The Knitter's Downfall

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you:

The Knitter's Downfall

Dramatis Personae
JEMIMA - A knitter
JEMIMA'S INNER VOICE
MUM - Jemima's Mum


Enter JEMIMA, knitting, and JEMIMA'S INNER VOICE

Jemima: Oh, what a clever knitter I am! I should have this jumper design ready any day now. I'm already up to the armholes on the sample!
Jemima's Inner Voice: Hm...Are you quite sure about this yarn? I mean, it's nice, but it's not quite looking like the original version you made that you were so happy with.
Jemima: No, it's fine! I'm making improvements on this version and I'm sure it will look just wonderful when it's blocked, and even though it may not have that nice shine to it from the silk in the original and it does seem to be slightly looser than my old sample was but...what am I talking about, I'm up to the armholes! I can't stop now! One must press on!
Jemima's Inner Voice: Ok, it's just that the tension looks kind of loose, and have you noticed how it's turning out to be rather larger than you were expecting? Maybe you should try and dig out your notes from the original, just to check.
Jemima: Ssh! It's fine. It will be fine. I'm sure it was 2.75mm and 3.25mm needles that I used before. 2.75mm for the rib and 3.25mm for the lace. That sounds right. I'm sure that's right.

Enter MUM

Mum: Oh is this the new jumper design? It looks a bit looser than your original doesn't it? I think I preferred the original yarn but it's very pretty - let me know when it's written up!

Exit MUM

Jemima's Inner Voice: *pointedly clears throat*
Jemima: No, no! It's fine! Everything's fine! It...it..maybe it's just the yarn, it just appears looser. Because it doesn't have silk. Or something? Well, maybe I should just check my notes, although I'm sure you'll see that it's fine..

Jemima examines notebook.

Jemima: Ah. 2.5 and 3mm. Ok.
Jemima's Inner Voice: ...
Jemima: And you know, this yarn...well, it's not quite right is it? Maybe I should use this yarn instead. Like the original. With the silk, you know, it does just look better, doesn't it.
Jemima's Inner Voice (sighing): Yes it *does*, doesn't it...

Exit JEMIMA and JEMIMA'S INNER VOICE 

*several days later*

Enter JEMIMA, knitting

Jemima: This is fantastic! This yarn looks so much better! And now I'm using the correct needles, and everything's great. Except for having to knit 4 inches of ribbing. Why do all my design ideas start off with 4 inches of ribbing? Anyway, this is great, I just need to push through and get to the lace pattern, then it will start flying off the needles! What a clever knitter I am!

Exit JEMIMA, knitting

*several more days later *

Enter JEMIMA, knitting, and JEMIMA'S INNER VOICE

Jemima's Inner Voice: Er, Jemima...?
Jemima: Not now, I'm knitting!
Jemima's Inner Voice: Yes, I see that, it's just - 
Jemima: Not now! I've finally finished the ribbing and I'm enjoying knitting the lace so much on these lovely fine Chiaogoo needles, they're so thin and pointy...
Jemima's Inner Voice: Yes, they ARE quite thin, aren't they?
Jemima: Yes, they are from my lovely new Chiaogoo Mini set, it's so lovely having a 2.5mm interchangeable needle so that I can do fine things with them, like the ribbing...on a sweater...oh...
Jemima's Inner Voice: You forgot to change the needle after the ribbing, didn't you?
Jemima: ...yes.

FINIS

************

Oh dear! All I can say in my defence is that I have been distracted from my knitting over the past week by finally making a large purchase that I have been saving up for for a looooong time and, well...does this look like the face of sanity to you?

But now the sweater is underway again, I have my MacBook, and both of these things are PINK. So all's well that ends well, eh?

Weekly roundup (with added pink)

This week (OK, OK, week and a half; I'm still getting back in the swing of this blogging thing, mmkay?) I have:

1. Bought some beautiful roses, that are doing extremely well considering they were £3 from Sainsburys. This is important, as these roses will feature prominently in the rest of this post.

2. Done a whole lot of knitting on my Bowland cardigan. I am completely obsessed with it. Yes, I chose pink in the end, not red. Yes, there is also extra pink in the middle. It's completely girly. #sorrynotsorry.

Bowland in all of its pink and girly glory

Bowland and roses, because pink

3. Put together three (!) Ikea wardrobes together on my own. No photos, because I'm sure you can picture what three white Ikea wardrobes look like. Although they do fit so perfectly along the wall that they look almost like fitted wardrobes, which is quite impressive!

