Saturday, January 10, 2009

First Finished Object of 2009

Switching to the bamboo needles really made the knitting a lot faster. These socks were made with Opal, Color 1261. I used a #1 needle and cast on 72 stitches. The spouse wears an 8 1/2 shoe so the foot is about 10" long in total.


Here's my working chart, as generated by Sock Wizard.


Now I am about to cast on for a grey pair of Woolease socks.

Friday, January 9, 2009

Retro Knit Friday!

The holidays are over, and I didn't make a single knitted gift this year. I did finish one of the husband socks, and am working on the toe decreases on the second sock. I had a lot of trouble with these socks because the Knitpicks needles just weren't right for the yarn and were always falling out. I swapped them out for bamboo needles and now am galloping along with the end in sight. When I finish these socks I am going to start a pair of man socks in grey Woolease as a nice change from the fine gauge Opal. Also have to get started on a new cardigan.

There are just a few more fashions to show from the Modern Needlecraft from 1963 - 64. The first picture shows two fair isle sweaters done in knitting worsted weight. The man's pullover has bands of uncomplicated colorwork on a simple dropped-shoulder shape with a boat neck. The description says that it is meant to be worn over a 'thermo turtleneck' while skiing. I don't recall ever hearing of a thermo turtleneck before. The cardigan reminds me of one I knitted for my sister for Christmas many years ago. It was cream with the colorwork in shades of vibrant orange. I remember that I didn't finish it in time, and when she opened up the present and lifted it out, it fell into the separate, unsewn-together pieces. I did finish it up later though.

The next picture is from a Columbia Minerva ad. The sweaters were offered in a kit that provided the yarn with instructions for all four sweaters, and you could choose which one to make. These sweaters were called 'Blazers' and had lapels and several styles of front closure. The kit was called the Quartette, and sold for $4.29 at department stores and yarn shops.

The pink V-neck sweater also appears in a Columbia Minerva ad. This raglan-sleeved sweater has the classic styling seen so often in the early sixties. The V neckline has a double band that is turned to the outside and stitched down. The mohair sweater is trimmed with embroidery and beading. It was also offered as a kit and sold for $11.95, quite a bit more than the previous kit.
Knitting magazines from this period had a lot of references to skiing and fashions for this sport. When I was a kid, lots of my friends used to go skiing with their families, driving up to the Sierras in the winter. This was way too pricey an activity for my family, though. I never missed it, since several of my friends came back with broken legs, and since I wasn't all that athletic, that would surely have been my fate. The man's pullover, knit in worsted weight, is a simple two-color fair isle with a nice balance between the dark and light colors. The lady's cardigan is done in double knitting, zips up the front, and has matching mittens.
This winter has made me very glad I am a knitter since it is the coldest, foggiest winter I can remember. I am really using all of my cardigans.

Saturday, December 27, 2008

New Needlecase

I made another sock needle travel case for my daughter, M, and it turned out even better than the one I made for myself. I used a leftover knitting gauge swatch that happened to be purple and found a pair of purple-handled scissors to put in the implement pockets. I drew out the template for the case on the heavy interfacing using rulers and a bread plate for the curve of the flap. I used this as a pattern for the decorator fabric and the lining.


There is a circle of elastic to hold the "book" closed along with velcro on the flap and at the lower righthand corner. The flap is to keep the sock needles from falling out. The case opens up to show two rows of pockets on the right, and a knitted surface on the left that used to be a gauge swatch to keep the yarn needles, safety pins for row counting, cable needles and a few pins stuck through the knitting.


You can see how much I have improved over the prototype that I made for myself:
Right now I am trying to finish up the husband socks that didn't make the finish line for Christmas. My younger daughter was wearing a really cute sweater this week so she let me take it and take the measurements off of it to reproduce at a later date, so I need to write up a pattern for that. A whole new year of knitting is about to start!

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Frosty Day

This is about as cold as it ever looks in our neck of the woods. I think the lowest ever temperature I can remember here was in the low 20's, and today it is in the low 30's with frost on the ground. Life is so tough in the Golden State, well at our elevation anyway.


I am finished with all of my Christmas crafting which is so unusual to be done ahead of time that I don't quite know how to fill the rest of the time until Christmas. Today I am cooking up a pot of vegetable soup and considering making some Christmas cookies.

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Retro Knit Saturday!

Here we are back in the World's Fair issue of Modern Needlecraft, Fall Winter 1964. This magazine sometimes had up to four or five fashions on a single page, and it is not a large magazine. The first photo below shows two pullovers and a cardigan. The cardigan is knit of a fuzzy yarn with the yarn held double so that the gauge is about 4 1/2 sts/inch. It is a classic man's collared cardigan with cable trim up the fronts and at the raglan seams. The bulky weight boat-neck pullover is knit in turquoise for the background color and 'oxford' (maybe a dark grey?) for the contrast color. It has dropped sleeves and is knit at 3 sts/inch. The 3/4-length sleeve pullover is knit of knitting worsted at 4 sts/inch. It has a ribbed yoke and sleeves and a cabled body.The cardigan on the left in the next picture below is a raglan-sleeved crocheted cardigan. The texture pattern is created by crocheting one row of sc and the next row of slip stitch. The sweater is made from the top down. The sweater on the right, a roll-collar pullover in knitting-worsted-weight yarn, was a style considered to be popular for college girls and campus life. The argyle plaid pullover has kimono sleeves and a boat neck and is knit in stockinette stitch.

