Blueberry Pie Dishcloth

Abbreviation Day: an UFFO, a FO and two WIPs

Posted on by alexand knits

I finished the knitting for the River District Toque test knit! I haven’t woven in the ends or blocked it yet (of course) so it’s technically an UFFO, but it won’t take much to get it done. It used a total of 139 yds so I am planning on making one in the toddler/child size out of the same yarn. It will look super cute on my daughter. I haven’t gotten the wifey to take real pics yet, but here’s a teaser:

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It’s hard to capture the colors accurately, but that’s reasonably close. It’s very comfortable and soft and squooshy. It ultimately came together pretty easily. I think it’s nice that the yarn I used (Rios) coordinates with the river theme in the title.

I finished my Blueberry Pie dishcloth yesterday and started using it a few minutes later. Surprisingly, the dye bled a lot when it hit the water. I’ve never had that happen with kitchen cotton before. It stopped after a few minutes of washing dishes in hot soapy water, but I want to remember that when I wash it the first couple of times. It’s been nice having it on the needles–it’s a quick knit, easy but not totally mindless, and it’s easily portable–so I just cast on another.

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Lastly, I cast on for a Summerskirt last night, too. I’m using some stash yarn that was gifted to me–blue and purple Caron Glencannon Sport. It’s actually closer to DK weight but I’m ignoring that (the pattern calls for sport). It’s a wool/acrylic blend (not my usual fare, but useful in this case) so I’m thinking it will be good for fall and winter with with leggings. It should be a simple knit and wear very well, not to mention be easy to wash. My daughter is very much into twirly skirts right now, so I think she’ll like it.

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The pattern casts on at the waistband then continues down to the hem with lots of increases on the way. The original pattern calls for several designs made in purl stitch detail, but I’ve eliminated those in favor of a cleaner look. I’m also just using two colors alternating instead of seven.

The chart on the pattern threw me for a loop initially. I haven’t done many charted patterns before. The ones I have done have mostly been cable patterns that use small charts accompanied by text directions. This one, the entire body of the skirt is charted. There’s a thread on ravelry that brings up some of the same questions I had, and piecing through that helped me understand it better. Basic idea is to start each round at the dotted line, read from right to left, and repeat areas between the bold lines. You will have a partial repeat at the start and end of each round. Ignore the leftmost column past the bold line–it’s meant to alert you to the next stitch up, not be a separate stitch outside of the repeats. Once you get going, it’s very easy but I had a little trouble figuring it out initially.

It’s a lazy, grey day here today, so I’m hoping to get lots more knitting done. Soon I’ll be back to work and won’t have nearly as much time to knit as I have lately. I’m clinging to the time I have even more tenaciously knowing that my summer staycation will have to end soon!

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Project Limbo

Posted on by alexand knits

I’m at a frustrating point between projects. None of the UFFOs are getting finished, and nothing new is really coalescing. I have one dishcloth on the needles that I actually had to frog and restart. I’m not a completely perfectionist knitter, but I try not to leave mistakes that I am aware of or make really obvious fudges. However, my tolerance of dishcloth errors is pretty high, particularly in this case: I don’t love the yarn, so I’m not going to gift it to anyone. I just want it to be knitted into a functional item. But, when tightening the grafting on the two edges, I must have pulled on a YO instead of on the graft. The whole thing got completely out of whack, and I ended up just pulling it out. In retrospect, I realize what I must have done. One mod I made to the Cherry Pie Washcloth pattern was to use a crochet chain cast on. Well, I usually would knit the first row after the cast on to make sure there was a solid row of stitches to work off, but I must have forgotten that this time. I restarted it yesterday and hopefully this time it will go better!

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One cool thing about restarting it yesterday was that I remembered the cast on without having to look it up, and was able to knock it out really quickly. Also, I’m attempting a Russian join for the first time. Since I’m not giving the dishcloth away, I’ll be able to see how well it wears over time.

I cast off Quicksilver the other day, but haven’t started weaving in ends yet. I want to do further research on that before I start. It may sound silly–I’ve woven in hundreds of ends on many different types of fibers–but I realized I don’t think I’ve woven in sock weight merino superwash ends before, and certainly not on a project of this scope. I really want it to be a completely secure and invisible finishing job, so I want to learn a little more about it. Basically, part of me just doesn’t believe that superwash ends will stay where I put them!

