Recently in Project Category

I got the book Luxury One-Skein Wonders on Wednesday, and by Friday, I had a new hat for La La.  Crocheted, even. 
That tells you that the instructions were well written and correct, because I can't crochet very well, and this hat came out really well. 

Hook: F

Yarn:  Universal Yarn's dolce merino in Strawberry Ice and Whisper White.  There was no way I was going to touch Angora, so this nice merino/microfiber blend worked for me.

Pattern: Angora Baby Bunny Cap by Renee Barnes.  Strangely, on my copy of the book, the hat is on the cover, but on Amazon, it shows a different hat on the cover.

Rating:  Love it!  I didn't even block it, it was so cute I just had to put it on her and take some photos.  The pattern was easy, only  slip stiches, single, double and treble crochets were used throughout.   A beginner could do it easily, like I did.   


She seems to like it too.

I've been thinking of playing with the palette yarns from Knitpicks to come up with a little fair isle sweater for a baby. The heathers are really nice, although I don't think the range is quite all there. I'll have to mix in some of the solids, and maybe some of the other odd balls I have from J&S or Jamieson's. I'm thinking something juvenile, like the fish and anchors motif from Alice Starmore, some trees, some mountains, and some wave peeries.

I am dying to start something new. I thought I was close to the end of my shawl and had screwed up because my count was off, but it turns out I just misunderstood now many pattern repeats I had already worked, so I now have about 36 more rows before I get to the neck edge, and have run out of prestrung beads. Ugh! I have to either break the yarn and string more beads, or string them onto the other end and slide them up to the other end.
Both ideas sound as bad as each other, but the sooner I do it, the sooner I can move on to something else. Not counting the Hello Kitty.

I've been working on the translation of Blumengruss from the book New Style of Heirloom Knitting for a while, and by using the sites mentioned in the last post, I think I've finally got it all.

So, I present, Blumengruss Translation.

You will, of course, need the book for yourself, because there are a number of charts that need to be referenced and I won't reproduce them here.  That would violate the copyright of the original author, so please don't ask.  
Yarn: Lace Weight. It translates phonetically as pappy pappyness which I can't find reference to anywhere, but it seems like any laceweight will do. I list the color numbers below anyway.

Gauge: 24.5 sts and 60 rows over 10 cm. (This seems a little off to me, but it's what it says in the book)

Finished dimensions: 156cm x 84cm

Colors:

Color Number	Color Name	Amount needed
211	Rose	75g
237	Pink	10g
203	Ivory	15g
206	Light Grey	5g
219	Purple	13g
220	Wine Red	5g

 

Needles:

Japanese Needle Number	mm	Closest US
2	2.7mm	2.75mm
3	3.0mm	3.00mm
4	3.3mm	3.25mm

Directions:

With #2 needle and Rose yarn, cast on 3 stitches. Knit the first chart(Yellow area of diagram).
Use the e-wrap cast on for the increases at the end of the rows. 162 rows.
Place stitches on a holder or extra needle, break yarn.


 
With # 3 needle and Rose yarn, pick up 80 stitches on the first side of your knitting, pick up the three cast on stitches, and then 80 stitches along the other side, 163 stitches. (Pick up one stitch for every other row you knitted in the first chart.)

Knit rows 1-53 of second chart (the large chart) with needle #3, according to the color sequence in the chart below. (Pink area of the diagram.)
Change to #4 needle and knit the next 91 rows (chart rows 54-144).
Leave stitches on the needle, break yarn.

Color sequence:  30 row repeat, start from the bottom and work up.

