Damn, Knit & Blast It

Glade is firmly back on the agenda now my elbow is better and the the Space Invaders are finished.

The pictures are not very exciting and I think there is a problem with the pattern …

First the progress report.

…I’m STILL slogging though the hem edging around the bottom edge…
I’ve gone from this….

to this…..

to this….

..and now this!

Slog!!

You may remember from Glade from the Waist up that I signed off looking forward to “just 7 repeats to go around the bottom edge”! That was calculated from carefully looking at the pattern pictures. Hmmmmmm…….

The eagle eyed of you may have noticed I’m starting on repeat number 8!

“So what’s the problem?”, I hear you cry.

Well…The pattern calls for 14 balls for the 34″ (second) size. So far I have used 17 and still chomping through the yarn!

Yes, my tension is correct. Although the tension given on the pattern is only for the main body’s stocking stitch.

Given that I’m using one ball for just under 1.5ish pattern repeat on this edging, I’m going to need about 19 or 20 balls. That’s a huge difference from 14!
“Arrrgh, I’m not going to be able to get more of the same dyelot! It’s ruined!:cry:”

Luckily, the super efficient people at Cumberpatch answered my pleading “have you got this dyelot?” email within a couple of hours and have sent me the extra yarn. Phew – disaster averted… I now have 20 balls….If I’d known Glade was going to cost me this much I would have thought twice about making it.
So why am I using so much extra yarn?

I figure that there are four possibilities.

1. I’m a complete dimwit and my tension had suddenly gone off the scale
2. The pattern has the wrong yarn amounts published
3. My cats have started having midnight yarn eating parties
4. The given needle size for the hem edging is wrong – 3mm?

Number 1: I hate to brag but I don’t think so – I not sure it’s humanly possible to get your tension so wrong you’d use a third more yarn!

Number 2: Quite possible.

Number 3: Thug and Mewsley have been interrogated and lightly tortured with the threat of no extra meaty treats for a month. They swear they are not eating yarn. I believe them.

Number 4: This is my favourite theory. The main body is on 3.75mm needles. It’s a huge jump to go down to 3mm for the edging. Also, I have scrutinised the picture in the pattern book and in this month’s Simply Knitting (Glade is on the cover and the pattern is free – Grrr – I paid for it!). My edging looks much tighter – OK it looks good and the effect of the garment will still be super but I think there is a difference.

What do you think?

Simply knitting close up….

My edging close up…

I’ve emailed Rowan. They have been fab at sorting out queries and problems for me in the past. I’ve asked what the tension should be for the edging – I do think it was sloppy not to publish tension details for what is the major part of the garment.

I’ll let you know when I hear if there is a problem or it is option Number 1 ………I am a dimwit!

The Knitty Space Invader socks are finished!!

I eagerly grafted the toe this morning – 76 stitches of Kitchener stitch – euck!!

Hmmmm….They are far from perfect but Ben likes them!

It really bugs me when I can’t get thing “right”…..

Holy sock heels, Batman! Here’s a problem….

The heel and toe is turned by the same shortrow shaping. I knitted the cuff using a 30cm Addi circ but for some strange reason I thought I’d need to swap to DPNs to do the heel.

I had “not part of the heel” stitches on the Addi and the heel on the straights – with the break at this point between the needles at the corner of the heel…. it pulled the stitches at the corners badly….yuck!

I was a bad, lazy knitter and fixed this by some nifty “lashing together” on the wrong side….

It dawned on me on the second “Hi-Score sock” that I could leave all the stitches on the Addi circular …

…the second heel was better….

…….by the 2nd toe I’d sussed which bit to give an extra yank to to pull it neat and tight!

Am I going to frog the whole lot and do them again properly ??

There are not enough expletives to express how much that’s not going to happen!
I have also discovered that size matters…..

Remember this post when I worked out which needle size to use?

I’m not as clever as I thought I was I was so worried that I’d repeat my “look nice but can’t get my foot in them” debacle with these fairisle socks that I went too far the other way!

They are rather large – even for Ben’s flippers!

See how the high score sock “bags” around his ankle?? I must have been getting relaxed with the fairisle on the High Score sock – it’s definitely bigger than the Invader sock?

Bugger.

I think my fairisle has improved over the course of the socks though…

Maybe another pair but with PacMan……..????

Completed Knit Report
Name:	BMP (Space Invader Socks)
Pattern:	Knitty by Aija Goto
Yarn:	Regia Silk
Pattern Problems:	No problems with the pattern itself but problems with me knitting them!Holes at the corners of the heel/toe short row shaping, too big in the cuff after needle size mods . 2nd sock looser than first too!
Pattern Modifications:	I used Regia Silk on 2.5mm needles (not louet gems pearls on 2mm) to size up for Ben’s feet. With hindsite – 2.25 or 2mm would have been a better choice.
New challenges:	Lots of new things for me to master – Corregated rib, shortrow heel/toe, improving my fairisle, changing needle sizes, getting Ben to model…
Washing and Wearing:	“comfy for padding round the house!”
Knit It Again???:	Possibly……
Difficulty:	Hard!
Rating:	4/5

Have I ever told you that I HATE having two WIPs in progress?

