For a while, earlier this month, I was making steady progress on my Highland Rogue cowl. As I have said before, it is fairly tedious to knit and requires attention too, so it has been a very slow project. I took it with me to South Africa and two long flights plus hotel time meant that I got some solid work done on it. Here is a progress photo:
Despite the seemingly interminable feel to this project, you can see that it will be great. The texture justs pops out of the fabric.
Once I got home from Jo’burg, I managed to go for over a week without knitting a stitch. I was super busy, and exhausted, and my knitting mojo walked out the door. Both girls had come home for the holidays but I was still swamped with work. Emma arrived with a terrible cold, Doug was trying to write a grant, and the house was a mess. Yesterday was my last day at work before the year-end holidays. I drove home and walked through the door – the tree was up, the smell of home-baked cookies was in the air, Doug and the girls were decorating, two weeks without work beckoned me, and boom! Mojo re-engaged!
I took advantage of it by immediately casting on a new project. (Note that housework did not make the grade.) I am making the Tensho Pullover by Beatrice Perron Dahlen, for Leah. Here is a photo of the pattern:
I am making it with reverse colours – with dark grey as the background and white as the contrast colour. The yarn is De Rerum Natura Gilliatt, the same yarn which I used to knit Leah’s SnowFlower sweater last year. This means that I have skipped the swatch (or rather, the SnowFlower sweater IS the swatch). I am happy to report that it is flying off the needles (so far at least)! I started with a sleeve and you can see that I have made good progress for one day:
The sun is shining and Leah and I are off for a walk. I hope that your weekend has some knitting in it, and some cookies, too!
It has become a custom around here to write a yearly post about mitts (mittens, gloves, etc). This post is a bit late, but I have been in the Southern Hemisphere for much of the last month and so have not had to deal with cold hands. Now that I am back home and it is frosty, warm mitts are back on my radar. So, let’s see a show of hands!
I am currently obsessed with fair isle knitting, and these mittens are just divine. The colours are so rich and gorgeous. Susan pointed out to me on Ravelry (Hi, Susan!) that the Tattegouche State Park is amazing, and having looked it up, I would agree and can see the inspiration. Virginia designed these to match a hat pattern which she contributed to Kate Davies’ new collection; so you can make a matching set.
I love Muhu designs. The description on it’s Ravelry pattern page says: “The gloves knitted in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries on the tiny Estonian island of Muhu were exquisitely flamboyant and knitted at a very tight gauge. This project invites you to knit an authentic pair of Muhu gloves at the traditional gauge.” (The gauge is 64 stitches and 66 rows = 10 cm, so be fortified before you cast on!) These are published in Piecework by Interweave Knits.
Jana recently published five patterns for fingerless mitts in a collection called A cuff of Cheer. I like them all and had a hard time deciding which to put here. One of the things I like about these is the small lines of colour which run across the pattern; I think this opens up endless possibilities for adding some pops of colour and experimenting with shades and combinations. Like the name of the collection, I find these very cheerful.
These mitts (and the matching hats) make me think of snow ball fights and long walks in the woods, sledding and hot chocolate. I love them in this combo of pink and grey and natural white, but of course the possibilities are endless. Dianna spent a few years in Norway, and has clearly been influenced by Norwegian knitting traditions. This is a simple design, but clean and fun.
I love a bit of fusion, both in cooking and knitting. These mittens take inspiration from two sources. As Eli says in the Ravelry pattern description: “I was inspired by the London public transport system, as well as my own Norwegian knitting heritage. These mittens feature patterns from the local-to-me Selbu mitten tradition, as well symbolism well known to all London residents.” I really love the way these two have combined in this design. They manage to be both striking and charming, and a lot of fun as well.
I love these mittens! I cannot overstate how happy they make me. Keri has only published two patterns, but I hope she does more. They are so whimsical, and nostalgic, and absolutely perfectly framed. It’s almost enough to make me want to go camping (and that’s saying something)! I dare you to look at these and not be charmed.
