Pull en fantasie...

Despite spending the weekend fending off a rotten flu-cold-thing, which severely depleted by brain power, energy and fine motor skills, I have been really enjoying the pattern work of the French dress I've decided to attempt. The wool is easy to knit with and looks really good as it knits, even with my iffy skills:


And despite my initial uncertainty, it has been much easier to follow this pattern chart than it has to follow the maths in previous patterns...


When my brain is at OK capacity, I'm quite enjoying this, although I think it may take a while...



PS: I haven't forgotten the grey dress; I'm just waiting for the right yarns at the right price... or a bolt of inspiration...

5, 4, 3, 2, 1... Cast off!!

Oh yeah, it's a blast here... Ehem...

Mid-morning I headed into town for a spot of wool hunting. The local equivalent of the cheapy shop doesn't sell wool... The market didn't have any wool either... So I scoured the charity shops for chunky jumpers under a fiver, but sadly the chunky jumpers that might be worth unpicking and revamping were all too expensive (honestly, Oxfam, who would spend £8.99 on a second-hand jumper, no matter what their conscience might tell them about the state of the world...?!), and all the reasonably priced ones I felt concerned I wouldn't want to unpick... I'd just want to wear them as is, which defeats the whole object... So, no new wool. But I did finish the two-tone shrug today:






Onto the next project. I'm not certain, but it might be this:



(Or at least an approximation of it.)

And with a shrug, I go...

Two-tone Shrug

Last night, before bed, after two James Bond films:


Sleeves were done and it was onto the main part of the shrug.

Today I had a nice long train journey to Bristol to see friends* - almost four hours in a train, so plenty of knitting time!


You might think I would have got more done, I suppose, but ribbing slows me down because I have to concentrate more, usually involving some internal counting method which strangely is often in the form of music... I've no idea why...?

Only one person commented on the fact that I was sitting on a train knitting, and she was in her late fifties and jammed up right next to me at the time. I apologised for not having something electrical in my hands instead - no iPod, iPhone or laptop I'm afraid; she said it was fine, she remembered knitting once too (how old did that make me feel...?) and remembers it being very therapeutic... I have to admit, it did make the time fly by. I also worked out a good technique for keeping the ball of wool free to turn without losing it under the carriage seats - put it in a plastic bag and hang that from your arm! Worked a treat...

On with the shrug...

* And I wore the sea-cardi...

Half Term project

I know I said I'd have a go at the French dress, but I've been so distracted with weddings, long-distance phone calls and visits, I decided to stick to something I might be able to finish sooner rather than later. So I'm restarting an old project: Two-tone ribbed shrug from Fitted Knits. I started this ages ago when I was also working on the Tunic below from the same pattern book. I learned some valuable lessons as I went along:

1. The knit front/back increase-stitch pattern doesn't look good if you do it on alternate rows - it should really be done on every second row.

2. Ms Japel may not be the best at arithmetic - that might be the pot calling the kettle black, but even this time around I've had to make a lot of alternations to match her alleged stitch counts. Either there are a lot of printing errors or her calculator is broken!

3. When knitting rib in the round, you don't have to alternate knit over purl/purl over knit - this was an eye opener!

4. I'm knitting too small for me...

So I scrapped and unpicked it with plans to start again one day, and one day turned out to be this Tuesday. I'm a little further on than the picture shows (that was last night), but as you can see, it's not exactly a giant knit, so fingers crossed it will be ready for next term!



PS I may wear the sea cardigan in public tomorrow...!

Finished

It took an age to sew all the pieces - mainly the ribbing. And it definitely doesn't look anything like the picture! Although that may be my fault...

On to the next...

Final reflections...

I should clearly have more faith in my ability to judge wool vs pattern! I've managed to create all the pieces of the cardigan from the Robin Reflection yarn:
and I still have wool to spare! Sewing up next, and then I need to find a pin clip for it. Maybe something with a nautical feel...?

I've just treated myself to some new wool for a half-term project:

As usual, I'm a backwards knitter - buying the wool, then trying to match it to a pattern. I have another dress in mind, but I'm also wondering about yet another cardigan (I need to update my smart-casual collection which is falling apart from over-wearing), as well as a jumper I like the look of... Who knows?

Scarfed

The scarf is finished! May need to tighten up one end and add some tassels, but all's done and I now know I can just about make one of these with 100g, thereabouts.



Unfortunately, the cost of wool at the cheapy shop near my dad's has gone up by 50p and no longer feels as much of a bargain...

