A Gathering of Lace

Posted on by Rebecca Tyrrell

I always think that’s a younger Cindy Crawford modeling a lace shawl on the cover but I doubt it. Another classic, A Gathering of Lace is a collection of lace patterns from multiple designers and was curated by Meg Swansen, the daughter of Elizabeth Zimmerman. Looking at the patterns with a mostly modern eye some of them are a bit dated to my taste, but the book came nearly 20 years ago.

This book assumes the knitter has some experience already with lace knitting but the introduction written by Meg runs through the basic tenets of increases and decreases, blocking, and so forth. She also nails down the difference between lace knitting, and knitted lace. Lace knitting has a row of straight stockinette between the pattern rows, like a rest row to reset your stitches, and knitted lace has a pattern on every row. I personally love the intricate look of knitted lace, but can appreciate having a break in between the rows where you really need to concentrate.

The patterns range from the traditional bottom up triangular shawl to sculptural vests and even a knitted boat! Really. Debbie New explains towards the end of the book how she knit a fine merino lace shawl, then sealed it in fiberglass resin to make a coracle, a boat shaped like an upside-down bowl and paddled. Sadly, there’s no pattern for that in this book but if you wanted to you could figure it out.

I’m so glad I decided to write about this book today. Flipping through it has given me some serious inspiration. I have to get those wedding sweaters finished first, though. The stockinette slog continues, but the rows are getting shorter and I’m about to hit the waist shaping.

Pick up A Gathering of Lace on Amazon here…

New Vintage Lace

Posted on by Rebecca Tyrrell

New Vintage Lace by Andrea Jurgrau is a worthy addition to any lace-knitter’s library.

The patterns range from lace hats, to scarves, and to delicate shawls both large, and small. I will be the first to admit that most of those patterns are pretty complicated. The majority of them have patterns that are completely different on every row, which makes it difficult to memorize a chart. It’s really easy to get off track without knowing right away, at least for me it is, unless I add a lot of stitch markers.

I once made a grave mistake of working on one of the smaller shawls while I was working at an emergency call center and made some very baffling mistakes, despite having some experience under my belt. Of course, that was all my mistake in thinking I was some sort of juggling octopus.

The shawl turned out pretty well, despite some major fudging on my part. This is the Blue Dahlia shawl, knit in a brown silk blend.

It has been a few years since I knit from this book, but as always, check with the publisher for errata to spare yourself some headaches.

I consider it to be more for immediate-to-experienced knitters, but even a new beginner would benefit from owning a copy and seeing just how far they can go.

Pick it up on Amazon here…

It went for miles, and miles…

Posted on by Rebecca Tyrrell

The wedding sweater is finally starting to come together. I was able to get a pretty decent amount of knitting done this weekend while I was volunteering at an art gallery downtown. Clearly, we weren’t that busy. It’s been so hot outside recently that I don’t think a lot of people wanna walk around downtown, especially not right up against the river. The building of the gallery is from 1785, so slightly predates the idea of central air conditioning. So yeah, you can bet that I was kicking myself while working on a 100% wool sweater and melting into my chair.

Right now the rows are still really long so it doesn’t look like much but each row is shorter by two stitches. You can see the ribbing for the left front and the stitch marker indicating where I decrease a stitch at each end every row.

I’m going to keep decreasing stitches, probably at that same rate until I’ve used up all of the extra stitches I cast on in the beginning which should coincide with the length measurement my friend gave me.

Wedding woes

Posted on by Rebecca Tyrrell

Happy 4th of July, for those who are in to that sort of thing. My greatest wish for you is that you have the same number of fingers tomorrow morning that you woke up with today. Be a responsible pyrotechnic artist.

So, turns out that I cast on for too many stitches for that cardigan. Like the genius that I am, I used the circumference measurement when I should have used the diameter in my calculations. Went to art school, not math school. Or counting school.

Good thing I caught it pretty early, and I was only a few…thousand….stitches in. I restarted it and cast on a much more manageable amount of stitches. 360 is a lot more manageable than 504. Round two, start!

I’ll post pictures once I’m past the endless garter part.

By the way, I’m still using voice to text to write this. This software is finally recognizing the word knitting more often than not, but it also confuses my dog barking at the neighbors for human speech. We’re competing over sentence structure, but he’s got some valid ideas.

The Wedding Wrap Sweater, Part One

Posted on by Rebecca Tyrrell

I was recently asked to design, draft, and knit two sweaters for a friend’s daughter’s wedding. Taking this as an opportunity to stretch my designing skills (and write something that wasn’t a book review), I gladly agreed. The basic premise is a wrap sweater that ties in the back so the fit is adjustable.

I started out by actually making a swatch, for once. If I am knitting a project for myself, I usually just phone it in and go but I’m on a bit of a time crunch for this one so wanted to get it correct from the beginning. My idea is to cast on the bottom edge of the sweater first, which is definitely the most wide part.

By the way, I am learning how to dictate text to my laptop. I’m doing my best to speak clearly but if this thing makes a funny mistake I’m going to keep it. In the interest of full disclosure. It will be good practice for my future as a news reader. Yeah, right. Got to get some joy out of a surprise new laptop.

Anyway, with the gauge of four stitches to an inch I got with my swatch, I ended up casting on 504 stitches. My plan is to knit a few rows in garter stitch so the edge doesn’t roll. There is going to be a vertical panel of ribbing up the edge of the cardigan and then joining at the neck.

I intend to be finished with both sweaters by hopefully the first week of September. Wish me luck. I will trying not to bore you all too much.

You know what I find to be the funniest thing about this? Apparently for the life of me I can not enunciate the word may properly. Next. Makes. Makes. Noll, and not makes. Makes! K-N-I-T. Let’s see if Microsoft likes the word crochet.