That’s all for this round-up, but if you want to go back and look at previous years’ mitten posts, you can find them here:
bazinga – 1. A catchy phrase to accompany your clever pranks. As popularized by Sheldon Cooper (The Big Bang Theory). 2. A short post highlighting something that Emma and Kelly think is freaking fabulous.
It’s been a long time since my last Bazinga post, but I saw this tonight and couldn’t resist. Emma concurred.
This pattern is called The Knitorius RBG, and is designed by Park Williams:
The description on the Ravelry pattern page states:
“The RBG sweater is inspired by Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I wanted to find a way to honor the important work she has done and continues to do as a Supreme Court Justice, while also paying homage to her amazing collar collection. My hope is this sweater will endow the wearer with the strength, perseverance, gravitas, and integrity we so rightfully associate with The Knitorious RBG.”
A few weeks back, I posted about my Bousta Beanie, a fair isle hat which I determined would be the beginning of my personal Project Fair Isle. As I reported there, I had some difficulties, mostly because this Project is not just about knitting Fair Isle, but about learning to be comfortable with two-handed knitting (holding one strand in each hand).
I have now finished my second project, also a hat, and let me tell you, I am loving Fair Isle knitting!
I love the colours, I love the subtle and the not-so-subtle variations, I love the intricacy and also the simplicity of it (two hands, two sticks, two yarns, two colours to a row). It feels creative and fun. And, yes, my left hand is slowly starting to get the hang of it!
This is the Cascade Cap, designed by Janine Bajus of Feral Knitter. I am officially in love with everything Janine designs and want to make them all. Some of you may be familiar with her amazing Salmon Coming Home vest:
The Cascade Caps pattern has two colourwarys: one is knit in neutrals and the other (the one I’ve knit) is called the Winter colourway and the colours were “inspired by a drive across the Cascade Mountains one cold December”. I’ve made it in the colours the pattern calls for using Jamieson’s of Shetland Spindrift. I love the way this yarn takes to colourwork:
This pattern has the most fantastic crown; I think it is glorious:
I knit this hat for Doug, and am happy to report that he seems to like it:
The hat is knit in fingering weight yarn and is very light, but also warm and quite water-resistant. This is good because Doug is in the UK where it is cold and dark and rainy, while I am back in South Africa again (this time in Jo’burg) enjoying the sunshine. (Not that I would ever gloat about it!)
Yes, I am definitely getting the hang of it! I’ve already bought the yarn for the next installment in Project Fair Isle!
In my last post, I mentioned that I was off to see penguins. Given that I once wrote a post called Knitting with Elephants, I thought I would put up a fast post on Knitting with Penguins. I am sitting in the lounge about to fly back home and this seems like a fun way to pass the time!
We went down to Boulders Beach, south of Cape Town, a magical beach where African Penguins and people share the beach and the water. There are thousands of penguins up and down the beach, running around in the grass, and standing on rocks in the sun:
Of course, I had to take out my knitting, and knit with penguins (as you do)!
Here is a close-up which shows the brilliant colours in the fair isle hat I am knitting.
We saw lots of adult penguins with chicks:
I love this photo where the two chicks appear to be making jokes behind their dad’s back:
This little one has lots of character:
I’m off to cold and dark England now, but before I left I made sure to check for penguins under the car:
It is cold back home in England, but here in Cape Town it is warm and sunny so it the ideal weather for wearing my new tank top.
This is the Paid in Full tank, designed by Deb Hoss. I knit it with Quince & Co Tern, a 75/25 wool and silk blend. It is a nice bouncy yarn that shows stitch patterns beautifully. It transforms when washed and has lots of drape.
Regular readers will perhaps remember that I had troubles picking the right size to knit. I started out with the 44″ to knit it with positive ease, and ended up re-knitting it in a slightly modified 38″ for a fit with negative ease. I detailed this whole process, with photos and details of the mods, here and here. I would suggest to anyone who wants to make this: if you are between sizes, pick the smaller size. The cable pattern is extremely stretchy. This is extra important if you knit it with Tern (the recommended yarn). Note: Tern is very stretchy. When washed it will stretch, particularly in length. Knit a big swatch and wash it! You will regret it if you don’t. I send a big thank you to Jelma, a reader who left a comment on my earlier post about this tank. Jelma had used Tern in the past and warned me that it would grow. It was her advice that really influenced my decision.
