Done and Dusted

At last!  The crocheted afghan of massive avoirdupois is finished.  I’ve got to block it and mail it.  I hope it fits into a large flat rate box, or I’ll be spending a fortune to ship it.
I was accumulating a large pile of bits and pieces of yarn as I wove in ends and snipped them off.

This got me thinking about possible uses for them besides the trash, or maybe stuffing a knitted toy.  I certainly wasn’t movtivated to do anything creative with them.   Then we had dinner at a friends, and that all changed in one magic moment.

Our friend took out a dust mitt his grandmother made him.  He said he doesn’t use it, but he keeps it for a memento, because he really loved her.

I begged for an action photo:

I did a quick search on knitted dust mitt, and it didn’t take long.  If anyone seriously is interested, here you are, a free pattern.   Personally, my ends and pieces are in the trash.

MLE

If crochet were faster than knitting

then this freaking afghan would be done.   I have always believed that crochet is faster than knitting.  Based on that assumption, when I woke up in late July and realized that I had forgotten that I had a going-away-to-college afghan to make, I went with crochet.  Double crochet, in fact, using worsted weight yarn.  I chose yarn in his favorite colors, black and red, plus a little grey to lighten it up.  Colors and yarn choice, Vintage worsted from Berrocco, designed to work with spilled beer and pizza.  I thought I’d at least be finished by Labor Day, in early September. Oh, how wrong I was.

August:

October  Still at least a foot left to go.

He is going to school in Michigan, where I’m sure it is already chilly.

I miscalculated rather seriously on this one.  Fallacious reasoning explained below.

•  A giant rectangle is not portable.  One thing that helps my knitting projects move along is that they are generally portable.  I can knit in meetings, hanging out with friends, or when I’m flying or traveling as a passenger. This huge, heavy, object was not portable in the least.  Did I mention it is heavy?  Much heavier than a blanket knitted with the same yarn would be, I think.  Look at the  nice blankets I made his sisters.
•  
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• In the past, the “super fast” crocheting I did was small squares.  They seemed to fly by.  I really think it was that I could take them along.  I also worked them in finer yarn, so they were not as, um, heavy.
• In a long row-by-row project with dark colors, I knit much faster than I crochet, because I can do most of the knitting without looking all the time.  I have to see where my crochet hook goes every time.  This meant that I got about half as much done while watching the Olympics as I would have if I had been knitting.  I could not crochet and watch Usain Bolt.  I had to pause frequently.
• Crocheting this heavier weight yarn makes my right shoulder hurt in a weird spot.  If it’s true that repeating a full range of motion is less likely to give one problems with repetitive stress injuries, I just can’t figure out how to do full range of motion crochet.  Something would get hurt. Or broken.
• Project monogamy might have helped, but really, it was much too hard to be monogamous with a humongous heavy blanket during the sweltering summer, even while listening to Moby Dick, shipmates.
• It all boils down to poor planning.  Or bringing out a book when I should have been making a blanket.  I’ll do better with the next one, I have a few years yet.

So, those of you that knit and crochet, do you think crocheting is faster than knitting, or is it all about  the circumstances?

Fiber College

Thanks to everyone with ideas on restoring my mother’s embroidery.  It took you all to get me thinking that I know people who know people – like a textile curator and also the director of the Minnesota Textile Center.  (Smacks self on forehead.)  I now even have 35% off offer from the recommended framer/restorer.  When I get over there, I’ll give you more detail in case it’s of use.

FIBER COLLEGE!  My first trip to Maine, teaching and learning, making new friends, finding inspiration, I could go on and on.  If anyone has the chance to go next year, do it!  Photographer extraordinare Gale Zucker offered to pick me up at the Portland, Maine airport and we drove the rest of the way to Searsport.  It was dark by the time we got to Wonderview Cottages, our home for the next few days.  In the morning, I woke up to this view from our screened in porch:

Not enough time to enjoy it fully.  We rushed over to the Searsport Shores Campgrounds so I could get to my full day class – Natural Dyeing with Jackie Ottino Graff.  I’ve always wanted to try natural dyeing, and what a privilege to take a class from the head dyer for Swans Island Yarns.  We even got to use Swans Island’s organic merino base, talk about luxury.    Jackie had plants and powders from bugs and resin and trees I’d never heard of, like kutch and ironwood.

