Avocado Carnaby -- Finishing touches

It's done! It's done! I love the drape of blocked wool. It just hangs straight off of your hand all relaxed and happy. There is no fighting with it to lie still or tussling over sides that don't quite match up. Those were my thoughts as I pulled the blocking wires out of the skirt this morning.

 I grabbed the buttons and got to work.  Now, I know most of you have sewn a million buttons on things; so have I in my lifetime. But there is a difference to sewing buttons on to a knitted item as opposed to most woven fabric.

With these buttons, using regular thread would have taken forever, so I split the 4 ply worsted weight yarn I used into two sets of two ply and threaded a small yarn needle.

I then doubled the yarn over and tied a knot at the end. This is really important for an upcoming step.

If you line up the two sides with the button hole on top, you can mark the placement of the button by sticking your needle straight into button hole.

Holding the needle, pull back the buttonhole side and look at the placement of the needle. This is where you want your button to be centered.

One difficulty with sewing into knitted fabric is that there are so many holes! So one of the tricks that I learned many years ago is: When you go up and then down through the button's holes for the first time slip the needle through the loop formed by the two legs of the yarn. This will anchor the end of the yarn with the button itself so that it won't come loose.

It only takes a few passes with the yarn to fill up the big holes in the button. Try sewing on 7 of these with plain thread!

Make sure that the direction of the threads through the button holes all go the same way. It would look really funny if some were horizontal and some were vertical. I don't think it matters which way they go as long as they are consistent.

Happy Knitting!

Productive Knitting Week: Part 1 - The Carnaby

I finally finished the skirt that I have been working on for about the last month. Last night I completed the stabilizing crochet stitches at the waist; this morning I wove in and skimmed in the ends of the yarn joins; and then I started the blocking process.

I have posted my blocking process in a prior post, so I won't go into it again, however, I want to show you that years ago I bought a really big bowl to put chips in for parties. It is bigger than a punch bowl and it turned out to be one of the best knitting tools I ever purchased! Here is the skirt enduring it's 30 minute soak.

Another purchase that I made a few months ago were blocking wires. Turned out that they work for a lot of things. In the set that I purchased are two flexible wires. I used both of them to weave into the waist of the skirt. This gave me the ability to set the curve into the top of the skirt and pull the panels out to a length of 20.5 inches which should make the skirt long enough to wear to work. You can just see the wire at the top of the picture on the right.

I left the skirt pinned to my blocking mat (aka my spare bed's mattress) with a small circular fan blowing across the top of it. Now, it was time for a field trip to my local Hobby Lobby for buttons.

I would have preferred a darker wood, but because I had extended the length of the skirt by 8 stitches, I needed to put in a 7th button. There were buttons that were more of a red cherry wood color, but there were only 6 of those buttons left. Hmm. I think these lighter maple wood looking ones look pretty good anyway. I will be sewing these on tomorrow and with any luck will be wearing it to work on Monday.

Stay tuned for parts two and three!

Happy Knitting.

Short row knitting -- One of my favorite things!

As you may have seen in one of my most recent posts, I am currently knitting a skirt called the Carnaby. The skirt is knit with a pair of panels: one in a pattern and the other a stocking stitch wedge formed with short row knitting. I have grown quite fond of short rows. I remembered first learning how to do short row knitting when knitting sock heels. But I have found that short row knitting is used in all kinds of knitting.

Just like increases and decreases, short row knitting is a shaping method. Think "darts" in sewing. From the photo above, you can see the wedges formed with the short rows. (Ignore the color, my iPhone doesn't capture color indoors at night very well.) In the picture on the left, you can see where the short row stopped and turned around. The Carnaby pattern, spaces each short row end about 10 stitches  from the last one, with six short rows in all so that it is a long skinny wedge.

The Purl Bee has a very nice short row pictorial tutorial (wow that rhymes) showing the wrap and turn that most people use with short row knitting. "Purl" has pictures showing both the wrap and the pickup when both knitting and purling. And since Purl did such a great job, I would rather you check out her link. I'm not sure I would do half as well with my iPhone.

On Ravelry, as of the date of this post, if you do a pattern search on just the word short row you will have 12,518 patterns come up. Well that isn't all socks or skirts! There are coats, dresses, scarves, swimsuits, toys and buttons. Personally, I have made dog sweaters, socks, and an ear flap chullo on my knitting machine.

If you haven't tried short row knitting yet, you are missing out on a very useful skill. Pick up some yarn, pick out a pattern and get some learn'n on!

Happy Knitting!

My current project: The Carnaby

The Carnaby, designed by Nikol Lohr and published in the Fall 2010 online Knitty, is a skirt reminiscent of the prep-school tartan. This skirt is knit along its length in a two panel pattern. One panel is in box stitch, a 2 X 2 checkerboard pattern that lends huge texture and meatiness, the other panel is a short row stocking-stitch forming a long, thin pie wedge. This combination gives the skirt a natural increase from the waist to hip without darts or increase/decrease shaping at a side seam. It also adds a fun and flirty A-line look.

I have lengthened the skirt just slightly to just-above-the-knee length, so that I can wear it to work without worrying about professionalism. The wrap styling is one of the best features of this skirt, but I plan to make only the top two buttons functional and close the remaining ones permanently. This will lesson the number of button holes that I have to make and make the skirt less likely to open at inopportune times. Big, fat, wooden buttons are what I have in mind. I will have to go button shopping closer to the end of my knitting when I get to the button hole row.

The yarn I have chosen is Wool of the Andes by Knit Picks in a beautiful, creamy avocado color. I like this yarn. I used the Wool of the Andes Bulky when I did my Chocolate Diamonds last fall and decided to try it in the worsted weight. I am glad that I did since I am getting the same good stitch definition that I got with the bulky version. The color is great and is a direct result of my love of the fruit, too!

Well, since I would rather be knitting than blogging. . . Happy knitting!!!