(It was hard not to squint while taking these photos; the light here is strong!)
I think that this pattern is beautiful. The designer, Deb Hoss, has a great style and I love many of her designs. Her patterns are extremely detailed. I must admit that I found them to be a bit too detailed. The pattern for this tank is 12 pages long. It has all of the great things I want in a pattern, particularly great schematics. But some aspects of it were so detailed and specific I found my head couldn’t cope. I am aware that this is a difficult thing for designers. They are competing in a near-saturated market and they need to design their pattern layout in a way that will appeal to the most knitters. I appreciate that Deb’s patterns are meticulous, but at one point as I was flipping back and forth between pages trying to understand the instructions for casting off at the armholes, I gave up and did it my way. (To be honest to Deb, when I did this, I ended up being on a purl row instead of a knit row when it was time to cable and had to rip and do it again!) I guess the answer is, as with any pattern, if you are comfortable with mods then treat the pattern as a recipe, and if you are not comfortable, follow along carefully. I ended up with a recipe approach.
If I were to knit this again, I would probably knit it in two pieces and seam. This cable pattern is one that adapts beautifully to being knitted in the round or flat (and both are used in the construction). I think I would have been happier and would have knitted it much faster had I done it the other way. (I suspect that most knitters would disagree with me.)
I choose this pattern because I wanted a work garment and as you can see here, it works beautifully. I am here in Cape Town on business and these photos were taken during a short break in a day of meetings. I think that the tank has a very polished, professional look and I am really pleased to be able to add a hand-knitted garment to my working wardrobe.
It’s Saturday now and I am off to see fairy penguins! I hope your weekend includes some knitting and some fun!
I seem to be suffering from a lack of knitting projects on-the-go (or WIPs as we call them). I am flying to South Africa on business and am trying to organise some knitting to take with me. Sofi, my Hanne Falkenberg jacket, is not really travel knitting at the moment, as I am stuck at the top-down sleeve caps which are giving me some conceptual difficulties. I can’t take my Paid in Full tank, because I have already finished it! (I will take it to wear, and hopefully to photograph, but not as a project.)
That leaves only two. First is the Highland Rogue cowl, by Kate Davies:
I have just finished the second skein of yarn out of six, so I still have a long way to go. This is pretty and is very soft and squishy, but I do not find it all intuitive to knit. I cannot “read” the knitting, and I find that the charts aren’t working for me either, so I am following the written instructions, and am still counting every row. Usually, I am a chart kind of girl, so this is pretty unusual for me. Interestingly, when I met up with some Ravelry friends at Yarnporium, two of them had knit this, and they both had the same problem. This makes it not the best travel knitting, perhaps, but it is coming with me due to a lack of options.
The second project is my next adventure in fair isle knitting, another hat. I cast it on a few days ago and think it is totally lovely:
I am finding it much easier than the last one (because I am slowly becoming used to the two-handed knitting). Stay tuned for details.
When I get home, I need to cast-on some projects! I am suffering from limited options. I hope your knitting options are healthy.
I have been running straight out the last few weeks, but I still managed to take a day out for YARN! I went to Yarnporium in London on Saturday. Some time ago, I had bought a VIP ticket for the day, which let me attend three panel discussions and the marketplace. I took the train into London very early so I could avoid the crowds and shop in the marketplace early.
I think that I shopped with remarkable restraint. This is my haul:
The two skeins of pretty red yarn I purchased in the Indie Market – it is a Masham/Bluefaced Leicester blend, naturally dyed in Berlin/Brandenburg by Tulliver in the shade Scarlet. It is destined to become a hat: I am planning on knitting Hyggelig. They had a sample of this hat knit up in the yarn and it was so cuddly and warm I couldn’t resist. Plus, it really is the perfect shade of red.