If you have never done any natural dyeing, it is like magic.  I felt like an alchemist – throw in a handful of iron and suddenly one color swirls into another. Plants simmer and steam and the yarn emerges vibrant and glowing.

Jackie is an excellent and patient instructor.  She taught an Indigo class I couldn’t take, because it was at the same time as one of my classes, but  I’m hoping to get her to Minnesota.

I taught Reading Japanese Knitting Patterns and Short Rows Three Ways.  My students were really engaged and engaging.  I always learn so much from teaching, as knitters are the most generous of people with their time and talents.

I felt obligated to purchase from some of the on-site vendors.  Since my day job involves economic development, I understand the importance of supporting the local economy.  Like this gorgeous laceweight yarn from Play at Life:

And these not-too-cute sheep buttons from Fields Edge Farm:

I met so many fun people.  Getting to spend more time with Gale was great, and our partner in Wonderwiewing was Kirsten Kapur, of Through the Loops.  Kirsten, it turns out, is a fellow Jersey Girl.  Not to mention insanely talented, professional, down-to-earth and a whole lot of fun.  I’ve admired her work for years, so it was pleasure to finally met her. Insanely talented and fun seemed to be the common denominator at Fiber College, like Ellen Mason.  Go visit her  blog and look at her patterns. Her designs are  clever, wearable, and have great names.  Her Fiber College blog post really captured the feeling I had flying home from Maine. Full. Full of inspiration, energy, friendship and laughter and blueberry pie.  I can’t wait to go back next year.

Not the War of the Roses

Well thanks to Clare and Jeanne (A Bluestocking Knits) I now have two ways to remember white rose for York. Yorkshire is big in cricket, so cricket whites

and York peppermint patties are white inside:

I did to go TNNA again, the big needlearts trade show.  We had a book signing for Wearwithall and people really were waiting in line to get the book.  I was worried no one would show up. Here’s the line at the Unicorn (book distributor) booth, with browsing while you wait:

Scott, Theresa and Sarah are in the author’s booth.  Since we didn’t all fit, Shelly and I stood outside, chatting and signing.  It was so much fun!

But home to the heat of the summer and the garden. We have lots of honeybees this year, which I hope is a good portent for the health of bees.

I have to say, though, that much as I enjoy having a garden, some summers gardening feels less like a rewarding hobby and more like an episode of Battlefield.  I snorted out loud last night when I saw a woman on Masterpiece Mystery drifting about the perfect garden in her flowing nightdress and robe,  waiting for the maid to bring her morning tea.  I, on the other hand, woke up this morning and lay in bed pondering the slaughter of my latest nemesis, squash bugs.  Is it because of the mulch?  Are the squash plants on the other end of the garden bug-free because they weren’t mulched?  One website recommended row covers, which have to be removed for pollination, unless you pollinate by hand.  By hand.  As if.  Yeah, right about the time the maid brings tea, the gardener will be pollinating the winter squash.  (Guy says he doesn’t want to be that closely involved with the sex life of winter squash.) I went out in torn shorts and a raggedy t-shirt (my flowing gown was in the laundry) to do battle and saw that the pollinating was happening in the good old fashioned way:

The ethnic cleansing of the Japanese beetles continues unabated, and we are doing constant battle with the squirrels over the hazelnut bushes.  This is the first year that the bushes have really produced, but the lovely giant green nuts are fast disappearing, and I am chasing squirrels away all the time.

The wet spring and crazy heat have created a weed crop that might feed the entire city if I could figure out which ones were edible.  This is a fallow spot where I’m layering the weeds that won’t fit in the compost, in hopes of having it be nice and fertile for next growing season.

The roses were lovely but then the heat has caused everything to bloom and bust.  My white phlox have all turned that nasty magenta ‘eschewed’ by garden writers.  The wild Turks-cap lily and globe thistle are the only things that look decent in that bed.

My late summer lilies are already in full bloom, at least for a day or two.

I do have to say, after all this whining, that I am grateful that I don’t have to rely on my garden for my winter food.  My little plot helps me appreciate the struggles that farmers endure.  I feel sorry for those in the UK with a wet, cold summer that has produced little in the way of crops.  Apparently the Times of London has printed an opinion piece opposing the rain.

