Hey knitters! Debbie Stoller is taking submissions for a sequel to her Stitch & Bitch book. Sounds pretty cool!
Tag: knitting
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Knitalong?
My sister has caught the knitting bug and is ready to try her first sweater. She wants to do Cheesylove (the sleeveless version) from Knitty but she’s a little apprehensive. So we’re going to do it as a knitalong! We’re both going to knit it at the same time so we can help each other over the rough bits. Any of you other knitters want to join us? We’re aiming to get the materials this week and start next weekend.
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Another FO – Columbine Peak Socks
(That’s “Finished Object” for you non-knitters.) After doing two pairs of simple basic socks, I was ready to expand my skills. So I cracked open my copy of Socks Soar on Two Circulars* and picked out the “Columbine Peaks” pattern. The leg of the sock has a lacy pattern that forms little v-shaped mountain peaks that continue down onto the foot. It wasn’t too hard, though you do have to count and sometimes I have difficulty with that. (Handy tip: Knitting and wine don’t go together so well.) Now they’re finally done. Unfortunately the Sockenwool I had was rainbow-colored so the pattern doesn’t show up so well, but I still like them. They give me the craziest urge to buy some Birkenstocks and walk around like a German tourist. (Note: That second image is a big scan and shows the stitch pattern nicely.)
* Although I like the technique used, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this book for beginners. I’ve found several frustrating errors in the patterns. You can see a list of some corrections here.
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Australian sheep produce world’s finest wool
Australian sheep produce world’s finest wool. That’s not a generalization, like saying that Aussie wool is the best. They really have produced a bale of the finest – in terms of thickness – wool ever seen. It’s worth thousands of dollars and will probably be sold to a top fashion house. Gee, you could make some lovely soft sweaters with that!
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The Sign of the Beast
I haven’t given you a knitting update in ages, have I? Yes, that’s me in a custom knit devil-horned hat. The pattern’s from Debbie Stoller’s book Stitch ‘N’ Bitch and I whipped it up in about six hours. (Pattern note for those playing at home: I used two balls of Heirloom 12-ply on 6mm needles.) I discovered some black wool in my stash so I might try the kitty-cat hat next. Now I just have to wait for it to get cold enough to wear!
Catching up on other projects… I also made a jumper/sweater for my iPod! My old case was getting grubby and I rarely use the belt clip anyway. There’s a pattern in Stitch ‘N’ Bitch but it requires sewing, so I just made up my own. (I started by knitting a flat rectangle about the size of the bottom of the iPod, and then picked up around the edges and knit in the round to the top. Then I cast off the front and continued knitting flat to make the flap. I even put a yarn-over in the right spot to leave a hole for the headphone jack!) I haven’t sewn any velcro on it yet, which is why I have to hold the flap closed here. Also note: I finally got my iPod in-ear headphones! As Ron suggested, they are a bit tinny. I only really notice it on the badly-ripped songs though. I’ve fiddled with the equalizer settings to boost the bass and that helps. But I’m back in the Cult of the White Wires!
Another recent finished object is the red scarf I’m sporting below. The wool is some handspun and hand-dyed stuff I bought at Camp Creative in January. The thickness varies from thread-thin to finger-thick. I just cast on eight stitches on my 10mm needles and knit til I ran out of wool. It went about six feet. I’m loving it. Oh, and my sister tells me that “skinny scarves are in” in the US, so unbeknownst to me I’m already in style for the winter!
Oh, and there’s a work in progress in that last picture too: my muscles. I’m on Week 3 of my weight training regimen and I’m feeling pretty darn buff!
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Knitted VW Bug Vest
Someone has constructed a knitted vest for her VW Beetle. That person is now my hero. (Link courtesy of not martha.)
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Barcode Generator
Check out this Online Barcode Generator. I’m totally using this to generate stripe patterns for my knitting! How cool would it be to wear a scarf with a secret code in it?
