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March 27, 2008
A win-win gift
A friend's bridal shower registry contained all kinds of foreign-to-me objects: a trivet, a plate stand, pot and pan handle grips, an avocado slicer, a probe thermometer, a microplane grater (actually, I know what that is, if only because dark chocolate shavings on top of everything is a life necessity)... you get the idea. Clearly she's into cooking, while I'm into... crafting! We all have our different skills and passions ;).
It would have been perfectly fine if I got her some of the gadgets on her list. But I decided that putting a crafting touch on some kitchen linens would be even better. It would allow me to connect our two passions - I would make something that my friend would use in her kitchen. It's a win-win!
I got a set of three bar mop towels, and tipped them with some fabric along one of the short edges.
I used a navy blue cotton and a white-red cotton blend, cut the fabric into strips along the crosswise grain, joined them on the bias at random intervals, and attached the tape to the towels following angry chicken's brilliant bias tape tutorial.
While sewing, I slipped in a length of grosgrain ribbon to make a hanging loop, and sealed the ends for tidiness.
At the moment I'm working on a similar embellishment for a set of linen-cotton dishtowels. I really like these - the fabric is rustic and highly textured, but it softens up after every wash. I think these dishtowels would make great casual dinner napkins, actually.
Here I'm attaching the binding a little differently: I'm using the French double-fold binding technique described in Machine Quilting Made Easy
This book warrants a second mention - I really love it. It is small (only 60-odd pages) and topical, written in an entirely understandable language with simple and clear diagrams. It has so many practical tips - how to join pieces of batting, when to use decorative threads and how to adjust your machine's tension when you're using them, how to make a streamlined and smooth quilt sandwich, which quilt lines need to be stitched first, and the right way to "stitch in the ditch" (I won't even admit to my former misunderstanding of this technique - it's shameful).
I don't know if the other books in The Joy of Quilting series are as good, but I requested many of them via inter-library loan, so I'll find out soon. A Perfect Match
I will tell you more about this second set of dishtowels once I'm done with them. Like all works-in-progress, I'm modifying the precise way in which I'm doing things as I go along, from one napkin to the next ;). So, please, stay tuned!
Posted by Kathy at 11:56 AM | Comments (26)March 25, 2008
Incompatible?
My working table:
My coffee table:
Incompatible, or is Kleenex in left, rotary cutter in right a-okay?
Sidenote 1: While I arranged the goods on the working table a bit so you could see everything, the coffee table is honest-to-goodness "as is."
Sidenote 2: Today I'm loving: my Clover bias tape makers, Machine Quilting Made Easy
March 20, 2008
Don't worry, keep knitting
Yeah, okay. I definitely owe you some better photos of the fabulous color combinations, courtesy of the artists at Lorna's Laces.
Now let's see if I can show by example how to get there, without any jogs.
Note: The Knitter's Handbook
I know it's hard to see what's going on with the stockinette wanting to curl outward and all, so the labels are there to help you. Also, isn't the reverse stockinette of this fabric gorgeous?!?
When knitting in the round, attach as many yarns as you'd like, in the order you want the stripes to appear.
In simple terms: The easiest way to do this is to attach colors at evenly-spaced intervals - at the junction of double-pointed needles, as you see here, or at evenly-placed markers if you're knitting a hat, for instance. You can do the attaching by simply picking up a color and starting to knit with it until you encounter the next marker, or by casting on a fraction of the stitches with each color you plan to use.
The whole story: You don't have to use exactly four colors if you're using five dpns as I do here - you can use more or fewer! And of course you don't have to space your yarns exactly 1/n stitches apart (where n = number of skeins of yarn you're using) - you can introduce them every two stitches, if you wish. But let's go with the simplest method first. After knitting a few rounds following these instructions, you'll be able to deduce all the variations on your own ;).
With each yarn, knit until you encounter the next one. After you've done so with every yarn, you will have knit every stitch once; in other words, you will have completed one round.
In simple terms: Pick up the yarn at the beginning of your round - in my case, that's lilac. Knit with it to the end of the needle, where natural happens to be hanging out. Abandon lilac, pick up natural, and work to the next junction of needles. Repeat with blackberry and navy.
Now navy is at the beginning of the round. Pick it up, and repeat the process!
The whole story: At any given point, you can pick up any of the yarns attached to your knitting and work with it until you reach the next yarn. The only rule: if you reach a junction where two yarns are attached, work with the lower one. No need to pay attention to where the rounds begin, or where you left off last time... You're working a spiral which is n stitches high (where n = number of skeins of yarn you're using), and the colors will arrange themselves accordingly.
