Not one,not two, but three FO's

This post is late, appears I didn't push the post button and the words sat unread in my ipad. Then discovering that i managed to delete the entire post, My apologies, and an rewrite. A long overdue update, today there are three finished objects, one startd in 2011 no less, one started last month ...truly the wip basket is feeling lighter.

First up a tam, or what I think of as The Tam, the only tammi have worked so far and most definitely not the last. I wish some one had told me how much fun it was to work the crown, how the decreases turn what is straight colour work into the most amazing kaleidoscope pattern, arrow heads become stars, angles become diamonds ... Things are mirrored and repeated to form patterns that look much more complex than they are to work. Truely the crown of a tam is exciting knitting, probably the most thrills for your yarn as could be achieved in any pattern.

Here is the pattern, a simple set of checkerboard triangles and mirrored angles with a stylized tree.

And look at the result - if I'd have known working the wrong was going to be so much fun I would have finished this ages ago. Although in truth what stopped me was making some decisions. I had workd my own pattern for the brim, based on a chart of dancing couples ... You might just see them holding hands paper doll style around the edge. on the top you can see their heads, torso and hands. They show up slightly clearer in the image above. And could't decide what to work on the crown. I headed of to ravelry and found Ruskins Notes Winter Forest Tam, which was already in my favorites and queue. I had a different stitch count but was blue to dither the crown chart and decreases to work by redrawing the chart slightly modified.

From one extreme to the other, this project was started and finished much quicker, a redux of Hope he never needs this. The first one was for elder cub, this one for Bear, made from the left overs. I like. Knowing that two skeins of sock yarn will make two revsible ribbed hats. Bear has a new job, one that involves more site work and more wearing of safety orange vests. I thought a hat that was orange on the inside, and more urban and dark grey on the outside was in order ... Besides knitting this helped to clear some of my stashed sock yarn left overs.

And last is a super quick and cute knitters study group project, colour work baby mitts. These used a knit up faced hem, with a purl turn row. I think these might become a wee addition to baby booties next time I knit some. Cute, quick and not to many of these out there ... Although I will add a cord to thread through a coat sleeve to prevent loss. The pattern called for the colour work to continue all over the mittens, in a diamond pattern. If I had been using sticky yarn I would have worked them that way, but I was using super wash sock yarn so worried the floats would be finger traps and more trouble than they were worth.
That almost brings me up to date with the missing post, just this weeks post to add ... But perhaps I'll leave that for another day. This week is hectic, little cub is choosing a high school, she is only year seven and still has a year and a half to go but ....we want the decision to be an informed one. There are four schools on the possible list, two more likely than the rest but we have to visit all. That means Sunday afternoon was gone visiting one, this evening, tomorrow and the day after all taken by more school visits and open days. Elder cub choose to look at boys only schools, younger cub seems to want co-ed or girls only schools, so none of the prep work we did for him helps us here. With all that out and about eah night there won't be much knitting here till at least Thursday.
Tak care,
Na Stella

Posted with Blogsy

New project - old project, both going well

Yes, a new project, and one that has been lingering on the needles has been 'reactivated', although I might have stalled on that one again. Interesting invites at work, and lovely things in the mail box. Things I knew about (as in I have ordered), and things that I didn't know about and were surprise gifts.


First the new project, because that is how it is, new stuff just seems to get more shelf space. I knew the next sock project after Bears Bunker socks would have to use my handspun sock yarn, and that I wanted something that didn't involve being welded to a knitting chart. Not mindless but memorable, not boring but portable. The sock yarn had been calling me, it was handspun earlier this year using a new product, Vintage Purls Sock pencil roving, a super wash merino blend with 25% nylon to withstand the rigors of sock life. The 100g of pencil roving spun up into 420m - pretty much perfect for a sock yarn. After a bit of to-ing and froe-ing with my Barbara Walker treasuries I settled on a round mock cable, worked with traveling stitches. I'm working on my standard 2.25mm sock needles, and so far it is working up nicely.


