Fabric Purchases 1667 (Newton, Isaac)

Bought to make Isaac's bachelor's gown:

ffor Woosted Prunella 8yds 1/2. 1 . 5 . 6
ffor the lining 4yds ———— 0 . 9 . 4

He also spent 16 shillings on a magnet.

More information here.

Isabella Review

Now for a picture of Isabella.


I wore it for the first time on Sunday. Up until then it kept being too hot: these photos were taken the day I finished it, about ten days ago.

Details:
Pattern: Isabella from Knitty
KAL: here
Yarn: Rowan Cotton Glace
Shade: 791, a pale fudge colour
Quantity: 6 balls (or was it 5 balls, or 7 balls?) with a teensy bit leftover
Stash busting: 6 balls
Time Taken: about 3.5 months from start to finish
Modification: changed sleeves, used yarn with a different gauge

I started this more or less the day Knitty came out. I got sidetracked with knitting of failed projects, plus other stuff going on. When I was actually knitting it, it went fast. I really liked the lace panel, and it seems to flatter my hourglass figure.

The original was sleeveless. However, I was worried I'd get sunburnt shoulders, so I added cap sleeves. I'm not sure they quite work. Dh knows to say only nice things about my knitting, but when I said the sleeves would go down well at a Star Trek convention, he said he had spotted the similarity. If I was doing them again, I'd probably decrease more in the sleeve section. Also, before washing, the armholes seemed quite gape-y, but they seemed to have settled a bit. I don't think I'll redo them.

The picot edging turns up as well, so I might redo that. Or I might not.

Sleeve modification:
The pattern says to:

• pick up stitches around the armhole,
• knit four rows
• do the YO, k2tog picot row
• knit four more rows
• cast off

What I did was

• pick up stitches around the armhole, starting at shoulder seam
• knit four rows
• calculated what one sixth of the stitches was (strictly speaking, halved then divided by three, which rounds slightly differently)
• short row sleeve section:
  
  • from top of shoulder (I had a marker), knitted one sixth stitches minus one
  • wrap and turn, and purl back to same number past the marked stitch
    (that is one third in total), but also purl 2 tog at top of sleeve
  • wrap and turn
    
  • knit back to one less stitch then before
  • wrap and turn
  • purl back to one less stitch then before, also decrease at shoulder seam
  • repeat for a total of ten rows
  
  
• Next row, knit all the way round, picking up wrapped stitches
• then the picot row
• then knit four more rows, but on the third, increase about four stitches on each outside curve of the short row shaping section.
• cast off, and sew up as described in pattern

I like the fit, although I'm not sure about the sleeves.

Next!

Leftovers from Isabella


plus a new book and some other yarn


equals

mystery project

Euler or Newton

I've spent the last week writing essays on the calculus after 1700 and on Newton's Principia. Let me tell you what I know:

On second thoughts, let's not...



PS the cherry plums are now very nice jam.

Sunday

I've finished Isabella at long last: I made some changes to the sleeve, which I will write up and include in a post, along with pictures.

There seemed to be a huge load of sewing up with Isabella, and having finished it, I continued with sewing in ends of some other projects.

This one is obviously Grrr from Knitty. I used some Patons 100% cotton, which had been in my stash for a while.

(This picture is genuinely the right way up.)

I really like the way it has come out: the front has a soft texture, and the back has a slightly harder texture for scrubbing grubby faces and hands. OTOH, it was a tedious knit, the stitch pattern needing too much concentration to watch TV while doing it, but too repetitive to want to sit and knit while doing it.

The second is a Mason-Dixon nine-patch washcloth. I enjoyed knitting the nine-patch. It used Sirdar 100% DK cotton.


I can really see the appeal of knitting washcloths. Nice small pieces that can be finished quickly, with as simple or as complex a pattern as you want. The problem with them - for me anyway - is that they aren't something I'd use. I could knit them and give them away: but then I'd have to spend ages explaining just why I'd knitted them, especially as you can (if you look at the right place and time) get quality face flannels for 75p. However a net-savvy knitter would appreciate one, and I have a reason for knitting them for such a knitter.

Oh, we picked the cherry plums in the first picture from the garden. It is the first time the tree has fruited since we moved here. Unfortunately the birds have been busy, and this is a fraction of what we could have picked if the birds hadn't got there first.

