in the pink...

Next on my knit list is to make that same long, button-front, hoodie using my One-Row-Tuck (IRT) technique. If you’re unsure what that is, check out https://knitwords.blogspot.com/2020/05/change-is-as-good-as-rest.html

I’ve talked about this so many times and I wanted to try it out in this shape. Reasons: slightly different texture, not as boring as knitting stockinette, spring is coming sometime, could use something lightweight in a cotton, keep knitting, use up yarn, yadda, yadda, yadda…Anyway, I want to do a bit of research before I commit to one for myself. You know, make sure I have all the angles covered so mine is perfect ;)!

So, here I am, making this cotton candy sugar pink thing (2 ply cotton, used double-stranded) in a tuck stitch – you know, if you’ve been following me for any length of time, you probably know, after teal, pink is like my least favourite colour but I have sisters! I’m fairly certain Janet will wear this! I do have some ‘paper bag tan’ in the same yarn that would be fabulous but am uncertain as to how far it will go so, experimenting with the pink has value! I have 3 cones of about 300g each (pink) so should be fine. Remember when they used to say tuck stitch uses more yarn and ‘they’ probably even gave a percentage, like 30 to 40 percent more…than what? and who is ‘they’?

Brings me to the subject of research books – just thought I’d throw this in here. At one time I had a plethora of books on machine knitting, some good and some not so good – I’ve weeded them out, passed them on and the ones I have left are these three -

Regine Faust, ‘Fashion Knit Course Outline’ – a very good, quite old (1978 ), beginner to intermediate epistle with tons of information in a very readable, simple format with lots of exercises as examples – it was used as the basis for the 2 year fashion knit course at Sheridan College in Canada and at FIT in New York.

Mary Weaver, ‘Machine Knitting Technology & Patterns’ another very good, old (1979), tons of info, and easily explained.

The last one, Susanna Lewis, Julia Weismann, ‘A Machine Knitter’s Guide to Creating Fabrics’ https://knitwords.blogspot.com/2014/05/whats-another-word-for.html a valuable research book for someone who wants to go beyond the basic.

If you can find any one of them at estate sales, yard sales, etc., do not hesitate, pay whatever pittance they are asking!

Anyway, some where it was lodged in my brain that tuck knitting requires more yarn that most any other single-bed technique and I guess it’s because they were referring to that bubbly, blistery, baby-blanket thickness of most tuck stitches. So, my current mission, how does it relate to my 1RT? (which is knit much looser than normal to make a thinner, stable fabric but still offers the added advantage of a wider fabric - the comparison is to stockinette).

from Knitwords #9

Back to making a tension swatch – the yarn is Yeoman’s Brittany 2 ply cotton (3/14),
used double stranded. Back in the day, I would knit this in stockinette at T6,  looking for a gauge of 32 sts and 46 rows to 10 cm/4 in. after wash and dry – it’s cotton – it will shrink, so knit it slightly looser than you want to allow for the shrinkage. Here, with the 1RT technique, I knit 60 rows at T7, T9 and T10 – the T7 would be what you would regularly knit this at (again, ‘they’ said to knit tuck one full number higher than stockinette) but because I want a thinner, drapier fabric, I go with the 9 and 10 and have the T7 as comparison.

Measure the swatch after laundering. T7 was 26S X 56R. T9, 26S X 50R and T10 gave 24S X 42R. Note the big change is in the number of rows.

I started off with the hem I used on the lace swatches and later separated the T9 and T10 swatch on the 2-row marker row to try out another hem technique.

is it navy...

or is it purple? no, it's bilberry! Actually, this was No. 13! I forgot how lovely it is to knit a nice 4 ply wool with the lace carriage – it was a dream! Didn’t have to use yarn spray! Not a dropped or mis-transferred stitch in the whole thing!

I was randomly working on this long, button-front lace hoodie back in December while I was preparing for the Tennessee workshop and never got around to posting about it. I did wear it at the seminar, and everyone loved it – not sure if it was the colour or the actual garment, but I did promise to tell about it. http://knitwords.blogspot.com/2021/09/the-holy-grail.html

The stitch pattern was that floral mesh 60 st X 60 row lace pattern I had used twice before, but both times it was using the Bonita 4 ply mercerised cotton. https://knitwords.blogspot.com/2022/02/my-hole-theory.html  I really liked the stitch pattern and wanted to see how it translated to wool instead of the firmness of that cotton.

Playing around with the placement of the stitch pattern was fun – nothing matches – I changed the needle-1 position of each piece and, it’s not like anyone else would notice but I love it!

reminiscing....

 I had the strangest conversation last night with sister Janet – I have made quite a few garments for her over the past several years

https://knitwords.blogspot.com/2014/12/i-didnt-really-forget-to-tell-you.html

– I have a new one underway for her - it’s a pink cotton 2 ply, double stranded One-Row-Tuck long, button-front hoodie – more on that another day.

She was telling me that she was currently wearing a green, cotton-y cardigan with a cabl-y pattern, button-front vee neck with pockets, that I made, it is perfect for layering in the cool spring weather, and I was dumfounded, just couldn’t picture it. She emailed me a photo and I went Omigosh, that’s ancient history! It must have been from 1994/5 and, I didn’t tell her that I hadn’t really made it for her, she just got a hand-me-down.

The real story: I had to go searching. Fortunately, my friend Eloise, from TN, had made an MAO binder over the years, which she gave to me last month. In it, she had everything pre-Knitwords! Stuff I had long disremembered, everything I had ever had in print, from back in the day – right from my very first submission to The Carriage Trade, in 1990, all the way through to 1996 when it was Canada’s Fashion Magazine, all of my stuff in Machine Knit America, and even the few submissions to Machine Knitters Source which I had totally forgotten I ever did!

