Shawl cozies

I can hear you now... what on earth is she talking about now? Well, I would have had the same reaction a few weeks ago but I read a thread on Ravelry about a portable, roll-up shawl pattern. In the thread, one knitter pointed to a number of shawl cozies she had knitted. One was based on a candle cozy, another was a based on a pouch pattern. It got my gears churning.

I don't like what happens to a shawl when you toss it into a bag. It always gets messed up and I am afraid that it will get caught in a zipper. Sometimes I store them in ziplock bags but I don't like putting them in plastic.

I also had some leftover handspun yarn from the spring shawl I made this year. So I thought I would knit myself one. I made it like a sock toe. I started with Judy's magic CO and increased every other round on both sides till I got to a normal sock width (80 sts). After that, I knit straight for a bit and then kep increasing about every inch till I had 100 sts. I wanted it to be a bit wider to accommodate the shawl. But it turns out that I didn't need to do that.

I got bored and added a lace panel thinking I'd end with the lace. But I got bored knitting lace and went back to stockinette. Then I got bored with stockinette again and did some textured pattern I made up - a round of k2, p2 and then a round of k but I staggered the knits and purls on the next k2, p2 round. I ended with some more stockinette and a rolled edge. The end result is something that I'm pretty pleased about.

This is what I ended up with:

I rolled the shawl up like a burrito:

And this is what the end result is:

I added some ribbon I had laying around. I think I will move it a bit further down but for now, it is done. It can be used as a little pillow also. Which leads me to my next idea...

Yes, it is an envelope. But it is a knitted envelope. And large enough to hold one of my larger shawls. With the shawl inside, it would be a nice pillow and would also hold the shawl secure. I have some thicker handspun that I can knit up into a firm fabric which will be more pillow-like than the soft flexible bag that I made last week. Practice skeins are good for this sort of thing.

I don't anticipate making one for each shawl but just a couple in different sizes that can be used for any shawl.

Interesting, right? Did I inspire you to knit a shawl cozy? Or even to sew one?

Spindling a gradient part IV

In the continuing saga of spindling a gradient with the objective of keeping the gradient as it was dyed, I finished the first single last night.

To rewind and provide some context, if you remember, I split the braid in half lengthwise and started spindling from one end. I have now finished spindling that half. I will start the second half in the next week, I think.

As I finished each cop, I rewound them into bobbins so that the beginning end was on the outside. I also have been annotating each bobbin's order by putting a specific number of bands on it. From left to right, you can see that I have 1, 2, 3 or 4 bands on each bobbin. These hold the end but also tell me the order in which to ply the bobbins. I will now repeat this for the second single.

I also wound up my first spindle spun yarn into a ball, ready for knitting. I am going to make an infinity scarf for me. To maximize the yarn, I am going to provisionally cast on about 40 or so and start knitting flat. Then, when I am done, I will graft the beginning to the end to make a moebius infinity scarf. To make this reversible and also to facilitate the grafting, I decided to do a simple texture pattern with an odd number of rows: 4 rows of k2, p2 rib and then 1 row of knit. The 1 row of knit will be my grafting row.

So I start with a provisional CO, and immediately go into the 4 rows of k2, p2 rib. When I am almost done with the yarn, I will end with 4 rows of k2, p2 rib and then graft the beginning to the end with a half twist in between. It should make for simple knitting that is not too mindless and will give me a nice long scarf that I can wear singly, doubled or tripled.

As you can see, this is a pretty thick and thin yarn and has a mix of different fibers. So there will be a lot of texture in this scarf. I am planning to knit it on a US size 6 (4mm) needle. I hope that will give me enough drape and handle the differences in thickness. It is a nice and soft yarn so it will be a pleasure to wear. When I was learning to spin, I just spun whatever natural colored fibers I could get my hands on. There is a little color in one spot where I added it to differentiate two sections in class. I may leave that in as a feature. You can see it in both pictures: a little red.

Another FO!

I took some artistic pictures of the lace plaid stole to show the size and the texture. I am quite pleased with this project.

And a detail of the texture and the lace

In addition to blocking the stole, I have also been working on the ruffle of the purple triangle shawl. It was slow going as the sts were very crowded on the needle. I switched to a 60" Hiyahiya interchangeable but I found the tips kept getting loose as I pushed the sts around. Also the tips were rather short for this heavy shawl. The cable would hang at almost a 90 degree angle due to the weight. Not fun.

