Caught unawares by the early date for Hannukah, plus the realization that Christmas isn't far behind, I take a detour into knitting small gifts for friends, family, and other deserving folks.

[Side brag] The Older Daughter just finished her second project - the classic Cleckheaton Gusto 10 42-stitch hat. She learned to knit on DPNs in the round, and I got a great hint for a flock of small presents.

Gusto 10 is a very dense superbulky yarn. It's not very expensive, but at $9.00 US per hat (55 yards), it can add up quickly. I'm making several of the same hats, but instead I'm using Brown Sheep Burly Spun.? It's just a tad less dense than the Gusto, but at $14.00 for 132 yards, I can get two hats from each skein with a bit left over. Last night I did the first two in about 45 minutes each. I've planned to make four - two deep red and two royal blue. I may get an extra skein in another crayon color and make three more - two more solids, plus one striped one from the leftovers of all three skeins. Or I might make a couple of earwarmer bands from the red and blue leftovers. All in all, not an exciting set of projects, but a satisfying and quick one.

Other gifts in the works - several pairs of socks, knit at sport gauge rather than my standard personal-consumption teeny gauge. (Again the time factor). Plus I think I'll give the Spring Lightning Scarf as a gift.

On the kid's knitting, she's getting too quick to keep feeding her superbulky yarns and giant gauges. I won't be able to afford both our knitting habits. [grin]? So I've started her on a set of wristlets, done in sock yarn in the round on US #2 DPNs. We're adding purling to her skills set with this ribbed project. Those should keep her out of trouble for a while.

Something must be in the air, because several people have written to me this week asking if toe-up socks are more difficult than standard cuff-down socks, or if I could venture an opinion on how they fit and wore compared to cuff-down socks. Perhaps this is a product of all the people hoping to knit up one last holiday present before the end of the year. In any case, I'll try to answer.

Why Toe-Ups?

1. I detest doing that last boring slog from heel to toe, especially because I find all on-foot patterning to be uncomfortable inside my shoes, so my feet are always done in plain old stockinette. If I leave the feet for last I'll NEVER finish the socks. So I do them first, get them over with, and then have the fun of the patterned ankle part.

2. I'm not particularly fond of grafting. I can do it, but it's a pain. Toe-ups let me avoid that step.

3. I like being able to pause and slip the growing socks on to make sure the fit is perfect. That's easy with toe-ups.

4. I like not having to worry about yarn consumption. If I'm using 50g skeins, I knit the ankle part until I run out of yarn. If I'm using a 100g skein, I knit to the same length as another pair of socks, or if I want to eke out every inch, I put Sock #1 aside without binding it off, then knit Sock #2 on another set of needles. Once both are the same length, I'll finish off the ribbings side by side, one from either end of the ball, making sure that I use every scrap.

5. If I feel like using the two-circ method, my toe-ups with their short-rowed heels adapt with no fuss at all to that method.

Toe-Up Fit

Toe-ups with short rowed heels are narrower at the point where the ankle joins the foot than are standard heel flap/box heel socks. Some people, especially those with high insteps find them confining. I don't, even though I have BIG feet for a fem (recently remeasured to Euro 42/US 10.5EEE). If you feel this might be a problem, look for a toe-up pattern with an inverted standard heel rather than a short-rowed heel.

Ease of Working

I don't find toe-ups to be any more difficult than heel flap socks. In fact, I find them easier. Using the short-row heel and five needles, once I'm past the initial toe I ALWAYS have the same number of stitches on each needle - even during heel production. That makes it easy to put down and restart my socks. That's a good thing because socks are usually my briefcase project and get done in tiny spurts.

Many people complain about my favorite cast-on for toe-ups - the no-sew figure-8 toe. (It's Judy Gibson's, I'm just one of her sock disciples). They say it's too fiddly, or they can't get it to work, or it's too loose. To be fair, it IS fiddly, but it's worth it. The secret is letting that first row be miserably ugly and loose, but taking care not to split the yarn as it is worked. Once a couple of rounds have been established, it's very easy to go back and use a needle tip to snick up the looseness. A little care will work the looseness past the knot that forms at the base of the tail, and out from the sock to become part of the dangling end.

If you give up or just don't want to bother with the no-sew figure-8 toe, there are tons of other toe-up sock patterns out there that use different starting methods. Wendy has one. Or you can start with a provisional cast on, then go back and Kitchener darn the toe up later.

Look of Short Rowed Heels

Knitzanknitzanknitz asked about how short-rowed heels in self stripers look. Here are a couple of mine:



With a little care and willingness to make the sock a row or two longer/shorter you can plan your heels to miter on the breaks between the striper's color changes.

