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.

attitude adjustment

So after my recent mini crisis of confidence in the sewing field, I took a deep breath and just got down to it. I think part of it is just accepting that it's a learning process and that there are going to (possibly, likely) be a few iterations.

I laid out my front side pattern piece and cut into it, lowering the bust apex, spreading the pattern piece out, closing the resulting dart, inserting extra tissue paper and taping it all together. It was, like most things when you follow the directions, easy.

Then yesterday evening I cut out the front, back and side pieces from calico and stitched it up. It was a bust (pardon the pun but was one ever more apposite?) Didn't fit - I had lowered the bust apex too far and hadn't added enough in the bust and will have to start over again. BUT, even with these shortcomings, I saw the shape of things to come, a top that is going to fit me. As soon as I get a free half hour or so (which really, is as long as it takes to do the fba as per the instructions that come with the pattern) I'll give it another shot.

And I'm delighted that I didn't even cut into or waste a shred of my super-cute fabric, upcycled from a French Connection blouse purchased second hand.

s[e]wing

And then after I have finished a couple of knitting projects, I inevitably find my interest swinging back to sewing.

Part of the impetus for this is the recent demise of a couple of t-shirts. In all of America, or so it seems, I have not been able to find anything as good as my favourite Witchery t-shirts - 100 per cent cotton, scoop neck, and long. I've tried a Gap essential t-shirt in the tall fit - good length, atrocious quality. I've tried an American Apparel u-neck t-shirt - ok, except really limited colour choice. And as I may have mentioned before, I'm really tired of wearing t-shirts all the time and long for a blouse or dress from woven fabric. One that fits.

Will this be it?

I was reading somewhere about full bust adjustment (fba) methods and came across mention of Palmer Pletsch's Fit for Real People which I then bought and read (and really liked) and then looked at their patterns and bought this one (McCall's M2818). Mostly because with the princess seams it has the potential to resemble a gorgeous Alma Aguilar dress that I have fallen in love with.

So, yes, now all I have to do is actually make it. These Palmer Pletsch patterns come with all of the markings necessary for making common fit adjustments, including the fba. And although I found their book very up-beat and encouraging, somehow, faced with the pattern, I feel terribly daunted. Yes I need to adjust the bust but by how much? And how much ease do I want? And is there enough ease in the pattern already if I just lower the bust apex? And ... and I just need to get on with it. Lower the bust apex, do the fba and sew a muslin.

Yeah. In the meantime, I ordered a few more t-shirts.

in the sink

But not down the drain (phew!).

This is my Attabi Wrap/Cowl/Infinity Loop having a little soak before blocking (so to speak):

And here it is 'blocking', that is, stretching out:

This is how I have had good results blocking a long cowl before - instead of lying it flat and risking creases, I block them in the round:

Step 1 - pad a broom with a couple of towels.
Step 2 - loop cowl over padding and suspend broom between two chairs, or, if the cowl is really long as was the case here, between two lines on the clothesline.
Step 3 - weight it down with a heavy book resting on a bundled up towel.

I have used the most recent Haruki Murakami here - 1Q84 - and I fear that this is the only use that I will have for it. After having waited months for my turn to read it from the library, I don't think there is any way I could get through it in the allotted three-week time period.

Anyway, there is a significant difference in stretch factor between the i-cord cast-off edge and the rest of the cowl, so I concentrated the not insignificant weight of Murakami there. I may use the woven floats to tighten the opposite edge up a bit, or not - will try it on first to see how it sits.

v1196

 I kind of like this Vogue Bellville Sassoon dress. Or rather, I see potential in this pattern for a dress that I might like. The basic shape reminds me of a Ted Baker dress that I own, my 'wear-to-weddings' dress.

Imagine this one all in one colour (including the flounce; actually, particularly the flounce) and certainly without the appliquéd bow. That's what I did and then I ran into some trouble - is the bow entirely applied or is it part of the bodice construction?

I searched all over the internet for any news of this dress and the only relevant item that I found was that this pattern is a best seller. Perhaps not one that actually ever gets sewn. So, in the interests of the sewing public and to record the details for posterity, I bought the pattern.

And here is the relevant instruction diagram. Not evident from the photo is that there is a horizontal tuck just below the neckline. And the bow is indeed part of the construction. I'm not sure what it would look like without the free floating bow ends, and I'm not sure how one would do an fba, and I'm not sure that it would work in a more casual woven instead of a wool crêpe, and I'm not sure that I would ever make it either, but at least my curiosity is satisfied.

i knit a cloud!

