Archive for the 'Knitting Techniques' Category
I fell in love with the December Lights Tam on the cover of Inerweave Knits‘ holiday issue, but I know my limits—both knitterly and economic. I wasn’t going to buy eight skeins of yarn to knit up one tam. Instead, I decided to try knitting it up in just two yarns from my stash, one solid and one variegated.
Here’s how my version is coming along. I suppose it’s immodest of me, but I absolutely adore this piece and the mix of dark and light it offers—like looking into the the windows of a lighted cathedral on a chilly winter night. I’m working all the red/pink stitches on the original pattern in black and all the green stitches in the variegated. The handful of blue stitches on the original pattern I’m working in either black or variegated, depending on which seems best in each spot.
Here’s my latest piece of “meeting knitting”: Miss Crazy from Knitting Delight in silk Habu.
Really the scarf was just an excuse to buy the yarn, which I couldn’t pass by. (In fact, I also got a second cone in a wonderful charcoal grey/pine green colorway.) I am planning on keeping this piece simple, leaving the eyelets as eyelets, rather than running ribbons through them as the pattern suggests. My only complaint—but I knew this would be the case—is that the silk is a bit stiff to work with. The next time I find myself succombing to the siren-call of Habu, I’m going to try to steer myself in the direction of some wool.
Finally, here’s a picture of my completed Rosebud.
This took just one skein of Cherry Tree Hill’s Ariel and came out nice and big.
P.S. Here’s a question for discussion—
How many of you knit things you know you’re not going to wear?
I find myself doing this all the time. I’m not a hat-wearer, yet I had to make December Lights. I also design hats, though I don’t really wear them. (In fact, I’m at that peri-menopausal place where almost any knit garment is much too warm to even think about wearing.) Sometimes I just see a pattern and I have to know how it’s going to look as I work it up, regardless of whether I’ll wear it or not. I figure that by time I’m done with the piece it will have told me who it’s for.
November 15 2007 | December Lights and FOs and Intarsia/Stranded Knitting and Knitting Techniques and Rosebud and WIPs | 3 Comments »
Knitters do have opinions about bobbles! And non-knitters, too—Melissa calls them buboes.
I actually like how they look, but approach them with some caution because they
a) can eat up a lot of yarn,
b) don’t always make for comfortable garments, depending upon their placement,
c) tend to look lumpy if you don’t get the shape exactly right.
Well, I don’t have any answers for a and b, but Janet Szabo’s Aran Sweater Design has a solution for c: work the decreases symmetrically. Most bobble instructions tell you to work 3-5 stitches into one, then finish off by passing stitches 1-4 over stitch 5, which results in a listing bobble. Instead, for a five-stitch bobble, Szabo suggests working K2 tog, K1, SSK on the next-to-last set of bobble stitches, then working Sl1, K2tog, PSSO on the final set of bobble stitches. Voila—a nice, round bobble.
I just discovered this book at the local library, while browsing the knitting shelves. For now, I’ve checked it out, but I will most certainly be buying my own copy for my personal knitting reference library. This is not a pattern book, though it does include half a dozen garment patterns in a final section. Instead, it is a theory-and-practice-of-Aran-knitting guide that is both clear and thorough. Szabo (also the author of Cables: The Basics and editor/publisher of Twists and Turns) introduces knitters to different manners of constructing aran sweaters (saddle shoulders, vs. set-in sleeves, for example), explains the “design blocks” aran knitters have to play with (front panel, sleeves, button bands, etc.), discusses the effects created by pairing particular kinds of cables and varying the distance between them, and offers a myriad of specific, helpful suggestions (like the tip for producing symmetrical bobbles).
With the help of this book I expect I’ll soon be dreaming up Aran hats and scarves. And, who knows? A few years down the line with some coaching from Janet Szabo, I may be working my own custom Aran sweater.
September 14 2007 | Aran Knitting and Books and Knitting and Knitting Techniques | 3 Comments »
I’m thinking about doing the Clementine Shawlette from the spring issue of Interweave Knits. It’s a lovely thing, pretty, but not overly complicated. Here it is, knit up by the Local Needle. Here’s another version from Whoopsy Daisy. And here a version from Ruthless Knitting. What I’m considering is is bumping up the yarn weight and needle size in hopes of generating a full-on shawl, rather than a shawlette. I have three balls of Malabrigo in a great fuschia/apple color combination (the colorway is Melilla, scroll down and you’ll find it). If I did this—particularly if I did it without swatching, which is of course what my itchy fingers are urging—I’d be risking producing something big enough for a giantess. (Or, perhaps, Janet Reno? Wait, no, that’s Will Ferrell…. Here she is! And here they are together.) But I’m still nursing my diasppointment that I cast off my Easy Triangle Shawl as soon as I did, so enormous seems like just the thing.
