Stupidity has made a little bird nest in my brain, and I have managed to utterly and blissfully misunderstand knitting instructions. Consequently, now, Weird Things are being done here to fix this.

I've misread the instructions for an overall stitch pattern for the front parts of the Cushing Isle cardigan. The instructions are for the overall pattern, and there's a knit stitch added before and after the pattern stitches in their *repeat everything between this* star brackets. A little below the eight lines of written-out instructions, it says "charted version at the end of the pattern, add selvedge stitches at start and end of row" and the subtitle for the section explains that this is the cabled check stitch pattern, multiple of four stitches plus two selvedge stitches.

And what did my brain make of it? I knit the pattern as written out (which included the two selvedge stitches, which means one at each end of the row) and added two selvedge stitches. At each end. So when I had finished with the right front, I had a total of six selvedge stitches... three at each side.



Which, very obvious to any sane knitting person who looked at the picture of the finished cardi at the front of the pattern pdf, is way too many.

I had wondered, inbetween, why so many plain stitches at the button band edge were asked for. I had also wondered why none of the plain stockinette edges were visible on the picture of the cardi. And only when the right front had been all finished and bound off and I started the second front part and re-read the pattern instructions, just to make sure I remembered correctly... it dawned on me. Like a ton of bricks. On speed.

So. Obviously, I was not happy with the result (I had sort of already bemoaned the stockinette strip while knitting, as it was apparent that this would change the appearance of the front). Obviously, as I'm also a lazy person, frogging the whole piece is not what I totally want to do (though I actually considered it, as the start of the neckline decreases also is a little early, but that's a totally different story, and it shows how much this misinterpretation irked me). However... I have a plain stockinette back for the sweater, so the side seam extra-wide stockinette selvedge does not touch me as much. As for the midline part, the overall pattern has a repeat of four stitches. I have two that are wrong... exactly half a repeat. You know what's coming, right?

Right?

Yes.



The needle stuck in diagonally holds the extra stitches freed up by the decrease maneuvers for the neckline, fourteen altogether (two are held with safety pins). The needle at the top holds the correct selvedge stitch, keeping it all together, and the freed live stitch from the bindoff. The needle at the bottom holds the two live stitches in the last row of the hem ribbing.

And now I'm slowly making my way back up.



Once I'm there, I will un-bind-off the rest of the shoulder seam and let down the two wrong stitches along the armhole edge, re-do those in pattern, and then I am all set. I don't mind having the side seam optics shifted by that scant centimetre as long as all the rest looks okay.

I'm still a little malcontent with myself for making such a blatantly stupid misreading error... but oh, well, it happens, and at least it's relatively easy to fix. In the future, I'll look (and think!) twice, though, when it is not totally and utterly clear whether the selvedge stitch count refers to each selvedge, or both selvedges added together, and whether these stitches are already in the description or not...

You might have noticed that I am actually ding more of the making fabric with sticks and string thing recently - and I thought that maybe you are interested in the knitting library I have. Which is... how shall I put it... rather minimalistic.

[caption id="attachment_3846" align="alignnone" width="461"] That's it. That is my full knitting book library.


I like to look at knitting patterns, but I'm not a collector - so I'm not someone to buy a magazine just for the patterns. In fact, I leaf through them and usually think something along the lines of "oh, a basic sweater with lace pattern XYZ, aha, nice" or "ah, cabled socks, nice, cable soandso looks pretty in this yarn" - but then I sort of not want to knit it. Or I think that I'd probably fare better by taking a standard vanilla patterns for a sweater or socks (of which I know it will fit me) and modify that with lace pattern XYZ or cable pattern soandso. (I'm looking at food and recipe magazines the same way - I look at something and think "ah, variation on basic stew A" or "hm, standard cake batter with some extra spices thrown in" and that's it.)

So when I set out to assembly my knitting library, I knew what I wanted - also thanks to the first book in the assembly: Knitting Rules by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. This is a wonderful book - it is fun to read and it's chock full of good, sane, sensible advice, tips and tricks. It has a very sane view on gauge swatches, for instance.  It's a lovely book, and I would recommend it to anyone who starts out to knit in a heartbeat.  It also advises to have a stitch dictionary and a basic knitting technique book in the knitting library.

Advice I took to heart - and got a small stitch dictionary, with pretty colourful pictures - the one you see to the right of Knitting Rules. It's called "Field Guide to Knitting". It is nice... but I very soon found out that there are so, so many more stitch patterns than in that book, and that I'd prefer having more patterns instead of colourful photos. And then I found out about Barbara G. Walker's "Treasury of Knitting Patterns" series, and got the first three books. (There is a fourth one, but that was not as interesting to me as the first three, so I left it at that.) I wouldn't buy the Field Guide anymore, but I totally recommend the Treasury books; they are indeed a treasure trove, and utterly wonderful to leaf through.

The "sock innovation" book, written by Cookie A, was a souvenir from one of our England travels, and while it is quite nice and I did make a pair of socks out of it, I was sort of disappointed by the book. It promises to tell you how to design and adapt sock patterns, but the patterns in the book are only given in one single size, and I'd have appreciated to actually have examples of adaptation instead of just a hint on which technique to use. Also I prefer to knit my socks toe-up, and these are all cuff-down. The socks are beautiful, and I did enjoy looking through the book and marveling at the intricate patterns, but I'm pretty sure I would not buy that one again.

