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December 28, 2005
For dad, for a change
I had a heart-to-heart with my planner today, and it looks like it's my turn to take a little recess. While Christmas and Hanukkah are completely foreign to me, New Year's and my favorite holiday of all, affectionately called "visiting the folks when everyone else is not traveling," are coming right up. We chatted, we counted, added and subtracted, and it looks like I'll be spending over 17 hours traveling within the next 1.5 weeks. That's a lot of time sitting on my butt, also known as quality knitting time. Not to mention a lot of time sitting at my folks' house knitting, quality in a different sort of way.
I need to get my knitting in gear before all my travels begin!
While I'm currently scheming many big projects, the trip I'll be taking this weekend requires something quite minimalist, something I won't mind toting around NYC for the entirety of a day.
I know (I know!) I sound like a broken record - socks!
Here's the shocker - not for grandma. Dude, what's up with that?
Did I mention that in addition to the cutest grandma in the world I have the cutest dad in the world? Remember this? That man is something else entirely, and were I more liberal in what I allow to make its way to my knitting blog, I could tell you all kinds of stories about my papa.
I digress.
Thursday, December 22nd, 12:55 p.m. Phone conversation with my grandma.
Me: Hi, grandma! I saw some missed calls on my cell phone last night, I just wanted to let you know I'm okay and didn't see them until it was too late to call.
Grandma: Oh, yes, your mom called. How did you know she called? She didn't leave you a voicemail or anything. I told her, leave her a message; otherwise she'll never know you called.
Me: I can tell from my cell phone, though.
Grandma: Well, she called because I received your socks! These are the best yet - thank you!
Me: I'm glad you like them, and you're very sweet to say that about every pair I make for you.
Grandma: The color is perfect. I love the color. And the fit is perfect. It's as though you were trying them on my feet as you were knitting, every step of the way.
Me: I'm so happy to hear that. So you like the fit?
Grandma: Yeah.
Me: Do you think it's because I made a different heel?
[note: this is the first pair of socks for grandma that has a short-row rather than a flap heel]
Grandma: Oh! I didn't even notice! I think that must be the case. I put them on, and they were perfect.
Me: Yeah, I made a different heel. Actually, I knit these differently - I started from the toe, then knit the heel, and then the leg!
Grandma: How interesting! I guess you typically knit the other way around, from the cuff to the toe?
Me: Yep.
Grandma: Well, they fit really well. And where did you get that pattern? They are really pretty.
Me: I was inspired by this one pattern, but then made up this one as I knit.
Grandma: It's beautiful. The color is so nice. You know when you knit me a shawl, I would love it to be this color.
[note: when you knit me a shawl, NOT if you knit me a shawl!]
Me: Oh!?! Thanks for telling me.
[big note to self]
Grandma: You know, different people like different things, I just don't like colors which are too bright.
Me: Thanks for telling me. I think it won't be difficult to pick a color for you, I know the kinds of colors you like. I bought this purplish blue specifically with you in mind; I knew you'd really like it.
Grandma: I was talking to my SIL yesterday, bragging about these socks, and we were both amazed you have time to knit so much. I told her that you find this ultimately relaxing, and that you knit really quickly.
Me: It's true, it's very relaxing for me! And socks are a weakness - I always seem to be knitting a pair. They are so small, you can put a little sock project into your bag and knit it a little at a time. You know, not a stitch of these last socks was knit at home! I knit them on the bus, while I stood in line, when I met up with friends, but never at home!
Grandma: Oh, but you seem to have finished them so quickly.
Me: Not true! I finished those beige ones for you within a few weeks, but these took me several months because I only knit them when I was out of the house.
Grandma: Well, maybe now I'll finally consider throwing out that first pair you knit for me. You know I haven't...
Me: [interrupt] I know you haven't thrown them out, no matter how much you "plan" to do so every time.
Grandma: Because it would be just so simple to cut off the foot and knit a new one.
Me: Grandma, it's not going to happen - I don't have enough of that yarn to do so, plus I don't want to knit something that I've already knit. It is much more interesting for me to knit you a whole new pair of socks, using a new pattern. One day I will knit you twenty pairs, and then maybe you'll throw out some of the worn ones.
Grandma: Well now that I have five, they aren't getting worn out nearly as quickly, because I'm wearing each for a little bit.
Me: Good, and I'm making you more. I'm so glad you like handknit wool socks, because I love making them, and if you weren't interested, I'm not sure who I'd knit them for!
Grandma: Yes, and your dad wears the ones you knit for him inside the house. He can't wear them inside his shoes because they are too thick, but as soon as he comes home, he puts them on. His feet have been getting very cold lately.
Me: Huh. Do you think if I knit him a pair of thin wool socks, as thin as this last pair I made for you, he'd wear them to work? He hasn't asked me or anything...
Grandma: I know he hasn't asked...
Me: I bet if I knit him a thin pair that he can wear inside shoes, he'd like them. From a dark, dark gray.
Grandma: Well... Anyway, thank you so much. These socks are the best.
Me: You're welcome! You know, I've started [and finished] a new pair for you already.
Grandma: [laughs]
Me: Except I know they won't last very long. The wool is so, so soft.
Grandma: Well, that's good!
Me: It's good, but they'll wear out quickly. It doesn't matter! I'll just knit you more ;). I better go and get back to work, and you better go because All My Children just started.
A few days after this conversation I brought up the idea of thin dark socks to my dad, which he violently rejected. Too late - I had already bought the yarn ;). Good thing that his feet and my grandma's are the same size - if he doesn't like them or doesn't want to wear them, he can dump them on my grandma.
The pattern I've chosen is another one from Nancy Bush's Knitting Vintage Socks, called Gentleman's Sock with Lozenge Pattern. This one is SO manly, my dad will definitely approve. The yarn is Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in charcoal - very dad-friendly. For a change I'm using bamboo dpns, 5"-long Brittany birch US 0s, to be precise. As much as I adore knitting with metal needles, they do hurt my hands a bit after long knitting sessions (where the soft, cushy parts of my palms wrap around an inflexible metal rod).
Because my dad has rather small feet and the pattern is written for a 9" foot circumference (BIG), I removed one pattern repeat and am working the sock over 70 sts instead of 80. I hope this will be small enough.
In any case, that's the goodie that going into my bag during my upcoming trip! We'll see how much I'll have completed when I come back :).
Posted by Kathy at 08:22 PM | Comments (24)Today I'm fascinated by...
Calf shaping: I have no idea if it's helpful, but I cannot stop staring.
Short-row toes worked from the cuff down: a big hole remains right at the base of the toes, and then must be closed by grafting. This is the first time I'm working the toe this way!
I'm actually done knitting this pair of socks, but it must be blocked and I have to weave in the reinforcement before it's ready for its close-up ;).
Posted by Kathy at 12:13 AM | Comments (19)December 25, 2005
Not a knitter's friend
I have a lot of knittery juiciness to report, but for now, while all is quiet on the blog front, I am posting about more simple matters.
You guys are a riot! I feel the makings of some comedy show here - I mean, did you read some of your answers?!?
I'm not one to pick favorites (yes, I am), but this one from Twig had me laughing until my side hurt: Apparently, the big ball forgot the birth control and had a litter of little balls. I feel sorry for the runt of the litter in the front left.
Hahahahaha! Hahahahaha!
Well, friends, the unfortunate series of events that led to little balls of yarn exactly resembling Brussels sprouts in shape, size, and color (by the way, I have no particular aversion to these cute little cabbages) did not have anything to do with a demonic swift and/or ball winder, and there were no knots to speak of. I inflicted the damage purposefully as I snipped the yarn cleanly and carefully into little tiny bits. And the answer has been right before your eyes all along ;).
