Green Shrug Progress

Well, if the brown shrug hadn't looked OK and then turned out so big, I'd be worrying now that the green one was too small! I finished the front and it looks tiny! Checked my tension, and gosh, golly, gee - it's spot on.

I changed the way I make the decreases and it looks much better. First I re seat the loops on the needle so they are facing the usual way, then I do an ordinary K2tog. The decrease leans the other way and looks perfect.

The only trouble with keeping a row count is this - I don't always know whether I've counted the row or not. When I got to where I thought I should be at the end of the front, it looked slightly smaller than it should be to me. Then I decided to trust the counter. I knit the shoulders together with the 3-needle bind off and smoothed out the two pieces, and hey presto: they look the same size again. With a fabric so stretchy as knitting, rows have got to be a better bet than a tape measure. Providing, that is, I really did remember to count all my rows.

Next came the sleeve. I cast on using Tech knitter's 3-trick cast on, but it didn't look tidy enough in fine merino. The second time I used her way of joining knitting in the round, but I only cast on to one needle, and that was fine. I also put two more stitches than the pattern said because I had 4 purls next to one another. Wrinkles brow. Thinks. Ah-ha! If you use one stitch from each side when you sew it up, that loses two stitches and so your 2x2 ribbing looks perfect after seaming. Something to look out for when converting patterns into the round.

I knit a few inches stocking stitch before it was time for bed. I'm trying to break a bad habit when knitting with 5 needles. When you change from one needle to another, Lucy warns you not to put your needle into the stitch before you rearrange the yarn, and she's right. If you do that, and of course I do, the weight of changing everything around stretches that first stitch and contributes to the dreaded ladder effect. It's not so hard to do (except when there's something interesting on TV and I forget what I'm supposed to be doing and go back to my bad old ways), it just takes a little practice.

I'm also trying to swap the needles around without letting go of the working yarn. This is because when Andy timed my knitting, it took ages to resettle the yarn in my left hand to knit continental. I always want to knit faster, so this seems like a little trick that seems worth practicing.

Last thing before I went to bed I checked my tension on the sleeve in progress. It has slipped to 21 stitches per 10 cm, probably because I was thinking about all the stuff above. Next time I knit I'll try to keep it down to 22 again. It is a good plan to check - if nothing else you find out the mistakes now and not after the thing is all sewn up.

I had another look at the arm scye calculator. I'm missing something. A vital point? Some kind of paradigm shift? I just don't get it at the moment.

Row Control

This isn't proper blocking, it's just pinned out while I look at it - and because it's a bit odd I'll identify it as the back of my Debbie Bliss shrug.

I did the armhole shaping at the end of the row this time - I don't like the raised bump effect you get from doing it the recommended two rows in. The left side, SSK decrease, looks fine. The right side is horrid. I think it's the combination knitting thing again. My stitches are seated with the legs at the back of the needle, so I knit through the backs of the loops to make the stitch turn the right way round, but it makes a messy edge decrease. I think I might need to slip them onto the left needle to turn them the right way around, then do a K2tog. I'll try that on the sleeves. I sewed another bit of knitting to it with mattress stitch and the lumpy edge didn't show, so I'm not undoing it.

Keeping track of every row is interesting. For one thing, if I didn't know I'd gone two rows wrong under the arm pits, I would have knitted two more rows at the shoulder to get to the expected length, then there's an extra row because I short rowed the shoulder, so that is a potential error of 1 CM on each side of the shoulder which is 2 CM overall - quite enough to spoil the fit of a garment. Will definitely concentrate on row control for a while! To this end, I knitted in a red thread at the armhole and another one at the start of the shoulder shaping, to help me see where I am.

In keeping with my new policy of trying to check at all stages, I measured the back and had a think about it. There is no schematic, but it is fairly close to the predicted measurements. My tension is fair - OK on stitches and slightly small (29.5 rather than 30 rows to 10 CM) on rows. Good enough to carry on. The back looks a bit small to me, but I know it is close to what it should be and I know that when I knitted one a size larger it was too big, so I'll make a front next and see how it all adds up.

How's your Knitting Getting on?

Clench teeth together and force smile: 'Well, it's not, actually. I've just undone a whole cabled jacket.'

