Japanese knitting books

Last June I stopped at a Japanese book store in NYC. There I found Vivian Hoxbor's Domino KNitting translated into Japanese. I had bought the English version a few years ago. Then had sold it for a few pennies on Ebay when I was going through a purge of knitting books I didn't think I'd ever use. Of course just a week later in a class at Knitters Day Out Janet Szabo pulled this amazing swatch that she said she knitted using a technique she said she found in Domino Knitting.

So now I own both versions: the English and the Japanese. It is interesting to see the differences in the books besides the obvious. The knitted samples in the English version are all very dark and sombre. Most of them tend toward autumn colorways. Not particularly appealing to me. Also the directions are mostly written with only a few diagrams. Some of the wording is very confusing.

The Japanese book has a lighter feel. The pages are not as crowded. The samples have a lighter palette. The diagrams are clearer. Even though I don't read Japanese at all I think I would have an easier time knitting a project from the Japanese book. If I were to recommend one over the other I'd say get the Japanese version.

The picture on the top is from the English version. The picture on the bottom is from the Japanese version. While I don't really care for the pom poms at the bottom of the Japanese shrug, I am far more inspired to knit the shrug (and maybe changing the pattern to a full sweater instead of a shrug) than the English ruana (which looks a little like a heavy wool blanket) .

Shop Samples

Oh NO!

I agreed to create a pattern for a shop sample, but got carried away and didn't think ahead about how easy it would be to explain to people how to do this.

Kathy at Colonial Yarn Shop said that she has not sold a single skein of Noro Cashmere Island and asked if I could come up with a pattern that could help move the yarn. This summer I created a pattern for a summer tank that was half crochet and half knit. The customers loved it. My class for that pattern was full and Kathy sold loads and loads of the yarn used for that tank (Blue Heron Metallic Rayon, and Blue Heron Ribbon). It looked fabulous hanging in the shop even though I wasn't 100% happy with it. I was sloppy in matching the crochet gauge with the knitting gauge. I suffered knitting and crocheting that project. The yarn tangled at one point and it took me a full 8 hours to untangle it. PLus writting the pattern for sizes other than myself took me hours. I should have learned from that experience never to volunteer to knit a sample AND make up a pattern AND use a difficult yarn.

So my idea was that the Cashmere Island was too expensive for most customers to consider using it for a garment. The next thought was that a hat, or scarf might make people just think of using the cheaper alternative to Cashmere Island - which is Kureyon or Silk Garden.

Basically this is a top down raglan (used Sweater Wizard to come up with a pattern). The rules for using the two yarns (Noro Cashmere Island and Jo Sharp Alpaca Kid LUstre) are as follows.

1.Every time you change yarns do a *slip 1 wyf, knit1* for the first row, but make sure that the slip 1 does NOT line up with the last time you did a slip 1.

2.Never change yarns on an increase row.

Sounds easy enough, yes? This pattern has become complicated becuase

1. With the raglan increases sometimes you can just start with a slip stitch and sometimes you need to start with a knit 1 when you change colors.
2. THe slip stitch compresses the pattern and changes the row count and therefore changes the rate of increases for the raglan shaping.
3. I didn't plan when to change colors and just made it up as I went along.

It isn't hard to knit. JUst hard to explain.

I enjoy knitting with this yarn. If I were knitting this for myself I'd be happy with how it is turning out. If I had to tell an advanced knitter how to do something similar - but not exactly the same I'd be o.k. But I'm really scared of having to tell a beginning knitter how to copy the sweater exactly.

I should have decided on a stripe pattern before I started.

Ravelry

I got my Ravelry invite! It is the most awesome website I've ever visited. My friend Cynthia Spencer told me about Ravelry. I'm glad she did. I really enjoy the site.

Listing my works in progress on Ravelry has my head spinning. It is making me realize that I have way too too much on my plate. But also looking at other people's WIP and stashes makes me realize that I'm not the only crazy one out there.

I let my kids pick my screen name for Ravelry. It is Azalea.

Berroco Damask Bag

Here is the Berroco Damask bag (before and after felting) done in Ultra Alpaca in the colors Fig and Fennel.