Take a close look at the picture of my Lorna's Laces stashette from a previous post, and lets zoom in on one of the green skeins:
As I was putting away the stashette, I noticed what we can all so clearly see in that picture - a stain. A big ol' nasty stain. A gooey, sticky, soaking stain that could only be identified as ink from a ballpoint pen. It ran through several strands and layers of Lorna's Laces goodness and it was a stain that threatened the integrity of all other skeins stored in the same plastic bag. It had no chance of being washed out (without an even greater chance of just staining more).
I HAD to cut it out. Gently, but thoroughly. I rescued the majority of the skein in that big ball sitting in the upper left corner, but the rest of it is now in small pieces equivalent to one, two, or three rounds of the skein. Fortunately, I believe I have enough yarn for an average pair of socks if I combine the unadulterated skein and the big ball I rescued from this sullied one.
How did the stain get there? I don't think it was there when I bought the yarn, so I'm guessing between sitting on my coffee table and being put away into the yarn bin, it had an unfortunate encounter with a ballpoint pen.
Let this be a lesson to all - run, do not walk, to your pencil drawer, and take its title to heart - ballpoint pens are not a knitter's friend!
Posted by Kathy at 12:00 PM | Comments (10)December 22, 2005
Holiday fun
This week I have been navigating blogs and witnessing a holiday tizzy that's completely foreign to me. It's interesting to watch, but I am an outsider to all of this. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I get the distinct feeling that now is not a good time to post progress reports, wacky project ideas, or anything that would require more than a few minutes to read.
So, without further blabber I present you this:
Your task is to determine what in hell happened here (this was once a full skein of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock). Correct answers are welcome, as are creative one, especially if they involve Brussels sprouts. I'm afraid there's no prize other than hours and hours of entertainment for us all ;) ;).
Posted by Kathy at 11:26 PM | Comments (54)No soup for you. NEXT!
I need to have a sock project going at all times. It's really weird and not at all surprising. My bag feels empty if there isn't a little sock project in there. What will I whip out while I stand in line at the post office? What will I knit when my computer at work takes 20 minutes to process my images? What will I take to the lunchtime Stitch 'n Bitch? It's not the Kimono-inspired sweater, which already has four pages of notes associated with it, it's not that lavender-colored lace scarf, a project which I can summarize as follows: no recipient, no progress, and it's not grandma's shawl, which I am not planning to start until the new year anyway.
Socks, socks, socks. Must knit socks. For (who else?) grandma. I am so happy that grandma likes wearing wool socks, because I'm not sure who else in my family would like a pair. Dad got one pair once, and hasn't asked me for another since. Grandma, on the other hand, asks (love the grandma!). I'm hoping that one of these days I will absolutely overwhelm her sock drawer with beautiful handknit socks, to the point of convincing her to toss some of the older, worn, darned pairs.
Since I finished the last pair a few days ago, it was time to start a new one. Off to the stashette!
My original thought was to use up some Louet Gems Opal leftovers. The regulars know that this is one of my favorite yarns - quality superwash sportweight, which behaves beautifully. I had some silvery gray, dark blue, and pink left over from former projects, and I weighed them to determine if they would be enough for a pair of socks. The verdict: not quite. I have nice amounts of the silver and blue, but the pink scraps didn't bring up the total to a usable weight. Okay, fine. I decided to combine the silver, blue, and a brand new hank of crabapple blossom, a deep, dark pink. I cast on, knit three rows, and the whole thing looked incredibly patriotic. While fine for some, this look does not fly over very well with grandma. NEXT!
I inspected my stashette of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock. Don't even look at me like that. I know some of you have stashes that are ten times the size of this! While these colors are yummilicious, they are all too bright for grandma. NEXT!
(the answer to the obvious question - since these colors won't work for grandma, I will have some lucky pals in future sock exchanges)
I looked at my Sock It To Me! Essential 4 Ply from elann, which was purchased with grandma in mind. I petted it, and looked at it from this angle and that, but it just wasn't speaking to me this time around. I think I'll knit it up at some point, just not right this very minute. NEXT!
This left only one candidate - two skeins of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport in cranberry. To be perfectly honest, this isn't exactly a grandma color - a little too bright - but I think it can be pulled off. The yarn is a lovely 100% superwash wool, incredibly soft and completely inappropriate for a sock. It's okay, it's for my grandma, but I think these will not last more than a month or two - too soft. Then again Twosheep June tells us, "I suspect a looser-spun 3-ply would wear quite well, maybe even better than a tightly spun 2-ply yarn." June, I'd like to let you know that Emily, Carrie, and I discussed this at lunch the other day, and we are skeptical ;). I'm looking at this stuff, and I just cannot imagine it would wear any better than the Shepherd Sock, which seems so much more durable to me.
Choosing a pattern for this yarn was a bit tedious, and I tried Whitby (N. Bush, KotR
Oh yes. I think we have a winner ;).
Posted by Kathy at 02:32 AM | Comments (23)December 20, 2005
A lil' follow-up
I had such a great time reading your comments to my last post! I mean, really, how can my mom "forget" that she told me exactly what she wanted?!? Down to the minute details of the color - gray with blue undertones, like steel, blah, blah, blah. Okay, I guess considering I didn't breathe a word to her about it since that conversation, it could have been easy to forget... for the time being. Were I in her shoes, as soon as I opened the package, I would have remembered, yes, I asked or suggested that Kathy knit me this some time ago. But according to my grandma, she had no idea, even after she opened the package! And when I was speaking with my mom, she eventually just caved in and said, "I guess I remember," which means she actually didn't. What is up with that?!? My two favorite tidbits were when my mom commented that the shawl was warm despite all the holes (hahahahaha!) and when my grandma, instead of straightforwardly asking me to knit her a shawl took my mom's tactic and just said, "Let's not speak of this again." Grandma is the funniest.
Which brings me to my next point - no, my family doesn't know about this blog, and they do not know that I transcribe our conversations here, and they do not know that sometimes I even make a little fun ;). It's like this - I would love for my mom and grandma to read this blog, but they are both computer-illiterate. That's the first thing. The second thing is that grandma doesn't speak a word of English, and mom speaks so-so English. My writing would be a bit too complicated for her to understand, I think. As for my dad, he is computer-literate and his English is good enough to understand most of what I'm saying, but he's simply not allowed to know. He's the type of person who would leave me comments on every single entry, the type of comments that would make me roll my eyes. And then he'd insist on discussing the happenings on the blog during our bi-weekly phone conversations. No thanks!
As for my friends, most know about my blog, especially if they've expressed interest in my knitting. When something particularly exciting happens, I urge them to visit, but otherwise they don't really bother. However, some of my close friends (including my best friend) don't know about the blog - these are the people who giggle and make a confused face any time I mention knitting. Okay, so knitting is not our common language, I can deal with that. I try to keep my knitting separate from my work, and for that reason my adviser and many of my coworkers don't know about the blog. They know I knit because they receive gifts and see me knitting sometimes, but I figure announcing my blog to them is unnecessary.
A year ago I would have added that a large number of my friends don't even know I knit, but it's too late for that - I think everyone knows by now.
How about you? Who knows about your knitting and your knitting blog, and what are your reasons for revealing (or not) its existence to these folks? Don't just leave me a comment - rather consider this a meme and answer on your own blog ;).
Posted by Kathy at 02:10 PM | Comments (44)December 19, 2005
Verdict: NOT retarded!
Monday, December 19, 2005, 7:30 p.m. Phone conversation
Grandma: Hello?
Me: Hi, grandma, how are you?
Grandma: I’m good. Mom received your shawl today. You should have seen the sparkle in her eyes, she really loved it.
Me: Is she home?
Grandma: No, she’s at the supermarket.
Me: So, yeah, she really liked it?
