Just before the fourth of July week, I got some yarn to make baby gifts. One of the items was this cleverly packaged kit from Plymouth:

It contains a ball of Cotton Kisses yarn, three little ducky buttons, and two patterns - one for a three button cardigan (below), and one for a three button placket pullover (shown on the yarn ball). Both patterns are given for three sizes, from newborn through 1 year. The entire thing was $14. at my favorite local yarn store in Lexington, MA. This weekend past I went on a small kid-free vacation, and while away, knit it up while sitting on the beach.

I did the cardigan in the 6 month size. It's finished except for sewing on the buttons. I made buttonholes on both sides of the button band. When I find out the sex of the target baby, I'll sew the buttons onto the appropriate spot, covering up the unneeded set of buttonholes. I had ample yarn left over - probably enough to do matching socklets, so there should be plenty of yarn to make the largest size.

This was a very inexpensive and quick project. The directions are clear and simple. There is minimal shaping, and interest is provided by a double welt garter ridge detail at the bottom of the body and ends of the sleeves. The only vague bit was the direction to make three evenly spaced buttonholes. I substituted two stitch one-row buttonholes for the K2tog/yo ones written up. All in all a new knitter could handle the creation and assembly of this project with ease.

My only caution is a very mild one on the yarn itself. Cotton Kisses is a loosely plied multi-strand cotton blend. One of the strands is fuzzy cotton, slubby and puffy, the other three are thin binder strands of the blend fibers. All are very inelastic, as one would expect from a yarn of this composition. While the resulting texture is extremely soft and pleasingly random, hiding any imperfections in stockinette stitch formation, working with it does take a tiny bit of concentration to avoid splitting the strands. (The variegated color I was using also camouflages any stitch irregularities.) People who don't like the inelasticity of cotton would also probably not like working with this one. Still - for a very economical quick knit baby project that's cute and easy to do, with a yarn that with a tiny bit of patience gives an excellent result even for new knitters struggling for stitch evenness - this one is a go.

Technorati : knitting

Of late my life has been ruled by deadlines. The pressure should abate somewhat soon because we've managed to find another proposal person at work. I am looking forward to evenings and weekends again. Also knitting.

In the mean time more in the manner of keeping sanity rather than making any real progress, I dashed off another pair of socks last week. This one was on huge-as-logs 2mm needles, standard toe-ups with the figure 8 toe and short rowed heel, on only 64 stitches (not my usual 72-80) . No fancy patterning, no nothing. Just mindless stockinette to let the yarn's native colors play. The result looks rather Star Trek - with the standard Trek swoosh - albeit sideways - in crew uniform colors on a dark navy background.

The yarn's official name is Regia Galaxy 4-Fadig Color. I suspect that in Europe it's sold as Regia Jupiter, because of the small blurb about Jupiter inside the label. I worked it on such large needles because the color repeat didn't work very well at my standard smaller gauge. The label recommends 2-3mm needles. As you can see, the swoosh factored in nicely enough at 2mm.

I'm not quite sure what larger project to begin next. I'm still finishing Elder Daughter's Kyoto sleeves. But that's my downstairs project, for when I have time to sit with the family and play video games or watch movies. My upstairs project sits in the library, where the adults of the house take their relaxation after the kids have gone to bed. That's usually the most involved thing I am working on at any one time, and the project for which I now find myself in need of inspiration.

Technorati : knitting

Like most parents, I spend a lot of time rolling my eyes at what passes for homework and school assignments. There are way too many feel-good tasks - making posters and collages, even well into high school. Where are the analytical reading pieces? Where is learning how to write a convincing essay? But every once and a while something engaging and creative is requested.

This month Smaller Daughter (now 9) had to construct a Rube Goldberg device, with a goal of popping a balloon. I sat on my hands and watched her experiment for the better part of a week. She scribbled out her designs and went down several possible paths before settling on her device components. She constructed (and re-constructed) each station scrounged from toys and oddments at hand, testing out each one individually, then assembled them into her final chain reaction. Eventually, after much tinkering she got it just right, and the whole thing worked as intended.

I wish I had a video camera, but you'll have to use your imagination. Especially the part where the balloon makes a satisfying pop, and she leaps up in triumph.

Click on any thumbnail on this website to see detailed pix.

Someday I will loose this proto-engineer on the world. I hope the world will be ready.

In knitting news - not much. I've been working like a demon. All I've had time to do over the past two weeks is one mindless sock. For me to take two weeks to knit one sock says a lot. This one is a standard 72 stitch sock with a figure-8 toe and short rowed heel, worked using five DPNs. That calculates out to 18 stitches per needle. My insertion strip is 18 stitches wide as graphed below, so I do the pattern in its entirety once on each of the four working needles. I've stuffed a piece of white paper inside the sock so you can see the diamond patterning. and provided a chart for the simple design .

I used Meilenweit Mega Boot Stretch, knit at about 9spi. The shaded reds with the touch of orange is color #709. I'm not wild about this yarn. It feels nice and cushy knit up, but I don't enjoy tensioning it. The stretch is throwing my gauge off a bit, especially on my heel's purl rows. It also is rather lofty unstretched, and prone to catch and split on needle tips. I'll post a review of the stuff when the pair is finished.

Technorati : knitting, rube goldberg

For some reason the automatic spell checker kicked in and (without my approval) obfuscated my meaning a bit. I repost, with corrections. Apologies for the confusion.

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I did do a small amount of gift knitting this holiday season - mostly large-gauge hiking or slipper socks, knit from DK or worsted weight yarn, respectively. I give all my socks with a must-fit guarantee. If they're not optimal, I usually make another pair or fix the sub-standard offering.

I had to honor that warranty this year for one pair in particular. The recipient was thrilled, but my foot size estimate was off. I based my estimate on a pair of shoes which turned out to belong to someone other than the target. Since the only defect was foot length, and the yarn is nice and big (and I have a small amount of additional yarn but not enough to do a whole new pair), I decided to lengthen rather than make another pair. Plus a tutorial on doing so might be of use to my one reader out there in blogland. :)

The re-toeing process works in fundamentally the same way, regardless of whether the original sock was knit toe-up or cuff-down. I use this opportunity to present a quick how-to for those looking to add length or replace worn areas on the toe or ball of the foot.

