time warp

I've decided to put the new year off until next month. Is that ok?

So, to round the year out with something familiar:

The Vital Statistics

Pattern: Cladonia by Kristen Kapur of Through the Loops. Wonderful, gorgeous shawl. 

Size: The pattern only comes in one size but I increased the size and depth of mine - details below. 
Yarn: Brooklyn Tweed Loft in 'truffle hunt' (my absolute favourite), 'old world' and 'blanket fort'. I love that one speck of red in the 'old world'.

Needles: 4mm. 
Start to finish: 27 June to 19 December 2012. 
Recycle/stash content: Well, it's all recycled from the first Cladonia that I knit but I don't think that really counts ... 

Comments:  I made considerable changes to this pattern to achieve a shawl that was both deeper and larger (that is, just more surface area altogether). The increase in depth was achieved by making the body increases every sixth instead of every fourth row. If you are making a striped version, this means that the increase will occur on alternating main colour and contrast colour rows (whereas in the regular version the increases are always on a main colour row). These increases all occur on right side rows.

To also make the shawl larger you need to effectively add some segments to the shawl (pattern provides for eight segments, mine has ten and I've seen that some people have increased it to eleven). To achieve the two extra segments, I made twice as many edge increases, half of which occur on wrong side rows; that is, you increase every sixth row for depth but every third at the edge. result is that the first and last of the eight segments are double the size (making effectively 10 segments) and the finished shawl thus four lace repeats wider along the border.

You can see here the elongated first and last segments and overall altered shape here (and that we don't much bother to rake up our leaves):

In order to make these two changes, you also need to make some changes when you cast on. To make the shawl wider/larger, you need to have 2 extra set-up stitches. Knit garter tab as per instructions (10 stitches on the needles: 3 for the garter stitch edge, 4 for the body of the shawl, 3 for the garter stitch edge); then work kfbf into first and last of the shawl body stitches (instead of just kfb) and kfb into the 2 intervening stitches (16 stitches on needles instead of 14).

Lastly, on this version I didn't do the contrast colour row in the edging; didn't feel that it was necessary now that I got the colours in better balance. 

Verdict: I think that this is going to work for me now. I am delighted with the finished product and just need to wait for some cooler weather, or stand in the shade.

hello dear blog

Hello dear blog readers (blog readers? anyone out there still?). It has been a while, change of country, change of time zone, change of residence - moving has quite taken it out of me. But I'm back to get the ball of yarn rolling because knitting continues, no matter what!

My Cladonia (remodelled) is currently blocking (and my fingertips are nigh bleeding after pinning out every one of those blasted little picots - ouch!). It is indeed much larger than the first one I knit, certainly wider but perhaps not quite as deep as I might have liked.

I have just realised that the first version was actually my first finished knit this year. I hope that it won't be my last; there are still 12 days left and I have some elephants coming along nicely.

blanket fort

I didn't knit this cowl.

But, oh knitting gods forgive me, I did unravel it.

It was still painful to see those lovely, even stitches disappear even though I didn't make them myself. The yarn is, of course, Brooklyn Tweed Loft in 'blanket fort', the colourway that I refused to buy more of because I was determined, oh so stubbornly determined, to finish my Cladonia without. This cowl, given to me, yes given to me by the incredibly generous jnbrkly, for the express purpose of unravelling it so that I could use the yarn. Hooray!

It came home (to Australia) from home (in Seattle) with Tim last night. Double hooray! He had to go back to the US for a conference (in Seattle of all places, from which we had just packed up and moved) and it has been a very long week or so just me and the children, still in the throes of emotional jetlag and adjustment anxiety. It has been four weeks now since we arrived in Melbourne. On the one hand it feels like forever (I did grow up here, I have lived here forever on and off) and on the other as though it has just been a few days.

Ahh, nothing that a bit of knitting and actually finishing a long-suffering project won't fix though (that and the bottle of duty-free gin - ha ha! no, am saving that for a special occasion, truly).

knitting - encouragement required

Certainly one of the greatest dilemmas for any travelling knitter is - "what knitting to take?"

