Tag: knitting

Resting after vacation

Does anyone else have to do this? I’m just back from an 11 day bus tour of Newfoundland, with 3 days of driving on either side. We travelled across 5 provinces, wow. It was a whirlwind tour around most of the NFL province. When I got home and let my daughter know, she sent the message “will you be in bed for the rest of the week?”. Ha, Ha. She’s not wrong. My husband knows I won’t even go out of the apartment for several days. There are people out there and I can’t talk to another person, except you guys, of course.

So I am knitting, knitting, knitting. My comfort place. I’m finishing up a Musselburgh hat for my grandson. It will be done today.

Timberyarns

I knit on the trip. Not as much as I had thought but that’s always the case. My Reversible Ribbon Wrap/Scarf was easy knitting on the bus. Please excuse the wrinkles. I had it stuffed into a small project bag. It’s probably a little bit larger than a travel project should be but easy to work on.

I added the second Contrast Colour and am really happy with it. I wish I had thought of it sooner. My winter coat is that green colour but I felt the wrap needed a little lift and the celery coloured stripe does that. I’m going to make the celery colour wider and the dark green narrow as I progress. You can see I’ve started triangle #4 (bottom right). This will be good TV knitting.

On the trip I finished a pair of socks for my grandson.

Timberyarns

As you can see Stripey the Sock went on an adventure. My grandson is 5 and reading so I sent him a Stripey story every day. Stripey saw the ocean. Look at all the rocks on the beach. Stripey though a beach had sand but not here.

Stripey went on a couple of boat rides. The sun was shining and the ocean was calm. A great ride.

Stripey liked all the fishing boats, especially this one.

Stripey accompanied me on a little walk in the woods.

When travelling in an new place it is comforting to be somewhere that is somewhat familiar. I took a big breath and enjoyed a woods walk, even though it’s not quite the same as home.

And I went to a wool store in St. John’s. This is Pam of Windswept Fibre and Designs.

It’s great to go away but it’s wonderful to be home again.

Cheers, Deb

Cabin Fever patterns by Deb & Lyn and the Cabin Fever crew

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On Vacation, Reversible Ribbon Wrap

This was a good take-along project. Not too much to keep track of and lots of garter stitch.

Reversible Ribbon Wrap/Scarf. Free pattern on ravelry.

Just finishing my third triangle and added another colour. You can use as many colours as you like, just work the Eyelet Row as the first row with the new colour. That maintains the reversibility.

I also got 1 1/2 little socks done.

But today seems like a good hat knitting day.

We are over the half way day of our bus tour of Newfoundland. There have been some long travel days, good for wrap knitting, but now we’re in St.John’s for little jaunts, so the hat it is.

A project for every circumstance, right?!

Cheers, Deb

Any Gauge and Gauge-free patterns by Deb.

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On The Road

We came home for 10 days and now we are off again. I’m testing out several projects to see what works in the car and on our tour of Newfoundland.

I cast on a sock for my grandson who loves rainbows and all things colurful. I think these hit the mark.

This is Timberyarns wool and the colours are so wonderful. I’m using double pointed needles and knitting these in the Irish knitting method that Yarnharlot uses. I figure it’s good to mix up different knitting methods but as a car knit? We’ll see.

The other project for the car will be my Reversible Ribbon Wrap/Scarf (which is a free pattern on my ravelry site). It’s a backup project since it will work anywhere I go. I’m not any further along than last time since I was setting up the other projects. It should get some love over the next couple of weeks. I snuck another colour into the project bag since I thought this needed a bit of a colour lift. I’ll keep you posted.

I have one more project, because can two projects be enough? It’s a matching Musselburgh Hat for my little guy. This I can pull out any time and do a little bit.

I, of course, spent way more time thinking about what knitting projects to take and very little on clothes, priorities, right? Off we go. It should be great.

Hope your autumn plans are fun too. Cheers, Deb

Any Gauge and Gauge-Free patterns by Deb

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Wrap/Scarf time

Summer is ending and it’s time to look toward autumn and, dare I say it, winter.