Finally, I just divided the sts onto two circs. One was a 29" which had about 1/3 of the sts and the other was a 40" that had the rest. It was still slow but manageable. I was having fewer problems with sts coming off the tip as I tried to slide them around to make room.

Anyway, I finally finished binding it off last night. It isn't blocked but it is done. My hands are very grateful. Ruffles are not my thing and now I know why.

It is Polyhymnia's Triangle by Rosemary Hill. I combined two variegated yarns that I had. The center triangle and ruffle are from Joslyn's Fiber Farm. The color is eggplant. I had bought this years ago at Camp. I don't think there is a sock yarn in the portfolio any more. But this is a nice mohair/wool sock yarn. The other yarn - the more multi-colored variegated yarn - is Skinny Bugga! from the original Sanguine Gryphon in Burying Beetle. Sharon (of TVknittingpodcast) gave it to me as a trade for a shawl I gave her. We bought beads that matched it and I put them into the eggplant yarn to blend the two yarns together.

I made good decisions on when to stop knitting this time. Usually I end up running out of yarn and ripping back. I watched the yarn usage carefully and managed to avoid that. I have just a few yards of each yarn left. So this shawl is as big as it could be. It will stretch with blocking but it is a nice size. I don't like small shawls. That is why Sharon ended up with a shawl.

And finally, here is a photo to brighten up the darker days of winter. Fiber Optic yarns partnered with the KnitGirlls to create a colorway of her lovely gradients. This one is called Rouge-Violet-Cerulean and I fell in love with it as soon as I saw it. The way Kimber handles the gradients is that they go on pre-order for 2 weeks and you can order as many as you like. She dyes them to order and sends them out. So you can't buy any old gradient at any time but they go on a strict rotation and you can buy them when they come up in that rotation. And of course, some go on hiatus every so often. This keeps her sane and allows us to buy the ones we like in quantity. No mad rush to buy when they hit the store.

My order of 2 gradients arrived yesterday. Feast for the eyes! It is merino-silk

I have to admit to a love of rich saturated colors and Kimber does these really well. I have quite a stash of her gradients to spin in the next couple of years.

Lace plaid stole is bound off

I haven't blocked it yet as I am a little short of time this weekend. I will do it in a couple of weeks and post more pictures.

It is looking nice though. The waviness will disappear with blocking.

On to the next project!

Designing a stole

As I mentioned in my last post, I am working on a design inspired by Rhodocrosite. The idea of a lace plaid design was intriguing. I sketched out this stole.

The fully colored squares are the solid parts, the horizontally colored in parts are semi-solid and the vertically colored in parts are the least solid and the most lacy. The next step was to work out the details of each square. The solid ones were easy. They are going to be stockinette.

I pulled the yarn out and started swatching. My first instinct was to use purse st for the really lacy parts. Purse st is simply yo, p2tog in every row.

You can see the purse st on the bottom right hand side of the swatch. I like the texture but it is biasing quite a bit. This swatch has been washed and is blocked so it is relatively straight. but you can still see how the bottom right hand side corner is curling. So I changed from purse st to its complement, yo, k2tog in every row. The top right of the swatch represents this. And it didn't bias. So that is what the lacy squares are going to be.

At the same time, I was planning the semi-solid squares. I started off by doing a yarnover row every other RS row. This is the bottom left of the swatch. The basic pattern is 3 knit rows and 1 purl row. Every other knit row is replaced by a yo, k2tog row. But I found that this did not provide enough contrast with the lacy squares, as you can see on the bottom left. Yes, it is more solid, but not solid enough.

Therefore, I decided to just do the yo, k2tog row once in every 8 rows instead of once every 4 rows. That is the top left of the swatch and this provided enough contrast for me. My stitch patterns were now complete.

The last part of the design is determining how many sts and rows formed each square. I had planned a 24 st square in the swatch and that gives me a 7" square if I did 32 rows. Perfect. 7" times 3 squares is 21" which is a good width for the stole. I am still debating whether the length should be 11 squares wide or 9 squares wide. I need an odd number to make it symmetrical at both ends. 11 squares gives me a length of 77" which seems a bit much for a stole. 9 squares gives me 63" so I may go with the 9 squares.

That tells me I need to CO 24 x 9 sts = 216 sts.

My work here is done. Now all I have to do is knit the stole. :-)

Silk: it is what's for summer

I have always been a lace or sock knitter in the summer months when I am rational. When I am irrational, I have knit heavy sweaters and bulky shawls and almost died in the process. This summer, I am enjoying the process of knitting with very fine silk. It is light and easy on the hands, and doesn't add any heat to one's body.

