It doesn’t always have to be green

Tags

gift, laceweight, merino, Ozifarmer's market, scarf, shawls, silk, yarn

I recently finished a scarf for Older Soknitsome Daughter. We’d spent a cosy hour together last year browsing my yarn stash on Ravelry. I have a few skeins of green yarn, partly chosen with my daughter in mind. It is her favourite colour and featured along with gold at her wedding earlier this year. You can imagine my surprise then when she picked out this lovely silvery grey and pink yarn  from Ozifarmer’s Market. Her accompanying words were “It doesn’t always have to be green”.

The pattern is Dangling Conversation by Mindy Ross which can be knitted in various weights. The pattern suggests placing the eyelet rows at the colour changes of gradient yarn but the changes in this yarn were so subtle that I just did the eyelet rows where I thought looked about right.

I really enjoyed knitting this. Yes, it is 800m of fine stocking stitch but the yarn is made up of 80% merino and 20% silk and it’s light and soft and was a real pleasure to knit with.

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Fancy Feet

Tags

charts, lace patterns, Pattern, Regia, socks, toe-up, yarn

There’s been some white Regia 4-ply in my stash for a while, waiting to be turned into the right pair of socks. Lace socks. Like these socks.

The pattern is Sprig by Wei Siew Leong (aka KiwiPurler who blogs here). Mine look a little bit different because I started them at the toes. I didn’t turn the chart upside down. The lace pattern works well viewed in both directions. The only slight difficulty I had was in reading my knitting. It was a little tricky to anticipate which round was next without referring back to the chart. Of course once the lace is stretched across a foot, it all becomes clear.

I knitted these socks as part of the Aussie Sock Knitters first knit along of the year: undiscovered gems (patterns with fewer than 20 projects). Now as far as I’m concerned this is really a gem of a design. In fact I think these would look beautiful in black (sharp intake of breath at thought of knitting lace in black yarn on 2 mm needles). A friend helpfully pointed out that knitting them in grey and dying them black might be better. I think she’s right.

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I’m so excited

Tags

Australian, Christmas, Craft, gift, hand-dyed, knitting, occasion

…but I have to hide it!

I’m currently working on several lovely projects.

• I have charts, linen fabric, gold needles and hand-dyed threads.
• I have patterns, local yarn, DPNs and circular needles.

I’m not making any Christmas surprises so there won’t be any sharing until after the occasions and that will be well into the new year.

However, I can show you this Australian-dyed yarn

Once the item’s dry, I’ll be able to share some photos and a truly heart-stopping moment! More soon…

KnitCamp 2015 – the best bits

Tags

Ann Budd, friends, KnitCamp2015, Knitters' Guild NSW, knitting, Ravelry, Sydney

Ann Budd’s class
Goodie bags
Knitting outdoors
Lucky draws
Mystery scarf competition
Neck massages
Presentations
Show and tell
Stash enhancement
Techniques turntables
Workshops

Last weekend the Knitters’ Guild NSW hosted KnitCamp 2015 at Stanwell Tops, just over an hour away from Sydney. There were all things knitterly from Friday evening until Sunday afternoon.

On Friday evening there was a techniques turntables event.  I came away feeling more knowledgeable about German short rows, kitchener stitch and grafting. Afterwards the prizewinner for the Mystery Scarf competition was announced: a relatively new knitter made a fabulous double-knit scarf in memory of and depicting her cat!

Ann Budd held classes on fixing mistakes and we did scary things like dropping down several rows of stitches in order to reknit cables so they twisted the other way, dropping end-of-row stitches and she even cut a hole in her knitting to demonstrate fixing that too! I feel quite confident I could fix an incorrectly leaning cable without having to frog several inches of work, despite my sample here not being quite perfect. 

But Ann didn’t just teach classes, she spent the whole weekend with us, hanging out with her knitting and putting up with all the fans and the adoration. And this, despite being quite poorly and losing her voice. She was wearing lovely knitted garments herself. Several of us admired a skirt she wore and she kindly lifted up her top to show us the waistband and the darts shaping the hips.

