Fleegle's Blog

The Queen Susan Shawl

2009-11-28T10:29:00.000-05:00

Yeah, yeah. Harry has been following me around for the last few days, poking me with his swagger stick to remind me that I haven't posted a blog entry in weeks. Because his swagger stitck is an exquisitely sharp quilting needle equipped with a customized leather handle, being poked with it gets the point across (Ouch! Bad Pun!).

Most of my time for the last few weeks has been sucked up into a fascinating collaborative project called The Queen Susan Shawl (based on a photograph by M. Sutherland, from The Shetland Museum Photographic Archive).

The project is remarkable in so many ways. It shows, first of all, the power of a social networking site such as Ravelry, to foster communication across the entire globe. The shawl is so lovely and so complicated, but by combining all of our skills, The Ravelry Heirloom Knitting Forum has re-created the pattern for this masterpiece. Right now, the only missing bits are the corner chart and a paragraph or two of calculations. We are hoping that by the New Year, The Queen Susan shawl pattern will be available on Ravelry, free to anyone who wants to hoard, knit, or just cherish this delightful design.

Because I have been working like a little fiend on all aspects of the shawl, I am not going to recapitulate the history. Instead, I am posting, with my own permission (seeing as how I wrote it), the introduction to the pattern booklet. It's a lovely story, so please enjoy!

Little did Clarabeasty realize what a firestorm she would start when she innocently posted a shawl picture from the Shetland Museum on the usually quiet Heirloom Knitting Ravelry forum:

October 16, 2009
Clarabeasty: Does anyone recognize the border pattern on this piece of lace? Specifically the part that looks like little wreaths and twigs.

Sophiphi137: No, but it is beautiful! I also am now very curious about it.

M1K1: Look again in the Shetland Museum photo library. There is a close up detail of another shawl which has the scalloped (wreath) effect made by placing roses.
You can get a really good look at it by selecting Large Image.
Isn’t it a fabulous effect - softening the straight lines of the zigzags.
Actually this might be the same one you showed above...

fleegle: Wow! That’s the most beautiful border I’ve ever seen…..gets out graph paper immediately….

This innocent, offhand exchange would result in a mammoth project involving more than 30 people and hundreds of hours of charting, swatching, proofing, writing, editing, and layout.

We started off rather simply with the center design, which we recognized from other shawls. The pattern, called Spider Webs, Spiders, and Diamonds, was easy to chart from other sources. But then, Msleoknits, presented an alternative center that she had charted and used for another shawl. Her design eliminated the garter stitch interruption in the spider webs, and many of us preferred her design to the original one.

Similarly, Q-Knitter graphed the original edging. a variation of Mrs. Sutherland's Fine Lace, a coincidence that made us all smile with delight. EdithCone subsequently presented a second, more delicate pattern—a variation of Alpine Lace—and made a chart for it, as well.

Now we had charts for two centers and two edgings, and the project was not so simple anymore.

The border, clearly the charm point of the shawl, presented numerous problems. First of all, the original shawl was clearly knitted in the traditional manner. The center and borders were worked separately and sewn together. We all decided that we wanted to knit the piece in the modern way, that is, knitting the center, then picking up the border stitches and knitting the rest of the shawl in the round. And this method meant that we had to invert all the motifs in the border.

Piece by piece, each motif was charted and test-knitted. In many cases, we had to choose among several alternatives. After a few weeks of experimentation and decisions, we had a semblance of a genuine, workable border chart.

The corners presented more difficult decisions. While we liked the original corners, we wanted something special. KnitLab became our Guy in the Corner, working up the beautiful flower sprays that integrate so well with the main border area. In what can only be called an astounding feat of charting, M1K1 not only charted the complex corner, but turned part of it inside out so less-experienced knitters could better see how the pattern fit together.

When all the parts were finally defined, LarasCreations spent weeks developing the calculations. A few days after M1K1 and LarasCreations had mostly completed their assignments, fleegle jokingly suggested adding a row above the bottom row of flowers:

fleegle: Not terribly radical. Although you would have to regraph the entire corner.

fleegle climbs into her nuclear blast bomb shelter and closes the hatch. Click.

larascreations: Well…….it does seem like it might look nicer with another 1-2 between?
What’s one more line?
……runs to keep fleegle company

fleegle: …fleegle yells through the blast door, informing Lara the price of admission are the new calculations…

laceknitterlois: “NOOOOOOOOO”….flipper proofer runs & throws supercape over m1k1’s computer screen.

“Don’t look, m1k1!”
Points pointy finger accusingly at larascreations & fleegle:
“Sure, go ahead and give m1k1 heart palpitations. And where does that leave us? Without our Professor of Corner Chartology!”
Makes ultimate threat:
“Which means you 2 would be sentenced to take over corner charting duties. Knock it off, ya hear?”
Leaves scene whistling. Just keeping the world safe, one knitter at a time.

As you might expect, the concept of an additional row was tabled forever, amidst heartfelt apologies entailing considerable virtual groveling. Gentle humor and mild tangents that drifted into totally unrelated topics made all of us smile amidst our piles of graph paper.

In the meantime, we realized that we needed to think about how we were going to present the finished pattern, and we needed to bring the Shetland Museum into the loop.

The consensus was that the pattern should be placed into Creative Commons without copyright protection, and should be available as a free download on Ravelry, a highly popular site for knitters. But we wanted to alert the Shetland Museum to the work and give them the files, so visitors to their web site could download the pattern from there, as well. Perhaps the museum would be able to use the pattern as a donation magnet.

Here is the original letter written by edithcone to the Shetland Museum.

Novmber 6, 2009
Dear Ms. Christiansen,

    I’m writing to you on behalf of a group of knitters who were very inspired by one of the shawls in the Shetland Museum and Archives Photo Library. The shawl in question is found in the photos numbered S00019 and S00024.

    We are members of Ravelry, an online community of knitters and spinners from around the world. Within Ravelry, our group, Heirloom Knitting, is particularly interested in fine Shetland lace knitting. The shawl shown in the photos above, was brought to the attention of the group and the design was so well-liked it was proposed that a collaborative effort be made to create a chart of the original design and produce a pattern that could be downloaded free-of-charge from Ravelry. After much debate, the shawl was named The Queen Susan shawl.

    We would like to give mention to the Shetland Museum for housing the original photo which led to the project. We also thought you might be interested in being able to offer the pattern for download from the Shetland Museum site (thereby making it available to non-Ravelry members).

    Is it possible you have any background information about this shawl, such as the name of the knitter/designer, the approximate date it was made, the location, etc.? M. Sutherland is noted as the photographer. Was the shawl likely made by a member of his family? Any information you could give us about the shawl would be very helpful and appreciated.

    Because this is such a large project, it will be some time before any of us finish knitting an entire shawl. In light of this, we would be extremely grateful for the use of one of your photos (with credit given to the Shetland Museum), so that we can show a completed shawl in the pattern instructions.

    There has been a tremendous co-operative effort within the group and at this point, most of the elements of the shawl have been charted. There are few Shetland lace shawl patterns of this complexity available today and none, as far was we know, that have been produced by knitters from all over the globe. It is exciting to be involved in this project, one that we hope will make a beautiful Shetland shawl design available to knitters everywhere and help continue the tradition of Shetland lace knitting.

    I hope you will entertain our request to use one of the photos mentioned at the beginning of this letter. I look forward to your reply.
Yours Sincerely,
Denise Furukawa
(on behalf of the HK Ravelry group)

And here is Dr. Carol Christiansen’s response:

November 13, 2009
Dear Denise,

Many thanks for your email. We were delighted and intrigued by how our photographic archive has been put to use once again.

