Grey

I don't often write about what I'm knitting, until it's finished (in case it all turns out badly).  But I thought I would show you two things I am working on just now. 

At the top is a nearly finished sock for me. The yarn is a sock yarn (blue-faced Leicester and nylon) from Countess Ablaze in Manchester, colour Grey Skies in Manchester.  The pattern is a modified version of the Rosedale socks, from Cable Knits by Ann Kingstone.  The main change to her pattern is at the top - I have not done the complex rose-like cable that Ann designed, and I prefer a ribbed top to a picot edge.  Another change  you can't see in this photo: I have used the heel from Ann's On the Other Foot socks because they have a gusset and fit me very well.  And finally, I (unintentionally) worked some of the cables in the opposite direction to what the pattern specified, but I've decided not to worry about that. 

I have stopped work on the socks, temporarily, to start on a Christmas present for my sister.  (She knows all about it, so I don't need to be secretive.)  It is a scarf in a really luscious brushed alpaca and silk yarn.  The photo above looks completely out of  focus, but it isn't - the yarn is just very very fluffy.  It was dyed by my friend Steph (stephscraftybits on Etsy) in a beautiful mottled grey colourway that she calls Smoke.  The yarn came with a free pattern for a lacy scarf.   It's growing fast (on 6.5mm. needles) and is amazingly soft.

I'll show both socks and scarf again when they are finished. 

A Portable Project

I've just been to Birmingham to do a workshop on twined knitting for the local branch of the Knitting & Crochet Guild.  It was a re-run of the one I've done previously for the Huddersfield branch, and at Sheringham in January.   I went by train on Friday morning, spent the afternoon shopping in John Lewis (lots of trying on, result: one pair of jeans, one pretty Seasalt cotton top).  I stayed overnight with Janet, the convenor of the Birmingham branch, and Francis,  and they took me to a very nice Moroccan restaurant for dinner.  On Saturday morning we went back to John Lewis, because the workshop was held in the Community Hub room there.  The workshop went well - everyone got the idea of twined knitting.  Most people got at least halfway though a wristlet, and one finished it.  (A couple of people weren't knitting a wristlet, because they preferred to knit flat, or else hadn't brought dpns, and so were just knitting a swatch to try out the techniques.)  From my point of view, as the teacher, it was very gratifying. Afterwards, I had coffee and cake with Janet and a few others, in the John Lewis cafe, another brief shopping foray (a pair of brogues, smart but comfortable), and then went downstairs to New Street station, which is handily underneath John Lewis, and caught a train home again.  Altogether a successful trip.

But on Thursday, in between printing off the handouts for Saturday, I had a brief panic: what was I going to knit?  I have finished knitting the Secret Project  (still secret) and the lace yoke cardigan  is at least 80% finished - I've nearly finished the first sleeve.  As it's knitted all in one piece, that means I have to carry around most of a cardigan, and it's too bulky to take on an overnight trip.  I didn't have anything else planned, but I couldn't possibly go to a KCG branch meeting without some knitting.

I thought of starting something with some yarn I bought from the destash table at last year's Guild convention.  It's Rowan Linen Drape (now discontinued) - a linen and viscose mix that I thought would make a nice summer scarf for cool summer days (i.e. most British summer days).  I had already looked around for lacy scarf patterns and hadn't seen anything that appealed.   So finally, as a desperate measure, I decided to take a ball of the yarn and some suitable needles and invent something.  I'm making it up as I go along, which means a lot of backtracking, but I'm pleased with how it's turning out.

  

A Secret Project

It's been several weeks since I last wrote a post - apologies.  There has been quite a lot of knitting going on - and quite a lot of things, too, that are nothing to do with knitting.  (Strange but true.)  And sometimes I just don't feel like writing.  Will try to do better.

One of things I have been knitting I can't write about yet, anyway.  If all goes well, it will be published in a magazine later this year, and then I'll write about it.  For now, I can show you the yarn I'm using - Rowan Felted Tweed in three lovely colours: Ginger, Bilberry and Watery.   More later.

Lace Yoke Cardigan

Here's what I'm knitting just now.

It's going to be a cardigan.  The design is by Norah Gaughan, from the Holiday 2016 issue of Vogue Knitting.  (The magazine appears in the U.K. as Designer Knitting, with a different cover, and the equivalent issue was Early Winter 2016.)

From Vogue Knitting, Holiday 2016 issue

It is going to look exactly like this, only denim blue.  

As you can see from my work-in-progress, it's knitted top-down, with no seams.  I have got past the complicated yoke, which took a lot of concentration because almost  every row is different - after the yoke it's very straightforward, and I have nearly finished the body.  

