Sweater Analysis

My friend Mary is in her 80's and an accomplished knitter. I spotted her wearing this beautiful Aran cardi a while back, and I requested the pattern...but it turns out the sweater is as old as I am and the pattern is long gone.

So, instead, she lent me the sweater for some analysis. I invite you to share on my "sweater deconstruction" journey...

Here's the sweater. Lovely, no?

[vintage aran cardigan]

Just looking at it, you can see that:

1. it's been knit flat in pieces, and sewn together. 

2. the sleeves are "set-in", not drop-shoulder or raglan

3. the font band is vertical (not picked up later and knit on), and has been knit separately and sewn on. Ditto the collar.

I think this method of construction was par for the course in the 1960's - nowadays lots of people tend to knit sweaters in the round, and do drop-sleeves, and knit on the front band and collar. 

Let's have a look at the stitch patterns to see if I can figure this puppy out. I'll start with the easiest one; the one that the sleeves are knitted out of and that runs up the sides of the sweater fronts and back:

["background" pattern]

This is pretty clearly:

R1: knit on RS

R2: purl on WS

R3, 4: K1 P1 ribbing

Then repeat, but offset the ribbing.

Right? OK. Look really really closely at the ribbing. 

[zoomyzoom on the ribbing part of the background]

The two blue arrows point to a column of sts from the ribbing rows, and the orange arrows point to the stockinette rows. You can see that the ribbing rows are twisted stitches while the stockinette is not. The left leg of each twisted stitch overlaps the right leg, whereas in the not-twisted stitches, the two legs originate from the same point. So, the actual background pattern is:

2 rows stockinette (K one row, P back)

2 rows twisted ribbing (KTBL, PTBL)

and then repeated, offset.

And don't feel bad if you got this wrong. I did, and tried plain ole' ribbing. Here's what I got, and you can see it doesn't look as nice!

[my swatch]

I was trying to get that crisp, ripply look and figured at first it was my needle size, so I kept downsizing. But you can see it didn't help! My wool is different too, of course - it's woolier than Mary's, so that doesn't help with the stitch definition - but I'm glad I decided on a closer inspection. I will have to redo the swatch now!

Next up: the bobble cabley thing:

[bobble-cable, in context]

This one's a bit harder, but it's clearly 2 rope cables twisting in opposite directions, separated by a bobble. Duh.

Now, in detail - I had to look on the inside, and stretch the knitting out to count stitches - the cables are over 5 stitches, and every twist is made of up 3 stitches in the front crossing over 2 in the back, and this is done every 4 rows. They're asymmetric, which is kinda unusual. 

Now, also notice that the right-side cable looks narrower than the left-side cable; this is particularly noticeable in the photo above. Why??

Again, let's zoom:

[zoom of bobble cables]

The stitches are again twisted! Telltale ridges are appearing along the RH cable (see yellow line to guide the eye). And, because the "through the back loop" technique twist stitches in the clockwise direction, I can imagine that a clockwise cable will look tighter than a counterclockwise one. Which is what you see in the pic above, right?

So, I have embarked on a swatch to combat this problem. It involves knitting TBL on one side of the bobble, and reseating the sts prior to knitting them, on the other side. It matters not which side you do what on; the point is that the stitch-level twist and the cable-level twist on each side are symmetric (either opposing each other, or going the same way, on each side). Of course, you could also omit the whole twist thing and just knit and purl, but then your cables will not be as tightly defined.

To reseat a stitch, you slip it knitwise to the RH needle, then transfer it back to the left while keeping the twist in place. Remove your RH needle from the stitch completely, or you will have a strong desire to knit it through the back loop, which will undo what you've just done! Now the stitch is reseated and ready for regular through-the-front knitting or purling.

Now, as to that bobble, this took me several tries, as well as some dives into stitch dictionaries to find out how to do bobbles. In the end I settled on a 5-stitch bobble. You can see my swatch below. Both cables are the same width and the bobbles look the right size. And below that, you can see where I tried plain old untwisted sts on the cables. I don't like the result as much!

[my bobbley-cable swatch, with TBL and reseated sts]

[another swatch, this time with no twisted sts]

Isn't this fun? Oh, and here's the chart:

[chart for bobble cable]

OK, almost done. Let's look at the diamond things.

[diamond pattern]

Yikes. This looks complicated. These are 4-stitch wide travelling bands defining a diamond, which is filled with moss stitch. The 4-wide bands are themselves cabled. To get this, you need to cable on both the front and the back of the work. If I use the bobble-cable on either side as a guide, I'm guessing the diamond takes 24 rows or so to complete. It stretches over 21 sts (includes 2 reverse stockinette "gutters" on either side).

Here's my chart:

[diamond pattern chart]

You'll see that I've done the travelling on the wrong side of the work (even rows) and the cabling on the right side (odd rows). I've worked up a swatch, too...

[diamond cable swatch]

I'm not entirely happy with this yet though. I think especially the diamond cable swatch is too small; too tight. I will try all these again with larger needles, now that I have figured out that the background stitch reqiures twisted sts!

I must say I am pleased that I am able to recognize a high-quality knitted garment. And close examination of it shows lots of expert-level pattern details! Mary is indeed a fine knitter.

Not Knitting Socks...

I have been bitten by the cable bug.