The Knitters’ Guild NSW has some new merchandise and we received lovely goody bags  with Guild merchandise, yarn, tools and retailers’ information inside.

There were various workshops that we had signed up for when we registered. As well as Ann’s class I took part in a Fair-Isle/stranded knitting class. The teacher, Merrin, brought along some fantastic jumpers she’d made. As you can see from these samples, I still need more practice!

The Christmassy-looking sample was knitted flat. Purling was hard so I was glad to be able to work in the round for the blue and grey piece. I started by holding both yarns in my left hand (I’m a continental knitter). When I got part-way through the snowflakes I switched to grey in left hand and blue in right and I think this makes the knitting more even.

We were very fortunate with the weather. People got up early to go walking and later, sat around knitting and crocheting outdoors if they didn’t have a class. I managed a bit of knitting outdoors in the sunshine at lunchtime. It was lovely early spring weather, just right for all the beautiful knitwear on show. Seen a cardigan you fancy on Ravelry? Someone was probably wearing it.

When they’re not knitting, Guild members are partial to enhancing their stash. On Saturday there was a retailers’ market. I was keen to see some Australian yarn up close and of course, once you’ve started petting and stroking, there’s no way you can just walk away. My purchases were quite modest – a skein of baby alpaca and mulberry silk (lace weight) from The House of Wool

and Ozifarmer’s Market Silky Merino Lace.

However, I then succumbed to the yarn that one of our local Guild branch members had used to make a beautiful Nurmilintu and so this also came home with me. It’s Debbie Bliss Fine Donegal. Several of us bought it for the same scarf. The hardest part was deciding on a colour; they were all fabulous. One knitter even cast hers on while we were there.

That isn’t the end of the yarn acquisition – I was also one of the lucky draw recipients and won this Ella Rae Lace Merino which is actually fingering/4-ply yarn.

I was very happy to be sharing a room with some of the Inner City Guild branch, friends from Thursday night knitting. I really feel more like a part of things here, which is good since I’ve now been in Sydney for 10 months.

The whole weekend actually was very relaxing. On Saturday there were even two masseurs who went around giving everybody a neck and shoulder massage. It was wonderful. People knitted and crocheted everywhere and all the time – while listening to presentations (on using digital tools and Ravelry, and from a local publisher) and during show and tell, as well as when the winner of the Mystery Shawl competition was announced. In fact from early morning until the small hours of the following morning it was knit, knit, knit!

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All for Archibald – speed, fudges and frantic finishing

Tags

Archibald Prize, Art Gallery of NSW, Emily Ross, Judy Marples, lace, shawl

Or the story of what happens when you decide on a Thursday that 440 metres of yarn should be a shawl by the following Tuesday…

This purple yarn

 

goes very well with this fabric.

This purple yarn used to be a scarfy-kind-of-wrap that went very well with this dress.

But the scarfy-kind-of-wrap grew longer and skinnier and I frogged it, intending to knit a shawl instead.

**********

Fast forward a year and you get to where I was last Thursday – the moment when it dawned on me that I really did need that purple yarn to be a shawl by Tuesday*.

The yarn is Lana Grossa Puntino, a sport-weight/5-ply cotton, and I thought it would be perfect for a Daylily Shawl by Judy Marples (spinnyknitter). I admit to having felt slightly anxious at the prospect of knitting a lacy shawl in under a week. I decided to compromise and knit a shawl with a stocking stitch body and a lace border. So off I went. I cast on and followed the shaping for Daylily. It’s a semi-circular shawl which should stay put quite nicely.  I knitted as fast as my fingers would move.  Forget enjoying the process or the ‘journey’; this was simply a race to the finishing line cast off!

