BACK TO KNITTING – DOILY FINISHING
Putting the curtain project on the back burner to stew a while, I turned back to knitting this weekend past. First, having time, and Older Daughter around to do photography that requires extra hands, I was able to do the final graft/join on the larger red doily, uniting the final row of my edging with the cast-on edge.
Here you see the problem. The last row of the edging is still on the needle
I wanted to make as invisible a seam as possible. I used standard grafting to unite the live stitches on the needle with the half-hitch formed cast on row. Had I been paying attention to detail a bit better, I would have used some sort of provisional cast-on instead of half-hitch. So it goes. Here you see a sequence of three shots showing picking up live stitches, then taking a stitch through a cast-on row stitch, and so on:
And the final product,with the graft indicated by the arrows.
I admit that with a bit more patience and time, I could have done it a bit better, but this was good enough.
Of course now that I’ve finished off the piece, I had no excuse not to block it (and its smaller sister). The op-art effect made by the sheet is not my deliberate attempt to befuddle your sight. I found these rally check sheets years ago, and find the regular grid to be very helpful in keeping things straight.
Less eye-popping pix will be forthcoming once both are dry.
YARN REVIEWS AT WISENEEDLE
UPDATE – February 2023
The wiseNeedle yarn review collection here is long gone. Sorry. I did make a go of it for about 14 years, relying on a small number of general audience ads to subsidize the cost of hosting the site at the database-enabled level required.
As Ravelry gained in popularity, all traffic to independent knitting sites came to a dead stop. Visits to consult the review collection and volunteer-submitted reviews both fell to near zero. I continued on funding the thing on my own for about three years, but eventually threw in the towel.
In time I was approached by the owner of would-be Ravelry competitor NimbleSticks, and the database of reviews and yarn information went over there. Sadly, that site has disappeared as well.
There’s now no easy to consult independent index of basic yarn info, with reviews (including the bad ones) – and in truth I don’t have the capacity to resurrect wiseNeedle’s collection. You can find some info on Ravelry, but you have to dig for it. Many retailers include “reviews” but they purge unfavorable comments.
The moral of the story is that all the good intentions in the world won’t fund a shared resource if no one uses it.
Original post
I’ve gotten some more questions about wiseNeedle and the yarn review collection, so I’ll take some space here to clarify what it’s all about.
What we are and aren’t
The on-line yarn review collection hosted elsewhere on this site is the latest manifestation of a project I’ve kept going since 1994/1995. Back in the early days of the KnitList mailing list, (when there were fewer than 250 members) yarns would come up for discussion. Opinions and gauges achieved would be shared. Then a couple of weeks later the whole thread would be repeated because someone had another question or a new person had joined with similar questions. So I began asking people to “donate” their comments to a central list to preserve valuable info and cut down on repetition.
My list started out as a text file that we shared round-robin. In 1995 I posted that content on my first web site, in the form of one and later a series of interconnected static web pages. It grew to the point of unmanageability. The Resident Male saw a challenge, and volunteered to build the necessary infrastructure to make the thing into a fully searchable database with a web front end open for (vetted) public contribution. So in 2000 we did.
Since then the yarn review collection has grown to include basic data for over 5225 yarns, the names of over 490 yarn makers, and to contain over 2875 individual reviews from over 2000 knitters, worldwide. We have info on both current and discontinued yarns (very useful if you have an older pattern or yarn you wish to find substitutes for) as well as products off the beaten track or only regionally available. Aside from my looking over reviews to make sure they’re attached to the intended product, that products are not duplicated without need, and that comments are not blatant planted ads or spam/graffiti, there’s no censorship or editing of anything posted.
And it’s just me (plus The Resident Male as resident technical wizard). There’s no other staff here, nor is there a group of captive volunteers assigning yarns to be reviewed or performing assessments. I’m afraid that we can’t respond to requests to see reviews posted for specific products. We have to sit and wait for someone who has used a yarn to post a review.
