Done so something new or two

Toad is finished, yesterday, amidst sunny warm and balmy weather - yes finished a long sleeved sturdy warm hand spun hand knit jersey with lined collar and cuffs for double warmth on the day we finally get summer. Just as well we live in Dunedin, for today we are back to colder days, with rain and overcast and not a lot of sunshine to warm us up. With any project ending - comes the time to start a new project (or two) - so I've done that and now have two socks on the needles, different ones.

So - twelve year old sons are not good at standing still, they dance, they jigger, they move - and on an overcast day for a while it looked like this was the best photo of Tobe wearing Toad that I would be able to show you. For interest sake, I used up every single gram and part gram of the Sock yarn I was using to line the collar and cuffs, ending with about 20cm left - so this was an excellent stash buster. I have a skein of the Blue left, which might become a hat, sometime. And I have to remind myself this is my first finished hand knit sweater .......something I am keen to do again even if it means spinning fibre in larger than 100g batches.

Front on, Toad gives Tobe Shoulders, well he has shoulders of his own but they are lean, lanky, skinny boy shoulders.I think all saddle shoulder designs do that to some degree - add in a linear and boxy shape at the shoulder. Having said that I think it will soften with wear, and use .... next winter if it still fits.

Side on gives some idea of Tobe's dimensions, front to back he is a proverbial bean pole .... over all I'm quite pleased with how it Toad (and Tobe) turned out.

The new project is a secret Christmas present, knitted toe up to keep the design kind of hidden for now. I am making Tardis socks. So far reverse engineering the pattern has been fine, cast on  two lots of 8 stitches using Judy's magic cast on, honestly the best seamless toe cast on ever IMO, increase at either end of each side for the next five rounds, then every second round until there are 34 stitches. Condensing the increases in the first few rounds gives a more rounded toe which I like.

There might be a second new project as well, for some reason I felt the need to cast on a washcloth this morning, worked in 2x2 rib with smocked details - sorry no photo yet but there will be next time.

Take care
Stella

Matching collar and cuff

Not much to see around her, really there isn't. For some reason the only progress since last post is a sleeve, really just one long sleeve. Real news is a bit scarce - so much so that this update even contains a report on shoe polish.

So about that sleeve, elder cub liked the collar lining very much and asked if I could do the same to the cuffs. Seems a reasonable request so I've worked the sleeve down to a generously long cuff and have switched to the brown Vintage Purls yarn for the lining. He can grow 2'' or 3'' and this should still fit. So far so good, the sleeve is tapered from around 3" under the underarm to 7" from the hem. Paired decreases either side of the underarm line every 8 rows - seemed to work. I hope the lining will tuck away - and imagine it will be snug at first but cuffs always stretch out so in the long run this should be fine. I probably don't have enough brown to knit both cuffs - having only 10.8g left. I've split that into two bumps, 5.4g each and will knit the start of each cuff lining then switch to some other sock yarn remnant for the end of the cuff lining. I am tempted to use something fun like orange, or pink but know that not to be the best choice for a self conscious 12 year old male cub - so I will hunt out something dark and sensible.



And shoe polish? Yes, Bear is all smiley after a box arrived with a new supply of shoe polish. Around here is it the little things at times that provide the most enjoyment. On a Sunday afternoon Bear rounds up all the leather shoes and boots that look a bit scruffy and polishes them. He was struggling to find green, and red and the right brown polish for some of our shoes. When Little cub had pink Sidewalks from McKinnleys (local manufacture) we discovered Coxy shoe polish came in a wide range of shades online. So I ordered a surprise box of polish - brown, burgundy, soft black, red, burgundy, loden green, and a second black described as

A hard wax polish for that sharp military shine. Not for the faint hearted. A spit and polish product for a hard long lasting shine. It requires a little elbow grease to apply to get the best results. Suitable for military style shoes and boots, men’s business shoes and any smooth leather that requires a strong shine.

The mystery-box arrived today and Bear has been stacking and unstacking the pots of polish, and looking like they were the best thing ever. I guess it is a little like stash - having a supply of the things one might need in nice colours? I'm just happy he liked the surprise, I'm even happier that he likes to polish shoes although I suspect he likes us all to have nicely polished shoes more than he likes to polish shoes. Either that or he is wondering why I bought him six cans of shoe polish and if he really wants to be married to me anymore.

