Author Archives: Bronwyn

Knit one, make one

Posted on by

I’m trying to get a sample shawl finished quickly so that I can send the new pattern out to test knitters – complete with a picture of what the design looks like, knitted up! The aqua one I started and mentioned in my previous post will be the large size, and have 5 gores, and it’s going to take me a bit of time to knit. So, i decided to put it aside for a short while, and cast on for the small size, with 4 gores for the first sample shawl – which is just over half the number of stitches that the aqua shawl will take!

I’m using a wonderful silk/merino fingering from Lush Yarn for this one, in a gorgeous rich blue colourway called Queen’s Robe. I’m loving it! I’m adding in silver-lined sapphire seed beads, and they’re looking gorgeous as well, so I’m thoroughly enjoying knitting this one! I started it on the 11th July, and I’ve knitted a third of it so far – although only one row in the past two days. I hope it will be finished next week, then I can finalise writing up the pattern and add photographs.

This is how she looked a few days ago – but I’ve knitted more since then:
Blue shawl beginning

Row by row

Posted on by

My second go at the new shawl design is gradually progressing:

Shawl beginning

Although the KnitPicks Gloss Lace yarn isn’t the softest or highest quality lace yarn around, it is a good weight for lace, and I like it for that reason. It has about 800 metres (880 yards) per 100gms, so it’s heavier than some lace yarns. The 70/30 mix of merino & silk also gives it a lovely texture.

I’ve now knitted 12% of the shawl… so there’s only another 43,000 or so stitches to go! Plus beads. Because I love beads. Fortunately, there’s not gazillions of them going in, at least in the first half of the shawl, so it’s not too slow.

Speaking of row by row, at the spinners and weavers meeting last week, I was discussing with a friend the challenges of using row counters on circular and dp needles, and the need to have some way to hang them from the needle. I promised I’d have a play…. This morning, I rummaged in the knitting tools box, and found that I have (at least) four plastic row counters. This afternoon, I rummaged in the miscellaneous bead bags, and made up these:

Beaded row counters
(Not a great photo, I know, but as you can see, one of them’s already in use… and I’m too lazy this evening to move away from the table to take a better photo.)

Problem solved – the hanging row counter works fine. Hopefully I’ll meet up with my friend for lunch in the next few days, and she can choose one of these for herself.

Not quite right (yet)

Posted on by

Not quite right sums up a few things in my life lately. I’m sore and a bit tired following a minor surgery in Tamworth yesterday – but I did enjoy the trip down on the train on Monday, and I did manage to visit Spotlight, so it wasn’t all medical stuff!

While on the train, and while waiting around for hours at the hospital between appointments, I finished the ‘prototype’ of my new shawl design. And I blocked it today.

Now, those of you who are lace-knitters know that you really don’t see a design properly until it’s blocked. This is especially true when the item is too large too stretch out while on the needles. So, although I’d charted out the various elements of the design, and knew that technically they fitted together, I wasn’t sure how it would all ‘work’ together in actuality until I pinned out the shawl this morning. Some people can visualise things before they’re knitted – while I can imagine a general sense of how something might look, and I did knit a sample swatch of the last motif and border, I really need the finished item in front of me to really ‘see’ it.

And although it’s okay, and I’m proud enough of it to wear it, I’m not quite satisfied with it yet – so I’ve cast on already for another sample, which will incorporate a few changes.

Here’s the protoype, all pinned out:
Semi-circular shawl

What’s not quite right? The last leaf motif is too close to the inverted ‘V’ lace, and its extra-noticeable because they don’t align exactly to flow from one to the other. And the reversing of the diagonal lines along the spines isn’t ‘neat’ enough; it doesn’t mirror the ones above, and it seems a bit crowded against the inverted ‘V’s.

So, I’m planning to keep the diagonal lines continuing in the same pattern right down the spines until the edging. I’ll also put some extra space between the leaf motifs and the ‘V’ motifs, so that the transition isn’t crowded. I’ve charted it all out… now I just have to knit it! One of the advantages, though, of the changes will be keeping the pattern fairly easy to knit, as the rhythm of the spine pattern will continue until the edging rows, rather than changing part-way through. And since rhythm and relative ease of knitting is one of my design criteria, that is a plus!

I’m using KnitPicks Gloss Lace yarn for the second shawl, in a delicate blue/green, and I’m also beading it. Plus, instead of a semi-octagon, with four gores, I’m knitting a 5/8 octagon, adding an extra gore so that the shawl will drape over the shoulders more securely.

Now, I’d better get back to the knitting! According to the handy excel spreadsheet calculation, I’ve so far knitted only 3792 sts of the total 49570 sts required. (Hmm… 7.65% sounds a little more encouraging!)

