it's finally finished. knitted in 2 200g balls of bendigo 4 ply baby wool, we learnt a few things creating the sweater including how to do a double cast on (which is as simple as it sounds - want a firmer edge? double your yarn when casting on), short rows, loop increases, and the fine art of dyeing with food colouring as shown:
we're sort of sad to see it go...but it's been fun to wear, and there's a similar, though much faster, simpler and cozier version in the stitch'n'bitch book for annie's angora sweater.
inspirational gallery of hats and other wearables at if the hat fits, which is on the site of scumbling and freeform crochet/knitting queen, prudence mapstone.
due to being a cae student, we got a little preview of the new city library - it rocks. think of a borders you can loan from, and you're not far off the mark. here's the catalog to give you an idea. to get the latest release knitting books, do a subject search for "knitting patterns" then sort by publishing date.
once upon a time, our heart was set on knitting a mohair jumper from an issue of vogue knitting:
we learnt a few things the hard way - how to substitute yarn (not only do you need to get the gauge right, but it's important to calculate the differences in yarn length - we were short by a good 5 balls or so, lucky wondoflex had extra...), and more importantly the kind of jumper that would suit us. needless to say, if you're over a size 12, any vogue quick knit can reasonably safely be given a wide berth - almost all of them rely on the technique of knitting 2 strands of at least an 8 ply together. the effect of this thick fabric around our thickish torso plus the 3 boob pillow effect of a highish neck - michelin man had nothing on us.
there was the issue then of what to do with this stuff - a stash of wool/mohair mix in a 16 ply. we botched together a bag pattern from a few different issues of knitters - base from here, handles from there, and came up with a beaut felted bag, which we gave to wonderful friend who has a very photogenic cat:
so if you're looking for a yarn for a felted project, the 50/50 wool/mohair mix from bendigo woollen mills is ace.
one of the reasons that we got back into knitting was a pair of red and pink socks:
they're from the 2000 winter range of a very talented designer based in scotland who has a thing for colourful accessories - jo gordon . while now most of her work seems to be done by machine knitting and finished by hand, there also used to be beautiful hand knitted items - a balaclava with circles of mohair for the ears and other sweet humourous things.
one day, we'll make those stripy socks.
another designy type lady we've admired from afar for those sculptural blocky things (and yes, available in pink! alright!) is catherine tough. while we won't be knitting items like hers in a hurry, the thought of shaping and felting op shop jumpers is kinda tempting...
we were hoping to have more of the website stuff done today, but it's taking a little longer to sort things out. in the meantime, we've been werking on the pinup pullover (a little deadline - we wanted it done in time for stitch'n'bitch), and it's almost done - there's a few threads that need finishing, and we're not too sure about our first big dyejob. what was white is now a very bright pink, but the colour is a tad patchy. we're happy to chalk it up to experience, but after all that knitting...(we should have dyed the skeins first, but we wanted to knit straight away, and the thought of skeining, dyeing and balling all that wool...the perils of being impatient).
ruana is going fine - it's getting heavy, so we've resorted to using 2 circulars - knitting off one onto the other, which is much less strain.
still going strong when it comes to making groovy creative inspiring hats and other goodness - ana voog.
it turns out that the knitting for the steriogram video was done by lauri faggioni, who has a shop that churns out these ultra cute felty dolls. claire robertson who does illustrations for creative knitting mag also has her own doll for sale. if you're into smaller dolls, see 'em uber tiny from bugknits.
ok, so the deal is, we had quite the stash of pink and red yarn:
we were thinking of doing a graceful - we'd tried on someone else's and they feel pretty amazing on. catherine from our melbourne stitch'n'bitch group (meeting next wednesday btw...) suggested cheryl oberle's ruana from "folk shawls":
it's one hell of a stashbuster - approx 25 50g balls of yarn (over 2 kilometres...) is needed for this project. we started a couple of weeks ago, to be told by a non knitting flatmate that we'd take forever. we're halfway through:
needless to say, it's pretty bright and cosy and fuzzy and luscious.
we made promises - this would be our great opportunity to knit continental, but no. something is going horribly wrong there, so we just keep on going back to what we know.
we went to a little get together last night, and was asked about swatching..do we do them? for everything? the answer being, heck yes. do we still stuff u..erm... make discoveries? indeed. here's one of our longer "discoveries".
it's the back piece for the pinup pullover (the bottom one has the front attached). the only difference between the two pieces is the way that we knitted - continental top, the "normal" way below. while we swatched the continental knitting, obviously we must have relaxed more and "thought big" as we got going. moral to the story - must be more careful, and measure more often. also need to get a grip on continental knitting.
view the band steriogram's chunk o' knitting video from their label, capitol.
both the pinup pullover and the ruana are going great guns - hopefully we'll have photos soon. the great thing about knitting these projects is that both of them are currently pretty mindless - it's straight up sleeve ribbing for a few inches on the pullover, and the biggest decision to make on the ruana is which shade of pink or red to knit next. it's a relief to at least have something going on where it's possible to see progress.
three hours hasn't gone so fast as the latest meetup of the handknitters guild (their website needs a little update - they now meet at ross house, flinders lane, melbs city, not too far from coffee haven degraves st). jude skeers (our lone male...) showed up with his latest creation - we think it was called the broome beanie, but the champagne was working its wonders at this stage. the hat/scarf/accesory par excellence was a neato tubular thing, knit on a combo of a size 10 and 4 circular needle with fancy yarns including the work of satan, sullivan's knitting yarn and ostrich. the neat thing about it was that because it was knit with those yarns, it was fairly giving and stretchy, so it was possible to fashion a normal scarf, a wrap, a hat, and other wearables out of it.
we come across a neat way of knitting circular that we hadn't seen before too - when knitting ickle things like fingers on gloves, do it on two double pointed needles, and simply slip the second stitch, which you've lined up to be a stitch from the back of the finger, and then knit the front one. which might sound terribly confusing, but makes a hell of a lot of sense when seen.
we met up with joanne, a fabulous lady we first met at a mini wool show when we bonded over her stash of colinette. she's the one who has made us see the light, and vow to get a little more creative in our knitting. so, the next project that we're really keen on is a ruana from cheryl oberle's folk shawls.
it's an amazingly beautiful long shawl in garter stitch that can be constucted out of your stash. needless to say, ours is going to be incredibly rosy hued, and pretty flurfy. the fun bit is definitely mixing all the yarn to create a sort of knitted painting.