Autumn Cape 2016 A long Term Project Hood Part 3

Autumn Cape 2016 A long Term Project Hood Part 3

Start of Decrease

Before making any decreasing you need to adjust the pattern. Find the middle of the Pictorial Chart. Mine has 228 Stitches so the middle will be 114 on the Chart. From now on the pattern will be designed from the middle to the edges. Leave a good 20 stitches at either end.

Hood Pictorial Chart Initial Decrease Pattern

How the Chart will look prior to addition of decreases is shown below.

Hood Pictorial Chart Initial Decrease Right

How you write the pattern will change slightly too.

Hood Page 2 Prior to Decrease

The First 5 Decrease Stitches Right

I knitted a few more stitches at the beginning that I needed so I did not disrupt the Selvedge.

Knit 5 Orange, slip one, Knit 1 Orange, slip one, Knit 3 Brown, slip one, Knit 2 Orange, (Yellow on pattern) slip one, Knit 2 Brown, slip one. Continue with pattern.

First Decrease On Page 2 Written Chart*

The photograph above shows the Initial decrease. This can now be added to the Pictorial Chart.

It might look a bit peculiar but otherwise you cannot see where the next row decrease should be.

Hood First Decrease Right Addition

The photograph above shows the addition of the first lot of decreases.

Hood Pictorial Chart Initial Decrease Left

First Decrease Left Up To Addition

One little point if you compare the above photograph with the one with the asterisk * the 4^th number has been altered from a 1 to a 2. That is because the next stitch was another Brown and if I put another 1 it would look like 11 stitches.

The First 5 Decrease Stitches Left

This is the decreases for the other end of the Row.

Knit 5 Yellow, Slip 1, Knit 1 Yellow, Knit 2 Brown, Knit 2 Yellow, Slip 1, Knit 2 Orange, Slip 1, Knit 2 Orange, Slip 1, Knit 3 Yellow, Slip 1, Knit 1 Yellow, Knit 1 Brown, Knit 3 Red

Hood Pictorial Chart Left Decrease Addition 

I started with 228 Stitches. I decrease by 5 on the Right Hand Side and a further 5 on the Left Hand Side. This decreased the Knit Row by 10 Stitches in total. I now have 218 Stitches left on the needle.

Hood Written Chart First Decrease Right Addition

Now the decreasing has been done on the Knit Row I turned and purled back. I shall decrease again on the next 4 Knit Rows. There are no decreases on the Purl Rows.

I continued decreasing by 10 stitches until I reached Row 80. From Row 81 to 90 I staggered the decreases. I decreased by 6 on a few Knit rows then dropped again until I was left with 100 Stitches on the needle. I had to tweak slightly to achieve this as I had lost a couple of stitches somewhere.

Written Chart 2 Decrease to 100 Stitches

On the next bit I will be changing to Moss Stitch

Autumn Cape 2016 A long Term Project Hood Part 2

Autumn Cape 2016 A long Term Project Hood Part 2

Third Time Lucky 

That was the point at which I left the Hood Part 1. After a series of mistakes I finally sorted out how to Design and make a Pictorial and Written Chart of the Hood.

Double Sheet Restart

For simplicity sake remember that the Pictorial chart shows how the Hood will look when knitted (Left to Right). The Written Chart shows the process of knitting (Right to Left).

Since the actual designing process has been pretty much covered in previous blogs I won’t bother with the details. Therefore I will skip forward to several weeks of knitting. My word this part of the cape is taking it’s time.

Hood First 60 Rows Pictorial Chart

As you can see in the above photograph I have gone back to making the colours very bold. This is due to the fact that I was really having trouble distinguishing some of the colours. 

Now it is easier to see but the down side is I am fast wearing down some of the pencils. I will need to buy some more of them as well as wool at this rate.

Hood First 60 Rows Written Chart

The reason I have decided to publish Part 2 at this point is because it breaks up very nicely as 60 Rows Stocking Stitch (60 Plain and 60 Purl = 120 in total) fills one A4 Written Chart when only counting the Knit Rows.

Hood First 60 Rows Knitted

This is the Hood so far. You may notice at the top that I have started using Knitting Bobbins – not to be confused with Lace Bobbins. I thought I would give them a go and thereby hopefully not have so much tangled wool.

This idea worked well apart from the fact that I only bought a pack of 10 which I soon found that though useful as a trial it was quite inadequate for the task and I need many more.

However since these Bobbins are made of plastic I am not entirely sure I want to buy any more as I prefer natural materials

Hood First 60 Rows Left Hand Side Close up

Hood First 60 Rows Middle Close up

Hood First 60 Rows Right Hand Side Close up

From this point on I shall begin to decrease the Hood. I will let you know how I get on.