Grandma: She really did. She was totally surprised! You didn’t tell her a word!
Me: Maybe she forgot, but she told me exactly what she wanted back in November. And then she asked to never speak of the project again. I guess she realized that it would be some work and didn’t want to encourage me anymore. But I remembered!
Grandma: Yeah, I guess she forgot, then, or she just didn’t tell me. And you always remember! Well, you should have seen the sparkle in her eyes! She was so happy with it! It’s really beautiful.
Me: Was the size right?
Grandma: Yeah, it was just right. It’s the perfect thing – you can wrap it around your shoulders under a coat, or you can wear it out with a dress or a fancy outfit. It’s so warm, too, the wool.
Me: It’s 50% wool, 50% silk, which is why it’s shiny and warm at the same time.
Grandma: It’s just beautiful; you should have seen her surprise and the sparkle in her eyes.
Me: You liked it?
Grandma: Oh yeah, it’s so neat and perfect.
Me: Is it the kind of thing you’d like for yourself?
Grandma: [sigh] [pause] You’re so busy, it’s not like you have time for these things.
Me: Grandma, I wouldn’t be offering if I didn’t have the time. You know, I have my one and only mom, and when she asked me for a shawl, that was all I needed to make her one. Similarly, I have only one grandma – you – and I would knit whatever you wanted.
Grandma: [silent] [stammers] Well… it’s just such a huge project! How long did it take you?
Me: Well, it took me a little while to get just the right yarn, but then I finished the knitting in only four days!
Grandma: Four days?!? [stammers]
Me: The thing is that I don’t want to knit without being asked. I don’t want to knit things people don’t want. But as soon as I’m asked…
Grandma: Well, then… like your mom said, don’t speak to me of this again. [laughs]
Me: Grandma!!! Mom claims that it went down like that, but she told me all the details – she said that she wanted a triangular shawl, and that she wanted leaves, and that she wanted a steel gray color. Those are the types of things that really help me to get the project just right.
Grandma: You know me, you know what I like…
Me: Blue?
Grandma: I like light and dark blue, and light and dark muted green. I don’t like bright colors.
Me: And for style?
Grandma: I really like the triangle shape, it’s a perfect thing. I would want that. Just like the one you knit for your mom.
Me: I wouldn’t knit one just like that. There are other triangular shawls out there. You know square shawls are really triangles if you fold them in half…
Grandma: Yeah, you can knit a square shawl for variety sake, I guess. It doesn’t matter if it’s folded up like a triangle.
Me: Alright, grandma, I get the idea.
Grandma: Oh, here’s mom, she’s back from the grocery store.
Hands the phone off to mom
Mom: Hi!
Me: I hear you received the shawl!
Mom: Yes, thank you so much, it’s beautiful. I wasn’t expecting it at all.
Me: What do you mean? You told me exactly what you wanted back in November, and then you asked me to never mention it again, and I didn’t (side note: I have many faults, but inability to keep my mouth shut isn’t one of them). Remember? You told me you wanted a steel gray, triangular shawl with leaves.
Mom: [laughs] I guess. It’s beautiful! It is so neat, you knit so neatly.
Me: Thank you. And the size?
Mom: It’s a great size. You know, you can wear such a thing to a fancy occasion and it would look great with a dress or anything. Or it can be a scarf for everyday use.
Me: I’m glad you can see many uses for it. But you know, I’d rather you wear it everyday. It’s very nice, but it didn’t take me long to make, and I can always make you another just like it or a different one.
Mom: Oh? How long did it take?
Me: It took me a while to get the right yarn, but the actual knitting only took four days.
Mom: Oh! How do you wash it? Is it even washable?
Me: Yeah. You handwash it, and then you need to spread out a big towel and smooth it out on it, making sure to pull at the individual points. Plus it wasn’t very expensive (I didn’t tell her how much, but for your information and mine: about $30).
Mom: Well then, I guess I’ll wear it everyday! You know, it has all these holes, but it’s really warm.
Me: That’s right, the yarn is 50% wool, 50% silk. When you look at it during daylight tomorrow, it will look more blue than gray. I think the silk gives this great color that varies depending on light.
Mom: Oh yeah? I’ll have to take a look tomorrow.
Me: So, you know, I’m going to make one for grandma… She said she wanted a light or dark blue one…
Mom: No, she doesn’t like dark colors.
Me: That’s what she said…
Mom: She’d much rather have a light blue one, I think. Something muted, you know?
Me: Alright. Doesn’t matter to me, so light blue it is.
Light blue it is ;). And, people, thank God I keep a blog – I have a concrete record of the conversation that transpired a month ago. I know she asked me for a steel gray, triangular, leafy shawl, and I know she asked me to never speak of the project again. And now I have a record of tonight’s conversation, too :).
And now, to scheme... a light blue triangular or square shawl for my grandma...
December 18, 2005
In stark contrast
Thank you, everyone, for leaving me the most delicious comments about mom's Lace Leaf Shawl. I mailed it to her Friday afternoon, so there's no verdict yet with respect to its "retarded" (hopefully not) status ;). I didn't expect to finish the project so quickly, but everything just came together perfectly. There were no false starts, there was no tinkering or thinking - it just worked from the first try. So, it was easy to just put my blinders on, ignore all other projects, and knit and knit and knit.
But not all projects work out beautifully like that. In stark contrast, I finally finished these socks for grandma:
If we count from the time I cast on using Mountain Colors Bearfoot (which rubbed my fingertips raw), it took me almost two months to finish these.
Why did it take me two months to finish a measly pair of socks?
I hated knitting these. Man, how I hated knitting them. I was modifying and adjusting and cursing and frogging like a madwoman most of the time. I guess I don't like thinking when it comes to socks... I just want to knit, dammit! Socks are my choice (my weakness?) when it comes to mindless and portable knitting, so when they stop being mindless, and when knitting them is accompanied by three pages of written notes, the knitting side of my brain rebels. What is this? What is up with this? What kind of nonsense are trying to pull here, Grumpy? And so, once the socks acquired the status of an official PITA (pain in the ass), I did not even touch them except when I went to Stitch 'n Bitch, or waited in line, or rode the bus. I couldn't stand to look at them more than I had to, and it took me two months to finish them.
Anyway, they are done, and I'm quite happy with how they came out. It's interesting how satisfaction with the end product can make all the crap associated with how it got there go away.
Pattern: very loosely based on Broken Cable Rib Socks from Interweave Knits WebKnits. I opted to cross the cables to the left on one sock, and to the right on the other. I first noticed and noted the pattern when I saw Carolyn make these for her Sockapal-2-za pal.
Yarn: Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock (75% superwash wool, 25% nylon) in periwinkle; 2 skeins.
Needles: The toe, foot, and heel were knit on US 0, while the leg was knit on US 1. Both sizes from this set.
Modifications: I knit these from the toe to the cuff, used short-row toes and heels (wrap method), incorporated the pattern into the foot while partially excluding it from the cuff to avoid a tourniquet-like effect . Those are some major changes, if I say so myself.
Here's a fun tidbit - grandma doesn't know about these! At all! I think she'll be very surprised when she receives them in the mail. I live for moments like this... I wish I was there to capture her reaction when she opens the package.
Speaking of socks, with the Jaywalker KAL in full swing over at January One, the gallery has been seeing a lot of action lately. I do my best to hunt down finished Jaywalkers and offer the knitters to include their FOs in the gallery, but I can't keep track of everyone, right? I just want to be clear that this is not an invitation-only process - drop me a line or leave a comment, attach a picture or a link to your blog, and I will be very happy to put your socks (or Picovoli or whatever else) in the gallery! It's not a "Grumperina hasn't asked me, so I guess she doesn't want to include these" situation - every FO is welcome!
