Heather Knits

Last months knitting homework for City and Guilds class was on surface embellishment, mostly things added to a plain piece of knitting, but some were knitted in. I had had a go at some of the techniques before, but some were new, so a nice mixture of old friends and new excitement!

The first old friend was the method of knitting with beads that I used on my bracelets. Here the beads are placed between knit stitches, and the piece is totally reversible.

Next, a different method of adding beads into the knitting. This time the knitting is stocking stitch, and the bead lies on the working thread in front of a slip stitch. The pattern is only on one side of the fabric, and this method seems to work best if the bead is a similar kind of size to the knitted stitch. I actually have a dress that I am knitting using this method. I have been knitting it for the last 8 years (ok it has spent a lot of that time in a bag). One of these days I will discover which bag it is in and dig it out and continue.

The last sample using beads involved sewing the beads onto an already finished piece of knitting. I was less keen on this sample. I think it looks a bit messy, partly due to the beads I used being rather inconsistent, and partly due to my not sewing them on very neatly. Not sure I will be doing a lot of bead embroidery in my future.

The next bit of embellishment was fringe. I’m afraid my example isn’t wildly exciting.

And then onto appliqué. I got a bit carried away with this one So many little leaves, so much fun, so many colours. I particularly liked the sock yarn ones.

Then a bit of Swiss darning (also known as duplicate stitch). My example is a little abstract, though I do think it looks a bit like an angle-poise lamp (totally unintentionally).

Finally, an example of embroidery. Despite my rather strained relationship with sewing I enjoyed doing this one, and I particularly liked the effect created by space-dyed yarn.

Now I had better get cracking on this months homework. Only just over a week til the next class.

I was hoping to post this on Saturday but my computer has been having a bit of a moment. After spending an extended time-out on the naughty step contemplating the error of its ways, and having its hard disk defragmented 4 times (which took 2 days!) it is now a behaving itself a bit better.

In the time not spent at the computer I have been knitting a bit more on the hat:

I have worked the first crown:
I have picked up my stitches from my provisional cast on, and started on the second half, in inverse colours:

P is convinced it is a hat for Marge Simpson, I keep telling him he needs to wait and see …

I caved and finally ordered some of the Kauni yarn everyone has been going on about. It is such fantastic colours I couldn’t resist, and it arrived on Saturday! I had been hoping that the weather would perk up a bit so I could take pictures outside, but it hasn’t so I’m afraid we have inside pictures today:

Surprisingly (!?) I ordered the brightest colour they had (EQ), and while I was at it a couple of balls of Trekking found its way into my shopping basket too. It was the first time I have ordered from Astrid’s Dutch Obsessions and the process all went very smoothly and quickly, and she even included a little piece of cake! (just visible on the right of the picture above). I have been very restrained and haven’t casted on yet, I am still plotting what exactly I am going to do. The yarn is very nice and I love the long stretches of colour. My only niggle is that it isn’t the softest yarn in the world. I think it will be ok, it is not that harsh, but I would love to find something in colours like this but perhaps in merino. If you have come across anything I would love to know about it!

Stranded hat

The hat is trotting along, I have started the decreases for the crown (and changed my mind, undid about 20 rows and redid them), here you see version 2 (version 1 didn’t live long enough to have its photo taken):

My hands are definitely getting more used to knitting together, although I am still haven’t some difficulties with pulling the yarn in the left hand too tight, anyone have any suggestions?

Comments

The Japanese short rows aren’t too much of a pain once you get going. Also, while the pins are handy while you are starting out because they make it completely clear exactly which thread you need to pick up, I think you can dispense with them once you have got the idea. Once you have got rid of the pins it it probably less fiddly even than the wrapping method. I am going to do some more experimenting so watch this space!

In celebration of all the good weather here we have been out decimating the garden this weekend. We had a large goat willow near our boundary with next door which was starting to lean on their greenhouse so on Friday a couple of tree surgeons came and removed it, and gave the Eucalyptus and the smoke bush a bit of a hair cut too.

This was the view from our back door on Thursday before all the action:

and here is the view this lunchtime:

The tree surgeons were very quick and tidy, although it was rather hair-raising watching them climbing the trees with chain-saw in hand! P has also been hard at work at the weekend chopping down and pulling up some of the other rather over-grown stuff, and is now onto renovating the lawn which is currently partly bald, and partly brown and crispy.

After all the excitement we decided it was time to actually enjoy the garden and so on Saturday night went shopping for some food to cook on the barbecue for Sunday lunch. Sunday dawned rather grey, but neither of us are particularly good at letting go of an idea once we have latched onto it, so we bravely forged ahead, got the barbecue out, lit it, and put the food on. Then the rain started:

There is something so terribly British about barbecuing in the rain, so many happy childhood memories of summer holidays with iffy weather It is all part of the fun really. Luckily it stopped raining and the sun came out just as the food was cooked and we had a lovely meal, beef burgers with onion and chilli made by P in rosemary rolls made by me, very yummy. We finished it all off with a trip to RHS Wisley to enjoy someone elses garden.

Knitting

In amongst all the gardening I have been doing a bit of knitting:

I am practising my two-handed two colour stranded knitting. I have just about beaten my left hand into submission now and am starting to get a bit faster and more even. I thought this would be a good practice project before I launch into Alice Stamore’s Henry VIII. It is going to be a double layer reversible hat, but requires a bit of imagination at the moment.

Comments

Thank you all for your very kind comments on the Patchwork Sweater. I will definitely look into writing the pattern up, though it may take me a while to work out the logistics of making it fit a wide variety of sizes!