Monthly Archives: August 2007

Welcome

Welcome to myÂ newÂ blog!

I am still getting the hang of how all this works so if you find anything which looks strange or doesn’t work let me know, either leave a comment or email me at: heather AT heatherknits DOT com (you all know how to decode that one).

Thank you all for your comments on the hat-in-progress, I will be doing some more on it once I stop playing with all this website stuff 🙂 I have also become unfortunately addicted to scrabble on Facebook – this is unfortunate because I am truly bad at it. Anyone on Facebook who would like to demonstrate their superior scrabble skills, feel free to challenge me to a game.

I am off now to knit a bit more hat, and see if I can work out how to sort out the links in the sidebar …

Half a hat

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I was hoping to post this on Saturday but my computer has been having a bit of a moment. After spending an extended time-out on the naughty step contemplating the error of its ways, and having its hard disk defragmented 4 times (which took 2 days!) it is now a behaving itself a bit better.

In the time not spent at the computer I have been knitting a bit more on the hat:

I have worked the first crown:
I have picked up my stitches from my provisional cast on, and started on the second half, in inverse colours:

P is convinced it is a hat for Marge Simpson, I keep telling him he needs to wait and see …

It’s arrived!

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I caved and finally ordered some of the Kauni yarn everyone has been going on about. It is such fantastic colours I couldn’t resist, and it arrived on Saturday! I had been hoping that the weather would perk up a bit so I could take pictures outside, but it hasn’t so I’m afraid we have inside pictures today:

Surprisingly (!?) I ordered the brightest colour they had (EQ), and while I was at it a couple of balls of Trekking found its way into my shopping basket too. It was the first time I have ordered from Astrid’s Dutch Obsessions and the process all went very smoothly and quickly, and she even included a little piece of cake! (just visible on the right of the picture above). I have been very restrained and haven’t casted on yet, I am still plotting what exactly I am going to do. The yarn is very nice and I love the long stretches of colour. My only niggle is that it isn’t the softest yarn in the world. I think it will be ok, it is not that harsh, but I would love to find something in colours like this but perhaps in merino. If you have come across anything I would love to know about it!

Stranded hat

The hat is trotting along, I have started the decreases for the crown (and changed my mind, undid about 20 rows and redid them), here you see version 2 (version 1 didn’t live long enough to have its photo taken):

My hands are definitely getting more used to knitting together, although I am still haven’t some difficulties with pulling the yarn in the left hand too tight, anyone have any suggestions?

Comments

The Japanese short rows aren’t too much of a pain once you get going. Also, while the pins are handy while you are starting out because they make it completely clear exactly which thread you need to pick up, I think you can dispense with them once you have got the idea. Once you have got rid of the pins it it probably less fiddly even than the wrapping method. I am going to do some more experimenting so watch this space!

Japanese short rows

The two-colour hat is jogging along. It now looks much the same as before but slightly longer so I have spared you an update photograph. Instead I will share something else I have been working on.

I found a great tutorial on Japanese short rows and have been doing a bit of experimenting on my latest pair of socks. I found all the safety pins a bit cumbersome but very helpful for a beginner. I’m sure that once I have practiced a few times I wont need them anymore, but it is nice to be able to clearly see which loop needs to be picked up.

I definitely think I am getting a more even result than I normally do with wrapped short rows. With wrapped short rows one side of the heel seems to be fine, but the other side is a bit sloppy. I might have a go at the yarn over short rows as well, just to compare, but so far I really like the Japanese method. I am looking forward to trying it out on something other than socks too.

The yarn I am using is Blue Moon Fiber Arts, Socks That Rock Lightweight (100% merino) in colour Sunstone. It is a really nice yarn to knit with, very soft and comfortable. Their website is very dangerous, in the process of looking looking up those links I have found two new colourways I am keen on – oh dear.

Also the new Interweave Knits and Vogue Knitting magazines arrived this morning, so I am going to enjoy reading them while I eat my lunch.

Terribly British

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In celebration of all the good weather here we have been out decimating the garden this weekend. We had a large goat willow near our boundary with next door which was starting to lean on their greenhouse so on Friday a couple of tree surgeons came and removed it, and gave the Eucalyptus and the smoke bush a bit of a hair cut too.

