Knitter in the Kitchen

Lately, I have been focused on finishing.

Pattern: Bea Ellis Traditional Hat
Yarn: Dalegarn Heilo, 1 skein color #0020 (cream) and 1 skein color #3152 (brown); Marks & Pattens Camomille, 1 skein color #208 (for the lining). The yarn was purchased in a kit.

I took an extremely stupid and circuitous route to knitting the top portion of my hat. It was so stupid that I’m sure many of you will catch my mistake before I explain it.

The story starts at the end of the snowflake pattern, which I knit in December. This was where I left off.

I put it down for awhile and only knit an inch and a half further here and there. When I picked it up again last week, I found that I missed a few rows in the pattern. (This can happen if you have the chart on a magnetic board, use the magnets to track the rows, and the magnets move without your noticing.) So I frogged back. No big deal.

Dark brown lifeline shows where I frogged back

I proceeded to knit all the way up to the crown decreases. This is how the hat looked:

Yeah, you can wince. Those ridges aren’t supposed to be there. My floats were too tight, causing all that bunching. While I was knitting I had a sneaky suspicion that this was happening, but I was in denial about it. I didn’t think blocking would help because the tight floats would prevent the hat from stretching out. So I frogged the entire cream portion of the hat and started again.

The second time around, the hat was looking pretty good from the outside. I made a very conscious effort to spread out the stitches on my right needle before stranding the yarn in the back. I got all the way up to the beginning of the crown decreases again. Then I decided to check out MJ’s finished Traditional Hat and the Norwegian Knit-Along Gallery to see at how others’ hats looked on the inside. Guess what I discovered?

There are many rounds that are knit in just one color (cream). Thus, I could have cut the brown yarn and just rejoined it when needed for the brown fleck pattern. This would have eliminated much stranding and I could have avoided the float problem. The bottom line is that I did a lot of extra work for absolutely no reason. Ugh, sometimes I wonder whether I have a brain! ***big sigh***

Now, I would have left the hat alone and just finished it if it weren’t for the fact that now my floats were too loose.

What did I do?

Yup. Frogged it again. As you can see my yarn is now fuzzy.

I knit the entire cream portion again for the third time. The positive side of all this was that I got much better at knitting with my left hand. I can now feed the yarn more smoothly and Continental knitting doesn’t feel so foreign anymore. My right-handed knitting is still much neater and faster, but I feel like I have a good start with my Continental knitting.

I finally proceeded through the crown shaping and pulled the yarn through the remaining stitches on the needle. Here is the hat with the “proper” floats:

My hat is far from perfect, as some of the floats are too still loose, a few rows are too tight (particularly the all-cream rows in the snowflake portion of the hat) and some of the stitches remain uneven after blocking. But I’m thrilled that I tried two-handed fair isle knitting! I will definitely practice Continental knitting more before tackling another fair isle project.

After practicing two-handed fair isle on a swatch, I finally started my Bea Ellis Traditional Norwegian Hat.

When I uploaded the first photo to my computer, I laughed out loud because at a glance it actually makes my fair isle look semi-decent. And you can see the snowflakes!! Wooo-hoo!! But I wish y’all could see the hat in person, because my fair isle has a lot to be desired. I’m not great at taking non-fuzzy close-ups, so here is the best I could do:

As you can see, my knitting is bumpy, and the stitches are different sizes. I thought about ripping the entire thing out and starting over after more practice, but I was having too much fun watching the pattern develop. And to be honest, I bought this kit in order to learn fair isle knitting, so I am cutting myself a little slack and letting it be the way it is for now. I may finish the entire thing first and then frog it, but I’ll cross that bridge when I get there. Want to see the floats?

I have been trying to determine whether the floats are too tight. My gut feeling is that they are, but on the other hand I didn’t want them all hanging loose either. I’ve read that I should spread out my stitches on the right needle before twisting the yarns in the back, so I have been trying to remember to take that step.

