Damn, Knit & Blast It

I should know better.

I don’t have much luck with projects with mega chunky yarn.

So why, Oh why readers, when I was struggling to find my knitting mojo with Catrin, did I decide to splurge on 10 balls of Rowan Big wool to make this huge snuggle-fest of a jumper?

It’s Ronnie from the Kim Hargreaves book, Precious.

I suppose I thought it would be a quick, easy, rewarding project….

I cast on on 12mm needles as decreed by the pattern and knit for a whopping 42cm.

Hmmm …It didn’t look wide enough…

A check of my gauge and the learned opinions of my knitting buddies was that I was way too tight – the garment would end up around 8cm too small for me.

Bigger needles were needed. Unfortunately, the next size from 12mm is 15mm a huge jump. Why don’t they make 13mm needles?? Anybody know where I could get some?

I bravely cast on  and finished the back. My gauge was OK width wise but my stitches were too long…hmmm…that proved to be something of a problem with the raglan shaping which was written for a set number of row, not length.

As you can see the armholes would start somewhere around my hips!

The stitches seem too loose too – it was sagging quite a bit because it was so loose. This garment would be quite heavy and sag badly if left this loose.

A this point a Big Wool bonfire was being contemplated and my knitting mojo had packed it’s bags and emigrated 

I have 4 choices with this garment:

1. Abandon it and burn/reuse the expensive yarn on a different project
2. Continue in the vain hope it will all turn out OK (not bloody likely)
3. Start a third time on the original needle size but knit a bigger size to allow for my gauge issues with big wool (and possibly have to buy more yarn)
4. Continue in the original size and original needles, cross my fingers (which won’t help my gauge either) then block the hell out of it when it’s too small.

I’m tending towards option 3 – knit a bigger size. I liked the density of the fabric the original needles created way better than the too loose on 15mm.

I really, really need a successful, fun project to kick start my knitting mojo or I’m gonna need a new hobby

Next time I’m tempted to knit something on broom sticks – someone slap me – please!

It started with a new pair of  shoes.

A beautiful pair of green canvas wedges,  in the Hobbs sale…

I had loved them from afar all summer and stalked them until sale time – 70% off 

Happy, Happy, Happy.

The problem was, I didn’t have anything that colour in my wardrobe to wear with them. This isn’t one of this year’s trendy colours so there’s not much of it in the shops.

A couple more highly focused shopping trips (The news report might have  read, “Green obsessed woman raids Bluewater!) yielded a matching white and green spotty shirt (Hobbs), a green vest (Debenhams) and a green belt (Next).

It all matched and looked great for less formal day in the office….

except…..

….except……

I was a bit cold  with the aircon on

I knew from my obsessive searching of the shops there were no matching jumpers out there….

Then a friend said, “have you seen Rowan Studio 16? It’s fabulous….”

This book…

“Oh, I like the one on the cover”, I drooled.

A slightly better piccy here…

As I’ve said before, I have a weakness for knitting the design on the cover of books.

The cover is “Cheer” knitted in Rowan handknit cotton…

…and it’s shown in just the shade of green I need…

…I went to my LYS

……I picked up the yarn to make Cheer….then put it back and bought something else

Then I went back the next day and bought the yarn for Cheer that I kicked myself for not buying the first time!

Cheer is proving to be a quick and easy knit – plain stocking stitch, no real shaping and an easy basketweave pattern around the bottom, front edges and collar.  Hopefully the basketweave will stop any potential for curly unpleasantness.

So far I’ve done most of the back and half the left front – split between commuting knitting and home knitting in case you’re wondering why I have 2 parts on the go at once.

Here’s a progress shot…

Won’t be long before this is done!

I confess. Iris wasn’t the first project I bought to take on holiday with me.

I rushed from the travel agent my LYS and snuffled up this cutie, fully intending to save it for the holiday…

It’s Katia from the Rowan Lenpur collection.

The Lenpur yarn is lovely – soft and very drapey – although it is one of those annoying yarns made of several threads held together that can split easily if you’re not paying attention.

I chose a flattering red shade…

I arrived home with my “knitting for the holiday” project and thought,

“I’ll just cast on and make sure I know the stitch pattern before I get on the plane…”

I cast on…
” I’ll just do a few more repeats….”