But the main pieces of the cardigan are almost done!

I had a reflection...

Last night I dreamed about this wool! It was being sold in Boots for £1.19 per 50g ball. I debated buying some. When your dreams start getting as exciting as life, it's a worry. According to my dream dictionary (permanently borrowed from my dad's bookshelf), to dream of a deep blue sea (redirected: the Ocean), if it's "very rough and stormy" means "a warning that real courage will be needed to overcome your obstacles". Nuff said... Funnily enough, there is no entry for dreaming about buying wool (or yarn) in Boots the Chemist - clearly, up until 1975, no one had ever had such fascinating dreams...

I have now completed the back and one front-side of this cardigan. I have just over 100g of wool left. I'm no longer concerned about not just having enough for the sleeves, as I've now read to the end of the pattern and realised there's a whole neck and button ribbing section to add as well! If I'd only known (or, more correctly, read the whole piece before starting!! Lesson learned...?), I would have knitted the hemline ribbing in something else too. Oh well. Practice makes... something you'd probably never wear in public...

Uh-oh...

As usual, the best looped plans...

I've almost finished the back of the deep-sea-blue cardigan and already I'm noticing a fatal flaw in my planning - I may not have as much blue wool as I imagined...

The pattern said approximately 400g and just under 1000 metres of wool were needed; I had two definite 50g balls and two balls created from binding a lot of odds and ends together, both of which looked to be more than 100g each. But having just finished the first one of those oddly-bound balls, I'm thinking I may not be quite as good at guessing the weight of yarn balls as I thought! Could this be another classic example of my different-coloured-sleeves cardigan making skills, just like the last one...? ;)

I love chunky knitting!!

My problem, when it comes to hobbies, is I never seem to finish anything through the natural process of Start-Finish. My process is Start-distraction-somethingelse-lostit-founditagain-distraction-somemoredone-anotherdistraction...etc.-[then, months after a normal person with dedication and vision would have needed]-Finish. Hence... I've started working on something else. Yes, I still have two scarves (which couldn't be easier to finish!) and a dress to finish, but as if I'd get to them right now! I think my problem may stem from the fact that, usually, what I make isn't exactly a masterpiece, so it tends to be the process I enjoy more than the admiration (by myself and others) of the completed piece; it's hard to look forward to lacklustre acknowledgments.

Anyway, an observation from Phildar: it doesn't matter how sexy (and probably French-sexy) the guy is, if you put him in a chunky knit sweater, he'll always look like he's being smothered by an over-loving grandmother's Christmas present, and not 'cool'. Never, ever 'cool'*:

[From Phildar - Autumn no. 3]

Anyway, it was the combination of flipping through the Phildar books for the umpteenth time and searching my wool box for some embroidery scraps for the dress (below) that brought me to the decision to use up some of the dark-sea-blue wool on an actual pattern. As usual, it's a selection of wool given to me because it was unwanted by its previous owner, and, as usual, this makes complete sense. The colour reminds me of the deep sea with hints of churned up sea bed and storm cloud - sounds very poetic, doesn't it? Then you try and knit with it...

Well, it's a bit bobbly, but not impossible to cope with; it somehow knits very thick, despite not appearing to be a thickly twisted yarn, which means you cannot see patterns - even loose ones! Originally I was using it to knit the scarf I'm now making in purple (see below), but it was impossible to see any differences between the garter-stitch and the loose hoops unless you held the piece up to bright light! Hence it reminds me of the deep sea - you can't see anything until you get very close - diving in, however, is not an option...

Why do yarn creators think that threading in high amounts of mohair is ever a good idea? Is there anyone in the world impervious to the effects of it? All the while you knit with this wool it's itchy, it molts everywhere, and it quite literally gets up your nose! I currently look like I own a blue cat and I'm sneezing up blue fur balls!

Still, I have a lot of it and I'm always ready to experiment/torture myself. I thought about what I'd like to make - having previously attempted the scarf, which would have been a disaster against the skin now I came to think about it, I decided against a sweater. So it's on with another cardigan - I love cardigans about as much as I love knitting, so it makes sense. I've decided on this:


It's not a great picture because my scanner's not working properly so I've had to picture the picture, but it's in the Phildar Spring No. 486 book - pattern number 16.

As usual, I'm using totally the wrong kind of wool, so I decided to echo that by using the wrong type of needles too - since I don't have any 7s at the moment, and my 6s are all tied up with the scarf. So after the practically invisible ribbing rows, using a pair of 8s, I decided to try something completely new - chunky knitting! I'm using a pair of 2s - let's face it, the wool binds so thickly, it wouldn't matter what size I use, right?

