How to Use a Sock Ruler?

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Hello! To indicate that I’m not a sock-ruler-expert, I’ve added a question mark to the title of today’s post – How to Use a Sock Ruler? They may have been around longer, but I only came across them recently and my curiosity was aroused. So I purchased one, worked out how to use it and am now reporting my findings to you. Please correct me if I’m wrong or am missing something.

Mine is from German yarn manufacturer Lana Grossa. It is in German, and uses only centimetres and European shoe sizes. You may want to look for a different brand if you live in a different part of the world. Here it is:

It can be used for shoe sizes 30-47. (There is a separate sock ruler for smaller children.) And these are the areas of interest the numbers refer to:

  1. Yarn weight
  2. Needle sizes
  3. Number of stitches to cast on
  4. Foot length from heel to toe
  5. Total foot length

I’ll try to describe everything in a logical order, starting with:

Yarn weight and needle sizes
4-F (1. in the photos above and below) stands for 4-fach in German, meaning 4-ply. This refers to the yarn weight this side of the sock ruler is to be used for – thinner sock yarns with around 400m/437yds to 100g.

The row of holes (2. in the photos above) is a needle gauge for the range of knitting needle sizes used for 4-ply yarns. The reverse side of my sock ruler is for thicker 6-F (6-fach/6-ply) yarns (shown below):

Casting on
Before starting on a sock we need to look at the area called Maschenanschlag (4-f).

This is a handy table showing how many stitches (Maschen) to cast on for socks for different shoe sizes using 4-ply yarn. I’m knitting size 38 socks and need to look at: Gr 36-39: 60M. (Gr = Größe/size; 36-39 is the range my size 38 falls in; 60M = 60 Maschen/stitches). So I need to cast on 60 stitches, and that’s exactly what I always do for these kind of socks.

Cuff and leg
The sock ruler can be used to measure the length of the cuff and leg instead of a tape measure. How long you want them to be is up to you.

Heel
Alas, the sock ruler doesn’t help with the heel – you’ll have to figure that out for yourself. I’m knitting a pair of socks with a traditional Dutch heel flap.

Foot
To determine when you need to start on the toe, you need to look at Fusslänge: Fersenmitte bis Spitzenbeginn (Foot length: from middle of heel to start of toe). Insert the sock ruler in the sock, with one end (the end without the hole) pushed against the centre of the heel flap. The sock ruler now indicates when it’s time to start on the toe.

I’m nearly there:

The sock ruler indicates that Gr/size 38/39 needs to be 20 centimetres long from the middle of the heel to the start of the toe. That’s exactly how I always knit it.

Toe
The area called Gesamte Fusslänge (total foot length) is meant to help us with the toe. Oh, I’m starting to worry now. I’ll need to knit a very long toe (5 centimetres), to get from start of toe (indicated on left of sock ruler) to total foot length (indicated on right of sock ruler).

I ignore this and knit my usual toe, because I know that always fits and I’ll see what happens with the sock ruler.

Finished, my sock is shorter than it should be according to the sock ruler. I stretch it a bit, and then a bit more, and… then it’s the correct size by the sock ruler.

Verdict
So, what’s the verdict? Do you need a sock ruler?

Pros:

  • This particular sock ruler is made from beautiful smooth beech wood and is simply a lovely thing to hold in your hands.
  • A yarn gauge for double pointed needles always comes in handy.
  • Measuring the foot length from heel to toe is a little easier with the sock ruler than with a tape measure.
  • The table with shoe sizes and number of stitches to cast on for them is a very useful kind of cheat sheet.
  • The sock ruler tells you accurately when to start on the toe.

Cons:

  • You can just as easily use a tape measure for measuring length of cuff and leg.
  • The sock ruler doesn’t help with the heel.
  • This sock ruler is only suitable for cuff-down socks and not for toe-up ones, as far as I can see.
  • Measuring the total sock length is very inaccurate with the sock ruler.