In other words - don't worry, keep knitting, things will come out just fine :).
Posted by Kathy at 01:15 PM | Comments (98)March 19, 2008
Spiraling
The thing about "knitting in the round" is that it's a bit of a misnomer. In actuality, when we knit continuously around an imaginary (or real!) cylinder, we are knitting "in a spiral."
Forgive my stinky-ass diagram. It's certainly better than Plan A: using a drawing of a coil generating a magnetic field, and superimposing stitches on top of it. But it's not quite Plan C: begging TECHknitter to make the diagrams for me (how does she do it?!?).
Anyway, the blue stitches in the back would obviously appear as purl bumps from this angle, but I hope you get the idea.
For those of us familiar with crocheting, the idea that working "in the round" is actually an exercise in "spiraling" is even more evident: sometimes we have to add extra stitches and make other such provisions as we move from one level of the coil to the next.
Not that I would know anything about that particular brand of black magic. Crocheting. Pssshhh!!! Nope, not here.
Our brains are forced to do a little bit of gymnastics as soon as we decide to add a stripe to our "knit in the round" project. Take any circular segment of the spiral, and you will realize that it doesn't close on itself. The beginning and end are not in the same plane - one is higher than the other!
There are many ingenious techniques for hiding "the jog" when colors are changed while working in the round. But that's not what I'm getting at here. In your three-dimensional mind, imagine two coils traveling around the same imaginary cylinder. If we're talking about knit stitches of fixed height, the pitch of each coil doubles as they swirl in parallel.
And each coil can be a different color. And there can be more than two! And round and round each will travel, entirely continuously, without any jog, forming stripes of different colors.
I first came across the notion of Helix stripes in Montse Stanley's Knitter's Handbook
Helix stripesA truly ingenious way of avoiding steps at the start of the rounds and having to carry yarns at back of work, when knitting one-row stripes in circular knitting.
Divide the work into as many, roughly equal, groups of stitches as colors you want to use. Either put each group on its own double-pointed needle, or use needle markers if working with a circular needle. Work 1st group in 1st color, 2nd group in 2nd color, etc.
Work next round similarly, but using the colors as they come - 1st group with last color from previous round, 2nd group with 1st color, etc. Repeat. If working in this way right from the start, cast on each group in a different color.
I accidentally "fell into" the genius of this technique when designing the Art Deco beret. I was using two balls of yarn - one with beads, and one without - and had to alternate them on every round. Somewhere my "twist the yarns in the back to avoid holes" went wrong, and I was suddenly spiraling! Knit one round, pick up the other yarn, knit another round, pick up the first, and so on. Helix stripes à la Montse! No jogs, no holes, no twisting, nothing. Nothing! No tangling, either, since the yarns travel above and below one another, never across. It was so cool.
And what a clever, clever way to use up leftover sock yarn! Perfect stripes, no jogs, and the color combinations are endless.
Do you now see why I referred to the way I knit socks as a determinant of the number of colors I would choose from my pile? Since I love to use 5 dpns, it makes sense to use 4 different colors! Of course I could use more or fewer... or even two balls of the same color one right after the other for a double-thick stripe... but I'm getting ahead of myself here :).
Although I was leaning towards the pinks and reds at first, I decided to use the combination of natural, lilac, navy, and blackberry for these socks. I've weighed the yarn I'm using, and will definitely let you know how much of each color gets eaten up. This information is as much for my benefit as anything, since my navy leftovers are quite limited and I want to make sure I don't run out. Or maybe the second sock will stripe lilac, blackberry, and white... only three colors. That would be quite comical!
The pattern itself is basic - CO 66 sts with blackberry, work K4, P2 ribbing for 20 rounds, divide sts into groups of 16 or 17 and start the spiral! A short-row heel and plain toe will follow, also in worked in blackberry.
In the photo above, can you see where I started the lilac and natural spirals?
Posted by Kathy at 03:44 PM | Comments (62)March 18, 2008
Lorna's Laces scheming
The current state of my brain: scheming.
From left to right, LL SS in natural, peach, cranberry #1, lilac, cranberry #2, blackberry, navy, and cedar.
I won't use them all at once. In fact, because of the way I knit socks, I will choose exactly four colors for this project.
Which colors? What project? Any guesses???
Posted by Kathy at 10:49 PM | Comments (24)March 14, 2008
Propelled
From my last post and the (very helpful!) comments that followed, I conclude the following:
- In a crafty family, no one ever eats at the dining room table. If Mr. Sweetness and I are ever lucky enough to have a dining room in addition to an eat-in kitchen, we will stop the charade and arrange it for its proper purpose (office, craft space, etc.) from the get go.
