progress...

after 9 minion hats, I changed it up a bit and made Hello Kitty for Rhiana and a MineCraft hat for Nate – I may never knit another earflap hat – but you never know! got news from the North Pole that Rhiana is getting one of those 18 inch dolls for Christmas – now that’s something I always thought I’d never do, but here I am planning a ruffled cardigan for my favourite little doll and a matching one for hers! Between pieces for my KnitStyle 192 project and a couple pairs of circular socks for my snow shovellers – boy, they deserve to be paid this year!!

I loved  Google’s knitting  picture for the first day of winter!

Happy Holidays!

my favourite minions...

I have never knit an earflap hat – well, actually, I don’t think I’ve ever machine knit any hat. So, where does one start?  A few weeks back, I mentioned that Valery, a newbie mk-er from San Diego had told me she was knitting earflap hats and they were selling like hotcakes every time she took them into her workplace. She gave me her pattern source, which was a bulky machine pattern from the San Diego mk guild site (Knitten Buds) and I used that as a starting point (thanks Valery and thanks Knitten Buds!). Went to Michael’s and Wal-Mart in search of minion-coloured yarn – it should be a bright, lemon yellow, I think – suitable for the mid gauge machine.
When I checked on-line, minion hats are mostly crocheted, and since I’ve spent most of my machine knitting career trying to get the crocheted-look on the  knitting machine, felt it only appropriate that I do that again. The eye is the big challenge because it is a circle and knitting a circle is not the easiest thing. If you haven’t seen the movie (Despicable Me 2), the minion is a small cartoon character, bright yellow in colour like a big jelly bean on legs, with one or two eyes, wearing goggles (that’s the way I see them anyway) over the eye(s) and dressed in denim overalls with black hair varying from a single tuft to individual sparse strands.
So, back to the circle for the eye/goggles – I thought the chain cast-on would make the outside nicely so incorporating my ‘outlining the patch pocket’ idea – did the chain (35, 42 ns) in gray, knit 1 row and then took it off on waste yarn. Using white yarn, cast on ( 5, 6 sts) and shortrow a circle, hanging a chain stitch from the edging on every row, graft it together and Bob’s your uncle! a minion eye! For Nate, I used a brown button – he and minions have brown eyes. Rhiana, she wanted 2 green eyes to match her own.
I made the original pattern – it turned out too small of course, but gave me the general idea. After adjusting stitches and rows, the size was okay, but I didn’t like the top of the hat being gathered into a circle so I reworked it using the ‘decreasing evenly across the row’ several times that results in a spiral top – this is good – probably not what you’d do if you’re wanting to mass produce but I’ve got the time for my grandkids! (and a mid gauge garter bar! nah-nah-na-na!) I did the earflaps in a denim-look yarn  to simulate the minions’ jeans and added hair – put a tuft on Nate’s and for Rhiana, I unraveled some black WCD from a steamed Boondoogle swatch that had some lovely kinks for curls…
anybody want the pattern? here's the link to the PDF… 
https://documentcloud.adobe.com/link/track?uri=urn%3Aaaid%3Ascds%3AUS%3A041462a5-a915-4d62-a343-9f0225812913
  

comfy notes for Cindy

I was going to title this, ‘notes for anyone wanting to raglanize Comfy’  but I’m not totally delusional – heck, if no one knit the original…

band pulls up at bottom

Anyway, making the ribs – it is a right side facing band, hence the RTR thing after the band is knit – the band needs to be turned to match with the side-away lace pattern and I do like the row of garter stitch ridge you get from the RTR, adding a nice detail between the rib and the lace – it also hides the gathering – oh, I forgot to say, you’ll need more stitches in the rib to match the width of the lace pattern, due to the A-line shape – it was okay in the original version to use the same number of stitches for the band as for the lace fabric, because it was a shorter, boxy cut, but on this one, I added about 10% for the bands so they wouldn’t draw in, especially on the hemline. Also, on the front bands, have 2 end needles on the ribber to make a nice finish at the outside edge of band – this one shows same distribution  overall and notice how the band pulls up at the end – to prevent this, I remade the band (see below left) and put more stitches for the hem and neckline (12 sts) instead of 9 as in first one…

