Garden City Scarf

I've been participating in a Knit-A-Long with the Budding Designers Downunder group on Ravelry. This month's KAL is the Garden City Scarf by Sheryl Greenfield.

And here is my finished scarf!



It was a fun, quick and elegant knit. Now, who's going to be the lucky recipient? I'll keep you posted.

I was lucky enough to have a design published in the June issue of Yarn Magazine. It's the Lace Front Cowl.



Now I'm working on some fingerless mitts for an upcoming issue. It's so exciting to see one of my designs in a magazine! That professional photography makes me swoon. (The photo above is mine, not from the magazine, as you can probably tell).

A while ago I mentioned a mosaic stitch scarf. Well, in between all these other things, it is slowly progressing. It's a great project to work on while chatting etc, because the pattern is so easy to memorise, and you just keep going and going until it's the right length! When/if things quiet down a bit, I'll show a picture of it.

Pattern Available - Bea Fair Isle Pullover

The pattern for the "Bea Fair Isle Pullover" is now available.

It's a lovely warm stranded pullover. The colour work is very easy, as there's only one contrast colour and one background colour for each motif. The yarn I've used is a Heirloom Merino Magic 8 ply, which has a fantastic range of colours, even though the one's I've used are fairly subtle. It's knitted flat, from the bottom up. A colour chart is included. This is my first foray into collars, and I love how this collar has worked out.

Bea Fair Isle Pullover
Knitting Pattern

Yarn Suggested: Heirloom Merino Magic 8ply or any other 8ply/DK yarn. 50 gram balls, 98m (107 yds)

Gauge: 24 sts = 4 inches in Stocking/Stockinette Stitch

Needle Size: 4mm

Meterage: 1470 - 1666 m (1608 - 1822 yards)
7(8,9) balls of main colour
2 balls of contrasts A, B and C
1 ball of contrasts D and E

Sizes Available: 84 (100, 117)cm, 33 (39¼, 46) in

This pattern is available to buy from Ravelry for $US 5.75

Ill Knit by Moonlight

Further to last weeks post, the pattern for these fingerless gloves, "Ill Knit by Moonlight", is now available. When I misheard the title of the movie “Ill met by moonlight” on late night TV, then a couple of weeks later read the obituary of one of the real life players in this WWII event, I knew this had to be the name of my next design. Perfect for your next undercover assignment.

They are nice warm fingerless gloves with an all over, small textured twist stitch pattern. The yarn used is a beautiful soft and warm Merino, Alpaca, Silk blend, Heirloom Silk Touch. The gloves are knitted in the round and have a thumb gusset. A stitch chart is included.

Ill Met by Moonlight Fingerless Gloves

Knitting Pattern

Yarn Suggested: Heirloom Silk Touch 8ply or any other DK/8 ply yarn

Gauge: 24 sts = 4 inches in Twist Squares Stitch

Needle Size: 4mm

Meterage: 199 m (218 yards )


This pattern is available to buy from Ravelry for $US 5.50

Fingerless Gloves completed and gorgeous.

Here are the completed Fingerless Gloves, looking gorgeous on their gorgeous new owner.  I'm in the process of typing up the instructions at the moment.  I learnt a few new skills with these -  Knitting into the back of the second stitch, and knitting fingers.  There's always something new to learn in this game. :)



I hope to have the pattern out in the next few days.  I'm glad there's some winter left for them to be worn in!

My next venture is a scarf knitted in a Mosaic stitch.  This is a pattern where two colours are used, but only one on each row.  By slipping stitches, or some other method, it looks like two colours are used on the one row, when only one has been used.  The particular stitch I'm using doesn't used slipped stitches, but knit into the stitch below.  This effectively drops a stitch to mix the colours.  It's easier than I thought it would be.  It's lots of fun having so many stitch types to try.  This is producing a fantastically light, soft fabric that will be great for a scarf.

I think I can... I think I can...

