Long Leaf Coat knitting solutions

Buffy, I really am fortunate to have this large colored grid remake of Kaffe's Long Leaf Coat pattern. It is easy to keep my place and make the color changes correctly,  now even more so that I have marked every tenth stitch with a small black synthetic rubber O-ring. The O-rings are soft and easy to slip.  Purchase them in a packet of two dozen at the local hardware store for about $2.

Now my LL coat "reads" just like the 10-grid in the pattern, with it's heavy black line every 10 stitches.

I mark the pattern line I am knitting with a strip of post-it tape placed over the working line so that I can see the stitch pattern that is on the needle along with the one being knitted. The tape is easy to move up to the next row each time I finish the visible row, and it is easy to lift for a peek if it covers one of the boxed color notations.

A small change in yarn handling -- a more accurate term would be yarn "wrangling" -- is making a large difference. Note in the first picture that the yarn is always composed of two strands of color. At first I changed each strand of the 2 colors in a different spot, thinking that it would make a stronger fabric. In reality, I was stopping twice as often as I knit with short pieces of yarn. Now I make sure that the two strands are identical in length and add length to both of them at the same time. cutting my stops and starts in half. I don't think the fabric is any less strong, and now I can knit across a row in less than an hour.

Happy holiday tomorrow!

LOLOL Yarn: A time for this and a time for that

Buffy, you know that lolol is internet speak for "laughing out loud on line," but I like to think of it as Lots of Little Old Lady yarn. I find LOLOL yarn at garage sales, yard sales, thrift shops and on eBay.

It was on eBay that I hit my first bonanza. I found over six pounds of wool needlepoint- and crewel-weight yarns in short, cut pieces for the very small sum of $9. Or maybe it was nine pounds of wool yarn for $6. It was tangled and messy but it contained every color in the crayon box and a great many more. I spent days sorting it out and making it neat. I wish that I had photos of it.

But here's an image of another lot I bought on eBay.

I can't tell you how much I paid, but I always try to keep my bid well below $10 a pound. 

Some of these needlepoint yarns are in 40-yard skeins, and that's always great to knit with, but most are cut lengths that needlepointers use. A few are almost 2 yards long, but most are 28 inches long, and shorter. These lengths are almost perfect for the multicolored Kaffe Fassett coats knitted in intarsia. Kaffe's patterns often specify the yarn needed thusly:  7 pounds of yarn, one-third light tones, one-third medium tones and one-third dark tones. You get the picture. I can knit a coat like the Kaffe's Jug Coat for $50. (Well, it would have been $50, but I decided to add three 25-gram skeins of super expensive silky yarn at $20/skein.)

The Long Leaf Coat is coming in at quite a bit more. I started it just as the Rowan Scottish Tweed yarns were being discontinued, and I found many (but not all) of the yarns specified in the Sticka med Kaffe book at half price. You know how I love a bargain.

Nonetheless, I'm using this bag of LOLOL yarn, too, on the LLC.

So Kaffe's Long Leaf Coat won't be $50, but it's not going to break the bank, either.

Your Kaffe Romeo & Juliet Coat is quiet a different affair. I can see why you paid so much for your seven pounds of heritage yarns. Not only have those original yarns been off the market for twenty or more years, your coat is continuous, coordinated stripes of color, and mixing bits of this and that would give it another look altogether -- not what you would want if you really liked that 30-year-old red, red coat pattern. Plus, long stripes do not call for 28-inch pieces of yarn! Not at all!

So there's a time for LOLOL yarn, and there's a time to splurge. 

It's the first day of winter

Buffy, Christmas knitting is finished at my house. All the gifts are made and wrapped. Time to get back on track and move Kaffe's Long Leaf Coat to the front burner. I'm making it a priority in the list of New Year's knitting resolutions!

Now that you have  your Kaffe Romeo & Juliet Coat to the try-on stage, I feel like such a slacker.  I know you have many miles to go: Reknitting that very, very large sleeve into a very large sleeve will take some time. How did the frogging go?

I've just added a heart count to our Ravelry links list on the right-hand side of this blog, because I want our readers to know that as of this day, 113 Ravelry readers have favored your Romeo & Juliet Coat with a red heart! My LLC, not so many, so I'd better get busy!

Knit small, knit large

Buffy, you've answered the question.

But I've got to say that the big sleeve had a certain something!

I know you've positioned it "just right" for the photos, but in my mind's eye, I see it flowing and blowing and waving about. I just go back to the traditional Chinese holiday costumes, so huge and undulating with movement. But then those were used in ritualized dancing so there was motion most of the time

Smaller sleeves are more practical. I've heard you must reach the great age of eighty before you can begin to be impractical.  We're not there yet.

Fend off the paparazzi

Buffy, I love, love, love those sleeves!  Kaffe's Romeo and Juliet Coat is sooooo romantic. When you have it finished, where will you wear it first?  Fend off the paparazzi!

