2014: A Year in Review

It's 2015! (Or #20swifteen as my cheer-leading future doctor daughter has taken to calling it). New Years Day is about taking stock of the old year and making resolutions for the new year. (Let's leave the resolutions for later, shall we? If you don't make them, you can't break them, right?...)

So here is my stock take of the 2014 knitting. My needles were exceptionally productive this year with 27 separate finished projects in 2014.The year started with cowls and scarves. In the heat of an Australian summer I turned to crochet and made Tweed ruffles. In February, I KALed along with some lovely ladies and I can Cowl if I want to! fairly flew off the needles.

I knitted my life into a cowl - Knitographical. I wrote it's story and exhibited it and the Flat Fox picture in a art exhibition. (And people actually treated it as real art!)

In February in solidarity with knitters all over the world, I plied my needles for the Ravellenics as I watched the Winter Olympics from Sochi in Russia.  Two pairs of mittens had their birth as competitors in both Mitten Moguls and Lace Luge. (That's Steampunk on Toast on the left and Oyster Shell on the right)

I made toys... Lots of toys. I spent my lazy January holiday assembling long neglected toys. (See The Great Sew-up-a-thon). I KALed along throughout the year and bent the rules of COM (Cast On Month) to cast on a new toy piece a day. (Clockwise from top left, Nativity camel, Intrepid Fox, A headless bear - clearly he's not headless anymore, Fit to scare children, Christmas sheep, Jean Greenhowe Teddy, Mike the Monkey, Tropical bird and Rabbitty in the middle).

Unlike 2013, I made only two hats. These were little whimseys diverting me from the main game for a weekend here and there.(Divergent and Mum, I need this!).

I discovered shawls. I planned to make my first lace shawl but along the way made two more. I think this is the start of a new addiction. The last new project on the needles for 2014 was a shawl too.

(From left to right: Curly wurly, Lacewing and Brown as).

And there was freeform. I got enticed to play along with the lovely ladies in the International Free Form Forum on Ravelry. With their enthusiastic encouragement I made my first freeform shawl and then went  on to design my first patterns and have people successfully make mould from them (Mould is Fun). In honour of the future mycologist daughter, I made little knitted mushrooms too (Fungus among us).

2014 was the year of the jumper; One for Mel (Funky Chunky), one for the boy (Not so little boy blue) and one for me (Recycled Rhodium in just 27 days in November).

The long term project of the year was a scarf- afghan (Anyone got cable!). This is a construction idea I'll be exploring further in future.Everyone in the family wants one.

And then there was the inevitable Christmas knitting. (Clockwise from top left: Angel in a box, Sunburnt reindeer and Pallina di Natale).

What will 2015 bring? The needles are primed for anything again.

(Note: All the links in this post go to the blogpost about that project. All photo-collages made using picmonkey).

We knit you a Merry Christmas....

In December, the knitting needles tend to naturally turn to knitting ornaments. Even almost without conscious effort, I find myself wanting to knit little whimsies for my Christmas tree and to share with my family.

I spent the first week of December on the beautiful Australian Gold Coast having a much needed relaxing holiday. Sun, sand, surf, shopping, neon, amazing food and seven and a half thousand cheerleaders. (One of the main reasons we were there was to watch future doctor daughter shake her poms in the Open Australian title division as a prelude to Worlds next year #20swifteen).

Holidays mean holiday knitting, right? It's the best way to wind down and de-stress. If you are a knitter, you understand that the most agonizing part of holiday packing is deciding just what knitting to take with you on holidays. You've got to have enough for all your knitting moods. You need extra yarn, just in case you run out. You've got to remember to pack all the appropriate needles and stitch markers, scissors, sewing needles, the pattern, etc... You need more than one backup project in case it all goes wrong for you.

Holiday knitting also has to be portable. This time around, I decided to take two small knitting kits that had come with various English knitting magazines. Part of the impetus for this was knitting for Christmas with the delightful ladies in The Unofficial Women’s Weekly group who were running a CAL/KAL for November/December 2014

This first was a cute little reindeer kit that came with issue 105 of Knit Today. Supposedly everything needed, yarn, stuffing, embroidery thread, ribbon and the bell - just add needles. I love his little slip stitch texture. And he’s cute and small and Christmassy.