Sources for Toe Up Patterns

To be immodest - there are mine. wiseNeedle has toe up patterns for several gauges.

The toe-up pattern that started me off and running is by no-sew toe guru Judy Gibson. Wendy Johnson has a popular toe-up pattern, and there's another at Needletrax. There's a toe up tutorial at the Socknitters website, and Flor's got one as well. One of the oldest toe up patterns on the web was done by Manny Olds. Google on "toe up socks" for zillions more.

It's growing on me. I like it more now that there is more of it done. I'm still not 100% pleased, but I'm no longer at the edge of the rip back and start all over mindset.



I think I made the right call by not continuing with the birds eye pattern uninterrupted for the entire piece. I've switched over to plain garter stitch for the center, ornamented with a coordinating band of eyelets marching up the spine.

For the record, I've made a slight change in the Birds Eye pattern that I think looks just a tad better. On the chart provided, on rows 3, 7, 11, 15, 19 (etc.) I work the ssk that forms the right hand corner of the big eyelet as a K2tog. This gives a slightly better definition to that corner of each ring.

I tried to abstract out just one column of eyelets from the main design for my spine, but I didn't like the look. Because the original does that half-drop translation thing (staggered like brick walls are stacked), the eyelets ended up being spaced too far apart. Instead I used a similar design lifted from one of the edging patterns in Miller's book. It's from "Ring Shawl Lace Edging with Spider Insertion." I'm using just the Spider insertion strip. It complements the all-over Birds Eye pattern in that it's also ring based, but it's slightly different. Spider is one row shorter than the Birds Eye, and the eyelets stack directly one on top of each other. In BE, the slightly embossed eyelet rings all appear on the same side of the piece. In Spider, they alternate front and back. It's still good looking and being airy, matches nicely, but the ring units ARE different.

Now I'm looking at my shawl and I'm beginning to think that with this growing plain garter stitch area something interesting floating in it might be quite effective. Or maybe not (that variegated yarn color problem again.) Hmmm.....

Back at station. There's a giant hole in the world today where a dear friend of mine used to be. "Kinsmen die, cattle die. Every man is mortal, but one thing never dies: the?good name of one who has earned it." Havamal, 75.

My heart aches for his wife, son, family, and household.

---

As promised, here is the second review of the set - Montse Stanley's Creating & Knitting Your Own Designs for a Perfect Fit, New York,?Harper and Row, 1982.

In the days before knitting software, books like this one, personal apprenticeship, or trial and error were the ways one learned how to draft out one's own patterns. Not knowing anyone who was doing designs to ask for help, I relied exclusively on the "books plus making lots of mistakes" scenario for most of what I knit. A couple of books in particular were worth their weight in gold. This was one. The pictures and projects illustrated in C&K are now a bit late '70s funk/frumpy looking, but the basics of this book are as good as ever.

This book is so good in fact that I have used it in training classes for budding technical and professional writers, to illustrate how a complex set of technical concepts can be conveyed to an audience that includes both the experienced and novices without losing either of those readerships. The blurb says Stanley was an architect. I believe it, and would love to find out what sort of things she designed because the clarity of her thought processes rings from her pages.


It's a survey course in knit design and technique, packaged up in an amazingly brief 175 pages - including index and custom graph paper. Like Perfect Fit, this book covers taking measurements and turning them into dimensioned schematics. Like PF, it skips over making a sloper - but unlike that book it translates the measurements directly to specific vectors on the garments, rather than to an abstract and idealized shape. Therefore short waisted people end up with garments that start out being custom-fit to that figure type, rather than taking a standard shape and altering it to meet their needs. Stanley goes further, taking the brilliant step of introducing ratio-based graph paper into the garment design. You knit up a swatch, figure out your stitch:row ratio, and select the graph paper that matches the closest. You can then lay out your collar shapings or other details "in real time."? Need a 40-degree angle?? Slap a protractor on the graph paper and draw your line. The graph boxes under it each represent a real stitch, and the rate of increase or decrease needed to achieve that angle are easily seen and counted. The book includes about ten pages of ratio graph paper for photocopying. I don't know if anyone else wrote a knitting book that advocated the use of ratio-based graph paper before Stanley, but nothing else I've found has so clearly explained how to use it.

Stanley didn't just publish a graph paper book, she includes an extensive section on knitting technique, including finishing, grafting, short rows (darts),? mitering, picking up, and types of increases and decreases. She's got a stitch dictionary section? (all prose, none graphed); sections on materials and suitability, color, composition, and garment shapes - including a huge array of body, sleeve, closure, neckline, collar, and pocket options. Each garment shape is illustrated with a little line drawing, and has a brief prose description - usually enough to get one started drafting out that option on one's own. The placement of critical measurements on these little drawings enables seeing how the garment works in relation to body shape/size.

