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
