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April 25, 2005
Its a dialogue
I received the pattern for cardigan via email Friday and, after dutifully swatching, decided it was late enough to call it quits and move onto a little Weekend Knitting. I finished the fifth and final flower and planned on showing you the bouquet. However my kidlets had great fun pretending to be frogs in a waterlily pad covered pond last night and the waterlilies are now drying. Look for the FO pic tomorrow.
Have you ever noticed how sometimes something is on your mind and somebody blogs about it? This happened to me last night. I was planning on comparing the larger chartreuse flower to the other flowers. Larger because the chenille broke on one of my sts so I intentionally loosened up my knitting by knitting far down on the shaft. Not that I knit my new sts onto the tips mind you. The resulting flower is hidious due to a too loose gauge and the ineveitable rowing out. Too bad~ I am particularly fond of chartreuse. Anyway I took a little break from sewing in my ends by catching up on some blog knitting. Mary blogs on Sundays and last night she posted about Knitty's Loosen Up article. You can read Mary's post and following comments[two by yours truelly] here. Reading the article caused me to nearly burst a blood vessel hey not ranting was last years resolution the gloves are off and I cannot get it off my mind. Lets go over it point by point:
You are a tight knitter if:
1)care about your needle tips. Well! I like tapered pointy needles for standard yarn or fine gauge knitting. Not only because it is easier to "ooch your way into the next stitch" but because its faster to slide into a stitch with a narrow pointy tip than a blunt tip. If you don't believe me turn your strait needles backwards and try knitting onto the knob end. In fact lets give Lisa some needles with bulbs on tip end and see if she doesn't care. By and by I prefer blunt tips for novelty and splitty yarns. The needles
should suit the project and you should care about them.
2)have to go up several needle sizes to achieve gauge. Knock, Knock Hello! I usually go down several needle sizes but I have occassionally used the needle size called for and very rarely gone up several needle sizes to achieve gauge. So I am what? Does my going up 2 needle sizes to knit Mare's Magical Hat make me tight? Does my going down several needle sizes on most projects make me loose? Or is it that I am normal and Mare is tight and most designers are loose? Puh~lease tell me what is normal.
3)your FO isn't as soft as the yarn in ball. Where should I begin with this one? First most knitted fabrics are going to be firmer than just plain ol yarn. Your sts are flanked side by side and top to bottom by other sts which compress them whereas the yarn just laying there shouldn't be compressed or stretched out in any way. Furthermore most animal fibers bloom or full a bit upon washing/steam blocking and that compresses the sts even more since there is less air between sts. Of course some projects are intentionally knit to create a gauzy fabric think lace vs sweater jacket. This is called achieving gauge to produce the intended hand/drape for the project and is a design feature I could use the exact same yarn to knit a shawl and a sweater and you can bet your bottom dollar the yarn will feel softer in the shawl than in the sweater. In fact feel free to bet me~ I could use the money to buy more yarn.
4)you buy twice or more yarn than called for. I was confoozled by this one for a second but there is one reason for this that is so obvious I am ashamed it didn't pop to mind right off. Gauge. Yep gauge. If you are acheiving gauge you should use the same amount of yarn as called for. Maybe a smidge more cause you leave several feet of yarn at sides instead of joining new balls mid row via splicing or weaving in ends. Or maybe you got a crappy ball of yarn with tons of knots or that was short yardage wise. But gauge is key here. Some beginner patterns don't give any gauge at all. Think those garter st scarves that is teaching tool du jour: CO X sts with Y needles and knit every row til Z long BO. Did you see a gauge on that? I didn't either. But say you have graduated from scarves and are now ready for the next standard drop shouldered no waist shaping involved sweater. I am willing to bet that half the time there is no row gauge. Now row gauge is generally unimportant for such garments because you won't be trying to fit so many rows and sts bound off of sleeve cap to what is usually a work til armhole measures so long after the initial BO. And bulky yarn patterns esp those in your novelties don't often give row gauge~ trust me I have knit for several yarn companies that specialize in bulky novelties over the past 10 years. Fat yarns can only compress so much stitch wise. Some, in fact, only have one stitch gauge possible because you would have to move from a size 19 to 35 to notice any appreciable difference. I say this is a fact because I once designed a garment and started on a size 19 needle then moved on down to a size 11 needle and the stitch gauge stayed the same. The bitch of it all was that the row gauge did compress and I kept going down until the drape was firm enough for the project. If working with a st gauge only you may be using more yarn since you have to knit more rows to get length if you are working with a kind of yarn that is so bulky that it cannot possibly have less sts per inch than called for in pattern.
