Curly Wurly

Every so often something just pushes its way to the head of the queue and forces me to knit it NOW! I had no intention of knitting a shawl. I have two on the needles currently (Brown As - a traditional triangle lace shawl and Lacewing a free form knitted and crocheted shawl inspired by the colours of a blue wren's wing). I really didn't plan to make another. But Melba (one of the moderators of Ravelry's International Free Form group) dangled this pattern under my nose and even though I didn't find the original very inspiring knitted as it was in a single colour, there was enough mystery in trying to figure out how it was constructed to make me drag some yarn out of the stash and just knit up a little sample to see how it worked. (Note to self for future reference: this was in hindsight perhaps a bad idea. Resist the intriguing knitting puzzle a little harder next time).

This pattern with its use of short row sections and dropped stitches was a fascinating and addictive knitting exercise.You know of the 'just one more bit' and then I'll put it down go do the housework / complete tedious marking / insert any essential but boring chore here. I'd never done dropped stitches on purpose before (though there have been lots by accident over a long knitting career). I'd find myself insanely giggling inside each time I deliberately dropped and unraveled a stitch. I'm sure the knitting police were secretly watching me flaunting the laws of good knitting and waiting in the wings to slap me with a ticket for illegal knitting.

More by accident than design I'd knitted my little sample piece (it ended up becoming part of the aforementioned Lacewing) in a gorgeous varigated cream, grey and tan yarn. I discovered this pattern just shows off a short repeat variegated yarn to absolute perfection. And in my stash I had just the perfect thing to use: two balls of a acrylic print called Instinctive designed to knit up into a sort of a fake dead animal print.

Mel is responsible for the inspiration behind the name. I was knitting this and she said it reminded her of a chocolate coated something. The wave like patterning and the fact the colour is a mix of chocolate, white chocolate and caramel together with it’s wavy pattern reminds us of a Cadbury Curly Wurly chocolate bar. So Curly Wurly it is. (Though it was very nearly Chocolate Covered Pretzel)

Pattern: Summit Shawl by Mandie Harrington from Knitty Spring+Summer 2010 - a free pattern
Needles: 4mm straights
Yarn: Moda Vera Instinctive, colour 51, black, white and caramel, 100% Acrylic, used 2 by 100 g balls. Bought on sale for $1 each. (So yes, total cost only $2!)
Total elapsed knitting time: 11 days....

It wasn't a totally smooth knit though. There was some extreme frogging involved. I initially started knitting this to the width suggested in the pattern (15 columns) and completed almost two full repeats. However, I only had two balls on this yarn and wouldn’t get the length I needed. So I frogged it and cast on again with only 8 columns - more of a scarf / stole width.

It garnered some interesting comments on Ravelry on the way. I got told that the colour made it look likes hundreds of baby snakes together. Hundreds of snakes. That would be scary to wear around your shoulders….

The original knit in progress shot that inspired the hundreds of snakes comment

I wet blocked the shawl when I finished it but it didn’t hold its shape when dry and the pins were removed due to the acrylic yarn. I wore it once but wasn't happy with it because it didn't drape nicely and kept slipping. So I decided to aggressively steam block it to 'kill' the acrylic. Much happier with the finished stole / shawl now!

The photo-shoot took place on a glorious spring afternoon. Mel is an inspired photographer sometimes and she deserves a giant pat of the back today for making both the shawl and me look good.

Not sure I can pull it off as a head scarf.

The back view

Curating Ravelry: Cowls

I started this post on the last day of the first month of winter and it is freezing. The wind is blowing off the Antarctic and it is wet and soggy and the wind puts ice in your bones. I've dragged the hand-knitted neck warming goodness out of the cupboard. So in honour of an Australian winter, today's Curating Ravelry post has a theme of  cowls - free patterns of course. I'm a fan of texture and lace and here you will finds cowls knitted at a range of yarn weights.

I'm starting with the iconic free cowl pattern; the Honey Cowl designed for Madelinetosh yarns. This is a clearly addictive pattern with 16015 cowls made so far. Many people can't just stop at one.

© madelinetosh

Honey Cowl by Antonia Shankland.

More gorgeous texture in a bulky yarn this time in herringbone stitch.

© Purl Soho

Big Herringbone Cowl by Purl Soho.

Or lacey and leafy. I love this idea of fastening a smaller cowl to fit to order with a gorgeous brooch or pin.

by emilyooo

A Noble Cowl by Emily Kausalik.


Want to knit a special project with your knitting BFF? The concept for this design was to create a knitted version of “best friend necklaces”. Here's the BFF cowl from Knitty! Interlocking links are knitted flat, then grafted together for all eternity.

© Marc Smollin

I made this one. But I cheated and was my own knitting BFF. (Slightly sad but a great fun knit). This is a worsted weight project.
BFF Cowl by Ysolda Teague & tiny owl knits.

Lace and ridges

A Grey Loop by Helen G.

Or simple, effective and unisex.

by westknits

Purl Ridge Scarf by Stephen West (Westknits).

A lacey cowl that's long enough to wrap around and around and nestle into in deepest winter weather.

by knittedblissJC

Stockholm Scarf by KnittedBlissJC.