Posted by Kathy at 09:50 PM | Comments (16)December 15, 2005
Feeble attempts...
... to capture the beauty
This shawl is spectacular, but I had no idea how difficult it was to take a good photograph of such a large and intricate object.
Pattern: Leaf Lace Shawl, designed by Evelyn A. Clark for Fibertrends. This pattern is very popular, and for good reasons. It's very well written and not very complicated. Instructions for two sizes and four yarn weights (8 total options) make it a good fit for whatever yarn is lingering in your stash. Adjustments for larger or smaller shawl sizes are elementary. And the results, well, the results are fabulous:
The leaves, specifically the way each leaf is surrounded by a halo of yarnovers, are easy to spot and very captivating. The edging is clever, beautiful, and fits perfectly within the sea of the leaves.
Size: I made the "small" size, working a total of 10 repeats in sportweight yarn, as the pattern specified. The shawl measured approximately 22.5" deep and 48" across before blocking (click to see a photo of me modeling the unblocked shawl). After blocking, the shawl is 29.5" deep and 64" across.
This is my only worry - I'm afraid this shawl is much larger than what my mom had in mind, but the faux pas is entirely mine. The pattern predicted a shawl that's even a bit bigger (33" deep, 68" across top) and I just didn't realize how big that is in real life. Were I to go back, I'd work only 8 repeats, which would give me a shawl close to the unblocked size, "an oversized bandana," as I called it earlier ;).
Yarn: The yarn makes this shawl. As I elaborated earlier, I've been knitting with Henry's Attic Silk & Ivory, 50% silk/50% wool. This is a spectacular yarn - very soft, silky, shiny, smooth, slides through the fingers like a good lotion. It was recommended to me by the dyer, and she really hit the nail on the head with this one. It blocked beautifully, has fantastic drape, shows the pattern very well, and I think will provide just the right amount of warmth for my mom. What else can I ask for?!? Oh yes, the color...
Oh, the color! Just the right blend of gray and blue, just the right handpainted consistency, just the right depth... it is exactly what my mom had in mind, exactly what I described to the dyer. But, damn, it's so hard to photograph accurately! I try anyway:
Feeble, feeble attempts. As I told a student earlier this afternoon, "Just believe me, okay?" Hehe.
I think it's clear that I seriously admire the dyer's ability to match my mom's request both by suggesting and custom dyeing the perfect yarn. I would recommend her services without any reservations, and will do so as soon as she opens her business in early 2006.
Until then, I scheme. Ha! You see, based on the final weight of the shawl (112 grams), I used about 500 yards of yarn, and have 800 yards (eight hundred yards!) left over. That's enough for another shawl and then some! Oh yes, another shawl and then some...
So, that's that for my first shawl attempt, for my first true lace attempt. Next: I mail this to mom, and cross my fingers that my grandma asks for a shawl, too ;).
Posted by Kathy at 10:37 PM | Comments (61)It's all in the details
Two observations: first, it’s huge. Mom didn’t want huge. Mom wanted an oversized bandana. Hopefully it relaxes a little after it’s dry and handled a bit. Hopefully. I cross my fingers. Second, I have nowhere to sit and knit, since the drying it taking up the entirety of my couch. I’m resenting this shawl for interfering with Kimono sweater knitting.
Just kidding ;). I don’t want the shawl to hear me and resent me and get even bigger ;).
In the meantime, reading through all your comments (wonderful comments – thank you!) on the votive sleeves made me realize that there were some important points I didn’t address.
Some general thoughts about knitting with wire: it is certainly a very physical undertaking. All movements are exaggerated and a lot more force has to be applied to “the yarn” in order for it to mold into a stitch. There are a lot of false moves – trying to get the wire through the stitch, but not being able to do so on the first try. Here, take a look for yourself: (why is it that everything Annie touches is cool enough to warrant a video?)
Update: The video has now been taken down, thanks for watching! Drop me a line if you'd like me to direct you to its location.
The video is short and small because I pay for my own bandwidth. I will take it down in a few days. It was filmed using my Canon PowerShot S500, and edited in a Mac OSX environment using iMovie. This is a .mov file and can be opened with QuickTime or RealPlayer.
I know it may be hard to see the wire. I encourage you to make a bigger and better video and share it with all of us!
What do you think? Pretty gruesome, eh? Now I think you can imagine why this is more time consuming than knitting with, let’s say, wool, and why my arms hurt after knitting with wire for too long of a time.
Another thing occurred to me while talking to Betsy - it seems to me that the best way to ensure success when you’re knitting with wire is to minimize wire movement because it’s much easier to make “virgin” wire behave than wire that’s already been molded in some way. For that reason, I think knitting Continentally, where the yarn sits idly prior to becoming a stitch, is the way to go. I can’t quite fathom what it would be like to wrap (“throw”) the wire around the needle as you would when knitting English style, and then pull it through the loop. Furthermore, knitting in the Combined style (à la the one and only Annie Modesitt, and what I'm doing in the video) is even better because the purling is much less movement-intensive.
Laura asked me to show the seams of the votive sleeves, and I’m happy to oblige.
The first one was created by traditional grafting – I was joining the live stitches at the end of my knitting with the cast-on. This was very tricky to do, because grafting involves a lot of wire maneuvering, and I think by now you know that it’s hard to work with wire that’s been shaped before. Furthermore, as the wire is shaped and re-shaped more and more, it becomes frail. In this case, when the grafting was about three-quarters complete, it broke, and I had to use the cast-on tail and work in the opposite direction. A big mess resulted.
The second one was created by simply weaving the working wire in and out of the live stitches while joining them to the cast-on edge. The wire traveled through each stitch only once, remained straight and strong as a result, and it was very easy to even give it a gentle tug at the end to straighten everything out. It’s not seamless, but it’s much easier to do.
There you have it! I hope that this sparks your interest, and that now you're fully armed to decide whether knitting with wire is something you'd like to try!
Posted by Kathy at 01:33 AM | Comments (17)December 14, 2005
After I bound off, I bound off some more
Thank you guys for all your compliments on the votive sleeves! I got a fair number of interesting questions, and I'll address them in a quickie post some time this week.
But for now...
(the t-shirt is clearly very tongue in cheek)
Huh.
Hmmm...
Looks like the needles are out and the yarn is cut.
Could it be that I'm done knitting mom's shawl?
It's done! I'm by no means breaking any records here, but that was pretty quick!
How quick was it? Well, there was the Saturday, the Sunday, the Tuesday... and yes, the Monday, but I was illish that day. Minus 3.14, plus working 6 hours on Saturday, the Pascal units cancel out, but then there was the votive sleeve knitting, divide by 9.8 m/s2, add prepping for and teaching my last class (I hope ever), I better throw Avogadro's number in there somewhere, raise to the power of the sixteen thousand hours it took me to bind off 300-odd stitches using that funky-ass bind-off that I swear sucked the life out of me and my hands, and we get...
FOUR DAYS
Woohoo!
You know what it is? Sometimes everything comes together, and it's just magic. The pattern is very well-written, the yarn is divine (it feels wonderful and has spectacular drape), I liked the needles and the way the yarn knit up on size US 7, and although the chart was always by my side, eventually I could watch TV or talk while knitting (apparently this is a must for me, otherwise I feel too idle). Ahhh!
All you Leaf Lace knitters out there - what is UP with the bind-off in this pattern? I really hope that it has some decorative or functional purpose because, damn, it was the most tedious thing ever.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I've gotsa get my block on (link courtesy of Savannahchik Jody).
Posted by Kathy at 12:27 AM | Comments (36)December 12, 2005
Fully sleeved!
Pattern: Wire Menorah/Votive Sleeves by Annie Modesitt from Melanie Falick's Handknit Holidays.