The photographer M. Sutherland was Magnus Sutherland, of Colvadale, Unst. He was related to a number of expert lace spinners and knitters, some of whom are pictured in photograph R01400. He took the photographs of the lace pieces in the late 1890s or 1900 – one scarf has the date 1899 knitted into it and it is likely that the other lace pieces were photographed at the same time.
This shawl is not part of our collection. However, we have several other shawls and stoles knitted by the Sutherland women, one of which is on display. It has similar centre and border motifs to the one you are knitting. Our records indicate that the border of the shawl on display was designed by the brother of the Sutherland sisters, probably Magnus himself. It is possible, but by no means certain, that Magnus was involved in the design of the shawl you are knitting.

The Sutherlands designed and traded patterns with one another, as you can see from Magnus’ photographs that many of the shawls bear similar motifs but used in different combinations. If the designs were written down by the Sutherlands, which is unlikely, this information has not passed to us. However, the reason we have these early photographs of Magnus’ is that they were passed on to Ethel Henry, who donated them to the Museum. Ethel Henry was herself an expert knitter and knitwear designer, working in both Fair Isle patterning and some lace – she designed wonderfully stylish fine lace jumpers in the 1950s! We have two of Ethel’s lace notebooks, one in which lace patterns are written out, in another where they are charted. Some of the motifs found in the Sutherland laces are described in these notebooks. Unfortunately, Ethel stipulated that the notebooks not be published, and therefore, we can only offer them as study materials here in Shetland.

Have you completed the pattern for this complex shawl? If you are struggling with any parts of it, please let me know and I will see how I can help.

I will meet with our IT person next week to discuss sending you the Magnus Sutherland photograph for the completed pattern and how to attach Ravelry information/download to the photographic archive website. I shall get back to you with this information in due course.
Best wishes,
Carol
(Dr. Carol Christiansen, Shetland Museum and Archives)

Having received an enthusiastic response from the Shetland Museum, we continued the cycle of chart, knit, proof, write, edit, chart, proof for several months. Until finally, we had all the material at hand, and this pattern booklet could be assembled for what we hope is your visual and knitterly delight.

It was decided to name the shawl The Queen Susan, because several of the ringleaders bear that name or have close relatives who do. We also felt that the name conferred a certain dignity on this lovely piece.

And finally, although fleegle wrote the introduction, EdithCone pointed out that she barely mentioned her own contributions. So, I will lapse into the first-person at this point and say that I was the initial instigator; graphed the original center and border; assigned the test knitting; wrote the bulk of the text; designed and laid out this pattern booklet; and generally pushed, poked, and prodded the participants where necessary to get the pattern assembled in a timely manner. I was the hub around which activity whirled, but without the other contributors, the project would never have come to fruition.

The Ravelry Heirloom Knitting Group now presents to you The Queen Susan Shetland Shawl, and hopes that you will derive as much pleasure in working it as we did in developing the pattern.

Shieladeedee’s post sums up the project thusly:

I’m feeling a little weepy here. Think of it - a piece knitted before the turn of the last century, designed by a close group of family/friends living in an isolated area, preserved in a photograph, being recreated by a far-flung band brought together by technology and a love of this craft.

The Amazing (and Cheap) Spinning Notion--Zia!

2009-11-07T19:33:00.001-05:00

I don't often write about tools, because there's really not much new under the sun. Let's face it, a knitting needle is a knitting needle, and everyone has an opinion about composition, pointiness, and configuration. But they are still knitting needles, you know?

However, no spindle spinner should be with a Zia. And wheel spinners might find her handy, as well. Let's take a little tour.

First of all, Zia holds your spinning projects. The units are stackable, and come in a variety of colors. I like the clear ones so I can easily see what's inside. If you don't want your project open to the air, just place everything in a plastic bag before dropping it into Zia. She's got a handle so you can tote her around.

You can use a Zia to hold your spindles, too--just turn it on its side. Put a piece of foam down on the bottom if you like. The foam will prevent your spindles from slipping through the bottom holes. I don't have any foam in this picture, but you get the idea.

You easily can store your copps in Zia. Mine are mounted on clear soda straws. And of course, you can use Zia for plying. Notice that in this picture, I ran straight knitting needles through a few straws (the only use I have for my Mother's Bernat straight needles). The silver handle is on the top side...

...If you flip the handle to the other side, it keeps the needles from sliding and also adds a bit of tension. If you need more tension, make sure the handle is on top of both the straw and the needle. You can slip a bit of eraser or non-slip pads through the points and snug them up to Zia's side to eliminate any unwanted slippage.

Best of all, Zia is not expensive!

I bought mine at the Container Store, but they are also available on-line from Ace Hardware. Amazon, Organize, and many other suppliers. The one in the picture is the smallest size. Go shopping!

It's a Sweater! It's a Shawl! It's Honeysuckle!

2009-11-02T11:36:00.003-05:00

Although I love to knit shawls, I do not love to wear them. The sole exception is my tiny Hyrna, which slips neatly into my purse for A/C protection during the summer months. As for the rest of them, I take them out for show-and-tell when somebody asks. Otherwise, they sit around in a drawer, playing cards, drinking beer, and watching PBS's Knit and Crochet Today on an iPod Harry installed for them.

The Honeysuckle sweater immediately caught my eye, because it combines the best of all possible worlds. I could knit some simple lace with my favorite luxurious Hamanaka mohair/silk and have an actual, wearable knitting object.

This inspired pattern appears in Issue Six of the elegant British magazine, The Knitter, and was created by Sarah Hatton, Rowan's in-house designer.

Of course, I changed the pattern a bit. For starters, the original configuration is a circular shawl knitted flat and seamed. The sleeves also knitted flat and seamed, and then sewn into the bind-off/cast-on slits created for the armholes.

Well, all that sewing seemed ridiculous, tedious, and annoying. Instead, I knitted the shawl in the round, using a contrasting thread for afterthought armholes. I then picked up the sleeve stitches around the contrasting thread and used Barbara Walker's clever short-row sleeve cap method to knit the sleeves downward.

I also added beads to the sleeves and sweater front, and changed the boring edging to the more dynamic Ocean Wave from Miller's Heirloom Knitting. And, there was a lot of plain knitting in the original pattern; I dropped in a few Shetland cat's paws motifs to break up the monotony.

The only mild setback was the cuff area. I have thin wrists, and even though I doubled the decreases at the end, the cuff was still too baggy for me. Instead of ripping out the mohair (urgh), I threaded some narrow ribbon through the final row and gathered the cuff.

Best of all, Honesuckle informs me that she detests beer, can't play cards, and doesn't enjoy TV, so leaving her out of the drawer and actually wearing her pleases everyone. Well, except for Harry, who is always looking for another sucker for his rigged poker games.

An FTC/Litigation/Copyright-Safe Book Review

2009-10-26T12:51:00.096-05:00

A few posts back, I mentioned a test-knit that I was doing for a designer. I fearlessly quote my own blog post below, as I wrote it and gave myself written permission to quote it elsewhere under the Fair Use provision of copyright law. The excerpt is fewer than 50 words, so I should be doubly safe from self-litigation.

... a test knit so hideous that Laptop scuttles out of the room (hissing) whenever I remove the thing from its lightproof bag. To add insult to injury, the supplied yarn's texture rivals that of steel wool, but is not quite as soft.

