Knitknacks

BLANKET STATEMENT

If I wait until I have an engaging piece of writing to post, I'll never get posting again, I'm afraid. So here's a quickie to tide us all over....lots of photos to make up for lack of words. 

The woven blankie (second version) was completed in time and delivered to a certain beautiful baby girl.

And here it is in actual use...

While I was at it, I whipped up a soft as velvet sweater for Maura....using SweaterKits Bamboo Velvet.

Details are always important...like this detail:

And the pretty picot trim on the cuff....

She's a bit tiny to fit in the sweater just yet, but it won't take long till she grows enough. Just in the few days that we were there, she was growing and changing.

Here is one of my favorite photos of her:

And just for the record, this is a photo of her father at the same age:

Yep, Maura looks like her daddy, except she's prettier. That comes from her mommy.

I didn't get much knitting done on this trip, but I did manage one special creation...

Close friends know I don't cook often. But when I do, I usually manage to pull off something good. Lynn and I went to Whole Foods in Denver to pull together a meal. Lynn made the pork roast, which was outstanding, and I made these roasted veggies. Don't they look good enough to eat? Trust me; they were.

Stay tuned for the next episode, which will feature the completed Zig Bag!

Edited to add: Holy cow. I just realized that Typepad is not sending me email notification of all my comments. I apologize for not responding to most of you who commented on the last entry. Thank you; I always appreciate comments....as does every blogger. Does anyone know why Typepad has changed this? Grr!

WHAT’S A KNITTER TO DO?

There is so much activity happening in my hands! I wish my hands could keep up with my mind, because the list of  wanna-do’s grows way faster than the list of finished objects. All I can do though, is work one stitch after another and see where it goes. I do have several lists going to keep me semi-organized. One is the To Do Between Now and the End of the Year list, and the other is the To Do Starting January 1^st list.

 

Let’s take stock:

 

I finished another Mable Sweater by Heritage Knits for Abby this time. She is a bit disappointed that it isn’t pink, so I’ve promised her a pink button. Next sweater I knit for her, I will let her pick out the yarn herself.

 

(This is Paige's sweater. Abby's is identical, just larger, except it has a pink button at the top.)

I’m hard at work on the Maxi Zig Bag, another delightful LynnH pattern. This project has made me realize that I have crossed the line into being a color knitter. By that I mean that I am making the colors happen, instead of letting the yarn do all the work. This bag is assisted by the lovely color changes of the Noro Kureyon, mixed with the solids, but I am making the pattern happen. And I love it. I’m just about ready to start the strap, so this will be a finished object very soon. 

 

I’m also plugging away on the Origami Pullover. This is a Frog Tree Alpaca pattern which uses a very clever way of seaming two rectangular pieces into the most lusciously drapey sweater imaginable. However, the largest rectangle is taller than I am, so you can imagine that K1P1 ribbing gets a bit tiresome. Still, it’s a perfect mindless knitting project for the many moments when I have no mind, and the end result is worth it.

I had a great time at Stitches Midwest this year.  A combination of great roomies and great classes made for great fun. The frosting on the cake was getting to spend some time with favorite long-time blogger friends, Monica and Lynnette of PassionKnit.

 

Monica sent me one of her creations.

She describes this by saying that she has been practicing her sewing by working on these bags. If this her practice piece, I can only wonder what she will accomplish when she is done practicing. As best I can tell, this is perfect. And I love it.

 

High on my To DO list RIGHT NOW is new baby knitting and weaving. Because….there is a new baby. I am delighted to announce the birth of my third granddaughter, Maura Catherine.

 

Yep, I feel pretty lucky. The only thing that really matters on my To Do lists...current and future....is to love and cherish my family. Check, check, and check some more.

IF BLANKETS COULD TALK

I joke sometimes that my gauge swatch for a sweater is the entire sweater, and when I’m done then I will know how I really need to adjust the gauge. (Sometimes, I’m not joking.) My woven baby blanket project is shaping up to be just such a joke.

 

I finished seaming the two pieces together today, and by this point I have learned a great deal more about weaving. And about finishing. And about me.

 

One thing I’ve learned about myself is that I don’t learn enough from past mistakes. I practice the fine art of denial to polished perfection. Too bad I don’t apply that much perfection to my projects.

 

Case in point: I know that when I knit anything that requires matching two (or more) pieces, it is more important to count rows than it is to measure a total piece. It is far easier to fudge the slight inconsistentcies of tension than it is to fudge a major inconsistency of measurement. You can guess how I know this.

 

So when I wove the second piece of fabric for the blanket, why on earth did I rely on a guide tape that used measurement, instead of counting each pick….each pass of the weft yarn? The result is that my plaid stripes did not match up perfectly. The result is that when I seamed the pieces, I do not have a perfectly invisible seam. The result is that I have gaps and puckers where I tried to fudge the inconsistencies.

