A Bluestocking Knits

Knitting in the Movies and TV: "All Creatures Great and Small" (2020)

I am finding the new "All Creatures Great and Small" series a fairly solid B- -- adding in backstories etc. for characters like Mrs. Hall is all right, but a few points off for non-period dialogue that's full of pesky Americanisms (why on earth don't the older folks in the production crew let the writers know that you didn't "call" people in Britain of the 1930s, not even in Britain of the 1980s, you "rang" them?!), and even more points off for rewriting scenes from the book and taking much of the sparkle out of them.  But the cast is excellent, the scenery is gorgeous of course, and in most respects the production values are very good.  And there are lots of knits, many of them handmade! there is that, of course.

Helen (Rachel Shenton) and James (Nicholas Ralph), pretending they aren't flirting.

Tristan (Callum Woodhouse) looking quite louche, as one might expect!

Mrs. Hall's knitting is alarmingly chunky for the 1930s.  Points off for letting her wool roll about on the floor, which I don't think any self-respecting Yorkshire housekeeper would do, but points back for the crochet squares on the table.  I was a bit alarmed that her right hand is over the needle when so very many English ladies at this time and for some years later held their right hand under the needle, but apparently that was a "posh" thing, and so it seems quite likely after all that a country woman would have held it the way Anna Madeley is doing.

Tristan seems to get the lion's share of the hand-knitted slipovers!

Well, this is actually a pretty characteristic thing for book-Tristan, actually ...

A truly splendid Fair Isle-style scarf, in gorgeous colors too!

I don't really know why barmaid Maggie (Mollie Winnard) should be holding a donkey on a rope halter, but perhaps that will be explained later -- what I am interested in at the moment is those very fetching Scandinavian-star fingerless gloves!

I am enjoying watching 1930s and 40s programs while I knit on the Rae slipover for Julia, so it's all good.  The Palette is loosely-spun and a bit splitty, but I'm hoping that most of the inconsistencies come out in the wash -- and it is surprisingly soft even still on the needles.  These are some of the craziest "Fair Isle" patterns I've ever seen, but there is no question about it not being "1940s"!

I couldn't get enough of the "Oregon Coast" in the same dyelot, and I also had a bit of trouble matching the gauge of the single-color bands to the gauge of the two-color ones, so I solved both issues at once by working the single-color bands with two balls of the same color but one each from the different dyelots.  I don't think the difference between the two is quite as apparent in real life as it is in the photo, or perhaps the random-ish alternation is working its magic.

And for a bonus, a flashback to the original series, here with a very young Peter Davison as Tristan -- now that I look at it, the slipover has a rather 1980s look to it in gauge and length! but it is still very charming --

Victory Roll

Julia astonished me last week by saying, "Mom, I'd like a 40s Fair Isle vest."  I nearly fell off my chair.  Julia, for whom even Shepherd Sock is "too scratchy"??  She is getting very interested in "retro" and period clothing, mainly 1940s.  She had seen some modern versions on a website somewhere, and showed me what had piqued her interest, although when I started cross-examining it turned out that she liked the actual 40s details better -- the higher waist and shorter ribbed welt, the slightly-smaller armholes and narrower armhole ribbing, and the generally-closer fit.  Poking around on various websites looking for free patterns, there were quite a number of ones that were close, but none with all of the details plus a set of Fair Isle patterns that she liked.  I was on the verge of cobbling the right shape garment with color-your-own Fair Isle patterns, when I traced an image I found on Pinterest to FabForties.co.uk (formerly The Vintage Knitting Lady) where I found the above Bairns-Wear sleeveless pullover for mere pennies -- almost as good as free.

With a pattern in hand at last, I sat down with a chart-making software and graphed the first two patterns from the written-out instructions -- all three patterns have a 10-stitch repeat -- in something vaguely resembling the suggested colors, which are a burgundy ground with maize (the lighter yellow here), ice blue, berberis (the gold), sea green, and "Queen Mary Rose".  I didn't even get to the sea green and rose before I knew something was very wrong.  I tried it again, thinking maybe I was a stitch off somewhere and things were misaligned, but it was exactly the same.  The next day, it occurred to me that since -- nowadays at least -- Fair Isle is usually worked in the round, and these instructions are for knitting flat, maybe the designer had worked it in the round and whoever typed it up hadn't realized that, so I tried charting it with every row worked as though from the front, and got this --

which en masse looks like this --

which looks much more likely.  I'm still pretty sure that that bottom band is not the same one as in the knitted-up slipover in the photo ...

