Cloud Three

It's a funny thing about holidays - I've had lots of knitting time, but no time to blog! Our new 40" television has arrived WOW! Movies look terrific, and I feel a serious bout of nature & travel programme watching coming on - all of which is great for knitting.

Here is Cloud. The Sidar Denim is lovely - very soft and cosy to work with. The k2 p2 rib looks quite neat - but stretches nicely, so I've great hopes of this garment actually fitting. It knitted up very quickly - and so it should: this is my third attempt at this particular Kim Hargreaves cardigan. I found the increases in the k2 p2 rib very confusing at first. The instructions in the pattern are perfectly clear. I made the mistake of trying to understand what was happening which led me into a wilderness of different slanting increases. I get very confused with left and right, so add the front and back of the fabric to the mixture and it's no wonder I went wrong.

I only frogged a couple of rows - each time because I either read half of an instruction and started knitting without checking the end of the sentence for the infamous 'at the same time' instructions, and once because I turned "rib until there are 13 stitches on right needle and turn" into " knit until there are 13 stitches on the left needle and turn". I have no idea why someone as dyslexic as me should love to knit.

Keeping a knitting notebook helps. A few weeks ago I bought an A4 artists' sketchpad. It is spiral bound, so it folds back on itself. It looks neater than the old clipboard and scrap paper I was using, and has the advantage that I can refer back to it if need be. I don't bother with photos or long rambles - the blog is perfect for that - but I find if I write out the instructions for the size I am making, a section at a time, along with any modifications, along with all the row and stitch counts, that I go wrong far less often. I've started making a note of when I frog as well - maybe I'll see patterns in my errors that will stop me going wrong as often.

A kind knitter on Ravelry has responded to my email asking her how she'd found Alef the cardigan in Classic Kid I've had such trouble with - 4 failed attempts no less. "BAD" was the answer. She sounds like an accomplished knitter who is not accustomed to failure,but every time she wore Alef the collar flipped up. She advised me to ditch the pattern and have no more to do with Rowan. I would not knit another pattern with twiddly bits by Leah Sutton, that's for sure, but I can't wait until I'm a good enough knitter to buy Rowan's lovely yarns without the fear of ruining them.

This year, by the way, I plan to enjoy my knitting!

November Project

I have sewn up one sleeve on the Turbulence U-necked sweater, but seaming isn't knitting. When I get home frazzled after a long day with only an hour or less to relax before bed, I don't want to do seaming, I want to KNIT! So I've started the simple garter stitch jacket. I think it was the word 'simple' in the title that attracted me. 'Simple' sounds good to me! Maybe I can manage simple without the sturm and drang that accompanies so many of my projects.

The pattern is from a book published by Vogue in the 1980s - a collection of vintage patterns. There is a picture of a model with 80s hair wearing the jacket - but no schemata or measurements. We have much better patterns these days. I also like knowing who designed a garment. Then you can look out for their pattern books and read their blogs or websites. It makes the garment feel more like a friend designed it somehow. I think one of the hardest things about knitting is finding the right patterns, and if you love a designer's work and their patterns turn out for you - Kim Hargreaves and Norah Gaughn spring to mind - it helps the selection process.

The yarn is also vintage. It's 100% wool in Aran-weight, in quite a nice soft green with flecks in the wool, and there was heaps of it, which is good, but it's not that nice to knit with. It's very 'grabby' and keeps making a butcher's knot around my yarn-holding finger, which is annoying as I have to keep stopping and undoing it. It's been treated to be machine washable, but this has made it very rough and hard, so it's more like stroking porcupines than kittens. Well, maybe I exaggerate a little. Imagine stroking baby hedgehogs, that about describes it.

I saw an advert for Yeoman Yarns in December's copy of Yarn Forward, so I've sent off for the shade card. Their double knit acrylic is only 79p a ball - and the advert promises it's much better quality than the acrylic you can buy on a market stall. I used Robin acrylic from a market stall to knit a 50s 'Ladies Jacket'. Luckily my knitting was so awful that it had to go to the trash can. I say luckily, because although the acrylic was a nice colour and knit well, it did look cheap and naff in a finished garment. I tried it on with the tweed skirt it was knitted to go with. The skirt is a good one in a beautiful fabric (a Paul Costelloe snapped up in a sale) and the acrylic knitted fabric looked so wrong above it. Even though I use thrift shop finds for my test garments, I still always start out with the hope that they will be wearable!

I'm already thinking that I'll need to make another Turbulence before I knit the 'real' one. This is because I'm going to add waist shaping to the next one, and knit the sleeves in the round. That's two changes to test out before launching into one knit in expensive wool. I also want to make one in a dark colour. If the boxy shape of the garment still makes my middle-aged middle looked even more middle-aged than it is, even knit in a nice dark Gothic colour, then I'll save the lovely Jaeger for another project.