Ingredients: (for the pair)
- 2 Crate & Barrel glass votive holders, 2.5" high, 2.5" diameter
- 2 Crate & Barrel round votives
- 24 gauge silver-tone craft wire, about 20 yards
- about 630 beads; the mauve and strawberry are size 6, the peach are size 8
- US 8 Boye aluminum straight needles
- smooth needlenose pliers
- gardening gloves
Thoughts: This was a super-fun project and I think the perfect introduction to wire knitting. I would definitely consider making a pair of these as a gift for a friend - it didn't take a very long time or a lot of planning and hard-to-find materials. Plus I can't think of anyone who would NOT like these...
Tips, tricks:
- Beads: Although I'm pleased with how the mauve and strawberry beads look, the peach beads weren't the best choice. They are pale and small, and are nearly unnoticeable. Next time I would use nearly- or completely-opaque size 6 beads, and select colors with more "pop."
- Casting on: I liked the long tail cast-on. Although it's much more tricky to cast-on this way than to use the twisted loop cast-on recommended in the Handknit Holidays book, it's much easier to work the first row. Just think of it this way: if you use twisted loop, you'll need to knit through twisted stitches in the first row. And your yarn is wire. 'Nuff said ;).
- Binding off: As attractive as typical grafting may seem, I don't think this is a good way to proceed. When I tried it, weaving the wire through each of the live stitches twice really took a toll on the working wire's condition and it ended up breaking halfway through. On the second votive sleeve I just wove the wire through each live stitch once as I joined them to the other side. Not as seamless, but much less work and the wire didn't break on me.
- Blocking wire: A must. The wire doesn't look particularly attractive when it's just knit, and it isn't the right shape and size. Gentle tugging works miracles, and if you find the wire to be rough on your hands, use gardening gloves.
- The right side: The purl side of beaded wire knitting definitely displayed the beads much better than the knit side. But the knit side was also attractive. I guess it's knitter's choice!
- Frogging: Ha! Don't. Even. Think. About. It. (Which doesn't mean it can't be done. Which doesn't mean I didn't do it. Successfully. But the wire really takes a beating and I wouldn't use it again.)
- Collecting spilled beads from the floor: Incredibly informative since you see all the dust bunnies in every corner and know exactly what your vacuuming is leaving behind. Based on the number of times I found myself on all fours scouring the floor for dropped beads, you'd think I highly recommend doing this ;).
December 10, 2005
Mom, I hope you're ready!
The yarn arrived earlier this week, and pretty much caused my jaw to drop to the floor.
The base yarn is Henry's Attic Silk & Ivory, 50% silk/50% wool. It feels like a dream - very soft, smooth, and silky, doesn't split, moves effortlessly over my needles. The silk content makes it look metallic, exactly like my mom wanted. I chose this yarn based on the recommendation of the dyer, and she certainly suggested a great one.
The hand-dyeing is entirely custom. I described to the dyer what my mom wanted, and we communicated over the course of a week as she dyed samples for me and e-mailed pictures of the results. We went back and forth until the color looked as close to perfect as possible to both of us.
The color is very difficult to describe and even more difficult to photograph. It has a hand-dyed consistency - nearly solid, but with subtle variations in intensity and hue. It is a rich and complex gray, and has hints of blue, purple, green, and brown depending on the time of day and what the yarn is sitting next to. The silk sheen immediately conjures images of mountain tops glistening in the sun, charcoal, hematite, mercury, steel.
When the yarn is knit up, it looks more blue, a heathery denim type of blue. Beautiful.
Clearly the dyer understood exactly what my mom wanted - I mean, look at it!
I know you will ask - the dyer is a friend who is in the very final stages of setting up her own hand-dyeing yarn business. She will offer custom hand-dyed yarns of various varieties, so, like me, her customers will be able to select a color(s) and a yarn for their project, and have the totally customized package arrive at their doorstep within a few weeks. She is very detail-oriented, and you see the incredible accuracy of the results - this type of business is meant to be run by people like my friend. Anyway, she would like me to maintain her anonymity until the business is up and running in early 2006, at which point (believe you me) I will most certainly reveal to you who dyed this yarn for me. I hope the suspense isn't going to kill you :).
I admired the yarn lovingly for a few days, and last night I finally had the chance to cast-on for mom's Leaf Lace Shawl. The yarn is a thin sportweight (17 wraps per inch), and I will be making the small shawl size: 33" deep, 68" across top. The pattern suggests a US 8 for knitting sportweight yarn, and although I don't want to stray too far from the pattern, I went down to a US 7 - my yarn is on the thin side of sportweight, and I think I'll like the fabric better.
This is the stereotypical "wad o' lace" picture. There will be many more just like this in the future, but with each I will be claiming that I've "knit some more."
I am using an Addi Natura circular needle, which Savannahchik Jody recommended. It's been a really long time since I've used bamboo needles, and it took me a little while to get used to the grab. But the tips are pointy enough, and the joins are smooth, and the yarn is very slick, so a few rows into the knitting I was back in the comfort zone. After completing 3 out of the 10 repeats, I think I may need to get a longer one! I got a 24" needle - that's a very standard, comfortable size for me, most of my needles are this length. But the stitches are starting to bunch up, and the pattern recommends a 29" or 32" needle, so I may need to upgrade.
Everything is going very well so far. I've had to tink back a few times, typically because I forget that the midline of the shawl needs to be worked differently than the two halves. I don't know if this is the type of pattern than can be memorized, but I'm definitely not there yet. Maybe I'll be able to do this lace-knitting thing after all? Granted I'm not working with true laceweight (that's definitely on my radar - next project), but I'm enjoying the process so far ;).
Posted by Kathy at 12:30 PM | Comments (34)December 08, 2005
Sleeves!
Kimono sleeve
When I took the finished sleeve out of the tub, it was large enough to comfortably serve as a sail.
I kid you not! I was like, WTF?!? I aimed for 16 3/4” to armpit and 15” at the cuff, but this monster grew to about 20” to armpit, and about 17” at the cuff. I knew the cuff was going to stretch, but the length to armpit totally messed with my head. All those calculation, and now what?
I let the sail dry (without pinning) for about 24 hours, and no big surprise, it shrunk back up! As I handled it a bit this evening, it continued to reshape itself until miraculously it was close the size I intended it to be – 16 1/2” to armpit, and 15 1/2” at the cuff.
If I say so myself, it’s looking pretty good!
At the same time, it’s been a bit puzzling and very nerve wrecking to knit this from scratch while taking the ever-changing fabric into account. Knits up at 6.5 spi, becomes 5 spi when wet, then dries to 5.75 spi. Tomorrow it may change its mind once again. How can anyone tolerate such fickle yarn? Oh yes – it’s my little angel baby kitty bunny goodness foofoo.
Votive sleeve
There has also been some progress on the votive sleeves:
I’m enjoying this project very much, although it’s going a bit slow. First, it’s much slower to knit with wire than with yarn (am I stating the obvious?). Second, the intense movements hurt my hands, elbows, and shoulders if I knit for too long of a time. The hardest part is definitely the first stitch of every row – it’s like some kind of upper arm acrobatics! So I’ve been taking it easy, working just a few rows every day.
Just like with the Kimono sleeve, the votive sleeve supplied plenty of gauge puzzlement. I followed the pattern exactly, but at first my votive sleeve wasn’t nearly wide enough for the votive. I wrote a quick e-mail to Annie, and she explained that wire fabric needs to be shaped (blocked, if you will) after it’s knit, just like typical knit fabric! Armed with that info, I tugged the sleeve this way and that, and voilà! And the sleeve width will stay this way, too!
One more thing: the knit and purl sides look different enough to me to actually consider which one I want to be the right side. I’m sort of leaning towards the purl side (above) because it shows off the beads better, although the knit side is quite good-looking, too ;).
