error correction 101...

oh man! how did this happen? I’ve been power knitting, I’ll admit – when I get excited about a project, it’s hard to slow down - I can’t wait to see the final thing! Two sleeves, one back and two fronts knit – did I forget to mention this was random, nothing matching? Pinned them together, tried on and was happy with the result.
Took the pins out and began the seaming. I always seam the bands/hems by hand and then hang the long seams on the machine or the linker. Did that for the sleeves, excellent result. Did the right front to the back. Good to go and then brought the left front hem to the back, butting them together and OMG! The front hem is slightly narrower than the back! I must have fudged the row counter – for this double bed hem, after knitting the waste yarn and circular ravel cord, I place the carriages at the left and knit the first row of main yarn, zigzag from left to right. Then, set to circular, and turn the row counter to 000…whatever, the front hem is only 18 rows as opposed to the other 20 rows! Arr-g-g-h! Two options come to mind…re-knit the entire right front? Go for the save by re-making the hem and grafting it onto the bottom first row of stockinette? There is really no contest here, I have to go with the graft.
The first step is to remake the hem correctly and transfer it up to the main bed. Knit one row in red to close the hem as usual and then remove it on waste yarn. Next, get the hem off the front – I am going to pull the last red row thread that joined the hem, leaving the loops of the first row of charcoal. Carefully rehang those charcoal loops on the machine on the same number of needles as hem was. Carefully unknit that row, from the side with the tail of yarn – it takes a bit of picking and undoing but it can be done. The yarn of that row is what I’m going to use to graft the two sets of stitches back together and the row of grafting replaces or duplicates the first row so you won’t be able to tell there ever was a problem. Knit this piece off on waste yarn, make sure you have a good inch on each piece. Now, sit somewhere comfy with good light and from the purl side, perform the graft.
BTW, so totally impressed with this yarn – it knits beautifully with a minimum of weights and no knots!!

swatch hack...

 Grabbed several cones and made a quick swatch!
Cast on 25-0-25 sts on the main bed. Put #21 needle on each side out of work – this will mark the centre 40 sts all the way up without having to hang yarn marks. Did a quick, hung hem. I am using T7, based on my vast (;-)) general knowledge – I know the gauge will be 29-30 stitches and 39-40 rows to 10 cm - and I want the narrow stripes to be about one inch, so, picking the colours randomly, knit 10 rows of each. This eliminates the need to make marking rows to keep track of the 60 rows to measure for the row gauge – just count off 6 stripes. All the yarns are Forsell Pure New 4 ply Wool, except the tweedy one which is my favourite here – it is an oldie, NLA of course, called Rutland Tweed (also by Forsell) and it will knit at the same gauge as the plain wools. I chose it because it has the little flecks of khaki, grey and black that I think will tie all these colours together.
My vision has khaki for the bottom edges and I see it as a circular hem, meaning that it looks like plain stockinette but it’s done on the double bed. Much quicker, no waste yarn, no rehanging stitches, just transfer up to the main bed at the end. I do have another reason for opting for the double bed technique – the front bands are going to be the automatic long stitch facings that I love and since you need the ribber for that, may as well get it going from the beginning.
I find that knitting up stripes like this gives a better perspective of how the colours blend and mix together and if there is a colour you don’t like, it’s easy to fold that stripe out of the swatch and put other colours side by side without having to reknit it all.
I got so excited, couldn’t resist jumping right in. You know it, I made the Sleeves while I mull over what I want on the Back. I looked up an old bell-sleeve pattern (KW# 35, Made to Fade) that I knew would serve (not too big or exaggerated) and put that sleeve schematic in my KR11.
The circular hem is beautiful and so easy! I wanted one stripe of the tweed on the narrowest part of the sleeve and here’s the thing – I always like the purl side of this tweed better – the little blobby spots show up more, and I thought, why not? Never one to shy away from an RTR or two, I took it off, turned it, knit the tweed, turned it back and finished off with the olive. It's adds another dimension and I like the added detail of the little dotted line from the first RTR. This may come back to bite me as the fronts will have the long stitch facing but I’ll deal with that tomorrow!

talk about pressure...

I haven't been doing too much blogging or standard gauge knitting lately - I've been working on a new book of techniques for the manual machine - more on that later!
Rhiana, my nine year old granddaughter, was over on the weekend and spotted the jade green and white cones of yarn sitting on top of my standard machine and wondered if I was getting around to her panda sweater (http://knitwords.blogspot.ca/2016/05/panda-monium.html) and when did I think I'd have it ready? I promised her that it would be ready for her back-to-school which is the day after Labour Day. I was thinking that would give me 2 weeks but crikey! it's only a week away! I do have the swatch that I/we made back in May, but why can I not find any notes? I was going to start with that nice hem that I had on the swatch - it looks really good but I don't know what I did!
I thought I'd wing it...sat down and cast on with waste yarn on the single bed and then, thought, why would I do that? I need the ribber for the semi-jacquard so why wouldn't I use a ribber band and then I went DUH! It's a double bed circular hem! and it IS really nice! The 'fold' line at the bottom was what was puzzling me because it works so well and then the rest of the band is so even and neat - LOL! Well, lesson learned! If I write it in this blogpost, I'll always know where to find it, even if you don't care!
Circular Hem. Swing H5. Arrange for full needle rib, end ns on RB. Cast on WY. Knit several rows. Set to circular. T4/6, ravel cord, K2R. Move carriages to left without knitting. Bring ns all out. This will cancel the circular setting and make a zigzag row (without having to change the settings back and forth). MC, T2/2, K1R. Hang comb and one weight. RC000. T1/3, knit circular, grading tension by increasing one full number for each row to T8/10, RC014. Swing P. Transfer sts to needle arrangement desired - for semi Jacquard, all working on MB and only every 6th needle in work on RB. Swing H. Program pattern and use next row to read/select. T9/7, K1R. RC000. Set to slip.

And the book? I think of it as a resource manual for the manual machine so I wanted to call it 'The Manual Manual' but I'm working on that. It's full of techniques, the when, where and whys of what to do, and hand transferred stitch patterns and trims and edgings all suitable for non-punchcard or non-patterning machines. Rick (my layout guy) is calling it the 'war and peace of knitting'! We are on page 78 of the layout and still have probably another 35 to go - I was aiming for 75 total - he knows my other 'books' were all 28 pages and the magazine was 48 pages so no wonder! He thinks I need to get a life! Do I edit it down or go for broke?