Having placated the copyright cops, I state here, for the comfort of the FTC, that both the pattern and the yarn were given to me. However, neither were gifts, as I must return both the knitted object and the remaining yarn to the designer, for which I will be paid a pittance. I did, however, receive a free copy of the pattern, and this I shall gleefully burn. Aside from the appearance of the thing, which Harry and I agree is the single ugliest knitted work in the history of textiles, the pattern contains several errors. The designer did not respond to my queries, so I assume that the errors are now written in ~~stone~~ printer's ink.

It turns out that the pattern is from a book the designer has written, as I discovered on Saturday. I picked up a book at SAFF, and was smacked in the eye by The Ugly Object as I riffled through the pages. It occurred to me that I ought to do a book review, since I have an intimate acquaintance with at least one of the patterns contained therein.

I am not, however, going to mention either the book title or the author, lest I be sued for libel. Similarly, I will not be showing you any photographs or quoting content, for fear of breaking copyright law. I am safe from the FTC as well, because I neither bought, nor received the book as a gift, so do not now, nor have I ever, had it in my possession.

So, I present to you an FTC/Litigation/Copyright-Safe Book Review. Please feel free to reuse the words here for your own book review. As you will see, my coverage will work for just about any knitting book you dislike, while keeping you out of the courts and the prison system! Furthermore, I give everyone blanket permission to blatantly copy everything written below in perpetuity.

Fleegle's Hard-Hitting Review of , by , available from , 2009.

The title of this book is very descriptive of the contents, but the designer's taste leaves something to be desired. I've never seen anything quite like these finished objects, which are actually not intrinsically ugly. However, the designer's choices of yarn and color transformed the plebeian patterns into a chaotic visual jumble.

The body text font is a very thin, condensed typeface, making it difficult to read and even more difficult to follow the directions. The color plates, paper, and binding are very attractive. Nice job, printers!

The book has a table of contents, an index, and a bunch of designs in between. I won't tell you how many there are, because you might figure out which book I am talking about and notify the designer. In turn, the designer would contact a lawyer and I would be sued for libel. Let's just say that there are more than five and fewer than 100.

I noted that most of the patterns could be found for free on Ravelry, and would most definitely benefit from your own personal and tasteful choice of color and yarn. I am not going to tell you what kinds of patterns we are talking about, because again, you might guess the book and I would be sued. The patterns are definitely all knitted, most with worsted weight yarn. Some patterns were knitted with other yarns, but I am not going to furnish any more details, except to say that you will need some knitting needles to complete them. A few stitch markers would be a good idea, too.

So, to conclude, unless you are a fan of visual hysteria, I discourage you from purchasing this book.

And with that, I leave you until next time, when I shall present photographs of an actual finished lacy sweater, knitted and photographed by me, and completed this very day.

Mind Boggler of the Day

2009-10-22T10:50:00.000-05:00

I rarely comment on news items, but these two blips are beyond ludicrous. The PRS is the British equivalent of the RIAA, who, we assume, will surely adopt these Draconian regulations in an effort to squeeze the last penny out of anyone dumb enough to hum in public.

PRS Threatens Woman For Playing Radio To Her Horses Without Paying A Licensing Fee

PRS's Latest Trick: Demanding Money From Shop Assistant Who Was Singing At Work

More Wickedness

2009-10-16T19:28:00.002-05:00

A while back, I posted a pattern link to this lovely shawl (Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Karen Walker).

Although I love the red, I know that I would be bored to tears knitting miles of it, and this shawl is BIG. And it seemed to me that Something Wicked needed Something Black...the most wicked of colors. I begin a thought process.......

......Time passes. Aliens come and go in the back yard. Harry assassinates karaoke from Albania to Zanzibar. The RIAA sends Al Jolsen a copyright infringement notice. The FDA issues a recall notice on water (too much water will cause people to explode and that's not acceptable). Blue Cross/Blue Shield announces that having been born is a now considered a pre-existing condition and will no longer cover any illness or injury for any claimant who has undergone this process........

.......I think about knitting the edging in black. Nah. Too abrupt. Then I think about dip-dying it. Nah. Too chancy. Then I think about spinning the yarn and new possibilities present themselves. I finally emailed Anna at Corgi Hill Farm, sent her a picture of the shawl, and explained what I was looking to do. She's brilliant, folks. She carefully dyed a graduated series of silk/merino batts for me that will, after I spin it all up, give me a nice flow from Wicked Red to Wicked Black.

I have about 7 ounces of batt, and need about 2200 yards of two-ply, which works out to 314x2=628 yards per ounce. And that, after consulting various tables, is about 80 WPI. Doable, but it's going to take some time.

So the only Wickedness you're going to see around here for a while is Harry. Apparently, he had a nice gig at the Two Tables Restaurant in Zanzibar City. Unfortunately, a two-table audience was way too small for his ego, so he's taken some time off to kayak the Zambesi river. The guides discovered on his first day that Harry's rendition of Moon River caused crocodiles, algae, and hippos to flee from the river at Mach 2. The tour company is trying to sign him to a long-term contract. I personally wrote him a stellar letter of recommendation.

Terrible Tuesday

2009-10-06T13:04:00.003-05:00

It has not been the best of days. The early morning hours were spent writing ~~begging, whining~~ eloquent, pursuasive letters to an assortment of accounting departments that owe me back pay.

Having completed this distasteful task, I moved on to the Project of the Day, namely a test knit so hideous that Laptop scuttles out of the room (hissing) whenever I remove the thing from its lightproof bag. To add insult to injury, the supplied yarn's texture rivals that of steel wool, but is not quite as soft.

I unpacked the magenta, yellow, orange, turquoise, and black yarns, donned my sunglasses and Kevlar gloves, and knit two rows (actually I knit one row and purled one row) of the convoluted, confusing directions painstakingly deciphered from the blurry scan of tightly packed, faint type.

Whoops. I am instructed to attach C, then knit some rows with D and F. Except why did I attach C? Removes sunglasses and gloves, emails the designer. Replaces project into lightproof bag and stuffs into closet.

Moving on to the Alternate Project of the Day, I unpacked the printer I was asked to review for a World Famous Techie Magazine. Too bad paper and ink cartridges were not supplied. Poked at the buttons for a few minutes and discovered that the printer has the unfortunate feature of Speech. Does anyone want a talking printer? After listening for a few minutes (Hi! My name is Phil and I'll be your printer today!), I resisted the urge to shoot the little elecronic creep in the USB port and began the Alternate Alternate Project of the Day.

Fortunately, this project actually went quite smoothly after the initial cast-ons, which featured long tails that were too short. I see from the pattern that I need 200 yards of yarn. I have 198 yards. What are the odds of having enough yarn for the last row?

Find out next time, because I am afraid to fire up the camera. It can talk to the printer.

Current Knitting (and Spinning)

2009-09-15T15:38:00.001-05:00

King Bat Shawl

I slogged my way to the finish line of the shawl body a few days ago. As you might imagine, I am very tired of pink. I have miles of edging to knit on before the thing is completed, but I am putting it aside for a while to let my Pink Receptors recover from extended stimulation. Cindersall's reversal of the crown motif was masterful, and I think it looks better than the original.

Honeysuckle Shawl/Sweater
Having carefully placed the Bat shawl on the bottom of my UFO pile, I decided to treat myself with my rendition of the Honeysuckle shawl/sweater thing, which appeared in Issue #6 of The Knitter.

This design is beautiful--elegant, graceful, and feminine. I had to read the directions four times because I simply couldn't believe that the designer would actually take a round shawl and convert it to flat knitting. Thus, the reader is instructed to knit across the pattern row, turn, purl back, and then, when the piece is finished, sew up the back seam. Nah. I am knitting it in the round like a grown-up.

