Purlwise

Grafting results

It was a full week before I gather enough courage to press on with the daunting deed.

The first attempt seemed quite easy until I pulled out the waste yarn and found that all of the purl stitches were sew as if they were knit stitches. Of course I ripped it all out and tried again. I had much better results on the second try only missing one stitch that I was able to fix with a imperceivable patch job.

Here are a few photos.

	As I mentioned before, the sleeve was started with a provisional cast-on using a separate waste yarn. That wast yarn was removed and the remaining live stitches were transfered to a thin nylon thread. With the top part of the ribbing piece tucked under the bottom part of the sleeve, both pieces were grafted together with a darning needle. A row of thin white nylon cord served as a guide.
	Sewing alternated between stitches on the ribbing and the live ones from the sleeve. This photo shows the needle as it entered a stitch in the ribbing. It was then pulled through the next ribbing stitch on the left.
	After completing the two rib stitches I switched to the sleeve stitches. These two stitches form a knit stitch. I quickly got into a rhythm of sewing two stitches from the sleeve and then two stitches from the ribbing. When all stitches were completed I removed the waste yarns.
	Here are the results. Not bad, if I do say so myself.

Grafting pattern stitches

The v-neck pullover should have been finished long ago but I've been stuck trying to figure out what to do with the ribbing around the body and wrists. 

Like the previous three sweaters, this one was started with a provisional cast-on with the assumption that I would later work the ribbing in the opposite direction and finished it with an invisible bind off. But unfortunately I wasn't fully aware that when stitches are worked in the opposite direction they end up being  1/2 stitch off of the ones going in the other direction. If I forge ahead and working the ribbing as "planned" some of my knit and purl stitches will not line up with the ones on the rib. If I want the stitches to properly line up I'll have to graft the ribbing to the body. What a daunting task!

Jean suggested making swatches out of a lighter yarn and practicing before attempting the feat.

So without much of an idea of what to do I made my swatches and fiddled around with them for a few days. Luckily Michale saw me struggling to come up with a solution and came to my rescue with her copy of Lucy Neatby's DVD. Lucy has an interesting technique that makes grafting look easy. Basically she knits beyond the edge of the pieces with waste yarn and then holding the to-be-grafted rows together uses the stitches on the waste yarn as a guide to graft a new row of stitches. I'm going to adopt this technique but adjusted it a bit to suite my circumstance.

To start, I worked the 1x1 rib as usual minus one row. The last row was then worked in a light colored slippery yarn (white). The next two rows were worked in a third color (green) with the same pattern as the body before switching to stockinette stitch.

Now I'm all set to start grafting. The row of white stitches will serve as my guide. I'll thread my darning needle with a piece of  purple yarn (used for the body and cuff) and then start stitching close to the white  thread, creating a new row of stitches as I go.  I'll mimic the stitches as they enter and exit the green waste yarn and then ribbing.  Where ever the white yarn enter/exits a stitch in the green waste yarn, I'll do the same with the stitches on the sleeve and likewise with the ribbing side. After all stitches have been grafted I'll remove the white and green yarn.

Wish me luck. I'll be sure to give an update on how it turns out.

Darn cat, I can't seem to keep her off of the round neck cardigan while it dries.

 

Diagonal Hat

Late this week I received Jean Wong's* diagonal hat pattern that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. The next day I ran over to a local yarn store and picked up a couple of skeins of Noro Kureyon. Once on the needles, I couldn't put it down. It took just over one day to finish.

This hat is cleverly constructed by knitting back and forth diagonally between the brim and the crown without the need for short-rows. To finish the hat, the provisionally cast-on beginning edge is grafted together with the other edge at a section where garter stitch rows meet.

Thanks to Principles of Knitting, it wasn't too difficult to figure out how to graft garter stitches. It's similar to grafting stockinette stitch from two knitting needles except the sequence is a bit different.

Grafting Garter Stitches:

Place needles parallel. Front needle has purl stitches and back has knit stitches.

1. Starting stitches:
With threaded sewing needle enter first stitch on front needle as if to purl. Pull thread through. Now enter first stitch on back needle as if to purl. Pull thread through

2. With sewing needle slip first front stitch knitwise and remove stitch from the knitting needle, pulling thread through the loop. Enter next stitch on front needle purlwise and pull thread through.

3. With sewing needle slip first back stitch knitwise and remove stitch from knitting needles, pulling thread through the loop. Enter next stitch on back needle purlwise and pull thread through.

4. Repeat 2 & 3 until no stitches remain.

 *Jean doesn't have the pattern listed on her website. I found out about her pattern when she was the featured speaker at a local guild meeting. Everyone at the meeting was very impressed with her work and asked about purchasing patterns. A week later I asked via email if I could purchase a copy of the hat pattern and she graciously put one together. She's been teaching for quite sometime at Wool and Wicker in Richmond BC and is apparently branching out. She's put a lot of work into the DVD on her website but I not sure if she has anticipated requests for patterns of her designs. If you're interested in this pattern you can email her via her website. Just keep in mind that's she's probably doing this in her spare time.

Lily, your socks are done!

As I write this entry I'm listening to French hip-hop rap accordion music  by Java. I acquired this unique CD after listening to an NPR music review while on the way home from a Java programming class a couple years ago. At that time, I appreciated the music as well as the coincidence between the group's name and my choice of programming languages.

This morning I noticed that the coincidences continue.  The woman on the cover is holding knitting needles and yarn although she doesn't appear to actually know how to knit. On the back cover there's a picture of her grasping the needles in an "X" position and the yarn is draped around the needles in a tangled mess. Not to take this too seriously, but it's funny how others perceive knitting as only a kitschy thing. I guess we can blame that on knitted toilet paper covers and the like.

Here are the completed socks. I'll be giving them to Lily in a couple of weeks and hope to get better photos then.

Since I started from the cuff I had to close the toes using the Kitchener stitch. I can never remember how to do this from memory so I decided to capture pictures of the process.