The big sleeve debate

Hi Lulu,

Just to refresh our readers' memories, Kaffe Fassett attended a performance of the ballet, "Romeo & Juliet," and he was quite taken by the enormous sleeves of the dancers' costumes. So the sleeves of his coat are 180 stitches around, on size 10 needles. I knit the first sleeve with 120 stitches, and I omitted some rows (since I'm short).

But then I began to wonder if that sleeve might lack something -- just sit like a barrel on my arm, rather that undulating in an out as the larger sleeve might do. So I knit the second sleeve full size.

I worked till 3 in the morning of "Kaffe Fassett Day" (the day of the workshop and evening slide show), grafting the bodice to the skirt sections, sewing the skirt seams, and sewing in the sleeves. I was on the ferry to Vashon Island bright and early so I wouldn't be late, and was still sewing in sleeves as I sat in the parking lot before class. I was so sure the 180-stitch sleeve would be the final choice, I sewed it in carefully, while I sewed in the 120-stitch sleeve with long, loose basting stitches.

To my surprise, when I asked Brandon and class members their opinions, there was no hesitation or disagreement: the smaller sleeve was better.

And after posing with Kaffe for the photo (see my post, "Kaffe Fassett Comes to Town," October 2010), I pointed out the difference in the sleeves. and asked the Master whether it was acceptable to use the smaller sleeve.

He nodded, "Yes," also without hesitation.

So the HUGE sleeve has been frogged, and I'm knitting a mate to the smaller sleeve. Good friends took photos on a lovely October day so we'd have a permanent record of the two sleeve sizes. What do you think? (The big sleeve is on my left arm.)

Buffy

P.S. My only regret? The bigger sleeve was not only 50% wider than the smaller; I also made it the full length called for in the pattern. It was so long that when I dropped my arm, it drooped down and half-covered the forearm ribbing. Now I wonder whether full circumference but shorter might have worked? Ah well, it's too late now! (Oh...and if you'd taught middle school math, as I did, you'd know that 120 is 33% less than 180, but 180 is 50% greater than 120. :)

More about Kaffe Fassett Day

Hi Lulu,

Like you, I've had to set my K.F. project aside and focus on knitting for Christmas and birthdays. But while it rests, I've more to tell about the day with Brandon Mabley and Kaffe Fassett.

1. You asked about knots in the yarn ball we made for the Persian Poppy samplers in Brandon's class. It really didn't matter for our little demo pieces, since the point was to experiment with color. The yarn ball was surprisingly freeing. Perhaps my response was unique, but just picking up one color and tying it on to another didn't throw me into paralysis over the choice. Whereas if I'd been in the middle of the knitting, and THEN gone hunting for the next color, always in juxtaposition with the contrasing color, I think I'd STILL be there trying to decide on the perfect combination.

2. That being said, Brandon encouraged us to weave in the ends as we knit. So that meant making the knots loose, untying them as we came to them, catching in the tail of the NEW yarn for several stitches, and then after switching colors, weaving in the tail of the old yarn.

3. Brandon worked diligently to teach us the EASY way to catch the unused yarn as it's carried along the back of fair isle knitting. But he was working with pickers and throwers, and beginners and experienced, and some on a knit row and some on a purl row -- so even though I followed him around and listened over and over to his explanations, the most I "got" that day was that the possibility existed -- of an easy and effective way to fair-isle knit, that doesn't require setting down one color and picking up the other underneath, forever twisting and untwisting the strands of yarn. (There's an excellent how-to video at the Philopher's Yarn website.)

(And might I say, right here, that I am TRULY EXCITED about learning this technique. It's always invigorating to learn new things. But this isn't just new (to me); it's fabulously easy and practical and EASY and functional and FAST. Niftiest thing since ... since giving up long straight needles for circular needles. Since superwash merino. Since Ravelry and blogging. Since leaving aluminum for steel turbos. Since abundant hand-painted yarn. Have I raved enough?)

4. This is just a hunch, but I think Brandon might be more of a neatnik than Kaffe, or more interested in technique -- but whichever, it seems to have rubbed off. After Kaffe autographed my copy of Glorious Color, I came back at the end of the line with the coat and a permanent marking pen, asking if he'd autograph the lavender circle of the bodice, on the inside. No, he doesn't do that since it would give the impression that he made the garment. (I expected this, but figured nothing ventured, nothing gained.)

Then he looked at the tangled mess of the inside on the bodice.

And here's the stunner: he said, "You really ought to weave in all those ends."

CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? After all the chatter on Ravelry about this, and the quotes from his books about not bothering with such things, he now thinks that weaving in ends might be better. I swear it's Brandon's influence. Of course, I have absolutely nothing to base that on, except for spending a day while Brandon tried to teach 20 knitters how to weave in their ends as they knit...

Here's a photo (a little out of focus), just to keep everyone's red-coat juices flowing. My next post will be about the big sleeve debate. Hugs, Buffy

An amazing connection

Lulu, when I learned, nearly 20 years ago, that you, TOO, had been a weaver, I knew our children were meant for one another. We both had looms folded up, awaiting a calmer season in our lives.
And just as you've set up your Glimakra counterbalance, I'm contemplating trading my all-refurbished Bergman counterbalance for an 8-harness Bergman countermarch loom.
Last summer, I took my loom apart, sanded and refinished all the maple and beautiful clear fir, and reassembled it, replacing all the string heddles and hardware and most of the tie-up. All that remains is to replace the canvas apron on the cloth beam.

