2015 Toronto Knitters’ Frolic

Score!

Clockwise from left:

Sweet Paprika: Messa di Voce - “Georgian Bay” (100% superwash merino)
Hand Maiden: Lino - “Morning Mist” (65% silk, 35% linen)
Fleece Artist: BFL 2/8 - “Blue Lagoon” (100% blue face leicester)
Raventwist: Neith - “Dragon Gold” (70% baby alpaca, 30% silk)
Sweet Georgia: Toughlove Sock - “Berry Tart” (80% superwash merino, 20% nylon)

A new technique: Mosaic knitting

Recently I volunteered to test knit a pair of fingerless mitts for Greenethumb on Ravelry, her Frozen Mitts, which she designed and knitted for the same stash-busting knit-along for which I designed and knitted Kristina’s Pink Piano Mitts. They involve a colour-knitting technique called  “mosaic” or slip-stitch knitting. There’s a very good article in Knitty magazine which I read before I began. The technique involves alternating two rows of each colour and slipping the stitches of the previous contrasting-colour row. In the third row, those slipped stitches are knitted and previous-colour stitches are slipped. It’s much better explained in the article than what I’m doing here.

It turns out I had done slip-stitch knitting before with Ashley Rao’s Biarritz Cloche to create the houndstooth look of the body; so I was not a total stranger to the technique.

Ms. Greene’s instructions are excellent. She includes two charts in the pattern, one with just one line for the repeated pattern rounds, and one with both, using carets to distinguish the slipped stitches from the knitted ones. I followed both charts (one for each mitt) and found them to be very clear. I had only one issue with her instructions which caused me some grief.

The pattern calls for fingering yarn. I used Phildar Preface in cream for the main body and Spud & Chloë Fine in purple for the contrasting design. For the test, the specified needle size was 2.75 mm throughout, gauge 9 st/inch. The designer did suggest that tight knitters might use a larger needle size for the mosaic pattern, since it is by nature tighter than regular knitting.

I did not test for gauge. Mea culpa. I am also, apparently, a rather relaxed knitter. The small size, which I tested, called for 56 stitches to be cast on. I should have smelled something fishy right then and there, since I generally knit fingerless mitts for myself with 2.5 mm needles on 48 stitches. I think you can see where this is going.

I finished the first mitt and thought it looked pretty, but it fit terribly. The wrist was nice and snug, but the hand pouched and was enormous! As you can see from the photo below, the knitting tightened up again at the band of mosaic before the ribbing, but the ribbing becomes too loose afterward.

Not to be undone by this failure, I cast on for the second mitt with the 2.75 mm needle and proceeded as per the first one to the last row of the charted main colour. For the solid purple band, I switched to a 2.25 mm circular and proceeded to follow the directions for the thumb gusset and hand, switching back to the 2.75 mm needle after the first solid purple rows of the next mosaic pattern, and back to 2.25 mm for the closing purple rows. This produced a much tighter tension for the plain knitting which resulted in a nice snug fit for the hand.

I was so pleased with the new mitt that I unravelled the old one to the top of the wrist and reknit it as per the one I had just finished. Voila!

The designer and I have been in correspondence and I have strongly suggested that she specify changing needles for this problem to not be a problem.

I now have only one complaint about the pattern, and that is that the thumb gussets are knitted at the sides, meaning that the pattern is not centred when worn. I have a lot of the purple and a little of the cream left over. I may knit them again in the inverse, but this time make right and left mitts by moving the thumbs toward the palms.

Pink Sundae Camisole Compleat

I finished it a while ago and took it with me on holiday to the Dominican Republic. I even wore it a couple of evenings but, sadly, no one commented on what a beautiful garment it was. This is not unusual. I see women wearing gorgeous clothes all the time and say nothing. But a knitter would have noticed. Believe me.

I did not knit the lace upper border separately and then attach it via 3-needle bindoff as specified in the pattern. Instead, I did an applied edging as I absolutely hate picking up stitches and avoid it whenever I can. It worked out fine. I also did not make i-cords for the straps. I wanted something a little more substantial, so made something up that was decorative as well as sturdy. Buttons are mother of pearl gifted by a friend. What do you think?

Kristina’s Pink Piano Mitts

One of my students was complaining that her hands are always so cold during her piano lessons and I was already devising a pair of fingerless mitts for Ravelry’s Fingerless Glove Fanatics February KAL, the theme of which was Bust that stash! A Valentine component was not necessary, but encouraged. I had in my stash two balls of Drops Alpaca in Raspberry which I had bought quite on impulse the last time I was at my LYS to pick up a replacement 3.75 mm point for interchangeable needles. I had already cast on when I decided they would be for Kristina.

