When a project's finished, it's important to immediately cast on something new. I'm really trying to work my way through some of my stash. With my leading continental wool source away in India, I'm likely to make some headways in working through some of odd-balls in my stash.
I've always liked this baby chevron jacket from Debbie Bliss. It's so cute and a great project for using up odd balls. It's not such a good project to buy yarn for since it uses about 5 different colours. Pity that the pattern only sizes up to fit a 1 year old.
Enter ATU... my version will use 2 colours. The dusky purple has sadly been discontinued. It's one of my favourite shades. I had 4 balls in stash with 2 different dyelots, and it was hard finding the right pattern for it. Usually trips to Peter Jones or John Lewis leaves me feeling a bit uninspired. They don't do the Debbie Bliss yarns justice, by allowing the the yarns to be pawed out of the packaging or to collapse into heaps of tangles. Finding 12 balls in one dyelot on a Saturday morning is like winning the lottery. Sorry to be so negative here. If you love yarn, love shopping for yarn and even pick up balls that have fallen out of the shelf, when you have nothing to do with their tumble, you'll understand. Not displaying it nicely really bothers me.
Amended : Anna brings up a good point, my perspective is merely that as a customer. The department stores are very busy on the weekend and I could imagine how difficult it is to keep things tidy and shelves stocked. My complaints are not against the staff, it's the customers that are really bad. People just don't put things back in the shelves when they fall out. The other thing that I should point out is that the Rowan yarns are well stocked. The problem seems to be that the Debbie Bliss and Noros are not and even if you can find someone to help you, they often cannot find 12 balls in the same dyelot because they don't have it in stock
With this pattern, dyelots will not be important. I'm also sizing up this pattern to fit a 2 year old and to have buttons all the way down. (maybe less pretty but much more practical for an older child). I love Debbie Bliss patterns, because not only are the children's stuff ever so stylish, but up-sizing patterns is really easy to do.
Now, I started out so enthusiatically, but the more that I look at this pattern the more I think, oh my god, this looks incredibly 1970's.... so I think that despite my progress, it's going to take a visit to the frog pond.
Sockapalooza News
I've forgotten to post this, but my pal Jackie has received her socks! Yay!!!!!!!! The New Englands are still MIA but I feel much better knowing that the retros have arrived and fit too.
First Thing First
Voici Kiri, en franēais et bien sūr un gros bisous pour Denise, la traductrice.
(and now that I have suitably mangled the french language, I'm off to wreck english).
Many, many thanks to Denise for making her French translation of Kiri available to the knitting community. She has very kindly agreed to let me host it here so that all the French knitters, who find translating it too much of a hassle, can now make Kiri. Isn't that really really kind?
Now the knitting
Fruity is back on the needles. Here's the start of the front. I am still really in love with this yarn. It's just so buttery soft. Since it's just the beginning, I'm carrying this around as my portable knitting. So, no socks for a while until this this starts to grow more quickly.
Yes, it does fluff a bit and tickles my nose when I knit, but that's the price that you pay for knitting with angora. There are so many things that I want to knit for spring that I'm finding it so hard to focus on just one.
I've a stash of All Season's Cotton in Midnight (which like it's name implies is a black blue). Should I go for the Knitty Sitcom Chic pattern? I'm thinking to use a nordic clasp like these , instead of a button closure. I'm also in love with Bonne Marie's latest design, the Scoop du Jour. I must speak to Dawn and see what she thought of the Sitcom Chic. So many projects, so little time.
Overheard on the tube on the way home ...
A very annoying man, speaking louding on his mobile.
Did you get it yet? Don't leave it too late it is the bank holiday.
{silence}
good (grunt, grunt). that's expensive, these travel companies are just out to rob us. (grunt). When is it landing in Istanbul?
{silence}
Providence? Where's that?
How much do you want to bet that his buddy bought tickets to Turks & Caicos (with the plane landing in Providenciales) instead of Turkey?
Imagine Catherine and Heathcliffe on the moors of Yorkshire. What can be more appropriate than for Cathy to be wrapped in a shawl like this?