We have absolutely no involvement with yarn makers, sellers, or distributors and do not rely on them for subsidies or placement income. Nor do we accept samples or other marketing-related inducements. Therefore you are not going to see breathless endorsements of whatever the latest fad is, posted prior to a yarn’s wide availability. Nor do we remove negative reviews because we fear a loss of relationship with a sponsoring vendor or diminution of click-through or ad revenue from retailers who are paying for the privilege of appearing on our pages (all ads that you do see are blind-placed through Google or Burst services. Income goes to defray the cost of maintaining the site without charging user fees).
What you are going to see are honest opinions both negative and positive from knitters of all levels of experience from beginner to advanced. For widely used yarns, you’ll see reports of many different projects, knitted at a variety of gauges. Some will have follow-ups that report on washing or durability problems that crop up long after the actual knitting was done. And you’ll find differences of opinion, with some people loving a yarn for particular properties, and others detesting it for those same (or different) reasons.
So it all adds up to this. If you find an independent, central repository of this kind of info to be of any value – one which retains info long after a yarn is discontinued, is independent and impartial, and provides the forum for everyone to voice an opinion – please consider adding a review for the yarn on your needles right now to our collection. Just because someone has reviewed it before doesn’t make your experience less valuable. Your knitting experience, your project, your gauge, your care/durability experience may either confirm and strengthen group consensus about that product, or may provide a valuable point of difference. In all cases, your opinions are most welcome here.
How to post a review
The easiest way to enter a review is to look up the yarn on the search page, then add your notes to its basic info page. With as many entries as we have, unless your yarn is very old, a small run product, or very new this season it’s likely that it’s in there. Like all databases, you need only enter the minimum info to call up an entry – usually just the first few letters of the yarn’s name, then hit search. That will bring up a list of similar entries. Click on the one you want, then on the “review this yarn” link on that basic info page.
If your yarn isn’t found, there’s a handy page on which you can add both basic data and your opinion at the same time. (If your entry duplicates data for something we already have but that you weren’t able to find easily, and I can’t confirm that it’s the same I may eMail you to ask if your product is in fact something new). And there’s a page to enter basic data for yarns without adding comments, even if you’re not ready to post an opinion yet.
So please consider posting an entry to the wiseNeedle yarn review collection. I can guarantee you that somewhere in the world another knitter will be grateful for your help.
DILEMMA – THREAD COUNT AND MOTIF SIZE
Special thanks to Judith and Emily who offered up valuable advice on the curtain project. I am still hoping to do this is some sort of economical manner, by achieving two side-by-side panels out of my fabric width, but I will heed their wisdom and maximize the width of my panels.
Although I really like the linens at the vendor I contacted, I might have to see if I can find something wider elsewhere because I don’t want to either seam or end up with gobs and gobs of left-over yardage. But then again, there’s shrinkage. I know linens shrink, some more in length than width, others evenly in both directions. I am going to have to experiment by washing a swatch prior to final planning just to confirm final ratios.
Then there’s fading – another caution from my experts. This may be a big problem because my windows are on the sunny south side of the house and I am planning on using high-contrast dark hunter green embroidery thread. I do have to take sun bleaching into account. Perhaps a well-washed cotton flannel or other 100% cotton with dense weave will be appropriate. For the record though, I am planning on losing the Colonial edge roller shades and putting up unobtrusive mini-honeycomb shades to control light and privacy. They will help considerably with the fading problem. (These curtains will be more decorative than functional.)
But I promised to describe how I’d choose among various thread count fabrics.Here’s the original list:
- Flax Canvas 28 x 24 – 52″ wide
- Craftsman Linen 20 x 18 – 55″ wide
- Osnaberg 40 x 45 – 58″ wide
- Irish linen 40 x 32 – 55″ wide
- Belgian linen 34 x 38 – 54″ wide
- Raw linen 34 x 38 -54″ wide
To figure out how large my motifs would be on each of these I do a bit of math, using my first choice design’s measurements – 53 units tall x 308 units long for one full repeat. Note that I’m figuring to do my stitching over blocks of 2×2 threads, so on 28 count, I would be performing 14 stitches per inch (and people whine that 7spi in knitting is too tiny to see!) Also note that I’m taking the variance between the warp thread count (the direction running the long way of the yardage) and the weft count (the direction from selvage to selvage).