I did not invent any of the individual components of this pattern, just assembled them from different sources. Still, they came together nicely.

Kristina’s Pink Piano Mitts

Yarn: Drops Alpaca (Raspberry) by Garnstudio -- 90 m (100 yds) [or just over half a ball]
Needles: 2.5 mm (US 1.5) dpns or circular
Size: small -- adjust size by experimenting with larger or smaller needles

Both mitts: Cast on 48 stitches. Join in round. Work feather and fan as follows:

Round 1: *k1, k2tog twice, (yo, k) 3 times, yo, k2tog twice* Repeat ** to end of round.
Round 2: knit
Round 3: knit
Round 4: purl

Repeat Rounds 1 to 4 three more times.

Left Hand:

Twin Leaf Lace Panel and thumb gusset:

Round 17: k9, k2tog, yo, k1, p1, k1, yo, ssk, k30, pm, m1R, k1 m1L, pm, k1
Round 18: k8, k2tog, k2, yo, p1, yo, k2, ssk, k to end
Round 19: k7, k2tog, k1, yo, k2, p1, k2, yo, k1, ssk, k to end
Round 20: k6, k2tog, k3, yo, k1, p1, k1, yo, k3, ssk, k to marker, sm, m1R, k to marker, m1L, sm, k1
Round 21: k5, k2tog, k2, yo, k3, p1, k3, yo, k2, ssk, k to end
Round 22: k4, k2tog, k4, yo, k2, p1, k2, yo, k4, ssk, k to end
Round 23: k3, k2tog, k3, yo, k4, p1, k4, yo, k3, ssk, k to marker, sm, m1R, k to marker, m1L, sm, k1
Round 24: k2, k2tog, k5, yo, k3, p1, k3, yo, k5, ssk, k to end
Round 25: k1, k2tog, k4, yo, k5, p1, k5, yo, k4, ssk, k to end
Round 26: k12, p1, k to marker, sm, m1R, k to marker, m1L, sm, k1
Round 27: k12, p1, k to end
Round 28: k12, p1, k to end

Repeat Rounds 17 to 28 twice more, continuing to increase thumb gusset until you have 17 stitches between the markers.

Round 44, place 17 thumb stitches on waste yarn and cast on one stitch (your favourite method) before rejoining the round. Continue in pattern until three patterns are complete.

Round 53: purl
Round 54: knit
Round 55: purl
Round 56: bind off loosely knitwise.

Thumb:

Place 17 stitches on waste yarn on dpns or circular needle. Pick up and knit three stitches from hand edge (one before the cast-on stitch, the cast-on stitch, and one after). k16, ssk, k1, k2tog. Last stitch knit will be the first stitch in the new round (18 sts). k 3 more rounds. Finish in garter stitch as for hand.

Right Hand:

Round 17: k8, k2tog, yo, k1, p1, k1, yo, ssk, k10, pm, m1R, k1 m1L, pm, k to end
Round 18: k7, k2tog, k2, yo, p1, yo, k2, ssk, k to end
Round 19: k6, k2tog, k1, yo, k2, p1, k2, yo, k1, ssk, k to end
Round 20: k5, k2tog, k3, yo, k1, p1, k1, yo, k3, ssk, k to marker, sm, m1R, k to marker, m1L, sm, k to end
Round 21: k4, k2tog, k2, yo, k3, p1, k3, yo, k2, ssk, k to end
Round 22: k3, k2tog, k4, yo, k2, p1, k2, yo, k4, ssk, k to end
Round 23: k2, k2tog, k3, yo, k4, p1, k4, yo, k3, ssk, k to marker, sm, m1R, k to marker, m1L, sm, k to end
Round 24: k1, k2tog, k5, yo, k3, p1, k3, yo, k5, ssk, k to end
Round 25: k2tog, k4, yo, k5, p1, k5, yo, k4, ssk, k to end
Round 26: k11, p1, k to marker, sm, m1R, k to marker, m1L, sm, k to end
Round 27: k11, p1, k to end
Round 28: k11, p1, k to end

Continue as for Left Hand.

Darn in ends, soak in warm, soapy water for 20 minutes, rinse, squeeze out excess moisture and roll mitts in a towel. Lay mitts out flat to dry, stretching them into desired shape. Let dry completely.

m1R = Lift bar between stitches onto left needle, twisted so that the right leg is in back. Knit into front of loop (left leg)
m1L = Lift bar between stitches onto left needle, right leg in front. Knit into back of loop.

