rib recap...

 

1X1 rib, E4N std gauge

I’m making the cuffs for the poncho (1X1 rib made on the standard gauge ribber). If I hold the edge for the cuff up to the LK150, it appears that 20-0-20 stitches are needed. To set this up on the standard gauge, I am using 40-0-40 needles, selecting every 4th needle on the main bed and then the alternate 4th needles on the rib bed. The cuff

row of stockinette after rib
 

ribbing should be tighter than what is on the hem band so am doing it at T8/8 for 20 rows. Again, transfer up to the main bed and it is every other needle for a row of stockinette before waste yarn. TIP, before cutting, measure off the main yarn, 4 times the width of needles in work to have enough for the cast-off row on the LK! Two less ends to darn in! Ditto for the face band and for the grafted seam at the back of the hood.

sleeve edge on LK
 

To attach, hang the sleeve edge of the poncho on the LK150, knit/right side facing you. Turn the band and hang stitches in the hooks of the needles.

hang cuff

Put the garment part behind the latches, with the stitches still in the hooks. Close the latches and push back on needle butts to pull that row through the closed edge to join the pieces. Knit loose row and chain off!

loose row for cast-off

finished cuff with std gauge selector

For the hood, I’m using the same schematic as the Oxymoron Cardi which was almost the same as Milky Way (but a little deeper and I had grafted the back seam because it laid flatter and neater)  which was from Lacy in Red, KW#40, http://knitwords.blogspot.com/2018/07/couldnt-help-it.html. Love the hood on Oxy (I know I didn’t show you, but I will soon, promise!), fits just right and really looks nice up or down and I think it will be just right for the poncho.

mylar  - follow red line

This hood is knit from the face edge (in one piece), back to the back of the head and the side edges are shaped with decreases to fit to the neckline. The stitch gauge tells me to have 60-0-60 sts (120 total) for the full width of the hood and I want to have a ribbed edge on the front of the hood. To do it in one piece on the standard gauge ribber, I can only get 100 sts total which is fine because I used a few less stitches for the front band on the Oxy hood and it works great, snugs the open edge of the hood in nicely, especially when it is laying over your back. 

hood before

Here, I made the hood band first, T10/10, 10 rows, but I will knit the hood on the LK150 starting with waste yarn. The band will be attached later because it will be easier to rehang the hood edge, gathering in the extra stitches evenly spaced rather than trying to hang the ribbed band and increasing across for the extra stitches! Attach the front face band before grafting the back of the hood or it won't open up enough to stretch across for the band. Just sayin'...



yeah, i cheated....

Don't hate me because I’m more than a one-machine-pony! heh-heh! I do like my LK150, but does that mean that I have to sit there and hand-latch every other stitch for 10 rows of 1X1 rib times 4? Hell no!

On this poncho – I’m calling it the Thunder Bay Poncho because we need more that just a wide scarf that drapes the shoulders – this one also swaddles your butt and keeps your arms and sides warm, making it good for even a warm-ish winter day! Anyway, the original had narrow stockinette bands all round which was fine, but on my tweedy one, 1 did change those to 1X1 rib and even though it was close to 20 years ago, I do vaguely remember knitting the bands on the standard gauge ribber and then rehanging it on the LK150. If it makes you feel better, I did have to make the first one now only about four times before I got it right. I needed 80 stitches for the bottom so without thinking it through all the way, I set up and knit 80-0-80 sts in 1X1 rib at T10 on the standard gauge. Transferred up and knit a row which turned out to be much stiffer than I thought it should be but I reasoned that I was using DK weight on the 4.5mm machine...took it off and brought it over to the LK and saw that I had twice as many stitches as needed but also, it wouldn’t be wide enough if it was only 40-0-40 needles. Probably because I have been doing a lot of tuck ribbing previous to this, I felt a lightbulb go on and figured all I’d need to do was add tuck on the rib bed because that widens things out. Set up 1X1 rib on 40-0-40 needles, adding in tuck after the cast-on. Proceeded to get about 5 rows done before admitting defeat on that process. As I pried that off the machine, another bulb went on and I realized it should be Every-Other-Needle 1X1 rib which means every 4th needle in work on the main bed and than the alternate every 4th needle on the rib bed!
But, I’m still ahead of the game! Made all four bottom bands, starting with the manual wrap cast-on to make sure it was all stretchy enough, T10/10, knit 10 rows, carefully watching that every stitch knit through properly, transferred up to the main bed, knit a row of stockinette which is now every other needle in work and then several rows of waste yarn. Take the band, turn it and hang on the LK150, on every needle, so the plain row becomes a nice purl stitch ridge before beginning the stockinette.
Happy Canadian Thanksgiving and may  we all be thankful for pumpkin! 

ponchomania...

