First, I want to say how much I enjoyed reading the lovely stories about your knitting Supporters after my last post!

It seems that there’s even hope for men who have to be won over! I love the ones who take it upon them selves to buy yarn, and the daughter who hunts for yarn bargains in thrift shops. When you have a passion, everyone knows how to please you, right?

Although it’s not one of my favourite colours, I decided this week to embrace my inner purple, and make a scarf with two hanks of Manos Silk Blend (now on sale here).

There was method to my madness. A knitter asked me recently to demonstrate the technique for making a loop (ML) that is included in the pattern for Daphne’s Baby Cape (below) in Knit 2 Together

The loop decoration (you can make the cape with or without loops) was inspired by one of my favourite books,

Knitting Essentials, a collection of wonderful 19th century patterns for everything from lace edgings to a football sweater and hunting cap, with petticoats and bonnets in between.

I’ve posted a lesson on how to “make loop” in the menu at right.

Now to the loop boa and the question of whether it, or something like it, has a place in your wardrobe.

Even if you’re a minimalist, you have to admit that there’s an occasion in everyone’s life when the outfit at hand requires a touch of intrigue. Enter the frouffy scarf. There’s no better way to feel and look fabulous.

How about this look from the designer who always manages to combine avant-garde with ultra femininity, a delicate balancing act: Vivienne Westwood. Who else could include bows and loops and keep it modern?

There are many lovely patterns for frilly boas. Here’s one of my favourites, the ingenious Elizabeth:

but Elizabeth requires a lot of knitting, in a fine mohair. If you’re in a hurry, my loop boa is your answer. It can be made in an hour or so.

I used 2 hanks of Manos Del Uruguay Silk Blend, and a size 10 mm [US15] circular needle. With 4 strands held together I cast on 128 stitches and made two consecutive rows of loops, binding off the second row as I made the loops.

Isn’t knitting marvellous that it allows you to make beautiful things so easily?

The versatility of knitting never ceases to excite me. I mean it!

There are still a lot of people (especially here in NZ, sigh) who think of knitting as scratchy wool cardigans and old ladies wearing nylon knee hose. I guess it’s our little secret, then, just what a fertile field knitting really is, and that they don’t really deserve to be on our gift lists.

I started to explore curves and 3-d shaping for knitting when I was working on my book. The Mouse Family, which have shaped bottoms and noses (how else could they sit comfortably let alone hongi?), were a reason to learn properly about short rows.

I recall trying to watch a video showing how to knit the wrap with the knit stitch. You what? It didn’t have stop motion, or even slow motion, so I watched over and over again and still felt like I was fumbling.

I’d learned that shorting the row was the least of it. The big question was, how to hide the wrap and close the hole all at once?

Lately I’ve been working on something that’s double-sided and needs a continual curve, therefore constant short rows on both the knit and purl side. The knit side was a breeze. (You can see my instructions over in the the lessons menu here).

It was the purl wraps that had me stumped. But now I’ve got it, so here it is.

Note: the instructions for wrapping the purl stitch are over in the lessons menu here.

You will have wrapped a purl stitch, turned your work, and knit the following short row.

Now, to purl past the wrap.

1. here it is (below), the little bump you want to hide, seen from the knit side.

2. Purl to the wrapped stitch. The needle points to the wrap you want to purl together with the next stitch.

3. Insert your needle into the BACK of the wrap, from behind. If you already know how to purl through the back of the loop, no problem, but if you don’t here’s  an easy way to see what you’re doing. Turn your work over and insert your working needle into the stitch from the knit side (this is equivalent to inserting it from the back on the purl side).

4. Slide the wrap onto the needle next to the stitch you’re going to purl.

5. Turn your work so that the purl side is facing you. Insert your working needle into both the wrap and the purl stitch and purl them together.

6. Here’s the result,  seen from the knit side. You can’t see the wrap. Hooray!

Good news  for Tivaevae enthustiasts! As you know, it can be difficult to find anyone to teach you this splendid craft, even in Rarotonga or the other Cook islands.

Well then, our ship has come in. The Corbans Estate Arts Centre in Henderson, Auckland, is holding a week long Tivaevae Workshop, as part of its summer school, Jan 18-22.

Here is the link.

If you love Tivaevae, this book, (the source of the image above), is an inspiration. It contains stories and glorious colour photos of Cook Island woman and their quilts. No how-tos, though. You need to go to the workshop for that.

