Starting off 2013

Starting off 2013 again with the intention to going cold sheep - meaning to buy some things that I need to finish projects, and one or two things in September at Fairfield Yarns near Manchester. I know, last time I said cold sheep I really meant frozen sheep meaning not buying a thing. However I ran out of cotton and bought enough to finish the cardi, so in the end I decided that cold sheep for me meant buying a little bit but using up so much more.

Here is my Ravelry stash tab totals

Anyways this is from my Ravelry Stash page. the 44 used up are the ones I've set aside to make projects.

I want to do some lace projects first. I've been busy swatching and tomorrow I'll try to finish off one project and start winding the 4ply cotton.

the little messy bit at the bottom is what happens when weights come off and you don't notice. Nice even weight if so important for successful lacemaking.
Tuesday is forecasted to be a very, very hot day, so I'll try my best to working out all the patterns for the swatches and finish winding all the cottons. Ready for Wednesday, when if they are right, will be cooler again.

I'm hoping to use 50 x 200g of those Bendigo balls this year.

And before I go off to measure my swatching efforts, this is how I finished 2012:
No of  Projects: 33
No 50g balls deemed used: 328.9
No of metres knit: 33,548m

And I've decided that's not too shabby.

Season's Greetings

To everyone who reads my blog, I hope however you are celebrating this time of year, it's with your family and friends. I would like to thank the lovely Rachel in Darwin, who told all her hubby's friends that they were to come to their house for Christmas. What a wonderful thing to do for all the waifs and strays. And Lauren's in-laws for making my daughter feel at home. And Anthea for the invite.

I have spent the last few days taking every little bit of stash out of my spare/craft room, separated a few things out for 2013, and repacked it all back again. All the cardboard boxes are gone and I have two plastic tubs left over, which are happily holding some of my separated stash for 2013 projects. May I never have to do that again.

Here are 2012's projects, not too bad an effort, a good year I think. A couple I see need a photo - after Christmas, for them!

And that's it from me for 2012. I'll see you on the flip side.

Lorna

About What Things We Put in Blogs

I came across this interesting post about blogging and grabbing photos off the net. So I thought I would pop the link in here. Sounds about right to me, but we all know about the authenticity on the net, but just to be sure, I've gone through mine...

http://www.roniloren.com/blog/2012/7/20/bloggers-beware-you-can-get-sued-for-using-pics-on-your-blog.html

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

Cables, working with dark colours and my new light

 I do love my Bergere de France patterns and this time

Dark blue colour is about right

I'm making one from their 04/05 catalogue #753 .

I'm taking a break from sewing it up and posting about working with cables, working with dark colours and my new light.

The design has the first 18 in a 3:3 rib and the decreases are done 21 sts from the edge, flowing into cables up a raglan bodice.

Just the thing for my personal cableathon.

Cables on the machine

Hard to see but there they are

Even though the cables are over stretched on the machine, they resolve themselves when off the machine.

I know, I know, six impossible things before breakfast, lots of moving stitches for the raglan decreases, putting the KrisKrafter 20 needle decker/garter bar to good use, and a 7 sts cable.


For the back I took the cables off the machine and hand knitted them, however between doing the back, sleeves I went to a Susan Guagluimi Seminar on... fiddling around with the machine and tools.. right up my alley. However before I get to that story, I'll show you the light the electrician was using when installing LED lights in the building.

The LED light

It's a caving light used by those outdoorsy types, and electricians and now machine knitters.

There is a down side - I get to wear it on my head... oh joy! Just as well it's something I can wear on my head when no one is around. And NO, there will not be a photo of smiling me wearing it, sooo sorry!

Anyways, here it is, a nice little LED light, the switch is on the top and it clicks up and down so my head stays still and the light moves.

How good the light is on the stitches

Field of light when it's on my head

So now with the LED light on my head, and Susan G's bridging cables, I thought I'd try it out on the fronts.


Did I mention that this is also called my Twice Knit Jumper? Yes, I've been knitting this for a month.. twice or more on most sections... but back to it.

OK, so what I did was - knit the first bridge, then set the carriage to hold/hold/part/part - so the only thing that would ever knit was needles in the UWP - I found this easier.

