Knitting Keeps Me Sane

Now, I suppose many have seen the fabulous sweaters on the Yarnharlots blog. I was particularily smitten with one: The panelled, cabled one. I think I know where the inspiration came from - at least, I have a book (Horst Schulz, no link because his book are 1) german and 2) long out of print) where there are several such sweaters in, among many many other clever piece-knitted sweaters.

I have this black wool that I want to use for a sweater, and my mother graciously offered me "a good bunch" of a gorgeous silver grey fleece with an incredible staple lengt - and an incredible weight.

Now, wouldnt it look gorgeous to knit the saddles and a saddle-wide cabled strip atop the sleeve, the collar and a wide panel on the front in silver grey while having the rest in black?

I dont like seams, so I will cheat - of course, I am almost saying.

I would show pictures of gorgeous wool (and an almost finished edging for the christening shawl), but the batteries have died. The charged ones are - story of my life - not where I am. That's just as typical as my first riding lesson in a long time yesterday - my boots were not where I was, so I tried with my hiking boots (sz. 11). They wouldnt fit. I think I was quite heroic in riding my whole lesson without stirrups (Is that right? I asked babelfish.) I had only tried that once before, for 30 seconds. As I said, story of my life - stuff is where I am not.

Have a really nice day

Lene



PS: I KNOW I was riding yesterday - sitting on the floor is a no-go today, as is walking fast, taking stairs two steps a time, doing extended pedaling on the organ... owie.

1) The Baby sweaters is almost up to the sleeves now! I really ought to try to research some more on the topic of "Garnstudio Den-M-Knit"'s shrinkage.


2) My parents go away for the weekend for a "Romantic" weekend "somewhere" far far away from here, in a place where time (almost) stands still... Awwww.
We, the children of those two humans, gifted them with this weekend last year, when they celebrated 25 years of marriage :-) This means, that I will be "baby", or rather "Teenage" sitter for my 11yo sister this weekend.


3) The Beatrice shawl is not growing all that fast. Reasons for that might be:
a) The 5 horses I take a bit care of every day,
b) The three hours I spend playing the organ and the piano every day
c) The spotless flat I live in... Well... not spotless, but a lot cleaner than any other space of my own I have had until now ;)
d) The baby gansey...


4) I have not lost weight again - but Oh! I have not gained any either.


5) How could losing weight turn me into a Clothing Junkie? Everywhere I go I search for "The" Cardigan, "The" T-shirt, "The" long-sleeve-shirt...
Not looking for pants yet, as I, for the wast sum of 15$, have recieved 7-8 pairs of good-quality pants - three pairs of jeans, several Jack Wolfskin - Fjällräven etc., and a pair of black cloth pants. (I bought a pair of jeans for 10€, and a pair for 20kr - roundabout 15$, and the rest was gifts from my mother and my SIL, who both have lost a lot of weight, too.)



Have a really nice day everyone - and I promise, next week will see progress pictures :-)

/Lene

ETA: Put in another picture of the edging :-)
32 repeats... Err... 22 + 10 ripped-out ones.


As far as I can gather, this shawl was knit for Princes Beatrice (The young one, not the one who died in 1944)!! I need 120 repeats for the edging... 30 for each side.


Following this pattern, using Lisa Souza's Laceweight yarn in Old Gold. The colour on her website is not true, sadly, and the yarn was not nearly as variegated as I had expected after seeing other yarns "Up Close". I like it nevertheless, and there is a little variation in this "Solid" colour. It grows on me.

This shawls story was/is quite confusing, and much Wikipedia-ing happened to learn about several princes, princesses etc. The reason: I had one place seen this adverted as the "Princess Beatrice Christening Shawl", another place "Womans Weekly Cobweb Evening Shawl", and then again, plainly as "Christening Shawl".

As best I can assume, the story behind this shawl is as follows:

1) It is an "updated" (Easyfied) style of "Shetland Shawl", knit borders first - possibly by someone familiar with the style, but perfectly willing to let her circulars get a work-out.
2) The person in question has a very harmonious sense of patterns that work together, and is not afraid to break conventions - this I assume because of the purl pattern in the shawl.
3) It is a rather recent pattern. The pattern I have in my posession was written with a typewriter(!), using letters of an old style*. Either the company uses their typewriters for years, or the pattern IS that old.
4) The abbreviations are very non-standard. I have seen others patterns using more "Modern" abbreviations, dating from 40's +.
5) The picture is a relatively good quality.

Using all these markers to sum up "Something", I would think, that this shawl origins from the 60's (?). It is very hard to date, but adding some of the points to the fact that links this shawl(pattern) to 1988 (HRH Princess Beatrice's DOB), I will assume that the person knitting it for the princess did not design the pattern, or at least had made it public before knitting it for the princess. It could be any person who had knit it, seeing as I cannot find a date of publishing for when it came out in "Womans Weekly". It is probably not as recent as 1988?
There are several other patterns of the same style that can be aquired at Jamieson and Smith's homepage, which leads me to wonder if the same woman designed them all? If it became "Fashion" at one time?


