2012 12 in 12 (February) Cria

This is probably one of my most worn and favourite makes from the whole of the 2012 knitting. It is another knit from Ysolda Teague’s Little Red in the City book and, I think the first one from there I actually knit.  I loved it so much I went on to make a second although for reasons I will explain later this year, it did not get quite so much wear.

In view of my avowed intention never to knit something in Grey in the winter and in February specifically, when I needed to cast something on for February’s knit this was the only one I was in a position to make a start on as I had already swatched and printed out the pattern.

After it was complete it did take awhile to find buttons to suit and to sew them all on since in addition to the ones down the front there are 4 or 5 on each cuff. This is also the first time I tried sewing a ribbon down the button band for support.

I am in 2 minds about the revamp.  There is a button missing, which I still have but I need to decide whether I am going to replace all the buttons and give it a face lift or stick with what I have. What it desperately needs is a ribbon down the other button band and possibly small stitches to tighten up all the button holes which have stretched considerably and lead to gaping and buttons coming unfastened by themselves.

There will of course be a wash and a quick run over with the Gleaner to depill it – although the yarn has not worn too badly (it’s a Rowan dk which may now be discontinued).

What I probably won’t do is to repair the glaring error. When I first knit it I forgot to reverse the cuff shaping so the button holes and cuff opening are in completely the wrong place. As with Thermal I am reluctant to mess around with a well loved and well used knit when I don’t have any spare yarn. The risk is that in fixing it some 10 years later I end up with a more lumpy and less even sleeve.

2022 12 in 12 plan (February) Fintry ?

My knitting for February has not turned out well so far. We are now over 10 days in and I have only recently settled on a plan. I lost a couple of the days at the beginning messing around with Baby Cables and then I started with a 4ply yarn with Fintry which is a Kate Davies design and next in the pattern book to Epistrophy (well the next design that I want to do).

The problem with Fintry has been getting gauge and sizing right. I mean you would think it would be easy since I am using the same yarn as I did for Corona Borealis (Drops Flora) but after 10 rows I had to rip it back as it was huge. Maybe I noted the needle down wrong I thought so started again with a 3mm but no, after 10 rows it was still coming out too large. So I thought time to take a step back, swatch again and then maybe start from the waist and come back to do the hips and hem later in the same way I have for Epistrophy. I can’t face starting with the hem again if there is any chance of having to rip it out since the first 10 rows are moss stitch which I loathe on a good day nevermind for the 3rd time in a row.

So being some 8 days into the shortest month of the year I decided that I needed a quick win so I am using Aran and knitting something I have done before the Mondo Cable Pulli. I know its fast, I know its easy, but I still had to rip it back twice because my swatch lied and it was knitting up too loose and too big.

This has happened so many times that I am beginning to wonder whether my knitting has got looser over the last month, whether swatches are lying more than usual or whether my needle gauge is wrongly calibrated ? Whatever the answer I think I’ve worked around the problem for now however I am still a sweater down so I need 2 easy wins for March to bring me back to where I hoped to be with the 12 in 12 projet

January roundup

Well I am very close to putting a Finished Object up as I spent part of January slowly whittling away at the finishing touches to Evendoon…mostly sewing on 10-15 buttons and the second button band ribbon.  Still not ready to take photos yet as I need to find the Gleaner. Unsurprisingly there is a bit of pilling because the yarn was being knitted for the second time so took a bit of a battering.  I also had to mend a moth hole as I had missed that the yarn had been worn slightly when I knitted it up

At least I hope it was worn when I knitted it because otherwise it means I have a moth infestation.

Other things I did in January was to continue with my slow progress of getting the spare room into a more useable condition.

There has also been a lot of sewing of small hexagons as J continues his Duke of Edinburgh sewing. We very nearly have a cushion (2 cushions in fact)

I also tried to finish off my Baby Cables (September) jumper but that is possibly a tale for another day

I have drawn up a list of the things I need to do to finish off some of the cardigans and jumpers I have knitted over the last 6 months so that I can get them into wardrobe rotation – yes, just in time for spring when they may have been more use during the winter !