An autumn essential for me is a good sized scarf. That’s what I’m knitting now.

Would you like to join me? I’ll be knitting this for a month or so. I’ve published the pattern with an interim photo, because obviously it’s not done yet LOL, in case you want to knit along with me. It’s Gauge-Free and modular, oh, and the pattern is free.

Reversible Ribbon

As you know, if you’ve been following me, I’m stuck on sleeve island (where did this term come from???) on a couple of sweaters, so for relief I’ve started this new idea for a Wrap/Scarf.

So far I have 2 triangles made and a tiny bit of Triangle 3 up on the top right of the photo.

It’s a two colour wrap made with triangles that join-as-you-go. Triangle 1 begins on the left of the photo, in the Main Colour, with increases worked along the top edge. Work as far as you wish then change to the Contrast Colour for the bottom section of Triangle 1.

An Eyelet Row is worked when changing colours which makes it reversible!

The depth of Triangle 1 determines the depth of the wrap/scarf.

Triangle 2 begins again with the Main Colour and joins to the Triangle 1 stitches.

Then count the number of ridges of CC colour in Triangle 1. I have 35 ridges in green. Count 35 sts from the far end and put in a removable marker. Join up Triangle 2 to Triangle 1 until you reach that removable marker and then change to CC. This is going to give you a zigzag of the CC colour.

I’ve added some modifications, of course! I’m doing Modification 1 which is to vary the width of the CC sections. I’m knitting each CC section 5 sts narrower with each triangle. Then I think I will either add in a different CC colour or just widen them out again. I’ll decide when I get there. I like to mix it up as I go along. You’re surprised, right?!

I’ve posted this pattern on my debgemmellmods ravelry group if you want to join me. I’d love to see some other colour versions.

Cheers, Deb

Any Gauge and Gauge-Free patterns by Deb

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Summers End at our Camp

It’s mid-August and 12 degrees Celsius in the morning when we get up. That’s our signal that it’s time to go home. It’s been a terrific summer. Tomorrow we travel south.

I got quite a bit of knitting done through a rainy spring, a couple weeks of hot weather and family time. In the meantime I did a major bit of maintenance on our cabin. It needed to be resurfaced since it was leaking a lot around the door and windows. We refaced it with plywood and put battens up at all the seams. I think it’s looking pretty great.

I’m quite a bit further along on my Just For You V Pullover green version. I think I’m very close to the bottom of the body. I’ll do a proper assessment when I get home.

I am almost finished one sleeve of the striped version of the V. Just the ribbing left and then I can finished the other sleeve. I find sleeve knitting sooo boring. It shows me that I’m missing watching TV (which I don’t have here). That’s the perfect evening activity – TV watching and sleeve knitting. So more of that when I get home.

I was knitting the sleeves two-at-a-time but to mix it up, as I said – really bored, I switched to double points. Anything to convince myself to keep going.

I started the second triangle of my Reversible Ribbon Wrap. I am about to finish this second triangle with the green. That will be the first of the zag of green zigzag. Stay tuned. It will become clearer as I go.

I will start the green with an Eyelet Row which is what is making it reversible.

Earlier in the month I went to the Algoma Fibre day in Desbarats, just east of Sault Ste. Marie, ON, and bought 2 cakes of Briggs and Little Country Roving. It is 5 strands of unspun wool. I’ve been wanting to try knitting with unspun wool for a while but not at the gauge with 5 strands of wool. So I split the whole cake up.

I split the 5 strands into 2 strands + 2 strands + 1 strand balls. Between the 2 cakes I got 5 big balls of 2 strands of wool.

Lyn, of Shelridge Yarns, my sister and neighbour here, offered to help me try dyeing this wool.

We had to change the balls into skeins in order to dye it. We found out how very fragile unspun wool is. We tried winding the balls onto a swift but it kept breaking. So I ended up keeping the swift stationary and manually winding the wool around the pegs to make the skeins. No pulling that way.

Then the dyeing began. First cold water bath and add dye.

Then it got heated up slowly to a simmer and then set aside until it was room temperature again. Then it could be washed and then laid out to dry.