I have been doing some knitting, in spite of the heat.  These little cuties will be a free pattern on the Wearwithall website, to go with the baby sweater and tunic.  I wanted to put them in the book, but there wasn’t room.  I added short rows in the back is to accommodate cloth diapers.  I didn’t know cloth took up more space than disposable.  Good thing I have some diaper-dealing mamas in my circle of friends.

What do you think?  Striped cuff, or solid?

Sound the Retreat

I have only ever been on one knitting retreat, about 15 years ago. It was fun, but there were quite a few glitches and the beds were awful. For years the Yarnery folks have talked about hosting a retreat, and Sarah finally took the knitting bag by the handles and made it so. (She is a geek and will like that reference.)

We spent a wonderful weekend at Superior Shores on the, yes, shore of Lake Superior.

That’s a photo from their web site. For us, it was cold, raining and windy. (When we cracked the bedroom window it felt like a episode of Sgt. Preston.) All in all, a lovely May weekend to stay inside and knit. We started out Friday night with cocktails and snacks as a getting-to-know-you opportunity. Throw in the dice game for swapping yarn along with the cocktails and you could say the ice was broken. It turned out to be a really fun group of knitters. Experience ranged from a former yarn shop owner (with warped sense of humor) to a brave newbie who had just finished her first hat.

Theresa and I roomed together. The beds were comfy, but the twenty something couple next door felt obliged to have a drunken quarrel at 3 am. “But you’re my girlfriend, I love you!” Drink and dial cell phone activity. You get the picture.

Apparently they made up the next night, but mercifully I slept through that. Over the course of the weekend, we looked at every couple that came into the dining room and muttered   “Think that’s Jimmy?”

The morning class was color theory/colorwork with Peggy Lexau teaching. That was the class that used my ugly blanket as the bad example. Best take away there – tips on finding value when choosing colors, from the low tech red/green plastic viewer, to taking a photo with your camera and making it black and white, to my newly purchased value viewer app for the iphone/ipad.  Look at the yarn I bought at Yarn Harbor in Duluth when we stopped by for a book signing. (Lots of fun, great snacks and yarn!)

The colors, intended as a striped sweater for the lovely Miss Minerva’s (red- haired dark-eyed) First Birthday this fall:

With Value Viewer:

I think the combo will be fine for stripes, but the values are too close in two of those colors for any significant contrast in stranded colorwork.

In the afternoon class, Theresa taught crochet for knitters. It is fun to see how knitters respond when they see how quickly a border can get crocheted onto a knitted square. I was originally going to do a ‘short rows three ways class*’, but we decided that an extra teacher’s aide would be more useful. I think it was. With a group of 20, extra eyes and assistance came in handy.

The rest of the time was eating, drinking, hanging out and knitting. It was a treat to get to know so many new knitting buddies. Also, I hadn’t been north of Duluth for quite a while. Here’s my little photo essay on how you know you are ‘Up North’ as they say here in Minnesota:

They take their politics very seriously:

Lots of taxidermy –

Sarah was quite taken with the bear.

Things I wouldn’t eat on a bet:

Interesting community activities:

Candy store with a portrait of the knitting namesake:

And, on the way out of town, a car with Illinois plates where the driver honks AND flips the bird to a couple of middle-aged women crossing the street when he felt entitled to be turning right. (No photos of that episode.) Ahhhh, up North indeed.

I hope there will be more retreats.

*I will be teaching that at Fiber College of Maine in September.

This Old Sweater, Part Two: The Buttonband

Back to the storyline.  In thinking about this sweater, in my mind I use the term ‘cardiganize.’  It’s not a real word, I know.  It reminds me of a favorite musical, Guys and Dolls, when Miss Adelaide tells Nathan Detroit ,“Take back your mink to from whence it came, and tell them to Hollanderize it for some other dame!”  (The common meaning of Hollanderize, in the 1940′s and 50′s, was to dye the cheaper, plebeian, widely worn muskrat coats to give them the look of mink.)  Enough singing, on to the buttonband.

There are two basic ways a knitter can approach this. 
Method One: Make a gauge swatch with your chosen stitch, yarn and needles.  Measure the front of the sweater, and calculate how many stitches you will need to make the band.
Method Two: Wing it, picking up stitches willy nilly.  Then, when you have about three-quarters of an inch of wavy mess of buttonband, go back to Method One.  Guess what method I chose first?