Take care - with any luck there may be more knitting or spinning to report next week, and maybe even a finished object.
Stella

Addictive

I knew that this fibre lark was addictive, really I did, but sometimes it takes a particular project to remind me just how addictive working out how to do something can be. Today I have significant progress on Toad, one sock is done and the other languishes. I've also managed to manipulate littlest cub into knitting a top down raglan for Curley Bear.

Addictive, defined at the FreeDictionary as

ad·dict (-dkt)

tr.v. ad·dict·ed, ad·dict·ing, ad·dicts

1. To cause to become physiologically or psychologically dependent on a habit-forming substance: The thief was addicted to cocaine.

2. To occupy (oneself) with or involve (oneself) in something habitually or compulsively: The child was addicted to video games.

I think that the second meaning is the one that is most applicable here, that I found myself both occupied and involved in something that was compulsive. With the hem of Toad completed I found myself ready to finish the neck edge. Originally I had planned to knit a plain band in 2x rib, then I wondered about a cable worked around the neck ... and then I started to think about a Henley style neck with a zip. That seemed the best for this jersey, a thicker and more robust yarn seemed to be a good match for a zippered and collared finish. I could see this was heading towards a warm outdoorsy sweater. First stop was the local big box craft supply store for a nice zip.I found one, it could have been longer but then again maybe shorter is better.

Then I steeked the front, and considering I had not planned to steek the front that was probably a brave move. But sometimes I'm not the kind of knitter to let a lack of planning get in the way. Having steeked I picked up and worked a short facing either size of the cut edge - this would be the outside facing for the zip. Once I got this far I had to keep going, unable to work on anything else in-case I lost the plot and didn't remember what I was doing (don't laugh - it has happened when I've parked a project and returned to it) .


Then I picked up and knit a collar around the neck edge in 2x2 rib. When the collar seemed long enough to fit the zip I switched to a softer yarn and knit the inside of the collar. I worked a knit transition row at the colour change. For the inside collar I used Vintage Purls Vintage Sock, the left overs from Double+1. I worked a mock i-cord edge at both ends of the collar, slipping the first 3 stitches of each row, and purling the last three.


I Grafted the centre section of the collar down to the neck edge, working from the centre out and using pins to keep the ribs lined up. I was quite pleased with how it turned out.

I left the last inch or so of the collar not grafted, and picked these up and worked a narrow band in rib that could cover the inside of the zip tape. At this stage the project looked very messy and I hoped that my loose plan would turn into something that worked and looked presentable.

Last night was family movie night, mostly as one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies was screening on TV, and we all like Johnny Depp at his most outrageous. So I finished the collar and stitched in the zip. I was secretly quite surprised that something that had looked so messy finished up looking quite planned and almost 'like a bought one' as my Nana would say. She was a child of the early 20th Century and completely converted to making life easier by buying rather than making. If I had five kids and my washing machine had a mangle roller maybe I would love the convenience of modernity as well.

This is where I am at now, with a finished zippered collar, faced with soft sock yarn, and the first sleeve is well on its way to the elbow.


The Bubble socks are now done. All done, and I'm pleased with them. This was my first completed hand spun sock and I was pleasantly surprised at how even it knit up. Next time I would try and make the yarn a little firmer in the twist - this seemed very low twist compared to commercial yarns. Then again unlike commercial yarns the stripe pattern is one that would only occur in a hand dyed skein of pencil roving.

And the littlest cub is working her first seamless garment, a top down raglan for her teddy. She was very good and followed instructions to cast on and work the raglan increases without really understanding how it would all work. Until now she has planed and executed a variety of bags and pillows with seams all on her own but I was keen to get her understanding the advantages of seamless. Once she got to the sleeves she saw how it would all work - and I was quietly impressed that she recognized the need for casting on stitches at the underarm to make the body fit nicely. Right now we have just transferred over to circulars - she has her own, and she is working out if she needs to increase as the body gets longer. Bears have quite cute shapes - this one is pear shaped, a pear shaped bear, so some increases might be judicious.

