Making purple things

Longer time no blog!

2010-01-10T23:18:00.003Z

This is mostly going to be a photo post rather than a words post, because I'm so far behind ;-) First, Christmas presents for other people...

A scarf for my dad, which seemed to take ages and got very, very boring. But it was worth it because I found out after I'd started that he'd asked my mum for a hat and scarf, and she hadn't been able to find a scarf to fit his exacting requirements, but had bought him a navy hat. And he loves it :-)

A hat with ears for my friend V's baby. Ears to please mummy, goth black to pacify daddy ;-)

And four identical pairs of cable mittens, for three of my best friends and me, with a deeply symbolic four-strand cable design.

And a finished birthday-and-Christmas present to myself (because apparently you can never have too many pairs of fingerless mittens), the modified reading mitts, which I've been wearing all the time:

These aren't technically a Christmas present, but I knit them over Christmas after I realised Ralph had no gloves, and I had some spare black yarn left over from the hat-with-ears. (They're loosely inspired by pictures of Dashing, but not knit to that pattern.)

In fibrey gifts, my parents gave me some spinning wheel bobbins and a rather steam-punky bobbin winder, which I haven't photographed yet, and my in-laws gave me this lovely fibre:

I'm now making a third attempt to knit this lovely purple merino into a jumper. The picture is actually a lie, because something went wrong with my gauge calculations and I had to frog, but the second go is going much better, and is nearly at the armholes (bottom-up) at which point I'm going to have to make a decision about what kind of sleeves to have. It's deliberately plain (no cables on the second version, though there were on the first), so I can knit without looking at it, and therefore read academic papers at the same time, and doesn't mind being put down in the middle of a row (and the harmony needles are grippy enough that I don't need to slide them through) so I can stop to make a note whenever I need to. This means I'm getting through it quite quickly :-)

And finally, the first FO of 2010! Felted slippers, to an improvised design with stripy double-knit soles, and felted to exactly the right dimensions so they fit perfectly!

Long time no blog

2009-11-29T16:20:00.003Z

Over a month ago, I was half-heartedly whining about having only one thing on the needles, and the need to go and cast on for something else. Now I once again only have one thing on the needles (the same thing - selbu modern, which I've hardly touched in the meantime), but in between I have knit lots of things. My course kindly provides the required reading in A4-photocopies, which are conveniently flat, making it easy to knit and read at the same time as long as I choose my knitting carefully, and I've been doing a lot of reading since I last blogged. Sadly, I haven't yet worked out how to blog and read at the same time.

Immediately after hitting 'publish post' on my last post, I did indeed go and start preparing to start something else - I wound some handspun yarn (peacock) into a ball and started swatching. I'd been thinking for a while that this wanted to be a scarf in a peacock-tail lace pattern, and now it is! (Although it still needs blocking...)

While knitting the scarf, I decided that I really needed a new hat. This is my own design, although I misjudged the width of the ribbing - it's this wide so I can fold back the hem, but I don't like how it looks folded, so I wear it unfolded and covering most of my face ;-) I'm planning to make another, with less ribbing, and then perhaps publish the pattern (heh, I'm always saying that and never do. Eventually!) The hat got christened on a very rainy Reclaim the Night march, and kept my head warm and toasty and dry throughout, so I am declaring it a success!

When I said I only had one thing on the needles, I was using a rather strict definition of the term, because one of the off-the-needles things is a single mitten, the pair for which I'm going to cast on next. This is a modified version of Susie's reading mitts, worked upside down, with a different gauge and thumb gusset, and with the hem edges knit into the fabric rather than sewed down later. The lace pattern, which was drew me to the mitts in the first place, is unaltered :-)

I spun the yarn for this over my birthday weekend, having given myself the weekend off all study-work and work-work (I'm still behind on both kinds of work because of this, but it's an article of faith that I don't work on my birthday). The yarn is rather more brown than I usually like, but I think the colours suit the pattern, and I'm enjoying how the colour shifts in different kinds of light, looking sometimes more purple, sometimes more brown, and sometimes more grey. This is chain-plyed to keep the colour changes intact, but I've got half of the fibre still unspun, so I think I'll two- or three-ply that to see the difference in finished colours. I'm getting quite interested in achieving different colour effects in finished yarn from the same fibre, and I've got some ideas about other ways to play with this, which I'll blog about if I get round to doing it before I lose interest in the idea!