There's a section on moving beyond combos of these garment shape units; how color, knit direction, motif/texture placement and trim can greatly alter the look of a basic garment. Again this is illustrated with little line drawings, some woefully '70s in feel. Even though some are out of date, the wealth of them can start the reader's thought processes ticking.

The book closes out with a section on troubleshooting - what to do to correct styles (too long/short, narrow/wide), miscalculations (messed up texture or colorwork patterns), misplaced openings or buttonholes and the like. Add on some basic size charts, growth allowances charts for kids' clothing, ease allowance charts, a few other quick calculation look-up charts, some color photos of finished items and discussions of them (but not whole patterns) and you've got this book.

I admit that a book like this is less valuable today than it used to be. Knitting design software has enabled a much wider audience to do basic pattern drafting without resorting to calculators, graph paper and pencil. But this book will still be very useful for anyone who wants to move beyond? the "black box" mystery mechanism use of that software. For example, you can start off with a knitting software-generated simple cardigan, then get inspired by this book to turn it into a jacket with an asymmetrical closure slanting from hip to shoulder. Stanley won't tell you the exact stitch count or formula for that translation, but you will emerge from reading the her brief on that style with enough knowledge to make the change on your own. I suspect that everyone who has written a knitting design software package has?C&K on her or his shelf.

Montse Stanley's work (in combo with?that of a couple of other authors) has made a tremendous difference in the way I knit, the way I look at and use patterns, and the scope of what I feel is within my own limited competence.One warning - this book IS?hard to come by, and sells used at a premium above cover price. But if you can find it and afford it, and?want the inspiration and enabling it contains, I strongly recommend adding C&K to your library.

Just knitting along on the Birds Eye shawl. I'm not entirely pleased with the way the color interferes with the eyelet patterning. Perhaps I should rip back and make something plainer.

You can best make out the eyelets near the bottom point. For the record, I'm knitting on 2.5mm needles. Without the jumble of color, both th eneedles and the eyelets would be more visible. For all the complexity of the chart, the repeat is actually quite easy to? memorize. It's 4 rows x 6 stitches, with a half-drop translation.

I've now worked into the spot where I'm modifying the pattern by inserting a region of plain garter. As soon as I have more of that done, I'll take another photo to see if the difference in texture is worth the effort. Or perhaps I'll throw in the towel and find or create another visually simpler pattern.

The blue poncho is done!? I had wanted to do something more elaborate with the crocheted border, but the Target Daughter reminded me that it being for her, I might like to hold off on the wild part. I had forgotten that as an early teen one wants to be different from everyone else in exactly the same way as all of one's friends. Target Daughter thought that too much crochet would make the piece too frou-frou. and requested something simpler.

I ended up using the chain selvedge edges as my foundation, and working with only one ply of my de-plied yarn (in contrast, the knitted part is worked with two plies). Into each of the existing?elongated selvedge edge stitches I did?this unit:

2 double crochet, (chain 3 slip stitch in base of chain to make picot), 2 double crochet

I fudged as best I could along the cast-on and bind-off edges of the rectangles. This made a very simple slightly scalloped edge, with little picots marching along it. Using the thinner yarn kept it delicate and in proportion to the lacy bits made by the knitted drop stitch technique.

While this wasn't my favorite project ever knitted, my dislike for this project was mostly due to the interminable un-plying. The piece itself knit up and trimmed out extremely quickly. I really like the post-wash softness of the wool I used, and the airy drape of the finished poncho. If you wanted to achieve a similar effect, use a yarn that's thinner than the one called for in the original Classic Elite pattern. Although the yarn as a whole before I unwound the plies knits up like a heavy sport weight (not quite DK), my unspinning it made it alot more lofty My extracted single plies?are about a fluffy as opposed to hard-twisted?fingering weight in thickness, two of these fluffy beasts knit on conventional as opposed to the wildly large needles I used would knit up at standard DK gauge (22 st=10cm or 4 inches, probably on a US #5 or so).

Birds Eye Shawl

On to the next project. My Birds Eye shawl, done in Lorna's Laces Helen's Lace in purples, and adapated from the free pattern posted by Sharon Miller on her Heirloom Knitting website. I'm about?6 inches into the thing, measured from the starting point at the triangle's tip. I'm having fun with it, but I think the variegated yarn is overpowering the eyelet design. Since it's turning into massive effort for less of a return than I had originally hoped, as described before I'll work a wide band of eyelets left and right, and a single eyelet column as a spine up the center back. The rest I'll do in garter or stockinette. I've started on this modification, but have had to rip back a few times because I hadn't quite gotten the math right on the pattern transformation. I was ending up with too many stitches because I was including some YOs that had no accompanying decreases. More charting is my next step. I'll report back on this in my next post.

