Well, one thing babies can be trusted to do is grow, and they (the booties, don't know about babies) look cute:
Nov 3, 2008
Quickly, booties
A quick project as a gift for a baby that will be arriving shortly. The ubiquitous Saartje's booties pattern. It's popular for a reason. Very easy to follow, with a nice result, my only complaint is the vague sizing, since I myself am certainly no expert in baby foot sizes. How long is a baby's foot? I used a thicker yarn than called for (Mirasol Samp'a 50 g is 110 m), but tightly on quite small needles (2.5 mm), and knit the small size. The booties are 8 cm long. Probably bigger than a baby's foot?
Well, one thing babies can be trusted to do is grow, and they (the booties, don't know about babies) look cute:
Well, one thing babies can be trusted to do is grow, and they (the booties, don't know about babies) look cute:
Nov 1, 2008
Shetland Lace Shawl, Blocking
Whee! Finished the border of my red shetland lace shawl in what may be called a knitting marathon. Here it is blocking:
I blocked it to 130 x 130 cm, hope this is enough. I think it looks good, although the faggotting between the middle and outer borders is not completely square. Was not sure what to do about this - thought about blocking it too, but thought it would look worse...
The shawl is blocking without sewing in the (two, but anyway) loose ends, on the assumption that it will easier to see how tight they should be sewn one blocked.
I was not sure about how to knit the faggotting around the corners. I made about one extra repeat (10 rows) at each corner, and made extra faggotting as well. But the extra stitches are really not needed on the inside of the corner, and the faggotting is somewhat clumped together I think. Looked at pictures in Victorian Lace Today, and they show extra faggotting as well... still not completely convinced, though.
Besides that, the verdict is: happy!
I blocked it to 130 x 130 cm, hope this is enough. I think it looks good, although the faggotting between the middle and outer borders is not completely square. Was not sure what to do about this - thought about blocking it too, but thought it would look worse...The shawl is blocking without sewing in the (two, but anyway) loose ends, on the assumption that it will easier to see how tight they should be sewn one blocked.
I was not sure about how to knit the faggotting around the corners. I made about one extra repeat (10 rows) at each corner, and made extra faggotting as well. But the extra stitches are really not needed on the inside of the corner, and the faggotting is somewhat clumped together I think. Looked at pictures in Victorian Lace Today, and they show extra faggotting as well... still not completely convinced, though.
Besides that, the verdict is: happy!
Oct 31, 2008
Finally February, Baby!
Everybody is making the Zimmermann February Baby sweater, and I always want to be like everybody else! Bought the wondrously cheap Knitter's Almanac and some cotton (3 skeins Mirasol Samp'a, 50 g and 110 m/120 yds per skein). The pattern of course calls for wool, but had seen the February knitted in cotton and wanted to give it a try. Why, I actually don't recall, as I really don't like knitting cotton....
Well, here's the beginning, the neck opening is at the bottom in this picture.
So far so good, but here is a close-up of the armhole:
What's the problem in this picture? The knitter is trying to out-smart EZ. Don't try this at home. The pattern tells you to work the sleeves first, and then continue with the body. I did it the other way round, saving the stiches for the sleeves until the end, so the knitting had to strech a lot when I continued because of the extra 7 cast-on stitches on each side of the saved sleeve stitches. This would not happen if I had followed the pattern... the good thing is that it did not show in the end, though. I worked the sleeves until all 3 skeins were used up, that looked like this:
Hmm... are short-sleeved cardigans in fashion?? Well, the good thing was that the cardigan was bigger than the baby, but could actually be used anyway because of the short sleeves. Meanwhile, I went back for another skein, and the sleeves have now been lengthened:
It actually wasn't too annoying to do, as I only had to unravel the lower garter-stitch edges. The sleeves now measure 20 cm from underarm to edge. Hope it fits now! The overall proportions still look a bit strange to me, but I think it actually really does fit, as the shoulder area just under the garter-stitch yoke stretches, so the distance from top to armhole is not longer than the distance from armhole to bottom when worn
Well, here's the beginning, the neck opening is at the bottom in this picture.
So far so good, but here is a close-up of the armhole:
What's the problem in this picture? The knitter is trying to out-smart EZ. Don't try this at home. The pattern tells you to work the sleeves first, and then continue with the body. I did it the other way round, saving the stiches for the sleeves until the end, so the knitting had to strech a lot when I continued because of the extra 7 cast-on stitches on each side of the saved sleeve stitches. This would not happen if I had followed the pattern... the good thing is that it did not show in the end, though. I worked the sleeves until all 3 skeins were used up, that looked like this:
Hmm... are short-sleeved cardigans in fashion?? Well, the good thing was that the cardigan was bigger than the baby, but could actually be used anyway because of the short sleeves. Meanwhile, I went back for another skein, and the sleeves have now been lengthened:
It actually wasn't too annoying to do, as I only had to unravel the lower garter-stitch edges. The sleeves now measure 20 cm from underarm to edge. Hope it fits now! The overall proportions still look a bit strange to me, but I think it actually really does fit, as the shoulder area just under the garter-stitch yoke stretches, so the distance from top to armhole is not longer than the distance from armhole to bottom when worn
Oct 29, 2008
NYS Wool and Sheep Festival
What to do when you discover that the famous NYS Wool and Sheep Festival in Rhinebeck takes place just in the days you planned a trip to NYC? Jump in the car and go, only 4 hours each way. But it was really worth it!