Here's my original pair, knit from the Jaeger Matchmaker DK leftovers from my dropped leaf sweater:

The measurement from the tip of the toe to the back of the heel is about 9 inches. The recipient has requested about an additional half inch of length.

Step one is to unravel the toe area. It's always easier to unravel any area that contains increases, decreases or cable crossings from the top. Knitting can be unraveled from the bottom, but anything other than plain stockinette or garter stitch can be problematic. Because these socks were knit toe-up, I need to start unraveling above the increases that form the toe. If these were cuff-down socks, I'd begin unraveling at my grafted or bound-off seam. In both cases, the process is the same. Identify the stitches that in the toe form the decrease line (in flat feature toes), then boldly snip and get on with it. Here I've put a safety pin between the side stitches a few rows up into the sock foot from my snipping point, and am about to cut. Note that the only one stitch needs to be snipped to start the process:

Having cut, I'm now placing the newly freed stitches of the sock foot on my needles as they are liberated. If I wanted to re-employ the knit part that I'm excising here, I would use two sets of needles, picking up the stitches on both sides of the unraveled row. (I might do this if I were lengthening a sleeve or sweater body above the ribbing, if I intended on grafting the ribbing back on rather than totally re-knitting it). In this case, I'll just rip out the toe and stash the remaining mini-balls in my Box of Future Stripes(tm) - there being few yarn scraps in this world that I find too short to save. The less frugal than I would probably give them the fling.

Why not use the raveled yarn to re-knit the toes? Because I already know that the bit ripped back is too short. Socks benefit from there being as few joins as possible, especially in the sensitive toe and heel areas. If I were to use the ripped back yarn I'm guaranteed to run out, and will need to add on more. That means that instead of three ends to darn in on each reworked toe (the original sock body end, plus the two ends of the re-knit area), I'd have five (original, re-knit section, extra yarn added to eke out raveled bits). More ends = less comfort for the wearer.

While I'm picking up, I don't pay any attention to how many stitches end up on each needle. Because I've marked the exact center of the side, I can assort the stitches appropriately among the needles once they've been rescued. Here you see the result. All stitches reclaimed and on the needles:

Once the stitches are on the needles, it's a simple matter to knit extra length and work a standard toe, ending with Kitchener grafting. As you can see in the after picture below taken after the toe was re-knit, there is no line of demarcation between the body of the foot (knit toe-up) and the new toe (knit in the other direction). My cuff-down grafted toes do turn out to be a bit pointier than my no-sew figure-8 cast-on toes. In any case, here's After Sock and Before Sock. Measured against each other, I've added a bit over a half an inch to the sock's heel to toe length. All I have to do now is fix the other one.

Ripping back and picking up after a garment is finished is a handy technique to have in one's bag of knitting tricks, and one that many people overlook. I've used it to replace worn sock feet, re-knit mitten ends and glove fingers that sprouted holes, lengthen the cuffs and body of sweaters for rapidly growing children, and replace worn elbows or ripped cuffs. So finished doesn't always mean permanently done. Think of it more as "in a resting state that's presently useful" than as absolute finality.

Hope you found this useful!

Technorati : knitting

O.k. I've finished and posted the half-completed blog entry I was working on last month when life so rudely interrupted me. Since then (if anyone is interested) work deadlines have come and gone; our normal holiday-related seasonal bustle has forced its way in and retreated, complete with the annual flood of cookies and New Years cassoulet; and we even managed to grab a couple of days to run away with the kids to visit Washington D.C. The last was the most fun, being a time to revisit the Smithsonian museums and a dear family friend in Maryland - about the only things I miss from the time we lived down in that area.

In terms of knitting, progress has been made as well, both by me and by Elder Daughter. I'm especially proud of her's. She designed and knit herself a pair of fingerless mitten style handwarmers from Cascade Fixation/Elan Esprit. They are K2, P2 ribbed throughout, with a twist-stitch cable running down the back of each hand.

Following up her mitts, she has now embarked upon Her First Sweater ™. She's using Sirdar Denim Ultra, a loosely twisted lofty and soft acrylic/cotton/wool blend. She's getting the recommended gauge of 9 st/ 12 rows = 10 cm, and is working up a simple top-down stockinette stitch pullover from a pattern I calculated for her using Sweater Wizard (About size 40, needle size US #11,13, approximately 720 yards of yarn knitting to Ultra's gauge)

She's up to the first sleeve, and is basking in the delight of mastering the arcane arts of following a written pattern and the SSK decrease, so that the tapering under the arm on her sleeve is symmetrical. Pix of her sweater once it matures from the large blue speckled mass phase and sports a bit more recognizable shaping. Due to the huge gauge it's galloping along, so that should be quite soon.

My own holiday-related knitting was light this year - three pairs of socks and two scarves. In addition, I knit myself another pair of Fingerless Whatevers, quick replacements for the last pair, one of which has now gone AWOL. I'm also now about halfway done with Elder Daughter's Kyoto, and made good progress on my latest lace doodle scarf. Pix of these in the next post.

Resolutions? None. Except for this.

Technorati : knitting

For your holiday themed enjoyment (and because I've been stacked with precious little knitting time of late), I present our very own whistling demon. This candid of Younger Daughter is courtesy of a kids' Halloween trick or treat party hosted by my employer, and the clever camera of Ms. L. Smith:

Elder Daughter however has more elaborate costuming in mind. She loves the black lace doodle scarf, but wants to complement it with black lace fingerless mitts. Never one to back down from a challenge, I've been playing with the concept - flying without a pattern, but as you can see - not without a black lace net.

Left is the thing patted flat, right is the mitt stretched out a bit on a roll of paper. I began at the cuff with a provisional cast-on, then worked a fused picot hem (barely seen here). I continued in pattern, with a mega-eyelet band after I'd done a bit of cuff. I might end up threading a wide ribbon through those eyelets - or not, depending on the bespeaker's preference. The thumb gusset is done entirely in stockinette, and both the thumb and the top are also finished off with a picot hem, although on the cast-off row, I'll need to take a tapestry needle and stitch down the live stitches now stowed on the white cord, cast-off fusing being a bit too fussy for the inside of such small spaces. I don't know if anyone is interested in a stitch by stitch pattern. If so, I'll consider writing one up from my notes.

