End of year musings

My niece has shown a surprisingly strong interest in knitting and crochet over Christmas.  After insisting I teach her to knit, and practise with her every few hours, she took great interest in the amigurumi in a magazine I bought.   Of course, she initially wanted to make the largest, most complex project in the magazine, but we compromised on working on the little chicks and baskets for Easter.   I crocheted up the constituent parts for a chick, but didn't have time to make up before I left.   I gave instructions to my sister, who gamely took on the duty and did a great job.

I have also started the hatching dragon, which requires eyes to be added partway through crocheting head.  It's quite strange, as soon as the eyes are added, the crochet piece suddenly starts to take on personality.

This year has not been very productive on the crafting front.  For periods of the year, I just didn't feel like knitting at all.

I did learn a new technique making the simple ziggurat in ice cream pastel colours.  It is an interesting form of top down construction, but the shoulder shaping does not work so well for me as regular set in sleeves.

For next year, I would like to do some more.  Ideas are:

1. Quilt and complete the Rowan QAL quilt for which I have a pieced top
2. Make sweaters using three of the four techniques or styles described in this Interweave post
• aran
• gansey
• fair isle
• bohus
3. Make amigurumi to amuse my niece

Forbrydelsen sweater

I enjoyed watching the first series of The Killing and rashly agreed to make 'The Sweater' for my husband. Authentic yarn was duly ordered from the Faroe Islands, followed by a bit of panic on realising that I would have to create my own pattern for this. Also, my stranded knitting experience had previously been limited to a simple tea cosy, where tension and fit were not that important.

I chose to use a long tailed tubular cast on to give a polished look to the rib edging and was pleased with the way this worked out. The body moved along fairly quickly but I reached a block with the sleeves. This was exacerbated by having to work out a different starting point in the star motif for each repeat as I increased the stitches up the arm. I used the low-tech method of sellotaping repeats of the motif together and using post it notes to keep my place.

I used about three different 'design your own sweater' books plus a large dollop of common sense to figure out the yoke. My previous experience was that the sweater 'recipes' tend to start the neck too low, so I kept knitting in the round for several rows longer than the recipe. I also found that keeping four sections in pattern for the yoke while also handling decreases was very difficult, and ripped back several times.

When my husband tried on the sweater before completion it looked like the arms would be much too long. Oh well, I told him he could fold back the cuffs. I cast off and he tried it on again. The neck was too low for his taste, and so I knit another inch. I had tried a stretchy K2tog cast off the first time, but it didn't seem to make much difference, so went back to a regular cast off. Mistake. Now he couldn't get the sweater over his head. I cast off a third time, using the stretchy cast off again, and sewed up the underams.

Aaahh! It fits! Once the underrms were grafted, the sleeves were perfect, and the neckline was just right. I'm really pleased with how this turned out even though I found it quite a stretch to make. The yarn is really lovely and sheepy, although frankly a bit too rough for my skin. My DH is delighted, and it looks great! One benefit of the terrible weather we have had is that it's still cold enough to wear it.

2010 review

Another year has passed, and as usual my knitting goals greatly exceeded my knitting capacity! Still, let's take a look at how I did:

Ten for 2010

1. steeking - no
   
2. entrelac - no
   
3. granny square afghan - yes, but still in progress
   
4. line a bag - no
   
5. top down raglan - no
   
6. moebius - no
   
7. knit with own dyed yarn - no
   
8. more complex sock - no
   
9. complex cable -dipped a toe in the water here, taking a short class with Alice
10. Starmore
    
11. slip stitch item - yes
    
12. use of blocking wires - no
    
13. cable twist stitches - yes, Elsica
    
14. soft toy - either knit or crochet - yes, but still in progress
    
15. cabling without a cable needle - yes Elsica
    
16. inserting a zip into a knitted item - no
    
17. kidsilk haze project - no
    
18. brioche stitch - no

So if we count the WIPs, I managed five. Not great, but five more techniques than I had tried this time last year. I'm still interested in most of the list, so although it won't be a formal challenge this year, I'm going to try and hit a few more.

And the 100 balls challenge?