The yarn is Aire Valley Aran, spun by West Yorkshire Spinners ("reared, sheared and spun in Britain").  The pattern calls for an Aran weight yarn, though I think the specified yarn must be relatively lightweight to give the specified gauge (21 stitches and 30 rows to 10 cm in stocking stitch on 4mm needles ).  But Aire Valley Aran is also quite lightweight for an Aran yarn, and my gauge is spot on.

I did have a crisis of confidence part way through, though.  One of the advantages of knitting top-down is that you can try on as you go, and I did that, once I had finished the yoke and reached the point where you divide the sleeves from the body.  At that point the yoke looked extremely bulky and much too large.   It doesn't naturally lie flat - especially the cables at the top.   So at that point I pressed it gently under a damp cloth, which was an improvement.  But it was still too large around the neck edge.  The ribbed neckband is supposed to be added as a finishing step, but I decided to pause knitting the body and add the neckband at that point, and that has improved the fit around the neck a lot.  I now believe that it's going to fit me when it's finished, which is a great relief.

Without the neckband, the neck edge was much looser, and was sitting much lower when I tried on my knitting - it would have been difficult to judge the finished length of the cardigan.  So I'd advise anyone else knitting this pattern to add the neckband early, not at the end.

On the Other Hand (3)

The last instalment of the On the Other Hand Mystery Knit Along was issued last Friday,  Lots of participants have already finished their mitts and posted photos to the Ravelry group, because Ann and Sarah are offering prizes, to be announced at 2 p.m. today.  There are some really beautiful finished pairs - lovely choices of colours, quite a few with different choices of options for the two mitts.  

My mitts aren't quite finished - I still have the thumb cuff to do on one of them.

I changed the pattern a little bit - I did a single corrugated rib for the finger and thumb cuffs, rather than repeating the double corrugated rib. And I wanted the thumbs to be a bit longer, so I have extended the patterning on the thumb gusset for 4 more rows before starting the cuff,

I'm really pleased with my mitts. Even so, the finished projects in the Ravelry group make me want to knit another pair and choose the other options and different colour combinations. But I already need to knit a pair of fingerless mitts for a workshop I am doing in April, and there is probably quite a low limit on the number of fingerless mitts anyone needs. (My daughter has already reached her limit, with the pair I gave her at Christmas, though she tells me that should I feel an irresistible urge to knit more, she has several friends who would be very glad to receive them. But I'm not sure I'm that generous.)

I'll post more photos of the finished mitts when they are completely finished. It's been such a lot of fun taking part in the Knit Along. Several other members of the Thursday knitting group at Spun have been taking part too - a sort of mini Knit Along. I've enjoyed picking the colours, choosing between the different options and guessing which option was designed by Ann and which by Sarah - I saw Ann last night, and she told me that my guesses were correct - they'll show their original samples in the Periscope broadcast, I believe, and also the second pair that each has knitted to the other's design. Hope I can get organised to watch it live.

On the other Hand (2)

It's now week 2 of the On the other Hand Mystery Knit Along, so we have the instructions for the hand part, including the thumb gusset.    I've done the first mitt, as well as the cuff of the second.    

I did Option 2, the stranded knitting option, and it looks really good  (apart from my slightly uneven knitting).  I tried Option 1, but my knitting wasn't turning out very neat, so I switched.  I love the thumb gusset, with the colours reversed.  (And for non-knitters, yes I do know how daft it sounds to say 'I love the thumb gusset'.  I don't care.)  

Not sure how they are going to finish off the thumb - part 3 should give us two options for finishing the mitten, so each option will have to fit with both options for week 2.  We'll find out on Friday. 

I must confess I didn't entirely follow the instructions.  I tried the cuff in the medium size, and decided it was a bit tight, so the cuff is the large size.  But then I decided that a large hand size might be too large, so I switched back to medium.   So large cuff, medium hand.   (Did I test my tension beforehand?  No, I didn't. Partly out of couldn't be bothered, but also I thought that testing my tension on stocking stitch might not be a good guide to my tension on stranded knitting, because I'm not a very good stranded knitter.  And knitting a tension swatch in stranded knitting for a pair of fingerless mitts seems wasted effort - you might as well just get on with it.)

I am quite pleased with myself that I did knit the hand part with one colour in each hand, as you are supposed to.  And it was surprisingly easy to do.   

