20,736 stitches later

And my pi shawl is done. Started 17th August 2012, finished 18th March 2013, blocked one day later. The sheer number is stitches explains the long delay for this post, there wasn't much progress to show ... Just row after row of a garter band.

Here the shawl before blocking, and to explain the 20,736 stitches, I decided to add a nine-stitch garter band as the edge. Which meant that I worked nine stitches up and nine stitches back for each of the 1,152 stitches of the last full round. Before blocking the shawl measured 44".

During blocking the shawl spread a full 55" or 1.4m across, pretty much dominating our small living room. Bear spend much of the day shooing Yoyo the cat off the mat, and Yoyo spend much of the waiting for bear to leave so she could sit on the wet shawl.

The lace opened up beautifully, which was a surprise, as I thought the possum part of the yarn would bloom and close the lace considerably.
The shawl weighs 221 g dry, and was worked on 3.5mm needles, the garter boarder on 4mm. I slipped the edge of the boarder to make a neat chained edge, and attached the band with a simple k2tog. I blocked the shawl with TIG welding wires and tee-pins, running the wires through each slipped stitch.
And I went for the heart option on the edge ....
So time to knock-off and complete the other WIPs ... and plan something for my swap partner.
Na Stella

Cat included for scale

Posted with Blogsy

Moving along

Things are still ticking along nicely around here, when I say nicely I mean as usual, so there is frogging of a kind, the kind that isn't so much frogging as starting again, and very slow progress on my pi shawl.

I finally bought a new phone, one that let's me text easily. This one has a typewriter style touch screen keyboard rather than a number pad, keeping up with the cubs is soo much easier. When I bought it I looked at the cases sold for phones, and part of me thinks such things are a tad weird. For a start one buys a new phone, usually because it is thinner, or smaller, with a better screen than the competition, and then immediately slaps a thick case around it making the super cool thin phone all thicker and heavier, canceling all the features one carefully chose it for. I bought phone with gorilla glass, toughened to resist scratches and decided to make a soft crafted case to keep it in. Knitting seemed too fuzzy, too soft, too likely to attract lint in my handbag, and I'd seen a crochet technique over cord on pinterest that held promise, stiffer, more case like. The first case was worked quite firm, with a teeny crochet hook, orange soft cotton over thicker yellow cord, and suffers from the goldilocks effect in that it is too small. Well it fitted, but actually slipping it into place on the phone was a struggle - i had assumed being cotton it would relax, but seems corded crochet does not (or not yet). Rather than frog it, as it was soo much work, I've set it aside and started another putting into play what I have learned, the second one is on 2mm hook, same cord and thread, and I am not pulling the cord quite so firm this time. Crochet is not my best craft sport ... so progress has been slow, but is faster now with a larger hook.

Look, I'm nearly half way there! The first case took nearly a week, the second might be only a few days. And today is a rainy dull day, a perfect day to keep warm and dry inside crafting. Yoyo shares the feeling, except being a cat, replaces crafting with sleeping. Being a cat she sleeps where experience tells her it is warmest, on the back of the sofa where usually the sun shines. Being a dull rainy day, the warmth from the sun is totally imagined in this case. Yoyo is not the kind of cat to let reality stand in her way.

I've not just been crocheting, and playing with my new phone and all its features (it has a very nice camera, f2.0 and a Carl Zeiss lens), but I have been plodding along with my pi-shawl, again with Yoyo as a photo prop, this time she is doing that cool cat thing, sleeping with one eye just open. I choose to knit mine on 3mm needles, making a thicker and more dense lace than if I used the recommended 4mm needles. Knowing that I suspected my shawl would end up smaller, so I've adjusted the maths a little. I plan to repeat the gull wing lace for the full 80 rows, then work a round of increase eyelets, the the lace edge. The pattern calls for only 40 or so rows then a fake increase row (eyelets only) and then edging. In the original the shawl finishes before the seventh increase round? I think given my use of smaller needles I need the extra repeat rows of lace, so my edge will start just after the seventh increase round (2x576 stitches). I also like the idea this way the repeats will demonstrate the pi principles more clearly, as each band of lace will be double the width of the previous one. Nice idea ... but at an average of four or so rounds a night ... progress is slow.
Take care
Na Stella