Oops!

Before I knew it, I’d done the back and one side and the holiday was a couple of weeks away!

The stitch pattern is a breeze.   Two rows and one of those is all purl!

Then I screwed up – I had decided I’d finish Katia to wear on holiday – putting myself under pressure to finish it. That’s always a mistake.

I nearly finished the second front and counted my rows they were out. Bugger!

By this stage, Katia had become my commuting knitting and I was trying to work this out on the tube.

I ripped the front down to the waist on the train.

When I got home, had a coffee, calmed down and looked at it again I realised the horrible truth. I had made a small mistake on the first front then carefully followed my own notes and made the same, matching mistake on the second front!

It was a small mistake and didn’t matter – in fact I NEEDED to make that same mistake on the second front for it to match.

I’d pulled out a couple of days of perfectly good knitting!! Oh POO!! I was never going to finish before the holiday now.

Somehow, Katia now felt tainted and I didn’t want to take her on holiday to finish so she got thrown on stitch holders and stuffed in the knitting bag.

Hence going and buying the lovely Iris.

This is so not like me – I normally am the virtuous “One WIP at a time girl”. I’m ashamed of myself…

This is how far I am with the second front…

It won’t take much to finish…once I’m done with Iris, it’s back to Katia…then the Flower blanket, then the See Through Jumper..

Oh My! How many WIPs has this one WIP girl got!!

Shame, shame, Oh the shame…. 

I’ve been busy.  I’ve been stressed with work. I’ve been trying to sell and buy a new home. I’ve not had any time off work since Christmas because I thought I’d be moving.

I was coping with all this.

My  house purchase/sale falling apart for the second time and putting right back at square one was too much to take. I could either get very depressed or take positive, decisive action.

Positive action it was. I marched Ben to the nearest Travel Agents and booked us a luxury holiday in Mexico!

Fear not,  I’m getting to the knitting related parts – this isn’t a “look at my holiday snaps” post.

I decided to treat myself to a brand spanking new project for the trip – no stash busting, no trying to finish off other projects – this holiday was to be indulgence all the way…

I decided on Iris from Rowan 45. A beautiful lace cardigan in Rowan Cotton Glace.

Here she is…

I love knitting cotton on holiday – hot damp hands and suncream don’t seem to affect it too much. I found out the hard way once that hot sunny beaches and Kidsilk Haze are a match made in hell!

You see that couple of inches of knitting in the picture? You think that was all I did?

Ha! Of course not. I cast on the back on the airplane, using an addi circular so as not to upset airport security with pointy, long, evil terrorist death sticks (or knitting needles as they sometimes are called) and knit for most of the 10 hour flight.

I knit by the pool. (note the rather large cocktail on the table in the foreground)

In fact, I knit in the pool!

Note the ball of yarn tucked in my bikini strap!

This was a technique that was a little ungainly and fraught with constant danger of drowning my knitting so it was an experiment which didn’t last too long.

If you think people looked at me knitting under a sun shade, you should have seen their faces when I knit in the pool!

So how much of Iris did I complete?

Less than I thought I might…

One back…

And one left front…

The top of this left front again because I was drinking too many yummy cocktails by the pool

Not bad huh?

I guess I should show your the stitch detail too…

And the edging at the bottom….

Pretty, pretty pattern isn’t it? and surprisingly easy to do.

Well it’s midnight and I’m wide awake with Jetlag and I have work tomorrow.

Maybe just a few more rows before bed….

You must all be wondering how the Flower Blanket is going?

The truth is, not as quickly as I would have liked!

I have completed and sewn up a mighty 6 strips now…

It’s a bit crumpled because it’s getting so big it has to be folded up and put away when I’m not working on it…

…or else Mewsley gets comfy!

The sewing up has been hard to keep on top of but, so far, I’ve succeeded in being strict with myself and everything that can be sewn, has been sewn.

Thug has been my ever watchful conscience , especially as he likes to be involved in the the sewing part, as you can see …

I’ve now found that I have a problem with “overefficiency” too!

Remember how I said I was doing the “Knit ‘n’ Commute” thing in my “I need more knitting time” post? Knitting while walking down the platform and on the escallators and on the tube?

