An end and a beginning

It turns out that the lure of a new project to start is a great incentive to finish the current one: despite having taken seven weeks to complete three-quarters of my latest Close to You shawl, I polished off the last quarter in a couple of days. I had enough yarn to complete two more pattern repeats and still do a picot edging.

The finished shawl

The more I knit, the more I realise just what a clever pattern Close to You is, especially for a lever knitter like me. Triangular or crescent shawls start at the top centre and work out. By the end, the rows can be very long; the final rows on my Lothian were almost 500 stitches.

Knitting a top-down triangular shawl

As a result, it wasn't something I could pick up and just do an odd row in a spare five minutes. Because I'm not yet a good enough knitter to stop mid-row, for me it became very much Appointment Knitting. In Close to You, which is by the same designer, the length is achieved by rows of knitting. Even with the extra pattern repeats, I only had 160 stitches in the final row.

Knitting Close to You

As a result, it's easy to do on straight needles, and also possible to sneak in a cheeky row or two while waiting for a cup of tea to brew. But the edging keeps it interesting, while not being too complex. Perfect. (This isn't an affiliated post, just the observations of a happy knitter.)

But after saying all that, I will be back to Appointment Knitting with my Shropshire Lass shawl, which I started as soon as the Close to You was blocking. Not only is it a top-down triangle, but it's lace knitting as well. Because I'm using a different wool from the one recommended, I knitted a swatch to make sure that I had the right needle size. The tension was fine, but my motif positioning was very off in places.

So many mistakes

I had decided to have a go at knitting from the chart for a change, and it just confirmed by belief that I should stick to following written instructions! So far, this choice is working well.

Far better

The shawl has an outer edge and centre spine of garter stitch, and uses four stitch markers to separate these from the lace element. Usually I prefer plain round stitch markers, but thank you to whoever it was (sorry, I've forgotten) who explained to me that markers with something hanging off them are better at staying in place when yarnovers are involved. This gives me an excuse to use this cute, if not entirely appropriate, set from Coastal Colours.

Shells and sea glass to mark Shropshire's maritime heritage - or not!

It’s early days yet, but I’m enjoying watching the pattern grow.

A Shropshire shawl

After last week's Glengyle view, here's Shropshire

I'm about three-quarters of the way through my current Close to You shawl, and hope to have a fair bit of knitting time over the next couple of weeks. So I'm already thinking about my next project.

Actually, I already have the yarn and pattern for it. Last winter I decided that I really wanted a large triangular shawl. My original plan was to use the Dandelion Air pattern, making it bigger and in thicker yarn. I bought two balls (1,000m) of Sirdar Jewelspun Aran in a sale at my local yarn shop, and cast on. I loved the colours (Northern Lights), but soon realised just what an undertaking knitting up this many metres was going to be. Then I decided that if I was going to expend that much time on a project, I wanted it to be something special. So I frogged what little I had done, wound the yarn back into the ball, and ultimately gave both balls away in a big stash clear-out I had over the summer.

(At this point I should add that this is on no way a criticism of the yarn, or people who choose to knit with it. Every knitter has their own reasons for making their choices, and all of them are equally valid. As I've become more confident in my knitting abilities the type of wool I want to use has changed, but that's my preference alone.) 

The shawl plan was shelved, mainly because life became more attuned to small, portable projects. Also I realised, even after the clear-out, just how many projects I have planned. But then 3 weeks ago, I went to Ewe and Ply's yarniversary celebrations.

Yes, I bought a goody bag

It contained lovely things, including this specially dyed wool

I'm very lucky to have such a brilliant yarn shop just an easy train journey away, in a town where I'm always happy to have a day out. In the last year of her life, Mum had several stays in Shrewsbury hospital, so for weeks at a time I was over there almost daily. Popping in for a chat with the lovely ladies in Ewe and Ply and Maggie Mae's Vintage (both in the Parade Shops) made a tough time easier.

Inside the shop

It's 10 years since Terri and Becca opened their unit in the market hall, and since then they've moved to larger premises twice, and also opened a shop in Oswestry. They sell a wide range of natural and ethically sourced wools, including their own - my Dandelion Air and second Close to You shawls are both made from their Corrie-Mo yarn. But this time my eye was drawn to the delicious colours of their Shropshire Ply 2020 4 ply - spun from the fleeces of their own flock and other local sheep and then dyed by them. I bought 4 skeins with no idea what to make with it.

So much for stash reduction

Browsing through my shawl and wrap favourites on Ravelry I came across Agnes by Kath Andrews, and realised that the pattern and this yarn would be perfect for resurrecting my Big Shawl idea. 200g wasn't enough for the larger version, so ordered some smaller skeins in the same and one extra colour. Rather than the contrast band at the outer edge, I'm going for an ombre effect through the colours. I recently came across the trick of de-saturating an image to identify colour contrasts, and discovered that there is almost none in the shades I've chosen, but I'm happy with that.

