Photos

Finally got around to taking some photos and uploading them. Also, I finished the purple shawl except for weaving in all the ends. The shawl is lovely, fairly heavy, too, as it is mostly cotton and just about worsted weight. It will be nice for fall.

This is half of the pair of socks I am knitting for my son. Using Knitpicks sock yarn. Did not think he was ready for self-striping or self-patterned yarn! I like to knit socks toe-up using the mitered toe and heel. I tried grafting toes and that was not in my skill set; I also disliked the heel gusset or whatever. When I finally learned how to do the mitered method, I fell in love with sock knitting.




Here is another pair of socks I knitted for myself out of Tofutsie yarn. I did a "fake cable" pattern that is very easy and very effective that I got out of my stitch dictionary.


And, finally, the beginning of another purple shawl. This one is wool (remember the free yarn?) and am adding beads to the edge..it will be triangular. I'm not sure about liking a triangular shawl, since I am 5' tall, but am getting bored with rectangulars, and the pattern included in the yarn package was triangular.

Free Yarn

I am a complete sucker for free yarn. I am a member of Charlotte Knitting Guild and at the last meeting, a member had done a stash clean-out and brough a box of yarn to give away. I decided to take a peak, and right on top was a kit with three skeins of purple merino laceweight wool with a simple shawl pattern. You know I love purple, and this was not quite the same shade as the purple cotton shawl I am working on, so I grabbed it.

Since I also love to start a new project immediately, no matter how many UFO's I have in my knitting bag, I started the shawl that same night. It is a standard triangle shawl done in garter stitch, but this one is knit from corner to corner. After a few dozen rows I got bored and decided I had to do SOMETHING. Hmmmmm....so I found some pretty purplish gray size 8 beads, by teeny tiny crochet hook used for attaching beads to the yarn, and am adding a bead to the final stitch of the increase row, giving me a subtle beaded border for the bottom of the shawl. (Every other row is an increase row to get the shape for the shawl). And no, I did not frog the whole thing so the first 12 inches would have the border...figure I'll thread yarn with the beads when I am done and sew or crochet beads to that section.

I still have the purple cotton shawl on the needles, one wool sock to go for my son, and am working on a khaki cotton shrug for fall (it is in the 90's right now and hard to conceive of wearing that thing). But this way, I have lots of things to knit to keep from getting bored!!!

On the Needles

First, thanks to everybody who checks my blog frequently. And apologies that I am one of those bloggers who rarely updates. Whenever I get the Sitemeter report I am surprised that so many of you continue to check on me.

The purple shawl is coming along. It is knitted from purple Callista from Elann.com and I love the way it feels in my hands. It knits up a bit heavy, as compared to my "famous" pink shawl, but that means it will be nice in the Fall. I think it is going to come out in a slight curve, which is nice. As I said in the previous post, a month ago, I started with three stitches and increased every row until it was the width I wanted, then just knit back and forth in the pattern I chose. I was supposed to decrease and one end and increase at the other every other row to make it straight: Slant Shawl Pattern.. Since I had a pattern stitch I liked and was not sure how to keep adjusting it for the increase/decrease, I chose to just knit back and forth and have been surprised at the shaping; perhaps when it is done and blocked it will be straight. Stay tuned.

Another Shawl Begins

Finally am knitting a little again. Not that I stopped; just that I am enjoying it more and thinking design again. I do have socks on my needle with my favorite Tofutsies yarn. I also am knitting baby hats for Charlotte Knitting Guild charities. Those are fun.

I have started and stopped several projects; a sweater I know I will not wear, a shawl that I knew I would run out of yarn halfway through, etc. The sweater I had started was out of a lovely purple elann.com Callista yarn. I kept looking at that yarn and looking at it; it needed to be a shawl, not a sweater. I think a shawl in that yarn would come close to making me as happy as my 'famous' pink shawl does. So....

I am designing this purple shawl, since I like to do things like that. This shawl is going to begin and end with a point. The advantage of this is that I can take notice of how much yarn I have used when the shawl is wide enough, and save that amount to finish it with, and just knit in between.