More on Blocking

A couple of people have asked where I do my blocking, or if I use a blocking board. I have to admit that I'm not that organized. Until recently I didn't have a place to stow a piece of wallboard or a commercial blocking board. We have a mostly bare floors house, with?8x10-foot rugs in only a couple of the rooms. Two kids, but no free-range pets. Depending on traffic, whether or not the piece might bleed dye, I throw some beach towels over either the white Berber style rug (my bedroom) or blue fake oriental?rug (family room)?and pin out on the towels.

General Kvelling

See this??

Aside from a couple of fuzzy narrow scarves in garter stitch, it's Target Daughter's first knitting project!? She used some bits of leftover Manos del Uruguay?from my stash, and we started with the Booga Bag pattern. I admit we didn't actually follow it, but we did borrow its general idea - a rectangle of garter stitch, pick up around the edges and work a tube in the round, in stockinette. Make I-cord for handles.

In total I think there's about skein and a third of the brown/paprika Canyon color, a third of a ball of dark brown (the bottom of the bag, plus the first three or so rows of the tube); and a third of a skein of gold (the stripe and the handles). It's hard to give exact totals though as all was in little balls and I didn't bother to weigh it first. We fulled?the bag?in the washing machine by tossing into two hot wash/cold rinse loads of dark colored towels.

Her next project is the one-skein Gusto 10 hat, and mastering double points and decreases. After that it's on to purling, and wherever else knitting takes her. She's muttering things about replicating sprites from her GameBoy games, so perhaps it will be Intarsia or stranding...

From my inbox, based on yesterday's post:? Does knitting really need to be blocked?? It seems so inconvenient to take all these finishing steps when we all want to get the current piece (finally)?done, try it on, and cast on for the next.

It's?up to you. I find that while blocking is far from an absolute remedy for all knitting ills, it does even out stitch imperfections, improve drape, and even does a little bit to help tame curl. I do a wash/wet block, in which I wash the garment as I intend to for the rest of its life, then pin it out to dry. I never use any of the steam blocking/finishing methods. You can set yarn for life using steam, a mistake is yours forever. But wash/wet blocking can be undone by another trip through the laundry.

I don't block everything I knit, but I almost always block wool or wool-blend things larger than socks. I also almost always block things I intend on sewing together. If I've knit in the round, I'll block the body and sleeves before attaching them. If the sleeves go on early (like on a Wallaby, where they are joined before the yoke is knit I'll block the sleeves first, attach them, then block the entire garment when again when all the knitting is done.

I always block lace and cotton knitting - especially counterpane motifs before assembly. Yesterday's poncho looked MUCH better after it was stretched to even out and maximize the spread of the laddering.

I rarely block hats unless they require post-knitting shaping (like stretching a tam over a plate to give it a beret fold). Some synthetics I block, others not. I didn't block my Suede T because it was heavy enough to lay flat without encouragement, plus I'd heard that immersion in water changes the yarn's drape. (I'll probably dry clean that piece). I did block the Waterspun poncho. Classic Elite Waterspun?is a yarn that looks worlds better after washing and blocking. I've made several things from it and always block it before assembly.

So. Do I always block?? No. Do I think blocking is worth the effort?? For most, but not all pieces.

Is now blocked out, stitched together and is being edged. Here's a photo mid-block:

I've pinned out both rectangles one on top of the other, using the same set of blocking wires in an attempt to ensure that they end up being the same size. You can see the lacy ribbed look resulting from the dropped stitch pattern, plus the variegated ended up doing a little zig-zag flash thing on some of the stripes.

The two pieces are now dry and sewn together. I've started crocheting around the neck edge for firmness. Since I did a chain selvedge, I'll use that to my advantage around the neck. By doing one or two more double crochets than would fit flat over each chain selvedge loop, I'll end up with a firm, scalloped neck trim, possibly with some picots thrown in. Pix tomorrow.

Birds Eye Shawl

In other knitting related news, I've started the Birds Eye Shawl available as a free pattern on the Heirloom Knitting website. I'm using Lorna's Laces Helen's Lace in mixed berry colors - mostly purples with some blue and fuschia thrown in. I'm not entirely pleased at the effect because the colors are overwhelming the texture pattern. I might make some mods to the pattern. I've gotten about eight inches into the thing. I may keep the birds eye pattern up around the edge of the piece, but switch to a plain garter stitch or stockinette center, possibly with a line of the birds eye ring motifs running up the center like a spine. More thinking is in order...