avoidance...

Straight up! All this playing around with socks! Maybe you noticed I never said anything about getting that yarn I ordered for manfriend’s pullover. I was kind of shocked when I got it and rather than deal with the situation, I put it on ignore. What happened is when searching for the yarn, I punched in DK weight and when he liked it, I just plain old ordered it without thinking too much. In all honesty, I thought it was 100g balls with 175m, but it really is 50g balls with 175m – that’s more like sock yarn than a DK weight that one would use on the LK150! And there was only 8 balls left so that’s what I went with, figuring it would be enough for a plain stockinette pullover in a mid gauge weight. Yikes! what to do? procrastinate, of course!
The gauge on the label says 20-23 sts and 26-32 rows to 10 cm which should be a mid gauge weight. It’s 65% merino wool, 20% baby alpaca and 15% silk. This is going to need to be gauged and washed for sure – the fulling process could really throw me off and I don’t have much room for experimenting – I should have at least ordered another ball of a different colour to play with. It's not like it really shrinks – well, it will if mistreated in the laundry – but what I mean is the initial washing fluffs out the fibres, releases the strands and fills in the fabric, making it thicker and denser that it looked when first off the machine.

I’m not sure I’ve ever said this out loud to you, but on any machine, I like to use the mid to high range of the stitch size, like on the LK150, the dial goes from 1 to 9, but my favourite stitch size is 5. I might use T3 to T7 or 8 but not very often. On the standard gauge, it numbers from 0 to 10 and I use mostly T6 to 9. Each machine performs best in this range with increasing, decreasing and shaping working well. If dealing with tight tension and small stitch size, it becomes more difficult to use the tools so the whole project becomes fraught with anxiety! I guess that’s why there are different gauge machines!
The point is trying to use a mid gauge yarn on the standard gauge or using a fingering weight on the mid gauge just becomes an exercise in patience and determination. There I go again, prolonging the agony! I finally jump in and make my preliminary swatch to see what stitch size to use, starting off at T5, 10 rows, a loose row to divide, 10 rows at T4.5, etc. to get the stitch size I want. After looking and feeling, decide that T3.5 may be optimal. Make my swatch at T3.5, another on top at T4 just to be sure and knit the whole ball. This way I can use it to measure against an actual garment of the final size to determine is there will be enough yarn - the swatch has been washed and dried at this point and can be re-used for the hems/bands in the final garment. I can tell already there is a need for a plan B - maybe insert a wide band of contrast colour at the chest...oh yeah, I should admit I found another tweedy DK yarn that was on sale (49 bucks for 10 balls, 74% acrylic, 26% cotton, 100g/260 m) so I ordered it along with some more sock stuff - he'll never know the difference!

thought I was invincible...

There I was, like Icarus, flying too close to the sun! Notice my swatch - it was royal blue WCD at T4 - looked lovely, knit like a dream. Full of myself, I confidently threaded up the black and began a sleeve. By row 4 it had already dropped a few stitches. Undaunted, I was able to fix them and continued on. By row 40, I had to admit something was wrong. Decided it was the black yarn and the stitch size - notorious for causing grief because the dyeing process is quite harsh and usually black yarn and most darker colours can end up slightly thicker that shades of the same yarn. I turned the first sleeve into a new swatch at T6 and regrouped. Armed with yarn spray (https://knitwords.blogspot.com/2013/02/addicted-to-yarn-spray.html ) and determination, I did get two pretty perfect sleeves done, while thinking of Plan B, C and D! At the very least, I'll have a plain black cardigan with beautiful lace sleeves!

When I am knitting something such as this that has a degree of trepidation or requires a certain level of concentration, I like to have a diversion so am alternating pieces here with a project on the LK150  - I’ve already finished a second TBponcho in antique gold and have the bands knit, ready for another in forest green for my niece – it makes me feel a bit better making something for someone else, instead of the usual me, me, me!

earth to MAO...

After knitting all those different lace patterns, most of them being fashion lace (multiple transfer rows between the actual knitted rows) it dawned on me – who am I kidding? the plan is to knit BLACK (hard to see at the best of times), wool crepe deluxe (drop a stitch and it runs like a bullet!)  and I’m going to add 12 to 16 rows of transfers to the equation? Get real, MA! Back to reality! at least I used up all that orange (VBG)! Remember before we had emojis?
I’ve looked at virtually every lace garment I’ve ever knit and paged through the old Knitwords, looking for something and I found one! Lace Luxe from No 38, Autumn 2006 – I loved this stitch pattern but had forgotten it because the garment was knit in Wagtail Yarns mohair,  lilac – not exactly a colour at the top of my most-frequently worn list. Mostly I did keep the garments that were in the magazine but that one I gave to the Wagtail people because it was the first garment they had that was machine-knit! No wonder I forgot it!
Programmed in the stitch pattern and it knit up beautifully in Trenzi. Switched to a leftover WCD and knit an adequate amount to examine it – I’ve used WCD in lace enough to know that my optimum stitch size is T4 – I’m on a roll – swatch knit with a suitable trim added on, all washed and dried – looks great! Now to work on the shape!

every trick in the book...

