Mrs Hill's Jacket

Mrs Hill is coming for tea in a week's time, so I thought I'd restart her jacket and maybe get enough done to try it against her for size. I cast on the whole thing, thinking the best way to get the rows lined up was to have it one one needle. It took two attempts, and a load of markers, but I finally it all on correctly.

I misread the pattern on attempt one. The first set of moss stitch you repeat 3 times, the last set 3 times, but the centre set is repeat 6 times, and I misread that. I guess I was thinking, yes, yes, repeat 3 times I know this bit. I need to train my brain to read patterns slowly and fresh each time, not charge ahead thinking, yes, yes, I know that bit.

Anyway, I'm glad I redid it because I added two refinements. I cast on two fewer stitches, so that the moss stitch would line up perfectly into one panel under the arms, and I decided to use the old-fashioned purl because last time I had problems with consistency. The blackberry stitch is far too hard to work using the combination purl stitch. By old-fashioned purl I mean the yarn goes over the top of the needle. It has much further to travel if it does this. The knit stitch faces the correct way on the next row, but the stitch is slack. By combination purl, I mean the yarn goes under the needle as the purl is worked. The yarn has far less distance to travel, so the stitch is tight. The knit stitch faces the wrong way on the next row, so you have to knit into the back of it. Perfect for stocking stitch. Too tight for blackberry stitch, and disastrous if you change between the methods while doing moss stitch!

So, to keep things consistent, I used old-fashioned purl the entire way, and I'm so glad I did. I wasn't happy with the last jacket for many reasons. On top of technical errors, I also felt it had a kind of defeated look. I can't describe it, but it wasn't a pretty fabric. This time it is. The combination purl stitch was too tight for textured knitting. Making a looser purl stitch has made it all look yummy and textured. Also consistent. Wonderful.

BUT my tension is way off! Last time it was pretty near perfect, this time, despite using a size smaller needles, it is 3 rows and a couple of stitches too big. Sat brooding over it, tapping a pencil and thinking. I stopped to check on row 30, just after the first decrease and to give me enough length to measure the 28 rows to 10 cm desired tension. What, knit a new tension square because I'd changed needle size and washed the yarn? Do I look like a sensible knitter? Oh, no, not me. I knit on for several hours and completed 125 stitches x 30 rows of time-consuming textured knitting and THEN decided I'd measure it.

Anyway, enough beating up. Decided to try to solve it with a change of needle size. I have to bear in mind that I'm knitting the size 32 to 34" and Mrs Hill requested a size 42. (The first attempt was a good 10 to 12" too big, hence the drastic down scaling.) I measured the work and it is very, very, big. In fact I nearly screamed and pulled it all back until I realised I was measuring the hips which are then decreased to give the chest measurement. And this gave me an idea. At the point where I've done the first increase, I've changed from 4mm needles to 3.5 mm needles. I now knit 35 rows, and at the next decrease I can check my tension again and either scream and pull it all out, or change down another size, or leave it all as it is.

Goodbye, Rubbish Knitting

I hate being a bad knitter, I really do! Look at all that work, and it's all got to go! Last night I got out m-i-l's jacket and took a long hard look at it.

First, my tension seems to be fairly close but, the fabric is very soft and stretchy, so I've decided to use a half size smaller needle to give it more body. Luckily my new Knit Picks needle is the right size and has lovely sharp tips.

Second, the blackberry stitch is a nightmare! It looks messy where I start it, it looks messy when it transits into the cable pattern and it looks vile where I decreased. After some thought I decided to put two bands of garter stitch and the beginning and the ends of the cuff, and to be very, very careful when I decrease.

I will keep a row count for each piece while I knit up to the sleeves - then it will all be on one needle for the raglans and that will keep it the same size.

The moss stitch is twisted here and there - be consistent. I'll decide what I'm doing (knit into front or back of stitch) in the first panel, write it down and stick with it. The reason for confusion here is, I think, that I'm doing what some people call combined knitting, purling with the yarn under the needle, which prevents rowing out, but twists the stitch on the needle so you have to knit into the back of it.

No yarn joins at the front edges of the garment - that ought to be a no-brainer, but I obviously need telling!!

Now, sizes. Knitting the 40-42" size gave me a garment with a 48" chest. There is no schematic, so I don't know what it should have been. (Could maths tell me that? Probably. There are 295 stitches at the point under the arms where I measured. The tension is 19 stitches to 10 cm so, er, what do I do next? If I divide 295 by 19, that tells me how many blocks of 10 cm fabric I should have (I hate metric! No I don't. I hate the fact there are two measuring systems in knitting). I get 15.5. So, multiply that by 10 and I get a garment that measures 155 cm around. Well that's clearly a rubbish answer. I give up on the math.)

