Bruce’s Gloves
A few weeks ago I was teaching a private lesson after hours in the shop when a nice old guy knocked at the door. He asked if we repaired things for people, and I said we did, but that we were closed and he’d have to come back the next morning. Twelve hours later, there he stood. His name was Bruce and he had a much loved pair of fingerless gloves… but he’d lost one of them recently. He wanted a new pair to replace them. None of our usual contract knitters wanted to do it so I volunteered. This is what I ended up with. The wool is Sirdar’s Town and Country sock wool, chosen because his originals were knitted in a variegated brown-and-white. They were a weird thickness of cotton though, so I had a hell of a time approximating the shape in a completely different guage wool. I also messed up the reverse shaping on the second glove and spent two nights repeatedly frogging it back to the thumb. I got there in the end though. I was worried he wouldn’t like them but he was totally happy, which was a major relief. No more commission jobs for a while, I think. Knitting for other people is too stressful.
Tag: knitting
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Bruce’s Gloves
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Looking Glass Jumper
Looking Glass Jumper
At last, the Snook’s new cabled jumper is complete. It’s pattern C from Sirdar’s Denim Book of Aran Knits and it was knitted in the Denim Sport Aran. (The Snook was the third size; I bought the required seven balls but even though I lengthened the body and sleeves, I only used five-and-a-half.) This was my first attempt at converting a pattern written for flat knitting into circular, and I’m about 90% happy with the result. There is a rather glaring error on the front of the jumper – clearly visible at right – but we’ll just call it my Amish mistake. (It was too far to frog down and too complicated a spot to correct with a dropped stitch. I thought about swapping the front for the back, but that felt like I was trying to hide it too much. I like that it has a real human error in it. Can you spot it?) The jumper was so named because every other row of the pattern had to be inverted and read backwards to be knit in the round. It only really got fiddly once I started doing the neck shaping; I was juggling five sets of decreases at once (left front, right front, two sleeves, and the back). I just sorta winged it. Pretty nice huh?Incidentally, it’s really hard to take a decent photograph of cables. I took both the ones below before I figured out that I had to do it without the flash. But isn’t the Snook with his Puss-Puss sooooo cuuuuuute?
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Moblog: Last ones…
Three more pics from the ABC Knit In this morning. (I still can’t believe Fiona and Amy convinced me to get out of bed at 6:30 a.m. on my day off.) The first is a completed blanket sewn together by one of the ladies sitting in our group. Second is me modelling Marlene’s fabulous purple hat. (She thought it would look great with my red hair.) And last is the immense pile of squares and completed rugs in the atrium of the ABC. According to what’s-his-name who was broadcasting live on the radio the whole time, we had over 600 knitters show up and over 42,000 squares were donated (from country areas too). At the end they introduced the little lady who started the whole Wraps with Love program and she started crying as she thanked everybody for their generosity and support. It was a nice way to start the morning.
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Making new friends
Me and my new friend Marlene, knitting away. I’m the first blogger she’s ever met! She’s making her internet debut here.
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ABC Knit-In
I’m at the ABC Knit-In this morning. Hundreds of people are putting together blankets for the needy. And the Bananas in Pajamas just arrived!
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Craft Show 2005
Check it out – a yarn with my name!
Just got back from my annual visit to the Craft Fair, and I have to say it seemed a lot better this year. It was still 75% quilting booths but the quality of the knitting wools on offer was much higher. I still saw some $1.50 Feathers knockoffs, but overall there seemed to be a trend towards hand-dyed natural fibers. I went along with Miss Jane (from the TC Stitch and Bitch), who inspired me to go on a bit more of a spending spree than I’d planned. I started off small, by indulging my now yearly habit of picking up a couple balls of sock wool from Bendigo Woollen Mills. Then I stopped in to talk to Don from Prestige Fibres, just to say hi… and somehow I ended up with eight balls of Superbaby Alpaca. (He’s selling them for an incredible price, so if you want any, get your bum down there.) That will become the basis of the argyle cardy that’s gestating inside my brain. I also got a big ball of self-patterning “Online Super Socks” from Yarns Galore. Lastly I stopped by Stick to Your Knitting, where I was promptly recognized by the owner Janette. She honestly came up to me and went, “I know you! I read your blog!” (As if I didn’t have a big enough head anyway.) Turns out Mary-Helen gave her my link. I got a couple pairs of Addi Turbos there – At last! I will be the fastest knitter in the world! Mwa ha ha ha! – and a tiny belated birthday gift for Amy. Janette also set me up with an STYK bag so I can make my boss Albert’s head explode. Jane and I also stopped by the Knitter’s Guild Booth, where I ran into Pam North again (she does the Guild newsletter) and got to meet a few other ladies from the suburban groups. Lastly, I somehow decided to give sewing another try with a kit to make the COOLEST handbag ever. The fabric has pin-up girls on it! I hope I don’t bugger it up…
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Finished Objects
Finished Baby Objects!