The white cord itself is a handy tip. It's plastic lanyard string (aka gimp or boondoggle). I've found it to be quite handy for provisional cast-ons, and as a flexible stitch holder for exactly this purpose. It's stiff enough to make threading the stitches onto it easy, can be cut to any length, and it's very inexpensive, especially if you scoop up a spool in an unpopular color from the craft store's discount bin.

Technorati : knitting

Life continues to intrude on my knitting time. Besides the regular flock of work-related obligations last week, I was surprised by Smaller Daughter. Thursday morning, rummaging in her backpack looking for her lunchbox, I found a notice for her elementary school's Colonial Day. It's an interactive festival sort of day, but one that requires all of the kids to dress in some attempt at a historical costume. (To be fair, I had heard about it long ago but forgotten.) So with a costume needed within 7 days, but my being away on a business trip starting Monday, my Memorial day weekend activities now included a close huddle with my ancient Elna sewing machine.

I wanted to make something relatively early - closer to first encounter than the Revolutionary War so that target child had a chance of wearing her outfit again. I pelted over to the fabric store during lunch hour on Friday and picked up a couple of remnants - 2.75 yards of a soft green twill whatever (plus matching thread), and one yard of a linen-look in white, all for about $10.00. The price was right.

Then I came home and thought about what to make. I had already made her a puffy white pirate shirt that could double as a chemise, and I have a small white cap and coif set. A skirt, a bodice of some sort, plus an apron would be enough. Drawstring skirts are easy enough, but the bodice part was tougher. Front lacing (instead of buttons) would do. Thankfully the topography of an 8-year old is easier to accommodate than that of a post-pubescent. I took measurements and drafted out a simple tab-bottom bodice with short sleeves. To make it substantial enough, I cut two of everything, so that the whole thing is self-lined. Here are the resulting pattern pieces, snipped from Red Sox coverage in the Boston Globe, plus all of the pieces sewn and assembled into the final bodice/jacket.

Things went pretty smoothly. I started by sewing the shoulder seams of the outer and inner shells, then uniting them along the neckline by sewing them together up the center front closure and around the neck. Then I sewed the side seams of the inner and outer shell, inverted the inner lining and pressed everything flat. The sleeves went together quickly, too. I sewed the inner and outer sleeve along the bottom edge, then did the underarm seam for the united unit all at once. I inverted the inner linings and pressed my sleeves. Once the sleeves were together, I set them in the bodice. Then I sewed together the inner and outer side of the tabs (that odd shaped piece below the sleeve) - making one for each quadrant of the garment. I turned them inside out and seamed them to the bottom edge of the outer shell. Last, I folded the inner shell's lower edge down to cover the raw edges of the tabs, and hemstitched it down by hand (too may layers for my sewing machine to cope with).

Since I didn't have much time, I didn't go with a zillion buttons or hand-made lacing holes. There's little if any tension on a little girl's bodice, so I didn't bother with reinforcing the lacing edge. I opted for the not very historical but really quick stage option - small rings sewn along the lacing edge to hold the fastening ribbon. Sacrificing a dozen split rings, formerly in use as place markers for lace knitting, I stitched them down by hand.

The apron was also easy. I cut two strips off the top of my yardage and lapping them end to end, pressed the seam lines for the apron's band and strings. Then I sewed the edges of the remaining piece (again doing it double-sided for additional body), gathered the raw edge and encapsulated it in the center of the apron. Time from taking the first measurements to final hemming - approximately 16 hours of work.

Here's the end result: one semi-historical kid-suit, inspiration from the 1620s. And yes, Target Child did help, learning how to use the sewing machine and working it for long, straight seams, tracing the pattern pieces with chalk, and doing a bit of the hand-work.

Knitting? I finished my vintage lace scarf. Blocking was postponed on account of Colonial Day.

Technorati : costumes, knitting, sewing

Self stripers, multi-ply color twist yarns, and hand-dyed yarns are lots of fun. There's a ton of color there to enjoy. But sometimes a vast and unbroken expanse of color play can be boring or can produce some oddly pooled or cluttered results that look nowhere as nice as the yarn did in the skein. That's why I like to fool around with multicolor yarns, trying to find a way that they play best, or are shown to better advantage. Sometimes it's not easy (regular readers here know of at least two of my multicolor yarn experiments have landed in the limbo of my Chest of Knitting Horrors^tm over the past couple years. But sometimes it is easy.

I finished up a pair of socks as a "chaser" after the vest was done. I used a stash-aged 50g ball of Stahl Wolle Socka Color, in a multistrand twist of maroon, pine, blue, and marigold - #9140, plus another well-aged 50g ball of Patons Kroy Socks in hunter green - #409. While the colors aren't exact matches, they are close enough to complement each other. Both of these were found in last-ball sales, but several years and many miles apart. Since I need around 80-90g of most fingering weight sock yarns to make a pair, between the two bargain basement balls I had enough to finish and still have leftovers - provided I used more or less equal amounts of each.

My solution was to work heels, toes, and ribbing, plus about a little under a third of the sock's body in my solid green, plus the remainder in the multicolor. I used very simple seven-row striping repeat, working five rows of multi, and then two rows of solid green (2/7 = about 28% of my sock's body). I like how the multi is visually broken by the bands of solid green. The end result has at once more contrast and more subtlety than working the whole sock from multi alone, even if I still did contrasting color toes, heels and ribbing.

Of course the other advantage of working simple stripes on socks is to idiot-proof achieving two socks of identical size. It's very easy to count five row units and two row units. When I had completed ten muticolored stripes, it was time to start the heel, which is much easier than having to count every row or trust in doing a measured or eyeballed estimation of foot length.

So. If you find yourself with odd lots of sock yarn, don't despair. 100g of fingering weight sock yarn knitting is ample for most socks up to around men's US shoe size 10.5 or so (slightly smaller if yarn-eating textures are used). You can either work color block style, using up one leftover and then another, or you can stripe. But how wide to make the stripes?

Heels, toes, and ribbing in my standard short-rowed heel sock consume about 25g (a conservative estimate). I have large and wide feet for a fem, so if you are knitting for yourself chances are that you use roughly what I do or less. Weigh it out and set it aside. Then weigh the rest of your leftovers. If you have (for example) 40g of blue, 20g of yellow and 20g of green, you've got a ratio of 2:1:1. If you worked a stripe repeat conforming to that ratio (let's say two rows of blue, two rows of yellow, two rows of blue, two rows of green), you should have enough of each color to complete the pair.

