A giant fiber update

I really thought I'd be able to keep up with a weekly update but things got crazy after Thanksgiving and I have been delinquent. But I am on holiday now till New Year's so I am hoping to do a bit of travel blogging and of course, catch-up with the fiber stuff.

I finished the stole that I was weaving. In a week!

That is the stole laid out to dry. I wanted to show the red stripes that I added and how they were placed on the stole. 

And there it is all completed and folded. DH has accepted it as a scarf. it is light and warm.

I have since warped for tea towels and have almost finished one. Here is the edging on the one side. I've finished that towel and will be adding the same decorative edging on the other side. I have enough for 4 towels. I have warped for 3 and will do the last one separately. I plan to do a different decorative edging with the same colored yarn on all 4. A way to practice lots of different techniques.

The yarn is a linen/cotton/nylon blend from Elann called Callista. The pink and peach colored yarns are other cotton and cotton blend leftover yarns that I had. The colored stuff in the very bottom of the photo is just a header which will be removed later. The towels will be green with the colored decorative border. This one is called Danish Medallions. Next I may try one called Brooks Bouquet.

I haven't finished the sparkly white yarn yet. It is still sitting on bobbins. But I started spinning something else. I wanted to try my hand at a new drafting technique that I learned from Jacey Boggs's Craftsy class on drafting. It is the short backward draw letting the twist in. The idea is to get a shiny yarn but one with more air in it so it is lighter. I am also practicing her technique to get a more consistent yarn.

Another view of the bobbin. I was trying to get the color right. I have now gone all the way across the bobbin shaft and am working my way back.

This is the fiber. It is called Rouge-Violet-Cerulean from Fiber Optic. I had 2 braids but sold one in China. 

I am also knitting. But it is a sweater for DH and I am on the circular part of the body which is a boring tube in a dark blue so not very interesting to look at. It is longer than in this photograph. The photograph is looking at it sideways. I am doing the saddle-shouldered sweater from Knitting Without Tears. 

I really, really, really promise I will do a New Zealand travelogue this weekend. In a series of posts and try to finish it up.

Spinning and Knitting update

I've neglected to talk about my fiberlicious pursuits, in addition to not talking about the travel, nay - in addition to not talking at all! This is a catch-up on what I've been up to.

I did a lot of business travel in addition to the personal travel. This enabled me to finish Nuvem in the Marging Colors yarn. Unfortunately I finished it after my blocking wires were packed and shipped. So it was a rough and ready blocking.

That is the window sill and the ironing board. The bed had no sheets or comforter and the mattress was covered in plastic. So not good for drying. The floor is wood. I put my towel on the floor below the lowest points of the shawl to catch the drips.

Post-blocking shot. It turned out well. It is soft and drapey, but rather large. I can see this being something one cuddles into in the cold.

I also started and finished a sock to complete a pair I started before I went to Shanghai

Pretty basic pair, top-down in Opal Bumblebee from the Rainforest Collection.

After I finished my first TdF project, I started this as part of the TdF 2014. Fine, fine, fine spinning on my Nano trindle. I had not used this one before and am loving it. The fiber is camel/silk from Corgi Hill Farm. The color is Deep Purple 2.

TdF this year had a heavy metal theme. I finished Twisted Sister from last year and started on Deep Purple.

Here's Twisted Sister, all done. Chain plied using the ply-on-the-fly technique. Spun on my microXL and regular trindles.

 

Yes, it is a bit bright. I was afraid of it being a bit like a clown collar in a shawl. So I got some lovely teal/purple tweed cashmere/mink on the Shanghai yarn crawl and started this. It is looking lovely and is breaking up the clown barf rather well. It is Nymphalidae from Knitty.

I started this in the airport in Shanghai on the way out and got this much done on the plane. Now I am almost to the end of the first purple segment and will be going back through the rainbow to the orange again.

And now I am all caught up!

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Fiberlicious acquisitions

Over the past few months, I have been buying a few fiber related things and having people hold them for me till I was able to collect them. So when I arrived last week, it was like Christmas.

First up, a gorgeous stole kit from Mary Scott Huff. Mary is a very talented fair-isle designer and put these together for a class at Madrona. You can see the finished stole in the blog post that I linked to. But here is the kit.

