Current Knitting

 Warning: This blog post contains Harry. 

Puddle #1: The King Bat Shawl

Harry has refused to budge when I asked him to help out, but I am slowly creeping around the edging, having actually finished one and a half sides. Although I try very hard to do at least one repeat a day, just about anything, including a compulsion to alphabetize my sock drawer, is sufficient to divert my attention. As someone once remarked to me about the first The Lord of the Rings movie: "I thought they would never get to Rivendell...." And speaking of the endless march to Rivendell, we have...

Puddle #2: The Queen Susan Shawl

Although I dearly love the pattern, I have to admit that it is a stupefyingly boring knit. The delicate tracery is mostly composed of a single motif, and I am thoroughly weary of it. Being only on Row 52 of 165, this initially sweet little pile of fluffy gossamer has mutated into the Tyrannosaurus Rex of the UFO basket, snapping and growling at me whenever I pass it by. Which I try to do often. But I gamely knit at least five rows a week, because I want to see it finished. I try not to look ahead to the interminable edging, lest I suffer mental collapse before the border is actually started. Harry furtively backs away towards the vegetable keeper, because he knows he promised to knit rows 53-63...

Genuine Finished Objects
There are few things in a knitter's life more precious than a friend who is always cold, and thus actually needs warm hats, mitts, and other small, fuzzy, and quickly finished objects. The Queen Susan Shawl of Avoidance has driven me into a relative frenzy of knitting winter gear, for example...

A lovely pair of Whitewater mitts out of Mini Mochi....

And a little Bainbridge neckwarmer out of handspun merino/angora/silk.

And lastly, because, next to a chilly friend, those with babies are also useful, as I can knit silly stuff like this:

The mitts, scarf, and elephant patterns are free on Ravelry and take little yarn, not much time, and, most importantly, have no edging whatsoever.

Those who have asked after Harry can draw comfort (or not) from the fact that he did not fall into a volcano, get eaten by an aardvark, or retire from the knitting world. He has, however, traded in his karaoke machine for a set of ten-pins. He thoughtfully set up a practice lane on the headboard of our bed, so we will always be aware of when he gets a strike and can wake up to give him a reward.

He generally bowls with his millipede buddy, Clarence, and Harry is currently knitting him a set of socks. He claims this project is preventing him from fulfilling the promises made to help out with the Puddles, but I think he's even more bored by edging than I am.

Back to the Future

1968. Viet Nam. Rolling Stones. Martin Luther King. Bobby Kennedy, Alice's Restaurant. Apollo 8.  Spinning. Knitting, Macrame.

Yes indeedy. I once made a macrame thingie that hung on my dorm wall next to a Jefferson Airplane poster:

I wasn't at all fond of macrame, but I loved the colors of this piece, and so it travelled around with me, hanging around on walls while I did other things. When we moved from Maryland to Georgia, I noticed it looked rather scruffy.  I removed it from the wall and thoughtlessly asked Roy to toss it out. Which, of course, he didn't do. He still has his grade school report cards.

2010. Iraq. Afghanistan, Rolling Stones (they are still giving concerts!). etc. etc. yadda yadda. Spinning. Knitting.  Dyeing. A few months ago, I spotted a gorgeous batt All The Pretty Fibers' store on Etsy. I quickly dropped it into my shopping cart...the lovely colors rang a bell.

Then I asked Roy where that old macrame thingie was. And sure enough...

I will spin one of the batts into a graduated yarn, perhaps to knit either Aeolian or Luiza .


It's amazing that a color scheme I admired 40-odd years ago is still beautiful to me.  And even more remarkable that Roy actually found the wall hanging in the basement. Of course, he will never let me forget that he saved it so I could write this blog post. Sigh.

Dremel Guy Strikes Again~

I rather enjoy knitting with beads, although it does slow me down, mostly because of the small number of beads that will fit onto a normal crochet hook. Cheeto here, will demonstrate.

First, you whisk the hook around in the little bead pot. If you're lucky, you'll snag four beads.

After placing these little guys onto your lovely knitted object, you do some more fishing....

