cardie win

I almost forgot to post pictures of my finished cardigan! Probably because I did my usual trick of finishing a winter garment just in time for spring. I need to knit faster, or maybe just plan ahead a tad better. I had to go to Cumbria for the weekend to make sure extra sure I was somewhere cold enough to be able to wear it. Here I am, keeping warm while standing on an old midden. (This would have basically been a toilet for livestock in olden times - I know how to pick a glamorous spot for a picture.)



The pattern is Audrey in Unst from the Twist Collective, and the yarn is Austermann Alpaca silk, that I got from Purl City yarns on opening day. This is, like, megaluxury yarn, i love it! Putting it on is such a comforting treat, it's just so soft and warm, with that slight alpacay hairiness that makes it like a favourite pet.


I also think it's the best fitting thing I've managed to make myself so far, it's loose without being comically baggy, just really comfortable and wearable. Yay!

The only modification I made was to make it a bit longer. In the pattern it's quite cropped, but I like jeans and jumpers to safely overlap. Particularly as I cycle around a lot, I feel it's both more comfortable and more considerate to keep one's arsecrack under wraps. I basically cast on the 36.5" size and lengthened the twisted ribbing by an inch or two. Then carried on decreasing to the waist for the 34.5" size, then followed the pattern for the smaller size.

It was loads of fun to make, and really easy, all knitted seamlessly from the bottom up. The twisted rib / stocking stitch section was mindless enough for tv knitting, and the unst lace panel at the front was an interesting diversion before nice easy short row sleeves. The sleeves were super quick to knit, I've not done a short row sleeve cap before but it really was a lot less faff than a set-in one. (Once I'd worked out how to pick up stitches tidily). Another new thing for me was the i-cord cast off round the neck. I have totally and completely fallen in love with this cast off method. It just looks really solid and pleasing, I really don't mind that it takes loads longer.

The only slight downside is that one side of the lace panel was knitted on my bus commute to work, and the other side in Port Street Beer House. I didn't notice until blocking that this had affected my tension rather noticably - I was considerably more relaxed in the pub! I kind of like that though. One of my favourite things about knitting a big project like this is the way you can look at different bits of it and remember where you were when you were knitting it. I'm in no danger of forgetting with this one ;)


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buttons and blocking

Guess what I have just been pinning out?!

I'm very excited... the cardigan's all finiiiiiiiiished! Last night was spent weaving in ends and sewing on buttons. I've gone for these vintage buttons that I picked up from some random haberdashery stall at a local craft fair a while ago. I really love this kind of dead simple, super shiny, boiled sweet type buttons.



Even the retro button packaging I find really pleasing. I'm really glad I'm not expected to remove them all before washing. Can you imagine?! People must have had considerably more patience in the olden days.



Better photos will follow when it's dry. Can't wait!! If anyone needs me, I'll be impatiently wandering around the spare bed with a hairdryer... What? don't look at me like that, it's forecast to freeze tonight, tomorrow morning I want to be clad in snuggly alpacay goodness!

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pickup fail

I've been steaming ahead with the Audrey in Unst cardie lately. Was feeling quite pleased at how well the sleeve was progressing. It's a short row sleeve cap, with the stitches picked up round the armhole, then shaped with short rows and knitted downwards in the round. I'd not done one like this before, and was pleasantly surprised at how easy it had been. Why, I'd barely needed to give the thing my full attention! This knitting lark is easy!!11! I was at the edge of the precipice of Knitting Cockiness and poised for a great fall. And then, today the sun came out and I looked a little more closely at my recent handiwork. And realised I'd actually already stepped over the edge and been freefalling for some time, but been too dumb to notice :)


Can you see the problem?!

