3 Sleeves to the Wind

Four color knitting

2012-01-11T08:45:00.000-08:00

Last month, the discovery that my latest project required knitting with four colors in the same round made me shut the pattern book. The book, opened after I used three colors on a couple of rounds in my Equinox, had previously only been opened a few times a year, allowing me to admire the pattern photo. Oh, how I loved this design. I studied it for years, admiring its silvery gray, the darling snowflakes, those chunky braids. With enough of the recommended yarn in the almost-right colors, it looked simple, just a stranded hat, knit in the round. It lulled me into thinking it was no big deal. That is, until the discovery of the four-colors-at-the-same-time exercise. Just one more color, but certainly enough for me, at least at this point. Three colors on most of the rounds, four colors on about half, and floats that stretched over 20 stitches jerked me awake.

Awakened, I opened the book and cast on. I'm glad I did.

The top and bottom of the design have four-color rounds, the same as in the middle. They aren't visible here because I used a navy blue there. Once I saw the contrast wasn't great enough, I searched my Kroy stash for a lighter color. I finally settled on the aqua cut out a scrap of Kroy FX, but only had enough for the middle diamonds. The pattern notes indicate that the diamonds should be done with intarsia, but I stranded them. Intarsia? In the round? I'm not sure if the instructions hinted at intarsia or if the reference to twisting the yarns at color changes to avoid holes was provided to explain how to handle the long floats. Either way, there were a couple of vague or questionable points in the pattern instructions. If I knit it again, I'd change a couple of things.

I'd shape the hem with decreases to fit the ear flaps, making it possible to continue knitting a lining up to the crown, possibly throughout the hat. A full lining would eliminate that dent caused by sewing the lining to the flap. However, a lining would also tighten the fit. Since I wanted the hat to be a bit larger than the 20" specified in the pattern, I wasn't worried when I saw that my gauge would put the hat between 21 to 22 inches. However, the row gauge is off as well, making the hat too long. Even at the pattern-specified 8.5", it would not be a snug fit. Now, at over 9", it is slouchy, as is the current fashion, but not in a fashionable way. The stranded fabric is a little stiff to drape nicely. One solution to this problem would be to decrease more often at the crown.

A flatter crown would make the hat more of a pillbox and less of a stocking-cap style. Then there is that tassel. The pattern calls for 14" long strands, braided. However, that means there are raw edges at each end of the braid. Once I finished braiding it, I couldn't figure out how to fasten it neatly to the hat. I just opened the top of the hat, stuck in the braid and tightened the hat back around it. Maybe I was supposed to fold the strands over and have a much shorter braid, about 4" long? It doesn't appear to be that short in the pattern photo. As I did it, the braid is not securely fastened enough to stand up to heavy wear. I'm not going to change the attachment just yet, though. This hat won't see heavy wear for a while. I'll keep it on display.

With its four-color rounds, long floats, miles of braiding and finishing details, this is a new milestone for me. Here's the hat on Ravelry.

Casting off 2011

2012-01-08T07:47:00.000-08:00

Through the wonders of technology, I've encapsulated the old year, settling on one photo for each of the months of 2011. I tried to avoid the difficulty of choosing just one photo out of a set by using the first one that "popped" out at me, provided I hadn't blogged it already. The only exception is the one shot of knitting, the mittens for February. It was published here before. But then, I had to have a little knitting in the slide show.

The last few months of the year are represented by only one photo, of food, because the celebratory nature of the photo typifies that season for me. There's not much to photograph outside, all is gray and dim. Inside, there is a lot of knitting and eating. It was a good year for knitting, finishing with a couple of very fine projects. That is, fine materials. I can't claim much skill in production since I used two well-written, often-knit patterns.

I used two hanks of Koigu kppm for these Double Heelix socks. (Yes, my jeans are really that raggedy--it is the weekend!) This great pattern was generously provided in Knitty last year by Jeny Staiman. Since Jeny used Koigu as one of the colors in the sample socks, I was inspired to finally use the almost-green hank I'd been holding since I impulsively ordered a Charlotte's Web shawl kit in 2005. This is some of the oldest yarn I own. The other 4 hanks that came in the kit have been used here and there, but this one was too pretty to use in bits. The pattern lets it go in a hunk, top or bottom, starting off in the spiral heel.

I used the largest heel in the pattern to maximize the spirals, then turned them opposite ways for a mirroring effect. The gray is Koigu, too, just some I had bought for contrast heels and toes. I was lucky to have it, since it sets off the green so nicely. All in all, these are nice socks. I've gotten a lot of compliments on them as I've carried them around, knitting on them here and there through the holidays. Since the heels require concentration, I knit each one at home, then took the heel on the road to add the mostly-stockinette feet and legs. Done that way, the pattern makes a good travel project. The difficulty of the heel is balanced by the simplicity of the sock. As I said, it is a great pattern.

The project below was knit only at home. It didn't travel well because it is all lace, wonderfully soft cashmere lace.

As I mentioned in my last post, I found that Evelyn Clark's Swallowtail shawl requires only 400 yards of yarn. I actually had several yards of the fingering-weight Carmen (Saffron Dyeworks) left over. I was sorry about that, in fact. I wanted to use every bit of the fabulous cashmere. Knitting with it was so luxurious, I hated to see the project end. However, with only 300-some yards to knit in a few fairly simple lace patterns, it ended rather quickly. I finished it in less than two weeks, even though I devoted very little at-home time to it.

And that method, devoting very little time at home, is the way I treated the rest of my projects so far this year. I'm on a bit of a knitting break, but not because I want one. I've got lots of ideas spinning around in my head. Once I get the decks cleared, I expect 2012 to be as fun to knit my way through as 2011. When I get the head-spinning events sorted out, I'll show my knitting plans.

Links:

Double Heelix Sock pattern

Carmen yarn (that's my colorway!)

Ravely projects, socks and shawl.

Knit slowly, knit fast

2011-12-21T07:00:00.000-08:00

At a time when the daylight hours are waning, my perception of my current knitting project reflects my perception of the turning of the seasons. Each day, our sun is slowly dwindling away. The unfortunate clouds aggravate this process, emphasizing that sunlight is at a premium. The change is subtle, but persistent. Eventually, over the course of what seems a long time, the days shorten and the clouds clump up. The rare bright spot of sun is the only reminder that things have changed.

**Quick, the sun is out, get the camera and take a photo of the knitting!**

A few nights ago, I finished the first set of braids on this hat after days of purling in the round, a movement that seems so wrong, deliberately twisting two yarns around and around, then reversing the twist on the next round. Once I finished the first set of braids, I worked the little band of stockinette, knitting six rounds. I knit and watched a movie for what seemed a few minutes. When I looked at my counter to click it for the next round, I was startled to see that it read "6". Eep. I knit 6 rounds without noticing. What a shock, especially since I had looked forward to this knitting as I struggled through the six rounds of braids during the past three days. (OK, 9 rounds, counting the k1, p1 rounds that begin each braid.)

Because I have lived it before, I know that the lengthening of the days will repeat this time shortening experience. Once the sun begins to return, I will not notice it. The days lengthen steadily, but the process, taken for granted, is accelerated for me. In a month or so, I will look up in the late afternoon and think, "Hmph, the sun is still up. When did that happen?" It's like knitting stockinette in the round. I do it, but I'm oblivious to the process.

What would life be like if I lived it as though I were braiding? It would seem longer, but punishingly cruel. I'd struggle through each moment and yearn for the time when I'd be free of the tasks I'd undertaken. It is preferable, I think, to suddenly be struck by a change that happened gradually. At least my awakening is a sign that I was enjoying the time as it passed so quickly and that I found the going easy.

I enjoy the seasons as they pass, but don't want them linger too long. I'm happy that the Solstice is almost here.

The hat I'm knitting is from a relatively obscure pattern. Here's the link to the pattern on Ravelry for those who want a preview of the FO. I'll probably blog it again once I finish it, since I consider it a small milestone.

Cast off, year's end

2011-12-12T12:45:00.000-08:00

I've cast off a couple of important knits. First, a sweater-

This sweater, the Equinox Yoke pullover from the Fall 2006 issue of Interweave Knits, is important to me not only because it represents the culmination of years spent admiring the design and yet more years spent accumulating the appropriate colors of Misti Alpaca worsted (aka baby alpaca), but also because it is a milestone for me in pattern modification. Having finished it, I feel like the poor woman on the soup commercial, vainly exclaming "It fits!" to an unconcerned listener. Alas, it doesn't have the impact of the original, which plainly didn't fit the model. That sweater was slouchy, slumpy and oh-so boho. It had style and impact. No wonder it was the cover shot. Unfortunately, it was also, as verified by many of the projects on Ravelry, unwearable, at least if you wanted to lift your arms.

Thanks to the collective wisdom of the more than one hundred Ravelry projects for this sweater, I re-engineered the fit and the form, largely relying on Elizabeth Zimmerman's percentage system for yoke sweaters. The result is a shorter yoke that brings the armscyes up where they belong, as evidenced below.

Again, I exclaim: It fits! Yet one more benefit of this knit is that I found another old gem of a pattern right next to it in the magazine and am now happily knitting Evelyn Clark's Swallowtail Shawl, in Carmen, a wonderful cashmere from Saffron Dyeworks. I had begun another project in this yarn months ago, only to rip it out once I realized that a mere 400 yards is not nearly enough for a shawl. Now, I see that this pattern relys on just about that amount. Maybe I will have enough. If not, I have the leftover alpaca from my second Mathematix to fill in. Either way, I hope to have it finished for Christmas, along with a Christmas-themed dishtowel.

Another Christmas knit has been delivered and approved.

I won't really brag on these, except to say that I'm enormously happy that they are done. Knitting the inner sock that lines them, then struggling through the intarsia circles, adding heels, then sewing the sock top onto the soles altogether wore out my enthusiasm for this project. I have another pair of soles to make myself some slippers, but I can't face them (not a referral to the construction).

Instead, I'm back to working on those holiday-inspired projects. I hope I finish them before Santa arrives. I hear the bells jingling--I'd better get to knitting!

Related Links:

The original Equinox Yoke Pullover

My Equinox on Ravelry

For the skeptics, the Ravelry page for those slippers. Mine really is the only project!

Double knit sock heels done

2011-11-20T09:03:00.000-08:00

When I knit the second sock in the pair with double-knit heels, I knew I was facing an intricate and time-consuming heel. Once I had slogged through the plain leg, however, I was happy to concentrate on the heel, improving it with a couple of simple mods, using a smaller needle to tighten up the stitches and cutting out the too-dark blue bit in the striped yarn. It was all to the good.

I am happy enough with this double knit heel that I can recommend it. I may even try it again someday, especially if I see that these sock heels last longer. If I do knit another one, I'd start with fewer stitches and plan on fewer rows in the heel. I wasn't prepared for the larger gauge. Although using a smaller needle didn't fully eliminate the difference in gauge between the double knit and single knit fabric, it did smooth out the bumps and tighten up the holes.

Once these engrossing socks were completed, I should have turned my attention to my other knitting projects. Unfortunately for them, I decided I needed quick satisfaction, in the form of a dishcloth.

This is the second garter stitch dishcloth with edging I've completed. I find them so useful and gratifying that I'm turning my old lacy ones into dust rags. Though I was quite tempted to start another, I resisted the lure of the easy knit and turned to one that is just the opposite. On request, I'm attempting a pattern that no one else on Ravelry has tried. Or, perhaps they have tried, failed and not bothered to post about it. While that strategy is looking more appealing to me, I haven't given up yet.

These are or rather, they will be once they are finished, boot-type slippers, complete with suede soles. They are made by first knitting a toe-up sock, using a heel flap and short row construction that was a struggle for me. Since I couldn't produce a sock that fit by following the directions, I had to rip it out and modify the heel by shortening the heel flap. The sock is the liner. It is covered by an outer layer that is knit flat. The spots are intarsia. After the leg is complete, the foot is knit with no shaping for the heel and minimal shaping for the toe. It fits as well as the fabric stretches.

Rather than trust the pattern (me?), I tried adding a heel flap to the outer layer. This modification complicated the project even more and didn't improve the fit. I am considering a slightly different approach on the second slipper, but that would mean that I'd have to rip out the first one and knit it to match. There's enough that I don't like in this project--socks knit flat, heel flaps in a toe-up sock, intarsia--that the thought knitting it a third time is discouraging. The one bright spot is that the boot seems to fit if I wear it over a thick sock. Since the person who started all this, by talking me into the project and helping me pick the yarn for it, has larger calves than I do, it is possible that these may fit her without further modifications.

I'm much more satisfied with another project, my Equinox sweater. I've finished both sleeves and begun the body.

I am really happy with the look of the turned hem. Now I have several inches of plain stockinette to knit, as long as the yarn holds out. To compensate for the boredom of a plain stockinette sweater, I have started my chevron sock--the cuff-down version.

The colors here are a little washed out.

It is very pretty and very much fun in real life. However, I haven't worked on it in a couple of days, mostly because I can't decide if I want to stick with the green yarn or go back to the blue at this point.

My original post about Chevron Socks can be found with this link.

Here's my Ravelry project page for the socks with double-knit heels.

and, the one for my other dishcloth.

Mathematix shawl, knit again

2011-11-08T07:51:00.000-08:00

These two shawls are enough to give a gal double vision. The optical illusion created by the slip stitch chevrons coupled with the slight difference in color intensity makes the first one look like a shadow of the second.

Now that I've knit two near-identical shawls, I'm ready to answer the obvious question ("Why?") along with the less obvious ones. As I knit the second one, following my Mathematix pattern, I was checking the pattern, looking for errors and possible modifications. I started with an easy mod by choosing to knit the eyelet section with a single strand of lace weight Alpaca 1 by Isager Strik.

As soon as I saw that some of the projects on Ravelry are knit in fingering-weight yarn, producing a lighter, more delicate shawl, I was envious. I reasoned that since lighter looked nicer, maybe lightest would look nicest.

The result is a lace section that sharply contrasts with the heavier slip stitch portion. Visually, it almost disappears. The blue Alpaca 1 is doubled stranded in the rest of the shawl so that it matches the weight of The Sheep Shop's Wensleydale Longwool, a fingering weight, woolier yarn quite different from the dk-weight silk and alpaca blend I used for the original.

It is crispier, with just enough drape to curve nicely around the neck. The itchiness is a little different in feel, but both shawls are itchy to my sensitive neck. However, I enjoy a little scratchiness on a cool day and find both shawls comfortable and nicely warming. The main difference between the two is the actual weight of the shawls. The dk version is heavier, drapes more and tends to slip and slide around. The wool/alpaca version is lighter, stiffer and stays put. Neither is bad, just different. I like the feel of the silk and alpaca version as much as I enjoy the lightweight warmth of the woollier one. I'll admit that I find the original more attractive. It has a wonderful sheen and color. However, I'm fond of the second one because it helped me work through several questions about the pattern. Thanks to the second shawl and the Knitty editors, the errata was incorporated into the pattern.

Even though I started this in a hurry, using what I could find in my stash to get right to checking the pattern, I slowed my pace after the first repeat of the chart. Since I was basically through checking the pattern, I began re-thinking the design as I knit, intrigued by the changes I saw other knitters make as they knit this shawl. Another point of view can certainly open doors, as well as raising questions.

The biggest puzzle for me in the slip stitch portion was how to include new stitches into the pattern. Originally, I didn't see a lot of options there. Since other knitters have gotten into the pattern, I realize there are options even when following the 24-stitch repeat, mostly in determining when to slip stitches--right next to the yarn over, one stitch over from the yarn over, or only when two stitches can be slipped together at least one stitch away from the yarn over. Although I handled them a little differently in this shawl, trying to move the new stitches into the pattern more quickly by slipping a single stitch one stitch away from the yarn over, I'm not sure that I don't like my more conservative approach in the first shawl better. My intention there was to only slip stitches if I had a pair to slip. The result was fewer of those "eyes" you see at the center of the shawl in the first photo here, and longer stripes at the edges and center.

Actually, if you look closely at either of the shawls, you will see I wasn't totally consistent in my decisions. I mention that only to show that this shawl will have a dramatic impact even if it isn't totally perfect.

Once I was finished with the repeats of the main pattern, I moved on to the transition rows, which are designed to allow the pattern to flow into the vertical stripes of the border. I was pretty happy that the movement of the pattern is obvious.

However, as I knit through it again, I saw that I might be able to improve it. I think moving the slipped stitches over in rows 3 and 4 would produce a more consistent line of vertical contrast. It would mean moving the stitches that form the cross in the center of the A shape to the sides of the A, leaving a vertical line at the center and connecting the short verticals into the A. I'm not completely sold on that approach. As I said, it is a question of design.

Another niggling detail has to do with the border.

I first knit the turn of the border around the point of the triangle with just 16 rows. Then I ripped it out. It was very obvious that it requires a minimum of the 20 rows I specified to allow it to lay flat. In fact, once I had knit it correctly, I ripped back again. I squeezed in a few more rows off the point to make sure this wool, which had plenty of elasticity, would turn the corner well.

As I knit the shawl, the elasticity of the longwool convinced me that it would never be as big as the original. Happily, I was wrong. They are the exact same size.

Mathematix shawl pattern is published in Knitty.com

My Ravelry page for this shawl project

Cotton knit square

2011-10-31T07:09:00.001-07:00

Between two sweater projects I needed a break, something quick to knit that would offer encouragement. Happily, I saw a need to fill. What's funny is that it was an odd need. I decided a bit of cotton knit in the round, square-fashioned would do the trick.

As I knit, I saw it differently. In a way, these photos are a study of the type of inspiration offered by seeing things in a new way. I failed to photograph the first time I saw it differently, just after I finished the fair-isle portion. I had knit that portion so tightly that it fit exactly over a small square box. Had I stopped increasing, it would have made a nice box-cozy. I considered ripping it out until I realized that I needed it to be a bit box-shaped.

Of course, blocking flattened it a bit, enough so that I could fold it in half.

It looks a bit like a shawl in the photo above, as long as you don't know that it is only about 25" across at the top. Playing with it a bit, I realized it would make a nice hanging towel.

A bit larger, with a loop at the top... The increases work well as seams and allow it to fold and hang nicely. In the end, I'm happy that it is perfect for the purpose I had in mind all along.

It is a dust cover for my gong fu tea set. There's a lot focus on washing the set as part of the ceremony to remove dust. Now it won't be very dusty to begin.

Project details: Leftover organic worsted and dk-weight cottons, begun at the center and knit in the round on size 6 needles. Squared by increasing with kfb's at the corners on every other round. Pattern is completely made up as it progressed, but was intended to convey a zen-like serenity of color and design.

[Reposted due to software failure. The first post had no photos! I shouldn't have ignored that error message. Now I'm going to fix another error and rip out a few rows of knitting.]

Montreal, Mouline, more

2011-10-24T07:23:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe that I'm still blogging about my trip to Montreal. I was there a month ago. This post covers the important part, though--the yarn!

While my companion was occupied with the conference, I took the metro to Mouline, a relatively large yarn shop in an interesting neighborhood. Lovely place, nice people, great conversation, tons of gorgeous yarn--what more could I want? There is more, but first the yarn, Canadian yarn:
Even the dull-colored hank on the upper right is exciting because it is BFL (bluefaced leicester) sock from sweetgeorgia yarns;
Next to it are three hanks of Mirasol Hacho, a sport weight merino I found in the sale bin;
The rest is Tanis blue label fingering weight, blame indecision. I was shopping for a colorway to complement the Noro I had for a shawl. Now I have three to choose among. I also have three
hanks of Tanis in the shadow colorway, enough for a sweater. At Mouline, more means less--the Tanis is discounted when you buy two or more.

Now the more: the metro was easy to navigate and staffed with helpful people. The cars weren't crowded but were filled with courteous riders who gave up their seats readily. That is, nothing like the London metro, though they do lack the infamous "mind the gap" warnings that make riding the London metro fun. The real fun comes after the ride when you find one of Montreal's markets in an old church two blocks down. The market was mind-blowing, filled with so many food choices that it must be easy to be healthy and well-fed in Montreal.

It's also interesting to reside in Montreal. Recognize this famous set of condos?

No, it isn't the Olympic village. That's here, but I didn't see it. This is Habitat 67, an original design meant to be a low-cost community of stacked single-family homes. The stacking makes them condo-like while preserving the privacy of the individual units since shared walls are limited. Each unit has a garden, but many of them, like the original concept, have been altered by the residents. Many have shielded their gardens from the weather. They've also "bid up" the cost of the units far beyond the original price, responding to the popularity of the location.

Enough travelogue, on to popular knitting! I have found a little success with my next sweater.

This is the first sleeve of my equinox pullover. It's the cover design from the Fall 2006 issue of Interweave Knits. My, that's an old issue! Still, I could knit several sweaters from it. This is the fourth one from this wonderful magazine. I am using a yarn which appears to be the twin of the recommended one, substituting Misti Alpaca baby alpaca royal for Classic Elite's Inca Alpaca. I've used a turned hem and shortened the pattern a bit, resizing it to better fit my skinny arm.

In spite of the yarn substitution, I kept the colors pretty close to the original. The biggest change was to use the salmon pink instead of burgundy. While it isn't an ideal choice, it does look good with the green next to it.

Before I tackled another sweater project, I needed a break. Last week I started this.

I'm binding off now, and won't say what it is for until I'm done. I doubt that anyone can guess.

Links:

Mouline

Habitat 67

Equinox project page

Trellis and Vine pullover, blocking effects

2011-10-16T09:40:00.000-07:00

Here's a bunch of photos of my latest FO. Besides being braggadocious, these photos are educational, a study in both the effects of blocking and yarn substitution. I've long admired this pattern. The Trellis and Vine pullover calls for a dk weight alpaca. That alone was enough to make me consider knitting the pattern when it was published in the Fall 2009 issue of Interweave Knits, since I like alpaca so much.

However, alpaca is really warm. I already had yarn for an alpaca pullover. I doubted I would need two. For those reasons, I decided against knitting it in alpaca and put the issue aside--until I saw the designer's second version, in a merino, cashmere and microfiber blend. I never forgot it, and looked it up repeatedly on Ravelry during the past two years.

Each time I looked at the Ravelry projects for this sweater, I thought about possible modifications. I knew I wanted to use a yarn with more drape, but also worried that several of the projects reported problems with the lace at the bottom of the sweater. After reading through them, I still wanted to knit the pattern, even if I did have to work through some modifications. I thought about it, forgot it, looked it up, over and over again. Finally, I decided it might work for a batch of silk and linen yarn I had found on sale last year.

The 8 hanks of Tahki Sierra had silk for drape, linen for crisp cables, and just the right yardage.