For a Northwest native like I, it's extra special to have a Bergman loom. Margaret Bergman was born in Sweden and came to the United States in 1901, when she was 30, to marry a man who had come seven years before. They settled with other Scandinavians near the town of Poulsbo (across Puget Sound from Seattle), built a home, cleared land for farming, and raised six children. She wove all the years she was raising her family, and then began teaching all around the Pacific Northwest. Her husband started building looms to meet student demand, and she improved on the design, developing several looms that would fold up, even while warped. She's the only woman in the US to receive a loom patent. She was honored at the National Weavers' Conference in 1947 for her contribution to American weavers. Eventually her son Arthur Bergman took over the family business, building Bergman looms until the early 1970s.

My loom was surplused from a high school art classroom. My father-in-law purchased it, but it sat in their basement, unused, until I married into the family. When my son (your son-in-law) was newborn, I got all the books our library had on weaving, and would go to their house each day. And while he napped beside me in his infant seat, I worked on my very first placemats. They weren't pretty, but I learned a lot and was ready (humbled) for classes from a pro. We spent that summer at a Boy Scout camp at the foot of Mt. St. Helens (this was 13 years before it erupted). The only way into the camp was a 5-mile hike or a mile by boat across Spirit Lake, so loom and baby made the first of three annual voyages to spend summer in the woods while dad ran the camp.

With a history like that, it tugs at my heartstrings to think of trading the loom away. And now, I just got the phone call: the 8-harness loom's been sold to someone else. So at least THAT decision's made. Besides, who needs so many harnesses? Think of the amazing things we've woven with four.

Weave on! Buffy

One for the Road!

Buffy, a Kaffe Fassett Long Leaf Coat has been finished in England and now is in Australia!  Talented chris4252, from Sheffield, UK has finished a Long Leaf Coat for her talented daughter, who has taken the coat to school in Australia. Chris has called it her "Leaving Present," and this link to her Ravelry page gives you the whole story. Click on the link and enjoy the story with many fabulous photos.

Well, not the whole story:  Chris started the coat once, knitted about a yard and then quit and changed out her colors.  And she did all this work in a few month's time. She's a total wonder, and her Long Leaf Coat is a WOWZER! I'd give her two "hearts" if I could!

Congratulations, Chris, on a phenomenal job. What a mom!

Knot to be, or not?

So, Buffy, this is the question!

In Brandon's Poppy class, you mentioned that you tied up a "magic ball" from one- and two-yard pieces of yarn. How do you handle those knots when you are knitting along?

I love the idea! It's so thrifty and so now to "use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without." Just tugs at my heartstrings. But, oh, those knots!

The magic ball reference above has lots of great comments, some having to do with the knot problem. And this is one of the best:

"About 20 years ago I used this technique to make a sweater-coat. The background was all pinks and the flower motif (from Kaffe Fasset) all blues. I started off with my own stash, but as the sweater grew I needed more yarn so asked the women in my knitting group if they had pinks or blues. Sure enough the did, and now my finished sweater is a reminder of my friends the knitters. I still wear it; still get comments on the street and shopping. One point: in knotting, I left about 3" tails and knitted them in as I worked." uletas, 9/29/03

Old Glimakra is the new new

Buffy, what a thrill you must have had -- "Twirl about!!"

I'd do a double-take if I were Kaffe Fassett. What a thrill it must have been for him, too, to see the grand coat appear in front of him. I know you worked feverishly to get your Romeo and Juliet Coat to the point of being able to wear it as a garment, and the finishing work can take a long time, too.  But the pressure is off, now, and the pleasure is back.

And you have the added pleasure of contemplating your next Kaffe. What will it be? Something with poppies?

I've bitten off a lot and am chewing hard!  The Long Leaf Coat is halted while I start birthday and Christmas projects, and finish several started earlier. Christmas comes early as I visit our mutual grandson for his fifth birthday. I leave here early in December so all must be ready and wrapped. His is the first of the birthdays and the only one I can attend. His mom and dad both have birthdays after his and before Christmas, and so their birthday/holiday season is packed with many parties and celebrations, food and libations, and gifts galore.

And if Christmas and birthday projects were not enough, I've completely emptied a small room in the house of its couch, chairs, chest, table, and wall art,  and filled it with  the Glimakra loom I bought in the late sixties--oh, my-- and have retrieved from it's various piles of sticks and bits stuffed into closets, boxes, and bags. It was last together about 20 years ago and, amazingly, only one of the grey "shoes" had been lost between teardown then, moving to a new house a decade ago, and the setup now. The shoe was easily replaced from GlimakraUSA.