There has also been a rethink in my sewing plans because making a cape is possibly not appropriate now as it will definitely be spring when I finally get it finished… or maybe I just press ahead and assume it will be ready for next winter…

2022 12 in 12 January Reduxe Epistophy (update)

In view of the fact I started late on this one I don’t think I have done too badly.  I mean it is pretty much there apart from the steeking and then  knitting button bands, sewing ribbon over the cut steeks and adding buttons.

How long it take me to get around to doing the steek is anyone’s guess…I probably should be more scared then I seem to, but then maybe the fear won’t kick in properly until I have the scissors in my hands ?

I have done provisional cast ons for both the body and the sleeves as I wasn’t sure how much this would actually stretch in the wash.  Had things gone to plan I would have already discovered how much the DK Drops merino stretched as I used the same wool for Baby Cables and Big ones too but I have still quite a way to go before that meets the water and blocking.

So I guess I probably should add that I still have cuffs, possibly some body and a couple of cms of beaded rib to do before I even get to the steeking but I am hopeful that I do that this evening whilst we are still in January. Although I can’t post Finished Object pictures I am counting this as completed in January

I am a month and a sleeve off my target as we go into February. (2 completed garments and 3 just needing some tweaking before photographing, one needing a sleeve finishing)

2012 12 in 12 January Revamp aka whatever happend to Matilda Jane ?

I think it was inevitable that it would end this way

I mean I had already tried to fix her once by reknitting the button band so it was the right size on both sides and I still didn’t get a warm and fuzzy feeling. The design was wrong. The fit was wrong. I looked like the 40 year old I was trying to be 19 and at the end of the day I don’t think I even liked the colour.

I am not sure what I am going to do with the yarn though. Doubt it will be clothing for me since I don’t like the colour and I didn’t get enough useable yarn back from the frog pond. I had to cut all the black facings, hem and neckline off as unravelling was too difficult.

I liked the buttons though. The buttons are nice. I will probably reuse them.

You may ask why I didn’t just donate it to a charity shop. Well I am not sure handknits ever really sell in a charity shop. Maybe I should sew in a label before I donate. I mean this didn’t look like a handknit. Some of what I do does but this one didn’t. Which is the really annoying thing about it !

2012 12 in 12 (January) Matilda Jane

This is one of the few I have blogged about before here and my opinion hasn’t changed. Its a lovely pattern with a lot of details I adore such as the picot edge, the attention to detail, fold over hem, leaf pattern edging at the neck and of course the buttons I put on. I loved it so much that I undid the edging and the button band a few weeks after posting my review and reknit bits of it to try try try and make it work for me.

But if a pattern doesn’t suit your bodytype it doesn’t suit you. Accept that fact and move on. It’s been in a bag waiting for me to do something with it but I think I have come to the conclusion that there is nothing I can do to this now to make it work for me so in all likelihood its either going to the charity shop or going to be frogged

2022 12 in 12 January Plan – Epistrophy

Its taken a few days into January to get into thinking about what to knit. I was still trying to finish reknitting Baby Cables at the start of the new year but put that down when I realised that I had just knit the cable on the right sleeve in the wrong place. Fortunately I hadn’t got very far into the left sleeve when I realised my mistake.

The biggest difficulty here was trying to decide which of my dk yarns to use for Epistrophy by Kate Davies. The problem was that none of the yarn I currently have in stash that I know will knit up at 21 stiches per 10cm would go with any of the other dk yarns I have and Epistrophy is a 2 colour or 2 tone stranded knit.

Having started off using a “sea blue” Drops merino I realised after about 30 rows that it was knitting up to big (following the instructions on fit I went for the 4th size) so I frogged that and used the opportunity to change to a deep pink colour and ordered a couple of balls in a very light grey (fog). Fingers crossed.

This is a bit of a challenging knit for me. The words “steek” appear half way down the instructions and this is new territory for me. But I am strangely (foolishly) calm over the whole idea of steeking. Ignorance I guess is bliss

12 in 12 2012 (December ) and Revamp

I never made it to December in the original 2012 challenge.  I only  managed 11 as I felt so disheartened by the disaster that was Snow White that I stayed away from cardigans and jumpers and only knitted socks and hats for a good 6 months or so afterwards.

