In a Knit Shell

It Depends: Casting On

2011-10-08T08:45:00.000-07:00

So, this question was raised on Ravelry about whether or not the cast-on row counts as the first knitted row. I answered with the classic, "It Depends." Long-tail cast-on and all of its cousins counts as a first row, or so I'd been told. For the record, tubular cast-on also counts as a first row. Other cast-ons, like knitted, backwards loop, cable, and provisional, do not count as the first row. It's all about how you cast-on.

Being who I am, a lab geek, I had to know The Truth. So I grabbed my new camera (Thank you, Sean!!!), a bunch of DPN's, and some yarn. I proceeded to cast-on. Starting on this little adventure, I hypothesized that a backwards loop cast on would create the same effect as a long-tail cast on. I was wrong. It actually creates the same cast on as German twisted cast on! I was rather surprised. Don't believe me? I took pics!

That's your basic backwards loop cast-on, with the next loop ready to slip on the needle. Pay attention to the frayed end of yarn, that's going to be our identifier for the backwards loop needle in these series of pictures. After I cast on 8 stitches, I proceeded to turn and knit the row.

Sorry, that was the best of the bunch of pictures I took of the first knitted row with the backwards loop cast-on. I was rather surpized that it didn't look like a long-tail cast-on, but couldn't shake the feeling that it looked hauntingly familiar. So I started a German twisted cast-on. Please note, the frayed end of yarn. We'll be following its progress.

I was rather surprised at how similar they looked. As a matter of fact, I had to use the frayed end of yarn to identify which needle was which cast-on method. After staring at them closely for several minutes, I could see a few differences. The first stitch in the backwards loop cast-on had a looser base than the slip-knot I used for the first stitch in the German twisted cast-on. Other than that, they were practically identical. I won't comment on tension, because I was purposefully knitting everything very loosely to make sure I could photograph the stitch definition. But here's a comparison highlighting how the stitches are formed. Remember that German twisted cast on is on the top, and backwards loop is on the bottom.

The stitches are formed the same way, despite going about it in a very different manner. After staring at the stitches for so long, I understood why the backwards loop cast-on didn't create a long-tail cast-on. When I knit the row of backwards loop cast-on, I twisted the loop as I knit it, creating that extra twist seen in the highlights. Of course, I couldn't stop there. What cast-on would create the same base as long-tail? Believe it or not, it's this one.

I've never used this cast-on in my life. I'd heard about it, heard how fiddly it was, and pretty much cursed the 5 stitches I knit into it. For the sake of my sanity, I used a slip knot to make and hold the first stitch. Otherwise, the yarn just cheerfully unwrapped itself from the needle, thereby undoing all my hard work in trying to cast it on. Once that was done, I proceeded to knit into the first few loops.

There it was! Long-tail cast-on in the most obnoxious way I could imagine attempting to create it. It's the stitches on the bottom, with the second needle shown on how I knit each stitch. Long-tail cast-on is on the top needle, pinned in places so you can see how the loops go. I won't ever be using that cast on again, I will cheerfully use long-tail instead. There were a few subtle differences between the cast-on methods. The direction of twist was different - if you'll look carefully, the loops that form the base twist in different ways. I'm sure if I went back and wrapped the yarn the opposite way around the needle, I'd get the exact same loops as long-tail cast-on.

So, yeah, if you use long-tail cast-on or any of its cousins, you will get 1 knitted row after you cast on. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really matter, because when you look at row gauge - we're only talking about ONE ROW. One row at the cast-on edge of a sweater will not make a difference. I went and grabbed the knitting gauge off of the Hey, Teach! sweater, a popular pattern to put things in perspective. It's 24 rows for 4 inches, or 6 rows to 1 inch. 1 row = 1/6th or 17% of one inch. Yeah. Not that big a deal. But, if you're like me and a little OCD is actually a successful career trait, then it's just nice to know.

Helping or hurting?

2011-09-12T15:54:00.000-07:00

So, I've been excited about this new lightbox that I got to help me take better pictures of my handspun and items for the etsy shop. This lightbox that I got came as a set with lights, which was really cool. Except, they had short cords, so I needed to use extension cords to plug them in. No problem, I'd just dash into the basement and grab some extension cords so I could photograph the new handspun I'd just finished. My yarn would be completely safe inside the lightbox for the 5 seconds I left it unguarded to go get the cords. Or so I thought.

About that.

In the 5 seconds it took me to dash down the staircase, grab 2 extension cords, and dash back up into the dining area where I'd set up my little studio on the dining room table, Penny had made herself completely at home on my precious hand-spun yarn. It was really hard to get mad at her, she was purring. I can't fault her taste in yarn. I'm glad to know she thought it was soft enough to cushion her little cat nap. As it was, she made good photography practice. She did, however, eventually get tired of the paparazzi bulbs going off in her face constantly, and abandoned her yarny cat bed.

My handspun laceweight from Fiberoptic Yarns. I love, love, LOVE her fibers. The gradients, like this one, tend to sell like hotcakes online. What you see is 2 braids, 4 oz each, of the 80% merino, 20% silk gradients in the Indigo to Emerald colorway. I spun about 1200 yds of laceweight. In my head, it's destined to become a shawl, but more on that later.

Hindsight Thoughts

2011-09-01T20:02:00.000-07:00

It's funny, I realized I went about the knitting learning curve all backwards. I could NOT stand the boring repetition of stockinette stitch, or garter stitch, or ribbing, or any of the other very repetitive projects that are so frequently recommended for a new knitter. I made a large square and then asked my friend if I could knit branching out. That's right, my second knit project ever was a lace scarf. I think my third one was a tank top with a lace panel. I loved lace from the get go - the challenge and repetition was soothing and meditative to me.

Of course, I completely disregarded important things like gauge and swatching and size. All those things are taken care of in blocking with lace! Now, I'm eating humble pie and going back to making sure I understand the basics. Sure, I can wing it and adapt a lace pattern to make a cardigan. But I wouldn't be able to tell another person how in the hell I modified the rate of increases to deal with a top-down raglan while maintaining the stitch pattern. I find stockinette stitch soothing now, because I don't have to look at what I'm doing. Plain cardigans are my favorite thing to knit on the exercise bike.

I'm working on a plain cardigan now, called Hatty, to make myself learn those basics. Yup, I did a gauge swatch. I ripped out 4 inches of the back panel when the gauge in the seed stitch didn't match the stockinette. I changed needle size and pattern sizes to get something that I hope has a better fit. I think the biggest lesson I've learned is not to be afraid. Well, I am afraid. Afraid that I don't get the sleeve caps right. I'm afraid that I'm going to screw up the seams. I'm afraid the button bands won't line up. What I'm really learning is not to let that fear stop me from accomplishing new things. When I first started knitting, I would have never guessed that simple stitching would have so much to teach me.

Seriously, stereotypes?

2011-08-20T09:29:00.000-07:00

In case you haven't heard the rage screaming across the internet, Ms. Aloi wrote this article decrying girly girls and the downfalls of women's role models. Unfortunately, she uses far too wide of a paintbrush and falls prey to the very same sin she decries - using stereotypes to define limiting roles for women. As many other knitters, crocheters, and crafters out there can testify, the "girly girl" stereotype is anything but.

This idea that knitters who strive for nothing more than domestic bliss is an absolute fallacy. I know knitters who successfully run their own business and have their doctorate degrees. I know knitters who teach martial arts. I know crocheters who have published papers. I know women who are a crack shots with a hand gun. I know women who were in the service and knit. I could go on and on with this list of anecdotal evidence of women who do not fit the stereotype, but I'd just be beating a dead horse. After the lessons of the civil rights movement, haven't we learned not to define people by a stereotype? I thought American education had that one covered by now.

However, she does have one valid point - the role models portrayed on TV today. I miss strong female leads like Buffy. I love Joss Whedon's recurring theme of portraying women as saviors of the world. I staunchly reject Twilight because Bella's wishy-washy role as constant damsel-in-distress makes me long for a woman with the will to save herself. Today's media blitz of passive women makes want to turn off my TV and knit or spin instead. At least I'd have something more productive to show for my time, like say a new, tailored sweater - as opposed to knowing what happened on the latest episode whatever pointless episode Peg Aloi bemoans as the worst kind of role model for women. I have no idea what it is because I'm too busy to bother watching trash.

That said, where should all that rage be productively directed? How about the Glass Ceiling? I don't care if USA Today says that it's the lowest disparity on record- it should NEVER be there in the first place! Gender shouldn't even be a factor whatsoever in a person's salary. It's been how long since the feminist movement started and we still have pay disparity? Or how about how the US supreme court threw out the gender bias suit against Walmart. Any idiot looking into the details of that case know that Walmart turned a blind eye on policies that kept women from becoming managers and climbing the corporate ladder. It's absolutely deplorable and Walmart should be forced to change their ways. These are things worth getting angry over and doing something about them.

However, if there is one thing we have learned in this post-feminism era is that getting angry won't get women anywhere. It's not fair, but studies have shown that women who negotiate angrily get discredited whereas men who negotiate angrily are viewed as passionate or positive. Gender bias has grown more subtle and more insidious. This article at futurevisions.org describes quite well the limiting stereotypes that successful women face to day. These are the thing we should be bemoaning and working to change, Ms. Aloi.

Fiberbee!

2011-07-24T17:20:00.000-07:00

I made a lovely discovery while browsing around etsy the other day. The dyer who made the roving that I used to make the Firebird Shawlette is back in business! It appears that the dyer went on a short hiatus, but she's back now, with more than one lovely gradient available in her shop.

The seller of whom I speak is Fiberbee She's located in New Zealand and if you're lucky enough to live in New Zealand, it's free shipping for you! If not, well, I think she charges very reasonable shipping prices internationally. I can also vouch for her fibers, having spun up her polwarth roving in Hibiscus. I've washed it several times now, and her dyes are very well set. I've had only a little bleeding come off of this fiber, even after forgetting about it and letting it soak for several hours. The polwarth was a dream to spin and deliciously soft. I wear my firebird shawl as a scarf all the time in winter. I'd definitely buy from her again!

Go, check out her etsy shop, and give one of her fibers a spin.

Firebird goes live!

2011-07-05T13:02:00.000-07:00

Happy news! For those of you not on Ravelry, my new pattern is now available for the general public to see. I'm offering my patterns for sale on Pattern Fish.Allow me to introduce you to the Firebird Shawlette.

This pattern would work well in most sock weight yarns - anything from fingering to sport weight. It only takes about 370 yards, so you can get a lovely shawlette out of your average ball of sock yarn. It's a pretty simple pattern that starts out with main body in stockinette before flowing into 3 lace motifs.

The lace motifs are all charted, and fairly simple - the only stitches you'll need to know are yarn overs (YO), knit 2 together (k2tog), slip slip knit (ssk), and center double decrease (CCD). There are also more advanced options included in the pattern instructions for knitters looking for something with a little challenge. I've included instructions for beads and a crochet edge, which is the edging featured in all these photos.

I hope you like this pattern as much as I do, I had so much fun coming up with it!

It's.... Complicated

2011-06-28T19:12:00.001-07:00

So, at Stringtopia I got a little help trying to get outside my comfort zone. I won't lie. I love pink. Red. Burgundy. I love the color group red from the deepest, darkest burgundy to the palest blush. Clothes in my closet coordinate not because I buy them at the same time, but because I love the same shades so consistently that they wind up matching. Unfortunately, that means that I have a really hard time picking out any other colors that aren't pink.

While I was there, the lovely women helped me out of my color rut. Morgaine of Carolina Homespun had her amazing array of fibers up on display. Liz helped me pick out a green to go with the purple cashmere silk from Spirit Trail Fiberworks. And everyone kept raving about the book, Color in Spinning, by Deb Menz. So I picked it up and a bunch of fibers to use with the exercises in the book.

Quite a bit of the book is about fiber preparation, which I can totally understand as a spinner. Not to mention, it totally cements my desire for a drum carder and combs. Chapter upon chapter tempts me with new hobbies and supplies. But for now, I'm focused on her techniques for selecting and combining colors. I picked up a batt, from Diane of Schafenfreude Fibers and then began to raid my stash to find the right colors to compliment the batt. Here's what I have so far:

Each little mini skein is only a few yards long, and has one ply from the glorious abalone-inspired batt. The mini skeins are 3-ply yarns that are lace weight. I purposely spun tiny yarns to take advantage of how the eye will blend colors too small for it to separate out. I'm completely fascinated by how colors are perceived by the human eye and how that changes when the details are too small to separate visually. These are the fibers used to make each skein.

The fibers on the left are from Ashland Bay's 70% merino, 30% silk blend that I purchased from SlimChicken's Etsy Shop. The front color is sandstone while the darker one is pewter. The fibers on the right include a batt that I made under Abby's tutelage at Stringtopia. The purple fiber on the right is a 50% merino, 25% Silk, 25% Bamboo blend from Von Strohm's Booth at Knitter's Connection. I was trying to pick colors that played off the iridescent shimmer of blue and green colors in the batt. What's got me hooked is how much those colors change when placed on a different background.

We'll start with a simple white background. All pictures were taken in my kitchen, with the same camera, with the same muted flash.

But when you put the same skeins on a black background, they change significantly.

Suddenly, the purple comes out more in the skein on the right, while the white shows much more vividly in the skein on the left. Naturally, I couldn't stop there and had to see what happens when I tried different colors.

On a purple background, the skein on the right lost its bright blue-purple tone. The dark grey and burgundy brown plies became more dominant and the skein grew more muted. It felt like the opposite happened with the skein on the left, where the blue and green tones came out more strongly. Curious, I had to know what happened when I put them on a green background.

The blue and purple tones came back out again! Something I don't quite understand happened with the comparative brightness of the skeins. You'll have to forgive me, I'm just learning to discern values and contrast - this is nothing like art class. Colors don't mix purely like they do with paint. Last, but not least, I had to see what happened to the skeins on a red background (You had to know that was coming).

To me, it feels like the clearest brightness value change shows up best in this last picture. My friend was telling me about how quilters have this tool that they use to judge relative values in different quilt blocks. The tool is a simple red film placed over different fabrics and reduces them to a comparative grey scale. I imagine it would work something like this, where it's clear how much lighter the skein on the left is than the one on the right.

While I haven't arrived on the perfect combination of colors to use on the abalone batt, I've had a really fun time exploring colors. I've purchased several more fiber sample kits from SlimChicken's shop so that I can practice blending larger skeins. Each skein will get knit into a Ten Stitch Blanket that I can keep at work. I'm determined to learn to appreciate and select other colors, and I'm going to have a ton of fun along the way.

Twilight

2011-06-25T19:17:00.001-07:00

Nope. Not the book. Not even a little.

It's the new yarn I finished this week!

It's an one of a kind colorway from FiberOptic that I purchased at trunk show at Knitter's Mercantile. The name of the colorway was Twilight. The fiber is was one of her pencil rovings, the Siren Song blend, which is 70% merino wool, and 30% seacell. Here's another shot of the seed beads which were spun into the yarn.

The beads are size 8 seed beads, which were strung onto one ply of the yarn. I strung dozens and dozens of beads at once and spread them out over the yarn as I wound it onto a bobbin. I convert my kiwi into a bobbin winder by slipping the drive band into the bobbin groove to wind on yarn. After a few treadles, I'd let a bead wind on with the yarn onto the bobbin. I was completely shocked and surprized that this technique worked! Usually, beads are spun into a yarn as you go, it's a risky business trying to string beads onto notoriously weak and unstable singles. Particularly lace singles, which are thinner, thus weaker. Plus, they have all that extra twist which makes them kinky - that sounded alot dirtier than I meant. Either which way, the moral of the story is to spin a single with lots of twist so that it's strong enough to withstand the weight of dozens upon dozens of seed beads sliding over it.

I acutally wound up spinning three skeins from this fiber, two mini-skeins at 0.5 oz each and one large, beaded skein. The whole project is an interesting study in how I've progressed in spinning. The mini-skeins are solidly fingering weight, while the beaded skein is a very light lace weight, almost cobweb. This photo compares the three skeins. In the middle are strands from the beaded skein, while strands from the mini-skeins are on either side. I was really pleased with how it came out. The singles were spun on my ashford Kiwi, and then plied on my new e-spinner! I wound up sending the yarn through the e-spinner a second time to add twist, since I only added enough twist to lock in the beads the second time around.

Pictures do not do the colors justice. I can't recommend FiberOptic's work enough! That rich, vibrant purple color didn't bleed a single drop when I finished the yarn. You can also find her fiber and yarn on her website at www.kimberbaldwindesigns.com. Her etsy store sees more regular updates during festival season. Her fibers are a dream to spin, her yarns are vibrant and soft, and her colors never bleed.

Now that my bobbins are cleared off, I can start on my color project. I have pictures of my first adventure in color spinning, and I'm totally in love with colors that refuse to be defined.

Grow, baby, grow!

2011-06-07T18:47:00.000-07:00

So, I'm quite happy to report, I've finished knitting the qiviut shawlette! It's sitting on my shoulders, keeping me just warm enough in our air-conditioned house. Being the tropical bird that I am, I find 79 degrees a little cold sometimes, and the shawl provides the perfect amount of warmth. Not to mention, I love the way the beads look. Inspired by Abby from Stringtopia, I added 2 color beads to the lace. To be entirely truthful, I added 2 styles of beads - clear, iridescent beads and smaller red, iridescent beads. The clear beads look like little flecks of ice trapped in the lace and the red beads add a spot of warm, rich color to the fabric. But let me show you what I'm talking about.

That would be the shawl before blocking. It never ceases to amaze me what a leap of faith one takes when knitting lace. Lace knitting almost always comes off the needles as ugly, scrunched up, and horrible. Honestly, you can barely see the beads in there. That tiny things was scarcely 26 inches wide by 12 inches long, and ugly to boot.

But then you introduce the magic of blocking.

All of a sudden, the shawl grows tremendously. I wound up with a shawlette that's 46 inches wide by 22 inches long. The magic torture of blocking brings out something beautiful. Because, let's be honest, I'm stretching this baby like the rack went out of style 5 centuries ago. And yet, the nature of wool and other animal fibers is to stretch and hold once pinned precisely into place, like a fuzzy metaphor for achieving personal growth. You go through this difficult series of patterns, which you can't appreciate until the very end, where you're stretched to your very limits. Then, and only then, can you see the beauty of the whole experience, blocked out for the world to see. It's a funny thing, growth, because I'm always whining, kicking, and screaming until the very end. Perhaps that's why I like knitting so much lace, to remind me that there's a reason for all of the difficult patterns.

Putting the -ette in Shawlette

2011-05-23T18:11:00.000-07:00

So, I'm knitting the qiviut shawlette from the winter 2010 issue of Spin-Off magazine. I've got a bit of yarn that I've spun from the spinning class Abby taught last year. Was that only last year? It must have been earlier than that. Either which way, we all got samples of an abby batt, which is how I started my addiction. A few of my lovely friends gave me their strip, since they reasoned there wasn't much they could do with less than an ounce of fiber. With all of that together, I got a whopping total of 240 yards.

Y'know, there's really not many patterns written for 200 yards that aren't scarves.

Thankfully, I ran across the qiviut shawlette. It's a really simple, really easy pattern, IMO. Then again, I've probably knit a half-dozen shawls by now, so what's one more triangular shawl? Let's not count, shall we?

The shawl starts off easily enough, with one exception. The center stitch doesn't have an increase on every right side row for the first 10 rows. Which is really different, compared to the Swallowtail Shawl or Icarus. So, I had to pay a wee bit of attention those first 10 rows, but the stitch pattern is interesting enough that it's not monotonous. I won't lie, I don't understand how the stitch patterns flow. Usually, after a few repeats, I can begin to guess where the next decrease or increase goes, but not with this one. It makes for an interesting, but not overwhelming lace knit. I definitely had to make use of the post-it note, but one 3x3" square was enough for me.

