Finished Object-Scarf-Close To You

Pattern: Close To You by Justyna Lorkowska
Yarn: Queensland Uluru (as color A) and HiKoo CoBaSi (as color B)
Needle: size 6 circular

The only pattern modification was making it for two colors. I used B for the eyelet row and the 3 rows following it. On each eyelet row, it begins with BO 8 stitches. Rather than cut Color A each time and attach Color B, I chose to bind off those stitches using both yarns, and carry the non-working yarn up the side.

This pattern was super-easy to memorize and thus a pleasurable carry-about knitting project.

About halfway through, it became clear to me that this scarf was not going to be for me, and soon I knew just who it was for. I'm packing it up this week to make a journey to a dear friend. Meanwhile, I have started another.  We'll see if I get to keep this one!

Long Delayed Report on Gwen Bortner's Entrelac Workshop

Posting that picture of my entrelac scarf yesterday reminded me that I never wrote about the Gwen Bortner  workshop held here at RiverWools many moons ago.  Many.

Gwen is the author of a great book on entrelac knitting, Entre to Entrelac:

and designer of many magnificent entrelac projects for it.

It was a thrill to take a class from her. But it was even more of a thrill to get to go to supper with her and hear her talk about designing, publishing and her journey to doing what she’s doing today. There’s an interview with Gwen here and for more from Gwen’s own self, she blogs with another knitter here.

To prepare for the class, I knitted two entrelac scarves (one of them in yesterday’s post) and learned to knit “backwards.”

Though it’s not exactly backwards, I don’t think.

Whatever it is, it’s the most wonderful skill to have. Entrelac is made up of little segments of stockinette knitting, just a few stitches across, 8-12 stitches usually. If you don’t know how to knit backwards, you will be constantly turning your work to purl back across, then turning to knit again and turning to purl. Every few seconds (or however long it takes you to knit 8-12 stitches.) Over and over and over again.

knitturnpurlturnknitturnpurlturnknitturnpurlturnknitturnpurlturn——arghhhhh!

(that’s the best way I can represent it without a video of the hellish sequence)


The project though which Gwen taught the class was a hat - entrelac in the round, and each block a different color or colors,  all freely chosen by the knitter. You could even mix it up with the stitches, too, we were not limited to stockinette. So there was a nice blend of the structured element of the pattern, with the unique color and texture choices of each of us. 

I chose silky Noro Shirakaba and didn't get too inventive with stitches.

Luckily I've learned that weaving-in of ends can be meditative. There were a lot of them with all the color changing.  (Hecate has a great post on the weaving-in-of-ends and the intentions with which we knit.) 

End-weaving is also good to take to social knitting groups at the yarn shop - the conversation and laughter flows and before you know it...it's done.

A picture of the workshop:

Gwen and Jen, who usually works Mondays at the shop. ( Jen makes lots of lovely things, and ever since taking Andrea Wong's class in the Portuguese knitting  style, that's the way she knits.  You can see the little pin on her shoulder. Very cool.)

Finally, I just have to mention that I was sitting next to Lana Holden. Yes, that Lana Holden, the designer of Skew and a whole host of other patterns.*  (She wore her Involute wrap to class.) Now, it’s not the sitting next to Lana that is the noteworthy thing. Lana’s from here and we meet up with each other all the time. 

No, what’s noteworthy is the little glimpse of Lana doing what she does so well— becoming intrigued by a stitch challenge, getting an idea of a permutation, then setting about figuring out just how it can be realized.
You can see in the top picture, she's finished her class hat.

 

But here she's gotten quite busy on something else:

 

That day, she thought for sure that the entrelac hat could be knitted top down. So she spent the last bit of time in the workshop playing with that. Next time I saw her, she let me take a picture of what she managed to come up with.

Sure looks like the perfect beginning of a top-down-knitted-in-the-round-entrelac hat to me.
I'm in awe of people who can visualize, then proceed to do mathematical incantation and manifest the vision.

Lana’ blog is here, though she spends way more of her time thinking, experimenting, designing and getting her patterns out than blogging. Maybe that’s as it should be.