A most serendipitous shawl

Happy New Year to all my fabulous readers. You are all probably dying to know how I spent my Christmas vacation and it would be downright cruel of me not to enlighten you. 

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have been suffering with tendonitis in my left elbow. This makes my life difficult, as something as simple as picking up a pot lid can cause a sudden flare of pain in my arm and my family is quite used to hearing me whimper at times. No amount of rest seems to improve it, but that could be because I can’t really rest it when everyone is depending on me for food preparation, laundry washing and various and sundry mundane tasks that seem to be in my job description. When my husband tells me to ask him to get something for me, or open a jar, I can only respond that he isn’t quick enough, nor is he always there. So, the elbow gets better by increments instead of by leaps and bounds.

The second week of December, my husband and I took a holiday in Costa Rica. It was beautiful: bath-water-warm ocean, volcanic sand, palm trees, monkeys, colourful (and noisy) birds and an all-you-can-eat-and-drink-inclusive hotel experience. Very luxurious. I decided to give my arm a rest, bringing only some novelty knitting with me which I did for maybe a couple of hours, tops. While my elbow definitely improved, it didn’t get all the way better; and not knitting was more of a hardship than having a twinge of pain now and again.

On December 18 I cast on a new project, Serendipity Lace Shawl by Hayley Tsang Sather which I had seen in the “Blocking - Before and After” thread on Ravelry. I fell in love with this pattern and commented on the post that I needed to obtain it so I could make it. The designer suggested that I might like to join the Serendipity KAL for December-January. So I did.

The shawl is shaped like a circle with a bite out of it. It is beaded and has a picot bind-off which gives it a very fractal quality. Here is a photo of one by one of the test knitters:

Sorry about the quality. But you get an idea of the shape and why I was instantly smitten with this design and had to knit it.

I used Drops Fabel in cream and No. 6 copper-coloured beads from my local craft store. One of the design elements requires the use of increasingly-larger needles as you go. The garter tab neck edge calls for 3.5 mm needles, increasing to 3.75 mm for the first five charts (up to and including the more “solid” stretch with the beaded ladders), then switching to a size 4 mm for the next little bit, and size 4.5 mm for the final lace edging. I didn’t realize that I had to switch needle sizes at the beginning of the sixth chart, and there was no way I was going to rip back, so I just incorporated them two-thirds of the way through. I don’t think it really makes that much of a difference, since my tension is pretty relaxed to begin with.

Here are my progress pics:

The picot bind-off took me a whole afternoon, almost four hours.

Finally, on the blocking mats.

The finished shawl, absolutely beautiful.

The intended recipient is the wife of the tennis pro at the resort we return to in Puerto Plata every March. Against her dark skin, it will be even more beautiful. 

Even though it looks complicated, it was not a difficult pattern. According to my Ravelry project page, it took me 12 days; but I had a couple of other projects on the needles and Christmas intervened (which seriously cut into my knitting time). Other FOs from the KAL are also incredibly beautiful. Some people used yarn with a long gradation, changing colour gradually from dark to light (or vice versa); there was lace versus fingering and all sorts of different materials, including an endless variety of beads. I will definitely make another one of these.

Margaret’s Mimosa Mitts

Some time ago, it occurred to me that my friend Margaret needed a pair of black, lacy fingerless mitts. Not just any mitts would do; they had to be specially designed for her. So I got out my stitch dictionaries and went to work, producing a pair of gorgeous fingerless mitts with my friend in mind. I tried publishing the pattern on Ravelry, but didn’t do it right. Now that I have this blog, I shall publish it here.

Mitts for Margaret

less than 50 gm of fingering weight yarn (I used KnitPicks Capretta)

2.5 mm needles

Bobble instructions:

Knit into front, back and front of next st, turn and p3, turn and k3, turn and p3, turn and slip 1, k2tog, psso.

Wrist for both hands:

CO Heidi Bear’s twisted picot for 16 picots on circular needle, CO 1 st.

Row 1: K, *K1, Kfb* to last stitch, K1 (50 stitches on needle) (these 2 extra will make a seam later)

Row 2: purl

Row 3: knit

Row 4: slip last stitch onto end of second needle, in front of the first stitch and knit both together, joining in the round. K to last 2 st, K2tog (48 st)

Row 5: purl 

Row 6: *P2tog yo* to end of round

Row 7: purl

Row 8 & 9: knit

Row 10: *K3, yo, ssk, K3* 6 times, K3

Row 11, 13, 15, 17: knit

Row 12: *k1, k2tog, yo, k1, yo, ssk, k2* 6 times

Row 14: *k2tog, yo, k3, yo, ssk, k1* 6 times

Row 16: *k2, yo, sl1, k2tog, psso, yo, k3* 6 times

Row 18: same as 10

Row 19 & 20: knit

Rows 21 to 23: same as 5 to 7

Left Hand:

Row 24: knit

Row 25: k1, m1, k1, Mimosa shoot chart for LH, k to one before end of round, m1, k1.

