Octopus Mittens and Tension

Posted on January 3, 2014 by Deborah Cooke

This was supposed to be a Christmas gift, but complications with the needle size delayed my progress. Maybe they’re mine now. 🙂

The pattern is Octopus Mittens – as usual, that’s a Ravelry link – which is a fair isle mitten pattern. The yarn is one I found at my LYS, which is from Scandinavia. It’s a wool called (improbably, at least in English) Tuna. Here are the mitts:Actually, this is two right mitts. Thanks to the flash, the colour shows as being a bit brighter than it is in real life. I knit the one on the right first with 2.25mm needles. It’s not very long – I have small hands and it just fits. The problem was that the intended recipient has longer fingers than me. I also wasn’t happy with the way the hem curled under. There’s a ribbed cuff that you turn to the inside after the band with the suckers is knit – on the right mitt, it pulls under too much. For the left, I knit two more rows of ribbing on that cuff and it looks much better. The left mitten is also knitted on 2.5mm needles. I knew changing needle size would make a difference, but look how much longer the one on the left is! Yet it’s not very much wider. How interesting.

By Christmas I had two right mitts, which isn’t very useful to anyone, especially as one is bigger than the other. I’m almost done the bigger left mitten, and since I’ve missed the deadline anyway, I think I’ll line both pairs. The bigger ones are so much bigger that they fit Mr. Math – so they might be too big for the intended recipient. She got something else this year, and maybe will get something else next year, too.

I’ll show you a pair when they’re done. The left one is a mirror image of the right.

Fightin’ Words

Posted on December 13, 2013 by Deborah Cooke

These were too much fun – I love knitting them and I’m hoping the recipient loves wearing them. In fact, I’ve cast on another pair.

The pattern for these fingerless gloves is Fightin’ Words (that’s a Ravelry link) and I knit them in Knitpicks Palette. (Every time I look at this yarn on the KP site, I’m tempted by their Palette Sampler, which includes one ball each of 150 different colours. What fun!) The pattern was available at a special price for December as part of an indie-designer knit-a-long.What do you think?

The Completed Irtfa’a Shawl

Posted on November 8, 2013 by Deborah Cooke

Here’s a shawl that was on my needles for years. I kept stalling out on it, but it’s finally done—and it’s blocked too! The challenge this week was figuring out a way to photograph it, because it’s huge.

First off, the pattern. I talked about this one already once, right here. It’s a Faroese shawl, a pattern called Irtfa’a from Anne Hanson of Knitspot. Second, the yarn. I used a handpainted 2-ply merino lace called Fly Designs Dovely—the colour is Swamp Teal. (I’ve thought all along that the colour name needed some revision.) Here’s my Ravelry project page.

And here’s the finished shawl. It’s HUGE! 36″ from the centre back neck in all directions.What do you think?

I thought I was going to cast on my Firedance shawl next, but instead, Urdr made it on to my needles. I’m about a third done, and it’s a pretty knit. It’s the second of three shawls about the three Wyrd Sisters, the Norns from Norse mythology who have cameos in Zoë’s paranormal YA trilogy The Dragon Diaries. You might remember that I finished the first shawl in the series, Verdandi, last winter. I’m saving Skuld for last, just because that’s what she likes best.

Socks in Tuffy and Regia

Posted on October 25, 2013 by Deborah Cooke

I haven’t posted about my knitting for a while, mostly because I’ve been knitting gifts. Since they’re surprises, I don’t photograph or talk about them – that would spoil the fun!

But I’ve also been knitting socks for Mr. Math. I have this idea that I can clear out at least one corner of my stash. It’s a bit of a quixotic goal, but can’t hurt to try. He really likes these ones.

They’re ribbed socks knit from Briggs & Little Tuffy, one of my fave sock yarns (and spun right here in Canada). The dark grey is called Oxford, and I used up some bits for the red (also Tuffy) and the black (mmmm, something else from the stash!) to jazz them up.Also, here are the socks for him that are currently on my needles – one is done. You might remember that I knit a vest for him from this yarn – it’s Regia six-ply, with colourways designed by Kaffe Fassett. Well, there were three balls left, so he gets matching socks. Here’s the first one – the second is knit to the heel and will be just the same (because I have fussy knitter disease).I also have some lace on the needles (because winter is coming, and I knit lace in the winter) but right now, it just looks like a lump. I’ll show you after it’s blocked.

Sipalu Felted Bag

Posted on September 6, 2013 by Deborah Cooke

I’ve finished another felted bag – is it possible to have too many of them? – and although it still needs to be lined, I thought I’d show it to you today. It won’t look any different from the outside once it’s lined, after all. 🙂

The Sipalu bag was available from Knitpicks as a kit, including the wool, but I didn’t like that it wasn’t felted. I knew the result would be less sturdy unfelted, particularly knit of a fingering weight yarn (the kit came with Palette.) The pattern for the Sipalu bag was and is available on its own, so that’s what I bought. The pattern specifies knitting with a number of colours, but I decided to use a self-striping yarn with a contrasting solid instead. I dug into my stash and came up with my felting standby, Patons Soy Wool Stripes and Soy Wool Solids. I used Black and Natural Plum.

