Thursdays Are For Knit Group

Normally, knit group is the only activity that occurs on my Thursdays.   But today was a big day in this small town life I live.  The Meaford  library hosted a 'Learn To Make An Autumn Wreath' workshop over the lunch hour. Of course several knitters signed up for that. 

 

 This is my 'Ten Minute Wreath'.  Mind you,  the online instructor was the only person finished in ten minutes.  The rest of us took an hour.

Later in the afternoon,  it was the first movie of the season for the Meaford Thursday Flicks Club.  Of course several knitters signed up for that.  I left home about 11:30 and returned after the beginning of the 6 o'clock news.  Poor Fred.

In between these two special happenings, we had knitting.

Sandy models another of her gorgeous shawls. 

 

This one, though, she doesn't like.  'An old lady's shawl' she says.  It is the shape that makes it so in her eyes, she told me - Sandy prefers rectangular or triangular shapes for her shawls.

Sandy has asked Gail to give the shawl to one of knit group's friends. At 88 years of age, the lady no longer comes out to knit group. Laughing, I asked Gail how she was going to present the 'old lady' shawl to the old lady.  Gail, ever gracious, said she will simply say" Sandy knit this shawl and asked me to give it to you."

Sharon R finished one of the three Noro hats from the kits she purchased  at the Knitters Fair.

She said the seller had calculated the amount of Noro almost to the stitch.  She had about 12 inches left over.

Along with the hat, Sharon managed to finish this little baby sweater and togue.  Sharon is our knitter that aspires to learn something new with each project.  I asked her what she learned while knitting this Cabin Fever baby pattern.  " I learned how easy top-down, no-sew knitting is" she said. No argument from me, Sharon.

Isn't this  a pretty sight?  A row of knitters concentrating on their  knitting and some of them wearing their knitting. 

 

Sorry about the delay in posting this Thursday post.  Blogger gave me grief.  Instead of posting, it ate my work. 

Glenora

A couple of weeks ago, I spotted a new design by Elizabeth McCarten on ravelry.  Glenora.  Elizabeth referred to it as a 'relative of' and  'an unstructured version of ' one of her previous patterns,  Petrova.

 It has been a long time since I have fallen so completely in love with a pattern.  I love the loose look, the easy-wear look, the warm-yet-not-heavy look  of Glenora.  And in the rust-coloured Chunky-weight, wool/acrylic blend that has been in my stash for years, it would make the perfect fall piece. I fell so completely in love that I cast aside all my preciously-planned, next-in-line projects and as soon as the Serendipity Vest was finished, cast on for Glenora.

What a fun knit!  Chunky-weight yarn  and 6.5mm needles saw me finishing the first sleeve  in one day.  Two days for both of them.

 

 Wow.  No sleeve island slump for me. 

The body comes next, and starts at the  bottom, which is  11 inches wider than the bust.  Despite all those stitches, after a Sunday start, I had almost 11 inches done as of  Tuesday evening. 

Wow.  While I won't be finished in a week I suspect it won't be much longer.

Thanks, Elizabeth for a great pattern.  Oh - did I mention that it's free?

With Grief And Love

Serendipity Vest gave me great grief.  Re-knit more times than I like to think about,  due to what I found to be a pattern  severely lacking in clarity.

Missing information and poorly described instructions  were just a few pattern problems.   Mind you. It could be me.  Just me.  I am a graduate of the "Brevity is the soul of wit' school. Serendipity contains 8 pages.  My old school teacher days taught me to always start with the simple and work up to the complex.  Serendipity served to confuse me from the get-go.

Despite all the grief, it is finished and I love it!  Grief and love - all in one vest.

Pattern:  Serendipity Vest.  Enough said.
Needles:  4mm.
Yarn:   Selridge Yarns, DK weight, Superwash, Hand dyed wool.  Gorgeous touch.  Gorgeous colours. Gorgeous to work with.

Mods:  Two mods that are all combined into one.  From the Patternfish photo in the link above, you can see that the vest, as designed, has borders.  Mine doesn't.

 

Why not you ask?  Well the pattern, as written, is a shorty design.  On me I thought it might look too boxy, giving my profile the appearance of more pounds that I care to carry.  For that reason, I wanted mine longer.  But  - and this is a big but -  with this design, the pattern is knit in two pieces only.  Centre back to centre front,  times two.  The knitting starts at the underarm with an invisible cast on.  The front and back are widened and the bottom lengthened with the working of each row, through the use of mitered corners. 

 The  cast on and beginning of the vest is just beyond my finger - the green row with gold on each side, right under my arm.  You can see the  front miter flowing from that start point.

What the two piece, mitered construction meant is that unlike most patterns, where adding length is no problem, with this design, length and width are Siamese twins.  I could not  add the length I wanted without also adding width. 

Having decided on the extra length, when finished, I already had enough vest width. The borders would have added another two inches  and that would have made the vest way to wide for my liking. 

What I did instead, was to work one ridge of garter, then work the three colour cast off as suggested in the pattern.  I really like that cast off.  You simply knit one stitch with main colour, knit one with contrast colour #1, cast off.  Work one stitch with contrast colour #2, cast off.  Repeat.   Very clever and it is the perfect cast off for this three-coloured vest.

Notes of Interest:  Both the underarm seams that started with the invisible cast on and the centre back seam are joined together with a Japanese Three Needle Cast Off. A new one to me but easy to do and it gives that extra row of joining-colour as a great design feature.

Despite the pattern confusion, it was a fun knit and I am very happy with the end product.  The colour combo I chose specifically for fall wear and I love it.  The fit is great. The slip  stitch pattern was easily memorized and easily 'read' when decreases or increases altered the row ends. My no-border look gives my version  a more trendy, au courant  look, I feel.  I like that.  The yarn is deliciously soft, didn't split at all and has given me a great end product.  So - grief forgotten, I love it.