When you want a snack, but you don’t want orange dust on your knitting, chopsticks are the perfect snack tool. Just sayin’.
Dropped stitch, oops!
I tried a different brioche 4 stitch decrease on this project. It’s a lot faster. But it’s also prone to dropped stitches, so I’m not going to recommend it. Which means I don’t have to make a video tutorial after all! My tried and true slowpoke method is a better choice for me.
In case you’re daring and want to try this one: Slip 3 stitches as if to knit 3 together. Knit the next two stitches together. Pass the 3 stitches back over the k2tog. (Don’t forget to pass the yarn overs along with the stitches when slipping/knitting/passing.) That’s it! But I found 3 dropped stitches in that round, so I won’t be doing that again.
I did manage to fix the dropped stitches, and I just finished binding off. Now it’s soaking. Looking forward to seeing how much this grows (I hope) with blocking!
As I said in the previous post, yarn still surprises me.
This is where I left you in the last post. The further I knit, the more the ribbing biased. I think it’s because this yarn is a single ply, rather than a plied yarn. It wanted to lean hard to the right. I didn’t have another project going, so I soldiered on, figuring it would block out…or not. A science experiment!
Fresh off the needles. Quite a lean, and also a loose column at the beginning of the round.
The front was quite askew, and the the leaf pattern was wonky at the bottom, too. Place your bets!
Blocking is magic. This project is essentially a big swatch. It’s longer than I want it to be, but it’s the right general idea. I did some math, and I’ll knit another one. Remember, as a designer I make the mistakes so you don’t have to!
I’ve been knitting outdoors all week; the weather has been spectacular. Not too hot.
The hydrangea is coming into glory; it’s going to be a big year for these blooms.
I’ve been reading while I knit; it keeps me on task. I highly recommend Things Past Telling by Sheila Williams (I also read her Dancing on the Edge of the Roof which was good, but not as good as Things Past Telling). I also read The Paris Novel by Ruth Reichl; her descriptions of food are incredible. I just finished First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston…so twisty! I enjoyed all of these. Now I’m starting Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible. Our library system uses Libby, and I read all these as e-books on my kindle.
Well, I didn’t manage to knit in public on Worldwide Knit/Craft in Public Day, but I did knit at a baseball game last Thursday. I’ll knit anywhere, on MY schedule. That piece of knitting has since been frogged; I decided I wanted it to be narrower. Each cast on is a swatch, until it’s not!
The previous cast on went along for quite a while until I realized that I made a math error on the decrease shaping. Along the way I decided to flip it from bottom up to top down because increases are prettier than decreases, and I’d start with fewer stitches. Bonus! That’s what I was experimenting with at the baseball game.
Marine Drive, Columbia River
No knitting while bicycling! DH and I went on a bike ride along the Columbia River. We had great views of the river, birds, Mount Hood (see it at the top of the picture?). This is an urban ride on a path alongside Marine Drive, which is very busy! I’m glad we could be off the road for most of it.
Fundraiser for Parkinson’s support
We’re participating in a fundraiser for Parkinson’s Resources of Oregon this month. DH was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease last year (early, mild symptoms, doing great). Parkinson’s Resources of Oregon has very helpful programs including informational seminars, activities, and support groups. If you’d like to donate, here’s my link. Thanks for considering it! And here’s a link to DH’s Parkinson’s blog, if you’re interested.
We’re making the most of a string of perfect summer days. Not too hot, not too cool. I hope your weather and knitting are…perfect!
I worked very hard at not working on my current design project during the week before I went to the coast. I wanted to have an established work in progress so I could be sociable while I knit.
Fan stitch
I want to combine brioche and assigned pooling, two of my favorite types of knitting! I was planning to use a V’d stitch like in Fanfare. In my imagination, they’d be airier because there would be the brioche purl stitches between the knit stitches, and I was going to dip down and out to the side to make upside down Vs. But I found out pretty quickly that it would not be very much fun to make those Vs if the pooling color happened on the wrong side of the fabric. I need a pooling stitch that will work on both right and wrong sides. And it needs to fit into the rhythm of brioche.
