Tequila Sunrise

OK, I'll skip right over all the other 8 or 9 projects I have worked on since May and jump right to this cool Kool-Aid dyeing project. I have been wanting to dye sock blanks for a while, since I have the machine for knitting the blanks, and I thought it was such a neat idea. The members of our Steveston knitting group decided a while ago that we would give this a try. In July we ordered the yarn and in early August a group of us got together to wind the yarn and knit the blanks. Then Kelian kindly opened her home and we dyed our blanks using Kool-Aid and Wilton's cake dye. I'll post my blank from that night in a few days. Fast forward to this past week when I went over to the island and showed my dyed sock blank to my U of Ottawa bound niece. She has been knitting socks for a while and was very excited at this idea, so we bought some undyed yarn from an independent dyer in Victoria (don't worry - we also bought some of her very cool dyed yarns!), knitted up the blanks and tried the experiment again. Kirstie dyed a blank for herself, I dyed a blank for one of my nieces, and another niece, Jennifer, the die-hard Harry Potter fan, dyed a third one.

I have had a pattern for "Fawkes" socks in my queue for some time now. Fawkes is Dumbledore's phoenix, and lovely shades of red and orange. I told Jen if she wanted me to knit that pattern, she should dye her blank in reds, oranges and yellows. She did a stunning job of dyeing her blank, and now it's up to me to knit up the pattern. Startitis hit hard and I couldn't wait, so cast on for the pattern. I'm really liking the way it looks... but it looks more like a Tequila Sunrise than a Phoenix... :)

Colourful Avery

This Avery sweater is a flip on the regular pattern. I had more variegated yarn than solid colour, so I made the sleeves plain green and knitted the front and back in variegated. The only problem was that normally you choose bits of self patterning yarn from different sections of the colourway to knit the intarsia blocks on the front of the sweater - and I was working with plain green and the variegated. I solved the problem by searching through my stash and finding ends of balls of yarn in various bright colours. I think they make great blocks on the sweater front - very colourful.

I took a closeup photo of the intarsia blocks as I have often been disappointed in the way my edge stitches look in intarsia knitting. This time a tried a technique that Holli described to me and I am much happier with the way it looks, although I think it still needs a bit of refining.

The colour purple

The knitting machine came in handy again as I worked with some purple yarn to create two little sweaters. Though there was enough variegated yarn to make a size 2 child's sweater, probably, I had two different shades of purple to coordinate with the Tofutsies variegated. So, I opted to make two smaller sweaters, each with its own purple. The first one, from Holli Yeoh's Devan pattern, was made with Trekking ProNatura. This is the third time, now, that I have made this pattern. It is a beauty to make and the instructions are so clear and well written. This little sweater will go into my stash of baby sweaters for handy gifts.

The second sweater was made for charity. Our knitting guild has decided to support a local hospital and we are knitting baby sweaters and baby things to be donated to the hospital. The hospital will distribute the items to new mums in financial difficulty. For this sweater, I used Holli's pattern Avery. However, that pattern has blocks of the variegated colour knitted in intarsia on the front, and I was pretty sure that I was cutting it fine on the Tofutsies yarn. I wanted something to tie the colours together, and without the colour blocks it seemed difficult. However, I thought that if I did a row of eyelet across the body of the sweater, every few rows, the effect would be lacy and feminine. To accent this, I did a picot hem in the variegated yarn on the body and at the neck. I think the final result is quite nice. The purple yarn for this one is Opal, and the colour is not very well represented in the photo. It is a very dark purple, and I actually thought that it would not be as good a complement to the Tofutsies as the ProNatura. When they were both knitted up, however, I find that I like the dark purple as a contrast to the variegated better, even though the purple of the ProNatura is almost a perfect match.