I’ve signed up. Hope to see you there!

Before I head off to New York, I thought I’d share this wonderful embroidered ship that I found at Salvage on Mt Eden Road.

And by the way, although I’m away for a couple of weeks, South Seas Knitting is fulfilling your orders every day as usual, and attending to any questions or concerns via email.

As the icy winter winds brought hail to our doorstep this week, I was feeling a lack of inspiration which always makes me a little dejected and probably not much fun to live with. Whenever I’m in this mood, a simple new project is often the antidote. In this case it involved a bowl of Koigu remnants left over from a blanket I made for my daughter a couple of years ago. A bag of these jewels has been sitting around my house for some time now, pleading “we’re so beautiful, why don’t you make us into something useful?” 

 

 

  

 

 

But what? The thought of a stripy scarf wasn’t getting me excited and I have enough tea cozies. Recently when I asked a man if he has ever knitted, he replied yes, he did some French knitting as a kid, but never made anything with it. This seems to be a common cry. What to do with that long knitted tube? Now that I’m on that train of thought, I can think of loads of uses for it, but this time I decided to make my own chunky yarn. With a pair of 6.5mm double-pointed needles, I cast on 5 stitches and got to work.Three DVDs and as many evenings later I had quite a substantial length of colourful I-cord, as it is known these days, made from my lovely Koigu. The convenient thing about I- cord is that you don’t have to weave in the ends; you just tuck them inside the tube. Mostly I chose the colours as I went, and switched every 20cm or so, but sometimes I blindly dipped into the bowl and left it to chance. It was fun to play.

 

Note: for a  tutorial on how to make I-cord with dpns, scroll down…….

 

                                                         

 

Once my ball of yarn had grown big enough, I cast on 5 stitches with 15mm needles, and started working in VEIL STITCH, a simple, elongated and twisted garter stitch. Scroll down for a lesson in how to do this stitch. 

 

In no time I had a cheerful little 1-meter scarf that is long enough to tie around my neck cravat-style. It may seem like a lot of effort to go to for a small scarf, but I love because not only is it pretty, it used some of my sizeable stash. I plan to continue for a few more movies/evenings and make it twice as long.

Note: the yarns I used, Koigu KPPPM and KPM, are fingering weight. You could use any yarns, but I would recommend using a larger needle than normal for the yarn you choose, and if it’s a thicker yarn, cast on fewer stitches, so that the resulting cord is airy and not too dense. I made 19 meters of I-cord for my scarf. 

Now I must get back to my needles–Mel 

 

 

                                                          

        

 

Here’s how to make the I-cord.

You’ll need a small number of stitches, from 2-6. 

Cast on your stitches. Knit them. When you finish the row, slide them back to the other end of the dpn. Do not turn the knitting.

Bring the yarn from the left side of the knitting, to the beginning of the row, pulling it taut, and begin knitting again. Do this on every row.  

                                                        

                                                        

                                                        

 

                                                      

                                                         

 

 

Here’s how to do the VEIL STITCH. It’s a version of garter stitch, elongated and twisted. Every stitch on every row is made in the same way.

 

1.(below) Slide the working needle into the stitch as if to knit. Take the yarn around the needle as if to knit. 

 

  

 

 

2. Take the yarn UNDER then OVER the Left needle. 

 

 

 

 

3.Take the yarn around the working needle as if to knit ONCE AGAIN.

 

 

 

 

4. Catch this last loop and draw it up and onto the working needle.

 

 

 

 

5. Slide the stitch off the Left needle. The stitch will be double in length, and twisted.

 

 

 

 

I know I’m a little late to the party on this, but I’ve decided I should listen to my mother’s advice. Daphne is 93, and finally gave up her long knitting career a couple of years ago. We have never really discussed knitting, perhaps because I was living so far away and when we did get together there was too much else to talk about. Recently it occurred to me that I should start asking her questions about how she did things back when she knitted feverishly the way I do now. I always take my knitting when I visit her, and she always asks me what I’m working on. I love that she’s interested, and it’s a precious moment for me, knowing that we can still share this craft that she introduced me to, even though she once famously told my daughter that she wished she’d never taught me to knit because it’s turned into an obsession. Hmmm. My revelation came recently, when the following popped out of her mouth: “I always used a smaller needle on the purl rows”. I didn’t think much about it until last week when I was deep into a sweater in the round and noticed that my knitting is much tidier and even when I’m not working a purl row. Could it be? Sure enough, when the time came for me to work back and forth on two needles to turn a saddle shoulder, I tried going down 2 metric sizes on the purl rows, and voila! I am my mother’s daughter. From now on, it’ll be mis-matched needles for me, which might come in handy since I sometimes can’t find a matching pair anyway in my untidy needle holder. 

