7 posts tagged “knitting”
- I think I mentioned at some point in the past that knitting a sock always seems to go faster once you're past the heel. I'm going to stick by that statement - the individual rows on my first Jaywalker of the pair are going by zip, zip, zip. But I'm in a Knitting Black Hole or something, because the sock doesn't seem to be getting any longer. Maybe I cursed myself by trying it on? At any rate, I know the likely result of this is that tonight or tomorrow I'm going to knit one row and then discover that I should have started the toe two inches ago.
- I need to get a Spinsanity spindle of my own. Daughter picked one up at a fiber fair, and she's learning decently with it finally - but I tried it out last night, just to see what it could do. I took about 4 inches of roving from Daughter's ball of Crap Fiber, and turned it into about 6 yards of two-ply laceweight! - it came out similar in thickness to a #5 perle cotton. I do remember thinking at one point "Holy crap I'm spinning sewing thread"... I don't think I'm going to do anything with the yarn except maybe show it off, but my gosh I'm proud of it, and I'm almost tempted to cable it back on itself to see if it comes out sockweight.
- Hubby's grandparents are in the process of moving - they've sold their house to move into an "independent living facility", where Nana won't kill herself keeping up with the housework and there's assistance available to care for Boppa. So they've given the grandchildren a chance to claim any furniture or knickknacks they're interested in, and I told Nana, who also cross-stitches, "I'd like a couple of the samplers." She sent four - three she made herself (two traditional samplers and a really cool Santa piece), and one I wasn't expecting (mostly because she'd told me previously she wanted to hang onto it herself, but she'd stick my name on it for after her own eventual death): a family heirloom, worked by Hubby's great-great-great-grandmother in 1836, when she was 10. Some of the colors have faded, the linen has darkened, and little Martha A. Goldsberry didn't leave quite enough room for the motto so some of the letters are kind of jimmied in - but I appreciate the family heritage that goes with it as much as the art of the needlework. Pictures will follow as soon as we've found a good place to hang it (and the others).
One big mystery: All three balls were from the same dyelot. One of them was skeined backwards from the others, but I caught that and knit from the outside. But if you look closely, you can see that part of it pooled as very large diamonds, and part of it pooled as very small diamonds. I don't think my gauge changed that much over the course of knitting it...so it is it a bad dye job, or did I just do something wrong?
If I had to do it again, I'd use a solid color, or else knit it in a circle, felt it, and then cut the tube open. I'm not really thrilled with the diamonds. Hubby likes them, though.
And also: My Daughter's Stockings Are Some Monkeys. (Monkey! Monkey! Monkey!)
1) I finished off the knitting needle case from last year - mostly; I lost the smaller piece of felt that was supposed to make decorative flowers, but the case is fine without it.
It came out bigger than I expected - I don't know why I thought it would come out about the same size as my crochet hook case, given that knitting needles are twice as long as crochet hooks. Silly me. But it's nice and case-y and I managed to stitch the pockets without the seam showing on the outside, so it's good.
2) I got one piece of cross-stitch framed. My "stitching buddies" had an outing to our LNS last month, and it turned out they were having a sale on framing, so I figured I'd get an estimate... The one time I'd gotten professional framing before, I was kind of disappointed with the results; Michael's takes a kind of hard-sell approach, and I ended up with a very nice frame with a piece of needlework in it. This experience was completely different: instead of setting up a stack of triple-mats and expensive molding and assuring me that it wouldn't look as nice unless I got that mat cut 5" wide all around - the clerk asked "So do you want a mat on it?" Yes, I did. I ended up with exactly the mat, glass, and molding I wanted, all in budget...I'll be going back to the LNS for more framing as the budget allows; I've got a couple more that I don't want to do myself. (And, yay, this puts me 1/3 of the way to one of my goals for the year...)
3) I've almost completed Daughter's socks - I'm past the gusset on the second sock, and for some reason socks always seem to go so much faster once I get past the heel - doesn't matter what kind of pattern I'm using, or whether I'm going toe-up or cuff-down. She's tried on the first one, and pronounced it "cool" and "comfy". (Meanwhile the socks I made last year for my niece the Sock Nazi have become her favorites - I think she likes that there aren't any seams and the length is just perfectly right.)
Jericho really likes Panda Cotton. I've gotten to practice my nostepinde skills on the leftovers from the first sock more than once. If I think of it in those terms the yarn-thievin' cat gets to live...
4) I've spun some more. I had quite a bit of fiber left from the class I took last fall - there was one length of a light-brown fiber with other colors in it that was used to demonstrate twist (you could see how the red fiber twisted against the brown, for example), and some light blue Romney (?). I spun the multi-colored one as an experiment, just wanting to see how it came out, and it was pretty - but kind of thick (DKish?) so I'm not going to ply it. For a single it's kind of overspun, but there's got to be something cute I could make with an overspun DKish single. :) I'm working my way through the blue now - I'm spinning it pretty fine, so there's turning out to be a lot of yardage even though I'm sure there's not more than an ounce or two of fiber there.
