Damn, Knit & Blast It

My knitting news this week isn’t the stuff that will make an enthralling blog post….

I haven’t touched Eveleen but I’ve made lots more blankie squares (I’ve now done 30 out of 81 required!)

There. That was dull huh? Don’t change channel yet readers!

I think it’s time to share with you the reason I twitch whenever felting is mentioned! This is a story of not knowing when to quit when a project is clearly cursed by the Knitting Gods…

Way back in January 2006, I saw the Flint felted skirt display garment in John Lewis in Oxford Street – I fell in love! It looks so much better “in the flesh”. I bought the yarn and rushed home to knit it. Deep Blue Yorkshire Tweed and blue and pink Kidsilk Spray for the underskirts.

It’s from Rowan magazine 38 – the one that had a big article about felting and lots of felted projects.

Here’s what the picture in the book looked like…

Ignore the “everything in the dressing up box” styling and look at the skirt!

The wrapover skirt is mostly stocking stitch – acres of it – – not my favourite – but really pretty cables and embroidery on the front panel and,” Ohhh!!!, Those Kidsilk Haze under skirts!” I ploughed on making a gigantic stocking stitch blanket it seemed….

I knitted it, sewed it together, took a deep breath and threw is in my washing machine…..

Ben said “Are you mad? I’m not sure about this slinging your knitting in the wash lark. Are you sure it’ll work?” (He’d seen how hard I’d worked on it.)

I said, “Of course it will, Darling. I’ve followed the instructions in the pattern…”

It hadn’t shrunk nearly enough. I was still massive. Bugger.

I have since learnt that using fabric softener was a mistake and I should have put some old towels in the wash with the skirt too…all useful stuff not mentioned in the Rowan mag. I should have done more research…..

Ben was smirking. “No worries! I’ll just throw it back in again on a super hot mega long wash – that’ll do it!” , I said confidently.

Oh huge error!

The skirt I pulled from the washing machine was tiny and so felted it had the consistency of a navvy’s donkey jacket.

I sobbed. I tugged. Ben helped me tug and resisted the urge to say, “told you so”. (He’s a sweetheart really .) Try and visualise it readers, one of us at each end of the wrapover skirt having a strange game of tug of war in the living room. The cats hid. Ben did however say it was one of the strangest evenings he’d ever spent …knit, sew, wash, cry, tug, cry some more!

We had partial success but managed to pull most of the carefully crafted shaping out of the skirt. It was still indecently short but at least it wrapped around me… bugger again.

I ploughed on, “I can save it!”

I knit the underskirts double the length to try and bring the skirt out of the “indecent zone”.

Here’s the underskirts…nice huh?

I tried to do the embroidery with the Kidsilk Spray…

The Kidsilk Spray’s varigation ranges from light blue to dark blue. I was trying to embroider on dark blue. Half of it just blended in! Bugger! (that’s 3 “Buggers” if you’re counting)

Determined to wear the “buggering” skirt, I cut out the dark blue and just used the light blue sections and completed the embroidery.

I even sewed on some Prada ribbon as hanging loops…

Lastly a posh button….

At last! I can wear it!!

It hung strangely (mainly due to the tugging). I had to wear in on the hips to make the length suitable. It took an hour to place the buttons in the optimum place to almost make it look right.

Here is is….

I bravely wore it to work with opaque tights and boots. No one laughed and pointed….It might just have been worth it!

By lunchtime there was a problem. Even though it was incredibly thick, the skirt was stretching. Bugger. (that’s 4)

By the end of the day I was desperately hanging on the my skirt with the aid of several safety pins. It hasn’t been worn since.

It has languished on my desk pending being made into a bag…

All that happened was Thug fell in love with it…

He went out for a prowl in the garden so Mewsley decided to give it a try….

It spent a few weeks as a favourite cat blanket – just enough time to make sure cat hair was irremovably embedded in the fabric. Then the curse even affected my hand knitting loving cats…

Even they won’t sit on it now

I think it’s time to utter my final Flint related “Bugger” and let this one go…

Just in case you’re wondering why I have started speaking like a four year old and calling this project my “Denim Blankie” …………blame Mel Brooks’ The Producers… “I need my blue blankie!”