If this doesn't sound like quite enough knitting in a month to be called 'lots', it's because about half of my November knitting has been on gifts for people who might conceivably read this blog, so the rest will have to stay unblogged until after Christmas!

Not enough to knit!

2009-10-28T15:28:00.004Z

I currently only have one thing on the needles! And unfortunately, it requires too much looking-at to be practical to knit while watching TV or reading, but it's moving along slowly:

What had brought about this strange state of affairs is finishing off two things in the last week: the dragon's breath scarf, and the swimming coriolis. This is the scarf in its unblocked state:

And this is it held taut-ish to show the pattern off:

(That's the edge of my Wisteria sleeve visible on the left, and the edge of Making Money by Terry Pratchett (which I haven't yet read) on the right.)

I'm planning to only lightly block this - I like how it looks like very complex cables as it is now, and I think blocking it completely flat would lose some of its charm.

These are the swimming coriolis:

They look rather more leftovery (which they are) than I hoped, because the roll of the cast-off edge obscures most of the second band of the variegated yarn, so I'm rethinking my original intention of giving these as a gift - I don't think they're nice enough :-/

I've got various other projects (all gifts) wandering around in my head, but I haven't got round to doing anything concrete like swatching or sketching or even winding the yarn into balls. Unusually, I want to be already knitting rather than starting to knit, which is a bit of a problem when most of my knitting time isn't well suited to my sole current project. I'm hoping that writing this post will serve as a kind of catalyst, and prompt me to go and do one of those things, but I'm sufficiently distrustful of today's energy levels (I'm coming down with a cold) to avoid saying that I'm going to go and start something as soon as I click "publish post" ;-)

Catching up

2009-10-12T20:10:00.005+01:00

This is Ella blocking, all flat! I've worn her a couple of times, and she's nice and warm, and I'm pleased I paid attention to alternating the more- and less-variegated skeins in knitting her.

This is the Zauberball I mentioned in my last post, in the process of becoming the dragon's breath scarf (so named because this is an adaptation of the flickering flames pattern, and red). I'm a lot further on now than in this picture - I just haven't taken any photos for ages.

I've finally finished both Lucas's Tomten and the red cardigan, both of which were waiting for fastenings, and I'd failed to find the green toggles and reddish-purple ribbon, respectively, I wanted, so in the end I plied some yarn (orange for tomten and the silk mix edging yarn for the red cardigan) against itself twice to make cord ties. The double plying means the cord is stable, and it's four times thicker than the working yarn, which is a good thickness.

I've now got three knitting projects on the go, and they're all actually in progress: yesterday I worked on all three of them, depending on how much my eyes were free to look at them:

Coriolis socks (almost no looking-at required) while working through some of the reading for the first week of my course

Dragon's breath scarf (some looking-at required) while watching TV

Selbu modern hat (lots of looking-at required) while listening to music

Snippets of progress

2009-09-24T22:59:00.003+01:00

The news in brief:

Went with Frax and Kauket to see Brenda Dayne knitting on the fourth plinth on Saturday, and then went to the pub with aforementioned plus a load of other knitters who had come for the same reason. F, K and I were by chance all knitting Coriolis, and we all made decent progress, and I made the acquaintance of an Oxford knitter who knows lots of the same people I do.

On the same trip, went to iKnit, and bought a Zauberball in shades of reds. Have made plans for a flame-patterned scarf.

Ella is finished and soaking, in preparation for my first ever excursion into blocking. It's very three-dimensional at the moment, so I'm eagerly awaiting the lace-blocking miracle that's reputed to happen.

More double knitting

2009-09-15T22:55:00.003+01:00

This is the state of the Selbu Modern:

Since doing a stitch count spreadsheet for Wisteria, I seem to be hooked - I've done another one for this, and it's serving the dual purpose of being a place to note which row of the chart I've finished, and telling me how far through I am (currently 36%).

