Forest Canopy Shawl

I haven't done a lot of lace knitting, only a few simple projects (Baby Fern Lace Cowl and Beaded Eyelet Rib Socks) so when I decided to knit a lace shawl I searched on Ravelry to find an easy pattern. The Forest Canopy Shoulder Shawl by Susan Pierce Lawrence was perfect. The instructions are well organized, excellently written and error free. In addition, she provides a short tutorial on lace knitting and provides a number of helpful suggestions. For me, the most useful suggestion was writing the instructions for each row out on a separate index card  to help keep your place in the pattern  - almost as good as a "lifeline". When I purchase a pattern I prefer them to be in books or magazines and I rarely buy only one but I made an exception here and I'm very glad I did.

I had such fun knitting the first shawl and so loved the result that I knit three more! My sister, mom, mother-in-law and a crafting swap partner were the lucky recipients. I'm ready now to work a more complicated lace pattern, however, I've got to make sure and keep one for myself.  

All of the shawls went out during the rush of the holiday season and I apologize for the blurry photos.

Yarn:  Alpaca Sox by Classic Elite Yarns
Color:  Nor'eater (1857)
Size:  57" x 23"
Needles:  7
Note: Worked to 259 stitches before edging

Yarn:  Amazing by Lion Brand Yarn
Color:  Ruby (201)
Size:  Forgot to measure :(
Needles:  7

Yarn:  Tosh Sock by Madelinetosh
Color:  Cobalt & Tart
Size:  51" x 21"
Needles:  7
Note: Worked to 243 stitches before edging

A Knitting Performance

Knitting Nation

Have you ever been to a knitting performance?  Well, I hadn't until I took in  Liz Collins' Knitting Nation  Phase 8 - Under Construction at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston during a day long performance on November 30th.  The ICA's current exhibition  is Dance/Draw (thru 1/16/12) and Knitting Nation's presentation engaged the theme through eight knitting machines stationed at various levels of scaffolding and the lines of finished knitting draped among its framework and pooled onto the floor.  

Knitting Nation is part ongoing collaborative performance and part site-specific art installation project and you can get a lot more information about the project over at the web site of Liz Collins

As a passionate knitter, crafter and artist I was intrigued and inspired by all of this and took video to capture the noise and movement of the knitters.   At the beginning of the video you see Liz Collins and a volunteer knitter working to repair one of the machines that had gone down from the constant usage.  This was a knitting project and performance that was very different and interesting.

QR Code - The knitting project that didn't work

I'm not positive, but I think this is the first post I've written where things didn't work out (it's not that this doesn't happen on a fairly regular basis but I don't usually spend the time to detail it!)   During the summer I was downloading and exploring apps for my new Android phone and one of them was a QR code reader.  A QR code is a type of bar code that can cram a lot of data information into a pattern of squares.  Companies and retailers are using them to provide additional information about themselves or a product - usually by directing you to a web page.  To use a QR code reader, you point the camera of your phone at a QR code and the image is scanned and the data is interpreted.  Below is a QR code which is a link to my ladynthread blog:

The crafting/design side of my brain immediately started thinking of different projects where I could use a QR code motif - maybe a bag or a scarf ?  Translating the QR code into knitting seemed interesting so I started with worsted weight yarn and knit one stitch for each white and black square.   I  experimented using intarsia knitting on the corner squares and for the long left and right vertical edges but the bulk of the design is knitted with the stranded method.

The knitting is 'ok',  a little ragged in spots (hey, it's a first prototype!), but unfortunately the stitched "squares" were mostly  "V's" formed with the stockinette stitch and the QR reader couldn't read it, except for one time where the light and the angle must have been perfect,   Using a fingering weight yarn and making each square of the QR code a block of four stitches might make it readable or maybe cross-stitching would work.  Printing to fabric transfer paper is probably the most straight forward approach, but for now, the whole idea is shelved until further inspiration.

A New Job!

I've started a new job at Framingham State University. I love this job! I'm the Laboratory Technician for the Fashion Design & Retail Department. I'm responsible for sewing machine maintenance, supply ordering and providing instructor support for all of the Principals of Construction classes (for me, the best part). I'm also learning how to run an old Meistergram Monogram machine and figuring out database requirements for the Costume and Textile Collection.

I'm still knitting, crocheting, sewing and crafting but the blogging is backlogged and will probably happen with a rash of posts the first day I find a few free hours.

In the meantime, take a moment and check out the details and upcoming events of the Fashion Design and Retailing Program at FSU.

Kindle Cover

I love my Kindle 3 and because I carry it around a lot I needed a protective cover. Nothing fancy. Nothing expensive. So I decided to design my own. The pattern is a very quick crochet with little seaming (only the bottom needs to be stitched closed). The lining is optional and adds slightly more structure and protection.

Kindle Cover Pattern

A Couple of Cute Baby Things

Here are a couple of cute baby items from two great patterns. Both the patterns were a dream to work - with very MINOR notes (how rare is THAT?)

I used Berroco Comfort Sock yarn (#1811 Hari Hari) for both these items and unfortunately it wasn't the best choice. I didn't realize that this yarn is a self patterning sock yarn and the repeats didn't work the best with these items.

BABY'S FIRST SOCK (pattern here)

In addition to the yarn choice there are two minor notes:

After working the repeats of the foot, my measurement from the back of heel came closer to 3½" than 3". A couple of other bloggers noted this same discrepancy so I suspect that it's a typo rather than my knitting.

