Knitting Update: Works in Progress – Page 18

Recently Finished Knitting

Posted on March 22, 2014 by Joyce Makes Art

At the beginning of March, I queued up a sizeable number of projects using Malabrigo yarn and promptly decided I was crazy to even attempt so much at once. But with the month almost over, the verdict is in, and I think the support and enthusiasm generated but all the knit-a-longs and chits chat.

In my last post, I showed you my first finished project, the ReDeux Hat. SInce them, I've finished several more to share with you.

Douglas Fir was one of the hats chosen for a knit along this March, and I adore the result. Although my youngest has claimed it for his own because green is his favorite color, this hat is really perfect for anyone and the cable motif is fun to knit. Fair warning if you decide to take this one on — the brim is fidgety and takes at least as much time as the remainder of the hat. But conquering it will make you feel incredibly accomplished! There are video tips on the brim included in my pattern notes that may help.

I fell in love with Malabrigo Mecha in the Pocion colorway and ultimately decided to knit a Shimmering in Blue Cowl with it. I've worn it constantly since it came off my needles. It's an awesome pattern.

Finally, I finished a Simple Ribbed Cowl in Plomo Rasta. The red tip at the bottom is the leftover yarn from my ReDeux hat, and the two together are perfect. This cowl is warm, warm, warm and although I had my doubts about it while I was knitting, it gets compliments from total strangers on the street.

I have a couple of projects left on my needles that I'm going to take along on my last trip of the month — a couple of hats, another cowl, and a quilt square. I've reluctantly decided that my in-progress Sunny Garden Cardigan is too bulky now to pack in a suitcase. The body is done up to where the sleeves need to be knit in, and I'm midway through the first sleeve. Knitting them on size 13 DPNS is awkward and I've decided it's not good knitting to take along while traveling, so finishing the sweater will have to wait for next month.

Finally, there are two last projects I planned for this month that I haven't cast on yet. I love them both and am thinking about casting them on so that they get in under the wire for Malabrigo March and then working on them in April. All in all, Malabrigo March has been a great month for knitting!

Knitting with Malabrigo

Posted on March 12, 2014 by Joyce Makes Art

We are twelve days into the source of knitting inspiration known on Ravelry as Malabrigo March — a month set aside for casting on projects to get you through several months, if not a year's, worth of knitting. Seeing everyone's projects has been motivating and fun. Without further ado, here are the projects I have been working on this month.

My first cast on was a Deux Hat, knit from Malabrigo's Rasta yarn in Stitch Red. This pattern has been in my queue for a long time. It was a good quick knit and using Rasta for it means this hat is going to be soft and warm.

Next up was Veera Välimäki's Shimmer in Blue, knit in Malabrigo Mecha in the Pocion colorway. Mecha is a newer yarn base for Malabrigo. It is a single-ply yarn, somewhere between a worsted and an aran weight. I used it previously and fell instantly in love. Mecha was perfect for this pattern, knit mostly in garter stitch with four traveling cables. I finished this cowl up earlier this week and still need to get a picture of it in action, but the bottom line is that this is a clever and very warm pattern that I wouldn't hesitate to knit again.

I've been working on a Barn Raising Quilt for my daughter for a looooong time, knitting a square a month with some long droughts. I need to kick this project back into gear this year, as I'd like to have the finished quilt by the end of 2015 and I want to knit 20 or so more squares. This one, in Malabrigo Sock in the Piedras colorway, is coming along nicely.

In addition to being Malabrigo March, this has apparently been a month of Veera's patterns for me. This is another one, Modern Garden. Modern Garden is a cardigan, knit all in one piece from the bottom up. The sleeves are knit separately and then knit in once you reach the yoke á la Elizabeth Zimmerman. The shaping is cleverly incorporated into othe leaf design.

This pattern has been a challenge for me for two reasons. First, I needed a different size on the bottom of the sweater than the top, so I've worked math magic — never my strong suit — to make that change around the waist. The verdict is still out on that one. I also had a bad encounter with a buttonhole. I forgot to make the second one and was less than thrilled about ripping back six rounds to insert it. With the encouragement of a couple of very kind knitters on Ravelry, I laddered down and inserted the buttonhole over three stitches in the proper place. To my surprise, the surgery was a great success. Although I have used laddering in the past to fix a stitch, this was a fix of a different magnitude and I was delighted that it worked. I'll devote a future post to documenting the method, as I was so grateful to receive help in accomplishing this fix.

Douglas Fir is a hat with a special brim. It has an intriguing twisted rib stitch that took some effort to figure out but turned out to be well worth the time. I'm into the upper part of the hat now and hoping to have it finished for my youngest to wear on spring break, since green is his color.

The last project I cast on is a simple gray cowl in Rasta. The colorway is Plomo. This is the same pattern I used to make a blue cowl last month. The pattern is a 3×1 rib with a twisted purl stitch that. This one is a tighter fit around the neck than the blue cowl and will be taller — more of a cowl and less of a scarf.