So nicely in fact that I'm already up to the gusset increases. I'd have to say that the yarn knitted looks 'handspun' but knitted looks surprisingly even. And I'm loving the way the colour changes are resulting n stripes unlike any that you would get with a dyed-in-the yarn yarn. I briefly thought this should be for the youngest cub, with her pink and purple preferences, but nah - its for me!

The 'other' project on the needles, a colour work tam, started way back in January of this year (and its now September!) finally made its way out of the project basket and into my hands. I sat down and knit the wee people I had charted out. Now I was totally inspired by Kate Davies Paper Dolls and used the idea of paper dolls as a starting point. I found a chart for girls and boys holding hands, in McGregor's Traditional Scandinavian Knitting on page 99. I charted this out way back at the beginning of the year to use the Shetland yarns I had bought while in Shetland - and realize it has been a whole year since then. I keep looking at this and wanting to show anyone who is around my 'little people' !

Instead of working the dancing couples in one colour I worked mine in several colours like the Fair Isle colour work but I kept the background unchanged. As I worked the wee people I made minor modifications to what I had charted. Sometimes what is planned doesn't work as well as imagined and needs tweaking. I went for a darker colour for the little sweaters and for the faces than I had originally planned - just to get more contrast. I've marked my changes in pencil on the graph but will rework the chart once I decide what to do with the crown. That is my sticking point right now, as I'm looking for something in keeping with the little dancing people.


During the week a few parcels arrived at home, one is tucked away for eldest cubs Christmas - its a 1940's USA vintage plane spotting manual from ebay that fits well with his current interest of all things to do with WWII aircraft. I just hope I remember that I've bought it and where I've hidden it when Christmas finally comes. The next was a book that I ordered, Shaping Sustainable Fashion edited by Alison Gwilt and Timo Rissanen. This is fantastic, I was lent it by a colleague and by the end of the first day had placed an order for my own copy. Finally a book that goes beyond the green-message of that we have to do 'something' but fails to say what that could be. Shaping Sustainable Fashion is divided into four sections - source, make, use and last. In each a variety of workable options are reviewed and balanced up. Finally - there was a wonderful surprise in my letter box from J, a Peruvian Spindle and pencil cases. Shown is mine, the cubs have theirs in use, and Bear had a packet of McIlhenny Co Hot Cinnamon Candies with Tabasco which he shared but the littlest cub found far to hot and spicy! The pencil cases amaze me, the embroidery is a straight stitch machine and free form, and the effect is spectacular considering the utilitarian nature of the equipment used. I want to take this to work and show everyone what can be done with a simple sewing machine and reinforce that complex embroidery machines and computer control systems are not the only solution.

And I have been spinning, but its all blue grey and looks the same ...so I'll spare you more photos of blue grey singles on the bobbin.

na Stella

Winter brings many things....

Cold, snow, wet, wild weather, blustery days. dark nights, - and crisp clear icy mornings, with clear cold-as bright sunny days to follow. Winter also brings sniffles, and colds and blocked noses and sore throats. Winter brought me all of these things this week, the snow and the head cold.
Last post I was wondering if the snow would last, it did - Monday was a snow day, no work for me - the snow had come to stay. there were no buses running, and if the buses are not traveling on my road - well I figure it is not safe for me to drive on the roads. On would think with a week between posts that there would be lots to report ... but no. Today I can update what is on my needles, in my head-cold misery I went looking for something interesting to knit. You know, something that would be so interesting that I would forget that I had a cold and the knitting would just fly. I didn't quite find a project like that but I did make some progress on a project that has almost been forgotten, and tiny progress on the current sock-on-the-needles. Smallest cub has been more prolific with her knitting than I have, and there was snow ..... lots of snow - well 'lots' for here.


Earlier this year I started a Tam, something inspired by lots of colour-work Tams I had seen, but of my own design. I was all excited at using the Shetland two ply, and seeing all the lovely colours working together. Some where along the line I was distracted by other things on the needles, occasionally I would pic this up but I just couldn't find my place in the chart easily. This past week I settled in to make sense of where I was - and discovered I had mucked up the repeats at some point. I tinked back a round and tried again, no joy, I tinked another round, and then frogged back to the ribbing and started again. This time it all lined up and went as charted. I kept going over a few nights until I had finished that chart ... I didn't want to abandon it again and forget where I was all over again next time.