The full set of colours

The yarn is spun from fleeces of Shropshire, Dutch Spotted, Llanwenog, Lleyn, and Castlemilk Moorit sheep, along with coloured alpaca. Most of these I had never even heard of, let alone knitted with. The wool feels unlike anything I've used so far, and it will be interesting to see how it knits up. It's a new stage in my knitting adventure, and I'm excited to start. Once I've finished my current project, of course!

The replacement

My first Close to You shawl wasn't a complete success. The yarn was lovely, and the pattern simple but effective - but the end result just didn't feel 'me'. My loss was my friend F's gain however; it was far more her palette than mine, so I gave it to her, and she adores it.

My second attempt was far better. I love the painterly colours of the yarn, and the beads add something extra to the border. The Corriedale/mohair yarn is very different from the merino/yak mix of the first shawl though, and a non-fluffy version of Close to You remained, vaguely, on my to-do list.

So when I went back to Edinburgh in the summer of course my trip included a visit to Kathy's Knits, and of course I came out with wool. All of Kathy's stock is sourced from small, independent farms and producers from within the British Isles with, naturally, an emphasis on Scottish producers. I bought one skein of lace yarn from Ripple Crafts, and this.

Front and back of the skein from Abercairn Yarns

It's the same 4ply BFL/silk yarn that I used as the main colour of my Lothian shawl, this time in shade Glen Gyle, and the colours feel like a skein custom-dyed to my exact specifications: a blue base, with an assortment of rich, jewel-like hues thrown in. Plus, the silk content gives it all an extra lustre.

Knitted up

It was the perfect yarn for a new Close to You, and I cast it on a few weeks ago. The yarn is a joy to work with, and one of my favourite things working with it is seeing the range of colours in the stitches on the needle.

A pool of blue, then lots of different colours

I love the variations

Abercairn Yarns is based in the Scottish Highlands, and I was intrigued by the shade name - is there actually a Glen Gyle? There is, almost. Glengyle Water flows into Loch Katrine in Stirlingshire.

Loch Katrine and Glengyle

The 100g skein is undoubtedly generous, so I'm expecting to get at least one extra pattern repeat out of it. It's going to be a while before I have a finished shawl to post about, but I can already tell that the end result is going to get a lot of wear.

Learning to sew with Vogue

I remember very little about sewing lessons at school, except that I disliked them. The emphasis was on pinning in a perfectly straight line and ensuring that all tacking stitches were exactly the same length etc, and each step involved queuing for ages to have your efforts inspected by the teacher. A single, simple, garment took an entire term. What made it particularly tedious was that I was making far more complex things at home with Mum. (Shoutout here to my final sewing teacher, who realised this and kindly let me bring my own projects in to work on - thanks, Mrs Pitkeathly!)

Try as I might, I can't recall what patterns we used to make these (frequently hideous) items. But it certainly wouldn't have been Vogue - that would have been far too fancy for a Scottish comprehensive school in the 1970s. At some point however, there must have been some schools which did use Vogue patterns. The Vogue Patterns School Service had existed since at least 1956, when it launched the Young Fashionables pattern line for use in schools.

Early Young Fashionables pattern with the large envelope and flower motif

Vogue's Well-dressed Girl was another part of their offering. It appears to have been published twice a year, in March and September, and features patterns at the cheaper end of Vogue's price range.

The autumn/winter 1961 edition

It makes sense for Vogue to have had a link with schools. Sewists often have a favourite pattern brand but, because Vogue patterns were expensive, they were unlikely to be the first choice for many. If you were familiar with Vogue from sewing lessons however, there was a better chance that you would stick with them.

To me, this is a curious hybrid publication. It isn't like a younger version of Vogue Pattern Book; there is only the most basic actual sewing information in it.

Mostly repeating the information on the pattern envelope

There are no Girls, Teens or Half Size patterns in the booklet

But nor is it just a subset of a counter catalogue. At the front there are 10 pages of advertisements; for fabrics, interfacings and haberdashery, but also for bras and sewing machines.

Berlei advertised regularly in Vogue Pattern Book

Pinnock was a cheaper brand, but still expensive for a schoolgirl

I was amused by this advert for my dressform, which seems to suggest that getting your mother to do it for you is the best way to sew!

Make it easier for Mum to 'run up' your clothes!

The rest of the booklet consists of the front and back pattern envelope art for a number of patterns, starting with nine for sub-teens.

Dresses

More casual attire

For when your child insists on French couture!

The remaining 23 are mostly in Misses sizes, with a few in both Junior Miss and Misses. Because the illustrations are all from pattern envelopes very few of them, even for the Young Fashionables patterns, look anywhere close to school age models.