On another note, you may (or may not) remember that I’d started a felted knit tote version 2.0 quite a while ago. Because it’s 200 stitches around and all stockingette, it’s been languishing in the back seat of my car as the emergency-take-it-out-and-drag-it-along-to-meetings project. Well, yesterday during the weekly Committee on Educational Policy gathering, I got a vision of a way to alter the decreases that will, if I’m right, change the shape of the bag in a pleasing way, allow for a more attractive closure, and reduce some seaming I’d been dreading to a simple three-needle cast-off. Huzzah! I actually took the bag out of my car last night and worked on it while I watched Bill Moyers‘ latest on PBS.
April 26 2007 | Felting and Knitting Techniques and Uncategorized | No Comments »
Just to let you know, I may not be posting much for the next week. Tomorrow I leave town for Stitches West. Friday, I’ll be spending the day roaming the market with my mom. Over Saturday and Sunday I’m taking three classes:Increases and Decreases (326), Chart Reading and Writing (544), and Hole-Istic Lace (529). I chose these three because I want to continue developing and writing patterns and each focuses on a skill that will help me further that goal. I wish I could have taken the actual pattern writing class, but that one was full by the time I enrolled. Increases and decreases have been a particular concern of mine: I want to make sure that the increases and decreases in my patterns really compliment the design and aren’t just default choices. I love knitting from charts and have downloaded a charting program, but haven’t begun to use it yet and figured a class on the subject might get me going. And the lace class? Well, I’m assuming it will give me more practice with increases and decreases and, well, it’s lace—need I say more?
I’ll get home Sunday night, then begin a week of conferences with all of my students to review the written portfolios they’re preparing. I have a definite hermit streak in me, and all that human contact will leave me pretty fried at the end of each day, but I am counting on the reviving powers of knitting to see me through.
The semi-Norwegian hat is two-thirds finished. Once it’s done, I plan to knit a second hat from the same pattern and yarn (or part of a hat, if I don’t have enought yarn left) reversing the main and contrast colors so that the background is variegated and the design is in solid orange. I want to be able to compare the two and think about the relative merits of variegated yarns as MCs and CCs before I start working on additional designs. I’ll post pictures of these as soon as I can once I’m done with them.
February 21 2007 | Intarsia/Stranded Knitting and Knitting Techniques and Stitches West | No Comments »
Warning: The first part of this entry is non-knitting related, but I decided to post, both for my own motivation and because I know others are in the same situation. If you’re a knitting purist, just click on down to the final two paragraphs—no offense will be taken.
Today is Fat Tuesday, the indulge-in-all-your-vices-now-because-Lent-starts-tomorrow day. As an agnostic, I don’t always “do” Lent, but this year I’ve decided to. Whether or not there is a God, trying to rein in my self-indulgent side for a specific period of time seems like a winning proposition.
I am part of the “epidemic” of Type 2 Diabetes in the U.S. Given this, I’m doing OK: I’m overweight, but I have good numbers (A1C, the various cholesterols, metabolic functions). Still, even if my numbers don’t show it yet, I’m simply not eating the way I should. The basic formula for a diabetic is that every two grams of carbohydrate should be eaten with at least one gram of protein. When the balance tips too far to the carbohydrate side one’s blood sugar rises. And repeated rising blood sugar results in all kinds of nasty consequences: loss of vision, loss of kidney function, heart disease, loss of circulation resulting in possible loss of feet and legs.
Now, here’s where it gets tricky. For the most part, I do not feel my blood sugar rise (though I can get nauseous or sleepy if I really, really overdo it). Eating things I shouldn’t has no perceptible consequences in the short run. My rational mind knows what I should/shouldn’t be eating to protect my long-term health, but my impulse-driven mind sees something yummy, wants it, and overrules the rational mind. And with no short-term consequences, I find it all too easy to lie to myself about the long-term consequences (remember that old joke about Cleopatra not being the only queen of de-nile?).
So for Lent I am choosing to give up desserts and dessert-like items. That will mean no stopping for a Danish on the way to work when I’m in a rush, no letting myself throw a candy bar into the cart when I’m buying groceries, no playing the this-is-a-special-occasion-so-it’s-ok-to-break-the-rules-just-once game (which gets played once and once and once and—before I know it—becomes a lifestyle). Melissa, bless her, is joining me in this, even though she’s not diabetic.
