Knitting at Night

Dragging on and on, this sweater...

2008-04-27T21:05:48Z

After much focused, earnest effort at knitting the cable section of the Tangled Yoke cardigan I took a hard look at what a mess the whole thing was becoming, then took a hard right & high-tailed it out of Dodge. Those cables can suck it, seriously.

I first discovered that I didn't know how to read a cable chart properly, and that helped enormously. However, even once I was following the chart as written, I kept screwing up. "Un"-knitting cables is a serious beating, and after you knit then un-knit/frog, whichever the case may be, the same 5-7 rows close to ten times you figure you may as well come up with a plan B. Plan A was a fool's errand. There is a reason those cables look like thorny brambles; they want blood. MAYBE I will attempt this sweater as written some other time, but for now I will be satisfied instead with a simple eyelet pattern to take the place of the cables.

Disentangled Yoke cardi

See that turquoise life line? I totally needed it. Precious arrows, no? So now I've only got the button band left to wrestle. I've already knit & frogged once, and now I'm thinking about doing it double knit, not 100% decided though. I'm really happy with the collar, and I finally got a nice photo of the true color of this lovely yarn ... see?

Disentangled Yoke cardi

Cute, huh? So I'll be meditating on the button band for a week I'm sure. I've been very good seeing this one to the bitter end. It had better fit :)

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Nostepinne

2007-11-19T03:04:07Z

I've been checking out ball winders for some time now, and while they aren't insanely expensive (not all of them anyway) I haven't been able to settle on a model. I don't remember exactly where, but I read somewhere about a nostepinne (nostepinde) and that it was used for ball winding. This is possibly common knowledge to seasoned knitters, but I'm self-taught & still relatively wet behind the ears -- what's a nostepinne?! Thus I started snooping around online to find out what this thing was. It's basically a little wooden baton that you wrap yarn around -- nothing more, nothing less.

Check it out...

How to Use a Nostepinne

Lo-tech! Awesome. I haven't actually gotten one of these yet, but totally itching to try this ball winding technique I started using the handle of a rubber mallet and it works great. The only trouble is that the mallet is heavy and unwieldy making the process a bit of a workout. That said, I wound close to 10 balls of yarn this weekend just tidying up the stash. I party hard.

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And we're off ...

2007-08-25T17:29:44Z

I haven't finished my pink raglan yet, but ever since I got the idea of making a lace cardigan in my head I can't stop thinking about it. So I figured it doesn't hurt to have two projects going at once. I can bounce back and forth between the easy worsted (chunkier yarn) and the slightly more laborious lace. I have a game plan!

So I cast on starting with the back using the tubular cast on. I've practiced it once before, and it wasn't too terrible to knit. This technique gives you a somewhat invisible edge. You begin using a single cast on with contrast yarn, you cast on half the number of stitches you expect to end up with. From there, you start the first row with your main yarn doing a combination of slipping, knitting, bringing the yarn from front to back and so on. It's not hard really.

Here's what it looks like several rows in:

Tubular cast on, pt. 1

At this point you can remove the contrast yarn, as everything is pretty well held in place. Once you do, you end up with ribs that have lots of stretch:

Tubular cast on, pt. 2

You basically have to cut the contrast yarn out (carefully, but not too gingerly). I snipped every other stitch or so, and then plucked the scraps out with the tip of a needle. I think this cast on style will work well for the hip and wrist bands of the sweater, but for the neckline I think I'll stay with the normal ribbing.

So I'll knit another half inch of ribbing and then start the lace pattern. I'm both excited about this project and filled with a tiny bit of dread over the prospect of seaming. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

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