Yes, I’m knitting very slowly. What with deciding to start working out, getting a diet blog set up, and deciding to see if it is even possible to make money blogging. (A final report with dollar figures, program lists and rules one must follow will be provided sometime next week.)

Still it looks like my design idea for the scarf worked out. Here are the features of the ribbed entrelac:

• Reversible.
• “Entrelacs” bits looks tall and narrow (as opposed to garterlacs, which look squarish.)
• The fabric is flat (as opposed to bulgy in-and-outie look of stockinette entrelac.)
• A bit slower to work that garter stitch or stockinette at least for me.
• Thick and “plushy”, as you would expect for ribbing.

I think this scarf design is going to be popular with my family!

© lucia for The Knitting Fiend, 2007. | Permalink | 2 comments
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Dear Favorite Knitting Designers A and B,

      Enclosed please find four foofy fashion yarns. Knitters had been snapping them up for simple garter stitch scarves. Unfortunately, sales are sagging.

      Can you come up with a fun flirty pattern that uses all four yarns?

Sincerely,
Desperate Yarn Company

© lucia for The Knitting Fiend, 2006. | Permalink | 2 comments
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Table of contents for pie wedge shawl

1. Shawl Progress & Some “Theory”
2. I forgot to mention.. I finished my shawl….
3. Sarah Shawl Calculator

Sometimes last September, I actually finished my second pie wedge shawl. See?

Those who have good memories may remember this started as a Barbara Shawl– but without the trim. Then, as I knit, I thought, “I want perfect symmetry”. I blogged about creating a symmetric pie wedge shawl, then paused while I decided whether or not I really wanted a new shape.

Finally I did knit the symmetric shape; suffering from knitting ADD, I didn’t report further!

To knit the symmetric shawl, the first knit two wedges Barbara Shawl with may stitch/row gauge. (My Barbara Shawl was going to require 4 wedges.) These wedges are short row triangles worked by knitting 1 extra stitch every row. After knitting two triangles, I began a third; but this time, I worked 2 extra stitches every row. When I reach the center, I reverse shaping. (I’ll be posting the calculator soon. That will permit people to come up with their own, going for their target lengths.)

After knitting the whole thing, I added a picot edge.

You’ll notice this shawl is very wide compared to its back length. You’ll also notice it is more than a semi-circle. I’ve worn it to the opera twice and to one Chicago Shakespeare performance, and I’ve concluded I like the shape because when I sit, the back just reaches the seat yet I can drape the front over my legs. It also doesn’t ride up my neck funny, because the curved edge sort of “wraps around” nicely. So, I think it’s a success.

Still, I need to take a photo wearing this. You will see the front hangs lower than the back, which is fine with me– but as with all garments, other people may like other shapes. So, my next shawl shape will be be similar but slightly different one for my niece. For her shawl, I’ll work each wedge with short rows — but varying 2 stitches per wedge right from the start. It will also be sort of wide compared to the depth– but not quite as wide.

(Oh, and for those wondering, I’m also looking for a pretty hand dyed yarn in a blue/green color way.)

Anyway: The calculator for this shawl is coming soon. (If I don’t get ADD, it will be here by Friday.)

Oh, are any of you wondering why the photo of the shawl seems a bit cropped at the edges? Well, I had to put the step ladder on the coffee table to take the photo. I couldn’t get the camera any further away. (Well, I guess I could try putting the shawl on the stairs? )

© lucia for The Knitting Fiend, 2006. | Permalink | 2 comments
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On that dreadful Saturday, demonic knitters invaded my neighborhood; they took over my empty garage, set up tables and cooking equipment and began to concoct special brews.

One knitter, who goes by the innocent sounding name “Kathy”, (who seemed to have specialized knowledge about these activities) was photographed measuring out colored powders; she mixed these powders with boiling water, stirred and then placed brew in various plastic or glass containers.¹ Each was labeled with mysterious code words like “Vermillion” or “Teal”. The knitters referred to these concoctions as “dye”.

