I thought it was about time I put my twisty yarn around needles antics towards making something wholly encompassing and warm – a new sweater. It’s something that I always meant to do but never actually got around to doing – too much risk, too much time, too big a chance of failure. But, then, I had some yarn. About a simple, not too long sweater’s worth of heavily discounted, slightly strange yarn.

It’s taken me a while to find the right pattern – something that I have enough yarn for and that I don’t hate were the only two criteria, but they were surprisingly difficult conditions to fill. Eventually I settled on the ‘Yoke Detail Sweater’ from the Spring/Summer 2009 Debbie Bliss Magazine, and cast on.

I didn’t like the rolled stockinette edges, so I replaced those with some mistake rib rows and then knit happily on, checking and re-checking gauge. 24 sts per 4″ – perfect. I am spot on target, knit, knit, knit. Recheck: still 24 perfect stitches per perfects 4″. Perfect, perfect. I just need a perfect 30 rows per perfect 4″ to be perfectly perfect… But I am getting 36.

I don’t know why my row gauge is so off. I’d feel quite confident in adding the extra rows to make up the length, but I know that this will leave me too short on yarn, and as Rowan Soft Baby, in a shade described so aptly by HarleenQuinzel to be “just about the color of glow-in-the-dark stuff when it is not glowing” is long since discontinued, there is pretty much nil chance of me being able to get more.

I feel really quite disheartened, but I suppose it was just not meant to be. Curse my stupid short fat stitches!

UPDATE
The sweater of failure is saved! As you can see in the comments there are apparently still balls of soft baby kicking around. Knit on!

I couldn’t find a pair of buttons that I liked enough to provide a contrast to my hat, yet still compliment the design, nor blend in colour with the yarn to a degree that I found pleasing to the eye. Everything was too brash, under-saturated, or too cool a yellow to look nice. Some dark bronze buttons I managed to find were perfect, but just too big. Not even a high-board dive into my nan’s button stash (amassed over 60+ years of diligent button hoarding) turned up the perfect fasteners.

So, with this, we turn to the old adage; “if you want something done properly, do it yourself”. Actually, lets re-write that slightly, to; “if you are going to be so darn picky, do it yourself”. And I did.

I had a tiny nub of leftover polymer clay that I have lovingly conserved in and old shoebox full of junk, that I thought was just about perfect in colour to match the yarn I used for my latest hat. It wasn’t. It was too bright, too cool in tone, too lemon. I had to improvise a little as I had no other polymer clay to mix it with, but managed to make do with some ground-down artist’s pastels. I made a few different kinds of buttons to use the tiny bit of polymer clay up, but once they had baked hard I chose these simple elongated trapezoid shaped buttons as I liked the scale of them on the button band, and finally I was satisfied.

I now have closure on my closures.

I have finished the knitting of my new hat, so now all that stands between its current state and completion is to weave in the ends, sew on the buttons and give it a god block. Actually, no – block the hat and make some buttons, then sew the buttons on. Either way, here it is:

It’s a terrible picture as it is so overcast here today that it is all but night-time, so it doesn’t give the best impression of the colour or stitch definition, but hopefully once the finishing touches have been put towards it there will be ample light for a modelled picture.

Once that is done all that will remain to be done is to write the pattern up and format it, and think of a fitting name.

Alice in Wonderland is probably my second favourite¹ book of all time, and definitely my most repeatedly read. I must have read it twice a year for a long stretch of my youth, so any new film adaptation is likely to at least pique my interest. Naturally a book so rich in imagery and so debated in its shades of meaning will introduce new ideas to all those that read it.

As someone who so enjoys knitting, the chapter Wool and Water threw up this idea for a new t-shirt:

Alice wakes as if from a dream after all her adventures – and all of the characters, sheep included, are perhaps figments of her lucid imagination, but in this design it is the dreamer that is conceived from the mind, and needles, of her companion in the boat. Literally conceived of the sheep as wool from animal coat is spun and wound into balls and used to make a friend, at once of substance and yet imaginary. Details of this t-shirt show that Alice is in fact a knitted doll with buttons for eyes and yarn for hair. On the sheep’s knee sit the tools of his labour – his needles, and yarn spun from his wool.