I thought I’d share some of my thought processes behind this project with you. When this way too long post gets dull and wordy, I’ll throw in a close up a completed square to titillate your knitterly senses.

Here’s a shot of Mewsley modelling the blankie so far. I suspect Mewsley will be trying to claim this blankie as her own at every possible opportunity!

As you asked, Feltboots, she’s half Burmese and half “moggie” although don’t tell her that – she’s is convinced she’s royalty!

Even though there’s a detailed and I think, well written pattern for the Denim Blankie, there were a few quite fundamental decisions to make at the start. I also seem to have a deep seated need to make my knitting life hard for myself – a tendency I’m deliberately fighting in this “respite knitting” project.

Do I…

1. Buy all the yarn up front?
2. Use the colours given?
3. Knit big strips with one pattern block following on the next row from the previous pattern block without casting off?
4. Pick up stitches from the previous block’s cast off edge so save sewing up?
5. Knit separate blocks and sew together?
6. If knitting separately – sew together as I go or do them all at the end?
7. Add in different blocks from other blankets (there’s another denim one in Debbie Abrahams’ follow up book “More Blankets and Throws to Knit”)?
8. Start messing with adding in some of my own designs?
9. Make it smaller/larger to fit as a wall hanging as intended?
10. How do I keep track of what blocks I’ve made?

Here we go…

1. Buy all the yarn up front?

No way! As this is in several colours I’m certain differences in dyelot won’t notice – especially as the first thing you do with Rowan Denim is bung it in the washing machine to shrink and fade it. I’ll buy odd balls here and there when I run out of stash yarn. If you’re thinking of a one colour blankie though, it might be a different story…

Gratuitous close up alert!

This is the “Tweedy Rib” block…

2. Use the colours given?

I’m all for swapping around colours but as far as I know Rowan Denim has only ever been made in 5 colours (Navy, two shades of mid blue, cream and black)- the black is now discontinued. I do have some black left over from Ben’s Brooklyn jacket but I didn’t think black would work in this blanket. I am using the two different shades of mid blue – only because I had them in stash….

3. Knit big strips with one pattern block following on the next row from the previous pattern block without casting off?

Nope – nice idea but bad in practice. I think you’ll end up with long “scarves” which you’ d then have the sew together along the long edges. This would give a finished blanket that had inflexible vertical seams and no horizontal seams for stability – I think it would pull strangely out of shape and just feel wrong to flex in one direction and not the other. Tell me if I’m wrong!

Another close up !

Apple pips…

4. Pick up stitches from the previous block’s cast off edge to save sewing block together?

Hmmmm… I tried this. It seemed the perfect compromise.

The centre three blocks here are joined by picking up the stitches from the previous block…

Although it worked well and the picked up and cast off stitches gave the blanket horizontal stability, I found it so hard to pick up the stitches! The demin has no give (and I probably cast off too tight too) so it was painful and slow to pick up, so much so, I though it would just be quicker to sew them together!

I also wanted something small and portable – 7 or 8 squares joined together are quite bulky!

Another down side to this method ( and in following on as in option No. 3) is you can’t choose what block to do next. I found that when I’d got used to a pattern on a particular block, I wanted to make two or three the same.

A final downside is peculiar to working with the navy (or black) Denim – the colour rubs off on everything like brand new denim jeans. That meant that even if you were knitting a cream block, the navy one below it was dangling on your white trousers leaving a nice big navy smudge…..(I’ll give you one guess how I discovered that … )

5. Knit separate blocks and sew together?

It’s the obvious, traditional approach and the one I’ve plumped for. I’m happy with mattress stitch (essential for neat seams) and joining the straight edges is very easy and quick.

Another gratuitous close up alert!

This is the “Reverse Stripe” block…

6. If knitting separately – sew together as I go or do them all at the end?

No brainer! If I was faced with 81 beautifully knitted blocks to sew up I would seriously struggle to get started – I’d also find it hard to muster the enthusiasm to keep knitting the blocks without seeing the blanket coming together. As soon as I have a few that go next to each other in a vertical strip, they are getting stitched together.

