Pretty Busy on the Knitting Front

I re-knit all the pieces for swatches 1, 2 and 3 that didn't survive the rusted pin debacle. I also knit the pieces for swatch 4.

I kept plugging away at swatches for the Aran knitalong. I finally decided that the Lustra yarn just wasn't a good choice for this.  I picked up some Malabrigo Rios in a deep purple color, and I think it will work a lot better.

On Sunday, I took a class on Continental Knitting.  I'm thinking I like it a lot. I seem to have a lot less shoulder pain knitting this way. I decided to go whole-hog and commit to knitting the whole Aran sweater knitting Continental. I finished the filler-stitch swatch and it was a little dicey at first, but I've fallen into a good rhythm and it looks like I got gauge on the first try.  I'm going to start a cable swatch tomorrow and see how that works out. If it looks nice, I'll go ahead and buy all the yarn on Saturday.  I may hold back a few skeins of the Lustra and make this sweater designed by Suzanne Bryan.

Follow the Leader Aran Knitalong (FLAK)

We started a new knitalong at the Hillsborough Yarn Shop using the Follow the Leader Aran Knitalong pattern. We met at the shop on Saturday to get to know one another and to pick out yarn.  I ended up buying 11 skeins of Berocca Lustra.  It wasn't the best choice for a cable sweater. 


I worked on some swatching on Sunday, and I’m not terribly thrilled with this yarn. It splits really easily. It’s also really fuzzy and, if I have to frog, it’s going to be a mess. I should have gone with my gut instinct to try out a few different yarns before committing to buying a whole sweater’s worth. When am I going to learn to trust my instincts? The yarn, also, is really pretty in the skein and knitting up, but it’s not nearly as pretty after washing and blocking. I think it might be nice for another sweater, but not great to work with all these cables. I’m going to pick up another skein or two on Sunday and try them out. I hope my LYS lets me exchange. Otherwise, I can probably find some appropriate uses for the yarn. 

I tried out swatching two filler stitches: k2p2 basketweave (I'm not sure if this is the right name) and sand stitch. 

The pattern for k2p2 basketweave is: 

(over an even number of stitches) 
Row 1: K2, P2, repeat to end of row 
Rows 2 and 4: K the knit stitches and P the purl stitches 
Row 3: P2, K2 repeat to end of row 
 
Sand stitch looks different on the front and back and you can decide which you want to be the public side. The pattern for sand stitch is: 
(over an even number of stitches). 
Rows 1 and 3 (wrong side): Knit 
Row 2: Knit 1, purl 1. Repeat from across. 
Row 4: Purl 1, knit 1. Repeat form across. 
 
This is the pattern for the “wrong side” of the sand stitch, sometimes called the dot stitch: 
(over an even number of stitches) 
Row 1 (right side): Knit. 
Row 2: Knit 1, purl 1. Repeat from across. 
Row 3: Knit. 
Row 4: Purl 1, knit 1. Repeat from across. 

The last one is my favorite!

A bit of a setback

I completed swatches 1 and 2 and blocked them. When I went to un-pin them from the blocking board I discovered that the T-pins I used all through Level 1 are now rusting.  So, I had to chuck those swatches.

I'm going to start over once again.  I started knitting the stockinette pieces for swatch 1, and I realized that my knitting is getting a lot more uniform. It's actually not a bad thing that I'm having to re-do theses.

Patience. Patience.

I'm starting a Knit-Along at our local yarn store on Saturday. It's Big Sky Knitting's Follow the Leader Aran KnitAlong.  We set up a group on Ravelry to follow our progress. I'm hoping to gain some more experience for designing.  I'll blog along here.

I'm also hoping to teach a class (probably on lace knitting) sometime this spring.

I'm going to be a busy knitter. 

My camera --- my friend or my foe?

It drives me crazy when I finish a swatch and it’s all blocked and pretty, and I put the tag on it, and I take a picture, and when I look at the picture I see a glaring mistake. That just happened. I’m thinking I hate my camera.

Then again, I guess I can think of it as an extra objective set of eyes that can help me see my mistakes and improve. I could think that. That would be the mature thing to do.

But right now, I’m kind of mad at it.

I'm going to trash this

Here's what I don't like about this swatch:

1) I think the stitches are too loose.  I'm going to go down a size to 6. I did my level one swatches using a size 6 needle. I don't know why I changed to 7 on this level.  Bad choice, I think. 

2) There are a couple of rows (the third row up from the bottom on the left half and the middle row on the right half that are noticeably looser than the other rows. 

3) I don't like how the contrast thread is peeking through on the weave-ins and on the bottom third of the seam. This is probably a result of using too large of a needle for the swatches. 

So tomorrow I'll try doing it for the fourth time. 

