Too cute or what? I got this from Liberty, the department store in London. The new menswear department has just reopened after a complete revamp.
Yes, I brazenly went to the men's department and demanded a pin... to the embarassment of my companion. So, if we (knitters) love men and men love liberty, that does implies knitters love Liberty? You bet! Liberty is the London mecca for Rowan and Jaeger :-)
Happy Halloween!
Here's the progress on my sleeve... so far, 2 daisies and 1 sprig.
But something is rotten in the state or Denmark. (Sorry Thos). I tried to swiss darn (aka duplicate stitch) the stems, and it looks awful. The yarns just seems too thick to get a flat finish. I might take a steam iron to it, but I think that I would never be satisfied. So, I'm going to cry a few tears, unravel it and start again. No pain, no gain.
Throwing, Picking and Biasing
I found a fascinating technical article in Interweave Fall 2000 by Priscilla Gibson-Roberts. This goes beyond the continental vs. English style of throwing vs picking, but on stitch mounting of western knitting vs eastern kntting, with a hybrid style called combined knitting. Priscilla Gibson-Roberts explains how wrapping the yarns the way most western cultures do for the purl stitch, tends to use just a bit more yarn, so the purls rows are just a little looser than the knit rows. In eastern cultures, the knit stitches tend to be twisted knits but the knits stitches tend to use more yarns, hence the knit stitches tend to be looser. The combine knitting combines the western style knit and the eastern style purls for a more even tension. (OK, you can also cheat by using a smaller needle)
Did you know that the way that you wrap the yarn around the needle can affect the twist and cause the fabric to bias or that continental style knitting can aggravate carpal tunnel syndrome? It's all so obvious when someone points it out... but now I've got to try these techniques out...
I'm an incredible hoarder (pack rat), one of those people that keep everything, just in case. I know for a fact, that the minute that I ditch something, it would either (1) be essential and irreplaceable or (2) very valuable (why did I let my mom throw away my collection of Vogue Knitting from the 1980's?). Of course, this does mean that I live in clutter, which also drives me mad, since I am forever misplacing things and blaming it on someone else for moving it, hiding it or taking it down to the dump. This could had be a great damper on marital harmony, except that my husband is so used to my scattiness that whenever, I even start making accusory remarks, he just mentions an incident about a misplaced 'carte du sejour' and I'm put in my place.
So, after the 3rd avalanche in as many days, while burrowing for something, I realised that I had to start on the enormous task of... tidying the wool room/study. It's a tiny room, just big enough for a desk, chair and about 25kg of assorted fibres, piles of papers, books and magazines. What started out as a few hours on Sunday, literally melted away. Even with the extra hour due to daylights savings time ( we are now GMT and no longer BST), I got nearly nothing done. Well, that's not quite true... the room is far more untidy than when I started.
Why? I was waylaid. A few old magazines were unearthed and once I started flipping, I had to go to the bookcase and pulled out a few other magazines to compare designs. So, at the end of this there were more magazines in the room than when I started.
Next there were some, well a few UFO's... nearly FO's but not quite that were put aside for whatever reason. This one is the picot-edged baby sweater from Fiona McTague's Baby Knits. The original design was in the discontinued Jaeger Cashmere but I substituted with some Jaeger Baby Merino 4 ply that I bought in the Silkstones closing down sale. It's soft and machine washable, so parent as well as child friendly. The yarn wasn't as springy as I would had liked though (tension came out a bit uneven), and I ended up using 2.75 mm needles.
I started this months ago, in June for my nephew. I think my nephew is probably too big for it by now. The reason that it ended up in the UFO pile, is that I bought some lovely buttons for it, but the buttons were too small, so I put the project aside and started other stuff. So, on Sunday night, I darned in all the ends, did the picot- edged for the bands and did the i-cord button loops. Now, I just need to find some buttons, and it'll be done.
In case you're wondering, yes I do have a lot of blue yarn in my stash. Blue is one of my favourite colours, but this was stashed in anticipation of small presents, because most of my friends happen to have sons, which limits the possible knitting palettes (I supposed that boys can wear pinks, lilacs and mauves, but I wouldn't want any of them to be mistaken for little girls) and that also confines me to very simple garments, with no frills.