I thought about doing it just in garter stitch, but knew I would be crazy with boredom within two days. I like the smoothness of stockinette, but a little lace does give a wow factor. There is a pattern in one of my books called Overlapping Waves. I have been going to use that pattern several times and it just never happened. Well NOW is the time.

I could have taken the easy way out and just knitted the pointy part in stockinette or some simple yo's here and there but I have never been known for making things easy on myself...no challenge there. So, I started this overlapping waves pattern down at the point. The pattern naturally widens as the shawl widens. Multiples of six, so it is pretty easy to do that. The pattern is also very easy for my brain to comprehend. And I must say it is gorgeous so far. I am doing a six stitch garter border on each side of the shawl to give me a nice selvedge to hold onto.

A photo will show up in a bit.

Summer Sewing

As usual in the spring, my attention turns to sewing clothing. In this case, pants. Summer weight fabrics are easy to find, work with, and wear. The colors are fun. I have difficulty finding pants since I like pull-on styles that come to my waist. I am a combination of sizes.

Earlier this spring, I took apart my favorite, worn-out pants and made a pattern. I can whip up a pair now in about two hours. Have ordered quite a bit of fabric at www.fabric.com and for the first time in years actually have a choice of pants in my closet to wear. Linen, cotton, silk noile, microfiber.......

My interest in knitting has waned as my interest in sewing has grown. I tend to have a one track mind and concentrate on one thing at a time. My knitting mood right now is to knit mindless things; no lace!!!

I do still love knitting socks and have a pair on the needles; great for knitting in the car! My daughter-in-law told me to knit my son a pair of socks, so will do that when I spend a week with them at the beach this summer. I need the foot with me when I knit socks, since I knit from the toe up and do a mitered heel, if the foot part is too long, it is too long. My daughter's second pair of socks is too long. Sigh.

Spring Knitting

I have drifted away from knitting recently. I fell in love with knitting socks and now that it is too warm to wear them, I am at a bit of a loss what I want to knit. Have several things started, nothing enticing.

I was at Biltmore Village in Asheville, NC a few weeks ago and a knit shop was right across from the restaurant I had eaten lunch with on a tour of Asheville. We had free time so I made a beeline for it. The proprietors were very nice and upstairs was a table full of yarn bags, discontinued lines and colors. Since I am a bargain hunter at heart, I could not leave without a bag! I chose a bag of Debbie Bliss' Cotton Cashmere in a khaki color. And since I have trouble buying yarn without casting on something immediately, am working on a shrug.

I also decided I needed a new small drawstring purse and had some cotton yarn in a beige and a khaki color; I strung some wooden beads on one of the yarns and began the purse, will knit the beads into it in some sort of pattern.

I got out the pink shawl I completed last year and have been enjoying it this spring; it is still the one item I have knitted that I adore and continue to get compliments. In fact, I was just tossing it over my shoulders at the end of our shopping break on my Asheville tour and one of the woman gasped and asked me if I had just bought it in one of the shops! The yarn was a German mercerized cotton yarn that I bought from elann.com and it turned out to be on closeout and the entire line discontinued. This is the nicest feeling cotton yarn (it is a very upscale version of the crochet cotton on the cardboard tube we find at discount stores)and I wish I had known it was discontinued; I would have bought more in every color!

Sock Toes and Heels

I figured out (maybe) why my two sides of the mitered toes and heels were uneven...when I turned after the final purl row on short rows, I was not doing my yo's before I started the knit row back to start closing the gaps.

Since I last blogged I have explored other methods of short-row toes and heels. What looked to be the simplest, Japanese short rows, I decided against finally because of the fumbling about with markers. I tried safety pins, paper clips, and yarn scraps and it was very awkward, also I could not "read" the stitches and gaps very well. I hated the markers, and with the cheater method of sssp a knitlister taught me, "purl, move stitch back to left needle, pass next two stitches over and drop them, move stitch back to right needle", am happier with the YO method. The knit gap closing rows are still neater than the purl gap closing rows, but nobody but me is looking.

I love my socks and alternate between the three pair I have knitted. The second pair of Tofutsies is underway. I really gauged it and measured my foot better and this pair is going to fit closely to my feet. I have tiny, narrow feet. Bad for buying shoes, but good for getting two pairs of socks out of a ball of sock yarn!