I love pondering things like this! I might have made a good investigator ;-)




*My mother worked with typewriters back in the 70's and informed me of that tidbit.





Dainty and fine... Knitting lace on small needles and with a fairly tight gauge is something really special.

August was a good month. August 3, i bought seven balls of laceweight and cast on for a feel-good project.

August 28, I finished the last border repeat, grafted it invisibly (!!) to the start of the border, fixed the ends and laid out to block.



230 cm/ 7"6' wide.

Here is another pair, knitted by chosing planlessly among the tiniest leftovers in the left-over bin. There are 7 different yarns in the very colourfull one, and 5 in the other one. Among other yarns there are yarns from: Opal, Faroese Sock Yarn, Regia, Some yarn from an unraveled sock I had when I was a kid, and leftovers from socks my brother and SIL own.




Same game, 23/24 size, but a shorter leg, seeing as the previous pair are almost knee-highs.


Have a nice day

/Lene

I started at 10 am, knit through the whole day - and finished at 7 pm.




Socks in size 23/24 for my Nephew, made out of leftovers from baby socks and socks for my sister



Have a nice day

/Lene

I love my blog - I really do.

I just need a break. The rain keeps on coming down, my knitting does not progress at the pace I would like it to, the real world has come uncomfortably close to me - and more, I might not have 'net for quite some time.

For this, I will leave my blog unattended for some time.

I _will_ be back though - one day, when I feel I have energy left over to attend to this blog again.


In the meantime - if you listen closely - you might be able to hear me play the organ, expressing my dreams and hopes.

I am sure most everyone has tried this.
The project is going swimmingly, the result is gorgeous, and then someone comes and points their finger at something you just cannot overhear.

Sigh.

If the Den-M-Knit from Garnstudio shrinks like the Rowan Denim yarn, then I must knit an additional repeat of the large cable motif. I was OK with that - after all, I want this sweater to be perfect!

I want it to be perfect, yes... Which is why I had added gussets to the sides. 7 stitch wide gussets, one on each side.

I DID consider machine sewing them away, but reason prevailed.

You see, I have voices in my head... Not any voice, but my grandmothers voice, accompanied by a picture.

She is ripping out half a sweater I had knit, while proclaiming: "You will never be happy with it, it has too many mistakes! Rip before it is too late, and never show remorse at the ripping, you will always be happy afterwards."

She is right. And so I followed the voice in my head, and ripped out several thousand stitches, strenghtening my resolve over and over again with the wise words from my grandmother.


What a miracle! When I had finished ripping and put it back on the needles, my hands, all by themselves, started to knit a row.... It seems I have not lost the wish to knit this sweater, and have not lost my love for this yarn, the pattern or my nephew :-) I let it lie and added 7 repeats to the white shawl edging instead.

Have a really nice night.

Lene

Baby Sweater




Cuddly, and probably a size 1½-2 years, even though my nephew grows just as fast as bamboo







This is the true colour.



This sweaters will probably measure 32cm in the width, and 32 cm to the armholes when it has shrunk - shrinking, because it is an unmercerized, indigo-dyed cotton. I read that it will shrink 20 percent (!!!) in lenght only. I had factored in 15% shrinkage in both width and lenght, but it seems that the piece I have now, at 26 cm, should be lenghtened with another repeat of the large cable (10 cm, or 4"). Gasp. Do I really have to knit 38 cm for such a tiny sweaters? Oh well...

Another issue that I stumbled upon with I researched shrinking, was that I probably should knit the body first, shrink it, and then knit sleeves, shrink them AND some yarn, and sew in the sleeves afterwards. If I were to knit the sleeves down from the shoulders I am afraid that the 20% shrinkage in lenght would make the sleeves look like I knitted them way too wide and sewed them in sloppily just to make them fit. SIGH. I *Could* try my luck at just knitting the sleeves as small as I think they need to be, but who knows if that will do the trick?

I got it on clearance, for just 2$/skein. This was just perfect, because I have wanted to knit with that yarn for a long time, either for me or for my Nephew. It just so happened, that there were 10 balls in this dark blue colour, so I chose to take them home with me and knit something small. Actually, I took 6 balls home with me but decided that I needed more. I got the last 4 balls on that has been marked further down for only 1$/apiece!

This is a Garnstudio yarn, Den-M-Knit, but I was told it was made in the same place as the Rowan yarn. Nice, eh? Quality with a realistic price tag.

The sweater is a little stalled right now, as I am working on the border of the white shawl while I contemplate what to do now - a traditional drop-shoulder, a set-in sleeve, or even a raglan?
I think I want a drop-shoulder, but let me knit another 50 repeats of the shawl edging, and then I think I will decide - because then my shawl is finished.


Have a really nice day


Lene

1. Get to know the parents of the baby. What do they like? Their interests? Their hobbies and dislikes? Will they dress their baby in a frilly dream in pink or rather in a wildly variegated stockinette stitch sweater, or should it be a tiny version of a "traditional" sweater?