OK so if these 4 things apply to you then you are a tight knitter because you tug your yarn according to Lisa. Well I think they all apply to everybody at one time or another tho not necessarily all of them all the time. If I had to define myself it would be as a loose knitter. I say this because I have 20+ years[I dont remember how I knit from age 9 to 21 cause I knit sporadically at best those years] of going down 2 needle sizes to achieve gauge. Because when I am swatching for fun and try to match ball band gauge instead of a pattern gauge I start 2 needle sizes from habit. Because I knit a Dale Heilo sweater at 22sts/4" on size 1 needles. I'm fairly sure I am looser than avg. And this brings me to the rub of it all... I tug. I tug and tug and tug. I purposefully and knowingly tug. And I am loose. Meanwhile Mary and some of her comment leavers state that they are tight knitters and do not tug. Tugging and tight do not go hand in hand. Tugging might tighten up your individual sts but then you might hold your yarn in such a lax manner that its the only way you tension your yarn at all. Here let me show you how I hold my yarn[ugh to be a 3 handed person just once please]:
Insert needle tip into stitch:
Note that the yarn travels from knitting between middle and pointer finger, loops around pointer finger to yarn ball. None of the creating a spider web on my hand for me. Ummm cept for cacoon of course ;^> Also NOTE the looseness of the yarn~ it is swooping instead of taunt.
Wrap yarn and pull new stitch through:
Note there is still no spider web and the yarn is still looped just around the pointer finger and travels directly to the yarn cacoon.
TUG:
The thing that really gets my goat is that now there will be a bunch of knitters who rely on the web for instruction agonizing on if they are tight, normal or loose knitters. I cannot believe this woman teaches knitting. POP oh my poor blood vessels :^>
Posted by Elka at 11:01 AM | Comments (3)
April 21, 2005
Very Au Courant
I have noticed a trend towards aqua, teal, & turquoise yarn lately on the blogs I read most regularly. Stitchingirl Tmooka for example. To these bloggity people I can only say: Don't hate me cause I'm beautiful*:
15 hanks of Alchemy Yarns Silk Purse in Teal Tide. So what if its for work?
*L'Oreal's catch phrase used to be "Don't hate me cause I'm beautiful" before "Cause your worth it" My friends and I took on this phrase whenever we were being particularly bratty as in DHMCIB {hate me cause of this} :^>
Posted by Elka at 02:07 PM | Comments (4)
April 20, 2005
hmmmmmmmmmmm
Once again I am in master piddler mode. If you aren't a long time blog reader there is a difference between piddle and tinkle thank you very much~ been there already. Save the comments. And yes I know they share the same offensive second meaning but I use the first for the first definition and the second for the second definition. Convenient no?
Anyway I am in master piddler mode again. I received my new needle bonanza and immediately cast on for a pair of Michelle's Marvelous Socks. I have decided I am going to change her pattern a teeny bit. The whole heel setup row boggles my brain. Really when you CO for a circular piece isn't it up to you where the tail is? It could already be the back for all anybody knows so the whole moving marker over 20 sts makes no sense to me. I have been knitting the pattern as written but don't get that particular bit so decided that I will knit first 20 sts, work next 40 sts in pattern[making last p1 into a k], knit last 20 sts and follow new pattern above for additional 9 rows. On 9th row, after working center 40 sts, slip them onto a string and then knit 19 sts from first needle onto 4th needle and work with 2 needles for short row heel. Too late for this particular pair of socks but I remember thinking that while I was knitting them last time and debating it before I got to set up row. I still don't get it so I'm rudely changing the sockity pattern.
The flower shop is therefore close to closing. Socks have replaced flowers. I certainly didn't have to think about the flowers erm except for weaving in the tails while knitting when joining the petals. I only have 2 left to do and I was chastising myself for adding another WIP to the already obscene list:
Tea Time shawl
Top down ala Walker
Field of Flowers
Donegal
Rogue
Flowers[3 down 2 to go]
Socks
I have the sneaking suspicion there are more tucked away somewhere but I don't know why~ I really am not one to have more than a single WIP at a time. Somewhere along the line my self control has disappeared. I actually find my whole life rather jingle jangles[puh~ lease don't tell me that is a code for something ala the piddle fiasco of a few months ago] lately. Lately being the last two years or so. Oh so last night I worked on socks, flowers[weaving in ends and starting the fourth], Tea Time, and Field of Flowers. Somebody please pray that I can stay focused long enough to finish one of these and therefore have a picture to show you by end of week.