And then I ran out of yarn (and stuffing) not even a few days into the holiday! I knitted and stuffed two legs complete with their little separate hooves. I made the body and stuffed it with what I had left of the stuffing supplied in the kit but it’s not plump enough. I knitted the head and sewed up the ends. I made a tail…. and I had about 25 cm of yarn left….

 I don’t know what the issue is. I used the suggested needle size (2.75 mm). My tension checks out OKish… There’s just not enough yarn in the kit. I still had to make two arms and the hooves, two ears and two antlers. I’m pretty sure I have some similar brown acrylic in the stash. So I'll finish it when I got home. So much for this being holiday knitting. (That's why you take backup projects...)

Actually the brown acrylic, I was thinking of was in my mother’ stash. She has custody of all the cheap toy acrylic. She was happy to see me even if I was only there to steal wool…. I knitted the arms and paws and stuffed them. The colour is quite different but it looks OK after assembly. (It’s sufficiently symmetric). I knitted two ears and embroidered the face and tied on his bell. Voila!

The kids were quite uncomplimentary about the finished object - they decided it doesn’t look like a reindeer. They were calling it a dog / cow / minotaur thingy. (Minotaur? - too much fantasy reading going on around here).

Photos taken in Hosier Lane in Melbourne during the mad Christmas rush season. I love good graffiti laneways.

So it was onto the backup knitting plan. I turned to the other kit - a Christmas angel that was again a kit from Let's Knit Issue 73, November 2013. The pattern is called Gabriella by Amanda Berry. This one was knitted on 3.75mm needles. it's knitted flat and then seamed. I knitted the head and body bit. Then the holiday finished.

I knitted little bits of the angel here and there over the rest of December but had a small spot of procrastination in finishing up the face and the hair. Finally knuckled down and did it early in the morning on the 23rd of December. This one is part of my Mum's Christmas gift. I've been told the angel has a serene expression. I love the pop of gold in her hair and wings.

Last Christmas was the first year, we were missing a child for Christmas dinner. The middle daughter spent her Christmas in Padova in Italy with generous friends chasing the elusive white Christmas. It didn't snow for her but it was still an awesome experience. She bought me home Italian knitting magazines and a copy of Arne and Carlo's Knitted Christmas balls book (in Italian). Now I can read Italian (sort of). I studied it a high school but it is very rusty. However, once I brushed up on the Italian knitting terminology, I was fine with this. There are clear photo tutorials for stuffing and finishing and all the patterns are charted. Mel of course had an ulterior motive in buying me this book. She wants a collection of red and white baubles for her future tree. Of course I'll oblige. She keeps complaining about a distinct lack of Christmas markets in Australia.

I made a sample bauble using DK and 3.75mm Needles. It was an abject failure as a bauble. It was miles too large and there was insufficient contrast between the yarns I was using. (Probably a mistake to use a variegated yarn as one of them. It does, however, make a good cat toy / child's ball though). So we went to fingering weight yarn and 2.75 mm needles. Meet Running reindeer. Next I'm going to knit the Christmas goat. (See Gavlebokken).

And I made a gift tag for my sister's present. These little owls are a great effective use of tiny little scrappy bits of yarn. I did have a plan to make a heap of these for present tags. It didn't happen. Life intervened. But at least one present got special love.

September Madness

I've been a little quiet here, haven't I? It's because my knitting needles have been knitting up a virtual storm for the whole of the month of September. (There has been marking too - way too much marking but let's not dwell on unpleasantness shall we?). September was COM again (Cast on Month). The idea is to cast on a new object everyday.... Now this could be a very scary proposition.  Just take a moment to visualise. At the end of the month, you could end up with 30 new cast ons all only a few rows long, a pile of WIPs and no knitting needles / crochet hooks left to use. 

But this is where the genius comes in. You twist the rules to make the process work for you. My rules for this COM were:

1. Any cast on stitches count as a new cast on. This means any piece of a garment or a toy counts as a new cast on.
2. Picking up stitches is the equivalent to a cast on. So neckbands, edgings, etc... are all separate cast ons.