You probably saw the cone of silk when I was asking for opinions on what to knit for Camp. The swatch on the right is the one I knit before Camp that gave me a slightly smaller gauge than the pattern called for. The one on the left is the one I knit after, with 1 size bigger needle. Now the number of rows and stitches are not the same in the two swatches so they aren't comparable by observation.

Swatch on the right was on 4 mm needles:

• 36 sts = 5.5 - 5.75 inches (depending on how I pat it out) - not quite 6 spi
• 42 rows = 5 inches - not quite 9 rpi

Swatch on the left was on 4.5 mm needles:

• 30 sts = 5.5 inches - more than 6 spi
• 54 rows = 7 inches - way more than 9 rpi

Pattern gauge:

• 24 sts = 4 inches - 6 spi
• 36 rows = 4 inches - 9 rpi

I liked the fabric I got with the 4 mm needles so I am going with that and making adjustments as needed to the garment so it fits. I will also measure the gauge after I have knit a bit of the garment to see if my gauge is different. It is slow going as there are a lot of sts but I am enjoying the process and in no hurry to finish it.

In this photo you can see the top of the shoulder and the front to the left, and the rest of the cardi bunched up on the right. I wanted to show you the raglan line treatment that I am doing. I am not following the pattern on this as I love this particular raglan line. I may also add some lace to the bottom to lengthen it but that is a decision for later. The color is lovely, the yarn is beautiful, it is relatively easy knitting and very relaxing for the summer.

Camp and my contest entry

I did not take any pictures at Camp this year. I realized this only after I came back and unpacked my camera. I didn't even take it out of my backpack! I have no idea why. So I am going to point you at some other blogs that have pictures.
knitaddict, feralknitter and fibernating are just three that have pictures I like.

I am going to show you my contest entry instead. The theme was Elizabeth Zimmermann's 100 year anniversary. I designed and knit a commemorative scarf in Joslyn Fiber Farm's Shine. This is a 50/50 wool/silk lace weight wool. I believe the base is the same as Zephyr Wool/silk but dyed by Joslyn. Rumor has it that she is closing down her business but here is her site. She is a great dyer so if she is closing down, it will be a loss. I bought this yarn at my very first Knitting Camp (2005?). I picked patterns from a Schoolhouse Press book - the company that Elizabeth Zimmermann founded. I called the scarf Peaks and Valleys because that is what I think life is all about. The patterns are from the Second Barbara Walker Treasury.

This is the center of the scarf. I knit it up from both ends and grafted it in the center. This pattern is one of the peaks.

These are the valleys which separate the peaks from each other. You can see the rivers running through them.
More peaks...
The two ends were in garter stitch, Elizabeth Zimmermann's favorite stitch. I wrote KNIT ON on one scarf end, and
EZ 8 9 1910 (her birth date) on the other.
Here is the blocked scarf draped artfully on the couch. It is very soft and lovely. I used the leftovers from Stor Rund Dug to complete it and I have tons of yarn left over.
I think I came in 6th or 7th from the top. You will probably see the winning entry on one of the other blogs. It definitely deserved it.

Lace weight knitting is lovely for the summer because it is light and portable and not very bulky on one's lap. Of course, I had to start a shawl in sport/DK weight at Camp and it is exactly the opposite of desirable summer knitting - bulky and hot. I didn't do the featherweight cardigan because I didn't get gauge on my swatch and I want to swatch some more before I decide if I like the fabric I got in this swatch so I will rework the numbers, or if I like the fabric I get with the specified gauge.

Gansey Saga, Finis

The gansey is done. Today, I thought I would spend some time describing some of the design details that one has to consider when creating one's own designs. First of all, the bottom border. The pattern of the sweater should flow from the bottom border. I tend to vacillate between ribbing and carrying elements of the design into the border. In this case, I opted for the latter but I still planned the ribbing so it would line up with the pattern elements.

The ribbing matches the vertical lines in the pattern elements so that a vertical knit line doesn't flow from a purl st in the border. To do this, I had to put 2 purls next to each other below the garter ladder.

Another element to think about is what happens at the neckline. The front neckline is especially critical because it is right in front of a viewer's eyes. The pattern must end appropriately at the neckline: Either a full or a half pattern repeat can work depending on the pattern. In this case, I could have succeeded with a half diamond but not a quarter or a three-quarter diamond. As you can see, I was able to end with a full pattern repeat at the front neck.