To make things more interesting, I added beads. I can't wait to get to chart C, where I've got much more beading planned. It's a slippery slope, I tell you. This whole beading thing, it starts out so innocuously. Then suddenly, you're wanting to spin beaded yarns. Maybe it's just me. But the pattern lends itself well to beads, and I almost wish that it was larger so I could really sink my teeth into the motifs. The motifs are completely new to me, which makes it fun. I'd love to try this shawl again in a larger yarn and needles for something that was a quick knit and snuggly. Perhaps in the new yarn, Epiphany by Cascade yarns. Wouldn't that be scrumptious?

I'd post pictures of the work in progress, but I suppose it will have to wait. I missed my golden window of opportunity. I was too busy knitting when the sun was shining. Next time!

Why predraft?

2011-05-17T17:24:00.000-07:00

No, this has nothing to do with pre-gaming or tail-gating or anything alcoholic, really.

It's about drafting before one spins. I mean, why do it? I'm firmly of the belief that a well-prepared fiber does not need drafting to spin it. A well-prepared, non-compacted fiber should not need to be pre-drafted before spinning. We all know how well the mail carriers treat packages, right? Every parcel is sacred and uncrushed, lovingly carried along for the journey, and hand-delivered to the doorstep of one's home.

Yeah, I hear your derisive laughter now.

Parcel abuse is just one of the reasons why I would choose to pre-draft. Compaction while dyeing happens. Fibers might have drastically different lengths (which might be something I discuss later). There's a number of good reasons why a person would need to pre-draft, or fluff up, or tear into their fiber before the act of spinning it. That said, the following picture tutorial isn't about tearing up all the roving into itty-bitty strips that are ready to feed into the wheel, ready to go. It's about how I managed the fibers to get the yarn I wanted, and that required a little extra step called pre-drafting.

Please examine Exibit A:

It's a lovely, lovely batt I got from my swap partner. It's a blend of merino and angora, percentages unknown. Before this batt, the only other ~~batts~~ batt I'd ever spun was an AbbyBatt. (Side note: Abby Batts are prepared by none other than Abby Franquemont herself, and are painstakingly prepared, and glorious to spin. That is, to say, they don't need predrafting. If that first link doesn't work, Carolina Homespun and The Spinning Loft carry Abby Batts, usually at different time and of different types. If you've never spun from a batt before, I highly recommend an Abby batt, because they are so well-prepared and well-blended. But enough digressing!)

As you can see from Exhibit A, the batt is quite unlike commercial top, commonly called roving. The fibers do not all lie parallel and the fibers themselves aren't well mixed. You can see the lighter stripes of angora contrasting with the merino and the thicker stripes of merino pop out as a darker pink. I started out by tearing a strip from one side of the batt, because I didn't want a giant pink blanket of fiber sitting in my lap while I spun. Then, I began to pre-draft one end of the strip.

Exhibit B:

If you look closely at the end of the strip farthest away from the hinges, you'll notice that it's thinner than the rest of the strip. You can see the color of the wooden table top peeking through the fibers. That's because I pre-drafted it, or attenuated the fibers so they aren't so closely clumped together. I pulled it apart from side to side - pulling a little bit in the spindle direction, tugging a bit in the ruler's direction. Then, I grabbed a hold of the end and began gently yanking away a small tuft from the hinges. (Hey, items in pictures make good directional references. Wasn't that easier to see than if I said left, right, up and down?) That said, I never pulled the fiber hard enough so that it separated into clumps. That's not what I wanted, I just wanted the fibers loose and fluffy so they'd draft a little more easily. Once I'd drafted 3 to 6 inches of one end of the strip, it was ready to join.

With the thin end of the strip next to the loose end of my single, I was ready to spin the two together. Holding the tip of the strip to the single, I pulled out an even thinner tuft of fiber from the strip to spin with the single and started my wheel. You can see in the next picture how much thinner I pulled out the tip and how much it overlaps with the unspun end of the single. The blue arrow points out the loose end of the single.

Holding the two ends together, I continued to treadle slowly on my wheel and build up some twist in the space between the wheel and my fingers. Once that was done, I pulled my pinched fingers back so that the twist traveled into the section that held fibers from both the tufted end of the strip and the unspun end of the single. It makes for a nice, smooth join as you can see in the next photo.

While I'm spinning, I'm drafting the fiber out as well but never so much that the fibers pull apart. You can check out this photo and the following photo to see how (not) far apart my hands usually go when I'm spinning. That said, I used a combination of supported long draw and short foward draw. Every once in a while, I'd need to stop to do some predrafting.

Yes, that's a bit of a jumbled mess, isn't it? I'm very used to spinning from top, which has parallel fibers, so I've been using drafting as a method to pull the fibers into an alignment that's easier for me to spin. Once again, I'm pulling from the tip out towards the wheel. I pinched the fibers right around where the blue arrow is pointing and pulled the fiber towards the wheel, like so -

From there, I continued to smooth down the tips as they got spun into the single, pulling backwards with my fiber hand to draft as I spun. Sometimes my fiber-holding hand gets uppity and does the drafting job that my fiber-management hand is supposed to do. As you can see, my fiber-management hand was busy smoothing out the crumpled fiber into the single.

That said, the rest of the spinning was a rinse and repeat of these steps. Once I reached the end of the strip I was spinning, I'd tear out another one and start over. I hope the pictures helped other people figure out how to spin batts. Who knew that violin playing made for great practice at holding cameras at odd angles?

"Still, I always feel this strange estrangement..."

2011-05-09T04:39:00.001-07:00

"Once More, With Feeling"

In a fit of nostalgia, I pulled up the musical episode of Buffy. I do love that episode, and I definitely enjoyed the show when it was on. Bless netflix for carrying it. As I was watching, I began to realize why I could not understand or accept the popularity of Twilight. In Buffy, the main character is a teenaged girl who happens to save the world. She does this multiple times, and often goes completely unawknowledged by the rest of the world. Joss Wheedon created a character who was the complete opposite of her archetype.

As a modern day feminist, how could I not relate to this character? So often, the teenaged girl is portrayed as the victim, helpless and unable to save herself. She's the archetype always in need of rescue or protection. Buffy rarely, if ever, really needs saving. Instead, she saves others and attempts to live a normal life while doing it. It's not always a pretty or glamorous process, especially when vampires and demons have a habit of crashing concerts and high school graduation. In that sense, it's an exaggerated version of real life, which so often gets disrupted by events completely out of one's control. It's the same struggle modern women face every day, gritting our teeth against glass ceiling and limiting stereotypes that want to portray a woman as less than capable.

Given that Buffy's role model that came out during my impressionable teenage years, how could I find anything admirable about Bella? I'd watched one teenger grow from an insecure girl to a woman who accepted her fate and responsibilities and learned to do it with unsung thanks. (Okay, so they did sing once.) Then a new, classic archetype comes on the scene. Bella embodies the exact opposite of feminist values, in constant need of protection, passively waiting for life and love to happen to her. Life does not reward such people, it runs over them.That's why Bella's archetype is that of a victim. If I am to met my fate, I would rather do it on my feet and fighting. As Buffy does.

"Heaven, I think I was in Heaven..."

2011-05-07T07:56:00.001-07:00

Okay, fine, so I was singing from the musical episode of Buffy. Die-hard fans will just have to forgive me for taking the song lyric completely out of context. But that's not the point of writing today. Today, I'm documenting my experience at Stringtopia.

It was absolutely amazing! There was a new fashion trend emerging - the spindle hair stick. They do double duty - a wonderful spinning tool and a gorgeous hair accessory all in one. Here's one being modeled by the lovely AncientSpinner:

Of course, they also look fantastic with tiaras.

I got to meet Tsock Tsarina's new sock base. I can't wait to pick up a Golden West Kit when she re-releases them!

Would you look a those gorgeous sample skeins!

The Tsarina also brought along her turkish kuchulu. I couldn't believe how tiny it was, nor how tiny she was able to spin on it.

I also awheelerated Fernmonkey on sunday, when I loaned her my kiwi. I wish I had thought of it earlier! I only needed my wheel for the saturday spin-in, and I do believe she wants an Ashford joy now. I can't wait to see pictures of her new wheel when she gets it.

Stringtopia was a wonderful experience. In some ways, it felt like a fantastic family reunion. I met people who totally understood my passion for fiber and shared it. I still can't believe Tsock Tsarina can operate on 4 hours of sleep. I learned to make batts from Abby and now want a drum carder. It's her fault, really. Jacey taught us how to make stable, core-spun yarn, which is amazing. I want to weave a core-spun shawl now, and I don't even have a loom. Which is a problem Morgaine could totally solve, with her YarnV. My god, her haul of stuff was amazing. I was lucky I only made it out with this much stuff.

The beads were from the Bead Circus in Lebanon, but everything else was from Morgaine of Carolina Homespun. Words do not begin to describe the intoxicating treasure trove she carries in the Yarn V. The universe told me that I needed another lightweight spindle, so I got a Greensleeves Mjolinor that weighted a scant 0.6 oz. I knew she had the cotton candy abby batts and that they were destined to come home with me. But I made a concerted effort to get out of my color safety zone, as you can see, with the purple 50/50 cash/silk roving and the 50/50 camel/silk roving. That doesn't include the batt I made on friday, however, which turned into a glorious burgundy.

For those that want more photographic evidence, AncientSpinner on Ravelry posted an open facebook album for all of us to peruse. I know I'll be browsing through and remembering all the wonderful things that happened, from CraftMonkey and Breyerchick kidnapping me on saturday and talking me into staying on sunday, to the ice cream extravaganza. I still can't believe there was left over ice cream! Since I lived in Columbus, I offered to bring down Jeni's ice cream as a partial bribe of acceptance and friendship. I shouldn't have even worried, everyone was so warm, welcoming and wonderful. I can't wait to go back again next year!

The Knitter's Dilemma

2011-04-02T13:20:00.000-07:00

So, I went to the store today where I was inundated with spring fashions. I loved the look of the romantic fashions, light and gauzy fabrics with lace everywhere from the back of halter tops to the main body of cardigans. There, I was struck with the Knitter's Dilemma.

I can knit that, I would find myself thinking that over and over and over again as I passed by one cardigan or the next. I recognized the diamond lace motif, the cats paw lace, the battenburg lace insets. Okay, fine, I have no idea how to make tatted lace, but I can recognize it. And it was as equally pervasive as knitted lace. It took quite a bit of willpower to walk out of the store without buying anything.

Certainly, I could knit a cardigan, but how long would it take me? Would spring be nearly over by the time I finished? There's a skein of Madelinetosh Prairie calling my name, and the hue is Molly Ringwald. That very shade of pink just begs to be knitted into something lacy and delicate. Plus, it's superwash, so I wouldn't need to worry about felting. I desperately want to cast it on right now! Except I'm working on a delightfully lacy shawl already. I hope the soothing feel of silk and cashmere can calm my fevered brain. Spring fever has possessed me and I want to knit something as bright and lively as the flowers that have begun to bloom.

The healing power of cashmere

2011-03-31T18:53:00.001-07:00

It's been one of those days. I believe I met it with verve and spunk, but by the time I was ready to go home, I didn't have any verve and spunk left for myself. Went into work early this morning, and things were going well until I get this phone call to confirm some charges on my debit card. I promise you, I'd be a much warmer and happier person if I was in Arizona, where there's not snow on the ground. Turns out, my debit card number got stolen. Fantastic. It got caught really quickly, and I have a new card in the mail. But it ate at the back corners of my mind all day.

On top of that, work had stupid work politics that I finally had to stand up and face the music. If I could, I'd work quietly, without much interference, and without much attention from higher management. Maybe it's an old reflex from the parents, maybe it's just me, but I can't help cringing when higher management focuses their attention on me. It's not a comfortable feeling. Either way, I had to make some points, stand my ground, and put on the big girl panties. You know, this whole grown up thing isn't what it's cracked out to be. It's not nearly as much fun as it looked like when I was a kid.

So, when I got home, I decided to cast on the laminaria shawl. A while ago, the boyfriend had gotten me two gorgeous skeins of the Indie Knits II line from littleknits.com. Those of you that know me, are probably not surprised that it's burgundy. It's exactly the color of blood. Work hazard, sorry. I can add phlebotomy to my list of skills now, and I've been paying particular attention to the color of blood these days.

Anyways, the yarn is 55/45 silk/cashmere, and it is absolutely luscious. There's a teeny tiny halo that gives the yarn a gloriously soft hand. The pattern is great for comforting, absorbing knitting. It's the perfect thing to knit when all I want to do is pay attention to my hands and forget about the day. I'm starting the 3rd repeat of the star chart, and it's not the least bit mindless, not even the purl rows. If you don't pay attention to purling, you'll wind up with skipped or twisted stitches. I can't wait till I get to the other charts. I'm thinking the shawl needs beads.

I've decided I'm chronically incapable of knitting patterns as written. Already, I'm going to have to do a hybrid size, because I have about 720 yards of the lace and the large size for +1000 yards. I figure I should have enough for 5 repeats of the star pattern and 7 of the blossom. On top of that... do you see beads in that pattern? There's not. So, of course, I have to add them. I have the perfect beads too, some lovely opalescent size 6 seed beads. In burgundy, of course. If the weather holds true to its atypical pattern, the weather will be shawl weather. Given how quickly I normally knit, I may finish before winter finishes visiting us.

"I'm so sorry baby, it's just you drive me crazy"

2011-03-24T19:20:00.000-07:00

-from a Bittersweet song.

In a desperate attempt to stop my brain from running itself into the ground, I figured I'd do an update here. I've finished my first ever hand spun, hand knit shawl that I designed from scratch!

It's not blocked yet, more teaser photos this weekend.

Why yes, I will sell this pattern, but first there has to be a pattern to sell. Which is what I've been working on for the last 3 hours or so. I was dreading writing up the pattern, because even though I took copious notes I forgot to record with meticulous detail how I negotiated the increasing edges. Yeah. About that. Oops.

Gamely, I plugged away at the shawl, getting the basics in. I was proud of myself, I had at least charted the main section repeats so aligning the different motifs was done. I was figuring my stitch counts for each section, determining how I would start the shawl; and, of course, writing this all down. Because no one else lives inside my head and if other people want to knit this pattern, I have to give them something that resembles cohesive instructions. I figured out a wee little short cut and I have high hopes to get the shawl out to test knitter(s?) in a week. Wish me luck.

TL;DR - the handspun shawl is knit on size 6 needles using a yarn that's approximately sport-weight. (No, I did not count wraps per inch. I was too eager to knit with it.) I had about 345 yards of handspun total, and after the shawl was bound off, I had 1 yard and 3 inches left. Talk about a nail-biter!

Gimpy McGrumpypants

2011-02-08T15:42:00.000-08:00

That's who I've been for the last two months or so. For some reason, my knee started hurting so badly that it hurt to spin. Really! I know you're not supposed to spin for 3 hour straight without breaks, but it hardly seemed like a gigantic task after all the sports I used to do. What's 3 hours of treadling compared to training in kung fu 5 days a week a month before the tournament? I know, I know, it's been at least 5 years since martial arts, but the gimpyness shocks me. After a week of constant knee pain, I caved.

I finally caved and went to the doctor who sent me to the physical therapist. After 8 weeks of physical therapy and no real reduction in knee pain, they sent me back to the doctor. Once there, I finally got an appointment with an orthopedic doctor this monday. We'll see how that goes.

It's just.... hell! I'm 30 years old, how did I get this gimpy? It shouldn't hurt to exercise on a recumbent bike for 1 hour. I haven't a clue what's going on with me knee, other than I should fall on the cat instead of take a bad fall to avoid landing on the cat. Follow that one? Heh. I think it all started when DelilahDamnit, our aptly named cat, flopped on her belly in front of me. While I was walking, I might add. To avoid crushing her innards, I twisted to avoid stepping on her and wound up in a crumpled heap. She's fine, by the way, fluffy and furry as ever. Me on the other hand? Not so much.

It's so frustrating to have to remember every day that there's a list of things I can't do anymore. I can't sit cross-legged. I can't spin on my wheel for more than an hour. I can't exercise for over half an hour. I can't wear heels. I can't stay on my feet for hours on end. I have to remember to take medicine or my knee will ache for 3 days. Really? I thought this stuff was... well... supposed to happen in like 30 years, not within the first three decades of life.

It feels better just getting this out there. I don't know where I'm going next with this. Crafting makes it better, especially if I'm knitting something sumptuous. It's hard to remember that I have new, smaller limits that before. I'm really hoping the doctor has good news, because I can't make rhyme or reason of this knee injury.

Spinning my wheel(s)..

2010-10-02T13:22:00.000-07:00

Sorry, it's been a while! Life has been delightfully busy, and I've neglected my time here.

A few weeks ago, some friends and I went to a Wool Gathering at Young's Dairy near Springfield, Ohio. If you haven't been, I highly recommend going, even if you live 4 or 5 or 6 hours away. It's a lovely collection of vendors selling everything from enameled jewerly and shawl pins to historical reinactors, wheel dealers, and fiber. Did I forget to mention the yarn? LOTS of yarn, including a ball of cashmere lace for $20 at 1000 yards a ball. That one came home with me.

So did this.

That's right, I've finally bought a spinning wheel. It's an Ashford Kiwi, a beginner's wheel to be sure, but I couldn't be happier with her. That skein hanging on the wheel is my first handspun. It's BFL. I've got high-flying dreams of decorating her, which is difficult to do right now, since I can't bring myself to stop spinning on my wheel. Even a serious cut on my thumb hasn't stopped me from spinning on my wheel. FTW, always cut away from the hand holding stuff. Ask me how I know. Atleast this time, I didn't need stitches. You'd think I'd have learned that by now, huh?

So far, I have worked out a plan to stain the wheel. First, I wanted water based stains and seals. Miniwax makes water-based stains and varnishes, for the record, which dry much faster than the oil-based ones. Plus, there's that whole issue of compatibility. I did my homework and found out that paint on varnish will not stick if you use things with different bases. Not surprising, since oil and water have never mixed well together. I plan on painting on the rim of the wheel after it's stained, but I'll be using water-based acrylics. I'm hoping that all this water based stuff is easy to clean up, given my lack of gracefulness lately. Plus, since it dries faster, it means less down time on the wheel. I'd get started this weekend except for the whole-cut-on-my-thumb issue. I have a slice on my wrist, too, but that one's shallow and I have no idea how I got it.

After getting dizzied and disoriented by the wide variety of supplies at Michael's where I bought my stain and varnish, I decided to lengthen the finishing process by holding off on purchasing the paints. I'll varnish the solid wood parts first, before continuing with the actual wheel. The actual wheel is not solid wood, but medium density fiberboard (MDF), and won't look like the rest of the wood once stained. I think I want to paint the wheel to resemble wood grain after I stain it. Depending on how much I like it, I may or may not decorate it with further stenciling in vines and flowers. Then I'll seal the wheel with varnish to protect the paint.

That's the plan anyways. It's harder to enact because I'm stuck more or less spinning until my thumb heals. Knitting hurts right now, but thankfully, I don't need a thumb to spin.

Things I don't understand

2010-09-11T13:37:00.000-07:00

This is a list which is unfortunately growing. Quantum mechanics will always be on top of that list, but lately, there are a few other things adding themselves to that list. Like spinning pencil roving. I was having the most difficult time spinning my first ounce of pencil roving. I had gotten a hank of it from Fibresphere in Alexandria, VA when I was on a business trip in DC. Glorious colors dyed by Miss Babs in green and purple in a 50/50 merino/tencel blend (MerSea #16). It's a well prepared batch, dyed with two strands of roving next to each other so you don't have to worry about matching roving for stripes. I split the hank into 2 oz, and then separated one set of strands from eachother. This more or less gave me 1 oz pencil roving strands to spin, and I set back for what I thought would be an easy spin.

How wrong I was! I swear, I've never had a fiber break on me so many damn times! I'm sure part of it is because it's a completely new blend for me to use. I was using one of my lightest spindles, 3/4 of an oz, and still it was breaking all the time! I expected part of it towards the end, because I was spinning fairly fine and the spindle was getting fairly heavy. So I expected more of the same suffering when I got to the second oz. Wouldn't you know, that damn thing is spinning beautifully? I want to know what fiber fairies came in and replaced my roving with something that behaves better.