I’ve had several enquiries about poncho patterns lately. And it begs the question, what exactly, is a poncho? Is it a blanket, a shawl, a wrap? Mostly, I’ve always thought of a poncho as being a thing that goes over your head and covers up easily, mostly worn for warmth. Back in the day it was in late winter way back when, I made this thing called It’s a Wrap. Made on the LK150, the pattern was in the Spring 1999, Knitwords No.8 and the caption read:
Call it a poncho, cape or cloak! Whatever, it’s lovely to wear and easy to knit! A great yarn (alpaca/wool), knit in stockinette, really wide, a long-sloped shoulder with a small cuff to create a ‘sleeve’ and a vee neck opening filled in with another piece of stockinette collar. One size fits all!

We had a great time at the photoshoot with it and I wore it a few times after then, sister Marnie fell in love with it and asked for it. Of course, I gave it to her but I kind of missed it.
I re-engineered it to delete some of the volume at the sides, re-knit it using a tweedy DK yarn and I’ve been wearing it off and on for the past almost 20 years, both spring and fall. When I got the first query about a poncho pattern, I dearly wanted to remake this one again and add a hood – I’ve already admitted to being a hoodie junkie – but because this one is black and goes with virtually everything, I didn’t feel justified in making a new one for myself. My d-i-l was over the other day and I asked her if she’d like a poncho – she was thrilled, tried mine one, picked out a colour and timidly asked if she could have a hood on hers!

epic...

Seems to me like this project is taking forever or is it just my imagination? My first post on this was almost three and a half weeks ago - that’s a long time for me to have something in the works. You won’t believe this, but summer has got in the way and is continuing! Usually if we get two nice days in a row, we are pretty lucky and we make jokes about summer was on a Tuesday this year. Many times, we have a hard frost around Labour Day but not this year, it’s still really lovely and green and I’m taking advantage of the nice weather! I just had to share this photo – my favourite piece of graffiti ever, spotted at the top of a hill on my favourite local hike!
Finally got both pockets done, put the sleeves in and can try this on to decide further design elements and I just remembered I promised a little note here about the needle arrangement and where to have your underarm shaping end to give the nicest

following the black line

seaming. According to my schematic, I should be decreasing to #50 at the end of the underarm and then continuing straight up to the shoulder line. #50 happens to be a rib stitch and I know that won’t look so great (experience!). The seamline will look best if there are two purl stitches at the edge, one for the seam and one beside the rib stitch so I actually decrease to #48 which gives me the two stitches on the main bed at the edge – you might wonder why I went smaller instead of bigger? Mostly because this being a rib fabric, it is stretchier than just stockinette and I like my shoulder/sleeve to fit nicely, not sloppy – I am going for a close fit here, not like I’m wanting to layer a fleece jacket under this cardigan.
Another note – at the top of the shoulder, I did shortrow about a 1.5 cm slope which is about 5 to 6 rows. Bearing in mind that I’ve said to shortrow on the main bed only (transfer rib stitch up before holding), at the end of the shortrows, everything is on the main bed, I knit a row to get rid of the wraps and remove the shoulder on waste. When rehanging to join the shoulder, on the first piece that is hung, purl side facing, pull out that row of stockinette. Then, after hanging the second side (you can't rip out this row because it's the wrong way), pull this set of stitches through the first/back set to make the join and there will only be one row of stockinette which gives a nice dividing line between the two pieces.
Happy seaming!

