Faeroe Island phone cosy

When I got my shiny new phone I managed to let it slide out of my pocket on the very first day. Thank goodness the only damage from landing on a concrete path was a tiny ding on the corner. My twitter timeline seems to be full of people who have dropped their phones resulting in cracked screens – or worse.

So I thought a phone cosy might be in order and came across this design for a Faeroe Island phone cosy by Eline Oftedal.

As the pattern is probably a couple of years old I think this might have been designed for an older and smaller iPhone. I decided to wing it at first but after getting about half way I realised that no amount of blocking would make it fit – so time to start over.

The original pattern has you cast on 32 stitches with an 8 stitch and 8 row pattern repeat. So, on my second attempt I cast on 40 stitches and also added one extra pattern repeat longways. It turned out to be exactly the right size for my Galaxy S6 phone (and I think it would fit an iPhone 6 too). Yay!

It’s knit cuff down in the round like a sock and then finished with a three needle bind off. This is the first time I’ve attempted this bind off and it was super easy, except for the bit where I had to turn the cosy inside out with the DPNs still intact.

Mission accomplished!

The yarn is my old fave Rowan Felted Tweed DK in “Clay” and “Rage”.

PS: I’ve been a little intrigued by Faeroe Island knitting designs since reading about a knitting cruise (yes, really!) this year which set sail on the Holland America Line’s Eurodam from Copenhagen to New York via the Faeroe Islands. While I wasn’t able to make it this year, the idea of a knitting cruise does sound rather magical – might need to add it to my “one day” list.

Is this thing on?

I seem to have forgotten about this little blog over the antipodean winter so here’s a little knitting catch up.

Askrigg is finished! The pattern is by Marie Wallin from the Rowan Purelife British Sheep Breed Collection, featuring sweater designs for men and women named after towns in the Yorkshire Dales. Askrigg looks like a very lovely place – I wouldn’t mind visiting one day.

Although the recommended yarn for Askrigg is Rowan British Sheep breeds Chunky, I knitted mine in Rowan Cocoon “Seascape”. I’d bought the Cocoon originally for a heavily cabled design Ilam, also by Marie Wallin, from another Rowan book Autumn Knits. Ilam is a pretty gorgeous but also a pretty complex design and, although Cocoon is the recommended yarn, I don’t think it would have held up at all. Ilam needs a more structured yarn I think, something to make those amazing cables pop, and also a yarn colour to show off their complexity.

When I started on Ilam I was worried that the moody green-blue Seascape might be a bit too dark – I was also concerned that the recommended seven skeins for my size wouldn’t be enough. I’m pretty sure you’d need an extra skein, and I ended up buying one, and used all eight skeins to make Askrigg.

I think Askrigg would look great in Rowan British Sheep Breeds Chunky which is rustic and sturdy, but I think the simple design also suits the fuzzy floppy Cocoon. This isn’t a sophisticated sweater. This is something to wear while you work in the garden, or walk the dogs on a cold wintry morning, or perhaps set off for a walk in the hills around Askrigg.

Cablepalooza

This yarn has been sitting in my stash for quite some time. I picked up eleven skeins of Brooklyn Tweed Shelter in a grey-blue colourway called “Faded Quilt” when I was passing through New York City on the way back from Charleston a couple of years ago.

I may have fallen in love with the name as much as the colour.

It’s been waiting for just the right project – and I think I’ve found it. This is a diamond cable saddle shoulder sweater from the Patons Australia book 1252 Weekend knits, featuring more than a dozen sweater patterns for men and women.

The patterns are written for Patons Zhivago which, at 20 stitches to 10 cm, is a perfect match for Shelter.

As Steven will know, I started out originally with a different pattern from the same book but had a panic that it might be coming out a little on the small side and if I had to go up a size I was worried that I might not have enough yarn. So I swapped to this pattern instead, and I’m actually quite glad that I did (although I like the other pattern too – for another time).

I appear to be the first person to knit this design and I had to add it to the Ravelry pattern library myself, which is odd because it’s a great pattern and I’m hoping I might encourage some other knitters to join me in knitting it. It’s also pretty straightforward, although I should take heed that I haven’t got to joining the saddle shoulders yet – something I’ve not yet attempted. So far the back is done and I’ve started on the front and it’s all going surprisingly quickly.

I also decided to cast on for a slightly more complicated pattern alongside this one.

