Shawl in a Ball LIVE Round Up

Thank you so much to everyone who came out to newly and awesomely renovated Musquodoboit Harbour Public Library for our Shawl in a Ball LIVE workshop.  We had familiar faces along with new faces, and we also had library patrons wander in to see what we were up to!  I always find it inspiring to spend time with such a creative group of people.

We'd love to have a few of these workshops scattered throughout the year, so watch this space regularly, and let us know in the comments below if you have any ideas for things we could cover in a future get together.

And speaking of workshops, The Island (PEI) Knitters Club has announced the 2018 Maritime Machine Knitters Seminar.  This year's seminar will be held at the Rodd Royalty Inn in Charlottetown on the 28th and 29th of September.  Diana Sullivan of Austin, Texas, will be this year's demonstrator.  If you are not familiar with Diana, there is a link to her blog, Diana Natters On About Machine Knitting to the right on our blog page.  She has a very extensive collection of videos on her YouTube channel that I highly recommend.  For more information on the seminar and how to register, please visit the information page on the Glen Valley Knits website.

Finally, a little "Knitting in the News" - for those of you who might be fans of Marvel Comics, the recent blockbuster movie "Black Panther" has the knitting world buzzing.  Check out "Nakia's Infinity Scarf" on Ravely, a free pattern in both machine and hand knit made available by the costume designer himself, Jeff Gillies, and also check out this BuzzFeed article on the movie and the shawl.

Nancy

#experiknitting

One of the blogs that I follow, here, has a recent discussion on the process of designing a knit fabric, and they use the term "experiknitting".  I think that is a clever word mashup that definitely applies to what we're doing here.  I've also been playing around with Instagram lately and so I decided to see if that is a hashtag being used there and indeed it is (that and #experiknit, and many more!).  If you're on Instagram check it out - there's a lot of knitting going on over there.

My most recent experiknit is the waves of wheat lace used in the Kohi Shawl, which I have written about in several previous posts.  When I left you last, I had finally figured out how to translate that lace pattern from hand to machine knit, and decided that I would forego the triangular shape for a rectangle.  Here it is:

I cast on 69 stitches, and was able to get 290 rows out of the ball, which translated into a wrap that measures about 56" long by 16" wide.  I absolutely love this colourway (Restful Rainbow).  If you look closely at the picture though, at the bottom you may notice that there are a few rows of orange that aren't where they belong.  This is my third ball with this yarn, and the first one that had a knot, where a colour completely out of sequence was tied on.  Lynne has experienced this with several balls and was able to exchange them at Michael's.  Since this one was at the end I will probably just take out those rows and cast off before the yarn break.

So here's a close up of the lace pattern:

If you want to do this project, it is a lot of hand manipulation of course, but to me it was worth it, and still much faster than hand knitting it.  I think the lace pattern works really well with the colours, and you can get into a pretty good rhythm that carries you across the row in no time.  I decided not to do any edging at all for two reasons - the first being that I didn't want to do anything that would fight against the natural zig and zag of the edge.  Secondly, whatever edging I might have picked would pretty much have to be done "as you go" in order to ensure that the edging was the same colour as the body of the wrap.  Doing something after the fact would, in my mind, interrupt the gradual flow of the colours from one to the other.

A fringe at the top and bottom would be nice, but fringe takes a fair bit of yarn and would certainly shorten the body of the wrap, although you could argue it adds at least that much length (or maybe more) visually.  But thinking of the colour again, in my opinion the best way to fringe it would be to save enough yarn at the beginning of the ball so that you can fringe the cast on edge with yarn of the same colour, and then stop short in time to save enough yarn at the end of the ball to fringe the bound off edge.  I didn't come up with that thought until I was about half way through the wrap, so it was too late to save fringing yarn at the beginning of the ball.

I still have a couple of balls of the yarn, and I may try this lace again in a triangular shawl closer to the original Kohi pattern.  If I do of course I will post about it.  In the meantime, don't forget about our Shawl in a Ball LIVE workshop at the library this coming Saturday, March 10, 2018.  Let us know if you plan to attend.  And even if you can't, if you're working on a shawl on your own, or another project that you'd like to share, let us know in the comments!

And lastly, congratulations to the Metro Machine Knitting Guild on their new meeting space at Michael's in Dartmouth Crossing.  Their next meeting is this coming Thursday, March 8, from 10 AM to 2 PM.

Nancy

Check Your Bias

Did you figure out what I did wrong?