Obviously, I had enough and did complete my pair. And I did have leftovers. As expected, I had a bit more of the multi left than I did the green, because my heels, toes, and narrow green stripes added up to about 60% of total yarn consumption.

Technorati : knitting

I'm up to finishing the big gray ribbed leaf pullover now. In the best of all worlds, I would have blocked it first. Yes, I know this is heresy, but I'm short on blocking space right now (the aftermath of a minor basement flood in last week's mega-rain), and the texture pattern is relatively well behaved. I have only minor curling, so I thought I'd finish out the collar first. Then if I were to be feeling less lazy and more accepting of playing with moisture, I'd block out the piece before setting the sleeves.

In the mean time, here's one of the shoulders:

I know the pix are blurry, but I'm hoping you can make out that I've managed to match the design elements on either side of the seam. My ribbed leaf texture has a distinct center line for each repeat. Also the front and back ended on the same row of the texture pattern, making direct matching a bit easier. Each piece was bound off at the shoulder. I then butted the two shoulders up against each other and did a stitch-for-stitch-style seam into the stitch immediately under the bound-off edge. The two edges ended up being turned back like selvages. They are however useful, providing seam stability and resistance to stretch. Grafting the two shoulders together as live stitches without the reinforcement of the shoulder seam could lead to distortion of the shoulder region, as the weight of the garment pulled it down. Plus, as a modified dropped shoulder piece, the weight of the sleeve would also tend to distort that area.

Now, why don't I use three-needle bind-off? Bulk. I find that treatment effective, but heavier than my chosen seaming method. The same goes for back stitch.

Tonight I pick up stitches around the neck edge and begin working the collar.

In other knitting news, I finished the rainbow scarf that matches the rainbow hat. Again, quick and easy to knit, but a bit fiddly to finish. As in the hat, the ends are left super long, then crocheted in chain stitch to make tendril-like fringes. Additional lengths of yarn are cut and added to the opposite end of the scarf to make fringes on it, too. I had one skein of Frog Tree in each color, and had ample yarn left over after making both pieces.

All in all a good project for autopilot knitting. Switching colors meant that progress was easy to see, the bright colors made me happy, the yarn was soft and easy to knit quickly, and the recipient is delighted. My next piece of autopilot knitting is another Klein Bottle hat - yet another special request. This one in conservative Navy blue, with a touch of yellow here and there. I am using a yarn that's new to me - Garnstudio Drops Camelia Superwash Sport. It's a very smooth true sport weight, quite soft and with a good hand-feel for a superwash. I'll probably cannibalize my bright yellow Frog Tree leftovers to do the yellow highlights. What they will be, I haven't a clue.

And the "gotta make something" bug here isn't limited to adults. Smaller daughter is in the midst of bead lizard mania right now. I've got more geckos in the house today than can be found on a warm Florida lanai at sunset.

Technorati : knitting

Having successfully beaten back yet another deadline storm, and having survived the annual school year February break, some semblance of normalcy returns to the String household. I spent a dreary but strangely relaxing weekend catching up on house maintenance - one that finally allowed me time to knit.

And what did I knit?

I continued my two dueling projects - the dropped leaf sweater, the two side-by-side knit sleeves of which are now approaching the 60% completed mark. There's no point in showing a blurry picture of yet another pair of indistinct gray objects, larger but still not much differentiated from the last. I am also only four stripes short of finishing the Rainbow Scarf that matches the hat shown off last week. That at least has color and drama, even if the knitting is very mundane:

You can see the long tails at the right hand edge. These will be crocheted into tendrils. Similar strands will be added to the left hand edge after the knitting is done, also to be crocheted into tendrils. I am happy to report that one skein each of seven colors of Frog Tree Alpaca is enough to complete the scarf and hat project. Also that I like the Frog Tree. I've met with some minor knots and a couple of unevenly spun spots, but nothing drastic. I haven't washed the stuff yet so I can't report on whether or not those Crayola-intense colors hold up. I am already looking on to my next mindless project. I've gotten a request for another Klein Bottle Hat. I am thinking of getting more Frog Tree in navy blue to do it.

In other news, I can report a miracle of modern commerce and customer satisfaction.

I have had a small Coach bag for years. I splurged on it when I was gravid with Elder Daughter - so that's something like 16 years ago. So long ago that Coach no longer includes it in their inventory. It's a good size, just big enough to hold a wallet,keys, and a phone, and not so large that stuffing it into a backpack or briefcase is inconvenient. Although I have a larger bag and a dressier bag for occasions that demand them, my little Coach has been the default handbag of choice for over a decade and a half. Needless to say that much daily wear took its toll. The binding around the edges was worn through at several spots, and the clasp had given up all hope of fulfilling its function. My bag was well loved, and looked it.

Now Coach has tried to go a bit more trendy in styling and moved more upscale, expanding beyond the "do you want that in black, brown, or camel" mindset of my bag's day. You'd be hard pressed to find anything similar on their shelves now. But Coach bags are guaranteed for life. So I took my friend to a nearby stand-alone Coach store just after the holidays. My bag was so old that no one in the store recognized the style - not even the manager. I asked if they still repaired bags, and only the manager had an inkling of what I was talking about. But they verified the pedigree of my little guy via the serial number stamped into the inside pocket, and taking a shipping and handling fee (plus issuing a lot of "I don't know if it's fixable" type comments), sent it off for repair.

Lo and behold, my little bag returned to me on Friday. Cleaned and somewhat refinished, with a new clasp, new edge bindings all the way around, and a new shoulder strap. All for the handling fee. My friend is back, and I'm very happy.

Moral of the story: That $80 that was so exorbitant 16 years ago was very well spent, and my expensive bag ended up being a better value than any number of cheaper ones I might have bought and worn to death since. You're always better off buying fewer things of classic style from vendors known for quality and service.

Technorati : knitting

Still tooling to deadlines at work, even over the holiday weekend. Which leaves less time for blogging than I prefer. But I can report some project progress.

First, on the perpetual ribbed leaf sweater. Done with the back and front, I now have two sleeves on the needles. As always, I'm knitting them side by side so that the shaping on both is dead uniform. If you look closely you'll see two things happening with the markers. One is that because this is a wide and easily confused repeat, I've got one small silver jump ring marking off each repeat, even though I've long since memorized the stitch design. Even so, mistakes can creep in. This helps me keep oriented, and allows me to proof my knitting one repeat at a time. The second is that red marker at the beginning of my row. That's a counting marker.