Take care
stella

I might have started another pair of socks ...

just might have. Usually I like to have only one pair on the needles at any one time, but sometimes a new sock is just the right answer. We have just been away, visiting a few Air Museums around the south island, Wigram and Ashburton, both homes for flight training bases during World War Two. Like most knitters I made sure I packed enough knitting to keep me busy for three times longer than we were away - you know just in case. I'm not sure in case of what, in case we got held up and didn't get home, in case the weather meant that I was stuck inside knitting (not a bad thing in the scheme of things), in case I got bored with what I was knitting and wanted a change. That last one is probably the best reason, and in fact I found that knitting continuously on the same size needles did tire my hands out and switching to a different size needle and project did my hands good.

So I wanted to take the Bubble sock but two reasons stopped me, first it is a chart and so not good travel knitting and second it was nearly finished so wouldn't have provided enough knitting. This is where Bubbles is at, and if tonight turns out to be a tv night (between the two extremes of Big Bang Theory, and The Borgias) I should be done today.

I did take Toad, my handspun Texel sweater that is in progress, and made lots of progress. I am nearly about to start the lower hem, 2x2 rib I think, with maybe a garter band above and below. Elder cub is 12, and taller than me, say 5ft8", so I'm happy to make this long just in case he has not stopped growing. I think it will be body band/hem, then neck band then sleeves, that way I won't have to worry that the neck will draw up the shoulders and shorten the sleeves. I am almost tempted to work something fancier at the hem, say a cable or such but then again .... perhaps I should keep it simple. Whatever I do I will have to match the cuffs to the hem so I am keeping that in mind as the cuffs are significantly smaller so I'd need to find a pattern with a repeat size that would fit around cuff and hem neatly.

One of the best reasons to keep projects simple is that at least one of the projects needs to be a pick up and go project. While I was away I wanted to start Toads Christmas prezzie, a Tardis Sock on the road. I had the pattern, the project bag, the needles and the yarn (Vintage Purls of course). Then just before we left I discovered that the sock was knit top down, and not only that but the words Police Box were formed first - I wasn't going to be able to knit that in secrecy in a motel room for very long was I? So I grabbed a lovely icy blue Vintage Purls sock yarn and a nostepinne to wind it with and decided I would knit something for younger cub. This is the first attempt, a quadrant toe and a cable that I had charted in my workbook. The cable in a slightly different form was part of Bears Paws 3, but this time I'm working it continuously. As things go I realized that the cable would work better if it was more woven and symmetrical around the center ... so I frogged.

This is take two, and as I started the pattern row I realized that I could work a cute baby cable up the middle just to complicate things even more so I allowed two center stitches which spaced the cable out a little more. I love the pretty pale blue of this sock, I'm thinking an eye of partridge heel and maybe even some sort of lace cuff or cast off.

Another day of knitting and the sock is looking like it might work. Part of me wonders if I should have a baby cable along either side and part of me thinks that it is just fine as it is.

That is progress so far, I'm still on leave for a few more days but I'm in the midst of finalizing another column for Entangled so I'm keeping this post short. I thought the article was to be on Scale but as I write my way towards the importance of scale in crafting I find I'm defining craft first and have yet to get to the scale. And I have some great images to use so I'm going to have to fit the scale in somewhere. Writing is a bit like knitting, sometimes the direction that is best isn't quite the direction that you imagined you would be going in.

Take care
na Stella

Wednesday -Thursday

Way back when I worked in an Roading engineering office, in the mid 80's, we had a set of made up weekday names, Thursday-Friday, or Monday-Tuesday, or Wednesday-Thursday. When ever we had a short week at work, when there was a public holiday, usually on a Monday or Friday, the workflow seemed out of kilter. Having a Monday off work made Tuesday a bit like a Monday so it became Monday-Tuesday, and Wednesday a bit like a Thursday so Wednesday-Thursday. When working I try and blog in the weekend and on Wednesdays, this week I'm not working and my weekend post happened on Monday and my Wednesday post on Thursday - hence the Wednesday-Thursday of the title. I've been busy - in a good way, comfortably working away at the things that I need to do and the things that I want to do, and even at some things that other people want me to do. I'm enjoying this not being at work, at 8:45 I find myself able to do things rather than preparing for a day at work. Oh I'm not planning to leave work but I am enjoying not having my days ruled by a 8:30-4ish timetable, and not being ruled by the cubs school day of 9-3.


