Scarf or Shawl?

My Regina Marie shawl is now completed. I'm really happy with this one; it's come out pretty much as I hoped for, the yarn has been great to work with and is still beautifully soft.

I made a couple of tweaks to the pattern as I wanted something that was more scarf than shawl; long and thin. Firstly I went for 32 repeats of the main pattern block, rather than 26. I wish I'd been braver and gone even further with that as I still had yarn left at the end, though I'm not sure an extra couple would have made much difference.

Then during the short rows section I knit four stitches beyond the gap on each pass so that I consumed the stitches more quickly to create a thinner crescent.

I don't know what the technical definition of a scarf vs a shawl is - but whatever it is I've made I love it.

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How Not To Design A Knitting Pattern

Over Christmas I started knitting something new. Not just a new project. Not just a new yarn. I started to make up a new pattern. Obviously (I say obviously - turns out this was only obvious to me in hindsight) this hasn't been as straight forward as just knitting from someone else's pattern; I'm trying to design some gloves, and am pretty sure I've gone about it all the wrong way. There are plenty of guides out there on how to write a knitting pattern, but from my limited experience I give you:

How NOT To Design A Knitting Pattern

1. Guess

If you're trying not to design a knitting pattern then guessing is a great way forward. Need to know how many extra stitches to add as you work the base of your thumb, and how many rows you need to increase those stitches over? Don't take any measurements and definitely don't work out your gauge. Guess! That way you can have the joy of knitting your thumb many times over.

2. Be Indecisive

You may have a rough idea in your mind how this might look and that's plenty to get you started. By no means should you swatch variations on your pattern to see how it affects the look before you start knitting properly. When wondering whether the pattern would look best over 30 stitches or 40 its best to not decide until you're part way through making the finished article, and then to go for 35 instead.

3. Design purely for you

Because if it fits you, of course it will fit everyone else. No thought at all is needed on how to produce different sizes or shapes to suit different people.

4. Just Start Knitting

There's nothing more conducive to getting the design right than thoughts of "I've just come up with a new way to do this, but that would mean undoing what I've done". Having a half finished project on your lap will always inspire you to stick with what you've got rather than making the right decision - perfect for the non-designer.

5. Don't knit at all

Finally, ignore your new pattern design. Don't think about it for months at a time. That way the fairies will come and design it for you. Guaranteed. Knit a jumper instead.


P.s. Yes, I've done all these things. Yes, it could be a while before this is an actual pattern. I now have a glove that might one day have a matching pair, was reworked many times in getting this far and is wonderfully soft and warm. It might also one day resemble the final pattern. I'm now going to take some measurements, knit some swatches and remember that I have an engineering degree - logic should be my forte, not an afterthought (I blame Christmas)! Shame it's no longer really glove weather, maybe I'll just knit something else... just for a little while of course...

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Travel Knitting

What's a good holiday without a good bit of knitting to go with it? Exactly! I've been wondering for a while quite how much I'll need to take with me to last the full three months, particularly since I knit more on holiday than I do at home. I don't have an answer but I do have a plan.

It involves this laceweight New Zealand wool:

A vacuum packer.

This pattern for an intricate shawl.

Three almost identical needles and a roll of pink thread for making lifelines - in case airline security should decide that needles are a hazard and can't be taken in hand luggage (they shouldn't, their own rules say knitting needles are allowed, but I'm paranoid).

And this swatch - just as a taster you understand.

Don't look too closely - there are multiple mistakes in there!

One nice big but light project. If I finish that, well, Joe says I might have to talk to him...

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Lessons from a Sock

I'm working on another pair of socks - Edwardian Boating Socks this time, so named for the little rowers that paddle up and down each leg. I'd like to say I've definitely got the hang of this sock knitting thing, but since I had to turn the heel on the first sock several times I'll think I'll hold off making such grand claims.

This is what I've done so far:

1. Follow the heel turn instructions "sl1, p to gap, p2tog, turn" etc. The purl two together stitch combines the first two stitches after the gap. This gives a nice semi-circular heel but 21 stitches, not the 11 they say you should have.

2. Undo the heel and follow the pattern again, this time combining one stitch from each side of the gap, therefore having 11 central stitches throughout the heel. Barely get halfway through this and decided that surely a square heel isn't right either (I think that move in itself was the fatal one).

3. Undo the heel turn again and set off as before. Turn the heel in a nice smooth curve but end up with too many stitches.

4. Continue with the gusset and do extra decreases until I'm back to how many I should have. Proceed with the foot.

5. When most of the foot is done try the sock on and realise that there is a flap of fabric on the sole caused by those extra stitches.

6. Attempt to remain vaguely calm as I rip back several evenings work. Fail.

7. Try the square heel version again. Follow it through to completion this time and decide its quite nice really.

8. Finally finish sock one.

9. Start all over again with sock 2, skipping steps 1-6. Hopefully.


Lesson learnt?  I'd like to think so but I'm not optimistic!

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Knitting for Digory

I've finished my latest bit of knitting and it's being very ably modelled here by Digory, our four month old godson. It's a little large for him at the moment which is perfect, because knitting faster than he grows is currently a small challenge!

I had a bit of a play with the pattern for this one. It's Pembroke and is designed for a worsted weight yarn. What I had in my yarn box though was Sirdar Baby Crofter DK which was going to leave me with a bit of a size problem. I was aiming for something roughly the 6 month sizing described, so decided to follow a pattern for a larger version and let the smaller wool/needles do the trick. After some swatching I set out on the 12 month version but very quickly realised it was still coming out too small.

