skein

Ingrid's Mitts

And we're off!  

Not such a great start for me on Friday, though.  I was so excited about the Opening Ceremony that I didn't cast on until about 10.30, and by that time I was a litte bit merry on fizzy wine!  When I picked up my kintting on Saturday the corrugated ribbing looked pretty messy, so the whole thing was frogged and restarted.  And restarted again.  Third time lucky.  

Saturday: 

From this

(that was the ravellenic training)

to this

Sunday I knitted a second one!  I had to reknit most of the hand part as I missed off three rows of chart (how?) but still,  a great start to the Ravellenics.  

Pattern:  Ingrid's Swedish Mitts

Started: 28th July

Finished:  29th July

Needles:  2.25mm

Yarn:  Renaissance Dyers Organic Dorset Poll

Tweaks:  

For the first row of corrugated ribbing I did K1M, K1C instead of K1M, P1C to eliminatd the purl bumps on that first row.  

For the 1x1 ribbing on the thumb and hand I did the K! as K1tbl as I'm such a messy 1x1 ribber.

If I were to knit these again I'd change the placement of thumbs with regards to the start of the round.  I'd centre the thumbs on the start of the round or halfway through.  I used magic loop and there was a noticeable line, especially on the ribbing.  I've pressed them excessively and I can still see the line! 

The pattern has left and right hand thumb placements, but the pattern on the thumb is not symmetrical. I'd probably think about this a bit more should I knit them again.  Overall though I love them, I really love this yarn, it does great colourwork.  This is the third kit I've ordered!

Now for the difficult part - posting to the ravellenic finishing post!

Just in time for the Olympic games!

Things are hotting up here in London, and I don't mean the weather! Olympic fever has gripped the nation (well, according to the BBC news site, which is only talking about the torch and the Games) and I'm getting excited about starting my Olympic knitting.  I am not so excited about my commuting over the next few weeks,  though I can't see an extra million visitors being so disastrous to London.... time will tell.  The first test is getting home tonight, as I'll be on the underground line which leads to the Olympic Park, where the Opening Ceremony is taking place tonight.  i expect I might bump into all of those poor MPs who are being told to mix with the masses and use public transport...  

Anyway, back to the knitting.  Get the flags out!  I HAVE FINISHED MADRIGAL.  What a journey! It really isn't a difficult knit, but I kept dropping slippery stitches and the yarn's dark navy.  Never again!  Wednesday I finished that second sleeve and darned in the remaining ends.  

Tada!!

Just a good wash and it's ready to wear. 

I had a whole evening for something else, and as I have neglected the crochet for a while that's been brought out, though not much done - three full circles and the rest are jsut the firsst round of the circles  At least it's a start.  

Sorry, both photos taken in dark dark lighting on the mobile.  

I shall be watching the Opening Ceriemon, needles at the ready to cast on. I'm really looking forward to it!  Roll on 9pm!  We'll crack open a bottle of wine and knit (well I will, Mr C will just guzzle the wine much faster than I do).  Best start off with a simple project, not the double knit hat!

Different Lines Shawl

I do believe that this is my first shawl of 2012! 

Pattern: Different Lines

Yarn: Malabrigo Yarn Sock, in Royal Blue and Wullenstudio Superwash Sock yarn in Strawberry Fields. 

Needles: 4mm

Started: May 20th 

Finished June 23rd (but not blocked until a few weeks ago!)

No mods.

A few disasters though!

When I washed the shawl prior to blocking, the Malabrigo blue ran. And ran. And ran.  I rinsed at least 15 times and each time the water was dark blue.  I've in the past put vinegar in the rinse (not sure if this works!) but I didn't want to set the blue in the pink sections!  it means the pink has a slightly blue tinge.  

That was the first disaster.  Second disaster was a hole appeaering when I blocked it.  I didn't even notice.  Chris mentioned a hole when I took it off the bed and draped it over the back of the sofa, but I thought he was being funny about the shape!  Of course it would have to be on a blue stripe.  I've temporarily grafted it, but I need to redo it and sort out the stitches so that they're a bit more even. It didn't stop me from taking a few photos!

The shape is unusual, and I couldn't figure out how to drape it across my shoulders!

