Wow, no posts for a month!

Well, that's what happens when you're busy and then running around on the weekends! First Thrace came by and it was very nice to see her. And her knitting which she is not posting about regularly! Hellooo blog collaborators! Then a handful and a half of the inlaws came by and we wandered around the countryside in a rented car looking at the castles in the area. Very nice!
This one is Burg Hanstein which was built in the 14th century, if I am understanding the German handouts correctly. I posted pictures of this castle last August when there was a medieval festival; it looks much bigger when it's not being swarmed by hundreds of people!

My husband and I have also been attending medieval festivals in the region; I've been filling my free time with sewing seasonal appropriate gear. The problem is that it's chilly and wet most of the summer, but not cold enough for an enormous cloak. I bought an end of roll 2.5 yard piece of leightweight wool for a throw/wrap cheap... Here I am all wrapped up, posing with one of my husband's colleagues who also attends these things (on the left). I wish I had a spear!
While it's nice and warm, I found that it was tricky to wear as it slides around a fair bit, so I hacked it up into a super-tunic...
Mmmmm... nice and fitted except when I'm not standing straight! I took schematics from a web page entitled 'T-tunic the period way' and omitted the center gore. I did this because I can not sew it in nicely (as I discovered while making the cheapo mock-up which will NEVER see the light of day) and medieval Anglo-Saxons apparently did not use them. I instead transferred the fabric to make wider side gores than shown in the schematic (much easier to sew!) because I still need the extra room at the hips. I intend to dress it up a bit in the near future by adding silk trim at the neckline, sleeves and hem. Another modification I made was to cut the front and back into two pieces because I figured the garment needed a seam there to hang properly. I also cut the shoulders on a slope to omit the bagginess at the shoulder line that really bugged me on the mock-up. To make the neckline (and to find out how much material to remove at the shoulders) I made a pattern by tracing over an old Gap V-necked T-shirt I bought ages ago. I slipped the t-shirt over the under-dress to make sure that
the sizing and neckline would work, and I was happy with it. I also had to alter the schematics as shown because here the fabric (pre-shrunk) is 58 inches wide and not 60! So much for standards!

A few more words on this matter... when I was planning and drafting, I was a bit concerned that NO ONE posted pictures of their finished T-tunic using these guidelines even though plenty of web-pages refer to it. That really makes you wonder if it will turn out well. Even the designer (who I think is very clever for drafting this pattern in such a way that it uses fabric in a non-wasteful way to get a very sweet and period-looking result for a gown shape that was used for at least a couple of hundred years in Europe with only minor modifications) doesn't show a clear picture of the finished product, only a couple of inches of hemline under an over-gown. Shame shame! So here you go world. A picture. If anyone cares, post a comment and I'll arrange for a full length photo to be taken. I am very pleased with how it turned out and I got loads of compliments on it. Not bad for a quick easy sew (once I did the learning part on the mock-up. Still, straight lines = easy sewing).
My silk gown has also been getting a fair amount of wear too. Your friends are much more likely to get dressed up with you if you have a spare dress. She's (more than a touch) narrower so I am lending her the narrower cut gown. She also got loads of compliments. It's nice what you can do with interior decor fabrics if you care to!

So... knitting.
Currently working on the Kaleidoscope cardigan, formerly from MagKnits, now posted on the designer's blog here. I'll describe it in more detail including where I found those lovely yarns once I'm done my current sewing WIP, the husband's tunic, cut along the same lines as mine!

Ivanova

Dodecahedron basket

Looking back at the blog's posts, I realized that I forgot to write about my stitch 'n bitch one-skein swap object from January. Since I'm not feeling terribly inspired in this heat, I thought I'd look back at this project.

The basket had a number of sources of inspiration: I got the pentagon idea from Knitting Nature, from this project, and from this pattern. Essentially, it's the knit soccer ball with the 12th pentagon missing.



The basket was knit with Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride chunky and lined using some quilting cotton. I used Vinyl-Weave as interfacing. Fortunately, cutting the sheet into pentagons was fairly easy.



I've been sorting through our photos from our trip to Europe (we visited Germany, France and the Czech Republic). We had a fantastic time in Berlin.



The Charlottenburg Palace was one of the first sites we visited upon arriving in the city, which was worth seeing for the grounds alone.

The baby pinwheel is (almost) done!

I went to Berlin a few weekends ago, and got lots of knitting done on the train. Even took the wrong one by accident (right platform, right time, wrong train? Guess it happens...) which increased the knitting time by 1/3. Ooops!

I went to many places, and even did some shopping. I love Berlin. I ate great food cheap, had some very nice wine at a Parisian-style wine bar in Kreuzberg, went to a goth bar which reminded me of the 'good-old-days' more than 10 years ago, and went to the very popular and famous Festival of Cultures.
There were loads and loads of people. It was so crowded that I couldn't feasibly sample any of the cultural wares or foods, so me and my friend left after only an hour. It was extremely hot and sunny so all that standing around and slowly inching forward was not very fun and made our feet hurt. And all of the sun/heat/crowding makes for grumpy children.
Very. Grumpy. Children.