I like to see project coming together quickly – if I have two WIPs on the go they take twice as long and I get frustrated!

Those of you who have a long list of WIPs scare me! They would all nag at me and keep me awake at night….
I’m currently working on Glade and the Space Invader Socks – this was done out of necessity to give my poorly arm some rest and variation in needle hold. – Unfortunately this means I have no exciting progress to share with you

Sounds like a good time to break out something from my “pre-blogging”archives!
How do you like this?

This is the Kim Felted Bag pattern by Sue Morgan at Get Knitted, plus a couple of corsages! It’s made with 3 hanks of Debbie Bliss Maya.

I’d never felted before and this was a fabulous intro. I was convinced it wouldn’t work but it did and I love my bag.
The handles are pretty cool – they are solid metal hoops which you cover with a knitted strip. ( Get Knitted sell them for £2 a pair!)

The corsages are crocheted with bits of stash – the large one from a free Coats/Patons pattern in Jaeger Monte Cristo (and a scrap of lurex shimmer)and the smaller in Jaeger pure cotton from Eric Knight’s Essential Crochet. I put them on safety pins so I can move them around.

Flowery close-up…

What really finished the bag was putting in a lining – this wasn’t in the pattern but I felt it cried out for it to stop it sagging. I also felt it need pockets for my essential gadgets…

This is what I ended up with…

I was really please with the pockets and the pink ribbon finished it off. I found a “faggoting” stitch on my sewing machine which divided the pockets very prettily and gave them some strength. (Have I mentioned how I love my sewing machine?)

Close up of the faggoting!

Here’s one of the bag fully laden with gadgets and “girl stuff”!

Note the matching phone and makeup bag!!

A girl simply MUST be coordinated

First sock done of the Knitty BMP pattern – Space Invader Socks hot off the needles!!

There’s a previous post about getting the right needle size here..

Fair Isle Space Invaders

Ohhh.. you can see another sock creation of mine on the other foot in the background – that was in Fortisima Colori Socka Color… You’ve gotta love a “sock Model” who voluntarily wears your creations!

My thanks to my sock model, Ben – He was fairly patient!! I would have modelled myself but these UK size 10 socks would look like an elephant’s trunk warmer on my tiny size 4 feet!

Here’s an “unpressed” close-up of the boys….They are not evil, just misunderstood..

The heel and toe on these socks are identical and are done with shortrow shaping. They used some stitches I had never encountered before – SSK3tog?? SSP3tog?? SSP??? They were bitches! I really struggled with this and had to have a couple of hours quiet, silence and no interruptions!

I think I got it right….

The second sock will be neater I’m sure!!

BTW – the green I used for the bottom invaders was an odd ball that has been in my knitting stash since I was a tiny little girl and inherited all my Mum and sister Carol’s oddments for my very own knitting basket.

I could never bring myself to just throw it away – even when my knitting pals proclaimed it to be so awful, acrylicy and unnaturally coloured it “must have a half life” …Friends huh!
Here’s an snap of the “shooter action” on the to Toe – this was Swiss embroidered afterwards…I’d probably intarsia it if I did these again. It was pretty fiddley.

An finally, for those of you who like to immediately grab your friend’s knitting and inspect the wrong side

The cuff on the second sock is different to this one. It has the score details on it.

At least it keeps in interesting….

Onward to cast on the second sock before “SSS” sets in. That’s Second Sock Syndrome if you’re not familiar with that term!

Today I went on a yarncrawl with Janie, Jane and Jenny from my knitting group.

This was a bit like a pub crawl but with less booze , smoke and pubs and a lot more scrummy yarn, shops and chatter!

Our first stop was Stash in Putney – none of us had been before…

“Is it this way? Are we there yet? Hurry up!”

This is Jane, Janie and Jenny – left to right.

At Stash , we found a Knitter’s haven full of all those annoying yarns you read about online but never see in UK shops. We spent a good couple of hours browsing, knitting and chatting to the very helpful Lady in the shop – I forgot to ask her name – I can be a dunce somethimes! Sorry!

Edit 11/4/07 This was Diane!! Hello Diane!

A big surprise was when I pulled out my Glade edging to have a bit of a rest and a knit.

Stash Lady: “Oh I’ve seen a half made one of those on a blog”

Me: “It might be mine!”

Stash Lady: “Damn Knit & Blast It??”

