What I've Been Doing Over at the Lace Factory

I've been busy making lace over the last couple of months with my SK280+LC2 lace carriage. Lauren suggest I get all the projects done then put the machine away and sew them up - freeing up the clutter in the loungeroom.

My over abundance of Bendigo 4ply Cotton is my focus yarn out of my stash for these projects. I still have too much, but I've made five projects from 12 x 200G at the lace factory, which is a start

So I thought I'd share my experimental successes and failures

I tried out six different ideas.

First was Wild Lavender with a lovely circle lace pattern from the Harmony book. I punched the cards all by myself too!

Lauren's next good idea was - if you make one and you like it, make another - so right on cue - Damask Rose got itself made from a slightly different circular pattern.

Wild Lavender

 

Damask Rose

 Then I tried out the motif bits and pieces to put part of a card on a stripe and relatched the gutter on the next project - Maritime Trellis

Maritime Trellis motif

Progress: not making any

Well that was the first three projects off the machine - then came the next three.

The White Diamonds did not go well, there were a few little piles of white Snow at the back of the machine while I worked out how to stop it dropping stitches on my next project - White Diamonds throw over cardi. But eventually with enough weight, evenly distributed across the needles - Success!

White Diamonds Throwover Cardi

Then there was the upside down punchcard to figure out where and how to copy something I'd seen on someone over at the shops.

first try was with the garter bar - and I didn't quite like it...

Knock off Version 1

Knock off Version 2

 

And here I am sewing it up (I'll get a better photo tomorrow)  It's a lovely colour and looking good.


Which bring me to the sixth project - loved the lace card, thought it was gorgeous, but a little bit too much over the whole garment.

Ah I forgot to say I decided to use my cone of Bramwells Savanah "knits as 4ply" cotton. a little bit thin in my opinion, however... I ran into problems which I had no luck in solving.

I had a few breaks on the large piece but it was an absolute nightmare using motif in the centre of the front. I'd done the back... sigh, but I think there was.. six breaks in the first 100 rows and I decided to give up and do it plain. It is my official fail.

I think five success where I've learnt so much, is not too bad.

So... that's the fun I've been having at the "Lace Factory" over the last couple of months.

Now I have to sew up the Knock off, White Diamonds and the plain black tee. (and Thanks Lauren, my lounge room is clear while I do it).


And I've finished sewing up the last two projects so I'm going to add them here:

Knock Off Lacey tee

Front of White Diamonds

Back of White Diamonds

My Cable-athon Continues

I've decided to do some of the cable projects I've had ready to go for this year's stash knit down. I'm working on my 2012 stash bag and am trying to knit 50 x 200g of Bendi. I will go over the 40, which is an excellent improvement on the 4.5 x 200g that I managed in 2011.

My next cable cardi, is one from Vague - I know they call themselves "Vogue" but errors abound in so many of their vague patterns, this is normal. This one is from Fall 2008, the Old Penny Cardi or as they have renamed it - #11 Forestry.  And I'm writing about how I'm doing this on the machine. I'm putting a 30st panel into the centre back, as quite a few people have.

The cable pattern is an old one, done over 5 stitches, 1 and 5 are swapped, one goes behind, one in front, and the three in the middle remain in the same place. We've just had Susan Guigliumi visiting, and I'm bringing her bridging ideas into the mix.

I'm using the hold and part levers to put in some extra slack so I can do the four cables. On the row before I'm due to cross the cables,  I pinch the RS levers into the centre - hold and part. and hold on

bring all the pattern needles to hold and knit +1 or +2 MT

the left, then the 30 needles covering the centre panel are pulled out to hold.

Knit up to the held needles, disengage the row counter, then back up, and put the left side lever into part, take off the hold, and +1MT on the stitch dial, in this case, up to T5 then knit the 30 centre needles, back up, bring all the remaining needles all the way out to hold, reduce the stitch dial to MT (T4) and knit them. Re-engage the row counter.

Bring needles to be crossed out all other to UWP so none can unravel during cabling

bring the middle 3 to UWP, one stitch goes behind, one goes in front

Here the stitch going in front is being collected with the latch tool

Here, the stitch at the back is hanging on its correct needle and the front stitch is being teased into position by the latch tool

the infront stitch is on the needle and the back stitch is going onto it's new needle

Here they are done

and this is really how I collect the front stitch, but it's not much of a photos. Park the stitch going back onto it's prong, remove the front stitch and put it onto the latch tool and hold it, then move the back stitch into the new position, then pop the front on on it's new needle.

