Some FOs

This is a shrug from Drops Design (116-25). I removed the buttonholes from the garter stitch edge, because I couldn't see how it would fasten and sit correctly. Got 3.5 more skeins of this stuff to use up yet!



This is "Fringed Fashion" or "Fashion Fringe from Knitwords 48 (spring '09 - the magazine gives it both names). This is for my niece and wsa knitted on the KH950i. Lace transfers done by hand, too about 6 hours to fringe it.





Two views of twisted Estonian sock (from "Think outside the sox"). The heel is done by knitting a heel flap (the sock is 60sts in the round, so the heel flap is 30 rows on 30 sts, slipping the first stitch). The heel is shaped by knitting across to the middle, then short-row knitting back and forth over the middle stitches with a decrease at the end of each row until all sts are knitted. !5 sts are then picked up either side of the heel, and these are decreased on every other row until you are back to 60 sts

The second sock has been cast on.

FO: Crochet shopping bag

DSCN0128
Originally uploaded by steel breeze

Made with PnC double-worsted. Will post the pattern up in a few days.

Dinosaurs

TLDR: I may be a dinosaur, but at least I have warm feet and a warm heart!

An acquaintance of mine (well, I say acquaintance - he was a mutual friend of an ex and we went drinking as a group before Google bought Usenet and the community died off... about 10 years hence) posted a rather unkind picture of a dinosaur knitting on my Facebook wall this weekend. Some friend, huh? Nah, I won't polish his ego and publish his name, I reckon it's probably too self-satisfied and smug already...

Why do people have this impression? Yes, I hear the "Walmart" argument all the time - "Why knit socks, when you can get them for $x a dozen pairs at Walmart?". Really? Really?! Thankyou for informing me, I don't, after all, have eyes in my own head or a thought in my walnut-sized brain.

I pity anyone who hasn't experienced the luxury of hand- or machine-knitted socks over bought ones. They are thicker, warmer, they wear like iron. Yes, they're not suitable for tight-fitting shoes, I'll give you that. But they are knitted to size. Cheap shop-bought socks contain lycra (to make them fit as many sizes as possible). Lycra, like all elastics, perishes over time. Heck, most of the cheap supermarket socks in my drawer at home, aren't even knitted tubular any more, despite the circular sock machine technology pre-dating Victorian times. They can't often even be bothered to make them as TUBES anymore, FFS!

Let's not even mention the slave labour used to produce a lot of apparel these days. Oh whoops, I just did. There are not many companies can say their garments are ethically produced - why d'you think they're so ruddy cheap?

So, I'm a dinosaur, huh? I honestly can't remember what I wasted my time doing, before I took up knitting again. Now I can watch a film and have a finished product at the end of it. Beats train-spotting or stamp-collecting hands down. I don't always benefit from it - sometimes it's for a relative, and sometimes it's for a stranger that I will never meet, in a foreign country, who may not have access to a disposable income, time, and a supply of stashed yarn.

At the end of the weekend, most folks go back to work with a bad head and a depleted bank account. I may also have a product - something I created myself, and enjoyed the challenge of making (let's not forget I'm a process knitter here - I rarely keep the finished item).  I have a need to create, to think about construction, and I enjoy the process.

Hand-produced garments are made with love and care and are often superior to mass-produced items - where else can you get custom fit without paying a small fortune? Hand-knitted socks, for example, do not contain rotting elastic and are thus made to size (eg shoe size 6-7 instead of 2-9). Home-made means some care went into the production, the item is often one-of-a-kind and is better sewn up than some of the blown-together bought items I've had the disappointment of later repairing.

Sure, go ahead, and look like everyone else. It's your choice, I won't stop you. Another Usenet acquaintance once tried to get a t-shirt printed with the slogan "FCUK - clothing for CNUTS" - which pretty much sums up how I feel about fashion (alas, the print shop didn't have the balls to do it). If you think I care about high fashion - wearing a barely-there dress your boobs fall out of at the slightest provocation, and a small satellite dish on yer bonce, then you really don't know me at all. Shucks.

In the meantime, I get to wear something nobody else will ever be able to buy, and I get a warm feeling knitting for people who need it. I occasionally do knit by request, but only when I think the recipient will appreciate it, which is, alas, not often.

In this consumer society it's kinda fun to buck the trend - and 2 million Ravellers can't ALL be wrong. I don't see that I'm hurting anyone with my creative pastimes - it's certainly more useful to society than going out and robbing a bank - so thanks, but no thanks, for your disapprobation. Perhaps you should mind your own business. Perhaps you should ask yourself what YOU have done for the world, apart from run up debts and consume resources.

Current mood: happy

Vintage

I've been avoiding buying yarn lately (well, not much point doing a stashdown otherwise) so instead my attention has turned to books and patterns. I picked up a vintage copy of Paton's First Steps in Crochet on Ebay:

That's actually the back cover, which is far more colourful than the front cover, which just has a large piece of blue crochet on it. This was my mother's go-to book for crochet, and I borrowed it countless times - I think her copy is probably quite scruffy now, so it was nice to find a fairly pristine copy online. It's mostly black and white inside, alas. My sister and I had single-bed versions of this afghan, made from lots of oddments. I felt mine was more balanced, having a spectrum of colours - my sister's was more red, white and blue.