Me: “Oh – I’m famous!” (followed by acute embarrassment )

Here is my reader on the left…

…apologies to her other customers who were in the middle of a spontaneous knitting lesson…

…and a happy group of shopped out knitters – including me!

Next we jumped on the mainline from Putney to Vauxhall to visit IKnit.

I had been to the IKnit London Knitting Group , held in pubs around London, a couple of times. Faboulous fun if you want to drink, chat and knit!

IKnit.is a scrummy gem of a shop with both well known and more unusual yarns, gadgets and gizmos.

Jenny and Jane inspected the super array of needles…

..while Janie was gripped by what can only be called a “button frenzy”…

Fortunately, the lovely Gerard and Craig who run IKnit., were not phased by 4 overexcited knitters running around their shop…they’d seen it all before…

After all that excitement we needed a drink – for us that meant out spiritual home – the nearest Starbucks!

Finally, you’re going to want to see what we bought…..

I’m not allowed to say who was responsible for what…..

…but this was our joint haul!

Yummy!!!

My elbow/hand/wrist pain is finally coming under control.

My GP showed my the twisting wrist action to avoid at all costs and the penny dropped – it was going mad at crocheting the Granny squares that did the damage!

The elbow pain was “golfer’s elbow” (medial epicondylitis to the medically minded).

I turned away (from knitting) to the dark side (crochet) and paid dearly….(read in a menacing Alec Guinness type voice)

The crochet project is officially abandoned on medical grounds!!

The main things that have helped are rest, a wrist support and Golfer’s elbow strap and a radical rearrangement of my desk, chair, mouse and keyboard.

I’m finally able to carry on knitting Glade but I’m limiting my daily knitting time which is frustrating.

If you’re not up to speed with my Glade progress, read about in here…

- Blinker’s on I’m knitting Glade

- Glade edging and Flimsy needles

- Glade from the waist up
Ben has been very amused watching me, strapped up and struggling – apparently I look like I’m auditioning to be a Gladiator or a B-movie super hero!!
What do you think of my armour???

Move over Arnold Schwarzenegger – the Knitterizer is in town!

The next pic is not an exciting picture if you’ve already seen my pics of Glade progress but I’m just starting the 3rd repeat of 7 needed for the Peplum…

HELPFUL *HOT TIP* IF YOU’RE KNITTING GLADE!

I found I was getting lost with the pattern, missing the fact a row had bobbles in it and getting confused if the frills were right side or wrong side of stocking stitch!

My solution was to use a row counter (obvious) to track what row and mark up a photocopy of the pattern like this ..

The yellow rows are WS SS, Green rows are RS SS (with the eyelets down the middle) and the pink is the bobbles.

Even I can’t miss such obvious visual clues

I promised I’d show you these, from my extensive “Pre-Blogging Archives” in my last post, Fair Isle Space Invaders.

They are my “I’m gonna teach myself Fair Isle” project socks from Rowan’s RYC Classic Home book – the Snuggle bed socks. I made these a couple of years ago.

I wanted something small that I wouldn’t cry over if I just couldn’t master the technique. These were so pretty I couldn’t resist. I’m still toying with making the matching hot water bottle!

I really made life hard for myself choosing these socks – Traditional Fair Isle is done in the round so you never have to cope with a purl row. This pair of socks is knitted on two needles then has a seam down the back and under the foot. That means I had to learn how to weave the yarn 4 different ways! (Left and right hand, knit and purl side)

I learnt the technique mainly from my trusty copy of Montse Stanley’s Knitters Handbook (I’ve mentioned that before!) but my friend Judie showed me how to knit continental so I could do the both hands style. I found I picked up continental quite naturally as I’d been a crocheter before I could knit. I found the holding and catching the yarn almost identical.

After a lot of swearing and unpicking, I was very pleased with my Fair Isle progress.
Have a close look..

I wasn’t quite so pleased with the pattern or the yarn though.

To this day I’m not sure if it was me or the pattern but, when sewn up, very carefully with mattress stitch, the sock will only go on my foot with severe yanking to get my heel in – there is some give but not much in the Fair Isle. I have very small feet too – UK size 4!! Margret (who commented on my space invaders post) raised this concern with the space invaders – a worry certainly!! Once Ben wakes up I’ll try the cuff over his flipper foot. Maybe if I’m careful I won’t wake him…
On top of this, having a seam under my foot, even for bed socks was stupidly uncomfortable, even just padding about getting ready for bed.

Lastly, Cashsoft DK – in felts and bobbles like crazy! I’m really glad I didn’t invest in a large garment. I might have been more careful with a big jumper but these were socks – they went in the washing machine. (It is machine washable.)

Fuzzy huh? …and this was after a little trim…

I do sometimes wear these when it’s really cold – they are warm! But the struggle to get them on and off usually puts me off.