This sweater is knit from the top down. After I worked through the yoke, dealing with the same bit of confusion reported by others in the lace section with careful reading and lots of stitch markers, I floundered. The first thing that bothered me was ending the cute cables at the raglan sleeves. I couldn't do it. I wanted to work them into a design for the body. I first concocted a cable of my own, recklessly throwing the lace pattern into the cable below the waist. I reasoned that it would blend with the lace at the hips. Altogether, it was too much--the hips were too big and used too much yarn.

Reassessing the problem, I realized that if it was big before blocking, it would be worse after. This wasn't an elastic wool. It was silk and linen. They both grow when blocked. I ripped all the way back to the yoke, shortening it by a full repeat. The unblocked sweater was all up in my armpits whenever I tried it on, but I continued to hope that blocking would bring it down.

Next, I found a real cable chart, modified it a bit, and used it at the sides.

I knit the sleeves first, working and reworking the shaping to narrow them. Thankfully, that left four full hanks for the body. After knitting a couple of repeats of the body, I found an error in the cable. Since I wasn't totally happy with my modified cable, I ripped back to the sleeve division again. I modified the cable pattern to mirror the two cables and continued them all the way down the sides, moving the shaping from the pattern's princess lines to the edges of the cable section. Since I could never work out a happy combination of the wider cable and the lace, I left off the lace edging, leaving a simpler design.

I knit the body to the recommended length, 16 inches from the bottom of the sleeve, a little over 23 inches total. I knit the sleeves until all of the one hank I had allotted for each was gone, but they were the recommended length of 18 inches, which usually works for me.

They hang down over my hands in this photo.

That's the effect of blocking silk and linen. The overall length is now 26 inches. Before blocking, the neck was higher and the yoke was shorter. The sleeves were the right length if they weren't rolled up. (The pattern requires a rolled edge.) The photo below shows the yoke of the sweater just off the needles on the top and the blocked yoke on the bottom.

Blocking, which in this case means soaking for a few minutes and drying flat without pinning, made the neck wider and the lace portion open up. The lace ended just at my shoulders before. Now it extends about a inch down my arms. Lace usually blocks out larger, but the yarn content increased this effect. The larger yoke slid the sweater down my body, making the armholes fit better and lengthening the sleeves and the body. Additionally, the entire sweater grew lengthwise.

The sleeves are down in this photo. In the first two photos, they are rolled up per the pattern specs.

I like the look. However, they are too long for practical wear. I'll see how the sweater changes after a few wears and washes before I decide if I want to rip the sleeves back a bit, roll them up and sew them down, hem them, or what.

Here's a final comparison, pre-blocking on the left. If blocking hadn't altered the fit, I wouldn't have wanted to wear this sweater. All that negative ease makes it too form-fitting for me. No comfort here--it didn't feel comfortable and I wasn't comfortable with the appearance.

After blocking, though, it has just the right slouch for me. The measurements were right at zero ease on the blocking board. Since there's a little ease now, I think it loosened up a little as it dried. It's much softer now, too, and that makes it very nice to wear. I just need to remember as I knit my next sweater that it will look much different after it is blocked.

I recently read another blogger's remarks about blocking sweaters as she knits them to test the fit. The link to her how-to post is below, along with the sweater links.

Inspirational Trellis and Vine on Ravelry
Even better, in Carol Feller's blog

How to block a sweater in progress

My Ravelry project page for T&V.

Gong Fu Tea was new to me

2011-10-10T12:09:00.000-07:00

Our coffee maker malfunctioned this morning, spilling coffee and grounds all over itself. Even though it made a horrible mess, I didn't mind. I finally had an excuse to use the Gong Fu tea set that I purchased in Montreal. It's a pretty little set.

Although I am no master of the Chinese tea ceremony, I liked the tea I made. After I got it going, I spent more time watching tea-making videos on the Internet than I did making tea. No serenity for me this morning. However, I did learn a bit more about Chinese tea ceremonies and Yixing teapots.

My first experience with gourmet tea preparation was at Ming Tao Xuen, a charming tea salon just across the street from the Notre Dame Cathedral in Montreal.

Besides the tea and vegetarian items, we also enjoyed watching the weddings taking place across the street. This shop has a website where you can buy teapots, tea sets and tea. However, if you enjoy Chinese tea but are not familiar with Gong Fu tea preparation, I recommend going to a Chinese tea shop and trying it. Our waiter demonstrated the ceremony and answered all our questions. I don't know, as I have been to other tea shops and not seen the tea prepared in this way, but I assume that a Chinese tea shop will show you how it is done. I found it fascinating. Properly done, the ceremony is beautiful, graceful, and calming.

You'd think with all the knitting I do, I wouldn't be seeking serenity. Now that my Mathematix pattern is up, though, I've had to answer questions and check charts. Since I hate to find that I have made errors or let errors slip by me, my serenity is in short supply. I'm knitting a second version now and double-checking everything I can.

I had to pull yarn from my stash for this one and ended up choosing a color combination very similar to the original. I guess that was a safe approach, but I prefer to think it just proves how much I like these colors. The blue is a lace-weight alpaca that I'm double stranding for the slip stitch portion. The brown, or taupe, is a natural Wensleydale longwool from the Sheep Shop. It's fingering weight and is heathered with bits of blue in it. The alpaca has bits of brown it it. I love them together and can't wait to see what blocking will do. I am halfway through the slip stitch portion, so even with pauses to write charts and post about problems and questions, I'm sure I'll finish it by the end of this month. I don't need another shawl just the same as the first one, but it will make a nice sample.

Links:

Ming Tao Xuen tea salon

Tea Scholar demonstrates Gong Fu tea ceremony (video)

There are so many videos, websites, etc., on Yixing teapots, one that shows how fine tea pots ring like bells, one that shows master potters making tiny teapots by hand, and dozens of them showing different ways to make tea. Since I know so little about it, I'll stop with just these two that best illustrate the point of this post.

Ravelry project page for my second version of my Mathematix shawl pattern.

Socks, heeled with a twist

2011-10-02T14:33:00.000-07:00

I enjoyed a trip to Montreal last weekend, meeting a friend who was attending a conference there. The effort I saw put into food preparation was impressive. Even the fast-food stalls in a food court were preparing everything from fresh ingredients, sometimes in rather unusual ways. I had a piece of quiche that was bigger than my head and surprised myself by eating it all! Good food, for sure. The shopping was interesting, a bit different than the usual I see here in the states. The best thing, though, was just tramping around, talking and seeing the sights.

It is a fairly attractive city with all the usual attractions. I even found some Missoni items (the real thing, not Target). They reminded me that I need to start another Missoni Sock. Not that I've more or less cleared my sock projects away, I might be able to manage a new one. Before I left, I worked through some sock projects that had been lingering. One pair had lingered for months.

While editing on the toe-up version of my Daylong sock pattern, I knit two sock feet in one week. They helped me work out the numbers, but then, there they were. They needed legs. The legs took longer, three months, in fact. I would knit a bit, then put them aside for something more interesting. Since I was determined to knit them as long as I could, I began to think I would never finish them. Even though the Fannie's Fingering Weight I used is a delicious yarn, I was relieved when it finally ran out. About half way through the leg, I increased from 56 to 80 stitches, then continued in 2 x 2 ribbing, ending with my first pair of knee socks. Although knitting such long legs was way too boring to be fun, I might do it again if I like wearing them.

One practical project deserves another. Just today, I finished a pair of socks requested by a friend. She picked the yarn from my stash, declaring it the perfect choice since it contains all the colors she usually wears. (Excuse me--colors? These are not colors. These are shades of gray.) I had bought the yarn, King Cole Zig Zag, in Cambridge along with a plain off-white skein, planning to combine them into striped socks that would disguise any pooling. Once my friend picked the Zig Zag, I had to go with just it, pooling be damned.

Luckily, her slim ankles only needed 60 stitches--the pooling was minimal. However, once I hit the heel and beyond, pooling abounded. I'll just tell her the pooling is good, that it is what the yarn was designed to do. Since the socks have the super-comfy Princess sole of my Daylong pattern and will match all her clothes, I'm sure she will like them.

Once I finished those two pairs, I was free to cast on a sock to take to Montreal. I wanted to knit a replacement for a pair of socks I had given away. I had knit a pair in a great colorway of Paton's Kroy with contrasting heels a couple of years ago. After I gave them away, I missed them so much that I bought more Kroy to knit another pair. Of course, they had to have contrasting heels. That's when I got a little carried away.

I decided to try a double-knit heel flap. I haven't seen it anywhere else. I thought it might be a sensible way to knit a durable heel. Having completed the first one, I can say that it is not. A double-knit heel has a very loose gauge, the opposite of what one wants for heels. While I can't recommend double-knitting for heels, I can recommend it for entertainment. I was so thoroughly engrossed in the heel that my flight from Montreal to home seemed to only last a few minutes. I don't know when I'll knit the second sock. (Actually, this one isn't finished yet. That explains the dangling yarn ends, doesn't it?) Whenever I do, I know it will be entertaining. Also, it will take hours!

Ravelry project links:

Knee High Daylong Socks

Gray Daylong Socks

Original Kroy Socks

Missoni Sock

Mathematix Shawl, story and notes

2011-09-22T06:10:00.000-07:00

For my regular readers who probably haven't noticed yet, I have an announcement--I'm published! I'm very pleased that a pattern I wrote was accepted for publication in Knitty. It is a shawl pattern that I developed after my trip to Cambridge this past spring. Below is a photo I took of it last Memorial Day weekend.

I'm so grateful to Emily for being such an excellent model. I had to provide photos for my submission to Knitty and was lucky to find someone to model in the short time frame. I had been trying to knit a shawl from this yarn for a while. I knit a smaller shawl with it in December, but ripped it out. It didn't show off the yarn very well and was really too small to wear. The yarn deserved a better effort. After I came back from Cambridge, I started swatching.

Once I'd put those two patterns together, I was off and knitting. I thought if I finished knitting it before Memorial Day, I would be able to get some photos of it on a trip we had planned for the weekend. Since writing the pattern was taking up some of my knitting time, I was never sure that I would meet both deadlines--shawl finished and blocked by the holiday and pattern submitted by June 1. Now that it is all done and published, my concern is that anyone who has questions or problems has a place to look for answers. I am truly concerned. This is not a simple pattern.

That's why I'm posting this entry to my blog. I plan to add to it as needed to address any questions, make suggestions, or provide any other information about the pattern.

Unfortunately, there were errors in the original Knitty pattern. Corrections were posted November 12, 2011. As a matter of housekeeping, the errata was:

Under DIRECTIONS, Section 1, there should be a row 4 following row 3. It should read:

Row 4: [WS] Purl.

Under Section 2, omit the second sentence regarding starting the first repeat on row 3 of the chart. Start with row 1.

The Left Side charts are wrong. Until I can develop a correct set of charts, the shawl can be knit by working from the Right Side charts, simply reversing them for the second half. To do this, follow the Slip Stitch Pattern -- Right Side chart from right to left, work the center stitch in stockinette, then follow the same row of the chart from left to right.

The wrong side rows of the main color stripe in the border are purled. I mistakenly specified the fourth one, row 8 in the pattern, to be knit. Although this was simply a mistake I made in indicating the wrong row numbers in the "repeat row.." language, I am now a little curious as to how it would look if all the wrong side rows in the border were knit instead of purled. It would be something to try if you like garter stitch.

Also, when starting the border pattern, I began with row 3, letting the cast on stitches count as the first two rows. I'm less sure I like this now that I'm looking at it again. It works, making the colors in the border line up with the shawl colors. However, if you are inclined to finesse a pattern, you might look at handling it differently. My way, the first stripe of CC in the border is missing one row. It is possible to work the beginning and ending stripes of the border with 5 rows, although you would have to cast on an additional stitch.

Other questions have arisen that I consider design issues. For these questions , there is not necessarily one correct approach. In these areas the shawl can be knit according to the preferences of the knitter.

The first question has to do with the number of stitches on the needles at the start of the slip stitch pattern. There's not enough stitches to complete the two repeats on either side of the center stitch. As I knit it, the center two repeats are 1 stitch short. That didn't bother me because I knew I was adding a stitch on either side of the center stitch. The repeat would be complete on the next right side row. I was much more concerned that the blue decreases in the first section flow into the blue slipped stitches of the slip stitch portion.

Even though being 1 stitch short didn't stop me, I'm afraid that it might look strange to another knitter. The unusual stitch count might seem to be an error. It is not. The pattern does provide for the shorter repeats, since they are included in the charts. To further reinforce this, I'm providing below the language I used when I drafted the pattern, before the charts covered the center repeats:

With MC, begin slip st pattern [Chart B], aligning pattern so that MC sts slipped on previous rows are knit on the first row of Chart B. The repeat before the center st will be 1 st short. Following this repeat, the center pattern is: yo, k1, yo [k4 sl2], resuming row 1 of the slip stitch pattern. Worked properly, the slipped sts will all be CC. All wrong side rows in Charts B and C are purled, slipping the stitches slipped on the previous row purlwise with yarn in front [wyif].

I have made my remark about the center repeat bold. Actually, the chart is a much better explanation, but I have included this earlier version here just in case it offers a little more clarity. Often I find that what I write as I am knitting a pattern makes the most sense. At least, it does reflect my thinking when I was the closest to it.

All that being said, I think it should be possible to add another stitch to each side of the shawl in the transition row and start with complete repeats. I would like to make that change when I knit the shawl again to see if it can be done easily without changing the flow of the pattern.

Another question was raised about the edge stitches in Section 2, the Slip Stitch Pattern section. As I added a stitch, I worked it in stockinette on the following row. I didn't include it in the pattern of slipped stitches until I had added several stitches at the edge. As a result, there are stripes of stockinette on the edges that are 1 to 3 stitches wide. At the center, the new stitches in stockinette meet with the new ones on the other side of the center stitch to form a different pattern. It does not matter how the new stitches are worked into the pattern, as long as the pattern meets properly at each repeat. The edges and center can be worked to suit the knitter.

The one suggestion I have is to make the point that the new repeats at the right edge and to the left of the center stitch are worked in from the left edge. You have to count backwards from the left edge of the 24 stitch repeat to determine how to knit the new stitches.

Here's another suggestion regarding the slip stitch section. The pattern pulls in a great deal. Even though I added some stitches and blocked it hard, that section is still proportionally smaller than the other two. The shawl fits well as a kerchief. If I were to knit this as a larger shawl, I'd try increasing on both the right side and the wrong side rows, at least on the ends, in the slip stitch section. That would make the tails longer. Of course, it would add a lot more stitches and a few more repeats, as well as expanding the edging and requiring more yarn.

Please let me know if you have any other questions regarding this pattern. I'll be happy to address them here as well as on Ravelry. For those who haven't seen it yet, the pattern link is: Mathematix. If you like it, please click on this Ravelry link, Mathematix Shawl, and give it a fave!

Chevron Shaped Socks, a prototype

2011-09-18T08:32:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, as I knit, I think about knitting. I'm not usually that obsessed. Usually, I'm watching or listening to something or someone and my hands are knitting. Occasionally, though, I will look down at what I am knitting, hands still moving, and think of knitting something else entirely. Often, this thought becomes a puzzle. Even after years of knitting, I can't visualize the stitches. I think of the stitches that are required to form a shape, but I can't see the shape until I knit it. I become curious about the shape I can't quite see. I want to know how my idea will look in reality. I want to put down what I'm knitting and cast on this new idea.

I try to make myself wait. I try to focus on what I'm knitting. Usually I have something else on the needles that I ought to finish. I may be able to postpone casting on the new idea for days, even weeks. I have to fight it, because I know that once I give in and cast on, I will be obsessed. I will drop my other projects, or at least give them very limited attention, and devote my available time to the new idea.

My latest new idea is, no surprise, a sock. Even after I cast on, the design was slow to evolve. At the beginning, I was thinking about the Double Heelix pattern in the latest Knitty, a sock pattern that uses the heel shaping to create a design on the heel. I began to consider how the same concept would work for a toe. My first thought was that since toes and heels are basically the same, the same set of spirals could be worked and used as a toe. Since knitting a heel and using it as a toe didn't seem very challenging, I considered what other patterns might evolve from a toe. The longer I postponed knitting this project, the more curious about it I became. I knew I'd better start with the toe. After all, I'd never be able to last while knitting a leg, heel, and a foot!

Thus I began, simply, with a toe.

I cast on from the toe up and began shaping the toe with increases. After a few rounds, I had enough stitches to begin a pattern. I used the shaping increases as part of the pattern. I had found a chevron design that includes the same increase I was using the the toe. I modified the pattern to make it fit the stitches I had on the needles. As I added more stitches, I worked them into the pattern. Once the toe was done, I had to decide how to knit the foot. I was working with leftovers and couldn't find a yarn that worked with the first two bits. I reluctantly sacrificed one of my favorite hoarded sock yarns, some Koigu KPPPM in beautiful light greens, hoping one hank might be enough for a pair if I used the bits for the toes and heels. I must not have been completely happy with this choice for the foot, because I let it sit like this for days--until I saw a tv commercial.

It was an ad for a store launch of a line of goods from a popular Italian design family. After a little research, I knew what I wanted to do in the foot. I ripped out the hoarded yarn and put it back in the hoard. With just a basket of leftovers and enthusiasm, I finished the sock in a few days.

Thanks to the Missoni family and their chevron patterns, I have a sock. I also have to thank

Target's Missoni products and their inspiring commercial.The cover of the latest Knitty and

Kristen's brilliant connection of it and Missoni.

There's just one sock, though. This prototype has some features I don't like. I'm going to start another with a different set of colors and an altered different pattern. I'll start this one from the cuff and work down to tackle the problem I'm having with cuff sizing.

Cables recrossed, a third way

2011-09-12T06:32:00.000-07:00

After thinking about the two ways to correct a mis-crossed cable that I covered in my last post, I realized I wasn't happy with either of them. There had to be another way. After turning it over in my mind, I decided that the problem with duplicate stitching over the cable is that the duplicate stitch, being sewed through all layers of the fabric, looks too compressed and lacks the dimension of a normal cable crossing. I wanted something that looked more like knitting. At first I thought of i-cord, but assumed that an i-cord sewed over the cable would be too thick.

Then I realized that I could simply pick up two stitches out of the cable, knit them and graft them to the other side of the crossing. In the photo above, I've picked up the stitches, knit one row and purled one row. They are ready to graft to the stitches above the cable crossing. I did this over all three mis-crossed cables. (I only made this mistake on the first piece I knit, the back. Thank goodness!) I found it easier to use dpns two sizes smaller than I used to knit the sweater, since that eliminated the need to tighten the stitches after I grafted them.

There! All done. I can't easily pick out the cables I fixed, even though I know where they are.

To make it easier to see the stitching, I left this photo a little lighter, and perhaps a little greener, than it should be. The color of this sweater is hard to pin down. Sometimes it is more green, sometimes it is more blue, depending on the light. It reminds me of the Morning Glory pool in Yellowstone.
However the color change in it is permanent. It used to be more blue, but early visitors threw so much trash in it that the color changed to the green you see here. I would say it is too bad, but really, I like green better than blue.

Re-crossing Cables

2011-09-05T15:14:00.000-07:00

Quickly, calmly, like the tetons reflected in a lake

I'm going to show how I can reverse those cables I crossed the wrong way. As far as I know, there are two ways to do it. Luckily, my old swatch for the sweater has two repeats in it. They are knit with two different sizes of needles, of course, (that was the point at the time) but the difference in gauge doesn't matter. Here's the correct swatch, with both cables crossed to the left.

To change the direction, I duplicate stitched over the bottom cable, the one in the middle below the seed stitch portion. I thought it looked ok, but could see that it now has three layers of knitting rather than two. I can see that this cable crossing looks thicker than normal. On the plus side, I found it very difficult to remove the duplicate stitching when I decided I needed a do-over for practice. I'm hoping that means this method would result in a durable fix.

For the top cable, I cut the top stitches and moved them to underneath. This was very scary, since I had two tiny short ends to secure. The result is flawless from the right side. It really looks like a correctly crossed cable. However, from the wrong side, it doesn't look so nice. First, there's the two ends, which I knotted together, sticking out. Second, there's a bit of sewing to secure the loops of the stitches I cut and to close the hole. I'm worried the hole might reopen with wear.

I'm not aware of any other methods of correcting the problem, short of reknitting the sweater. Unless I find a better way, I'll probably use duplicate stitch.

To sunset this issue, here's a photo I took in Wyoming en route to Yellowstone.

Cabled Cardigan all buttoned up

2011-09-01T13:01:00.000-07:00

I've been shopping for buttons for my newly-finished cardigan. The yarn, Berroco Pure Merino Heather in the color Tyrolean Alps, has a subtle teal-ish glint that is hard to match. Early on, though, actually at my local yarn shop, I decided that this cardigan needed plain buttons. The pattern in the cardigan overwhelmed any patterned buttons. When I didn't find the right shade there, I bought a package of mixed blues. They looked fine in the shop, but once I got them home and looked at them with the sweater in daylight, I knew that blue wouldn't do.

With that, I added a stop at a conveniently-located JoAnn Fabrics to our upcoming trip to Yellowstone. I not only found iridescent teal buttons there, I also found sale buttons. These shell beauties were 75 percent off! Now I just need to find some yarn to match and a pattern to show them off. That cardigan project will have to wait, though. I already have a new cardigan for this year.

This is the cover sweater from last fall's Vogue Knitting. That means it has been a year since I first decided to knit this sweater. Since then, I've searched for and found extra balls of the yarn, in the same dyelot I had in my stash. I originally bought this yarn to knit Pilar. After knitting a long sleeved pullover that I rarely wear, I realized I needed to choose a cardigan pattern for this worsted-weight yarn.

My successful completion of another cabled cardigan last fall encouraged me to try this pattern. With all the cabling, it required more yarn than a plain pullover. In the end, I used around 20 balls. The sweater weighs over two pounds!

That's a lot of weight on my shoulders. Not that it's uncomfortable--it's just the carpet in my freshly-painted dining room that is weighing me down. Never mind, that carpet's days are numbered. We will be replacing it and the old vinyl tiles in the adjoining kitchen as part of our next update, once we work up the energy for it. We usually find home renovation projects to be expensive and worrisome. Reflooring and repainting all three bedrooms this summer provided enough expense and worry for now.

I can ignore the carpet. However, there's another issue I'm not sure I can ignore.

Can you count how many of the cables I mis-crossed in the back? Three! What makes it worse is that I ripped back and fixed several. I think every-other one would have been mis-crossed otherwise. At least that would have looked like a design statement. Now I have to decide if I want to duplicate stitch over these errors or cut into the sweater to fix them.

Or maybe just wear it like it is? After all, it is in the back. I won't see them when I'm wearing it! **grin** No, don't worry, I'll fix them. The sweater is too pretty to be less than perfect.
For more details and more photos, see its Ravelry project page.

