Broadbeans mk II

Home-made Christmas presents? Only one, and that was this: 

Recognise it? It's the broadbean scarf, mk II. Actually I've been calling this version the neighbour scarf. Because it's in devil-red, and the numbers to remember while knitting it were 667 (6 stitches join the beans together, the beans are 26 stitches long and 7 rows wide). 

You wouldn't believe how many comments I've had on the broadbeans - and a few requests, but it is quite boring to make, in all honesty, so I can't see myself making another one unless someone really reeeeeeeeeeeeeally wants one.  

I would have made more Christmas presents (despite what I've said about gifting hand-made things), but it turns out that I would have needed to think about it in about September, and I wasn't that organised. 

Adventures in 4-ply

For my next project, I'm using these:

The book is Vintage Knitwear for Modern Knitters, and the yarn is Angora 4-ply from Orkney. 

4 ply angora turns out to be easily broken and not so easily unravelled. Here is the beginning of my tension swatch: 

As the yarn had already broken twice by this point (and also it's a scarf, so tension isn't a massive issue) I decided to ditch the tension swatch and get stuck right in. 

Although it's actually a simple garter-stitch scarf with just a bit of shaping, it has been difficult! Partly self-inflicted, admittedly, as the pattern wanted me to use 3 needles and I didn't want to spend the £2.50 on a second pair of needles the same size, so I tried to do it using a stitch holder. 

Big mistake. 

Anyway, I invested the extra £2.50 and a lot of time (no really, a lot) unravelling, swearing and fixing and now the project is moving along nicely in the way it would have done if only I'd have done it properly in the first place. 

Knitted shoes!

OMG I just have to upload a picture of my amazing tiger shoes - they're knitted! And they've got whiskers and ears and everything! I love them so much it almost overrides the pain of walking in them... 

Polka dot dress success

Although all I've done for ages has been knitting, I have completed a few sewing projects too, and finally I can prove it! I made a polka dot dress in the summer but recently not only did I have the opportunity to wear it, I also remembered to take photos of me wearing it - well done me. 

Yes, I am a bit short in the legs so low-cut red court shoes would have looked better, but I haven't got any. And yes, I am desperately in need of a haircut. The skirt is two full circles, so it's very full (the hem of the skirt is 400 inches around, and the dress takes 7 yards of fabric). Looking at the photo now though I think it would look great with a petticoat, so I might make one.

Back view:

And the pattern it came from is this (copyright date 1957): 

If I made it again (and I'm tempted, because I have loved wearing it) I would consider putting pockets in the side seams of the skirt. Just for, y'know, lipstick. You can't not wear lipstick with a dress like this. It would be amazing in chiffon, though I know I won't be able to manage chiffon, but it's very wearable in cotton so I might do another version one day in a different print. 

Oh and these vintage patterns with gussets under the arms... they're an absolute bitch. 

Secret project: baby basketball jumper

I have made my first garment! I couldn't blog about it as I was going because it was a present and that would have blown it. But now I can unveil it - a baby jumper for Google Baby. Here it is, in pieces, in progress: 

It's a simple striped stocking-stitch jumper with a shoulder opening. Or rather, it should be simple. It actually took me three tries just to get past the 6 rows of ribbing at the beginning of the first panel. Once I got going it was pretty straightforward though, as there's hardly any shaping. I was really pleased with managing the ribbing around the neck, and with how fast I was making progress. 

Until I started sewing it all together. Here you can see where I've invisibly sewn my shoulder seam (looks good hey?) and my brilliant neckband. Note to self: finishing takes almost as long as making the garment in the first place. 

There were two panics involved in making this. I was very nervous about having enough of the dark blue yarn, and getting more and more nervous as I got nearer and nearer the end of the second sleeve. I decided to hold my nerve and just hope for the best, and the blue just about held out. You can see in the first picture that there was maybe a yard left over. 

The other big panic was that Google Baby has turned out to be a baby basketball player. The day after I finished the jumper, I talked to Google Mummy and she mentioned how he was too big for 6 - 9 months clothes. *Gulp* 

So I blocked it. 

Some knitters I know have told me how they don't block things as it flattens out the stitches and they don't like the effect it has. On the other hand, if your carefully hand-knitted baby jumper is too small, what can you do? Block it so that it's bigger by half a size, is what. 

Happily, word is that junior Michael Jordan does fit into the jumper (and he looks really cute in it too, if I do say so myself). Although with all I've found out about miracle-blocking, I don't know actually know what happens to a blocked garment when it gets washed. But at the rate he's growing, he'll only be able to wear it for the next two weeks anyway so it might not even need washing, ever. 