7. Add in different blocks from other blankets (there’s another denim one in Debbie Abrahams’ follow up book “More Blankets and Throws to Knit”)?

Very tempting! My brain immediately started down this route. My imagination was all fired up when I thought, “No! Stop!” For me, this is supposed to be an easy respite project, not difficult or complicated. Apart for mixing in two shades of mid blue (which isn’t that hard) I’m going to follow the pattern as written. There is huge scope to play with the this concept though! Maybe another time….

Getting bored? Time for another gratuitous close up…

Textured check…or double moss stitch to most knitters!

8. Start messing with adding in some of my own designs?

Hmmm…same arguments with myself apply as for point No.7 – “This is respite knitting – Stop making it complicated!”

9. Make it smaller/larger to fit as a wall hanging as intended?

The space I want to fill is smaller than the blanket’s original size but I may not always live here and might want to use it on the bed. I’ll lay it over a curtain pole so it fits…

Also, the blanket is laid out symmetrically in the pattern and I’d have to mess with that – I have a “symmetrical brain” – I would be very uncomfortable just lopping off a few strips and and it being unbalanced. **Shouts at self*** ” K.I.S.S!! Keep It Simple, Susan!! Just follow the pattern…”

Time for another picture…

This one is Cables and Texture…

A favourite of mine. Just as well as there are 14 of them in the blanket!

10. How do I keep track of what blocks I’ve made?

As I’m knitting the block separately and doing several of the same block one after the other there’s a real possibility that later on, I’ll find I’ve done too many of a block. I hate wasting knitting effort!

In the pattern book there is a grid laid out as a guide to where each block goes and a summary of how many “copies” of each block you need. I have photocopied this and I’m colouring in each block I finish with a highlighter pen and putting a mark by each block’s summary so I can see how many of each I’ve made ….

Was that totally confusing? Here – I’ll show you….

I hope you made it to the end of that very long post!

Firstly, Thank you all for your helpful suggestions and support with Eveleen – I’ve mostly abandoned the bobbins and used long strands – definitely much easier when there’s this much mayhem. I’ve also stopped being so “strict” and started carrying some of the colours.

It’s still taking major concentration though.

Unfortunately, in the last week, I’ve had a nasty bought of flu and then had a complicated tooth extraction which has not left me in the mood to strain my brain too hard over Eveleen! I have however, made it half way to row 21!

The back is as scary as ever….

As Jane suggested in her comment, I needed some respite knitting. Something small, portable, pick up & downable and something I’d really want to work on……

Maybe something for my newly decorated bedroom? We have 3 walls in a buttermilk cream colour and one wall in a lovely dark denim blue but a big yawning empty space over the head of the bed….

(That’s Mewsley pretending to be asleep)

There’s the clue …denim…..

I have been toying with the idea of making this blanket called Picnic made in Rowan Denim.

It’s from Debbie Abrahams’ Blankets and Throws to Knit.

The blanket will look fabulous as a wall hanging, draped over a spare curtain pole I’ll fit to the wall over the head of the bed. I think it will really pick up the blue and cream theme in the room.

The blanket is in three shades of denim – in Rowan speak, “Nashville, Memphis and Ecru” or “navy blue, mid blue and cream” to the rest of the world!

I already had all the Ecru I needed in stash, originally purchased to make Patrick – remember him?

I abandoned the idea of Patrick (even though he’s quite a hunk) after reading the pattern properly and realising that the smallest, 32 inch, size came up “actual size” 42 inch chest – The pattern was written in the mid 90′s!

I also had about half the navy left over from finished projects and a motley assortment of Memphis and Tennessee ( a slightly darker mid blue!) in differing dyelots. My “Denim Blankie Stash” was further helped by Janie, one of the Guilty Knitters who kindly donated several balls remaining from one of her projects – Thanks Janie!

The upshot is – I don’t have to buy much to complete it and I can feel virtuous that I’m stash busting!! I’m being careful that the Tennessee is being used for only a couple of specific squares so the difference won’t scream.

Here’s a progress shot…

The downside (or is that an upside???) is that I’m really enjoying the simplicity and I’m racing through it. I’m sure I’ll suddenly get bored and pick up Eveleen very soon….