Tag Archives: Knit

Cables without a cable needle

Posted on September 28, 2008 | 10 comments

I was perfectly happy making cables with a cable hook. I’ve been doing it that way for 30 years! But Saturday morning I was ready to try something new. I poked around the web and found Grumperina’s tutorial, and it worked pretty well. But there was a point in the process where it felt like it might all go kerflooey if I had a klutz moment. I figured practice would make perfect, and I successfully completed four out of four cable crosses. But I was still a bit uneasy.

When I was at OFFF, Chris Was showing me her current cabley project, and I asked her if she uses a cable needle. Nope. So she showed me the way she does it. I love it! So much that I had to take pictures of the process. Here I am, ready to make a six stitch cable, left over right (cable needle would go to the back, if I were using one). Yarn in back, since the cable will be made with knit stitches.

Insert the right needle tip into the second set of three stitches.

Pinch the six stitches at their base. Slide the left needle out of the six stitches. (The right needle is still in the second set of three stitches.)

Insert the left needle into the first three stitches (the ones hanging out without a needle!), and then slip the three slipped stitches from the right needle back onto the left needle. (All stitches are slipped purlwise.)

All positioned and ready to knit!

Knit, and voila! A completed cable. I never felt like I was going to drop any stitches.

For a cable that twists in the other direction (cable needle would be held in front), the right needle would be inserted into the second set of thee stitches from the back side of the knitting.

Again, pinch the stitches at their base, slide out the left needle. Insert the left needle into the first three stitches (the ones hanging out without a needle), and then slip the three slipped stitches from the right needle back onto the left needle. (All stitches are slipped purlwise.)

Easy as pie!

And as promised, here’s the shawl pin I bought from Toolman! It’s all bubinga; the light color of the leaf is from applying heat. Gorgeous, n’est-ce-pas?

Here’s a closeup of the leaf.

It’s for my Shetland Triangle, which you can see under it. I love it!

10 Comments

Posted in Knit

Tagged cable wthout cable needle, central park hoodie, Knit

Oregon Flock and Fiber…Overload!

Posted on September 27, 2008 | 7 comments

Wow. I’d never seen so much fiber in one place! Mostly animal, some still on the hoof, all gorgeous! It was a perfect autumn day. The Clackamas County Fairground was a sea of fiber-related booths, inside the buildings and outside on the lawn.

The PDXKnitbloggers were out in force, with lots of knitting, and spinning wheels, too. (That’s my Central Park Hoodie in the foreground.)

KnittedWit‘s booth was a riot of color! And e was sleeping like, well, a baby…

Deb bought this sweet angora bunny. Two months old, 1/4 French, 3/4 German angora. Soooo soft!

I was quite restrained, and only bought a wooden shawl pin. I’ll have to show you in my next post, because I didn’t take a picture of it in daylight. It’s worth the wait! I bought it from Toolman, DH of TiggywinkleKnits. It’s made of bubinga. The drop spindles were calling my name, but I don’t really want *another* hobby; I’m trying to keep up with the ones I have!

I met up with Michelle; we first met at the February Lady Sweater knitalong at Twisted. She’s almost done with her sweater; I was wearing mine. They’re similar colors, both Dream in Color Classy. My colorway is Night Watch, hers is Deep Seaflower, a little more green and purple. But the funny part was when I pulled out my Central Park Hoodie to knit. Her sweater and yarn are pictured on the left, mine on the right.

Micheles/Michelles think alike!

That’s it for tonight, more in a bit!

7 Comments

Posted in Knit, ravelry

Tagged Knit, Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival

A quickie

Posted on September 24, 2008 | 6 comments

Project, that is. Green mitts!

The Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival is this weekend in Canby, and I’m planning to go down on Saturday as a first-timer. Knitted Wit will be selling her gorgeous hand-dyed yarns there, and she’ll also be selling my patterns. I’m knitting a sample project for her booth with her yarn and one of my free patterns, the chunky piano mitts. They work up really quickly! Each one of these takes me about an hour and a half. I love this yarn; it’s a smooth plyed wool and it feels great to knit with it. The color is actually much more vibrant than this; I just can’t capture it with my camera.