Needle roll pics

I have been a Bad and Neglectful Blogger and not showed you the needle roll Crafty Bernie sent me. It came weeks ago, and was the best type of informal swop. I sent Bernie some wool, and she sent me a needle roll in return. She was happy because she had some wool which she wanted. In return she cleared out a little bit of my stash (thank you Bernie) and made me a home for my knitting needles (thank you Bernie).



It also came with this:

Harry Potter film knitting and crochet highlights

The lilac shrug worn by Luna here (also some scarves).

The lace cardigan demonstrated by Delores Umbridge.

Ron's sweater which has a plain back.

There was another top which only came up momentarily, but it looked like Leonie
(fifth of the little pictures). It was in browns, and might have be mainly knitted apart from the crochet edging.

Hermione wore a fair isle sweater in some scenes.

Plastic bags, revisited

I've mislaid my camera, which means I can't show you pictures of my topologically impossible sock knitting, or the knitting needle roll which Crafty Bernie made for me.

However this is not a pictureless post: do you rememberthis post? I showed you: a pot scrubber made from knitted plastic bags.

Well Ferret found a tutorial which shows how to make material from plastic bags. The possibilities are fascinating.

Buying sock yarn in Reading

The other shop I went to in Reading was Jacksons, an old-fashioned department store. My route from the carpark led me past the shop before I got to the main shopping centre, so I had a very quick look round. I identified sock wool (several makes) as being a probable purchase, but they also had Sirdar, Patons and I think Gediva. The total area dedicated to yarns was quite reasonable, and they also had rug yarns. I didn't notice anything in the way of fabric.

After I'd looked round some of the other shops, I returned to the wool department in Jacksons and selected two balls of St Ives Sunbeam, made by Thomas Ramsden, in the colour "Heathland". This comes into the category of cheap and cheerful, a wool nylon mix in a shade of green that is nearly, but not quite solid.

The shop was so old-fashioned that when I took it to the counter, the assistant got out a pad and wrote out the receipt, calculating the price and the change due herself. (Funnily we had been discussing at the tutorial how no-one needs to know basic arithmetic any more.) There was a till, but it was shut up - it was 5pm on a Saturday afternoon. No problem, she took the whole lot to another department where there was a device worthy of a Harry Potter film. The assistant put the handwritten receipt and the cash into a cylinder like the "airtube carrier" pictured here. She put it into a hatch, and there was a whoosh. A little while later there was another whoosh, she opened the hatch and took the pod out again. Inside was the change, a five-pound note.

(Full details of the system in Jacksons on this website: the pictures could have been taken yesterday.)

Coming soon, the topologically impossible knitting, or the socks that cannot be knitted...

Back again.

I'm back!

A very close relative died, that's where I went. It was sudden, and we weren't expecting it, but not a total shock. What did take me by surprise was how completely it drained my energy: when they say "take each day as it comes" they forget to add "because you can't cope with tomorrow as well".

I had an OU tutorial in Reading yesterday. Then I went and had a quick scoot round the shops there. I found two shops selling wool, both had been discussed on the angel yarns forums.

The first was John Lewis: the department seems quite small compared to John Lewis in Milton Keynes. It had a range of Debbie Bliss and Rowan wool as well as some more typical Sirdar or Patons. I selected two balls of Debbie Bliss cashmerino superchunky, because they matched the 8 balls of Space I'd bought in Ireland last year. The shop-keeper had decided I needed 8 balls for the pattern I'd selected, although actually I was a size larger, and would have liked to have had one spare in case I ran out. I think I matched the colour pretty well from memory.



I also bought some balls of Debbie Bliss Soho: partly because they matched the superchunky for colour. Anyway, I really liked them. I asked the assistant if they had any patterns. They didn't, and although she said it would knit to any pattern for aran, she looked a bit dismissive when I said I just wanted to go home and knit.



I'll show you the sock wool later: if I don't post now I won't for ages.

Do I post?

Put it like this: real life has got in the way of posting, and I have no words to tell the world about it. Do I post a poem, or a picture, or some words, or just go back to my normal posting about random craft type things?

I probably won't post anything less cryptic, and I may even delete this post. But today was the first day of the rest of my life.