I don’t imagine I’ll write a lot about this here in the blog, but I reserve the right to do so if it helps me stay honest with myself. And to everyone else out there who’s with me in the Type 2 Diabetes boat—feel free to chime in with your own successes, complaints, frustrations. I’ll know exactly how you’re feeling.
And now, back to knitting…
I’m halfway throught my semi-Norwegian hat and will post pictures soon. I’m getting some interesting results using a variegated yarn for my contrast color: in one quadrant it’s knitting up more or less in stripes; in two quadrants it’s resulting in major pooling; in the final quadrant I have a mix of stripes and pools. Because I come to knitting from counted-thread embroidery, the pooling doesn’t trouble me. Most samplars knit in over-dyed floss result in some pooling, which just adds to the “uniquely handcrafted” look. But I am surprised by the variation. If I’d guessed beforehand, I would have projected that the hat would be all-pooled or all-striped, yet each quadrant is merrily going its own way. I am thinking about using this variation to my advantage in furture projects, by pairing variegated contrast yarn with deliberately primitive, folk-art motifs. (If you want to see the kind of style I’m thinking of, check out some of the counted-thread charts available at Wyndham Needleworks, particularly Carriage House Samplings and Blackbird Designs.)
P.S. Here on the Plain Ole Knitting Journal is a photo of my Santa Cruz Hat knit up in Noro Silk Garden. And here it is again on TNT Knits in a lovely blue merino. And here it is on Dim Sum Knitting. And a silk/wool version by Xao T. Whee! My Pattern is getting actual use by actual knitters!
February 20 2007 | Intarsia/Stranded Knitting and Knitting Techniques | 5 Comments »
Since it’s the weekend and Melissa is here to play photographer and uploader, I have new pictures to post. (I will be doing my own photography one of these days, but as an old dog I want to wait and learn this new trick once the academic year is over.)
Here’s the Horse Shoe Cable Hat I knit up in a child’s size using the pattern by Lydia of Dropped a Stitch. My friend Boaz, who was having a squirmy kind of morning, is doing the modeling. We played the “put-the-hat-on, whip-the-hat-off” game, which resulted in much laughter and many blurry photos. (You may notice that the blurrier the photo, the bigger his grin—there’s some sort of correlation going on there.)
Complete blur:
Partial blur:
Minor blur:
We were indoors when we took these pictures, and I think he found a hat inside the house unnecessary. One of these days when we head outdoors to play, we’ll have to try to get a completely clear shot.
I knit the hat in Rio de la Plata’s Twist, color TS-96. I’m looking forward to knitting it up again in an adult size with bigger needles and a heavier guage yarn.
After two evenings of playing with Hello Yarn’s Generic Norwegian Hat chart, I’ve now started a semi-Norwegian hat of my own design. I’m working with Knit Picks yarn, as I often do for my “one-offs” when I haven’t finalized a pattern, as the price is unbeatable. I’m using Gloss in Pumpkin as the main color and Memories in Redwood Forest for the contrast. My design is fairly simple: a pair of overlapping oak leaves with a cross-hatched background pattern. Originally, I’d thought I’d include some acorns as well, but, interestingly enough, they were much more difficult to chart than the oak leaves. They have a simpler shape, and the simplicity actually makes them harder to render effectively.
I’ve realized that charted multi-colored knitting will allow me to draw on all my years of doing folk-art style counted-thread embroidery. Up till now, I’ve been thinking of knitting as being about shape and texture, but intarsia opens knitting up to being about image as well. (And text—check out this sweater and also this one, both by Lisa Anne Auerbach.)
As I’ve mentioned, I earn my living teaching writing at UC Santa Cruz. When I walk to my office, I see this. (That’s my office door in the background, just to the left of the redwood trees.)
If I make a 180-degree turn while walking to my office, I often see something like this.
Even with 200 or so pages of essay-reading most weekends, basically, it’s paradise.
I’ve kept a “mammal list” of my workplace sightings. Particularly in the summers, when the number of students decreases, one can encounter all sorts of creatures:
Ground Squirrels (These are ubiquitous.)
Deer (These are an everyday sighting, and I often see mothers with fawns—singles or twins—in the spring and summer.)
Foxes
Skunks (I was once in a line of half a dozen cars that came to a complete stop while a group of five or six skunks held a caucus in the middle of the road, running in cicles and chattering like mad at one another.)
