The Bohus photo shoot

I'm back to knitting Blue shimmer, the final 10 rows or so of colour work. But before I ran out of colour to work with I had Bear take literally hundreds of photos of my knitting. Hundreds to get the lighting right, the focus right and to get the images to have enough infomation so I can show how I knit. Digital cameras sure make that easy, and cost effective and instant. I was pleased with my digial minolta, it is over 2 years old yet worked fine. We did resort to using a tripod to make sure the focus worked and the images were simillarly set up. I have divided the images into four sets, which I plan to post on my blog over the next few weeks. The four 'sets' are

1. How I hold two different colours of yarn in my left hand
2. How I make a knit stitch, while holding two different colour yarns in the left hand
3. How I make a purl stitch while holding two different colour yarns in the left hand
4. How I rib, using the 'finish' purl method.

At some stage further down the track I will add more, like how I hold two colours in my right hand. I do feel that there is a lot more infomation on the net about right handed colour work.

Why did I do this? Not because I think I knit the best way there is, but because over the last two years I have tried lots of variations of knitting. All of this infomation and experimentation has resulted in a current style that works for me. Over the past few months I have had several on online conversations with various helpful people over how best to work with up to four colours for the Bohus work. I am so glad that others on the net share their experience and tips that I would like to offer the same to others. Not all of us live where there are advanced knittig workshops, for me I would have to travel very widely to take part.

So how do I hold the yarn? Like this, I wind the first yarn or 'dominant' yarn around my first finger, then weave it over my 2nd finger, under my ring finger and under my pinky. In this first image I have wrapped the first yarn, but the second yarn is just sitting, waiting to be wrapped.
By dominant yarn I mean the colour that is used the most in the work, or the colour with the longest floats, so I can weave it it if the floats are longer than 3 cm or over an inch. If a yarn is used to purl with in a row of knitting that is the dominant one that I wrap around the first finger.


The second yarn, is wraped around my second finger, then woven under the middle finger and over the ring finger, and finally under the pinky. I tension the yarns in three ways, I can and do use my pinky finger to grip the yarns a little, but try and avoid that. Griping with the little finger can lead to a kind of cramp up the side of my hand and wrist if done for several nights knitting. I hold my first and second finger close together, this stops the yarn sliding as easily. I also hold the side of my first finger against the needle at times, again to increase friction and this allows me to lift my finger and tug a little to ensure the junction between purl and knit stitches is firm.

GF Shrug, is over half way complete. I do need to tell you that while I am being guided by the pattern, I have made quite a few changes to accommodate my own knitting preferences. Firstly and probably most importantly I am knitting shrug in the round not flat. I used a tubular cast on and have a lifted increase 2 stitches appart for the forearm increases. The other major change is that I have chosen to knit shrug as two matched pairs and graft these together across centre back. Shrug is knited in self striping sock yarn with an unbalanced repeat to the colour-way. If I continued to knit from wrist to centre back and then down to the wrist, the striping on each arm would be a reverse match rather than a mirror match. So I am knitting the second sleeve from the cuff up, to match the first. I am nearly finished the rib on the second sleeve. I still don't know if I will make my may 28th deadline, as after I finish the second sleeve, there is 1.5 inches of rib, on 2.25 mm pins around the shrug opening.

And Bear, has offered to send for a 2nd bohus kit, for my upcoming birthday (40 eeeekkkkk), I think it will be Rose collar and knit as a cardie. So Flat fair isle with whole rows of purls. The bar raises.

Blogging - the behind the blog work

Yes I have been behind the scenes blogging, or rather tweaking things, mostly the side bar of my blog. A little more pink, a little more lower case. And I've renamed the blog knit- knit - frog, as that pretty much describes how I knit at times. I do like to get things right. I have grown into a perfectionist, where I once just wanted to finish things and wear them. Thats the transition for teenager to adult I think.

So whats changed/ some new links, to Guido's podcast, and to his pal Grumperina, some colour changes, and Yes , what I have been wanting for ages and waiting for, drum roll please, ....

ta da (I did have a wee glitch, but fixed it with the help of Nerissa from Knitters Review), I admit to being a complete html code newbie or bunny, but want to learn.

a WIP or Whats on my needles section, complete with teeny-tiny images. Not sure if I did that the most elegant html code way. I feel so smug and pleased that I worked it out and got it into the code. and didn't break it. I had posted on Knitters review to see what suggestions the knitting geek code guru's have. After I completed my version of the progress images, i checked back into knittersreview, and found that Nerissa had posted a link to Indigirls how to,


Bohus update with photos of the last of the Bohus Blue shimmer colour work next weekend, I promise.

