If You Can Knit a Hat

You can knit these

Concept:

I chapped my shins last week while waiting for the bus in subzero weather.  I decided I needed legwarmers and googled around for a simple and free pattern.  Let me just say this.  There's altogether too much cabling and eyelets and other filigree lace patterns going on out there.  I understand there are people who are willing to lose a leg for fashion, but that's not me.

That said, there are some really fine fair isle leg warmers out there that have the same advantage as Norwegian Knitting in that there are two strands of yarn at a time that trade places front and back to create a pattern.  And yes, I have mittens knitted that way that prove it's excellent winter wear.  But I'll be wearing these over leggings and I want them now.

Couldn't find a pattern I liked for free, so I just started knitting.

I rooted around in my stash and found a couple of skeins of Lion Brand Wool Yarn in the Brown Heather color.  I had picked it up for a scarf, but once I got it home I realized it was much too rough for next to the skin.  It's not too rough to put over leggings though.

Gauge:

I cast on about 30 stitches and knit stockinette, on size 8 needles for about 3-1/2 to 4 inches.  

Gauge for me was 4 stitches per inch, 5 rows per inch.  Now I did take gauge from a flat piece and I am knitting these in the round, so that's a no-no, but it works for me.  I'm using a 40" skacel addi Turbo magic-loop needle so I could be knitting both legwarmers at once, but I decided one disaster at a time was a better idea.

Measure:

Decide how high up your leg you want the top of the legwarmer to sit and get circumference.  I chose just above my knee, and since it's a chubby thigh, I got 17" so I added ease of 1/4 inch.  I want the leggings to stay up, but not cut off the blood flow.  That means positive ease.  

Thigh above knee = 17.25" x 4 = 69

I'd already decided that I wanted to use a knit-on cast on and a rib pattern that would also be easy to decrease slowly.  Knit 2, Perl 2 seemed like a good idea.  It's a little more elastic than K1P1, and not as floppy as k3p3.  So, the basic ribbing number is 4 stitches, k2p2. While 68 is divisible by 4, it makes the band tighter.  So I changed it to 72 st or 18 groups of 4.

Widest part of calf = 15" x 4 = 60 stitches.  That's good right there, but I'm also going to need to decrease a bit more from the thigh size to the calf size in order to make the legwarmer able to hold itself up with more than just the thigh ribbing.   That means some negative ease. I hate perling so that's where the decrease is going to happen. And I'll decrease incrementally once the knee ribbing is done.  

72*.75=54, 3X18=54 ... so we have a 6 stitch negative ease.

To decrease slowly, I decided to perl 2 together one time per round. That means, the first trough of P2 will be P2tog, and I will knit the rest of the row K2P2.  Next row is K2P1, K2P2tog, K2P2 ... and so on. 

I used two plastic safety pins to mark my place.  The first was a general pin to mark the side I was decreasing on and the second to mark the latest P2tog.  The decreases then spiraled down from the knee to the calf.

From then on it's K2P1 down to the ankle or at least a couple of inches below the boot top.

In knitspeak that would be..

• Get gauge.
• Measure thigh above knee cap.
• Cast On  (Thigh Circumference x Gauge) + enough stitches to be divisible by 4.  K2P2 for 2.25" (or the space from your starting point to the top of your kneecap).
• Begin decrease:

1. K2 P2tog, K2P2 around.
2. K2P1, K2P2tog, K2P2 around.
3. K2P1, K2P1, K2P2tog, K2P2 around

• Continue row 3, perling 2 together, one at a time, until all but the last three K2P2 groups are worked.
• Try it on.  

1. If the legging is a bit loose continue the decrease rounds.
2. If the legging is already just fine, mark off the k2p2 group with stitch markers, and wait to work those decreases until after the curve of the calf.
3. If the legging is too tight, frog up another couple of rows and mark off the ribbing groups that you will hold at k2p2 until you've past the widest part of your calf.

• Continue K2P1 until the legwarmer is the length you want.  Bind off using E.Zimmerman's sewn bindoff to make that ribbing flexible.

I'm hoping to get both done before I have stand in the snow, shivering, waiting for that bus.  Will post the picture of legwarmers in action when that happens.

Fleegle Heels

A Better Sock Heel

It's not often that I find a new way to do an old thing that actually is as wonderful as it claims.  The Fleegle Heel is one of those things.

http://fleeglesblog.blogspot.com/2006/11/leegles-toe-up-no-flap-no-hassle-sock.html

Some of the links are no longer active, BUT, you can easily google those techniques on YouTube.  And frankly I am happy to finally run across this because I love house socks.

After learning how to knit continental style, I started having trouble with my left thumb when purling. I solved that problem by learning how to "knit backwards".  It's amazing at how much this speeds up Fleegle. And here's a fun video on that from KNITFreedom.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0h72xZoGp6o

When you live where it snows and when you can't sleep when your feet are cold, these do the trick.  They are also handy if you need something between you and the tiles first thing in the morning.

Next Hank Begun

Much Thinner

The Montadale Wool in the "Girl Power" colorway is spinning up thinner than I expected. It's running between carpet sewing thread and size 8 crochet thread in size. That means that I should be able to chain ply it to preserve the color changes and still end up with a fingering or sport weight, felting resistant 3 ply yarn. 

