There has been knitting, and there has been frogging

Yes, frogging, and mending, and knitting. There is even more weaving being set up. Truth be told, there is more knitting since the last blog post than a single post can cover - so today its just highlights and onward.

My AfterParty sweater is done, all finished, and was in time for the Christchurch Mid Winter Wool Feast in June. I do like this very much, the body is boxy, wide, and the sleeves narrow - it is one garment that receives multiple comments every time I wear it. Several people call it 'cute' which is kind of nice given I am now in my 50's and cute seems to belong to a distant past.  I would very much knit another of these. Maybe in some yarn that is more local?

 And with one sweater done, another was began. This time in lace-weight 2 ply yarn. Ad again a direct copy of one knit by someone who's style I admire, Julia, hers is in orange - mine in grey. I am Knitting BlueBell, Published by Jamieson & Smith, in their yarn. The pattern, and Julia, have this sweater knit in flat, but I have converted this to be knit in the round. I am playing fast and loose with gauge - no gauge swatch and I think is is knitting to size - when I hold it against me it feels ok - if not maybe smaller cub who is nearly my height but finer built might get it. The only tricky part has been centering the pattern repeats on the yoke, between the raglan lines. After a bit of thinking and a few false starts I simply counted the stitches - subtracted  as many stitches as I could for complete pattern repeats as I could and divided the remaining stitch count by 2 - placing half evenly on each side of the pattern repeats. I have worked those edges in checker board or part pattern repeats - depending on what feels best. Checker board if only a few stitches, part pattern repeats if nearly an entire repeat.

I am loving the yarn in the yoke colourwork, it is a soft pale blue green - with hints of pink and purple.

There has also been mending - next to the red darn, is the word Fix - in gold. These are commercial socks, pure merino. And they are soft and warm and fit nicely inside boots that hand knit socks are too bulky to fit into. But - 100% Merino is pretty fragile, and these are wearing thin in the wear spots, toe tips and the one on the top that caught on something. Occasionally it is nice to be reminded of the easy care and durable materials we have available to us.

And the last project is an Art Project, destined to be part of the Art and Science exhbition. A lace cowl designed in collaboration with a biochemist at the University of Otago. the lace is based on the lace used in Caparison by Vintage Purls, but morphs as it travels up the cowl to mimic the way contaminants in ice affect the crystal formation. Working how how to replicate that visually in hand knitted lace has challenged me and made me think about lace and repeats and stitch counts and transitions.

 There was much swatching, initially I thought the lace could be knitted in a long colour run yarn. The shift in colours was to signal a change in lace pattern - and there was much swatching and testing to see how that could work. What I didn't think through was how a singles yarn would bias as it was knitted making the swatch twist. That was a cool effect but not quite right for this project.

 After that I switched to using a plied yarn, and worked the developing laces a little more - playing with how many rows between the lace pattern rows,  how much to offset and how to seamlessly repeat these around a tube for a cowl.

And the mini tube - biased lace - I do like this version, its far more organic but not quite right for this project.

na Stella