Ready, Set

It's Friday evening and I'm knitting up a small sample for a class I'm giving tomorrow at the Grey Heron store in Collingwood (http://www.greyherondesigns.com/). We're going to do a top down teddy bear sweater and I've put in 3 different types of increases. They are all interchangeable. If the pattern calls for an increase which makes holes and you don't want them there are several other increases without holes which can be substituted.On the right side, close to the neckband are the holey YO's which are great increases because they are easy to see and easy to 'read'. Next are a set of closed increases (no holes) and close to the circular needle are increases which make small holes (my favourites). I hope the teddy bears that will be wearing these sweaters don't mind the change in the look of the raglan lines. I'm stopping here so that in class tomorrow I can show how the Divide for Body and Sleeve row works. I've packed the car with a couple of samples, printed off my class notes and set the alarm. Wait, a map. OK now . . . Go!

-Deb

I love Wednesday's

On Monday, Deb and I drove up to Shelridge Farm to visit with Buffy & Don, to stock up with more yarn for the shop and to have further development talks with Buffy. We're working with Buffy to come up with a dye technique which she'll do just for us. It's great fun, sometimes frustrating and a very, very interesting exercise. While we were working with Buffy, Don was working in the kitchen and sent each of us home with an amazing, home-baked baguette. Al and I had ours with supper and I had the tiny leftover bit as toast the next morning. Wow, can Don bake bread!

I'm just testing knitting Shirl the Purl's new Beaded Mittlet in Shelridge Farm's W4 (worsted weight) in Cranberry. It's lookin' good!

If you're wondering why the title of this post is "I love Wednesday's" is because that's my day for working at home. Deb goes into the office and I get to sit quietly at home and work. It's hard to work (as in testing patterns or developing new patterns) in the office with customers coming in, the phone ringing, discussions with Sophy as she's packing up orders ... it's not really ideal. Naturally some days, like yesterday, I had to do work on the web site and answer emails but I also did get some work done (see above and below).

This is my progress on the lace shawl I'm doing in the Fibre-Isle's Lovit Cashmere (60% fine merino superwash, 30% Lyocell cellulose & 10% premium cashmere). It's lovely to work with.

I started the shawl with a leaf pattern (lower part) which is terrific to knit and easy to keep in your head. I used the first 50g ball doing the leaf, but I wanted to "open up" the pattern for the lower part of the shawl. So when I changed balls (and spliced the yarn so hopefully you won't see the join) I changed to the medallion pattern. Now this was just as I was going to bed, so I did the very clever transition pattern from Evelyn Clark and went to bed. This morning I had to get up at 6:00am just to sit and start the actual pattern. I am VERY pleased at how lovely it looks. Evelyn's transition means that one pattern actually flows into the next quite seamlessly. I am very impressed. I am going to get some of her books "Knitting Lace Triangles" for the shop as I think this is easily the best book I've seen for getting started.

OK, time to actually shower and get to work!

-Lynda

Lace and Cables

Hope you had a happy halloween. We had very few kids show up at the door. Our neighbourhood must be aging or else kids don't come to strangers' houses anymore. Lots of candy left for me, yay.

I have a new project to show you. I am at the testknitting stage on a design by Elizabeth McCarten. She's commented on the blog so you already know her a little. It's a great design and I have the little bit I've knit to show you.

That's the set up of the top down neck shaping. I know you can't see very well but it worked perfectly.Is the pattern on the back terrific or what?! It's fun to knit and I can't wait to get going on the rest. I have been searching for a yarn which would suit this design and show off all the cables. I'm really happy with how this wool worked out and today I'm going to buy enough to get going on it for real.

I decided to try the cardigan as a vest. You can see where I ripped back a couple of times. I decided on the vest idea after I was a good way down the sweater. Note to self: planning ahead might be a good idea, ha, ha. You never know when an idea will pop up. Often it's at an inconvenient time.This is a really quick knit. I should be able to get this finished and up on the website soon.

-Deb

Patching

I have been a bit busy with non-knitterly things lately. The house needed to be patched up for the winter.And this required some work, unfortunately quite a bit of work, to replace 4 big patches of stucco.But now the stucco is back in place and all I have to do is paint it, if it would just stop raining.I go out and admire it daily.

And I have been knitting too. Socks, socks and more socks. These are my carpenter's socks.
I also finished up my pair of 'ice chip' socks. Yes, this is a pair and I don't have another pair just like it. Just those 2, that's it. Ha, ha.
I'm really liking the blips in this wool. I have a couple of other projects on the go too which I will reveal as soon as they gel up a bit. But I am officially back on the blog wagon again. So, see ya a little more often,

-Deb

Quickie

So now, from the last class I taught, I have a small baby sweater pattern which is really quick to knit. Yay!

