What's on my needles (week 50)

At The Knitting Garage

I finished yarn-bombing one of the door handles of the shop's front door :)
I think it looks rather cool; what do you think?
I wonder what to yarn bomb next.  Let me know if you have any suggestions or want to help :)

At Home

I knitted up a few more hearts for the garland I am making

But mainly I worked on a language challenge.

Geheimnisvoll/ Mysterious

First off you got to know that I left Germany 38 years ago at the age of 23.  I only went back exactly 1/2 dozen times since.  Two years ago when I visited my sister I bought a book with patterns written in German.  I thought it would be a nice challenge for me to see if I could still understand the knitting lingo in a pattern written in German.

Earlier this month when I went through a hat-knitting phase, I was drawn to one particular pattern which looks like it could belong in the 1920's.  The pattern is in the ravelry database, too, under the name "Geheimnisvoll" by Dagmar Bergk.  Click here to view:  http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/geheimnisvoll
So, long story short, when we thought that we were going to be snowed in last Tuesday, I got ready to knit up the pattern.  Since the storm did not hit us as hard as expected, I did take a little longer, but I finished the hat today and LOVE it. 
While working on the hat, I found out that the pattern is available in English under he name "Mysterious" by Dagmar Bergk in the book "Knit Hats Now".  Here is the ravelry link: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/mysterious-2
Most of my difficulties were language-based and if you are interested here are a few thoughts I had during the five days I worked on this hat:

Day one: In preparation for a major snowstorm I decided to make this hat to have something to do while staying at home and to challenge my language skills. I had bought the book last time when I was in Germany for just such purpose. This particular pattern was holding my attention with its gently curved “ear-flaps” and a 1920’s look about it.
I decided on the Cascade Superwash 128 as it gives me the right gauge, is soft, easy to take care of and relatively easy on my budget.
I started with the cabled cuff following the chart. I found that I was not careful enough knitting the stitches on the wrong side row especially after increasing. The M1L should be purled on the WS or the pattern does not emerge properly; had to rip out about 10 rows and re-start; looks much better now.

Day two: This should have been the day of the storm when I could have sat and knitted all day. Luckily the storm did not hit us as severely as anticipated which meant going to work and picking up the project in the late afternoon/ evening. My next mistake was a translation error, I did a ssk for ” zwei Maschen links zusammenstricken” ( I was thinking left-leaning). Of course it did not look right and I had to rip out this section and re-knitted it by “purl 2 together through the backloop”. I got quite far that evening and had done the chart 1 1/2 times. However something did not look right. When I frogged back down to row 29 earlier, I had missed one of the cables. Now I had to decide if I wanted to fix it or just make it look right (by stitching duplicate stitches over the cable).

Day three: I decided to get this right, after all I would only loose time rather than taking the chance that the cuff wouldn’t look right. I frogged it all the way down to row 29 again. This day I got the whole cuff done; it is looking a lot better.

Day four: I am struggling with the instructions. Doing the chart twice plus row 1 one more time puts my working yarn on the left edge of the cuff, but I will have to pick up stitches on the right edge…I cannot find any errata and wonder if I should just take out the extra row on the right side or if I should try and bring the yarn to the other side behind the kitchener stitch. The row count suggests to me that (if I count the kitchener stitch as one row) I should take that last row out which is the Row 1 of the chart….So I only do the chart twice.
One thing I found while looking for an errata or a way to get in touch with the designer is the fact that the pattern has been translated and put into a book: Mysterious
After all this I looked at the two photos again and it looks to me that the hat knitted in the color “Seascape” has the stitches picked up along the left edge of the cuff; the side with the garter stitch edge. And the hat knitted in the color “Quarry Tile” has the stitches picked up on the right edge of the cuff. This is clear by looking at the direction of the cables. Anyway, in the end I did repeat row 1 and picked up stitches along the garter stitch edge. This way the garter stitch pattern is incorporated in the moss stitch pattern of the top part of the hat and the edge along the lower cable has a soft roll (caused by the stockinette stitch edge). It was also easier to pick up the right number of stitches along the garter stitch edge. From here it is an easy 20 rows of moss stitch and then decreases. I should think that this will be done by day five. My main challenges were probably the language difficulties and without that I would say it is a very easy pattern with it I’d still say this is easy and pretty :)

Day five: As expected, I finished the hat today. I did less pattern repeats before starting the decreases; only 16 rows instead of 20 rows (I guess I have a small head). It fits perfectly and I love this hat.

Here is a picture of the finished hat and the link to my ravelry project:  http://ravel.me/Strickliese/g2