This was the view from our back door on Thursday before all the action:

and here is the view this lunchtime:

The tree surgeons were very quick and tidy, although it was rather hair-raising watching them climbing the trees with chain-saw in hand! P has also been hard at work at the weekend chopping down and pulling up some of the other rather over-grown stuff, and is now onto renovating the lawn which is currently partly bald, and partly brown and crispy.

After all the excitement we decided it was time to actually enjoy the garden and so on Saturday night went shopping for some food to cook on the barbecue for Sunday lunch. Sunday dawned rather grey, but neither of us are particularly good at letting go of an idea once we have latched onto it, so we bravely forged ahead, got the barbecue out, lit it, and put the food on. Then the rain started:

There is something so terribly British about barbecuing in the rain, so many happy childhood memories of summer holidays with iffy weather 🙂 It is all part of the fun really. Luckily it stopped raining and the sun came out just as the food was cooked and we had a lovely meal, beef burgers with onion and chilli made by P in rosemary rolls made by me, very yummy. We finished it all off with a trip to RHS Wisley to enjoy someone elses garden.

Knitting

In amongst all the gardening I have been doing a bit of knitting:

I am practising my two-handed two colour stranded knitting. I have just about beaten my left hand into submission now and am starting to get a bit faster and more even. I thought this would be a good practice project before I launch into Alice Stamore’s Henry VIII. It is going to be a double layer reversible hat, but requires a bit of imagination at the moment.

Comments

Thank you all for your very kind comments on the Patchwork Sweater. I will definitely look into writing the pattern up, though it may take me a while to work out the logistics of making it fit a wide variety of sizes!

Patchwork progress

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Finally I have finished! Hooray! I am possibly the slowest Knitting Olympian in the history of the sport but like the tortoise I got there in the end, and I am very pleased with the result.

Click on the piccies as usual to make them bigger, and admire the diamonds which increase in size to shape the sleeve, I am so proud of this shaping! I’m afraid anyone who has already been shown this sweater knows that I can bore for England on the subject of increasing the diamond size to shape the sleeve.
The pattern is my own and based on the modular knitting of Horst Schulz, Vivian Hoxbro, Maureen Mason-Jamieson and several others. The yarns are a couple of bargains I had in my stash. The navy background is a cotton approximately DK weight and the turquoise is an acrylic bargain cone knitted double that I picked up from Uppingham Yarns. In fact this is the cone that wont die, I have so far knitted this sweater, a scarf, a wrap, and a poncho with this yarn and I still have about half a cone left!

I enjoyed the fact that this design was relatively easy to alter as you went along, although I did have a rough sketch from the beginning of how it was going to work. Perhaps this is the moment to let on to the fact that there is actually a third sleeve in the bottom of my knitting bag which didn’t work out 🙂 A Learning Experience (TM).

Another thing I loved about the modular way of working is that you can knit the diamonds in different ways depending on how many sides of the square you have knitted already. Rather like a big jigsaw.

And of course the best bit is there are no seams at all. The U-shaped squares allowed me to join the sleeves into the body where the knitting is coming from two different directions at right-angles to each other. Then there are bulls-eye squares on the tops of the shoulders and under each arm (you will be pleased to know I didn’t photograph my armpits) to join the whole thing together.

Typically I have finished a nice winter sweater just as the weather perks up. To continue in this contrary frame of mind I am now going to go and make some nice hearty soup 🙂

KnitPicks in the UK

Wave Wrap

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I have been having a bit of a clear-out and discovered some pictures of a wrap I made a while ago but hadn’t got round to blogging about before.

This is the Wave Wrap from Knitters magazine, I can’t for the life of me remember which issue, but I think it was probably Spring or Summer from last year or the year before. I am in the process of organising my books and magazines but haven’t come across the appropriate issue yet. The yarns are left overs I had lying around and I think are all acrylic.
According to the pattern the two lower points at the back are supposed to be sewn together, but I couldn’t make it lie flat when I tried that. I quite like it with the two points anyway.

I really like the turn-back colar too, and think I will do some more experimenting with this shaping.

The weather here is still lovely which does wonders in making me feel like getting on with things! The sort-out is coming along well, although there is a lot to get through, I am finding time for a few rows here and there too 🙂