The impetus for this frenetic activity was the discovery of what might just be fabulous weaving material at the local recycle shop where the college kids donate their unwanted belongings which other students quickly snap up at a bargain to furnish new digs.  I found these large balls of what I thought was the selvedge edge of blue denim cut from yards and yards of material. But instead it was narrow gimp, finished to never ravel or shed. The skein, once a large ball, measures 75 yards, so there is plenty for almost any project.

The cost:  $4. Who could resist?

My better half is being a bit stubborn. He says he will not help me beam a warp onto the loom because he harbors bad memories from earlier times. He is, instead, sending me to Vavstuga, the Swedish weaving school in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts for my birthday less than two weeks from now. There's a two day class on dressing the loom that he says I must take. So I must!

I see the gimp woven into fabric for the front and back of a coat, lightened with mohair, with striped puffy sleeves knitted from pastel pinks, yellows, blues and greens: Kaffe sleeves! Or maybe I see a simple rag rug.

It's really great to have the loom set up and ready to use, and most of my yarn, needlepoint, books and equipment gathered together. But the Kaffe Long Leaf Coat has suffered from neglect. I'm soon back at it.

Kaffe Fassett comes to town!

Hi LuLu,

October 9 was a red-letter day for me and for the oh-so-red Romeo & Juliet Coat! Here I am with Kaffe Fassett, his very own self. He's just autographed the page in my copy of "Glorious Color" which has the photo of THE coat. Afterwards, I thought, "Why, oh why, didn't I wear a fedora and strike the pose of model in the photo?" Ah well, next time.

Kaffe and his partner, Brandon Mabley, came to Vashon Island, near Seattle, to give workshops. Kaffe now teaches only quilting, while Brandon does the knitting classes. (Kaffe's comment during his evening slide show was that he no longer had the patience for knitting classes: he would have to wait hours for knitters to produce a few square inches of pattern for discussion--whereas quilters could cut out their shapes and in less than an hour have an entire quilt design up on the wall.)

I spent the day in Brandon's "Persian Poppies" class, and it was excellent. Just as Kaffe describes in "Glorious Color," , we chose lengths (1-2 m. each) of light colors, tying them into one long length of yarn, and then lengths of dark colors tied into a second long length. Brandon didn't suggest that the colors be in color-wheel sequence or in any sequence at all, but simply that they be "pleasant" neighbors rather than starkly contrasting. He warned us away from white and black and even ivory or charcoal.

And then we started knitting the Persian Poppy design. Some in the class hadn't knitted in years; some had never done colorwork. But Brandon was amazingly patient, and found things to teach, always very positive, from each person's work.

The poppies design calls for Fair Isle knitting, with two colors carried along simultaneously. Brandon preaches that colors should be carried no more than 1-2 stitches behind the work. I knew how to knit with a color over each hand, but from him I learned how to twist the carried yarn without having to pick up and put down the alternating colors. Whether knitting or purling! Whether the carried yarn is on my right hand or my left hand. WHAT a breakthrough! The two techniques for knitting are on the website of The Philospher's Yarn: http://www.philosopherswool.com/Pages/Twohandedvideo.htm And in Brandon's latest book, he briefly describes the two techniques for purling.

By the end of the day, here were the results:

Aren't the colors amazing? I was knitting a poppy with two pale shades of blue and aqua--pretty bland--and Brandon handed me a length of lime green. Perked that poppy right up!

And then, just to give us a fresh perspective, he flipped the flannel board upside down!

In the evening, Kaffe gave a Power Point presentation at the high school auditorium. He briefly told how he started -- dropping out of art school, leaving California for England, seeing yarn on a trip north and buying 20 different colors, learning to knit on the trainride home, taking his first sweater to Vogue.... And then we saw dozens of photos of his work -- a few early paintings and lots of knitting, needlepoint and quilts as well as the images that have inspired them. Of course he now designs fabric, but he's also done interior design, and even theater productions. He doesn't do much of the actual knitting or quilting anymore: he said he has too many ideas and there's too much to do. And now he's working on his autobiography.

After the applause, as Kaffe headed to the table for booksigning, I hastily put on my coat and joined the line, "Glorious Color" in hand. He did a little double-take when my turn came, asked me to spin around, signed the book, and agreed happily to pose for the photo.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walk in the park....

Buffy, tomorrow is coming tomorrow! Are you and the Romeo & Juliet Coat ready to meet Kaffe Fassett? I envy you greatly. Take pictures. Get autographs. Remember everything. Tell all!

Speeding to Peak Color

Buffy, fabulous!  The sleeve is fabulous! And I knew it would be--I just knew it!

I thought of your Kaffe Romeo and Juliet Coat  when I watched a documentary film of traditional Chinese (Taiwanese) holidays throughout the year. The traditional costumes were huge. Sometimes when the arms were held out, the sleeves hung straight down from the wrists almost to the ground. The clothes undulated and flowed with movement. I think that might be a "secret" of the Romeo and Juliet Coat: Just keep moving!