Now I've got enough of it done to get a proper look at it, I've more-or-less decided that I prefer the dark band, and the light base colour for the pattern. Luckily, these are on the same side of the hat ;-) Of course, I reserve the right to change my mind later, which is why I'm glad I've made this as double knitting instead of stranded. It's loads of fun to knit, as well - I prefer double knitting to stranding anyway - and now I'm over some early clumsiness with the pattern, I'm sailing along and only needing to look at the chart occasionally. I still need to look at my knitting most of the time, which is a bit of a pain because it limits what I can do at the same time, but it's fun enough on its own that I mostly don't mind.

One off, one on (the needles)

2009-09-08T19:42:00.003+01:00

Having finished Wisteria, even though I'm enjoying both of my other projects and finding both of them easy, interesting and quick, I started getting the urge to cast on something else. The stranded knitting on the starry kimono, and the double-knit-esque hem on Wisteria reminded me of my intention to make some non-sock thing in two-handed knitting, so I stand some chance of finishing it before I get fed up with the fiddliness of the technique. My new short hair and excursions into red in my wardrobe suggested a red hat, and after some Ravelring, I decided upon Selbu Modern. I'm double knitting this, rather than stranding it, because I couldn't decide which way round the colours should be. Hence this two-sided swatch:

That's only a little bit of the pattern, obviously. Just enough to measure gauge and make adjustments for the looser gauge of double knitting compared with stranded, and for the fact that the needles I wanted to use are larger than those the pattern calls for, so technically I suppose this is 7/8 of a Selbu Modern :-)

Project promiscuity (Ella)

2009-09-06T13:54:00.003+01:00

This is what Ella looks like at the moment (photo taken without flash to better capture the texture):

It's crazily three-dimensional, with squarish bobbles that pop up or down, and I keep having to stretch it out to reassure myself that it will probably block flat:

I'm only a few rows away from the point where the back splits into the two fronts, which is good going, especially since I've been knitting most of this in the same timeframe as Wisteria.

Project promiscuity (swimming Coriolis)

2009-09-06T13:34:00.003+01:00

While knitting Wisteria, I've also done some other knitting...

After I'd finished the heel (eye of partridge, which looks gorgeous with this yarn) of the first sock, I weighed the remaining yarn, and discovered that it's not going to be enough for two full socks, so I immediately put the live stitches on waste yarn and cast on for the second sock with the other end of the ball. These will have contrast legs, but I haven't decided on yarn for them yet. The available one that goes best is the dark red Dream in Colour Smooshy that went with this yarn for the push-me-pull-you socks, but there's more of that leftover - probably actually enough for a whole pair - so I'm reluctant to use it. None of my other sock yarn goes as well, so these might end up being very short socks. On the other hand, the DiC is a suspect in a hat-in-planning I'm thinking about, which would probably leave enough to finish off these socks...

Wisteria: fibre to FO in a month

2009-09-06T13:14:00.004+01:00

It turns out that there were a couple of errors in the stitch-count calculations for Wisteria that I was talking about in my last post. It further turns out that I shortened the body length on the fly (the stated length might have nearly reached my knees!), and that when I double-checked the weight of fibre, it was even more generous than I had thought. The upshot of this is rather than needing to buy more fibre to finish, I've actually got about 110g leftover - enough for a pair of socks, or a hat, or a laceweight scarf. The leftovers might end up being my first attempt at dyeing fibre, but in the meantime I present my finished Wisteria!

Apart from the body length, I made two other mods: my first ever short row bust shaping, which has worked well, and a split double-faced hem in place of the hem cables. I wasn't keen on a horizontal band of cables around the widest part of me, and I like split hems for fit, and I'm very pleased with how it's worked. I came up with about four different ways of working the hem, swatched a couple, and decided on this...

I put the back stitches on a spare needle, and worked across the front, knitting into the front and back of each stitch, doubling the stitch count. Then I worked back across the wrong side, knitting each stitch that was created on the previous row, and slipping the 'original' stitches with the yarn in front. Then back to the right side, I knit the 'original' stitches, and slipped the 'new' ones with the yarn in front. Lather, rinse, repeat.

