I really should know better…

Note to self – when you decide to double the yarn to get a thicker gauge, DOUBLE the yarn you buy!

The cast on is beautiful.  The cabling is coming along nicely.  The yarn shop can’t lay hands on the same color of Lang Pearl…   I’m very sad right now.

So, I’ve got two other projects going in parallel.  A simple, repetitive pattern called ‘dream swatch’ and a crochetted hat.   I’ll call the LYS again today.

Lion Brand Incredible City Lights

That’s better…

OK, I think i’ve got a handle on it this time.

The thing is, I’m trying to do a non-standard cast-on.   It’s a modified version of Elizabeth Zimmermans (EZs) “invisible cast on” for ribbing,  Zimmerman, for some reason, knit several rows with her waste yarn before switching to the working yarn.  Then she knit several rows of stockinette with the working yarn (how many depended on the weight of the yarn in question) and, while on a reverse side row, alternated between knitting the working stitches with the ‘live’ stitches revealed when she removed the waste yarn.  She alternated between knitting and purling and set up her rib pattern that way.

Rather than knitting several waste rounds, I started with a crochet cast on, and knit three ’set up’ rows using the reverse of the knit/purl pattern I would normally use for a set up.

I worked more carefully than I usually do with crochet cast ons.  I made sure to pick up the stitches only through the back loop of the chain, and I marked the ‘end’ of the chain with a knot in the yarn.  Then I oriented my knitting so that it would unravel in the direction of the knitting.  The tail you see at the left of the picture is the end of the knitting round, so it’s the beginning of the chain (the side which wasn’t marked with the knot).  Note the neat and even chain?  That’s your check that you only caught the back loops of the stitches.  It makes the chain much easier to remove… Trust me on this one.

Once you’ve got enougth knit, pull the crochet chain  out s-l-o-w-l-y from the knotted end.  As in, one stitch at a time.  Pick up the freed stitch with the right needle, and slip (as if to knit) it onto the left needle.  Then knit (or purl) it together with the stitch next to it.  Since you’re pulling the stitches around towards the front of the needle, the ‘right’ side of the stitches will be on the inside of the closed tube you’re making, which is why you worked the opposing stitch from the one you would need in the set-up row.  If you lifted the stitches to the back, there wouldn’t be any need to reverse stitches.   It sounds easeir, but I found it to be counter-intuitive.

In the end, you have a more or less neat edge, with the ribbing pattern part of the cast on.

AArck!

I’ve just frogged a hat I’m making for the second time.

This time, after three rounds, I realized that I was knitting a Moebius.  I’ll never know why it took me three rounds to recognize it.

Very frustrating.

Mindlessly Complex

The current ‘alpha’ project is a birthday dress for my little niece, who will soon be turning four.  It’s the “Merry Maiden’s Dress” from Interweave Knits Spring 2007 issue.

The bodice was very quick, k2p2 ribbing all around.  The sleeves went well too, once I had memorized the lace pattern.

The skirt isn’t as slow as I’d worried it might be, but it’s still a complex pattern. 20 stitch cable panels with a 16 row repeat interspersed with lace panels expanding from 3 to 33 stitches, and an 8 row repeat (the same lace pattern as the sleeves, fortunately). So far I’ve finished a little more than 8 inches – the skirt should be 18″ total, but I’ll stop when I run out of time or yarn and just edge it there.

The yarn I’m using (Wendy Aran) comes in a one pound center pull ball… No luck finding a yarn sleeve for that, so I’ve improvised one with a gallon sized storage bag. Seems to work fine….

With any luck, I’ll finish it in time for her birthday and she won’t outgrow it before the next one.

Not dead yet

Well, I fell off the net for a while, but I’m back now, with a new craft to boot!

Yup, started beading. Still knitting (and posting on Ravelry). I’m going to be lame and not review my past projects. Currently I’m knitting a

really cute dress for my niece, from Interweave Knits, and I’m also working on a cute scarf (but no pictures of that yet.

The dress is a overcomplicated sounding one – lace and cables, gored skirt, multiple yarns, bell sleeves, but it’s knitting up easily and (so far) it hasn’t gotten monotonous. We’ll see how that goes as the skirt increases to a 72″ circumference!

Hopefully I’ll get backon track with updates.

Inspiration of a Turnip…

Well, once again I have failed to donate to the Red Cross. This time I had a unit of blood being spun down for platelets and my arm sprung a leak. The phlebotomist noticed my subtle signal (I chose a single, loud, clear ‘Ow’, which worked very well), said something about ‘burning’ to which I replied in the affirmative, glanced at my arm and said something I don’t recall clearly, but was probably rude-but-called-for.