I'm limping along, step by step, to the end of these gloves.  There's nothing particularly difficult about them.  Once I'd worked out how to do fingers, the second glove should have been a cinch.  Maybe I've got second glove syndrome.  Or it could have been the school holidays.  I can't think of a really good excuse, so what the hell, I'll get there in the end.

The gloves are currently blocking, and hopefully will be dry enough to weave in the ends in the next couple of days.

I can hear True Grit (the old one) in the background which is slightly distracting.  It's hard to ignore John Wayne.

While I'm waiting, I'll be preparing a test swatch for another magazine submission.  My previous success has emboldened me to have another go.  This time I thought I'd try some fingerless mitts.  Might as well push my luck on the whole mitts/gloves thing.

Edward Scissorhands?

Am I making my very own Edward Scissorhands?  No, but this is very much what it looks like, I have discovered, when one knits gloves.  Even more so, when you have a half completed finger with three double pointed needles in it.  It's a fascinating process.  This glove is now complete, though not yet photographed as such.  It's taken quite a lot of glove pattern study, and quiet thinking and calculating time to work out how to do the fingers.  But it all makes sense when it's broken down.

These gloves may seem quite long, but that's how they should be, according to the teenagers in my life.

Legs are now warm!

The leg warmers are now complete.  I've decided not to publish this design, as it bears a remarkable similarity to a pattern my daughter found, to use as inspiration for these.  Even the colours used are similar.

She's finding that they slip down a little, so I'll probably put some hat elastic through the top of them.  I don't think they slip too much, but it won't hurt to do this anyway.

My next project is a pair of fingerless gloves for the other daughter.  She wants quite long gloves, and why not?  A nice smooth yarn was requested, and so I'd decided to go for Heirloom Celone, only to find that it seems to have dropped of the face of the earth.  I've found another Heirloom yarn, which seems even softer.
It's Heirloom Silk Touch which is exactly the same blend of fibres - 85% Merino, 10% Alpaca and 5% Silk - but not a crepe yarn as the Celone was.  I bought this at Mooroolbark Wool. 

Having already done a pair of fingerless mitts, I thought I had the whold Thumb Gusset thing down, but after three attempts at all the calculations, and still ending up with an unexpected number of stitches, I'm beginning to wonder.  Hopefully, all will be fine by my next posting.

One down, one to go

A leg warmer on the leg is worth two on the needles.  Well at least one leg can be warmed!  The length is fine, despite my anxieties.  This is a fantastic demonstration of how different a colour can look, depending on the colours it's beside.  There are four stripes of exactly the same purple in this.  As the variegated yarn changes, the look of the purple changes too.  I'm halfway through the second leg warmer, so there's not long to go till there are equal rights for legs.

I can't wait to get to the newsagents tomorrow morning for my copy of Yarn Magazine to see my first magazine published design.  How exciting!

Cosy Leg Warmers

I have some leg warmers underway.  I'm doing my usual trick of slowing down to a complete halt when I have doubts about what I'm doing.  The problem this time is that my row gauge is so different to normal that I like to use measurements in my patterns rather than number of rows.  That's fine for "until you reach the armholes", but for stripes of about one inch, it doesn't work too well.  By the time my stripe measures an inch, what's still on the needle is going to add to the length, for each and every stripe.  It seems that making mistakes is a mandatory part of learning.  I'm learning a lot!  These leg warmers may end up a couple of inches longer than they are meant to be.  I should plunge on, and see if that still works OK for my daughter's legs.  Just scrunch them up a bit!  Extra warmth!  But no.  I crawl to a halt.  Must . . . . .  keep . . . . .  going.  If they need to be re-knitted that's fine.  Have I convinced myself?

I officially give up trying to show the true colour of these leg warmers.  There is a repeating purple stripe in these, but it looks a different colour in every stripe!  The miniscule viewer of my camera doesn't help.  The colour is actually better than it looked through the viewer.

If I can't reproduce the colour of legwarmers, I'll try our Liquid Amber.