What about now?
Unfortunately, no amount of squinting and pretending will make it go away (I've tried!). I oh-so-cleverly made a nice slipped stitch edge at the front to facilitate picking up stitches, then oh-so-stupidly picked up stitches on the wrong side of it. So there is a plainly visible row of slipped stitches at the join. Doh! One of those late night sessions where you think, Awww just a little bit more... maybe I could actually finish this bit, wouldn't that be ace... Hmm, my vision might be a little blurred with sleepiness and/or gin but I'm having fun dammit... Then end up doing loads of damage and setting yourself back waaay further than if you'd just gone to bed at an appropriate hour. Be warned, knitterfolk!!

Weirdly, I did it right for the back half, then lost the plot at the shoulder seam. This is what it should have looked like!


I'm off to do some frogging and maybe also a sacrifice of cheap acrylic to appease the knittergods...

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bus knitting misadventures

My trusty bike has been suffering from an unfortunate spate of punctures recently. This is mostly due to me cycling round Manchester city centre a lot, where it seems drinkers actively seek out cycle lanes to smash their empty pint pots. So as Grandmaster Flash would probably point out, there is broken glass everywhere. With my bike out of action, I have been thrown back into the world of Bus Knitting.

I do enjoy my bus commute with my knitting on my lap. However, I've reached a stage in my Audrey in Unst cardie where it's becoming a little awkward to hoist around at the end of each row without stabbing adjacent commuters in the eye. I'm on the lace bit by the neck shaping, as you can see in the pic, and it's knitted in one piece so it's getting quite big. I've also had a couple of unfortunate bus knitting incidents recently. Once, when the driver braked suddenly, the ball of yarn on my knee flew forwards and rolled under about 5 rows of seats in front. Horrified, I wondered if it was possible to crawl forward and retrieve it. But fortunately, the jolt of setting off again sent it rolling back to my feet where I was able to swiftly scoop it up again and carry on nonchalantly, as if nothing had happened.

More alarmingly, I'm finding it harder and harder to put the knitting down in time to alight. My internal mantra of 'one more row..' gets louder as the bus approaches my destination, and my knitting gets faster and faster and more frenzied. The other day I'd cut it ridiculously fine. As the other passengers were getting off I was scrabbling around hastily to cram my knitting into my bag and leg it off the bus. I breathed a sigh of relief as I made it through the door and walked down the road towards work. After about 10 paces I noticed a teal-coloured woolly strand hanging out of my bag. It was attached to a ball of yarn. Which was still on my seat on the bus. Fortunately, I was able to retrace my steps before the bus departed, and a very amused passenger handed me the ball of yarn.



So I've downsized my bus knitting a bit, for health and safety reasons. This is a headband I made out of a teeny tiny bit of leftover Wollmeise from my Tempest cardie. I'm all about the woolly headbands right now. It's surprisingly warm because it covers your ears, it tames unruly hair, it fits under a bike helmet, and unlike a hat, nobody at work mithers you if you continue to wear it indoors. Pattern is Panta from this epic thread on craftster. I have one already that I made aaaages ago and I wear it all the time so I decided another was in order. I used 4 ply yarn though and I had to omit some of the central increases because of weirdass pooling, so the new one's a lot skinnier. Here is rubbishhound modelling the original back in 2006.



I'm also making Mr Rubbishknitter a tie. He has been dropping hints lately and I am unable to resist such things. I was going to make it a Valentine's day surprise but I thought perhaps I should consult him. I'm glad I did, because my first attempt was deemed Too Pointy, and I was advised to go and look at a tie. So the second attempt is less pointy. To get the acceptably sloped version, I started at the bottom and increased 1 stitch either side each row. The stitch pattern is from My So Called Scarf, and I think it is quite suitable for a tie, cos it makes quite a heavy, woven-looking fabric that doesn't roll at the edges. And the rows are short enough that there's always plenty of time to squeeze another one in before I get to my stop. Everyone's a winner!

pointy	nonpointy

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beginnings

I don't really have a whole load of exciting stuff to show you at the moment. I've finished a couple of things, but they are for Top Secret Christmas Knitting. They're so well hidden I'll probably never find them again at present wrapping time.

