Kingscot Button Update

I asked you not once but twice for help choosing buttons for this cardi, and then I repaid your helpful comments with stony silence. Where are my manners? I do apologise - I can only imagine that the suspense must have been unbearable, so without further ado...

You may notice that I have gone for none of the previously photographed options. That is because of the words of a rather brusque anonymous commentator (who upon a little probing turned out to be my mother), which hit home:

I think you should find ones that match the shade of the wool - it's busy enough already, better to choose something that doesn't attract any attention. The green ones are very nice, but a bit too fussy for this garment, I would say.

 I had been working on this project for such a long time that I had lost sight of its elaborateness. My mother was right (isn't it annoying when that happens?): this is not a cardigan that needs sparkly buttons, contrasting buttons, flowery buttons, buttons dancing around doing jazz hands. This cardigan calls for demure, slightly pearlescent buttons in a shade similar to the yarn, little blue plastic droplets of buttons that could pass more or less unnoticed through the teal sea twists and bobbles. So that's what it got. I hope you approve.

Help me choose buttons!

 Kingscot needs closure(s). But should they be the iridescent glass ones at the top, or the green flower ones at the bottom? I like how the first ones echo the shape of the bobbles, and perhaps their more neutral colour would be more versatile. Then again, I love the contrast of the green... I need your help! Sometimes I think that choosing the buttons is the trickiest part of making a cardigan.

Kingscot Cardigan

I went on a riverside walk yesterday to see the Antony Gormley statues, pick some wild brambles, and take some photos of my finished (but still buttonless) Kingscot cardigan.

I am so utterly delighted with this new addition to my wardrobe, not least because it is the first sweater project I have finished since Audrey in Unst last November.

The design is a fine one, by knitting demi-god Norah Gaughan, with cables and bobbles inspired by gothic windows gently curving to shape the fronts, and rope-like cables snaking up the back. My one criticism is that it is supposed to be knit in many pieces - it even has you knit the button-bands separately then seam them to the body. I hate this kind of construction, so adapted the pattern to be entirely seamless apart from the shoulder seam (if you're interested in the technical details of that, I made quite comprehensive notes on my Ravelry project page).

The yarn is the smooth, soft Debbie Bliss Cashmerino DK in teal blue. This was, in fact, one of the first sweater's-worth of yarn I ever purchased, almost two years ago. I am now much more easily seduced by  hand-painted skeins, or small, independent producers, and I would be less likely to buy such a commercial yarn. I have to say, though, that it was a pleasure to work with (apart from the loosely-wound balls that fall apart as you knit from them), and produced an impressively even, snuggly fabric.

This yarn also featured in the stash pledge I made a year ago. I did break that pledge in that I bought more yarn, but actually haven't purchased any more in sweater quantities. I wonder if this is part of what has made me less enthusiastic about knitting jumpers and cardigans - that worthy but also ever so slightly dreary feeling of knitting from stash. Hmm... I appear to be justifying the buying of more yarn - this could end badly! [ETA: I've just realised this is a filthy lie - I did buy some yarn to make a cardigan and completely forgot about it! Probably a strong argument against buying more...]

I still have to decide on buttons for Kingscot - I may be asking your advice soon!

450g of pure knitted success

Jock the Sock and Steve the Sleeve

I have been having a super busy month performing in and reviewing shows at the Edinburgh fringe. In whatever little pockets of time I can find, I whip Jock the Sock out of my bag.

I'm just starting the gusset decreases on the second sock, and I am very much looking forward to having toasty toes this winter!

In slightly more capacious pockets of time, I have been working on Steve the Sleeve:

Steve is all that stands between me and completion of my Kingscot cardigan, which has been meekly hibernating for months.

It has been a long time since I completed a cardigan or jumper - I seem to have been knitting industrial quantities of lace of late - and I have rather missed the feeling of creating a new garment (as opposed to accessory). I have got my eye on several sweater patterns, including the aforementioned Buttercup (ravlink), and several of Kate Davies designs (Manu, and the hopefully forthcoming Tortoise and Hare).

Body of a King(scot)

I have finally finished the body of Kingscot. I was rather worried that, despite my careful swatching, this was going to be a disastrous fit, but thankfully it seems to have worked out alright. I plan to work the sleeves top down for to make this completely seamless (hooray!). Now my only doubt is which vintage buttons to choose - the chunky pearls, which echo the bobbles quite nicely, or the sparkly glass ones, which proved tricky to photograph. 

What do you do it to?

Last night, I got quite a lot of work done on Kingscot as I watched the undeniably execrable yet oddly compulsive Take Me Out. One of the things I love most about knitting is its compatibility with other activities - chatting to friends, listening to music, or, in this case, watching programmes featuring Paddy McGuinness, thirty single ladies and the catchphrase 'No likey, no lighty'.