Not bad!  The colours this autumn are absolutely gorgeous.  According to news reports, the season leading up to now has been perfect for producing these beautiful colours.  They certainly cheer up a grey day. :)
My Fair Isle Pullover is being test knitted.  The colours my testers have chosen are fantastic.  So bright!  I can't wait to see them finished.

Tying up the loose ends

I've been finishing up a few things.  I actually finished this bookmark a couple of months ago, but it's taken me a couple of months to get around to taking a photo of it.  It's the Tell Me a Tail Bookmark designed by Christine Jeffery.  It was, notionally, for a February KAL.  Well, here it is May, and I'm finally posting the finished product.

Next on the finishing pile has been my scarf to enter into this year's scarf festival.  I have to send it off in the next couple of days or I'll miss out. : (  I've knitted it from Sublime Soya Cotton which I found at Wondoflex.  It's a type of yarn I've not used before and felt very much like cotton to knit with.  I've made it fairly short so that the weight of the cotton won't drag it down.  I banged it out fairly quickly, but hopefully it's deserving of a place in the festival.

Tragically, I have nothing on the needles at the moment.  I'm all lined up to do some leg warmers for daughter number 2.  Our trip to Spotlight to choose yarn was very disappointing, so we're off to look elsewhere tomorrow.  The idea is for stripes of purple and multi-colour purple, in a cable rib pattern.  Stand by.  I'll keep you posted.

Fair Isle Pullover in testing mode

I've finished my Fair Isle Pullover, as pictured, and it's now up for testing.  I've rewritten the pattern to hopefully line up the pattern on the sleeves with the body pattern.  If I get a couple of test knitters, this rewrite can be proved or disproved.

I find collars very flattering, and I'm planning to try out different types of collars in upcoming designs.  This first attempt at a collar is a polo collar.  I wasn't very optimistic about how it would turn out, so I'm really pleased that it actually came out as it's supposed to.  Yay for me!

I'm forging ahead as fast as I can on a scarf for the Scarf Festival mentioned in my last post.  The pattern for the main body is very easy to remember, so I've had no trouble knitting during our family Harry Potter fest.  We're hoping to watch all the movies before the next one come's out.  Tonight we saw the Order of the Phoenix.  It's a shame that chunks of the book have to be left out so that it doesn't go for too long.  Enjoyable all the same, though.

Once this scarf is complete, I've had a request for some leg warmers.  I haven't done those before, so that'll be something fun and new to try.

Fair Isle Pullover nearing completion

I've been in a big rut, just not feeling 100%.  I'm on the way back up now. 

Here are some photos of a Fair Isle Pullover sleeve, one in progress and one completed.

Although I don't have any photos to show it, the pullover is now nearly finished.  It's all sewn up, collar knitted, and I'm now in the process of weaving in ends.  There are tons of them!  I spent ages on it last night and there's still lots to go.

I used Shirley Paden's "Knitwear Design Workshop" to work out how to do a polo collar.  It's worked out beautifully!  I'm feeling like an awesome clever clogs!!  :)

I wanting to get this finished so I can get going on a scarf for this year's Scarf Festival which is being hosted by the National Wool Museum in Geelong.  I haven't done this before.  It should be fun!

Go on.  Take the plunge and design a scarf for this festival!  Entries close on the 6th of May.  This year's theme is the Rhythm of Life.

Scarves are great to start designing with.  No shaping issues!  You can just knit till you've had enough and then stop.  Entry forms are available from the linked page.