The effect is like double knitting, takes a bit longer, but is less fiddly because it only needs one end of yarn at a time. It creates sealed sides as well, which gives it bonus points over just knitting the hem flat and folding it. I used a standard cast off, except with k2togs for each pair of stitches instead of plain knit, thus attaching the front and the back to each other and making a pretty chain of stitches along the bottom.

The other I'm-so-pleased-with-myself idea in the hem is that the yarn is made from the same singles as the main yarn, but in two-ply instead of three, so the hem is barely any thicker than the main body of the jumper, while not looking and different.

I'm wearing the finished item as I type, and loving it :-)

Counting stitches

2009-08-18T21:46:00.005+01:00

Because I'm a geek like that, and because I'm trying to work out how much more fibre I need to buy, I've just constructed a spreadsheet to work out how many stitches there are in Wisteria. Interesting facts:

There are 57,170 stitches in total, including my mods: 6 rows of short row shaping in the bust, and a 6-row turned hem in two ply (hem stitches counted as ⅔ of a stitch each, as opposed to the main three ply yarn) instead of the hem cables

I've knit 22,993 stitches so far (40%)

The proportions of total stitches used in the yoke, body, and sleeves are 26%, 38% and 37% respectively

I need to buy about another 250g of fibre to spin enough to finish (probably a bit less, since the fibre weight is generous, although I didn't make a note of by how much, so I'm working on the advertised rather than the actual weight)

Knitting while camping

2009-08-16T21:43:00.003+01:00

Just back from a weekend of camping, swimming and knitting (report on the camping and swimming on my personal blog, and photos on Flickr), during which J and I both cast on for coriolis - she wanted to try a toe-up sock and had beautiful but very dark and rather subtle yarn, and I wanted some simple, portable camping knitting, so coriolis suited both of us. We spent a lot of time sitting at the tent or on the riverbank knitting, and both got to about halfway through the spiral increases. We're planning to cast on the second ones together at the Reading Festival in a couple of weeks (even if we haven't finished the first by then), so these should probably be called my "camping socks", but the swimming trip was so much fun it's taking precedence, and I'm calling them "swimming coriolis".

(This is the variegated yarn I used in my push-me-pull-you socks, but it's so much more beautiful on its own.)

Handspun cables

2009-08-08T14:03:00.002+01:00

Wisteria is progressing fast enough that I'm going to have to go and spin some more yarn for it in order to keep on knitting!

It's thick and heavy and warm and soft, and I'm loving it. In fact, it's terribly difficult to work out whether what I'd prefer to do at any given moment is knit it or admire it :-)

Making progress and starting new

2009-08-06T23:32:00.005+01:00

This is the current state of the Ella:

It's lots of fun to knit, I've got the pattern memorised, and it's progressing quickly. However, today was cold and rainy, and I was not dressed warmly enough, so I spent the day shivering and fantasising about getting home and putting on a warm snuggly jumper. The only problem is that I don't own such a jumper. Enter Wisteria...

The slightly fuzzy nature of the yarn means the camera doesn't focus where the eye does, so these cables are actually visible in the flesh. I'm a bit worried the collar is too wide, but I expect the cables (crosses on every round!) will pull it in more as it goes along, so I'm not panicking yet. And it's beautiful, and the yarn is lovely and soft, and I'm smitten.

Weekend of crafty goodness

2009-08-05T21:04:00.004+01:00

I spent this weekend with Frax and J, dyeing lots and lots of yarn, knitting (and spinning for me), and watching a hefty chunk of Battlestar Galactica.

This is what I came home with:

That's overdyed yak yarn (previously salmon pink, cream and grey) at the front, a whole load of previously-undyed Cumbrian wool yarn at the middle and the back (it's semi-solid rather than solid, but more consistent in colour in real life than it looks in the photo), and some handspun undyed grey wool in the middle-back (this is going to be Wisteria). It feels as if I suddenly have lots of new yarn, and I've even started knitting the violet wool:

There's a lot more of it now than when I took the photo, but this is Ella from Knitty, and it's working out rather nicely :-)

And it's done!

