Coffee is getting cold

This Level I project, this hat, is making me crazy, while my coffee gets cold.

I added the cream yarn when I began the body of the hat, after the ribbing (yesterday's pictures and post.)

As soon as I got to the end of round 1, back to the cream (remember, I'm knitting around and around, not back and forth), I had to refer to the instructions to discover a new technique.  I applied the new technique and went happily on with round after round of cream yarn.

But each time I encountered the section that included the color transition technique I just knew it was wrong.  Then I tortured myself knitting round after round, each time meeting up with that new technique and just knowing deep down in my knitting bones that it was still wrong.  But maybe one more round of knitting and it will magically come right the next time I encounter it.

Nope.  So the morning was spent taking out rows of cream, adding back a row or two, re-reading the new technique and applying it, and finally! getting to add another color.

Here's the hat after this morning's adventure.

New color, right side and wrong side.

You should see two rows of cream after the pink ribbing.  Then a few rows of a darker mulberry or something.  There's the right side, and just because you might be curious, a bit of the back side showing how the colors interact on the wrong side.











There's always a story in the journey and this trip included several time-consuming detours.

First I realized the transition technique from pink to cream was wrong.  You can see it, I know.

Yucky, there's no other word.  The pink stitch is twisted
and the loose ends are on the right side instead
of cluttering the back.

Also a ruffle of stitches with no needle.  Can't leave this too long.
Danger!

Here's the hat when I took it off the needle to pull out the cream stitches back to the mistake so I could start over from that point.  Scary to have untethered stitches just lying there.  They tend to get lost, tangled, and rearranged.

Stitches with no needles, little loose loops all around the edge.
Can't leave this sit or even think about stuffing it into a
UFO box.  All those loose stitches will come undone.
You've surely had a scarf or glove or sweater unravel?

That was also the time to acknowledge I was running out of cream yarn.  The striping I originally designed would not become a reality.  Knowing I had a new, unused ball of a darker pink/wine, I redesigned the striping.  I pulled out all the cream, back to the first row of this color, put the stitches back on the needle and tried it again.  Just two rows, which means I must use that new color transition technique.

I doubt you'll be able to see it.  It's correct this time and the point is that the transition between one color and the next is 'invisible.'  Here's the close-up -- 

The long white stitch in the center actually takes up
two rows of stitching.  I'll fuss with the nearby stitches
when I steam and block the hat, so they will nestle
into the row the way they need to.

This is just a hat, after all.  It's also a project that Master Knitters will examine closely to evaluate the quality of my knitting, the use of the color transition technique, and my choice of colors for contrast and style.  

Meanwhile, the coffee has gone cold.

The silver lining in this morning's knitting cloud was knowing that I knew how to fix it, to make it right.  We don't get a chance to make it right very often in life.  And seldom, if ever, do we get to pick out the bad parts from before and re-do them.  We just gotta live with our own wonderful, silly, human self.

Round and round we go -- the Hat

Nobody wants a scratchy seam inside their nice hand-made knitted hat.  Solution?  Knit in the round.  Knitters use a combination of two techniques:  knitting with a set of double pointed needles (sticks) and knitting with circular needles.  Sounds like an oxymoron, doesn't it.  Circular needles have a knitting needle 'cap' on each end of a long flexible-but-not-floppy cord.  Often the needle 'tips' are interchangeable.  You can tuck away a UFO with stitches remaining on the cord, remove the needle 'tips' and attach to another cord, and the next project is ready for casting on.  Quite clever and they come in handy cases; the ultra special wooden ones have their own box.

Enuf, Becky -- on with the hat, please.

I'm using that yummy raspberry pink, think sherbet.  Per the instructions I'm adding other colors and yes, learning another new technique.  Here's the hat with the beginning pink ribbing and a row or two of cream contrast.

The green needle tips -- upper right corner -- are attached
to the cord running thru the stitches.  You can see part
of the card hiding beneath the ball of cream yarn.

I started this project with sticks -- a set of 5 double pointed needles (a point on each end).  You distribute all the stitches you need around 4 of the needles and use the 5th one to knit.  When it's full, you'll have another empty one and can turn the work counterclockwise to the next needle full of stitches.  

