old yarn, new dress
I didn't have enough yarn to make a single color garment, but it's amazing what small quantities on 10 different colors can do! Never underestimate the power of your stash!
Stripes are my best pick at stash-busting.
There are several stripe generators online, some of which let you even select how many rows you want to have as minimum, and the quantity in % of each color to use, but I decided to not do random, but to have a selection of pattern repeats that would please my eye.
I used to make my patterns in Excel, but now I'm more used to Gimp, so after swatching my yarn, and calculate the number of rows that I needed for my dress, I started playing with colors... after many changes, my final decision was this one!
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| All these yarn in small cones are 2/20 cotton/linen, I added a thread of clear monofilament to give it a little sparkle |
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| Work In Progress! |
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| my gimp image with the color palette at the bottom |
After knitting the front and the back of the dress, there is the finishing part, which is equally important: matching the stripes is key, and a good looking edge around the armholes and the neckline will make the garment stand out.
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| I sewed the sides with mattress stitch, for a perfect match of the stripes |
sleeves and neckline edges - tutorial
The edges are knit just like the whole dress in 2/2 industrial rib (tension 2.* and ribber lever to I) then:
1- pull all the needles in working position on both beds, dial the tension down to 0.** (on both beds) - knit 1 row
2- set the tension on both carriages on 2.*
3- pull up both the ribber's cam levers to PR position and knit 6 rows
4- change the K carriage's tension to 3 and knit 1 row
5- pull down the ribber cam levers to N position and push both PART buttons on the K carriage and knit 6 rows
6- change the ribber's tension to 3 and knit 1 row - break yarn (leaving about 6 lengths of yarn so you can use it for grafting on the machine later)
7- dial tension on both carriages at a slighter loser tension (3.**) and repeat the operation 3 with waste yarn, leave a slack tail of yarn and repeat operation 4 with waste yarn, then take off the machine.
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| #1 - with the right side of the edge facing you, re-hang the part of the open edge facing the machine |
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| #2 remove the waste yarn (only on the side that is back on the needles!) |
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| #3 - with the public side facing you, and with the garment on the machine bed, hang the side of the garment on the needles, paying attention to pick the edge on a straight line |
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| #4 - now re-hang the other side of the open edge on the needles |
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| #5 - manually knit 1 row, being careful to close the needles and that the yarn will go through all three layers
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| #7 - bind off (I use the latch tool around the pegs bind off, since it's regular and not tight) |
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| done! this is how it looks like from the bottom of the machine (which is the public side) |