Two-handed knitting has been fun and challenging! I’ve never knit Continental before, so this has been a slow project for me. At first I kept wrapping the stitches incorrectly with my left hand and thus twisting them. Then I switched to “picking” so that I don’t have to wrap, and it’s working a lot better. Until now I’ve never been inclined to learn Continental, but now I’m thinking that it’s worthwhile to learn it just so I can be better at two-handed fair isle in the future. Perhaps I will knit a felted Sophie bag using the Continental technique, because the felting will minimize my uneven gauge!

I started out using the true Philosopher’s Wool method, meaning that there are no floats and all the yarn in the back is woven in. It didn’t work for me because the contrasting color kept showing through. Then I started reading the posts for the Norwegian knit-along, and realized that floats are fine too. As a side note, I think the Philosopher’s Wool instructional clips (which can be viewed on their website) are really clear and good. I highly recommend checking out their clips if you’re interested in learning this technique.

Fair isle knitting can be addicting! I’m already thinking about trying a headband next!

Over the past week or so, I’ve been feeling restless about my knitting. I’m not particularly excited about the projects on my needles and would like to start something new. But at the same time, I’m hesitant to cast on for yet another project because I want to actually finish something. So in the end I decided to be “good” and work on my WIPs.

1. Artyarns ZigZag Modular Scarf #2 — finished! Yay!

2. Frieda Sweater — I finished knitting the front. I checked my gauge and it’s correct (4.5 stitches per inch), but I’m a bit concerned because it looks so tiny. Here is a shot showing the front of the sweater on top of the back. Both have been uncurled as much as possible.

Ummm…should I be concerned about the sizing? Or should I cross my fingers and hope that I can work a miracle through blocking?

3. Boogie Vest — This is what the front looks like so far:

When I first blogged about wanting to knit this vest, a couple of commenters pointed out that the pattern does not include any shaping for the v-neck. If knit according to the pattern instructions, the two sides of the “v” are knit separately (without decreases), creating a slit in the front. When you wear the vest, the slit automatically separates to create a pseudo v-neck. A few folks thought this was odd. So I decided to add v-neck shaping by decreasing one stitch on each RS row. This is a close-up of the neck:

I’m not sure how I feel about it yet. Part of me thinks it looks odd too, and part of me thinks it looks okay. So I’m putting the project away for awhile so I can get some space from it and revisit it later with fresh eyes. Your thoughts, of course, would be greatly appreciated.

4. Earflap hat — Unfortunately I had to frog the Manos Earflap Hat from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. Why? Well, I was almost done with the crown decreases when I realized that the hat was way, way too big for me. So I frogged it. I re-started it one size down, and the yarn began to pool in a very bad way. I couldn’t take the pooling, so I frogged it a second time. I cast-on again for an in-between size, and the yarn was still pooling. Thus I frogged for a third time. At this point I’ve decided that the Earflap Hat just wasn’t meant to be right now. The good thing is that this experience seems to have dampened my crazy addiction to hat knitting!! LOL But just slightly, because last night I started this:

5. The above is the Basic Cable Hat from Stitch N Bitch Nation. I finished the hat today and gifted it to my brother-in-law before I remembered to take a photo, so you’ll have to use your imagination for the FO. The pattern called for 4 pattern repeats and I did 6, which was probably a bit much. If I knit this hat again for another guy, I would do 5 pattern repeats. Of course I used Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran. If you read my blog regularly, you can confirm that this is indeed my favorite yarn!

So what’s next? Even though I’m happy with the progress I made on Frieda and Boogie, I’m still not inclined to work on them. I may start a project that I’ve had in mind for over a month now:

Yep, that’s the Traditional Hat kit for the Norwegian Knit-Along. Last month, Angela tempted me by writing about her Bea Ellis hat kit and the knit-along. I have been thinking about trying a fair isle project, so I caved in to the temptation. On the bottom right side of the photo, you can see that I also have the Philosopher’s Wool DVD to help me along. It was one of my Christmas presents from DH! =) I can’t wait to watch it and try the technique.

Hope you and yours enjoy a happy and healthy 2006!!