My pattern says "Increase one stitch at both sleeve edges every 4th row, 24 times." I've chosen to make that increase on a reverse side row (all purls) because it's less confusing than trying to do it on the texture pattern side. It really doesn't make a difference in this pattern, so long as the placement is consistent. I've got enough of a headache remembering to do it every fourth row (that's every other purl row), so keeping track of exactly how many times I've done an increase row can become a headache, especially because I only get to knit in short spurts. Pencil and paper would get away from me. Instead, I placed a marker immediately before the last stitch on my purl side row the very first time I did one of the increases. When I began my pattern-side row it was sitting there one stitch in from the edge. On every subsequent increase row I did a make one, one stitch in from the edge. That meant that the new stitch happened between the red counting marker and the edge of the work. After that first row, it's pretty much automatic because the increase point moves further and further away from the static counting marker as the piece grows. I've got six sitting between the red marker and the edge now. That's six increase rows completed. I'll continue until I've got 24 stitches between the red marker and the edge. Problem solved, so long as I don't forget to increase at both ends of each increase row, on both sleeves.

The other project I'm working is a more mindless piece. We like to play PS2 games as a family after homework and dinner - the exploration/quest type rather than straight shoot-em-ups or race games. That's excellent sit and knit time, but because all eyes are needed to spot clues or treasures, not optimal for exacting texture knitting. So that's when I do socks, hats or other easy pieces. This weekend's fit the bill quite nicely - Dovetail Design's Rainbow Hat and Scarf. My LYS kitted the pattern up with Frog Tree Alpaca sport weight - the recommended yarn for the project. I've finished the hat and am on the first orange stripe of the scarf.

Modeled here by a slightly deranged looking Older Daughter, the hat is a very simple project to knit, but a rather fussy one to finish. It's knit sideways. Each color is introduced leaving a very long dangling tail, and ended in the same way. There is no shaping, just welts formed by alternating bands of stockinette and reverse stockinette to make a wide rectangle. After the rectangle is finished, the cast on row is joined to the cast-off row. The dangling strands are knotted two by two, then all are twisted and gathered to make a very big single top-knot, forming the closed end of the hat. Finally, using a crochet hook the dangling ends are dealt with, turning them into the crocheted chains that make up the mass of tentacles tassel at the top.

While the basic idea is ultra simple and very easy to knit, there are a couple of refinements that enhance the hat that aren't covered in the basic pattern. First, the logic of the pattern dictates that some kind of long-tail cast-on be used so that the starting tail is on the same side as end-off tail. but that isn't called out. In spite of that logic, I used a half-hitch cast-on, deliberately leaving a super long tail. I then used that tail (now on the side of the work opposite that of the zillion dangling long ends) to graft the final row of purple live stitches to the cast-on row of the red. When I was done I treated the dangling end of the grafting yarn just like the other tassel strands. The resulting seam is totally invisible, without much bulk. Second, just tying the tails into a very tightly twisted knot doesn't close up the hole adequately. Some of the strips stick out like gaping pockets. Others are pleated back inside the hat. I took another strand of yarn and took some carefully placed tacking stitches across the hat just beneath my dense knot, fastening down the tops of the stripes and making the closed end more uniform in appearance. Third, the pattern directs the user to make a slip knot in each strand close to the origin point of the dangling ends near the hat's closing topknot, and work each one in a crochet chain for as many stitches as possible, ending off the final bit neatly by weaving it back into the crocheted chain. Well and good, but it's very difficult to work that slip knot in closely. I ended up starting in the center, grabbing a strand and drawing it over one of the others close by in order to make that first foundation loop. After that, I sort of scrummed around, catching the first loop of each new strand somewhere in the mounting foundation created by previous squiggles. It worked out well. The tassel is nice and dense at its base and I skipped the "nurse the slip knot into position" annoyance.

My final criticism is one of yarn choice. I really liked working with the Frog Tree. It's soft, without the stabbing guard hairs present on many coarser alpaca yarns. The colors are radiant, especially for alpaca which seems to be offered in bright colors less often than other fibers. So far I've found some knots in my seven 50-gram balls (one of each color), and some bits where the spinning is a bit uneven, tending to two-inch clumps where the yarn is quite noticeably thicker. But not so many of either that cutting them out was a major problem. So the yarn is fine. But in my opinion this hat should not be made from a sport or even a DK. If you click on the picture above and look closer, you'll see that the stitches are very leggy, and the fabric is no where near as tightly made as is optimal for a sport or DK weight yarn. The recommended gauge is 4 stitches per inch. The best I could achieve with the Frog Tree was 4.25 (I added a few stitches to the hat to compensate). But I am disappointed in the open, loopy texture. If I were to do this hat again, I'd use a worsted, or heavy worsted (5-4.75 stitches per inch native gauge). Or possibly even one of the most airy and open of the Aran weight yarns (4.5 stitches per inch). I do think that a true 4 stitch per inch yarn would make a hat that's too heavy.

But sometimes heavy hats are exactly what's warranted. Older Daughter's price for modeling her new hat was to show off her own production - a standard issue rolled brim Gusto 10 42-stitch hat.

Technorati : knitting

A couple bits from my mailbox today, plus a long-lost toy.

Yards, grams, and ounces

A reader wrote to ask how to convert ounces and grams to yards, because she'd found a pattern and wanted to buy enough yarn to knit it. I answered with this:

You can't convert ounces and grams to yards. Yards measures length. Ounces and grams measure weight. One ounce equals 28.35 grams (give or take). One gram equals roughly 0.35 ounces. There are dozens of conversion calculators on the web that can help you flip between the two if you don't have a calculator or pencil and paper to hand.

Let's say you had 1.75 ounces (roughly 50 grams) of a 100% wool. You could have about 250 yards of fine fingering weight yarn, or around 135 yards of sport weight wool, or around 120 yards of DK weight wool, or around 100 yards of worsted, or about 80 yards of bulky. And that's without factoring in stuff like how lofty or dense the yarn is, whether or not it's made up of multiple strands tightly twisted, or one giant fluffy strand. One five stitch per inch worsted for example might be about 110 yards for 50 grams, but another might be only 90, all depending on the denseness of the strand.

