better late than never...

I weighed those two part cones to be sure and though the turquoise one came in at 216g, I know it’ll be tight, I’m going in with it because I really feel that Janet will appreciate the colour.
For the hem, I picked #21 from the green book (50 Ways to Love Your Knitter). I was thinking, this is going to be a cakewalk! I’m making it same as the gold one with a different hem treatment, so I don’t even really need to recalculate anything. That was my first mistake. My schematic tells me I need 86 sts on each side of 0 to start. Pause a minute and figure this out – the hem I’ve chosen is an 8-stitch repeat. Why? I mean why would I do that? The green book was written by yours truly 25 years ago. Do you think I can remember why I did something 25 years ago? I’m lucky right now to know what day it is! Anyway, do I need to apologize now? I will, just to be on the safe side. People, I’m sorry! Not for the 8-stitch thing, that’s ok, but there are some key elements missing from the destructions in this one!
First of all, in an attempt to redeem myself, check this out: https://knitwords.blogspot.com/2011/07/whats-in-number.html
It’s a post about the needle number strip and has some good info in it!

Here’s what #21 should say:

21.  EWRAP, LACE EDGE, HAND TRANSFERRED. 8 stitch repeat, side away is right side.
1.     Cast-on waste yarn, ravel cord. RC000. CAR. Measure out MC 3X width of ns in work,
plus 8-10 inches. Double it over on itself and then one more time to have 3 strands together.
This will make a long-enough triple strand to wrap all ns.
2.     Using MC triple strand, ewrap from left to right.
3.     Single strand, MT+1, knit 2 rows.
4.     #1 right is the centre of the 8-st repeat. Beginning with #2 right, transfer this stitch to #1 right, repeat across row to have 2 sts on every other needle.  
Leave empty ns in work. Knit 2 rows.  RC004
5.     Using 3-prong tool, transfer as in chart, starting with#1 right as the centre with 3 stitches together. Knit 2 rows. RC006
6.     Transfer as in chart, using 2-prong tool. Knit 2 rows. RC008
7.     1-prong tool transfer as in chart. K2R. RC010                                                
8.     Make a tuck stitch border as follows: set to hold. Select #1 left and then bring EON to HP.
9.     Knit 2 rows.  RC012.
10.   Cancel hold. Carefully bring all ns out, making sure not to disturb the held sts. Knit 1 row. RC013. Set to MT. Continue in desired stitch. Use WY to pin scallops and steam.  Remove WY after steaming.

still cheating...

 Yeah, I’ve been switching it up. Expanding my horizons. When was the last time I did a chained cast-on? Who knows? Who cares? Working from the green book, I’ve chosen No 15, Hand Transferred Lace Edge with chained cast-on. You know I don’t read all my own instructions, who has time for that when they think they know what they are doing? I measure out three times the width of the needles and start chaining loosely – that’s 145 needles. Get halfway across and realize I’m going to run out of yarn. Calmly unravel it. Measure out four times, chain again and run out on the 10th needle from the right side. Heavy sigh. What the hay, I’ll see if I can fudge this. Draw down a new loop, finish the chain, loop the too-short tail over the next needle and knit the row. Looks like it could work. By the way, using Yeoman’s Cannelé, a beautiful mercerised cabled cotton – no splitting stitches here – in a pretty spring yellow, colour name is ‘poussin’ – how’s that for funny!
I‘ve been meaning to tell you about my latest Netflix binge – it’s called Wanted, a series from Australia - Spoiler alert! I was thinking it was a Thelma/Louise thing, but there are three seasons and they might do another. I’m loving it – the second season takes place around Queenstown, New Zealand – I spent almost a week there in 2017 http://travelwithmysis.blogspot.com/2017/03/queenstown.html
at the end of our hike and it is so spectacular. Watching the show, I kept saying, oh, I was there! During the Australia parts, I kept saying, I never got there! Anyway, Chelsea, one of the lead characters, her secret name is Brigitte Poussin! With a French accent! Is that synchronicity? or whatever you call it. Sorry, I digress.
Back to the knitting, this cone of Cannelé is really old, it’s from back when the put-up was 250g on the large cone. They changed it to a 245g cone and put it on a short, squat cone sometime in the last decade, I think. It’s virtually mandatory to have 3 full cones of one dye lot for a garment with sleeves. I only have one full cone of this colour, probably why I still have it - it actually still had the blister wrap packaging on it, and I wouldn’t really be attempting a top for me – the anxiety of running out would do me in! This one is for Lisi, another cute, petite, wee thing so am doing finished 34 bust, fingers crossed. After the hem is done, I think, hum mm, not really sure I can hide that but if it’s in the back maybe she’ll never notice…and if I make the back first, I can check that I will have enough yarn to finish before putting all the work into the front and wasting it because I didn’t have enough to finish…

