With great joy I announce the end of my most recent death-march deadline at work.  The one that has eaten up nearly every day since Halloween (including weekends).  I spent this past weekend catching up on a belated birthday celebration, exhuming some parts of my house from clutter, and returning at last to knitting.

One half of the birthday was a memorable dinner with The Resident Male at Blue Ginger restaurant in Wellsley, MA.  Not being as eloquent on the subject as Chocolate and Zucchini (one of my favorite reads) I won't bore you with a dissection of the meal beyond saying it was a leisurely evening of fine food and wine.  The company wasn't bad, either.

The other half of my celebration was a day of personal indulgence, including a visit to the local yarn shop to take advantage of their semi-annual clearance sale.  I bought some Encore and a pattern (see below), a couple skeins of sock yarn, a kit to make Dovetail Design's Rainbow Hat and Scarf (with a full spectrum of Frog Tree alpaca) and two full bags of Jaeger Matchmaker DK in an intense charcoal gray heather.  The Matchmaker is destined to become the Sarah James Ribbed Leaf pullover.



On the knitting front, I've started winding the tie-dyed cotton.  I made the mistake of washing and drying it in the machine.  While in concept doing so wasn't particularly wrong, I could have used more ties to secure the yarn.  I ended up with quite a tangle which I am slowly deconstructing back into a ball.  It's not difficult or knotted, but it is tedious.  I'm very pleased however with the result.  Knitting it however will have to wait for another time, as I am wildly behind on other projects and need to finish them first.

On that Encore - I've got a pal at work who has two little girls, with a third on the way.  Everyone always knits for the new baby, so I decided to do something different.  I'm making two "Big Sister" sweaters in the girls' two favorite colors for the older two.   Since there will be ample laundry in that household, I've chosen an easy-care acrylic wool blend.  The two sweaters will be identical except for color.  One is kid's size 6 in screaming pink, the other is a size 4 in eggplant purple. 

As I mentioned before, I'm woefully behind in knitting so I am using the short-cut of a purchased pattern. A quick to knit, ultra-simple purchased pattern.   I'm working Cabin Fever's 1,2,3, Top Down (#609).  It's a unisex simple knitting pullover, worked top down.  The pattern covers kids' sizes 4-8, and is worked in standard worsted.  As you can see, having started on Saturday, I've gotten about a quarter of the way through the larger size.  I'm past the point where the sleeves split off, and am now well into the body tube.   The pattern itself is quite simple and easy to follow.  I'd recommend this as being a design that a newer knitter would enjoy.  So far the skills needed to accomplish it have been casting on, knitting in the round, and yarn overs.  A small bit of purling is introduced in the ribbing and (optional) welt at the base of the collar. 

As you can see, the first of the two sweaters I'm making for my friend's kids is more than half-way done.  I've got only a couple more rows of the body ribbing to go before doing the rolled lower edge, then I get to do the sleeves.



Of course, anything in a kids' size 6 knitted at 5 stitches per inch goes quickly, especially when it's just miles of stockinette.  There's just two more skills needed in this pattern - k2tog, and casting off.  I'd rate this a solid beginner's hit.

Now, about those sleeves...

My bugbear of the knit-in-the-round genre has always been making the sleeves even.  I am a lazy knitter.  I hate counting rows.  Being the largest idiot in my universe, I try to idiot-proof my knitting whenever possible.  I am not a big fan of two-circ technique for things like socks (I'm much faster on DPNs), but I think for these sleeves, I'll give that method I try.  I'll use a pair of longish ones, and work both sleeves side by side, each from its own ball of yarn.  I've discussed both alternate circular needle methods and  side-by-side knitting of two items before.   More on this tomorrow after I've gotten enough done to photograph.

In other blather, I'm annoyed with Knitters Magazine.  This isn't an unusual occurrence, but it does have other root causes.  Most recently I've been annoyed because of their overall lackluster patterns - the sad, baggy, unflattering things; the unnecessarily tarted up,overembellished items; the ill fitting pieces in flash-in-the-pan novelty yarns that look stupid even on the svelte; and the parade of useless accessories that look more like hand-knitted fungus than anything else.  Then there's magazine format, use of ill considered yarn description standards, and the treasure hunt to determine the basic info needed to actually work the patterns.  To be sure, the latest issue has its share of those, but it also has one item that looks to be worth knitting - the first one I've been tempted to make from Knitters in about five years.  It's the lace stole on the cover.  I'd show you the thing, but as usual the Knitters site is throwing errors.