2009-07-28T22:44:00.004+01:00

The starry baby kimono, also for Thursday, is now finished! I'm really happy with it, especially the icord ties, for some reason.

Now, what to knit next...

Baby things are surprisingly small

2009-07-27T20:20:00.003+01:00

...Yeah, I know. And the pope shits in the woods.

After saying I might get a pair of mittens out of the green-and-orange combo when I'd finished Tomten and the jester hat, I realised that I really should weigh the remaining yarn and work out how much of it was left. It was more than I thought:

This is the seamless baby kimono, with added colourwork - the large star at centre-back is intarsia (apart from the points at the bottom, which are stranded), and the band of small stars are stranded. The light-green-and-orange doesn't work very well from a contrast point of view, because the colours are too similar in brightness, but it was fun knitting it, and has reminded me that even though I'm evidently incapable of maintaining motivation for stranded knitting for two socks, I do enjoy it in smaller amounts.

Since taking the photo, I've finished the body, and am now working on both sleeves in parallel, because I'll be finishing them on fumes and I want the stripes to match. Sadly there's not enough yarn left to do a band of the smaller stars on the sleeves as well.

Green and orange and some more green

2009-07-24T17:51:00.004+01:00

Tomten is now finished, apart from the buttons and button loops. I'm trying to source some green plastic toggles for this, but I can't finish the icord trim until I know what I'm doing about fastenings.

Despite being made of the same yarn, at the same gauge, the jester hat doesn't match the hoodie at all, which is good and nicely avoids the absurdity of making a hat to go with a hoodie ;-)

I might make some little pom-poms for the corners of this, and I've got a fair chunk of yarn left, so I'll probably make some mittens as well.

Making speedy progress

2009-07-18T12:28:00.003+01:00

I've now finished the body and the hood of Tomten (sewing in the ends as I go); only the sleeves left to do!

The opposite of lost mojo...

2009-07-15T23:31:00.004+01:00

...Is what happens when I have loads of ideas for things I want to do, and I flit manically between them, unable to settle on anything for long enough to make decent progress ;-)

My second package arrived today, and I've swatched and started knitting EZ's Tomten, for Thursday (which is what we're calling my oldest friend's child-to-be). I love knitting baby things - they're small and quick, and I get to knit with bright colour combinations that most of the other people I knit for wouldn't wear.

Uncharacteristically speedy decision-making

2009-07-14T21:46:00.004+01:00

Having knit and blogged* my swatch, and held it up against my face to see if the colour suits me, I've made my fastest decision ever: this fibre will be Wisteria, in its beautiful undyed state.

I've even bought the pattern (and, cough, Sylvi too, ahem). I've been meaning to buy something from Twist for ages, if only because I heartily approve of them, so feel as if I ought to support them by actually giving them money. It's not that I don't like free patterns - Knitty is fabulous, and I don't think Twist could exist without Knitty paving the way for it - but designers should be able to be paid a decent amount for their work, and it makes me very happy that the knitting community can produce and support a magazine like Twist. Especially after my less-than-happy experience with Vogue.

So, Wisteria here I come! I think the mojo might be back :-)

*How can I know what I think until I ~~say~~ write it?

Speedy sampling

2009-07-14T21:20:00.004+01:00

When I got home this evening, I opened one of the bags of fibre, stroked it for a bit, and then pulled off a small piece for sampling :-)

This is spindle-spun three ply (I've never made a true - as opposed to navajo - three ply on a spindle before, and it's a pain. I resorted to breaking off three pieces of singles and winding them onto bobbins in the end), knit up on 5mm needles to exactly the gauge of 4.5 stitches per inch that Wisteria calls for :-)

(The contrast-coloured yarn at the edges is random sock yarn I used in order to eke out every last drop of the tiny amount of sample yarn.)

The stitch definition is actually better than it looks in the photo, the fabric is soft and drapy and slightly fuzzy, and I love the way the different shades of grey blend with each other. I might lightly dye it for a reddish or purplish tint, but I might just spin and knit with it as-is because the natural colour is gorgeous.

A present? For me?!