At the back neck, I was off by 1 row. I could have done one more row but I decided not to as it looked OK. The back neck isn't as critical as the front neck but an obvious fraction of a pattern that doesn't look complete can be quite noticeable.

Also watch out for the pattern at the neck shaping. I was able to hide a couple of decreases in a cable cross which allowed me to cross the cable almost all the way to the end so it didn't suddenly become a stockinette column. Some amount of fudging is sometimes necessary. Aesthetics are more important than being true to the pattern!

I also lucked out at the armholes. I hadn't planned it and was planning to wing it when I got there. I could have converted part of the pattern into a stockinette section but I found that my diamonds turned into waves as half of them vanished into the armhole but the other half remained. That worked out very well but is also something to think about as you design.

I put the design on the sleeve right at the point where the diamonds would fit exactly into the sleeve width. I could have put it lower down also as there are multiple places where the math works out. But I decided to put it at the first place where the sleeve width was an exact multiple of the diamond pattern center. I then backed up to the beginning of the motif and calculated where I would have to start it to place the center at the correct round.

I also think about the types of decreases/increases I want to use. I tend to prefer fully fashioned decreases/increases - where they are placed a little inside the seam and pointing into the seam rather than parallel to it. In this sweater I used fully fashioned decreases at the armholes and sleeve seams but ran them parallel to the shaping at the neckline. It is knitter's choice but decide which one you like and stick with it.

Finally, the back of the completed sweater. I gave you a lot of frontal angles while I was knitting it so I thought I'd end with the back.

I hope you have as much fun as I did designing and knitting a historical gansey design. The yarn is wonderful - it is Jo Sharp Silkroad Aran. I love the hand and the stitch definition but it is a heavy sweater. It was difficult doing the neckband with the entire weight of the sweater on the needles.

I had 19 balls of the yarn and I ended with 2 partial balls - one of which was used for the swatch and the other for the neckband. I was pleased with that.

Next up is lace. I cast on for Stor Rund Dug in Joslyn Fiber Farm's Shine yesterday. I am also planning a Schaefer Undulating Waves Scarf which is for a class I'll be teaching. More on those in the weeks to come.

Gauge for gansey swatch

I measured the gauge last night. It is 13" for 61 sts over the
patterns and 3.25" for 26 rows. That is a tad under 5 spi.

I am sending this from my Blackberry.

Gansey Saga Part 1

Thank you for all the compliments on the mittens in Knitted Gifts. Ann, yes, the model is wearing the mittens front to back in the photo. That is why I deliberately labeled each side in the blog post.

Today I'll start taking you through the process I am using to create my son's gansey. I started by looking through a number of gansey books, and completed ganseys on the web for inspiration. My library contains the books in this photo, as well as some of Alice Starmore's books that contain ganseys. But I didn't look through the Starmore books because I was familiar with them and they weren't the type of design I was interested in. Looking through all these books was a lot of fun.

I decided to recreate a historical gansey for this sweater. One that caught my eye was Matt Cammish's gansey from the Gladys Thompson book. It has a lovely elegant design that is also interesting to knit.

But one of the patterns in the gansey is called 'Betty Martin' and it isn't charted. It is not even written out by itself. Instead it is part of the overall pattern and I would have to chart the whole thing. Here's the pattern as described in the book. You can see 'Betty Martin'. It is on either side of the cable but the photo isn't clear enough for me to re-engineer it. That was still definitely a possibility.

Next, I found this lovely gansey in Knitting From the Netherlands. The fisherman on the left is wearing it and you can see a diagram of it on the right side of the book. I liked this a lot and it was charted. That decided it and I went ahead.

I charted the design to my satisfaction - with a couple of minor modifications and started swatching. I set off the cables with purl sts on either side and changed the center diamond to seed st (it was originally reverse stockinette). I also worked out the ribbing to make it flow into the design. The swatch is done and is washed and dried.

I was playing on Picasa and decided to make a collage of the two sides of the swatch to give you a closer look. This is half the front/back with the center on the left. The triangle is actually half a diamond. I adjusted the chart so the point of the seed st diamon nestles into the mid-point of the two diamonds on the right. This gives me a clean repeat of all the patterns at 26 rows. The seed st diamonds will have a few plain stockinette sts dividing them.