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I started sewing in the ends for my Old Shale blanket, but that is proving to be a monumental undertaking. I should probably put some time in on that.

I cast on for a new project last night, but I am going to pull it out. I’ve had my eye on Rivulet for a while and I have enough Noro Haniwa in my stash to make the medium width. So, I cast on 56 stitches and worked a few rows in 1×1 rib. For this pattern, ALL stitches are worked through the back loops. For knit stitches, no big deal–doesn’t take but an instant longer than a regular knit stitch. But for purl stitches? That was taking forever. I stuck with it for four or five rows, though, then started looking at the work with a more realistic eye. I didn’t swatch because typically a scarf’s gauge isn’t all that crucial. In this case, a scarf that was supposed to be about 8″ wide was easily 12″ and could stretch to 14″ in a pinch. So, I will be pulling that out and rethinking. It would probably look lovely, but would be out of proportion and I would run out of yarn at about 3′ long!

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A 14″ needle is included for scale!

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The yarn is so pretty. I can’t get the greens to show up right in the pics. they actually have a much more emerald shade.

I would still like to make that scarf, but don’t have the yardage required in another yarn. I don’t think it’s reasonable to go down several needle sizes to get gauge and still use the Haniwa–the fabric would end up being way too dense. That yarn was not meant to be crowded like that. I have another reversible cable scarf pattern that also calls for aran weight yarn, so I may try that. It’s the His/Hers Reversible Scarf in Cables Untangled: An Exploration of Cable Knitting by Melissa Leapman. I’ve used that pattern before and really liked it. If that doesn’t work out, I will have to go back to the drawing board completely. Or, I could start my test knit!

I do have one other thing percolating, but I don’t have the right yarn in my stash to start yet. I won a free pattern from Melanie Berg a couple of days ago (she designed the Quicksilver shawl). I posted on the weekly topic thread and got chosen at random! I chose Drachenfels, a pattern I had my eye on anyway. Pretty cool, right?

Quicksilver: a New UFFO and a Blast from the Past

Posted on by alexand knits

I just cast off my Quicksilver! I have to weave in ends now and block. I am hoping that it grows a good bit with blocking as I’d like it to be larger. Other than that, I love it. I will get the wifey to take better pictures of it in the daylight tomorrow. For now, here’s what I have:

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Not bad for a first real shawl attempt! More pics and some of my project notes can be found here. I learned a few very valuable lessons on this project. They all pretty much come down to this one: be careful knitting while annoyed at your toddler. Over the past couple of days I’ve had somewhat limited time to knit and twice I was set back by errors I didn’t have to make. Both times I was in the midst of a disagreement with my daughter about cleaning up toys. Once, on the next to last stripe section, I randomly inserted a YO that didn’t belong. No way (that I know of) to fix that without tinking back, so that’s what I did for about three rows. Then, on the last mesh section, I managed to drop a stitch. I caught it and tried to repair it, but I couldn’t get it to look quite right so ended up tinking back another couple of rows. Now, there are no errors that I’m aware of, so I’m planning on getting some blocking wires of some sort and finishing it up.

So, I don’t really have anything on the needles currently. I guess there’s one small thing–another Cherry Pie Dishcloth–but I just cast that on to use up some yarn and to be a more portable project. It’s a little over a third of the way done:

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It’s really a darker blue than it looks in the pic. I guess it should be a Blueberry Pie Dishcloth instead!

I read this amazing story on Ravelry about a knitter who often finds yarn at thrift stores in her area. She recently found close to a dozen full skeins of madelinetosh yarn for less than $3 each. So, I was inspired to go to a thrift store near where I live that I’d never gone to before, just to poke around and see what was there. I found a few skeins of yarn, but it was all acrylic. I bought them anyway as they were really cheap and would be fine for some cool decor patterns I have on deck. I also found at least a few yards of some wonderfully hideous material:

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The amazing thing about this is that my mom made two comforters out of this same print for my brothers, probably before I was born. The other side of each comforter had an animal print on it. I remember those comforters from when I was a kid, so when I saw this pattern I almost couldn’t believe it. I have no idea what I’m going to do with it yet, but it absolutely had to come home with me despite the wifey’s protests. I love it!

Hopefully soon I will have before and after blocking pics to post!