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What I'm up to

I hadn't visited the allotment for four or five days and went up this afternoon to get something to eat for supper. How everything has grown! Squashes are beginning to snake over the ground, the brassicas are bursting out of their netting, and the climbing beans are throttling each other in a great tangle. I got a good picking of dwarf french beans, a few courgettes and some red kale, which I'm using as cut-and-come-again. Here's my anti-butterfly cage for my brassicas (photo taken about a week ago - now everything is much bigger).

The cabbagey things in front of the netting are portuguese cabbages given to me by another allotment holder. I'm not entirely sure what to do with them (they will grow to about three feet high).

As far as knitting goes I have slowed down on the sock front, but at least I'm on sock no. 2 of the blue-faced leicester Oxford Kitchen Yarn:

I'm not very pleased with the toe grafting, hence the way I've laid out the socks here!

Something drove me to Norwegian patterned gloves. I bought some rather nice Danish yarn locally. It's called Alpaca Silk and it's a blend of alpaca, merino and silk. I tried the ones from a Japanese book I have (Ravelry link).

Don't scream, but I have frogged it. The yarn and the pattern weren't working well together. The palm of the pattern as written is very narrow and there is no stretch or bounce in the yarn itself. As I stretched out the fabric the stitches looked uneven and nasty. I really couldn't imagine ever knitting the second glove. So instead I'm knitting some fair isle gloves, which I promised a long time ago to a dear friend. The shetland yarn works so much better for this kind of thing.

I've now knitted the main part and the little finger. I notice that I've made an error on the star pattern, but it's a symmetrical error so I'll probably just pretend it's a design feature!

I had a lovely day in Brighton yesterday with Jan. We went round the Chinoiserie exhibition at Brighton museum, which was rather charming and informative with a very wide selection of objects and styles influenced by a western idea of China.

The blog spoke

The blog spoke, and I listened; it demanded and I capitulated.

'No more silly Miss Silver quotations,' it said. 'No more pathetic excuses about green tweed cardigans taking forever to knit and always looking the same in photos. Give me blogfodder!'

So here you are. I've had stashed away for some time Dream in Color's Classy in the Lucky Jade colourway. I've started making it into a top-down cardigan following Barbara Walker's excellent Knitting from the Top. Here is the top of one sleeve, showing the start of the raglan increases. The colour is rather washed out in the photo.

As you know, I visited La Droguerie in Lille last weekend. One of my purchases was some dark teal tweed wool. I was advised that it should be knitted along with another yarn because it is only a single and not very strong. It actually seems quite strong to me, but I'll need to knit it with something else because I won't have enough for a whole garment (450g). Adrienne, last night at Liberty's (and where was everybody?), suggested Kidsilk Haze as a carrier. I bought a ball in Trance (582) and while it is the right sort of blue it is a bit paler than I really wanted. Never mind, here's a swatch of the two together with the tweed behind. They aren't quite as blue as they look here. I'm using 4.5 mm needles and may even experiment with 5 mm (very unusual for me!). It does make a very cosy fabric.

More lace knitting

A week or so ago I started the Trellis shawl by Evelyn A. Clark from Interweave Knits (Spring 2006). I'm using the Baruffa Cashwool I mentioned before. It is a very fine laceweight yarn and I'm not so comfortable knitting with it as with the yarns I've been using recently. It's quite a fiddly, though not really difficult, pattern - including a k7tog! Fortunately I bought some lovely Addi lace needles from Stash Yarns and I'm managing them OK. It isn't really TV knitting, though.

A detail:

I'm hoping it'll look a lot better when it's blocked.

I wanted something a little less mindful, so I'm doing a melon stitch scarf (adapted from Victorian Lace Today) using some Drops Alpaca that Dawn gave me when I was collecting for the Kisiizi Hospital (more anon on that). The yarn wasn't used for the baby knitting in the end and in the interests of using up stash, I thought I'd make it into a scarf, which can be saved for some good cause.

It's almost the perfect stitch for knitting in front of the telly: interesting but easy and grows quite fast. The reverse is quite nice too:

Phew! Just the Knitwitches silk Print o' the Wave stole to block and then I'm up to date! I have been single-mindedly knitting lace for about four months now, but the other day I found myself looking more favourably on my fair isle cardigan, so perhaps colour work will be back on the agenda soon.

Evelyn Clark triangle

I finished my triangle shawl that uses patterns from the excellent book by Evelyn A. Clark, Knitting Lace Triangles. There are four main patterns in the book and I've used three of them - flower, ripple and leaf - plus the edging. They all work together so that you don't have to make any calculations about the increases for shaping.

Here's a blocking detail. I love the way the patterns grow out of the mid-line increases (the nearly horizontal line of holes in this picture).