Love Affair with Socks

I continue to adore knitting socks. I have knitted three pair, one in the Lion Brand, one in Tofutsies, and one in Plymouth Yarn's Sockotta I got from Yarn Girls. My daughter visited this weekend and loved the socks so much, I have started her a pair in another color of Sockotta. This is a big thing....she has never been a fan of anything handknitted. These short row toe up socks just fit so good!

The only problem I was running into was how to do the sssp. The instructions to do this require one to be a contortionist. So I threw the question out to the wonderful knitlisters and got good replies. For anybody out there that blanches at the sight of sssp in the instructions....when you come to the stitches to be 'sssp'ed' you purl the first stitch, put it back on left neeedle, pick up the next two stitches, one at a time, and DROP them over the purl stitch and completely off the needle. Then put the purl stitch back on the right needle, turn. Perfect.

I still do seem to have a problem with the right and left sides coming out the same when I increase on both toe and heel, always having the knit side finished and still have more wrapped pairs to purl (guess I need to do this part of the socks NOT watching tv)....so I just finagle it by knitting plain rows and finishing up the purl wraps. Does not seem to matter so much as the stitches are tiny and pretty much hidden in your shoes all the time! Knitting perfectionists or purists will shudder at this, but I am NOT frogging a toe or a heel, I would drop so many stitches I would end up with big holes in the toe or heel and would rather have it slightly lopsided instead.

Socks, Finally

I have mentioned that socks elude me. I have pretty much done everything else knitty except a successful sock. I even did Fair Isle back in the 1970's with Lopi yarn that I bought in big bags at the Icelandic factory.

Well, I have knitted two single socks and frogged a couple. Traditional cuff down socks pose two dilemmas for me. One, I hate to finish and having the dreaded toe graft to do at the very end is more than I can bear. Two, I hate to pick up stitches and you have to do that on the heel. Also, I have "princess feet" and don't like a seam or ridge anywhere near my feet. Grafted toes and picked up stitches both produce lumps as far as I am concerned. Also, I feel like it is just too much guesswork trying to figure out where to pick up those heel stitches and to get the right number of stitches picked up, then there is the 'ridge' created. I know yarn is soft, but still.

But I have resented all the socks I see people knitting and posting on their blogs. Not that I think I even want to wear hand knitted socks, I just want to know how to knit them. After all, they are nice and portable. And cheap in the overall scheme of knitting.

I absolutely can't stand dpns. I knit loosely and those needles simply slide out of the stitches. Every time. I knitted a single sock using two circulars that was semi successful. I did not like the cotton yarn; not soft enough for princess feet. I decided that I might have actually had a pair of socks IF I had knitted 'two socks on two circulars', so I got my instructions and tried. I really did. And just about went insane. I spent more time untwisting and untangling the yarn than I did knitting. Those are frogged and rewound.

Well, dpns are out and I did not really like the dangling needles you have with two circulars. That leaves one long circular to learn. I practiced on some worsted yarn and fat needles (created a long circular out of my Denise's). I love the technique.

With all the aggravation I have described you are probably wondering why on earth I am still muddling over knitting socks. Pure stubbornness. And I love a challenge.

So I know I don't want to knit a cuff down sock again. I keep hearing about toe up socks, but I can't seem to find instructions that I can understand. But I want to try the toe up sock. mostly because I am stubborn as I said. I happened upon The Perfect Sock Pattern and loved the result. Amazingly, using the exact stitch count from the pattern actually made a sock that fit, since my gauge was different (I promise I did some math and thought it would fit, and you can try on as you go with toe up socks, anyway). I have completed one sock and am almost to the heel of the second. No second sock syndrome!!! No lumps, no seams. I am using Lion Brand's Magic Stripe washable wool and really like the feel of it on my foot, although the yarn is making my hands sticky. What's with that, anyway? And I love the striping yarn that hides mistakes.

The only downside of the pattern is having to do a sssp. THAT is awkward, even though I did find a video of the technique online but can't find the site just now to link. There HAS to be an easier way to get the same result, some sort of a "cheat". After all, I do cheat on the ssk. Ha.

The person who designed the sock pattern cited above indicated that the sock is based on Simple Socks, Plain and Fancy by Priscilla Gibson-Roberts. They just added a Turkish Cast On that I found surprisingly easy as compared to all the other toe up cast-ons I had tried to understand.