For the sleeves, the original design calls for casting off 40 stitches one one row and then casting on 40 stitches in the next row. The sleeves are knitted separately and then sewn into the gap. Why make an ugly seamline at the shoulder and force the knitter to do even more sewing? Instead, I will knit a contrasting piece of yarn over 40 stitches. When I am ready to do the sleeve, I will carefully undo the contrasting yarn, pick up the stitches around the armhole, and knit the sleeves from the top down to the wrist.

In an incredible display of foresight, I decided to bead only the sleeves and the front side of the sweater. I realized that if I beaded the entire thing, I would wear the sweater once, wonder why my back felt like llittle glass beads were digging into it, slap my forehead, and put the thing away forever.

I am using Hamanaka mohair/silk Parfait yarn and some pretty beads that have been languishing in the closet for a while. Harry finds the piece rather restful. Too restful. I have to shake him out of the thing every time I want to work on it.

Spinning
I love Corgi Hill batts. I love them to pieces. I want to make an entire room out of Corgi Hill batts and live there. While I am busy accumulating the raw materials for the Corgi Hill Extension, I actually spun some up. Here's a neat ball of Navajo-plied merino/silk:

It will probably become a scarf for Kyoko-san if Harry doesn't filch it and bury it in his stash drawer.

And here's what's currently on the spindle:

The lovely fluff is Corgi Hill merino/silk and the tulipwood/ebony spindle is from Spindlewoods. I have no idea what I will do with the finished yarn, but I am thinking it should be two-ply laceweight, which of course leads to wandering around my notebooks looking for an appropriate project. Like I need another project...

The Fleegle Symmetrical Short Row--No Wraps, No Holes, No Hassles

2009-09-05T17:03:00.262-05:00

I've never been a fan of short rows, mainly because I've never been able to make them look pretty. I've tried all the techniques--yarn overs, Japanese, wrapped, unwrapped, rewrapped, and encroachment-- and frankly, they all look hideous. Or worse, one side looks nice and the other side looks hideous.

Every so often, I pick up my needles and fiddle around with short rows. But it wasn't until yesterday, as I was dozing in the car, that I came up with a new short row technique that actually looks attractive, is symmetrical, leaves no holes, and doesn't require wrapping or safety pins. Those familiar with the fleegle heel will find the concept similar. The only difference is that you are not spacing out the increases to make a gusset. You'll see what I mean when you work the sample (assuming, of course, that you have tried the fleegle heel).

If you want to try this out, I suggest you cast on 20 stitches. Knit a few rows and place markers around the center 10 stitches, because it will be between these two markers that we shall build a little nose. Note that all slipped stitches are slipped purlwise.

Here's what your row looks like at the beginning:

Knit across the 10 stitches between the markers. Put your needle through the bump behind the 11th stitch...

...and knit through the loop. You now have 11 stitches between the markers.

Turn. Slip the first stitch, which is your "new" stitch, and give it a little tug to tighten it up (important!). Before you proceed, please look carefully at the two stitches on the right needle. They are a pair under a single bump and the pair straddles the marker. I call it "1 pair."

Now purl 10.

Put your needle through the bump in the front of the 11th stitch...

...and purl through it.

You now have 12 stitches between the markers. Notice that you have made another pair of stitches under a single bump straddling the marker.

Turn, slip then first stitch, give it a little tug to tighten it up, and knit 9.

Put your needle through the bump behind the next stitch and knit it. You now have 13 stitches between the markers, and two pairs.

Continue on...

Turn, slip the first stitch, purl 8. Put your needle through the bump below the next stitch and purl it. 14 stitches are now between the markers and 2 pairs.

Turn, slip, knit 7. Pick up the bump in back and knit it (15 stitches between markers and 3 pairs).

Turn, slip the first stitch, purl 6. Pick up the bump in front of the stitch you just purled and purl it (16 stitches between markers and 3 pairs).

Turn, slip, knit 5. Pick up the bump in back and knit it (17stitches between markers and 4 pairs).

Turn, slip the first stitch, purl 4. Pick up the bump in front of the stitch you just purled and purl it (18 stitches between markers and 4 pairs).

Now we are ready for the second half of the short rows. The basic concept is that you will knit (or purl) one stitch further on each side by knitting (or purling) two stitches together. Do pull out the slack when knitting these. Otherwise, you'll have loose stitches that will make you sad.

Here is an annotated photo showing which stitches get knitted together.

Turn, slip the first stitch, knit 5, pull on the yarn to remove slack, knit 2 together.

Turn, slip 1, purl 6, purl 2 together or purl 2 together through back loops. I prefer the way P2tog looks, but you may like P2togtbl better.

Turn, slip the first stitch, pull on the yarn to remove slack, and knit 7. Note that the 7th stitch is the K2tog from the previous row. If you make a note of these decreases, you won't get confused as to how many stitches you should be knitting or purling plain. Knit 2 together.

Turn, slip 1, purl 8, P2tog.

Turn, slip the first stitch, knit 9. K2tog.

Turn, slip 1, purl 10, P2tog.

Turn, slip the first stitch, knit 11. K2tog. Do not turn.

Knit to the end of the row.

Turn. Purl 12 across the center markers, P2tog.

And here's what the left side should look like:

And the right side:

And the front (sorry, it's hard to photograph a nose):

Given this basic technique, many modifications are possible. You can use a different increase (knit front and back, for example). And you can change the directions of your decreases. Experiment and see what works best for you. If you have an improvement, do let me know!

Them's Fighting Words

2009-08-30T15:35:00.003-05:00

There are few sentences in the English language that enrage me more than this one:

"You can't do that."

The instant I hear those words spoken, I have an immediate urge to run off and Do That. Or figure out a way that It Can Be Done.

I would guess that about 80% of the time, You Can Do That, although doing so might turn out to be expensive, awkward, or embarrassing. Or all three.

One of the biggest Can't Do That's around in Fiberland is the myth that you can't spin long fibers, such as silk and alpaca, on a charka. For those unfamilar with this device, it's basically a compact spinning wheel originally designed for spinning cotton. Closed, this size of this elegant machine is a bit smaller than a hard-backed book, hence its name book charka.

Spinners use charkas for other short fibers, such as cashmere and camel, but the First Law of Charkaness states that for longer fibers, You Can't Do That.

Having received this gorgeous cherrywood Bosworth charka as an early birthday gift, I dutifully spun the enclosed sample of mindnumbingly boring white cotton and then fooled around with some cashmere and camel. Okay, got the concept. Now on to the You Can't Do That fibers.

Out comes a lovely silk/merino batt from Corgi Hill Farms. These batts are not carded to homogeneity. Instead, the long, lush silk fibers are layered in between the beautifully dyed merino.

Contrary to expert opinions, not only can silk be spun on a charka, it spins beautifully with nary a blob.The stuff was just meant for long draw. It spins thick, it spins thin, it spins any way you like your yarn.

Here are some samples--medium, thin, and really thin.

And while we are busting myths, we might as well explode the Second Law of Charkaness: You Can't Spin Thick Yarn on a Charka. Sure you can, and here are some thicker samples to prove it:

Of course, the spindles on the Bosworth are small and delicate, so spinning yarn of this weight would fill them up in a few minutes. However, I have a Babe charka too, which sports a spindle fashioned from a nice, big knitting needle (courtesy of a fortuitous swap with Janice in Georgia). That spindle can hold almost as much as a clunker drop spindle. So there.

