a peek at No 46

Well, No 46 is in the MAIL!!! And it looks great!!! I’m very happy with it and I’m sure you will be too. I’m feeling generous today, so I’m giving a quick preview of the cover - actually I’m beating Rick (our web designer as well as layout guy for KNITWORDS magazine) before he gets to show you on the website - he’s so darned punctual about changing everything on the stroke of midnight on the night before the new issue becomes current - Lindsay’s back on our cover - doesn’t she look great?
This garment, called 'Dress Code' is done on the LK150, using Jaggerspun zephyr 4/8 wool/silk which was fabulous to work with. It has an incredible, lovely sheen and gives a relatively lightweight fabric with nice drape. Lots of tips and techniques for making pleats, facings and hemmed edges. Enjoy!!

Scarf-mania

I have a ‘cute kid’ story - hold on, stay with me, there’s knitting involved too!
My 4 yr old grandson, Nathan, and I have a play-date every week or two. He loves ‘Bob the builder’ and we have a full collection of the ‘machines’ in tiny size - the best $7 presents I’ve ever bought, for the joy and time he’s spent with them. So, he comes to Grama’s and expects to spend a good while playing ‘Bob the builder’ - funny thing, though, I actually have to play Bob, hold him up and talk for him and Nathan acts out each of the ‘machines’.
Now, we are having one of the worst summers on record here in TBay, very cool and very wet. Also, around Grama’s house lately there is an over-abundance of scarves - you’ll see what I mean when you get No 46 (I’m assuming you remembered to renew). Getting back to Bob, Nathan announced that ‘we’ should make scarves for the machines because there was going to be a snowstorm.
Now, I’ll back up just a bit and tell you that in preparation for going to TNNA last month, I thought I’d do a little hand knitting to get in the mood, something I have not done since I found knitting machines. I actually had to go and buy a pair of needles, got one of those huge balls of cotton and I’d been knitting round dishcloths for the past while, the evidence laying on a table beside my favourite chair.
Nathan goes over and grabs the needles - ‘Are these your knitting sticks, Grama?’ Amused, I agreed. He then asked if there’s any more of that red wool left over from his new sweater, because red will look good on ‘Roley’(a green steamroller). I found the part cone and gave it to him. He flipped the ‘sticks’ back and forth a bit over the top of the cone and then said, ‘I’ve got a better idea, Grama. We should use one of your machines!’ So we went down to the LK150 - it has long been his favourite because I have the yarn swift at one end of the table and a manual cone winder at the other end and often let him wind some yarn off skeins for me. He loves to see the yarn swift whipping round as he turns the handle of the winder from four feet away. So, I let him cone off a small bit of the red yarn so we could use it doubled on the mid gauge - I thought I’d let him knit a short bit of slip cord, like the ‘knots of work’ and it would be a perfect scarf for a little machine. I did the ‘e’ wrap, got it started and showed him how to pass the carriage back and forth. By the 4th pass, he was pushing my hand away, ‘I can do it, Grama!’ About 6 inches later, I said, ‘Will that be good?’ ‘That’s perfect, Grama!’ I cast off and we went up to try it on Roley. Nathan insisted that we fix the ends up and then said, ‘Okay, Scoop needs a orange one!’ - Scoop is the yellow backhoe.

Six machines and scarves later, I was getting a little tired of the exercise. I learned long ago that Nathan is definitely not ‘attention-deficit’ but in fact much the opposite. So, in an attempt to divert him to something else, I said, ‘I think the snowstorm is over.’ He countered sadly like he couldn’t believe I hadn’t realized, ‘ It’s JUST pretend, Grama!’
Well, our play date was over, but he can now tie knots and bows quite well!