Of course, I can never do the exact same thing twice, so I played with the thumb gore increases. The one on the left is increased by knitting into the stitch below, and the one on the right is a paired m1 lifted increase (this side leans right, other side of thumb leans left). I like the mitt on the left better because it’s smooth instead of stair stepped, but that’s the one I made second.

And since there was some yarn left, I started another freebie of mine, Baba’s Bed Socks. The pattern calls for two strands of Wool-Ease (light worsted) but this chunky yarn makes a fine substitute. Free patterns are available on the sidebar of this blog. It’s kind of fun revisiting my old patterns; it’s like visiting old friends.

Hope to see you at OFFF!

6 Comments

Posted in Knit

Tagged Baba's Bed Socks, chunky yarn, fingerless mitts, Knit, Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival

Adventures in blocking

Posted on September 21, 2008 | 14 comments

It’s fall, as of yesterday. Time to take off the ankle bracelet. Time to put on jeans and real shoes. Time to wash and block the February Lady!

I’ve been dreading blocking this sweater because of all the stories I’d read on Ravelry about this yarn, Dream in Color Classy, growing. But I couldn’t wear it without washing it because it was full of excess dye that I didn’t want on my clothes. I ran it through a short warm cycle in a zippered pillowcase in the washing machine with Brown Sheep wool wash and some vinegar to set the dye last night. When I took it out, it was enormous! It had grown to 1.5 times its length, and at least twice its width. And the fabric felt very, very thin. I was freaking out. But the ball band did say machine wash, lay flat or machine dry. It was time for the leap of faith.

I put it in the dryer for 20 minutes. Still damp. Still all stretchy looking. Another 20 minutes. My dryer cools down towards the end of the cycle, so it was still dampish. I laid the poor bedraggled thing out on a towel and patted it into shape to dry overnight. It was still pretty waffly.

This morning I checked it, and it was still a bit damp. I still really wanted to wear it, so back into the dryer it went. And it came out the same size it had been before I washed it. A miracle! The yarn did lose a lot of fuzz in the dryer, and it’s a little fuzzier than it was before I blocked it. I wore it this morning, and it grew about 1.5 inches in length during the day. Here it is:

And here’s a closer view of the lace:

I don’t know if I’d use this yarn again. It’s so gorgeous, and it smells great (even after washing), but it’s so nerve wracking blocking it! And if it’s going to require machine drying to make it pop back to size, I wish it didn’t make it fuzzy…

But it’s done, and cozy and wearable. On to the Central Park Hoodie!

14 Comments

Posted in Knit, ravelry

Tagged blocking, february lady, Knit

Knittylocks and the three starts

Posted on September 18, 2008 | 9 comments

Once upon a time, there was a knitter named Knittylocks. She believed fervently in the value of swatching, and dutifully made gauge swatches for each project. Except washcloths. (I mean, really.)

She decided to knit a Central Park Hoodie. She swatched a 40 stitch, multi-row swatch with US size 8 needles. (No tiny gauge swatches for her, no way. Been there, done that, paid the price.) 4 stitches per inch. Too big. She swatched with US size 7 needles. 4.25 stitches per inch. Just right. Onward!

She cast on the 94 stitches for the back of the hoodie, and knit 4 inches of ribbing on size 5 needles before switching to the 7 for the body. After 16 rows, she had an uneasy feeling. It looked small. Sure, it could be blocked severely to the required dimensions, but the fabric felt a bit stiff, too. And so she measured. 5 stitches per inch. Too small. Ouch.

Undaunted, she moved up two needle sizes (because one never makes too much difference), and cast on again. After four inches of ribbing on size 7 needles, and 16 rows on size 9, she had that uneasy feeling again. The fabric looked loosey-goosey. And so she measured. 4 stitches per inch. Too big. Ouch. (There’s not even a picture of this one.)