The question was this:  why did my machine knit swatches not look like the lace in the pattern when I followed the chart?  In my previous post I said that I knit the machine knit and the hand knit swatches using the exact same chart provided in the Kohi Shawl pattern.  For sure I did, but when I did the machine knit swatch I started the repeating pattern as I had highlighted it in the chart below on the left.

I did this so that I could pair up the decreases and increases so that when I made the first eyelet I would have a matching decrease (columns 14 and 11 in the photo) for the transfer to the right.  A conscious decision, but not fully thought through as you will see.

When I did the hand knit swatch, I didn't "cherry pick" the start of the lace repeat, and instead just started at the bottom of the chart as you would.  Here's an image of more of the chart, on the right, and the highlighted area on the bottom right of the image is the repeat I knit from.  I had a theory now that changing the start point was what went wrong, so I went back and did one more hand knit swatch knitted from the top part of the chart and lo and behold, the bias is gone just like it was for the first two machine knit swatches.

The fact that the first eyelet has no matching decrease on the right, and the last decrease has no matching eyelet increase on the left, is the key to making the lace "wave", or bias.  It does match up over the course of the row - the increases and decreases cancel each other out and you have the same number of stitches in work.  But over the course of the first ten pattern rows (even-numbered rows are knit plain) the fabric biases one stitch to the right five times.  Then on the next ten row repeat where you start with an orphaned decrease instead of increase, it biases in the opposite direction five times (or stitches) to keep everything balanced overall.  On a knitting needle, you have the same number of stitches per row every row, and you happily work away.  On the knitting machine, the actual needles in work on the bed have shifted over by five stitches to the right, and then in the next section five stitches to the left, and you're more likely to notice, and in my case, think something is perhaps wrong, because not only is the texture of the fabric "undulating", but so is your actual work space on the bed of the machine.

What that also means for the machine knitter is that you have to take into consideration this 5 stitch movement back and forth, and so for a 150-needle bed, as mine is, my maximum work space for this lace would be 145 needles.

Because there is quite a lot of hand manipulation involved in this pattern, and because it will be travelling back and forth five stitches on the machine bed, and finally because I don't like to over-complicate things (I see you rolling your eyes and laughing), I've decided that this shawl will be a wide rectangle.  I've also decided that I'm going to try it on 69 stitches (9 stitch repeat 7 times, plus three edge stitches on each side).   I decided on that by looking at the cast off edge on the first two shawls, which I know is almost 150 stitches wide, and that about half that would be a nice overall width.   I haven't quite decided on the edging, so if anyone has any suggestions please leave them below in the comments. 

In the meantime, I am reminded of Bob Ross, and his wise and liberating advice, to feel free in our creative pursuits to put a little tree here and a little stream there, where ever we feel like it.

Nancy

The Undulation Conundrum

Or:  The Curious Case of the Missing Curves

I have run into a very unexpected challenge in converting the Kohi Shawl's lace pattern from hand knit to machine knit, one that perhaps a more experienced machine knitter might have anticipated and have an immediate solution for, or perhaps not.  I can tell you, though, it nearly broke my brain.  So let me lay out for you this curious problem.

First, have a good look at the picture of the shawl (link above).  It is a very nice and basic eyelet lace with a vertical wave, and the lace pattern is actually called "waves of wheat" (or "wheat waves", or "waves of grain", depending on your source).  The chart for it is as so (highlight added by me to show the repeat):

Not bad, right?  The three-pronged transfer tool should do the trick for the hand manipulation, with a single prong on the opposite end to deal with whether or not the decreases should be 2-step or 1-step (more on that later).

To test the lace pattern I used some scrap yarn and just made a small swatch like so:

Look at it carefully.  There's maybe a tiny bit of "wave" but nothing like in the picture that accompanies the Kohi pattern.  I wondered if perhaps my swatch was too small to show the effect, or maybe I wasn't translating the decreases properly?  So I made a second swatch on the machine, and did 2-step decreases to see if that would make any difference.  A 2-step decrease is where you move the fourth stitch over to the third stitch of the set of three you are moving and then move the set of three to the right or left to fill that empty needle left by the fourth stitch (depending on which direction you are going with the decrease).  The tan swatch below is the second of my machine knit swatches.