Now I have all these balls of semi-felted wool which I think will knit at about 4 sts to the inch. It feels much stronger after the heating and cooling.

Yay. Something new to try. Have you knit with unspun wool? How did it go?

Cheers, Deb

Any Gauge and Gauge-Free patterns by Deb

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Progress through the heat

It’s even hot here in Northern Ontario but I have made some progress.

The green V is getting some love.

Shelridge 80/20 fingering

That’s another 4 inches, at least. Ha, in my dreams.

I have started extra wiggle room for my hips starting above my waist, working increases on either side of the back only. Now I will work increases on the front and back, every inch or so, to get an extra 3-4 inches around the hips. It gives me something to keep track of which seems to help it go faster.

The V sleeves here are both 6.5 inches long. If this was one sleeve I would be almost done! OK, so keep on truckin’.

Waxwing yarn co.

I started a new wrap.

Shelridge 80/20 fingering

I have finished one triangle in two colors and started on the second one. It will look something like this.

Maybe this drawing, where I’m trying to show where the green will go, will help? OK, maybe not.

Anyway, it will become clearer as I get a little further on. So far, nice easy garter stitch. Good for watching video podcasts, car knitting, etc.

That’s it for me. How about you?

Cheers, Deb

Any Gauge and Gauge-Free patterns by Deb

Debgemmell 435 on youtube

deb.gemmell on instagram

Progress

I am making some, progress that is, on several fronts.

I’m at my summer camp in Northern Ontario. I had big plans to build a new bunkie (an outbuilding for sleeping) this year so my son and partner could have their own place but maintenance has to come first. I have been cutting brush. It was about 4’ high. Now the mosquitos are less bothersome and I can see the lake. Yay.

I have also made progress on both my sweaters.

This V-Neck Pullover is a joy to knit. The green marker is where I was last week. Are you impressed by my progress? I am, ha, ha.

Here is how the twisted stitch design is shaping up at the sides. I’m loving it.

I will post the pattern next week.

The faux Lunenburg I’m knitting is also much further along.

It’s not nearly long enough yet.

I also have my circular saw and screw gun out because the front of my cabin needs to be resurfaced. It takes all the weather that comes off the lake and is now leaking. I’m going to do a sort of board and batten look. Very early days but I can see it’s going to cover the old seams very well, phew.

My job is the woodwork part and my husband is doing the painting. Three different colours of green on it right now, LOL

I hope you are also making some progress on whatever summer projects you have going.

Cheers, Deb

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Slow Going

I wish I had some of those progress marker things to put in my knitting. Knitting lots of stockinette stitch can seem like you knit and knit and knit and never make any progress at all. I have 2 projects that are all stockinette.

I really enjoy exploring different ways of constructing sweaters, especially the no-sew variety. I am not much of a fashionista. Did I use that word correctly? Anyway, I’m not a fashion designer, I am a knitting construction engineer. It does lead to lots of plain knitting since I don’t always consider decorating my latest construction with something interesting. I think the construction itself is interesting enough. Does that make sense?

I have been working on a combination of stash busting and making my designs a little more appealing to the eye.

I added stripes to my latest Twelve-Point Circular Yoke to jazz things up and to use up the last of my Hempton hemp/cotton blend yarn. I wrote it for helical knitting, as a stash buster, but now I am knitting 6 round stripes and, wow, I love this one.

I have part of the last Hempton ball left. I have a Hiya Hiya interchangeable set of needles with double the tips and cables, since I inherited my mom’s set to add to mine. So after the sleeve split, I was able to knit a teal stripe on the body and then a teal stripe on both sleeves, look at what I had left, and do it again. Alas, that’s it for the teal. Good stash busting though!

I’m also at the same point, the point of no more stripes, on the V-Neck Pullover. Again, using up the left-over balls of Waxwing wool. This pattern is written but there is no finished pullover yet.

I have made it to the hip shaping. For this pullover, I knit the Body straight to the narrowest part of my torso (which is now above my natural waist, sigh), and can work some increases for a little extra wiggle room.

