We have just returned from a short break to Watergate Bay in Cornwall. Most people seem to prefer the beach in summer, but give me a cold and windswept beach any day:
Not only is a cold and windy November beach bracing and exhilerating and restorative, but it is also a great place for knits in action.
The soft focus in the photo above is because we took this in a soft and steady drizzle. Frequent readers of this blog will notice that, under the down vest, I am wearing my Killybegs cardigan, designed by Carol Feller and knit in Donegal Aran Tweed from Studio Donegal. Here is another shot, with our hotel in the background.
The rain began when we were a good thirty minutes walk down the beach, and came down steadily. I am here to tell you that wool is truly a miracle fabric: not a single drop of water penetrated this beautiful Irish wool. I remained warm and dry and cozy. It wouldn’t withstand a downpour, but was considerably more wind and water-proof (and attractive) than a fleece. (Now that I have put in my plug for wool, note that on the next day, I wore a fleece sweatshirt, proving that nobody’s perfect.)
On the second day, we went for a long walk along part of the Coastal Path, which winds along the cliffs above the beach. It is beautiful in any time of year, but on a windy autumn day it has a special appeal:
Observant readers will notice two handknits in these shots. I am wearing my Wintergreen cowl, knit in seed stitch with a double strand of Malabrigo worsted, and I am also wearing the wonderful Peerie Flooers hat designed by Kate Davies. This hat was one of the first projects I documented on this blog. It is very appealing to wear these knits in action, and I get quite a bit of satisfaction out of wearing handknits.
You can see in the above photo that the cold and wind do not discourage the surfers. They are a die-hard lot; we stood be-hatted and bundled and watched the wet-suit wearing surf fanatics play in the waves. This is the same beach where Doug and I flew kites on our August trip to Cornwall. We refrained this time, due to back problems, but the kite flying crowd is also undeterred by the cold:
Doug was in charge of the camera on this holiday, but I made a point of taking a few photos of him so that we could prove he was there. They all turned out uniformly awful, except for this one:
This beach is also the site of Jamie Oliver’s restaurant, Fifteen, where we had a very nice dinner. I was impressed because they made up a special 5-course taster menu for me that was not only gluten-free but also without meat. Since we were staying at the hotel and didn’t need to drive, we had the 5-course taster menu with 5 wines, including a nice talk with the young sommelier-in-training about each wine. It was fun. Note to self: someone who gets drunk on her second glass of wine should not order 5 of them.
(Perhaps 5 glasses were also more than enough for the photographer?)
We booked this holiday to celebrate our 22nd anniversary (a little late, since the anniversary was in September). It was a lovely break from routine with great food, beautiful beaches, long walks, and plenty of time to sit by the fire and knit.
All of my knitting projects lately have seemed endless. I keep picking time-consuming projects, and this is exacerbated by my new schedule which means I have much less time in which to knit. The result has been that I occasionally feel as if knitting is a slog – not the desired outcome for a pleasurable pasttime. I was in need of instant gratification; hence, the quickie.
I also have two daughters at university, which means little disposable income. So, I did a search through my stash yarn. I found two and a bit skeins of Rowan Cocoon, a chunky wool in a soft grey, no doubt left over from when I knit an Owl Sweater for Leah (which will be the subject soon of a Wearability Wednesday post). I didn’t feel the need to search for a pattern and just grabbed a set of needles and improvised a pattern for a cowl.
I used a US 10.5 needle and cast on 272 stitches, joined in the round, placed a stitch marker to mark beginning of round, and then knit in a 1×1 rib reversible cable stitch:
Rows 1-3: K1 p1 all the way around
Row 4: *Put 4 stitches on cable needle and hold to back, K1 P1 K1 P1 from left hand needle, and then K1 P1 K1 P1 from cable needle, then K1 P1 (four times)*, repeat from * to end
Rows 5-7: K1 P1 all the way around
Row 8: *K1P1 (four times), put 4 stitches on cable needle and hold to back, K1 P1 K1 P1 from left hand needle, and then K1 P1 K1 P1 from cable needle*, repeat from * to end
This made a thick, lovely, wavy fabric:
Blocking it, however, really pulled out the fabric quite a bit, revealing the cables (and adding quite a bit of length). The unblocked measurement was 22″x5.5″ (for a 44″ circumference) and the blocked measurement was 28″x6″ (for a 56″ circumference). I sort of like the look of the fabric better pre-block, but the truth of the matter was that it was too thick and bulky to look right as a cowl and didn’t easily double up around the neck. Here is the finished cowl:
These photos were taken in a 5-minute window between rain showers, so are not the best, but you can see from the above one that the pattern is truly reversible so that the back and front sides are the same.