The trouble with sleeves

Well, I've learnt a few things about designing sleeves over the last couple of weeks.  Most designs I've seen have a whole number of pattern repeats for the body and sleeves of a pullover.  If you want a fairly close fitting sleeve and have large pattern repeat, this is where we strike problems.  With this Fair Isle pullover I've had the problem that, for the smallest size, two pattern repeats were too narrow, and three were way too wide.  I had about a third of the sleeve knitted before I realised I had to pull it out and re-plan the sleeves.  Another problem was that I had the sleeves to fit fairly closely at the wrist, then gradually increase to the upper arm.  But of course my arm doesn't gradually increase from the wrist to the upper arm.  Doh!  The widest part of my forearm is 8cm larger than my wrist, then my upper arm is only 3cm larger again.  So although sleeves generally increase gradually, a lot of our arm increase is in the first 14cm.  What to do?  As the far as the Fair Isle patterning goes, I saw the options of:

• going totally plain for the sleeves, which works really well were I've seen it done
• having 3 pattern repeats so the sleeve would be too wide rather than too narrow
• using fractional pattern repeats

I was on the verge of going totally plain, but after quizzing a few fellow Ravelers for their opinions, I decided on fractional repeats.  So, as in the photo, I've got two full repeats with a few extra stitches at either side, keeping it all symmetrical, and including extra ease, so that hopefully my forearms won't be squeezed to a pulp.  Going by the measurement table I've been using, it seems that my arms may be a tad larger than standard for my bust size. 

The armholes for the front and back were planned using the original amount of sleeve ease to calculate the depth of the armholes.  I have no idea if the sleeves will fit into the armholes, given the changes that I'm making.  My current feeling is that I'm going to make them fit, whether they do or not!  I can rewrite the pattern for future use, but I don't feel like reknitting the whole pullover.  Bad girl!

Wish me luck.

Abundance Pullover Pattern Now Available

The pattern for the Abundance Pullover is now available.

This is a Boat Necked Lace Pullover, knitted in a Bamboo Cotton blend.  The yarn I've used is Sirdar Juicy DK, which is beautifully soft and has gorgeous drape.

Abundance Pullover
Knitting Pattern
Yarn Suggested: Sirdar Juicy DK or any DK/8 ply yarn (preferable a bamboo blend)
Gauge: 18 sts = 4 inches in Bluebells Stitch (wet blocked)
Needle Size: 4mm
Meterage: 942 - 1130 m (1030 - 1236 yards )

This pattern is available to buy from Ravelry for $US 5.00

 

A retro game is aired.

Due to the miraculous appearance of some time, DH has been doing a major clear out.  In the process, Frank Hyde's Footy Game was unearthed and it came out for an airing this afternoon.

Growing up in the Aussie Rules state of Victoria, I managed to get through my whole childhood not recalling having seen one game of "Footy" on TV.  I refuse to be drawn into the specifics of whether it's Rugby, Rugby Union, Rugby League or whatever you wish to call it.  The NSW connections of DH may explain the appearance of this game into his dim, distant past.

Here's the field in play.  Notice the the recuperating dental surgery patient, wearing a bandage as a badge of honour.  I'm not sure how the game went, but I noticed both players scoring at least one 'try'.

Here's a closer look at the players.  DH noted that the rules have changed a bit. (One card described a player being dumped on his head!)  The rules may have changed, but I'm sure I've seen this done on occasion.

And here's the spinning wheel which determines which of your players has the next move.

You may, like me, wonder who the hell Frank Hyde is/was.  If so, here's the news.
Feel free to tell me that this game is now worth lots of money!

On a more sombre note, I've been watching, with horror, the news about today's earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand.  It's very scary.  I really feel for everyone there dealing with worry, fear, injury and even death.  I hope everyone who's still trapped can be freed safely.

Fair Isle back completed

The back of my Fair Isle pullover is finished!  Yay!  The allover nature of the pattern, with 5 different contrast colours makes it so interesting to look at.  I know I keep saying it, but I get a better idea of it looking at the photos than when I'm working on it.  I suppose it's that big picture that I'm getting - standing back to observe.

