mileage thoughts...

There was a lot of driving/riding…It’s like 1500 miles, one way to Pigeon Forge and although manfriend did the driving, I feel like I did but worse, if you know what I mean. That’s a lot of thinking time! So many things and ideas, like why didn’t I ever try putting a longstitch self-facing for the sloped edge of a pouch pocket? Will the carriage from the SK840 work on the SK580 needle bed? I need pockets on that Uptown long duster. Will the patch pocket technique work for lace? Will the dye-lot show? Oh wait, it was never dye-lot-ed…will that make a difference? The age of the yarn, the number of times the original had been laundered? Where it’s been pressed/ironed? Why do some drivers think they own the left lane? Oh gosh, I never told them about angling the latch tool to get a larger stitch for that chained edge…should I sew up the vent at the bottom of the sleeves on the Juxtapose Hoodie?
Big thanks to the Tennessee Valley Machine Knitters! The venue was great; attendance was superb (they came from all over); lots of great questions and feed back! Becky, the AV lady was fabulous; shout out to Eloise, my timekeeper, and Sonia for taking care of my sales; to Margy and the rest of the TVMK organizers, thanks to all! The food and the weather, pretty awesome but it’s great to be home!

couldn't help it...

Wanted so badly to wear this!

Not to worry, I made another so I could demo the zipper for the Tennessee Valley Machine Knitters!

How to choose what colours? By the proper zipper? I have quite a stockpile...Works for me!
My new strategy for yarn consumption for 2019 is one for me, one for another person. I can’t possibly make everything for me and I do have a raft of sisters, nieces and girlfriends! That way I can also use the colours I’m not really crazy about and give it away!
Road trip – talk to you in a couple of weeks!

juxtapose hoodie...

Just finishing up the hood. I changed it up a little from the Manfriend Hoodie pattern. Because I decided the hood would be nicer in the 4-row, narrow stripe sequence, I thought the front edge would look neat with a narrow stockinette band around the face instead of the folded-inside hem which forms the casing for the drawstring.
The stockinette band would enclose the edge where the second colour is carried up the stripe and made a little smaller to naturally draw in the hood, so no drawstring is required, like Omega  (from Serial Stuff #4) http://www.knitwords.com/bookstore.html
 https://knitwords.blogspot.com/2017/01/multitasking.html
is done and like you’d do for a child since drawstrings around the neck are now frowned upon. Also grafted the shortrowed top of the hood and managed to get it looking just like the 4-row repeat!
Attached the hood according to my original instructions.

ready for the wash

The ends are all sewn in and it’s ready for the wash, just one final thing.

done except for sewing zipper
with the sewing machine

The centre front edges have had no finishing because that’s where the zipper goes (it all needs to be laundered to get the shrinkage out of the way before that) and the pocket isn’t joined at that side.I do a running basting stitch through the two edges to ‘attach‘ the pocket – I find this makes it a bit easier to deal with after the wash/dry process when you have to hang that edge.

This is so cute! And I’m so proud of it! Wish you could see it! Oh, yeah, you could! Come to Pigeon Forge! I’ll have it there, showing you how to sew in the zipper!!

no yarn marks...

hang 2nd side, matching stripes

One of the bonuses of knitting matching stripes!
 You know I do everything I can on the machine – it makes a much better job than trying to mattress stitch seams by hand. Notice, the ends are mostly sewn before this. To do the underarm/side seam, it’s too long to hang the whole thing at one time. Hang the side from hem to underarm seam. Pick up the whole outside edge stitch, hanging evenly without stretching. Hang second side, matching stripes and filling in between.

close latches, knit tight row

 Now, basically I want a really tight row to make the seam and close it up snug, so the second colour isn’t peeking through the seam at any point. Carriage at left – going to knit a tight row (T0 – told you, tight!).

chain off loose row

The trick here is to bring the needles out and close the latches before knitting across. With the latches closed, they won’t catch into the closed/selvedge edge and cause a jam. But, first, measure out about 3 yards of the yarn and leaving that tail at the left, knit tightly to the right. Manually knit a loose row over this (don’t cut the yarn) and chain off, right to left to last stitch.



hang 2nd section without cutting yarn

Holding the last stitch on the latch tool, move it to the right end of the needle bed, along with main yarn. Now hang the sleeve underarm seam from right to left, matching stripes. Knit the tight row from right to left with the tail you reserved at the beginning, remembering to close the latches. Now, manually knit the loose row, again from right to left with the threaded-up yarn. Chain off and look at that beautiful seam!


note to self...

armhole wrong side facing

Stripes may not look so great with the outside seaming!
Left Front is done and with this outside seaming, you can just leave the shaped shoulder right there and take the corresponding back shoulder and, putting wrong sides together, hang on top, pull the Back stitches through, knit a semi-loose row and chain it off – don’t go real loose here because you want that row to stabilize the shoulder.

outside seam - uggghh!

redone, much better!

