It's all fun, in the Love and pursuit of knitting! This could be my new mantra.
What I had this morning was, a desire to make a pair of Fair Isle man's underwear, a Pattern in Norwegian (which I do not speak), and the yarn. Now I have a 24" 3.25mm needle and some progress.
I knew I needed a 24", 3.5mm needle for this project, in the US that is a size #4, without recognizing what might look like gauge in the pattern, I decided to swatch (knit a mall square of fabric for measurement to equal stitch and row count needed for garment), to see what the knitted fabric would look like. I have knitted fair isle before and am used to using 2.5mm or 3mm needles, so 3.5 for underwear, even though I am not making them for wear, seemed like it would be loose.
I went to the yarn shop and knitted a gauge swatch (that I did not measure, it's not being worn) first with the 3.5mm which I thought seemed a bit too loose, and then with 3.25mm. The fabric created by the 3.25mm needles was more dense and seemed like it would work better and hide the floats; the second yarn trailing behind along the back of the fabric.
Here you see the gauge swatch below, the beginning was knitted with the larger needles, I purled a ridge before using the smaller needles. You may or may not be able to see the slight difference, It felt different as well. The fabric I knitted with the smaller needle is denser by look and feel.
This is not a good example of a gauge swatch, which is usually slightly bigger than your stitch count in 4x4" in the US or 10cm x10cm in Europe. So when a pattern says you gauge is 28 sts by 30 rows, those stitches and rows should fit within a 4x4" or 10cm x 10cm square of fabric knitted using the needles and yarn prescribed. If I were truley making these to wear, I would use the same yarn or an equivalent yarn and needles to get the gauge called for in the pattern. Now, there are a lot of horror stories about people having terribly large, small or misshapen garments because they did not work a gauge swatch or get gauge.
Not to worry, I am adjusting this as i go to make sure I end up with a reasonably sized and shaped garment. I went with the smaller needles, so my finished product should be on the smaller side if not right sized or close, if I end up with a more loose gauge than the designer. Again, I am not making these to be worn, it could be that they will be able to be worn, but mine are to be framed, Fair Isle is Art right? Knitting can be considered Art.
I could tell by the pattern in Norwegian that I would need to cast on 200 stitches, at least I think it is. Here is what the pattern says;
Legg Opp 200 m og strikk Vrbord 6 omg.
So my guess was, cast on 200 sts and either work 6 rounds or 6 inches, I opted for rounds since from the picture it looked like ribbing and it did not look like it was 6" worth. It also looked like later on the amount of stitches would be decreased. The original translation through babel fish did not seem to be helpful, it said it was 70% accurate and left me with questions, a lot of words were still a mystery. It was not clear in cast on, rounds or if there was a decrease or why the pattern looked like it restarted or something.
I ran the website through translation, ah, there was my problem. I still don't speak the language, but its wasn't Swedish as I originally thought, no, it is in Norwegian. So much more translated and it makes sense, its also not a step by step pattern. there will be a lot to work out, that just is not written in the pattern.
Here is my beginning;
The pattern Behind it is for a child's Fair Isle sweater, in English. As you can see I have cast on and knitted two rounds in knit 2 purl 2 rib. The pattern says (know from translation) to work 6 rounds, I plan on knitting at least an inch in rib, it could be that will equal 6 rounds, we will see.
As I have suggested above, I have a good translation of the pattern, and, I turned it into a PDF and its now in my ibooks on my Phone for reference; at some point I will print a copy, but for now I am working from this copy on my phone.
I had told people that there are pictures of a women's pair of panties by someone else in another blog, but it looks like there is somewhat of a pattern for them embedded in this pattern. and now I'm wondering if I bought enough yarn for both and it is possible, but we will see, first thing s first, one pair at a time.
Keep your sticks clicking and as always,
Happy stitching trails
Stitchinghermit
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