5 rows	Rose
3 rows	Purple
2 rows	Wine Red
3 rows	Purple
5 rows	Rose
2 rows	Pink
3 rows	Ivory
2 rows	Light Grey
3 rows	Ivory
2 rows	Pink
Setup of 6 rows Work only once.	Rose

With #3 needle, cast on 22 stitches in a waste yarn using a provisional cast on.
With Rose yarn, knit edging chart, joining to outside edge of the last chart (around the bottom of the vee).
Knit on 846 rows of the edging chart to 423 live stitches of the bottom of the vee.
Knit on 144 rows of the edging chart to 144 rows of the end of the vee.
Knit on 326 rows of the edging chart to 163 stitches left on the holder from the first chart.
Knit on 144 rows of the edging chart to 144 rows of the other end of the vee.
Remove the waste yarn and graft the last row of the edging to the first row of the edging.

Soak, block and enjoy!

Now, I haven't knitted this yet, but it's high on my list.  I may actually use a single variegated yarn instead of following the striping, or I may buy some KnitPicks laceweight and dye my own stripes, I haven't decided yet. 

I've only seen one other version out there in blogland, and it was done in a handpaint and came out very nice.  Maybe you were thinking about it but were put off by the pattern.  Maybe this will help?

Let me know if you find any errors or info you may find valuable that I can add to the translation, then we can all have a good version of the pattern to work from. 

There's a new baby in the world, and she needs a new sweater.
This is the little kimono sweater from the Mason Dixon Book.

And I started on some socks. There's some weird pooling with the green. But otherwise, I love the colors, so vivid! And purple and green. This pattern is my own design, so I may rip it out and start over if I don't like how it goes. There's a lace pattern on the top, and just stripes on the bottom.

I still haven't sewn in my zipper, but with the weather the way it's been, there's no need for a sweater.

I made a little trip last week:

It was amazing. I'll have some more to say about it later, and more photos and even a video if I can figure out how to get it on here.

... for now.

I finished up the final chapters of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on Thursday morning, and worked the final stitches of Eris on Saturday.

I finally figured out what the wool reminds me of. You know the old 3-D glasses with one red and one blue lens? And do you remember what the pictures or movies looked like if you looked at them without the glasses on? That's what this yarn looks like. Mostly blue wool, with red threads of alpaca heathered in. I think it's the alpaca that gets up my nose and makes my eyes water.

I put her in my front loader with a little Tide, on the "Ultra Handwash" setting, and hoped that it would take some of the itch out of the wool. I think it did!

I set to work repairing my wooly horse. I used dowels from that big orange place, and the wood was quite soft so many of the pegs broke in their holes. I found the same size dowel in a harder wood and made myself some pegs and a few to spare. Good thing too, because while loading up Eris I broke another one of the soft pegs!

Thirty minutes later and with a bit of wrestling, I set her up on my wooly horse to dry. I tied up the front band along the convenient turning ridge that will be hiding the zipper that I plan to insert this week. It took me a couple of tries to line everything up. In retrospect, the heavy cotton yarn I used for basting wasn't such a good idea - cotton absorbs water and shrinks when wet!

And the waist shaping made the wooly horse not quite work perfectly for blocking, but I love the way the sleeves blocked. All the decreases looked so neat and in rows along the inside edge of the sleeve. Ah well, live and learn.

Here's a closeup of the collar. There's something bloopy going on around the collar, but I think i might be because the sweater is people-shaped, and the wooly horse isn't really.

I said off the needles for now because... the sleeves are too long! I tried it on before completing the first sleeve and it seemed to be right on target, but that was before I sewed the underarm seams. I wonder if maybe the way the stockinette curls at the underarms made the sleeve seem a little shorter that it really was. I do know that it was too much to block out, because I could tell they were too long before I even blocked. But I wanted to see the finished product before making a decision.

I think I'll rip out the cuffs, and back about 8 rows (I'll measure to be sure!) and then reknit the cuffs. I thought about just unravelling some stitches just above where I started the cuffs and then grafting them back on after removing the extra length, but there will be 2-4 more stitches to ease into, which is 4-8 rows of cuff. I've got the pattern memorized now anyway, so I don't mind reknitting it. It will give me another chance to graft the cuff ends together better, too. I think instead of casting on, I'll use a provisional cast-on instead. That might look even smoother in the end.