wine or whine (?) time...

I feel like I hardly got any sleep the other night, dreaming about my next tank top. In the dream I was starting and changing my mind, restarting, rethinking, redesigning and oh my gosh, I felt like it was the most important job in the world and there could be no errors. This is not like me but something must have been bothering me when I went to bed. Still haven’t figured it out but I did my next shell. Sister Janet, even if she’s not exactly in the youngster category, was next on my list. Checking in on her in Toronto the other day by phone, I casually asked what colour she might like in case I got around to it. She shocked the heck out of me, asking for bright yellow or gold. She’s more of the jewel tones but I have gold Panama that should  work up nicely.
My plan was to change up the hems a bit – after all I do have a few in my back pocket to choose from! :) Going with the Scalloped Lace with auto picot hem on page 99, the Handbook for Manual Machine Knitters https://knitwords.blogspot.com/2016/09/omg-its-ready.html
and the Leaf pattern from page 57, same book.
Got the hem done although this yarn is not the best-case scenario for hand transfers. Panama is a blend of cotton and acrylic and it has a tendency to split and snag on the hooks as you’re lifting multiple groups up. For this one, I’m using the adjustable 7-prong tool, moving five stitches at a time and then four on the next one. Turns out not exactly a lot of fun or relaxing! I’ll admit, some bad words were repeated multiple times.
I’m not sure I’ve told you this before, but I have a short memory for bad things. Always considered this a plus. By the time I knit 100 rows of stockinette, I’d forgotten the grief and continued into the ‘leaf’ pattern in an increasing diamond motif. Felt so confident in planning it out. The book says it’s a 16-row repeat but I added the offset next ones at 14 rows so I counted back from the neckline (RC176), six times to start it on row 106 so it would be wide enough for the width of the neckline. The leaf uses outlined transfers, not the simplest thing to do, even when all things are aligned with the knitting gods!
I also forgot that because of the acrylic I wouldn’t be able to press this out with my usual abandon. Careful steaming only! Thankfully, there's good stitch definition!
This could be called the Four-Letter Word Tank!

maybe I should explain...

how I figured that out. The peach one, I mean. I did the hem/border just as it was in the magazine. By the way, am using Wool Crepe Deluxe, leftover from Peachy Keen, Knitwords #52, so, no swatching, going with the same gauge I’ve been using all along and Lauren is another little bit of a thing, so, finished 32 bust. The diamond combination in the centre of the front is a 32-row repeat. There are 160 rows to the beginning of the underarm shaping, and I want the top of the last diamond to be just around there. The scalloped hem and the garter ridge line took up 32 rows. 4 repeats of the vertical diamonds would be 128 rows, taking me to RC160, but I thought it would look better if it ended a little higher and on a motif like this you want to end at the top of the diamond, not in the middle, a full repeat. I knit 10 rows plain, did 4 repeats of the large diamond and then ended with another 10 rows plain to offset the motif. Did the same thing with the row of horizontal diamonds in the yoke area. It’s a 22-row repeat so balanced it off with 6 plain rows below and above. That extra stitch that was required in the border, wasn’t needed after that so I got rid of it in the underarm shaping so didn’t have to worry about it for the neckline and shoulders. The back is plain except for the hem/border.
On the wine Mini Dina tank from last week, I forgot to say that when knitting the back in plain stockinette, I had to remember to reverse the extra stitch so the garment would match over the shoulders.
Looking at the final peach tank, it’s nice but I notice a mistake, or is it just different from the original? I’m not good at following my own instructions, it seems. I think I know what I’m doing and miss the final details sometimes! At the top of the large centre diamond, that centre stitch that shows up so nicely on the brown tunic, I did it different. On the Lace Medley tunic, the centre stitch is left in place, behind the transfers coming into the centre. On the peach one, I turned it into a two-step so doesn’t show the same. I guess I’ll just have to make another one…

P.S. Since Knit ‘n Style is no longer available, if anyone wants the Lace Medley pattern, just say. email me knitwords@shaw.ca

it's like eating...