And once more..................

And again.......................................

After the eleventy-millionth fishing expedition of the day, I stared at the crochet hook for a few minutes. ....gotta be a way...mumble mumble...., of course!  fleegle yells for...............

Dremel Guy!

Dremel Guy flashed into the room wearing his Formal Socks, a Cape of Invincibility (tm), a Really Old T-shirt, and, of course, his hand-held Miracle Machine! After whisking my hook away, he returned an hour later with this:

Both Cheeto and I were thrilled with the result....

The hook's not much good for crocheting anymore, but the last time I used a size 13 crochet hook to actually crochet was, um, let's see.........scribble........scratch........scribble..........never gonna tell them that number.....Suffice it to say, a long time ago. And I have a spare just in case I take up doilies again. Heh.

Intwined Studio Charting App for Knitters

I truly am useless at reading written-out patterns, so I have, over the years, collected almost every charting program for knitters that appeared on the market in the hopes that one of them would be the Killer App of Chart Knitting. I did not purchase the extravagantly expensive application that appears years ago whose name escapes me, but I did shell out $185 for Knit Visualizer when it was released. I rarely use it--I prefer Excel. Most of what I chart are older patterns with written directions, and I dislike KV's awkward single-line pattern parser, which is unforgiving of mistakes. (There are other things I don't especially care for in KV, but this post isn't about Knit Visualizer, so I won't whine any further about it.)

Anyway, I was rather blown away when I started playing with Intwined Pattern Studio. First of all, it costs $44--a whopping bargain of gargantuan proportions, because it not only contains all of Knit Visualizer's features, but allows full-page editing of charts and directions.

The main chart screen is divided into three sections.

On the top is the chart and to the left, are three lovely collapsible palettes that can be positioned anywhere on the page or closed up to save screen real estate.

The Stitch palette shows you the stitches in the chart and the Colors palette displays colors in use--both palettes save a lot of time, as you can instantly reuse items without scrolling through a long list of symbols.

The Stitch palette itself is quite exhaustive, but if you need a special symbol, you can design one.

What's especially nice about the Symbol library is you may rearrange stitches into categories, create custom categories, and edit the abbreviations and descriptions. If you collaborate with someone else  and created a group of special symbols, you can export symbol sets and email them to your partner.

The Stitch Library uses bitmap symbols, not fonts, so you can import your own pictures and use them in the library. You can also edit the current settings. For example, I happen to like a dot instead of a dash for purl. So I changed it.

 

 

 Like other charting programs, you can add cheerfully colored borders and no-stitch symbols; flip chart areas horizontally and vertically; replace one symbol with another; and zoom in and out of the chart. You can also use colored boxes for the No Stitch symbol, or simply have them omitted from the chart.

The star of the show, though, is the window at the bottom of the display: it's where you can type (or paste) knitting instructions and see the corresponding symbols appear on your chart. Unlike Knit Visualizer, the entire written pattern is displayed at all times, and changes made to either the chart or the pattern are reflected in corresponding section. This feature is exceptionally useful, because you may access the whole design, not just a single line.

Note also in the image above that there is a lace setting--the program just skips alternate rows, which saves a lot of space.

Once are satisfied with the chart, you tell the program to copy the chart and switch over to the Document window. You'll see your chart there, and you may add any special instructions. This window is a full-featured word processor. If your design uses multiple charts, you can insert them, and you may drop photos into the document as well.

On the down side, you must save the stitch key as a separate image--a little annoying. And, while you can copy the written instructions into your document, the method is not obvious. I hope both these little foibles are fixed in a later version of the program. On the whole though, this program is powerful, customizable, delightfully easy to use, and won't have a significant impact on your yarn-buying budget.

By Popular Request (Sunglasses AND Hazmat Suit Required!)

Blog readers can sometimes be a bit, um, perverse. Here I went and posted my latest FO--Roy's Formal Socks--a work that reflects my impeccable taste and fashion sense, and all anyone wanted to see was the tuxedo that completes the outfit.