Next up is measuring the swatch and coming up with a pattern. I will add either more of the garter st waves or stockinette if I need more width. The yarn is Jo Sharp Silkroad Aran in the color Parchment. It is a dream to knit with and the swatch feels lovely. I am knitting it a bit tighter than called for to make the sweater last longer and to add more definition to the st patterns.

I am going to try an experiment next weekend from Retreat 2.75. I am going to try blogging from my Blackberry so that I can give you a day-by-day recap. Wish me luck. The gansey saga will continue after that.

Bumps in the design road

First, as promised, here is a photo of the completed Clapotis. I decided not to block it as I wanted it to curl and be cuddly around my neck. It is very warm and I'm enjoying it. Mother Nature has been making it attractive by bringing in cold weather in time. The two yarns combined quite well to create a cohesive pattern. It doesn't really look like stripes from afar.

After a week of fidgeting around because I hadn't started the Latvian mittens when I was fresh in the morning, I decided to start them on Friday evening. I'm not sure that was a great decision. I had to rip and re-do the braid and the fringe 3 times because of silly mistakes. Then I realized I had too many sts on the needles. I modified designs from a site with lots of Latvian mitten charts. The chart I started with had 80 sts and that seemed like a good number so I created a chart with 80 sts. But the two edges of my chart didn't match up! I had the wrong number of sts for a complete set of repeats which is key to circular knitting.

Since I was not going to rip and re-do the fringe and the braid, I decided to re-work the chart to fit the 80 sts. I picked different motifs, modified them to fit and created a new chart. Since then I've made some slow progress. I have made so many mistakes and had to tink back that it is slow going. But I am at the end of the cuff now. I have a couple of rnds more for the cuff and then I have to determine where to put the thumb opening and start on the body of the mitten.

These are going to be bullet proof and warm. I am knitting them on 2 mm needles so they fit. I should have started with 64 or 68 sts, not 80. Then I could have used 2.25 mm needles and the stranding would have been easier. Oh well. Warm, wind-proof mittens are not the worst thing I could have created.

The moral of the story is that it does require concentration and a clear mind to design. Trying to do it when one is tired and brain-dead is not productive.

And we are back...

...to our regular knitting content.

First a bit of blatant self-promotion. Interweave's Color Style should be coming out soon and I noticed that they have my mitts on a sidebar in the preview. Therefore I can now show you one of my FOs from last year. I will tantalize you with close-ups so you can see the finished object in the official pictures.
The mitts are made with 4 colorways of hand-painted yarn (3 multis and a solid) and the effect is that of color that is splashed on. They blend quite seamlessly and you can't see where one colorway begins and another one ends. They are knitted in Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock yarn.This is a photo of the top of the mittens and shows the pattern a bit more clearly. That is the end of the self-promotion.

My daughter just returned from a winter in Argentina. She brought back some lovely alpaca knits (sweaters and chullos) for others but I got natural alpaca yarn. She even had it wound for me. The colors are all natural shades of the alpaca. I think this will become a nice warm shawl to remember her winter visit there. The yarn is very lustrous and soft, which I think is a characteristic of the undyed alpaca. I noticed that with the black alpaca yarn I used to make the shawl/wrap for my SIL. It feels very different from the dyed alpaca I have used.
I have been knitting, and knitting, and knitting away on my Wild Apple. One sleeve is almost done. I am at the cuff. I need to do the little colorwork I am adding to the cuff and then the hem. I took the colored yarn with me on a trip last week but I forgot the chart. So I broke off the yarn, put the sts on a small circ and started the other sleeve. I'll finish the second sleeve and then do the colorwork on the first cuff. I can see the end now though it may take a couple of weeks. The pictures don't look any different so I'm not posting them.

Instead, I am going to talk about thoughts going through my head regardin another design. As you remember, I won yarn at Camp this year. I want to make an Elizabeth Zimmerman design to honor the fact that I won the yarn at Camp. The Hand-to-Hand Aran came to mind as knitting a hand-painted multi sideways makes vertical stripes. I was also inspired by one of the coats in the Japanese book that I talked about a few months ago. That coat is done in a variegated yarn with tiny cables that disappear into the fabric but affect the colors in a subtle way and add a hint of texture.
Of course, I am not doing an Aran. I don't have enough yarn and the patterning would be lost in a multi-colored yarn like this. I am just using the concept and the construction to create my own version. The yoke will be textured and the body in lace, which will enable me to eke out the yarn a bit more. Also, that way I can go up a needle size or two in the lace and make it flowing and drapey without compromising the structure of the sweater. The weight of a sweater hangs from the shoulders so making the shoulder area too loose causes the sweater to droop.
I swatched and came up with a combination of cables and background that I liked. Here's the swatch.
When I was on one of my trips this summer, I had some problem with the Wild Apple and couldn't continue. So I started on this as a stopgap. Since the Hand-to-Hand begins with a sleeve, I started a sleeve in the pattern above. But after knitting for a few inches above the ribbing, I realized that I really liked the plain purled fabric between the cables. Since I only have 1000 yds, I decided to eliminate the cables. I re-started the sleeve.
This makes a nice fabric. I like the way the colors play on the surface. However, I am getting 6.8 sts to the inch and I'm wondering what would happen if I went up a needle size and got closer to 6 spi, which is what the ball band recommends.

