Deb Gemmell: Top Down, Gauge Free and more

Do you have a “thing”? Let me put that another way. Do you have “strong opinions” about certain aspects of knitting?

My friend, Gayle of Knits From the Woodlot, has decided opinions about reversibility. If there is any chance that you will see the other side of your knitting, it also needs to look beautiful.

From her blog 5 Things I Love and Hate About Knit Designs, this quote was first on the list:

• For me, reversibility is essential for shawls, scarves, cowls, and shawl collars, anywhere the wrong side will show. Knitters are not on the fence about this issue. We fall into, “I love shawls, therefore I’m OK with the wrong side showing sometimes” or “No way, I don’t want to be fiddling with what I’m wearing or what’s on the sofa.”

I agree. I’m also not on the fence. So when my daughter asked me to knit her a wrap for her winter wedding, first I was thrilled and second, I thought immediately that it needed to be reversible.

I checked out the book that Gayle recently recommended. Reversible Knitting Stitches, Knits From The Woodlot

I swatched several cables. I am new to reversible cables so it was fun.

 

My decisions made, I knit a scarf. This is now a New Cabin Fever Pattern called Three Cable Reversible Scarf.  It’s a charted pattern.

Then, the saga continues, Gayle sent me her latest design for tech editing. You guessed it, very similar. Great minds and all that. Out of 200 stitch patterns from the Reversible Knitting Stitches book we chose the same central cable. It’s obviously the best looking cable in the book, ha, ha.

The Marksbury Wrap   Check it out.

And how is the winter wedding wrap coming along? So far, so good.

My daugher wanted a very wide wrap so this is approximately the Three Cable Reversible Scarf x 3.  I’m about half way done, OK maybe not quite half but it’s moving along. I might need some cheering from the sidelines for the last couple of feet.

FOLLOW ME for more knitting adventures.   Thanks for reading,

Deb

Cabin Fever patterns on ravelry

Imagine if your local yarn shop came to you. OK it’s not like the ice cream truck cruising your neighbourhood but if you see this truck, STOP, there is yarn.

Purlin’ J’s Joan Sharpe, roves around to various fibre festivals in the Kingston, Ontario area bringing yarn to the masses. That would be us.

Joan came to the Sticks, Strings and Stewardship Retreat I was at last weekend. She is very engaging and has a great story of how she got here inside a roving truck: Purlin’ J is me, Joan Sharpe, and I have years of knitting expertise to share with Purlin’ J’s customers. My late mother, Dorothy, taught me to knit when I was eight years old. (It took a few tries for me to get the hang of it!) My mother encouraged me to work at my local yarn shop when I was still a teenager. This part-time job helped pay my way through a two-year Fashion Design Diploma program at Sheridan College, where I majored in knit clothing. I was hired straight out of college to join the hand-knit pattern design team for the Bouquet brand of yarns manufactured by Spinrite Yarns. As part of the design team, I worked on turning design concepts into written patterns and finally into completed garments.

Since 2013 her 1982 fire service rescue truck has been packed with goodies.

I think this is even better than the ice cream truck. Don’t you?

Thanks for reading and Happy Thanksgiving,

Deb

Cabin Fever patterns on ravelry

I retreated last weekend …

with my favourite people, Knitters! At the Sticks, Strings and Stewardship Retreat in Sudbury, ON, we knit, laughed, learned some new skills, ate, laughed some more and knit. I feel refreshed and the best part is that I feel right in the world about my knitting obsession.

I exposed some knitters to the wonders of I-Cord (much of it “unvented” by the wonderful Elizabeth Zimmermann). It was wonderful to see the light go on as we discussed all the ways I-Cord can be used:

1. free standing I-cord (here’s an i-cord photo tutorial)
2. built-in i-cord,
3. applied aftermarket,
4. worked as a cast on & cast off,
5. different styles of buttonholes
6. decoration (putting i-cord worms on a sweater being my all time favourite).

I’m going to do The Magic of I-Cord again at our next retreat: Cabin Fever Retreat on October 26-28, 2018 at the Fern Resort in Orillia. We’re going to tackle all things I-cord in a little project that you’ll have finished by the end of the weekend. There will be great food, lots of laughs, new skills and lots and lots of knitting. I’m primed now and can’t wait to get started.

I did a little stroll through my Cabin Fever designs where I used the Magic of I-Cord. I was surprised by the number. Here are just a few of my favourites.

My first retreat of the season convinces me that this is the most wonderful way to spend a weekend. I wonder why it’s called a retreat? I can only think that it is a retreat from our normal lives where people don’t get our devotion to knitting.

Thanks for reading,

Deb

Cabin Fever pattern on ravelry

 

Have you done one of these? What did you think of it?

