Archives for September 2017

The winner of a copy of Seed Stitch: Beyond Knit 1, Purl 1 by Rosemary Drysdale is “knittingdancer on Ravelry” who has been emailed. Thanks to everyone who left a comment and to Sterling Books for sending my review copy and providing a second copy for the giveaway!

I am still knitting along on my Moth Cardigan. To give you some idea of its construction, here is one side of it.

In this photo I’ve folded the first side piece into place and put the second side next to it.

You can sort of see how it is going to look now, right?

In other news, I performed doll surgery on a friend’s doll.

Her legs were really loose. Now post-surgery, Kit can easily stand on her own!

Loki is busy, as you can see.

The winner of my review copy of  Unobtainables: Fake Elements, Real Knits is Christel, who has been emailed. Thank you to everyone who left a comment!

Today I have another lovely book for review: Seed Stitch: Beyond Knit 1, Purl 1 by Rosemary Drysdale. This is seed stitch like you have never seen before.

The author has definitely gone above and beyond what I think of when I usually think of seed stitch. She has incorporated it into colorwork, mixed it up with cables, and has created an array of lovely patterns. In addition to the patterns, the book contains a stitch dictionary with 60 swatches.

There are also illustrated “how-tos” for techniques used in the book.

The patterns in the book are shown on Ravelry, here.

Some of my favorite patterns:

The Baby Boy’s Cardi is a nice combination of stripes and texture and is worked from sportweight wool.

Mini Diamonds Pillow:

I love diamond patterns! This pillow is stranded colorwork and would be a pretty quick project because it is knit from super bulky yarn. Wouldn’t it make a great housewarming gift for someone?

Moss Stitch Cowl

Worked in worsted weight, it is a thing of minimalist beauty. It would be wonderful worked in luxury fibers!

And this is the Zigzag Poncho:

This is my favorite project from the book: I love the combination of different stitch panels.

The publisher has generously offered up a second copy as a giveaway here. Who would like it?

To be entered in a drawing to win a copy of Seed Stitch: Beyond Knit 1, Purl 1, please leave a comment on this post by noon Eastern time on Sunday September 24, 2017. A winner will be chosen at random from the posted comments.

Here is one of Loki’s and my favorite things to do: knitting in our jammies first thing Saturday morning!

I got an interesting book to review in the mail this week:

This is Unobtainables: Fake Elements, Real Knits by Allison Sarnoff & Heatherly Walker. The book contains 25 patterns that were inspired by fictional chemical elements.

The table of contents is a periodic table of the fictional chemical elements:

Note that they are nicely color-coded to identify projects that are lace, texture, beaded, colorwork, or cabled.

You can view all 25 patterns here on Ravelry. The majority of the patterns are for socks, but there are also fingerless mitts/wristwarmers, shawls and scarves, and a cowl.

Some of my favorites:

This is Uru — socks worked from fingering weight yarn (the yarn used for the same is The Periwinkle Sheep Sock Dream). Uru was the element used to create Thor’s hammer ,so i can only imagine that these socks will wear like iron!

Trinium is a pretty cabled cowl, worked from String Theory Caper Sock fingering weight yarn. The element trinium is an incredibly strong and lightweight alloy.

Adamantium is a pattern for some nicely cabled fingerless mitts, and it is also the metal alloy that coats Wolverine’s skeleton. These mitts are worked from Indigodragonfly Merino Nylon Sock yarn.

The majority of the designs in the book are knit with fingering weight yarn (one is in laceweight and one in sportweight). The patterns are clearly written and charts are nice and big.

Who’d like my review copy?

To be entered in a drawing to win my copy of Unobtainables: Fake Elements, Real Knits, please leave a comment on this post by noon Eastern time on Wednesday September 20, 2017. A winner will be chosen at random from the posted comments.

In other news, Loki made a new friend.

I’m nearing completion of the first half of my Moth Cardigan. I ought to be able to finish the piece tonight.

It’s kind of hard to picture it from that photo, isn’t it? It’s the right side of the cardigan, and the enter front is the long straight edge at the left of the photo.

I’ve folded it down the way it will be sewn together. You can see that it forms a sleeve on the right side of the photo. What remains to be knit is a lot of short rows with deceases on the side seam side so that the piece will be long enough to sew the side seam, the bottom edge will be the bound off stitches, and the live stitches will be put on a holder to make a center back seam.

I’m sorry to say that I have zero confidence in the pattern. As you can see in the first photo, I have put a locking marker at strategic points along the side edge. The green markers are on the front of the cardi and the pink markers are on the back. Then you can fold the piece and line up the markers and sew the seams. Unfortunately following the pattern as written, there is no way one could line up the markers without doing some serious stretching of the piece. As written, the back is much shorter than the front. I’ve had to add some rows to each back section to make it match its corresponding front. For most sections it was just a few rows, but for the underarm slope, from the sleeve opening to the next marker, I had to add 20 rows to the back section.

So you can see why I have no confidence in the pattern. Luckily I read some of the comments in Ravelry from others who are knitting this, so I was on guard from the start. When I knit the left side, I’ll be able to match it to what I did for the right side since I kept notes about how many rows I added to each section.

But I have to wonder how it is possible that the pattern is so out of whack. And this is after a correction was issued to add some rows to the section that is so far off. It was even worse before the correction!

But I do love the look of the cardigan so I’m hoping when it is done that it bears at least a passing resemblance to the cardi pictured on the pattern!

Here is my progress for the week on my Moth Cardigan.

It’s an odd construction: you knit each side separately and join the center back seam. It’s a bit of a leap of faith to knit as I can’t figure out too far in advance what’s going on. It’s a new pattern as well, with very few projects on Ravelry, and a couple of comments saying that things don’t seem to match u. But there was a pattern update correcting an error in number of rows in a part of the pattern, so I am hopeful.

Besides, I have my little helper at my side.