Alas, one quickie was apparently not enough to assuage the instant gratification urge, so I dove back into my stash yarn pile, and came up with a skein of Noro Kureyon. I decided to knit the Campout Fingerless Mitts pattern by tante ehm, which is available for free. Here is the finished pair of mitts:
I decided that I wanted to be clever and use up every last bit of yarn from the skein, so I knit the two mitts at the same time (more or less) pulling the yarn from one end of the skein for one mitt, and from the other end for the second. First, I cast on and started knitting the first mitt using the end from inside the skein:
Then, I put the stitches on holders:
Then I cast on the second mitt using the end from the outside of the skein:
(Ignore the red yarn which was used as a provisional cast-on. The mitts are constructed by starting with the garter stitch band around the top, grafting the two ends together and then picking up stitches and knitting down in stockinette stitch. If I knit these again, I wouldn’t bother with the provisional cast-on and grafting; I would just sew the two ends together.) I then continued to knit the second mitt, pulling the yarn from the outside of the skein:
The whole point of this exercise was to make the mitts as long as possible without needing to break the yarn, or wasting any yarn. I needn’t have bothered: towards the end of the second mitt, I encountered a knot in the yarn:
I decided to stop the second mitt just before the knot, and thus had to end the first mitt at the same length; without the knot, both mitts would have ended with this dark blue colour around the end. As an aside, there seem to be two types of approaches to knitting with Noro. The first approach always tries to make the colour changes match, so that both mitts would have the same colour progression, or both sleeves on a pullover, etc. This involves buying more Noro than you need, and cutting out the bits you don’t want and coordinating the colour runs across the garment. The second is to let the colours be and just knit. This is the approach I prefer, and leads to mitts that don’t match. I kind of like them that way.
Now that I’ve got this out of my system, I hope to go back to my longer projects with more enthusiasm. I’m heading off to Cornwall for a few days holiday. Given the grey and rainy weather, there should be plenty of time to knit.
“Surfing the net” has become a major time-sink for many across the globe. It is an incredibly addicting past-time. As a knitting fanatic, my surfing tends to be rather topic-specific. This post marks the start of a new series here at Knitigating Circumstances called “Surfing the Knit”. The series will be a forum for me to point out the stories and photos that have caught my eye during my frequent forays into knit surfing.
1. Giant knit squid
WordPress have a feature called “Freshly Pressed” in which they pick a few posts every day from the millions of WordPress blogs, and highlight them. This week one of the Freshly Pressed posts was about Knit Bombing. It is from the blog Knits for Life, and you can find the post here. Here is a photo of the amazing knit bombing project that Lorna and Jill made:
Isn’t it fabulous! I think this is among the best knit bombing that I have seen. Check out the post on Lorna’s blog linked above, and also Jill’s post on her blog, The Dapper Toad, which you can find here. These posts give lots of photos and a detailed tutorial into the making, installation and reception of this great example of street art. By the way, Lorna notes that the city arborist told them the tree had been improperly pruned, which exposed the bark to sun damage, so the squid is actually good for the tree.
2. Gnome mittens
Spillyjane is a Canadian designer best known for her whimsical mitten and sock designs. You can find her on her website, Spillyjane Knits. In March 2010, Spillyjane released a pattern for the marvelous Gnome Mittens:
These mittens went right into my favorites file on Ravelry. I have enjoyed looking at the projects people have made using this great pattern. SpillyJane includes instructions for fingerless mitts in the pattern, and later released a pattern for Gnome Socks.
Today, as I was busy Surfing the Knit, I found some other designer was offering a virtually identical pattern for sale. (It is featured on Ravelry and on her website and her Etsy page.) I must admit to being flabbergasted! As far as I can tell, the new person claims to have come up with the design independently. I know that this happens sometimes (in knitting and in science). I was surprised enough to do a little digging and found a good post on the subject on Dull Roar. I am not going to delve into a discussion here of copyright (which I am by no means an expert on), or of probability or design features or identical charts. Instead, I thought I would direct you to look at Spillyjane, who makes some of the cutest mitten patterns ever devised IMHO. If Gnomes, don’t do it for you, how about her Flamingo Mittens:
Or the lovely peacock design of her Mystery + Manners pattern:
This design is available for free, by the way, in the Fall 2010 edition of Knitty: you can find it here. Incidentally, Spillyjane released a brand new mitten pattern just days ago, called Circuit:
These are published in the excellently-titled Doomsday Knits: Projects for the Apocalypse and After. If you are after an interesting mitten (or fingerless mitt) pattern, then head to Spillyjane and spend your money there.