In between finishing the back and really getting into the front, I've been knitting a little project as part of a KAL (Knit a Long).  I explain that, because you might be like me, and take a couple of years to work out what KAL stands for.  There's a great monthly KAL happening in the Budding Designers Downunder group on Ravelry.  The KAL supports a different budding Australian or New Zealand designer each month.  This month it's Christine Jeffery.  I've chosen her Tell Me a Tail bookmark.  I'm not sure that the  Regia 4 colour sock yarn that I've chosen is exactly letting this pattern stitch shine at it's best, it's still a fun and pretty project.  It didn't take long to find a member of the family putting their hand up for this one!

Fingerless Mitts - Pattern Now Available

Testing is complete, and the pattern for my Leafy Squares Fingerless Mitts is now available.

These mitts are knitted in the round and have a thumb gussett for a comfortable fit.  There is a panel of the Leafy Squares pattern along the back of the arm and hand.  These are knit in a 10 ply yarn.  I've used Heirloom Shetland 10 ply, which has resulted in beautiful and toasty warm mitts.

Leafy Squares Fingerless Mitts
Knitting Pattern
Yarn Suggested: Heirloom Shetland 10 ply or any Aran/10 ply yarn
Gauge: 18 stitches = 4 inches in Stocking/Stockinette Stitch
Needle Size: 5mm double pointed needles
Meterage: 160 mtrs / 175 yards

This pattern is available to buy from Ravelry for $US 3.00

Fair Isle continues

I think this is a pretty good effort for one week of non-concerted effort.  A tension square was absolutely necessary, especially in helping to select colours.  I'd initially chosen yarn colours from a webpage.  When I knitted up the tension square, I could see that a couple of them didn't have enough contrast with the main colour.  So I went for a deeper version of those colours, and they're working out really well.

All of the fair isle patterns I'm using have an odd number of rows, so the new colour starts at one end, and finishes at the other end.  Odd numbers of rows and stitches do seem to look better in a lot of designs.  Maybe that's a standard thing with fair isle; I don't know.  I suppose this means the ends will be woven in evenly along both sides, but I'm finding it a bit annoying.  I was thinking that having all the ends at one side would mean I could tie them off against each other.

The rib band wants to flip up, so I've had to weight it down with a couple of balls of yarn for the photo.

Both the Abundance Pullover and the Leafy Squares Fingerless Mitts are coming to the end of their test phase.  I'm hoping to have more news on them soon.

Exciting news:  I've had a design accepted with a magazine!  I'll have to contain my excitement until June, when it will be published.

Venture into Fair Isle

The Fair Isle Pullover I mentioned in my previous post is now underway, as pictured.

It's nice to see it at a distance like this.  When I'm knitting, I'm too close up to see how the pattern's really looking.  Hmm.  Looks a bit narrow, now that I see it like this.  I'll have to do another measure, to make sure its's big enough.

My two current test knits which are underway, the Abundance Pullover and the Leafy Squares Fingerless Mitts, are coming along nicely.  One of each is finished, and they look great.  I'm not sure what to do with the pullover, as my testers are finding that it blocks bigger than it should.  When all are done, I'll have to go over all the final measurements, and see if I can adjust the pattern to fix this.

Leafy Squares Fingerless Mitt - In test mode

My Leafy Squares Fingerless Mitts are up for test knitting at the moment.  They look very svelte.

I've had a couple of takers for test knitting already, and am hoping for just a couple more.  They don't take long to knit, so I'm hoping the pattern will be all ready for release in a couple of weeks time.

As you can see by the shorts, it's not really mitt wearing weather here at the moment.  But that doesn't stop the knitting here, until my hands get sweaty.  Thankfully, it takes quite a lot of heat for that to happen to me.

In other news, I've just finished the calculations and rough writing up of a Fair Isle Pullover I'm desigining.  My tension square was interesting in helping work out which colours to use.  A couple that I'd chosen based on their colour on the computer screen, turned out to be too similar to my background colour when seen in real life.

I was desperate to get this written up, ready to start knitting at least by the end of this month, as I'll be on camp for a little while and must have knitting.  It's the ideal opportunity to get a lot done.