At some point I have to start knitting the kits I have collected. But I have the Swan pullover in China and will probably knit it this fall/winter.

Then I got a gorgeous Enid Ashcroft Tibetan spindle. The shop is empty because her spindles sell out in minutes. I lucked out and got this on a destash.

She is light but fast. I can't wait to spin on her!

And last but not least, a couple of braids of Fiber Optic's Swamp Muck gradient. I'll bet swamp muck has never looked so good. Someone on the Fiber Optic Ravelry group challenged Kimber with an inspiration picture of swamp muck and Kimber came up with this. I love the colors!

Finally, yesterday's progress on the Tour

I have spun a few more yards of singles since the photo was taken. I have decided that I like to spin a number of yards and then ply it all. It makes for more smooth plying and spinning because you get in a rhythm with each one.

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!

Another year flew by!

Happy New Year to you, my dear readers! As I write this, 2011 is almost over and I am looking forward to 2012. I hope the new year brings you joy, prosperity and good health. I hope that there is more peace in the world and less suffering. 2011 was a tough year for many folks but there were also some streaks of light in the east. People stood up for freedom and against tyranny. I hope their sacrifices don't go unrewarded.

My goals in 2012 are to work from stash and not to buy more yarn. I have lots of yarn and I am making more.

I started spinning again. I had been on a hiatus since Oct for one reason or another. I plied the singles I had spun back in Oct but I haven't finished the yarn yet. Then I started spinning this Targhee top that I bought on clearance from Woodland Woolworks last spring. I needed the bright colors as it is dreary and gray outside. It also gets dark early so the colors are my way of brightening up the dark days of winter.

I also started another shawl. This is in a linen/silk blend from Colourmart. I had bought 3 cones in different colors a while ago. I am making the Dancing Cranes pattern from Elann.com. It is a simple lace pattern from one of the Barbara Walker treasuries called Japanese Feather. I designed and made a pair of socks with it years ago.

This stole is for a niece who is in India. I think the linen/silk will soften with time and also be cool for the hotter climate. The swatch (pictured above) has a nice crisp hand but is not as soft as I would like. I think I'll machine wash the stole to see if it softens up further before I deliver it.

After blocking pics

I thought I'd add the after pictures also.

The Good, the Bad and the Beautiful

I don't know why I do these things. Sometimes I just get on a roll and want to finish a particular project. This one was one of them. I have been knitting the edging for days. The good news first: the stole is done and is blocking. The bad news: my hands hurt. The body of the stole was not a problem. It didn't hurt my hands. The edging did. You pick up sts all around the perimeter of the stole and knit the edging. I think the problem was the k3tog and sssk's that were part of the edging. Or maybe the 800 or so sts...

Anyway it is done. I am going to rest my hands for a few days by doing non-knitting things.

And last but not least, the beautiful: isn't it a lovely pattern? I am very pleased with the outcome.

Ode to my ESW

Do you remember my telling you that I was walking out in the dark and dreaming about how wonderful my ESW would be?

ESW , how do I love thee?
Let me count the ways
I wear you at home
I wear you in the car
I wear you on the couch
I wear you on my walk

You are so soft
You are so snuggly
You are so warm,
and touchable that
I cannot imagine
living without you

The past few days have been very cold. I went for my lunch time walk on Wed and today when it was in the teens Fahrenheit outside with the wind-chill factor. I was bundled up in my ESW under my coat and I really enjoyed my walk.

My only problem is static. It gets very static-y.

I leave you with an updated photo of the vest I am making out of Rowan Tapestry. The back is done and I'm ready to start the front. I'll post a pic of the bag early next week.
Tomorrow I hope to be seeing the Gates of Paradise exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I saw the doors for the first time in Florence a few years ago and I knew they were copies. So it is exciting to see some of the originals.

ESW photos

I have been delinquent. I spent all of last week, and into Christmas Day, finishing up the ESW. So I didn't blog at all.

