A tweet for help

There are some Blogging Days when I know exactly what to write, others I wake in the morning and it can take me quite a while to make up my mind.  So when from time to time one of my Knitting Sisters asks me to write about something I am all too happy to oblige.  Last Thursday Kathleen tweeted

Kathleen LawtonTrask ‏@KnitLikeUMeanIt2h

My buttons keep falling off! Need a @chopkins_knits tutorial on finishing. #RemedialKnitter

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How flattering to be asked! Kathleen is a wonderful knitter, teacher of knitting and writer of knitting books, the latest of which is the very desirable Silver Screen Knits

But, despite her expertise, she did ask me so I am delighted to oblige, not least because it combines two of the things I like most - buttons, and telling people what to do!

I had just finished my Juno vintage cardigan, it needed seven small buttons. I found exactly what I was looking for in my rather large button stash in several faded shades of green perfect for the many tones in the lovely Juno Buffy that I used for my cardi.

And so this post is how I got from this ....

to this in just a few minutes

The fewer ends you have the less there are to come undone so here is how you can sew the buttons on with one very long thread.  You could even use the thread from your cast on if it is long enough (or you think ahead!)  

If you don't, secure the end close to where you want your first button,  you can use the seam where you attached the button band to the front of your cardigan.  Run a line of wiggle stitch about an inch up your band and then reverse back down, splitting your 'up' stitches holds the yarn even tighter.  (I have left the wiggles loose here so it is just possible to see them). 

The button band on my cardigan is knitted in with the front, by running the wiggle stitch in and out of the Vs at the back of the purl gutter they are indistinguishable from the bars of the purl stitches on the right side.   

When you reach exactly opposite the position of the first button, strike across to the middle of the button band following the knitting stitches as you go (in my example they are reverse stocking stitches). 

Your needle will go up...

 and down

This technique, often called swiss darning, is used for adding small areas of colour to the right side of your knitting when intarsia would be too fiddly but it works well here.  It is invisible, yet reinforces the place where you stitch your button.

When you reach the middle bring your yarn to the right side and attach your button

wiggle back to the edge of the band and up to the next button position.  After the last button secure the end of the yarn in the same way as at the beginning

BOSH

Done

There may be other reasons for the button falling off to do with the button itself.  Sometimes the shank has a sharp edge, this is especially true with metal buttons.  You can try to file the rough part down if you have something called a rat tail file, or coat the shank with clear nail varnish.  Both can work although you have to be able to find the sharp edge on something that is pretty small.  

One trick I have used is to use ribbon instead of thread, it does not stop the button eroding the ribbon but it does last longer.  Just use a length of fine ribbon, thread it through the shank of the button (or through the eyelets)

 and through to the other side of the cardigan (in two places of course!) and tie the ends in a reef knot (remember... right over left, left over right?) and finish off with a pretty bow.

Much nicer I think than using heavy thread, formerly called Boot Button Thread.  However, although it is heavy and can look down-right ugly it does have it's place!

These are the two best ways I know for making sure my buttons don't fall off at tricky moments, I would love to know what methods you prefer

xx

C

Knitting 1914 to 2014

A few weeks ago I chatted on here about Southampton University Library's wonderful vintage pattern resource.  Well as a consequence of registering with the library I was invited to the private view of this exciting exhibition .  It's on till April 4 and if you can get to the Hartley Library at the university may I encourage you to make a little detour to have a look, it's well worth it.

knitting for the war effort

1914, such a terrible, momentous year,  and there are all sorts of events commemorating the out break of the first world war but  I love it that the gentle art of knitting is included.  Knitting was something that the women who were left behind, worrying, could do for the fighting men.  Hats, socks, gloves ,and scarves must have been so welcome to the soldiers freezing in the trenches, not only to help keep out the cold but as an indication that the people at home were thinking of them and cared.

bandage

As a former nurse, used to modern dressings, I have often wondered how knitted bandages could be useful, it seemed to me that they would be too stretchy.  But I can see that this example in garter stitch, knitted on very fine needles, would hold a dressing in place.  The terrible wounds inflicted by military ordnance would have needed very large amounts of gauze and lint, and very big bandages.

The text panels in the exhibition explained how knitting for the troops in the second world war was more organised with the issue of official patterns like these

These photographs are just a hint of what you can see and I won't spoil your enjoyment by telling you the whole story but it is not all historic either.  On show is this fabulous piece of knitting art work

And this traditionally inspired sweater that features in one of the Rowan magazines

Often the best bit of such events is the conversations one has, I met knitters and potential knitters, men and women and we discussed the objects as well as out own knitting adventures.  I was thrilled to meet the curator of the show and she was generous enough to let me rabbit on about my plans for a small vintage display at my town's festival in the summer.  I was shamelessly wearing my fingerless gloves and she very kindly admired them.