I figured I was on a roll, so I pulled out a one-ounce spindle and spun some gossamer laceweight from the batt. Current opinion is that you can't spin gossamer-weight on a spindle that heavy. I went up to the heaviest weight spindle I own, a 1.2 ouncer. And spun gossamer on that too.

All this, by the way, was accomplished in my round kitchen, which, when we requested this eccentric design from a herd of architects and builders, were told: "You Can't Do That."

We Interrupt This Blogcast for an Important Announcement

2009-08-21T12:25:00.008-05:00

Finally and at last, I have set up my Etsy store. It isn't complete, by any means, but there are enough seductive yarns, fibers, and tools to at least look mostly like a Real Shop.

All of the yarns were custom-spun specifically for fine lace knitting--giving crisp-looking stitches, but blooming with a little halo after a wash-and-block. I hope to increase the number of custom yarns to eight or so. For now there is a lot of:

Love Potion #3: 36/2 cobweb lace yarn; 35% cashmere, 35% silk, 30% merino
Sheherazade 36/2 cobweb lace yarn: 50% camel, 30% cashmere, 20% merino
30/1 plying silk for spinners
Folca boxes

Harry is working hard at adding other items and as soon as he returns from his karaoke bartending class, I'll make sure he uploads some more stuff.

I hope you at least enjoy looking at our shop. Of course, both of us would be especially delighted if you bought something, but I refuse to follow Harry's suggestion that I whine, wheedle and beg. Until later. If needed. Do take a peek and have fun!

Silly Season

2009-08-15T16:18:00.009-05:00

Traditionally, silly season is the period starting in late summer, sometimes called the Dog Days of August. History tells us that this is the time when newspapers, lacking in substantive news, publish stories about three-headed watermelons, alien-infested knitting magazines, and sightings of purple fungi growing on Capitol Hill.

I don't have anything that exciting to report, although we did have a bear wander up to the back door in search of a snack. Who knew that bears could give you puppy-dog eyes? Being of sound mind, we did not open the screen door and toss out any bear kibble. Barnabas then proceeded to strip our fig tree of fruit and then wandered up the hill to have dessert at our neighbor's plum tree.

My personal silly season began with boredom. I have been working on two interminable projects--the King Bat shawl and the Iris stole. I am sick to death of both of them, but know that if I put them aside, they will slowly mutate from WIP to UFO. I have invested too much knitting time in these two objects to condemn them to UFOness.

So, in the spirit of Silly Season, I present Douglas, the Extremely Happy Giraffe.

This charming pattern, and may others equally adorable, are available for free from Bobbi Padgett. I have an urge to work the hippo, but haven't decided what color it should be. Pink and purple hippos are so common, gray is so dull, and green seems a little too peculiar.

Douglas here will become the personal pet of Nina, the daughter of a friend living in Japan. Let's wish him bon voyage and hope he enjoys sticky rice!

A Rare Perfection

2009-08-01T12:13:00.004-05:00

Spindles are much like sock yarn--there's always another one you have to try (at least for sock knitters) Other knitters might crave the next Noro colorway, brushed cashmere yarn, or the newest knitting needles fashioned from string beans. And non-knitters might yearn to acquire the complete works of Phillip Parker. As he has written over 200,000 books, that particular passion is even more profoundly time-consuming than spindle acquisition.

Anyway, having caught the spindle bug, I set out to test-drive spindles from a variety of craftspeople. I firmly believe that every quality spindle has a sweet spot in terms of fiber and yarn thickness. Some of my spindles are still in the drawer, awaiting their perfect mate. But of the eight spindles I now own, two spindles stand out as the epitome of perfection.

They are exquisitely made, perfectly balanced, beautiful to look at from all angles, and simply wonderful to use for a variety of different fibers.

~~And I shall tell you about them another time.~~

Just kidding.

These two stunning beauties are from Spindlewood. The left whorl is camphorwood (smells spicy!), and the right whorl is bloodwood. They both weigh about 18 grams. Now take a look at the lovely workmanship on the shafts.

The ebony shaft on top goes perfectly with the bloodwood; the flamewood shaft on the bottom makes a lovely foil for the camphorwood.

The camphorwood is now Number One in my Spindle Hall of Fame. Because of the perfect weight ratio between the shaft and the whorl, it feels much lighter than 18 grams and spins gossamer weight with grace.

Customer service is perfection too. During the creation process, Connie emailed me pictures of the whorls, then pictures of the shafts. When I asked for a darker shaft wood for the camphorwood, they graciously made me another spindle. And the spindle comes with a cover for the hook--a clever little touch.

And Then There Is The Golding...

The front of this spindle has a sweet and charming face made from a Russian brooch I found on eBay.

I sent it off to Tom Golding with a request that the spindle be made as light as possible. I also emailed, phoned, and lettered him about my personal dislike of walnut. No walnut. No walnut. Please, no walnut.

I eagerly opened the package to find a 22-gram black walnut whorl and a walnut shaft. Hmm. As soon as the yarn comes off the spindle, I will dye it black with a juicy permanent marker. This little fix was recommended on several woodworking sites. I tried it on another spindle--the ink is permanent and even shows the grain.

It must be me, because the whorl so overbalances the unadorned shaft that the spindle wobbles like a drunken Klingon (and spins about as well). It works perfectly fine for plying, however, so I didn't return it (Tom will give you a refund if you aren't happy). I am sure there will be some fiber in the future that will happily spin on this spindle, but for now, it remains a disappointment.

A Sticky Wicket

2009-07-25T13:58:00.003-05:00

I am not the boss of much, but I am mostly the boss of this blog (except when Harry overrules me). And so today, instead of showing you knitted wares, I am going to tell a little story and ask you guys what you think of this practice:

An owner of a yarn store approached me last week, offering to supply me with yarn and let me do anything I wanted with it--knit cat hats, felt myself a mousepad, or just wind it around my ears. She would them pay me to post the review on my blog with a link to her store for those who wished to purchase the stuff.

I told her I might be interested, if, at the beginning of the review, I informed my readers I was being paid to fiddle with the yarn and say something about it. The owner did not like that idea at all. According to her, several Famous Bloggers, whose names she did not mention, are on the payroll of the biggest on-line store, which she again did not specify.

Besides the fact that this practice is now illegal (see here), the entire concept makes me a little ill. I am not a Famous Blogger, but I think I would be doing my readers (however few) a disservice if I didn't reveal that I was being paid to talk about something. And certainly, I wouldn’t review the yarn at all if it were a nasty knit.

I find it sad that Famous Bloggers have become Greedy Bloggers. I may have been laid off and spend a lot of time inspecting the couch for spare quarters, but I don’t want to do anything that would compromise my innate honesty. Or am I just being naive and stupid?

What do you guys think?

On (and Off) the Silk Road

2009-07-17T20:20:00.008-05:00

Harry takes great pride in his designs, as evidenced by the fact that he spent an entire evening slowly creeping around the King Bat shawl searching for flaws. Fortunately for me, he only found five cat hairs and a single decrease slanting in the wrong direction.

After a stern lecture to me about carelessness and to Laptop about feline hygiene, he departed (with 11 suitcases) for Uzbekistan. Apparently, the owners of the ALBATROS Karaoke Club in Tashkent had been incredibly impressed by his performance in Albania a few months ago and invited him for a two-day gig. In an effort to avoid an International Incident, I will not comment on the listening tastes of either Albanians or Uzbekistani.

Where was I? Oh yes. Harry. Uzbekistan. Eleven suitcases. The mystery of the suitcases was solved when Harry returned with 20 skeins of Z-twist 30/1 plying silk as a gift to my proto-store (it's taking shape, but it's taking time to take shape, sigh). I was immensely touched for a second...after which he demanded 75% of future profits, as well as my cashmere bathrobe. I guess we can all share.

