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!

Pink Sundae Camisole: an adventure

Many years back I bought the book Sensual Knits by Yahaira Ferreira. Of course, it wasn’t that simple. Let’s try this again, shall we?

Many years back, I was in Fabricville in Sherbrooke with my daughter and I saw a knitting book for sale with the most amazing garments in it. I needed to buy it. It was a French translation of the above-mentioned book, Tricot tendance, but I figured my grasp of that language was good enough that I could figure it out. I was wrong. The language of French knitting is obtuse, indecipherable and non-intuitive. The token francophone in my knitting group prefers English patterns because they are so much easier to read. As a result, Tricot tendance was cracked open only so that I could admire the patterns I figured I would never knit.

Fast forward a couple of years when I was visiting my daughter in Toronto. We made a trip to the Purple Purl and on a whim I asked the store clerk if she had Sensual Knits by Yahaira Ferreira. She did not, but she could order it and mail it to me in Quebec. So I plunked down my debit card and not too long after got my very own copy and gave Tricot tendance to my daughter, whose French really is much better than mine. The first pattern I attempted was “Lily-of-the-Valley Opera Gloves” by Olga Buraya-Kefelian. I had knitted one all the way to the wrist when I found the on-line errata for the bobbles, so I ripped back to the cuff and redid it. They turned out quite nice and I wore them for the premiere of my husband’s opera. They are opera gloves, after all.

I was on holiday in the Caribbean at the time, hence the shorts and sandals. That jade bracelet met an untimely end on that trip when it fell on one of those polished stone floors and shattered. I was quite devastated.

Recently I purchased way too much yarn from KnitPicks during one of their sales, including four different colourways of Diadem fingering. It’s a problematic yarn: gorgeous in the skein, but not so great once you get down to working with it. It’s soft and silky (50% baby alpaca-50% silk) but has barely any twist to it and fuzzes terribly. My first attempt at winding some off the swift into a cake resulted in a horrible tangle that took me an hour or more to tease apart. The fingerless mitts I knit with it lost all their sheen after they’d been washed and blocked, and stretched so much that I had to undo the ends and make them smaller. So I figured that Diadem would be more suited to something else, and hit upon the “Pink Sundae Camisole” by Angel. It’s been in my Ravelry queue for a long time, just waiting for the perfect yarn to come along.

 

My first attempt at joining in the round resulted in a möbius strip. As a result, I started again by knitting five rows and joining for the picot round. Five rounds later I rescued the live stitches from the provisional cast-on and made a nice finished picot edge. Then my problems began in earnest.

I have a very bad habit of not reading patterns correctly. I blame this on a) impatience, b) presbyopia, and c) the steps not being itemized so that you can’t miss one. I saw the bit about knitting in stockinette for an inch, so I did that. Just as I was nearing the end, I looked at the picture and saw the lace at the bottom. Oops! Back I frogged to the edge join. Then I dutifully followed the directions: *k2tog yo* every other round twice. When I got to the first knit round, I realized I had too many stitches. It wasn’t even a manageable number. So, back we went to the edge join.

Because of my experience with the first ball of Diadem I wound, I was very careful to wind my unravelled yarn onto an empty toilet paper roll. I’m glad I did.

Very carefully, I reknit the lace round. This time I was missing two stitches. I figured I could live with that. After the second round of eyelets, I made a kfb into one yo at each side, bringing me back to the right number of stitches. Suddenly it looked huge. I see from the picture that it fits over the model’s hips, and I’m making the medium size, which is what’s shown in the photo. So it should work, right?

Tune in, folks, for the further adventures of the Pink Sundae Camisole.

The Ladies’ Field Trip - or - More Grist for the Mill (where “grist” means fleece)

Ever since I discovered qiviut, I wanted to knit with it. First there was a handkerchief-sized piece of knitted lace in a yarn shop in Picton, Ontario about five years ago: I picked it up and let it fall and it just floated back to the counter. It was the lightest, softest wool I had ever experienced. The shop owner was very happy to tell me about the yarn and would have been even happier to sell me some, but it was prohibitively expensive and only available in tiny quantities. So I passed.