I started with a pair of cable socks, but these are a disaster, because I can never get them to fit right. It takes me multiple tries...right now, these are awaiting frogging:

[too-small socks awaiting their frogging]

The yarn is Tosh Sock, which I'm not in love with. The colourway (cove), yes, but the quality of the yarn....no. This particular skein fell into short ends - it had breaks every few meters. Very frustrating to knit with, and hence I'm not in a rush to frog them, either. So they will languish for some time....

Meanwhile, my urge to cable has not diminished. So I've been knitting an Aran sweater for my son's birthday:

[St. Enda sweater for my son]

This is my first Aran, ever! The pattern is one of Alice Starmore's (St. Enda), and is truly spectacular. I made some very minor modifications: managed to carry the small cables on the cuffs into the main body, and modified the neck by making it really long and folding it inwards. 

The beautiful yarn is from a lady in my knitting group, she bought it in Scotland or Ireland decades ago and it had been languishing in her stash. She wanted to give it a good home...it truly is wonderful stuff. Not soft, but a nice crisp yarn with good body.  Heirloom quality that won't pill or sag. The colour is impossible to photograph, it's a dark teal/green with lots of flecks in it. 

I'm now knitting an Aran for myself - my own "design" (ie. just pick a few cable patterns from your nearest stitch dictionary). Again it takes some time to get the width right because even knitting up swatches isn't really good enough...I usually start with the sleeves (in the round) and use them as giant swatches, but even so it took me 3 times to get the back width correct. 

[Misty thinks it's hers]

This yarn is from Beaverslide Dry Goods - their Fisherman's 3 ply - and it is quite soft, with little elasticity, so not as nice to knit with as that green stuff, above. My hands get quite tired from it. But the cat seems to like it. It's spun in Alberta from Montana merinos, so pretty local.

Finally, I have my eye on this beautiful design, which I'm hoping one of my menfolk will desire as much as I. I'm thinking of using Briggs and Little, which is a Canadian yarn I've recently tried for the first time - very springy and woolly.

Triangle Shawl Yarn Use

I'm finding a nice way to use up handspun is by knitting triangle shawls. These are quick items that look great, 100-200 g makes a nice-sized kerchief that even the men in my household will use (if done in a non-lacey pattern and manly colour!) as a scarf substitute. They are also fun to play with from a design perspective.

So, when designing - be it with colours, or with texture - you need to think about how deep to make the border of the shawl, and hence, how much yarn to reserve for this. I've just spent 20 minutes thinking about this, and have come up with a handy chart for rough-and-ready reference. The "rough" part is that this chart works on surface area. It assumes that the stitch pattern (hence the density of yarn) is the same for the border as for the rest of the shawl, and that you're making the border of the same type/weight of yarn. If you are making a lacey border, the stitches may be less dense (ie. less yarn used for same area) - swatching can help you adjust the numbers in my chart.

Here's a picture of your shawl.

Let's say that the main body of the shawl - orange in the picture - has depth 1 unit (that means the distance from the neck edge to the point), and you want a border - the blue bit in the picture - running somewhere from 0.2 units to 1 unit. The former corresponds to a narrow border - example: 12 inches of orange, with a 0.2x12=2.4 inch deep band of blue - while the latter corresponds to the case where the border and the body of the kerchief have the same depth. The chart below then gives you the fraction of yarn you need to reserve for the border, relative to the amount used for the main body.

depth of band	fraction to reserve
0.2	0.4
0.25	0.6
0.3	0.7
0.4	1.0
0.5	1.3
0.6	1.6
0.7	1.9
0.75	2.1
0.8	2.2
0.9	2.6
1	3.0

So, for instance, for that narrow border of 2.4", if you used 100g of yarn for the orange body, you'd need 0.4x100g=40g for the blue border. If you want a really deep border of 12", you need to reserve 3x100g=300g for the border!

For those who want to take this further, the formula for generating the right hand column (y) rom the left hand column (x) is: y = 2x+x*x. Or you can derive it yourself from basic triangle geometry!

Brioche Cables

One of the members of my knitgroup showed us a really nice reversible cabled scarf, it was done in brioche. I wanted immediately to try this technique!

I started with the idea of a two-colour brioche cabled scarf, but soon got tangled up in the edge stitches. So to simplify matters a bit I decided to do a cowl, in the round. This eliminates edge stitches and also makes the 2-colour brioche easier (you don't have to slide the work back and forth on the needles).

Two-colour brioche is not hard to do in the round. I use the "knit 1 below" method, which I find really is much easier especially for cabled work. You don't have to worry about the yarn-over loops, so you can cable without a cable needle.

The basic 2-colour brioche stitch in the round is covered here. If you want to add cables to this, it's actually not that hard! Use any basic cable pattern, but think of the stitches as coming in inseperable pairs. So your stitch count doubles: a normal 4-stitch cable becomes an 8-stitch cable - half the sts are colour A and the other half, colour B. The resulting fabric is really thick (thicker even than regular cables), so use DK yarn at most, and to give lots of drape, you might want to upsize the needles. The rows, also, come in pairs of opposite colour; you always cable on the "knit" row in one colour and it's coupled with a fiddly "purl" row in the opposite colour. If a non-brioche cable pattern calls for cables every 4th row (ie. 3 rows plain knitting between each cable row), then in brioche you'd be knitting 3 pairs of rows between the "cable+fiddly purl row" pair.