Sometime on Saturday, after I’d knitted three ‘blank’ repeats, I began to feel uneasy about the whole project. Daylily Shawl has its own border and here I was wanting to do a panel of daylilies and then what? I thought the shawl would end up looking bitty if I had a section of stocking stitch, followed by some daylily vines and then finished with the more solid border of the pattern. What I needed was a straightforward lacy edge. Thankfully, inspiration struck… Haruni!  Many people have modified the pattern and knitted a stockinette body with the flower edging but Emily Ross has written up Stockinette Haruni as a separate pattern.

So I’d reached the home stretch. Or had I?

My shawl was a semi-circle, and Stockinette Haruni is triangular. I decided to omit the larger flower at the centre and just work the other pairs all round. I did a sneaky decrease to get an even number, and cracked on with the flowers.

Eleven rows later, and it was clear that Something Was Not Right. One front point was growing into a flower and the other on wasn’t! Close examination of the pattern instructions revealed I had failed to account for three stitches (marked helpfully in yellow) that should mark the other point. I.e. knit the repeats and then knit the yellow squares once more. Sometimes more haste does mean less speed. Time to rip back. Oh were those rows long. And I needed to ‘find’ three extra stitches. Time for a little fudge!

Fortunately, attempt two was straightforward on the knitting front, but my yarn was decreasing at a rather alarming rate. This called for more fudging. I stopped the increase rows one row short and then jigged the first decrease row to account for my petals being narrower but the spaces in-between being as stated. I carried on knitting. With the final row completed, I needed to deviate from the pattern again. I replaced  the multiple-stitch decreases and chain loops with a stretchy cast off.

My yarn had kinks from its former life and there were uneven stitches, particularly in the body of the shawl. But it’s winter here and I believe cotton can take a while to dry. I decided to try a steam pressing first and see whether I liked the result. Thankfully, I did. Just stretching the fabric with my fingers while applying the steam iron evened out the knitting to such an extent that I was confident I could make the flowers look good too. I went for a smooth edge and just opened up the flowers, one by one.

So when did I finish? Monday! So yes, you can decide on a Thursday to knit over 400 metres of yarn into a shawl to be worn the following Tuesday… but it’s not something I’d generally recommend!

 

* Why Tuesday? Tuesday was the day I was attending a so-called Archibald Dinner. A special event at the Art Gallery of New South Wales with a private viewing of the finalists for the Archibald, Wynne and Sulman prizes. You can read more about these prestigious prizes here.

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European Knitting – The Socks

Tags

Germany, Pattern, Regia, socks, stripes, travel, yarn

What would a holiday that involved a lot of travelling be without socks? Socks on needles, to be knitted, of course!

There have been peeks of them already. These grey ones are the third pair I’ve made following Regina Satta’s pattern Jeck. I really like it as it has a bit of pattern on alternate rows. The purl stitches each side of the slipped stitches help those slipped ones stand out. This pair were made from one 100g ball of Regia sock yarn (the colour design is Vermont) and I just started the second sock as soon as the first one was finished. They don’t need to be identical as you can see here on the heels.

      

I was very keen to try out Geek Socks by Wei Siew Leong (aka KiwiPurler who blogs here).  I thought that this stripy yarn would work perfectly … until I started knitting. The black stripes were not clearly defined – in some rounds I had blotches of dark grey or black appearing before the black stripe. The notion of playing with the stripes still appealed, however, so I slipped alternate stitches in the first round of black (starting k1 sl1, k1 sl1) and in the first round of the following colour with (sl1 k1, sl1 k1), which gave me dotted black lines. Because I started the toe exactly where a new colour began, I was able to make an identical second sock.

     

This yarn, incidentally, is ALDI yarn! ALDI discount stores are now trading in several countries. In Germany, there are yarn or craft specials several times a year. Sock yarn is probably available twice if not three times. It is always packed in bags of 4 x 50g balls (with a set of five cheap 2.5mm DPNs) , usually two balls are plain and two are striped or patterned. The yarn comes from Max Gründl/Four Seasons Gründl or more recently Vendita (which seems to be a subsidiary company) and is as hard-wearing as Regia. Unfortunately, there were no such specials during my European trip. This yarn was already in my stash.