Textiles on the trail

2011-08-28T09:50:00.000-07:00

During my recent road trips, I indulged in a little yarn shopping. Since I'm close to finishing two sweaters and halfway done with a couple of pairs of socks, I feel no guilt about it. I buy it and I use it. I started with a tour of Fort Laramie, Wy. which is in the process of being restored. When we arrived, they were re-glazing the windows in one of the buildings. There's a worker on each of those sets of scaffolds in front of the windows in the photo below.

The restored buildings have been refurnished with period-appropriate pieces, including many quilts and other textiles.

I might have wondered where they found them all but for overhearing another visitor remark that his sister had donated several items. It is all the more appealing to think that many of the antiques might have been much-loved treasures that were donated to furnish this historic site. The quilt below was one of my favorites.

My tour of the fort was inspiring enough to prompt me to visit yarn shops at our next stop, Casper, Wy. Initially, I was disappointed to find The Dancing Sheep closed.

As it was late in the day and quite hot, I had planned to visit only this one shop. Instead, we drove to another one, All That Yarn. I'm glad now that the timing worked out for this visit. I enjoyed selecting a few balls of yarn and a magazine and was amazed to see that they have a lot of back issues of Interweave Knits. Give them a call if you are looking to complete your collection. When I left the shop, K commented, "You could have bought the entire store." I was stunned by the generous comment until I saw the sign in the window, "Shop for Sale." I hope someone (other than me) buys it.

Since I'm blogging my yarn shopping, I'll include a stop I made last week in Oklahoma. Once we returned from Yellowstone, we drove off again to visit Hunter, who is recuperating from heart surgery in Arkansas. (Read a more amusing post on Hunter here.) As we wandered across Oklahoma, I spotted an enticing place for lunch, The Noble House bed and breakfast in Watonga. Lunch was delicious, but the dessert was finding a yarn shop right across the street.

I was happy to find a yarn shop by chance in a small town. Since I had a two-color sock design bouncing around my mind, I bought some locally-dyed Slackford Studio lightfoot sock yarn. Slackford Studio is in Norman, Ok. The colors were so enticing, I bought three instead of two. Now I have to decide between blue and green, blue and orange or green and orange. Maybe I should design a three-color sock.

Joining the Slackford yarn is the yarn I purchased at All That Yarn, two balls of Maxime Soft Socks (I loved it in the toes of my Ilga socks, pictured in my last post) and some Zelana wool for my fair-isle pillow projects. There's a brown ball of the Zelana blending in with the table in the back of the pile.

There's the end to my rambling. I'm back now and can't wait to finish my cardigan. All that's left to knit is the collar. The buttons I found on my trip made it possible to finish the last buttonband yesterday. Next up, button pictures, unless I can come up with something more interesting.

Small stranded knits

2011-08-16T09:29:00.000-07:00

I've one of those ultra-successful projects to report. It isn't much to look at, but it delivers a lot of satisfaction.

I knit this potholder in the round. The front and back are the same. After I had knit a 9" wide tube 9" long, I closed the top and bottom with a 3-needle bind off. (Of course, I had to pick up stitches along the bottom to do that.) Then I added an applied i-cord edging. I wanted to felt it down to less than 8" square. It is a little large for a potholder. However, I was hand felting and quit after it had shrunk a mere one-half inch in size. (It was 9 1/2" originally). I expect that it will felt a little more each time I wash it. Actually, it is not too large. I knit this one to replace the tiny, 6" square cotton padded potholders I was using. Every time I pulled a hot pan out of the oven, the heat transmitted through the cotton and burned my hand.

With this large, wool, double-thick, stranded potholder, my hand is completely protected. Since I have some of the tapestry wool left over, I can knit another and throw away those useless cotton ones. Although I planned this project to practice stranding, I'm pleased with the unexpected utility of the final result.

At the same time, I was practicing stranding with the Ilga's Socks project I posted earlier. While I was knitting the second sock, I decided upon a modification. It was an unexpected change, actually, one that at first earned some skeptical glances.

Seriously, after trying on the first sock, I realized that following the round toe instructions in the pattern had produced a toe that was overly tight. At first, I thought I'd just rip it out and knit a standard wedge toe in the main color. Then I saw a project on Ravelry and became inspired. This was a perfect chance to try stranding just above the toe. I had recently admired a few socks that used just a little fair-isle patterning there. I ripped out the round toe and knit the new one on a drive we took last week. When we arrived, I found the stuffed moose in my room. The balloon moose was one I had acquired the night before. I have a fondness for moose and was hoping to see some. It was possible, since this was just a little ways down from our lodge.

That's Yellowstone Falls. There are moose in Yellowstone Park, but I didn't see any. I did see a lot of other sights and took hundreds of photos. I'll sprinkle a few more into later posts. For now, it is back to the socks.

Even though I had decided to add the toe patterning before I left on the trip, I forgot to pack the book with the pattern. However, since I could check the inspiring project on Ravelry and count the stitches in the stranded cuff of the sock, I devised a small pattern that matched the cuff. The brown yarn I used here was different than the browns I used in the cuff. Since it was the toe, I wanted one that was more durable and softer than the others. As it turned out, this brown worked well with the purple I used in the small chart. There are actually four colors in the toe: orange, white, purple and brown. The color difference is visible in real life, but probably not noticeable in this photo.

I chose the pattern I liked the best from the cuff, edging it with the first pattern and a very simple one at the end.

Now I just need some cold weather so I can wear them. If they prove to be comfortable, I may add stranding at the toes another (future) pair.

I'll end with some links to the pertinent Ravelry projects:

My potholder

My socks

The socks that inspired me

Tightening ladders in knitting

2011-08-01T13:28:00.000-07:00

Today, as I was sewing up a sweater, I devised a quick and easy way to eliminate the "ladders" between my knits and purls. I've knit a lot of sweaters and have always tried to avoid creating these ladders. I was grateful to read the explanation of and suggestions for avoiding or tightening ladders in a 2010 post in TECHknitting. After reading this and studying the illustrations, I realized that it all centers on moving the extra yarn. I'm sure the methods described in the post would work on most ladders. However, mine was extreme:

I don't have the usual ladders in my knitting. Thankfully, years of knitting ribbing and cables has helped me tighten up my knitting. This ladder was created when I decided to modify the pattern and place the decrease, a purl stitch, next to a twisted knit stitch. I see now that I should have moved the decreases over one stitch, placing a purl stitch between the twisted knit stitch and the decrease. That's hindsight. I saw the ladder as I was knitting, but could not tighten it up. I planned to move the yarn into the next few stitches when I blocked the sweater. However, there was just too much yarn. Worse still, this is a superwash, a more slippery wool.

I was trying to decide if I wanted to add a stitch there by laddering one up when I realized I could sew it up.

I took a length of yarn slightly longer than the laddered column (there are four of them, one by each raglan seam line, each about 8" long. Using my yarn needle, I wove the yarn around each ladder, going under it in the opposite direction. I am sewing from the lower right to the upper left in the photo above, going under a ladder and coming out on the right side of it. Then I move to the next ladder on the left and repeat.

After an inch or so, I pulled the yarn I was sewing tight.

This twisted the ladder, just as adding an extra column of purls would have. However, it was much quicker. (There's a thin line that I drew on the photo under the length of yarn to highlight it.)

Most importantly, it worked!

Now to get back to sewing up that sweater. Here it is blocking, so you can see that it was worth improving.

I'm glad I managed to fix the ladder. More importantly, though, I can avoid the same mistake in the future now that I know not to put a purled decrease next to a knit stitch.
More on the sweater on my Ravelry project page.

Crested Butte Wildflowers

2011-07-17T10:17:00.000-07:00

When we drive to Crested Butte, Co., we usually take the scenic route.

The drive over Cottonwood pass not only provides us with the spectacular views from the pass, it ends by plunking us down on the shore of Taylor Reservoir.

Although there weren't a lot of flowers at the pass, just some hardy dandelions growing right by the road, the woods on the way down to the Reservoir were carpeted with lupines.

The profusion of small flowers around the lake gave us an idea of what awaited in Crested Butte.

While the Wildflower Festival is an annual event, the flowers do not always coordinate their show with the Festival dates. Some years, the flowers bloom early, leaving only the larger blooms to show off for the Festival.

This year we had a late spring, and a dry, dry summer, suppressing most flowering everywhere. THEN, last week, it started raining. Ha. I knew it would be good.

I just didn't know how good.

There are so many flowers, of so many varieties, that it is nearly impossible to believe they are all growing wild. The "Bloom Locator" guide, available from the Crested Butte Visitor's Center, lists more than 80 varieties. They are everywhere, all mixed together, right by the roadside and along the dozen-plus trails. Trying to single out any individual blooms among the tumbling chaos of them is difficult. Making it harder is the fact that if you just look up, there are those amazing peaks towering over it all.

Yesterday, the Plein Air Invitational paintings were on exhibit just off the main street. All the restaurants and shops were busy, the food was delicious. If you were thinking of going, this is the year to do it.

Perfecting Ribbed Hand-knit Socks

2011-07-13T13:33:00.000-07:00

Here's a little Christmas in July.

I actually took these photos a few months ago, setting a theme for my latest sock pattern, the one with the princess foot. My inspiration for this pattern started with a pair of socks I was knitting as a Christmas present. The giftee required princess-soled socks, ones with the knit side turned inside. I didn't like knitting the first pair; hated having to purl the sole. When I had to knit a second pair with princess soles for the next Christmas, I devised a method of avoiding the purling.

Last fall, I found that the purl bumps on the soles of my socks were making my feet sore. Suddenly, I was motivated to perfect my method and write a pattern. Actually, I've written two patterns. I think they will make great gift socks.

Cuff Down

Uses Misti Alpaca Hand Paint Sock, Patons Kroy FX, any similar weight yarn.

Toe Up

I've also combined both patterns into one version that contains instructions for both toe up and cuff down. Buying the combined pattern saves a couple of bucks. Probably that's why it is the one that is selling the best. We all love bargains! Either or both ways explain how I turn the sock to the other side to avoid purling. The cuff down version has a heel flap and gusset. The toe up version has the boomerang short row heel that I used for my Burning Stripes socks pattern--minus the colorwork.

There you have it, Christmas in July. Super-comfy socks for your friends and family, or if you are like me, for yourself. Pick your pattern:

Cuff Down -- $3.99

Toe Up -- $3.99

Both Ways -- $5.99

I double-checked those links to make sure they are matched up correctly. Please check the pattern name on the paypal link screen to make sure you are buying the version you want!

Yarn-winding gadgets

2011-07-07T08:29:00.000-07:00

I have bought a couple of knitting gadgets. They are a little out of the ordinary, making them blog-worthy. Of course, the Royal ball winder mounted on the top of the swift below is not unusual. I was lucky to find it at our guild's stash sale for $5. Once I had it, I was motivated to buy the squirrel-cage swift I had been wanting since I'd seen one in Taos last fall.

I splurged and bought the maple. It is very attractive. I'm not overly happy with how it works, but my main complaint is due to the nature of squirrel-cage swifts. They have the advantage of taking up very little space and of being free-standing. However, while winding, the yarn travels over the squirrel cages. This produces a good deal of friction. Most other swifts move while the yarn stays in place. The first time I used this swift, I wound a yarn that was very soft. At the end, I had fuzz everywhere--all over the swift, all over me...a mess.

I decided to try a tightly twisted, durable sock yarn next. It wound just fine, but was a little too tight. It was hard to get it off the post of the winder. I didn't mind that, since I usually wind twice to relieve the tension created by the swift. This time, I had another useful gadget to help me with the re-wind.

This is a yarn holder. It incorporates a lazy susan and is just the thing for avoiding adding twist to yarn when you are unwinding. That's right, you are not supposed to pull yarn from the center of a center-pull ball. Doing so adds twist. Even pulling from the outside of a ball adds some twist to the yarn.

This device allows the yarn ball to rotate freely, so that the yarn pulls off without twisting. I am very happy with how well it works. When I wind from it to the ball winder, it spins at warp speed but still doesn't add too much tension. I also use it when I knit socks. I'm so happy that I don't need to stop knitting and hold the sock in the air to let it twist out the kinks in the yarn!

If you want one of these, they are available on line, in all forms. I bought mine at the Estes Park Fiber Festival, from this vendor. However, it actually came from this fellow, who has an Etsy shop. I messaged him through Etsy and got a quick response. I'm thinking of ordering the small yarn swift attachment that goes with this yarn holder.

There are all kinds of yarn holders available on line. I've even seen some made from plastic cd's rather than lazy susans. I ordered the swift from Kirtland's Yarn Barn. Their service was great. The swift was exactly what I wanted. It works, it sits in a very small space, and it is pretty. I just won't wind loosely-spun singles on it.

Where's the knitting?

2011-06-30T07:27:00.000-07:00

Before the question arises, here's a rundown of what I'm knitting. No one should ever ask, anyway. I'm always knitting something(s).

An unexpected request for a toe-up version of my latest sock pattern made me wonder if I could knit a 56-stitch sock that would fit me. With some Fannie's Fingering Weight, the question was answered with a Yes! It was a quick way to check my calculations, a good plan that was foiled by my inattention as I knitted the heel. Although I knit from toe to heel in a two days, I failed to write down the row numbers. There was nothing to do but knit the second sock to double check the numbers.

I stewed about it for a day or two since I didn't want to cut the yarn mid-stripe to cast on another sock. I finally decided that I'd rather risk the stripe being reversed than interrupted and cast on from the other end of the ball. That's why there are two toe-up socks in progress. The legs are simple to knit while paying attention to other issues. When I want something more engaging, I'll start the mate to this sock:

The pattern is Ilga's Socks by Nancy Bush. I'm using the the version in the book, Favorite Socks. I thought I read there was errata in the earlier magazine version, but there's none in the book. I modified the ankle by adding ribbing and mistakenly knit a slip-stitch heel instead of the pattern's birdseye. Since I don't like birdseye, I'm not sorry for the error and will repeat these mods in the second sock. I'm using my size 0 blackthorn needles to knit the foot in the Sportlace yarn. The resulting fabric is so tight, I decided I didn't need to knit the foot inside-out as I've done in the last few pairs of socks I've knit. It will be smooth enough on either side. I used various sock yarn leftovers for the patterned cuff, including some variegated yarn for the background of the main motif. I really like the effect and promise a more color-true final photo.

One thing the photo above does show well is my latest big FO--a hardwood floor. It is the result of one of those one-thing-leads-to-another projects. A ceiling repair lead to painting that prompted new carpet. Once the carpet was ordered, we pulled up the old carpet and found peg-and-plank flooring. All it needed was cleaning and waxing. I'm happy to have the hardwood floor, but not the new task of tearing apart another room to put down the new carpet. At least we found another room that doesn't have hardwood under the carpet.

Also hoofing along is a sweater, at last. It's the cover sweater from last fall's Vogue Knitting.

The color is more rich than this photo shows, but the lighter exposure makes the pattern more visible. That ought to be enough knitting, but on a whim I started a potholder with some tapestry yarn I bought cheap at a craft sale.

I adapted the chart from a sock pattern and plan an i-cord edging in the pink. Maybe I'll add some embroidery as well. For now, I've got to go move furniture. K has the bright idea that we should stack the two queen beds on the same bed frame when we empty out the second room. We would have to sleep on all of them, princess-and-the-pea style. While that arrangement would be fitting, considering my current obsession with princess-soled socks, I'm afraid it will be too teeter-tottery.

RMNP, the beetle goes on

2011-06-19T09:26:00.000-07:00

On our recent drive to Estes Park, we drove through the Rocky Mountain National Park.

The mountains were breath-taking, at first glance. There's something wrong with them, though. We kept our eyes peeled for wildlife in vain nearly the entire trip. There were elk, at the end. They were just south of the eastern park entrance.

I stretched my camera to maximum zoom, taking several shots of these bulls and some mule deer bucks that were grazing nearby. They were sooo far from the road. Ironically, once we got to Estes Park, there were elk a-plenty.

The path around the golf course has a sign warning of agressive elk during breeding season. The danger didn't bother this golfer who stopped his play to take a cell-phone photo. I'm not sure why there weren't the usual elk in the park. Perhaps it is the lateness of the spring at the higher altitudes. It might be the pine-bark beetles who have rampaged through the park, taking advantage of the drought and warmer winters to invade and kill large stands of trees.

That's what is wrong in the first photo. The snow among the trees at the higher elevations shouldn't be visible. Those are evergreens, not decidious trees that haven't leafed out yet. Most of them are dead.

We saw the same thing at the Dillon dam, huge mountains covered with dead trees.

The Park Service has posted a recent article about the beetle problem.

Estes Park Wool Market, 2011

2011-06-16T08:34:00.000-07:00

I highly recommend Estes Park Wool Market. This year was my first time to attend. Although I live within easy driving distance of Estes Park, I hadn't been interested in attending until this year. Most years, the date of the Market wasn't convenient. There's so much going on in Colorado in the summer. A lot of events conflict. However, the timing worked this year. I'm very glad it did.

The fairgrounds is a great facility with several stock barns. Still, there wasn't quite enough room. There were so many animals that large tents were set up to hold the overflow.

There were lots of sheep, of course, all kinds. I'm sorry that I'm not better acquainted with sheep breeds. I can't identify these two, except to say that they were the the only ones who were cooperative in posing. Most of them either crushed to the back of the pen or stuck their nose in the lens when they saw the camera.

I did have a wonderful encounter with a small black ewe. She came up to me and closed her eyes in bliss when I scratched her cheek. After a bit, I noticed that whenever I scratched, she would switch her tail rapidly back and forth. Hilarious!

I left the sheep and moved on to the alpacas and the llamas, only to find they didn't much care for the smell of sheep on my hands. Oh well, camelids not much for petting, but they are photogenic.

There were cute and fuzzy ones and tall and regal ones. I was so surprised that the llama in the photo below posed. He was coming toward the camera for a sniff, but when I said, "no", he stopped and posed. I'll bet he's well-behaved in the shows.

For cute and fuzzy, though, you can't beat the rabbits.

This angora bunny is certainly prettier than the wild rabbits I watched play outside my hotel room the evening before. As I admired this one in its tiny cage, I wondered, if it was let loose in a field, would it scamper around as friskily as the wild rabbits did? I would have asked the breeder, but she was thronged with enthusiastic angora lovers.

One last photo...here my attention was captured by the impressive display of ribbons. When I asked the lady who was putting the pack saddle on this llama if she minded being in the photograph, her response was to complain that the llama had lowered his ears.

I know llama and alpaca owners think their animals look better, or at least, happier, with their ears up. When I went to an alpaca ranch a couple of years ago, the rancher was displeased that all of the alpacas would lower their ears when I pointed the camera at them. It was my recounting of that story that made the woman laugh as I took the photo above.

I didn't realize that I failed to take any photos in the vendor barn. I was just too busy shopping. There was a great selection of vendors. I'll put my purchases together and photograph them soon.

Knitting Princess-footed Socks

2011-06-06T12:56:00.000-07:00

I usually knit up a pattern idea over and over again until I'm satisfied. I consider it a form of test knitting, along with a trial and error approach to design. On the third of fourth knit, I follow my notes to check my written version. Of course, with socks you can multiply all these repetitions by two. My new sock pattern began last fall with these gift socks.

The recipient has sensitive feet. I had knit him a pair of socks a couple of years ago following a pattern for a princess sole (one that is purled instead of knit). The pattern by Susan Zivec has a bit of ribbing between the heel turn and the sole. The added ribbed bit looks very nice, but since I've never worn these socks, I can't say whether or not it improves the fit. I found purling the remainder of the sole after the ribbing very tedious. Once I knew I had to knit a second pair for the same person, I decided to avoid the purling by knitting the foot inside out. That's when I began to work on a means of incorporating a reverse-knit foot into any sock pattern.

For this second pair (the ones in the above photo), I selected a cabled pattern on a reverse stockinette background that merged with the reverse stockinette pattern of the foot. I followed the pattern as far as the heel gusset, and then knit the end of the cable pattern as I knit the gusset. Once that transition was complete, I turned the sock inside out, made a wrap and turn, and continued in knit, except for the two lines of ribbing on either side of the instep. Those were worked as purls from the wrong side. more on these socks here....

I wasn't happy with having to change direction of knitting and pick up a wrap once I turned the sock inside out. Even though I tried to hide the change near the heel, I could still see the bump. My next attempt included developing a pattern designed to be turned inside out.

This pair incorporates several changes of ribbing in an attempt to provide a gradual transition to a p3, k1 rib over the foot. I thought this might make it easier to knit, since it is knit as a k3, p1 from the wrong side. All in all, the changes in ribbing proved too fiddly to be worth the effort. The important development in this pair occurred when I realized could change the direction of knitting at the heel turn. Which I did, right at the end of the heel flap. more on these socks here....

Since I was fairly happy with this innovation, I repeated it in my next pair.

The big change I made in these Saguaro socks (a free pattern) was to continue the simple cable pattern down the instep and down the heel, even though that meant working the cables from the wrong side. Cabling on the wrong side is not as hard as it sounds. It just requires a crossing of stitches while purling. The hard part is mentally reversing the direction of the crossing.

Since the yarn I used for these socks has cashmere content, I knitted a strand of bamboo content yarn along with it to reinforce the heel turn. That's where my socks usually wear out. As a side effect of this addition, I looked hard at the transition to purl in the heel. more on these socks here....

Since I wasn't at all happy with this transition, I put the change from knit to purl at a different point in the next pair. By this point, I was knitting socks according to a simpler pattern I had written. I'll cover those in my next post.

One last pair, the most recent ones I've knit inside-out:

For these Wakefield socks, I made the transition from knit to purl in the heel turn according to my pattern and then dropped most of the lace patterning after the gusset. I reasoned that the smoother pattern would be nicer to my feet inside my shoes and wouldn't be visible anyway. Also, I was lazy. Once I turned the sock inside out, I completed one repeat by working the chart from left to right, reversing all the knits and purls, knitting k2tog as p2tog and ssk as ssp. This conversion was difficult. Tiring of the tricky pattern, I just continued the k1tbl's down the foot as p1tbl's, replacing the lace pattern with knit stitches between the ribs. For a bit of interest, I worked the toe decreases between the sets of ribbing. more on these socks here, at the end of the post...

Now that you have read about my development of a more comfortable pair of socks, you may want to try knitting the feet of your socks inside out. If you don't care to try to figure it out on your own, the pattern will be available as soon as I finish editing the pdf file, hopefully at the end of this week.

If anyone wants to receive a free pattern in return for test-knitting, please comment or e-mail. If you do comment for that purpose, be sure to tell me how to get in touch with you.

Fiber Fest, dry this time

2011-06-02T15:32:00.000-07:00

There's nothing like good weather to improve an outdoor festival, especially the kind of weather that graced Pagosa Springs, Colorado this past Memorial Day weekend.

My second visit to the Pagosa Fiber Festival had it all over my first, the one that I blogged as the Wet Fiber Fest. Of course, a snowy, rainy day in May is somewhat rare, even in Southern Colorado. Besides the great weather, this festival offers the all the usual attractions, just on a smaller scale. There were 30 vendors, mostly from Colorado and New Mexico, with a couple from Texas adding to the western vibe.