Yes, it does. What the heck.

That’s just blatantly unfair. It will learn.

Book Review: Around the World in Knitted Socks

Posted on by Rebecca Tyrrell

I apologize for the slight lull. My laptop finally bit it and a new computer isn’t really in the budget right now so I had to go with literally the cheapest laptop I could find. It’s about the same size and has the same processing power as a personal pan pizza. Cute little thing, though.

Around the World in Knitted Socks by Stephanie Van Der Linden is one of these books that I was so surprised that it doesn’t yet have the following I was expecting. Currently working on my third pair and I haven’t been disappointed yet. There is a good mix of complex stranded socks and delicate lace, and sturdy gansey-style socks with knit and purl patterns and simple cables.

Some of the more stunning patterns call for a gauge that is a little tighter than I can usually manage by switching to smaller needles but I also know I have a really large gauge.

Current sock-in-progress is the Route 66 pattern that takes inspiration from the tumbling blocks quilt pattern.

The majority of patterns involved stranded knitting, which is fabulous for living in an old house like mine when it gets a little chilly in winter no matter how much you crank up the heat. All the patterns have a unique charm to them and each pattern describes the design inspiration in fascinating detail.

I can see myself working off this book for a very long time.

Check it out on Amazon here…

Anger management bag, part one

Posted on by Rebecca Tyrrell

On a bit of a woven bag kick. This time I’m aiming for an irregular sort of plaid weave. Nothing like weaving to quickly use up old yarn stash. I’m using a red and brown medium weight yarn from a mill end sale and a Fibernymph Dye Works sock yarn that refused to become socks.

It’s also going to be an exercise in not beating back the weft as hard as I usually do so there are mostly equal amounts of the warp and weft yarn showing.

You can see down at the start of the sock yarn where I forgot the whole point about achieving an even weave. Not sure how big this one is going to be; I subscribe to the ‘that’ll do’ method of measuring. It’s all worked out so far…

Book Review: Crochet One-Skein Wonders

Posted on by Rebecca Tyrrell

This book is definitely one for fans of crocheted lace scarves. Soooo many scarves…good thing I’m one of them. Part of the One-Skein Wonders series of books and it follows the standard format. Each chapter is a certain yarn weight, from crochet thread to bulky weight. The thread chapter has a set of blossom coasters that have only once been made as actual drink coasters by me; the rest of them have been made in thicker yarn and gone under house plants.

This book is made for the single skeins you can’t help but buy! You know, yarn you buy as a souvenir, or the one skein you fell in love with that was slightly more expensive than you’d usually go for but you just couldn’t help yourself, but it sat in your yarn stash for years because you couldn’t think of what it wanted to become. Clearly I have no experience in these matters. Clearly. Sarcastically.

Each pattern is carefully curated by Judith Durant and Edie Eckman, and they range from the aforementioned lace scarves to pillows, hats, stuffed animals, bags, and childrens clothing. The instructions are clearly written and the book is packed with plenty of clear pictures and charts so you always know exactly where you are in a pattern.

Only slight bummer I have for the book is that the medium-weight section is rather dominated by stuffed animals for which I’m not the target audience, but that’s okay. Altogether it’s a solid choice.

Pick it up on Amazon here…

Book Review: Victorian Lace Today

Posted on by Rebecca Tyrrell

Second lace knitting book I bought, and the one that really opened my eyes to the possibilities. Victorian Lace Today is a glorious book with equal parts historical background, excellent patterns, and gorgeous photographs. The title really spells it out, this book is a history of knitting during Victorian times, and goes into detail what we know about the prominent knitters of the that era and the books they published. The early patterns from these knitters are made modern with the standard symbols and abbreviations but retain the early character.

Jane Sowerby has written this book in an organic way, especially when she’s describing the early books published by Victorian era knitters like Miss Watts and Mrs. Hope (unknown first names) and in later chapters she makes it clear how the later work was built on the principles and influenced by the earlier work.

Coming off Folk Shawls I hadn’t seen lacy shawls in such bright colors before. I grew up around white, beige, ercu etc., doilies that constituted my early education in lace. Jane Sowerby uses color as a way to help make her point that patterns knit and developed in the Victorian era are absolutely still practical, solid, and functional and benefit from the yarn colors available to us now.

The book is almost worth buying strictly for the photographs. Alexis Xenakis has such an eye for composition and layout, and shows off the English manor used for the majority of the photos in a glorious way.

Pick up your own copy at Amazon here…

Striped woven bag

Posted on by Rebecca Tyrrell

Nothing like the psychological boost you get when you finally complete a project, especially something like this. For the first time in a while I get a weekend that is almost completely free, and entirely mine. I decided I would use this time to finish weaving fabric on my loom and make it into a good weekend bag.

I have a 12 inch rigid heddle loom that’s seeing a lot more action now that I ordered a replacement warp hook. You can warp a rigid heddle loom without one, but it’s such a bear that I found myself not using my loom and it was just gathering dust under my desk.

I grabbed some scrap yarn from my stash that I though looked well together and wove a plain weave with a couple of twill rows to intensify the colors to give it a striped look.

Yeah, I forgot I used that darker yarn at the beginning. Becomes a design feature. Contrasting stripe. Yeah. The warp threads are gathered into a fringe at the end that I hid in the lining of the bag.

For the sides and handle of the bag I crocheted a braid and included it on the sides of the bag as I seamed it up. I wanted to make the darker yarn a prominent color in the braid to make that dark stripe look more intentional.

I knew this bag wouldn’t need to match anything else so I just grabbed the first fabric from my stash and used that as the lining. I thought about hauling my sewing machine out from my storage buffet but it’s such a project to set it up for something as minor as this that I just stitched it up by hand.

The finished bag ended up about 12 inches by 10. Perfect size for running weekend errands.