 

Another major booboo is that I used two different yarns in this project….LynnH Cushy Colorsport, and Debbie Bliss Prima. I measured the wraps per inch of each of them. They were not equivalent. But the colors were perfect matches, and I wanted them to be right, so I just went ahead as if they were. I wanted to believe they were close enough that it wouldn’t matter. They weren't.

 

The result is that the places in the plaid where the Colorsport is both warp and weft are just slightly larger than all the other parts of the plaid. So various squares kind of pouf out. And my otherwise lovely selvedge edges wave in and wave out.

 

As I describe all this, it sounds awful. I am not ready to give up quite yet. I purchased an edge trim today, and I’m hoping it will transform the blankie just enough. What do you think? (I can't get the colors to show up right in the monitor. What looks yellow in the blanket is really green.)

 

Here’s what I think. I think I’m going to weave another blanket and not make the same stupid mistakes. I think this blanket is going to stay here with me, and it will be a very nice nap blanket for Abby and Paige. But it will not likely be a new baby gift for any new baby on the horizon.

 

That’s what I think.

MAYBE BABY

I’m ready to bind off another basketweave baby blanket. This is LynnH’s Cushy Blankie pattern, but I’m calling this particular one a Maybe Baby Blanket. That’s because maybe it is for this baby, or maybe it is for that baby, or maybe it’s for a baby that doesn’t even exist yet.

 

In the meantime, I’m making nice progress on a woven baby blanket that is living up to the promise of the lovely hand-dyed Colorjoy Colorsport that sets off the two solid bamboo blends so nicely. I gave up trying to figure out how to do this as a double-weave project, so I will have to do some seaming at the end. Oh well. I’ll get over it.

 

Like many knitters before me, I am adding yet another technique to my fiber creation repertoire. How many years have I been talking about quilting? Don’t answer that. I just took a very basic quilt intro class session, and I have these 9-patch blocks to show for it:

 

I have also learned that I have a 2 ½ hour attention span when it comes to classes of any sort. Knitting, weaving, quilting, underwater basketmaking, what-have-you…..3 hours is 30 minutes too long. My brain and my bottom both go on strike and I need to be done.

 

This could be a problem in a few weeks at Stitches Midwest, where I am scheduled for 15 hours of classes, all done in 3 hour blocks. Please teachers…..take breaks!!

 

Is it my imagination, or did this summer blitz by even faster than usual? Once I retired from the school calendar, and summer vacation could really last till the autumnal equinox, I expected to have that wonderful endless summer feeling again. Instead, I’m feeling that rush of fall productivity that comes with the back-to-school crowd. I can’t say I’m minding it. This fall brings the trip to Stitches, and in October sometime, it brings a new grandchild.

 

In the meantime, my two little grand-girls have celebrated birthdays. Abby is 3!!!

 

And Paige is 1.

 

And the new baby-to-come is also a Maybe Baby. Maybe it will be a girl. Maybe it will be a boy. For sure it will be welcomed with love.

THE LETTER F

It is not unusual, as I make the rounds of other knitting blogs, to see various posts that all revolve around the theme of apologizing for not keeping up the posting. Each time I read that, I think…no, you do not need to apologize for how you spend your time. You do not owe any blog posts to anyone.

So this is not an apology. However, I am a bit chagrined to see how much time I do let slide inbetween posts. It is not because I do not care about my blog; I truly do. It is not because I want to lose readers; I truly don’t. It is not because I have lost interest in knitting; I haven’t. It is not because I am so wrapped up in the weaving, there is no time left for anything else; I’m not and there is.

I think that just leaves lazy. Mea culpa. Now let’s move on.

First, a happy family note. My daughter has spent the last three…or is it four….years of her life acquiring a masters degree and a teaching certificate. She willl be turned loose this fall on a group of high school freshmen in a litte town not too far from Nashville, Tennessee, and they won’t know what hit them. She knows how to make biology interesting. Fascinating, in fact. She knows how to talk to kids. She knows how to teach. Those kids are so lucky; of course they won’t realize it for a while yet. But they are.

Now on to the knitting portion of this production. Do I have any finished objects to show? Hmm…I don’t think I ever posted the completed ZigZag socks.

I’ve also completed blocks 9 and 10 for an afghan. Just two more to go, as soon as Rae gets them published (hint hint nudge nudge).

I’m nearing completion on a beaded scarf for my darling daughter, made with Panda Silk.

About a third of the way on another Colorjoy basketweave blanket.

And making progress on a toddler sweater. (After all, three and one cannot be considered babies anymore.)