This Alice in Wonderland t-shirt is available exclusively to ship worldwide from www.mrcloud.com, in pale blue, primrose and chocolate. Why not check out the knitting wooly Mammoth t-shirt, too, if you pop by.

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^{(1) The answer to the obvious question here is One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.}

I have been wearing the hat of much blue-ness over the last few days, every time I have popped out on errands, piling what might otherwise be messy hair inside and out of sight. Ah, hats, the lazy/busy person’s friend.

I don’t know if I like the colour, still, but I can appreciate that I don’t look terrible in it. I appreciate all of the comments saying that it compliments my eyes. I am actually quite surprised. A child of the 80s, all of the received wisdom of my youth insisted that you should never wear blue eyeshadow with blue eyes (not that I wanted to wear blue make-up) and somehow I assumed that blue was a general no-no with my colouring.

After my last post, I decided to Google around and refresh myself on the current wisdom surrounding colour analysis. Now, I don’t generally care what colours someone suggests I should wear, as I generally wear any colour (except blue ), but the results were interesting. According to this resource I am a winter (which is what I had assumed) under the subset ‘clear winter’, and these are the suggested colours:

A few of the fuschias and the brighter purple I just do not like, but on the bottom row, second from the right, is my hat.  Some of my favourite colours are definitely missing – I love sage and lime greens, dusky pinks and various other colours, which I will of course still wear, and I’m also hoping that I don’t look awful in the new hat that I am writing a pattern for, in honey yellow.

I guess the obvious thing is to wear the colours you enjoy, but try new things from time to time, even if you end up throwing them off in disgust in the fitting room.

So, the continuing saga of the Blue Winter hat…

Yesterday, I bundled the hat into a box containing a few items such as my camera, etc, and hid it away in my suitcase. When looking through this same box this morning the hat was gone. Did I not love it enough, causing the knitting gnomes to steal it away as I slept? Cue increasing hurried and desperate attempts to locate missing knitwear for nearly two hours until it turned up under a box in the wardrobe.

The sweet relief of finding the hat again after such a scare of course means that I love this hat more than anything, because I couldn’t bare to lose something that took me so long to make. I don’t know how well the blue colour suits me, yet. Blue is just a colour that doesn’t seem to feature in my wardrobe, so I am slightly uncomfortable with the unfamiliarity of the tone of this otherwise beautiful chapeau, so this may well turn into a gift in the future. I’m just not sure if the colour suits me yet.

The hat is finally complete! Complete and out of sight. Buried, in a box. A box in my suitcase. And why do I want the hat out of my sight for a little while? Let me recap a paragraph from yesterday’s blog post:

Secondly, I have never knit a slouchy hat, and I keep worrying at the prodigious length that this hat has reached already. I can put the hat on, draw the needle through and cinch the top, and it fits fine – but I am going to press on with the remaining one and a half repeats of the charted pattern, because I’d like to add a new shaped hat to my winter wardrobe.

Six repeats of the chart did seem to make an awfully long hat, but I liked the pictures of other people’s finished projects so much that I wanted one that fit the same. remember that little problem I had with reading the ball meterage a few days ago? I can’t read the number of chart repeats, either. As I was pulling the finishing thread through the last 11 stitches to close the top of the hat (another disaster occurred here, more of which later) I suddenly saw the phrase ‘repeat charted pattern 5 times glaring out at me. I am such a dolt. What’ more I then last 5 of those last 11 stitches slip off the needle without knowing, and unravel by about 7 rows as I pulled the final stitches shut.

I could have unravelled to the end of the fifth repeat and started knitting the decreases again, but I was too agitated and fed up by then, so I picked the stitches up, closed the top and hid it from sight.

It’s such a lovely pattern, I am angry that I screwed so many simple things up. I am hiding it away so I can forget about the frustrations in knitting it and maybe love it when I ‘discover’ it again in a few weeks. Oh, and if it weren’t for that extra pattern repeat I would have had enough yarn to have not needed the third ball of dye-lot discrepancy evil.

