Tag: designer

Yarn, Knitting and Crochet

Cardigans

Iris Rose

I missed you last week. Did you miss me? I lost my temper last week about a couple of things and just didn’t want to spew hate out to the world. I am over one thing but still mad about the other, the one I can write about and hopefully amuse you with.

I have been working on three cardigans at once. Crazy normal, eh? FYI, eh is Canada speak for don’t you agree. I machine knit, on my standard gauge, a pretty black cardigan that FITS!!! And is almost done except for the final blocking and sewing on the buttons. It has been in this state since last weekend and I keep playing a computer game or checking out Facebook or reading or, or, you know how this finishes.

I machine knit a cardigan with Hobbii Twister yarn on my midgauge that I was really excited about finishing. I didn’t machine knit the bands as I don’t have a ribber for this plastic bed machine. I opted for garter stitch bands which turned out great until I knit the neck band. Oops! My decreases on the second side of the neck front somehow became undone in a very messy way. It looks like the stitches dropped on every second needle, but I didn’t see this until after it was all put together. I fixed up the stitches and knit a doubled band to cover the repair. It worked but….. The band looks terrible. I was just going to leave it, but I know that I will never wear it and it FITS!!!! Guess what I am doing this weekend.

The one I had a temper tantrum about is a hand knit top down cardigan that I started a couple of months ago and has been languishing in my basket. I question my sanity in choosing a top down pattern. Why did I think that this was a good idea? I keep getting mixed up on which side the button holes go on even though I got the first one right. Every so often I panic that they are on the wrong side and have to turn my work around and visualize the finished piece. It is making me crazy. I have no way of knowing if it will fit and panic about that. Yes, I did make a swatch, but this is going to be named my doubting cardi.  This guy says everything will be okay.

I have knit kid’s sweaters this way and love the no sew part. An adult size though is a whole nother story. To top it off, I was just about half way down the body and found a mistake twenty-six rows back. I ripped it back, knit about ten rows and back it went into time out. Hence the mad. I have put my temper back into its place and hope, no I will, have more for next week.

Have a great week and happy crafting.  Kindness to you all.

Knitting, Yarn, Knitting and Crochet

To Err Is Human

Iris Rose

I didn’t get my ordered yarn in time to finish my Twister cardigan. I should be able to pick it up tomorrow and, hopefully, get to work on it this weekend.

I am working a craft sale tomorrow with the Springbank Creative Arts Club at Amica Aspen, 10 Aspenshire Drive SW, Calgary. If you are in the neighbourhood, please drop in a say hi. There is no admission fee and parking is free!

Maybe I need to reassess my completion date for the cardigan. I just may need an extra day or two.

Do you ever make mistakes in your crafting? Dumb question, I know, we all do. I am talking about those real doozies that make you want to cry but are so obvious that you have to laugh first.

I machine knit a basic black cardigan this week, an item that my wardrobe is lacking. I finished all of the pieces, carefully blocked them and laid them out to sew together. I thread my needle and, what, what is wrong with this picture? I forgot to reset the stitch size on the second front piece after knitting the ribbing! Good thing is I have a bunch of the yarn left. Bad thing is that the yarn is acrylic and, after a light steam blocking, this piece can’t be frogged.

I sat down yesterday and knit the correct size.

I published a blog on my old website about fixing a mistake in a lace sweater that I hand knitted. I made the back longer than the front with one too many repeats of the lace. I managed to save it after carefully picking up the stitches and unraveling the extra repeats then grafting it back together to finish it to the right size.

I think that there is some good information in this post and I hope that you will scroll back through time and have another look at it.

I knit myself a really lovely cardigan in a beautiful yarn. I joined the shoulders with a three needle bind off, knit the band around the front and neck and sewed in the sleeves. I pinned the sides together for seaming and, much to my great distress and using every curse word that I know, I found that I had repeated the first lace pattern at the beginning (bottom) of the back piece twice and only once on the fronts. I got ready to toss it into the garbage or at least a corner to gather dust but I just liked it too much to not try to repair it.

I have removed the bottom of a sweater before and reknit it down to increase the length but only in stocking stitch and never with this pretty a yarn.

I gathered my courage and here’s what I did. I left the sweater sewn as far as I had gone because who wants to undo hand sewn sweater seams. That almost never works out for me.
I used a contrast colour in a pale yellow so that I could still see it but not have any bright or dark fibres left when I removed it and, picking up one side of every stitch, threaded a life line through my knit stitches two rows above the last lace repeat that I wanted to keep. I then place two life lines one row apart on the two rows below the first row of garter stitch that bordered the lace pattern.


Next, I took a very deep breath and cut between the life lines. Yes, I cut the bottom of the back off. Working on the bottom piece, I picked out all of the little bits from cutting and, carefully ripped back to a couple of rows above my life line. I picked up the stitches with a circular needle, made sure that my count was correct and unknit back to the last knit row that ended the one lace repeat that I should have stopped at the first time around. I used a contrast waste yarn and worked two rows in stocking stitch then cast off to hold all of the stitches securely.


