knitabit

Reindeer Bootie

I had a 15-minute time slot to fill while running kids around in town yesterday, so I popped into the yarn shop to see about getting started on the reindeer booties from the new FCEK.

The pattern calls for Dale Falk (this clerk pronounced it "Dale", while others I have met say "Doll-uh" so I never know quite which way to go on that) which she did not have in the right color. So I picked up some Daletta instead. It's too fine gauged, it turns out, and I sensed that at the time, but I was so eager to get started it was worth $4.70 to just get going on an a trial bootie if nothing else.

This is a strange pattern. You knit the bootie starting by casting on along a line that runs from heel to toe of the foot. You do some increases in the middle to make the toe, and knit back and forth up to the cuff. Then you seam it together down the back of the heel and continuing on the bottom of the foot.

Now even though babies aren't walking at age six months, still - the idea of a seam on the bottom of the foot makes my foot itch just thinking about it. Eeeww, that would feel creepy.

The trial bootie is too thin and drapey - I think it should be more stiff and substantial. In fact, a yarn approaching worsted weight knit up on smaller needles might work, too.

I'm also going to modify the pattern to knit a solid sole, and then knit in the round to form the bootie. I do like the little bit of increasing at the toe, followed by some parallel decreases to form the face. And although the pattern doesn't show it, quite obviously these should be Rudolph booties complete with red noses.

Broken Pledge

I think it was only last week that I said I wasn't going to buy the junky knitting magazines any more. But I spied the new issue of Family Circle Easy Knitting at the grocery store. I paged through it rather quickly and found some cute stuff so of course I bought it.

Here's a felted tote bag. Now why didn't I think of that?

And here's some too-cute reindeer booties that I can't wait to knit up for my cousin's new baby boy:

Here's my new ultimatum: no more ultimatums!

Sunglasses update

I purchased my new Serengetis at noon:

Aaahhhh, what a relief to have my eyes once again shaded by those amber lenses. I'm hooked on 'em.

Speaking of hooked, I totally enjoyed the Brady Bunch 35th Anniversary Weekend on TVLand - at least what little I got to see. However, the Jenny McCarthy-hosted reunion show SUCKED, sadly.

Farewell, Serengeti

This photo illustrates with the white arrow the entirey of my knitting output over the past week or so:

Knitting is a pathetic hobby to try to undertake when you've got four kids in four sports, two part-time jobs, and a house to keep up with. Last night I was asleep on the couch by 7:00. Hope springs eternal, however, and I look forward to getting back on track this week.

On Thursday after the football game, I was standing in line at Wendy's and a little screw fell out of my sunglasses causing the lens to pop out. Fortunately, I caught it in my hand before it fell to the floor. I put the glasses in my purse, but put the lens in my jeans pocket because I didn't want it to get scratched. Of course, then I forgot it was there and the lens went throught the washer and dryer and did not fare very well.

Actually, this is some sort of a record for me in terms of keeping an expensive pair of sunglasses intact for any length of time. I think I had this pair for at least three years. As a contact lens wearer, comfortable and effective sunglasses are a big deal to me. So I'll be out shopping for some new ones today. Serengetis again, I'm sure.

Sock Break

I took a break from Roscalie last night to get started on the second sock of the Regia pair I'm working on. I'm using the "figure eight" cast-on, and it takes a fair amount of concentration to get it off to a good start - not the kind of concentration I have during a kids' soccer game:

My sock knitting is starting to get boring; for a fun change of pace, look what I found in the Patternworks catalog that came this week. It uses the blessed Koigu yarn (insert deep worshipful bow) so it's a given that it would be fun to knit. I'm not so sure about the fit or wearability, but it would be worth a try. I hardly ever wear my other Koigu socks because the yarn gets smooshed and flat at the pressure points on the foot - without that nylon content, the yarn just doesn't seem to stand up all that well as a sock yarn. But who cares, those socks make me happy even just seeing them sitting there in my sock drawer.

And just an editorial comment...I think the Patternworks catalog is my favorite out of the four or five that I get in the mail periodically. It seems to have the largest yarn selection, and is pretty much on top of all the latest trends. As a cost-cutting measure, I'm thinking I might drop most of the magazines that I either buy off the rack or subscribe to (Vogue, Cast On, Family Circle Easy Knits) except for Interweave Knits. (And honestly, when was the last time I ever knit anything from a pattern out of a magazine?) I already dropped Rowan because it was too pricey and face it, the patterns are all for young and skinny girls. I think the retail catalogs (well, and the knitting blogs obviously) do a better job of keeping me up-to-date on the latest trends.