The problem is that I’ve created so much more knitting time that I’m miles ahead with the plain and stripey squares and lagging badly with the complicated flowers!

I have this many “not flower” squares in the “awaiting construction” heap…

Enough for strip No.7 and a couple more!

My progress looks like this on my plan…

Technically – I’ve just past the halfway mark 

Part of the success of my Knit ‘n’ Commute has been the purchase of a GoKnit pouch by Knowknits.

One of these…

It’s an indulgence because I have a sewing machine and could make one but this is so well made and well thought out that I said,

“What the heck! Making one would be a waste of good knitting time!”

I bought my GoKnit pouch in Iknit in Waterloo, London – if anyone wants one!

It holds my knitting paraphernalia and keeps in clean and untangled in my handbag, doesn’t get pierced by the knitting needles , has a drawstring to just allow the yarn to feed through and a press studded loop to attach to my handbag handle so it can dangle outside my handbag while I stripe purposefully down the platform knitting.  The thing that surprised me was that the pouch has enough space for the ball of yarn the bouce around and unwind as you work so I no longer have to stop and pullof another few yarns of yarn from the ball – all is good and efficient

It also has a press studded loop inside to guide the yarn. I use the to hold onto my othe new purchase…a Clover yarn cutter!

Well, I wouldn’t want to be accused of having sharp and pointy things by “Mrs Anti-Knitting Nutter” would I??!!

I’d love to be able to post a picture of a massive chunk of completed blanket but the sad truth is – I’ve only just finished knitting the squares for the 5th strip…barely one strip knitted in a week and still the pressing and sewing up to do!

At this rate this blanket will take months to complete and worse than that – my blog posts for months will all read “knitted some more squares – still not finished…”

If I gave up work I’d have enough time but wouldn’t be able to afford yarn (or food or the mortgage or cat food), I still need sleep and time travel only seems to happen when the  entire weekend seems to disappear in less than 2 hours.

I was pondering this problem when something my friend Janie had said, sprang to mind. Janie is a confirmed Sock-Addict and knits her socks on every available part of her commute in and around  London. She mentioned that she managed to knit one and a half round of a sock while in the lift at Mornington Crescent tube station! (That’s the Subway, Underground or Metro to my trans-continental readers!!)

So if Janie can knit in the lift, why can’t I knit on more of my 70 minute total journey?

Currently I only knit waiting on the platform at my local station and for 20 mins on the Overland train to London Bridge.

On Friday I tried something different…

…I arranged my handbag shoulder strap diagonally across me with my wool pre-unravelled and feeding through a small gap – Circular needles firmly in hand….

…I carried on knitting the easy stocking stitch stripy square as I shuffled the length on the platform at London bridge, behind the annoying people who were ambling while they sent text messages, read the newspaper, wondered where they should be going and yelled down the phone…

…at least I could knit and look where I was walking unlike them!

…I had to wait at the barriers for the Northern line – still knitting…

…There’s a huge long escallator ride down to the Northern line…knit knit…

…I managed to stand up in a corner on the cram packed tube…knit knit..

…Up the long, long escalator at the other end …Knitty Knit knit….And enjoying the freaked out look on the faces of some of the “Kooky, odd ball but Oh so fashionably trendy” Islington folks….

Round the corner and into the little coffee shop for my morning coffee where they didn’t bat and eyelid as I put my knitting away so I could carry coffee.

I had managed to knit and extra 30 minutes of my journey each way  and blot out some of the more annoying, “dawdling pedestrian” elements of my daily commute 50 whole minutes each way of knitting

There was another unexpected benefit of this “Knit’n'Commute” approach…

… standing on the bouncing, juddering tube, without holding on used all my balance skills, previously reserved for skiing and body balance classes! My thighs and stomach muscles were burning by the end of the 10 mins “knit and try not to fall on your butt” tube experiment!

Who’d of thought “Knit’n'Commute”could provide a whole hour a day extra knitting time and a total body workout!!

I had a sneaky feeling when I started The Flower Blanket that 30 balls of yarn wasn’t going to be enough…

I was right

One column of nine squares uses pretty much 3 balls, one of each colour. Just scraps left over. I want 13 columns and an edging (which I guessing would be about a ball of each colour).

Mewsley checked my calculation…

She agreed. I need 14 balls of each colour.