I used brioche increases to make my Vs instead. So sweet! I set the project aside, ready to knit at the coast.
It took 70 rows of coastal knitting, but I finally realized: All of those cute stitches *really were* increases, and they were going to throw off my shawl shaping. You can see in the picture above where all the increases have thrown off the straight edge on the right. Oops. Also, I had elongated the Pear Leaf edging from 10 to 12 rows, and it didn’t really look like a leaf any more. Double oops.
So this is my project, frogged, at the coast. Since then I’ve knit and frogged and restarted it at least 5 more times while settling on the syncopated cream colored edging pattern (not pear leaf after all) and how to handle the pooling stitches. Remember, I make the mistakes so you don’t have to! And now I’ve figured out where it’s going. I’m kind of obsessed, and all I want to do is knit this gorgeous yarn. Why yes, that’s Yarn Snob Keith’s Bellina colorway again, this time paired with cream. I love the combo; it tones down the green just a little bit. No previews yet.
I thought I was done with assigned pooling for a while, but during my Starfall KAL with Yarn Snob Keith I fell in love with a colorway used by one of the participants.
Keith’s Orchid: Bellina
The colorway is Bellina, named after one of dyer Keith’s orchids. When I saw it, I had to have it. I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it.
When I asked Ann Berg to test knit Prosecco Pop in a smooth yarn, she used a pooling yarn instead of a slubby one. I loved the idea, but I wanted more pooling, and fewer eyelets. It took a few tries to figure out the proportions, and I even changed my mind after my sample was finished, but here’s the basic idea.
Working title: Bellini Bubbles
I was going to use a different assigned pooling stitch, but these star flowers are so perfect here. This was knit with one skein of fingering weight yarn, dyed for assigned pooling.
Star flowers, blocked
The pattern has been tech edited, and now I’m looking for a few test knitters. Is that you? Let me know!
I had a great time at Red Alder Fiber Arts Retreat. I taught 4 classes, took 2 classes, and learned a lot from all of it! I was pretty brioche- and pooling- centric for all of it.
Let’s talk stitch mounts!
With conventional western style knitting, the right leg is on the front of the needle. This is true for both English throwing and continental picking methods. Both stitches are worked through the front loop, and the yarn wraps counterclockwise around the needle.
With eastern combined knitting (usually continental, yarn in left hand), the knits are formed conventionally, and the purls are wrapped/caught clockwise, resulting in the purl stitches mounted with the left leg on the front of the needle. For knitting in the round, the purl stitches would need to be purled through the back loop so the bottom of the previous stitch isn’t twisted. If knitting flat, the back of the purl stitch is a knit stitch, and it would need to be knit through the back loop to untwist the stitch.
Amanda in my beginning brioche class is a continental Eastern Uncrossed knitter. This means that she makes her all of her stitches with the yarn going clockwise around the needle (both knits and purls), which results in the left legs of all her stitches mounted on the front of her needle.
It took a little thinking, but we figured it out, and I made a video for 2 color Eastern Uncrossed brioche in the round.
Eastern Uncrossed brioche rib in the round
That helps me teach, and that helps knitters not have to change their knitting style when learning brioche. Win-win! Now I’m thinking about eastern combined knitting in the round; there are a couple ways to think about that purl stitch. I’m saving that for another day.
Color Blocked Brioche
I took 2 classes from Xandy Peters. The first was Color Blocked Brioche. If he had named it Brioche Intarsia, would I have signed up? Probably not! But color blocked intarsia in brioche is fun. Food for design thought.
The other class was Stitch by Color. I didn’t bring the right yarn for this; my yarn just has one pop color, and sprinkles (not enough) of other colors. I’ve been on the pooling train for a year, and that’s the way I was thinking. What I really should have brought is a space dyed yarn that has longer stretches of several colors. Then I could pull out one color to accentuate, or eliminate (by concentrating it on the wrong side of the work). Here’s an example from Xandy.