- Above-desk (or couch, or bed) shelving is an awesome idea. I will have to make sure my next landlord allows wall-mounted shelves (the current one doesn't).
- I must have this sewing/craft cart from Sauder.
I love that the whole thing is on casters, so it can be stored in the closet, or the kitchen, and then rolled to the living room for crafting. I love that there's a dedicated storage space for the sewing machine, but that the machine's position is not fixed on the tabletop - I can move it forward and back, right and left, depending on my project.
- Talking about my lack of sewing productivity propels me to sew! Even with the disadvantage of having to miss my sewing class yesterday! (stupid MBTA Red Line)
I finished the three zippered pouches which have been sitting on my desk for a week! (item #9 in last entry's photograph)
I pieced together the 5 rows which make up the String Quilt Set on Point!
And today I plan to finish putting together the quilt top! Though I'm realizing that this will be very tricky, having to line up all the fabric intersections at once... Hmmm... Any advice?
Posted by Kathy at 10:15 AM | Comments (53)March 12, 2008
Productivity
Despite my best intentions, my String Quilt Set on Point is as incomplete today as it was more than a month ago.
I enjoy sewing so much, yet I hardly ever find myself actually doing it. I ask myself, why is that so?
It's not an issue of inspiration. Over the past half a year or so, I've started to collect back issues of Quilts Japan, most of them from eBay. These magazines are filled to the brim with inspiration: quilt block construction, designs and patterns, color combinations, and everything in between.
It's not a matter of time - I find time to knit, so why not sew? Nowadays I actually have more than enough time on my hands (oh, unemployment, I heart you and hate you at once). Plus I have my sewing class - that ensures that I get behind the machine at least once a week!
Partially, my equipment (or lack thereof) is to blame. My $88 Singer is a trooper, and has always performed the best that it can, but it's not a machine which can handle serious sewing. It has always had tension issues, and at best the bobbin side of the sewing looks "passable". If several layers of fabric are involved, or I'm sewing something heavier, the wrong side looks awful. For a long while now I've been contemplating an upgrade - a workhorse Elna, Bernina, Pfaff, etc. - but my budget absolutely cannot accommodate such a purchase. I should investigate one of those "Contribute to Kathy's Elna fund" buttons on my sidebar ;). Until then, the Singer will have to do.
The real hindrance to my productivity is my lack of dedicated sewing space. I have only one desk in my tiny 386-square foot apartment: it's a simple table from Ikea, about 36" X 24" in size. I know its dimensions because the tabletop is almost the exact size of my 36" X 24" Olfa mat. But on a typical day, my sewing machine is nowhere near this table. To put it there, I first have to clear off all the junk.
- the mail
- my computer and mouse
- my watch
- notes, pens, miscellaneous stuff
- drinking cup
- sweater shaver
- calculator and accounting book
- pile of papers and books
- sewing project
- knitting catch-all - patterns, notions, and other miscellany
- computer speakers
- under desk - yarn storage
What's worse, I have to put all that stuff back on the table after I'm done with the sewing! Oh, brother!
Is it any surprise that this set-up is entirely counter-productive?!? And that knitting, which can be done in nearly any space, is my predominant hobby?
If you live in a tiny apartment, how do you manage your space-occupying activities, such as sewing, spinning on a wheel, weaving, etc.? Do you have dedicated space for these hobbies, or end up assigning multiple uses to whatever little space you have?
Posted by Kathy at 08:14 PM | Comments (91)March 10, 2008
In the name of buffalo
Simply put, intarsia is consuming my life.
I never made any pretense that I like knitting intarsia. There are more fiddly techniques (cough Magic Loop cough), and less fiddly ones (stranded knitting in the round), so intarsia is somewhere in the middle of the annoyance scale for me. I like following the charts, I don't mind weaving in the ends and straightening out the design (at all), but the whole "a strand of yarn for each color section" gets me all discombobulated.
Behind every gorgeous buffalo is an unrivaled tangle of yarns. That's the bit that kills the loveliness of intarsia for me. I've tried using bobbins to keep the strands apart, but they just don't work for me. They feel like someone is sitting on my bag of yarns and I have to fight their weight to get out every single inch!
So, I let the strands tangle as they will, I let entropy rule, I yank and I coerce, and sometimes I join a new strand rather than untangle... and then I gleefully cut off the whole ugly mess after the intarsia motif is done. And into the trash can it goes!!!
What aspects of intarsia, if any, do you enjoy making? If you don't like any aspects of the process, what would convince you to knit an item with intarsia motifs?
