Something Old, Something New – February edition

If you are visiting this challenge for the first time, welcome;
you can read more about the basic idea on this page
and/or you can click on the link to read the January edition.

Here we are in February. I don’t know about you but January just seemed to fly by. Summer holidays are over (although summer isn’t) – the kids are back in school and most of my activities start up again this week.

I didn’t achieve as much as I hoped during January; the reading bug bit and I spent more time reading than crafting.

One thing I’m already appreciating about the Something Old, Something New challenge is that, because there are only two "set" projects a month, it’s completely doable yet keeps me moving forward.

So, firstly a review of January’s goals:

For the “old” part of the challenge, I aimed to complete a flimsy from 48 crumb blocks I had made for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge in 2011 and 2012. In January, I wrote a post about my process; here’s the flimsy:

I love it! It turned out much better than it looked like it was going to. Working with other people’s scraps (as I often do) can be a big challenge but this one came together really well.

For the “new” part of Something Old, Something New, I decided to learn how to do shadow (aka illusion) knitting. This is a relatively easy technique which can have spectacular results.

My first attempt was less than spectacular and getting a good photo was more of a challenge than the actual knitting.

Here is what looks like a striped piece of knitting:

and here is the checkerboard shadow/illusion

 Pretty amazing, isn’t it?

However, it became very obvious to me when I was about halfway through this piece that smaller needles than usual were required to obtain a good result; otherwise  the areas of stocking stitch (stockinette) are too obvious and break up the illusion in the pattern.

I used 8ply (DK) weight yarn on 4mm needles. Since I have a very loose tension, I need to use smaller needles than that to get gauge at any time – why that didn’t occur to me before starting this sample I don’t know! I’m not teaching this workshop until July, so I have learned something to be sure to tell my students and I still have several months to improve my own technique!

Now, onto February’s challenge:

By the ‘rules’ I set for myself (you can create guidelines that work for you), my “old” project has to be something I have not worked on in more than three months.

I began my Country Houses quilt in 2011 and worked on it through the year.  I originally intended it for a single (twin) bed but it’s much too big for that so I’ve been trying to make it fit my queen size bed (which is where it was photographed and you can see it’s way too long and too narrow -- two rows have since been removed). It occurred to me recently that I could just turn it into a wall hanging and hang it opposite the front door. Now I’m not sure what I want to do with it but I know I want to get it out of my UFO pile!

Therefore my “old” project will be to take Country Houses at least to binding stage!

My “new” challenge will begin in the class I attend at my LQS: we decided last year that we would be working on the technique of foundation (paper) piecing. Because I have not done any, I have nothing to show you of my own but I’d like to try this block designed by my friend, Cindy, at Tops to Treasures. The link is to Cindy’s tutorial for making this block.

So how about you?

Did you work on an old project in January and/or learn a new technique?

Do you have an old project you will be working on in February?

Will you be learning a new technique in your chosen craft or starting a new project?

Link here with the URL of your blog post so we can all visit and see how you went in January and what you have planned for February.

Knitted Lace - too scary!

I've been knitting for forty years and nothing much fazes me but knitting lace is the one experience that has almost made me give up on a project!

Firstly, let's all understand my terms. Lace knitting and knitted lace are two different things. Lace knitting I've done many times, though never with lace-weight. 3 ply baby yarn was used for my last lace knitting project. So what is lace knitting? And how is it different from knitted lace?

Lace Knitting has a pattern on only one side of the fabric; the reverse side is either simple knit or purl rows. This means that the holes created by yarn overs have two thread between them because they are two rows apart.

Knitted lace, on the other hand, has a pattern on both sides; thus there is only one thread between adjacent holes.

So, if I have so much experience and a modicum of knowledge - what's the problem? The problem is a combination of my aging eyesight and P2 tog in fine yarn. Let me give you an example:

Yesterday I dropped a stitch. Now that in itself is not usually a problem, I just pick up the stitch and carry on. Even if it unravels down a few rows I can fix the problem. But... the stitch I dropped was K2 tog in the previous row, and P2 tog the row before that, and K2 tog the row before that [you get the idea]. I saved that dropped stitch two rows back [while it was only four stitches!!] and now all I had to do was tink back 172 stitches [86 per row], right? No way, Jose! P2 tog has proved to be notoriously difficult for me to tink because a) the stitches are twisted around each other and b) the yarn is so fine I can't see where to insert the needle to tink! [I had my eyes tested two weeks ago but I'm still waiting for my new glasses. The optometrist said the prescription wasn't that much different!] So by the time I had tinked back one row I had dropped stitches which had unravelled way back - some three or four rows. Every K2 tog or P2 tog [there are fifteen per row] unravelled one way or another. Let me repeat, I am an expert tinker but this had me stumped.

So, close to tears, I put my knitting down and made my way to the computer. "What's a lifeline?" I wanted to know. So now I do know and I will use one every six rows for the rest of this stole - I have to knit it, it's DD's wedding stole and she really wants this one! Besides, no knitting will ever be allowed to defeat me!!

But first I had to unravel the whole thing; that had taken several hours of knitting because I knit the first eight rows three times - yes, my friends, I've had me some stinking tinking experience!

And another issue is I don't know how much knitting and unravelling this yarn can take - it's starting to look a little fuzzy!

One hint for those of you about to start on your first knitted lace: knit up a swatch in a thicker yarn first so you can see how the pattern works then you'll be able to understand what all those /, \ and O's do. You'll be able read your knitting and see if you are on the right track! Believe me, your knitting won't look like the graph! How can it? The graph has no way to show the results of knitting two stitches together.

Wish me luck in getting this finished by the end of January!