Putting that piece aside, I then used my circular needle and picked up one side of the bottom loop of each stitch between the two life lines on the top piece of the back. I used two life lines here as I wasn’t sure how the loops would hold when I picked up the bottom of each stitch. I then ripped back to the needle, used waste yarn and worked the same two rows of stocking stitch and cast off.


Now, to put the two pieces back together, I worked from the wrong side with a really long length of yarn (because I didn’t want to have to try to join in the middle) and grafted the loops from the bottom to the loops from the top piece. I checked to make sure that all of the stitches were included and ripped out the waste yarn from both pieces.
Success! My lovely sweater knit with the lovely yarn was now repaired and the fronts matched the back.

 

Thank you for reading and I hope that you have a great week filled with yarny goodness. Drop in to the sale if you can.

Yarn, Knitting and Crochet

Twister

Iris Rose

Do you ever buy yarn just because it is too pretty to resist? What a silly question! Of course you do, at least I hope that I am not alone in this habit. I can’t be because a lot of you write and post pictures of your large and lovely stashes.

Anyway, I bought four cakes of Hobbii Twister a while ago simply because I thought that they were beautiful. I had no other reason than that, honestly. I used most of one cake crocheting a girl’s poncho worked corner to corner style.

The yarn is really lovely. It has a nice hand, is easy to work with, and the colours are so pretty. The only knock against it is that it is not a true gradient which is what I thought I was buying. The poncho showed definite stripes although that doesn’t look too bad now that it is finished.

I was saving this colour for me thinking that a gradient sweater would be just about perfect made with it. When the striping showed in the teal, I put this lovely blend of greys and peaches away in disappointment as it just did not fit what I had in mind.

I decided to give it another chance. I am not a small person and crosswise stripes do nothing to improve my figure. That being the case, I thought to work a cuff to cuff style so that the stripes will run vertically. I played around with my swatch (yes, I do swatch to make sure that all of the work put into making a sweater results in one that fits!) and decided that the two cakes I have will be enough for a pretty cardigan.

This is what I have made so far. I determined that I needed to work the front and back separately in order to balance the stripes and also so that I could increase on the outside arm seam without it being too obvious.

I hoped to have this finished by now but, you know, life.

Have a super week and I will try to finish to show you next week. Kindness to you.

Yarn, Knitting and Crochet

Simple Summer Wraps

Iris Rose

This time of year I am always, as I am sure most of us that live with at least four months of winter are, ready to ditch the heavy jackets and scarfs. It is time to break out the light and lovely things of spring. We have snow in the forecast again, but I am going to ignore that.

I have been looking through my designs to see if anything that I have written for winter could be double purposed as a summer wrap. I have a couple that, I think, will do very well in a lighter colour and a cotton blend or bamboo yarn.

The first one is a paid pattern, Simple Stripes Wrap, that is an easy knit with a touch of simple blossom lace for the border. The main wrap is knit lengthwise which is my favourite way to work a long piece. I get so bored working side to side that I usually end up with a wrap that is too short to drape properly.

I think that this pattern will look lovely knit up in a light colour with pastel stripes, maybe cream with peach to light blue or white with dark yellow to mauve. A gradient for the stripes will be very pretty too.

My next choice for a light summer wrap is my Latte Scarf (free pattern, even better). Even though I called it a scarf, with a couple of pattern repeats, it will work very well as a shawl. This one is made with one Caron Cake but, I think, will look lovely made with a single colour bamboo, cotton blend, or acrylic. Any yarn that will give you a nice drape when blocked will work great. You will need to increase the amount of yarn that you use to about 400m from the 350m that are included in the Cake.

I hope that you are inspired to get out the needles and give either of these a try. Both are worked with larger than normal needles, 6mm and 6.5mm respectively so are a little bit faster to work up than your average lace shawl.

Thanks for reading and have a happy week filled with yarny, crafty goodness.

Yarn, Knitting and Crochet

Mountains and Sweaters

Iris Rose

Thank you to everyone who reads my blog. I spent a long weekend this month in the local mountains with family. They all ski and I don’t (I am the hot tub type) but I still love to be out and about amidst the beauty of the Rocky Mountains.

The first day we were there the weather was a little overcast, but I happened to be out walking just as the sun was breaking through the afternoon cloud cover. This really is one of the prettiest places on earth as long as you own long underwear, warm boots and a good jacket!

I have been playing with kid’s sweaters again and, although I don’t have photos of all of the ones that I have made, I think that this one is close to my favourite. I use a basic pullover pattern and then sit down and let my imagination go to work. The appliques are both knit and crocheted as the mood strikes; everyone is different.

This style of sweater, whether pullover of cardigan, is a hit with the little ones. I stick to baby to size four in this style as the older kids are usually too cool for this design.

Work up your favourite pattern and give it a try! These are fine knits but a worsted yarn will look great too.

Have a great week and happy crafting.