Tutorial, provisional cast on without scrap yarn

I'm a big fan of the provisional cast on. It works perfectly, if you need to attach the cast-on edge to anything in the rest of your knitting, such as a picot edge, and it is essential in the tubular cast on. But what I don't like is working with scrap yarn in the cast on, and especially pulling it out from the provisional afterwards. (I may or may not have a pair of socks with a picot edge, where one of the socks still after years of wearing has the scrap yarn in it -it's on the inside and not visible...)

I have worked out a way to eliminate the scrap yarn, using the cable of a circular needle. I was using my method in another Tychus hat (free pattern in a 2005 Knitty by Brooke Higgins), and thought I'd do a little tutorial on the cast on. I know some people don't mind sewing pieces together, and good for them, but I'm not one of those people, and if I can do it with a 3-needle bind off or some other method, I will. But to do that, I need a provisional cast on. On the other hand, using the scrap yarn method and having to remove it is at least as much of a pain as sewing the cast-on and bind-off edges together so that you lose the benefit of the 3-needle bind off.

First you need a circular needle with a sufficiently long and pliable cord. Make a slip knot and slide it on one of the needles. Hold the needles so that they point in the same direction, and pull the lower needle (the needle with no yarn) out so that you are holding the cord.

Holding needle as you would when you knit (I'm using my left hand to hold it only because my right hand is holding the camera) alternate wrapping the yarn over the needle (just like a regular yarn over) on top/in front of the cord and under/behind the cord. Do as many yarn overs as you need stitches for your project. Never mind the wraps on the cord -you will worry about those much later.

Now you will turn your work, leave the bottom stitches (the "hibernating stitches") hanging out on the cord, and knit your project as usual with the stitches that are on the needle (the "working stitches"). Here's what my Tychus looked like after a couple of hours. I started from the green side, and finished on the red side (the yarn is Lion Brand "Amazing" in color Mauna Loa). See the loop of cord between my working stitches and the hibernating stitches?


After you're all done, use a 3-needle bind off from the wrong/under side (or knit the stitches together, depending on what you're doing).

Here's what it looks like on the right side. I drew an arrow where the seam is, otherwise you can't even tell (except maybe from the color change from red to green).

Now finish it off with a pom-pom and twist cords, and voila! I also crocheted around the ear flaps to even out the edges.

This method also works in the round in things like socks or bottom-up hats and sweaters, but can be a little tricky, and will be easier (possible?) to do, if you use a second circular to hold the hibernating stitches.

My modifications on the Tycus: I knit 5 sections instead of 6, and in the bottom of two of them I increased 3+3+2+1+1 stitches for the ear flap and then decreased the same symmetrically. The width of the ear flap is the same as one section, and the front is two sections and the back is one. And then I of course added the pom-pom and the cords. I cast on 40 stitches and the shortest short row was 24 stitches. In the ear flaps the middle rows end up being 34 stitches.

If You Give a Moose a Muffin

he'll want some jam to go with it...

And if you give a girl a hat, she'll (naturally) want some mittens to go with it! There may be no end to the demand of knitted girly items now, but I'm not complaining. Knitting for girls is so much fun! The endless possibilities of colors and designs... bring it on!

Twin Peaks

Long time, no see, eh? I promise I haven't quit, I've just been busy! Here's a pictorial presentation of knitter in law school:

"Oh, but wait!" you're thinking. "That's lace yarn... there's no way she was reading two books, studying her notes and writing an outline while working on a lace project!" And you'd be right. This picture may give you a false impression of what's doable... but it's not completely staged! I was using the lace project to calm my mind and cool my brain, while taking a break from reading. Knitting and reading is just fine, but lace and reading don't go so well together. Mostly my knitting has been simple things like socks, and such. I also started Mara, which is perfect for reading with all that garter stitch.

Fortunately, part of the fun of law school is a looong Christmas break. Like, really long! I don't remember the last time I had 4 (yes, four) weeks off! I've been relaxing and recharging and doing all kids of things that I haven't had time to do during the fall. (Although looking at the condition of the apartment, you'd think I've been too busy to even pick up dirty clothes off the floor... oops.) I don't want to abandon the blog, and I'll try to post here, when I get pictures taken of knitterly things that I've completed since the finals were over. And maybe even before finals were over.

