Tag: lace knitting

Yarn, Knitting and Crochet

My New Gradient Cable Poncho Pattern, Half Price!

Iris Rose

Well, at long last I finished my gradient yarn poncho and, tada, I love it! You know that feeling that you get when you envision a project or fall in love with a pattern and yarn and just have to make it? And when it turns out exactly like your vision or the pattern, you just want to jump up and down and hug someone? That’s it; that is what I am actually feeling, woohoo!

Okay, okay, time to calm down already. I have published the pattern for my Gradient Cable Poncho, made in worsted weight yarn, on Ravelry and, for the next two months, I am offering it to my blog readers at fifty percent off. Use the coupon code 50OFF at checkout and enjoy! Half price for all my loyal readers and, if you pass it along, to your friends too. You do need to click through to Ravelry from my blog for this promotion. While you are on my blog site, have a look at all of the other free patterns that I have up there in cyberspace for you to use.

               

As a special bonus, because spring is coming and who doesn’t need another light and lovely shawl to keep those shoulders warm in the cool spring breeze, you can use the same coupon to purchase my Northern Rose Shawl pattern at half price. The pattern for this pretty shawl is written and charted and can be made in two sizes depending on the yarn that you choose. Have a look at the pattern details to see both a worsted weight and a sock weight version. Who doesn’t love to save money?

       

I have been busy with charity hats still and am about one third of the way through that box of yarn that I featured last week. Who knew that making hats is so addictive and great TV knitting? I am determined to switch up to crochet this weekend which will slow down the movie intake (I need to look at what I am doing when I crochet!) but, hopefully will sharpen up my skill set.

I have a couple of machine knit patterns in the works too, worked on a standard gauge machine, for anyone interested in that craft. I just have to decipher my notes, always a challenge! Keep watch here as they will be featured on my blog first.

Knitting

A Lace Knitting Book Review and My Messed Up Buttonhole

Iris Rose

Today, instead of a pattern feature or a little bit of what I am working on, I am presenting you with a book review.  This book, Japanese knitting Stitch Bible: 260 Exquisite Patterns, written by Hitome Shida and translated by Gayle Roehm, is the absolutely most amazing resource.  Written for advanced knitters, it could be an inspiration to beginners as well.

If you love knitting lace as much as I do, and cables come a close second to that, then this is the book for you.  All of those amazingly intricate patterns that are featured over and over on Pintrest are all laid out here for you.  This is apparently the resource for all of those really beautiful Russian garments that are so popular.

A caution, the book is all chart based patterns.  There is not a written pattern in sight so, if you are not a chart lover, then you should have a very good look before you buy as I suspect that this lovely to look at book will be an exercise in frustration for you.

The book is available on amazon and elsewhere at a good price for a stitch library.  I bought the Kindle version as I have limited space on my book shelf.  Just so you know, I have my bookshelf stacked with yarn and my poor books crammed onto the bottom shelf two deep!  Ebooks and digital patterns are the way to go, for me at least.

If you love intricate knitting, even just to look at, this book is a great investment.

 

I wrote last week about my poor lace cardigan and the errant buttonhole.  I tore out just the centre of the buttonhole band and reworked it with a couple of DPN’s.  It looked okay but I had missed one strand at the beginning of the repair and the stitches, because they were stretched, were quite loose looking.  I know that I could have teased the stitches back to the right size but that missed loop really bothered me.

        

After some internal debate, I tore out about thirty rows (I thought it was just fifteen, but I had only counted the right side rows!) and am now reworking it.  The last picture shows that darn buttonhole finally worked correctly.  It sounds drastic, but I would never have worn the sweater without having my hand across the incorrect buttonhole to hide it.  It is funny (and not haha) how such a minor mistake becomes so huge in your mind.

 

Knitting

Lace Cardigan and the Buttonhole Mistake

Iris Rose

It is one of those two steps forward and one step back weeks.  I found myself suffering from a severe case of stash guilt this summer and, after a good dig through, found five skeins of Patons Lace that I had bought in a six pack a few years (okay, a lot of years) ago.  Kind of sounds like a really buff person or buying beer, doesn’t it?

Alright, what now? Oh, oh, oh, how about knitting a lace cardigan and make it all in one, just need to add the sleeves style.  I should make it in a simple lace pattern so that it is interesting but doesn’t need too much attention because that makes the work go faster.  So with great enthusiasm as is the case with all of my project ideas, I started.  Of course I was immediately bored.  This poor project has been languishing in my work bag, brought out once a week or so to have a few rows added and then shoved back into the dark.

I have stash guilt so why not project guilt?  I decided this week that this really will be a pretty cardigan, both light and warm, that should be finished and soon.  Yesterday, managing five, count ‘em, five rows, I laid my work down and what stared up at me?  The knit in buttonholes are all in the right place except one and that one is below a correct buttonhole and thirteen rows back.

I did the mature thing right away and threw it on the floor.  It lay there looking all pitiful and wounded until my project guilt poked me and made me pick it up.  Not wanted to deal with it, I right away ignored the mistake and knit two more rows thinking, I suppose, that the out of place buttonhole wouldn’t show if there was more work above it.  I was so very wrong.

My dilemma now is, do I rip out all of the work; all of that painful boring lace knitting down the drain and with a fuzzy yarn making the tear back so painful or do I pretend I never saw it?  There is a third option, of course.  I could just unknit the band stitches and reknit them correctly.  If it doesn’t work out though, I will have to rip back fifteen rows.

I am going to attempt the band only stitches repair this weekend.  Wish me luck and if you a horrifying, nerve shattering scream sometime on Sunday, it is not an early Haunted House gearing up but rather me, venting while I condemn my pretty lace cardigan to a plastic bag in the back of the closet.  If it does work out, I will post photos for you.

I couldn’t wait for the weekend.  I ripped these stitches out at work (lucky me, I get to craft at work) and, having only a crochet hook as an extra tool, I tried to fix it.  Too much frustration was happening so I waited for home and a couple of DPN’s.  Here is the ripped out stitches and I will post the correction photos later.