All of that knitting made my hands hurt.
Ouch! I need to hurry it up because the kid is already born. It's a boy, so I'm somewhat glad I chose dark colors for this.
Overall the pattern (from Elann's website) was pretty easy, but the place where I added the sleeves has a discontinuity in the garter stitch pattern. I'll have to keep an eye on it when I make my full-sized version. I also decided I liked the picot bind-off better than bobbles, so I ripped back the pinwheel bind-off, extended the length of the sweater (it now has a radius of 15 inches instead of 12 inches) and made a 4-stitch picot bind-off following the instructions on Knitty's techniques pages, which I linked to in a previous post. Now I need to weave in 8 thousand ends. Yuck. I know now why I never do colorwork; I HATE weaving in ends! HATE HATE HATE! I'll have to do that this week, and send it off to it's new home!
Here's a gratuitous close-up of the bind-off edge.
Ivanova

Still here

Still here, still knitting.



That's a Queen Anne's lace shawl I'm knitting on the train from Munich to Rothenburg ob der Tauber (cute town, very touristy).

I'll post more once I get home from vacation. The Blogger interface is a nightmare on my internet tablet.

Spring/summer fun

Medieval festival season has officially started for me with the early May festival at Freienfels. I snapped a few photos of stuff I saw. I had a pretty good time and saw several historically accurate fabric stands with nice stuff, but I had to travel light, so not much browsing occurred.
I also saw some handmade drop-spindle vendors, as well as fleece and yarn boots selling fibers that were dyed using historical techniques and materials. Nice stuff, but again, I had to travel light because my husband and I were carting around sleeping bags and a tent on the train, and I have to make a concerted effort to reduce the stash.

The festival took place in a field near an old castle. We took the rocky winding path up to the castle and saw some dancers. What a hike! No one in their right mind would attack that place. Or maybe they would have to be much tougher than me!
Ignore the smudgy ghosts, there is a law here about not photographing children and I only just noticed they were in the way. Parents take note: don't bring your children to places where people will be taking a lot of pictures. Just leave them at home please! Thank you.

There were also jousting competitions...
It ended pretty quickly because one guy got hit so hard he went flying off his horse. It's still a
dangerous hobby and it's better to be safe than sorry.
I also saw some gorgeous garments, and while they are not quite historically accurate, they were simply stunning. One badly photographed example...
Stupid long exposure time! I saw her go by and snapped, but I had my camera settings ready for a different shot. The basic idea: a calf length coat with princess seams made of crushed (!) velvet. It has a liripipe (read: long and pointy) hood that goes to the waist lined in a contrast color crushed velvet. There is a tightening string/ribbon which thread through loops sewn to the back princess seams and the string/ribbon is the same color as the hood lining. I haven't seen the front so I have no idea how it fastens. Probably buttons to the hip, I figure. Gorgeous! And it pointy bell-shaped sleeves.

My outfit: not so stunning but very warm.
It was quite cold with the nights dipping down to 5 or 6 degrees (Celsius). The wool cloak was good for keeping warm while walking around and it made an EXCELLENT extra blanket to throw over the sleeping bags. That's what people did with them in the middle ages, and it works incredibly well for it. It also made me appreciate how warm wool really is. For something like this, accept no substitutes!

I recently finished a sweater that I'll post about soon, and I've been working more on Imogen recently, to minimize the sweater-quantities-of-aran-wool portion of the stash.
So far I've finished the back and one sleeve, using Lorna's Laces Bullfrogs and Butterflies. This yarn is a luxury to knit with, a fuzzy (i.e. contains mohair) single ply that just glides on the needles. To avoid pooling I swap balls every 2 rows. And the lengths of some of the colors is not the same in every hank, so this minimizes the differences between hanks when knitted up. It looks very long and narrow, so I am hoping that I have enough yarn, and it will get shorter and wider when blocked!

Ivanovaknits

Almost Ready...

Between work, the internet outages and sewing, there hasn't been much blogging, knitting, or blogging about knitting going on at my place. Instead I'll discuss on my latest sewing WIP, which I expect to finish sometime this week.





This is my cloak for the medieval festivals I expect to attend in the spring/summer/autumn.
There's LOTS of them in Germany in general, and many of them within an hour and a half's train ride from where I'm living. I suspect this is due to the large number of well-preserved medieval castles in the Lower-Saxony and Hesse region. So my husband and I can buy a relatively inexpensive one day regional train ticket, go away and come back all on a Saturday! Sweet! I also think a cloak is necessady because of the variability of the weather here. Last year May was sunny and hot, but July was cold and wet. You never know, so I figure I'll be prepared just in case.

Now for the details...
The pattern... Simplicity 5794. This pattern gives 3 options, where view A (click on the view link) looks sort of Victorian, view B (the one I made) looks more Renaissance/Medieval because of the long pointy hood, and view C looks like an ordinary cloak. As much as these things can be considered ordinary these days!

