woolythyme

Rill...and rill again

Aibrean is finished.  It still needs a vigorous washing and an aggressive blocking to soften the linen, but I think it will be fine.  Do you see the three sleeves? No? Good.  I knit three.  The first was way too wide, so I aggressively narrowed the next two, and they seem fine. 

Aggressive?  Fine? 

I like this sweater, but it will probably not ever be my favorite.  My 'style' (and I do use that word lightly, because I am probably the most unstylish person you will ever meet) is looser and boxier; this sweater is not that.  It's more traditional.  Fine for summer.  See? Fine.  If I manage an overly aggressive blocking...I might elevate it to pretty fine.  We'll see.

Aibrean had been languishing in the UFO pile since last July.  It felt so great to click the finished button in Ravelry, that I thought I'd dip into that same UFO pile for something else.  

Hello, Rill.  It's been in the pile since....July 2016.  This is a second go round with Rill.  Here is the first version...

which I have loved, and not just because it's grey.  This one took over two years from start to finish.  I remember tangled lace weight yarn and maddening short rows.  Once the tangled yarn was sorted out...and I discovered German short rows, it pretty much flew off the needles.  

Another knitting love must have dropped into my world, because this one had neither the massive mess of yarn nor the German short row learning curve to overcome.  Of course, it's not grey.

Question.  How did you learn to do short rows?  w&t?  Me, too.  If you've never done German short rows, please do yourself a favor and give it a try.  My favorite tutorial is here.  Totally changed my short-row life.  They are almost invisible after blocking and so intuitively easy.  Unless a new shiny thing comes into my magpie knitting life...this might actually be done sometime THIS year.

an old dog learns new tricks...

Ha!  Bet you thought Freddy was starring in this post.  Sorry.  I'm the 'old dog'.  

These NoShow Socks by LaMaisonRililie were so much fun to knit, but in that sort of masochistic, torture-me way that somehow turns in to a very satisfying 'aha' moment at the end.

I hate (HATE!) toe-up socks, but decided this was the day I would learn to do Judy's Magic Cast on.  For those few of you who have not mastered this ingenious cast-on, believe me when I say you cannot do it using double point needles.  I shredded my poor sock yarn, stabbed myself to the point of drawing blood with metal dps, switched to bamboos and broke one with my unsuccessful attempts.  Plus, I wasted a whole morning. (Patience?  What's that?!?) When the light bulb (dim as it was most of the morning) finally went off and I pulled out some circulars (which, of course, is what is used in the pictures I was following!, but I hate knitting socks on circulars even more than knitting toe-up---the combination of the two just gives me the heebie-jeebies)...the cast-on flew onto my needles and I was a very, very happy toe-up knitter and I easily moved my stitches back to the dps.  

Fortunately, I already knew how to do the German short-rows (actually my preferred technique for short-rowing!!) because my learning-curve by now was at the end of its proverbial rope. (Yes, what little patience I started with was gone.)  Interesting heel (very clear instructions)....and the increased bind-off at the end was simply brilliant (although I had to get on the computer and follow the link to her tutorial...which meant, big sigh, I had to get myself off the sofa grrrrr).  I'm really wishing that I hadn't started out making these as a gift for my DIL (whose foot is much longer than mine.... I might have decided to keep them!!! they are grey afterall!), because.......

I.REALLY.WANT.A.PAIR.OF.MY.OWN!!!!  (Patience. Patience?...what's that?)

 

The rest of the weekend was spent chasing birds and butterflies....hummingbirds and monarchs to be specific.  The migration for both passes though our area ....

Hello????  Who are you sneaking into my monarch picture?

(This is the view from my computer...is it any wonder I didn't get much done this weekend?)

 

These shots fall into the 'rather-be-lucky-than-good' category (also known as 'take-a-gazillion-shots-and-hope-for-a-miracle').  I'm desperately trying to learn patience with my photography.

 

Patience.  

Obviously, not just a knitting-thing.  

 

 

Take two....

I really did an awesome job of cabling.  Yep.  I'm bragging.  Too bad I did it on this sweater.  The neckline is too high.  It once had been a turtleneck sweater and I changed that thinking it would help.  It didn't.  It's now hard to believe that bat-wingy kind of sleeves were ever 'in';  trust me, these are NOT attractive now, and probably never were.