This means that I have nothing specific to do to revamp or rejuvenate as there was nothing made the first time round. I do however have a bag of jumpers and sweaters that I fell out of love with over the years and a spare room that is the definition of chaos at the moment.

I planned that by the end of December I would have gone gone through that bag and made some decisions AND to have a spare room that is equally as good for sleeping in as it is crafting.  The latter pledge being slightly more important than the former as it would be needed over Christmas for Christmas visitors to stay in.

The result was that the craft room/spare room is a bit more user friendly but there is a lot more organisation to do… I am however starting to finish things and being a bit more disciplined

I have managed to reduce the bag of despair by one item but it was such a b*gger to unpick that I gave up after just that one jumper.  It is the basic canvas by Ysolda knitted sometime after the 12 in 12 from memory.  It always felt a bit short and I was never entirely happy with the yarn which was a faded dark rose colour of Rowan Wool Cotton.  Sadly I have no idea how I can reuse this as I can’t see it ever being anything clothing related again and it’s the wrong colour for the blanket I am planning on doing with some of the other reclaimed yarn (not the ones I have frogged already though)

FO: Raindrops – again 12 in 12 reduxe (July)

My July 12 in 12 reduxe pattern was Raindrops. I know I have already posted about it here but I didn’t add a final photo as I was unhappy with the sleeves when I finished it.  It was knit in a month but finished half way through August because I didn’t start it until the middle of July because I was finishing off something else !  (Yes I have been chasing myself to catch up through  a lot of this 12 in 12)

The Details

Yarn      – Drops baby Merino in Heather (4ply)

Gauge   – 24 stiches per 10cm (6 stiches and inche)

Needles – 3.25mm all the way through.

Size        – 3^rd adult size with add hoc increases from the waist down.

What’s New Nothing really. Its all techniques I have done before . It is classed as a good pattern for a beginner

Changes – I didn’t like the rolled stocking stitch hem so I stuck with the 3.24mm and added an icord to neaten the cuffs and the hem

I redid the sleeves afterwards as on washing I decided they were too long. Bear in mind that the yarn had already been used once for the Featherweight cardigan

Thoughts on

the pattern        – its quite a simple make once you get past the lace pattern around the yoke. I am not completely sold on it but then I think that is all related to my unhappiness over the age related weight I have put on over the last 3 years.  It fits. The colour looks good but its probably more of a spring/summer look as it doesn’t really work with a top under it

Am I happy ? Sort of. Put it this way I think it may get a couple of years use and because I have taken time to get it right now unlikely to end up in a bag at the bottom of the wardrobe because of niggles like “the sleeves are too long on this” !

Drawing a line under 2022

Hello and Happy New Year. Sorry I didn’t mean to just vanish off the face of the earth but then I am not sure even my Mum reads this blog anymore and I am just keeping it to try and keep myself accountable.

November found me with a finished monthly knit (Manu) with just some finessing to do plus a promise to a friend to make her a new hat.  Well I thought, why not pause the 12 in 12 attempt for a week and make a new hat for someone in time for Christmas.

Sadly it ended up derailing my knitting for the month, not because the hat took a long time to knit but because I fell in love with the yarn and spent the whole of December dreaming about knitting the Mondo Cable Pulli in Pink Aran alpaca.  In the end I gave up and ordered the yarn (yes I know the 12 in 12 is meant to be using the yarn and patters I have) only for it to get stuck in the post.

Knitting has been happening though.  I finished not one but 2 hats and then got stuck in (on Christmas Eve admittedly) to trying to reknit the Baby Cables jumper only to realise half way down sleeve 2 that I have put the cable in the wrong place and will have to frog the sleeves and reknit – first world problems I know. Its just a bit frustrating.

So middle of January I have a half knit September jumper, a half knit January jumper and I am about to cast on for December, and looking back over the last 6 months of this blog I can see that I have been very good at stating what I am doing but there are very few follow up posts. Having identified the missing posts I now know what to focus on.  See, knew there was a reason for this blog.

Hopefully by January I will be a bit more ordered, starting with a post tomorrow about Raindrops which, although I posted about it briefly here didn’t get a final photograph as I was still fretting about the sleeves not being quite right.