I also picked up another vintage crochet leaflet:

Not least because I was inspired by a lovely edging (originally a handkerchief edging) that HilaryGermany put around a plain shawl. I even went as far as working it out from the photograph.

I've also lusted after the Piecework reprints of Weldon's Practical Needlework for some time:

Not enough to want to collect every single volume, mind - especially for the silly money some of the early volumes go for. But hey, now I have a knitting pattern for ladie's cycling shorts and men's swimming trunks! :) Plus a baby's crocheted bonnet which has ruffles, pompoms and pretty much every kind of embellishment it's possible to add. I pity the child forced to wear it, it would scar them for life.

Still trying to resist buying 400g of Kauni EQ, though - and Ravelry keeps advertising it to me, as if it somehow knows! Argh!

Knitting machines are theoretically down to 9 - one is to be picked up today, and one is promised to a fellow Raveller. The Toyota will go back on Ebay after the May MKKI event I think.
Current mood: inspired

Olympic Knitting

A yarn of olympic proportions
I don't know who Yarnjunki is, but what amazing work! Must have taken ages! I hope the council display it somewhere when it's taken down.

Pondering

Nope, it's not the schematic - that's perfect. Have made a 100st by 100r swatch, hopefully using those measurements it will come out correctly. Good job I have quite a bit of this yarn.
First spiral sock is 3 rows away from done. Need to figure out how to knit "K2, yo, K1, K2tog" backwards. I think "SSK, K1, yo, K2" will probably do it.
Trying very hard to order a part from Passap Canada. Alas, they have sent me completely the wrong thing (exactly a month ago) and are now dragging their heels about doing anything about it. Totally unimpressed.

Draped - not working!

I was hoping to post a lovely photo of the finished "draped" top today, but alas, it has come out too small - I can barely get my head into it. Not quite sure what went wrong, I need to check my knitleader diagram against the schematic for a start.

As a comfort to myself I knitted a charity tee top in some purpley-blue yarn with shiny lurex. There's probably enough on the cone for one more. I was racking my brains how to knit a mock rib hem, I think I got it right, been ages since I knitted one.

I also cast on for a crochet shopping bag, got a whole cone of Peaches n' cream in white, blue, red, brown, green. It's double worsted so won't fit on even the largest knitting machine. I am making the pattern up as I go along, if it's any good I will post it up here.

Stashdown update #2

Bit late, but at the end of February I had 116 seperate cones or balls of yarn listed on Ravelry. It just went up by one today when I realised I'd failed to add one cone of Peaches n cream (which just happens to be the one I'm crocheting with). Whoops.

Using your knitleader to convert a written pattern into a schematic

So I'm making a sweater, but I'm not going to get gauge (not unless I want cardboard knitting - this yarn is too thick!). So last night I sat down and air-knitted to produce the schematic.

Method:

1. Match the stitch and row gauge of your knitleader to the pattern gauge. So, if they give the sts and rows to 10cm, convert this to get the measurements for 40 sts and 60 rows (this is what the Brother knitleader requires, your device may be different)
2. Load a blank sheet into the reader, and set the machine up as if to knit but with no needles in work and no yarn. Set carriage to hold.
3. Pull the end needle of the pattern - eg if the pattern calls for 85L and 85R to start, put one of them out to hold. This acts as a marker so you don't forget where you are.
4. Set the row counter to 0 and "air-knit" the pattern, using a washable marker to put a dot on the sheet every time shaping is done.
5. When all pieces have been traced, remove sheet from feeder and use the marker to join the dots.
6. Tip: Occasionally it's worth marking a little line with the row count - that way, if you get lost, you don't have to go right back to the beginning.

Voila - your pattern is converted, and can now be used for any gauge/yarn combination

Conversion

I've long wanted to make the "Draped" top from Knitwords magazine - it's knitted in two pieces, and the shoulders of the front have been rotated outwards to give a waterfall neckline at the front. I don't have easy access to the yarn used, (Knitwords being a US publication) and I'm never going to get gauge with the yarn I've chosen for it (pale blue chenille).

To get around this, I am planning on loading up my knitleader with a blank mylar, and setting it up to the correct gauge as given in the pattern, and air-knitting the sweater, whilst putting dots on the mylar. That way, I can draw up an accurate schematic that I can use with the yarn and tension I've chosen.

I'll let you know how it works out.

In other news, congratulations to Ravelry on now having more than 2 million members. Interesting that it happened on the leap day.

Swatching and planning

What do you knit when you know you don't have enough time to achieve something finished? You swatch, of course! Last night I swatched:

- The blue chenille, which knits surprisingly well on the KH950i and looks ten times better than on the LK150. So it's just the SK840 that chokes on it, then.

- Some purple/blue with lurex - might be just enough for a halter neck top

- Some white cotton chenille with blue slubs. Comes out like cardboard on the 950i, knits surprisingly well on the KH260 (not sure what I shall do with this, as it's leftovers, but I have a full cone of another colour too).

As an aside, had a telephone call from a local TV company asking if I and my fellow Knitwits want to appear topless on "Embarrassing Bodies" to promote breast health. Er, thanks, but no thanks...

Current mood: thoughtful