Still oddly irregular for Fair Isle, but not as Chinese-dragon-like as the one from the instructions!  (Chinese dragons are all very well when you want Chinese dragons, of course -- maybe not so much in a 1940s Fair-Isle slipover.)

As a relief from those garish chart colors, here is what we worked out from the Knit Picks "Palette" line -- with the main mousy-brown color "repeated" between the pattern colors --

Fingers crossed that they go well together in real life!

To be continued ...!

On the Needles

This is the back of the DROPS 118-26 vest/waistcoat/sleeveless cardigan/thingy, for which I decided to use the Knitpicks Palette that my mom decided she didn't want any more.  I started this a while ago, then waffled about it, then decided the other day to carry on.  I got down to the lower edge of the armscyes, shushing the inner voice that said "it's too small, something isn't right," then laid it out like this and knew at once that it is indeed far too small.   Part of that, to be sure, is that between "a while ago" and "the other day" I forgot which hook I used to work my gauge swatch, and then picked up the wrong one -- smaller, of course -- but part was that the instructions do indeed tell you to work 5cm before beginning the increases for the bottom of the armscye, when clearly 5cm is nothing in the world of armscyes.  I decided that, joy of joys, I am confident enough to adjust a crochet pattern to fit me, and so in looking around for some advice about shaping armscyes and coming across Elinor Brown's article and the calculator linked therein, I worked out that I need to have 5 inches, not cm, before (because it is worked top-down) beginning the increases.

And so the piece in the above photo was ripped out and re-worked into this -- which is the right front, instead of the back, being a smaller piece to work before I judge whether the alterations will be sufficient --

I figured that since I was ripping it out to modify the pattern anyway, I might as well shape the shoulder while I'm at it, so I worked a graduated set of SC, HDC, DC, and TC across the 17 sts of the first row (to be worked in the opposite order for the corresponding back shoulder). 

And in knitting news -- because, glory be on this knitting blog, there is some -- David asked for a ski-helmet liner for his birthday, so I've got the beginning of one on the needles.  I can hardly bear to confess how many stitches I've had to ladder and pick back up in the proper direction because I'd purled instead of knitted here and there, but it was a lot.  Oh well, dark green wool in distracting times! there it is.

Happy New Year!

I am actually knitting, though you wouldn't much know it from recent posts, to be sure.  The Gladys socks are done and waiting to be photographed, as many things have interrupted, including -- hurray! -- a spate of rainy weather, much welcome in the parched Southland, though just not very good for photographing indoors.  I've also started a "hug-me-tight" of sorts, from a 1917 Priscilla book, hoping to race through its simplicity in time to take advantage of it in this sudden chill.  (Quick! garter stitch!!)

(This first ball of Matchmaker had FOUR splices and a knot!!)

Well, it is the time of year, of course, for looking back and then ahead.  I didn't accomplish many of my sewing ambitions at all, I'm afraid, finishing only two of the nine projects I named.  Sigh.  Sometimes I look back, say twenty-five or thirty years, and wonder how on earth I managed to read so much, and write so many letters -- long ones, too, fifteen or twenty sheets of airmail paper sometimes! -- but then I remember that of course that was both pre-children and pre-internet (which came in that order for me), and both can be massive time-devourers.  I still do want to sew all of those projects I chose, and have fabric ready for the apron for sure, so that may be on the schedule fairly soon.  Laura has in fact made some tentative I-want-to-learn-to-sew noises lately, which might help get my sewing inspiration warmed up again.

(And wouldn't you know it, as I write, Julia comes creeping in -- it is 5:45 in the morning on the first day of school after the holidays -- and says, "Um, it's raining and I have to take my clarinet to school, could you drive me, please?"  I have added the "please" myself, but as it happens even without it this was very polite for Julia.  Well, I can't really be annoyed at the interruption, as I am frequently saying, "Careful! don't let your clarinet get wet!" as she now has a very nice wooden one for concerts and fine days!)

Talking of fine days, we stayed at David's parents' house in Pasadena on New Year's Eve, to get Julia up for her three a.m. call before the Rose Parade.  It was alarmingly windy in the night, but dawned, as it so often does for the Parade, cold and sunny.  We didn't get grandstand seats this year, but watched the first half or so on television, then walked over to the park at the end of the route, where the floats and equestrian units broke off in one direction, and the bands went in another to have something to eat -- it was past ten by that time, a long stretch for teenagers to go without food, let alone after a 5 1/2-mile march! -- and then to get back on the buses which would take them back to the starting point.  So we had to stand to see the end of the parade, and not quite optimally, but this photo shows how close we were to the bands!  They sounded great, too -- at the Parade and a few days earlier at Disneyland -- we were very proud parents!

