Today, Sunday in our part of the world, and its a post with something new, something nearly there, and something that isn't as I would have it in a perfect world. Its a cool winter day, clear, and fine with no hint of rain, but - no sun. The warm yellow spot is hidden behind light grey clouds, so its cold, with no hint of light brightness to warm the house. A good day to knit.
The second sleeve on Toby's gansey grows, it grows more slowly than it should, for I frogged all the patterned section back to the pick up edge last night and began it all again. I made an error, one of those that experienced knitters shouldn't make but probably do more than they will admit. I knit the pattern as I thought it was, with two knit stitches and one purl stitch between the ladder pattern and the basket weave pattern. Unfortunately there was one knit stitch and 2 purl stitches between those patterns on the first sleeve ... so they did not match. At all - I tried to convince myself that it did not matter, that 43 rounds was to many to frog for a simple reversal of a purl and a knit stitch, I told myself that 10 year olds don't need perfect ganseys (even if their mothers liked to make them), I even tried to drop the wrong stitches down and hook them back up in sequence ...but really it is better to re-knit and make it right.
This is my new project, brand new, planned, and anticipated and ready to go. I bought some of Marnie Kelly's mohair lace-weight, two skeins, to knit as one and ....
beads! Look pretty, pretty sparkly beads in just the right shade to hide amongst the mohair fuzz and just enough shine to catch the light and sparkle. This is to be two things, first it is my project at the Annual Knitters Retreat workshop, its beaded knitting this year. And second this should be Poppy's ballet wrap. For my littlest is now a ballet girl, something I never really pushed for, a tad to girlie for me. But she has turned in toes, tight hips apparently and ballet is a good solution. Now the ballet gear available is ok, leotards (are they called that?), little floaty skirts, tights and shoes, they are all fine. But the wraps and cardigans are all shamelessly cheap, acrylic or cotton lycra, without an ounce of real natural fiber to keep little dancers in dance studios warm. I'm hoping to knit this in the round but I've yet to find a pattern for one knit that way. It may involve steeking ... I'll start the sleeves at camp .. and work up to the body. My time at camp will be working out the details of how and where the beads can be. Hannah Fettig's Whisper cardigan is a little bit of an inspiration, as is strangly Tubey and even perhaps GFS (I've knit two of those and they are sort of related to Tubey).
And the last project report is my single thumb-less Signe mitten. One is done, sans thumb but ...
you see there is a little problem, for Signe is too small for me. I'm taller than the average knitter, and I have long fingers (ok and feet), and Signe is just over an inch to small. Highly disappointing ... but there you go. Signe was written for Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn, and instead I avoided superwash sock yarns and went for Bendigo Mills 3 ply. I wanted the floats to felt a little, not snag. For now I'm just looking at it and wondering what to do, do I knit the other and find some one with smaller paws, or abandon this and learn from my mistake and knit a pair in sock yarn from my stash (or source more sock yarn), or both. What I do know is that I ended up with 3 projects that needed graphs to track the pattern as I knit, Signe, Bayerische, and TJB's Gansey. That made social knitting more challenging and I'm not in a rush to take on more projects with charts, in fact I feel a need for chart free knit-space. Signe can wait, for now. The need to be chart free probably means that the ballet wrap will have freeform beading rather than precisely planned bead placement .. unless I decide to chart it. I'm weird like that, knowingly planning things that are not the easy route.
Enjoy your sunday .. take care, relax
na Stella
(Oh, and the nearly there was the gansey, the new is the beaded lace mohair ballet wrap, which means the not-quite-as-I-would-want-it is Signe mitten)
The second sleeve on Toby's gansey grows, it grows more slowly than it should, for I frogged all the patterned section back to the pick up edge last night and began it all again. I made an error, one of those that experienced knitters shouldn't make but probably do more than they will admit. I knit the pattern as I thought it was, with two knit stitches and one purl stitch between the ladder pattern and the basket weave pattern. Unfortunately there was one knit stitch and 2 purl stitches between those patterns on the first sleeve ... so they did not match. At all - I tried to convince myself that it did not matter, that 43 rounds was to many to frog for a simple reversal of a purl and a knit stitch, I told myself that 10 year olds don't need perfect ganseys (even if their mothers liked to make them), I even tried to drop the wrong stitches down and hook them back up in sequence ...but really it is better to re-knit and make it right.
This is my new project, brand new, planned, and anticipated and ready to go. I bought some of Marnie Kelly's mohair lace-weight, two skeins, to knit as one and ....
beads! Look pretty, pretty sparkly beads in just the right shade to hide amongst the mohair fuzz and just enough shine to catch the light and sparkle. This is to be two things, first it is my project at the Annual Knitters Retreat workshop, its beaded knitting this year. And second this should be Poppy's ballet wrap. For my littlest is now a ballet girl, something I never really pushed for, a tad to girlie for me. But she has turned in toes, tight hips apparently and ballet is a good solution. Now the ballet gear available is ok, leotards (are they called that?), little floaty skirts, tights and shoes, they are all fine. But the wraps and cardigans are all shamelessly cheap, acrylic or cotton lycra, without an ounce of real natural fiber to keep little dancers in dance studios warm. I'm hoping to knit this in the round but I've yet to find a pattern for one knit that way. It may involve steeking ... I'll start the sleeves at camp .. and work up to the body. My time at camp will be working out the details of how and where the beads can be. Hannah Fettig's Whisper cardigan is a little bit of an inspiration, as is strangly Tubey and even perhaps GFS (I've knit two of those and they are sort of related to Tubey).
And the last project report is my single thumb-less Signe mitten. One is done, sans thumb but ...
you see there is a little problem, for Signe is too small for me. I'm taller than the average knitter, and I have long fingers (ok and feet), and Signe is just over an inch to small. Highly disappointing ... but there you go. Signe was written for Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn, and instead I avoided superwash sock yarns and went for Bendigo Mills 3 ply. I wanted the floats to felt a little, not snag. For now I'm just looking at it and wondering what to do, do I knit the other and find some one with smaller paws, or abandon this and learn from my mistake and knit a pair in sock yarn from my stash (or source more sock yarn), or both. What I do know is that I ended up with 3 projects that needed graphs to track the pattern as I knit, Signe, Bayerische, and TJB's Gansey. That made social knitting more challenging and I'm not in a rush to take on more projects with charts, in fact I feel a need for chart free knit-space. Signe can wait, for now. The need to be chart free probably means that the ballet wrap will have freeform beading rather than precisely planned bead placement .. unless I decide to chart it. I'm weird like that, knowingly planning things that are not the easy route.
Enjoy your sunday .. take care, relax
na Stella
(Oh, and the nearly there was the gansey, the new is the beaded lace mohair ballet wrap, which means the not-quite-as-I-would-want-it is Signe mitten)
1 comment:
I can't wait to see how your beads turn out! I'm taking a one-hour beading class with Sivia Harding at SS, and I've been thinking all week about what to bring that I can add beads to -- the list is growing appallingly long :) I'm sorry about Signe, it's no fun to get that far and find out that you won't be able to wear them... But the gansey and Bayerische look fabulous! Have fun at the knitter's retreat :)
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