Saturday, February 11, 2012

Knitting in a Zipper

Well, after a blogging hiatus of 4 years I'm back with another post! I can't promise that I will be a faithful poster this year, but I will try to make sure that I don't wait another 4 years until me next post!

For this post I wanted to show how I dealt with my first zipper installation. I've been knitting a hooded cardigan for my brother and I knew it would need a zipper, which was a first for me. I remembered seeing an article by TechKnitter in Interweave Knits about a technique that she developed which seemed very clever, simple and elegant. Not having access to my back issue collection at the moment I went online and found this post and link to the video with Eunny Jang which explained the technique perfectly. However, it did not show how to actually attach the prepared zipper to your garment. I wanted to see how others had attached their zippers so I did some research and found that many people seemed to be confused about this. Indeed, I ran across a few posts on Ravelry in which people said they had given up on using the technique because they didn't know how to attach the zipper. It seemed a shame so I've decided to detail how I used this technique to attach my zipper by knitting.

I used an i-cord bind off to attach my zipper. Originally, I tried a 3 needle bind off,which worked, but I didn't like how much of the zipper tape was showing with that method, so I started again using the i-cord.

First, I prepared my zipper tape with TechKnitter's method. This is the prepared zipper, ready to be installed.

After knitting the front band to the desired width, with RS facing I cast on 4 stitches for my i-cord with the cable cast on method. There are no photos of this part, I have photographed the procedure for attaching the zipper partway through the i-cord bind off process, but you can find some excellent tutorials on Knitting Help. This is how your needles will look to begin the process, after casting on your stitches (the wooden multi-coloured needle is holding the zipper tape stitches).


Next, knit 3 of these cast on i-cord stitches.


Now, you will be joining the zipper. Insert the right hand needle into the next 2 stitches on the left needle, as if to knit 2 together.


Next, holding prepared zipper tape with needle parallel to the left hand needle and with right needle still inserted in previous 2 stitches, insert right needle into first stitch on zipper tape needle, as if to knit.


Knit these 3 stitches together, first the one from the zipper tape,


then the 2 from the left hand needle.


One stitch bound off from front and zipper tape.


You will have 4 stitches on your right hand needle. Slip these 4 stitches back to left hand needle. Repeat these steps until you have bound off all the stitches.



As the row gauge for your i-cord will be smaller than the stitch gauge for the band, you will need to compensate by adding extra fabric to your i-cord or else it will cause the zipper tape to pucker. You could use a needle that is a few sizes larger than your project needle to do the i-cord bind off. Or, alternatively, at regular intervals do a row in which you do not bind off any stitches. Simply knit the 4 stitches of your i-cord onto your right hand needle, then slip them back to your left hand needle, adding a row. On my project I worked an extra row like this every 6th row, but you may need to do this more or less often. You'll have to experiment to see how it works with your edging and gauge.

TechKnitter is a genius, this was easy to do, and I'm no longer scared of zippers! Happy Knitting!
Please let me know if you've got any questions or if you have suggestions on how to make this tutorial clearer, it's my first one and I'm open to comments.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

A little Bit of Eye Candy

I know, I know, I'm terribly unreliable at posting. I'll try to get better. Thank you for your responses to my dilemma with my handspun in the last post. That project is on the back burner at the moment, I'm letting the ideas percolate. I had one vote for a vest, one for the Emerald Cardigan , and also another suggestion for a pattern, the "Jawbreaker Cardigan" from a back issue of Interweave Knits. I like them all, so I'm just letting it sit for the moment.

In the meantime, I have not been idle. I had a gift certificate to my LYS and I picked up this scrumptious yarn with it....



Jo Sharp Alpaca Silk Georgette, a fingering/4 ply weight blend of Alpaca, Merino and Silk. I am designing a cardigan for my husband and if it turns out I will submit it so unfortunately I can't show you any pictures of the work in progress...

Eye candy...couldn't resist this gorgeous fleece from the shop at my spinning group. I really enjoyed working with the other fleece and I can't wait to start on this one. I've recently acquired some Majacraft Mini Combs, so I think I'll prepare it with the combs for worsted spinning.

And lastly, more eye candy. We recently celebrated our 1st wedding anniversary. A very dear family friend is a gifted quilter and sent us this beautiful work of art made of batik fabrics. Thank you Jackie, it's keeping us warm and cosy during our subtropical "cold snap" (night time lows of 3-5 C, days of 20 C).



More photos and FOs once we get the other computer back from the repair shop.



