Bohus Blue shimmer pickies :-D, and whats next?

Well, here are the images of Blue shimmer, knit from a bohus museum kit, is finished and has been worn. She is light, beautifully warm and the sleeves start the day just over my knuckle and by end of day have shortened to a wrist length. I know this happens now, with elbow bending and wearing distortion sleeves 'shrink' so I knitted her with long monkey arms. I finished her a week or so ago and then it took two nights to seam up. i used matress stitch, in the same Bohus yarn. I had left live stitches at the sleeve and body hem, and these I kitchenered in place. I am quite proud of the result. I even remembered the hems had 10% fewer stitches so kitchenered up 9 stitches, and kitchenered the next hem stitch one stitch away.

I have worn her, had comments and been told I look like I am about to ski. We are having a wonderful run of sunny, clear warm spring weather. Far to hot to wear Blue shimmer, so she shimmered on the river stones under our washing line for these photos.

The sock i was knitting,... well i lived up to the blog name and frogged it. The yarn has been skeined and washed and dried, and needs to be wound into a ball again. I just plain lost my place, I had tried to knit a those socks from a brank new and untested for me pattern, a toe up with a full heel gusset, and in cables, from Brooke Chenoweth Creel's Wildershins, but I like a firmer gauge. So .. I tried to size it up, and lost my way mid heel flap, and couldn't be bothered deciphering a fix so, frog, frog, frogged it. I am not sure i was fussed completely on the cable and varigated mix anyways. Its here if you care. Brooke - I aplogiese, I love the idea of Wildershins and will make them in a much more suitable yarn to do them real justice.

So, whats on the needles now, we i really want to knit Poppy something for next Autumn and Winter, in fine yarn. I have Bohus Rose collar in kit form to knit, but wanted something nwhere i could be a little more creative. A visit to my LYS and i picked up a merino 4 ply, thats fingering to the rest of the world, in smooth merino mink, pink and soft white. And I have been having a play. I decided to play with a corrugated two colour ribb - two images here, one of hte front and one of the reverse. This is what happened when I knit it flat. For some reason , knit flat the floats for the back row are 'hidden' and the stitches larger on the front, yet on the right side row the opposite happens. It is cute and texturally interesting but I coundn't understand why people would use this kind of effect on traditional jerseys.


So this is my sampler so far, i am just picking odd and probably not connected graphs for small motifs from PGR Knitting the old way. Small motifs as Poppy is only 4, and next year she will be 5, but she has tiny fingers that will catch long floats and snag them. As i worked Switched to knitting the sample as if in the round, that is i knit all rows, and to avoid the tangle of threads across the back I cut and knitted the yarns together in twos at both ends. Reatively easy as each row usually has two yarns. As I neared the finsh I tried a simple 2x2 ribb, as I decided the corrugated rib was not right for this project, to bulky, to textureal. Then I began to wonder if knitting corrugated ribb required knitting in the round (I posted a question to KR here) so maybe some one will tell me. I like the final knit in the round version and thats what i will use (again two images, front and reverse sides shown).





Now i just have to cast off, in alternate or in pink - still deciding, wash, dry, determine gauge, measure girl, add on ease and growing room and make my maths work. I love the planning and sorting stage, so fullof hope and promise.

purl with colours/colors & yarn in left hand

This post was suposed to be a celebration of finishing Blue Shimmer (which I have done) and details of how I blocked and stitched but .... today on Knitters Review Forum I noticed a request for details or info on how people purl with two colors. Much earlier in my blog I provided details and images of how I knit with two colors in the left hand. This is a companian piece to that. I don't know if there would be any value in visiting that post as well. Blue shimmer details - update and the next project very soon - we have fast broadband now and it is sooooo much easier.

These are images I took ages ago when I was working on the colour yoke of Blue Shimmer. It is way overdue and time to dig out the images and write the how-to details. I have also got images of using the finish or norwegien purl in a rib - which i find easier so that comming soon to a blog near you. In the process I think I have also got smarter about uploading and preparing images. These images were saved for web as .gif and the size reduced to 300 across, with an upload time of 11 seconds each on dial up - so I hope they load quickly.

Before I start I do need to point out that to get even colour work (I live in NZ which uses the English spelling so for me colour has a u! - I can spell - sort of) I make sure the stitches are spread out flat not scrunched up on the right needle as I knit. That way the floats are made long enough and my finished work is very flat and dosn't pucker - a trick I learned reading Wendy's blog. That woman is amazing, she seemed to knit Bohus Blue shimmer in less than a month - it took me 9 months.

I used to knit a more 'conventional' purl but since finding the finish purl have used only this way for colour work. I find it almost impossible to knit a more 'conventional' contintal where the right forfinger sweeps the yarn into place when I have two colours in the left hand - some people probably can, but I have not mastered that yet. Notice the yet, I have realised that in time nearly all things are possible. I think I do ok for some-one who is self taught from books and the internet.

Step one, Purling with two colors carried in the left hand,I arrange the yarns so both are over my first finger. I find the yarn wound around that finger has the 'evenest' tension, the one wound around the next finger also comes over that finger but gets slightly looser after 10 or 20 cm's of knitting, so I use that for the yarn which has the longest floats. I could wind it around my pinky and have tried but ... that seems to snag and upset the fore-finger wound yarn so i leave it as is.

I lift the yarn you are wanting to make the purl stitch in so it sits over the left hand needle, to do that i scoop the left hand needle tip under it.

Slide the right needle into the next stitch on the left needle purlwise, then I twist the right needle up and over then down under the purl yarn to pick it up. I bring the needle tip down and scoop or hook the yarn thru the stitch on the left needle.

