before and after...

I know you’ve been dying  to find out and yes, I had enough to finish up that blue-y Kickin’ Around for my sister – just! It was a good thing I decided to use the swatch for the top of the Back because it wouldn’t really show up as re-knit and after all the very small bands, I was left with very little – probably not enough to make a second hem band if necessary!

Got the seaming done and all the ends darned in and was sort of worried because it felt like it was a whole lot bigger than I really wanted – yep, it was! Laid it out and put my red one on top and yikes! The blue one was huge. Fingers crossed, did an aggressive wash – warm water and some agitation – it worked! Natural fibres, what can I say?

Came out to the perfect size that I had planned, slightly longer, slightly A-line and you know what? I like it better than mine! Maybe I’ll take both and let her choose which one…

Leaving tomorrow!

i was getting a little concerned...

Halfway up the Back, yeah, I was! You know that 'running out of yarn anxiety' feeling. Had started out with 7 new balls and the one knitted into the swatch, which I was thinking was my back-up plan – unravel it to do the bands. The Sleeves consumed two and a half balls. Here I was at a crucial point – I did have a second backup plan – had 2 balls of the same yarn in a black colourway and I think, at one point, on the old manfriend design, I’d thought I could put a wide band of black just below the underarm point but I’m getting totally lazy and didn’t want to think that hard now!

I took the sleeves and placed them over my red sweater, hoping it would  make me feel better but my rational brain is telling me those sleeves are going to shrink down – the yarn is all totally natural as opposed to the wool/acrylic of the Kramer Tatamy Tweed that made up the red one so comparing unshrunk sleeves was just looking for a false sense of security! Plus the fact that Marnie’s sweater was a bit bigger – she’s kind of the opposite to me – even though we are the same height, I have a large chest and no butt while she’s smaller on top, so I’m actually making hers A-line and a bit longer than mine.

Bite the bullet and power through, hope for the best? I mean, ripping it out and re-knitting with the black stripe wouldn’t be so bad, would it? Spent half a minute weighing up my options, ripped out the swatch piece and knit the rest of the Back. I’m not convinced that I actually washed that swatch and so what if I did? Life goes on! I still have a week or so...

justified...

You know that saying, ‘the hurrier I go, the behinder I get’? well, maybe it’s not exactly an old saying but it’s like when I think this is going to be so easy, somehow it isn’t! On the first sleeve, I got almost up to the sleeve cap before noticing I forgot to add in the vertical lines as I was increasing! F-u-d-g-e! Crud! I tried dropping the stitch, but it made a huge bar, compared to the nice line of the needle out of work. Then I thought, oh well, that will all be in the underarm area and no one will notice. Yeah! That works for me!

Then the quandary, fix it on the next one, or make the second one exactly the same? Yes, I’m going with that and if ever anyone points it out, I can say I planned it like that! See, they are both the same!    

still kickin'...

Hey, I’m back! It’s cooled off. Fall is my favourite time of year! Sweater weather is much more fun to me and I can get back to knitting! I’m planning a trip out to Vancouver to visit with favourite baby sister, Marnie, and I like to be bearing gifts! I’m taking my own advice and re-knitting ‘Kickin’ Around’.

A few years back, I was planning a pullover for manfriend for Christmas – he actually requested it based on a sweater he saw in a store window – you can read the long version going back to October, 2019 - http://knitwords.blogspot.com/2019/10/male-order.html . See where I sort of left it hanging and then, finally finishing it up for a late Christmas present. http://knitwords.blogspot.com/2019/11/avoidance.html

Anyway, the long and short of it was that I ordered some yarn just because it was tweedy and he liked the colour sample on the internet. When I received it, realized it was a big mistake – yarn was way too fancy for manfriend so had put it away and re-ordered. I did swatch it and lucky for me, blogged about it there so when I came across the swatch the other day, I could read exactly what I did! I’m looking for shortcuts here! And Sis won’t know the difference!

The yarn is Providence from Berroco, 65% merino wool, 20% baby alpaca, 15% silk – it really is a lovely yarn and I’d like it for myself except the dark teal is not for me but it’s a good Marnie colour.

Starting with a sleeve, with good intentions, I threw in a stitch pattern – going with ‘butterfly’ because it was a combo of tuck and eyelets, seemed like it would be fairly quick to do and shows up on the purl side which I always like on a tweed fabric. Got 40 rows done, decided it was too difficult to see for making the eyelets on top of the tucked stitch - all that effort was not going to show up in the dark colour.  Dropped it off the machine, rewound the yarn and decided we could be twins – using the same windowpane as in the original! – I’m leaving in 15 days, give me a break!

the final stretch...

