off to London

My husband and I are off to London on Friday to go to our son's graduation next Wednesday. It will be nice to see the children again, all three of whom are attending university in London. We lived in England for 4 1/2 years. (We had a lovely back garden for the last house we lived in there. Plus, it was near a continuation of the White Cliffs of Dover. Years and years ago, the Spanish Armada went past that part of the coastline.) It will also be nice to be back in England again. Besides the graduation, we have plans to attend a football game with our other son and to go to the British Museum with our daughter.

I'm planning to take along sock yarn to knit a pair of socks for my DD while there, probably using the Wyvern pattern and Parade yarn with size 2 needles. I'm also working on a v-neck sweater for myself with KP Swish and size 5 needles and getting a gauge of 4 1/2 st and 6 1/2 rows per inch. I'm using the tweed-stitch v-neck pattern that I used for my DH's sweater except for doing a plain knit stitch instead of a tweed stitch. I cast on 100 sts divided 35 sts for the back, 9 for each sleeve, and 47 for the front. Because of this, I had to end quite a few more short rows with k2tog and p2tog. Also I didn't knit any sts together at the base of the v. I would post a pic, but sts in navy don't turn out well. (Of course, it could be that my camera still needs a little fixing.)

Obviously, we got our camera back from being serviced at Best Buy. However, we still haven't gotten back the laptop we took in for servicing over 2 weeks prior to that. We had hoped that it would be ready by the time we left for England. It's our son's laptop. He's had to share his brother's laptop for the first month of school -- which is hard for both of them. Well, there's a couple more days left for them to finish with it...... If nothing else, we can bring out there the laptop that I'm currently using which I inherited from my other DS -- though it's far from state of the art.

It's so nice to knit with better yarn like the yarn from KP. And so I'm redoing sweaters in wool or a blend that I had originally knitted in acrylic. The original sweaters have since then "melted" in the wash machine. (Too high a water temperature causes a sweater to double in size.)

Square summer raglan

I'm so happy. I've finally finished the summer sweater I was making in KP Shine Worsted. I redid it once because I didn't like the joins. But I finally found one that looked ok with a cotton blend (knit 1 st w new skein, knit 1 st w old skein, then continue w new skein - tying the loose ends in the back until weaving them in). Then in the middle of the project, I had to order more yarn. I finally ended up using all but a few inches of 7 skeins of the yarn -- and that's with ultra-short (8 or 9-row-long) sleeves and a simple bind off (knit or purl then slip st over). I didn't have enough yarn to do ribbing on the sleeves and so did the sleeve pattern there instead. It was really touch and go. I would have had to order more yarn if I weren't so short. I usually knit a medium size but take off an inch above the armhole and another inch below. To save yarn (and to make it more form fitting), I also shaped it around the waist by decreasing 4 sts every 10th row above the waist and increasing every 5th row below. (Added 12/17/06: I've changed the chart to show the underarm diamonds as well. In the underarm diamonds, one can see the first 2 decrease row. I've also changed the chart to show the full sleeve pattern.)
It looks really nice, if I do say so myself. A picture of the sweater in progress is at my August 8th post. I used a size 7 circ and got 6 rows and 4 sts per inch when slightly stretched. (I didn't do a swatch first. I just assumed that a size 7 with worsted would give that gauge. But it worked out ok because the material did stretch.) Here's how I began the sweater. Line 1 of the garment chart is line 45 of the sweater as I made it. (Also line 45 of the sweater is line 1 of the sleeve.) The pattern is knit across on even rnds. I also fitted a couple of diamonds under the armholes themselves - which is now charted here.

Neckline:
CO 92. Join.
Work *p1, k1* around for 6 rounds, starting w the p1.
*p1, k11, p1, k33* twice
p91 (ie stop 1 st before beginning of round)

Upper Body:
R1: *m1, k1, p1, k1, m1, knit to 1 st before next purl, m1, k1, p1, k1, m1, knit to 1 st before next purl* twice (For the first k1 on the first time knitting R1, p1 instead -- to complete the purl around.)
R2: knit the knit sts and the m1's, purl the 4 purl sts

Continue alternating these rnds to 17 increase rnds total and 238 sts total. Continue making just R2 until 45 total rnds for me (51 for most people) not including the ribbing. (The 45th rnd can be used to start the pattern by replacing R2 with: purl the knit st, purl the purl st, *k3, p3* around, p1.)
Then to start the lower part of the sweater: *k1, put the next 13 sts on a spare circ, co9 (w single cast on), k66* twice. (152 sts total)

Tempting II finally finished

It took a while, but my version of Tempting II from knitty is finally finished. It took a while because I frogged it after it was finished because I had made the yoke too long . Because of the ribbing and the length of the yoke, the sweater's neck was riding up around my neck. To make it worse, the arms were also too tight. It wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't made it top down.

However, I really like the neckline. I might use it for another sweater -- but a raglan this time. Here's how I started:

Neck:
CO 90 sts (chain cast on), join.
Round 1: p90
Round 2: k90
Repeat these 2 rounds for a total of 14 rounds in garter stitch On the next to last knit round, increase more or less evenly to 108 sts. End w a knit round. (There will be a line where the rounds begin.)

Body:
(yo, k1) 108 times
(p1, k1) 108 times (216 sts in round)

Continue working in p1, k1 until the sweater is about 1 1/2" shorter than my normal sweaters. Then divide the sts w 41 sts for the sleeves, 65 sts for the garment, and casting on 13 sts under the arm with a single (not provisional) cast on.

Zokni socks finished

My DD is modeling a pair of Zokni socks in KP Essential that I finished a couple of days before she left to go back to university in London. Universities in the UK start classes around the first of October. Hopefully, they'll keep her feet warm this winter.
They're made toe up with 2 circ size 1 needles, with a Turkish cast on, a round toe, a Widdershins heel, and a crocheted bind off (single crochet 1, chain 1).
Here's how I started the sock:

Wrap yarn around 2 circ needles 9 times (under, back, and over). k9 off of top needle. k9 off of bottom needle.
R1: k1, m1, k..., m1, k1 on top needle, k1, m1, k...., m1, k1 on bottom needle.
Repeat R1 to 19 sts on each needle
Alternate R2 (k across) with R1 to a total of 25 sts per needle
Do R2, R2, R1 to a total of 29 sts per needle
Do R2 on top needle and k across on lower needle. (31 sts on top, 29 on bottom)
After that, work the Zokni pattern across the 31 top sts. Knit across the bottom.

Approximately 4" (for me) before the end of the foot, start making increase as in the Widdershins pattern. Since I wanted a heel flap of 28 rows and 31 sts wide, I increased to 51 (= 28 + 23) sts then worked the Widdershins heel on the middle 23 sts.

I'm currently working on finishing Tempting II, which I hope to finish in a few days, hopefully before it gets too cold to wear. Though, it has been warm here recently -- a lot warmer than I thought it would be here in NJ.