I put all the needles I needed to put on the other end in hold - not all of them, no, then about halfway-ish, all on hold, yes a small section on the other side of the bed had the exact number of needles in hold on the far end, and then some in working position, then hold up to the bridge.

Then knit the first couple of stitches, back up (nothing knits, everything is in hold or WP at this point.)
adjust the stitch dial plus 2 sizes in my case, put the four needles I need to do the cable cross nice and big, backup

Return to original stitch size, take off hold on the left side, and slowly knit across the next stitches, as soon I was past the lower needles already knitted, take of the left hand part, as soon as I was past the needles on hold, I slipped it back into hold,

When all the needles up to the last ones in hold are knitted, all the setting go back to hold/hold/part/part back up, plus 2 sizes up, 4 needles in UWP, knit them, back up, return to main st size, take off hold and knit the last few - now all the stitches have been knit, return all settings to knit, do the crosses, and this time I hand knit them off - plastic machines are more fragile than their metal cousins, however, it all knit off remarkably well and I learnt a lot about cables, giving my stitches some more yarn to do the crosses and I got quicker as I went along and I think I got almost to the end before I had to undo the last couple of rows.

Not quite what Susan said to do, but it worked for me! There's lots of things in her second book for me to try out over the next couple of projects, for my cableathon.

And here are the cables:

 And my next cable pattern is a Vague aka Vogue pattern... with more bridging happening... wish me luck!

Apres Surf Hoodie

We are having a Machine-Knit-A-Long (MKAL) on Ravelry for this one. 

I made one of these in Cleckheaton 4ply Natural Cotton last year, with one of the punchcards that came with my machine.

This year I decided to use a punchcard that more closely resembled the original (Apres Surf Hoodie) in some of the Bendigo Classic 5ply I bought last year at the Craft and Quilt show in Sydney.



The swatch turned out rather well on my SK280 using LC2 T8:

The 5ply went through quite well, and I did have to take care to keep it evenly weighted so I it did all the transfers without dropping them. I dropped about 6 stitches over the whole garment. A lot less by the time I finished (none on the hood for instance).

Changes I made:

I don't like the hem, it rolls up and annoys me, so I made a hung hem. On the lace carriage. EON T -2MT, 1row with ravel cord. hang the long weights with hooks on the ends - bring all needles into working position, knit 19 rows MT,  1R +1MT, 20R MT then I slipped the ravel cord stitches onto a thin circ needle and hung the hem. I know some clever people can just hang from the ravel cord, but not me!

Here is the hood getting itself knitted, I've hooked the sleeves onto the gate pegs to show them.

In keeping with my lengthening requirements, I've used Helga's tutorial to adjust the bodice and sleeve cap - but this will be my stock standard method for now on.

I decided not to so the last couple of rows on the hoodie. I just added a couple extra rows. I won't be wearing the hoodie in public. The lace carriage hold position was OK for the shoulders, so it wasn't for "it's too hard" much more "I'll never wear it".

I had to put my machine away (bathroom reno was happening) so I did the i-cord bind off on the neckband by hand on 3.25mms. I'd do it by machine otherwise.

Things I'd do differently.


Now I understand how the lace cards work - having punched a whole lot on new ones to choose from, I'd make sure I centred the actual pattern a little better. I could easily have moved it around to the centre o | o bit of the pattern was in the middle. If I use this one again I could either offset it so it does or punch another one. I bit obvious, but now I know!

Also I deliberately made this one an "oversize" size, so I can wear it over things around the house. It is nice and long and is very warm.  I will definitely make another something, something, just as soon as I clear the decks with the 8ply projects I have lined up first.

Ravelry - now has Machine Instruction tag on patterns

After a brief discussion amongst ourselves in the Machine Knitting group on Ravelry, Casey has a better understanding of machine knitting written patterns and has made a new tag (in attributes) to say "has machine instructions"

Here is the link to do a search for machine patterns

Photo courtesy of Casey's screen shot:

If you are a designer and not on the list, please add it in the Attributes, Pattern Instructions.

If you know of a pattern not coming up on the pattern search, can you please let dancingbarefoot know in this thread.