Blue edge on top?

Or blue edge on bottom?

A fun and entertaining knit too, all garter stitch with some simple short rows to shape the stripes.  

 

 

Madrigal progress

As the Olympics, and Ravellenic Games draw closer, I'm getting into finishing mode.  

Madrigal has been on the needles for far too long.  I don't think it was wise to consider working in navy yarn!   When I've gone wrong with the pattern (not a difficult lace pattern either) the stitches have ran like mad and I've ended up tinking back dozens of rows of the pattern (rather than puling the whole thing off the needles and frogging to that point).  

The cuff of the first sleeve has taken me a week!  I found lots of other more interesting things to do than knit on Madrigal.  I finally finished it on Saturday, gritted my teeth and picked up sts for the second sleeve (in lamplight).  Sunday lunchtime I had finished the short row section (after another mssive tinking session) and was working on the sleeve.

It's NAVY.

It doesn't look like much progress, but here's photo from this morning, just 28 rows to go before the 3" cuff.

yeah, I'll have to twek those buttons before the big photo session to make them line up!!

I am not that happy with this cardigan, more to do with my yarn choice than the pattern though. This is a 4ply yarn which is lovely knitted to tension, but knitting at 24sts to 10cms makes it a bit loose and sloppy, ok with some yarns, not really with this one.  And where I've picked up stitches has made the edges stretch out.  I'm going to give it a hot wash after completion, see if I can minimise some of the loose stitches.  Yes, I'll wear it but probably not in knitting company! 

Hardly any knitting done this week

I knitted for an hour on Monday evening, and then not at all on Tuesday or Wednesday.  Five minutes on Thursday.  This has to be the least amount of time I have knitted in four days in the last 25 years!  No commuting/carry along knitting, so I haven't even had something I could throw in my bag just in case.  

One of the reasons is that I have too few projects on the go.   Crochet and Mr. C's Herbivore are not calling out to me right now, and Madrigal is, well, very boring at the moment, and I'm so fed up with all of this dark navy.  

But the main reason is that I have a new phone and have spent the past few evenings playing with it - moving data and reloading my apps from my old android phone.   I've had a couple of issues with connectivity, but I just restart the phone (which is very quick). I suspect bt openzone has something to do with it, so I've disabled that when I'm within reach of home or office wifi.   

As I have no knitting, I took a photo with the new phone.  It's  Herbivore which is the same size as the last time I took a photo.  Surprisingly, with all the busy colour, you can still see the texture. Remember, not my choice of colours!

I have no plans for Olympic training this weekend - all of the projects I want to do are bagged with needles and yarn.  I want to sort out my Different Lines shawl which has a hole!  It only came to light after I took it off the blocking wires and pins.  I don't think it's moth damage,  the yarn doesn't look eaten and it's a break in one strand at one point.  It's not really a hole but blocking and stretching makes is seem so.  I've secured the stitches (which thankfully haven't ran) with needles, ready for grafting. There's only about three stitches top and bottom, but I  need to tink out a bit to ensure the ends don't unravell.  (OK is it unravel or unravell??????)  

Oh, let's not forget Madrigal.  Unless I get home very late and/or very drunk tonight I ought to finsih that first sleeve, only a few more inches to go.  I intend getting a good bit (hopefully all) of the second sleeve done. I only have this weekend and four evenings till Ravellenics.  

More Ravellenics training

Shhh we won't mention Madrigal. I have had nearly a whole weekend without picking her up. Just an hour last night.

I've been training instead.

Lucy Neatby's Baby Bonnet.

Double knitting with 4ply.

First part of training:  the tubular cast on over one needle.  There's a You Tube video showing how to do this for those people challenged by drawings who need to see it in action. 

That was my second attempt.  

The yarn I planned to use for this hat was some bright pink Rowan 4ply soft and newly bought King Cole baby 4ply.   This is 100% wool appparantly, but not nice at all to knit with.  Not exactly splitty, but more like cotton wool!  

Anyone intending to knit this hat pattern should knit the swatch. Not necessarily for tension but to try out the the pattern.  It really helps.  You knit two tiny i-cords, do a tubular cast on (you can do a long tail one if you want, instructions give details of how to do the set up row)  and join the icords at each tnd, then work nine ros or os of the double knit chart (with written out instructins) and striping the icord at each side as you go.  