Here's a recipe for a pretty simple cowl. In this pattern, the cable columns twist in opposite directions, and there is no space between them. In two high-contrast yarns, this gives a roiling or flame-like appearance. The cables are 8 sts wide (4 sts of each colour). The twisting or cabling happens on staggered rows for the two directions. To avoid having 2 colums of cables twisting in the same direction, next to each other, knit with a multiple of 16 sts (alternating colours A and B).

[brioche cabled cowl]

cast on: multiple of 16 using 2-colour long-tail cast on (sounds fancy, but just means alternate the colours!), join in round.
Note 1: multiple of 16 means: the TOTAL number of sts cast on is a multiple of 16.  Half in one colour, half in the other!
Note 2:  The "italian cast on" is great for brioche, for flat knitting, but a pain in the round because it's impossible to keep it from twisting. I tried it and ditched it. Another nice cast-on might be the invisible cast on, in alternating colours...that one's more complicated though.



Here we go:

setup row 0: K1 P1 in colour A
setup row 1: P1 P1B in colour B (P1B in purl stitches from row 0)
row 2: K1B K1 in colour A
row 3: P1 P1B in colour B

Repeat rows (2,3) until you see 4 colour A "V"'s on one side and 4 colour B ones on the other side (for a total of 8 rows). Note: I wind the colours around each other in a consistent manner when I switch them at the beginning of a new row.

--- %%% repeat section %%% ---

The next colour A row is a cable row:
* 4 onto cable needle, hold in front, continue next 4 sts in [K1B K1] pattern, then 4 sts in same pattern from cable needle. 8 sts in [K1B K1]. *
Repeat between the * 's until the row is done.

Next row in colour B, [P1 P1B] all 'round. This is a bit fiddly on the cabled bits, but persevere!

Repeat rows (2, 3) from above, 3 times, for a total of 6 rows.

Next colour A row is a cable row again.
* 8 sts in [K1B K1] pattern, 4 onto cable needle, hold behind, continue next 4 sts in [K1B K1] pattern, then 4 sts in same pattern from cable needle. *
repeat btwn * 's until row done.

Next row in colour B, [P1 P1B] all 'round.

Repeat rows (2, 3) from above, 3 times, for a total of 6 rows.

--- %%% repeat section %%% ---

Repeat between "--- %%% repeat section %%% ---" until your cowl is long enough. You'll notice that you're always cabling on a "knit" row, using colour A, and that it's just like regular cabling.

As a cast off, I just used the simple "pass one over" bind-off in alternating colours, but there are lots of other alternatives. The Italian cast-off is a (more complicated) nice one that nicely matches the invisible cast-on. 

 

[brioche cabled cowl, reverse side]

A Trip to Fair Isle

I've been ignoring my sock-basket for a while now, knitting other things...

I just finished a project for my younger son, using up a 500g batch of natural-white Cascade 220 fingering that I won as a door prize at a knitting retreat a few years back. It was languishing in my stash until I got inspired enough to dye it up and do some fair-isle with it. I've never done a garment-sized fair isle piece before!

The dyeing worked quite well; I used iDye packets, which are super-easy to use. I ruined only 1 50g skein by dyeing it black - and then changing my mind and attempting to bleach it back to grey. Duh....mistake. Bleach did not produce grey, but fugly beige! But for the rest, I got a nice palette of colours; Toby wanted something with a brown background and kinda retro. 

[iDye'd Cascade 220 fingering]

Then I had some fun trying out different colour combinations for the fair-isle.  I drew up the chart in Exel and then used "format painter" to switch up the colour scheme a few times. Then I put the charts up on full-screen and stood away from them to see which one I liked best. Small changes make a big difference to the overall appearance, and it is really important to get a feeling for the overall effect from a distance! Notice obvious striping or strange shapes that leap out at you, and then make adjustments by rotating through your colour choices.

[Squint at this one and you'll see obvious horizontal striping.]

[Here, the white and yellow make strange shapes.]

 

[This is the one I settled on. The stars show nicely.]

When you've got something you like, swatch it!

The v-necked vest knit up surprisingly quickly, actually. Maybe I've gotten over my sweater-fear a bit? The colourwork helped, I'm sure, keeping me entertained. Also there were no sleeves, which cut down on the knitting time!!

Fair-isle tops usually involve steeking. I've done it before so no biggie, and I prefer a crochet steek because it provides such a beautiful finish and is easy to do. But I did stumble across some other techniques, which I think I might have to try sometime:

Kate Davies' "steek sandwich", which is reversible and would work nicely for a front band.

Tom of Holland's knotted steek, which is very minimal - weightless almost!

Fair-isle usually has minimal shaping, especially at the shoulders, which I don't really like. The fit is kind of boxy. I prefer some shoulder shaping, which is normally done back-and-forth...but I hate purling fair-isle! So I tried this technique which allows you to do shoulder shaping in the round. But I don't like the 3-needle bind-off done on the outside (really???!), so I did it on the inside instead. Hm. Didn't work out so well; I'd left long loops of yarn and had to bind off over top of them, which left an ugly finish on the inside of my vest. So I have not yet mastered this technique...

But anyways, am quite happy with the vest - and so is my son!

[Toby's new vest!]

Fitting Socks

I like snug-fitting socks. This means they have to fit properly.

