Knitting Colourwork - Intarsia

I began working a pattern out of my new knitting pattern book: Knitted Toy Tales. I decided to make a toy fish, as it involved some colourwork, which I am not very familiar with. I find small projects great for learning new skills as you can see your results (and learn from your mistakes) quickly.

The tail fin of the fish used a technique called Intarsia. With intarsia, if there are multiple colours to be used throughout a row of knitting, each colour will have its own ball to work from. The fish toy didn't require very much yarn, so I placed my colours on bobbins. I didn't have enough 'real' bobbins for this pattern, so I made my own using some cardboard.

Following the pattern, I started with blue and knit in stockinette stitch until it was time for the colour changes. Because the fish would eventually be folded in half and seamed, the tail went from blue (colour A) to pink (colour B), to blue, to pink, to blue, to pink, to blue, to pink, to blue.

It took me a few rows to get used to having all the bobbins hanging off the work, but it eventually felt comfortable. I also had to make sure I crossed the yarns properly when changing colours, so I didn't leave any holes in the work. Once I learned the process, it actually started to be a lot of fun and I got into a pretty good rhythm of knowing what colour came next.

That rhythm helped me to (almost) notice a mistake in one of the rows of the written pattern. I knew something was wrong, but I couldn't quite figure out what was supposed to be right, and I wasn't 100% confident that I was right in thinking that it was wrong. So I knit it as it was written, thinking that seeing the result would let me know for sure if there was a problem or not. There was.

Once I was sure it was a mistake, I was able to figure out where the pattern went wrong. It is a little out of context, but I will try to illustrate the difference between the written pattern and what I believe should be the correct pattern. For the pattern blue is A and pink is B.

Original     Row 9: [A k2, B skpo, k1, k2tog, k2, A skpo, k1, k2tog, k2] rep to end of row.
Corrected  Row 9: [A k2, B skpo, k1, k2tog, A k2, B skpo, k1, k2tog, A k2] rep to end of row.

The original pattern had all the right knitting, but the wrong colour indicated (the original said to change the colour 3 times, the corrected changes the colour 5 times).

I knitted the mistake into my project, and didn't bother pulling back the rows of intarsia to get it out. I was using this toy to practice skills, so I didn't need it to be perfect. When the knitting was complete, I used duplicate stitch to cover the wrong blues with pink, and the wrong pinks with blue. The mistake is barely noticeable in the finished fish tail.

The main body of the fish uses Fair Isle colourwork, which I'll post about next week.

600th Post!

Today I am celebrating my 600th post on the blog!

Yay!! 

 Thank you all for being here! 

Egg Salad on a Toasted Bagel #FoodPicFriday

I go through phases with certain foods, where I'm either completely obsessed with them or I forget about them entirely. There is no middle ground and the obsession lasts for short spurts with years of nothing in between. My number one food like this is egg salad. I haven't eaten it in years (the last time was probably at a funeral), but over the past month I've made it twice and have been so damn happy while eating it. How did I forget about egg salad? As much as I love it right now, I know it will slip my mind soon enough. I'll have fun with it while it lasts.

My egg salad is simple: mashed hard boiled eggs, mayo to taste, and some pepper. Love it.

Trudy's House

In the summer we adopted a ten year old cat named Trudy from an elderly relative who had to go into a home and then later passed away. Trudy had a bit of shock moving here (a new environment, other cats, new people), but it's been over six months now and she is really thriving here. Trudy is an adorably grumpy cat who'd prefer it if she were the only cat who lived here. Funnily enough, our other two cats feel the same way about themselves!

Some family were clearing out her old house in the fall and brought over her "cat house." I have never known a cat who had a house before, and this is proof of how spoiled she was (and, to be fair, how spoiled she continues to be...). She doesn't sleep in this very often, but it is a great hiding spot for her when she wants it.

New Toys, Cupcake

I have been collecting Wilton decorating tips over the past few years, buying them one at a time as I need them/want to play with them. I am building my collection slowly (I currently only have six decorating tips) but the ones I have are ones I use often/look forward to using more often.

These are the most recent additions to my collection and some photos of the fun I've had with them.

1A tip (Large Round).
I bought this one so I could make some hi-hat cupcakes. I definitely want to try the peanut butter ones from this blog, as they look decadent and insane (more icing than cupcake!) but I haven't found an opportunity to make them yet.

Just fooling around with some Marshmallow buttercream, I practiced making some 1A swirls.

2D tip (Drop Flower).

This one is similar to my 1M tip, which is my go to tip for decorating cupcakes. I did some practicing with this one that involved playing with colour as well. I put a few lines of colour on the inside of a piping bag with a toothpick, which gave the edges of the frosting a simple but fancy look.

#233 (Grass tip).

There are a number of different projects I want to try with this tip, from a hobbit hole cake to monsters (Elmo or Cookie). When baseball season comes around again, I'd also love to make a batch of these baseball cupcakes. This was my first go at making grass - I was very happy with it!

My current collection:

Back Row:  1M,   1A,   2D

Front Row:  #21,   #233,   #3