My opinion so far? It certainly looks the part, but good fabric choices help. I will get to that in a minute. I am not a fan of the hood, even though it looks great in principle, it is difficult to wear.
It's very full at around my face and due to the weight of the material it flops off very easily.
The only way the hood would look good worn is to have it perfectly arranged in a mirror and stand extremely still so it doesn't fall off. I would only wear it up if it were raining, and no one looks good sopping wet! I also find it flops about when it's hanging down due to that fullness around the face. Not perfect but I can live with it. Others have this issue also as can be seen
here.

I also find that the pattern leaves something to be desired in the finishing details. Personally I HATE it when a commercially lined hood has the lining puff up when the hood is worn down because the lining was not secured to the hood anywhere except where the lining was seamed to the hood (around the face region). It BUGS me beyond belief. This cloak suffers from this problem. I fixed it by catch-stitching (by hand) the lining to the seam where the lining was sewn to the hood. Problem solved. And my catch-stitching was reasonably invisible.

The final finishing step for this cloak is to sew the lining to the cape ALL THE WAY AROUND. side edges and bottom edge. No way I'm gonna do that! Typically the cloak material and lining material are different fabrics which will stretch differently over time. Instead I hand-hemmed both lower edges, and when I sew the lining to the cloak, I will only sew at the neck edge and side edges. If you look really closely at the pattern envelope, view B (the only visibly lined cloak on the package) you can see that the lining is a bit bunchy at the lower edge. My modification avoids this problem!

The fabrics... I bought the cloak fabric on eBay. It's a wool from Austria which was listed as a
light weight olive wool. The price was decent, and in the color range I wanted (green/brown/gray) so I bought it. Then it arrived.... It's heavy, scratchy as hell, and more of a forest green than an olive green. And it's textured! It has short wool pieces sticking out like a corduroy fabric! There was no close-up shot for the fabric on eBay. Grr...
But after looking at it for several days, and observing how it would wear by looking at one of the more well worn edges, I decided it would age nicely so I went for it. And after draping it on myself I decided it had the right weight/drape to be a decent spring cloak. I have grown more and more fond of it as this project progressed, but I really cannot picture this as a suit wool, which is how it was marketed. Now about the itchyness. Wow. And I have I high tolerance for scratchy wool. So I decided it needed to be lined. Off I went to the department store in search of a coarsely woven historical looking fabric.

I found loads more linen than last year, at a cheaper price than I paid last year in nicer colors too! Grr! But still 10 euros (or 15 bucks) a meter is too much for a cloak that needs a heck of a lot of fabric. Cotton? As expensive as linen! I resorted to looking in the imitation linen section and came away with a polyester-rayon-linen blend for 4 euros (or 6 bucks) a meter. It looks and feels nice, dosen't have the wrinkliness of linen but still looks like it. Now I have one question for the fabric retailers here; who wants to purchase a dressmaking fabric that looks like linen, is coarse like linen, but is 100% polyester? I know I would sweat buckets in it! I am bummed by the lack of and high price of nice natural fiber fabrics here.

Now for the edging/trim. I have seen quite a few commercial cloaks out there with embroidered motifs on the hem and side edges... like these. They are gorgeous, and an awful lot of nice things can be done with embroidery... by anyone but me! I can't embroider well!
Instead I decided to needle-felt designs on the thing. Needle felting? I never needle felted before last weekend but it's very easy. Go ahead and google it. I made some templates of Celtic designs (the prominent side edge shown in the photo was sketched from the Book of Kells) by making a pencil drawing on graph paper (can't draw either), scribbling in the lines to be thicker, then cutting all the way around the design. I then laid the template on the fabric and gently shook baby powder over the template. I lifted it up, and the unpowdered areas were a transfer of the design. Then I took some unspun wool pulled out into long strips and plaved over the design. With a few stabs of my felting needle, the design was loosely secured, and with repeated stabs, well, you get what you see. Needle felting is easy and fast! If anyone wants more detail on this process, I will document the creation of the matching bag in detail later this week, but ya gotta ask! Now all I have to do is finish the edging and sew in the lining...

Ivanova

I almost have a sleeve!

I'm within spitting distance of being done! This is a nice and easy mindless knit, and I think that it's even cuter than I imagined now that it looks less like a blanket and more like a garment.
I like the seamless design, though I'll have an awful lot of ends to sew in. Yuck! I'll take seaming over sewing in lots of ends any day of the week! I also made another change to the plan; I thought that the bobbles on this adult version of the pinwheel sweater were positively fetching so I added them around the circumference when I bound off. I swatched many different bobbles from my Harmony Guide (Aran and Fair Isle patterns) and I didn't like any of them. Instead I knit into the front, back, front of the next stitch, turned, purled 3 stitches, turned, slipped one, knit two together, passed slipped stitch over, then passed the previous stitch over to cast it off. I placed bobbles 7 stitches apart because 28 (the number of stitches in each wedge) is evenly divisible by 7. I'm also curious about how a picot edge will look, so I'm going to bind off the sleeves with a picot edge, instructions are here in Knitty. The winning finishing touch will make it onto my own version.

