just another raveller

A quick peek at this lovely shawl before its bath. 

Melanie Berg's new pattern Drachenfels is stylish and well written. And it has me fairly snookered.  It's Sunday afternoon and I have just finished re-doing the same 6 rows that I knit on Saturday morning - for the umpteenth time. It's like a brain test and I'm not passing.  I think that it's because of the counting. I'm the person who knits without looking. I must slow down.  The pattern is entirely garter stitch and is knit on the bias, increasing and decreasing at the beginning and/or the end of certain rows. I keep knitting past the place where I'm supposed to decrease.  I hope to spend less time in the frog pond and finish this week.  Almost every row you see here has been knit over at least one extra time. It will be lovely to wear it. 

I wasn't thinking straight when I said half circle. This is a crescent shaped shawlette. And now I don't like the name Berry Swirl any more either. But don't you just love that moment when you unwrap the lace from its towel and stretch it out? Always so magical. . . It's about the width I wanted- 60 inches. Yum. I'll try and get some shots of it in action tomorrow after it dries.

I keep seeing patterns for half moon shaped shawls. Typically, they have a lace edging and a garter stitch half moon centre, often shaped by short rows. Arroyo, and Crescent Hearts Shawlette are two free patterns that come to mind. Not sure how to insert links using this Blogger app, but you can look them up on Ravelry. Why not pick a favorite lace stitch for the edge, knit a swatch with the yarn of your choice in order to calculate how many stitches to cast on and GO!? I am doing just that. I am using a couple of yarns from Periwinkle Sheep here. After switching, I decided to cast on 325 stitches. I'm hoping my shawl will be about 60 inches wide.  I am knitting 3 pattern repeats of a stitch from Sharon Miller's book, Heirloom Knitting. It's called Madeira Cascade and it was the centre stitch in my Seven Seas shawl that I entered in the Finger Lakes Fiber Festival contest last year. I'm just finishing up the lace part and I'm about to start the garter short rows. I ...

I'll try to get a better shot soon, but this will have to do for now. It was vain of me to take my glasses off, but I was following the photographers instructions. 

Here it is, almost dry! Tomorrow morning I'll sew in the ends and wear it to the Artisan Market at the Knitting Circle, 11-4. In the end I did 13 reacts of the chevron pattern after the waistband. And I never used the widest pattern repeat. I was afraid that I'd end up with too much fabric hanging around my hips. Instead, I worked in some extra of the narrowest repeats right after the waistband. I think it will bel just right. In any case, there are many options for shaping and sizing in this pattern. There are almost as many suggestions as there are Ravelry projects for this pattern. 

The Hitofude has a set combination of lace pattern repeats after the waistband that create a widening "skirt."  Ravellers report increasing the length using various combinations of these repeats. At this point I have completed 8: 5 chevrons of pattern A and 3 of pattern B. This is already 2 more than the pattern calls for. I'm aiming at a length of 18 inches from the underarm. I think that if I just follow the pattern as it's written from now on, I'll end up with 14 altogether. That should do it. In any case, it's easy enough to add an extra repeat at the bottom if I feel I need it. Thank you, Mary Lou for the encouragement. You know, now that I can see the end, I must say this pattern would be a good one for a rising intermediate lace knitter. It's not hard at all, the instructions are well written, and there is no sewing involved. I highly recommend it.

Here's the Hitofude in its current state. It makes sense now. I've tried it on and I like the feel and the fit. It will close across the front. 

I've gotten past the waist, and if I don't do any mods, I'll have 12 increasingly wide 8 row repeats to go. I'd like to make it longer, so I'll be adding some repeats. Knitting 1 vertical repeat per day while working full time is optimistic. I give myself 3 weeks to finish, if only I don't get distracted. So far so good! The Firecups are blooming in the garden and the gooseberries are turning pink.

Here's how it looks now. I think that I finally understand the construction. Part of this gets bound off and becomes the back of the neck and part is knit out and increased and becomes the skirt. Neat. I'm now in the ribbing phase of the pattern.

I tried watching the Belorussian Bing Bang and gave up after the first few minutes. Not funny. I bravely pulled the needle out of my knitting, dropping almost 250 stitches per row (plus markers) and pulled back about 14 rows to the correct stopping place. Then I picked up 10 live stitches for every horizontal repeat. There were supposed to be 12 in each, but 2 in each repeat were yo's so I didn't even try to get them, just concentrated on catching up the live stitches any way I could. Many were turned around, so I tinked back that one row, picking up yo's in the right places and straightening the stitches. All was well in the end. Gulp. Since then, things have gotten much more interesting, what with picking up provisional stitches, binding off the underarm seams. Now it looks like a lacey shrug on a circular needle.

Of course, I was only supposed to knit 15 repeats and I've almost finished 17. Sigh.  It measures 15 inches around where it's supposed to go around the top of the arm. My arm is 11 inches around. I cannot read or follow instructions it seems.  To fog or not to frog. . . That is the question.  Ravelers in the know suggest adding extra repeats at this point. To make the chest measurement bigger and the overall length longer. Or something.  On the other hand I knit through a knot a few rows back. Might be a good time to tink back. Just 6 rows.  Or perhaps I'll watch The Theorists (Teoretiki), the Belorussian version of Big Bang Theory, on YouTube. It has English subtitles. Google it. 