Why am I annoyed when the rag has finally presented something other than rags?

Because the issue appears to be in yarn shops and book stores, but not in my mailbox.  My issue has either gone astray, or is lurking somewhere in the post office.  I know several other subscribers here in Massachusetts.  Their issues are also late.  I suspect the magazine's excellent standard of professionalism is to blame.  The same one that is responsible for the buggy website, poor subscription management/customer service, lousy pattern choices, and severely flawed published instructions.

Some questions fell out of yesterday's post:

Which dye kit did you buy?
 
This one.  It's by Jacquard (aka Rupert, Gibbon and Spider).  It retails for around $19.00 and is widely available on the Web and in crafts stores.  There are probably more cost effective ways to get the materials it contained, but I was paying for convenience and (being an idiot working with kids) idiot-proofed directions.  Remember, I bought the thing primarily to dye shirts as a birthday party activity for 8-year olds.  Dyeing my yarn was a lagniappe.



What kind of dyes did you use?

The kit comes stocked with pre-measured Procion MX dyes in squeeze bottles.  They're cold water dyes, and quite vivid.  I know very little about dyes and dyeing, but it appears from a cursory web search that these are ideal for cotton.

Why did you use cotton and not wool?

See above.  Also, I have to admit that the sacrificial aspect of experimentation played a key part.  The cotton yarn I used was very inexpensive and has been stash-aging long enough to qualifty as being "almost free." 

At present, my stash includes two sweater sized lots of undyed wool.  One is a very special thing - hand-spun Churro wool, a gift from a friend in New Mexico.  It's waiting for the **perfect** thing to do with it, and is not to be wasted on an experiment that might go wrong.  The other is a more modest yarn, but is a small producer local product, blooming with lanolin.  I was unsure of  whether or not the dyes would be as suitable for a protein fiber as they are for cellulose fiber, and I didn't know how the presence of lanolin would affect the process.  The kit was designed for cotton garments, so cotton yarn was my chosen target.

Did you measure out your skein diameter for optimal flashing?

No.  I thought about doing that, but doing so would require that I knit up some swatches and do gauge calculations, then do some test-knitting to determine the final flash diameter.  (Yes, I'm still progressing with my flash camo tee).  Instead I decided to wing it.  I extended my swift to its maximum diameter and just used that.  My skein is about 1.5 yards in circumference.  Give or take.

Have you rinsed the yarn yet?

No.  Not yet.  The kit specifies letting the dyes sit for a while, preferably overnight, to make sure they are firmly fixed.  The picture I showed yesterday is of dye-damp unrinsed yarn.

What the heck is soda ash?

I didn't know, so I looked it up.  Google is my friend.

Yes, I am still swamped at work, by the same project that has eaten my time and sanity since last November.  The end though is in sight.  Thank goodness.  In the mean time everything else suffers.  Especially blogging.

I was able to steal an evening this weekend past because Younger Daughter was celebrating her birthday.  We had a house full of 8-year old girls, lots of cake, giggling, glow in the dark sticks, and other modest entertainments suitable to a sleep-over party.  Along the way we did t-shirt tie dyeing.  I got a bunch of inexpensive plain white t-shirts from Walgrens, and a tie dye kit from the local arts and crafts store (more chaotic but much more fun than those big box crafts palaces).   The kit came with almost everything other than the shirts - instructions, three squeeze bottles pre-loaded with dye powder in screaming primary colors, one empty squeeze bottle with marks on it for using two of the other colors to make a fourth, soda ash, rubber gloves,  and rubber bands.  All I needed to add were the shirts and a bucket.  The kids had lots of fun making their own creations, but when they were finished, I had about half of the dye left. 

What to do with it?  Well - what would you do?

What I did was experiment after the kids had wiggled themselves into their sleeping bags and (mostly) gone to sleep. 