And so I'm planning to visit the pattern collection very soon.  Meanwhile I am swatching for my next vintage project - a 'cloud'.  There is a pattern for one on page 26 of A Knitters Companion but to give a flavour of what a cloud is I love this quote from No Idle Hands by Anne L. Macdonald 

A great deal of coquetry was indulged in by the red-cheeked bright-eyed girls in the adjustment of the cloud.  It might be bright red, in colour, or pink or blue or white.  It was always puckered in at each end and finished by a fluffy tassel.  It was wound around the head two or three times ,then around the neck, several times, and the ends, with the swinging tassells, thrown jauntily over the shoulder.  A fresh, young face, framed in such fleecy fluffiness was like a new-blown rose.

All very Gone with The Wind! And quite a long message for a simple scarf!  My cloud will be red, in this vintage 3 ply

I think the 'vintage' of this yarn is probably 1950, a cool 150 years younger than the pattern in The Knitters Companion which gives two stitch patterns. I have tried out both in my swatch (the stocking stitch section is just a divider and not part of either pattern)

The pattern at the top of my swatch is perhaps a little too subtle for photographing but is a pleasing lattice forming a gentle zig-zag, I think I shall use this one and report back to you as I make progress.

xx

c

beautifully worked swatches from the exhibition

Diverted by all that colour

When it comes to yarn I have no will power and am totally led astray by colour.  I love it, I stand in the yarn shop(s) and literally swoon over all the woolly jewels.  Even colours that I never wear (like orange and turquoise) beckon to me with their siren calls ' come on buy me, you know you want to...'  It's my undoing

Last Friday I was running true to type when I discovered a lovely new yarn shop, Beaker Button it's in the Fairground Craft and Design Centre near Andover.  The shop is owned by Jen whose passion in life is Dorset buttons.  

I think Jen might sit in her shop and make buttons all day, that is when she is not serving customers.  I had such a happy visit to her shop, Jen is so friendly and knowledgeable about her wonderful stock.  She explained that there are already yarn shops in the area that sell value yarn and others that sell the high volume designer yarn like Rowan and Debbie Bliss so she concentrates on small independent producers.  She even stocks some of her Mum's home spun!  I came away with these two skeins of Manos Alegria.

how could I not?

It's a sock yarn but though you know I like knitting socks, you also know I like finding other things to make too.  The two skeins of sock yarn loveliness seemed perfect for some colour work.  The colours, one palest of pale blues and greens with a hint of tan and purple and the second strong green and purple with pops of yellow cried out to be put together.  So I duly...

wound

Admired...

(again)

And chose this pattern from Ravelry

the travelling companion shawl

Then I swatched...

some tension issues here, possibly

Much sadness.  As I am in no doubt you can see, instead of the pastel and the vivid contrasting with each other they just blended (even after some gentle blocking).  So back to the drawing board, with these requirements.  

• A shawl or wide scarf
• With the colours standing out, not confused by too much pattern 
• Something interesting (miles & miles of plain knitting just does not rock my boat right now) 

After having a big think, I decided to put the pastel yarn to one side for the moment, and the pattern.  The Travelling Companion is not right for two multi colour ways, perhaps I will buy a solid colour to go with the pastel and have another go later.  It's not that I don't simply adore both skeins, its just in my typical 'I don't need it I just want it' mode I bought a bag of gorgeousness without even a nod to the maxim 'less is more'.  Perhaps I need it written on the back of my bank card.

Meanwhile I have decided to knit the strong coloured skein as a wide rectangular shawl using a lace pattern from this sweater by Wendy Johnson.

from Wendy Knits Lace

The stitch pattern, though simple, is enough to keep my interest and I think the alternating panels of reverse stocking stitch and lace will give a slightly corrugated look which will work well with a rectangular shawl

simples

I have swatched

a little blocking to make it lie flat for photographing

and intend to begin with a provisional cast on and knit to the last metre of yarn.  That way if the length is more suitable to a moebius (shape though not construction) I can twist the ends and work a three needle bind off, or I can keep going till the scarf is long enough to wrap around twice and not fall off.

 'et voila!'