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*Skew on Ravelry has to date been ‘favorited’ by 7878 knitters and shows up in 2883 projects - that means 2883 knitters on Ravelry have knitted her pattern AND taken pictures of their socks AND taken the time to post them. Impressive!





)O(

Wordless Wednesday / Noro Furin Entrelac

Fixed + Finished

Florabelle 2 is finished.

But I've lost 2 other hats. Most peculiar. I'd blame Lily, but  (unless my husband someone is covering for her) she's terrible at hiding evidence of her chewy misdeeds.

 Shelf in kitchen. She seems to get excited about what goes on in the kitchen and just has to sink her teeth into  something. 

 Yes, that's what you think it is. If you're a spinner.

It's one of these. 
At least she didn't gnaw on the sheave end (I had no idea what that end was called until I looked at that page) where the band has three different grooves in which to sit - which, non-spinners, is to give different turning ratios so the wheel turns the bobbin more times or less times in one go-round.  That won't mean much to you if you are like me and must actually SEE things of a mechanical nature in action, rather than try to visualize from words. Odd that, I'm a very good visualizer in most other ways.

Oops, digression. So, I have a chewed up bobbin that I may still be able to use, but I have a feeling that even if I sand it a bit, there will still be gouged areas that will be catching the fiber.

Now. Where are those hats???


)O(

On The Needles: some ripping to do

I was so happily coming to the finishing of another Florabelle cap, when I noticed something wonky.
I discovered that I had somehow picked up an extra stitch.

Well, I know exactly how. When you are working on double points, and have a lot of stitches on them, it's easy for that left needle to slide under the yarn between stitches at the end of that needle.  If you're not careful (i.e. knitting while talking to visiting granddaughter then watching a jazz piano video your husband has invited you into his study to watch in near dark) you might find that for four rounds you had knitted into that accidentally picked up stitch.

I had a flare of hope that I might be able to drop that stitch back to where I picked it up and do some adjusting of that extra yarn, but seeing just how much was extra extinguished the hope flare pretty quickly.

Any rage irritation I might feel upon having to rip back four rounds is tempered by remembering the way Stephanie the Yarn Harlot patiently (if gnashing her teeth) manages to go back and fix much more egregious mistakes*, mistakes that in a less patient, less skilled knitter's life (mine) would be fatal to the whole project.

So I'm off to patiently rip back and redo those rounds.

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* for a real repair saga, read these Yarn Harlot posts about a sweater she dealt with while on her recent book tour (scroll down in the entries, she writes about the tour first, the knitting calamity at the end):

In Which There is a Little Trouble  (begins with scorching her almost-finished sweater)
In Which Baltimore Brings It  (and she tempts fate by proudly posting the fix of the scorching)
When in Chicago (posts a picture of a miscrossed cable astute readers have pointed out & promises to fix it)
In the Pews in St. Louis   (she CUTS her knitting & performs mysterious magic to fix the cable - I don't do cables, I have no idea what she did, but there's lots of pictures of the process)
On Leaving Texas (Apparently another astute reader suggests she fix the cable on the back, too. She does)
A Little on the Side  (here she reports she has kicked Gwendolyn's [the sweater] arse & it's DONE.]

If the Gwendolyn saga isn't something by which to measure most knitting tribulations and persevere in dealing with one's own bagatelle of a calamity, I don't know what is.


)O(

Words, Knitting, Play

I’m getting psyched about this upcoming creative writing event here in Terre Haute.

I’ve been on the planning committee and I will also be facilitating one of the Saturday workshops. We hope this will become an annual event and I think it’s off to a good start, with the incoming poet laureate of Indiana doing a Friday night reading to inaugurate.

The picture I submitted for the workshop flyer was this one of me holding one of the three big letters I knitted for the for the UK Poetry Society and the Much Wenlock Poetry Festival.

It’s emblematic of my longing to combine my fiber art with word art, to remain open to possibilities. 

Ah, possibilities. Giant knitted poems created by hundreds of knitters from around the world…what playful minds dreamed that up!  And what playful hands brought it all together!

