The frill of it

As you know I’m currently working on my first design project - adapting Candy, a pattern that featured in the May 2008 issue of Let’s Knit (it’s on Ravelry here, for those with an account).

The changes I’m making aren’t huge - a V neck rather than scoop, 4-ply yarn instead of double knit, changing the colour of the yarn at the stocking stitch part to match the accents around the hem, cuffs and neck, and putting in a frill at the hem and cuffs. But I think that’s enough for a first foray into design.

Taking the measure
Now, I’m usually a ‘chuck it all in and hope for the best’ kind of girl; a philosophy I apply to everything from packing to cooking. It’s always seen me good in the past. So I was rather surprised at my methodical approach to this design. I decided exactly where I want the hem to fall - a couple of inches below the waistband of my jeans - measured myself, knitted a tension square and measured the width of a top that was the right length to be sure of the size. Using all this information, I calculated exactly how many stitches I’d need.

Next, I wanted to make the hem looser than the ‘bodice’ as it were (the 2x2 rib). I thought I’d achieve this with a 3x3 rib. This meant that my stitches had to be divisible by two and three. Luckily 144 is and it’s very close to the number I’d found I needed. Time to start knitting.

It didn’t work. The 3x3 rib certainly wasn’t looser than the 2x2, if anything it was tighter(see Exhibit A below). This wasn’t going to work at all. So I took some spare acrylic and started experimenting. How about a 1x1 rib? No. How about casting on with bigger needles, knitting one row and changing to the smaller needles? Nearly, but not quite.

I was going to have to try something different. What would happen, I wondered, if I cast on several more stitches than I needed, knitted a row and then k2tog every fourth and fifth stitch? It worked. In fact, to make the frill even more, well, frilly, I cast on and knit the first row using big needles then changed to the small needles for the decrease row. Experimentation over, it was time to start again.

And we're off ...
Problem: I didn’t know how many stitches I’d need to cast on so that I’d end up with 144 after decreasing. Divide 144 by four and add the result, 36, to 144 seemed the right thing to do. I still don’t know why this is the right thing to do, but it really is because I counted the whole thing out on paper. To complicate things further, the cast on and first row had to be in colour 1 and the decrease row (and all following rows) were to be in colour 2. But after all the maths, remembering to change colours was easy.

Of course, it’s not all been plain sailing since then. Only last night, having done some 15cm of knitting, I found a mistake about halfway down. It wasn’t a huge mistake - a couple of places where I’d purled instead of knitted and then corrected myself. But I knew it was there, so it had to go. This meant ripping out 7.5cm of knitting, just to correct two wrongly purled stitches. Being a perfectionist isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

And that’s where I am at the moment: reknitting all those ripped out rows. Yes, it’ll take ages, but for me it’s worth it.

Exhibit A. Sorry for the quality of the photo - done at night on my lap.
But you can see the lack of frill.

Much better! Just look at the frill. Frilling! And other bad puns.

Knitting up north

It's taken months to get this far. No, really.

Holidays are great. I’ve just come back from a week 'oop north' and I’ve had a fabulous time. I knitted, wrote, ate, walked, read, drank wine and watched some birds.

On the knitting front I finished a hat that’s taken me far too long to complete (lace am hard), did some of a gorgeous red slouch and started out on my first ever design project. Well, I say design project, it’s more of a redesign. I’m taking a pattern I’ve made before and adapting it. I decided that would probably be the easiest way to get into designing my own knits. So far I haven’t managed to quite get things looking the way I want, so currently I’m testing out various techniques in order to work out how to get the hem right. At the moment stocking stitch on giant needles or attempting a frill are the front-runners. I’ll let you know how I get on.

But it’s the hat I’m really pleased with. This hat has been a nightmare knit. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve had to frog and redo it. Partly this is my own fault - I didn’t swatch and it turned out my tension was much, much too tight, and it soon became obvious that the hat wouldn’t fit round my head. In my defence, though, the tension square was in the complicated lace pattern, rather than a nice, sensible stocking stitch, and I just couldn’t work out how to count the damn thing!