Posted by Kathy at 10:10 PM | Comments (28)December 07, 2005
Swatches are for losers
Thank the knitting gods that I have smart friends, virtual and real-life.
1. You were all absolutely right: the chart as I had it doesn't knit up nearly as nice (left) as when all left- and right-slanting decreases are reversed (right).
Not that it matters, because...
2. You were all absolutely right - yarnovers with sportweight yarn are wonderful for scarves, shawls, throws, but not the smartest idea for a pullover.
(the mistakes in this make me cringe)
Two reasons: first, this pattern results in very lacey fabric, which doesn't match the inspiration and which won't give me the look I want. Second, the fabric grows tremendously when blocked even without putting it under tension, making it very difficult to account for the stretch while planning the correct sizing. This type of math is a full-time job without a matching paycheck.
3. You were all absolutely right - it is the silhouette of the sweater that I'm after. The eyelets of the original are hardly noticeable and as I noted above, not trivial to reproduce without going completely bonkers.
So, I switched gears - done with lace, on with stockinette!
I draped a tape measure around my wrist and decided that a 14" circumference at the cuff would give me nice bell-shaped sleeves. Because wide sleeves are fun, and long sleeves are fun, but wide and long sleeves are no fun at all (they get in the way of everything!), I decided that my sleeves would be 16 3/4" long to armpit, which will hit right above my wrist bone, or whatever it's called. I admit all of these choices were made on a whim.
From knitting and washing a stockinette swatch, I knew the fabric was going to grow after blocking, so I took that into account, made my calculations, and cast on.
I decided to knit a folded hem at the cuff, which mimics the bands of the inspiration sweater. I think I'm liking it so far:
Once I had completed a good, oh, 10", I reached a nice stopping point (joining skeins) and decided to dip the lower three quarters of my knitting into water and block it, just to double check gauge.
According to my calculations, the 13" cuff was supposed to expand to 14", but immediately after its bath, it expanded to 17". I didn't exactly panic because this is a sleeve, a sleeve of a Kimono-inspired sweater, so a little wider is okay. But of course I was a bit ticked off.
The sleeve dried (not under tension), and lo and behold, it shrunk to something like 15.5" at the cuff once dry! I'm no stranger to rapidly-changing gauge, so I said, okay, I guess I have to work with this. I readjusted my calculations, picked up where I left off, and started to work my way towards the sleeve cap.
I little while later, I decided to re-measure the gauge in the previously measured section and I found that it had changed once again. This time the cuff stayed the same width, but the row gauge changed. I don't know why, but I guess from handing the fabric? I readjusted my calculations once again.
After all this, tell me - what is the purpose of a gauge swatch? A small one does more harm than good because it hardly ever translates accurately to a larger piece of fabric, and even a gauge swatch that's about 15" wide and 10" long (the blocked portion of my sleeve) likes to change its mind every 10 rows.
Or is it this yarn? Don't tell me it's my little angel baby kitty bunny goodness foofoo yarn's fault ;).
Because of many changes along the way (but no ripping - it's a sleeve!), the sleeve shaping of this particular garment will be very... how should I put it... non-standard. I'm very optimistic, though, because there isn't that much shaping - the sleeve decreases in a non-uniform, non-standard fashion from somewhere between 14-17" at the cuff (depending during which stage of the blocking process the sleeve is measured), to what I hope will be 12.5" before the sleeve cap. I guess I'll have to see about that.
Just wait till I start freaking out when this same bullshit happens while I knit the body of the sweater, where precise fit is SO important.
Carole tagged me for the knitting spot meme. Carole, I must tell you that because I live in the tiniest of apartments (most would call my space a very spacious walk-in closet), my knitting is everywhere. Not just knitting, in fact - whatever the fixation of the moment happens to be, it overtakes everything. Anyway, we all have some voyeur tendencies, and as curious as I am to have a sneak peek at your house, so you at my.
My couch, witness of much knitting action - I sit in the middle third and the rest of it is covered with knitting, books, sketches, yarn, etc. I have a wicker basket to keep current WIPs, but if it's a true work in progress, it lives on my couch. The lowest shelf of my bookshelf houses my knitting books, and often I sit on the floor right in front of it as I browse (my view is exactly as you see in this picture).
Should I tag some folks? Pretty new meme, so why not - Stephanie, Purly, and Angela - if you'd like to show us your knitting spots, we'd love to see them!
In other news, I finally have all the supplies to start my mom's shawl, namely, the yarn and the needles. But that deserves a whole separate post (besides, I don't think I'll get a chance to start until this weekend).
Posted by Kathy at 09:02 PM | Comments (14)December 06, 2005
Curlicue: the final chapter
As you remember, I mailed off the two-thirds completed Curlicue and enough yarn to finish it to Oat Couture a little while ago, and now the project has been mailed back to me: time for an update!
All along I have been corresponding with a woman named Annie at Oat Couture - I believe she may be the owner of the company, but I don't think she wrote the pattern. Annie took it upon herself to examine my work-in-progress, work on it some more, and determine what went wrong. I know I'm a grumpy person, and I know all my exchanges with Annie were firm, BUT I always, always, always let her know that I very much appreciate her attention, time, and consideration. If all designers and pattern writers followed up as she did, our knittery lives would be much easier.
Initially Annie hypothesized that I was wrapping too tightly when making the short rows, but upon receiving the blanket and working a few more sections she decided that it was a matter of gauge. In an e-mail she wrote me, "I realized that there is another factor having to do with the stitch gauge being proportional to the row gauge. I measured your gauge at 20 sts. and 35 rows to 4", so, in this instance, you need a lot more rows in proportion to your stitch gauge to knit an inch. This is why your coverlet is puckering. ... Thanks again for sending it out. I am mailing it back to you this afternoon."
I accepted this explanation for the moment, thanked her again, and eagerly awaited the return of the Curlicue (because, ahem, I wasn't exactly buying it).
Behold!
Not entirely educational, but rather impressive. For those counting, I knit 10 sections, and Annie knit another 4 - this blanket is therefore 93.3% done.
Let's go in for a close-up:
The sections I knit are shaded a bit pink, and the sections Annie knit are shaded a bit blue. Do you see what I see? Although Annie's knitting is clearly different, the sections worked by her STILL pucker.
I proceeded to measure the gauge of her knitting and mine. I measured my knitting to be 21 sts and 34 rows, and Annie's knitting to be 20 sts and 32 rows (in pattern). If it is proportions that matter, my stitch/row ratio is 0.618 and Annie's is 0.625. The pattern calls for 0.647 or 0.643, depending on yarn weight. As far as I'm concerned, first, both of our tensions are mighty close to the pattern. The pattern specifies the double-knitting yarn gauge as 22 sts and 34 rows - how much closer could I have gotten to that?!? Second, if such little differences matter, well then Annie's knitting is much closer to mine than either of ours to the pattern!
Can you help me make sense of this? What am I missing?
In any case, knitter beware: if it's still puckering after the people who wrote the pattern work on it, I would be very cautious about making this project.
I e-mailed Annie once again a few days ago, thanking her for her time, but reiterating my concerns, citing that the sections she knit still pucker, and that our gauges are very close to what's specified in the pattern. I haven't received a response yet.
And before you say anything, there's no way I'm finishing the Curlicue. To be perfectly honest, I'm not so crazy about the sections Annie knit, and I'd insist on taking them out (I am not saying this arrogantly, but rather very matter-of-factly: my knitting is much more even). Then I'd be faced once again with spending my not-at-all-disposable knitting time on a project that's destined to produce a result that won't make me happy. And that's just not going to happen.