Now Knittylocks was beginning to get crabby. She ripped out version 2, and cast on a third time. Three’s a magic number, right? Four inches of ribbing on size 6 needles, and 16 rows on size 8. 4.25 stitches per inch. Just right! And so she lived happily ever after. Or at least so far.

That’s one evening’s knitting in the picture above. Think how far along Knittylocks would be if she had been on gauge the first time?

Gauge makes me crazy. It’s not just the size of the needle that makes my gauge. It’s how tight or loose I’m carrying the yarn on the needles. That can vary from day to day, or how I did the ribbing before I got to the pattern section. I think the size 7 start felt tight on the needles the whole time, tighter than the gauge swatch. And then when I started on 9’s, I was trying to be relaxed, but was too relaxed. Stitches were falling off the needles. The 8’s are the right size for a not too tight, not too loose feeling on the needles. Now why did it take so long to get there?

Here are starts 1 and 3 for comparison. Note the widths.

But all is well now. Knit on!

9 Comments

Posted in Knit

Tagged central park hoodie, gauge, Knit

Tiny Hats

Posted on September 15, 2008 | 4 comments

I saw a request for Tiny Hats on the Mason-Dixon knitting blog last week. Apparently, Innocent Drinks, a company in the UK, is asking knitters for 500,000 tiny knitted hats to put on their smoothie bottles. For each be-hatted smoothie that they sell, they and Sainsbury (a grocery chain) will donate 50 pence to Age Concern, an organization that raises money to help senior citizens keep their heat on during the winter. Last year they gave over £200,000 to Age Concern.

Kay Gardiner of Mason-Dixon Knitting wants to be a part of it, and so do I. She’s collecting hats to send in a mass mailing of yarny goodness to the UK. Some of my fellow knit-niters are up for the fun, too.

This is the first hat I made this weekend:

I used Innocent’s pattern but tweaked it (of course) to knit in the round. No seams for me, not even on a 28 stitch 16 row hat. Cute! It took about 20 minutes. I made two more with different motifs, but I can’t take pictures until tomorrow in the daylight.

Good night!

4 Comments

Posted in Knit

Tagged Knit, tiny hat

It’s all about purple…

Posted on September 10, 2008 | 9 comments

Remember how summer was all about blue for me? Blueberries, blue February Lady sweater, blue hydrangeas? And a little pink: Josephine, and the pink February Baby sweater.

New season, new color. Now it’s all about purple. Makes sense; blue + pink = purple!

Here’s what I’ve been working on: purple plums. Or technically, Italian prunes. I picked these at Vickie’s house when I was at her block party on Saturday. Kind of blue purple, but purple nonetheless.

I made them into two batches of jam. It’s funny how it’s red purple after processing, especially since the flesh of the fruit is yellow and the skin is blue! I used MCP pectin, which comes with a simpler recipe than the Sure-Jell variety. (No pre-cooking the plum mixture.) I know you can make jam without purchased pectin, but that would take a lot longer, and I’ve been using this process for years. Now I have 20 jars of plum jam, a taste of summer all winter long. And it’s great for gifts, too.

I rode my bike over to Twisted this afternoon to buy this yarn. It’s Louet Riverstone worsted; the color is eggplant. It’s a red purple, although I tend to think of eggplant as blue purple, like the plums in the first picture.

The yarn is for the Central Park Hoodie, which is the next knitalong at Twisted. It was my favorite out of the items up for vote, so how could I not make it? I voted for it! I admit that I may have been swayed by TurtleGirl’s CPH.

I’ll be swatching tonight at Knit Nite.

And since there’s just a bit of summer left, I’m using the leftovers from the blue February Lady sweater, and playing with the idea of a gull wing lace fingerless mitt. Besides, purple has blue in it, right? I’m transitioning!

9 Comments

Posted in Knit, pattern design

Tagged central park hoodie, jam, Knit, plums

Button, button, who has the button?

Posted on September 4, 2008 | 7 comments

I do!

Aren’t they gorgeous?