sleeveless in TBay

Oh, I wish you could see what I just made!! It turned out so cool! I love it! But I’m getting a little ahead of myself. This is for No 47 and you haven’t seen No 46 yet! Maybe I should tell you about No 46 first...It started out with 'Fit’n’Flare', a dress in tan WCD, (wool crepe deluxe, my all-time favourite, go-to yarn, see www.btyarns.com) I made for myself. It was actually for the Spring issue, No 44, but got cut at the last minute and held over for summer and again got cut - I’m wearing it in the photo for 'About Me'- now I’ve had time to make a jacket to go with it to take it into fall - I didn’t have enough of the tan yarn to make a plain jacket, so mixed it with black in what I call a nothing-print-fairisle and now have a beautiful cardy that also works well with black pants and a black cami - two outfits for the price of one!! Next on the knit list was something for my granddaughter, Rhiana. My friend Candy gave me some totally cute buttons and I designed this outfit for R around the buttons. I had so much fun and even went to payless to get her shoes to match. Of course, they had a 'buy one, get half off', so she also has her first pair of black patent maryjanes with a little satin bow to go with whatever I make for Christmas... Okay, now, not sure if you’ve noticed, but I do tend to get a bit obsessive about things. Nothing serious, but when I come up with a technique I like, I have to do it several times, sorta to get it out of my system, I think. Anyway, my latest thing is sleeves - stick with me and you’re gonna see every thing I can come up with. So, I had been working on a split sleeve - you know, open up the top of the arm and fastened in several spots along the way. The ‘easy’ way to do it would be knit two half’s (sp?), and seam underarm and act like it was one piece, but no, that’s not for me, I wanted to make it in one piece, so now we have ‘Best bib ‘n’ tucker’, totally-cute, a little-sexy, tunic with split sleeve, buttoned, pintuck square yoke, lots of things happening.
Then, not to leave out the mid gauge knitters, I have a wonderful ‘cardigan-coat-tunic-dress’ made on the LK150 - Lindsay is wearing it on our front cover with skinny jeans and high boots, looking fab, of course. The sleeves on this are quite full and gathered at the top, self-cuffed snugly below the elbow for a 3/4 look - I think this used to be called 'leg o' mutton sleeve'.
And scarves, we’ve got ‘Bonhomme’ a g-carriage vertical stripe, just-for-looks scarf and ‘Two Left Feet’, using up leftover sock yarn, both from Evelyn McNabb, the second one done on Passap, which I Japanese-ified - totally fun!
Okay, back to the sleeve thing, we also have a jacket called ‘Curve Appeal’ with a set-in sleeve and a buttoned cuff, like a shirt would have - the bands are knit vertical full needle rib and added around the entire outside of the garment which, you guessed, has curved front edges.
Of course, I couldn’t leave out my little Nathan - he’s starting pre-kay in the fall, so I did him the classic school cardigan, 'School Days' with lots of techniques for the beginner knitters. And there is much more, something for everyone, I hope: 'Crossover' and 'Reverse Option' from Eileen M; 'Henley Her Way' by Jeanne Crockett; 'Wild Oats' done on the SK860 mid gauge; 'Barcelona' from Ev McNabb; etc, etc.
Now, about this thing I just finished, it’s brick red, tuck stitch that reminds me of wide wale corduroy, totally cool sleeves and big buttons (another one of my ‘things’ lately!!!) Enough said, you’ll have to wait like everyone else.

thought I'd 'Bounce' this by you...