I had some old Southmaid Cotton 8 unmercerized white cotton left over from blankets past.  It was very inexpensive, around $1.75 per skein, and it's been kicking around my stash forever.   Using my swift, I wound out about six skeins worth (2.5 oz each, no yardage provided), knotting them end to end as I went along.  I secured my mega skein in three places with a loose figure 8 tie, just like all the countless skeins of yarn I've bought over the years.  Then following the dye kit directions, I soaked the yarn in the soda ash bath.  It sat there for a couple hours.  Then I squeezed as much of the ash water out as I could and laid my yarn out on plastic.  Then I took my squeeze bottles and had at it. 



This is much harder than it seems.  First, keeping the colors in neat segmets is a challenge that must get easier with practice.  Second, making sure that the full depth of the skein is penetrated by color is also difficult.  Again practice must be key.  Perhaps I was overly ambitious with the amount of yarn I was trying to color, but you can see in the blue that I didn't get the core of the skein as evenly colored as the outside. 

Still, garish colors and imperfect execution as it is, it was a noble experiment.  Without measuring, my guess is that I have enough yarn here to (eventually)  make a sweater for Younger Daughter.  At worst case, possibly a tee-shirt for her.  Which would be congruent given the origin of my inspiration.

Will I try this again?  Possibly.  Messy is always fun.

Some people have asked how Elder Daughter (about to be 15) did all the math that led up to her bunny's pirate sweater.  I don't think they were asking how she was able to accomplish the task in the first place, but instead, what methods she used.  All those numbers sound daunting, but it's really not that hard if you take it step by step.  I wanted to to do as many steps as possible, so we started out with as little information beforehand.  Here's what she did, taken in large part from the write-up that was on her poster.

First, as I said - I was evil.  I gave her a lump of yarn without a label.



Now I knew what it was, but Evil OverMoms don't tell.  The first thing she did was determine how many yards of yarn she had.  Here's her write-up (the spacing on the equations is a bit squirrely because they were exported from MS Word's equation editor):

First, I had to find the total weight of the yarn. Using a scale, I found I had to 225 grams of yarn, total.

Then, I turned to a precision instrument to help me. The McMorran balance is designed to determine yardage per pound.  The formula that comes with the balance requires the user to first find out how long a piece of yarn is needed to make the balance register level.  My balancing length for this yarn was 9.75 inches.

 The next step is to use the formula that comes with the balance to determine yards per pound (YPP):

 

 In my case

My yarn has 975 yards per pound, but I needed to find out how many yards were in 225 grams.  The formula to convert grams to pound is:

Plugging in my values I find out:

Now I multiply YPP times my weight in pounds:

And so Elder Daughter defeated the first yarn demon, and determined how much yardage was contained in her tangle - a whopping 482.6 yards.   I'll post more in this series when she brings her poster home and we can scan her drawings.  For the record, McMorran Balances also come in a metric version.  But I have the Imperial unit one, and it was more fun to make sure she did as many conversions back and forth as possible.  

This post comes under the heading of "Bragging Parent."

Elder Daughter's school hosts a math fair every spring.  Much as in a science fair, students are encouraged to create exhibits detailing concepts, or offering up research or practicum results.  The only stipulation is that they have to involve math.  One of the suggested topics this year was "Math in Everyday Life."  Suggestions for this topic included documenting the math inherent in a cooking or hobby project.  Elder Daughter chose to do hers on the math required to create a mini-sweater.  Evil OverMom made sure she got lots of pencil time in doing so. [insert bwaa-haaa-haa sound effect here.]

She decided to take Mr Bunn (her first toy), and outfit him with a pirate motif sweater.  She did some fashion sketches, and searched the web for a pirate motif.  She found one on a wristband offered up by MagKnits. 



To start, I gave her a tangled pile of yarn, of undetermined yardage and gauge.  She rolled it up, weighed it and used a McMorran Balance to figure out her yards per pound.  Lots of conversions between grams and pounds ensued. 

I then had her measure Mr Bunn and draft out a proportionally designed pattern.  There were percentage adjustments for ease, plus determining the length of the T-slit for the neck hole using Pythagorean geometry. 