BTW, the neckline will be hung at the left end (right side facing) to attach the buttonhole band, so, space the holes from the right end of the band in order to have one in the neckband area and it be at the left end after the RTR. Make the buttonholes so the B stitch from the diagram is on the centre non-tuck stitch – just because I had to make 4 bands doesn’t mean you should have to! And I probably don’t have to remind you to cast on with waste yarn for the ribs before going into the main yarn…
Now, when you’re knitting the lace and shaping the raglans, I still used the 6 to 5 decrease from the ‘Rich Raglan’ pattern and cancelled the patterning inside that area so there are no lace transfers in the outlined decrease –  actually for the most part, I stuck to cancelling the transfers to 12 sts from the decreased area at least - use your own judgment, just to make sure there isn’t an odd single hole where the pattern isn’t allowed to begin a new repeat because that just looks weird.
Other old KW  lace patterns that would suit being raglanized – ‘Borderline’ from No 25 and   ‘Frame of Lace’ from No 17 – they are both knit using cool bands which could still be employed with the new raglan and they both use Yeoman Yarns Cannele – shortened up, 2 cones of 250g will do!! I have  2 cones of a chocolate brown, a pretty jade green and a nice, icy blue…

Oh, I got Vickie’s skirt finished up and in the mail; made 3 pairs of socks for gifts for my trip to Toronto last weekend; found my old tension swatch for ‘In the Tweeds’ and made patch pockets for it; and got a minion eyeball KNIT (more later)!
BTW – by the way
KW – Knitwords magazine
RTR – remove, turn, rehang
MAO – Mary Anne Oger
LMAO – laughing my ass off!

 

love seeing my name in print!

Knit’nStyle #189 is out! It caught me by surprise!
Something happened and I did not get my usual comp copy of #188 until about a week ago and then got a second one of the same issue the next day - I had complained and I think what happened was the usual one was delayed for some reason and then head office sent me a new one. Then only a couple of days later, there’s another envelope from head office and I’m like, what the? another one, really? – turned out to be #189! pretty exciting! Our new editor, Cari, actually mentions me in her editorial and says she wants to make my project, ‘Stormy Weather’! OMG!! she admits to being a machine knitter, too!
Truth be told, I’m not always happy with what they do with my garment (it's the control freak in me), but I’ve learned to live with it. Most times, I don’t really have a hard time parting with the sweater because they usually choose the colour and it’s not always what I’d like, but for this one, I did choose and I LOVED it!! It looks gorgeous –  okay, the model is 6 ft tall (Cari told me that) and the sleeves are a little short, but no biggie – they’ve styled it well and there are several photos of it – not just mine, they’ve done this to all the projects, which is good. This is the transition issue, where Penelope did the planning and Cari did the photography and layout – good job!
Then, I hear from Lea-ann at Knitting Today – she’s organizing a knitalong for this project – I think I’ll have to join! I’m already planning to do mine as a jacket, with a full zip front. The yarn (Plymouth Yarns Linen Concerto) is a little pricey, but well worth it – it has a beautiful sheen, more colours than shows up in the photos ( charcoal and grays as well as the pale blue and denim – my colourway is called  #73 indigo) and drape so if you’re looking for something a little more special that just your regular hoodie, check it out – Lea-Ann has it on her Facebook page which you can link to from the bottom of her webpage, www.knittingtoday.com – click the Facebook symbol and it will take you there!
I have an article in the same issue, ‘Planning Color Placement with Self-Striping Yarns’ and they kind of cropped one photo a little too much – I had 11 balls of yarn to start and I photo-ed them all so you could see the difference in shades on the outside of the ball – and the photo shop person  cropped it to only show the centre 6 or so, so here is my original – now you need to get the magazine to see what else I’m talking about! And here is my close-up of the zip placket - it totally encases the zipper and finishes it off very neatly, I think.

-Mary Ann (I’d like to buy a vowel) Oger

who needs Sudoku?