It only took one cycle in the washing machine to get it felted. That Berroco Alpaca felts really well, and is heavenly to work with. I did most of the smaller areas in duplicate stitch.

lessons learned:

1. Always duplicate stitch smaller intricate areas of intarsia. I tried to do intarsia at the top of the motif and that was a bear.
2. To make the knitting easier I enlarged the chart by 200%. Since I don't have access to a copy machine I just opened the pdf file at Berroco.com and then enlarged the image. When I went to print out under print range I selected "current view" to get it to print out enlarged.

Augy's Opal Handpaint inside out socks

These socks look so misshappen off the foot, but fit Augy's foot really well. I think ribbing the insoles is a bad/good idea. A bad idea, becuase it took longer to knit rib than plain stockinette in the round. A good idea because it hugs the foot and provides a better fit.

This is an inside out sock becuase I did a 3/2 rib and garter stitch short row heels and toes and therefor there is no right or wrong side. I was already working on this idea when Socks that Rock came out with their Inside out pattern. STR is more complicated than mine with reversible rib cables. Mine is just ribs and garter. The first picture shows the colors more faithfully than the second. THe yarn is Opal handpaints in GREEN!

Noro Silk Garden Lite Entrelac Vest

This is the entrelac vest from Noro Volume 20 done in Silk Garden Lite color 2014.
The freaky thing about this is how the colors lined up. I did not cut the yarn or try to manipulate the color changes up to the under arms. It just turned out that all the bright colors lined up on one side of the best and all the somber grey blues lined up on the other side of the vest. How freaky deaky is that? If I had tried to make it come out that way it would not. It just happened to line up that way because by chance I picked up a certain ball and started at a certain part of the stripe. If you look at the picture of the vest all slayed out like a fileted fish you'll see how it is all just one long transition from one color to the next.

I should have continued the color pattern by doing the bottom ribbing for just half the vest in one part of the colorway and the other half in another part of the colorway. BUt by that point I was so ready to be done with the vest that my brain was not fully functional.

This vest was done as a shop sample. I will be teaching a class on this pattern, and needed to get this done at least a month before class started so that people could see it on display. Finished on August 29, 2007.

What I learned from knitting this vest:

1. Never again volunteer to knit an entrelac vest in less than one month.

2. Addi Lace needles are the perfect needles for doing entrelac. The sharp points make picking up a breeze. After struggling along using addi turbos (needles were too slippery - stitches kept falling off the needles), Addi naturas (tips were too dull), and Inox (join was too stiff) I purchased some addi lace needles from The Mannings, and then the knitting sped up and was much more enjoyable.

3. Noro yarns will never cease to surprise and amaze. I've never done a project with Noro that didn't turn out fricking fabulous. Can I have a warehouse full of noro at my disposal please?

4. Picking up an little bit in the corners of entrelacs keeps you from getting holes (old news, but I thought I write this done to remind myself). I learned this from a Japanese knitting book, more on this some day later.

5. 9 rib stitches equals 6 stockinette entrelac stitches.

Knitting Successes and Failures

Here is a tank I designed using Blue Heron yarns. one side is crocheted with Blue Heron's Rayon Metallic, and the other side is knit using Blue Heron Cotton Rayon Woven ribbon. It was an excercise in combing knit and crochet. I took into consideration the fact that crochet is thicker than knitting and used a thinner yarn for the crochet side than the knit side.
Here is a close up of the two textures. THe only thing I forgot to take into consideration is that rayon is heavier than cotton. So since this tank is hanging up at colonial yarn shop the rayon crocheted side has started to grow more in length than the knit side. I think I have to do this experiment again, but with different yarns. Next I have to plan not only that crochet is thicker than knit but that it can be heavier.

This is the Black Sheep Dorothy Bag using Kureyon before it was felted.
Here it is after felting. Very easy pattern. Couldn't put it down. Too much fun.
THis is Tide cropped cardigan from Louisa Harding's Beachcomber collection. I used Schulana Merino Cotton 90 yarn and Louisa Harding's Glisten. I would definitely use the Schulana again. Schulana really gets ignored by the knitting mags. I was suprised at what a great yarn it is.

Here is the tide on me. Unforutnately I knit this as a shop sample for Colonial Yarn Shop. So I won't get it back to wear until next year. I made the size small and it fits! My surprise at it fitting isn't becuase of knitting or gauge issues. It is becuase this is the first size small I've ever knitted for myself. This is great motivation to keep my weight down. I can knit smaller sizes faster and cheaper than knitting the bigger sizes.