An Extra Cast On

Remember the extra cast ons for an up coming trip and finishing a garment before the WIP Along start? Somehow that wasn’t enough to keep my hands occupied and I added in a crochet hat.

I’ve been crocheting the same hat pattern whenever I’ve been in the car and have ignored the monthly suggestions in the hat group. Until this month. The crochet hat caught my eye and I had yarn that would look great, so on the hook it went. (It is unwieldy to write about crochet in the same terms as knitting as there aren’t good equivalents for on the needles and cast on and cast off.)

The hat is a free pattern, but I did make some changes. Firstly in relation to my gauge I did not complete all the increases. Then the leaf pattern was not distributed evenly around the hat. I guess the designer increased to the number of stitches she thought was necessary and then just had extra stitches between the last and first leaf. I thought this was a bit odd and as I didn’t increase to the full number of stitches it was easy to add one extra stitch before the pattern.

Other crocheters said that the hat was a bit short and added extra rows. I was trying to guess how much length the leaves added so I worked two extra rows before the pattern but then needed just one row after instead of two.

I am happy with the outcome and have enough yarn to make another in the same colours, so this might be my new two-coloured hat.

 

 

Even The Buttons Were From Stash

I am really happy to show off my latest finish. This is yarn I have had in my stash since 2015. Yarn from a subscription box that I purchased extra yarn and still didn’t use. I had a few ideas but nothing was quite right. This year I haven’t been adding to stash and I want to use older yarn first. This is nearly my oldest yarn so a decision had to be made. I don’t know when I first came across this pattern, it was published in 2022, but it was written for the weight of yarn I had and the amount.

I started it before a vacation so that I would have something easy to work on but after the vacation there were many weeks when I didn’t work on it at all. But after my mini finish-all-the projects this was the main project left so it got most of my attention and then with the WIP along coming up I wanted it to be completely finished before that start date.

The garment is knitted bottom up with the sleeves joined at the yoke and the button band built in. So when all the knitting is finished you just have to sew the underarm seams. (And sew in the ends and block of course.) But there was the pesky subject of buttons. I needed seven and I really wasn’t looking forward to searching for the right ones. I checked my button jar just in case and couldn’t believe that I had seven buttons all the same and in a matching colour.

The pattern is from Drops and the yarn is from The Verdant Gryphon who are no longer dying.

 

Why All the WIPs?

 

I know this will sound strange but I am disappointed that I still have so many projects on the go, even if I can justify them all.

At the end of August when I finished the third pair of socks I had just one active project and I really liked the feeling of that being the only project to work on. But active is the operative word as I still had four blankets and a car project. So one active project translates to six projects in total. And it’s not the total number of projects that are the problem but the never ending blanket projects that are skewing the numbers.

I have worked many mysteries but I am not enjoying the year long aspect of the blankets. But at least when they are finished they will not be replaced by new projects. My plan is to work a certain number of rows every day so that I don’t get bored but still get them finished. I also want to complete all the squares for my mitred square blanket so that I have just the borders to work on in the new year.

Then my works in progress will truly be active projects.

Finish All the WIPs

 

It’s that time of year, the annual finish all your projects Along.

In previous years I have used this as an impetus to finish projects so that I can cast on all the things in January. But this year I didn’t want to start everything and in June I had my solo finish everything challenge. I was pretty successful at that and started the second half of the year with seven projects, four of which are long term blanket projects.

So here we are approaching the final quarter of the year and how many projects do I have? Before answering that question, I have to qualify the number by saying that I have an upcoming trip and I started all the projects I want to take to make sure they work.  And I’m glad I did because I restarted the easy project.

These extra cast ons have resulted in my having nine projects. Ack, sounds so many but four of them don’t count, of course. Two are year-long blankets with part of the pattern being released monthly and there is the blanket from new leftovers and finally a hat that stays in the car.

Of the remaining five projects, I have the mitred square blanket, a cardigan, and the three projects started for vacation knitting. And there is no reason why I shouldn’t get these five finished by the end of the year. My oldest non-blanket project was started on 19 August this year so you can see that I do not have old WIPs.

In theory I should finish the year-long blankets by the end of the year. I mean, that is the point of them. But there were a couple of hiccoughs. One blanket I was working in two colours and then I changed my mind and wanted it in just one colour but wasn’t sure if I had enough. I haven’t frogged anything as I want to work a complete strip in one colour to see how much yarn is used. Having got behind, my plans to catch up have not been followed. I was up to date with the other blanket and then I used the needle for a new project.