I went on a field trip today to Button Emporium. Apparently they’ve been there for 11 years, and I didn’t know. But now I’m telling you, so if you’re in PDX you need to go yourself! And if you’re not in PDX, visit their web site. It’s actually Button Emporium and Ribbonry, and they definitely have both. I had a lot of possible button choices for the Lady sweater, but when THE ONE popped up and grabbed me, I just knew.

I’m on the home stretch. And with these buttons waiting to be sewn on, I’m racing to the end!

7 Comments

Posted in Knit

Tagged buttons, february lady sweater, Knit

February Lady is done! Or not…

Posted on September 4, 2008 | 4 comments

I haven’t decided yet.

After all that talk about edgings, I just couldn’t find a sleeve length that made me happy. Turns out that the width below the elbow was making me unhappy, too. I tried decreasing within the lace without leaving a stockinette stitch swath down the arm, but it became clear to me that it could only lead to madness. Mine. So I ripped again, and just decreased one stitch out of each lace repeat when I started the garter stitch edge. Much better.

And the bind off? The purl bind off made it too curly toward the inside; the edges didn’t look crisp. Back to the knit bind off. Funny how the purl looked right on the baby sweater, but not on this. Live and learn.

So am I done? I have to decide if it wants to be a bit longer. But I’d have to put on jeans to know. I haven’t worn jeans all summer. And I had a really great vacation, full of food and fun. Hmmm. The Ravelry Knitters who meet at Lloyd Center for lunch on Wednesdays think it looks fine, right now. Weave in the ends and move on. Tempting. But I just have to see…

And I still need buttons. I’m headed to Button Emporium this afternoon. So I’m not really done, anyway.

What’s taking so long? Work is busy this week; September is always a new beginning. And I’ve been pretty distracted at home, compiling a photo book gift on Shutterfly. I love this company; the quality of their products is great. They make it easy to share pictures, even if I’m not buying anything. But this week I’ve been wading through 1100 (!) pictures trying to tell a story, and I finally ordered the finished product last night.

Now I can get back to knitting…

eta: I tried it on with jeans, and it needs to be just a bit longer. Back on the needles! Speaking of which, guess which needle I *didn’t* use on the sleeves? This sweater will definitely need a wash before I wear it!

4 Comments

Posted in Knit, ravelry

Tagged february lady, Knit

A little help from our friends…

Posted on August 29, 2008 | 5 comments

Who doesn’t need a little help sometimes?

It’s crunch time at Sharon’s house. Her daughter is leaving for college this weekend, and the longtime UFO (unfinished object) needs to be finished so it can go with her! I had offered to knit the i-cord handles for her; one of them came with me on vacation, but the second had to wait for a yarn infusion, so I knit it last week when I came home. Yesterday, I felted the bag for her.

I love how this bag turned out. Sharon is a genius with color. I wish I had taken a picture before I felted it, but yesterday was a bit crunchy here, too, between work and a meeting last night. There’s a picture of it in this previous post, unfinished; you can get an idea of how much it shrank. I opted for firm but not too tight. If Sharon would like it to be stiffer, it can go back in the washer for a bit more time. There’s a fine line there; the colors wouldn’t be quite as brilliant if it were felted down a lot more. Voice of experience; I’ve made at least four of them! I’ve lost count…

Who’s Zooming who(m)?

I just got an early birthday present. It’s a digital recorder, the Zoom H2.

My new laptop doesn’t record piano as well as my old one did, but my old one takes 10 minutes to fully boot up, and the hard drive is nearly full. I’ve been wanting a Zoom for a while (they’re highly recommended on the piano forums), and a birthday is a perfect opportunity. It will be great for recording piano for online recitals, practice feedback, and Kid2’s school concerts. Also, I sing with a group of friends; it’s guitar and mandolin and a lot of fun. We’re the Day Old Pastries, a bit crusty but fresh enough! We’re getting together this evening, and it will be instructive to know what we really sound like, since we’re playing on Sunday!

I dinked around with the Zoom last night, and it’s easy to set up, easy to use. I listened to playback, and it’s really clear. Thumbs up!

5 Comments

Posted in Day Old Pastries, Knit, music, piano, Uncategorized

Tagged entrelac, felting, Knit, Zoom H2