Issue 6 of Laine and Kate Davies’ Handywoman were on my list, but Kate Atherley’s book magically found its way into my “buy” pile after I heard her speak in one of the panel talks. I must report, however, that one of the things she said has stuck with me: you should never, ever release a pattern that hasn’t been tech-edited. This made me cringe a bit at my three very definitely not tech-edited patterns available here on the blog. At some point, I will try to get that remedied. In the meantime, I suppose they will remain “wonky freebies” (bonus points for anyone avidly following the knitting world’s current hot topic).
I love the black-on-black Yarnivore T-shirt; and who couldn’t use a nice black tee? The project bag is shaped just right for stashing in your suitcase. (There may, or may not, have been a number of small knitterly accessories which fell into my bag and which will magically appear in my Christmas stocking.)
I felt very proud of myself for resisting the lure of all of that lovely yarn in one place, but I am starting to regret not buying some Walcot Yarns Opus – a new yarn developed and marketed by A Yarn Story, an LYS in Bath. This yarn was absolutely luscious; it is one that needs to be felt to appreciate. Since it was a new product, I was unsure about whether or not it would pill: I have been steadily moving away from soft yarns towards more “sheepy” hard-wearing yarns. Nonetheless, I can’t get this yarn out of my head.
They had it knit up into a lovely shawl, the Vila Wrap, and I went back to their stand three or four times to consider it:
I am thinking that I will likely give in and order it by post.
Two things that were reinforced for me at this event: (1) I hate “speckles”, and (2) “speckles” are everywhere. I’ve never seen so much speckled yarn in one place. Even when the base is lovely and the colours are gorgeous, this yarn holds no appeal for me. In one of the panel discussions (about small yarn producers) the panellists were asked: “We’ve had speckles, we’ve had breed-specific yarn, what do you think will be the next trend?” The first response (from Kelbourne Woolens) was: back-to-basics. I definitely feel myself headed in that direction.
I ended the day by meeting up with three knitters who I know from Ravelry but had never met before: Anne, Jane, and Maylin. We went out for coffee and it was lovely to meet them, and also to have some knitters to talk yarn with. I’ve been reading Maylin’s blog, Julia Hedge’s Laces, for some time now, and it is funny how well you feel you know someone from reading their blog.
It felt very indulgent to spend the day surrounded by knitting folk! I hope you’ve had a bit of indulgence too this week.
I have issues with big sleeves. Two to be precise: they get in the way (for example, when trying to eat) and they don’t fit under a coat. When I balance these two practical concerns against fashion, practicality usually wins. I am also not a fan of bobbles. Again for two reasons: they are a pain to make, and they look funny. So, mark me surprised when the new issue of Pom Pom Quarterly came out today and I found myself intrigued by two sweaters which have both big sleeves and bobbles.
I think this is super cool. It’s sleeves will get in the way of everything, it is full of bobbles, and furthermore I would roast in a sweater this heavy; nevertheless, I think it is great.
This sweater is so not my type, and yet…..it’s rather appealing. This issue of Pom Pom is edited by the incomparable Norah Gaughan and contains some great designers. My first thought on seeing the sweaters was that they looked like armour. And then I read Pom Pom’s description of this edition: “The knits in this issue are imagined for the modern heroine. Create your own knitted armour with swirling cables and sculptural stitch details; it’s time to celebrate texture and sumptuous colours!”
By the way, even though I am not a big fan of bobbles, I do think that they look great with the right project. Here is a photo of Emma in a pullover which I knit for her in my pre-blogging days, Camden, by Ashley Adams Moncrief (from Knitty, Fall 2008):
And a final note on the blog: perhaps you noticed a new banner? Emma isn’t involved much in the blog these days (except as general muse and sounding board), but she has always done my banners (the photo splashed across the top). I have been bugging Emma for months to make a new one. She wrote me last night to say that she had created a new banner, and had set it up so that all of the banners (from seven years of this blog) will rotate randomly each time you visit the blog. Cool, no? I keep pushing the re-load button but have yet to see the new banner! I wonder what it is? Hope you like looking at these snapshots of my blog history as much as I do.
Do you know those knitting bloggers who make you terribly envious? The ones who can whip out a complicated project at the drop of a hat, and every picture looks perfect, and every project appears to emerge from the needles without toil or trouble? If you are looking for a post like that, please dear reader, look away! Warning! Toil and trouble ahead!