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More European Knitting

Tags

blanket, Cologne, Germany, Lana Grossa, Lizard Ridge, socks, stripes, travel, yarn

There were times when I was by myself in Cologne so of course I cracked on with some knitting and not just socks and shawls. I had to buy some more grey for the Lizard Ridge blanket (pattern by Laura Aylor) I’ve started. I am now on my 28th pair of socks which sounds like quite a few pairs but really isn’t enough when it comes to leftovers. This was easily remedied, however, as you can buy Regia sock wool in local department stores and Lana Grossa’s Meilenweit (similar yarn) in many local yarn shops.

Here are the pieces I managed during our European trip. Some of them were knitted during the car journey to and from the north of Germany to see Mr Soknitsome’s sister. Mr Soknitsome shares one trait with many Germans. He likes to drive fast on the Autobahn. When he does that, I like to concentrate on my knitting!

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Yarn today, sock tomorrow

Tags

6-ply, Lana Grossa, patterns, Ravelry, socks, sport weight, toe-up, Wendy D Johnson

A slight exaggeration… but not much of one.

I can see why people enjoy knitting socks out of 6-ply/sport weight sock yarn. It makes for very satisfying and speedy results!

This is Meilenweit 6-Fach from Lana Grossa. It’s a typical wool and nylon blend for knitting socks.

And here’s a sock. I’m using Wendy D Johnson’s pattern, Sport Weight Toe-Up Socks with Gusset Heel (Ravelry link to free pattern).

 

A bit of a sock as light relief

Tags

knitting, lace, lace weight, socks, stripes, texture, toe-up

Sometimes you need something a little simpler. This sock has been knitted on at knit night, and on buses. I’ve even knitted a bit at home, too, when the lights were dimmed and I didn’t want to concentrate on lace work in a dark lace weight yarn.

This is my upside down Primavera Sock. The pattern is written cuff-down but I started at the toe. Why? I like knitting socks toe-up. When I first began knitting socks I was drawn to the idea of being able to try them on as you go. This has turned out to be a good thing. I knit socks on skinny 2mm (US 0) needles and only need 60 stitches to get a snug but not tight sock. Sometimes I have to fiddle with a pattern. Here I switched the decreases and increases to keep the directional shape of the design as it kind of grows up your foot.

The greenish section came as a bit of a surprise.

I thought I was knitting something similar to the pale lilac but lo and behold in daylight it looks quite different. I’ve been knitting from the centre of the ball and from the outside it looks like this:

Its partner clearly shows this green and I had looked inside both balls to check that they were the same colours when I bought them.

It appears, too, that the colour sequence is now reversing. This could be a very interestingly striped pair of socks!

Casting off – the whole story

Tags

Ankestrick, Be Inspired Fibres, buttonholes, cardigan, contiguous, Holst Garn, i-cord, knitting, Ravelry

The preschool children I taught in Singapore often used same same to describe identical objects and same for similar ones. I think that sums up this cardigan perfectly.

The pattern is “Same Same but different (contiguous Walnuss)” by ANKESTRiCK (Ravelry user name Fallmasche) and by my standards I made a heck of a lot of changes to the design:

• I wanted the fronts and the back to be the same length so I ignored all the directions for making side pleats.
• The cardigan is longer so I increased the spaces between the shaping rows.
• The sleeves are wider than in the pattern. I picked up extra stitches under the arm, which is what many knitters do to avoid holes, but instead of decreasing them away, I followed the pattern’s system of decreases.
• My sleeves are a little longer than in the pattern.
• Button placement – I made more buttonholes to prevent the fronts from gaping.
• I made changes to the i-cord bind off/cast off for the sleeves and the neckline; mine is one stitch narrower than in the pattern.

Why did I choose this pattern?

• It is a lightweight cardigan that should serve me well in Sydney winters and Cologne and Edinburgh springs/summers.
• It was one of very few lightweight patterns that showed projects with people wearing blouses underneath and not just a tee-shirt or skimpy vest/camisole top, increasing its versatility.
• The only negative comments on Ravelry were to do with button placement (and this was easily fixed). The few projects that have been ripped back or abandoned seem to be because the knitters were bored or the fit wasn’t right (tension!).
• I liked the idea of knitting the button bands at the same time.

