a comedy of errors...

Not really anything funny about it! Don’t know if you remember but I did say I’d like to re-knit that blue Floral Mesh, just for practise really and to use up the rose-coloured Bonita. http://knitwords.blogspot.com/2021/09/the-holy-grail.html

It’s not my colour and it’s not like I really need another button-front lace hoodie…my friend Dee jumped on it and said she even had the buttons! Well, why not? It would give me a chance to get my money’s worth out of charting out that 60 St X 60 Row stitch pattern!

bad sponge bar

As usual, started off with the sleeves, both knit up perfectly, not a dropped stitch in sight. I didn’t get back to it right away and everything sat for a week or two, more likely two. Got started on the Back and wouldn’t you know, it was like the jinx of the machine knitting gods was living in my room! I had kept track of my time on each piece with the blue one and, it’s sad to say, I used to know better than this! This Back, I spent twice as much time on – dropped stitches and mostly, not-transferred, therefore not lace, stitches! Now, back in the day, my usual advice, know when to cut your losses, know when to quit! But I persevered, got ‘er done! Three and a half hours!! instead of the one and a half for the blue one! I knew what was wrong, it was that freakin’ sponge bar. But the piece was done and off the machine.

Took another week off and guess who forgot all about it? You’re right! Now, on top of it all, ‘she’ forgot to re-position the N1 cam after the hem and knit the first front centred over 2-3 Left instead of 0! Oh man! I thought it was time to hang up my transfer tools!

Another week went by, made the second front with the same mistake. Kept saying to myself there was no way I was going to be able to give this thing away – the shame of it! But plodding on, and congratulating myself for my stick-to-itiveness, the next big dilemma, the pockets. Again, a brain fog took over, forgot all about the N1 thing and trying to match the pocket patterning to the front, made them correctly! Ar-r-r-r-g-g-h!

Things I learned on this one…check your blessed sponge bar! I added that to the top of my cheat sheet!

it's 2022...

Omigosh! I’ve been having conversations with you, in my head, over the past couple of months. They’ve been full of excuses, apologies, promises and whys…I’m ashamed of myself and I’m sorry! So I ran out of yarn spray. So I couldn’t get any better buttons. So what if I can’t just drive down to Minnesota. Big freaking deal! My health is fine, my family’s pretty much okay too, so where do I get off feeling sorry for myself? Huh! I’ve given myself the proverbial kick in the butt and here I am, again, promising to do better.

I was knitting and trying to keep busy but feeling like I had nothing new and exciting to say, doubting whether I was still relevant and realized that was really based on, was I ever relevant? and you know what?  Been taking myself far too seriously! what the hay? If you don’t like what I’m talking about, you can just hit delete or whatever! I still have things to say, knit and share!

I left off with that blue ‘Mesh Floral’, in my continuing saga of the perfect, longer, button-front hoodie. From there, I knit it again in red Bonita, the same yarn as the blue, using the all-over lace mesh, very holey ;)! 

In my defense, I think it was still summer or at least early Fall when I started it. I got the pieces knit, relatively quickly, no real issues, until the putting together. Somehow I forgot just about everything I knew! I attached the hood to the neckline, without really thinking, saw that I had forgotten to do an e-wrap cast-on at the beginning of the hood. No big deal, but, not according to Hoyle, aka, MAO. Then, I saw that usually I like the joining seam to be on the outside so it doesn’t show when the hood is down. Also neglected to put the chain across the fold row of the band for the front of the hood and forgot to put that band on before attaching hood to neckline, necessitating the use of waste yarn for this operation instead of the quicker garter bar. 

Concentrating a little harder, managed to get the remaining parts done without messing up. A little deflated (my ego, that is), I knew that no one else would ever see or notice these glaring (in my mind) errors!

Made myself a cheat sheet!

that time thing...

‘Member I mentioned the bit about your iPad usage and how much I disliked it? Thought about it and took same iPad to my workroom and turned on the stopwatch feature every time I went in. I wanted to record the actual time that I spent on this garment, ‘Floral Mesh’ (that’s mesh, not mess!) I included thinking, calculating and pondering times as well as all the putting together and finishing, for a total of 15.25 hours!

Things I relearned this time:

1. You can start lacing on either side…every third row means there is no direction!

2. Half the garter bar and the small piece is ONLY 149 sts!!! I always expect it to be 150 sts!!! Why can’t I remember that!

3. Keep checking your yarn supply. My cone is on the floor behind the machine and you know, out of sight, out of mind! I started with a full cone and almost ran out on the next to last row of the final piece! Fortunately, I have my machine positioned so the tension antennae whacks back, hitting the wall when the yarn runs out, usually leaving enough yarn in feeder to allow you to stop without loosing everything!

mesh floral...

I’m focusing on the sleeves now. I’ve found I want them longer than I used to like. Several reasons:

1. When they are longer, you can pull them down, keep hands warm, use like a glove to open doors or press the walk button.
2. When tieing around my non-waist when it’s too warm to wear, much easier with longer sleeves!
3. When I’m done with garment it’s easier to find new person to take over with sleeves that will fit regular people!

Also, I’m experimenting with width of cuff and forearm section. Because I’ve added about 4 inches, sometimes you might want to fold the sleeve up/back and it needs to be wide enough to do that but not so loose that it flops around when down. So, here’s another reason I like that Franky seam, it looks good and is fairly flat from either side.