The latest project was the Twin Peaks:

Hats for a friend's twin girls (age 9), head circumference about 50 cm. I used left over yarns from my stash, and made up the designs on the fly.

The red/gold hat is made of Tahki Donegal Tweed and Malabrigo Silky Merino. There is a two-inch lining on the inside of the Malabrigo to prevent itching and to keep the ears warm.

The purple hat is Malabrigo Merino Worsted, one of my all time favorite yarns. In this one the picot edge is about an inch and a half tall, also to keep the ears warm and toasty. The embroidery and tassle are Louet Riverstone.

Gifted

Remember the yarn I gifted to myself as a birthday present? Sometimes a yarn speaks to you and tells you exactly what it should become. This yarn was destined to be paired up with Jared Flood's Girasole pattern, no doubt about it. But when I compared the yardage I had with my six skeins and what the pattern required, I wasn't quite sure if I'd have enough, and at about $ 10 per skein, I wasn't really excited about buying any more. This pattern is written for two weights of yarn (aran for a blanket and fingering for a shawl), and could also be knitted with any weight for different sizes and uses. My yarn was somewhere in the middle of these two weights.

I decided to settle for a solution that would also take care of my other problem, namely how to wear a round shawl. Do you fold it over, or scrunch it up in your neck? And wouldn't it make sense to have just the part of the circle that you can actually see? In a blanket it makes more sense, but I've always wondered how you'd wear a round shawl. So I knitted a wide wedge, with six tenths of the pattern repeats.


This meant knitting back and forth, instead of in the round, and some of the patterns ended up having pattern rows on the wrong side, too, but nothing too challenging so that didn't turn out to be a problem. Most of the time every other row is just plain knitting. I also had to figure out what to do with the edges -both edge stitches, and the shape of the edge for when the pattern wasn't straight. I used two garter stitch edge stitches, which is pretty typical of lace shawls/scarves. The leaf pattern I knitted out so that the total stitch count increased in the first part of the leaf and then decreased for the second part. The diagonal rows of holes I cut off so that I got a straight line for the edge.

Otherwise I had no problem knitting just six tenths of the pattern, and the patterns and stitch counts all behaved very well and caused me no issues.

The needle size for lace depends on the amount of empty space that is desired and how airy the resulting fabric should be. My yarn was buttery soft, quite substantial and heavy, and I didn't think it could necessarily hold up to a very "lacy" or airy structure. Plus I wanted the shawl to be quite substantial, as well, so I used a 4 mm needle. If I had just gone based on the ratio of my yarn weight and what was recommended for the yarn weights in the pattern (4 mm was recommended for the fingering weight and 6 mm for aran), I should probably have used at least 5 mm needles. The 4 mm needles produced, however, very good results, and the size, I think, is pretty perfect!

Tweedie

Here's a project that has been in progress for a long time:

Hanne Falkenberger's Tweedie. Lately I've been pushing myself to finish up old projects and get some loose ends tied up (quite literally). This is one of the few sweaters that I purchased as a kit, and it was quite spendy, so it didn't make any sense to leave it lying in a basket half finished. I liked the style, the color and the fit, so really no reason not to finish! The only problem was that it was quite tedious... And every time I picked it up, I had to figure out the instructions all over again. The instructions, including color patterns for 11 different colorways, had been fitted into as small a space as possible, onto just two pieces of paper. For a lot of patterns that's plenty of space, but this pattern used some creative and unusual techniques, which could have been explained more clearly using more space. All in all, this pattern would really benefit from using just one extra piece of paper, and for the $130-plus that the kit costs, I don't think that would be an unbearable additional cost.

The texture of this sweater is created with a clever use of garter stitch and slip stitches. The colors are created using three different color yarns at all times, changing one color at a time when moving from one section to another.

The yarn is fingering weight 100 % wool and quite unprocessed, which means it is quite rough to the touch. I plan to wash the sweater with some Eucalan to see if I can soften it up a bit... I'm also thinking about adding a couple hook-and-eye closures, since there are no buttons.

Warm and fuzzy feeling

This gives me a warm and fuzzy:

Specs:

pattern: Something Red by Wendy Bernard

yarn: Rowan Kid Classic, 8x50 g balls

needles: 4.5 mm Addi Turbo circular

size: M, adjusted for gauge

I really enjoyed knitting this. The pattern is well written and easy to follow. The fit is great, partly due to the fact that the sweater was easy to try on when it was in progress.

