FLOOD OF BABY GIFTS – ROUND 1 DONE
Finished the fuzzy Entrelac blanket.
Because I began it with a cast on row plus two garter ridges all the way across before starting the foundation triangle row, I finished it in parallel by picking up stitches across the top and working two more garter ridges and the cast off row. Now all that remains is to wash it and darn in the ends. For some reason I never do that until just before I am ready to give the gift.
On to the next baby gift – #2 of 4. At the same LYS mega-sale where I got the fuzzy, I also picked up some Asa Gjestal Spinneri Baby Superwash in a light turquoise. It’s marked at 28 st = 10 cm, about 7 spi, but feels comparable to Dale Baby Ull. I could do a strip or medallion blanket throw out of it, or I could work up a sweater and hat set. Not sure. I’ve also got a couple of lots of soft acrylic at worsted weight given to me by a friend. There’s enough there to make a couple of blankets, too – one pale yellow, one pale blue, and another white with flecks one similar to the one I did back in the early Spring:
The other thing I bought was not on sale. It’s a cleverly packaged kit from Plymouth Yarns. It contains one large ball of Cotton Kisses yarn (mine is a baby multicolor), four duck-shaped buttons, and instructions to make one of two sweaters – either a v-neck cardigan or a placket pull-over, both knit on US #5s and #7s. There’s enough yarn in the kit to make one item in one of three sizes – newborn, 3-6mos, and 6-9mos. If you figure a leaflet is usually two or three dollars, and four buttons of this type would run two bucks, too, this all-except-needles pack was very reasonably priced at $14.00 for the whole thing. I’m holding off starting it until I know the sex of the target baby. Although there’s no real reason to differentiate, I think I’d make the placket for a boy and the cardigan for a girl.
So, I’m off to experiment, not quite sure which of these projects I’ll start tonight.
BACK FROM LIMBO – ENTRELAC FUZZY BLANKET
Here I am. Remember me?
I’ve managed to survive a perfect storm of deadlines at work – about 3 months of +80 hour weeks, odd improvised snacks instead of meals, and barely seeing the Resident Male and the kids. Then I collapsed into our week long escape to Cape Cod family vacation. Seven blissful days with no TV, no computers, no cell phones. Just watching the tide reclaim and surrender the strand, reading, playing golf, knitting, playing Killer Bunnies, cooking on the beach, and paddling Feckless II – our replacement kayak. (Feckless I was swept away during a storm last summer).
I’m now back, facing a double whammy here at String. Not only am I months behind on wiseNeedle and String-related mail and maintenance, plus my personal eMail inbox, I also find that I was hit by the dread Comcast Port 25 block outgoing mail problem, which appears to have started out as an intermittent nuisance before hardening into impenetrability. If you’ve been looking for a note from me starting around early May, deepest apologies. I think we’ve got the thing licked now, switching to a different outgoing port, and mail both in and out should be flowing again.
Now, what did I knit on the beach? Nothing exciting. I didn’t take my green lace piece. I’ve tried to knit lace yarn in windy dampness before and haven’t been happy. I didn’t take my North Truro counterpane. I had intended on doing so, but I came home late on Friday and we had to be in the car and on the road before breakfast on Saturday. I didn’t have time to dig it out, and make sure that all was ready to go. Instead I opted for something new, quick and near-mindless. I took a bag of yarn I got at my LYS’ annual sale with the intention of figuring out a baby blanket to do with it.
The yarn is a bit unusual. It’s Lana Grossa Bambino, machine washable acrylic/polyester blend worsted weight novelty yarn. It’s a short plush/fuzzy, with splotches of contrasting color. It knits up into an extremely soft, terry-like fabric. However the heavy plush obscures almost all stitch texture, and the spots of color compound the problem. About all you can do with this stuff is stockinette, garter or very wide ribs (think k5, p5 at the least). Anything else is totally lost.
So what to do?
First I considered something very flat and very plain. But the thought of knitting all that garter or stockinette was too boring for words. Plus the spots would have that loving-hands-at home look. Not fun. So I played a bit and came up with something simple that puts more movement into the color splotches.
