Tonight!

I think I will be nearly done tonight, last night I decided to finish the waste yarn button holes. It was night and not good phot conditions, but I can show you how they looked when done. This is the right side, after removing the waste yarn, I picked up the live and freed stitches and promptly cast them off, passing one over the other until only one stitch remained.

That left me with one live loop, I used a needle and a short length of yarn to secure that one stitch, weaving the ends in as invisibly as I could. If you look close you just might spot the slightly thicker rib where the end was woven in on the wrong side. I almost like the wrong side of the band more than the right side, the i-cord bind off seems an almost perfect match for the slipped stitch edge that sits just inside the picked up stitches.

So now all I have is two inches of cuff ... and sewing the buttons on and I can wear it, or block it, or both. Steam blocking will mean I can wear it sooner .... dont-cha think?

Take care, hope your projects are making similar progress.

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

Balletomane !

There were so many suggestions for names for the ballet wrap design, I was completely in awe of the intelligent and clever suggestions.
Thank you ---every one who left a comment.
In the end ... Balletomane was the suggestion that I kept coming back to. It is the Italian word used to describe a fan of Ballet, which is perfect for every little dancer.
A huge thanks to l i n g g a n (no spaces) who suggested the name. I've been in touch and let her know (but I forgot to ask what her favorite colour was for the yarn).
I've finished the pattern, and uploaded it to Ravelry, for sale, you can follow the Ravelry link to look at the pattern details. I really tried to make the pattern as good as it could be, and I've loaded in lots of images of the process, for knitters to use as reference points, and lots of little instructions for the things that knitters might not have done before. This is an example of the kinds of photos I've included, this is one of three that show how to bead using a crochet hook. I was so impressed with Bears skills in documenting my knitting in action - he did really well.


I'm back at work, today was the first day, my 'desk' arrives next Monday, if you remember we are moving to a new building and were to be homeless for a month or so while they readied the place for us. First day back and I have had I had two meetings already, have an all day 'training and professional development' day tomorrow, and a Department meeting Friday afternoon ....followed by another follow up meeting Monday morning. And that is not counting the meetings I have to organize with the people teaching on things I coordinate. There is some odd sort of balance in having so many meetings just when I don't have a desk to return to. Students arrive in less than two weeks .. and just on the edge of things there is a hint of rising panic about things being ready. They will be ready .. we have moved something like 5 times in 8 years ... we are 'good' and practiced at this, all will be fine (or so I keep whispering to myself in quiet moments)
I'm not entirely sure about this 'back to work' caper ... it does get in the way of my knitting, I am sure that tonight after reading over info for tomorrow I will be sitting down to knit.

My last day of 'not-being-at-work' was lovely, it included a frilly tea party. I baked and used the linen basket liner to hold shortbread. Yes it was a frilly party ....so daisy shortbread with blue sugar seemed in order.

I also frogged the two projects that were languishing in the work basket. I had long ago stopped fooling myself that I wanted to knit them ... but it took until yesterday to frog them. I sat on the front stoop and frogged, I offered Yo-yo the remnants, but she is a lady and far to civilised to frollic with my left over yarns. Both yarns were fuzzy .. and no matter how carefully I tried I could not undo the cast on.

And I am still in the thows of finishing up, so dug out the huge garter blanket and started edging it with i-cord. So far so good, I worked around about one quarter of it, which made me feel warm and good. At the Monday spinners catchup, there were deliveries of the latest Vintage Purls sock yarn kit .. and it is lovely, more about that in the next post ... so that might just dictate what is next on the needles.

take care .. I'm off to plough thru those readings for tomorrow ... and then knit some just to relax.

Stella

Back to the blanket - final touches

So today after waving good bye to BIL and very very loud nephew, well he seemed loud, older than my two and much much more boisterous. I sat down amidst the calm and quiet and lined the baby blanket. Today's post is all about that.


Gillian asked me line the blanket with woven fleecy cotton giving two very sensible reasons. First so the baby would not snag the floats with little sharp newborn fingernails, and second so the blanket would have some grip and not slide off in the wee small hours of the night. A real pro at mother-hood I suspect. I realise that my elaborate finishing of the steek is now hidden - but still have not come up with any nicer solution. I could have bound the blanket with the fleecy cotton, but it would have been bulky and probably suffered from 'differential shrinkage'* between the cotton and the wool and puckered.
I cut a lining in fleecy brushed cotton, about 6 cm larger than the fair isle centre section of the blanket. Then I pressed under just over a cm to neaten the edges and than about a 4 hem to make the lining sized to sit inside the ridge of the blanket edgeing. I mitred the corners and machine stitched the hem in place close to the fold line.



I pinned the blanket together at the corners, and evened out any extra length along the edges with pins. I suspect the edges have stretched somewhat with working the facing. Then I used a double strand of machine stitching thread, and mattress stitch or ladder stitched the lining to the 'bump' of the facing edge. A gentle tug and it pulled neatly into place. I used quite long stitches, as I wanted to keep the blanket edge flexible not pulled tight and stiff.