Today there is progress on Toad, the sleeves seemed to have come out well, I've entered three proposals for Handmade 2012 (from beginner to advanced knitting), there is a very full tucked and gathered petticoat to puff out younger cubs dress, I've prepared next years diary, and Bubble socks grow(but no new photos of that today).
Oh and news - heads up keep 9, 10 and 11th of March 2012 flagged in your diary. There is to be a knitting retreat in Dunedin - code named Unwind, more once details are finalized.

So Toad, which is so named because that is what we have always called older cub when his behavior drives us to distraction - as in he is a being a bit of a Toad. Toad now has the beginnings of sleeves, and after two or three partial frogs I'm happy with these and have started on the body.
Most of the shaping in the sleeve cap is at the top, with almost not shaping for the second half of the armscye.





This is one of my all time knitting inspirations, the last page in a Mon Tricot 1800 Patterns, Knitting Encyclopedia. I bought it some 18 or so years ago when I knew how to knit and followed published patterns that I bought at the yarn shop or found in knitting or craft magazines. At that stage my knitting was quite conventional, knit flat and seamed as I had been taught and as most of the patterns encouraged one to knit. I was working early mornings in newsagents and heading off at 9 to study at Uni. This book came in amongst the magazines and I was fascinated by it. Partly because it was a book of knitting stitch patterns not garment patterns and this was the first time I was introduced to a library of stitch patterns. But I admit it was a little series of diagrams on the last page that hinted at other ways to knit garments that really caught my imagination. At the time I was studying for a Clothing degree and learning about construction and pattern-making and was curious about what the last page showed. Ever since then I've continued to be curious about the simplicity of the method that page illustrates, the neckband, the shoulder strap and the simple construction in the round. My first few sweaters for Toad as a baby were knit this way and I felt so brave starting without a pattern and mastering knitting on dpns. Of course I'm not convinced that this is by any means the True Aran Knit Technique, just one way of many, and I understand the myth of the Aran sweater is questionable - but I'm still inspired by the last page in a book I acquired 18+ years ago and it really did spark my knit journey.


Bookbinding, I love this, not as portable as knitting but very satisfying. And look I can make books that look like books that shops sell! The orange bound book is the diary I have made for next year, using DIY Dayplanner software, Nice fountain pen friendly paper, card and gifted end-papers (thank you Karen). Because I made it and I'm impatient - this diary starts with October of this year and continues right thru to March of 2013. I've found that I need a few months overlap at the beginning and end of a diary to plan the next year, so this should work well. Next to it are two Copic bound books which open flat and are lovely to use, I like those but think I like my books with hard cased spines. Maybe Coptic for workbooks and notes and the hard spine for other uses?


Like this.This one took me a few tests to make it work neatly - but I think I understand the maths and measurements now and would make fewer mistakes next time.

Look I even worked an old fashioned index to mark the months! I have vague recollections of my dad doing this to some of my school books in Primary school but no idea why or which ones.
Looks like one of Toads Best friends has arrived for a sleepover - so I'll go and make sure all the cubs are comfortable and lunch is sorted.

na Stella

You would think that with

two full weeks leave from work I'd be relaxing, and maybe even knitting. Well I've been relaxing but to those around me I seem to be far from relaxing. Since Friday at 4is when my leave officially began I've slept in until 8am on a Saturday and Sunday, cut and sewn two dresses and initiated littlest cub into use of a sewing machine and iron, finished binding my diary for next year, made two boxes to store assignments in, blocked my yarn and knit some. And it is only Monday, not only that but lunchtime on Monday!

So the vintage pattern worked out well, appears my little contemporary 9 year old cub is pretty much a vintage size 12. She is tall, and the dress has 'growing-room', which I am loath to remove as if I do she will certainly grow overnight. This is the second dress, the first is sleeveless in a white, tan and taupe plaid. The best thing is that the sun is warming up our part of the world and she can wear these without freezing.