The title says it all. I’m having so much fun I don’t want to put my pullover down. I started another Any Gauge Raglan 6 days ago and it’s almost done (OK, no sleeves makes it pretty fast). This is worsted wool from Dragon Strings, wonderful to knit with which is  more than half the pleasure, with colours that go around the colour wheel: red, gold, green/blue, blue. I am just into the blue now.

The blending is interesting for a newbie. I did [2 rounds new colour, 2 rounds old colour] twice between the red and gold. I think I could have done more blending here.

When I went from the gold to the green/blue I worked the set of 4 blending rounds 3 times. I thought that worked better. It just meant starting to blend when I had more yarn left in the colour I was working on. It’s definitely a bit of a guessing game.

The blue/green to blue hardly needed any blending at all but I did some anyway.

And now I’m working with the blue alone.

I looked up what other people recommend. Here’s a short list:

1.  Stephen West (youtube video) recommends working 2 row stripes with the old and new colours for as long as you like. You have to love that relaxed attitude.
2.  Fruity Knitting (youtube podcast) did a lovely interview with Andrea Mowry , one of the most popular fade designers. The interview starts at 46 minutes into the program.
3.  The Unique Sheep (blog post) recommends  2 rows New; 4 rows Old; 4 rows New; 2 rows Old.
4.  For an analysis of the Fade trend read Grading the Fade by Stichcraft Marketing.

I will be doing another one for sure. All those lonely balls of yarn in my stash will get some friends. It’s really a community project for my stash. How can I resist that?

Thanks for reading. Let me know if you’ve tried this and how you liked it.

Deb

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Cabin Fever Patterns on Ravelry

The season has started. The spectating/knitting curling season for us as fans of our daughter’s curling team began last weekend. Spectating from behind the glass while knitting this weekend was a reminder of  what an emotional roller coaster ride it is to watch your child (even when they’re grown up) do what they love to do, win or lose.

Team Harrison (playing China here).  With a newly constituted team we didn’t know what to expect but 5 wins and 2 loses put them into the playoff quarter finals where they lost to the team that won it all. Yay Team.

I knit so I don’t chew my finger nails to bits. I’ve been doing this for years so I am aware of some of the pitfalls in choosing the wrong project. Is tense knitting going to show because there will be some. Can I do most of it while still  watching? Can I sit in a chair and not disturb any people around me because it is often a tight squeeze which I realized the time I took straight needles. Imagine needles ends waving around in front of my neighbours. Yeah you get the picture.

This was a good project choice. Thick wool which will not show when things got tense. It’s worked on a circular needle. Cable Trick (see below) meant I could keep track of cable crosses easily. No cable needle needed so it can’t fall on the floor and get lost. Straight forward knitting between cable crossings.

Preparation is everything. I spent the day before getting my project ready. I cast on and then with removable markers, set up where I wanted the cables to go. The thin metal markers are the raglan markers and the coloured plastic markers indicate my cable locations: a small cable on both sleeves and a larger cable down the front and back.

I did the first set up round, increasing stitches between the cable markers. Cables suck your fabric in so you need to increase stitches before working the first cable cross. I decided to do it right away. This is the sleeve cable.

The set up started with 4 sts: 1 border st, 2 cable sts, 1 border stitch. I want to have a 4 st cable so I will increase 2 sts in these 2 cable sts in the next round.

I used a new to me increase which I thought worked quite well. This is a variation of the Kf&b:  Knit into the front of the stitch and without taking the stitch off the needle, insert right needle into back of  the same stitch and slip it. Take stitch off left needle. You have increased one stitch. One of the stitches is knit and the second stitch was slipped.

Once I was set up like this and worked the first cable crossing, this project was ready to go.

You may be wondering if crossing cables is a good choice for a project where your mind is partly occupied. Keeping track of when to cross is the trick to working good cables.

Here’s the TRACKING WHEN TO CROSS CABLES Trick. Every time you cross a cable you create a hole right where the cross took place.

When you are close to working the next crossing stick a needle tip, pencil or your cable needle into the hole of the last crossing and run it up behind your work, popping it out right below the working needle, between the edge of the cable and the next purl border stitch. All the bars between these two stitches will be on top and you can count them.

I’m crossing this 4 stitch cable every 4th round as follows:  The first bottom bar showing is the round where I did the last cross (Round 1 cross cable). The next 3 bars indicate the next 3 rounds (Rounds 2, 3 & 4 work as set). Cross cable again on the next round (Round 1 cross cable).

You can keep checking to make sure you on the correct round to make the next crossing. It makes cables in this nice thick wool the perfect project.

Thanks for reading,

Deb

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Cabin Fever Patterns on Ravelry

 

 

I went diving into my stash for worsted weight yarn for another Any Gauge Raglan pullover. I found 6 50g balls of royal blue (300g in total). A great colour but not enough for a sweater. I didn’t find any sweater amount of anything else that caught my eye. What to do? Spiral Stripes, that’s the answer. I have lots of single balls in several different colours. I’m going to go stash diving to see if I can find 4 more colours that will go with my royal blue. Wish me luck.