Speaking of which I am off on Thursday for another knitting adventure with two knitting friends - to Paris!  More about this later, meanwhile I am getting ready, passport

? yarn spending money

and  knitting which is a pair of sock (I know...) in the fabulous 'mind the gap' by Trailing Clouds

in my new Tom Bihn  bag

More about my Paris trip, and how much knitting as opposed to nattering gets done on the way (and back) later

xx

c

Chairs

I do worry about this, I've read about it on other crafty blogs, heard people talk about it and read fellow crafters' Facebook statuses (or is it stattii?).  I have achey fingers and wrists.  I don't actually think it is anything to do with knitting (though I may be in happy denial) it's probably more likely to do with cleaning stuff!  All that scrubbing and polishing.  Firstly there is my father's house in preparation for selling it and secondly an old chest that I am restoring.  Not as you will note any actual housework in my own home, where would be the fun in that?  But what ever the cause I am reining back a little on the knitting at the moment and concentrating on other things, like these two lovelies

I think they might be from the 1920s, perhaps from Heals, the large Furniture store on Tottenham Court Road.  My mother bought them in 1952, the year she and my father were married, at an auction.  In my late teens I made new needlepoint seats for them but they look dated and worn out now.

And in need of repair (my mother was a dab hand with araldite and blue tack, neither, unfortunately was suitable to repair this strut)

But I love their design, so tall and elegant and fluid lines typical of the period.  As a child I was puzzled by the design on the back, always wondering why at the top the shape was cut out and below only outlined with marquetry.

I think JTH will be able to mend the strut so I am concentrating on the design for the needlepoint.  I am going to spend a lot of time pouring over possible designs in some of my old books like these

And take my time selecting just the right sort of canvas and wool, all the thinking and planning will give my wrists and fingers a rest.  I would like to do something unexpected.  Sometimes I think I would like the cabbage and cauliflower in Kaffe Fassett's book and then I think again and wonder about the mixture of geometric shapes in Glorafilia

It is hard to decide, what do you think ?  I would love to read your ideas, or follow any links you post in the comments

xx

C

The commonality of Knitters' New Year's Resolutions

Each January the knitting blogs and tweets are full of woolly New Year's resolutions, top of the lists, To Complete All Those Unfinished Objects. And coming in at a very close second place, Knit From Stash.   I am no different.  In September last year I took this beautiful Juno Fibre Arts, Buffy in Grassland on holiday with me.

Juno among the pelagoniums

After the tricky task of winding a skein into a ball without swift or wool winder (yes I did have JTH but he hates holding skeins, I always get exasperated and its much better if I tackle it alone) I knitted a large swatch incorporating all the stitches in the pattern

swatch in the sun under the plumbago

I am making the Princess Twinset Cardigan from Susan Crawford's book Coronation Knits.  Although the yarn the pattern calls for is 4 ply and so is the Juno no two makes of yarn are the same. You know I am not a very good swatcher (if truth be told I hate it and avoid when ever I can) but I do swatch when I am diverging from the pattern instructions, and that includes testing any pattern stitches.  

The project was an all round stash buster, I bought the yarn at a Unravel at the Farnham Maltings earlier in the year (the next Unravel is 21-13 Feb) and the pattern book while on a knitting day out with friends in Oxford in the summer.

While we were away in September I cast on.

first button hole at 6 rows in

Anyone who is a regular reader will know that I avoid sewing up as much as I can by one piece knitting wherever possible.   In this case I cast on the fronts and back in one piece knitting up to the armholes then dividing and knitting the three pieces separately.  The front bands are knitted in the twisted stitch pattern (I love the way the button holes sit neatly in the centre of the twists).  The twisted pattern features on the shoulders, cuffs and in a large panel on the back

cabled bar code

I reached the underarm while still on holiday and then stopped...  Family stuff and Christmas knitting intervened so it was put away in The Knitting Black Hole, under a table that sits beside our sofa.

And so it became no1 on my list of UFOs to finish in 2014.  Despite the little diversion into vintage knitting patterns (and that's not over yet) I am making good progress.  I am very grateful for the warning in the instructions for the fronts that the knitter should read to the end of the instructions before embarking on the front shaping.  

It seemed confusing at first, "cast off this and that at the armhole  at the same time the other on the front edge then all change to a different rate of decreasing".  Lots of changes and lots of row counting.  Then I hit on the idea of marking the place at which the decreases end - so all I had to do was forge ahead decreasing both ends of the row on the fronts until I hit the markers.  That way I could also check the stitch count in advance.  Is there nothing worse than  getting to the end of the decreases (so you think!) and have the wrong number of stitches.

