Archive for March, 2007
March 27th, 2007
Breathe. BREATHE. Slowly, slowly, very v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y, DON’T TENSE!
Gah, trying to fix mucked up lace is a very stressful endeavor. I haven’t touched my lace project for days now because I messed up and didn’t want to deal with it. I had accidentally done two of the same pattern rows in a row, instead of alternating. This meant frogging back about 4 rows, so I set it aside for a while.
Well, tonight was the night to pick it back up again, and man it was minorly stressful. The frogging back wasn’t too hard at all. It was fixing the couple blips I made in frogging (frogging k2TOG in lace is a PAIN) that risked dropping stitches several rows. When I talk about stress, I mean potentially messing up in a way that would require me to rip out the whole thing and start again. Perhaps now is the time to finally put in that life-line in case I mess up again.
2 Comments | Categories: Knitting |
March 24th, 2007
I’ve always got this need, it seems, to figure out what I’m going to knit a completed handspun yarn into as soon as I finish it. I have a hard time letting it sit in my stash (as small as it is), without deciding on something to turn it into. I currently have just about four completed sets of spun yarn in various amounts sitting in my stash, unknit, un-thought-of, and with no inkling of a project in mind for them. This drives me insane every time I see them in there. Fortunately for me I don’t go rooting around in my yarn very often.
Do any other spinners have this problem?
I must say that I really loved spinning this yarn. It exemplifies a trend that is occurring with my spinning: thinner and thinner. I love the thin yarns, just as I seem to love the small stitches/small knits. The fiber came in what I think you’d call a batt, and it faded from brown to yellow. Beautifully saturated bright colors, and well mixed. I decided that I was going to split everything up so that I could control the placement of the colors. Each color segment (brown, brown-orange, orange, yellow) was separated, then split into strips that I then pre-drafted into several foot long pieces of roving. So far this is my favorite way to prepare the fiber, so that I can wrap it around my wrist several times. Then, each strip of fiber is a good amount to spin each sitting (5-10 minutes), or do multiple strips in one sitting.
The resulting yarn is something that will stripe when knit up most likely. I can’t wait to see what it does, but that brings me back to my conundrum. I’m really not ready to figure out what to knit this into. One of the things I struggle with handspun is trying to figure out a project that will fit the amount of yarn I have, without having too much left over. I did consider socks but…I’m not positive, but I’m not ruling it out either. I’m just not focusing too much on what to do with this yarn because I have a few other projects that I’m really excited about working on. Nothing major, just a few small things.
Every time I stare at it though, I just feel this insatiable need to knit it up. I’m not one of those spinners that spins just for the delight of it (nor a knitter that knits just for the meditation of it). I thoroughly enjoy the process; I thoroughly enjoy working with the materials (when they’re good); I thoroughly enjoy looking forward to the end result, and I thoroughly enjoy using my handwork for its intended purpose. For me, it’s all about the balance of each part.
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March 23rd, 2007
Toe Up (Click to enlarge)
Details: This heel is nearly identical to the Heel Flap method, except it creates a more square heel. The difference is mainly in the heel turn after finishing the heel flap, and before picking up your stitches.
Advantages: Among the advantages of the Heel Flap method, some find this heel to fit their foot better. It will likely fit a more deep or pointy heel better.
Disadvantages: The disadvantages to this heel would be nearly identical to those for the Heel Flap.
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March 23rd, 2007
Toe Up (Click to enlarge)
Details: For the round heel you start with a similar beginning as the Short Row heel. First you create a gusset by increasing by an inch or two, then you start the first half of a short-row heel. Instead of going back over your wrapped stitches with more short rows, you knit them (and the wraps). Then what is similar to a gusset is knit, where you knit back and forth over the heel, decreasing every row until the original cast-on stitches remains. I’m not entirely sure I knit this heel properly according to the directions, but you can find a link to those below.
Advantages: There are no picked up stitches, for those that dislike dealing with the heel flaps. This heel doesn’t hug the arch of your foot quite as much as other methods do, which can be good for those with sensitive feet, or little to no arch.