My biggest problem with spinning? Consistency. I can tell by looking at my spindle that the blue stuff has gotten finer as I've gotten farther along.
I would show you pictures of all the pretties - but the camera is hiding. Boo, camera.
My mom and my sister and (indirectly) my father-in-law provided me with fibery goodness for Christmas...
My favorite thing so far? My sister got me a Knitzi. It's very simple: a wooden tube with a slit, and threaded ends, and caps that screw onto the threaded ends. The overall effect is that you can store your DPN WIP, with the project sticking out the slot, and not have to worry about losing a needle, random two-year-olds pulling all the needles out, the points poking a hole in your bag, or any of a small host of disasters that can result from just leaving it lying around.
Mom thinks it's cool that I'm learning to spin - it almost seems like she's more excited about it than I am. So from her - copies of Spinning in the Old Way and Teach Yourself Visually Handspinning, plus a pound of BFL top in a beautiful aqua color. I've already learned some useful tricks from Spinning in the Old Way - it may work better to hold the fiber steady with the left hand and pull fiber out of the bundle with the right, rather than holding the right hand steady and pulling the bundle away from the working fiber with the left, and a horizontal or angled draw technique that means you don't spend quite as much time reaching up over your head. (Which, sadly, doesn't change the fact that eventually the spindle hits the floor, and you have to stop and wind on.)
Also, Mom provided a Boye interchangeable needle kit - which I've heard is people's least favorite out of the three easily obtainable ones, but we'll see how it works.
FIL got me...cash, with which I got sock yarn. Daughter picked out a pink-and-green colorway in Panda Cotton that is in the process of becoming a pair of Monkeys, and I got myself a skein of Austermann Step in a colorway that I didn't love as much once I got it home as I did in the store, but will make a nice pair of Jaywalkers.
(One of the Monkeys is presently sticking out of the Knitzi. It's a fun
knit, easy chart to memorize, produces a really cool pattern when all
is said and done.)
When I discovered that my local public library has copies of several of them, I just had to investigate further, and the Fair Isle book, detailing the colorwork garments peculiar to the Shetland Islands of Scotland, was the first one that came up on my request list. And so I share my thoughts with you...
- The
historical section was well-researched, including a debunking of many
of the more romantic stories of the origin of Fair Isle colorwork and providing a plausible alternative.
- The
section on decorative patterns and color choices was very thorough; it
includes pages and pages of charts, plus advice about how and when to
alter them.
- The
sweaters are absolutely beautiful; some of them looked dated to me, but
nowhere near as 80’s-licious as I might have expected from a book with
its copyright date. (Take this with a grain of salt - my idea of a
fashion statement is “I am wearing clothing.”) Alice Starmore definitely has a wonderful eye for color. There’s also
instructions for accessories - scarf, tam, mittens, gloves. Patterns go
up to about a 42” chest, and there are some in children’s sizes.
- The technical information about both the mechanics of colorwork knitting and the mathematics of designing a Fair Isle item is just killer.
I have to admit I haven’t read any other books that focused specifically on colorwork, so I don't know how it compares to other books on the topic, but if I could get a copy of this at a reasonable price (say $30-$40 for a hardcover), I would put it on my shelf. Both the datedness of the designs and the size range make it unlikely that I'd ever knit one of the patterns from the book, but if I ever do feel the urge to make a Fair Isle sweater, I would certainly check it out of the library again and use it as a reference for designing one.
…that said, there is not a knitting book in the universe worth $100. Check your library, ask for inter-library loan if they don’t have it, and haunt estate sales and your local used bookstores if you just have to have one for your very own.
Details:
Anastasia Socks by pepperknit patterns
Yarn: TOFUtsies by SWTC in colorway "Tenderfoot"
Needles: Boye size 2 aluminum
Completed, finally - only two months past the recipient's birthday! The second sock almost fell victim to a bad case of SSS; I finished the first one, and then was reluctant to start the second because I wasn't sure it would fit. But then I had a three-day knitting fit over Thanksgiving break, and it went in a hurry. The new owner, who we call "the sock nazi" because she has to get the seams and the heel on a pair of socks arranged just so in a process that takes up to twenty minutes, proclaimed them amazingly comfy.
Loved the pattern - the eyelet spirals are interesting for both knitter and wearer, but they don't compete for attention with the variegated yarn. But I didn't like this method for short-row heels at all; I found it very hard to pick up both wraps on the wrapped stitches. The "sryo" used in the Snicket Socks I made myself was much easier. The sewn bindoff was really cool, and is as stretchy as they say it is.
I found the yarn a little splitty, but it only elicited two or three cuss words, which isn't bad for a project with as many stitches as a pair of socks. (We won't talk about how many cuss words resulted from me doing something dumb...) There was probably enough left over to make a third sock. If I'd thought I could predict whether she'd lose the right or left one first, I'd probably make one.
The sock patterns are all really cool, except that I have absolutely no use for a pair of formal kilt hose.
Most of the wearables, I could live without.
But Jeanie is one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen in my life.
It's in my Ravelry queue now. I hope to get to it before I die.
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