INTERNATIONAL WELCOMES AND IRRATIONAL KNITTING
First, welcome to the new influx of visitors here from Japan. Apparently the Kureopatora Snake Scarf has attracted attention way over there. It’s fun to see it blogged about so far from home, and in a language I can only barely read with Google tools.
Where do visitors to wiseNeedle and String come from? It’s no surprise that they are overwhelmingly from the US and Canada. Japan, Australia, China, the Ukraine, Brazil, and the UK. Germany, France, and Sweden usually are in or not far from my the 10. There’s usually a good sprinkling of people wandering through from non English speaking countries aside from those on the top 10. (I think that most come to use the knitting terms glossary.) I have often been amused to see reports of visitors from some of the less frequently seen countries on my list. Sometimes there’s a small spike from an unlikely place. For example, in addition to the large number of visits from Japan last week (not uncommon at all), I had a small jump up each from Senegal and Mauritius. Whether that represents one person visiting multiple times, or one person sending links to friends, I haven’t a clue. But I do wonder what they’re knitting.
Second, some irrational musings…
There’s a lot of edging to knit when you make something like the Wave scarf. That affords ample time for a mix of boredom and the anticipation of finally finishing to set in. I don’t know about you, but when I knit something interminable I develop irrational likes and dislikes along the way. There are rows I look forward to, and rows I detest. While on some patterns the single row with a particularly awkward stitch combo (like a P2tog-back) can inspire discomfort, even dread of a tricky row, in other patterns the development of my preference makes no sense at all. For example, in this edging some rows have a bit more stockinette, but no row in particular stands out as being harder than the others, and all patterned rows have a semi-awkward K3tog. But I have a clear favorite – row 5, and a clear least favorite – row 9. I will go so far as to either get ready to do my favorite row or “get over the hump” and complete my least favorite row before setting the work down.
I have irrational preferences about other bits of knitting, too. I detest sleeves. I don’t care how large or small they are, whether they’re done first or last, or if I’m working them side by side, or one at a time. I flat out hate ’em. Also buttonhole bands – especially the kind that are cast on with the regular width of the front, then placed on holders to be knit separately using a smaller needle, then sewn to the cardigan body. I know why some designers choose to do this, and I acknowledge that doing it can make neater, less “loving hands at home” looking garments – but I resent doing it.
On the other hand, I don’t mind winding skeins into balls. Some of my knitpals hate that part. While I wouldn’t make wool-winding my only hobby, I don’t mind doing it in the least, and except for the largest skeins of lace weight, usually do it by hand (sometimes assisted by a swift). I rarely haul out the ball winder.
Then there’s the foot part of every sock. The ankle bears a pattern or something of interest. But I don’t like wearing patterned knitting inside my shoes, and invariably knit my foot parts totally unadorned. I hate that part enough that it has shaped the entire way I knit socks. I do toe ups not because I want to avoid grafting, or that I think they fit the best (the fit well enough on me), but because doing so puts the chore before the fun. If I didn’t do those boring feet first, I’d never finish a sock.
And I vastly prefer lacy knitting to lace knitting. It seems I need to decompress with a plain or low-featured row in between more intensively patterned ones. I get annoyed or quickly frustrated by patterns that include massive amounts of increases and decreases on every row.
Collars? Did I mention collars? For me they’ve always been a challenge. I melt with envy when I see something like the bottom right hand picture here. In this case, the dislike is more understandable. We all dread showing our weaknesses.
So. How irrational are you? Do you share my odd likes and dislikes, or are you bound by an entirely different set of your own?
WORKING REPORT – CRAZY RAGLAN
This post originally appeared on 26 June 2004.
WORKING REPORT – CRAZY RAGLAN
You know what I like about knitting? Among others, two things in particular:
- 99.9% of all mistakes can be dealt with without losing anything except time
- You never stop learning
Knitting is a very forgiving pursuit. Woodworkers can’t un-cut a mis-measured plank. Cooks can’t get the extra egg back into the shell. Sewers and tailors can’t return their fabric to the bolt once it’s been snipped. But knitters can grab and end, yank and reduce the most recalcitrant problem back to its larval state, ready to be knitted again. That suits me, as many of my projects proceed one step forward, two steps back.
