Ladies a plate ..

A fairly common saying in New Zealand, although since the 1980's it more often changed to bring a plate. Now the request is not for a plate per se, or a plate, cup, spoon and cutlery as my US-migrant to New Zealand knit-sib Kelly once thought. K tells a hilarious story of thinking the hosts must have been so short of utensils and plates that she generously loaded up a basket with plates, knives, spoons, forks, tea towels, cups, glasses, salt, pepper ... enough for her brood and extras to share. Now this is where local blog readers will be quietly giggling .. and those not familiar with the odd customs of 'my country' New Zealand will be waiting for the punchline. *

For when they said a plate, they actually meant food, or a plate with food on it, and not for for oneself as I have seen some British migrants bring, a small plate with food for one, but the kind of food one can share. Quiche, sausage rolls, asparagus rolls, scones, biscuits, savory flan, some sort of baked slice ... and in a pinch shop bought crackers, cheese and dips. Saturday was the last KSG - knitters study group meeting of the year, and our year project was a tea cosy. We also had a bring-a-plate lunch, and so this being a tea cosy kind of old fashion I went I dressed for tea, I had a tea-dress, pale pantyhose, high heeled shoes, a ladylike hand bag, a hat and I even had my nails done. My plate? I work and knit and spin .. so regrettably it was something from the local bakery, a strawberry flan, I took my finished tea cosy - fitted on my tea pot. Before I went I recorded it with a photo for Ravelry .. and guess who turned up to the photo-shoot? Yes Yo-yo, the cat with the camera attraction.


There were nine tea cosys in all, plus a photo of one that had been posted away, but the ones that were there were all very creative*. The tiger-cosy was made for especially for warming Tiger tea, a major tea brand who painted large tigers over most of the local shops for much of the 20th Century. Once all kids in New Zealand could spot a diary miles away simply by recognizing the large painted tiger holding a steaming cuppa-tea - cup and saucer not a mug, now those shops are more likely to be coke or pepsi branded.


And here is the second video showing picking up and knitting an afterthought heel. I hope it shows the process well enough.

And the last video in the set, showing stitch grafting the heel closed, I didn't pull the grafting firm enough so had to tighten up the stitches one by one - with practice usually the stitches are a good match for the knitting they join, but if you finish grafting and see the grafted stitches are too loose or too tight, then it is a simple mater to tug each one into the right size. Make sure you work tightening from the opposite end to the grafting tail yarn, and loosening from the tail yarn end.

And lastly some images showing the weaving in, I know the video isn't quite clear enough to see the detail. One of the biggest unsolved problems with camera lens focus physics is the closer you are the less focus depth there is so things go blurry. With video its too hard to keep the focus in the right spot when knitting .. so still images can show more than movies.

I follow the path of a strand of yarn thru the knitting. First I draw the yarn thru two slightly offset purl bumps, then ...

turn the needle around and pass the thread back thru the next purl bump and thru the offset pump that was first threaded thru .... I know that sounds complicated but its like making a figure 8. I've left litle loops so you can see the path the yarn takes, I think the second to last images shows it best.

take care .. Socks are all done, and I' quite chuffed with how I flowed the slipped stitch diamonds into a 2x2 rib, I may have knit another pair in semi-solid yarn. And for the fact file, these socks were knit for an 8 year old girl from one 50g ball of sock yarn.

na Stella

* Ladies a plate is also the name of a cook book on sale, by Alexa Johnston, specializing in the kind of baking that the proud domestic goddesses of New Zealands history would fill their take-a-plate with.

* Edited 21st December 2009 - two photos, and a sentence or two have been removed from this post - so it may differ from when you first saw it.

Wednesday ...

...and I have a cold, didn't stop me from joining the knit gang and heading of on a pre-holiday mini road trip to the Milton Mill. I took a days leave, we car pooled .. and headed out with a knitters day out of mill rummaging, knitting, talking, and lunch. It was good, and surprisingly light on the pocket, for I returned with only 3 things ... $3.50 of fibre from the rummage bags at the back and 2 balls of yarn. My head cold was fought off temporarily with a decongestant and panadol - athough I did keep sniffing. One day I promise I'll photograph the Mill factory shop .. I planned to today, I took the camera, but forgot. At first glance its not that spectacular .. but there are bins of skeins, and shelves of cones, and cubbyholes of balls of yarn ... and out the back the 'sale table', with scraps or what they call mill-ends aka cones of singles and yarn, and mill-laps, aka scraps from the carding process, perfect for spinning. Which brings me to today's post, new yarn, some spinning done, a new project to tuck away for latter, and some knitting progress ... no not the tea cosy, its almost done. I just have the top-knot to work, but I feel it needs its first outing at the KSG 2009 tea-party .. next Saturday.