I already had 17 balls of the light grey colour so I was safe there.

Mewsley and I scoured the internet for more Jaeger Matchmaker DK – This yarn was discontinued a couple of years ago so I was seriously out on a limb.

Luck was with me.  Mewsley found 4 balls of the lilac online at Yarnsmiths! Phew…that cat is a demon with a laptop…

Just the pink to find….

None in the internet knit- shops for sale…

None in any of the London Knit-shops I visited…

But quite a bit in people’s stashes on Ravelry! I contacted several people hopefully and cheekily because if it’s in their stash it’s probably there because they want to use it at some point. A few “it’s been used up already” and” Sorry – I’m gonna use it laters” and I was getting panicky.

Visions of “Premature Blanket Truncation” disturbed my sleep.

I saw that Yarnsnob had a single ball, marked for trade or sale. One ball is better than none! Thanks Yarnsnob!!

Then TheKnittingNurse was happy to sell me 8 balls from the USA! Thanks Knittingnurse !!

Woot!!  Enough yarn has been secured

I’d better get on with  knitting another heap of those squares!

My needles are smokin’!

I’m still slogging away at the Flower Blanket!

…and I have discovered Blanket Rule No.6…

Sixth rule: Tired Sleepy Knitter + Intarsia = Tears

I tried to press on one evening, when very tired, and finish one of the flowers. Once you’re past the centre it’s relatively easy – just the column of single stitches between the petals to worry about…

How wrong can a tired person get it?

GRRRrrr !! Frog Frog Frog…

Apart from that mishap, progress has been quite good. I have completed 36 squares, that’s 4 rows of the 13 needed!!

The maths part of my brain has to tell you that that’s 30.6% complete, not including any edging – I haven’t thought that far ahead yet.

Want to see a progress shot of some squares sewn up???

To get that far I spent most of Easter sprawled on the sofa knitting. Thug particularly enjoyed “helping” – which consisted mostly of sleeping on my lap, getting in the way and using my wool as a pillow.

I suspect he was simply posing for the camera because he felt he hasn’t had enough blog-time recently!

He was working hard to stop the wool escaping here…

There were too many other cute shots to show you so I’ve put together a collage …

Awwwww….

I realised that I have created a set of strict rules for myself when I’m working on the Flower Blanket. The Blankie-Police are not going to come and get me if I break them but they do make life easier, or maybe more achievable, if I follow them.

Your rules and ways of thinking are probably different to mine but I thought I’d share!

This post probably follows logically on from the  Blankie Dilemas post that I wrote when making my Picnic Blanket so here goes…

First Rule: Minimise ends

On the first purl row, I use the fairisle weaving technique to weave in the tail left by casting on behind the stitches…the less ends to sew in the better.

When doing the striped squares, I carry the “not in use” colour up the side of the work, weaving it behind the last stitch of each knit row.

Second rule: Know what way is up

When I cast off, I always leave a long tail to be used to sew the square, using mattress stitch, to the next square up in the strip. This saves end weaving and makes it easy to identify the top and bottom of a block.  The striped squares are particularly easy to get upside down.(…ask me how I know?) The Flowers have one petal at the bottom and two at the top too.  You wouldn’t believe it but it screams if  even the plain squares  are the wrong way up!

Third rule: Finish one  square before starting another

This might sound silly! I have to be strict with myself and sew all the ends in and do any Swiss embroidery on any one square before starting a new one (especially the intarsia flowers). If I was faced with a pile of intarsia squares needing ends darning in, I’d never do it!

Fourth rule: Work on the squares for one vertical strip at a time

Not too strict on this one, but never the less …  It stops me going off and doing all my favorite squares first then not finishing because I’ve got the yucky ones left to do! The advantage of this approach is that you get a little “Achievement Boost” each time you finish an entire strip.

Fifth rule: Sew up as you go along

If you’ve followed rule four, You’ll have a regular strip-full of squares to sew together – again, it would seem a huge job to do the entire blanket all at once but seeing one strip come together, then sew two strips together??? I need that feeling of “progress”

The Blankie-Police may not enforce these rules but I suspect they have sent in an undercover agent, equipped with laser eyes, to watch out for misdemeanours .

Scanning the area for signs of blanket squares……..