Raccoons
Coyotes
Bob Cat (From a distance I thought it might be a lost housecat, so I parked my car and went to investigate. When I got to within twenty feet of it, it stood up, at which point I realized this was no house cat. It shot me an “I-could-take-you-out-if-I-wanted-to” look and slowly ambled off into the brush.)
February 18 2007 | FOs and Horse Shoe Cable Hat and Intarsia/Stranded Knitting and Knitting Techniques | No Comments »
Yesterday, I discovered the Generic Norwegian Hat and Generic Norwegian Mittens charts at Hello Yarn. Printed out the hat chart, took it home, started playing with the colored pencils. Realized this charting is trickier than it might first seem. I have lots of ideas, but then when I remember that I’ll have to knit this hat in the round and that I don’t want to be stopping and starting yarns all the time and weaving ends in for fifteen years after then project has been knit… well, things get complicated.
Basically, every row needs to use both colors, and colors should change at least every seven stitches or so. I started by charting a cat. Whoops! Too many yellow body stitches in one horizontal stretch. So I made my cat a tabby with stripes to break up the body color. The tail presented another problem, as it rises above the head and is only one stitch wide and surrounded by overly-long stretches of my main color. I haven’t solved that one yet.
Maybe, I thought, I should start with a background pattern of some sort, simple checks or diamonds. Then I could superimpose my primary design on top of that. But by then I had scribbled over the one chart I’d printed out, so I had to wait and stare at the thing in frustration.
Today, I have printed out half a dozen charts to play with myself and a few more for Melissa as well. I’m imagining a blue-on-blue hat with a convoluted, William Morris-esque octopus (did William Morris ever do octopi?) and a waves-spitting-foam sort of decorative band.
I want to go through all my books of Morris’s designs and just think about the mix of detail and simplicity he could conjure up and what my own version of that simple intricacy might be like.
Given that these will be trial runs, once I start knitting I’m thinking of using ribbing at the base of the hats instead of doing a provisional cast on and knitting in lining afterward. I can get fussy like that once I’ve come up with a truly satisfactory design.
February 16 2007 | Intarsia/Stranded Knitting and Knitting Techniques | No Comments »
In the last few days, I’ve done the following knitting.
1. Knit up a Horse Shoe Cable Hat in Rio de la Plata Twist color TS-96 (a turquoise, maroon, brown, and tan marl), using the free pattern from Dropped a Stitch. (Photo this weekend.) The pattern is very clearly written and fun to work, with effective, subtle decreases.
2. Begun work on a folk art scarf I dreamed up a while back before I knew how to do intarsia. The problem is that the motifs are very scattered and I’m knitting in the round, so I’m getting long, nasty stretches of contrast-color yarn on the inside of the piece, which means I will be doing lots of weaving in ends later. Once I finish the bit I’m on, I’m going to try converting to flat knitting to see if this makes the back of the intarsia neater. I’m using Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool in Warm Red and Sunflower—a lovely, crunchy yarn with rich, deep color.
3. Knit around and around and around on version 2.0 of my felted bag. I’m on the solid color part now, so it doesn’t offer much excitement, especially since I’ve increased to 200 stitches from the 120 I used on version 1.0. Originally, I’d planned to do the final version of this bag in Malabrigo, but given that a) the Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride I’m using now is knitting up well, b) it’s significantly cheaper than the Malabrigo ($4.25 a skein on sale from Discontinued Brand Name Yarns) and c) I’m felting the final project, I’ve decided just to stick with the Lamb’s Pride and to list Malabrigo as an alternate yarn on the pattern. I’m using Plum as the main color, Turquoise for the contrast.
4. Felted the i-cord for felted bag version 1.0. I did this in the sink with hot water because I didn’t want to wait to do a whole load of laundry. I’m always amazed by that “it’s not felted… it’s not felted… it’s felted!” moment.
5. Played some more with cotton/modal kids’ knits—thinking about sun hats at the moment. I’d been frustrated because all the standard measurement charts for hats included curcumference, but not height, and I don’t have any kids at home to use as my test models. But I posted my question on the Forum Pages at Knitter’s Review, and Fran posted an answer within fifteen minutes.
The pattern cards for the hat featured in “Five Yarns, Five Hats” arrived Monday (whee!). I’ll be taking them to Stitches West and will post the pattern once I’m back—so you can expect that in another two weeks or so. Melissa did an amazing job on the layout.
February 14 2007 | Intarsia/Stranded Knitting and Knitting Techniques | 1 Comment »