There are many things to watch out for when fitting socks. Here are some that I know about:

1. the obvious: they need to have the proper circumference! Socks are basically stretchy tubes, and the circumference of the sock should be a little less than the circumference of your foot. For me, that means that if I take 90% of my foot circumference measurement at the ball of my foot, and I make the sock this circumference, it fits well around my foot and the lower part of my leg (to about 8-10 cm above my ankle bone). If you are doing toe-up socks, a guideline is to stop increasing when the toe of the sock fits over your first 4 toes (not including your baby toe, in other words). Most socks that use fingering weight yarn (400m/100g) call for approximately 60-64 sts around for women's socks (medium) and about 72-76 sts around for men's (medium). If you use sport-weight yarn, these numbers will be smaller. If you use very thin yarn (Regia 3-ply), or are knitting cables, you will require more stitches. Usually you cast on multiples of 4 stitches.

2. second obvious: they need to be the right length in the foot! This one is a little trickier. It is easier to fit top-down, flap-heel socks for proper length: after turning the heel you continue knitting until the sock just covers your little toe, then start decreasing for the toe. If you are knitting toe-up, it is harder to judge where to start the heel construction / short row / gusset, because the heel construction itself adds length (especially for short-row heels). If your socks are too short in the foot, you may find that the heel gets pulled down and the sock slowly slides into your shoe over the course of the day.

3. less obvious: the heel flap needs to be long enough. If your socks wrinkle at the instep, the flap is too long (like with a tube sock). If the sock is too tight across the instep, your flap isn't long enough. (What tends to happen with socks like this is that they slide down to where they will fit - futher down your foot. In other words, they slide into your shoe.) Note that this fitting rule is true even if you knit a short-row heel, one without an obvious flap! In flap-style constructions, this depth is easy to adjust - you just knit back and forth on the flap for as long as you need. In short-row constructions, adjustment isn't so obvious. A short row heel's flap height is the same as the "depth of the heel", and this is set by the number of short-rows you do.The easiest way to increase the length of the back flap is to increase the number of stitches that you use for the heel. You can do this by either using up some of the front-of-foot stitches (which is what Cat Bordhi does for her STH), or, you can just increase stitches just before starting your heel, on the heel needle only. This will make a deeper heel cup = longer flap. It will also add length to the foot.This means you sometimes have to try several times before "getting it right".

4. Longer socks need to be big enough at the top of the leg. If the sock is too tight at the top it will fall down, quickly. Essentially the sock goes to where it will fit, which is lower down your leg, if it is tight. The way to keep longer socks up is to make them fit all the way up your leg, shaping them from the ankle bone upwards, especially if you are not going to make them go over your calf. If you take them over your calf, then you can cinch them at the knee (traditionally done with a garter) and they won't fall down no matter what.

While all of this sounds really complicated, I've found a few "recipes" that work well for me and I stick to them. They are:
1. forethought heels (including where to start the heel), as detailed here
2. adding 20% stitches to a short-row heel, as detailed here
3. top-down, flap-style socks (I find these are much more "fool-proof" in terms of fit, but are a bit more complicated to knit) with 2.5" of flap for ladies' socks and more for men. Don't stint on the flap length!

I recently had the privilege to review a fellow sock-enthusiast's sock knitting recipe - she calls it the "fish lips kiss heel" - and this is excellent as well. I've only tested this fitting technique in toe-up mode, but will have to provide a review here sometime soon!

Colourwork Charts in Exel

I sometimes make colourwork charts in Exel. Once you've sized all the little cells in the worksheet to be square, you've got a blank sheet of graph paper. You can colour each individual cell by using the little paintbucket tool and picking the colour you want.

A nice thing to be able to use is the format painter, which is that little paintbrush in the top lefthand clipboard menu:

[format painter is the little paintbrush tool just to the right of Paste]

This little guy is genius. If you select an area in your worksheet, clicking this button copies everything about it (including colours!) and allows you to copy it somewhere else by clicking it again.

Mostly, your designs will be simple repeating motifs. So using this tool allows you to quickly fill a whole row (or page!) with your design:

1. select your design element
2. click that little paintbrush
3. move the cursor to where you want the design to be copied and click again
4. if you want to copy again, immediately repeat step 2 and 3 - that is, click the paintbrush again, and reposition to your new location. You'll see how this works pretty quickly.

...nice...

Now, sometimes, I want to see how my beautiful chart would look in other colours. But, I don't want to have to click every darn cell on the page with a new colour, nor do I want to reinvent the design from scratch in a new colour scheme...there's got to be a way of substituting colours in the whole design! I mean, computers are supposed to be good at this, right?

All righty then, google to the rescue!

And sure enough...Here is a writeup telling you how to replace all instances of black with red, for instance - and this works for Exel 2002 all the way to 2010. So you can go from one colour scheme to the next with only a few button clicks...

[go from brown/grey/black...]

[...to blue/red/pink!]

Basically you use the "find and replace" functionality of Exel. There's a format button on the find and replace tool (use control-H to bring it up), on both the find thingy and the replace field. Click that, and then you'll see that there is a  fill tab. This is where you select your colours...Exel will then dutifully replace all instances of your old colour with the new one.

....Aaaah. Genius....time to crack open my copy of Alice Starmore's knitting chart book (which is all in black&white!)...

Now, if you are going to be doing this on a grand scale for your next Fair Isle sweater design, I'd suggest you start with a colour scheme based on the standard pallette and save that. Use it by copying it and then start modifying the colours. It's a pain to try to match non-standard colours, so for each colour variant it's easiest to start with that standard pallette again.

Gauge Swatching Hell

So now the younger son wants a sweater. A v-necked cardigan, to be exact. With buttons.