The Vital Statistics
Pattern: Whippoorwill by Carina Spencer.
Size: Large.
Yarn: Filatura di Crosa Gioiello in colourway 26 (30 per cent wool, 30 per cent mohair, 20 percent nylon, 10 per cent acrylic, 10 per cent cotton); 2.05 skeins. And madelinetosh tosh merino light in colourway 'well water' (100 per cent merino); 0.43 skeins, a present from Di.
Needles: 3.5mm to knit and 4.5mm to cast off.
Start to finish: 8 June to 27 June 2012 (yes, June of the same year).
Stash/recycle content: Alas, no.

Comments: I started planning this shawl at the very end of December 2010. It took me a while to get around to knitting it but once I did, wow, quick knit. I wasn't so lucky on yardage with the Gioiello though - I did need to buy a third ball for want of only about 11 yards of yarn. As it was, the third ball was a different dye lot to the first two (looks exactly the same but curiously a slightly different texture) and I knit the last of the white/gold sections from the third ball, thereby using up a little more than 11 yards of it! The tosh merino light is an absolute dream to knit with and the resulting fabric is gorgeous. As is this colourway, I definitely want to use it again. And there is just enough mohair in the Gioiello to make it sticky so when the shawl is flung around your shoulders, it actually stays there.

This shawl is a lovely design and a great shape. The instructions are, however, a bit confusing for being overly descriptive of how to make yarn-overs. Reading all the extra information bewildered me so I just started knitting and encountered no problems. Where the pattern calls for an M1 increase, I did a yarn-over and on the next row, worked into the back of the stitch.

Verdict: Llovelly. (Get it? Whippoorwill, Gioiello, Well Water.)

june reading

Wicked: the life and times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire - Oh, wicked good. I am no fan of musical theater but will admit to having been curious about this story when it was on stage recently (as in since I had children). So I was delighted to be able to read the story instead. And it is a wonderful story, very complete, very clever, very satisfying. Highly recommended.

V is for Vengeance by Sue Grafton - another good read. I didn't enjoy it as much as the previous two but they were very hard acts to beat.

swf

Do you enjoy reading about other people's nutty knitting pursuits (as I do)? About their, ahem, knitting obsessions? If so, read on ...

One of my favourite features on Ravelry is the 'friend activity' tab (where is it? under 'my notebook' click on friends and then it's the second tab along from the left). This feature allows you to peek in at what patterns and projects your ravelry friends have recently chosen as their favourites, what they are adding to their knitting queue, yarns they are purchasing (and a couple more things beside). This is where I am most often apprised of what's new and where I come across projects that I may otherwise have missed and where I first came across the fabulous 'morse code', an elongated cowl version of Laura Chau's Attabi wrap.

I rarely knit something in the yarn that the pattern indicates (it's usually way too expensive). (Except I did knit Kieran Foley's 'Kerchief' in exactly the yarns indicated and was even moved to try stranded knitting for the first time ever so it's an exception in more ways than one.) And I'm not sure that I've ever acually been moved to replicate someone else's project, that is until now.

Another thing I really like about Ravelry is being able to virtually paw through other people's stash and thereby acquire yarn that is not otherwise easily available or at a much better price (or both). That's how I came to own ten balls of Rowan RYC Baby Alpaca DK in Cheviot. Someone was selling nine balls on Ravelry and didn't want to split the lot and as it was the same cost as buying just five balls brand new and I couldn't get hold of any brand new, except for the ball that I had already bought on ebay to check out the colourway ... yes, ten balls. Ah yes, Baby Alpaca DK being the yarn from which 'morse code' is knit ...

There was no way that I could get hold of the other yarn, Viola Silky DK as the independent dyer is on a two-year break on a sheep farm somewhere, so started shopping around for a contrast. I ended up with some madelinetosh tosh DK in Betine, but that wasn't quite right.

Actually, the Cheviot also wasn't quite right - colours in photos online can be deceiving and it's much paler and greyer than I was searching for. Nor were either of the Road to China Light skeins that I bought (moonstone and dusky quartz) quiet the thing either, wrong composition for the main yarn which needs to be a matte, slightly fuzzy alpaca-ish yarn to contrast with the shiny smoothness of a silk blend. (But they are going to make a beautiful subtly striped hat or neckwarmer or something once I decide on it.)

Finally, I realised that what I want to replicate is the look - matte fuzzy alpaca with a contrasting (and lighter) silk blend. So I have settled on:

Classic Elite Yarns Mountaintop Vista, an alpaca blend in natural colourway '6076' and Manos del Uruguay Silk Blend in 3075. I hope it works well.

Along the way I also managed to pick up three skeins of Malabrigo Finito in colourway 'pearl ten'. I'm sure I'll think of something to knit with it.

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 ...

oh the expense!

Yeah, didn't make it with that second ball. The first Gioiello contrast section used about 11 grams of my available 20 so there was no way I was going to knit the next, slightly larger section from what I had left over.

