(Old) Craft Blog - Victoria Jay

A Knitter's Progress

6/10/2013

Early in 1999, I discovered I was pregnant.

What does any staunchly unfashionable mother-to-be do? Knit. Knitting had not yet started to regain its fashionable status. Maybe I had subconsciously picked up that it would, or was simply a woman of the times and the inevitability of knitting's return, or maybe it was just coincidence.

There was not a plethora of knitting magazines with patterns of mobile phone covers and mug covers (and other such ridiculous nonsense), so I bought a pattern I liked, needles and some yarn and got started.

It became apparent very quickly that vague memories from the dim and very distant past were not good enough to actually knit. The internet was very helpful with diagrams of casting on, knitting and purling, and so on, but, being a book work, what I needed was.....

...... a book.

I chose 'Knitting in Plain English' by Maggie Righetti and it became my bible. It is not a book for everyone; flicking through it now, I think I need to re-read parts as I will now understand them better.

From baby clothes, the logical progression was to garments for myself.

At first, they were simple constructions with the odd detail here and there. But gradually the amount of detail and complexity of stitches increased becoming more and more lacey.

This ended up with the ultimate in lace - Shetland Lace. (Gladys Amedro's book is the one I started with.)

In another direction, children's clothes became fluffier (using eyelash yarns) and introduced not only colour work, but stuffing. In the pattern, the rabbit's nose is stuffed.

When Lethlet grew out of his rabbit jumper, it was incumbent on me to knit him another in a bigger size.

Although colour work progressed, there was a particular direction in which 'fluffiness' and stuffing went.....

At first, I knitted the rabbit. Then I had to knit Rabbit's Friend (in black and white this time). Then it was the kitten, which was instrumental in a long-lasting near-obsession in kittens. Finally, the gorilla, who had to gain a tail on the insistence of the Lethlet.

This particular booklet is extremely hard to get hold of now, but some of the animals and many many more are available from Alan Dart's website.

I find that I am now highly critical of toy patterns and my favourite pattern designer is still Alan Dart. The current projects approach, although they do not quite meet, his standard.

Of course, Coulomb will tell you he is the ultimate in this particular direction (and who would disillusion that face?):

Mauve Along, Please

5/10/2013

Alistair is finally modelling his matching tunic.

The published corrections, here, were needed. (Note, some of the corrections are not highlighted in the pdf.)

He has two belts, each made from three yarns, twisted, of yellow, soft purple and bright purple (which I shall be using for his cloak and hat).

Apart from his sandals, which I shall do later, I am done with the soft purple ...

So, moving along ....

On to the cloak.

All cast on and ready to go.

Visible Panty Line

2/10/2013

Alistair is modelling apricot yellow pants, fashionably skimming the hips and flaring out towards the ankles where there is a soft purple accentuating stripe (who said wizards can't be trendy .... in the 70s).

Sewing these up reminded me to never ever K2tog at the end of a row even if the pattern says so. Apart from that, and the usual hassle of matching garter stitch and stripes, it was all fairly straightforward.

Now for the matching tunic in inverted colours.

All cast on and ready to go.

Who Wiz It?

1/10/2013

To the left is what I am aiming for - Alistair Wizard. Below is his current state.

I had problems with his hair piece - the pattern in the book was wrong, luckily the corrections published here sorted that.

The beard was another issue. The pattern asked for 26 stitches, but gave numbers that only added to 20. 26 were definitely needed for a fit

In his naked state, he reminds me of so many cartoon characters including Eric Idle's druid in Shrek 3, as well as many cavemen. I am sure that will change once he has some clothes.

So, off to knit some pants for him.

All cast on and ready to go.

Black is Back (to the Stash)

29/9/2013

The final touches have now been done and thank goodness no more black for a while!

To the wand I added a skull bead at one end (I've probably played too much Diablo). I needed to trim the fluff from the pipecleaner to insert the wire. To keep it firmly attached, I used a drop of Pinflair glue gel and left it to set for a few hours. I didn't use the 6 rows of stocking stitch as is the book, it looked too much like a maggot that thick. I went for 3. I also bound the wand near the skull end

I've also included a jar of green slime. The green slime is washing-up liquid. It took me a while to realise that washing-up liquid would make rather good slime, possibly as it is the opposite.