PM to mark end of decs

 I finished the back and fronts at knitting group last night

the body all done

And cast on the sleeves.  This is rather more tricky as continuing my non-seaming technique I am knitting both sleeves at the same time, much in the way you would for top down two at a time socks.  

two at a time tangled sleeves

It's a bit tangled at the moment but it should straighten out as the knitting lengthens.  

Now I know I usually only blog about items I have finished (in fact I apologise if I give the impression of being 'more knitterly than thou' ) and this is far from finished but given that I can knit a pair of socks in two weeks and sleeves are roughly similar in work involved (take away heel turning and add length and width)  I am hoping to have the cardi done by the end of January, fingers crossed.

xx

C

PS do you have a knitting black hole (or several)?  If you do please do tell in the comments

juno

Vintage explorations

At the weekend a post on my local knitting group's Ravelry forum reminded me about the Southampton University Vintage Knitting Pattern library.  I then spent several happy hours reading the patterns, including entire books of knitting talk, all on free access.  Then I had a little light bulb moment -  that to truly appreciate the patterns I should knit one up.

I have made a mitten (just one for now but the second is on its way)

I have a large collection of 3 and 4ply pure wool yarn in loads of colours, I chose shades which are closest to the ones suggested in the pattern, which states black, white and magenta (I have black, beige and scarlet)

.

My yarn is about 50 years old and although the pattern book was published in 1876 it is broadly similar to the yarn a lady would have bought at her local shop to make herself a pair of warm mittens.  Note these were made for wearing indoors, houses were very chilly in those days!

The patterns of this era are written without the standard terminology we are used today.  The style is more narrative, in this pattern increases are called 'raises' and purl 'seam'. But by reading the pattern straight through and, where instructed, referring back to details in other patterns it is easy to follow and my first mitten, cast on on Sunday afternoon was cast off this morning

stripes in K2P2 rib

a neat thumb gusset worked exactly according to the pattern

TA-DAA!

Now, all this - lovely pattern resource, a yarn stash of 1950s 3 ply and breaking vintage knitting code led to an idea.... A knit-a-long! (with a difference)

Here is what I suggest

1. Choose any of the patterns on the Southampton website (including the mittens here)

2. Knit in your own yarn (anything suitable) post as a project on ravelry with the tag chopkinsvintageKAL  or upload to my flickr group

And that's all there is to it!  Except...  with the permission of those who join in and post photographs I would like to let the department at the university know about the project.  I may also have the opportunity to display some of the knitted articles (or photographs) at a local knitting event later in the year.  I can't say any more about this at the moment so you will just have to keep an eye on the blog for more information on that.  But if you join in and live in the UK perhaps you might consider whether you might lend me your FOs to put on show.

Although I have only made one mitten so far, I fully intend to knit the other and other items from the pattern library, some stockings perhaps, or a hat.  I have plenty of fine yarn in other colours - see here!

I look forward to hearing from you!

xx

c

PS (following Sally's comment)  There is no time limit if you just want to join in the fun, knit up one of the patterns and tag it on Ravelry or upload to flickr.  But if you would like to lend your knitting to me (or have some photographs of your work included in)  the display I am hoping to set up as part of the Big Knit project in our town's Summer festival I will need to know by mid May.  More details about the display once I have liaised with both the Art school and our festival committee.   

Happy Christmas

Happy Christmas everyone and thank you so much for reading my blog over the year (currently at the rate of 1,500 hits a month!).  If you read my last post you will realise why it's been a bit quiet on the blogging front here at chopkinsknits for the past couple of months.  However, despite a big chunk of sadness we have been working hard to decorate the house, wrap presents and bake Christmas goodies and so I think we are now ready

AND, still I had time for some jolly Christmas knitting.  Most of it is wrapped up under the tree but I can tell you about one very frivolous item.  At the beginning of November DD2 casually asked if I could knit her a Christmas sweater for 'wear a novelty jumper to school day' at the end of term.  I should say DD2 is not a student she is an art teacher.  So it goes without saying that she needed something, while not tasteful certainly not even on the cheeky side of rude but it needed to make a splash.  

Well my friend Alli suggested something based on a Primark sweater and involving lots of felt, pompoms, glitter and a glue gun.  But I just couldn't bring myself NOT to knit.  So with little delay I found this pattern on ravelry that uses super chunky Drops Eskimo.

so easy to order on-line

I added a few more decorations

reindeers around the yoke

red noses added later

caption as requested by DD2

and a little extra sparkle added on the day

By all accounts the sweater was well received (and the batteries in the lights lasted all day!).

Now I'm off for mince pies with a glass of good wine and wish you all...

A very Happy Christmas and a Peaceful New Year.

xx

c