I'm still not sure that the green and red contrast enough in shade.  I took a photo of the two balls of yarn, before I started knitting, and converted it to black-and-white, as Ann recommends, and they were sufficiently different, I thought.  But then I've taken other photos of my knitting in progress, and sometimes the two colours come out the exact same shade of grey.  I think it depends on the lighting.  Damn.   

But never mind - I'm obviously not going to go back and start again.  I like the two colours together - that's why I chose them of course.  I think the pattern on the palm may not show up very well at any distance, but then that's kind of a secret little pattern for me to admire as I wear them.  And on the plus side, I've made a couple of mistakes, with a green stitch where it should have been red, and v.v., and the mistakes would be much more obvious if there were more contrast.  (I might swiss-darn the mistakes later. Or not.)   

Here's a black and white photo, just to show that the design does show up properly, at least if the light is good. 

     

On the Other hand

We are in the first week of the On the other Hand Mystery Knit Along fingerless mitts, so we are knitting the cuffs.  There is a choice of a corrugated rib cuff, or a corrugated rib  and lice cuff (which at least one person taking part thought was a typo, perhaps for corrugated rib and lace - but no, in Norwegian designs, lice are individual stitches of a contrast colour.)  One of the choices was designed by Ann Kingstone and the other by Sarah Alderson, but we don't know which is which.  (Guessing is allowed, though.)  

I chose the corrugated rib cuff,  I haven't knitted a corrugated rib before, as far as I remember, so that seemed quite adventurous enough for now.    Here's the first cuff:

 

I've just bought some more needles, so that I can knit the second cuff this week too.

The yarn is Wendy Merino 4-ply, in Pacific (a dark blue-green - the main colour) and Rose (a soft red).  I watched Ann's Periscope broadcast, now uploaded to YouTube, on Shade contrast in stranded colourwork knitting, where she says that it's not enough to choose different colours - you also need them to be sufficiently different in shade, otherwise at a distance they won't be distinguishable.  I thought that the green and red I had chosen might not be a good shade contrast, so I followed her suggestion of photographing the balls of yarn and converting the photo to grayscale, so see how different they were.  And in fact the red showed up as much lighter than the green, so I think they will be OK.

I also watched Sarah and Ann's Periscope broadcast introducing the Knit Along.  They talk about our Huddersfield knit-and-natter group, where they came up with the original idea of having a joint knit-along.  The group is called Bitter and Twisted - we named it when we started meeting in a pub, where  there was the possibility that some of us might drink bitter, though I think that in fact none of us do.  (Twisted obviously refers to yarn.)  I remember them discussing various ideas for possible projects - I think that gloves were suggested at one point, but I'm pleased that it's simpler than that.

I intend to have finished both cuffs by Friday, when the next part of the pattern is due to be released.  I expect that both Ann and Sarah's choices will involve stranded colour-work, but that leaves a lot of scope.  It might be difficult to choose....      

Knitting a Cushion

On the train to and from Leighton Buzzard, I knitted a test piece in a slip-stitch pattern, for a cushion I'm planning for my daughter.  I have been trying out slip-stitch patterns for a workshop this weekend, when nine of us in the Huddersfield Knitting & Crochet Guild are going away.  To Blackpool! For a KnitAway weekend!  At the Westcliffe Hotel!  So exciting.  

Anyway.  I promised my daughter a knitted cushion for her bedroom, some time ago, and we agreed on a design, based on my slip-stitch swatches.  My test piece is a miniature version of the cushion, in the colours she chose.

I think it's promising. It feels very soft and comforting.  The edges of the centre square need tidying up, and the corners should be a bit squarer, but the point of a test piece is to see what's not quite right, so that's OK.   I have made a start on the full-size version.    More later, on  the weekend, the workshop and the cushion.

What I'm Knitting

I have knitted two designs by Heidi Kirrmaier so far:  Boardwalk and Vitamin D.  They are two of my favourite knits.  Last month I saw another of her designs - Lydia at the Spun yarn shop in Huddersfield was knitting a Quick Sand cardigan.  Quick Sand is knitted in an Aran-weight yarn, and there is a version, Fine Sand, knitted in a lighter, DK-weight yarn.   I was very taken with Lydia's cardigan, and I'm now knitting Fine Sand for myself.

Fine Sand appears at first glance to be a very simple cardigan knitted in stocking stitch - there aren't even any buttons.  It isn't quite as simple as it looks - like most of her designs, it is knitted all in one piece, without seams, so there is a lot of shaping to achieve that.  It is knitted top-down, with radiating increases in the yoke.  That is sort of similar to Vitamin D, except in that case, the increases are emphasised, while in Fine Sand they are not so obvious.

