killing it...

Time, I mean! You know how you get that report on your device saying how much screen time you had in the last week? I hate that! OMG! How could I be wasting that much time! I wish I could get a thing that measures my productive time, like the minute I enter my knitting room, the clock starts ticking and I`m racking up good points! Big sigh! By the way, I never take my device in there! Anyway, that is some of my motivation for machine knitting lately!

I found some more 2 ply cotton – this one is Honiburd in natural, aka off-white, ecru or ivory. Personally, I think it should be called cream as it has a slight yellowish undertone, one of my best colours or non-colour, if you know what I mean.

 I do love that Me-cozy lace stitch http://knitwords.blogspot.com/2021/04/deja-vu.html. Maybe you can tell because I`ve already used it on three button-front-lace-hoodies but I`m trying to branch out – who knows, there may be another new favourite out there!

Using the leftover yellow from Holey Moley, I made another long swatch, trying out several different stitch patterns. I still prefer the all-over patterning as opposed to one that results in vertical or horizontal stripes. I do like the second one down but the third one – it was an 8-st X 16-row built-in, that I added a few extra holes to every alternate diamond - is a new one and I`m feeling adventurous!

trials and tribulations...

Did you miss me? Sorry I haven’t been posting much but it’s summer! And here in Thunder Bay, we are having a real summer. Most years, a hot summer day might be a high of 22 to 24C (70-75F) but this year, it’s off the charts! I enjoy a warm evening where you can have dinner out on the deck with a sweater or poncho handy but, oh my, we’ve had HOT! 

I still get some knitting in and I’ll continue to tell you about that, but I also have had some ‘blogger’ issues which I’ve tried and tried to solve. Last month I got a message saying that ‘feedburner’ or whoever was sending out my blog subscriptions was quitting in July. I'm hoping it's the end of July but we'll find out! I wanted to have an alternative ready before I told you about it and it’s been a struggle to figure it out – long story short, I think I’ve got it sorted!

So, if you’ve been getting an email of my current blog post and you want this to continue, you’ll need to re-subscribe. Just click this link http://knitwords.blogspot.com/  – it will take you to ‘Needles to say…’ and at the top right hand side of the page, you’ll see the new box to enter your email. Do that and click ‘subscribe’ and then say you’re not a robot. That’s it! They will send you an email to confirm and that’s up to you. Hope you do and I promise to get back to telling you stuff about my machine knitting!

whoops...

The ‘antique gold’ wool that my sister chose - had a full cone, 500g plus a very small partial, total of 578g, (less 60g for the two cones) so I figured I’d have plenty of yarn. The charcoal lace wool hoodie
https://knitwords.blogspot.com/2021/04/deja-vu.html that I made for myself back in April weighed 530g, finished, and since Janet’s will be a little smaller and a bit shorter, I thought I was golden. 

Decided on using the Tumbleweed https://knitwords.blogspot.com/2010/05/knitting-machine-lsd.html stitch pattern and hems (published in Knitwords #53) – I think I forgot to tell you that I over-dyed it to match my olive green Day Dress, but oh well – it used to be beige and is now a pretty green! 

So, back to the present! I was carefully measuring and weighing and recording my progress with each piece. Then, all that went out the window as I made the hems to each piece as it was finished. 

Now, instead of taking my own advice and having a Plan B, it was done, right down to the final two side/underarm seams and there is only about 2 metres left – not enough for the seaming! I could take the smart, safe way out and do the seams in the old way but I’ve become obsessed with that Franky seaming method,  https://knitwords.blogspot.com/2021/03/she-likes-it.html    even to experimenting with increase/decrease methods. In the past, I’ve always said that I like to /have two stockinette stitches at the edge, one to be taken in the seam and with the Franky method, I’m hanging only half of the outside edge stitch for the seam so two plain stitches at each side make the seam too wide, especially with a very holey lace pattern like the me-cozy diamonds. 

So, on this one, I have done a simple increase on the edge stitch, picking up the bar/heel stitch of the edge and putting it on a new needle. Anyway, head like a rock! I had intended to show how minimal these seams are, so I still wanted to use the Franky method. Ha! I found a ‘close’ match of ‘cinnamon’ in the same wool and figured I would try it out, if it didn’t work, I could still resort to the old way where the seam is on the inside and the colour isn’t so important. Darn, picking up that edge stitch was so hard, I had to keep going. If Janet notices, I’ll tell her it’s a new design feature, like the coloured piping up the leg of those old jogging pants! :) 

Final weight, 516g…so, back to that hole theory – more holes, less yarn, maybe that’s true…more research required…