Using  these rules, I used September as a way of tackling half completed and long neglected toys with a few new cast ons just to spice things up. I made it with one new cast on every day from September 2nd (the day I actually realised it was September already) to September 27th when I went interstate for work for the rest of the month. (Unfortunately air travel in Australia means the knitting needles have to get packed in the checked luggage. No knitting on planes).

So here's what I have to show for COM.

Big Girl Shoes
I just recently became a great Aunty. (Gee, that makes me feel old). These are a present for my new great niece. I love these little knitted Mary-Janes and I really love how the silvery shimmer in the black  highlights the little floral pattern. The pearly buttons are purely for show. There are hidden press studs underneath to make them easier to take on and off. This is two days of cast on - one cast on for each shoe.

Pattern: Time Flies booties by Nikki Van de Car from What to knit when you're expecting
Needles: 2.75mm needles
Yarn: Moda Vera Adalyn, 50% Acrylic, 50% Nylon (Polyamide), 10ply aran weight

Intrepid Fox

This was initially planned to be a present for my niece's Baby shower.

I’ve loved this little guy since I first saw him. He is tiny though - much smaller than I first thought he was but just the right size for small little hands to grip. Now I just need to finish it before the 21st of June…. (Well that didn’t happen. I made the body and two legs and got unfaithful with other projects. I knuckled down and finished the kid's jumpers instead. My niece got store bought practical basics for the baby shower. The baby was born in late August).

I picked this back up in September for VHOC COM. It’s in my rules that if it includes casting on, it’s a new cast on!

So September 4th: Leg no 3 completed. (And I made a discovery whilst posting a photo of this to a chat thread. I had made the first three legs technically wrong. The pattern had black paws at the end of each leg and I had made orange paws on each of mine. I can’t believe I misread the pattern three times in a row! I have now decided that it is a unique design feature and I am sticking with it. Only the people I point it out to will ever know it’s not right anyway, So it's just between us, alright?)
September 5th: Leg no 4 made. (And Hawthorn won the football final).
September 6th: And we have a tail too!
September 7th: Blocked legs and tail. Stuffed and sewed up body and one leg. Knitted underside of head.
September 8th: Knitted top of head.
September 9th: Sewed up and stuffed head and added safety eyes. Knitted all four parts of the ears and sewed them up. Stuffed remaining legs and tail. Sewed legs to lower end of body and attached tail. Sewed ears to head. Now pondering the best way to attach the head and remaining front legs to the top of the body.
September 12th: Thanks to my boy we figured out how to best attach the arms (which wasn’t anything like the pattern suggestions). And the head. I did end up adding an embroidered nose and mouth after intense consultation with the toy critics (two of the kids). They were attempting to maximize its cuteness factor. They have decided that the fox is distinctly French and possibly is channeling his inner Basil Brush!

Pattern:  Intrepid Fox by Ella Austin
Needles: 3 mm
Yarn: Cleckheaton Country 8ply DK in reddish orange coral, Cleckheaton Country Naturals 8ply DK in black and cream and some random unidentified multi-coloured yarn


Mike the Monkey
Mike the Monkey is the story of a knitting saga - a frustrating tale of misadventure. This is the project I took with me on my summer holiday to Queensland in January to finish off. It’s a kit I got as a Christmas present in 2009. I had made one and a half legs. I finished the leg and did the arms and then started on the body…

Notice something about that brown bit still on the needles? That’s right, THERE IS NO MORE WOOL. As it was a commercial kit, I can’t match it. I knitted to gauge and used the right size needles and everything!!! I will frog this I suppose (When I get over being so pissed off). I don’t even really like monkeys anyway! I hate you Mike the Monkey. (Unless someone has some matching yarn to donate?)

Than about 12 months later I discovered that I had already made and stuffed the head and body. It was hiding behind furniture and only found covered in cobwebs when we stripped out the lounge room for major renovations. So I do have enough wool after all… But it’s still hibernating….

Two separate Ravelry groups have given me the impetus to finally finish this thing in September. The Unofficial Women’s Weekly Group was having a toy CAL/KAL themed around wild animals. I think Mike qualifies. (He has certainly made me wild enough with his shenanigans so far). And over in VHOC it is Cast On Month (COM) for September - a new cast on each day. Toys fit brilliantly in my interpretation of this. Each new piece qualifies as a new cast on. So I’ll knit the last three bits for Mike as part of this - his face and ears.