Another page packed with fashions! The suit on the left is knit of mohair. The classic cardigan in blue at the bottom is knit with a double strand of knitting worsted from the bottom up. The simple red coat has raglan sleeves and a V neckline, and the classic shift dress has a pattern stitch made with 'double purl stitches', has a crocheted neckband, 3/4 sleeves and a belt made from yarn twisted on itself.
The outfits below were made on knitting machines. You have to love that hat is all I have to say about that. The left outfit consists of a coat, shell, skirt, jacket and hat. The coat and hat are lined/trimmed with fake fur fabric. The outfit on the right is a sheath dress with matching cape knit on the Passap Duomatic.

Here's the description for the center dress on the next page: 'Framed in center circle, this page, is wonderfully packable, lightweight shift that can be worn beltless if desired. Combining light toast and beige tones, checked shift is made of Reynolds' mohair yarn." Upper right shows another cardigan with embossed leaves marching up the front, but this one also has leaves on the collar. I couldn't think at first what the dolman sweater in bottom right reminded me of, crawling up the neck the way it does and with those short stubby sleeves, but then I realized that it looks like a lot of dog sweaters I have seen. It is supposed to be a French-inspired design.
Today I am going to start turning the heels on the husband's Christmas socks. I was looking for some decent color of Woolease to make him some more winter socks, but they only had 'girly' colors at the Michaels. The navy they had was much too bright, not a glum man color at all.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Butterflies

What a gorgeous day yesterday was! The spouse had yet another meeting down in Carmel, so I went along for the ride. I dropped him off at the office and then drove to Pacific Grove. This is the view towards the ocean through my windshield, and you can see the ocean and the fog bank behind it.I walked around a bit, investigating several antique shops, then I went into the (free!) natural history museum. While there, I went into the museum shop and bought small gifts for the girls and began a conversation with the nice lady behind the counter. She told me that this is the time of year that the monarchs come back to the area. Somehow I always thought that would be in the spring, not at Christmastime. She told me where the butterfly sanctuary was so I decided to try to find it. I promptly got lost, well, as lost as you can get in a small town, and turned in at the municipal golf course. I asked the cute guy at the golf shop where the butterfly sanctuary was, and he gave me excellent directions. I had only overdriven by about two blocks. I found the location and parked next to the adult school. Monarchs were flying around over my head and hovering over the ivy wall.

Access to the grove is a pathway between two lots.
My goodness, what a beautiful day it was. It is a little sad that butterflies are so hard to photograph unless you are a professional like these two guys with the biggest cameras I have ever seen (not only as big as their head, but as big as their head and an arm too). The following picture shows a flock of butterflies feeding on the grass.

The grove had pathways to walk on, and as you walked the lovely orange butterflies would buzz your head and swirl around you. They would land in the trees.
The lady park ranger person was holding a butterfly that she was trying to warm up by blowing on it, so she posed it for me on the ground:


What a lovely experience. Now that I know what time of year to go there, I will have to take the spouse with me next year.
After that, I drove down Lighthouse Avenue and went to Olio, my favorite store in the area. She had a very good selection of vintage sewing stuff. I may have purchased some items, including a wonderful pattern for a man's sport shirt from the late 40's in just the right size for the spouse. I see some Hawaiian shirts in his future.

Friday, December 5, 2008

Retro Knit Friday!

Here's the last few fashions shown in the Columbia Minerva booklet from the early sixties. The sweaters are worn with slacks, straight skirts, and the sheath dress, which seems to be back in style.
The first sweater is a jacket trimmed with wide ribbon. The ribbon is threaded through gaps in the knitting and trims the sleeves and neckline. The gaps are formed by tying on new balls of yarn for every separate section of knitting, then joining all the sections together. All of these sweaters are made with the yarn called 'Firenze' which knit up at about 3 sts/inch.
The suit has a short jacket and a straight skirt. The sleeves of the jacket are cast onto the body, and all the edges are finished with knitted facings. The jacket closes with applied leather tabs.
This is a nice classic little jacket with cable-trimmed front edges and 3/4 set-in sleeves. It looks great over a sheath dress. The pattern is written in four sizes, from 12 to 18. The size 18 was for a body bust measurement of around 39 inches.
Boy, this pullover has Super Texture - a ridged pattern in the bulky yarn. You would really have to be slim to escape the weight-adding properties of this sporty sweater.

My husband is reporting to me that he loves the Woolease socks that he got for Christmas last year. It hasn't been cold enough to wear them before this fall. He says they are very warm and comfortable and are wearing well so far.