This takes me to a point where I have nearly completed the stitch, I used to have problems keeping my purls stitches as firm as my knits but realise i need to make sure the needle is pushed all the way thru for both the knit and purls. I did have a bad habit of knitting on the tips of the needles so the knit stitches were smaller, and purling on the fullest part of the needle. Now I have worked that out it is much easier to notice when I am making that error and correct myself.
I push the right needle against the left needle and keeping the two in contact swing it around to the back of the work. I make sure the needle is right thru the stitch, that is not just the needle tip, but the widest part of the needle and then I slip the new stitch off and drop the old stitch.

make sure you tug your finger away slighlty to seat the purl stitch in place and remove any slack in the yarns before the next stitch.

To work with the other colour is very simillar, just pick up the yarn colour that i required and lift it over the needle to start.

Spring is here!

Well September in new zealand means spring, Usually that would mean a heavy hit of nasty cold rainy blustery weather, but since thrusday we have had balmy, warm, sunny weather. I was so convinced on friday with two nice days behind us, and the weekend upon us it could not last. But the pesimist in me was wrong, wrong, wrong. Ain't that great?

So what have we done with this windfall of fine sunny weather? Well like all good southern people, and I mean souther in a pacific sense, that is close to the icy Antartic, with cold rather than tropical weather. We made sure the house was aired, the fire place dust wiped away, the washing done and out on the line to dry, the porch tidied up, and we even did some gardening. I kid you not, we really did. Look at our newly spruced up porch at the start of this post.

And bohus, well that stocking stitch is a bit of a bore, and while I consider myself a stoic knitter, one who will finish unless the thing is really ugly, well, acres of the stst stuff in the flat can be rather tedious. Or as a more well known knitter has put it here, interminable. I have completed the short rows for the front, and the arm hole shaping so have only the front proper to do. Knit to the end, turn, purl to the end, turn, knit to the end, turn, .... .... .... ... Still that nagging doubt about having enough yarn to finish, which I shouldn't as there is technically enough in the kit for the largest size, and I knit the smallest. I did knit it longer than patterned. And that comment about knit until its finished unless it is looking really ugly, we that was sparked by the new tee shirt logo on the panopticon - "Did you knit that on purpose". How cool is that, might have to get me one of those this summer.

And the cat, yes this blog has a cat associated with it. There is something about knitting blogs and cats, they seem to go together, blue cheese and broccolli, mushrooms and wine, small children and fingerprints on glass doors and windows. The cat is, a girl, around 8 years old, Yo-yo. sweetest little furball you ever met. She puts up with two kids with no complaints, and given we are not cat people, both having cat allergies, so there is no lap sitting and no cuddles, she puts up with us.

I'm in, the baby-bohuser is back for a long overdue update

And after a long break, I'm able to get back to blogging. What happened ?- Life, small children, study, winter, friends, lots and really nothing. But I'm back to the blog. After what seems like a long hiatus, I am finally updating. At home, earlier today I still could not access my blogger account. I could not even access the home page to log in, so this is a remote update - from off site. Not big deal to anyone except my photos are not here to upload. I will try again latter. .. and latter I did try, only to find my broadband modem no longer flashing like a christmas tree, but with 3 non blinking steady lights. So a quick power down of everything, power up the modem, then the mac, and here we are. Good, sure, speady access to blogger.

Blue shimmer, well she grows still slowley, but faster than the back did. Fewer stitches you see, much fewer. Sleeves sure are faster to knit than the back, I have only the hem on the last sleeve, to do, then the front. I have two compete skeins left of yarn. I am a little concerned that they might not be enough to finish. I have made the sleeves longer, but am knitting the smallest size so should be fine - but two skeins seems not enough. I have mentally tried to imagine the sleeve - which took one skein - as a area equivilent to the back which is the same as the front. Well minus the short row neck line shaping. It is a little like doing metal gymnastics. Before I start to use that last skein, if it seems to far to go to get to the hem, I will email Solveig Gustafsson and ask to buy another skein. That way I can alternate the yarns in with a new and old skein to prevent any dye pot dissimilarities. I had hoped to make Mrs Beetons, by Brenda Dayne, with any left overs. Worrying that there will not be enough yarn makes me a little sad. Although there is always the next Bohus- Rose collar and the left overs from that to look forward to ....

Thank you, Bertandfelix, for your comment(s), Lovely blog you have. Again I suffer from slightly green envy, maybe mint or sage? at the thought of being in a workshop learning Bohus, and other wonderful stuff, sourrounded by like minded people. Here I am surrounded by those who love fashion and design, but have more of a Margiella or Nom-D interest. The idea of spending months re-creating a vintage peice seems odd to them. Only slightly green mind you, in the nicest possible way. I realise I am just a Baby-bohuser, nearly fiished number one, 2nd in the drawer wanting to be done, and plans for more. There are many more experienced Bohusers out there. New Zealand is a great place to live, mostly green, mostly friendly, mostly warm, mostly affordable, aparently all that most people want. It just so far from much of the world, my friends in London can get to New York on a special deal, return for around $300 NZ, for me to get to new york from here is $2500. Really big difference in the amount of savings required there. Still we have internet, jobs, and I drive thru the town green belt to work every day, takes around 7 minutes max from home to work, park outside and get to teach fashion to degree students - how cool is that?

Socks, toe up, gusset heel,
Progress, well, maybe before one modifies a pattern just because they like a firmer gauge, one should really understand the pattern. I did make notes, I have kept track, I am good at math, but some how have lost my way mid heel. That coupled with the fact my LYS is out of extra balls of yarn to match and it looks like I really need one - lets just say that sock will be ravelled or as my blog title goes knitknit frog-ed. Now there was a reason for that title.