I happened to have a spindle full of merino-cashmere waiting to be plied, so I immediately wound the silk and the yarn onto a felt ball and twisted the two strands together. Thank you, Harry! He may be an obnoxious, demanding spider with a penchant for sarcasm, aggrandizement, and chicken-fried raisins, but he has excellent taste in yarn.

As you can see, the silk and merino-cashmere are about the same weight, so the final yarn can safely be deemed 30/2. I have another spindle half-finished, but haven't made much of dent in the two-ounce bag of fiber yet.

And thanks to everyone's suggestions from the last post, I have indeed ordered a Golding. Actually, I ordered two--Harry wanted his own custom job. Tom Golding was understandably puzzled by my request for a .1-gram spindle, but after I explained, he decided that he could make a nice one out of a hand-painted pinhead and a hand-carved Japanese embroidery needle. Good luck with that, Tom.

Harry's King Bat--It's Alive!

2009-07-10T14:07:00.004-05:00

When Harry first tossed me his redesigned border for the King Bat shawl, I was skeptical. After having knit this border section, I just laughed out loud. Who else could work bats and hearts into a Shetland ring shawl? Sharon Miller should never see this. I see a hoard of peasants out there warming up their pitchforks. Not good.

I am about 30% done with the border...from here on, except for the addition of another row of hearts, the border sort of mostly follows the original design. And I promise to be faithful to the edging, except where I might change it.

Current dilemmas revolve around whether to buy another Bosworth or veer off the well-trodden spindle path and get a Golding. I know I can't go wrong with a Bossie, but those Goldings are so lovely... I am sure there are plenty of opinions out there. Convince me.

The Blame Game

2009-06-23T09:11:00.009-05:00

The blame for this post falls directly onto the shoulders of The Akamai Knitter and LaceFreak Jane. I refuse to accept any responsibility for my actions, because it's Not My Fault.

After observing (with tears in my eyes and lust in my heart) the spindle acquisitions of these two blameful beings, I was forced, much against my will, to order a 2" Karelian birch Bosworth spindle (about 18 grams) and two ounces of 80% merino, 20% cashmere from Miss Babs.

After a few false starts, due to the fact that I had never used a top whirler, I was happy to discover that spinning is like riding a bicycle. It didn't take long before I was humming along in my personal comfort zone of 80 wpi.

After a few days of spinning plain gray, my eyeballs itched for some color. A little red dye, a little fiber...

I also ordered a bit of angora/merino top from Susan's Spinning Bunny. In a remarkable display of postal schizophrenia, the package was both refused and signed for on the same day. Somehow, it was apparently refused here and returned to Susan, but when we looked up the tracking number, the post office said it was signed for and received on 6/18.

I questioned Harry closely about this, and the best explanation we have is that Harry answered the door, whereupon the mail carrier dropped her electronic gizmo, and ran screaming back to the car with the package. Harry carefully signed for the package by stomping on the gizmo's touch screen, and then wandered over to the hammock with a cold beer.

Meanwhile, after inhaling several tablets of Xanax, the postal carrier snuck back up to the front door, retrieved her gizmo, and then screeched out of the driveway with the package beside her.

If anyone has a better explanation, I would sure love to hear about it.

Purl Decreases Demystified

2009-06-10T12:18:00.020-05:00

If you hunt around the Internet in search of purl decreases, you will probably encounter only two: the right-slanting single decrease (P2tog) and the right-slanting double decrease (P3tog). There may be times, however, when you need single or double left-slanting purl decreases or a double purl decrease with no slant at all.

Most commonly, you will encounter these snarky decreases if you are knitting garter-stitch lace in-the-round, for example, a borders-outward shawl in a single piece. To maintain garter stitch in the round, alternate rows must be purled (unless you are cheating and going to futz one corner so you can knit back and forth). And if you are knitting Shetland lace, there's probably no way you will escape having to work double purl decreases with no slant. Central double decreases abound in Shetland patterns.

After perusing my standard books, such as Barbara Walker's Charted Knitting Designs, and rejecting most of the solutions as kinda awkward, I fiddled around with a few different ways of accomplishing these dratted decreases. Some people hate purling through the back of stitches. Others don't find this uncomfortable. Please try all these methods and decide which one works best for you.

Left-Slanting Single Purl Decrease

The most common method is purling through the back of two stitches thusly:

the finished stitch on the purl side:

And finished stitch on the knit side:

If you hate this process, then slip two stitches, one at a time, knitwise.

first stitch slipped...

.... second stitch slipped.

Then insert the tip of the left needle through the front of these two stitches (which are now on the right needle)...

and slip them back to the left needle as a unit. Notice that the stitches have switch positions.

Purl these two stitches together.

Here's the finished stitch on the purl side:

And here's the knit side:

The second method seems easier to me for purling together two stitches when one of them is a yarnover. But sometimes I just purl through the back. Which method I choose depends a great deal on the yarn--some yarns don't like the back stitch, some don't like the slip-and-flip business. Take your pick :)

Left-Slanting Double Purl Decrease

This is just an extension of the single decrease, but with added torment. No matter which method you use, the process is awful. My favorite method, not described here in detail, is to avoid patterns that require me to do this.

Anyway.

You can purl through the back of three stitches:

Here's what it looks like on the knit side:

Or, slip three stitches, one at a time, purlwise.

Then insert the tip of the left needle through the front of these three stitches (which are now on the right needle),

and slip them back to the left needle as a unit.

Then purl these three stitches together.

Here's the purl side:

The he knit side looks the same as knitting 3 stitches together through the back loops as shown above, so I didn't take another photo.

Yet another method is described in the Walker book. Purl two stitches together. Keeping the yarn in front, put the stitch back on the left-hand needle. Pass the next stitch over this one, then transfer to the right-hand needle. I frankly don't care for the way it looks, but it's simpler to execute.

Double-Purl Decrease with No Slant (Central Double Purl Decrease)
This one is actually pretty easy. The literature I encountered had some wacky solutions; I think my answer is simpler. The first two steps are identical to the Left-Slanting Single Purl Decrease shown above.

Slip two stitches, one at a time, knitwise.
Then insert the tip of the left needle through the front of these two stitches (which are now on the right needle), and slip them back to the left needle as a unit.

Purl three stitches together (the two you slipped and flipped, plus one on the left-hand needle).

Here's the finished decrease on the purl side:

and the knit side:

Queen Ring Shetland Center--Complete!

2009-06-03T16:38:00.013-05:00

Easy and fun to knit, the center for the Queen Ring/King Bat shawl didn't take long, either. I am under no illusion that the border (or the miles of interminable edging) will dance off my needles quite as quickly , but it's still a very pleasant pattern to work.

And the yarn! Technically, it's 52/2 60% merino, 20% cashmere, 20% silk. But to knit with it--it's incredible! It's stupendous! It's incredible! Oh whoops, I said that. It's bouncy. It's silky. It's soft. It's everything a gossamer yarn is supposed to be. It deserves a niche in the Yarn Hall of Fame.

Alas, I bought the only skein in the universe on my trip to Japan last year. I was so besotted with it that I decided that I had to have more.

I sent a sample to a mill in China and asked what their minimum order was for a custom spin. The bad news was that I needed to buy 50 kilos. Much as I loved it, I didn't love it 50 kilos-worth. Each kilo has 25,000 meters, and, while I am a fairly robust knitter, I couldn't see my way to stashing 1,250,000 meters of yarn. There are limits, even for me.