Spring lambs and all

It's spring time and baby lambs are on the way. A trip out to the farm in Chilliwack didn't net us a sight of the new babies - none were born yet, but Stewart got to feed the sheep and the chickens. Loretta has at least two breeds of sheep; a horned Icelandic variety and a more common, North American breed (don't know for sure what breed they are - Loretta calls them her 'woolies') without horns. They were a bit skittish with us, but as soon as Stewart had grain in hand he became their new best friend.

Loretta doesn't sheer her sheep herself, as that is a skill that takes a bit of time to acquire, however she does keep the wool, wash, card and spin it herself. She has tried some experimenting with dying the wool, but mostly she prefers to use the different shades as they come off the sheep. That is why she likes to have dark and light sheep, and is hoping for a few spotted ones among the lambs. After our farm tour, we went inside the tiny farmhouse to have a look at some of her spinning. Specifically, we were looking for some yarn to knit up a hat for my niece, Taryn. We chose a lovely mottled dark/light grey that has knit up into a very nice little Topi. The hat knitted up quickly, however, the brim seems overlarge, and may have to be frogged and reknit. Taryn will have to try it on first, but overall, I am happy with the way it looks.


So we came home without seeing any lambs, but a couple of days after the visit, we received the following photo via email! Here is new baby Ophelia:

Warm woolies

Beautiful blue for beautiful blue-eyed boy. This sweater is another Holli Yeoh pattern, called Avery. I have made it in Opal yarn, a kit I purchased from Holli. The self striping yarn with the browns, greens and blues are a great compliment to the blue of the main colour. Mostly done on the machine, the corrugated ribbing and the blocks of colour on the front were done by hand, because my machine doesn't do (a) ribbing, and (b) two colour intarsia. I quite like that I have to do some by hand, though, it means I don't entirely abandon my hand work to the machine. After all, am I knitting because I want to knit or because I want to produce? Both, but I do enjoy the knitting part.




Another Avery, this time done in Trekking yarn. The self-patterning yarn on this one, like the Christmas sweater in reds and greens, is more tweedy than stripy. I couldn't actually find a spot where the pattern repeated itself. Because different colours are plied together, and the length of the colour repeat on them must differ, they don't fall together at the same point of another ply's colour, necessarily. I really like the colour of this one, but sweet baby James' mum said it was too girly, so it will have to go to a girl somewhere. Since Christmas, I have made three children's sweaters on the machine. The sewing up is a bit behind, but it is amazing how quickly they come together on the machine.





These are the sleeves of the black and grey cabled sweater by Wilma Peers, from Vogue Knitting Fall 2006. They rather look like scarves at the moment - yes they are both on one needle, and that does emphasize the narrow look, but I am a bit concerned that they are actually going to be big enough around the arm. I love the cables on this sweater, but I have been somewhat frustrated with the knitting. The instructions are less than clear in some parts and I have interpreted, and sometimes adapted, them to my liking. My main concern is the length of the sleeve. Because it is a raglan, and I am not sure how high up the shoulder the top of the sleeve will sit, it is difficult to judge exactly how long to make the sleeve. I know it needs to be shorter than the instructions call for; even with a long, beyond the wrist sleeve, 25 1/2 inches is far too long for my short arms. I am hoping that my estimation is going to be a go...

Little tikes

Little Tikes sweater, complete except for buttons. My colleague was thrilled with the results and gave it to her nephew for Christmas.

No time to blog...

...just a quick entry to show the completed Devan sweater - all pieces knit by machine on Sunday, November 30. Pieced and finished by today! That has to be a record! I love the colourway on this yarn (fortissimo??? can't remember - but the info is on Ravelry). Unfortunately, I knew I was going to be very tight with the amount of yarn, and so I didn't attempt to match the striping. The yarn is tweedy as much as stripy, so the effect is not awful, but probably would have been even nicer if I had had enough yarn to do the proper matching. Lovely result for my beautiful great-nephew.

Are we having fun yet?