3. Garland
Stefanie Pollmeier writes the blog reWOLLuzza. She is a long-time follower of Knitigating Circumstances and a frequent commenter here. Stefanie has recently made the foray into knit designing. I like the fact that she posts about design and also about the whole process of responding to calls for submission and the intricacies of bringing a design to market. Here, for example, is a discussion of the submission stages for a hat design. I don’t know a lot about these aspects of the design process, so I find it useful. I also admire the fact that she writes these posts in English (if I tried to write this blog in German you would be laughing, believe me). This week in my knit surfing, I noticed that the lovely new-ish knitting magazine, Pom Pom Quarterly, has a new issue out. And on the cover, is a beautiful design by Stefanie called Garland:
Here is a better picture to show off the design elements:
Isn’t it lovely? Congratulations, Stefanie!
And that, dear readers, concludes Surfing the Knit today. Stay tuned for further segments!
Last month I started an Executive MBA in Management degree. I am still working full-time, and am now enrolled as a part-time student for the next two years. I used to spend my evenings knitting. I now spend my evenings studying business management. How does a knitter read a business management text?
Tonight, I am studying process and operations management. I am reading the textbook Operations and Process Management: Principles and Practice for Strategic Management by Nigel Slack et al (2013), Third Edition, Pearson. Chapter 14 is about risk and resilience. This is what I read:
Have failure prevention methods been implemented?
Failure prevention is based on the assumption that it is generally better to avoid failures than to suffer their consequences. The main approaches to failure prevention involve designing out the possibility of failure at key points in a process, providing extra but redundant resources that can provide back-up in case of failure, installing fail-safe mechanisms that prevent the mistakes which can cause failure, and maintaining processes so as to reduce the likelihood of failure.
Hmm. This is what I think:
designing out the possibility of failure at key points in a process – take really good measurements, make a proper gauge swatch and block it
providing extra but redundant resources that can provide back-up in case of failure – buy enough yarn before you start, check dye lots, have a tape measure handy, an extra needle in the right size wouldn’t hurt
installing fail-safe mechanisms that prevent the mistakes which can cause failure – count your stitiches (frequently), read the pattern, use a lifeline on your lace
maintaining processes so as to reduce the likelihood of failure – put the wine away!
A few weeks back I wrote a post called Now I know I’m crazy. I was referring to the fact that I had just started an MBA course, while still working full-time, just as my last kid flew the nest. That is crazy, without a doubt. In this post, I want to talk about another kind of crazy. Now, for those of you who aren’t on Ravelry (which is the greatest knitting tool ever devised), I will digress for a minute. Each user on Ravelry has a projects page, where they store their knitting projects. Below is a screen shot of part of my projects page.
Each photo is of a knitted project; you can click on the photo to pull up an individual page where details and more photos can be stored, including start and end dates for the project, pattern details, yarn used, modifications, notes, etc. These projects can be organized in any number of ways, but the majority of knitters use the default options whereby your WIPs (works in progress) come first, followed by your finished projects in reverse chronological order. The first two photos, in the top row left, show my two WIPS – the Soumak Scarf Wrap and the Exeter jacket. If you have very good eyes and you squint carefully at this screen shot, you will see that the top right-hand corner of these two photos is marked “wip”. The other photos show my completed knitted projects in order of finishing – the purple Viajante shawl was just finished last week; the green Flecktone mitts in the second row where finished in early January this year (this has been a rather slow year for me on the knitting front) and the rest were among the projects I finished in 2012.
By definition, a WIP is a project which has been cast on (thus, is “on the needles” as we knitters say). I normally try to have between 2 and 5 WIPs going at any one time. Two, because it is good to have more than one given the vagaries of interest and time and concentration (i.e. some projects need lots of quiet and focus and others can be done while simultaneously cooking dinner and helping your kids with their homework). Five because, well, its hard to keep track of too many; experience tells me that five is about my upper limit.