Elizabeth needs a satchel to keep her ingredients in and this was fairly straightforward.

Her broomstick is as simple as you could make it; pipecleaner wrapped in knitting, wool bound to the end. There are a number of sticthes through the binding and the knitting underneath to keep the bristles firmly in place.

I thought of adding a small square of 'illusion knitting', but rejected that for two reasons. One, the square was much bigger than I had considered. Two, the 'illusion' wasn't as effective as I would have liked. Whether that is my knitting or the nature of illusion knitting itself, I am not sure, it's not something I ever got into.

And here they are, the witch and the pirate.

Now for the wizard.

All cast on and ready to go.

Wrapping Up

27/9/2013

If there is one thing you can say about Elizabeth, it's she'll never be cold.

The shawl is a very simple yarn over/ K2tog pattern which gives a nice crocheted effect.

The fingerless mittens were too small when knitted with 2.25mm needles, so I used 3mm. This might have something to do with my hand modifications

The only things left to do now are her satchel, wand and broomstick.

All cast on and ready to go.

... and Bells on her Toes

26/9/2013

The instructions for the shoes stated 2.25mm needles. Once I had knitted a sole it was apparent that these were too small. So I knitted them with 3mm needles. A modification I made was the buckle. I was unhappy with the one suggested in the pattern - this was a strand of yarn wrapped around a finger twice and button-hole stitched around - the resulting buckle does not hold its shape. I opted for using button-hole stitched pipecleaners.

There is a mistake (I am sure) in the slipper pattern. I was a little unsure about the stated method of turning the heel - sl1, turn, ytb, sl1, yfwd. This results in large holes (2nd photo). The more usual method - yfwd s1 turn yfwd sl1 - does not (3rd photo). If you sketch it out, the first method means that the yarn crosses over itself, in the second method it does not.

I opted for the second method of turning as I didn't believe the one in the book could possibly be correct.

When the slippers were finished, I added a small jingle bell to the ends. I found the jingle bells on Amazon, but I'm sure they're available elsewhere.

I have flattened out the brim of the hat - I applied some steam from my iron and left it to cool and dry on a flat surface.

Next, the shawl.

All cast on and ready to go.

Heads Up

23/9/2013

Elizabeth's hat is done.
It was straightforward and the only modification I've made is to replace the knitted ribbons at the back (for tying the hat on) with chain cords as they looked better.

The brim, however, is rather wavy and might need to meet a damp cloth and the iron.

Extra long coloured pipecleaners arrived in the post, so I unpicked Sam's hat and replaced the pipecleaners with dark blue ones. Being longer there were fewer joins and being thinner these were less noticeable. It was easier to stitch and the result is much neater.

From top to toes - shoes next.

All cast on and ready to go

Ahem...

22/9/2013

Elizabeth now has her blouse and top skirt. There were no particular problems with the patterns.

I would suggest doing as I did, marking the ends of rows in the turn-fests of rows 47 and 48.

An unusual stitch which cropped up was the use of KRPR (Knit,
Return to LH needle, Pass next stitch over, Return to RH needle) as a better right-leaning decrease match to SKP than a simple K2tog. This is interesting as most people ponder over matching the left-leaning decreases rather than worry about right-leaning ones.

But the hems!!! The hems!! The sleeves, the top and the skirt are all hemmed. This makes a pretty shape, but sometimes seemed a bit hem-mad.

A tip - when knitting with black yarn, save the making up until daylight hours. Knit something else in the meantime, if need be. This saves the time of having to unpick a seam and do it again once you've seen it in the light!

Now what would a witch be without her hat? So that is the next item on the agenda.

All cast on and ready to go.

Over and Under

19/9/2013

The underskirt is in a straight forward stocking stitch with an interesting detailed hem using yarn over holes.

The hem is turned up inside to produce the picot hem. This also has the added advantage of discouraging the skirt from rolling up.

There were surprisingly few problems with the pattern; a typo on row 11 and an issue with row 76 (the same one I had with the pants).

It has been so long since I knitted with 4mm needles that they felt like using tree trunks at first! These dolls have been mostly knitted with 3mm and Shetland Lace uses 3mm. The next time I shall be using 4mm will be for the shawl (not a Shetland Lace one though).

But now for the blouse.

All cast on and ready to go.