Up first, new yarn, is new for the mill, a possum, merino silk blend in a sport weight, we'd call it a 4-ply here in NZ. They only had two colours but perfect for colour work on a hat or a pair of girley mittens. As usual the Mill band is basic, with no indication of what the fibre blend is ... they really could do with some marketing help, without the cardboard tag above the cubby we never would have spotted the luxury details of the blend. The spin fibre .. well I can't show you as some is destined for my NZFW 3.0 swap .. so its secret for now. But I did bring the scrap home and hacked it ready for spinning.


I've been spinning recently, well plying, I finished the 4th bobbin of dark beautiful Polwarth fibre from FFF, and spent last night plying it. I love this fibre, it is soft and bouncy and light as a feather. I've got 100+g and 218m more or less. Its not quite dry ... so its hard to say. I do have to say the more plies .. the more even the resultant yarn - I'm a convert to plying up. I've got an equal amount of this fibre in off white and while I had planned to try and spin the white into a finer yarn, now I think it might make a fantastic shawl, with a pale centre and darker edge.

This week it has been mail box days, in that the contents of the mail box were interesting and fun. Yesterday the latest Spinoff and the IW Knits arrived which went with me to Milton and were shared as we ate. I'm not sure I'll renew my IWK subscription .. there is a whole lot of unflattering projects featured ... and this issue is no different. Its hard to justify the price just for the technical info which, lets be frank, a lot of that can be found on line, or in books. Magazines have a cycle, I've noticed it in photography and sewing and other craft magazines. They cycle through a lot of the same content, how to for beginners, techniques and inspiration .. through to content for more experienced practitioners, and after a few years you see the same info represented in a new way. Spin off is a whole different story .. either there is more development and innovation in the spin world, or I'm still such a newbie that its all still interesting. Then Bear arrived home just now with a copy of Filati which looks like it is a European elegant knitting magazine. Oh there are a few long knit coats but there looks to be some interesting ideas in side the covers - I've not delved to deep so don't rush off and buy one on my brief review. Any way .. in today's mail box was a pattern for EZ's Green Sweater! Yes I spurged and bought the pattern.

Lastly ...sock knitting, with all the tripping, magazine reading and plying not much socking has been going on. Today Poppy's afterthoughts travelled with me in the back seat where I knit, and they joined me at lunch where I knit. I've continued the slip stitch pattern around the whole leg, eventually the pattern will start just above the heel. The waste yarn row of stitches is perhaps clearer here - the green.

That is my half week to date. Tonight I'll either sort out the next spin project or knit more on the afterthought sock ...I've got 3 more work days, full back to back of planning meetings, before I'm on leave and that leave sounds sooooooo goooood right now.

take care
na stella

Afterthoughts

Today - its the afterthought heel video I promised, there has been knitting, the tea cosy is coming along nicely, I've been sewing, Pops has a new skirt as do I (but no photos), and spinning.
But first a video tutorial Step One in creating an afterthought heel in a sock especially for AnneofBlueGables - although I suspect her sock is well past needing this. Afterthought heels are neat and tidy and usually created with short rows .. and super-knitters like Elizabeth Zimmerman would bravely snip a thread, pull a few stitches, needle up and insert the heel. More timid knitters like to use a foundation of waste yarn stitches as a placeholder, and knit this in when the sock is a few inches shy of the foot length. Waste yarn makes for fewer ends to weave in - a good thing in my book.

My tea cosy is on track - and should be all done by the tea-party next weekend. It has turned out, I think - its not done yet so I'm predicting, a little firm for my large red teapot and a little short for my tall white tea pot - so I plan to undo the 6 or so rows of decreases and re-work the first side a little longer. The black and white should look really good with the white teapot, but the red tea pot is the one we use the most. That has a mesh tea leave basket, removable, which allows us to lift the leaves out and prevents over-brewed stewed tea. I do have plans to knit a suitable cosy for that pot, seamless and double knitting with a little help from Suzanne. Funny but now I've come around to this tea pot idea, I'm all enthusiastic - no longer reluctant - odd how experiencing a success will change ones mind. My only remaining unknown here is what will I bring for the tea-time style shared lunch? I do have my tea at the Ritz book out and have lots of ideas .. but it needs to be something that will suit most (gluten free?), and that is achievable within work and weekend and knit night obligations.