But, it's warm.  It's wooly.  You can layer half your closet under it.  I wore it a few times to shovel the driveway.  I gave it to my daughter.  She wore it a few times, probably to shovel her driveway.  She gave it back. Back and forth, back and forth...until this last time when she returned it, she said....'don't give this to me again!'  sigh.  Those cables really are awesome.

 

What's a knitter to do?

What else?  Rescue all that great yarn, of course!!!  It's rather slow going, and while I was ripping it apart, I came across Fairfield.  I immediately cast on.  There is sort of a method to my madness.  One front of the old sweater (who knows what pattern this was? who knows what yarn this was? who knows how much of this mystery yarn I have?) should be more than enough to complete the back of this new sweater.  If not, I'm in trouble.  I'm sure it's going to work.  (I'm sure it's going to work.  I'm sure it's going to work.  I'm really really sure.  Sort of.)

 

The only 'issue' I have had so far with Fairfield is that the three charts you follow are on different pages.

  Oh, little-uncreative-me used to find this a real hassle.  Now, I simply cut and paste them in the order that they are to be knit--and add any notes I need to the bottom.  (If I could see, I wouldn't have made my notes upside down.)

 

* * * * * *

"Reading":  The Blackberry Farm Cookbook, lavishly illustrated, and what appear to be quite do-able recipes... from one of the premier resorts in the world.   And Sift, a new publication from King Arthur Flour.  I haven't tried anything yet in either....but I will!!!

 

 

Joining Ginny for yarnalong

down the rabbit holes....

It seems I spend a good part of my life 'down the rabbit hole'.  You know....where you go looking for one thing, and that takes you to something else, that leads you to somewhere exciting, where you make some wonderful discovery (and on and on and on....I think this is why I so love the Give a Mouse a Cookie series of children's books.  I sort of live it.) 

First rabbit hole this week:  my pile of books (that were everywhere and are now somewhat contained, although still all over the house) where I found First Impressions.  It's one of those books that flips from Jane Austen and her friendship with an octogenarian to present day Sophie, who is a Jane Austin groupie, recent Oxford grad, and bibliophile.  A touch of a mystery.  A little romance.  Light.  Nicely written.  So far, I'm enjoying it immensely.

Second rabbit hole:  a perusal of my Pintest favorites, lead to a long review of my Rav favs, led to a UFO seek-and-find-stash-dive, where I uncovered Rill and somewhat reluctantly dragged it out.  It's been languishing a couple years.  At the time it went into time-out, I remember being somewhat (HA! make that VERY) frustrated. (Pat-your-head-rub-your-belly...quick reverse...kind of frustrated.)  I struggled so much to see the wrap-and-turns done with the lace weight that I'd forget where I was on the simple 4 row lace pattern.  How very dull of me.    

This was obviously before I learned the German short-row technique.  First of all, you can't NOT see the W&T because it's a double stitch, but more importantly, it is extremely easy, and to my eyes, totally invisible.  

If you look very closely, I think you can see what I mean.  The top inch or so is the German short rows, the lower part with the bumps is the usual (Ango-Saxon) way.  I'm pretty confident the irregularities will block out, but it's just on the bottom few inches of a rather long, twisty scarf, so I'm pulling a 'daughter' moment here and saying, WHATEVER.  

The third rabbit hole brought me to Laura's Year in Books.  I thought I would try to introduce Laura's 'people' to some Yarnalong 'people'.  Honestly, who can have too many choices in books???  

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joining Ginny's yarnalong and Laura's Year in Books

I tried, but I just couldn't live with it....

I really did.  I thought it might block out 'better', although I knew it would never even be close to right.  (This was me trying to live my daughter's 'WHATEVER' knitting life.) The more I looked at it, the more I hated it....and knowing the knitting-me as well as I do...I knew this poor little project was destined to indefinite time-out without a rescue.  (I tried...I'm just NOT a 'whatever' knitter.)

My favorite things cowl is made up of mystery dk wt bits and pieces from the stash.  Somehow, that worsted wt grey got in the mix---I knit the big plain section and embroidered the names of my grandkids on it, and it stuck out like a goiter.  I thought maybe adding a couple more motifs would help pull it in (I'm nothing if not an optimistic Pollyanna sometimes), but clearly this was not helping.  AND, to make matters worse---the names were clearly not showing up AT ALL.  

**Nothing to do but cut it out.  

Step 1: using an extra needle, pick up a leg of each stitch in the last row you want to save....

Step 2: c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y snip a stitch in the section you want to go away, and unpick each stitch...

