Damn, Knit & Blast It

Halcyon is storming along and so far, is a very enjoyable knit.

I’ve made both of the peplums, picked up the stitches for the back – VERY carefully and neatly…

From Halcyon

and started rampaging towards the armholes …

From Halcyon

OK I say ‘rampaging’…I probably mean slowly and meticulously plodding through the rows, checking my every step.

Halcyon is fun but it’s not going to be quick!

As there is not much to tell on Halcyon, I thought I’d tell you about the garment guilty of making me the Kidsilk Haze junkie I undeniable am – the Birch Shawl.

I’ve mentioned my problem with KSH several times but most notably in this post – “Cracksilk Haze – I can stop any time I want”

I can tell you, as someone who should be in KSH rehab, one ball is enough to hook you.  I started in big way – a three ball project! There was no hope after that.

It just a random thought -  What would KSH rehab be like? Aversion therapy? Electric shocks delivered by electrodes attached to the ends of your metal knitting needles  if you reach for the soft, fluffy stuff? Group therapy?

” My name is Susan and I own 130 balls of KSH and I am a Cracksilk junkie ”

So where did it all start? In Rowan Mag 34…

From Birch

There was and article called,  “Clever Ideas”, about snuggling up warm and cosy with knitted things…I instantly fell in love with the atmosphere conjured up by the accompanying picture and decided I had to have the shawl draped indulgently over the hanger.

From Birch

Strangely, all the “birch” pictures on-line use another picture of Birch from the same book, in which you can’t really see the lace pattern and the model looks cold!

From Birch

As well as my first use of KSH, this was also my first real lace pattern- Talk about challenging!

I knit Birch way back in 2004, before Ravelry, before knitting groups before I knew about good quality needles (my God, I shudder at the memory of the cheap circular that twisted into a loop  and caught every stitch!) and before I knew about so many online resources for knitters – I just slogged my way though.

Wanna see my Birch now?

You saw me wearing it with my pink beret…

From Pink Beret

Here’s a better “shawlish” shot – apologies for it being crumpled – It’s been worn a lot!

From Birch

And a close up of the stitch pattern…

From Birch

If you’re wondering, the colour is Dewberry

This is now a massively popular pattern and every one seems to have knit it so I’m not going to bore you with all the ins and outs here. Just google for Rowan Birch and there will be a gazillion hits. Wonderfully, Rowan now have this pattern for free download on their website if you want to try it but be aware – the cast on is 299 stitches! Rowan Free Birch Pattern.

I must just tell you about one incident with Birch though.

Ben and I had a fabulous holiday in the Maldives in December 2004. It was a long flight and this was before the current hysteria about knitting on planes.

I took my nearly completed Birch on the long  flight.

I was finishing off the second to last pattern repeat and getting excited about finishing when Ben knocked half a glass of lager towards me and soaked my Birch.

There was very nearly a justifiable case for banning knitting needles on air planes in 2004 due to air rage and a savage stabbing and strangulation of a passenger with a nasty plastic circular needle!

I managed to restrain myself to rather a lot of sobbing, recrimination and sulking for the next couple of hours. Actually KSH holds up well to being soaked in lager and rinsed in an air plane sink!

It was so hot and humid in the Maldives (fabulous – go if you can!) that Birch didn’t really need any blocking – I just wore and wore it the whole holiday – and pretty much regularly since then!

I really should knit another…I wonder if I have any Kidsilk Haze in my stash??

OK. I admit it….my resolve has failed me and I got bored with the flower blanket. It has been put away, pending winter.

I’m a bad, naughty knitter and a bad, delinquent blogger

It’s my sister’s fault really….she went and had a birthday right when I was struggling to apply myself – she distracted me….

The gift I had in mind for her was knitted so I had to stop with the blanket to make sure it was finished in time…. didn’t I??

So what did I make Carol for her birthday?

There’s a story here….

Once upon a time,  in a long lost century, around an era some might call “1992″ , my big sister bought knitting kit from Good Housekeeping Magazine. It was by a company called Knitwits (who I can’s find a trace of now).