Then, without thinking it through, I hung the armhole, wrong side facing, going for that outside seam again. This looks kind of bunchy here but remember this is cotton that shrinks quite a bit, and I’m allowing for that, based on my swatch numbers. Hung the open stitches of the sleeve cap and completed that seam. Yikes! not sure I like this with the mixed tan and navy edges. Experience tells me to bite the bullet and take it out. Sometimes I might try to convince myself it will look better after the wash and yes, a lot of things do, but this one won’t change – it’s like the edge of that first pocket!
Good thing I know how to rehang open stitches!


slopes and hacks...

Let’s talk about the pockets. They are made first, and the top of the pocket is attached to the Front as you’re knitting it, so this is a committed deal. You can’t just take them off like a patch pocket and readjust. Made one, following the stripe sequence for the Back, same as I’ll use on the Fronts, using the shortrowed decrease hack https://knitwords.blogspot.com/2018/02/decreasing-hack.html
(which I LOVE!) for the slope of the pocket and did the cast-off in tan because it made the most sense – there was tan at the bottom and top of the slope, so I naturally had the tan in work at the point of the cast off. I wasn’t crazy about the tan going across the navy because I had in my mind that navy should be the main colour but then navy would be interrupting the tan…yada, yada, yada. It’s probably time to go back to the original 3-stitch outlined decrease.
Look at me, making all these swatches ;)!!

alternatives...

Girlfriend Hoodie

Forgot to tell you something else – I think I mentioned hoodie back there but that may change too! Actually last year I made that ‘noodie’ https://knitwords.blogspot.com/2018/05/what-do-you-call-hoodless-hoodie.html – it started to be like my Girlfriend Hoodie
https://knitwords.blogspot.com/2015/06/manfriend-hoodie-pattern.html


Tumbleweed
 

but I ran out of yarn – anyway, I wore that quite a bit, especially at Christmas time and it was great for looking good but you/I could still work in the kitchen – no bottom sleeve/snug cuff that can’t be easily pulled up, to get in the way! I liked the narrow bands for the hem of the body and it’s just a trifle longer that the GFH, so I’m aiming for that shape/body-wise here but wanted a long sleeve that I could roll up out of the way if I had to get my hands dirty, if you know what I mean! Am going with the sleeve from Tumbleweed (Knitwords #53) a little fitted, a little longer, with a slit at the bottom so it opens up to roll back easily to a 3/4 look, but the sleeve cap is done the same way as the GFH. Hope I didn’t lose you on all those little changes!

23 and me...

shortrowing underarm

Not really, it just worked out that way! For the body, I wanted about 5 cm/ 4-inch stripes with navy at the bottom and at the top of the garment. The overall length is 56 cm/ 240 rows, give or take one or two. The only thing to worry about matching is the side seam between back and front, easy enough if you start the same on each piece and make the stripes equal. I have this thing in my head that at the shoulder, to have the 5 cm stripe of navy with the shoulder seam half way, so ending each piece with half a stripe of navy. I juggled around the numbers and think I can achieve that with 23 row stripes, starting with navy a little less, like 4 rows less because I will add the border trim in navy to make up the difference. Did I say I wasn’t using the yarn changer for this?

manually knit loose row in current colour

chained off loose row, nice curve!

No reason to, mostly because of the odd number of rows in the stripe, and, to run the second colour up the side of the stripe to avoid having to darn in a whole bunch of extra ends wherever possible without compromising the edge where it might show.
To keep on track for the 23 row stripes, I made a little cheat list of the row numbers to change colours. At the underarm, still wanted to use shortrowing for the decreases – it makes a much neater curve to seam to, so what I did was knit so far in the navy. (oh yeah, I didn’t carry the tan up and into the curve – too much trouble and what’s two more ends at that point?) Finished the navy stripe and carrying it up the edge, completed the underarm decreases, still shortrowing and then cast off the whole bunch of held stitches with tan and continued!

I’m liking this! Made the Back so I could look at the wide stripes and put the narrow stripe of the sleeve up to it to decide what to use for the front pouch pockets – I didn’t really think I’d want them narrow, but I was open to the possibility. Held it all up in front of the mirror and confirmed! did not want to alter the pocket stripes! :)