You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘Pattern Testing’ tag.
Between my last post and this one, there’s been a long gap, and the one I’m showing in this didn’t follow that one in chronology, but has a similar theme (Lace! Shawl!). I tested this for a friend I’ve tested for before, and funnily enough, this was my first lace weight project in crochet.
Yarn: Elann Peruvian Baby Lace Merino, about 2 skeins
Hook: 2.5mm
Size: 42″ deep. The batwing, from the centre-out construction meant I ended up with a shawl that is twice as wide as it was deep. I love how straightforward geometry is.
Sorry I haven’t got better photographs to show you, but I never seem to, somehow.
Time: Took me just under 4 weeks, which it oughtn’t to have, except I think I began doing something else in the meantime.
Pattern: Wings of the Valkyrie by Elizabeth Nicole Designs (queenmamajen on Rav). The etsy link to buy the pattern is here. I’ve made Miss Austen by her before, and one or two others, which apparently I didn’t blog.
Only the foundation is different, once you get beyond that, it’s a straightforward 2-row repeat. Plus the bonus, it’s charted! Long written instructions for crochet make me go cross-eyed trying to figure out where I was. I wish every pattern were charted!
Extra: As I said, my first lace weight project in crochet (I’ve made stuff in thread, but that’s different, no?)
I’m half tempted to keep this for myself, perhaps for use in theatres and restaurants, where they tend to have the AC on too high (or should that be too low? Whatever…I’m always looking for the table at the furthest distance from the AC vents in dining rooms, or asking waiters to have the thing turned down (up?))
Or send it away to the friend who gifted me the yarn. Or something.
More posing. You can tell I hate being photographed. But I love this top and for those I love, I can do anything. Well, most things. I’d loved the design when it first entered the Ravelry database, so when the designer said she was going to release it as a separate pattern and wanted people to test it, I jumped at the chance. Not to divert from tradition, I give you all the gory details.
Yarn: Schachenmayr nomotta Catania that a certain someone gave me. It has a nice shiny finish, and it was the same weight as the design recommends. However, I had to go down a few hook sizes to make gauge. I used about 5 skeins.
Hook: 3.25mm
Pattern: Marquise by Julia Vaconsin. It’s a Ravelry download. It was originally published in Yarn Forward magazine, Spring 2008. My project page is here. The stitches used are simple. The key is an ability to count stitches and remember those counts, because those are what make the shape. The darts are cleverly done, and the neck insert lace is lacy without being indecent, and the shells give a nice contrast to the ribbed structure of the rest of the body. Oh, and this pattern is available in child sizes as well.
Time: It took me about 6 weeks, however this was because we went to Europe for 3 of those weeks, and while I did carry the pattern and the project with me, understandably nothing got done on it, although I showed it to Carla.
Size: Small. I chose this size since Julia suggested it would look better with negative ease for someone who has curves.
Extra #1 This was my first ever top in either knit or crochet. I love the result, but I haven’t yet worn it out to an event. Nothing seems festive enough while allowing western wear, but we shall see.
#2 I loved the chance to work with a versatile designer (Julia designs both knit and crochet items and speaks at least 3 different languages). It gives me the shivers 🙂
Excuse that Bollywood pose. I wasn’t quite sure how a circular shawl is used and the designer suggested it should be folded in half. And I’d written this post before, only to have it disappear on me when I clicked on “Save Draft”. So here we go again in the time-honoured fashion. Because I’m dull and predictable that way.
Yarn: The Unique Sheep Tinsel Toes. A merino/tencel blend meant for socks, I presume. I was hazy about tencel, apparently it’s a manmade plant-based fibre. I used just over one skein. I’m wary about multicoloured yarns in crochet but this pattern being open, the effect was of an eerie spiral. Besides, it was a new experience for me, working with the yarn that the pattern was designed for. Jen was kind enough to have the yarniste mail me the yarn so I could use it.
Hook: 3.25mm
Pattern: Miss Austen by Jennifer Benson (queenmamajen on Ravelry). It’s a Ravelry download. My project page is here.