I have just finished the body of the cardigan.  The next step is to pick up the stitches left on waste yarn and knit the sleeves.   It doesn't look much at the moment - being knitted in stocking stitch, it curls on all the edges.  But there will be a garter stitch band around the neck and front edges, and I hope that that, along with a good pressing, will stop it curling.

The yarn is Thomas B. Ramsden's  Wendy Ramsdale, and the web page says "Ramsdale is born, bred and made in Yorkshire, it is 100% Wool using a blend of Masham fleece from the Yorkshire dales. It is then dyed, spun and balled all in Yorkshire!!"  It's unusual for a commercially-produced yarn to be spun in the U.K. these days, and if you live in Yorkshire as I do, it's even more local.  And it is very nice yarn, soft and good to knit with.  The colour is lovely too.  The blue is not completely solid, but has quite a lot of grey in it.

Here's one of Heidi Kirrmaier's photos of Fine Sand.  My cardigan will look something like this soon, although the yarn is probably not as drapey as she recommends - I'm aiming for cosy more than drapey.

WIPaholics Anonymous

Still catching up with the week before last....

On the 17th, after we got back from Blackpool, I went to the Huddersfield branch meeting of the Knitting & Crochet Guild.  The theme this month was unfinished projects - we all brought along an unfinished project that for some reason we were having trouble finishing, and talked about it.  Hence, the title of the meeting, WIPaholics Anonymous  (WIP = Work In Progress).  Marie, the convener, acted as a kind of Alcoholics Anonymous facilitator, and had even compiled a 12-step plan for us to work towards completing, or otherwise dealing with, our problem projects.  The stories of the unfinished projects were often very funny, and occasionally sad.

So what was my unfinished project?  It featured in this blog in 2011 here, and it had already been unfinished for more than 25 years (!) at that point.

I had kept it for all that time - the piece I had already knitted, and the rest of the yarn.  When I wrote the previous post, I couldn't find the pattern, and thought that I had lost it, but I've since looked harder and found it.   So in theory, it could be completed.

Patricia Roberts' Dolly Blue design

But the previous blog post was right in explaining why I didn't go any further with it all those years ago - the back turned out far too small, and there's also a problem with the cables:  when the white and yellow cables diverge from each other, they pull a hole in the background fabric, and I can't see how to avoid that.

I have had this project hanging around for a serious chunk of time, but I think it had just become one of the fixtures in my life - I rarely thought about it, and never thought about it hard enough.  But it was an obvious project to take to the meeting (and would have won the prize for the oldest WIP, if there had been one).  And in listening to other people talking about their unfinished projects, I got to thinking properly about mine.

The photo doesn't show the design very clearly because of the jacket over the top (it's a sweater with a collar and a buttoned front opening).  I can see why it appealed to me at the time, and I still like it.  I love the colours that I chose, too, though I don't wear black as much as I used to.  I showed everyone the pattern, and what I have knitted so far, and there were lots of helpful suggestions for completing it, and general encouragement to do that.

However.  If I wanted to finish the sweater, I would have to start again, and rip out what I have done so far, and I hate doing that.  I'd have to figure out why it turned out so small the first time, and fix that - maybe adjust the pattern.  And there would still be the problem with the cables dragging holes in the fabric.  And most of all, I now realise that it just feels totally stale.  I don't even want to use the yarn for anything else - it would just remind me all the time that it should have been this sweater.

So I am abandoning it.  I left what I've knitted so far with someone else at the meeting who wants to try felting it, and I'm going to give the rest of the yarn away.  And I think I feel better for having made that decision.  For me, it was a very helpful evening.

Of course, I've got a few other unfinished projects too.....

Knitting with Eartha and Jasmine

Since I finished the Honeycomb lace infinity scarf that I wrote about in my last post, I have been thinking about what to knit with the two balls of alpaca DK yarn that I got as a Christmas present - I wrote about them here.    Some sort of scarf seemed the best choice - there isn't enough yarn for anything big, and it is very soft and warm, just right for a cosy scarf.  There is no yardage on the ballband, so I don't know how far the yarn will go - probably not very far.  So I needed a design that would allow me to stop knitting whenever the yarn runs out. I also wanted to make a feature of the two colours - each ball is labelled with the name of the alpaca that it came from, and Eartha is a darker brown than Jasmine.   I decided that the design had to use both colours equally, and at the same time.   After a lot of deliberation and experimentation, I came up with a 'two-tone' design for a scarf.   I started with a provisional cast on, so that I can join the two ends when I have finished to make a loop.