I pinned and worked each edge in turn, until meeting back up at the beginning. When finished you can just see the stitches, so the lining could be removed once the baby has grown. It does make the blanket almost quilted, much thicker and warmer. I have toyed with using a few lazy daisy stitches in the left over yarn to secure the backing to the blanket - but do worry they will snag the yarn floats.















and I just have to celebrate the i-cord edging with you, it works so well, such a resolved finish. I am very happy to know about that technique.



and here is a view of the right side and 'other' side corner - there is no way I could call this the wrong side. Delivery to Gillian is August 9-11th some time, and Baby is expected a week or so latter. I hemmed the left over fleecy cotton to make a matching wrap/sheet/spill cloth. You can never have to many of those when babies are about.


*Thats my textile scientist side showing - in the use of terms such as 'differential shrinkage'.

1 Zimmerman, 2 Zimmerman, 3 Zimmerman, a full house of Zimmerman

Today, not much knitting, a little post about the blanket edging, and some free stuff from work, but today its pretty much all about EZ.

ok, so I am a die-hard Zimmer-fan, a few years ago I discovered EZ, and her books. So after reading the first one, the Almanac, I succumbed and bought all the other ones I could find. A complete set - I had

• Knitters almanc
• Knitting workshop
• Knitting without tears
• Knitting around

My favorites were knitting workshop and the almanac. I reveled in the fact I had the complete EZ set, or so I thought.
Then earlier this year I discovered a new Zimmer-book, one that I didn't have. The regular newletters, the wool gatherings all collected up and published. But after nearly 8 years of continuous child care costs, my once economically robust pockets were far to shallow to buy it right away. Then this birthday - Bear asked if he could buy me a book, and the missing Zimmerman was requested. While away - Bear not only ordered the book, but discovered 2 dvd's which he thought I might like. So now I have a full house of Zimmerman.

I was a little surprised at first with the dvd's, I was worried that ten hours of watching an old lady knit (I know - she is THE old lady of knitting, but still an old lady talking about her knitting!), would be to much. That much as a fan of her writing, the act of watching paint dry, sorry knitting would be altogether to much. Well we watched an hour of the knitting glossary on saturday night, and am I hooked. Yes I know - thats like admitting reading a dictionary or encyclopedia is fun, I am a knitting geek, and what is worse I can think of at least 2 knit buddies who will want to borrow the dvd's. I just thought of my ez joke, when I get old I'll have a Zimmer-frame!

She is as current and dry and informative and practical in videos as in the books. And I watched 2.5 hours of the knitting workshop dvd on sunday morning and actually got to the bottom of the ironing pile! Well past all the stuff that you don't like or need so pretend to leave for the next ironing session. Who knew - watching knitting would be fun, and productive! And learning, did I learn new things, the finer points of knitting, things like how to actually do that hanging cast off, that the drawings make look like a regular cast off. How to do a Latvian braided cast on. Oh, and that my so called 'finish' purl is how EZ purled, but not at all how her daughter Meg purls. And I only got up to the C's. Just think whats left to discover!




Ok - so thats enough about new books and watching knitting videos, here is the edge on the baby blanket. I could only get one more ball of yarn in the same colour and batch, so the moss stitch edge isa little shy of 5cm. I though long and hard about the cast off edge and had planned a ribbed cast off, you know - k1,*p1, pass knit stitch over, k1, pass purl stitch over* repeat. But then tried a 3 stitch i-cord bind off, I thought it might be to bulky but no it wasn't. I cast on 3 extra stitches, *k2, ssk, slip 3 back onto left hand needle* - repeat. And it is perfect! Perfect I tell you, just perfect. The i-cord repeats the slight bump of the facings enclosing the steeks, and it is far more resolved than an ordinary bind off. I just hope I have enough yarn to go around ... cross fingers with me please. I have put an extra 3 rows of i-cord with no ssk in the corner, and that seems to make a nice sharpish point.

And here is the close up of the i-cord, and what I now realise is not moss stitch, but seed stitch. Moss stitch has the knits and purls repeated for two rows, and seed stitch they reverse every row.


And these, well they were used at work, to hold things for the knitting machines. And were about to be put in the skip as rubbish. How could I let that happen. These have a lovely 1950's "popular mechanics quality", all solid mdf and practial drawer and shelf storage-ness, with big solid castors. I asked if i could have them, promised to pay and was told just to take them. And so they are now installed in the kids rooms as portable toy storage. Look we have baby doll with her bath and bed bits together with a wooden house building system called woody click underneath. And Toby has construction toys of various types, Thunderbirds, transformers, lego, bionicals, kinex, and mobilo - all the building sets a boy of 8 could want in one place and so portable.

I had intended these storage units to be passed on to my Dad, who is a retired mechanic. So 'retired' in fact that he has collected around 12 vintage rotary hoes, and 5 vintage tractors, and built several large barn/garages to house them. I thought he would have much use for these, but then the kids saw them and there was no giving them away. Especially when they realised they could sit in them and have 'rides' around the house. Still the theory is that they can easily cart toys to either lounge and just as easily tidy up. Theories, so nice theories - they give us hope.