Posted with Blogsy

Gaining ground

Look progress! I've been knitting, dealing with the outstanding WIPs, and mending. Mending and I have an odd relationship, I make things, and I do believe that things should be mended, where practical and where possible. But when it comes down to doing mending i find it rather boring, I'd rather be knitting some new project than mending an old worn project, even when the item in question is a favorite hand knit, and I can't wear it as to do so would create more damage.

My Owl cardigan had holes in it, and a few weak spots, like this. Just where the arm and body join, at the back armscye. I noticed this at the end of last winter, and this internist upon us here in New Zealand. I diligently dug out my left over yarn and set the cardigan aside for mending. And there it sat gathering dust ...for an entire spring, summer and into autumn.

Here it is post mend, not the same hole as above, but a similar one. All mended. Part of me wanted to celebrate the repair, to follow in the footsteps of Tom of Holland with his visible mending program, or Otto van Busch, or Amy Twigger Holroyd and make a clear statement of my mending. Part of me was awa that for much of recent history in the west mended garments have been interpreted as statements of poverty and need - I wasn't sure I wanted to go there just yet. Plus I wasn't sure I wanted to subvert my Owl cardigan into a political statement about mending and repair just now ... I liked it as it was. The mends are not perfect, but are near invisible when worn. I had wondered a out darning the mend but ended up working a swiss darn/grafting style stitch over the thin areas and the holes.

With darning needle in hand, and a start made I continued on to mend the second cardigan in my mending pile. My tangled yoke cardigan, I had left over yarn, and this one had worn in exactly the same places, where the body and arms join.

Again the mend was a combination of swiss darning and grafting. Again I ended up either mending or reinforcing all four areas where the sleeve and body join. Turns out that a stitch in time is easier than a full repair! Turns out that those who came before us and did all this first are worth listening to.

I've also dug out my unfinished knitting projects, the ones that I feel guilty about. I've made progress on two. The sanquhar mitts on teeny tiny needles have grown, as has my pi shawl. I'm over half way through the second to last lace band - except it might not be second to last. I choose to knit this on finer needles and so the shawl will be denser and smaller than designed. Knowing that, and knowing the mathematics of a pi shawl I wonder if I should just add a lace repeat or two more? I have plenty of yarn ... I have four more repeats of four rounds (16 rounds) to make a decision.
All in all it seems like I am gaining ground against the mending and the WIPs that lurk around the edges of my hobby time.
Take care, na Stella

Posted with Blogsy

New things!

Today I am dithering, I have things to prepare for next week at KAN in Napier, some of which is done, some is in progress, and I'm distracting myself with all sorts of other things. I started a new project, for no good reason than it seemed a good idea at the time, and I have new stash, belatedly reported.

Pi shawl

The new project is a pi shawl, in red possum, merino silk lace weight yarn. I've admired the huge variety of pi shawls out there in the knitterverse for a long time, which the grey cardigan done and nothing really next in the queue I was easily distracted by the idea of a centre out shawl. The pattern is a freebie on ravelry, but relies on the knitter having access to an elizabeth Zimmerman pi shawl to start before heading out into a clutch of repeating laces motifs in each pi-band. The pattern modification is by Mwaa knit obsession, and called EZ 100th Anniversary Shawl: Gull wings. So far I am loving it, as like all centre out things the initial stages grow quickly and provide a good return for a little knitting.

Woollen not worsted

I've been spinning, or rather plying, here are two yarns finished this past week. Both are woollen, so spun from rolags, plied, then washed and fulled a little to set them nicely. 100 g each, one thicker spun than the other, one graduated the other more even. Woollen spinning is faster, and considerably lighter, more open, more air in the yarn, and for me produces a thicker yarn. I'll keep practicing to see if I can spin woollen finned than this.