I switch from one colour to the other in the middle of the row, intarsia fashion.   I wanted something a bit more interesting than stocking stitch or garter stitch, and I chose a zigzag stitch.  It's a very simple k3, p3 rib, but after every two rows, I move the pattern one stitch to the right or the left, depending on whether I'm on a zig or a zag.

I had to knit two or three swatches before I got the changeover to look neat.  It's hard to change colours while also doing a zigzag, and not have the light brown straying into the dark brown or v.v.  I haven't quite managed to achieve that on both sides, but one side is perfect.

Apart from the (very slightly) untidy changeover on one side, the knitting is reversible.  But in fact, I don't think that is going to matter much, because probably when the yarn runs out what I'll have is a cowl.   We'll see.  More later. 

Software Troubles

We have had a trying week.  We bought a new desktop computer, running Windows 8, and an Office 2013 licence.  I think I can safely say, without risking having to contradict myself in future, that Windows 8 is not going to be my favourite version of Windows.  Even worse, when I had installed Office 2013 I was puzzled that I couldn't find Picture Manager.   Office Picture Manager is the picture editing software we have been using for years - almost all the images in this blog have been processed that way. It does nearly everything I want to do with images, and is very simple to use, so it was a nasty surprise when I couldn't find it.  A bit of searching on the internet showed that there's a simple reason for that - it isn't part of the Office suite any more.     Microsoft has decided that users don't need it, apparently.   But I can't find an adequate substitute elsewhere in Office or Windows 8 - and judging by the many complaints I found on the internet, that's because there aren't any.  

Fortunately, following advice from t'internet, I've been able to get it back.  I still had the CDs from the very old version of Office running on the very old computer that we just got rid of, so I was able to install Picture Manager from there.    So I'm OK again, apart from still having to adapt to Windows 8.  I don't know why such contortions should be necessary - my laptop runs Windows 7 and  Office 2010 and I don't remember any difficulties with them. 

To show my appreciation of Picture Manager, here are images of two of my current knitting projects.    

Brought to this blog by Office Picture Manager...

The first is a lacy scarf that I have just started, in 4-ply sock yarn (i.e. fingering weight). It is a beautifully soft wool - Blue-faced Leicester.   It was dyed by my friend Steph who is selling skeins of it in wonderful colours through the Spun shop in Huddersfield.   I started with a provisional cast on,  so that I can join the ends when I have finished knitting (when I run out of yarn), to make an infinity scarf.  

... and so is this one.

The second photo is a close-up of a short-sleeved sweater that I'm knitting in 4-ply cotton.  It's one of Mary Quant's designs from 1965, in  a twisted rib stitch. 


More on both projects later.

 

Knitting blue swans

I started knitting the Wetwang jumper a couple of weeks ago, from Ann Kingstone's book, Born & Bred.   Wetwang is a Yorkshire village with black swans on the pond and a pub called the Black Swan. (And is well-known to archaeologists as the site of an Iron Age chariot burial.)  Ann's design is based on the black swans;  it has a yoke in stranded knitting with pairs of swans around it, and her sample jumper has the swans in black.   But I am knitting mine in navy blue (actually a darker blue than in the photo).    

 It's very clever design, but easy to follow.  It's knitted top down, and is completely seamless (hurray!).  So far I have knitted the yoke and the sleeve caps, and I am knitting the main part of the body, which is plain stocking stitch.  You can see that the ends of yarn around the yoke still need tidying up.  The bits of turquoise yarn under the sleeves are from the provisional cast on of the underarm stitches. 

I love the swans around the yoke; they are so elegant. The yoke is bordered, top and bottom, by applied i-cord.  I have not done that before but I'm really impressed by it.  It gives a very neat edge.  Then there's a section of short rows, so that the back of the yoke sits higher than the front, and at the same time you increase for the sleeve caps.     

I've been watching a lot of Broadchurch over the last couple of days - I have recorded every episode but never got around to watching any, until I realised that the last episode is tomorrow.  I am trying to catch up by then so that I can watch it live.   So now that I am on the plain stocking stitch part of Wetwang, I can knit it and watch Broadchurch at the same time, without missing anything.  And then try it on - one advantage of knitting top-down in one piece is that you can keep trying on as you go.  It fits very well - it's going to be really good.  Of course, now that Spring has finally arrived, I shan't be able to wear it until the end of the year, but never mind.     
   