The Truth About Knitting

Sometimes knitting is nothing more than a big Algebra I story problem:

If my row gauge is too tight by 9%, how many rows must I add to (1) correct the length plus (2) add an extra inch or two to the length since the pattern measurement is a bit too short anyway? And how much should be added above the armhole (armsceye for you purists) versus below? And, for extra credit, will I run out of yarn?

I haven't give you enough information to solve the problem, but you have a bit of insight into the math I'm grappling with. What makes it tricky is that you still want to end the sweater at the shoulder at a sensible spot in the pattern repeats.

I always find that my row gauge is too tight even when my stitch gauge is right on. Does anyone have any wisdom on that? In this case, even my stitch gauge is a little bit tight, but the drape of the fabric is fine and it actually makes the sweater a better fit for me.

We are enjoying some nice rain in Colorado today; the remnants of Hurricane Javier out of Mexico. I guess they're getting some big snow up in the high country. Woo-hoo!!

I lent my sister-in-law a book of Dale baby patterns so she can pick one for me to knit for the baby girl she's expecting in January. That will be my next project, I've decided.

Regular Programming Has Been Interrupted...

...by a trip to Alamosa for a water conference. Water wonks can read about it here.

The high mountain colors in Colorado will probably peak this weekend. Here's a sad photographic attempt to capture the beauty I encountered on the return trip:

Knitting will resume this evening, and we will get back to our regular programming.

As Predicted...

As a forecast about a week or so ago, my blog posting today reads "look, I've progressed another half inch." So here's the latest half inch:

Enough of that, let's talk about "Mythbusters." Last night's episode (a rerun, but new to me) was about the myth of the absurdly cheap sports car - the reason the price is so low, someone died and rotted in it and they can't get the stink out. Well, that one is true. You can't get the stink out. The other involved cornering a raccoon in a culvert and trying to blow the raccoon (or yourself, if inebriated) out of the culvert using gasoline and a lighter. This one was implausible on its face, but a good excuse for explosives nevertheless.

In two weeks they start some new episodes, and judging from the very brief preview (a falling elevator), I'm guessing one might be the myth about jumping up at the moment before the falling elevator hits the bottom of the shaft. (This is high school physics - think about playing ping-pong on board a moving train, and what would happen to the ping-pong ball if the train crashes. Yep, the ball gets smooshed no matter which way it was moving at the time of the crash.)

To conclude with some knitting-related content, our local 9News ran a segment last night in their 6 p.m. newscast about the popularity of knitting! It was nicely done. One of the knitters was a young girl. My daughter happened to be watching with me, and she told me she would like to get some yarn and knitting needles for her birthday in October, and would I please teach her how to knit? Awwww...*sniff*

Addicted

I continue to progress on Roscalie:

This two-color knitting is SO FUN and ADDICTIVE. I'm already thinking ahead to my next project, probably another Starmore.

Good 'Ol Addi Turbos

Roscalie is steaming along on the new Addi Turbo needles. My tension has settled down and is very even, the two-handed thing is going great, and I'm not the least bit bored or intimidated with the project so far.

Oops, it's blurry. The curl at the bottom is the hem facing, which will be hand stitched in place once this piece is done. The steek is on the right side, below the stitch marker.

I should have bought the Turbos in the first place. I felt compelled to buy wooden needles due to an incident that happened four or five years ago...

I was just getting back into hand knitting, after having been deep into machine knitting for quite some time. I was at the LYS for the first time - the delightful Over the Moon Cafe and Mercantile (no longer in business.) The yarn shop was owned by Tara Jon Manning, now a published author (Men in Knits among others.) Actually, she was probably published at that time; I didn't know I was talking to a minor knitting celebrity.

ANYWAY, I was browsing for yarn and told her I didn't want to invest my knitting effort into a cheap acrylic yarn that would only pill up over time. (I was just starting to develop the yarn snob tendencies.) She made the point that many knitters find that knitting needles made with natural materials seem to complement natural fiber yarns. OK, that turned me into a needle snob right on the spot. I went home and looked with disdain upon my vast collection of aluminum needles, acquired over the years and some handed down from my mom.