This is further complicated by fiber blends. 1.75 ounces of acrylic at 5 stitches per inch (the textbook definition of worsted) might have significantly higher yardage than 1.75 ounces of 5 stitch per inch wool because the acrylic fiber is in and of itself less massy.

All this being said, there are very loose guidelines of roughly how much yardage a pound of yarn might contain. But remember - use these numbers as a rough guideline only, and only for the fiber type and gauge specified. If you're planning a yarn purchase and are going on only this type of info - buy at least 25% more than you think you need. I can guarantee that three times out of four, you'll end up using more yarn than you originally planned. Here's one set of rough yards per pound figures. Remember - it's for hand-spun 100% wool only.

Why post patterns for free?

Another person wrote to ask why I post patterns for free. She specifically asked if I was doing it to undercut the people who charged, and wondered why I didn't write for magazines or other publishers. I wrote back:

I'm flattered that you think my patterns are good enough for professional publication. I think they're borderline. I don't do lots of multiple sizes, they tend to be pretty sketchy. Some are more like method descriptions than hard and fast patterns with set yarn quantities.

I post patterns because I find the process of working out the problems they present to be fascinating. My patterns are posted more as a by-product of that exploration rather than the cumulative product. I want to share the fun of both inquiry and production.

I have dabbled in writing patterns for a yarn maker and an on-line magazine. I'm a proposal writer by trade. I spend my professional life running the gauntlet of multiple concurrent hard-stop deadlines. Knitting is an area where my only deadline is "whenever." I found out that harnessing the creative process to a fixed delivery framework squeezed all the fun (and much of the creativity) out of it. I can't work under a mandate that inspiration will occur between Thursday next and the 30th of the month, will involve one particular technique and one particular yarn in a color not of my choosing; or that the finished object and full proofed pattern in five sizes will be delivered without delay within 15 days of yarn receipt. Even the web-based magazines brook no delay. So I retreat to my own deadline-free tenth-of-never world, doing whatever the heck I want, when I want to do it.

Why not self-publish and sell the result? Because the burden of handling the business end of the thing (payments, refunds, shipments or downloads, record keeping for taxes) is not commensurate with the pocket change income the effort would bring. I'm re-thinking this in reference to my embroidery book, but to do it for lots of little knitting patterns would be a big pain. Also because patterns people pay for are held to a higher standard than are give-aways. To be competitive, I'd have to knit the trial in a color that photographs well (opposed to the color I want to use), figure out that range of sizes, and use a much higher standard of test knitting than I currently do. While I don't put out junk as a rule, errors are there. I get to them when I can. But I don't want to knit everything twice or more - once to create it and at least once more to test the directions, possibly trying out every size offered.

Long Lost Toy

Well, not lost. It's been sitting in a corner for a while. I made it for Larger Daughter when she was four. Now that Smaller Daughter is out of the hobby horse years, poor Hero isn't seeing much action. But he's one of my favorite projects, out of all the things I have ever made.

I had no pattern, some black and green Melton wool scraps left over from some SCA outfits, stuffing, a stick, two brass rings, plus a bit of trim, glue-on jewels, a couple of and bells left over from making holiday ornaments. I improvised and here's the result.

A stick horse menacing enough for a Nazgul's child. Needless to say Hero will be spending his retirement here, and not getting passed down to anyone else.

Technorati : knitting

A couple items from my inbox.

Question on Justin's Counterpane

Cindy wrote to say she was having problems conceptualizing how the pieces to make my Justin's Counterpane pieced blanket fit together. This particular blanket is a large scale intro to white cotton/lacy knitting. Only twelve main units are needed to complete it - six keyhole shaped motifs, and six whole octagons. Ten triangles are used to eke out the sides and make them straight. An optional edging finishes the thing. They're put together like this:

I did not use additional triangles at the corners to make a true rectangle because it's easier to go around a more gentle angle without mitering than it is to go around a 90-degree turn. And I didn't want to go through the bother of mitering my corners.

Because of the relatively few units used and the simplicity of the classic pinwheel motif, I think that people wanting to make a first item in this style might find the pattern useful. Being a blanket, it doesn't have to fit anybody so gauge is a guideline, not a mandate. It can be worked in any cotton or cotton blend yarn you like. The yarn I chose was a very inexpensive DK weight, but by using the appropriate size needles, a piece of usable dimensions could be made in anything from sport to worsted. Much heavier than that though and you'll get into weight issues, cotton being quite a bit massive than its equivalent thickness in acrylic or wool. (You could even work this in standard wool or acrylic, but I think the design will be crisper in cotton.)

In any case, some basic guidelines for knitting and seaming together pieced counterpanes include binding the motifs off especially loosely; blocking the units before assembly, by wetting them down and pinning them out while stretching them to their maximum extent; and using whip stitch or when possible, mattress stitch done in half of the edge most stitch to sew them together. Back stitch or mattress stitch done further into the motifs will make the seams too dense and rigid, and may introduce cupping.

Bargain Hunters' Blocking Boards

Rachel and I had an eMail chat recently. I think it was over on one of the knitting-related boards at Live Journal. She was looking for advice on blocking. In specific, she was looking for low-cost alternatives for blocking. We went through the standards - pinning out on carpet covered with towels or on a padded table or bed, but she wanted a rigid surface that was easy to stow in addition to being inexpensive.

I recommended getting a half-sheet of drywall from the hardware store, taped around the edges to reduce crumble, and topped with a flat sheet through which the pinning happens. I also suggested scouring yard sales or opportunity shops for the squishy/spongy foam pattern/alphabet block floor tiles or play mats favored by the parents of toddlers. They're indestructible and often outlast the toddler years, landing at second-hand venues. Top those with a sheet and pin away, happy that you've found a modular, easy to store solution that as a creative recycle, nibbles away at the waste stream.

Rachel decided to go with the play mat idea. She sent me a note of thanks, and included this shot of her shawl blocking:

(Photo is hers, used with permission). She also notes that she got her mat at WalMart, and it was less than $20. Love the shawl, Rachel, and as ever - I'm delighted to have been useful.

Not much knitting here beyond finishing up the gift socks mentioned yesterday, which later today will be given to the target recipient. I also posted a yarn review for the Schoeller/Stahl sock yarn I used.

(Please consider leaving reviews of your current yarn yourself, as a holiday present to fellow knitters worldwide).

