Too Many Started

June 23rd, 2007

I recently saw a picture of someone’s complete Mon Petit Chou by Kate Gilbert, and reminded myself that I had some spending cash left for this month. I went to the WEBs online store, looked for the yarn I needed, and ended up buying 55$ more in yarn than I intended! It was 20% off! How could I resist?? I stayed within my budgeted amount; I was good.

However, with new yarn comes the urge to cast-on millions of new things. I didn’t quite cast on millions, but I did start two more projects. Some day I will be able to link you to my Ravelry page with all my projects, so you can see how many I’ve got going I did start the Mon Petit Chou hipsters, and I must tell you knitting with stretchy yarn isn’t the best thing in the world. If you ever decide to do it, make it a small project. It’s not hell or anything, it’s just not mindless knitting fun.

Nor is this pretty thing mindless knitting fun. I was inspired by this iteration of the pattern, which was made in a wonderfully fiery orange/red. Perfect for something called “candle flame”. The yarn is a large cone of Valley Yarns alpaca silk, and it’s so soft and comfy looking. The color is perfect, and I’m realizing just how great a choice this pattern is for this yarn. This lace really doesn’t want to be blocked, because the texture that it produces is just so interesting. Since alpaca doesn’t really block well (although silk does), it’s perfect!

I imagine myself wearing this over my shoulders when I’m dressed up, or tied around my hips with a pair of jeans to dress it up a bit. I’ve never really been drawn to shawl in my fashion (if you can call it that), but the thought of having my own handknit shawls appeals to me a great deal. Hopefully I can keep the stamina long enough to get this one further along than the first one I started (still no progress).

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Cotton and Socks

June 17th, 2007

It’s all about socks today!

I don’t have the major problems with cotton that lots of knitters seem to have. Many complain of its unstretchiness, it can be rough, it’s not comfortable to knit with. I won’t say it’s my favorite fiber, but I can handle knitting with it. I recently bought some cotton/wool/nylon sock yarn (Plymouth Sockotta). I’ve only knit wool socks so far, and thought it would be nice to try something new. I like the idea of having cooler weather socks, and something that may wash and wear a little better than wool. I was OK with the colors when I saw it, but not excited. The excitement was a new yarn to try.

So far I am quite pleased with how this yarn knits up. I was worried the yarn would knit in a faux fair isle (I hate faux fair isle self-striping) but it’s just mottled wide stripes. It has a nice light feel to it, and a nice stretch from the wool and nylon. What this yarn needs is just a boost in the colors area.

The sock fits nicely!

A few days earlier I washed and hung to dry the first of a pair of socks for my sister’s Christmas present. You may notice something funky about the heel if you take a close look. Anyway, while I was knitting the gusset it seemed to me that perhaps the gusset was a bit shorter than normal. I ripped back to the beginning of the gusset to alternate plain rows with decrease rows the second time, and changed my mind as I began to re-knit.

Aside: When I’m knitting the gusset for a heel that I’ve done in eye-of-partridge, or heel stitch, I don’t alternate plain rows like most patterns call for. The heel stitch seems to have more rows/inch, which means I have to decrease more stitches overall.

When I tried the sock on I did notice that it was a little wierd fitting over the top of my foot. I was actually taking the photos for this blog and noticed this. Since I took the photos for the two socks one after the other, I compared the two. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why one gusset fit perfectly, and the other didn’t. The sock yarn was very similar in thickness, and I hadn’t varied the socks from what I normally do (except the ribbing).

I was wrong though, I did alter the heel turn on the ribbed pair. I did some heel turn I thought up on the fly, because I was feeling confident. I realize now I did it slightly wrong and decreased a lot more stitches than normal. This meant that my gusset had fewer stitches to decrease, thus the funky fit over the top of my foot. It’s not terrible, and I don’t think my sister will notice. It’s just not the fits-like-a-glove snugness that handknit socks can have.