When I first started sock knitting, I of course bought sets of wooden double-pointed needles. Turns out, a size 1 wooden needle will last about a day at my house before it gets sat on, stepped on, bumped, etc. Then I discovered knitting socks on circular needles and Cat Bordi's "Socks Soar" book recommended Addi Turbos. And so the love affair began.

Starting Roscalie, I thought that a nice quality wooden needle would be just the thing for the Shetland wool. It sounded so homey and comfy to knit up a fair isle with Shetland wool and wooden needles.

Well, the Turbo's are doing just fine, thank you very much, with no danger of breakage or damage from shifting the stitches around on the cable. The tension's even and I seem to be knitting faster.

Lesson learned.

Roscalie Resumed

Got the new Addi Turbo 32" #3 circular yesterday, and I'm off and running again!

I can see that my blog entries over the next several weeks might tend towards dull ("look, I've progressed another half inch!") so I might have to wander off the subject a bit.

First, a little anecdote from the LYS stop yesterday. The owner asks me why I'm buying these particular needles, and I tell her I'm doing my first big fair isle project. She nods knowingly, and assures me it won't be too hard. I mention that it's my first time doing a steek and she says "what's a steek?" She happened to have some completed fair isle sweater samples from a vendor lying on the table. So I show her the steeks and we even find where some of the yarns had been cut. Entire new knitting vistas were opened up for her... I could make some snotty comments about her lack of expertise, but I didn't know what a steek was myself until about a year ago. And she's a very nice woman.

Okay, now to go completely off topic. My middle son got us all to watching "Mythbusters" on the Discovery Channel last night. I totally loved this show. I love the hosts. I love their attitude. I want their jobs. My husband and I are both engineers, and we watch our children for signs of nerdistic propensities (yeah, they've got 'em.) So here we all are watching what seems to be a much more fun version of the Materials Testing Lab class I took in college. And we're all breathlessly anticipating the outcome of each of their experiments. And what's not to love about putting marshmallows and Twinkies inside a hyperbaric chamber just for the hell of it? And when the cell phone failed to ignite the gasoline vapors, they found another way to explode the gases, just so they could experience the satisfaction of blowing something up. My knitting progress was slowed considerably because I so often had to stop and watch the show, slack-jawed in awe.

I went to the Discovery Channel's web site to sign up for email notification of future episodes. Must see TV. (Psst...don't tell the kids it's educational!)

Pee Wee's Back

Scroll down sidebar at right. Enjoy!

Ponderings

With my new Addi bamboo circular out on injured reserve (and the knitting shops closed for the holiday), I had to go back to my sock. A plain-vanilla kind of sock with some Regia short color. Bo-ring.

I've devoted a lot of idle thought to the problem of the length of Roscalie. At first, I thought I would have to rip back to the hem. I was thinking the only way I could add length without messing up the pattern sequence would be to start over at an 'earlier' point in the pattern sequence.

But after thinking about it some more, I don't think there's anything magical about the point in the sequence where the sleeve starts. I think I'll be able to just knit up the body to the desired length (maybe adding as much as 3-4 inches, since my row gauge is off), start the sleeves and neck shaping, and then just end at the shoulders at a different point farther along in the sequence. I think the shoulders end at one of the skinny blue stripes, and those come up every 10-14 rows in the sequence.

I think I'll devote some of my down time to charting out the exact pattern sequence for what I intend to do.

I think the next crisis point will be to run out of yarn. The worst case scenario will be having to buy about $20 worth of additional yarn from Virtual Yarns. That seems like a small price to pay to get a sweater with a nice fit as opposed to one that cuts me off at an unflattering part of my midsection.

In a way, maybe breaking that needle was a good thing. Instead of maniacally knitting away, I've been forced to take a break to stop and think.

Speaking of knitting maniacally, that reminds me that I haven't restored my sidebar link to Pee Wee Herman's "knitting and knitting" sound bite. Maybe I'll get it back up and running tomorrow.

Facing a Harsh Reality

I've been endlessly critical of the Denise Interchangeable Needles (my most virulent rant was here.) Knitting my daughter's poncho last week, I broke yet another cable at the spot where it joins the needle. I think I'm down to just two unbroken cable elements in my set.

So I'm zooming along on Roscalie last night and pop! I broke my brand new Addi! *sob* I've super-glued it back together, but I know it won't last - it will just enable me to pick up a few stitches that got dropped and keep everything safe and sound until a new pair can be secured.

