The cowl is finished!

I have never been more thrilled at finishing a project. After all the false starts, the cowl knitting went smoothly this time and it is done. It is blocking as we speak.

I added beads on the stems of the leaves. There are yo, k1, yo sections in the pattern and I put the bead on the k1 between the yarnovers. 

I need to get some pins and pin out the scallops. They look a little messy with just finger blocking.

I used the Elizabeth Zimmerman sewn bind-off so that it would be nice and stretchy to go over the head. The yarn is Juniper Moon Findley Dappled and it is a lovely yarn. The cowl is soft and very cushy. The ball is very large and this cowl uses a very small part of it. So if you have some leftover, this is a perfect project.

Defying science?

I think I have lied to many students over the years. I always told them that once they had knit a round in circular knitting without twisting at the join, that they needn't worry about a twist. Elizabeth Zimmerman taught that if you do have a twist, you can eliminate it by adding a counter-twist after the first round. The twists in the single thread that joins the beginning and end of the round in this case are invisible later on.

Well, I have been knitting a project this week that seems to defy this. It is a simple enough pattern and one that I have made before. It is called Abstract Leaves and is a lacy cowl. I am making another one for a sample, or I should say I was making another. I am no longer making one.

I started it on a size 4 Knitpicks circular and ended up with a twist.

*sigh* I ripped it out and started it on double points and switched to the circular after the first couple of rounds. After 4 rounds, it had a twist. bigger sigh R-i-i-p...

I started it again on double points and this time switched to the circulars after 4 or 5 rounds. Note, there was no twist when it was on dpns. I am half way through the first repeat which is 12 rounds. So I have done 4 rounds in the beginning and then about 6. And there is a twist. Grrrrrrrr... note I am not sighing any more. I am just plain mad!

I haven't ripped it out. I have put it in time-out. I will work on something else and I may re-do it on dpns. I knit the first one on dpns and it behaved. I don't see why this one can't.

I don't quite understand how this could have happened. Yes. the circulars can twist up but one should be able to untwist the whole thing. How can a 360 degree twist get added after the tube has been created?

Off to knit something back and forth!

Quick FO

I started this on Friday night and it is done. Yes, it was a bit of a stretch to finish it in 2 days. But these were two football days. I knitted as I watched four games this weekend and it is done.

Closeup of the corrugated knitting which forms the cowl. This is a k2, p2 rib done in 2 colors. I had the advantage of using Noro Silk Garden for the second color so I didn't have to join yarns. That definitely sped up the process.Here is the finished cowl. It is bulky but will be warm and definitely cheery. Purple is my favorite color!
I will be taking a few days off knitting before I begin anything new. My hands can sure use the rest. Plus, it is back to work tomorrow so there are fewer hours to knit anyway.

Finished!

Breaking news! I just finished the iPad cozy. Here it is, with the iPad in it. I made a giant Elizabeth Zimmerman 1 row buttonhole on each side to create handles.

The gauge is tight but that created a dense fabric that has the body to support the iPad and also to provide some cushioning. I don't think it is suitable to carry the iPad around a lot but it is nice to carry around in another bag that doesn't have cushioning.

Knitting my handspun!

We've had a lot of rain these past few weeks in the Northeast of the USA. LOTS OF RAIN. The garden is very green, but it isn't good for the tomatoes. There are lots of green tomatoes but not very many ripe ones. Tomatoes need heat and sun to ripen. Let's hope for a bit more heat before the fall sets in. Time is now running out as our first frost date is in about a month.

However the rain brought out the wildlife. A doe and her baby were grazing on the weeds at the edge of our property. I happened to be working from home and was able to snap a couple pictures of the fawn. Great pictures of the rear end of the fawn!

Here's a little bit of the fawn's head. It is looking up at its mother. This was the last I saw of the fawn as it scampered off with its mother to graze somewhere else.

On to knitting. I haven't been spinning much. I got the idea to knit an iPad cozy from a post on a Ravelry forum. It seemed like a great way to use this skein which had some odd colors in it. Lots of a boring natural and then some nice colors. But the proportions of the colors were off for most applications. But it was perfect for the iPad cozy.

I didn't enjoy knitting the brown. It is a very rough fiber. Now I am on to what feels like merino. I am not sure how much yarn I have but it should cover the iPad. If I have more, I will make a couple of giant one row buttonhole handles. Otherwise, it will just be a slide-in cozy.

Bohus a-round, anyone?

No, I haven't forgotten that I was going to talk to you about Knitting Camp. But I thought I'd do a quick post on a topic that I've been meaning to do for a while. It is related to Camp in that Elizabeth Zimmerman and Meg Swansen were/are major proponents of circular knitting and this is a flat to circular knitting conversion.

Many people are puzzled by the idea of doing a Bohus pattern in the round. The patterns in the kits from Solveig Gustafsson are written for knitting back and forth after the yoke is completed. I have corresponded with many people who are stymied by the concept of the short rows that are used to raise the back neck and create a better fit. I thought a couple of visuals would remove this confusion once and for all.

Here is a diagram of the way the short rows are described in the pattern. You can see that they are only on the front. This is because the partial rows are only in the front. The short rows gradually increase with each pair to go from the front armhole to just short of the center front. This raises the back neck and provides a gradual slope to the front neck so it fits better. There are no short rows on the back or sleeves because there are no partial rows there. They are all full rows across the entire width.Now here is the same set of short rows when the garment is done in the round. Essentially, one knits to just past the front armhole (or past the previous turning point), turns and purls back around to the corresponding point on the other side. This is repeated till all the short rows are completed. The turning points are exactly the same for the back-and-forth version and the in-the-round version.Note: my diagrams are not to scale.

More later when I have a bit more time.