But I wanted to avoid falling into the perennial trap of spending November and December just doing Christmas knitting, and failing to make myself enough nice warm stuff. This has been facilitated by getting the bus into work, rather than cycling in during the snowy weather. (I tried to keep on cycling but fell off the other day on a patch of ice. Fortunately I was wearing so many layers that I was uninjured, i just sort of bounced. But took it as a warning that my rubbishbike isn't perhaps the Torvill or Dean of the two wheeled world.) Getting the bus = an extra hour or so of knitting time per day. Woo, and indeed Yay! So I've started another cardie for myself as a Christmas-knitting-background-task.

It's using the uberluxurious Austermann Alpaca Silk that I picked up recently from aces new LYS Purl City Yarns. On a cold winter's day, picking this yarn up is an unimaginable treat. Like falling into a bath of melted chocolate or getting a surprise cuddle from a giant panda. So unsurprisingly, given its knittingcrack tendencies, I'm making pretty good headway on this project. The pattern is Audrey in Unst from the Twist Collective. I like the combination of speedy stocking stitch with an achievably limited area of interesting lace, and the vintagey feel. I'm also intrigued by the construction - the body is worked seamlessly bottom up, then the sleeves are picked up at the armholes and shaped with short rows. Couldn't be more different from the Tempest seamfest that was my last cardie, so we'll see how it pans out. I'm a bit further on than this picture indicates, at about the waist now, but I keep failing to remember to take nice photos during the woefully short hours of available daylight.

Another, geekier, thing I have been playing with these long dark winter evenings, is the newly opened Ravelry API. Which may potentially interest you knittertypes. I love coding. There, I said it! I've already got a free knitting row counter app in the Android market, County, and I enjoyed making that very much. So imagine my excitement when it became possible to access Ravelry data on my fone!!! My project list, it is in my pocket!! Excitement that I'm not sure many around me share, now I can bore people down the pub with tales of my knitting adventures. Nowhere is safe! But it's fun to play around with, and might become some kind of Ravelry based app one day.
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tempestuous

Yay, Tempest is finally finished! (Just in time for the hottest weather evah, when you really have to be some kind of masochist to don a woolly cardigan. I had to wait till evening, eat seventeen icecreams before taking these photos, then jump into a bath of icecubes afterwards.)

I'm quite pleased with how it turned out in the end. This sock-yarn-on-oversize needles idea is full of win. Because sock yarn is so pretty and fun to knit with, it quite literally flies by. Especially when it's lovely handdyed 100% merino Wollmeise (colourway Gazpacho). The stripe is Debbie Bliss Rialto 4ply. It really didn't feel like it took all that long to make a cardigan out of it at this gauge. Even though I made a couple of modifications:

• First, and most obviously, I missed out the stripes. I wasn't planning on having any at all but a catastrophic pooling issue made me go for a sweep-it-under-the-carpet monostripe approach. A sensible person would probably just have gone with the stripes as suggested in the original pattern, and would have been completely fine. In many cases, the pattern is written in reference to where you are in the stripe sequence, saying things like 'start decreasing after you've done 3 stripes'. This makes for a lot of unnecessary mental arithmetic if you're doing it in a single colour, which is fine as long as it isn't too late at night. (i.e. Count 58 rows. Laugh at a funny thing on the television. Lose your place and start again. Repeat until bedtime)
• I also made it longer. By quite a bit actually - the straight bit below the waist shaping is twice as long as it should be. I'm very glad I did this, as I feel that my midriff is best kept under wraps at all costs, and in a light fabric like this it adds very little extra weight.

Stuff I like:

• The delicateness of the fabric - see, it floats, like a butterfly! But doesn't sting like a bee! Swirliness in knitting I consider to be a Good Thing.
• The seams. These are about a billion times tidier than normal, thanks to Audrey and Corinna from my knitting group. They basically talked me out of the evil ways of backstitch and showed me the delights of mattress stitch. Why, why did it take me so long to realise how awesome this is! So neat, and you can do it on an angle really easily. I have attempted it before but I somehow reached the conclusion that it was slower than backstitch so not worth it. Everybody: it's not truuuuuue! Backstitch is soooo 2k9! Srsly.