There is a bit of pulling

but putting them all back into UWP helps the machine knit them off

And there they are knitted. All to do now is latch back the two purl stitches

Fibonacci Righe 13/1782D Vest

Back

Righe = Italian for stripes.That one's easy.

Fibonacci = a sequence of numbers, found in nature and first discovered by Signor Fibonacci, an Italian mathematician by adding 0 +1 = (1) then adding the sum (1) to the previous sum +1 (=2)  then 2+1 = (3), then (3) + 2 = (5) and so on. sequence = 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55... and so on for this vest I start and stop with 55, alternating the one colour in ascending and the other colour descending order.
This is what I worked out for my vest - the underlined are grey, alternating with the red.

I need to press it before I wear it, so when it's done I'll retake their photos and put in a nicely press front and back.

55

2

34

3

21

5

13

8

8

13

5

21

3

34

2

55

I based the pattern, on one from Passap Model book 13/1782D. Except I made it longer. And wider. And with thicker wool. And I did a drop every 3rd needle down and relatch up. I'm speedy enough now at latching up, it's quicker than knitting. Official.

Un pressed front

Then because I wanted to add width, to the sides, and I wanted this to be thigh length, I decided to go the whole 1970s and put 2.5cm (8 rows) of short rows into the start of the back after the ribbing. I chose the middle half - quarter each side, then every 8 stitches I think it was, then commenced my 55 rows,


Seeing as I had the excel open, I decided to do a row count - 272, and put a row by row where I had to change colour, increase and decrease. then take away the rows I didn't want, paste it into publisher, make it big font, save as a .pdf and sent it to the kindle. Brilliant. Love it.
When I work out how to do the sequence, I get out the excel spread sheet, but first I MUST know how many rows I need from the centre back from hem to neck. Then I can work out where to put the stripes. On this one, I had too many rows so I started on 2, not 1, 1 like I have in the past.

Fibonacci Raglan Cardigan

On this cardigan, I was able to add 17 rows over all by putting in a black row between the rows and I started the sequence on 34/1, 1, 2, 3, 5 etc and reversed. It just worked out best for the total length I needed.

Fibonacci Stripes to the waist only

On this vest, I didn't buy enough yarn in the first place and they don't make it anymore, so I put the complimentary extra I need in stripes to the waist, and this also worked out best to have the grey/green separated by the main yarn on each side, but this time I decided to get the garter bar out and wield the stitches around with it. I thought it worked well.

Pretty Ribbons: aka Putting Stuff in Shows

In January, yet again Eleanor stood in front of us begging and pleading for us to enter some of the shows around Sydney. So this year I took pity on her pleading self and asked if she would like one of the Kate machine knit shawls I've made - yes she would, so I gave her the shawl and some money to spend on entries. The idea is to promote machine knitting, a cabinet filler, and Wildhoney's (Natalia from Russia) Kate Machine Knit shawl is lovely, it's what all the girls in the family got for Christmas.

Anyways, Eleanor entered it in, along with her stuff - some shows it did what I though - made a nice display and in two of them I got pretty ribbons, a FIRST in the Castle Hill Show and a SECOND (and $3.00 - yes that's correct three dollars) from Hawkesbury Show, now isn't that nice?

It's next excursion is to the Sydney Craft and Quilt Show Macknit display- however I'm not going to hold my breath for pretty ribbons in that one - we get a lot of entries and the general public votes for their favourite item. A nice filler it will be too, I'm pretty sure they won't let me put the pretty ribbons on it! No.

Lost and Found Hand Knits for 2012

The main reason I started on my Aidez cardi was I couldn't find the rest of my Midnight Tweed for my Pewter Coat. In the great clean up I found it and other started projects. My list of found hand knit WIPs are:

1. Pewter Coat in Bendi Midnight Tweed
2. Capri cardi in Bendi back room treasure
3. Vest in that really nice handspun corridale I got at the Bendi show
4. my Shadow Tweed jacket. I had made it up to the armholes, but read it stretches way out of shape, even though it's hand washed, seems to be worse on the larger size, so I've undone it to knit the smaller size - I think the pattern was Emerald. I don't think it will knit on the midgauge, pretty sure it will have to be a hand knit.
5. really old jumper I bought the wool for - must be around 2003/4ish, that Lauren bought as well, made her jumper and wore it to death and has since thrown it out. And mine got lost in the mess. When I get to it again, I'll see if I can machine it.

My grand plan is to get them all knitted or frogged this year. I don't mind having a couple of hand knits on the go at once, the Midnight tweed has to be done in good light for instance, but I don't want to lose track of where I put the wool again and not have too many on the go at once. The only other thing I need to hand knit are the two packets of Zoomy cotton blend into vests.
Well that's my plans for 2012. Get the hand knits down to one or two, get my machines working away at the stash and enjoy making things again now my spare room is sorted. It was worth packing everything away and organising it.
Now onto stash reduction works.