There are 160 stitches across the back of Kaffe's Long Leaf Coat, 20 less than the amount around one of your (new) sleeves. Although I am sure I have sped up now that I am using charts I can see (!), it is still taking me an hour to cross the row. The stitches go fast enough, but the color swaps are frequent. Sometimes the colors that make up the strands are of different lengths and I find myself attaching a single strand of yarn. This would all go a little faster if I was more willing to waste a bit more yarn. I can hardly make myself do that!

It is especially slow when I tuck in those wiry metalic threads. I am using them less now although I like the look because I read in a knitting "hint" book that the metal threads could act as "knives" and cut the wool yarns. The wool stretches with the weight of the fabric and the metal threads will not stretch.  But that 3rd (and sometimes) 4th wiry strand is exceedingly slow to manipulate. One has to look closely to see the minute glitz (the near yellow leaf)--unless it is after dark and the light makes it sparkle. Otherwise glitter is not really visible. All seven leaves across the bottom of the coat contain some of the metalic threads.

I've still eleven colors to select overall. Each color is combined at times with many others so this truely is a coat of many colors. It's fascinating to watch them combine, and I love this project.

One might think that these leaf colors are a bit "neon."  NOT! Here's proof!

The leaves are turning quickly, and picking up speed! Just as I am....

No sleeve contest: Kaffe was right!

Well, LuLu, I'm about half way up the full part of the 180-stitch sleeve, and my hunch was correct. Once I finished the 120-stitch sleeve, I could see that it would sit like a big round balloon on my arm, while I suspected that the 180-stitch sleeve (as designed by Kaffe Fassett) would undulate in and out. Guess what? He knew what he was doing! Here's the 180 sleeve.

And here, for comparison is the 120 sleeve:

There's just no question: the big sleeves, regardless of what they weigh or how unusual they will look, will be much more interesting and graceful than my attempt to scale them down.

Here are a few close-ups:

By the way, I decided to knit in the round, and it's going well. I have to change direction at the beginning of each stripe in order to switch from stockinette to reverse stockinette. Back when I started the first sleeve, I worried about getting confused, but now it's easy to know when to turn around. No purling!!!

These yarns are the foundation yarns of the coat: L to R, a mohair, a single-ply, worsted-weight tweed, and a fine single-ply, also tweed. Tonight I'll be knitting 9 rows of the three yarns held together to produce that very wide, fuzzy-looking stripe around the sleeve in the classic photo at the top of our blog.

Knit on! Buffy

On the boards

Hi LuLu,
One of our wonderfully encouraging readers commented on how fast I'm proceeding. Trust me, I'm no speed-knitter. In fact, I'm an English-style "thrower," and we all know that the Continental-style "pickers" are the queens and kings of speed.

No, the answers are (a) mostly stripes--just knit or purl an entire row, no picking up or setting down as with your Long-Leaf intarsia, and (b) Size 9 and 10.5 needles, and knitting with two and three (and on the sleeves, FOUR!) strands at a time. So the key is BIG stitches.

In truth, though, I'm wasting no time, not I letting myself work on any other knitting projects (of which I always seem to have three or four going at a time). It's strictly the R&J coat, whenever I can squeeze in a few minutes of knitting.

The two front bodice pieces are now "on the boards" (the ironing board, that is). They're still on the needle because the shoulders will be joined using the 3-needle bind-off. You can see my preferred method of blocking wool, pieces pinned to the size and shape I want, and then pressed with a damp pressing cloth so everything is steamed into place.

Fortunately, the front pieces decrease at the center edge, so there was less knitting than the back bodice. That sped up the intarsia. Now just the second sleeve remains.

The second sleeve, at 180 stitches around...now THAT part IS going slowly. It's a lot of stitches! And on these big #10.5 needles, it just isn't possible to knit as fast as on smaller needles. If I never had to stop to adjust the stitches on the needle or shake out more yarn, I could knit a row in 3-5 minutes (about 1 stitch/second). But it's more realistically taking 10 minutes per row. I have about 120 rows to go, and 17 days until Kaffe comes to town, so I'll need to carve out about an hour/day for knitting. Oops, I forgot--I also need to sew the pieces together, somewhere in there...

Ta-Da! (Sneak Preview)

Another drumroll, please, LuLu.
Just for fun, I laid out the finished pieces on the deck so we could get a preview of the final effect. All the skirt panels are now complete, and I'm about half-way up the two front bodice pieces. Gotta pick up the pace here, because Kaffe Fassett comes to Vashon Island on October 9 -- only 24 days to go! My present plan is to have the bodice and skirt panels sewn together. Then I hope to have the two sleeves, one at 120 stitches and one at 180, pinned in place.

(I'd be a whole lot further along if it weren't for two very serious tax deadlines on September 15 and October 15. Why, oh why, did he choose to come to my part of the world right before the very worst, drop-dead tax deadline of the year? You thought it was April 15, but we can get 6-month extensions in April. No more extensions now; this is IT.)

I'll be in the presence of a whole roomful of Kaffe Fassett admirers, and I should get lots of helpful comments about the sleeve decision. But I suspect such a group would tend to vote for the 180-stitch sleeve that's true to the original, rather than what looks flattering, don't you think? I mean, if we KF followers wanted clothes that were ordinary or made us look slender, we certainly wouldn't be doing THIS!

