My Latest Freestyle Sweater - Riddari!

Freestyle knitting is my favourite kind. The kind where you have an idea, you work out some numbers and get knitting.....not even sure about the end, just sure you want to start it.

My favourite sequence of doing this means that there is time to make the decisions. It gives you space to begin the knitting without fear or worrying. You go in with an "it'll all work out in the end" sense of freedom. 

The process.

Let me tell you a little about the process. It's very simple but the order is key.
Step 1: First I always start at the bottom and knit up, knitting the body first.
Step 2: Then I provisionally cast on for the sleeves so that I can knit the yoke next.
Step 3: Finally I knit the sleeves.

Nice a-line belly slouch part which doesn't stick to the middle.

The reason for this plan is that

1. Even if I haven't finalised the design of the sweater when I start I know how I like my sweaters to fit around my belly. I like them loose and I like them aline. I have sweaters I've made and sweaters I've purchased that I can get measurements from. So that's a great place to start.
2. It gives me time to think about how I want the yoke to look and also to get an idea of how the yarn looks knit up over a bigger piece of fabric than my swatch.
3. Knitting freestyle means that you are often unsure of how deep the yoke will end up being. This can massively affect the sleeve length - the longer the yoke the longer the sleeve - and this can be annoying as there really is a perfect sweater sleeve length for each individual sweater. They can only tell you this when you try them on with the yoke knitted up.

As an aside, I normally knit the sleeves flat. For me this is always faster. Knitting tiny tubes is an acquired taste and one I don't have.  As Ms. Templer said to me on instagram the other day after seeing my half-done flat-sleeved photo #flatsleevesforever. Word.

In the case of my Riddari, my plan was not to make Riddari at all. I had some new yarn burning a hole in my cupboard and I really wanted to make a colourwork sweater. I wasn't sure what exactly but I knew that I wanted my favourite a-line sweater shape with a split hem.

So late one night, at about 11pm, I accidentally cast on. I knew my gauge as I'd already swatched, and so away I went.

But then after I did the bands - it might have been about 1am by this stage (on a school night but I was in the flow) - I decided that my bands weren't actually wide enough to make the sweater a-line enough. Nae bother. I just added a little panel of 8 stitches in either side - the kind of decision that you don't actually make. You are in the flow of the project and things just happen. Little panel it was.

I went to bed. Eventually.

I knitted the body over the next few days, getting up to the underarms and had big plans to knit a yoke I'd sketched out while I was knitting. It did not work which I talked about in the post the other day. So I ripped it without pain or remorse and looked to Riddari. I had already purchased the Riddari as I was thinking about making it (because it is an almost perfect yoke) so I just subbed in the pattern.

The added advantage of getting the first yoke so wrong, was that I got to try the sweater on as I had the whole thing off the needles just before I ripped out the yoke. This lead me to realise that I needed some short rows to raise the back of the neck up. This was a simple process - I think I did 6 short rows in total, and the whole thing sat much better.

After the short rows I knitted a single round to alter my stitch count by about 4, so that the total number of stitches I had, was a multiple of 8 stitches (what the Riddari chart is). And then play on.

The beautiful Riddari yoke, breaks a couple of Elizabeth Zimmerman's rules about colourwork. In the one instance you were using three yarn colours in a single row AND there is a also a row where you have floats longer than 5 stitches. Another no no according to the lovely Elizabeth but for a yoke this pretty who cares. A bit of awkwardness (for the three yarns) is a small price to pay.

I knitted the sleeves top down and played yarn chicken with the caramel. The pattern on the arms were added as I ran out. A happy accident that for me made the sweater that bit prettier.

Now there are some issues with the whole freestyle thing in this case. I made a bit of mistake. I didn't make it wide enough under the arms and therefore it has a bit of side-boob-pull. I'm probably the only person who will notice - other than you lot as I've pointed it out. Also the fact that the main yarn is caramel and I did all of the decreases in one round and for some reason decided to do one in the front middle of the arm. Nice work Felicia? And then there is the weird little panel on the sides. A decision made in the middle of the night that maybe wasn't my best. I'm not sure I'm a big fan of what is known as the "weird little panel". It's too little to look right. But it's there and the sweater is done so hey.

Weird side boob stretch area.

Weird side panel.

How I do headless? A palette cleanser shot to make you remember how pretty the sweater is - sideboobissues aside.

Overall though the freestyle is what made this sweater. I couldn't have dreamed it up as it was the knitting itself that told me what the sweater should look like. A classic case of freestyle knitting luck.

A beautiful pattern and a super fun knit.

