Pransellknit

Like many people, it was my Mumma (Grandmother) who taught me how to knit. I think I was around five or six when she taught me how to cable cast on, the knit stitch and to cast off. I liked knitting, but was never really that committed to it as there were toys to play with, trees to climb, books to read, and most importantly, my parents to annoy. I don’t particularly remember any of my really early knits, besides a garter stitch scarf for my Dad. I was knitting massive 32 stitch rows and when I ran out of navy wool, I simply switched to black wool. It was never finished, and I suspect Dad’s quietly pleased he never had to wear a rough garter stitch scarf with blocks of navy blue and black.

A few years later, the Country Women’s Association visited my primary school and taught the grade five and six students to knit. So, the three grade five and six students (I went to a very small school in the country) filed into the staff room and were given brown paper shopping bags. In the shopping bags, there were a pair of needles (4mm if I remember correctly), yarn (Cleckheaton Country I think — it was definitely an Australian Country Spinners yarn), instructions on how to knit, and a pattern for a garter stitch beanie. Because I’d remembered my Mumma’s wise words, I was soon off and away, knitting my first beanie. Except, I wasn’t, and still am not, a hat person. So I made a camera case.

When I found it at my parents’ house recently, I was pleasantly surprised by how it looks, over 15 years on. The tension’s a bit off in places and there seems to be a short row in one place, but fabric’s not too bad. The seaming’s a bit rough; it looks like I tried to seam using a kind of mattress stitch, but it’s a bit holey.

I made a drawstring cord and a little loop for the corner using finger knitting. Well, it’s the finger knitting I was taught in school, which resembles single chain crochet. Sadly, the drawstring seems to be missing, but honestly I’m astounded I found the camera case at all.

It’s not a particularly pretty piece of knitting, nor is it something I’ll likely ever use again. However, it’s not something I could bring myself to donate or throw out. It’s a part of my knitting history.

Thank you for the thoughtful comments on the last post. It’s really interesting to read other people’s perspectives on comments, commenting and motivation for blogging. It’s given me a lot to think about.

Changing the subject completely, I’m always interested to see how finished projects fare down the track. Often a project’s blogging life ends soon after the project is finished, which means you don’t know whether the item got much use and what improvements would be made if it was made again. A recent epiphany about a finished project has provided the motivation to start a periodic ‘where are they now?’ series.

My Tyrolean Cardigan was finished about a year ago, but it’s only been worn a handful of times. I decided that the button band was the reason I wasn’t wearing it very often – I wore it to work recently and found I fiddled with it a lot.

before:

The button band was originally worked as in the pattern – seven buttons, with two spaced close together at the top and bottom. In this configuration, the front gaped a little, even though there was enough fabric to cover me. The buttons at the top and bottom were also largely redundant because I wore the cardigan with only the middle buttons done up, to help it nip in at the waist more.

A few potential solutions came to mind, but I ultimately decided to pull out the button band and start again. This time, I added an extra buttonhole and spaced them out more evenly. This required a bit more surgery than anticipated, as the neckband needed to be reknit as well.

I’m pleased to say it’s a lot more wearable now. It was taken for a test drive yesterday and I didn’t fiddle with it at all! Adding the extra buttonhole made all the difference, which is unsurprising given that the body was knit a bit longer than specified in the pattern.

after: – ravelryed here

As for the rest of the garment, I still really like the bobbles, the colour and the button choice. Being a very warm cardigan, it’s coming into its own now we’re on the Winter side of Autumn. Probably most importantly though, the fabric is holding up ok. There’s a bit of pilling under the arms, but as the rest of the cardigan is remaining pretty much pill-free, I’m reasonably satisfied with how it’s wearing.

The ‘where are they now?’ series is unlikely to feature all of my past knits, as not much interesting stuff can be said about a garter stitch scarf. However, I may be able to slip in a few pre-pransellknit knits that might be a bit more interesting…