So here's the harsh truth: I'm too rough with the needles when I slide stitches around on the cable. All of my needle breaks have occurred in this exact same location. And they always occur not when I'm forming stitches but when I'm sliding stitches around. I think I let too many stitches pile up on the needle, and when I go to slide them off onto the cable I push a bit too forcefully.

So I guess I need to take back all of the mean things I've said about the Denise's needles. And I apparently need to buy Addi Turbos (metal needles) to withstand the forces that I inadvertently apply when knitting.

I've checked my stitch gauge, and it's dead on. The row gage is not, however, and I've got a growing concern about this sweater being too short. I'm considering adding more length before I get to the armholes. This might mess up the way the pattern on the body meshes with the pattern on the sleeves, so I'll have to study the pattern repetition a bit and see what I can concoct.

I am totally enjoying fair isle knitting - much more than I thought I would. It's very addictive. The color pattern repeats are pretty easy to commit to memory, and it's immediately obvious when you make a mistake - I've had to frog back only a couple of times and not very far, either. I've got the two-handed thing figured out, although my left hand still struggles a bit.

Two-color Knitting

Before I get to knitting, put this in the Twilight Zone files: 18 months ago, we vacationed on Captiva Island, Florida, and it got hammered by Hurricane Charley. Six months ago we vacationed in the Bahamas, and now they're getting hammered by Hurricane Frances. Three months ago...well, if I lived in South Dakota, I would be very very nervous right now.

I was determined to finish the hem facing and get to the two-color knitting last night, and I did indeed succeed in getting two rows into it. Oooh, this is SO fun.

I'm trying to do two-handed knitting, and I've had a couple of false starts - some too-tight tension, and then wrapping the yarn the wrong way with my left hand. But I'm getting the hang of it and I'm sure I'll be doing it like a pro here after another few rows.

How do you like the little ball of yarn graphic at left? I'm starting to befriend the whole CSS concept in order to learn tricks like this. I still struggle with Adobe Photoshop. I might have to break down and buy a book or something.

Off and Running!

I'm on round six of Roscalie using my brand new Addi bamboo circulars:

I got the last pair of needles at the Fort Collins yarn store in each of the sizes needed, so it seemed like an appointment with destiny. They had other brands and types - Clovers, Addi Turbos, etc. - but these seemed very deluxe and fitting for this exciting new project. I did get a splinter in the palm of my hand when I first took the size 2's out of the package, but let's not talk about that.

I saw the new Rowan magazine on display. In a cost-cutting measure, I had let my Rowan subscription lapse. Those magazines are gorgeous to look at but truth be told, there isn't much in the latest issue that I think I would really knit. Not for the $25.95 list price anyway.

Likewise the new Interweave Knits crochet special issue. There's been so much buzz about it and I finally picked up a copy a couple of days ago. There's a couple of nice bags but not much else that interests me. The pictures that most caught my eye were about an African American fiber artist making some really cool wall hangings.

Starting Roscalie

My first big fair isle project!! Actually, I did a fair isle sweater back in college, which I discussed about a year ago.

Here is some random rambling about getting started on this project.

I do not have the right kind of circular needles in my collection for the Roscalie cardigan. All of my 2 and 3 circulars are for socks (24" long or less) and I will be needing 32" pairs for this project. I went ahead and cast on the required number of stitches to a sock needle, but of course they're really jammed on there and impossible to actually knit. But I was so anxious to get started...

As luck would have it, I have a business meeting in Fort Collins today and will be able to swing by their big yarn store to get what I need.

Roscalie does not have a ribbing on the bottom or on the cuffs, but rather hems. The pattern calls for several rows of plain stockinette, a purled turning row, and then an equal number of plain stockinette rows to complete a facing which is later turned up and hemmed by hand. I wonder if I could pick up the cast-on stitches and knit them together with the first "real" row to save myself the hassle of hemming with a tapestry needle? One of my resource books cautions against doing this with a shallow hem because it might cause the work to curl. Further, I hesitate to go against Alice Starmore's directions because they tend to be very good and accurate.

I'm not going to do a gauge swatch for this project. This sweater is pretty boxy and I don't think a little bit of off-gauge will matter too much one way or the other. Plus, making a fair isle circular swatch just sounds like a real pain. I'll knit up a few rows and see where I'm at. If it's terribly off, then I'll have to re-think.

Finally, a big high five to Alison for her support of the Herculean Effort. She had faith where I had none! And she is awarding medals at the end of the week! Check out her periodic Olympiad reports and especially the comments on her August 30 entry to see what everyone knit during the Olympics.