And here is what is making me a crazy person lately. I restarted the East Meets West Jacket with a worsted weight solid (Kraemer Summit Hill). I make mistakes regularly. I unknit carefully, and once I had to tear out to my lifeline, which I am now putting in every eight rows. I ask for help frequently (thanks Sarah and LuAnn!). This will be a lengthy project. I often think I am only sticking with it because I have nothing else demanding my attention right now. And because it’s a really neat sweater. And because I’m stubborn.

But if I come back in a few weeks or a few months and say I’ve abandoned it…..or if you never hear me mention it again…..don’t say it comes as any surprise.

ON THE LOOM
Nothing. All my looms are naked, although that is strictly temporary. I completed a simple plain weave scarf out of Regia Bamboo. It is very gratifying that I can quickly weave a gift-worthy scarf. This one went to a friend celebrating her 65th birthday. She said no presents, but I ignored that dictum!

I agree....woven bamboo scarves and baseball caps don't actually complement each other all that well. But the birthday party was at a Tigers baseball game, at Comerica Park in Detroit. Michigan is devastated with all the auto industry job layoffs, and Detroit is particularly hard-hit. But last Friday night the downtown ballpark area was feeling like a happy and healthy place to be. As a special bonus for Carole's birthday, the Tigers won! Yay us!

Hope everyone is having a summer filled with fireworks and farmers market food and fun with friends. I wish the mosquitoes didn't think of me as such a  good friend. Or good food. I'm off to Ann Arbor for the rest of the day to play with certain little girls.

Woven Scarf
Regia Bamboo yarn
Sett at 12epi

MUD

Help! I’m caught up in quicksand; I am muddling my way through several complicated procedures, in both knitting and weaving, and my arms and legs and brain are operating in slow motion. It’s also possible (probable) that I have made several relatively simple procedures far more complicated than they need to be.

Let me explain.

Swatching for the East Meets West Jacket from Knit One Below has left me convinced that I have to start from scratch with entirely different yarn. My first swatch was shaping up to be so lovely, I scrapped it and cast on for a sleeve. Might as well get some real mileage out of a swatch, right?

But the so-called sleeve quickly showed me that even though I was spot-on gauge, it was knitting up into a loosey-goosey fabric. Far too flimsy to hold any shape later on.

It was suggested that I swatch to get a comfortable fabric with just the solid color yarn (Silky Wool) and adjust my numbers from there. This is all clear as mud, right? But I narrowed my focus into doing exactly that, because I sort of understood how that would work. The new swatch quickly showed me that I would have to knit this sweater on a size 3 needle at best to get a fabric that might work out okay.

Not doing that.

Back to the drawing board and starting over with at least one different yarn….possibly swapping out both. Depends on what I can find both color and weight-wise to please my senses. Right now my senses are perceiving a muddy brown, and that doesn’t please me at all.

ON TO THE WEAVING

I am fresh from my first adventure in floor loom weaving. I have a set of successfully-completed napkins….

and I am ready to tackle a baby blanket. Maybe. I want to warp the loom for double-weave, so I can make one whole blankie instead of having to weave two pieces and seam them. Have I ever mentioned how much I detest seaming?

I am being a good weaver and I am warping the loom right now with a small sample to make sure I understand the principles of double-weave before I commit to using this beautiful yarn:

(LynnH Colorsport and Debbie Bliss Prima)

I would like to be one of those bloggers who explains my thinking process SO clearly and effectively that weavers far and wide would turn to me for advice.

Not gonna happen.

This next paragraph or two will make no sense at all unless you are a weaver. Even then, it’s questionable. Feel free to skim. I have a 12 dent reed. My yarn requires a sett of 6 epi. Normally I would sley one thread every other dent to get that sett. But it’s doubleweave (two layers, joined on one side, so the fabric opens up to twice its width when it comes off the loom. Clever, right?) so I should sley two threads per dent. I warped the yarn accordingly.

Then I decided that was incorrect. That would be equivalent to a sett of 24 epi. I should sley two threads every other dent. No, I should sley one thread per dent….half would be on the top layer; half on the bottom, giving each layer a sett of 6 epi.

Layers of pure mud, I’m telling you.

I am in the middle of threading the heddles right now. I striped my yarn as if it were a single layer; it’s not going to create the plaid effect I want. I have no idea what it’s going to look like. I’m just muddling through now, curious to see what I will end up with. The most important information is whether I got the sett right, and whether it works to create a pleasing fabric. (Soft, drapey, perfect for a wee babe.) If I get that part right, I’ll seek out some expert help before I warp for the real thing.

This is not intuitive for me. I need a clear set of directions to follow. First, do this. Then do that. Precise numbers. Clear diagram. I am trying to make up my own draft pattern for this blanket, and it should be simple. It should be clear.

Clear as mud.