Burnt by machine

That's the name of my knitted top, get it?

I finished it!

It took as long to finish the arm and neck openings as it did to knit the pieces. This is how it goes with machine knitting, I'm learning.

In the case of this top, a lot of the time spent on that phase was thinking about how exactly to do it - by machine. It's a technical/mechanical issue.

Knitting by machine is so different from knitting by hand where you can flip stitches around, combine them and add new ones wherever you want.

On a knitting machine, you are stuck with each stitch on its own fixed needle. If you want to add or subtract one in the middle of a piece - as I had to to make the vertical darts for shaping this top - you need to move all the stitches to one side of where you are increasing or decreasing to make room (or take one stitch away) in the middle.

Needles on one bed only knit, and on the other bed they only purl. Making garter stitch, the easiest thing in the world for a hand knitter (knit every row) is about the slowest stitch you can do on a machine because you literally have to switch the stitches from one bed to the other, or reform them on a single bed machine, every single row.

So the problem with my bands was that the pattern called for them to be knitted on (stitches picked up around the edges) in reverse stockinette stitch so they would curl and look nice and round. Easy by hand, tough by machine because of the configuration of the needles and how they would knit. No matter how I figured it, I'd end up either with the stockinette side showing (curling the wrong way, therefore) or with the "seam" where the stitches of the band were joined to the body on the outside instead of the inside.

There are probably ways of doing it but it was going to be really, really awkward.

So I did it by hand with skinny 2.5mm circular needles. Picked up the stitches, knit four rows, cast off. I am very pleased with how it turned out.

And here's the back. Yes, that is a band of garter stitch on either side of the (totally redundant) keyhole opening. See above for degree of difficulty.

The Sewing/Knitting Lawyer is happy with how this one turned out. It should be a nice basic item for summer.

Knitting on my Passap

Burnt

A while ago I ordered a book of knitting patterns by a very prolific UK designer, Kim Hargreaves. There are 1,574 of her patterns on Ravelry! This is a knitting superstar who comes up with endless pretty, simple, feminine designs. An on-line bio says she was "responsible for creating the image and philosophy of Rowan" as its head in house designer and the person who oversaw design, photography and styling for the Rowan magazines and chose many of the designers. Now she heads her own company and she publishes these books, one of which (Indigo) I own.

I bought it because I was smitten with one of the patterns (Searing), which I have in mind for a hand-manipulated machine knitting project, but that is not what I am working on this weekend. No sirree - I'm making Burnt (Kim Hargreaves has this thing for one-word names).

Such a simple but classy little top. The slip-stitch rib is a cinch on the Passap (CX/N, a rib every 5 stitches).

Making it a bit more complex for machine knitting are the vertical darts (3 per side, front and back), and the back slit opening which is faced with garter stitch.

I figured out the technical issues and have knitted the front and the back. As usual I had to do some fixing up of the knitting with a needle and yarn, but I will not reveal where and my hunch is that no one will notice.

If they do I shall freeze them with an icy stare.

My top is black, which is hard to machine knit with (god help you if/when you drop a stitch and have to go fishing for it) and hard to photograph. The pieces are now blocking and I'm resting up for the next phase which will consist of machine knitting the neck and arm opening bands (reverse stockinette, which will roll nicely I hope).

Now I have a hankering for a sewing project.

Methinks a shirt dress for summer. Uncharacteristically, I just bought two McCalls patterns and one of them is 6885. I would never have considered it except when I saw Goodbye Valentino's gorgeous version I realized that abandoning the kiddy sunhat and exaggerated shirt tail hem left a pretty, classic dress.

I'll be back when I finish Burnt - in the meantime please excuse me while I go stash-diving.