It didn’t take long for me to find Janet’s ‘new’ favourite cardigan. It first appeared in Canada’s Fashion Machine #56, but it was ivory? Now I recall! It was a cream colour, but when I got it back from the publisher I decided that I had no need for yet another light/non-coloured cardigan and I dyed it forest green – the next issue of the magazine had the dye-job story!

Gee, I still have some Suva…

slippery slope...

knitted back double wrap 

Back to that dishrag, I had emailed Janet to ask about the cast-on and cast-off. The first row of the pattern is tuck on every other row (so is the last row) and if a simple ewrap is used, you need to knit a row, putting the carriage at the left. Then, another row is required to get back at the right for going into the tuck stitch, because DAK tells you what side the carriage must be on. I couldn’t wait for her reply so using that ‘2-needle ewrap’ (single strand) was perfect to eliminate the need for that second row of stockinette. 

double tuck row

I haven’t used this much on the standard gauge machine, but several of the trims I use on the mid gauge/LK150 start off with this, using the yarn double-stranded for extra bulk and in my book  The Handbook for Manual Machine Knitters, I’ve called it ‘Knitted Back Double Wrap Cast-on’. While making the third dishcloth, I was thinking of the cast-off. At the top, there is a doubled-tucked stitch on every other needle and again, to cast off over that with one row, it will roll to the back and because of the tucks, look messy. On the first one, I knit a row of stockinette to get rid of the tucks – rats! the carriage is on the left! I could cast off from here but it is slower so knit another row and then cast off. 

Current scenario, hey, what if I did a reverse of that cast-on? Ending with carriage at right, at the end of the tuck pattern, bring all needles out. Yarn at right, out of the feeder, take the yarn to the left, under the two next needles, and back into the hook of the first – knit that back for a large stitch, leave it in place. Take yarn to the left under next two needles, back to the right, drawing the first held stitch back, put yarn into the hook and knit it back for a large loose stitch. Continue across in this manner  to left. Break yarn and then chain off all the loose stitches right to left.

This results in both edges looking similar with a chain-stitch look on the purl side, matching the tuck. What the heck? It’s just a dish RAG! But, you never know when you can use that again in something real!

Oh man! I can see this is a slippery slope! Next thing, I’ll be knitting a tea cozy! ;)

redemption...

You wouldn’t know this, but this is my 600th blogpost! And, in only 15 years! My first post was in April of 2008. Wow! Kind of impressed myself!

Updating a bit, I did finish off the red/black tuck tunic that I was using at the seminar to demo seaming. I'm calling it Tennessee Tunic. Love it!

Back at the seminar in Pigeon Forge, near the end of the day, I was preparing for the big finale and demo-ing these fabulous buttonholes in a chain-stitch edge front band, like for a cardigan, and as Murphy would have it, just before the most significant part, every thing fell off the machine. There wasn’t enough time to re-do it and I’ve felt bad ever since. Here’s another ‘never’ for me - a video! I hate the sound of my own voice and always said no, won’t happen. Anyway, son, Derek, lent his hand-held camera; grandson, Nate, came over to operate it and we put this video together. He also took care of the technical bits like editing and getting it to a place where I could send you the link. Hope you appreciate it! Sorry about the few frames of the back of my hand and arm in the way, but I think Nate did an amazing job, despite not knowing what the heck I was doing! We had fun, though I assured him this is not the start of a new career for me! Then he took it home and stitched it together, making about 15 minutes of what was missed from the seminar. The video starts after row 5 of the buttonhole band.

For those who weren’t there, I’ve given you the link here to a pdf of my handout :

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vmHN9IqRNHLbEjLn_oNme-4AWpnjAfBA/view?usp=sharing

- I would recommend that you print it out, read it over and then watch the video - don’t forget your popcorn!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aw7Gz6QD1U

air knitting...

The other day I mentioned knitted dishcloths and sort of admitted to making two under the guise of helping my friend with her Silver/DAK (DesignaKnit) issues. Still on that bent, and, trying to get ready for my next lace, button-front, long hoodie, I wasted the last two days on DAK. No worries, more on that another time, but today, in order to salvage the day and feel like I accomplished something, I thought, what the hay, might as well knit a dishcloth! Christine wanted to know why I was using fairisle to do a tuck stitch? Well, it was Janet’s emailed file that I was using, and I just brought it into my DAK - she has DAK9 and windows10. I have DAK8 and windows7. All of which, if you don’t have DAK, tune me out for a minute or so. 

Anyway, I saw the file, it’s 81 sts X 180 rows (the checkerboard diamond one) but she didn’t say how, why or what? So, I just left it as fairisle, no big deal. He/DAK doesn’t know that you set your carriage for tuck (heh, heh!) - all you really care about is that he is selecting the needles that are to be tucked - I did some air knitting before the actual ‘with yarn’ deal - that’s where the front arm is removed,

air EON

the stitch pattern downloaded, the needles you want are in work position, set the carriage to tuck and pass over the needles. Because the arm is off, you can see what needles are coming to the tuck position and what needles are coming out to the stockinette position as you are passing the carriage across. This way you can know that everything is set right, without having to go through all the deal of waste yarn and the fixed cast-on and then finding out you’ve got things the wrong way, especially on electronic machines, even if you don’t have DAK!

P.S. Make sure to check a row that is more or less than every other needle tuck! ‘Cuz it could be either one!

air tuck 

The knitted stitches are the needles that come out (tuck ones don’t come out so far),so you’re looking for more of those side-by-side like the second photo.