This one we even went so far as to construct the little decorative bow trim, and attached it to the center front waist. When I say 'we' I mean little cub as she sewed the bow herself and most of the seams on both dresses. I stepped in on the more tricky curved seams where errors would matter, like the neckline and setting in the sleeves. I cheated and resorted to a hand-prick-stitched zip, I can and do machine zips in but love the vintage look and the process of hand prick-stitching in a zip. I do machine the tapes to the seam allowance for security but like the custom hand made touch of working the zip this way. What you can't see is the shocking pink bias banding inside the neck, waist and hem that neaten up those edges of the dress. Little cub wants a petticoat that makes the skirt go out more, so that is on the cards for latter this week, as will be a few more of these pretty dresses. I have a notion to return to the opp-shop and source a few nice vintage plastic buckles and buttons as trim for the next few.

One of the last things I had to do before the end of last week was tidy up and file away all the admin side of marking. As I worked thru the Year one Essays and the Year 2 Lit Reviews I kept them in two photocopier box lids. You know those ubiquitous shallow cardboard boxes that are put to use in most offices. I like my desk to be a nice place to work and worn ripped photocopier paper box lids just were just not contributing a nice ambiance. I'm not sure a pile of written assignments to mark could ever contribute a pleasant ambiance, but I'd like to think it could be nicer than it was. Today I sat down and constructed two shallow boxes, that easily hold A4 sized paper. The left over wallpaper from the cubs bedrooms covers the outside(Designers Guild) and the wallpaper from the hallway(Liberty) above the wood paneling lines the inside. There was a lot of learning going on in making these, and the second is neater than the first, but both are 100% nicer than a photocopier paper box lid.


I have been knitting (and frogging) on the new project, a top down set in sleeve sweater for elder cub. This was the state of play last Friday and you may notice that there are no needles in this work. I removed them having realized that frogging was required. Yo-yo, currently stealth cat as she has lost both bells, waited with me as I arranged for the photo.


I had to frog as it became abundantly clear that the sleeve cap I was knitting was suitable for someone with very defined biceps, perhaps even ones enhanced with steroids. Elder cub tends towards the slighter end of the range of shoulder and upper arm development ... so this would never look like it belonged to him. Currently state is that this is back on the needles and I've worked beyond this point and am nearing division for the sleeves and body.



And yarn, finally I have blocked the Wabi Sabi River Stones fibre, Merino, alpaca, silk and angora 50g and 272m, or thereabouts. As usual no plans yet to knit this one into, but I really enjoyed spinning it and love the colour ( or lack thereoff).

So I'd better go, younger cub has plans to invite a whole host of friends around tomorrow afternoon and that can only happen if her room is tidy. Her version of tidy and mine differ, in that things under the bed, and toys on the floor and washing not out in the laundry bin, and stuff like pencils and hair ties on every surface are things I'd like tidied away. I'm nearly as unreasonable as I remember my own mother was about keeping my bedroom tidy.

Oh well best go and see what progress has been made.

cheers - stella

One done, another one done, .. two to go.

Today I've got something finished, and something mended, but it leaves the 'other-one' to finish and the 'other-one' to mend. There has been mending, and knitting and sometimes it has been the same thing. I'll explain.
I've finished the first Theodora sock, it is a nice sock, one I'm looking forward to wearing, so I'm keen to knit the other one asap. I have cast on and completed the toe .. so should be done soon. I've not managed to get photos during the winter daylight - so I'll post images next time (promise).


I've also made myself mend Toby's gansey , I say made myself because I really don't like mending but know when I settle down and mend things it is always easier and quicker than I thought it would be. Having mending a top down knit sleeve I now totally buy all the oft repeated folk lore about things knitted from the top down, particularly sleeves being easy to fix. Of course being me I had made that a little harder by finishing the sleeves with a sewn bind of, but it was fairly straightforward after I unpicked that one stitch at a time. This is the worn edge that I had to start with, its not very worn .. but a stitch had gone and it was laddering up slowly.

First up I snipped a thread along the sewn bind off and one by one un-threaded the bind off yarn thru each stitch. Usually I love working with dark fine yarns and 2.5mm needles ... but when it comes to unpicking those don't make it easy to see which yarn is the stitch and which is the bind off. At some point I realized that if I unpicked in the opposite direction to how I has sewn it the process would be much easier, and so I worked the other way and it was easier.