I was unhooked, thanked, offered the chance to finish the movie (“Frequency” which looks to be very good), and sent on my way with my complementary umbrella and snacks. I was told that since they couldn’t return the red blood cells to my body I shouldn’t try to donate again for 56 days, which left me feeling a bit bummed. I spent years as a turnip (“everyone knows you can’t get blood from a turnip”) due to hemoglobin levels, and have been able to donate blood once and platelets twice in the last twelve months, so I found today to be particularly discouraging.

So, now I’m thinking about starting a knitting project based on the optimistic premise that I’m going to get a whole bunch of those Red Cross lapel pins to collect and display. I’ll knit up a super skinny scarf with red cross motifs on it, and use it as a foundation to show off…. (So far I’ve got one pin which I can lay my hands on, and one or two more I think must be around somewhere). When I’ve got a good start on it I’ll post the pattern.

The Firing Log – just thought I’d share

I am really lucky, in that the Art Center is (literally) right across the street from me.   ‘Real Life’ issues have kept me from taking classes for the last year or so, and I’ve missed them very much.   There’s something about centering, which connects you with the piece you’re working on and with the world spinning around both you and the piece.  There’s something about glaze-firing, where you do just about everything you’re going to do, and then let go completely, which are so organic, and so visceral, which I just haven’t found in any other craft.

I’ve just listened to an episode of The Firing Log, a potter/ceramicist interview podcast.   It really does make me miss potting even more, but it’s also nice to have contact with the craft again.    There are few audio podcasts dealing with it, many more video ‘how to’ casts, which are nice as well, but I like being able to put them on my player and listen while doing dishes or knitting.

Well, maybe this fall I’ll be able to take classes again.

Obligatory Process Post

Just a few random thoughts about the process of creativity.

It seems to me that the ‘basic’ model is a three step process:

1. (begin) the artist finds ‘inspiration’
2. the artist labors to create a piece
3. the artist releases the work to the audience (end)

I don’t think that the actual creative process ends there.  Once the work is ‘released into the wild’ it is transformed and reinvented by each and every viewer.   There are many layers of meaning in any work, and only a few were ‘put’ there by the artist.

I think, for me, that’s why it’s so hard to write for other people.  When I build a ceramic sculpture or knit a hat, the piece really is the message, and any other meaning which the viewer might find…  well, the viewer and I both know that I didn’t put it there.

When I write fiction, I know what I say, and I know what’s behind it, but the reader  only knows what sie finds there.  Not the same at all.  It’s very exciting, but it’s scary as well.

What’s on the needles – the secret frequency scarf

My husband almost never asks me to knit for him. He isn’t a ’sweater’ sort of guy, he doesn’t generally go for hand knitted hats (though he might be convinced to wear a nice, simple tam), and the entire household loses mittens and gloves. So, when he brought my attention to knitty’s binary scarf as posted in boing-boing. I knew I had to knit it for him some day. He knew from the beginning he didn’t want random code, he wanted binary code generated from the ascii for some particular phrase. Eventually he decided on the phrase he wanted, and I started the scarf in late December.

As much as I enjoy knitting in the round, I just couldn’t see knitting a tube and then squashing it down in a precise location – too much room to mess up, and it’s entirely unneccessary. There was never any doubt in my mind that this piece had to be what I called double knit (though Stitchdiva considers something else double knitting, so I need to learn the common term). I didn’t invent the technique, I ‘ve seen it used in a number of places, but I don’t know the technical term for it. It’s like double knitting but with only one skein of working yarn for both sides.

I cast on the thirty-three stitches which comprise one side and, for my first row, I knit the front and back of each stitch (kf&b). From there it was a matter of knitting a stitch, then slipping the next stitch with yarn in front (swyif) throughout the piece. After the second row I joined the second color, and held it together with the first for the swyif, and knit whichever color the pattern called for.

I’ve just finished the first repeat of the code. The fabric is super dense and warm, if a little heavy. Good for winter wear, not so much for a fashion statement. It’s also about half as long as the finished scarf should be. Easy enough, since Knitty instructs you to use a second chart for numbers after the midway point, but I decided I wanted a buffer between the two halves, so I’m going to put in a few rows of 1×1 ribbing (which begins and ends each side on a knit stitch, sort of a built in faux selvedge). I’ve discovered that when you purl you hold the unused color behind the work, not in front, but that’s not too hard.

I’m planning to put in a stripe of the contrast color in the purl stitches of rows 3 and 4 of the ‘bridge’ between the two halves, then two more rows of ribbing in the MC, then two in stockinette of the MC, then back to half two.

(Yes, I’ve posted this to ravelry too).