The art of stash

Posted on by

When I was a child, on a shelf in the fold-up kitchen table/shelves unit was a collection of old Maxwell House coffee jars containing buttons. Lots of buttons. I think some of them came from one of my grandmothers, but my mother added to the collection. Before a worn-out garment was thrown out, the buttons were cut-off and added to the button jar for the relevant colour. If we needed buttons for something we were making (we three girls learnt to sew quite young), we went straight to the button jars.

My Dad’s never done much sewing, but he too had a collection of Maxwell House jars in his workshop, filled with nails, screws of assorted sizes, and other useful making-things bits.

My parents switched to percolated coffee in the late 60s/early 70s, thus pretty much ending the supply of Maxwell House glass jars… but I digress 🙂

Having grown up in a household in which making things and fixing things was quite normal, I acquired the habit early in my young adulthood of having a moderate stash of stuff – knitting needles of assorted sizes; sewing cottons and embroidery yarns in a good range of colours; interfacing of various weights and lining materials in basic colours; fabrics (I sewed much more back then than now); knitting yarns in various quantities. Not being one of those very goal-focused, organised people, I would at times buy fabrics, yarns or tools on sale, without a specific project planned, and I still do that – although much more moderately than some I know!

I don’t have a HUGE stash of anything – but it’s a good size for my way of working, especially now that I live 25kms from a small town with limited yarn/fibre. Some people decide on a project, plan it in advance, purchase exactly what they need for that project, and work on it exclusively until it’s finished.

I’m not like that 🙂 When I decide I want to do something, I love to be able to start it right away, if possible. While being able to order online on a Sunday or at midnight or whenever inspiration strikes is wonderful, I get impatient waiting for things to arrive via snail mail – especially when it can take 3 weeks for something to come from overseas. So, I love being able to go to the cupboard, and find a suitable yarn, or fibre, or fabric, or whatever, and start making while my enthusiasm is fresh, and while the time is right for me. It doesn’t always work that way, of course – a cupboard is not the same as a fully-stocked shop! – but I’m reasonably good at buying useful things, and I can improvise/adapt when I don’t have exactly the right ingredients (rather like my cooking…)

Given that finances are somewhat tight just now, I’ve been stash-diving a reasonable amount the past couple of months. The dog coats I made in May came from stash; all my recent knitting has used stashed yarn; and when I wanted to photograph stitch markers for the online shop, I pulled out my tin of ribbons of many colours and used those as backgrounds. I’ve also been using some of the narrow ribbons to tie sets of markers together, and some paper from the scrap-book stash to package up the stitch markers. In the next few weeks, I’m planning to make a new light kimono-type dressing gown for my forthcoming hospital stay – and I’ll use some fabric that’s been in the stash for ahem some years. I also may make an outfit for a jacket for a formal dinner in August… and yes, there’s some fabric in the stash for that, too.

Having a stash is simply a way of life for me. It’s not huge or out of control, although it would take me a good couple of years to work through it all – but not several lifetimes. I’ve got yarn for about 5 jumpers/cardigans, maybe 20 pairs of socks, and a similar number of shawls (I’ve knitted 7 this year already!), plus an assortment of weaving yarns enough for maybe a dozen projects. I gave away a fair amount of spinning fibre a while back, but I still have one small box full – so if the fancy takes to spin yarn for a historical-textile weaving project, or a fine lace shawl, I can just go to the cupboard and start. I also destashed some yarns and fabrics that had accumulated that I decided I’ll never use – all to good homes!

I do tell my DH that, compared to many people, this is not a lot of stash. He’s not convinced. But then, most of what he does is digital, and is stored in electronic bits on computer drives, which don’t take up much space at all. And he doesn’t get the pleasure of deciding on a Sunday afternoon to start creating something… and having just the yarn on hand to do it!

New things

Posted on by

I did (finally!) finish sewing the seams of my shawl-collar jacket, and though I don’t have any beautiful photos of it, I have been wearing it – and it is, if not stunning, at least cosy and warm, which is great in the wintry weather we’ve been having.

Here’s Jane, my dressmaker’s model wearing it – although bear in mind that she is a lot skinnier than me!
Shawl collar cardigan

I used a Drops pattern (102-5) as a basic guide but adapted it quite significantly, in particular using moss stitch instead of garter stitch and changing the shaping. The yarn is Jo Sharp Silkroad Aran, which is 85% Wool, 10% Silk, 5% Cashmere – and have I mentioned, deliciously warm?

I’m quite pleased with the overall finished result, although the top button/hole is a bit high, and I’ve been wearing it without that done up. I may end up removing the button and stitching the buttonhole closed.