Knit 'n Style #182

potato chips! I can’t seem to stop!
Have you ever had one of those times when you thought, ‘darn, I did a good job on that’? The Lace Medley tunic, Knit ’n Style, #182, December 2012 was one of those for me. Back then, I had to make the garment in a finished 34 bust and send it off to them, never to be seen again. I made it first for myself using Forsell Touch of Silk, a DK wool/silk blend, perfect for the LK150 mid gauge.
https://knitwords.blogspot.com/2012/06/update-better-late.html
The pattern had this really nice combination of hand-transferred lace diamonds and I thought I was so clever in figuring out how to make outlined transfers of diamonds going vertically and horizontally in differing sizes and making it out to all come together like a large motif. I never heard from anyone who made it but they did have someone translate it in the magazine into a hand knitting pattern (without getting my permission of course!) and as my main focus at that time was to show hand-knitters that machine knitting could make some really nice stuff, I think I did that. Anyway, I still wear mine and feel great in it!

Just to change things up, I thought I’d try that lace patterning in one of these shell/tank tops for niece, Lauren. I’d really like it for myself, but I am going to jump right in without thinking too much, make sure it won’t fit me, so I’ll have to give it away! ;)
The border lace pattern says it’s 20 sts X 18 rows. On the chart, the centre stitch is on #1 right. Looking at the schematic, I need 74 sts each side of 0. To fit the border in, needs to be a multiple of 20 (plus 1 st for seaming) so I’m going with 71-0-72 ns – that extra stitch on the right side so there is a centre stitch and then one at each side for the seam so the border will match at the side seams.

victory...

Got ‘er done! and I could have made another couple of armbands! Although you could see the cone through the final strands. It was close, but final weight, 186g.
Just to change it up a bit, the next shell I’m making with Mini Dina (used to be a dress weight Silk City yarn, cotton/rayon blend), for Sarah - another tall, slim girl, same size as Shannon. I have this full cone of a raspberry shade (it’s labelled ‘wine’) that isn’t my colour and I can easily get at least two tops from a full cone – sister Janet may get the other one.
Cheating again, I’m not swatching, just looking back in the old issues of KNITWORDS (always fun!) to find where I knit stockinette Mini Dina and sure enough, found one that I used T6 with a gauge of 34 sts and 50 rows to 10 cm which is the same as the WCD gauge on the navy one!
Been thinking about that wonky neckline and I realized, duh…that one stitch – the centre of the lace pattern is throwing me off! I forgot about having that extra stitch at one side to balance it off and like, this is such a fine gauge you wouldn’t think you’d really notice it but, because this particular stitch pattern has so many holes, it all shows up, to the discerning eye!
I’m using basically the same lace motif as the navy one but adding an extra line of holes on the bottom vee line. Watching, in particular, the transfers of having 3 sts on one needle every other row alternating, which creates the vertical lines. I found that if I pulled the 3 sts slightly forward across the piece, check they’re the correct ones and then do the transfers, there is less likelihood of errors.

At the neckline, when shortrowing, do the transfers first, except on the inside end needle – don’t transfer that one (it’s the one you’re wrapping for the shortrow) but it’s okay to have empty needles on the shortrowed line, because you’ll be knitting a final row at the end to take care of that. Otherwise the neck edge gets too full of plain stitches if you know what I mean…

cutting your losses...

