns and there is now the capability  to “gift” a credit to someone else.    I’ll be doing a random drawing for a credit so if you are a knitter and have been wanting to try CustomFit sweater knitting be sure to watch the blog since there will be a blog post in the upcoming week or so to enter to win the CF credit.

The credit will be non-transferrable – you need to use it yourself if you win and you need to be certain you want to use it.  I’d hate to give it to someone and then not have them use it.  You can read more about CustomFit at http://customfit.makewearlove.com/about/

There are  several videos Amy has added on YouTube re Customfit.  There is also a Ravelry group where you can see all kinds of beautiful finished CF sweaters in the Finished Objects thread.

I’ve pulled out a hank of this yarn to swatch next.  It’s Berroco Vintage  – a worsted weight that is a wool, acrylic, nylon blend and it feels so nice and soft.   The color is sort of heathered and its called Lilacs – it was a yarn suggested on the CF Ravelry website as a lesser priced alternative to some of the expensive yarns so I’m anxious to see how it knits up because it is very reasonably priced (and I got this on sale so it was a steal).

It’s nearly done

I spent a large part of yesterday (between many coffee breaks and a knitting break or two) finishing the rearranging/clearing up of the sewing room.  This meant other rooms got messier in the process of course.   A wooden arm chair from the living room moved to the sewing room so I might just have a spot to put the Christmas Tree up in the living room now (still debating if that will get done).  With the new recliner being added to the living room and I haven’t gotten rid of the couch and chair yet – there’s not a lot of extra space.

I also pulled a wooden shelving unit out of the sewing room closet, and a half unit that was in the living room holding DVDS and videos and put them out in the room in the sewing room.

chair, tv and shelves – and a partial empty shelf so far.  These hold a shelf of tops to be quilted, batik fabrics, fabrics from TLE, and some various projects in the works that I want to get finished sooner rather than later.  The table to the far right (with a sewing machine on top – is my old living room tv stand which is probably going to go when I get rid of the old living room furniture – but for now the shelves below hold finished wallhangings and smaller quilts.

On the opposite wall – this corner needs a little bit of work yet but mostly just tidying.  And look another partial empty shelf (am I running out of fabric? – Defintiely NOT!) 🙂

The box of stuff on the floor is all junk to toss – old threads, printout of patterns I’m done with, and other trash and a bag of yarn that needs to be put away.

 

As for the rest of the room – a few things to put away on the table, a quilt vacuum thru and I’ll have room to work.  I just need to sort through a few things on the closet shelf and the closet will be all reorganized too.

More coffee – and back to work.  Have to keep moving to stay warm today.  Made the mistake of opening the door to see what it was like outside.  The snow has stopped, the snow shovelers have not been thru yet this a.m., but it’s dang cold out.