I enjoy the symmetry of knitting to podcasts about knitting: Stash and Burn, Never Not Knitting, Doubleknit, and the infrequent but inspired Insubordiknit are my favourites. Recently, however, I have been attempting to aurally submerge myself in the Laahndahn accent for a play, and so have found myself sucked in to Eastenders (Archie's murder! Stacey's pregnancy! Roxy getting the Vic!), as well as listening to this excellent cd. All of this has made me curious what other people make stuff to. Have you discovered an exciting new band? Have you been revisiting the early films of Ingmar Bergman? Do you find a zen-like silence to be a better conduit to craft? Leave a comment, and let me know!

Cream-crackered Crafting

Late-night crafting and me do not mix, it seems. I had been feeling so smug about Kingscot: 'Why would anyone knit it in pieces when it's such a piece of cake doing it seamlessly?' I thought to my smug self, smugly. I finished the armhole decreases last night and stopped to check my stitch count. Both fronts were A-OK. The back... hang on a second, that can't be right, let me count that again. No, I still appeared to be short not one, not two but TEN STITCHES. Part of me was upset and more than a little mystified. Another part - the fearless, nocturnal adventurer part - saw this as an exciting opportunity to do what this blog's name suggests: to drop stitches, and hook them back to the path of righteousness.

It was rather enjoyable watching stitches that had been bound together reassuming their own separate identities, as I crocheted them back up the rungs of the dropped-stitch ladder. I was nearing the end of my knitting emergency rescue, when I glanced down to double check just how many stitches I should have. And saw that I had been looking at the wrong bit of the pattern. And had had the right number of stitches to begin with. So I had to drop all of my newly-created stitches and re-decrease them, by which time I think I may have been wielding my hook with more than a little frustration, resulting in this slight pulling of stitches. Stitches which had of course been totally fine to begin with.

So this evening I decided to change crafting tack and get better acquainted with - or, rather, introduce myself to - my sewing machine.

Other than giving a foot pedal a nervous little tap in the shop where I chose my machine, I hadn't done any sewing since my last Home Economics class when I was about 13, and even then I wasn't really paying attention (out of laziness masquerading as ersatz feminism). Since I have started perusing awesome sewing blogs, such as 'So, Zo...' (she made pants!) and Gertie's New Blog for Better Sewing, and have become aware of the repository of gorgeousness that is Colette Patterns I have been longing to learn. I bought myself some inexpensive muslin, and screwed my courage to the sticking-place. A cautious straight stitch went fairly smoothly. I tried seaming two pieces together; also ok. This sewing malarkey was not as tricky as I thought! Then the curvaceous form of #26 caught my eye. I popped on my satin stitch foot...

... with a bit less success...

I was a little indignant at that woeful, shrivelled leaf. #26 wasn't going to get the better of me. I tried again... I'm almost too embarrassed to show the result.

I forgot to drop my presser foot, and my fabric was sucked down into the hell-mouth of the needle-plate. Instead of a playful leaf, I basically created a monstrous muslin arsehole. There was a hairy (maybe not a good word to use so close to arsehole) moment when I wasn't sure if I'd ever be able to liberate the offending scrap from my machine. Just as I managed to unwedge it, my desk lamp flickered out, plunging me into stygian gloom. Curses.

So it hasn't been a very productive couple of nights. I know I'm more liable to make mistakes when I'm exhausted, but then it can be hard to find time during the day... have you found a solution to this? I'd also love to hear about other people's nocturnal crafting mishaps, to stop me feeling so sorry for myself.

Cables and Bobbles and Teal, Oh My!

I have started work on sweater #2 of the six I pledged to knit from stash. This yarn (Debbie Bliss Cashmerino DK) is in fact the longest-standing tenant of the yasteroid; I am glad to see it finally moving out. The pattern is Kingscot by knitting wizard Norah Gaughan, a Gothic-inspired cardigan awash with cables and bobbles.

So far this has been a most entertaining knit: I am as eager to get to the next development in the cable panel as I might be to find out what happens next in an exciting book. It is amazing how complicated but interesting things seems to go so much quicker than easy but boring ones. The pattern is written for pieces, but I am knitting the body and twisted rib button bands as one piece to avoid seaming - a simple modification, though one that does involve a lot of flicking between different pages. I have been continually thankful that I  know how to cable without a cable needle: those on the back twist on every right side row (I have been enjoying listening to the song 'The Twist' by Frightened Rabbit while doing all this twisting of stitches). I have just split for the armholes, making it a bit of an unwieldy beast with three balls of yarn dangling off it, so I have also started a smaller, more portable project which I shall save for a future post.

Edited for spelling!