Time: About a month. It took me that long not because of any difficulty with the pattern, but because of my short attention span. I think it’s funny that I should be making so many shawls with my propensity to wander.
Size: 65″. It barely fit on the guest bed for blocking.
Extra #1 The highlight for me was learning how to make neater bullions with the help of a trick learnt from this video.
#2 I’ve sent it off in a swap and hope the recipient likes it. She did say she did, but then she would, wouldn’t she? She might not even be a shawl person.
Warning! Blue funk alert!
I don’t know why, but I’m increasingly convinced my knitting/crochet is pointless. Don’t misunderstand me, I enjoy the process, but I’m not so sure the product I produce is worthwhile. Perhaps it’s just a phase. I make these things and none of them are adapted to where or how I live. There’s no theme to my doilies, for example, and I don’t use shawls. Few of my friends with babies live in cold places…Let’s see. In the past few weeks I’ve heard: the block and offset shells blanket I made with so much expectation for a friend never made it to her. It might still be there with her mom, but I’m not hopeful. The kid I made it for will outgrow it soon. Then there is the crochet cable hat I made and gave my husband, who carries it whenever we visit a cold place, but he wouldn’t like to be seen wearing it. There’s a doily I gave a friend who clearly cherishes it as a gift, but can only drape it over her dressing table mirror because it’s such a useless piece of work. A baby dress I made and was quite proud of…the child didn’t like it, although the mother said she did. Then I volunteer to test patterns but my work never lives up to the designer’s intentions. Quite dispiriting actually.
Nevermind. It keeps me busy and has given me new friends. This wasn’t intended as a whine, just a record, ok? My next post will be all bright and cheery :p Upward spiral, ok? Honest!
What just happened has shocked, angered and pained all in this country and a good many in others. There are no words in which I can describe my feelings. Bombay and the places affected have so many memories for us, that even thinking about it makes me tearful. A friend lost her mother in the attacks. I cannot dwell on it, so you will understand if I don’t talk too much about it, ok? I’m fine, not personally affected.
To divert all our thoughts, I thought I’d finally showcase one of my testing projects. I test knit this shawl a month ago but was waiting for the designer to put the pattern up for sale, and then of course we travelled. But here I’m showing it off finally.
Sometimes routine helps:
Yarn: Common-or-garden acrylic, fingering weight, limper than foreign acrylic and softer. It’s usually what we use for baby stuff. A friend got it for me from Bombay. After finishing it, I “killed” the acrylic, using a damp teatowel and an iron. This way, the acrylic retains its shape. That probably shocks all the purists. First, I shouldn’t have been using acrylic, and second, no point in blocking it, and none at all in killing it. However, I was quite pleased with the end result. It seemed to have better drape and the stitches were nicely defined. And I’m defiant.
Needles: 4mm
Pattern: Aiwara (Rav link) by Elke Weinstroer (Ravelry profile). My Ravelry project page is here.
Time: About a month, but I took a while off in the middle. The pattern itself is pretty straightforward, and the edging is knitted with the body, so there isn’t any fiddling around with picking up stitches and adding it later.
Size: 65″ x 42″
Extra #1 My largest lace project so far, and my first full knit shawl. It isn’t very complex as these things go, but I liked the experience. My only quibble is that perhaps I don’t like triangle shawls too much. They seem a bit inadequate somehow.
#2 No issues with the pattern, however. It’s good when you need a soothing repetitive design to work on.
#3 I liked my yarn experiment. And I will repeat it. That’s a dare. I can’t see the convenience in having to reblock something each time you get it wet. So if the acrylic will maintain its shape, why not? As for warmth, if it is really that cold, a flimsy shawl wouldn’t be much use, I should think. Whatever it’s made of. You may try convincing me. Yes, I’m feeling obstreperous. As someone who lives in warm climes, I need sometimes to travel to places where woollens are needed, and even then I’m so cold myself that I cover myself in thick sweaters and coats. (coward) Perhaps for an elegant evening out where you travel in a heated vehicle and enter a glittering warm theatre or something…Yes, then this pattern would do very nicely.
