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!

saving grace...

I’ll be honest here. I was hoping to make two tanks from this olive garden yarn, and I did. I started off to make for Agnieszka and in the back of my mind, the second one would be mine. Here’s what actually happened. I did make a swatch, I showed you! But in my excitement, of course I didn’t let it rest enough. I finished the top and was pleased but thought, this will never fit her! It would be perfect for Rhiana though, a size down from the one I thought I planned. Oh well, no worries, I’m sure (not really) they’d like a mother/daughter combo or at least I figured Mom would. Not so certain about my 13 year old! Nothing ventured, nothing gained. In for a penny, in for a pound. No guts, no glory. You know what I mean!
Used the automatic picot hem, #3, from Knitting on the EDGE by MAO, the orange book, http://www.knitwords.com/bookstore.html did the A- line shaping from the original black tank, cut in the back armhole to make it more

summery and edged the armhole with #23, ewrap on vertical edge from 50 Ways To Love Your Knitter (the green book) by the same – I haven’t used that one in ages and oh my! impressed myself all over again how well it works. It has the look of that crabby-stitch crochet thing but done on the machine and doesn’t take all day and all night to do it! The auto picot hem worked beautifully for the neckline – no reduction in the number of stitches because of the width of tuck patterning in the body but you need to add an RTR (remove, turn, rehang) in there after hanging the beginning row (only for the neck, not the bottom hem) because there is a right side and wrong side to the band.

Quick knits, both of them in one day!
Look at those beautiful, weird little argyles! If you could only get that all-over!

change is as good as a rest...

You know, I’m loving this hand-transferring lace stuff, but I have this leftover variegated WCD. I used it for the hood and sleeves of a remake of Omega, part of the last Serial Stuff, No 4.
https://knitwords.blogspot.com/2017/01/camo.html
The thing about variegated yarn is that it kind of does what it wants and, as you knit and change the width of the piece, the colours stack in different ways, making weird diamonds and doing random things not always what I’d like. I have really enjoyed my ‘camo’ hoodie and get lots of compliments on the colours. There is quite a bit left over, almost 400g and I think my daughter-in-law, Agnieszka (cover of #53, frontline worker and wonderful Mom of my two grandkids) would/might like it but doing hand transfers in this multi-coloured fabric would be a total misuse of time and, I’m keeping busy, not just wasting time!
You might recall one of my absolute favourite techniques, after lace, is One-Row-Tuck. https://knitwords.blogspot.com/2010/08/things-im-doing.html
I’ve used it many times and talk about it a lot - put ‘one row tuck’ in the search window at the top of the page and see what else comes up! I’m going to experiment a bit here, use the one-row-tuck (1RT) at a looser tension, T8 instead of T6 – this will make a thinner fabric for a summer top, the tuck will make a wider fabric and control the biasing tendency of the loose tension and hoping for the best on how it will effect the colour stacking. I’m anticipating the yarn will go further and maybe get two tops out of this. Fingers crossed! And I’s getting’ a little bored with this hem, going to try out another and I have a different trim in mind to finish the armhole…see ya in a few! I did make a quick swatch…
P.S. Happy Queen's birthday or whatever you call it!

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…