The Lady is a Tramp
I have to admit to a little fling on the side. This one I'm pretty sure will be short, barely more than a one night stand, but I confess, my morals may be in question.I blame it all on Eunny and Cazza. The sleepless nights, the scribbled pages of graph paper, the hungry search for books and tutorials on colourwork.
Oooh that looks pretty...
Oooh I have a great idea for Christmas presents...
Oooh I get to play with pretty Koigu colours...
A blink of an eye and I am a fallen woman.
I am treating the colourwork as a learning experience. I don't see myself ever becoming as obsessed as I am with lace. It has grabbed my attention for the moment, but once the Koigu is all gone and the Christmas gifts are wrapped, I think I will put it away.
I decided to go for the two-handed method, I have done a little fair isle using strand-changing and wasn't impressed with the look of the back or with how tangled the yarns got. Recently a Danish customer showed me how to knit continental-style, I found I could easily do it by holding the yarn as I do for crochet (incorrect according to my teacher but I wasn't fussed). So I applied the same method to the colourwork - hey, not too hard!
Here's an action shot: My left middle finger is chopped off but imagine the lighter yarn going over it.
What I am finding difficult is the tension when stranding. I finished the first Christmas present, I wasn't completely happy with the tension but blocking helped a lot. The inconsistencies are barely noticeable now. The next one around I will aim to do it more loosely.
The other revelation, which had me frogging colourwork all Friday night (after 3-4 hours I had nix on the needles), is contrast. I drew up my own simple charts and knitted away only to discover that A) Koigu on 2.5mm needles produces TINY stitches and B) you can't see a tiny stitch pattern when the two yarns don't contrast enough. I changed the pattern and achieved a nice result in the end. This time round I have upped the contrast and am trying the tiny pattern again.
The whole present thing means I can't show many progress pics sorry, but eventually the pattern will be up with any tips I manage to glean in the process :-)
Ciao, Diane
posted by dianemulholland @ 6:33 pm
3 Comments:
Does 'tiny' owe anything to www.bugknits.com?
Diane I think that you have missed your calling or not yet really chosen another path not necessarily instead of but maybe as well as.
You should be writing books .
what a fright to see me being mentioned as an enabler...I feel so proud ;) cant wait to see what you are up to!
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