Nat’s baby package is nearly ready to go out. On the left is the completed Baby Norgi sweater, which I finished up today. I pretty much followed the pattern exactly for once. The wool is Bambi by Grignasco, which is an extrafine 4-ply 100% Italian merino. (And it’s nicer than anything I’ve ever knit for myself!) My only reservation with this project is the fear that the baby’s head won’t fit through. Babies have big heads. I tried to make the neckline as loose as possible, but who knows. Nat and Staci might have to save this one for their next kid and hope for a smaller noggin. 🙂The second item is a secret one that I finished a couple of weeks ago: the Sirdar Sleeping Bag. Isn’t it the cutest thing ever? It even has little teddy bear ears! The cuteness of it almost makes up for the fact that Snowflake Chunky is the worst, most godawful thing in the world to knit. It’s as if someone took a nice terrycloth towel and cut it into a long, very fine strip. You can’t see any of your stitches amidst all that fleeciness, which kinda defeats the purpose of hand-knitting something in the first place. I mean, if you saw that in a shop, would you think it was hand-knitted? (Slight wonkiness aside?) Nope. So while it’s definitely a cute project, I don’t think it’s quite heirloom quality. At least I know that one will fit though.
Now all I’ve got to do is give them a final wash to get all the cat hair off…
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Colourways Wrap II
Colourways Wrap II
Man, I feel like it’s been ages since I had a Finished Object to report! This is a sample I designed and knit for the shop. We had an original “Colourways Wrap” from a few years ago, but this one uses slightly different yarns (and an extra ball) so the pattern needed to be rewritten. They’re all Anny Blatt yarns, which means this is one of the most expensive items I’ve ever knitted. All seven yarns are carried the full length of the wrap, which means I had to resort to putting the balls in sandwich bags to avoid creating the World’s Biggest Knot. But at last, it’s done! We’ve got the range of yarns in several different colors and we plan on selling them as a kit. So anyway, yeah, from tomorrow my first official pattern will go on sale in the shop! Pretty neat, huh? -
SweaterMod!
As I’ve been too uninspired to start any new knitting lately, I decided it was time to make some much needed modifications to my Sampler Sweater. (Finished result seen here. Try not to get too distracted by my SEXXAY sweatpants.) The first issue was that the neck was too big. The pattern called for the neck to take up 33% of body stitches, but as I was doing a big floppy sweater, that ended up being way big for me. Every time I wore it, I felt like I was wearing a boat neck instead of a crew neck. Luckily I had some of the white wool left, so I simply picked up inside the existing collar and knitted a new one, making it a bit longer so it peeks out like an undershirt. It’s not a huge difference, but it definitely helps the collar hold its shape a bit better. The second problems were the cuffs and ribbing, which ended up shapeless and inelastic. I decided to unpick them and re-knit them on smaller needles to pull them in a bit. The first challenge was undoing the cast-on edge of the waist ribbing. Big problem. For some reason, I had this idea that you could just rip back knitting from the bottom the same way you can from the top. Turns out it doesn’t. Each and every stitch has to be unpicked by hand. As the sweater is a couple hundred stitches around (and the ribbing is fourteen rows deep), I soon realized this was going to take FOREVER. So then I had the brilliant but scary idea to pick up stitches just about the ribbing, cut the sweater, and then unravel the ribbing down from there. It was a bit iffy at first, but in the end it worked beautifully. I then knitted my new ribbing back down from there. I was so happy with the result that I unpicked the cuffs (I could rip them) and reknitted those too. Et voila! A newly wearable sweater that I’m actually satisfied with. -
I did it.
I did it! I just sent off my membership application to the Knitters’ Guild of NSW. I also volunteered to be their Website Convenor, since they’re in need of one. I’m in, girls!
