Super secret knitting

My most ambitious piece of christmas knitting was very well recieved, which was a big relief to say the least. The idea was started at the end of November, when we called in at New Lanark Mill on the way home from Sheffield. Francis was very impressed with the wool, and chose some Gritstone coloured Aranweight as his favoured colour. I was thinking of making him a cobblestone out of it, but at this point had no intention of giving it to him for chirstmas.

Then he went to shetland and came back having bought me some lovely hand dyed shetland yarn, and I started thinking silly thoughts. I swatched for a cobblestone, got the gauge first time, and then started thinking that as I had maternity leave starting I might be able to get it finished in time. So I started manically knitting on Cobblestone at every opportunity, encouraging him to go out for days in the hills to give me more knitting time. By the start of my one week's leave, I had done the body up to the armpits and started a sleeve. Between visits to the hospital/midwife and other christmas related errands, I knit and knit and knit (between 9 and 5 while he was at work) and by the Friday I had a completed jumper. The yoke seems to take forever though.............

At this point, I realised that I was going to have to block it in secret as well.... which was going to be a lot harder to achieve. I dunked it in some water (baby baths are very useful for this) and left it with some soak while I thought about it a little, deciding that there was so much clutter in the baby room that the jumper could be laid on the floor under the cot and disguised with stuff. Following a lot of rinsing (the first soak water was a very dark peaty brown) the jumper was duely laid out under the cot (this means that the blocking is by no means as good as it might have been) and left. It took forever to dry, but by the 23rd it was finally done. Phew.

It was all worth it - he likes the jumper (his first knitted gift), was totally surprised to see his yarn knitted up, and has worn it ever since........

Vital Statistics:

Pattern - Cobblestone by Jared Flood in Interweave Knits

Size - Smallest (39" chest)

Needles - 4.5mm circulars

Yarn - New Lanark Aran, in Gritstone. approx 6.5 skeins.

Comments - the yarn softens a lot on blocking, but still makes a very rugged and wooly garment. Perfect for a very warm sweater, but I wouldn't want to wear it next to the skin. The first wash produced some very dark brown water which surprised me a bit as the wool is a natural colour, but the water was running clear after about 5 rinses and no staining was left on the towel I blocked on. The pattern is great - clear and easy to execute, simple, plain and perfect for Francis. I knit it exactly as written, but if I was to make a slight modification I might make were I to knit it again would be to cast on slightly fewer stitches at the cuffs and do more increasing, but I think it fits fine as it is so I might not!

All in all I am more inspired to knit for the man in my life than I have been for a long time, and this project has left smiles all round!

3 Things

There are 3 things that are making me very happy indeed.

1. I have finally finished work - maternity leave is fantastic and I am suddenly getting into the whole christmas spirit!

2. My Winter Cottage Mitten kit has arrived. I ordered the bonfire colourway, and wanted to cast on straight away, but got the yarn in a right tangle when I was winding it. My husband has now sorted that out for me and I can cast on with a clear consience because...

3. I have just finished my Coraline, and it fits. It needs blocking, but I think I might be in love, or alternatively overexcited because it is the first new item of clothing I have had in quite a few months. I have high hopes for this being an excellent transition garment in the pregnant / after birth department.

Spiral Hat

Well - several christmas presents have been made and mostly dispatched! I'm 99% certain that my brother doesn't even know I have a blog, so I thought I'd show his on here even though it is well before christmas.

I asked my Husband to kindly do the modelling, when we went for a walk a couple of weeks ago, in Moniak woods, which really are very nice if you happen to be in the area.

Some statistics:

Yarn - Jamieson and Smith DK, Black, held double. For the contrast colour I used less than one ball of Kureyon, carefully selecting the portion of yarn I knit with so that I missed out the pale pink.

Needles - 4.5mm and 5mm Knitpicks

Pattern - My own. It is a very simple hat, with a bit of a rib at the bottom and then spiral stripes above. The decreases were worked offset from each other so that the spiral remained unbroken at the top.

It's a great leftovers hat, but it is quite wooly so those with sensitive foreheads might want to think about giving it some sort of lining.

The weather has taken a distinct turn since then, and much of the area now looks like this:

It's freezing down to sea level, there is some snow higher up, but the sun shone (even though it did set at 3.30) and it's nice and clear. And it's forecast to stay that way for a good while. Time to hole up with the heating up and finish the last sleeve of my Coraline.

Porom.....

So, it's been a while since I have managed to co-ordinate me, a camera, someone to take a photo and some half decent weather into the same place at the same time!

But anyway, my new favourite hat is definatly porom!

Now, you'll notice that I didn't manage to co-ordinate a good hair day as well, but I'm trying not to be too picky!

Some finished object statistics:

Pattern - Porom from Brooklyntweed

Yarn - Fyberspates Scrumptious DK

Needles - 3.75 and 4.5mm Knitpicks Options

Alterations - First, because I had enough yarn, I knit 6" of pattern before starting the decreases. The hat looked ridiculous (but quite amusing if worn in the Henry VIII fashion). So I frogged and made it 5.5", but that still was a bit large, and eventually found that 5" produced an acceptable amount of slouch. I must have a very small volumed head, not that I have ever noticed before.