There are blouses . . .

. . . and skirts . . .

. . . but mostly dresses

Young and fashionable, but still wearing gloves

One of the patterns available in Misses and Junior Miss sizes

A more casual look

Only the advertisement on the inside back cover, for thread and zips, has any reference to information on learning to sew. There are offers for a teachers' guide to inserting zips and a how-to-sew handbook for teachers and pupils.

Both the guides had to be paid for

Nowhere is there any suggestion that Vogue offers any publications on sewing, which seems an odd omission. I haven't been able to find much information on the School Service, so it's possible that Vogue produced other, more practical, materials for schools. The hunt continues.

A blast from the (very distant) past

Although I'm left-handed, and cut out, pin, sew, unpick, and iron that way, I knit right-handed. From a discussion with other knitters a few weeks ago, I've discovered that this isn't uncommon. Partly it's a practical thing: patterns are written to be knitted right-handed, and doing otherwise means endless fiddling with details such as shaping instructions and cable twist directions. But for most right-knitting lefties, me included, it's simply the case that we were taught by a right-hander.

Experiment in progress

Although I only started knitting seriously in 2023, I learned the basics over 50 years ago, at primary school. The conversation about handedness reminded me of something I had long forgotten, that I confused my teacher by producing perfect stocking stitch when we had only been taught garter stitch. The reason being that I hadn't twigged that I should swap my needles over at the end of the row; I simply knitted from left needle to right needle, and then back again.

I was told that this was wrong, and duly stopped doing it. But thinking about it now - no need to do purl rows, yay - I rather wished that I hadn't. So of course, I wondered if I could pick it up again.

My first attempt was to knit one row normally, and then back following the instructions for left-handed knitting in what is, indeed, my knitting bible.

My first port of call for any knitting questions

Including knitting left-handed

This approach didn't work. Of course, the assumption is that having completed the row, the knitter will swap the needles over and do a left-handed purl row. So for me, the stitches were the wrong way round on the needle and I had to knit into the back of the loop. But more to the point, I couldn't get on with holding the yarn in my left hand.

Next, I tried photographing each stage of the knit stitch, and flipping them to the mirror image.

From this . . .

. . . to this

That didn't work either, for much the same reasons.

Eventually, after a lot of trial and error, I hit upon a method which seemed to fix all my issues.

The four steps of forming a right-to-left stitch

To check how it compared to knit-and-purl knitting, I cast on 30 stitches, and knitted a sample where on purl rows I slipped the first stitch, purled four, knitted 20 by my right-to-left method, and then purled the final five. There was no obvious change in the purl rows.

The end result looks the same

I'm sure that this is an established knitting method somewhere, but I've never come across it. Next, I want to check how/if it affects my tension, and experiment with using it for stitches such as yo, k2tog and ssk.

Finally, one other consequence of my being taught to knit at (Scottish) school rather than by my (English) mother is that I knit in the lever style. It's a fairly niche skill where I now live, so on my summer trip up to Edinburgh I was delighted to see this picture by photographer and community worker Sandra George in an exhibition of her work.

Someone knitting the way I do!

Riviera dress completed

With apologies to Jane Austen

I am struggling to generate any enthusiasm for making a new corset. This is based entirely on past experiences, which have all involved a lot of work for a less-than-satisfactory result. So far, I have printed off the pattern and then realised that the size pack I bought, several years ago, is now too small for me. Fortunately I only need the next size up and can grade it from the sizes I have, but it's still not a great start.

Naturally my mind started wandering to "What else can I do instead?", and then I spotted my long-neglected Riviera dress.

This one (in case you'd forgotten)

The name comes from the fabric

The dress was almost complete apart from the gathered ribbon trim I had started to sew around the neckline, but this turned out to be a very fiddly and slow job, so I stopped doing it. In October 2023.

This was why I gave up

Suddenly seized by a desire to finish this dress, I unpicked the ribbon on one side and tried an alternative method - which unfortunately turned out to be just as fiddly and slow. This was the point at which I would normally throw the dress onto the back seat of my car, and take it to Mum's for a second opinion. Instead, I tried to imagine what she would suggest. As it's been so long, doing the simplest finish possible to just get the thing done seemed the most likely response. So, I sewed the ribbon flat around the outer curves, and gathered it on the inner curves. Then I pressed out as much of the fullness as I could. Given that the trim was synthetic, and on the straight grain not the bias, it pressed remarkably well. I added a faux bow at the front.

What I did instead

Although it's not in the pattern, I added a waist stay, mainly so that the corded waist detail wouldn't gape at the zip. Then I hemmed the skirt and, a mere 166 weeks later, my 'easy' dress project was finished!

All done!

Did I mention it has pockets?

And of course, #sewnshownseated

And it's another win for the Stashometer as well.

I'm not sure if it's ever looked this good