Qiviut and I did not cross paths again until the 2013 Toronto Knitters Frolic where I overcame my frugality and bought a skein. It was enough to knit a pair of wrist warmers with a tiny ball left over, enough probably for a handkerchief.

 

They are so soft and warm—I feel like I have kittens on my wrists.

Imagine my delight when I discovered that the home of Magic Tundra Qiviut is a drive of just over an hour away, in Adstock, Quebec, near the formerly bustling metropolis of Thetford Mines, home of the largest open-pit asbestos mine in the world. I tried in vain to organize an outing during the summer when my daughter was visiting, but I persevered and finally, last Monday, several of the members of The Knitters of Lennoxville hopped into a van and made the trip.

We had perfect weather for an outing. Most of the deciduous trees had lost their leaves, but the larches stood out golden against the dark green of their cousin conifers as we drove through some of the most beautiful scenery in the Eastern Townships. The GPS failed us at the end of our journey, instructing us to turn left on Rang 14. We realized the error as house numbers got bigger instead of smaller; so turned around, finally pulling in at a farmhouse with a large barn in behind. The daughter of the house was outside when we arrived and notified her parents that they had visitors.

We were greeted by Lorraine and her husband Gilbert, names that work equally well in either English or French (they are respectively one and the other) who took time out of their busy work day to show us the entirety of their milling operation. Gilbert also told me the story of how they became the successful business they are today: a story of serendipity and perseverance.

In 1967, a small number of musk oxen were introduced to Old Fort Chimo in northern Quebec where none previously existed. The operation involved several biologists and a vet and lasted for a dozen years or so while the herd increased in number. The biologists lovingly cared for the animals and brushed their great hairy coats often, saving the soft, downy under fur in garbage bags until there was a warehouse full of them. In 1980 the herd was released into the wild and has continued to thrive, now providing a major source of hunting and food for the Inuit of Kuujjuaq.

In the meantime, our friends Lorraine and Gilbert had started a mill to make angora yarn from angora rabbits. They weren’t doing very well and at a certain point the bank refused to refinance them. They were looking bankruptcy in the face, the prospect of selling their farm and moving to a city where they could find jobs to support themselves and their children, when the question of what to do with all this musk ox fleece came up. Gilbert jumped at the opportunity, buying it all and going about learning how to mill qiviut. The timing couldn’t have been better. The couple suddenly experienced a renewal in their business, the bank was willing to lend them more money, and this allowed them to survive the recession that hit a few years later. Once the bags of brushed fleece ran out, Gilbert made a deal with the Inuit, trading necessary goods (rifles, ammunition, canned goods, etc.) for the raw skins from musk oxen killed for food. It has proven to be an excellent association.

Gilbert showed us a skin he was in the process of shearing. The underfur is very dense, but the individual hairs are extremely fine. He shears huge chunks of fur off and lets it dry before Lorraine washes it in fabric bags in a regular agitator machine.

Once dry, the coarse guard hairs are separated from the soft fleece. This is done by hand and Gilbert and Lorraine employ their own kids plus the neighbour’s daughter for this task. They are paid by the bagful of cleaned fleece.

The carded fleece then goes through a motorized drum carder where it is further cleaned and/or combined with other fibres. Here is the conveyor belt with a 50/50 blend of qiviut and cashmere fleeces ready to be turned into roving.

The belt moves along very slowly and a soft bat comes out the other end. Gilbert gathers it up and sends it down a hole to collect as a rope of roving in a bucket.

There is another machine where four ropes of roving are blended together, producing a thoroughly homogenous fleece before it can be sent through the spinning machine and made into thread. The thread will later be plied and dyed and turned into salable yarn. Working by themselves, seven days a week, Gilbert says they produce about a kilo of finished qiviut in a month.

Lorraine has several knitting machines and programmes them to make sweaters, blankets and other large items. The only handknits are mittens and gloves, which she hires contract knitters to make. Here is one finished blanket from 100% qiviut, approximate cost $400 CAD.

