Re-enjoying the same knitting

Posted on June 20, 2014 by admin

I went to knit-night on Wednesday for the first tim in aaaages. It was lovely to see everyone again, and it’s nice to go somewhere where they say “why don’t you come more often?”

I took two things to knit on. Steve’s two-colour brioche scarf, and my raspberry red Aleita tank.

The scarf is nearly done, and the stripes are getting a bit erratic as I ran out of lime. I’m now alternating 3 colours and there’s only so long I can do that for. It’s lovely & smooshy and only 6 months until it’s an appropriate accessory, so yay!

The tank is was going well. Well into my third ball of yarn I’d done the decreases for the hip, and was just about to start increasing again. I read the instructions.

And then I read them again.

And then I looked at my knitting and realised what the slightly not-quite-right feeling I’d been having was caused by. I’d only done half the decreases I was supposed to do. I’d been diligently decreasing at each side of the front every 6 rows but not at the back. That pattern says “*do this, repeat from *” and I’d missed out “repeat from *”.

I tried to think of a way round it, but I knew the truth. I spent a mere 5 minutes chanting “I love knitting ” in my head and turning 5″ of knitting into 2 balls of wound yarn.

It’s growing again now, and I’m not *so* far removed from where I was. Am I?!

At least the right number of decreases will use less yarn. I’m a bit concerned about running out of yarn.

About the startitis

Posted on May 9, 2014 by admin

It turns out I’m all about the colour work at the moment. I haven’t finished the mittens yet, but have started turning this left- over yarn:

Into this two-colour brioche scarf:

Changing one of the colours every 12 row sets means the stripes are offset.

This very clever idea comes to you courtesy the fabulous Stephen West.

This can be yours…

Posted on March 16, 2014 by admin

Four years ago I made a cardigan. It was made with yarn bought for me by my Dad shortly after mum died, I really love the colours, I’d been planning to knit this pattern for years and I finished it in an amazingly short time.

But here’s the thing. I don’t like it.

It’s drapey and flowy and snuggly warm. It doesn’t itch like wool can, and it’s not too small. I’ve had more compliments about this than pretty much anything else I’ve ever made. Did I mention that I love the colour?

However, the sleeves are also long and drapey which, if you’re either doing stuff in the kitchen or coding, can be annoying. It has no built-in way of keeping itself closed and I’m not about to start collecting scarf pins to do the job. I’m more of a “neat” cardigan kinda gal these days.

So, my plan is to auction it off and give the cash to charity. This cardigan/coat has the capacity to be someone’s favourite new cardigan. I’ve worn & washed it a few times and it’s weathered well. It’s made from New Zealand mostly-wool yarn so should be pretty durable.

I would ask that it not be used to line a dog or cat basket. Yet.

The charity the money will go to is this one: porridge and rice.

My erstwhile mentor Ken took some of his students to Kenya last year and they have since been moved to set up this charity. Even if you don’t want the cardigan, please consider supporting them independently.

So – how do you make this LOVELY cardigan yours? I’ve listed it on eBay with a starting price of £20 + £6 P&P or local pickup (ormskirk or Knutsford). The auction finishes in 10 days (26th March 2014) and at that point, if you’re the winning bidder, it’s yours.

So – go nuts and let’s see what we can raise for Ken’s new friends in Kenya!

Here’s the link to its Ravelry page for yet more details if you’re interested.

New favourite cardigan

Posted on February 26, 2014 by admin

According to Ravelry my new favourite cardigan has taken me 3.5 months to knit. I’m really pleased with this – there was a time not so long ago when I would plan *months* ahead and not be able to bank on finishing a garment until after the season after next. Those days are gone.

Well, for the projects I work on, clearly. For others, the months rules still apply.

I got the yarn for this latest project from the New York Sheep and Wool Fair, or Rhinebeck for short.

I could have sworn I took a photo of my Rhinebeck haul but a cursory search in a single location didn’t yield fruit and the picture wasn’t all that great anyway. I took yarn weight and quantity details with me, as I wanted to get something lovely to make a Lavandula with, and this seemed like the right place to get it. I wanted to get something in a dark grey.

When I saw the skeins of dark grey alpaca hanging in the booth, I thought “that looks like the color I’m after” (I was in the US, so clearly was thinking in US spelling). I reached out and felt it and -ooOOooh!

I was in love.