Here’s my Ravelry project page.
Yarn: Generic scratchy acrylic. (Don’t ask me why). It’s about DK weight, and I worked this sweater with two strands held together.
Needles: Size 6.00mm (US 10)
Pattern: Riverstone. It isn’t up yet on Ravelry (but you can see the designer’s Ravelry page for it here). I tested this pattern for Justine. I made the 12 mths size and really enjoyed the unusual construction. I wish I’d used better materials, though. Next time perhaps. Increases and decreases keep your interest going in the yoke area, while the body went pretty fast because I wanted to put on the buttons :p
Time: About ten days, but only because I got into a funk midway thinking I wouldn’t have enough yarn to finish. In the end I had enough to finish, plus a good amount left over.
Size: 20″in the chest x 12″long unstretched. The ribs provide a lot of room for growth, although mine are possibly worked at too dense a gauge.
Extra #1 What is it about baby sweaters? I prefer them to babies, actually :p No feeding/cleaning.
#2 I’m very happy with the buttons, which I bought here in Cochin. I think they are coconut shell or wood.
#3 One more baby sweater and not an infant in sight.
Thank you everyone for the warm messages assuring me I am not boring you to death. I hadn’t meant my last post as a call for reassurance (more like an observation), actually, but you still made my day 🙂 You must really love me 😀
I’ve never added beads to a knit project before, and definitely not without pre-stringing them. Plus for some reason I really liked this scarf as soon as I saw it, so I volunteered to test the pattern for Wendi when she posted about it on Ravelry. I had a really fun time knitting it. The pattern repeat is about 40 rows long, but the wrong side rows are all purl rows, besides which the scarf is only 29 stitches wide. I’m afraid the photos don’t do it justice, but I tried, my friends, I tried.
Here’s my Ravelry project page.
Yarn: Patons Kroy Sock, just over a 192 yard skein in Chelsea Tweed. I don’t know how, but the other sock yarn I have is also a similar dark colourway. Never seen any of those fancy handpainted/hand-dyed ones. But then always with variegated yarns, I’m often more enamoured of the yarn/thread in the skein rather than in a project worked up. I’d probably croon over the multi-hued sock yarn and then relegate it to the back of my stash, where I can no longer hear its jeers.
Andrea had suggested I could use sock yarns for scarves, and I’d forgotten that I’d indeed done so, for my Boteh (also Patons Kroy, but in a livelier colour). Plus there’s a UFO somewhere in the depths of my cupboards, started with Wildfoote Luxury. So now I can potentially make 3 scarves and free myself from the guilt of trying to make socks and failing miserably. Yay!
Needles: Size 4.00mm (US 6). That was the recommended size, I think.
Pattern: Melusine by Wendi Dunlap. (Ravelry link here).
Time: 6 days or less. I treated myself to one pattern repeat every evening and finished off with 2 and the ends on the final day.
Size: 6″ x 84″
Extra #1 I really enjoyed using a crochet hook to put on the beads while knitting, and not having to worry about stringing all of them beforehand and then getting the yarn all tangled up. Wendi suggested a tutorial found here for the technique.
#2 I’m wondering if there’s much point in becoming addicted to knitting scarves when (a) I don’t know if I can bear to give them away and (b) whether I know enough people who’d wear them. Would you, Dear Reader? More specifically, would you wear this scarf? (I mean this version, knit by me).
After a long self-imposed gap, I got tempted again by one of Kathy’s designs and begged to be allowed to test for her. I used some ‘silk’ thread and a Pony handled hook to produce this:
Here are the details:
Yarn: ‘Silk’ on cones, about #10 or so, I think. I used two separate cones to make this, starting the new cone at the beginning of the second half, because what was left on the first wouldn’t have been enough and I didn’t want to have ends to weave in. Ironically, both cones had knots in them so I had ends to weave anyway. Even after the edging, I have thread left over on the cones. Sigh. Not a colour I’d choose for clothing, but then I felt the need to break out. Here is my Ravelry page for the project (not that it’ll tell you much more).
