Mobius(s)

In the knitters world the "Infinity Scarf" is also known as a Mobius scarf. We like the Cat Bordhi method of using a 48" circular needle and knitting from the center outwards. You can purchase her excellent book with it's plethora of creative versions, and in the meantime get started with her simple, ingenious speedy cast  on available as a you tube video.

This month I made one out of King Cole Galaxy, a brushed acrylic/mohair mix which is also threaded with sequins. I used an Inox 6 mm/48" circular needle and cast on 120 stitches.

For fun, I am also making one with the same yarn, 2 related shades, doubled, on the same 6mm/48" needle. 

The most favorite mobius we have at the shop is this one, made from(vintage) Pingoin fine angora. I used the sawtooth border as the cast off which I found in a Knitty magazine design called Justify. I find it tricky to cast off loosly enough, and this alternate border adds lovely interest plus it is completely stretchy.

After casting off the mobius, block by stretching as far as it will comfortably go, then lay on the end of the ironing board (because you only want to gently steam one layer at a time), keeping the width consistent, going round and round, section by section. Galaxy has quite a bit of man made fiber and is senstive to heat, plus knit purl ridges don't want squashing.

Once again I use the trusty wet (Australian) tea towel and steaming thoughoughly yet gently. The piece should feel warmly damp.

When completely dry, use a brush to improve the nap of the fabric, stroking the stitches with the horizontal grain of the stitch pattern. Done! There are lots of other infinity scarves out there, most notably on the Garnstudio website.

Felting and fulling

Some past felting adventures for you

We used to have the company of Paula Shasta the fiber artist at our shop and she is most practiced at felting. Her favorite yarn was Kureyon by Noro and no wonder, such great colours! Here is a Noro felted Seven Circle Necklace.

very very fully felted

the striking colours of the Noro yarn are wonderfully muted and blended

as a bonus, the felting makes the necklace a warm and windproof scarf.

This capelet is also knit and felted by Paula then decorated with flowers. The design is from a past issue of Interweave Knits I believe. Any body out there remember the back issue, please let us know.

I made this study purse myself out of the Tove using the honeycomb stitch and based on the Booga Bag.

My understanding of felting is that you can no longer distinguish the stitches or weave of the fabric. If you can still discern the threads the article is said to be fulled. Success with felting is helped by lots of practice and keeping good notes about the details, needle size, number of washings etc. etc.

A few summers ago, Paula, Mayah and I attended a felting workshop at the Haliburton School of the Arts. Our instructor was the fabulous weaver Lucille Crighton. We learned so much, and had a lot of fun. Lucille shared lots of tips and techniques with us, and among them the primary importance of notes and records.

Feltable yarns we especially like include  Peer Gynt, Tove, Cascade 220, Kureyon, Lopi, Lopi lite and Freedom Spirit.

I have never felt better

You may remember years ago , when we had the location on Brock Street in downtown Whitby, we made a lot of felted mittens from Alafoss Lopi. The pattern used one ball, had a ridged cuff with stocking stitch in between and the afterthought thumb. Like the Handwarmer Family a pair can be accomplished in a couple of evenings, not counting the felting process. I use them for winter bike riding because of the cosy windproof characteristic of felt.

Last week, Sharion, the president of the Whitby Knitting Guild, presented Byron with a lovely, smoke coloured pair of mittens but with a 2 by 2 rib cuff variation. To ensure the mittens turned out similiar in size and shape, Sharion basted them to each other before processing them in the washing machine.

This was Sharion's first venture into fulling and felting, and don't they look great! The thumb shaping is more sophisticated, using the technique shared in the excellent note package from the Beaverton fall retreat. You can find the pattern; "New England Boiled Wool Mittens" used as the starting point for her variation here.

The Whitby Handknitting Guild meets the second Wednesday of the month at the downtown branch of the public library from 7pm to 9pm. It is a warm and welcoming evening, with generous hints, tips and encouragements shared among all. Hope you can join us sometime!

Weight a minute

You will remember the Handwarmer Family pattern from a while ago. Today I thought I would share  samples I worked on in order to illustrate the usefulness of the Pocket Scale from Lee Valley tools. I like these handwarmers to cosy up my leather gloves when I ride my bike in the fall.

Sometines, in the knitting life one wonders if there is sufficient yarn to complete a project. My strategy for going ahead with confidence is to use a very sensitive scale to measure the project.

In the handwarmer case I weigh the first one I knit: 9.5 grams. This is Bravo Jaquard acrylic DK.

Then the remaining portion of yarn, and yes I have 14.9, grams enough to complete the pair!