OK, so it's difficult to match the pattern requirements exactly, but I LOVE how quickly this thing is knitting itself!!

Goodness knows what it will look like when done - but since it will probably take me quite a while to get there anyway, why not try...? ;)

[*Having said that, I'm not going to kick every man out of bed for dodgy knitwear - I'm not that churlish... ;)]


Wool: Robin Reflection RF241

Stage One complete

I stayed up watching Rush Hour just to finish the hemline off last night...:

(not quite how I expected it to look, but I'm hoping it won't crease so much when the embroidery is added!)

...then this morning, in bed with a croissant and coffee, I finished off the sleeves...:


...and early this afternoon, in front of Time Team, I finished sewing up the sleeves:


Technically, that's Stage One complete; the shell of the dress has been finished. Lots of work to go though!

• I'm going to need to work the edges of the neck, hem and sleeve lines. For this, I am going to attempt crochet... Which could go badly. I've been watching the How To videos online about single crochet edging, and none of them move slowly enough to show you what the hell they're really doing!! Still, it's all a learning curve...
  
  
• I have to decide whether to knit a chest band, to match the effect on the original dress I've based the whole idea on. I'm impressed that I still have quite a lot of wool left - I had worried 500g wouldn't be enough for a dress, but I think, because it's such thin wool, it goes far further. I could also stitch in some front panel effects, either using what I hope will be my extraordinary crocheting skills after the above work, or just returning to my basic sewing abilities...
  
  
• Then it's on to Stage Two, which means collecting lots of coloured wools together for the embroidery part. The other day I found an old t-shirt with an embroidered bib on it, and was interested to see they'd actually used chunks of coloured material which they then over-sewed, very roughly, with coloured thread. That did look quite good, and I haven't totally ruled the idea out as a possibility now, since I have a lot of material scraps already. But I'd like to see what wool I can get hold of first and stick to Plan A. Until it starts to go wrong.
  I'm going to need:
  - medium green
  - light blue
  - blue marl
  - brown marl
  - dark pink
  - white, and
  - black.
  Not too much then! I have a bit of white and pale blue, as well as a darker than envisioned brown, from my Nanna's knitting machine collection, and I could potentially substitute some colours - use the leftover dark red from the 'bloody cardigan', for example, instead of dark pink, and I have some mottled, dark sea-blue wool that might work. Tomorrow, I may hunt in the local craft shop through some of their toy-wool collections - they usually sell 10g or 25g balls for about 45p. But if they don't have what I'm looking for, then I'll drag my dad into the Pound Shop next weekend; I may not need to spend £7 on 100g balls, but if I do, at least I'll then have scrap wool left over for other things. And I still won't have reached the price of the original dress!
  
  
• Finally, Stage Three will involve lining the dress. The embroidery will at least help to cover up any knitting slips to the main dress, but the wool will still be too thin to wear by itself. Luckily I have an old grey dress I've been trying unsuccessfully to sell on Ebay for months, so it looks like a cut-up-and-recycle job for that...

I probably ought to get on with my neglected housework first though... :(

Treats and distraction

While the dress continues to grow...

...(still slowly!), I'm also being distracted by a scarf:

(and by life. I can forgive the scarf...)

This is a pattern I've attempted before, but I gave up as I was using a very thick fluffy wool, and the pattern wasn't showing as well. This is old purple wool - I have no idea of its make or origin, but it's been with me since I was a pre-double-figures girl with an old plastic sewing box, a flower loom and a french knitting kit. The pattern is Berroco Wedge and is very easy, if a tiny bit fiddly at times. I think the effect is really pretty though. I haven't yet decided if this will be for me or someone else when finished... If I had enough wool, I'd be knitting them as part of the bridal outfits for my sister's wedding... ;)

Mother also gave me some of her old needles and hooks:

Really keen to find out what the hell you can do with those jumbo-jumbo sized needles!! What sort of wool/pattern needs size 15s??

I also treated myself to some new pattern books - Phildar's, all the way from France (although, actually, they were sent all the way from Aldershot??!).

Despite my requesting the English versions every time, two of them are in French, so I'll have to brush up on my knitting lingo. Foreign pattern books are always much more interesting though, with far more fashionable selections. Looking forward to expanding my ideas now... :) If I ever finish this dress...