Friday, October 13, 2006

Bohus Blue shimmer pickies :-D, and whats next?

Well, here are the images of Blue shimmer, knit from a bohus museum kit, is finished and has been worn. She is light, beautifully warm and the sleeves start the day just over my knuckle and by end of day have shortened to a wrist length. I know this happens now, with elbow bending and wearing distortion sleeves 'shrink' so I knitted her with long monkey arms. I finished her a week or so ago and then it took two nights to seam up. i used matress stitch, in the same Bohus yarn. I had left live stitches at the sleeve and body hem, and these I kitchenered in place. I am quite proud of the result. I even remembered the hems had 10% fewer stitches so kitchenered up 9 stitches, and kitchenered the next hem stitch one stitch away.

I have worn her, had comments and been told I look like I am about to ski. We are having a wonderful run of sunny, clear warm spring weather. Far to hot to wear Blue shimmer, so she shimmered on the river stones under our washing line for these photos.

The sock i was knitting,... well i lived up to the blog name and frogged it. The yarn has been skeined and washed and dried, and needs to be wound into a ball again. I just plain lost my place, I had tried to knit a those socks from a brank new and untested for me pattern, a toe up with a full heel gusset, and in cables, from Wildershins, but I like a firmer gauge. So .. I tried to size it up, and lost my way mid heel flap, and couldn't be bothered deciphering a fix so, frog, frog, frogged it. I am not sure i was fussed completely on the cable and varigated mix anyways. Its here if you care. Brooke - I aplogiese, I love the idea of Wildershins and will make them in a much more suitable yarn to do them real justice.

So, whats on the needles now, we i really want to knit Poppy something for next Autumn and Winter, in fine yarn. I have Bohus Rose collar in kit form to knit, but wanted something nwhere i could be a little more creative. A visit to my LYS and i picked up a merino 4 ply, thats fingering to the rest of the world, in smooth merino mink, pink and soft white. And I have been having a play. I decided to play with a corrugated two colour ribb - two images here, one of hte front and one of the reverse. This is what happened when I knit it flat. For some reason , knit flat the floats for the back row are 'hidden' and the stitches larger on the front, yet on the right side row the opposite happens. It is cute and texturally interesting but I coundn't understand why people would use this kind of effect on traditional jerseys.


So this is my sampler so far, i am just picking odd and probably not connected graphs for small motifs from PGR Knitting the old way. Small motifs as Poppy is only 4, and next year she will be 5, but she has tiny fingers that will catch long floats and snag them. As i worked Switched to knitting the sample as if in the round, that is i knit all rows, and to avoid the tangle of threads across the back I cut and knitted the yarns together in twos at both ends. Reatively easy as each row usually has two yarns. As I neared the finsh I tried a simple 2x2 ribb, as I decided the corrugated rib was not right for this project, to bulky, to textureal. Then I began to wonder if knitting corrugated ribb required knitting in the round (I posted a question to KR here) so maybe some one will tell me. I like the final knit in the round version and thats what i will use (again two images, front and reverse sides shown).





Now i just have to cast off, in alternate or in pink - still deciding, wash, dry, determine gauge, measure girl, add on ease and growing room and make my maths work. I love the planning and sorting stage, so fullof hope and promise.

1 comment:

aija said...

The bohus sweater is stunning. Your seaming/finishing looks amazing!