| Fabric | Length | Width |
| Flax Canvas – 28×24 | 22″ |
4.4″ |
| Craftsman – 20×18 | 30.8″ |
5.9″ |
| Osanberg – 40×45 | 15.4″ |
2.4″ |
| Irish Linen – 40×32 | 15.4″ | 3.3″ |
| Belgian/Raw Linen – 34 x38 | 18.1″ |
2.8″ |
As much as I adore stitching at tiny gauges (50 thread count is normal for me), the thought of working these curtains at anything higher than 32 is – even for me – just plain nuts. Especially when you consider that in a curtain of about 71 inches long, I’m planning on producing a stitched piece that’s about 60 inches long, and I’m planning on making four identical panels. In 28 count, that’s a bit less than three full repeats of my 308-unit motif. At the same time, I don’t like embroidery at bigger gauges either. I’m too spoiled by the grace of these patterns done on finer scale. Using this yardstick, Flax Canvas comes out as the best choice – just at the borderline between too coarse (Craftsman) and too fine (Raw Linen/Belgian linen).
And ratio? Squareness or distortion of the final design, considering that I’d be working on non-evenweave stuff? By looking at the thread count ratios (warp count/weft count) I can see that the largest distortion would be using the Irish Linen (factor 1.25); and the least using Craftsman (1.11). The Flax Canvas works out at a 1.16 skew ratio. I’d have roughly almost 12 stitches across the fabric for every 10 up and down. Not great, but not horrible either.
But then we come to the last and first problem. Of the fabrics available from this source, Flax Canvas is the narrowest on the bolt at only 52 inches wide. And my Curtain Advisers have suggested that more fullness is better. As much as I like these fabrics, I may need to go back to the drawing board and find another source of beautiful, affordable, but wider linen. Suggestions would be very welcome.
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.
WAVE SCARF, CONTEMPLATING CURTAINS
Yes, I’m still knitting. I’m in the “I’ve memorized the pattern repeat and up to churning out yardage” part of the project. The center area of my scarf/stole is approximately 3 feet long. Another two feet and I’ll be ready for the edging:
On the other needlework project contemplations, I wrote to ACP Textiles (the linen source I cited in my first post on the curtain project), asking them about thread counts of their products. They were gracious enough to reply immediately. Here’s the data in case you’re looking at their products, too:
- Flax Canvas 28 x 24 – 52″ wide
- Craftsman Linen 20 x 18 – 55″ wide
- Osnaberg 40 x 45 – 58″ wide
- Irish linen 40 x 32 – 55″ wide
- Belgian linen 34 x 38 – 54″ wide
- Raw linen 34 x 38 -54″ wide
That’s one set of vital data points necessary for further contemplation of this project. The remaining two are what stitching design to choose, and how and to what size specifications will the curtains be made
Stitching pattern
I am contemplating using one of three historical patterns from The New Carolingian Modelbook – all done in monochrome: If you have a copy, here are the citations.
Plate 33:1 – an extremely long block unit repeat, which I would embroider in voided style (working the background, not the foreground) in either cross stitch or long-armed cross stitch. This one is of a complicated interlace sporting grape leaves, and columbine flowers.The strip is 53 units wide, and the entire pattern repeats in about 308 units, center to center. The first publication I found of this was in a modelbook printed in Lyons dated 1533, although it was reprinted at least once by a different publisher in Venice in 1546.
Plate 63:1 – one of the more open straight stitch unit motifs, not suited for knitting or cross stitch but perfect for double running stitch (aka Spanish stitch, Holbein stitch) work. This one is an interlace with pomegranate and acanthus motifs. It’s also 53 units wide, but the repeat is complete in 146 units. This one was graphed from a photo of a boy’s shirt, circa 1540.