Felicia x

PS. I heard from a woman on instagram that she had just begun freestyling after seeing my last freestyle post. If you felt like trying a freestyle top-down sweater then the Fringe and Friends KAL this year is the perfect place to start. The KAL starts today. I'm hoping to join in.

PPS. And we have some top down freestyle classes in Country Vic and in the Southern Highlands if you fancy learning some skills with the very talented Anna Maltz (and me) next month. :)

One Day Workshops with Anna Maltz

Hosted by Felicia Semple of The Craft Sessions

Spend the day with Anna learning new skills and improving your knitting -  but in the true spirit of The Craft Sessions, this will be a day of great food, great community and inspirational craft.

Anna is joining us from the UK for this year's retreat as one of our amazing knitting teachers, and so we thought it would be a total waste if we didn't offer her skills up to a wider audience while we have her here. So Anna and I have planned a little roadtrip together....

I know you will love spending time with her, as I do, and reveling in her unique take on knitting!

We have four workshop dates finalised.
- Lauriston (Near Kyneton) on Saturday September 10th
- Melbourne (East Brunswick) on Sunday September 11th
- Southern Highlands (Near Moss Vale) on Saturday September 24th
- Sydney (Near Frenchs Forest) on Sunday September 25th.
 
Time: 9.30am - 4.30pm
These workshops run a little longer than a normal one day workshop to give you the time to really sink in to the joy and conversation of the day.
 
How the day will be structured.
Arriving at 9.30 am we will get stuck into our workshop for the day with Anna taking you to previously unknown places of knitting joy with her unique ideas and sunny personality.

Around 12.00pm we will stop for lunch, with Felicia being available for an impromptu "Knit Clinic". Bring any pesky knitting problems you have along and we will do our best to solve them.

We will get started at 1.30pm for a full afternoon with Anna punctuated by a delicious afternoon tea and finish up the day at 4.30pm, before heading home feeling the joy.

You can find all the details on the workshop page here.

How to get tickets?
Tickets are on sale now!

GET TICKETS TO ANNA's WORKSHOPS

 

We know these classes will be popular and can't wait for you to meet her!

See you there.
Felicia x

How to stop your knitted hem from flipping up.

This is a total bugger when it happens. You are knitting, or you've finished knitting, and you notice that you have the flip. So what to do? I have a couple of tricks that I thought you might like.

Let's start with why it happens.

The basic reason is a change in tension between the two types of knitting, whether this is a ribbed hem or a garter hem.

When you rib you end up with more fabric than when you knit stockinette. Think about the process of making a rib. In between each "rib" you need to switch from knitting to purling and each time you do that you move the yarn from the front to the back (or vice versa) before making the next stitch. That means you have a tiny sliver of "extra" yarn between each stitch (for k1p1 rib) or two stitches (for k2p2 rib). The tiny sliver of extra yarn means as you end up with more yarn and therefore more fabric than if you were to knit the stitches in stockinette. The extra fabric causes the rib to flare, and at the point at which you change from stockinette to rib it flips.

It is all about tension. Change the tension, cause a flip.

It can happen with other stitches like garter too. When you go from a garter hem to stockinette you change the tension in the fabric. (To fix a flipping garter hem I normally use one of the first two tricks below. Whereas to fix a flipping rib hem I might use any of the three.)

The flip is pretty much only a hemline thing, rather than a sleeve thing or a neckline thing. That is because on both a sleeve and a neckline you have the extra tension, created by the body position in reference to the sweater, that means that flipping isn't such an issue. The only exception I have really found is on a loose fitting sleeve. (In which case I use one of the first two tricks below.)

Anyhoo, the whole problem is annoying but really fixable provided you are willing to experiment and rip a row or two here and there.

How do you stop it.

I often combine more than one trick.

The main thing you need to do is to decrease the amount of fabric in your band. You can do this using Trick 1 and Trick 2. Both of these methods decreases the amount of yarn/fabric you have in the band thereby pulling it in a little and decreasing the hem's desire to flip.

Trick 3 is specifically for rib hems. It involves altering the tension at the change point by reducing the amount of fabric at the point of the flip by slipping the knit stitches of the rib.

This hem was tamed by simply changing engaging with Trick 2.

Trick 1: Decrease the number of stitches

You decrease the number of stitches by doing a k2together every few stitches [k2tog kX] across the row on the last row of stockinette or the first row of rib ( for a top down sweater) or on the first row of stockinette (for a bottom up sweater). This is part art and part science.

There are no rules to exactly what the repeat should be. I vary my repeat from a [k2tog, k8] which was often the recommendation by Elizabeth Zimmerman right down to a [k2tog k3] for a straight sleeve. 

How do I figure it out? I often try something, see what it looks like, and rip it out if it isn't tight enough or is too tight. So get started by choosing a repeat in between and try it.

