Beanies by Lynne

Only two beanies to show this month; I have been busy with other things and my beanie-knitting-circulars are otherwise occupied! LOL




Neither of these are textured knitting, unless you count the texture created by slip stitching or by semi-textured yarn.

They have joined dozens of their brethren in going to Presbyterian Inland Missions - one of the April Charities of the Month at Knit4Charities. If you're clever you may be able to find them in the first photo in the previous post!!

K4C CotM April 2009

As a member of Knit4Charities [K4C], I had the privilege again this year of nominating Presbyterian Inland Mission as one of the Charities of the Month [CotM] for April. The P.I.M. was formerly known as Australian Inland Mission and was founded by John Flynn who also founded the Flying Doctor Service.

It was such fun when the parcels start arriving. I saved them up, DD came to visit and we opened them all and set them up to take photos. We counted all the items and re-packaged them ready to deliver to my contact who is also a member of the Blue Mountains branch of the Knitters' Guild of NSW.

This year we collected 209 items. My contact commented that she was surprised there were so many; she thought every one was knitting for the bushfire victims. So, thank you to my fellow members of K4C, Wendy [a non-member], my mum and DD - the donations were gratefully received and will soon be distributed to Aboriginal communities around the nation.

Here then, for your viewing pleasure:
the beanies, mitts, socks and scarves [and a lone knee rug]

the cardigans and jumpers [sweaters for my US friends]

and the other items that arrived after our first photography session!

I am looking forward to doing it all again next year. There truly is a blessing in giving!

this month from the Guild library

I got this:


One day I will have my very own copy but right now, there are so many things to knit and I'm trying to be monogamous!! ;-(

"in the round" top down sweater

While in-the-round bottom-up sweater lies in the frogpond, it's opposite number is almost completely finished [except for sewing the ends in - isn't that always the way? LOL]. You'll remember that I said last month that one of the good things about being a member of the Guild was access to the library and that I had borrowed this book:

Well, based on this book's basic sweater pattern, I've knitted this:

Don't go looking for anything like it in the book - I did what I often do, designed on the needles. And when I realised I was going to run out of yarn I added some colour work [it's really not that difficult Kate] to tie the third colour in and look like I always intended it to be there [now you know my little secret!! LOL]

The yoke is a combination of slip stitch and stranded colour work. The pattern above the ribbing is stranded colour work.
I quite like this way of knitting but I found working on the sleeves a hassle because the bulk of the sweater was already done - my dpns kept getting caught in the body of the sweater!

And, using the same idea but changing it radically [I guess that makes it my original] I have cast on for a child's poncho knitted top down.

"in the round" sweater in the frogpond

I have been unable to find a pattern for a bottom up sweater knitted in one piece so have boldly gone where I've been before [not always successfully] - designing on the needles! The good thing about knitting for charity is I don't have to worry about the finished size and can therefore concentrate on other aspects of designing.

Therefore, without giving any thought to where and how it would finish, I boldly cast on 120 stitches of a [possibly] 5 ply yarn on 3.5mm needles and proceeded to knit ten rows of K1P1 rib and a stocking stitch body.

What to do with the sleeves? I could follow EZ and knit a yoked sweater but they are so passé. I wanted a dropped shoulder as that's the current style of knitwear. I figured I could knit in the round to the armholes then knit back and forth. Could I join the sleeves to the body [like entrelac] as I did this? Only one way to find out, so I proceeded to knit two sleeves.

With no children around, I had to look at a few patterns of 'knitted flat' sweaters to get some proportions. I looked at how many stitches were cast on for the body [times two] then how many stitches were cast on for the sleeve. I found this to be consistently 25% [EZ says 20% but I thought that was too small] and the finished number of stitches at the top of the sleeves would be 40%. I measured the width of my knitting [30cm] and found a pattern with a similar measurement. How long did they recommend for sleeves? 23cm - okay. I knitted the sleeves by casting on 25% [30 stitches], doing ten rows of ribbing, increasing two stitches in next row [first row of stocking stitch], and increasing every fourth row from then until I had 40% [48 stitches]. I then knitted straight until I had 23cm length but I didn't cast off.

I measured the width of the sleeve at that point, calculated the size of ten rows for the shoulders and added them together to work out how long the body needed to be to the armholes [I miscalculated - the finished body's too long but that's way better than too short!!] Then I proceeded to knit the back to and fro picking up one stitch from each sleeve as I went.