This pair is made of pure superwash wool double knitting in the smallest size; 9.4 grams. This is the Kaffee Fassett Regia DK.

I have 17.9 grams to finish the pair. Another use for using weight is to rummage through the stash and check out other potential candidates for hand warmers and also what size will be the most efficient.
Of course the fiber will make a difference, for example, cotton is heavier than acrylic, so you want to be sure to compare apples to apples

For a 3rd size I will need 13.8 grams per hand warmer. 13.8 plus 13.8 = 27.6, so out of a 50 gram ball I could likely make a second pair of the 1st size. (9.4 plus 9.4 =18.8. it will be close)

For much larger items I have asked permission of the cashier at the local supermarket as they have a really large and senisitive scale. Lee Valley also carries an excellent scale we use to check our suitcases before we travel. I will give it a try with a sweater

Knovember at Knit Club

The second Wednesday of the month, the local Knit Guild meets at the Whitby downtown public library. We sit around a big table while Sharion our president shares some of her knit knowledge with us. After the lesson, we share what we have been doing since the previous meeting.

Donna brought her lovely shell crochet afghan and also these really cute hats made on a knitting loom. This technique uses is a larger version of the kind of knitting machine that used to be made out of a wooden spool and 4 nails. We stock the Clover version.

Pam had made quite a few hand warmers

Then she was working on Kirsten Johnstone's Seven circles necklace/scarf available free on Ravelry, using a cosy long colour repeat aran weight.

I have made a couple of these in the past, quite delightful. You cast on a cricular amount of stitches, then knit a few rows and cast off almost all of them, then cast on again, but a few less stitches and so on, until you have knit 7 circles. Paula Shasta had made me on in Noro Kureyon and felted it.

Pam was wearing a version matching a pair of her hand warmers.

Sharion showed her lovely multi stripe impromptu scarf, we loved the fringe.

Then this fantastic fairisle bag.

The discussion of the eveing was the use of steeking. That is knitting a tube and making an obvious vertical area on the tube in order to cut it open after the knitting is complete and make a button up garment.

If you know me at all you will know my 2 favorite knitting things are fairisle and mohair, so I couldn't resist taking a close up or two.

The evening was made complete by Kathy from the Wool Queen in downtown Oshawa showing some of her beautiful in stock materials. There was handpainted lace weight viscose and sock weight wool, SMC modern ski hat yarns, the new Zoofari sock weight from Regia, New large package rainbow acrylic from Cascade and much more. We really admired the printed material, including a sweet pattern book to make dresses for your dish soap bottle, a nice change from washcloths.

Great evening!

Universals and Zentangle

Today I was honoured to be among the first students of our friend Kim of Kimat Designs and her Zentangle class. We sat down in her comfortable studio with all necessary materials prepared and laid out for us.

Zentangle is a form of drawing mediation if you will. It looks quite stunning and I had seen Kim and my friend Jean practice it on our annual camping trip, but thought it was not quite time for another hobby. Space opened up in my life at just the perfect time, thank you universe.

There were six of us in the class, everyone else being usual members of the Monday morning embroidery group at Kimat and today ready for an adventure. After just a few minutes I came to appreciate the connection between knitting, embroidery and Zentangle. Patterns, layers, rhythm, and also relaxed companionship with a group of creative people.

Kim is such a delightful, generous teacher and host, sharing her joy, she is supremely organized. There was coffee (Starbucks Blonde Roast) and tea (Yorkshire Gold) plus things to nibble and for each student a mint Lindor chocolate. As a teaching aid Kim had cut a large square, put it on an easel, then step by step took us through the drawing process. We had 2 squares to try, each taking about 40 minutes. 

Kim is a certified Zentangle teacher and will be offering classes through the organization "Art With a Heart" I think the plan is to offer a basic workshop with materials included then follow up classes for further study and practice.

Can you see how each of our tiles are related, and unique?

Everyone was really pleased and delighted at the result. Ready for the second tile after a little belgian chocolate.

These are a few of Kim's other works, so many possibilities, adding white pencil, black and sepia paper... I'd like to try drawing on cloth and making a carry case for my kit. 

Handpainted sock yarns and left afters

Invicta was a lovely coloured yarn we carried a few years ago and I had made a pair of socks for my good friend Mayah. She being a woman with average sized feet, meant I had a part ball left over. What to do... I liked the yarn a lot and wanted to remember my friend as well as the time and place I had made the socks, so I used a traditional lace pattern from the Shetland Islands.