Stuff that's rubbish (there's always something):

• The buttonholes. They were done horizontally, by casting off two stitches then casting them on again on the next row. I foolishly used backwards loop cast on for this, which is far too loose, and means there is an annoying strand of yarn lurking around to snag an unwary button. With hindsight, i should have cast on by knitting-on. It's possibly fixable. I mean, I am almost certainly too lazy to frog back past the problem area, but I might try buttonhole stitching round each one, it may help prevent excessive cursing as I attempt to free myself from the cardigan's embrace.
• I also sewed most of the buttons on slightly wobblily on my knee whilst approaching the end of a long car journey from Stranraer, because the child was asleep and you have to seize these opportunities, even though a voice in my head was saying 'nooo, wait till you get home and you will do a better job, you clown'. I ignored the voice by turning up the stereo.

Ah well, at least with my new woolly creations I have neutralised the weather-related damage caused by making that sundress... you can all relax and fire up your barbecues again... phew!

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red and green should deffo be seen

I'm having a bit of a red and green phase at the moment. For some reason I only seem to be interested in things with at least one of these colours, preferably both. I could spend hours grinning inanely at traffic lights. I blame this pot of lilies in my back yard, that waited until just before i went on holiday for a week before flowering gloriously in my absence.



My new job, right in the middle of the old textile district in town, is also proving rather dangerous. I can see Abakhans from the door, its massive piles of ubercheap fabric and yarn grin temptingly at me as I nip out for a lunchtime sandwich. So I tend to accidentally return to my desk with random pieces of fabric like this, because it has a nice shade of green in, and makes your eyes go funny in a good way. Blink a few times and the pattern bounces around all over the place. Hours of fun.

But the most exciting event of the week by miles is... look! Guess where my cardigan is?

Yeeeeeah it's in the sink, being washed.... that means it's really nearly finished.... it's all sewn together, just needs blocking and buttons and we're there... WOOHOO!

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social knitting

So I've been working 9 to 5 recently *pours self cup of ambition* which unfortunately has been taking its toll somewhat on my knitting productivity. Throughout winter I commuted to faraway grim industrial estates, sitting zombielike in motorway traffic for hours before arriving home knackered in the evening, making lame attempts at parenting, then collapsing face down onto the sofa. But I recently started a new job in town, within cycling distance, which has all been working out rather nicely in these summer months. I feel energised, revitalised! The rubbishknitter-shaped dent in the sofa has gone! And working nearer home, I have a little more time in the evenings to devote to Fun Stuff. In this last week, I have quite literally been living the dream, by going to no less than three different knitting groups. THREE! I KNOW!!1!

So I've made a little more progress on the Tempest cardigan. I decided in the end to go for a monostripe around the waist, to get round the pooling issues. I know, i know - if i'd just followed the pattern as written to start with, and done the suggested stripe pattern, I'd have been fine. I'd like to say I've learned my lesson, but I doubt I have tbh - I have a long and messy history of failing to follow instructions, and meandering off along illadvised detours. I've done the back and two front sides now anyway, so I'm feeling a bit more along the road to having an actual garment. Just the sleeves and a loooad of finishing to do yet, so I'm probably about halfway. But the nice thing about this garment is that it's basically all been made whilst sitting and chatting, either at wonderwool or at knitting group. This is quite unusual for me, I generally knit alone in a darkened room slumped in front of the telly, so I like the way I can look at parts of the knitting and it reminds me of different people and places. Good times. Although I have to admit it's a little scary trying to concentrate on the tricky bits of the cardie whilst chatting. I was knitting in a cafe on Friday and noticed, just as I was about to attempt the armhole shaping, that they were playing Play with Fire by the Rolling Stones. It was so apt that a couple of stitches fell off my needles immediately, in deference. But I seem to have sorted it out and got to the end ok now... we'll see how the sleeves/seaming goes..