Gloria/Pinwheel Hybrid

I spent my precious knitting time this week figuring out the construction of Hanne Falkenberg's Gloria, and swatching a kiddie-sized version of my own hybrid of the original I thought was absolutely stunning in Ribbels' window, and the very popular Pinwheel Sweaters for Women and Children by Shelley Mackie which is a free pattern from Elann. (To be honest I was kind of meh about the pinwheel until I saw this version. Wow.)
What I think I know about Gloria:
1. The upper back is not part of the circle. Evidence here.
2. Stitches are cast on, stitches at the bottom of the upper back are picked up, and more stitches are cast on. The resulting large number of stitches are knit back and forth in a texture pattern with increases placed at the armpit region (like on the Sunrise Circle Jacket by Kate Gilbert, available for free on the Knitting Daily Website). Evidence for these conclusions can be found here.
3. I think that the front and back shoulders are seamed together and stitches are picked up in the resulting holes for the sleeves. I also think that somehow stitches are picked up for the collar or the collar is sewn in place.
4. The texture pattern, oh the lovely texture pattern that plays off of differences in the shades in the yarns used. I looked at some swatches here(#1) and here(#2), and some of it is definitely garter stitch with two different colors that are swapped on each row. Like dark is knit on RS and light is knit on WS. There is another texture pattern at play here, as can be seen in swatch #2, but I don't know what it is, and I don't really care either. I think it's used on the collar because it dosen't look so bumpy as the 'wrong side' of garter stitch would. Or the majority of the sweater is knit in this texture except for the upper back. I don't care so much because I figured out enough to modify the pinwheel to my tastes.

All I did was work the pinwheel in garter stitch while alternating colors every row. Easy.
Now some people in internet-land say they prefer Gloria to traditional pinwheel sweaters
because of the better fit. I think that all that's needed to correct this issue is proper sleeve placement. I'm guessing for the kid version, because children grow and the the armholes will eventually be in the right place anyways. But for my version I will swatch and block, and determine armhole distance from my favourite t-shirts, and incorporate minimal ease into the placement.

First up: the yarns:
starting at the top, clockwise, we have Lang Yarns Soft Shetland color 09 (Purple Charcoal), color 08 (Wine) and some grey Frankengarn Naturstrickwolle in a slightly lighter grey than I'm
using for Trud. (I was thinking legwarmers at the time of purchase. Oh well...). Now for a rant about 'standards' for needle sizes. The Soft Shetland recommends a 5.5 mm needle for a yarn that weighs in at 284 yards/100g. This is lighter than worsted weight, using Cascade 220 as a benchmark for a worsted weight yarn (220 yards/100g). What big needles! Now the Frankengarn company recommends 3.5-4 mm needles for their stuff which weighs in at
218 yards/100g. I would call this a worsted weight, what tiny needles! These days I completely disregard manufacturer recommendations when choosing yarn and instead go with yardage/weight. Anyways, I'm completely digressing. I LOVE the Frankengarn, and while the Soft Shetland is pretty to look at and soft in the ball, I find it 'ropey' to knit with. And not so elastic. I hope it softens up with a wash. I figured it would be OK for baby/kid gear because it's a superwash wool.

Anyways, here's how far I've gotten.
I think it looks pretty good, and the interplay of color with garter stitch has given the desired effect. Not to mention that these random yarns I had sitting in the stash look Falkenberg-esque. I eliminated the yarn-over increases, and I didn't like the look of kfb increases on the Lara Pinwheel Jacket (similar pattern, same designer, also free on Elann.com)
so instead I opted for something more invisible: Elizabeth Zimmerman's 'Make 1' described on page 16 of Knitting Workshop. You basically drop a twisted loop of yarn on the needle and just keep on knitting. Easy, fast, not fussy, no gaping holes, no funny twists. And I'm switching the colored wools every 10 rows, but not the grey because I have ~ twice as much gray than the colors combined.

I like it.

Now imagine, as happy as I am with the 'right side' how surprised I was when I flipped the thing over and looked at the 'wrong side'.

Ignore the tails. You can see swirls of color where the increases were made, because they were not picked up from the grey row below. Now I like the 'wrong side' better than the 'right side'!
If I weave in the ends nicely, I'll have something the neither of the model patterns had: 100 %
reversibility!

Ivanova

One month, two conferences, and two countries later...

I did a LOT of running around, and had nearly no time for knitting except on ridiculously long
train rides, but I managed to make decent progress on my cape. Here's the full-body-so-far shot:
I am using the vague-ish instructions from Barbara Walker's Knitting from the top.
The idea is that a cape/cloak is just a raglan that does not separate at the underarm for sleeves.
Simple enough, I wrote out instructions for a top-down raglan cloak that includes some cable panels from Elsebeth Lavold's Viking Patterns for Knitting on the front edges, (s-hitches from Arde, p. 73), raglan non-sleeve (wide panel with little lattice, p. 51), and the back (Vigdis pattern, p.81 over 24 stitches). Here's some detail shots of the cables in the order listed above.


I am finding that the Lamb's Pride Worsted has great stitch definition even though I am knitting at a ridiculously loose gauge in order to felt this sucker, so I feel confident that the
cables will survive the felting process. I never realized what a good-value cable-knitting yarn this was, and I'll probably use it again for sweaters. I just wish the mohair was less scratchy, but I can put up with a bit of scratch.

