Yarn Along. Cowl, Dress and Murakami.

KnittingMachine KnittingWork in Progress

Jan 6

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Happy Wednesday!

Joining Yarn Along today. If you haven't already, you should do that! You will find yourself in the company of so many talented crafters from all over the world!!

I don't know what got into me these last days, but I am knitting non-stop. As soon as I get home, I jump to my needles immediately, hence a very slow progress on Murakami's "Norwegian Wood". My reading monogamy wasn't too long. I can't wait when the public library opens to snatch a couple of non-fiction books. I am still processing Hawkin's "The Universe in the Nutshell" and want to research more on the subject. Why? I have no idea, but what teaching in Montessori method showed me is that if you feel this itch of knowledge, go for it, you'll find the use for it later.My current WIPs are slowly taking shape. Xanadu Cowl by Julie is growing and I can say now fair isle is really addicting! I am working the cowl on longer than recommended needles, so I am using magic loop method. I cannot say it's very comfortable, but I don't have 16" ADDI in my reserve and I just can't knit with any other needles that are for sale in local stores.Palette by Knit Picks is just perfect for fair isle, very soft and creates great thickness of the fabric. I still need to work on my tension though, but this cowl is such a great first project for a fair isle newbie. The design is absolutely beautiful, I feel like I am painting with yarn.Modification project. My Ocean is slow, because the charts are so complicated - twisted stitches, bobbles, lace... The fact that I am modifying the charts written for knitting in the round for flat knitting slows the process even more. The hand knit swatch is ready and oh my, I am in love! I always wonder how two basic stitches in knitting can create such a variety of stitch patterns! Pure magic!I still need to block it, but I have a feeling that I will be able to center the "butterfly" (does it look like a butterfly to you or is it just me? :)) between two repeats of twisted stitches. I really hope it will work out in the end!Next step in the modification process is to make the pieces of the dress up to armholes on my knitting machine and then pick up the live stitches and start hand knitting this lace. I will have to think about the number of stitches that I will need to accommodate the charts, so I can decrease/increase them while the pieces are still on the machine.One of the difficulties in combining machine and hand knitting is how to achieve the same tension. In this case, it's not crucial to have the perfect matching tension, as the stitch patterns are absolutely different. So, as long as I like the look and feel of the fabric of a piece knitted by machine and of a hand knit lace part, the rest is relatively easy. My birthday is coming in less than two weeks and I really want to finish by then! I will be posting more WIP photos as I proceed on my Instagram account during these two weeks.