This is possibly the smooshiest yarn I have ever felt, smooshier even than previous alpaca yarns I have loved. For the next few weeks, my favourite trick was to hand a skein to someone who was in full conversational flow, and -ooOOooh. Yes, it’s conversation stoppingly smooshy. I quite quickly moved on, though, from petting it to winding it. I wound each of the 3 skeins I got into 2 balls so that I could knit a row in each of the skeins, thus preventing any colour-pooling or having the arms in a different colour. For, as the lady at the booth said, although the yarn is undyed and all from the same fleece, the underbelly might have been a different shade to its back. The balls of wound yarn were also very smooshy.

The first part of this pattern requires one to knit 12 inches of very long rows of 1×1 rib. This is not my favourite kind of knitting, being 1 step up from the dreaded moss stitch, but needs must. After quite the ribbing extravaganza, you get to knit a lacy pattern so I hung on in there.

Through series 2 of The Bridge and I think some Game Of Thrones I ploughed on, having memorised the lace pattern (to the extent that the second sleeve has slightly more lace at the row-ends than the first – I got more confident by then) and much concentrating and checking off through simultaneous raglan and neckline decreases. And The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. I had to do the button band twice because I didn’t pick up enough stitches and it pulled in too much.

A quick beef about this. Why say “pick up 90 stitches”? Why not say “Pick up 3 stitches for every 4 rows”, especially when the body of the garment is measured in inches rather than rows. Eh? A lot of misery could be avoided that way.

…and so it was nearly done. I sewed the buttons on straight away (I had planned ahead and bought some before starting to knit. Get me, with my thinking ahead) and thus found out straight away that I had one button hole too many. I think, however, that I do indeed have one button hole too many and not one button too few as doing up the top button, were there a button there, would look really quite odd.

And so here it is – my new favourite cardigan.

I had a moment of crisis about half way through making this that the combination of raglan sleeves and rib over the belly would only serve to accentuate my negative features ~ however, in spite of the amount of sucking in that’s going on in the photo above (note the blue shade around my lips) I think it’s actually pretty flattering. And the snowflake pattern works well. As does the colour. And it’s still very smooshy. If a bit hairy.

I just hope the large amount of negative and dark telly I watched while making it hasn’t affected its aura. I’d hate to start growing tattoos as a result…

Much under the breath muttering

Posted on February 25, 2014 by admin

I thought the iPad keyboard was working. It doesn’t appear to be. So again, this will be …succinct.

That’s the first thing that has made me mutter under my breath. The second is the lack of tension in the luscious Princess Franklin cowl.

Sorry to start with the punch line, but those of you who have been paying attention will know that I was making this exciting accessory for Steve rather than for me. Anyone who has seen him will be able to appreciate that his head is at the top end of the size scale. Although he’s a modest chap temperamentally, his head looks quite large compared to his body – to the extent that my sister cautioned me against marrying him in case head size was hereditary.

It’s fair to say that I didn’t consider this a good enough reason to not pursue the relationship.

At this point, though, it’s importance has shot up the scale.

I followed the instructions: I made the cowl/collar the length it said in the picture before joining it in the round. I got Steve to try it on. It was a bit snug, but ok. That should have been the alarm bells moment.

This pattern has you weave over the top of the lovely stretchy garter stitch with less stretchy straight thread. I was conscious of this, so made sure to thread with plenty of ease.

Three full evenings of weaving thread through garter stitch later, it turns out, there was no such thing as loose enough with a collar of this circumference.

This collar is now mine. I’ve said I’ll make Steve another, bigger one, but I won’t be able to face it for some time. Maybe in time for next Christmas…

Princess Franklin Progress

Posted on February 2, 2014 by admin

My iPad keyboard is refusing to take a charge, and so I’m typing this on-screen and finding it disproportionately annoying. So this will be brief.

Why not use my laptop, you ask? Good question, I say. My laptop is currently mainly engaged in playing Stampy Longnose Minecraft videos and to be honest, asserting ownership rights would take more effort than I’m prepared to expend just now. Although if this keyboard persists in not working, the balance will shift.

So, on to knitting. Even though I haven’t yet finished my last thing for other people yet (still no embroidery on Lily’s cardi) I’ve cast on the next gift item. As soon as I saw Princess Franklin in the latest Knitty I knew I wanted to make it for someone (preferably me). I showed It to Steve, more in retaliation for the many conversations about computing that I’ve withstood over the years than in touting it to him, and he said “ooh, yes please, that would be lovely”.

So, when I picked myself off the floor, I waited a month for Christmas to pass, and then rushed down to my LYS to acquire some suitable yarn.