One good (or bad) thing about conferences is that the organizers tend to put random people of the same gender together in my hotel room. Imagine my surprise when I arrived in my hotel room in a tiny university town in the Netherlands to a pile of stuff on one bed including a pair of 3.5 mm straight needles with some fingering weight pink merino knitted into perfect teeny tiny stitches. A knitter! Of all the random conference attendees I was paired with, they put me up with another knitter. Needless to say, some yarn browsing took place in the 2 hours between the end of the conferences and catching our trains back. I finally saw some Hanne Falkenberg kits up close, and they are gorgeous! Too bad I can't justify spending 100 euros (about 150 dollars) on a kit. My favourites in the shop were Gloria shown in the colors I linked to, and Jazz. The pictures do not do the kits justice. But still, they are prohibitively expensive, so my new shopping buddy said I should take the mental picture for inspiration, and knit my own version with what I've got available.

I also had the good fortune of sharing a room with a knitter in Berlin, and we went to a yarn shop on Oranienstrasse (in the very cool Kreuzberg district) and I picked up a few balls of some no-name single ply lambswool in order to make my take on Gloria. On the overly long train ride from Berlin to Hannover (my roomie's transfer point) she taught me how to purl continental style. I was on a purl row. It took me 2 hours (!) to do one row. I guess I'll have to practice, and track her down for lessons on how to knit continental style. She watched me knit 'British-style' and shook her head and said "I just don't see how you can do that." Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

Here's a picture of my circular jacket yarns all nestled together:

I think it'll work (I hope!) and I'll cast on after I try a kiddie-version for the soon to be expected
cousin's kid. They are two different colors of no-name-provided German lambswool in an aran weight from somewhere near Hamburg (according to the shop employee) in a greyish lavender and petrol blue solid, paired with some Fleece Artist Kid Aran in the Marine colorway.
I'll be basing the construction on one of the 8-million free pinwheel jackets from the Elann website by Shelley Mackie but I may throw in a texture pattern like on Gloria. And I will make the sleeves striped. I particularly like this version of the pinwheel jacket, so I'll just let the ideas mingle until I have the time to cast on. I'll test texture patterns in my collection of purpley Soft Shetland balls and medium gray merino for the kiddie version.

Ivanova

I "felt" like experimenting...

This week I decided to finally try felting. I am starting to plan my next vacation getaway to a medieval festival in May, and my husband commented that we would most likely by camping out. Probably in period gear. And if we don't camp out and get a hotel room, May is still kind of cold and damp! So I decided I needed a wool cloak. I started looking at general cloak designs, and there are some really nice LOTR inspired patterns available here. Hunt around the links, this site is a nice time suck if you're into that sort of thing. Unfortunately the wool fabrics available at the local department store fabric section kind of suck. And forget going to a fabric shop, there isn't one! (At least not a good one). And, sure, there's always Ebay, but I'd rather have something a little more inspired (and complicated) than a plain piece of gray wool draped from the shoulders with some sort of hood sewn in.

So I figured I'd felt my own after knitting it! Of course it will be cabled, so I wanted to see a) how a felted fabric looks in terms of stitch definition (and loss thereof) and b) how texture holds up to the felting process. I know it can be done nicely because I saw a felted cabled handbag pattern in the winter 2007 issue of Interweave Knits. Here's one example - very nice!

So I started with some DK merino (Frankengarn naturstrickwolle) and tried out the Dragon Scale pattern from Barbara Walker #2. I hand felted with hot soapy water and it turned into this:
Little to no stitch definition! And it's a nice stiff but light fabric, not too bad for a cloak.
I knitted it up on my Denise 11's (they're bigger than the standard US 11). I also hand-felted for about 20 minutes. For the inquiring minds, this yarn is a 2-ply. I heard somewhere that plied yarns felt cables better, but the down-side to using this stuff for the cloak is that I'd have to buy more yarn! You should have seen my husband's face when he heard this. He cringed! I guess the wool is sort of taking over our apartment. So I dug through my Christmas stash and unearthed the cones of Lamb's Pride Worsted in a dark green color. I certainly have enough of it!

I read on Knitter's Review that the ideal gauge for felting LPW is 3 sts/in. I get 3.8 sts/in on Denise 10 1/2's (smaller than standard) and 3 sts/in on Denise 11's (bigger than standard). So I knitted up a simple cabled close-loop and braid pattern (made up from my head) and hand felted both swatches. Here's the before and after pics.
This is the one done on Denise 10 1/2 needles. I only got about 15 % shrinkage in length after hand-felting and I felt it had not lost enough stitch definition. So I boiled it and agitated it in boiling water. Not a lick of difference was noticeable in size or loss of stitch definition. It fuzzed up a fair bit though. It's nice and thick, with a little bit of sproing left from the knitted fabric and the cables still show. Some dye was shed in the boiling process, but the vast color difference in the pics is due to the different lighting conditions. The top photo has the most accurate color, and the color shedding isn't noticeable in the boiled swatch.
This one was done on Denise 11's. The fabric was VERY loose before felting. I found it hard to keep the tension even when knitting the cables, so I got a hole (circled on the center picture) that didn't felt. I guess the Murphy's Law of felting is really true after all. I got 14 % length shrinkage with vigorous hand-felting, and it still retains stitch definition. I figure my best bet is to use the 10 1/2 needles because I get a nicer looking fabric in the end of it all.