If anything this is even less wavy and I am left scratching my head.  I go back again to the swatch and the picture of the shawl in the pattern and the two swatches.  Could the chart be wrong maybe?  So I look up the "waves of wheat" pattern on the internet and find another link (given above) and study that chart and, no, it's essentially the same - longer vertical waves, but that's really the only difference.  And the picture of the swatch looks essentially like the Kohi shawl.  So now I'm really perplexed, but with more study I note that in my machine knit swatches, the eyelets are lining up vertically as they do in the chart, but in the hand knit version they are offset, and it's not just because of the pull of the fabric made by the decreases.  They seem to be actually offset even though they are not in the chart.  So I decide to pull out my hand knitting needles and make yet another swatch, here:

Wait, what?  There it is - the pattern effect I've been looking for, from the exact chart I've been using, but this time with my knitting needles instead of my knitting machine.  The universe is toying with me.

At this point in my story, I'm going to encourage you to try this yourself if you don't believe me, because I barely believed me.  I can happily report that I did finally figure out why the difference, and I made a successful machine knit swatch last night after modifying the chart to how a machine knitter would read it.  Here's my machine knit swatch and my new chart:

The "wave" part of the pattern in the machine knit swatch isn't quite as well defined as it is in the hand knit swatch, so I may swap the types of decreases by changing the "ssk" to a one-step and the "k2tog" to a two-step to see if that matters, but honestly I'm pretty happy with that little swatch and that I actually found the missing curves.

I'm going to leave you in suspense for a few days as to the full explanation of why it made a difference in the first place, and I'd love to hear from you in the comments if you've tried it and especially if it's no surprise to you at all.  I do love a good mystery, especially when I can find a solution and learn a whole lot in the process!

Nancy

Shawl in a Ball LIVE

Join us on Saturday, March 10, from 10 AM to 5 PM at the Musquodoboit Harbour Public Library to knit your very own shawl!

We are just about at capacity so let us know soon if you would like to attend so that you can be added to the email list to get the full details.  If you're not sure, read up on the project in my previous posts here and here.

Some of the things that we will cover as we work through the shawl will be increasing and decreasing methods, using a garter bar, tension, embellishing, and other ways of modifying and customizing the project.

In the meantime, I'm working on translating the hand knit lace pattern of the Kohi Shawl, by Pineapple Bird Knits, to machine knit, also using the Shawl in a Ball yarn, and I have encountered some very unexpected challenges that have made this project a very valuable learning opportunity.  I hope to be able to post about it soon, and to also talk about it during our workshop at the library.  At the very least there will be lots of samples to show and tell!

Nancy

"Snow Day" Free Mitten Pattern

Here is a little present from me to you, a mitten pattern I designed over 10 years ago now, but one that I think holds up.  I'll be back in the new year with the third instalment of the Shawl in a Ball project(s), but in the meantime, Happy Holidays and may your 2018 be filled with lots of knitting!

"Snow Day" Mitten Pattern

Yarn: 2 50gm balls worsted weight yarn (sample done in Cleckheaton Country 8 ply, gauge stated on the ball band is 22 sts and 30 rows = 10 cm (4”), and I used very little of the second ball)

Machine: midgauge, no ribber required (sample knit on Studio SK860, can also be knit on LK150 or Bond.) MT 6

Size: Youth or ladies S (ladies L in brackets)

Finished measurements : Youth or Ladies’ S: circumference – approximately 20 cm around (8”), length - 19 cm (7 ½ “)

Ladies’ L: circumference – approximately 22 cm around (8 ½ ”), length – 22 cm (8 ½ ”)

Symbols/abbreviations:

 \ remove stitch from needle and replace on needle 2 sts to left (except the stitch farthest to the left, which moves only one stitch over so as not to increase the total number of stitches in work)
/ remove stitch from needle and replace on needle 2 sts to right (except the stitch farthest to the right, which moves only one stitch over so as not to increase the total number of stitches in work)
^ lift purl bar from adjacent stitch and hang on empty needle
S small
L large
T tension
MT main tension
EN every needle
EON every other needle
K knit
R row
RC row count

Special Tools: EN and EON selector tools handy, garter bar would also be useful

Special Techniques:

Triple strand “braided” e-wrap (adapted from “back and forth e-wrap” described in Mary Anne Oger’s Knitting on the Edge )
Break off three lengths of MY approximately 3X the width to be cast on. Holding three strands parallel, e-wrap cast on first and every alternate needle across. Change direction at the last needle and e-wrap back all needles skipped in the first step. See photos below.

Basket Weave Pattern (from Susan Guagliumi’s Hand-Manipulated Stitches for Machine Knitters )
TIP: If you ensure that you are moving sts towards the carriage side of the bed, then this will make it easier to remember which direction you should be transferring the sts and you will not need to follow the chart as closely.