I swatched and then I swatched some more! My stockinette tension/stitch size is T10 and I did get the same stitch and row gauge with both yarns.

Just Ribbin'

The back of GW is pretty simple. For that wide, deep rib, I chose 3X3 rib in the 3X2 needle arrangement – see Just Ribbin’ KW# 50 at a fairly high stitch size –  T8/8 because I don’t want it snugging in – want it to be as wide as the stockinette and the reason I went with the 3X2 needle arrangement means there are more stitches in the ribbing (when transferred up to the main  bed, there will be 2 sts on every 3rd needle but it doesn’t really show) than the stockinette to help maintain the same width. If you are reading me regularly, you might notice that I didn’t say that I made the sleeves first – I made the back first because I’m not really sure how far these yarns will go and how much there is – I did the back using Elvis because the label did have a yardage on it so it will help me judge how far this will go. It took 136g, leaving 264g, and I’m certain I can get both sleeves from the rest of him. Also, no disrespect, but Elvis has some thick and thin, like the spinning was not as smooth and consistent as the Bob Carver cone which I knew had to be for the fronts and will likely take considerably more than the back because of the extended lapels for the shawl collar.
The big unknown with this design is that 1X1 rib on the hem of the front – it looks like 1X1 but it’s as wide as the stockinette and just plain 1X1 wouldn’t be. So, I swatched full needle rib – too wide and too thick. I did the ‘1X1 on main bed with all working on the rib bed’ like on Granville https://knitwords.blogspot.com/2011/09/caught-stealing-agin.html
– still looks too wide. Tried 1X1 rib at T10/10 double stranded – that didn’t work! I was also working on the idea of an automatic longstitch facing for the centre side of the front – there is no finishing band apparent. I am assuming there is maybe a narrow longstitch, so I put 4 sts on RB, knitting every other row to finish that side. In a couple of the shots from the Shopbob website it  sort of looks like the front is angled up slightly – that may be from the longstitch facing pulling up the centre side somewhat or because they have actually shortrowed an angle to the front after the rib and the nice garter-stitch ridge after the rib is hiding the shortrows…lots to think about as I work on the sleeves. Maybe I’m over-thinking again! Just as I fell asleep last night I thought, what about tuck rib?

did you miss me? …

We’ve actually been having summer here in Thunder Bay and I’ve been enjoying it. We had a fabulous time in Minneapolis – the Founder’s Fest was so much fun – thanks to the organizers and attendees, I felt I was with a bunch of close, good friends. Sorry I didn’t get a photo of Milky Way, but I promise when the heat and humidity and bad hair days are over, I will. I debated making it again as there were a few things that bothered me about it, mainly the pocket placement – I should have planned it so the pocket top lined up with the beginning or end of one of the lace stripes but when I mentioned that at the seminar they all thought I was being way too picky but I’m still thinking about it.
My new project is that same 3X1 tuck rib from the hems of Milky Way for another longline cardigan, all in that rib, with the purl side as the outside. I have a small stash of Forsell Naturell, a wool/alpaca blend that I’ve used extensively in the past, but unfortunately, it is long NLA (no longer available) but I have some partial cones that I thought would do, mainly 2 almost full (350g each) cones of lima (medium brown) in the same dyelot. My second choice is pullo (an olive shade), one full cone (400g) and a half cone of a different dyelot. To not waste my good stuff, I made the swatch with a grey and a pale blue that weren’t enough for anything other than swatching – using it double stranded to get the weight I want. The swatch turned out beautiful, so I threaded up the two browns and knit a sleeve.
Done, it weighs 50g which means pretty certain I won’t have enough to make this as long as I want - the fold-back cuff on the sleeve is taking up more than usual and maybe I want a hood…
I may regret this, but making an executive decision, I threaded up one strand of the olive with a brown and knocked out another sleeve. You might ask if I plated the yarn, but no – I didn’t do that with the swatch and it looks fine. Plating, there's a subject for another day!

moving on...