Tips for Knitting Lace

2010-08-31T17:05:00.001-07:00

Just a few words things that have saved me time and effort as I've knit lace.

Now, you must understand, I love to knit lace. As a matter of fact, a lace scarf was the first project I ever started. It may have been the 10th or 12 project I completed, but it was the first one I started. Once upon a time, I did start knitting a swatch. I got knit and purl down and was bored out of my mind. That swatch probably got ripped out. So then I decided I wanted to knit lace. You heard me right. Lace.

FTW, lace is almost always a bad idea for a first project, because it requires a larger knowledge base than plain knitting. There are whole books out there about the different kinds of stitches possible in the different styles of lace knitting. Estonian lace enjoys a high degree of popularity right now, and makes unholy stitches out of things like purl 9 together through the back loop. Don't get me wrong, it looks absolutely lovely in the finished project, but oh dear god, is it ever difficult to master with just 2 needles.

I digress. I started knitting lace, and learned along the way, some things that would have saved me hours and hours.... and hours of time. Here's the short list:

Lifelines - a piece of smooth yarn (I recommend crochet cotton) that you thread through your stitches. Here's a video on how to put one in your knitting. I highly recommend them when you're about to start a row with a new pattern repeat. It saves much time otherwise spent tinking.
Stitch markers! Good stitch markers for lace are hard to come by. If you find one that doesn't snag your lace, doesn't slip around the YO's, and doesn't dangle or tangle in your lace fabric - STASH UP ON THOSE BABIES. They are worth their weight in gold. They're very handy for putting at the end of a pattern repeat. Let's say you have 30 stitches, and 4 repeats of a 6 stitch pattern, with 6 border stitches on either side. You'd have a stitch marker after the first 3 border stitches, another after 6 stitches, another after the next 6, and so on until you're left with a stitch marker and 3 border stitches. Granted, that sounded way easier with only 30 stitches. It saves much time otherwise spent counting when the row is 120.
Chart holders! Of any kind or variety. I'm partial to clear plastic folders or sheet protectors with a sheet of cardboard inside it to give it some rigidity. I take lace knitting pretty much everywhere, and I need something durable to protect my chart. Knitpicks offers a magnetic chart holder as well. Because without a good chart, I'd be lost and having to tink. It saves much trees lost in reprinting.
Post-it notes! They come in all shapes and sizes and are great for marking where you are in the pattern. Place it right above the row you are knitting so you don't lose your place or read the wrong line and start knitting the next row instead. I cannot tell you how much time I've lost tinking because I knit the wrong row. Post-it notes live in my supply bag.

That's it for now. Dinner calls.

Miss Adventures

2010-08-04T19:35:00.000-07:00

So.

I'm baaaaack. Craziness intact. Proof of concept?

I was taking pictures for the new pins going into the shop this week. For the life of me, I cannot find my two-toned Icarus shawl that I prefer to use for pictures. The lovely blue-green transition serves as a wonderful foil for metal. Terrible pun, I know. Anyways, I have no idea where it is. If you find my Icarus, please tell it to come home. I wound up using my Panache shawl for pictures instead, and the fuzzy alpaca halo created this intriguing warm tinge all over the white spaces in the picture. While it was an interesting effect, it was not what I wanted. So what did I do in response?

I casted on Bitterroot by Rosemary Hill. Clearly, this is the sane response to a lack of cool-toned shawls. When lacking shawls in the blue, green, or purple variety, one should simply cast on another one. As if I didn't have enough projects on my needle to begin with. Ha! To make this more challenging, I'm knitting in Malabrigo laceweight. You know, that gorgeous, single ply, soft yarn that's almost as impossible to frog as Rowan Kidsilk Haze. Clearly, I'm touched in the head.

I do love this pattern, though. Anyone who's knit an Icarus will feel alot of similar design elements and the rhythm of the lace will breeze past your fingers. I'm nearing the end of the repeats for chart A. I'm doing the shawlette version, so hopefully she will make her debut in the shop photos within a week.

Yes, you heard me right. A week. I knit a disastrously small Damson by Ysolda Teague in 6 days. It's how I fell in love with Malabrigo in the first place. Originally, it was intended for a friend who's going away to vet school. I had cast it on size 4 (3.75mm) needles because I'm a loose knitter. So I thought it would come out to a reasonable size, which it did. Once blocked, it was almost exactly the size in the pattern. Except, that size would have been perfect for my friend's first born child. Whoops! I also advise against starting the lace section after 10 pm at night, two hours after your flight's been delayed. This is not a clear-minded time, for separating out 8 repeats of 36 stitches. Just sayin'

Knitting break over, though. Time to resume happily knitting obsessively.

Tour de Fleece

2010-07-03T19:24:00.002-07:00

So.

I've decided to commit to Tour de Fleece, a Ravelry hosted event that corresponds to Tour de France. Every day they spin, is a day we spin. As spinners. Who make yarn.

You didn't really think I was going to bike ride for 100+ miles, did you?

Anyways, I'm going to do some goal setting, just to make myself accountable. I want to spin at least 8 oz, which can occur in any combination of the following projects.

4 oz - 70% merino, 15% silk, 15% firestar pink roving. I started it in May, and it's languishing, because I got distracted. It's something that happens more often than I can remember. So I want to finish this yarn, in a 2 ply, at sport weight. Don't ask me what I want to make from it, because I have no idea.

Franquemont Fiber - So, my very, very wonderful friends have donated their samples to me (we were all very luck to receive an Abby batt sample at a teaching event). I've spun about 0.75 oz so far, and I should have an oz or less to spin. It would go very quickly, except... all of my spindles are full.

8 oz - 75% BFL, 25% Silk. I bought this roving, hoping I'd have enough to make a sweater. I only need 600-700 yds of dk weight yarn. Here's wistfully hoping!

Honestly, if I spun just 8 oz from all of this, I'd be really happy. Oh, did I forget to mention, I'm spinning all of this on a spindle?

Knitter's Connection!

2010-06-19T06:22:00.000-07:00

On this final morning of Knitter's Connection, I find myself unable to sleep in. Which, on any other Saturday morning, might have driven me crazy. But not today.

Today is the last day of Knitter's Connection, a wonderful convention that dovetails on one of TNNA's semi-annual conventions. A delightful mix of well-known teachers and authors hold classes on a a wide variety of techniques, patterns, and everything else related to knitting. There was even a spinning wheel related course this year. In the evenings, there's usually events, which are absolutely lovely. Myrna Stahman was there, and she complemented me on my shawl! Oh raptures!

This year, the events featured Franklin Habit, author of It Itches. I cannot rave enough about how delightful and entertaining he is in person. The first evening, he gave a talk about the history of the knitting pattern. Sometimes I wish I had a more perfect memory, so I could relate to you his humor line by line. He showed us this historical pattern, which was nothing but text with tiny margins cramped on a 8.5 x 11 pages.

"That was just page 1," he said, implying more. Somewhere in the bottom right hand corner of that terrible first page, was row 300. Franklin went on to point out that there was an error on row 300 which ruined the rest of the shawl, just ask him how he knows. Afterwards, he lamented that it was a lot of yarn to throw away in the garbage. The whole talk was like that, delightfully informative and peppered with humor. His description of the vagueness of historical patterns reminded me of Vogue. It was as though a light bulb had gone off over my head, and I finally understood why Vogue's patterns were so terribly vague. They must have come from the tradition of historical patterns, for how else could they mangle modern knitting patterns?

Then there's the market, which always fills me with giddy delight. Every year, I tell myself that I will walk through the whole market to look at every booth before I buy anything. Every year, I never make it all the way through. While the economic downturn appears to have cut down on the number of vendors staying, the selection is still dizzying in its array. People are selling spinning wheels this year! Oh, if I were a trophy wife! Perhaps then I could afford that gorgeous, walnut-stained, double-treadle Kromsky wheel. Alas, I think I may content myself with another spindle.

But the market sings its siren song, and I must go...

The End of an Era

2010-05-31T10:58:00.000-07:00

So, I'm not very good at growing up and changing. Well, atleast, whenever big changes happen, I kick my feet, dig in my heels, and complain at the top of my lungs. Nobody said I was meek. As a matter of fact, I think stubbornness is a point of pride with me.

(I heard all that jeering from the peanut gallery, btw.)

Another school year winds down to a close, ushering in a lot of new changes. A lot. Quite a few of the girls are graduating from knitting club, and I'm going to miss their company alot. Not that I'm not happy for them, they're going on to do almost exactly what they want with their lives to a T. I'm really happy for them! But the selfish part of me whines "What about me? Why am I getting left behind!" I told you it was whiny and selfish.

It reminds me that my life is slowly drifting away from the pace of college life. No more panic induced periods of studying feverishly for exams. Instead of waking up to that first class in the morning, or not, as the case may be, I'm in a ~~9-5~~ 8-4'ish job. Goodbye late night, middle of the week drinking escapades. If I show up to work hung over, I'm liable to drop a 4L jar of methanol. And no more rental life for me, we just got a new house. What I want to know is when the hell did I get old and want to live in the suburbs?! WTF! When did I love a quiet neighborhood? As if to add insult to injury, I've discovered 3 more white hairs on my head. Now, if I part my hair differently, you actually can see them. God, when did I grow up and get old!

Did I say something about growing old gracefully? Screw that, I'm growing old immaturely! Kicking and screaming the whole way, screw this whole getting more mature with age thing. To commemorate things a bit, I've started a secret project. Sorry ladies, no pictures... yet. I've got one done, but I still have several more to go. It's surprized me with the level of difficulty inherent in working on it, but I finally got the hang of it on the third try. I'm really excited about it. But I suppose I should go do grown up things now, like unpack.

Mattress Stitching From The Other Side

2010-04-03T08:45:00.001-07:00

So.

Before I learned to knit, I knew how to sew. I'm a decent seamstress, I've made a top from scratch and sewn a Vogue corset. For the record, vogue sewing patters are just as difficult as Vogue knitting patterns. I think their motto is to be completely inaccessible to the average person.

Anyways, I'm nearly done with a sweater that's been languishing in my knitting pile. I finally brought myself to knit with my Filatura di Crosa Superior yarn. LOVE it. It'd be my deserted island yarn, if I had no limitation on funds. Yeah, the halo can obscure stitches, but holy cow, it feels wonderful. Working with it is a pure, sensual experience. I may have to knit lingerie with it next time, it's just that good.

So I'm nearly done with the sweater and I'm re-learning how to do mattress stitch. Why did no one EVER tell me that you sew the two RIGHT sides on the outside? This goes against every sewing cannon I've EVER learned!!! I cannot begin to tell you how many times I have had to pick apart a seam and start over because I sewed right sides the wrong way. So to do this the right way which is the wrong way for normal sewing kind of makes my head explode. But the seam is coming out lovely, and I'm totally excited about finishing the Stardust sweater.

In addition, I'm watching "Something's Gotta Give" while sewing the sleeves together. There is ALOT I missed the first time around. I was 24 when the movie first came out and I turn 30 this year. How did I miss all the social commentary the first time around? I really didn't understand alot of what was going on the first time, and all of a sudden it's relevant. Wacky. I'm totally fascinated by how the older generation of men recoils from the idea of accomplished women, but these women are fascinating and appealing to a younger generation. It's intriguing social commentary. I'm puzzled as to how my point of view changed in the last 5 years. It's going to be a good saturday to figure it all out with perfect weather, a good movie, and knitting.

Denial isn't just a river in Africa

2009-08-20T08:09:00.000-07:00

Last night, we went out with some of the girls from knitting club. Man I have missed them! I finally got to see Joy's handspun aeolian shawl in person. Oh my god, is it amazing! Total love! I'm still intimidated by my silk, so I haven't spun it yet. We all went to Dave & Busters and just had a blast. The boyfriend found a game he was absolutely fantastic at, so of course, we won a bunch of tickets. Beats me if I know what we'll use our tickets on.

But getting together with everyone reminded me that I want to try to have a fiber party before the new school year starts. Holy crap. I won't be going to school this september.... I'm graduating! It's still slowly sinking in.

To get back to the title however, I think it's time to admit that my stash has gotten away from me. I still vehemently believe that I have not achieved S.A.B.L.E. That's stash aquisition beyond life expectancy for those that are not familiar with the term. But I have alot of stash. I have atleast 5 unfinished projects, and a queue that's starting to intimidate me with its size. I'm feeling a need to declutter my stash and things, and I'm feeling the need for a yarn diet.

Yeah, I said it.

Yarn diet.

Of course, there will have to be rules and exceptions. I'm debating on whether or not to start it before next month, because it's my birthday month. Yes, I expect yarn for my birthday. It's my birthday after all! (IOW, if you don't realize the best present for my birthday is luxury yarn, you don't know me very well.) But I'm slowly thinking up rules to solidify the yarn diet. Exceptions would include birthdays, major holidays like christmas, and anniversaries. New yarn cannot be acquired unless 3 projects get completed. Gift yarn can only be acquired if there is a project selected. I can't decide if there needs to be a time frame on gift yarn projects, because there's 8 balls of elann super kydd upstairs waiting for me to knit them into scarves for the mom and sister. Due to current family drama, I really don't feel that they deserve any presents. (Bottom line, apparently they think that I should risk my health to make them happy. I disagree.) I don't care if they paid for the yarn. Mmm, perhaps I should pose this to the selfish knitters.

Anyways, back to the stash that seems to grow like tribbles. Mostly because I keep finding bits that I forgot I had, which is a bit unnerving. I'm kind of frightened that I could achieve SABLE, so I must swish through the projects as fast as my knitterly fingers can take me. I suppose that means I should finish sewing the grad dress. Whoops!

There's a first time for everything

2009-08-14T13:29:00.000-07:00

Even running out of yarn it seems! So shocking, especially for me! I'm notorious among my friends for having more lace scraps than I know what to do with. One particular ball of yarn lasted through a hat, a crocheted rose, AND the choker, Asphyxiation. Seriously.

I think I finally jinxed myself, though. As I finish the last few rows on the Panache shawl, I feel trepidation building as the ball of yarn shrinks and shrinks an shrinks... I'm cutting out something like 20 rows and I'm STILL not sure I'll have enough yarn. I unravelled the swatch for more yarn, and I'm still not sure I'll have enough. It's a very unsettling feeling, and one that I am entirely unfamiliar with.

I'm trying to see this as an opportunity, because I really like the mods to the pattern that I am making in order to adjust to a lesser amount of yarn. I didn't like the final 3 repeats of additional feather and fan that happened before the crochet cast off. That's going away. I didn't quite like the look of the "eye" of the feather, so now it's going to be much smaller. I may even have to use some of the alternate bind-offs I saw in ravelry, because they seem to use less yarn. Seem to. I'm not sure. I do NOT look forward to frogging back 12 rows because I ran out of yarn AGAIN.

In some ways, I can't shake the feeling that this is what I get for trying a style of yarn I usually don't like. That's right, I usually find the rapid color changes of hand-dyed yarn far too busy for my tastes. Other people like them, and that's fine, I've never really been one of them. Then I found the lovely semi-solid lace work by YarnAddictAnni, and thought I could give it a shot. 1200 yards of lace weight is more than enough to make anything.

Or so I thought.

About 600 yards later, I look at my doubled yarn and wonder where it all went. I'm actually a combination knitter (read: my purl stitches sit backwards compared to "normal" knitting styles.) and I've heard that it's a style that uses less yarn. My history of projects and scraps have most certainly been a testament to that fact. But now, the fickle yarn gods have laughed at my hubris and ensured that I will run out of yarn JUST once. Just so that I will live with the taste of fear of yarn shortages and be humbled. I have to wonder what do I need to sacrifice in order to appease their fickle nature? I'd gladly burn my DPNs as a sweet sacrifical incense if it meant that I wouldn't run out of yarn. But I'm not sure bamboo wood makes for good incense.

Damn yarn gods.

Tink, tink, tink

2009-08-12T20:01:00.000-07:00

Sadly, that is not the lonely sound of a solo coin bumping around a can. I wish it were. Unfortunately, I have to tink back some rows on the panache shawl, because I am running out of yarn and I want to do the border. Well, I want to do certain parts of the border anyways, including the gorgeous scalloped edge. It's going to require some interesting fudging.

I recommend using a smaller needle size when you tink so that you have more room to weave the needle around the stitches. So, let's say you need to go back three rows and you're using a size 7 needle. With a size 6 needle, insert the tip at the beginning of the row, and weave it in. You'll always have 2 stitches between the needles, because the third stitch is in the row you're picking up with the smaller needles. It occurs to me that this would make sense with pictures. I don't think I'll subject you to picking up stitches in lace. It's hard enough to see your patterns, much less trying to decipher rows. Perhaps I'll do a tutorial on it if there's a demand for it.

Long story short - use a size smaller if you have to rip back to a row. And stick end caps or needle point protectors on the ends when you are done so you don't have the project sliding off one end. That'd just be tragic to have an unraveled mess just because one end slipped off and frogged itself while you were working on the other end. Not that I've had that happen before... often. I learned. Hopefully, I've spared you the agony. Although, if you were really smart, you'd have used life lines and not had to deal with this whole mess!

Souvenir Yarn

2009-08-11T20:38:00.000-07:00

So, this past weekend, I went to Bay City, Michigan.

Can I just say how much I love Michigan speed limits? 70 mph and that means if you don't drive 80+ you will be run over. It warms the cockles of my little Texan heart. Needless to say, my driving style fit right in. I went up there to visit the boyfriend who is away for 2 weeks on guard duty. It's a little weird having him away, and I miss him. I'm really tired right now, so I miss him more it seems.

So I have new yarn to snuggle when I miss him. We stopped by A Piece of Ewe, the yarn shop in Bay City. I recommend going, they have a healthy selection of yarn despite their small size. I saw some eye-blindingly bright jawoll sock yarn that felt deliciously soft because it was a superwash wool and silk yarn. I would have walked away with a skein of that, except it came in magenta, neon green, and highlighter yellow self-striping blends. Yarnmaiden may love those colors, but I almost passed up on fondling the yarn because it was so garish. Sorry, no love for the uber bright colors from me.

I did make out with some Elsebeth Lavoid Silky Wool yarn, in this gorgeous jewel-toned purple color. I got enough to make a sweater for me, which I really, really want to start so I can pretend that my boyfriend is hugging me when he's not around. Except, the needles I need are in use with the second panache shawl. So I wound up winding a skein into a ball for me to fondle. It's also absorbed some of the scent of his cologne so it reminds me of him. We also got some beautiful pale blue silky wool to make a shawl for his grandmother. I offered to do a joint Christmas present for his grandmother: he buys the yarn, I make the shawl. Considering that it takes me, oh, a week, to knit panache if I'm completely focused on it, I am totally not worried about knitting the shawl.

I'm just resisting the urge to buy more needles, but I may lose the battle. Knitpicks has their new zephyr needles out and I am seriously tempted to try them. Even with shipping, cables and needle tips are cheaper through knitpicks than any lys and I am on a shoe string budget. Hooray college student budget. There's light at the end of the tunnel, with graduation on August 30th. Which also means resume brushing up and applications out the ears.

It's been a tiring few days with kitty drama and family drama, so I really miss the boyfriend. I may wind up casting on the sweater anyways, just because. He comes back this saturday, but I'm being mopey and silly because I haven't had much of a chance to indulge myself in the past 48 hours. I've picked out the pattern already, it's the Queen Anne Cardigan. Gorgeous cardigan and it doesn't take much yardage either. Also, it's top down so it's an easy knit! I may lose the battle against new needles.

Obsession...

2009-08-05T07:33:00.000-07:00

So, I have to say, I'm totally obsessed with the panache shawl. It's the fastest shawl I've ever knit. If I had left the border out of this pattern, I would have been done with it within a week, that's how easy it is to knit. I added a border on the sides and around the neckline to give it more of a collar. The original pattern only included the scalloped lace edging at the tips of the feathers. Here's what it looks like all laid out.

And here's a picture of me wearing it.

