celebrating....

I was out visiting little sis, Marnie – we were celebrating her 20th year cancer survivor (see KW#44, 'making a theme sweater' and 'Dog-On' - she has since had two stem cell transplants!) and this was the first time in several years that I’ve been out there when she hasn’t been sick, so it was really nice (and the dogs are fine!). She was also getting a 25-year service award for her job and we had an invitation to an evening at Government House in Victoria, BC – that’s where they entertained the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge on their last visit to Canada and is the official residence of the Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia. La-di-dah!
Marnie had an extra ticket, her friends were fighting over it and I won because a sister has dibs on things like that! She had received an invitation that outlined what was happening, when and where and a note of what to wear – it said, ‘wear your best, time to show off!’ Now, this has different meanings – she just wanted to be comfortable and her idea of dressing up is clean jeans and maybe a better pair of sneakers and I was kind of worrying about what she would pull out. When I was packing in Thunder Bay, I had resigned myself to wearing pants – no point in me dressing to the nines if she wasn’t, so I figured my red lace ‘Canada. Eh?’ would be fine with black underneath and just to be on the safe side, I packed the Church Pullover just in case she might wear it. I didn’t want to be too big-sister bossy, but I wanted to be prepared. Anyway, when we were in the hotel in Victoria getting ready, she put her outfit on, I pulled rank and made her put on the pullover. It looked great and she didn’t even fuss! Her co-workers (also getting awards) were amazed and impressed. We all were comfortable and had a fun time!
Why am I’m telling you? I wanted to show off my design and tell you the pattern is ready! And, my sis and I are basically opposite shapes – I’m always saying that I like the A-line shape because it balances off my top-heavy figure and hides the fact that I have no hips. The ‘Church Pullover’ is quite A-line and it was perfect for Marnie too, where she needs the extra volume in the hip/tummy area. And wouldn’t you know, they had a Canada 150 frame for us to stand behind for our photo!
If you missed it (or forgot), find the stories behind the 'Church Cardi', put 'church cardi' in the search box at the top of the blog page!
So, in case you hadn’t noticed, the ‘Church Cardi and Pullover’ pattern is now for sale. It is done on the mid gauge machine (I used the LK150), no ribber required and there is a fair amount of hand-transferred lace patterning.

High-hip length, open front cardigan, long, set-in sleeve, roll collar, knit in hand transferred lace with purl stitch ridges. Back lace inset is A-line shaped. The front is combined with side panel, wider at hem and shaped at back side to add to the A-line. The Pullover version, a little more A-line, with a wider hip measurement, is made with a back and front panel of lace with underarm/side panels in stockinette with the lace border at the hemline. The sleeve can be knit in stockinette or lace, your choice and either fits either the cardigan or the pullover. Knit in Cascade Yarns Ultra Pima cotton.

FINISHED SIZES, Width, underarm at bust,
84 (96, 120, 144) cm/33 (38, 47, 57) in.
Back Length, 61 (62.5, 65, 67) cm/24 (24.5, 25.5, 26.5) in.

Circumference at hem: 124 (136, 160, 184) cm/48 (53, 73, 72) in.

The PDF comes with written pattern for both cardigan and pullover, with schematics, stitch charts and written instructions for all the lace patterning. Cost is $12 – see the button at top right of this blog – and I will email the files to you! Thanks for your support and interest!

use it or lose it....

Gosh, I feel like I’ve been sweating over that freakin’ pattern for the Church Cardi for the whole darn month! What’s the big deal? Between visitors, our crappy summer and family stuff, it’s been hard to concentrate and when I look back, it’s been a while since I’ve actually written a pattern from scratch. It was like I forgot what to do. I almost gave up but that’s not my nature and I did promise, so I knew I had to deliver. I was having trouble deciding on the sizing and then my numbers weren’t adding up. The break-through? Yesterday, it dawned on me! Just draw the darn thing out and you’ll be able to see what the problem is – oh man, then it was a cake walk! I used the full width KR half scale paper that is charted in half scale centimetres for the Silver Reed charting device and had green, black, blue and red ink lines for each of the four sizes and I feel so good and virtuous – this pattern will be perfect!
I even knit a sleeve to check the final lace pattern details and I know you’ll be happy with all the extras! Truth, of course, I didn’t just happen to have enough of the same yarn just laying around and, I didn’t want another one for me, but, since sister Janet booked our next hiking holiday to Ireland for next June, you know it…Janet is getting a Church Pullover for Christmas! ;-) I’d hate to waste a good sleeve! I’ve had this huge cone of cashmere/wool in ivory – yeah, I know it’s not her favourite colour but if she really doesn’t like it, I’ll dye it for her and likely, she’ll love it just because it fits! You may remember, she’s a little vertically challenged and before I started knitting for her, she’d never had a sweater that had the right sleeve length!
I know you might not have the exact yarn either so here’s my stashbusters tip. My original yarn is Cascade Ultra Pima, a 100% mercerised cotton with a beautiful drape and sheen that I used at T3.5 stockinette for a gauge of 23 sts and 30 rows to 10 cm. This is an unknown cone that I’ve had for eons and who knows what yardage or whatever it is, but it looks like about the same thickness. I knit 3 swatches, starting with T4 (because I could go up or down from there) and it seemed a little tight to knit and I didn’t want to have to sweat that much, so I made one at T4.5. After I washed and dried those I saw I still had a little leeway – T5 proved to be the magic number – my gauge is exact, it was smooth to knit and the finished, washed swatch is lovely, with a nice drape, so that’s what Janet is getting! I know I’ll be regretting giving up this lovely yarn but there should be an expiry date on some of this stuff anyway!
The Church Cardi/Pullover pattern is ready! I’ll post it here for sale, next week when I get back from St Cloud!