Wenlock Poetry Festival, the knitted Carol Ann Duffy poem still a work-in-progress

UK Poetry Society, completed Dylan Thomas poem

My writing workshop is dedicated to possibilities and is called WordPlay. I think of it as  ‘a playdate with words.’  I want it to be, above all, fun and playful, with the underlying message that play can be a very serious creative laboratory.

So lately I’m thinking more deeply about play and creativity and I’ve found quotations like the one below to ponder here.

Ritual grew up in sacred play; poetry was born in play and nourished on play; music and dancing were pure play.... We have to conclude, therefore, that civilization is, in its earliest phases, played. It does not come from play...it arises in and as play, and never leaves it.-

-Johan Huizing
Dutch historian
1872–1945

 There is also this book, which I have been reading on and off for ages:

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Here's an entrance to the play laboratory I use often. Finish this question, then try to answer it:

What if I _______________________? *



So how do you play and improvise in your creative work?

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*I was inspired to do this by Jude Hill and her Spirit Cloth blog, where she regularly documents the results of her textile and stitch what if’s.


PS. Here’s another nifty little bit of play - write a poem & print it out in knitted letters here.


)O(

Makin' Hats

I'm on a hat-making binge.
Some for Occupy winter. Some for sale at RiverWools in December.

My own pattern, Florabelle. Top-down. 1/1 rib.
(Yup, it's on my list of Patterns To Write Up)

These caps are made with Noro Kureyon and (the one on the right) Noro Hitsuji.
Hitsuji is fat Kureyon.
Normally I don't love working with fat yarn, but Mr. Noro does it so well, I'm finding it fun.

Mini Mitts

One of the things I started making last summer for my booth at the end-of-August Block Party was  fingerless mitts. Ones that just cover the hands.

My own pattern, in Noro Kureyon and Dream in Color Classy.

I keep a pair tucked into the pocket of my hoodie, others in my beloved Polartec300 jacket, and my coat. There may even be a pair in the….glove (!) compartment of my car.

Since the ribbing is done in DIC, 2 skeins of Kureyon will yield 3 sets of these fraternal twins.

On colder days, I can slip on a pair of those ultra-thin, extra-cheap gloves underneath. I then have layered warmth and still have the dextrous use of my fingers.  On the really, really cold days…oh, I don’t want to be out on those anyway.

Since it was 80+ the day of the block party, I sold no mitts.
I have higher expectations for them at the December downtown Terre Haute  event, Miracle on 7th Street, where I’ll have some things for sale at RiverWools.

Another thing about these mitts. I’m going to say this very softly: I harbor a secret desire to design and write knitting patterns. And this might be the first one I try to write up.

Occupyin' the Needles - Hat One

My first hat to donate to an Occupy group for winter warmth.

Ingredients: #8 & #6 dpn, MC: Araucania Quillay (color 14), CC: Cascade 220 Superwash

Just a simple top down knit, an improvised pattern I’ve been doing for years.
I believe its basis is the top-down hat directions in Knitting from the Top, by Barbara Walker.

I started with 8 stitches on 4 needles, increased 8 every other round and then checked for gauge to know when to stop increasing. Knitted around and around and around ’til it measured about 7”, then changed to the smaller needles and the CC, began 2/2 rib.

If I make another like this, I’ll probably make the body a wee bit shorter, start the ribbing earlier and make it longer.

Quillay is 57% superwash wool, 43% acrylic - I think an easy-care hat is most appropriate for the purpose.
It’s a new yarn to me and I liked working with it. 

I’d have liked it even better if the lighting in my living room was better.

This happens to me all the time: I see a yarn in RiverWools which thrills me colorwise, take it home, begin to knit and find the color not so thrilling. (Sometimes even unpleasant - some colorways just irritate my very soul. )

Then I take my knitting or finished object back into the shop and am totally surprised at how much I like the color again.

So either Martha has some sort of magical lighting that makes yarn colors look extra yummy or I need to find better lighting.

