Thanks to everyone who sent kind thoughts to String on its blogiversary. I’ll keep going as long as time and fun-factor allow.

Trendy Yarns

I seem to have hit some major chords with my rant about self stripers replacing solid color sock yarns, and by extension – other trendy yarns pushing more classic stuff off the shelves. People both left comments here and wrote to me about it. I understand that yarn shops are businesses, and must respond to market forces in order to maintain their (usually precarious) cash flow. They stock what people are buying, and can’t afford to keep other things sitting around if they don’t earn their keep, too. Right now people are grabbing up the frou-frou yarns, and ignoring the other stuff.

Still, I’ll be very happy when the current wacky yarn fad dies down a bit. I am thrilled at the variety in the stores, but 95% of that variety is stuff that leaves me cold. Aside from a present or two around the holidays, or as a splash here and there for contrast, I have very little interest in fuzzy, furry, sparkly, or otherwise wildly festooned novelty yarns.

I do like texture, but not at the expense of knitability. I like boucles, astrakhans, some slubby yarns, and terry-type and velvet-type textures (especially washable ones for kids). If most loopy yarns weren’t made from mohair, I’d like them, too (mohair and I don’t get along). I also like the texture imparted by the various styles of plying – everything from densely cabled yarns made up of tons of tiny plies, to supersoft singles. Obviously, I also like classic yarns, too – smooth multi-plies in all weights. It’s all of these I want to see more of. In every fiber and blend. In colors rich enough for Byzantium, and juicy enough to eat. But not another skein of technicolor road kill, please.

Standards

As you can probably tell, I’m not a big fan of the standards efforts promulgated by the consortium of mass-market yarn makers and publishers that compose The Craft Yarn Council. While I applaud their efforts to promulgate knitting and crochet, especially their sponsorship of learning events, I find other things they do to be less effective. To be fair, I suspect that like all committee efforts, it was more important to satisfy as many needs of the membership and achieve a bullied consensus, rather than to meet the needs of the service constituency.

I’ve ranted about the yarn weight standards before. From last week’s post, you can also see I’m not keen on skill level ratings. In the same standards document they also outline standard abbreviations for knitting and crochet (no argument there, but the set is very basic); garment sizes (on the small side, but useful).; and needle sizes (which I note is not necessarily the size set used by all needle makers, nor the equivalents marked on all European labels, and which ignores knitting needles below US #1). All useful things, if limited. But the most pressing needs were ignored.

What I really wanted to see was a standardized set of knitting symbols; a standardized knitting font; and recommendations for standardizing schematic pattern representations similar to the methods used in Japan. Now all of these are probably quite controversial. Each publisher does the symbol/font thing in a slightly different way. Switching among the vast variety of symbol sets is tiring (to say the least); and lack of uniformity is one factor that has limited wider acceptance of charted instructions. I’ve tried to encourage the chart-shy as much as possible, but have found that many of them are turned off by having to learn a whole new symbol set for each book or magazine they try to use. The knitting community needs a standard symbol set. If the CYC was truly forward thinking, they’d seek out similar industry councils worldwide, and come up with an international symbol set.

On the graphical pattern layout suggestion, I’m not advocating a wholesale shuffle from text-based or text and charted patterns to Japanese style layout (doing so would probably blow mental gaskets off more than half of the knitters in the US); but many of the elements of that style would be assets if included in pattern format here. The time to suggest a standard is BEFORE a practice seeps in willy-nilly, so that early adopters all follow formats and methods as similar to each other as possible.

I’m trying to find Japanese pattern on line so I can show you what I’m writing about, but so far I haven’t found one. Yarn makers and dealers there don’t seem to provide the freebies that US and European yarn sources do. Still, here are some aids that can help you get the general idea:

• ABCs of Knitting – a Japanese knitting website (in English) that includes a basics of Japanese patterns for us text-slave Westerners.
• Reading Japanese knitting patterns for machine knitting (lots useful here for hand-knitters, too).

I note that the CYC also sponsors a teacher certification process. I’ve got mixed feelings about certifications in general, especially in disciplines that do not involve health/life-threatening, major investment, or life-bending content. Kindergarten teachers, EMTs, and accountants all have jobs that should include minimum competency and content standards. But knitting instructors?

Yes, I know that any know-nothing yutz can hang out a shingle and purport to be a knitting teacher right now, no questions asked. Many do, and have classes that quickly overtake them in competency. But at the same time, I don’t want to see instruction limited to people who have sat through a couple hours of classes and/or forked over for a paper credential from this or any accrediting body. Neither classes nor a piece of paper guarantees competency as a teacher of a hands-on discipline. All requiring such certifications does is limit the pool of teachers to those who have had the time and money to pursue the credential. But that’s the Child of the ’70s talking again…

Well, not me. To String. Sort of.

I’ve heard tell it’s customary on the first anniversary of blogging to link back to one’s first post and prattle on about the experience. My first post was February 12 of last year, but I dithered a bit before really getting the thing off the ground a month later.

