I've been good

Really I have! In a strange burst of responsibility, I have been working on the poor, lonely orange sweater. It's only fair, since I ran off with some mohair for awhile, that I pay attention to the orange sweater again before knitting lace all summer. But the laceweight is beautiful, isn't it? It's 100% silk laceweight from Colourmart in the Sky color. Steph and Therese wouldn't let me buy any more acid green (the tapestry green), and really, they do have a point. :)

But before I go on, look at this gorgeous Bauble!

It's done by JerseyKnitter as a gift. She did an awesome job! I love it. :)

Back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Awhile back, BB asked me about Japanese short rows, and since I am working on the other sleeve of the orange sweater now, I've taken a few pics of the technique I've used. For those who didn't read the first time through, I'm knitting the sleeves down from the shaped armscye using Barbara Walker as my guide. I didn't want to wrap the short rowed sleeve cap, so I'm using Japanese short rows. Here's a great reference, btw, if I lose you in the middle of my explanation.

In Japanese short rows, stitches are not wrapped. You knit up to the turning point and place a safety pin on the yarn like this:

Knit or purl your row. Then work back to the safety pin. On returning to that spot, pull the pin and put the loop of yarn onto the left needle. It will look like this:

Remove the pin and work the loop together with the next stitch, like this purled stitch:

Repeat. :)

Some of you may remember that I was getting a ridge on the sleeve. I hated it, and I also didn't want one showing up on the front of this sleeve. I decided to work the sleeve so that the ridge (which seemed to be inevitable after some swatching) would be less obvious. So instead of picking up stitches all around the armscye, I only picked them up two thirds of the way around and picked up the others while doing short rows. This presented a bit of a problem, because there was no stitch with which to knit the loop (I hadn't yet picked them up). So I improvised. Instead of working the loop immediately, I put it on the needle:

picked up the next stitch and placed the pin again:

and then purled the two together on the way back. Unfortunately that picture did not at all turn out, but the process itself seemed to work fairly well. Here's how the short rows look up close.

You can see the little ridge, which I really don't mind if it's right at the edge of the armscye like this. It took much less time than the first sleeve. Maybe because I didn't have to rip this one out four times!?

I'm going to go fondle my silk now.

La Beada Loca

Woohoo! I finished Scout's Bauble and I am in love! I may have to make another for myself. But that's ok, (right?) because we probably won't ever run into each other at the grocery store wearing the same thing.

So here's the quick overview of the process. I started out with my "yarn" - a strand of beads:

Robin asked before whether I had any tips to for stringing, because it takes awhile. I just put all my beads in bowls and leave them out so that I can string when I feel like it - very much like my knitting. I rarely ever get any uninterrupted time, so I work on things piecemeal. Sometimes I really get into the Zen of it and then I can bead or knit for hours on end. With so much going on, however, those days are very few! I strung the beads for this Bauble over about 5 days.

After putting bead stop coils (I made my own from copper wire, but you can get them pre-made at a beading store) on both ends of the strand, I cast on. Note: I did *not* cut the elastic at this time, in case I needed to add more beads at the end of the bracelet.

It's a backwards loop cast-on with a little trick thrown in. I put the bead stop coil over the needle when I begin. It holds everything in place so I don't need to tie a knot. Once I get to the end of the second row, I no longer need the coil around the needle, and I just take it off when I come to it and knit on. I knit the 35 rows:

And then it was time to graft the ends together. I first checked to make sure that the bracelet was long enough, and since it was, I cut the elastic. I couldn't find my large eye needle, so I didn't take any pictures of the ensuing mess. *g* I was tired of looking for the needle and I just threaded the bead stop coils through. It worked, but it was ugly. At the end, I had a few beads too many so I just took those off.

Now, several people have asked questions about the crimping portion of the bracelet, so I decided to come up with another option. For this Bauble, I tied a square knot, put a dab of superglue on it and tucked it inside a 6mm bead. You can see the knot here, with the light behind it:

After the glue was perfectly dry, I trimmed the ends of the cord. Et voila!!!

Isn't it purdy? I'm very happy with it. I hope Scout likes it! :)

In other news, I have been cheating on my orange sweater. The siren song of fuzzy soft mohair came to me and I was lost, because if you have a ton of UFOs, everyone knows you should cast on for something else. Right? I decided to give Poppy a try, but in mohair. I am following the true spirit of Yarn Play: experimentation. :) Of course, that means I am only following the pattern peripherally. Heh. But I am loving it! It has turned into more of an empire waist sweater, with a cowl. I haven't knit the sleeves yet, but they will be very similar to the book. I am using black mohair and a variegated mohair. I am really happy with it so far; there's nothing like mohair to make you feel happy!


Next up: sleeves!

Swatching!

I've begun stringing and swatching for Scout's Bauble (we have a great trade set up)! She loves purples, grays and blacks, so I made a trip to the bead store (which is right next to the yarn store - what could be better?!) and found some really cool beads. First, I mixed the larger beads in a clear glass bowl (important to see accurate colors), in fairly even quantities. I added and subtracted until I liked the look of the mixture. Then I started stringing with some opalescent purple seed beads, but it was missing something. So I went and found some cool little triangular black matte seed beads that I knew I had in stash. The mix was perfect!



After I had strung about a foot, I did a mini swatch, to see how it was looking. Good. Onward. After stringing almost a yard, I did a larger swatch to get a look at the effect:



I love it! It' s a little difficult to see the proper colors in the above picture, but the real thing is a gorgeous mixture of colors and finishes. I hope she likes it!

One of the things Ive heard from people doing Bauble is that, after stringing, they find that the beads they have used are too large or just don't look like they intended. My advice is to swatch swatch swatch! *g* I have tried many combinations that looked great in my mind's eye and looked horrible in real life. It's fairly easy just to slip your coil bead stops on the strand so the beads don't slip while you knit a little swatch. And it is *so* worth it! After swatching, just unravel the length of beads and keep on stringing. Or try a different combination, as the case may be.

So, what do you think, Scout? :)

Another Bauble is born!

Look! Steph finished her Bauble!


How cool is that? Isn't it gorgeous?!

Breaking News!

The spring Knitty is up, and with it, my beaded bracelet pattern, Bauble! Here's the original, in greens and blues:



and here's what it looks like in blacks and grays:


I've set up a knit-along group for anyone who wants to knit Bauble or Venezia (my pattern for knitted wire napkin rings from the last Knitty), and get a bit of technical help or just talk about it! You can join here. Hope to see you there!