Disadvantages: It doesn’t seem to fit well to a large ankle or a deep heel, as there is a lot of stretching on the top of the ankle.
Learn How
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4 Comments | Categories: Heel Compendium, Knitting |
March 23rd, 2007
Read that title with a tune in your head, and it’ll convey exactly how I’m feeling. I’m feeling the spring weather, the new projects, the enjoyment in knitting. Ohh, perhaps I’ll do up a little spinning tonight as well!
Beware, crappy haphazardly taken photos ahead.
Lots of work on the eye of the partridge heel lately, and I think I like it. I’ve noticed that it seems to take up more rows to fill the same amount of space as a stockinette heel flap. You’ll see in the pictures later (when I post a Heel Compendium bit for eye of the partridge) how long the gusset will be if you do what seems traditional to me by knitting one plain row between every decrease row. I was searching for a project to start the other night (something simple) and decided to start on a pair of socks for a Christmas gift. For these I decided to do the decrease rows every row, rather than every other as I did for the Heel Compendium sample. Anyone else find they need to do this?
Oh, and I thought about adding a simple way of keeping track of comments and responses on the blog. I try to e-mail my responses to commenters most of the time, but sometimes commenters respond to other commenters. Check to the left and you’ll see “Recent Comments”. Just hover your mouse over that and you’ll see a list of the most recent (will make it look prettier later). If it doesn’t work when you hover over the text, just click the link and you’ll be brought to a new page with all the newest comments.
Man, this is one of my most haphazardly crappy posts ever.
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March 21st, 2007
Would you believe, being the yarn snob that I am, I will probably wizz through quite the large skein of acryllic yarn for this Heel Compendium project? I’m not even pushing myself through it; I feel driven to do this despite the material.
I like the feel of natural fibers, I like the thought of using natural fibers, and I like the many great qualities of many natural fibers (warmth & water retention of wool, softness of silk, warmth of alpaca, etc). This is why I have not done much with non-natural fibers since I started knitting. I’m OK with knitting a wool sock yarn with a little nylon (Cascade), but I get so excited by yarn such as Malabrigo’s merino, or Blue Sky Alpaca’s alpaca & silk.
OK, so I’ll give this yarn I’m using a little credit. It is soft, and the color is shiny and saturated. It does feel kind of squeaky like you’d expect acryllic to feel though. I think there are a lot of things about this Heel Compendium project that inspire me to continue whatever material I’m using. First, I love learning, and with each new heel I’m discovering its strengths, weaknesses, and whether or not I would choose to knit it into my own socks. Second, these things are taking no time at all to complete. The larger ones are probably taking 3-4 hours, and the smaller ones (can you say, short row?) are taking about an hour.
So I think what I need to make a project exciting are some of the following things: great colors, great fibers, or new ideas/techniques.
2 Comments | Categories: Knitting |
March 20th, 2007
Top Down (Click to enlarge)
Details: This technique has no gusset, and takes up a smaller part of the sock than the Heel Flap or Dutch Heel. You start with a slightly shorter heel flap, then work a few decreasing rows, and pick up your stitches on the side. Once the stitches are picked up you will have the same number of stitches that you cast-on on the needles. This is so that you don’t have to decrease to create a gusset.
Advantages: This type of heel will fit narrow heels very well, and doesn’t take as much time to knit as some heels do. It also forms to your heel a bit better than the short row heel does, which is also a quickly knit method. There are some short rows involved, but you don’t have to worry about picking up the wraps when knitting over them.
Disadvantages: Figuring out the math to determine how many rows of each section you need to do can be a bit difficult. You need to work things out before you start so that you know you will end up with the cast-on number of stitches when you move on to the foot. This heel may also not be quite as fitted to the arch of your foot as one with a gusset.
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March 18th, 2007
Lots going on in my knitting world lately. You know I’ve got this sock heel project going on, and I’m loving it. Each heel swatch is so quick to knit, and since I’ve already done all the techniques I know I’ll be learning a lot with each new one I knit. You know I’ve got some spinning going on, and in the next few days I’ll show some of my new yarn (beautiful colors!). You also know I plan to knit a vest soon, but I think that’s going to wait a bit longer.