Oh well. The next one will be good.

I have also thrown away the brown shrug. I was going to redo it, but I got out the knitting basket and uncovered chaos. There were bits of about 6 different versions in there, all tangled up with tiny balls left over from the frogging and it looked so depressing that I suddenly thought: it's charity shop yarn. You had your thirty bobs'worth of fun out of it. Put it in the bin!!

I hadn't kept good enough notes, either. What a mess! I'd scribbled over the old calculations and I hadn't kept a row count. How could I possibly say that the pattern was wrong when I had no idea what I had done? Debbie Bliss is the Queen Mother of British knitting, after all. It's almost certainly my mistake!

So, I started again. And fell prey to wishful thinking. I weighed some brown bits of back and front and definitely two whole sleeves, and what I estimated might be the equivalent of a whole shrug came to 300g. That's 6 balls, I mused, and I've got 5 balls of a pretty brown-pink wool. I'll use that, maybe do shorter sleeves or something. Of course, half way up the back I realised that it simply wasn't going to stretch. And what about the rib edging? Knitting is so character building. You cannot hide from sloppy thinking!

So I started again. This time I'm using some dark green Jaeger Extra-fine Merino that I bought in a sale at Cucumber Patch. It's already been frogged - a failed attempt at Cloud, but I'm sure I can make a shrug with it.

I am keeping track of EVERY ROW! I have got to the point where I'm pretty much on top of stitch control now. I am usually spot on. My use of technique is better overall - invisible increases and such like. Good. I knit on the tips of the needles and am beginning to control the overall tension, also good. What's left? Well, rows, that's what, and very interesting they are too.

This is a metric pattern, and I know there are 3 rows to a centimetre. (The yarn states on the ball band that it should be 22 stitches and 30 rows, just as the pattern calls for.). That means that if I write out the instructions row by row, the back shaping, for example, takes up 30 rows, which I know will be 10 cm. Then the pattern tells you to knit until work measures 13 cm, finishing on a purl row. That means that I should have knit 9 more rows. But for some reason I said 3 rows to the cm and I need 3 more cm so 3 times 3 is 6. (I have been studying maths for 6 months now but nothing seems to stop my dyslexic brain from doing stuff like this!) Anyway, I knit 6 more rows and measured it. At the time, it seemed to be making the expected 13 cm. Later that evening, it seemed a bit too short - which it will be if I only knit 37 rows (one extra to end on a purl row and also to knit in a red marker thread). Each time I measure the work, that's how it turns out. Sometimes it seems shorter and sometimes it seems longer.

Instead of getting frustrated, I started to ponder on the stretchy quality of knitting. I have read before, and am now truly understanding, that a row count has got to be more accurate than a tape measure because the knitting can be any shape at any time. Maybe the trick is to get as close to the correct tension as you can (a minefield! but let's pretend I got that bit cracked) and then count the rows. The inaccuracy in this back of this shrug is the same shape as a stitch, by the way. It is taller and narrower than it should be. If I smooth it gently wider, then it becomes less tall as it adjusts. I don't know what this means at this point, but I'm working on understanding it.

I am also going to alter the order I knit in - back first and check for size. Then a front and check again. Then the other front and check again. Then ONE sleeve and check again. If that sleeve sews in nicely and seems to fit, then and only then will I knit the other sleeve and check again. Then, and only then, if all seems well, knit the edging.

And the sleeves, will I have problems with the sleeves? I don't know. Some people on Ravelry managed to knit them OK, so maybe the problem is not with the pattern but with the knitter. I'll do one and check, and if there are problems then I'll have the row count so I can try to figure out the armscye calculations again. But maybe it will all turn out just fine. (Thinks, but maybe it won't!)

Knitting on Your Deathbed

I watched a programme on the NHS last night and they showed a lady in a hospice who was dying. She was knitting. I expect I'll be knitting on my deathbed, the question is whether I'll have learned how to do it by then.