I still have a few letters to go on the ABChallenge, and it's getting a bit harder now as the last letters are not so ubiquitous -- oh, there's another "u" word!  I found this rock on the trail (urban, another "u" word) where I walk, and took it home because it is so pleasingly different.  No idea what it is -- the lighter parts look granitey, but then there are those curious strata, quite different from our common salt-and-pepper native granite.  Folded granite or migmatite, maybe?  (Whew, that Wikipedia article is like the Peanuts "wa-wah-wah wah wah wa-wah" to me!  I still really like my rock, though.)

That challenge reminds me that I actually still have a couple of project left to do on my "Knitting the Knitter's Almanac" project, since I, er, paused after the Nether Garments Event.  I didn't mean to give up, and so still consider that I haven't, although twelve years is a fairly long time for just a pause!  I still have October's Open-Collared Pullover, November's famous Moccasin Socks, and December's Hurry-Up Last-Minute Sweater to go.

And a pair of plain socks on the needles for something portable -- plainish.  This is Loops & Threads Perfect Pair sock yarn in the puzzlingly-named color "Drive All Night," which is actually very charming and springlike.

Thoughts on the Pivot Cowl, and an Unsuccessful Foxglove Vest

I've had quite a lot of this RYC Cashsoft DK for a long time -- this color is 505 "Mist" -- and so far have attempted at least two other projects with it that turned out in the end not to be suited for each other at all.  As I was knitting away on the Foxglove Vest, it was clear that there would be a lot of yarn left over, and that it would look really lovely in the Pivot Cowl, also from Purl Soho.  When I finished knitting the Foxglove, I told myself I'd just have a quick start on the cowl before I worked in all of the ends (since there were a lot of ends, both from my having inherited a half-finished project, and my having inadvertently divided up most of what was left into partial balls!) -- and the next thing I knew, the cowl was finished!

 So, yes, the Cashsoft makes a very pleasing Pivot Cowl, which works up in just a few days and breaks up the dull garter stitch with this interesting multi-directional geometrical shaping --

I used the selvage I learned from the Doctor Who scarf, slipping the last stitch of each row knit-wise, and reversed the first section so that the long-tail cast-on is WS-forward, because I like the way it looks with garter stitch better that way -- but those are the only things I did differently from the pattern.

It's a very cozy cowl, and I really like the way it sits around the neck -- being narrower at the top than at the bottom, it's a bit closer at the neck, and lies very handsomely across one's bust at the lower edge.  Hurray!

The Foxglove, however, has proven to be a sad failure.  I wasn't really sure about which size to make, since my own measurements are more-or-less between the given sizes, so I measured, and thought about it, and measured, and thought about it, and finally got going on the larger of the two choices -- I put just a little bit of shaping at the waist as it's very straight and I am not, and I thought that shaping would compensate a bit for the ease.

The collar is very handsome and flattering, and not at all difficult to work.  I checked the size before sewing it all up, then blocked it, and it is huge.  Huge.  Far too big.  I'm crushed, really -- I love this color, and perhaps more importantly I'd love to wear this color.  And I have knitted and ripped out and knitted and ripped out this yarn and -- bravely -- it still looks pretty good, but I just don't know if I can face ripping it out yet again.

Sigh.

Thoughts on "Sinnesfrid"

I was going to do an in-progress post on this, then I turned around and it was done.  It's taken me longer to get the photos than to knit the thing!

It isn't really very often that I can wear handknits here in Southern California, other than socks of course -- so I have lots of scarves and shawls.  It occurred to me recently, in one of those "duh" moments, that I should have more slipovers and vests in my wardrobe.  No, I shall call it "serendipity" instead -- much nicer -- since I was browsing some recent issues of Knitty that I hadn't seen, and was looking straight at the Sinnesfrid vest by Madeleine Nilsson when I thought, "well, yeah, vests --"  I had already had my eye on Wendy Barnard's Splash vest for a while, and so I bought the yarn for both the next day.

The yarn is 3 skeins of Malabrigo Rios in 412 "Teal Feather".  This is a lovely color, though not really one that I would have chosen to actually wear, being drawn to less saturated colors, I guess -- but there wasn't much choice at Jimmy Beans as the yarn seems in short supply, and I can understand that, as it is very pleasant to knit with indeed.  (Even Laura, not especially fond of handknits, said as she was helping me wind a skein, "This is nice yarn.")  It knits up beautifully, very even, with just a gentle color variation throughout the fabric.  There were knots in every skein -- one had two knots and a rather indifferent splice, all within an arm's-length of each other -- but other than that I would be happy to use it again.