Two green sweaters, both knit on the machine, equal frustration. I love the colours of both of these sweaters. They look lovely together. Each of them is finished, to all intents and purposes. However, each has its own particular challenges. The shawl sweater is beautiful, and warm and cozy. It is too wide across the back, though, and the heads of the sleeves don't stay where they are supposed to. This makes the sweater feel like it is falling off all the time, and looks sloppy across the shoulders. A couple of potential solutions for the problem would be to take some elastic and stitch it across the inside back neck between the shoulders. This might make the sweater sit more nicely. Another possible solution is to use I-cord to draw the upper edge of the sweater in across the back of the neck.

The shell is more of a problem. There are a few ends to work in, however, the sweater is sewn up and I was able to try it on. The armholes are cut too deep, and are too loose with too much fabric above the bust at the armhole. This is a fit that is just not good enough. I don't know if I should rip it, or try to make short sleeves for it. With sleeves, the deep armholes wouldn't matter, and it might make the loose fabric above the bust less obvious. I don't mind having short sleeves, although this was intended to be a sleeveless shell. The biggest problem is that I absolutely hated working with this yarn. It is slippery, and the bouclé makes it hard to see the stitches. The rayon yarn fuzzes extremely easily, which dramatically affects the appearance of the knit fabric. Basically, while I like the colour of this top, for the amount of time and money invested already, I don't know if I like it enough to continue throwing time and money after it, particularly given how much I hated working with it. I am beginning to remember why I always hated sewing for myself.




This baby sweater is being knit for a colleague's new nephew. I love this pattern - "Little Tikes" from Interweave Knits. (Michele Rose Orne, I think, is the designer.) Hand knit, so it is taking more time than the two previous sweaters, but the problem with this one is again the yarn. Mission Falls 1824 cotton - I find it fights with me all the time and my fingers/hands hurt after a short while. I used to knit exclusively with cotton yarn, so I know it is not just the fact that this is cotton. In any case, the back and both sleeves are done, so I am on the home stretch. I will go back to my black and grey sweater when these projects are wrapped up...

Greens and blues

This very easy garter stitch shawl is finally finished. I actually was frustrated with the bouclé yarn as the needle tip kept getting caught in the loops of the bouclé. It would then be a tug of war until I realised I had to give in and reinsert the needle more carefully. Of course, the rows keep getting longer, so towards the end it felt like that never ending project. I love the colourway on this one; it's called Rainforest and the yarn is by the wonderful Canadian company Fleece Artist. The yarn is incredibly soft and will be a very warm shawl for a winter evening in front of the TV.

Greensleeves

Not much to look at right now, but this is a long rectangular piece of green variegated bamboo knitted with a strand of dark forest green mohair. It is softer than the proverbial baby's behind. When complete, this will be one of the shawl-sweaters with long sleeves - the armholes are being held in place by the waste yarn. I am totally in love with the colour and the feel of this sweater. It is so luxurious. Knitted on an LK 150 at SS 4, the gauge is good and big for a light, airy feel.



Sadly, the *(&%#$! tension swatch lied on this one. This is the grey and black cabled sweater from Vogue. The back is complete and I have done some on the front band - which is what tipped me off that the gauge might be off. The cables and width of this piece look considerably smaller than in the photo. I haven't done actually checked the back gauge against the pattern yet, but it looks like I might have to frog the back and start over with larger needles. Harumph. I have put it to the side for the moment and working on completing a few bits and pieces. I'm going to try and get back to this one by the weekend. Keep fingers crossed that I might be able to work with the back as it stands...

New school year, new sweater

The knitting on this little multi-coloured sweater is all done, the sewing up complete, the ends worked in... and it is too small for the recipient!!!! So I have had to take out the cuffs and am going to add a few inches to the sleeve length. This won't take too long, but it is frustrating to have a project complete and then to have to take it apart again. This project has already seen repeated revisions, and one more change is almost more than I bear. I am not best satisfied with this sweater in any case. The variegated yarn is too orange for the purple and pink. However, the recipient loves it, so that is the main thing. She is going to help me pick out some buttons, then it will be her back to school sweater.
Here is the sweater I have started for myself. I have had the yarn for ages, and it has been on my Ravelry projects page since January, but I had to wait for the Ravelympics, and complete several hanging-on WIPs, before I felt caught up enough that I could cast on this one. The gauge is fairly big, so it should knit up fairly quickly, but the sewing up on it is supposed to be fairly challenging. We'll see!