I'm a little disappointed with the hand. It's a bit harsh, but nothing a little hair conditioner won't fix.  Unfortunately it also has second cuts.

Second cuts happen when the sheep is sheared.  When the short fibers left by the first pass of the shearer's clippers are cut along with the next pass of full length wool, you get neps.  Like the short hairs that fall down the collar of your shirt when the barber clips your hairline, neps can be annoying.  

I don't mind the little grape-seed sized bumps in the yarn that 2nd cuts add.  I won't be weaving with it, so the neps won't catch and fray in a heddle.  They'll provide texture.  I hope.
 
There is the possibility that this yarn would make a nice beret if it turns out to be too course for next to the skin.  And if it's too course for a beret, well then there's a locker hooked pillbox hat I have in mind. We'll see.

Skeined & Ready

One theory on decay

It's a funny thing about crafting.  Often the raw fleece is absolutely beautiful.  After it's washed and dyed and rinsed again it loses some of the sheen or the suppleness it had.  Then, no matter how carefully I card and spin it, more of the beauty is somehow lost.  The color changes I thought would be fabulous have turned tedious.

But sometimes it takes a turn during the plying stage, like this Purple Haze color way did.

Tomorrow I squoosh some water laced with eucalan wool wash through the yarn and hang it to dry to fluff it up and set the twist.

For now, I start carding the "Girl Power" colorway.

Update on the Spinning

Plying the Purples

About 2-1/2 Babe Fiber Garden bobbins later and I'm plying the wool.  This plying bobbin is not quite through the first filled-to-the-brim hand-spun bobbin.  I still have a good bit left of the first alpaca ball.  When I'm done plying, I'll skein the yarn and wash it.  Once it's dry, I'll niddynoddy measure and report.

It's fingering/lace weight now, but it could move up to baby/sport once set.

Spinning Last Weekend's Goodies...

I'm very happy with the Rambouillet combed top that I bought at the WS&WF at the Green Pastures booth.   It's 4 oz. of wool in the colorway 'Purple Haze' (periwinkle & eggplant variegated). 

It looks like I'll get two bobbins plus a bit, of lace weight singles from that hank. When I've finished the rest of the rolags, I'll be plying it with a commercial periwinkle lace weight from Alpaca Warehouse.  I bought a several 50 gram skeins from AW during a sale but haven't been able to find a project for it until now.  The yarn is a blend of wool, acrylic and alpaca in a periwinkle color that is so close to the lighter color of the roving it's spooky. 

I carded the roving into rolags because, as often happens with acid dyes, the over-dyed eggplant color became a little spongy and uncooperative when it came to spinning.  I wanted a woolen yarn and tried spinning form the fold, but it wasn't cooperating.  Instead, I'm working long-draw on the lighter yarn and devolving to inch-worm when I get to spongy bits.  

The finished yarn should make a nice scarf with big dramatic blocks of periwinkle separated by smaller marled yarn stripes of eggplant/periwinkle.

Perless Scarf

I knit 'continental' style, which means that perling can be painful.  Pain can teach you to hate things very quickly.  Finding E. Zimmerman's patterns for sweaters and other items that are either worked in the round or don't require perling brought me back to knitting.

But there are times when knitting a scarf in garter stitch can get awfully boring.  Even garter stitch can curl or stretch without a border of some sort, and the seed or moss stitch borders that I considered would still cause enough pain to force me to put the work down after a few rows, and forget to pick it up again.

This weekend I remembered the Idiot Washcloth.  It's a simple pattern to teach children how to knit, increase, and decrease while also making a useful thing.  It's called an Idiot Washcloth because it's extremely difficult to screw it up (though I always do, at least once).  It's a yarn-over increase at the beginning of the row then knit to the end and turn.  You continue that until the piece is as large as you want then you k2Tog, YO, K2Tog decrease at the beginning of the row and knit to the end until you're down to 4 stitches and can cast off.

This makes lovely squares to swab the dishes.  Altering it to make a large rectangle (scarf shape) is just a matter of working an increase on one side and a decrease on the other until the scarf is the length you want and then decreasing both sides.

I've marked the decrease side with a plastic safety pink to make it even more foolproof.  The yarn I'm using is the "Sea" colorway of Deborah Norville Collection Serenity Garden Yarn, a 2/fine yarn made of Dralon Microfiber, and not 'itchy' at all.  So yes, it's a great way to make a scarf with variegated yarn that has a tendency to pool and splot when knit stockinette.  I have 2-3/4 skeins of this colorway and think it may only need 2 skeins.  I'm not doing a Dr. Who here... just watching it while I knit.

Pattern for the I-Scarf is:


1.  Cast on 4 stitches
2.  Slip one, Knit 3 and turn
3.  Slip one, knit 1, yarn over, knit to end
       
Repeat Row 3, the increase row, until the scarf is as wide as you like (6" to 14" is good).

Place a marker on one side near the edge as shown above, to indicate a decrease stitch is needed.

4.  Slip one, knit 2 together, yarn over, knit 2 together, knit to end.

Repeat rows 3 and 4 until the scarf is as long as you wish.  Remove marker and work row 4 until there are 4 stitches left.  Cast off and weave in ends.