I figured there were probably a few other people who might go in with me on the buy. I posted the information in the Heirloom Knitting group on Ravelry and placed a little Post-It note next to the computer to write down the names of the five or six people I figured would want a kilo or two. To my utter bafflement, I had to quickly switch to a spreadsheet to keep track of the orders.

The good news is that I have 100 kilos subscribed. In about a month, I will be able to roll around in the stuff (just kidding, guys, really!)

The thought of 200 pounds of yarn landing in my yard is a bit daunting, but a dear lady is driving down from South Carolina to help us pack and ship the 2,500,000 meters of the yarn I am naming Phoenix.

Of course, Harry said he would help out by providing the entertainment. Unfortunately, he has developed a crush on Al Jolson. The house reverberates with the clickity-click of eight little feet tap-dancing on the dining room table. I can't wait to see what he has in store for us as we wrestle with mailing bags. Hmm, perhaps he will fit in one of them. (Joke--it's a joke!) I promise that nobody will open their package and find a tap-dancing spider in it. Unless, of course, you want one.

Knitting Rules of Thumb

2009-05-20T12:00:00.001-05:00

Every so often, I come across an approximation that makes sense, is easy to remember, and I actually write down in my knitting notebook under the heading Cool Things That Are Easy to Remember but I Forget Anyway. I was flicking through said notebook the other day looking for something I have already forgotten about, and stumbled across the list. Because I am feeling way too lazy to photograph the center of the King Bat (aka Queen Ring) shawl that I finished a few days ago, I figured the list entries might come in handy for some of you. And make me feel less guilty about not stretching, pinning, photographing, cropping, uploading, and so on and so on.

Please remember that these are Rules of Thumb, not Inviolate Laws of Physics. If one or the other doesn't work every time, perhaps you could arrange for a different thumb or something.

If you don't know what needle size might work best with a mystery yarn, thread the yarn through your needle gauge. The best fit is a good size to start with for regular knitting. For lace, try doubling the needle size.
Don't want to (or can't) measure someone's foot? The length from the tip of the index finger to the base of the thumb is about equal to the length from the toe to where the foot connects to the leg (measured at the top of the foot). I discovered this one day when I put my sock over my hand. Why did I do that? I don't know.
The measurement from the base of your thumb to the inside of your elbow is the same as the total length of your foot. Seems incredible, but it's true.
If you stretch out your arms and measure from fingertip to fingertip, the length is the same as your height. You might find this useful when knitting shawls (Thanks, Carla!).
The circumference of your wrist is about equal to the circumference of your foot at the arch. I have never needed to know what my arch circumference is, but I am sure there's someone out there who has been panting after this fact.
The sleeves of an average sweater uses 1/3 of the total amount of yarn; the back takes 1/3, and the front 1/3. If you are not sure that you have enough yarn, knit the sleeves. Then you can adjust the body by, say, making it shorter, using a different yarn for the yoke, or blending in another dye lot.
A cable takes about 10% more yarn than knitting the same stitches flat. This is an important rule of thumb if you decide to add some cables to a plain sweater--you'll need to cast on extra stitches or the fit of the sweater might be a big surprise. Actually, it would be a small surprise, but you know what I mean.
Changing the size of your needle will change the gauge by about 1/2 stitch per inch for each needle size increment or decrement.
One row of knitting uses about 3 times its length in yarn. This is a nice factoid for long-tail cast-on that eludes me every time I do a long-tail cast-on.
According to the folks at Elann, if the gauge of a single strand of yarn is X stitches-per-inch, the gauge when used doubled will be X*.7.
Also via Elann--if the project requires X ounces of yarn used single-stranded, it will require X*1.4 when used doubled.
If you want to make a circular shawl, the general rule for increasing, is to increase four stitches every round, eight every other round, 12 every third round, or 16 every fourth round. There's some geometric flim-flam going on here. Please don't try to explain it to me.
Eight increases/decreases every second round will give you a flat knitted circle. Six increases/decreases every round in single crochet will too.
If you make six increases every second round, then knit x rows (where x is the number of rows with increases that you just made) then decrease six times every other row, you will get a ball.
Two increases/decreases in the center of every second row will give you a 90 degree angle. That one’s pretty obvious, but it’s so useful.
The last row of a project takes as long to knit as the rest of the entire sweater/sock/hat/scarf. This is a prime example of the Time Dilation effect.

Easy Go: The Sequel

2009-05-15T15:00:00.054-05:00

Thanks so very much to everyone who made room in their homes for last week's offerings. Harry was delighted to learn that I didn't sell the hot pink eyelash yarn. However, what I didn't mention to him was that I had cut that grisly stuff into small bits and auctioned it off to the neighborhood birds. The nests look a bit, erm, exuberant, but at least they all match.

The back yard now resembles a miniature South Florida neighborhood. One enterprising family of chickadees further adorned their home with tiny pink flamingos. (I don't want to know where these came from.) Unfortunately, the yarn clashed horribly with Mr. and Mrs. Cardinal, who finally convinced me to trade the lurid pink for some equally regrettable twinkly fun fur. Their nest looks like a Las Vegas casino, but it sure is cheerful.

This week, I am listing a few more lace yarns, but most of what's here is sock/fingering weight. My Paypal address is sglinert--feel free to send me money and I will send you your yarn. Don't forget to tell me which yarn you want in the Paypal comment section. Or you can just email me, if that's more convenient.

IST Spindle--18 grams--oak burr inlay, sycamore whorl and ash shaft.
$60 including US postage

Lisa Souza Sock Merino-Graphite

100% Superfine Merino Superwash 560 Yards
$18 including US postage

Katsara Yarn Pure Merino Fingering Sock- Hosta
100% Merino 370 yards
$12 including US postage

Katsara Yarn Pure Merino Fingering Sock- Delphi
100% Merino 370 yards
$12 including US postage

Seacoast Handpainted Superwash Sock-Pink/Green/Beige
100% merino 560 yards
$21 including US postage

Unique Sheep Merino Sock-Blue/Purple
75% superwash merino, 25%mohair 346 yards
$17 including US postage

Claudia Handpainted Sock-Oops (2 available)
100% merino 350 yards in BOTH skeins
$21 including US postage

Greenwood Fiberworks Cotton Lycra Sock Yarn--Yellow
96% cotton, 4% Lycra 460 yards
$16 including US postage

Greenwood Fiberworks Cotton Lycra Sock Yarn--Black
96% cotton, 4% Lycra 460 yards
$16 including US postage

Greenwood Fiberworks Cotton Lycra Sock Yarn--Green
96% cotton, 4% Lycra 460 yards
$16 including US postage

Easy Come, Easy Go

2009-05-07T13:15:00.024-05:00

Well, it was certainly an eventful day. With no notice whatsoever, my company shut its doors. Worse, it shut its doors owing me a lot on money. I was also bemused to see my name spelled incorrectly on the severance letter, which sternly admonished me to refrain from discussing anything about this incident with anyone, including family pets, houseplants, or myself.

On the bright side, Harry offered to contribute to the household income by accepting a karaoke gig in Bulgaria. He then threw himself into a bottle of sake, where he has remained for most of the afternoon.

While he is in his state of inebriation, I was able to get into my stash again and sort through it.

As is often the case with stash, I found quite a lot of it that I will never use. I want to say that no offer is too small to be refused, but that's not the case. However, if you have a reasonable bid for the lace yarns listed below, I sure would like to hear it.