I am really in two minds about this. A tighter gauge, like the one I have above, will keep the sweater from stretching too much. I tend to prefer the tighter, denser gauge for wearability, especially in sweaters. But I've been told that my gauges are bullet-proof and maybe I should loosen up a bit. Maybe I'll start another sleeve in the new gauge and compare the two and then frog the one I don't like. Decisions, decisions...

For now, this is on hold. I'm working on the Wild Apple till it is done and then I'll start on this again. I love the colors in this yarn and I can't wait to work with it.

Back to knitting

It is strange how one's mind perceives an activity as being interesting or boring at different points in time. Case in point: I would have considered bread baking really boring a year ago. I am currently knitting, gardening and baking. A year ago I was only knitting and knitting much more passionately than I am right now. A few weeks ago, my brain was classifying knitting as boring and requiring more concentration than I could drum up. Now it is acceptable.

I am almost done with one of the mittens. I had to do some ripping out as I am a perfectionist when it comes to published items. The ribbing is a 2x2 rib with an odd single knit thrown in. Those knits become very stretched out for me. Sometimes, it helps to wrap the yarn the opposite way after the knit st but even that wasn't enough for this ribbing. I decided to wrap the opposite way before and after the knit st and that seemed to help. But the biggest benefit was that I didn't accidentally forget that I wasn't doing 2x2 rib at that point. Before I started wrapping the opposite way, I was getting into a rhythm and happily doing 2x2 rib all the way around and then having to fix the error on the next round. Since the two purl sts bracketing the knit st were presented with the leading leg in the back, I had to work them differently and this made me less error-prone. So even if you don't need the lazy or Eastern purl for neatness, it helps to keep the pattern on track. I don't necessarily find that the Eastern purl makes the knit st all that neat but I leave you to judge for yourself. You can see the single column of rib in the middle of the photograph below.
Once the second mitten is done, the next item up on the queue is the cover sweater from the current VK. It is knit sideways across the more solid part and then one picks up and does the lacy part on top. I am going to make it longer and make the button band all the way down to the bottom. There are better pictures on Ravelry, if you are a member.
I am knitting it in Rowan Purelife cotton in Brazilwood rather than the Tahki Sky used in the magazine. Sky is a worsted weight yarn and I thought that was rather heavy for a summer knit. So I am going to make it in a DK weight. It will involve some recalculation of the st counts but it is a fairly simple shape so it shouldn't be difficult.

Quick Update

I don't have a lot to talk about this week. I have been knitting away on my IK book project. I am about 2/3 of the way through the first of a pair. Last night I realized the chart was different for the different repeats! I have to study it to see what I did wrong and it might mean some ripping out and re-knitting. So I am ignoring it today.

I have a new project. I am photographing my flowers and putting them on my computer as my screen saver. It allows me to look at my flowers at their peak despite the fact that I am not always home when they are gorgeous. I won't bore you with them though.

Just a quick correction in case anyone is confused: Arlene commented that she wished she had a redwood. My lovely pink flowers are not from a redwood which is an evergreen, very tall tree. They are from a redbud which is a rather small, deciduous tree. I have an Eastern redbud (Cercis canadensis) but there are other varieties of Cercis.

I hope to have more knitting news next week.

Designing on the fly part II

Ambition is not a good thing. I thought I could do a theme a week! Well, maybe a theme of every 2 weeks or a theme of a month is more likely. But this is very similar to my knitting. I always think I am going to finish things a lot faster than I actually do.

Anyway, more on the large black thing. You can see the st pattern in the swatch above. That is 1.5 repeats of the pattern above the garter st divider. The swatch is blocked so while you can see the different heights of the knit and purl sections, the swatch is actually quite flat.