These socks are for an older baby (I'm guessing 6-12mos), not a newborn. They may be the first socks that don't look like booties but they won't be baby's FIRST socks!

Update: Here's my granddaughter Natalie modeling them (along with Little Lamb Sock Critter. Natalie is 16 months so I'm bumping the age estimate for the fit up to 12-18 months.

SWIRL HAT (pattern here)
VERY cute hat! It's the perfect hat to bring the baby home from the hospital in. It's also an extremely well written pattern with sizing from Preemie to Adult. Again, the self patterning of the yarn didn't work well here.

Trellis

I fell in love with this baby sweater as soon as I saw it. It’s known as Trellis and it’s a free pattern at Knitty.com. I made it for my friend Heather who was expecting her first child. The yarn is Rowan All Season Cotton (60% cotton, 40% acrylic) in color #236 scarlet. Heather knew her baby was a girl but I chose this gender neutral color so the sweater could be easily passed down to future siblings!

My notes:

Ribbing - The ribbing was written to be worked in seed stitch with the same size needles as the body. Seed stitch is not a true ribbing so its choice is decorative rather than functional.
     Unfortunately, the ribbing rippled once the body of the pattern was knit. It wasn’t bad enough to start over (and a fair amount of the rippling eased with blocking) but I did switch to needles two sizes smaller for the sleeves and front pieces.

Back/Left Neck Shaping – The setup for the right and left neck shaping doesn’t result in both being knit exactly the same and as written is a little awkward. By changing the last row of the back to the following – Next Row [WS]: Work in patt as set for 18 st, BO 11,work in patt to end place remaining stitches on st holder – I was able to work the Left Neck Facing using the same instructions as the Right Neck Facing.

Sleeves –
     1.   In order for the seed stitch of the sleeve’s ribbing to align with the seed stitch of the sleeve’s cable pattern, the first row needs to start with a purl instead of a knit. This is not noted in the pattern and should be errata.
     2.   The top of the sleeve uses a portion of the cable pattern from the body and the underside of the sleeve is reverse stockinette stitch. This design feature is not explicitly stated in the pattern but only mentioned as purls in the two startup rows of the sleeve, so I started purling all of these underarm stitches and this resulted in a purl garter stitch. Because my sleeve wasn’t matching with the pictures (pictures ARE an integral part of a pattern!) I had to stop and figure it all out. I’m ambivalent about apportioning blame here. The pattern is listed as “tangy” (meaning for advanced knitters) but I believe it still should have been noted that the additional stitches of the sleeve’s underside are worked in reverse stockinette stitch but I’ll concede that this may be an assumption that advanced knitters are suppose to be able to make.
     3.   The increases for the sleeves were made on the wrong side with M1’s and made holes on the right side. – (and if you have followed me this far into my notes, I’d love for you to leave a comment just saying hi!) – Tim Gunn’s rule to “make it work” always echoes in my head so I used needle and thread and sewed among the stitches to close the gaps. If I make this sweater again, I’ll look into other types of stitch increases. I'm thinking purl increases on the right side should work.
     4.   From the reading of other blog posts about this sweater many knitters chose to pick up the sleeve stitches and knit the sleeve from the top down (so they could avoid sewing the sleeve in). However, I couldn't figure out an easy way to do this and make the cables run in the same direction as the body of the sweater, as well as figure out the right spot to put the increases.

Collar – The collar is the area that gave me the greatest agony and angst. The collar is knit in two sections with stitches starting from the left and right plackets. The instructions call for knitting the two sections, grafting them together at the center back and seaming the collar to the body.
     Instead of having to seam the collar I decided to knit into the edges of the body as I knit the collar. I really had no idea how to achieve this (I was just tired of seaming!) I picked up a stitch in the body of the sweater at the end of a row and then, in order to keep the same number of stitches, worked two stitches together at the beginning of the next row. That worked and looked very good on one side but “funny” on the other, so once again, I fiddled around with needle and yarn to make it look more like the other side. Next time I would just seam the collar.
     The difficult part for me, and the technique that I didn’t get right, was grafting the collar(see photos at bottom of blog post). I’m very comfortable with grafting, but it’s always been with two stockinette pieces. I’ve never grafted seed stitch and it took hours of research on the web to find an approach to the problem. The answer is to knit a swatch with one row (the one that will be the grafted) in a different color of yarn and then to use the swatch as a “map” for the grafting. Below are pictures of my swatch and the collar edges which need to be grafted. There were two problems with the grafting, one was keeping the stitches turned in the correct position (once off the needle, they wanted to twist) and the other was the difficulty of looking back and forth between the swatch and the collar and remembering where I was and what I needed to do.
     I never did get it exactly right. At some point I decided I would follow the example of Navajo weavers – I would make the mistake intentional so I didn’t offend the gods.

Shoulder Seams – I chose the three needle bind-off for the shoulder seams. I like the structure that shoulder seams provide and I’m a big believer of putting them in. This is pure personal preference and grafting the shoulder seams is certainly a possibility but it would involve the same process as the collar (making a swatch) and after my “issues” with grafting the collar this wasn’t a consideration for me.

I have a love/hate relationship with this sweater. I love the design. I hate the pattern. With its cables and shawl collar, this design is cute sophistication but there was a lot of frogging, Macgyvering and redesigning because of the pattern. So I don’t know if I’ll make another one until I have resolved some of the knitting techniques. However, I have a feeling when Heather sends me a picture of Anna wearing it I’ll forget all the pain and problems and fall in love all over again.