Rib Band: I often do [k2tog k8] when going into a rib band because the very nature of the rib is that it pulls inwards. Sometimes this still isn't enough to pull the band in when going to garter.

Garter Band: The last sweater I made was a Granny's Favourite (which has garter bands) and I did it on the sleeves and the hem. I think I did a [k2tog k3] for the sleeve which sounds like quite a big decrease but it actually worked very well. I may have made it [k2tog, k4] for the body....

Please note that it does not matter whether the repeat fits into the number of stitches you have on the needle. Just keep doing the repeat till you get to the end of the row.

Trick 2 - Decrease the needle size

This is often used in patterns for hat bands or sweater bands but I also often use it even if the pattern doesn't recommend it. For example often my finished Granny's Favourites end up with stretched out necks because of rough-and-ready small girl children. So I always knit the neck band on a 3.5mm or even a 3.25mm band to make it a little smaller. This example obviously isn't about a flip but it has the same principle in that we are trying to reduce the amount of fabric created for the band. I often also do it for bands at the bottom of sweaters.

Trick 3 - Slip Stitches

This is a trick that works really well with a rib band. I generally use this one one where I am shifting from a rib band into stockinette - so bottom up sweaters. On the change row, rather than just knitting the whole row, I slip each of the knit stitches and then knit all the purl stitches. I have used this trick on both a k1p1 and a k2p2 rib band. The flip doesn't happen because you are changing the tension by making it tighter at the flip point with all the slipped stitches.

A non flipping hem. That I am happy with. Near enough is good enough and completionism rather than perfection. I adore this jumper.

You can still see the tension change between the band and the body as it dips in. This could be the result of taking out too many stitches....?

An Example - James III

James III is the sweater that inspired this post. I got to the end of knitting it and finished the band only to block it and realise that the flipping (which sometimes will block out!) was extreme. I ripped the band out, put the zillion stitches back on the needle and started again. I did a combination of Trick 1 and Trick 2. I changed my needle size from a 3.75mm to a 3.25mm on the first row of rib and also did a repeat of [k2tog, k1, p2, k2, p2] which means that I decreased one stitch every 9 which is roughly 10%. It isn't perfect but it is much much better.

I'm happy to answer questions if you have them? And would love to hear if you have any other tricks you use?

And if you don't then here is wishing you a hem-flip-free future.

Felicia x

Bitch to Knit, Joy to wear.

There is a certain classification of knitting that holds a special place of angst in my heart - Bitch to knit, joy to wear - I think many of you will know exactly what I'm talking about. The knit you really want to make because you know it is a garment you will wear for years, almost every day, and yet the actual knitting of it makes you feel resentful every second stitch. Or even every single stitch.

It's a tactile thing. Horribly unenjoyable knitting can be different things for different people, however it is about the tactility of the process of this particular project, not agreeing with you as a person.

It could be that the yarn doesn't make your hands sing (but blooms wonderfully after blocking, damn you yarn) and the knitting doesn't have it's normal flow. For some projects it might be that the yarn sticks to the needles and others that it slips off them. It could be that the yarn is too heavy or too light to feel good for you, creating wind resistance or drag. It might be that the size of the needles you need to use for the project don't agree with your hands - too big, or too small - and you get aching fingers for no reason at all. Whatever the annoying tactile thing this project has going on it means that knitting it is a total bitch.

In my latest case of this phenomenon - I've decided to reknit Vitamin D without the flaps as it is my most worn sweater. I know you have seen it a zillion times on instagram. I just saw on Ravelry that I actually made it five years ago and I love it as much now as I did them. Making a second one in a different colour is an intentional thought-out decision based on the ideas I talk about in my post about Slow Fashion.

One needs garments like that in one's wardrobe - workhorses! I adore the shape and I need a cardy that is blue or grey and has that simple versatility to go with the bajillion blue/grey frocks I have. For days when the yellow is too yellow. It will be an everyday till it wears out garment and I can't wait to have it available to me.

The thing is that I'm knitting it in 5ply alpaca because 5ply alpaca is incredibly light and wearable in three seasons in Melbourne. But no matter how much joy I will feel wearing it, I absolutely hate knitting with it. It is terribly slow going which is always a bit demoralising, but as well as that, the alpaca slips on the needles and drags through the air. It is also a bit splitty which means that I have to look at what I'm doing* on the purl side every so often to make sure I'm not ending up knitting half the stitch. The whole process is simply bloody annoying.