The sleeve for my shrug, sleeve number four, you'll recall, doesn't fit. I checked Ravelry. Here's a few things people said:

• Sleeves too long
• Sleeves too short
• Problems with sleeves
• I knit the sleeves top down
• Sleeves seem baggy from elbow up
• Don't like pattern fit at armscye
• Frogged bulky arms

Hunted deeper into the Internet and found a free sleeve head pattern generator. I might try to get my head around it - it would mean I could knit all those 80s sweaters with normal sleeves! In the meantime, I've cast on a little rib warmer. I wear my butterfly quite a lot, even though I don't like the draughty bit at the back. A rib warmer might be just the job - and in theory it should be easier knitting.

New Needle Bliss

My new needles arrived the day after I ordered them, so I began again on the Debbie Bliss shrug. I've knitted the back and the left front, but stopped an inch or so short of the top of the shoulders - it might be better to knit the sleeve, then have a look at how all the pieces are fitting before starting the shoulder shaping. This time it's going to fit.

I kept track of every row, so as to make sure the pieces line up exactly AND I've been keeping an eye on my tension. As I got going on the sleeves, it did seem to slacken slightly, so I'm making an effort to tension the yarn and not 'let go' as I race up the sleeves.

I have make a mistake though - of course! This time I knitted too far on the back before starting the armhole shaping - about an inch. It's amazing what tiny little pieces make up this shrug. After some thought, I decided to keep it long. (Do I hear bells of doom tolling here?)

The new needles are lovely - and now I've paid for them I've got them for ever. The straight needles for the back are 10" Brittany birch (I don't like long needles, they tap on my arm and annoy me!). The sleeves needles are one set of tiny 5" Clover bamboo for the cuffs and one set of Brittany 7" for the main part of the sleeve. They are light and easy to work with, and although the material feels smooth, the wool seems to cling to it and so it's easy to manage the stitches.

Also, they come in sets of 5. The first time I bought a set of double pointed needles in Japan (Clover of course, blue plastic 4.5 mm which I still have over 20 years later) I saw there were 5 needles and wondered if the Japanese always gave you a spare! Then Lucy Neatby's DVD told me that if you use 4 needles on the work and knit with the fifth, you get a better result because your tube of knitting isn't so under tension. I am not bothering to 'circulate' the stitches, (move a couple of stitches to a fresh needle every time to prevent ladders) because by having the sleeve on 5 needles no ladders seem to be forming.

My only slight wish is for sharper tips. I love sharp tips! The straight 3.75 seem a bit blunter then the straight 3.5, so they probably get blunter as the needle size goes up. So far my all time favourite tips are on the Addi lace needles. I might buy some more 60CM length ones of those next time I knit something on larger needles. OR, look out for some Lantern Moon hardwood. Not many places seem to stock the 10" length, but they do make them.

To sum up - never be mean about needles, Louise! Think of the hours I spend using them. Money well spent.

New Resolve

Spent £50 on knitting aids today. I am recovering from the misery of knitting failure because disaster isn't a mysterious punishment from the gods - the whole process of getting it wrong was due to human error and therefore can be fixed. The first mistake I made with the shrug was to ignore the pattern instructions for tension because I wanted to use my nice wooden needles and was too tight to pay out for another set. The moral of the story is to buy the needles you need. I've send off for them. And double pointed pins for making the sleeves in the round, so that's 3 sets of needles straight away, and it is expensive. But what's the money for needles compared with wasting 3 weeks knitting time and feeling horrible?

The next mistake I made was in not reading the pattern carefully before I started. I started knitting the wrong size because I misread the pattern. Then, once I'd noticed, I thought, oh, it'll be OK, and carried on. I could have stopped and done a tension square, or bought the right needles at that point. NEVER ignore that little voice that tells you you're making a mistake! Stopping when you hear it and spending an evening investigating the problem can save a lot of pain and wasted knitting hours. Last night I did a little tension square, and I get perfect tension on the right needles. (Horrid charity shop needles, by the way, that's why I didn't want to make the garment with them, but now I know that I do need that size.)