So now for the pattern choices - I could not find any for a knitted felted cloak! There are a few knitted cloak patterns, and examples can be found by googling and surfing Ravelry. This one is nice, but it's from a Finnish book. The book is kindof expensive too. This one's okay, but not really what I had in mind. Now this one has the right shaping and would look reasonably historically accurate. I figured out by reading the blog of the flickr account I directed you towards that it is a raglan-shaped cloak, knit from the bottom up. So I popped out my Barbara Walker's Knitting from the Top and lo and behold there were vague-ish instructions for how to turn a top-down cardi into a cloak/cape. I've already picked out my Viking Cables (from Lavold's book) and I cast on already. I'll probably go to mid-calf, which should bring it to about knee length after blocking. I also need to figure out how to knit a hood...

Ivanova

Celtic Knot #7

Intertwined Heart and Happiness Sign

This knot was inspired by an image from the Book of Kells found on page 28 verso (the back side of the page), where it is part of a border in a portrait of St. Matthew. Here's my hand-drawn attempt at reproducing this knot.

I know I suck at drawing, but you get the idea. My reference book is The Book of Kells Selected Plates in Full Color edited by Blanche Cirker. So.... here's what I came up with. I used Wolle Roedel Soft Merino knitted on US 8 needles (5 mm) for this swatch.

I wanted a cable that could be a continuous cable or a stand-alone knot. Like I tend to do, I charted this with some set-up rows (rows O1-O8), a chart repeat (rows 1-36), and some finishing rows (F1-F6). If you want to knit what I have photographed above, knit rows O1-O8 from the chart, then knit rows 4-36, rows 1-36, then rows 1-24, finishing with rows F1-F6.
For this combination of a picked-up knot cable, you need to begin with 24 cast-on stitches. If you want to knot a long continuous cable without the stand-alone start, you need to begin with 36 cast-on stitches. If that is your preference, I'd recommend knitting 3 4-stitch, 4-row rwisted rope braids as charted in rows 31-34 3 times. This might take a bit of swatching. Play with it and have some fun. If you want only the stand-alone knot, knit rows O1-O8, rows 4-24, then finish with rows F1-F6. Here's the chart...

Now I omitted the dots from the stand-alone parts of the knot. I originally swatched with some bobbles but I didn't like them - I suck at knitting bobbles. If anyone want to reproduce the original knot exactly, play with bobbles and email me a link to the pictures!

Here's some gratuitous detail shots...

Happy knitting!
P.S. Don't forget to get the legend.

From the depths of Ivanova's archives...

I posted a F.O. shot of some lace muffatees I designed about 2 years ago on Ravelry and someone requested the pattern! I sent it out to a free online knitting magazine but never heard back, so I am posting it here now, because it seems that at least one person out there is interested!

I also have nothing to post on current knitting because of a major project deadline in a month (eep!) and I've also been taking advantage of my new Mac Book Pro being a faster Matlab-Number-Crunching-Machine than the computational servers at work! I loooove my new Mac... and I also love not having to share CPU time with anybody else! So here it is... my lace muffatee pattern.

What do you do with a couple of hundred yards of lace weight fiber? Especially when most shawls reach the elbow, and don’t cover your arms? Knit some lace muffatees with a Victorian-inspired ruffle, and look positively enchanting! Only want wristwarmers? Work less pattern repeats!

Materials:
200 yards of any lace weight fiber that can be blocked.
The ones shown were made with 200 yards of handpaintedyarn.com lace pure wool, 850 yards per 100 g skein, color burgundy
¼ inch wide sewing elastic (optional)
US 5 ( 3.75 mm) needles
Stitch Markers
A tapestry or darning needle to weave in ends
Scissors

Additional notes: I made these from the leftovers from my Kiri shawl, because the handpaintedyarn.com skeins have such generous yardage. I really liked working with this yarn because it's reasonably soft and very elastic. Blocks like a dream!

Sizing:
One size fits most. The muffatees fit 6-6.25” wide wrists, 9-10.25” wide arms beneath elbow, and are 10” long including ruffle. Lace stretches! If you have smaller arms, consider getting some elastic.

Gauge:
Blocked conservatively: 24 sts. in lace pattern = 4”

Pattern Notes:

The lace stitch pattern is very easy to memorize. I suggest knitting from the chart because this four stitch four row pattern is so simple, the only part you really need to keep track of are the edges, where increases are incorporated into the stitch pattern. The decreases used are k2tog, or knit two together, skp, or slip one purlwise, knit one, pass slipped stitch over, and sk2p, or slip one purlwise, knit two together, pass slipped stitch over. On the ruffle, you will be making a yarn over on the purl or wrong side. To do this properly, hold your yarn as if you were going to purl the next stitch, wrap your yarn around the needle, then purl.