Ilam is a design from the Rowan book  Autumn knits in Cocoon. Isn’t this a great colour!? “Seascape” is a beautiful deep blue green that I absolutely fell in love with.

I usually purchase more yarn than recommended but with my last Rowan sweater I had almost four skeins left over at the end so this time I went with the recommended seven skeins. I still had a horrible foreboding feeling that it might not be quite enough, which was borne out by a couple of other knitters on Ravelry so I bought one extra skein to be sure – different dye lots, but in my test swatch I couldn’t spot any difference. My plan was to use the odd dye lot for the ribbing, so that if there was a subtle difference, the break in textures would hide it.

Ilam is a beautiful cabled men’s vee-neck sweater. These cables are way more complicated than anything I’ve done so far, with the front and back featuring panels of 8, 20 and 24 row repeats. I had to borrow Wayne’s coloured pencils to make sense of the it all. Having started though, I think the beautiful deep blue-green Seascape might not be the best choice. The dark colour makes it difficult to “read” the knitting, and it also makes it difficult to see the cables – which is at least part of the point of tackling a project like this. A lighter colour would show off the complex cables, so I’m thinking that Ilam might get put aside for another yarn, and the Seascape Cocoon might end up being used for another pattern – perhaps Askrigg.

Now that I’ve bought the extra skein, I’ll have enough yarn.

Short ribs

A small diversion from the Christmas decorations to Christmas knitting for Day 7 of the #blog12daysxmas challenge.

There was a very confusing set of instructions at the very end of the pattern for my Marash sweater which I decided I would just ignore, but as I’m now almost at the finish line it seems that I finally must turn my attention to them.

Marash features a ribbed collar, which I’ve done before on other sweaters, but this one is more sophisticated using short rows to add shape to the back of the neck.

My knitting helper, Kuma

It took me ages and I lost count of the number of times I ripped back before I finally figured it out and settled on a method for wrapping and turning.

The trouble, for me anyway, was that all the short row wrap instructions I found referred to the “knit side” and the “purl side” and my short rows are in 1×1 rib. Some of the instructions were a little sparse too on how you should pick up the yarn wraps to hide them, and they all talked about hiding the wraps on the purl side or the wrong side and I didn’t have a purl side. Hmmm.

After experimenting with Japanese short rows I decided to go down the traditional path, wrapping and turning and catching the wrapped yarn on the return row – although I’ll definitely try out Japanese short rows another time.

To adapt the instructions for wrapping and turning to 1×1 ribbing I worked in rib to the point of the turn and worked as if I was on the side for the last stitch before the turn. So if I wrapped on a purl stitch I used the wrapping instructions as for the previous knit stitch which kept my yarn in the right position. Then when I came back  to pick up the wrapped stitch I followed the instructions for that stitch, so if it was a wrapped purl stitch I used the instructions for the purl side.

It worked out well – it’s quite magical really how the short rows turn knitting into a three dimensional shape – but I seem to have ended up on the collar’s right side when I should have ended on the wrong side, and I’ve also spotted one stitch that I didn’t “unwrap” correctly. This is something you need to do at a quiet time with no interuptions.

I know that the great Elizabeth Zimmermann said that if you couldn’t spot the mistake while galloping past on a horse, then don’t sweat it (I may have paraphrased) but I know that things this this worry me so I’m going to consider this the practice run and I’ll rip the collar back and do it again properly. On the weekend.

* My knitting helper Kuma has decided that he likes to snuggle his nose into my current knitting project, while I’m knitting it. Not really helping.

Day 2: Jingle bell garland

Day 2 of twelve days of Christmas decorations for the #blog12daysxmas challenge.

A simple idea to go with the knitted Christmas balls on my tree, a crocheted tweedy jingle bell garland…

The idea came from DIY Maven’s 12 Days of CRAFTSmas – it’s also on Ravelry – although my garland is a little more petite since I only had 18 jingle bells in my pack from Daiso and DIY Maven’s design is for 50 bells.

Given I had less to work with and no time to get to the shops for more, I spaced them out a bit further with 25 crochet chains between each bell rather than 15. Even with more bells I’d space them out a bit further because my yarn choice was on the lighter side too – Rowan Felted Tweed DK, the same yarn I used for the Christmas balls, and more of a sport weight really rather than the worsted weight yarn called for in the pattern.