As these projects zing along, I've got several others planned. I have two trips planned towards the end of the month, so I'm thinking about portable knitting. In addition to finishing the quilt square, I'm going to cast on some bedroom slippers in Mecha.

Time permitting, I also have plans to cast on an Underwater Garden Shawl in Malagrigo Worsted, a Metallurgy Cowl in a beautiful pewter gray Malabrigo Silky Merino colorway called Smoke, and a Fuego Hat in Worsted. I've been tickled by all of the Malabrigo March knitters with mottos like "Go Big or Go Home" and "Cast On All Things." A little bit of sillyness in life is a good thing. I like my knitting with a side-helping of laughter and Malabrigo March has been great in that regard.

Works in Progress: Olympic Knitting Update

Posted on February 18, 2014 by Joyce Makes Art

So far, I've really enjoyed the Ravellenic games, which celebrate knitting during the winter Olympics in Soochi. Two of my three knitting projects are complete. I've also frogged two projects that weren't working out, and have shared that yarn with other knitters in the Torch Passing project.

My first finished project is a Bray hat, which I knit with the Brooklyn Tweed Shelter yarn I raved about last week. Other knitters have complained that it breaks easily, but I found it to be very pleasant to knit with and the color is gorgeous.

The second project is the Little Shells Shawlette, which I knit in Fleece Artist Woolie Silk 3-ply that I dyed into a lovely, variagated pale, pale pink colorway. If you haven't knit with this yarn, you should. It was a joy. And the finished product is really awesome.

I ran into a problem with the shawlette. I took the directions very literally when they said to cast off loosely. And I did. If you look closely at the picture above you can see that although the points are long and lovely, the cast off in between them is a sort of nasty, too-loose affair that wasn't very attractive.

With the help of Jaime at In the Making, Birmingham's best yarn shop, I managed to frog the cast off and get the stitches back on the needles. There was a bad moment last night around 1 am where I realized two stitches weren't where they needed to be, but the pattern is so well written I was able to figure out where they belonged and do some careful laddering to get everything in place. Another cast off — this time not particularly loose — and everything looks much better as it blocks.

I'm wildly ecstatic to have finished both of these projects in just over a week! It feels like some pretty good Olympic knitting.

I haven't finished, actually haven't made much progress, on my third project, Adrian Bizilla's Flocked Mittens. I finally had to admit to myself that I don't know how to knit continental, I can't fake it, and I need to spend some time learning how to do it, so I can properly knit with both hands and do justice to the color work in this pattern. I don't expect to finish these anytime soon and certainly not during the Olympics, but I'm in love with the picot edge and braided trim, so in and of itself, this has been a great learning experience so far.

Lace and Remembering About Yarn Overs

Posted on February 16, 2014 by Joyce Makes Art

I've been knitting a little bit of lace lately, and the yarn overs can get a bit confusing, especially late at night when you convince yourself you can make it through one last row of 200-plus stitches before you nod off. The yarn overs are easy enough when you are knitting all of your stitches, but where I need a bit of a reminder is when I have a yarn over in between a knit and a purl stitch.

There was a lot of that in Little Shells, which I've just finished knitting, but as you can see, haven't blocked yet.

I made it all the way through the pattern with only one small instance of having to unknit a few stitches to get back to a mistake by using one simple device. I made up a rhyme to help me remember the yarn overs. It goes like this:

Knit to Purl, you swirl.

Purl to Knit, that's it.

What I mean by that is easy to decipher. When you have a yarn over in between a knit stitch and a purl stitch, you have to bring the yarn from the back to the front and then wrap it around the needle completely again, i.e., you "swirl" it. Going from a purl to a knit, your yarn is already in front of the needle and you need do nothing between the stitches, your yarn over is automatic. In other words, "that's it."

As silly as it seems, this little device made my knitting so much easier, that I wanted to share it. I'm looking forward to showing you this shawlette in all of its glory once its blocked!

Elliebelly: The Missing Years

Posted on February 11, 2014 by Joyce Makes Art

2012 and 2013 were knitting dead zones for me. Between work, kids, and moving my Mom across country to live down the street from us, there wasn't a lot of knitting. And there never seemed to be any time to blog about the knitting that did go on.

I'll do a few "missing years" posts this month to catch you up on what I knit while I was away from the blog. Since there isn't a lot of it, it shouldn't take long. But some of these projects are items I'm really happy about and want to share with y'all.

There isn't a lot to talk about from 2012, although I did get a number of squares knit for the Barnraising Quilt I'm knitting as a long term project. It doesn't need to be finished for another three years, but it's making slow, steady progress. The stand out project from 2012 is my Burberry Inspired Cowl, knit in Juniper Moon Farm Wool that I dyed in the Elliebelly Purple Fig Colorway.