Did you get any ‘Bounce’ from Sue at BT Yarns? - it was in her last mailer (www.btyarns.com, search word - bounce). It is 75 cotton, 25 poly, approx 2000 ypp, each cone is about 1.25 lb. I got a cone of plumberry because it looked like the colour to go with a printed fabric I recently purchased. It’s a perfect match! Now, in Sue’s information, she said at T8, stockinette, it gave a gauge of 29 sts and 53 rows to 10 cm. That’s kinda weird and led me to think it would be stretchy and the machine wash & dry would ‘shrink’ it up quite a bit. So, I clicked on my Knitwords index to see if there was a match to the gauge and sure enough, I found close matches in stockinette with Denim Bouclé and Balada Stretch, which both took up considerably with washing and drying. Also close was some one-row-tucks in 4 ply wool!!
Okay, next question, how far is this yarn gonna go! My cone was 1.2 lb, so
I had 2250 yds approx, but what does that mean? In comparing yarns, yardage and gauge I figured it would be comparable to the yardage of 4 ply wool and that amount would be enough for a plain, long sleeve cardigan.
So, I made my swatch. I used T9, so it wouldn’t be too stiff when washed - I still wanted a bit of drape and also yarn will go farther knit at a looser tension. Before washing, my swatch measured 28 sts and 38 rows to 10 cm. After washing and drying in the dryer - oh, who am I trying to kid? I was in a hurry and used the hair blower - it measured 29 sts and 46 rows to 10 cm. I love the shape of ‘Caped Wrapper’ from No 43 (see blogs below, ‘remake of caped wrapper’, ‘cheating at swatches’ and ‘recreational knitting’) but I thought I’d try it plain stockinette without the large collar - that would really be pushing the limit of where 2250 yds would take me.
I made the back first - this yarn knits like a dream - quick, easy, down and dirty! I love it! I weighed the back and it was almost 180g, so I knew it might be a bit tricky. I do like the crossover front and that will take a bit extra, as much as the back again, but I’ll go for 3/4 sleeves that I can turn back a cuff to elbow length, to save a bit. I quickly knit the 2 sleeves, threw them on the scale and I was at 300g. Knit both the fronts and promptly forgot thriftiness in my pleasure at getting all 5 pieces knit in 3 hrs!! I shut things down for the evening, not even looking at the remaining cone, on the floor.
This morning I wanted to knit the bands and get it finished, again forgetting my yardage dilemma. I knit the first front band, using double rib, just like in my original pattern, attached it to the left front and on my last joining row, the tail of the end of the cone came dangling into view...fudge!!!
Oh well, I still had my swatch. I unravelled -or is it ravelled? what is the difference? - well, to be brutally honest, I unpicked the last row, threaded up the tail and knit directly off the swatch! I made narrow stockinette bands for each front edge and the back neck, attached them and I still have half my swatch!! Aces!! Link it together, wash and dry, perfect!!
Oh, one other tip, I put everything together, except to set in the sleeves and I laundered it like that, then put the sleeves in. On a stretchy yarn, I’ve found that doing it this way makes a much better fit of the sleeve into the armhole.

BTW, plumberry is sold out, but the other colours are quite nice...

name dropping

Sorry to keep you all hanging on so long without reporting about my trip to TNNA (The National NeedleArts Association) Market in Columbus, Ohio - been busy working on getting No. 46 together and we’re just about there!
Other than the travelling part - nightmares on NWA (that’s another story) - it was great! This was my first time attending - it’s basically a hand knitting and needlecraft - beads, buttons, crochet, cross stitch, needlepoint, and accessories for all, etc, etc... - show for retailers. The exhibits - over 500 vendors - were so extensive, in a day and a half at the convention hall, I only walked about half of it. My friends - all big-time hand knitters as well as machine knitters - Sonia from FL and Jodi and Ingrid from SC, tried to make sure I saw the most important yarn companies.
My plan was to wear something that would blow away the conception that machine knitting was cheating, cheap, cheesy.... I wore ‘Baton Rouge’ from No 41. First of all, because it’s made from a gorgeous alpaca hand knitting yarn. Second, it looks like a hand knit, but is knit on the LK150, the basic hobby machine that is very affordable and easy to use. Third, the finished sweater is a lovely arrangement of cables, tuck ribs - hand knitters think that’s an unusual use of garter stitch - faggoted lace that adds airy-ness to an otherwise warm fabric, and a great edging they really couldn’t figure out. Fourth, it fits me nicely and suited the occasion. I don’t think I have ever been so closely inspected, but when I told people that I’d made the sweater, blah, blah, blah, the overall response was, like, wow, I had no idea things like that could be done on a knitting machine. They even turned me around to look at the back - I wasn’t sure whether they were checking to see if it was a ‘coffin sweater’ or not.
It was also really great that Silver Reed knitting machines were in attendance at the show for the first time in quite a few years. Knitcraft, Inc, the US importer, had a booth, with the mid gauge machines and they reported a very favourable reception in the hand knitting world as well.
On the yarn front, the luxury yarns were incredible. Alpaca, silk, wool, mohair, linen, cotton, more alpaca!!! The frou-frou scarf crap was not evident, garments were lovely, wearable, beautiful - lots of structured cardigans, set-in sleeves - mixing simplicity with more complicated design details. Still a fair amount of variegated and hand painted yarns but I saw more of a return to beautiful use of quality, natural fibres. Also the button displays blew me away, I wanted them all!! Tons of very large buttons, but, it was only a look-at show, no buying and taking home.
It was fun to meet some of the hand knitting celebs - if I may name-drop a bit here - Lily Chin promised to think about letting us have a stab at her upside-down cardigan; I got to tease Nicky Epstein for stealing my title ‘Knitting on the EDGE’; and I shared a cute, Canadian moment with Lucy Neatby and Véronik Avery. And of course, spending time with my friend Jodi Snyder, who’s hand knit designs have been in ‘Knit ’n Style’ and other hand knit magazines. You go, girl! Who, when she saw my ‘knots of work’, said, ‘why didn’t I think of that?’
Now, I can’t wait for my new Namaste bag to arrive (see www.namasteneedles.com). We all ordered ‘laguna’ in several colours!! Then I can pretend to be a hand knitter - I’m actually going to use it as a ‘carry-on’ bag for travelling, but look for one if you get the chance - they are REALLY nice!