A few days ago I decided to start a lace shawl project from A Gathering of Lace. As I was looking through I noticed one of the patterns I liked used the exact kind of yarn that I already have in my small-yet-adequate stash. It’s JaggerSpun’s Zephyr Wool-Silk, and I think I may have just enough. I have two 600yd cones, and the pattern calls for just over 1100 yards.
If you’ve got the book, the pattern starts on page 20. It seems like these patterns aren’t named. It’s actually so far a pretty easy lace pattern to work. Once I got the right needles (KnitPicks Options), I set right to work. The only problem has been that I’ve had to rip back and re-knit almost every row. Yes, I did say it was easy. Apparently I’m having to adjust my knitting habits for lace. I’m not used to knitting something that requires this much constant concentration, and re-checking. I’ve realized that I have to knit this when I have few distractions so that I can make sure not to miss a yarn over, or knit the wrong row. The center of the shawl is made up of a 2-row pattern repeat, so it’s really easy to get lazy and think I’m in a rhythm. Just when I think I’ve got things nice and steady, I realize I’m short a few stitches. It’s definitely a lesson in avoiding over-confidence.
Now what I need to do is choose my next heel pattern, as I’ve already finished my fourth technique (Dutch Heel, pictures soon). Any suggestions?
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March 16th, 2007
Toe Up or Top Down (Click to enlarge)
Details: This heel is knit completely using short row shaping very similar to the short row toe. It is completely symmetrical, and is knit the same way toe up or top down. You start by setting half your stitches aside to work with the other half on the heel. Each row (knit back and forth in stockinette) is subsequently knit 1 stitch less by wrapping and turning the last stitch. Once roughly 2/3 of the stitches are wrapped (1/3 on each side), and 1/3 are knit in the middle, each row following is knit1 stitch more.
Advantages: Once you get the hang of wrap and turn, and picking up the wrapped stitches this method can be very simple. It is also versatile as it works well with toe up and top down socks. It is quickly knit and fairly simple to remember. This style of heel fits well to feet that are flat, or wider around.
Disadvantages: If you don’t pick up the wrap with the stitches properly you can get holes in the sides, or things can look messy. Also, this style isn’t quite as fitted to an arched foot. I tend to notice a bit more stretching in the knit over the top of the ankle, which could possibly be solved by knitting a gusset increase before and decrease after.
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1 Comment | Categories: Heel Compendium, Knitting |
March 16th, 2007
Top Down (Click to enlarge)
Toe Up (Click to enlarge)
Details: Generally with this style of heel you separate a number of stitches and begin knitting flat back and forth to create a flap. Then you pick up the stitches on the sides of the flap, and knit all three sides of the flap (the picked up sides, and the top), and the remaining stitches that were set aside to continue knitting around. Finally, a decreasing gusset is knit to bring you back to the original number of stitches.
Advantages: The gusset of this heel tends to fit well to feet with a noticeable arch. I find this heel is more suited naturally to the shape of a foot, unless of course you have wide or flat feet. If such is the case, then you may want to decrease fewer stitches on the gusset, or rspan class=”s-compendium”ove it entirely.
Disadvantages: The construction of the heel can be a bit complicated, and there are more steps to rspan class=”s-compendium”span class=”s-compendium”ber than some heels. Also, some people get very loose stitches on the picked up stitches (especially when they aren’t knit twisted), which can create a row of small holes on each side.
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Comments Off | Categories: Heel Compendium, Knitting |
Gah, trying to fix mucked up lace is a very stressful endeavor. I haven’t touched my lace project for days now because I messed up and didn’t want to deal with it. I had accidentally done two of the same pattern rows in a row, instead of alternating. This meant frogging back about 4 rows, so I set it aside for a while.
Entry: Quietly Knitting
Author: Hishandmaid
Time: February 27, 2010, 10:57 am
Comment: Very adorable!
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