I finished my purple 6×6 cardigan just before (actually the day before) I went to Ireland. That was a firm deadline that I definitely needed to get it done and I was so happy to have it with me.
I wore it for 12 days straight and it was so comfy (dk wool by Shelridge Yarns in Iris colourway). I stuffed it in bags, rolled it up for a pillow on the plane and pulled it over my head every morning, never undoing the buttons (which would explain why I knit more pullovers than cardigans). It was an amazing travel companion. I felt at home even though I was far away.
Ireland is a wonderful country full of very friendly people. We had a marvelous trip with Inishfree Music tours with David Francey (a canadian singer/songwriter). This was a trip on our bucket list and exceeded expectations.
Now curling season has begun and I think I need a new curling sweater. The one I have has a hole in the front (a zipper catch). I could fix it or I could knit a new sweater. Any guesses?
My sweater is at the test knitting stage so soon it will be published.
I just finished knitting two sweaters. It seemed like I was knitting sleeves forever. Note to self, knit the sleeves first!
The pattern is written and today, after a final read through, it will go off to my test knitters. Yes, the process of getting patterns published is l-o-n-g.
And then there is the crash.
What should I knit now? There are no idle needles allowed around here. I scroll through ravelry for hours. I’ll knit this, no this one looks really interesting, or maybe the pattern that’s been sitting in my library for 10 years???
I need a break from designing so this is when I knit someone else’s pattern.
I knit one of the Easy Over Socks by Holli Yeoh. I will knit some more but would like a longer cuff. It’s really inventive, has a new-to-me heel and only uses small amounts of sock yarn, bonus.
Now I’m knitting a lace shawl, the Mossblossom by wool.and.pine.designs. I find having to pay attention to a chart really relaxing. I mentioned all that sleeve knitting, right? This, for me, is the carrot.
What’s your reward for getting through the tough parts of your project?
I can’t seem to leave the lace patterns on my swatch alone. I keep looking at them and wondering how they would look in this cardigan.
I ditched the chunky weight red sample. It’s history.
A new lace version is born. I’ve cast on and am merrily working the Double Ridges with eyelets.
This is in DK weight yarn by Shelridge Yarns. A pleasure to knit with. It went sooo fast. It’s actually purple, not blue, but my camera obviously likes blue. I can’t wait to get started on the lace stitch patterns.
More chat if you want to watch:
Two, two, two cardigans in one. I’ve got to get back to them. See ya’. Deb
Designs sometimes have a forward/backward two-step dance to them. First step forward was knitting the blue and then gold bands for the shawl. When I realized that this crescent shawl shape was too curly, I ripped back. Yes, a large step backwards. Moving forward, I fixed it and I really like the overall shape.
Once I had it this far along, I decided that the V shapes where too small. I wanted to knit more texture stitches across the rows.
So I ripped the gold out one more time. Yes, one more time stepping back. I made the texture stitch shapes larger at the base. Now, after knitting this section again, I finally have it just like I want it. The shapes are like FANs so I changed the name of the pattern. Why not? Nothing is written in stone yet.
The gold yarn is 80/20 fingering by Shelridge.com and stood up really well to three knits. Yay.
I’m knitting the last band of colour as you read this. There is no stopping me now!
The pattern is off to the testknitters and I’m contemplating knitting another one. Hmm, what to choose this time? DK weight? Yeah, that would work.
I did it. I pressed the Publish button on the 3-Act Play Scarf. This is hard to do while my fingers are crossed as well as my toes. Pressing that button is … boy it’s hard to explain, it’s pushing something out into the world and letting it sink or swim, all on it’s own. It’s like taking your child to school on the first day. They know their name and their address, they can count to ten and are hopefully, fairly well behaved. Then you have to watch them walk in that door, turn your back and walk back home.
I have to confess that once this vague and unformed idea for a scarf became a little more concrete, I got totally carried away. The scarf and I started running off in all directions and it was hard to harness it into something I could write down clearly.
The main pattern is worked in garter stitch and is 6 pages long. That includes photos and a title page and all that you expect in a written pattern. The actual instructions are 3 pages.
Then there is a separate download that has lots of modifications (variations) that you can work on this scarf. That document is 7 pages long and that’s the cut down version. Ha, ha, ha, I know, I know, crazy, eh? There are instructions for stripes, 3 eyelet patterns, 4 slip stitch patterns and 3 lace patterns. It is certainly an adventure and not for the weak of heart, as my testknitters found out.
I am making videos for the first 3 Triangles. It’s amateur hour but here is a video about Triangle I to make sure you end it at the right point. 3-Act Play scarf: Triangle 1 This is my little sample.
If you want to follow along with me, I am going to blog about one Triangle a week as I make more videos. I just wrote this down. Now that it’s in writing, I must do it. You can keep me accountable on this.
The leaf pattern is gorgeous. I worked it with the twisted knits and twisted purls (don’t worry, there is an untwisted version). This was a challenge. The trick, I found, is to work the twisted knit row on the loose side so the twisted purls on the next row are easier to work. It doesn’t take long to get the hang of this. The final blocking will really show this off.