Now, I normally don't love variegated yarns, as some of you well know, but in this shawl it wasn't too busy at all. I used knitpicks shimmer lace yarn in their sherry colorway to make this shawl. I actually only needed 2 skeins! I even have a little bit left over! I didn't double the yarn, either, just held it singly. Because the yarn is alpaca and silk, it's actually quite warm, and the lace lets the fabric breathe so you don't get too hot. I actually really want to try this in another of their colorways, possibly hush or or blue glass. The feather and fan body of the shawl really lends itself well to variegated yarns, it lets the colors show itself off in the oh-so-simple stitch pattern. Actually, I think that's why I finished it so quickly, for the first 85 rows, it's all feather and fan - which only has one row of lace stitches followed by 3 rows of stockinette. Yeah. LOTS of mindless knitting, it's wonderful.

Honestly, it's such a wonderful pattern that I couldn't help myself. I started a second one. I'm making it out of another Etsy Seller's yarn, dreamy lace by YarnAddictAnni. The specific blend which I had bought doesn't seem to be carried by her etsy shop anymore mostly because she has a NEW SHOP!!! Check it out, she has absolutely wonderful lace yarn at amazing prices and mind-bogglingly long yardage. I'm seriously tempted to buy a blue-ish colorway to make the shawl again as a present for the wonderful boyfriend's grandmother.

I have to say, it's a ridiculously quick knit, which makes it such a great present pattern. I think I may have said that before, but it really is. For his grandmother, I'd want to double the lace yarn, just so it has a little more warmth and make it out of alpaca. For the pattern, I'd recommend going with a fuzzy lace-weight like alpaca or a heavier yarn because it's knit on size 6 needles and larger. I'm also contemplating sock yarn, which would be a good weight for the pattern and seems to be really common on ravelry. Also, the original shawl/veil pattern it was derived from was knit entirely on size 6 (4 mm) needles, so you don't have to follow the recommended changes in needle sizes, it will work just fine on a single size. Much love to Lankakomero for writing up her variations on the pattern.

As you may have noticed, I made a few small changes like the border. I also cast on 39 stitches and started on row 13 to create an opening at the neckline. After I knit on the border, (which is from the babushka shawl in the best of knitter's magazine shawls and scarves book, btw) I added little ties at the neckline to hold the shawl closed. I doubled the yarn and crocheted it to the sides about 3 inches down from the neckline of the shawl NOT 3 inches down from the edge of the lace border, in order to make a lapel collar. Oh, and I only used needle sizes 4 mm, 4.25 mm (I have weird 6's), and 4.5 mm.

Awakening the Halo

2009-07-16T09:15:00.000-07:00

So, to celebrate the paper being accepted for publication (wow, I'm writing in passive voice already?) I bought yarn to make a commemorative project. Yarn really is the best way to celebrate, honestly. I got two skeins of misti alpaca lace, in their beautifully heathered purple colorway. It's just gorgeous, honestly, with this blue that just pops. And there's this really subtle pink hue that peeks out every once in a while that I just wasn't expecting.

To celebrate, I started swatching. I've been swatching alot lately, it seems. I've started swatching for the infamous lace circle jacket from Feminine Knits. I'm going to use the misti alpaca lace for the jacket; I'm hoping the alpaca has enough halo to substitute well for the mohair. I don't think I could stand that much mohair next to my skin. The pattern states that it should have 16 sts for 4 inches on size 9's. What I got on size 7's was 4 stitches to the inch after washing and blocking. Have I mentioned I'm a loose knitter?

I'm not entirely sure what I want to do next. I'm spot on for gauge... at two sizes SMALLER than what the pattern calls for. I'd like the jacket to be a little more snug than what the pictures show. The pattern says it's 19 inches from armhole to armhole, at best I'm 16 - 17 inches at that measurement, so I definitely need it smaller. For now, I'm just going to see if I can bring out the halo of the alpaca more. So far, I've wound each ball 3 times, and it's starting to get more halo. The third time, I held a very fine grit nail file to the yarn as I wound it in a ball, which seemed to bring out more halo. We'll see.

In other ADD project related news, I started the panache shawl. I'm using knit pick shimmer, in their sherry colorway. Oh my god, it's gorgeous. I decided to do the 9/16 version, mostly because I want a capelet look instead of a wrap-around shawl. Using the picot cast on, I started on row 13 which has 39 stitches. I wanted something that had a defined neckline, where I could attach a shawl pin or ties to hold it closed. It's totally mindless lace, I'm on row 27 already. I'm using size 6 needles, and I won't change sizes until row 63.

It's nice to have mindless lace, though. Currently, the older projects are languishing, mostly because they're being annoyingly complicated. I've somehow made the sleeve too big on the hourglass jacket, so I need to rip back about 4 rows and figure out how I want to change the sleeve cap. So that's changing pattern short rows in broomstick crochet = NOT easy. I think I'll probably tackle it this weekend.

The swatch for the lace bolero is done and hanging on the wall right now. This is more for me to remember than anything else. I did half the swatch in the centered double decrease, and the other half with the traditional sk2p stitch to see which one I liked better. So far, I like the centered decrease. The traditional stitch reminds me of varicose veins, a not attractive look. Now, why is it hanging on the wall, you ask?

I'm hanging it on the wall to see how much drape it will develop. I picked that trick up at a talk I went to at Knitter's Connection, where they hammered into my head the importance of swatch. A great way to check how much a fabric will grow is to wash and block a swatch - and then hang it on the wall for a week. Simply pin it to a bulletin board (cork, foam, whatever) but ONLY pin the top row. This leaves the weight of the swatch to hang from the top row, so you'd get an idea of how much the knitted fabric will grow when you wear it. Leave it there for a week, and check gauge then. Don't forget to include row gauge, because it can change! It's interesting, like a minature experiment for me to do at home, so I'm excited about it.

Fiber Wars

2009-07-13T09:12:00.000-07:00

So, my copy of Feminine Knits last friday. I was so excited that I couldn't resist swatching for a new project. I've wanted to make the lace bolero from the book for ages, except I couldn't read the original Finnish in which it was written. That, and I wanted to make the lace circle jacket, but I just couldn't work up the courage. Now that I have my hot little hands on a copy, I can't help starting even though I have something like a dozen projects in process. And that just counts knitting...

I started out with DMC's Senso Wool Cotton, a yarn that used to be uber cheap at Hobby Lobby. I use the past tense, because I haven't been able to find it at a local store in ages. I started with the ribbing on tiny needles (US 1.5 or 2.5 mm) just to see how it would look. Despite the intimidatingly tiny needles, it looked like a nice even knit. Then I switched to the larger needles for the lace pattern, which is really, really easy. It's a 4 row, 6 st pattern repeat. After all the crazy charts I've been keeping track of, it's almost as mindless as ribbing. Almost.

Except for the cotton fiber. Wool Cotton is 30% wool and 70% cotton, with hardly any elasticity. I got through about 10 rows of the lace pattern, all the while struggling with the sk2p stitches. I substituted for the centered decrease version, which I liked the look of. Finer needle points wouldn't have helped reduce the difficulty of manipulating the stitches. Though they would have made pushing around the stitches easier, the sheer inelasticity of the cotton was what drove me to try another fiber. I was cursing by row 10 of the lace, trying to get my needle to go through 3 stitches. I'd rather slit my wrists than try a knupp with this yarn.

So, I pulled out some other stash, the lovely buckingham yarn which I used to make the Giselle sweater. I had a ball and half left over, so a few months ago, I bought a second ball of the yarn just so I'd have enough to do a sizeable project. Now I do! The yarn is delicious and very flexible about gauge. It's 80% alpaca and 20% silk, so it's ridiculously warm and has elegant drape. I started swatching with it, and oh! I forgot how much I like this yarn! I'm definitely going to be making the bolero out of it. The alpaca has just enough stretch and memory that I can get the stitches around easily on bamboo needles. I'm just sorry I left the swatch at home, I want to knock it out today.

Not to say that I don't like the wool cotton. It's going to get relegated to crochet, where I can more easily deal with the unforgiving nature of cotton. I'm thinking the cheveron lace cardigan because I can't have enough sweaters. I get cold at 75 degrees Fahrenheit. I'm not kidding. So summer AC often leaves me shivering with numb extremities. What can I say, I'm a tropical bird.

It's just interesting to me since I seem to be developing distinct fiber crafting preferences. Cotton for crochet because it literally feels hard to knit with. Silk seems to be following the same lines, but we'll see how the next two silk projects fare. I ordered enough really cheap silk yarn from Ebay to make a dress or sweater. I'm excited, it should start arriving any day now! It's on its way from India and it's been about 10 business days, so it should be here. Plus, there's the silk roving in my stash just waiting for me to start spinning it. I haven't dared spin with it yet just because I don't feel my spinning skills are up to it. We'll see.

Instant Gratification

2009-07-09T09:57:00.000-07:00

What do you do when you need a sample size of crochet to get gauge? Turn it into a bracelet of course.

Materials: deathly slippery silk... yarn. It's laceweight at best. 2/0 size glass beads.
Stitches used: ch, hdc, sc
Time to finish: Less than 3 hours

Free Form Crochet

2009-07-08T09:37:00.001-07:00

So, my crochet hero, besides the woman who taught me how to crochet, is Antonina Kuznetsova. I've faved a few of her designs on ravelry, and linked to her photostream. Take a few minutes to look at her creations, it will blow your mind away. This one has to be my favorite:

What? Like it's such a shock that I like pink. Her mastery of freeform crochet blows my mind away. I was lucky enough that the woman who taught me how to crochet taught me how to sight crochet. Essentially, she started with teaching me how to make basic stitches and a general shape. Then she would hand me motifs and tell me to figure out how to make them. The motifs got progressively more complicated, and she taught me an incredibly valuable skill. Not only did she teach me stitches and abbreviations so that I could make things from a pattern, she enabled me to create my own designs. That said, even Irish crochet seems somewhat daunting to me, and I've been crocheting for almost 15 years now.

That said, I found a wonderful tutorial about free form/irish crochet at smart-knit-crochet.com showing you how to construct your own free form skirt. While it's absolutely gorgeous, I don't think I'll be doing another lace garment just yet. (I heard that derisive snort! Give me until next year at least, to start something insanely intricate again.) However, I think jewelry will be a perfect launching point to learn this technique. As you can see, Dainty Crochet by Aly, uses free form crochet to make really beautiful pieces.

Someone, anyone (not me) please buy that necklace before I cave and buy it myself. If I had to guess at its construction, she started with the circular and center motif. Then she used crochet to create the structure of the necklace and beaded chain at the back of the neck. It's an absolutely gorgeous piece of work.

I've got a pretty good idea of what I want to crochet, though, variations on lace trims adapted to necklaces and chokers. I've been browsing through Crochet Lace by Pauline Turner, which I highly recommend. It's got a ton of great patterns and motifs for your imagination to run away with. I actually picked it up at half price books for a great price. I can't wait to get started on a little choker just to bust some stash.

Brainstorming

2009-07-07T09:41:00.000-07:00

So, I'm in the middle of several projects all of which take about half an hour or more to do a row. I'm working on the secret project/aspiring design with the haiku yarn. Then there's the wings of a dream shawl that I heavily modified. There's also the celtic tote bag which requires me to finish embroidering the outline. As you might guess, it can get a little tedious.

Well, there's also the sock, but it's just not captivating me right now. And there's the intolerable cruelty skirt, but that's mindless knitting. Except for the short rows I'm attempting to add. My waist is 6 inches smaller than the widest part of my butt/hips. That means I need to add length back there or I will have a really funny looking hemline. (Anyone else ever make a garment where it's shorter in the back than the front?) Remember that the next time you knit a skirt. In sewing, you make the hem long to compensate for any uneveness and then trim the fabric to get an even hemline. It doesn't work quite the same way in knitting. You gotta add short rows in the back, or as a friend charmingly misspoke: short ass rows.

Anyways, I've decided I'm in need of some instant gratification projects so I thought I would design some silk & beaded crochet lace jewelry. I found this wonderful blog, where she has an embedded video on how to crochet with beads. Good quality, it's not perfect, but it's enough to get you started on the basic idea of how to crochet with beads. I've done it with knitting before, but not crochet yet. There's a wee stash of beads waiting for me to use it, and this just seems like the perfect opportunity to try.

And there's the death shawl.

Its's holding up some gorgeous yarn that probably won't get made into a shawl. Why? Well, let's start with the name. On ravelry, one woman commented that she'd probably get buried in the shawl, because it would either kill her or she wouldn't finish it until she died. The charts for it are just that long. I'm not kidding. It's a beautiful shawl... and not something you should try for your 3rd knitting project ever. Ask me how I know. Anyways, the yarn is a beautiful dusty gold color, which would make for great jewelry, don't you think? Time to dust off my crochet books and figure out what would look really great with some beads.

Creature of Habit

2009-07-06T10:07:00.000-07:00

I love crafting. Some might even say it's an unhealthy obsession. To that argument, I have the following response. Creation poses its own unique reward: something new that didn't exist before you made it. You, the creator, are responsible for its being, and that is a powerful accomplishment that no one can take away from you. It holds a special place in my life, because of my difficult family and their lack of acknowledgement. I'm about to finish a bachelor's degree in psychology and I still don't understand them.

Being able to make something soothes me in ways I can only begin to explain. I love creating something light, lacy, and beautiful as proof that I've accomplished something in a life too scarred by harsh criticism. It reassures me that I am skilled, that I am able to master unique abilities on my own. I still underestimate my abilities, but I'm learning to appreciate what I am able to accomplish.

It's soothing, in ways addicts can understand. The yarn harlot had a hilarious bit that I will poorly paraphrase about replacing knitting with smoking. In the first two weeks after you quit smoking, you'll find that keeping your hands busy helps control the cravings. You'll also find yourself the proud owner of 3 afghans, 2 sweaters, and dozens of socks. Funny, but true. It falls into a neat behavioral trick I learned. If you want to break a habit, replace it with another habit (preferably a better one). That way, you'll have a new habit that makes you a better person or enriches your life or simply stops an addiction. I've quit smoking, and I'm learning to replace bad habits with knitting/crocheting/crafting. When I used to smoke a cigarette after a fight with my mom, I'll knit instead. I say this in an ironically timed moment, since I just finished a row of the hourglass jacket which I picked up to soothe myself after a midterm. It's better than biting my nails, no? Plus, I'll have a wonderful summer jacket/indoors cardigan to wear when I'm done.

I can't wait to finish it, because the boyfriend's mother made a wonderful suggestion. I showed her the shawl pins that I made for the etsy shop, and she thought the designs were lovely. She suggested that I show a picture of someone or something wearing the pin so people got a better idea of how the shawl pin worked. Which is a great idea, I thought. The tutorials show you how to stick the pin in the fabric, but it doesn't really show you how it could be worn, does it? Of course, that makes me want to start a new shawl immediately, let's ignore the half-dozen projects I have on my needles currently. But if you've seen the panache shawl can you really blame me?

I leave you, dear reader, with two honest questions - what inspires you to knit or how did you get started crafting? And, would it help if I had pictures of the shawl pins being worn?

New colors, new skills

2009-07-03T20:05:00.000-07:00

Well, sort of. The colors I chose really shouldn't surprize anyone that knows me. But I absolutely love the laptop case I just finished knitting for myself. I wouldn't have been able to knit it, if it weren't for the wonderful experience of Knitter's Connection. I took a class there, "Two Colors, Two Hands" taught by Sally Melville. Some of you may remember the glorious disaster that was the f'ing deer socks. Once again, I've demonstrated why my friends crowned me queen of crazytown, because I thought that doing colorwork on the second pair of socks I'd ever made was a great idea. Needless to say the, socks didn't fit at all. The sock part of the sock was great, but my lack of even tension in the ankle kept the sock from making it past the heel of the foot when my boyfriend tried it on. The sock is in hibernation until I've refined my skills at color knitting.

I have to really give credit to Sally Melville, the woman who taught the Two Colors, Two Hands class, for giving me the skills to tackle color knitting again. She was just very reassuring, and very down-to-earth practical. She set attainable and pragmatic goals for knitting in new ways. I hadn't even been aware that I expected myself to be as good at knitting in a new style as I was with knitting lace and everything else I was used to doing. Bear in mind, my first knitting project was the branching out scarf. My bar for "easy" isn't the least bit logical or practical. She pointed out that the most important goals for learning a new knitting style are attaining the muscle memory, establishing good tension, and once both of those are comfortable for you to do, THEN you can start thinking about speed.

I found I was most comfortable knitting with one color in each hand, even though I'm a continental knitter. The thing is, you'll be knitting in a style that you're not normally comfortable with, so why should you be expecting beautifully even knitting your first time around? With her reassurance and gentle guidance, I learned to be comfortable with english style knitting. Her advice for dealing with that conundrum she pointed out? Do a felted bag. The thicker fabric of colorwork makes for a sturdy bag, and felting hides all those sins of tension and (un)even stitches. I took her advice, and went my own way with it, because really, I need another purse like I need a hole in the head. So I made a (soon to be) felted laptop case!

Just so you know, it is a lumpy, bumpy mess, just as she promised most people's first projects would be. Check out a close up of the stitches, pay close attention to how uneven the edge is.

It was just so reassuring to hear that it's not going to be perfectly even the first time around. In class, she held up this beautifully knit a-line skirt with an intricate insert panel of colorwork, and stated quite clearly that it was a lumpy mess until she blocked it. I'll post pictures of blocking, just to show what an effect it has, before I block it. And, like Ms. Melville said, felting will completely obliterate the uneven stitches. She recommended using noro if you want more color without having to constantly change yarns, but I have a deep-seated aversion to noro. So I used jojoland, colorway M-04 instead. I love the gradual color change from purple to lavender to burgundy.

I also followed her advice and used a simple, easy to memorize pattern, houndstooth. Well, it was mostly easy to memorize. As you can see here, I messed up one repeat.
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By that point, I had cast on, knitted 2 repeats, and ripped it all back out at least 3 times. I thought I had a handle on the pattern and stopped looking at the pattern. Folly, thy name is pride, and I had too much of it at that point in time. By the time I had realized that I made the mistake, I was sick of ripping out and starting again. I saw that I'd done the repeat wrong right here:

I can live with it, though. I'm just so totally enamored of the color change that the jojoland yarn does. I used jojoland for the contrast color, some leftover paton's classic wool for the pink, and some leftover wool-angora blend in lavender that I got from an ebay auction. I have to say, the bag was great at busting stash. As you may have noticed, I have a terrible problem with leftover yarns, so being able to use them up felt wonderful. The bag is 9.5 inches wide by 15 inches long, to fit a 10.5 inch by 7.25 inch laptop. I'm waiting to felt it along with the celtic tote that I've done. I just need to finish the embroidery on the bag, and then it will be ready to felt.

I can't say enough wonderful things about Knitter's Connection, Sally Melville, and everything I got to see and do there. The Knitter's Market is like... taking your favorite yarn shop and multiplying it by 10. That's the best way I can describe two large conference rooms filled with all sorts of yarn vendors, from hand-dyers to retail distributors and everything in between. Forgot your knitting bag? That's okay, you can buy a Nantucket bag there. Just finished your cardigan in class or lecture, and need buttons? I saw at least 2 vendors that sold nothing but buttons and notions.

As for me? Well, the yarns I loaded up on are another story. I could gush on and on about those for pages and pages. But, I think I'll save that for later.

I'm not an addict, maybe that's a lie....

2009-06-30T07:39:00.001-07:00

Mmm, K's choice. Now that I've revealed what decade influenced my music choices, let's go see what's got me moving now.

I have to say, Molecular Muse's items all appeal to me on a basic level. (Ha ha!) As some of you might know, I'm a biochemistry major, with aspirations to neuroscience for a career. The hours and hours and hours spent memorizing amino acid structure, protein function, neurotransmitter synthesis pathways were interminable at best. I take that back. The neurotransmitter synthesis pathways were kind of fun. I heart neuroscience. I wouldn't have gotten through those long hours of study without my wonderful friend to whom I have been addicted since I was 16 years old: Caffeine.

