My Experience with the Indigo and Lichen Beret

When we moved, as a kind of reward for having to go through the whole moving business again I rewarded myself with a big order of books and magazines from the Interweave store. One of them was All New Homespun Handknits and one of their prettiest patterns was the Indigo and Lichen Beret by Jeannine Bakrigs.

I really did enjoy this pattern, even after the puzzlement near the end. Even though it starts at the crown on DPN's it was easy, the increases were simple and the instructions very clear. The chart was easy to follow and everything was going well until I hit the final 3 rows of the stranded chart where there were a series of peculiar decreases to incorporate.

I was a bit bemused but, nothing daunted, proceeded to try and follow the instructions...

...it did not go well.

The stitch count which up to that moment had been proceeding along the lines set down now made no sense at all. I couldn't even understand how to do one of the decreases - Sl2, k2, p2sso . How's that?? I looked at the back in the glossary, nothing there. What the heck??

Anyway, I continued, assuming that this was a usual slip 2, knit 1, pass 2 slipped stitches over knit stitch and looked at the final row.

It looked like crap! The stranded design had become hopelessly garbled, wasn't following any of the previous colour set ups. But I knit on regardless because, you know, bloody minded-ness is an essential part of the knitter's arsenal in morbid denial!

I finished the chart section and went on with the 3 rows in the main colour decreasing for the brim but as I began to knit the 5 stitch I-cord bind off I finally really looked at what I had.

The pattern called for there being 133 sts in the final round before you started the bind off.

I had 92.

This was so not going to work. So I unravelled back to the initial problematic rows in the stranded pattern. I had a good hard look at the instructions, especially the stitch count at the end of the crown section of the beret before I started the chart and the stitch count at the beginning of the first decrease in the main colour for the brim.

And then I made an executive decision.

I continued knitting the remaining rows of the stranded chart and just ignored the decrease instructions. The design followed seamlessly and made sense. Then when I knit the 3 rows of main colour as before, they were the only decreases I did. I had the stitch count I should and the bind off went off with out a hitch.

And I had a beret that looked very much like the original picture!

I blocked it over the largest plate I have in the house. (Doesn't the design look lovely? All the different colours! Six of them besides the main colour!)

This was, like I said from the beginning, a really easy pattern, even excepting the weird blip with the stranded  chart and I doubt that's the original designers fault. It's probably just a mis-placed instruction on the wrong chart. But if someone can make the original instruction make sense and keep the stitch count accurate, I'd love to hear about it!

 But for me, I'm really happy with my finished beret.

It looks like the picture, the stranded border is nice and crisp in detail,

And it fits and I can wear it. And instead of just collecting pattern books as I'm prone to do, I actually knit something from one!  Extra points me!!

Bye now!

Dx

The Blanket of Knitting Growth

Finished at last!
This has been the longest project I can remember! I cast on the first time (yes, the first time, I'll explain in a minute.) on April 2012 and I finally finished just the other day, 10 August 2014. Wow. Over two years!

I'd already collected a huge amount of op shop yarn by 2012 and was beginning to wonder what to do with the various odd balls I was accumulating and I found the lovely blanket pattern Ten-Stitch Blanket by Frankie Brown which answered my desire to use lots of different yarns but no seaming together endless squares. I pooled together all the candidates for the project and began!

So far, so good but then I discovered the neat join from Smoking Hot Needles and instead of unravelling what I'd knitted so far and starting again with the nice join, I thought I'd get away with just starting the different join method and continue knitting. I worked doggedly on and this is what I got...

The whole thing had started to twist in a weird way and...I hated it! So with great reluctance (and a certain amount of kicking myself for not doing this when I first found the new join method) I unravelled the whole thing. All of it!

Then I balled up all the yarn again, graded it into colour blocks (sort of) and added more yarn that I'd missed before. It made up quite a nice palette.

So I started again! And it was already nicer, knitting up flatter and straighter than the first attempt.

I used up a lot of different weights of yarn. The thinner stuff I doubled (and sometimes tripled), the novelty yarns I used with a strand of solid yarn and just kept going round and round. It became that project that I had on the side when I wanted something mindless to knit between more structured knitting.

It continued as we moved from Walpole in the middle of the forest to Carnamah in the northern wheat belt.

There were long periods where I didn't touch this, where it sat in my wool room while I was occupied with other projects, usually smaller ones since as I continued knitting the blanket it became difficult holding it all on my lap. It was a great project to do during the winter though!

But since our latest move to Kellerberrin it had been living in a bag in a cupboard in my wool room and I finally took pity on it. I'd managed to go through all the balls of stash I'd assigned to this project and was up to the creams and white yarns. I had always planned to do the final round in black so I dragged the whole thing out and buckled down to finally finish it.