So…
In my humble opinion you can live very well without a sock ruler, but it’s nice to have one. I will use it again, especially for sock sizes that I don’t knit very often.

Knitting in rain, sunshine and rain again
When I started on these socks, it was raining a lot and I had to take photographs on the dining table indoors. Then it became hot and sunny, and I could use the outdoor table. And then it started pouring again, with rain pattering on the outdoor table and in the bird bath.

Fortunately for the blackbird the bird table has a roof. The perfect place to shelter during a downpour.

Well, I hope this has been helpful/interesting/enjoyable to read. Are you a sock knitter, too? Have you ever used a sock ruler? What did you think of it?

Halfway

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Hello! I hope this finds you all well. Here, after a very wet spring, we’re suddenly having a week of hot and dry weather. Personally, I prefer cool and rainy days, but it is summer after all. We’re halfway through the year, and I’m halfway through my current take-along project – my third Polka Dot Scarf.

I’ve given the other two away. This time I’ve chosen a colour nobody I know likes, so that I can keep it for myself.

I’m also halfway through a simple pair of socks and halfway through a bee-themed embroidery kit.

All enjoyable and relaxing projects, but I’m beginning to feel restless. I really need something more interesting and challenging alongside, but what? My problem is never a lack of ideas. I often have so many ideas that I feel overwhelmed and paralysed. Where do I go from here? Do you know that feeling?

So I do what I always do when I don’t know what to do – write about it. My thinking process is also helped by tea.

After making a long list of the things I’d like to make and considering the pros and cons of each, I have a lightbulb moment. Didn’t I have some kind of plan for 2024? Of course! Halfway through January I made a short list that was meant as a kind of map for the year.

One of the things on it that I haven’t done much about yet is Norwegian knitting. How could I forget about that? Some of you even gave me great ideas for Norwegian books to read, too! Never mind the hot weather, that’s just what I need. It feels good to know where I’m going again.

Last week I wrote that I’m trying to make my posts shorter, and I really won’t ramble on any longer, but I just have to show you where the pictures of the Polka Dot Scarf were taken. It was in a lovely out-of-the-way place, with a hidden, disused lock from the time peat was extracted here and transported to other parts of the country by boat.

Just follow the grassy path below and enjoy a moment of calm in this special place. Xxx

Teaching Someone to Knit

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What I haven’t written about so far is that I’m teaching someone to knit. It all started on New Year’s Eve when I was taking batches of traditional knieperties round to our neighbours. Invited in for a cup of tea by a neighbour across the street, I commented on her cross stitch embroidery. She asked me if I was still knitting and then her 6-year-old blurted out, ‘Mummy wants to learn to knit!’ She did, but hadn’t dared ask me. I said I’d love to teach her and we started lessons in February.

I thought I’d share what we’ve done so far, in case you’d also like to teach someone to knit and could use some ideas.

1 A Swatch and a Knitting Notions Case
(Techniques learnt: Garter stitch, casting on and binding off)
We started with a garter stitch swatch. I cast on for her and knit one row, and then it was her turn. When she’d got the hang of it, I bound off. Then she cast on stitches for a knitting notions case herself – a simple rectangle in garter stitch. This was good practice for making her stitches more regular. She also learnt how to bind off. I seamed the notions case for her and gave it a lining and a zipper.

2 A Scarf
(New techniques: Edge stitches and slipped stitches)
When I asked her why she wanted to learn to knit, my neighbour said, ‘I’d love to be able to make beautiful things with my own hands, like my grandmother used to do. Perhaps a cosy scarf for myself or things for my children.’ An excellent motivation, and a scarf for herself was the next project.

To make it a little more interesting than just garter stitch, we chose a nice stitch pattern that is basically garter stitch, but with columns of slipped stitches on the wrong side. I wrote it out for her and added edge stitches to make it extra neat.

My student chose an aran-weight pink yarn knit on 5 mm needles. The scarf will take her months to knit. A huge project for a new knitter, but that’s perfect for her to relax with in the evenings, when the children are in bed. Meanwhile, she can learn other techniques through smaller projects.