I cast on for the width of the piece and knit four rows, to make two garter ridges, then I began working out in garter stitch Entrelac, on squares of 16 stitches (yes, I cast on a multiple of 16). It’s still all knit, and not the most exciting thing in the world to produce, but it’s more interesting that working the piece plain and flat. And the movement of stitch direction stirs the color splotches a jaunty jig. Compare the very first couple of rows at the bottom to the body and you’ll see what I mean. For once it’s my subject that’s fuzzy and not my photography.
[If pix above aren’t showing, we’re experiencing technical difficulties. Apologies! Will work on resolving them tonight.]
Not an exciting project, but a simple and satisfying one. Plus it’s only two courses of squares away from being done.
WRIGGLING MORE OLIVE OUT OF THE JAR
Not much progress here. My knitting (and blogging) time is severely curtailed by work obligations. I have moved a bit further into the pattern. It’s slow going. In addition to not having lots of time to sit down and make an systematic investigation – the pattern itself continues to present challenges.
I’m still struggling with the $ notation. Sometimes it means k1tbl, sometimes it means k2tbl. At this point I’m using the chart as a point of base information on my quest to make the finished knitting look somewhat like the book’s engraved illustration. Each row is an exercise in winging it, with occasional rip-backs after a repeat or two if they don’t quite work out.
As you can see – I’m close. Right now I’ve just finished the row where the triple peacock tail like elements are topped off with a double decreases, bringing their three lobes to sharp points. After that I’ve got a couple of rounds of a ground type pattern with vertical stripe like lace bars, then I launch into the supplemental graph for the zillion petal border repeat.
It’s hard to say exactly how large this piece is right now, all scrunched together in typical snood-type style on my circs and unblocked, but I estimate that I’m at about 24 inches across. Based on a crude assessment of proportions, I’d say that by the time I’m done with the petal section, I’ll be at 36-40 inches across. Still too small for my intended table, but I’ll worry about that when I get there. Maybe I’ll add another simple ground element, and then a judiciously chosen edging knitted around the circumference as opposed to center-out.
I take it from the astounding silence on recent projects that I’m pretty much the only person in the blogosphere (or at least the tiny minority of the knitworld that visits here) who is working from the Duchrow books. This is a pity, because in spite of the difficulties I’m having now, they are a marvelous source of inspiration. Don’t be daunted by the antique notation, the fact that they’re written in another language, and that on occasion a bit of creative insight has to be applied to make things work out well. This last bit hasn’t been common. I’ve worked up about a dozen items from various Duchrow charts and this is the first one that’s been a struggle. This stuff is Xtreme Knitting at its purest. If you like lace and like a challenge, consider this set.
Rats. I just noticed that I knocked two repeats off the end of the needle getting the radius measurement. Perfection in my work as in everything else, is asymptotic.
OLIVE UPDATE
I imposed upon a German speaking co-worker today, asking if he could help me with a line or two of the Duchrow annotation. Although fluent in his native language, he didn’t speak knitting, but between the two of us we pieced together a bit more detail.
It turns out that the instructions on this one have a special note that II is in fact to be interpreted as one YO, not two. But again – about half the time in order to make the required stitch count on the next patterned row the intervening plain knit row needs to place two stitches into that YO. There is no alternate direction on when to k2 into a YO and when not to do so; nor is there direction on when $ means k1tbl, and when it means k2tbl. So even though I now have the relevant bit of annotation translated, I am no more enlightened than I was yesterday.
To answer some privately posted questions
- The yarn I’m using was a gift. I’m afraid it has no brand name, and I’m unfamiliar with its original provenance.
- I’m knitting directly off the cone. I haven’t bothered to rewind a smaller quantity.
- I don’t have a good feel for how big my final piece will be, and that doesn’t bother me one bit. The directions say that the finished cloth is around 60cm (a little over 23.6 inches), but I think my piece will be larger. Probably on the order of 30-33 inches across if I work it as given. I’d like to go significantly larger – possibly 56 inches across. I may add a course or two of other repeats. We’ll see when I get there. There’s a ton of yarn, so the only limits are my own perseverance and willingness to tinker.
Now I have questions of my own.
- Is there anyone else out there working from the Duchrow series?
- If not those books – has anyone knit from the K. Ichida “Knitted Lace Designs of the Modern Mode” series – the Japanese language Modern Lace series reissuing classic European patterns?