The other day, this appeared on the fridge door:

It reads: "Watch out because it will be slippery". Mr S. (5 yrs) decided to clean the kitchen floor on his own initiative. Afterwards he told me "Mom, now you have to give me one of those green things." That would be money -the green kind, as opposed to the metal kind. So he got paid $ 1, and I got a clean kitchen floor. Not a bad deal at all, if you ask me! I sure hope this is a precedent for times to come, and when he's 17, I don't need to tell him to go get a job to make some money. And as I'm doing all this knitting, I don't have to worry about house work!

Happy Halloween!

Since the last update, I've been working on a few different things. The amorphous mystery sweater has only progressed little, and is currently out of favor and out of the knit cycle. This always seems to happen, when I get back into the knitting groove. I frantically go back and forth between a few projects, trying to figure out what I really want to, or need to be working on, before actually settling on something that feels right. In addition to the mystery sweater, I've been working on Tweedie, started a shawl and another sweater, and even finished something:

This is Amelia, Laura Chau's pattern from the -08 Winter Knitty. I used Louet Riverstone in color Burgundy. I think it's a very nice, solid worsted wool, one of those basic yarns that is always good to have around. I was between sizes, and cast on something in between M and L, because I didn’t want the sweater to be too tight around the bust. A couple of other changes I made were:

• Button holes every 14 rows instead of every 10. I wish I would have started them an inch or two earlier.
• I modified the sleeve cuff to twisted k1p1 rib, and I did the sleeve increases slower and made fewer of them than specified. Looking at other people's projects, sometimes the sleeves seemed too wide, at least to my taste.
• I made the front neck line decreases one stich further in (k1, p1, ssk), and I added a button hole in the neck band.
  

Overall, a nice project, and a good, well written pattern!

After finishing Amelia I thought, what I really need is a couple of new sweaters I can wear to work. I searched through patterns and rummaged through my entire yarn inventory, and paired up yarns with patterns, deciding what is going to be what. The first sweater that got on the needles was a silvery gray version of Wendy's Something Red:

I'm using Rowan's Kid Classic and Addi Turbo 4.5 mm circulars. (Shocking news: Addi has changed the color of the cord in their circulars from the familiar gold to a transparent blue!) This sweater should take me another couple of weeks with the sleeves and the neck band, if I manage to stick to knitting monogamy from now on.

October is birthday-month for me, and despite having made a resolution to be on a strict yarn diet, I figured I'm allowed to splurge on my birthday. Right?

This was my "happy birthday to me"-gift: a soft pile of Malabrigo Silky Merino in color Topaz. I'm thinking a shawl, something in the style of Jared Flood. Jared is one of my favorite bloggers and designers, and I'm really fond of his use of thicker yarns for lace patterns. By using a DK or a worsted weight yarn in a lace, you really get the best of both worlds; the intricate texture and pattern, but also the substance (and warmth!) of the thicker yarn.

The weather has been absolutely miserable lately around these parts of the world, but only during the weeks. Somehow magically it always seems to clear up for the weekends, and this weekend is no exception. This of course makes me very happy -not only for the kids, but for poor old me, who has to take them trick-or-treating tonight, and if the weather was as bad as last night, no amount of knitwear could keep me warm! I hope you all have a happy (and scary!) Halloween. Stay warm!

End of hiatus

I didn't even realize how long it had been since I last posted... Seems like time to end the hiatus and bring the blog back to life! The past year has been chaotic, stormy and challenging on a personal level, and posting in the midst of all that just didn't feel very appealing. But life goes on, and now that the dust has settled (and the weather is getting colder!), it's time to come out of the hiding, and take out the needles and yarn again.

So what is going on on the knitting front? Some of my work that I finished between the last post a year ago and before I completely stopped knitting for a while (that's right! completely stopped... didn't see that coming!) I have posted on Ravelry, available to those of you that are members there. Recently, I tried on a lovely cardigan at a store and thought, no way am I paying $ 119 for that! A two piece construction in garter stich, fairly simple and should be a quick knit. This and the afore mentioned cold weather were enough to get me to go rummaging in my yarn totes for something suitable that could produce the same cardi, albeit in a prettier color. I found a bag of fingering weight Knitpicks Gloss in color Cosmos, knitted a 5x1.5" test swatch, and cast on for a sleeve.


