Can’t Weave it Alone

Oooh, man.  I’m hooked.  I mean, I’ve totally warped my psyche and all I can think about is weaving.  See what I did there?

I done designed my own plaid.  It’s in Cascade Yarns’ Pima Tencel (50/50 Pima Cotton and Tencel blend), and it’s going to be my next wallet.  Now, I’m weaving much more than what I would possibly need for a wallet, but this stuff is so addictive.  I’m using a 10-dent reed, and I’m getting just under gauge.  I think I’m doomed forever to have a tight gauge.

I’m so enthused!  It’s so pretty!  And what’s more, my partner kept looking over and saying, “Ha, you’re making your own fabric.”  I am on top of the world.

Last night, we went to an open mic at Shaika, in Montreal.  (I was also on the radio yesterday morning:  check it out here.)  We had a really good time, but the most important part was that I saw a djembe strap that blew my mind:  weft-faced with long warp floats in crazy colours.

I think I have an idea.

Mrow

Look at that:  a classic action shot.  I said, “Bazzy, don’t do that!” and my hand closed on the camera button as I reached to protect my new sweater.  Amazing, really.  More of a cultural portrait than a fancy knitting picture, but you can see the ribbing.  I think the best aspect of the picture is Bazzy’s expression.  He so clearly does not care what I think, but he can tell that I don’t want him to destroy my sweater, so he’s being tentative.  Jerk.

I think I have about 0.75 of an inch done.  The mission falls 136 in charcoal has been behaving a lot more nicely.  There are still loosely spun bits, but I don’t have to do nearly as much corrective surgery to fix it.  I ran out of my ball last night and didn’t bother to join a new one because it was 10 o’clock at night and I’m an early-to-bed kind of gal.  I also eat lots of fresh veggies and whole grains, which is much less boring than it sounds.

I’ve knit a bunch more on my vintage neckerchief.  I have no idea how big it is right now;  I just keep rubbing that gorgeous bamboo/merino/silk blend across my face and thinking about how much more awesome living in the 1800s would have been if scarfs were this soft.

It’s clear to me that I have to knit at least another two inches to make it wide enough.  I don’t want to rely on the edging to make this neckerchief big and bold, so I’m doing all the embiggening and enboldening now.  (I think I just made those two words up, but I don’t care.)

I like this yarn (crystal palace panda silk print in forest tones) and I like mission falls 136.  I feel as fancy and elegant as a cat washing his whiskers after a crunchy breakfast.

Mrow.

Taking a Break

I made up a pattern in September for a cabled sweater.  I’ve knit the damn thing twice – casting off the second one in the first week of January.  I have extensive notes and sketches and colour coded schematics on the pattern, and I just need to edit it and type it up.  But it’s so hard!  And I think faster than I can write, so I’ve skipped out little bits like a k1 here or a p1 there.  I have realized a few crucial errors that made writing up the pattern seem like an indomitable mountain of details so things are ticking along more easily than before, but hot diggity.  I have loads of respect for designers.  I’m about a third of the way through the yoke.  I was hoping to get a bit further tonight, and then pick it up again tomorrow for the win, but somehow, I’m beginning to doubt my stamina.

Regardless, I have a pretty blue and gold work in progress in Mission Falls 136 that is coquettishly sneaking in and out of my consciousness.  I may have to pay it its due later on.

I’ve tried it on every few inches to ensure a great fit.  I decided to knit four more decrease rounds (for a total of 40 stitches decreased).  I then knit another inch and a half or so and then started increasing by picking up the stitch knit below and knitting it.  I’m planning on increasing 40 stitches so the decreases are mirrored.  I have a strong personal preference for sweaters that are long enough to hit the hips because I have a short waist and I can pretend to myself that longer sweaters make me look taller.

I was looking at the projects page on ravelry.com, and I saw that one knitter said,

I increased until the total length of the sweater (along an increase) was 9”. It ended up being 72 sts for each front and back and 56 sts for each sleeve. I’m not entirely sure why it is no longer in the ratio that I cast on in, but it fits so I’m not asking questions.

Well, I can try to explain why.  If you cast on (as she did) 96 stitches with 16 stitches for each sleeve and 32 stitches for the front and back and end up with 256 stitches total (56 stitches for each sleeve and 72 stitches for the front and back), you have increased 160 stitches over 40 rounds or 20 increase rounds.

The pattern/formula instructs you to cast on a number of stitches that is both divisible by four (so you can do 2×2 ribbing) and three (so you can divide the cast on number into thirds; one third for the front, one for the back, and one sixth each for the sleeves).  You then place markers between the front and the sleeves and the back and the sleeves (four markers total).  Every second row after the ribbing requires that you increase 1 stitch before and after each marker – 8 increases per round – but the increases are unevenly placed so that the sleeves (only one third of the total cast on) get 4 increases per round and the front and back only get 2 each.  That means that one third of the stitches cast on is increasing at twice the rate of the other two thirds.  Get it?