Interestingly, I will finally have a pair of wool socks to wear now that spring has sprung in the Carolinas!!! But wool breathes, right?

Bernat Cotton Tots

If anybody is reading this and has any opinion, please post a comment....what did Bernat DO to Cotton Tots???? I knitted a blanket three years ago in the blue and loved knitting it and it is my second grandson's "blankie". So the third one is on the way and Mommie wanted the same yarn but a different color, so she chose the mint green. Ick and ick and ick. It is rougher and seems heavier, but it SHEDS. To the point that I had to stop knitting in the car on a trip, the fibers were about to choke us and were covering the dashboard. I am determined to finish the thing (baby due soon) and I have to lint-roll myself after a session. I guess they changed manufacturers? Anyway, a warning to all of you who used to like Cotton Tots....you might not like it so much now. I am going to have to do a lot of prewashing and drying on this one.

I actually just ordered some yarn to knit another blanket. It is from DiscontinuedBrandNameYarn and is pictured here. It is a closeout, so grab it while you can! Am going to do this blanket in rows of stockinette alternating with garter. The corner to corner dishrag pattern is starting to bore me, even though it IS easy.

Ravelry

I joined Ravelry a couple of months ago and did my profile but was overwhelmed by the size of the site and choices and did nothing else. I suddenly got in the mood to explore and now see why everyone loves it, especially us disorganized people. It does force one to think linearly. (is that spelled right?....I mean to keep my brain from bouncing in ten directions in once as I think about knitting). I have put up WIPs and finished items. I decided to only do photos of the finished object, since taking photos is the downfall of this blog, I did not want to have photos holding up my adding WIPs to Ravelry.

If you want to take a look at the meager amount of entries and photos, my username is, of course, MsNanknits.

Spring Peeks Out

The weather in the Carolinas has NOT been wintery. At all. Today is in the 70's with brilliant blue sky. I walk every day and have only worn a heavy jacket once or twice all season. I do wear my wool beret and scarf knitted from Malabrigo yarn, though...it is so soft and breathes so well, that I do not get hot, but any chill stays off my neck and ears. I picked these daffodils from my yard yesterday.

Lace Shawl

Here is the finished merino wool lace shawl. The yarn is from Cherry Tree Hill. I mentioned that I wore in unblocked on Valentine's Day. This is the first laceweight wool I have knitted and I did not know how amazing it would look when blocked.

Just a Tweak

Just a tweak is all it takes sometimes to turn something blah into something that has some pizazz. I knitted a cardigan about a year ago from a magazine pattern. It fit nicely, the yarn felt okay, it looked okay, I just did not like it. Then I saw a photo of a cardigan that used a shawl pick to close it at the neckline. I got out my sweater and my wooden shawl pick and pulled the front across a little bit and stabbed it with the pick and, Voila, the whole sweater looked different. The shawl pick becomes the focus and the sweater is just the background. NOW I will enjoy a sweater that I spent hours and hours knitting!! (I am also now knitting the cardigan that sparked this idea)

Catching Up

Yes, I have been knitting. No, I have not been blogging. I have finished the feather and fan shawl done in the Cherry Tree Hill laceweight. I have not blocked it, but am wearing it anyway. I used small enough needles that this works. I bought a lovely silver heart shaped shawl pin on Etsy and wore it and the shawl on Valentine's Day. I will get a picture posted as soon as I take one!

I think I have finally found the pattern/needle size for the spring scarf I want to knit from an Elizabeth Lavold silk/wool yarn I bought about two years ago. It is "my" green and is a nice feel for spring. I wear scarves all the time, even inside; I have a very sensitive neck to drafts, evidently. I finally decided on a size 5 needle (I knit VERY loose) and am doing another feather and fan. This pattern is completely mindless for me and I am discovering I just despise trying to read charts. I knit watching tv or listening to podcasts or recorded books and you simply cannot count stitches when doing that!

Designing Scarves

I mentioned in the entrelac post that I tend to skip important words in knitting instructions. I find I am better off designing my own, using the template from a published pattern and choosing stitches from a stitch dictionary.