Endurance is the name of the game with a project like this, and it's a good test of your determination to see if you can keep your eye on the prize. And even though I'm an incredibly big fan of the process of making, sometimes the process has little to recommend it at all. In this current case, I'm bribing myself with fun sewing as a reward when I get through a section - I just finished the yoke and as a reward made gym singlet from scraps - and then there is the promise that if I get this finished then I can move onto to something totally creative and fun. I'm going to finish the #oldschoolpattern as my big reward.

Sometimes, just sometimes, and definitely not often, the product alone is worth the angst.

Others might call it product knitting but my title feels a bit more in the spirit of the grind. I think you know just what I mean?

How do you deal with it? Strategies?

Felicia x

*Oh the horror.

Old school community.

A family bout of hideous gastro luckily ended just in time for me to head to the Bendigo Sheep Show a few weeks ago. I dutifully waited my 48 hours - ending Saturday night - which meant that I got to head up to Benders on the Sunday with two of my smalls on the quietest day of the show. We were chuffed to get to go this year, as we have missed the last few years, and it is a total treat.  Making that drive up the Calder is like stepping back into my childhood. All ironbarks and rocky ground.

I spent my formative years in a variety of towns in country Victoria. A few of those years were spent in a little town called Numurkah. My dad* was the local ambulance officer, and part of his ambulance job was to attend the local agricultural show. We kids got to go with him. Now, he is a friendly guy who loves a chat, which meant much chatting and hand shaking. It was a day that I looked forward to. Full of people and conversation. I remember the joy of being there and feeling like we were a part of something. Part of a group of people that had come together to share their year. It was community grounded in place.

As an aside I also remember that the best part of that special day was that one year we all got to ride home in the back of the ambulance totally freestyle. Ahhh the 80s. So unsafe but totally thrilling for a small kid.

Being at the Bendigo Sheep Show a few weeks ago reminded me of the feeling of being part of a country community. I felt the contrast between the life of my childhood and my life in the city. In a way there is less diversity in my city community in terms of age group, personality, values and type of people. Now don't get me wrong. I'm incredibly grateful for my community. They are generous, present and supportive, but these days my community has been created through friendships that have occurred by choice around shared values. We aren't thrust together in the same way that you are when you live in a small country town.

But being at the Sheep Show reminded me that there is something glorious to be said for a broader community. One that is more diverse and includes greater difference maybe? I can't put my finger on exactly what the difference is but I felt the richness in it. It was nice to be reminded of it and feel a part of it.

Now all that said, at the Sheep Show there were two distinct groups of people; the fibre lovers and the farmers. The outfits were totally different. Farmers wore polar fleece and the fibre lovers wore wool. It was like a uniform for both teams.

I took the kids in to watch the shearing for a bit, and the kind of community I was part of on that day long ago in Numurkah was clearly visible, farming families of multiple generations. Then we headed into the sheds selling the yarn and could clearly see the broader crafting community feeling the joy of being surrounded by likeminded souls.

Half Baked Hand Dyed - I was totally in love with their shell/cream/pink colour which is not even in this photo but trust me - so gorgeous.

Pirate Purls beautiful colours.

Beautiful yarn and knits from Great Ocean Road Mills.

More Great Ocean Road Woollen Mills goodness. I fell totally in love with their yarns. Didn't purchase obviously, but the love was there.

My kid purchased this with her pocket money from Great Ocean Road Mills. Her plan is to dye it with avocado and then knitting herself a scarf. Her process is one that takes time ....

My kid trotted around in her handknit cape that we found in an op shop, her cowl and playtime dress..... looking very much the child of a maker. She did photobomb many of my photos making them unusable. I'm sitting here trying to be forgiving. ;)

Beautiful Wild Nature Yarn - I can't find their webpage but look them up.

The biggest treat of the day was that Kylie from The Purl Box showed me a yarn colourway she had named for me after the first retreat. It was truly gorgeous Kylie x

Our only purchases were socks from the guild. There was a third kid/pair but there was too much wrestling to have all three in the one frame. #twoouttathreeaintbad#notasockknitter

I wore my Riddari so a couple of kind people recognised the sweater, and came up and said hi which I totally loved. I don't get to meet you lot very often, and so really I have no idea who it is that reads my rambles. It was a total treat for me, so thanks to you brave souls who introduced yourselves. x

Being at the sheep show on the weekend reminded me of how grateful I am to be part of this crafting community because in a way it is similar to the country community I grew up in. It's diversity is part of the joy; all ages and all types. There is space for our quirks and our crazy. Having a passion around craft means being able to strike up a conversation with women I don't know, who are decades older than me, in the queue and know that we share a connection.

This is something I love about the retreat as well. I never know who will be there and I can't wait to meet them. It's a group of women coming together around a simple shared understanding of the meaning, and the joy, of using our hands to create.

Felicia x

* not the photographer dad but my other dad - I'm lucky enough to have two.