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!

Pause for Thought

I completed two of the panel repeats, then followed Maggie Richetti's advice and put the work on a thread so that I could Knit Klip it together, try it on and measure it and think about it. Very interesting. I started measuring in metric, but caught myself just in time. Never again! 4" in not the same as 10 cm, whatever the pattern might say. Now I always measure in the system that the designer used. This is an American pattern, so imperial all the way.

I do not like baggy sleeves, so it feels exactly right at the moment, but several people said it turned out small, so it probably won't be wide enough at the top. OK, I'll carry on increasing for the large size, but because I started increasing every 8 rows (as given for small) and not every 10 rows (as given for large) I'll carry on doing this so the increases are in proportion. And I will write all this down, so that I know what to do on the other side!!

Each repeat is 4.75 inches - so even my math knows that 10 panels will not make 60". I will knit two extra pattern repeats. This being so, I need to stop after one more panel repeat, put it back on the thread and see what I think about the placing of the markers for the back panel.

I feel as if all the kind advice I received from the Ravelry knitters will bring me luck. I'm sure this will be the garment I wear!

When I was making the various swatches a few days ago, I used a pair of Clover needles I bought years ago when I lived in Japan. This pair were white plastic with yellow tips, and the coloured tips helped me understand why my tension in the Turbulence U-necked sweater got smaller and smaller as I went. I suddenly realised that I wasn't pushing the newly formed loops off the tapered tips and onto the main part of the needle.

I'm trying to follow Lucy Neatby's instructions to knit on the tips of the needle because my knitting used to get larger and larger as I used to stretch the original stitch by shoving a complete second needle in. Knitting at the tips avoids this. BUT the second error I was falling in to was knitting at the tips, and not making sure the new loop went off the tip and onto the body of the needle so that it formed the correct size. And not knowing that I was doing any of this meant that none of my stitches were consistent. Leading to knitting hell. This could be a useful discovery.

Hurray for the Cavalry @ Ravelry

Before I went to work yesterday I went onto Ravelry (the Internet knitting community) and emailed a couple of people who had already made the Aran shrug. When I got home from work I had replies from around the world. Isn't the Internet brilliant?

The people who had most liked the shrug were those who didn't bother much with tension (gauge). The shrug had turned out too small or the neck hadn't worked for a couple of people, which suggests to me that there are problems in the pattern. Experienced knitters were able to jump over the hurdles, others smacked into the barriers caused by a less than perfect pattern.

Me? With my history of failure, shouldn't I quit now? But I like this shrug!! Decided to carry on, bearing in mind all the kind words and shared experiences sent by the other knitters, I'm going to try to apply common sense to the garment and see if I can make it work.

Above is the swatch that I'm keeping. (I've used a ball and half just swatching!). It's knit on 5.5 mm needles and the yarn is Pingoun Aran - I have 11 balls (Or I did have!) and another ball that I started to knit some fair isle mittens with and got bored. I can rescue that if I need to. I also have some green mohair which I can use as a contrasting trim if I run out of yarn.

The row gauge is slightly too small, and my favourite jacket measures one inch more than the given size for the smaller version, so I'm going to knit the larger size. A jolly Californian knitter suggested changing needle size for the collar to get the larger gauge. A light bulb went off in my head. Do I not own a DVD with Lucy Neatby demonstrating how to make a rib roll-neck sit beautifully by changing needle size as you work? If you knit an inch, then change to a larger needle, knit another inch and change up again, the rib expands slightly and wants to lie flat. It's a nice theory, isn't it?

Well, I'm committed now. Here we go...

Tension Hell

I should have known there was no easy knitting! I gave up on the 'Simple' (the very word makes me want to scream) jacket. I should have ignored the word simple in the title and paid more attention to the two star rating. I'm beginning to realise that I'm a one star kind of knitter.

So, I rummaged in my stash, fetched out some Aran and waded in to the cabled Aran shrug. You can buy the Crystal Palace yarns here, if the test is a success. Which it already isn't. I didn't rush in! I don't deserve to suffer - I was a good knitter and checked Ravelry first. About a dozen people had knit the cabled shrug. Nobody reported any horrors, although one person hated the finished garment and one said she'd made one for her mum, who loved it. Which made me wonder about the fashion element inherent in that statement. Which then made me wonder about my attitude to mothers. Hopefully it was a mother of the fashionable variety who loved that shrug.

So, after checking I waded in. I knit a half swatch and got the stocking stitch tension of 14 stitches and 19 rows. I cast on, and bar a few of the inevitable snarls caused by me mixing with cables, I did 5 happy inches. And then I stopped to measure. Oh my paws and whiskers. What is going on here? It was far too big - and open and sloppy. I went back to the pattern. Oh, yes, they give a second tension for the Aran panels. I did notice that, but I remember deciding to knit on and check the tension once I'd done a few inches. The tension for the Aran panel is 21 stitches and 21 rows. Wait a minute, here! Isn't that rather a long way away from 14 stitches and 19 rows? In the same piece of fabric? No needle change or anything.

I've spend several hours wrestling with this and coming to no useful conclusion. I started again on needles that got 21 stitches in the Aran, but it looks too small and the row tension is off. Calculating the pattern repeat I can see that it would be 35" long instead of 54" long. This is progress. Once over I'd have knit the whole thing and then found that out!