Note the unremarkable bow tie and studs. We just haven't found the perfect set to complement the jacket. Harry, of course, has a similar outfit, but I am afraid I melted all my camera lenses taking this picture, so you will have to use your imagination: Just think of a gigantic spider in psychedelic formal attire whizzing around on his purple iPod/skateboard.

Sorry about the headache.

I understand Knitty and Color is getting a bit tired of carding Jelly Bean batts. Apparently, Roy isn't the only one who owns tasteful tuxedos. Someone even commissioned me to spin six of these batts for her very own sets of formal foot covers.

I have been busily knitting away on the Queen Susan, but frankly, working on this shawl is akin to scrubbing Boston Common with a toothbrush. And it currently looks like a hairnet for 700-pound pumpkin. Nothing much to show yet. Check back in, say, six months.

Next week, I am off to the Maryland Sheep and Wool show. Several people have expressed interest in meeting me, so I made myself a t-shirt sporting my avatar on both the front and back. If you see a short lady wearing a rainbowed octopus, it's probably me. Stop and say hello!

Warning! Hazmat Suits Required

I refuse to answer any questions regarding the bobble yarn that so delicately rims the top of these socks. Suffice it to say that it's a long story involving Asherbanipal, a radish, two feemsters, and a Batmobile.

Warning! Sunglasses Alert!

DANGER! Do not proceed to read this post without an infallible pair of polarized sunglasses firmly placed on your nose.You have been warned!!

Several weeks ago, Roy announced that his only pair of formal socks had become listless and wan from years of washing. Please, could I create a fresh pair of socks that would exactly match his tuxedo?

I ordered a set of merino batts from Knitty and Color that precisely matched Roy's extensive written requirements. When the batts arrived, they immediately melted the 99-cent sunglasses I had foolishly donned as eye protection.

 I raced out to an optician and purchased the darkest pair of shades that the guy had in stock. Then I stripped the batts lengthwise to produce a continuous succession of  color, and ramped up my Hansen e-spinner.

The resultant yarn is equally eye-searing.

 As I was cajoling the camera lens to stay open while I took some photos, Cheeto scuttled into the room, whimpering "Mama!!!."

The reunion was tender, until I pointed out that, while the skein did seem to match his coloration, the texture was way off. Cheeto ignored me and demanded another touching family reunion photo.

For those interested in the technicalities, this stuff was spun using a squinting long draw and Navajo-plied in the dark. Heh. Just kidding.

Obtaining a smooth, lofty finished product is easy if you undertwist the singles and overtwist  the final yarn. If you overtwist both the singles and the final spin, you will end up with a tightly twisted yarn that lacks both smoothness and elasticity.

When I presented the ball of yarn to my collection of knitting needles, the entire pack rolled away screaming about union rules, toxic yarn, and my appalling lack of consideration. Cheeto valiantly snared a pair hiding under Harry, and we achieved cast-on shortly thereafter.

I haven't decided if these need bobbles. I will keep you posted.

Three Lovely Shawls

None of which are actually on my needles, because I am literally knee-deep in The Queen Susan. Having finished the center, I can testify to the fact that it going to be huge. A rough-block of the center measures about 40x40 inches--almost large enough to be a shawl in it's own right without the border and edging.

When I get tired of plowing through the border rows, I have three shawls in my queue competing fiercely for Right of First Cast-On.

Luiza

Designed by Jane A. (Mawelucky on Ravelry), this masterpiece is the Harry wants to knit first, if only because of the magnificent colors (matches his belly button rings, I was told). The original, shown here, was knitted with fingering-weight yarn, but the pattern is open-ended and can be made with any weight yarn by increasing the number of repeats or doubling a finer-weight yarn. You can buy the pattern on Ravelry, or get it free with my very own kit in my Etsy store. The kit yarn is a Zephyr-weight called Firebird (2/20 60% merino, 20%  cashmere, 20% silk),--a lustrous, soft, luxurious yarn custom-spun for me. The default kit is Black Plum and Black, but any main color, for example, Lapis) may be ordered instead.