Til then~ yarny days and knitterly evening
OH OH OH I have a major girl crush on this gal. She seems rather shy and I haven't noticed her name at end of posts or in about me section yet. I am pretty sure I went through the entire archives and being major spazzy lately 2 effing years OK OK OK she probably tells us in the first post and I missed it. Anyway she is way beyond kewl. And I want the magazine with scarf pattern she mentions. Elle ideas or somesuch. Not in my local yarn shops or book purveyers. Yes I could figure it out two row lace pattern duh can't remember name but I am losing my mind 2 yearssssssssssss and don't want to think. Hello!
Posted by Elka at 08:40 AM | Comments (2)
April 18, 2005
Baaaaaaaaaaaa
I went to visit my father this past weekend and had a nice time. During my trip I stopped into Bluestem Missouri Crafts which features work [pottery, weaving, woodcarving mainly] by Missouri artisans. What should I spy? A cute little Christmas tree ornament:
They also had white sheep but I was more charmed by this lone critter.
Have a nice yarny day and knitterly evening
Posted by Elka at 09:38 AM
April 15, 2005
whoops
Oh in regards to todays earlier post:
The really scuzzy chair is the oldest kid enhanced computer chair~ my butt is not parking in that ewwwwwww and I do use my noste and wind old fashioned balls with the partials left over after I knit my project. Although I do keep some cacoons in a drawer with other yarns little odds and ends to be riffled through pushes the neatness factor. The twice or more * bit from earlier was just that~ wind into cacoon, knit with, wind into cpb using noste. 3 times the pleasure from one hank of yarn. I assume you like the feel of fiber flowing through your fingers. If you do not enjoy the feel of fiber WTF are you doing here? Ummmm that is to say go ahead and use your swift and ball winder. Also I can afford a swift and ball winder thank you very much and have even owned them in the past. This is not an I am so poor will you please send me a swift and ball winder post. I prefer to wind my yarn this way and when I owned a swift and ball winder I wound my cacoons and then wound into cpballs for storage. Gotta get the fiber thrills where we can girlies.
Posted by Elka at 11:57 AM
Yarn WARNING LOADS OF PICTURES
Approximately twice a year I type out instructions on how I wind yarn. No I don't make the old fashioned ball that rolls around and has the tendancy to be tight and mean. Nor do I own a swift and ball winder. I do have several nostepinnes but thats not how either. When I started knitting seriously, as an adult, back in the 80's I picked up Jacqueline Fee's Sweater Workshop. Obviously the first edition and I don't know if the second has these instructions. In this book she describes how to make a "Yarn Cacoon" which she had picked up from a Japanese student[fuzzy memory here I passed the book on to somebody years ago] when she noticed that this particular student had a mini hank of yarn on her desk from which she was knitting. My instructions begin incorrectly. I do remember I typed out the instructions and then checked the book for something and her first few steps were different from mine. So here is a photo essay~ bad photos cause its hard to do a two handed task and take pictures with the nonexistant third hand.
Oh wait first why you should bother learning to do this; your at a wool festival or vacation and picked up a hank of yarn which you must cast on now and don't have a swift and ball winder, your working with a particularly slippy yarn such as silk or nylon and don't want your center pull ball to colapse upon itself causing a big ol garf blob, its reasonably fast[3 mins for 200yd hank of WW/aran yarn just finished for photo essay barf glob dealt with and pictures taken during this time frame], there is no risk whatsover of having a tight ball which causes some to wind center pull balls twice, you are capable of winding big ol hanks of yarn 2000 yds of sport weight have been wound by me and my hands are a woman's size small, the resulting cacoon is reasonably portable~in fact I tossed the just finished cacoon into the air twice and dropped it twice and my yarn didn't tangle etc however I wouldn't personally plan on carting it around in a bag that will be ruffled through too often, and lastly you get to enjoy the fiber flowing through your fingers an extra time or two* Ready?