Yes, there is always the welcome opportunity, should the knitter in question tragically run out of knitting, to purchase more yarn, even just a single skein of something really nice. Actually, that's a good idea as a souvenir anytime but I digress. It's more of a dilemma when there is actual knitting to do but none of it is really inspiring.

I have tired a bit of my Betty Mouat Cowl, unsure whether it is really working out. It is actually working out exactly as I had envisioned and intended, I'm just feeling unsure whether I got that vision and intention right. I was very successful using Judy's Magic Cast-on for my 441 provisional stitches. I am getting just the effect that I desired of a pale band in the middle of the cowl, the colour progression to the dark hues is a little more abrupt than I had expected. I've just ... run out of ... steam a bit ....


And then to just add to the disenchantment - Cladonia. I love this shawl pattern, I love the yarn and colours that I have chosen but it is just not working out (again) and I cannot bear the thought of re-knitting it (a third time).

I am waiting for some yarn to arrive in the mail with which I will be able to finish off the triple-picot edge (not a prospect to relish) - yes, I know that I swore I was going to finish it with what I had but then I swore so much that I reconsidered. I didn't buy the yarn, a lovely fellow Raveller is giving it to me, a whole skein's worth!

So really, all the effort that I went to to laboriously unpick and laboriously reweave those two 'truffle hunt' rows was ... just laborious. And tedious. And in retrospect completely unnecessary. I am even tempted to rip back a good two thirds of it to rework the stripe sequence but now I dread not only knitting the lace again but also the striped rows with all the extra increases that I have introduced at the edges. Actually, scrap that notion altogether - I have so little of the 'old world' left over (and not to hand) that I couldn't risk re-knitting the stripes. Solved! When the yarn arrives, I will knit the picot edge, fix up a bit where I have started another unnecessary row of shawl surgery, block it and claim 'design choice' to explain any flaws.


Still, any encouragement on either of these projects would be greatly appreciated.

the patient

I am patiently stitching away on Cladonia. I removed one 'blanket fort' stripe, unpicking one row and then unravelling the second. Replacing it with 'truffle hunt' required knitting one row and then Kitchener stitching to graft that row to the next across many hundred stitches. Tedious, and nerve wracking.

The second row I am approaching somewhat differently, unpicking the 'blanket fort' and following up with the 'truffle hunt' stitch by stitch. Also incredibly tedious but not so nerve-wracking and with less chance of mistakes (I had to actually undo my Kitchener stitching a few times where I had lost the rhythm), especially when it comes to incorporating increases, and infinitely neater. Then every hour or so, I get to knit a few dozen stitches with the  yarn that I have salvaged.

Yes, this is nuts but I have decided to finish this with the yarn that I have and I am stubborn.

shawl surgery

I'm not sure whether I have completely lost the plot but my Cladonia remodel has taken on the dimensions of full reconstructive surgery.

I ran out of yarn - the 'blanket fort' this time - and am feeling completely contrary about making the trip to Bainbridge Island to buy some more or paying delivery costs if I purchase it online (two things that I normally wouldn't blink an eye at). Part of it may be that as I was knitting the stripes, after the colour change, it did occur to me more than once that it might be an idea to throw in a 'truffle hunt' stripe here or there (see photo at right). But I couldn't really decide and I was a bit far along and didn't want to rip back the few rows so I just kept knitting; kept knitting until I was the cast-off edging and two-and-a-half rows short of 'blanket fort' yarn.

So last night, having saved myself from previously ripping back a few rows, I cut into my Cladonia, oh yes, cut in with scissors and removed a blanket fort stripe. I am halfway through replacing it with a truffle hunt stripe which is going surprisingly well (but that's because 200-odd stitches to be kitchenered together are yet to come). See photo below of great gaping wound:

And, I'll have to this at least twice more I figure in order to have enough yarn to finish, the triple bypass of knitting surgery.

fifth course

I've been randomly knitting away on Tim's secret pink stripe smorgasbord delicious socks. I'm up to the fifth different yarn and they're coming along nicely. Just stocking stitch in the round for a while now, then ribbing I guess. I don't think I'll even need to do any shaping as they are certainly not going to be knee highs (as the pattern accommodates).