It is a simple and very enjoyable chevron lace. I admire the economy of the Shetland Knitter practice of knitting 3 together for the decrease rather than slip 1, knit 2 together, pass the slipped stitch over. I find the practice elegant, as well as efficient. To make the coloured yarn last longer, I knit 2 rows with a plain and 2 rows Invicta, then 4 rows plain and 2 rows Invicta. The exercise served as an impromptu colour study with the bonus of making use of every last inch of the fancy material. I just relaxedly carried the yarn up the side of the work, which added a yarnover effect to the edges.  

This year, we decided to try the stunning Alegria by Manos Del Uruguay. In the spring we acquired the bright pink mix you see on the top right, just to try. Last week, a long awaited portion of the other colours arrived. The different shades came in long grouped skeins so it was fun to get acquainted with each one by opening the bundles up, releasing them from the small ties holding each version together and twisting them into soft squidgy skeins.

When fellow knitter and coworker Kim arrived on Saturday, we decided to make up one of the colours in the same pattern as I had used with the vintage Invicta. Swift and ball winder to work, then the rest of the afternoon knitting.

This is the result of just a couple of hours. I look forward to blocking and putting it on display.

Chevron Scarf 

100g (maybe) sock weight yarn

3.75mm needles

Cast on 61 stitches.

Row 1: Knit 1, (yarn forward, knit 3, knit 3 together, knit 3, yarn forward, knit 1) to end.

Row 2: Knit.

Repeat until scarf is desired length or until yarn is finished.

Compliments of: Myrtle Station Wool & Ferguson's Knitting

Very wooly hand warmers

This week I have been making our hand warmer pattern in Treskogarn, a marled light weight double knitting yarn with a somewhat rough wooly texture. Working it reminds me of having a smoked gouda cheese and parma ham sandwich made with artisan whole grain bread as opposed to Laughing Cow light cream cheese on a white baguette. Before blocking the knitting is curled.

The reason for using a such a character? Sturdy is perfect for the great outdoors. The fabric wears well for late fall bike rides, since weather is more of a challenge.  I'm confident this project will add the right tough, encouraging  warm layer over my leather gloves. I needn't use the wet linen cloth for this yarn, it can handle full on steam and iron. I actually put a bit of pressure on the stocking stitch, shots of steam only on the two by two ribbing.

For the purpose of pictoral clarity I will sew up the seam with my pet pink waste yarn. After the photo shoot, I replace the pink with the self yarn daedally bits I purposly left at the beginning and ending corners of the knitting. It is really more like lacing up a corset or shoe than sewing. The piece on the right shows after I pull the lacing snug, were it the self yarn it would be invisible.

My usual practice is to leave only an inch or two of yarn at the beginning, but sometimes for small projects like toys or flowers I leave enough to sew the parts in place in their self colour. I find this technique works well for the very short seam on hand warmers.

I like to leave a 6 ridge opening for the thumb of the glove. The seam is visible, and very flat so ok
with me. It is quite convenient to knit them flat, and a fun project for a new knitter...cast on, rib, stocking stitch, moss stitch, cast off, sewing up...all the most fundamental techniques.

Knitting at a relaxed pace I make about one an evening. Two evenings and a Christmas gift is fait accompli!

The Other Peer Gynt Hat For Children

I thought I would use the opportunity of knitting this smaller version of the hat to show some details about finishing. By the way we are happy to email you the PDF of the adult pattern, just send us a note.

In this picture you can see the back of the hat, while it is still on the needles, marker just 2 stitches away. I cast on 96 stitches for this hat, and the design has a flat top so I will need to start the seam one quarter of the way past the middle of the back. This allows me to use the attached yarn to graft the opening.

In this picture, you can see the small amount of the shaded yarn we used for the fairisle. By using this long colour repeat we made the hat it meant that we only needed to use one yarn for all of the colours, instead of 4 or 5. My mother calls this instant fairisle.

My vintage pink Pingouin cotton waste yarn knitting the contrast again, the curly edges need blocking, oh my!

Basting along the top and bottom with a sturdy wooly wool.

A nice blunt tapestry needle and running stitches near to the edges.

Iron and pet linen tea towel have made their magic.

Then there is the glitch in the circular knitting caused by the cast on. Let's graft it by sewing a stitch that imitates a knitting.

I use the tail from the cast on and form a stitch in the gap, then tuck the rest away along the purl side.

This is such a small, quick technique and it work wonders for smoothing the edge.

On the other side, the top, this photo shows grafting the stitches just below the hot pink cotton waste knitting.

Grafting all done and ready to remove the waste knitting.

See! A perfect join, just as if one knitted the row with knitting needles, then steam and warm up the the edges once again as a final touch.

A bit small in size for our Mrs. Black, but looks quite ok, in fact very cute.