I'm still chugging my way through my blocking pile. Here's my Jang Print 'o Wave piece, finished and blocked. I admit I could have done a better job blocking the thing, but it's not horrible.

Due to the yarn and needle size I used, it ended up being stole sized rather than conforming to typical scarf dimensions. As I noted in my earlier posts, the endorsed rate of attachment is a bit ruffly. I prefer a flatter piece. The corners however turned out better than expected. The ease factor I used was (for the most part) enough to flare nicely around the corner in my non-stretchy linen, but "going round" rather than mitering does make the ends of the stole flare out a bit. If I were to knit this again, I'd work out a complementary mitered or fixed piece corner instead of just easing the edging around.

If you are thinking of working this pattern, too, I did post a minor bit of errata for the original pattern. My own Jang Wave will be headed out as a present for a family member.

And on presents - a great pal of mine, co-conspirator, sometimes employer/sometimes co-worker/sometimes employee, fellow Kim, leader of the pack, and all around kindred spirit deserves a pair of fingerless mittens:

These were adapted from my previously shared Fingerless Whatevers pattern. Although they've missed the worst of winter's weather, they're on their way.

The blocking joy never stops. (Perhaps that's why I put it of forever). Here's the most current piece, pinned out and drying:

This is the Black Lace Doodle scarf I was working on a month or so ago. To be fair, it's not entirely black, it's more of a deep gray/tobacco color, knit from leftovers from my big Woven Diamonds shawl. Better pix away from the checky blocking sheet in the next post (promise!)

Finally - a private note to friend-from-elder-days, Wendy. I tried leaving a comment on your blog about your offer of the ancient photo, to no avail. I'd love to see the thing. I might even have one of you (of similar vintage) in trade. All my best to the family, two and four-footed, alike.

Technorati : knitting
Del.icio.us : knitting
43 Things : knitting

As you can see from the traditional String blurry pictures, the Zig-Zag Baby Blanket is done. Although it's acrylic, I blocked it out to stretch the lace and flatten out the edging. And I spare you from squinting only at the Peter Max image of the thing mid-block on my checked sheets:

Now you can see what I was talking about in the last note - I took the single zig-zag insertion framed by diamonds as presented in the text, used one column of diamonds as a center "spine" and mirrored another zig-zag on the other side. I also improvised a matching edging adapted from the main design's zig-zag and quad eyelet motifs. The thing is a square approximately 37 inches across from point tip to point tip - a useful size for a travel or basket blanket, although at tad small for a crib blanket. It's knit in a DK weight yarn and sports a stockinette gauge of about 5.5 stitches per inch. Stitches used are knit, purl, K2tog, SSK, and YO. If you can manage them and read a chart, you can knit this thing. (While keeping place in the admittedly large chart can be a minor challenge, given sufficient sticky notes or magnetic bars, that problem is very manageable.) If anyone is interested in making one like this I'll consider writing up and posting a pattern. One caveat - this piece is a gift and will be leaving the house within the next two weeks. Requests made after that time will have to rely entirely on my shaky memory.

Because I had the blocking sheet out and had some room, I grabbed another piece from my done-and-waiting pile and blocked it, too. Here's Red Doily #3, knit last year, pinned out and presented done (but with some ending off still on the horizon)

To embarrass myself, I went back through blog archives looking for when I knit this third red doily but didn't find it. I think was knitting this piece back in the fall of 2006, and it has been sitting in the blocking pile ever since. That's so long ago, I'm not sure where the pattern is from, but I think it might have been from Patterns for the Art of Lace Knitting: The Complete Works of Rachel Schnelling, compiled by Gloria Penning.

Only three more items in my to-block stack...

Technorati : knitting

Still not much time for knitting around here, but I did get to finish off my doodle lace scarf (pix when I get a chance to block it), and do up a quick baby blanket.The blanket is still in process, but I'll be posting more details of the finished pattern here if people are interested. I'm also still chugging away on the Kyoto for Elder Daughter. I'm about a third of the way through the sleeves. All that remains is to finish off the sleeves, piece the thing together and knit the collar strip.

On the new blanket - I am still enthralled by my Duchrow trilogy, so I went trolling through the pages of those books looking for candidate strip and coordinated edging patterns to do up in a large gauge yarn. Large for me, that is. I found something interesting in Knitting Patterns of Christine Duchrow, Volume 1 on page 30 - a large zig zag. The zag is shown as one big Z shaped insertion, framed by two columns of diamond lozenges, pierced with eyelets. As printed, the one repeat edge to edge is 63 stitches. I decided to toy with it a bit, using one column of diamond lozenges as a centerpiece, framed by symmetrical repeats of the zig-zags. At my gauge of 5.5 spi the framed zig-zag made a nice size for a small basket/car seat type utility blanket. To finish off the piece, I scaled down the edging featured in Duchrow, eliminating the extra column of lozenges, opting for one fewer side to side zig-zag elements. For those of you who are still wary of charts, doing something like this with a knitting pattern written out in prose is a relatively difficult exercise. Editing down a charted edging is easy. Slap two sticky notes on the thing, one masking out unneeded vertical columns, and one to keep one's place row by row, and (provided you've not cut off the inception spot where the entire thing is narrowed or increased - you're good to go. (Let me know if you want more details on this.)