More on the Jogless Join and starting swatch 2

Karen asked in a comment to my February 16 post where to find instructions on how to do a jogless join correctly. I found two sources that I thought explained the method very well. The first was a Knitting Daily video.  Another is at Red Shirt Knitting. After joining a new color and knitting a complete round, you can either slip the next stitch, or you can reach down and pick up the first stitch of the new color in the previous round and knit it together with the first stitch of the second round.

I had a problem with the jogless join in Level 1 because I didn't understand a particular detail that the committee was looking for that wasn't explained in the sources I researched.

This picture will help illustrate what I THOUGHT I was supposed to do:

I started a new color (pink) at A. I knit a complete round and then picked up A and knit it together with B.  Then I knit four more rounds and after I knit the last stitch in the fifth round, I changed back to white.  The new white stitch is in the same column that I started in five rounds ago.

When I picked up stitch A and knit it together with stitch B, I turned two stitches into one. If A & B are now one stitch and you count the stitches in that column, you'll see that there are only four pink stitches.  Every other column has five pink stitches.

If you want to have the same number of stitches in every column (which is what the committee wants) then you have to knit one extra stitch in your last round before you change colors.  Here's a picture that illustrates this:

In this picture I changed to pink at stitch E and then knit one round of pink. I picked up stitch E and knit it together with stitch F (the first stitch in the second round.  Then I knit four more rounds PLUS one extra stitch. Since E and F were knit together they count as one stitch. However, since I knit one extra stitch in the fifth round, the column with E and F have five stitches in it, just like every other pink column.  If you're using markers to indicate the start of each round, you'll need to move your marker AFTER you make the extra stitch in the fifth round (at stitch G).

I hope this info helps.  Let me know if you have any questions.

Today I bought some of those foam rubber jigsaw pieces to use as blocking boards. I spent the afternoon drawing a 1 inch by 1 inch grid on the pieces.  I used them later in the day to block my finished swatch 1 and to block practice reverse stockinette pieces for swatch 2.

I drew the lines on these myself.

These are going in the empty bathtub overnight where they'll be safe from the cats and dog.

Started Level 2

February has been a hard month, but March brings great promise. 


I decided to sit down with the Welcome and Instruction packets for Level 2 and make out a project plan. It's eight pages long, and written down like that, looks daunting.  But I figure that step-by-step I can do this. 


This time I put together the binder before even picking up needles to knit. I set up the dividers and I created swatch pages.  I cleaned up the references from last time and made room for everything I need. I found references for the history report, decided which four book reports I'm going to do and chose a pattern for the vest. The idea is that now I'll be able to fill up the binder as I go, and when I finish the last piece, the binder will be done --- no assembly required. 


Part of my project plan, as far as the swatches go, is to consult three reference sources for each and then knit two practice swatches before knitting the final swatch. This approach seemed to work well for Swatch #1, "The Stockinette Seam." Knitting the two practice swatches gave me a feeling of freedom and allowed me to make some mistakes before feeling like I was committed.  I even ended up pulling out the seam on the final swatch and re-seaming, but by that time I had a good feeling that I knew what I was doing. 


A trick I did to keep track of stitches on both sides of the seam was to weave a thin strand of yarn up and down through the ladders on the side of each selvedge. If the strand was woven under a ladder I picked up on one side, then I would pick up a ladder on the other side with the strand woven under it. If the strand was on top of a ladder on one side, then I would pick up a ladder with the strand on top of it on the other side.


Swatch #1 was a good experience. On to swatch #2!

Swatch #1 before blocking

 

I passed Level 1

Yesterday I found out that I passed Level I of The Knitting Guild Association Master Hand Knitting Program. It took about a year to complete all the work, I submitted the package at the end of October,  and I got my review back at the end of January. I had to resubmit the pattern, add some details to some questions, and I had to resubmit a small swatch for the hat project to show that I understood how to do a jogless join.  I mailed all my resubmissions in early February and found out that I STILL wasn't doing the jogless join correctly.  Part of the problem was that many of the instructions I found were actually doing it differently that what the Master Hand Committee was expecting.  Once I figured that out, I was set!

After I found out I passed yesterday, I almost immediately ordered the next level.  I'm still waiting for it to show up in my email.  Waiting for it is making me crazy.

Yesterday was a big knitting day.  I finally received my copy of the Principles of Knitting, by June Hemmons Hiatt that I pre-ordered back in June, and I've started reading it.  My favorite quote from the Introduction is:

"Central to the appeal of knitting is that it works like meditation. Everything becomes quiet, still, and peaceful, and all the turmoil of life seems to succumb to the silent rhythm of the needles and the orderly progression of the stitches. There is a simple, sensual pleasure in the colors and textures of the yarns, and for me, inveterate adherent of the work ethic that I am, it provides an excuse to sit still, for after all I am accomplishing something worthwhile."

I'm looking forward to all the meditative pleasure of working on Level II.  I'll keep you updated on my progress.