Step One: untwist your yarn hank and drape it over a chair with arms. The arms are to keep the hank from flooping all the way to floor. Take a minute to snap your yarn first. You know put your hands in center and snap them apart. If you don't do this you may have a tangly hank to begin with which will cause you to start all over again [no bother its fun] and would cause you problems if you were dealing with a swift and cpbw anyways. Two pictures to show my yarn over chair~ note that the yarn is not pulled taunt so that is unimportant. No fiddling with a swift to make sure the hank is just so :^> :
& 
Find your knot and undo it. Unwind a bit to see which is the from center stand vs outer strand only cause I was taught to always wind off a hank from the center. No clue why I was taught this but I was so go ahead... what can it hurt. This is also a moment to snap your yarn again and see potential tangly pitfalls. Take the center end and wind it several times around the middle finger of your left hand {apologies to lefties I never thought of how to wind onto right hand}
Now here is where the I only have 2 hands part gets bothersome. I don't let go of the yarn while I am winding duh. Oh the yarn is wound around middle fingertip several times and you carry it accross back of hand diagonally from middle finger to wrist at pinkie edge
Accross wrist at base of hand
Up behind fleshy thumb part to hook around and come down between thumb and pointer finger juncture
Hmmm ok diagonally accross palm from thumb/pointer juncture to wrist at pinkie edge then diagonally behind hand to thumb/pointer juncture *sigh* accross base of pointer finger to slip between pointer and middle finger juncture {I already said sorry for being two handed give me a break on this its a quick loopie thing}
I paused here to show you the back of my hand so you could see the original yarn wrapping and one complete pass~ normally you don't look at the back of your hand while winding but it might clarify a bit:
You will be repeating from the first accross base of hand picture.
Here are two pictures the first of just two passes and the second of several passes. You will note that in the second my hand is no longer in the I am gonna be taking pictures position.
&
I call this my yarn winding dance. I stand over my chair and tend to sway from side to side as I wind the yarn from part of hank on left vs right. I tend to be over the area from which the yarn is feeding. I also flick my wrists to ease in winding. Here we have the photo essay sans words showing the wrist flickery~ness and the thread is not normally this long but I held camara in right hand and snapped as I wound:
Problems you might encounter are garfblobs which can be loosened and worked using thumb and pointer of left hand and right hand, the outer strand catching on working yarn and causing a teeny tangle[dig it out and set it out of yarn traveling path] multiple strands/loops feeding off chair causing a garf blob looking area over chair. This happens when your yarn catches and pulls extra loops or if hank was tangly to begin with. You can keep winding when this happens just slow down a bit and be right on top of where yarn is feeding from to not pull more hank loops out of order. Eventually your yarn will be feeding from these extra garf blobby looking loops and you will find they are not tangled themselves they just tried to jump ahead of themselves ;^> If you come to a real tangle then you can slip the cacoon off your wrist and untangle by drawing through whatever or,if near end, make a ball from other end and untangle to where you are at then wind from ball into cacoon. Here is a picture of a teeny garfblob I came to and you can clearly see that I had use of my thumb and pointer fingers to aid in opening up loops and fixing the problem:
I don't understand why it is called a cacoon. Looks like a little turban to me. OK digression aside. Tuck your yarn end into some outer strands. This is what your hand will look like. CAUTION when working with really large hanks there is a tendency to wind tightly and your fingers will be strangled and turn purple. Trust Elka on this one. I have wound a hank of LL Heaven or Helen's Lace as well as oversized WW hanks from Henry's Attic on my hand. There is absolutely no need to strangle your poor fingers. Ok back to turban:
In this next picture that the yarn never crosses from bump around pointer to bump around thumb. If it does no real problem tho there will be a little tangle when you get to that part while knitting. Try not to do a crossover ;^>
You should easily slide the hank off thumb. In fact, with really super large hanks, you may have pushed the yarn further down thumb to avoid it slipping off
Slip yarn off of pointer finger:
The yarn wrapped around middle finger is your working end. Here is a picture of the dropped and tossed cacoon to show its a bit more open but didn't collapse into a huge tangle:
Do you see why I said there was no chance in hell of creating a tight little ball? Its a nice organized pile of yarn like an accordian I guess only a fig 8. Here is a picture of my much moved cacoon being knit from along side the tossed cacoon:
WHEWeeeee did you make it this far? Have a great yarny day and knitterly evening.
Posted by Elka at 10:26 AM | Comments (4)
April 12, 2005
All Nighter
Ah so I stayed up wicked late last night winding some silk purse for my own Magical Hat. I happened to have one hank that I had knit up in a far inferior hat doubled so there I was unplying and winding. Big ol Mess. I ordered some lovely coordinating color and another full kit to make some headway into the rainbow of hats I plan on making this summer. Let's hope it arrives soon.