Now I know that in the pattern book, A Yorkshire Fable, it's supposed to be a scarf, but after a bit of blocking (I wet-blocked it by the way), it had shawl like proportions. (approximately 20 inches wide by 70 inches long). Maybe I got more length and width by knitting it in stocking stitch, but I ended up using 7 skeins of donegal tweed which has slightly less meterage than the Yorkshire tweed.
It's very hard getting an artsy photo of this shawl. The green is wonderfully tweedy and kind of camouflages itself when I lay it on my plants or trellis. After some massive pruning of my magnolia, I can't easy reach the lower branches without a step ladder ( to check for bugs) before hanging anything on the tree. Let's just say, close encounters with me and creepy crawlies usually result in one of us running off shrieking in the opposite direction. I'll let you guess who's the bigger chicken.
This wasn't such a good photo, since my sneaker managed to sneak into the frame, but when you visit Chez ATU, you're likely to get warts and all. Which reminds me, I need to block this once more. Part of the shawl/scarf is still crinkly, possibly because I didn't soak the thing long enough before it got pinned. I was a little impatient and just put it under running water and didn't soak it in a basin for 20 minutes.
Now, is it blasphemous to say that made in cotton or linen, this would make a lovely table runner? I can see the Sharon Miller fanclub and the Rowan design team all cringe at horror at this suggestion... but honest, I remember my great-grandma with table runners just like this.
..and to sort out the curling edges, I picked up (freehand without counting, yes I can be a total rebel) and did 4 rows of garter stitches. Rebekah suggested that it would curl without this and after a read of Rebekah's blog, it would appear that not only is she immensely sensible, she's also got the cutest black lab.
Bronte is growing very quickly, as I think i've finally cracked the lozenge patterning. I finally stopped knitting and looked at the pattern and suddenly it made sense. I finally had and Archimedes Eureka moment.
Since then, I can't seem to put this thing down. I was ever so annoyed when I had to wind-up another ball of yarn when I ran out, but this is the danger point of any project. The just over the mid-point, that signals boredom and projects get put aside for ... a few years.
After 4 skeins of Donegal Tweed, I have over 3.5 feet of scarf and I'm thinking, gosh it should be long enough by now.
Of course, it's not long enough. The pattern called for 7 skeins of Yorkshire Tweed which is approx 7 skeins of donegal tweed, so it's far from long enough.
Have you noticed the curling edges? yes, the edged are curling like mad, something that didn't happen with the garter stitch lace. I hope the blocking will cure it, if not, I'm going to pick up and knit a border around it.
How did I cure the wonky edges? Well, the pattern goes a bit like this:
k2tog, yo, yada yada yada , yo, k2togtbl
next row : knit
I've changed it to
ssk, yo, yada yada yada, k2tog
next row: k, pick-up loop and knit (as if you were making a stitch but don't twist it, as you need an eyelet) , knit, purl, yada yada yada until last 3 stitches, knit
Mind you, most people have a wonkier left than right side. So call me a philistine for slanting the stitches inward, but it works for me.
Recently, I have noticed that Wellington boots have started to be more fun and appealing. I mean, aren't these just way cool?
Of course, the wellington boot socks market is still lagging. You can have any wellington boot socks, as long as it's green or brown.
Enter ATU to the rescue
hello... did someone say pink ? Yes, these are pink with green stripes. I know that it looks grey, but honest, it's a very soft green. So what if the muddy will show, any girl knows, pink socks are waaay more interesting than brown ones... and washing machines are very good at getting rid of mud... and so what if the pheasant can see you from a mile away.
When working knee length socks, you need to do calf shaping. I tried to disguise it in the purl stitches (which looks ok from the back of a galloping horse)
This was done using cygnet's Aran weight wool, 75% wool, 25% polyamide. They knit up really quickly and the yarn is cheap.... I mean £2.95 for 100gram. The colours are rather limited but the yarn is nice to work with and like magic, you have a wellington boot sock. Any idea on how to block them? or should I just not bother?
One down, one to go.
