it's not giant, not white, and it's definitely not bread



short sleeved sweater from Vintage Knits by Sarah Dallas in unknown "vintage" yarn conserved in a bread bag

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She's all done! I only had time for some stick-your-arm-out-holding-the-camera shots, so you'll have to use your imagination.

a peek at the back!

She's even better than I had hoped. I have no idea what the original owner made, or was planning to make, with this yarn (and no idea why she put the remaining yarn in a bread bag!), but the colors are awesome together. And the green Classic Elite Bazic is totally cool. Since the acrylic hand-me-down yarn wasn't top quality, I wanted to snazz up the sweater with a tubular cast on. It gives it a nice finish and the coordinating kitchenered bind off for the neck was new to me.

Those of you who can't stand scratchy knits might want to stand back a little when you see me wearing this though, as she is super scratchy. I'm not that sensitive to it, but still I'm hoping that a soak in some Downy or Dreft or whatever I find in the closet will help soften her up. Otherwise, she's a real dream: the colors, the stripes, the retro style, and of course, the bread bag!

We left our giant white bread retro-striped vintage-styled sweater looking like this, with one sleeve in and a whole mess of ends hanging out. Now she looks like this:

Two sleeves in and no ends.

Just the collar and she's done! You know, this trip through sleeve hell hasn't been too bad so far.

Another bread sleeve. Yum!

Thanks so much for all the tips on how to determine the fiber content of my mystery yarn! Since the back of the sweater is knit entirely in the green Bazic wool that I bought, I knew that the "wet wool smell" test wasn't going to be enough to answer my question. I was going to have to resort to something more drastic. So while hubby, the in-laws, and the kids were out of the house yesterday, I decided to give the burn test a try.

metal baking dishes, matches, yarn, and plenty of water at the ready

I lit up the match, held it to the yarn and... it stuck.

Houston, we have acrylic.

The yarn immediately melted and stuck to the match. Twice. On the third try, I got a small portion of it to light, but the flame quickly petered out, like when the wax from a candle smothers the candle's own flame. Alright, mystery solved.

I actually love that it's acrylic. It seems only fitting that the retro, white bread sweater should be made of acrylic yarn. Don't you think?

One sleeve in. Looks like I've got a keeper here.

And because Colleen wanted to see, here are all the ends on the inside.

I carried the green yarn, which is used in two rows every fifteen rows, but cut the other yarns, since they didn't repeat for fifty rows. I'll have a lot of weaving in to do in the end, especially around those sleeves! But first before I do sleeve number two, I've got to give this whole thing a wash. The mystery yarn is a little stiff and I need to see if it's going to soften up enough before I go to the trouble of finishing everything.

So how do I figure out if the yarn is wool or acrylic? Is there a test? Or do I need to commit a crime wearing the sweater in the Las Vegas/Miami/NY area and let the CSI folks tell me?

A sleeve for my white bread sweater.

I'm so glad that I threw caution to the wind and went for stripey sleeves! I should have plenty of yarn to make sleeve number two. I am having a hard time with the sleeves though, because of how I lengthened the top. Keeping the same shape over a longer armhole, while making sure that the stripes still match up has been a real battle. This is my fourth attempt and the first that looks like it may have a real chance of fitting in the armhole. I'll sew it in this week to see if it's a keeper.

My giant white bread top is taking shape.

Aren't those stripes great! I totally adore them. The colors are so cool together. And to think that this was hand-me-down yarn from Amber's hubby's grandmother! Amber says that between bags of old Phildar yarn, a half-finished angora/alpaca sweater and lots of quality acrylic yarns, there was just this bread bag with totally retro colored mystery yarn. She brought it to the swap and it's like it's finally found what it was meant to be. I'm so keeping the bag, don't you know!

Anyhoo, back to the knitting. The body came out a little larger than I had anticipated. It's not too big, but after doing a lot of adjusting for my larger gauge, it seemed like it was coming out a little snug. Ends up that it will have the same sort of fit as the pattern in the Vintage Knits book. But it is most definitely longer. No crop tops for me, thank you very much. Instead of just doing more stripes to lengthen the piece - I was worried about messing up the sequence at the very top where the neck edge color needs to contrast with the colors on the shoulder - I made each stripe a few rows longer. This added a good two inches to the whole piece. It's gonna make reworking the sleeves a be-atch, though, since I need to keep the same overall shape while adjusting for my larger gauge and now longer armholes. The good news is that I think I have enough of the mystery yarn left over to do stripes on the sleeves as well.

More server problems = more knitting time! While I was waiting to be able to post, I managed a few more rows on the front of my white bread top.

I haven't finished the back though. Earlier this week I was overcome by the need to start using all those neat, retro colors, so I put the back aside and started the striping for the front. Fun, fun!

