Fancy Rib Scarf

I was feeling in need of some easy knitting the other day so I fished an anonymous ball out of my stash and started a scarf.

I don't know if the stitch has a proper name, but I use it frequently for scarves as it has better width that single rib but less bulk than double rib. It's also interesting to knit and very easy.

Cast on a multiple of 4 stitches plus one extra.

Every row is worked (Knit 3, purl 1) to the last stitch, which is knit 1.

You soon see how the pattern works so mistakes are very easy to spot.

Here is a close-up. The fabric has the advantage for scarves of being completely reversible. It looks the same on both sides.

As the yarn was a nicely shaded one, a bit of trial and error let me find a width for the scarf that let the colours drift across it in graceful curves.

Last night when I was nearing the end, my husband asked who it was for. I asked him if he wanted it, and he did! So I stayed up late to finish it and he went out this morning wearing it.



Mittens

The snow has started to fall in London this morning.

These are the mittens for the set I have knitted for my daughter.

They are knitted in sock wool, as it gives a thin but warm mitten. And the variety available is so good. I think this was one of the Opal ones. To produce a pair (as I have) rather than fraternal twins, start your cast on at a recognisable point in the yarn. Then you can start the second cast on at the same point in the yarn. You will probably have to wind on the yarn a bit to get to the same point. Save this discarded yarn for another project.

The pattern is just a variation of my usual fingerless mittens one (which you can find details of in October 2010's list of blogs).

With the thumb it is an easy matter to carry on in stocking stitch to the required length and then decrease rapidly for the tip.

For the finger section, remember to put a marker in the centre of the stitches you cast on after the thumb. Work straight until the knitting reaches the tip of the little finger. Then decrease both sides on every other row until the work has reached the tip of the first finger. Then add decreases both sides of the marker on every other row. This gives a mitten top that follows the shape of the hand (which many patterns do not) and stops the end of the mitten being loose and flappy. Once the mitten is almost long enough to reach the tip of the longest finger you can start decreasing more rapidly . But, remember that you have more stitches for the back of the hand than for the palm so at this point decrease the excess number of stitches for the back of the hand evenly across the row, leaving you with the same number of stitches on each side of the marker. Once you are down to a few stitches each side of the marker you can either graft the tip of the mitten together, or cast off. Then you just sew the mitten up.

Linen Stitch

Our snow is forecast for later this week, but my daugher already has knee-high snow, so I have been knitting to keep her warm this winter.

Interweave Knits Holiday issue has a pattern for a hat and gloves in linen stitch. I wasn't keen on the pattern they offered, but it did serve to remind me how much I like linen stitch. So here is my linen stitch hat.

The interesting thing about linen stitch is that it produces a very dense, warm fabric, attractive on both sides (useful for hat brims!), and which looks more woven than knitted.

On an odd number of stitches:

Round 1: Knit 1, ( slip the next stitch but with the yarn at the front of the work, Knit 1)

Round 2: Slip the first stitch with the yarn in front, (Knit 1, slip the next stitch with the yarn in front)

You can either use one colour throughout, or you can work 2 rounds in one colour and 2 rounds in another alternately. In this case I have gone a step further. I used two different Twilleys Freedom Spirit yarns. These are shaded yarns. But to give a more unified effect, and make a warmer hat, I used 2 strands of yarn A held together for two rounds and 2 strands of yarn B held together for the next two rounds.

As this stitch is dense and has less stretch than ordinary stocking stitch you really do have to swatch to determine how many stitches to cast on.

Measure the head around where the brim of the hat will sit. For a well fitting hat you need a little negative ease (as linen stitch is not very stretchy you don't need much) so you should cast on a few fewer stitches than the total equal to your head measurement. How many fewer depends on taste, hair style and conditions in which you are going to wear the hat.

Once you have cast on, work in linen stitch until the hat, with rolled back brim if wanted, is long enough that when tried on, the top is at the point where the crown begins.