We shopped for yarn and he decided on something from Beaverslide Dry Goods, which I think is cool because this is "local" yarn - grown, dyed, and spun in the western US and Canada. I like that idea. The yarn's nice, too - very soft, tweedy, and with a large range of muted colours.

Younger Son picked "sage", a greyish-green colour that reminds me of my childhood summers on the Alberta prairie.

Now for the pattern. He's not too specific about what he wants, so I'm going to have to run a bunch of swatches by him. He has indicated "cables" and "all-over"; not an aran in other words. Hm...

I first tried a swatch of one of Melissa Leapman's designs, but it didn't look good. The yarn knit up too big and the tweedy nature of the wool hid the cables. Nixed.

Next up: Kathy Zimmerman's Anniversary pullover.

I've knit up a swatch, it's looking promising. A quick "steam blocking" (pin the thing down on the ironing board and zap it with a blast of steam) gives me a provisional gauge of 5.6st/inch, so I will be trying a 100-st hat next. I want to confirm my gauge in the round (I knit the swatch flat, back-and-forth). Before blocking, the piece is quite stretchy (it's a rib-based design after all), while after the steam blocking you loose some of this. I'm assuming washing it for wet-blocking will have a similar effect...

[swatch of Anniversary Pullover stitch pattern. Yarn = Beaverslide Dry Goods 90/10 merino/mohair, colourway sage heather)

Armed with the swatch, I've set up for a larger swatch - a hat - 100sts and knit in the round. After washing it gently and laying it out to dry, it turns out that this yarn relaxes a lot. I now find that the gauge is closer to 5sts/in! It has totally changed its texture and is soft and fluffy. Very nice...but not as "ribby" and it has lost a lot of the stitch definition.

But, the Son likes the hat and is wearing it around. After a day or so I grab it off his head and measure it again. The hat (which was not particularly tight fitting) has now grown to 4.5 sts/in. Yikes!!

Now I am confused. Which gauge should I use to start knitting the sweater? 5.6 st/in?  5 st/in? 4.5 st/in?? This is a huge difference!

I've decided to use the 5 st/in, because:
1. the sweater will be washed at some point,
2. the sweater will not be worn on someone's head, and so the "stretching stress" is likely to be smaller than for a hat.

So, the next step is to start on a sleeve (something SMALL so I won't go over the edge if I have to frog!) and to knit up to the elbow, wash it, and see what I get:

[partial sleeve, washed and dried without stretching]

This is looking good. It fits well, Young Son is still happy with the look (although I find it disappointingly unlike the pattern picture). So I'm good to go for the 2 sleeves.

Setesdal Sweater Makeover

My DH owns a Setesdal sweater. It's machine-knit (from Dale of Norway) and quite nice. But, I want to kick it up a notch by making a set of traditional "loyesaum" cuffs and collar.

[I want to turn this...]

[...into this. sweater contents not included.]

[photo from Dale]

The cuffs and collar are hand-embroidered on wool, which is sewn over the knitted sweater. The pewter buttons are non-functional, decorative only. The neck opening is like a Henley, with a slit to mid-chest, closed with a single decorative pewter clasp at the neck.

I've only ever seen sweaters like this in pictures, never in real life. I think they're stunning.

I've looked everywhere for instructions and/or kits that will let me make this collar/cuff set, but so far all I've been able to find are kits from Husfliden stores in Norway, which do not ship internationally. So off to Ravelry for help!  Some excellent knitters there have provided me with some embroidery diagrams (thank you thank you thank you) and I've Googled "setesdal embroidery" images for inspiration. Here is an especially interesting and instructive set of close-ups from someone who attended a workshop on loyesaum given by Annemor Sundbo.

Some things I've discovered:

- I won't need to cut the collar and cuffs off of DH's sweater; the embellished cuffs and collar are sewn over top of existing knitting. I will have to steek the front though. I think a crochet steek is called for!

- embroidery is done on wool fabric (not felt, as I originally thought), traditionally black, with in some cases green trim/edging.

- cuffs and collar are lined (either with same wool, or matching cotton/flannel)

- use crewel wool for embroidery, with some DMC cotton for the details

- you can baste coarse canvas over top of the wool to embroider the basic shapes (band outlines, triangles) and then remove the canvas by pulling out its threads.

- fine details are embroidered after the canvas threads are gone.

Now, I'm not a very good embroiderer, but I'm fired up to go! Next posts will include details on materials and progress. Stay tuned!!

Sock Sizing

Here is some information for those who knit socks without having the recipient's foot nearby...

shoe size and foot length (including length of heel flap)
EU and American conversions

 Since I knit with a pretty consistent type of yarn (4m/g or thereabouts) I always knit mens' socks with 72 sts in circumference, and ladies' socks at 60 sts or so (give or take 4 sts for pattern alignment). The only variable is then foot length (where to start the heel for toe-up; where to start the toe for top-down).

To find where you need to start your heel for toe-up socks, you'll need to do some math:

My husband has a size 10 - which, according to the link, means a 10.75 inch foot length (27.3 cm). I start heels at 20cm from the tip of the toe ("forethought" or short-row heels).

So if you want a men's size 9: the foot length is 1/2 shorter, so start the heel 1/2 inch sooner (1.3 cm).

For flap-style heels, start the gussets at 3-3.5 inches short of total foot length. I have a harder time getting a good fit with this style of heel, as it's harder to judge when to start the heel. For this reason, my current favorite heel is the "forethought", for toe-up models.

