January 2008

I did a fair amount of knitting on the tiger hat over the weekend and it became obvious it would be far too small for either of my kids, at 40 cm diameter (unstretched, but it didn’t stretch enough either). So I frogged it. I had done swatches in the yarn, but not in pattern; I guess this just means I knit colourwork a lot more tightly than plain colours, which I’ll have to remember in future. I’ll try going up a couple of needle sizes and see what that looks like, but probably not today.

OK, I didn’t get the yarn tails woven in, the swatches are still sitting on the board waiting for me. Just too much else going on. But I did cast on a new project - the Tiger Hat. I need to figure out colourwork for one of the TKGA swatches, and knitting a cute hat seems like a good way to do so. I don’t know who it’s for, that will depend on what size it ends up! I cast on today during a phone call where I didn’t have to take notes, and will knit further over the weekend. I wonder how long it will take, I’ve always been a little scared to tackle colourwork, ever since I tried a project that with hindsight was way over my head some years ago. I can double-knit with one yarn in each hand, so colourwork shouldn’t be too hard, right?

Yesterday was the time to start blocking some of those TKGA swatches I’ve been knitting. I haven’t finished all the swatches, but I’ve done over half and didn’t want to leave all that pinning out to the last minute. It’s been a lot of work so far, but worth it in terms of making me look closely at my knitting and figuring out better ways to do things.

I used the standard wool blocking technique: soak in some warm water with a little shampoo for 20-30 minutes, rinse in warm water, squeeze out gently, wrap in a towel, pin out on a towel placed on one of those interlocking foam boards, leave until dry. This evening I get to weave in some yarn tails. Maybe I’ll do some more photos of the results once that’s done.

I found myself adding sites to my bookmarks list, and then thought, how silly. It’s not much more work to blog them, and then others might be interested as well. So here is a listing of a few web sites with knitting techniques of various sorts. The order is reverse alphabetical.

Techknitting

Technique discussions and illustrations for more advanced knitters. Good if you want to know the pros and cons of different techniques, could be a little overwhelming. Best read with knitting pins (needles) and yarn in hand, to try things out.

Sweaterscapes

I found this one when looking for a tutorial on shaping necklines with short rows. Tutorials on changing designs, intarsia knitting, i-cord, etc.

StudioKnits

This is a complete book, online or available on CD. There are over 38,000 words and 300+ custom knitted illustrations adding up to the equivalent of more than 190 letter-sized pages contained within. Lots of colour photos, which is good.

KnittingHelp

Lots of videos on all sorts of knitting techniques, illustrated in both continental and English knitting styles.

Of course, I have multiple books as well, but sometimes one of these sites puts things in a different way that makes more sense.

My mother-in-law, Jean, and I had a deal. She’d do some sewing for me, and I’d knit her a cardigan out of yarn she had bought. She crochets, but wanted something knitted this time instead. So I got her measurements and the yarn, designed a cardigan, and finally finished it on Christmas Eve Day, a couple of months after starting.

Jean’s cardigan

I don’t know what the yarn was but it looked like a worsted-weight, mostly wool, yarn, in a dark grey heather colour. The style is simple, a basic loose cardigan with about 10 cm ease at the bust, fitted sleeve caps, and a fairly high round neck. The overall pattern is a very simple lace repeat. The hems are folded stocking stitch folded hems on the sleeves and body. The front and neckline bands are double-knit bands as per Jen’s instructions.

Lace pattern, in a 12-row repeat:
rows 1 and 3: knit
even rows: purl
row 5: *k2tog, yo, repeat from *, k1
rows 7 and 9: knit
row 11: *ssk, yo, repeat from *, k1

The ssk row produces a left bias that balances out the right bias produced by the k2tog row. When I was blocking the cardigan there was very little overall bias, and the little that was there was easily held in by the double-thickness hems and bands. The cardigan draped nicely in this stitch done on 4.5 mm needles, with the hem inner on 4 mm needles (purl row as fold line) and the bands on 3.75 mm needles (double knitting needs slightly smaller needles).

For a change, the Ravelry group I knit with decided to go on a field trip, and it didn’t take much for me to convince them to try Homecraft Importers. The web site is new, and obviously still has some problems, but I do like the store. It has yarns, threads, and other supplies for knitting, crochet, and needlework. Supporting that range of fibre crafts is rare here in Vancouver, most of the LYS really only have knitting yarns and maybe some crochet hooks. We had fun looking at the brilliant rayon and silk stitching threads, the different yarns, and tried our best to enable each other to buy more. I was quite restrained and only bought enough yarn (superwash merino, nice and practical) for some hats for the kids. Not that I know when I’ll get to knit them, of course, but I have hopes.

And one day maybe I’ll have an excuse to make something out of some of the more exotic yarns there. Bamboo, or maybe that Bouton d’Or Ksar, a really soft yarn with camel and wool. It was gorgeous!

Then down to Country Beads for all the people making the Ice Queen shawl (no, not me, I have enough on my project list right now), followed by coffee. We even got lucky in the weather - grey and gloomy of course, but no rain. Which is all you can hope for at this time of year.