I mean, look at that wonderful molecule, ubiquitously found in sodas, teas, drinks, coffee, even liquors. So lovely, yet naturally occurring at the same time. (Some of you at this point, may be thinking that the biochemistry degree was a fitting choice.) For those of you who are tired about my raptures over caffeine let's move on to the movers and shakers.

That's right. I'm talking about neurotransmitters.

Really, was there any surprise there? These are the things which makes us humans tick. They help us feel ecstasy. They control how happy we feel. They can get our blood moving and hearts jumping.

My only question is would they let me wear such things to class? Does jewelry count as a cheat sheet in this case? I mean, unless you already had the structure memorized, you wouldn't know which silver globes were oxygen, which ones were nitrogen... I suppose I'll just have to find out when I go to graduate school. Someday.

Shop Talk Ed. 6 - Shawl Pin Tutorial - Leaf Pin

2009-06-28T21:39:00.000-07:00

So it seems, that this has been a popular design! In that case, I had better put out a tutorial on how I recommend using the shawl pin? The leaf shawl pin is really similar to the treble clef; in this regard, it works in much the same way.

Start with where you want the pin to be in the shawl, like this:

Once you've figured out where you want it to go, then you'll rotate the pin to stick the free end through the fabric like this:

It's easiest to work the free end into a knit stitch. I wouldn't recommend putting it into a yarn-over hole, because it can stretch the hole, and it's less likely to do that in a knit stitch. It seems counter-intuitive to start here, but once it's fully rotated, it will make more sense.

Once the free end has been inserted into the fabric, continue rotating the leaf almost 180 degrees clockwise and push it through the fabric like so:

Then, angle the pin upwards, so that the free end can poke through the fabric where you want it to come through.

It will look a little strange at this point, but once it's rotated it'll look better.

Just like the previous step, rotate the pin again, so that the fabric sits level in the leaf.

And there you go! I promise, more fun posts will be forthcoming, dyeing escapades, breaking yarn diets, spindle making, and so much more!

Shop Talk: Ed 5 - Quick Announcement

2009-06-25T20:50:00.001-07:00

I hate to say it, but I'm going to have to raise my shipping prices. When I first started the shop, I thought I could get away with shipping things in a first class envelope for a dollar. Truth be told, I just don't feel comfortable shipping things unprotected in a simple envelope. Once the shawl pins, row counters, and other creations leave my hands, they are no longer mine. They're yours, the customer's and I would want to protect it and keep it safe for its journey to a new home.

Also, I like the reassurance of tracking. I've had bad luck with shipping before, and always, it seems that I didn't buy the insurance or tracking, and so my textbook, yarn, package, ect - have gotten lost in the mail. Needless to say, I haven't been pleased when that happens. I want to give others the peace of mind that tracking allows by showing where your item is in transit. However, on average, USPS labels through paypal have cost me about $1.50. So I'm taking a loss there, unfortunately. In order to cover shipping costs, I'll be raising prices to $2.00 within the US, and $3.00 to Canada/Mexico. Rest assured, I'm not doing this to increase profit margins, but simply to cover the cost of business.

Hopefully, there will be more enjoyable posts to come, I just wanted to let people know and understand what I'll be doing with the shop. I'm planning on writing another shawl pin tutorial tomorrow, so keep your eyes peeled for that.

I'm alive!

2009-06-24T07:31:00.000-07:00

The quarter is over, but the hectic pace hasn't ceased. Just letting you folks know that I'm still alive with a quick update. I finished up some requested shawl pins - and I can't thank you folks enough for your patience. That's been a big priority for me. I went to Knitter's Connection, which was absolutely wonderful. There will be a long, gushy post about that later. Not to mention the miles by which my stash grew! I like to pretend my stash isn't as big as it really is. Sometime soon, I'm going to update my stash in Ravelry, and that will be a big whomp in the face. On happy knitting news, I'm nearly done with 2 projects. There will be pictures soon. Speaking of pictures, I really will finish the shawl pin tutorials within the week! Talk to y'all soon, there' so much to do, and so little time.

"Despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage..."

2009-05-04T12:27:00.000-07:00

Nah, not really rage-filled right now. Running around getting things done does make me feel like a rat in a cage, though. Running, running, running, and I hope to god getting a degree, but otherwise, just lots of running. There is alot of crap to get done if you need to graduate. Oh, and the application deadline is this friday! Teehee! I have an appointment this thursday, but I may sit around on wednesday just in case. We'll see. I got a psych minor and who knew that would equal more paperwork? I should have known.

Anyways, this is a knitting blog, no? On to knitting!

I'm so pleased! I took a chunk of time this weekend and worked on the graduation dress. The front and back halves are blocked, and I sewed them together. It fits! It fits like a glove! Whew! I can do this whole gauge thing. Perhaps a vogue pattern is not the best place to learn gauge, but it worked! My modifications worked! I changed their shaping and number of stitches to cast on so that it would fit my measurements and not their fictional woman sized 34-26-34. I'm sorry, I don't wear a corset, and my waist isn't 8 inches smaller than my rib cage. I finished the neckline inserts and sewed them in as well, so all that remains on the dress is the sleeves and the bottom panels.

The other major change I did to the dress was I changed the length of the main skirt panel, which was only supposed to be 8 inches long. Umm. If I had knit that to size, the panel would have barely covered my crotch. I realize that there's supposed to be a lace insert and another panel to make it longer, but still. My height is all in my legs. With those panels, the current dress size will come down to my knees. The new panel length after blocking is about 14 inches from the waist, which starts at the bellybutton and goes down to mid-thigh. Yeah. I don't think shorter would have been better in this case. Atleast not for the version of this dress that I would wear in public.

In other knitting news, I picked up a project that had been in hibernation, the hourglass jacket. I really enjoy it, because it's a totally different style of crochet. Yes, I'm bicraftual. I haven't knit with cotton enough to form an opinion about it and knitting, however I do quite like crochetting with cotton. I'm making it out of lyndon hill, a yarn by plymouth that's 85% cotton, 15% silk. It has this delicate halo, that I don't think will fluff out any more than what you see in the skein.

I love the delicate pink color that I'm working with, however, if I were to pick up another project with it, I'd go for that fruit punch red. It's gorgeous. I saw it in another yarn store, and it's delicious. I'd already bought the yarn to make the jacket at the time I saw the other yarn, otherwise I would have picked it up. I've finished the top parts of the back and fronts, and now I'm at the part in the pattern where you start crochetting like a top-down raglan. It's a really neat construction that mimicks top-down raglan construction, so you can try on the body, atleast, to see how well it fits you before you move on to the next part. The way you do the crochet is really different, too.

It's a bit unwieldy to work with a US size 19/35mm needle, but it does go fast. Well, it goes fast once you get the hang of how to make the stitches. If you're tired of traditional crochet and tc, dc, sc, ect, then try this jacket. The sizing has a great range, it's a fast project, and it makes a light fabric that's great for a summer cardigan to ward off chills. I chose to use a fingering weight yarn to make a lighter fabric, you can choose to make it in heavier yarn if you want a more substantial jacket. To give you an idea of how fast it goes, I completed the front parts that you attach to the back in 1 day. Now I have a few rows of broomstick lace before I start the waist shaping.

Otherwise, that's my knitting. I've cast on the acorn inserts for the sleeves - I'll only be making the vogue dress sleeves from the inserts on up to the sleeve cap, and the sleeve cap will be just that. Really short. I'm not worried about running out of yarn, I don't want to make a dress that will be too warm. I'm thinking of adding a final edging at the bottom of the dress just to tie it all together, but I'm not sure yet. We'll see how I feel about it once I get the sleeves on the dress. Happy knitting folks!

Shop Talk ed. 4

2009-04-28T08:58:00.000-07:00

In case you haven't checked it out yet, I've put up a new design in the shawl pins. I like it a lot. I almost wish there was one that I had "messed up" on, so that I could keep it. Actually, the two new designs are looking like that, right now. Too many tool marks ...

(5 minutes later) Err, I just took a break to play with one of the designs. Apparently, what I needed was a break from it in order to get the symmetry right. Oops. Expect to see that up in the shop in the next day or two.

I have to say, though, that using Tiffany for design inspiration is a dangerous prospect. He had a whole shop full of people to do the grunt work for him, and even polish and produce designs. It's just me and my ten fingers here, bending wire inspired by his shapes. I have to say though, I do love his work.

Oh the cuteness!

2009-04-27T11:35:00.000-07:00

For those that like busting stash and can crochet, I found the cutest thing!

Free Amigurumi Patterns

Check out the cuteness! If I felted these things, they'd be great cat toys. Otherwise, if left in intact yarn form, Delilah Damnit would just eat it. (You think I'm joking, but no. One of my cats is part goat and eats plastic.) However, she doesn't eat felted/fulled/what-do-you-call-purposefully-shrunk-crochet? items. Don't ask me about the logic behind that one. She is a force of nature until herself.

As for those that know me, I have issues with leftover yarn. As in, I always have it. It kind of drives me a little crazy. Okay, it drives me alot crazy because I do these projects that are supposed to eat up yarn... and they don't. Seriously, a swallowtail (without the knupps) and an asphyxiation out of one ball of knitpicks shadow? How? I don't know. The boyfriend said he'd put a knit kitty on the back of his motorcycle if I could find it a leather jacket. It's oh so tempting, especially since finding hand-made stuff for a guy is tough to do.

Sock it to me

2009-04-25T12:04:00.000-07:00

Actually, before I get to the knitting news, I just want to put out this apology to anyone who's tried out the xsmall size of the swirl skirt pattern. There's a typo in rows 6, 8, and 10 of the pattern. It should read as follows:

Row 6: *[YO,K1] 3 times, k2tog, K7* repeat 7 times more. There is a total of 8 repeats of this pattern per round.

Row 7: *K12, K2tog* repeat 8 times.

Row 8: *[YO,K1,] 3 times, k2tog, K8* repeat 8 times.

Row 9: *K13, K2tog* repeat 8 times

Row 10: *[YO, K1] 3 times, k2tog, K9* repeat 8 times.

Row 11: *K14, K2tog* repeat 8 times.

The extra small version is the one that has a 96 st cast on. If you've started that version, and couldn't figure out why it was off, this is why. I'm sorry. Hopefully, this will catch all the mistakes and such.

In other knitting news, I've caught a little knitting ADD. I finally finished panel 2 of the front the graduation dress. I've put the front and back halves together as I made them, so to speak. I made the waistband and picked up stitches for the bodice and panel 2. That way, I had less seaming to do once I was done with knitting a part of the dress. After the ocean waves cardigan fiasco, I'm going to block these halves of the dress and put it together to check the fit. If it doesn't, then I'll have time to reknit one part or another as needed. Hopefully, I should get that done this weekend.

Since I finished knitting that panel thursday night, I had a terrible realization. I didn't have that many on-going projects. There's the design I'm creating, but that's most decidedly not mindless knitting. I bound off the cuff of the boyfriend's practice sock part 2, and followed that with the toe of the second sock. I had a sudden realization, however, that I've never made socks for myself. So, I cast on the "Falling in Love" socks by Anni Designs, that was on the MagKnits website. That website, sadly, isn't functional anymore. It's a neat little design with a heart lace panel bordered by cables. I've done cables before, but I'm not very good at it.

I just heard the derisive laugh from my friends on ravelry.

Fine, I can do cables decently well, but they're not easy for me at all. We shall not speak of how many times I dropped the cabled stitches, and leave it at that.

So, I've got enough sock to cover the toe of my foot, and wow! I finally understand what the fuss is all about with the hand made socks. I'm making it out of that new yarn by Deborah Norville. It's 50% superwash wool, 25% rayon from bamboo, and 25% nylon. I love it, and the price is amazingly reasonable. It's a new yarn that's being carried by the larger Joann's craft stores.

Last, but certainly not least, is the wings of a dream shawl. I've gotten a couple of more rows done. I'm really curious to see how it will turn out, since I modified the pattern quite a bit.

Last, but not least, I've got a couple of shawl pins done. I should get a couple of shop updates in tomorrow. Happy knitting!

RIP: Eulogy for Ocean Waves Cardigan

2009-04-22T11:30:00.000-07:00

It's official.

I'm putting this project to rest, mostly because I'm just that mad at it. I frogged the offending panel, but that wasn't enough to abate my fury. I still want to knit only top-down raglan cardigans. I'm crazy enough to take an oath only to knit raglan constructed cardigans. I'm open minded enough to consider bottom up, knit-in-one piece cardigan. They're teaching a class on it at TNNA's summer show. I'm planning on taking it, and I have EZ's book on knitting in the round.

I'm just not pleased with what happens when I knit pieces that require seaming. You'd think I wouldn't mind seaming, because I learned to sew before I learned how to knit, but no. At least with sewing, I can just re-cut a piece if it doesn't fit well. The idea of cutting my knit fabric just makes me sick! Reshaping a knit piece takes 15 hours not 15 minutes, like it does with sewing. Bleh!

So, I'm officially putting the ocean waves cardigan to rest. Rest assured however, the argosy yarn is going into another project that's staying under wraps for now. For those of you that know me, I've got some designing ambitions, and there's some deadlines that I want to meet. That's right, it made me so mad that I said screw it, and I'm coming up with my own design. I've been taking meticulous line-by-line notes, and it's going pretty well. Here's hoping it works!

And no, I'm not just working on 2 projects. The wings of a dream shawl has a whopping.. uh, 3 rows on it? Heheheh. I don't really count projects as started until they hit several inches long. 3 rows just looks like ... well... not much at all. On the upside, I'm only one lace repeat away from finishing the front panel on the graduation dress! Speaking of that, I should be working on graduating! Aka studying. Rest in peace, ocean waves cardi.

Shop Talk ed. 3 - Shawl Pin Tutorial

2009-04-20T13:12:00.001-07:00

Hooray! The shawl pins are up and running! I'm totally in love with some of them, and must remember that they are supposed to find good homes that aren't mine. But, before they do, I realize that they aren't the most intuitive design ever. To help with that, I've created a tutorial on how to use a shawl pin that doesn't have a stick pin.

Each pin works on the same principle:

1) Poke the free end into the fabric.
2) Rotate the pin
3) Poke the free end back out of the fabric
4) Rotate until you have the pin situated the way you want.

It'll take a little bit of practice before you learn how to place the pin just right, but it's worth the effort to have a pin where you don't need to worry about losing different parts.

First off, I have the Swan pin, which has flown to a happy home with Joyarna.

Start with the pin at roughly a 90 degree angle from where you want it to be. So, if you want it to look like this:

Then you should poke the wing tip into the fabric like this:

Once it's in, rotate the pin another 90 degrees, and push as much fabric as you want to hold it into place on the pin. Then poke the wing tip back out of the fabric.

Then it's alot of rotating at this point to get the shawl pin where you want it to be. Here's a step by step progression of 90 degree rotations clockwise to get it where you want it to be. See?

And finally, the swan is where it should be, swimming happily in lace. The swan and the delicately swirling shawl pin have the most amount of twisting around and rotating to get it into place. All the other designs have an easier progression to get the pin in place.

For example, the treble clef works in the same way the leaf would. To get the treble clef into the lace like this:

Start by inserting the curved in at the top of where you'd want the pin to be.

Then rotate the shawl pin and push through as much fabric as much as you want onto the pin.

This next step you can do one of two ways. I took a picture in natural light so you can see the curved end of the shawl pin poking through the fabric better. By tilting the shawl pin a little bit, you poke the curved end right below the top for good alignment.

The other way you could do this last step is simply to push the whole curved bit through, to get to the final step.

And there you have it. I like the treble clef and leaf better than the others, because the curved wire over the pin part of the shawl pin holds the lace fabric in place. In the others, you're relying on the tension of the fabric and the many curves of the pin to hold it in place. They work well, don't get me wrong, but there's just that added bit of security with that second wire.

In other shop news, the row counters are finished! Hopefully, I should have some time tomorrow morning to post the new designs up. I've got lovely shades of red, green, and blue glass beads on ribbons in combinations to suit almost anyone. The beads slide smoothly, but still have enough friction to hold their place while you knit. I indulged myself and made one for myself to test out - to make sure that it works well, of course! I wouldn't want to sell something I didn't test first. Yeah. That's my excuse, and I'm sticking with it.

For other things you can look forward to for the shop, I picked up brass wire! So, look forward to shawl pins in 16 gauge brass wire. I'll more than likely make a few of the current designs and maybe make one or two more new designs. I'm excited!

Shop Talk ed. 2

2009-04-18T11:44:00.000-07:00

So, just a quick update on the shop. I got the feedback from my friends who were testing out the stitch markers. They definitely liked the idea, but the beads were a little tough to move. One of two things has to change, before I go forward with the design. Either the beads need to have a larger hole for the ribbon to pass through. Or, the ribbon needs to be smaller. Since I haven't a clue how to drill out glass beads, it's looking more and more like I must make that trip to the craft store. Perhaps this weekend, if I get a good chunk of stuff done.

For news of the other expansions, I'm working on some shawl pin designs! I had made a shawl pin for myself out of some heavy gauge wire I had from another jewelry project. A friend suggested it would be a great design to add to the etsy shop. (Thanks Joyarna!) I like shawl pins that don't require a stick pin, because, let's be honest, I'd lose the stick pin and resort to using double point needles to hold the shawl pin in place. Then I'd lose the double point needles, and then I'd be in a vicious cycle. As it is, I manage to misplace my DPNs well enough on my own when I'm testing out various projects.

Therefore, I'm working on designs where you don't need a stick pin, in case I hadn't made that point clear enough. So far, I've got three basic shapes and a need for more heavy gauge wire. Yes, it has occurred to me to raid the boyfriend's wire stash. (He's a born tinkerer and an electrical engineer. I do honestly believe he has more miles of wire than I have yarn. He disagrees.) Although, all of his wire is, you know, for circuits, and coated with plastic. I may have to talk this over with him, since I'm still on the learning curve for understanding how wire behaves.

I need wire to practice on. Some of the sketches I came up with, like the darling blue bell design, require sharp, sharp bends in wire that heavy gauge silver and copper don't like to do. Oh, by the way, I'm making them in silver and copper wire! Just in case you didn't catch that. They should be up in the shop this weekend, so keep an eye out for them.

Misadventures in Knitting: Frogging Fun

2009-04-17T12:32:00.000-07:00

By fun I mean (insert your favorite expletive here).

This is what has happened to the ocean cardigan after I blocked it and loosely pieced it together to check the fit. Apparently, I could not get away with the extra stitches like I thought I could. If you'll notice, one side is 2 inches longer than the other. No, it's not supposed to be like that. No, I do not like asymmetrical cardigans.

How did this happen, did you ask? Somehow, I added extra yarn overs near the front right button hole strip. I haven't a clue how I added them in. Instead of having three little lacy legs, I had four. And then, I had five. How I added that next one, I don't have any idea. Anyways, I thought I could get away with it. I thought quite wrong. I decreased back down to three lace legs, and thought I was okay to block. All those extra legs translated into two extra inches of length as you can see. I was absolutely stumped as to how I could fix it.

The most reasonable suggestion made was to frog the right front piece, which was much better than my idea to frog the whole thing. I'm still tempted to frog the whole thing and write a new pattern. However, reason ruled and the cardigan is cooling while I ponder what to do next with it. Which brings us to the whole reason for this post.

Frogging.

Every knitter I know lives to avoid this most dire of fates for their finished objects, but sometimes it's just inevitable. If, like me, you can't possibly figure out any other way to save your project, start by picking out your bound off edge. I like to use a thin but not sharp yarn needle to pull the loose end through the loops until I've gotten back to a row where it's purely knit stitches and not bound off stitches. Then I can pull on that sad, kinked end to unravel my stitches until I've reached a desired point - in this case, the other end of the front right bodice.

