Skip to main content

Undoing the Wall Flower

I acted on my decision to frog the wall flower project.  As I imagined it, the process should have been relatively easy, but in actuality it was more like an ordeal.

The size was about double this by the time I decided there was a need to change.
Intarsia knitting refers to a type of knitting that creates coloured blocks rather than smaller changes in colour done every stitch or two.  In order to create the blocks separate balls of yarn are needed (see above).  To insure there are no holes in the end results the knitter needs to twist one colour around the other on the wrong side of the work (Apparently this was something I seemed to have struggled with causing me to have to frog the thing in the first place.~~Who me upset by this, no I'm not upset~~ well maybe a little bit.)  At any rate these tiny twists mean if you wish to rip your previously knitted intarsia work out, the twists need to be undone.  This causes a great deal of stopping to twist the yarn every time there a colour change and then start ripping out again to the next colour change.  It only took 3 hours to undo 50 rows of knitting.  (Am I whining again, oh OK I'll stop.)  No photos of this hot mess were taken.  There were tiny and not so tiny balls of white and black yarn all over the place :-(

The Wall Flower Redo

So here we are now with a blank and white slate.  The photo certainly makes it quite clear where I stopped frogging.  See that fine line running across the work about one third of the way up from the bottom?  Not my best work to say the least when it comes to picking up frogged stitches.  But in this particular project all will work out because it is right at that line that the knitting will fold over the frame/support to hang it and the black double stitching begins.  Perhaps I was planning ahead so far that I marked the spot clearly, sure, that's what I was doing, no not really but it sounds better don't you think?

All I need to do to complete the project is knit a row of 120 stitches 126 times; so far approximately 50 rows are complete.  That will amount to 15,120 stitches. Then the duplicate stitch will be used in black to create the flower on to this white background.  Simple really!  I had hoped to have it completed by October, but I don't know what exactly happened to the month of September, it flew right by.  At any rate, I'm back at it even if not on my self-imposed time line.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Anatomy of a Sock

I've been knitting socks for a relatively short time.  One of the disconcerting things for me as I started following patterns for socks is the pattern designer assumes the knitter (in this case that would be me) knows all the parts of a sock.  So I thought I'd devote a post to improve my own knowledge about the anatomy of a sock and maybe some of you will learn something about the humble yet necessary sock as well. Here's the names of the parts of the foot as I know them. #49 ankle, #50 heel, #51, instep, #52 ball, #53 big toe, #54 toe, #55 little toe, #56 toenail. There are some parts more important for this discussion; first the heel of a foot is generally used to refer to the entire C-shape from the ankle to the instep.  Speaking of the instep, it refers to that curve near the bottom of the foot.  And what seems to be missing in the design above is the sole which generally refers to the bottom of the foot in total or plantar aspect in more technical terms.  (BTW

Ode to the Cat

It has been six months since Mike, the cat's, passing.  I think of him every day and miss him especially when Paul is away.  Mike was a being in the house with me and we were close.  Grieving his death has been muddled with my Dad's passing and sometimes I feel guilty about that happening.  As time passes the ache becomes less hurtful for both and I am starting to get mostly good memories in its place. Recently I helped celebrate Pablo Neruda's birthday with Jami, my poet and overall very creative friend.  Guests were asked to select one poem written by Neruda to read to the small group who gathered for the celebration.  I picked this one: Ode To The Cat -- Pablo Neruda There was something wrong with the animals: their tails were too long, and they had unfortunate heads. Then they started coming together, little by little fitting together to make a landscape, developing birthmarks, grace, flight. But the cat, only the cat turned out finished, and

Knitting-Related Guinness World Records

I had to share some of the Guinness World Records connected with knitting.  It is amazing to me the type of skill, stamina and unique characteristics these record holders have in common. How about trying to knit with these SPNs?? Ingrid Wagner and her large needles and knitted swatch The largest knitting needles measured 3.5 m (11 ft 5.8 in) long and had a diameter of 8 cm (3.15 in). Ingrid Wagner, a rug and art creation artist, from the UK used the needles to knit a tension square of ten stitches by ten rows at the Metro Radio Arena, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, on March, 10 2008.  (And I complained about getting certain SPNs stuck in my clothes.)  See how this swatch was done with merely 5 people managing the needles.  And what about the yarn?  It is truly ex-bulky.  It looks like they're knitting in a warehouse, but with a wingspan of almost 24 feet or 7 m, you'd need all that space.  Or how about the longest piece of finger knitting that measured 4,321.4 m