First, I crocheted around the edge, then I tried the crab stitch. What a disaster! I had too many crochet sts and the edge was all ruffly and wavy. The crab st looked awful in the fuzzy yarn. That took me about 3 evenings worth of work! I decided I really needed to fix it so I spent the next two days ripping out the crochet and re-doing it. I am so glad I did. It looks so much better and supports my philosophy that it is almost always worth redoing if you are unhappy with the result. Over the weekend, I fringed it. I wore it a few times before I washed it. The fringe is very long and another friend (Carol) had knotted her fringe in a decorative manner. So I spent a few hours on Christmas Day knotting the fringe in the same way. And ta-da!And this is a close-up of the edge that I re-did. Doesn't it look nice? I just did two rounds of US single crochet/UK double crochet as called for in the pattern and based on recommendations from crocheting friends. It doesn't really keep the edges from rolling but it is quite a bit more stable than the knitted edge and I think will be more durable.I have been living in the wrap for the past few days. I wear it under my jacket when I go out and wrapped around me in the house. It is snuggly and warm and everything I could have hoped for. I think I'm in love. It is a long time since I loved a knit so much.

I also have a bunch more stuff to blog about so I'll make up for my silence with more frequent posts over the next week.

Finishing the ESW

The finishing instructions ask one to do a couple of rows of US single crochet, UK double crochet around the entire wrap before adding the fringe. I was in two minds about doing this but I decided to do so because the combination of colors used in this crocheted edge was one of my favorites in the wrap.

Then a friend (Hi Gail, if you are reading) said she was thinking of crab stitch (reverse single crochet) rather than the single crochet. I poked around the Web yesterday and found pictures and instructions and liked it. So that's what I'm going to do.

I found I didn't have the right hook size. I am not a crocheter. My crochet skills are an adjunct to my knitting and that means I don't necessarily have the same variety of tools I have for knitting. I didn't want to buy yet another hook to crochet the edge so I had the choice of a H hook or an E hook. The size that matched the needles was G or a 4 mm hook. I thought using the H (larger) and crocheting tightly would work but it didn't. I am a loose knitter and a looser crocheter and getting the larger hook into the sts was an issue. I moved to the smaller (E) hook and am crocheting it loosely and it is working better.

I have 3 sides done (2 short and 1 long) with the foundation row of single crochet. Once I complete that, I'll work the crab st all the way around and then add the fringe. The fringe is the exciting part because the colors are so fabulous!

Any thoughts or comments on tying the fringe vs just knotting it and leaving it as is?

The ESW is done!

Pics to follow when I have added the fringe.

I knitted up the extra 54 rows in the 3rd repeat and measured. It was 150 cms or so and when I tried it on, it was the perfect size for wrapping around my neck a couple of ways. I don't want this to be a shawl, but a long scarf that I can wear as a stole indoors or wrap around my head and neck when it is too cold outside. It works as all three at this size. So I bound it off.

Next step is to do a couple of rows of crochet on the short edges to provide a place to anchor the fringe and then add the fringe. The pattern calls for crochet all the way around but I like the rolling at the long edges. It is wide enough that the rolling doesn't make it too narrow. So, like some of my friends who have made this, I am going to only crochet along the short edges.

ESW update

I finished the second repeat last night. That is 372 rows. I measured it this morning and 372 rows only give me 129 cms. The pattern says knit till it is 148 cms. I also, very hopefully, wrapped it around myself wondering if 129 cms would be fine. Sadly, it isn't. According to the gauge I'm getting, I need to knit 54 more rows to get to 148 cms. I thought I could get away with 40 or so more. Fortunately, I'm not worried about running out of yarn. I had more than the 2 balls of Majestic (# 589) called for because I had some leftover from another shawl. If I had had only two, I'd be worried about running out of that color. It is a grayed out mauve and it is used a lot and blends beautifully with the other colors.

So on to more knitting on it. Did I mention I really want to wear it?

