Stockinette Stretch

As a new knitter, I leaned heavily toward projects that allowed me to try out new and fancy stitches (lots of scarves!).  I also felt a strong wish to give a hand-knitted gift to each of my immediate family and any others who even hinted that they’d be interested (that’s where all the scarves went!).  I”m now starting to make things for myself and it seems I’m now moving toward a different kind of learning.

First, a long stretch of stockinette in the round may help me to develop consistent tension.  And at the same time, it’s a personal tension-reducer!  Many others have made the comparison between knitting and meditation; that’s most apparent to me with this kind of knitting.  Later in this project: flat stockinette.  It could be slow going: since my purl knitting is pretty loose, I will be tugging after each stitch.  Sigh.

Second, knitting garments means real attention must be paid to shaping and sizing.  It’s not as “sexy” as producing a fancy lace or cable, but I think it’s the next stage in the learning process … and maybe the kind of knowledge that makes the transition from “new” to “experienced”?  I will have to change my header, ha ha ha!

Here’s the Soleil:

I may thread on a second circular needle and try it on soon …

Lacey Days

The Soleil cotton camisole (shell, tank, top) is knitting up quickly.  I have finished the lace border and have begun the body.

Since I am long-waisted, I followed the recommendation of many other knitters at Ravelry and added an extra iteration of the lace pattern.  (I like lace anyway, so more is good!)  I also measured another top of acceptable length.  Yes, the extra inch of pattern should put this one in the same ballpark.  I was wondering if it was going to to be wide enough, but the directions call for increasing by 20 stitches right after the lace is completed.  I get it, the lace is supposed to hug a little extra.  It will show off the pattern better that way!  I’m still mildly concerned about the size, but not enough to stop, ha ha!

Cast on for Summer!

It was a low-key Fourth of July weekend with family visiting.  We talked, listened to birdsong and went for a couple of walks in scenic places (a beautiful garden and a shop-lined street).   The only knitting I did was a test swatch for the Green Soleil, a project I decided on last week.

The gauge is a tiny bit looser than that in the pattern, but this is a two-sided swatch and the project will be knit in the round.  You can see from this picture that my purl and knit rows aren’t all that well-matched.  Knitting in the round will eliminate the purl rows, so there!  I decided to use metal needles too.  In my experience with socks, I have found that I knit a little more firmly with metal.  That’s enough information to go ahead with the project, I think. 

This yarn,  Patons Grace in the “Ginger” colorway, is a mercerized cotton.  I like it a lot, although I haven’t completed any projects with it!  I bought a skein of the “Azure” colorway long ago and knit a swatch of lace with it.  It was so pretty that I used it for the background of my blog header.   I also went out and bought 11 more skeins without even having a project in mind.  My stash consists of 6 skeins of the “Ginger” colorway, 3 of the “Azure” and 3 of “Spearmint” (a variegated colorway that matches the others).  I struggled to find a project that would suit the yarn and the colors and started a cardigan last summer.  It turns out that I didn’t want stripes.   On Thursday, I converted that UFO back to yarn and started the swatch for this new project. 

On the afternoon of the holiday, my sister-in-law pulled her easel and some canvases out of her car and offered to paint some portraits.  She painted me and my other sister-in-law before the day’s light gave out.  Hey, if I was going to be sitting for a while … might as well knit!  So the beginning of this project is captured in paint.  Dorothy took a better picture and will probably comment on it in her Daily Painting Journal, check it out!

Not finished, but lookin’ good!

Both heels are finished, wheee!   Now, it’s just a matter of knitting until I run out of yarn.  Well, until I run out of yarn and both socks are more or less the same length!

The original pattern doesn’t have a cuff.  That makes sense, cuz the stitch pattern is essentially a 2 x 2 rib.  But an inch or so of cuff might be nice.  Row 8 and row 16 of the pattern are plain 2 x 2, so it could start at either point.  Let’s see what happens …

Old News!

Oh, boy! I’ve been busier than a one-armed paper hanger!  (That’s how it goes, right?)  I spent the month of May taking in more info than I could possibly absorb about teaching English as a Second Language, thanks to an excellent training course at the Lado International College.   I can’t say enough good things about this course and the three trainers there!  In fact, it’s not over … I’m still working on the post-course requirements (a final exam and other work) which are all due at the end of this month.  Needless to say, this has put a major damper on my knitting …

As noted a few days ago, I did finish the lovely and easy cotton wrap and I’ve already worn it several times.  (It helps that the weather has been dreary and damp!)  I also completed a cotton belt that I had begun last summer.  Sheez, it only took a day or so to finish it.  I don’t know what was taking so long!  Here’s a pic:

I have now resumed the Vinnland socks.  What a drama they have turned out to be!  They were supposed to be a quick interim project … squeezed in before I got earnest about Christmas knitting last year.  I started them last August.  Yes, that’s right: August.  Oy.

I LOVE the Vinnland sock pattern!  I LOVE the yarn!  But it seems that the short row heel was simply not going to work for me.  And the attempts I made to correct the fit just didn’t do it.  I like to knit two socks in parallel (on two sets of needles) and so I tried two variations of the short row heels (one on each sock).  No dice.   I ripped one of those back and went to a tried-and-true heel pattern: the AWESOME  Toe-up Socks with a Difference by Wendy Johnson.  I used it on my Prism Socks and they fit really well.

My poor Vinnlands have been sitting there waiting for me to return to them for months … Last night, I got them out and I could hardly remember what was what!  But it only took a little while to get back into the swing of things.  A bit of knitting last night, a bit of knitting on the train to and from Philly today, and (yay!) I have completed a heel with the new pattern and tried it on: yessss!  It fits most excellently.   This evening I ripped out the other heel and there should be a lovely new one sometime over the next week.

There is that pesky exam to finish, however … !