Spinning, I've been spinning two different but similar yarns. I'm attempting lace weight - and I'm not quite there yet but my latest spinning is better than I expected it to be. I had sampled lace weight - but found I couldn't consistently spin the singles as fine as I had when I sampled them. As I spun I wondered what sort of mess I would end up with ... there seemed to be a great deal of variation. Predictably when plying one bobbin ran empty a good deal before the other. I broke of the singles and wound some from one bobbin to the other and plied the rest. After a warm soak and a dry its better than expected .... look! Yes the plies vary from thin to thicker - but overall the yarn seems fairly consistent. This was hand dyed merino combed top which I split in two lengthwise and spun using a fractual approach - and the resultant yarn is complex in colour to look at without any obvious repeats. I like this - like this a lot. I did end up with fine yarn - fingering, 100g with around 410m so that is probably a fair attempt at lace weight from a relative newbie. I've only been spinning a year - or is that two years? Not long enough to feel in control of it, and new enough to be pleased whenever the result is near what I wanted and knitable. The other yarn was to be spun as fine, and plied as a four ply .. and the plies are not as fine as I sampled - so who knows what weight I'll end up with. I know that four ply is not as thick as the four plies .. so it will be interesting to see the result. I'm just about to start the fourth bobbin. One other responsibility recently has been the organizing of the New Zealand Fibre Swap 3.0 on Ravelry and the post dates are next week ... so I'd like to have both wheels clear ready for whatever yummy goodness arrives in my mail box. I've been having fun recently finding, making, packaging up and sending off things to spinners and knitters local and further afield.


so .. next week is the last full week of work for me before Christmas, here is the the start of the summer holidays .. so the cubs and I stop work in a week and a half. Then there is a 5 or 6 week holiday (longer for the cubs) ... and I do admit that whilst there is a lot to sort and plan and file before I go on leave .. part of me is aware of the soon to be holiday and waiting for time of my own.

take care
na Stella

Time for tea?

Today ... its a 'lite' post, all about a tea cosy, and bags. First the cosy, I belong to a Knitters Study Group, we meet every five weeks during the year for a 3 hour class on various knitting techniques. And every year there is a recommended project, this year I'm doing my best to participate fully, and be one of the team players,

Last year the Knitters Study Group project was a vest. We were all asked to work on a vest and bring it for show and tell for the December meeting. Early in that year I did a lot of researching and thought I'd knit a EJ vest - Deep V Arglye in particular, I even bought the pattern, but it didn't happen. I had other things I wanted to make faster, sooner, and the yarn had to be ordered from overseas .. and well it just fell off the things-to-do list. Truth is I'm probably one of 'those' knitters, or even more honestly one of 'those' people, the ones who don't like to be told what to do. Oh if there is a burning building and some one yells fire - I'm on my way out the fire exit, if its a nice meal and some one says don't wait - start, I have no problem with that. But when its my hobby, and my time, and my interest ... well I'd rather knit what I want to knit. This year the group project is a tea-cosy, and its December, can you see where this is going. Just like last year I did a lot of research - I got Killer Tea Cosy's out of the local library (my favorite was the one in the form of a large tea bag complete with string and tag) - but the majority were sewn not knit. I Googled tea cosys, and project/pattern searched Ravelry for tea cosys. I found a few stylish ones .. but some how they never got knit. Odd really as we like our tea, and we use a pot - several in fact, and cold tea is abhorrent. Long story short, I've finally knuckled down and started my tea cosy - with less than one and half weeks until the tea party - I feel like a naughty student craming and swotting just before the final exam.

So these past few days I've hunted, and selected and cast on, and rejected and frogged, and hunted and selected and cast on and rejected again and again. For some confused reason I wanted to knit the tea cosy in the round, and I wanted it colour work, for the thickness it would give, the added insulation. Let me explain, I wanted it in the round - because that is what intelligent knitters do - they knit in the round when the thing they are knitting for is round - and tea pots are round. And yet ..all the patterns I liked were knit flat, they were from an era where needles were straight and knitting was flat and seamed. I converted them to the round and tried an i-cord cast on and double knitting in the form of a checkerboard .. but knowing I'd have to steek the handle and spout openings and that they would be bulky worried me. I frogged that version.
Then a moment of clarity - I realized that sometimes flat is ok, in fact sometimes its best .. and two tiny seams either side of the handle and spout were nothing to be ashamed of. So I revised my favorite tea cosy list on Ravelry, and found Tea cosy by Yasmin. Its free, the pattern has history - her Nan knit it, its thick and is worked with two colours and stranded - sort of. That is where it gets interesting, its stranded tightly, breaking all the rules of standard stranded colour work knitting, the strands are pulled so tight the fabric puckers up into insulating corrugations. I love it! Stranded distortions - deliberate stranded distortions.

...and I've been sewing, stitching not knitting. I've made another batch of bags, in 100% cotton needle cord, soft and velvety and fun. Now this wouldn't suit trousers but it is perfect for little project bags. Ngaire picked the fabric from the fabric stash, ask for a bag that would take 2x50g cakes of sock yarn, and requested something fun on the inside,


I hope I have not disappointed ... a mock 1950's circle print - Op-art or is that Pop art?
I might just have to keep one for me:D

Take care - knitting next post I promise even if only my tea-cosy home work.

take care
na Stella