I also listened to and discarded the Socks in the City podcast. The content is fine, the length is fine. The delivery is driving me nuts. She uses a lot of 'umm', there are some mouthy breathing sounds, and the volume varies. I have to say that I am a very picky listener. I spend a lot of time on teleconferences and pauses in an of themselves don't bother me. But when people do the 'umm' and 'aaah' thing in between words in a sentence, it annoys me. Early in my career, I took a class on effective presentations. We were videotaped and critiqued and some common mistakes were pointed out. Jangling change or keys in one's pocket, not making eye contact with the audience, reading out verbatim from your slides, speaking in a monotone, and inserting sounds when one pauses to collect one's thoughts, were pointed out as things that irritate listeners. Since then, I have done hundreds of presentations to audiences ranging from a few folks to hundreds. While I don't consider myself to be perfect or even really, really good (some of the best are the motivational speakers, or management consultants, or probably ministers and other religious personalities), I strive to avoid the common pitfalls and it isn't that hard to cure oneself of the habit of saying 'umm' as one thinks. It just takes some work. I can understand a guest or interviewee making those mistakes but the podcaster his- or herself should not do this. They have plenty of time to practice avoidance.

I am on to Stash and Burn. I've only listened to half of one episode so I'm not making any judgment yet.

More on the Earth Stripe Wrap and gauge

Laura had two comments that I wanted to address. Thank you Laura!

First, the concept of a tighter gauge. This is one of my pet peeves. I think that we are getting too sloppy in our knitting. Knitted fabric is inherently elastic and knitting at a loose gauge for the yarn just makes it more elastic and floppy. I tend to knit most things at a much tighter gauge and when I haven't, I've regretted it. Two recent examples come to mind. You can see from the dates that these are from 2004 and 2005 respectively.This was knit in a cotton and nylon blend called Reynolds Madrigal which I picked up years ago on clearance. I am very happy with the way the sweater looks and feels but it fits horribly. The fabric is too sloppy with no body. The reason I knit it at the ball band gauge is that I was afraid I'd run out of yarn. I made a mistake in my calculations and I had plenty but I was nervous as I had multiple colors and needed to combine them to have sufficient yarn for the entire sweater. I doubt I'll wear it much. I'll keep it as a teaching tool but it looks awful when worn. This is knit in Plymouth Galway, a lovely yarn. I love it. I love the color, I love the way it fits. But again, I had bought the yarn on clearance many moons ago and I created the sweater at a gauge to fit the amount of yarn I had. I didn't make a mistake in this case and I have about half a ball left. The gauge is 5 spi which is perfect for a worsted, right? Wrong! At 5 spi, the yarn is pilling terribly. It would have been better at 5.5 spi or even 6 spi. I will wear this till it is too threadbare to wear any more. So that's my rant on gauge and why I now knit things far more tightly than I should for sweaters and socks and hats .

Lace is a different animal. I knit lace much looser than most people. I like lace to be ethereal. I like the stockinette parts to be gauzy. So shawls and scarves are knit looser than most people would recommend.

On the Earth Stripe Wrap, Laura asked if the yarn was doubled. Yes, it is but not in the way you'd think. There are two colors held throughout and the colors change frequently. Sometimes one color changes and sometimes both. The combinations are not ones I'd consider without thinking a lot about it - hot pink and brown, or teal and mauve, for example. But the resulting effect is striking and will go with anything in my closet. I'm up to row 105 on the second repeat.

A Tale of two WIPs

I found the camera. It was hiding in plain sight but out of the case and I was looking for the case. Oh well. So I present visuals to complement last week's text. I have been knitting up a storm on the Earth Stripe Wrap so I have not been blogging or doing much else. I am up to row 70 on the second repeat. Each repeat is 186 rows. I present it with two different backgrounds, to give you an idea of the colors. They are amazing in the way they blend and contrast with each other. Plus the entire wrap is cushy and cozy. I am knitting it like a mad person because I want to wear it. Every day when I leave work and come out into the dark cold night, I dream of being bundled up in it.
This is the wrap on a light background with a bit more natural light. It is about 22" wide and is currently 63 cm long. I am supposed to knit till it is 148 cm long. I still think that is going to be about 410 rows or 2.25 repeats. I have a way to go. I am knitting about 35 rows every evening but I need to start by 7 pm and knit all evening. I am able to do that some evenings and not on others. This is the other WIP that I knit on when I can't knit on the ESW. It is the bottom ribbing of a man's vest. You can see the Tapestry yarn in the background. This is very mindless knitting, unlike the ESW and so far it is pretty portable. So I carry it around and knit it when I have a few minutes or am brain dead.
Here's a view of the swatch showing the broken rib pattern I'm planning to use. In the swatch, the stripes are wider but they will be narrower in the vest as there are many more sts.