And for which project did this struggle occur? Something fabulous and intricate? Something never before attempted? Truth be told – it’s a hat. A very lovely hat, indeed. But it’s a hat that – as of today – has 1994 projects on Ravelry. (I don’t know how many that means there are in the wild, but if we assume that half of them make it on to Ravelry, and awful lot of people have made this hat.) It is the Bousta Beanie, designed by Gudrun Johnston, originally for the Shetland Wool Week 2017, but now available as well on Ravelry. Here is mine:
But, you may say: “Hey, it turned out OK.!” Yes, it did. The toil and trouble is not reflected in the output (thankfully!). I picked this project to try to learn the skill of two-handed fair isle knitting. I have actually done a few colourwork projects before, and have attempted to do two-handed knitting (one yarn held in the left hand and knitted continental style and one yarn held in the right hand and knitted English style) before. I have always cheated quite a bit however, and have usually resorted to a not-very-efficient style of holding a yarn in the right hand, knitting with it, and dropping it and picking up the other yarn in the right hand and knitting with it. This is slow and often leads to my tangling the yarns and getting the yarn dominance mixed up.
Before going any further, let me say that I do not approve of knitting police! The right way to knit is the way which works for you. Period! However, I have wished for a very long time to be able to add this skill to my knitting repertoire, and I have decided that this is the year! (Of course, it is now approaching the end of the year, but I am not being literal here.) I wanted to start by knitting a fair isle vest for Doug, and even joined a Vest KAL on Ravelry to help motivate me. I soon realised, however, that I needed to start with a much more basic project; thus, the Bousta Beanie. The Bousta is often described as a perfect first Fair Isle project. It has a four stitch repeat. It is easy to memorise. It is pleasing to the eye and lovely to wear. The emerging pattern is far more intricate and flowing than the simple pattern would suggest.
I had a bunch of 4-ply yarn in my stash from The Little Grey Sheep – mini skeins in a number of colours, and I picked three which I thought would be pretty together. (I used 2 mini-skeins for the purple, and one for each of the contrasting colours.) I cast on and started to knit. After I had finished the ribbing and had very laboriously added a few rows of pattern, I decided the hat would be too small. I ripped it off the needles, and then in a very fortuitous act decided to try it on over my head before frogging. It fit! I put it back on the needles and kept knitting.
If I were to list the important elements in knitting this, I would say that there are four:
The knitting itself – getting my head around the two-handed technique
The pattern – staying in pattern while you knit
The crown – managing the decreases while also knitting on DPNs
Managing the yarns – carrying up the unused colour and avoiding twisting
I managed to screw up every one of these!
1 – The knitting itself. I find it close to impossible to knit with the yarn in my left hand. Hundreds of thousands (millions?) of Continental knitters have the hang of this but I really struggle with it. And I am left-handed! It is hard to describe why I find it so difficult. The first issue I have is with tensioning the yarn. The way I normally knit, where I hold the yarn in my right hand and literally carry it around the needle, doesn’t involve any tensioning at all. I have never had to wind the yarn around fingers and control the speed at which it slips through. I looked at dozens of videos of how to do this. I tried many different ways of tensioning the yarn. I ended up having the yarn wrapped twice around my left index finger, something which I am unhappy with but really seemed to be the only working solution.
The second problem is the actual mechanics of inserting the right needle into the knit stitch and then looping it around this yarn which is mysteriously held wrapped around the left index finger. I was so incredibly slow, knitting stitch by stitch in total concentration. I kept telling myself that Continental is the fast knitting style, but my brain and fingers were not cooperating and laughed at my attempts at self-motivation. The third problem I had was in advancing the stitches towards the tip of the left needle. This seems easy and intuitive when I am knitting normally but not so here. When you are holding the yarn in the left, desperately trying to keep the tension even, how do you advance the stitches with that hand at the same time? Truly, knitting this way is hard. Maybe my brain is too old to learn new tricks. I am determined to persevere, however!
