Design

Diary of a Design: Day 4, now we’re getting somewhere!

| Elanor

I got a fair bit done yesterday, all the cables are completed and I’m on the Rev St st bit heading for the shoulders. I’m about 3 cm from the shoulder rise. Here it is lying on top of another design, Biennial, for comparison.

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There’s more ease in this new jumper, but it won’t show till it’s blocked. The armholes are a little lower for roomier sleeves too, but otherwise the backs are quite similar shapes. I’ve used nearly 3 balls for the back so far, so it looks like the whole jumper will be 12-14 balls to make.

 

So, of course you’ve figured out by now that this design isn’t 5 days old. It started at Unwind in Brighton, actually, when I met Sonja from Blacker Yarns and got a ball of the lovely, lovely Elegance from her. I started swatching on the beach on the Sunday!

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This shade is silver, which is white with just a hint of black running through to give the grey effect. The yarn is not dyed at all and the various shades are made by spinning in the naturally coloured alpaca fibres. Corriedale fleece itself is always white and makes up 80% of the base. The addition of the alpaca makes the yarn smoother and softer. Overall it has fab bounce and I’m definitely enjoying working with it. The jumper is going to be super-warm too. So a big thank you to Blacker yarns for providing the yarn support!

The yarn I’m using is Blacker Elegance DK in Silver (pale grey). It is also available in a 4-ply weight and the natural colours are white, pale and darker grey, pale and darker brown. It sells at £6.50 per 50g ball of high-quality British yarn.
Today’s Saturday, so I’m not sure how much knitting my young family will let me do today, I’ll be sure to keep you updated tho!
Have a lovely weekend,
X e

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Diary of a Design: Day 3, just keep trucking

| Elanor

Yesterday saw a few more cables added. Because these cables are graduated, every other one is .75 the number of rows of the previous one. So my sections are speeding up.
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I have about half of the back done now. You can’t tell from the pic above, but there is a change in size in the width of the piece, which will give flattering shaping to the finished item when worn.

I have to show you where I’m keeping the project and yarn when not in the hands:
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Isn’t it a lovely basket? I got it at a wedding in Ireland at the end of last month and had a divil of a time getting it on board the flight home. It was my “handbag” (I already had carry on)!

Diary of a Design: Day 2

| Elanor

Life is what happens when you’re busy making plans, or so the saying goes. My first erratum is what happened last night. (Hangs head in shame.) turns out the sleeve cap on my Abbye Cardigan wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. I fixed the error in my calculations and have rewritten the pattern. When my TE has had a chance to look at it, I’ll update the pattern on rav. For now, it has been temporarily deactivated.
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That said, I did manage to work to the next cable on my jumper

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And today will see some more cables, all going well.

X e

Diary of a Design: Actual Knitting, Day 1

| Elanor

Well actually, I started knitting it on Friday, but decided to frog back yesterday.
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The photo above is what I had Tuesday night at knit club. I asked the others there their opinion and they were frank enough to point out that the cables didn’t join up well with the ribbing. To be honest, I knew the moment the question left my lips that a certain amphibian would be making an appearance. This is what I have now and I’m much happier.
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It’s got flow now, and so it’s knitting up much faster. I want sneak a row in on it all the time, whereas yesterday I kept putting it down because I was doubting it. It has meant a few extra swatches though! IMG_6127.JPG
These are just the ones I had handy!

Ravelry Pro Data and Excel: How to Make a Purchases by Month Chart

| Elanor

Hello!

A discussion on rav revealed that some designers would like to export data from Ravelry Pro to manipulate in excel and in particular, create a chart of Purchases by Month. Here I go through the steps to work up the chart yourself, and at the bottom of the page is a link to a dummy excel file you can use. If you use the dummy file, you can just pop your Ravelry Pro exported data into the Purchases tab, but going through the steps will help you figure out how to to it yourself and maybe get different data out.

  1. Export the data from your purchases page
    http://www.ravelry.com/stores/XXX/purchases

    export purchases data from ravelry pro
    export purchases data from ravelry pro
  2. Then open that in a new excel document. The date of purchase column is column A.
  3. You will need to use text-to-columns on column A to turn it into date format as just converting the data to “date” won’t work. Text-to-columns is on the data tab in my version (2010). Rename this excel sheet “Purchases”.
  4. On a new excel sheet, set up 2 columns as follows
    A B
    Month Purchases
    01/01/2010

     