Last but not least, a podcast review. I listened to a few episode of She-Knits podcast. I was extremely underwhelmed and started thinking about advertising on podcasts. I contrast Ready, Set, Knit! with She-Knits as illustrations. Both have commercial undertones. Ready, Set, Knit talks about what is going on at Webs - the closeouts, book signings, etc. But there is also stuff that is not about the store and tidbits of knitting info in the knit-along section. Instructions on short rows, doing a sloped set of bind-offs on a shoulder, etc. There is no hiding that it is commercial. No apologies. Sharon of She-Knits, by contrast, states repeatedly that she is not plugging her Etsy shops but she mentions them, the patterns she has for sale, the blogs that she has to support and market her products, etc. all through the podcasts. There is no instructional stuff. Also, she rambles a lot and there were a lot of clicks and odd pauses due to the editing. She is not a professional and I can tolerate a lot of technical malfunctions but I found those very distracting. I am not comparing the delivery of the Webs podcast with the She-Knits podcast because that would not be fair. Just the content and the overt commercialism vs. the implicit commercialism. I prefer the over commercialism . I didn't listen to all 14 episodes I had on the ipod. I gave up after 4. I am now listening to Socks in the City and will review that next time.

Progress

I was holding off so I could post photos of my Earth Stripe Wrap (ESW) but the camera seems to be hiding. But I felt guilty about not posting so here's a text only post.

I am up to row 154 which is about 25% of the way on the ESW. I am estimating about 415 rows total. It is quite amazing to see how the colors blend. I can't even imagine putting some of the colors together but it works, and works well. I can't wait to finish it because it is now cold and I could use a warm, snuggly wrap. And it is warm and snuggly. But not mindless. Even though it is all stockinette, the colors change so frequently that it is not very portable or mindless.

I also started a vest for my husband. It will be pretty mindless. It is in Rowan Tapestry in the Antique colorway in a broken rib pattern - 2 rows/rounds of k2, p2 rib followed by 2 rows/rnds of stockinette. This is the same pattern as is used in the much-knitted Blueberry Waffle socks, and is a favorite pattern of mine. The Tapestry splits a great deal but the color knits up beautifully. I am also knitting it at a much tighter gauge than recommended on the ball band.

Which brings me to a rant about loose gauges: Loose gauges are the reason so many sweaters lose their shape and look old before their time. A loose gauge is quicker to knit, which is why many yarn manufacturers have loose ball band gauges. Rowan Tapestry for example is a DK weight yarn and the ball band recommends a 5.5 sts/in gauge. So far so good. However, it is also a very loosely spun yarn so, at that gauge, it doesn't wear very well. I've seen a bunch of comments on Ravelry about how quickly it pills and I suspect this is because people have been knitting it that gauge. I am making mine at a 6.5 sts/in gauge and I like the fabric. I washed and dried my swatch and I like the way it feels and looks.

I swatched for this and cast on over the weekend and I shouldn't really do math in my head. I cast on 304 sts instead of the 272 I needed. Then I twisted the join despite checking and rechecking. However, I remembered that Elizabeth Zimmerman said that you can untwist at the end of the first round s0 I did and all is well.

I hope to have pictures of both items-in-progress soon.

The absence and presence of color

This is a just a photo essay to compensate for the extra words lately. It is also a contrast between lack of color and a sensory overload of color. Given that we are in the darker part of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, color is very attractive and hence my choice of projects.

The wrap all blocked and drying. Close-up of the st pattern on the wrapWild Apple Bohus yarns. The body color is on the top right and the others are the yoke colors. This is from my project 'bag' for the Wild Apple which has been ready to go for a while. I have the chart and the pattern copied and put into sheet protectors. The needles are also ready to go as I have a special bag with the needles from the last Bohus.
A close-up of the yoke of the Wild Apple. This is a postcard that came with the pattern kit.
The chart for the Wild Apple .Materials for Earth Stripe Wrap organized - I made a color card for the colors. You can see the photo of the wrap on the cover of the Rowan magazine. This one is also ready to go with the needle pulled out of the needle storage and the pattern copied and put into a sheet protector.
Yarns for the Earth Stripe Wrap

Blogging as a way of life

I don't think I am cut out for blogging. I see so many other blogs where people post regularly with lovely pictures and knitted items and, while I can always think of things to write about, I am not all that diligent about taking pictures or scouring the Internet so I can put things on my blog.