Next I think I’m going to try either MK Carroll’s Top Down Beanie Recipe  (that link will take you to a page with yet another link to the free pattern at Ravelry) or the one by Charisa Martin Cairn , which is another free pattern. (Look around there, she’s got some other cool top-down hat patterns.)

Next post I'll talk about fingerless mitts, another item Occupiers might really appreciate.

Yarn, Dog, Occupy Terre Haute

If I was a better blogger, I would have pictures of the stunning  amount of new yarn that arrived at RiverWools this week.

But I’m not a better blogger, I’m a yarn addict collector.  And I was quite overcome by the stacks and stacks of bags of new fiber goodness that covered a good deal of the floor space in the front of the shop.

As I gazed  at new colorways and saw the knitted-up samples --  oh, all right, yes! Yes, I also fondled and sniffed -- as I did all that, I never once thought of stepping back and getting out my camera and becoming  Documenting Blogwoman.

Before I go on about the new yarn, I want to digress just a wee bit.  You may have noticed that there is not much going on in the realm of art on this blog. And that’s because there’s not much going on in my life in that realm. Well, I am writing poetry regularly, but I'm wary of posting it here because I'm trying to get published and many journals have submission rules which deem publishing online (even on a personal blog) to be 'previously published.'

I am in a kind of doldrums with my visual creative work, but I’m  percolating in other ways. Inner stuff.

Also, there’s that new young dog in the family. She eats things she really, really shouldn’t

and so must be watched a lot and gently guided over to the Good Side.  That takes time and patience. And I’m loathe to get all involved in a project or try to dress a loom and have Lily-tending become an irritating interuption.

I have, however, become a little bit involved with the local Occupy group. While they haven’t gotten to the point of a 24/7 Occupation, they have been gathering and marching in downtown Terre Haute.  On Monday I joined them for a time .

Yesterday, I made about 50 buttons

to give to the group as a donation and planned to stand with them again for awhile after I finished work at the bookstore, which is right across the street from the Occupy Terre Haute gathering spot.

But it was raining and chilly and my jeans & sneakers were starting to get wet and water was dripping off my rain visor and onto my nose if I was looking up at taller people and….and…the new yarn I’d only had a glimpse of earlier was calling to me. (Did I mention that RiverWools is just two doors down from the bookstore? I could clearly hear that yarn from the street corner.)

So. I handed over the buttons and bailed.
Yes, I left Occupy Terre Haute, abandoned a bunch of dedicated people willing to stand in the rain to get the message out.
Worse, I left them and went to consume.

On the left, 1 Araucania Milodon (100% wool, kind of tweedy), 

the other 2 are Araucania Liwen (50% superfine alpaca, 50% wool- thick ’n’ thin)

Martha did make me feel a little better by reminding me that my purchase supports a local owner-operated business, that it wasn’t like I left the demo and went to WalMart.

For penance, I shall knit some hats and scarves for winter Occupying.
(There are several initiatives for this out there, including this free hat pattern on Ravelry. , a Facebook page called Knitters for the 99% and this blogger's Occupy Our Needles. )
Another blog: Stitch for Occupy

The Myth of a Revised Principles of Knitting

 A revised edition of Principles of Knitting has long been a mythical object , a knitting Grail, with tales  of it told around the knitting circle for years, tales which, c. 2008, began to include its imminent publication.

I was very excited to see last May that there was a definite publication date for a revised edition of Principles of Knitting by June Hiatt. Definite enough that Amazon had a picture of a new cover

(quite similar to the original) AND a pre-order button.  Now that was new and a very hopeful sign.  If I remember correctly, it had a release date of September. 

I went ahead and pre-ordered and since then have gotten several updates from Amazon, each one pushing back the publication date. The latest one puts it off until Valentine's Day 2012.  Sigh.

You can read my tale about me and my mother and the original Principles of Knitting here. (If you do read to the end of that rather long post, you will see why it's mighty significant to me that Feb. 14 is the new release date...)

Another Different Lines

I said I'd miss it - my fingers were itching to start another Different Lines shawl.
So I did.