I’m a slash-and-burn knitter (swidden knitter). By that I mean that I try to expand my mental knitting territory on almost every project. I’m always hungering for new challenges, new techniques, or trying to figure out easier/less error-prone ways of doing things. So far I haven’t run out of challenges, as even the simplest thing can end up being a roadblock. I’ve got knitting pals that always say nice things about the projects I finish, but probably don’t realize that like an untrained rat in a maze, I spent considerable time scurrying up and back dead ends. But learning flows from making mistakes, having the patience to figure out what went wrong in the first place, and the fortitude to correct them.
I have a hard time understanding all the people who post that they tried something and gave up, some even tossing the project out in disgust. True, I’ll lager the most egregious away for a while or even rip back particularly spectacular failures and re-use the yarn for something else, but I can’t imagine getting so disgusted that I would throw away the whole mess.
Case in point – my sorry excuse for what was supposed to be a mindless busy-work project, filling in extra post-exhaustion hours and (perhaps) lasting long enough to take me through a blissfully non-thinking week of vacation. I could make all sorts of excuses for what’s happened so far, but why bother. Here are the facts:
- I mis-measured my gauge – not once, but twice
- I mis-measured my kid’s circumference, and settled on making the wrong size
- I entered the above bogus data into Sweater Wizard, then mis-read the resulting print-out, and cast on too few stitches.
- I didn’t bother to confirm measurements until I was at least 7 inches into the thing. Twice.
The result? Another opportunity to reclaim and re-use yarn. I should be on target now. I’ve confirmed my gauge, recalculated The Smallest One’s size, and re-drafted the pattern (thank goodness for Sweater Wizard). Given that I was going to have to rip back anyway, I took the opportunity to do what I mentioned yesterday – using two balls of yarn to knit the front and back, doing it with an intarsia-style join at the center front. This makes the stripes even wider, as the span of stitches traveled by each strand is even smaller than before. I’m getting nice, wide sock-type stripes now, with a “seam” up the center front (apologies for the lousy pix, my camera is out of batteries so I had to improvise with another):
At the very least, this continues yesterday’s visual lesson on using variegated yarns. The narrower the span of stitches covered, the wider the stripes will end up being. How to know if your yarn will stripe or make that stippled effect? Look at the length of each color section. The longer it is, the more likely it will be to stripe. How to estimate on the fly? In general, a row consumes roughly 3 to 4 times its length in yarn. That’s a very rough estimate. If the color sections are at least three times the width of your piece to be knit you’ll end up with a one-row stripe. That stripe might not begin at the commencement of each row, and may end up being a wider puddled “bounce-back” section on a side, but it will take at least that much length of any one color to have any hope of visual striping.
More length? Easy. Wider stripes, and the possibility of knitting up larger garments that sport them. (Custom dyers take note – LONG repeats made by looping up double length skeins before applying color may be cumbersome to produce, but I bet they’d sell quite well compared to skeins with shorter color runs.)
Less length? A mottled, speckled or streaked appearance, with the predominant color overwhelming the others when seen from far away. Some yarns with shorter color runs can be a challenge to use. I’m not particularly fond of yarns with color sections that are an inch wide or less. In a fingering weight yarn that’s a run of about four to six stitches (depending on needle size). In a worsted, about two stitches. In a bulky/superbulky – that’s only one stitch (or fewer!).
One of the things that drove me to play with entrelac for the Tee I’m also working on right now was the short length of the color runs. Colors lasted for about three to five inches before changing. I didn’t like the blotchy, streaky effect that gave. Working in entrelac though on tiny 5-stitch squares allows the colors to bounce back and forth forming mini-stripes on each block. It’s tedious, but gives a more painterly effect.
