Finally, it's Saturday!

BSG - Fiber Arts, a photo by Project Pictures on Flickr.

No, not today. But finally after all that other stuff, we get to Saturday at BSG.

Friday, the judging went on all afternoon and as it finished the Fiber Arts show closed! So I was unable to find out how my entries did.

Since this was my first year entering, and because Judith MacKenzie was judging, I was horribly nervous. My husband found it all very amusing (and asked, facetiously, if I really ought to be expecting to win anything at all in my first time entering a fiber-arts show--he loves to get a rise).

But Saturday I was able to return to the Gathering for the afternoon and the first place I stalked to was the Fiber Arts show, all nervous and silly. But guess what?! I did earn two first place ribbons! I'm so thrilled!

One was for a skein of 2-ply yarn I spun from absolutely gorgeous batts created by Laura of Textiles A Mano. These were part of my Christmas gift from my husband and they were just beautiful. They also spun up wonderfully! I'm told (because I couldn't stay to watch the entire judging) that Judith said they were lovely and evenly spun with excellent twist. Or something close to that! Yay!

My other entry was none other than my Solar Flare shawl! I'm really terrifically pleased with this one, because a lot of work went into it. The gorgeous AbbyBatts (in the colorway "Hless") were spindle spun, the singles were plied on my wheel, and I knit the whole thing into my very own pattern. I feel I own this project down to its very last stitch and I'm horribly proud of it all.

So that was a fantastic start to Saturday, and it wasn't even over yet! But I think the rest will have to wait for one last post.

Solar Flare

Solar Flare

I'm really excited!

I'd like to introduce you all to Solar Flare. I know many of my friends have seen it in person already, but I am extremely happy to have finally finished the pattern. I had some wonderful feedback from my test-knitters and I think together we were able to put together a really nice pattern.

Solar Flare is a semi-circular shawl. It is knit from the center towards the points and has a 3-stitch garter border along the top edge. The increases in the pattern are carefully incorporated into the lace. If you look very hard, you might find them! But otherwise they simply hide in with the rest of the pattern allowing it to grow organically.

I know my friends had great fun watching me puzzle out the math on this one. I didn't make it easy on myself. The pattern repeats seven times. I found out that the shawl needs to grow an average of three stitches each row. These two numbers are distinctly incompatible, but I was finally able to make it work!

Solar Flare is now for sale on Ravelry.

Waterfall Mitts

Waterfall Mitts
by Project Pictures on Flickr.

With the increasing availability of free patterns and the ease of finding them on Ravelry, it's easy to sidestep paying designers, or to think that they charge too much for their work. But when you sit down to do it yourself, it becomes very clear that what designers do is not simple, easy or fast.

Take these mitts. I loved making these mitts.. once I got things to work. But that wasn't easy. I started knitting them in the round. I tried magic loop. I tried DPNs. I had problems with the yarn slipping and sliding, making "ladders" in the knitting, and with needles completely falling out of the stitches. I also started with a completely different lace pattern, the Tilting Squares pattern to match the cowl. Unfortunately, Tilting Squares don't resize well. They don't easily come out to match the circumference of a hand with the stitch counts you can manage with them, and they loose their charm when knit as a panel that is anchored on either side because they no longer have the freedom to tilt.

I found all this out by knitting the first of this pair of mitts over eight times, and ripping out my knitting each time.

I will say one thing. All that abuse gave the yarn (Textiles A Mano "Lucerne", 65% cashmere/35% silk) a chance to shine--and I'm not just talking the silk content. This yarn is strong and durable on top of being beautiful and luxurious. When it could have turned into a partly-felted mess, it still frogged easily after multiple times being knit. It continued to knit up beautifully even after all that working, and once both mitts were completed I couldn't even tell which one had been worked more!



These mitts are knit flat, so that there won't be any odd stretching of the fabric. Trust me, they are much more fun to knit flat than to struggle with any of the various methods of knitting in the round. In addition, you must knit the section of the thumb-hole flat, anyway.

After being knit flat, the sides are seamed using the tails of yarn from the cast-on and cast-off edges. Working from the edge to the middle lets you control exactly where the thumb-hole falls, and how big it will be.

Once seamed up, the lace-in-ribbing expands and contracts to cling to your hands in a sheathe of warmth. And, what can I say? It's cashmere/silk. They are wonderful, if I must say it myself.

But knitting is only half the work. Then you must write it down, make sure you wrote it down correctly, be certain that other people will be able to understand what you wrote when you're not there to explain it, and then make it look lovely. And then it helps to have someone else double check, test knit, and re-read to make sure you didn't slip up on something simple and obvious (or even on something incredibly obscure).

I have to admit, I look at the pattern-costs on Ravelry differently now. I see the hours of work that went into the project on top of the creativity in the design.