Instructions:

Cast on 38 stitches using an invisible cast on. Knit 2 rows.
Knit all even numbered pattern rows (not charted to save space).

Lace pattern (work the written instructions here or follow the chart):

Row 1: k1, k2tog, yo, place marker, *sk2p, yo, k1, yo,* repeat from * to * to last 3 stitches, place marker, skp, yo, k1.
Row 3: k1, k2tog, yo, place marker, *k1, yo, sk2p, yo,* repeat from * to * to last 3 stitches, place marker, skp, yo, k1.
Row 5: k1, yo, k2tog, yo, place marker, *sk2p, yo, k1, yo,* repeat from * to * to last 3 stitches, place marker, k1, yo, k2.
Row 7: k1, yo, sk2p, yo, place marker, *k1, yo, sk2p, yo,* repeat from * to * to last 4 stitches, place marker, k1, yo, skp, k1.
Row 9: k1, k2tog, yo, k1, yo, place marker, *sk2p, yo, k1, yo,* repeat from * to * to last 4 stitches, place marker, skp, yo, k1, yo, k1.
Row 11: k2, yo, sk2p, yo, place marker, *k1, yo, sk2p, yo,* repeat from * to * to last 4 stitches, place marker, k1, yo, sk2p, yo, k1.
Row 13: k1, yo, sk2p, yo, k1, yo, place marker, *sk2p, yo, k1, yo,* repeat from * to * to last 4 stitches, place marker, skp, yo, k1, yo, k2.
Row 15: k1, yo, k2tog, yo, sk2p, yo, place marker, *k1, yo, sk2p, yo,* repeat from * to * to last 5 stitches, place marker, k1, yo, sk2p, yo, k2.
Row 17: k2, yo, place marker, *sk2p, yo, k1, yo,* repeat from * to * to last 2 stitches, place marker, k1, yo, k1.
Row 19: k1, k2tog, yo, place marker, *k1, yo, sk2p, yo,* repeat from * to * to last 3 stitches, place marker, skp, yo, k1.
Row 21: k1, k2tog, yo, place marker, *sk2p, yo, k1, yo,* repeat from * to * to last 3 stitches, place marker, skp, yo, k1.
Row 23: k1, k2tog, yo, place marker, *k1, yo, sk2p, yo,* repeat from * to * to last 3 stitches, place marker, skp, yo, k1.
Row 25: k1, yo, k2tog, yo, place marker, *sk2p, yo, k1, yo,* repeat from * to * to last 3 stitches, place marker, k1, yo, k2.
Row 27: k1, yo, sk2p, yo, place marker, *k1, yo, sk2p, yo,* repeat from * to * to last 4 stitches, place marker, k1, yo, skp, k1.
Row 29: k1, k2tog, yo, k1, yo, place marker, *sk2p, yo, k1, yo,* repeat from * to * to last 4 stitches, place marker, skp, yo, k1, yo, k1.
Row 31: k2, yo, sk2p, yo, place marker, *k1, yo, sk2p, yo,* repeat from * to * to last 4 stitches, place marker, k1, yo, sk2p, yo, k1.
Row 33: k1, yo, sk2p, yo, k1, yo, place marker, *sk2p, yo, k1, yo,* repeat from * to * to last 5 stitches, place marker, skp, yo, k1, yo, k2.
Row 35: k1, yo, k2tog, yo, sk2p, yo, place marker, *k1, yo, sk2p, yo,* repeat from * to * to last 5 stitches, place marker, k1, yo, sk2p, yo, k2.
Row 37: k2, yo, place marker, *sk2p, yo, k1, yo,* repeat from * to * to last 2 stitches, place marker, k1 yo, k1.
Row 39: k1, k2tog, yo, place marker, *k1, yo, sk2p, yo,* repeat from * to * to last 3 stitches, place marker, skp, yo, k1.
Row 41: k1, yo, k2tog, yo, place marker, *sk2p, yo, k1, yo,* repeat from * to * to last 3 stitches, place marker, k1, yo, k2.
Row 43: k1, yo, skp, yo, place marker, *k1, yo, sk2p, yo,* repeat from * to * to last 4 stitches, place marker, k1, yo, skp, k1.
Row 45: k2tog, yo, k2tog, yo, place marker, *sk2p, yo, k1, yo,* repeat from * to * to last 4 stitches, place marker, skp, yo, k2.
Row 47: k1, yo, sk2p, yo, place marker, *k1, yo, sk2p, yo,* repeat from * to * to last 4 stitches, place marker, k1, yo, skp, k1.
Row 49: k1, k2tog, yo, k1, yo, place marker, *sk2p, yo, k1, yo,* repeat from * to * to last 4 stitches, place marker, skp, yo, k1, yo, k1.
Row 51: k2, yo, sk2p, yo, place marker, *k1, yo, sk2p, yo,* repeat from * to * to last 5 stitches, place marker, k1, yo, sk2p, yo, k1.
Row 53: k1, yo, sk2p, yo, k1, yo, place marker, *sk2p, yo, k1, yo,* repeat from * to * to last 5 stitches, place marker, skp, yo, k1, yo, k2.
Row 55: k1, yo, k2tog, yo, sk2p, yo, place marker, *k1, yo, sk2p, yo,* repeat from * to * to last 6 stitches, place marker, k1, yo, sk2p, yo, k2.
Row 57: k2, yo, place marker, *sk2p, yo, k1, yo,* repeat from * to * to last 2 stitches, place marker, k1, yo, k1.
Row 59: k1, k2tog, yo, place marker, *k1, yo, sk2p, yo,* repeat from * to * to last 3 stitches, place marker, skp, yo, k1.
Row 61: k1, k2tog, yo, place marker, *sk2p, yo, k1, yo,* repeat from * to * to last 3 stitches, place marker, skp, yo, k1.
Row 63: k1, k2tog, yo, place marker, *k1, yo, sk2p, yo,* repeat from * to * to last 3 stitches, place marker, skp, yo, k1.