On circular needles

I've noticed that a lot of US knitting patterns seems to use circular needles. Like, a LOT. One of the things people seem to like about knitting garments in the round is that there's hardly any finishing involved - no side-seams to stitch up or anything. 

On the other hand, it kind of feels a bit cheaty to knit in the round to avoid finishing. I don't really know why. I just seem to have conceived a distate for circular-needle-knitting. It's mainly to do with not wanting to end up buying more and more equipment - circular needles don't only have a gauge but a length (they could be 40cm, 60cm, 80cm, 100cm) so you could end up with zillions of needles. This pattern for example wants two lengths of 3.5mm gauge needles. Or look at this tank top. It's great (although well beyond my capabilities - intarsia and fairisle? I don't think so) but uses two lengths of circular needles in the same gauge again, plus another one. And it's not even to avoid finishing, as front and back are separate pieces put together with side seams and shoulder seams. 

Either I will have to start buying more and more circular needles (which are an absolute bastard to store incidentally) or I will have to resign myself to not trying any of the really cool free patterns on US sites. 

What's wrong with straight needles anyway? 

Tube scarf

To go with the wristwarmers I eventually made a scarf, which I call the tube scarf for two reasons: firstly, a lot of it was knitted on the tube. Second, it is in stocking stitch, so it rolls itself up into a tube. This was a deliberate decision, as the wristwarmers are tubular themselves, and in stocking stitch. 

I wanted a long, skinny scarf that would be more decorative than warm. It started off like this: 

But this was obviously too short, so I carried it on for quite a bit longer, as you can see in this picture of the finished thing.

  

The finishing touch was a stretchy garter-stitch toggle to hold it together, decorated with crocheted flowers. It doesn't really show, but the flowers have 3 layers of petals, so are satisfyingly three-dimensional.  

Pixie hat

This funny little thing is a hat - I had two balls of Noro Spring Thaw which were reduced in John Lewis so I couldn't resist. It was made from 7 long oval panels, knitted using lots of increases and decreases. It took a bit of concentration, but was quite straightforward. Once I had seven panels, I seamed them on the inside with a crochet slip stitch, which was nice and simple, although I think I should maybe have seamed it on the outside side with double crochet in a contrast colour, which would have made more of the panel construction. 

When I finally tried on the finished item, I realised the panels were too short and it made for a very strange, skull-cap kind of fit. I did knit a tension gauge swatch, but didn't really take a lot of notice of the results. There's a lesson in that, probably. Anyway, to make it a bit longer I crocheted a double-triple border all around the edge, which improves things, but I still don't actually like it that much. I'd rip it out, except that I'll end up with 8 short bits of yarn, which isn't very inspiring. A bit of a waste of one and a quarter balls of bargain Noro, all in all. 

Future projects

Things that I would like to learn to do in knitting: 

Lacy knitting:

Cables:

Entrelac:

I haven't even completed a garment yet, so I don't think I'll be doing any of these things soon, and besides which I'm working on a secret project at the moment, so everything else will just have to join the queue.

Inspiration

Here are a couple of things I've found to be really inspirational recently. 

The great thing about blogs is that someone somewhere is doing something you'd never imagined. This selvedge project is amazing. God knows how long she has been hoarding selvedges for. I usually throw mine away (although apparently they're very good for waist stays as they don't give or stretch). Not only has she collected them all up, not only has she done something with them, but she's done something amazing with them. Kudos. 

Secondly, this is from December 2008 Livingetc. Apparently designer Natalia Pepe knitted wool flowers and stitched them onto a wool base. From what I can see of the flowers in the photo they look crocheted to me, but still, that's a quibble. Available to snap up for a mere £3,900. I've no idea what size it is, but for four grand I want it to be big. Very big. 

What I love about this is that it could be a fantastic way of using up bits and pieces of your yarn stash. The flowers are simple 5-petal single-layered things. It could take forever to get this many flowers together, but each flower would be the work of a few spare moments on the tube. At the very least it has inspired me not to throw away the little scraps at the end of a project. 

The season of Christmas presents

The thing about any hand-made item is that it's slow, and often painstaking, to create. That is one of the joys of them, of course, and why they're expensive to buy, and risky to make for other people, who might fail to appreciate the time and effort that went into them. 