By contrast, 2013 was a far better year for knitting, beginning in the summer, when I picked up a project that had been lingering for a couple of years — a baby blanket knit in Blue Sky Alpaca Cotton — so that I could finish it for a friend who was having a baby.

I was so happy I hadn't finished the blanket any earlier! I enjoyed knitting it so much and it was just the right present after it was lined with this happy Japanese print fabric.

I finished the blanket while on a trip to the Gulf Coast, and got a lot of funny looks from people at the pool as I cast off.

After I finished knitting the blanket, I started a light weight infinity scarf for fall in The Fibre Company's Terra Yarn. The yarn is beautiful, although pool side knitting doesn't necessarily make for the best pictures.

The scarf finished up nicely. Perhaps too nicely, since I haven't been able to get it back from my daughter for some time now.

The summer beach trip really jump started my knitting again. Fairhope, Alabama has a beautiful little yarn shop called The Yarn Cottage, that has a really nice selection of yarns. One of the store samples caught my eye. It was a pattern called Summit, by Mandie Harrington. It's an old Knitty pattern I hadn't seen before, and the circle construction was intriguing. The store sample was knit in Blue Heron Rayon Metallic and it was so irresistable, that I grabbed a couple of skeins. I worked on this rather complicated pattern a bit, but after getting a few repeats in, put it aside to get my Christmas knitting (more on that in a future post) done. I'll pick it back up again this spring, but for now, here it is in progress.

Knitting Olympics: The Aerial Unwind Event

Posted on February 9, 2014 by Joyce Makes Art

Today I'm using my first-ever video on the blog to show you my aerial unwind event for the Ravellenic Games in progress.

The reclaimed yarn is going to another Raveler through the Aerial Unwind Torch Passing Event in the true Olympic spirit of collaboration and friendship. I'm looking forward to watching her make something beautiful with the yarn from my unsuccesful project.

The aerial unwind lets you take a project that just isn't working out — in my case a sweater pattern I really liked and a yarn I love, which together weren't working — and frog (rip out) the project so the yarn can be reclaimed. Whether you're participating on a Ravellenic Team or not, if you're interested in joining us for the Torch Passing Event, please check out the thread here. It's a fun and easy way to participate in the games, even if you don't have time for a project during the Olympics.

The Knitting Olympics 2014

Posted on February 7, 2014 by Joyce Makes Art

Long about now, knitters all across the world are getting ready to participate in a tradition that occurs once every four years, the winter knitting Olympics, known these days as the Ravellenic Games. Sadly, I will not be part of the mass cast on during the opening ceremonies because I will be at work. But, due to the wonders of Typepad, which lets me schedule a post to publish at the exact time I select, I can share with you the projects I will be casting on tonight when I get home.

I've got four projects lined up. I don't expect to "medal" (finish) all of them, but I like the idea of having lots of support and fun with other knitters, albeit mostly on line, and trying new things I might not otherwise be ambitious enough to take on.

My first project is Adrian Bizilla's Flocked Mittens. I chose this project because I want to learn color work. This may not have been my best choice because it's small and relatively complicated. I'm knitting on size 1 DPNs, but my first gauge swatch, which I did in a navy blue version of the same yarn, Quince & Co. was oversized on size 3 needles. So I worked my way down to the 1's and I'm still a bit off on gauge. I have a very loose gauge but I'm going to try to tighten up because I really want to knit these beautiful mittens. Just in swatching I had to learn to do a picot edge, an internal hem and braided trim, so I consider these mittens to be a win already. I'm trying to teach myself continental so I can do the color work knitting with both hands, but I'm having trouble with tension and it's a slow go.

Here's a picture of my swatch as well. You can see where I did the braided trim using some leftover varigated yarn.

My Second project is Jared Flood's Bray Cap. I'm knitting it in the pattern yarn, Brooklyn Tweed's Shelter, in the Ember colorway.

I fell in love with this hat, which I'm knitting for myself. Its challenges include learning on a new cast on, the tubular cast on, which made it seem like an appropriate challenge for Olympic knitting.

I'm also going to knit Little Shells in Fleece Artist's Woolie Silk 3-Ply. I had an orphan skein sitting in my stash, which I dyed in Elliebelly's Pale Pale Pink colorway for this project. I'm not a big lace knitter, so this will be something of a challenge for me, but I have it in mind for a friend.

My last project is in the Aerial Unwind event, where you frog a project and reclaim the yarn. I'm frogging a long ignored cardigan in progress. As a part of the unwind event, I am hosting a Torch Passing Event on the Elliebelly Group. If you are doing the aerial unwind and want to pass your yarn on to another knitter in the Olympic spirit of friendship and cooperation, we've created a way for you to do that, and the Ravelry Mods have made us an official part of the activities, so please take a look and consider joining in.

Happy Opening Ceremonies and happy knitting!