It was for a lovely bobbly, lacy  cushion cover. The pattern doesn’t specify the yarn but I suspect strongly that it was Rowan Handknit cotton.  Carol decided the best way to complete this kit was to ask her little sister to knit it up for her! I happily obliged and the cushion has adorned Carol’s livingroom ever since.  Still looking like new…

…and I stupidly don’t have a picture of it!

About 6 years ago I made another version of this cushion (I got pictures this time!!) in fabulous Rowan Chenile Chunky. This version was beloved by Thug before it even got off the needles. It has become his personal cushion and a favourite snoozing spot.

Aww….

Hmmm – Can’t see the pattern there can you?? Kinda obscured by the ginger lard-boy…
Try this…

and this… (I apologise for the matted, fur encrusted tatty nature of this cushion. It does get washed regularly when I can prise it out from Thug’s paws)

(I apologise for the matted, fur encrusted tatty nature of this cushion. It does get washed regularly when I can prise it out from Thug’s paws)

I tell you – those bobbles, especially with chenille, are a bitch – I had “bobble finger” by the end of this cutie.

So what of Carol’s birthday present? I knew Carol was hankering after a new cushion cover for her living room and was sure I had the perfect colour yarn in stash….

This is what I came up with…

And I learnt a useful trick about bobbles too!

A good thing because this cushion has 234 of them!

You know how you do a bobble -(k,p,k,p into a stitch to make 4 stitches, knit back and forth on those 4 stitches a few times the decrease back to 1 stitch and carry on.)- That involves a heck of a lot of turning your work around – it wastes time and involves flailing limbs, tangled balls of yarn and, if knitting on the train as I planned to do, ticked off commuters.

I thought I’d try my hand at backwards knitting for the purl rowls of the bobbles (backwards knitting is where you don’t turn the work at the end of a knit row but work from left to right with the right side facing you).

I’m not very even when I backwards knit but what the hey – it’s in a bble – eho’ll see? It worked like a charm and made the dreadded “bobble rows” much easier to handle. It also had the advantage of not causing and loss of eyeballs to my fellow commuters!

So did Carol like her birthday gift?

Well yes – she loved it, but only after I’d convinced her it wasn”t a rather eclectic hat!

My wardrobes are overflowing – which is very bad as I remodelled to bedroom two years ago and made more wardrobe space!

I’ve been very disciplined lately and taken great bags full of “stuff” to the charity shop. Now the hard bit…I need to cull the shelf where my hand knits live.

I found three garments I don’t wear any more and guess what? Two of them have never been blogged!

So first the one you might have seen, my Willow jacket in Ribbon Twist.

This one…

It has gotten kinda pilled and saggy and I was never quite sure about the white fluffy bits on the collar. Does it make  anyone else think of Santa Claus? I was reminded it was there when I made my Chunky Ribbon Twist Cushion. I wore it again just once and it felt too chunky and a bit frumpy on me so it has to go.

Next is a Pre Blog Project that has never been seen here before! (I’m assuming you’re jumping up and down with excitement here?? )

Here’s Angie..

It’s a Rowan pattern from “It’s a Tape Thing” by the lovely Kim Hargreaves.
This book…

I made this back in 2004 (I think!) and for me, the best part was doing the dropped stitch edging on the sleeves and bottom edge.

You literally knit some rib then drop a stitch and let it unravel all the way down the work. I had just joined the Guilty Knitters at that point and they teased me a great deal because I was very excited by the stitch dropping process and said,
“It feels so wrong and naughty and bad and decadent…but I like it!”
They assumed I had that approach to some other, more personal areas of my life too!

The worst thing about this jumper is that I really made a hash of picking up the stitches around the neck. Isn’t it amazing how, when you get out an old garment, you realise your knitting has improved?

Lastly here’s a huge piece of knitting!

It’s Nicole in Debbie Bliss Maya (and me pulling a “do you want me to come over there and make you behave” face at Ben )…

From this book, Debbie Bliss No.7…

I adore the Debbie Bliss Maya (I have it on reasonably good authority it’s actually Mano Del Uruguay’s wool classica rebadged) . I bought up rather a lot when it was discontinued – I still have 10 skeins each of solid pink and 10 of  solid purple in my stash – opps I forgot the 7 skeins of orange and pink mix too.