There was a variety of animals, notably a Wensleydale sheep, the festival mascot (an alpaca named Thunder), Highland cattle, and this pair of llamas imitating a pushmi-pullyu.

The one facing the camera looks a little different than your average llama. With the dreadlocks, a slim and elegant body and those finely curved ears, he reminds me more of a Suri Alpaca than a llama. He's llama-sized, though. Whatever he (or she) is, I think I have a crush.

There was shearing.

Just one shearer, though. He made his way through a pen full of sheep while I shopped the booths. Here's my haul.

The pretty colors in the back are the work of The Natural Twist from Albuquerque, NM. It's a chunky weight mohair/wool combo. I picked several colors in their Enchantment Series, planning more fair-isle pillow covers.

The front-and-center hank is Blue-faced Leicester and silk sock yarn, dyed by a mother-daughter team from Boulder, Co. Their company, Wild Orchids Fiber Arts, offered a selection of unusual yarns, beautifully and tastefully dyed. Mink yarn, cashmere, bfl, merino, silk....wow. I was really happy to get the bfl, touted to be the best sock yarn ever. The unusual sage colorway is just my taste. Don't expect to see it knit up anytime soon. I usually enjoy my favorite yarns in a hank for a while before I wind them up. It's like the knitting project I took on the drive to Pagosa Springs.

The yarn I used in these socks is a perfect example. It was part of my prize for second-place in the Socks Revived pattern contest last summer. It's the Spring Grass colorway of North Loop's superwash merino sock. I puzzled for a while with it, but once I settled on the Chouwa pattern from Knitted Socks East and West, everything fell into place.

I just love how the slight pooling works with the feather and fan pattern in the leg. The cables in the pattern tighten the leg considerably, though. It's a little tight pulling them on over my heels, but once on, they are a good fit. I followed the pattern through the heel flap, taking a chance that the shorter-than-my-usual heel flap would still fit. It does, barely. I turned the sock inside out after the heel turn to knit a smoother, princess-style sole with no purling.

I plan to blog incessantly about this method of sock knitting as I work up to my next pattern launch. I have found that turning the knit side toward my foot makes a more comfortable sock. Since the entire foot in this sock is reverse stockinette, I'm not satisfied with the term princess sole. These socks have a princess heel, princess sole, princess toes, and a princess instep--what should I call it? A royal foot?

Hopeful knitting

2011-05-22T08:20:00.000-07:00

Actually, I hope I get some knitting done. I'm knitting a lot, but also tinking a lot. This "perfect knitting" goal is diminishing my production. Even though I should get back at it, I'm taking a break to share a special place, an appropriate one for a Sunday posting.

This is the chapel of King's College in Cambridge. It seems all the colleges in Cambridge have chapels, but this one is the most spectacular and is open to the public most of the time. There's a fee, of course, but it is worth it, especially since they allow photos. There's a lot to be said about the chapel, but I'll leave that to the Internets. It is sufficient to say that it took 100 years to complete its construction. Although the ceiling and the windows are the big wow, I liked the floor, too.

The painting is Rubens' The Adoration of the Magi. I was amused to read that Rubens painted the Magi to resemble himself, while painting Mary and Joseph to resemble the King and Queen who commissioned the painting.

There's a huge organ, terribly historic and ornate, with an enormous wooden screen in front and an elaborate choir loft behind it. I can only imagine what it must be like to hear it played, with choir accompaniment, in such a space.

These images remind me of the hope, the expectation of success, the striving to achieve a goal that must have driven kings, workers and clergy who were willing to continue over 100 years to complete this beautiful building, I can't shirk from spending a few weeks on a mere knitting projects.

After all, each stitch is a step in the right direction. One little stitch, a couple of seconds, added with thousands of others will accomplish the task. Look at the effect that single footsteps, one after the other have had over the years--

That threshold is worn away. I saw a lot of steps and thresholds this worn in Cambridge. It's not something I see often in the U.S. By comparison, our buildings are so new!

The door goes into one of the side chapels.

I needed a pep talk today. I just started the border of a shawl, one that is knitted along the edge. These seem to take so long, back and forth again and again over a short row. I'll go now and see how many repeats I need to do each day to finish it this week. It's got to be done by the end of the month!

Gray is Perfect when knit

2011-05-11T07:11:00.000-07:00

In the past month, (I've been home a month!) I have made great progress on knitting little things and little progress on big ones. I blame any lack of progress on my new goal of perfecting my knitting. It's much less daunting to perfect a little project than a big one. I won't denigrate the little ones, though. Besides producing a satisfying result, making the little projects perfect does encourage me to plan the big ones carefully.

Last year, I bought over 1,000 yards of this gray and aqua yarn (Blue Sky's Alpaca and Silk). Since I have a wealth of sweaters, I hoped to concoct a shawl. I knit Andrea's Shawl and ripped it out. It wasn't what I wanted. I tried Ulmus, but it didn't work in a plain yarn. That pretty pattern really needs a little variegation to make the slipped stitches blend together, I think.

When I saw the fingerless mitts by Mary Rourke, Lusekofte-sque, I decided this lovely design, which recommends a similar yarn, would work for these two contrasting colors of Alpaca and Silk. While I was knitting the mitts, I re-thought shawl designs. I'm making a little progress on the shawl now that I've had success with the mitts.

I'm also working on perfecting socks. That is, I'm developing a set of sock patterns that are perfect for me. I've gotten the top-down, heel-flap-and-gusset, princess-sole, minimum-purl version knit and written. Now I'm trying a pair from the other end.

These are knit with Paton's Kroy Jacquards. The first one was straightforward--toe-up, yo-yo heel. I knit until I had used a full ball of yarn. The problem came with the second one. I knit the entire foot before I realized I was knitting the stripe pattern in reverse. Since I wasn't happy with my finish on the heel, I was glad to rip it out and start from the other end of the second ball. After all, the way to get matching stripes is to start at the same point and knit in the same direction. I reasoned that knitting the heel again would give me a chance to solve its problems.

If only that had worked. Instead, I cut and joined the yarn several times to try to match the stripes, finally giving it up on the final repeat. That one is just a little off, though. The other six match, and the heel is darned close. I'd call this a success. And, in case you didn't notice, that is a sheep my feet are resting on. It's my new knitting room doormat, courtesy of Tuesday Morning. Using it for my photo shoot gave me a pass on dusting the floor!

Ah, pretty gray knits, warm hands and feet, sheep rugs--what's not to like?

I'll be writing a lot about these perfected socks in the next couple of months. I hope there's interest in a pattern. They may look like simple ribbed socks, but they have a couple of secrets.

The yarn shopping might be different, too.

2011-05-01T08:11:00.000-07:00

I didn't attempt to go to a yarn shop when I first arrived in London. There was far too much else to see and do, and very little space in my luggage for yarn.

I did manage a quick visit to I Knit on our final day, a Saturday, only because we were at the nearby Parliament and London Eye. It was good timing, though, because I found the shop crammed full of their local knitting group. Actually, it was also full of lots of scrumptious-looking food. The knitting group members really lay out a good spread.

It is a small shop, rather bohemian. I found it quite interesting and I also found yarn. No complaints. But then, I am telling things backwards. Earlier in the week, we had spent three days in Cambridge.

As soon as I pulled out my knitting on the train to Cambridge, I noticed a lady a few rows back eyeing it and smiling. (Not that I was twisting and peering all about, ultra-touristy-like. My seat was facing backwards, giving me a clear view of the passengers behind.) Shortly, she reached into her bag and pulled out a sock pattern, studying it for a few minutes. I took this as a signal that she might be willing to talk knitting, but was disappointed when I couldn't make eye contact with her thereafter. I was forced to assume that the sight of my knitting reminded her of the sock pattern.

As the train was pulling into the station, I decided I was missing an obvious opportunity. I brazenly and rather loudly accosted her across the intervening seats, asking "Excuse me, do you knit?" She answered with a quiet "Yes" and a nod. I then asked if there was a yarn shop in Cambridge.

When she began to explain that she wasn't from Cambridge, I was amazed to hear the fellow across the table from us speak up to assure me, "There will be a yarn shop in Cambridge." He had us in his beady gaze the entire last hour and an half and hadn't said "boo!" or whatever the appropriate idiom might be. I was surprised that he responded and began to try to puzzle out the meaning of his response. Did he mean that a yarn shop was planned, but it hadn't opened yet? If that was what he meant, I thought it odd that he seemed to think I would be happy to hear his reassurance. While I stared at him, the lady I had asked thankfully wiped the puzzled look off my face by explaining that there is a John Lewis and that they carry yarn. Or rather, as I was quickly corrected in that very same shop a couple of days later, wool.

Following the correction, I was directed to the John Lewis crafts department, where I found a more-than-helpful shop clerk. At first, she seemed very concerned that I had taken a photo, the one in my earlier post. However, once I had answered her question, yes, I am from the U.S., she observed, "Oh, knitting is very big over there, isn't it?"

After I hesitantly agreed, she went on to explain that she thought it just hadn't caught on in the same way in England, at least not yet. Recently, she explained, newer yarn shops have opened that are similar to the ones in the U.S. These newer shops carry modern yarn. However, the older shops do not, and much of their stock is acrylic or acrylic blends. Altogether, after comparing what I know of the yarn shops in the U.S., the number and frequency of classes and the attendance and trade, with her experience in Cambridge, I had to agree with her. Perhaps knitting doesn't draw the same enthusiastic numbers in England that it does here.

Regardless, I was happy to find such a helpful clerk. She was the reason I found the only knitting shop in Cambridge. Since she told me there was one, I searched for it, trekking across the colleges to find it.

I don't know I would have realized it on my own, just looking at the Internet yellow pages, but the sewing shop does sell yarn. Still, I was a bit surprised to find half the building dedicated to it. Lots of sock yarn, a good bit of acrylic, but still, decent yarn. Just in case anyone reading this is planning a visit to Cambridge and wants to shop for yarn--the newer, more trendy yarn shops are in Ely, a little to the north of Cambridge. If I had really wanted to explore British yarn shops, I'd have gone there. As it was, I just wanted a few souvenirs. These are my purchases from both I Knit and The Wool Shop--

That's mostly German sock yarn--Rico Superba Klassik, King Cole Zig Zag and Regia, from The Wool Shop. I also bought Italian Sirdar Escape there--that's the showy yarn up front. It will be used for an Inspira Cowl once I find a coordinating contrasting yarn. In the middle there's some green Duo Comfort by Adriafil (Italian, again), a wool and cotton blend that I hope can withstand machine washing. If so, it will become slippers for my traveling companion. I let her select it, so I know she will like it. On the left, near the back is my sole English yarn. It's Wensleydale Longwool from Sheep Shop, spun in Yorkshire. I'm so tickled with it that I started knitting a swatch already.

As I said earlier, I was knitting while traveling England. I just finished the socks I took on the trip, but first I'll show you the pair that waited at home for me.

I finished these shortly after I came back. They're Wakefield Socks, with such a pretty stitch pattern it shouldn't be buried in shoes. I could say that's why I didn't continue the pattern over the part that goes into my shoes, but it wouldn't be true. I wanted a smoother surface against my foot, for comfort's sake. I couldn't resist carrying the twisted stitches down to the toe, though. They are so dynamic.

Details here.

More little knitted things are blocked and drying. If it will stay sunny, I'll post them soon.

Where to knit in Queens College

2011-04-25T15:10:00.000-07:00

I found Cambridge a wonderful place to visit. It was filled with delightful and interesting sights, good restaurants and ancient treasures. While most people tour it in a day, I spent three days and wasn't a bit bored, even though I walked everywhere I went, first there was a small grove of trees near our residence hall,

filled with naturalised plantings.

Next was the River Cam, filled with students and tourists punting.

These are fun to watch, whether it is just to admire the scene, or to laugh at the many self-hired punts that are being poled in circles by the inexperienced. On the other side of the river is the President's residence, with its impressive Tudor beams. Adjoining it, behind that low fence with the black gate, sits a garden that is, like many of the areas in the colleges, locked.

Oooh, just like in The Secret Garden. We were really curious, but in the end, we saw it isn't terribly secret. The garden overlooks the river, shielded only by a wrought iron fence. You can see into it from the other side. It didn't look much different from the rest of the college, which was immaculate, beautiful and peaceful.

I sat on that bench and knitted for a while. I didn't stay long. There was too much else to see in Cambridge. I shopped and walked, ate wonderful food, then walked more. I found two yarn shops. They were a little different than the ones here in the U.S.

More on that, and what I bought, next.

Knitting my way through London

2011-04-21T13:22:00.000-07:00

Oh, yes, I have returned from my trip to England with a full camera. I took my new Canon G12 with me, left all the settings on auto and snapped my picture-taking-loving heart out. Out of the hundreds of photos, I've selected a few to capture the high points of the trip.

It was a fine trip. Of course, I took in all the sights of London. Big Ben, Parliament, and a bit of the Thames are all present in the photo to the left. There was the London Eye across the bridge--take my word for it at this point.

The photos I took are nothing special, just mementos of my trip. Although I love them all, I'll limit the ones I post here to those that illustrate my story.

The weather was occasionally sunny, not at all rainy, mostly cool and comfortable. I was fortunate in that.

The spring flowers were blooming beautifully, dressing up London for our visit.

These tulips were in perfect form, gracing a small park in Sussex Gardens not far from our hotel. The small parks and mews were a surprise. Around every turn was a lovely, often intriguing view.

Ah, intriguing--the Rowan Spring collection, well displayed at a Harry Lewis department store. Each of these sweaters is so cute. If I just had the form and firmness of the mannequins, I'd knit them all.

I couldn't help putting a copy of Knit Your Own Royal Wedding into the display. We were too early for the wedding, but evidence of the coming excitement was here and there. I was amused by a story on the local news about neighborhoods planning to host block parties on the big day.

Wedding or no, London was all I expected. I saw the changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace,

visited St. Paul's Cathedral and the National Gallery (where I fell in love with this knitting-related painting), bought yarn, ate wonderful food and wore my feet flat out running through tube stations, streets and parks.

What I didn't expect:

"Right-o. Cheers!" means thank you, at least when you've let someone go ahead of you. (Which, by the way, Londoners don't often do.)

"Are you all right?" means "Can I help you?" when it is coming from a shop clerk. (That was a bit embarrassing, since I kept reassuring them as to my health until I caught on.)

Complaining about unexpected butter on sandwiches just gets you an indignant response, such as: "Did you ask for no butter?"

Ah well, quirky idioms aside, the single best surprise was that I could stand here:

This is the Mathematical Bridge. It crosses the River Cam, connecting the engineering building in Queens College, Cambridge with the rest of the college. Queens College, like the other colleges in Cambridge, is not open to all. There's some parts you can tour for a fee, some you can just enter, but most of the access is limited to students and faculty. Since it was spring break, the residence halls were vacant. We were allowed to rent a room in a hall in Queens College in conjunction with the conference that brought us there. Since we were staying there, we entered and left the college at will, just waving to the porter as we passed. I'm not sure that it was intended that I use this privilege to wander around the college, but I did.

It was quiet and largely empty with all the students and most of the faculty and staff gone on break. It is a beautiful place, filled with buildings older than any I've ever seen. Absolutely amazing.

When I get a little more caught up, I'll put together a post on Cambridge. I was so impressed that I'd encourage everyone who visits England to put it on their "must see" list.

Until then, I hope everyone enjoys a nice Easter holiday.

London calls, I knit an answer.

2011-03-30T07:03:00.000-07:00

Last Summer, when I was purchasing a Fall Vogue Knitting magazine, the lys owner playfully slapped the issue into my hand, singing out the issue masthead, "London calling!" How prophetic she was! London was not only calling me with the cover shot of the beautiful blue cardigan, it was calling me for a visit. Yipee, I'm going to London next month. I see it's chilly there, so I knitted a little something.

I'm afraid my tolerance for dignified colors had been worn out by the last two shawls I knit. This one is much brighter, using the two different stitch patterns in the Citron pattern to combine two different yarns. I thought I had chosen a sedate burgundy hank of Ultra Alpaca Fine to tone down the Noro Kureyon Sock, but it looks very purple in the clear light of Spring. This is the Noro I recently complained about--it was too inelastic and too muddy in color for the striped knee socks I had planned. I knew it would also be too itchy for a shawl. At least the lack of elasticity gave me confidence that the curling edge would block out.

As it did. Mixing in the alpaca makes for a more wearable shawlette. It's not itchy at all and counteracts the itchiness of the Noro. I worked around the colors a lot, even ripping out and discarding some colors that were a bit too bright. I knew the stripes were inevitable, though. The last rows are around 600 stitches long, since I added a sixth repeat.

What with the pink and green, it's looking much more like a watermelon, rather than a Citron.

I think it will be the right weight to ward off a draft on the plane. It's small enough so that I can wear it inside my jacket, or just stick it in the pocket if it gets warm. It's easy to wear, but could be a little too bright for London.

Maybe it will warm up a bit before I get there. If so, I'll save this for the states next fall.

I'll be spending a couple of days in London, three days in Cambridge and then back to London for a day before my return flight. Please comment if you have suggestions for things I should see or do.

Edited Orange Stripes are burning

2011-03-16T07:40:00.000-07:00

My regular readers are probably darned tired of reading about my one sock pattern, Burning Stripes. However, I figure that if I can stand to knit it again, they can stand to see it again. Truth is, I'm a little surprised to find that I still enjoyed knitting the sixth pair in this pattern--6 and one-half would be the accurate count, considering the adventure in skein-splitting last summer that produced three socks from one skein. That I did enjoy them--that's the real story here.
First off, I loved that I used yarn I liked a little to make socks I like a lot.

Knitting these was my kind of fun. Although they might look like the usual striped socks, there's more to them than you'd think. I began with a two-stranded tubular cast-on, mastering that technique and evaluating it. It is stretchier than the twisted German cast-on I've been using. It does look nice with 1x1 ribbing. I've even learned how to adapt it to 2x2 ribbing (nothing complicated there, just switching the stitches around on the needle before you work them). I'll certainly use it again for ribbed cuffs. However, I don't like the look of 1x1 twisted ribbed cuffs on a plain stockinette sock. It just doesn't flow.

I enjoyed mixing in a quieter color and editing out abrupt color changes to calm the loud stripes. I could swap to a solid color when a stripe ended, thereby maintaining that elusive sense of control that I lose when knitting self-striping yarn.

Another technique I tried was reversing the second half of the boomerang heel to put the smooth side of the stockinette against the sole of my foot. That it made the seam line stand out more was just a bonus. In spite of that, I can't feel it when I walk on it. In fact, since the bulk of the seam line yarn is on the outside and not the inside of the sock, it is even less noticeable.

I took extra pains to match the stripe pattern when starting the second sock. After the heel, I wanted to see how the stripes would look unedited--that is, without the plain orange alternating. I don't like the effect as well, even though I still removed the odd bits of pink. I'm glad I tried it, though, because it perfectly illustrates the difference between the separated stripes and non-separated ones, all in the same socks. The difference is more obvious when comparing the knit side of the foot with the leg.

I mean, I think it really makes a difference, but am aware that I might be the only one who appreciates it. On reflection, I now realize that I took a lot of extra time and trouble to make a pair of socks that look very little different than they would have if I had just knit them plain, easily and quickly. If I look at the result, a pair of rather obnoxious orange socks, I can't say it was worth it. However, when I think back to how much I enjoyed working out the issues, controlling the colors and putting my own twist on orange stripes, I realize the fun was in the knitting as much as the wearing. I really enjoy the process more when it includes a problem to solve, even if the only problem is satisfying myself.

Regardless of the effort, the matching stripes in the legs and the cute pink toes tickle me to death. I've been wearing them a lot. They're perfect.

Try these links for the two-stranded tubular cast-on:

Part I

Part II

I'll be working out the directions for reversing the second half of the heel--maybe as a pattern addendum.

Knitting the other one and a half shawls

2011-03-10T11:24:00.000-08:00

Lambspun alpaca, a local Colorado product available from the fabulous Lambspun yarn shop in Ft. Collins, inspired this shawl. The yarn is available large hanks -- 665 yards of fingering weight alpaca. First I bought the black, straight from the beast, no dye needed. It was so soft and smooth I couldn't resist. Then I became obsessed with the idea of mixing it with a marled twist of gray, white and black that had stuck in my mind during my first visit to Lambspun. My obsession required a second visit to Lambspun, which is about a 5 hour drive from my home. Good thing K had to go to Ft. Collins for business.

I didn't think I wanted an all-black shawl, practical though it might be. Since I was copying the Terhi-Kay modification of the Feather and Fan Triangle Shawl from Folk Shawls, I used the triple-stranded marl for the border ruffle. I didn't double the stitch count, though. The marl is fluffy enough to provide a bit of expansion without the trouble of extra stitches.

I did increase per pattern to make the tails, up until I started the border. They work just like Terhi's and Kay's do, wrapping around my waist or over my shoulders. Most times, I just let them hang or lie in my lap so I can play with them.

I included every eyelet. The black needed a little bit of patterning. Totally plain garter stitch would have left me numb. As it is, it's rather dull, but perfect for home wear. Just perfect.

To make wearable and practical shawls, I risked dullness, first with the gray Domovoi, then with this black and a little gray. Now I need an antidote. For that, there's nothing like Noro.

I'm very afraid that this one is going the wrong way. I keep knitting in very bright colors then ripping them out. Knitting a Citron is a lot of fun, though, at least until the rows get over 500 stitches on them.

For the history of the Terhi-Kay shawl, see the February and March archives of Mason-Dixon knitting.

Knitting two and a half shawls

2011-03-07T11:16:00.000-08:00

This tale begins with detail

The tail, in fact, of a triangular gray shawl. The pattern, the Domovoi Shawl from Folk Shawls, intended for the shawl to be a rectangle. My yarn shortage limited it to a triangle. A little bit of math helped me morph the shape of the Wool Peddler's Shawl, also from Folk Shawls, with the pattern and edging from Domovoi. The result looks like Domovoi and wears like Wool Peddler.

A few years ago, I had no idea how to wear a triangular shawl. Now I have no idea how to do without one. If there's even just a hint of a chill, I wrap one around my shoulders while I have my morning coffee. In the photo above, I was dressed to go out to lunch on a warmish spring day, anticipating a drafty restaurant. I was well prepared.

Even though it's larger that I need, it's so light that I find it easier to wear than a smaller shawl. I just scrunch it up around my neck if I want it shorter.

This shawl took less than four balls of Rowan Kid Classic yarn, knit on size 10 1/2 needles to open up the garter stitch. I found that my Honey Shawl, another garter stitch shawl I knit, quickly reverted to its original close-lying rows of garter ridges, even though I blocked it to open up the ridges. I hope that the larger needles will mean that these ridges will stay open.