I picked up a little over 200 stitches.  It was hard to see where to pick up, since the sweater has slightly felted.  The normal ratios (3 sts for 4 rows, roughly) didn’t work out so well.  Although I did have a wavy mess of buttonband, I at least could use that as a gauge swatch – 7 sts to the inch, on a 2.5mm needle.  Slightly tighter might have been better.  I have no idea what size needle I used originally on this sweater, and I have no notes on gauge or any swatch I could find.  (Seriously, though, I didn’t look very hard.)

I ripped out the sts, then measured the front: 22.5 inches.  I removed ½ inch for simplicity, then placed coiless safety pins at 2 inch intervals. 

This gave me 11 spaces, and I would ideally pick up 14 sts in one space, then 13 in the next.  I am believer in picking up as many stitches as necessary (within reason) to avoid gaps, and then decreasing on the subsequent row to get the correct number of stitches, so that’s what I did.

I chose a garter stitch band, partly to match the cuffs and bottom band, but partly because I am lazy and I knew garter stitch would work.  I added a rolled edge to try and tie in with the neckband.  The tricky aspect of that was that it doesn’t quite tie in with the neckband.  I did a little mattress stitch, then sewed it down so it wouldn’t unroll at that spot, revealing my slacker knitting style.  I just keep reminding myself that I wasn’t wearing it, so it’s ok, at least now I’ll wear it.  (I’d better, after all this.)

You can see the before and after here:

It doesn’t look too terrible.  As my Gramma always said, “A dark night on galloping horse, you’ll never see it.”

And speaking of galloping horses, look what I found in the button tin:

I bought these years ago, and it seemed quite appropriate.

MLE

This Old Sweater

The gansey is at least 12 years old, to the best of my recollection.  This doesn’t make it eligible for inclusion in the registry of historic sweaters, or to be called vintage.  A gansey is classic, so it couldn’t even be considered dated.  (At least to knitters.)  I used to wear it frequently.  For whatever reason, I just don’t wear it much these days, and I think I’d get more use out of it if it were a cardigan.

The freezing drizzle and ice pellets today have given me the time and inclination to continue with the remodel.  I don’t have any burly guys with Boston accents giving me guidance.  I don’t have a Boston accent either, and my New Jersey only comes out when I’m home, visiting.  So this remodel will be accent neutral, but I hope it gives you, the sweater owner, the courage to remodel on your own.

Baste once, check about 4 or 5 times at least.
This is back of the sweater. Do Not Cut This.  Even if you were stoopid (that’s NJ) and marked it by mistake.

This is the front.

I checked.  I checked again.  Then I sewed down either side of the basting line with the sewing machine, using small stitches.  You could sew by hand, or make a crocheted steek, if you prefer.  In this case, because the steek is over pattern stitches,  I thought that machine stitching would be easier. Not to mention faster.  I used a thread that didn’t clash horribly, but was still visible to the aging eyeball.

Lay the sweater out flat.  Lay your scissors on the sweater.  Use sharp shears, of the quality you’d use for fabric.  You can use small scissors, but shears make it much easier.  Ponder the next step, take a deep breath and begin. Make sure you are only cutting the front layer.

Keep cutting, keep breathing.

Tah dah!  You have cut the front open, and the edges are still in place.

Pull out the basting yarn. Look, the stitches are holding.

Now I’m off to figure out how I want to make the button bands.  I think I’ll save that for the next episode.

Is something retrograde?

I was planning a perfectly-executed knitting remodel (thanks, Jocelyn, for the language) of my gansey.  This weekend, however, had other plans, and all I have to demonstrate is how easy it is to make mistakes, and the longer you have been knitting, the easier it is.  I have a knitting friend who is also a stunt woman, and she says the stunts you get hurt on are the ones you do so often they are second nature.  You just forget to pay attention.  I clearly have not been paying attention.  Here’s a shot of the gansey, with some nice bright yellow basted down the center cutting line.  I wondered whether to hand or machine sew on either side of the line, deciding that small machine stitches would make most sense here, since it isn’t a nice, flat stockinette steek .  That way the stitches would be good and tight and never go anywhere.  Ever.  Thank goodness I remembered to photograph it for the blog…

since that is the BACK of the sweater.  At least I saw it while taking the photo and before I started flashing the scissors around.  Picking out the small machine stitches was a real treat.