I did one swatch with the not-nice King Cole, and a second swatch with the much-nicer Wollmeise.

Sorry, photos all taken on mobile!  And knitting attrocious!  I was drinking a lot of wine...

Another advantage of swatching is that you csee how the colours look. I decided I did not want to knit a birght pink and cream hat!  Luckily I has some Wollmeise remnants at hand, and did a second swatch (well frogged the colourwork knitting of one of these swatches)

Swatching also pinpointed my 'weaknesses'.  I am prone to losing stitches on the I-cord edges,  and more than once had to tink back the double knitting, as the stitches bunch together, and I often knitted or purled two by mistake.  On one side one colour stitches are looser than any others, but I will correct that now by ensureing that when I have to purl the second stitch in from the edge I give it a tug.  And try to loosen up on the i-cord.   I tend to knit that tightly, which is also tightening the first stitch on the double knitting.    Nut at least I am now set to start this event!  Just have to add it to ravelry.  It seems to be eligible for several events - baby, hat and double knitting, possibly another color event too!

Possible entrant:  Ella Funt cardigan

I ordered some pink baby cashmerino as the main colour, and dipped into stash for the oddments. 

Now that I've knitted this swatch, I'm keeping the elephant and colour and the bright teal colour, but will replace the pale teal (top pattern) with the darker elephant colour, and use purple as the dividing pattern.

Possible entrant: Sheep Yoke Cardigan

I seem to be doing a lot of colourwork during these Olympics!

For this one I'm going to use an acrylic yarn, Rico baby dk.  First time for me, so I wanted to wknit and see if I could bear knitting with it. I can.  Not one bit of wool in this yarn but it's absolutely fine to knit with!  And it's cheap and hopefully wears well. 

The problem is the colour choices for this particular cardigan.

Here's a photo I took of the colours I have (white is on its way). Navy, denim, grass green and light blue.

The difference betwwen the denim and green is a little more pronounced in daylight.  

I originally thoguth I'd knit the cardigan with just denim and green (and white sheep), using the denim as the main cardigan colour, and the green for the borders.  Now I'm thinking it just doesn't contrast as much as I'd like. I would like a brighter, more boy-like blue.   Otherwise I'm thinking of knitting this in navy, with just the yoke as colour, using the green and LIGHT blue for sky.

What do you think?   Looking on ravelry there are a few navy ones, but I've never thought of a dark navy or black for a one year old. The original cardigan has a tan main colour which I like, but think my niece might find it a bit .. brown for her son!  

All of this baby knitting led to a nightmare last night about a new born baby!  I dreamt I was babysitting, turned up to look after new born and 3yo sister, no sign of parents (as you get in dreams), one nappy, one bottle (for the weekend) , I had to trek to the city to find a pharmacist open to buy more nappies and milk! Carrying newborn in a small box with handles, no clothes and baby was cold!  

 

Knitting catch up

What knitting?  I have hardly made any progress this week.  When you consider that I have hardly anything on the go I ought to have finished Madrigal by now.  

A month ago I started another garment,  my version of the Trudie Jacket in a Mission Falls booklet, in red Rowan Handknit Cotton. I don't even think I posted a photo of it here.

Take a good look, because this will be frogged and reassigned as stash this weekend!  Knitted in one piece up to the armholes I hadn't realised how wide it was, until this week, when I pulled it out to take to work.  The Trudie Jacket has lots of ease anyway, but it's wool so the pattern (a ribbed lace) is quite stretchy.  However, in cotton it's not, and my tension is so bad that it's at least 10" wider than I thought it was.  Such a shame, but then we are not haing a brilliant summer and I am not inclined to knit summery cardigans.   It means that Madrigal is my sixth garment and it looks as if I won't fit another one in before the start of the Olympics.  My seventh cardigan will be started mid August, I'll just have to get a move on, and knit in aran weight!

Madrigal has been a right PITA.  Set in sleeves, top down?  Done them before several times.  I've even worked out my own top down set in sleeves for a jumper for Mr C, identical to the one it was replacing, but I wanted to knit it in a different way.   Where to start?