As you may have noticed from my recent posts, I seem to be stuck on knitting quick accessories. I have abandoned the Frieda Sweater and haven’t even touched it 3 weeks. I’m leaving it alone for now because I have no desire to work on it. It’s no fun knitting something when you’re not motivated.

When I was chatting with my sister about her Kureyon hat, I found out that she wanted a black cabled scarf. I was a bit surprised by this – why black, of all colors? What if you can’t see the cables? So even though I already finished knitting her Christmas presents months ago, I knit her this scarf:

Pattern: Karaoke Cable Scarf
Yarn: 3 balls of my favorite, Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran
Size (pre-blocking): 2.75″ x 80″

I chose this pattern because the skinniness makes it fun and offsets the black. I think the cables show up okay. This is a very simple pattern and a relatively quick knit.

I also finished the Live Dangerously, Don’t Swatch hat. Even though I didn’t like the yarn, I have to give it points for softness. It’s much more comfortable than my Kureyon hat. This is my first pom-pom ever. I know many knitters are anti-pom-pom, but I thought I would give it a try. I look like a dork, but I don’t mind. =)

I liked this pattern because you can use it with any yarn without worrying about gauge beforehand. I also like the look of the linen stitch and will probably use it again. However, I must admit that k2togs are easier for me than M1Ls and M1Rs, so for now I still prefer knitting hats from the bottom up.

Lastly, I knit this neckwarmer using Cascade 128 Tweed. This is a wear-around-the-house type of accessory as it looks funny on me. But it keeps my neck warm when I’m in my pajamas.

I’m not sure what’s up next…maybe a multidirectional scarf for myself, or another hat. At the rate I’m going, I could end up with ten hats by the end of winter.

I’m going through a hat-knitting phase. Ever since I knit my first Noro Kureyon hat a few weeks ago, I’ve been itching to knit more hats.

I mentioned previously that I planned to knit a Rolled Edge Stocking Cap for my sister. She approved of the design and the color, and even requested a hat for her roommate. I was happy to knit them up because they go so quickly and are great projects for watching DVDs.

Hat for sister: colorway 40

Hat for sister’s roommate: colorway 147

My sister received them this weekend and seemed quite pleased! That was a relief.

On Friday night, DH and I went to see the Sacramento Kings play the Miami Heat. Two hour basketball game = perfect knitting time. What did I work on during the game? You guessed it – another Kureyon Hat. This one (colorway 90) will be gifted to a friend.

This project was a little bit “different” because I knit it with Clover Takumi needles. That was a big deal for me because I am a huge Addi Turbo fan. After a bad experience with 24” Clover circs, I swore off bamboo circs altogether. But I wanted to get a second pair of size 9 / 16” needles, and as we all know Addis are expensive. So I looked at the Clovers again. I figured that the cords on 16” circulars can’t possibly twist that much, so maybe they would be okay in bamboo. I soaked the cord in boiling water, and all was good after that. The Kureyon didn’t even drag too much on the bamboo. Maybe bamboo circs aren’t completely terrible after all.

That makes a total of, umm, four Noro Kureyon Rolled Edge Stocking Caps that I’ve knit in the past month. Am I crazy? To mix things up a bit, I decided to try Susan’s Live Dangerously, Don’t Swatch Hat. This hat is knit from the top down, so swatching isn’t necessary because you just stop increasing when you reach the correct number of stitches. It was neat to learn Emily Ocker’s cast on. There is a little hole at the top of the hat which I can’t seem to close, but that should be easily fixable. For the sides, I am using the half linen stitch. This is what I have so far:

The yarn is di.Ve’ Teseo by Cascade. It’s 55% wool and 45% microfibre. I’ve never heard of it before, and I bought it because I liked the color and it felt soft. Unfortunately, I found that I dislike the yarn. It’s hard to knit clean stitches – I keep splitting the yarn, even when I’m looking. I’ve stalled on the hat because of this. I considered frogging it entirely and starting another top-down hat in Manos, but I’m far enough along that I really want to just finish it and get the darn thing off my needles!