The Persian Princess

This exquisite shawl was designed by Bad Cat specifically for Love Potion #3. The design is intricate and made even lovelier by the addition of sparkly beads and a feathery border. The pattern is free if you purchase a skein of LP3; otherwise, you can buy the pattern directly from the Ravelry store.

Faroesertuch mit Blättern und Blüten 

(Photo by uta953)

The name means "Faroese shawl with Leaves and Buds," which doesn't do justice to this breathtaking beauty designed by Utlinde. The original was knit with sport-weight mohair on size 7 needles, so it should be a fairly quick piece to do. Alas, I do not stock any such yarn in my store, but I do have some stash that would work beautifully for this--a ball of Lisa Souza's mohair in the Mother of Pearl colorway flashes to the front of my brain. The pattern is, believe it or not, free from the Ravelry store.

 

Current Knitting and Spinning

I tried. Honestly,  I tried. For a week now, I've been skittering around the floor holding a sign that read: Attention fleegle! It't time for a blog post! Unfortunately, fleegle merely smiled absently in acknowledgement, and then wandered away to do who knows what. Well, this morning, I really lost my cool. Well, a little bit of my cool, because I am too cool to lose all my cool, as you all well know.

Enlisting the aid of a few friends, we attached fleegle's laptop to a crane, levered it over the bed where she slothfully lay sleeping, and mostly carefully lowered it onto her person. I regret to say that, after the cable slippage, fleegle did wake up and pay attention, but the Raid attack was not exactly the result we were looking for.

So, I, Harry, will write the blog post instead.

First, I have here fleegle's Owl sweater. Very soft and warm. And actually pretty well knitted for a human. I have her knitting notebook right here, so let me flip through the pages and see what she made this thing out of.

......riffle riffle, fwip fwip....

Hmm.
Ah, here we go.

Onions
Tomatoes
Raid
Kleenex
Pork chops
..................

Whoops. Grocery list.

Ah, found it!

Size 5/7 needles, white Yubina Bulky cashmere knitted with one strand of Colinette Paresienne in the Marble colorway. Simple bottom-up seamless yoke sweater pattern made with Knitware. Owl cables from an old Mary Thomas book. Pearl beads from somewhere. Time: 6 days.

Piled on top of the owl sweater were several skeins of handspun. Rather nice handspun. In fact, the yellow merino yarn makes an excellent mattress for yours truly. Not much in terms of notes, I'm afraid. The orange is merino/silk from Corgi Hill, the yellow merino is from Funky Fiber, and the lovely black merino/angelina sparkly stuff is from Bohemia Fibers. All these were spindle-spun, but there is no indication which spindles she used. Sloppy record keeping.

 

And lastly, I dragged fleegle's Queen Susan out of the tacky plastic bag and spread it out the best I could. So far, it looks like she's half done with the center and, to my surprise, there is not a single coffee stain on the entire thing.

Had I been knitting it, I am sure it would have looked better, but this, after all, is about fleegle's knitting, so I am trying to be nice. It is not easy after spending two hours in the shower to remove lingering Raid fumes.

Bart & Francis Open House

Sigh. I wish I could be there. But there is a Big Pond between me and this exotic yarn extravaganza, which will take place in beautiful Belgium, January 30 and 31st, from 9:30 am-6:30 pm.

For those who don't know about Bart & Francis, go here and sigh with envy. The store carries a wide range of exquisite yarns--lace and otherwise--some of which are simply not available anywhere else. Their silk yarns make me weep a bit, and they stock exotica such as mirror and glass bead yarns, vicuna yarns, and linen and stainless steel thread.

If you can make it to the open house, you will be able to play with their fabulous offerings and I will hate you. The owners will handle your questions and assist those with special textile-related requirements to find exactly what you are looking for.

Francis assures me that all this will be done is a cozy atmosphere, featuring a never-before-encountered "Dump Your Husband Corner," stocked with a broad range of fancy alcoholic beverages and newspapers to keep him accupied while you, the textile lover, can range freely over their offerings. Of course, you can tenderly park your wife or SO there instead, and the brochures below indicate that tea and pastries are  also being offered.