Baffled! I wish I'd stuck to baffling short rows now. Now I have two garments in pieces that I can't do. To make matters worse, we called in at a yarn store. Oh, the glory of real wool! I wish I could knit.

Short Row Slough of Despond

The positive side of this week's knitting is that, thanks to Lucy Neatby's DVD, I now understand that I was mixing up all the many kinds of short row. I'd got all the techniques hopelessly confused. There are three main kinds of short row:
1. yarn over
2. wrap
3. Japanese
And, you have to keep in mind that the neatening process (when you work back and do a manoeuvre to hide the place where you turned) is different for all the techniques and for knitting or purling, so in fact there are about 7 kinds of stitch manipulation in total. Now that I know this, my head is a lot, lot clearer! I was using a pin and wrapping the stitch. Don't laugh. It isn't funny!

This vintage jacket has sleeves that are knit sideways and shaped at the cap with short rows. I watched the section on short rows a couple of times, light bulb moments pinging and blazing while I did, and then picked up the sleeve for the 'simple' Garter Stitch Jacket. I couldn't follow the instructions. They are so sketchy! I read them slowly out loud to Andy, which sometimes helps. He's very good at spatial things, and then sometimes as I explain it to him, I get it, but we were both baffled.

There is no schemata, so I can't measure the width of the sleeve to see if I'm on track. It's a vintage pattern, so I can't ask anyone else who is making it. I went to Ravelry and checked the boards. Nada. So I just launched in. I've gone wrong, of course, and will have to undo two thirds of the sleeve that 's in the picture, but I think I understand how to make it now. BUT...there's another little wrinkle. As I was knitting away I suddenly thought: Lucy's DVD shows how to graft garter stitch. Why didn't I use a provisional cast on and then I could have grafted the two sleeves sides together? The seam on the 80s photograph looks ugly. I didn't have the moral fibre to undo so much knitting, but now I have to pull most of it back...oh, I don't know! I might go back to finishing the yoke while I think about it.

I found a pattern for a Aran cabled shrug in Kaya wool by Crystal Palace Yarns on the Internet last night. It is EXACTLY the kind of garment I like - so far as one can tell from looking at a picture. I'm mad to cast on for it now! Or at least start swatching and see if I've got enough Aran in my stash to make a test garment with. The trouble is that I watched a programme on the BBC about time management (do you remember it? Garner and someone, was it? Two chaps in suits) and they strongly made the point that it was about 30% faster to start one project and stick with it. 30% faster I like. Not casting on for this wonderful garment I don't like! I might just make a swatch, just to see.

I don't know if you can buy Crystal Palace Yarns over here. I'll look out for it. The pattern is so clearly written. Maybe I could do this one. Maybe I should leave the 'Simple' jacket until I'm an expert knitter. I definitely should have been more influenced by the two stars for 'knitters with some expereince' and less carried away by the word simple!

And I Thought it Would be a Quick Knit!

I don't know what gets into me. Where does my sense of proportion go? I think it was the word 'simple' in the title. A simple little old jacket. Designed in 1934? Nothing but garter stitch. Blow that off in a week. No trouble.

I have a 'to knit' wish list as high as the Eiffel Tower -and I'm slogging away with charity shop yarn, and it's taking ages! I have a lot less time at the moment, but still...

The back and sides are finished, and I cast on for the back yoke - but the pattern gives practically no information, so what if I haven't done it right? You pick up and knit 70 stitches 'across the back.' What does that mean? Up to what point of the armhole shaping should I go?

After three inches of worrying, I realised the sensible thing to do was stop, knit a sleeve and then see how the sleeve would fit into the back shaping. Read the sleeve instructions - they are knitted sideways and the sleeve cap is done with short rows! 'Simple' Oh ha ha. Just carry me away, now!

Cast on for the sleeve and knit an inch. Sleeves take ages whatever direction you knit them in!

More Turbulence Problems

This photo was taken by mistake, but I like it because you can see my stash in the background - on top of the wardrobe. I'm gazing at my camera, puzzled, wondering what the best angle to hold it at would be. It's really hard taking photographs. I never did manage to work out how to take a picture that showed clearly how the neck of the Turbulence U-necked sweater gaped - I've knitted the shoulders too long, so back it all has to come. This happened with Krista. I measured both garments carefully when I blocked, so I'm beginning to wonder if I have short shoulders? It's the kind of information to look out for, when customizing a pattern. Next Turbulence I knit, I'm going to measure my armhole against the knitted piece, and if the garment seems long, then I'll stop knitting. I undid at least an inch of the shoulders.

The good news is that it's recoverable. The bad news is that I'm sick of it! I've already done the neck three times. I've put it all away in a deep dark hole until next weekend.

I don't think this garment knitted in a light colour will do anything for me. I probably won't wear this version. It is too small, and that's my knitting mistake, but the light colour makes it very unflattering around the tum and the arm area is painful! Talk about bingo wings! I love the neckline with the cable detail and the bracelet sleeves, so I think I'll knit another test version - in a lovely dark Gothic colour.

In theory, I ought to sew this cotton one up until I get it right, because how else am I going to learn? But like Tangerine Alef, and horrible Yellow Krista, it might stay in its hole until next spring, when it's light enough to see for sewing after work.