the church cardi saga

I think I got over the excitement of launching the new book - I've been tidying up around my workroom and getting ready to pack stuff up for the Dallas/Forth Worth seminar and I realized I hadn't shown you the finished Church Cardi! never mind the pullover version!
Maybe I'll back up a bit... The church cardi, you say? Way back in April, I began working on a mid gauge version of my RTR Lace Cardi and I had gotten a real 6.5mm 7-prong adjustable tool - oh, what the heck! you can go back and read about it again if you've forgotten or maybe joined me since then...

http://knitwords.blogspot.ca/2016/04/im-pretty-excited.html
Anyway, it doesn't usually take me that long to finish a project but somewhere in there, I got the inspiration to put together the new book  - that's my excuse and I'm sticking with that story! I did say at one point that I was going to make a pullover version - I did have intentions of writing up both of these as a pattern, but one step at a time! I thought the pullover version would be a nice option for people who didn't like cardigans and actually both the cardigan and pullover were planned to offer a larger size range. The pullover has a back section that is virtually all patterned and the front/side panel of mostly stockinette allows for an increased finished width fairly easily. When I got that finished, I loved the back so much, I decided to make the pullover so I could have the back in the front, if you know what I mean, even though I very rarely wear pullovers - but this did turn out so nice, I am pretty sure I will wear this one - and now I do have something brand new to take to Dallas next week! ;-) Oh, and BTW, thanks to my friend Tom the machine knitting guy for convincing me that I really hadn't made a huge mistake (http://knitwords.blogspot.ca/2016/05/whar-not-to-do.html) - He sent me an email and told me he thought it looked very architectural - I looked at it again, steamed it out and it's one of my favourite designs - it's on the bottom of the front and back of the pullover - AND, BTW, all of these stitch patterns are included in the new book but there is no garment pattern (yet).

salvage operation...

I'm working on a pullover version of the Church Cardi...(heavy sigh!) I took the sleeve of the cardi (plain stockinette with a lace hem) and measured it against the front panel, which is fully patterned, to see where I needed to start the patterning on this sleeve so it would match up at the underarm. Decided that I should begin with 2 repeats of the 'cross and triangle' and went ahead and knit the sleeve. When I got it off the machine, it looked suspiciously short...drat! What do I do now? I really hate too-short sleeves. I briefly consider ploughing ahead, telling myself that I probably won't wear this anyway - it's a pullover and I just don't wear pullovers. On the other hand, I could just always push them up and nobody would know. BTW, this yarn is beautiful (Cascade Ultra Pima) and the combined stitch patterns, I think, are really stunning.

I figure, oh well, what's another day in my life to knit another sleeve? It's not like this is the first time I've had to make an extra sleeve (or two or three! LOL!) I go ahead and make the second sleeve with 3 repeats at the bottom - it's perfection! Then I thought, huh! maybe I can salvage this! got nothing to lose in trying. I'm going to separate it just above the last 'cross and triangle' repeat - there are 2 rows of reverse stockinette separating each of my patterns. If I can pull the right thread and open up the piece I can add another repeat to the bottom portion and then graft it back together, duplicating the row of reverse stockinette that I had to destroy to get it apart! sounds easy when you say it fast!

I steamed the sleeve to set the stitches, took a deep breath, grabbed  the scissors and snipped the yarn in the middle of the bottom row of reverse stockinette. Now, pick at each side to get a big enough piece to get a grip on, and pull on it to draw it across to the edge, snip the excess from the centre and then carefully pick out to the end of the row, ending up with almost two inches at each side which will be enough to darn in. Take the top portion and rehang it, right side facing and I have the one purl row hanging on the needles! Waste yarn it and then hang the bottom section, wrong side facing me. Good so far! Go ahead and knit the missing 14 rows, measure out a 3X the width tail to be used (maybe for the grafting row if it happens to be on the correct side of the work!) and waste yarn this piece. Steam them both, grab my close-up glasses, a darning needle and set to work. OMG! It's working! I'm so happy I could just knit! Less than 45 minutes! 

what NOT to do...