2. Play a little with the baby, if you have the chance. What kind of child is it? Does it want to romp and play, needing a lose fit or is it rather a quiet child, where a snug and dirt-sensitive sweater could be fit?

3. Chose the colour. Boys blue, girls pink. You need not follow these conventions, but follow your instincts. Hot red for a green-eyed baby, soft grey for a demure sweater, black for a little blonde or deep green for both genders.

4. Chose your yarn. This also depends on the parents - will they handwash a sweater, or does it need to be carefree? Acrylics are good, but will look "squashed" after some time, just as cotton will - except for Denim Yarn, that just will improve with time and rough handling. Then there is pure wool - there are soft wools, scratchy wools, and wools with acrylics. I mostly prefer wool with acrylics for durabillity for baby wear.

5. Shape. Cardigan, sweater, wrap cardigan? Babies have big heads and will need a large head-hole or a cardigan - this depends on your taste and on point 6:

6. Stitch pattern. Colourwork, knit/purl patterns, plain, cables? A cute kitty on the front or a tiny guernsey? The possibillities are endless, but consider carefully your options, and chose wisely, before you put a kitten on the cat-hating babies sweater :-)

7. Chart everything out! You will not regret this when you see perfect ribs flowing seamlessly into cables, or colour patterns merging together and coming apart in perfect harmony. This is a good practice for adult sweaters, and will make the parents appreciate the sweater even more.

8. Research good ways to cast on and cast off, and use the best method possible to produce even, smooth and pretty edges, and take care to combine your border pattern with your chosen cast-on method for the prettiest possible result.

9. Swatching is not neccesary, but knit carefully and be prepared to rip should it turn out way too small. Too large is not a problem, as the baby will grow. Take care to lenghten sleeves etc. though, as stubby sleeves are worse than too long sleeves.

10. When finished, carefully block your sweater, and take a long look at it. Anything you could improve? Some duplicate stitching? Embroider a name, a butterfly or a superman on it? First when you are totally satisfied, wash it again, block it and wrap it up.


Next post: Steps 1-8 summed up in a UFO :-)

Have a nice day

Lene

Did I say I MIGHT order some yarn from Lisa Souza? I ordered four skeins of her laceweight - two undyed hanks, one of whom will be dyed ice-blue, or light ice blue and dark (storm sky) blotches, for the "Snowdrift" stole, found at www.blackberry-ridge.com. The other has no destination yet, but will hold dreams for me until find the perfect item for it.
The two dyed skeins are one in "Old Gold" - from her Heathered Solids, and one skein of Sapphire, for my mother, also one of her "solids".
I love these yarns - and look forward to knit with them, even though they are Merino, and as such are destined to block badly and slouch back into unblocked shape quite quickly. I might just starch them when the day comes.


Did I say that I had no UFO's?
I have.
ONE.
That's not too bad, right? Though, on the Spinning front, I have an additional one, as the Shetland Humbug I wanted to spun one-ply is finished, and some if it is plied - it did not work out as a single ply. I must ply the rest. Eurgh.
I present:


Rosy Fingered Dawn




This kit is not even mine. I never got the payment information! I asked for it five times.

I dont like the yarn - is feels like it was made from bad wool, it breaks, it stretches weirdly, feels weird, and the colours are not to my liking. I had seen much more vibrant and glorious pictures of these colours! Finally at the two last colours though - means the edging and one last border repeat to go. I think it might be beautifull to see it finished one day, but I dont know how to finish it, as much as I loathe knitting it by now.



Did I say that I was unemployed and lived at my parents?
No more! I signed a contract for a flat of my own!! It is quite large, but has a really bad, small kitchen, making the appartment affordable for me. It is the entire top floor of a small house from around 1900, with a direct wiev to one of the most beautiful churches in Denmark, the churchyard and a forest.
It lies barely a minutes walk away from my school, in a very quiet neighbourhood, in one of the most rural (in the charming way) towns in all of Denmark. People are so friendly and make me want to be just like them - they show you the way, tell you the gossip, smile at you, pick up the stuff you drop because your are so loaded that you cannot breathe without losing half of your load.
Ah.. That kind of small-town life is right my style.




Right hand, my shed, top floor - my new appartment. Two-bedroom, absolutely rustic in the good way


Did I say I was unemployed? (I think I did, yes...)
Well, as of today I am studying to be an organ player. It might not sound of much to you - neither does it to me - but I guess being an organ player and studying once a week is more than sitting at home and crying out your eyes because you are not doing anything. Right now, I just feel quite inadequate because we were covering some theory today that I have never learned - but dang it if I would admit it. I just fought on. It does not make it better that I am by far the youngest, but as I said before - I will fight on :-)



Have a really nice day


Lene

The white "Spiral Shawl" grows!


White Spiral Shawl"




30 repeats of 100 in the edging


I have several ideas for my next projects - probably first a self-designed so-called Gansey for my nephew, and then I might order yarn from www.lisaknits.com for a Garden Shawl :-)

I will cover the Spiral Shawl when it is finished.

Lene