I am doing a test knit so I can show you the short rows and what they can do. First I cast on stitches for the neckband and worked a garter stitch neckband with the first buttonhole in it. The short rows begin here. When you work short rows you don't work across all of the stitches on the row. You turn part way across the row, turn and leave some stitches on the needle unworked.

I am now at the end of the second set of short rows. At this point I have turned and am ready to do a knit row leaving the 7 sts at the end of that row unworked (on the right of photo). Every time you turn in the middle of a row you create a gap. The last time I turned is indicated by the guitar pick on the left. On the next short row I will work past the gap indicated, close the gap as I pass by it, turn again a little further along, leaving only 5 sts unworked.

I have worked to the second last short row here. On the left, I have worked all the way to the end of the row (the hole you see on the left near the end of the row is the buttonhole in the neckband). I am going to put my camera down, turn my work to the wrong side and work the last purl short row which will close the gap indicated by the guitar pick and work to the end of that row.All done. You can see that across the Back (top of the photo) you have 8 rows of knitting. At the Front edge of the sweater I have 2 rows next to the neckband. More rows across the back of the neck than at the Front edge means the Front will be lower than the Back and in this case form a V neck like in the red sweater above. Aren't short rows the most amazing things?

I got all that done with my first coffee, I told you it was quick. Have a great weekend.

-Deb

The Teacher's Side

That's very interesting. All three commenters (including an added fourth opinion) would prefer to work on a real garment, in this case a baby sweater, than a miniature sample garment.

The question on the last post was: Would you prefer to learn on a sample, like a teddy bear sized sweater, or does working on a real project (for example, starting a 3 month old baby sweater) which you will have to finish after the class, have more appeal?

Check out their comments on the last post.

So here's my side of this question, the teacher's side. When I teach this class I would like to introduce 3 different increases which all look different. On your real baby sweater you don't want to see some increases with holes and some without holes (but your teddy bear may not mind). These increases are all interchangeable and a knitter could use one of the new ones they learned instead of the one used in a future pattern they pick up. I also like to give students lots of license to make mistakes and not have to go back and fix any mistakes they have made. If you are concentrating on getting the increases in the right place because this is all new to you, you may not be paying close attention to the garter stitch buttonbands and end up with mistakes there. On a real garment you have to go back and correct that. I also can't spring something on you like having you add on an I-Cord edge to the buttonband when a student says that they find their garter stitch bands are sloppy on the edge.

I think that's the catch for me, I find that when students are knitting a real garment, it prevents me from responding spontaneously with a change which could solve a problem or open up some design ideas. For me, the classroom is where you try out new techniques so that when you choose to knit your real garment all of the terms and ideas in the sweater will be familiar even if you didn't totally master them in class. So maybe what I'm teaching is a Top Down technique class.

What do you think?
-Deb

Questions

I have cast on a new sock. It's a barter sock for some work I had done on my house. I love that I have one service I can offer in exchange.

Gray seemed a safe colour but it's occurring to me that it might be a little too safe. I'm considering restarting this in a lighter colour. I can't see the pattern as well as I would like. Hmm, this might get frogged.

Sometimes it seems that I am ripping out more than I am knitting up. That can be good if abandoned projects are going to get a new life.

Like this green wool which was a scarf and is now going to be a second 'Last Minute Baby' sweater, after it's dry. I've written the pattern and knit one sweater. This is a quick knit on large needles for a fast last minute gift. Not fancy but cute enough I think.
I'll knit a second one in the green yarn to check all the numbers for the 3 month old size.

Here's a dilemma you can help me out with. I taught a class on Top Down knitting yesterday and I tried something different for me. I made it a project class which this stores' customers prefer. They started the little red sweater above. It's worked on 6.0mm/US10 needles with heavy worsted weight yarn and is a quick knit. Starting with the collar cast on, in a 3 hour class a knitter can get to, or close to, the underarms even with my teacher chat thrown in. That covers all the neck shaping, the increasing for the raglan lines and the divide into the body and sleeves. This is all good stuff and the class went really well.

Usually when I teach this class I have the knitters work on a miniature sweater about the size for a teddy bear. The sweater is smaller so the knitters get further along. Most of them have the sweater knit past the dividing row. With their sweaters divided into body and sleeves, they can usually get an inch of the body done and then they can get some or all of one sleeve finished.

What I would like is your comments on this:

If you were taking this class and knitting a 3 month old sized sweater for a real baby, does the fact that it's a real project interfere with the learning process?

Would you prefer to learn on a sample which doesn't have to be anything, like a half finished teddy bear sweater, or does working on a real project which you will have after you finish it, have more appeal?

Comments, anyone?

-Deb