Sunday, August 12, 2012

Hand Tooling Lace Socks on My Passap

Passaped Spring Forward Socks


I have wanted to make Spring Forward socks for the longest time. And I decided that I want to make them on the Passap machine as an experiment to see how difficult is really is.
 
Spring Forward lace sock one done
 
Tools of the trade, row counts on kindle
I put the row count and lace pattern in excel, then pasted it into Publisher, made it a whole page, saved it as a .pdf and sent it to my Kindle.

I also needed the yellow prongs and my favourite, most used tool, red hooky.









At a colour join. Put it through the feeder and hold it on the join,
then cast on, both socks will be the same
To get your socks to match, choose the colour match and put it on top of the eyelet and start your cast on.












I chose one of my new eyelets with the metal tip

I made sure I was using one of my new eyelets with the metal tip, I have two of them. I didn't want another broken tip.











I used pushers to identify the transfers

I used the pushers to mark the correct pattern.

I put the two parts of the chart - where the ssk/2tog fall - both those pushers are put back in the rails, so all I had to do was nudge up the two pushers next to them, which made it easy to see where the two needles were. I don't have a better way to describe it, but it was very quick and easy.

I also put the pusher back into the rails that corresponded to the single stitch between the two yos. So I was able to check that I had been following the chart correctly.




there is no way to check


There is no way to check how the pattern is forming on a Passap, whether I had it correct, so after I did one complete pattern, I took it off on deckers to check it.

If I dropped a stitch and couldn't pick it up straight away, it was quicker to take it off, fix it and put it back. This was mainly on the first half of the first sock. I took more care from then on.









Take off on deckers to check the pattern















Progressing well


And here it is under the machine - I thought it was an interesting picture! sorry!

And they are finished:


 
And here they are, all finished

All done!


My old eyelets are on the left. The plastic around the tip breaks
For Raymonde - the old eyelets - the tip breaks off through age. On my lace socks, I didn't want to pick up half a lace sock off the machine - it was tricky enough doing it without equipment failure!










Friday, August 3, 2012

Ravellenics 2012 aka The Knitting Olympics

Ravellenics 2012 are the renamed Ravelympics. Whatever they are called, it's the knitting Olympics while the real ones are on the tele. And... there are more people knitting in the Ravellenics than there are competing in the London Olympics.

plain socks are done:

Nice and easy Passap socks.
Wildhoney's shawl for me is done, with a wonderful shot of the equestrian event through it. A lovely surprise when I uploaded it, it didn't show on the preview! I think this is Zara, if not it the person next after her.
My very own Kate Shawl
the Beaded scarf:

Baby jacket



Spring Forward Passap socks


Then Still working on:
I'll do the knit weave next week. But I'm done.




















wrong spelling - waiting on new one
Jane made us one with the right spelling


A bit more on beads

I chose uneven subtle beads
I'm working on a beaded scarf, a version of prethreaded beads, strung between stitches, rather than what I've done previously, which is attaching to the stitch - \o/ - it's legs as it were, while knitting the stitches, with a crochet hook - my preferred method.

However back to the Ravellenic (prev Ravelympics) knitting olympics which I do like to find something I've always wanted to try.

So. I started out on the machine, but quickly decided, after a couple of rows, to do this on 4.00 needles and try my hand at doing a two stitch garter strip up both sides.

Time for some pictures:
curling rather nicely on the edge


Light isn't the best but here they all are. in the background, on the left, is the other end, ready to go
I measured out both ends of the yarn so I didn't have to do a join in the middle. Plus a bit and when I came to the big knot, I stopped knitting, took it off and finish it off on 4.00mm.

So. having decided to give that technique a miss, I decided to see the best way to to the two stitch garter edge. And what I liked the best was:
Set the carriage to hold on the left.
bring out the two last needles both sides,
with the latch tool, take off the first stitch and manually form a stitch and put it back, same with the second.
knit one row - last two stitches didn't nit
take off the second last with the latch tool, knit a new stitch and put it back.
then the same on the last stitch
knit one row.
It's not too slow going, although it was for the first couple of rows till I worked out that that was the best way for me to do it.

It will need a press, to assist with the sides, then it will be ready to use - it's been a cold winter..