This photo shows the stitch pattern made by knitting/purling the last stitch of the body together with the next stitch of the sleeve through the back of the loop [to avoid holes]. It also shows how the sleeve has to stretch to fit the armhole space when the top of the sleeve has the same number of stitches as there are rows for the armhole.

At this point, I have to say I would not use this technique again. A stocking stitch square is approximately three rows to two stitches so knitting up one stitch for every row stretches the sleeve width-wise which was okay on this very small child's sweater but would look very bad on an adult garment. So I would follow the advice [by email] of my blogging pal, Knitting Linguist, and pick up the stitches at the arm hole and knit the sleeve downwards. Better still, I might knit the whole garment top down but that's another project!

Then what about the shoulders? I’ve never tried short row shaping for shoulders but it's not a difficult technique so that's what I did. And how should I finish those shoulders? I was trying to complete the sweater with as little sewing as possible so I thought "three needle bind off". Now, I've never even seen this technique but the good thing about the Knitternet and being a member of the Guild is that I've heard of it - and that's all we need, right? So I looked in my trusty Vogue Knitting book. No such technique. But right at the end of bind-off techniques I found "binding off two pieces together" which is, of course, the three needle bind off. Neat finish - I like it a lot!

This photo shows the almost finished sweater which is obviously out of proportion! The sleeves look too short [in my opinion, I have no child to measure] for the size of the sweater. They are also obviously too narrow at the top for the armhole [as previously discussed]. If you look really closely, you'll also see a very definite line across the chest at the beginning of the armhole where my tension/gauge is obviously different knitting flat and knitting in the round! Something I didn't think to check.

Finally, this sweater is for a child and there’s no way a child's head was going to fit through the hole left for the neck - even before I knitted the neckband. Fortunately, I had only bound off one shoulder so I knitted the neckband back and forth and then knitted a little placket for some buttons and voila - awful! The sweater is in the frogpond until I decide how to redeem it. Right now I think it will be a complete rip back!

However, as the old saying goes: "nothing ventured, nothing gained" and I have learnt quite a bit from this exercise project! Just as well, because it was a try out for a much larger project - an adult's jumper! Which I won't be knitting in this manner!!

Unfortunately Lynne

This is an old meme but I've long thought I should see what it yields! ;-)

• Unfortunately, Lynne is now semi-retired from actively teaching
  This is true: I only work part-time, but perhaps not unfortunate - for me or my students!


• Unfortunately, Lynne has made some errors herself.
  Haven't we all?
  This was actually written about Lynne Truss, author of a book I have read and enjoyed [as an English teacher, why wouldn't I?]
  
  

• Unfortunately Lynne’s blog is not quite a real blog. You can’t add comments. Here is what is really cool though, Lynne’s on Twitter.
  So this is the definition of a 'real' blog - the writer is obviously not talking about me because readers can leave comments here [and I encourage you to do so] and I'm not on Twitter.


• Unfortunately, Lynne wasn't speaking up in defense of Britney
  Well I wouldn't, would I?


• Unfortunately, Lynne B. does not exist.
  She most certainly does!


• Unfortunately Lynne has had to withdraw from the race.
  Just as well, I was built for stability in high winds! LOL


• Unfortunately, Lynne's pension won't be that great
  Probably true - the government is going to find it difficult to support all of us baby-boomers when we finally retire. Just as well I plan to be self-funded as a retiree!


• Unfortunately, Lynne is no longer able to take on this important task
  ... possibly because she is busy with even more important/urgent tasks


• Unfortunately, Lynne spiked her bum on the basket wire on a particularly big bump, so will have to nurse a bit of a bruise for the next few days!
  Oh my, what was Lynne doing? I can tell a similar story: I once spiked my bottom on a graphite pencil which had been sharpened in an electric sharpener. The pencils were kept in tins, point up to prevent breakage, and one little darling tripped me and I fell backwards onto his desk! Ouch! I had to have tetanus shot too!! :-(

And finally, one that is really about me:

• Unfortunately Lynne won’t be knitting for a while as she has shoulder problems but I hope she enjoys the silk when she can eventually use it.
  Fortunately the shoulder problems, while still sometimes giving me problems are mostly a thing of the past and I will be using the silk soon, Sally. I wasn't ready to face more lace after the saga of the wedding stole!

more textures a-coming!