Last weekend I took my Owls up to dads to knit, smallest bear sat beside me and wistfully reminded me she had forgotten to bring her knitting. I was strong, I was traveling light and I didn't have a spare project with me, and although I felt guilty I resisted handing over my knitting to her but instead made conversation along the lines of 'well, I'll have to remind Dad next time to check you have packed everything'. I wasn't there when she packed, and she had the essentials, toothbrush and pj's, but not her knitting or her iPod. Poor thing. Still - as smallest cub sat beside me looking at the pattern chart for Double, her little mind was working things out. Her first real pattern project was a dishcloth worked with written instructions, but she sat and said 'Oooo, is that another way to write a pattern?' I said yes, and Small-Cub said 'do you knit the black squares with one colour and the light squares sith another colour?'. I said yes ... and there followed a conversation about how she was clever to work that out and yes she could knit something with Owls on it once we were back at home.

Back at home the Owls promise was remembered, and we cruised Ravelry looking for something with Owls. Hoot took her fancy and I showed her how to C4B and C4F. These are the first four Owls, and of course she had to wash and then Block them into the right shape, her idea not mine. This girl has clearly been hanging around knitters far too much. I showed her how to weave in ends and stitch on button eyes on the first one and after that she was on her own.

All the other Owls have been given away to visiting friends this week, so only two remain at home. I guess they migrated to new homes and flew the nest?

Bears new sock grows slowly, only because I've been sitting and drifting off into a world where I imagine no head cold more than I have been knitting lately.


And snow, now in the wider world this isn't enough snow to interrupt life. There are parts of the world where more snow than this falls and stays, and builds up, but in those places there are plans and systems in place to allow life to continue, snow plows, and snow shovels. This was the snow last Monday, and it kept snowing all day ... down to sea level which is unusual as often only the hill suburbs get a light dusting and the flat areas nothing at all. There were no buses running all day Monday, and and the police suggested essential travel only. Work like many other places in Dunedin was closed for the day, which meant I got to stay home, warm and dry and admire my snowflake-gate in a white setting. This gate has been getting admiring comments from lots of visitors this week, which I must pass on to the artists who created it.

Last post I forgot to identify a pattern, so the Grey shawl last week, it is Fountain Pen shawl by Susan Lawrence. I am snuggling it around my neck as I write.

take care
Stella

Not much to show ...

I've been knitting round and round in grey, and working on a chart for my colour-work tam. I did finish spinning 100g of dyed Perendale. Our students arrived back this week, and today all the staff teaching in Fashion gave a mini Pecha Kucha, 10 slides each lecturer and 20 seconds to talk each about each slide. I made sure most of mine were about knitting. Then all our fashion students from all years of the programs are given a three day Project runway style team project. Three times I was asked if I 'happen to have any knitting needles' ? Score!

When I knit things using other peoples patterns - the process is straightforward. I select a pattern, and some yarn, think about colours and go for it. Oh - with me there are usually little changes where I make it differently, or big changes ... but the process is quick. When I knit things that I 'design' - the process is a whole lot different. First there is the research, the stage where I seem to spend a lot of time looking and recording ideas and options and possible directions, and think about all that I find. Then the process transitions to one of planning, and experimentation, and testing, and deciding .. and all that takes time. Since my last post I have been looking at motifs that could be used in my Tam, I've been looking at Tams, and hats and colour work, I've been looking at all sorts of colour combinations and what sorts of arrangements of colours look best to me - and I've been thinking about why they look best. The Lecturer in me asks the question : "What makes it work?". So there has been a lot of dealing with knitting, but really only a few rounds knit. But I'm ready to start, I think I have a design that will work with the colours I have and look good ... only time and knitting will tell. I felt like a student this time, as the knitters study group meets on Saturday ... for the second workshop on knitting a Tam, and I had only completed my ribbing.

Which leaves only the spinning, this once was a hand dyed roving of perindale ... now it is a 100g of singles ready to ply. The next stage is to wind this into a center pull ball, after it has sat for a few days to relax. My plan is to ply from both ends of the centre pull ball so I get a 2ply yarn, and after that I'm not so sure .....I really should be knitting what I spin, as I do enjoy knitting with handspun.