I love the hat though, I can wear it and it doesn't squash my hair. In a not so flattering look, it covers my ears when it is really cold. It lives in my handbag and is always available should the weather take a turn for the colder - by the time these photos had been taken I had been wearing it/ carrying it round for a good couple of years and the yarn is holding up well.

Not so instant

Ok - so knitting my Porom only took me 2 days.

Getting round to blocking it took another, and then because it went all cold and wet it took 3 days to dry.

And then I found out that even though the gauge was right, I obviously have a very small head. Wearing it slouchy was just silly, though my husband put it on and then spent a very amusing evening doing Henry VIII impressions.

So I frogged it and made is shorter (by about and inch) than indicated by the pattern, and it was still a bit big. Still too big, but definatly an improvement. So I frogged it again, and made it another half an inch shorter and this time the pre-blocking tryout indicates that I might just get the right amount of slouch. At least it might look something like the picures tell me!

On the plus side, the yarn is standing up very well to frogging, considering it is a very loosely spun singe, and the pattern is dead easy to remember by the time you have already knit it twice.

Coraline is also progressing - I have added waist shaping (to give me something to measure progress as much as for aesthetic reasons) and have stopped knitting to do the sleeves. I decreased 4 stitches in a row, every 8 rows 5 times, and then increased back up to the origional stitch count.

I am about 4" down the first one, and it is going slowly. At this point I need to pause and consider if I really want to have puffy sleeves, or something a bit more shaped, and that all ties in with how I am going to finish off the bottom of the body and it is all too much of a decision.

Options are:

1 - Continue sleeves puffy, knit the bottom as in the pattern (i.e. knit some extra length and fold over, whip stitching onto the inside). Like in this great example made out of gorgeous posh yarn.

2 - Add some decreases to the sleeves, so they have a bit of ease but not that much at the bottom, so a garterstitch border to both the sleeves and body. Like the border on this...

3 - As per option 2 but doing the foldy over hem at the bottom of the sleeves and the body. Like this....

4 - Something really clever that I haven't managed to think of yet (but definatly not having 3/4 length sleeves).

All the above links are to Ravelry - if you don't have an account then get one, it's great.

I am currently leaning towards option 2, it's nice and easy, gives a good edge and will I think look better on me than having puffy sleeves.

Distractions

So - Coraline is progressing well, the yoke is nearly done, but it's seeming to take a very long time to knit and I need somthing a little bit more instant as well.

Last weekend I was down in Edinburgh staying with a friend, and managed to fit in a trip to K1. This shop is small, but we a lovely selection of stuff and so of course I was tempted. They also serve tea, which is delicious (Apple loves Ginger was a total winner). A lot of what I bought is desitned to be christmas presents, but I did sneak in a skein of Scrumptious DK from Fyberspates in a lovely shade called electric blue, thinking along the lines of a hat or maybe neckwarmer for me at some point. The yarn is a very loosely spun silk/merino mix, so strokeably soft and shiny that I wound it into a ball just for the excuse of being able to fondle it a bit more.

Then when a few days later Brooklyntweed published his pattern Porom, I was totally inspired and cast on and wound the yarn.

A couple of hours later and I have already made visible progress.

I cast on using an old pair of addi turbo lace needles that I haven't used for a while, and compared to my Knitpicks the cables are so stiff. I was glad to be able to change after the first 1.5" of ribbing. I am now seriously considering a set of harmonies just to keep all my metal tips company!

Anyway, off to knit some more.....

On Making Life HARD

OK, if you want to add some complications to your life take one perfectly clear, well written pattern and instead of just getting on and knitting it, decide to do it upside down. I am proceeding thus with my Coraline.

The main reason for knitting top down, is that I am really unsure if I have enough yarn. I am also a bit off on the row gauge, so want to be able to block and try on as I am going along.

In between time, I have realised that there is a fairly significant colour difference between some of my skeins. Of course I realised this when I had done the first swap, so that meant ripping out back to the start again. It was worth it in the end though....

I think I have cracked the yoke now though - and if anyone else is thinking about doing this here are some notes on what I have done.....

Cast on - I used the cast on described for the sleeves for the top of the neck. The pattern tells you how many stitches are left before the cast off, and I picked up 6 fewer than this along the I-cord, with the 3 stitches of the I-cord at each end making up the rest. The result is nice and neat and clean!

Smock 2 together - for the upside down of smock2tog, (I guess you could call it smock increase) I have been doing the following: purl up to the knit stitch, make on by knitting into purl loop at the back of the stitch below, slip the knit stitch onto the left hand needle, wrap the yarn round both stitches, slip both stitches back onto the right hand needle and then knit them. All other increases were worked in the same manner (either purling or knitting into the stitch below to the left or right depending on the location of the increase)

Short row shaping round the neck - the pattern has row by row stitch counts, so it is easy to work out how many repeats of the first set of smock increases you need. I needed 10 (worked out by looking at how stitches are decreased on the last row) and marked these out with stitch markers. I worked the first set of short rows to just beyond the stitch markers, the second 1 repeat beyond this and the third 2 repeat beyond this, with the wrap and turns placed in the reverse stockinette stretches.

The rest of the pattern is fairly easy to knit by just following the instructions backwards!