If anybody knows where I can find Knitting Bobbins that aren’t made of plastic please drop me a line in the comments.

Autumn Cape 2016 A long Term Project Oakey Doh-key

Autumn Cape 2016 A long Term Project

Oakey Doh-key

No you haven’t missed a post. I am still plodding away on the Hood but since it is taking a while I thought I would blog about something a little different.

If you can remember way back towards the beginning of the project I mentioned that I only have a limited amount of yarn in certain colours. This is due to the fact that they are from discontinued stock. Now since I am getting very low I thought it was a good time to check the Cape.

Doh-key

Autumn Cape Orange Hole - Stretched 

I apologise for the quality of the photographs but unfortunately I can’t take close shots very well. Hopefully you can see a Stretched Hole in between the Orange and Yellow.

Autumn Cape Orange Hole Mended - Stretched

 

Using a short piece of Orange Yarn I sewed across the gap. I tried to do this using a crisscross method as sewing directly across would have been too noticeable.

Autumn Cape Orange Hole 2 – Dropped Stitch

Autumn Cape Orange Hole 2 Mended– Dropped Stitch

 

Using the same technique I mended the Dropped Stitch Hole. I continued to do this throughout the colours on the Back of the Cape and with luck I have managed to spot them all. I have to repeat this process on the Sides and Sleeves. The Hood isn’t as bad as obviously by now I know better what I am doing.

Oakey

So I have covered the ‘Doh-what have I done-Key’ what about the ‘Oakey’ bit? Ah well here I have to admit this is not my own design. Whilst thinking about embellishments I decided I wanted some Oak Leaves. Therefore I trawled the Internet searching for a pattern as I knew this was definitely out of my ability range.

Oak Leaf Pattern

The Pattern I found used 3 mm Double Ended Needles. So this is what I used for my initial attempt. Since I had more Orange Wool than anything else I selected this colour to knit with.

Orange Oak Leaf 

Although this is a beautiful leaf it turned out that following the pattern using 3 mm needles I ended up with a leaf 13 cm long. This was far in excess of what I required.

Yellow Oak Leaf

On my second attempt I used 2.75 mm needles. This again was far too big at 12 cm.

Red Oak Leaf

Third time lucky I found that using 2 mm needles (Thanks Cayt Hewitt for the loan) the Oak Leaf came out at 10 cm. This is really a bit on the large size for what I originally had in mind but I am not sure if they do needles any smaller and even if they did I struggled knitting the pattern with these so it will have to do.

Triple Oak Leaves

This is how the Oak Leaves compare in size.  I shan’t be doing anymore for a while yet as plodding away at the Hood. If you would like to try knitting them yourself see the pattern link below.

Oak Leaf Pattern

http://www.oddknit.com/patterns/treesandleaves/oakleaf.html

Autumn Cape 2016 A long Term Project Hood Part 1

Autumn Cape 2016 A long Term Project Hood Part 1

There are two possible ways I could add the Hood. I could either Knit separately and then add later either by sewing or attach via buttons/press studs etc.

The other way to add the Hood is by picking up stitches from the Back part of the Cape. This was the method I decided upon. Much as I dislike picking up stitches I thought it would be a more accurate way of continuing the pattern.

Picking up 228 Stitches

You may notice that this is quite a lot of stitches. This is because I have not only picked up the stitches along the Back but also that of both sides.

Hood Double Pictorial Chart Sheet

The stitches that are now on the needle are so many they will no longer fit on one sheet. Therefore I have had to Sellotape two sheets of paper together.

Hood Chart in Relation to Previous Charts 

This new Chart is designed in a slightly different way to the previous two. If you look at the photograph above it clearly shows the Pictorial Chart with the Owl on it is designed from the Top Down, whereas the Hood Chart is designed from the Bottom Up.

Hood Written Chart Mistake 

This is one reason I made a mistake when entering the data. The order above is correct as far as I am Knitting from Right to Left. However the Pictorial Chart is designed from Left to Right. This is the sort of mistake that is made when you try something new late at night when you’re tired. Not a good idea!

The question now is which way do I record the information?

Hood Pictorial Chart Mistake

 

This is the Second Pictorial Chart for the Hood I have made. The First time I had somehow left off about 30 Stitches goodness knows how.

On the Chart above I had counted the stitches correctly but had inputted the information Back to Front. Hence I ended up having to unravel the knitting back to where I picked up Stitches.

Third Time Lucky I hope