A Knitter's Daydream

   

Lysoen was the summer residence of famed violin virtuoso Ole Bull.

Solstrand Hotel and Bad

Knitting in Art by Annemor Sundbo at Schoolhouse Press

Dale Falk yarn at Woolybaabaa   

*Syttende Mai, May 17th is the day Norwegians celebrate the signing of their constitution. 

Just in time for Mother's Day!

Happy Mother’s Day everyone! 
 I was really excited to get a surprise in the mail the other day.  It contained my copy of 60 More Quick Baby Knits, published by Sixth and Spring books. 

Photographed by Jack Deutsch

 I have 3 designs in the book.  I couldn’t wait to peek.  I love to see how the garments look photographed, and I always love the way the pictures are styled.  It takes quite a bit of time from the time I submit the garments until the books are published, so I always feel like I am looking at the sweaters for the first time.  I LOVE knitting for babies,and my boys are well out of the baby stage so this project was so much fun.  Baby clothes are a terrific way to try out new techniques, or new yarn without spending too much time or money.  I have to say I was so pleasantly surprised with the Cascade 220 Superwash sport yarn that was used in the book, that I tried to track some down recently for another project.  The colors were rich and varied, and the yarn had a smooth, almost cottony feel. None of these sweaters would ever make a baby feel “itchy".  My patterns are #29 Apple Tree Sweater, #32 Parisian Cardigan, and #46 Argyle vest.  

Photographed by Jack Deutsch

 The Apple Tree sweater and the Parisian Cardigan both have some duplicate stitch embellishment, which is an easy way to liven up plain stockinette. The Parisian Cardigan has a Peter Pan collar.

Photographed by Jack Deutsch

 The Argyle Vest is actually not constructed as a “true” argyle which is intarsia knit with bobbins. Instead the diamond pattern is made in a fair isle technique so that there are only 2 colors used in each row.  Much simpler.  I also deliberately placed a few plain stitches in between the front and back of the vest, so that extra stitches could be added to increase the width, without having to worry about the continuity of the argyle.

Photographed by Jack Deutsch

Photographed by Jack Deutsch

 Do you enjoy baby knitting? Let me know- I'd  love to hear about your tiny projects!

A Knitter's Daydream

The Mandarin Oriental Hotel Bermuda

Jordana Paige Knitting Satchel*

#27 Buttoned Lace Vest(mine)

from Vogue Knitting, Spring/Summer 2011

*Not only is the bag great looking, look at this...

Jordana Paige will donate 10% of the suggested retail price of The Knitter’s Satchel™ in Pink to the fight against breast cancer. Detect breast cancer early. For more information visit NationalBreastCancer.org.

Unwound part III

Your mother/ grandmother/ yarn store owner/ Elizabeth Zimmerman was right- always make sure you have purchased enough yarn in the same dye lot…

I am sure that most knitters reading my previous posts about running out of yarn  wondered why I didn’t follow that simple rule and buy enough yarn  to finish my blue Icarus  shawl  to begin with.

Honestly,  it was so long ago, I don’t remember.  I think I bought all the yarn that came in the “Beach Fog” colorway.  I thought I checked the pattern and planned accordingly, although, at the time, I was not that experienced at lace shawl knitting. I definitely had a large tangle of unusable wool left.  For whatever reason, I ran short.

When I looked last week at the Ravelry page about the Icarus shawl I laughed when I saw the following sentence...

 Please note that the yardage in both of Interweave's printed versions is underestimated for the average knitter.

Is that what happened? I don’t recall, but maybe it lets me off the hook!

© Vogue Knitting/Rose Callahan

   As a designer, I know how important a precise yardage measurement is.  I carefully track the yarn that I use as I knit a project, and write down how many balls/skeins I go through as I am working. 

But, yardage can be a grey area.  When I design a sweater I always knit at least one gauge swatch in stockinette, and one for each pattern that is in the garment.  Sometimes I knit the swatches using more than one needle size.  I make relatively substantial size swatches, and block them.  So, when I account for how much yarn I use, I am accounting for the project and the swatches, as well as any mistake knitting ; ) that occurs along the way.  Generally speaking, the amount of yarn I record should be generous enough for most knitters to easily finish a project.  