The yarn is great (and it  felts well – as I found with my Kim Felted bag) but Debbie Bliss’s pattern was not so good. I have to say – I’m not in the Debbie Bliss fan club.

Firstly, the front edging – it curled.

Being a stocking stitch garment, with no edging stitches and having a picked up edging, nothing short of super glue and stapling the edge to my thighs was going to stop the curl.

The picot on the sleeves was good…

I also wasn’t terribly impressed with the collar – it worked but I like a bit more attention to detail in my patterns. The button part was good though! Pity all the hard work on the edging below the buttons immediately curled out of view…

I guess I’m being a little unfair because, although this was a huge garment to knit, it was a very easy knit and grew faster than you’d think on the 5.5mm needles.

And I’m being really unfair because, when I’d finished it I wore it to death and was very pleased and had lots of compliments!

I suppose it’s just out of fashion now, looking pilled and tired and I’m bored with it. None of that is Debbie Bliss’s fault!

So there we are, three large garments culled and room for some more in my wardrobe!

I’ll leave you with the obligatory Completed Knit Reports then get back to knitting the Flower Blanket! An update on that coming next!!

I am finally beating the three months of constant coughs and colds!

Yeah for me!

Unfortunately for my knitting, this means that I’m busy having nights out and enjoying myself to make up for lost time -  rather than sitting home and knitting.

What I’m trying to  say is there’s not much knitting progress to report. The back of the see-through jumper in finished and the front barely started.

Bad, naughty Susan.

So, what to blog?

After a night out seeing the new Watchmen film (superb) and eating the most artery clogging, bad for me and so delicious I was giggling eating it,  meal out I have ever eaten (Ed’s diner Chilli Dog with cheese)I needed to unwind and knit.

Ben snapped a piccie of me knitting the see-though jumper and what do you know? I wearing a favourite from my pre blogging days….

So here I go, delving into my “life spanning, career defining  back catalog” of knitted garments. This is a beautiful but uninspiringly named “V Neck Cable Sweater” from Bergere De France. I think of it as my French Cable Jumper.

Here’s a better picture, you can see the detail…

I made this way back in July 2006 from a kit I bought from Cucumberpatch. amazingly this jumper is still on their website!

The yarn is Bergere De France Berlaine. It’s not one of the most expensive yarns you’ll find – it’s a superwash pure wool and is a little “sheepy” and scratchy.

I have got to tell you though. This jumper has been worn to death. Bunged through the washing machine several times and generally given a hard time. It still looks like I have just knitted it 3 years later. This jumper is going to last at least a decade!

I have been disapointed with some yarns’ durability but this is one to go for if you want a pure yarn that will make a lasting garment that’s easy to care for.

So what was it like to knit?

An absolute pleasure – clear pattern and plenty of interest. It was an unusual pattern for me to use -   written in the continental style,  it gives the details of the three different cables then gives the garment shaping details separately – you have to put the two together!

The only part I had difficulty with was grafting the cables at the back of the neck – you kind go up the sides of the V- neck and make two little strips to join at the back of the neck to give a neat finish – not quite up to my perfectionist standards but it will do.

I could always grow my hair long again!!

First a confession – I’ve barely knit this week.

I’ve been on an intensive training course for work all week- my evenings were “study til you fall asleep” territory

When I got home on Friday and changed clothes, I pulled out an old knit from the back of the wardrobe to relax in….

Oh Dear! It’s not how I remember it…

This is a pre-blog knit – from about November 2006.

It’s Sorrel by Sarah Hatton from Rowan 40.

This is the Rowan pic…

from this mag…

Sorrel is designed to be knit in Rowan Tapestry – a yarn that drapes beautifully. I’ve seen this pattern made up in tapestry – the cowl neck works a treat.

I was on  a tight budget when I made Sorrel so subbed Twilleys Freedom Spirit in Red – a superb yarn at an amazingly reasonable price compared to the Tapestry.