Then she did a gauge swatch, weighed it and figured out her yarn consumption per unit area, and based on that - whether or not she'd have enough yarn to do her project.  (Obviously I made sure that she would, but let her figure it out on her own).  More ounces, grams, pounds conversions!
After that she used that same swatch to determine row and stitch gauge.  Averaging here, as she took several measurements at different spots on the swatch to get more accurate figures.

She used multiplication and ratios to translate her pattern and her gauges into actual stitch count directions.  Then she drafted up a to-scale final pattern schematic.  Finally, she mathematically determined placement for the motif.

And then she knitted the sweater and did up her poster, documenting all of the equations and methods she used.  (The poster is still at school).  On the day of the fair she manned her mini-booth and explained all of this to the judges.

I regret that in spite of effort and originality, Elder Daughter didn't win one of the coveted few prizes.  But that's a mom talking.  She did get an excellent grade on the project from her  teacher.  Also she learned quite a bit about design, data conversion, and drafting, had fun with applied math, and is now talking about designing up a person-sized sweater.  All of which make her a winner in my book.

As you can tell from my absence from these pages, life again overtakes my leisure pursuits.  Still, even though I haven't had much time to write, I have been able to fit little scraps of knitting into my not-so-copious free time.

First, I knit a pair of replacement socks for Friend Alexx.  They're replacements because I had made a pair for him over the holidays that failed to fit.  Since my socks come with an unlimited warranty, I was honor bound to replace them.  Friend Alexx requested a pair of heavy hiking/slipper socks - preferably purple variegated.  It took a bit of searching to find a purple mix in DK weight washable wool that didn't trail off into prissy pink or boudoir lilac.  But I did.  Cleckheaton Tapestry 8 Ply, in Color #4.  The pair is now done and waiting for me to darn in the ends and send them to the recipient.  No pix - they're pretty standard stockinette in screaming purple, but they're dense and cushy. 

In a coincidence, I stumbled across a briefcase I had been using three years ago.  In it I found a pair of socks I had started for Alexx's wife, Friend Kestrell.  At that point, Kes was learning to knit and wanted to make socks.  So I decided to make a pattern just for her.  This presented a couple of challeges because Kes is blind.  I wanted to use a simple knit/purl brocade that made a deeply embossed texture, and that would be relatively easy for a new sock knitter to memorize.  Having worked with Friend Rosie (another non-sighted knitter) I also wanted to make a pattern in which one could use feel to determine one's location.

My best intentions at that time led me to finish out one sock, and make my way through the heel of the second.  Then for whatever reason something happened and I stopped working on the project.  Around that time my job world changed, and the briefcase holding the socks was "retired." The socks were forgotten in the ensuing turmoil. 

In any case when the pair resurfaced,  I had a finished sock but no pattern written down.  I know I had drafted out the textured brocade, but I couldn't find it on my archives.  Another friend came to the rescue.  My stitchpal Kathryn saves everyhing.  I had shared the original chart with her way back when, and she was kind enough to send me a copy.

But there was a complication.  The chart I sent Kathryn was for a 14-stitch repeat.  My done-sock was worked on 72 stitches - an 18-stitch repeat.  Yes, I had the finished sock, but it can be surprisingly difficult to graph up a piece from as-knitted, especially when the knitted object is done at tiny gauges with a variegated yarn.  But between the sock and the logic of the pattern I was able to noodle it out and continue.  I present both the 14 stitch and 18 stitch repeat.  The 14 fits neatly on any sock worked on 56 stitches.  If you are partial to working with a set of five rather than four needles, you will find that one full repeat will fit on each needle, and each needle will be worked in the same way.  Also, being top-down symmetrical, this pattern wil look pretty much the same for toe up and cuff down socks.

Here's a set of quick and dirty charts.  Yes, I know that Kes and Rosie would have problems reading a *.jpg chart.  See below for full prose instructions.