The Blue Winter hat is gathering pace as it approaches the finishing post.  Despite being a nice, simple hat, this project represents a few minor firsts for me.  For a start, I never knit with, or wear, blue.  So, why did I buy this yarn?  It was really cheap in a local closing down sale

Secondly, I have never knit a slouchy hat, and I keep worrying at the prodigious length that this hat has reached already.  I can put the hat on, draw the needle through and cinch the top, and it fits fine – but I am going to press on with the remaining one and a half repeats of the charted pattern, because I’d like to add a new shaped hat to my winter wardrobe.

Thirdly, twisted stitches – how have I just discovered thee?  Well, that’s not quite accurate – I knew that they existed and the thinking behind them, but have never before used them.  I wonder how they compare in look, function and ease of completion with simple 2 stitch cables, made without a cable needle?  If I have any remnants from the project and experiment may be in order.

I’ve knit with Rowan Pure Wool Dk several times before, and always found it a nice, basic yarn, but I do seem to have a lot of problems with pilling as I knit.  Though it seems to wear pretty well,  I often find fuzzy bits working their way off of the yarn before I even reach them with my needle, and a close-up detail of the brim shows the slight problem:

So, that’ll be one for the old clothes de-fuzzer once it’s complete.

I’m looking forward to getting this finished and piling all of my hair inside it on bad hair days (sure to be especially frequent during the blustery March ahead).  Let’s just hope that blue doesn’t look terrible on me…

There is very little I dislike more than the apparent joys of travel. I hate packing bags, forgetting important things, lifting, pulling or otherwise mobilising heavy luggage amassed mostly of completely pointless and bulky objects. I dislike being without my home comforts and the things people, and places that make me happy.

So, as my train finds its way at an increasing distance from Lancaster, my heart is not exactly filled with joy at my delayed, busy journey – a journey of which the horrors should have been cushioned a little at the promise of a free at-seat service offering tea and coffee which has unsurprisingly yet to materialise, but there are a few things that do help to make the experience at least a little more bearable.

Firstly, iPlayer. Auntie’s greatest gift to the busy and the disorganised, and the traveller at large. Having the foresight to expect the chattering removed company of angry, delayed people, I downloaded a couple of episodes of some of my favourite shows so I can immerse myself in the bubble of David Dimbledore’s journey through the seven ages of Great Britain.

Secondly, audiobooks. I have about 40 on my iPod, and though I am currently a short way into Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, for this journey I am listening to Richard Dawkins’ The Greatest Show on Earth, mostly because I love the slight sneer in his voice when I am stuck in a carriage with broken air conditioning, whilst the train ‘rests’ at an embankment for 20 minutes without explanation as to why our ETA is moving so far into the future that I’m going to have to call up Marty McFly to bring me back home.

And lastly, my sticks and string.

What better time to whip out your needles and wool than whilst you have (at least) three hours (and counting – seriously, how delayed is this train?) of uninterrupted knitting, with nothing to distract you, or demand your attention. I can sit back in my seat, iPod or iPlayer for company and entertainment, with stitch after relaxing stitch building from one needle to the next.

So, as I recline backwards into this window-side view and watch the rolling grassy vista of the English countryside drift by, past the sunlit hills of this green and pleasant land, the business and chatter can slowly melt away and I can just enjoy the gentle, silent rhythm of needles and wool.

Someone had seriously better start thinking of bringing me a cup of tea soon, though, otherwise I’m going to kick-off….

Emergency yarn from the Bay of E has arrived.

I couldn’t source a ball from the same dye-lot as the two I was originally knitting the hat with, and this salvage skein is significantly different in tone, hue and saturation from the original, and even the sheen of the yarn is different.  The blue of the eBay purchase has a yellow undertone and just doesn’t have the saturation of the yarn I had bought in the Bluebird Beads closing sale, but as I am loathe to undo all of my knitting, I am going to try to slowly eek in the new shade a few lines at a time to get it to blend from one shade to another in a slow transition, even if I can’t make the difference disappear altogether.