As soon as I finished this one, I cast on for yet another garter stitch triangular shawl. Even though I most often wear these shawls at home, I still want them to coordinate with my attire. I'd like to have at least four "at home" shawls. My next post will be up soon and will cover the other completed shawl and one that's halfway done.

Stripe Edits for socks

2011-02-22T13:13:00.000-08:00

Again, I'm playing with the new camera. And socks. I actually have useful information about the socks, though. That is, useful to those who are reckless enough to buy questionable sock yarn from the sale bin, yarn that catches the eye, yarn that has an eye-catching "40% off" tag, yarn that might not be a bit too... loud.

Now, who would do something so foolish, I wonder, hmmm? After all, if the crowds of knitters that pass through the busy yarn shop in my area didn't want it, it's obviously got a problem. Whatever its problem, I'm trying to fix it.

Perhaps it's still too..., but I find it a little less so, now that I've edited the stripes. Using my Burning Stripes striping method, I added in a stripe of a more muted color, a color that is very close to one of the colors in this bright colorway. I simply added the stripe whenever the colors in the bright colorway changed, separating the burgundy from the green, the green from the light green, and the light green from the yellow, separating of those loud colors with a muted orange stripe. When the orange in the bright colorway came along, I let it stripe. No sense separating orange from yellow with more orange. As a further edit, I cut out the pink. It seemed unrelated to these colors. In spite of the jarring juxtaposition it creates, I will try using the pink scraps to stripe the toe.

The first time I knit the lime and white stripe, the colors stacked for all three rows in a super-cute fashion. Decreasing a few stitches lost that effect, but produced randomness that is nice in its own way.

I'm amazed at the accuracy of the replication of this sock in these photos. I had to use RAW files to get these colors, but it was worth it. Darn worth it. Here's the one jpeg I liked. It sorta shows where I decreased those stitches along the seam.

The jpeg literally pales by comparison. Too-blue greens, light yellows, blah oranges--that's not my sock! Nice seamline, though. Too bad you can't really see the pair of decreases after the second burgundy stripe. There's another pair after the lime green, before the heel. I hid them in the muted orange yarn. They are probably even harder to see because the yarn ball is more in focus than the sock at that point. I wasn't trying to make the shaping noticeable, though. I've got nothing against using shaping as accent, just not this time. Using color as an accent was enough.

What a heel! The sock turns inside out at that point, and the seamline really stands out against the purl stitches.

The yarn is ONline Supersocke Savanne Color no. 1035, striped with Inca Sportlace. Link is to my Ravelry project page for these socks.

I found a fairly fresh flower in the strawberries when I opened the box this morning. They tasted even better than they look.

I just came across Bloglovin, a blog feeder that is rather easy. By typing "knit" in the search, I found over 1,000 knit blogs. They insisted on a link to claim my blog, which I put in the sidebar under my Twitter link.

Follow my blog with bloglovin!

So now I've put it here, too.

About that camera, and socks

2011-02-16T07:52:00.000-08:00

I completed a wonderful pair of socks last month, surely the most luxurious socks I've knit to date. They've got some cashmere, a lot of merino, and princess feet to spoil me. But, really, this post is not about the socks at all.

In spite of that, I feel obligated to provide a few technical details about these socks: the yarn is a delightful merino/cashmere/nylon mix from The Plucky Knitter; the pattern is Saguaro, an easy knit with simple cables that look pretty but lie flat and don't pull too tight. The foot is knit inside out, a feat that required knitting the cables from the purl side along the instep, as well as along the heel in one sock due to a miscalculation. It wasn't hard to do and gives me a smooth mostly stockinette foot that feels great against my feet. The heel turn is reinforced with an extra strand of bamboo-flavored sock yarn to protect the spot that wears out first. (Warning: the link to the sock pattern actually takes you to the designer's blog. The pattern download button is on the sidebar to the right, a goodly ways down. Don't get lost in her blog, which is madly interesting, if you want to hear about my new camera. Come back to me!)

Details done, I'll now use these sock photos to make a few observations about my new camera. All the photos in this post, and most of the photos posted here since the beginning of the year were taken with a Canon G12. Basically, I like it. It's undeniably better than my old camera, a Canon A710 that had been dropped too many times. It focuses all the time, every time. It has all the features of my old camera, plus many I haven't quite mastered and probably don't need.

The greatest thing about it, so far, is the screen that rotates and tilts so that I can see it from the front of the camera. That means I know exactly what image I'm getting with every shot, even when I'm modeling. I resorted to taking a rather bad shot of the camera with my phone camera just to illustrate how the screen works. You can see the image on the screen that I've rotated to the front and titled up. The image on it is upside down, but only because the screen is tilted upwards. If I set the screen completely vertical, the camera would rotate the image. Automatically. It also automatically shifts to macro, tracks faces, and changes other settings as needed when it is in auto mode. It's a little wizard.

There's another big difference between the G12 and my old A710. The G12 can take photos in RAW format as well as the standard jpeg. I didn't know about this feature when I bought the camera, but I have used the settings and the accompanying software to take some comparative shots. In the collage above, the ones on the left are jpegs, edited with Picasa. The ones on the right were RAW, edited with DPP (software that came with the camera) and converted to jpeg. So far, I've found that I can adjust the RAW images to produce a more true-to-life image--at least as far as the color. The images on the right show the actual color of the socks.

(Here's where you'll probably want to click on the collage to enlarge it in another window, then click on it again to zoom in. For more on the camera, and more socks, come back here after that.)
Having finished these socks, then whipped out another pair rather quickly on a little trip (a sock in three days--whoopee!), I thought I'd start a Spring pair. I had gotten some lovely green yarn at the same time as the brown. It was perfect for the leafy socks, In the Peaceful Forest, from Think Outside the Sox.

Or so I thought...except that the yarn was mottled and a bit bumpy, making the pattern look a lot less smooth than the sock in the book and obscuring the cute little leaves. I could have lived with it, but not with what was revealed after I knit a couple of inches. See anything wrong in the photo above? If not, look at the edited RAW image below.

Even though the jpeg is lighter, the edited RAW file above really shows what I saw after I set the sock aside. The color is accurate--there really is a difference. The knitted part is dark, but the yarn is light. Mmph?

It's no big problem, just that the inside of the ball has a bit of darker yarn at the start. I've had this problem once before with hand-dyed yarn. That time, I ended up with socks that looked different. I didn't like that, so I hope that once I start over from the outside of the ball, the darker part will end up in the toe of the second sock, if I need it at all.

At least the color problem encouraged me to rip it out, eliminating the yarn/pattern mismatch. In another pattern, on another day, this yarn will make nice socks. One problem remained. I still wanted a new sock project.

I thought I'd try to encourage some pattern sales by knitting a knee sock version of my Burning Stripes pattern, this time in two colorways of Noro Kureyon Sock.

The first photo is the edited RAW one. Yes, the colors really are that muddy, without the sharp difference I would have liked between each stripe. The second photo, the jpeg, exaggerates the colors. I could have probably reduced the saturation a bit. The lack of color contrast and the fact that this is way too big for my leg, even at my calf, meant that I ripped out this one too. At least now I know that I should cast on no more that 84 stitches for knee socks, and maybe skip the ribbing when using inelastic Noro.

Disatisfied with these sock attempts, I tried a magical third time, with satisfying results. I'll blog that later, though. For now, I'm back on The Camera.

Before I found the G12, I was set on upgrading to a digital SLR. Then I read another blogger complain that she didn't take many photos on a trip because she had brought her DSLR. Since she found it too big, too complicated and too time-consuming to set up for travel snapshots, she just didn't use it. Until I read that, I thought I wanted a DSLR. I considered her comment and decided that I didn't want to spend twice as much (or more) for a camera I wouldn't use much.

Even then, I didn't know about the Canon G series cameras. They popped up once I started reading camera reviews. It only took a day or two for me to realize that they are the perfect knit-blogger cameras. The three features I've outlined are the reason: the simple controls, the movable screen and the editable RAW images.

So far, I don't think that the photos are noticeably better than the other digital point-and-shoot cameras I've used. I'm not getting those "reach out and touch" macro shots that DSLRs seem to give. But for blogger photos, hey, these are good enough.

They might even get better once I work with it more. That photo above is a simple unedited jpeg, straight from the camera. Not bad, considering I wasn't even trying give the yarn its close-up.

Valentine's knit, mittens

2011-02-09T12:48:00.000-08:00

...or, A Tale of Two Mittens, knit two years apart.

In the winter of 2009, I fell in love. Like so many times before, the object of my affection, first glimpsed in the early Fall, was overwhelmingly attractive, offering to bring comfort and warmth to my life. I reacted in the same way I had when I fell before. I gazed at my love over and over, contemplating every pleasing detail. For months, I coveted what I saw, lost in endless admiration and longing.

Then, as Valentine's Day approached, I made my move. As often happens, once I tried to fit my love into my life, problems arose. The new arrival was incompatible with established occupants. There was struggling, fighting. I didn't have the tools or skills to meet the demands. Again, as before, I didn't give up on love. I still lusted, but I lusted after a new vision--I insisted that my love change.

Thank goodness it's only knitting, something that I can bend to my will.

After ripping and reknitting repeatedly, I decided to develop a new chart more suited to the gauge of the yarn I substituted. As I knit the first mitten, following the pattern from the Fall '08 issue of Vogue Knitting, I thought how much the original ten-stitch motif reminded me of eyes. Inspired by the upcoming Valentine's Day, I designed an eight-stitch heart chart. An eye, or I, then a heart, or love--the final words were obvious. Thus I developed my "I love to knit" mitten.

For two years, I joked about what I would put on the second mitten. A word to describe what else I love, one with four letters. Oh, we had fun with that one at knitting group. I didn't really think it would take so long, but sometimes it does to get it right. Now that I have finally figured it out, it amazes me that I didn't see it immediately. I love to knit. I love wool. I love to knit wool.

It's no wonder. Look where I live.

Good thing these are lined with alpaca.

The bit of gold in the turned hem is silk, the same as in the shawl I knit for a recent wedding. I was so obsessed with using every bit of the 14 balls of silk I had for the shawl, and so proud that I did. Then I picked up the basket where the single mitten has been sitting with the leftover yarn for the past two years. That's when I realized that I didn't have any silk left for the hem of the second mitten. I tried to substitute something else from my stash, but nothing made me happy. With trepidation, I went to the yarn shop where had originally bought the silk. I couldn't believe that they had some left, 2 years later. (I know you're tired of me saying that, two years later...)

Never mind, I finished the second mitten, in time for our recent visit to the local ski resort.

Bye Monarch!

We'll be back soon.

VKLive Booty and a wip

2011-02-01T08:35:00.000-08:00

Of course, I bought a few things at the Vogue Knitting Live market. The selection of vendors was totally different from those at fiber/wool festivals. Wool festival vendors are primarily farmers or spinners, presenting the chance to buy direct from the source, but usually selling only a few types of yarn at each booth. Vendors at VKLive were primarily yarn shops. Now, I love going to yarn shops and try to visit as many as I can when I travel. Certainly I was happy to be able to hop from one shop to the other merely by going to the next booth in line. However, it was a little easier to restrain my purchasing, especially since a lot of the yarn and other items there are readily available either at local shops or online.

So, I picked and chose my purchases. I was really impressed with this felted dpn case.

Detailed workmanship in a simple design--and green, too--love it! The little cupcake is both a tape measure and a pincushion. Although I didn't bother with a receipt, a little online searching tells me these are by Two Stix. (I hope that's right.) I probably bought them from the Dream Weaver booth.

The case will hold my shorter (6") dpns, like the size 0 Blackthorn needles I bought (on the left) at the Blackthorn booth. It was nice to be able to try the needles before buying them. They seem a bit stiff--I'm used to the flexibility of wooden dpns. On the other hand, they won't develop a bend like my bamboo dpns. I'll try them on a pair of socks before I decide if I want to buy more.

The button pinned to the case at the top right was a gift from my traveling companion. She was quite amused by one that said "Yarn H*". Once I convinced her I wouldn't wear it, she settled for buying this one. She also brought the scarves below to my attention. They convinced me to break my usual rule against buying kits.

Eight balls of yarn, the bag and the pattern were included. I'm expecting there will be yarn left over, but I'm not sure. Either way, the pattern can be used again.

There was a booth full of cashmere that was very tempting. I settled for just taking one of their handouts for a club. It's a Cashmere Square of the Month Club from Hunt Valley Cashmere. You get the yarn and pattern to knit the Great American Aran Afghan, in your choice of weight, one square each month for a year.

That would certainly be a dream project. Until I clear the decks and my yarnstash, though, I'm content with socks and shawls.

I fiddled around in a bit of confusion to work out the edging on my latest shawl, a triangular version of Domovoi. I was a little worried that I wouldn't like a plain gray garter stitch edging. I should have known that Cheryl Oberle and Folk Shawls wouldn't let me down. I really like it. After a little time on the blocking board, it will have plenty of opportunity for modeled shots.

I wear my shawls constantly now, having become addicted to the extra warmth around my shoulders this winter. My favorite is the abbreviated version of the Feather and Fan Triangle shawl I knit a couple of winters ago. The shaping is ingenious--it hugs my shoulders and never falls off. I really want another one in black, similar to the famous Terhi shawl Kay Gardiner knit. I have just the yarn for it stashed away--if only I can stand to knit that much garter stitch in black.

Feel free to admire the photos in this post, products of my new camera. I'm still learning how to use it and the RAW editing software. In celebration, I figured out how to post larger pics in blogger. The one of the scarves is larger than usual. Let me know if you want more big pics.

NYC + VKLive = priceless

2011-01-26T06:30:00.000-08:00

Having just returned from New York and the intoxicating atomosphere of Vogue Knitting Live, I've got some adjustments to make. At least I have a small pile of new yarn to inhale to calm me down. Skyscrapers to mountains...what a transition. Actually, the show was about what I expected. There was certainly full disclosure about the exhibitors and classes. I was mildly surprised and happy to learn that the fashion show schedule had been expanded to include shows by yarn companies as well as by Vogue Knitting. Although I didn't look forward to the other shows with the same enthusiasm I had for VK's, I can't say that they were any less entertaining. It's just that I like the complexity and touch of high fashion that prevails in VK.

This model was quite good. Could she ever walk!

This one was super cute. Nothing she put on could ever look bad. As part of the VK show, we were treated to a preview of the knits from the spring issue of VK.

The theme is white. The details in this one are nice. I'd love to be able to blog the entire show in pictures, but that really wasn't why I was there. I hate to let a camera come between me and life too often. Although I kept telling myself, just look and enjoy, don't try to take photos of everything, I couldn't resist a quick close-up of my next sweater.

What a thrill. I hope mine looks even better, if that is possible--at least I'll get better pictures, lol. (It's the cover sweater from last Fall's issue.)

Just to show that there is plenty of crazy to be had in the city, here's what you'll see if are lucky enough to ride through Times Square in a pedi-cab. This is what it looks like if you are stopped, with the plastic curtains zipped down, cozy and warm, waiting for the light to change.

This is what it looks like once the light changes and he starts pedaling .

Bbbuuummmpppy... but fun. Way better than walking when it's 10 degrees Farenheit and your tummy is full of fine French food and wine.

Knitting Shopping Socks

2011-01-13T11:33:00.000-08:00

No, not shopping for knitted socks, knitting socks to wear while shopping! Really comfortable hand-knitted socks, socks that keep my feet from hurting (much) after a full day of walking--that's my goal.

Towards that goal, I knit a pair of socks from a plain, durable yarn. They're the first of my Perfect knitting projects for 2011. I confess, I finished them last month, but I haven't blogged about them yet. Since I feel I could "pat them and call them perfect", as per my last post, they qualify as my first perfect project.

I hope no one was expecting something spectacular. Even so, there is something about these socks that marks a new level of knitting success for me. The stripes match--almost perfectly. It wasn't easy, either. I had to cut the second skein of yarn into three pieces to get the repeats in the right place. I also fussed a good deal with the fit of these socks, changing the pattern of the ribbing to adjust the fit, wider at the top, narrow at the ankle and tapering at the toes. Since the number of stitches is the same throughout, they slip on very easily. I have other socks that I knit to fit my ankle tightly--those are a little hard to pull on over my heel. Not so with these.

Besides the shaping, there's another feature that makes this pair of socks perfectly comfortable. Much of the foot is purl-side out. That means sensitive soles and toes are soothed by the smooth knit side of the stockinette.

Although I have knit socks with Princess soles before, I found purling the entire sole much harder than just knitting the foot. I constructed these socks to avoid a lot of the purling. With so few knit stitches in the foot, it was easy to knit these socks inside-out after the heel flap.

Besides the smooth, ready-for-shopping foot, and the ribbed shaping, I also like the tubular cast on I used for the 1x1 ribbed cuff. Absolutely perfect.

I'm thinking of writing a pattern, but doubt it will be very popular at this point. These plain socks aren't attracting any attention. Instead, I'll just keep knitting all my socks with inside-out feet. They feel wonderful. Maybe after I blog a few pair, this construction method will catch on.

Perfect Knitting, 2011

2011-01-05T11:37:00.000-08:00

Many years ago, I was involved in child-rearing. I don't know if it was the particular child, or if this applies to all children, but nonetheless, I quickly learned that I had to eliminate the word, perfect, from my vocabulary.

It was a hard lesson for me. I had heard that praise is advisable in child-rearing. Since I had habitually used the forbidden word, in my inexperience I began using it as an exclamation of praise. When something the child had done, or made, was praise-worthy, I often exclaimed, "Perfect!"

This exclamation, frequently voiced in excited tones, worked very well for months. It wasn't until I began to absent-mindedly began to say "That's good." or "Very nice!" that I was met with the question, "Not perfect?" And then, tears. Not that I hadn't been using those other terms all along. It's just that the child had figured out the difference. Oh, no.

Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien. Voltaire

(Often translated as "Perfect is the enemy of good.", but the meaning is disputable.)

The realization came, unfortunately for my peace of mind, and the child's developing standards, too late. As I said, I tried to stop saying the word, but I don't think it made any difference. The damage had been done. Even as I tried to explain that not everything can be perfect, that good and nice have merit, I knew it was a lost cause. We all learn that there are degrees of success and, as much as we would like our works to be perfect, sometimes our efforts just don't measure up.

Of course, the ideal is to have perfect be attainable, not to set a standard so high that it can never be achieved, thereby producing tears of frustration.

Therefore, this year, I'd like to explore the term, "perfect knitting."

This year, I'd like to be able to finish a project, pat it, and think, "Perfect!" That would mean not only a change in the way I knit, but also a change in how I think of my knitting. Not to view perfect as an enemy, but to make perfect my friend. To meet perfect, recognize it and become familiar with it.

I am ready. (I promise that not all of those are sock yarn.)
Along with that word, perfect, the other word that comes to my mind in thinking of the new year is promise. A bright new year, filled with promise. If it's half as good as the last one, it will be fantastical.

Which bring me to that queue I mentioned in my last post. I, like many other Ravelry users, bounce around the patterns, happily queuing away. I'm relieved when my queue is less than 4 pages long. I have prioritized my queue, making a sub-set of a dozen or so projects that are at least possibilities for 2011.

Sweaters, 7 -- Equinox, Inversion Gansey, Anney, Fair Isle Tunic, Cabled Cardigan, Snowbird, Peplum Cardigan
2 pairs of fingerless mitts -- Susie's Reading and Lusekofte-sque
Shawls -- Dottie, Whippoorwill and Prairie Rose
One hat, with yarn for a matching shawl, wrap or scarf, pattern undecided
In addition to these, I'd like to work on a couple of hibernated projects, plus the two shawls currently on my needles, Domovoi Shawl and Andrea's Shawl--the last one is showing its edging in the photo below.

And a lot of socks!

Year's-end Knitting

2010-12-30T06:45:00.000-08:00

As the year comes to a close, I am keeping busy with small knitting projects, nothing too demanding. Following the pressure of wedding knitting and a year of knitting obligations, what I need are a couple of simple little knits that no one needs.

I've been simply knitting socks, following the pattern (Monkey! in Austermann Step) to the letter, happy to find that I knit socks tighter after a couple of years of doing it. I thought tighter knitting would mean a better fit. The first time I knit this pattern, the socks were too big. Now tighter has turned into too tight, an unexpected result.

Another project is not simple, but at least it's little, and gives me a chance to practice fair isle. I'm sure it's something no one needs. (Whaaah is that? Keep reading, I'll show you.)

While knitting, I've been thinking about the past year. 2010 was another productive year for me. The past 363 days have given me time to complete more than 30 knitting projects. The number is nothing remarkable. It's even a little below average, considering that about half of them are pairs of socks. Quantitatively, the knitted items were expected. After all, I knit every one of those 363 days. Qualitatively, some were unexpected.

To reacquaint myself with the past year's knitting, I looked over this blog, refreshing my memory of the things I knit and my experience knitting them. At the beginning of the year, I found only one resolution, or, really, just one remark that was even close to a resolution for the coming year. At first read, the one statement I made in this blog in January 2010 as I looked forward to the coming year, now past, seemed reasonable.

What I said in January, 2010 was "Expect the unexpected, laugh when it arrives."

Oh ho. It's good I didn't know how right I was! If I had, I would have approached knitting in 2010 with a lot more hesitancy.

This was certainly a year of unexpected knitting projects. I was happy to hit upon a marketable sock pattern. I didn't expect to knit samples--5 pairs, actually 5 and one-half pairs, in the pattern.

I expected to knit a little something for a wedding at the end of the year. I did not expect to knit a bridal veil, certainly not using very thin silk thread.

I thought I'd be knitting a sweater with some silk yarn I bought in 2009. I didn't expect to knit a stole. I never expected it would block out so large. I had originally hoped I could give it to the bride to wear during the reception. I didn't expect that she would wear it as part of her going-away outfit. (I loved that she did, though.)

I'd say that my resolution for 2010 was right on point. Following it, I somehow should have expected all those unexpected events. In the superstitious fear that the resolve in some strange way might have shaped the year, I'll try to be more careful when I prepare my resolutions for 2011. In these last few days of 2010, I'm preparing for next-year's knitting.

I have all my yarn wound. I have my patterns queued, and have marked a reasonble number to be knit in 2011. I've settled on 15, allowing room for an few unexpected projects.

But before the end of this year, I need to finish that fairly useless fair isle project.

It's a pair of boot toppers. All I've done so far is the hard part, the cuffs. They need an edging to stop the curling at the bottom, inner cuffs to stop the curling at the top and hold them in the boots, and a good blocking. All of that will improve their looks. I consider these simply decorative, not functional--of no real use--unless they keep your legs warmer? They're an impulse project that occurred to me when I was looking at these boots the other day, just what no one needs--boot cozies!