Change your mind after you've made tons of swatches and not swatch again! What was I thinking? Why did I do that? Is this becoming my mantra?  Will I ever learn? Arrr-g-g-h-h-h!
Here I am, perking along on the Church Cardi, using this fabulous yarn (Cascade Ultra Pima) and loving it! I'm making the front band - it's 145 stitches wide, all hand-transferred, not really a big deal, but it's not exactly stockinette and for some reason I get adventurous and decide randomly to offset the second pattern...get it done, take  it off on waste yarn and it looks awful! a hodge-podge of stitches, fighting each other! or is it?
Glad I bought extra yarn! you know how I hate to unravel...I also believe in saving mistakes so you don't do them again!

sorry, didn't mean to leave you hanging...

The yarn I used here was just something I had on hand back when I was thinking fall/winter. It's a DK wool that works well on the LK150 and has good stitch definition, but is rather firm and not as drapey as I want for a spring garment - if spring ever gets here!
I actually placed an order yesterday with my new fave hand yarn mail order source, loveknitting.com for some Cascade Yarns Ultra Pima which was  my original yarn choice in my Request For Design that I submitted to KnitStyle back in 2014 and funny, I forgot that my name of the design was 'ExitLine' - because I thought you'd look good walking away! LOL! I'm sticking with 'Church Cardi' - it has a better story!
The Cascade Ultra Pima, I had used for 'Faux Crochet Cardigan' back in Knit'nStyle #174 and it was beautiful to work with, has a great sheen and drape and I used some of the leftovers for my original swatches  on that RFD. Another plus, it has great yardage, goes a long way - I think I will need 7-8 skeins for my size but I ordered 10 because they have a 15% off right now and free shipping and I didn't want to stress about running out! (I also added a couple balls of Regia sock yarn just to have ;-))

sitting in church...

Li'l Mikey and I got on just fine - yes, I named the tool Mikey... He's cool, listens real well, doesn't talk back and feels good in my hand! I live alone, what can I say?
I did half the front band first because I knew where I was going with that and it went so well, I jumped right into doing the back without too much thought - this is only a prototype so who cares if there's a boo-boo or two - it'll give the knitter behind me in church something to think about - like that's gonna happen! LOL!
I started off with a 24-st version of feather and fan - that was good and fun - I could have done the whole back like that but I was itching to try different things. The next one was another 24-st repeat where I centred the 'fans' going outward from the same point as the one below...I knew I was going to be doing some decreasing at the sides and wanted those side seams to look good and have a finished pattern so my decreases are actually  about 7 sts in from the edges. I put some faggoted lace between to take up the slack. The third pattern is my very favourite 'leaf' design (a 12-st repeat), where you are actually filling in the holes as the top of the leaf swings back in. I followed it with 'battenburg', another very favourite 12-st repeat. I like the way the mix of patterns alternate between hole-y and not so hole-y (tieing in with the church theme ;-)!) and even holier but you still see the vertical lines.
The sleeves are a little snug - I forgot and used my standard gauge shape without thinking that the mid gauge is a thicker fabric, so I'll have to redraft and reknit those...no big deal, they are mostly stockinette and I have plenty of yarn left!
This was supposed to be my mid gauge version of the RTR cardi, but I'm renaming it the 'church cardi'!

I'm pretty excited...

I finally got around to placing an order for a real mid gauge 7-prong adjustable tool and it's arrived! I'm so happy I could just knit!
Let me explain...a few years ago, I was at a machine knitting seminar and a dealer there had a 'mid gauge' adjustable tool. I asked her if it would work on my LK150 which is a 6.5mm gauge - the distance between the needles. She assured me it would and I happily parted with cash, anticipating new, easier stitch patterns on my LK150 once I returned home. It didn't take long to realize that it was actually a 7mm tool - I was sorely disappointed. That half mm doesn't seem like much but when you try to hang it on all 7 needles or every other needle, you can wiggle it and get it to finally fit but it takes so long it's just not worth it!
You might remember last fall, I was bragging about doing a mid gauge version of the RTR cardi ('rash promises' Oct 28/16)...I did the sleeves and the front/side panels and then kinda lost steam when it came to the more labour intensive transfers for the back panel and the front shawl edges (I was transferring 7 stitches and having to use the 3 prong tool twice and then 1 for each operation) and the project had technically become a UFO (unfinished object).
I recently found out that Mike Becker at dknits.com has a bona fide 6.5mm tool - I placed my order with my fingers crossed. YES!! it is 6.5 mm!! It works perfectly! Thanks Mike, you're wonderful! He has lots of other goodies too - make sure and order a new foam strip while you're at it! 
That UFO is back on my to-do list!
If you know anyone who needs a 7mm...I've marked them so I know the difference!
Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you - I'm going to Dallas! The DFW machine knitters guild has invited me to do a two day seminar October 15 and 16, 2016. Hope to see you there!