Plate 69:1 – another straight stitch motif. This one is of grapes and grape leaves, 65 units wide, with a repeat complete in 127 units. If you happen to have a copy of Drysdale’s Art of Blackwork Embroidery, the original 16/th/17th century Spanish artifact this was graphed from is also shown there on page 33.
Window size and curtain construction
My window is pretty big, original to the house. And it’s one of two. Here it is, adorned with the tired dime-store lace curtains and tobacco-stained roller shade left by my predecessor
I have not sewn curtains before, but it should be pretty logical. Especially for something this plain. I’ve you’ve done this and have warnings or spot flaws in my thought processes, please chime in.
I want flat panels with little or no extra width compared to the window. I want to sew little brass rings on the top that will be threaded onto a narrow brass rod, so I don’t have to allow for a header. I am also going to line the curtains to improve drape, give a bit more privacy, make the back neater, and increase their thermal retention (such as it will be). My window is 44 inches across, from one edge of the sill to the other. My window is 71 inches from top of the casement to the surface of the sill, and 74 inches from top of the casement to the bottom of the casement. It looks like any of the fabrics listed above would be wide enough to provide the two panels I need for the window side by side.
Since I would be hanging the things from a rod attached to the casement, about .75 of an inch below the top, and the rings are likely to be about an inch in diameter, I’d subtract about 2 inches from the 71 for total finished length. That gives me two mirror image panels about 23 inches wide x 69 inches long. I have enough width in my fabric for seam allowances. My guess is that for stability and drape, I’d want a hem of about 2 inches at the top, and about 4 inches at the bottom. That means that for each window I’ll need to buy about 2.25 yards of linen, plus an equivalent amount of lining fabric.
Now which fabric would be suitable for which of my motifs, and how would I go about placing them on the curtains, and how would I treat the right-angled corner when using designs that don’t provide that detail? Obviously more public contemplation of this project will appear here.
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…
POST-HOLIDAY QUIET
No knitting today. It was a happy but hectic holiday weekend here at String, full of family and food. Needless to say nothing beyond the targeted activities was accomplished. Still all are fed and happy, with grandparents spoiled beyond their expectations and back on their grand tour road trip.
Just as all of this was getting underway, I received a package from Long Term Needlework Pal Kathryn. She sent me glossy print catalogs from Bradbury and Bradbury, an outfit that offers reproductions of historical design wallpapers. She’s right in that some of their offerings are spot on for our 1912 house. I’ve not trembled to a halt on any of the offered designs yet (although several are very tempting), but I can say that after leafing through the catalogs I am in the early stages of project lust for something else.
Curtains for our library.
The bulk of the pictures from the catalog are available on line. You can see the type of curtains there that hit me. Plain linen rectangles of simple line, hung from narrow brass rods threaded through the top (or through small brass rings rings). But I don’t want unadorned curtains. I want to embroider mine. I happen to have on hand a huge set of counted thread border patterns of various widths at my disposal. Plus a pretty good idea of how to go about it all.
I want to put a pair of curtains on each of my two windows, each stitched with a border parallel to the center and bottom edges. Kind of like this:
If you happen to have a copy of The New Carolingian Modelbook to hand, I’m thinking of doing the full giant repeat of Plate 33 – the daSera grape leaves and flowers meander. Possibly in deep hunter green on natural linen. At four curtain panels to cover two windows that are about 5 feet tall by 3.5 feet wide, yes I’m nuts. So nuts in fact that I have to do more serious contemplation as to whether or not I will have the fortitude to take something like this to completion. But I’ve already started looking into linens…
Once more Kathryn leads me astray!
WAVE SCARF – PROGRESS
As you can see, I’m making progress on my Print of the Wave scarf/stole thing. It’s roughly 24 inches long. I figure I’m a tad under half-way home.
I am now contemplating whether or not I want to do the center back graft thing recommended by the author. The advantage is that the highly directional orientation of this texture design would then present the same way on both ends when worn.
They’d match, with the vine-like bits growing up from the each end. On the other hand, there would be a noticeable seam across the center back – another area of visual focus.
