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