Friday, June 20, 2008

Survey Says...

My bulky handspun


Thank you for the hugs, I am slowly getting over my harrowing spinning tragedy. I have accepted that it was a learning experience and boy, have I learnt from it. In response to a few who have asked if I could just make a smaller size, I am reluctant to do this for a few reasons. First, and most importantly, I just don't want a bulky jacket. Although I am making it primarily for the winter trip home to Canada, it would be nice to be able to wear the finished product once or twice during our winter here in Brisbane and it just doesn't get cold enough for bulky jackets here. Second, I really like the hemmed facings in the pattern and they would be really unwieldy in a bulky yarn. Plus, since row gauge plays a bigger than usual part in the construction and finished size of this pattern, resizing could be more problematic than usual. Mostly, I just think it would alter the drape and character of the pattern too much. The difference in gauge is too drastic.

However, I really like the yarn, and I'm pleased with how nice and even I managed to get the 2 ply. I love the natural colour variations and I can't wait to use it in a project. Here's another closeup.



So, I'd like to request some help from you fine folks. I've been scouring Ravelry for pattern ideas and I've found a few that might work. The links are listed below, I'd love to hear which one you'd vote for. Please leave a comment and tell me which one you'd pick/why you think it would be the best choice. I'll be publishing results in an upcoming post. Feel free to pass the link along to anybody else you feel might be interested.



5. None of the above... I have also thought about designing my own pattern for a men's vest with this yarn. Finished product would go to hubby but if the pattern turned out well I might submit it to Knitty as they take handspun projects. Of course, that would mean I couldn't blog about it...

As for the Sunrise Circle Jacket, it's still number one on my list of things to knit. Before the lovely Joey left for Canberra she most kindly gifted me with a bag full of dark fleece that had been washed and carded with purple and green mohair. It hadn't spun up the way she was envisioning, but I loved it. I've spun a sample which I Navajo plied and it works out perfectly to gauge. Aren't the little bits of purple and green delicious?


Here it is knit up. I've christened the colourway Deep Woods as it looks dark and mysterious. Now all that's left is to spin enough for a cardigan. Again. Sigh.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Tragic Spinning Accident...


...or sort of accident. I had a feeling this might happen, but I ignored it. I ignored it the whole time I was spinning my 1.2 kg of fleece in the most beautiful natural colours. I ignored it while my apprehensions started screaming " there's something terribly wrong!" during the plying process. I ignored it whilst washing my finished handspun yarn, all 975 grams of it. I ignored it until I sat down with my newly finished yarn, Sunrise Circle Jacket pattern and knitting needles and cast on a swatch...and after knitting 2 rows finally admitted that I'd spun the stuff too thickly to have any hope at all of making the pattern work with the yarn I'd created. Hangs head in shame for omitting to swatch again after the first attempt was too thin. What was I thinking saying "oh, I'll just spin the singles a little bit thicker, that'll work, I'm sure I won't overcompensate."


I'm going to go cry for a little while, then scour Ravelry for patterns in the gauge it's knitting up to (bulky- 14 sts/20 rows to 10 cms on 6 mm needles). I guess all is not lost, I now have 720m of beautiful bulky yarn. If anyone has ideas for a pattern let me know....

Sunday, June 8, 2008

Spinning for a Sweater

I am newly in love with spinning (again). So soothing and mesmerizing to watch the fibre slip through your fingers. I love the fleece I'm working with. The natural colours range from silver to caramel to darker brown/grey. Isn't it lovely? Just a flick at either end and the staples are ready to spin. I love having a basket next to my chair, just waiting until I have a few moments to spin.



I am spinning this whole fleece to make the Sunrise Circle Jacket by Kate Gilbert. It's going to be a 2 ply. The sample which I plied and washed was a little too thin, so I'm aiming a for a bit more thickness in my singles which means I should be able to get gauge and a nice firm-ish jacket fabric without too much messing around. Optimistic, aren't I?

Here are my first 2 bobbins, numbered so I can remember to ply the first with the last. I get a ridiculous amount of satisfaction just looking at them. Another gratuitous close up of the singles.