What started the avalanche, which led to the tidying of the wool room ? A quest to find a pattern, what else? and no, I didn't find it.
I may have finally found the solution to 'second' sock syndrome ...
My friend Jen, better known as the Yarnivore, and I are doing a little echo knitting together. Each of us is going to knit one fuzzy foot using this
The pattern calls for aran weight yarn, but I loved the colours of this chunky print so much that I'm going to adjust the pattern, so that (1) we can use this yarn and (2) we knit less stitches.
This is a little therapy project. What's echo knitting? We both do the exactly the same number of stitches every day, so that while we may live in different parts of the country, we are echoing each other. It's wonderful to have friends that share your interests and even better when you can work together for a common goal. The goal is ...ah .....warm feet. (Mwah, to you Jen).
Gull Wings
Did I mention that the first foot is complete? Well it is, all I need to do is sew down the cast on tail. One down, one to go...
Now, back to my demons ... I mean daisies.
Here's the start of my daisy. I was a little lazy and instead of swatching properly, I started a sleeve.
I'm going to have to give it a vicious block vertically, as I'm getting width but a bit less on the length. My follow Rowanette, Jill has done this sweater several times and this is my third try. I never finished the first try (9 Rowan magazines ago), since I had recycled the wool from another sweater and after doing the back and one sleeve, knew I would run short. The problem with unravelling intarsia is .. what to do with all the cut up pieces of wool?
Try 2, was not completed, since I got bored and distressed when I saw all the loose ends. So, this is my third try. It's going better, for a few reasons...I'm taking some advice from fellow knitters. Live and learn, right?
Jill
(1) Delete a few of the daisies. It makes a huge difference since there's about 20 ends to sew in per daisy.
(2) Swiss-darning... those stems are going to be darned in so that I don't have to fiddle about with more loose yarns.
Sissel
(1) Sew in as you go along.. maybe not every flower, but every block of flowers
(2) Don't bother with bobbins, just wind some yarn up and cut as you go along
Deleting the flowers left the fabric a bit bare in places, so I've added a few additional motifs... you can bet that it won't be multi-petalled daisies. I have to finish this sweater and lay my demons (I mean daisies) to rest. Something about being defeated by daisies.. the word wuss just kind of springs to mind.
Debbie Bliss Frilled Sleeve Cardigan
As suspected, I ran out of yarn. There was enough for the body and the sleeves, but not enough for the frills on the sleeve or the button band.
It's not the end of the world, hopefully, Sheelagh, will have a ball left in the same dyelot. I should had bought an extra ball weeks ago when I noticed the large numbers of knots. The last ball was perfect, not a single knot, so the quality needs a bit of improvement.
Daisy
So, guess what? My conscience is clear to start Daisy. Look at this lovely yarn... looks good enough to eat.
A little eye candy, courtesy of Lis, the knit-along mom and Donna, the creator behind this little piece of eye candy.
For the record, I haven't started yet, not even a swatch. I still have to finish my current *active* project, the Debbie Bliss Frilled Sleeve cardigan from the Easy Knits book. The Debbie Bliss wool/cotton is a lovely yarn, but the knots are driving me berserk ... and because I have been undoing the knots and misplacing bits that I have unknotted, I think I'm going to run short of yarn (yipes!).
What choice did I have but to find some displacement activity? Like adding some pretty decorations to my blog.
I recently ran short of wool for the Gullwing sock that I'm doing the the Lang Jawoll. I was about 20 rows from getting to the end of the foot and realised that I had 4 inches of yarn left. Fortunately, May, rescued me. Can't understand why I'm just running short recently, if I didn't know better, I'm going to start thinking that there was some yarn millipede can back with me from Durban and its eating the yarn from the other end of the ball!
The before
and after
pictures of fleur should give you an idea of the drap and elasticity of the Rowan Wool Cotton. Before blocking it, it had the appearance of a well used dishcloth.