So, starting again, without math because I can't do it, I'm saying the thing is too big. A good 10" too big, so, you know what, I'm going to knit the smallest size, because Mrs Hill has lost weight, not to mention being far too small to wear a garment scaled to fit 42" bust.

Hm, do we have a clue here as to why my sizing goes so horribly wrong so horribly often? Every Friday morning I go for maths lessons, but so far it hasn't improved my ability to figure out knitting patterns.

I should be able to work it out! Will think about it while I'm frogging.

You Could See This Coming, Couldn't You?

We bought a late deal to Cyprus and went away for a week. I spent a couple of hours running around looking for holiday knitting but nothing was ready and in the end I took the jacket with me, and I'm glad I did, because it was cool enough to knit in the evening and the second front is about done. BUT, I'm not happy with it. I'm not happy with the standard of the whole item.
1. I don't like all the dropped stitches on the sleeves where I was learning to cable without a needle.
2. Or the wobbles in the first six inches of blackberry stitch on the back where I was getting used to the pattern.
3. Or the messy decreasing on the back in blackberry stitch.
4. Or the misshapen decreasing on the front panels. I found the bit in the pattern where it tells you how to decrease nicely on my third attempt - I'd left out one of the plain panels that then decrease to nothing. Then I had to undo the right one to make it match the wrong one.
5. Then I found that I hadn't decreased the armhole correctly on the original front.
6. And then I found I didn't have enough yarn - probably because I've wasted so much on false starts and frogging.
7. And finally, a bit of light, I frogged my second start at the right front and wet the yarn to get the kinks out, and it handled beautifully. Soft and much nicer to knit with. So there was the ray of light - I can frog the whole thing and re knit it.

I'll leave it as is for now - will try on m-i-l to see how the size is - if it's correctly knit, I'll buy another ball of yarn. Even if the dye lot is not the same, I think if I knit the collar and cuffs from the new ball it should look OK - trims are often a different colour. And if it's too big, then I'll have enough yarn after all.

When I re knit it, I'm going to make the bottom as one piece, then put all the sleeves etc on one needle and make the raglans as one. That way, even if I make an error, at least it will match!

All that knitting!! Oh well. At least I now know that on no account much I launch into a new garment with the real wool. Test items first or suffer!

1969 Vogue

We went to the farmer's market at Settle on Sunday and then for a walk in the Yorkshire Dales - a bluebell wood even. How gorgeous is that? The charity shop is open as well, and being a country town, it has a knitting and craft section - sometimes it's a tangle of disappointing acrylic, but today I got a Vogue Knitting, an ounce of brown Rowan wool for my ski sweater and 5 brass buttons for 60p.

The right front of the Country Casuals jacket is finished. I was wondering what to do about blocking. It's lumpy enough to need it! But there's no schemata. In the end I got it wet, then laid it out on the blocking board. I nearly died - it spread to double the size. I kind of patted and scrunched it back to about where I thought it should be, and it stayed there. The wool went incredibly soft and stretchy when it was wet. Because I had no idea what size it should be, I didn't pin it. The wool stayed softer even when it was dry. I did the sleeves this morning.

Last night I began the left front (taking care to make sure it is a LEFT front). I am refining my technique. For this piece, I am making myself use continental knitting for the tricky bits as well. I've been doing continental (or picking) for the easy bits, then stopping and switching to English (or throwing) for the blackberry stitch and the cabling. I could get even faster if I could do continental all the way along. I think that by the top of the jacket I'll be comfortable with blackberry. It is fiddly, but after only a couple of inches I'm getting more comfortable with working it without switching hands. Holding the cable stitches and crossing them while keeping the yarn in my left hand is harder, much harder and so far I'm dropping stitches and splitting them again. However, I'll stick at it.

Funny, isn't it? I guess most people would see me knitting in my chair and think 'how dull' or 'how peaceful' depending on their worldview of knitting. They'd have no idea of the titanic struggles that are taking place!

In many ways I wish I'd made a test garment first - I'm not satisfied with the standard of this jacket. But, it was an experiment I would have to make at some point: what happens if I buy the pattern and the yarn and just knit it? I think the answer this time is going to be a finished, wearable garment, but one that's just too badly knit to please me. I need more practice, so that's more knitting from the stash (how I yearn for expensive yarn!) and more knitting from the DVD lessons. Maybe I need to make a pile of hets?

Edging Error

Can you spot the mistake? I didn't see the first one until I'd gone too far past it to even think about frogging back. Then I cursed myself for the next 12". Then I did it again. What is it about knitting?

The mistakes are adding up at an alarming rate - but I'm not going back! It will be interesting to see if they kind of blend in to the finished item. Or if I'll curse it to Wolverhampton and back for evermore. The mistake, of course, is that the blackberry stitch panel is the centre join of the jacket and acts as the front band. So why, in the name of all that's wonderful, am I joining in yarn on that edge?