The picture shows the edging, plus one half of the blanket, from the edging to the line of lozenges that form the center. The big zig is mirrored on the other side of that center spine. It's bundled up snood style because I've picked up stitches all the way around the perimeter, using two circs; and am now knitting the edging onto the body. I'd estimate this piece so far (center plus one side of the edging) has taken me about six actual hours of knitting time, spread over two weeks, which for a lacy blanket is pretty quick, even given my dismal work schedule.

As to what I've knit this piece from - I'm not entirely happy with it. I'm working at consuming some of the yarn that I have here in the house. A dear friend of the family recently gave me a huge bag of mixed acrylics that she had accumulated from yard sales and flea markets. It included a number of skeins of 1993-vintage Lion Jamie Pompadour. It's marked at 20 stitches and 28 rows = 4 inches or 10cm. I'm getting DK standard gauge of 5.5 stitches per inch in stockinette on US #7 needles. While it does knit up quickly, I'm not that pleased with the feel. It's a Sayelle acrylic with a shiny rayon binder strand. The feel is rather spongy and a bit plastic like as opposed to woolly. The drape is relatively stiff given the yarn's density and weight. Still, yardage per skein is high, it's not itchy, it is machine washable, the color is pleasant if you like baby pastels, and having been stored well over the years none of the yarn is discolored, snagged, stained or smelly. I'll probably use all of my inherited skeins for baby blankets for people I know might not have the time or inclination to hand-wash. For the record, the center of the blanket took a few yards more than three full skeins of Jamie- I'd estimate it as having eaten about 525 yards. The edging along one long side has taken a little over 3/4 of another skein. Final consumption figures will be forthcoming when I'm closer to the end.

Technorati : Knitting

Just because I was eaten by work doesn't mean there was no knitting going on at my house. I'm very proud of Elder Daughter (currently in 11th grade), who completed her first sweater this weekend past.

She used Sirdar Denim Ultra - a very soft and lofty cotton/acrylic blend, and made a top-down original, working off a pattern produced using Sweater Wizard. She did all the steps - knitting gauge swatches until she had one with a hand she liked, then calculating the gauge; taking body measurements; inputting the gauge and measurements into SW, and then tinkering with different lengths, eases, and necklines until she got the look she liked (comfy/baggy, for relaxing after class). Then she cast on and followed her pattern to the end.

She had a ton of fun working through the project, and is extremely happy with the end result. Her only criticism of the yarn is that it's a bit splitty, and being composed of lots of individual smaller strands, does have a tendency to catch on things.

I know that Sirdar Denim Ultra is discontinued now, but in the chance anyone has a similar lofty acrylic/cotton blend that works up to 10 stitches/12 rows for 4 inches or 10cm, Elder Daughter shares her pattern:

My Best Friend Dorm Sweater

Needles: 11, 13 Size: 40 Gauge: 2.5 sts 3 rws per 1" Estimated Ydg required: 718

Note: Sweater begins at the top back and is worked to underarm back. Cast on sts are picked up to work to front underarm. Remainder of garment is worked in the round.

Start Back

With larger straight needle, using a provisional cast on 54 sts. Work Back to Underarm Working back and forth, work until piece measures 10.5". Place sts on a string.

Front Shoulder & Neck Shaping

Slip 19 left shoulder sts (from cast on string) on needle, skip 16 back neck sts. Slip 19 right shoulder sts onto needle. Using two balls of yarn, begin neck shaping as follows: Inc 1 st at neck edge every 3 rws, 3 x. Then every 4 rows, 5 x. Complete Front Top: Work even until piece meas same as back. Slip front body sts onto scrap yarn.

Work Sleeves.

Pick Up Sleeve Sts [pick up 4 sts, skip 1 row] 4x [pick up 5 sts, skip 1 row] 2x to shoulder. From shoulder down [pick up 5 sts, skip 1 row] 2x [pick up 4 sts, skip 1 row] 4x (52 sts) ending at underarm. Place marker, join.

Shape Sleeve

Work 1 rnd. Begin sleeve shaping: Dec 1 st on each side of marker every 2nd rnd 6x, then every 4th rnd 8x. Cont in pat st until piece meas 15.5"[rnd 46]. Change to smaller needles for cuff. Sleeve-to-Rib Dec Round: [Work 7 k2tog, work 6, k2tog] 1x, work 7. Work rib for 10 rounds[3"].Bind off 22 sts.