Back to square one and making the 18 month version finally seemed to do the trick with the added bonus of more cables for my width than the six month would have managed. Even so, I'm very relieved that Diggy has some room to grow into it!

Modelling is serious stuff... 

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A Toe and a Bag

It's been quite a while since I shared some knitting here on the blog so I thought you might like to see the start of my latest project.

I'm attempting to knit some socks for Joe. Yes, attempting. The element of uncertainty here comes in the size of Joe's feet - somewhere around a size 11 or 12. Since most sock patterns aren't aimed at this I'm making it up as I go along. So far I'm finding the challenge quite fun.

I'm working toe-up as then I can knit the leg until I've used half the yarn before moving onto the second sock and I'm keeping the general pattern quite simple. If this all goes horribly wrong then either someone with smaller feet wins a pair of socks or Joe can wear them on top of another pair when he's cold.

On a related note, Friday was my birthday and I had the day off work to do whatever I wanted. I had a lovely relaxed day and as part of it I took a couple of hours to make myself a little project bag for keeping my current work-in-progress tidy and easy to cart around. I followed the pattern here and found it all came together very nicely. I was worried it would be too small as my sock needles are 8" long and the bag is only supposed to be 7.5" tall, but I hadn't taken into account the volume of the bag. The needles sit diagonally with room to spare.

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Mini Knitting

I love how quickly knitting for babies comes together. By the time I'd thought about telling you I'd cast on a new project, this had happened:

One newborn size hat! Next up, some mini socks.

We have a few friends with babies due in 2014 and I'm quite excited about all the knitting opportunities that this produces. I'm spending lots of time browsing Ravelry for interesting looking patterns and playing with small double pointed needles.

Since battling with dpn's for the sleeves of my cardigan I've found myself using them more and more, I've still not quite got the hang of a smooth transfer from one needle to the next, but relaxing rather than trying to force the tension to be correct seems to be helping. I now seem to knit in the round more often than I do flat.

What are you knitting/making at the moment?

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Summer Knits: 4. Bust Shaping

You may have noticed that as I've been making more clothes for myself of late I've been paying a little more attention to how they might actually fit rather than blindly following the pattern. My current knitting project is no exception.

Reading around on the internet I recently came across the concept of bust shaping when knitting jumpers. The theory is that if you knit the front and the back of the jumper the same then the front will look too short because it has further to travel than the back thanks to the bust. If you have a bust larger than a B cup then it's sometimes recommended to add little extra length to the front of the jumper to compensate for this. You do this by adding some short rows across the front, which gives the same effect as adding a dart when sewing a top.

Short rows are a simple concept - you simply turn your work round before you reach the end of the row and start working back the other way. This means that you have two rows over that part of your knitting, and only one row over the remainder.

Theory aside, I thought I might give this a go, but because I'm a coward I've only adding a little bit extra - not the full amount - so that I could see how it works without going crazy. I started knitting the patterned part 2cm later than the pattern suggested and then added 6 short rows, starting just before the pattern reaches its widest point. With the cardigan I had to knit the short rows on the right front part, finish the row and then do short rows to match on the left hand side.

It turns out this is a very hard thing to photograph - it disappears!
Just to the right of my index finger the stitches change angle, this is the extra
rows being put in.

and the same on the left front.

I think its gone well. The bit I'm least satisfied with was how to do the final turn which happened to fall just at the edge of my lacy pattern. On the right hand front the turns happened on the right side of the knitting which I adapted by skipping the last bit of the pattern and starting it again on the next row which seems to have left a knobbly bit. On the left hand front the turns happened on the wrong side of the knitting (a simple purl row) which was much easier to adapt and has left a neater finish I think. Sorry if that made no sense at all!

Having done this once I'm pretty sure I'd do this again, and maybe with a bit more confidence on my next jumper. Lets face it - this isn't going to make much difference to the way the cardigan fits.

Either way, that's now done - on with the pattern!

Previously: 3. A long weekend of progress
Next: 5. Must there be two?

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Summer Knits: 2. Oh Bother

I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that I decided to do a sanity check on measurements, gauge and size of my cardigan after knitting around 10cm of the bottom. The bad news is that I needed to start again!

Firstly, because I didn't have the 3mm needle the pattern recommended, but did have a 3.25mm needle I decided not to both with a gauge square - there was no way it could be too small if I'm using bigger than suggested needles. Wrong. The gauge was still a tiny bit too small. Clearly the wool I've chosen is rather different from the one the pattern recommended. However, this isn't so far out that a little gentle stretching while blocking won't sort it. Fortunately for me I was on the larger needle to start with.

So why, I asked myself, can I not wrap the material around my hips and have it fit?
Cue waving a tape measure and the pattern at Joe to see if he could see where I was going wrong - the answer came back loud and clear - you're making the wrong size!

I then spent a while looking at the pattern trying to work out where the mistake had come from as I hadn't just picked a size at random! Turns out I looked at the bust measurements at the top of the pattern and chose the size accordingly to match my bra size. Uh-uh (imagine loud buzzy noise). The bust measurements listed are the full bust size - not the under bust size. That would explain it then! Rather frustratingly I have now unravelled it and started again. I'm glad I checked everything was working before it had gone too far, and now that I'm making progress again I'm much happier than I was for the five days the whole thing sat in my knitting bag and couldn't be worked on, but its still very annoying.

Anyway, lesson learnt - a little less enthusiasm to get started, and a little more time checking the pattern doesn't go amiss. Maybe one day this lesson might sink in?!

Progress take two - slowly getting there!

Previously: 1: Casting On
Next: 3. A long weekend of progress

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