Knitting Dam Broken

2010-12-12T09:00:00.000-08:00

Ha, being a fan of double entendres and puns, I am pleased with the title of this post. I composed it to announce that the bit of a knitting block I experienced after finishing three projects in a short space of time was miracously broken the other night by something I read in another knit blog. I was hoping that just looking at Ravelry projects would do the trick, but it didn't. However, reading a few blog posts served to remind me that I had the perfect sock project waiting to fill the gap left when I finished these...

Details: Kaiso Socks from Knitted Socks East and West, Unisono yarn. Ravelry page here.

Yes, things are done, beautiful blue socks for me, a wedding veil for the bride, and my shawl for the wedding.

Details: Tibetan Clouds Beaded Stole from The Knitter's Book of Wool, Louisa Harding Mulberry yarn. Ravelry page here.

I can't believe I considered not blocking this shawl. It is so much better after a full wet block, lighter, smoother, shinier. The beads are more obvious and the drape is enhanced.

What's next? I did start those socks I've been mentally designing for weeks, but they take a bit of thinking. And, honestly, I've got two tv-watching spots. I need a project for each.

Thus, I'm very happy to have settled on a simple project, with pre-wound sock yarn, following a set pattern.

Monkey socks, once again, knit tighter this time. I'm so surprised by this yarn. It's a big skein of Austermann Step (Mit Aloe Vera und JoJoba Ol!) in what I thought was a super-unattractive colorway made tolerable by a sale price. It looks much better knitted.

It's a relief to find that my early failure to knit Monkey socks that fit has been remedied. All it took was a little sock-knitting experience. Smaller yarn, smaller needles, tighter gauge. Simple, of course, but the hard thing to accept is that socks must be knit smaller than your leg. They stretch to fit.

Oh, and the title--Dam Knitting, broken! Broken knitting, Dam! Broken Dam Knitting? (assuming there's a place named Broken Dam) The combinations amuse me.

Knitting a wedding veil

2010-12-02T12:00:00.000-08:00

Most times during the weeks I spent knitting a wedding veil with fine silk thread, I wouldn't have said that I was experiencing any level of torture. Even though the task was difficult, required a lot of concentration and promoted anxiety, it was still enjoyable. Once it was done, I blocked the veil and stepped back to take a photo...

and grinned. It certainly did look painful. Ouch, poor head! I wasn't just taking out pent-up frustrations in the blocking, though. I knit the veil to have a shape and couldn't block it flat. It would have puckered. I needed the styrofoam head to round out the top, which I knit to fit similar to a hat (actually, half a hat). Since I limited the increases after the top, the sides didn't come out to a complete semi-circle and needed multiple wires to shape them, as did the line from the head to the board. With a lot of pins, flexible blocking wires and the styrofoam head, I managed it. The head is also great for showing off the result.

What a transformation. After I bound off, it was a crumpled ball that fit in my hand. Even as I knit, I didn't imagine that it would open as much as it did. A quick dip in a sinkful of cool water and a few minutes of pinning was all it took. I credit the combination of 2/30 silk thread from Halcyon Yarn and a size 5 needle, along with the knitted lace patterns. I copied the patterns from the Percy Shawl and Eugen Buegler's Feather and Fan Shawl, improvising the shaping. The middle pattern, a version of Frost Flowers, has yarn overs and decreases on both the knit and purl side. It requires twice as much concentration, but it is worth doing.

While the feather and fan pattern in the edging is lovely, it is not as open as the Frost Flowers. Though the flowers are pretty, after just two repeats of that pattern, I was happy to begin the edging. It's so much easier to knit. However, since it is an increasing pattern, the edging widens the veil considerably. I hope it will make a nice flounce around the waist, but the drape of the silk may overwhelm it. Either way, it really used a lot of yarn. I knew from previous shipments that Halcyon Yarn delivers quickly. However, when I finally faced the certainty that I needed a second mini-cone, I thought I'd have a break from veil-knitting while I waited for it to arrive. Not a chance. I placed my order on Friday and received it on Monday, before I'd even finished the first cone.

Now the only difficulty remaining is putting it on the bride. Headbands, hairstyles, --there's choices to be made. At least they are hers and not mine. I made so many decisions and took so many chances with the veil. I'm glad they all worked out so well. If you can stand more details on the process, look at my Ravelry page on the project.

Completing Knitting Projects

2010-11-21T08:06:00.000-08:00

I often worry about completing my knitting projects. When I first start a project, I experience an initial honeymoon-like phase during which I enjoy discovering how the stitch patterns and the design all work together. I pause frequently to relish the color of the yarn, searching the stitches for a hint of the end result. Once I'm familar with these details, the honeymoon is over. I've learned the pattern and figured out its tricks. I long for it to be done. I look at each project as an assignment, with a deadline, real or not. I work on it a set amount of time each day. It's the same approach I have always taken to work tasks, translated to play.

Although I long to cast on for something new, I squelch that impulse and work on the same two or three projects. Given that, I shouldn't have been surprised to find that I've finished two more pairs of socks.

I recommend the Wave and Pier pattern from the Little Box of Socks. It makes these striped Schoppel-wolle Admiral socks special. Even though these are 72-stitch socks, I was pleased to find that the yarn overs don't add too much stretch and that the fit is good.

It seems to have been a year of socks. With this last pair, I will have knitted 15 pairs this year.

Don't take this collage at face value. There's 15 pairs there, but some are from last year. I just used the photos I had handy. A complete accounting follows, with links to the Ravelry page for each project.

January -- PhD Socks
February -- Original Burning Stripes (started then, finished later) and Green Envy
March -- Burning Mafeet
April -- Entrelac beats pooling
May -- Crazy BS and Heel First
June -- Favorite Fit
July -- Mini Mochi
August -- Preppy Stripes and Oops, A Sock
September -- Red Socks
October -- Rudolph's Socks
November -- Tiger Socks and Bright Hexagons
December -- Another Kaiso is in progress, scheduled for completion in December

Not that there's any reason to complete my current pair of socks by the end of the year. However, if things go as usual, I will. I do allow that this wasn't an average knitting year for me. There's nothing like knitting pattern samples to increase project output. Between that and pairs I've given away, I've only kept five pairs for myself. Nonetheless, I think this accounting proves that being a bit single-minded pays off. It certainly produces socks.

Not all of the socks are sucess stories. This one isn't.

These Hexagon socks were a funny, frustrating mess. Although I was eager to cast on as soon as I saw them on the cover of Think Outside the Sox, I was impatient with the knitting. I wasn't totally pleased with this Schoppel-wolle colorway and was confused by the pattern. Even though I made mistakes, I'm glad that they are d.o.n.e. and m.i.n.e. They are such attention-getters.

Yes, after having resisted sock knitting for years, I am a dedicated sock knitter. Even now, there is a skein of sock yarn sitting on the table behind me. It doesn't belong there. I keep it and the seven other skeins like it in a basket in the the other room. A couple of weeks ago, I got an idea for a pair of socks. After a few days of thinking about the idea, I selected the yarn. I took out the skein. Every day, I look at it and think about the socks. I look up stitch patterns. I try to mentally work through the heel turn. I think of what I'll write about the socks, and what I'll name them. I've checked the colorway on Ravelry to see how it looks knitted. I'd like to cast on, but I have held back. Even though I don't want to wait, I will. I'll wait until I finish the pair I am currently knitting. Because as much as I love knitting, I am compelled to finish.

It's like this blog post. I've worked on it for several days, but now it is d.o.n.e. I am happy.

Veiled Progress

2010-11-11T15:57:00.001-08:00

Hey, it's getting done. I took down my last post, which was full of complaints and worries about this project. Out with the negative, in with the positive. It looks good now and will look even better after it is blocked.

To say nothing of how great it looks with with my shower curtain!

Project details here

Knitting (not for me), the finale

2010-11-02T06:49:00.000-07:00

Now that I've completed the Sweetheart socks, I can visually demonstrate the modifications I made to the pattern. These socks are not for me. They are for a man who is much more tender-footed than me. When I knit the first pair of socks for him, I used the Princess sole technique, reversing the normal stitch pattern for the foot so that the smooth stockinette is on the inside of the sole. The Princess sole pattern I used continued the slipstitch pattern from the heel through the heel-turn and along the arch of the foot, changing to reverse stockinette for the sole. (There's also a web-based pattern, for those who don't do Ravelry.)

This time, I continued the reverse stockinette background of the cable pattern down the foot, making the entire foot, both sole and instep, reverse stockinette. I figured a man's shoe would cover any pattern on the instep and saw no reason to continue the hearts down the foot. Just to jazz it up a little, I continued a couple of ribs from the leg down either side of the instep. Not that I purled the entire foot. I purled for a few rounds after the gusset, gradually changing the slipstitches to purls as I decreased away the stockinette gusset stitches. I was preparing to avoid purling.

The black and white photo shows (more clearly than the color ones, I hope) the wedge of purls growing while the gusset shrinks. It also shows that I forgot to continue slipping stitches when I turned the heel. I could have fixed that, but I'm not much for ripping out. Instead, I resumed slipping stitches after I picked up the gusset stitches. After completing the gusset decreases, I decreased away the two cable stitches on either side of the foot, leaving just the two ribs to separate the reverse stockinette foot from the sole. At the same time, I was changing the sole to reverse stockinette, so that I could turn the sock inside out. I then did one wrap and turn, and changed directions, knitting the rest of the sock inside out, effectively producing a Princess foot without purling (except for those few rib stitches, that is). I even knit the toe inside out and grafted the stitches in knit, just weaving in the end on the working side. I'm sure it will be a more comfortable sock since the inside is all stockinette.

There's just one more detail on the sole, where continuing the transition to purl resulted in a point on between the arch and the sole. Cute.
(I finally got the color right in this photo.)
With that, the third of my knitting for others projects is done. This one was particularly tough, since the Posh yarn was not very elastic for wool. I found the straining required to make cable crossings with tiny needles and inelastic yarn really hurt my hands. Once I used my sore hands and forearms to vigorously scrub the sink, the bath, or the usual other household tasks, I had to resort to wearing my braces at night for a while. I've recovered now, thanks to braces and time. Now the only pain I'm suffering is caused by the difficulty of the fourth and final project in my "not for me" series.

That's 2/28 silk, not fingering weight--it's lighter than that. Not cobweb, either. It's lighter than that. I'm knitting a lace wedding veil. It's really silk thread. This photo was taken over a week ago. Right now I've got nearly 200 stitches per row and have changed to a knitted lace, with yarn overs and decreases in the purl rows. It's is really making me ouch, but only in my head.

Probably that's why I didn't get to post this Sunday as I intended. I missed wishing everyone a Happy Halloween.

I'm glad I waited, though. Now I can brag on how thoroughly the Saints fans trounced the Guiness world-record for Halloween costume parties, with 17,777 people in costume attending the game Sunday night. They easily beat the old record of 500-some. The Saints also beat the Steelers. Go Saints! Go Saints fans!

Festival of wool, Taos style

2010-10-07T15:09:00.000-07:00

Taos, New Mexico. The Wool Fest. The crowning touch to a perfect weekend.

It's no mistake that I chose this photo, with the Brooks Farm booth in it. I would have bought something from them. I certainly planned to, as soon as I saw their name on the vendor list. Instead, I looked at the animals.

There was a really amazing looking llama in the stall with this one.

His hair was so nicely combed out that his mane looked about 2-foot long. However, the closer I got to him with the camera, the louder he hummed. When he escalated it to something akin to a growl, I gave up. Really, I've heard alpacas hum during shows and I know it is a sound they make when nervous or distressed. I've never heard a llama make a sound, though. The few I've come in contact with seem eager and friendly, or at least curious and hungry.

There was a fellow (the keeper or owner of this animal, I assumed)standing by the stall who found it very funny. He and I were both laughing, but really, I didn't want to provoke the beast further. Llamas can be nasty mean if they want. I certainly didn't want to get spit on. Maybe he's the reason I didn't buy any llama yarn.

There was plenty to be had.

Here's what I did buy. There's Elsa Wool, which is cormo, a single hank of single-spun natural alpaca I couldn't pass by, and a pile of yarn from Cat Mountain, a vendor I first found during the wet, very wet, Fiber Festival at Pagosa Springs, Co. My success in finding Kimberly landed me another hank of sock yarn, as well as a more luxurious hank of sock yarn with cashmere in it, and a loop of Hand Painted Fusion, 100 yards each of 7 different yarns, all hand dyed in a single batch.

This should be very fun to play with. I tried to pick one with only three colors in it, so the pooling will be more controlled. The last bit I bought was pure fun. I picked a variety of colors from the odds and ends baskets at Lisa Joyce Designs. I've wanted some of these locks ever since I first saw them at MDSW.

I skipped buying them then because I had no idea how I use them. I'm still not sure, but these are spun a bit into lengths of curly yarn. Perhaps I'll find them easier to use. I was also tickled to get the Ravelry pin.

One final link--I saw a wonderful shawl at the Brooks Farm booth. There was a tremendous line. I didn't want to use up shopping time waiting to buy one pattern (and maybe a little yarn), but I've found it on line. It's by the Knitting Fairy, the Triple S shawl. I think it would be a great way to mix up sock or lace weight yarns.

Every knitter needs

2010-10-04T19:27:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple more of my recent acquisitions, one won and one bought--

I settled on a yellow sock yarn, Sunlight in the Simply Socks Simply Solids for yet another (how generous) prize in Elinor's Socks Revived Contest. I couldn't be more pleased with it. It's a match for my latest sweater, it's incredibly soft, it's calling me to knit. Too bad I have so much else going on. It will be knit soon, though. Thanks, Allison! I love it. In fact, I'll likely look there for my next solid sock yarn purchase, especially since I got the color card in my order.

Snuggled next to it is the latest, least-techy row counter ever. I was absolutely set on buying a counter for multiple-chart projects, expecting I'd settle on an electronic gadget of some type. Then I read the reviews. I decided that IF I'm knitting a complex cabled item, one that usually has me using 3 different row counters (and struggling to remember if the red one is for the first chart and the green one for the third, or vice-versa), I don't need to worry about how to use a complex electronic gadget as well. Not that I couldn't handle it, really. But the kicker is that I'm not sure how I'd mark which chart goes with which count, and the gadgets don't hold a count very well if they get bumped in a tote bag.

Then I found this basic, simple, easy-to-use counter. It's designed, I think, for machine knitters, but I've already found it easily adaptable. With this goody, I might even be able to dispense with my pages of hand-written row counts I use to track increases and decreases.

Thanks, Mariette!

That's the commercial break for this month. Knitting will resume with the next post. I hope.

Train your knitting

2010-10-03T08:07:00.000-07:00

When we started our weekend early, leaving Friday morning and heading south, we didn't know there was a little surprise waiting down the road. At first I thought there was a wreck or a fire.

By a miracle of timing, we made it to the small Colorado town of Antonito just as the train was leaving the station. I was thrilled to see it, especially since I've been considering booking a ride on it. Seeing it in motion will help motivate me to make that trip, especially if I can manage it during the peak of autumn color.

This is the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad, a coal-fired, narrow-gauge train that travels through the Toltec Gorge and over the Cumbres pass to Chama, New Mexico. We'd planned to drive through this isolated area in southern Colorado to get a final glimpse of fall color.

Make that a final pow of fall color. The river valley was gorgeous.

The entire Conjeos Canyon was filled with gorgeous-ness. Then, while we were stopped near the pass (to admire yet one more breath-taking view), I heard a faint whistle in the wind.

The train caught up with us. That was the last we saw of it, though. It was on its way to a lunch stop at Osier. We were on our way to lunch in Chama. After a filling meal of tacos and quesadillas, we continued to our destination. You can bet there was wool involved.

Knitting Gold

2010-09-18T15:05:00.000-07:00

If by chance you are thinking about taking a drive in the Colorado mountains to see fall color, now is the time. I recommend Marshall Pass.

I have never seen the aspen as bright as I did today. It is probably the coincidence of weather conditions, mostly that it's dry and sunny. Too dry, I know, the danger of wildfire is ever-present, but the visual effect is stunning.

The gold, the green, and the contrast with the dry, dry sagebrush, oh my!

If Marshall Pass (off Highway 50 in southeastern Colorado) is not convenient to you, I can also recommend Ohio Creek road from north of Gunnison to Crested Butte. Nearer to Denver, I hear that Guanella Pass is pretty, but I'm not sure how the color is there this year. It's on my list of places to go.

Meanwhile on my list of yarn to knit is this gorgeous pile I recently ordered.

It's funny how the golds, browns, and greens echo the fall colors. I ordered this a few weeks ago, though, when I went on a spending spree with some of my paypal-pattern funds. It's primarily Enya sock yarn from Saffron Dye Works. I haven't knit it yet, just put it in my "to-be-wound" box. However, I'm very pleased with the look and feel of it so far. The colors look as great in person as they did on line. I'm letting myself dream of a shawl combining colors from the three leftmost hanks, but not ruling out just knitting pretty socks. The lavender hank is laceweight, just enough for a small shawl. I can't say why I bought it exactly, but it and the sale-priced sock yarn hank on the right put this order into the free shipping category. I think I'll go back to Saffron Dye Works whenever I want a treat.

I'm afraid that most of my yarn purchases are either treats or bargains. I buy yarn because I like the color, the texture or the price. Lately, I've thought more about planning my purchases. Today, as I held a single yellow leaf in my hand, I thought it would be fun, and perhaps a little smart, to take a handful of leaves on my next yarn shop visit.

I thought I'd use colors of the leaves to select yarn, imagining a design based on Meg Swansen's Aspen-yoke sweater. It would be fun to knit in yarn that matched the actual yellows, reds and golds of the leaves, with a dark green for contrast. Uh-oh, I feel a stranded knitting urge coming on. I need to finish that lace shawl first, though. At least it's gold.

Knitting a set

2010-09-09T11:54:00.000-07:00

A few years ago, I knitted my first and, at least as of today, my only pair of gloves. I hadn't been knitting very long at the time and didn't match yarn and pattern very well. Even though I knitted the worsted weight yarn at a tight gauge, I still had to adjust the pattern to get a decent fit.

As it turned out, my yarn choice worked out well, leading me to select different patterns than I would have with a lighter-weight yarn. Three years later, once I finally decided that these gloves had sat unworn long enough, I began to look for a scarf pattern. Actually, it was my quest for a simple project to knit in the late evenings that motivated me. I didn't originally think of the gloves. Then I came across a nicely striped scarf knit in a heavy worsted weight yarn, a good choice for the yarn left from my glove project. I bought additional yarn, dug out some from the stash, and began.

As usual, as I knit first, thought later. I wasn't sure that the solid gloves with a cabled, beaded accent would match a striped scarf, one that included two additional colors and types of yarn, knit in a different (though more appropriate) gauge. Also as usual, I continued knitting the scarf.

I read other knitters' blogs, one who discussed the propensity of knitters to avoid knitting matching accessories. I agree with this, and think there are several reasons for not knitting matching sets. First, there's the boredom factor. Same yarn, same pattern, different shape. Ho hum. Then, there's the yarn issue. I bought a few balls of yarn with no pattern and no project in mind. I chose one project, knit it up, then put it aside for years, (the boredom factor again) until the yarn had been discontinued. As a result, I didn't have (and couldn't buy) enough yarn to knit a matching set. Then, there's the lack of matching patterns. The book I found the glove pattern in provides a matching sweater pattern, but no matching hat or scarf. Not that I couldn't have devised one. I simply didn't want to.

Another blogger wrote about how her determination to knit a matching set lead her to design patterns for a perfectly matched fair-isle hat, scarf and gloves. I considered her point. Surely knitting items in the same yarn, using the same pattern is a sure way to produce something that is undeniably a match. It would be easy enough.

However, I was having too much fun with the striped scarf, choosing the color and length for each stripe, knitting the super-soft yarn, planning to finally have a scarf long enough to wrap any which way I chose. When I picked up the scarf a couple of weeks ago and saw that it was nearly done, I became excited. I grew more excited when I realized I had a couple of balls of yarn left. I imagined beginning the fall with a new scarf, the old, never worn gloves, and (here I grew really reckless), a hat. Even though I didn't have a hat pattern, I became enthusiastic about knitting a hat.

I'd found a possible pattern a few weeks ago and added to my queue. I thought it would be flattering to my narrow face, since it is a loose hat that is gathered with a drawstring. I like loose hats and I think I have a rather large head. Jumping from those two opinions, I cast on for the largest size. It wasn't until I finished the crown that I finally admitted it was just too big. Since it was also too blue, I ripped out the entire hat. OUCH.

At least the first try made me realize that I didn't want all that light blue around my face. Because I didn't have enough of the green to stripe the entire hat (as per the pattern) I had knit the bulk of the hat with the light blue yarn. Not liking the fit or the color, I decided I needed a more "mature" stripe pattern, one that would use more than two colors, allowing me to incorporate more of the yarn I used in the scarf. I began to look through Ravelry for a hat that reminded me of the scarf. Once I found one, I couldn't give up the beautiful crown pattern that looked so good in the green and light blue yarn. Neither could I rip out the drawstring I had knit for the first hat.

Keeping both the crown and the drawstring and casting on for the next smallest size, which was coincidentally the size I needed for the second hat pattern, I reknit the hat.

Now I have a hat, a scarf and a pair of gloves that have only one type of yarn in common.

At first, I was preoccupied with the prime question: "Does it look like a set?" Is it a set?

I referred to Dictionary.com and found my answer. Set (noun) - "a collection of articles designed for use together..." How perfect! I certainly designed these items to use together. That's just what I'm going to do.

No, wait, it's 65 degrees out there, don't go out dressed like that. Not yet.

Project details: (Clicking on links below will take you to Ravelry projects, which have more details.)

Gloves from Knitting with Beads by Jane Davis;
Scarf, a simple 2x2 rib shamelessly copied from other Ravelry projects without consulting a pattern;
Hat, a hybrid of Minty (for the crown) and the Bay of Fundy Hat on Ravelry (for the stripes).

Yarn used: JoAnn Tesoro, Malabrigo (the darker colors) and bits of Wooly Stripes Tweed.

I'm a little vague on the other knit blogger's posts, but there was some mention of the matching items issue by Stephanie in her Yarn Harlot blog in this post, down toward the bottom. I can't find the other ones, so if you know of any relevant discussions of knitted sets, matching or not, feel free to link to them in a comment.

Knitting (not for me), part 1

2010-08-30T14:46:00.000-07:00

Part 1 -- Red Socks (two pair of them)

I'm working my way through several projects that are not "for" me. I'm still enjoying the knitting, but it's a bit like homework for school. I have assignments. Each assignment must produce a set result. Like homework, there are some choices I can make and some that have been made for me. Two of these projects are socks. I consider them mostly "mine". I chose the pattern and the yarn. I didn't pick the color and I can't keep them. Good thing, since the first pair won't fit, no way.

As I finished these socks, I found I had made choices that ended in a bit of a dilemma.