Lesson learned.

‘The time has come’, Eskimimi said,
‘To think of other things:
Of hats and wool and stitch patterns
And whether you’ve actually checked the ball-band correctly to see if you have enough yarn to finish what you are knitting”.

Your Honour, ladies and gentlemen of the Jury, I admit that I have made a mistake.  A stupid, basic, knitting noob mistake.  I present to you exhibit A.  The ball band from a skein of Rowan Pure Wool DK yarn.  Please observe where it says there are 175m per ball:

Sorry? Let me check… Yes, your honour, you’re right.  I don’t know why I thought that two was a seven.  Yes, yes, each ball is 50m shorter than I had thought.  

To further my case for the defence I would suggest that I was perhaps distracted into misreading the lenght length by the mis-spelling on the ball-band, which clearly draws the eye away from the numerical values.  No, no, wait!  I’m not guilty!

They say that there is no such thing as a victimless crime, and weeping in the stands we find the beautiful Golden Autumn hat, by the beautiful and talented Lucy Sweetland of A Black Pepper.

Yes, your honour, I am ready for my sentence.

A 2-4 day wait and a fine of £4.70, plus some possible inconsistencies in dye-lot?  Community service to be performed at the Bay of E?  Nooooooooo!

I decided that it was about time that I made a pair of socks that I will refuse to give away. As most past socks have been adopted by Craig, and knowing that no colour scares him, I have had to change tactics. Lace is the new weapon in my armoury, because though he may be open to wearing the kind of colours that were once only visible to those who believed they cold ’see the music’, I think lace might just be a bit too feminine for him, even in a dark grey yarn reminiscent of school uniforms and road surfaces.

This is the first of my new pair of Sleepy Hollow Socks, made with the fabulous Regia Stretch yarn. One sock down and one to go, I couldn’t resist a little test fitting yesterday, to make sure they hugged my foot properly and were appropriately comfortable. After acknowledging that they ticked both these boxes and readying myself for the second sock, I spent a considerable amount of time looking for the initial sock before giving up in the belief that ‘it couldn’t have gone far’.

Of course, I found it when I was getting ready for bed last night, when I removed it from my foot, completely forgetting that I was wearing it. I think I’ll chalk the sock up as ‘definitely comfortable’.

One of the uncertainties about making socks is the matter of fit. Compared to a shop-bought pair of cotton socks, hand knitted socks of wool and nylon can sometimes feel a bit restrictive if not made to exact foot measurements. A sock cuff that is just that tiny bit too tight might not fit over the heel, or could cause an angry red and itchy welt when you relieve yourself of your footwear after a hard day.

What you need in your life is a bit of  s t  r  e  t   c    h.

On close visual inspection, Regia Stretch yarn looks absolutely no different from the manufacturer’s regular 4-ply sock yarn.  Fortuitously, I had some remnants of non-stretch Regia yarn in exactly the same colourway left over from my Yarr! Boney! mittens for comparison, and upon observtion I could not tell the difference.  The Squish Test proves the differences, though.  The skeins of yarn have obvious extra bounce when you handle them, and picking up a strand to extend and relax it between your fingers immediately helps you to realise that the stretch is in more than just the marketing.

I have completed my first sock in this yarn (more of which soon) and I am happy to report that the qualities that enhance the yarn seem to increase exponentially in the knitting of it.  The small amount of stretch found in the strand results in a generous and comfortable give in the socks – fantastic for when you are making a gift for someone you don’t have exacting foot measurements for.  Though the socks pull on a lot easier (no panic at the point of the heel, wondering if the sock cuff will pass over) they are also more foot-hugging as the elasticity of the yarn contracts to hug the contours of the foot and ankle, helping the socks stay comfortable, and stay up.  No baggy, saggy, ankle pools; no chilling draughts up the trouser leg.

Now, all I need to do is to knit a partner for my lone sock and I will have my very first pair of self-knitted hosiery that I will refuse to part with. Please pass me my needles.