And, just for fun:

Although it's bigger than the last shawl I posted about, it's not a very big shawl, which is what I wanted. I think very long triangular shawls need hooped petticoats and flounces to show off to advantage. The yarn is from Patricia Roberts's shop in Knightsbridge. It's lambswool and really nice to knit with. However, it wasn't sold as lace yarn. I bought a skein of double knit (or similar) which was really two or three of these double plies wound but not twisted together. It was a real pain to separate them but gave a nice result.

Forest Canopy shawl

This could be classed as my first FO of '08. I actually did all the knitting in October and November, but didn't block it until this week:

My rather unscientific method - a towel on the floor. Here it is freed of pins:

It's quite a small shawl - really a scarf - because I used just one skein of Jade Sapphire Mongolian 2-ply cashmere. It's wonderfully soft against the skin of course and the lace shows up well after blocking. Like many other knitters, I heartily recommend this pattern. It's downloadable here.

My lace craze shows no sign of abating. I have finished my Evelyn Clark triangle and it is blocking. I've also finished the main part of my silk Print 'o the Wave stole and have knitted one and a half end borders. That will be fun to block...

I was lucky enough to have some money for my birthday just before Christmas and I ordered some books and a ball winder. They arrived the other day. I'm happy with all the books: Victorian Lace Today, Barbara Walker's second stitch treasury, and Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitting Around. The ball winder frustrated me a bit today. The firm I bought it from sent no instructions and I had to fiddle around a bit to get started. I wound up a skein of Lane Borgosesia laceweight merino (confusingly called cashwool but there's no cashmere in it) and the fine, soft yarn and clumsy operator caused a few snarl-ups, but all's well that ends well! I'll report back on the yarn because I haven't seen it anywhere before. It is being sold by Janette's Fine Yarns (an eBay store) and it's very reasonably priced. I'm planning to use it to make the Diamond Trellis Scarf from Interweave Knits (another Evelyn Clark design). At least I do seem to finish these lacey things!

ETA: the new (to me) laceweight yarn is on Ravelry as Baruffa Cashwool - lots of lovely projects...

A cautionary tale

YC: This is Yarn Central calling Pattern Control. Yarn Central calling Pattern Control. Over.

PC: Pattern Central here. Is there a problem, Yarn Control?

YC: I'll say. Can I have your present pattern repeat status on the Print o' the Wave Stole? I repeat, your present pattern repeat status. Over.

PC: Latest information is fifteen repeats completed.

YC: Copy.

PC: I only took one copy for personal use.

YC: No, idiot, I copy your answer. Your lot is on repeat sixteen. Over.

PC: That's all right, isn't it?

YC: 'Fraid not, Pattern Central. We have a situation developing here. At present rate of progress, 45g for fifteen repeats yields a total repeat number of approximately thirty-three repeats with 1g contingency allowance. Over.

PC: But, but...

YC: Yes, Pattern Central. You're going to have to stand down your edging detail. Over.

PC: Oh, I say - that's too bally much. I've a lovely group of boys ready for the edging. They've been training for days. Can't anything be done?

YC: Well, the backroom boys are working on a scheme to reduce the pattern repeats to give you just enough for hems. Over.

PC: Hems? Hems! You expect me to put hems on a lovely thing like that?

YC: Well, call them borders, then. Over.

PC: I suppose we'll just have to put up with it. Though I think it's a bally shame. It's all the CO's fault. Why doesn't she plan things properly? It's the same every time. No thought for us lot. [PC is carried off, frothing at the mouth]

WIP parade

There seems to be a feeling on some blogs that only finished items are worthy, but if I stuck to that my posts would be even fewer and further between. After finishing my Smooshy socks, I really ought not to have started more socks, but I felt really odd without any on the needles. Then my problems began. I started off with my Oxford Kitchen Blue-faced Leicester sock yarn that I bought at the Stitch 'n' Bitch day. I won't say I'm disappointed with the yarn itself, but I couldn't make it work for me at this time. It's quite fine and not very tightly spun. I tried some lace patterns, but they just didn't work. I was using 2.25 mm needles, but really needed to go down to 2 mm and just wasn't in the mood for that. So then I got out some Jitterbug I'd had for a little while. This is quite different - nice fat, tightly spun yarn.

The trouble here was the colours. I love the colours themselves, but the dyeing seems quite random and on my first attempt I got a really horrible pool of black-blue. This was 66 stitches on 2.25 mm, following a chevron pattern. I thought going down might help, and it did a bit, then I tried the Tropicana pattern from Magknits and this did indeed mix up the colours. The way it works is that you do all the increases for the wave pattern on one row (then a plain row) and all the decreases on another row. Thus you are knitting rounds on different numbers of stitches. The only trouble is that the socks are like armour plating, so they're for the frog pond too.

I gave up on such fanciness and got out some good old self-striping sock yarn. This is Fabel by Garnstudio (bought at Ally Pally) and it does just what you'd expect.