It’s a great and easy idea to decorate the tree, so I think I’ll pick up some more jingle bells and make some more for next year’s tree.

Day 1: Julekuler

Day 1 of twelve days of Christmas decorations for the #blog12daysxmas challenge.

For Christmas 2012 I found under my tree Arne and Carlos’s wonderful book 55 Christmas balls to knit featuring designs and instructions for 55 stranded colourwork julekuler. I confess that I never actually thought I’d be able to knit them, but by chance I saw a post on KnittingSarah’s blog for a year-long knitalong through 2013. It’s much more fun learning something new with friends so I signed up right away!

By another chance I saw that Martine of the iMake podcast was planning to learn stranded knitting in 2013 too so I mentioned that she might like to check out KnittingSarah’s knit-along too – and the MerryKAL was on the way.

I tried my first Christmas ball with Patons Australia Bluebell which was, frankly, a bit of a disaster. If you can knit with that stuff all power to you, I found it dreadfully splitty and gave it away in frustration and instead ordered some Millamia wool yarn in snow white, Christmas red, and a little bit of mossy green for good luck.

While I was waiting for the new yarn to arrive I practised with some scraps of Rowan Felted Tweed. It was really rather lovely, but I ran out before I could finish the first ball, so when the Millamia yarn arrived I switched to that and finished about twenty balls by Christmas-time.

It was great fun knitting the Christmas balls through the year, and getting to know Sarah and Martine, and even sharing comments on Instagram with Arne and Carlos. Along the way too I met perhaps the most enthusiastic Christmas crafter of all, Pam of the Gingerbreadsnowflakes blog. Lucky Pam even got take a class with Arne and Carlos in Portland.

In 2014, looking back at that first attempt at a Christmas ball with Felted Tweed, I thought that it might be nice to create a whole set of tweedy Christmas balls so I started again back at the beginning knitting a set of tweedy julekuler.

I got 19 done by Christmas and they’re now hanging on the tree and I’m planning to keep knitting all the others through 2015 (and maybe a bit longer if I don’t get them all done!). Pam is going to join me and I think we have another taker too – join us on Instagram #merrykal if you like. The more the merrier!

Bodie

“Bodie” is the first design I’ve made from Martin Storey’s lovely Rowan book Nordic knits. Being Nordic themed I had romantically imagined that Bodie was a town on a remote Scottish island but the only reference I’ve been able to find is of a ghost town in California.

Bodie is a stranded colourwork tote bag and I knit it using the exact same yarn as in the pattern, Rowan Felted Tweed DK in green “Pine” and gold “Gilt”. There are four stranded panels for the four sides with a plain green base and handles. It was only after I’d finished the panels that I realised it would have been so much simpler to knit the sides in the round – Rowan patterns seem always to be knit in pieces, even when it makes no sense.

It was also only after finishing the second main side panel that I realised I had cast on ten fewer stitches than I should have and I didn’t notice because the pattern repeat still worked out. Drat. Also, something else I realised too late, instead of ripping it out and starting over, I really should have just added the missing 10 stitches to one of the sides. Double drat.

Still, it was good practice and gave me a chance to try purling stranded colourwork, which is not something I’d be rushing to do again if I could avoid it, but I can do it in a pinch.

My Ravelry notes show that I started at the end of August and had finished knitting all the pieces – except for the handles – by the end of September. I found some wadding for the lining at a local craft store but there was no decent fabric to be had anywhere so I ended up buying a metre of vintage fabric from an Etsy seller in Ukraine. I think they go really nicely together.

The handles are knit in long strips with slip stitches to mark the edges. The idea is to sew ribbon on the wrong side along the slip stitches and then close the seam, but my first attempt was a complete failure. The pattern states to use 25 mm “Petersham ribbon” which I can only think is a mistake because that measurement doesn’t work out at all, and I tried a second time with 38 mm ribbon which lined up perfectly.

There was one heart stopping moment when I was stitching the handles to the bag. I realised that I’d sewn them too close to the edge so I rather too carelessly went to rip out the stitches to try again and only then noticed that I’d accidentally snipped a couple of the garter edge stitches. Yikes! I repaired the damage from the reverse side and wove over the garter ridges on the front to camouflage the mistake – I can only find the mistake if I look very closely, thank goodness. Phew!

I sewed the wadding and lining to the knit fabric using the sewing machine and it was surprisingly easy. The garter edging puckered just a little, but that settled down with a light steam blocking. Who knows, I might even attempt a zipper.