After blocking, the reverse stocking stitches really come alive and the pattern really stands out off the stocking stitch.. Fleur is a great autumn/spring cardigan and ideal for a child since the wool/cotton is so soft (and not at all plasticky to work with like the sirdar snowflake) and pretty, to boot. The first set of buttons that I picked were too large, so I had to make another trip to John Lewis to get some more. Aren't these pretty? The flowers are echoed in the pattern, and the soft blue complemented the yarn. I always buy an extra button and sew it into the seams. It's just no fun losing a button and not being able to find another one in the same style. ( how many 4 year olds, hand the button over to their parents when it comes off in their hands?)
This is the 3-4 year old size, since there wasn't much difference in # balls between the smallest and largest. You can probably surmise that I always grew up wearing clothes that were too large for me. It didn't help that I was the middle child and was pretty scrawny compared to my siblings , so I was getting hand-downs from both directions.
Of the 4 Louisa Harding Miss Bea booklets, I think Miss Bea's Colours is the best one. However, I am rather biased as I like doing textured patterns. Complex intarsia patterns for children's wear is fine if I want to try out a technique, but otherwise, I wouldn't bother.. it's just not worth the time invested to sew in the ends and the child would outgrow it too quickly or
What I really like is the garter stitch edging for the button band. It's simple and works really well. As long as I knit to gauge, picking up stitches means no anxiety about stetching the band or sewing it into place.
I found the making up for this pattern to be a bit odd and best countered with mattress stitch. It's not often that I see the body of a garment with bind offs for the sleeves, but no decreases or cast offs for the sleeve caps. I would had thought sleeve caps for an inset sleeve would work better. I must find a child to try this on ... does anyone know where I can borrow a 3-4 year old little girl, so that we can check the fit?
Here's the Call*nectes bag. R*vets banged *n and tw*sted cord *n place. * opted out of the *-cord, mostly because *t's just not fun to kn*t and a tw*sted cord works just as well.
The Johnny socks went *nto the bag and father-*n-law seemed please, although *t's hard to be sure. He's such a pol*te fellow, that he would never let on, that he d*dn't l*ke *t. Well, we stayed for an excellent Sunday roast, so he couldn't have hated them, r*ght?
Off to finish sewing in the ends for Fleur. Yes, *t's f*n*shed and blocked, but there are about a hundred ends to sew *n. * hope there's a good mov*e on ton*ght.
NB: * = 'i' as I had to redo the letterings since I mispelled Callinectes and omitted the 'i' (nod to Sharon)
Well, thought that I would finally trot out all the recent WIPs that travelled with me to South Africa. It's appalling how little progress was made. I blame it on the millipedes myself. (They must have been unravelling my knitting while I was asleep).
Fleur
Frilled Sleeve Cardigan
I'm going to focus on one of these so that I have something to show after the weekend. Daisy is calling me .. well, Lis's knit-along has started and embarassingly, Kristine is nearly done, and I haven't even started my swatch yet...well, at least I have 15 years to catch-up.
I signed up (late, as usual) to take part in yarn swap, started by Thos. I haven't actually sent any yarn yet, but Thos has sent me some really interesting stuff. Take a look at this:
Fonty Calypso is a fabulous kid mohair, wool, nylon blend. It's a varigated smoky grey, and very subtle shades of tan. I love it and can easily image using it was a strand of Colinette Mercury in Morroco for a blended scarf or alone for a simple lace patterned scarf. s
GGh Fee is a really weird nylon, vicose, polyester eyelash. It's got sparkly bits too and a wonderful silver colour. Might be very nice for a suki bag or as the top for some fuzzy feet. It's a very soft yarn and I think it might even work as a ruffly cuff for something like elfin. This little ball has so many possibilities.
Phildar Terre Neuve is a little joke from Thos. OK, I admit , it not like the puntolinea... no tights and tee-shirt bits, but what does one do with yarn that's got tuffs sticking out of it. It's very soft too and got lots of fun colours, but I have no ideas ... so ... HELP... please...
Thanks Thos for organising this swaps..and for organising this little challenge. Your package should be with you shortly.