Things go wrong here. I hope I don’t give you the impression that everything is always perfect. It's nice to think you have mad skills but stuff happens, it doesn't just go right every single time. Sometimes you can fudge things with no one the wiser, but you need to know the difference, when you can get away with it, when to re-do and the best way to do it.
Ripping out lace is never a good thing, maybe a row or two but more than that, you’re actually spending double the time to rip out lace because it’s harder to un-transfer, especially those two-step ones where the stitch ends up in behind. Now, even though I think I’m watching what I’m doing, I didn’t see this until after it was off the machine and pressed out. First, I noticed that one side of the neckline looks wonky. What the?? I did see, early on, while it was still on the machine, there is a mistake in the patterning  near the start of the vee motif but I had done the same on each side so one could argue, was it really a mistake? Not glaring and most people would never see it, but I know it’s there. I was justifying it to myself as I continued…
After pressing out the piece and holding it up in the mirror, I thought, ‘oh, gosh, darn, rats!’ I calmly walked away, spent the evening catching up on my DVRs. Today, still not quite ready to admit defeat, I held it up and thought about ripping it back to the beginning of the neckline shaping. Note, there are no solid, plain rows in this pattern which would help with rehanging.
Add to the equation, I am a bit nervous about running out of ‘French navy’ for this project. Started with 200g (final weight of my ivory one, 230g, 42 finished bust) and thought that would be plenty. This is for Shannon, another very slim girl so am making finished 34, but she’s fairly tall, about 5’7, I think, so I added 20 rows to the length. My backup plan was using 50g of ‘twilight’ for the armhole and neck bands, which seemed feasible before I knit anything but now, looking at it, not so much. I could just abandon the whole thing and bake muffins, but I have a commitment, to myself anyway!
To be honest, I knit the second piece up the underarm, still trying to convince myself that the other side would/could be acceptable. At this point, I decided to reknit the lace on this piece and, then, off the machine, rip the other one back to the underarm, rehang it in the plain stockinette. It only took an hour and a half to get this one finished, no mistakes! Golden!

one stitch out? not!...

After I posted the other day, about Sheila setting up that stitch pattern properly using the lace tool in DAK, I remembered! What I did before was use the symbols to make the chart and then set it up as ‘intarsia’ under method of knitting and then the program let me work from screen. I did write an article about this method and intarsia, called ‘Picture This’, in Knitwords No. 38, Autumn 2006 and did a pattern on the LK150, for my favourite grandson, Nathan.
This is pretty cool because it indicates the exact needles with numbers so you’re sure of not making a mistake. Even if you don’t have the “non-electric link” cable, I just use the arrow-up key to advance to the next row. Here, I’m showing the lace pattern I used for the Vee neck of my red Two Faced . The black lines near the top of the screen on the right hand side show the shortrow decreases to make the Vee.

P.S. Just to keep Sheila on her toes, I set her file up as ‘machine knit lace’ and it works! Even though you get an error message saying this pattern cannot be knit on a Silver Reed (just because of the garter stitch ridges – he doesn’t know you’re going to hand transfer them anyway), it does seem like it will do it. One day, when I really have nothing to do, I’ll try it for real! Thanks again, Sheila!

P.P.S. How’s your hairdo? Did you cut your own bangs yet? Maybe the answer is to use a headband. I see Mar Heck has some cute ones for babies – maybe we can convince her to size them up for us!
https://marzipanknits.blogspot.com/2020/03/twisted-headbands-for-babies.html

living on the edge...

I love what Vera said the other day in response to Two Faced

http://knitwords.blogspot.com/2020/04/pushing-envelope.html
‘There are any number of youngsters in my family who would be pleased to have a top like this- so I'll attempt one’
After I finish this red one, I’ll get on that! Great idea!
Here’s the situation. I have two partial cones of red wool rayon. At a glance, they look the same but one is really old, the label says ‘geranium’ - it’s leftover from a suit I made for myself back in 2003 and the newer one is the real Silk City WCD, ‘red passion’ the remainder from my Canada, Eh? https://knitwords.blogspot.com/2017/10/celebrating.html
Funny, they both weigh the same, 194g after allowing for the cone. The finished weight of the ivory Two Faced is 230g, so either is a little shy, but what the hay? Another challenge! My plan, narrow in the shoulder some more so it’s 15 cm as opposed to the 19 cm half width (B+C from the original schematic); use the older yarn for the hem and bands; stick with a high, round neck for the first front and plan on a wider, lower vee for the second one which should use less yarn, fingers crossed! I always think lace should use less yarn because of the holes but, really when you think about it, it's the same number of stitches , just transferred so you can't save yarn that way...