Now, I spend a lot of time surfing Ravelry, looking at other people’s projects, patterns, etc. When I see something I like, I click on that knitter’s project page. My eye first goes to the number of projects – on my page above you can see that it says ’61 projects’. That means that I have loaded up details and photos of 61 projects (these are just those that I have knitted since joining Ravelry, though even some of those I haven’t bothered to enter). Note that this 61 includes the two WIPs and 59 completed projects. You can often make a sort of initial assumption about the knitter by the number of projects – someone with less than 10 is likely a beginner. Someone with 100 is likely pretty good. (These often have no correlation to reality; the knitter with 10 may have knit hundreds of beautiful sweaters over a long lifetime and has only just discovered Ravelry, or perhaps just got access to a digital camera; the knitter with 100 may have just knit 100 garter stitch dish cloths and showcased each individually.) Then, I scroll down the page and check out all of the projects. I click on those I particularly like and take a closer look. Sometimes, I will make comments, or add someone to my friends so I can follow their future knitting activity.
The other day, I came across someone who had over 300 projects. When I scrolled down, I noticed that she had lots of WIPs. I mean LOTS of WIPs. For each one, she had a photo, of a knitting needle with a few rows of knitting on it, and a link to the pattern and the type and amount of yarn set aside for the project. I couldn’t help myself, I started counting. This knitter had over 240 WIPs. I hope not to offend anyone by saying this, but this strikes me as totally insane. This is CRAZY.
Let me try to enumerate the reasons why:
Each of these WIPs is cast on and is thus “using” a knitting needle, or set of needles. Let us say that your knitting needles cost $5 each (using US currency here for no particular reason, and probably underestimating the cost of a needle). This means that you have $1200 worth of knitting needles wasting away in your WIP pile. This means that, unless you own a knitting store or manufacture the needles yourself, it is very likely that you never have a needle handy when you want to cast on, and will have to keep buying more and more and more.
Each of these projects takes yarn. Let us say that, on average, each project takes $30 worth of yarn. (I will point out, that for me at least, this is a wild underestimation of yarn costs.) This means that you have $7200 worth of yarn sitting around, dedicated to WIPs (thus, I will repeat, “on the needles”).
This means that you need to have some way to keep track simultaneously of 240 patterns, 240 swatches, plus notes and modifications for each one. I know that Ravelry makes this easier, but still this seems ludicrous. For example, I have two WIPs at the moment, but every time I pick up my Exeter jacket after having been knitting something else, I have to spend some time re-familiarizing myself with the complex cable patterning, and looking over my notes to get back on track with where I left off. Plus, my fingers have lost the “feel” for the pattern, and I sometimes have to re-learn the finger memory. With 240 projects, you will never feel on-track and will constantly be re-familiarizing yourself with each one.
I don’t know about you, but my tastes change. The project that I found pretty two years ago, may not appeal to me today. Trends in yarns, patterns and colours change all the time. Why have 240 projects picked out today, each with yarn and resources already committed to it, when tomorrow you may not even like them?
In 2012, I knit 13 projects. That was a pretty average year for me. If I steadily knit away at this rate, finishing 13 projects per year, it would take me OVER 18 YEARS to finish those 240 WIPs. And that is assuming that in that 18 years I don’t cast on anything else. Even if you knit three times as fast as I do, it would still take you over 6 years to finish, and my bet is that anyone who currently has 240 WIPs will not stop casting on.
In short, dear readers, this is seriously crazy. Of course, we all have our own brand of craziness, and this one at least isn’t harming anyone. Live and let live, after all. It might help keep knitting needle manufacturers and yarn producers in business. It could be that centuries from now, archeologists will find great basements full of thousands of ziplock plastic baggies each containing a knitting needle supporting a few rows of decaying yarn remnants, and come to some interesting conclusions about early 21st century life.
I do, however, have one request for the WIP-addicted knitter: PLEASE, sort your project page so the WIPs are at the bottom.
I have finally finished knitting something! It is far too long since I last had a finished object to show you. My Viajante, a sort of cross between a poncho, a shawl and a cowl, is off the needles and duly blocked.
When I first tried this on, before blocking, I must admit to despair. It lacked the beautiful drape and was much too tight. I looked sort of like a purple sausage with fringe. But blocking did something extraordinary to the fabric, resulting in a light, sheer, fluid fabric that is really gorgeous.