Then I'll get busy attaching the zipper. I may need some help from my stich-n-bitch sewing gals on Wednesday, since that is certainly not one of my skillz. Finally, I have to stitch down the hem all around. The knitting curls back on itself beautifully, but I'll stitch it down and steam it all into shape.

So, stay tuned for a really finished post soon. I can't wait to wear it to work and show it off. I found another semi-knitter on my current project. She is also a HP fan, a bit of an HP-nerd actually. Way more HP-nerdy than I am. I'm more nerdy about other things though, like Buffy the Vampire Slayer which she also is a fan of. Nothing like establishing safe topics of conversation when you are on a project with someone you may have to argue with about work stuff! Sure comes in handy.

Meanwhile, while I was waiting for Eris to dry, I started on a new interim project: Lavender Fields socks.

It's green, not lavender, I know. But the yarn came from the Lavender Fields in Valley Center, CA where I visited recently. It's a sports weight yarn, which I haven't used for socks before, so this will be a swatch at first. I have no idea how many stitches around it will need to be in sports weight. I'm using 3.00mm needles, which seems a good gauge.

I took out my Barbara Walker 3 last night to see about a lace pattern to use, but didn't really find anything I wanted to use. I always pull out #3 first, because it's charted. I hate lace without charts, it's sooooo hard to follow.

In the car this morning (my huz was driving, I swear) I worked out something that may or may not already exist. Once I finish swatching I'll share the pattern I come up with. I tried the turkish cast on that Meg Swansen wrote about in Vogue Knitting last year (or was it the year before?) and I like the way the toe looks, so I think I'll stick with that.

... 400 pages and one more sleeve to go.

I finished the first sleeve last night, save the grafting of the cuff which I will work on tonight.
My copy of HP didn't arrive as early as last year - it didn't show up until almost 3 pm so I got started a little late, but spent Sunday knitting away and reading at the same time. This is the only way to make the miles of stockinette manageable. Stopping every 6 rows to do the decreases and refocus my eyes off the pages was a perfect balance of adventure and knitting.

Tonight I'll graft that cuff, prop up my book and start again on sleeve two. At the rate I'm going, I might be done, really done including blocking and the zipper, by the weekend.

Last weekend I found some harder wood dowels to improve the pegs on my wooly board. The cheap ones I bought at the house of orange kept breaking on me because the wood was too soft. So I'll have to spend an hour or two out in the garage to cut the dowel into pegs and then drill the broken pegs out of the hole so I can wash and block this sweater the right way.

I can't wait!

I bought two different zippers, I'm not sure whether to go with the lightweight or the sporty zipper - I may just baste them both on and see which one l like better.

I bought some nice coordinating thread, the perfect color really, so I can't wait to finish this Eris cardigan.

Pictures soon. Can't stop reading to take photos!

As I mentioned yesterday, I picked up Eris, a cardigan that I started, gosh, over a year ago. This is a few rows past where I left off:

I love the pattern, it's amazingly well written and so detailed I don't know how anyone could mess it up. I went through the forty pages with a highlighter for everything I need to do, and as I go along, I highlight each step that I've completed. It was a breeze to see where I left off in the pattern and pick it up right away.

The yarn though - it's bothering my allergies a little. It's a heathered yarn, Elann's Peruvian Aran. It's got these red threads running through it that are a little stiff, and they itch me a little. My eyes start to water after an hour or so. I have to take an antihistamine to keep my eyes from running and I want to scratch my skin.

I know it will be okay after I wash and block the sweater, because I did that with my swatches (the ton of swatches I made) and they were a lot smoother and comfortable after the bath. But now, eh.

This is where I left off on Friday. I did a lot more on Sunday during the trip to the Lavender Fields. I think I'll be able to finish this if I bring it with me on vacation next week.

I really got into the rhythm of the pattern last week and made some real progress.

I had put it down for a while while I worked on the Jaywalker socks and swatched for another cardigan that I have been mulling over for a while in my brain. In fact, I hadn't been knitting for a while at home, I was playing with new toys, racing my husband on XBOX, reading a book or three, and just wasn't feeling it.