**update**

Here's a post on using a paper template to get great-fitting socks!

Snatching a Sweater from the Jaws of Hell

OK, now I remember why I don't knit sweaters...

[bolts of lighting from Hades]

True to my predictions, this it becoming an epic battle. Just finished the body of the top-down raglan for my son. It doesn't fit - it is way too tight, even after blocking. Grrrr. Battle number one: gauge and fit.

I guess the lesson here is that a 5-inch swatch just ain't good enough. Even if I blocked it. Should've listened to EZ, who recommends knitting a full-sized hat as a swatch...

But I refuse to start over. I am going to try to rescue this sucker.

Luckily I have not yet started the sleeves. So here is my plan...

1.Take out the bottom ribbing. Check.
2. make 2 machine steeks, one up either side of the sweater, and cut it open. Scary, but check.
3. determine how much extra I need to add at the sides,
4. knit 2 panels the right size. I'll do a provisional cast on, so I can just start the ribbing on the bottom again once the panels are in place. I'll leave live sts at the top so they can be knit into the sleeves.
4. sew the panels (gussets) in using matress stitch.
5. reknit the bottom ribbing.
6. continue with the sleeves.

Right. So it turns out I was off by a good six (!!!) inches in the circumference. Unbelievable. How can I be so far off ? Sigh. I measured my son, and added some inches of ease...but turns out this isn't enough! And yes, I did fit it as I was knitting! But still it didn't work....

So I need 2 panels, each several inches wide, that I will sew into the sides. After carefully counting the rows in the sweater body, I've determined that they need to be 107 rows tall.

In fact in a fit of brilliance (or would that be foolish laziness?) I've decided to knit a  double-wide tube that I will steek and cut into the two panels. Why? Because:
1. I knit far faster in the round
2. the sweater has been knit in the round to this point, and I need to match the gauge - my back-and-forth gauge is different because of the purling involved.
3. I'm hoping that the side seams will be less bulky (machine-steeked and cut edges seem to me less bulky than a knit edge).

So here we go...

[after machine-sewing to secure, I've cut the body of the sweater open at the sides]

[here are the two edges, ready for gusset insertion...]

OK, so I've "matressed" the gussets in place - lookin' good so far. I've not used this stitch before, but I like how it really blends in to be almost invisible.

[matress stitch blends very well]

It's more work than a running stitch, for sure, but well worth the effort.

Now that the side panels are in place, I can remove the (green) crochet provisional cast on, and knit on the bottom band, all 'round.

Then, because the top of the side panels also have live stitches, I can continue with the sleeves. I will have to go back and forth (instead of in the round) for a while, SSK/P2Tog'ing a stitch from the side panel every time I come to it, until all the side panel sts are "eaten". I do this to avoid an excess of stitches under the arm. I don't want a wider arm; just a wider body...so I have to get rid of the side panels stitches and not include them in the arm.

Stay tuned for more battles!

Improving Afterthought (or Forethought) Heels

To knit this type of heel, you first knit a tube sock (ie. one without a heel at all). Then afterwards you rip out one row, where you want the heel to appear, and pick up the stitches to insert the heel. So here's how to do that. Except that I'd use a darning needle and scrap slippery yarn to pick up the sts, rather that fighting through them with a knitting needle, as the Yarn Harlot does. Then after you've unpicked the row in between, you can transfer to a needle. It's easier.

If you know in advance where the heel is supposed to be, you can make life easier by knitting in one single row of waste yarn, which is then what you rip out. Then it's what Elizabeth Zimmerman calls a "forethought" heel. Here's a tutorial on that technique. And note the cute trick of knitting the scrap yarn, and then going back to the beginning of the row to continue overtop with the "real" yarn. This trick has many, many applications!

My improvements for the forethought heel:

• right before you knit the scrap yarn in, put in a lifeline.
• knit in the scrap yarn
• after you've knit the row on top of the scrap yarn, put in another lifeline.

These lifelines will make it much, much easier to pick up the stitches long the top and bottom of the "heel slit", after you've ripped out the scrap yarn. No need to pick up any stitches, they're already picked up and waiting to be transferred to the needle!  Here are some photos to illustrate:

[forethought heel: green embroidery thread = lifelines before and after knitting in 1 row of pink scrap yarn.]

[unpicking the scrap yarn]

  

I usually start picking up the lifeline sts in the middle of the sole of the foot, not at one of the edges of the slit. This is because I want the new yarn join to be hidden on the bottom of my foot, and also because I find it easier to do short-rowing and decreasing in the middle of a needle, rather than at the end of one. There's a picture below.

Once you've unpicked the yarn and are transferring the lifeline sts to your needle(s), you might want to pick up a stitch or two at the slit's edges ("corners of the mouth") to close up the hole neatly:

[transferring the sts on the lifeline to a needle...and picking up 2 extra sts]

Now, about the decreases: you will see that both of the tutorials I've linked to above use exactly the same method of creating the heel; namely, the same construction as you would use for a "wedge toe", complete with kitchener-grafting the last row together. There are a couple of issues with this design:

1. Personally, I don't like the look of that wide diagonal band. But that's easy to play with, we'll explore some alternatives in this post. In fact, you don't have to knit this type of "wedge-toe" construction at all! You could substitute a "round" construction (where the decreases are distributed all 'round the needles, not concentrated at the "corners"), or a "star" construction (where the decreases form spirals). Think of your heel as a "hat"! If you take this further, it will lead you down the road to this... Note that hat-style constructions also remove the need for grafting!