Land of the Springboks
I've been away for a few days to attend a wedding in Durban. Don't you think that Tim and Kate, make a lovely couple?
We stayed at Tala, a private game reserve about 45 minutes from the city. It was great fun, and the guests were permitted to drive through the reserve without ranger escort, as long as we adhered to a few rules.
The only carnivores in residents were the guests, so we didn't have to worry about lions, crocodiles or hyenas. The most dangerous game were the rhinos (one rogue one has overturned 22 cars this year) and the hippos (responsible for killing more people than any other beasts, aside from man and mosquitoes). The reserve was surrounded by cane fields, so were unable to keep elephants. Elephants are unstoppable and can smell sugar cane from 20km away. The warthogs are gorgeous, but very shy. The giraffes were a very tame bunch and a bit of a camera hog.
I saw this little family ambling along and whilst some people thought ...ooooh baby ostriches, I thought handbag, belt, keyfob... and someone whispered rather loudly ..ostrich medallions in a green pepper sauce.
The wedding was fabulous (eventhough we had to climb into a Land Rover in eveningwear). It wasn't too much a problem for me, since I was in trousers. It was a windy and very chilly evening, but I was attired more to prevent exposing myself to mosquitoes than to warding off the cold.
The braae, the next evening featured 'venison sausage' which was actually kudu and impala meat (surplus to park requirement?). I tried to take a photo of the 'lucky boy club', but wasn't too successful. There were 2 herds the lucky boy club, was composed of one buck and all the roes. The Unlucky boys club was composed of only bucks.
The Zulus were fiercesome and the dancing was superb. They stomped so hard on the decking, I was starting to worry about it collapsing.
Oribi Gorge
We also drove south of Durban and visited the Oribi Gorge. I took out my knitting and perched myself over the river (risking life and limb) to do just one more row.
South Africa has a very varied landscape, and it's pretty spectacular. It was a long flight from London but was made less tedious as knitting needles were no longer on the prohibited item list. Not one to push my luck, I packed bamboo circulars and only knitted after we were on the plane and it had taken off. I did have some idea of sneaking the needles in my undies (it wasn't a serious idea), but given that I set off every sensor from London to Jo'burg and had to be hand-searched by the security people, that would had been very unwise.
I didn't get very much knitting done over the past week... but it was a good break that afforded me the opportunity to visit a country that I wouldn't had ordinarily picked as a holiday destination.
If nothing, I leave South Africa with these memories
(1) waking up beside a large millipede(yes, I shrieked my head off), not to mention (OK, I'm a coward), cowering under a sheet the second night to avoid any millipedes landing on me, will last a lifetime. Take my advice, avoid cane ceilings... the millipedes don't come out until after dark and tend to land everywhere when they lose their grip on the cane. Think millipede rain .... and remember to close your suitcases tightly, to prevent any unwanted stow-aways.
(2) missing breakfast because the rhinos were on the trail that lead up to the restaurant and refused to move. We didn't have insurance on the rental from Rhino damage. Husband, kiddingly, told me to go and 'shoc' them off the path.. if I was a rhino and some mad woman was threatening to make me a shoe, I would turn her into a statistic.
(3) Gorgeous...breath taking landscape
It's October (and boy, it does feel like autumn). Not only is it getting darker, earlier but my magnolia is starting to shed its leaves. I can always tell when autumn really arrives... I have to spend weekends raking!
It's also the start of the elfin(or whatever sweater you want to do) knit-along, hosted by Lis. I have decided to start a little later (8th Oct) , since I have recently been affliected with a very bad case of startitis. While knitters like Kristine, Ann, Becky have been finishing things off, I have been casting things on. Surrounded UFO's, I've decided to start my knit-along project only after 2 things have been completed. (There, I've said it publicly, so I can't go back on my words.)
So once Fleur, (only the sleeves to go, before I start the finishing)
Famous last words... I will finish 'n' things before starting 'x'. If you think I'm nuts, please tell me so, I would rather hear it from a friend than find out on my own in a week's time ;-). Self-realisation is over-rated.