Step 3:  Repeat steps 1 and 2 on the other side of the 'offending' section...and TA-DAH!!

GONE!  (sigh)  Much better already.

 

Step 4: Graft the two pieces together....

and we're off and running again!  This might actually turn out to be one of my 'favorite things'!

 

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**This technique works great for shortening/lengthing sweater bodies or sleeves, too.  It's a little scary the first time you snip, but it's MUCH better than reknitting the whole project.

(knitting) tips and tricks....or, confessions of a lazy knitter

If you've never had the chance to try traditional Austrian traveling twisted stitches, you might want to play with this.  By knitting into the back of the pattern stitches (which twists the stitch), the pattern just leaps out at you---even with this dark yarn that ordinarily wouldn't show much of a pattern.

I grabbed my favorite dp needles (pointy, knitpicks metal) and cast on.  I don't think I had knit more than three rounds and I already had had to rescue stitches that had dropped off the ends several times.  BLAH.  This is NO FUN.  

    Tip #1:  Be sure you are using the right equipment.  Just because you have a favorite set of needles, they might not be the right ones for your project.  Once I switched to some old (one slightly Freddy-chewed and sanded) Brittany birch needles, my stitches stayed put and I didn't have a single one slide off again.  (phew.)

The pattern calls for placing markers around the thumb gusset as you make it, but doesn't mention putting markers around the pattern. Tip #2.  I always put markers around a pattern that is 'inset' into something....because I'm a daydreamer and will knit right through what is obviously a pattern transition if I don't have a marker that I have to move.  Dark yarn makes it sometimes harder to see where the pattern actually starts; of course, that could just be these old, cataract- infused eyes.

Now for the fun part.  The traveling stitches just 'move' two stitches either to the left or the right.  You could knit into the second stitch (remember--in the back of the stitch) and then knit or purl (whatever the chart says to do) into the first stitch and pull them both off the needle (right lean), but it's very very fiddly and gets even more fiddly when you do a left travel lean.  It's much easier to 'cable without a cable needle'.  This is the most liberating thing I've ever learned to do, and I've gotten very good at it over the years because I'm too lazy to get off my duff, rummage in the gadget bag, and find a cable needle.

Here's how:

These are the 2 stitches we're going to twist.  I've moved them from the left needle to the right needle without knitting them.

With your left hand needle, grab the first stitch you slipped from the back...

here's the scary part (knitting is just a thrill a minute, right?!)...pull the right hand needle out of both stitches...the second slipped stitch will fall into thin air (see it just sort of hanging there?  It's not going anywhere if you don't panic and pull on your knitting ---PROMISE!)

Now, grab it with your right hand needle and slip it back on the left needle.  You have now reordered the stitches and you are ready to follow the pattern.  What I like so much about this is you actually SEE which way the stitches will be leaning...and you don't have to pay a lick of attention to the cable charts that say slip a stitch and hold to the front/or to the back....just LOOK at your knitting and you'll do it the right way.  Ta-Dah.  Easy Peasy.  (Traveling stitching are a great way to practice this because you do so many.  Big cables work exactly the same way, but you re-order more stitches.) Yep.  Tip #3:  cabling without a cable needle.

 

Tip #4:  Never put mitten gussets on a 'holder', just slide them on a piece of yarn from the project that is in the closest basket/bag---size of the yarn doesn't matter.  I know.  It's still a 'holder' but not the metal-ly thing that won't let you try on your mitts. (and once again, you don't need to get up and find your gizmo bag and track down the tiny holder that ALWAYS is in another project, anyway.) 
 

Tip #5:  When adding a new skein of yarn into a project that is knit in the round, carefully identify all the places (in advance) where that join could take place...never just use the spot where you happen to run out of yarn.  I joined the new ball on the gusset seam here, which was actually my second choice; my first choice was where the patterning started.  I knit right through that not realizing how little yarn I had left and heaven forbid(!!!) I certainly wasn't going to tink back, so the gusset worked fine.  When both mitts were finished, I couldn't tell which mitt had the new ball added.

 

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I was knitting with a friend last week who is a wonderful knitter.  She was lamenting having to cast on 300+ stitches for a new shawl she wanted to start.  You use two balls of yarn, right?  Then cut off one ball and knit with the remaining one, right?  Somehow this little tip had never crossed her radar.  It got me thinking about some of the short-cuts/tips/can you really call them tricks??? that we all use without giving them much thought.  There are a gazillion of them out there.