And here is the announcement in a variety of languages :) Yarnlot, do enjoy your trip and post about it, because I am sure you won't want to miss this affair.

Bart & Francis

OverleieStraat  59

8500  Kortrijk

België

info@bart-francis.be

 

 

No-Purl Garter Stitch In-The-Round

Problem
When knitting a Shetland shawl, the center square is knitted back and forth in garter stitch. Then the border stitches are picked up around two sides of the square, thus producing the first row of a circular border. However, if you want to maintain garter stitch on the border, every other row needs to be purled. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with purling (there are even some knitters who prefer it), but for most people, purling can quickly get tiresome when the border has 1000+ stitches on each round.

Pseudo-Solutions
The alternative to purling every other round is to turn the work somewhere, somehow, and knit back, essentially knitting the border flat and using some hocus-pocus to bind the two border edges together. All of the solutions rely on a fancy wrap-and-turn on one corner...making a loose yarnover and knitting it with the next stitch; picking up the bump on one edge and knitting it with the last stitch of the row; sewing the seam when the border is completed, and so on. None of these solutions pleased me. I could always spot the turn line from a galloping horse. No good.

Fleegle's Solution

This humble-looking sample  represents a solution to a dilemma that has plagued knitters since the first dinosaur broke two limbs off a tree, wound some vines into a ball, and produced the world's first Stegosaurus shawl.

In the sample shown above, the border is knitted flat, not circularly, but there's no discernible seam, is there? The red arrow points to what you might think is the seam, but it's actually the place where the next row begins. Circular knitting, as you recall, isn't really a circle--it's a spiral.


The solution turns (bad pun, sorry) out to be relatively simple: knit the border using two balls of yarn, not one, alternating direction, so that one ball of yarn (A) is knitted in one direction, the other ball (B) in the other direction. The aqua arrow above shows the position of the yarns in the current row and the place where the switch will happen. The trick that makes this solution work is that A and B are going in different directions, there’s no turn at all, and thus no wonky seam line.

In the image below, the actual color/yarn change for the rows is shown along the dotted black line. Note that the yarn travels one stitch outwards with every other row because of the yarnover increases at the corners. I did a sample where I cheated one stitch and kept the change point in the same place with each row. It didn't make any difference--there still was no seam line.

Here are the directions for a little sample, so you can try this yourself. I used sock yarn scraps in two colors and cast on 13 provisional stitches because I am incredibly lazy and 14 stitches was just too much work. It's a small sample, so when you do the border, you'll need one additional circ or a set of DPNs to go round and round.

Knit a center square with Color A.

Pick (do not pick up and knit) up the stitches along the first side, slip the stitches from the provisional cast-on, then pick up the stitches from the third side, slip the last group of stitches. Don't forget to pick up a stitch at each corner.

Note: At this point, I strongly suggest you rearrange your stitches so that the corners fall towards the centers of your needles, not at the ends. Otherwise, you will be working yarnovers at the ends of your needles, and that's always messy.

You are now at the beginning corner.

Attach color B, turn your work, and knit all the way around to the beginning corner.

Drop B, turn, pick up A, and knit around, working an OKO at each corner.

Drop A, turn, pick up B and knit plain around.

And so on.

In this sample, you will always be doing OKO at the corners with color A and a plain knit row with color B.

I put a safety pin on the side where I should be knitting color A, so I didn’t get confused. Obviously, when you are knitting a real shawl, both balls will probably be the same color. I will therefore put a safety pin on one side of the shawl and a some indicator on the corresponding yarn ball when I use this technique on my Queen Susan shawl.

And, of course, this trick is not limited to shawls--it can be used any time you want to knit garter stitch in the round without purling.

Rana Pilosus

January 7, 2010
Dateline Kyzyl-Oi, Kyrgyzstan

Scientists today announced the discovery of the fabled Rana Pilosus, the Hairy Frog of knitterly legend! Hitherto mentioned only in passing on a multitude of knitting blogs ( as in "The yarn looked like frog hair, so I ran away screaming."), this endearing amphibian is no longer a myth, but a reality. In fact, Rana Pilosus cultivation turns out to be a major economic industry in a remote area of Kyrgyzstan.