2 – Staying in pattern. This should be easy; the Bousta Beanie has an incredibly simple, intuitive pattern that should be a snap to follow. In fact, hundreds of knitters make exactly that comment on their project pages. Nevertheless, after some very slow knitting, this is what happened:
On the top, you see one side of the hat, looking rather nice. On the bottom, you see the other side of the hat, where I have totally messed up the pattern in the second orange section. I debated trying some sort of tricky fix with a crochet hook to fix these stitches, but decided that I was having enough trouble with knitting fair isle to try anything fancy. So, I ripped it out (down to where the pattern started going wonky). Note to self: ripping out fair isle takes longer than normal ripping.
I then started knitting again, reminding myself that the hat was meant to be practice for two-handed knitting and the act of frogging and re-knitting meant more practice. How convenient to have to knit it twice! After a while, I caught up and then did the same mistake again, this time on the third orange pattern sequence:
At least I caught the mistake much sooner. It may be hard to see but in the orange bit on the top I have made exactly the same pattern error that I made the first time. Once again, I ripped (just a row or two this time). This leads me to ponder: if I can’t manage to keep an easy pattern like this straight, how will I manage an intricate pattern?
3 – The crown. The pattern calls for 3.5 repeats before starting the crown decreases. I realised that this would make the hat longer than I preferred. I tend more towards the beanie hat style than the slouchy ones. So, I determined to take out one half of a pattern repeat and start the crown decreases early. The problem with this is that the pattern is moving in the opposite direction at that point so the crown shapings have to be reversed. Many knitters seem to have taken this approach. Jen, of JenACKnitwear, comments on her Bousta Beanie project page: “I took out half a pattern repeat and then worked the crown shaping chart backwards.” Well, that sounds easy; it’s only 10 rows of shaping on a short repeat pattern. I spent part of two evenings trying to figure it out.
Before you really shake your heads at this, I will point out that I have been especailly stressed at work lately. This stress seems to have bled out into my knitting. I have also this week given up caffeine, and that is having an effect on my brain, not to mention my mood, my sleep patterns, and my hand-eye coordination. Those are my excuses and I will stick with them. Being an idiot didn’t factor into this; not at all!
Finally, in an act of desperation, I went onto Ravelry, in a forum on Jen’s group, and asked for some help. Jen replied in minutes (yes, in minutes; how great is that!) with an intriguing suggestion: “…you need to mirror image the chart. Could you hold it up to a mirror and take a photo of it?” Genius! After a slight problem (who knew that my phone would automatically adjust the image so that it would not be mirrored?), I was able to get a photo of the mirrored crown shaping pattern and start knitting. I still had trouble with the leaning decreases – I couldn’t figure out how to make left-leaning decreases while knitting fair isle, so settled on k2tog which put the colours in the right places but ended up leaning the wrong way. I don’t think anyone will notice.
The last problem with the crown was trying to knit with my very bad two-handed techniques while using DPNs; this took a bit of juggling to get used to.
4 – Managing the yarns. Here you see the inside of the hat:
The top photo shows how nicely the inside looks – it is all very neat and orderly. The bottom photo shows the terrible job I made of carrying the extra thread up the inside. For a while there, near the beginning, I managed to get it right and the yarn is carried up almost invisibly, but then I somehow screwed it all up. I know you can’t see it and it doesn’t affect the finished project, but it offends my sense of beauty. I want the inside to look great, too. Even more, I want to know how to twist the yarn while carrying it up so that it feels organic; it never felt right.
I also wonder, looking at the finished photos, whether I should have reversed the dominance and made the purple the dominant colour. One of the things I like about the pattern is the way the main colour forms ripples up and down the hat. I could see these while I was knitting, but in the washed and blocked hat they don’t stand out. I’m not sure how that happened but I suspect that dominance might be the answer.
Given all of the troubles I had knitting this, I think it is a pretty cool hat and I am pleased with the final product. The pattern is really lovely and the yarn is soft, light, but very warm.
This hat is the first installment in Project Fair Isle! I plan to work my way up to some fancy stitchwork. Stay tuned for more adventures in fair isle knitting.