On this one, I took the increase down another level. Just brought out a new end needle, just to work position, and let it knit! Wow! Who knew? Easier than heck and it works so well! I let the second-to-edge stitch lace  instead of having to least two plain stitches at the edge. I like the look of the seamline without the extra knit stitches on either side, more of the lace pattern!

This turned out better than I thought it would! I love the mesh sections of the stitch pattern. It is actually transferring to every other needle  with a yarn-over between, then two plain rows. The third row is every other stitch transferred the opposite way and it adds a little mini-cable look on either side of the lace holes to the fabric.

My next button-front lace hoodie is going to be just that mesh! Red, maybe… 

the holy grail...

In my ongoing quest to produce the perfect button-front lace hoodie with pouch pockets, I began with another long swatch of various patterns. This time, I’m using Bonita (from Knitcraft, a 100% mercerized cabled cotton, 500g cone, a good solid 4 ply weight, great stitch definition, usually knit at T8 with a stockinette gauge of 28 sts and 40 rows/4 inches) an old all-time favourite cotton. It didn’t have much in the MAO-fav colour range but I did use it over and over. Great yardage, pretty cheap price and very good wearability certainly out weighted the lack of colour options and, of course, you know, it is no longer available. But I do have a stash. 

My plan is to use the light blue, again not my favourite - it has a rather dull tone that almost looks a little dirty (in my mind anyway) but I could over-dye it a little darker if I’m really not fond of the finished product or, give it away! 

The last time I used Bonita was in Tumbleweed, from #53 - it was lace carriage at T6, gauge of 26 sets and 44 rows, washed and dried. The final garment has a fairly firm fabric, maybe because of the larger areas of plain stitches. I wanted a little more drape and softness this time, so am using T7.

In going though my existing stitch patterns, I found this one, already programmed out. 60 rows by 60 sts! I’ve never used it before - I did swatch it like a thousand years ago and probably thought it looked like curtains or something, but life changes and all that and I can look at it with a new eye, maybe. Anyway, whatever the reason, I swatched it here. Hummm, after the wash and dry, the mesh part did look very interesting, almost like it scrunched up and has a neat texture. I’ll give it a shot!

Made the sleeves first. Because it’s such a large stitch pattern I wasn’t sure which I liked better, the large flower going up the centre or offset, with the smaller motif centred. It’s a matter of setting the first needle position either at 0 or half way, 30 (right or left, doesn’t make any difference). I figured the sleeves don’t have to match anyway. I actually preferred the small flower centred but then promptly forgot about it when knitting the body, so ended up with the large motif going up the front. 

 No big deal, I can always make it again in another colour and change it! Maybe find someone else who might 
like that dusty rose…

sweater weather...

At last! We’ve had a long, hot summer! I know you’ve missed me and I’m sorry to have been silent for so long. Didn’t really mean to but between the weather and computer and software issues, what more can I say? 

The good news? I have been knitting, not a lot, but bits and pieces, here and there and I’m definitely ready for Fall! I’ll be known as that lady who wears those button-front, lace hoodies - she has one is almost every colour, you know! I’ll try to catch you up…

The ‘natural’ one turned out great. The new stitch pattern added - it won’t replace the Me-cozy design in my heart but it’s nice. I’m still totally hooked on the Franky seaming method and, in my search for the best way to do it, on this one, I changed up the increase method slightly. In the antique gold one, I moved the edge stitch out one space and filled in the empty needle with the purl bar of the inside stitch. It made the edge quite tight and hard to pick up just the half outside edge bit, so on this one, I simply hung the purl bar of the outside stitch onto a new empty needle. It works and the resulting seam looks good and it was okay to pick up. 

I did have a Plan B in the back of my mind, I was maybe going to over-dye this one so I had it hanging around without buttons, just in case I might change the colour. I even wore it out once, buttonless! I needed the pockets, what can I say!

Though I had several options for buttons, when our lockdown finally ended, Fabricland finally re-opened, I went to check out their buttons, probably just to go somewhere. Nada! At least, nothing better than what I already had. Finally made the choice, sewed them on and life goes on! Next! 

killing it...

Time, I mean! You know how you get that report on your device saying how much screen time you had in the last week? I hate that! OMG! How could I be wasting that much time! I wish I could get a thing that measures my productive time, like the minute I enter my knitting room, the clock starts ticking and I`m racking up good points! Big sigh! By the way, I never take my device in there! Anyway, that is some of my motivation for machine knitting lately!

I found some more 2 ply cotton – this one is Honiburd in natural, aka off-white, ecru or ivory. Personally, I think it should be called cream as it has a slight yellowish undertone, one of my best colours or non-colour, if you know what I mean.

 I do love that Me-cozy lace stitch http://knitwords.blogspot.com/2021/04/deja-vu.html. Maybe you can tell because I`ve already used it on three button-front-lace-hoodies but I`m trying to branch out – who knows, there may be another new favourite out there!

Using the leftover yellow from Holey Moley, I made another long swatch, trying out several different stitch patterns. I still prefer the all-over patterning as opposed to one that results in vertical or horizontal stripes. I do like the second one down but the third one – it was an 8-st X 16-row built-in, that I added a few extra holes to every alternate diamond - is a new one and I`m feeling adventurous!