Oh, and I also celebrated the new job a little bit with another skein of Wollmeise. Ahem. Got a bit carried away with the cheeriness of the colour... oops. The colour is called 'Frühling'. (What a nice word - it feels so much more appropriate for acid green than 'Spring'.) I have no immediate plans for it - it just looked like a big ice lolly or something, I wanted to sink my teeth into it, but was worried they might go numb.
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hmmm

Random jumble random jumble random jumble MASSSSIVE POOLS OF COLOUR random jumble random jumble. Is what my proto-cardigan would say if it could talk.

I am beginning to change my mind here... after a bit of Pooling Maths and investigative onward knitting, I feel action has to be taken with the cardigan weirdness. Possibly, with such a confined area of bad yarn behaviour, I could get away with ripping it back to the start of the pooling and replacing that particular bit with a stripe or two of another yarn... am pondering.... I feel I have to act swiftly before I get distracted by another new project and meander off down a woolly avenue of novelty. If I can find a similar solid colour yarn in a suitably matching hue, it might do the trick.



There have been other projects in the meantime, some small gifty things, like these cute baby socks in Green Eyed Monsters yarn. They are really very small, 32 stitches around, so they're exactly half the size of adult socks, to fit a 6-8 month old baby. Sort of made up, based on my notes from these ones last year. So the stripes in the yarn came out two rows wide rather than one. It all worked out quite lovelyly in the end. Sometimes, hand-dyed yarn can be your friend!

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bearz in the hood

So I've been a bit rubbish with the knitting recently, as my name might suggest. Due to a nasty inflammation of the tendons in my wrist. Partly brought on by overhammering a computer keyboard, partly brought on by an easter knitathon, partly too much Mario Kart Wii. It's a bit better now. The GP fobbed me off with some paracetamol but it did seem to help a bit. I suspect this may be the placebo effect, but would that work if you suspected it existed? Or possibly moving to a Wiimote + Nunchuk combination instead of using the Wii wheel. Anyway. Look, I finally finished the woolly childHood! Don't have a proper model for it yet (the foetus for which it is intended is still a WIP) so George the bear kindly stepped in for this shot.

It's made from wensleydale longwool, which is lovely to knit with - really soft and lustrous. I picked it up at the rather awesome wensleydale longwool sheepshop. It's size 6-12 months. I did enjoy making this despite the wrist issues.

Things worth pointing out for other people who might make this pattern:

• The button band is knitted in garter stitch, then sewn on to the stocking stitch front panel. I foolishly assumed, as the stitches were lying the same way, that they would line up in a 1:1 ratio, so this is how I seamed it. This wasn't the case: my garter stitch is a little bit slacker of gauge than my stocking stitch. Leading to a very slightly frilly looking button band. I didn't fancy unpicking the seam so I have left it like this as a 'feature'.


• The hood is comically large. Like, about as big as the body. I can't decide whether this is a good or a bad thing.


• I modified the button band to have buttonholes, rather than the suggested snap fastenings, because I felt it went better with the rustic feel of the yarn.


• I didn't block it because I couldn't be arsed felt it went better with the rustic feel of the yarn.

FYI, George is actually a bit of a connoisseur of hand knitwear. Here is the jumper he usually wears. Knitted by a friend of my Mum's when I was a small child. It has withstood many years of battering. And yes, I was born in the 70s.

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seamfest 2k8: the good, the bad and the ugly

Is now over! *small fanfare*

So I tackled this fairly uninspiring looking baby cardie as a kind of learn-how-to-seam project. I've always been the top down raglan type up till now, but I thought a small seamed project might help me lose some of my trepidation in this area.

