Welcome Home

My lovely daughter is home safe and sound from an amazing school trip to Egypt.

See the pyramids along the Nile
Watch the sunrise on a tropic isle
Just remember darlin' all the while
You belong to me

See the market place in Old Algiers
Send me photographs and souvenirs
Just remember when a dream appears
You belong to me

I'll be so alone without you
Maybe you'll be lonesome too, and blue

Fly the ocean in a silver plane
See the jungle when it's wet with rain
Just remember 'til you're home again
You belong to me

("You Belong To Me", written by Pee Wee King, Chilton Price and Redd Stewart, recorded by Patsy Cline in 1962)

Can you find the ice fishers?

Every year at this time, as soon as the ice is thick enough (by standards much lower than my own usually), a temporary village of ice fishers set up camp on the ice at the head of Musquodoboit Harbour. My daughter, sitting in the passenger seat of the car with the window rolled down and digital camera in hand, tried to do a "drive by photo shooting" yesterday. Defying the odds, because there were a lot of people on the ice yesterday, she took some pictures almost completely devoid of ice fishers.

Lovely pictures mind you, of a late afternoon sun shining on the ice, so I post them here for your enjoyment.

I'll help you out a bit - I've circled a small group in the picture to the right.

Maybe we'll try stopping and getting out to take the photos next time.

Two by Two

HPIM0999
Originally uploaded by nlobban

This time of year I like to get small project fixes - my attention span really doesn't extend to larger more complex projects. As an added bonus, these mittens are knit flat, so I decided to knit them both at the same time. I do sleeves that way a lot. The trick with these though is that there is a left and right mitten, so I have to remember to reverse whatever I have done on the first mitten when I get across to the second mitten. The other trick is to never set the project down without making a row pass across BOTH mittens, otherwise it's a bit tricky to remember which direction you're knitting in - ask me how I know this :-).

The overwhelming advantage is that when you're done knitting, voila, you have a pair. No Second Mitten Syndrome.

These are knit on 4 mm on my Denise interchangeable needles, with Diamond Galway Irish knitted worsted wool. They look a bit big at the moment, but that is because I'm at the top of the thumb gusset I think. Once I take those thumb stitches off (you can see the gusset "wedge" in the centre of each mitten) I think the mittens will take on a more proportionate look.

Happy New Year!

I've not been a very good blogger in 2007 - sometimes life is just too busy to stop and write about it! I'm still here, though, and having lots of fun on Ravelry, and hope to be a better blogger in 2008.

Malabrigo FO

Finally, a finished item to show off this year! This yarn is really lovely, and knits like a dream on the mid-gauge machine. Inspired by the beautiful photography on Yarnstorm, I thought I would play around a little - here's my "Malabrigo Trifle" pre sweater production.

I love the colour of this yarn, so I decided to do a plain, v-neck sweater to best showcase the colours, although I couldn't help adding a little crochet trim shell stitch around the neckline.

My only complaint about this yarn is that it has a very strong smell of vinegar, even after washing, and while I have no objection to the smell of vinegar in general, I would prefer that my clothes (and therefore me) not smell like vinegar. Any tips on overcoming this aroma would be gratefully accepted! I've washed the sweater in Eucalan, and laid it on my blocking board to dry outside on a briskly breezy day, but the unmistakeable odour of vinegar persists.

That's it for now. Next project: a baby bunting for my cousin.

"Snow Day" Mitten Pattern

Here is a freebie machine knitting pattern that I designed recently when the kids and I had a "Snow Day". Enjoy!

Yarn: 2 50gm balls worsted weight yarn (sample done in Cleckheaton Country 8 ply, gauge stated on the ball band is 22 sts and 30 rows = 10 cm (4”), and I used very little of the second ball)

Machine: midgauge, no ribber required (sample knit on Studio SK860, can also be knit on LK150 or Bond. MT 6

Size: Youth or ladies S (ladies L in brackets)

Finished measurements : Youth or Ladies’ S: circumference – approximately 20 cm around (8”), length - 19 cm (7 ½ “)

Ladies’ L: circumference – approximately 22 cm around (8 ½ ”), length – 22 cm (8 ½ ”)

Symbols/abbreviations: \ remove stitch from needle and replace on needle 2 sts to left (except the stitch farthest to the left, which moves only one stitch over so as not to increase the total number of stitches in work)
/ remove stitch from needle and replace on needle 2 sts to right (except the stitch farthest to the right, which moves only one stitch over so as not to increase the total number of stitches in work)
^ lift purl bar from adjacent stitch and hang on empty needle
S small
L large
T tension
MT main tension
EN every needle
EON every other needle
K knit
R row
RC row count

Special Tools: EN and EON selector tools handy, garter bar would also be useful

Special Techniques:

Triple strand “braided” e-wrap (adapted from “back and forth e-wrap” described in Mary Anne Oger’s Knitting on the Edge )

Break off three lengths of MY approximately 3X the width to be cast on. Holding three strands parallel, e-wrap cast on first and every alternate needle across. Change direction at the last needle and e-wrap back all needles skipped in the first step. See photos below.