Firstly, I wanted to say thankyou to everybody who took the time to take the survey – hopefully it wasn’t too harrowing recalling those repressed memories times when you naively approached a quaint looking yarn store, looking for a crochet hook…

There were 704 responses to the survey in all, and I’ll leave it to you to decide whether the results were of interest or not.

The vast majority of respondees (512/704) were ‘bi-craftual’, able to both knit and crochet to at least some degree, whilst there were 112 sole hookers and 86 people that were capable only of wielding pointy sticks in pairs. You want that in a graph? OK (though I mustn’t do too many of these otherwise I will get drunk on the power of the visual aid…) Let’s start with a venn diagram:

It is important to note at this point that answers to this and all questions may be skewed slightly.  This is an open blog, and anyone is free to visit and all were free to take part in the survey, however Google Analytics shows that all of the significant volume of new traffic were coming from crochet blogs and crocheting groups on message boards such as Ravelry (more of which, later), so there should be strong representation of the crocheting community present in the results – that is no bad thing at all, but may not be representative of the general balance of those that tend to favour one craft over the other, which brings us on to the next statistic. [...]

Behold the Harlequilt Socks, in as highly saturated a combination of colours as Kaffe Fasett ever did conceive.

I am extremely happy with how these entrelac socks have turned out, but I am glad that they are finally complete.  I did feel the project started to drag on a bit after about the fifth entrelac row of each respective sock, and actually found myself counting down until the end of the entrelac portion square by square, seeing the new task of turning the heel as a refreshing new task before sprint-knitting through the rows of stockinette to a short row toe.

This project is my first flirtation with entrelac, and thought the technique is quite engaging, the novelty of picking up stitches for each square wore off after the first sock.  Entrelac is not difficult. If you can knit, purl, decrease and pick up stitches, then you can do entrelac.  Once the foundation row of triangles have been completed, the structure is revealed and you suddenly have an epiphany over the logic of the technique, and it all falls quickly into place.  Entrelac is just stockinette stitch knitted in small blocks.  In this case, very small blocks. Entrelac isn’t time consuming because of complexities of this form of knitting, but because, when working in 6-stitch blocks such as the ones in this pattern,  you have to pick up a stitch for every twelve you knit.  You also have to turn your work every six stitches.  You spend more time turning your work than you do actually knitting, so an ability to knit backwards can be a great time-saver, though if you are like me getting the yarn set up in a position that makes backwards-knitting comfortable takes just as long again…

Despite the time-intensive knitting that I found these socks represented, I do not regret the added effort needed to complete them.  They are probably the brightest and boldest socks that I will ever make, and Craig has been asking over their progression every day or two and declared them to be ‘the best socks I have ever knit’ when I was only a third of the way into the first one.  I started each sock at the same point in the colour progression of the yarn, and I am overjoyed at how well my tension behaved during relaxing knitting sessions in front of the TV in the evenings, through discussions whilst on lunch break and whilst knitting under stress. Each rectangle corresponds perfectly with its partner on the neighbouring sock, matching from the socks of the cuff, through the heel and to the tip of each toe.

 

The yarn threw up some interesting effects, too.  Many of the stripes of this colourway change shade at a distinct and straight line, but at some colour junctions the new shade creeps in, making a wavy, patterned edge as you can see in the stockinette foot portion.  Whilst knitting the socks it started to become apparent that all of the solid colours were lining up at the front of the sock and these intermediate waves of broken colour were all pooling at the back.  What’s more, at the point where my 2×1 ribbing stopped to begin the foundation triangles, the yarn changed to a bright fuschia for the decrease round, before swiftly changing again, which give the impression of a line of little overhand stitches joining the ribbed cuff to the main body of the sock:

I didn’t like this at first, but as the lines of rectangles began to build like a patchwork quilt, with the appearance of little ’stitches’ where one colour would show through the decrease stitches that bind each tile to the next, I thought that these little chance quirks that came about because of the union of this particular yarn and this pattern were quite charming, and so suggested the name ‘Harlequilt’.