Kes' Brocade - 14 stitch version, transcribed for knitting in the round only

Row 1: (Right Side) P2, K3, (P1, K1)3 times, K2, P1
Row 2: (Wrong Side) P3, K3, P1, K1, P1, K3, P2
Row 3: K1, P3, K3, P1, K3, P3
Row 4: K2, P3, K5, P3, K1
Row 5: K3, P3, K3, P3, K2
Row 6: P1, K3, P3, K1, P3, K3
Row 7: K1, P1, K3, P5, K3, P1
Row 8: (P1, K1)2 times, K2, P3, K3, P1, K1
Row 9: K1, P1, K3, P5, K3, P1
Row 10: P1, K3, P3, K1, P3, K3
Row 11: K3, P3, K3, P3, K2
Row 12: K2, P3, K5, P3, K1
Row 13: K1, P3, K3, P1, K3, P3
Row 14: P3, K3, P1, K1, P1, K3, P2

Kes' Brocade - 18 stitch version, transcribed for knitting in the round only

Row 1: (Right Side) K3, P4, (K1, P1)2x, K3, P3, K1
Row 2: (Wrong Side) K1, P3, K4, P1, K4, P3, K2
Row 3: K2, P3, K7, P3, K3
Row 4: K3, P3, K5, P3, K4
Row 5: K4, P3, K3, P3, K4, P1
Row 6: P1, K4, P3, K1, P3, K4, P1, K1
Row 7: K1, P1, K4, P5, K4, P1, K1, P1
Row 8: P1, K4, P3, K1, P3, K4, P1, K1
Row 9: K4, P3, K3, P3, K4, P1
Row 10: K3, P3, K5, P3, K4
Row 11: K2, P3, K7, P3, K3
Row 12: K1, P3, K4, P1, K4, P3, K2
Row 13: P3, K4, P1, K1, P1, K4, P3, K1
Row 14: P2, K4, (P1, K1) 3 times, K3, P3

The astute will notice that the thing is symmetrical on two axes.  The 14 stitch repeat mirrors around central stitch #8, and row #7.  The 18 stitch repeat mirrors around stitch #9 and row #7.

And for good measure here's a close-up showing the final texture.  Or as good a photo as I could manage given my limited photography skills, the dark color and speckled nature of the yarn I used.  Which yarn is it?  I believe it's Ancient Fortissima from the pre-merger days.  The 100g ball (now long since separated from the ball band) is sort of ragg-style tweedy, with haphazard stripes being produced when one or more of the constituent plies shades off to a new tone.  In real life it's more deep burgundy/blood red than it is magenta/blue.  The striping effect though isn't uniform.  Sock #1 has a far more demonstrative striping pattern than does on-the-needles sock #2.



I'm about half-way through the brocaded cuff of sock #2 right now (not shown).  As soon as I'm done, I'll pack up both pairs along with the finished pattern and send them to my friends.

I promised to describe how I avoid those small holes that can form at the top of the diagonal line of joins formed by short row style heels.  Please bear with this household's limited photography skills.  Those are my hands.  Elder Daughter (now 14) is manning the camera. 

To start - here is my sock, worked toe up on five needles.  Each with the same number of stitches on it. This sock is ideal for illustrating this process because I have planned my sock foot depth to hit at the points of color change.  It's easier to refer to stitches by color.  Apologies if you're color-impaired.

I have just completed the knit side row in which I have knit together that last wrapped stitch along with the wraps at its base.  There are no more stitches "in front" of me, waiting to be wrapped.  I'm ready to rejoin the body of the sock.  But before I do so there's one last step that needs to be done with the leftmost heel needle and streteched out stitches in the interstice between the heel needle (green and white stitches) and the body needle (orange stitches).  I've put down my empty needle and am about to do this next step using the needle bearing the green and white heel stitches.


In step two, you can see that I've gone one round down below my active row and am in the process of picking up one stitch, using the tip of my heel needle.



Step 3 shows that picked up stitch (light green), safely parked on my heel needle.  At this point, my just-completed heel needle contains ONE MORE stitch than all of the others.  After Step 3, I pick up my fifth needle and knit across the first then second needle bearing my top-of-foot stitches.



