It’s been more than usually mad around here these past few days, and I’ve been stalling on writing this post because I haven’t had a chance to take an up-to-date photo of the purple thing. But this evening the very lovely Niall helped me out, with his tripod and everything.

It fits! At [...]]]>

It’s been more than usually mad around here these past few days, and I’ve been stalling on writing this post because I haven’t had a chance to take an up-to-date photo of the purple thing. But this evening the very lovely Niall helped me out, with his tripod and everything.

It fits! At least, the waist shaping fits. If anything, in fact, it’s a little on the snug side, but I reckon that’s no bad thing. I’m really liking the way the open yarn-over columns contrast with the denser twisted columns, and the verticals seem, on a hasty appraisal, to be flattering in just the way I’d hoped. You’ll have to wait until I model the finished thing to see the full effect.

As you may have guessed, it’s a tank top / slipover / sweater vest / whatever the cool kids are calling it these days. And strictly, it’s not “the purple thing” any more, now that I’ve added the contrasting yarn. (Don’t you love the shock of it, though? I’m considering working in a reference to Caesar’s blood here, but that may be … forgive me … overkill. As it were. Ahaha. I slay me. Look – I did it again! I’ll get me coat.)

That’s Noro Kureyon, by the way, which my Ravelry friends (hi!) may recognise as being left over from the Butterfly cardigan I made last year. This design decision stems purely from circumstance: I’m reasonably certain that two skeins of the Louet Riverstone wouldn’t be enough for what I want.

This is an experiment: I’m designing as I go. I reserve the right to rip it out, but for the moment, I rather like it. I find the sloped introduction of the Kureyon very pleasing, and the tighter V of the neckline division is a nice contrast. (You can’t see that properly yet, since I’ve only done one side.) My fervent hope at this point is that I didn’t decrease too far on the outer edge. If I did, it’ll have to be ripped, because I’m not having gapey armholes.

The back will be different – possibly with an intarsia picture of some sort. I need to be careful not to use too much of the purple, because I want to knit the armhole and neckline ribbing with it.

So that’s it. Tomorrow is Very Secret Mysteries day, when I’ll be writing about crochet. Until then, farewell.

The purple thing is breaking my heart. Or stabbing me in the back, as the title of this post suggests. Is it knitting karma, I wonder, after my smooth ride with Down in the Woods?

I took the above photo on Friday, preparatory to making a bubbly progress post to delight and entertain [...]]]>

The purple thing is breaking my heart. Or stabbing me in the back, as the title of this post suggests. Is it knitting karma, I wonder, after my smooth ride with Down in the Woods?

I took the above photo on Friday, preparatory to making a bubbly progress post to delight and entertain you. See it there? Forty-nine rounds in, just about to divide for front and back. Get a good look at it, my dears, while you can.

Yeah.

I ripped it all out.

It was about 20 stitches too big. I’m not sure if my tension is different working in the round (my swatch was back and forth), or if I somehow changed needles between swatch and cast-on (not impossible: things are pretty crazy around here at the moment), or if I simply have a lot to learn about negative ease (entirely plausible).

“It’s all wrong,” I said to Niall. “I’ll have to rip it out again.” For alas, this was not the first time. My first cast-on was based on a sloppy measurement, and when I rechecked it I ripped out the first ten rounds. My second cast-on was made through a bleary haze of exhaustion, and I twisted the bloody thing and started knitting a Möbius strip. That was only about four rounds long before I ripped.

Not like this time. Forty-nine rounds, I tell you. I felt each stitch unravel as though it were tangled around my guts. Niall was slightly astonished that I went through with it. “I didn’t think you’d rip it out,” he said. “I thought you might just, like, eat loads, or something.”

But I’ve been making clothes for long enough to know that if I’m not satisfied with something, I. Will. Not. Wear. It. With the best will in the world, it’ll simply lurk in my wardrobe until the end of time, making me feel sad whenever I catch sight of it. In the face of that, forty-nine rounds doesn’t seem so bad.

Fortunately, I’m persistent, and I’m going to knit this thing if it kills me (with long knives, in the town square, getting blood all over my toga, to extend my conceit just a little further).