All the stitches -- 104 for this hat -- are distributed
evenly among 4 of the 5 sticks.  Can you see the small blue ring
at the top of the yarn tail?  That's where the 'round' begins.
You knit round and round but like riding the Merry-Go-Round
you gotta know where you got on and where to get off,
even if you are the one left riding the funny looking llama
when you wanted to ride the unicorn.  Thus the marker.

But how does the knitting work?  Here's a pic showing the four needles with the fifth one doing its work.  In the picture you can label the right hand stick in the foreground as number 5.

It's starting to look like a hat.  Well, use your imagination.
At least it's beginning to be round, no square.
Now what?

So after a bit, when you finish the ribbing, the stitches that keep the hat close to your head and ears, you usually switch to a needle that has a slightly larger diameter.  The sticks above are US5, the green needles on the cord are US7.  And you'll see I've added some cream rows.

This is the current condition of the hat.  At least it now looks
round and is gradually becoming more interesting.
More colors next time.

Sticks or circular?  Right up there with boxers or briefs, I reckon.  Totally a matter of personal preference plus what's available.  I could find the US5 sticks (all 5 of them, which was a miracle in itself!) and then no sticks in US7.  So I removed the US7 needle tips from an ignored UFO and attached them to a new cord.

It's not often we get options in knitting.  The people who began the art many moons ago and their followers thru the years have perfected most of the techniques and continue to enhance and add new ones.  I'm glad for these experts who have been enthralled so completely by the prospect of wrapping wool around sticks to create a garment worthy of a king.

This fine group has gifted us a legacy of creativity, enjoyment, and a fine time for friendly chatter or quiet contemplation.  Pick up some sticks and begin.

Did-overs?

Sat down last night and made up my mind to do-over the mistake swatches.  That makes each one accurate and I've decided to name them the Did-Overs.  Perfectly horrible new hyphen (which is already over-used, see?)  But it works, doesn't it?

I'm very close to the end of the swatch knitting -- one more to go.  Then I have to do a hat, but it includes that wonderful hot pink and another deeper winey color.  Twill be joyous to work on this final project for Level I designation toward Master Knitter.

Showing you these cute Amigarumi crochet critters from sister Sarah.  Sadly, she's not online so won't know that I have immortalized (?) her crochet work in a knitting blog.  You'll see the Did-Overs after this picture; it's the first picture thumbnail that shows up when I share on fb.  And no, can't seem to select another thumbnail.  (Kiss, Kiss to FB.)

Sister Sarah loves crochet, the way I love knitting.
Don't you just love the diversity in families!?

Here's what the swatches (less one) look like in their notebook, which must be no more than 2" wide.  I must measure this notebook; I may be able to get one just a bit larger.  Also note the yellow stickies (where would we be without yellow stickies -- for lists, reminders, notices, page-markers, etc.?)

Each swatch goes into a page protector.  For now,
I'm storing the Do-Overs with the Did-Overs as a
reminder to pay close attention to all instructions!

The hat begins today so hopefully by tomorrow you will see some color, more of that yummy pink.  Meanwhile, here are the boring shots of the boring beige Do-Overs and their mates the Did-Overs.  I've bundled some; they are each a different add-stitches technique but pix don't really show the difference.  In knitting instruction books, each is explained in words accompanied by drawings, not pix.  

Have you found YOUR Learn-to-Knit book yet?  (just had to finish with a hyphen!)

Row 16 -- count the stitches

There are only 48 stitches on my needle.  It's a wonderful pattern, another one of Whit's Knits, the Checkerboard Lace Shawl.  This designer does a wonderful job showing and writing the pattern.  The stitches in this one are simple; it's a 20 row pattern repeat (with 10 'rest rows'); the result is delicately lacy.

Here's the work-in-progress.  Using the second ball of that magnificent yarn spun by friend, Darliss, a variegated wool/silk blend.

Darliss' spun wool/silk with size 6US needles.
Pattern by Whit's Knits.

Row 16 -- I spent at least 30 minutes knitting and un-knitting that row, counting the stitches to discover I had 46, or 47, but No!  Not the required 48.  Can you see the little safety-pin things near the needle?  These are markers to tell me that, after re-examining the results of Row 16 I have omitted two yarn-overs.  The YO (yarn-over) is the way to add stitches.  Next to the YO's are the get-rid-of-stitches-on-purpose technique.  In this pattern all the add-stitches are cancelled out by the get-rid-of-stitches, so at the end of every row -- yes, every row -- you should expect to have the same 48 you started with.