I'd LOVE to hear some that you all use!!!!!!  Please share!

 

coping very nicely, thank you….

 

By the time I finished filing/purging/rearranging my patterns (yes, that cupboard is CLEAN!!!), I had a new stack of projects-to-be that I had totally forgotten were at one time the love of my life and needed immediate attention.

 

Abigail rose to the top, not only because I really love it, but I had enough yarn in the stash.  (Sweater amount yarn is not abundant in my world.)  It's a lovely, classic longish cardigan; I'm using Silky Wool so it will actually be a 3-season sweater.  In my head it's already packed for a spring adventure, so I better get ON IT.

 

Even though it's classically plain (a load of reverse stockinette knitting), it does that mind-twisting thing where you do the front increases X# of times, while AT THE SAME TIME you do the raglan (yes, I know, another raglan sweater---I'm going to love this one, though  I'm an optimist..or really slow study.) increases X# of times (and of course, they are different numbers.)  Over the years, I've settled into MY way of coping with this----I can't believe I invented it but I've never seen anyone else do it; but then, how many of us sit around and talk about how we deal with what amounts to (in knitting) rubbing our tummy and patting our head at the same time?

 

 

The circles indicate the row on which I do the front increases, the triangle is the row on which I do the raglan increases, and obviously a circle in a triangle gets both kinds of increases.  I mark checkpoints (ie, row 53: I should have 94 sts on the back, 66 stitches on the sleeve, and this is where I break for the sleeves).  At this point, I can pretty much bag the written pattern and rely on my coded piece of paper for the sweater.

 

I am really, really curious, though---how does everyone else deal with this???  I'm not sure I would switch my system, but I'm always ready to tweek it.

 

So, just in time for Yarnalong and WIP Wednesday and Keep Calm and Craft On....I not only have a new project, 

a maybe new book (haven't started it yet), the new Jussi Adler-Olsen book on audible to fall back on... but

a fire in the fireplace.  

 

Yes, this is ICE on the INSIDE of the kitchen window.  (Pipes are frozen in our little house out back.  yuck.)  But, we're coping very nicely, thank you.  

 

Baby, it's cold outside.


 

Gloves...

 

By the fourteenth century, knitting guilds were organized for the express purpose of knitting gloves.  To qualify as a 'glove knitter' you had a five-year apprenticeship; any defective work was confiscated and burned. They were serious about their gloves. 

 

Spending a lifetime knitting gloves?  Not my idea of a fun job.  But every once in a while----OK.  One of the grands needed some black gloves---a request from his mom.  (If he was asking Grandma for something it would more likely be a remote controlled helicopter or a trip to Disney World.  Believe me, not a pair of gloves.)  But, gloves it was.

 

I asked for a hand-print, so I could judge the finger lengths; his mom faxed me a copy that came through about the size of a Barbie glove.  I found a great free vintage pattern sized 2 years to adult men.  I picked the 8-10 year size...and figured this should be close.

 

One thing I've always wondered when knitting gloves (NOTE:  I am not a prolific glove-maker!)...why don't the instruction say to pick up a couple extra stitches between the fingers (what this pattern calls the gusset), and immediately decrease them...thus eliminating the little hole that usually has to be 'mended' after the gloves are finished.  This takes NO time at all, is easy to do, and saves finishing time at the end.

 

 

 

 

See?  No holes!!  (No reason to confiscate and burn!)

 

The other thing you might have noticed is...these gloves fit ME.  I know I have small hands, but...

 

are these gloves too big for my grandson, or do I really have the hands of a 10 year old?

 

how do you fair-isle???

I used to HATE fair isle...not the finished project, just the process.  Over the years, I've tried a whole bunch of different ways... 

My first attempts were truly awful...knit to where you change colors, drop one yarn, pick up the other (twisting, of course, so there are no holes!!!), and merrily twisting the balls of yarn into such a tangled mess that overall, more time  was spent unwinding and untangling than knitting.  Tension was lousy. Too loose in places, puckery in others.  I hated fair isle.

 

Then I took a class, and learned how to hold one color in my right hand, and one in my left hand.  A little better.  The tangling mess stopped, but tension remained a mystery.  Keeping the dominant color dominant also seemed to be a problem, but at the moment I can't quite remember why.  It was, though. I still avoided fair-isle most of the time. 