GF Shrug, just a quick update photo of GF shrug. Shrug seems a little bumpy, which I am assuming is the result of knitting with yarn that has previously been knit, even if it was only knit for a day or two. you can see how much further I had knit up before she was frogged, by how much yarn is wound back around the ball. Must admit this looser gauge is not quite to my liking, I do prefer a 'firmer fabric'. A very dull day here, with a dark grey sky, so even though this photo was made by a window at 3pm it is very dull and dark. The good side of that is tonight we will curl up in a cosy lounge with a fire. Bear has to work, so once I run around and put kids to bed, wash up alone and generally tidy up ready for tomorrow, I will be sooo ready for kniting.

My dress dummy returned tonight, Yes little Miss Purfex has been visiting. I lent to to a visiting designer at dfi, Darlene who is from Canada, and she has such a cool accent. Darlene must have been on the outreach programme, as she is not listed as one of the incubated designers, Darlene wanted to pay me for the loan of the dummy, but how much do you charge to rent a dress form for 6 months? I had no idea, Darlene thanked me by leaving this beautiful fabric all rust and gold, fabulus - now shirt or wrap? There is just on 2.5m, at 115 cm wide, maybe even a dress? This term I am teaching a class to drape, so mmmmm.....yummy thoughts.

Bohus, nearing the end of the colour work :(

Blue shimmer bohus, well I am nearing the end of the colour work yoke, and it saddens me. I really enjoyed the colour work, but am now about to start colour work row 64, and there are only 72 in total. After this will be many many rows of plain stocking stitch. Stocking stitch flat, not in the round as I prefer. My purls will get a practice. But then I will get to wear it. The progress photo is ok, it was taken under a halogen light in the dining room. Usually I use the natural daylight coming in the window, but being it 7pm when I took the photo, here in the southern hemisphere, below the 42nd parallel. Entering winter, by 6pm it is dark. I tried to use the white balance correction in the camera but look ....

not pretty, not even salvagable. I call it Bohus Electric. I had to tone down the colour in the first photo a little, but still feel the aqua is not as faded as the real one, while the brown seems spot on. That is on my monitor, I know every monitor has its own settings, so aplogise if it looks garish on any one elses. On day I will stop feeling like an interloper when using photoshop and feel like I know how to do things.

GF Shrug, this is where I admit a terrible mistake, I didn't swatch! And I am the queen of the swatches, I am drive students and friends who are learning mad by insisting I will not help until they swatch. I should have and I learned my lesson yet again. I have used Opal for many, many socks, and even a hat, always knitting to gague using 2.5mm pins. I planned to use Elizabeth Zimmerman's knit the swatch as you go technique but I was so pleased with progress and the pretty colours I didn't stop to measure. I thought as I was knitting a "size up", and my Poppy would grow into it that it would be fine. But, the pattern was not written for Opal, and I have no idea why I thought I could substitute Opal for another unknown sock self striping yarn. Never, never, never again will I be so plain stupid, I had knit for 4 evenings, and was really pleased with my progress, up to beyond the arm hole and 2-3 inches across the back. I could see that the GF shrug would be finished easily in time for the party. I had half a shrug completed and then .....

A visiting friend of my daughters asked what I was knitting, so I showed her by putting it on Poppy. It was tight, wearable, by not over anything with sleeves, and no growing room. Ok, I left it be for a day, while seriously contemplating finishing it and gifting it to a friend with a younger girl child. Then Sunday afternoon I overcame that, I moved to an acceptance stage of pre-frogging, and ripped it all out. Cast on on 2.25mm pins, and ribbed. Switched to 2.75 mm pins and knit, I have slipped it onto her arm tonight before bedtime stories, and it fits fine, a bit of ease in there. I will check gague latter just to be sure. I wish I had a recorded picture of the shrug before I ripped it, but no, my camera was at work, and a Scan seemed way to much effort. I guess I was not full accepting the result at that stage. Any way this is the progress shot.

Still pretty, and given how fast the 'wrong' version knitted up there is a chance it will be finished by end of May in time for the party. So for now Bohus will share my knitting time with Shrug, but that will give me a little more time to enjoy the colour work. I also want to 'save' some colour work for when Bear can do the photo's of my hands knitting. I see so many images of how others knit and it is not quite like mine. May as well add mine to the mix.

Blog Stuff, well I have fixed the links, but need to spend some time working on the blog layout. I really want a WIP section, with those cool progress charts. Bars showing how complete, or even cooler wee images of the project with the colour filling up as the work grows towards completion. Not quite sure how to do that, I was thinking images of the garment, I can do that in corel draw or photoshop, and then fill in the colour as I go, saving each to my flicker acount. then the WIP in the side bar would link to the relevant image? I would have to upload a new image for each WIP that had progressed, for each blog, but I already upload a few images each time. Might post that one on Knitters review and see if there are any suggestions.

links fixed,

which I had not realised did not work, note to self to check every thing, twice .....