 FOBB (fear of being bored) makes me change up the stitch pattern yet again and yeah, it’s partly that extra challenge thing. I had to think really hard to get the repeats on this one – it’s an 18-stitch repeat and if the start isn’t correct, the outlined diamonds wouldn’t meet up after 20 rows and who wants to rip out hand-transferred lace? Ar-r-rg-g-h! Just in case you want to give it a shot for your niece or daughter-in-law, here’s the new chart – make the holes of row 2 at 55, 37, 19, 1, -0- 18, 36, 54…
Thanks to Sheila from Australia for sorting me on my DAK programming – she fixed the other file so we could knit-from-screen. Let me know if you want it!

hindsight is 20/20...

I’m always looking for ways to change things up a bit so for the second ivory ‘front’ I redrafted the lace pattern a bit, revised it to suit me and I think, changed it enough to share it with you. At the bottom/start of Helene’s pattern, in the actual knitting, I thought it would look nicer to close in the bottom of the veed-eyelet pattern – which even the very practised eye probably wouldn’t notice in her chart. I also wanted to make the overall design start lower, so added the single diamond at the bottom and extended the width to go over the whole neckline (I started the bottom of this chart at RC160 of my knitting which is the start of the underarm shaping).
If you don’t want that, start the chart at row 18 and you’ll still have a neat full diamond on the bottom of the larger motif. While I was knitting the second piece, I worked on the stitch pattern in DesignaKnit – you know the drill, email me knitwords@shaw.ca
 and put Two Faced in the subject line. The file probably/should be able to be used as knit-from-screen – right now he doesn’t like the 3 stitches on one needle with holes on either side to use it as a machine knit pattern and I don’t know how to overcome that but someone more fluent with DAK might be able to help. Even if you don’t have DAK, I was able to print out this smaller version and save it as a .jpg which you can play with. At least you can print out the chart and work from that. I was using the hand-knit symbols, not the lace tool to do the chart.
I can see an LK version of this in the future, after I make a red one!
Keep knitting and stay safe!

pushing the envelope...

 My next choice is a one-colour (ivory, aka ‘fisherman’ – what? How did that become a colour name?) Two-Faced.
I don’t usually do much hand-transferring on the standard gauge – it shows up much better with a thicker yarn so usually save those kind of projects for the LK150/mid gauge but that hand-transferred vee motif was fun to do so I figured I’d make another tank and try a little more extensive motif.
I like the length, the side shaping and shortowing at the hemline. I’m going to close the neckline a little higher and narrower, put a band on it and bring the shoulders in a bit more, still with a band.
As I knit the bottom of the first side, I was recalling a hand knit pattern in Knit ’n Style that was actually a motif done on the back of a sleeveless summer top. Hoping that my extensive purging of knitting resources a few years back didn’t include that particular pattern and of course, I wasn’t sure which issue it was in, I thought it was called ‘Athena Tank’. Why did that stick in my mind? who knows but I did find it, in #173, June 2011. It was a hand knit pattern by Helene Rush and guess who wrote the machine knit instructions? ;)  That’s likely why it stuck in my brain. I photocopied the lace chart and hung it up on my tension mast. It’s 60 rows, but easily made bigger by adding 20 row increments and I figured I’d give it a shot.  
I changed it up a bit – the top of the first diamond had all reformed purl stitches. I think that’s a total waste of time and changed it to garter stitch ridges on every other row – less work and looks nicer in my eyes. As the motif continued, I knew it would look better if I could sort of end it at the neckline without worrying about continuing it out into the shoulder area so after the 60 rows, began bringing the double rows of holes back in toward the centre where the original ended and changed up the sides slightly. Got it off the machine and I’m totally stoked! It's beautiful!

two sides to every story...