The transferred stitch closest to the carriage should be placed on the needle immediately adjacent (two sts on this needle) so as not to increase the overall number of stitches. All other transferred stitches should be moved in the appropriate direction by 2 sts.

Instructions

CO 44 (48) sts using triple strand braided e-wrap. RC000. T10 K1R. T6 K1R. Remainder of mitten is worked at T6. Work basket weave chart to RC27 (RC30).

Leave 8 sts on carriage side in WP, all other sts to HP. Carriage on hold. E-wrap CO 8 sts. Knitting on these 16 thumb sts only, K to RC15. Dec EOS, ER 2X to 4 sts. Break yarn and thread through these 4 sts, remove from needles and gather. Push thumb to the back of the work and fold in half, return 8 sts to WP, and rehang the 8 e-wrap cast on thumb sts on these needles. Cancel hold.

RC000, keeping continuity of basket weave pattern, resume working from chart to RC27 (RC30). This marks the end of the basket weave pattern. Remainder of mitten is knit plain.

Dec E4thS across row. K2R
Dec E3rdS across row. K2R
Dec E2ndS across row. K1R

Break yarn and thread through rem sts, gathering the top of the mitten. Sew seams, braid and secure the 6 strands of yarn (from cast on) as shown in the photo, and weave in remaining ends.

Repeat for second mitten, making sure that thumb is worked on the opposite side as that of the first mitten. This may require knitting either one less or one more row before starting the thumb to ensure carriage is on correct side.

© 2007 Ciobair Fibre Designs. Pattern for personal use only.

Shawl in a Ball #2

I've finished the second shawl in a ball (see previous post on the first shawl in a ball), this time with my newly acquired garter bars, and let me just say that this is definitely the tool for this project.

Just to refresh your memory, this project was inspired by a suggestion from Judie based on this blog post that describes an off-centre triangular shawl.  Because you decrease one stitch every other row on the left, and increase one stitch every row on the right, the working stitches move the project across the bed to the right until you run out of needles on which to increase and have to shift the project back over the left to keep going.  For my first project, I used waste yarn to accomplish this, but as the shawl gets wider the frequency with which this shift to the left has to happen increases (along with the number of stitches that have to be shifted), so the waste yarn method gets pretty tedious quite quickly.  So, garter bar to the rescue!

I bought these from Kriskrafter and am very happy with them.  Take a minute and check out this great review on YouTube by Diana Sullivan. 

Each of the long bars are 75 stitches, so screwed together they cover the entire bed of my SK860.  I was hoping the first "shift" would happen at or before 75 stitches so I wouldn't have to join the two bars together the first time, but believe it or not I had 76 stitches in work when I ran out of working needles on the right.  Go figure.

You can see the orphaned stitch on the left of this photo, so I attached the two bars together, which was very easy and straight forward, and successfully moved the stitches back over to the far left of the bed so I could continue my increasing on the right.  The whole maneuver took less than a minute.  In total, I had to make the shift four times before I ran out of available stitches on the bed (and ran low on yarn, wanting to save some for fringe).  One note, if you've watched the video above and plan to use a garter bar for this project, remember that we're just moving the stitches to the left, not knitting garter stitch, so there is no need to flip the work, just shift it.  Your carriage and working yarn will remain on the same side of the needle bed as they were before.






To the left is a photo of the shawl with all the stitches transferred to the garter bar (you will probably have to look closely to see that)

Here's another picture of the stitches again transferred to the garter bar.  You can tell it's a little further along in the knitting than the picture above as I've moved further through the colour gradation.

And here's the finished project, although I haven't blocked it yet as I'm waiting for a fine day to be able to put it outside on the deck to air dry a little quicker.  This is great yarn considering how inexpensive it is.  This particular colourway is called "Mindful Mauve" in case you're interested, but they have many great colours to choose from.

I have one ball left, called "Restful Rainbow", and although I am very tempted to make one more shawl in the same pattern I have been using, I will resist that temptation and experiment with some lace next. 

The pattern that I have my eye on is a hand knit one, available for free on Ravelry and Craftsy, called the Kohi Shawl by Pineapple Bird Knits.  That's the plan anyway, always subject to change or a better suggestion!

I hope that your knitting is enjoyable, productive and just challenging enough to be interesting but not frustrating.  Leave me a comment below on what you're working on, if you have any suggestions for the final shawl in a ball project, or suggestions for future projects!

Nancy