I did run out of black. Since the SWS yarn is discontinued, I couldn’t find any more. (I tried.) I then substituted solid red SWS, but didn’t like it in the fair isle – there wasn’t enough contrast with the self-striping Natural Plum – so I frogged that back but used the red on the garter stitch edges. The bag sat, unfinished, in my knitting basket while I tried to figure out what to do. One day I saw a very similar yarn to SWS balled with another company’s label, which gave me the idea of using the Ravelry search engine to find a substitute. Ravelry has a great search engine that lets you specify many variables – I used the content (soy and wool) and the weight (aran) , then looked for single ply yarns in solid colours. I found Gjestal Bris, with a buy link, so ordered some of that. It’s a bit thinner than the SWS, but since I was felting the end product, it worked out just fine.

Here’s the unfelted version of the bag:You’re probably wondering about the white cording. I decided that I wanted the edges of the bag to be more round than the garter stitch alone would make them. I wanted them to be like piping around the edge. So, I bought some cotton cord at the fabric store, the kind that’s used to make piping (!), and sewed it in to all the edges. (I slip-stitched the garter stitch ridge closed on the inside of the bag, with the cord trapped inside.) Because I wasn’t sure if the cord would shrink – or whether it would shrink at the same rate as the SWS – I left the ends long. After the felting was done, I tugged the cords so that the piping was smooth on each edge, then trimmed them and secured the ends inside the bag.

Here’s the bag felted and ready for its lining. It could have been felted just a little bit less, but felting is an inexact science. The button is handmade of porcelain.Here’s my project page on Ravelry, if you want to see more nitty gritty details.

What do you think?

Hebrides Cardigan

Posted on August 16, 2013 by Deborah Cooke

This is a cardigan that I finished this week – I love it so much that I wore it before taking a photograph of it! It’s knit in my favourite yarn, Rowan Kidsilk Haze, in one of the KSH Stripe colourways, Twilight. As you can see, this yarn is self-striping, which is another of my fave concepts in yarn.

In addition, I think this is the first time I’ve ever knit a pattern not just in the specified yarn (no substitutions here) but in the colour illustrated. Here it is:And here’s the pattern, called Hebrides, which is a free download from the Rowan website. It’s in stockinette stitch with moss stitch borders – the colour in the yarn does all the work of making it beautiful. I used more buttons than the pattern did, but that was just about my only change. I really like abalone buttons, and they look particularly good here. 🙂

This sweater is so wonderful. It’s light and soft, yet very very warm. Perfect!

I’m going to knit another, because I know I’ll wear this one so much. I already have more KSH Stripe in the Cool Colourway. I did knit another cardi in KSH Stripe in the Forest colourway, but I don’t wear it at all. The difference is that it has a sweetheart neckline, which looked great in the pattern photo but doesn’t look right over shirts and blouses. (The model was wearing it without a blouse underneath.) So, before I cast on the Cool cardi, I’m going to frog and reknit the fronts of the Forest one, to give it the same neckline as this one. I’m not really looking forward to that job, but it will be worth it in the end.

What do you think?

Irtfa’a Shawl

Posted on August 2, 2013 by Deborah Cooke

This shawl has been on my needles for what seems like half of forever. It can’t really have been that long, because I bought the yarn in 2009 at Little Knits in Seattle – I was attending the Emerald City conference and Pam and I did a yarn trawl. The pattern is Irtfa’a by Anne Hanson.This is a Faroese shawl, which means it has a distinctive shape. A Faroese shawl has a vertical band down the centre back – you can see it still scrunched on the needles here – then each side extends like a wing. The border along the hem is knitted on last, which is what I’m in the middle of doing right now. Even though the shawl isn’t blocked, you can already see the shape of it, at least on this left side. The shape is even more clear in the shot on Anne’s website, because that shawl is finished and blocked. (Here’s the link again.)

Here’s a closer look:I knit this following the pattern instructions until I got to the hem. First of all, I added some rows to the hem of the shawl to make the last set of points finish out in diamonds. That’s hard to see here, but will be more clear once it’s blocked. (I like it a lot.) I added some beads (of course!) too. I also changed out the border pattern. Of course, I ended up with a wider one so it’s taking me a while to finish, but it’s a pattern I memorized quickly. (It’s a modified version of a border included in the end matter of Victorian Lace Today.) Here’s my Ravelry project page with a more in depth description of my mods.

I’m hoping to have this one finished soon, so I can cast on my Fire Dance Circle Shawl.