The remaining two books are June Hiatt's "Principles of Knitting" and Cap Sease's "Cast on, Bind Off", and both were very good buys. They are both solid books, full of information on how to do things - especially the "Principles" will probably tell you about everything you need to know about everything.

So... in the nine years since I started knitting, I managed to buy only two knitting books that I'm not still in love with, and that I would probably not get again. I also managed to buy only eight books altogether, including those two. With the six others, I have yet to find another book that I feel would add more knowledge not covered already to this bit of the bookshelf - so I am really happy with these choices!

I've finally finished the five-toe socks! They still need to have the last ends darned in, but since it is currently too warm to wear them anyway, I'm not exactly in a hurry.



And of course I cast on for something else right away - Cushing Isle, with yarn that I bought some years ago, in a wonderful blue-greyish colour.



It knits up nicely, to a soft, and - for my standards - relatively loose fabric. I'm already done with the waist decreases for the back part of the cardi, and looking forward to the next part of the shaping... increases. Soon.

I like to drag my knitting along with me (who doesn't?), and my knitting bag contains, apart from the current yarn, needles, and stitches on the needles, a few extra things. These are, mainly, a crochet hook (just in case something needs catching), a little bit of emergency chocolate (because you never know), a needle gauge (because I never know), a row counter ring and, of course, stitch markers and darning needles. The latter just in case I finish a project unexpectedly quickly...

I used to keep the latter two in a tiny ziplock bag, until very recently, when the little bag refused to keep them in any longer, due to a split side seam. So it was clear I need something to replace it. Something sturdier. Something slightly larger (one of the darning needles was almost too large for the bag). And, preferably, something prettier.

So I had a little rootle and found things. Such as a zipper leftover from buying notions for another project (I decided on using a different one). A leftover bit of linen with 26 threads per centimetre, which makes it dense enough to securely hold small things. And to top it all off, a wonderful piece of patterned silk fabric that Gillian sent me in a little package a while ago... which, colour-wise, went nicely with the green zipper.

So what remained but putting them all together?

I started off with drawing out a pattern, and cutting it from both the linen and the silk.



The silk was just large enough for what I had in mind - lucky coincidence!

I tried to sew both layers together at first, but quickly found that this would not work - so it was the linen layer as the first step, and then the silk cover to go over that base.



I fixed the zipper to the straight edge of the linen first, then bent it around and sewed the curved top together. Nipping the linen made it much easier to get this done.



It still remained a very fiddly process!

After the linen inner part was done, I only had to cover it with the silk. Again, I did the straight line along the zipper first, then the rest.



And then... it was done, and ready to be filled.



It's small, yet roomy enough for all my stitch markers and darning needles, with space to spare for more. I'll probably add two tiny loops of silk fabric to the ends of the zipper for easier opening and closing, but altogether, I'm already very pleased with it!

There's finally, finally an end in sight. I'm not the world's fastest knitter, and things are made worse by the fact that I tend to knit in spurts and then let the knitting mellow in some corner for a while when things get hectic, or other stuff takes priority, or I plainly don't feel like knitting at the moment.

There's just a few more rounds to go on the five-toe socks, though, and then it will be time to bind off.



The next project is already lined up, the swatch is knit, well, actually there's four possible projects competing, and two swatches completed, but I'm quite sure which of them will win the race for now.

Did I mention I need to knit faster?

The wool I use for the socks you saw yesterday is a sock wool from Opal - with 420 m on 100 g slightly thinner than normal sock wool (which is why I'm using 1.5 mm needles instead of the usual 2 mm ones for normal sock wool). It's also made from German sheep wool, all production steps done in this country, and thus supports regional shepherds.

But there's even more... it's possible to support the shepherds and their herds through a Schafpatenschaft (sheep sponsorship, so to say). For 60 €, you buy one year of sponsoring; you'll get a special something worth about 20 €, a little goes into the overhead costs and tax, and about 25 € go into a fund for helping the animals and their herders with things such as buying new rams for breeding. They also get more money for wool out of that fund.

The site seems very transparent about where how much of the money goes, and there's also a list of projects supported with the sponsoring money - plus some very nice sheep pictures. I think it's a lovely idea!

Some info about the Schafpatenschaft was on the ball band around the wool I'm knitting with, and after reading it for the approximately umpteenth time, I've decided that this is definitely something I need... so now there will be a sheep called Herlind, somewhere. And I'm very, very curious to find out what the special treat for the sponsors will be!

(This post was intended to go live yesterday, but obviously I'm not good with numbers, including calendar numbers. Dates. So sorry for yesterday's blog silence - and I hope you enjoy knitting news a day later, too!)

Current knitting news:



There is, as you can see, some sock progress. A little more on each sock, and I will call them finished (and then there's only a few last ends to weave in).

Other knitting progress is going on as well, as in "a swatch is happening":



It is very blue, and very beautiful, and I have about 780 m of this yarn... which might be just enough for something vaguely sweater-like. We shall see once the swatch has been finished.

Speaking of finishing - there's a long article about grafting on the Interweave site that might be of interest for you.

Or if you're more into crocheting and/or into fancy stuff and/or into really, really old stuff, you might want to crochet your own copy of the famous Venus von Willendorf statue. Yes, really, there's a pattern for it, it's free, and the result really looks a lot like the original - it's amazing!