In this season of shopping (what do you mean, Christmas has a religious meaning?), I can't help thinking I would prefer to make things for people than buy things. Why buy an anonymous chain-store piece of mass-production when you can make something personal and unique? I'm sure that the people who I would make for would appreciate the time and effort, but there's still the possibility that the recipient mightn't like the gift. A shop-bought scarf in the wrong colour can go on ebay or to the charity shop with hardly a pang of conscience. A hand-knitted £7-a-ball silk-mohair creation, well it's probably got little charity shop value, certainly won't sell on ebay and if I ever found out it was unwanted I would be gutted. 

I've got one or two ideas on Christmas presents, but I'm still undecided on whether to go ahead or not. Hopefully if people don't like them they'll learn to be good actors, quickly. 

Learn mattress stitch. Really.

So I got a new acrylic cheapo yarn in the pound shop, this time at £2.50 a ball. (I know, a bit of an investment.) 

And as the weather has turned autumnal I decided to use it for long wristwarmers. Didn't take long - a couple of evenings each hand. This is the result, and I like them. I shaped them into the wrist slightly with k2tog, and then out again for the hand a bit with m1, so they fit quite snugly. 

In fact today I finished them,  and in order to wear them for the first time - to the supermarket - I went and changed three times to find an outfit that worked around the slightly garish pink shade. (Usually it only takes me two changes of clothes to decide what to wear to Sainsbury's (one in the case of Tesco's))

I'm getting ahead of myself a little bit, because first I spent a an hour finishing them this morning (whilst watching Antiques Roadshow). There's a reason it took so long. Unfortunately I decided to put into practice this fabled 'mattress stitch' for the seam. The reason this was unfortunate was that I only decided to use it when I got to the second one, not the first. 

Once I had done this mattress stitch seam I realised what everyone had been going on about. Turns out that it's makes a really neat almost-invisible seam. As you can see at the top of this picture. Compare with the bottom, which is the hand I finished first, with just an any-old-sewn-up-seam. Oops. 

Obviously I then had to unpick the first crappy seam and re-do it properly with mattress stitch. Eventually I had a pair, both neatly seamed with mattress stitch. Nice. 

Moral of the story: believe what all the books and websites say about mattress stitch. It really is easy, and it really is worth learning. And a good finish really does make all the difference to a project. 

Now I just need to decide whether to go for a matching hat or a matching scarf. 

End of a WIP

For the sake of closure, here's a photo of the WIP I posted about in September here. You can just about see that it's now scalloped down both sides. 

I'm pleased with it, but haven't worn it yet. I also made a blue one while I was away, in a sweet merino/cashmere mix. It's a colour I'll never ever wear so if anyone wants it, they can have it. I've now made this scarf twice, and while it's super-easy and ideal for a single ball of yarn from the remnant bin, I'm bored of it and in need of a new single-ball-project.  

Incidentally, starting a new yarn was easier than falling off a bike.  

Red fishing nets

So, back from holiday, where I learnt to crochet properly on the plane on the way out. I actually completed a few little things while I was away, which I'll probably post at some point when I've got my holiday photos sorted out. 

For the moment just a quick photo of my most recently finished project - red fishing nets. 

Started messing around with a v-stitch on the plane back from Hong Kong and have completed these three little pieces, all the same width but of different lengths.

    

I'm thinking that I'll use them to make a scarf, spaced out with some blocks of knitting of the same width in a different colour. Whether that's likely ever to happen, I'll leave you to judge. 

Bye bye, little woollies

The little woolly innocent hats being sent off into the wide world.

Finally, something useful!

From Mazz's pattern in The Guardian's Rebel Knitter's Guide.

You know Mazz... the one who made the knitted adipose monsters, which the Beeb then went out-of-proportion mental about.

Anyway, I modified it because I was pretty sure my ball of yarn was shorter than her pattern, so I added in a stripe of different yarn. The orange crochet flower is courtesy of Nancia, and was useful to cover up the mysterious hole that keeps appearing every now and then in my knitting.

As it's in garter stitch, it's a small bag that stretches out ma-hoo-sive and is therefore perfect for shopping for things like onions, apples and asparagus. Not so good for Cadbury's Chocolate Fingers as the box sticks out funny and it's really obvious that you've been and bought junk food.

A crochet WIP

My crochet is really really basic at the moment. I'm planning to smuggle a crochet needle and ball of yarn onto the aircraft to Australia in order to spend 24 sleepless, uncomfortable hours upgrading my capabilities, but this is where I've got to so far.