It actually didn't take that long which just shows how lazy I've been putting it off for so long. But the blanket was really heavy and cumbersome to work on now it's so big. But here it is, totally covering the floor of my wool room between the bed and the shelves. FINISHED!!

I used a huge number of yarns and some of them interpreted the ten-stitch pattern really differently to others. I wanted a better picture of the whole thing but the best I could do was once I'd washed it and hung it out to dry...the only way it was going to be blocked at all! I did toy with the idea of a tarp pegged out in the backyard, yarn threaded through the outer edge of the blanket and heaps of tent pegs but I gave that up as far more work than I was prepared to invest in!

 I am really, REALLY pleased with the final blanket. It is heavy, I'll confess but it feels so wonderful when you run your hands over it. So many textures! It's warm and cosy too! All I have to do now is tidy up the yarn ends at the back and then it is totally done. Now I'm finished I feel a bit flat. It's a bit of a let down when such a long time project is finally completed. But also pretty good too :)

Well, I must stop gazing obsessively at the thing and get on with my life....

....and start another project...Of course! :)

See ya later!

Dx

The Journey towards Tights!

I've wanted a pair of nice warm tights ever since we moved to this part of the Wheatbelt and finding a nice serviceable pair has been well nigh impossible. So I thought "Hey! I have an obscene number of books and patterns and an equally obscene collection of yarn. What ho! I will make a pair of my own!"

As with most great ideas, it didn't turn out anywhere near as easy as that!

Despite having at least one pattern for tights on hand I decided to try a pattern I'd bought for leggings and put a foot on it. That way it becomes a pair of tights, yes?

I decided to use up all the random greys that I had on hand. 4 balls of a 50g per ball crepe yarn (acrylic) and 6 balls of a 20g per ball acrylic yarn. This was my starting palette. I decided to knit both feet (and therefore legs) at the same time so off I went. I got as far as the calf section and then had a really good look at them...

I don't like it. The blocks of different grey look revolting! So I unravelled it down to the foot and started again this time alternating the yarns each row so it knit up a really fine stripe. A lot better looking.

So, off I go again!

When I got up to the knees I decided to do a little rib stitch just behind the knee to try and reduce sagging. As you see the faux seam is centred through the strip. This little point will be important later. I didn't realize it until I'd finished the whole leg!

Okay, both legs finished and now to join the crotch stitches...oh, wait...something doesn't match up here. Oh crap!

Note to self: When the pattern describes the faux seam as in INseam they probably mean it is a seam on the INSIDE of the leg, like on leggings, not the centre back as with socks...OH. CRAP!

 So I refolded them and lay them out and found that the feet seemed to be pointing in different directions but I could eventually make some sense out of it. To be honest I even chopped off one of the feet and tried to reattach it facing the way I thought it should go but ended up re-grafting it the way it was in the first place which was the way it was supposed to be anyway. I have no photos of that. Still feel like a goof for doing it!

So now wonderful rib strips are actually positioned on the sides of my knees...Great.

By now I was beginning to get pipped off with the whole project and just wanted to finish it but I had to keep threading the body of the tights onto waste yarn so I could try them on. Not nearly as much fun as it sounds! To knit this beastie I had to roll up the legs and pin them together or it looked like I was being attacked by a very aggressive grey octopus! So unravelling everything to try it on wasn't something I wanted to do terribly often. So I guessed by figuring out the gauge and the height I thought I needed and just kept knitting till I got there. And I was SO pleased to finally get there.

I sewed the waistband, threaded the elastic and put these suckers on. They fit! Or rather they weren't too tight. Nope, not tight which had been my primary fear...walk around admiring legs...not tight...hoik up waist as the crotch sags a bit low...lovely and warm too...pull up legs and waist again...might have to shorten the elastic band on the waist...cosy and warm...knees and ankles keep sagging...wish I had a full length mirror...mmm....

Yes. I have to confess the truth to myself. After 28 days knitting...these are too big! Aaarghhhh!!! Not a huge amount, if it was by a big amount it'd probably be easier to alter the fit but these are only a bit too big. The crotch sags like on an ill-fitting pair of stockings and the legs are slightly too long for my legs. Botheration!!

But it's winter and at night, bitterly cold so whether I look like the saggy baggy elephant or not, for the time being I will wear these babies and feel proud of myself for having finished it at all!

Yay me!!

See ya later!

Dx

And I continue to conquer!

Well, I'm pleased to announce that the house is now much more ordered! We've even managed to dig out the back verandah! Mind you, that was only possible with the addition of a small shed under the patio for all the boxes our children have left us and my cats night house.

So to prove it, I thought I'd show you the same rooms I showed before all cluttered up, more or less!