Kaffe's Long "Elm" Leaf Coat

Buffy, the new big sleeve will be some sleeve, indeed! I'm rooting for the big sleeve, just like the one on the pattern. A whopper of a sleeve, it's the one everybody loves! It will billow and furl and wave about, and you will feel so grand!  Can you tell I love the big sleeves of Kaffe's Romeo and Juliet Coat?

Progress has picked up on the Kaffe's Long Leaf Coat, not in small part because so many people have it on the needles!  I'm invited all the coats here to Vermont in the Autumn of 2011 whether finished or not! We can compare the coats with each other, and to the glorious show of color on the trees outside. As my daughter says, Autumn is Nature's Las Vegas. The Kaffe Long Leaf Coats will be the chorus line!

You know, of course, that the most colorful tree here is the climax tree of the Green Mountain Range, the Hard Maple. If the forests are left alone, it will be the most frequent tree in the maturing woods.  It's also the tree that produces wonderful maple syrup.

Kaffe's Long Leaf Coat is composed of elm-like leaves, probably because they are easier to overlay one on the other. Everyone knows the shape of the maple leaf--it's the centerpiece of the Canadian flag. Imagine designing a coat with those shapes one over another. Impossible!

The American Elm is a wonderful tree. Most have died off, but there are a few left here and there, and new disease resistant strains are being developed for replanting.

I saw this elm tree in Canterbury, New Hampshire last weekend. Those darker green trees behind it are maples.  A plaque on the rock marks the elm tree.

Color season will be here soon. The trees start to color often before the first frost, and the color moves south from Canada through New England along with the cooler weather and shorter days. I'll post some pictures of the ranges of colors that can be found all around the neighborhood.

Those really, really big sleeves

LuLu, I'm seriously considering knitting the second sleeve with the full 180-stitch circumference (as called for in Kaffe's pattern) and then comparing the effect to the sleeve I've already knitted (with only 120 stitches around). Here's why: the 120-stitch sleeve (above) seems to just sit there as one big solid balloon on my arm, with perhaps one or two half-hearted inward folds. I've lightly steamed/blocked it, so the between-stripe colors are more visible and it's flatter from shoulder to wrist. But that didn't change the way it lay around my arm. I'm thinking that the 180-stitch sleeve might have multiple undulations (judging from the photo in the book), making it more interesting. And quite possibly no larger around, in the end, simply because of the undulations.

At least that's today's thought...

Stripes abounding

Hi LuLu, I'm making great headway on the panels, as you can see. AND today I signed up for a day with Kaffe Fassett and Brandon Mably on October 9. So the knitting's getting really serious here.


The panel on the left is one of the first two, and on the right the final two panels (knitted at the same time). The next two photos are more of the same, but closer up.

Kaffe's colors rock!

Hi LuLu, I'm back to stripes and loving it. Of course, after the intarsia of the bodice, this is nearly mindless knitting. But the texture (mohair added here and there) and the colors are quite lovely.

For some reason, the stripes this time seem much prettier. (Remember that the right-front and left-back are knitted in the stripe sequence given in the pattern. Then the left-front and right-back, which I'm knitting now, reverse the order of the stripes.) I think it's because I haven't yet come to the only color combination I really dislike, an olive green with red, that occurred early on, coming from the other direction.

Since I have to eliminate a certain number of rows to get the correct length, guess which stripes will get short shrift!

Homage to Romeo & Juliet Coat

Buffy, what a coat! I am amazed that you can purchase a "kit" and then completely make it your own. Nip here, tuck there. Add some rows, change some needles. You are one of those people who can have a big box of crayons, use every one in the box, and always color outside of the lines. You, my friend, are an artist.

And that big red coat is a work of art! Don't you just love it?

Another Romeo & Juliet Coat milestone!

LuLu, this is a very exciting day! I've FINISHED THE BACK BODICE. (Drum roll, please):

(Now that you've admired it, would you like to know all the...let's not call them "errors," let's call them "mods"? [modifications, in Ravelry-speak]

1. Part way up, I discovered I was knitting on size 9 needles, rather than the size 10 needles I used on the skirt panels and sleeves. HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?

2. No problem: the width is just about right for my shoulders, so I'll continue on.

3. Ah -- but the smaller needles have caused the design to squish a bit. The bottom of the circle isn't quite as charmingly round as the pattern. Oh well, in the photo in Glorious Color, the circles are a bit ovoid so I'm not turning back. But I CAN make the top a little more round. So here's the confession: I added about three rows in the top third of the big circles -- and of course, had to improvise with the little side circles.

4. I think, with a little imaginative use of duplicate stitch, I can also round up the bottoms of the big circles.

Now be honest, if I hadn't told you, would you EVER have noticed?

Just for fun, I photographed the bodice with one of the skirt panels. Ignore the stitch holders and blue waste yarn at the bottom of the bodice.