Once I had the bind off removed I ravelled the sleeve cuff back to just before the garter stitch edging. That seemed to removed all of the work yarn. I was slightly surprised at how little yarn was involved. Then I picked up the stitches all around the cuff and reknit the last section of the cuff with yarn from the same cone I had knit the gansey from. I was happy that I had written down notes in my workbook about stitch count and needles size and how many rows of what where and if I had started the cast off following a knit or purl round. That made it so much easier than peering at the other cuff and trying to make them match.

And because I like the effect of the sewn bind of, I worked exactly the same edge again. Yes it is a pain to unpick .. but as the whole process took less than an hour, I'm game for another repair if its needed. Here is the finished cuff, it hasn't been blocked or washed or steamed. The underneath cuff is the one that didn't need a repair, and the top cuff the repaired one. I imagine it will settle down and blend a little better with a block or wash. There is a slight dimple in the cast off that I didn't noticed until I'd woven in all the ends. I'm sure it will even out with blocking and wear .. and if not it is a gansey for an 11 year old ... it is for wearing not for competition.

I've still got the Owls to fix, and was the lucky recipient of a part ball of the exact same yarn it is knitted in. I'm dragging my feet over that one, I want to take it away with me at the end of the month ... but it will need repairing. That one is cuff up, not top down, and both cuffs are worn. I suspect that means I will have to remove both cuffs entirely, frog them and reknit them from the top down. The stitches won't line up exactly but if I frog the cuff back to the transition from stocking stitch to cabled rib it should look ok.

That is pretty much all I've been up to .. this afternoon I've been plying the yellow 160g of fine single perendale, so now I am off to sit and ply the last of it. I'm away for work Monday night and Tuesday .. so I'll miss spin night and felt like I needed to spin today so I would have some spinning in my week.
Take care
na Stella

One done - one to go

Sleeves that is, look! Toby has a sleeve, just one, but a sleeve all the same. Finished all the way to the wrist and bound off. This is pretty much my knitting total for the week .. one of those weeks really, yes again. Work got in the way, again. I 'winged' the end of the sleeve, making decisions as I had to with not much of a forward plan, and it seems to have worked. I worked a few rounds of garter in the round at the end ... and it looked good but where the cable ended it flared in a girlie way....

...so I frogged back the garter rounds to the last cable cross and closed the cable off. I'm sure there is a name for it but I don't know it. Let me know if you have a name for this technique. It is where instead of working a standard cable cross you work instead a variation of a 3 needle bind off. So I for my 4 stitch cable (2 stitches crossing 2 stitches) I knit stitch 1 together with stitch 3, and stitch 2 with stitch 4. End result was the four cable stitches were neatly reduced to 2, the cable appeared crossed .. and the flare was gone, the cable simply stops. Then I worked 4 rounds of garter stitch -- and perhaps that should have been on smaller needles, for there is a little flare but not a girlie flare .. as I work sleeve two and consider more sleeve one .. there may yet be frogging and smaller needles ... we will see.


And Bayerische ... yes, Bayerische nears one of those landmark points, I'm only one repeat away from where I narrow the leg under the calf. Just being that close is enough to spur me to spend more time working on this. In my mind that is half way down the leg and there are fewer stitches once I've decreased away the extra eight stitches .. so my progress speed with increase. Wishful thinking or positive thinking? In truth probably both :-)

ok ... slight progress but progress all the same
na Stella

Fitting it all in

isn't easy sometimes. Winter seems to make it even more tricky to fit it all in. I usually post Wednesdays .. but last week, well there wasn't much to show, and there wasn't much light or time to make photos in. Thursday I felt guilty for not managing to post but wanted to go to knit night ... Friday was busy (ok personal choice I went to two film festival movies, once with my students, and to a different one after school with the cubs). .. and then it seemed odd to post on Saturday when Sunday was Bog update day. So here we are, Sunday afternoon, a light, sunny calm winter day in Dunedin, the doors and windows are open and without a breeze its not so cold. Truly its the wind that makes it cold here .. the sun does its bit, and without the wind .. well its quite comfortable in shirtsleeves. Today, there is knitting, a new project of sorts, and spinning, two skeins done, and some practice - because practice makes perfect, or at least goes a long way towards seeing improvement.