I put in the garter st dividers when I switch needle sizes in a swatch, to allow me to compare the qualities of the fabric created by the different sizes side by side. I typically swatch at least 3 needle sizes to see how they affect the resulting fabric. But in this case I didn't see a lot of difference so I went with the smaller size as the yarn is alpaca. A tighter gauge is better for stretch control.


Here you can see the wrap itself. It is scrunched up towards the top as it is still on the needles. At the very top you can see the pins I inserted to mark my short row turns. This is the unblocked fabric and you can see how much more pleated it looks. That is the characteristic of the pattern that I think will counteract the alpaca's tendency to grow. Time will tell if it works.

I have completed the neck shaping on one side and have started on the back. which is unshaped. It is half the width of the wrap. The neck shaping is similar to the neck shaping for a V-neck sideways knit cardigan.

The designing on the fly part comes about because there are times when I just can't count. The pattern repeat is 28 rows but I originally counted it as 14. So my first attempt at calculating the short row turns was off by a lot. I found I was running out of sts faster than I was building up the width of the front. I've modified the schematic I put in the last post on the wrap to add in the measurements and the direction of knitting . You may want to go back and look at the schematic.

After I ripped and re-did the front neck shaping I had a sudden, scary thought. I had partial repeats at the center front! That in itself is not a bad thing as the front bands will break up the front so as long as the two are mirrored, it is not a problem. But the back is a whole 'nother story. The back needs to have a smooth flow so that when I'm done with the other front shaping, the back and the front end up at the same row in the pattern. Also, partial repeats in the center back will look amateurish. Back to the drawing board.

I stopped knitting and started charting. That is the beauty of charting. It allows you to see what is going to happen and you can play with alternatives without too much wasted time and effort. I first put in the rows that matched my completed left front. Then I flipped them to show the rows that would have to be done to match the to-be-knit right front. That left the lovely little gap in the middle where the partial rows are. Here's the math:

My short row shaping is 32 rows each. So there are 64 rows for the two fronts total.

My pattern repeat is 28 rows. So the back is minimally two repeats which is 56 rows.

That leaves a gap of 8 rows.

I tried playing around with little motifs to fill in the 8 rows. Given they have to be mirrored, that is not a lot. So I am just going to put in a set of small triangles that will have their points facing down to the bottom of the wrap. While I'm not there yet in terms of knitting, and I may change my mind when I get there, my mind is now calm because I have a solution to the problem. Whew! I can knit again.

The bottom line is that there are always opportunities to fix problems in such a way that it looks intentional. My mother taught me this when I was a teenager and we made a cake for a party. It fell. Badly. The center was concave. It was dense. We cut it into pieces and made a lovely hard sauce to pour on it and served it that way. No one knew we meant to make a cake. It tasted like pudding. We got compliments on it. My mother said 'Why tell people that it didn't turn out as intended? Tell them we meant to make it the way it turned out' and I have lived by that motto ever since.

Mistakes are good learning experiences and one should learn from them and tell others about them so they can learn from our mistakes. But sometimes it doesn't matter and as long as the finished product makes the creator and the recipients happy, the mistake can be turned into a design feature.

And speaking of admitting mistakes, I have to find knitting friends who are not named Maggie. Darn! Maggie Brown, super lace knitter, I owe you a huge apology. I didn't even see the little 'b' at the end of the name. How can I make it up to you? How about a lovely adult beverage at next year's Camp or some luscious yarn?

For the rest of you who don't know her, Maggie Brown is my travel companion to Knitting Camp and was my room-mate this year. I can't believe that I didn't recognize her scholarly erudition in the Latin correction. Mea culpa, Maggie!

Designing on the fly

The theme of this week is the neckline shaping that I am doing on the large black thing. Details w/ pictures to come.

First of all, thanks to Maggie Rabjohns for coming to my rescue and correcting my Latin. I was trying to be grammatically correct from a gender perspective without any knowledge of Latin. Perfect way to make mistakes. Maggie is one of those who has completed the Am Kamin sweater which was featured at Crossed in Translation and that so many people have lusted after. You can see hers (and lots of other gorgeous knits) at Knitaddict's report from Knitting Camp. We are both supposed to be working on Bohus sweaters. Maggie probably is. Me, I'm not, as you know.