Basket Weave Pattern (from Susan Guagliumi’s Hand-Manipulated Stitches for Machine Knitters )

TIP: If you ensure that you are moving sts towards the carriage side of the bed, then this will make it easier to remember which direction you should be transferring the sts and you will not need to follow the chart as closely.

The transferred stitch closest to the carriage should be placed on the needle immediately adjacent (two sts on this needle) so as not to increase the overall number of stitches. All other transferred stitches should be moved in the appropriate direction by 2 sts.

Instructions

CO 44 (48) sts using triple strand braided e-wrap. RC000. T10 K1R. T6 K1R. Remainder of mitten is worked at T6. Work basket weave chart to RC27 (RC30).

Leave 8 sts on carriage side in WP, all other sts to HP. Carriage on hold. E-wrap CO 8 sts. Knitting on these 16 thumb sts only, K to RC15. Dec EOS, ER 2X to 4 sts. Break yarn and thread through these 4 sts, remove from needles and gather. Push thumb to the back of the work and fold in half, return 8 sts to WP, and rehang the 8 e-wrap cast on thumb sts on these needles. Cancel hold.

RC000, keeping continuity of basket weave pattern, resume working from chart to RC27 (RC30). This marks the end of the basket weave pattern. Remainder of mitten is knit plain.

Dec E4thS across row. K2R
Dec E3rdS across row. K2R
Dec E2ndS across row. K1R

Break yarn and thread through rem sts, gathering the top of the mitten. Sew seams, braid and secure the 6 strands of yarn (from cast on) as shown in the photo, and weave in remaining ends.

Repeat for second mitten, making sure that thumb is worked on the opposite side as that of the first mitten. This may require knitting either one less or one more row before starting the thumb to ensure carriage is on correct side.

© 2007 Nancy Lobban. Pattern for personal use only.

Smoke on the water

Or more precisely, "sea smoke", caused by the extremely cold temperatures this morning.

38 Hats for Afghanistan

Thanks so much to everyone from the Metro Machine Knitters' Guild and the Mayflower Machine Knitting Guild who contributed hats, they are now on their way to Afghanistan, and I hope to post a picture of them at their destination in the near future. You'll notice the one pink hat - that was a special request!

Fitting a curve into a rectangle

Well, this Mariner's logo is giving me more of a problem than I thought. I think the main problem is that it's a very curvy logo - some sort of script/italicized font - and I'm trying to keep the curves and I just don't have enought "stitches/pixels" for the "resolution" I want. Here's what I mean:




I think I will abandon the idea of duplicate stitch on this. So, what will (hopefully) give me the curves? Well, plain old fashioned hand embroidery would do the trick, I'm sure, if I were any good at it. But I'm not. So I think I'm going to try surface or tambour crochet. I am more at home with a crochet hook, and I think that I'll be able to reproduce the curves I need as well as the thickness of the lines.

The other challenge - transferring this design to the knitted fabric. Here's my attempt:


I'm basically using a piece of thin white yarn and a large needle to "trace" the design onto the sweater. Then I'll rip the paper off (gently, of course), and using the white yarn line as a guide, reproduce the design with yellow yarn in the surface crochet.

Well, that's the idea anyway. Stay tuned to see if it works or not!

Another FO

From the teeny tiny little swatch photo in my first blog entry, to the completed Ruana (okay, not quite, I have some ends to weave in that are evident in the photo, but the knitting's done).

I hope to get the pattern written up and available over the next few weeks. Check Ciobair for updates.

And although there is a knitting machine in the background of this hastily staged photo, this was all 100% hand knit. Entrelac is just not worth it on the machine, in my opinion.

Okay, I think my blogging is getting caught up - I have a couple of new projects on the go (because something has to backfill the void left by the completed ones, of course!) that I'll be talking about soon.

#1 Hockey Hound Sweater Progress

To make up for lost time, I'm "multi-blogging" today. I met with Jed, #1 Hockey Hound, last night, for his "final fitting". We're ready to sew up the seams and duplicate stitch that bad boy Mariners logo to the derriere.

Here's the pre-finishing view:



That's a paper mock-up of the Mariners logo, by the way.

Big Cables is a Wrap....

Well, of course, it's actually a sweater, but it's done! And actually it's been done for a week or so, I just haven't had time to photograph and blog it.

I don't understand why I can't get my camera to pick up the cables - this photo makes it look like a plain blue sweater. It's probably more operator error than camera I suppose.

I found another error in the pattern as well - when decreasing for the sleeve cap, the pattern notes that you should be at RC156 before casting off the remaining few stitches. That's true if you're doing the smallest size, but in fact, if you are doing the largest size, you should be at RC162, and I didn't bother doing the math on the other sizes, but the RC for the second largest size is probably not right either.

I did e-mail the magazine about the first error, with regard to the neck decreasing, but they weren't really open to hearing about it, let's put it that way, so I'm not going to bother reporting the second error.

All in all a nice, simple, comfortable sweater that I would definitely make again.