The first part of the Hitofude involves knitting 17 pattern repeats. I'm on the twelfth. I manage one or two per day. It's tempting to start another project, but the Hitofude is so beautiful.  I placed markers to make it easier to know where I am. The yarn is a dark colour, too dark for me to really see what I'm doing, so the markers help. I'm still not sure that I understand how the pattern works. I'm just following the instructions. 

The Hitofude Cardigan first caught my eye when it appeared on my Ravelry Pattern page, the one that they select for you based on what you've knit and faved, etc. Then I saw a friend working on it. When she was done, it was just as lovely in person as it appeared to be on Ravelry.  The Berroco Ultra Alpaca light seems to be working well. The gauge seems OKAY and it's a lovely yarn to knit with. I'm told that it doesn't pill. I wonder if that's true.

I know, I know, how do I even dare to show my face after such a long time? It's been busy, let's just say that. A quick update on the scrumptious yarns pictured in the last post. I knit them up into a stole, called it Seven Seas and submitted it to the Best Shawl Made from Commercial Fiber category at the 2013 Finger Lakes Fiber Festival . I didn't win first prize, but I placed.  Details here , if you haven't seen it. My real reason for writing today is to congratulate my friend Tina Turner, who opens her new business, The Knitting Circle today. In her honour, I have penned the following lines, after, er, let's say, the well known children's folk song, Do Your Ears Hang Low?   Extra verses and versions are encouraged! Do Your Needles Hang Low? Do your needles hang low? Do they wobble to and fro? Can you quickly knit a sock? Can you quickly knit a throw? Can you knit a little quicker, like a continental stitcher? Do your needles hang low? Do your needle...

Here is a photo of the yarns that I will combine for the project that I described in the last post. There are two shades of Debbie Bliss Angel and two of Skaska lace weight merino. Mmmmm. 

Off to Montreal, Ottawa, Wakefield today to visit family and the  Three Crazy Knitters : Juie, Maureen and Kathryn The current post (Jun 24th) shows Kat's new studio. I hear that she has given up her day job and is painting and dyeing full time. I am looking forward to visiting Riverside Studi o this week. Her merino singles are gorgeous. First I must get out of Rochester. My first flight was cancelled. I was to fly through Philly but am now flying west to Minneapolis in order to fly east from here to Montreal. Crazy. If I get there on time it will have taken 14 hours to fly what normally takes 5.5 hours to drive. Don't ask. In the meantime, I am catching up on the knitting blogs. There seems to be rash of people posting photos of their ancestors. I'll have to see what I can come up with. Here's my current knitting....an edging from Heirloom Knitting. My idea is to knit it to about 70 or 80 percent of the desired length and cast off. Then pick up all along the ins...

I've probably given up on about half the sweaters that I ever started. And, if I finish a sweater, there's a good chance that no one will actually wear it without serious adjustments. Witness my Lopi , my Minimalist Cardigan,  and the Mark II  among others.   Bit Red seemed to be a success at first, but later I learned that the giftee secretly tried to shrink it and then gave it away. There are other tales. My sweaters have accidentally been tipped into washing machines, adopted as dressing gown liners, and re-purposed as cat beds.  But I never give up. I keep at it. Sometimes I manage success.  The North Sea Jacket  worked out well and I wear it often. Sometime in March, I volunteered to test knit Copperline for Eileen Vito. It turned out well and I took it to Iceland where I wore it daily under my winter coat during our whirlwind car trip through the Eastern Fjords.   Then I volunteered to knit BFL Sweater for Kuduja.  ...

Let there be radishes! Black Spanish radishes! We grew these last year too, but they quickly bolted. We only had a few meals out of them, but I saved all the seeds and planted 4 rows on Memorial Day (May 27th). They are longer to harvest than regular radishes and won't be ready until late August. If they bolt again, I'll just save the seeds and try again in cooler weather. It's been pretty cool though.  Can't believe I haven't written here since February! I have been knitting like mad. I grappled with my sweater issues and completed three between March and the beginning of June. They were two test knits , one of which I liked so much that I knit it twice. The first was my friend Eileen Vito's Copperline, which you can see here in Ravelry.  Copperline is a long sport weight cardigan with a cabled yoke and lovely detailing along the seams. I knit my version in two colours. Then I wore it to Iceland. Whirlwind one-week trip. More on this later...

I said I was tired of winter. I lied. I've been throwing myself into snow drifts and making snow angels for 24 hours now. Loving it. 5 pm: 10 pm: 10 am: But mostly I am thrilled that I was able to frolic in the snow without my ankles giving out on me. I remember last winter when I could hardly walk downstairs while having all that reno going on at home and I am grateful. In knitting, at our guild last month some of us started sock circles. There are 5 people in mine. Each person starts a pair of socks for themselves. We're doing top down, so you knit the cuff and halfway down the leg. Then you pass it on to the next person. Month by month, each member of the circle knits part of someone else's pair of socks. I started mine and passed it on. I 'm using leftover red and blue bits of sock yarn.  Hope it goes well. Here's what it looks like: ...