So that is my pathetic excuse for not writing a second blog entry during the week. I had good intentions but didn't. My week was not that bad in terms of time - busy but not overly busy. However, I spent my free time knitting rather than blogging. And I spent it knitting something that I can't post about. Maybe in the future, you will see it.

Which brings me to this blog entry's topic - am I cut out for blogging?

I am very unlike most knitters I come across on the Internet and like most knitters I know in my local area. I knit. I knit a lot. But I don't knit more than one thing at a time, maybe two. I knit almost every day but I don't knit long enough to finish or start things frequently. Therefore, I don't have a lot of new pattern starts, progress on various fronts, or new yarn coming in to generate content. I knit one thing for a few months and then move on to another thing. I get a lot of knitting done but most of it isn't interesting on a weekly basis. And then, to add to the sad story, a number of the items I knit I can't talk about. If I am knitting for a book, or a yarn company, or a submission that I hope will be picked up by someone, I can't blog about it. That is what I was knitting this week. A submission for a new book by Interweave that will come out in 2009. How boring is that? I can't talk about it now, or next year when I'm (she says hopefully) knitting it. I can talk about it in 2 years, if at all. Because if Interweave doesn't pick up the idea, I hope to sell it to someone else.

This week, besides the above-mentioned unmentionable, I am furiously knitting away on the shawl collar of the wrap. I spent a good bit of time yesterday with the daylight lamp and the magnifier picking up the sts. DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT knit a row with scrap yarn when you want to keep two large sets of sts live on black yarn. I had to pick up the sts one at a time with two needles under the magnifying glass to avoid losing them. I've only done this with smaller numbers of sts in sock yarn or worsted weight yarn that wasn't black or a dark color. I should have put each set of sts on its own scrap yarn holder instead of knitting a row joining them with the scrap yarn. Lesson learned.

The good news is that I'm done with that task and am now happily ribbing the shawl collar so that you may have a photo of a blocking wrap by the time the week is over!

The technical part of our program has to do with shawl collar construction. I have all the band sts on my needle, from the bottom of the left front band to the bottom of the right front band. I marked the place where I started short rowing for the V-neck - i.e. where the V neck shaping begins on the fronts. I also marked the spots where I transitioned from the front neck to the back neck on each side.

I started by knitting about one third of the way from the back/front neck transition marker to the beginning of shaping marker on one side, and moving the back/front neck marker on that side to that spot. This is the beginning of the shawl collar shaping. I then turned and went to the corresponding place on the other side and moved that back/front neck transition marker there to set up the beginning of the shawl collar on the other side.

I am shaping the shawl collar by knitting gradually increasing short rows from one marker to the other till I get to the markers that tell me I'm at the bottom of my V-neck. After that I will knit all the way around to create the front bands. My short rows started by increasing 1 st at a time on each side for about one quarter of the rows, 2 sts for another quarter and 3 sts for the last half. I am hoping that this will give me roughly 1/3 of the short rows at 1 st, another third at 2 sts and the last third at 3 sts to create a gradual curve. I haven't done the math to see if it actually works out that way and I leave that as an exercise for all of you dear readers (if I have any at this point).

I had 40 sts for the short row shawl collar shaping on each side. I knit 10 rows of 1 st increments, 10 rows of 2 st increments and 20 rows of 3 sts increments (it is actually 21 sts as I stole a st from the band to make it come out even).

1x1 rib is boring but given it is a lot fewer sts than I was dealing with in the body of the wrap, it is going reasonably fast. I am listening to podcasts now as I knit so you will get a podcast review or two also in this entry. I realize this is a long entry that is going all over the place but that is what happens when I don't post for a few days.