It was super when I first wore it – the cowl was a bit stiff and needed to be beaten into a drapey shape but I liked it.

It looked like this when I was knitting it…

It has been worn and washed several times and has faded a fare bit.When I put it on today it looked like this..

The sleeves have stretched – in fact it’s all too big – was it always this big or does wool give??…

The “cowl and inset” looks dated to me and that is really not draping…

It’s pilling….

It doesn’t fit right – the sleeves especially….

I don’t think I’m going to wear this in public any more and I’m short of wardrobe space (mainly because I keep knitting stuff!)

It’s going to have to be rehomed…(any takers??!!) It has had it’s time and must now pass beyond the (knitted?) veil…

A “Completed Knit Report” to record Sorrel’s passing and off to the charity shop

What I don’t understand is why I feel sad and guilty about throwing it out!

I was just looking at a Knitting Forum and saw a query about Rowan Tapestry.

“I’ll add my two-penny’s worth into that thread”, I thought, “Where’s those piccies I used to blog about Ben’s “Serge” jumper I made in Tapestry?”

I couldn’t find the pictures.

I couldn’t find the blog post about the jumper.

I could find Ben and the jumper so I knew I hadn’t gone completely ga-ga and started fantasising knitting projects!

The truth dawned on me that this was a “Pre Blog Project” that had never been photographed or blogged

How could I not have blogged this? It’s a rather successful jumper!

Ben was duly stuffed into the jumper, flung against the wall and photographed before he could protest.

So this is Serge …

…From Rowan magazine No. 40 . This one from Winter 2006…

The garment itself was very easy to knit – a basic, round neck men’s jumper with minimal shaping. The interest can from the self striping yarn and the “flaps and straps” details. Oh Dear, I’m making sound like bondage wear!

The Straps and Flaps are knitted separately and sewn into the seams as you make up the garment.

This is the shoulder flap,

and here’s the waist and wrist straps,

There wasn’t much information in the pattern about how to attach these so I improvised and sewed them into the seams. I also put a few stitches behind the shoulder flap to stop it pulling out of place with wear. (And to stop Ben resting his had under it in a Napoleon like fashion! )

The Tapestry yarn is a mix of pure wool and 30% Soy bean protein. Sounds odd but does feel good to me. It’s quite loosely spun so does have a tendency to split if you’re careless and can snap it you tug at it – this didn’t happen to me but I know some tight knitters had issues.
The other important subject to cover about this yarn is itchyness. Ben is not a fuss-pot about itchy yarns and does not have especially sensitive skin. When he first put this jumper on, he lasted less than 10 minutes before tearing at his neck and having to take it off because it irritated him so much. I was horrified! That’s a big jumper and a lot of knitting to be unwearable.
I stiffled my sobs and gently hand washed it and added some fabric softener. This has improved it greatly and it is now wearable, but only with a T-shirt under it. I really wouldn’t recommend this yarn for next to the skin.

Serge is now 2 years old and has been regularly worn and washed. It’s a little pilled but still looking good!

I have finally accepted that a favourite old handknit top of mine needs to go in the bin. I love it to bits but it has been regularly worn, machine washed and tumble dried and has now shrunk to the point where it is a crop top showing way too much belly!

Here is my poor old friend in an “infront of the mirror” shot….

…(spot the feline supervisor )

I love the stitch pattern on this – it’s a very easy 6 row pattern repeat but looks much harder. If you’ve got the Vogue Stitchionary – Volume 1, it’s pattern 188, “Chevron Panels”.

The pattern is an old Jaeger leaflet – the copyright on the back is 1997 but it doesn’t seem to have dated at all. It’s a beautifully thought out pattern – all the shaping puts seams in the gaps between the the chevrons so you don’t get that messy half a pattern effect. This is the pattern guilty of switching me on to Jaeger and Rowan designs and away from nasty acrylic, shapeless sacks!!