When I get to the other side of the top-of-foot stitches and have my fifth needle poised to start working up the right side of my heel, I pause.  There are two anomalies on this side.  First - we'll need to do the same pick-up of one stitch as we did at the end of the first heel needle.  The second is a bit trickier.  If you look closely, you'll see that because I launched directly into my first full round after re-activating the last wrapped heel stitch on heel needle #1, I never got back to the commencement of the heel to re-awaken the rightmost heel stitch on the other heel needle.  You can see it below, noosed by its blue wrapping stitch.  THIS IS O.K.  NOT TO WORRY.  We'll deal with it as part of this side of heel.



Now (in spite of blurry pix), you can see that using my empty fifth needle, I am picking up one stitch in the row below the first stitch on my heel needle.  It's light green, and is being formed in the orange stitches below the start of the turquoise heel stripe.



Next is the wrapped stitch cheat.  In the shot above you can see there are actually two wraps on this first heel stitch.  One is blue, one is green/white.  The blue stitch happened first, and is lower on the carrying stitch than is the nearly impossible to see green/white one.  It is extremely difficult to work both of these wrapped stitches along with the carrier.  So I cheat.  I lift the lower wrap (blue) and place it on the end of my heel needle.  Then I knit it and the carrier stitch together, ignoring that other green/white wrap.  UNLESS THEY'VE READ THIS CHEAT, NO ONE WILL EVER NOTICE THE OMISSION.   It will have no effect on sock wear, or the presence or absence of that litle hole.



Now because I've picked up a stitch on this needle too, I have two top-of-foot needles that each bear my original number of stitches, plus two heel needles that each bear my original number + 1 stitch.  On this next round I take care of that.  I work across heel needle #1, taking care to do a SSK on the last two stitches.  I'm now back to my original count, and have eliminated the gusset hole on this side of the heel.  I work across the top of the foot stitches as usual.  When I get to the other heel needle, I knit the first two stitches together.  Again I'm back to my original count, and have snicked up any potential hole on this side.  Once I've completed this "remedial decrease" row, I consider my heel complete and go on to do whatever I feel like for the ankle.

Here's the result:

Linda writes in with a sock-related question.

Do you weigh your skeins/balls of sock yarn before you start?

She goes on to point out that she weighs her sock yarn that comes in "makes a pair" size balls (usually marked at 100g).  Because (like me) she knits for big feet, she is also often afraid that she'll run out if she makes sock #1 too large.  Weighing the remaining yarn as she knits sock #1 tells her how close she is to having used up 50% of the total. 

It's a good idea, but I don't do it.  Mostly because the lousy kitchen scale I have at home isn't precise enough for the task at hand.  That and laziness.  Also at this point, trust.  I know that a 100g ball of yarn is plenty for a pair for me, even with my clown-sized feet.  and that if I knit the foot to fit, then knit the ankle part as long as the foot, I'll have enough left over for 2 inches of ribbing.  That doesn't mean I don't get nervous.  I do.  Sometimes I do run short.  So I suppose I really should go out and buy a decent scale...

This brings up Linda's second observation.  To paraphrase:

Sometimes the ball weight is less than the label states.  My ball of Sockotta I just started is labeled 100 gms but weighed in at only 94 gms. Maybe my scale is wrong...

While a calibration or accuracy difference between any two measurement devices is always a possibility, perhaps her scale isn't wrong.  Yarn weight is measured under "standard conditions."  Presumably if Linda was experiencing the same set of conditions (most specifically - humidity), her ball of yarn would weigh the full 100g.  It's also not entirely unknown for distributors to offer products that hit the exact mark only as an over-the-lot average, with some balls being heavy and others light.  Certainly not optimal but not uncommon either.  Inconsistent yardage has been mentioned in the wiseNeedle yarn reviews (sample:  Diana, Dulce, .Manos, Melin, Tibet).   Finally there ARE some yarns that are consistently short of the listed yardage.  That's a big flaw that has also cropped up a few times in the yarn reviews posted on wiseNeedle (sample:  Superwash 12 Ply, Nature Cotton). 

Should one expect every skein to hit the 50g or 100g (or whatever mark)?  Under ideal conditions, yes.  But I doubt it will happen often in our imperfect universe.  My solution to the problem is on larger projects - to buy that extra skein as insurance.  I've dipped into my insurance yarn often enough to make it a standard part of my yarn purchase planning.