The pattern is quite easy to follow, and I had only two slight hiccups as it went along -- one was just past the point where you have cast on for the armholes, and the waffly-rib stitch doesn't quite line up as it has been doing.  This is all right, since even though it doesn't line up, after a few more rows you can't really tell.  Just don't look down, and you'll be fine.  The other part was also to do with the waffle-rib not lining up, just towards the end of the waist shaping. Just into the bottom border you increase a few more stitches, but instead of working a "p2, sl m, k2" as Row 2 has you do to accommodate the increases into the waffle-rib, I just did "p1, k1, p1, k1" and thought it looked a little less obvious.  A very minor cavil, certainly. 

I did choose to sew the front together, since I was pretty sure that with my figure and the negative ease I wanted with this vest, the button closure would pull rather unattractively.  The buttons are just plain La Mode mother-of-pearl buttons (#1651).

I am astonished and delighted that in fact I did not take it off after the "photo shoot" this afternoon, since it was chilly enough to appreciate the wool.  Autumn is coming at last!

Thoughts on Honeycomb

Still catching up --

This is Sarah Castor's Honeycomb slipover from the Spring 2008 Knitty -- why it has taken me this long to a) finish it, and b) blog about it, I do not know, for it is in fact a very nice pattern, and it turned out well.  I finished it some time in May, I think -- I remember wearing it to choir practice, surprised and pleased that the weather was still cool enough at the time to wear it.  I am embarrassed to admit that I don't know any more how many skeins of the Silky Wool I used, nor what size I worked -- I have four ball bands in the bag with the leftover wool, but I'm sure it was more than four, certainly five, but possibly six, as I worked it about 3 inches longer than specified, as I don't like slipovers quite this short.

As I've said before, I debated with myself for quite some time after working the ribbing -- I hate to say a year, but it may well have been -- about the honeycomb stitch, which I did not much care for, but eventually thought "for heaven's sake, just do it" and plowed on ahead.

And I couldn't stick fussing with a cable needle for one stitch at a time, nor bring myself to cable without it altogether -- in my defense, the wool is rather fine, and did not seem to lend itself well to this method -- so I used the twists instead.  Much easier.

For C2B, do a right twist (RT): K2tog but do not remove sts from needle, K first st again and slip both sts off needle together. 

For C2F, do a left twist (LT): K second st tbl but do not remove it from needle, K first st and slip both sts off needle together.

Other than that, it's a good pattern -- it all went together very easily, has a nice fitted shape, flattering (flattering is good!), and matched nicely with the recommended yarn.

The Silky Wool is very nice, lovely to work with, a pleasant hand, and the color is just perfect.

So -- yes, a very nice knit.  Got a number of compliments on it the very first time I wore it, too!

Honeycomb

Since I'm obviously on a roll with long-abandoned projects, I picked up this one yesterday --

 

Honeycomb from Knitty, in Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool.  I printed the pattern on March 26 ... 2008.  Got to the top of the ribbing, did the first row of the pattern stitch and paused, uncertain about the honeycomb itself, and there it has remained for nearly two years.  Tch.

Remembering the very first row of cabling essentially every stitch one at a time, I thought yesterday, "well, that will never do," and dug out the instructions for left and right twists.  Much easier. 

So instead of C2B, do the RT: K2tog but do not remove sts from needle, K first st again and slip both sts off needle together.  And instead of C2F, do LT: K second st tbl but do not remove it from needle, K first st and slip both sts off needle together.  Easy peasy.

I'm still not wildly enthusiastic about the honeycomb stitch, but it goes quickly, with just K2, P2 rows on the wrong side and mostly K rows on the right, and every now and then what, without even thinking about it, I started calling the twizzle row.

Not twizzles, but I like this couple, Meryl Davis and Charlie White of Michigan, in the free dance Sunday evening.

Thoughts on the Vest for a Fiancé

Ta-da! at last, the Vest for a Fiancé, from Knitting With a Smile by Inger Fredholm of FredholmKnitting.  I started this nearly a year ago, let it sit over the summer when it was just too hot, and then picked up again in a rush hoping it would be done by Christmas or so.  I did get the knitting itself done in early December, but lost heart at the finishing, then gave myself a talking-to last week and dug it out again.

I want to love this book -- I want to love this pattern.  I like it a lot, but I'm annoyed at some little things about it that kept me from loving it with quite the abandon I wanted to.  Be warned straight off that this pattern at least assumes a considerable amount of experience -- which in all fairness she warns about ahead of time -- but there is little information about finishing and nothing at all about steeking.