By choosing my own stitches, I can make the project simpler to knit, keeping it in my comfort zone. After struggling to no avail with that MS3 shawl, I decided that any lace or texture project I knitted had to have extremely simple repetitions. I want a "big bang for my buck" stitch recipe.

What really triggered this scarf designing path I find myself on, was "Leafy Scarf" in Special Little Knits from Just One Skein. I keep losing stitches, even though it looks simple. This book does not use charts and I need charts for lace knitting, to see where my stitches should be.

Anyway, I have collected several yarns that I want to use "right now", so have a collection of ziploc bags, each containing a different project, three scarves, one shawl, and one pair of Cascade 220 Superwash tube socks, in a basket by my chair. I knit on one for an hour or so, then switch. I believe this is called "Knitting ADD"???

First of all, this is a scarf knitted from Malabrigo Alpine Pearl. I am using a "crossed braid" pattern for a nice thick texture. It is a two pattern repeat; my kind of pattern. I also knitted a beret and fingerless gloves with this amazingly soft and cuddly yarn.


Next is a scarf from an Elizabeth Lavold wool/silk blend. I have had this yarn awhile and finally had to cast something on with it. I like my scarves no more than 5" wide and quite long. The lace and textured patterns in my stitch dictionary were not working out. I suddenly remembered my sock knitting book and found a plethora of textures and lace patterns that were wonderful for a narrow scarf. This one is lacy triangles with very simple repeats. I might not have gotten the sock knitting 'bug' but I am enjoying the book, anyway! There will be many more lace projects from this book.


And, finally, this is a scarf that I am not pleased with, so I cast it off from boredom as soon as I could tie it around my neck for a little extra warmth. The problems with this one is primarily that I don't like laceweight yarn knitted on big needles. The pattern called for an even bigger needle. On the upside, this wool/silk blend is amazingly soft and I have enough for a shawl. Someday.



My main tip in this blog entry is to look at sock patterns in a new way....those patterns for the legs make wonderful scarves. And if you do knit socks you can have scarves to match them!

Entrelac....Finally!!!

On a recent Saturday, I took a two hour technique class on the subject of Entrelac knitting. I have tried on several occasions to master this technique, using online tutorials. I could get the first band done, but could not figure out how to do the next band. So when this chance came up, I grabbed it. Here is what I have accomplished; I am using SWTC's Karaoke. Obviously it is a scarf.

I think I understand why I could not master entrelac before this class: I tend to skip critical words in instructions and I think I must have missed the part where, when you begin a new rectangle, you put the last stitch on the right needle back onto the left. Very critical, indeed. I also found that the right and wrong sides are very important in seeing where you are in the technique and I was trying to make the "garterlac washcloth" I found a tutorial for. What does the work "garter" mean...corrrect...wrong and right sides are identical!

This technique is very fascinating and absolutely beautiful. A real 'magic trick'.

New Shawl Beginnings with Old Yarn

Remember in an earlier post (this past summer) when I talked about making the Figure Eight Shawl with Cherry Tree Hill laceweight? Even showed a photo of one of the middle figure 8 motifs?

Well, I made three motifs and one long side and they do not fit together. No way, no how, never. Obviously I sewed and blocked the motifs improperly. and with than fine yarn, they will remain forever motifs in my yarn drawer!

Never fear, however, I still have enough yarn to knit a nice rectangular shoulder shaw. And if I run short I CAN unravel the side piece I knitted. I am knitting this new project on size 7 needles using the basic feather and fan motif.

I started this shawl just before I left for a week's Christmas trip. My choices for knitting on this trip were this shawl and the baby blanket for my expected third grandchild. The blanket is halfway done and so is heavy in my lap, plus the CottonTots yarn is shedding badly. So....the shawl it was. Below is a photo of how much I got knitted in the car and then three days of lovely screened-porch sitting at our beach house. Since it was VERY quiet down there, I got LOTS of knitting done!

Knitting with wool in the summer warning: Look carefully at the middle of the shawl section pictured at the top. Do you see it? It is called "inadvertent hand felting". Moist hands and warm temperatures and obsessive clutching of the knitted object WILL felt it! When I noticed it, I thought about frogging back to the spot, but decided it just added interest and texture!