Now, my only problem is I did not account for wastage when embarking on this project. I started with a 1.2 kg fleece. As someone who has never spun greasy fleece before, or spun for this large a project, I blithely thought that would be enough. Hmmmm, maybe not. Some of the weight is in the grease (duh!) which will be washed out and then you lose some fibre during preparation, short bits, matted locks, and swatching. I'm getting in the neighbourhood of 200 g spun fibre on each bobbin and originally thought I'd end up with 6 bobbins but as of today that estimate has come down to 5 bobbins. I'm starting to get a little feeling of panic. The yarn indicated in the pattern is put up in 50g balls, they have about 100 metres in each. The size I'll make calls for 10 balls. So, I need to end up with about 1000 metres of finished yarn, say 1200 to be safe. As the yarn in the pattern only comes out to 500g maybe I'll be okay, but it's very softly spun, and I think my yarn is going to be heavier per metre. Oh well, I guess I'll find out eventually. Stay tuned!


Friday, May 16, 2008

Having a bit of a whinge

It’s been a very long time since I’ve posted. Other things just seem to get in the way. This is what I was afraid of when I started this blog. I feel guilty if I don’t keep it up to date, but I also I feel guilty if I spend time blogging instead of cleaning the house, cooking nutritious meals, trying to keep up the correspondence with all my friends and family overseas, actually knitting, etc. How come others just seem to be able to do it all and make it seem easy? Ok, finished whining now.

Also impacting on the blog has been the fact that I spent most of April designing and knitting a large shawl, which I am going to submit for publication (hopefully), so it’s not bloggable. I am very pleased with how it’s turned out and it’s torture not being able to brag about it, but anyway…

Now that I’m done with that, projects have just sort of sprouted up like mushrooms after the rain. I am normally a monogamous knitter, I get anxious if I have more than one project on the needles, so I tend to knit one thing until it’s done, then move on to something else. Imagine my surprise then, when I looked yesterday and found that I had not one, not two but 4 projects on the needles! 4?! Here is the photo inventory:

The Neverending Socks
As I have mentioned before, I loathed working with this yarn. That’s why these just seem to have taken FOREVER, but they are finally done! Ok, so I guess they don't quite count as a WIP, but I'm still recovering from them.




Handspun Cropped Short Sleeve Jacket
Based on the Anthropologie-Inspired Capelet by Julia Allen. Adding a bit of length in the body. I’m loving knitting with my first Navajo plied handspun.



Brown Jacket
I’ve been meaning to make the Sunrise Circle Jacket by Kate Gilbert for ages. I’ve just started spinning from my 1.2 kg of brown/grey corridale fleece to swatch for gauge and needle size. I was hoping to spin a 2 ply but I might end up Navajo plying given the success I had with my lovely multi-coloured merino. Here is some 2 ply I spun and washed to swatch, but it has turned out about 2 stitches too much for the required gauge, so it's back to the drawingboard.



Cabled Socks
These are back out of hibernation, about 1/3 of the leg done on the second sock. Managed to sneak them on to the airplane during the trip to Sydney as they are on 2 short circular bamboo needles and nobody seemed to pay any attention to them.








Additional Project, Patons "Shadow Tweed Lace Jacket". Pattern booklet was a birthday gift from husband, and he picked this jacket as the one he'd like me to knit from it.


Mental Note to Self: must start making and stockpiling gifts soon for Christmas trip.

Closet Confession: I’ve been a bad girl…couldn’t resist sale on sock yarn…and some Rowan Summer Tweed…and a knitting bag…and some needles…all 50% off, what’s a girl to do? Photos up as soon as I get a chance…

Saturday, March 29, 2008

Name change

I goofed up. I thought I had a cute and original name for my blog, but I should have known it was too good to be true. Turns out there is a website out there, "woolflowers" and the author has published some patterns and has an online presence that precedes mine by a number of years. So, it would be incredibly rude of me to continue under the name "woolflower", methinks. I've sent her an email on Ravelry to apologise, so I hope she realises I did not intentionally mean to snake her name. Since I mean to start offering patterns of my own I now need a new name though... I've temporarily changed the blog name, as you can see, so let me know if you like it. I'm waiting until I get the new name sorted out before I figure out how to set up a designer page on Ravelry and post the sock pattern for free download! The fabulous Ellen has knit one sock from my pattern and I can't thank her enough. She gave wonderful feedback, and I'm just messing around with a few things and getting a final proofread.

Any thoughts, suggestions or other comments on the name?
By the way, if you've done me the honour of linking to this blog on yours, I think the link will have to be updated, don't think it adjusts automatically. Sorry :(

Just a bit of spinning eye candy...

my treasure chest, a basket full of predrafted roving



a gratuitous close up of the spun singles. Can't wait try navajo plying to keep the colours intact