But a few weeks ago, I picked it back up again and really cranked along and got to the top of the sleeve, all 18" of it, and bound off on each side and started the shaping. I followed the directions, and suddenly I was done! But it didn't make sense. I got out my calculator and did a little math and realized it really didn't make sense. So I put it down for a bit and wrote to the yahoo group for White Lies Designs, hoping someone had an update version of the pattern that had the correct calculations.

I waited for a few days and didn't hear anything, so I finally wrote to the designer directly and appealed for help. I bought the pattern back in 2003 or so, and she agreed that there had been a few corrections since then. She sent me the corrections and now I can get back on my way.

But meanwhile, while I was waiting, I was in such a knitty mood after signing up in Ravelry and putting in my done/half-done/dreams of projects, that I spied another member's Eris cardigan and decided to pick that up. I'll show some of that tomorrow, as I've been cruising along on that sweater, and since it's with Aran weight it'll be done in no time!

Meanwhile, take a gander at the lace and edging on the Heirloom Lace Jacket. I love the color, the yarn, the lace, I am having a hard time deciding between the two patterns.

Pattern: Jaywalker. But no, I couldn't stop there, I had to get all difficult, and do the toe-up version, and in a size that wasn't part of the original pattern.
Yarn: Regia Schatten color 5163 - Jeans. I've used Regia sock yarns before, and it's fine. This yarn was perfect for these socks with the way the stripes work. Loved it for this pattern.
Needles: Assorted 2mm, 2.25mm dpn's and circulars.
Method:Started as two socks on 2 needles, a la Cat Bordhi. Then one at a time on a single circular needle, then on dpn, as I got bored with what I was working with.

And that's when the trouble started. I like my soles to be on size 0 (2mm) because I like a nice tight sole. And, having read all over the net that this pattern is a little small on the foot, and having honking huge feet, I decided to use the smallest needle, but the largest size, figuring it would all come out in the wash.

I started by knitting 2 on 2 circs, since I have such a short attention span and will never remember what I've done enough to replicate it. So, I knit both feet and then had to split onto separate needles to do the heel turn.

I got to the first heel turn, tried the sock on, and holy crap it was tooooo long. Ripped back to before the increases started, and back one more inch. Started again, got back to the heel turn, tried it on, and it was not as long, but now it's too wide, I like it a little more snug. So, I decided to rip out the whole thing and start from the beginning on the next size down, and then I'd increase when I get to the ankle if needed.

That worked, so after finishing the heel, I increased to 100 stitches, knit the whole thing, and tried to try it on. Sigh. A little too tight in the cuff, but I figured it would stretch out.

Then I ripped out the second half-sock and started again, the same way as the last time, but this time when I got to the cuff, I increased to 100 stitches and also switched to 2.25 mm needles. On the cuff, it doesn't need to be so smooth like the sole. This sock fit much better.

So, I ripped out the first one, back to the start of the cuff, and re-knit it like the second (fourth?) sock and finally had a comfortable pair of completed Jaywalkers.

After I washed them they fit better, but now I think the cuffs are a little too loose.

If I knit them again (which I doubt) I think I'll use a size 0 on the sole and size 1 on the top and follow the pattern for the third size. That might come out a little better.

I think the real problem for me was the heel. I don't really like the method in the pattern, it doesn't really have the little short-row cup like the bottom of a top-down sock, instead it has a pretty long flap, and I think that's where I went wrong. Maybe I'll knit another pair and try to replicate that little short-row cup instead. I've got a boatload of sock yarn, so I'm sure I'll come up with something.

Other than my preference for a different heel, there were no problems with any of the patterns. I'm sure they have been knitted enough times that all errors have been worked out by now. One thing I did notice - knitting them toe-up makes the points point in the opposite direction from the cuff down. One way to spot toe-up vs. toe-down amongst your knitting pals.