Linen stitch in leftovers, bright and rainbow and a great stash-buster.

by LadyDanio

Manic Panic Cowl by Sarah Core.

Or lace and texture blended together in a reversible loop that you can just through around your neck without having to figure out which way is up.

© Galia Lael

Casu Cowl by Galia Lael

Gorgeous milanese lace. A long loop of airy scallops.

© stipa

Mialnese loop by Tante Ehm

An elegant lace funnel shaped cowl that frames the shoulders and is long enough to warm your neck without bulk.

by AudKnits

Eleanor Cowl by Audrey Knight

Simple unisex loops combining stocking stitch, garter and rib. Matching his and hers cowls anyone?

© Tin Can Knits

Oats by Tin Can Knits

This one is designed to showcase a variegated yarn without pooling and without the yarn overwhelming the pattern.

© Knitterchristy

Downtown Cowl by Christy Becker

Or maybe colour-work is your go? Tell your life story in a wearable cowl.

© POF

I did!
My Favorite Things Infinity Scarf by Jill McGee

Knitted chevrons in an elegant buttoned cowl.

by Meliabella

Pedestrian Crossing Cowl by Melissa Sibley

Crossed stitches produce a distinctive openwork pattern.

© Reiko Kuwamura

Elis by Reiko Kuwamura

Lace and cables make for an elegant and airy cowl.

by bellanordica

My Dolphin Cowl by kniTTina

I could go on and on and on and on. I've inspired myself to get out the needles, dive the stash and plan the next cowl. Hope you enjoy knitting a winter cowl too!

Just rabbitting around

So the KAL / CAL theme for the Womans Weekly group on Ravelry for March was Mad March Hares - make a rabbit / bunny! I didn't need a lot of encouragement. I love me a good knitted toy and haven't made one for a while (if you don't include the great sew-up-a-thon of unfinished toys I undertook in January).

But just what bunny to make? There are so many cute ones out there (and that's probably the ideal theme for a future curating Ravelry post). I looked through my physical pattern stash (lots of books and magazines) and briefly contemplated Alan Dart's Bunny Babes and Beach Boys or Debbie Bliss's Sleepy Bear in a Rabbit Suit which I have made once before as baby shower present.

But then I thought half the fun of playing along in KALs is trying something you wouldn't normally do or being encouraged and supported to try a new technique. And so I thought, I've never knitted a toy in the round. And then I knew the ideal pattern to make... Rabbitty.

Here is the beginning. Rabbitty is began from the bottom up and knitted in the round with short row shaping to create the head and neck. I really like the end result and it was a really quick knit (with the bulk of it being knit in two days) but I don’t think it will become my preferred method.

There are two major issues with making a toy this way. It’s really fiddly to knit a small number of stitches on dpns especially at the beginning of a piece of work. And even more so when you are knitting using a boucle wool. When I was knitting the feet, I’d get half way through the second shaping round and half the stitches would slide off one of the needles I wasn’t using and I’d have to start all over again. Also stuffing the body and then having to knit the last two rows means then you have to be careful not to knit the fibre-fill into the knitting!

Pattern: Rabbitty by Cheezombie. Free pattern from Knitty First Fall 2013.
Needles: 4 mm dpns
Yarn:  Body: Aran 10 ply worsted weight thick and thin multi-coloured boucle from the op-shop - brown, grey, blue, green and black. Tail: 8ply fluffy white snowflake-like baby wool from stash. Eyes: Cleckheaton Country Naturals cream from stash. Oddments of black and pink yarn for eyes, nose and mouth.
Cost: 50 cents

Look at the cute little bunny tail

But he is so cute! (It's all in the eyes!) Rabbitty is also an accomplished maths bunny. Bunnies are inherently mathematical. They are great fans of Fibonacci. He's being following me around, helping me teach classes and getting photographed in odd places and appearing on Twitter and Facebook. He's my new mascot bunny.

My husband reckons that he looks like the rat from Horrible Histories. I'm choosing to ignore this very valid comparison.

http://www.bbc.co.uk

I have some more weird mystery wool. I might make another one. After all one bunny is lonely.

I Love Knitty!

It has been long suspected that the internet was invented and is maintained by cats. There is more cat related content on the internet than the sum of all the world's accumulated knowledge (though that is there too!)

But us knitters, crocheters and fiber artists know the true origin of the internet. It was created by knitters.The cats are just protective camouflage. Cats love knitting. When I first discovered the secret underweb that is populated by knitters, two sites stood heads and shoulders above the rest: The Yarn Harlot's blog and the online knitting magazine Knitty.

In 2012 Knitty turned 10. (It was established in 2002). I just want to say thank you for everything you've given this knitter down under on the other side of the world.

Hours of pleasure reading the knitty blog. I particularly love the WWW(What's What Wednesday) posts; a weekly news round of up of the hip, happening and just plain weird news from around the knit-o-sphere. Occasionally I can even claim that it is work related. For example, the American Mathematical Society and the Mathematical Association of America featured a full day session on Mathematics and Mathematics education in Fiber Arts. Plus where else will you find out that there are more knitted penguin sweaters in the world than penguins who need to wear them or the latest amazing yarn bombing?