How did I proceed?

• I never jump in blindfold. I chose this pattern for its practicality as part of my wardrobe as well as its appearance.
• I checked the projects on Ravelry for useful comments. There are currently 378 projects on Ravelry. Please don’t think I checked through each and every one. There are filters like ‘helpful’  which can draw your attention to any critical aspects (like the button placement here). You can, of course, also search specific criteria like buttonholes or sleeves.
• I looked at the photos of women wearing the cardigan. Regardless of how poor the photo shot, I actually appreciate seeing real women in real garments rather than just perfect photos of lovely cardigans on dressmakers’ dummies or clothes hangers!
• I had a very good (knitting) friend, M, measure across my shoulders, as stated in the pattern, to determine size. This was a smart idea as Same Same but different is knitted with saddle shoulders and using the contiguous sleeve method so the back and shoulders need to fit well.
• I knitted two tension squares (aka gauge swatches). Why two? Because the first one didn’t give me the exact measurements stated and I wanted to be very sure before committing myself. Just half a stitch in difference doesn’t sound like much but expand that over each of your four-inch repeats and suddenly your card end up being bigger or smaller than you were hoping for!
• I made a lot of notes on the pattern. I tend to count in ‘garden gates’ with dots above for shaping, which is helpful when it comes to knitting the second sleeve, for instance. I highlighted the instructions for the button and buttonhole bands. I could not remember them for the life of me (there are slipped knit and slipped purl stitches) and at least this way I always knew what to do.
• I followed good suggestions on Ravelry for having more buttons and for marking each buttonhole row as I went along. This is actually a bit  ‘duh’ / slap head / why didn’t I think of this before. It made sewing on the buttons so much easier as there was no counting involved afterwards. I sewed on the buttons prior to blocking and then buttoned the cardigan shut for its bath.

Pattern notes

     

Criticism?

• None bar what I knew already – knitting a seamless cardigan means each row of knitting is very long! Yes, you alternate plain and purl but it is still dull. I had a bit of a mental block after I’d separated the sleeves from the body. The rows were still so long and it seemed as if I would be knitting for ever. I abandoned this for a while but with a touch of regret. I loved the feel of the yarn, its tactility, but those loooong rows were so off-putting.

Yarn used?

• I made my cardigan from Holst Garn’s Coast. It’s a lovely blend of cotton and wool and feels very soft. If you’ve knitted with Holst yarns, you’ll appreciate the colour range available. Coast is softer than Supersoft. It blooms a bit on contact with water (which is another reason for checking tension upfront!) so what feels a tad skinny on your needles works out to be perfect in your finished garment.
• I bought my yarn at Be Inspired Fibres*. This isn’t my LYS but it is my LYS when I visit my parents and long may that remain so! Mei’s shop is literally a ten-minute walk from my parents’. Mei is always so wonderfully helpful. If you want to know more you can find her here: shop details on Ravelry, on Facebook and Mei’s online shop is here. You can also follow Mei’s Be Inspired Fibres blog here on WordPress.
  and I’ve mentioned her in Smitten, Be Inspired and Be Inspired – Edinburgh Delights posts, too.

The 60 million dollar question: would I make this again?

• Yes I would. I’m really pleased with the fit.
• The pattern was easy to follow. It’s broken down into sections which make instructions like ‘continue with saddle increases on every row and add front edge increases on every second row’ straightforward.
• I love the yarn. My cardigan is so light and airy and weighs just 127g.
• There is one but, however – the button bands! I would increase their width and probably use even more buttons.

And because I’m so happy here are a few photos – with even more on Ravelry. I couldn’t help myself!

*PLEASE NOTE THIS IS NOT A PAID ENDORSEMENT BUT A PERSONAL RECOMMENDATION.

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