It’s Jaeger JH 0029 The Hildegard Sweater…

I made my Hildegard in Jaeger Pure Cotton DK in a rich burnt orange colour – a beautiful mercerised cotton that has stood up well to some serious maltreatment – it’s faded quite a bit! When I made it (in about 2002!) I really didn’t make it long enough – I think I was too eager to get it done and didn’t knit it quite to the measurements. It’s also a clingy top that gets shorter when the pattern is stretched over my curves – We live and learn huh?
I don’t often knit the same pattern twice. I like new challenges and the excitement of seeing a new pattern emerge. This is the exception. When I first made it, my Mum liked it so much I made her one for Christmas. Now, I’m making my third Hildegard.

I thought this one deserved some luxurious yarn and some more respectful treatment. Out came my jealously stashed Jaeger Pure Silk in a dusky pink…..

I’ve just finished the back and I think it’s looking sumptuous…

I’ve just realised that, in the photos, my new Hildegard looks almost the same colour as my old one! I wonder if that’s a subconscious way of trying to keep my old friend??

I’ll give you a Completed Knit Report for my first Hildegard – then I’ll get on with knitting my new one!!

Completed Knit Report
Name:	Hildegard (First one…)
Pattern:	Jaeger JH 0029 – designer unknown!
Yarn:	Jaeger Pure Cotton DK
Pattern Problems:	None except it does pull up as the pattern stretches to the correct width so measue while stretched or you’ll end up with a crop top like me!
Pattern Modifications:	None on this one
Washing and Wearing:	Quite thick cotton so warm to wear. Has been washed and tumble dried 100s times and only problem is slight shrinkage.
Knit It Again???:	YES!!..and again…and again..
Difficulty:	Medium (because of keeping pattern correct while shaping)
Rating:	5/5
Other Postings Relating To This One:	None

This week I’ve been visiting my big sister, Carol and her lovely husband, Steve.

While I was being spoilt rotten, I remembered to take some photos of a couple of Carol’s jumpers that I made.

The first is a fair isle design from Rowan 38 called Electra – guess what?? It’s on the cover

The pattern gives the sleeveless version and a cardigan version. At the time I made it (2 years ago exactly – dates on photos are a wonderful thing!) I thought, “Yuk! Tank top!” so I decided to make the cardigan for me. I’ve since caught up with fashion and no longer think sleeveless knitwear belongs in the 1970s but please forgive me for that fashion lapse this once…

I was very happy and a felt a little “Stash busting virtue” as, being fair isle, it only needed a couple of balls of each yarn – 2 colours of Yorkshire Tweed DK, 1 colour Felted Tweed and 1 colour Kidsilk Haze (used double). I had a lovely mix in my stash and only had to buy 1 ball of cream KSH. My local John lewis had run out of cream KSH so on the spur of the moment, I decided to use one strand cream KSH and one strand cream Kidsilk Night – a good decision – the subtle sparkle really worked.

Choosing the cardigan was rather ambitious as my only previous fair isle experience had been a pair of Snuggle Bed Socks.

It hadn’t occurred to me that a cardigan has 5 pieces and lots of shaping. A tank top I mean slipover, has two quite simple pieces. I also wasn’t experienced enough to realise that making the pieces flat on two needles was hard too! Purling and wrapping the stitches with two handed fair isle – ick!

I slogged through and finished the beast – Montse Stanley’s Knitter’s Handbook was open on the fair isle section most of the time.

The nice thing about this particular fair isle pattern is that although it’s a 34 row repeat, there are only 7 rows which have two colours in them – the rest are stripes. Nice cheat huh?

Here’s the beast “in progress”…

The sleeves were pure evil to fit – it took three attempts to get the pattern matching on one of them – Grrrr It didn’t help that I was not happy at work at the time and I think I’d knitted a lot of my emotions into this garment!

I finally sewed on the buttons and guess what – I HATED IT!

It looked awful and frumpy on me and too big and the wrong colours.

Who do I know who takes a slightly larger size than me, loves blues and creams and I love enough to give a precious handknit? My big sister !

Carol tried on the cardi and I was truly amazed. What looked like the most disastrous mess on me looked fantastic on her. It fitted. It looked stylish and trendy. It was her colours. She wasn’t going to give it back again without a serious fight! It has since become one of her firm favourites – I’m so pleased on so many levels!