I think if I ever wrote a book on knitting the name might be The Lazy Knitter: How to Avoid Mistakes In The First Place. Either that or Chest of Knitting HorrorsTM: How To Get Out and Stay Out. So it’s back to the fertile field of making mistakes, both for my own edification and to provide vicarious amusement for those who read this blog.
WORKING REPORT- CRAZY RAGLAN
Another post from the missing month. This originally appeared on 25 June 2004
Back to knitting.
Having successfully restarted my younger daughter’s raglan in Regia 6-ply Crazy Color, I can now report a modicum of progress:
It’s interesting to compare this pattern of striping with the one I was getting back when I was working in the round:
Same yarn, different width. If I had the strength I might even begin again, using the same strategy I employed for my Typeset Tee. That would make even wider stripes, but I’m too lazy to begin this no-think fill-in project for a third time.
The Play’s the Thing
How did I manage to knit off six inches each of the back and front in one night? I was at an audition.
I’ve mentioned before that The Resident Male was in a production of King Lear back in March (he played Kent). He has just tried out for a small role in a staging of Macbeth. But I didn’t go with him. My older daughter is caught up by the whole thing. At 13, she went to try out for one of the boy’s roles – Fleance (2 lines) or even MacDuff’s son (about a dozen lines) . She dutifully prepared her audition piece – Quince’s prologue to the miniplay in Midsummer Night’s Dream in Act 5, and read for the part. I told her that she’d be the youngest person there by a dozen years or more, but she was undaunted. She even made her way through the infamous tongue twister
Whereat with blade,
with bloody, blameful blade,
he bravely broached his boiling bloody breast.
Something I can’t see myself managing. I was tickled that she did so well. I have no idea if she got the part. Callbacks are on July 1st, but whether or not she’ll be cast she did us all proud.
The Latest Buzz
House nonsense goes apace. Yesterday’s big setback was the discovery of a huge colony of bees nesting in the floor below the sleeping porch. They get in through an old drainage pipe that sticks out through the stucco. The electricians working on wiring that part of the house were less than delighted to find the things. I was even less amused.
Under Massachusetts law the only available option besides letting them bee is to hire a licensed beekeeper to relocate the colony (not that I’d want to poison the little buggers). The hive must be removed after the bees are moved, as its contents would decay over time and cause even more problems. We’re trying to get a fix on how long the bees have been there. The longer they’ve been hoarding honey, the larger the removal cost, extent of the demolition required to get at the hive, and subsequent repair costs will be.
The only consolation is that the beekeepers will test the honey for edibility. If it’s uncontaminated (highly likely), we get to keep it. If there’s any quantity, I intend to have mead brewed from it so we may at the least, drink to both our and the bees’ new homes. Needless to say, things like this are not covered by insurance.
DREAM ON
This post originally appeared on 24 June 2004
DREAM ON
Just paging through the morning’s news, and I stumbled upon this report from a knitting-themed sailing cruise. It sounds like tons of fun. I could spend a week alternately knitting and re-reading O’Brien’s Aubrey and Maturin series…
But then reality sets in.
Maybe someday when the kids are older, schedules less hectic, and disposable income more capacious. Still, it’s fun to dream, isn’t it?
IDLE BROWSING – KNITVID
I am always the last to find out about these things.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6ZjMWLqJvM&eurl
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5299855665083820396&q=knitting&hl=en
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8068663008782254608&q=knitting&hl=en
Oh. And if you search on any of the video clip services you’ll find a ton of how-to videos, too.
ETERNITY AS A FUNCTION OF AVAILABLE WALL SPACE
My list of future (someday) projects keeps getting longer.
Contemplating our living room, The Resident Male and I have decided that the perfect thing for over the fireplace would be a tapestry. So we went looking at various tapestry reproductions sold on-line. The ones in our price range are pretty uniformly horrible – bad cartoons (the drawing on which the weaving is based), cheap looking materials/bad drape, and garish color choices predominate. I won’t even mention the awful chenille surface type and printed things that look more like stuff that along with 8-foot tall inflatable teddy bears are normally sold out of the back of vans parked at busy intersections in the summer.