Fruity is still fruitless. Can't believe that while I have the strong desire to wear it, my will to start the front (which is less than 1/3 of the sweater) is just so weak. Would someone please give me a slap on the side of the head to bring me to my senses?
I really couldn't help myself, the lure of lace was just too strong. I had to cast this on again. The center is fairly easy to memorise but I must be a complete pistachio because those lozenges are driving me berserk.
I've changed the pattern slightly, it's now a stocking stitch lace (as opposed to a garter stitch lace) and I fixed the problem with the wobbly edges.
To all the Sharon Miller fans, please do not bombard me with emails as, I make no claims to improving the pattern, I had just changed it to suit me.
Well, not exactly tonight but earlier today.
The Retro sock were gently blocked with my Polti. Can I say that it's a great iron? Oh, wait, I've said that in the past.
The variegated plant is an eunymous. It's not supposed to climb but this one went straight up the trellis. I don't ask why anymore, since it's got nice colour and well, most things in my garden don't do what they're supposed to.
It was a right old sunny day, a perfect afternoon for gardening. The neighbours were all out doing theor spring tidies, so it was the perfect opportunity for me to take some pictures and have them witness my lunacy. (To the lady in the house next door, um.... I'm very sorry for clipping your rose that was growing over my trellis, I cut it and heard a tumbling sound on the other side, oops.)
The retro rib is a great pattern... It's easy to knit and one of the benefits of alternating the 2 colours of yarns for each row is, you never even have to think about which row gets the twisted stitch.
So, dare I risk sending these out in the post? Yes, I am nervous, because my Sockapalooza pal has probably given up hope of ever getting her socks, but she's probably too nice to complain to Alison.
and thank goodness only 2, these fruity sleeves are finally done!
With the increasing and the decreasing that you get from bell sleeves, these sleeves not only used a lot of yarn but they took forever to knit. Yeah, I know not the best picture but a girl's got to gloat when the sleeves are done. Now all I have to do is start the front... of course, there is the issue of starting Bronte again...
what fun is life without a wee bit of temptation.
It's not easy to buy handpainted yarns, sight unseen. A tone too light or too dark can ruin the balance of the colours, not to mention whether something was painted more or less liberally with a particular shade. Some months back, I bought several grab bags of Lorna's Laces from Patternworks on the assumption that with a lot of skeins, I would get a few matches (oh how we justify these things). Well, there were matches but there were also quite a few singles. Rowanette Jill and I then amassed our odd skeins and we mated as many up as we could. Not all singles go well together, so I bought more yarn to pair up with the singles. I'm sure that I can give quite a few renowned stasher a run for their money :-).
Anyway, aside from the standard way to get a pair of socks out of 2 skeins of yarn ( 1 colours leg and foot use and another for cuff, toe and heel ), I'd decided to try it using the spiral method from the feb/mar 6 sox knit-along. Using one ball of Jaypond and one ball of Turquoise Lorna's Laces, I alternated between the 2 yarns, creating an overall darker tone to the yarn and as an added bonus, sorted out the pooling problem.
The only annoying thing is the tangling but as long as I untwist after every 10 or 12 rows, it's not really an issue. This methods seems to work really well and I 'll definitely go back to some of my more garish skeins with a view to 'tone' them down using one dominant complementary colour.
With this spiral method, I can easily extend the variegated yarn mileage without really losing the variegated effect. For the record, I actually like Jaypond and did not do this to tone it done. It's not garish and the colours are far prettier in real life.
First Bronte, I know that some of you would never believed that I ripped it without proof. So here is the before
and the after.
Yup, it's all been ripped and reballed. No muttering of disgust, just a rip-fess. No tears were shed. (and unlike Ann, this was not an April Fool's joke.
Sockapalooza News ...
Neither is this... my sockapalooze socks went out in the post on 15th March and are now, lost somewhere. I sent it air mail with a few other packages to the same city.
Other packages have arrived, but Sockapalooza pal has not gotten her socks. So, I've cast on some more socks and this time, I'm going to get them hand-delivered.
This is not an excuse to work on something more interesting than the fruity sleeves... but man, I've been dying for an excuse to start these socks.