When you have completed row 64, knit 5 rows in k2 p2 rib. Cast off in pattern.

Make ruffle (not charted):
On lower edge with RS facing, pick up 38 stitches. On the next row (ws) k1 p1 into each stitch except edge stitches which are purled (74 stitches total).

Row 1: k1, * k2, yo, skp*, repeat from * to * to * to last stitch, k1.
Row 2: p1, * p2, yo, p2tog*, repeat from * to * to * to last stitch, p1.

Repeat these rows 9 times then bind off loosely. Make another muffatee the same way.

Finishing:

When the knitting is done, block the muffatees before seaming them. Do not block the ruffle. To block, soak the muffatees for about 20 minutes before washing them, if you choose to wash them. Gently press out excess water without wringing them, place them in a clean towel, and roll the towel to remove more water. Stretch them to be about 1/2 an inch smaller than your arm measurements at the wrist and arm below elbow, and stretch to meet your arm’s length keeping side edges and top edge and wrist edge straight. Do not pull on the ruffle beyond stretching the wrist edge where you picked up stitches to make the ruffle. Seam up sides. If it is a little loose or you have small arms, sew in some elastic available at many fabric stores into the wrong side of the upper edge, below the elbow. If you use a dark color of yarn, you may want to use black elastic, I used white elastic in the example and it doesn’t show.

Enjoy!

Ivanova

Christmas Stash Enhancement

I finished the Kitty Hat well before Christmas and never posted about it. This is the third time I've made myself this hat. The first one was made from the recommended black Mission Falls wool, and I quite liked it but it got lost in the move to Europe. The second one was made out of Noro Kureyon (without ears) and I look kind of goofy and like a 12-year-old in it. This one is made from a 'more serious' yarn - Mercredi et Companie 100% laine - some stuff I picked up in Grenoble in the fall. The colors are beautiful - a nice heathered burgundy with flecks of grey and black, and it's EXTREMELY soft. But this yarn is horrible to knit with. It's completely inelastic and too loosely spun to knit easily. For fun I tried swatching cables with this stuff - big disaster. Frankly I have no use for a yarn I can't cable with in the stash. I would not recommend this stuff for anything other than fancy baby knits. After a month of wear it's fuzzed up horribly and will lose all stitch definition soon. No pills though. While this hat looks OK laid out on the bed, I still look like a big dork in in. The good points for this hat are that it fits over by giant hair and keeps my ears nice and warm. But I don't really want to look like a big dork. So I'll investigate more hat options soon. The hats made so far are Shedir which looked beautiful but didn't fit my head at all, and the Ragna cap which doesn't fit over my hair. I'm totally bummed. There has to be a nice big hat design somewhere that will fit over my hair and ears! And preferably with cables too ;).

I got lots of nice yarns from myself and others for Christmas, as well as books. Thrace gave me the Knitter's Almanac by Elizabeth Zimmermann and I will cast on for the February Baby sweater soon. I will need to modify the design a bit because the baby will be a boy, but I think I can swap out the lace and stick in some cables instead. I will also make it as written for a friend who really really loved the Baby Surprise Jacket. I just hope that I have enough time! Maybe I'll have to upsize it for a toddler by the time I get to casting on. I also got the latest Viking Knitting book by Elsebeth Lavold and a book of selected color plates from the Book of Kells. Thanks Thrace, you rock! I've already charted a new celtic knot from it and am currently swatching it. Maybe it'll be done by next weekend...

So now for the yarn...
Carloway Mills Shetland Aran, colorway Mallard. It's a beautiful tweed, and I'm still trying to decide what to do with it. When I ordered it from elann I wanted to make a shawl-collared cabled cardigan, but now I can't decide between the original idea and this (with celtic knots instead of viking knots) - it is someone's brilliant idea to modify Stefanie Japel's forecast. I was never drawn to the original cables in the design but liked the shaping. I love the modified design even more!

This is some Fleece Artist Kid Aran, and I think it will become the Sunrise Circle Jacket at some point. It's by Kate Gilbert and available for free from Knitting Daily.




Now for some more greenhouse eye-candy...