Work Body

Slip front and back body sts onto a circular needle. Work across front, pm(side seam), join front and back, work across back, pm (beg of rnd). Join. With larger needles, work one RS row. Begin shaping: Dec 1 st each side, every 20th rw 1x. Inc 1 st each side, every 20th rw 1x. (108 sts).Cont until piece meas 14" from underarm

Work Ribbing

Body-to-Rib Dec Round: [Work 8, k2tog.] 10x, work 8. (98 sts) Change to smaller needles. Estab rib pat: *

K2 , P2. Repeat from * to end. Work 10 rnds.[3"]. Bind off.

Standard Neck Finishing

With smaller circular or dp needle and RS facing, pick up 16 sts from back neck, pick up 22 sts from left neck edge, place center marker, M1 st in center, pick up 22 sts from right neck edge, place end of round marker. (61 sts) Rnd1: work in k1, p1 ribbing to within 2 sts of center marker, ssk, pm, k1, k2tog, work in k1, p1 ribbing to end of round. Rnd2: work in estab ribbing to within 2 sts of center marker, ssk, pm, k1, k2tog, work in estab ribbing to end of round. Repeat rnd 2 for approx. 1". Bind off loosely in ribbing.

Pattern and schematics produced using Sweater Wizard software. Pattern copyright 2008, Alexandra Salazar and Kim Brody Salazar.

Technorati : knitting

Yet another spate of horrific deadlines has washed past me. I survived (barely), but I haven't had much time to knit.

I'm still working on that second lace doodle scarf - the one composed from patterns out of the Duchrow books. (Which I wholeheartedly recommend for lace fanatics.) I've finished the center panel, and have applied the edging down one long side, around the narrow end, and am now starting back up the second side:

The edging in this case is a bit unusual. It's predicated on motifs that are somewhat heart-shaped, and sports a very deep dag. I managed to fiddle around with the attachment rate so that I ended up at the corner of the body at the exact narrowest point of the edging repeat. That let me miter the corners using short rows. I wish I'd stopped and taken pictures of that process, but I'll try to explain it sight-unseen.

To miter the corner on this symmetrical lace, I knit this edge onto my main body piece, either directly calculating the pick-up ratio, or (more likely) fudging the rate of attachment so that I ended with my narrowest row (the valley between two points) at the exact corner stitch of the corner I wish to go around. Sometimes this is easy - if I'm a stitch or two off, those can be made up in the last repeat just before the corner. If I'm more than just a couple of stitches off, I might need to rip back a repeat or two and space the required extra rows or skips (or k2togs) over a larger interval. Obviously, it's easier to fit an edging with fewer pattern rows into any given arbitrary length than it is to fit a longer one, because there are fewer rows between the widest and narrowest points of the repeat.

Back to actual performance. Arriving at the narrowest point of my edging in concert with reaching the absolute corner of my piece, I'd knit the next right-side row of my edging as usual. BUT on the return journey instead of working all the way back to my attachment point, then purling the last stitch of the edging together with one from the body, I'd wrap that attachment stitch (Row 2, Column A). Then I'd turn the work over and head back on the next right side row, taking care to keep my place in the edging pattern. I'd continue like this, but on each successive wrong-side row, I'd work one fewer stitch, and wrap the next one prior to turning. All of this is complicated of course, by the increases and decreases that form the lace pattern itself. Liberal fudging is usually in order to maintain the pattern as established - or a close to it as is possible.

Eventually I'd reach the row that on a "normal" repeat, would be the longest row - the one that happens in the centerpoint of one of the protruding dags. My actual row worked is much shorter than usual because I've been wrapping stitches to form my miter. It's at this point I go back and begin the second half of my short row sequence, working each row one stitch farther along, waking them up one by one by working them along with the wrap at their base. If I've done this correctly, by the time I have reawakened all of the stitches on my row, I'll also have arrived at the narrowest row of my lace edging repeat, and all of my previously parked short row stitches will have been reincorporated. When that happens, my mitered corner is complete, and I can I begin resume working the edging along the side of my piece.

I've taken the liberty of translating the historical pattern from Duchrow into modern notation. She doesn't present a mitered corner for this edging, but I've noted where the short row shaping should take place so you can see (more or less) what I am writing about. Click on the image below for a full size pattern. Apologies for the file size.

Technorati : knitting

You may or may not have noticed, but we've made a small improvement here at String-or-Nothing. We've moved the blog out from underneath the wiseNeedle URL's umbrella. While formerly we were at

http://www.wiseneedle.com/string-or-nothing

you can now find us at

http://www.string-or-nothing.com

All of the individual page names (the part of each address after "nothing/" remains the same. All links to patterns and pages are being automatically redirected from the old address to the new one, so if you've got old links they should still work.

We did this to simplify referring tags, to manage bandwidth consumption, and to improve the reliability of the comments feature. Please let us know if you experience any problems accessing String or its archives.

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.

---

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