BSJ - 3 balls
hat for brother - 3 balls

lightweight autumn scarf - 2 balls
calorimetry - 1 ball

charity hats - 7 balls


charity neckwarmer - 2 balls

ruffle scarves - 2 balls

weekender beret - 1 ball
green lovely lid - 1 ball
scallop - not sure, say 10

Hmm, only 32 balls - yet again, good progress with small projects, but not with sweaters. The one project I was really happy to finish was the scallop sweater for my sister. She was very pleased with it, and looks great in it. I'm also happy that I did some charity knitting this year and got more crochet practise.

Elsica

The freezing weather continues, and a walk yesterday convinced me it was time to knit myself a hat. I don't like the beanie style on me, as I have too much hair, but like the look of the slouchy berets that seem to be everywhere. I decided to try Elsica by Woolly Wormhead. Apart from the look of the finished item, this pattern hits two of my Ten410 techniques straightaway: twist cables and cabling without a cable needle.

I went stashdiving and surfaced with a yarn that was the perfect colour. Unfortunately, it was sock weight and the pattern calls for worsted with a gauge of 20. I pulled out a fluffy worsted yarn with a great texture, but questionable colour. I also got a gauge of 18 when I did a mini-swatch. Couldn't find anything else I wanted to use, so settled on this, and figured that going down a size would compensate for the gauge difference.

I have to say I am finding the pattern quite challenging! I thought hats were quick, mindless projects but I am concentrating hard on this one. The first point I discovered was that I needed to slip stitches with yarn in back to get the right effect - the pattern assumes you know this, but I quickly realised I was getting the wrong effect when I slipped with yarn in front.

I found the increase row a bit tricky because there were so many increases that the yarn was quite tight and it became difficult to knit into the strands. I have also ended up with weird diagonal lines where I did the increases.



The cable twist first row was a bit confusing - I think you need to move the marker before starting this row in order to make the twist tutorial and the pattern align. When I did this, all was well. I find the twisting without a cable needle difficult, as the yarn tends to pull out of the stitch when I re-arrange the order. Still, I'll get lots of practice, as this is repeated all the way up the hat.

Cardmaking

During my long blog absence, I flirted with cardmaking. Here's a few of my Christmas cards:








I was quite pleased with them, although it was more time and space consuming than I expected!


I've had another few ideas for the Ten for 10 challenge, and have decided that I'll try to tackle ten techniques from a longer list. We covered 1-8 earlier, but I've reproduced the whole list here:

1. steeking
2. entrelac
3. granny square afghan
4. line a bag
5. top down raglan
6. moebius
7. knit with own dyed yarn
8. more complex sock
9. complex cable
10. slip stitch item
11. use of blocking wires
12. cable twist stitches
13. soft toy - either knit or crochet
14. cabling without a cable needle
15. inserting a zip into a knitted item
16. kidsilk haze project
17. brioche stitch
18. reversible knitting

Most popular patterns on Ravelry

Browsing through my previous blog entries, I found my assessment of the top 100 Ravelry yarns, which got me thinking. How about the top patterns?

I picked out the most popular patterns on Ravelry as of today:

1. Fetching - yes, made these for my mother, and would make again


2. BSJ - this is hibernating - the knitting is finished, just needs making up


3. Monkey - not yet, but potentially


4. Calorimetry - have the yarn, plan to make


5. Clapotis - made it, but don't love my yarn choice so it doesn't get worn


6. Ishbel - no, not likely to


7. February lady sweater - maybe later


8. Noro striped scarf - I like it, but am worried that Noro is so scratchy. Unlikely to make


9. Turn a square - maybe later


10. Saartje's booties - maybe later


11. Swallowtail shawl - unlikely


12. Sock recipe - no


13. Ballband dishcloth - would like to make. Bought some Rowan Cotton Jeans to use for this


14. Starcrossed slouchy beret - hadn't seen this before, but I like it. Have added to my faves list.


15. Felted clogs - yes made this, but they come out huge!!


16. Koolhaas - maybe later


17. Bella's mittens - maybe later


18. One row handspun scarf - yes, and enjoyed making this


19. Baktus scarf - maybe later


20. Lace ribbon scarf - would like to make

Out of the top 20, I've made 4, have one WIP, would consider making 11 and have 4 I don't want to make. I wonder how typical that is of other Ravelers.

I also made a trip to the Liberty sale yesterday. There were some discontinued colours of Rowan cashsoft in various weights and felted tweed. I managed to resist although I was quite tempted!