As we were looking we also saw some of the painted canvases intended for needlepoint. Big ones that encompass scenes or details of historical woven tapestries. The better ones imported from France seem to offer more faithful reproductions of their inspiring works than do all of the modern woven reinterpretations.
Now I’ve done needlepoint before. It’s not my favorite, but technical implementation of the style is not a barrier. Plus I know exactly how long (read forever) it takes to do one of these. My mother did a a needlepoint tapestry reproduction in the early 1970s, working a rendition of this classic bit of canvas:
She did it in DMC embroidery floss, stitching the details including the hunter’s face, gloves and tassels, plus the hound, songbird, and hawk all in petite point. It’s heavy from all that cotton, but substantial enough (and mounted well enough) to resist distortion or curl. That she did most of it in basketweave rather than tent stitch has helped it keep its shape. The thing is a bit less than a yard wide and a bit more than 4 feet tall. It took her the better part of a year. Maybe a bit more. It’s roughly the same size as the one that caught our eye – a reproduction of a French woven tapestry from the mid 1500s (the clothing style is early 1500s, but the weavers may have been deliberately trying to imitate earlier works):
In canvas, even with the full thread kit, this one would be within my price range. Not counting a year or more to stitch it, of course. Will I end up doing this? Will the curtains I described yesterday come first? Will I stay true to knitting, and deaf to the enticements of other needle arts? Only time will tell…
FIRST LACE PROJECT
Knitsy asked two questions – what was my first lace project, and why lace at all since I’ve said I am not really the lace-wearing type. I’ll try to answer.
First Lace Project
In the best tradition of flinging one’s self off the end of a pier in order to learn how to swim, my first lace project was the Rose of England cloth from Kinzel’s Second Book of Modern Lace Knitting. It was back in the days BI (before Internet), when aside from my mother, I didn’t know anyone else who knit. While I had no one to ask questions or provide help, I also had no one to tell me that I might be just a bit overambitious for someone who had just picked up needles a year or two before.
It turns out that I wasn’t overambitious at all. The pattern was clear and logical, with no errors. All I had were simple increases and decreases to worry about. Yes, the project was big, but even so it wasn’t a bad choice for a first timer.
I have to admit however (sheepishly) that the thing isn’t finished. I have one more round of petals to do and I have to end it and block it. Why has it sat in the closet all this time? Several reasons. First, it was a first project. While there are no structural errors in the thing my stitches are less than even. Second, lace yarn wasn’t readily available. I used cotton crochet thread, and didn’t have a clue as to how much I needed. Even that was hard to find. As a result there are supposedly similar weight white cottons from three makers in the piece, bought at three different times. And I still need more! The spots at which I transition from one lot of thread to another are very evident both in texture and even color (not all white is white). Third, until recently I had neither dining room nor place to block something so large. I can’t use this excuse any more because now I have both (although the table is rectangular rather than circular).
My long time pal Kathryn has twitted me many times about letting this one languish. But I’m not entirely sure it deserves to be finished. Sure, I’ll have finished off the piece, but I won’t be happy with it. I know every time I look at it I’ll think of what might have been or how it could have been done better. Is it worth it to invest the extra time if the result will be only disappointment? What would you do?
In a conservation of things lost moment, my copy of Heirloom Knitting being found, the bag with my unfinished Rose has now disappeared. Otherwise I’d show a picture of that sad resident of my Chest of Knitting HorrorsTM. Instead I’ll give you happier eye candy. Here’s a link to the incomparable Judy Gibson’s finished Rose. I melt in shame for my own shortcomings. I still love that pattern, but perhaps it’s time to toss in the towel on attempt number one and re-knit the thing for real.
Why Lace?