Dr. Elmer Vrkyng and his graduate student, Bob "Hoppy" Hopper, semi-distinguished amphibian zoologists at the University of Uch-Korgon, made their tremendous discovery while floundering around in marshland north of town. Dr. Vrkyng explained that they had overindulged in fermented mare's milk (not much to do in Uch-Korgon besides drink and flounder) and decided to take a walk and clear their heads. Unfortunately, they wandered into the infamous Gryznyk Swamp and got, um, bogged down.

"Bob fell flat on his face, causing a torrential tidal wave that floomed all over my clean shirt. When the water, mud, and algae subsided, I felt a tickling sensation on my forehead. I reached up and discovered a webbed foot caught in my pith helmet. I tugged frantically on the squishy offending limb and was suddenly face-to-face with a genuine Rana Pilosus! His other leg was curled around my earlobe! I immediately whipped out my camera and took a picture of this monumental discovery."

Dr. Vrkynk and Mr. Hopper subsequently interviewed the nearby townspeople, most of whom were  oddly dressed in layers of delicate knitwear. Apparently, the surrounding area, being mostly swamp, was not conducive to raising sheep, yak, or vorpal bunnies. However, the town was overrun with furry frogs, especially during the Annual Festival of Flies, an occasion marked by fly-calling, fly-swatting competitions, fly markets, and highly decorated swatter sales.

Over the millenia, frog herding became the town's major source of income. The only other business in Kyzyl-Oi is a vowel importer, and apparently the import tax on A's and E's is so outrageous that the company only accepts a few shipments of I's and O's every year and thus doesn't offer much hope of employment. Mr. Krygzy, who owns the company, says Vrknuk's Vowels has spent a ton of grybzyfs in search of a new vowel, but have not had much luck so far.

In light of the poor job market, frog herding has become the sustaining business. According to Madame Grizkyrg, who owns the largest frog spread in the area, the Rana Pilosus is an economical crop, as the frogs take good care of their families, are excellent padkeepers, and require only an occasional rinse with conditioning shampoo to keep snarls and split ends under control. And, she adds, the frog industry is unquestionably Green!

Madame Grizkyrg explains. "Our frogs are free-range, happily playing cards and engaging in frog-wrestling tournaments by day, and indulging in karacroake at night. In June, the frog shearers armed with tiny scissors, lure the frogs (with homemade fly snacks) onto supersized pads, where they are carefully shorn of their pelts." She went on to say that the hair is then washed, sorted, and spun by the locals to produce extremely fine yarn, which is then knitted into garments during the severe winter months. As you can see from the picture, a shorn frog is a happy frog!

"One gram of frog hair, spun in our little factory, will produce over 5000 meters of yarn. And the frogs come in a wide range of colors and patterns, including polka dot and herringbone, so we don't have to worry about dyeing it," says Madame Grizkyrg.

  
She went on to say that the frogs make excellent pets, as they are clean and very intelligent. There are two frog trainers in town who coach the ambhibians in Kyrgyz, the native language, as well as instruct them in the rules of  Frog Paddy Bingo, a subject that will not be further discussed in this article. A new niche business has recently emerged, thanks a sizable grant from the TSA.  Azrygyr is one of several being trained as drug- and explosive-sniffing frogs.

The TSA will soon be deploying these little guys in both the personal security and baggage-screening areas. Being small, they can easily hop around inside carry-on and checked baggage. When contraband is detected, their hair stands straight up and vibrates silently, quietly alerting the agents. The frogs' foot-long tongues have been genetically modified to carry an electrical current and, on command from the TSA Frog Handlers, will zap offenders, who are then dropped through a trap door directly into a paddy wagon.

Dr. Vrkyng and Mr. Hopper will be staying in the town for three months studying this new genus before publishing their findings in Nature. After they have completed their research, they intend to start an eco-friendly frog-hair yarn exporting business. "Our enterprise should bring a business boom to Kyzyl-Oi," says Dr. Vrkyng.

All of us lace knitters look forward to seeing the product! Right? Don't we?