Half baked

This is the shawl that didn't make it over the finish line. At about 50% done, it still has a long way to go. It's warm and cozy for the cold weather we have had the last two days!

Ravelympics rock!

Well, I have successfully finished three out of my four Ravelympic projects. This one I had some challenges with sewing it up. At the cast off shoulder edge, the eyes open up quite dramatically, and I had two wavy bumps in the shoulder seam the first side when I had finished sewing it up. I looked at it, contemplated options, discussed with knitting friends, and then emailed the designer - Norah Gaughan. Norah suggested that sewing them up firmly would work, as the weight of the garment would pull the seam straight. What I had sewn on the first shoulder didn't look like it would straighten out, but I thought about possibly drawing the eye together by catching only the knit stitches in the seam and pulling them up taut. That seems to have worked, although there is still a bit of a wave to the shoulder. In any case, I am very grateful to Norah for her suggestions and support.

One last project, the Fleece Artist shawl, is still on the needles. I doubt very much it will make the finish line before the deadline - which is roughly 9:00 am tomorrow morning. I have no intention of pulling an all nighter just to finish a shawl!!! I am still happy about how much I have completed though. The shawl, though not complete, has progressed a lot since the start of the Ravelympics, so all is not lost.

Sprint to the finish line

Love the colour of this sweater, love the design... not so happy about the fit. I may have mentioned that I made the mistake of not reading the yarn indications on the pattern carefully enough. Debbie Bliss designed this pattern to be oversized anyway, and then wrote the instructions even larger because she was using Rowan Denim yarn and she allowed for 20% shrinkage on the final garment. Because I was knitting to the measurements, without thinking about this shrinkage factor, I have successfully created a beautiful garment that is about 6 sizes too large for the boyo. I should really rip it out, take about six inches off the length and off the sleeves, and redo the neckline. However, he will grow. We know that. He has been doing that successfully for 11 1/2 years...













Two out of four Ravelympic projects complete. The white sister sweater is ready for sewing up, and the shawl is coming along, albeit slowly. It looks like three will be complete, and possibly (fingers crossed everyone!) four!

WIPS wrestling

Well, here is one finished object in the WIPS wrestling event for the Ravelympics! A member of Ravelry, in a tip of the hat to the Yarn Harlot, has established the Ravelympics. The idea is that you begin and complete a project during the Beijing games. However, the organizers were brilliant and also established an event wherein you could complete some of those languishing projects that have been cluttering up the work basket forever! This was perfect for me. I have entered four objects in this category: The Backyard Leaves scarf (shown above), the sister sweater (for sister's 50th birthday in March), the Stewart sweater (just needs to be sewn up!), and the Fleece Artist shawl. I have high hopes for all but the shawl. It is not a project I am enjoying working on - the needles keep getting caught in the loopy ends of the yarn. It's a very boring knit, too; straight garter stitch, with an increase at the beginning of each row.

In any case! I can excitedly jump up and down for the completion of the first WIP. This scarf was an easy knit, even though I had to concentrate on the chart a bit. The only thing I don't like, and this has been mentioned by other Ravelers, is the join at the centre back. The instructions say to knit two halves, then sew them together. Others have complained that the cast on edge is too tight, that it is hard to join them together. In fact, the problem is not that the edge is too tight, it is that there are fewer stitches here than in anywhere else in the scarf. I did a provisional cast on, then picked up the provisional cast on, plus a few more, and started knitting in the other direction once I had one side if the scarf complete. If I were to make this again, I would increase the number of stitches at the second cast on (you knit two rows, then cast on additional stitches). I would also see if it were possible to do a provisional cast on at that point, as well, so you would have two cast on edges to pick up from, and then a very small seam between, where the two extra rows met. Sounds confusing? You sort of have to know how the pattern is established...