This one in Dream in Color also, but I've gone to their worsted weight, Classy. And gone up just one needle size, to #10.

Colors are Spring Tickle and Gray Tabby. The latter is almost a solid gray, but there are subtle tonal variations.

It's a perfect autumn day  to be knitting a shawl - rainy, chilly, hinting at the promise of the winter's turning inward.
I love the view from my Big Chair, tea, pocket Tarot, wheel and dozy Lily.

The tea in that cup is gift tea from my son Ian and dil Lisa.
It is JinJaa Citrus Twist Green Tea from Teavana.   Orange, lemon, ginger...mmmm.

Lisa and I spent a lovely hour  at Teavana when I visited Boston last spring.
It's wonderful that their tea is available online, but you miss the experience of having an eager Teavana worker open a giant tin and use the lid to waft the scent of it your way. An olfactory tasting.

This tea was made for wafting.  And drinking with just a bit of honey on a perfect autumn day.

Reading: 
Oct. 17 New Yorker
Learning to Breathe by Priscilla Warner

Finished: Different Lines Wrap

This was a great carry-around knit.
I will miss it. I hope I enjoy wearing it as much as I enjoyed knitting it.  It's cushy. And the colors....mmmm.

Details and pattern info here

 

This last pictures shows my favorite part of this design - there is energy  and movement here - radiance.

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2011_Oct. 10-16 - Reading This Week : *

SageWoman magazine Issue 81 Weaving the Web
Mark Doty, Still Life with Oysters and Lemon
Martin Heidegger, Poetry, Language, Thought
Leanne Praine, Hoopla / The Art of Unexpected Embroidery

*being on the list doesn’t necessarily mean being read cover to cover, I might just be dipping my toes in the vast ocean of words out there

Calypso Shrug

A finished object, of which the knitting has been finished for quite some time. It has been languishing while waiting for weaving-in-ends, steam-iron blocking, and the sewing of buttons, all of which I did in less than an hour this morning. The cry of The Procrastinator rings out - "Sheesh, that was easy-peasy, WHY did I wait so long?"

The pattern is Calypso Shrug from One-Skein Wonders:

I left off the beading called for in the pattern, and it was a very nice take-along knit, just a large rectangle with no shaping and a pattern that was easily memorized.  I used Fleece Artist's Sea Wool and am very happy I have another skein in a different colorway because it was lovely to work with.

And here's a close-up of one of the vintage buttons I used:

Can't wait for some cool fall weather - it will make a nice little warming layer.

Matchy Matchy

I bet this happens to a lot of knitters, you look down at your lap and suddenly realize you are amazingly color-coordinated, that you look as though you picked out your work-in-progress just to match the clothes you picked to wear that day. It makes sense that this would happen more often than not, since I assume most knitters like both to knit and  to wear their favorite colors.  And that most knitters have a lot of WIPs to choose from. Still, sometimes the match is so spot on that you just have to take a picture of your lap.

I'm working on Different Lines, a scarf/wrap pattern by Veera Valimaki, on Ravelry here.

I'm using Dream in Color Smooshy in Flamingo Pie (I LOVE this colorway) and Punky Fuschia.

I originally started this on the recommended needle size, 6, in two other colors of Smooshy, a green and brown and I kept telling myself it was all forest-y and earthy, but it what it was, was depressing. I have no idea why I kept on at it for as long as I did. But suddenly, in addition to having issues with the colors, I realized it seemed awfully small at the point I was, and didn't have the drape of a nice wrap.

Of course I didn't check gauge at the start.  When I did check gauge and realized how off I was, only then did I feel I had "permission" to frog... and frog I did.  I went back to the stash and picked out colors that cheered me right up and went up 3 needle sizes to a 9, and started all over again.

It's a perfect take-along knit, lots and lots of garter stitch, and it's very soft and nice and I can't wait to finish it!

Block Party Booth / Sneak Peek

Getting ready for my booth at the Downtown Block Party, August 27.

Today I’m putting the finishing touches on felted vessels and Marvelous Mixed-up Mitts.
Must make more!
Back to work play!