However, that sounds like a much smoother process than it really is. Some yarns, like cashmere and alpaca develop a halo either as you work with it or after it's been washed and blocked. True to form, the argosy yarn developed a lovely soft halo with form fitting drape. While I want that in the finished garment, it makes frogging difficult because some of that halo wraps around the yarn as you frog it. It forms something like a fabric bead that can almost knot one strand of yarn to another. As you might imagine, this is not a desirable thing for a piece you are frogging. When that happens, the smooth pull of the frogged yarn stops, and you'll probably have a long piece of yarn dangling from a loop with something that looks like a knot.

Stop pulling the yarn at this point, it will just make it worse. Remember that thin but dull yarn needle I used earlier? Bring that back out again, and use it to pull part the "bead" formed by the halo wrapping around the yarn. Sometimes, you can hold both sides of the frogged yarn in the front and back of the bead and pull it apart from the loop. Hold onto the loop while you pull apart the bead of halo, otherwise, you'll continue frogging the yarn below the loop and that makes for a tangled mess. Sometimes you may have to pick apart the fiber bead quite a bit to pull it apart before you can continue frogging.

I've found that the more halo a yarn develops, the more likely it is to form that fiber bead that makes frogging so different. That's why frogging yarns like mohair and angora is so difficult - they have halo in the skein, and the halo just gets fuzzier with knitting, washing, or frogging. These are the least forgiving yarns for mistakes that have to be ripped out. It's a lucky day if you can tink back a few rows in mohair, much less frogging more than that.

Other yarns that I've found difficult to frog include alpaca and cashmere. Both yarns knit up well, but their halo really comes out when you block or wash the knitted fabric. If possible, frogging is best done before you get them wet. Sometimes, that's unavoidable, especially if you're doing lace, where the pattern really doesn't appear until after it's blocked. Lace yarns are delicate to begin with, and frogging them must be done carefully. Sometimes knitting is enough to bring out a halo and that seems to make the yarn a little weaker and more prone to breaking when you pull the yarn out for frogging.

Wool tends to forgive frogging, at least the first time around. Depending on how tightly its spun, wool can be knitted and frogged several times before the fiber beads appear to make frogging difficult. However, single ply wool does NOT frog well at all. Cotton, even thread weight cotton, almost always forgives every frogging attempt. Silk, particularly the smooth silks, present a different sort of challenge. The slipperiness of silk practically allows the stitches to fall out from one row to the next, making it prime knotting territory. Bamboo can be prone to this problem as well, because it makes a notoriously slippery yarn. Acrylic forgives frogging almost as often as cotton does, and that sums up my review of different fibers and how well they frog.

A quick note on how to get rid of the kinkyness of yarn after it's been frogged, wind it up into a skein. Tie lots of figure 8 loops around it to keep the strands from getting tangled. Let the skein soak in a sink or bowl full of cool water, before gently squeezing out the excess water. You can roll it up in a towel and hop up and down on the towel to get rid of the water. Then, hang up the skein on a plastic hanger to dry. You can weight it down with more hangers hanging off the loop to pull the yarn straight if you so desire. Dyers and spinners will be completely familiar with this process. Give the skein at least a day to dry before you wind it up into a ball, and this should take most of the kink out.

In other news, I should have some exciting updates and news about the shop tomorrow. If people want, I can do a frogging tutorial with pictures to illustrate the process of frogging.

Blue Blood

2009-04-14T19:17:00.000-07:00

Or why you should wet block your lace.

I should have known this from the start, really. The haiku yarn is so saturated with color that I should have known it would bleed blue dye like it was stabbed through the heart and bleeding out the last of its royal blue arterial blood down to the last bleeding blue cell it had to give. You think I'm kidding, but I'm not. It's sitting in my bathroom, bleeding out the last of the dye. (I hope.) The needles on which I knit the sweater are noticeably darker than the rest of the set. I thought it just might be the bamboo wood darkening with use. Oh, no. I took a picture so you could see. Check out the needles, the stain was strong enough my camera could see it.

Once upon a time, those tiny little US 1.5 needles were the same color as the larger size 7's in the picture. The changing colors of my needles should have told me that this was going to bleed. Being a high end yarn, I had the vague notion that the yarn wouldn't bleed, that the dye was well fixed into the fiber. I should have seen from the vibrant, saturated colors of the haiku yarn that it would. Anyways, I'm glad I decided to soak it for wet blocking. It's on bath number 3, and I will take more pictures so you can see just how much dye comes out of this yarn.

Why block?

Well, blocking is a process which quite literally transforms lace knitting from something the cat chewed up to a breathtaking heirloom. I don't have any stellar examples of unblocked versus blocked lace, but I do have some photos of before and after for the lace shrug that I made. This is what the lace looked like before I blocked it. It was also maybe 10 inches in width. The final width of that section, before I sewed it together, became 12 inches in blocking. But I get ahead of myself. Here's what happens after you block it. The lace opens up, the garment takes on larger dimensions than the size it was when it came off the needle. The size to which a piece of lace will grow depends on how hard you block it.

How do you block?

There are any number of ways you can block lace. If, like me, you have a love for supersaturated and vibrant colors, then you should let the lace item soak in cool water before you attempt blocking. Trust me. If you attempt to get the lace wet, and then spread it out on a blanket, carpet, or fabric surface, you will have a unique (read - stained) dye job left behind by the lace made from your vibrant yarn. A good rule of thumb is to let it sit in cold water for 15 minutes or more, before rinsing it out. If the water comes out clear after the rinse, then it might be okay to continue on with the process of blocking. If you're not sure, then let it sit for 5 minutes. Toss out the water after that time, and see how clear it comes out. If it's reasonably clear, you probably got most of the excess dye out.

A just-so-you- know moment - this will change the color of your yarn. It won't be quite as vibrant as it was before. However, with the excess dye gone, it will no longer stain your skin smurfette blue, like my sweater would have if I did not let soak away the excess dye. Returning to my out of order process!

Perhaps the easiest way to block is to simply spread out your lace as flat as possible on a large surface. A bed, table, or even the basement floor work well. I've used all three and then some. Ironing boards work well too. Then, with a water bottle or misting spray, spray water until it evenly coats the surface of your project. The surface of the yarn should be damp to the touch, not soaked through. Then, you can gently push and pull at the yarn until it lays almost flat on the surface of the bed or table. Like a fibrous form of clay, you can push and pull the yarn gently into the shape you desire. The weight of the water will sort of weight the yarn down, preventing it from snapping back to the crinkled shape. This is soft blocking, and it's just like what you'd do when you lay a sweater out to dry. You create a shape, but you aren't forcing it into one.

Hard blocking is when you pin that sucker down to dry, and it's not moving from that shape until you pry those ~~nails~~ pins out from the surface. Beds, foam board, ironing boards, soft, flat surfaces are required for this part. And a plethora of pins! Or, if you wish, you can buy a blocking set which includes rust-proof pins and blocking wires. Other people use string and pull it tight, so it acts just like a blocking wire. The point of all these tools and the pins is to pull the yarn into the desired shape, a triangle, rectangle, circle, a mobius strip - it's really all about the shape you want.

You can start out with a gently dampened lace, or you can soak the sucker, it's all about personal preference at this point. The more wet your project is when you start hard blocking, the longer it will take to dry. If you fear mold or something like that getting into your yarn, run a circulating fan in the same room where the project is drying. Some people fear the project shrinking because of the air circulating around the project, but I have never had that problem. Things dry faster when you have a fan. For me, that's a lesser likelihood of the cats eating my project while it dries.

Anyways, if you've opted to do what I've done so far - aka soak the sucker until there's no more dye to bleed - you have to get it to a not-sopping-wet state for blocking. I prefer to roll my projects in a towel and then stomp all over like I was reinacting the broadway musical. This may not be the preferred method for some. Other people like to put their project in a delicates bag - that zippered mesh thing that I should use more often - and run it through the spin cycle of their empty washing machine. However you get to this point, it doesn't matter. The point is that the project is throughly and evenly dampened. Then you can lay it out on the surface and pin it into the desired shape.

A clever trick for circular shawls is to cut a piece of yarn a few inches or so longer than the desired radius of your shawl. Pin one end of the yarn down in the center of your surface. Use the other end of the yarn to "draw out" a circle - stretch it out, pin the edge of shawl in one place. Move the end of the yarn a few inches along the edge of your circle, pin another point of the circle down there. Rinse, repeat, until you've gone 360 degrees and traced out your shawl's circle with the free end of the yarn. I've never used this trick, as I have yet to make a circular shawl, but I thought it was pretty cool.

As for me, the point of all this rambling was to occupy my time as I waited for my cardigan to bleed out dyes. I want to block it, sew the front and back together, and try it on before I throw sleeves on it. I'm sort of afraid the sleeve caps won't fit, but we'll see. I'll be doing a soft block on this lace, because the pattern was written with positive ease, and I want negative ease. And yet, I didn't decrease the pattern repeats! Go figure!

Yes, this will be a launching point for lace designs in the future. More pictures of the bleeding blue monster to come, once I have wrung out the last of its blue life blood.

Shop Talk ed.1

2009-04-12T11:14:00.000-07:00

I'm so excited! I've finally gotten one of the things together that I had been planning almost from the inception of the shop. I have a video up and running on YouTube of the test we use on the stitch markers. Warning! This video is not for the knitting faint of heart! I abuse my own knitting to prove a point, that the stitch markers have been so well designed that they will not snag your knitting. Polished glass has more of a chance to snag your knitting that our stitch markers, especially if it looks like this.

I'm kidding - but not about the stitch markers, of course! Take a look for yourself. I'm so excited because none of this would have been possible without my snazzy new Eee PC! This sexy little baby will be the cause of my current yarn diet, and I'm okay with that. I was just expecting a fast little laptop where I could crank out excel spreadsheets for my lab class that runs for 8 hours a week. If we're lucky that is. If we're not that lucky, well then, that's just an 8 hour minimum. So I need to utilize any and all downtime that I have to get work done, be it homework, studying, notes, or lab reports. Hence the need for a working lap top to get stuff done. What I wasn't expecting was all the little extras with which it came.

There's the webcam, which you've seen evidence of over at youtube. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about my face being on youtube. I highly doubt I'll turn into a viral video. Then there's also the wonderful mic on the laptop that is ridiculously sensitive. We will not speak of how many test runs I did before the sound quality was to my satisfaction. There's still some static background hissing, but hey, this isn't a profession production studio. There wasn't a teleprompter in my living room giving me cues on what to do next on the video.

I really do hope the store does well, because I'm going to be dependent on its income for yarn money for a while. While the Eee PC is very affordable, it clears out the savings account of a college student working in a lab for minimum wage. Namely, me. So the almost manic devotion to getting the shop up and running and all together has distinct motivations. For example, I would love to knit my my craziest lace designs for the Cherry Tree Hill Competition. Think lace dress, perhaps a gown. Except, you know, I can't afford cherry tree hill yarn right now. What I can afford? Is this yarn from Etsy. In a month, after eating lots of ramen. So yeah, this degree had better be worth it, is all I have to say! So go shop and support your (almost) starving artists.

Knitting Knews

2009-04-11T21:52:00.000-07:00

7/21/2011 - The webservice I use is back up and running! I apologize for the interruption and am happy to say that the free pattern PDF is available for download from this site as well as a free ravelry download.

4/25/2009 - First off, I want to apologize to everyone that has downloaded this pattern already. Two days ago, I found out there was a typo in the x-small version of the swirl skirt pattern. I deeply apologize to anyone and everyone who's tried making the version with 96 sts to cast on and been frustrated with why the lace pattern isn't working out. Rows 6-11 should read as follows:

Row 6: *[YO,K1] 3 times, k2tog, K7* repeat 7 times more. There is a total of 8 repeats of this pattern per round.

Row 7: *K12, K2tog* repeat 8 times.

Row 8: *[YO,K1,] 3 times, k2tog, K8* repeat 8 times.

Row 9: *K13, K2tog* repeat 8 times

Row 10: *[YO, K1] 3 times, k2tog, K9* repeat 8 times.

Row 11: *K14, K2tog* repeat 8 times.

The only thing that's changed is the k2tog in bold print. The reason I left it out is because I am a highly visual and intuitive knitter. When I had written the pattern for the x-small size, I'd made that lace motif 5 times, so I wasn't reading directions anymore, I was visually following the lace as it went. Pure muscle memory doesn't always translate into coherent directions and I'm sorry. Due to computer drama, I can't edit the pdf file of the x-small version right now. However, I have an mht file that I've uploaded to the same directory. You can save the corrected version of the x-small size, and both internet explorer and microsoft word will let you read the complete pattern and print it out if you desire. As soon as I am able, I will upload a PDF. (Lots of computer drama, my Heroes ability is the opposite of Micah. Apparently, I am a walking, talking EMP blast. Computers sense this and crash at random when I touch them. I fry power supplies by touching just one innocent button.)

In knitting news today, I'm over half way on Panel 2 of the front! I'm still no where near my dear friend, Mitz, is on her dress, but I'm enjoying it. I'm reaching the end of the panel and I can feel the drive to finish this section of the dress creeping into my blood. The relentless beat is in my pulse, and my fingers want to march in time with a finished object. It wants to be done, so I can try something new!

In other news, I finally swatched the etsy yarn - oh the suri halo! I have a feeling that when it's worked up, it will feel like the softest mohair ever. I love how alpaca blooms with just the slightest abuse when soaking it. Just a little swishing around in a sink full of water brings out the halo. It won't felt it, and it will create such a soft and warm fabric that's also incredibly light. Deliciousness!

I was a little disappointed in the lace pattern that I used; though, it was the ubiquitous lace clover pattern. The yarnovers in my swatch weren't even at all, and my gauge changed in 10 rows. I'm so tempted to try my hand at my own pattern, but with the yarn doubled, I'll only have about 600 yards or so to play with. I have a few patterns in mind to use as a launching point, but they can wait until I'm done with the ocean waves cardigan. I think part of the reason the tiny swatch drove me crazy was because I was already working on something in a fine gauge. One set of tiny needles at a time, please!

Although, I do have a little freebie for people that aren't on ravelry already. A while ago, I created a skirt pattern that I put up for free, but it was really only accessible through ravelry. I'll put it up here for people to enjoy and modify to suit their personal uses. (Read- not for commercial sale or use.) The Swirl Skirt pattern uses about 500 yards of bulky weight yarn on size US 10.5 needles. The first link is to a pdf file, for the size "x-small". This is the size "small" on me.

I have that in quotes because it's still very large on me, on the order of 4 or more inches of unstretched ease. The diameter of the waistline circle is 18 inches. This is the original one I made that has 112 stitches to cast on for the waistline.

The lace pattern is easy - it's built around a multiple of 8. So long as you reduce the number of stitches by a number divisible by 8, the lace pattern will continue to work. It can also be increased by a multipe of 8. So you could cast on 112 stitches for a larger size, or 84 for a smaller size. If you do want a larger size, I have instructions for the 112 sts cast on. Enjoy! I can't wait to see what other people come up the pattern if they do use it.

Other news updates - just finished a batch of markers, so those should go up in the shop within the next few days. I sent two of the row counters out with some friends for them to test out the design. It's going to need a little tweaking before it's ready to go up in the shop. I need to find a good, strong ribbon or string to use, which may necessitate a trip to the craft store. I'll keep everyone informed.

Let's make stone soup!

2009-04-07T21:09:00.001-07:00

Here's hoping. I took the stone soup challenge, and pledged 20% of the shop's earnings to spend back on Esty. Am I excited? You bet! Except - to mangle a Jayne quote - "Let's see, 20% of nothing is still... oh wait a minute.. nothing!" To which Mal more or less tells Jayne to shut up.

I can't decide if I'd pull an Inara-esque retort or not. I probably would.

Returning back from that brief sojourn into the Firefly-verse, I am psyched about the etsy shop and stone soup pledge. I've started digging around Esty and finding favs, like this delicious silk and cashmere blend yarn. It's cobweb weight of course. Did we forget I'm crazy, and love yarns that torture me? I suppose I'm a knitting masochist, I love the beauty of fine yarns that I forget all about the pain, eyestrain, and needle stabs that knitting in tiny, tiny gauges causes.

Like the last yarn I just bought from Etsy - my first purchase to be exact, was the dreamy rose yarn. I could hardly wait to swatch with it, to tell you the truth. And then I discovered how thin the yarn really is. Thankfully, all the abuse of swatching and frogging brought out the Suri halo beautifully, and the yarn is even mroe soft and squishy and delicious. But I'm going to knit with it doubled, just because I don't want to go blind squinting at 000 needles that would be needed to knit a strand of this yarn.

Silence you. Knitting a cardigan at US 1.5 needles is way better!

Yeah, I know, nobody believes me. But the cashmere content makes knitting such a luxurious experience. The feel of the silk and cashmere sliding through your fingers as the needles seemingly weave this delicate fabric out of gossamer yarn. The soft drape of the lace as it falls down your fingers to form your garment, just giving a teasing hint of how sensuous it will feel against your bare skin when it's finished. Oh, the raptures of luxury yarn!

I can't decide if I want to knit the dreamy rose yarn in an established pattern or write one of my own. I have a lace pattern floating around my head, that got inspired by the vogue dress. I am going to limit myself, however, to two intricate lace projects at one time. Even I have limits on the insanity that I'm willing to attempt. Thankfully, the stone soup challenge is about shopping responsibly, and we all know I need help in that department!

Oh commercialism tastes so good...

2009-04-05T16:37:00.000-07:00

Actually, my brain is a little fried right now. I've been up since 5:30 am or so, and I've only had 1 nap today.

On the happy upside, I've gotten ALOT done, including getting the shop up and running to my satisfaction. For those that care, it's at:

http://REminders.etsy.com

So far, all we're selling is stitch markers. Why? Here's the story. I bought some pretty stitch markers once, at an out-of-town LYS. Unfortunately, the best thing I could say about these markers is that they were pretty. They ate my yarn worse than a cat on crack. You could probably hear my cursing half way across the globe, as the markers snagged yet another strand. The not-so-great craftsmanship of the markers is what inspired me and the wonderful boyfriend to make an etsy shop with markers that don't eat yarn. I've tested all our stitch markers on my own lace knitting, just to show you how much faith I have in them.

There's so much more I meant to do with the shop, but I'm tired, and at the point where I forget things I should know. Like the teardrop faceted cut is called briolette. I had to look that up, which was a sad moment for me.

I do want to make a youtube video of the testing of the stitch markers, so that the faint of heart can see just how much you can abuse both yarn and marker without snagging. It was funny to see a friend's face the first time I showed her how vigorously I would rub the markers with lace. She delicately dragged the markers across one of my shawls. Me? I rubbed that sucker in there, pinched the marker between two fingers and rubbed like I was trying to polish the glass. No snags, but perhaps a heart palpitation or two on her part as she watched.

And I'll have to figure out those widget thingies. And possibly pimp out my shop in other ways. Joy's done such a great job with her shop, mine's been kicking around for how many months now? It's about time I got it into gear.

Busy as a bee

2009-03-23T15:49:00.000-07:00

Well, sort of. After the insanity of finals week, we went to visit the boyfriend's parents. This resulted in lots of knitting time, luckily for me. I needed it. Thanks to the help of a fellow raveller, I was able to pick up the graduation dress without a math induced headache. She's challenged me to a friendly competition, and holy crap, she's already kicking my ass. She started the dress 2 weeks ago, and she's got more done than me already! She has everything but the lower half of the sleeves done on the upper half of the dress. She's already 3 inches into the skirt of the dress. Have I mentioned she's knitting it in the round?

It's a great challenge, because I started a new project out of anger against the dress. I've started the shaker cardigan from Rowan 25 and the Treasury of Rowan Knits book. I really should look through my own pattern books more often, I'd forgotten that I'd wanted to make the cardigan in the first place. I'd gotten some gorgeous silk/cashmere yarn (55/45) in a trade from a friend. It's argosy yarns, haiku 2 ply in their La Haina colorway. It's this gorgeous varigated blue that looks good on both sides of the fabric. Let me show you.