My Color Affection

I am knitting a shawl to a pattern called Color Affection (spelt that way, i.e. American fashion), by the Finnish designer Veera Välimäki.  It's a very popular pattern, with nearly 7000 projects in Ravelry.  I chose it because it's basically a very simple garter stitch pattern, but with some technically interesting aspects involving short rows (though I haven't got to those yet),  and you get to pick three colours of yarn that you would like to put together.  And because it's so cold just now, I like the idea of an extra light warm layer to wrap around me.

I'm knitting it in pure alpaca (Artesano Alpaca 4-ply, beautifully soft).  The colours are gray (don't know what that's called) with Poinsettia (a sort of soft red-pink-orange) and Demerara (a light toffee brown).  The last two colours have been discontinued, which is a pity, but I managed to find enough left by searching on-line.

I am almost at the point where the third colour (Demerara) is introduced.  That will be exciting, because I get to see what the three colours look like together in stripes, and the short rows start at that point so the overall shape gets more interesting.

I'm sure that I shall like the finished shawl, but in spite of being entirely garter stitch it's not actually fulfilling its intended role of being a straightforward piece of knitting that I can do while reading or watching TV.   It has to be knitted on a circular needle, because the rows get very long (they start off with only 3 stitches, but by now I've got more than 260 and eventually there will be 387).  On a circular needle, I am by now much faster knitting Continental style than English style, and knitting English style seems impossibly clumsy. But I can't knit Continental style without looking at what I'm doing.  (It's a bit like giving up sugar in coffee.  I remember that there comes a point where coffee tastes bad both with sugar and without.)   I'm choosing to knit fast and not look at anything else at the same time, i.e. Continental style.  I do need some TV knitting, though - I have several episodes of The Killing III saved up to watch, but I don't want to watch them without doing some knitting at the same time.  It will have to be something like plain stocking stitch on two needles, so that I can read the subtitles while knitting.

Another Lacy Scarf

I am knitting Véronik Avery's Lace Ribbon Scarf for myself just now.  It's a free pattern that first appeared in Knitty in 2008 - a very popular pattern, with over 6,000 projects in Ravelry.  I have made a scarf for myself to this pattern before, as described here.  That's very unusual for me - I don't recall knitting a pattern twice before (and in fact I get a bit bored with knitting socks and mitts because when you've finished one, you have to start all over again and knit another.)

But it's nice to knit - the stitch pattern takes some concentration, but it's easy to learn.  I'm also knitting a pair of gloves (more later) but they need more attention.  It's useful to have a more straightforward piece of knitting in progress at the same time, so that I can read or watch TV while I am knitting. 

The yarn is DMC Natura, a nice soft cotton in 4-ply (fingering) weight, in a pale gray-green colour (greener than it looks in the photo).  The colour is called Ambar, I don't know why.  Obviously it's not a typo for Amber.

 I have changed the stitch pattern a little bit this time.  The scarf I made before, in variegated sock yarn, has a tendency to roll inwards, in spite of my best efforts to block it.  So this time I have put a few purl stitches on the right side to try to avoid that.  It makes the stitch pattern more textured, which I like, though some people might not, and it does seem to be keeping very flat so far, though that might be because of the yarn, I suppose. 

Véronik Avery's introduction to the pattern says that she is emulating stylish people who wear scarves all year round.  Her model does look very chic, sitting outside in the sunshine, pouring a cup of tea.  That's the look I'm aiming for - though I don't claim to be chic, and I don't drink tea.  At least I'll have the scarf.  

Knitting with Mme Defarge

I mentioned in a recent post that I am knitting a cardigan in a cotton and linen yarn in anticipation of warm weather coming back again some time soon (though there are no signs of it yet).    I have finished the back, so far.  

This is pretty good progress.  I have been spending a lot of time reading (and so a lot of time knitting) because I am reading A Tale of Two Cities for one of my book groups  (the meeting is soon).   We decided that we ought to read a Dickens novel this year, and this one is relatively short.  I don't think I have ever read Dickens before, though I have seen several adaptations of his work on TV.  I think I even saw a BBC serialisation of A Tale of Two Cities in the distant past - even so, I don't remember the story in any detail, except for the ending, of course. (It is a far, far better thing, etc.)  And Mme Defarge.    Is she the most famous knitter in English literature?   I can't think of any rivals.  But I can't figure out what she is knitting - when she first appears, she is somehow encoding into her knitting details of all the aristos and government spies that are to be eliminated when the Revolution comes.   How does she do that?  Is it some kind of Morse code, with knit and purl stitches?   Why doesn't anyone see that this is a very odd piece of knitting?  In one scene, she is working the name and description of a spy into her knitting while he is talking to her, and he is not at all suspicious. 