Sunday morning 7th of September (early morning Father’s Day) finds me assembling Mike so far. His body and head piece are already stuffed. I’ve made all his limbs. This morning I have been stitching and stuffing thumbs - a fiddly awkward job. All limbs stitched and stuffed. Friday evening football watching (12th September) and finish-itis lead to me wielding the giant toy needle and attaching the limbs. I’ve also stitched the thumbs down on the feet so it looks more monkey like. I cannot say that this is a pattern I would have ever chosen to make if it wasn’t a gifted kit. I think it’s really unattractive and I DON’T LIKE MONKEYS anyway…. Over the next three days I cast on and completed the face section (and attached it straight away) and both the ears. Sewed ears on 20th September and finished face. My I reiterate again I DON’T LIKE MONKEYS. But I am happy he is finished….. (Anyone want a monkey?)

Oyster Shell

An uncompleted 2014 Ravellenics games project.
Colouration: fawn / bone / cream white with mismatched shell and pearl buttons from the grandmother button stash.

Cast on in car on way to Geelong for stage 1 of the mighty move for the baby to University at the beginning of 2104. Made most on the palm bit in one day. Picked up stitches for the edge and got stuck with the short rows at the beginning of the wave pattern. Shouldn’t try this late at night.

Tried again a few days later with a clearer mind. About 4 rows into the flap pattern and my eyes protested. It’s too small for me to see at night easily with my glasses on and the colour changes are very subtle. Not TV watching knitting. It got put to the back-burner and there it has stayed.
The games finished. The mitts haven’t. But they won a medal for competing. In honour of the Jamacian Bobsled team. Competing is the essence of the games. We can’t all come first!

Picked up again as part of Village Hopelessly Overcommitted September COM. I’ve decided September is about finishing fiddly things. Had completed the first mitt and done about 10 rows on the palm part of the second. I wasn’t really happy with the first one in terms of fit so blocked it. It looks and fits much better now.

Completed palm section on second glove on September 9th. Picked up for flap on September 10th (my cast on for the day)….. I basically mirrored the sequence of colours on the other glove. September 11th saw the picking of stitches and completion of the edging for the glove (and I was an extremely virtuous knitter and sewed in all the ends the same evening. September 12 was the thumb and its associated ends.
On September 20th whilst watching an extremely exciting Preliminary final (Go Hawks) I painstaking sewed on 28 little tiny buttons.

Pattern: Spatterdash Wristwarmers by Dagmar Mora from Knitty, Deep Fall 2011 (a free pattern)
Needles: 2.25 mm
Yarn: 3 ply (Laceweight) pure wool and miscellaneous bits of sockweight yarn in browns and creams.


With bonus completion of Twisted Ribbons Scarf for Anyone got cable! scarf-ghan and a cast on of Eagle feathers scarf as the next strip.

September was really fantastically productive. This COM thing can work excellently.

I flit, I float, I fly (From project to project)

I'm having a couple of months where I am knitting heaps but not seeming to finish anything. This seems counter intuitive. I know I am knitting productively but all the completed stitches do not seem to be adding up to finished. Are they disappearing into the knitting equivalent of a black hole or something? Are they going to the parallel universe where all lost socks end up?

So I seriously asked myself why the phenomenon was occurring and decided it was because I was simultaneously knitting at least 6 largish things at once and there is one at least one other half finished project from the Ravellenics still sitting out in plain sight that has had any knitting love in a few months. So let's look at them all and chart their progress. (I know it'll make me feel better)!

Anyone got Cable! The mighty strip afghan.

I have religiously managed a strip a month till June and then I stalled. I actually started two in April. One went on to become the finished April strip and one ended up being frogged. It wasn't its fault. It was perfect. Let's put it down to silly knitter error. I had two random balls of cream Panda Machinewash I bought for like a dollar each on sale at the end of last winter. If I had of thought about it, I would have realised that that amount of yarn wasn't enough to knit a metre and a half of complicated lace cable pattern. But I didn't think and I started and I got the end of the second ball of yarn and it wasn't long enough. Never mind, I thought, I'll buy some more yarn. The store didn't have anymore in stock so I ordered some in. It arrived and damn dyelots, it didn't match. I tried to make it match. I  knitted another pattern repeat in the new yarn and then the OCD knitter in me couldn't stand it and I frogged it. (And I mourned its death). I did go and buy some more yarn though.