Hook: Pony handled 1.00mm
Pattern: Gypsy Queen (Ravelry link) by Katchkan
Time: About two weeks
Size: 19″ x 30″ (too big for our coffee table width-wise). Might have to give it away.
Extra #1 No printer in Hyderabad, so I worked entirely from the Mac screen. no probs.
#2 My edges are always wonky in filet, no matter what I do in terms of increasing and decreasing 😦
#3 Happy to be testing again 🙂
—-
And here’s some more orange for you, from our grocery (‘fresh’) rations:
Denise. Sorry, I couldn’t resist! The thing is, my Denise set has gone missing, and try as I might, I can’t remember when I saw it last. I remember showing it to Ruth in London, and in Vizag beginning Jacque‘s pattern on it, but here in Cochin? Nope. Now all I have are two pairs of tips (the one I’m using for Jacque and another 6.5 mm pair I have in a UFO), plus 3 cables (one ultra short, one medium and one longggg – on second thought, that last one might be two joined cables, which would mean I have one of those joining thingies) and two end doodads. If anyone can remember where I put the set, do please tell!
I have made some progress on the pattern as you can see above, having detoured wildly on both the crochet and knit fronts, by turning out these two FOs (now, isn’t that a rare word for you to hear on this here blog?). First up is the Gingham Country Tea Towel I had a bit of a duh moment with:
Specs:
Yarn: Lion Kitchen Cotton (navy) and Sugar n’Cream (light blue)
Needles: Unknown plastic/resin (very flexible) 4.5mm circular and for the handle a metal circular that’s among my favourites, which is loose in the 4.5mm slot and won’t go through the 4mm (Is there a 4.25mm size in western needles?). Both needles courtesy Heide.
Pattern: Country Gingham Tea Towel
Time: About a week?
Size: Haven’t measured, but it’s a good size. It’s been immediately pressed into action in my kitchen.
Extra #1 Did two-colour double knitting for the first time, following a chart. Phoenix was good enough to hold my hand throughout and spell things out in words of one syllable! It was wonderful to be able to hound her interact with her on Ravelry. (If any of my readers want me, I’m MrsFife there).
#2 Got confirmation my finishing is terrible
#3 My floats are too tight and my wraps are too loose. Resolve that conundrum if you will
#4 Perhaps a thinner needle would have made the work neater
#5 Stopped the handle when I ran out of the light blue.
#6 I liked the grid stitch better than the gingham part (not to mention my work was neater)
#7 The original colour combo was scrumptious, and was what made me do the towel, actually. Also possibly, yarn which wasn’t 100% cotton might have fared better.
A great learning experience, though, overall. Five stars all around. Now for a crochet FO:
The details on this one:
Thread: Something called Fitpack, a twine from Jaipur that I bought in Vizag, in the philosophy of “any string will do to hook with”. It isn’t bad for bags and things, but I doubt any other colour would be available. On the other hand, I remember a crochet goods salesman telling me you can get cotton yarny type of fibre in Jaipur, so maybe the place is a hotbed of fibre.
Hook: The 2/0 (2mm) end of a Clover double-ended 2/0-4/0 hook. Nice and light.
Pattern: Acrobatic stitch from The Harmony Guides (the instructions are for a straight swatch, but I made up the decreasing on my ownsome). Pat yourself on the back, sweetie!
Time: One hour
Size: Seriously?
Extra #1 Nuthin’ much. There’s two more towels where that came from which need topping.
We now have a working washbasin, and the rains have stopped. Now all I need is some good roads, and we’re all set.
After the scintillating response (not) I had for my last couple of posts, I took a deep breath and realised (besides almost hyperventilating), what a dull blogger I’ve become. (Some people might think otherwise, but I’ve taken a voice vote here and you can’t change my mind).
My blogging has flagged partly because I’m frequenting Ravelry so much and partly because I’ve been travelling. I find it more difficult to blog outside of home, somehow.