Attempt #1.  Knit as per pattern. Which means ou do increasing short rows but DO NOT WRAP THEM.  Of course this means holes, and I know that, but I followed blindly, knowing that I wouldn't like them.  Ripped.

Attempt #2.  Knit as per pattern, but do w&t and knti the wraps as you come to them.  All ok, until I realised that I (quite often) missed adding additional stitches at the end of each short row, and ended up with one side having something like 8 extra stitches.  Frogged.

Attempt #3.  Get out my new ebook - The knitter's book of handy top down sweaters and use the maths there.  The patttern has you starting off the short row on the 20 sts around the shoulder seam. That is, 10 each side.   I did 20 each side, and silly me didn't even notice until I'd worked a lot of them, and thought that I might run out of stitches to be wrapped and turned,

Attempt #4.  As attempt #3, but with an extra odd stitch picked up at the shoulder seam.  The pattern is worked on 25 sts and it's easier for my brain to think of even numbers each side of the seam.   Success.  I have had a few attempts at reknitting bits of the pattern, when I've dropped the stitches on the lace bit (quite often).

I can now tell you that I am on the sleeve portion, at last!  But still slow going.  I spent over half an hour last night tinking the pattern panel back, silly mistakes.  Not fun in navy yarn. But hey, here's the proof, the Big Navy blog.

Determined.  Absolutely determined.  To finish this before the Olympics starts,  It's war.  

 

 

Olympic training

With the Olympics starting in less than three weeks i though it wsa time to get in a little knitting training ready for the big day.  My training programme involves winding yarn swatching and choosing which projects to enter into which event.  

So far, the only events I have engtered are the Mitten Medley and Hat Dash, with both also qualifyign for the Colorwork Cross Country.  

Training yesterday was fairly straighforward, winding these

into these

This is my sum training for these events.   I fully intended doing some swatch training on this little ball of yarn

Nashu Natural Focus cotton in light GREY.  Grey.  Not cream.  This might be a contender for the Sweater Triathlon event, and it might well be another Hey Teach! in a lighter weight yarn. but we will see how the training goes first!

Opal Tiger socks

My sixth pair for the year.

Start/finish: 3rd - 30th June

Yarn: Opal Rainforest Tiger

Needles: 2.25mm

Plain, top down stitches for Mr C, worked on 60sts.  

 

 

These will now be put away until December, by which time he will have forgotten about them and they'll be a birthday surprise. 

Knitting catch up

I've been meaning to post photos of Madrigal progress, but kept forgetting to take photos!  So this morning I remembered, and had the time before leaving for work.

Navy yarn + gloomy indoors shot = not a very clear photo, though you can see the progress, am ONE ROW from the 2x2 ribbing! The cardigan's a long one, at nearly 27", with body being about 24" long wtih 3" of 2x2 ribbing.  I wanted to finish the lace pattern at the end of a diamond, so have that part by an inch (ish - it's cotton and will stretch out anyway) and will do the ribbing for 1-2", will see how it goes.  This means that the body will be finished this week, and sleeves started.  All good going, as ravellenics starts in just over three weeks. It means I shall finish this before then.  

Here's a photo of the lace pattern (vaguely)

I can't help thinking that it's going to be a real pain to photograph when finished.  Good job I don't knit for the FO photos!   

As I couldn't bear having one thing on the go (well I have crochet but am not in the mood for that). I cast on something else.  I'm sort of embarrassed by this project.  It's from the Wollmeise sock club a few years ago, a white yarn with flashes of blue, red and yellow. Not my cup of tea at all.  

However.  When Mr C saw this skein he loved it.  He's said it more than once.  At eh end of last year it came out again, to be knitted into a baby cardigan, and he again said he liked it and could I please knit him something in it.   Fast forward to Sunday.  He spotted it all wound up and said he liked the colours, not recognising it as 'his' skein.  Inevitable then, that I would cast something on for him. Last year he modelled a pink Herbivore and wanted one. 

So we have the start of another one.  He doesn't mind the pooling or the colour....

I'll try to get a daylight shot when I have knitted more of this.  It's nto exactly flying off the needles!