panda success...

just to prove that I did get that panda sweater done! and Rhiana loves it! wow, she is growing  faster than bamboo! the sleeves are only just exactly right, good thing I didn't opt for the too-short version!  ;-)


I used the semi-jacquard technique to make the larger, single panda face on the patch pouch pocket ( say that a few times!) and then sewed it to the front of the pullover - admittedly, the pocket should have been a little smaller overall but she didn't notice and she was so proud to be part of the design process!

the hurry-er I go...

the behind-er I get! I got that first sleeve off the machine in about 40 minutes, feeling pretty good that I had no glitches, like dropping everything off or switching the yarns wrong or something like that. After all, that's what the yarn changer is all about! LOL!  BUT, it looks suspiciously small!!! Now, I am using my KR11/knit contour/shaping device  for the size - you program in the stitch and row count from the swatch and it shows you how many stitches to cast on, when to increase and how long to make it. Usually I also have a to-scale drawing on graph paper that I can make brief notations, like how many stitches to cast-on and the row count at the underarm and top of sleeve cap so I can be sure that the next piece matches up AND usually I use the calculator to multiply the row gauge by the length of the sleeve so I should know ahead of time close to where I should be by the time the mylar feeds through to the underarm, but somehow, yesterday, I forgot this step...Sure enough, I had plugged in 63 rows to 10 cm instead of the actual 68 rows - no wonder it looks short. I briefly entertained the idea of teaching Rhiana to push her sleeves up slightly for the 3/4 sleeve look but my heart said no, you can't cheat a granddaughter!
A few notes on the knitting...
Bring the end needle out at the carriage side, at the beginning of each row. This makes sure the end needle knits properly and that both yarns/colours go to the edge of the knitting.
Increase: when the carriage is at the right side (away from the yarn changer) you have one colour at this side - bring out the next new needle and ewrap it with that colour. At the same time, do an ewrap at the left side with the unused yarn. This way you aren't fighting both yarns at the left side.
Decreases/shaping for the sleeve cap: normally I would want to shortrow the sleeve cap and then cast them all off at the end but that means holding position which will surely cause trouble because of the yarn changer. On the bad sleeve, I did go to the old method of casting off stitch by stitch with the transfer tool on the carriage side of the work. It takes more time and is rather ugly. This time, I used the ravel cord method of shortrowing - why didn't I think of that yesterday? So much better! 
BTW, that one at the bottom - no, I did NOT knit that in the opposite colours just to see what it would look like...but check out that cast-off! ;-)

panda-monium....

My nine-year-old granddaughter Rhiana was here on the weekend and we planned out her panda sweater. Turns out she's still enamoured with turquoise - she would like it to be turquoise and white even though I tried to explain that I was just experimenting and didn't mean to make them purple. We played with the overall bear design to make them more panda-like and we're happy with the results. When I gave her the choice of a zip-front hoodie or a pullover (I had to explain what a pullover was) she wants a pullover/tunic (yes!), we both thought the sleeves should be the overall print and she wants just one big panda face on the front. So the plan is there!
I got out my yarn changer (after searching high and low for the auto-tension - it was in plain sight, hanging on the wall, where it's been since the last time I used it - not sure how long ago that was!) because I had already decided, on my own, that I was going to knit the pandas as 'semi-jacquard' to control the float issue - Rhiana didn't like the little 'dots' in my original swatch anyway and we got rid of them! I was sorely tempted to jump right into a sleeve and call it my tension swatch, guessing at the gauge ahead of time but decided there were too many things going on to waste the time, like what kind of band? how to cast-on? how many needles out of work between the ribbed lines on the back side? yada-yada...so I opted for a proper swatch! I did have to get the yarn changer manual to be sure of the proper threading and I checked every thing I ever wrote on using the yarn changer and semi-jacquard...
the following excerpt from KW#44, Making a Theme Sweater by MAO:
SEMI JACQUARD: Knit carriage set to slip/jacquard. Ribber carriage set to slip one way & knit the other way:
Silver Reed:  left set lever to 0, Right set lever to 1
Brother:  rib carriage left cam lever to pr, Right cam lever to n
Semi jacquard can be introduced anywhere in the garment without too much trouble. Bring up the rib bed and use only every 5th or 6th needle on the rib bed, set to knit on every other row only, providing a good method of tying up the floats. The knit carriage is set to slip/jacquard and the rib bed is set to knit only every other row, therefore a vertical line is not made on the front of the fabric which an every row rib stitch would make.
Tension: experiment a bit - I found that having the rib tension set quite tight and the main bed set about what you would use to fairisle same yarn usually works good - I have 4ply acrylic (Yeoman cashmillon/Tamm Trenzi) at T8/3, got 29 sts and 68 rows to 10 cm/4 in - same stitch gauge as fairisle would be but the row gauge is about double because you are actually knitting 4 rows of slip to get the 2 rows of fairisle... 

when two worlds collide...

I went to the zoo, last week, in Toronto, and they had all these baby animals and I came home thinking of pandas! And my knitting friend, Peg, mentioned Double Bed Jacquard which isn't my favourite technique unless I was going to make a horse blanket (private joke - way back when, I went to a convention and saw Passap machines for the first time and their entire fashion show consisted of dresses and jackets done with 4 to 8 colours of DBJ and all I could think of was horse blanket fabric) so, jacquard was on my mind too.
I had an old 'teddy bear' punchcard (Knitwords #22) that I thought would sort of do... I got it down to only a 7-stitch float...but then I had another idea of just using a panda face! I like it but it needs work - I knit this sample in fairisle just to see if I liked my stitch pattern and I do but I will mess around with it a bit and maybe turn one upside down and maybe sideways...who knows what it will come out as but I need to do something to get rid of all those nasty floats - the face print is 40 sts X 40 rows so you can imagine how bad they are...I'm thinking I'll check my notes on what I call semi-jacquard. Stay tuned! I think I know a young girl who might like a panda hoodie!

BTW, Toronto Zoo is great! We really loved the polar bears too but they aren't quite as distinctive for knitting!