The assignment was to knit a pair of socks for a pair of small young feet. Ms. Young Feet chose the color red. I chose to use the Circle Socks pattern, since it is both youthful and fun. I chose to use the leftover Maxime sock yarn from my pair of striped socks, along with a ball of red that I used in a fair-isle sock that I have now abandoned. If I hadn't used some of the red in that sock, or if I had just ripped it out and salvaged the red yarn, I probably would have had enough. I certainly thought there would be enough, since the leg of the sock uses a lot of other yarn and the foot of the sock is fairly small. As it was, I had to let the second sock cannibalize the toe of the first, just for a few rounds.

Now they're gold-toe socks. These socks have gotten a lot of attention at my knitting group. Too bad their good looks are so hard to photograph. I blame the color.

Unfortunately, I'll have this problem again in my next assignment. I've been asked for another pair of red socks. I knitted a pair of socks for a dear old friend a couple of years ago. I wasn't sure if he was wearing them. They weren't very good socks, in my opinion. Since I didn't know if he would actually wear them, I picked a less-than-luxury sock yarn, one that didn't cost too much and one that I knew would stand up to machine washing.

K insisted I pick a dull color, preferably black. That was the impossible task, finding black sock yarn in a shop that is stocked with bright, multi-colored sock yarn. I settled for burgundy. K warned me they were too bright. The socks fit just fine, but they weren't standard black man-socks. I was pretty sure they wouldn't be worn much.

Then last year I learned that my friend had been enjoying wearing his burgundy socks during the Christmas holidays. He said he thought he'd like a pair of red socks to wear this Christmas. A short time later, I managed to snag a hank of the wonderful Martha sock yarn from Posh Yarns. The colorway is Keep the Home Fires Burning. I've decided to make up for my shorting my friend on the quality of his first socks by using this yarn for his second pair. I'll enjoy telling him I ordered it from a dyer in England. To really make them special, I've chosen a pattern perfect for him, Sweetheart Socks, from the Holiday 2007 Interweave Knits.

I first blogged about this project over six months ago when I received the yarn. Now that I've started the socks, I can comment on the pattern as well as the yarn. I'm very happy with the yarn, the pattern, and the combination of the two. The pattern is not easy, but it is worth a bit of effort. Actually, after the first three repeats, the cables are becoming more intuitive for me. I'm especially pleased with the prettiness of the cables on the back of the sock. The pattern doesn't include a photo of the back but here's one of the back of my sock. Er, I mean, not-my sock.

There are two more projects in the "not for me" category. The one that I will wear is done. In this case, I chose the yarn, I chose the pattern, I just didn't originally envision the pairing when I bought the yarn. Since I knit a stole rather than a sweater, I'll hold off blogging about it until I get it blocked.

The last project is about to make me tear my hair out. (Interesting reaction considering it's meant to cover hair.) I'm shopping for yarn and swatching stitch patterns for a wedding veil. This project may prove to be the most challenging of the four. Knitting to someone else's specifications is not as easy as setting my own.

Summer sweaters? ditch the knit

2010-08-22T08:46:00.000-07:00

Scrolling through my old blog photos provided strong evidence for my decision on summer sweaters.

They were quick fun to knit, look kinda cute, but seldom get off the shelf. When the weather is hot, out come the t-shirts. Even in the rather cool conditions that bless the Rocky Mountain summer, hand-knit sweaters are too heavy to be comfortable. The fact that there's no air conditioning in most of the buildings complicates the problem.

There's a lot of places in town I prefer to avoid on a summer afternoon--shops of all types, for example, especially clothes shops. There's nothing like trying on clothes in the unventilated dressing room of a hot shop to discourage expenditures. If I were presented with the stack of summer sweaters I have knit over the past six years and given the opportunity to try them on in such a dressing room, I wouldn't buy any of them.

That's a pretty strong decision. The hours I've spent on them might not make sense without considering that when I started knitting, I lived in a very hot climate. Naturally, almost all the sweaters I knit during that time were short-sleeved or sleeveless. I used yarn that was designed to be cool and comfortable, composed of cotton, bamboo, and rayon. It seemed like a good use of my knitting time.

The problem was the weight of the yarn. Thicker yarn means a quicker knit. What's available for hand-knit sweaters is mostly dk-weight and heavier. A thicker version of a t-shirt seemed like a comfortable option for summer wear. This has not proved to be true.

Of course, there are other reasons that I am not wearing these sweaters. After all, we have 9 months of cool/cold weather here. There's always the spring or fall. There are other problems with these sweaters, such as fit and form. Some are sleeveless. For vanity's sake, I've given up wearing sleeveless tops, except on the hottest days. Some are too short. A couple are too big.

That's 17 summer sweater rejects, including 8 not-so-cute ones which aren't pictured in the collage. Some of these were so un-cute that they have been frogged. That points to another culprit -- poor yarn choice. Yes, my early knitting is full of bad yarn, bad yarn and patttern pairings, and bad construction.

There was certainly a learning curve. The first 4 sweaters I made in 2005 are all ripped out now. There's one sweater from 2006 that I still wear. The others, six of them, are history. The next year, 07, offers up three sweaters still in rotation. I'm not too crazy about them, but I still pull them out now and then. The rest, 8 of them, are rejects, mostly because of poor yarn choices. Coming to 08, there's a flip-flop. Of six sweaters, I wear four. The two rejects are still favorites, but require more cumbersome undergarments to look their best. Most days, I prefer comfy to cumbersome. The same for 09, two-thirds of the sweaters are good, adding six to those I wear. Obviously, both my knitting skills and project choices are improving.

Overall now, I'm wearing about half of what I knit, with most of those being more recently-knit sweaters. Most convincingly,though, I'm only wearing one, just one, of the 18 summer sweaters I have knit. A 95% failure rate. Among the spring, fall and winter sweaters altogether, my failure rate is about 25%. That's a big difference which defines the problems I have with summer sweaters.

This year I've completed 4 sweaters, all wool, three for winter wear and one for slightly warmer days only because it has short sleeves. I don't really plan to knit another sweater this year. If I do, it will be a longer-sleeved fall sweater.

I'll start 2011 with a new plan, repurposing my summer yarn by knitting cotton sweaters with long sleeves for winter wear and using the silk and laceweight wool for shawls.

2 busy 2 knit

2010-08-18T11:14:00.000-07:00

To encompass all my reasons for not knitting as much in late July and early August, I'd have to add "2 hot" to the title of this post.

But still, I've finished a small shawl and that pair of socks from the heavyweight yarn--Toasty Toes. There's a photo of the first one in my last post. Take my word for it, the second one looks just like the first. They went so quickly that I'm thinking of starting another pair from that pattern, something I never do. I have yarn leftover from the shawl, as well as a long yarn to go with it. To save those who are bored with too much yarn talk, I've included several links to encourage wandering.

It all started with a hank of Jitterbug that I bought a year or so ago to try that rather popular sock yarn. I started a pair of socks, but they came out too big. After looking in Ravelry at other socks knitted with Jitterbug, I concluded that it is heavier than the sock yarn I normally use. Since it is heavier, the 110 gram hank I bought only had 320 yards in it. Rather than worry that there wouldn't be enough to finish a pair of socks, I started a shawl. Since the pattern I selected is named "198 Yards of Heaven", I was confident that I'd have enough yardage--at first.

The pattern is intended for worsted weight yarn, not fingering weight Jitterbug, even if it is heavy fingering weight. I was using size 5 needles, not the size 8 or 9 intended. Nonetheless, I saw several other "198 Yards" projects using Jitterbug on Ravelry, as well as a few using other lighter-than-worsted weight yarns. I'd just knit more repeats to be sure my shawl would be large enough. Ah, but knitting more repeats takes more yarn. I began to worry that 110 grams of Jitterbug would not be enough.

Looking at the success I had mixing different yarns and colors in another shawl and another project or two, I thought I'd buy another hank of yarn to use for the border. I first bought a hank of Unisono, not realizing until I'd gotten it home that it is a self-striping yarn. I didn't want stripes in the border. Oh well, another hank for the stash, I decided, later talking myself into doing the right thing and buying another hank of Jitterbug.

Once again, when I brought the yarn home and looked at it more closely, I found something I hadn't seen in the store. The new hanks of Jitterbug are larger, 150 grams and a full 400 yards long. There's plenty there for a pair of socks. At least there was, until I used a good portion of the hank for the border of this shawl.

Never mind, I like the border in the lighter colorway of Jitterbug. I like that I used an i-cord border along the top of the shawl. I like the size of the shawl. I really like that I have a hank of Unisono for socks and probably enough Jitterbug for a pair of socks, especially since I didn't use all of the dark blue in the shawl.

With that, I'll conclude this long, rambling story about knitting. It's mildly interesting to me, so I assume it will be to the knitters who read this blog. I'm not sure it would sustain interest in a conversation, though.

I've never heard knitters have a long conversation about knitting. I wish I had. I've tried to catch one, tried to initiate one, tried to sustain one. Is knitting really that boring?

I walked into a yarn shop in a small town the other day. There was a large group of women sitting around a table, knitting and talking. The shop owner told me that it was the guild meeting. I couldn't help hearing their conversations as I walked around the small shop, looking at the yarn and other items. Not once did they mention knitting. Not even spinning, or any type of fiber craft.

Even when shown a knitted item, the response was brief, then the conversation moved back to remodeling, children, men, weather, the usual stuff. I've visited with every knitting group I could in the past few years, gone to a guild fashion show, set up meetings with other knit bloggers or Ravelry users, but I've never found anyone who actually talks about their knitting, or other people's knitting, for any real length of time. I imagine that it would be great fun to find someone who would talk about knitting at length, but I'm not sure. Until I find someone else who has the same level of interest in knitting as I do, blogging about knitting and reading knitting blogs will have to suffice.

Now that the little shawl is finished, I've started a big one. I found the pattern in Clara Parkes' Book of Wool, but have since found it free on line. The free pattern is a big plus, since I can print out the charts in a larger format. I'm using some silk yarn I originally bought to knit a sweater, Mulberry, from Louisa Harding's line of yarns. The pattern is by Sivia Harding. Coincidence, or relations? I'm not sure, but either way, the yarn and pattern is a pair. The yarn is the perfect color for a wedding I'll be in later this year (not mine, no). My suggestion of a sweater was vetoed as being too casual, so I'm hoping a beaded stole will be dressier. If not, the silk yarn should frog well. I have two other stashes of yarn for stoles if this one won't do. Between the stoles and socks, sweaters have been abandoned for a while. I'll get back to them eventually, but I've had a realization about hand-knitted sweaters. I don't wear the summer ones. Summer sweater projects are halted. The yarn will have to be re-purposed for spring and fall sweaters.

I'll explain my problems with summer sweaters in my next post.

Coupon Reject, Yarn Magnet

2010-08-01T15:28:00.000-07:00

Sigh. I have tried to cash in on the flood of coupons that hits my mailbox (the real one on the side of my house by the front door, not the virtual one) every day. They promise me Sale! Instant Money! On actually trying out the promo codes and the certificate instructions, I fail.

Not only do they not apply to my purchase, which is sadly short of the minimum amount by only a smidgen, the actual product is no longer available. Never mind. I found what I needed the old-fashioned way, at the store.

The upside of my failed attempt at internet shopping is that while on line, I checked the exchange rate and found it was once again favorable. I mean the Euro/dollar exchange rate. More Euros/dollars means cheaper European yarn. I immediately headed over to Shoppel-Wolle, filled my cart, and tried to check out.

Foiled again. Shoppel-Wolle doesn't ship to the U.S. Even a personal plea didn't help. Mr. Shoppel politely informed me that he would ship me his yarn for a shipping charge about the equivalent of my yarn budget. Darn. Ravelry to the rescue. 123knit.com ships to the U.S. and has Shoppel-Wolle. On Sale! There wasn't much color selection, but I chanced it and bought three balls of what was there. I really only wanted two, but there was a minimum purchase required. After all, I was getting the yarn on sale. With the favorable exchange rate, it cost me about $6 a skein, not counting the (reasonable) shipping charge.

Even though they didn't have the colorway I wanted, at least I could test the yarn. Someday I may get my hands on the elusive colorway I crave. In the meantime, the third skein, the one I didn't want, turned out to be the perfect one for the wildest sock I've ever knit.

If you haven't seen Think Outside the Sox yet, you are in for a treat. This is my current favorite sock book, the one with the sock above on the cover. (Well, not exactly that sock, just a couple of pair from the same pattern.) I don't know that I will knit very many socks from it, but I am wearing it out just looking at the wildly imaginative patterns. I bought it for the entrelac sock pattern, because it includes an entrelac heel. I wanted to see if it took a different approach from Eunny's entrelac pattern.

At this point, I don't know whether it does or not. I was going to compare the two patterns, but I got distracted by the hexagons. This pattern, combined with the orange/green/blue yarn, was a fun knit, but I'm over it now. The first sock will have to wait a while for its mate. Those little hexagons got tedious after a while. Anyway, my sock needles are now otherwise occupied.

At the same time that I bought Think Outside the Sox, I also bought Knitted Socks East and West. (I blame the summer knitting books sales.) Again, I bought the book for a particular pattern, Tsunami. I was inspired by this pattern to design a pair of socks with a big cable on each side. As I might have suspected, having been driven by a boundless curiousity about knitting patterns for the past few years, I wasn't satisfied with just knitting a knock-off. I still wanted the original. I have the pattern now and can knit a Tsunami. Once again, I became distracted.

Instead, I knit a Kaiso, a very fast knit. I started it to practice Judy's Magic Cast On, not because the Kaiso pattern is knit toe-up, but because it was the right gauge for the yarn I had handy. Once I got the cast on done correctly, I knitted a few rounds, increasing to make a toe. I've never enjoyed knitting toe-up socks before because I haven't found a comfortable way to knit a toe from the toe tips up. Judy's cast on is magic. It makes a seamless toe. Since I'm using a brightly patterned yarn, I didn't worry about the visibility of my increases and simply kfb'd them. Boom, while having a cup of coffee, I knit a toe. I thought I'd use this pattern, but was afraid the gauge would be off or that the yarn would pool. Knitting the toe helped answer both questions. Then I found my gauge is large enough to allow me to skip one of the repeats in the foot. Whoopee, a sock in a few hours. It's a relief, because I bought this yarn (Toasty Toes) on sale sans label. It might be one of the short hanks, only about 250 yards long. With this pattern, on size 3 needles, I won't have any problem getting a pair from that yardage.

Unless I get distracted again, perhaps by another yarn bargain. I love yarn bargains.

I have a bucket list. You know, the list that is supposed, according to the popular movie lore, to be accomplished before you "kick the bucket". Pending death, for those who are unfamilar with the idiom. (Not sure who that would be, now that idioms are made universal via the internet.)

My bucket list is a list of yarn I must knit before I die. I'm sad to say that most of them are sock yarns, but it does seem to be socks that allow me to indulge my color and fiber fantasies. Sweaters are, really, better in one color, unless they are fair isle, which is simply many yarns of one color worked together.

My list:

Zara (I bought enough of this yarn to knit two sweaters, but haven't knit it yet.)
Posh sock yarn (bought, scheduled to be knitted by Christmas)
Knitabulous sock yarn (no purchase yet, the Australian dollar remains too strong)
Shoppel Wolle Intarsia 1800 (Now that I've tried the yarn, I'm more determined to acquire this colorway.)
Wollemeise (Thought about it, but besides being damned hard to purchase, I'm afraid it might be too thick for my sock yarn preferences)

I hear the dollar will improve in August, and will be watching those exchange rates and looking for more yarn bargains.

I hope others are tempted to join me. What's on your Yarn Bucket List?

Knit Again; Second One = Better One

2010-07-25T08:30:00.000-07:00

Having completed a second pillow cover has convinced me that my ability to combine colors and patterns can improve with practice.

Although there's more striping and fewer two-color rows on this one, and although I did use a **cough** novelty **cough** yarn, the end result is pretty good. Other than mirroring the outside patterns, so that the swirls slant in opposite directions, there's not much I'd change on this one if I did it over. I really like the way the outer patterned strips seem to float above the blurred background of the novelty yarn. The blue border makes them pop out. I'm not as crazy about the middle strip. I like the pattern and the way it works with the other chart, just not the way it starts and ends. A green border might have helped, since it would have anchored those partial swirls at the beginning and the end of the chart.

I followed a pattern for the first pillow, using an all-over fair-isle chart. The only change I made was to shorten it a few rows to make it a square (Since it was for a purse, following it exactly would have made a rectangle.) I used different colors, though. That made a huge difference. I don't like the first pillow nearly as much as I like the photo of the purse. The color changes in the pillow are too abrupt.

On the other hand, sometimes abrupt, jarring color changes are just the ticket. At least, they are if you want attention-grabbing socks.

After finishing a version of my Burning Stripes socks pattern in Mini Mochi, I can say that I'm done with striped socks. At least for a while. Although I did start out to prove that the Mini Mochi yarn makes an acceptable substitute for the Zauberball, I couldn't help "improving" the second sock. I think my irrepressible urge to change things is the main reason I don't knit socks two at a time. I don't care whether they match or not, I just want the second one to be better.

I brood over whatever I see wrong with the first one. However, rather than reknit it, I just make sure I don't repeat the flaw in the second one. In this case, I wasn't happy with the turned picot hem. When I started the first sock, I thought I had size 1 1/2 needles. Since I planned to knit the leg of the sock with size 2s, I used needles that were a little smaller for the hem facing (the part before the eyelet row) to make it lay flat after turning. Instead, after knitting the hem facing, I realized I had used size 1s. Oops, too small! My gauge was too tight, making the facing was too tight and too short. When I turned the hem, the outer, larger part bulged out.

I was careful to use the 1 1/2s when starting the second sock. That hem is perfect. It's the one where you can actually see the picot points on the top of the sock, on the left side in the photo above.

The other thing I didn't like about the first sock was the color combination. The two colorways (101 and 108) both changed to less contrasting colors at the heel, the boomerang rows less obvious. Altering the colors in the second sock provided a little more contrast between the stripes at the expense of making it look very different from the first sock.

Another difference between these socks and the pattern is that I knit all four rounds of the stripe at the heel as boomerang rounds, rather than knitting one before and one after the heel. I've been wanting to try this variation. Now that I have, I think I prefer the original pattern instructions. I also knit a smaller heel, on 34 stitches rather than 38. I don't like that mod, either. A larger heel would fit me better. Since these socks are for someone else, the smaller heel may work.

As far as the yarn, the Mini Mochi is fuzzier and softer than most sock yarns I have used. It makes a very warm and comfy pair of socks.

I've got another couple of pairs of socks in progress. For these, I'm going to knit one sock and put it away for a while, in the hope that a break will give me the patience to knit a matching pair. This is quite a gamble. Not only will I have to resist the temptation to improve the second sock, I'll have to remember how I knit the first one. Thank goodness I have my blog and my Ravelry project page to help my poor memory.

While I'm feeling grateful, I must also say thank you to all who commented on my finished sweater. I no longer respond to comments individually, but I do enjoy getting them. Thanks for commenting, thanks for reading!

My new, handknit, Cabled Cardigan

2010-07-18T07:09:00.000-07:00

In honor of my actually finishing the sweater I've been knitting for over three months, I took these crazy photos.

Absolutely, wearing a wool sweater in mid-July is crazy, even at 7,300 feet. In spite of the warm weather, though, I've been having a lot of fun wearing this sweater, as long as I can take it off after the picture-taking sessions end.

The sweater has come with me to a couple of different knitting groups and to the yarn shop where I bought most of the yarn and the buttons. I'm enjoying showing it off after all the work I put into it.

The knitting was a bit extreme, at least for me with my limited experience in complex cabling. The cable patterns are fairly simple. I eventually memorized all but one of them. The difficult part was that the repeats for each were different. I had to keep three stitch counters going to keep my place. The only one that I couldn't memorize was the one I like the best, the stockinette cables on the side.

I love the pockets, too. My hands were in them in almost every shot. Even though I shortened them a bit, and even though they are a little narrower than they should be, they are still a good fit. That's a relief, since the pockets are what attracted me to this pattern in the first place.

I came across it while leafing through an old issue of Vogue Knitting. (Winter 05/06) Even though it was March in Colorado, it was still so cold that the idea of knitting this sweater was very appealing. I didn't have the right weight yarn. I didn't have enough of the yarn I wanted to use. Ignoring the obvious, I began to knit.

The knitting took even longer than I thought it would. Knitting according to pattern would make it a 36" long sweater. Since 36" would have made it more of a sweater coat on me, I shortened it to 28". That should have made it a shorter project, but I had to cast on a good deal more stitches to compensate for a smaller gauge. Then, thanks to a fellow Raveler who started this pattern at about the same time I did, I learned that the cables in the back should be mirrored. I had knit several inches of the back before this revelation reached me. I postponed the painful ripping out and reknitting until the last, then put the entire project on hold for three weeks while we went to Eureka Springs in May. By then, it was getting too big for a travel project.

I finished the sweater in June and took about a week to sew it all together.

The pattern, called simply #09 Cabled Cardigan, is by Norah Gaughan, showing her versatility. The sweaters she's designed in the past few years are marvels of ingenius shapes. There's not much shaping in this design, just beautiful cabling. The yarn is Arucania Nature Wool. It's a kettle-dyed slightly rustic wool, without dyelots or any way of matching skeins. I sorted my hanks a bit, trying to avoid obvious lines when I changed them, but I didn't try to match the pieces. The sleeves match neither the back nor the fronts; they don't even match each other. I used the most darkly mottled hanks in the back, where the color changes would be a little less noticeable.

The only modifications I made were to compensate for a vastly different gauge. There's enough stitches in this sweater for the 58" size, but it is only 42" wide.

Close to home

2010-07-15T10:26:00.000-07:00

But not quite home. I've gotten to go a few new places this summer. One trip allowed me to hit the usual Denver hot (maybe too hot) spots.

There was the 16th street pedestrian mall--lots of stores, full of bargains. I found a bag in Gap that I thought would be great for knitting projects, but I forgot to buy it. When we went back the next day, it was on sale, 40% off! Good thing, because I've since filled it with three or four of the several projects I have on the go right now.

A walk through the state and city buildings in downtown Denver produced both scenic urban photos and a strong desire to buy shorts and t-shirts. It's summer in Colorado, even in the mountains. Our walk was hot, but worthwhile.

The real purpose of our walk was to tour the Denver Art Museum. Talk about mountain views, it's full of western paintings, among other treasures.

Getting even closer to home provided views nearly as scenic as those in the museum. This one is only a few miles from my house. It's a little cooler here than it is in Denver, but only if one stays in the shade. I've spent some of my shady time knitting small, homey projects. I finished the pillow cover I knit to practice my fair isle techniques.

I should be ready to start that fair isle sweater now. Instead, I've started another pillow.

I looked at the yarn I had left from the first pillow and couldn't stop myself. I hope this one uses up most of the leftovers. Otherwise, there might be a third pillow soon. They're quick, easy and small, the perfect summer knitting. I'm so glad I finally finished my long-term sweater project and can bounce around from one little project to another. With a little perserverance, I might have a few more finished projects by the end of the month.