The last mistake I made, which delayed getting to the point where I realised I'd made the wrong size, was in letting my tension go on the sleeves. I made both sleeves and sewed them up BEFORE I even tested them against the armhole. If I'd made one and checked it that would have saved a lot of time. Anyway, the sleeves were huge. I thought I'd made a pattern error so I ripped one sleeve back and knit it again. (Yes, that's right, without checking the tension, so that's a whole second sleeve I knitted that was a waste of time!) It came out exactly the same size. Finally decided to test the tension. HUGE. It had gone from 23 stitches per inch on the body to 19 stitches per inch on the sleeve. I think what I'd done is to concentrate while I was knitting the body because of all that shaping, so my knitting was neat and I worked on the tips of the needles. Then, I got to the sleeves and thought, I can do sleeves. Sleeves are easy. And relaxed - and whoosh - there went my tension out of control. Ripped both sleeves back and re knit one, this time keeping it tight. Ever so slightly too tight this time, but it didn't matter because this is where I discovered that the body is too big.

What a tangle. And it's all due to my methods of working. Slapdash, mean, arrogant and lazy! No wonder I was upset and crushed. I've learnt too much to give up knitting at this point - the technical execution of the stitches was perfect! The bodice was so neat and perfect to every last stitch so far as numbers went, even though I chose the wrong size. I am fast now as well - if I didn't make any mistakes, I could knit this shrug in only 2 weeks. All that's left to master is buying the right equipment, tension, setting off right in the first place and checking as I go along! Who would have thought that knitting would be so character building?

I sent off for two more Lucy Neatby DVDs as well - one that includes setting in fitted sleeves and the first intarsia one. I will not give in.

The brown yarn I'm using washes and re balls very well, but the balls are getting smaller and smaller as this is about the fourth time they will have been pulled back! Oh well. It's only practice yarn.

A Shrug with no Sleeves

The Debbie Bliss Shrug is going well. Too well. I'm waiting for disaster! If I have a worry, it's that it will be too big. The opening for the armholes seems rather large.

I did short-rows for the shoulders and my first attempt was a disaster. Ended up cutting it out with tangles of wool everywhere. Then I did what I should have done in the first place - got Lucy Neatby's DVD off the shelf and reviewed how to do it. Easy! Two beautiful, neat shoulders in no time at all. I won't even try to explain how to do it - but if you knit garments with shoulders, it is so worth learning how. There are plenty of books that show you and some good tutorials on the Internet, but I didn't get it until I actually saw it on a DVD.

And the refresher on Japanese short rows came in useful because the trim has short rows at the neck, and they were no trouble at all. There's nearly 400 stitches in that edging, but it went easily enough. The pattern says to do it in two pieces, but I think that's so you have an edge to count to and don't get confused doing the neck shaping. I cast on all the stitches and put markers at the bottom, telling myself that nothing in between the markers existed. That worked fine, and was worth it because then there's two less seams to bother about.

This is a lovely pattern. I like the shaping very much. Being small and roundish, anything that drapes or is chunky makes me look like a teapot. Shaping is so much more flattering. Even if the armscye is wrong on this one, I'll definitely make another. It's the kind of garment that will go perfectly with a summer dress.

We are going to see m-i-l this weekend, so I'll try the dreaded jacket on her and decide whether to knit it up a size smaller or send off for another ball of yarn.

Debbie Bliss Shrug

Maybe something small might work out? I saw this pattern on the cover of a Debbie Bliss knitting book and nearly bought it, but there was nothing else that I'd make in the book, so economy and reason prevailed and I didn't buy it. What a treat to find the pattern for free on the Internet. You should always download things like this when you see them, I can't find it anymore. That doesn't mean it isn't there, of course, only that I can' t find it. So, instead of printing out an A3 size copy I got out the magnifying glass and wrote out the instructions in my knitting notebook.

This is what I'd call a bolero rather than a shrug, because it has shaping and set in sleeves - which is what I wanted. I've already made two mistakes, but I think they have cancelled each other out. The print is tiny, that's my excuse, but I read from the finished sizes rather than the 'to fit' column, so I'm actually knitting the size 38. I didn't do a tension square, reasoning that the item was so small that I could use the real thing as a swatch. I thought the fabric looked a bit open and floppy using the specified needle size, so I went down to 3.5 mm - which also meant I could use my lovely wooden needles. The tension is a little too small - but as I'm making a size bigger than I need, fingers crossed it all balances out.

It is, of course, a test garment. I had some brown wool double knit that I was going to use for the Ralph Lauren ski sweater but I need it now! If it works, then I want to make a either a cream or a green one for my new Rohan walking dress.

It's a quick knit. I did the back and began the front in two sessions.