September 2006 – Knitting Box

A trip and a stole

The family and I got back from Melbourne last Monday. It was a good trip! We were there for hubby’s brother’s wedding, and it was a very nice wedding too. We rented a townhouse in the bayside suburb of Williamstown.

A ship in the bay, with city views in the background

Rows of little shops

A French Creperies, where the wedding reception was held

Unfortunately not much knitting happened during the hols. I did bring along the lacey rib scarf with me, but in the end I was sucked in to a good book instead. That’s when we’re not attending the various get-togethers with the relatives or catching up with my new sister in law.

But I do have a new FO. I realise that I haven’t been talking about this one in the blog. No particular reason, probably just because it never quite looked very interesting. I’ve been knitting on a feather and fan stole in the background for the last month or so. I used KnitPick‘s free Andean Treasure Shawl pattern, except that I made it narrower. I used 3 balls of HomeMaker Clinker yarn from Kmart in ‘cream’. As with all things lace, the crumpled up mess turned into a beautiful drapey stole after blocking. It even complemented so well the outfit that I was wearing for the wedding.

28 September 2006

New project time…

Thanks everyone, for the lovely comments on Buttercup! It’s definitely my favourite FO so far.

Now that Buttercup is done, I think I need a small project to work on. The Cashmere Scarf from the latest Australian Creative Knitting mag caught my eye. It’s a lacey scarf with eyelets, it looked so lush in the picture, simple and elegant. It’s supposed to use up only one skein of the 4-ply Handmaiden Cashmere from Purl Yarns, and I guess it would be a dream to use that. But unfortunately budget doesn’t allow at this time (plus it’s currently out of stock), so I’m using some Filatura Di Crosa “Zara” yarn from stash, which was left over from the Beaded Cardigan. The yardage is less than the recommended yarn, but I don’t mind, it will just be a bit shorter. At the moment I’m only about 20cm into the scarf.

The CK mag seems to have lots of problems with getting their patterns right. Some of the patterns are nice, but lots of times I have heard of people complaining about the errors in the patterns, things like missing charts, gauges that are way off, or sometimes even no gauge/yarn information at all (although things seem to be getting better). This scarf pattern, for example, has a rather glaring error. It says to cast on 24 stitches, but the pattern for the next row does not add up to 24 stitches. It’s very annoying, as I had to restart a few times. But in the end I worked out the right pattern. If anyone’s interested, the pattern should read (correction in bold):

Every row: P2, *yrn, P2tog, K2, P2* yrn, P2tog, K2

20 September 2006

I ♥ Buttercup

When I first looked at the pattern, I loved it and wanted to make it. When I was working on it, I loved how the heart motifs kept it interesting but still simple enough to do. Towards the end, though, it started to get rather blah… But now that it’s done and I see Annette wearing it, I’m in love all over again. Here’s why…

Annette at play

Going downstairs to go for a walk

Having a rest on the grass

Close-up of the buttons

Oh, and I ♥ Annette too!

Pattern: “Design F” in Sirdar Book 282 — The Snuggly Book of Baby & Toddler Knits
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Wool Cotton, just under 7 balls.
Needles: 3.25mm for most of it, 2.5mm for the button bands.

Modifications: I used a different yarn and smaller needles than recommended in the pattern, but I still made the 2 year old size because based on my gauge and the pattern’s measurements it looked like it would still fit Annette (Annette is quite small for her age). And it does! The other change that I made was to make the sleeve cuffs a bit wider than in pattern, because I don’t tend to like tight cuffs. Other than that, I pretty much followed the pattern the way it was written.

A word about the construction. I wrote before about the button bands. The pattern says that the button bands were to be knitted on smaller needles separately from the front pieces, and then seamed. Meg suggested that constructing it that way would add some stability to the structure of the garment. And, having done it and seeing the result, I totally agree. I really like the way the button bands look sturdier (I guess due to tighter gauge with the smaller needles), and they do seem to make the fronts more stable and not floppy.

The other new thing in the construction, for me, was that the collar was knitted separately too and then seamed to the main body and to the top of the button bands. I guess this is because of the shape of the collar (kind of like sailor’s collar). Attaching the collar was a killer! Seaming the collar around the neck was allright, but I was stuck at attaching the collar to the top of the button bands. You see, the collar is moss stitch (seed stitch) and the button bands are also moss stitch, and I don’t know how to make a smooth graft between the tops of moss stitch together 🙁 I searched the internet and books, but couldn’t find anything. So I just used kitchener stitch. It didn’t make as smooth a join as I like, but it will do I guess. (If you look closely at the buttons close-up above, you might be able to notice some wonkiness. So, don’t look to closely! 🙂 ) If you know a good way to graft moss stitch, let me know, okay? I’m not going to redo this one, but probably would be good to know for the future.

13 September 2006

This close

Buttercup is almost done… Just need to sew on the buttons, and another round of blocking. I’ve already blocked the pieces before seaming, but I like to block one more time as a whole. FO coming soon!

10 September 2006

knit? i sew!

Much of my week last week was taken up with sewing instead of knitting. Now, I only have very basic sewing skills, as in, I can make a straight seam. My mum bought me a sewing machine as a wedding present, and I’ve always wanted to learn to sew “someday”. So after much procrastination I joined sew? I knit! with their quilted item theme and whipped this up last week:

It’s a quilted drawstring bag for Annette to bring her lunch, snacks, etc. I couldn’t find a pattern for the type of quilted bag that I was after, so I followed bits of this tutorial for a drawstring backpack (the “Mama Backpack”), with some modifications. It’s a good tutorial, has good pictures to illustrate the steps, and good cear instructions. My modifications were that I didn’t make it into a backpack and added a strap instead, and I added a batting between the outer fabric and the lining. I also made the bag smaller, to be more “Annette-sized”, rather than “Mama-sized”.

As for the outside of the bag, the inspiration came from this and this. I’m very much inspired by the beautiful crafted things in Japanese craft books and magazines that I’ve seen around the Internet. I love how their designs are so clean and simple and so charming at the same time.

After seeing this bag, Belinda pointed me to this pic. How cute is that!! A coordinated set of bags!

Well, one thing I learned while working on this bag, was that, while sewing might be faster than knitting, there’s so much planning time that goes into it. Drafting the pattern (if you don’t have one already), transfering the pattern to fabrics, cutting the fabric, pinning fabric together, basting, etc — before you get to actually make things. But I guess the good thing is, after you’ve done it once or twice, they start to fall into place. I’ve always held much respect and admiration for those who can sew to make things, whether it be clothes, softies, bags, quilts, etc. After this experience I think my respect and admiration for them go a little bit higher.

Other quilted things that I’d like to try: Quilted water bottle carrier by Pink Chalk Studio, and the Log Cabin pillow (inspired by Belinda’s one).

4 September 2006