Knitting is still going on here, especially with my weaving undergoing a re-group. More on that in the next post.
My first new project of 2011 turns out to be my first completed project of 2011.
This is Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Maltese Fisherman’s Hat from Knitters Almanac. I used two strands of Berroco’s Ultra Alpaca throughout. Even with using two strands, the gauge only wound up being 11 stitches per 3 inches. The instructions are for 11 stitches per 4 inches. Luckily, most of the numbers were divisible by 3 in the pattern, so it was a simple matter to changing things over to meet my gauge.
I had to do this in quick order, because it is for a friend that is, literally, closing up shop and moving to Portugal. Yeah, wild thing to do! He wanted a traditional hat that is worn over there, and this Maltese hat was pretty close to the description, so I went with that. It took about all of 8 hours to knit. I used size US 10.5 needles (6.5 mm), which felt odd to me, being that I am usually working with 2.25 mm and 2.5 mm needles for socks.
And I am still working with those small needles, though.
The first of the ribbed cable socks is done, and I have cast on for the second. I went to the trouble of twisting the knit stitches when doing the tubular cast off, since the whole rib is worked with twisted knit stitches. Now that I see how it looks, I am not sure if that addition effort for the cast off was worth it. Maybe it will be more noticeable after the sock has been washed.
I am also still working on the slip stitch sock.
I did a short row heel because it solves a multitude of problems in doing things with a slip stitch pattern that I am just not sure how to do (like increases and decrease). Short row was always for the plan for me here, anyway.
I would like to know how to handle the change in colors in the round.
There is more than subtle change where the start of the round is. I am not to worried about it, but it would be nice if there was a way to avoid this. Since this is a slip stitch pattern, I have my doubts about whether a “jogless” jog would work here. Any thoughts?
Copyright 2011 by G. P. Donohue for textillian.com
Comments
5 responses to “Lucas with the Lid Off”
Not awake enough to have any advice on the jog, other than to put it on the bottom where it’s not noticeable. Assuming you continue the patterning up the leg, arrange it to end up on the back of the leg, as well, where it’s also less noticeable.
Here are some quick thoughts on the jog; let’s see if they make any sense.
The jog you’re seeing is like the jog in Fair Isle patterning. It occurs because knitting is a spiral. That is, the stitch at the end of round 1 is not next to the stitch at the beginning of round 1, it is next to the stitch at the beginning of round 2.
In Fair Isle knitting, when you have an isolated motif (something that isn’t connected to the rest of the patterning, like a diamond or an X) which spans the beginning of round, it’s possible to shift motif stitches from either the beginning or end of round either up or down so that the motif no longer has a jog. (If you played with this for a bit on graph paper, it would probably make sense to you. The beginning/end and up/down varies depending on the rest of the patterning, so that the shifted motif doesn’t run into another motif.)
Your motif isn’t isolated, though. It’s continuous around the sock. So you can’t just shift some stitches up or down. But if you changed the color of a stitch at the end of a round, that would disguise the jog. (Not sure if it’s going to be possible with your stitch pattern, since it’s slipped.)
For example, there is a round which looks like it begins with 3 green stitches. If the last stitch of the previous round was also green, it would help to join the green diagonal coming down from the right with the green diagonal going up to the left, thereby disguising the jog.
Hopefully that gives you food for thought…
Not sure about the jogging but I love the hat!
I know what you mean about knitting with larger needles, almost makes my hands hurt at times. Gorgeous hat! I love twisted knitting, though, I would chicken out before I attempted a tubular bind off, very gutsy! I agree with you that there is likely not a clever way to fix the jog with color slip stitching, it is a much more gentle jog at any rate, barely noticeable. I look forward to the pattern 😉
Looks like you have a one-line stripe, worked by slipping all of one color while working the other. If I’m right, then you would work a jogless jog on every round. That would make a column of thicker stitches (read “lumpy”). As it is, I wouldn’t have noticed the jog if you hadn’t mentioned it. It looks like a slight twill effect. If you put it up the center back and combined it with a single purl stitch false seam, the purl would sink into the sock and be almost invisible. Or you could make a single stitch stripe of all one color as a design element.