With sand dune/tan Wool Crepe Deluxe, I did the second piece, planning a shallow scoop, with a 6 cm depth. Working on auto-pilot, did the same shortrowing just after the hemline, shaped the sides and just as I got the underarm shaping almost finished, I thought to myself, self, this isn’t a sprint, you’re basically trying to fill in time here, so why not put a little effort into maybe doing a little hand-transferred lace? After all, that little diamond lace motif on the original black one is quite nice. I saw that it was too late for that because it needs to be done over 40 rows and at RC207, I was 7 rows past. Rip out? nah! make up something new! Using the same two-step technique from the original, start with a hole at #1 right to begin the same diamond motif and continue that to row 8, where there are 5 plain sts between the eyelets, add the start of another vee – I made a new chart for you (small pat on back) and just continue it up to where your neckline shaping begins.

After the neck shaping, again, I wanted to have a plain, no-finish edge, so picked up the stitches at each edge up to the top of the shoulder and then knit a loose row across all and chained off, similar to the vee technique.
Now, join the shoulders and you know, I just thought of something that I’ve been doing and haven’t talked about for a while, but check this out – https://knitwords.blogspot.com/2011/11/wonky-shoulder.html
it makes the shortrowed steps of the shoulder shaping look better when you knit two rows after the shaping.

Because of the two colours, make sure and join each side the same, hang the tan/lighter colour first then the darker one, pull the dark sts through the light set and then make the chain with the same colour (light). That way, they both look the same on the outside.
I still needed to add a band/hem to the armhole – it was too gapey without anything. I like mine close-fitting and I thought you might be a little afraid to do this, so I took some photos. When the armhole was held up to the needles to determine the size, I got 72 -0-72 sts.  

MAO told you originally:
Armhole bands. Hold armhole evenly up to needle bed without stretching, reduce by 10% to determine number of needles required. Approx 50 (54, 58, 62, 64) ns each side of 0. Right side facing you, hang garment over same needles, gathering to fit if needed. Turn band and rehang from garter bar, with right sides together. Pull open stitches of band through closed edge of garment. Manually knit very loose row and chain cast off.
Based on that, 10% less would be 65-0-65 ns. Going by my notes from the black one, the armband was 60-0-60 ns and it was good. When hanging the armhole, it looks rather scary in this first photo – like, that’s never gonna fit right! Hang the shoulder seam at 0 and then start hanging the straight part, evenly, without gathers, leaving those to the actual curved, underarm area. It won’t show after the band is on and you’re wearing it, trust me!
I’m ready for another! you?

multiple choice...

OMG! You spot a mistake in your lace transfers 6 or 8 rows below! What to do, what to do?
A. Thank the knitting gods you spotted it so soon!
B. Quit and drink wine!
C. Try to rip back only that section.
D. Rip back all 8 rows.
E. All of the above.
I went with E but not in that exact order. After spotting the mistake, I did try unravelling just the stitches of that portion for 8 rows but by then, you’ve got strings all over the place and you’re not quite sure what’s what, especially on this particular pattern because it’s a 24-stitch repeat. The hard part about ripping back lace knitting, whether it is hand transferred or lace carriage, is that you need to untransfer/put the stitches back to the row before, rip out 2 rows, untransfer, rip out 2 rows and keep track of what row you’re going to be on when you finish ripping…

For this project, I actually have 3 row counters, two on the machine and one on my KR11, which is connected to one of the row counters. Sounds complicated but I’ve got a problem with my row counters. Now, bear in mind they are getting quite old, at least 20 years on one anyway. One of them doesn't recognize the cable going to the KR11 but it counts reliably. The other one addresses the KR11 properly but it advances weirdly starting at row 19. Instead of clicking up to 20, it goes to 29 and then 39 and then randomly and if you're not aware of it, you'll never be able to figure out what row you're on! I have taken them apart to see if I could spot the problem but couldn't....I'll be ordering a couple of new ones! Anyway, when I'm ripping out, after pulling out one row, I pull out a needle at the end of the needlebed. Rip one row, pull out another needle...count the needles at the end and turn back the row counter.

 

Long story even longer, just to be safe, I did rip back all 8 rows, fix the mistake, reset all the row counters and continue!
P.S. If you have a question for me that you would like an answer to, please email me privately – I do not answer comments. ;-)