3 Another couple of swatches
(New techniques: Purling, stocking stitch, ribbing and seed stitch
Next up: learning to purl. First a swatch in stocking stitch that I didn’t photograph. And then a swatch with various combinations of knit and purl stitches – ribbing and seed stitch.

4 A Doll
(New techniques: Decreasing, seaming and duplicate stitch)
The next project was for her youngest child – a doll the image of this 4-year-old daughter, down to the ponytails.

This little doll is knit flat in one piece.  Apart from being good practice for stocking stitch, it teaches decreasing (for the top of the head) and seaming. I found the pattern on Ravelry – Fairisle Friends by Esther Braithwaite.

Only instead of a Fairisle sweater my student knit a plain sweater and added a heart in duplicate stitch afterwards – another new technique learnt.

5 A Teddy Bear
(New technique: Cabling)
My neighbour’s middle child (the boy who told me his mum wanted to learn to knit) wanted a softie as well – a teddy bear instead of a doll. We used another of Esther Braithwaite’s patterns, the Izzy Teddy Bear Dolls. The pattern gives instructions for knitting in the round, but I thought it too early for that and had my student knit it flat like the doll. The pattern has 4 sweater variations and we chose a cable.

My neighbour’s eldest child, aged 9, hesitated for a while but in the end decided that he was too big for a softie and preferred a ‘cloth’. He got a 25×25 cm/10×10 inch square, knit on the diagonal from very soft wool that he could carry with him and cuddle secretly (sorry, no picture).

In less than 5 months my (very driven and enthusiastic) neighbour learnt A LOT. I’m very proud of her, love teaching her and hope to pass on more of my skills to her over the coming months.

If you don’t have anyone to teach, the small projects above would also make great little gifts. And they are excellent for using up some of those leftover bits of yarn that I’m fairly sure you have in a box (or multiple boxes like me) somewhere.

That was rather a lot of information. I keep trying to keep my posts shorter, but there is always so much to share. Well, I’ll have another chance next week. See you then!

Laundry Day

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Except for a few warmer days in early May, we’ve had a cool and very wet spring. But now, mid-June, it really is time to wash those warm scarves, shawls and wraps and store them away. These are the ones I’ve worn alternately through the colder months.

From left to right: Story Lines, Color Play Mohair Scarf, Thús 2, a modified version of Sursa, and Striped Linen Stitch Wrap. I’ve only hung them on the washing line to take a picture, because after giving them a lovely lavender-scented bubble bath I dry them flat on our drying rack.

(An earlier post about the spa treatment I give my knits can be found here.)

Pottering about on a quiet day at home, washing my scarves and spending some time at the spinning wheel that had been idle for quite a while, my thoughts went back to my visit to an antiques shop just before our German holiday.

They were holding an exhibition of old textiles called ‘Monday, Laundry Day’. It was like visiting a museum, with the difference that the exhibits were for sale and visitors could rummage among them.

There were knit and crocheted bedspreads, lots of white underwear with crocheted and embroidered details, table cloths, bed linen and all kinds of samplers.

I found the old everyday items strangely moving. In my mind’s eye, I saw some of those nimble (or not so nimble) fingers spending hours and hours on practice pieces, so that they would later be able to make useful and beautiful things for their homes and families. I’ve seen cross stitch and darning samplers before, but new to me were the practice parts of socks – separate toes and heels. In the middle of the picture below two practice heels:

Did the girls who had to knit these enjoy or curse the hours spent on them?

The objects showed so many techniques and such great skill.

Two practice pieces for sewing techniques and this darning sampler came home with me:

Just imagine: a young girl at school, perhaps in the early or middle 20th century, perhaps aged seven or eight. First she is told to knit a square divided into nine squares by bands of seed stitch. Then she has to cut holes in some of the squares and try out different mending techniques. One technique she practiced over and over again – why that one in particular? Intriguing!