Knots of work

I’ve been busy, swatching, knitting, planning - throw in a bit of pattern writing and some editing. I have a couple of finished projects for the next K’words, a couple of WIP’s (work in progress) and a few ‘waiting for the right yarn to come in’ plans. Every once in a while, I have to put it all aside and do something just for fun or just to get an idea out of my head.
I’m going to the TNNA show this weekend in Columbus, Ohio. It is a trade show for hand knitting and I’m just going for a look-see, no work. It should be a treat! Some of my garments will be there - Knitcraft is having a booth with knitting machines - primarily the LK150 because it should have the best appeal for hand knitters - and they asked me for some things for their display. Anyway, since I sent my best things for the show and it will be June in the midwest ( heat, humidity, hand knits), I was thinking what would I wear? Although I’m not really a scarf person, I’ve had this idea in the back of my head for a while and decided it was time to give it a go. My vision had several colours - olivey greens and burgundy purples - and light and airy...so yesterday, I knit 6000 rows... let me explain!
My plan, such as it was, was to knit a bunch of slip-cords with the mid gauge, in the different colours and then somehow knot or tie them together in a latticework. After making a couple of sketches, I decided 6 cords would do the trick.
2:30 pm. Figuring that I wanted the finished thing to be about 2 metres long, so that it could be looped loosely around neck/shoulders and still hang down in front or back, I knit the first cord, using a DK weight silk/wool with a lovely sheen, on the LK150, 4 sts X 1000 rows. Because I still had plenty of yarn left from that skein, I made a second one, same. I was knitting so fast, it was kinda noisy and I began feeling sorry for my little ‘plastic’ machine, felt I was abusing it...so thought maybe I’d try the next one - a beautiful matte-finish grape linen - on the SK860 (metal bed mid gauge). Duh? what was I thinking?? not much, obviously...it was much easier to do on the LK - the carriage is smaller, so you don’t have to move it as far to clear the working needles each row and it is lighter to push than the heavy-duty 860. I had to stop halfway and go do something else for a while for a rest. Back to the LK, with my other yarns, a fingering-weight avocado alpaca, doubled so it would be equal value of the others - a burgundy cotton/wool chenille, and finally Seawool, a hand-dyed wool and seacell sock yarn from Fleece Artists in shades of amethyst.
I had all six cords done by 5:30, so I watched/listened to ‘Jeopardy’ and played around with the cords, experimenting with knots, figuring that I could mull it over for a few days before deciding what to do. Now, the cords are 6 feet long. The first knot is easy, right...but then what the heck do you do??? a flash from the past! I think I had a vision of my mother doing macramé back in the 70’s. I took the cords down to my cutting table and pinned the ends 3 inches apart. I could use the grid on the table to space the knots and try to keep things relatively even. I made my first row of knots - square knots (I know that’s what they are because it was on ‘Jeopardy’ last week and my answer, ‘granny knot’ was wrong) and working from that end, it was easy. The next set of knots would mean pulling the remainder of the 6 feet through each time. Again, thoughts of Mom saved me. I vaguely recalled her looping up her cords and keeping them bundled with elastic bands - it was fun and I was compelled to finish! By 6:30, my back a little sore from stretching, it was done and I felt relieved. Now I could get back to real K’words work.
So, if you see me at TNNA, and wonder, what the heck is she wearing...
email me for the recipe!