2009-07-14T08:00:00.003+01:00

This is the first before-work postal delivery we've had in ages, and it's a whole box of fibery goodness just for me :-)

Sadly, I now have to go to work and leave it sitting here all unloved, but when I get back there might be a teensy bit of sampling to do.

(Fibrecrafts' delivery times are not to be sneezed at - I only ordered this on Sunday night.)

Careful! Don't scare the mojo!

2009-07-13T21:38:00.004+01:00

I have knit all of my spinning oddments into a decent-sized (ie its 'wingspan' is a bit longer than mine) triangular shawl, and then crocheted an edging onto it, and added crochet ties. It's the craziest garment ever, a hotch-potch of colours and textures, and I doubt I'll ever wear it outside the house, but I love it anyway, and am enjoying identifying all the little bits of handspun yarn.

I've also made some purchases, one within the rules of the self-inflicted yarn and fibre diet, and one breaking them. The permitted purchase is a bunch of nice-but-cheap superwash wool yarn in three different colours, which will be a Tomten hoodie for the baby my oldest friend is currently working on. Depending how much yarn is left after that, there will be a matching hat, and possibly even mittens to go with (in which case I'll come up with some way of attaching the mittens to the jacket). Yes, I know a hooded jacket doesn't need a matching hat, but I'm having the urge to knit the baby jester hat.

It's a permitted purchase because I don't have any superwash in stash apart from sock yarn, and baby gifts need to be washable! Plus it comes from the gift budget, rather than the yarn one (or would if I planned my budgets that precisely ;-)

The not-permitted purchase is 1kg of undyed grey wool fibre, with a couple of discounts applied, which worked out to be really quite cheap. I'm toying with the idea of spinning a jumpers-worth, and then following someone else's patten, in the hope of actually achieving a jumper that I like. And the pattern might be the beautiful Wisteria (noooo, not influenced by sockpr0n at all, why do you ask? ;-) I can't resist a bit of a mod, though - I think I'll leave off the cables around the hem, because I suspect they look best on people much thinner than I am.

Depending on what kind of grey it is when it arrives, I might dye some or all of this, possibly carding the dyed with the undyed for a heathered yarn. Of course, thinking about all this has reminded me that I haven't finished carding the black alpaca and purple merino blend, and have spun only a very little of it, so now I'm thinking about that again, as well, and trying to decide once and for all what it will be, and therefore how to spin the rest of it.

This in turn reminds me of the red leaf wrap, still sitting mostly-unwoven on the loom, and calling to me every time I go into the library and see it sitting there. I have a crafting date this weekend, so I'll probably take the loom or the wheel with me and weave or spin while the others knit.

Talking of spinning: the weekend just gone, I met my first real in-the-wild spinner (Sadie and B don't count, since I pimped the spinning shiny at them), and I'm deeply envious of her since her father owns a sheep farm and is the neighbourhood shearer, so she gets her pick of fibre!

Finally, a new project! This is another baby hat, two coloured intarsia in the round, and intended to have zig-zaggy stripes and cat ears (for which I might need to ask around for a little bit of pink sock yarn, since I don't have any, and I think ears look cuter with pink inside - anyone have any spare?). The zig-zagging, shown in closeup in the photo, means the join between colours moves one stitch each row, which is helping with the holes intarsia would otherwise risk.

So on the whole I'm tentatively declaring the mojo returned, which is a relief :-)

Getting back on the horse

2009-07-03T18:47:00.002+01:00

I'm just back from a lovely week with some roleplayers, during which Frax and I compared notes on our lost mojo. She recovered hers during the week, and mine is now slowly resurfacing, I think. I don't want to scare it.

In the couple of months since I last wrote here, I have done some knitting, including most of a cardigan, but it's not gone well, and I'm not sure if the yarn (soft handspun singles) will stand up to frogging and re-knitting (not least because there has been quite a lot of frogging already), so at the moment I'm not thinking too much about that.

While on holiday, I picked up the sixth and final baby jungle stripe coriolis, and forced myself to knit a few rows. Now, at home again, I've found that finishing it required less force than picking it up again did. And I've now wound my first skein of spinning oddments into a ball, and am starting to think about the shawl I'm going to knit it into...