First up I've been knitting on TJB's gansey this week, the sleeve, the first sleeve, and it grows. I've been storing the gansey in a little cute plastic basket - I think it was produced to hold peg. We have a family of 4, and we do laundry on the weekends, and a little basket like this - well it wouldn't hold enough pegs for two loads of laundry let alone a whole line full. This little basket is cute, and is portable. The Gansey grew to big for my project bags long ago .. and well with dpns for the sleeve it needed something more open that I could easily fold it into along side its cone of yarn.


The little basket may look neat and contained .. but it holds a lot of knitting - see?


At 30cm I started the decreases, my usual sleeve decreases. I decrease every 4th round, four decrease points positioned at quarters around the sleeve. I'm not a fan of the standard underarm decrease - and one of the benefits of knitting in the round is its easier to position decreases where they feel right. Another 9 decrease rounds and I will have to make some decision on the cuff .. Knit Night suggestions included repeating the garter rib on the body hem .. and that is what I probably will do. I used the yarn double at the body hem .. and wonder if I can do the same, or should do the same for the sleeves. Toby, like most kids, grow out of rather than wearing out of his clothes .. so its not durability for him, but perhaps for some future kids who is part of the pass-it-on chain.


My new knitting project is blanket squares, for Operation Cover Up. This is an excellent method of stash busting, especially all that early Mill yarn and early spinning fiber that I bought and spun 'because' it was cheap .. and now don't know what to do with. I had clear out of my yarn drawers .. and after this photo a clear out of my hand spun stash .. and have lots to knit up. So far I've worked a standard 40st by 40 rows garter square, I'm working on a 80 st mitered garter square, I want to do one of these starting with 3 stitches and increasing (just because I can), and I want to play with some log cabin variations. I'm having fun playing with stripes and even considering garter instarsia one ...which could be cute or drive me crazy or both.



And both spinning wheels in the living room were freed up this week, this gorgeous deep ruby coloured half breed wool and silk blend from The Little Wool Company was spun on the Grace. My first real play with scotch tension spinning .. I heard that scotch tension systems were fiddly and tended to need a lot of adjustment. One of the reasons I bought the Grace was because I had good recommendations from several spinners that Mike made a scotch tension wheel that didn't need constant adjustments. I also bought it because it was so so pretty and new not old- I'm terrified that my vintage wheels will one day wear out. I'm fairly pleased with this, the scotch tension worked just fine, hardly any adjustment needed, the yarn looks stringy - but its a two ply, with silk and they never look plump unless the wool is very very crimpy. I'm thinking a Koolhaas for Poppy, for next winter ... maybe. She has acquired my Odessa on a seemingly permanent basis, and its looking the worse for the wear a 7 year old has given it.


And the other wheel in the lounge was freed up when I finished this Blue Gotland. I spun it on the Wing, but plied it on the Pipy as the Pipy has much larger bobbins so I get longer skeins that way. This yarn is a lot more bouncy ...even more than in this image, after I washed the skein to set and fluff it up some. This is going to be a blanket for Pip's baby boy. I must be having a bit of a JF moment as I'm tempted to knit a Hemlock Ring blanket but I don't have enough yarn, I've got 419m of what is most likely an Aran/DK weight yarn, I need 548m. I do have a dark grey gotland hand spun in similar weight .. so I need to decide if Hemlock would look ok if with a darker outer section .. or if I should knit a square garter with a lace boarder or a pie shawl .... all the fun of deciding but not until the gansey is done.




Its not knitting but I've been practicing with my tambour hook, which seems to have paid off. Now I'm a lot more in control of the little sharp needle hook .. I can pretty much keep the thread from slipping out of the hook when I make a stitch .. and I can change direction without getting snagged or tangled.

and my stitches are more even .. look! The little group of knitters that went to the workshop are currently passing around a copy of A Common Thread. Bear and I watched that last night, Claire, the main character is an embroiderer, seeking employment that uses her talents, and when she finds work with an experienced tambourist (is that a word?) the camera pans lovingly over the work Claire and her employer work on. The sun dapples, the sequins sparkle, the needle work just looks beautiful - beautiful work. I'm not in that league .. but I can dream. The other movies I saw this week were The September Issue, and Coraline. Coraline was described in the film festival as a true horror film for kids .. and because I'm such a weird mum at times .. well I wanted to counteract the really really weak plots on tv that is provided for kids we went, 7 year old and all. It was good, both kids handled the scare factor ok ... and there was plenty there for me. The September Issue was a good counter to the Devil Wears Prada movie ... if you saw that you probably should balance the books by seeing this.