Let’s try to express this algebraically.

32 + 2 (20) = 72 or, the cast on number plus twice the number of increase rounds (because there are two increases per increase round) equals the final number of stitches for the back or front. Simplified, this becomes…

1/3 C + x(R) = F where C = cast on stitches, x = some integer that represents the number of increases per round, R = the number of increase rounds, and F = the final number of stitches.  Applied to the sleeves on this knitter’s sweater, this becomes…

32 + 4(20) = 112 Don’t forget the final step though!  The sleeves were only 1/6 of the total CO amount, so we need to divide 112 by 2, ending up with 56 stitches for the sleeves.

Just thought I’d get that off of my chest.  What’s that Patrick?

Striae

I’m still chugging along on my striped raglan pullover.  It’s coming along nicely;  I really like how the colourways (charcoal and curry) go together.  My friend said that they reminded her of streaks of mineral deposits in shale, so I’m calling this blog post striae in her honour.

I’ve been having some troubles with a single ply in this batch of Mission Falls 136 being too loosely spun or not properly dyed.  I’ve been rectifying it by pulling out the extra merino and twisting the yarn until it sort of looks normal.  I’m hoping that, as Mollyann from Ariadne said, it’ll just make the sweater look more handmade.

I apologize for the velvety ear in the picture.  Sometimes, curiosity just gets the better of my cats.

I measured and estimated and knit, and slipped all the stitches onto scrap yarn not once but twice to make sure the yoke fits reasonably well.  The boundary with which I am currently dealing with is, erm, well, my bust line.  It is (as the kids used to say) busting my groove – see what I did there?  As is true of the bustier ladies, the widest part of my chest is lower than my armpit, so I’m going to have to figure out some way to subtly increase so as to accommodate my, ahem, Bat signal… if you’re picking up what I’m putting down.

I’ll detail my solution on ravelry and here on this blog.  I’m sure it’ll be brilliant.

Slippers!

This is a quickie, comparing and contrasting my previous slippers with my new crocheted moccasins.  My old slippers (in lana gato wool) have a giant hole in the bottom due to a collision with a nail in some hardwood.  I’m hoping the crocheted fabric is a tad more hardwearing.

Out with the old!

In with the new!

Crocheted Moccasins

Hello world -

Here I am, with a brand new pair of cushy moccasins on my feet.  I’m an expert crocheter by no means, but I figured I’d practice with Umme Yusuf’s pattern on ravelry.   I altered the pattern by picking up and knitting an insole with Paton’s Shetland Chunky yarn (a 75/25% acrylic/wool blend) and stuffing it with cotton balls.  I picked up and knit the picked up stitches as I went along so that I wouldn’t have to seam the insole.  To compensate for the height of the insole (which I picked up from the first round of crocheted sides of the slipper) I ended up having to crochet an extra round on the back half, after sewing on the top flap.  Except for the insole, the moccasins are crocheted with 100% handspun wool.  I also crocheted a yellow detail over top to add personality.

In April, I moved into an awesome sublet apartment.  For seriously, I love my place.  But, one perk that doesn’t typically come from subletting was a big box of handspun yarn.  I live in an area of Montreal that was once Little Italy, and apparently, a relic of that era tried her hand at spinning yarn with 100% wool and dying it.  That woman was a hero.  She passed, and left her yarn to her family – none of whom knit with it.  They gave the yarn to a friend, who gave it to her daughter, and now I’m the lucky recipient.  It’s incredible, how you can see the taste and style of a woman now buried through something in which she had poured so much care and attention. And the learning curve!  From thick and thin to smooth 1 plys to professional looking 2 plys – well done!  The box had mostly greens, oranges, and yellows.  I’ve lightly committed myself to producing fibre art with this handspun until I’ve made a good dent in the pile.  I don’t like having a huge stash of yarn – what’s the point of letting yarn sit around, after all – so I’m enjoying this gift to the fullest.

These moccasins are comfy and cozy.  I learned a lot through crocheting them, and you can see that in the time it took me to make them.  I started them on September 23, 2010, and finished them last night, and I have to admit that the first one took three days to complete while the second one only took one day.

I love that I have cozy cushioned moccasins, and I love that my feet will no longer ache with cold.  I have crummy circulation – for some reason, my feet and hands always ache if it’s under around 10 degrees Centigrade.

I took lots of pictures!  The green is more of a true green than a blue green and the yellow is very gold – the moccasins look very bookish.

moccasin love shot

window shot

walking

not good representation of colour

walkin’!

picked up 9 sts, and inc to 11

stuffing insole with cotton balls

another angle on stuffing the insole