Pransellknit

It’s astounding how seemingly quick projects can be held up by little, but important, details. A fine example of this is a couple of small baby items I started nearly two months ago. The knitting portion of the projects was completed very quickly, but finding the right buttons was really difficult. I visited all my usual haunts (and lamented the shrinking collection of buttons at the Elizabeth Street Clegs), but couldn’t find anything suitable. Finally the right buttons were found and the projects finished.

Pebble by Nikol Lohr
1 ball Freedom Sincere DK, grey; a skerrick of Freedom Sincere DK, yellow
4mm needles
Start: November 2010
Finish: December 2010
Modifications: slightly larger needle, small row- and stitch-count changes accounting for gauge, striped garter stitch section
Ravelryed: here

Now that it’s all done and photographed, I’m a little disappointed with how this version of Pebble turned out. Pretty much all of this is down to two decisions I made when first starting Pebble.

The first problem is the yarn choice. As my friend’s baby was due in November, I thought using a cotton yarn would be more practical as we’d ordinarily be heading into warmer weather. So far, this summer can only be described as tepid, so a wool-based yarn might have been ok. It’s been quite some time since I’ve worked with cotton, and had forgotten how unforgiving it is relative to wool. So, the fabric’s probably a bit more uneven than I’d like, and some of the weaving in of ends shows through a little bit on the front.

The second problem is my dogged insistence to have a striped yoke (if it indeed can be called a yoke). Initially I wanted to make the garter stitch section blue, yellow and grey. As it wasn’t possible to hide the edge where I carried the yarns, it looked really messy and was quite bulky. By this stage my friend’s little girl was born so the blue was ditched and the garter stitch section consisted of grey and yellow stripes. Even with one less colour and strand of yarn it still looks a bit messy and bulky.

Despite my mild disappointment with the end result, I think, and hope, it’s still wearable.

One thing I should mention about the pattern is the number of ends it produces. This wasn’t helped by using two colours in the top section, but it still seemed like quite a large number for such a small garment. The photo above shows how many ends were woven in… So don’t be fooled by the fact it requires no seaming. You will be paying for that privilege in the form of weaving in ends.

Happily, the other quick project for my friend’s baby girl turned out quite well. As it happens, there’s a free bib pattern out that roughly matches the pebble vest.

Easy Peasy Baby Bib by Michelle Acuavera
Scraps Freedom Sincere DK, grey
4mm needles
Start: November 2010
Finish: December 2010
Modifications: smaller needle, small row- and stitch-count changes accounting for gauge, striped garter stitch section, press stud closure
Ravelryed: here

These were very quick to make and a good use of leftover grey yarn. Small modifications were made to the number of stitches cast on and rows worked because I used 8ply instead of the recommended worsted weight. After a small amount of market research, I opted to use a press stud as the closure rather than a button hole. According to a friend with an almost 2 year old, a buttonhole closure might prove a bit fiddly. It looked a bit plain with the hidden press stud, so a button was added for purely decorative purposes. I did toy with making some bibs using the yellow cotton, but decided pretty quickly that it wasn’t nearly as practical a colour as the grey.

It was quite a relief to get something, no matter how small, finished. It felt like quite a while since I’d triumphantly snipped off the last woven in end of a project!

I’ve been a bit restless with my knitting lately. Swatches have been knit, but I don’t feel particularly drawn to any one pattern. This is a bit of a problem because it creates a small knitting vacuum; besides one secret squirrel project, I don’t really have anything on the needles, but I feel I should be doing something.

The current knitting situation seems to be a good reflection of my non-knitting life of late. I have niggling feeling, that I can’t articulate and can’t work out why it’s there. This means I can’t work out how to fix it, which starts the restlessness all over again. ‘Tis quite a frustrating cycle.

All of this started soon after finishing these knitterly morsels, and thus it’s only fair that they are blamed for this bout.

Umbilical Cord Hats by Jennifer L Jones
Small amounts of Bendigo Woollen Mills Luxury 8ply, in cream, pink and bracken
4mm needles
Started: April 2010
Finished: April 2010
Modifications: Used a lighter weight yarn, and slightly smaller needles
Ravelryed: here

A couple of the guys at work recently became fathers for the first time, which presented a prime opportunity to knit baby hats. I suspect the hats are a bit big for newborns. However, I have it on good authority that babies grow, so the size shouldn’t be too much of an issue.

The yarn, Bendigo Woollen Mills Luxury 8ply, is really good for baby knits. It’s lovely and soft to knit with, has a good range of colours and is machine washable. I think Luxury 4ply would work well with some of the vintage patterns I have earmarked as future projects.

The pattern is from Stitch n Bitch, the first knitting book I bought after starting to knit again. Although the book is really well worn, I’ve only made a couple of things from it and was recently contemplating giving it away. These hats prove that reference books should almost always be kept (my second year Business Finance text book is an exception to this rule).

If only I owned a book on how to get my knitting back on track…

These are the small diversions I was referring to last post.

Tiny Shoes by Ysolda Teague
Scraps of 8ply Bendigo Woollen Mills Luxury, Cream
3.25mm double pointed needles
Started: November 2009
Finished: November 2009
Ravelryed here

A friend just had a little girl, and I’ve been wanting to try this pattern for a little while. Quite fortuitous really.

I initially started with Grignasco Bambi, but was concerned they were coming out a bit floppy. So, I upped the yarn to 8 ply Luxury and the needles to 3.5 mm. Although the end result is a lot more structured than my 4 ply attempt, it’ll be a while before they fit. It pains me a little that the colour of the button doesn’t quite match the colour of the bootee, but as soon as I spied the buttons at the shop, I knew they were going to be the ones for this project.

I’m now building quite a collection of projects made from Ysolda Teague’s patterns, I think this is the sixth pattern of hers I’ve used. Beyond the look of the finished objects, I always learn something new about construction and find her patterns pretty clear and well written. In fact, there’s only two instances where I’ve struck trouble; the top button hole of Liesl (a fix for that exact problem was sent out this morning, as luck would have it) and the cast on for Elijah (required a bit of mental and physical gymnastics to get it to work, but the effort is worth it). I guess some would argue that these are two issues too many, but in both instances they made me think about how I knit in a different way, and not in an angry ‘I hate knitting’ way, which I think is a positive thing.