To keep your brain active? if the rest of the world knew about machine knitting!! OMG!
Recently I had the opportunity to spend some time with my friend Cindy who’s made ‘Rich Raglan’ (Serial Stuff 2) three times, three different colours – all three looked great and she was asking me if she could make another because she loves the shape and fit of it and it really does flatter her figure – she says the raglan shaping takes all the guess work out of fitting shoulders and sleeves and she prefers the fit of the raglan. She probably thinks I’m going to be like Stacy and Clinton and say, no you cannot have multiples! But no, I’m okay with, if something works, stick with it. I have made it twice, the red with black trim and I did a solid French navy and I would also like another one or two!
So I came home thinking how could  we adapt some sort of stitch pattern to the raglan shape to make a bit of variety. I always thought that a raglan needed to be in plain stockinette because the angled shaping between the body and sleeves would mess up patterning and look mostly terrible in seaming.  But I got stuck on the idea to find a way to incorporate a lace pattern into the raglan.
I’ve loved my ‘Comfy’ (KW#28), worn it a lot and always get compliments from strangers – the stitch pattern has large areas of stockinette in it already and I thought with a little planning, it might work okay as a raglan. Now, I told you a while back that I had just realized that I do not have a white cardigan and conveniently, in checking my shelves I happen to have two cones of Honiburd 4/2 cotton, the same yarn as ‘Comfy’- not that I’ll need two, but I’m just saying…Also, the bands on the original cardigan are totally cute and I’ve meant to re-use that technique. 
So, I pull out my  No 28 magazine and look over the pattern and my heart stops – crap, I owe that DAQ lady in San Diego an apology!! Somehow  in the magazine layout, the tuck stitch pattern for the ribs is missing! WTF? well, it’s obvious that no one ever tried to knit this pattern! Huh! well, sorry! (better late than never, I guess!) Here is the stitch pattern for the tuck rib bands – it’s 12 sts X 4 rows – centered at 0/N1 cam at 0 or left needle position 12.

The gray squares should be knit stitches and the white are tucks and because it is 1X1 rib, there will be 3  every other row tucks on the main bed and 3 knit ribs – it really is pretty…
I could make this a really long, tedious story, but I’ll stick to the end result - I think it works!! I’ll finish up and post the results!
Meanwhile, I did get Vickie’s skirt put together and done – just need to get out and buy some elastic for the waistband. I’m working on my next KS project in between pieces of this white lace raglan – TTYL!

DAQs, OPPs and more

You know how I love acronyms…
Got back from San Diego and thought I’d give you the rundown or maybe it’s the low down on how it went. It’s been a while since I was out there but it was nice to see familiar faces and fun to meet some new ones. I did a two day workshop for the guild - they have a set up with a closed circuit camera that shows the action on a large screen behind me and I’m rigged out with a microphone that has a battery pack that fits in a pocket (if you have one) and then the mic clamps onto your collar (if you have one) – usually works fine, except that I kind of do a fashion show throughout the day so the mic got tangled, screeched and was thrown about many times – all in good fun!
I got inspired – Valery, a beginner mk-er, brought in some earflap hats that she’s been making and dressing up various ways – she described how to make a ‘minion’ version – you know, from the ‘Despicable Me’ movie – I took my little kiddos to see #2 and I think they would love them, so that's on my to-do list – hope I get them done for Christmas! – that list is quite long and growing!!
Someone had brought a very tasty pumpkin square for the potluck snack fest – I loved them and  asked for the recipe – the baker reluctantly admitted they came from a box mix sold at Wal-Mart…but they were good!
As the second day draws to a close and everyone gets more comfortable – they get used to me and I’m getting to know them - I throw caution to the wind and turn off the filter! After I finish giving a detailed description of the techniques in a particular pattern of mine, someone asks ‘And is that all given in the pattern?’
I answer sarcastically, ‘of course not, but I’ll be home before you look at it!’ and then add, ‘That’s your last DAQ of the day!’

DET – double eye tool

DAQ – dumb ass question
FAQ – frequently asked question
MAO – Mary Anne Oger
OPP – other person’s pattern

 

blah, blah blah...

I was in Nova Scotia last weekend, teaching a workshop for the Maritime Machine Knitters – what fun!  Seeing old friends and making new – we all got along just great. Edith Scott won the knitting contest, with her version of  ‘Up a Notch’, my pattern from KW#30 – great job, Edith! I couldn’t have done better myself! Special thanks to Valerie for taking such good care of me - you were awesome and so thoughtful!
Hello to all my new blog-followers (Angela, Catherine... not to name a few names!), hope this has lived up to the billing! (I gave them all what for, for not following already – LOL!)
Home again and after getting everything put away, I was trying to get back to the business of finishing Vickie’s skirt – I did finish my KS project – I think it turned out well and, bonus,  got all 3 tiers of both skirts knit. Now to do the blocking and steaming and get them assembled – well actually, I need to disassemble mine down to the first tier (it is still good – I was just redoing the top 2 tiers of that one) before starting to re-do it.

Second Tier - lace Marbella

Third Tier - Skinny Majesty stockinette

What made it easy to knit the two at a time was being able to stack the pieces and save time not having to cast on anew for each piece – this also saves time with the blocking and steaming.

Anyway, project interrupted – I just got an urgent request from the San Diego Machine Knitting Guild to fill in for a cancellation for next weekend – so, if you’re anywhere near (or far) and can make it, see you in San Diego Oct 12 and 13th! http://www.mkgsd.com/
TTYL!