Progress? Not really. I’m entering another chaos period at work, and had to rip back tonight. I managed to drop some stitches when I did yesterday’s photo. I wasn’t able to rework them, so I had to go back four rounds. Three steps forward, one step back.
OLIVES FOR THE TABLE?
Just because lace is an abiding addition, I had the yarn in the house and the book beside my favorite knitting chair, and I can’t stand to be without something to twiddle, I started another interim project from Duchrow’s Volume III.
This one is a stab at one of the in-the-round tablecloth patterns. The chart I’m using is on page 76 if you’ve got the book. (Aside to Long Time Needlework Pal Kathryn – yes, this is one of the charts guaranteed to make eyeballs bleed…)
However, I’m finding this chart a bit more open to reinterpretation than Duchrow’s rectangular ones. To date, I’ve found her charts to have been exacting to follow but largely consistent and error-free. But on this one I’ve found a couple of spots where the symbols were flat out wrong, and a couple of others where the in-book English translation might be off. For example, in this particular pattern the symbol:
ll
is supposed to mean a double YO. In many but not all instances it’s followed on the next patterned row with the symbol
$
which the glossary calls out as being a K1 through the back of the loop. But unless you knit both of the stitches previously formed by the double YO together, the stitch count and resulting look/feel of the piece are both flat out wrong.
It’s also not a given that the double yarn over is supposed to carry only one knit stitch on the subsequent plain knit row, with that second YO loop being dropped (which would make the single k1tbl logical) because in some but not all spots I need that extra stitch to be eaten into a later k2tog or ssk decrease. So the first repeat on each row has been an exercise in looking at the tiny blurry engraving of what the final product is supposed to be, counting stitches and proofing the repeat chart.
Still, the thing is beginning to grow. Here’s the traditional lousy String snapshot of yet another snood-like object wadded up onto needles.
In terms of the yarn – what I’m using is pretty thin. It’s 75% cotton, 25% linen marked as 2/30 – thinner than cobweb or Perle Cotton. I’d say it’s the equivalent of two plies of standard embroidery floss. I’m working it on nice, big 2.5mm needles and getting a quite satisfactory light and open texture. I do have a minor concern with ruffling, but unless I stop and put the whole piece on a temporary holder and spread it out, I won’t know how justified that concern might be.
Olive green may be a bit non traditional for lace, but over a navy tablecloth on my kitchen table, underneath white dishes with navy rims, it will look smashing. And once more, copious thanks to Friend Dena the Lace Enabler, who gave me the cone of yarn.
WHERE LOTS OF SOCKS HAVE GONE BEFORE
Of late my life has been ruled by deadlines. The pressure should abate somewhat soon because we’ve managed to find another proposal person at work. I am looking forward to evenings and weekends again. Also knitting.
In the mean time more in the manner of keeping sanity rather than making any real progress, I dashed off another pair of socks last week. This one was on huge-as-logs 2mm needles, standard toe-ups with the figure 8 toe and short rowed heel, on only 64 stitches (not my usual 72-80) . No fancy patterning, no nothing. Just mindless stockinette to let the yarn’s native colors play. The result looks rather Star Trek – with the standard Trek swoosh – albeit sideways – in crew uniform colors on a dark navy background.
The yarn’s official name is Regia Galaxy 4-Fadig Color. I suspect that in Europe it’s sold as Regia Jupiter, because of the small blurb about Jupiter inside the label. I worked it on such large needles because the color repeat didn’t work very well at my standard smaller gauge. The label recommends 2-3mm needles. As you can see, the swoosh factored in nicely enough at 2mm.
I’m not quite sure what larger project to begin next. I’m still finishing Elder Daughter’s Kyoto sleeves. But that’s my downstairs project, for when I have time to sit with the family and play video games or watch movies. My upstairs project sits in the library, where the adults of the house take their relaxation after the kids have gone to bed. That’s usually the most involved thing I am working on at any one time, and the project for which I now find myself in need of inspiration.
WOMEN IN ENGINEERING – THE FUTURE?
UPDATE: THE PANEL INSERTION PATTERN BELOW HAS BEEN ADDED TO THE PDF COLLECTION AT THE KNITTING PATTERNS LINK, ABOVE.