Here’s Carol modelling for me .

And the back…..

Want to see one of those difficult shoulders too?? It just matches…

I think the right buttons can really lift a garment and I think I did really well with these – they are sold as plain cream buttons and have this beautiful mottling on the back – you can see which side I liked!

I suppose all of you out there are thinking, “Yes. OK. But how neat is the back?!” If it was me, I’d be itching to turn it over and take a look…

With the benefit of hindsight and reading about other people who have made Electra, there are several things I’d do differently if I made another.

1. Investigate Steeking the whole thing – Eunny Jang has a fantastic intro to steeking on her blog.
2. At least knit the whole thing – Cardigan or Tank top – in one piece up to the armholes – darning in ends is not my favourite occupation!
3. Check my tension more carefully so I get to wear it!I have learnt that fair isle does make my tension go loose!
4. Cast off the button band even looser than I did (it’s a little tight)

This was a sad and miserable garment to make that turned out to be a very happy cardi when it found a home where it is loved!!

Completed Knit Report
Name:	Electra Cardigan
Pattern:	by Louisa Harding from Rowan 38
Yarn:	Yorkshire Tweed DK, Felted Tweed DK, Kidsilk Haze and Kidsilk Night
Pattern Problems:	None (that weren’t to do with my inexperience!!)
Pattern Modifications:	None – but I should have considered the points above!
Washing and Wearing:	It’s been regularly worn for 2 years and still looking good!
Knit It Again???:	I’m tempted by a tank top for me
Difficulty:	Hard – mostly because of doing fair isle on two needles.
Rating:	3/5
Other Postings Relating To This One:	None

If you read any number of knitting blogs, you will have already heard of Ravelry.

I was luck enough to hear about Ravelry quite early on in it’s quest for Beta testers and got my invite in July. If you want to look me up, my username is the fabulously imaginative “susancrowe”….

For those of you who have assumed I am now blogging in another language – I’ll explain that….

Ravelry = A community driven website where you record data and pictures of all your knitting and crochet projects, books, needles, hooks and yarn. If you’ve already blogged it, you can link to your blog post! It also has forums! Yours and everybody else’s projects are then in a huge searchable database.

So….imagine if you are thinking about knitting a certain pattern, you can look it up in Ravelry and see that there are 20 people who’ve made it, what yarn they used, what they thought of the pattern, problems etc. You can do the same with yarn too! Click the Ravelry link for more info…

Beta Testing = Ravelry is new and is being written and developed as it goes along. It hasn’t been released “Live” to all users yet but is up and running and needs controlled numbers of users to use the complete website and test it’s functionality. Then give feedback on improvements and bugs. That what a beta tester does – go on and use it report back bugs and improvement suggestions but don’t throw a hissy fit if it’s not perfect yet!!

Invites = because it’s not “live” to the general public yet, everybody can’t get on at once so there is a queue to join. When it’s your turn, you get an invite! The anticipation has been driving some knitters quite mad!

I have just got to the point where I have loaded up pictures and details of all my projects that I’ve already blogged about and have just started to load projects “yet to be seen” on my blog.
Not fair on my loyal readers huh?

OK – there’s only one so far – my Daisy Scarf – I’ll show you….

This is the Daisy Scarf from Rowan 38, this book…

And this is the Rowan piccy…

I used the Kid Classic given in the pattern but mine is squishier and softer than it looks in the picture. I suspect it had been starched and blocked to death for the photo shoot!

The pattern is a strange sort of “bunchy stitch”, wrapping the yarn around the needle 3 times then dropping the extra wraps on the next row and knitting them together to make the swirl (Don’t try and knit it from that description – you’ll need the pattern!)

Here’s a close up of the pattern stitch…

It grew really fast and it is a favourite. Especially as I don’t really knit a lot of scarves!

Here’s an “action shot” of the scarf on…

The edging is cute but sewn on afterwards – it felt a bit like a design after thought to me. Then scarf is much better with it though…

I only used two of the three balls called for so I will at some point make some matching gloves (assuming I ever finish the Blankie!)