I have no idea what I’m going to do with it, but I just fell in love with it. Do you love old textiles, too? Do you have any heirlooms or acquired items? What do you do with them? Display them, use them, store them in a box and take them out from time to time?

If you’re in the Netherlands and would like to give some old textiles a good home, the exhibition runs through July 7 at De Oranjerie in Zeijen, Drenthe. More information can be found here.

Mosel Travel Knitting

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The first thing I always pack for a trip is my knitting. Do you do that too? During the last meeting of my knitting group, I discovered that most of my knitting friends do. At home, I made a small start on my knitting project for our holiday in Germany, a smaller version of my Seventh Heaven Scarf, to make sure that the yarn would work and the needles were the right size.

Arriving at our cottage on a farm in the Mosel region, we felt very welcome straightaway.

We didn’t visit any yarn shops or textile exhibitions this time, but if you keep your eyes open, there is always something knitting or textiles-related to be seen. A yarn-bombed drainpipe…

… a tiny spindle whorl no bigger than the thimble next to it…

… and a saint holding a weaving shuttle. The patron saint of weavers, I thought, but it turned out to be Saint Severus, who was a wool weaver during his lifetime.

Beside the church to which Saint Severus gave his name was a fountain with a fun owl chair next to it. At least that’s what I thought at first, but looking again, no, not an owl…

Everywhere we went, my knitting went too and I photographed it here and there along the way.

It was fun to see the colours develop and the scarf grow.

This slightly macabre picture was taken in the incredibly picturesque town of Bernkastel-Kues, with its beautiful Fachwerkhäuser and narrow alleyways.

Only a few days after our visit, after huge downpours, the centre of this little town as well as many others was flooded. In some places people had to be evacuated and there was huge damage. It was frightening to see how quickly the water rose and how fast the river flowed, now brown with silt. Viewed from above, submerged trees in what is normally a park:

Our cottage was about 150 metres above river level, and our only worry was whether my brother and German sister-in-law would be able to visit us (or we’d have to eat all the cakes ourselves). With some detours they reached us, and my animal-loving SIL immediately bonded with a cow.

A couple of days later the roads along the river were passable again and we drove to Cochem for some shopping. The water level in the river had subsided considerably, but we thought we’d better not park here just yet:

Fortunately no lives were lost this time, but it was a disaster for many of those with homes, shops, campsites or restaurants along the river.

During the rest of our holiday, we avoided the area that was hit and stayed up in the mountains. I knit some more.

And we walked in the beautiful countryside, enjoying the views…

… photographing flowers and insects in the amazing flower meadows…

… seeing fox cubs play…

… and almost stepping on a fire salamander – the first time ever we’ve seen one.

At the end of our stay, my scarf had grown quite a bit,

but it wasn’t finished yet. When it’s finished and if I’m happy with it, I’ll add the details to the Seventh Heaven scarf pattern and I’ll also tell you more about the yarn etc. The knitting is almost done now, but writing everything up may take a while, so please be patient. Meanwhile there will always be something else to write about and I hope to see you here again next week. Bye!

Blue Comfort

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The rain was bucketing down when I arrived at the graveyard on Saturday morning. We’d only just come back from Germany the evening before (more about that soon), my suitcase was still unpacked and I was feeling slightly stiff and groggy after a day in what seemed like one long traffic jam. Did I really need to be here?

As soon as I stepped inside, I forgot my grumblings and knew that the answer was YES! It was the day of the official opening of Aula in Blauw, the project about improving the atmosphere and acoustics of a sleek modern funeral building using woad-dyed local wool. Oh yes, definitely an improvement.

What caught my eye first were the felted wall panels in many shades of blue. From pale and medium blue on an undyed background…

… to the deepest blue woad can produce.

And then there were the cushions, I counted about 70 of them. Crocheted…

… woven…

… and, last but not least, knit. I recognized the one I’d knit by the mistake I had purposely left in.

By the window, two vases with branches of the plant that had made it all possible – woad. Now finished flowering, but with green seeds that will later turn purple.