First, thanks go out to those who have encouraged me to do this – the gang at my local yarn store – both staff and core regulars (if I began naming them all this would be like the Academy awards), BlogDogBlog‘s Lisa, QueerJoe, Wendy, Linn, esteemed needlework pals of long standing (thanks Kathryn!); folks who are frequent readers/posters here, and the KFlamers (you know who you are).

I wasn’t sure why I wanted a blog. After all, I already had a website – itself celebrating it’s tenth anniversary this year. But it’s cumbersome to update, sometimes requiring the intervention of in-house programming gods, and too structured to allow free play. I certainly rattled on enough in the various knitting-related email lists. But almost every post brought snarking from people who felt I was too long winded and was wasting their time. Plus the lists themselves are less interesting to me these days, as many of the most insightful and thought-provoking posters have moved on to their own blogs. So I decided to cut back on the eMail notes, limiting on-list participation to answering questions, and post the rest here.

String has sort of evolved into a running column on knitting and needlework in general (admittedly, with side trips), rather than a pure diary or personal log. I try to keep it up daily on weekdays, plus whenever I can on weekends. Sometimes life intervenes. I find that even though it’s daily, I’m rarely at a loss for subject matter. There’s plenty among my own projects past and present, old books, how-tos that seem to be a good idea at the time, things I stumble across on the Web, and discussions piqued by questions sent to me by others. Some weeks I have three or four general notes written up to post in advance, fitting my project progress bits in between them. Other days I write as the fit takes me, being neither disciplined enough in my habits to set aside one particular time to do so, or even trying to get something written by a particular time each day.

I guess the best part about it all is that I am no longer imposing on anyone with these diatribes. I can be more critical of things because the mass tyranny of political correctness and public niceness isn’t in force for a personal log. (It’s wonderfully liberating to lose the straight-jacket.) I no longer feel any guilt for imposing on anyone because people have to seek me out and visit. If they don’t like what they read, they don’t visit again. And that’s fine by me.

Things I hope to do with String this year:

• More how-tos.
• Continuing the series of yarn maker website reviews. Possibly starting a directory of manufacturer/distributor sites (not retailers – just makers).
• More patterns. Some of these will end up maturing onto wiseNeedle.
• Whatever other whims take me.

Things you won’t see here:

• Pictures of me.

Trust me on this. The most photogenic thing about me is my children.

Someone posted a question on one of the knitting eMail lists yesterday, asking why some people think that cables are difficult. Then I popped into the LYS and into a discussion on what criteria were used to assign difficulty levels to knitting patterns in magazines and books. Both things happening on the same day tossed me down another rat hole of thought.

I’m of two minds on labeling patterns with difficulty levels. The first and stronger opinion is probably a product of being a Child of the ’70s. I bare my teeth, hiss and spit if anyone so much as suggests that I might like to abide within a set of limitations defined by others. I see skill level labeling as an arbitrary fence that does more to keep people in than to let them out. I’ve seen far more people decide NOT to knit something because of an "intermediate" or "advanced" label than I’ve seen people who warmed to the challenge.

Who decides what’s advanced, anyway? I’ve looked at the Craft Yarn Council standards document. They define the levels this way:

• Beginner – Projects for first time knitters using basic knit and purl. Minimal shaping.
• Easy – Projects using basic stitches, repetitive stitch patterns, simple color changes, simple shaping and finishing.
• Intermediate – Projects with a variety of stitches such as basic cables and lace, simple intarsia, DPNs, knitting in the round, mid-level shaping and finishing.
• Experienced – Projects using advanced techniques and stitches: short rows, Fair Isle, more intricate intarsia, cables, lace patterns, and numerous color changes.

By this standard, most everything that’s not written specifically for a beginner is either Intermediate or Experienced. The categories are broad enough to have very little meaning, yet are widely used, appearing in books and magazines. Simple things like the 42-stitch hat are Intermediate just because they use DPNs and decreases. (I’ve taught little kids to knit and used this as their second project, after the ubiquitous beginner’s Garter Stitch Scarf).

I think a rating system like this encourages the perception that certain things are difficult. Knitting on DPNs, for example. I see people contort themselves in all sorts of ways to avoid using them. Cables and lacy patterns, too. It frustrates me to no end to see someone who’s an effective, insightful, intelligent person bleat out "But that’s way too hard," when confronted by anything new. Yes, I know that in knitting as in everything else, there’s a bell curve of ability, and not everyone can (or would want to) explore extreme knitting challenges like complex lace; but I think that people are capable of far more than they think they are, and only lack of confidence (bolstered by ratings so generously provided by "experts") keeps them bound inside a limited are that will eventually grow stale and boring.