On a more cheerful note, a week ago I gave Grumpecue to my coworker and her husband. Her reaction was wonderful - she was so thankful and hugged me so many times. She kept saying how beautiful it is, how great it is to have something handmade for the baby, and how she really loves the softness of the blanket. Which reminds me - no matter how impressive a design, functionality, color combinations, and fit, non-knitters only seem to pay attention to softness.
Anyway, I left work that day feeling like I was floating on cloud 9! I thought to myself, screw all these other projects, I just want to go home and knit for my coworker's little babe because I know the gift will be appreciated. I went as far as to mentally run through the yarns in my stash-ette to see if I could cast on that night! I came to my senses by the time I got home, though :). Kathy, there's time. The pre-baby gift has been given, the baby won't be born until mid-January, and there will be many birthdays thereafter. Chill out ;).
A little while later (to add insult to injury, if you will), I received lovely notes from both my coworker and Jennifer, thanking me for their gifts.
This handknit gift idea rules ;).
Posted by Kathy at 07:42 PM | Comments (26)December 05, 2005
Internal dialogue
Claudia does this often.
Me: Hey, Grumperina, you've got enough to knit?
Me: Why, yes, thank you for asking. I've got a pair of socks for grandma to finish, a shawl for my mom to think about, and I've been toying with the idea of knitting a Kimono-inspired sweater for myself.
Me: Hey, Grumperina, wanna see what I took out of the library yesterday? It's the new book from Melanie Fallick, Handknit Holidays
Me: Ooh, beautiful photography! Lots of interesting things here!
Me: Hey, Grumperina, did you see those wire votive sleeves by Annie Modesitt? Aren't you a big fan of her designs and ideas, and haven't you always wanted to try knitting with wire?
Me: Now that you mention it, yes. Annie's Confessions book has a whole chapter on knitting with wire techniques, which I always found extremely enticing, but the featured jewelry projects just aren't my cup of tea. But votive sleeves... that's something I can see myself using!
Me: Hey, Grumperina, I can sense you're getting weak. Want to go to Beadworks to just "check it out"?
And that was that. I knew it was all downhill when I joined the Knit-along.
I got all the stuff except the smooth needle-nose pliers. Beads: I had some mauve beads left over from making the cuffs of my shrug, so I got some peachy-gold and strawberry beads to match. Wire: I decided to go with silver-tone wire. Votives: I had a hard time finding slim votives like the ones in the book, so I got two fatter ones from Crate & Barrel. Like the ones in the book, they are 2.5" high. The round candles are also from there.
As for the pliers - I have a huge fear of them, just like people have a fear of bugs or heights. I see them, and I immediately imagine them yanking my teeth out... shudder. So, for my wire adventures, I decided to order some pliers online instead of visiting the local hardware store. I think they'll be delivered soon, and more importantly I don't think I need them until the votive sleeve is finished.
This project is most exciting to me right now, and I'm very eager to get started!
As for the Kimono-inspired sweater, I haven't had the chance to really sit down and think about it yet. But, you know, sometime soon...
Or maybe I have and just don't want to blog about it! (my blog and all...) Maybe I've already finished a back and have started on the front!
A girl can dream...
Posted by Kathy at 03:19 PM | Comments (16)December 03, 2005
Cost analysis
You know those kid-on-a-leash things? I need one. The harness would go around my body thigh, and the end would be attached to my apartment's doorknob. Because going outside, particularly downtown is just trouble.
Yes, I went to that store this weekend. On the plus side, it was so crowded with Christmas shoppers that I couldn't bear the idea of standing in line for the fitting room. But that's the minus side, too, since they had some cute things on sale.
But guess what I saw? Remember a while back I told you about the knit kit, carried at Anthropologie for $98? They had it at the store this time, and I got a good look at the goodies inside. Now I think we'll be in the perfect position to judge whether (1) the price is reasonable for what's contained within and (2) whether this type of thing is appropriate for someone learning to knit for the first time.
In addition to the scanned picture from the catalog and the picture from their website, we now also have a shitty-quality camera-phone picture and (finally!) vital content and approximate weight/yardage information.
The kit contains:
1. Four skeins of yarn, from left to right:
- speckled blue: 80% acrylic, 15% wool, 5% polyester
- solid beige: 42% polyester, 30% acrylic, 28% wool
- solid blue: 50% wool, 50% acrylic
- speckled beige: 56% acrylic, 20% wool, 10% alpaca, 14% nylon
The yarns are next-to-the-neck soft, and they struck me as middle-of-the-road quality, like KnitPicks yarns, let's say. I'm guessing that each of these is a 100 gram skein, which is quite a lot! The yarns are approximately worsted weight, maybe a bit thicker, so I think something like 180 yards in each skein is a good guess. As you can see, they are interesting in color and texture without the awful look, smell, and feel of Fun Fur. And while only the solid blue would allow perfectly distinct stitches, none of these are fuzzy/weird enough to be that troublesome! Personally, I don't think these are the best yarns to teach someone to knit, but there is a lot of stuff out there way worse.
2. A "learn to knit" booklet, with instructions and drawn diagrams for making a slip knot, casting on using the twisted loop method, the knit stitch, casting off, and making fringe. In my opinion, the diagrams are pretty poor, but I didn't get the chance to look through the written captions.
3. Measuring tape - standard issue, non-retractable kind.
4. Crochet hook
5. Straight bamboo knitting needles, approximately US 8-9. Both the crochet hook and the knitting needles were not finished to be smooth, which I can see as a potential problem with snagging the yarn.
6. The whole thing is enclosed in a pretty stylish bag, 50% wool, 50% acrylic, lined with a printed flower fabric.
So, what do you think?
Personally, I was surprised to see such hefty skeins of yarn! In fact, I'm a bit concerned with how huge of a scarf those four balls will make, considering I used only 100 grams, 180 yards (the equivalent of one of their balls) to make my green Berroco Plush scarf. I paid a total of $21 for that 100% acrylic yarn, by the way, so Anthropologie is selling the equivalent of $84 just in yarn, and all of it has wool content! Maybe this is not that bad of a deal!?!
To sum the whole thing up: we have the equivalent of eight 50-gram skeins of very soft (this is NOT Wool Ease), stylishly colored, wool blend yarns at, let's say, Berroco prices - $10 each ($80), a crappy knitting booklet ($3), crappy knitting needles ($4), crappy crochet hook ($4), crappy measuring tape ($1.50), and a fairly nice bag ($30). Adds up to $122.50, my friends, and they are charging only $98.
Edited to add: the polls are now closed! Here are the results:
The votes are not surprising at all, but I think there's one line of thought that's underrepresented. If you think of yourself as the gift-giver, that kit is a joke. We are "in the know," and we can put together a kit that's luxurious and enticing with better quality materials for much less than $98.
But think of yourself as the consumer - a woman in her 20s who doesn't know anyone who knits, who doesn't know about all the resources out there at local yarn shops and on the web, someone who "doesn't know any better," if you will. If such a woman stumbles upon this kit at the Anthropologie store, I think this kit is a good idea ("yes" to the second question I posed). It has the cool Anthropologie appeal: she can say to her friends, "Look at what I got at Anthropologie!" and they won't frown in the same way as if she said, "Look at what I got at that yarn shop in Boston." Not that she would ever even venture into a yarn shop. The yarns are cool and totally wearable, and as soon as she realizes that the booklet sucks and the needles suck, she'll get her butt to the yarn shop and we'll have a convert for life.
At least that's how the scenario plays out in my head :).
Posted by Kathy at 06:39 PM | Comments (50)Is that... homework you're doing?
“What’s this,” you ask?
Oh, just a little pattern maintenance homework, if you will ;).
When it became apparent that many knitters were not able to get a properly-fitting Jaywalker following my pattern, I decided it was time to do a little update and write up two more sizes – bigger is often better, especially when it comes to tight socks.