I've cast on for the last two panels, only 79 stitches each, this time. (See my last post and earlier photos about the tapering panels.) Off we go!
Hugs, Buffy

Long Leaf Coat--off the needles, into the garden!

Buffy, here I am doing a little gardening in my Kaffe Long Leaf Coat — well, knitting in the garden. One must "make progress daily" on a Kaffe project!

This image is my updated Ravelry avitar. You'll recognize me anywhere!

Kaffe Blue & White Chinese Jug Coat update

Buffy, here's an update on my Kaffe Blue & White Jug Coat:  I'm starting over.

I've learned so much from the Kaffe Long Leaf Coat. So I am going back to the "really big" original pattern size of the Jug Coat and no longer deleting some of the squares (well, rectangles.) And I'm going to put it back on circular needles and knit it all in one big piece, or perhaps separate the fronts from the back, then put those together and add the sleeves. And I will use a bit smaller needle and lighten the strands of yarn for the new guage, much like the Long Leaf Coat.

It didn't help when my dear daughter said that I would look like I was wearing a quilt, but I've gotten over that! I love this Kaffe Jug Coat, and I would wear it proudly anywhere. She, however, just might not inherit this one....  ;-)

Kaffe's Long Leaf Coat is on the wall!

Buffy, I've been given a gift!  Raveler knit22love has sent it. She had a  hard-to-read copy of the pattern for the Kaffe's Long Leaf Coat, so she used her computer to redraw it with Microsoft's Excel. You can see the pattern pieces on her Long Leaf Coat project page.

Her envelope was stuffed. She printed out many sheets of her hand done pattern and taped them together in sections: 3 for the back, 3 for the fronts, 2 for the arms, and two which made up the total length of the border strips.

I wanted cut out the parts and join them together in a paper coat! If I resized the spreadsheet cells to the guage size I would get full-sized pieces to make into a full-sized paper coat! If I printed them out on transfer paper, I could iron the pattern onto fabric and make a full-sized cloth model and try it on!

 But instead I pinned the gift pattern onto the wall.

This pattern is 36 inches wide and 56 inches high. And, amazingly, she did the front as a continuation of the back so that she wouldn't have to read the pattern "upside down" as she knits from the shoulders down to the bottom hem. You can see that clearly in this image.

Check out her project page. It's full of good ideas and and amazing preparation. Her colorways are fabulous.
Interestingly, we are both using Size 9 needles to get guage.

Buffy, I can tell you will finish your coat before the big Kaffe meet-up in October. Absolutely, you need to get another Kaffe project into the planning stage.

Too little gold (yarn, that is)

Hi LuLu,
I've been very remiss in not saying how excited I am about your Long Leaf Coat (LLC). It is absolutely gorgeous! The colors are wonderful, and we'll knock 'em dead, striding the streets of Rekyavik, Trondheim, Moscow (in winter, not now!), and Fairbanks in our fabulous 7-pound wool coats.

I'll have photos to post tomorrow: I've nearly finished the back bodice, and fear I'll not have enough gold-colored yarn for the front. It makes no sense that the instructions in Glorious Color call for 50 grams of medium green but only 25 grams of gold -- when the pattern clearly needs very much the reverse. Ah well, another little challenge.

I've also decided to make the next pair of panels narrower at the bottom. Let's see if I can explain this: The pattern calls for casting on 88 stitches at the bottom, which I did and then tapered down to the requisite number of stitches at the top. But I made the panels about 7" shorter than the pattern (to suit my 5'2" height)--which means the panels flare out disproportionately more than the original design. So I'm going to "steek" the sides of the two panels I've already knit--machine stitch and trim off the excess. (That'll also take care of all those yarn ends!) And I'll cast on fewer stitches for the next pair of panels.

Sitting in continuing education class today, I daydreamed about my next coat. How about skirt panels in slightly flaring vertical stripes (rather than horizontal), knitted intarisa style, with the bodice from of one of Kaffe's classic designs (stars, blocks, circles, poppies)?
Buffy

Kaffe Fassett autograph quest

Buffy, I know you want Kaffe to autograph your Romeo & Juliet Coat at the presentation in October, so here's a story about a Kaffe autograph you'll love!

It has all elements I love in it: Kaffe jackets, needlepoint, pansies (I had a Boxer named Pansy, the best dog ever!), and Moms! It's from Raveler KayTheArky, who sold the Kaffe jacket off her back in the St. Louis airport, and I'd give this Big Pansy Jacket two big red hearts if I could!

My mother designed and began this in the early 1990s - she used Kaffe’s Damask Flower jacket pattern, but for the flower she used one of the pansies in Kaffe’s needlepoint pillow (Glorious Needlepoint) of pansies and adapted it to a much larger scale. She was in her middle 80s at the time, and she worked quite slowly - it’s a large project and each line has so many colors in it.

In 1996 when Kaffe was doing a book tour for his Glorious Quilts, he did a presentation at a library in Ohio where I was working, and I got to set up the whole event. (Thrill! Thrill!) For decorations, I “did” the library branch in finished Kaffe-designed sweaters, both my own and borrowed from friends. From mom I got the partly finished jacket, still on a big circular needle, and her graphs; I did a display of them with the needlepoint book showing the original pansy. A “process” photo, you know?