Of course, it doesn't hurt that these mitts are also for sale on Ravelry, now.

Ravelympic Knitting - Part 1.5

Little Scarf
Originally uploaded by Project Pictures

I'd call this "Part 2" but the project was so small and fit in between everything so well, I almost hesitate to give it a whole section. A gym-buddy of mine is giving her daughter an American Girl doll this year and she approached me with the question of "How much would it be to have you knit a scarf for her?". She wouldn't take "nothing" for an answer (I knit for gifts, not for pay, because putting a price-tag on the time and effort it takes would make things ridiculously expensive). So we settled on her covering the cost of the yarn, and I'd pick out what I had on hand that was suitable. What I grabbed was a 1/6-sample of a skein I had from a sock-yarn swap. Perfect!

This little scarf took perhaps two hours to knit, but probably less. I knit while watching TV and didn't put much effort or concentration into knitting vs watching. It used under 40 yards of fingering weight yarn on Size 2 needles. I dug out the yarn and pattern while I allowed the part of my River Forest Gansey to block. The hardest part? Translating it!

The original is in French (PDF link). I own an adult version of this sort of scarf in the book 101 Designer One-Skein Wonders but while I could modify that one, it wouldn't give me guidelines for what would fit a doll. The French pattern was already written in doll size and when I debated the difficulty of recalculating gauge (not very hard) AND having to figure out what the "correct" size was for an American Girl doll versus the amusing challenge of translating a language I didn't speak--working with the French pattern won out.
MY TRANSLATION
Using fingering weight on size 4 needles:

Cast on two stitches
1st row: knit 1, make 1, knit 1
2nd row: knit 1, make 1, knit until the end of the row
Repeat row 2 until you have 18 stitches
Knit for 10 rows garter
Separate every other stitch onto two different needles. (9 sts on two needles)
Knit 1/1 rib on one needle for 10 rows, break yarn and knit 1/1 rib on other needle for 10 rows
Rejoin by knitting one stitch from each needle, alternating (18 sts)
Knit in garter stitch for 4 inches (20cm)
Halve stitches by k2tog, p2tog, repeat to end
Knit 10 rows 1/1 rib
Next row increase to 18 sts by k1, m1, last stitch kfb
Knit garter for 10 rows
k1, k2tog, knit to end of round
Repeat last row until only 2 stitches are left. Bind off.

Notes:
I used Size 2 and not Size 4 needles, and Socks that Rock Lightweight yarn (fingering). My "Make 1" was a lifted bar increase, from back to front and then knit into the front to twist. On the first row after joining in yarn, I knit with the live yarn and the tail for several stitches and then just cut the end. It saved weaving in later and doesn't show up at all.

Lumpy Bumpy Mitts

Lumpy Bumpy Mitts
Originally uploaded by Project Pictures

I've been working my way through my stash and trying to finish off partial balls and bits and pieces. It feels to me like a "Spring Cleaning" in reverse. My "Winter Destash" has yielded a lot of lovely yarns. One of them was a pretty green thick-and-thin yarn by Farmhouse called Lumpy Bumpy (by Charlene).. I used this in a very pretty hat, stranded with Misti Alpaca Chunky, but had half of it left over with no idea how to use it.

It's a gorgeous yarn, and beautifully soft. The green is wonderfully saturated. I still wasn't sure what to do with it, but set out to knit it and see what happened. I thought maybe it would turn into a scarf for my daughter, but as I cast on I had the idea for fingerless mitts. I knit the yarn into a square and seamed the cast-on and cast-off edges together, leaving a gap for the thumb. With the last few yards I added a thumb. I had exactly the right amount of yarn with barely a yard left over!

Lumpy Bumpy Mitts
Hand
Cast on 25 stitches.
Knit 37 rows, slipping the first stitch every row.
Bind off.
Join cast on and cast off edges for about two inches. Leave a two-to-three inch opening for the thumb and join the rest of the seam.

Thumb (optional)
Pick up and knit twenty stitches around the opening, starting from, and ending at, the top (finger end) of the mitt. Turn work to knit back the other direction. You will be working these stitches back-and-forth around the thumb opening. The decreases will fall at the base (wrist side) of the thumb opening.
Knit 8 sts, k2tog, k2tog, knit 8. Turn work.
Knit 7 sts, k2tog, k2tog, knit 7. Turn work.
Knit 6 sts, k2tog, k2tog, knit 6. Turn work.
Knit 5 sts, k2tog, k2tog, k5. Turn.
Knit 4 sts, k2tog, k2tog, k4. Turn.
Knit 3 sts, k2tog, k2tog, k3. Turn.
Bind off stitches with kitchener stitch.

Weave in ends, and complete your second mitt.

Progressive Mittens

Here are the "recipes" for my two sets of mittens. They were developed using "Progressive Gloves" and "Thumb Gussets" by Pam Allen (IK Winter 2003). They both have the "Wide Gusset", and some extra shaping at the fingertips.