 Anyway:  my knitting. This is a second attempt at a making summer cardigan with some slubby cotton and linen yarn that I bought in a sale a couple of years ago.  (I still have a lot left over.)  The first attempt didn't really work, partly because the stitch pattern I used turned out to have a bias, so that pieces that should be square aren't. (My fault entirely, for choosing an unsuitable stitch pattern.)   Also the sleeves are too baggy, which comes from the pattern I was basing the general shape on.  The original cardigan was modelled by a tiny waif, and it was falling off her in all directions, so that the fact that the sleeves would be very wide on a person of normal size was hidden in the general all-over bagginess.  This time I am basing the sleeve measurements on something that I know fits me.  So I hope it will turn out much better this time.        
   

Damask in Progress

I have been knitting a top for myself with the Rowan Damask yarn that I won in the raffle at the Knitting and Crochet Guild AGM weekend in Cardiff.  There are just 6 balls of yarn, and it is quite a summery yarn anyway (viscose, linen and acrylic) so I am making a sleeveless top, though I plan to wear it over a shirt.  I decided to start it straightaway rather than carrying on with the alpaca cardigan I was already knitting, in the hope that I would be able to wear it before the summer is over.  I have nearly finished it, and we might have warm weather still to come, so I am still hoping.

The pattern is loosely based on Wimberry from Lousia Harding's Little Cake book, though I have not done the deep lacy edging at the bottom - I would not have had enough yarn for it.  I have also done the horizontal eyelet bands in a different yarn, partly to eke out the Damask, but also bcause I thought that they would not show up well in random-dyed yarn.  The idea came from the long-sleeved version of Wimberry, where Lousia Harding has used very contrasting colours for the eyelet bands.

For the eyelet bands, I used a ball of Debbie Bliss's Eco-baby cotton yarn in a duck-egg blue that I already had.  I like the effect - the colour tones with the colours of the Damask, while the matt texture gives a nice contrast.

I am knitting it in the round, partly to avoid having too many ends to weave in.  It's been useful to be able to try it on as I go, as well.  I should finish it this week, and then all I need is some warm weather...... 

     

Knitting for Reading

I am in two reading groups and they both meet this week. By the middle of last week I had not finished either of the books for this week's meetings, so I needed some knitting to read by.  The Kid Silk Haze scarf needs too much attention to read at the same time, so I looked for a simpler pattern.  I have chosen Martha by Sarah Hatton, from the Rowan Studio Knits book I bought in Sheffield last autumn.    The yarn is Felted Tweed DK, again, this time in a dark indigo with white flecks, that Rowan calls Seasalter. 

I have so far knitted half the back and finished one of the books - March by Geraldine Brooks, which I enjoyed.  It parallels Little Women by Louisa M Alcott, telling the story of Mr March, who is away being a chaplain in the Civil War during most of Little Women.

 

I read an interview with Sarah Hatton in The Knitter  (issue 21) in which she was asked which was her favourite of the designs she had done for Rowan, and Martha was one that she picked. She said "I think most people could wear it, and it has just the right amount of detail to be interesting without being overly complicated. "   Sounds promising, doesn't it?  I'm planning to make the sleeves quite a bit longer, though. 

Weekend in London

Last weekend we were visiting friends in London. We went by train and I got quite a lot of knitting done, going there and back, and on the train from our friends' house into central London over the weekend. I was working on the scarf I am making in Kid Silk Haze for a birthday present - I started on the second ball (of two) over the weekend, so it is going well.

We had a very cultural weekend, visiting museums and art galleries, as well as two cemeteries. (J likes cemeteries a lot, though it was a very cold weekend and walking slowly round a cemetery is really not a good way to keep warm.)

We visited the museum in the Foundling Hospital, set up in the 18th century to take in abandoned babies. There are many other things of interest in the museum,  but the main attraction just now is the Threads of Feeling exhibition (running until March 6th).  When a child was taken into the Hospital,  it was given a new name, but the hospital wanted to provide for the possibility that the mother might one day be able to look after her child and come back to reclaim it. (In reality, that very rarely happened.)   So the Hospital recorded what the child was dressed in, and sometimes pinned to the record a sample of the cloth - or sometimes the mother attached a knot of ribbons, or some other token, to distinguish her child. The fabric samples are apparently very important as the best surviving evidence for the type of cloth that ordinary poor people wore at that time, but mainly when you see the exhibition you think of the people involved, and how hard it must have been for the mothers to give up their children. It is very touching to see the records and the scraps of cloth. (A good article on the exhibition was published in The Guardian.)