At the base of the sculpture the room looks out on, some woad had been sown. In the photo below it is all bent down because of the rain.

Just a symbolic amount, because what was needed for all this wool dyeing was much, much more. It was grown in gardens and plots of land all over this part of the country. By the way, it’s the leaves that are used for dyeing, not the flowers or seeds.

There were talks, too, of course. I was listening, honestly, but I couldn’t help being distracted by the speakers’ shoes. If shoes could talk… Well, actually they tell us loud and clear who are the creatives behind this fab project and who is the local councillor.

In front of the lectern, a small corner of the carpet many hands worked on is visible. People touched the felt wall panels and picked up the cushions, but the carpet was the most tactile of all and actually invited people to lie down on it. I’d love to have something like it at home.

The Aula in Blauw project has been a great success, in my humble opinion. It has made the funeral building into a much more comforting space, and into one that is easier on the ears, too. It has brought attention to the value and possibilities of local wool. And it has added to our knowledge about dyeing with woad. Everyone taking part was given (or will receive) a copy of the new and updated edition of the Woad Handbook.

The organization’s website says that the Woad Handbook is sold out, but that refers to the first edition. I expect copies of the new edition will become available, but I’m not sure. If you’d like to purchase a copy, the best thing to do is contact Pleed here. (Please remember that they are all volunteers who may not have time to answer straightaway.)

Over the course of the week I have unpacked and picked up the thread of life at home. I’m now sifting through the photos I took in Germany and hope to show you some of them next week. See you then!

Lillebaelt in Sage

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Our daughter has a green soul. She is an ecologist with a special interest in herbs. Small wonder that she has chosen a pullover made of all natural materials in a shade called sage, after the herb about which an old proverb says, ‘Eat sage in May and you’ll live for aye’. Well, there is enough in our garden to eat sage every day of the year.

The yarn combo for her pullover consists of one thread of animal fibres for softness and warmth (Isager Alpaca 2, 50% merino wool/50% alpaca), and one thread of plant fibres for strength (Isager Trio 1, 50% linen/30% cotton/20% lyocell). Together they make a lovely marled, open and drapey fabric.

The pattern by Danish designer Annette Danielsen is called Lillebaelt. The knit-and-purl motifs at the tops of front, back and sleeves were inspired by Lillebaeltsbroen, the bridge over the Little Belt strait in Denmark, between Jutland and Funen.

(The part of our daughter’s garden where we’ve taken the photographs is being transformed into a herb-and-fruit patch. In a couple of years the now bare fence will hopefully be hidden behind an apple tree, grapes, climbers and berry shrubs.)

I struggled with the sets of double decreases next to each other on the shoulders, getting a gaping ladder between them.

After trying out all kinds of other decreases first, I’ve finally decided to seam the shoulders on the inside with mattress stitch. A simple but adequate solution.

The shape of the shoulders looks strange but fits really well.

The pullover has nice side vents, and the back is a little longer than the front.

Apart from the shoulder issue, I think this is a great, well thought-out pattern. And a fairly quick knit, too. I knit it in a little over a month, only working on it in the evenings for an hour or two max, and a little more during weekends.

The Lillebaelt pattern is from Annette Danielsen’s book Fynsk Forår (Spring in Funen). It has beautiful photos of the places, art and architecture in the island of Funen that inspired the designs. I think it’s absolutely wonderful how Danielsen translates for instance a seascape by Johannes Larsen…

…into a pullover with a wave pattern she calls Fynsmalerne.

Annette Danielsen has written some 50 knitting books (in Danish) and quite a few of them have been translated into German. As far as I know they are not available in English, but that isn’t necessarily an insurmountable problem. As a knitter, you’ll probably recognize the knitting terms and otherwise they can always be looked up. Danielsen can be found here on Ravelry, but not nearly all of her designs. Her website can be found here. Lillebaelt wasn’t on Ravelry yet, but I’ve added it to the database and you can find it here.

That’s all for today. Thank you for reading, don’t forget to eat plenty of sage in May, and ‘til next time!