Ten for 10 project

Saw this challenge in the Stash and burn group on Ravelry. The idea is to think of ten things to expand your knitting skills, and make something that tries these techniques. Here's my list so far:

1. Steeking
2. Entrelac - a quant headband or garterlac dishcloth look manageable
3. Make a granny square afghan - I've started Babette, so just need to pick that up again
4. Line a knitted bag - I'm keen on knitting felted bags, but not so much on finishing them...
5. Top down raglan -
6. Moebius cast on -
7. Knit something with yarn I've dyed myself -
8. Make a pair of more complex socks - I've only made very simple ones so far, and would like to try something from Cookie A or Cat Bordhi.

9 and 10 to be determined later in the year

Welcome to 2010

Knitting goals for this year:

• Take the '100 balls in 2010' challenge with the Ravelry Stash Knit Down group. This sounds achievable and is flexible about the types of projects as long as you use up 100 balls of yarn in the year.


• Improve my sock knitting by knitting more socks


• Finish some of the WIPs - if possible, take a finishing techniques class to help me deal with some of my finishing issues.


• Get more wearable garments into my wardrobe - I need to think hard about what I actually wear, and then make sure I finish the garment, not get it to the 90% stage!


• Make something out of yarn I've dyed myself

And a quick look at knitting achievements in 2009. NaKniSweMoDo did not work out for me. I planned to finish all my UFOs and whip through several new garments. Didn't happen. In the first half of the year I had other commitments, and couldn't handle knitting major projects too.

In the second half, I managed to knit all the pieces for a sweater for my sister, but failed to sew them together.

I did also manage a cabled jumper for my DH, which I just finished! He is wearing it proudly today.

My biggest challenge was knitting a Zhu shawl in laceweight cashmere. I intended it as a holiday project, following Elizabeth Zimmerman's advice about circular shawls being great travel knitting. Well it was, but then lasted for several months beyond the holiday..... I'm pleased I finished it, but am not in a rush to repeat the experience.

The personal small items challenge fared better, completing the following:

• one row scarf


• ipod cosy number two


• 


• fickle fingers scarf


• kitty pi cat basket


• felted clogs

So how big is the cat?

My sister's cat has issues. Displeasure expressed through inappropriate peeing on soft furnishings issues. However, when I came across Wendy Knits' kitty pi bed, I agreed to give it a go - as my DH points out, better the cat pees on her own bed than on my sister's...

The yarn is Patons Jet, which is a delight to knit with - very soft and lofty. In fact, I kept muttering throughout, "This yarn's too good for a cat". I made it to the specified base dimensions, but added a couple of extra rows to make the sides a little higher.

I then felted it in a newly acquired drawstring bag with dryer balls for friction, and took it out fully expecting to have to put it through another cycle as usual. To my horror, it had felted so effectively that it was much smaller than I expected! There followed lots of tugging and stretching to try and claw back a little size before it dried. Although the net result is beautifully soft and the colour very tasteful, I'm still concerned that the cat will need to be very small to fit inside. Diameter is just over 12" against a target size of 15". Which leads us the question - how big is the cat?

Long silence

Sorry about the long silence - sometimes life gets in the way. However, knitting progress has resumed in the last month, and I do have FOs and WIPs to report.

I tackled the famous Fibertrends felted clogs last month, using some wool that I originally bought for a jumper, but then decided was too coarse. The initial plan was to make a pair for my husband, then a pair for myself. In my enthusiasm, I started my DH's pair and got half way through the slipper before I test felted a swatch. When I did get around to test felting, I realised that the slipper was going to be way too big. I frogged, but was then faced with the dilemma of which size to cast on to try and achieve the right fit. I had originally cast on the men's medium, so was going to try the next size down, women's large.

At this point, I re-read the Knitnurse's cautionary tale of too-large clogs. I decided to set aside the men's clogs and work on mine. I chose the women's small, and figured that if they came out a little too big for me, I could find a willing recipient. Lots of furious knitting later, and a 60 degree wash later, I surveyed the result. Huge.

Not going to fit me, or any other woman I know. Tried them on husband. Too big even for him! And this is the women's small size... A quick purchase of some spiky dryer balls (for friction), another go through the washer, and some judicious squashing while shaping to dry, and they've shrunk enough to fit my husband. However, it doesn't look like I'm going to get a pair in a hurry, as the pattern just doesn't go down small enough! I daresay that with finer gauge yarn, it could work, but I think I'll postpone that experiment until the winter.