2. the fit isn't great; this heel suffers from the same weakness as short-row heels in that it is tight across the instep. So we should discuss improvements to the fit.

Both the fore- and afterthought heels are easily reinforced by knitting in reinforcement thread, and are very easy to replace if they wear out. You just pick them out and reknit 'em, just like I do for toes. For this reason they are also called "peasant" or "depression" heels (as in, the Depression years). The bottom of the heel extends further than the usual "flap" style, so you may find that repair-by-reknitting is enough. The Winter 2011 edition of Knitty has a pattern with a variation after-thought heel that is larger than usual, if you find that your heel wears beyond the range of the afterthought heel.

The true afterthought heel has the added advantage that socks made this way are easily "gifted". You can just knit a bunch of tube socks in some generic size, and once you have a recipient in mind you can put the heel in the right spot to customize the things.  The right spot is where the recipient's heel footprint starts. Measure down from the top of the sock (tips of the toes) to the place where the pink arrow shows on the example footprint below:

[the afterthought heel is inserted at this point in the tube sock]
note: you can also use a cardboard template 
to decide where to put the heel, as shown here

In fact this is how I fit toe-up "forethought" heel socks as I knit 'em. Once the recipient tells me the knitting needles are at the right place I know I'm ready to knit in that scrap yarn.

Of course, if you really have no idea where the heel is going to be, you have to be a bit accomodating with the stitch design. All around? Front only? Guess at where the heel might go before starting (or stopping, depending on if you're knitting top-down or toe-up) the pattern?

As always, when playing with different heel constructions, put a lifeline into your work (or keep them in, after unpicking the slit!) so that if you have to rip it out, it's easy to restart. 

So, here's the good stuff:

Alternatives to wedge construction

I like a smaller, less obtrusive design on the decreases. There are unlimited numbers of these, but here are some I like. In prep, you should mark the single stitch in the "corner" of the slit on each side of the sock (as in, the corners of your mouth). This will define the center of the diagonal line that runs from your heel to you instep.

[sts picked up - note I've started in the middle of the sole...the stitch markers at either side show the edges of the slit, where the decreases will be.]

• P3tog at each of the slit's "corners", every second row. The 2nd stitch in the 3-stitch cluster should be the one before the marker, so you'll have to adjust that marker every time. There's a photo at the bottom of this post.
• 3 before marker, K2tog, P1, SM, SSK ... every second row.
• 2 sts before marker, sl 2 tog KW, remove marker, K1, p2sso (translation: slip 2 sts together knitwise, K1, then pass the two slipped sts - which will be glommed together as one unit - over the knit st. This can be a bit of a struggle.), and replace marker. Gives a single, centered, stitch with no slant - see photo below. You can purl the centered stitch the next round for a "seed" effect. 

The purl sts I've indicated give a little "seed" effect on the diagonal line which I really like. You could try knitting them instead. Explore different double-decrease types. K3tog doesn't work well though. It has a slant and isn't nice.

Other alternatives include putting 4 markers around the sock at even intervals (either starting in one corner, or starting exactly between a corner and halfway 'round the heel), and

• doing a K2tog before every marker, every second row. This creates a "spiral". Doing SSKs makes the spiral go the other way. You can alternate K2togs and SSKs on alternate decrease rows and the spiral will straighten.
• making "spokes" - do a double-decrease (sl 2 tog KW, K1, p2sso) at the marker, every 4th row.
• moving the decrease locations around so they do not create a pattern (concentric rings) - try this one with stripes and you'll get a bulls-eye heel. Could be fun on a man's black socks!

Fit Improvements

There are two approaches. If you know in advance where the heel is to be, start increasing the number of sts on either side of the heel, creating a gusset, until you've increased the stitch count by about 10%. Then put in that scrap yarn for the heel "slit", and proceed as usual.

The other approach, which I find works a bit better and doesn't require that you know where to put the heel or do math beforehand, is to do a few short rows in the corners, once you've made the slit and have got the stitches set to go:

• starting at one corner, K8, place marker, and turn (performing your favourite hole-hiding technique such as wrap 'n turn, YO, double sts, or dig 'n lift).
• P16, place marker, and turn - again performing your favorite hole-hiding technique.
• K14 (to 2 before the first marker), turn while hiding your hole.
• P12 (to 2 before marker), turn while hiding the hole.
• K10 (to 2 before the first marker), turn while hiding your hole.
• P8 (to 2 before marker), turn while hiding the hole.
• knit across to the other corner, dealing with the wraps, YO's, or lifts to finish hiding the holes.

So here I go far away from the corner, and then slowly back to up it. You can do it the other way, too: start close to the corner and stray further and further from it as you go back and forth - I find this one a little easier.

• starting at one corner, K2 beyond marker, turn (performing your favourite hole-hiding technique such as wrap 'n turn, YO, double sts, or dig 'n lift).
• P4, to 2 beyond marker, turn - again performing your favorite hole-hiding technique.
• K6 to 4 beyond marker, dealing with the wrap or YO or whatever as you come to it, turn while doing your YO, wrap, or what-have-you.
• P8 to 4 beyond marker, dealing with the wrap (YO, lifted st...) as you pass it, turn while performing your hole-hiding.
• K10 to 6 beyond marker, dealing with the wrap or YO or whatever as you come to it, turn while doing your YO, wrap, or what-have-you.
• P12 to 6 beyond marker, dealing with the wrap (YO, lifted st...) as you pass it, turn while performing your hole-hiding.
• knit across to the other corner, dealing with the wrap, YO, or lift to finish hiding the last turn. 