So this is the smallest spare room with the spare queen bed in it (yes, I know it's stupid that I put the biggest bed in the smallest room but that's where the removalists put it and there was NO WAY I was going to try and move it!) Actually it's pretty sparsely furnished. My hubbies childhood dresser is actually inside the built-in robe and my second-hand horn cabinet is at the end of the bed against the wall. I can't use it but at least it's out of the way! And my old upholstered armchair is there in the bottom right under a chenille bedspread. My free-standing embroidery frame is carrying the red blanket just above it.

And the room I'm most proud of, the craft room! Big change from the doorway blocked up with boxes! Again the built-in robe is a god-send! My photo light stands are in there not to mention the box with my wedding dress in it. The single bed lives here too, plus one of my spinning wheels.

See? There's the spinning wheel next to my bookcase. All my knitting magazines are there on the left and every single other shelf is stuffed with yarn! Which sadly isn't all of it. Multiples of more than 5 balls I've confined to bags stored under the bed or in the smaller spare room robes. In the bottom of the picture is my collection of cross-stitch magazines and threads and things.

So, now we've got some organisation I was able to get on with the vest. I've never done a cabled pattern like this before and it wasn't an unpleasant experience. 

To be honest I didn't really have any problem with the pattern until I got to the decreases at the V-neck when working the neckband. I couldn't seem to get my brain around the directions or they weren't correct. Anyway, I just kind of winged it in the end.

It doesn't quite look like it's supposed to but it's close.

I also sewed a couple of tags to put on it to make it look a little more professional (Because I'm an insecure basket case!)

One of a Kind - because it is! 

The yarn I used is totally reclaimed from an old jumper and so there are a lot of joins throughout the whole garment. I've carefully sewn them in though.

Warm Hand Wash

Just to give a bit of a hand to whoever. I don't know what the exact fibre content of the yarn is so I figured this instruction would be the most helpful.

I hand sewed these. Totally worth the effort!

And the finished Vest. So pleased with this I cannot even begin to express it! It's been washed, blocked, dried, folded and packaged up. It is now wending it's way via post back to Carnamah. 

I really hope they like it!

Bye now Dx

I have survived!!

Yes! I survived the move! It was tricky here and there but we seemed to have managed to take the contents of our 4 bedroom and 2 bathroom house and shoe-horn it into a 3 small bedrooms and 1 bathroom house.
Just.
Not that everything has a place yet, not by a long shot! But most of it is physically here on the property...except the caravan...and the dogs...
But everything else is here!
I thought I would include a pic of where the removalists put all my craft boxes...almost floor to ceiling!  Admittedly there are bed frames and such in there but even so!!

Country Craft Groups Rock!

They really do! Shortly after we came to Carnamah I started attending the Carnamah Craft Group because I knew if I didn't do something to meet people I would just hide at home. That being my natural tendency.
When I turned up, the wife of the new second man at the police station, the ladies were so welcoming and lovely that I felt comfortable immediately and hardly felt shy at all! It was such a pleasure to be able to relax in other women's company when you are new to town, especially when your a confirmed Southerner (south west Australian - Albany, about as far south as you can get without setting up in Antarctica!) and this was the first time I'd ever lived so far north!
They weren't all from Carnamah either. Farms were spread all over the place and there was one lady who travelled from Perenjori (about 56 kms from Carnamah!) to come every Wednesday, even though sometimes she was late because she'd had to move trucks, or silos or some other grain farming apparatus! And another lady who lived in Coorow, 27kms from Carnamah but she had so many stories to tell about farming when she was a young wife and they lived in Winchester, a township that now no longer exists but used to be somewhere between Coorow and Carnamah.
The stories and the histories of farming, mostly grain, were so interesting! I didn't know anything about it so it was all new! The price for wheat versus canola and how they fluctuated between seeding and harvest. The constant looking to the skies to see if the rain would come or if it would hold off, depending on which season it was. The combined hilarity at the misfortunes of one farmer who'd managed to seed 20 acres of nothing after forgetting to turn the fan on the air-seeder and having to go back and do the whole thing again into the night.
And then there was the craft! Such skilled hands and such patience! Most of the ladies did patchwork and the constant search for new fabric and techniques quite often sounded like a foreign language to me. I'm not nearly patient enough or precise enough to really enjoy patchwork but the quilts turned out by these ladies was really something to see! So detailed! So beautiful and such colours! All passed through the deep conversations in the cutting out room where those who were interested could gather around the bits and pieces of blocks and borders and help the quilter make the decisions about layout, whether this block would be better near this one and give advise when they'd managed to sew something on backwards again!
I could sit and knit or cross-stitch and listen to the easy flow of conversation and feel comfortable. It really was lovely.
But now I have to leave!