End of 05-06 Minor Hockey season

• 1 tournament (SEDMHA)
• 2 kids
• 3 days
• 5 meals out
• 8 games
• 500 kilometres (give or take 100) (gas @ $1.13.9 per litre), and
• lots of friends, fun and laughter

= the end of another successful year of hockey!

Going to the dogs.....

I have finally started Jed the Hound Dog's hockey sweater. Am squeezing work in on this between looooong hours at the office (accountant=tax season=say no more). Here's what I'm aiming for:


That says "Mariners #1 Hockey Hound". I'm rethinking having that on the side though, and will probably centre it on the back. It'll be duplicate stitched on, I'm not fussing with fairisle for lettering.

I scanned my son's baseball cap in order to trace the letters to get just the right "font", which I cannot seem to identify otherwise on multiple font sites I've visited on the internet. This is what the lettering will look like:











And finally, here's how I make a pattern (for my own use).

I don't know if you can really see anything there, but that's basically what I knit from. I really like the visual, I really dislike patterns with lots of words and no pictures or schematics. The paper is, by the way, wood workers "workshop" paper for figuring out wood working projects, and as you can see it has measurements around the sides in imperial and metric. I got it from Lee Valley Tools. Never underestimate the inventory of non-knitting retail outlets to still provide items useful to knitting (Canadian Tire, Staples, Home Depot, etc).

That's it for today.

Laura's Camouflage Socks - Off the Hook(s)!

I'm still having flash issues with the camera, so these look more grey camou than green camou in the photo, but here they are anyway. No, the toes aren't going to be white - that's waste yarn for taking the socks off the machine. I'll make it go away when I graft the toes and weave in all the ends.

I have to say that Bernat Sox yarn is just a little bit too thin for my mid-gauge machine - the socks look okay but the gauge is a bit looser than I would like for a sock. We'll see how well they wear for Laura.

That's it for me today.

Happy Birthday to Me

I'm hard at work churning out income tax returns (day job = accountant), but taking one moment of unabashed self-indulgence to wish myself a happy birthday. No plans other than to not work tonight (a big deal this time of year) and cozy up to the TV with my twelve year old son and watch the Habs humiliate the Leafs.

The big cable sweater is almost ready to be photographed - just sewing up the seams. Knit a camouflage-coloured sock on the machine early this morning for my daughter (photo hopefully to follow - weird happenings with the "flash" on the camera this morning). Plan to knit the mate while supper's in the oven tonight (yes, I am cooking supper on my birthday, but it's OK - I have no plans to do dishes).

Then I absolutely plan to start Jed the Hound's hockey sweater!

Big Cables continued....

I took my in-process sweater to our machine knitting guild meeting in Truro yesterday and we had a great discussion around the neck decreasing (they agree with me), and we also learned a great new way to do pockets (thanks Marg!).

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, here's a close up. Hopefully you can see my little stitch counts in this photo - definitely "11 to 10".

'Nuff said. The next time I "blog" this sweater it will be a picture of the finished item!

Big Cables progress

I've finished the front of the "Knit Big or Go Home" sweater in the current issue of Knitwords and I'm really pleased with the results so far. The cables are a bit hard to see in this photograph because I am photographically challenged and cannot figure out how to turn off the flash on my digital camera. I did try to darken the contrast a bit, but I don't think that really helped. Just get your nose up close to the screen and squint, and you may start to see the cables going up the middle.

This is a nice, simple (visually, and in execution) design with nice vertical lines (alway a good thing). I think I found a mistake in the pattern though, which caused some frustration when I divided for the neck.

The pattern calls for dividing the two "cable strands" to each follow up the side of the neck. Each cable strand is made up of eight cable stitches and then one tuck rib that's latched up by hand. Of course, once you divide for the neck, you need to start decreasing in order to shape the neck. The pattern calls for a "9 to 8" decrease, meaning that you move the stitch on the 9th needle to the 8th needle. But if you do this, when you get to the shoulder and drop the 9th stitch in order to latch it up for the tuck rib, the tuck rib won't follow beside the cable.

I guess just trust me when I say that the only way to get that tuck rib to follow immediately beside the 8 cable stitches, and still achieve the neck shaping, is to leave those 8 cable stitches and 1 tuck rib stitch totally undisturbed, and do the decrease as "11 to 10", or the eleventh stitch from the neck edge onto the tenth. I can say that this is the voice of experience from ripping out the neck four times because I didn't listen to my own intuition.

The yarn, by the way, is some I have had lounging in my stash for awhile - 100% wool, royal blue, single ply, that's all I know. A little bit coarse off the cone, but it should soften up once it's blocked and even more when it's been "broken in".

Two sleeves to go on this one and then it's on to Jed the Hound's hockey sweater!

Tournament Results

They played their hearts out, and lost 2-1, but we're all very proud of their efforts and their second place finish!

Championship game today

Just a quick update to my last post - a win and a loss on Sunday brings my son's team to the championship game this morning at 10:45 - very exciting! More later.....