Even so, problems still arise.  More than once I have had to break into a new skein of yarn to finish a project that is only missing a few rows.  That is not usually a significant problem if the yarn is sold in small skeins. But, what happens when the yarn is a lace weight thread sold only in 700 yard hanks, or a pricey yarn like cashmere?  I know that when I designed the LILY PATTERNED MITTENS for the Vogue Knitting magazine Winter 2011/2012 issue, I literally used up every bit of the beautiful yarn* and actually unraveled my swatch to complete them.  VK made mention of that fact in the  printed directions.

Sometimes yarn manufacturers even repackage and change the amount of yarn put up in a skein. 

So now I try to buy extra, I check pattern pages for errata, and I cross my fingers…

 *Jade Sapphire Exotic Fibers Mongolian Cashmere 4-Ply  in #43 classic purple

A Knitter's Daydream...

Malabrigo  Finito yarn 
Amagiri Resort Canyon Point, Utah

Unwound Part II

The story of a forlorn mess of yarn and a happy ending.

While on vacation* 4 or 5 years ago  in  North Myrtle Beach , South Carolina we took a drive to Pawleys Island.   Despite the groaning from my boys in the backseat I naturally had an ulterior motive - a yarn store!    Island Knits is a lovely store, and I was immediately smitten by the gorgeous Dream in Color Baby wool. I purchased all of the yarn they had in the colorway "Beach Fog" and it was just enough for my project. The blue and aqua hand dyed colors were the perfect reminder of a great family vacation at a beautiful shore. The shawl- Miriam L. Felton’s Icarus was one of my first forays into the world of lace knitting.  

©Interweave Knits

 It took many false starts and a ridiculous amount of ripping and re-knitting.  But, I persevered and finished much of the easily memorized pattern with in a relatively short period of time. (Sometimes I think it is good to try a new technique  while on vacation because I don’t usually have anything other projects with me, so I force myself  to work with what I have.) Icarus is a great beginner lace pattern because it is reasonably simple and the construction becomes apparent within a short period of time. By the time I was back at home, I only had a little left to knit.

Ball "Collapse"

That was when I experienced my first incident of “ball collapse”. I had a snarled mess of yarn and only a few edging rows left. **
 I called around to all of the local stores and internet stores I knew, and none of them carried the yarn.  Don’t you hate that heart sinking feeling?  I then went to my local yarn store to see what I could do.  Sharon, the owner of CreativeKnitworks calmed me with great news.  Apparently there is a way that shop owners can fulfill orders from each others inventory.  Within days, and for a very reasonable cost, the yarn was on the way to me. 

Now, this was a hand dyed yarn, and I knew the dye lots were not the same, but I was happy to take anything I could get. 

You may not be able to tell that there are a variety of colors in this yarn.
 It didn't photograph very clearly.
The yarn ranges from blue to soft gold to violet and aqua.  Lovely.

If you look at my shawl, you will see that the edging is absolutely not the same color as the body of the shawl.  
 At first, this bothered me because, of course, a mismatched edge was not part of my original plan for this piece.

But, I’ve come to appreciate the contrast, and now even think it adds a little life to the shawl.

Now if I could only go somewhere important enough to show it off!

*Please don’t think that I travel all over, buying awesome lace yarn from beautiful destinations and whipping up lovely shawls regularly.  I wish. ; )
** I tried for hours to no avail to unsnarl the yarn, but it was getting frayed and felted and I finally threw in the towel.

Valuable lessons learned:

 Never pull laceweight yarn from the center of a skein.

 Your mother/ grandmother/ yarn store owner/ Elizabeth Zimmerman was right- always make sure you have purchased enough yarn in the same dye lot…

(more on that later!)

A Knitter's Daydream

The Hotel Del Coronado

The Principles of Knitting by June Hemmons Hiatt