So I have enough yarn now (and it all matches). I'm going to do the same pattern. But I haven't started it again yet for three reasons - impatient children who want the things I am making for them (see below) finished like yesterday; I still have my angry on with having to frog a beautiful piece of knitting and I don't think I have any good 4mm needles that aren't in active knitting rotation at the moment.

Brown as: My first ever knitted shawl.

For the 2014 Ravellenics I boarded the Tardis with needles and yarn in hand and joined the giant crew of knitters and crocheters flying through time and space watching the Sochi Winter Games and crafting all sorts of goodness. Some very wonderful fellow travelers offered prizes for our efforts and the Tardis random number generator chose me to get this free pattern.

I’ve been contemplating making a shawl for a long time but there were too many wonderful patterns to pick from to make my first. This sealed the deal. I had a pattern so I didn’t have to pick one. I have some very old gifted brown yarn from my Aunty that is perfect for this.

Why Brown? Brown is underrated. I’m a brown kind of person right down to the boring brown hair (with a touch of grey).

When I was naming this project, I thought of my favourite Little Golden Book that I read to my little sister first and then my children over and over…. The Color kittens by Margaret Wise Brown.

”… and that made brown, Brown as a tug boat, Brown as an old goat, Brown as a beaver, Brown. And in all that brown the sun went down”.

Meet Brown as…

I cast on on the 8th of April and it has been flowing along quite nicely ever since. I completed up to the end of third section of the shawl still working this on straight needles as the yarn is so fine it still fits on a long straight needle. This is essentially geometrically arranged panels of faggotted lace. Every second row is just purl with a narrow garter stitch edge. I've just transferred to a long circular needle and completed the transition row for the 4th and last section (And then the nagging from the children intervened again and this is in stand by mode at the moment).

Part way through second section

Pattern: Bequin by Ydun
Yarn: Patons Australia Azalea 3 ply (lace weight)
Needles: 4mm. I started with 4mm straights till the end of the third section and then moved onto a 100 cm circular 4 mm needle.

I do make the occasional mistake and have to tink back a few rows till I have the correct set up again. I had to redo the last four rows of section II 4 times to get it right (Took me two days for 4 rows). The pattern is nicely written and quite intuitive but needs patience and I tend to make mistakes when knitting at night.

Knitting a lace shawl is teaching me patience and not to drop stitches!

Funky Chunky: A sideways cable jumper for Mel.
My kids finally respect my knitting skills enough to ask me to knit them garments. I keep an eye out for things I think they will like. So when I spotted this in an email from Lion Brand, I immediately thought of Mel. We went and chose yarn together and this hit the needles on March 30th 2014. The yarn we picked is light and a 65% acrylic, 35% wool blend in a gorgeous heathered dark gray.

Pattern: Sideways Cable Pullover by Lion Brand yarn (free pattern)
Needles: 5.5 mm straights and 80 cm circular needle.
Yarn: Moda Vera Fotini in Gray (65% Acrylic, 35% Wool)

This is definitely home on the couch knitting. It is knitted sideways in one piece beginning from one sleeve, casting on for the body section, knitting the two sides separately are then rejoining to cast off for the other sleeve. Finally you pick and knit the collar in the round for the neck section. It's definitely a lap full despite the fact that the actual knitting is fairly quick with chunky yarn on largish needles. It also requires intense counting with three different cable patterns running simultaneously with different length repeats.

Mel has requested that this be made without bobbles! So I have eliminated all bobbles and am just knitting the cables. The main part of the jumper is completed and seamed and I have picked up the stitches for the neck and knitted about 8 rows. Close to finished. This is probably good as Mel is currently gauging my level of love for her / status as a good mother by my visible progress on this. If she sees me knitting on another garment she plaintively exclaims - "You don't love me anymore, you're not knitting my jumper!" and "You're a bad mother!"