I have a very stupid look on my face in the below photo, but love the way the pond grasses look through the sheer lace:
This is not the sort of thing I usually wear. The shape of it is really different. I suppose it is a kind of statement piece. It is also not all that easy to wear:
It is also a bit of a pain to knit. I found it to be endless, and slightly soul-sapping. I spent four months on this project. That is one-third of the knitting year; which to my mind is a big commitment for one project. However, despite it being slightly on the edge of my fashion comfort zone (where to wear it? how to wear it?) and a fairly annoying (albeit easy) knit, I find myself totally fascinated with it. You really have to feel the fabric to appreciate it. This is my first time using Wollmeise Lace-garn; its fans are legion and vociferous, but I can see why. It feels great. It is so silky and has a magnificent drape.
The thing that sold me on Wollmeise, however, was when I washed this prior to blocking. Not a single drop of purple bled into the wash water. Not a drop! The colour is so gorgeous, so rich and vibrant, and it didn’t bleed at all. I have been veering away from colourwork after my colour bleeding disaster reported in this post, but now I think there is more colourwork (and more Wollmeise) in my future.
This post is very photo-heavy and word-light. I am afraid that this represents a compromise due to my new commitments. I promised myself I would spend most of the day studying. But, I can comfort myself with this thought, at least something got done around here! I’ll end with the gorgeous shot below: isn’t it just perfect?
Two weeks ago I announced a contest to celebrate my second anniversary of blogging. Readers could enter by leaving a comment on the post, and the winner would receive two skeins of Malabrigo worsted in the colour Verdes:
Malabrigo is one of the warmest and coziest wools around. Today it is cold and grey and rainy outside my window, so I am thinking it is a Malabrigo kind of day; in other words the perfect day to give away some warm and cozy yarn. (Do you think if I had made the contest for some fingering weight linen yarn it would now be gloriously warm and sunny out?) I had 46 comments on the post, so I set the random number generator for 1 through 46, and this is what I got:
Looking through the comments on the post, the 14th is from Susan. Congratulations, Susan! (Please send me a PM with your address and I will put the yarn in the post.)
I want to tell you how much I enjoyed reading all of the comments. I loved hearing what your favorite posts were. Some of you mentioned being inspired to try a new technique or a new pattern from something you read on the blog. Many of you have followed the blog for a while, but were leaving comments for the first time. It means a lot to me to get such lovely, supportive comments, particularly as I am starting out on new adventures in life, and need to make decisions about what things are important to me. I will try to keep both knitting and blogging as part of the mix.
And, as a teaser for my next post – my Viajante is finally off the needles and is currently blocking on the living room floor. Photos to follow soon!
Let me start by saying how much I appreciate all of the lovely comments made on my last post, A blogiversary contest, celebrating two years of blogging. I am resisting responding to comments because I will use a random number generator to pick a winner from the responses, and don’t want any from me messing up the process. If you haven’t left a comment, but would like the chance to win two skeins of Malabrigo Merino Worsted in Verdes (photo below), the contest is still open until the 15th of October; just click on the link and follow instructions in the post.
As to the title of this post: Now I know I’m crazy. Why do you think that is? Could it be perhaps because I have been steadily knitting away on the gorgeous (but striped) Soumak Scarf Wrap, but have so far neglected to weave in a single thread?
Everyone knows that the only way to save your sanity on such a project is to weave those ends in as you go along, and not to save them all for the end. So yes, this is definitely a little bit crazy, but it is not the crazy I refer to in the title.