I’m currently planning a new, top-down cardigan – no more pesky seams for me! No knitting has been started yet, but any day now I’ll raid the stash and cast-on.

What else have I been up to? The prototype for the new shawl is coming along, and although it’s only half-knitted, I have done the time-consuming design and test-swatch knitting of the final two charts. Here’s a swatch of the edge – although I have changed the way the long diagonal lines will be knitted from how I did these ones (and I’m up to knitting them now in the prototype shawl):
Swatch - not final design

And I’ve added some new stitch markers to the Yarnosophy shop:
Green glass bead stitch markers with feature bead

Yellow and gold glass bead stitch markers

Iridescent purple glass bead stitch markers
(I liked these purple ones so much that I made a very similar pair of earrings for me!)

Shopkeeping

Posted on by

Did you ever play at keeping a shop as a kid? I know I did. I’ve worked in shops since then, and been on quite a few market stalls, but it was still a thrill to package up and get ready to send off the first order from the Yarnosophy shop:

Stitch marker package

The pattern download function is working fine, too – even if the patterns don’t come wrapped in pretty paper! I was a little nervous as I’m by no means a computer programmer, but the system worked for me and then it worked fine for the first ‘real’ customer, so I’m breathing a little easier now.

I made some more stitchmarkers this afternoon, but they still need to be finished off and photographed before they go into the shop. And I’m hoping to get out to the dyepots tomorrow, if it’s not too cold.

My major achievement for today, however, has been finishing the shawl-collar cardigan that has been languishing for a while, waiting for the final seams to be sewn. You may remember this from a week or so back:
Shawl Collar Cardigan
This morning I bit the bullet, and sat down with the cardigan. It took about an hour to sew the last seams, stitch the collar in place, and sew on the buttons. And then I put it on, and wore it into town, and I’m still wearing it now. It’s cosy and warm, and fits quite well; it’s nothing stunning, but it’s fine.

No photos yet – we don’t have a mirror, so I couldn’t really photograph it on me, and it was too cold today to take it off! Maybe tomorrow I can photograph it laid out in a table or something.

I’ve been looking at top-down patterns, and I think that’s the way I’ll be knitting jumpers and cardigans in future. I’ll do almost anything to avoid sewing seams and picking up stitches for bands and necklines… although I’ve conquered this cardigan, there’s a jumper lying around, that needs stitches picked up for the neckline. Maybe the burst of enthusiasm for finishing the cardi will carry through and I’ll finish the jumper this week… but don’t hold your breath!

Knitting on the new shawl is much more fun, and it’s coming along. I still haven’t finalised the last quarter or so of the design, but I’m not up to knitting that part yet, so I’ll have a day or two more to think about it and play with the chart on the Excel spreadsheet.

Yarnosophy shop!

Posted on by

I’ve been thinking about this for a while, but now it’s finally here:

The Yarnosophy shop!

To kick things off, there’s a selection of glass bead stitch markers. The Brangian shawl pattern is also there (as a PDF download), and there’ll be some more skeins of hand-dyed yarn soon.

I still have a few fine-tuning things to do – like a new header image, and skinning the shop and the blog with a similar look and linking them – but it should be functional at least!

Here’s a teaser of what’s in the store:
Red & gold stitch markers

Turquoise stitchmarkers

Blue glass bead stitch markers

Beginnings

Posted on by

My life is a bit up and down at the moment, and I’m kind of in a hiatus on several fronts; looks like I’ll be having brain surgery in the next couple of months, and I’ve also got to start again on the next book – very tough decision to make, but it just wasn’t working. My new idea, however, is starting to bubble away this last 24 hours, and I think the new heroine is going to work. Now I just have to come up with a hero, and a plot, beyond the first few pages!

To counter the down bits and nurture the creative spirit, I’m concentrating on some less-demanding creativity; amongst other things, I’ve started designing another shawl. I’m aiming for a semi-circular shawl this time. I’m using Bendigo 4ply luxury for the prototype, and here’s a teaser:
Knitted shawl beginning

I’m not sure what the rest of it will look like yet, so I’m in the same position as with the new book – great beginning, but still a long way to go!

Did you notice the little red danglies? Yes, I have become a sucker for stitch markers. I love the pretties, hanging off my needles, and for this shawl I need three. I didn’t have any in my small stash of purchased ones that toned properly with the crimson of the yarn, so I made some. Then I made some more. Now I’m just anxiously waiting for the postmen to bring some tigerwire, because the wire I have isn’t ideal. But these ones will be fine for me!
Knitting stitch markers

Cosy and warm

Posted on by

Winter has officially started, and the weather is mostly cool, overcast, with occasional brief periods of rain, and glimpses of the sun now and then – not quite our normal crisp, sunny winter days, but there’s something about rain pattering on the roof that makes me want to snuggle into cosy, comfortable clothes.