Because of the construction of linen stitch, you need to do double decreases (ie, decreasing 2 stitches, not 1, every time you decrease.)

In this case I have decreased gradually to give a rounded crown to the hat, but the rate of decrease is a matter of choice.

As I was given some fine soft yarn (composition unknown) that was a good colour to go with the hat, I also knitted a Feather and Fan scarf.

Manufacturers tend to want to sell sets of matching hat, scarf and gloves, which is natural enough, but I think that a good hat yarn a good scarf yarn and a good gloves yarn are rarely the same yarn, so I tend to make sets that go together without exactly matching. It also makes the elements remain useful even when one bit has got lost (my daughter is a loser of gloves, scarves and hats!) I'll show you the gloves another time!



More tatted flowers

It is very easy to create a little 3D bouquet of flowers with tatting. Here, the leaves are worked in inverted tatting. Some of the flowers are just different sized individual rings, with masses of long picots, (double picots look very good), piled one on top of each other. Others are made of a cluster of josephine rings worked with the bases close together.

The daffodils are easy too. The base starts with a centre ring with something round it. Then the trumpet, which can be in a different colour, is made of concentric chains joined in to the centre of the base. By varying the number of stitches in the chains on each round it is possible to alter the shape of the trumpet as it grows. It doesn't matter whether you start with the base or the trumpet provided you work the centre ring, which is common to both, on whichever piece you start with. Alternatively, you could work both parts with central rings and put them together afterwards but that may be a bit clumsy in thicker threads.

This is the pattern I worked out for my daffodils, but a lot depends on the thickness of the thread used and on the tatter's tension, especially when it comes to the trumpet. This is a case for experimentation to see what looks best for you!



Elephant Quilt

Here is Ginger getting in the way of my showing you the Elephant quilt. The bump in the quilt in the photograph below is Ginger, still refusing to move!

When my daughter was at school the art teacher started a batik club. Since we had seen batik making at a workshop on the Isle of Skye the summer before, my daughter was keen to have a go. After some practising she was ready for a big piece and we agreed that she should make the centre of a medallion quilt for me.

She chose an elephant, but wasn't very happy with the results and I had to nag her to get her to give it to me. With some fancy work with fabric pens to bring out the details and quilting to bring out the design, it really came together and even she has to admit that the quilt is a success!



Dress

Some years ago I bought a cashmere dress that I really liked. I wore it endlessly, to the point where I had mended it way beyond what was reasonable. I would have liked to buy another, but unfortunately the company that made it had altered the style soon after I bought mine and the new version had features I disliked.

So eventually I decided the only solution was to make my own similar dress. And I'm wearing it as I type this.

It is not at all difficult to do if you already have a garment you can measure as a basis.

I wanted a long-sleeved dress (the original had had three-quarter length sleeves), I wanted it a bit below knee length (longer than the original), and I wanted it to be raglan instead of with set-in sleeves.

I started with a large swatch on 2mm needles in a black 100% cashmere yarn. As my yarn was an oiled industrial yarn I washed and deoiled my swatch before measuring it.

Then it was a matter of drawing an extremely basic sketch of what I wanted and putting in measurements. As I was going to knit seamlessly in the round I started with circumference measurements (of the existing garment, not of me!) I adjusted these measurements to add length to the skirt and sleeves.

Then I could convert these measurements into stitch numbers on the basis of my swatch. The lengths between the points with different numbers of stitches gives you the number of rows, making it easy to see how often to decrease or increase to get the right numbers.

As this dress was stocking stitch with turned up hems, I did not have to consider ribbing, and I knew that my basic raglan decrease could happen every other round.

 I'm about to start knitting another dress to this pattern, and the only change I am going to make is to start the front of the neck a centimetre lower and raise the back of the neck slightly.

As long as you have an existing garment which you like the fit of, it really is easy to create your own garment!



Memories of summer

It's cold and set to get colder, and stay colder for days. Snow is forecast for many parts of the country. So here are some summer memories to warm us up.