I started again on bigger needles, much bigger needles. But I was still knitting very, very tight. So tight in fact that moving the yarn on the needles was actually hurting my fingers, and several times when arduously pushing stitches along needles I pushed too hard and the stitches popped of the end. That involved much swearing and dropped stitches, I can tell you.

So then I learned to knit continental. Sounds a bit dirty doesn’t it? Unfortunately it’s not. This has cured my too-tight knitting problem. Honestly, it’s fantastic - it’s practically impossible to work too tightly. Continental knitting is great and I highly recommend it. In fact I’ll probably blog about it in the very near future.

However, a new knitting style meant starting that hat again. You might be surprised to hear that I still didn’t do a tension square. But guess what? It worked anyway! The hat is knitted. It only took two false starts, not to mention the time I took it to the pub and talked/drank so much that I lost a stitch and had to undo the whole thing. Or the many unknittings that took place due to dropped stitches or missed yarn overs.

The knitting is indeed done, though, and I’m very proud. Now I’ve got to block it and do something that says ‘Break yarn, thread through rem sts, draw up and fasten off. Not entirely sure what that means but I’m sure I’ll work it out, and when I do I'll post photos of the completed piece.

Lace detail. I admit you can't really see it. You'll just have to wait till its blocked and off the needle.


The Slouch. More photos when it's done.

Bead queen

One of the best pieces of advice Emma gave us in the bead jewellery class was to practice what we'd learned sharpish, before we forgot it all, and so I had earmarked yesterday (Sunday 5 September) as my day for beading.

After the class I had bought everything I needed to make a 12-strand bracelet - hundreds of little beads, some thread and all the sterling silver fixings required. I gathered this all together, along with the pliers and clippers I'd bought from Buffy's Beads, and sat down at the kitchen table ready to start stringing.

First came the maths; I had to figure out how long the strands should be and many beads I needed for each strand. The first bit was easy: measure the circumference of my wrist. It's 5.5"; obviously I didn't want a skin-tight bracelet so decided the strands should be 7". To work out how many beads I'd need I strung an inch-long strand and counted. There were 14 beads, giving me 98 per 7" strand. So I counted 100 into little pots.

Everything you need to start beading!

To string each strand you need to cut a length of thread, tie a knot in one end and start sliding the beads on. The strands should be several inches longer than you want them to end up. It will become clear why next ...

It was all going swimmingly well until I got to the tying up bit. I tied all six strands together. And then realised I should have put the calotte on first. I had to cut the knot off; lucky my thread was so long. Mistakes aren't the only reason for extra thread, it makes all the knots easier. Crisis averted.

First six done, on to the next set.

But things were to get worse. The bracelet is made in two sets of six strands, each set is attached to a soldered ring and the rings are then attached to split rings, one of which is also attached to the clasp. The first set was perfect, not withstanding the knot problem. Then it happened. While tying the first knot on the second set, I let go of the ends. Beads went everywhere. I picked them up, threaded them back on and tied my knot. Phew.

Can you guess what comes next? That's right, things got even worse. When tying the second knot it's important to get the beads tightly packed, otherwise you can see the thread. I worked the beads down, pulled the thread tight, worked the beads down, and so on. It looked great. I tied my knot. But somehow it ended up in the wrong place - there was spare thread on three of my strands!

I tried undoing the knot. No joy. I tried easing it further down the thread. I had some success with this, but not enough. Three of my strands were just too long. But there was nothing more I could do, other than cut it all off, waste those sterling silver fixings and start again. In the end I decided to finish it off. This was my first ever solo attempt after all. In fact it looks OK. With all 12 strands afixed you can't actually see the three that went wrong.

It gets worse though: despite my careful measuring the bracelet is too long for me. The various rings and clasps added at least another inch to the bracelet and it just slides over my hand and falls off. Bugger. So if you know anyone with a 6.5" inch wrist and a liking for shiny purple things, let me know.

It's not all bad, though. I learned some important lessons, practised bracelet-making techniques and I've got plenty of beads left for another go.

The finished article. So who wants it? You can't see the mistake, honest.

A close-up of the beads.