going topless...

so, I went to visit Lindsay (cover of 12 of our issues, the Miss Canada girl, modelled ‘Trapeze Artist’ in No 43 most recently) the other day - she is now the co-owner of ’ Lava Clothing’ - Kerri, (our covergirl of No 43) is her business partner. ‘Lava’ is an upscale, clothing store catering to the younger-with-money - they carry JLo, Ugg, and all the trendy stuff (seven for all mankind jeans at like $250 per pair)...anyway, I had made Lindsay a pair of the controversial ‘fingerless gloves’ or ‘topless mitts’ - whatever you wanna call them - using a yummy amethyst alpaca, and made them a bit longer because I noticed some shorter sleeve jackets appearing. She was ecstatic and kept saying, ‘omigosh! omigosh! wait till you see what we have coming in!!! but these are so much nicer!!’ Apparently, they are all the rage for Fall/Winter ‘08 ...
So, if you’re wondering what to make for craft market and Christmas gifts this year, get to it!!
Here’s my pattern...
Going Topless
Hand warmers, sleeves, whatever...thumb only, fits almost to elbow. Size, ladies 7.
MACHINE - 4.5mm. Level - Beginner
YARN - Fingering weight Alpaca. Finished weight for pair, approx 2 oz/50g.
GAUGE - Stockinette, T8, 27 sts and 38 rows to 10 cm/4 in.
Left Hand - 33-0-34 n’s. Arrange every other needle in work. Cast on WY and ravel cord. RC000. CAR. Holding about 20 inch tail to use for seaming side of hand, MC, T5, K5R. Bring all n’s to work. T10, K1R. T7, K5R. RC011. Pick up loops from first row onto EON. Remove ravel cord and WY. RC000. T8, K2R.
Hand transferred pattern is centred between #24-1 left.
Make faggotted lace stitch on #6 & 19, same stitch is transferred to the right on every second row and to left on every 4th row.
Make 2X2 cable on #14, 13 & 12, 11 n’s, turned same way on every 6th row, beginning on row 4.
At same time, at each side, dec 1 st, K8R, 9X.
Knit to RC089. Set up for thumb. CAL. Set to hold. Take out MC, put aside without breaking. Turn off row counter. Bring all n’s to HP. Move CAR. Return 8 n’s at right to UWP. WY, K10R. Leave the 8 sts in work. Cancel hold. CAL, turn on row counter. MC, knit in pattern to RC112. Drop stitch on either side of cable, ladder down to row 1 and reform to tuck rib by latching every second bar to purl stitch to define cable (this could be done halfway and again at top to make easier to handle).
K1R. Decrease 5 to 8 sts evenly across row. With garter bar, RTR (remove, turn, rehang), K1R, 5X to make 5 rows of garter stitch. Knit side facing you, manually knit loose row and chain off.
Thumb - Steam WY to set sts. Cut WY in half. Open the piece out, purl side facing you, rehang these sts on 16-17 n’s, crossing the two centre sts to prevent a hole. RC000. T7, K14R. K3R of garter stitch (RTR, K1R, 3X). Knit side facing, manually knit loose row, chain off.
Seam side & thumb, using tails to seam, half edge stitch on each side makes flatter seam.
Make other hand in reverse.

BTW, she (Lindsay) said they were multi-coloured as well, so if you're tired of making socks and have any of that variegated stuff hanging around...
Also see KNITWORDS No 35 for Sue Corcoran's 'Starving Artist Gloves' and No 45 for Margaret Heck's version for different ideas of how to dress them up!!