 

And then, I had my AH-HA moment.  I was visiting with Beth Brown-Reinsel in her lovely Vermont farmhouse....and between ohhing and ahhhhing over all her antiques and handmades, we pulled out our knitting for awhile.  Actually, we probably had the knitting out the whole time, but it took me awhile to stop rubber-necking at her decor, and notice her fair-isle project...and how she was holding both yarns in her right hand.  HUH?  How are you doing that???

 

Dominant color goes over your index finger, secondary color goes over 'tall-man'

 

and your two fingers just flip whatever color you need around the needles.  When you need to catch the yarn over long spaces...(long=5 or more  stitches usually)...

 

you wrap the contrast color over the front of the needle, then wrap the dominant color around the usual way...

 

Then, if you do a little wiggly-thing, the contrast slips off and twists behind and off you go with your knitting....ta-dah.  

 

This is the ONLY way I've ever been able to avoid the puckering, get a decent tension, and not hate fair-isle.

 

 

I actually sort of like it now!

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How do you handle fair-isling??? I bet there are even more ways! 

 

finishing....

All the pieces are knit...it's time to put it together.

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Finishing isn't something I really mind doing.  It wasn't always that way, but now, I'm really OK with it.   I've taken oodles of classes over the years, and even did a couple levels of the master knitters course when that title meant more to me than it does now.  But most of this stuff I've learned from the proverbial school of hard knocks...all those mistakes I've made over the years are really the very best teachers!!  So, a couple of lessons I've learned along the way.  I bet you know them already, but I thought I'd share some of them, anyway....

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LESSON #1:  "Finishing" really starts before you cast on your first stitch.

:: are you making a scarf where both ends are going to be hanging next to each other???  Then you will want your cast on and bind off to 'match', right?   If you usually use a long-tail cast on, you'll want to remember to use a sewn bind-off (wasn't Elizabeth Zimmerman the smartest woman EVER????); if you do a traditional bind-off, then you might want to start with a crocheted cast on.  It's all in the details.

:: if you are substituting yarn in a pattern, you want to remember that not all worsted..dk..fingering..whatever...are created equal.  Just because you 'get gauge' doesn't mean you will 'get drape'.

:: think ahead for possible short-cuts:  just because a pattern doesn't tell you to knit-in ends as you go, doesn't mean you can't (OH!! the time and headache you can save here!!); just because a pattern calls for sewing a turned hem, doesn't mean you can't pick up and knit it in as you go.  (there are a gazillion short-cuts...just think a few steps ahead!)

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LESSON #2:  GAUGE

My friends call me the gauge Nazi, (but I'm really not).  I always check my gauge, but I rarely make a gauge swatch.  I'm one of those goofy people who have no problem with ripping out large amounts of knitting, and (for me) I've learned that I can only get a good idea of my gauge over a really large piece of knitting.  A sleeve is always a good indicator. You also get a good idea of how the 'fabric' you are making is going to drape or show up cables or color-pool. I learn so much from a sleeve--or half a back of a sweater!!!  (I doubt if many of you will adopt this lesson of mine, but it works pretty well for me most of the time!--sometimes, though, I get the entire sweater knit and put together before I decide that the color-pooling-thing is something I just can't live with.  sigh. I hate when that happens. )

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LESSON #3:  

Your ruler/tape measure is NOT your friend.  It's actually out to mess up your finishing most of the time.  Sure, it's OK to measure where to start the armholes on the back of the sweater....but don't trust it on the front....count those rows!!!  (same goes for getting the sleeve holes the same size!!!)  A side seam sews much better if you are matching the same number of rows, instead of approximately the 'same' number of inches.

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LESSON #4

When the pattern says 'pick up x-number of stitches' for the neck, button band, whatever---use that number as a guide, not the gospel.  The pattern really doesn't know what YOUR row gauge is, so pick up the number YOU need to make it happen.  Chances are you won't be off by many stitches.  (If you are, there might be another problem going on!!)  And....it's totally OK to not get that beautiful, smooth button band (or sleeve, or neckband) on the first try...or even the second try.  (One instructor I had for a finishing class once said.....oh, heck--sometimes it takes me 5-6 tries to get it the way I want it.  I found that mighty liberating!)  (yes, I'm sort of a perfectionist, and I want it right on the first try!  I don't usually get what I want!)

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Do you have any "tried and true" finishing lessons????  

 Please share!!!  Finishing can be fun!!!  (Yeah, I know.  I just went too far with that one!!!  Hello! Today my name is Pollyanna!!....)