Now I’m counting rounds between the sets of side increases. That’s OK. It gives me something to track how much progress I’m making. I work 4 increases in one round, one on either side of the imaginary side seam at both sides, knit 1″ worth of rounds (9 rounds), work one more round with 4 increases, and then 2″ worth of rounds (18 rounds). I repeat the increases and 2″ worth of rounds for the desired length of the pullover. I can usually get around 12 to 16 extra stitches for my hips on top of the generous amount of ease for the body. All good.

The break in the stockinette stitch knitting is working on my V-Neck Pullover with the twisted stitches. See, I can add in some visual interest if I work at it.

Once I split for the sleeves, I also added this stitch pattern as a panel under the arms. The twisted stitch panels make knitting this very much more interesting and I love twisted stitches.

I’m not very far along so nothing to look at under the arms yet but it’s going to be great.

I’ve finished the charts. I did them by hand and photographed them so I hope they show up well enough. I’m putting this pattern out for free so I haven’t bought a chart program. Sorry.

It is suddenly summer here after many days of rain. We are enjoying the sun and getting out on the water. I hope you are having a lovely summer. I know Ontario is having a heat wave so maybe not too much knitting is getting done.

Cheers, Deb

Any Gauge and Gauge-Free patterns by Deb

Debgemmell 435 on youtube

Deb.gemmell on instagram

Summer Place

I’m so excited to be here in Northern Ontario. I look forward to it every year. I especially like being outside most of the time. Once we are here at our cabin, it takes several days to get everything sorted: empty out all the stuff we store over the winter in the cabin, clean up after the mice, do some laundry (mouse related), set up our water, grocery shop, etc. Now the weather is heating up, it’s a pleasure to be here.

Here’s a video tour of me in my happy place.

As you can see my V-Neck Pullovers are progressing well. I’m loving the stripes.

Waxwing, a rustic fingering weight wool

The difference in the two fingering weight sweaters makes my knitting very interesting. The rustic wool by Waxwing is somewhat more forgiving. I’m using it to try to get more practice not looking as I knit. It’s sort of working. Can you do that?

This green one is in Shelridge 80/20 fingering and because it’s a superwash the yarn is lighter and much smoother.

The pattern for this one is sitting for a couple more days as I work myself up to doing the charts for the twisted stitch pattern.

I love twisted stitches so I’m enjoying this no end. How do you feel about them? Love twisted stitches or not so much?

Cheers, Deb

Any Gauge and Gauge-Free patterns by Deb

deb.gemmell on instagram

debgemmell 435 on youtube

Totally Distracted

I was here on my V-neck raglan.

The pattern was working out great and I was really happy with it. I’ve sketched out the charts and they are working, too. Can you hear the “but” coming? I was so distracted by the pattern and the charts that I screwed up my stitch count. Argh. I started my Bust Shaping too early and had to rip back.

I’ve spend the last hour carefully taking out about 8+ rounds. I didn’t want to wreck my pattern. I have almost figured out where I am now. Almost. I think. It may be time to take a break.

On the good news side, I have progressed with my striped version of the V-neck. I am using up wool by Waxwing I had left over from my mitts. I’m happy that that’s working out.

I’ve split for the sleeves, as you can see. That’s a moment, isn’t it?! Now it looks like a sweater.

I only use the raglan lines as a guide. I put the exact number of stitches I need for my actual arm circumference on spare yarn. You can see that my sleeve is slightly inside my raglan markers. All good. This is explained in the pattern which I think I will be able to load up in the next week or so. Then, on the Divide Round I cast on the amount of ease I would like for my pullover. I cast on 2.5″ worth of stitches at each underarm for a total 5″ of ease for this pullover.

It seems to be a good fit, a bit oversized which is what I like.

This is going to be my car knitting project to get up to camp where I will be for the summer. The wool is so forgiving, as far as slight changes in tension go, so perfect for the car, ferry and then more car travelling tomorrow.

Change of location for the summer. I hope your summer is going great. Cheers, Deb

Any Gauge and Gauge-Free knitting patterns by Deb

Deb.gemmell on instagram

Debgemmell 435 on youtube