Got DAK7 going with old desktop computer; bought new battery and PE1 is working; received new shipment of CT8 – ordered two cones each of ecru, vanilla and pearl – the colour names don’t help but I’m going to make my long lace cardi hoodie in ecru (should be called cream) – looks exactly the same as pearl, so check your dyelots ( and FYI, vanilla should be named  tan or putty, IMO anyway!).
I told you what I was looking for – textured stripes of lace. For the horizontal stripes I did a couple of variations of eyelets – every other needle on every third row so the eyelets were transferred in opposite directions; every other needle on every fourth row (saw a upright diagonal here and possible biasing); every other needle on every fifth row (meaning sts were transferred in alternate directions, no bias but the lines were too far apart); and every third needle on every third row (didn’t give horizontal lines). Settled on the very first one but it doesn’t hurt to explore all options.
For the vertical lines, I was going for one of my favourites, that faggotting lace stitch (KW#45, Mazatlan) but with a few more plain stitches between the upright stripes – on one, the transfers were going the wrong way, too close together; 4 plain stitches between correct lace faggots and then 3 plain stitches – this one works for me.
On the ribbed  bands, I chose 3X1 rib with tuck every other row on the single stitch on the rib bed for the deep hems and front bands but I beefed up the cast-on by doubling the yarn for the manual wrap only, with success – good to go, so I then made an actual swatch for measuring, cheating a little bit. Instead of making three 60 row swatches, one for each technique, I just did 30 rows of each stitch and then used the green gauge to measure each section twice to add up to what the 60 rows would be – hope you get what I mean. In the end, after washing and drying, the ribbed row gauge is 50 rows to 10 cm; the horizontal eyelet is 45 rows and the vertical line is 40 rows. What I will do is figure out how deep I want each hem/band and multiply it by the 5 rows to 1 cm. For the body parts, average out the two gauges (45 + 40 = 85 divided by 2 = 42.5 to 10 cm) and use 4.25/cm. Stitch gauge is 2.7 st/cm for all three.
Here’s me, making a sleeve…:-)

oooops....

the cover garment

What are the odds? That I would pick a pattern with a mistake in it! Well, actually, maybe I don’t want to know…the fact there was a mistake or that it was never found…does it mean no one actually tried this pattern, maybe…or did they get frustrated and simply give up? I can only laugh about it now and apologize.

back in the day before digital photos!

I had been thinking about lace –  been a while since I’ve used my lace carriage and its always been one of my favourite techniques, especially on the Silver Reed as the single action lace carriage allows one to knit a simple lace pattern as easily as stockinette because this lace carriage transfers and knits with the yarn in the feeder. So, my choice is ‘Ruffles and Lace’ from KW#10 – back in Autumn ’99. I made the original one for myself and did wear it many times. I remember, in particular, at a show in Dallas, while standing in line at the fashion show, Danis McWest commented on it and asked where I got the lace carriage for the bulky machine? I explained that it was done on the standard gauge but every third needle was out of work which made for the larger holes. He thought I was brilliant (or at least that’s what he said! ;-)) The original was made using Bonita cotton (4ply mercerized, 1850 yds/500g, T8-9 stockinette) and though I still  have several colours of Bonita, I wanted something lighter weight – thinking of that summertime thing and checked to see what I had. Going through the index files, I saw I used Yeomans Brittany ( 2ply cotton, double stranded, 3000m/350g, T6-7 stockinette) quite a bit, but had never done an entire garment of lace so that was my starting point. Last week I had briefly entertained the thought of making another GirlFriend Hoodie in lace and was going to try the Brittany. D

Brittany washed

id a quick swatch (no hem) just to test out the lace pattern and make sure  of the correct needle selection. It knit up fine – the holey-ness was excellent but I wanted a better drape than this soft cotton produced.

mushroom swatch fresh off the machine

Then, Mina Dina (2200 yds/lb, T5-6 stockinette) popped into my head – it’s a rayon/cotton blend, very nice drape, a nice little sheen, quite a bit lighter than Bonita and I had this great mushroom colour, not brown, not beige, not gray but close. Began to make the Mini Dina swatch and as I knew that this would be the one, I started with the full needle ribbed hem and was shocked to find this glaring omission – not enough information for the average knitter to make this band! I am devastated! I felt simply awful and even after this length of time I feel obligated to share my shame with you! Here is the corrected info (because I, ever hopeful, know you’re going to try this out):
Ruffly Rib
Full needle rib, all needles working. Cast on waste yarn, knit about an inch. Circular, ravel cord, K2R.
CAL, MC, T4/4, knit zigzag row. Set to circular, T6/8, K2R. RC000. Cancel circular, everything knits, T8/8, K1R. Starting at centre, at each side of 0, *using 3 prong tool, transfer #2, 3, 4 , one needle space to n#1, 2, 3. n#4 is empty, #1 has 2 sts. Transfer #6, 7, 8, one space to n#7, 8, 9, #6 is empty, #9 has 2 sts. Repeat like this across row on knit bed only. Leave empty ns in work. Bring needles out, stitches behind latches, both beds. Knit 2 rows.* Repeat required number of times.
Got my swatch knit (see photo above) and even though it looks pretty loose and random, after washing, it looks fabulous! (see photo at right)

mushroom MD washed

Early this morning, I awoke with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach – I have a cold but this was different - that edging would be in one of my trims books…was the error there? You know that ole cut’n’paste trick? The good news - it is in ‘Knitting on the EDGE’ and it is correct, so I did obviously make a new swatch and have the correct information there (big sigh of relief).
Machine knit like you wrote the pattern!