I can in the spirit of ecumenicism born of our happy, culturally jumbled household recommend two non-knitting related holiday hacks.

First for Hanukkah (and Kwanzaa): Every kid is fascinated by the candles used in menorahs and other holiday candle holders. They burn quickly, and often being close together, act on each other to make strange melting patterns and drips - especially when "encouraged" by the viewer. And every kid who grew up with a menorah in the house will either admit to performing said encouragements, or by virtue of being watched constantly, not having the chance to do what he or she really wanted to do. But not every parent can hover over the candles for the entire time they are lit for eight nights straight.

Now devices are no substitute for parental supervision, but accidents happen in even the most careful household. Place your menorah on a shallow lipped pan (like an inexpensive jellyroll pan or in my case - the liner pan that came with a now defunct toaster oven) and fill the pan with about a quarter inch of water. Drips will fall into the water, and won't weld the menorah to the table or counter top. Should your offspring be too helpful and a candle come loose from its moorings - it will fall harmlessly into your mini-reflecting pool and be extinguished.

Second for Christmas trees: Fighting one's way underneath the lower branches to water the thing is a major pain. I cheat. I float some packing peanuts or crumpled aluminum foil on top of the water so I can see the level while still standing. I also take a tube or pipe (in this house, the unobtrusive brown extension tubes from our upright vacuum cleaner) and wedge them into the tree holder's bucket area. I use some twist-ties to anchor the tube against a branch. The tube remains there as long as the tree is in the house. Then when watering time comes, I take a watering can and pour into the tube until I see my floating markers rise. No bending, no needles in my hair, no overflows.

Technorati : Hanukkah, holidays, knitting

We celebrated Hanukkah this weekend past in our own style. Fried foods are traditional. We did crab cakes. Not traditional by a long shot, but tasty none the less.

The Resident Male, finding himself at the fish shop buying the crab was tempted by some beautiful Bluepoint oysters. So he brought home four as a special grownups-only treat.

So there we were, happily slurping down our excellent oysters, when I thought I found a bit of shell. Not uncommon in oysters opened by amateurs*. But it wasn't shell.

It was a pearl.

A natural pearl. Far from gem grade, but round and pearly enough to qualify, even though you can see a bit of the gravel that inspired it sticking out from one end.

I've put my tiny pearl next to a strand of cultured pearls for size comparison. I've joked about finding a pearl, and have known it was remotely possible. But I'd never heard of anyone actually finding one. So what to do with my inferior but extremely lucky pearl? Wear it for luck, of course. I'm thinking of getting a tiny silver charm in the shape of a cage to keep it in.

And I'll probably make the traditional latkes tonight.

As far as knitting goes, I'm trying to zip through the remainder of a pair of socks, plus get a start on the foraging cap (in the style of a Liberty or voyageur's cap) for my re-enactor friend. I've got a nice hand-spun wool fingering weight single, in a color sort of between forest and teal, with a touch of black. I would have preferred a barn red, but the red I had was heathered with too much white and from a distance read "pink." Shown here are my larval beginnings (I'm working on the area that when finished will be the facing in the earband, plus the too-pink yarn. Gauge here is between 5.75 and 6 stitches per inch. I've got 130 on the needles, and am getting a band big enough to fit a 23" circumference head. There's some allowance for stretch and the hat will be double thick at the earband, but I don't want to make it so tight that the wearer will get a headache. You can see just a bit of provisional cast-on peeking out at the bottom of that dark green wiggle:

Other than that, I am finishing up yet another pair of gift socks. This one from Schoeller+Stahl Fortissma Colori/Socka Color, color #5.

* We follow the safer Julia Child oyster method (learned while watching her on TV). It involves identifying the hinge and using the pointy end of a bottle opener to dislocate it. Then using a thin, sharp knife - winkling it into the opening made by the unhinging and running it around the oyster inside to scrape it top and bottom from its shell.

Technorati : knitting

As promised, here's my knitting progress. First, the leaf pullover:

As you can barely see, I'm now well past the underarm narrowing, about half-way from that point to the beginning of the neckline. It's still very slow going because of all the 1x1 twists, but I'm very pleased with the effect, in spite of the thing being a bit off gauge and an inch too wide (I like loose fitting sweaters in mid-winter). Although I'm mired in holiday gift knitting right now I'm making a point of NOT putting this down in its entirety. I want to avoid what I now (thanks to blogging) see as a familiar pattern - the sidelining of my October/November project due to gifts leading to its eventual consignment to my Chest of Knitting Horrors (tm).

And in gift knitting, here is a mostly done sock worked in a combo of black Cascade Fixation and raspberry Elann Sock it To Me Collection Esprit. Both yarns are 98.3% cotton, 1.7% elastic. Both are marked with the same yardage (186 yards stretched or 100 yards relaxed), and same gauge 25st and 40 rows = 4 inches or 10 cm. Fixation also carries a crochet gauge of 29 double crochets and 12 rows = 4 inches or 10 cm. As far as I can tell, they look like exactly the same yarn. While the yarn review collection reports Fixation as a worsted based on its initially reported gauge, current labeling moves it down to the sport yarn realm in line with Esprit's labeling. I say neither is spot on, and would call both yarns DKs.

My own gauge using 3mm needles at a reasonable sock gauge is 6.5 stitches and 12 rows = 1 inch. The fabric is markedly stretchy, even more so than a comparable weight wool yarn knit at the same tight gauge. Now I know many people who have reason to avoid wool socks swear by this stuff, but I'm less enchanted. I selected it because I am knitting socks for someone who is both wool sensitive and diabetic, who requested very stretchy cotton socks with a specific wide ankle measurement in comparison to the foot area. I am working my standard toe-up sock on a foot circumference of 48 stitches, moving up to 52 stitches just prior to the short rowed heel, and then 54 stitches immediately after. I add another four stitches at the uppermost black stripe for an ankle part stitch count of 60 stitches. Based on progress so far I predict I'll use one ball of raspberry on each sock, plus most of one ball of black between the two. I bought 4 raspberry and two black, so I'll have enough left over to make another pair, should I so desire.

But I'm not sure I so desire. Although this sock is suitably uber-stretchy, and the cotton yarn is relatively lofty, I don't like the feel of cotton socks for myself. I find them cold and hard compared to wool, and walking in them feels like walking in a massage sandal studded with thousands of little pebbles. But I don't have problems with wool. If you do, this yarn is an acceptable substitute, although at its weight you're going to end up with nice, thick hiking socks, not fingering weight socks that are wearable in a wider range of shoes.

