Heather Knits

Another finished project which had been on the needles rather a long time.

I started this shawl in May 2010 at Chris Williams’s lace knitting class at Fleet Library. It languished for a while after the small leaves section while I tried to work out how I wanted the rest of the shawl to go.

It halted again for a while towards the end of the beaded leaves while I thought about how to finish it off.

In the end I went for a simple sideways knitted garter stitch edging so that it wouldn’t detract from the rest of the shawl.

I used 3mm needles and 2ply machine knitting soft cotton from Uppingham Yarns. The beads are CC180F – TOHO BEADS 3MM TRANSPARENT RAINBOW FROSTED OLIVINE from E-beads, and I used about 30g altogether. The beads are added using a crochet hook so you add them as you go rather than having to thread them all on the yarn before you start. I managed to lose my 1mm crochet hook while waiting for a dancing class while I was working on this shawl. It was a bit irritating as this hook was part of a set I have had for ages, but luckily I managed to find a replacement fairly quickly which is not a bad fit for the set too.

I need to create more occaisions to wear shawls now

Back in the autumn term last year Fleet library held another set of classes on knitting lace with Chris Williams, following on from what we had learnt in the first term of classes.

Again Chris designed a sampler scarf for us to knit to try out a variety of lace patterns. This one was a bit more complicated than the last one and included patterns where you had lace stitches on every row, not just every other row.

It was a fun project, I enjoyed trying out the different patterns. It is surprising how some patterns look very much like their charts, and others are quite different.

Here is the end of the scarf:

And the next section up:

And the middle:

After this the same patterns as before are used but in reverse order til you get to the end.

Apologies about the weird colours, I’m not sure what I did when I was taking the photos. The yarn is actually grey shetland 4ply from Uppingham Yarns, and I used 4mm needles.

You may recall that I started a baby blanket for my niece a little while ago, and knitted quite a bit of the centre of it on my holidays. I finally finished it and my parents kindly stuffed it in their suitcase when they flew over to meet Jennifer at the end of October.

The pattern is a fairly traditional Shetland hap pattern from Chris Williams’s Lace Class. The inside square is garter stitch knitted on the bias. There is then a border of feather and fan pattern, and then a sideways knitted simple garter stitch lace edging.

It was very enjoyable to knit, and although Jenny is a little young to be expressing an opinion on these things her parents seem to like it

I used 6 x 50g of Sirdar Snuggly 4ply, 55% nylon, 45% acrylic, and 4mm needles.

The blocking was slightly scary. Being nylon and acrylic you have to be a bit careful with blocking if you use steam. However if you pin out your blanket and steam it very gently it will actually set the stitches so that it wont need blocking after subsequent washing. The careful part is key here since you have to be very careful not to totally melt your yarn! As you hover with the steam you can actually see the stitches relaxing (permanently!). A lie down in a darkened room is recommended after you do this.

It all went ok though, and hopefully this will save the blanket from needing to be reblocked while still being easily washable.

Back at the beginning of September we had a lovely week’s holiday in south west Scotland, with a few days staying with my parents in North Yorkshire on our way up and back again. I have finally got round to downloading the photos from the camera and having a sort through.

The weather was a bit variable, but in general pretty good for the time of year, although it did rain on us horribly while we walked up Roseberry Topping whilst visiting my parents. You can see the wall of rain approaching from the distance in this photo. We had high winds and hail too! Luckily we also had somewhere to dry out and warm up once we had finished our walk, and that makes all the difference

One of the fields we could see from the top of the hill was full of fairly recent hay bales, and rather reminded me of beads on garter stitch, or possibly rib.

Up in Scotland we stayed in a lovely B&B in Castle Douglas. We had a lovely holiday, pottering around, taking nice walks, going to a few second hand bookshops, and visiting lots of Historic Scotland sites.

This is Sweetheart Abbey:

and this is Dundrennan Abbey:

We also looked round the gardens at Castle Kennedy, and saw this fantastic lichen, which made me think of Rosie

On the way back to my parents we stopped at Jedburgh Abbey, another spectacular building.

Then with my parents we went to Rievaulx Abbey.

Quite a cultured holiday

With all those busy days I needed some nice restful knitting for the evenings, so started a baby blanket for the new niece.

I am using Sirdar Snuggly 4ply and 4mm needles. It will be a hap shawl style, like the mini one we did in Chris’s Lace class, but square this time rather than triangular. The centre square is all garter stitch, knitted on the diagonal, and was excellent holiday knitting. Especially when it was small it was easy to pull in and out of a bag and work a row or two of even when I was a bit tired and brain dead. Since taking that photo it has grown a bit, I shall photograph it again when it finally stops raining! Around the garter stitch centre, there will be a feather and fan border, and then a simple zigzag edging. It is a very enjoyable project to knit, but progress has slowed now that it has got a bit big to drag around everywhere. Still I am hopeful I will get it finished soon, particularly since I am hoping to send it out to my new niece with my parents when they go to visit in a couple of weeks. Nothing like a deadling to give one a spot of motivation

Continuing on the theme of sometimes inclement weather we had a rather cold and wet day out last Sunday demonstrating spinning with the West Surrey Guild of Weavers Spinners and Dyers at Loseley Park, for their country fair.