4. Manage to scrape a fair bit of skin off my thumb putting together said wardrobes, then managed to burn myself on the same thumb a couple of days later. My thumb is now very sore and covered in plasters, so that I can still knit (see point 2.). Naturally it would be my right thumb, which is what I hook under my right needle so it comes into contact with the wool the most. Ouch!

5. Made, photographed and ate lemon drizzle cake. It was actually incredibly easy (I used this recipe: BBC Good Food Lemon Drizzle Cake) and definitely edible, so we can add lemon drizzle cake to my baking range (so far: rock cakes, scones, cherry sponge cake). 

Told you the roses would feature a lot

6. Started teaching a lovely little group to crochet at my Beginner's Crochet class at Loop, London on Wednesday evening. I decided to make the most of my ticket into London by popping in to the V & A Museum during the afternoon before my class. Wandering through the Fashion collection is always fun (I may have also done a little bit of damage in the shop too. The notebooks were just too lovely to resist!)

The most beautiful shade of pink, ever.

I hope you also had a lovely week (with or without all the pink)!

Expanding the Skill Set

I've decided it's time to get a bit more disciplined about my knitting/crochet skills. After Lyra, I feel I'm able to tick lace off the list for now. Although I'll always love my lace, and there is always more to learn (and there will absolutely be more Nieblings in my future!), it's probably the area of knitting that I feel most at ease with. So, although I am currently designing a sweater that is all about the lace - watch this space for that - I'm going to focus my non-design based knitting on expanding my skill set. First up, colourwork!

I've been wanting knit the Bowland Cardigan by Susan Crawford ever since it came out last year. I didn't get it together enough to join in the KAL she ran, unfortunately (honestly, I'm a bit useless at KALs...) but now, finally, is the moment! I'm knitting it in Spindrift by Jamieson's, which is a Shetland 4ply, perfect for this sort of knitting - light and "sticky" and available in a huge range of colours. After much um-ing and ah-ing and with a lot of help from my lovely friend Sophie (one half of the amazing Pomcast *cough* name drop *cough) we picked out the following colours:

Left to right: 567 Damask; 1160 Scotch Broom; 595 Maroon; 768 Eggshell; 769 Willow

Of course, choosing the overall colour palette turns out to be the easy part - deciding which colour goes where is hard! I knew I wanted my main colour to be Willow - it's such a gorgeous 1930s eau de nil sort of colour - and I loved the combination of the mustard and the deep red (thank you, Sophie, for picking out the perfect red when my eyes failed me!). I knew I wasn't going to do a straightforward conversion of the pattern colours, as I didn't want a contrasting rib/button band - the more Willow, the better!

So I pondered, and I pondered, and I cast on the rib in the meantime so I could ponder a bit longer:

Ah, vintage style knitting patterns. I love them, and constant possibility of 1x1 rib-induced insanity just adds to the excitement, no?

Side note: the pattern calls for 2in of the rib before you start the colourwork. I had intended to do a good couple more inches than that but I'm not sure I can handle any more rib. So much rib. And darn it all, I want the pretty colours to start now. Speaking of which, when I couldn't rib anymore, I decided it was time to take a break, stop pondering and start swatching:

I'm pretty happy with the main band, although I think I will tinker with the middle line that goes through it and do it in the Damask instead of Willow; I think that will make the flowers a little more solid. However, I really didn't like how the original small band (along the bottom of the swatch) was coming out. The Maroon is such a strong contrast with the background that it felt far too stripy. The top two small bands are my attempt to fix this problem, by either breaking up the red line with the yellow, or toning down the stripe to pink. I have spent a l-o-n-g time staring at this swatch (and posting on Instagram for advice - thanks, guys!) and I think I'm going to go with the upper red and yellow combination. The pink is lovely but just a touch more girly than I really wanted it to be (yeah, I know, it's flowery and green and pink and red and pretty solidly girly already but hey...) and I think once I fill in that middle row of the main band with a darker colour it should hold its own a little better. And yes, I know I should be doing more swatching to double check it all first but I really think doing it on the garment will make it all clearer anyway and I can always undo it later if it doesn't work and also I just want to get started already, mm'kay? You understand, I'm sure.

Oof, what a lot of waffling about a swatch! Hopefully you are vaguely interested in this sort of thing as I'm sure there will be much more to come now I have leaped aboard the Good Ship Colourwork.

Right, back to the ribbing. The constant, endless ribbing...

Jemima