Of course, I haven’t bought the yarn listed in the pattern, so it’s knitting up to a slightly different gauge. After I’ve competed the current repeat of the stripes I’ll measure and decide whether to continue and if so, by how much.

The way the pattern works is that the vertical stripes are knitted into the fabric, and then the horizontal “weave” is added after you’ve joined the circle of the cowl. There are a lot of ends to weave in, but I’m being a good girl and doing them as I go.

I’m also liking how this looks on the right side. It’s coming out pretty neat, although by now I shouldn’t be proud of my ability to knit even garter stitch.

I did start this as an exercise in learning to get the right tension on Portuguese knitting. I kicked off and spent a good 2 evenings practising my new skill. It was all going swimmingly – tension not a problem, even though Portuguese knitting is a little tighter than usual, and it was looking good.

The next day, I had a bizarre bone-ache type pain in my left forearm. I get this bone-ache type pain in my legs as part of PMS (having only recently discovered it was a thing, and not early onset arthritis) so I just sighed and assumed that it was spreading to my arms. After all, knitting in a different way couldn’t _cause_ RSI after on 2 evenings …could it?

I changed back to the old method(s), though, and sure enough, the pain has gone.

I may need to save the unusual knitting method for Special Occasions. I’ll try it again, but interfering with my ability to type makes it very unhelpful…

Tudora Ruff…

Posted on January 26, 2014 by admin

It’s all been about the gift knitting since Christmas which is, I understand, a bit arse-about-face, but there it is. Situations have arisen so I’m dealing with them.

The first is for one of Steve’s aunts, Joel’s godmother. She is celebrating a Significant Birthday at the end of January, so as well as getting her something Proper, I thought I’d knit her a little something. Just in case you think I’m having some kind of time crisis, I’m writing this on 12th January but won’t publish it until after said aunt’s birthday – so you’ll be reading this at the end of January.

Sue (the aunt) has been obsessed this last year with the Philippa Gregory queens series (along with a number of other relatives – the books have been doing the rounds) so I thought something tudor/wars of the roses would be suitable. The knitty.com Tudora Ruff seemed appropriate – good for helping to keep necks warm in the winter, the woman in the pictures looks similar in age & style levels to Sue, and I was given some appropriate yarn for Christmas from Lily, so the gift can sort-of be a contribution from both of us.

Being made in reasonably big yarn, the usual gauge for which is 18st/4″, this has grown pretty darn quickly – less than a week to complete as I cast on on Wednesday and by Sunday lunchtime have sewn on the button. Here I am looking less than fabulous, clearly attempting to show the cowl off in its best light.

…although it appears to be trying to poke me up the nose. If this was for me, I would probably prefer to wear it thus:

…it nicely masks my double chin (I’m working on reducing that – I am resigned to the genetics which mean it will never fully disappear) and isn’t invading my face space. The colour grades more than I thought it did when I looked at the ball, and also fairly unhelpfully went to more red than pink when I was doing the button band last night and couldn’t properly see the very slight clash that that makes.

Also, I’ve FINALLY used one of the wooden cross-section buttons I sent off for roughly 2 (possibly more) years ago, which look fabulous but are definitely raw wood dressed up a bit. This is a hickory branch cross-section I think.

Well – there, it’s done. Fingers crossed it went down well with whatever else we got for Sue!!

Plus ça change…

Posted on December 29, 2013 by admin

I’m onto the fancy knitting on my sleeves now.

…although it’s quite probable that I’ll have to block this fairly severely to get consistency on the snowflake pattern.

Of course, I could just use my body to stretch it. That could work.

Also, last night I got to 3cm away from the eye holes on Joel’s balaclava so thought I should check it will go over his head…

My reaction to seeing this is that my glasses look slightly horn-rimmed here. Not my best angle, although it’s damned comfortable as a hat.

It’s all the same to me…

Posted on December 28, 2013 by admin

You know how sometimes, even though you may be fully fired up about a project, it gets a little bit same-y?

I’ve got to the point of my Lovely Lavandula where I’ve finished the 12 inches (it should actually be 12.5, but I’ve done 12 – see last blog post) of 1×1 rib and have done 4 pattern repeats. This means I put the stitches on holding yarn and start work on the sleeves. Which start with 4 inches of 1×1 rib.

And I’m planning to do 5″, because I like longer cuffs.

This would be less of a problem if the other project I’ve brought with me wasn’t also 1×1 rib…

I guess I shouldn’t really complain. After all, it’s in a different colour.