Repeat either procedure at the other side of the heel slit. Finish up at the first corner again, and then start the decreases for the heel shaping.

These short-rows create two little "half moon" shapes about 1cm wide, and add just enough ease to the instep to improve the fit. You might want to add a different number of short-rows depending on the instep clearance required - I've found that 3 passes back and forth - as I've listed - is sufficient for my family's feet. note: If you add more short-rows than the guidelines above, you'll find that the little crescent-gusset will start to "bump out". To counteract this, you will then also need to start your diagonal decreases during the short-rowing.

[crescent-shaped short-row gusset on afterthought heel. This gusset started wide and narrowed. note: the decrease line here is P3tog every other row.]

[another example; this gusset started small and grew out. This decrease line is a "double decrease" with no purl sts]

Note: I have made up a "recipe" or "template" pattern for this type of sock, it's available for download here.

Self-Striping Wool

OK, I admit I don't much like this stuff, mostly because I find it beastly boring to knit straight stockinette. I need a pattern to keep me sane! But self-striping wool makes most stitch patterns turn invisible. It dominates 'em.

That said, there are some notable exceptions!

Patterns with a wavy effect, like "fan and feather", "old shale", "chevron", or "ripple" look quite funky in self-striping wool.

Entrelac socks are also good to do with self-striping wool, if you make the individual blocks match the striping rhythm, so each block is a different colour. Similar - and very creative - ideas are shown here, and here (both free patterns from Knitty, one of my favourite websites). For these types of designs, the best type of self-striping wool to use is the type where the stripes of colour are all the same length. Swatch to determine the size of the entrelac squares (or equivalent design module) is required to match the stripe length.

In some of these cases, it makes sense to teach yourself to knit backwards, so you're not constantly flipping your work around as you knit the small repeats. Knitting backwards is not hard. Knitty's got a tutorial, but you don't need the pictures. Really. You can teach yourself. After one pair of entrelac socks, you'll be a pro!

Then, finally, unusual sock architecture is really fun to do with self-striping wool because it can make the unusal knitting directions pop out. This includes sideways socks. Check out the patterns over at Knitty!

Now, when you make self-striping socks, if you want them to be the same, you need to make sure that each ball of wool feeds the same colour sequence to you, at the same time. This means you'll have to make up 2 balls that are identical. Self-striping yarn is seldom wound identically if you buy it from the store in 50gm balls. Rewind!

Ribbing for Two-at-a-Time, Top-Down Socks

Once you've cast on, you'll start knitting the ribbing. This is where you have to do a bit of planning, because you cannot adjust the position of the ribbing once you've started (well...you can, but it's a pain). So make sure that whatever you start is symmetric - that your ribbing pattern has a mid-point (either a single stitch, or between two stitches), that is centered over what will be the front of the foot, or you will be in trouble later! Unless, of course, you are making asymmetric socks...but in that case, think about the 2nd one on your needle. Is is supposed to be a mirror image? Or identical? Adjust ribbing - and the leg pattern - as required - before you start!

For example:
k2-p2-k2-...-p2-k2 is good, although you will end up with a k4 band down either side of the sock,
k1-p2-k2-...-p2-k1 is good,
k2-p2-...-k2-p2 is probably not!

Coarser ribbing is stretchier. So, a k2p2 rib is stretchier (and keeps its shape better) than a k1p1. You can try different numbers of k's and p's for extra jazz (k3p2, k1p2k3p2k1, etc etc). You can try substituting a ktbl for every k, to get a tighter effect. It looks a little different as the twist makes the k's pop out a bit more. Don't skimp on the ribbing if you want it to actually hold up your sock.

Alternatively, you can skip the ribbing entirely if you are:
1. making short socks (I am particularly fond of anklets that come no higher than 8 cm/3 inches over the ankle bone.). Try a few rows of garter stitch instead (knit a row, purl a row) to give some "frame" to the design. I like about 3 ribs (that's 6 rows total). It won't hug your leg, but because the sock is short it won't fall down.
2. making lace socks that naturally scallop. Even here though, a small garter edge can add a little "weight" to the design. I find that lace socks are best kept short also, so they don't fall down and spoil the effect.

Advanced notions:

For design buffs, consider having the ribbing flow naturally into the design of the sock. Takes planning!

A nice touch is to have the ribbing flow further down at some parts than in others. Cookie A does this very well in some of her new designs.

Plan for symmetry (or deliberate asymmetry) so that the upcoming division into "heel" and "instep" stitches doesn't wreak havoc with your design!

Try having the pattern only on the front side of the sock. This was traditional in days of yore and can even be interesting today.

For clingy socks that hug your leg, ribbing-based designs are great as they are naturally elastic.

For lacy socks, I find that the best designs are small and based on 6-8 sts, maximum, for an all-over effect. Check stitch dictionaires for inspiration. Of course, all-over and complex designs like those found in German and Austrian dirndl outfits are stunning...

Charlene Schurch's books have excellent stitch libraries that are ideal for socks. Many are rib-based, but she also includes small lacy patterns.

The Burda book has a beautiful collection of dirndl-type designs plus tips on how to knit them into long stockings that go over your calf. You'll have to translate from the German though...