jenwren's blog

I managed to finish three baby hats before Sunday's gathering at Sally's place. The two hats in the Nundle wool were speedy to knit.



The Bendigo wool isn't as chunky as the Nundle, so the third one took longer to knit and was finished on Saturday night with about 2 metres of yarn left over.



The fourth one was the red skein, which was the lightest skein. I worked on that one at Sally's on Sunday and reached the start of the decreases, but the yarn ran out. I don't have any more of the Bendigo Colonial 8 ply in a colour that will compliment the red, so I've put that aside until I decide on some yarn in a similar gauge to finish it or frog it. Hopefully it will be my first finished item for next year's collection.

Meanwhile I knit a swatch for Calvert on Sunday night:



...and then I knit another one last night because once the first one was washed, it was off gauge. I finally have gauge, so am about to cast on.

Today I went back to Hornsby Wool and Craft Nook and exchanged the six left over balls of Jo Sharp Silkroad DK Tweed left over from Tangled Yoke for the loveliness below:



This is Sirdar Snuggly Baby Bamboo DK (80% bamboo, 20% wool) for a Pinwheel Cardigan for Charlotte. The exchange covered about three-quarters of the cost of the yarn for this project. I'll probably end up with lots of part balls over from this project, but the colours compliment so well that I'm sure to be able to use them up in other things. I won't be starting it for a while since it's for next Winter and Charlotte will grow a fair bit before then. The blues were going to be in the centre and the red on the edge, but there was only one ball of the deep pink left in the shop so I reversed the colour order rather than run short or have to mix dye lots within the stripe. For the record, the colours are 139 Ming, 135 Sleepy Blue, 137 Little Lilac, 136 Tulip, 134 Babe, 141 Rosy and 142 Cherry Lips. I'm so loving the colours that it might be hard to keep from casting this on.

I started Calvert with the left front since I wanted to get the bits I needed to think about done first. The mindless stockinette will be best done when I have a lot of other things going on, like Year 7 camp, which is now in less that two weeks time (eek!). And I'm so glad I started there first...

I started to have misgivings about the accuracy of the schematics in the pattern in comparison to their photo of the finished garment. According to the instructions, I was supposed to start the chart for the yoke openwork 9” from the beginning. But if I look at the photo and use the 1.5” ribbing as a scale, the chart looks like it was started 10.5” from the beginning - 9” from the top of the ribbing. Hmmm....

I delved a little deeper into what was to follow. The sizing lengthens the openwork panel's length. Over the full range of sizes the panel length varies by 2”. However, I really like the proportions of the lace as shown in the photo - that’s what attracted me to the pattern in the first place. And I wasn't keen to knit it as it is written as this would probably place the panel such that it begins well below my bust line in an unflattering manner. Then Mum (who visited Sydney last week, by the way) pointed out the width doesn’t look proportional, so while it does change in length, it doesn’t change in width and so doesn’t remain in proportion as the bust size increases.

And once I started looking at the width of the panel, I noticed that it appears to be nine repeats of a yarn over paired with a decrease when you study the photos (particularly here), but the chart only has seven repeats (yes, even in the corrected chart). Not happy.

So late on Friday night I posted on Ravelry about my concerns. I left off the bit about the nine repeats versus seven in the chart because I wasn't sure if I was counting it right. Unfortunately, only one Raveler has finished hers (and no, it doesn't look like I was expecting) and the few that seem to be in progress have probably begun with the back and so presumably haven't yet encountered anything they might see as a problem. So my post didn't begin any discussion.

But I'm still in love with the Calvert in the photo. So on Saturday evening I sat down with the pen and calculator and worked out where I thought the chart should start, and how wide it should be. I shortened the whole thing by 2" to 23" (I didn't realise how long it was going to be!) and I re-charted the yoke panel. Then I recommenced knitting.

Last night I finished the left front. My apologies for the poor lighting in the photo above. Having knit the openwork, I'm convinced I have counted it right in the photo and it is nine. I did make a boo boo in all my tinkering - I widened the panel to ten repeats, forgetting to take into account the width of the neckline. So the panel is now a touch too wide. I'm still dithering about whether to rip back and go with nine or leave it. At the moment I think I'm going to knit the right front with nine and compare them and then rip back the one I don't like.