Horrible Yellow Krista

This is test version number three of a design called 'Krista' by White Lies - the trade name of an American designer called Joan McGowan Michael. I saw a photograph of the design in a knitting magazine and fell in love with it at once. I sent off to America for the design and launched in. Oh dear. Oh dear!! It doesn't look too bad hanging in the window - but nobody living is to be allowed to see how terrible I look wearing it! I'm not just talking yellow test yarn here, which admittedly wouldn't do any pattern any favours. I think there are problems in the lines of the design. I have added waist shaping by decreasing and increasing at the sides in this test version - but test version one had no shaping and test version two had the suggested shaping of using a smaller needle at the waist and I didn't like them either!

I wish I had discovered the Internet sooner. I paid for this pattern before I discovered the Ravelry and knit blog world. I'm not the only one with a horrible Krista, as you will be realising by now if you are - being smarter than me - looking to see what people have to say about the pattern before buying it. There are many good things about this design. The lace front is very pretty - I may add it into another garment one day. The effect of lightness in such a thick, quick-knitting yarn is very, very clever, but knitters be warned - this garment can only work on slender people. I wouldn't risk it on anything over a UK size 10. If you have even the slightest suggestion of a round tummy, forget it! If the tops of your arms are anything but honed perfection, heave a regretful sigh and move on.

It's also quite difficult to knit nicely. You can see on the Internet how many people have had trouble with the lace curling at the bottom edge of Krista. I spent months trying to find out how to make the lace trim at the bottom without it curling up. I hunted through every book I owned. I tried seventeen different cast ons in all different sizes of needles. I even emailed the designer. Unlike Rowan, she didn't respond. The best lace cast on I found came from Rowan, apparently, and was posted on a blog (thanks!) which I now can't find again so that I can post a link. You wind the yarn twice around the needle as you cast on, which gives a lot of stretch, but even with this cast on, the bottom edges of the lace trim still flip up, which is especially horrible on the sleeves.

The idea of this garment is so pretty that if just the right amount of bargain dark mohair came along I think I would try again, but then, I never know when I'm beaten!

Turbulence U-neck is ready for the Exciting Bit!

I did sew on the lace trim for Tangerine Nightmare this weekend. It took three attempts but I finally got the overcasting to look neat. The instructions were in a tatty old second-hand book that I nearly didn't buy (what, spend a whole pound on a book with a grubby cover?) but I'm so glad I did. There's something about the way the instructions are written and drawn that make sense to me, when other, posher books leave me baffled. The secret of overcasting is to only take the edge bump of the stitch - the less you have in the seam, the neater it looks. Once I'd got my head around that, it worked fine.

The graft on the two pieces of lace for the trim went much better this time as well. I seemed to end up with a lot of loose ends that were difficult to sew into lace without them showing. I think I need to buy a sharp needle and split the plies. I'll try that on my next test.

Then I'd had enough of test Alef AKA Tangerine Nightmare. It still needs sleeves and the troublesome collar/buttonbands sewing on, but I'm feeling like I'd like our relationship to be over! I want to be with a fun item!

The front of Turbulence seemed to take longer to knit than the back, which would be the cable slowing me down. I did start a test once before, but the yarn - a cone of green un spun 3-ply - was a nightmare to handle so I threw into the poppies stash. There's a strong possibility that if it was a nightmare on a plain garment, then it won't be any better for intarsia, but I hate to throw yarn away!
But it was useful because I'd got the cable twist one row out in a couple of places and it looked sore, so I used a row counter this time.

I plan to be very careful with the cable front of Turbulence - I will use the row counter. I will write down in words what I'm doing for each row. I will check the pattern once I've written the words down to make sure I've got it right. If I can knit 36 rows without frogging, I'll know I'm improving!

You can see rowing out on the front of Turbulence - I'm still not as neat as I'd like to be, but hopefully that will come. This is only my second knit using the alternative continental purl stitch (as suggested by Lucy Neatby) and I'm sure I'll get neater. One thing I am pleased about is that this garment has not distorted as I knit. My tension is pretty even. Not perfect, the front is a tad smaller, I don't know why, unless it's that I'm still improving! When I knit ordinary continental (left leg of the stitch in front) my tension used to grow as I worked my way up the piece. This was also due to not knitting at the tips of the needles. Making these two changes has given me a sight of the knitter's holy grail - even tension you can rely on.

Lace Trim Ready to Graft, Captain

So there's a purl strip and a knit strip nearly ready to graft. I think it needs one more repeat on the knit strip so that it fits properly. I'm going to wait until the weekend to do the grafting. I need daylight and time to concentrate.

I found that by using a lace book, the trim knitted up real quick. The system I've ended up with at this point is to use the labels template in Word. On each label I write the number of the row, the stitches to knit, and the number of stitches there should be at the end of the row. I did use a row counter with the print out at first, but it's quicker to use a small coin and just push it along as each row is finished. It acts as a place marker as well.

Sleeves, next. I think I'll knit them in the round, because there's going to be quite enough sewing up to do as it is.