Not really set up to sell from home, Lorraine nonetheless had a bit of inventory on hand for us to choose from. I ended up buying some 100% qiviut in a worsted weight, a 50-50 blend of qiviut with merino in a 2-ply lace, and a luxurious fingering called Queen: 70% merino-10% qiviut-10% cashmere-10% silk. I have no idea what I’ll make with these beautiful additions to my stash; I may just tuck them in the collar of my shirt to feel them next to my cheek for a while.

One of my fellow knitters asked me if the field trip had turned out as I had expected. I would have to say it was better. Not only did I get to indulge my yarn habit, but I am now friends with two wonderful people whom I would love to know better. The qiviut is just frosting.

* * * * * * * *

Thank you Philippa for the photos. You can find out more about qiviut and Cottage Craft Angora at their website: http://cottagecraftangora.com/

Too many shawls

A couple of weeks ago I finally folded and put away the shawls that have been lying on my ironing board. It necessitated emptying a bottom drawer in my dresser, getting rid of things that have accumulated there over time, folding and putting the various wraps and stoles I possess neatly away. The drawer is full. There are shawls I have knitted, a shawl I crocheted, two near-identical white lace shawls (one I bought, one my mother-in-law gave me), silk wraps I purchased from Burmese fundraisers, pashminas bought at the Montreal bus station and two gorgeous stoles bought in New York from the Metropolitan Museum on separate occasions (one painted silk, one a pashmina). There is even a black satin stole from a Montreal airport store. I have probably missed a few. The point is, I have way too many shawls. I can’t wear them all, and yet I keep knitting them. The most recently completed FO of this genre was undertaken for a MKAL on Ravelry: Rapt for the Holidays (Holiday MKAL 2014) by Heather Anderson.

I’ve been trying to figure out what the appeal of MKALs is. I haven’t yet, so that’ll be a discussion for a future time. In the meanwhile, I should talk about the shawl that is now in a zip-lock plastic bag awaiting a decision on its fate. I had bought a skein of Marine Silk-Lace from Blue Moon Fiber Arts at the Toronto Knitters Frolic last spring which was the right weight (lace and 100 gm) for the undertaking. I went to a local jewelry supply store and purchased way too many beads. I was prepared!

Heather leaked the clues one chart at a time. First the beginning of a semi-circle following Elizabeth Zimmerman’s π formula in stockinette; then a chart of snowflakes, then a chart of lace candy canes. Aware that not everyone would want to make a garment too obviously reminiscent of Christmas, she included an alternate second chart which more people chose to knit, even though it was untested. I am included in that group. Then there was another chart of snowflakes, followed by a chart of wreaths, a final sprinkling of snowflakes, and a row of fir trees. People posted photos of their FOs before I was even close to the last bit, and I determined that the trees looked a little squat; so I added another set of branches. There was a beaded eyelet edging, and a choice of blocking it with points or not. I chose points. Here is my FO with the pins.

After I photographed it, I repinned the edge to redistribute the points. I’m much happier with the finished result.

Now. What do I do with it?

When love hurts.

I love to knit. You who read this probably love to knit. Why else would you read a knitting blog? But sometimes the things we love most can be bad for us. They say that if you are suffering from gastric distress or an allergic reaction or something along those lines to look to your favourite food for the culprit. This is so often the case. My brother was diagnosed with lactose intolerance. Milk was his favourite food. My daughter loves eggplant but some day it might actually kill her. Some people who love bread and other bakery products end up being diagnosed with celiac disease or wheat allergies. They have to make dietary sacrifices to maintain their good health.

I have no such issues. Well, not exactly true that, since I am also, like my daughter, allergic to eggplant. However, unlike her, I despise it, so avoiding it is not an issue. What I do like to do is knit, and presently I am experiencing pain in my left elbow which I have self-diagnosed as tendonitis caused by indulging in my preferred activity. I have one project in particular to blame for this condition, a shawl I volunteered to test knit.