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Weasley Sweater
Sorry for the silence… but I’ve been busy finishing my Weasley Sweater! It’s a seamless raglan in deep maroon with a great big gray “K” embroidered on the front. It’s 100% wool and warm as hell. It’s probably actually a little nicer than the ones Mrs. Weasley makes, but faced with a choice between filmic accuracy and my desire to not wear a lumpy boat-necked monstrosity, my sense of fashion won out. (Apologies for the lack of contrast in the picture; Snookums took it at midnight as soon as I finished the thing. I’ll post some better ones – and pattern notes for you knitters – tomorrow.) My costume for the Azkaban opening is taking shape… I just need to make myself a Gryffindor scarf and locate a grey pleated skirt. The Snook said I can use his black academic gown. Yay!
Update: Better photo and knitting notes added.
First off, if you want to knit a sweater as painlessly as possible get Jacqueline Fee’s book The Sweater Workshop. It won’t teach you the basics of knitting, but if you already know how to knit and purl it’ll show you everything else you need to know to design your own sweaters. This is my third project based on the book (after the sampler and the Snook’s sweater) and it turned out great.
The wool is Naturally Guernsey DK from New Zealand in the Mackenzie (purple) and Dundee (gray) colors. I started by measuring one of my existing sweaters from armpit-to-armpit to get my key number. Everything else in the pattern is based on percentages of that. I wanted it to be a little big and baggy too (to match the ones in the movie). Then I knitted a swatch with a couple different size needles to find a gauge I liked. Once I had that, I started the body on a big 80cm long 4.5mm circular needle. I did about two inches of ribbing and then knitted the body up the armpits in straight stocking stitch. Then I set it aside and started the sleeves.
I decided to be clever and knit both sleeves at once on two circular needles. It was actually almost a little too clever for me but I got it in the end. I went with the “full” style sleeves from the book, which means that you do all the increases as soon as you finish the cuff and the rest of the sleeve is knit straight. It’s a baggier style which I like. Once I had knitted them to the armpit, I carefully joined all three tubes together. (It’s actually not that complicated and Fee gives you great instructions.)
Once everything is on one needle, away to the collar you go. I decided that since my jumper was going to be plain, I would liven it up with a decorative raglan seamline. (Raglan sleeves are like a sweatshirt, where you have a diagonal seam running from the armpit up the collar.) I used seamline “E” in the book, which consisted of PSSO, K1, and PSSO-R. Not complicated and I got into the rhythm pretty quickly. Eventually I had to stop going around and round and start going back and forth to prepare for the collar. I went with the standard crew neck setup but planned to do it as a rollneck instead. (For a rollneck you just knit every round instead of ribbing them.) Once I got the rollneck on, though, I didn’t really like the way it looked. So I frogged it back and did a conventional ribbed crewneck instead. Looks much better.
Next I had to graft the underarm openings, which again sounds difficult but isn’t too hard if you follow Fee’s instructions. Lastly, I had the Snook help me print out a large pixellated letter “K” to use as a pattern for the front. The letter had to be done as swiss darning (or “duplicate stitch”) because there’s no way to do intarsia when you’re circular knitting (unless you want to weave in a million loose ends). It ended up being somewhat like doing cross-stitch. Once that was done, I just had to weave in my ends and it was finished!
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Interchangeable knitting needles
Another item for my Christmas list!
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Weekend Accomplishments
Did I mention that it’s Labour Day here? I really needed the three-day weekend. I entertained some of my girlfriends from the office here Friday night – in case you were wondering, that wasn’t me flashing her boobs on OfficeCam, incidentally – and spent most of Saturday recovering. I also knitted like crazy. I finished another Harry Potter scarf order – a Slytherin for Kathy. Check it out. (Did I tell you that I got my hair chopped off a few weeks ago? Because I did. It looks like crap here though because I was out in the rain.) I also braved the school holiday hordes in the city today to get myself some new gym shoes. I went to the Athlete’s Foot in Centrepoint and got properly measured and Fitprinted. It turns out that I have relatively flat arches but I’m weird in that I tend to roll my feet to the outside (whereas most of my flat-footed brethren roll to the inside). So I got hooked up with some sweet New Balance Women’s 811 running shoes. (Apparently they’re a new model because I can’t find them on the site anywhere.) So that’s my weekend done!