My triangle shawl is back on track. I took out the arch pattern I was trying and am doing a band of one repeat of the ripple pattern, one repeat of leaf and one repeat of ripple again. Then I'll continue on with the flower pattern.

Another almost wip: lovely snuggly 30/70 angora/merino short-fingered gloves for Thomas (I'll save the photo for another day).

Adapting a lace pattern

I have finished my Smooshy socks. Here's a reminder of the pattern:

A few people who have seen them (including non-knitters) have commented on the pattern and I think it is very pretty. I was pleased that I was able to take a 12-stitch pattern and make it into a 15-stitch pattern (because I wanted to knit a 60-stitch sock with 15 stitches on each needle).

Here's a picture of the original pattern, 'Baby Fern' from More Sensational Knitted Socks by Charlene Schurch. I'm not including the instructions, of course.

You'll see that there are two parts to the pattern: the vertical column and the v-shaped lines of holes. Taking the columns first, it was easy to add another knit stitch, so that element in my socks is p k k p. Since every even-numbered row is knit all the way round, this gives a nice column of 2 stocking stitches with 1 moss stitch each side. I could have made this 4 stitches of moss stitch, or 4 stitches of stocking stitch (but that wouldn't have shown up), or even garter stitch or ribbing. Also, I could have made this element wider if need be.

Then the holey part. This panel starts with ktog then a certain number of knit stitches, then the yo k1 yo, then the mirrored number of knit stitches and ending with ssk. On each odd-numbered row (remember, the even rows are all knit) the yo's move apart. So on row one there is yo k1 yo, on row three it is yo k3 yo, and on row five it is yo k5 yo. That's as far as the original pattern goes and then it's back to yo k1 yo. It was easy to decide to include yo k7 yo as a new row seven. That meant increasing the 'certain number of knit stitches' that I mentioned above to 3 each side of the yo's on row one, thus adding two more stitches to the repeat.

Clear as mud? Well that's the way I worked it out, and I think many lace patterns have been adapted and developed this way over the years. Sometimes it happens by mistake, much as my cookies did, and sometimes because someone wants the convenience of one pattern per needle (after all, for 60 stitches I could have done 5 repeats of the original 12-stitch pattern rather than 4 repeats of 15, but it wouldn't have been so satisfactory).

I can't copy out the pattern from Charlene Schurch's book, but I believe I can put up a chart of my adaptation of it, so I'll do that as soon as poss.

day 19

The benefits of being at home today - some yarn arrived (Kauni effektgarn):

I already have a skein of greens/yellows and I was thinking of doing a scarf in an all-over pattern using them both, perhaps a Latvian pattern or one from Anna Zilboorg's sock book.

I have finished the Forest Canopy Shawl and here it is in its unblocked state. It won't get blocked very soon because there's no space anywhere to spread it out.

I had to juggle with the edging in order to have enough yarn to cast off. I had to rip back and then leave out the last row before the two-row cast off. I don't think it shows.

Here's a peak preview of the next shawl on the needles:

The pattern is from Evelyn Clark's Knitting Lace Triangles, which is little book containing four lace patterns plus an edging that you can mix and match to design your own triangular shawls. I tried the ripple stitch but kept getting hopelessly lost. This is the flower pattern - a lot easier. The yarn is some lovely soft lambswool that I bought from Patricia Roberts's shop. The yarn is two-ply and had been skeined up three-stranded. I decided to separate the strands - a decision I regretted before the end, as did the two unwilling helpers I had to enlist as an emergency! But now I'm glad I did that because this is nearly as soft as the cashmere with just a hint more crispness and I think it will block really well.

I'm still having a break from the Blue Bowl fair isle, but I had better return to it before it becomes a ufo!

Day 8

Totally shattered tonight - a long day at my mother's house sorting. When will it end? The trouble was my brother was there with me and we kept stopping to look at things - and even listen. We dug out the 78s and replayed one we had often listened to when we were little (at least, I was little, he was 7 years older). We used to have two wind-up gramophones and I was quite miffed when my parents got rid of them. Fortunately my mother's record player plays 78s. Great nostalgia moment. Another was finding a box of photos of our father's service in Korea and Japan. And, how about a letter written by our great great uncle from Philadelphia to his mother in Ireland in 1861! So you see this isn't something you can get through quickly.

But what about knitting? I haven't managed to take any photos in the last few days, but Blue Bowl is progressing well. I'm also well on with the foot of my second Smooshy sock.

Some time earlier this year I stumbled across a Finnish knitting blog and noticed a very nice stripe pattern. Anna, the blogger kindly said I could use the pattern (it's her own invention). I knitted up some swatches but haven't taken it any further yet. I like the way it isn't absolutely symmetrical and can be used for blending or for contrast.