Masters Monday - 2.27

The beginning of the dreaded argyle sock, 2 inches of 2x2 ribbing.

So far it's going pretty well. Hopefully success will stick with me through the colour work section.

Masters Monday - 2.26

Argyle Practice

I worked up a bit of an argyle swatch this week in preparation for knitting the argyle sock for Level II. I think it turned out very well, although I see some areas I will need to work on.

I have a 1954, Grace Ennis, argyle sock pattern. The gauge requirement is 10 stitches per inch. I lucked out and got gauge on the very first try using size 2.25 mm needles and Lang Jawoll sock yarn purchased locally.

To do the motif I've been picking up the new yarn from under the old at the colour change, and the technique hasn't been leaving any holes, but there is some irregularity where the two colours change, particularly on the right leaning slants. In that area I end up with the old colour looking a bit loose and sloppy and the new colour being a bit tight and distorted.

Anyone have any suggestions on how to alleviate this problem?

Masters Monday - 2.25

DONE!

I've finished the vest for my second level of the Master Knitters' certification.

I chose this Plymouth yarns pattern as a basis for my vest. I even purchased the pattern, but then found that my chosen yarn was not a good match even though the stated gauge on the ball band claimed it would be. I ended up completely reworking the pattern with Sweater Wizard software so that I could use the basic style of the vest but with my own gauge.

I finished the button band yesterday and did the long, long stretch of tubular cast off today. That done, I sewed in all the ends and then headed out for matching buttons. She's complete and I love her......except for one little annoying detail......the collar seems odd to me. It is really tall and left as is it won't lay nicely.

BUT, all is not lost. When I fold the collar once to the inside it lies nicely, like it was made to be worn that way. It's warm and snuggly.


Of course it's summer here right now and the weather has been beautiful. Much too nice to be wearing an extra warm vest. That's actually a good thing. I won't be tempted to wear it before I have a chance to hand it in for evaluation.

Masters Monday - 2.23

Although it may have seemed like I neglected working on my Master Knitters project last week, I actually did do a bit, but I never had time to blog about it. So today we have a 2 for 1 feature.....two weeks of Master Knitter, Level II progress in one post.

In the first week I struggled mightily to do the side seams. I ripped those seams out so many times that I frayed the length of yarn used for seaming.....twice. I kept having troubles with the mattress stitch going astray and being off by a half stitch.

Eventually I made sure I had it all lined up first by basting it loosely at the obvious design elements using a smooth crochet cotton. After that the seaming was easier and when I was done the smooth cotton was easy to remove, although I had to pull it out one stitch at a time.

I'm not completely happy with the seam. The pattern all lines up perfectly, but the 2 knit stitches that are seamed together are kind of flattened looking compared to the other ridges. For the patterned section this was the best I could do. When I did my preliminary swatching I determined this was the best location within the stitch pattern for the seam. Otherwise I would be seaming a changing stitch arrangement which would be way harder! In "real life" knitting (as opposed to having to design according to the course requirements) I would have done this vest back and forth from front opening to front opening, eliminating the side seams all together.

Same sort of problem with the 1x1 ribbing seam. It looks flattened compared to the other columns of knit stitches. This was once again unavoidable if I wanted to use a tubular cast on. Ideally 1x1 rib would be seamed between a knit and a purl stitch so that the seam would be hidden "in the ditch", but tubular cast on results in an odd number of stitches making it necessary to seam the ribbing using half of the selvedge stitch on each side.

The remainder is THIS week's progress. I've seamed the shoulders using short row shaping and then a 3 needle bind off. I have also picked up the stitches around both armholes and knit the armhole bands ending in a tubular bind off.

I'm now working on the shawl collar. It will be a very deep, warm, neck hugging collar that is shaped with short rows and ends below the bust line. It is consuming alarming amounts of yarn!

If I don't run out of yarn I'll be back next week with photos of the finished vest.

What type of buttons do you think I should use?

Oh. Which reminds me. I also did one of the required buttonhole swatches this week. I wrote up the pattern and everything. I just have to make up it's tag. Photos of that next week too.

Masters Monday 2.22

This week my progress toward Level II of TKGA Master Knitter certification consisted of finishing the knitting of the right front and then blocking the back and both fronts of the vest.


Although I'm sure I'll have no problem doing the front bands and buttonholes, I'll be a good girl and halt the vest project for a bit while I dutifully do the buttonhole swatches that I haven't yet tackled. Several of the swatches in this level have to do with finding the best buttonhole for various situations.

I don't like overly large buttons on anything so I have always preferred the YO, K2tog buttonhole. I find it comes out a nice size no matter the thickness of your chosen yarn. However, as I'm finding out with each step of the program, you never know what you could do better until you give everything a fair try and do some experimenting. So experimenting with buttonhole options and doing the related swatches will be my self-inflicted assignment for the week.

Masters Monday - 2.20

Level II vest, left front complete.

Last week I stopped short of the neckline/underarm decreases because I was having second thoughts about my chosen method for decreases. I was particularly concerned about the way the diagonal line of the V-neck would be crossing various areas of the stitch repeat. I figured I'd have to vary my decrease method depending on whether it would land on a purl or a knit in each row.

Yesterday it suddenly dawned on me that I really didn't need to obsess over the front neckline as much as I at first thought. The whole neckline will be covered by a shawl collar! Duh! The decreases still have to be neat and correctly formed so that they pass the committee's inspection, but they don't have to follow the stitch pattern as closely as I was thinking. Next up: right front.

Masters Monday - 2.19

I've finished the back of the Masters Level II vest, and I'm working on the left front piece.

It's up to the neckline shaping and underarm now. The way I have the neckline shaping written out doesn't look as good as I thought it would so I have paused for a bit while I consider the alternatives.

As I show this as a work in progress keep in mind that these pieces are not blocked. Hopefully any irregularities will be reduced in the blocking.