Category: Machine

New Threads FRIDAY!

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c’est bonne

ChicKami
Pattern: ChicKnits
Designer: Bonne Marie Burns
Yarn: Rowan *Kidsilk Spray*
Color: #572 Pebbles
Gauge: 20sts/28rows over 4″
Needles: #5 & #7
Type: Fusion

WOOT! The first Finished Sweater of 2006! Just in time for a weekend romp – the Kidsilk Haze ChicKami…

I have to nod ye olde noggin’ towards Spencer at Letizia’s for providing a Finishing Vibe last night @KIP. He is their barista and also a wonderful musician and previewed his new CD for us while we stitched. Very NICE! Many thanks…

I have to admit, I was a little scared to mattress stitch this – don’t know why. But of course, here’s where I venture a guess: the Kidsilk is so skinny and slippery that I thought there would be Control Issues. Well, I don’t need $$$$$’s dollars of PsychoThr to understand that I have enough Control Issues already and surely don’t need a tank top to be pushing me around.

A mere Cupcake, juice and CD later, and we had Lift-Off! WHEW!

And there was joint rejoicing in KIPville last night as well- D wore her new Lara cardi and it is DIVINE! It has inspired all of us – Corinne is already well on her way into a luscious blue one made from wool/hemp. I am so tempted – we all decided All Women Look Wonderful in BLUE! Especially the subtle handpaints these sweaters were made from.

…Speaking of Variegated Yarn – I was pretty satisfied with the color striations in the Kidsilk Spray. There was *splotching* in a couple of places – but it added, IMHO, an interesting design element overall. My favorite place was on the skinny straps where it checkerboarded neatly, on both sides. (As always, if pooling pushes your buttons, you can use two balls of yarn and knit alternate rows. I’m doing that right now on a Manos cardigan that’s in the sample stage…)

How much do I like this? SO much that I am going to make one out of #597 Jelly (GREEN!) and one from #576 Vino [Spray] and, hmm, one out of #584 Villian… The ChicKami took less than two balls. I knit it flat, instead of in the round (take stitch count -divide in two – add 2 sts to each piece for seams – VOILA! – you are in the Flat…)

[miniHAHA: bet you might know some famous SPINNERS – yo, T. Cruz!!!]

and so it begins…

Of all things knitting, last year had to be the Year of the KAL. They were everywhere – I jumped in feet first on Alison’s February Fix-a-Thon and the Martha KAL over at Jessica’s Rose-Kim Knits…

Why KAL? I would say it all boils down to one word: ENERGY.

Being in a group of like-minded people, attempting a challenge to a finish is just the Ultimate Needle Team Sport. It motivates; it inspires; and it can bail your frilly fanny out (ahem, the LaceForAllSeasons that I lurked on to make my first shawl, hi Wendy, happy belated birthday!) when you get stuck. And, yes, I’ll admit it. I get stuck quite often. And people were always there to give me their individual/collective wisdom to grease my sticky needles along. Thank You! oooxxx

There is not one project that I’ve made that I didn’t benefit from the Feedback of others.

Ahhh… The Butterfly KAL: I spied this beautiful camisole fashioned by the lovely Eilene early on but just didn’t have the time to join in…

Little skeins of something called Kidsilk Haze snuck into my Stash whenever I wasn’t looking until finally, this posting by the Skinny Rabbit herself tipped the scales. She was wearing it the way I could envision myself wearing it – over another (long-sleeved) top.

I had to do it.

But I couldn’t. Just didn’t have the time – even though I’m determined to make more lace…

But I could make this, a little ChicKami, using the KSH. It wouldn’t have the lacy drama of the Butterfly, but it would have the *L@@K* – a sheer vest, a simple frosting effect.

I fired up the machine and made some swatches.

This, IMHO, is the most important part of the process ever. It is the Blue Print, the definition of the building blocks you use to fashion that *wall* that sheet of fiber that becomes your fabric. It probably comes as no surprise that I have a dressmaking background – and I usually approach knitting as a way to make fabric. Here you see the personality of the gauge (20/28) working with the strand itself – sheer but by nature of the mohair, dense enough to carry it off.. (The white borders are the waste yarn you use to start a piece when you machine knit.)

AH and what fabric a piece of knitting is.

It is alive. Not only is it shaped in progress, it has an inherent organic flexible quality that woven fabric never achieves, a quality that mimics the body shape it is worn on allowing us, if we pay it its proper homage will repay us in spades.

Up she goes on the dress form to see if it can really seal the deal. This is knit using Rowan Kidsilk Haze in the Spray version – color #572 Pebbles. The pooling is intriguingly different on the front and back pieces. I cannot describe how delicious this piece feels – but it is both substantial and gossamer…

Oh, blessed light of December – ye are only on the map between 6:30a to 4p these days, but I love you all the same…

The wonders of the Digital Color Space Spectrum never cease to amaze me! The gamut is so much more clipped in the blues than film – but today I think the actual color of the wintry skies worked a little magic.

I *think* this looks like the real color it is!

But on your monitor, who knows? :)

You always read this disclaimer (yep, I’m slacking again in those online catalogs…) and I really know, from the school of hard knocks, that it’s true. I saw the light today and just decided to go for it – I thought I might have a match! Now my journal is complete with the finished object – and I still love those little pockets!