853 Bergere de France Green Jumper

Call me crazy, but I do love Bergere de France free patterns. OK OK they are in French, BUT they are also in Knitting. This link is for the Femme in us all, there is also Homme, Enfant, and kids. Some have a lovely little knitting machine symbol, which I have even more love for, but not this one.

Here is a photo of my latest love:

The principles are there.. cast on xx sts, do some sort of rib; knit xxx rows to the armhole, cast off xx sts, for xx rows, then usually a few more xx sts for a few more xx rows, then straight for xx cm to the shoulders, where we ignore the instructions and do a short row shaping for xx sts over xx rows anyway. On the front, fiddle with the neck shaping as well. Sleeves are always the same too. All this and an excellent schematic diagram.

Now there's me. I look at the schematic, whereby I decide where I need to increase the length to fit my big self - which really means it doesn't matter what language it's written in, out comes the pencil and alterations begin, saves heaps of time translating!

I'm hand knitting this one on 4.5mm needles using Cleakheaton Country 12ply, in a green which is pretty close to the green on the Harmony Knitpicks, which I stuck next to the top of the photo (not quite as yellow as it's showing on my monitor). After this lovely beginning (edging) it is plain st st to just below the shoulders and finishes with a 19cm open rib and matching cowl neck. I decided to knit both front and back edges while the translation was still fresh in my mind. I've had a couple of opportunities to sit, wait and knit this week - my first ever visit to MKers of NSW guild on Thursday, Saturday's SnB and waiting to pick up Peter from Burwood, I'm already up to the armholes on one piece and nearly there on the other. Today I'll do both sleeves patterned edges and leave them on knitpicks cables (aren't they they best things ever invented?).

The only tricky bit of translation I found was on the centre on the square (hopefully) it is:

knit 5 tog without taking them off the left needle (I used a crochet hook),

RN: one long stitch which is through those
LN: 5 sts,

next yo, knit 2 tog and take off left needle:

RN: one long st; one yo; one st
LN: 3 sts

next yo, knit 3 tog take remaining 3 off left needle:

RN: one long st; one yo; one st; one yo; one st
LN: no sts left from this set.

The rest of the instructions for the edging is easy enough to follow, even if it isn't exactly what the French is, it is how I wanted the fabric to look.

The top "mesh" pattern uses dropped stitches to achieve a nice open look.
I'm reasonably sure that the translation was to drop the stitch when casting off, however, I dropped them every couple of rounds as I wanted to put a bit of shaping into the front panel, so I did a 3 pattern sets of 2/1 next to the shoulder 3 rounds short of when I was supposed to stop, stopping short by one set each round to the end, to make it more comfortable to wear. Yes that meant a bit of a bigger space, but it will be covered by the cowl.

Now I've finished my Shalom vest, I will be taking this anywhere I'm sitting and chatting and/or waiting for kids etc. Eventually, I'll finish it.

SSS Britannia

Swirly Shawly Sleevy Britannia is finished. It is my thinner version of Drops Pinwheel Cardigan. One of the comments against this style of garment was that a circle doesn't make a cardigan. I think that is probably correct, so I decided to make a shawl and put sleeves in it to keep it from falling off. That decided, I went to the stash and chose 4 x 200g Bendi Mystique Britannia. Once started, I continued on the largest chart to 20 stitches between the pattern, measured, and kept going to 26 stitches, plus pattern. Then put in the sleeve division (on waste yarn); PM/50/80/50/PM (marker/ sleeve/ shoulder/ sleeve/ marker) and when I do another one, I'd add 10 to the shoulder 50/90/50. The PM designates underside of sleeve.

I decided to knit up as much of the wool as possible, so I completed both sleeve and put the remainder into the shawl section: one extra repeat of the 12 row pattern (as shown in the middle size) and repeated 12 rows ribbing once so I have 6 repeats, not 3, casting off on the final pattern row. (720 stitches, measures 110 cm in diameter.)

Sleeve: pick up 50 + 6, dec 2 sts every 6 rows to 78, continue in 3:3 rib/berry stitch, but dec 2 sts every 4th pattern row to 66 sts, then 13 repeats of 4 row pattern in total, casting off instead of doing the final pattern row.

I'm thrilled with my shawl (with sleeves). I'm do feel every little cool breeze and will get a lot of wear with it staying put. (Even if I treat it like track pants - never to be worn out of the front door!!)