Such a big festival... just from the number of cars parked outside - here is one happy knitter making her way through the car jungle:
We satisfied our urge to fondle fiber animals,
and to be honest, I should admit that we also fondled lots of fibers not on animals anymore... maybe we also bought some of said fibers, but as husbands may be reading along here, better not to be too specific about who bought what and how much!
Just on our way out, we saw these people walking their llamas - much more classy than just walking a boring dog:
...although to be fair to dogs here, they do give very soft and nice fibers, which are supposed to stop smelling bad if simmered for a while, and are supposed to give very nice yarn if spun mixed with sheep wool to bind the fibers together.
Such a big festival... just from the number of cars parked outside - here is one happy knitter making her way through the car jungle:
We satisfied our urge to fondle fiber animals,
and to be honest, I should admit that we also fondled lots of fibers not on animals anymore... maybe we also bought some of said fibers, but as husbands may be reading along here, better not to be too specific about who bought what and how much!Just on our way out, we saw these people walking their llamas - much more classy than just walking a boring dog:
...although to be fair to dogs here, they do give very soft and nice fibers, which are supposed to stop smelling bad if simmered for a while, and are supposed to give very nice yarn if spun mixed with sheep wool to bind the fibers together.
Oct 3, 2008
Shetland Lace Shawl New vs. Old Method
There has been some progress with my lace shawl. Also some unraveling, but in the end more knitted than removed. The pattern describes how to knit the edge panels one by one, so here is the first one:
and in close-up:
nice, I think. But then the trouble started. The next panel needs to be knitted together with the first one at the edge, which will form a corner. This did not look good. Tried to convince myself it was OK for a while and continued... but in the end had to face the facts. So unraveled, and I am now knitting the entire border in the round, with alternating purl rows. I thought this would be ugly because of different tension in knit and purl rows, but that's not the case at all. The corners now look very nice, and all four look the same (I thought the corner where I change between knit and purl would not look the same as the others, but with yo's on every row, they look exactly the same). So the only problem is it doesn't look like much bundled together on the needle:
but think it will turn out very nice in the end. Of course, knitting the border in the round seems to be the traditional way, and is in every respect much better than knitting back and forth.
and in close-up:
nice, I think. But then the trouble started. The next panel needs to be knitted together with the first one at the edge, which will form a corner. This did not look good. Tried to convince myself it was OK for a while and continued... but in the end had to face the facts. So unraveled, and I am now knitting the entire border in the round, with alternating purl rows. I thought this would be ugly because of different tension in knit and purl rows, but that's not the case at all. The corners now look very nice, and all four look the same (I thought the corner where I change between knit and purl would not look the same as the others, but with yo's on every row, they look exactly the same). So the only problem is it doesn't look like much bundled together on the needle:
but think it will turn out very nice in the end. Of course, knitting the border in the round seems to be the traditional way, and is in every respect much better than knitting back and forth.
Sep 9, 2008
Oops, I did it again!
I was peacefully working on my Noro project, and then suddenly... I had a new project in my hands! I'm using a pattern for a Shetland lace shawl from a book called "Illustrated Guide to Knitting The Creative Way" edited by Janie Ryan. I bought it from a pile of used books, price $1, which I must say is cheap for this book: half of it is an 80's horror show that really belongs in The Museum of Kitschy Stitches, the other half is useful classic patterns. One of them said pattern for a Shetland lace shawl:
I'm using some Spinni Tweed from my stash, bought from Henriksens Uldspinderi. I am knitting it very loosely on an Addi Turbo Lace 3.5 mm circular, and it feels great! It really almost knits itself in my hands. So the center is already done, and I've started the first border:
I'm using some Spinni Tweed from my stash, bought from Henriksens Uldspinderi. I am knitting it very loosely on an Addi Turbo Lace 3.5 mm circular, and it feels great! It really almost knits itself in my hands. So the center is already done, and I've started the first border:
Sep 2, 2008
Noro madness
In one illustration of chaos theory, the flutter of a butterfly's wings can start a hurricane on the other side of the Earth.
This story is in some way similar. After recieving one skein of Noro Kureyon for my birthday, I ran off and bought 6 more. So now I have 7 (seven!!). And the headache of figuring out what to do with them. My first 3 or so swatches were about finding the right number of stiches for the full circumference of a cardigan, knitting back and forth on a circular needle. It looks like this:
I love the colors, but I think the stripe is too massive. And this yarn repeats the colors in the same sequence over and over, so the cardigan would just have wide stripes.
So in the next try, I striped two skeins together, knitting one from the inside and one from the outside. This means that the colors will "meet" at some point, it happens twice in this picture (the black stripe with light green on both sides, and the dark green with cyan on both sides). But besides that, this is so much better, and does more justice to the wonderful Noro
This story is in some way similar. After recieving one skein of Noro Kureyon for my birthday, I ran off and bought 6 more. So now I have 7 (seven!!). And the headache of figuring out what to do with them. My first 3 or so swatches were about finding the right number of stiches for the full circumference of a cardigan, knitting back and forth on a circular needle. It looks like this:
I love the colors, but I think the stripe is too massive. And this yarn repeats the colors in the same sequence over and over, so the cardigan would just have wide stripes.
So in the next try, I striped two skeins together, knitting one from the inside and one from the outside. This means that the colors will "meet" at some point, it happens twice in this picture (the black stripe with light green on both sides, and the dark green with cyan on both sides). But besides that, this is so much better, and does more justice to the wonderful Noro
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