Like most parents, I spend a lot of time rolling my eyes at what passes for homework and school assignments. There are way too many feel-good tasks – making posters and collages, even well into high school. Where are the analytical reading pieces? Where is learning how to write a convincing essay? But every once and a while something engaging and creative is requested.
This month Smaller Daughter (now 9) had to construct a Rube Goldberg device, with a goal of popping a balloon. I sat on my hands and watched her experiment for the better part of a week. She scribbled out her designs and went down several possible paths before settling on her device components. She constructed (and re-constructed) each station scrounged from toys and oddments at hand, testing out each one individually, then assembled them into her final chain reaction. Eventually, after much tinkering she got it just right, and the whole thing worked as intended.
I wish I had a video camera, but you’ll have to use your imagination. Especially the part where the balloon makes a satisfying pop, and she leaps up in triumph.
Click on any thumbnail on this website to see detailed pix.
Someday I will loose this proto-engineer on the world. I hope the world will be ready.
In knitting news – not much. I’ve been working like a demon. All I’ve had time to do over the past two weeks is one mindless sock. For me to take two weeks to knit one sock says a lot. This one is a standard 72 stitch sock with a figure-8 toe and short rowed heel, worked using five DPNs. That calculates out to 18 stitches per needle. My insertion strip is 18 stitches wide as graphed below, so I do the pattern in its entirety once on each of the four working needles. I’ve stuffed a piece of white paper inside the sock so you can see the diamond patterning. and provided a chart for the simple design .
I used Meilenweit Mega Boot Stretch, knit at about 9spi. The shaded reds with the touch of orange is color #709. I’m not wild about this yarn. It feels nice and cushy knit up, but I don’t enjoy tensioning it. The stretch is throwing my gauge off a bit, especially on my heel’s purl rows. It also is rather lofty unstretched, and prone to catch and split on needle tips. I’ll post a review of the stuff when the pair is finished.
THINKING AND WAKER’S LEARN TO KNIT AFGHAN
I’m not sure what the next challenge should be. I really should finish the Galaga hat. I’m still working on the Kyoto (finished with the body pieces, now about a quarter of the way through the two sleeves). But having partially finished things has never stopped be from beginning something new before.
One possibility is to do something lacy taking advantage of the color properties of Noro’s Kureyon sock yarn. I couldn’t leave Wild & Woolly (in Lexington, MA – my favorite yarn shop) without it because these colors latched on to my magpie self and refused to let go.
I’ve been told that some folk think this yarn is too twisted and just a little bit harsh for socks. While not Regia smooth, it’s not particularly harsh to me. I suspect that like most Noro yarns, while they never achieve Merino softness, washing will make a tremendous difference. And for my purposes, rewinding to reduce twist and in the process increasing loft, isn’t optimal. I like my lace yarns to be tightly twisted.
But there remains the question of what to do with it. Something directional might work well with the repeat lengths, but so many other people have done Entrelac in these yarns. The same method I used for the Kureopatora’s Snake might be an idea – upping the number of stitches across to yield the same finished dimensions in the smaller gauge – but I want to do something else that’s more airy. Mating lacy stitches with the riot of hues is always a big challenge because textures tend to fight with the patterns produced by the yarn’s transition among colors. I’ll have to do more thinking on this one.
My other looming temptation is one of two tightly twisted little knots of Malabrigio Merino laceweight. I bought two – one in Emerald Blue (blues and teals) and one in Amoroso (a stunning garnet/cherry blend). I wound the blue into a ball last night.