The same day, we also went to the Wellcome Collection, which is a free museum containing an extremely  diverse collection of objects to do with  medicine, anatomy and more or less anything to do with being human, I'd say. Or to quote the web site "it explores the connections between medicine, life and art in the past, present and future".  It is very peculiar.

And (on another day) we were going to visit Westminster Abbey but were put off by the long queue, and the fact that photography is not allowed. Why not? I can understand that lots of people taking flash photographs would be annoying for other visitors, but why is photography without flash banned? They say in mitigation that "Postcards showing the interior of the Abbey are available to buy in the Abbey shop", but in fact there is only a small selection.

So instead we went to see our new Supreme Court, just across the road.  (The building isn't new - it's been recycled from the former Middlesex Guildhall, a neo-gothic, early 20th century building, but the institution is.) Entry is free and the staff were all very friendly. There was a case in progress, and we picked up an information sheet about it - it was an incomprehensible matter to do with tax. Slightly disappointing that it wasn't some important human rights matter, but it was still impressive to see the court in action and gratifying that any member of the public can see knotty points of law being worked out in accordance with our constitution. (Even though we haven't got one.)

From there we went to the Courtauld Institute Gallery, which has a wonderful collection of Impressionist and Post Impressionist paintings, amongst others.  As usual, we all picked the ones we'd like to take home with us. I chose a Monet of the river at Argenteuil, all orange and blue, and a Cezanne of trees near his family home in the South of France.  The leaves are painted with short parallel brush strokes, which give a really lively effect of a breeze blowing through the branches.  I was going to buy a postcard of it, but its character is completely lost on such a small scale. I was also taken by some William Nicholson linocuts, and the shop had a print of one of them.  I bought that, in lieu of the original Monet and Cezanne.  Easier to live with, probably. 

And we took the bus several times - a splendid way to see London, especially from the front of the top deck.   Altogether we had a great weekend, and it was really good to spend time with our friends.   

Old Moor Progress

I have started knitting the Louisa Harding Old Moor jumper with the Rowan Felted Tweed yarn that J gave me for Christmas, as I wrote about here.   I have got to about halfway up the body.  So I have finished the band in herringbone stitch that forms the hem, which Louisa Harding says "takes its cue from the traditional woven fabrics produced in this area of Yorkshire".  On each row, you knit 2 stitches and then slip 2 stitches, taking the yarn across the front of the fabric.  The herringbone pattern is formed by the staggered horizontal lines of yarn as they are carried across the slipped stitches.

Because of the slipped stitches, the herringbone band is a much firmer fabric than the stocking stitch used for most of the rest of the jumper.  The slipped stitches mean too that there is not an abrupt change from green yarn to grey yarn; it takes three rows to work all the stitches in the new colour.  I like that, and I think the whole band is very attractive.

The pattern is written with the back and front of the jumper knitted separately,  but I decided to knit them in one piece, in the round, on a circular needle, to avoid breaking up the herringbone band with side seams.  Another advantage is that then the yarn carried across the slipped stitches is always on the nearside of the fabric, so that you can easily see whether the zigzags are developing correctly.  If the herringbone stitch is knitted back and forth, then on the alternate (purl) rows, you have to carry the yarn across the far side and it would be harder to spot mistakes.

 This is my second project knitted Continental style, after the Baby Sophisticate  jacket.   Now that I am past the herringbone band, I have a long stretch of stocking stitch in the round up to the armholes, which of course is miles of knit stitches.  So I shall be very good at knit stitches, Continental style, by the time I reach the armholes.  That could be problematic, because after the armholes I shall have to switch to working back and forth and purl alternate rows, and purl stitches are trickier than knit stitches in Continental knitting.  But I think I shall be OK, because I did both knitting and purling in the Baby Sophisticate jacket and my tension seemed to be the same for both.

 I did write in  an earlier post that I was finding knitting on circular needles awkward and slow, but Continental knitting has solved that.  With my original style of knitting, on straight needles, I hold the right needle under my arm, and my right hand holds the yarn and takes it round the needle to make the stitch.  On a circular needle, my right hand has to hold the needle as well as move the yarn, and so I have to keep switching from one to the other.  With Continental knitting, though, you can keep hold of both needles; the left hand holds both the left needle and the yarn, but the stitch is made by the right needle picking up the yarn.  So in theory, there are fewer steps involved, and in practice, hopefully, it will be quicker. 

And I bought myself a set of interchangeable KnitPro needles (i.e. cables and tips), which was an extravagance, especially as I wasn't sure whether I could adapt to Continental knitting at that point, and so how much I would use them. But they are a pleasure to knit with.