Can't tell which one is the right side or wrong side without having to look for the purl bumps. The first one is the right side. I'm debating making the cardigan reversible, it's just so darn pretty. I started it because I wanted to make something where I wasn't doing drastic changes to the pattern. Okay, okay, I made some changes to the pattern. I added the ribbing, and I'm doing it all in one needle size, 2.5mm. But those are all the changes I'm making, I swear! Except, I might make it 3/4th sleeve if I don't have enough yarn. If my usual lace yarn karma holds out, though, I'll have leftovers.

As you can see, the cardigan has distracted me from my graduation dress. So far, I have the front done.

I've made it so that I don't have as many ends to weave in, by incorporating the ends into the knitting. I like it, because there's less seams to sew and less ends to deal with later. I've started on panel 2 of the back.

I'm nearly at the 8 inches length required, so I pinned the back of the dress to the shoulder of my shirt to test the length. 8 inches barely covers my ass, so it looks like I'll be adding a bit of length. I know there's a second ruffle, but I don't trust ruffles. One good breeze and you're flashing the world.

As for other goodies, my goal this week is to get the etsy shop up and running. Expect to see more links because of it.

I live in a crazy town

2009-03-07T10:35:00.000-08:00

And they have made me queen. For good reason.

So, in the course of three weeks, I have learned to spin, and gotten two spinning wheels. I think that might be the reason I have inherited the crown. Yeah, about that. I don't even know how to spin on a wheel. I've never even tried. I tried to convince the boyfriend I just wanted maybe 3 spindles so I could perfect my spinning technique. No, no, he eared a million billion brownie points and bought an antique spinning wheel.

Not that I want to sound ungrateful, but I don't feel worthy enough to spin on a wheel yet. While the person who taught me says I'm a good spinner - I'm still just a beginning spinner. You know, someone who's just been spinning for 2 weeks. Okay, now it's 3. I can spin alpaca, but wool is the devil and everyone has lied about wool being easy to spin. It's easy for me to spin something my cat threw up if I use wool. Hmmm, maybe I can make cat toys out of that horrid beginner's wool...

The reason I got the second wheel was that we couldn't agree how to fix up the antique wheel. The bulk of the research has been my responsibility, and I wanted to make it into a single drive, scotch-tensioned system. The wheel, from the looks of it, was originally a fine yarn spinning wheel judging from the number of hooks. Oh, and it was double drive, with a canadian tension bar. Guess who wanted to restore it to original condition? Not me. I understand the argument to return it to pristine state, but I'd be afraid to use it.

So, I trolled around on e-bay for parts and lo and behold - I found a second wheel for a terrific price. As in less than 50 US dollars good. The seller had it listed as decorative, and so the auction wasn't doing so hot. Thus I entered into nail bitting negotiations to buy this wheel. I'm not kidding about the nail biting part. I established the wheel important parts still worked - at this point I knew what I could repair and what I could repair from all the extensive research. A wobbly wheel, or a bad flyer were things completely out of my league. Replacing the drive band and switching from double drive to single drive? CAN DO. Thus I find myself the owner of a second wheel. I am so incredibly excited, because this is going to be my workhorse, my wheel that I can tell "Dance for me, my puppet" and do whatever else the hell I want with it.

Okay, I might deserve the title of queen.

So, I'm happily helping the boyfriend restore the antique to pristine original condition. We've got 2 parts ready for restaining already, and we've had it a week. Oh! It's the last week before finals. Shouldn't we be doing something other than studying? I mean, studying for class, not studying about spinning wheels and repairs. Heh.

Other happy news - I traded 3 skeins of RKS Night for 1 glorious skein of Argosy yarn. It's haiku, a 45/55 silk/cashmere blend and I have yarngasms every time I touch it. It's a new color for me, dyed in shades of blue, from the color of the Aegean Sea to midnight blue. I kinda sorta want to do something with feather & fan, because the colors SCREAM for gently waving patterns. Or maybe I'm the only one hearing it say that. It's a delightful process trying to find JUST the right pattern for it.... as I work on the graduation dress.

Shut up. I love the hectic pace of crazy town.

Baby got back!

2009-02-15T10:53:00.000-08:00

Soccer + Martial Arts = Butt Muscles

Which I forgot that I had. The largest measurement of my ass is 37 inches. I'm rather pleased by this number, since it makes a great hip to waist ratio. It also explains why I don't fit size 2 jeans anymore. Or size 4 for that matter. I think I'm okay with this.

The reason I'm suddenly obsessed with measurements is that I took my measurements today. Why bother? Because I really want to make a knitted lace dress by Vogue Knitting. And, as anyone who's ever made a Vogue pattern knows, Vogue does NOT use real people's measurements. Seriously? Who has a 26 inch waist and a 34 inch chest? NOT me. I've sewn Vogue patterns before, I should know better.

So, I took my measurements, and I'm throwing Vogue's measurements OUT the window. Thankfully, the majority of the background on this pattern is stockinette stitch, so it's easy to do increases and decreases and maintain the lace pattern. I don't have that much changing between my waistline and my bustline: about an 1.5 inch increase, or only 6 stitches to increase for 34 rows. For the back bodice, I'm doing 2 sts increased every 10 rows. I think that's right.

I am a little worried how well my chest will fit, since there is a 2 inch difference between my bust and bustline. I'm going to try increasing 2 sts every 3 rows, for 34 rows, which should give me more room in the bust. Thankfully, I'll be meeting with Joy later, who is much better at understanding this gauge and size thing than I am. It's not scary math, but it is alot of algebra. Oh, for those that care, my gauge is 5.5 sts by 7.5 sts per inch. It's been pretty consistent.

As for the yarn, I love Zephyr. I'm using the 2/18 laceweight doubled, and it has forgiven me every time I've frogged the bodice. At this point that's atleast 4 times. Yeah. So the yarn was totally a worthwhile investment. All it's done so far is gained a tiny bit of halo. Hopefully, this will be the last time I need to frog it.

Knitting News Bulletin - for me anyways

2009-02-11T06:39:00.000-08:00

So, all knitting is on hiatus until the socks are finished. Well, almost all other knitting. I got through most of the cabling on the second fingerless glove, mostly because I didn't have any reinforcing yarn with me to start on the second sock last monday. Oops.

I'm about 3 inches away from turning the heel. Considering that I cast on the second sock on tuesday, I think I'm doing pretty darn good. The first sock... well, it turned out any first project does. It's got quirks here and there from where I was learning how to do stuff. An engineer might call them "design features" like the centimeter wide hole I closed with the end of reinforcing yarn. There's also the half-row on the toe that's not fully reinforced because I ran out of yarn there. Things like that, just all around the sock, that I will ignore when I give the socks to the boyfriend. I've learned alot about how to make a toe up sock and what NOT to do.

Let me say, I hate embroidery floss as reinforcing yarn. It's almost as thick as sock yarn, and knitting with it is a pain! I hate knitting with yarn practically doubled on tiny needles. It made the heel and the toe the slowest part of the sock! Rargh. One thing did go right with these socks, though. I am in love with the ease of EZ's sewn bind off. Well, what I did may not be her bind off, exactly, but it's true to the spirit of it. I looped the long tail of the yarn through the last row twice, once through the front and once through the back of all the stitches so that they lay flat like they were knit. It looks nice and it's oh-so stretchy. I love it.

The goal is to get the socks done by valentine's day. I can totally make it... while trying to study for two midterms. I really have no concept of impossible.

Needles in a haystack

2009-02-04T14:40:00.000-08:00

If you were to stick my hands into a hay stack and have me knit like that, then that's how I feel like when I knit on DPNS. Dozens of little tiny sticks constantly poke me while I try to make one single stitch. I realize, that at most, there's really only 5 needles, but with the way they cross and - I swear - tangle with eachother, it might as well be a dozen. If I haven't mentioned it before, I hate double pointed needles with a firey raging passion. The first pair of socks I ever learned, I learned to do on magic loop because I hate DPNs that much.

I was reminded of my passion about DPNs today, when I tried to finish a finger on the celtic knot gloves. Needless to say, I didn't make it through one finger. The poor gloves have been languishing at the bottom of my knitting bag for a reason, I hate hate hate DPNs. It's not even their fault, I had the brilliant idea of adding half fingers to a fingerless glove pattern. Perhaps it's the tiny amount of stitches on tiny yarn that I attempt to do in the round, that make DPNs so difficult. But is it really necessary for one needle holding a mere 4 stitches of fingering weight yarn to twist around completely and then tangle with another needle while I try to knit stitches on the opposite side of the finger? Really? Really?

Suddenly, I understand why people knit completely fingerless gloves. I ripped out the half finger I'd made and then proceeded to rip out the one complete half finger remaining on the glove. The glove is now happily finished, thumb gusset and all, patiently waiting for me to weave in the ends. I don't know why it never occured to me to try knitting the fingers on magic loop. I might not have such a passionate loathing against DPNs if I had thought of trying magic loop first. I've even started on the second glove, with the lovely wooden harmony circs. So perhaps I will have a second pair of fingerless gloves before winter ends.

I've also noticed that the cable on knitpicks needle is 100X better than the cable on my addis. The addi's I have get kinks in the cable, and acquire a certain amount of twist to them after I've used them for a month or so at a time. I can relax the addi cable again with a dip in boiling water, but I haven't had any problems with the knitpicks cable at all. I'm a convert. I may start slowly collecting every needle size Knitpicks has to offer.

"Gather ye rosebuds while ye may"

2009-02-01T09:54:00.000-08:00

Old time is still a flyin'.
For that same flower which blooms today,
Tomorrow may be dying.
-Herrick, Robert "To the Virgins, to make much of Time."

Yay! Today, I woke up and there was no pain in my left hand. Curling it was a little stiff, but no shooting pains. Much love to yoel for her cat sweater project which cheered me up. I crafted maybe a whole hour yesterday, and took it very easy on my left hand. By crafting, I mean I bound off on the front waistband of the vogue dress, and started on a crochet rose. It's loosely based off of A Rose By Any Other Yarn. By loosely, I mean inspired to think with yarn in 3D. I constantly forget that I am way better at crochet than knitting. The woman who taught me how to crochet taught me how to look at an object and determine how it was made - aka patternless crafting. I forget that I have that skill alot.

So, the "gather ye rosebuds" flower was born - or the Georgia O'Keefe rose. Once you see it assembled, you'll understand the reference. I didn't intend for the center of the bud to look so... well, similar to certain parts of female anatomy. Humor aside, it's a lovely reminder to take things easy. Aging sucks, my joints hate me, and I haven't hit thirty yet. It's to remind me that beautiful things bloom over time, and if I want to keep these skills, I have to work within my limitations. And probably pick up a regular exercise regime, that includes more than walking a mile around campus.

I haven't decided whether or not I will write the pattern for the rose. It's interesting to see it shape up to resemble our more modern rose, the hybrid tea rose. It's why I'm making up the pattern as I go along - the old Irish crocheted roses don't look like roses to me. When I thought about it, though, I realized that it wasn't modeled after the tea rose at all. The pointed bud shape of the tea rose is the product of much more modern breeding that only came about within the last century or so. The Irish rose was most likely modeled after the older varieties, like the floribunda. Actually, now that I've looked at one, I definitely see the resemblance. It makes sense, since the floribunda is a much hardier rose than the tea rose, and would have been much more common two centuries ago.

As for the rest of my projects, I think I bit off far more than I could chew with the f'ing deer socks. Colorwork and patternless socks? Ooops. The nail in the coffin was having him try on the first finished sock. Well, he tried to get it on, to no success. There simply wasn't enough stretch in the colorwork to fit his heel. I was sort of dreading making the color on the second sock anyways. Now that I know it doesn't fit, I think I might make a pair of normal socks first, before going back to these socks. The deer will have to be saved for another special occasion.

That, and I want to do reinforced heels on his socks. I don't learn, do I? Hmm, let's see - let's try a technique I've never done before in a pattern I've never done before. To make it more interesting, let's try it in fingering weight yarn! On magic loop! Brilliant! Sounds like fun to me. I needed to stop by a craft store today anyways.

Tragic Tragedies

2009-01-31T10:43:00.000-08:00

I think I sprained my hand.

The thought of not being able to knit depresses me. I suppose it's lucky that it's my left hand, since I am right handed, but still. I rely on knitting to soothe me when I panic and pick me up when I feel like things get to be too much for me. Anyone familiar with me knows that I have crazy psychotic parents that were hyper-critical of their over-achieving daughter. I got grounded for getting a C in calculus - when I was a junior and high school and a whopping 17 years old. It was the first C I'd ever gotten in my life, a tragic black mark on my 4.2 gpa. To a certain extent, I've internalized that critical voice that tells me I haven't worked hard enough, haven't tried hard enough, haven't done enough, to achieve what I want to do. Intellectually, I know that the voice is wrong. Emotionally, it's enough to stop me from trying just so I don't fail.

Knitting gets me through those moments. I love being able pick up a pair of needles and some yarn and create things almost out of nothing. It reminds me that I can achieve things, and create things that no one can take away from me. I guess that's why I'm so strangely fearless with my knitting. Lace Vogue dress pattern? Hell yes, let's do that in 6 months! Why? In an emotionally immature way, I'm still rebelling, proving that I can because sometimes I believe that I can't.

I realize that there's some step past this, but I haven't a clue what it is. Before, I knew I had to learn to think for myself, make my own decisions and fail. But what do you do after? Is it like knitting, where you mess up, frog, and start over? And how do I do that without knitting?

I'm a little tea pot....

2009-01-25T21:14:00.000-08:00

Well, actually, I bought one at target this weekend. It's adorable, it's part of those stacked tea pot and tea cup sets. I'm in love with it, mostly because it's microwaveable. Tea may be an old world comfort, but being able to heat water to boiling point in the microwave rocks. No more waiting 15 minutes for a cup of tea to finish boiling and brewing!

This, of course, has inspired me to knit a tea cosy. In doing so, I have discovered not only my faux brittish heritage, but the fact that I suck at reading cable charts. Thankfully, tea cosies are easy to make, and cable patterns are equally easy to fake. There are some absolutely adorable ones out there. My personal favorite was this gorgeous pastoral scene that someone had needle-felted. Atleast, I had the sense to realize this was way over my head.

As it stands, my tea cosy is half made, from leftover scraps of superwash wool. Which, I like, since I know it will get wet and dirty. The ability to throw it in the washing machine will make it quite, quite useful. And maybe, if I get really ambitious, I'll felt or full one of my own.

Obsessions....

2009-01-20T06:58:00.000-08:00

All the girls at knitting club know this: I have a strange obsession with felting anything NOT wool. Alpaca currently is my favorite. However, I swatched yesterday, and oh dear god. Angora felts beautifully! It might have been the freedom spirit held together with the conejo yarn, that made it shrink so well, I don't care. But the angora halo made up for all the wool scratchiness. It was so yummy soft, that I'm contemplating using the rest of my scrap angora (I know, luxury fibers should not be scraps.) as the hat band in my newest cloache. I do have sad news about my latest cloache - it's lost somewhere in Detroit. May it find a happy home. Damn flights and tired brains that make me forget things, like my own hat in an airport.

So, to make up for it, I'm going to make another one. Of course. That's the beauty of making your own things... you can always make another. I'm resolved to use all my scrap yarn, however, mostly because I have a frightening amount of scrap. My scrap laceweight multiplies like f'ing tribbles. I have yet to run out of yarn for a project actually. Knock on wood, right? But I keep having substantial amounts of yarn left over from lace projects. How substantial? Enough to make other projects that are "supposed" to take up 100+ yds. Like fingerless gloves, and crocheted chokers. Grrr. It's getting a little ridiculous. I am trying to be a good knitter, however, my stash just won't go away. Take the Fit for a Boyfriend hat. It's *supposed* to use up a full ball of yarn. Yeah right. I have enough left over from 2 balls of yarn to make another hat. ANOTHER HAT. How ridiculous is that? I find this incredibly irritating.

As for the hat, I really should use my left over alpaca, mostly because the brushed suri alpaca isn't enough to make the hat. Oops. Ask me how I know.

Socks are going well, boyfriend's hat just has two ends to weave in, and my knitpicks cables are in the mail. Knitting's going well, it's that small side business that's completely slowed down. I haven't felt the urge to sit and draw logos for a couple of hours. Maaaaybe tomorrow. I hope. But it's the wonderful boyfriend's birthday tomorrow, and I really want to spoil him. He makes it very hard to do that. He refuses to let me make him breakfast in bed. How silly is that?

Ambitions....

2009-01-15T07:15:00.000-08:00

Knitting resolution for this year: write a pattern and submit it for publication. Contestants so far, the leaf scarf is nearly done. I was smart this time and took notes the whole way through. All I have left to do is the last leaf, its crochet edge, and block. I love angora by the way, it feels fantastic. The other contender is the raglan lace shrug. It's been in hibernation for a long while now, so we'll see.

My other ambitions which may or may not kill what's left of my sanity are to make my own dress to wear to graduation. That's right, I'm graduating college. One of the numbers from Avenue Q keeps playing in my head, the "I wish I could go back to college" song. Thankfully, grad school applications aren't due till march/april, but it's really time to start looking. Oops.

The other ambition this year is to knit a shawl for a friend for her wedding - namely 'cause I can't afford an expensive wedding present. Yay work-study salary!

Color me this...

2009-01-09T07:02:00.000-08:00

So.

I lost the adorable cloache hat somewhere in Detroit over the christmas holidays. This sucks lots, I know, but I've been debating a new hat ever since. Except I can't make my mind up over a design. I'm rather fond of the snowflake tam except I don't have the right colors for it. I suppose I could trade with one of the girl for a blue-varigated yarn. I don't know. I have creamy alpaca in fingering weight. I have red varigated wool in sock, and burgundy tweed in alpaca. All of which would be around the right size. I want a colorwork pattern with roses, but I haven't found a free one on ravelry. I could be crazy... and WRITE ONE. that is one of the goals of the year, to write my own pattern... and submit it for publication. Hmm. But I'd have to get some green for stashing. Damn.

But I'm supposed to do a knit along of the sterling cloche with one of the girls. But that would mean I'd have to buy yarn.

Buy yarn, use stash. A classic knitter's delimna. What to do, what to do...

Fuzzy Dreams

2008-12-25T23:52:00.000-08:00

So, I read about all these wonderful things people knit for their home. The latest is house slippers which I crave because our first floor is very cold, despite our best efforts at insulation. The idea of toes wrapped in alpaca slippers sounds delicious - to me *and* my cat.

That's right. Delilah Damnit is aptly named because cursing usually follows her name. She likes to eat yarn. She likes to eat cotton. She likes to eat fabric. Hell, she likes to eat *plastic* for crying out loud.

We've tried cat grass, and that mostly curbs her appetite for roughage. Mostly. The occasional sock does make it into her mouth if it didn't make it to the laundry basket first. I guess that's why I don't bother knitting socks. I'd be sorely tempted to make fur lined mittens in a suspicious tabby shade if she ate a pair of hand made socks. Could you really blame me? She ate part of a baby sweater I'd made for my boss, so that's a gift that I'll have to remake. Nothing is safe from her voracious mouth.

So the dreams of a home filled with loving warmth will have to stay just that. Dream. Stupid cat. I fear leaving a knitted throw on the back of the couch. I'd just find it in her litter box for the next 6 weeks.

Cooling Cloche

2008-12-02T20:10:00.000-08:00

So, I hate winter.

My response to the cold weather has been to create various hats in a vain attempt to block the freezing winds from replacing my earrings with icicles. So far, all attempts have failed. The latest is the felted cloche drying on my head. Tomorrow or Thursday will provide a good time for me to test how well it worked.

I have to say, it feels not a little strange to have a hat drying on your head because you don't have a hat form. I've shaped some plastic bags and squished towels just in case, so the hat can continue to dry while I sleep. It's a strange feeling.

Fidgety

2008-10-28T21:27:00.000-07:00

So, I convinced my parents that they should buy me yarn for acing a graduate level psychology course. Oh, by the way, I'm an undergrad. I placed the order with knitpicks, enough to get the free shipping, by a whopping 29 cents. I WANT YARN. I haven't gotten any sort of confirmation yet, and it's driving me crazy. It's all small project stuff, since I have not felt the pull of a large project with mid-terms hanging over my head. I just want to know the order was processed so I can start the next wait - shipping!