Yesterday was my last craft day and the ladies were so sweet and made up a morning tea for everyone and I brought my boxes of completed craft items, (knitted, cross-stitched, tatted necklace pendants, you name it! It was probably there!) I wanted everyone to have something to remember me by but I also wanted to get rid of some of my surplus! So the deal was, take one thing, but if you want anything else you have to pay. I hate doing that, I always feel so uncomfortable when I ask friends to pay for things but most of the items had prices on them from stalls I'd run before so it was a little easier. They brought so much stuff! I still have heaps left over but it all fits in the boxes better than when I brought them in and I have a nice little bit of cash in my pocket for our move!
And then Maxine brought me this square parcel and in an off-hand sort of way said "We wanted to give you a knitted blanket but you didn't really give us enough time to do one for you so we brought you the wool for one. We expect it done before you leave!" (tongue-in-cheek).
To me this seemed totally reasonable. I'd have enjoyed a gift of knitting yarn a lot more than some other things so I opened up the parcel, expecting balls of yarn...
...and instead was presented with the loveliest little knee quilt I've ever seen, with each of the blocks done by one of the ladies at craft. I was so touched!!

This just shows how preoccupied I can get when I'm knitting! They planned all this while I was at craft. Those conversations in the cutting room weren't all about their quilts but about the one they were making for me! I usually leave at 1pm while craft continues on till 3pm but last week I stayed till about 1.30pm and they needed me to go to finish the quilt!

I love it! I love the little bit of actual knitting in the middle with it's tiny needles and their smiley faces. I love the thought and care that's been put into the whole thing. I just love it!!

So, to everyone at craft, Ines, Yvonne, Elaine, Joan (who couldn't be there. She's got her own moving saga to go!) Chris, Jodi, Maxine, Rhonda Wellington and Rhonda Walsh, Helen who walks up from her exercise class and Sandie who owns the only fabric and haberdashery store in town, to you all! I salute you!!

You are all women whose worth is far above rubies! 

God Bless you all!

Dx

And the boxes come out again!

Yes! We are on the move again! I mean, hey! we've been in this town now for nearly 2 and a half years!! Crikey! Got to love the Police Service. But Hubbie and I are looking forward to a new place, a part of W.A. that we've never lived in (I've never even seen it!) and new experiences so we're fairly philosophical about things.
But!...That means I have to pack up my wool and sewing room!
Horrors!!
Actually I could just leave it to the removalist to do but the disbelieving looks on their faces when they're faced with three walls of shelving FILLED with yarn makes me uncomfortable so I do it for them.

...They should thank me!
There's a bit of wool still on the shelves in the top picture. I ran out of boxes. But that's okay. When I get another big box like all of the others I can pack up my variegated yarns, novelty yarns, feltable yarns and then probably open the basket box behind the packing boxes in the corning which are full of my cone yarns and pack them too. Do you think we're done?
Oh, how little you know me!
No, still in the cupboard is my small hoard of spinnable rovings and slivers as well as some unprocessed fleece, not to mention my embroidery frames, collection of small cross stitch patterns, boxes of small balls of yarn and just to top it all off, my huge box holding my wedding dress, hooped petticoat and veil.
There!
Now I'm done!
(Well, excluding the magazines and knitting needles but hey, you get the idea!)
So what is my point behind all this?
I don't like packing up my yarn...
...what if I need some of it?
Seriously! I get anxious packing up this vast plethora of yarns and fibres with the misguided thought that somehow a purpose will suddenly materialise for some miscellaneous ball of yarn the minute I tape down the top of the box despite the fact that the last time I looked at that yarn was when I unpacked last time!!
So to try and assuage this miasma of anxiety I have kept some projects out just so I have a couple of projects going that I can vacillate between and distract myself from the trauma of the packing process.
Unfortunately I have completed one already.
The Alpaca Warmers are a pattern I've had on my list to do for ages and since I thought they'd be complicated enough (they have a lace pattern on the back of the hand after all!) I thought I'd give them a go. I decided to use a lovely yarn I have by Moda Vera simply called Angora blend. And they aren't kidding! The angora content of this yarn caused me nothing but problems but not of a knitting nature. All the fine fibre filaments that come off the yarn as you knit make my nose feel itchy the whole time! But when you touch the gloves it makes it all worth while. They are SO SOFT!!!
I chose to knit these both at the same time. The only time this was a problem was the couple of times I had to unravel a couple of rows to fix a problem but it wasn't too difficult. I just decanted the mitt I needed onto DPN's and then knit them back onto the circular needle when I fixed them.

 These took longer than I thought they would but the lace wasn't actually that hard. I just kept losing my place on the pattern because I was trying to read but it really got complicated when I got to the lace pattern up near the fingers. You have to actually look at the mitts to realize where in the lace pattern to start each row. But well worth it!

All done, off the circular!...and now excuse me while I blow my nose again because I can feel the residual effect of tiny fibres!!!

Oh wait. Pointless vanity shots!

So there is one of my distraction projects done. Bother. I wonder what I'll do now....

...that's not going to be a problem, let me tell you! Later :)