Posted by Kathy at 08:03 PM | Comments (73)March 07, 2008
Eye Candy Friday: game edition
It's Friday, let's do something fun and mindless today! How about a little game?!?
Fact: this yarn is Alpaca Sox by Classic Elite Yarns, a slinky blend of alpaca, merino, and nylon.
Question: take a good look at the color cards - which colorways do these photos represent? (bigger and better photos of the different colorways can be seen at The Loopy Ewe)
Answer: Both photos are the Fruit Salad colorway!
Now, this isn't like that cranberry Lorna's Laces thing I told you about a little while ago. Both photos capture the same dye lot! What's more... the two photos are of the same skein of yarn! Amazingly, the colors of the yarn pooled when I wound it! I snapped a photo of one side of the skein, rotated it 180°, and took the second photo.
After seeing this pooling tendency in the untouched skein of yarn, I was very leery about the sock that would emerge from this monster.
Thankfully, the colorway doesn't pool at all when knit into a sock! Who would have thought?!? Pooling in the skein, but not in the sock!!!
Posted by Kathy at 10:07 AM | Comments (29)March 04, 2008
Steaming
A long awaited update: the buffalo are indeed multiplying!
Two completed sleeve caps = two completed sleeves!
Can you tell that the sleeve cap on the left is blocked, but that the one on the right isn't? I really wanted to show you the remarkable difference between the two, but couldn't figure out the very best way to photograph "silky and smooth" compared to "bumpy and rough." Maybe showing you the wrong sides would help?
WARNING: The photo below is not for the weak of heart! It is the wrong side of a sweater with intarsia motifs! There are many strands of yarn and their corresponding ends, and the whole thing is just plain un-pretty!
Do you see the smooth fabric on the left, and the textured mess on the right?
At least you're seeing the back after I wove in the ends. Just try to imagine the fabric before: all kinds of tension issues to be tweaked and lengths of yarn dangling every which way! Weaving in the ends was the first pass at getting everything to look good - a little pull here, a little nudge there, maybe even a duplicate stitch if the situation called for it.
For this particular project I decided that steam blocking was the way to go. I wanted as much control as possible over every little stitch. Dunking the whole thing into a water bath wouldn't allow me to take my time, perfecting every area in turn. Also, after steam blocking the knit pieces are pretty much ready to go - maybe they're just a bit moist, but air-drying overnight takes care of that.
So, I placed the fabric on my ironing board, set my iron heat on "low-ish", my steam on "full blast", and got to work! Holding the iron about 1" above the fabric, I allowed the steam to penetrate a particular area, and then took the iron away. I patted the fabric with my hand to smooth it out, and then used a sock needle to... coerce imperfect stitches into submission (Bwahaha! Also, a little scary!). If it seemed like the fabric wasn't getting moist enough, I misted it with a water bottle. I repeated this process as many times as necessary for everything to look good. Then I placed a thin kitchen towel over the whole thing, and glided my iron over the fabric a few times. Flip to the wrong side, and glide over a few more times.
It's important to remember that exposing wool to steam and heat in actuality felts it! Slow, gentle, and in a controlled fashion, but it's felting nonetheless. And even though felting cannot be undone, the process allows the big bumpy mess to morph into smoothness! Careful... careful... steady does it...
The last thing I want to show you is in the category of "there's more than one way to skin a cat":
I knitted the intarsia on the left, and Cari's mom knitted the intarsia on the right (I wove in ends on both pieces, however). Note how differently we chose to work our intarsia! Cari's mom, a true intarsia-holic, did not hesitate to use a gazillion little bobbins, seemingly one for every little patch of color. I, on the other hand, tried to strand the yarns whenever possible! Limit the strands, limit the ends!
Posted by Kathy at 01:33 PM | Comments (24)March 02, 2008
Cabled
Have you ever started a cabling project only to discover that your yarn choice was all wrong? Your cables faded into the background, or were just unbearably limp and flat? Your stockinette, while smooth and drapey, didn't have the promising stitch definition that would suggest gorgeous cables?
A pleasant contrast:
In The Knitter's Book of Yarn
You mean, a most excellently defined ribbing?
And heel gussets to make one weak in the knees?
Yes, indeed!
How do you know if the yarn you have slated for your next cabling or sock project is "cabled"? Well, it has to be made up of "multiple-plied yarns that are then plied together." Check it out!
Postscript: Panda Wool is technically a "multi-strand" not a "cabled" yarn, though the properties of the two are the same for our purposes. To read up on the difference, check out page 177 in Clara's book. Also, apologies for taking so long to mention The Knitter's Book of Yarn