But then my second set of thoughts squeaks weakly in protest. In a fit of overconfidence I may place myself more towards the leading pointy end of the bell curve; but there are lots of people in the belly and trailing end who are legitimately challenged, who labor on to the best of their ability but may never have the patience, skill, or perseverance to tackle something new. They deserve to be spared frustration, and so welcome skill level labeling so they can choose suitable projects. We then cycle back to my first reaction to such labels. It’s damn patronizing for any one entity to decide what’s beyond any one individual.

Case in point, I’ve got a knitting friend who is blind. She routinely does spectacular colorwork, and is currently working on the Pacific Northwest lace shawl (you can see Wendy’s magnificent version of it here). Difficult for sighted knitters? You bet. Extra difficult for her, working off a recording of the directions read out loud? You bet. But her determination to do it and to do it well trumps all difficulties, and that determination is only exceeded by the absolute joy she experiences from overcoming the challenge.

What would I like to see done instead? It takes more real estate on the page, but I’d like to see a more granular list of skills presented, especially for leaflet or broadside sheet patterns. Something like

Skills required: Increases, decreases, twisted stitches, cables, knitting in the round, reading a chart

That’s a lot more specific than "Intermediate." I can visualize someone reading that list ticking off the skills "Yup, can do, o.k., done that, fine; hmm – maybe this will help me get more comfortable with charts," rather than saying "I’ve just started, Intermediate must be too hard for me."

Yesterday’s Rant – Self Stripers

A couple of people wrote to say that they loved the stripers and didn’t want to see them go away. Neither do I.

I have lots of fun playing with them, too. But they’ve taken over nearly all the available retail shelf space around here, and there’s lots of shelf space, so that’s really saying something. I’d like to see self stripers stay available, and see new and playful reinterpretations of the theme. But I also would like to see more of the solids be available, too, to use by themselves, or in combo with the stripers (or other solids).

More from my inbox:

What happened to the socks you were making last week?

Finished them on the plane to Tucson and gave them as a birthday present to a long time pal and co-worker I met at the other end of the flight. Sorry. No pix of the completed socks.

Aren’t the Dark Sky socks going to be small for you?

Yes and no. They’re not for me. The recipient I have in mind has feet a couple of sizes smaller than my own flippers. I could wear them in an emergency, but it’s true that wrestling them on would be work, and that they’d be very tight. [Hi, Kathryn! :)]

The Dark Sky Socks Point pattern. I don’t get it. Why are there numbers on every row of the chart?

[A late-breaking addition to today’s post]. The pattern I doodled is worked in the round on the socks. Every round is a "right side" round, and is read beginning on the right and moving across to the left. I’ve used a very old-fashioned element for this stitch. Instead of alternating rows in which something interesting happens with plain knit (or purled) rows like in modern lacy knitting, I’ve graphed out something where there are YOs and decreases on EVERY row. This makes a very embossed pattern, but minimizes the size of what would be the eyelets, had plain knit rows been introduced. One large eyelet remains at the base of each point-bearing scale unit:

In a nifty coincidence that I wish I could take credit for, it looks like each scale unit is bisected at the point where the stripe colors change. As you can see from the zig-zags made by the single rows of pale blue, this would be an even more interesting texture pattern in a self-striper with a shorter repeat cycle. You’d get a jaunty effect with lots of up and down movement, different in look from but similar in effect to the See Saw Socks pattern I did for KnitNet.

When you use fancy stitch markers don’t the dinglebobs get caught in your work?

Yes, if I’m not careful. But being careful is second nature at this point. I also often use my "third hand" to grab markers and transfer them. The hanging doodad makes a good tag for biting.

Why didn’t you go to a yarn shop in Tucson?

This is going to shock some reading along here, but I do have a life outside of knitting. I didn’t even look for a shop down there.

I was in town on a professional assignment. I did my work, managed a couple of hours of down time and chose to use it on something unique. Yarn shops, fun as they are, mostly have the same inventory (or subsets of the same inventory) everywhere you go. Outside of small, local producers, I’m probably not going to find a ton of stuff that’s totally new to me.

I do anticipate future trips to that area. If/when they happen and if/when I have time, I might look for some hand-spun Churro wool – a specialty of Navajo traditional spinners and weavers. But barring that, there’s no real reason to schlep elsewhere to stare at the same yarns and accessories I can see at the exceptionally well-stocked LYS 2.75 miles away.

And the hoodie, possibly the Rogue?

Still swatching, thinking and planning. Target Child is waffling. I don’t want to start unless she really wants the thing. Otherwise we end up with a piece that will never be worn.

I really should hold off on posting until my thoughts have settled down. Yet again I put up the day’s entry (twice edited, too); then go out web-walking and find An Amazing Thing.

This one came cortesy of the recent referrers log to the right. I clicked on one of the links and was taken to a bicycle cozy. I wish I read Swedish, because there MUST be a fascinating story to accompany these pictures.

BoingBoing (my favorite souce of offbeat news) just posted this link to what they call a knitted 1950s era sitting room. Actually most of the decor examples shown in ABC Tasmania’s article on this bit of unusual art are crocheted and not knit, but they’re amusing none the less. ?