The big red "X" means I was sloppy in the translation
from words to code.  And the mistake was in Row 14, not Row 16

These lessons can be wearying, though valuable:  It's seldom this moment that's the difficulty; it's more likely the choice made earlier whose consequences are now appearing.  I think I'm on track now.  I'm counting more often and paying much closer attention to each right side row, hoping to minimize future consequences (knitting back, throwing the entire thing into the garbage, screaming uncontrollably, you get the idea.)

I'm afraid I may have discouraged you from trying this pattern.  Don't let my own sloppy approach keep you from a delightful and easy lace experience.  Here's the link again:   Checkerboard Lace Shawl.

One last picture to show the scope of the project.  There's the pattern (my coded version, Whit's Knits uses words), the trusty red pencil, the fixer thing with the two crochet hooks, markers to indicate missed stitches.  And the most essential of all -- a fine yarn and some comfortable needles.

Here's hoping you find your way back when you need to.  If you take up knitting you'll get lots of practice.

False Starts -- another shawl

Most knitters will tell you they seldom knit the item they originally selected.  Maybe they don't like doing the pattern, maybe they don't like the way the pattern looks in the yarn they selected.  Maybe it just wasn't any fun.

The title of this post calls these "False Starts" -- these experiments are essential to the selection of the final combination of needles, pattern, yarn, and purpose.

Here's the shawl I finally selected.  It's a pattern I can get onto one of those index memory cards in my head.  The pattern works with the yarn -- I checked the directions.  The needles?  Had to step down one size from US 7 to US 6.  The US7 was making a fabric that was too loose.  And this one is fun.  I can see progress; it has at least 3-4 different sections with different patterns (lowering the boring factor considerably.)

Yarn is Comfy Fingering from Knitpicks.
It's cotton with a bit of acrylic to help with keeping the shape
of the final garment.  Also, it can be machine washed
and dried.  This fact encourages the wearer to actually wear the shawl.

This pattern is on page 44 of Victorian Lace Today.  Sowerby resurrected and transformed the Spider Shawls from the mid-Victorian period.  The shawl can be a complete hexagon (6 sections) or half (3 sections.)  I am making the half-hexagon version.

The pattern page from the book shows several things.  First you'll notice only one of 6 sections is charted.  This means you must repeat this pattern for each of the sections you knit; remember, I am doing 3 sections. Other items show the omnipresent yellow sticky note (upper left corner, peeking out), plus a piece of bright yellow highlight tape across a row of the pattern.  It keeps my place and I can remove and reposition as I knit.  It's not opaque, which means I can still see the pattern from rows below the one I'm working on.

Pattern book with necessary tools:  Ticonderoga #2 pencil with
an eraser that works!  A pink row counter (similar to the
counter used by golfers.)  Near the bright red glass bead is
a key ring emergency fixer thing.  It's a two-ended crochet hook
used to pick up stitches that fall off the needles.

I started two other patterns in the same yarn.  One pattern is another offering from Victorian Lace Today and the other pattern I purchased from the Independent Designer Program (IDP) at Knitpicks.  Here's what they look like when I discard and abandon them.  Eventually I will rip them back and re-use the yarn, after I wash it and remove the squiggles formed by the knitting.

Discarded projects do not count as UFO's, which is a good thing.  I have no intentions of returning to either of the rejected shawls.  I won't be tucking them away in a box or bag for a future discovery.  They're toast!

Two beginnings -- one still on the needles, the other a pile of
will-be-tangles-unless-I-rewined-soon yarn.

And they're a lump of knitting.  But each one actually began a pattern. To satisfy the curious readers, I'm including two shots, one of each rejected shawl pattern.

The one I've chosen may appear to be too simple to be elegant, but just wait til I start adding different patterns.  It's great fun and quite satisfying to realize you've made the right choice -- remember I am a process knitter, which means the actual knitting must be enjoyable, even at the expense of something more elaborate as an end product.

This weekend is when I hope to finish the labels and mail the Christmas cards.  May assemble the pre-lit tree and if I do it may stand without decor for a few days.  I have knitting to do.

Have a blessed Advent season.

Swatch 16: Color (finally!)

Finally I got 'permission' to add a color other than boring beige.  Really, it's a lovely cream, warm like the bit of swirl you sometimes get on a latte when you sit at a table and drink it from a real cup.  Not too much brown to spoil the light that shines in the cream, but just enough to break up an otherwise stark white.