A Woolly Outing

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Hello! Today, I’m inviting you to join me on a little outing to do with Drenthe Heath sheep and their wool. Our destination is the Dwingelderveld National Park, a little over an hour’s cycling from our home. Below, you can see a felted(!) aerial view of the park, with purple heathland, green forest and paler felt for the surrounding open fields. The red arrow points to our destination – the visitor centre.

This is the little wooden yurt-shaped model of the building in its felt landscape:

And here it is in real life:

On this special day, the green-roofed visitor centre is surrounded by a small market. As the first visitor to arrive, I’m given the honour of starting the Wild Weaving project, using wool from the flock as well as twigs, grasses and other plant materials.

It’s a start, and I’m sure many hands big and small will add to the tapestry during the day.

Now, let’s take look round the market. There are several stalls with hand-knit items…

… and hand-spun yarn.

One stall with refurbished spinning wheels, and several with items made from felt, like these beautiful felt wall panels by Viltpracht.

And a stall showcasing all the natural colours of the Drenthe Heath sheep fleeces.

This stall holder (sorry, I don’t know her name or website) has an antique carding machine. It probably dates from around 1850. It is basically a wooden trough studded with big tines. Some of the tines can be seen at the front (red arrow).

The wool is fed in from where the person operating it sits. Holding the wooden handle, she rocks the wooden ‘swing’ back and forth over the trough, and the wool is untangled by the tines. It comes out of the carder as fluffy flakes.

The fibres can then be more finely carded and aligned in an ordinary drum carder. Very interesting.

Listen, can you hear them? The sheep are calling us with their baa-ing. Let’s go and pay them a visit – it’s just a short walk from here. Ah, there they are in the distance.

Instead of being out on the heath, doing their jobs as conservation grazers, they’re staying closer to home at this time of year because they have lambs. The longer we stand here quietly, not moving or talking, the closer they come. The ewes of this breed also have horns, only smaller ones than the rams.

Mmmm, sunshine, total quiet apart from the bleating, that special sheepy woolly smell, a soft breeze – bliss.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this little outing. To close off, here are a few links:

  • The wool market was a one-day event only, but the visitor centre is open all year round.
  • Throughout 2024 there is an exhibition about the flock of Drenthe Heath sheep, and the felt aerial view of the Dwingelderveld National Park is always there, too.
  • Information about the 4 sheep folds in the area can be found here.
  • For those of you unable to visit in person, some of my older posts about this sheep breed can be read here, here and here.
  • And a short video by a cyclist unexpectedly finding herself surrounded by the flock can be watched here on YouTube.

Playing in the Garden

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Hello! While I was puzzling over the shoulder problem I wrote about last week, I knit a simple pair of socks for my sister-in-law. The stretchy k2/p2 ribbing will fit snug around her narrow feet. Here they are on my wider feet:

Not the most exciting pair of socks ever, but I thought you might be interested in the yarn – Austermann Step 4 (Irish Rainbow, shade 228). It looks and knits up like a fairly run-of-the-mill 4-ply superwash sock yarn. Only, for its superwash treatment the more sustainable EXP-process was used. Avoiding the use of chlorine and other harmful chemicals, and using far less water, the EXP-process has the GOTS-certificate and several other certificates for sustainable textiles. Though I do have my slip-ups, I try to be a responsible consumer.

Starting the second sock at exactly the right spot in the stripe sequence to get a matching pair is a game I like to play with self-striping yarns. Yay, I won!

After taking pictures of the socks, I spent some time playing in the garden. Being a responsible adult is all well and good, but the inner child also needs time to play and explore. My hands may be getting spotty and wrinkly, I still get excited about the empty shell of a blackbird’s egg.

And I still collect bugs, only not in a jam jar but with my camera.

In our white lilac bush, my gossamer swatch for a pink Polka Dot Scarf looks like a fairy’s laundry.

As a young teenager just starting to learn English, I collected the flower fairy booklets by Cicely Mary Barker. I still have them and early on Sunday morning I spent a delightful quiet hour looking at their lovely pictures and reading some of the poems.

