To the Mattress!

Greetings!  It is finally fall here on the eastern plains of Colorado.  The nights are getting to be chilly and the days are cooler, most of the time.  Still a mid or high 80F here and there...
Fall is my favorite season; the crunchy leaves, all the different colors of grasses, fire pits and of course pumpkin everything.  I hope that whatever season you are currently you can see joy in something.

This last week I finished my Journey to the Cape sweater, from BohoChic Fiber Arts.  I worked it in two differnet colors because that was what I had in worsted weight yarn.  I didn't put any thought into which color would be the back and which would be the front.  I am very pleased with how it ended up though.  I'm not so sure that the cables would have shown up as nicely in the darker orange.
I don't have many new pictures to share as it was just removed from the bath for blocking this morning.

I do want to share with you the joining technique that I used to join the front to the back, it is called the mattress stitch; but first let me update you on my projects and what I've been up to.

I didn't post last week as there just wasn't much to share in the way of projects.  I did go to Schacht Spindle Company's 50th anniversary in Boulder, Colorado.  Carl and I had a great time there.  We shopped, volunteered and ate.  The weather was sunny and not too hot.  It was a wonderful day outside.  We met the owners, Berry and Jane and their daughter Nora.  The entire family and staff were very welcoming.  Anne Merrow and Elizabeth Prose from Long Thread Media were there, as well as Linda Ligon with Thrums books.  Carl surprised me with a new bag from Hummingbird Moon and I bought a braid of the Berries Julbilee from Sweet Georgia.

The other items in the pictures are fiber to dye for a prize for Spin Together 2019, a back strap loom with a partial project from Cloth Roads and a new children's book about fiber.


That same weekend was the Art Walk in down town Longmont, Colorado, which isn't far from Boulder.  Carl and I stayed the night in Longmont to participate in the Art Walk the next day.  Before going to the art walk we walked around the farmer's market at the Boulder county fair grounds.  We bought a pint of ghost peppers and some green tomatoes for frying.  Carl has since dried the ghost peppers in the dehydrator in the garage.  The smell was too much to do it in the house.  For lunch we went to our favorite diner, Aunt Alice's near 17th and Main.  Longmont Yarn Shoppe hosted the faster knitter and crocheter contest for Boulder county.  I only participated in the knit part and won first place.  Then we did a fashion show.  It was a lot of fun!  We did all of this right in the middle of Main Street.

I have been hard at work on my Journey sweater so that I could take it to Stitches Salt Lake; more on that in a minute.  I have also gone back to working on my Love you too socks.  I have finished one and am about a third of the way through the 2nd.  I am hoping to wear them, with the sweater and a skirt I sewed at the fashion show in Salt Lake on Friday night.  I have nearly finished Dolores' new outfit for Salt Lake as well.

Stitches Salt Lake is going to be many firsts for me; my first time on a plane, first time traveling alone and my first Franklin Habit class.  I am really excited about this trip!  I leave on Wednesday afternoon.  I am staying in the Little America hotel.  I know nothing about it, only that it is a half mile walk to the Salt Palace Convention Center where Stitches is happening.  I am taking two classes with Franklin; Tessellations and Steek and Zip.  I am very excited for both classes.  I haven't finished my homework for Steek and Zip yet but will in time for class on Saturday.  Thursday night is the vendor and designer fashion show and a PJ party.  Friday night is the student fashion show and banquet.  This is going to be a great week!  I will share pictures in 2 weeks.


Now for the mattress stitch technique.  I used this stitch when finishing the Scrappy Knit Pillow, but had to go look it up again to see exactly how it is done.  I found this site, took a couple of screen shots and was on my way again.  When I did it on the pillow I followed exactly what the directions said.  This time I was curious what would happen if I did it in the middle of a stitch.  This sweater has a two stitch selvedge; the very edge stitch is garter and the other stitch is stockinette.  I decided to join the front and the back of the sweater using the mattress stitch in the middle of the stockinette stitches.

Here is what happened.

I actually screamed when I snugged up those stitches and got this amazing seam.  I will share a couple more photos and the basics of how I did this here.  On Friday I will share video on IG in my stories and then archive it so it'll be there for later viewing.

Here I have used the bar in the center of each V to sew the pieces together.

Here is a shot of each side of the selvedge stitches.

Next post will be in two weeks with finished photos on this sweater and pictures from Stitches Salt Lake.  If you don't want to wait check out Azariahs1982 on IG as I will be posting there at least daily.