Oh and if you are looking for a good read, check out Vanda Symons latest book, Bound, it has only been out just over a week and is already at the top of the New Zealand Adult Fiction bestseller list! I can't tell you how it ends .. 'cause I've not finished it yet.

so .. perhaps I will have more to report next post?
Until then, happy knitting
na Stella

Knit, frog, knit, tink, knit, frog, knit, frog some more ...

That, my online friends is an accurate report of the weeks knitting. True to the blogs name there has indeed been far more frogging than knitting this week, and yet oddly I felt confident to start a new lace project ... and there was a new Vintage Purls Sock yarn club kit. The important part of that sentence is yarn, as in the club kits are no longer all about sock patterns but have extended excitingly into patterns that can be knit with sock yarn but are not socks. I understand there will be at least one sock pattern .. for the die hard sock knitters in her fan base.

So, today, the frog report, remember when a frog report was a fairly frequent part of every post, and the knit report, the new project introduction, and the planning of the Fair Isle Tam.

Frogging, and sometimes Tinking, was the major knit activity this week. Following last weeks post I did completely frog the blue lace band of the Sheltland yarn blanket, that was the easy task. I frogged straight onto a nostepinne, seemed a sensible move as I planned to knit it straight back up again.

Post frogging, the stitches sat waiting for me to slide them back onto the needle. I do like this shetland yarn, slightly sticky so it behaves it self, no stitches disappearing into themselves and running away.

But it was not so simple, I some how snagged one of the corners and could not drop down a few stitches and repair the damage. This was the garter stitch section where I had knit with two yarns to avoid purling, and the corner was where the two yarns were twisted together. Dropping down and picking up and understanding how the yarns worked up the corner, interlaced with each other and then worked away from the corner, well, that was apparently beyond me.

The ten or twelve rows I tried to drop stitches down and knit back up got increasingly more muddily and less like the other corners, the more times I tried, the more of a mess I made, so I frogged back a few more rows, until the corner was neat and started to finish the grey section again. Some times there is nothing else that will work but work it properly.

All that happened before Thursday, so when Thursday night came around, knit night I was at a loss about what to take to knit. I had no made much progress on a chart for my Fair Isle Tam, and I didn't want to risk mucking up the blanket any more. So I did what any sane knitter would do, 15 minutes before being due at knit night ... I opened Ravelry and hunted down a pattern. I wanted to knit a quick lace cover that smallest bear could use to tidy up her ballet bun. I found a Lace Luncheon Mat and printed it and grabbed pink linen and needles as I ran out the door. Appart from the fact it is going to be twice the size I need ... it is a good choice. Now I just need to frog it and knit it on much smaller needles ......

The tam is a knitters study project, and the second and last class is next weekend. That sort of put a little bit of urgency into sorting a chart. Inspired by Kate Davies and Spilly Jane, I am working towards a cute tam, not really fair isle but pretty and pictorial. I've assembled an assortment of knitting motifs from my knit books, and made a start. For now all I'm sure of is that there will be a couple holding hands .. and possibly a cat, or dog, or fox, or hearts .. or something equally twee. And no, they won't be knit in golden yellow, that is just the colour pencil that came to hand. Once I've planned to layout I will play with colours.

And the recent highlight of the stash was the addition of the first of 3 sock yarn kits from Vintage Purls. As usual a lovely colour and an amazing pattern, I might just use that lace to edge the Shetland yarn shawl. And of course there was chocolate, two kinds, dark my favorite and milk which is a favorite for sharing. Yarn, new pattern and lace, it really doesn't take much to brighten my week.

so .. I hope your week past and ahead has significantly less frogging and tinking than mine, and that some one does something nice for you on Valentines ..... there is already a nice pen here for me (more about that next post), and I've been making heart shaped pita breads for the cubs lunch boxes.

na Stella

Sometimes when something is finished ...