The leaf section is done. But that’s not the special part for me.
The edge stitches are really well thought out and charted. I’m quite sure the beginning and end of the rows took time to develop. She even did a video of a different stitch she used. That’s customer service. But that’s still not ‘it’ for me either.
What I paid for, and it was a very small amount of $ but I won’t go into how much patterns are undervalued in our industry, was the 10 or so rows right here.
This is the transition from the leaf pattern to the chevron pattern. It’s elegant, don’t you think? It’s a thing of beauty. I’ve stopped knitting here so I can just appreciate how she made these patterns flow, one into the other.
As far as I’m concerned this is what I paid for. A little bit of knitting elegance. When I pick it up tomorrow I am starting with a smile of appreciation on my face. Thanks Sylvia.
Working row + comfort row OR work on every row. Where do you stand on this important question? Do you like a comfort row, worked quite often in purl, where you don’t have to think about a stitch pattern? I do but sometimes it’s not the best way to go.
Right now I’m knitting lace and boy, I am really appreciating the comfort row. I have to concentrate and count as I work across the row, glancing at the chart over and over again since I don’t seem to be able to hold too much in my small brain these days. Since I’m working garter lace my comfort row is a knit row and I sigh in gratitude every time.
But when I was working the Bias Centre in garter stitch I was happy to do a little bit on every row. It gives the garter stitch, not structure exactly, but some way to tell where I was. I especially, in the case of garter stitch, like to work the decreases or increases at the beginning of the row as opposed to the end.
I don’t know if you find this but garter stitch sort of numbs me out, especially on long rows of it. About 5 stitches in my mind is off on another tangent and not paying any attention to what I’m doing. I find myself turning and starting the next row, paying close attention to whatever is required, before I realize that maybe I was supposed to do something at the end of that last row. Wait, did I miss something?? Tink back and finish up correctly. This is where a strategically placed marker comes in very handy. A very large marker that you can’t miss is a must, just like tying a string on your finger. Hmm I wonder why that string is there? I know there was something I was trying not to forget!
This little guy is our comfort these days. His family made it up to the camp (called a cottage if you’re in the south but here in the north it’s called a camp). Max is the 7th generation to come here. Right now we have 4 generations of my own family in residence, plus cousins and aunts and uncles too, over 6 camp properties (all social distancing but pretty easy since we spend all our time outside).
My daughter (who is feeling pretty good right now) and her little boy.
Max and daddy, ready for bed, at least Max is.
I’ll stop now with the Nana pics. We are overjoyed that they made it up. Another baby that can grow up here, just like Morgan and her brother did, me and my sisters did and my father before me. Makes me feel hopeful for the future.
Cheers, and I hope you are working some magic with your knitting whether you have a comfort row or not,
I don’t know how many times I need to knit this scarf to get the pattern written but I’m now on scarf #3. I am calling it the 3-Act PLAY. I have included different stitch patterns so I hope knitters will have some fun playing with them. I have had lots of fun with them.
It starts with Act I and 3 triangles. Act II is the central straight bias section and Act III is the scalloped tail end.
It’s going to be written as a simple garter stitch scarf. Ok, not exactly simple but there will be lots of garter stitch knitting. I unraveled another shawl and knit right off of it, changing colours as I came to them in the shawl. The knitting is a little kinky (not that way!!) but I like it anyway.
I’m test knitting now and getting more of the details into the pattern. I am working the first 3 triangles, each in different Eyelet pattern and in one colour.
Here’s a close up. Right Side: knit. Wrong Side: [YO, P2tog]. I love how different these eyelets look.
Next up … eyelets worked knitwise in the usual manner just to see how they differ. So far so good. Cheers, Deb
Lace, it’s just holes, right? So how hard would it be to come up with my own set of lace patterns. No problem, right? Ahem, maybe and maybe not.
The last section of this 3 part scarf is worked in garter stitch which makes the lace patterns in garter stitch too. I thought I would come up with 3 different lace patterns you could work in any order and each would morph seamlessly into the next one.
The garter stitch ridges worked every other row renders a complicated lace pattern very difficult to see. You can’t see the lines of decreases at all. The design depends on hole placement only and needs to be fairly obvious. Oh dear, this is already harder than I thought.
First I tried this. Fairly easy to work and the double row of holes makes a design you can see. It moves on the diagonal which is pleasing but …
when this scarf is worn this tail will fall down the front of the wearer and then the nice diagonals look like vertical lines. Sigh. Not exactly what I was looking for.
Wait a minute, if I work this double row of holes as a straight line they will look like a diagonal when worn, right? (photo on the right). OK, that will work. One done.
Now to modify it for a couple different looks. Do you like this? I’m not sure the pattern is clear enough. It’s supposed to look like the line of holes crossing. I don’t know that it’s clear enough.
Try again. I like this one much better. How about you? A little more tweeking and I think this one’s a keeper.
Does it need a diagonal in the other direction?Maybe.
Deb Gemmell: Top Down, Gauge Free and more 