Iris Cardigan

Posted on July 26, 2013 by Deborah Cooke

We haven’t talked about knitting on Fridays for a while, so it’s time to get caught up.

This is a cardigan from Rowan Magazine 45 – the pattern is called Iris.I wanted the kind of cotton cardigan that can be tossed over anything, plus can be jammed in a bag and come out looking good. It’s a bit bigger than I’d anticipated, so has a little more of a sloppy joe look, but I love it. I made some modifications, including more buttons on the front and rounding off the repeats of the various pieces to ensure that the lace pattern matched at the seams. I used the same hem pattern on the sleeves as on the sweater – in the pattern, the sleeves are hemmed with garter stitch, which seemed less consistent to me. The mods are described in more detail on my Ravelry project page.

The yarn is discontinued – it’s Nashua Handknits Creative Focus Cotton DK and Nashua has gone out of business. (Ironically, I was substituting for a Rowan yarn, and Rowan took on some of the Nashua Creative Focus yarns. Not this one, though.) I found it a bit splitty and can’t count how many times I worked back to snag a stray ply that wasn’t where it ought to have been. The colour is darker than it shows here – more of a burgundy. I’m not a huge fan of knitting with cotton, which is why this one took so long to finish, but I love wearing cotton sweaters.

I took this one to RWA National in Atlanta and it was perfect. What do you think?

Hippocamus Mittens

Posted on June 14, 2013 by Deborah Cooke

I haven’t shown you any knitting for a while, but I’m really proud of these so you get to see.This pattern is called Hippocampus Mittens (here’s the Ravelry link). I’ve liked them for years and finally decided to knit a pair. I had some bits and ends of Kauni Effektgarn left over from knitting Mr. Math’s Elrond Sweater so I could shop the stash for this project. I have sweaters on the go, but sometimes a small project is exactly what you need.

I knit the middle pair first, but didn’t think they looked like a match. Since the pattern used less yarn than I’d expected, I had enough for a second pair. I then knit the outside pair, ensuring that the background on the cuff for each matched one of the original mitts. So, these are the two pairs resulting. They then went into the washer to full and shrink a bit, and here they are. I like them a lot – pluse there’s one pair for me and one for a Christmas gift. 🙂

There’s a pair knitted in Noro on the pattern page, which is a very tempting possibility. I might have to knit another pair (or two).

It’s very strange for me to have a Christmas gift knitted before July, but it appears that I’m organized this year. Ha! Isn’t that a good thing?

Alexis in Pink

Posted on April 19, 2013 by Deborah Cooke

And finally some knitting to share!This is a long vest with a cable on either side of the front opening. It’s quite boxy, so these end up being short sleeves. It’s not nearly this vivid a pink, but that’s courtesy of the flash. The design is Alexis from the pattern book Rowan Colourscape Folk. The yarn should be Colourscape Chunky, but this yarn is Texere Olympia in the colourway Eros. I’d read on Ravelry that the Texere yarn was very similar and it is – in fact, it’s indistinguishable to me from Colourscape Chunky and is much cheaper. Colourscape Chunky has also been discontinued recently and is becoming hard to find.

I like this yarn a lot, both because of the vibrant colours and because it’s got a nice rustic feel to it. The colourways for Rowan’s Colourscape Chunky were designed by Kaffe Fassett and I’m a sucker for the way he plays with colour. There are definite similarities with Noro yarns in that this one is a single ply, loosely spun, and still remembers the barn. It softens and fulls considerably when the finished garment is washed and blocked. It’s also unpredictable a bit in the colourway progression – I had thought after casting on the left front that I should frog it back and start in the red, so it would match the right front. You can see that wouldn’t have worked. The pink band after the red and before the mauve-flicky bit is much broader – the section was much longer in that other skein. The right front, in contrast, has a broader red band before the green-flicky bit. It would never have matched, even if I’d tried.

I knit the vest 2″ shorter than it was supposed to be, because I’m not nearly as tall as the model in the book. Also, I wanted it very loose, so cast on the large and decreased to the medium above the waist so my shoulders weren’t lost in fabric. It worked out well, although I could have begun the decreases sooner and spread them out more.

Here’s the back:This is where I made my big modification. I added that double cable up the back – the pattern has a plain back. It’s 11 stitches wide – P1, K4, P1, K4, P1, the K4’s becoming the cables – and does pull the fabric in a bit. I also widened it into a V at the top, so the cables on the back would line up with the cables on the front at the shoulder seam. This picture (without the flash) makes the colour look more red than it is, but it’s been raining too much outside to take pictures there.

Overall, I’m very happy with the vest. It’s warm and the colours are cheerful. It was a pretty quick knit, given the thickness of the yarn. What do you think?

Alive & Knitting

Knitting and other tangled webs we weave