"I'm like an ocean wave that's bumped on the shore..."

2008-10-27T11:33:00.000-07:00

So, I can't seem to sink my teeth into a knitting project lately. After a rapid-fire update of all the projects I have on my needles, I realize that I have way too many projects in progress. And none of them really call to me the way the ruffled sweater, or Giselle did.

Then again, the crushing weight of midterms might have something to do with the lackluster desire to make anything. It's kind of annoying. I really want to get to the point where I can knit without looking, but I'm never quite there yet. It's so annoying. I like lace, because it demands that kind of attention, but nothing else I'm making is really that intricate. Unless you count the evil devil known as the nature scene shawl. It's a charted shawl that has NO REPEATED PATTERNS. The whole damn thing is a unique chart from cast-on to cast-off. And I'm doing it in super slippery silk. I must be trying to drive myself insane.

Giselle a go-go

2008-10-17T13:10:00.000-07:00

Soooo, I'm nearing the end of the Giselle sweater. The sleeves are done. The bottom extension is done. The top, with all its modifications, is done. I should detail those mods, it was pretty intense. Other than that, I didn't deviate from the pattern.

Well, except maybe for the sleeve flares. I'm thinking of skipping one of the short row flares, because the flare is working out wonderfully. I don't particularly need the long endpoint in the center of the sweater, seeing how prone I am to trailing sweater sleeves everywhere.

Speaking of other unnecessary steps, I blocked the top and bottom half. Whee! Even after all the intense mods of decrease every 2nd row (essentially, every knit row), for 26 rows, the damn thing was still too big. Oh, yeah, I also stopped increasing at the neckline, umm... around row 20-something? Maybe row 22. I think. Anyways, I got it all bound off and it was STILL too large. I was 36 sts short of what the pattern called for, and I refused to frog back AGAIN.

Instead, I shrank it. :D The blocking may have been unnecessary, but it gave me the opportunity to semi-shrink the sweater. Bless ravelry and all their members. The two pieces got hand washed separately in the sink. First wash was warm water with detergent, followed by a cool water rinse, and then a warm water rinse with fabric softener. I must say, the fabric bloomed beautifully - AND shrank wonderfully! I was careful not to agitate the sleeves, which fit me perfectly. Go figure, right? But I agitated the center part of the sweater, shrinking down the neckline and bottom hem. From the amount of bloom from the yarn, I get the feeling that I almost started felting it. Thankfully, the yarn forgave me for putting it through so much stress. The loose gauge still has tons of wonderful drape. I agitated all of the bottom extension of the sweater, but not nearly as much as the top. It survived the process with little to show for it, but it fits well. We'll find out when I start piecing it together.

Which irritates me not a little bit. The pattern says that there's no seaming, however, the crochet trim version has seams! Yeah, the pretty crochet connects the sleeve flares to the sleeves, and attaches the bottom extension to the top. But they're still seams. No matter how decorative they are, they're still seams, with accompanying annoying ends to weave in.

I am happy to report that the bristol buckingham yarn spit splices remarkably well. It is a touch splitty when used at a loose gauge.

Shrinking Giselle

2008-10-09T14:09:00.000-07:00

No, not the supermodel.

So, I finished the top bit of the Giselle sweater and it's still big. I'm 6 stitches short of the count, which is fine. I'm glad that I started the neckline much higher than the pattern recommended, it's perfect right where it is. The back seems a little big, but we'll see what happens when I put it together.

I still can't make my mind up on the color, however. It's a strange, fey sort of color, appearing red in one light and brown in another. It reminds me a lot of foxes, particularly the stories about the kitsune. Like the fox-wives of the old tales, the color changes with its background and light. I tried on the top half, and it's almost burgundy against my brown skin. However, it gets quite brown against my red satin bag. It's red in sunlight, brown in yellow light, and so strange. I'm learning to like it, but I'm never sure what to think of it. I don't think I will dye it.

I will say the yarn feels marvelous. It tends to split a little bit, when knitted at a loose gauge. I can't wait till I wash it, and have the yarn bloom. I do wonder about shrinking it before I piece it. I think that might be the best thing to do, since it's just a tiny bit big, even with how much I've changed it, which isn't much. The funny part is that I've made the smallest size of the pattern. And I even made a gauge swatch! C'est la vie.

Sigh. I ripped it. Well, just back to the 4th row underneath the arm. Now I'm doing a decrease under the arm every 2nd row. Somewhere along the line, I'm going to stop with the neckline increases, but I'm not sure where yet. It hurt to undo four inches of knitting though.

And a good mornin' guv'nor!

2008-10-04T08:21:00.000-07:00

Sooo, I've put all my projects on a really brief hiatus while I work on some fingerless gloves. Autumn - winter, rather - has arrived all unannounced, and I cannot stand the cold. The gloves resulted from some beautiful sock yarn that I bought in Nelsonville. Who knew there was a good yarn store there?

Originally, I had bought the yarn to make a drapey wrap from Vogue's Spring/Summer 2006 issue. Except, I hadn't counted on the superwash wool to be so un-drapey. I got 3 skeins of Plymouth's happy feet in their varigated red. As much as I love luxury yarns, I realized I've been buying things that require hand washing. And that creates a need for a LOT of drying space. Which, of course, isn't always available. So yummy sock yarn it is! I thought the thin nature of the sock yarn would make it drapey. Yeah, that didn't work at all. I hadn't counted on the way the yarn fluffs up on itself.

Then, 2 days into the Giselle sweater pattern, the weather literally dropped 20 degrees. It went from being in the 70's to the 50's. Being the tropical bird that I am, I can't stand anything cold. Some digging around produced Bronte's mitts, which I have, of course, modified heavily. They're completely fingerless except for the thumb. I've changed it so that I can have fingers. I used another pattern as a guide for casting on the fingers. Maintaining the lace pattern on the fingers was alot more challenging than I thought it would be.

The glove surprized me, though. It's alot warmer than I would have expected. I'm typing with the half finished glove on, but it's quite warm. I love them.

Talk about your DPN hell, though. I've knit the body of the glove in magic loop, but the fingers are less than 20 stitches each. Yeah. DPNS. And the rest of the edge held on DPNS. Imagine trying to knit with the active stitches on 4 needles, and then there are 2 MORE DPNS at the bottom, holding the other stitches for the rest of the fingers. It's like a bundle of twigs with yarn.

Mod notes: I simply left off 2 stitches on the chart D repeat to make it a smaller lace repeat for the fingers. It works well for the middle finger though, where I had 20 sts. I kept knitting the fingers on size 3 needles because I liked the gauge and it looks like it works well. I also did 6 repeats of the rib pattern before creating the hole for the thumb gusset. i used 10 repeats for to cover my wrists. I did NOT use the secondary lace charts for the tip of the thumb. Instead, I just used the lace rib for 2 rows. On each of the fingers, I used the picot cast off, but I only used 3 sts between each bump. For the arm cuff, I spaced 4 stitches between instead of 5. Pictures soon, but I'm quite pleased with how it turned out.

EUREKA!

2008-10-01T10:11:00.001-07:00

I finally get to start on the Giselle Sweater! I'm sooooo excited about it. I've made a gauge swatch that appears to be dead on. The gauge didn't change at all when I washed it, but the yarn did fluff up nicely. So when I knit with the yarn originally, it looked a little thin for the needles I was using. Bless alpaca for blooming when washed.

I'm so excited about this sweater, though. It'll be sheer delight just working with Plymouth's new yarn. It's an alpaca silk blend that I just adore petting. It feels wonderfully smooth when it knits up.

On other happy notes, I've finished 3 other projects. Which sounds impressive, but they weren't all knitted in 24 hours. I just had some ends to weave in on a sweater shrug, and a sleeve to finish on a baby sweater. But it's nice to get hem all done so my projects are cleared out a little.

I'm flying high on the wings of...

2008-09-30T10:28:00.000-07:00

a shawl.

So I'm working on the icarus shawl I'm making for my boyfriend's mother. She saw the icarus I had made and wanted to make one for herself. I sort of discouraged her from making a super nice one since I, ahem, had already bought the alpaca yarn to make her one.

I'd forgotten how nice the pattern is to work on. I think I may splurge on some addi bamboo needles to make the knitting go faster. I've just gotten to the point where I can purl without looking and yeah. I'm deathly afraid of dropping stitches - icarus is SO unforgiving of that. Ahh well.

I've got finishitis, so I'm trying to finish atleast 3 projects. The poet's sweater is ALL done!!! Dance of glee!!! Pictures coming soon, I promise. The neck ruffle stood up alot more than I would have wanted, but that's an easy fix. Someday, I'll probably buy another ball of the yarn and cut off the collar to make another. I would definitely make it wider than recommended, if you're using a mohair yarn, because I didn't realize just how much body the mohair would have by itself.

Hopefully, I'll get some pictures up for the finished projects tomorrow.

Are we there yet?

2008-09-29T07:14:00.000-07:00

I've got the same antsy feeling that a 5 year old has after being in the car for more than 10 minutes. I'm so nearly done with the poet's sweater that I can taste it. And it's driving me crazy.

So I picked up 139 stitches or so. I didn't realize there's a doubling row on the ruffle. So now it's 278 stitches. And then there's a row after that where you make a stitch in between the knit stitches of the k2,p1 ribbing. So now it's 300+ stitches. It's a very fluffy ruffle and it's dead boring and it takes forever to finish a row. I have all these other projects that are just begging me to finish them, and I can't get to them yet because this project obsesses my mind.

Gah!

Sqeee! Leggo my legos!

2008-09-20T14:15:00.000-07:00

I just had to squeal. I added (yet more) yarn to the stash, courtesy of the bestest boyfriend ever, who gave me the means to buy more yarn as a birthday present. I have a ball winder but I haven't got a swift. So I made one out of the legos he had bought a few months ago. We had intended to make a lego ball winder, but a lego swift will do!

And now, I must think of a pattern for 328 yards of filatura di crosa superior. I've never felt a yarn so airy soft.

Oh me, oh my

2008-09-19T12:11:00.000-07:00

What do you do when your broomstick lace silk yarn looks like something the cat threw up after you've tried crocheting the lace?

Whence we shuffle off this mohair coil...

2008-09-16T19:16:00.000-07:00

Notes on Poet's Sweater Mods. I didn't do the last two increases before the cap shaping until the sleeve measured just shy of 20 inches. It was maybe one or two rows or a quarter inch short of the 20. There are alot of sleeve changes that I've done, that I'll detail later.

9/17 - okay, finally, got some boring downtime where I can detail the vast changes I made to the sleeve. I cast on 138 stitches instead of 95, and knitted them in the round. Which irritated the crap out of me when I did the decreases, and suddenly wound up with a small diameter sleeve. On one hand, that's perfect for my ridiculously tiny wrists. On the other hand I hate knitting on dpns. Anyways, the decreases went as follows:

After 4.25" of the ruffle, I used a row of SK2P to decrease to 46 sts. Which was still big for my tiny wrists. So, I did 5 more rows of decreases at the beginning of the round - a k2tog at the first stitch and at the 23rd st. Then it was at the 1st and 22nd st. Then at the 1st and 21st... You get the idea.

After decreasing down to 36 sts, I kept that up until the sleeve measured 8 inches. Then reversed the decreases, with a Make 1 at the 1st and 18th st, then at the 1st and 20th, then at the 1st and 21st... Second verse opposite the first, return to 46 sts total.

I must confess, I only followed some of the recommended increases. I think when the sweater measured 10 inches, increased to 48. Four rows later, I increased to 50. Then, when the sweater was like 18 inches, I increased two stitches to the inch in length. So when It was 18, I increased to 52, at 19, to 54, and at 20 to 56. Finally, I arrived at the magic sleeve width number, and did all of the recommended cap shaping.

In retrospect, I would have done something different to hide the rapid decrease/increase at the cuff, but it's barely noticeable.

Lights! Camera! Action!

2008-09-11T07:25:00.000-07:00

Found the battery charger! So expect pictures of the WIPs within the week.

In other exciting news, I've finished the body of the poet's sweater! The best part is that it fits perfectly with all the changes that I made to it. Using size 5 needles + knitting loosely + in the round + leaving out 4 stitches total = perfect fit. Oh, yeah, I forgot, I also knit an extra inch higher before starting the neckline. I saw a sample of the sweater in the knitting store, and the original neckline plunged straight between the boobs on the mannequin. Since this was not the look for which I was aiming, I knitted an inch higher than the directions said, before starting the split for the neckline. I went and did the recommended decreases until there was the amount of stitches left for the shoulders - 12 total on either side, and it worked out well.

I want fluffier sleeve ruffles, though. I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to pull that one off. I also want them shorter, too. I'm thinking of increasing to 144 stitches, and using K3tog to decrease it to the right size for the sleeve shaping. Or maybe use larger needles before switching to smaller ones. I haven't decided yet.

Actually, I went with a 138 sts cast-on, and then I think I'll do a k2tog, k3tog decrease. I hope it works!

By jove, I think she's got it!

2008-09-10T14:58:00.000-07:00

There's nothing more boring in lab work than:
1)Watching a centrifuge run.
2)Watching alcohol evaporate from a sample.
3)Watching a gel run.

#1 took priority over #2 because centrifuges are louder than heat blocks, making them more annoying even though I am currently waiting for #2.

Anyways, I found a pattern to use for some yarn that has been haunting me for years now! I want to make this dress out of the pound of cotton flake that I ordered years ago from webs. Then, I want to dip dye the tiers.

Yeah, it might be a bit much, but it will be so much fun!

On the happy upside, I'm nearly done with the body of Poet's Sweater. I'm annoyed I can't add any photos of any of my WIP's because of the move. I've got rechargeable batteries, but no clue where the recharger actually is. So I have a camera, I have several works waiting for completion... and no juice for said camera. Such is life. Soon as I find it, I'll get photos up, promise. I've done something unique for me, I've knitted the sweater from the bottom up in one piece, and it works. I think. I have yet to try it on. I'll let everyone know how it's working out with all the mods I made to the pattern.

Objects of Covetion

2008-09-04T07:29:00.000-07:00

I so want this yarn to make the Lacy dress from the Vogue Knitting Spring/Summer issue of 2007. How did I make this jump? I think I want to use the acorn lace edging for the cape. That or the lace edging for the flower motif shawl from the winter 2007/08 issue.

Stormclouds, part 2

2008-09-04T06:41:00.000-07:00

After studying many pictures of the shawl, I realize what I need to do to make it for myself. 6 to 10 repeats of feather and fan make more than enough body on the shawl to comfortable wrap around the shoulders. For love of numbers, I think I'll go with 7 on size 7 needles.

As for the border, I really must thank my fellow ravelers who took pictures of the lady's circular cape while it was a work in progress. Seeing the lifelines really helped me understand how the shawl was knitted. The border has several construction elements.

1) A provisional cast on at the neck to be able to pick up live stitches for the collar which is constructed out of the lace border.

2) Half of the lovely border edging on the bottom of the shawl is actually knitted after the feather and fan motif is finished. It's predominantly in stockinette and garter stitch as far as I could see.

3) The border is one that I have never done before. Eep! It's one where you start with a little bit of a live edge and pick up stitches from the end of the work AS YOU GO ALONG IN ROWS. It's hard to explain, but I understand the construction. Double EEEP because I don't understand how they did the "corners" at all. With the feather and fan construction there are no real corners, because the shape of the knit rounds them out a little.

I'm going to have to dig around in my books for lace edgings. So far I'm leaning towards point edging, wave lace edging, and cypress from A Field Guide to Knitting. I'll have to dig through my vogue magazines to see if they have anything I like.

Stormclouds of thought

2008-09-03T14:39:00.000-07:00

So, I really have to wonder why people publish patterns for books at ridiculous prices when the patterns contained use themes that are over a century old. Said themes have fallen out of copyright protection and are free on the web. For those of you who are familiar with fan and feather - this should look like a certain pattern out of a certain Victorian era inspired book of knitting patterns. Ahem. Needless to say, I'll be nabbing that pattern and modifying it for the cape. Notes on the pattern nabbing so far:

10 sections or less look like the best semi-circle.
Atleast size 6 needles or larger.
Rowan kidsilk haze loans itself beautifully to this lace. I have 3 balls eager to be used up.
Border lace? I haven't stormed that one up yet.

It's just good to know I have an idea for using the last of the silver kidsilk haze Sean got me for our anniversary present. I prefer warm tones, so I usually don't wear grey or silver and had no ideas what else to do with it.

Ironically, this all came to fruition from a search for OTHER patterns. Isn't that just the way things work out? I was looking for a pattern to use up 600+ yards of silk that I bought off of ebay. It's on its way to the good ol' USA from India, so it's got a bit of time to get here. I couldn't resist the dirt cheap price they were selling it at... except I had NO pattern in mind for it. I was eyeing the hourglass jacket, but wouldn't know you know, the yarn I got isn't quite enough. BLAH. Actually... at 120 grams and 600-800 yards a gram, it just might be enough. Hmmm.

On other knitting notes - avert your eyes if you can't bear to hear a word against addi needles. I don't like knitting lace with addi needles. Stop. No error. You did read that correctly. I love knitting socks - well, a sock so far - via magic loop on my addi needles. I'm sure I'll love magic loop on my addi lace turbos. I do not like knitting the Icarus Shawl on Addi lace turbos. I found my pair of clover bamboo US 3 needles and switched the shawl over to them. After switching, I could feel the ahh of relaxation in my fingers as I stopped fighting the needles and got down to the business of knitting. I've given addi their best shot, but I am just a diehard bamboo fan. I'll miss the smoothness of the addi joins though.

I can't wait to try out the addi bamboo needles. There's a pair waiting patiently for me to cast on the giselle sweater, but I have to finish atleast 2 projects before I can start another one.

Speaking of finishing, I do not know why I currently hate making baby clothes. Maybe because they remind me that my clock is ticking. I HATE the pressure of medical advice all steamrolling women into believing they MUST have their babies before they turn 30. I'll be in the middle of graduate school then. Not the best time for a baby. Screw their medical advice. It'd just be even more ironic if I really was going to medical school at the time.

Poet's Blouse - round and round we go

2008-08-31T10:39:00.000-07:00

So, I've modified the Ruffled Collar Pullover quite a bit, and it's got me a little bit nervous about how much I risk. I only did about 5 rows of the rib stitch because I don't like the way the sweater looks with it. The rest of it, I've done in stockinette.

I was worried, however, since I decided to use significantly different needles from what the pattern recommends. The smallest size is 37 inches around - and usually I fit 32-34 inches best. So I decided to try size 5 needles knit very loosely. With the yarn all scrunched up on my 16" US 5 needles, I couldn't tell just how big it would be. At the yarn store, I did pick up a pair of 40" addi bamboo needles, which I love. The sweater fit on them, with room to spare. I could block it out to the right size, but the next question is, how do I get a dummy in my size....

Wheee! Giselle!

2008-08-29T08:57:00.000-07:00

So, as a reward for miraculously pulling off a B in physics (I don't know how I did it, I blame the curve) I'm going to get the supplies to start Giselle.

I just found this fabulous yarn store, the Knitter's Mercantile. I swear I had a yarngasm there. Of the yarn stores in Columbus, I'm hard pressed to think of one that has a wider variety of yarn. The first time around, I just let the variety of yarns sink in while i tried to decide on what yarn to use.

Oh, and if you haven't figured it out by now, this is going to be a knitting blog.

Current projects:

baby sweater for a shower - my supervisor's wife is having a baby.

Serrano for me, I'm in no rush to finish it. I figure a slow pace will keep my sanity intact.

Kureyon Carry-along- it's all knitted and felted, I just haven't had time to line it.

Icarus Shawl - for the bf's mother for christmas.

the Superior Ruffled Collar Pullover from www.tahkistacycharles.com

I've modded the sweater, which reminds me of the once popular poet's blouse. I'm going to try knitting it in the round on drastically smaller needles to save on yarn, since the small size listed in the pattern will be ridiculously large on me