By the way, don’t you just love the photo above? It really shows off the colours so beautifully. This morning I said to Doug “Do you think you could photograph my Soumak Wrap, and make sure you get a good shot of all of the ends hanging off?” He said “Do you mind if it gets a tiny bit wet from the dew?” And upon getting a negative response, he took off, draping it up on the plants in the back garden, and came up with the most lovely photographs. I particularly like the ones which show the back of the fabric, like this:
And this:
I must admit, this Wrap is so beautiful I could knit on it all day long. (For those of you who haven’t been following along, the pattern, designed by Lisa Richardson, is the Soumak Scarf Wrap and is published in Rowan 54. It uses 10 colours of Rowan Fine Tweed.) It is so irresistable, I have to include one more photo:
If that is not the source of my craziness, perhaps it is the fact that I managed to mess up the lace on my Viajante shawl/poncho, which happens to be the easiest lace possible to knit, and then compounded the problem by not noticing it. Ripping out 8 rows of lace over 470 or so stitiches (not to mention getting the lace back properly on the needle) is not fun. I should have been able to show you a finished Viajante today, but instead this is what you get:
(This photo picks up the blue tones in the yarn, but in fact it is the purple tones which are predominant.) Here is a closeup of the lace, which is still unblocked:
And because it was Doug who was taking these photos this morning, I can assure you that there are more esoteric shots as well, such as the below Portrait of Spider with Lace:
Messing up what should have been fairly mindless lace may be a tiny bit daft, but again it’s not the craziness the title refers to. What could that be? This week, I went back to school! Yes, dear readers, this is alas true: At the tender age of 52, more than 20 years after getting my PhD, I have started in on another degree programme. I am enrolled in the Executive MBA programme in Management at the Henley Business School. To compound the folly, I will continue to work full-time at my day job, managing a neuroscience research centre. Last week was the starter workshop for the degree programme, in which we were resident at the school, and spent 4 very full days in a whirlwind of classes and activities from early morning till late at night. I returned home with an armload of textbooks and a very full brain, only to fall over in a state of virtual catatonia. This hectic schedule will continue over the next two years (and presumably only get worse with time). And I have done this to myself willingly!
I have learned three things from this past week. First, I need to get in better shape if I intend to make it through the programme. This calls for more stamina than I have in reserve. (Unfortunately knitting doesn’t really qualify as aerobic exercise.) I need to seriously hit the gym. Second, something is going to have to go. There is no way that I can sustain this without letting go of something I hold dear. I do not want that something to be knitting, or blogging about knitting. I would really like that something to be housework, but given that I am not so great at that in the first place, that won’t cut it. And third – now, I know I’m crazy!
Today is the second anniversary of this blog. I published my first post on the 2nd of October, 2011. Surprisingly, I have not yet run out of things to say. In honor of this milestone, I am going to give away some yarn! This yarn, in fact:
This is two skeins of Malabrigo Worsted in the colour Verdes. Shortly after I started this blog, I knit a cowl from this very yarn in this very colour. I posted about it here. I like it a lot and it gots lots of wear.
The cowl uses two skeins, knitting with two strands held together. It is easy as pie: using a size 11 US needle, cast on 131 stitches, join in the round and knit in seed stitch. Malabrigo is the coziest, softest yarn imaginable; it must be felt to be believed.
I have two skeins to give away to one winner. Instructions are at the bottom of the post. There are hundreds of very lovely things one could make with a skein or two of Malabrigo. To give you some inspiration, I list just a few of them here. I have always liked the pattern called Just Enough Ruffles, by Laura Chau:
I love the Destroyed Cowl by Martha Merzig. This is such a simple design, and easy to knit, but has a lot of impact.
Malabrigo is a very popular yarn for hats. Here are two of my favorites.
Above is the 16 Sixteen Cable Hat designed by Circé aux Belles Boucles. Below, is the wonderful Windshief Hat, designed by Stephen West.
Malabrigo can also be used to make the most gorgeous, soft and cuddly baby outfits. Here is just one example, the pattern called “in threes: a baby cardigan” by Kelly Herdrich of kelly without a net. (I love the name of her blog; as a fellow Kelly, I wish I had thought of it.)
Last, but not least, let’s not forget mittens. Mittens, and their fingerless cousins, the mitts, are perfect canvases for some Malabrigo worsted. Here are just two examples. These mittens, Breathe Deep designed by Kirsten Kapur, look so cozy and warm:
I also love the pattern Sokol, by Melanie Berg, which was just published a few weeks ago and went right into my queue:
As of today, there are close to 94,000 knitted projects using Malabrigo Worsted listed in the Ravelry database. It may not have the durability of some plied wools, but it absolutely can’t be beat if you are looking for softness.
To enter the contest, just leave a comment here and mention a post of mine you have enjoyed (you only need to pick one – if this is the only one you’ve read, that’s OK too). I will use a random number generator to pick the winner. The contest is open until midnight (UK time) on October 15th, 2013. As someone who lives in the UK, I am always sad to see at this point in similar contests that it is only open to readers with US addresses. This contest is valid to all readers regardless of where you live. Please make sure you check back after the contest ends, when I announce the winner.