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Stitch Markers

June 15th, 2007

I don’t have stitch markers, I have aluminum maille rings. Corey bought some steel maille rings a while back to start some chain armor for SCA (he’s slowly not plodding along). When he did I asked him to buy some aluminum rings for making things (mostly maille jewelry). When I started knitting I adopted some of these rings for stitch markers, and they have worked great but for one thing: the ends are butted, not connected to eachother. This means that my yarn gets caught in the split, especially when I’m working with finer lace yarns. I had an idea to find some beads that would fit perfectly to the diameter of the wire that makes up the rings. I’ve been meaning to do this for a loong long time, but I just never took the time to buy the beads.

You’ve probably guessed it; I recently bought the perfect beads. I still have a bunch to finish, but the process is so easy.

1. Open the ring, put the bead on the ring, close the ring.
2. Get your super fast drying super well sticking glue. Put a little tiny dot on the split in the ring.
3. Slide the bead over the dot of glue, and quickly move your fingers away (don’t want them getting stuck to the glue!).
4. Done!

I have hundreds of these aluminum rings, but I only plan on making enough stitch markers for what I need (maybe 50?). Who knows what I’ll do with the rest of these rings, as I haven’t shown signs of making jewelry yet!

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A Night to Ply

June 13th, 2007

A whole night to myself, and I’ve had my share of the internet. I open the latest podcast, which isn’t so new and I still haven’t listened to it. My newest batch of yarn is fully spun, skeined, washed, and ready to be plied. It’s so good to spend a night plying, listening to podcasts, and bringing back some peace to my life. I don’t know what it is about plying on the spindle, but I can do it for hours and not get tired. I can’t do that while spinning most of the time. Maybe it’s the speed at which you wind the yarn on the spindle (no drafting, just twiisssst, and wind). Maybe it’s the knowledge that completion is just sooo close, and I feel this need to finish now. I think a lot of it is the satisfaction of seeing the yarn come into its own as real yarn, not just tufts of fiber.

Anyways, I used the Andean plying method on this as I did with the other skeins similar to this. This is for a big project (I think a shawl) of about 8 oz of fiber that I want to spin. I’m over halfway done, and slowly plodding along. I’ve had problems doing the Andean plying on my hand with the size skeins I tend to produce, so I tried to rig up something else to use instead. I used a piece of cardboard with some duct tape. It worked pretty well, but will probably be a one or two time use thing only. I think I saw a wooden one being sold somewhere online, and I’m considering trying to find it again. I really like this plying technique as I have no lazy-kate, and don’t like to wait until I’ve finished two batches to ply.

I was worried through the whole process of spinning this yarn, and even during the plying stage, that my yarn wouldn’t be the same thickness as the other three skeins I’ve spun. I think it has all worked out for the best though, as it doesn’t seem to vary too much. Once I un-spindle and wash it I’ll see, but I’m feeling encouraged. It will be a very exciting, and slightly unnerving thing to finish all of this yarn. Then I’ll need to design the project!

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Can’t Do It? I Don’t Believe It.

June 8th, 2007

I’ve noticed that a lot of people (not just knitters) will say that they “can’t learn to do *it*.” Whatever that something is, they are just unable to learn how to do it. You’ve got a brain, you’ve got fingers, you’ve got the resources to learn. Why not? I find statements like this very frustrating, because people who say them usually mean something else. For example…

“I don’t want to learn.”

“I’m not interested enough to put in the effort to learn.”

“I’ve been told it’s hard, and that takes work.”

“I’m afraid to learn and fail.”

“I’m uncomfortable with new things.”

“I don’t have faith in my abilities to learn or do it on my own.”

…and other various statements that have nothing to do with “can’t“. I know it’s too much to ask people to be honest when they say things like that. There are people who will use the “can’t” word when they don’t mean it. Then there are those that use the “can’t” word not realizing that they can.

So, I would like to ask something of you. Anytime you find yourself about to say you can’t do something, stop for a moment and think about what you really mean. If the end result is the same, you don’t bother learning, then at least you’re being honest with yourself and others. If you really want to learn but find some discomfort, fear, or insecurity stopping you, take a moment to think about this (we’re talking specifically about knitting now).