Even rows: knit

Row 27: k2, m1, k1, chart, knit to last 2 st., m1, k2

Row 29: k3, m1, k1, chart, knit to last 3 st., m1, k3

Row 31: k4, m1, k1, chart, knit to last 4 st., m1, k4

Row 33: k5, m1, k1, chart, knit to last 5 st., m1, k5

Row 35: continue increasing until there are 62 stitches total. Continue knitting chart without increasing.

When 33 rows of Mimosa shoot chart are completed, put 16 thumb gusset stitches on waste yarn like so: k8, put those 8 sts on waste yarn, k46, put last 8 sts on waste yarn.

CO 2 and join round. Continue in pattern (48 sts) until palm is covered, ~1.5"

Next round: knit

Repeat rounds 5 to 7

BO with 2-stitch picot: *cast on 2 stitches using cable cast-on. Bind off 4 stitches. Put right stitch on left needle.* Repeat until 2 st remaining, K2tog, BO.

Right Hand:

Row 24: knit

Row 25: k2, Mimosa shoot chart for RH, k1, m1, k2, m1, k to end.

Even rows: knit

Row 27: k2, chart, k1, m1, k4, m1, k to end. 

Row 29: k2, chart, k1, m1, k6, m1, k to end.

Row 31: k2, chart, k1, m1, k8, m1, k to end.

Row 33: k2, chart, k1, m1, k10, m1, k to end.

Row 35: continue increasing until there are 62 stitches total. Continue knitting chart without increasing.

When 33 rows of Mimosa shoot chart are completed, k23, put 16 sts on waste yarn, CO 2, join, k23.

Continue in pattern (48 sts) until palm is covered, ~1.5"

Next round: knit

Repeat rounds 5 to 7

BO with 2-stitch picot: *cast on 2 stitches using cable cast-on. Bind off 4 stitches. Put right stitch on left needle.* Repeat until 2 st remaining, K2tog, BO.

Thumb (both hands):

Put reserved 16 stitches on dpns (or circular needle). Pick up and knit 2 sts from hand, knit four rounds. Work rounds 5 to 7 once, picot bind off.

Pink Sundae Camisole: What happened next.

We left off last post with the bottom edge of my camisole looking huge. In every single book on knitting I have ever read (and I’ve read several), the knitter is instructed to start by making up a swatch to check for gauge. I didn’t do that. I should have. It turns out that with the needles specified by the designer, my camisole was heading into XL territory.  What did I do? The only sensible thing I could do: I frogged it, very carefully rewinding my yarn onto the empty toilet paper roll. The stuff at the beginning was getting really ratty by this time. To make it even rattier, I then pulled out my 2.25 mm needles, and knit myself a swatch. Specified gauge was 31 st = 4 in on 2.75 mm needles. I made my swatch 31 stitches wide with 4-stitch borders of garter. When I measured, I was still 2 stitches too loose. What to do?

I stroked my chin and thought about this. I could always try again with even smaller needles OR I could take advantage of my loose tension and knit the smaller size. Less knitting overall, right? So I did that, frogging my swatch (carefully rewinding it onto the roll) and then casting on for the small size with the 2.25 mm circular needle. Luckily the rattiest of the yarn ended up in the first five rows before the picot edge and is hidden in behind. In one place, the yarn actually came apart in my hands, but it was very easy to splice in without any tails to darn in later. I even caught the cast-on tail in the turned edging. Rather clever of me, no?

Unlike the other attempts, this one has been going problem-free. I hesitate to say that out loud, lest the knitting kobolds come out of the skeins and play havoc with my project. I am now into the decreases and have enough fabric made to warrant a photo or two. I have two, in fact. Here they are.

I had to pin it for the photo as the knitting is extremely curly. I have great faith that blocking will solve that issue. I think I am sufficiently satisfied with my progress that I can stop talking about this and just post photos when it’s done. Although, since the pattern calls for a separately-knitted upper edge attached via picked-up stitches and a three-needle bind-off, and I plan to do things differently, you might be seeing more of this camisole here before then.

Keep those kobolds at bay!