so .. my week in review,
and the sun is still shining .. but it is cooling down .. so I'm off to take the washing off the line before it gets damp again.
na Stella

Hard work ...

this learning new things. But good for me, you see when you teach .. its good to be reminded how hard it can be to learn new things, very good, that makes me a more patient teacher. This weekend I spent two hard days being a novice again, and not only that but a novice that found learning a new skill not as easy as expected. A frustrated novice. That meant that I had to spend some time knitting, doing something that gave me peace and control .. so there is a sock with some progress and the gansey grows its first sleeve (with a tiny bit of frogging) .

So - Tambour work, a kind of embroidery more akin to crochet than embroidery worked using a threaded needle. The fabric is stretched tight as a drum in an embroidery hoop and a special hooked needle used to loop up thread from the underside of the work. The workshop was specifically on Tambour Beading ... but first we had to learn to make the chain stitch successfully ... harder than it looks. Once had to tension the thread, draw forward a chain loop, insert the hook in such a way the little sharp barb slides thru the tight fabric rotate the hook, wrap the thread around the hook ... and smoothly draw the needle and new thread loop thru the fabric and the old thread loop without snagging anything ... or loosing the loops. The explanation is wordy ... the actions are even trickier. I swear that the way you sit, the position of your eyebrows .. and the frame of mind you are in all affect the success of that little operation. So by end of day one ... I could sort of consistently draw a loop from the underside ... sort of, well to be honest actually not consistently at all, there were loops and tangles and oftentimes a snag that resulted in half an hours work pulling undone. Chain stitch is like that - one snag and its unraveled before your eyes - yes you can frog your work as easily as knitting. But by day two much more consistent chain stitches were being formed by the whole class. Look I was even feeling enough control to manage a spiral! When it works its like a smooth coordinated dance of hand and thread and needle ... just like knitting!

After day one ... I had to work something soothing .. something that I was totally in control off. So Bayerische came out of the WIP basket and I worked another complete chart repeat. Progress at last ... and a feeling that I could do this (even if Tambour had me in a muddle).


Day two and back to Tambour, the 'right' side of the work depends on what you want ...if you want chain stitches .. you work on the right side ... if you want beads .. well that is trickier. Beads and sequins are applied and stitched into place on the underside of the fabric .. that is right .. no looking at what you are doing. This I failed at miserably on day one, completely .. I thought I could .. I thought I was ready, but when I swung my hoop around I'd find 3 beads ... 7 bead less stitches and then a bead ... or 2. Not good for my moral - at all. Day two I resorted to practicing and mastering the fundamental stitch .. the elusive chain stitch. I vowed not to try to bead until my chains were consistent.

And after lunch .. well I felt more in control and was able to successfully attach beads. OK bugle beads ... apparently the easiest to work with .. but I could do it. Those lines of longer chains - thats the working side, the one I was looking at .. down here in the next image is the underside ... what I couldn't see as I was applying the beads and sequins.

On The right side of the fabric .. well I still have a bit to master, like straight lines and spacing .. and evenness .. but its a start, and after 9 hours of tutition I'm happy with this small progress. I know how hard it was .. so I'm very happy.


During the week and the evenings Toby's gansey plodded along in the background ... I finished both saddle shoulders and started working a sleeve. I love the way the yoke knit and purl work pulls in the yoke, and creates and armscye curve.

And how the saddle shoulder lengthens the shoulder and forms a shoulder shaped curve ... just where its needed. For a garment knit as a square, with no increase or decrease shaping ... its pretty cool how a body shape can be created by knit and purl stitches pulling and working in tension together to distort the fabric.

So I've repeated some of the elements from the yoke at the top of the sleeve .. and continued the cable down the sleeve. I didn't initially do that but 3 cm of plain sleeve ... well it seemed lacking some thing .. and my sketch had the cable continuing. So I backed up (frogged) and reknit ... and am much happier.

so I'm... tired and with not a lot to show for 10 hours of learning,
and happy I can already knit .. imagine if I was learning that all over again?
It would probably be as slow :-)
na Stella