I love Lixieknits It! They are short - 20-25 mins each. She has three or four segments - a blog watch, wool news and then an assortment of various things like what she's knitting or a review of the Ally Pally show at Alexandra Palace. I'm seeing a pattern here. I like international podcasts and I like ones that have some sort of knitting news or information in them.

In the same vein, I didn't like KnitWit: Rantings of a Rabid Knitter, not because there is anything wrong with the podcast but it doesn't contain the aforementioned content. She tells short stories. The part I liked is that these are short - 8-15 mins each. But I'm not looking for stories or essays when I'm knitting so the content doesn't match my mood.

I also listen to podcasts when I walk or run but I can't listen to knitting podcasts when I do that. I need to listen to podcasts that are motivational so I listen to fitness and health related podcasts. If I listen to knitting ones, I want to stop working out and knit.

Over and out!

Unpicking is hard

That is the finished large black thing sans collar. The white line down the middle is the scrap yarn that I have to undo to pick up the sts for the front bands and collar. I tried unpicking them in the car on Saturday and it didn't really work. I need two circular needles, one for each set of sts and I have to get them on the needles at the same time. I had only one and that was tough. So I gave up.

I should have done more this weekend but it turned out to be exceptionally busy. We went bookcase shopping on Saturday which pretty much ate up most of the day. Yesterday I spent an incredible amount of time entering my original designs into Ravelry. Since I've been designing since 2001 and only do 1 or 2 designs a year (except for the first year when I did 4), it takes time to dig out the details and enter them. I had to go through my magazines and books and find the ones that had the designs. I only have a couple left.

I was also busy with other personal non-knitting stuff. So no knitting although I could have used something really boring and mindless. Unpicking the scrap yarn out of the wrap didn't qualify. Since the yarn is black, I have to pay attention to make sure I have all the sts. I need to sit down with the daylight lamp and two smaller circulars and just do it. This evening also disappeared somewhere. Maybe mañana!

On the Needles

I have been delinquent in posting entries even though I have been working on content. I was knitting away on the large black thing, hoping to have it completed to deliver to the recipient tonight. However, it took a lot longer than I anticipated to do the second half of the wrap and I have 1 full repeat (28 rows) to complete the other side of the body. Then I have to pick up all around the front opening and rib the shawl collar. Stay tuned as I work out the details. I’ll post them as I get to them. The wrap itself is on hiatus as I’m traveling and it is too hot and heavy and large to work on. I’ll be completing it on my return after my travels. I took it with me last week when the second side was being knitted but even then it was cumbersome. So I’m working on socks out of Opal’s Rainforest II collection. The Frog one to be more specific. Since I’m on the road, photos are not readily available so text and links are all I have now.

Ever the optimist, I brought two more skeins with me in case I run out of knitting. Will I be able to make 2 pairs of socks in 2 weeks and still need the third skein? Who knows? But a 100 gm ball of sock yarn doesn’t take up too much space or add weight and so it was easy to just throw it in. I am almost all the way up the leg with the first sock so maybe it is not that optimistic. The socks go so fast after the wrap - where it takes me 10 mins to do a row if I don't make any mistakes and have to work back a few sts.

Back to the wrap: I didn’t do the little chevrons down the center back as I had planned. I made little rectangles instead. I didn’t think the chevrons would stand out enough and I was afraid they’d look like a mistake. I wanted it to look deliberate, rather than accidental. If I had had more time, I would have done the chevrons and ripped them out had they not looked good. Since I didn’t have that luxury, I did 8 row rectangles and set off the center with a single line of the opposing sts:

Row 1-8: K6, p6
Row 9: P6, k6
Row 10: K6,p6
Row 11-16: P6,k6

After I was done with the back neck section, I knitted a row of scrap yarn into the sts for the front opening so I would have live sts for the band/collar. Then I short-rowed the second front to match the first and continued on knitting the second half. Those who love symmetry, cover your ears and eyes now. I didn’t mirror the second half. I did it exactly the same way as the first half. In the black yarn, it won’t be noticeable. I had the pattern memorized and was afraid I’d make mistakes if I tried to reverse it. I like asymmetry so it doesn’t bother me and I doubt the recipient will notice.

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!