The style is very colloquial, which I think may make it a little difficult for those knitters extending themselves with a pattern a little harder than they are used to. There are a few little typos in the Vest for a Fiancé at least -- a cast-on and 7 back-and-forth rows gets you to the RS, do the picot at the hem and armholes K2tog, yo but around the front edges P2tog, yo (well, I assumed that was a typo, and did it K2tog, yo). 

I centered both the front and back patterns, as it bothered me that they weren't already. Luckily, the patterns themselves were so pleasing to my eye even at the time that this was only a minor cavil.

(The color in the top photos is more accurate than in the bottom ones.  The sunlight was rather tenuous; perhaps that was it.  My camera seems to get a little over-excited when it has to do reds, too.)

I also added a row of the white "fleur de lis" across the shoulder and back of the neck, as in the photo of the original vest, not the one knitted for the book -- I just thought it looked more finished that way.

I think that the front edge band is a bit too big.  I thought so from the moment I cast it off, but sewed it up anyways because I was, well, I can't say heartily sick of the thing, but I just really wanted it to be finished.  It didn't look too big after some energetic blocking,, but I think it probably could be worked smaller.

As I said, there are no instructions as to steeking and finishing, so of course I poked around on the internet beforehand, starting with Eunny's justly-famous Steeking Chronicles.  She was (at least at the time) quite set against machine-sewed steeks, and argued so logically that I was reluctant to do them that way.  I had, though, already bought the Smart wool, which is superwash, and Eunny noted (somewhere in there) that you can't do a crocheted steek on superwash as the fibers are too slippery.  I also found comments there and elsewhere from Norwegians and friends-of-Norwegians who said they'd done machine-sewed steeks for years with never a problem with loose stitches or stiffness -- so I thought, right, well --! and just went for it, following for the most part some advice from KidsKnits on steeking.

So here are a few things that I learned:

Join all new colors/balls in the middle of the front opening steek.  Do not be tempted to join anywhere else in order to save that arm's length of wool.  If all of the ends are in the front, they will be trimmed away like magic when you cut the steek, and you will not have to weave in all of those fiddly ends.  And I'm embarrassed to say that I didn't think of this much earlier!

The Vest for a Fiancé steeks are far too big, especially the one at the neck.  They vary widely in width; I've no idea why.  I wanted the cut edges to be hidden under the folded hem, so had to re-reinforce the wider ones with the sewing machine and trim them again.  Yeah, I should have thought of that first, too, because I thought "this is huge" even as I was working it -- 25 sts for the neck steek compared to 7 for the front opening and 11 for the armholes.  I did actually stitch two cutting lines, and cut the neck steek much closer to where I wanted it, but overestimated the first time around.  (The wool I "saved" by not joining new balls in the front, I lost by having to cut away a 2x4"/5x10cm  piece at the neck.)  Seven sts would probably be fine for each of the steeks -- although I will say that I don't yet have that much experience with them, so am happy to hear other advice.  It looked as though Elizabeth Zimmermann's "kangaroo pouch" trick would have worked perfectly here.

I tried not to have any floats longer than three stitches.  This was a real bother, but I think it paid off --

 

I'm actually rather pleased with the facings.  I had seen somewhere -- stupidly, either forgot to bookmark it or didn't put it in the right call number in my internet bookmarks (yes, my bookmarks are cataloged in Dewey Decimal order) -- that the traditional method of sewing down the facing is with an X-stitching on the inside, but upon sitting at the kitchen table with a blunt darning needle in very bright light, couldn't quite see how to do this without it showing on the right side.  The bottom hem facing had gone on surprisingly easily (I think I've only ever knitted them in before this!), with a kind of whipped stitch.  Since the cast-off edge of the front band had the "chain" running neatly along the edge, I took advantage of that and made sure that my hand-stitches went into the middle of each "link" and thus are completely invisible.  A neat trick -- I'm sure I'm not the first one to have thought of this, either.

These photos, I must say, show the wonders of blocking.  I was a bit dismayed with the gauche charm of the thing, still delighted with the colors and the patterns but just not quite sure that it was all going to come together, as it were -- and yet after it was all stitched up and the ends snipped off or sewn in or tucked away, everything just sort of settled down most amazingly.

The machine-sewn steeks, I must say, are quite flexible, not stiff in the least.

Actually, now that a week or so has passed, I'm beginning to forget the annoyances, and just remember the fun of it.  It's not a particularly flattering shape -- the shoulders especially -- but I love the colors, I still love the flowers on the front and the "stars" on the back, and the smart border between the two, and the dashes of white at the hem....