This will be one of those "make it up as you go" pieces. Yes, I'm taking a risk here, and yes, you may slap me, if it doesn't turn out because of the lack of planning. In my defence, I do have a couple of scetches in my notebook, and I have taken one measurement! The back piece measures from my elbow to my knuckles. Very scientific, no? And the reason I think this has any chance of working out? Well, the shape of the sweater is very "organic", not fitted in the least, so the exact measurements aren't absolutely critical. Famous last words, before a knitting disaster...

Maybe I want to think that I've still got the touch, and I can figure this out without spending two days planning. Maybe I'm just delusional... Or maybe I've totally forgotten anything I ever learned, and that unplanned pieces of knitting rarely turn out. We shall see. Until then, let's admire the magnificent October sky (the sky is so big here in South Dakota!) and the pretty view from my deck:

End of Summer

The Leafy Lace cardi got finished a while ago, and I've worn it a few times already.


After that got done, I started on a Very Secret Birthday Project on a rather tight schedule. What caused the schedule to be tight was not so much the upcoming birthday, as my mother turns a year older on the same day every year (very helpful), but the fact that I just couldn't decide on the pattern or the yarn. I finally ended up reverse engineering a pattern that I'd seen pictures of, but that was only available in Russian, and a similar pattern that would have been in past issue of a Norwegian craft magazine. It actually was a very simple crochet stitch pattern, which is used quite a bit in shawls. I had my mind set on crochet for whatever reason, I've already forgotten why, but I was very determined that it had to be crochet. I started the project twice with yarns that I had in my stash, but at the end ended up going and buying a new yarn, as I didn't have anything that would have fit just right. It was either too woolly, too stiff, too thin, too something. The yarn got is Berroco Twist, wool and viscose, a very nice and drapey yarn with a nice sheen.

The main idea I stole form the Norwegian pattern was the pseudo fringe. It's constructed from single crochet loops that are attached to one another, it's fringy without being too much so. I very much like it.

As far as I could tell, mom was very pleased, and I liked the shawl so much myself that I bought yarn for one for myself, too. As far as progress on that one... well, I've started, let's just say that. The yarn I bought (not the same one as my mom's) is very splitty and a pain to crochet, so I quickly came up with other projects that were more urgent.

Last weekend I started a new cardi, which I'm calling the "End of Summer Cardi". The yarn is Elann's Callista (no mom, it's not expensive), a blend of cotton, linen and viscose. I've planned a one piece construction with slightly puffed sleeves (we'll see how those turn out...), V-neck, and raglan sleeves. So far I'm about half of the way done.

A bunch of my co-workers have been reproducing lately, and baby gifts are in order. So far two girl gifts and one boy gift are needed, plus one unknown, due within the next two weeks. I've worked on some baby bootie patterns, and here are two of my favorites:

Now a couple more pairs of cuteness, and maybe a pair or two to have in the stash for future small people.

Summer knits

I'm in need of some more summery knits than all the wool sweaters I've been cranking out lately. I was working on a lace cardigan design, but found a free pattern that was so close to what I was doing that it just wasn't worth re-inventing the wheel.

This is the back of the Lacy Leaf Cardi by soobeeoz. The yarn is Lily Chin Chelsea, a wool/cotton/acrylic blend, perfect for summer clothing. I'm already done with the body pieces and one sleeve, so this cardi should be finished pretty soon.

A few weeks ago I bought some Jojoland Melody yarn that was on sale at Needlework Unlimited, and thought it would be perfect for a shawl. Something fairly simple that would benefit from the beautiful color changes of the yarn. I found the perfect pattern in Ulla; Revontuli by AnneM.

One thing I wasn't too excited about was how the stripes would get progressively thinner, as the shawl got wider, and I wanted to somehow work around that. I contemplated a couple of strategies, and ended up knitting each section (or actually each two sections) from a separate ball of yarn. I wasn't quite sure how it would work, if it would look weird or stand out too much that the sections are all different, but it worked out ok, and I'm very pleased with the result.

I really like the three-dimensional look that is created by the pattern and the slight sheen of the yarn. I've worn this to work a couple of times already, and the really nice thing about it is that it goes with almost every shirt that I own! :)