Knitting Box – Page 27 – I knit, I sew, I blog

Joining In

I don’t often join knitalongs. Not because I don’t like them, but because I’m usually late to the party. By the time I get the yarn I need and ready to start, everybody else have finished theirs. So I just work at my own pace. But this past week I couldn’t resist joining, not one, but two!

I’ve joined the Serrano KAL (got my yarn already), and Socktoberfest!

Serrano KAL Socktoberfest

For Socktoberfest, I’m going to start with the Oak Ribbed Socks from Knitting Vintage Socks by Nancy Bush. I love learning new techniques, and this sock intrigues me as it has a French heel and a round toe — not quite the average sock. My first (and only) pair of socks were toe-up, with short row toes and short row heels. So I’d like to know how the different heel and toes would make a difference in the wearing.

I’m knitting this with Paton’s Big Baby 4 ply, on 2.5mm bamboo DPNs.

And while I’m on it, I thought I’d answer the sock history questions. Although, with me having made only one pair of socks, it’s not much of a history…

When did you start making socks? Did you teach yourself or were you taught by a friend or relative? or in a class?

I started my first pair of socks in December 2005, after getting a kickstart from the Sock it to me Summer/Winter knitalong. I taught myself using Wendy’s toe-up sock pattern. Oh, and this sock tutorial from Knitty.

What was your first pair? How have they “held up” over time?

It was the Mirabella Socks, made with Elle Pure New Wool DK. They’re nice and thick, so I wear them a lot on chilly evenings, and also as my bed socks. They still fit well, and are still very comfortable to wear. The yarn has become slightly fuzzier, and there are some pills here and there, which is understandable given the fact that I wear them a lot.

What yarns have you particularly enjoyed?

Can’t really answer this one, as I’ve never worked with sock yarns. The yarn that I used for my first socks was nice to work with, but it’s rather thick for everyday socks. I just tend to buy general-purpose yarns… But someday I’d love to try “specialised” sock yarns — perhaps they’ll hold up better? Or those yummy handpainted sock yarns… yum…

Do you like to crochet your socks? or knit them on DPNs, 2 circulars, or using the Magic Loop method?

Now that I’ve gotten used to using DPNs, I quite like it. I don’t know how to crochet, haven’t had much luck with Magic Loop (I’ve tried, but my stitches look wonky with it), and using 2 circulars seems too fiddly to me.

Which kind of heel do you prefer? (flap? or short-row?)

Well, I like the short row heel… But I haven’t tried the flap heel yet, so I’m about to find out.

How many pairs have you made?

Umm… let me count… Oh, one.

9 October 2006

Purchases

Yarn purchases!

Went to Tapestry Craft yesterday to get these yarns… That’s Debbie Bliss Cashmerino in olive colour for making another pair of Fetching, this time for me, and the black ones are Grinasco Bambi, for making Serrano from Knitty. I’ve been wanting a lacy cardigan for a long time, and Serrano looks very appealing to me.

I must say that the colour, black, is a rather unadventurous choice for me. I tend to wear dark colours a lot, even though I actually like just about any colour in the spectrum. I had considered other colours, just to have something different. I spent ages and ages in front of the Grinasco Bambi shelf, trying to decide on a colour. But in the end I settled on black. Oh well, hopefully that will mean that I’ll get to wear it a lot. Black is still the new black, right??

On the way home, I popped in to Dymocks to check out their crafts books section. And oh my do they have a lot of great books there! I could spend hours there just browsing through them. I bought this book:

It’s Toys to Sew by Claire Garland, the author of Knitted Babes. It has patterns for dolls along similar vein to Knitted Babes — basic doll patterns (two boys and two girls) with sets of clothing items to mix and match, except that in this book the dolls are sewn as opposed to knitted. Which is great as I’ve been wanting to sew more. There are also many other adorable toys in the book — patchwork crocodile, turtle, spotty pull-along elephant, and even a tea set! The toys are sooo cute and I want to make so many of them! (Interestingly, when I got home and looked at Amazon US’s page for this book, the book is not released yet in the US. And I got it here for less than fifteen bucks! I love it when I get a good bargain…) I have pictures of some pages from the book here, if anyone’s interested.

1 October 2006

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