Black Forest Braided Fingerless Gloves

The pattern on the cuff of these gloves is adapted from Co Spinhoven's Celtic Charted Designs by Dover books. You can buy this book new for under $5 and it is a great addition to any colorwork library. I'd estimate over 90% of the charts in the book would have really long floats in stranded color knitting but it is full of inspiring designs.


I recently saw a wonderful photo gallery of crocheted colorwork on Ravelry. Up until then I didn't even know you could do colorwork like that with crochet. HERE is a link showing some of the tapestry crochet from Finland - aren't those sweaters the women are wearing just gorgeous? Photos like that might be enough to get me to learn to crochet.

I enjoyed reading this blog post on staying motivated. It is really about creativity and how people can channel it. I think about this a lot while watching Project Runway - some contestants do best when they have many restrictions, some come up with their best designs without any limitations, some folks are inspired by other's designs and some have some inner source of creativity and innovation. The creative process really is fascinating.

We had a great weekend. First and foremost, the weather finally cooled off and we had a nice snowfall. We also went to a really fun cooking class at the Santa Fe School of Cooking - ours was on chiles and I learned a lot. Best of all, I had an opportunity to really pick the chef's brain while others were trying their hand at making tortillas and roasting chiles.

I'm working on some fingerless gloves in Palette. I've finished the first pair in the colors below (grass and marine heather) and am now doing a smaller size in different colors. I should have the pattern up by this weekend after DH takes some photos.

Dealing with Floats

I've answered so many questions regarding weaving floats lately that I thought I'd do a blog post on the subject. Floats are the unused strand of yarn on the back of your work when you knit with two colors. Keeping the tension of your floats even is important for good tension. If you're knitting a design in black and white and you knit 5 straight stitches in black, then you will have a resulting float 5 stitches long of white yarn on the back of your work. If you have good color knitting tension the floats on the back of your work will be uniform and will easily show the reverse of the design you're knitting.



In traditional Fair Isle knitting, there are no floats longer than 5 stitches but in other forms of stranded color knitting there can be some really long floats. Really long floats (longer than an inch) can cause your fingers or toes to be caught when you put on the item and they can mess with your knitting tension. They are especially problematic in a project for a young child. If a charted colorwork design includes many incredibly long floats (longer than 15 stitches) it may be better worked as intarsia than stranded color knitting.

One solution for long floats is to weave the floats or catch them as you're knitting. To do this you secure the unused yarn with the yarn you're knitting while you are knitting . Your two yarns shouldn't tangle if you're weaving your floats correctly.

HERE is a link showing how this is done if you're a two-handed knitter. There are two separate methods for weaving floats depending on which yarn you are weaving. Weaving floats can also adversely affect your knitting tension so make sure you do it loosely. The photo below shows how you lift the dark color yarn to weave it while you continue knitting with the light color yarn.



Knitpicks has a helpful PDF HERE that has a page devoted to explaining how to weave floats - they call it wrapping the yarn while you knit.

The Philosopher's Wool method of color knitting involves weaving floats frequently, perhaps every 3rd or 4th stitch. If you look at their video HERE , you'll see what they call stitches 3 and 4 are actually the two methods of weaving the floats in two-handed color knitting. You can get a completely different type of fabric with frequent float weaving - more like a woven fabric and it is a great method for knitting socks that are bulletproof. Weaving floats more frequently is also a great idea for colorwork glove fingers.

One problem with weaving floats is that the unused color can sometimes show through on the front of the work. Do NOT weave a float in the exact same vertical row as you did the previous row (this will definitely make the unused color show through the front) and consider not weaving your floats if you're using high contrast yarns (such as black and white).

Another solution for really long floats is to not weave them but instead go back and LOOSELY tack them down after you're done knitting. If this is done too tightly, it will compromise the elasticity of the knitting. HERE is a previous blog post on how I tacked down some extra long floats on one project. If you decide not to weave a long float, make sure you spread out the stitches a bit on the right needle before you knit with the second color to ensure the float tension won't be too tight.

Personally I rarely weave floats. I'm generally happy with my color knitting tension and I rarely knit for toddlers (who'd find long floats more problematic). Plus weaving floats slows me down too much.

Today I organized all my colors of Palette to see if I am out of any colors. I am trying to keep the labels for each color inside the ball because I really have trouble matching the actual colors of the new heathers with the color photos on the web site and in their catalog. Anyway, it turns out that I'm only out of one color and that one is back-ordered. At the top of the photo are various abandoned projects with Palette - I keep them around in case I ever run out of a color and need just a little bit to finish. I have no clue why I have so many browns - I can't even remember the last time I used brown in a project.

Salsa Hat & Knitted Chile Peppers

Here is the Salsa Hat. One problem with these knitted chile peppers is that apparently you can never knit enough. I put six on top of the hat but I think I'd like more even better.