It’s a cool-ish day, good time to get the seaming and final finish on that red ‘Kicking Around’ before it starts to get kicked around!

First thing, seam all the rolled edges by hand to make a flat seam, no ridge, looking good from the purl side which is the outside. Working from the knit side, with purl sides together, taking the longest existing yarn tail, go into the half outside edge
stitch/loop/bar on the side across, go down one row, into same side from outside, across to corresponding row of first side. Continue like this, going into each stitch/row only once.

I prefer to do long seams, like the side seam and underarm, on the machine. For this one, I’m using my ‘Franky’ method, with the chain appearing on the knit side.

https://knitwords.blogspot.com/2021/03/she-likes-it.html

Purl side facing, hang the first side, evenly, without stretching, picking up half of the edge stitch/bar. Hanging the second side, knit side facing you (purl sides are together) use the loose row in the pattern to line up with the one already hung to get the seams to match perfectly. Bring needles out and manually knit very loose row -pull stitch back at least half an inch! Carefully chain off.

Try it out on your swatch first to see how it goes and to see
which you prefer and make sure that your hand knit row is loose enough for the chain cast off – on mine, that stitch is pulled back a half inch! Looks too big as you’re doing it, but it needs to be that big to pull down for the length of the seam and allow the pieces to open out flat without bunching.

Hope you like your finished product – if you do, make it again and use another easy stitch pattern from ‘The Handbook for Manual Machine Knitters’, one of the plain lace ones like ‘posies’ or a simple tuck like ‘sweet pea’ – or even make it plain, without the needles out of work – you’ll be amazed at how much you learn by remaking something! Just knit and have fun!

second nature...

Like riding a bike! It just all comes back! :) maybe I’m bragging but it feels good! I’m talking about socks!

Made pizza dough and I kinda thought something was off but kept on going. Realized the next day that I forgot to put double oh flour – just used all bread flour! Not a big deal but I have that recipe in my head – like  five ingredients and I’ve been making it at least couple of times a month for the past six or seven years so when it came to the sox recipe, I was a little leery. You could say there’s a few more than  five ingredients, from the manual wrap cast-on for 2X2 rib to using the shadow lace transfer tool (a.k.a. ‘jaws’) to change into circular knitting, shortrowing the heel and back to circular, etc. and the toe business, I didn’t miss a beat! Even through I had my sock cheat sheet right there, I didn’t have to look at it once!

My very good friend Cathy, has four sisters, just like me (‘cept I’ve got a bunch of brothers too). Anyway, we go back a long way and I know all the girls but haven’t seen them all in a while. Cathy mentioned that Lori was coming to town and they were all excited to have a family reunion and I weaseled an invite! And then I thought, gosh, I’m going to make them each a pair of socks, hoping it would make up for horning in on the family gathering.

My friend Eloise from Tennessee had gifted me a couple of bags of sock yarn back in March so I was looking at it as paying it forward – the sisters were quite pleased and grateful that I had such good friends!

Can still knock off a pair in just under an hour!

Happy Canada Day, eh?

knit-picky details...

 The Front - reverse the needle selection – only if you’re really wanting it perfect - #4-left, out of work and repeat across the row. What this does is make the pattern match over the shoulder – hey, I’m a little on the vertically-challenged side and people have been looking over my shoulder forever! Add the extra stitch at the right this time so the side seams look the same.

I opted for a high, round neck version this time, those yarn marks on the Back really helped to solidify this for me, so I shortrowed the neckline, beginning 8 cm down from top of shoulder.

A cool thing about using the purl side as the right side of a garment is on the first shoulder, no need to take it off on waste yarn! It’s like a small bonus! Because the seam is made by putting purl (wrong) sides together and the purl side is already there, do it now – but just the first one – still need to put the neck band on before joining the second one! At the top of the shoulder, after the shortrows, knit a row  to bring all the shoulder sts back to work and get rid of the wraps and now, just hang the appropriate shoulder from the Back to make the shoulder seam right now.

Neckband is pretty easy – just rehang the stitches, eliminating the empty-needle spaces and knit as the original pattern.

And those sneakers! I didn’t plan that but, you know, when good things happen…