Sixth 2010 One Done

Found the yarn, finally finished.

As usual, that's a yardstick along the top.

This one was quick and fun to do, and it turned out well. Not an absolutely take-your-breath-away creation, but pleasant to look at. I was happy with how the edging turned out, with the green and the Noro working itself around to meet up fairly naturally, color-wise.

Here are some details.

I am already underway on the all-white one. Can I resist the temptation to add color?

Can I?

Minor Complication

Here is how far I am.

Looks pretty nice. I had to add a small 5-stitch border along the bottom and right side to even it out, before adding the edging. The edging is 12 stitches wide, one ridge in green, and one ridge in a Noro that complements the colors.

Here is a closer look.

And do you see the issue? That's all the green I have left. Maybe I should have made the edging just 10 stitches wide.

I hope I can find a little more. If not, well, the much more varied edging will become a design feature.

While waiting for time to look for yarn, I started the next one, all in whites and beiges.

This will start with a 'log-cabin' triangle. More about this anon.

Still Boxing

Current progress:

One more block to go, and then on to the edging.

Here are some close looks, to show a little more clearly how different each of the squarse are, in color and texture.

This is going quickly, but my mind is already on to the next one. I'm thinking the new one will be all shades of beige and white, triangular, but I'm not sure what to put in the middle top as a sort of theme piece.

I like it when I have something to look forward to.

The Ring Cycle

I wrote about how I use ring markers. Here are more details.

First of all, I put tails on them.

Here's how to add the tails. Cut a short length of yarn, fold it in half, and put the folded half through the hole of the ring.

Now you have two choices. You can pull the loose ends through the yarn loop.

Pull and tighten.

Or else, you can fold the loop down on the tail.

Now take the ring and pull up away from the tails, which will tighten it..

Either way, you end up with a nice tail.

Here's how it looks on the needle.

This way, the loop never jumps off your needle.

You can use the tail for counting rows. For example, when I am making right angles in stockinette stitch and have to decrease on two out of every three rows, I use the tail to help me count, weaving it in front on two rows, and then behind on the third. That way, when I put the piece down, I always know where I am on the decreasing.

The tail can be used similarly for counting for cable turns, or for counting to make two sides equal. When I am making zig-zags, or segments with several angles, I use red rings for increase points and blue rings for decrease points, so I always remember what to do.

In the meantime, here is my current progress. I thought I was going to make this three squares tall, but two seems large enough.

It's going quickly. The green has been surprising -- even though I am knitting with two ends, they have turned out to be in sync, so it looks like one yarn. The long color change also makes each segment look different. However, now that I have several segments, I like the effect.

First Segment

Here is my colorway, chosen because it had a large skein of one color (the green in the upper left).

The green will be the background color. It's variegated in shade, to add some complexity.

I decided to make the front squares in oranges, so they will pop out visually. That means the back blocks will be purple/blues. Each orange and purple/blue section will use two yarns, just to mix them up.

There are some other greens in the colorway, but I'm not sure I'll end up using them. Maybe they will show up in the edging? We'll have to wait and see.

Here is the beginning.

Yes, it's a simple, standard modular block.

On size 10 needles, I cast on 20, placed a marker (A), then cast on 21. Then I knit back. (This will all be in garter, to keep the proportions.) Then each time I got to A on the front side, I decreased on either side (in my case, slip the stitch before the marker, let the marker hang, put the stitch back on the left needle, put the marker on the right needle, then do a double decrease and continue. Then I knit back without shaping.

I did this for 7 ridges in orange, changed to the background green for 3 ridges, and then finished in the purple/blue until all the stiches were gone.

Here is the rest of the first segment.

Here is how I did it.

(NOTE: I changed how I did the outer green a bit on subsequent segments because I found a better way to do it. I'm explaining the 'better way' here, so pay no attention to the fact that some of the green ridges look like they go the wrong way from my description.)

(These numbers are in grey) I picked up 20 stitches along the top, placed a marker, picked up 21 more stitches down the side. This time on each front side at A, I increased one stitch just in front of the marker, and increased another one after the stitch following the marker. (This keeps the same center stitch, with the marker always in front of it.) I knitted 7 ridges in orange.

(These numbers are in yellow.) Then I cut the orange, and on the next row I knit the first 10 stitches in green, and the rest until the marker in blue. I turned the corner and continued to knit until I was 10 stitches from the edge, and then I turned and knit back, keeping the colors the same and leaving those final 10 stitches unknit. I still increased at A on the right side. I knit 8 ridges like this.

(These numbers are in light blue.) I cut the blue, but not the green, and then cast on 5 stitches in the green, and then knit back, knitting the fifth stitch together with one on the needle, turned and knit the 5 stitches back. I continued in this way, eating up one of the previous stitches each time, until I got to the marker. I then cast on another 5 stitches, and followed the same pattern of knitting two together at the fifth stitch, turned and knit back. (The part after the marker is the green section going down the left edge of the piece.)

When I got to the edge of the blue, I knit down the side of the blue section, picking up 8 stitches along the edge of the blue, and then knitting that 8th stitch together with one of the bottom orange ones, then I turned and knit back. There were now 13 stitches on the needle, from the original 5 and the 8 newly picked up ones. I continued in the same way on these 13 stitches for 10 ridges, which ended the orange stitches to eat up, and then cast off.

Ta-daaa!

Isn't This Well Named For Me?

I buy more quilt books than knitting books these days, even though I don't sew. They tweak my imagination.

One of the most inspiring of the more recent ones is The New Modern Workshop. It has very simple designs which are just different enough to interest me, and it also has one of my favorite features: examples of what a quilt pattern would look like in different color combinations.

This one is actually the reason I ended up buying the book (although it had other ones I liked as well). (Used with permission) It is called Outside the Box.

 
Can't you just see how this will translate into modular pieces?

If you can't, you soon will.

Fifth 2010 One Done

Here we go. (That's a yardstick for size.)

Here's some close-ups.

The middle (the shininess of the center yarn doesn't come through so much)

And the edges:

And a close-up of the edging, where you can see the shiny yarn show through:

I'm very happy with it!