Unfelted





Felted


Modelled by DH


And a rather cute pair of knitted slippers I bought on holiday:

Cables in progress

I should have followed that instinct that DH's jumper was working out too big. I knitted about 35 rounds, waiting until the cable pattern was established, then slipped the work off the needles and measured it. It was about a foot too large! I was pretty mystified, as my gauge measured exactly right. Closer inspection of the pattern revealed that my gauge was correct for stocking stitch, but I had knit the sample in pattern. Still doesn't explain the sheer scale of the mismatch. Back to basics, and a calculator. We decided to maintain the number of cables but make them 10 stitches wide instead of 12. My DH was quite traumatised at seeing 3 whole balls of his sweater in progress being frogged.

I think I'm back on track now, with 2 1/2 pattern repeats completed. It's easy TV knitting, and the texture of the cable works well with the soft, lofty yarn.



The Noni bag has been on the backburner. I had completed a couple of the tulips that decorate the front, but they're quite fiddly and require lots of seaming, and I haven't felt like tackling that.

Snow!

After months of reading about 'snow days' on other people's blogs, we finally got one yesterday! First time in 20 years...


Well sort of a snow day. My first mistake was trying to battle in to work, instead of pulling up the duvet. After two hours of trying, I admitted defeat and trudged back. My DH is made of stern stuff, and ultimately did make it to work, but as it took him four hours, it was nearly time to come back again. I did have to work from home, but at least it was a change of scenery (literally) for a day.


The broadband supplier managed to destroy our connection for four days, so I've been getting heavy withdrawal symptoms. Particularly frustrating, as we couldn't get any up to date travel info without the internet.


Knitting progress has been slow due to relatively little free time recently. However, I have cast on for DH's new jumper. It looks ridiculously large with a curly hem, but I'm hoping it will improve as I keep knitting.

First FO of 2009

Something of a stealth knit, but I have finished my first Personal Small Item. It's Ava from the Rowan Ribbon Twist booklet, a mini asymmetric poncho. I finished it a few days ago, and have been pleasantly surprised to find it gives just the right degree of warmth around the shoulders when sitting around at home. The only slight irritation is that the fibres shed, so it's not great over a light coloured top.



Pattern: Ava from Rowan Twist collection

Yarn : 4 skeins of Rowan Ribbon Twist for smallest size

Alterations: Knit in the round, so altered shoulder shaping slightly

Speed /ease: A quick and easy knit

The other main WIP is a Noni felted bag. I ordered the yarn months ago, but it was out of stock when I wanted to start knitting it, so yarn and I were re-united at Christmas. I ordered the specified amount for the main bag, but it became clear when I was about two thirds through that I wasn't going to have enough. Pretty annoying as the yarn was ordered from overseas, and is categorically not available in the UK. What to do? Hmm...



While sorting out some small projects for the Personal Small Items Club, I located a bright yellow ball of Irish tweed. When I tested the colour against the bag, it was a close match, but it had red tweedy bits in it, and the texture and plies were different. The top part of the bag folds in to the lining, so I figured I could substitute the tweed there and it would be less obvious. If it shrinks differently to the main yarn, hopefully I can fudge it on the inside of the bag. I used the entire extra ball of yarn, so definitely think the pattern yardage is skimpy. Hope that's not true for Noni bags in general, as I've bought yarn for a few other patterns already.

Stashbusting challenges 2009

Time for the annual set stashbusting resolutions.

The credit crunch turns out to be good for one thing: it doesn't feel right to be spending money on more yarn. I've deliberately avoided the John Lewis and Liberty sales, and don't feel the worse for it.

I've signed up for two challenges on Ravelry this year; the Personal Small Items Club and the NaKniSweMoDo. For the Personal Small Items Club, you make up brown bag combinations of yarn and pattern for small items, seal them up and pick one at random every month. The idea is that you get the surprise of not knowing what you'll knit each month, and attack the stash at the same time. National Knit a Sweater a Month Dodecathon is way more ambitious - 12 adult size garments in a year. Gulp. But it's the only way to make significant inroads into the stash, and the DH is already making noises about another sweater. The main reason I signed up for this one though, is that UFOs count, and I have plenty of those. They are mostly at the 75% stage, so I don't actually have to do a huge amount of knitting to get a number of wearable garments.