Thank you to everyone who reads the blog. I have enjoyed the whole process, and hope to keep writing for some time to come.
This has been a good week for knitting. I am excited about my Soumak Scarf Wrap, and that excitement translates into time actually spent knitting (rather than my other spare time pursuits of either reading or, my favorite, thinking about how I should be doing housework while actually not doing housework). In addition, I am determined to power through with my Viajante poncho/shawl, so I have been putting hours into that as well.
This morning, I finally decided to start the lace section of Viajante. Here it is, dear readers, the first hint of lace:
For those of you who are noticing my newly short hair instead of the lace (I got a good 5 inches chopped off yesterday), I give you a close-up. One row of lace:
These photos really show the sheer quality of this fabric. Knitting with the lace weight yarn (Wollmeise Lace-Garn) on a larger size needle (this is knit with a US4, while laceweight would normally be knit with a US1 or 2) produces this very light, sheer, translucent, delicate fabric. It’s one of the things that really attracted me to Viajante when Martina Behm first published the pattern.
I have found, however, that knitting with a very fine yarn on a larger needle seems to affect the quality of my stitches. I am normally a very tight, even knitter. Here is a close-up (thus slightly out of focus) of a section of my Libby pullover, knit with worsted weight wool:
You can see that, with slight variations here and there, the stitches are very even. Here is a comparable shot of the Viajante:
You can see that certain stitches appear to be crossed, as if the stitches were twisted on the needle, or knit through the back loop. (Doug says that I need to circle some of the twisted stitches so that you can see them; I claim that anyone who has bothered to read this far through the post can probably figure out what I am talking about.) I don’t know why the fabric looks like this. At first, I kept thinking that I was dropping stitches, but finally decided that this is somehow due to the fact that I am knitting at a larger gauge than would normally be appropriate for this yarn. Still I have no idea why these stitches are not neat and even. As far as I can tell, my knitting style is exactly the same on this project as on any other. Has anyone else encountered a similar problem? I am not fretting about this however, for the following reason: I am fairly sure that this will all even out with a good blocking.
A fair amount of agonizing has gone into deciding where to start the lace. The pattern says to knit until you have about 60g left (of a 300g skein), and then to begin the lace. As my skein was overweight, about 340g, I was unsure where to start. This was exacerbated by the fact that I used a different decrease rate than the pattern calls for, decreasing every third row instead of every second. This will effect how much of the material will be bunched around the neck like a cowl, before draping over the shoulders like a poncho. The narrower the funnel, the more bunching and thus the less length; contrastly, the wider the funnel, the less bunching, so that you will get more of a poncho effect than an elongated cowl, and the longer the long edge will be. Here is a photo of the pattern so you can see what I mean:
Many of the projects on Ravelry (and there are well over a thousand) have the long edge actually brushing the floor. I don’t want it that long. So, there is quite a bit of guesswork involved here, especially since I know it will block out quite a bit. In the end, I decided I was tired of knitting stockinette, and this morning I knit the fist row of lace. For those of you knitting this and looking for details, I had 82 grams of yarn left and 459 stitches on the needles at the start of the lace section.
While pushing ahead on the Viajante, I have also been indulging myself a bit by working on the Soumak Scarf Wrap. Here is a progress photo from this morning:
I am really loving everything about this shawl, designed by Lisa Richardson and published in Rowan 54. It’s interesting, too, because I would never have picked these colours, or even put them together in this order. I debated substituting a different colour selection (Thank you, Ann, for discouraging me!). I am so pleased that I stuck with Lisa’s design; the colours hang together and look beautiful and striking in all different lights.
And now to change the topic completely, about an hour ago I received my 100th follower on this blog. This is a pretty exciting milestone for me! Especially since I only know 6 of my followers personally (hi Romi, Sandra, Mom, Jossie, Joanna, and Teresa!) and very briefly met one other at a knitting workshop (hi Jen!); this means that 93 virtual strangers come back here and read again. (The internet – it’s such a strange beast.) To each of you, I’m glad that you stop by and I love receiving comments. Since I’m on the topic of milestones, I also recently got my 40,000th hit. I think this is pretty cool. In fact, I think this is pretty cool even given that I was speaking to someone yesterday who gets 40,000 hits a day on his blog. Speaking of 40,000 – I bet that there are 40,000 stitches on my Viajante shawl; and now, dear readers, I’m off to knit a few thousand more.
