Creative Cables Throw

Some time last year I started knitting the Creative Cables Throw from Martin Storey’s Afghan Knits book.

I like the look of the design but I really dislike the colours.  They look really bitty and random.  I looked in my stash and found 7 colours which I liked better. 

I haven’t  finished it – it will take months – but I have finished knitting the first strip.

This is an easy one – just one row of twists in an 8 row pattern.  When I started knitting it – I immediately came to a problem – the diagram suggests you put the twist on the back (Row 2) – which must be wrong – so I have moved it to the following row (Row 3). 

As I have said the pattern is easy but it is also quite boring.  It is OK if you are watching something interesting on TV but otherwise it is boring.   I had intended to just finish the strip I had been knitting – and then come back to the project later.  However – I have got interested again and no sooner had I finished the first strip – I began another one.

This is a 4 row pattern with 2 rows of twists.  I think it is actually easier to knit because – the use of the cable needle is intensive rather than spaced out – so you need to concentrate in small sections.  I may change my mind after a few hundred rows.

Anyway – the first strip I knitted is Strip 5 and this one is Strip 6.  I am knitting them as they appeal to me.  The thinking is if I leave the most difficult one until last – I will be thinking – I have only got to finish this one for the project to be finished.  This is not strictly true as I will have the edging to do.

In the end I didn’t start knitting again this year until 14 January.  I did finish the shawl I had been making and then I sewed up a jumper I had been making.  I haven’t tried that on yet – it may not be completely finished if it needs adjustments. 

Apart from the Creative Cables Throws project – I have also cast on something quite complicated – but I will write about that next week.

An Original Design?

“Thrice the brinded cat hath mew’d” is the title of the book that I am reading.  It has nothing to do with knitting but I mention it because it is a quote from Macbeth.  The author has used this line from Shakespeare, and Shakespeare himself was inspired by other writers and story tellers.  This week I have been thinking about what makes an original design – and the answer is not an easy one.  In fact I am not sure that there is such a thing as a completely original design because although you might think it is new – you may have seen something like it somewhere without remembering.

It is easier to say what is not acceptable.  It is not acceptable to take a published pattern and claim it as your own.  There is a grey area though.  I have often intended to knit a published pattern – but I have decided that I want to use a different yarn, and then I decide to use much larger needles – and then I decide to do a different stitch – the finished item could end up nothing like the design that inspired it.  I am still working on my variation of the 10 stitch blanket.  It is almost finished and I will publish photos of it but I don’t think I will write down what I have done because I have really just used the central section of the 10 stitch blanket and repeated it 20 times.  I don’t think I can say it is my design although I have not consciously seen it before.

Yesterday I went to Oxford for the Knitting and Crochet Guild meeting.  I was supposed to be leading a session on Creative Knitting, but I know that most people are not very interested in that as a topic.  Also it is hard to be creative at 2.30 on a Saturday afternoon – ideas come at odd times.  I therefore decided to use the session to tackle a project that had been suggested to me.  This comes back to the question of “what is an original design?”.  Someone has produced a representation of a bookcase made from patchwork fabric and embroidery.  It was suggested that we could knit something similar to hang in local libraries.  The patchwork was a quilt but we decided to make some panels instead rather than one large item.

I have come up with one design by knitting individual strips representing  the spines of books.

Most of them are inspired by actual book spines (and therefore – of course - are not original!)  I have never consciously seen them knitted before so I hope the knitting pattern is original although the idea is not! 

I hope to finish off the panel I am doing in the next month or so.  I should say week or so, but I want to work on some other projects that I have started and not finished – such as the 10 stitch blanket variation and a shawl that I started as a portable project.  I am also fighting the urge to start knitting a lovely Brian Smith shawl that is the latest edition of Knitting magazine.

A Portable Knitting Project

Now it is August - it seems more like summer at last and I have been travelling about.  I needed something portable to knit.  I am still knitting my latest throw when I am at home, but I needed something that is light to carry about and only uses one ball at a time. 

At this time of the year I usually start thinking about decluttering – and taking bags of unwanted items to work to pass on to the Cancer Research charity.  I found a scarf I knitted years ago and thought – that could go.

It is knitted from 3 mitred strips of multi-coloured yarn and is an ideal portable project.  I thought – I will go to Banbury Sewing Centre and buy 3 balls of suitable yarn to knit another one.  (Did you notice that instead of getting rid of a scarf – I have now acquired 3 more balls of yarn?)  They were in the sale!

They are Rico Creative Reflection which is 46% wool, 46% acrylic and 8% polyester.  The shade (003) is quite subtle, but will go well with black. 

I have knitted most of one strip of the scarf so far – I expect it will be finished later in the month.  I will type up the pattern then for any of you that would like to knit one.  I can’t seem to get a good photo of it yet.  At the moment it looks like a knitted snake!

Knitting and Darts

Most people might think that knitting and darts are incompatible and certainly you can’t play darts and knit at the same time - but I have seen people knitting in the audience.  I love watching darts and find it hard to do any complicated knitting because I just get engrossed.  Fortunately, I am just knitting garter stitch squares for my charity blanket – so I can get some knitting done.

A couple of years ago I designed a darts inspired tea cosy for All the Fun of the Fair.

I originally knitted some tea cosies consisting of 6 panels and then while watching the darts – I thought “I could knit a dart board!”.  If anyone else is interested in knitting a dart board tea cosy – the pattern is available from All the Fun of the Fair on Ravelry.

Knitted Poppy Tea Cosy

After a few false starts I have knitted a tea cosy which consists of 3 strips on each side.  I then sewed them together, and added a few rows at the top and bottom to neaten the edges and to get the right length.  I toyed with the idea of a green tab to finish it off, but decided that the pom-pom looks better. 

I had intended to do more strips and more poppies but I think that would be better suited to a complicated fair-isle/intarsia design.  With this design, I quite like the way the whole poppy seems to be at the centre of a cross.

I have thought of 3 other ideas for tea cosies with poppies on and I am now off to cast one on.

 

Modular Knitting or Strip Knitting?

In this blog I tend to use the term “modular knitting” to refer to all forms of knitting which involve knitting shapes – squares, oblongs, L-shapes, triangles or even irregular shapes.

Horst Schulz uses the term “patchwork knitting” to describe his modular knitting.  I tend to use this term just for quilts and throws.

Vivian Høxbro uses the term “domino knitting” to describe her modular knitting – but she mainly uses squares and shapes involving squares.

There is another lesser-used term – “strip knitting”.  Much of my modular knitting is really strip knitting.   The photo below shows a commercially bought bag covered in strip knitting.  I was trying to use up very small bits of Fandango yarn – so I knitted very narrow strips.

 

The tea cosy that I am currently working on is an example of strip knitting.  When I say “currently working on” I mean “thinking about” – actually this week I have been knitting a very small jacket for a baby who arrived last weekend.  This afternoon I am going to get on with roughing out a pattern for my tea cosy.