I almost can't believe that I made it. Especially when the 'something' is a project that wasn't particularly planed in full before it began. Today there are finished blocking photos of one of those kinds of projects, the Linen basket liner, and I introduce a new project - colour-work. Every time I start knitting colour-work .. I wonder why I don't knit more of it, and this time I'm knitting in Shetland yarn, and I love it, for lots of reason.

First up, the finished Linen Basket liner project, well I'm calling it that but really it will be used to line bowls, the deep pottery kind that I toss warm bread buns and muffins into when serving. Or toast, or croissants, or bagels, or fruit toast ... or, well you know those sorts of bakery things that are best served fresh and warm. I'm so pleased with this, there are a few things that I would change if I was to knit it again, I think the outer pattern of horse-lace really needs another repeat around as it was a bit stretched when I blocked it. Once I started working the edging I was hooked, seeing each repeat cast of another section of the work was addictive. I neglected my other knitting projects (and some household chores) to sit and knit. I took it and its chart to the local school playground while supervising play, I chose meals that were almost instant and had almost no clean up, I made choices that maximized my knitting time - just to have it done. The edging I chose was the Traditional Scalloped Edging from page 54 of Sharon Millers Heirloom Knitting. The middle band was 3 repeats of Horse shoe from page 67 of the same book, but I increased 2 stitches each 'horse-shoe' each repeat to allow for the increasing diameter. That worked really well.

Then I 'threw' it in the washing machine, on a fairly heavy duty wash, this is linen and I know from linen tea towels that linen matures with a few washes. It softens and relaxes and becomes unbelievably nice to handle ... so I made up for the relaxed attitude to housework by tossing in all the dirty washing that needed doing. Then I pined it out, I used a tape measure pined at the center to make sure I was pinning all the points equidistant. I pinned the quarters first, then the midpoints between those, then the midpoints between that, and so on. I left it to dry overnight. I kept finding excuses to walk past the blocking board and admire it, this project impresses me, I love that I have knit it, love I have finished it, love I can use it, and love that I 'made-it-up' rather than worked to a predetermined pattern. At the same time I almost can't believe that the scrunched up bunch of loops on my needles has turned into this.

This morning it was pretty much dry, but I've popped it out in the sun .... just to set and finalize the blocking. Latter I'll carefully remove the pins and polish it with a hot iron. I know linen fabric likes a hot iron polish, so assume that linen knitting would like the same.

With that all done, and blocking I returned to one of my 'other' lace projects, the replacement blanket. This is for me, I suspect it will become a kind of hap-shawl, something to wrap around me when I'm at home and cold. I had frogged the first carefully planned and charted lace and selected another. This lace feels like a better match for the yarn and colour and gauge. I am finding most of my 'lace' in Sharon Miller's book at the moment, this time Center Design of Bead Lozenges from page 55.

And the newest project, is a colourwork tam. I'm working with my little stash of shetland 2 ply that I brought back, and loving it. In New Zealand - home of sheep, it is surprisingly difficult to source yarn for colourwork. In retail shops there is usually a selection including a blue, a red, an orange, a green, a yellow, a pink, a cream, and a white, perhaps sometimes a black or a purple - but pretty much the standard colours that are in 12 set of colouring pencils. To top that off, the most stocked weigh of yarn in shops here is DK, or something between Aran and Worsted - hardly a colourwork wonderland. You can buy a skein at a time .. from Indie dyers, but have to have forsight to collect over time colours that will work together. I lusted after the huge range of shades that was available in ranges specifically designed for colourwork. Then when I got to choose - it was almost too much .. but I'm happy with the colours I brought back and have made a start on a Tam. I-cord followed by corrugated rib with the knits shading from purple to pale grey ... I like it so far. This is part of the Knitters Study Group project, and in 5 weeks I need to have this at the stage of decreasing for the crown ... somehow I don't think that will be a problem.

There are a couple of other abandoned projects, true UFO's lurking in my knit basket. Both of which are going to be frogged this week. The latest Piecework arrived, and I like the Snowflake scarf in that much more than the one I'm knitting so that seems to be a sign to stop knitting something I don't enjoy and start again with something more tempting.

So .. I guess that I should go a bake something to fill my linen basket liner with?
Take care
Stella