Back to the drawing board...

Did you ever have one of those projects? You know, one of those projects that no matter what you do or how careful you are, you find yourself knitting and tinking and knitting and frogging and by the time you are finally finished, you have knitted at least two complete garments with only one to show for it? Enter Lucy two. This great pattern is beautiful when knit, but it has caused me a bit of a headache. (In no way the fault of the pattern!) As I was knitting the two fronts for this sweater, I cast off a few stitches for the neck edge, and then decreased several stitches up the neck edge. just as I would do if knitting by hand. My machine knitting mentor, Joan, suggested that short rowing the neck edge would be a smoother line for the neckline and would be easier to pick up for the edging. So, when I started the backs, I thought I should try short rowing (which I had only done once before). The backs worked out beautifully and were easy to do - until I took them off the needles and realised I had forgotten to wrap the stitches and there were big holes between the rows. That's alright, I thought, I will just rip them back to the beginning of the shaping, and rehang the stitches and do it again. There's only a few rows. So, I pulled out the rows, knitted about six rows by hand in waste yarn so that I could hang the stitches, and did it again. Then I thought I had better do the same with the fronts, even though there were a few more rows to deal with. So, I ran a knitting needle through the row right before the cast off, pulled out the knitting, reknitted a few rows by hand on waste yarn, hung the stitches again and redid the necklines. When I was working on the purple front, though, I must have forgotten to place the weight near the neck edge where the short rowing was happening, and when I took it off the needles, several stitches were pulled and/or dropped. Frustrated, I put it to the side for a bit, did the sleeves, and soaked and blocked them and the one correct front. Looking at the backs, now, though, I realised that I had 27 shoulder stitches on the fronts, and 30 shoulder stitches on the backs... Yikes. So, insert knitting needle again, frog back, knit by hand, hang the stitches, redo the neck edges. Then I realised that the purple front was ok in the short row stitches! All I needed to do was the ten rows of straight knitting from the neck decreases to the shoulder. So, I inserted a knitting needle, and pulled out the offending rows. I was about to knit a few rows of waste yarn by hand, rehang the stitches on the machine, and then knit the last ten rows, when I thought, why don't I just knit the last ten rows by hand - it makes as much sense as trying to prep this for the machine. Ok, So I have all the pieces reknit, everything is looking great. I take the three pieces down to soak in the sink and bring them out to block them on the ironing board. Now, take a look at that damned purple front. Check in particular the location of the armhole and the neck edge. Do I do a good job when I decide to screw up or what?!!!



Just to show the pieces are all there! Here are the two (correctly shaped) back pieces!

Lucy too

About a year ago I made a machine knit version of Holli Yeoh's pattern Lucy. I had bought the kit from her and loved the colours she had put together. The sweater turned out great and the daughter of a friend of mine really liked it. The only problem was, the sweater was size 2 and the child is about size 7... The Opal yarns I had used were no longer available, and so I started hunting for something suitable to use instead. About six months ago, I found Little Knits, an online wool shop out of Seattle. They had some Opal yarn on sale, and I found a variegated yarn with almost the same colours of pink and purple as the Opal. I had the pattern sized up to fit a seven year old child, and adapted for use on the knitting machine. And here it is! A little over a week worth of knitting (and unpicking and reknitting the mistakes) and this sweater is blocking, almost ready for sewing up. I am a bit disappointed in the variegated yarn. The pink and purple were a great match, but the yarn also has quite a bit of orange in it, which seems to dominate in the knitted up fabric. Hopefully the child will like the combinations.