I saw the call for knitters in The Testing Pool on Ravelry and liked the photograph of the designer’s FO. It’s a crescent shawl, extremely lacy with beads strategically placed, and I was sucked in like a paper boat in a whirlpool. I soon found out that one of my knitting buddies had also signed up for the test, so we had a lot of notes to compare as we went along. The designer had left the pattern extremely open ended, allowing for lace right from the get-go, or for varying depths of stockinette stitch before embarking on the lace. There was also no stipulation for the number of repeats of the charted pattern; again that was left up to preference. The lace edging was easy to lengthen as desired, being only two rows that repeated until one felt it was time to bind off. I’m much happier with specific directions, especially in a test knit, but I embarked willingly enough on this project. For yarn I cast on with Manos del Uruguay lace in a lovely variegated blue and used No. 8 clear beads with silver centres.

It did not take me long to find issues with the pattern. There were the usual typos one discovers, but my main problems were with the lace charts and I took some issue with the designer because she was not only slow to understand my notes, but also defensive. As I may have mentioned in this blog at some other time, patterns are all about the completed FO. The instructions must be clear and easy enough for the stupidest of people to understand. The best patterns are ones which tell you exactly what to do without a lot of written-out explanations. We don’t want to read; we want to knit!

If I may digress for a moment, those same directions were given to me when I was learning choral conducting. The conductor must know the music well and be able to relay to the choir (or orchestra or band) what he wants through hand gestures only. If he has to explain it, then you know that he’s not a very good conductor. The musicians/singers don’t need to know any of the philosophy or background of the piece; they just need to have a good  director directing them and a well-written score. The choir/orchestra/band has often been compared to the conductor’s instrument, in the same way that the violin is an instrument. You don’t tell your violin what you want it to do; you just play it. The same thing stands for the conductor. He must play his instrument and do it without it being concerned about anything but what he has them do.

So, back to the knitting: I cast on, knit the 36 or so rows required for the depth of stockinette I was aiming for, then started the lace chart. The designer had provided both charts and directions. The latter were clearly written and laid out in the order of tasks performed. The charts were another story. There were four of them: a) the optional stockinette section; b) main lace repeats; c) transition lace section; and d) edging. The first problem was super evident: she had placed them on the page with the first chart at the bottom and the last chart at the top so that they lined up top of one to bottom of next. Even as I type this I am still amazed at the stupidity of this arrangement. As I told the designer, we read patterns from the top of the page down; especially if we are using a computer or tablet where we must scroll to the next page. If you turn the page and start looking for Chart 1 and instead see Chart 4 at the top, you are immediately confused. I explained to her that I understood her aesthetic reason for placing the charts as she had, but a pattern is not a work of art; the finished knitted garment is the ultimate goal. One must make sacrifices at times.

The next issue—which actually caused me some real grief—was the chart for the edging. She did not show the WS rows in it, but had illustrated three RS rows. Her brief description called it a two-row chart to be repeated ad libitum with a knitted bind-off on the WS. I saw three rows, the first one labelled with a 1, and the others left unnumbered. The first row showed the edge increases, the other two did not. So I knit my first RS row according to the chart, then knit the identical thing for the WS without the edge increases. When I got to the end I thought to myself, “This looks terrible,” and read her written instructions for the edging. They made perfect sense. The chart was horribly wrong. I had to tink that entire row, and then purl a proper WS (with edge increases) before I could continue. When I brought this up to the designer, she simply couldn’t comprehend what was not to understand. She even asked me if the chart was understandable once I read the instructions, and I said, no, the instructions pointed out how glaringly wrong the chart was. My friend got in the act and helped me out, but it took a lot of correspondence in the thread before she realized that she should remove the two bad rows from the chart and reword the label.

The final problem was the knitted bind-off. I used a 8-mm needle for it and it was still too tight to block out points in the finished shawl. The designer should have specified a Russian or other lace bind-off. Since it was a test, I completed it as instructed. If it had not been a test, I would definitely have used a different bind-off.

Nonetheless, the FO is very pretty. I was not all that keen on her method of shaping the lace, but it was still effective and I like the beads. Here it is draped over the armchair in my living room:

I got one of my knitting group ladies to model it (and another to photograph it with her phone since I’d forgotten my camera) and it looks so nice on her, that I think I will gift it to her this upcoming holiday season.

I will never test for this designer again. It simply wasn’t fun and I believe I was tense the whole time, thus causing my elbow to develop tendonitis. But I’m still knitting. There will be more updates on FOs shortly.