Also, I couldn't understand the pattern again. You decrease at the waistline. On the back, you knit in 4 extra panels and decrease those panels. Makes sense to me. If you look at the photo, you can see two panels running up the front that decrease. But they ask you to decrease 3 times. 2 panels. Three decreases. That's more decreases than extra panels. But I thought it would look so naff! I couldn't bear to do it. Have done one extra decrease on the two decreasing panels, and cast off 2 extra under arm. Looking at the picture now, I think maybe I should have done as the pattern said and decreased into the moss stitch. It probably would have blended in OK. Well, of course it would. Too late now. No going back. I've marked the decreases, anyway, so that I can match the other front.

Also, I see that I've got the moss stitch twisted here and there. Must be careful to consistently knit into back of knit stitches on right side - this is because I'm doing combination knitting - purling the Lucy Neatby way to keep my tension in order. Also (it goes on and on, doesn't it, this catalogue of errors?) I was absorbed in the TV last night (Six Degrees of Separation - fascinating maths models) and worked one row plain. I may live to regret this, but I didn't frog - I just moved two stitches on the next row.

Andy likes Durrow, so we'll look for some yarn for it.

Talking of yarn, I had a look on Ravelry for patterns that use Rowan's Classic Kid. (Alef, the cardigan I can't make continues to trouble me - as does the pile of frogged yarn and the three expensive buttons.) I also saw a new Alef. The knitter had omitted the triangle on the collar that I had so much trouble with, and it looked OK. I doubt if anyone would ever look at it and say, that collar's shy a triangle! So, I could make a simple shrug from a Kim Hargreaves book and use the buttons elsewhere, or I could knit Alef again, omitting the triangle. I hate to be beaten! There was also a finished Alef with triangle on collar so I emailed the knitter to ask for advice.

Finished the Back - Twice

Have you ever tried to decrease in Blackberry stitch? It's all my own fault, as usual. The pattern warns you to be careful! What you are supposed to do is to make sure that if you cast off three, then you cast on three to keep the stitch count even. If you don't have room to complete the pattern, then you knit reverse stocking stitch. Why didn't I read those instructions BEFORE I merrily knit the whole back? I thought I'd finished, held the back next to the arms to check the length and found they were all wrong. I had to frog back to the point where the Blackberry stitch is taken into the raglan. It's the right size now, but it's still a still a mess. I can see a lumpy bit right down the bottom of the back where I got the dreaded Blackberry stitch wrong, and the blackberries are in different places where they have been taken into the raglan.

I wish, wish, wish that I'd knit all the pieces and then knit the raglans on one needle, but I've never done that before and I funked it rather.

I am so off this garment! I don't like the yarn. I don't like my tatty knitting and I wish I'd never started it - or at least that this was a test and not supposed to be the real one. I get depressed because I have a vision of how beautiful knitting can be, and I get stuck on these horrid scruffy failures. I'd like to make another one in beautiful natural yarn. The second time around I'd know all the things I didn't know when I charged into this one, and it would be nicely knit - in theory. Oh well. I don't want one of these for myself. I wouldn't wear a jacket that only had one button. I'm sure it would flap open and be cold, so it will stay a theory.

It is however, my very first textured garment! I started the front last night. I'm actually impressed with how quickly it's knitting up. When I made my first attempt at Aran knitting, I spent about six weeks making a four inch tension square and decided it was far too slow to try for real.

I have seen a wonderful man's sweater: Durrow by Jodie Green. If DH likes it, then I'll make him one in natural yarn.

Sleeve Progress

When I started the second sleeve, I found the instructions for the line up the centre of the sleeve. It was me being thick, as usual. Sigh. I am still cabling without a needle, but it isn't going any better as yet. I will not give up. If other people can do it, then I can do it. It just takes me longer, that's all.

I frogged my first attempt at the raglan sleeve - I thought the right side of the cable looked sore where it hit the raglan. I made the cables twist the other way on that side, so they kind of slide into the raglan edging rather than hitting it in a lump. At this moment, I think it looks better, but I hope I haven't made trouble for myself further along the line.

Protocosy is a big success. The recipient does not want a 'proper' version in sexy Rowan yarn. He likes Protocosy exactly as it is. Basking in unusual glow of knitting with a successful outcome.

Country Casuals and no Cable Needle

Some of the twists are going OK without a needle now - but some of them I'm still finding hard. There is one where you put a purl stitch behind the work - so I can't hold it down with a finger, and that one escapes occasionally, and then there's a row where you cable four, that's two in front, knit two, then knit the two off the needle, or from the space in front of the work. That one is hard as well. I think it must be the way the yarn runs to make the next stitch that makes the difference. Anyway, I'm determined to continue practising. I've just about reached the point where it is probably quicker (not tested this theory, mind you) to work without a needle and spend ages catching the occasional escapee, than it is to stop at every twist and reach for the needle.

This is going to be a long, slow knit.