Not so Little Boy Blue: I haven't knitted my boy a jumper since he was in nappies. It was time to do it again. Unfortunately he is now grown adult size.

Whilst he was home over Easter we chose a pattern and yarn. We're going vintage all the way; yarn from the 1980s and a pattern from the delightful pattern book pictured below - Man Talk c1970s. Despite the lurid cover (that poncho anyone?) there are a number of nice classic textured jumpers in this book. The naming is unimaginative though - I'm making jumper no. 3.

Pattern: From Man Talk Patons Book 310- jumper no 3.
Yarn: Nomad Woolblend 8 ply by Target in Navy Blue , 80% Acrylic 30% Wool, 9 and a half balls - from the stash (the best sort of yarn)

Needles: 3 1/4 mm and 4 mm

I started with a sleeve - mainly because I needed some train knitting and everything else I was knitting was too big to transport or needed too many different colours of yarn. There is an art to good train knitting. It needs to be small enough to fit in a handbag, be simple enough to not to have to refer to the pattern every five minutes and needs to not be too many fiddly small bits. The pattern on this is subtle. It's a variation on a checkerboard type rib - simple but effective. I'm one and a half sleeves in so far. And these sleeves have done about three train journeys, a conference trip to the big smoke and watched my eldest daughter compete in cheerleading. This is a fun knit.

Lacewing: A freefom lace CAL / KAL.
I got enticed down the rabbit hole. Roseknits24-7 from VHOC (Village Hopelessly Over-committed) invited me to play in the International Free Form Forum on Ravelry who are hosting a freeform lace shawl CAL/KAL for June/July 2014 based on the Wingspan shawl as a jumping off point.

Wingspan has long been on my to-do list and I also love Dreambird. I could so see a lace Dreambird with a faggoted / trellis framework and delicate lace feathers. And that was my inspiration for beginning to design this. Freeform is no rules / no limits / no real pattern / design as you go / do what you feel type knitting / crochet.

 

I’m drawn to the colours of a bird’s wing - I’m thinking of the little blue/fairy wrens that are so common in Australia. Complex shades of brown and a flash of brilliant almost metallic blue. I found some pictures of dreambirds that people had made for inspiration. I began with a feather. I hunted through all the free lace shawl patterns I could find on Ravelry.

 

The first feather is knitted in lace-weight antique pure wool from the stash in a olive green poo coloured brown using Gamayun bird shawl lace charts as the starting point. I blocked the feather and knitted on a row around it and cast off. Then I tried some swing knitting / short rows using a couple of simple lace patterns for the rib section. I’m using garter stitch ridges to introduce a ribbed / bone texture in the joining sections. Knitted off both sides of the feather section, sandwiching pockets of simple mesh lace between garter stitch sections. Yarn weights ranges from 5 ply to a thick thin worsted weight novelty yarn. Completed and blocked 15th June. Blocking makes all the difference - opening up the lace and encouraging sections to curve subtly so the piece lies flat.

 

Next I made a feather by improvising a paisley shape using crochet bruges lace as the focal basis of the next section.

 

The way this CAL / KAL is progressing is through suggested stitches both knit and/or crochet for each section. I have a whole toolbox of toys to play with now but this is weekend knitting. I have a few other bits and pieces on the go to incorporate into this.


Intrepid Fox: Making baby presents.
I’ve loved this little guy since I first saw him out in the internet and then in a knitting magazine. He is tiny though - much smaller than I first thought he was but just the right size for small little hands to grip. A large number of the 20 something females of my acquaintance are having babies - my niece, the young lady I drive to Uni.... I'm stocking up on knitted baby gifts.

© Ella Austin

Pattern: Intrepid Fox by Ella Austin
Yarn: Cleckheaton Country and Country naturals 8 ply plus some random stash yarn
Needles: 3 mm set of four dpns

I started this on the 8th of June and this too has been train / travel knitting. So far, I've finished the body (though I'm not really happy with the the level of contrast between the variegated yarn I used for the fairisle and the solid body colour) and nearly two legs.

All in all, it's no wonder all that knitting hasn't resulted in any finished objects.