Personal Small Items Club projects -first batch

Calorimetry with Filatura di Crosa 127 print
Jaywalkers with bamboo yarn
Miss Potter mittens - need to remember to use the errata posted by others
Gherkin tea cosy from the Natural Dye Studio
Felted clogs from Fibertrends
Ava poncho

NaKniSweMoDo projects - half existing UFOs, half new
Moonstone cardigan - UFO
Prepster jacket - UFO
Jolien - UFO
Sahara- UFO
Erin - UFO
Sunrise circle jacket - UFO

The new projects may change but initial thoughts are:
Concentric vest by Teva Durham
Lauryn waistcoat from Rowan club
Wicked in Artyarns supermerino
Twilleys tank top
Cable guy

Christmas unwrapped

I can now show off the Christmas knitting, which was gladly received by all. My sister was even plotting to take my mother's socks...

Mum's socks - Opal stockinette on 2mm needles.

Fetchingly shown off with her red clogs

My brother in law's mittens



Now he very patiently submitted to lots of remote instructions before Christmas about measuring his hand. He even sent back a clearly annotated picture with his measurements!

Same pattern, different colour for my husband.

The shrek ears scarf and matching mitts for my sister:

Christmas knitting

I finished the tie and small scarf in the mystery rayon. The tie will be wrapped up as a Christmas gift, albeit one my husband knows about.



At the last minute, I decided on an extra few knitted gifts. Two are done, the other two are outstanding. One involved my making knitted bobbles for the first time in thick green yarn. I like them; they look like Shrek ears.



Ok, better get back to those unfinished presents...

Mitts for men

My husband loves his handknits, and is always interested in acquiring more. His old store-bought woollen gloves have worn out, and he'd like some hand knittted ones to replace them. I don't feel up to trying to tackle 10 fine gauge fingers and thumbs, so have offered him mittens instead. After initial scepticism about whether mittens were 'manly', he decided he would rather have these than nothing, so I set about finding suitable yarn and pattern. He specified natural sheep colours and nothing self striping. I followed the first stipulation but took a chance on the second, as I found some rather nice variegated Lang West yarn. Fortunately, he liked it, so I got to work using Knitty's mittens 101 pattern. Here's the training mitt.

A lovely present

A present from my sister!

2 skeins of Socks that Rock (my first!), a copy of the extraordinarily hard to find New Pathways for Sock Knitters and 2 pairs of Knitpicks Harmony needle tips.


A car journey provided me with enough quiet concentration time to make the first of the practise socks, using the sky architecture with increases across the instep. I'm not too sure about the result; the instep looks very high to me, and I have a fairly flat instep. The technique itself was quite easy, except that I found Cat Bordhi's right leaning increase tricky to do without leaving a hole.

Mystery rayon

I've been playing with ideas to use the ball of mystery rayon I bought at Ally Pally. I started with a drop stitch pattern for a scarf, but this just looked messy. I then tried double crochet and this gave a nice mottled effect with the variegated colours.



I got 3/4 of the way through the scarf, then my husband started saying what a nice tie the yarn would make. Except that it needed to be narrower, and knit not crocheted. He had a stitch in mind but couldn't describe it, so I had to knit him a sampler until he realised he was looking for moss stitch. I only had one skein, so I've been knitting off the scarf and letting that unravel as I go.

Bamboo shawl revisited

Work has been very busy and stressful recently, so I needed a stress-free knitting project. The Fyberspates easy peasy shawl was ideal. I saw a made-up sample at the iknit London day, and that persuaded me to buy the self striping sock yarn to make it. I quite like it, but am not that keen on the wide bright green stripe; the sample I saw was more subtle. The yarn is bluefaced leicester which is very springy, so hopefully this will blockout well. The main thing I learnt from the pattern was how to cast off using a crochet edging. This looks nicer and is more stretchy than a knitted cast off, so I'm sure i'll use this technique again.

I found my missing balls of bamboo tape I needed to complete the shawl I started in the summer, so pulled this out of the UFO pile and started work again. It's so much easier now I've charted the pattern. I can't understand how some people find it easier to work from written instructions than from a chart. It's now around 150 stitches wide, and I'm getting through a ball of yarn in just a couple of pattern repeats, so still think I'm going to need more yarn. I did leave a ball at my parents' house, so the shawl is going back to the UFO pile until I pick that up.

I've finished the main body of the moonstone cardigan, but can't quite face casting on for the sleeves. My sister has decided to adopt this project and spur me on to complete it in November.