Thursdays Are For Knit Group - and Tonight Passchendaele

Knit group normally meets in the upper room -a very sedate, grown-up room - at the library. But today when I arrived, I was told the knitters were in the basement. Maybe we were acting like kids last week, because look where they put us.


Knitters at the kids table.
One nice thing about the kids zone, is we each had a different coloured chair.
Such fun. We might have had a little table and little chairs, but we were still BIG on knitting.

Pat, you are a machine. Two more knitted toys this week.

A great Octopus and a neat doll too.

Joanna is a' knittin' more of her great mittens.


Doreen said the hospital called and asked for some knitting for their bazaar. She thought she had finished her bazaar knitting with the scarves she knit for the Church. The local bazaar committees must know what a great knitter you are, Doreen. Or maybe they know about your big heart. So, the hospital is getting hats. Scarves at the Church, hats at the hospital. A person is pretty well covered at bazaar time around here.

Eve made a lovely 'apple' hat. She is making a dozen of these for the 'Apple Dumpling Gang' We don't know who they are Eve, but they will sure be cute wearing these hats.

And Sandy, picked up a great knitters' tee shirt at the Creative Needlework Festival last week.

Another great day at knit group. And tonight, Fred and I are off to see Paul Gross in his movie Passchendaele. I think seeing Paul Gross in anything, might just be called 'eye candy'. And with our new and improved cable, I can time shift Survivor and watch it when we get home. Yippee! Knitting! Eye Candy! Survivor!. How great is that?

Moving On

With Diagonal Rib done and on the blocking board (Yes it's still there. Not dry yet.)
it is time to move on.

You would be right if you thought I should carry on with Loden Mist.

But you would be wrong if you thought that in fact, that is what I have done.

Instead I have started this little number.

Do you remember the 'dress that called my name'? Well, it occurred to me that if I made a long sleeved topper for it, I could wear it year round.

When the local Stedmans store put yarn on sale, I couldn't resist. Four balls of Patons Brilliant should make this cover-up.

Look at the price. At $1.50 per ball, it's another well-priced project. (How many knitters, not buying expensive yarn, does it take to make a recession? Perhaps, I'll have to do my duty to help out the economy.)

Construction of this topper is interesting. Cast on starts at the bottom edge of the left front. Extra stitches are cast on when the sleeve is reached. Once half the width of the sleeve has been knit, everything is put on hold while the right front is knit. Then all stitches are put on the same needle and the remainder of the sleeves as well as the back is knit. You can see it better from the schematic. If I knew how to put an arrow on my picture, it would point to the bottom left front, where the topper is started.

I have almost all of the stitches cast on for the sleeve at this point.

Except my yarn is actually brown. So far, this seems to be a fast and fun knit.

I will work on Loden though. A bit at a time. And modeled shots of Diagonal when it's dry and has buttons. Right now, I'm moving on.

It's Done! It's Done!

Diagonal Rib is done.

And just in time too, as today is the first wild and windy late fall day. Perfect wool sweater weather.

In true blogger fashion, here are the specs -- the deets -- the mods.

Pattern: Lopi # 82273 - Diagonal rib Cardigan
Yarn: Alaphoss Lopi. 6 balls exactly for the sweater. A bit of the 7th for the button bands. I purchased the yarn at the KW Knitters Fair on sale for $4 per ball. My first 'nod to the economic crisis' sweater.
Mods: None whatsoever. I knit the 40 inch size exactly as written. (I know. Who the heck am I and what did I do with Brenda.)
My Opinion: This pattern is not for the beginner knitter. It was a classic example of eliminating instructions in order to squish the pattern onto a one page format. The diagonal rib section is 19 pattern rows. 17 of them are spelled out stitch by stitch. But at row 18, instructions ended. That dreaded " Work as established...." . You would think that after 17 rows, it would be committed to memory. But this pattern eluded me completely. With decreases, slants and twisted stitches travelling in opposite directions all happening at once, I had to engage the brain. Especially for the right front. The instructions there said " Work as for left front, reversing patterns and shaping". Ha! Much easier written than done. And twisting those stitches in chunky yarn was murder on the wrists.
Fit: With the first try on, I thought the sweater was too small. The sleeves are only eight and a half inches across the top. Which was what I liked about the sweater. No big floppy sleeves. But I forgot about my big floppy arms. The sweater has now had a nice Eucalan bath and after this blocking hopefully it will be a comfy fit.
Conclusions: I love the colour. Much like the Birch trees in my back yard, don't you think?

I love the rib detail. At the neck

and at the bottom.

Oops!. what happened to that colour?

I love the woolly coziness of it. And it's done!



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