Also, I added 10 more chiles to the ristra so there are 30 chiles per foot of I-cord. I think it would look even better with more. If I knit this again, I may try using different shades of red for each chile pepper. I put two solid green chiles in the ristra as well.

I've been trying since last night to get Blogger to let me upload photos but it is just not happening. (I also can't access the comments this morning.) I'll post a hat photo as soon as I can. The hat and chile pepper ristra pattern is available through Lulu HERE.

Next on the agenda is a tam from Anna Zilboorg's book. I think this will be the last of my Christmas knitting as I'm losing steam and I'd like to get back to the Great American Aran Afghan. I gave up on a pair of men's Cigar Gloves I started for a Christmas gift - I was using an old yarn called Gaelic Aran and it was too scratchy for me.

I've purchased ristras of chile peppers before but they never seem to last too long and I think they attract bugs. The obvious solution is to knit one.

Actually these are for a hat pattern I'm working on but I plan to include instructions for the ristra. I need to make a few more of these because this one really looks adorable in my kitchen. I included a few green chiles among the red ones.

I'll show you the hat pattern tomorrow if I can get decent photos.

Petite Fleur Baby Beret FREE PATTERN

This is a repost of one of my patterns with a few edits. Enjoy!




It is true. I do not knit just socks! And to prove it today, here is a baby beret. Now to prove that I do not just knit baby things, I'll just have to design another sock!
Anyhow, for the moment, let's focus on the baby beret nicknamed "Petite Fleur."
Petite fleur is such an easy project, just a few increases and decreases, a change of yarn, and most of all a fun detail with the double ribbed brim.
The project is a fast one as it is knit with a worsted weight yarn, in this particular case two contrasting colors of Reynolds' Revue, with a touch of a novelty yarn by Skacel, called Floret. Petite Fleur fits an infant 0-3 months.

Materials: 1 ball each Reynolds Revue in orange (color 1454), Revue in sage m(1474) , Skacel Floret (color 10402)
Needles: US 5 16" circular, US 5 dpts, US 6 16" circular
Gauge: 6 1/2 sts /inch on US 5

Brim:

Cast on 68 stitches with sage. Join round. Knit in K2P2 rib for 1 inch. Insert a contrasting yarn through the stitches on the needle with a darning needle. You will pick these stitches up again at the end.
Continue in sage.

Increase Section:

R1: Knit
R2: *K3, K1f&b* Repeat from *to *
R3: Knit
R4: *K4, K1f&b* Repeat from * to *
R5: Knit
R6: *K5, K1f&b* Repeat from * to *
R7: Knit
R8: *K6, K1f&b* Repeat from * to *
R9: Knit
R10: *K7, K1f&b* Repeat from * to *
R11: Knit
R12: *K8, K1f&b* Repeat from * to *
R13: Knit

You should have 170 stitches.

Flower trim:

Switch to floret yarn, and with it, purl 2 rows. Purling the rows helps the florets show up on the front of your work.

Decreases:

Go back to sage, and knit 3 rows.
R1: *K8, K2tog* Repeat from * to *
R2-3:Knit
R4: *K7, K2tog* Repeat
R5-6: Knit
R7: *K6, K2tog* Repeat from * to *
R8-9: Knit
R10: *K5, K2tog* Repeat from * to *
R11-12: Knit
R13: *K4, K2tog* Repeat from * to *
R14-15: Knit
R16: *K3, K2tog* Repeat from * to *
R17-18: Knit
R19: *K2, K2tog* Repeat from * to *
R20: Knit
R21: *K1, K2tog* Repeat from * to *
R22: Knit
R23: *K2tog* Repeat from * to *
Continue k2tog until there are 5 stitches left.
Break yarn and weve in ends.

With orange yarn, go back to the waste yarn, and pick up every stitch along waste yarn. Join round and knit in K2 P2 rib for 3/4". BO loosely.

Here is my boulevard of broken dreams photo. It includes my two attempts at a Christmas carol mitten, both of which I hated. The colors in the one in the center were driving me nuts plus I hated the cuff and there was no good way to add the thumb while including text. The one on the left was going to be too busy when I finally finished. I also think I've learned I don't really like red and green together. The item on the right is the woodlands fantasy tam by Mary Rowe from Hats: A Knitter's Dozen. I am still going to forge ahead on that one but I have to omit that lightest green yarn first. It really doesn't look like it will fit, does it? I tried it on though after taking it off the needles and it fits.



To console myself I've been spending too much money on cookbooks. My favorite of the bunch is the brand spanking new Veganomicon. I received it exactly one week ago today and so far have made the Banana Wheat-Germ Muffins, Skillet Cornbread, Brooklyn Deli Macaroni Salad, Guacamole, Baja-Style Tempeh Tacos, Pumpkin Baked Ziti, Mac Daddy, Black Bean Burgers, Snobby Joes, and the Black Bean Vegetable Soup. I'm a cooking fool!