Posted by Elka at 01:30 PM | Comments (1)
April 11, 2005
April Showers.....
On Easter weekend, or actually the Friday before Easter, I set off to my LYS to purchase a bit o'wool for knit bunnies. Like I have no wool. And I enjoy waiting until the last possible nano-second to begin knitting stuff. I didn't see any bunny-licious colors so I meandered around a bit and picked up 3 different colors of CP Chenille. So far I have one full flower washcloth, another knit waiting for weaving in of ends, and a third 3 petals down. No I haven't blocked. But I did go off and pick up 2 more colors....
I hope something has captured your knitterly interests. Til tomorrow yarny day and have a stitchin' evening
Posted by Elka at 11:32 AM | Comments (2)
April 08, 2005
Where Was I?
Ah so I decided to not complete the Artyarns scarf. Very slow knitting. Mind you the results were stunning but I just couldn't get my fingers to cooperate. I realize other people do odious stuff for the sake of the J. O. B. but I am freelance knitter person and I need to get my groove on! Ummm not to imply it was odious just not my thang right now.
Guess what I picked up again? Ummmmm you do read the blog right? Enough to remember I was working quite deligently on Shetland Tea Time Shawl? Yes. It took me a few hours to figure out where I was in the pattern since I didn't jot down a little note to self. My fingers aren't cooperating on this one either. There is a rhythm to lace and I have my own particular language. This particular row[the one I stopped in middle of] was *k, together, over, k, over, together, over, slip 2 k pass over, over, SKA over SKA over knit over SKA* I have no idea where I picked up the SKA but thats what I mutter to myself while I work the row 'together over kay SKA over kay SKA' and if I am knitting steadily it turns into a little song. There is always an emphasis on SKA and note the lack of comma's which any outloud reader knows indicates a slight pause.
Anyway I am working on getting my groove on with the shawl. I sincerely hope your knitting is putting you into a jive-alicious groove too ~ yarny day and knitterly evening to all!
Posted by Elka at 11:41 AM
April 07, 2005
Happy Happy Birthday PLUS
First I must thank all the people who kindly wrote notes, either in the comments section or via email, regarding my father. He is back home and we are hopeful that all will be well. For those who do not know he was rushed to the hospital last fall with a brain tumor. He went through surgery and chemotherapy/radiation therapy and it didn't go away so another surgery. Realistically my dad won't be around this upcoming holiday season but I sincerely hope that he will be and I am doing my best to spend as much time as possible with him now just in case. Every day is a blessing.
Enough depressing stuff: Happy Birthday Debbie! I know its Debbie's birthday because we share a birthday and since she doesn't have a blog or announce such things on the lists we both belong to send her well wishes here :^>
On the knitterly front I have been busy doing work stuff and taking pictures prior to sending stuff away. Other than the surprisingly pretty 9 Scarf-Vest already blogged about ad nauseum we knit 2 things for Classic Elite yarns:
If you look real carefully you can see the slight jog that happens when you mattress stitch a striped thingie on the man's sweater. I like to crochet together the seams on striped thingies but it does result in a slightly bulkier seam and my gauge was just a smidge tighter than called for. Not enough to correct by going up a needle size.... maybe 1/8th or so of a stich more per 4". The scarf on the other hand was a bit looser than called for. Again not enough to correct via needle size and I decided a nice generous scarf was better than a mean little scarf. They didn't complain and I pointed it out so feh.
I also finished the projects for Alchemy Yarns:
You guys can keep your Buckets O'Chic I am planning on knitting myself tons of Mare's magical hats. Actually they are calling them Oregon Coast Hats or something if you are gonna take my advice and knit this dreamy creation. Muy fun. Muy luxe. Muy muy.
Ah I have been doing serious retail therapy. Bought myself some CP Chenille to make the flower washcloths that took the blogging community by storm ummm last year was it? And some Anne sock yarn which I will show you later. I also just purchased a complete set of Aeros, or at least up through a size 9, as a birthday gift from my husband to me. The fact that I have been mentioning the need for new needles and he handed me a cash gorged card last night with specific instructions to purchase them already makes it a gift right? Even tho I ordered them myself? I vote it a fabulous gift that cannot be topped. I hope Debbie's man is treating her to some fibery goodness as well. And you alls as well. A great fibery day and knitterly evening for all!
Posted by Elka at 10:39 AM | Comments (9)