Anyhow, I’ve got to confess to not having set foot in either Crochetville or Knittyboard in several months now. At the former I find myself recognising fewer and fewer people, and at the latter I was always too intimidated to post most of the time anyway. Ravelry and Google Reader remain my sole social entree into the yarny crafts.
In great news (I think), I met and played with a kitten on Sunday at the Hyderabad home of a cousin, with no sneezing whatsoever!!! Maybe it proves my alleged allergy to cats is much exaggerated, or something, I don’t know what. Here is pictorial evidence:
Please note the poor thing is scared and pointy-eared, and freed itself immediately afterwards. I suppose I was overwhelming (like a binge-eater). But it did let me scratch its ears later. Just not a hold-y, cuddly type, I suppose. It is thus far nameless, but is a she, about 3 months old. More photos in the same set at Flickr. I am on my phus-phus (allergy steroid nasal spray), maybe that helped.
It is my not-so-secret ambition to adopt two kittens, one ginger striped and the other black tuxedo and name them Lola Kutty (viewers of Channel [V] will know who she is). One could be Lola and the other Kutty. Or both together could be Lola Kutty. The only thing stopping me is uncertainty of what will happen to them when I travel.
—
I am test knitting a pattern for Jacqui. Unwittingly I chose almost exactly the same colours of a similar fabric garment I have to knit this in. So predictable. Bought the 100% acrylic (of course, what else?) yarn in Hyderabad before returning to Vizag. Here’s the yarn: (and yes, it is every bit as scratchy as it looks)
The pattern so far is nice and simple and if I were a faster knitter I’d be zooming along. I jumped on it because I was dying to do some brioche knitting and this pattern has some. It’s a long way to go before I get to it, though.
—
In other news, we are loading our luggage this Saturday and will be flying to Cochin on Tuesday. From what the husband tells me, the quarters are cramped, with bad roads, little running water and not enough storage space. Then he loses his temper because I ventured to say that nothing of what he’d told me so far made me look forward to moving. Apparently he’s given me too much information. Whatever.
Since I live in cyberspace so much anyway, hopefully it won’t take too long to get online again.
They say, don’t they (who?) that a picture is worth a thousand words? By that reasoning, I should at least write 2000 words in this post. But don’t panic, I won’t.
Actually I had two FOs last week, but both were patterns I tested and both designers have asked me not to share pictures until they hear from publishers. So two missing pictures (at least) should mean 2000 words…
Anyway, I can tell you this much: one was a pattern in thread I tested for Kathy, a beautiful creation as usual (her design is beautiful, I’m not saying my version of it is) and the other was in yarn, with knit, crochet and tunisian crochet elements in it for someone over at Crochetville.
Also, I see some light at the end of the tunnel that is the giant dishcloth baby blanket in cotton I’m making for a nephew. Yippee!
In literary news, I have been devouring the small mountains of the books I bought last week. Took a break from Kinsey Millhone to read some Archy McNally instead. I only had one of those, McNally’s Risk, so then I took a break from murder and mayhem to cruise through the soppy romances. I’m sending those off to one of my friends, who reads them and first enraptured me by sharing my jokes on them. Now I’m back on homicide. Just finished two by Martha Grimes (who, despite being American, brings such an authentic Brit feel-snow, rain, sleet, London and tormented Scotland Yard detectives-to her books), Help the Poor Struggler and Jerusalem Inn. I’ve read The Old Fox Deceiv’d and The Blue Last before. True Brits might find errors (what is the geographic equivalent of anachronism?), but I haven’t had a wrong note strike yet. I love British mysteries, they make me feel nostalgic, which is decidedly odd, since I’ve never even been to Britain. But I enjoy McNally, too, he sounds like Bertie Wooster (who I’m not very fond of) maybe because of his lifestyle. And all those descriptions of food (most of which I’ve wouldn’t even eat, being vegetarian-mostly).
Still in store, some more of Grafton’s alphabet series…I love books.
swakrta.com 