Knitty has provided the platform for number of knitting firsts for me.

Knitty provided the pattern for the first chapter of the Beret Project. and kick started a new found confidence in my ability to make knitwear that was fashion worthy for my teenage daughters. I was looking for a beret to make for my eldest daughter to replicate the look of the day with a unique edge at at a price to not break the budget, and found Reverie by Amy Swenson. And so, not one, but two new berets were born and the start of a knitted head wear obsession that still has me in its grips more than 20 hats and berets later. (I also credit this project as the point where I knew I needed to improve my photography skills).

model + photos: Amy M. Swenson

I knitted my first fancy lace socks from a Knitty pattern: Tribute by Brenda Patipa. It was also the pattern that I used playing along with my first Ravelympics / Ravellenic Games from the sidelines not being brave enough to jump in feet first with the big kids. I completed my self imposed knitting gymnastics challenge, working a complicated lace sock on dpns and finishing whilst watching Olympic rhythmic gymnasts performing their ribbon routines. But no medals this time. I jumped the gun on the start and so didn't strictly meet the rules. But I made an amazing pair of socks that I love. (And Knitty has sooooo many cool free sock patterns. There are currently three in the queue and one on the needles).

Knitty provided the pattern for my first Ravelry KAL - a cowl knit along: The BFF Cowl by Ysolda Teague and tinyowlknits from Knitty Deep Fall Edition 2012. I loved this one when I first saw it when it went live in Knitty. I love the colours and the sentiment behind the design. But the pattern didn't love me - or at least the yarn didn't. From gauge issues through trying to use a DK weight yarn for a worsted weight pattern and being too lazy to swatch to running out of yarn due to using seconds yarn from the stash. I ended up starting the cocoon stitch loop of this cowl four times with three different yarns. But the finished object (whilst being nothing like I envisaged at the beginning) is beautifully snugly and a tribute to the sheer bloody mindedness your knitting sometimes requires you to demonstrate.

models: Stephanie Dosen, Ysolda Teague
photos: Mark Smollin

Cast on 1 (and 2): Wrong size needles and not enough yarn

Cast on 3: Gauge fine - pity I hate the yarn!

Cast on 3: All OK this time (but I had to buy yarn)

 

I knitted my first jumper for my mother using Twist and Shout from Fall 2008. This was one of those bizarre rights of passage, "Don't Mums make you knitted garments?" It sorted of offended my view of what's right in the world to be the one knitting for my mum, until I realized it was a tangible way of repaying her years of handmade love for me. And while she loves the finished garment, I've yet to persuade her to pose for a fashion shoot for the blog. (And its definitely the wrong season to ask her to do it now).

models: Robynn Weldon, Susan Brand, Mel Howes photos: Armin Rüede

I won my first knitting prize from Knitty! One of the last two limited special edition Tom Bihn Knitty 10th anniversary Swift bags in the world. I don't think that anyone except a fellow Knitty fan will understand the extreme depth of my joy when this arrived in the mail all the way from the other side of the world. I take this with me to craft shows proudly displaying my membership in the secret Knitty Fan Club. It's become my defacto handbag for train journeys, fits both the laptop and the knitting.

Thank you Knitty. I love you! (And I just wanted to let the world know!) Keep on doing the awesome thing you do.

Jo-ann

of these last-in-the-world 10th Anniversary Knitty Swifts to give away. They were made as a limited edition last fall, and sold out by December. But we saved two for you! Each has a retail value of $100usd - See more at: http://knittyblog.com/2013/07/all-about-tom-bihn-with-a-lot-of-little-videosand-a-contest/#sthash.a4oZ0WKb.dpuf

American Mathematical Society and the Mathematical Association of America last week featured a full day special session on Mathematics and Mathematics Education in Fiber Arts - See more at: http://knittyblog.com/2014/01/www-mathematical-knitting-on-recreating-a-ww1-era-sweater-vogue-knitting-live-class-report/#sthash.ZAZ7wdYG.dpuf

American Mathematical Society and the Mathematical Association of America last week featured a full day special session on Mathematics and Mathematics Education in Fiber Arts. - See more at: http://knittyblog.com/2014/01/www-mathematical-knitting-on-recreating-a-ww1-era-sweater-vogue-knitting-live-class-report/#sthash.ZAZ7wdYG.dpuf

American Mathematical Society and the Mathematical Association of America last week featured a full day special session on Mathematics and Mathematics Education in Fiber Arts. - See more at: http://knittyblog.com/2014/01/www-mathematical-knitting-on-recreating-a-ww1-era-sweater-vogue-knitting-live-class-report/#sthash.ZAZ7wdYG.dpuf

American Mathematical Society and the Mathematical Association of America last week featured a full day special session on Mathematics and Mathematics Education in Fiber Arts. - See more at: http://knittyblog.com/2014/01/www-mathematical-knitting-on-recreating-a-ww1-era-sweater-vogue-knitting-live-class-report/#sthash.ZAZ7wdYG.dpuf