I've been knitting and ripping and making incorrect calculations but I think I've got it now. I am knitting a wrap so it is rectangular on the sides with a sideways knit V-neck and a shawl collar. It is the sideways knit V-neck that I am making mistakes on. Very simple concept but one has to be able to count rows in order to figure out the decrease rate. That is where I goofed.

The pattern is a set of knit/purl triangles that make up a pinwheel shape. It is from one of Barbara Walker 's books - probably the first Treasury. I chose it because the wrap is in black and I wanted a simple reversible pattern. This pattern gives the effect of a damask weave.

I am knitting it in a natural black alpaca sport-weight yarn from Times Remembered. They are a small alpaca farm and always have a booth at the NY Sheep and Wool Festival. I am amazed at how silky and lustrous the natural alpaca is. I love knitting with it. The yarn is also very inexpensive and once blocked, the fabric has a lovely drape.

Because it is alpaca, which has a tendency to stretch, I am knitting this pattern sideways so that the tendency of the pattern to shrink (due to the knit/purl combination) is in the same direction as gravity. I am hoping that the two will offset each other. Otherwise my sister-in-law (the recipient) will have an ever growing wrap.

I am going to try and get pictures of the swatch showing the pattern after it is blocked and I hope I can get something other than a black rectangle. More on that later as I need to spend some quality time with the camera.

In the meantime, I've got one side of the neck shaped and am working on the back. I am doing this all in one piece with no cutting or joining yarns except when I need to move to another skein. The shawl collar will be knit separately but the whole thing will be completely reversible as I am not picking up sts except at the back neck. I am going to leave live sts on the two fronts for the collar. I will enclose the back neck edge in the pickup so it will be reversible.

Here's a schematic so you know what I'm talking about in the next few posts. This is not to scale and is only meant to give an idea of the shape of the wrap.

Onward and upward

I blocked shawls yesterday but more on that later. I love the shawls after they are blocked so I block them and I pay attention to the blocking process. But I dislike the process itself. It is iterative and one has to fuss with the details. Exact measurements, straight lines and precision count. But the end result is well worth it.

Back to the stole, I started over on the size 9 needles and continued on happily. I enjoyed knitting this pattern because it has enough variation to make it interesting. The cables are a nice alternative to the lace. I finished the center section and got started on the first side panel. I had done a yarnover at each side edge to make it easy to pick up the sts for the side panels. Now, given I was not knitting in the same direction, there is the rows to sts ratio to be considered. But lace gets blocked, and is usually knit on much larger needles for the weight of the yarn and this tends to even out the ratio. Besides, if the side panels are wider, it is not a big deal. It makes it easier to throw over the other shoulder. So I was planning to alternate a yarnover with each picked up st. This looks like a line of faggotting - the traditional lace pattern with a k2tog, yo or vice versa.

I had carefully calculated the number of rows on the center section to result in the correct number of sts for the side panel (with the alternating yarnovers included). Therefore I was puzzled when I found that I was a few sts short of the number I needed. Remember how I said I'd messed up? Well here it is. I forgot that I needed to do a half repeat at the end to make the center section symmetrical. If the cables are A and the lace is B (look at the photo of the swatch for reference), the pattern is represented by the following sequence:
A B
B A

The shawl needs to have the following sequence which begins and ends with the same one that it started with.

B A B A B
A B A B A
B A B A B
A B A B A
B A B A B

Not only do we need a half repeat on the side to make it symmetrical but we als need a half repeat on top. I forgot that basic rule. Darn!

But all was not lost. Since the difference was only a few sts, it is easy enough to increase on the row after the pick up to get the correct number. This is a fudge that I do all the time when picking up sts. I pick up just as many as I need for the pickup to look good and then I adjust on the following row/round to get to the correct number. It saves a lot of ripping and redoing which only stretches out the sts and makes the pickup look loose.

Once I had that, it was easy going all the way to the end. Again, the side panels mix lace and welts of reverse stockinette with stockinette which makes for a nice variation in the knitting. Neither gets too boring. I also planned the side panels so that I bound off the center section and continued the pickup for the first side panel. Then I wet-spliced yarn to the CO end and continued the second panel so I only had 2 ends to weave in when I was done.

All but the blocking. That I will save for next time but here's the finished shawl - unblocked.

Here's a closeup of the center section and a side panel - also unblocked.


Here's the view of the center and the entire side panel.

Blocking details and pictures of the finished, blocked shawl come next. You can see how the whole thing looks wrinkled and unfinished - like an un-ironed shirt. That is what blocking does. It is the equivalent of ironing.