I was also disappointed in the color of the raspberry bought via the Web from Elann. Standard cautions on buying based on color displayed on a computer monitor apply. Remember - no color monitor displays true color fidelity, and lighting conditions at the photographer's end can add complications (to demonstrate this, call up different photos of the same color card at multiple retailers' websites, and/or view the exact same color card photo on different monitors). On line the stuff looked much deeper, almost wine in hue (which was the color requested by the recipient). In person the raspberry is closer to an unexciting mauve. Color fidelity is another reason I vastly prefer to buy yarn in person rather than by mail order. Color cards help, but since I have so many excellent local yarn source options, and am always looking for new yarns rather than repeaters, I do not buy by mail often enough to invest in them.

My next bit of gift knitting will be a wool foraging cap for a historical re-enactor friend. It's mid to late 1700s or so in target, and will be based on Voyageur's Caps and Liberty Caps. I'll take notes as I create that hat in case the thing catches on with his re-enactor regiment. Second cotton sock will probably take me through Thursday or Friday, so I won't be beginning his hat until later this week.

Technorati : knitting

If you've been reading along here for a while, you might remember I've mentioned this family's holiday cookie fixation before. Ten kinds. Every year. (I do give most away to co-workers and friends rather than let us eat them all ourselves). This year's list is a mix of first time experiments and family favorites. It includes:

• Chocolate chip cookies - the classic, but made with mini chips and pecans instead of walnuts, slightly smaller than their non-holiday brothers. Mostly from the official Toll House recipe printed each year on the bag of chips (although I do cheat and use non-official chocolate).
• Peanut butter cookies - my kids would shudder in horror if I left these off the list. Done with crunchy peanut butter, just for fun. Otherwise it's the standard from Joy of Cooking
• Buffalo rum balls - a version of the classic crushed cookie bourbon ball, but done with rum and cocoa, rolled in cocoa. Our variation comes from a recipe published in the Buffalo, NY evening newspaper some time in the 1960s
• Sugar cut-outs - the iconic holiday cookie. This year we get to use the Hannukah cookie cutters. Also I put lemon zest in the batter, and mix the icing with lemon juice instead of milk or water
• Oysters - a family invention. A hazelnut spritz sandwich cookie, filled with dark chocolate ganache
• Linzer cookies - New this year, from the King Arthur website recipe collection. Mine have little leaf shaped holes, that being the smallest cookie cutter I had on hand to do the center hole.
• Chocolate crinkles - Also from the King Arthur website. Killer chocolate flavor, fantastic texture. We use extra cocoa instead of espresso powder. My kids call these "Earthquakes" because the white sugar outside flaws and cracks in baking to reveal chocolate fault lines. I made these the first time two years ago from a very similar recipe sent by a friend and they've become favorites. (Hi, Kathryn!)
• Almond/cherry biscotti - Another new one. I'm cribbing this recipe together from several sources, including a basic biscotti recipe in the always wonderful Baking with Julia book. This is instead of the Panforte which although excellent deserves a break after a two years running appearance
• Lime cookies - Again a new experiment. This one depends on my finding sour salt (citric acid) locally. My grandmother used it to make her stuffed cabbage and to restore the shine to aluminum pots and pans (boiling them in a bath of water and sour salt). Another King Arthur website find.
• Pecan sandies - A family recipe, basically a nut-rich shortbread, rolled in granulated sugar and topped with a pecan half. These tend to alternate appearances with Mexican Wedding Cakes in our roster, as both are pecan shortbread type cookies.

I made a lot of progress this weekend past. I've got two cookies left to bake - the biscotti and the lime cookies. Plus I have to fill the oysters and Linzer cookies, and the kids get to ice the cut outs.

In other news, knitting did get done. Here you see the second of my two emergency baby shower gifts blocking on a balloon. The Regia 6-ply Crazy Colors has a relatively long repeat, so it makes wide stripes on both booties and hat. The white sections and broad yellow welting (including the tips of the I-cord bootie laces and hat bow) however are done in another well-aged leftover.

I also managed to get another couple of inches done on my ribbed leaf pullover, and complete about half a sock of other holiday gift knitting. But more on those tomorrow.

Technorati : cooking, knitting

I'm with Franklin all the way on this. I've been visited by his Ghost of Christmas Knitting, but that specter couldn't force his way into the room, crowded as it already was by the Ghost of Hastily Announced Baby Shower Knitting, the Ghost of Birthdays Come and Gone Knitting, and the amorphous yet omnipresent-in-December Ghost of Holiday Preparations. The whole spooky committee then voted and consigned me to wherever procrastinators end up, when they remember that they have to be somewhere.

But tamales, cookies (cocoa rum balls and peanut butters both done and lagered away), work, and routine family support tasks aside, I did manage to whack into the baby shower backlog. Which is a good thing because today is the first of several.

The white with speckles hat and white booties are knit in Sirdar Snuggly Snowflake DK. I believe it's now discontinued, but these are leftovers from a Oat Couture Curlique Coverlet done about six years ago for a niece. It's a spectacular pattern and I had a great time with the blanket, although (like everything else) I did play with it a bit. It's difficult to see in the official cover photo, but the thing is a round blanket, knit in garter stitch paisley-type slices, with the shaping formed by short rows and picking up along an edge. I wouldn't quite call it modular knitting, but if you're familiar with that style, this blanket will be easier for you than for someone who has never done short-rowing before. What I did was notice that the pattern had a logic that would enable the use of two colors. I knit all of the segments radiating from the center in a white-with-speckles Snowflake, and all of the other segments in plain white Snowflake. What I ended up with was subtle, but effective - a center swirled star with speckles surrounded by a plain white field.

One caveat - because I used the loopy Snowflake, my final texture was sort of reminiscent of a supple light terry cloth towel, with less distinct garter ridges than the pattern's own photo. I wish I had pictures of that blanket to share, but I made it BS (Before String), and never got a snap back of the target baby with her present. I'd do the blanket again but not in this yarn. In any case, Snowflake worked just fine for my no-pattern hat and standard issue booties, although again, I've played with the pattern. I did the Ann Kreckel baby bootie, but because this is DK weigh