 

is it synchronicity? ...

or déjà vu? Last week I got an email from Stephanie telling me that someone (Pamela) had posted a photo of a poncho she had made from Winter 2004 Knitwords (means nothing to me, I go by the issue number which was #31) on Facebook Plastic Midgauge Machines KAL group and she wondered if the pattern was still available and how she could get it. I am Facebook-challenged, I admit it!. She sent me the link and I could see that the poncho in question was one I had made, called Tweed Angel. The funny/strange thing about it was the fact that the poncho was plated, and I was just working on a blogpost

talking about plating, whether to do it or not. That particular poncho is made on the LK150 and one of the really awesome features of that machine is plating - I did a garment in Knit'nStyle, Dec 2013, #188 that was a sideways Swing Jacket, along with a good article (I thought anyway) explaining plating, why and why not. Back to Tweed Angel, it is actually two reverse-shortrowed triangles that are grafted together, leaving an opening for the neckline. We showed it as a sideways knit, which made sense to me because the wider portion fits better over the arms and then the slash neck opening becomes a vee neck look.

I dug out the pattern, set it up as a pdf for those who might wish to purchase and realized there were a few things missing from the original pattern – how to finish the neckline and how to wear it. I re-knit it to make sure I hadn’t missed anything else, plating a strand of cashmere with a finer tweed wool that I had. It turned out pretty nice, but I knew I didn’t have enough yarn for the fringe, so I’ve added one of my 1X1 tuck trims.

Hold piece evenly up to needle bed, stretching very slightly, to determine number of stitches. Purl side facing, hang each end. Hang back half of outside row on every other needle, missing the odd one every so often and then fill in opposite needles with front half of outside stitch. I used 70-0-70 ns. (Single Crochet-Look Tuck Edge from The Handbook  for Manual Machine Knitters by MAO)

See my old blogpost  https://knitwords.blogspot.com/2011/12/more-slip-cord-experiments.html for more options on using this shortrowed triangle. P.S. I would have posted a link to this on that Facebook page, but I couldn't figure it out! ;-)

the big reveal...

first pickup for band

The pocket top/band is ribbed, with an RTR in there to give a nice division between the band and the join onto the garment. The stockinette patch is made and waiting.

2nd pickup to attach patch

To put it all together, with the purl/right side of garment facing you, right side up (hem below), hang the main yarn loops on top of bottom loops of ravel cord. Turn band over and hang, wrong side facing you, pull through and using long tail from pocket top, manually knit loose row and chain off. 

before pulling out ravel cord

Without turning anything, hang the row of main yarn that is under the top of the ravel cord loops. Hang patch, purl side facing, pull through other stitches and cast off. From the front,

front of garment

it really looks wrong – the band is below the un-opened opening and the patch is above. When you pull out the ravel cord, the band folds up, the patch tucks inside and it’s all good!


finished, inside

My techniques handout to tell you how to do this pocket?
email me knitwords@shaw.ca and ask for the Oxymoron Cardi pocket.

to plate or not to plate...

‘member last week, I mentioned plating? Said I didn’t do it but I’d ‘splain later. I am knitting the Oxymoron Cardi with two strands of yarn, one is a greyish mid brown and the other is a darker, olive colour. I threaded them up without plating because I was sure I’d like the tweedy look that would result, and truth be told, I was really taking the easy way out because I had no idea where the ribber plating feeder was.

I am at the point of finishing the pocket, an inside patch with a ribbed top using the knit side as the right side for a contrast to the purl side of the main fabric. I generally have a fair amount of confidence and I think I know what I am doing, but even I know to make a swatch of a new technique to be sure. And, it will be another sample to take to my next workshop. WooHoo! I’ve been invited to do a two-day seminar in Pigeon Forge, TN  for the Tennessee Valley Machine Knitters at the end of March 2019! So excited! I’ve never been to Tennessee – just think, the Grand Ole Opry, maybe a little Graceland, Dollywood…

finished plated swatch

Anyway, back to the swatch! Was remembering the plating thing so, after searching high and low to find the plating feeder for the rib arm, I knit the swatch. It’s a little finicky to thread up for plating, but for the first half of the swatch, I had the dark green in feeder B (it shows predominantly on the purl side) with the lighter shade in A (shows on the knit side). I swapped them for the top portion so you could see what happens. And I am even more happy that I decided not to plate. ;-)


inside of plated swatch

Made the sample pocket top 14R – the 2 cm one on Milky Way is a bit skimpy. And the inside patch is just stockinette – notice how it is random stripey  - not plated and that’s what happens with two colours in stockinette and maybe why you might want to plate that fabric....
More on the actual pocket execution later, I promise.