And I am working on the lace edging for Cladonia, these are long rows now:

And I'm still working on my blouse. Here's a snippet of the fabric, upcycled from a men's shirt that I bought in ... Australia, maybe? From the op shop, brand is Blazer, it's a medium-weight cotton with this little dark blue print of sprigs. It looks just like a patchwork print but the material is heavier.


I managed to totally muck up the front yoke facing so it wasn't sitting nicely at all. Now that I have removed it, it appears that the front yoke and front yoke facing are completely different shapes ... not at all sure how I managed that. Am trying to maintain momentum in order to actually finish it (rather than resorting to the more pleasant task of cutting pattern pieces out for a different blouse. I've only done one so far).

all that remains

I have finished the striping on my Cladonia (the second version) and this is all that I have left of my skein of Brooklyn Tweed Loft in 'old world'. There's only a few metres there. I truly thought that I was going to run out, so sure that I started canvassing other Ravellers with 'old world' in their stash to see if anyone could spare a gram or two. It wasn't necessary (phew) and now I am on to working the lace section in 'blanket fort' which really is beautiful (only two rows so far so not much to see). I'm just hoping that I'll have enough yarn to finish it ...

key change

Not to infer that 'truffle hunt' is a major colourway and 'blanket fort' a minor (although 'truffle hunt' is the most wonderful brown/grey with a hint of lavender that ever existed) but in the process of reworking my Cladonia I have just shifted from striping in 'truffle hunt'/'old world' to 'blanket fort'/'old world' before working the border in 'blanket fort'.

(Now I am completely unmusical and actually have no idea what a key change really is. Tim and I will be listening to music and he'll say 'there's the key change' and I am oblivious. On the other hand, when Tim asks me what I'm laughing at and I say that it was something in the lyrics, his response is 'oh, you actually listen to the words'.)

I put a lot of thought into where to make the colour change. I decided to stripe half of the shawl's area in truffle hunt' and 'old world' and the other half in 'blanket fort' and 'old world'. To work out which row this meant making the colour change on, I had to rummage deep in the recesses of brain and recall some maths. I based the calculations on a full circle and started by calculated the circumference as sixteen times the number of stitches in each section (448). From there I got the nominal radius of the circle (and from there calculated the area nominal radius (c = 2πr) - I say nominal because the radius of a circle cannot be expressed in stitches). Result was 71(-ish).  

Then to calculate the area of the circle (a=πr²) ... and yes, blah blah blah. I remember in high school maths classes there was always someone who would complain 'when am I ever going to use this in real life?' Not me because I was studious but if someone had told me I'd be using it to calculate how much of my shawl to knit in a different colour I would never have believed them.

remodelling

This is the current state of my Cladonia:

Yes, I frogged it. That is to say, took it apart, unravelled it, wound it back up into balls of wool. Sad. It's just that the shawl as it was was too small and the half-circle shape (as opposed to crescent shape) just didn't sit well for me. And the Loft is too precious to not be in active use.

So here I am, starting again. The shawl will still have eight sections but with the following modifications:

- knit garter tab as per instructions, which leaves 10 sts on the needles: 3 for the garter stitch edge, 4 for the body of the shawl, 3 for the garter st edge; work kfbf into first and last of the shawl body stitches (instead of just kfb) [eta: kfb into 2 intervening stitches]; 16 stitches (instead of 14)
- make regular increases every sixth row (instead of every fourth to make shawl deeper)
- make extra far edge increases every third row (on purl side thus) to make first and last of the eight sections double the width and the finished shawl thus two lace repeats wider.

I also think that I will transition from Truffle Hunt/Old World (brown/dark blue) striping into Blanket Fort/Old World (light purple/dark blue) striping before doing the edging in Blanket Fort which will obviate the need for that extra row of contrast that I so wrestled with the first time around. Yardage remains a question but at the worst will require a trip to Bainbridge Island to visit Churchmouse Yarns and Tea and the conveniently placed Mora Iced Creamery. Oh, I do hope I run out of yarn ...

half.clad.onia

The Vital Statistics
Pattern: Cladonia by Kirstin Kapur of Through the Loops.
Yarn: Brooklyn Tweed Loft in colourways Truffle Hunt (grey/brown), Blanket Fort (purple) and Old World (dark blue); about 0.6 skeins of each.
Needles: 4.00mm
Start to finish: 5 December 2011 to 3 January 2012.
Stash/recycle content: Nope.