UFO’s and GOOD GRIEF how long is it since I posted?!

Posted on December 22, 2013 by admin

I thought it was maybe a week since I last posted. Turns out it’s nearly a fortnight. Goodness, how time flies… Steve was away for some of that time, which usually means I have less time to focus on online stuff. At least, that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it!

This afternoon I had a moment of startitis but resisted it by examining my UFO pile, some of which has probably celebrated more than one birthday. Excuse me while I check…

Yep, two of these are over 2 years old. Oh dear.

So: This is what is currently glowering at me from the corner of the living room. Except usually it’s not spread out so tastefully.

In order of seniority…

The pink tank. I got this yarn intending to make a vintage pattern, but then I either didn’t have enough yarn, or it was the wrong gauge, so it was sidetracked into its current incarnation. The yarn is a lovely baby pink, and is really soft. It was an eBay purchase and I have no idea what brand it is. It’s quite small gauge, so doesn’t grow very fast. This is being knit in the round in a nice stretchy irregular rib. My plan is to do an instance or two of cables to draw it in under the bust, then increase for ease over my shelf and decrease with cables in some form. The needles you can see there are from the swatch I did to test how the cables would look. I now can’t remember what I did on that swatch. But it looks lovely… However, I’ve got to the point of cabling and have suffered a major crisis of confidence. I’m good with the cables, I’ll figure out what exactly I was planning, it’s just the combination of increases and arm holes that follow thereafter. Plus, I’m concerned that ribbed increases will make my rack look like droopy melons. We aren’t too far away from a point where I could redirect the finished item towards Lily, in which case as things currently stand, I’m catering for the flat chested and might get it finished, like, ever.

One of these days I’ll learn my lesson and stop trying to design full size garments a) on the fly and, frankly, b) at all.

Don’t watch this space, though, this project seriously has the capacity to out-live us all.

The blue summer top has *only* been on the hook since August 2011. I bought the pattern in Kenilworth when on a knitting weekend with Lorna. I was blown away by the fact that it was crochet and yet didn’t look like it had stepped straight out of the 70’s. I chose the same blue as on the pattern, which I love, and have been labouring on and off ever since. Well, mostly off. The border around the bottom is worked first, most of which was done on my train commute, and then the body is worked up at 90 degrees from the border. The last time I had a proper crack at this was in Portugal at Easter. And I fear that may be Easter 2012.

The back is done and I’m working my way up the front. This could be ready for my summer holiday 2015. Fingers crossed!

This one I have an ambition to get done this week. It’s a cardigan for Lily, inspired by the film “Rise of the Guardians”. It’s a russet-red cardi, based on the pattern “That Weasley Girl” which is more of a recipe than a full-on pattern (I like that about it – this is the second one I’ve made) . It has black collar and cuffs, and will have embroidery on the reverse stocking stitch squares and toggle closures. All it needs is the embroidery and the closures. Oh, and it has a black eyelash-yarn detachable collar which needs buttons so that it can be un-detached. Simples, eh.

I’ve actually worked on this (herringbone stitch cowl) today, and it’s only been in progress for a couple of months so I’m not sure this counts as a UFO. Except it’s not finished, so yeah, it does. It’s now on its new needle, the one that isn’t going to snap any second now, and bar a slight blip when I was distracted by (David Tennant as) Dr Who, it’s going well. This may be my car knitting this week. When I’m a passenger, that is.

This is my current Big WIP. I’ve done the 12″ of rib (which should really be 12.5″, however…) and am now onto lacy pattern. The pattern says do 3×12 rows before starting on the sleeves, but I’m going to do 4×12. Why? because I want a slightly longer body than Twist patterns usually have, plus I’d like the lace to go a bit lower. Sorry if it feels like I keep showing off, but the large, low rack could use a bit of extra room and I don’t like the idea of the rib turning off at nipple height. It just doesn’t feel attractive.

This last one I started about a week ago, intending to make a face cloth for someone. I may instead wrip it out and add it to the stash. No-one in my world wants a hand made face cloth more than I want to make progress on other stuff.

Besides which, I feel a strong need to cast on a turquoise balaclava for Joel and a pair of wraptor socks for …whoever. Oh, and some Weeping Angel socks for someone else. And a ball of pink sock yarn that’s glaring at me from the bureau in the sitting room. And the delph blue sock yarn that wants to be a pair of socks for my aunt.

Yep, the face cloth dies. Onwards & upwards!

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