  5. Call this sheet “Purchases per Month”. (January 2010 is an example. Best to use your first month with sales.)
  6. Put the following into cell A3, then copy and paste into the rest of column A until it shows December 2014. This formula adds one month per cell.
    =DATE(YEAR(A2),MONTH(A2)+1,DAY(A2))
  7. Put the following into B2 and then copy and paste it into the rest of the cells below it. This formula basically says “count all purchases where
    1. The “paid” column is not empty AND
    2. The date is greater than or equal to the first of the month AND
    3. The date is less than the first of the next month

    =COUNTIFS(Purchases!F$2:Purchases!F$10000,”<>”,Purchases!A$2:A$10000,”>=”&A2,Purchases!A$2:A$10000,”<“&A3)
    *Please note, this last formula only works up to 10,000 purchases, but OTOH, if you have more than 10,000 purchases, I can, for a small (teeny, weeny) fee, write a spreadsheet for you!
    **Sorry it runs off the page, but I don’t want to add spaces cos that will break the formula if the spaces are pasted too.

  8. And then to make the chart, just select the data in columns A and B on the “Purchases per Month” sheet and click on the barchart from the Insert tab.

Finally, here, for your downloading pleasure, is the mock_purchases spreadsheet.

If you use the spreadsheet, you will need to do the Text-to-columns thing in step 3) everytime you copy in the data from rav.

Loom Bands in your Knitting? Whatever Next?

| Elanor

Hello!
You may have noticed I’ve gone loom band crackers the last little while… Well I just released a quick, fun hat pattern that incorporates loom bands into the fabric.

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The pattern is called simply “Loom Band Hat” and is available to download now from Ravelry for £2

 

To make it you need 100g Aran yarn, 300 loom bands and size 5 and 4.5mm needles. The hat is sized from baby to adult, so you can make one for everyone in the family, not just your staker-boi niece!

I made a video showing how to knit with loom bands and the other day I uploaded a photo tutorial on how to make a wool and loom band pom pom.

I’d love to see what unusual things you do with loom bands. Post below by September 5th and I’ll pick a winner of a free copy of the pattern.

Xxx e

One-Row Buttonhole Video

| Elanor

For my Undone Capelet, I made a video to demonstrate how to perform a one-row self-reinforcing buttonhole.

The video works row 5 of the pattern, which is:

Row 5 (RS): YO, K2tog, K1, BH, K2tog, YKY, SSK,
P1, K1, P2.

So it’ll also help if you’re unsure how to work a YO at the beginning of a row.

Released: Undone Capelet

undone capelet
| Elanor

I have released a new pattern! This is a pretty little capelet that only needs one skein of yarn (1 skein for sizes S & M; L needs 2). You can easily grow it if you have more yarn available. The capelet ties closed with a ribbon. The ribbon is woven through the collar with the clever use of one-row buttonholes. Here’s the ravelry link.

undone capelet
undone capelet

The capelet is pretty enough to wear to a wedding, but I have found myself wearing it whenever I just want something to throw over my shoulders. The colour is so punk it jazzes up my outfits without going too girly. The yarn is Uncommon Everyday in POW! by The Uncommon Thread.

Available to buy now for £3

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If worked up in cotton to a longer length (800 yds 4-ply), it could also double as a beach skirt. I would also love to see how it turns out with a contrasting colour collar.

If you want to knit it up with a contrasting colour collar or as a beach skirt & can put pics on rav, drop me a line and I’ll send you a free copy.

Mwah!
– Elanor

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Seaglas on the cover of Knit Now 35!

| Elanor

Images courtesy of Practical Publishing.

Seaglas is a sheer, crop top, with seafoam panels at hem and sleeve caps and a sheer stocking stitch ground. Seaglas is bang on trend for Summer, as it’s thistle-down light. It’s knit with gorgeous Fyberspates Scrumptious Lace, which is buttery smooth to work with. You only need 2 skeins, too, and only a scrap of the second! Actually, the total weight for the sample was less than 60g (for size Small), so one skein might even cut it, if you would prefer a monochrome version.

To knit Seaglas, start with the Seafoam lace hem. This is worked sideways on, and creates a column of YO’s on the very edge. Then, pick up from the edge and work straight up to the neckline in stocking stitch. The neckline is a simple YO pattern within a garter st ground. The back is worked in a very similar way. Last of all, the sleeve cap edging is picked up from the side of the top and worked all the way around the armhole, tapering at the start and end.

 

I was absolutely stoked when I saw Seaglas was going to be on the cover. This is my second ever cover, the first was Crystl from Issue 33. I have saved the printing proofs of these covers carefully away and I intend to get them framed for the glory wall in my “studio” – a little private space I’ve carved out for myself in the house.