Going around in circles

More on the adult circular sweater. It's been occupying my knit time of late. I spent many hours (days) knitting with the worsted weight wool using my Brother KX350. Actually knit the whole circle, which involved a lot of transfers and much patience, 12 wedges. When I got done, I hated it for a couple of reasons. The thing ended up to weigh a lot and I didn't even have the sleeves knit or attached yet. Was thinking I'd have to consider it a winter jacket, which was never my vision. Also, although the yarn was gorgeous on the skein, and ok on the swatch, I didn't like it at all when knit in wedges.

Why didn't I quit before finishing the whole circle, you ask? Very good question. I guess I thought the colors would grow on me and the weight wouldn't seem so impressive off the machine. The more time I invested, the more I hated to give it up. But, after sleeping on it a couple of nights, I decided to start over on my standard gauge machine. It makes beautiful, more intricate lace without eye- popping- brain numbing- hand transfers and the weight of the garment wouldn't be an issue.

I have some beautiful Forsell 100% Pure New Wool that knits up so nicely. Swatched a little, tried some different lace patterns for a border, and off I went. I had the opportunity to have dinner with Mary Anne last weekend and got some advice on finishing the thing. It's going to have cut and sew armholes for the sleeves. She suggested cutting an identical sized circle out of muslin or other throw-away fabric, as she did for the cover garment a couple of issues ago, and snipping into that for armholes. Using that method I can hopefully get the sleeve placement right. I think I have an old sheet I used to use to cover the garden to protect from frost--can use that. I would hate to cut into my hard earned knitting and make a mistake after all that. If they could move Thunder Bay to Minneapolis, I'd be one happy camper.

I still need to knit the scallops and haven't decided which color to use. Have knit a couple of trial runs that I can easily rip out. Am debating between white, blood red and a brown (not pictured). I'm pleased that this scallop makes the edge behave without curling. If this masterpiece turns out, I'm hoping MA will publish it. We'll see! Any preference for color?

Going Green

I was on a rescue mission a couple of months ago. I bought $37 worth of 100% wool sweaters at the local Goodwill and made tons of things from them. I made 5 scarves, 2 pairs of mittens, oven mitts, slippers, some tiny teddy bears and a child's coat. The one I'm probably most proud of is a felted coat for my great niece. The sweater originally was a good quality women's size small zippered hoodie. I removed the zipper and the knitted facing it was sewn to. When I felted it, it turned out to be a perfect size 3 T. It had some ribbing texture that didn't felt as thoroughly as the plain knit, so I had some adjusting to do on the hood. I had hoped to be able to fold back the edge of the hood to make a casing but the hood had no ribbing on it so it felted more than I wanted it to. I was able to sew the zipper facing onto the hood to make the casing, inserted some elastic, and the hood stayed the size it should be. With some extra, I made faux ties to hang down. It's kind of an unusual color!


I embroidered some flowers---supposed to look like Edleweiss--- and hearts down the fronts and attached Norwegian clasps for the front closure. (I own a dandy BabyLock embroidery machine that is really fun to use.) Another interesting phenom was that the sleeves didn't felt at the same rate as the body either. So, I had to cut off some of the gorilla length and hide a joining seam under the cuff. All in all, it was a good exercise. Yesterday was the first time I was able to try it on the recipient. My niece adopted Annie from Ethiopia when she was a small baby. Annie is an incredible child---beautiful, smart, cuddly, athletic. My niece thinks that Ethiopians have a "happy gene". She does, anyway.




So, I recommend you give this sweater rescue idea a try. In the upcoming Knitwords fall issue, I wrote an article on how to go green with our craft. I'm not the best at this idea, but am at least starting to consider the impact on the environment when I'm making some knitting choices.

Men's Garter Carriage Scarf

I was taking a break from knitting this morning and browsing through the patterns I have done to date. I found this nice scarf that I could offer as a free download for you. Unfortunately, you need to have DesignaKnit and a garter carriage to knit it. I suppose a really determined person could knit this by hand, but it sounds really taxing. I made it as a gift for a friend last Christmas shortly after I purchased my garter carriage. I love that turtle! Don't use it all the time, because I figure it has a limited number of stitches in its lifetime. Makes great patterns. You'll need the .pat file for DesignaKnit. Email me and I'll send you the DAK file.

Women's Circular Sweater

I've been stewing over my adult-sized circular sweater to knit on the midgauge. I think I have my lace figured out, bought some yarn I like and have done some swatching. I'm thinking I'll make one wedge 1/2 the total diameter of the sweater, plus some ease, plus enough to overlap in the front. It's different thinking "circularly".
Can't get enough of my blooming hibiscus. Trying my macro setting on my camera and am getting slightly better results. I think I'm focusing on the stamen, but the absolute clear focus seems to lie a little behind. Click on the picture and I think you'll see what I mean. Tricky! I love the pictures anyway, even if they aren't going to win any contest.
Hope you have a nice weekend.

Perfect Pom Poms

I was paging through Ravelry this morning (is "paging" the right word?) and came upon a beautifully knit Norwegian hat with a crummy pom pom. It occurred to me that I could post directions on how to make a good one. I hope my directions are clear. It really does make a perfect one. If you click on the picture, you'll get an enlarged view that you can print out.

We are supposed to get storms today, but so far it's sunny and warm. The more sophisticated the weather forecasting technology, the less accurate....
Like so many places, they say, "If you don't like the weather, wait a minute."

Working on a felted purse. Will reserve judgment for a bit and if it turns out I'll share.

Heavenly Hibiscus

My hibiscus has just started blooming. It's really spectacular and there are lots of blooms waiting back stage. Each blossom is 8-9" in diameter. It is supposed to be hardy in zone 4 (my zone), but I planted it in a really protected place on the west side of the house to give it a little edge. Wouldn't Georgia O'Keefe have loved this blossom? Almost makes you want to crawl inside.

Elegant Scarf

When I first learned how to use my lace carriage, I knit a few scarves using patterns that came already loaded onto my machine. This is not so much a pattern, but a guide to how to put the manual's instructions to work to create something beautiful and useful. Once you determine how much weight your machine likes, you can whip these up quickly. I used some lace weight wool and my standard gauge, but a a fine gauge machine with lace capabilities would work just as well.
Look through Stitchworld's lace patterns. Download and center your pattern on your machine. Decide how many repeats you want for the width of the scarf. Do your favorite cast on, knit a few plain rows. Begin lace pattern. When you knit the lace, Push back a few needles each side every row so that they knit plain. Knit to desired length. Knit 2 rows plain and bind off loosely. My edges curled even after blocking, so I did 2 rows of single crochet around the perimeter.

We had our knit club at Cindy's in Princeton, Minnesota today. I'm always impressed with the beautiful things the members knit. Some of the gals are so expert at finishing! The lesson today was how to use the Kidoodles cable to upload brother files to the computer for saving and archiving (for use with or without DAK). A great time saver. I love being with people who share the same addiction to machine knitting. I bought some cotton yarn to make dishcloths and maybe socks. It's a robust, bright red, my favorite color. More on the personal knitting tomorrow, I hope.