We have two new members for our KAL - Amanda at I Heart Knitting emailed me to ask if she could join in and then I got an email from Catsmum asking if she could crochet her textures? Why not? I'm just excited that people want to join in!

Welcome aboard; can't wait to see what you produce.

"Winter of Textured Knitting" round up: chute #2

[edited 4 May 7:30pm to add photo of Deniasha's "Wisteria"]

Down in Tasmania, Tinkingbell has completed a jacket with seed stitch trim. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get a clear photo of the seed stitch so drop by Tink's blog to get a look at the jacket. Tinkingbell is also knitting a gathered pullover but I couldn't find any photo - sorry Tink!

Rell in Queensland [is it cold there yet?] is working on a secret project - all I could get was this: "a twisted left and right cable". Sure are pretty colours in that yarn, Rell.

Jocelyn, over in USA, isn't participating in the KAL but she left a comment saying that she was inspired "to start a little textured project of [her] own!" I'm inspired by these socks: both the colour and the pattern.


Delighted Hands, who also hails from USA, has rediscovered the joy of slip stitching to semi-disguise stripes.


Deniasha has been having some problems finding the perfect stitch pattern for some lovely homespun [by her sister] yarn. Before the Great Sock Saga she knitted Wisteria.Here is the photo she sent: we hope you can see the cables.


Knitter Sue knitted 53 items in 52 weeks last year; can she do even more this year. She's pretty much on track with these two items.




On 12th April [which by-the-way and totally-off-topic, happens to be DD's birthday] Lilypily was Smitten by Mittens. I love the colours in this yarn and can't wait to see the finished objects. BTW, LP, I hope you're OK; it's been a while since you posted.


In our last round-up, Paisley Womble had swatched for Hanne [isn't she a conscientious knitter?]. Here's part of the Finished Object for you to admire; go to Paisley Womble's blog to see the whole article. While you're there, check out some cute beanies and a gorgeous bookmark.



Finally, thanks to Bells [and, it seems, RoseRed] to inspire us all there is a new book on the market:

"Winter of Textured Knitting" round up: chute #1

Winter has definitely hit Sydney - it's much colder than it should be at this time of year, especially in the mornings. As we get deeper into winter, we put away those light, lacy wraps and our thoughts turn to warm knitted items. So what's been happening? I'm only going to give you a sneak preview - you'll have to drop by the different blogs to see it all. Plus there are quite a few photos so the round up will continue for more than one post!

Jan was the first to declare her textured knitting again this month - well done, a gold star for you! [Oops, sorry; it's the teacher in me!!]. She's been a-cabling lovely warm hats. You'll find two here and a third here.




The rest of the round-up is done in the order that comments were left after I wrote a post asking participants to contact me.

Rose Red asked if she would get full marks for her homework. What do you think? First there was some Buried Treasure. I didn't know which texture to show so you get both; these are RoseRed's own photos - uncropped by me. Can you guess what the Buried Treasure is?



Then there's RoseRed's "just a scootch softer than Nellie" knitting [aka "lace but not lacy"]:


While you're there, you may want to look at Hedera - lace but oh such a pretty texture.

And, just when you thought it was safe to leave RoseRed and her sticks, this morning she posted many photos of this Pearl [sorry about the dark photo; RR's are much better!]:

A gold star for you too, Rose Red. Homework above and beyond!

Tune in tomorrow for the knitting coming out of chute #2!

Bendigo Woollen Mills shade card

Finally, after emailing Bendigo last weekend, my shade card arrived yesterday! Some gorgeous colours - I want them all!!

PS Hope you like the new look here! The black background felt a bit too heavy for winter! I need to think thoughts of spring. Cold is my worst enemy! Tee-hee!

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edited to remove the rest of the post; to all who did visit my 'additional' blog [thanks C], especally Delighted Hands, Bells and Lara who left comments, I have decided to remove the blog from the 'public domain' - I need it to be a "real" journal and already I've found myself editing my thoughts for public consumption. So, apologies if you were keen to go this journey with me; I'll try to remember to put any great revelations or productions on this blog instead!

the last birthday books

Now, my crochet library has enough books and we're back to a wishlist of knitting books!

Thanks WM for caring enough to buy what you thought I'd like and not asking me to buy my own gifts!