Happy making!
And happy fall!

Charts are Our Friends, just like blueberries!

Hi Everyone!
I hope that the weather change where ever you are has been nice for you be it cooling down or warming up.  Here in Eastern Colorado it is still a mix bag.  The mornings are cool enough for a shawl or light sweater but you want it gone by lunch.  I am very ready for Fall and can't wait for the leaves to begin to fall.

I have finally finished my Sparkling Leaves sweater!  There is still no picture of me wearing however because it took a week for it to dry after blocking.  I don't have a sweater blocker and didn't see the need until this week.  I will be ordering one soon.  I didn't have light for a picture last night but will get one this afternoon and post it to IG tomorrow.

Here is the finished sweater folded on my lap.  The neck stretched out a bit when I moved the sweater to dry on a chair...  It'll be okay until next blocking I think.  If not I'll reblock just the collar.  If I have to do that I'll have a tutorial here on how to do that.

I have been hard at work on my Journey to the Cape sweater as well as my Bonfire Poncho.  I am really enjoying both of them.  I don't have any pictures of either of them that you haven't seen yet.  The cable pictures from last week are from the sweater and I haven't taken any photos of the poncho in a while.  I will do that before joining the to sides this week and share next week.
Both of these pieces have cables and some texture stitches so both are interesting.

This week I also made a small prayer cloth for my best friend, Robbie, who celebrated being clean for a year.  Here is a picture of it.

I made the trinity symbol from purl stitches.  I wasn't sure how well it would show up on the black but I think it turned out decent in the black and since I charted it free hand.  I will probably use this motif again.  I filed that chart away in my box of ideas.  I will cover in a future post how I try to keep ideas organized so that I can find them later.

So now to get to the point of this post really, charts.  I know some of you cringe at that word, just like the word swatch.  Ha ha ha!  Okay enough of that.  Charts really can be your friend, if you take the time to get to know them.  They have saved my knitting life again and again.

The most recent save was actually during a test knit, this one. I was struggling with the math of one of the rounds and how the stitches were supposed to work out.  I decided to chart it so that in my left handedness I could "see" what was going on.  After some experience with charts you will learn to read the chart and it will also help you learn to read your knitting.

I read a knitting chart from left to right on the right side of a piece and from right to left on the wrong side of a piece.  A right handed knitter will read the chart the opposite direct for each of those.  The idea is that you want to be working the stitches and reading the chart in the same direction.  Think of the chart like a fence.  A fence has two sides.  For the right side, the front you walk down the fence one way, for the wrong side, you will turn your piece around, and walk back down the other side oft he fence, thus seeing a different side.  The only time you work from the same direction for both odd and even numbers is when working in the round.  Then you will continually walk around a round fenced pen.

Anything that has pictures or letters I have to have a chart to make sure it is correct.

Charts usually take up less space and visually make more sense than word written directions.  This is not always the case however.  I have worked more than one test knit that prints out at over ten pages and I wondered why didn't they chart this?  I soon learned that a chart would take much more space than necessary; either for the empty spaces from the shifting stitches or because there was no true repeat of rows.  However on the other end of that I am working that cabled sweater from 6 total pages of directions, because the cables are charted.

Charted cables really are the best way to go with charts, then you know exactly which way each cable is supposed to lean just by looking at the chart.  No flipping back to see where the cable needle needs to be, again with some experience.

I use cables for lace, with or with out row or round repeats, as to write lace directions would cause my eyes to cross and I don't think anyone would do lace.

Color work is the most popular for charts, it would be nearly impossible without charts.  These are an okay place to start for reading charts, but then you have the 2 colors or more to deal with.  Another good place could be something similar that I made like the little pocket prayer cloth above.  It is just texture, done all in one color but I did use a chart from both the right and the wrongs sides. If you are interested in it just ask and I'll send you a pdf with directions to get started.

I did successfully start two projects this week.  Ri's mitts for Christmas.  I have half of a cuff worked.  The yarn ended but I'm not sure why but I thought it was a good time to talk to him about length for the cuff.  Yesterday he told me he would like it to be twice as long please.  So I will finish that this week and start working on the color work.