Disaster averted

I usually seem to finish up my knitting projects with at least a ball of yarn to spare, and sometimes a lot more. For one of my early sweaters I ended up with more than four balls left over at the end which I couldn’t figure out at all – it’s not like I forgot to knit a sleeve or something – and I’ve got more than three skeins of Rowan Kid Classic left from my Brown Bear pullover. At least that’s enough for a scarf.

I seem to have tempted the knitting fates with my Thwaite cardigan though, where I substituted yarns and bought what should have been just enough only to run out right near the finish line. Yikes!

I’d bought the yarn at the Morris & Sons sale a year ago so it was with some trepidation that I headed into town today to see if I could at least find one more ball in the right colour. What a relief, not only a few balls left in my colour but one from the same dye lot.

I now have a new resolution – to always purchase enough yarn for the next size up, which should always leave me some to spare.

Bodie

Bodie is a stranded colourwork tote bag by Martin Storey from the Rowan book Nordic knits. It’s a gorgeous book featuring mostly patterns for accessories with some beautiful colour combinations, and this may be the first time I have ever knit a pattern using the suggested yarn and the suggested colours: Rowan Felted Tweed DK in “Pine” and “Gilt”. These colours remind me of the gilded screens with painted pine trees at Nijo Palace in Kyoto.

I hesitate to call the patterns in Nordic knits Fair Isle because, like all Rowan stranded colourwork patterns, they’re knit flat and I’d always thought that traditional Fair Isle was knit in the round. Knitting in the round would certainly be easier. It seems that most British stranded colourwork patterns are knit flat, and Australian patterns seem to follow their lead. For Bodie you knit the two colourwork side panels, then join together with a flat band in green “Pine” for the bottom, sides and handle, before lining the bag with a stitched fabric insert.

I’ve gotten the two handed stranding technique down reasonably okay when knitting but purling is a pain. I could do it, but the position of my left hand always seemed to be getting in the way when working with both hands so in the end I worked out a variation of thumb knitting for my left hand when purling, using a description of the technique from June Hemmons Hiatt’s The Principles of knitting.

When I cast on a couple of weeks back I’d thought this was going to be a long-term project but got one side done in a week so then got bold and cast on for the second panel right away. I thought I’d got the second side panel done yesterday but it was only when I got to the very end, reducing for the garter rows at the top, that I noticed I had completely messed up the stitch count for the second panel. I got the first panel right, casting on 107 stitches, but only cast on 97 for the second one, and I hadn’t noticed because the pattern repeat still looked correct. Oh good grief.

The second panel is now ripped out completely and I’ve started over today, having very carefully checked that I have 107 stitches and 21 pattern repeats this time.

I’m juggling a couple of other projects… my Snawheid hat is back on the go now that my new needle has arrived in the post after I snapped the first one. This is a lovely design, proper Fair Isle knit in the round using Jamieson & Smith jumper weight yarn in a lovely greeny-grey-blue and white. 

And my Thwaite cardigan has been languishing somewhat, which is ridiculous really because it’s almost done. I’m just knitting the button bands and then I can join it all together. I really should get cracking so I can wear it, we’ve had glimpses of warmer Spring weather and our almond tree is in bloom which is always the first sign that Spring is almost here.

I also need to get these projects finished because I have become ridiculously excited by the My Favourite Things scarf knitalong that Martine from iMake is hosting and I’m not going to start on that until I’ve cleared the decks at least a little bit!

Thwaite

For the last day of #blogjune in which I embark on a new knitting project.

This is the men’s version of Thwaite, a cardigan designed for Rowan Purelife British Sheep Breeds Chunky yarn by Marie Wallin from the Rowan book British sheep breeds collection.

It’s a simple cardigan but with some neat detailing around the collar and the button closures. I would have been very happy to knit this in the Rowan yarn but this is one of those Rowan publications where they omit the smallest men’s size so those of us not built like rugby players are in a bit of difficulty. I wish Rowan would at least list the sizes they do have in their books.

I’m getting around the sizing problem by substituting a similar yarn with a slightly smaller gauge. The Rowan yarn knits to 13 stitches over 10 cm and I’m using Morris Norway which knits to 14 stitches which should come in at just the right size. I picked up the Norway on special at the Morris sale last year. It comes in a range of “natural” colours, mine is charcoal grey.