What’s the worst that happens if you fail miserably? No really, what’s the worst that could happen? You totally mess up, the yarn is in a tangle, your fingers get caught in the yarn, you can’t get them out, and you have to go to the emergency room because you’ve punctured your palm several times with the needles and your fingers are losing their circulation. OK, so being realistic the worst thing that could happen is that your knitting looks nothing like it’s supposed to and you have to throw the yarn away because it’s so tangled it’s unusable.

I know a lot of people would get very discouraged with such a failure. I have a few close family members who give up and see such failure as proof of their ineptitude, and are afraid to try learning anything about that something again. What these people don’t realize is that they’ve actually gained something very valuable when they fail miserably trying something new: knowledge.

Why did I fail? I wasn’t paying enough attention to each stitch and the order they need to go in. What was the result? My lace didn’t look right, and I had to rip out the whole thing and start all over again (or give up with that project because I’m tired of it). What have I learned? 1) I don’t have the patience or focus to do lace, 2) I need to make sure that when I’m knitting lace, it is at a time when I can focus entirely on what I’m doing (not travel knitting), 3) I need to switch from written instructions to using a chart (or vice versa), or 4) I can’t do lace.

The difference between people who become advanced knitters in a plethora of styles and techniques, designing their own patterns, making major tweaks to published patterns, and thinking up outrageous new ideas, and the people who only know how to do garter stitch and stockinette stitch, and only knit the most basic of projects is that the first group of people don’t let failure convince them that “I can’t do it.”

Now I’m not saying that there is anything wrong with only knowing the basic skills in knitting, and not being adventurous. However, you should never let “I can’t do it.” keep you in that place. It should be your conscious decision that that’s what you want out of knitting. When you’ve had a difficult time trying to learn something new, or you have just chosen not to learn intarsia, or cables, or whatever, it should not be because you can’t do it. Because you can. You have a brain, you have fingers, and you have the resources to learn.

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I Love Socks!

June 6th, 2007

How silly is it to forget how much you love to knit socks? I bought some Socks That Rock for a Christmas gift for my sister, and I’ve been putting off knitting the socks. I sorta know her size, but she might also be a slightly bigger half size than what I think she is. I want her socks to fit perfectly, because everyone should know the wonder that is proper fitted socks. I’ve been agonizing over how exactly to do it; should I use a pattern; should I just do ribbing as that has more stretch than stockinette; or what?

Finally tonight I bit the bullet and just started the pair of socks. I decided to do a 3×1 rib that would add a bit more stretch, and pull in a bit more than stockinette. First of all, I love knitting a new colorway in Socks That Rock. It’s exciting to see how it will stripe. Second, how could I put off starting another pair of socks? I love knitting socks! Even having to purl every fourth stitch isn’t as bad as I’d expected.

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No DPNs? Easy Peasy!

June 3rd, 2007

I started this project yesterday, and finished it tonight. It was so incredibly easy, if I had another skein of this yarn I’d cast-on right away for another one. It’s like sock knitting. You just knit, and knit, and knit, a few places where you have to think about what you’re doing, then knit, knit, and knit some more. This project actually took place of the kerchief that I started for stress knitting. I didn’t have quite enough for the kerchief I wanted, so dice bag it is!

When I started this I was out in town with only a few supplies. I had just ripped out the kerchief and only had a set of really short circulars to begin with. I knew I wanted to make a pouch, and that I didn’t want to be sewing the bottom closed or the side up. However, I didn’t have any DPNs in a good size to start a circle for a flat bottom. That’s where I got the idea to knit it flat, and it worked out as well as I’d hoped.

I started with the very bottom of the pouch, cast-on 8 stitches (2 are seam stitches on each end, so they don’t really count). Then I just made sure to increase by 6 stitches every row, back and forth. It was kind of awkward at first, but it would have been just as awkward with DPNs I think. Then when the flat circle was done and I had enough stitches that I could fit them around the circulars, I connected the two ends and began knitting in the round. I had a hole at the bottom that I was later able to seam up, et voila!

I used a little scrap from the other skein of bamboo I had to do the ties, and I’m considering using the rest to do a little embroidery on the side. I love it!

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