Monday, December 07, 2015

Non-knit

I have a scan scheduled for this afternoon – nil by mouth from 11 am on, and no help until 2 pm this afternoon. Someone usually comes around 11, but I have re-scheduled her for today.

And today is Pearl Harbor Day. I wonder how many of the MP's who voted last week to bomb Syria, remember Pearl Harbor and the London blitz. Very few. There would have been more who remember American bombs in Vietnam. I think ISIS, like Americans in 1941, like the British, like the Viet Cong, are likely to become crosser and more dangerous the more you bomb them.

Knitting

I finished the final Dunfallandy triangle and will today begin assembly. I think I'll leave the rest until after the New Year.

I'm worried about the border. Each side of the central square will consist of two final-edges of triangles, 52 stitches each (I've left them live). So, one would think, 104 stitches or thereabouts for each side. And yet the instructions say to pick up 174 stitches along each side.

On the one hand, the pattern is carefully written and this is a big discrepancy. If it is a mistake, you'd think Dr de Roulet or the editors of Knitty would have caught it.

On the other hand, there are mistakes. That final triangle row where two stitches are unaccounted-for. A schematic clearly shows the first part of the border as 5.5”, the second part as 1.5”, total 7”. when the instructions on the same page equally clearly say to knit until the border is 7.5” wide, and then start knitting the second part.

Perhaps I'll assemble the pieces and then send Dr de Roulet a picture and ask about this. I can add a few words of appreciation about the concept of the horizontal cable.


I'll take the Amazing hat along to my appt this afternoon. Indeed, I think once the Dunfallandy pieces are assembled, I'll carry on with the hat until finished. It will be useful for Christmas, which is going to be a bit patchy at the best.

Now I had better eat my sausages. It's already 10 o'clock.

8 comments:

  1. Hello Jean, I came across your blog by chance; I remember you from the knitlist in the 90's. I noticed that several Dunfallandy projects on Ravelry mention that picking up 174 stitches seems wrong. I'd go with 104. Knitters who trusted the directions ended up with a ruffled border. Aine.

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  2. I wondered if the Dunfallandy border is supposed to be ruffled? Some of those look good, some not so much.

    I hope all goes well with the scan today.

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  3. If you read jennu's notes on ravelry, she was a bit cross with the tech editor not matching the look of the original. She used the 104 sts that were available and still found that it ruffled. Sounds odd having to pick up so much more when the cable centre already draws in next to plain stockinette if you have an equal number of stitches. I think you'll be more than safe carrying on with your live stitches.

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    1. If you take a look at SweetLorraine's project, you'll see the amount of ruffling you get when you pick up all those extra stitches. It's a matter of personal taste (and time) which route to take I guess.

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  4. I hope everything went well for you today, medically.

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  5. Hi Jean I hope all went well with med tests today :) I went and checked out the blanket pattern as it interests me, prob want get time to knit it but will print out in case.

    I noticed that the gauge swatch is knitted on a different size needle than the blanket itself which seems unusual. All knitters gauge varies so much it is possible that the designers gauge is a lot looser in the cable area and is tighter in the border. That would be unusual as most people have to go up a needle size when cabling but everyone is different. Her border does look flat tho not ruffled. Sometimes knitters will design an item then write the pattern so have reverse engineer it. This would account for a small variation if counting after the event but this seems way to much for that! I will read with interest any response you may get.

    Regards from the other side of the world .

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  6. Oops of cause meant "won't" in regards to time to knit it ! Spellchecker can be rather annoying at times.

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  7. =Tamar7:21 PM

    I'm wondering how easily 104 could be made into 174 by a typographical error. 0 and 7 are not close together on modern keyboards, but there were variant keyboards in the 1970s. I think one of them had the 0 at the top of the number keypad, above the 8. Some such thing might have caused a typo of 7 for 0.

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