Although nine sounds like a lot it is better than the fourteen projects at this time last year. 

 

Knitting by Any Other Name is Still Knitting

 

I have been knitting for a very long time – not only because I am old but also because I started at a very young age.

There was no internet, and if there were books I was not aware of them, so anything I (and others like me) learnt about knitting was from our mothers and grandmothers. However you held your needles and yarn, you were knitting.

The age of the internet has put a name on everything so now it is not just knitting or knitting with your yarn in left or right hand. It is throwing or flicking or lever or cottage or eastern or eastern crossed or uncrossed or any of the myriad of made up names – usually made up by the people who did not grow up in the areas where this was the normal way of knitting. For them it was just knitting albeit in their native language.

Another name that has started to appear more often is the Finchley Graft. Which is a fancy name for grafting two edges together from the reverse side. I do this all the time on my socks and didn’t know that it had a special name. (It doesn’t need one.) And should it be named after me or all the other people who have worked it out for themselves? Grafting is where you create an extra row of stitches to join two pieces together. Toes of socks being the most common but also tops of mittens and recently I grafted the underarms of a cardigan. I am not going to go into the exact details of how to graft but very very basically you go into the first stitch on the front needle knitwise and the second stitch purlwise then you go into the first stitch on the back needle purlwise and the second stitch knitwise. Well, when you are doing this “new way of grafting for people who hate grafting” you go into the stitches on the back needle first knitwise and the second stitch purlwise then you go into the first stitch on the front needle purlwise and the second stitch knitwise. So what is the difference? There isn’t because you are creating a row of stitches. So why have knitters been convinced that this is the “new” method? All I can see on the demonstrations is that they are putting the darning needle through a back stitch and then the front stitch before pulling the yarn through and slipping stitch off the needle. Instructions for grafting from the right side usually have each move separate.And you can break down the Finchley method into separate moves the same as you can combine moves in right side grafting.

But, although I think there is nothing magical about this method, knitters are being told it is easier, so they just assume it is and forge ahead. Which is a good thing. Just don’t tell me this is not grafting.

Third Pair Finished

 I achieved my goal of finishing three pairs of socks in August. 

 

 

There is not a challenge in August as that month is for finishing all your sock projects. So I cast on an extra July pair at the end of July to knit in August even though I already had a pair to finish in August. The new cast on fit the July challenge of literature and my personal challenge of already having the pattern (D’Artagnan by Caoua Coffee.), the yarn used was purchased in a sale (no surprise) and is from Alexandra the Art of Yarn. It was a nightmare to wind as the yarn was threaded inside itself so that I ended up winding by hand so that I could thread the yarn under and over itself. And then when I started knitting the dye came off on my hands. I continued with the knitting and dealt with the dye problem when blocking.

When I had finished both socks, I filled a bucket with very hot water, added vinegar and then the socks – no agitation! No dye came out of the socks so then I added the remaining yarn to the bucket (still as a ball) and no dye came out of that. I then soaked them in a wool wash and still no dye was released so I am hopeful that the dye is now set and will not transfer.

Although I completed three pairs of socks, in August the actual knitting amounted to two socks. The other two pairs were both 75% complete and this pair was 50% complete at 1 August.

Even though I used a dark yarn, I am pleased with how these came out. 

 

Breaking My Own Rules

I have written that if I am going to participate in SKA’s monthly challenge, I have to use a pattern that I own or is already in my Ravelry Queue or Favorites. Plus, and I don’t think I have mentioned this, I must use yarn I have purchased and only one pair of socks on the needles at any one time.

So what happened in May?

I decided I didn’t like the challenges for May and cast on a sock at the end of April so I would have socks to work on in May. But, I saw the start of the Mystery sock, decided I liked it and cast on with yarn from my friends big destash. (All three rules broken. LOL.)

In this pattern there was something going on in every row – purls, knits, slipped stitches, cables, bobbles, as well as alternating colours, - as some concentration was required I put them aside in June to complete other projects and then there wasn't a rush to finish them as August is the finish all your socks challenge.

The pattern is The Old Vine, the pink yarn is Miss Babs Tarte and the dark yarn is from A Whimsical Wood Yarn Co.