Stitch by color!
All of these colors are in the yarn; the pink and red you see on the left edge of the work are emphasized on the wrong side behind the yellow and gray, and vice versa. A great way to accentuate what you like, or hide what you don’t like! We learned some fun pooling stitches, too.
I helped my classmate recreate her dye skein so she could see where the color repeats were made.
Mt Rainier sunrise
That’s the teaching/learning part of the wrap up. There’s still the shopping! I came home with a few treasures. Still trying to catch up from Red Alder AND VKLive NYC!
I had forgotten how much fun it is to knit cables, especially with bulky yarn.
When Harry Met Lucy
It’s mesmerizing to watch the cables develop. I just finished Row 50 of the back. Yes, there are two row counters because the center cable has a 32 row repeat, and the side cables have a 24 row repeat.
I put the charts inside a page protector to give it some body, and I’m using my ribbon covered magnets from a Slipped Stitch Studios pattern keeper to keep track of which row(s) I’m on. Why not just use the pattern keeper? Because the magnets only work if the chart is printed in portrait mode, and I can read them better printed in landscape mode!
The next step in the sweater process is deciding if I want to modify the drop shoulder for a better fit for DH. I modified this favorite sweater for him (Sky Lights from North Island Designs, not on Ravelry because it’s THAT old), so I put it on the floor to measure it.
Helpful Knitting Cat Bisquee
I’ve measured all the important bits: Length to armhole, cut in at armhole, armhole depth, neck width, overall length of sweater and sleeve. Now to translate it to the current knit…
We’ve had an ice storm on top of a snowstorm, so we’ve been cooped up inside. Perfect weather for knitting, and for baking.
Calvin helped me make blueberry muffins. He can smell melted butter from the other room.
The birds are puffed up against the cold, and hungry, so I put out bird seed.
I’m ready for the ice to melt. And I need to start getting ready to go to VKLive NYC next week. Must. Stop. Knitting. Sweater. For now at least! How are things where you are?
I finally have enough projects off my plate that I can begin to contemplate this KAL. It has a lot going on, and it’s definitely not for knitting on the go!
Bisquee and I worked 3 stockinette gauge swatches. I couldn’t get gauge, even going down two needle sizes. Did I wash and block my swatch? Nah, that would just make it relax, and make that desired gauge even more unattainable. So I just cast on with the smaller needles to see what would really happen. Sometimes you just have to jump in.
This bulky-ish yarn on US 8 needles wasn’t going to make my hands happy over the long run. And the width of the piece was much smaller than it should have been! I did some math, and the actual measurement over the cabled body is the same as I’d get with that stockinette gauge, and that can’t be true. Cables pull in, and stockinette doesn’t.
I went back to the original US 10 that was recommended and cast on for the 42” sweater. Even though my stockinette gauge is way too big, the actual knitted piece was very different. The 42” size was coming out at 39”, too small.
I cast on again for the 46” sweater and it is measuring 44”. (Well, really 22”, because it’s just the back.) That’s a good amount of ease on DH, but not ridiculous. And it’s better than being too small. The fabric has a nice hand, so far. If I were using a larger needle, the fabric would be too loose. So I’m ignoring the stockinette gauge, because there really isn’t any stockinette in this pattern.
I’m planning on using this cabled body as a jumping off point, and then adapting a few things. I don’t want a plain drop shoulder sweater, so I’ll bind off some stitches at the armhole for a better shoulder fit for DH. Then I’ll finagle the slightly set in sleeve, which I’ve done before on a sweater that fits him well.
We’ll see if I can get past my two skein attention span and actually do all those things I’m planning!
The yarn is Knit Picks Wool of the Andes Bulky in Mineral Heather. It’s kind of a heathered gray with violet undertones.