Here is my version of a cabled Lucy. I used Holli's pattern as inspiration to create a cabled sweater. Love the colours in this bright cotton/bamboo sweater, but I always remember too late that I hate working with intarsia. The yarns get so tangled. So the project is moving slowly...


...And here is the finished Picovoli. I am not happy with the shoulders/sleeves. They are too big and so the armhole drops down too far. Joan, my machine knitting mentor, wants me to take it apart, redo the sleeves and the neck hem. A good idea in principle, but I don't have the energy or the motivation to take apart a completed project. This always makes me sad! This is way I never liked sewing for myself - I was never happy with the result. Well, maybe I can summon up the motivation after I complete a couple of other projects!

Almost Picovoli

I love the Picovoli design by Grumperina. The fitted shaping, the picot edges and the open neckline all appeal. This was a pattern that seemed to be a good choice to try and convert to a knitting machine pattern. My machine knitting mentor, Joan Frost, has a computer programme to design patterns for the knitting machine. If you have measurements, a tension swatch, and a diagramme of what you are trying to knit, she can ask the computer to produce a pattern. So, using a lovely variegated bamboo, I have been working on this machine version of Picovoli. It is close to being done; it needs to be sewn together and then the neck edging attached. We had to make some changes; the hand knitted version is knit top down, in the round, with no seams. This machine version was knit in four pieces, bottom up. I think the final result will be quite similar to the orginal.

Learning how to read the machine knitting instructions is another thing, however. I read the instructions as: decrease one stitch every row for twenty nine rows. The instructions actually mean: decrease one stitch every twenty nine rows one time... That makes a fairly significant difference in the shaping of the garment... Sigh...

The drape of the bamboo is wonderful and I am anxious to finish up and try this on!

Lace is done!

52,576 stitches. And probably another couple of thousand tinked and reknit. I never thought I could finish this as quickly as I did. Though the pattern isn't all that hard once you get it memorized, I found I was able to insert a number of unnecessary yarnovers, and skip a few here and there. It's that darn concentration aspect. I kept struggling with the diamond lace, particularly at the top and bottom borders, because it's hard to keep the diamonds straight - are you ending one pattern repeat, or in the middle of it? Is it yarnover, knit two together, or knit two together, yarnover? I finally realized that a lot of knitters wouldn't struggle with this as much as me, because most people would be sensible and use stitch markers. I disdain them. I can tell where I am in the pattern!! Why should I use stitch markers? I can count! Yes, and I can also make a lot of mistakes. Lifelines? Not for me! Did I mention I can also be an idiot?

Nevertheless, the stole is now done, complete, ready for delivery. The blocking has almost broken my back, but it is done! One word of advice to any fellow lace knitters - take off any jewelry and watches when blocking. One little catch and you've got a great big loop to deal with.

Now to enjoy summer sun and relax by the pool...

I'm knitting as fast as I can

While I have done some lace knitting in a variety of projects, this is my first big lace project. The most difficult part of lace knitting is keeping track of where you are in your pattern - at least until you get enough done so that you can read your knitting. Mistakes are more challenging in lace than any other project. A simple yarn over missed is easy enough to correct, but many of the errors require you tink back carefully. My worst mistake so far in this one is that I dropped a stitch. I noticed it immediately and picked it up again - or so I thought - until I had knitted another row and discovered big strands of unattached yarn. Had to rip back about eight rows for that one. This is a shawl/scarf I am knitting for a colleague's wedding. She is being married in a Sikh temple, hence the red colour. I know that lace doesn't really look like anything until the blocking has been done, but I keep suffering pangs of doubt that this one will come out alright when it has been blocked... Some yarn overs seem so much bigger than others. Hard to keep even tension. Anyway, it is growing quite quickly, so I should be able to tell fairly soon if it will work out.



Stewart's ribbed sweater - almost done! The knitting is complete, and like an idiot I tried to sew it together without blocking it first. So now I have to take apart what I have done so far and block it before carrying on. I love the colour and the way it looks so far, though!