In the interests of experimentation I did each seam in a different way. Look, this is for a newborn baby, it's not going to be too bothered about consistency of finishing techniques is it?!. And if it is... well, it's going to be a few years before it can sue me. So here is my appraisal of various seaming techniques, each executed with my customary mixture of brute force and ignorance. Hopefully I and other blog readers can apply these lessons learned to other garments. More important ones, like ones for ourselves :)


So first of all, here is The Bad. The button bands were, rather weirdly, knitted at the same time as the front pieces. Then there was a stepped cast-off at the shoulder, then you are supposed to keep knitting the button band on its own until it is long enough to go halfway round the back. When you've done the other side, and seamed the shoulders, these two halves of the button band should meet magically exactly in the centre, where you somehow invisibly join them.

Mine didn't. One side was longer than the other, and I had a slight surplus of fabric where they overlapped. I thought I'd cunningly sew this down flat but it didn't work terribly well. Hmm. Should probably have frogged back a bit, but I was nervous about stretching the ends of the neckband across a gap and distorting the way the back hung. I think I prefer picking up stitches for button bands...


The Ugly... Well I attempted to crochet the seam at the shoulder, just for a bit of a laugh. And because it looked pretty awesome when Yan Tan Tethera did it. I think this would have worked fine if it weren't for the stepped edging. There was just enough of a verrrry gentle slope to make this shoulder kind of unseamable really. There was a good article in the Spring issue of Interweave Knits about finishing that suggests that stepped cast offs should be generally avoided like the plague for this reason. It suggests doing short rows and a three needle cast off instead. Maybe I'll try that next time. Ho hum!


On a more positive note, I think the other slanty seams on the sleeves, where I went for a good old fashioned backstitch, worked a bit better. This was a bit of an easier angle to attempt I think. I did a slip stitch edge and backstitching under this was pretty easy and possibly the swiftest line of attack.

And to end on a more upbeat note, to leave you with a nice warm fuzzy feeling inside, The Good: I think possible candidates are the backstitched seam where the sleeve meets the body, and the mattress-stitched side edge.






Mine looks nothing like the pattern of course. It looked a bit boring to make with all that plain stocking stitch and purl ridges, so I went for a basic butterfly stitch lace pattern. The baby is due in July so it only needs lightweight clothes. Also I don't like the mawkish cutesieness of a lot of baby knits, so the hearts on that bottom cardie made me feel a bit queasy. I'm glad I don't have to look at them any more!





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cardie photos

OK, so finally the cardigan is dry.. yippee! And the rain held off for long enough for us to squeeze in a quick dog-walk between thunderstorms. One plus point of the recent biblically atrocious weather in this country is that it has now become baltic enough for the new cardie to be worn. So here is some evidence of it in action... thanks to Toast for his clever photography, and the rain gods for shutting up for 5 minutes.

As I can't seem to follow any kind of instruction without a minor act of futile rebellion, I should point out that I made a couple of modifications to the pattern, as follows:

• Couldn't decide whether to make 34 or 36 inch. So it started out as a 36 round the yoke, as i have rather big beefy shoulders. I then went down to the 34 inch size after the under-arm split, and vacillated aimlessly between both measurements for the rest of the pattern.


• Used the same 4mm needle throughout, rather than switching to a 3.5mm needle for the button band, because, er.. i didn't have one, and was too lazy to go and buy one.


• Widened the button band a bit, so i can continue to eat pies with reckless abandon, and breathe at the same time without fear of propelling a button across the room at high speed.


• The cuffs. I didn't like the original cuff design, which was so flouncy as to make Lawrence Llewellyn-Bowen's shirts look tastefully understated. So after row 65 of the sleeve cable chart, I switched to the chart for the body and did rows 32 to 36. I finished the sleeve by repeating the section at the top of the sleeve cable chart: purl 1 row, knit 2 rows, purl 1 row, ..., knit 1 row, purl 1 row. Then I cast off. This gives a much gentler and less ostentatious flare that you are less likely to accidentally dip in your curry.

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