So yes, I bought another ball. Different dye-lot (50 instead of 20) which doesn't seem to account for much colourwise but strangely the texture is different - the metallic thread seems to be much raspier in this 50 ball. Thankfully, it will just be for these six rows down near the outer edge so shouldn't affect its wearability. I actually bought a ball of the 50 previously when I made the decision to use this yarn for this shawl and needed a second (and what I thought would be only additional) ball. I took it back and exchanged it for the 20 dye-lo and am glad that I did.

I have 479 stitches on the needle right now and another 80 or so to increase before the shawl is completed. All gathered up like this it reminds me of a sea creature.

oh the suspense!

So much for tomorrow! I never got around to sharing the other couple of knitting projects that I was embarking upon because I got completely engrossed in Whippoorwill (and umm, I've actually forgotten what one of them was). I made it to the very exciting first contrast section:

The contrast yarn is madelinetosh tosh merino light in the colourway 'well water' and it's going to work much better than the Rowan Pure Wool 4ply that I had previously considered. It is a really beautiful blue. I saw the madelinetosh colours described somewhere on the web the other day as 'glazed' and that is such a perfect term.

While this project has also been rather relentless stocking stitch, there have been some increase rows and eyelet rows and the contrast sections to work toward. Now I have two more sections to knit in the Gioiello and only 19.8 grams left. Last night I did some very exciting row count addition and some division and have determined that if the first of these sections takes 9.7 grams or less, then I will have enough yarn. If not, I will have to purchase a whole extra ball. If I manage to knit six rows of 450-odd stitches tonight, then I will know where I stand. Oh the knitting suspense!

return to usual knitting form

That is, in fits and starts. Although it takes me forever to actually complete something, I think that I am, indeed, happier knitting this way - a row here, cast on there, some ribbing here, a seam there.

Currently and variously:

Whippoorwill, which Ravelry so kindly tells me, I first planned about 18 months ago. And now it's finally on the needles, a wispy sort of confection knit from Filatura di Crosa Gioiello, a sort of (hush now) novelty yarn that for some reason just appealed to me.

 I seem to have become a shawl knitter and if you are going to make another one ('another one?', that's my husband's voice interrupting) then really you, that is me, I have to make them a bit varied. I don't have any lighter coloured shawls and as I wouldn't really be one to wear so much white close to my face, this wool/mohair/cotton/nylon/acrylic blend with the little strand of gold through it is a good option. My contrast colour will be the very pretty Madelinetosh Well Water, a lovely light blue, which I will showcase when I get to it. (thank you Di for the present!).

I've also decided that it's time to deal with all that leftover sock yarn. Something practical, like socks. The toe of these is the Fiber Optics Footnotes that I knit the Honey Cowl from, then a couple of rows of Grignasco Strong print, from which I several years ago knit the 'illicit sox'. Then I moved onto some Zitron Trekking XXL (purchased from the thrift store) which I've had in stash for a while, had only used a little in the Babette blanket and am really enjoying watching the self-striping pattern emerge.

I'm using Laura Chau's Delicious Knee socks pattern as originally I had intended these to be for me. But I either measured the circumference of my foot incorrectly or mucked up on gauge or ... whatever, these are now for Tim. When I get to the heel I'll swap over to the dark blue and green Schoppel-Wolle Crazy Zauberball that I used in my Kerchief. Tim is excited about his secret pink stripes (oops, not so secret now).

There's two more - tomorrow.

sweet honey in the rock

The Vital Statistics
Pattern: Honey Cowl by madelinetosh, available for free. 
Size: I attempted to make the larger size, a cowl that could be looped around double. 
Yarn: Fiber Optics Yarns Foot Notes, 80 per cent merino, 20 per cent nylon in colourway 'black coffee no. 9', purchased at Rhinebeck last year. I used almost two whole skeins which is more than 800 yards of knitting. 
Needles: 3mm. 
Start to finish: 14 May to 8 June 2012. A 'quick knit' meaning that I didn't put it aside for six months at any point. I knit this pretty consistently (relentlessly), not starting or finishing anything in the meantime - unusual for me. 
Stash/recycle content: Hmm, well, the yarn was totally arbitrarily sitting in my stash ... 

Comments: This pattern calls for a dk weight yarn and I knit it in a fingering weight yarn so I cast on a third (?) more stitches than suggested, that is, 330 all up. And then I knit. Then I knit 62,000-odd stitches. Knitting your way through two skeins of sock yarn is a very long knit, and a simple pattern didn't actually make it go any faster. I have spent years knitting my way through similar amounts of yarn in complex lace patterns. I prefer that! 
Verdict: Full credit to reader Leonie - the solution for interminable knitting is to finish it.

three cheers!!

