Stitches South 2010 - Getting Ready

Less than 5 days before Stitches South starts.  Why the count down?  One word ...  Homework!

I'm taking Lily Chin's class Custom Fitting Existing Patterns.

First challenge, find a Vogue Knitting Magazine from before Spring 1991.  First I checked with friends, no luck. Next I went to Ebay and starting looking.  Didn't just want any copy, if I was going to buy one, it at least needed to have some interesting articles.  The first one I tried to win, was swooped in at the last minute by somebody who wanted it more that I did.  Luckily I found one with an Elizabeth Zimmermann interview and hooray, won a Fall/Winter 1988 issue.


Next step was knitting the homework.   Only 5 swatches....
The first one was intimidating.  12 inches total
Worsted weight yarn - size 8 needles and 24 stitches to cast on.

The first section was pretty easy K1, P1 rib for 2 inches

The second section was even easier,  stockinette for 2 inches

The third section was the first challenge... 2 inches of any simple cross cable or rope cable...  I'm one of those types who like specific directions.  These directions just said any simple cable...  Hmmm.  What to do?  Found this neat pattern Criss Cross Cable With Twists.  Just took a while to get it right.  First had to write out the pattern line by line.  And then after I had knitted about half, had to frog it to get the side cables to stand out.  (purl the two stitched on each outside part of the pattern.


Section 4 was another open pattern - any eyelet/lace pattern.  Hmm. Googled it two and found out it is really just a k2tog then do a yarn over and knit on the next row.


Section 5 was yet another open pattern - any 2 color pattern.  For the first time got to use my  1000 Great Knitting Motifs by Luise Roberts.  The hard part was finding a pattern that would fit the 24 stitches.  I settled on the Scandinavia  Traditional Knitting Motifs on page 131.  One quadrant was 24 stitches by 24 rows.  The hard part is reading the pattern and not messing up!  Lots of frogging occurred here!


The last section is the easy part just 2 inches of garter stitch!


Here is where I am so far.  In section 5 on Row 14.  I really liked the eyelet pattern, just doesn't look well next to the cable since it shrunk in so much.