 

I suppose it’s better late than never, but I have no excuse for the fact that I’ve finally got around to splicing my yarn. Daphne has always spliced and maybe she tried to teach me years ago but I wasn’t listening. See what I mean? Well, thanks to Ruth, a lovely lady who was in my class at Knitters Weekend (but who taught me a thing or two) I can now join two ends of yarn seamlessly and get through an entire sweater with no bumpy joins in awkward places. This is what I love about knitting: there is always something new to learn. For those who have always spiced, forgive me for my late arrival. I don’t know why I’ve avoided it for so long!  

 

I have tried  it here with some plied  Blue Sky Worsted wool/alpaca blend. Splicing is definitely easier with wool, and a plied yarn rather than non-wool or single strand yarns. However It’s not impossible with those either as I have discovered.

 

The captions refer to the picture below.

 

1. Unravel the plies of both ends approx  8cm and separate into two roughly even strands. Cut one half of each end slightly shorter for overlap.

 

                                          

                        

 

 

2. Wind the longer ends around each other. Now comes the fun part. Spit into your hand, and roll the two ends in your palm until they mesh or almost felt together.

 

  

                        

 

 

3. Now involve the shorter ends and roll them together with the spliced yarn. 

 

                      

                              

 

When you come to knit the spliced section, go easy on it and don’t pull it too tight since it can come apart. Once it’s safely knitted and tucked away into your stitches, it will hold together well.

 

–Mel

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The ear to ear grin I wear on arriving back in Auckland after Knitters’ Weekend could be the result of being in such inspiring surroundings at the New Dowse Museum, in Lower Hutt. I suspect, though, that it is largely due to being in the company of so many friendly and fascinating knitters for an entire weekend. Meeting the esteemed Margaret Stove was a highlight. She is such a lovely lady, brimming with enthusiasm for knitting as a craft and an art form and generous in the sharing of her extensive knowledge. Although I wasn’t able to take one of her workshops I did manage to see her demonstrate the Shetland Elastic Bind Off. More on that below. Some very creative knitters entered the several competitive categories, my favorite of which was the Felted Bag. Here is the winner, an inventive Kina (sea urchin) basket made by Bernadette Cuttance. I love the bowl-like shape and the way Bernadette has taken the shell of inspiration and made it into a stylish and usable basket. Isn’t it beautiful?

 

                                                           

                                          

 

 

Now to the amazing elastic bind off.

 

Although I watched Margaret demonstrate this technique, I foolishly did not practise it on the spot (always necessary for retaining anything in my sieve-like memory). However, since arriving home I have tried it several ways and found one that works well. This may be exactly the way Margaret showed it. It creates a very flexible bind off, ideal for use on the necks of baby garments, the tops of toe-up socks and for lace patterns. I’ll be using it liberally from now on.

Here it is used on a 2+2 rib.

Let’s begin where the next stitch to be worked is a knit stitch. 

 

 

Step 1(below). If the next stitch to be worked is a knit stitch, knit the stitch onto the right hand needle.

 

 

                                               

 

Step 2. Insert the left hand needle into the two stitches on the right hand needle, on top of the right needle as shown.

                                                                          

                                       

 

Step 3. Knit the two sts together through the back of the loop (tbl)

 

                                               

 

Step 4. Where the next stitch to be worked is a purl stitch, purl the next stitch.

 

                                       

 

 Step 5. Insert the left hand needle into the two stitches on the right hand needle under the right needle as shown.

                        

                                              

                                                 

 

 

 Step 6. Purl the two stitches together.The stitches are now purled together.

 

                                      

                                                      

 

 

Continue in this way along your ribbing and you will find you have a very stretchy bind off, thereby putting an end to the trauma inflicted upon children who find their faces stuck halfway into the neck of a pullover you made with the best of intentions.

I’m going to try it on seed and garter stitch now……

–Mel