Tag Archives: stranded

Endpaper mitt

Selbu KAL

Wow, it's been a long time since I blogged here. I've been doing a lot of knitting, just not blogging about it. Given it's so long ago, I've forgotten most of the details about the Selbu KAL the Terminal City Yarn Wranglers group on Ravelry did. We started April 1 (apart from those who started early, and those who started late, of course) and I finished mine on April 23. It's a nice, straight-forward knit, even if (like me) you haven't knitted a stranded hat before. I made it out of DK yarn I had around.

The photo on the right is a little closer to the true colour.

Yarn: King Cole Anti-Tickle Merino in turquoise and black

Needles: 2.0 mm ribbing and 3.0 mm body

Pattern: Selbu Modern by Kate Gagnon

Modifications: None

Comments: it's less of a beret and a more of a hat on my head. If I made it again and wanted a beret, I'd need to make it a lot larger.

Ravelry link: http://www.ravelry.com/projects/laurendw/selbu-modern

Finished Roses

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I guess I fall into the category of "Fearless Knitter", as otherwise I wouldn't have made my first major stranded project a steeked cardigan in superwash wool. In my defense, I did pick something for my daughter, so it's a lot smaller than one for me would have been.

The pattern is the 13502 Cardigan by Dale Design from the Dale of Norway leaflet Dalegarn #135: Designs for Baby. I blogged about it in June 2008 as Roses Cardigan, and I've just realised I didn't blog about finishing it. The stumbling block to finishing it, it turns out, was getting the sewing machine out to sew the steeks. To start with I couldn't see where I was stitching and eventually I used a contrasting thread to baste the line first. I couldn't get it all out after sewing on top of it, but it was covered by the crochet edging anyway, so isn't visible.

: note the elephant buttons

: Roses Cardigan, folded

: inside seams

: edging detail

: Roses Cardigan

Yarn: Dale of Norway/Dalegarn Baby Ull. 2 skeins of dark blue, 4 skeins of light blue, 1 skein of yellow-gold, and 1 skein of dark green.

Needles:3.25 mm

Modifications: none

Comments: The pattern made sense and has little shaping, so it's an easy first stranded project. There is a small amount of back and forth knitting, which requires patterning while purling. It looks much better after blocking. My daughter loves the cardigan, and it's often the only warm item we can get her to wear. I managed to find some cute elephant buttons in the right colour and size. Elephants don't really go with roses, but nobody has complained so far.

Ravelry link: Baby Ull Cardigan

Frustrating Mittens

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In between working on gift knitting, I decided to at least finish one of the fingerless mittens I'm working on for me, using the endpaper mitts pattern. (Ravelry link to my project). The knitting went reasonably well, good practice for stranded knitting, but there's just one little snag.

I suffer from irritation sensitivity, sometimes called dermographism. It's a condition that a lot of children have, where irritation to the skin produces symptoms like an allergic reaction, such as hives or itchy spots. And it looks like woolen gloves, especially tight ones like these mitts, set it off. I'm going to try soaking them in shampoo and hair conditioner, in the hope they soften up enough, but otherwise I guess it's back to the fleece or fabric gloves for me, or maybe some less scratchy yarn (I used Sisu sock yarn from my stash) and mitts that aren't as tight.

Roses Cardigan

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My current non-TKGA knitting project is a cardigan for my toddler daughter. It's my first "real" stranded knitting project (I don't count the frogged tiger hat), and the roses have that embossed look to them. I assume some of that will block out eventually. Unlike the tiger hat, where I was holding both yarns in my right hand, I'm using the background colour in my right hand, and the "pattern" colour in my left hand. I usually knit holding the yarn in my right hand and throwing it, but picking with my left hand is quite comfortable. I watched Lucy Neatby's Gems 2 DVD where she shows how she holds the yarn in each hand, and I find that her method works for me.

I've been trying out different methods of getting the stranding to work (with some success, despite the embossed look). I tried the "weave every second stitch" method, but that shows through too much. And then I tried weaving every 3 stitches. Since the yarn is so fine (32 stitches per 10 cm/4 in) in the end I decided to weave only on a gap or 6 stitches or more on the body, and more often on the sleeves, as that's where the little fingers might catch.

Baby Ull cardigan

Dale Baby Ull cardigan

The photos were taken on the sundial in our front garden, while the tulips were blooming.

If you want to see what the finished article should look like, pictures are available on Ravelry at Dale 135 pattern book; unfortunately the Dalegarn web site no longer has the book listed, nor the pictures. Ravelry also shows the pattern page and my project page.