Sewing trifecta - hats, tunique francaise and now this Nani Iro number:

The Vital Statistics
Pattern: Dress U from nani IRO by Naomi Itou (isbn 4579111834 / 978457911183).
Size: I can't remember ... needless to say, it no longer fits the intended recipient (miss bear) but has found a wonderful home up the street with a three-year old.

Fabric: Linen/rayon blend salvaged from a White Stag bias-cut skirt (which was great because the fabric was already set on the bias), purchased at the thrift store.
Start to finish: Started sometime after we returned from Savannah in October 2010 and completed on 4 June 2012.
Stash/recycle content: 100 per cent - hooray! Button was from stash.

Comments: Again, it was the bindings that did me in. And the little square patch with some gathers underneath it there on the front. I also couldn't get the opening at the back to lie flat - maybe something to do with the dreaded binding? I also simply made my button loop out of the sewing thread rather than the fabric which i thought would get too bulky and couldn't, um, really be bothered with at this late stage anyway. 

Verdict: Very pleased that I actually finished it. The fabric was a great choice for this dress, the colour, the coin spot, the blend.
The front and back are actually cut from two pieces - in the photo of the back you can see the diagonal seam along the bottom corner of the dress. I think that this is design to make the most of the print on the fabric from which the dress is made in the book. It also serves to make the dress asymmetrical but I don't think is necessary if you are not emphasising a feature of the fabric print; that is, I could have cut the back and front in single pieces. I also wonder what might happen to the hang of the dress is that piece were cut on the grain instead.

I have another bias-cut skirt waiting to be up-cycled ....

tunique francaise - finis!

Two years later, I present:

The Vital Statistics
Pattern: Tunique froncée from Intemporels pour Bébé: modèles et patrons de 0 à 3 ans by Astrid Le Provost.
Size: Umm, can't quite remember now. I think that I made the largest size (3 years) and lengthened it to use up as much of the fabric as possible.
Start to finish: Hmm, first mentioned on this blog on Thursday, 13 May 2010. I finished it on Monday, 28 May 2012.
Stash/recycle content: All of it - hooray! The paisley was a Goodwill purchase and the brown trim came from a dress that I bought at a yard sale and had previously used for some sewing. The shell button came from stash.

Comments: Not sure if the patterned fabric is really the right thing for dressmaking. I suspect that it is more quilting cotton than dressmaking cotton but hey, it's turned out well. I didn't end up making it as long as I had planned and instead sewed a deep hem on it, thinking that it might need some weight to sit well. And it does. Also, French seams - lovely.

And the amazing delay in getting it done? There must be something about my attention span and the process of sewing. Bindings come towards the end of the project (neck and cuffs in this case, and inserting elastic which I hadn't done before), right when my patience is wearing thin and that is enough to have me set something aside for a while. Turns out that it took two years for my attention to roll back around to this one. I have another girl's dress just waiting on the bindings - the only way that I can date it is that I'm using a linen/rayon blend from a skirt that I bought at a thrift store in Savannah ... (October 2010).

Verdict: Miss bear wore this three days in a row - definite success.

hooray again!

The Vital Statistics

Pattern: the Oliver + S Bucket hat again!
Size: small this time for baby b.
Fabrics: again fabric that I received in the handprinted fabric swap, this time the lovely Leuca from Ink & Spindle. And the same toile de Jouy for the lining but chose some more, ahem, boyish motifs - the dog, the foliage.
Start to finish: completed on 16 May 2012.
Recycle/stash content: Yes, handmade hat from handprinted and stash fabric.
Comments: Again, lots of fun to make - I used two layers of interfacing for the brim on this one but haven't found that it really makes a lot of difference.

may reading

Death Comes to Pemberley by P. D.James - unfortunately, clumsy. 

A Life in Stitches: knitting my way through love, loss and laughter by Rachael Herron - long blog posts but good. 

Pray for Silence by Linda Castillo - again, too graphic but a good read.

for example ...

... my current preoccupation with Danish triangular shawls with tails long enough to tie around one's waist. Although I'm not really one to wear grey myself, I am completely enamoured by this one, knit by raveller pinneguri. So of course I can't wait to cast on. I'm doing some careful swatching first, Brooklyn Tweed Loft in meteorite above and Rowan felted Tweed DK in camel below, both knit on 4mm needles. I have a tendency to block the life out of my knitting as if everything were lace, so might try these again and treat them a little more gently.

Did I mention the huge swathe of garter stitch that comprises some 90 per cent of this shawl after that lovely lace edging is done? Garter stitch - my least favourite stitch to knit. Hmmm, I haven't told myself about that either.