But before I could give out any numbers to the trusting knitters out there, I certainly had to sit down and at least turn a heel or something. Which I did, and of course I caught some mistakes, so it was a good idea :). I also followed Natalia’s toe-up Jaywalker instructions to double-check the numbers. While I didn’t check or work the actual toe-up flap heel (how cool is that?!?), the rest of the numbers matched up to the original pattern perfectly - thank you, Natalia!
Oh, and Cara is the fab Jaywalker KAL hostess with the mostest over at january one, so pay her a visit! Just a few days ago she put together a post with some very helpful pattern info.
If you're saying to yourself, "geez, I already finished my Jaywalkers!" then you should consider having a picture of your little bundle of joy in the gallery - leave me a comment if you're interested!
But for all of you still working, for all of you who perhaps aimed to make a Jaywalker with an 8” circumference, but came up with something that was only 6.5 inches, here’s the deal:
If your gauge is significantly tighter than the specified 38 sts over 4 inches / 10 cm in zigzag pattern stitch, you may want to try knitting the sock using more stitches, an obvious first step. Starting with 84 sts gives a sock that’s 10% wider than the smallest 76-stitch sock; starting with 92 sts, the sock is 20% wider, and starting with 100 sts, the sock will be 30% wider than the smallest 76-stitch one.
The instructions for the 84-stitch sock are in MagKnits, and the details for the 92- and 100-stitch socks can be found on the new Jaywalker page.
And if you catch any boo-boos, you let me know, okay?
Posted by Kathy at 01:43 AM | Comments (13)December 01, 2005
I'm SO getting kicked out of The Club
As before, my apologies for website downtime last night - I exceeded my bandwidth once again. With the upgrade earlier this month, I hope this is the last time.
Well, I did it. My latest indiscretion is bound to get me kicked out of the Knitter's Club.
This is the secret sewing project I've been mentioning here ("here" being my knitting blog) for a while now, and it is finally done.
Recipient: Jennifer's baby! Jen reads my blog, and I wanted the gift to be a surprise, so the project was a secret until now. The wee one is set to arrive any moment now, and we do not yet know whether it's a boy or a girl.
Pattern: it started out as the Baby Giraffe Blanket from Vogue Knitting on the Go - Baby Blankets
Materials:
On the knitting end: Hand Work Cora, about 3 skeins of each yellow and blue, US 6 needles.
On the sewing end: Wilmington Prints Color Visions cotton for the backing and white flannel for the lining, about 3/4 of a yard of each, 2 packages of bias quilt binding.
Finished size: 24" wide X 27.5" long
Click on the extended entry link to catch up on months' worth of progress. I promise to butcher all sewing terms, make up new ones, and curse yarns with improperly-set twist - it will be a good time ;).
Isn't it adorable? The pattern had me captivated from the first moment I saw it. It was only a matter of time before the first victim got knocked up and I could knit this cute thing for her and her baby. When Jennifer and her husband decided to not find out the sex of their baby during the pregnancy, I thought that this would be the perfect gift because it's very gender-neutral.
But sometimes cuteness is only paper deep. When I knit up the first of the giraffe blocks, I had very mixed feelings - to me, it looked nothing like a giraffe! Not to mention it took forever to work all that intarsia and weave in all those ends. I consulted several bloggers for advice, and surprisingly they didn't have much to say about the resemblance of the giraffe to a retarded alpaca, but fixated on the back of the block, which was very unsightly. "Huh," I thought, "they're right! Whether I keep or nix the giraffes, I better line this blanket!"
Needless to say, the giraffes were nixed - I just couldn't be bothered with all that work considering the results were not pretty (if the giraffes came out cute, I would have slaved away, don't doubt it for a second!). From that point on, the blanket became known as the "no-longer-giraffe" blanket among my circle of knitblogging friends.
Believe it or not, the pattern specifies knitting that entire blanket in ONE piece. That's even worse than making it from individual squares! Can you imagine the intarsia hell?!? I decided to knit the blanket in four vertical strips. As a result, my seaming and intarsia-induced madness were minimal, and I invested the saved time and energy in lining up those strips perfectly, each little V opposite its neighbor, especially at the meeting point of four squares.
I put the seamed blankie, as well as some backing fabric I purchased at Fabric Place through the washing machine and the dryer to let everything shrink, stretch, take its shape, whatever.
That's where the troubles began.
I ended up with perfectly nice cotton fabric for the backing, but the handknit fabric acquired a non-rectangular parallelogram shape (for the non-geometrically inclined, think of a playing card diamond!). After speaking with a few knitters who are also spinners, I've learned that if one knits a square, but it comes out as a parallelogram (in my case, this feature revealed itself after washing), the spin of the yarn was not properly set. I was bummed, but not stopped. I immediately started to think of solutions.
As I saw it, there were two options: I could go with the flow - keep the parallelogram shape, and cut up the cotton backing in the same shape, attach the two, and that would be that. OR, I could force the parallelogram handknit to become a rectangle by attaching it to a rectangular-shaped backing.
I opted for the latter. At first I only planned to attach the two along the edges, but basting revealed it would not be enough to force the knit parallelogram to be a rectangle. Plus, there would be this big pocket of air in the middle. So, I decided to, basically, quilt the whole thing, attaching the two three pieces of fabric along the edges of all the squares (somewhere between here and there I stuck another piece of lining fabric between the knit and the backing for extra cushiness, and because I felt the backing was too transparent). Carrie talked me into doing the whole thing by hand. This would be more time-consuming, but supposedly it's more invisible and accurate than if I were to use a sewing machine.
I made up a grid of how the squares would fit in an ideal situation, and used the red threads you see as guides, since the handknit squares were distorted into parallelograms.
The hand sewing took the longest... months. I think that's because I'm a novice seamstress and needed to learn how to efficiently flip this entire blanket from one side to the other with every stitch. Eventually I got very good at sewing with both hands - on one side I would push the needle with my left, and on the other, with my right. I'm thinking this is the sewing equivalent of knitting backwards ;).
Attaching the blanket binding was not difficult at all; I think that's because I used the sewing machine - it only took me a few hours. I even joined two pieces of bias binding all on my own! The right way! (if it's okay, we will not discuss how many times I joined the two the wrong way before getting it correct). Binding cut on the bias was interesting to work with, and I think given the choice, I wouldn't use it again because I didn't need any stretch in the horizontal direction, and it just puckered under the presser foot unnecessarily. But Fabric Place didn't have other options, and I certainly wasn't about to make my own :).
The special touch - a custom label ;). Here I used some scrap backing material, sewed it into a tube, turned it right side out with a pencil, then attached a little label just like in the tutorial. I sewed the whole thing into the binding, and I think the mom may use that to hang the blankie on a hook if she wants.
Last, I closed up the mitered corners and the binding seam by hand, and machine-washed and dried the whole assembled thing while praying to the sewing gods - will all my work be enough to allow the rectangular blanket to keep its shape? Or will it go back to its parallelogram ways as soon as the washing was done?
I examined the dried blankie, whispered "thank you!", popped open a diet Pepsi, and sat there on the couch, perfectly satisfied :). The improperly-set twist was an unwelcome surprise, and the hand stitching to combat it took some time, BUT I love the final product. It is a rectangle. It's a soft and sturdy surface to put the little one. I. LOVE. IT.
Next time? I would line a blanket in a heartbeat as long as I could do the whole thing using the sewing machine.
Can I make one last plea to remain in The Club? Please? Look, here's a picture of my sewing machine. I am not kidding when I say I have no idea what this sewing thing is about. Look! The knobs of my machine are marked to tell me which sets the stitch length, and which the stitch width! I'm clueless!
