Moving on up

September 24, 2010

I have now reached the heel of my toe up socks and I am not as disappointed with the colour of the yarn as I was at first. The darkness and the heathered texture did not feature the lace stitch pattern as nicely as the light green yarn used in the book. It did help to try the sock on- a great advantage to toe up on two circular needles- it spread out the pattern and you could see the pattern of the lacey holes. Today at our Saturday morning knitting group that meets at the Vienna Café I was delightfully surprised that in the bright sunlight streaming in the windows you could see the swirly bits quite clearly, too. It’s interesting because I had taken the sock to the Thursday Knitting group that meets at the Anglican Church and the pattern was not as distinct because it was rather a grey overcast day. Everything goes better with sunshine in my books, and this is further proof.

OK, stepping on to the stingy knitting instructions soap box: As I am knitting the socks in reverse to the book instructions I discovered that there really isn’t an explicit instruction that indicates that the knitter should continue in stockinette stitch on the two needles for the rest of the foot after the heel. If someone wasn’t that experienced this could be a cause for ripping out. I know the photos are a great help for one to notice that the sole needs to be smoother but again; there is a lot of space there in that artfully laid out book where just a few phrases would make the way to proceed crystal clear.

At 3” shy of the back of the heel I had to begin increasing for the gusset of the heel. Wendy Johnson’s “Socks from the Toe Up” is a terrific guide. On page 41 she gives detailed instructions. She recommends a kfb for the increases. She also has a tip side line on page 31 recommending that you keep track of how many pattern repeats you knit before starting the heel and when doing the leg, this way your second sock will be identical.

I am really getting into this lace pattern. At first it is always a shock to see how thin sock yarn is and you feel like it will take forever to progress but then it slowly begins to build and you become encouraged by the preciousness of the hard won fabric.

Yarning

September 24, 2010

I think my husband has coined a new knitting term. Yesterday morning, soon after I woke up I began to wind up some yarn that I had been sorting through the night before. Later on while my husband and I were on our morning walk, I complained that I wished I had more time for a longer walk.

My husband remarked, “Well, if you hadn’t been knitting this morning, you would have more time.” I declared that I wasn’t knitting.

“OK”, he conceded, “but you were doing something with yarn.”

“I was winding yarn.”

“Well, from now on I will call it all Yarning.”

Yeah, that is what I was doing. I spend a lot of time yarning. I fondle the yarn; I reorganize my stash according to colour, texture, and gauge. I put different yarns together for future projects. While winding the yarn I go into a trance of considerations, floating combinations through my mind, considering the drape, the stitch pattern and the garment. Yarning is a favorite activity of mine. I like to just hang out with yarn period.

Below is a basket I started with yarns I am collecting for the yarns in 24/7. I was my most thrilled when I had to sort through my Koigu collection to make a colour selection for the “Elemental Pullover.” You can see it on the right of the basket. The brown and blue on the left are Classic Elite “Fresco” for the Redwork Cowl and Mitts on page 101.

Sept 19th con't

The yarn is Zitron’s “Trekking” Pro Natura. It is 75% New Wool and 25% Bamboo. (Really now when you see the designation of “New” wool you have to wonder: Have I been knitting with “Old” wool all this time? And just how long after it’s been sheared from the sheep to when they spin it determines the old from the new?) There is 420m on the 100g ball. Can’t remember where I bought it but it obviously cost me $20.70. It is a nice soft heathered purple-colour#1515.

I am using 2.25mm circulars and I am doing ONE at a time this time - so much calmer than the bag of snakes thing.

Two Down, Twenty-Eight to Go

September 19, 2010

As you can see from the photo I have finished knitting my gloves. I cast on September 9^th so that is 10 days of knitting. Not too bad for all the appendages. I, of course, will have to count tomorrow as the official finish day as I have yet to weave in my ends. Now I can’t remember what the rule was about starting another project before the “official finishing” of the previous one, but I couldn’t resist the casting on of the Lacy Cable socks, pages 112 to 115.

I have decided to knit them toe up and I am changing up the garter stitch toes for smooth stockinet. I might add beads at the tops too. I will have plenty of time to think about it as I experience the lace through the foot.

My new learning here will be doing a slip stitch heel from the bottom up. I prefer toe ups and I often do the short row heel. I have only ever done the slip stitch heel on the top downs. I am using Wendy D. Johnson’s “Socks from the Toe Up” for my tech support. I also used the Judy’s Magic cast on which is waay easier and less fussy than the short row cast on. I have done it once before on a pair of WIP ZauberBall socks.

I will also be doing the lace pattern upside down. This should be interesting, but I have turned the book upside down and I really don’t see much difference.

Touchy, touchy gauge or Peace Man part B

September 16 part B

Back to the 24/7 thing. .. I liked the way Julie had a countdown on her on her blog. I will speak to my techy to see if that is possible. The fingers have been interesting. I have a few technical things to talk about.