This is a scarf, and the scallop will go down both sides when it's finished. It's pretty easy as it's all double crochet (UK treble crochet) stitches, 3 rows straight and then the same stitch in the scallop pattern. Unfortunately the yarn broke, and as I haven't learnt how to start a new ball I'm a bit stuck. Once I've restarted there's only about another half-an-hour's work in it, so there's no good excuse really.

More on piping

Just so that I'd get good value for money out of the new piping foot (which cost £9!) I've also bought this pattern. Again it's a bit summery to make at the moment... what I need is a cardigan.

A work in progress

I thought I'd list a WIP so that I've got something to put under the sewing tag and maybe to encourage me to get on with it. This dress is in an orangey-red linen and has orange piping. I started it when it was warm and sunny, and now it's cold and rainy I'm not very inclined to finish it. It's my first go at piping, and the piping isn't brilliant, but I didn't have a piping foot so I used a zipper foot.

Annoyingly I was 10cm short of piping, but when I went to get more I bought a piping foot, so maybe the rest of it will be better. I'll try to get it finished when I get back from my holiday, otherwise I think it might be a work-in-progress for another 6 months, until Spring!

It's from this pattern, view 3 (blue polka dots) but I'm going to add the pockets from view 2.

In the meantime...

The laptop cover is nearly finished, but I'm waiting to get hold of a crochet needle so that I can close the edges. In the meantime, here are photos of the much-hyped bikini. It's fantastic!

I have to admit to no intention of wearing it. Apart from anything, I've no idea how the yarn would react in water. Experienced knitted-swimwear wearer Jennifer tells me that sagginess is certain.

The strings are simply crochet chains, and the triangles are single-crocheted onto the chain. This was before I learnt how to crochet though so there's a twist at the bottom of one of the triangles. Since I'm not wearing it though, no need to do-over. Result!

First ever project

I'm posting pictures of this, my first ever project, for the sake of posterity. Using three balls of chunky yarn from the remnant bin in John Lewis (I can't remember what it was but it had cashmere in it and is lovely and soft) I knitted a scarf in single rib, with some random thick needles that I think might be 7.5mm.

Although the yarn is great, in single rib it was very dense. It also didn't go as long as I wanted because it was a rib, and shrunk up together. And finally, I made a few mistakes - adding and losing stitches so it got wider, as well as totally bodging up starting a new ball. Twice.

Anyway, past tense because I've ripped it down and re-used the yarn for a new project. I decided the density of the single rib in this yarn was ideal protection for a laptop, so I've started a laptop cover.

Aufwiedersehn!

Broadbean scarf

The broadbean scarf has received rave reviews, both from the optician this morning and the woman in the pound shop this afternoon, so I think it's safe to say that it's officially A Success.

I ought to point out that it wasn't originally intended to look like broad beans, but I'm happy with the way it has turned out.

All the casting on and casting off meant that it took the longest time to make. Although I speeded up as I got better at this knitting thing, each bean took about 1 hour at the beginning, reduced to perhaps 40 mins per bean at the end.

On the other hand, skinny £1-a-ball acrylic yarn goes a long way, so you can see how long the scarf is, from a single ball.

Finished Cost:
yarn - £1
4mm needles - £1.50
time - 54 beans @ 45 mins each - 40 hours (ouch, next time remind me not to do that calculation)

Charity smoothie hat knit

Whilst feeding my Crafty Crafty habit I read about the Innocent Smoothie 'Big Knit 2008' and immediately spotted a way to make myself feel virtuous for almost no effort. Besides, the knitted bikini is finished, I've still got tons of £1-a-ball yarn left, it's raining and Brief Encounter is on the TV.

First try was this:
I'm really quite pleased with it, despite a couple of failings. I read the pattern wrong - instead of going left-to-right then right-to-left on alternate rows, I went right-to-left on all the rows, which is why the seeds aren't offset enough. Not disastrous, but stupid. Oh and some of the seed stitches are quite ugly, possibly because of the tension. I think the i-cord stalk is a success, and I like the technique, although it would be better on double-ended needles instead of transferring the stitches from the right needle to the left.

I liked the technique so much that I used it again for my 2nd try:
This has a lot less stretch, I think because of the colour change. And if you look carefully you can see where I started decreasing with k2tog and forgot to think about the colour changes, so the stripes stop spiralling upwards. Minor issue though.

And the third (this is my fave) in plain stocking stitch and embroidery:









My last go was a standard beanie, with stripes of moss stitch. It's like a miniature real-life beanie, and I think it would be really good pattern for a man's hat. Maybe not in red acrylic yarn.