Progressive Mittens

Materials:
Size 1 (2.25mm) needles
Mountain Colors Hand-Painted Yarns, "Bearfoot" merino/mohair blend (about 30g)

Size
1-2 years (3-4 years)
Stitch count is the same for both mittens. The larger pair is longer, not wider. This is because I found it much easier to get a one-year-old's hand and thumb into a bit looser mitten. The ribbing at the wrist still keeps it snug.

Cast on
Cast on 44 sts and join to work in the round
Optional: Purl one round, Knit one round

Cuff
Knit 15 (20) rounds in K2, P2 rib

Wide Gusset
Knit 2 (4) rounds in stockinette stitch
On the last round of st st, knit 20, pm, knit 4, pm, knit 20
Wide gusset increases two stitches every three rounds
* Increase round: Knit to marker, inc one stitch (lift bar between two stitches and knit into the back), knit to next marker, inc one stitch, knit to end
Knit 2 rounds
** Repeat from * for 14 (15) total rows (14 gusset stitches)
Next round: knit to marker, move stitches between markers to scrap yarn and cast on 4 stitches in the gap, knit to end.

Hand
Knit 14 (25) rows
Decrease pinky side (k2tog, knit to last 2 stitches in round, ssk)
Knit one round
Decrease pinky side
Knit one round
Decrease pinky and thumb (k2tog, knit 16 sts, ssk, k2tog, knit 16 sts, ssk)
Knit one round
Decrease pinky and thumb
Knit one round
Decrease pinky and thumb for three rounds
Bind off with Kitchener stitch
Note: I found the transition from decreases to Kitchener to be somewhat abrupt. To try and smooth this, I treated the first two and last two stitches as one, binding them off together.

Thumb
Put 14 gusset stitches back on working needles and pick-up and knit the 4 cast-on stitches. (18 sts)
Work in the round for 12 (16) rounds.
Decrease with *k2tog, k1* (12 sts)
Decrease *k2tog* (6 sts)
Break yarn and thread through remaining stitches twice. Pull tight.

Weave in all loose ends to finish.

Sweet Stockinette Slippers

To keep things a bit more organized I've decided to move this to its own post. I fell in love with Sockpixie's Magic Slippers, but purling in the round drove me nuts. I decided to convert her pattern to (nearly) all knitting. There is one round of purling to accent the change from the sole to the uppers.

Here is my version:

Sweet Stockinette Slippers

Suggested Yarn: Approximately 1/2 oz fingering weight
Gauge: 7-8 sts/inch in stockinette stitch
Needles: Size 1 (2.25mm)

Note that the sole is knit in garter stitch, knitting back and forth, but the upper is knit stockinette in the round. If you need a bigger bootie, knit a longer sole and pick up as many more stitches at the transition as are needed.

Sole:
Long-tail cast on 7 stitches and knit 2 rows.
Repeat the next 2 rows until you have 15 stitches.
R1: K1, K1f&B, knit till 3 stitches are left, K1f&B, K2
R2: Knit

Knit even in garter stitch until work measures 2 1/2 inches from cast-on (30 rows)

Repeat the next 2 rows until you have 5 stitches left.
R1: K1, K2TOG, knit till 3 stitches are left, K2TOG, K1
R2: Knit

Transition:
Keep the remaining 5 stitches on your needle. Pick up and knit to a total of 60 stitches.

I use 4 dpns. I usually distribute the stitches for the upper in this manner:
3 (of the 5 sole sts) + 12 (from side) = 15
12 (from side) + 3 (pick up from toe) = 15
3 (pick up from toe) + 12 (from side) = 15
12 (from side) + 2 (of the 5 sole sts) + 1 (pick up between last 2 and next 3 of the remaining sts, this puts yarn in center of the heel) = 15

You'll notice this gives you 30 stitches per side, evenly divided from the center of the toe and heel.

Once you have all the stitches set up as you like, purl one round to transition from the garter-stitch sole to the stockinette upper.

Upper:
R1 (and all odd rounds): Knit
R2: K24, K2TOG, K8, SSK, K24
R4: K23, K2TOG, K8, SSK, K23
R6: K22, K2TOG, K8, SSK, K22
R8: K21, (K2TOG 3 times), (SSK 3 times), K21
R10: K18, (K2TOG 3 times), (SSK 3 times), K18
R12: K15, (K2TOG 3 times), (SSK 3 times), K15
R14: Bind off knitwise with lace bind-off.
(Knit first stitch, knit second stitch, slide left needle into the front of both stitches on the right needle and knit together. Continue until one stitch is left on the right needle. Pick up and knit from underneath the first bound-off stitch. Pass the second stitch over the new one. Pull the loop out long and cut a tail. Sew in end.)