For quite some time I have thought that a raglan would be perfect for working Spiral Stripes (also known as Helix stripes). This method gives you single rounds of stripes without any jog at the beginning of the round.

I’ve worked Stash Buster Socks with 3 colours and with 4 odd balls I worked the Stash Buster Striped Hat using spiral stripes.

These are the rules I follow:

1.  One more colour than sections your project is divided into.
2.  Do Not Twist when changing colours.

That’s it.

Rule 1:  Divide your project into sections and work with one more colour than the number of sections. You can use markers to make arbitrary divisions in your project or use any natural sections your project may already be divided into. The sections do not have to have the same number of stitches. For example, a sock can be divided into the front of the leg and the back of the leg. My Top Down Raglan will be divided into 4 sections: Back, shoulder, Front, shoulder. There are 4 markers, each placed between these sections. At each of the markers the colours could change. Since I have 4 sections in this raglan pullover I will be looking for 5 different colours.

Rule 2:  Do Not Twist. Usually when changing colours you would pick up the new colour so that the old and new colour link together (twist around each other). This prevents holes at the change. For this method of stripes you purposely Do Not Twist the colours at the change.

I’ve knit this method in the Stash Buster Socks with great success. I used 3 colours and divided my sock into 2 sections (front of leg, back of leg). At the colour change spot, I took the colour I just used, placed it to the right and dropped it. Then I picked up the new colour from the round below (it will be sitting right there where you need it) and began knitting the next section of my sock. The two colours do not twist.

These socks were knit with a solid purple colour, a solid green and a variegated brown/pink/gold combo.

In this photo the purple has just been used and placed to the right and the green from the round below will be picked up to start knitting the next section.

Can you see that the green round will continue over the brown/pink variegated round on the left needle? All the rounds are continuous so there is no jog.

So far I have knit 5 pairs of socks. The Stash Buster Sock is a great for those lonely 50g balls of sock yarn you might have in your stash. Pair them up with some interesting friends and see what magic happens.

I’m starting my Spiral Stripes Raglan this week. I’ll keep you posted on my progress. This is the result of my stash dive.

EVENTS: On Saturday September 8 Cabin Fever will be at the KW Knitting Guild’s Knitter’s Fair in Kitchener, ON. It’s a terrific show with tons of vendors and lots of like minded knitters. Drop by and say hello.

Thanks for reading,

Deb

Cabin Fever patterns on ravelry.

I’m on the sleeves of my latest pullover. This is Not my favourite part of the sweater but I want sleeves so here I am, slightly irritated but determined to get these done.

I’m working with stash wool which is hand dyed and has some colour variation between the skeins (it’s been in my stash quite a long time). I knit the entire body of the pullover working 2 rounds with one ball and 2 rounds with a second ball. That evened out the colour really well.

I started working my sleeves in the round but …

Continue reading “Sleeve Angst”

My first prototype for the Any Gauge Raglan is finished. I’ve been knitting this pullover for several weeks and calling it the Pepto Bismol sweater.

It’s a bright pink colour which I would never wear or even knit with usually but it was in my stash, and is now discontinued, so was perfect for my first experimental sweater. There was the real possibility that it might not work out at all and then nothing is lost except my time. It’s not that I don’t like pink but I favour a very pale pink colour with lots of white in it and this is not that.

So what should I do when the sweater actually worked out? Once I had the yoke done I figured I should just finish it up since everything was going so well. The whole time I knew I couldn’t wear it. Continuing to call it the Pepto Bismol sweater was probably a clue.

This is where the tea comes in. I had been reading up on home dyeing (without chemical dyes) and the idea of tea was kind of interesting. I put a piece of pink yarn in my tea cup, which I was actually drinking at the time, just to see what would happen. I liked it.

I’m at my camp where I don’t have a proper kitchen but I can handle making tea. I steeped 3 pots of tea with 10 tea bags in each time and poured it into lots of cold water in a rubbermaid bucket. I wet the sweater with the hose and then I dumped it in.

Yup, the whole thing, in it went. I left it outside on the deck for 24 hours. I don’t think it changed colour after about 3 hours but I left it in anyway. Next morning I had to work to get the sweater tea-free but after several dunkings in cold water I thought the water was coming up pretty clear.

The tea took the brightness off. It’s more of a rose colour now I guess. Still pink but not so bright (it’s a little bit more orangey than this photo shows).

I’m happy with the results. I’m really glad I took the chance and did it. This sweater has a story now.

Do you have a sweater that you can’t wear because of the colour?

Share this with your knitting friends. They might have a sweater that could use a tea bath. Thanks for reading,

Deb

FOLLOW ME and I’ll send you a Gauge Free hat pattern. It’s a great stash buster.

Cabin Fever patterns on ravelry