Next up was a pair of socks that was, if truth be told, only 1.5 socks.  Sometime last year I set them aside, mostly because I wasn’t enjoying the needles I was working with.  (More on those later in the week, I hope.) I gritted my teeth and set to the second sock.  It was taking FOREVER.  It also seemed wide, but given the needles and the fact that I started it last year, I thought it was my gauge, so I knit tighter.  That made it really super fun.  I finally counted the stitches in preparation for turning the heel.

Yes.  22 stitches more than needed.  Certainly 22 sts more than sock number one. I considered just leaving it that way, since they were for me, but  decided that was just plain lazy and stupid.  So I cast on for a new second (third?) sock.  This time, I used different needles.  I may be a slow learner, but eventually I get there. I also took the socks to Week Two of my beginning knitting class for show and tell.  I think they enjoy seeing that I just don’t sit around all smarmy turning out perfectly-knit items.  Or maybe it just makes them fear they will end up like me.  If that’s the case, a cautionary tale is always a good thing.

Then on Monday, a day off,  both the kitchen sink and utility sink (where the washer drains) backed up.  After a couple of hours, I was all for calling in the professionals, but them are fighting words around here.  Many hours later (“Run more water in the other sink.  Can you go to the store and get another snake? OK, pull the plug.  Yell down when the sink is empty.”) we had clear running drains.  I would still have preferred that the plumber do it while I sat around knitting and waiting to write a check.  I won’t even talk about the banking/download mishaps.  Are the planets aligned again?  Can I try to cut the gansey?  Stay tuned.

MLE

Hyperbolic Reef

I was in Washington DC for work, and my buddy lured me away for a couple of hours to see the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef at the Smithsonian.  It is the brainchild of the folks at the Institute for Figuring.  Whatever figuring is – I read the description and I’m still not sure. The Crochet Reef is a  fusion of art, science, mathematics, handicraft and community practice that “may well be the largest community art project in the world.” The inspiration was the technique of “hyperbolic crochet” discovered in 1997 by Cornell University mathematician Dr. Daina Taimina. The Wertheim sisters used the techniques to develop a whole taxonomy of reef-life forms. I wish I had been able to take better photos. For most of the reefs,  I had to use a flash and press up against the glass.  However, there is a whole flickr group dedicated to the reef project, so I imagine there are lots of great photos.

Astonishing.

At last a use for the fun fur and eyelash yarn that would otherwise end up in landfills:

For Gale, there was even a granny square physical manifestation of hyperbolic space:

There were beaded coral bits and man o’war (men o’war?) mixed in, and yes, that white coral is all crocheted with very fine crochet cotton.

I think my favorite part of the visit, though, was the group of preschoolers who raced up to check it out.  One little girl, her face pressed against the glass, yelled “Look, it’s made out of sweaters!”

Coquille Italiano

Doesn’t that sound like the name of a wonderful dish?  I am attracted by anything Italiano. (Unless, of course, it is on a menu in a midwestern restaurant.)  In this case, Barbara (melaguendy on Ravelry) asked to translate Coquille into Italian.  This translation is a Big Night meal;  it  is effusive, every word and more translated, you tube video links for techniques – a real seven course dinner!  Bring on the Grappa.  Grazie, Barbara.

Thanks to all your moral support and suggestions,  I finally finished Acorns.  I modified Helen‘s idea of a shawl collar and decreased using short rows to tighten the neckline.  Here it is.

I cut my head out of the picture because the combination of  6 degrees outside and 6:30 in the morning did not result in an attractive self portrait.  I wore the sweater to work and several non-knitters said it was ‘adorable,’ so I guess the modifications worked.

In the future, though, no fitted sweaters in anything heavier than sport weight.  I don’t know what I was thinking.  Also, Jess and I were talking about the trend towards larger necklines in sweaters, wondering if it is  fashion, or a lack of attention to fitting in the pattern writing?  I think in the case of Acorns, it is certainly planned to fit that way, I just didn’t like it.

You all had lots of ideas regarding tea towels vs. dish towels, linen vs. cotton, toweling vs. smooth.  The funniest was from Melinda, who often shares quirks of life in Switzerland.  “Randomly, there’s a code here for towels. The striped ones are for your hands and the ones with squares for drying dishes. Unfortunately, I have trouble remembering which is which.”  That would be me, disgracing myself at every turn.  I did make a bunch of colorful new napkins, though, and am pleased with the result.

A closing shot of what it looks like trying to back out of my driveway in the early morning semi-darkness.  Hint – those are not icebergs.