Here's my swatch 16, per instructions.  The Main Color (MC) is a hot pink; the Contrasting Color (CC) is the cream I've used for all the other swatches.

Using different colors translates to very interesting patterns,
though this one is just a few stripes.  Using colors also means
more loose ends to take care of.

This is the first time I've shared the backside of a swatch.  In this case you can see two things:  

1.  How the colors look as the knitter changes from one to the other; and

2.  How many loose ends there really are in this swatch.

Yes, I hate weaving in loose ends.  All knitters do, I think.  Just about the time you consider a project 'good to go' you do one more review and find YALE (not the university, but Yet Another Loose End.)  So you re-take your knitting seat, gather the darning needle with the big eye, and a pair of scissors in anticipation of clipping the last one of the tails after you weave it back and forth into the stitches.  And finally you're done.

Unless another loose tail appears just as you're ready to walk out the door wearing your newest creation.  I don't recommend a staple gun or tape,  Just tuck it somewhere and enjoy the wine and dessert at lunch, plus all the oooh's and aaah's the non-knitters will shower on you and your wonderful work.

According to my progress sheet, I've got two more swatches (one is another do-over; one is a technique I'm avoiding.  I've done it before but it's tedious.)  Then on to the hat.  Will use the cream and hot pink you see above, plus a deep magenta.  Here's the collection:

And speaking of tedious -- that border on the blue shawl.  I have about 15" left and had to set it aside.  Every row of the directions is something different.  Tried to work on it last night while chatting over cocoa with good friend Darliss.  I think I knitted back (read un-knit) at least 30% of the rows I worked on.  

Move this poor puppy to the UFO pile for at least a day or two.  Gotta have a break from the fine yarn, complex directions, and the prospect of several more hours of knitting and eye strain. 

Are we having any fun yet!?!?  Absolutely.  Knitting, like life, is filled with diversity.  The pieces when experienced separately can be challenging or fun, wearying or uplifting -- but as the grandmother says in the movie, Parenthood (Steve Martin), "I like the roller coaster."

Enjoy your ups and downs today.

Growing and Growing -- Lace Shawl

Passed a major milestone knitting the blue lace shawl.  I finished the big triangle which forms the wrap-it-around part of the shawl.  Now I'm knitting on the border.  Tedious -- 6 stitches, increasing to 13, back to 6 and all in 8 rows.  Then repeat and repeat and repeat.

Lace shawl with the beginning of the border

The little triangles on the border go from upper right down to the point and back up to the left.  Then when that's done, a crochet border across the top.  So get ready for another post when I get to that point.  Right now it feels like I'm slogging thru quicksand.  The more I knit, the farther I have to go.  Every time I finish one set of 8 rows, there's another set to do.  

Life lesson perhaps:  Knitting borders on shawls is like washing dirty dishes.  You wash one and another dirty one appears.  Not sure what the lesson is, except that -- like the dirty dishes -- twill all come clean in the end and I will have a gorgeous lacy shawl as a result of my labors.

Here's a shot of the border with its pattern.  Hoping you can see the codes and symbols.  In this case, every row is different, so there's no taking a break on this one.  Attention, pay attention.  Pay close attention.

I'm using what's called a double-pointed needle.  It's about 5 inches long,
with a point on each end.  (Can't find the ruler, so this will give you
a sense of size.  Knitting notions disappear often into the
cushions of the sofa or another project bag.)

The border is open and provides an interesting finish. The pattern is from Victorian Lace Today, by Jane Sowerby.  She re-incarnates the patterns from Victorian knitters and each shawl and scarf is a gorgeous testament to the ladies who put knitting into print.  Book also shows early patterns -- and if you think the above chart is unfathomable . . . 

One more picture to give you a better idea of how the border looks next to the body of the shawl.

Now, isn't that wonderful?

Measurements?  Don't know.  On purpose.  Not interested in learning I have 17 miles of border to knit and oh, by the way, I'm only a half mile into the journey.  I'll get there when I get there and along the way these 8 rows and I will become BFF and I will continue to marvel at the unfolding of the garment.

Back to the border.  Make it a great day.  The cookies were a big hit at dinner last night.  There's a few left and I'll try to use their chocolate-ness as an excuse not to eat them.  Sticky fingers leave horrible stains on silk yarn and I'll be knitting most of the day.