To add insult to injury, I’m using the magic loop technique this time around, which is a little absurd for something this big, but taking off 24 stitches (for the pattern it had to be a multiple of eight) brought me down below the manageable round length for my 100cm Addi Turbos. At least it also means I’ll get through those forty-nine blasted rounds a little more quickly.

It’s pleasing me, at the moment, that I’ll be able to look at my purple thing (which will be glorious, I decree) and know that this is probably the most thoroughly knit yarn in my entire collection. (As you may recall, it started out as a scarf.) One takes one’s comfort where one can.

On that point, actually, the Louet Riverstone has held up amazingly well to the repeated knitting and ripping it’s endured. If you’re going to make a spectacular series of blunders, it’s a good yarn to choose!

I cast on the purple thing last night. It’s flying along now – I’ve done almost 10cm. But I wanted to show you it in its newly cast-on state, because I love that. Just a few rows done, the pattern barely discernible – it’s such a hopeful little ribbon of knitting.

(See what [...]]]>

I cast on the purple thing last night. It’s flying along now – I’ve done almost 10cm. But I wanted to show you it in its newly cast-on state, because I love that. Just a few rows done, the pattern barely discernible – it’s such a hopeful little ribbon of knitting.

(See what I posed it on for the photo? Do you? Gosh, I am witty.)

I used a cabled cast-on, for a nice stable edge – I don’t want it too stretchy.

My grandmother taught me to cast on like her, by knitting into the last stitch and putting the new loop back on the left-hand needle. (The cabled cast-on is very similar but makes a nicer edge, if you ask me.) This was circa 1980, when I was five or six. My grandmother didn’t tell me that hers was only one of several methods – in fact, I’m not sure if she realised.

I’d been knitting for decades before I found out that there was more than one way to cast on. I must be seriously conservative when it comes to my craft methods, because the only other cast-ons I’ve tried are provisional (which I used for Down in the Woods) and tubular (which I’m madly in love with, though I’m not entirely convinced that my feelings are requited).

When I think about it, the cable cast-on has more or less replaced my grandmother’s way (which is known as the “knit cast-on”, incidentally) as my default Here I Am Starting To Knit Something position.

So there’s a tiny little goal for the rest of 2009: explore casting on. What’s your favourite method?

I bought this intense royal purple Louet Riverstone wool (colourway “Phantom”) from Di Gilpin at last year’s Knitting and Stitching Show, intending to make it into a scarf for my mother. After much deliberation I chose a pattern – Knitty’s Elbac, version 1 – and set to work.

Have you tried Elbac? It’s [...]]]>

I bought this intense royal purple Louet Riverstone wool (colourway “Phantom”) from Di Gilpin at last year’s Knitting and Stitching Show, intending to make it into a scarf for my mother. After much deliberation I chose a pattern – Knitty’s Elbac, version 1 – and set to work.

Have you tried Elbac? It’s breathtakingly clever, and I’m deeply in love with it. It’s a cabled scarf, right, but because the cables are worked in rib, it’s identical on both sides. Fiendish.

Anyway, I started into my mother’s scarf and got almost half-way through before realising that the yarn I’d bought had a shorter yardage than the one in the pattern. I was going to end up with a disappointingly short scarf. This sad circumstance helped me to face the other salient fact about the Louet Riverstone, which is that it really isn’t quite soft enough to wear next to the skin. Or at least, not my skin, and thus, by induction, not my mother’s.

So I did what any self-respecting knitter would have done: I stuffed the project in a bag and tried to forget. Well. Let me be more specific. Actually, what happened was that I went to This Is Knit and bought two skeins of dreamily soft Araucanía Aysén instead.

By dint of knitting like the clappers I managed to produce a very lovely Elbac scarf by lunchtime on the day before my mother’s birthday. Result.

[Aside: My goodness, I have a lot to learn about lighting my photos. Hmmm.]

See that total reversibility? That’s pattern genius, that is. Thank you Laura (YarnThrower).

But what of the purple (purplepurplepurple) wool, you ask? Well, a couple of weeks ago I found it again, took some deep breaths and ripped out all my beautiful cabling. (I’ll buy some softer yarn soon and make another Elbac for myself, because it rocks so very hard.) I had the germ of an idea, which I let simmer for a few days before swatching.

You’ll notice I’m not telling you what I’m planning. I still don’t know exactly how it’s going to go. Watch this space.