I also started a new outfit for Dolores, the Sensuous Ewe Caftan.  I am hoping to have this finished for her for Utah.  I really am enjoying the yarn that came in the kit from Webs.  That is one of the biggest reasons I order and make these kits for Dolores, to get to use yarns I probably wouldn't get to use otherwise.  I wouldn't order a shawls worth of yarn for myself.  I am also working with all different weights, fibers and colors.  Helps me get out of the box a little bit.

Next week I'll show you a couple of different ways to work a granny square and talk about differnet reasons and applications for each method.

Until then...
Happy making!

BTW I did get some demo cable videos up on IG if you want to see I'm Azariahs1982

Look Ma, no needle!

Happy Monday Everyone!

It feels so good to get back to some normal finally. This week is scheduled to be "normal". Keeping in mind that I need to be flexible. As Pastor Chuck Smith often said "Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be broken." So true. I'm just happy to be standing on the threshold of a week that doesn't have 3 days full of stuff to do. I get to be at home, doing the work I love. Test knitting, designing and this week I start Christmas presents!

I'm also planning for my trip to Stitches Salt Lake. I'll talk about all of that and working cables without a cable needle. So grab something to drink and let's get started.

I will finally finish my Sparkling Leaves Sweater tonight. Since I was slow working it, I was able to test the sleeve shaping out so that Jill could see it before the pattern went live. It went live today.  Here is the pattern.

I worked the 3X size. I used Nature Spun in sport weight from The Brown Sheep Company. The main color was Harvest Grape and the color of the leaves is called Mill Blue. It took me longer than I expected because of the heat we have been experiencing here in Colorado. Knitting with a wool sweater on my lap in 100 degree heat is not my idea of fun. We don't have AC or even a swamp cooler, just drink lots, wear light clothing and stay in the basement. I will share a picture of wearing it next week. 

I am also testing knitting the Bonfire shawl for Wendelika and the Journey to the Cape sweater for Annie Lupton. There are not pictures of them as I haven't made much progress due to working almost only on the Sparkling Leaves sweater.

The latest design and starting Christmas presets this week goes hand in hand. My son last year asked for finger-less gloves for hunting. By the time the yarn arrived and I played around a bit with ribbing and some color work, his hands had out grown what I started. I then got sick and was hardly knitting. I talked to him about the design again, traced his hand and took measurements. His hands have grown enough that I am going to use a similar design to that of the ones I made for my best friend. The difference for my son's is that the palm side will be worked in rib. I am hoping this will bring a snugger fit that will grow with him.

I am working on a lace gauntlet design and am about half way though the first one, again. The first go around was way too big. The notes I had, in the computer, not written, so no mistake there, said to use a US size 4 needle. That was way too big. After some swatching, I have gone down to a US size 0, big difference I know, but I am loving the fabric.

Tomorrow I will finish preparing the wool yarn to dye for my next big design, Tears to Roses. This design has been in process for over a year. I have done swatching and tiny dye jobs to choose colors. I have finally chosen colors, fade direction and edging. I will also be swatching this week to choose stockinette back ground or reverse stockinette.

For the trip to Stitches Salt Lake, I am very excited and a bit apprehensive.  I have never flown on a plane and I have never traveled alone.  I will be doing both for this trip.  Well Dolores is going with me, but...

I will be taking two classes from Franklin Habit; Tessellations and Steeking.  I am excited about both and think that both of these are excellent next steps in my designing and fiber arts career.

Cabling without a cable needle.  I am only going to cover a one over one cable stitch.  This is the easiest to do without a cable needle.  A two over two can be worked the same way but is more fiddly.  I personally use a cable needle for anything larger, as I have yet to find a method that works for me without losing the stitches.  If you have suggestions, please leave a comment.

I am currently working these cables in the Journey to the Cape Sweater and the Owlie socks I started in July.  Remember I am a true left handed knitter and you may need to reverse these directions for it to work for you.

To work a one over one cable that leans to the left I work as follows.  Insert the needle into the second stitch as if to knit, in front of the first stitch.

Knit leaving that stitch on the needle.

Knit the first stitch normally.

Drop both stitches from the needle.

To work a one over one cable that leans to the right I work as follows.  Insert the needle into the second stitch as if to knit, behind the first stitch.

Knit this stitch, leaving it on the needle.

Knit the first stitch normally.

Drop both stitches from the needle.

A column of finished cables.

I will post a video on my IG on Friday of how to do each of these.  Look for #azariahstip

That is all for this week.  Fall is on it's way in my hemisphere and I couldn't be happier.

Happy making!