Luckily Rosemary was a life-saver and dashed out for hot chocolate half way through the afternoon which did well to defrost us.

Due to the weather there were definitely a lot fewer people than there had been at the same event last year. Although one bonus of this was that we had more time to talk to the people who were there. I am trundling along with spinning the merino / silk. The end is definitely in sight!

Back in May and June I went along to a very interesting course of classes on knitting lace with Chris Williams held at Fleet Library. The format was a two hour class each Thursday morning for 5 weeks. It worked really well giving enough time in the class to learn something new, then enough time in the intervening week to practise what we had learnt.

In the first class we looked at what needles and yarn to use, and went over chart reading. Chris designed a sampler scarf for the class to familiarise us with a variety of lace stitches. It took me more than a week to finish though!

I used 4mm needles and 4ply Shetland yarn from Uppingham Yarns.

In the second class we looked at different shapes of shawl, and Chris gave us a pattern for a small triangular shawl she had designed, but also encouraged us to have a go at designing our own. I decided to have a go at my own, although I think I may come back and knit Chris’s as well in the future. I have gone for a leaf pattern using 2ply cotton and 3mm needles, and am still working on it I am contemplating whether to add beads to the edge, and for that matter what to do about the edging. This one will require a bit more thought.

In the third class we looked at Shetland hap shawls. Chris knitted us each a little triangle in garter stitch and we picked up stitches and knitted a feather and fan border and then a sideways edging.

Again for this I used 4mm needles and 4ply Shetland.

I really enjoyed this, and it is definitely on my list to make a full sized one soon.

In the 4th class we looked at shawls from different geographical areas, and different ways of constructing shawls.

Then in the 5th and final class we looked at designing our own shawls. I am attempting to design a Faroese shawl, but I haven’t got very far with it yet It is still very much at the fiddling around with the graph paper stage. Chris is hoping to run another course in October so I am hoping I might have a bit more to show for it before then!

I think Dawn is a bad influence. No sooner have I read about her casting on a multitude of portable projects, that I find myself following her lead.

The latest project is Haruni, a little shawl.

I am using 3.5mm needles, and my first attempts at spinning laceweight. As you can see I haven’t got very far yet

Apologies for no post on Monday, and that today’s post is rather later than usual. We have been down to Cornwall for a couple of weeks which was lovely, so the last three posts were brought to you by the magic of post-scheduling. However I haven’t been very quick at getting things sorted out once we got back, although we now have clean clothes which is a good thing.

September’s City and Guilds knitting homework was combined stitch structures. All of my examples come from the 1000 Knitting Patterns Book.

First up stranded knitting and lace, with a few slipped stitches thrown in too.

Next some cables and lace.

And finally some intarsia, a little bit of stranding and cables. The original pattern for this was in just one colour, and had a mixture of garter stitch and reverse stocking stitch for the background. I changed it to use all reverse stocking stitch and to introduce the colours. The rings are worked in intarsia, but the background is stranded across the back of each ring.

These were the last set of samples to complete the sample portfolio, and I handed in the whole lot (all 5 lever arch files of it!) at the class on Sunday. This is the first piece of work that I have had formally assessed for this course although Fiona has been checking our work as we go along to make sure we haven’t got completely the wrong end of the stick. It is nice to finally hand something in officially though, and I think it will be useful to have a bit of feedback on it all before I am too far along with all the other parts. It is always hard to know exactly what is expected on a new course until you get your first piece of work assessed. I am miles behind on the projects though so I had better go and get a move on with them!

The homework for our August City and Guilds class was lace.

The first sample is an example of faggoting, that is, a lace mesh.

This pattern is called Basic Faggoting Stitch and is from A Treasury of Knitting Patterns by Barbara Walker.

The second sample is an example of a pattern made with eyelets.

This is a snowflake from Gossamer Webs: The History and Techniques of Orenburg Lace Shawls by Galina Khmeleva and Carol R. Noble. There were a couple of little errors in this chart so if you are interested in knitting any of these patterns I would recommend downloading the errata first (although neither of the errors I spotted were actually included in the errata, I have contacted them so hopefully they should appear in the next version of the corrections). In 2000 Mummy and I went on a fascinating weekend workshop in Bradford organised by the Knitting and Crochet Guild on Orenburg shawls. It was really interesting and a wonderful weekend, I am looking forward to getting round to doing my own Orenburg shawl at some point.

Next up is an example of Shetland lace.

This is Feather and Fan Stitch, I got the instructions from A Treasury of Knitting Patterns by Barbara Walker, but being a traditional pattern it is in a lot of books. This just goes to show that you can work lace in acrylic

Lastly, my fourth sample shows an example of a more complex lace pattern which distorts the fabric (if the decrease is not right next to the corresponding yarn over then the fabric will be distorted).

This is Fern or Leaf-Pattered Lace, again from A Treasury of Knitting Patterns by Barbara Walker. I do love this pattern, it tiles so beautifully. I must do a whole garment using this, it is such a lovely pattern, and very pleasant to knit.

I now only have one more set of samples to do, on combined stitch structures, and then I need to organise them all and hand them in. I am hoping to be able to hand in at the September class so I’d better get a move on!