#1 . I have been using a double knitting technique I first learned about from Beverly Royce. She had her sweet knitted horse show up in Vogue Knitting. I wrote to her and bought her book. I explained that I was a Waldorf Kindergarten teacher and that we only have natural toys, etc. She not only sent me the book, she sent me a knitted horse as well. Such generosity.

In this technique you can knit in the round on 2 straight needles. You divide the stitches on 2 double pointed needles . Then take a third dpn and pick up 1 st from each of the needles alternately. When you knit you knit the stitch from the needle closest to you first, bring the yarn in front , slip the stitch from the back needle ,bring the yarn in back and repeat across.

I thought I would use this technique because 4 needles flying around such a small diameter can be a bit annoying. At first I picked up the stitches in the round knit a few rows and then switched to the double knitting. I had to start the first finger over because I noticed how the gauge was looser. I guess all that flipping of the yarn before and after the slipped stitch makes for more yarn. So I went down to a 2.75mm needle. Gauge is so sensitive. It is as if you need to check the barometric pressure before you knit.

#2. On the space between the fingers – which I affectionately call the crotch- the book calls for picking up 5 sts along the cast on edge on of the previously knit finger. I picked up 7 because I didn’t want any extra spaces or stretched stitches . I made a pair of gloves before in a larger gauge and I struggled with this. I just knit 2 together on the following rows to get it down to the right number.

#3. At the top of the fingers the book has 2 decrease rounds in a row. I couldn’t stand it and I knit 1 row even between the two decrease rows. Maybe I have especially pointy ended fingers but it seems to fit my fingers well- like a glove.

Touchy, touchy gauge or Peace Man

September 16 part A

Well as you can see from the photo I have finished the “peace fingers” on both gloves. I am working on them one finger on at a time. It is at times like these that I lament things like why do we have to have two hands or two arms when doing a sweater- the agony of gloves: why do we have to have Eight fingers and Two thumbs??! Any way this is when the dangerous WPI-itis has been known to strike in the past. So you can see that the blogging is helping. It is keeping me focused.

I just finished watching the movie Julie, Julia and now I know why someone told me that I needed to watch the movie after I explained to them about my Knitting 24/7 project. It is the story of how a woman starts a blog about cooking every recipe in Julia Child’s French Cook Book. It gave me pause for serious reflection- I, too, like the main character suspect the ADD thing is a major forming factor in my life and that is partially why I was motivated to do all the projects in the book- it gave me structure and focus. I recognized some of the overly dramatic reactiveness in the overall scheme of my life as well. And like I mentioned in the intro to the blog I have imaginary competitors that participate in my self invented contests. Like the time I won the knit a sweater in a week contest. I did knit all the parts to the sweater and finished just stitches ahead of my nearest competitor but alas lost the title when it took another 3 months before I sewed the pieces together. A technicality that I tried to argue with the judges- after all I did do the knitting part in less than a week.

Stingy Instructions and A Bag of Snakes

September 15

What I am about to comment on is in no way a criticism of the book but some observations in general about how instructions are written up in knitting patterns. The fact that almost all of my adult life has been focused on making knowledge accessible to learners of all abilities and differing styles of learning has also influenced how I view knitting instructions and probably not the opinion of the majority of knitters.

That said, I am taking issue with the last instruction on page 117 where it says:

Next Rnd: Work 24 sts, pm, k22, k2.

Now don’t get me wrong I love all the abbreviations and the code for the sake of simplicity but the simple phrase “in the established pattern” would be most helpful after “Work 24sts”. This would leave no doubts in the knitters mind and would not take up much room.

Then in the very next instruction at the top of page 118 and then again where it is repeated for the right hand glove is a circumstance I have come across quite often.

What is being asked for is to increase 2 sts. every 3^rd round, 7 times. As the instructions ar written there is room for interpretation as to whether it is 6 or 7 times. Just adding the word “more” to the phrase: “then every 3 rnds 6 times more” would clear it up or the phrase “for a total of 7 times”. Again it does not take up much room. It is not until the knitter does the math and figures out that in order to have a total of 62sts, the increases must happen 7 times does it become clear.

It is not a big deal and experienced knitters would figure a lot of this out just from looking at the photos but as well it would not unnecessarily complicate things just to add those few words and have no doubts.

I laughed when I went to knitting group Saturday morning and as I was bringing out my gloves , Suzanne said, “Oh that’s like trying to sort out a bag of snakes.” A much better description that the metal octopus metaphor. Those connecting wires are very ornery. I have also learned not to set down my work until I have completed the rounds on both gloves. Setting down the needles midstream is dizzying if you cannot remember where you finished off. But if just such an emergency should occur, it is better to stop in the middle of a side of one of the gloves than to stop between gloves.

I also learned about M1R and M1L. I guess I have been doing M1L all this time and didn’t recognize the difference in the slant of the stitches. You need to use a M1R on one side of the gusset and a M1L on the other in order to get the stitches to slant in towards the gusset. It looks so very neat and tidy. I finished the gussets last night and am moving on to covering the knuckles tomorrow.