The super-soft single-ply yarn relaxed and got considerably more lofty in the process – a bit of a disappointment for me, but not fatal. It just means I will have to use a much larger needle than I originally anticipated. Also some teasing apart was necessary because the thin strands were in the process of mating with each other, and some were slightly fulled into their neighbors. Thankfully I did not have to break the yarn to tame it. This slightly variegated yarn presents a smaller color challenge than the Noro, but a larger one due to skein length. 470 yards should be more than enough for a small scarf. To be sure that I will not run out mid-project, I will need to work it differently than the pieces I’ve been doing. I would revert to the method I used for Kombu – first knitting a narrow width of edging (the bottom), picking up stitches along the top and then knitting both the body and the left and right edgings at the same time. That way I could see how much I had left at all times, and maximize the scarf’s length by continuing until I had just enough yarn left to do the small strip of edging at the top. Or perhaps I’d chart out something with two decorative ends and included borders…
In the mean time, going back to a single color world – I can report that Elder Daughter is making excellent progress on her Walker Learn to Knit Afghan Book project. She’s using Cascade 220, all various greens and creams, bought one skein at at time from the orphan end of dyelot bin. She is going more or less in order, with skips ahead dictated by how much of what color she has on hand at any one time. I suspect that she’ll soon start improvising because she’s beginning to accumulate a stash of little leftover balls too small to use even for the book’s two-tone squares. Here’s the collection to date:
and a few close-ups (unblocked):
1
2
3
4
5
6 
So far she’s covered basic knit and purl (4 above), twisted stitches (1), simple directional decreases (2), yarn-overs (2), simple increases, cables (5), mosaic knitting (3,6). All in easy to digest aliquots and explained well enough that she’s been able to noodle it out all on her own. To be fair, I did show her a couple of tricks for 1×1 twisted stitch cables, but that was just a hands-on for the same methods described in her book. If you’re an experiential learner and you’re looking for a nice survey course in basic knitting, you might benefit from this classic bit of instruction. My only criticism of it is that it was written before Walker moved to charting – a vital skill these days as more and more resources rely heavily on that technique.
Needless to say, I’m quite proud of Elder Daughter and her ongoing project.
DUCHROW MUSINGS AND FINISHED DOODLE SCARF
As promised yesterday, pix of the Doodle Scarf – finished and visible on a light-color background:
The whole thing blocked out to be nine feet long, and point to point, about 17 inches across. I combined lace patterns from the Duchrow series (as described before), one edging and one insertion strip. I mitered the corners on the fly, not bothering to graph them out until after the fact. I am quite pleased with the way it turned out, and will probably keep this one for myself.
There’s some clear congruity to be seen among patterns in these books. Here are some other things I’ve done from insertions and edgings adapted from these books – another scarf and the big shawl from laceweight, and two baby blankets worked at DK gauge:
(A couple of the edgings were cribbed from Heirloom Knitting). I seem to have taken my inspiration so far from the family of diamond-based patterns. There’s lots of other stuff in there, including some in-the-round pieces. I think it’s time to branch out and try some of the patterns based other motifs.
Is anyone else out there playing with the Duchrow books? Or combining other older or traditional patterns into original lacy pieces? Or might be interested if I were to issue some or all of these in a leaflet?
MORE BLOCKING
I’m still chugging my way through my blocking pile. Here’s my Jang Print ‘o Wave piece, finished and blocked. I admit I could have done a better job blocking the thing, but it’s not horrible.
Due to the yarn and needle size I used, it ended up being stole sized rather than conforming to typical scarf dimensions. As I noted in my earlier posts, the endorsed rate of attachment is a bit ruffly. I prefer a flatter piece. The corners however turned out better than expected. The ease factor I used was (for the most part) enough to flare nicely around the corner in my non-stretchy linen, but “going round” rather than mitering does make the ends of the stole flare out a bit. If I were to knit this again, I’d work out a complementary mitered or fixed piece corner instead of just easing the edging around.
If you are thinking of working this pattern, too, I did post a minor bit of errata for the original pattern. My own Jang Wave will be headed out as a present for a family member.
And on presents – a great pal of mine, co-conspirator, sometimes employer/sometimes co-worker/sometimes employee, fellow Kim, leader of the pack, and all around kindred spirit deserves a pair of fingerless mittens:
These were adapted from my previously shared Fingerless Whatevers pattern. Although they’ve missed the worst of winter’s weather, they’re on their way.
The blocking joy never stops. (Perhaps that’s why I put it of forever). Here’s the most current piece, pinned out and drying:
This is the Black Lace Doodle scarf I was working on a month or so ago. To be fair, it’s not entirely black, it’s more of a deep gray/tobacco color, knit from leftovers from my big Woven Diamonds shawl. Better pix away from the checky blocking sheet in the next post (promise!)
Finally – a private note to friend-from-elder-days, Wendy. I tried leaving a comment on your blog about your offer of the ancient photo, to no avail. I’d love to see the thing. I might even have one of you (of similar vintage) in trade. All my best to the family, two and four-footed, alike.
String-Or-Nothing 