Christmas Knitting

I'm counting on the fact that the folks in my life who will receive knitted gifts are not generally readers of this blog.  Isn't that a life irony?

This year I'm working on "manageable" which means things that happen fairly quickly.  This means no complex shawls, no afghans, and no sweaters.  (Confession:  have started designing a vest for myself using some stash bulky -- size US 10 so that might happen too!)

A portfolio of sample projects --

Matching hat and toe-up socks.

The Hat is called Grammy's Knits from Tanis Fiber Arts blog.  The pattern includes mittens.  You must check her site!  She has some fabulous patterns.  The blog is well-written.  The pictures are wonderful.  The hat is a free pattern so it's in my Hats folder on Goodreader.

My first time with toe-up sox.  I have a copy of Socks from the Toe Up by Wendy Johnson.  She includes at least 6 different cast-on methods.  I decided on the "Easy" Toe -- if you have the book it's on page 18.  Worked out quite nicely.  I decided to do two at once and will make a red toe and heel, a black foot/instep and finish with ribbing in a stripe of all 3 colors.  

It's 'fussy' I'll admit.  Cast-on is with waste yarn, 1/2 of the
stitches you'll need at the toe.  

Two toes.  Pattern is Worsted Weight Sock from
Big Book of Socks by Kathleen Taylor.
Love, love, love this book -- great variety of
techniques, designs and yarn.

I'm also sorting this out --

Major heartache here.  It's a nice lace beret, from Webs, the Willow Beret.  Great yarn from Valley Yarns Merino, knit on US7 and 8.  

Big "however", however -- five lace repeats around the 120 stitches.  Somewhere in the middle of the second set of the 10 row repeats I stopped looking at the beginning of the round.  Managed to do only four repeats and didn't realize this till I was 4-5 rows into the mess.  

If you look closely above you'll see that I slipped the 'good' knitting onto a smaller circular, a US4.  Then I carefully frogged 5 rows in one section.  I was able to locate the last row of correct pattern knitting, but only after I knitted 2-3 rows and -- Yikes! -- it still wasn't right.  

Might have been less time-consuming to frog the entire hat down to that spot but I just could not bear to unknit stuff that was knit correctly.  Eventually the problem was corrected and I'm now half way thru the last repeat of the 10 row pattern.  And then there's the last 15 rows of decrease pattern to form the crown.

Hope to finish later so you'll see this one again.

Used alternate US 7 and US8 to recover the section I
frogged.

Back on track with US8

Highlighting my progress on Goodreader.
(Very hard to capture color on this yarn.)

Blue skies here, plus some sunshine.  Everything is sparkly.  Leaves are mostly on the ground and form piles and piles of yellow and brown ground cover.

I hear the East Coast is setting up for YAS (Yet Another Storm).  Yikes!  No knitting there.

I sure am grateful I can still knit.

Gryffindor

Found a great book at the library:  Charmed Knits -- Projects for Fans of Harry Potter.


Wizard caps, magic invisible shawl, sox, sweaters, mittens.  Very cool.  Colors for all houses.  Naturally I chose Harry's house colors.

Immediate new project -- you know the feeling.  Gotta make that!  Gotta have the yarn now!  Gotta get gauge!

Gryffindor house colors.

The yarn is Heritage 150 Superwash by Cascade.  I'm using Tangerine and a wine/burgundy color whose name I don't know but the number is 5663.  The wonderful team at Yellow House Yarns helped me get just the colors I needed.  And even though we had to special order the burgundy, it was worth the day of waiting to get it right.

I've worked two sox together on one long circular, using the Magic Loop method.  I've worked them one at a time on dpn's.  Megan at Yellow House shared that she prefers 'sticks' and has two sets of each sock size so she can knit the pair of sox side-by-side.  This method is working for me.

With two colors I can switch between sox as each stripe
is finished.  With a single color I'd use two balls of yarn, separating
a single skein into two smaller ones if that's what was needed

Progress, major progress.  And so very portable.  The US#1 needles have already developed a slight bowing.  The bamboo Chia Goo needles are warm and gentle on my hands.  I've finished the entire heel process of sock 1 and am proceeding with the instep portion.  Making my way down the leg of sock 2.