Kaffe was delighted, and wrote lovely compliments on the edges of the graph! Mom was tickled; but she never got to finish the sweater - age and health problems intervened. She worked on it a bit at a time till she died at 92, and she made me promise that I would finish it. What a job. It’s now up to about where the sleeves start.

There are probably five, six or more Kaffe Long Leaf Coats on or near the needles now and quiet a few have been completed, but your Romeo and Juliet Coat might be the first in decades. No other Raveler has posted it as a project. So do ask Kaffe to sign your fabulous project, and break a leg!

Kaffe coat spotted in airport

Buffy, did you hear the one about the Jet Blue flight attendant who blew his cool, barked at a passenger, grabbed a beer or two, and exited the plane via the escape chute? It's all over the news today.

It reminds me of the "airport" stories I've heard about Kaffe sweaters. There's the one about the person wearing a Foolish Virgins sweater flying from Boston to London. When he asked to be upgraded to first class, he was told that that could not be done "but I will upgrade that sweater to first class!"

And best is the story about Raveler KayTheArky's Kaffe dotted diamond jacket:

I don’t even have the sweater any more! In the middle 90s while I was waiting to change planes in the St Louis airport, a total stranger asked where I got it because his wife would love it. I explained it was an original one-of-a-kind. Would I make another for her? Well, no, I didn’t think I could duplicate it. He came back a few minutes later and asked if he could buy the one I was wearing, and how much? So I asked an amount so big he would leave me alone -- $850 -- and he said OK and went to the money exchange desk and got cash “because you would never take a check from a stranger.”

Well, I was kind of stunned! A few minutes after that he came back again and said “I left you without a jacket!” and gave me a St. Louis sweatshirt from the gift shop! 

Give that jacket a big red heart!

Sticka med Kaffe Long Leaf Coat

Buffy, what a surprise.  Ravetar marrieb from the Netherlands — check out her Kaffe "Jack's Back" waistcoat — sent me the pattern for the Long Leaf Coat from the Swedish Book Sticka med Kaffe, and just like your Romeo and Juliet Coat, this particular Long Leaf Coat is knitted holding three differently colored strands — two of 4-ply and one of dk weight.

It's also notable for the pleated shoulders, which no double give this massive coat a better fit. The colors change from very rich and dark on the bottom to lighter in tone at the top, which I find very dramatic and interesting. It takes advantage of those Rowan Scottish Tweed yarns, now discontinued, that I am using, too, in my older Rowan version of the pattern.

I have only studied the color combinations in the pictures, and not yet on the pattern charts, but I do like the less dramatic, simpler overall combinations of the older pattern, even though my coat will have many of the actual colors of this Sticka med Kaffe Long Leaf Coat. The older Rowan coat in the free download just looks more like Autumn in Vermont.

I guess I shouldn't complain about using the extra metal thread — what's four strands from time to time when one is just a wisp?

Yes, Nature's Las Vegas!

Buffy, have you seen the fall color of New England in the rain? The leaves shimmer.

I love the leaves in the rain. The colors are extra vibrant on a cloudy wet day.

I found these Sulky Holoshimmer threads on sale at Jo-Ann Fabrics and Crafts. I will tuck a single thread in with coordinated yarns from time to time. I've tried it out, and I like the look. It adds a very small sparkle and movement in night light.

Since—according to my daughter—autumn is nature's Las Vegas, it's best to gild the lily, don't you think?

Yarn Handling 101

Buffy, knitting from the tangle is the solution for me. First I tried the method of Raveler chris4252 who keeps her yarns in tubs "taking my time to ensure that I don't get into a tangle; the pairs of yarns for the leaves are in order on the sofa and the background pair is in a card box on the floor at my feet."  I tried that and, frankly, it drove me batty unwinding the tubs. But then chris4252 is a phenom -- she can knit a sweater in a day!

No, I opt for the Kaffe method of knitting short strands and pulling the ends from the tangle that always results. But there is one upside: I can use much smaller balls of yarn. I have organized my yarns used thus far into a simple container I found in the fishing supplies at WalMart. This $6 solution comes with 10 plastic dividers so you can configure the box as you like. I made more dividers from plastic milk jugs, using one as a pattern as I need all divisions possible to hold the 34 coat colors. You can see that I need to drink another gallon of milk to finish the box.

This makes a neat 9" x 14" x 4" package and will hold "every crayon in the box." It will be easy to resupply from the larger skeins. Best, it is easy to move from room to room.  The small balls can stack two high,  so this kit holds enough for a visit to my sister in the midwest as long as I take extra of the two workhorse yarns, D and m.

And I supposed you noticed ... there will be pink in my Long Leaf Coat.

The hunt for boots

Buffy, are these the perfect boots for my Long Leaf Coat?  Will rubber wellies work in Paris? They're perfect for New England!

They were featured in the new September issue of Country Living. I checked zappos.com, but they are not yet listed.