Why not? Actually, there’s more reason than that. I find the way patterns build in lace fascinating – how the charts or prose directions translate into the visual impact of the actual work. The more involved or complex the design, the better. Even more so if there are almost no row for row repeats in the piece. Plus I have to admit that making things with no garment shaping or final fit to worry about is wonderfully relaxing. So what if my flat lace pieces end up being a bit bigger or smaller than target? They’re splendid just as they are.
BAKE SALE AND WAVING ON
It was cookie time here again at String Central. School Bake Sale season is upon us. I know there are some readers here from outside the US and Canada who may not have run into this custom before, so in the interest of sharing the joy, I share the joy. (I do hear that the UK shares this particular custom, too although it’s more centered around church groups doing good works than it is civic groups and schools.)
On election day most polling places in the US are in public buildings – very often county, town, or city-run schools. School parent committees see all that foot traffic as opportunity, so on most election days they mobilize as many parents as possible to make edible goodies to sell as fund raisers – always with some lofty goal or another. Send the band to the regional competition; refurbish worn-out playground equipment; send supplies to a sister school in a disadvantaged area; buy books for the library, a van to transport special needs children, robes for the choir, violins for the orchestra, or uniforms for the sports teams- the list is endless and every cause is deserving.
Most often it’s hapless non-baker moms who are dragooned, and interminable plates of cake mix brownies and slice-to-bake chocolate chip cookies are prepared by those with generous hearts and more volunteer spirit than time or baking knowledge to spare. Zucchini (vegetable marrow) season is especially feared because of the flood of zucchini breads and muffins that overflow the sale tables. I don’t think there’s a parent of a school age child in the US who has not heard “Oh, and we need to bring something to school today for the bake sale” ten minutes before the bell rings. You can find those parents buying cupcakes at supermarket bakeries on most bake sale mornings.
Needless to say, it’s local/state election day tomorrow and the clarion call for cookies has been made. This time around I made icebox cookies: half and halfs – chocolate and cinnamon. Seven dozen. On a work night. Thankfully I had advance warning and mixed the dough and refrigerated it on Saturday. Which explains in part why time was at a premium this weekend past. Even so, I’m cookied out.
Knitting? Yes I did some of that, too. As you can see, my Wave scarf grows:
Working with this linen of forgotten provenance is interesting. It’s relatively soft – no sharp bits of cuticle like some linens I’ve used. There are some fluffy slub like areas, and some places where the stuff is sewing thread fine. I am not having any problems working the lace pattern in it, and the result is surprisingly soft for something as slash-your-fingers-before-breaking durable as the the yarn actually is. I’ve got a ton of it. My foot or so of lace has made no discernible dent in the ball.
DPN AIRLIFT
I sheepishly admit I whined in public and was so pitiful that someone took pity on me.
I’ve mentioned here many times that I am probably the last person on earth who enjoys using DPNs, and adores the extra-long DPNs more commonly found overseas than here in the US. The whining was that extra-long DPNs are hard to find here. Judith from the UK had a stash of them, collected over many years of happy knitting. She recently moved over to circs, and her collection of long DPNs languished. So she packed them up and sent them to me!
Here you see her collection, ranging from 4 to 6.5mm (US#6 to #10.5), displayed on the converted-from-jeans denim skirt I’m sewing with and for my daughter. Since no good deed should go unpunished, a suitably splendid gift in return is being boxed up for shipment back to Judith. Ten thousand thanks to her again. I’ll have lots of fun with my new needle library!
On the skirt, who knew they’d come back into style? I wore them in the mid-1970s, and made dozens for my friends. I even have a bit of blurry, faded photographic proof from that era (let’s just say my lack of camera skills runs in my family):
Now I find my skills are in demand again as converted skirts seem to be the rage with my daughter and her set. Even though it’s not knitting, if anyone is interested, I’ll diagram out how to go about doing it. With the top, and jean jacket I described before, the ensemble reaches counterculture nostalgia critical mass, just in time for cold weather.
HALLOWEEN APPROACHES
Quick aside: I don’t know about you, but a small window onto a whole new universe of costume options just opened up for me and mine today. Too funny!
String-Or-Nothing 