Preview

A while back Judie shared a blog entry about a "Shawl in a Ball" hand knit project that a machine knitter adapted and blogged about.  The project really caught my eye, and I thought I would share information about it now to give anyone who might be interested an opportunity to read about it, and if interested get a bit of a head start.  It is a lighthearted, creative and simple shawl where gauge doesn't really matter (except in terms of drape) and you're finished when you run out of yarn!

So first, have a read through the blog entry here.

The yarn is from Lion Brand, I bought mine locally at Michael's (around $12-ish per ball I think?).  The colourways are beautiful - you can see them here.  It's 58% cotton, 39% acrylic, and 3% "other" and the gauge on the ball band suggests 17 stitches/25 rows per 4" with 5.0 mm needles.  Because the pattern is more a guideline than a pattern ("I also did lace rows whenever I felt like it"), you could pretty much use any yarn that you like.  Gauge doesn't really matter in terms of achieving specific measurements, what is of more importance is the "drape" or "hand" or the fabric, which for shawls is generally, well, "drapey".

So that's my next project plan, and I'd be happy if anyone wants to follow along or knit along, or just read along.  To prepare I plan to make a swatch, check out some hand manipulated lace patterns in the books I have or online, add those to my swatch to experiment, and then just go for it.   So just one playful swatch and then right on to it.

Because my machine is a midgauge, and I'm primarily a hand knitter, so my stash is almost exclusively hand knitting yarns, I made myself a chart to help figure out the machine gauge that I should start with based on the hand knitting recommendations.  My chart tells me that the tension dial for a yarn gauge of 17 sts per 4" should be around 8 or 9, but I note that the blogger on Knitting Paradise (does anyone know her name?) was able to do the shawl on a standard gauge at tension 10, which she reported to be not quite as loose as she wanted, but she was able to block it out.  So I may find 8 or 9 too loose.  We'll see when I do the swatch.

I would love to upload the PDF of my chart, or cheat sheet, but it appears that I will have to learn how to use Google Docs first, so that's not going to happen tonight, no matter how easy it might be.

So let's have some fun!  I won't actually get to this for a few weeks I don't think, so feel free to work ahead of me!  In the meantime, in keeping with the Monty Python/John Cleese theme, I leave you with these words of wisdom.

Nancy

The Finished Hoodie

It was a beautiful day today for washing and blocking my hoodie and setting it outside on the deck to dry in the breeze, so that is exactly what I did.  So I present to you the finished hoodie.

Many thanks to Mary Anne Oger for giving us permission to share this pattern with knit-a-long participants, and for providing feedback as we worked through the process.  And thank you to everyone who knit along with us, or just followed the progress as we reported it through the blog.  As I mentioned in my previous post, I learned a great deal from this exercise, not the least of which was how much fun I had writing about it, and how motivating that became.  So much so that, as I hinted in my previous entry, I am planning the next project already, and hope to write about that soon.

In the meantime, if you're still working on the hoodie, or just thinking about starting, let us know in the comments.  If you have ideas for future projects, we'd love to hear them.  Ideas for topics around expanding our machine knitting skills and using our machines creatively are especially welcome, or if you have links to creative machine knitters out there, please share!

Nancy

Putting It All Together - Part III - Finishing

This is it, the last leg of our epic journey!

Below are pictures of the neckline being hung on the machine

And below is a picture of the hood now hung on the machine.

Remembering to turn back the hood stitches for the cord casing.

And completely forgetting to include the front bands as part of the neckline to which the hood is to be attached.

This mistake pains me. (Also, sorry about the bad lighting - it really is the same sweater.)  But, I've decided I'm just going to have to live with it because the amount of un-doing that would be required to fix it at this point, with waste yarn yanked off and ends woven in, would exceed my irritation level for the mistake itself.

So let's just move on - nothing to see here.  Let's instead talk about errors for which I had a fix!  Somehow, again without noticing, I dropped two stitches on the shoulder seam (captured in the safety pin below so I wouldn't forget about them).

This I was able to fix more or less invisibly (below) with some yarn ends.

Another error I didn't notice until everything was off the machine was that, when I attached the front bands, instead of drawing the stitches through either both thicknesses of the bottom bands, or at least the front layer, I drew them threw the back layer of the band leaving a gap in the front, shown below.  At least in this instance I remembered to include the bands.

I managed to sew it up more or less invisibly. 

I confess my errors and shortcomings above with the hope that you can avoid them.  After all, this whole project has been all about the learning!  And I for one have learned a lot, and the project has given me a great opportunity to practice and improve my skills.

I decided not to make a cord for the hood.  I did notice that the instructions call for making the cord by knitting circular on a double bed.  Normally when I knit cord, or I-cord as I'm more used to calling it as a hand knitter, I knit it just on the main bed by setting the carriage to slip in one direction only.  With my weight of yarn, a 3 stitch I-cord would likely be plenty, and I usually just use my hand to weight it.  Since the entire hoodie is knit without the need of a ribber, if you happen to be using a machine that doesn't have a ribber, you can certainly knit the I-cord without one as well.  For more thorough instructions on that, here is a good video by Diana Sullivan.

So the ends are woven in, the mistakes (except one - shhh) are fixed, and the last thing to do is fasten down the cord casing on the hood.  I decided that I would continue to follow the theme of chains on the public side of the garment.  So instead of sewing down the casing I took my trusty crochet hook and ran a line of crocheted chain through to secure it down as shown in the photo below.  I also decided that I wanted the chain raised a bit, so rather than one chain per row, I elongated the chains to one chain every two rows.  I'm pleased with the results.

Sometimes not having all the equipment (like sewing machines) at hand inspires creative solutions that add a little something to the finished project.

I had hoped to close out this entry with a photo of the complete, blocked hoodie, but I won't get a chance to do that probably until next week, and I wanted to report on all the other aspects of the finishing (the good, the bad, and the ugly!) before then.  But essentially this project is finished, and although I will definitely do a post with a picture of the completely finished hoodie, there won't be anything more from this hoodie correspondent unless something comes up in the comments that inspires an entry.

I've learned a lot doing this, and hope you have too!  Feel free to send questions any time in the comments, or update us on your progress.  I already have an idea for another project so stay tuned for that.  We'll also announce future meet-ups here as they were great fun, and I may throw in the odd book review.  Or if anyone has any suggestions for further topics, please let me know in the comments.

Thank you for following along!

Nancy