I finished these socks last night:
DK (8ply) toe-up socks

They were something of an experiment – 8ply (DK) yarn (only the 2nd time I’ve used it for socks), toe up socks, and I started them using two circular needles. The toe-up start was fine, but the two circulars didn’t work so well for me. Before I’d got very far along the foot, I switched back to my usual 1-sock on 5 dpns – and was much happier!

I wanted a heel flap (the wedge heel doesn’t work for my foot shape), and I hunted around on the internet and found Becca’s formula from her Forward Motion blog, which was great, and easy to follow. Now, I know with toe-up socks you should be able to try on as you go, but with thick ankles and dpns, that isn’t the easiest. So, when I finished the first sock, I decided that the foot was a little long, and the leg a little tight. On the second sock, I increased 4 stitches less on the gusset (thus shortening the foot length, and the heel flap length), and increased more stitches after the ankle. That worked well, so I then ripped back sock 1 to the gusset, and reknit it to match sock 2.

The yarn is Bendigo Luxury 8 ply, which is machine-washable, and soft, without being too soft. I’m looking forward to wearing my new socks! I can definitely see myself knitting more toe-up socks, and more 8ply socks; I love 4ply (fingering) yarn and socks, but sometimes I want something thicker – not to mention, quicker to knit!

I’m gradually trying to finish up some wips. The next on my list of things to finish is this:
Shawl Collar Cardigan

This has been hibernating for… a while. But winter is the time when hibernating handknits are supposed to emerge, and I’ve decided that since it is SO close to being finished, that I will finish it this week. All I have to do is sew up a few more seams, and sew on buttons. (And yes, I should have blocked the pieces – I’ll have to do a (very) light press instead.) The yarn is Jo Sharp Silkroad Aran – making this the most expensive garment I’ve knitted, possibly ever. I started this almost 2 years ago; my slowness on finishing the final seams is due to two factors – first, I HATE sewing seams. My jumpers/cardigans from now on are likely to be top-down. Secondly, I’m always nervous about how a finished garment is actually going to look on me. I’m short, overweight, and although I have a waist, it’s a very short one, with hips/tum much bigger than my bust. Believe me, this is not a fashionable shape. And no, fitted knits do not work very well for me. I know they do for many people, but not me. This cardigan is not fitted, and hopefully will be just long enough for the shawl collar and button band to give a vertical emphasis. I guess I’ll find out… when I finally get it finished and try it on!

Wonderfully warm wool

Posted on by

I’ve always lived in places with chilly winters. Not as cold as Canada and northern Europe, but chilly enough – frosts and below-freezing temperatures most mornings and occasional snow falls. We’re lucky where I live, that most of our winter days are dry and sunny, but that’s not been the case for the past week or so.

After growing up in Canberra, and moving to the Armidale district 22 years ago, I’m very good at dressing for the cold! I’m definitely not one of those people who wanders around in a thin long-sleeved t-shirt, shivering and looking miserable. Nope, my winter wardrobe has a lot of wool in it; not just hand-knits, but bought jumpers etc. Wool, especially mixed with other fibres such as cashmere and angora, are so, so much warmer than acrylics, polyesters, rayons and other man-made yarns.

But have you noticed how hard it is to find pure wool, or wool-blend things now? I went hunting for simple wool-blend black socks… other than Explorer-style socks, there was nothing in womens’, mens’ or boys’ departments with wool in it, and the Explorers are too thick for what I want (and nylon on the outside). Yes, I know I’m more than capable of knitting socks, and I do, but black is a hard colour for me to knit, hence wanting to buy some.

I also went looking for woollen blankets… okay, so I haven’t looked in the expensive places yet, but Target, KMart, Big W used to have them as a regular stock item… and now there’s not a one in sight in our local stores – despite the fact that we’re in one of the coldest towns in the country! There’s plenty of ‘fleece’ blankets, and cotton ones, but no wool.

Wool jumpers and cardigans have disappeared from the cheaper stores, too – fortunately I can still get them in a couple of local up-market clothing stores, and they’re better quality than the cheapies, but naturally they cost more… and aren’t as good as a handknit!

So, to make sure I don’t sound like a grumpy old woman complaining how much better things were in the old days, I’ll cut my little rant short there and mention instead that when I took the dogs out for a walk this afternoon, in the cold, windy, overcast weather, I was snug and warm in my handknit wool/cashmere socks and fingerless mitts, and the handknit pure wool big jumper and matching beanie that I’ve been wearing around the house and for outside work for years.

I love being a knitter 🙂