Comments: My first finished project of 2012! It's taken me a while to post about it because I feel that it is really only half done ... I'll explain. There are lots of comments about Kapur's other popular design, Andrea's Shawl, that it is too small. More on that topic when I finally block my completed Andrea's Shawl. I actually find this design to be too small. Admittedly, I used a half needle size smaller than called for ... perhaps it's actually the half-circle shape, which I so prefer to triangles but you don't get good tails to wrap around your neck and shoulders. Half-oval or crescent shapes may be better for me.

Anyway, this was a smooth knit until I got to the edging. The design calls for two colours to complete the shawl but I wanted to use three and there was a lot of to and forth (read knitting and frogging) while I worked out what to put where in the edging.Incidentally, if you do plan to work the eyelet border and lace in different colours, then it is important to work rows 5 and 6 of the set up border in the same colour as the lace.

And that loopy edging drove me loopy and blocking it was also a pain. I had to block the shawl in two shifts - almost all of my pins for the body of the shawl, and then almost all of them again for each of those picots.

Verdict: When I finish my Winnowing and know exactly how much of the Truffle Hunt I have left over, I am going to rip the edging on this (yes, ouch!) and knit more length into it, hopefully enough that the lace edging will be (at least) one repeat wider. I'll knit it in dark blue and grey/brown stripes until the Truffle Hunt runs out, then will switch to purple and dark blue stripes until I am ready to do the edging entirely in purple. When I frog the edging I will have to be careful to weigh the yarn to work out how much is required per section of lace repeat so that I, indeed, have enough to complete a wider edging.

So for the moment, this is half clad.

going loopy

Looped picot bind off on my Cladonia shawl - it's pretty tedious. There's the casting on and the casting off and more casting on and more casting off. More casting on, even more casting off and you are four stitches along. Over the course of 310 stitches you can see how this could get a tad brain numbing.

My problem with it really is that once I've done a dozen or so of these picot-adorned loops, I decide that I'm not actually happy with the previous rows and rip it all out. My first problem was with knitting the eyelet bands and lace border in two different colours. It didn't work and I didn't like the grey-brown (Truffle Hunt) next to the lavender (Blanket Fort).

I didn't even make it to the looped picot bind off that time. I frogged all the way back to the stripes and knit the eyelet bands and lace all in the lavender. Then, to hold the whole thing together I knit an extra garter stitch band in dark blue before starting the edging in lavender.

And knit about a dozen of the bind off loops before deciding, no, not right, and ripped it. No photo. Then I repeated this, knitting instead two extra stocking stitch rows in the dark blue so that they would recede between the garter stitch rows. Made it through about half a dozen picoted loops and, no, not right, it's the dark blue, too obtrusive. Ripped that back.


















So yes, now I'm considering knitting that extra two rows of stocking stitch in the grey-brown (even though I'm not fond of it next to the lavender it may be the subtlety that's required) and then proceeding with the looped picot bind off. If you happen to have persevered in reading this far, any opinions?

loft

It's a full week ago, but allow me to report on my trip to Bainbridge Island to buy some of the new Brooklyn Tweed yarn, Loft. It really is lucky to have one of the only ten or so brick-and-mortar stores that stock the stuff right here in the neighbourhood because it is so lovely to look at all the colours together and touch them and hold them against each other in different combinations.

I purchased (clockwise from top left): blanket fort, barn owl, pumpernickel, storm cloud, truffle hunt, nest, meteorite and old world. Just one skein of each, yes 'just' as I have many plans for them. I want to knit a striped version of Cladonia in truffle hunt (possibly my favourite shade) and old world, using blanket fort (which is actually a light purple) as a contrast in the lace.

I also want to knit a stranded colour-work tam in all the brown/grey shades, using blanket fort and old world as the highlights. I'm considering the Autumn Tam pattern which actually calls for ten shades (I only have eight) so that will take either some working out or two more skeins ...

And then I'm wondering if I were to hold the yarn four strands together whether I could use it to make a very earthy pair of Little Duffers for my baby b whose birthday is rapidly approaching. He's getting a big kid bed so that would fit nicely with the bedtime theme.