Katsara Yarns Alpaca Fingering--Coleus (two skeins available)

1000 yards, $38 per skein, including US postage

I shall post sock and miscellaneous other yarns for sale next week. Harry is now sleeping off his sake binge on the sock stash and I don't want to disturb him.

Why Knot?

2009-05-06T18:24:00.015-05:00

I love the Internet. While lounging around in my ratty shorts and t-shirt, I can go anywhere and discover just about anything except how to get rid of ~~giant spiders that steal my stash, hoard my needles, and filch my patterns~~ Harry. During one of my epic wanders, I stumbled upon a truly cool site called clanbadge.com.

Daniel sells a font that charts Celtic knots. I cannot imagine how many hours went into the design, but the results are simply amazing. The site is a bit confusing, so here is the link to the Charted font.

For example, by typing the following into Microsoft Word:

qe
zc

And then applying his font, I get the following little design:

Well, that might be interesting to cross-stitchers, but maybe not so interesting to knitters. That is, until I apply some knitting symbols to the design.

Naturally, the first thing I thought of was lace. There are several ways to treat the motif. It can be outlined with yarnovers thusly:

Or the interior can be filled with a small pattern:

Of course, these designs can be knitted without any holes at all. Cable lovers can go insane knitting something like this:

For those who like colorwork, a bit of paint to the following would make an interesting (and confusing) sweater motif.

If you want to purchase the font for charting, make sure you buy the Charting font. Daniel also offers several other fonts, for example outline, 3D, and inverse, and filled. This page shows some beautiful examples of Celtic knots applied to a variety of crafts such as woodworking, quilting, metalsmithing, stained glass, and ostrich egg carving. Daniel offers a pattern pack for the chart font and there's a page of fancy knots that users have posted, which you can find here.

I would love to continue this post, but unfortunately, Harry just pulled the plug out of the compu

How To Go Off On a Tangent

2009-04-29T16:10:00.012-05:00

The other day, in search of Something Different, I plucked Galina Khmeleva's lovely book--Gossamer Webs--off my bookshelf and refreshed my memory of Orenburg shawls.

These extremely fine shawls have been traditionally knit by ladies in and around Orenburg, Russia. The designs are quite geometric and the construction unique and efficient. The traditional yarn--goat down plied with thin single-ply silk--is handspun on lightweight supported spindles.

Unlike Shetland shawl knitting, which is popular enough to support commercially available yarn and a wealth of patterns, genuine Orenburg yarn cannot be purchased and charted designs are basically limited to those in Galina's books. In fact, Ravelry's knitqueen05 has knitted most of Galina's patterns--over and over and over. Yike!

I am intrigued by the fineness of the spinning and the luxurious feel of these shawls (I got to fondle them at the Skaska booth at Stitches South). I am intrigued enough to actually think about spinning again. (Opal, I don't want to hear about it.)

The thought made my brain cramp--I was shearing sheep and spinning before most of you were even born. My flock of rare non-white sheep and the byproducts thereof put me through graduate school.

I can't say that I enjoyed spinning. I recall with a grimace the lady who brought me Samoyed dog combings every year so I could spin sweater yarn for her. No matter how carefully or with what I washed the yarn, it retained its appalling dog odor and had to be dried as far from my house as possible. Worse, my cats hated the stuff and I had to leave it hanging in the barn lest it get clawed back into fluff again.

However, I did win several blue ribbons at the state fair for my fine skeins of lace yarns (90 wpi!), so the thought of spinning yarn for an Orenburg doesn't make me faint.

Times have changed since the 60's, when only a few types of wheels were available for purchase. As I wandered around the Internet spinning sites, I chanced upon the perfect solution for whipping out fine yarns without straining the shoulder or knee.

Warning!! All you spinners out there are about to toss rotten tomatoes at your screen. Spinning snobs should exit now!!!

Look: an electric charkha!

Fetchingly made from PVC pipe, a wheelchair wheel, and a knitting needle, Babe's Electric Liten Spindle Charkha Wheel entranced me. It weighs only two pounds and disassembles into a small box of giblets for compact storage. It's made for spinning gossamer-weight yarns and the motor assures a nice even pace for drafting.

I haven't quite justified the cost to myself yet. I may decide that the entire concept is too much trouble and just use some gossamer-weight cashmere to knit an Orenburg. On the other hand, new horizons beckon. I wouldn't want to get bored, now would I?

Harry, of course, thinks the concept is wonderful. At last he will have someone who can repair his disgraceful web. "Male spiders may knit, but they don't waste their time producing spider silk," he sniffed. "And cashmere batt will make an excellent mattress."

Going Bats

2009-04-19T08:03:00.015-05:00

A well-written pattern is akin to a gripping novel--tightly plotted and suspenseful, and a satisfying denouement with all the loose ends tidily wrapped up. A poorly written pattern, on the other hand, reminds me of a badly produced movie--terrible acting, disjointed, confusing plot, and loose ends galore at the end.

Occasionally, I will run across a pattern that makes me snicker. For example, any production with the line "Reserve at least 10 hours for sewing together" is, by definition, a genuine howler.

When I encountered this particular direction in the Queen Ring shawl, I giggled for at least ten minutes.

The original shawl is knitted from the borders inward. I don't like that construction for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the epic sewing-bits-together at the end. I wouldn't mind the sewing so much if it produced an attractive finished product. It doesn't. Sewn-together seams look ugly and I won't use them.

The second problem with the original pattern is that only half of the border is neatly mitered around the center's corners. The other two sides are stretched into shape during blocking. The stretching might work if the shawl is knitted with a nice, compliant wool yarn. It probably won't work with something like cashmere/silk yarn, which has the elasticity of a watermelon. The fact that the corners in the lovely photo are scrunched together and not viewable makes me uneasy. I want fully mitered corners that won't produce an unpleasant surprise after hundreds of hours of intense knitting.

Thus, I regraphed the shawl to be knit from the center outward, which means the border is picked up around the center square and knitted around and around (and around and around and etc. etc., and so forth....).

This process has its own inherent problems. First, the border itself must be inverted, because it's being knitted from top to bottom instead of bottom to top. Anyone who has ever reversed a pattern knows that it's usually impossible to simply turn it upside-down. And then there is the tedium of having to purl every other round in pattern to maintain the garter stitch in circular knitting mode. I tried a number of different fake corners to avoid the purling, but didn't care for the results.

Unfortunately, at some point during this epic graphing production, I took a well-deserved break. When I returned to the computer, Harry had redesigned the shawl border to suit his ~~bizarre~~ ~~awful~~ ~~regrettable~~ erm, unique taste. He had lopped off the seed pods (a decision I applauded) and substituted the never-before-revealed Shetland motif: Flying Bats.

Harry announced that he just adores bats. I was a bit puzzled when he uttered that statement, because airborne insect-devouring predators just didn't strike me as arachnid-friendly. However, Harry pointed out that bats make exceptional targets and he enjoys plinking at them with his custom-built Barrett Model 82A1 .50 caliber sniper rifle (with BORS optics).

I also took issue with his introduction of non-traditional motifs into a mostly traditional Shetland shawl. I have this uneasy feeling that, after having worked his bats into the shawl border, I will open the door and find a mob of enraged Shetland Islanders bearing torches and brandishing pitchforks. But Harry pointed out that our designs often begin with a healthy respect for tradition and end up, well, different than the original pattern.

So, here's a bit of eye candy for you. It's one repeat of the center. The shawl is being worked in a 52/2 yarn composed of 60% wool, 20% cashmere, 20% silk that I purchased at Avril and dyed myself. Alas, there is no more of it, which is a real loss to the lace-knitting community. It's a lovely knit.