Maroon Bells, details

2010-07-07T06:14:00.000-07:00

My travelogue continues (ignoring that last fishy post), with attention to the details. When I sat down to rest on a fallen tree at the head of the first lake at Maroon Bells, I noticed the bark on a couple of nearby aspen trees.

(Aspen bark is usually smooth and greenish. There's a bit of the smooth bark showing on the right side of the back tree.)
I've seen scarring on aspen trees before. Usually it is caused by elk bulls rubbing their antlers against the trees to remove the velvet in the fall. These "antler scars" create deep gashes which have black outlines. I'm not sure that the heavy bark on these aspen was antler scars, since it isn't the typical black color. However, something has obviously been at the lower part of these trees, maybe elk, maybe people. I did see some initials carved into part of one tree, but they were so grown over I couldn't read them.

The next detail to catch my eye was this lichen-covered rock. These lichens are thick and feel soft to the touch.

I was also struck by the clarity of the water in the lake,

as well as by the color of the rocks. They really are maroon, even though they look darker on the mountains. I've just begun to realize how different a color can look when placed next to another. I credit my latest whim project for this rather obvious revelation.

After seeing that Nanette finshed an abandoned pillow cover project, I sat in envy for a while. I've got yarn and pattern sitting for fair isle pillows that I've never made. Then I realized that I could stop wishing and start knitting. A couple of days later, I'm about half-way through with a pillow cover, which I began by laying out the yarn and picking a color sequence.

Looking at the skeins of yarn, I thought I had yellow, white, blue, brown, red, and green, which would make a rather gaudy pillow, but I went with it. Now that they are knit together, I can see that the colors are really gold, natural, denim, taupe, orange, and olive green--an earthy, southwest-style combination.

The blue really dominates now, as it should, since it is the only cool color. It seems obvious now, but I missed it. I thought the gold would stand out, so I used it as the accent color. Looking at how much brighter the orange looks against the blue as opposed to the taupe makes me want to knit another, with the colors in a different order.

Yarn: Paton merino or classic wool, I may have mixed old and new ones

Pattern: adapted from a purse pattern in Debbie Bliss' knitting magazine

Cooking Salmon with Julia

2010-07-03T07:27:00.000-07:00

In answer to a recent comment from one of my houseguests about "smelly" fish, this is a photo tutorial on cooking fish. Rather than e-mail a lot of photos, I've put it here for them and whoever else might want to know how to cook fish with little or no residual odor.

I saw fish cooked this way on an old Julia Child cooking show. Actually, in the show, Julia was poaching a fish. There was a french chef on the show who cooked a fish in a skillet on the stove. Since I've seen that show, I've followed his method dozens of times, with great success. Here's how I recently prepared a piece of salmon:

I use a large non-stick skillet with a lid. Size is not important, as long as the piece of fish fits into it. A glass lid is nice, but not essential. Non-stick is nice, but not essential. All that is required is a skillet with a lid.

I buy almost all my fish frozen because I think it is probably fresher than the "fresh" fish in the supermarket, which has likely been thawed by the market. The thawed fish is convenient, but I suspect that some of it might sit at the seafood counter longer than I'd like. If a fish isn't fresh, it does smell, so please be sure it is very fresh or is frozen. Frozen means it hasn't been kept too long by the store. I find it both reassuring and convenient to buy it frozen, since it doesn't take long for fish to thaw.

The package shown above represents a brand sold at our local grocery. There's a lot of different types of fish sold in this packaging. Some of them are seasoned. Those are fine--I just avoid them because I am on a low-salt diet.

To prepare the fish, I cut it out of the wrapper after it is thawed and wash it, removing any scales that might be left on the skin. Salmon is sold with the skin still on it. For this method of cooking, the skin does not have to be removed. I always put the wrapper in a small grocery bag rather than my kitchen trash can. (I'll explain why at the end of this post.)

After a little wash in cool water, I dry it with a paper towel and season it with lemon pepper. Parsley and a few red pepper flakes are nice, but optional, addition.

Meanwhile, I've put the skillet on low to medium heat and put a bit of butter and olive oil in it, about a half tablespoon of butter and an equal amount of olive oil. (I haven't measured, so I'm not sure, but I don't think the quantity matters much.)

Then I put the salmon in the skillet, skin side down, and let it cook for a few minutes. After about 5 or 10 minutes, it will look cooked, the flesh will be a lighter color and there may be drippings oozing out of it. At this point, I lift the lid and poke it with a fork. If it flakes easily and is fairly dry, I consider it done. If it is still a little soft and juicy, I leave it for a few more minutes. I like my fish well-done, but that's a matter of taste.

When it is done enough, I move the fish to a serving plate with a spatula. Then I deglaze the pan by adding a little lemon juice and stirring. The pan will be very hot and should deglaze quickly. At the altitude at which I live, the lemon juice nearly evaporates. I often have to add a little water to compensate. Altogether, though, I'm just adding a tablespoon or so of liquid.

Then I pour the liquid from the pan over the fish. No doubt this adds a good bit of fat, but that's what the french chef did. I suppose this is one serving, but K and I share this, happily pulling sections of the fish away from the skin (it separates easily) and placing it on our plates, along with our side dishes.

The side dishes at this meal were fried rice and a curry stir fry, with lots of vegetables, tofu, and spices to make them both healthy and delicious.

After dinner, be sure to put the skin and any uneaten fish parts in the small grocery bag with the fish wrapper. Then put the bag in the outside garbage bin to get it out of the kitchen. Rinse the dishes so that they are not a source of odor. That, along with keeping a lid on the pan during cooking, keeps the fish smell out of my kitchen.

I encourage you to try this cooking method with any firm type of fish. I've used it with trout and cod with good results. Tilapia, I find, is too soft for this and falls apart. Tuna does well, but I prefer it on the grill.

I hope this post encourages my "smelly fish" hating houseguests to try cooking fish again. Look for more sightseeing and knitting next.

Aspen and Maroon Bells

2010-07-01T07:16:00.000-07:00

As I said in my last post, we wanted to go to Aspen before the 19th.

Despite all the snow at the pass, Aspen was lovely as usual. There were several people cavorting around the ski area on gliding parachutes, adding to the festivity I feel whenever I feel when I visit Aspen. It's a fairly large town, with lots of tourists making it busy. Although we ate downtown, we didn't spend much time in town this trip. We were determined to visit Maroon Bells before the parking was limited to buses on June 19th. In the busy summer months, you have to catch a bus to ride into the area. (Although the bus is free from downtown Aspen, K has an aversion to public transit--mostly to the waiting in lines that is part of riding airplanes, buses, etc.)

Once we parked just below the Bells, there was only one form of transit--feet! I highly recommend this wilderness area. It's beautiful, easily accessible, and peaceful. We walked farther than we have in a long while, enjoying the views and the nice trails. The red, or maroon, color that gives these mountains their name is actually more apparent on the nearby peaks.

Since this trip, I've been fiddling with the colors in a ball of Toasty Toes sock yarn, trying to figure out what suits it. I started with a cabled sock, cuff down, but found all the cables make it too tight. It won't even go over my heel. To make it worse, it is pooling. I then thought I'd try a toe-up sock, since I'd be able to adjust the fit as I knit and find a stitch count that overcomes its tendency to pool. I knit the toe twice, in Reynolds Sea Wool, but it is still too big.

Since I'm having success with the Mini Mochi version of my sock pattern, I've settled my favors on it and ripped out the Toasty Toes.

One last, iconic, shot of the Bells. One of my neighbors inspired this visit. She raved about the area when she took her family there. She was amused by her daughter, who asked upon first seeing this view, "Mom, is this real, or did they build it to look like this?" She's right, it seems too good to be true.

Independence Pass, mid-June

2010-06-27T08:15:00.000-07:00

Summertime has finally arrived in the Rockies. Here, in the Luni(est) household, the arrival of summer means beautiful warm weather, visitors, and lots of road trips. One of the nicer trips begins with a drive across Independence pass. Heavy snow, sub-standard roads and low traffic volumes combine to close the pass to standard vehicle traffic during the winter and spring. Usually around Memorial Day, the tough job of snow removal and plowing is done and the road is opened to traffic. This year, a snowstorm hit the peaks in mid-June. Although, thankfully, it wasn't enough to close the pass, it did provide a nice top-dressing for Twin Peaks.

It was a relief to find the pass open, since we had been planning this particular road trip for about a week. We knew we had to get to Aspen before the 19th, but had kept postponing our outing.

I was more than willing to wait, since I have almost given up knitting large projects in the car. I hate to neglect my on-going sweater for sock knitting. I also hate having only socks to blog about, but that's the way it goes in my summers now. Road trips and sock knitting are a set combo, as in the photo above, where my sock in progress forms a ghostly reflection of knitting in the windshield.

Those socks are done now, and are gone, given away to a visitor. I really enjoyed the Pyroclastic pattern, which was easy to memorize, and the Pagewood Farms Yukon yarn, which was super soft but still elastic and strong. There's more on this pair on the project page.

Once we got to the pass, we were surprised at the amount of snow there. The lake was iced over, and there were even a few people walking up the peaks to snowboard. The difference is apparent if you compare the photo above with the one is my old post about Colorado life. The peaks haven't had much chance to green up, unless the green is hiding under all that recent snow.

It's likely all gone now, though. I'll bet the flowers are blooming again on Independence Pass. My travelogue will continue soon, with a look at what we found on the other side of the pass. It might also contain, guess what--more socks!

Socks Revived Contest

2010-06-20T13:22:00.000-07:00

Elinor, who blogs at Exercise Before Knitting, announced a sock design contest this spring. Since the entry period ended last month, I've been admiring the ones I could find on Ravelry. I had hesitated to enter my sock pattern, but finally did, figuring it wouldn't hurt to be listed as one of the entries. I was glad I did, since Elinor took the trouble to post photos of all 53 designs.

You can see them all on her blog. Her latest post announced the winners. I was stunned to find that mine won second place. And great prizes! As thrilled as I am about that, I'm equally happy to see all these beautiful socks.

If they don't inspire sock-knitting, I don't know what will. Thanks, Elinor!

I've been inspired to try a variation on my Burning Stripes pattern, simply changing the width of the stripes.

It was very easy, since the contrasting seam stitch allows the yarn not in use to be carried over any width stripe.

I'm not totally satisfied with the result, since it doesn't have enough color variation for my taste. This particular ball of the Stonewashed colorway of Zauberball just went from dark blue to light blue and back again. So far, that is. I'm not sure what is hiding in the heart of the ball. To forestall an unexpected surprise and avoid a mis-matched sock, I'm going to hold off on knitting the second sock until I rewind the ball and find a section that will match this one. The white is a plain ivory sock yarn that knits to the same gauge as the Zauberball.

What? Still here? Hop on over to Exercise Before Knitting and drool over the socks.

One way only

2010-06-13T08:15:00.000-07:00

As I said in my last post, those little roads often lead me to the unexpected. I'm a slightly phobic person who is a little scared by spiders, roaches, and bridge crossings. With that in mind, I approached this unexpected encounter with a little trepidation.

It's a one-way bridge. As is evident, it had been raining for days. The water was quite high. (yeep!) Once I was on the bridge, however, I found it a fun ride. I even took a photo. It came out too blurry to post, though, since there is clearly "NO STOPPING" on one-way bridges. This bridge reminded me of another unexpected river crossing, but I've saved that old story for the end.

The bridge was in northern Arkansas, home to a species that made me cry "What was that?" when I first saw one.

How foolish, really. It is obviously a deer. My confusion was due my recent and continual exposure to the ones around my home in Colorado. Above is a whitetail deer, a dainty, small-eared pest unfortunately found in yards throughout the eastern U.S. I know that the homeowners there often complain about the damage done to bushes, trees and flowers by these deer. I'd trade with them anyday.

THIS is what I have to pester me. Mule deer are twice as big, twice as hungry, and not at all dainty. I'd complain, but my regular readers know that I enjoy watching them, even if they do eat my flowers. I'm still a bit staggered by the difference in size. It's like lawnmowers instead of weedeaters or like the flu instead of a cold.

So much for deer, back to the road trip. On our return, we made a point of stopping in Archer City, Texas. This is, I am aware, not a big vacation destination, but it is the home of one of my favorite authors, Larry McMurtry, famous for Lonesome Dove, The Last Picture Show and Terms of Endearment. Since K and I enjoy seeing the locales featured in his novels, we have driven through here before. We once spent a night at the local Spur Hotel. That was in the winter, though, when the main attractions were closed.

They were all open this time. McMurtry has turned four of the old buildings in Archer City into used bookstores. Even though I couldn't find any knitting books, it was still interesting browsing. Archer City is just south of Wichita Falls, Texas, not far out of our way.

The trip allowed me to nearly finish the other two socks I squeezed out of a single ball of Crazy Zauberball.

They are done now and are posted on Ravelry with the first one. That's three socks from one ball of yarn. To see the finished socks and to learn why I knit three, click the link at the end of this post, just after my promised river crossing story.

-The old story----

Several years ago, on another road trip, what I thought was a short-cut brought me to a different type of river crossing. Here's my photos and story from that time, lifted from my old journal.

Knitting was difficult with all the bumps in the road--Hwy 124 is so patched, the patches have patches. It follows the Ouachita River, or Bushy Bayou, Branch or something like that. Not heavily settled. It seemed like a short cut, but we kept seeing signs for the ferry. The Duty-Enterprise Ferry. Yes, if one travels between Duty and Enterprise, one must take the ferry. Well, actually, it’s not that poetic. It’s just another way to get from Duty, La. to Monroe, La. Enterprise is another small community along the way.

Yes, we actually drove onto that little barge.

I was snapping pictures the whole way, which prompted the ferry man to ask “Ya’ll not from around heah, are yuh? We told him where we lived. After I took a few more pix, he wanted to know “Have you been on a ferry before? Do they have ferrys down there?” I assured him that they do, and that they are big ferrys. He recalled his ride on one of the many ferries that cross the lower Mississippi River, then mused a bit, watching the river go by. His ferry doesn't go very fast. Then he said, “Those big ferrys have a lot of rules. We don’t have any rules, we just go when we get a car.” Ferry man humor.

Actually, it's really the only rule I need.

finished socks

Buy Pattern Here

Running down the road

2010-06-06T08:13:00.000-07:00

In the past three weeks, we have traveled on all types of roads. My favorite type is a two-lane blacktop that winds through fields and small towns. On these little roads, the traffic is light and I am usually surprised by whatever there is around the next bend.

By using an old-fashioned paper map, I am able to outsmart our GPS and follow the little roads. The weather was overcast and a bit rainy during our first week (the third week of May) on the road. It was great for driving, since I hate sun in my eyes, but didn't encourage photos. I did take this dreary one of Lake Spavinaw in eastern Oklahoma.

We happened upon it on our way into Eureka Springs, Arkansas. It's a lovely spot, with a tiny town nearby, and a mesmerising dam.

I could have watch the water flow over the spillway for hours. There were swallows swooping by--that little dot in the photo is one that I didn't realize was there until I uploaded this shot. It started to rain, though, encouraging us to get on our way.

I developed a crush on Eureka Springs, thrilled by the way the houses cling to the rocky cliffs, the winding of the streets, the decoration of the shops with their bright paper lanterns, and the eccentricity of it all. From the minute we drove in through the north, passing galleries and restaurants on the narrow road, I just wanted to get out and wander around. I'd love to go back some day and do more of that.

Once we got back, I was able to model some of the socks I knit on this trip.

I'm really pleased with the fit of the Pyroclastic pattern. It has sat in my "to be knit" queue for a long time, so long that I wasn't sure why it was there. It seemed so crazy, with a set of increases and matching decreases to shape the sole, that I stopped them once I reached the ball of the foot. The result is worth the effort, though. The fit is perfect. (The yarn is Pagewood Farms Yukon, merino with a bit of bamboo making it soft and smooth.)

The fit on my Annetrelac socks is good, too. I modified the leg by decreasing the blocks from 6 stitches to 5 stitches after the first two tiers. This made the third tier more of a rectangle, since I started with 5 stitches but needed enough rows to decrease away six. Once done, though, the transition is not noticeable, and the leg is narrower.

I like this method of shaping entrelac. I've seen a pattern or two that might use it.

knit socks heel first

2010-05-31T16:47:00.000-07:00

In the process of working out the heel instructions for my sock pattern, I knit a heel. Just that, all by itself, a sock heel. After I finished it, I should have ripped it out and put the yarn away for a future sock project. I hate to rip out my knitting, though.

I put it on my little 9" circular, thinking it would make a good stitch holder. I might knit a little more later, I thought.

As I did. I knit the entire foot.

Then I cut the yarn around the cast-on edge and put the loose stitches on needles.

Before too long, I had a sock, one that was knit heel first. I found it a little neater a method than knitting toe up. Toe up is not bad, except for two things. One, if I start the heel too soon, I have a heel to rip out. That's a lot harder than just adjusting the length of the toe as I knit. Two, casting on a toe can be troublesome.

I used a provisional cast on for the second sock. I crocheted 90 chain stitches, then picked up 40.

I realized after I got halfway through and was ready to pick up the stitches for the instep that I should have started in the middle and picked up to the end. Nonetheless, I was able to pick up at the other end and work toward the middle.

This is the sock in progress, from the provisional cast on down to the toe. I wish I'd checked this photo before I kept on. I didn't see how blurry it was until I got it uploaded. By then, I had taken out the provisional cast on and put it on needles to knit the leg.

Since the only thoughtful part of this ribbed sock with a stockinette foot is the heel, it has been an excellent traveling project. I knit the heel first, then carried it around and knit the foot and leg at times when I needed something to occupy my hands and not my mind. I do think, however, that I will use this method again when I want to "knit until the yarn runs out".

(The sock yarn is JoAnn Sensations Soles and More, color 1138. Not the best, but it works up nicely on these little size 0s. I picked it up for the practice heel and never thought I'd actually finish a pair, but the simple knitting made it easy.)

Cabled Cardigan, finishing details

2010-05-12T12:40:00.000-07:00

With most* of the knitting done, I'm contemplating the final details of my current sweater project. (*A charitable most--almost everything except ripping out and reknitting the back.)

Rather than face ripping out half of the back, I'm playing around with the fronts and sleeves. I blocked them and found that the two fronts will make up a sweater that is about 42" around the hips and is 29" long. That's the size I want with an extra inch of length. I felt safe reducing the small size a bit from the 44" of the pattern specs. I'll still have a couple inches of ease. I pinned the sleeve to make it an inch wider than the first one I blocked. The extra inch in the sleeve width will be a better fit. I'll reblock the other sleeve to match. I'm relieved I don't have to reknit any of these pieces.

I wish I had been able to read TechKnitter's excellent article on buttonholes before I knit these. I kept trying different techniques on each one. The top two, the last ones I knit, are ok, but I'll likely have to sew or crochet around all of them to make them neater and tighter. I'll also have to decide how to fix the pocket bands. The pattern specifies that they be 2 inches deep. At my smaller row gauge, that was 10 garter ridges rather than 8. During the blocking, my first thought was that I'd have to rip out those last two ridges. However, folding them over makes them thicker and sturdier. Maybe knitting those extra ridges was a lucky thing. I'd never thought of folding the bands if they had been narrower.

I've also selected buttons, though it took three trips to two different yarn shops. (How I suffer!) The color in this last photo isn't quite correct--there's not enough green. If you click on the photo, though, you can see the buttons pretty well.

Although I was at first inclined to ask for opinions on the button bands (to fold or not to fold?), I soon realized that I'll make that decision when I'm sewing the sweater together. I love to hear other's opinions, but, in the end, I'm afraid that I prefer to knit to please myself. I think that's the point of my knitting, that it pleases me. That it sometimes pleases others is a nice bonus.

Unexpected, delightful, knitting

2010-05-06T10:48:00.000-07:00

I actually chose the title for this post a couple of weeks ago. If it doesn't fit well now, it's probably only off by a word. The past two weeks have been full of the unexpected and, as always, full of knitting. I'll let you be the judge of whether it is delightful or not.

As best I recall, the title was inspired by a photo I took at the longhorn cattle ranch. There's been some changes since my last post about these cows.

There's a bunch of calves now, closely watched over my their moms. This one was the perfect subject for trying out the text feature on my photo editing program. I needed to practice adding text to photos, since I was using it in the pattern I was writing.

Pattern writing has caused me to refresh a lot of skills I haven't used in several years. I'm determined to try as many marketing approaches as I can, since the more I try, the more I will learn. I don't know where it will all lead. At this point, I'd just like to understand the technical aspects in the hopes that I can help other knitters who might be interested in marketing a pattern. So far, based on time alone, I've learned that I wouldn't try to market a pattern that didn't have some sure indication of potential sales.

Besides being time-consuming, there are other difficult aspects to pattern sales. Some of them have to do with the frustrations inherent in learning new tasks, especially when those tasks involve computers. Those I can handle. The rest involve that wonderful and unpredictable element--people. I knew my tech skills were getting rusty, but I hadn't realized how far behind I had left my "people" skills.

The unexpected refresher course in public relations hasn't left me much concentration for knitting. I've been making slow progress on the complicated cabled cardigan I started over a month ago, although some evenings I find that knit stitches are all I can manage.

Thank goodness I'd decided to de-stash some novelty yarn into a garter-stitch scarf. I know a 10 year old girl whose favorite color is blue. Now I have one of her Christmas gifts finished. A year or so ago, I decided I hated knitting scarves. They were so repetitive, so boring, so long. Only after indulging in forum discussions on finishing and the benefits of scarf knitting was I able to pick up and complete three scarves I had abandoned. Once they were off the needles, I swore I'd never knit another.

Now that I need some simple knitting, I'm rediscovering the delightful in scarf knitting. I do admit, though, that a couple hanks of Malabrigo will make any knitting delightful. There's something about the subtle changes in tone that fascinate.

Scarves and patterns are now the ruling topics in my knitting. Besides selling the pattern on line, I'm hoping to sell it through a yarn shop or two. While I knew that meant designing a printed version, I was a little surprised to find that it also meant knitting samples. However, when a shop doesn't sell the recommended yarn, they can't very well use the samples I have already knitted.

On request, I've knitted half a sample, in the marled version of the recommended yarn, Crazy Zauberall. I'm using just one ball, rather than the two contrasting colors I used for the original. I found enough difference in the colors that I just pulled from the inside and the outside of the ball to get the contrast. Since I'm only working with half the amount of yarn, I worry that I'll have only half the chance of knitting a matching sock. But then, the label says, "Every sock is artwork-- every sock is unique." I bet I'll be able to prove them right.

If you're interested in the pattern, version three is now available. To those who have been so supportive as I've fumbled my way through my self-taught knit design course, thank you! After all, it really is the people who make it all worth-while.