Oh, about that cable hook: I usually do my cables without a cable needle, but for the 3 over 3 crosses, it’s not comfortable, so I’m back to using a hook. The 3/1 and 1/3 cables don’t need it. Do whatever makes you happy!
Tools: I printed just the charts on one page. Perfect for my knitting bag! The 12 page pattern can sit at my desk. This is definitely home knitting!
I finished the Dotty socks yesterday afternoon, and immediately drove them over to my friend Doreen’s house. They’re for her birthday tomorrow, and it’s snowing and icing this weekend. I wanted to beat the weather, and I did!
Dotty Bed Socks for Doreen
I didn’t take an FO picture, but she did! Our planned dinner out tonight is OFF, but at least she’s cozy.
Camellia Wrap and Slip Stripe Socks
This photo popped up in my Facebook memories today. It was blocking day for my Camellia Wrap, and for the unpublished striped bed socks. That Camellia Wrap is one of my favorite things to wear, fantastic drape and swing. And apparently there were two of those striped socks…I wonder where they went? They weren’t in the drawer with the orange/purple prototypes that I frogged. Maybe I already gave them away as a gift? I don’t recall.
One tomato
Remember the Ann Norling Fruit Cap pattern from eons ago? I knit a whole bunch about 20 years ago; they were my go to baby gift for a while. I can’t find the pattern in my house, so I winged it. Pretty close, I think. This is for a baby shower on Monday that may be iced out. Oh, weather.
Two tomatoes
I actually knit two of them because there’s a baby due at church, too. I bought a skein of Malabrigo Rios in Ravelry Red, what a great color. I paired it with Ivy that was leftover in my stash from designing for my Brioche Knit Love book. Rios is one of my favorite yarns. Lovely colors, not expensive.
I knit these on a US7; I started with a US6 but it was firmer than I wanted. I use a 6 for all my Rios brioche, but not for stockinette, I guess!
Inclement weather is great for knitting productivity. Now I only have one project on my needles again (having four was definitely outside my monogamous knitter comfort zone). What are the other two projects? One is done, and I’ll let you know about both of them in a bit.
But I think it’s also time to swatch for the When Harry Met Lucy sweater KAL, finally!
It’s chilly here! I decided to sew in the ends on the mismatched (design prototypes) orange/purple bed socks so they can be of use. But when I pulled them out of the drawer, I noticed the stripe pattern and the dotty pattern resulted in two very differently sized socks. Not okay!
Sock dreams in Malabrigo Rios
I never published the striped socks; the slip stitch stripes were too variable gauge-wise, and the pattern was too fussy to write, too. So the striped sock needed to be frogged back to the cuff, and the dotted sock needed to be frogged back to the instep to get rid of the striped sole. But I like the dotted instep better than the striped instep. (They are both options on the Dotty Bed Sock pattern, see below.) It wouldn’t add much knitting if I ripped out the gusset, too.
Dotty Bed Socks, dot or stripe instep
If you’re wondering why the bottom of the gusset is striped, here’s the designer’s secret: The gusset decreases would complicate working the dotty stitch pattern on the bottom of the foot. I wanted the pattern to be easy knitting! So those are just 2 row stripes where the decreases occur, no thinking.
Dotty Bed Socks, my favorite version!
I’m almost done…
Halfway down the second foot. You can see I’m using magic loop here, which I like, mostly. I think I prefer my Flexi-Flips, but I didn’t think of them until working the toe of the first sock, and I don’t want to change needles mid-project for fear of changing my gauge and having 2 different sized socks again. Next time!
Dotty Bed Socks are worked cuff down with a slip stitch pattern, so there’s only one color used per round. And they’re worsted weight, so they’re pretty quick! My socks are 44 stitches around in Malabrigo Rios.
Do you sock? How do you sock? Cuff down? Toe up? DPNs? Magic Loop? Two circulars? Flexi-Flips? Do tell!
Find my patterns on Ravelry: Michele Bernstein Designs
Here are some of my favorites, and the newest. Many of my designs are also available through my Payhip store.
PDXKnitterati 