And the jury is still out on how to edge the piece. Part of me says that working the narrow complementary edging specified in the pattern would be quick and easy. And part of me says “Easy. Heck. Just think of the challenge of edging the thing with an 8-inch wide mitered border using at least three different stitch designs and THEN putting on an edging.” We’ll see which one prevails – sense or the lack thereof.
As an aside – if you’ve had problems with sporadic access to this site or leaving comments here, please send me a note at admin [at] wiseneedle [dot] com. I know that moving is disruptive and that when you move part of the audience is lost, but the silence here is deafening. Of course shouting out “Where did everyone go?” in an empty field is an exercise in absurdity. Sort of like thinking about adding a complex 8-inch border to what amounts to a spur of the moment knitting doodle. In any case, a safe, healthy and prosperous New Year to all!
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.
WAVE, LOOKING UP YARN MAKERS
Working away on the Wave scarf. Looks much as yesterday, but longer. I have however found my Heirloom Knitting book. I’d swear the knit gremlins stole it and then replaced it because it turned up on the shelf where it was supposed to be, in a spot I had checked a half-dozen times before. I am sorely tempted to use one of the wider Wave family border variants shown in the book instead of the elegant but simple one included in the pattern. We’ll see what happens when I get there.
In the mean time I continue to work on wiseNeedle. I’m tinkering with the KnitWiki’s structure (on paper). I want to get the skeleton logically organized before leaping into populating the thing. I’ve also been answering old advice board questions. There’s a spotty backlog of about a year, mostly inquiries that were stuck behind the junk entries. I am sure I’ve surprised some folk who posted their questions years ago, requesting that answer notifications be sent to them by eMail, who then never got an answer. More than a few out-of-the-blue notifications have arrived this week past.
On the yarn review side, I’m slowly adding basic info for as many of this season’s yarns as I can find. I’ve put in about 130 this week past, but have barely scratched the surface. I do note that people continue to be confused about the yarn maker list. There are hundreds in the collection – far more than the top 10 or so that appears on the drop-down list. In an effort to clarify how to use the thing I repeat some of the info from the how-to page.
The list of makers that appears on the drop down is a list of convenience only. It’s automatically generated, and changes as more yarns and reviews are entered and posted. We do not alter this list in response to manufacturer requests, nor do we put forward this list as a “short list” of recommended manufacturers – it’s based on a flat-out census count of yarns in the database only.
To look up a manufacturer that is NOT on the top-ten list, we provide a handy search utility. Click on the “Lookup/Add” button next to the “Manufacturer” field. A small secondary window will pop up.
Type in the first few letters of the manufacturer’s name and then click on the “Search” button in the little window. A list of manufacturers with similar names will pop up. Select the one you are interested in by clicking on its blue code name.
Some manufacturers are particularly arcane due to mergers, acquisitions, licensed “celebrity” names, national-market specific branding, or sub-lines. Here’s a list of the more arcane:
- Alice Starmore is listed under Broadbay
- Babajoes is under Merino Sheepskin Co, Ltd.
- Cestari is under Christoper Sheep Farm Yarns
- Dalegarn is under Dale of Norway
- DGB is under Difference G. Brui, Inc.
- Galler is under Jospeh Galler
- Holiday is under Robert Bremen
- KFI is under Knitting Fever
- Filtes King is under King
- Knit One Crochet Two is under K1, C2
- Kraemer is under Robert Kraemer, Bremen/Holiday
- Lady Fair is under Eaton
- Lily is under Spinrite
- Lewis is under John Lewis
- McGregor is under JL McGregor, Ltd.
- Peter Pan is under Wendy
- Pierber is under Laines Pierber
- Plassard is under Laines Plassard
- Trend Collection is under On Line
- Triola is under Bonnie Triola
- Vittidini is under Adrienne Vittidini
- Zitron is under Atelier Zitron
When you click on the manufacturer’s blue code name, the little search window will close and the “Manufacturer” field on the main form will be filled in with your choice.
String-Or-Nothing 