In Flower Fairies of the Trees there is a poem about the lilac that ends like this:

“I love her so much
That I never can tell
If she’s sweeter to look at,
Or sweeter to smell.”

And under the C in A Flower Fairy Alphabet, I came across the columbine (known to me as aquilegia).

These flowers like fairy skirts are dancing in our front garden in many shades of pink and purple.

The sweater-with-the-now-solved-shoulder-problem is almost finished, and thinking about new projects I knit a couple of swatches with a yarn I’m considering for a Norwegian sweater – CaMaRose’s Økologisk Hverdagsuld (Organic Everyday Wool). While I was photographing them, my inner child played with pebbles.

I hope that you, too, can find some time in your days for your inner child to play (and/or take a nap). xxx

Double Double Decreases

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Hello! Today I’m diving deep into double double decreases. If that isn’t really your thing, do scroll down for something completely different.

A Shoulder Problem

What exactly do I mean by double double decreases? And why am I diving into them? Well, it’s to do with the Lillebaelt pullover I’m knitting for our daughter. It is knit in one piece, without any seams. On the top of the shoulders, there are double decreases on either side of where otherwise the shoulder seam would be. No matter how tight I pulled the thread, I got a gaping ladder in between these double double decreases – look:

As the entire weight of the pullover hangs on this, I expect it will only get worse. Did the designer have the same problem or is it just me? Let’s take a look at the photographs in the book. Oh, ah, hmm, I see…

Or rather, I can’t see the tops of the shoulders at all. Oh well, I thought, I’ll pull the stitches together with a thread on the wrong side. But then a knitting friend came to visit, we looked at the problem together, and I decided to rip it out and find a more elegant solution.

Swatching to find a Solution

From a simple undyed DK-weight yarn, I knit swatches to try things out.

The pattern uses a left-leaning sssk on one side and a right-leaning k3tog on the other. What if I inserted two stitches between the two double decreases? Below, first the original double decreases with ladder, and then the same decreases with two stitches in between.

Interesting! The two centre stitches became very loose and open, again no matter how tight I pulled the yarn. So, not strong enough and not suitable.

The double decreases were only done every other row. What if I crossed the two central stitches in the rows between the decrease rows? (Upper half of swatch below.)

Very decorative and also very strong. But the shoulder section is partly knit in the round and partly back and forth, meaning I’d need to do this partly on the knit RS and partly on the purled WS. And I’d also need to move the start of the row to a different place. Too complicated.

Next I tried out different double double decreases – different ways of reducing two clusters of 3 sts to 1 st each. No joy – ladders appeared in all of them.

Okay, so what if I approached it differently? Basically, I needed to get rid of 4 sts on each shoulder. What if I reduced 5 sts to 1 in one go? I tried three different ways of doing this out. Very nice, no ladders and strong enough for the shoulders, but…

Sadly there were numerous buts. These decreases used an odd number of sts, so I’d need to change the number of sts in a round/row. Plus they were asymmetrical. Besides I’d need to move the start of the rounds/rows to a different place. And the shoulder section was already complicated, with its knit-and-purl stitch pattern knit partly in the round and partly flat.

A Waste of Time?

So….. I’ve decided to go back my original plan: work the double double decreases complete with ladder, and pull the stitches together with a thread on the wrong side afterwards. I needn’t have ripped all those rows out after all. What a waste of time! Or was it? I’ve learnt a lot about double double decreases, other multiple stitch decreases and their pros and cons. For me, that was worth the time.

And now for something completely different

After looking at my knitting problem and having a lovely lunch together, my friend and I went for a walk in a nature reserve called Kale Duinen (Bare Dunes). And guess what we saw?

A herd of wild Exmoor ponies! Aww, they look so sweet, with those pale markings around their eyes and muzzles.

But towering above you on a sandhill, they look powerful and imposing, too. Better not come too close.

Bye for now and I hope to see you again soon!