...I like to knit my giant white bread sweater. It's my favorite brand.

I couldn't wait any longer and cast on for my white bread sweater! Since the yarn isn't the fanciest (far from it!) and the colors are only pretty in the sort of so-ugly-that-they're-fabulous kinda way, I decided to at least go upscale with my techniques and am doing a tubular cast on for the ribbed edges.

People, tubular cast on is a good thing. It looks lovely and makes the stretchiest edge, which is very good in this case because this top is going to be snug! There wasn't that much yarn in the bread bag (it all fit into a bread bag - how much can it be?!), so I know I can't risk lengthening the original or widening that ribbed edge, which I would normally do with a slightly cropped design like this one. I'm already going to have to do the back in the solid green yarn that I bought to coordinate with the retro yarn and I may have to make the sleeves solid green as well. But that's okay, because I love these two colors together.

bad lighting = wrong green, here's a new shot in the morning sun

This. Sweater. Is. Going. To. Be. So. Cool.

Yes, Kat, you're right, my Easter basket was filled with the "white bread" yarn that I got at our Knitsmiths yarn swap.

I stopped by my LYS last week to pick out some lovely (and by lovely, I mean horribly 70's retro) coordinating yarn to use with my swap fun find. Johanna and I were trying to decide if the yarn was all acrylic or if it had some actual wool in it and I'm thinking, well, the only label we have says it's bread, so that's no help... We decided that if it wasn't wool, it was pretending to be, so I choose Classic Elite's Bazic, a wool with a similar look and texture to the white bread yarn in an awesome retro spring green. And here's what I'm thinking of doing with it all.

from Vintage Knits (click for larger view)

groovy, baby

Even in Boston, it looks like spring is here at last. Except for our little snowstorm last week, we've had sunny days and temps up in the high 40's. We've reclaimed the sidewalks and the playground from the snow and reacquainted ourselves with neighbors we haven't seen all winter long. And the final proof - a visit from the Easter Bunny.

yes, we are using the Halloween pumpkin
as an Easter Basket

And look what he left in mommy's (knitting) basket.

more on these yummy treats tomorrow!

Here's hoping that the Easter Bunny and the spring sentinels make your day a special one.

What an incredible knitting weekend! First the yarn trip out to Western Mass all day Saturday, then a few hours of working at the yarn store on Sunday, and last but not least, our Knitsmiths' yarn swap yesterday afternoon. Whew!

colorful stitchers at Colorful Stitches

Saturday, I met up with Kerstin, Claudia (note new blog address!) and a few knit-bloggers in from out-of-town (Annie, Leigh, Melissa, Mary, and Mary Beth) and we hit the road in search of yarn. Every single one of us had a sock-in-progress to knit while in the car. And because I'm now crazy sock lady, I took a picture of each of them: Claudia's, Kerstin's and Annie's, Leigh's, Melissa's and Mary's (note gorgeous peace fleece sweaters!), and Mary Beth's. Fabulous, aren't they? Oh yeah, the socks too! I worked on my supermerino zebra socks (more on them later!)

First stop was Colorful Stitches, which ROCKED! Beautiful store in a lovely house, with gorgeous yarn draped everywhere and Rowan Magpie on sale and many lovely blue yarns which somehow made their way into my basket. Yay! Then it was on to the main event, Webs.

Webs' super wall of supermerino

The front of the store has been remodeled and is now HUGE! They've got everything and in every color. Just look at all that ArtYarns Supermerino! I talked several of my fellow yarn girls into taking some of this yarn that I'm using for my zebra socks home (more on those socks later!). The thing that makes Webs really cool is the warehouse in the back, where you can rummage through bags and boxes and giant cones of yarn. We opened one unassuming box to find over a dozen rather tribble-looking cones of Berroco's Mohair Classic (remember tribbles?). And look, up in the sky, it's scores of blue yarn cones. Ooh, I like this place!

No, I didn't get that blue coned yarn, but I did get one skein of this incredibly soft malabrigo merino yarn and the last of the KFI Cashmereno (the finer, even-softer precursor to Debbie Bliss' Cashmerino), enough for a sweater for me.

And if that weren't enough, Sunday was our Knitsmiths' swap! I brought in some lovely yarns that hadn't inspired me recently, and came home with enough Debbie Bliss cotton angora and Rowan Polar to roll around naked in (uh, no picture of that moment, you'll have to trust me!) and some wicked cool retro yarn that Amber brought in in an old bread bag. Too fun!

Oh and with all that knitting time, I finished my supermerino zebra socks*.

Now I must sleep.

* - Since I seem to be the new supermerino yarn-pusher, I will tempt you by telling you that this pair only took two skeins to make on US6's and it's soooo soft!