A favorite book of mine is by Ann Budd -- the Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns.  This one has the basics for mittens, gloves, sweaters, and sox, plus scarves and two kinds of caps.  She's done all the math -- so you just need to choose yarn and establish the gauge.  Then you match it up to her matrix/table.  Recently I saw that this is available as an app for iPad.

One of Ann Budd's tips suggests adding sewing thread to accompany the yarn when knitting the heel and setting up the gusset.  I expected this to be fiddly and fussy but the sewing thread and yarn made themselves into a single strand, double ply yarn and thread, and it was no problem.  Ms. Budd reports that this addition strengthens the heel area, keeping it from wearing thin.

I think our friends are that special strand that keeps us strong.  They weave in and out of our lives just when we most need their support and shared joy.  There are lots of books with this tip written down -- either by example or in words that cannot be misconstrued.  

It's just that we don't always remember this tip.  Thanks again to all my friends who faithfully read and comment on my knitting journey.  I'm so glad to have you along for the ride.  

Hat revisited

Surely not as wonderful a title -- or story -- as Evelyn Waugh's great classic.

I've been revisiting the hat for re-submission to TKGA.  Lots of items to consider from their critique.

• Smaller needles for ribbing (I absolutely spaced on this when reading their pattern!)
• Brighter and lighter colors, so they can see the stitches.
• Better transitions when changing colors.

It's bright, you can't argue with that!

The ribbing is knit using US5 dpn's and the hat is knit with US7 dpn's.  To minimize the possibility of a ladder between needles, I'm knitting an extra 2-3 stitches from the next full needle before I consider the right needle full.  In this way, I'm 'knitting around' (my term) and the transition stitches between each of the 4 needles changes every row.

Challenges with the color transition?  Yup, I've read it at least 6 times.  "When you get to the end of the first row of the new color, pick up the right side of the stitch in the row below (in the old color) and k2tog with the old color and the new."  Seems to work, when it's done correctly.

The tip of the white/gray needle points to the first
color change.  Without this new-to-me method, the
color change would look like a stair step when the
orange is joined.  This only happens when knitting in the round
as in with dpn's or circulars.

So I'm carefully and studiously knitting the hat.  Still have a pile of paperwork to resubmit so will have to set aside an afternoon or evening to plow thru that, including the pattern for the cable swatch.

And like life -- which I am wont to remind readers -- knitting often demands closer inspection, more careful navigation, and a revisit of mistakes big and small.  I think we enter such re-examinations, such re-visits, with the hope that we won't repeat the silliness, the foolishness, or the mis-reading of a knitting pattern.

Makes for better knitting, no matter the outcome from TKGA.

Vested Interest

The teal vest is shaping up nicely.  I've put the back onto the blocking board, sprayed it down with cool water and given it several shots of steam.  Meanwhile the fronts are making their way to neck shaping.

Side by side, both on a long circular needle, the left and
right front of the vest have armholes now.

After all the armhole shaping, I'll knit for a bit and then work on shaping the neck.  Hope to have these two pieces on the blocking board this week.

The back will take a few days to dry, but no pressure so will leave it alone.  I've inserted US9 DPN's to hold the shoulder stitches.  After I block the fronts I'll use a 3-needle bind-off to join the shoulders.  If you haven't tried this yet, find a YouTube or tutorial.  Makes for nice smooth seams.

Schematic to the left -- the diagram that gives all the
measurements so I can block to the size I knitted.  At
the top you can see the wooden DPN holding the shoulder
stitches.

The little kitten has her nose in everything.  Here's a close-up of the cable.

While the fronts are on the blocking board, I'll finish the hood.  Soon I will have a new vest!  And in one of my favorite colors.

Worked a bit on one of the garter stitch (knit every row, no purls) squares for the mystery KAL afghan.  When I reached what I thought was the end of the square I counted stitches and wouldn't you know, not the correct number.  Had to rip it (frog) back to the correct count.

Blame it on Downton Abbey.