Warm, red, orange and yellow worsted, 160g

Then there is more plying to do, a 160 g bobbin of graduated merino in warm yellows, oranges and reds. I was going to two-ply this, but then decided that the yarn would be nicer if I chain plied and kept the colour runs less mixed up. This is my classic hand dyed, hand spun, the hand knit baby blanket yar .... So once the pi shawl is done I suspect this will be the next centre out knit. Spinning is at my house tomorrow, so this will be my settle in and spin work.

The one in the middle

This is a stash addition from a month ago, the middle yarn in the Vintage Purls sock yarn club, a simply beautiful pale purple pink, destined for a shawl. Little cub loved this, and I suggested we knit it as a KAL, once I had explained she was keen. Little cub has a pale pink fingering silk merino blend that she won at Unwind earlier this year that would be perfect. We both have projects to get off the needles, when that's done ...plan to start knitting Epsom as our own mini KAL, Epsom is the shawl that comes with the club kit.

And the last installment in the winter sock yarn club came late last week. A stunning colour work project, with a lovely mod feel, the geometry and the circles of decreasing size are just lovely. I will provide a link to the pattern page when all the sock yarn clobbers have theirs, otherwise I might be accused of spoiling the surprise for those who live further away.

Take care, knit some, spin if you can, see you at KAN next weekend if you are in the Napier area.

Cheers na Stella

Posted with Blogsy

Mmmmm sometimes the plan works and sometimes the plan needs changing ...

But it isn't always clear at the beginning that the plan isn't going to work, otherwise there would be no need to frog. Today I have something that is now finished and went to plan, albeit at times a very slow movement towards the end, but finished all the same, and something that was planned but perhaps could be better. Then there is the pen update, because pen and ink is almost as good at fibre and stash.

Way back in June I started to knit another large garter stitch blanket, a pattern I had knit before (2008/9). The impetus for this blanket was the yarn, a factory shop sale of very thick almost unspun 6 strands of pencil roving yarn, at a price I could not resisit. Well I did resist .. but a fellow knit nighter splurged and then offloaded when she had second thoughts about adding too much to her own stash. That was way back in September 2009, by June 2010 I was ready to take on another garter stitch project of this scale. Technically the blanket was complete in December of 2010 ... but I had a 'wheel' of white yarn to add an i-cord boarder to it. This past week I did just that, and like most projects, once I sat down to knit it ... well it was only 3 nights knitting! By the third night I had only a little to do.

For the this blanket I picked up to attach the i-cord binding thru both loops of the slipped stitchs that edge the blanket, and that has made the edge more reversible than the previous blankets edge. Like the previous blanket this one is huge, and warm and thick, perhaps thicker as it has not been stretched and blocked, and was immediately claimed by one of the cubs, even though we are in summer. While I don't enjoy knitting these (quite frankly it is boring), I love the result and the scale ....

The other project that I was looking to finish soon is the 'replacement' blanket, the one I started in Shetland to replace the one I mislaid on the plane. The original plan was to knit the centre in white, a band in mid grey, a band in blue with lace, and then cast off with a lace boarder in dark grey. In theory it sounded good, in practice even Yo-yo the house cat has reservations about the results, as do I.

I like the two laces I have chosen, but not the order of the colours .. so after this post I'm going to frog the darker grey and blue sections .... and knit them again. That will also give me a chance to change slightly how I knit the lace in the first lace band. I will reknit it with mid grey, dark grey, and then the blue as an edge .. .which I hope will look like a smoother and more planned transition of colours.

And on the pen front, the pen trays I was waiting on from GoPens arrived yesterday. I had a lot of fun planning how to cut these into exactly the right sizes and shapes to fit into the Bento box. This is where my not-currently-inked pens are stored, the inked ones live in a vintage vase or a pen case in my bag. I think I may need another one of these staking bento boxes for my mechanical pencil collection, have I mentioned I like vintage mechanical pencils as well?, but there is no hurry.

So excuse me while I go and puddle in the frog pond ....
hope your weekend ends smoothly, ready for the week ahead,

na Stella