While “Kathy” mixed these brews, other knitters were instructed to “soak their yarn”. Each knitter filled a bucket with water and a bit of Dawn dishwashing detergent, then dropped hanks of yarn in the bucket. The buckets were left undisturbed for about half an hour. I set a timer to help our busy coven know when the half hour was up.

While the yarn soaked, another knitter named “Mickey” arrived, carrying all sorts of equipment: A microwave oven, two crock-pots, things called kniddy-knoddies and “the contraption”.

Mickey instructed KitKat, Doree and Betty to begin winding hand spun yarn on “the contraption”. They obediently set to work and began creating the world’s longest hank of yarn. As they worked, the three cast a spell by repeatedly in-canting this words: “Is this really going to work?” The incantation was always followed by loud laughs.

Suddenly, the alarm I had set went off. Knitters all jumped up from their seats and dashed over to their buckets of yarn. “Kathy” then demonstrated the next step with her yarn.

First, she lifted her yarn from the bucket and gently squeezed out the water. She then placed the yarn on a piece of Saran-Wrap, she picked up a squirt bottle full of vinegar and squirted the yarn thoroughly with vinegar. After this, she grabbed a bottle of dye and began to squirt the yarn. The photographic evidence indicates she picked green and yellow. (Note: this “Kathy” was also wearing green and yellow. Does green and yellow have special significance for this Kathy? I don’t know.)

Kathy instructed the knitters to “really saturate” the yarn with dye, and make sure all bits got colored. Many gently squeezed to better distribute the yarn through the fiber.

After the colors were squirted on the yarn, with more vinegar was applied. Here, you can see another knitter selected two colors of red. (Does this have demonic significance? I don’t know.)

Next, the yarn was rolled up in the saran wrap and placed in a microwave container; the container was placed in a microwave and cooked for 1 minute. It was then turned, and cooked another minute. Then, the yarn was permitted to cool to garage temperature.

Meanwhile, off to the side, other knitters were busy dyeing other batches of yarn. One rebellious knitter left white spots in her yarn. Then, she placed her yarn in a cauldron which they called a “crock-pot”. The cauldron was filled with water (and possibly vinegar. I was sent on several errands to get water, food, soap, gloves, masks and other items. So, I missed this key step.)

The crock-pot was turned on, and the contents simmered an amount of time that seemed to approach “forever”, but was, less than an hour. (I think I heard the words “until it reaches 190 F” and/or “all the dye is absorbed” bandied about.) In any case, at some point, the yarn was fished out of the cauldron and allowed to cool.

When the yarns were cooled, each hand was rinsed in a bucket of fresh room temperature water. This washed off excess dye. I overheard lots of laughing and gleeful chuckling. If I am not mistaken, the most common incantations were “Ohhh… Pretty!”, “Oooohhhhh, I like mine!”, and “Wow! Yours is even better!”

At that point, the major “work” seemed to be complete. The knitters all began to dash in and out of the house, grabbing food and beverage.

I, however, became immensely curious and asked Mickey to show us what had become of the world’s longest skein of yarn. Here, you can see Mickey had dyed in a red-white and blue. Some regions are solid; others are speckled. This will evidently become a self striping sock. (Recent reports suggest the sock is now being created and the self striping nature is revealing itself.)

The other knitters continued to dye yarns, and/or eat and laugh. Eventually, all the yarns were dyed, and knitters began to jump up and clean up. Microwaves and crock-pots went into cars. Tables were put away. Paper, plastic and other equipment vanished. Damp yarns were placed in gallon sized ziplock bags. The knitters vanished.

I was left with two beautiful skeins of yarn!

© lucia for The Knitting Fiend, 2006. | Permalink | 5 comments
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Arann Fayr Isle, “I’m so excited, Anny Blatt asked for an innovative Argyle sweater design!” Eddie Ottmacher, “Terrific! I love to play with colors when designing Argyles!”

Arann Fayr Isle: “Oh, but they said they want a neutral palette.” Eddie Ottmacher sighs, “Darn. That’s limiting.”

Both pause to think.

Suddenly, Eddie grabs a box of crayons labeled “neutral”, creates a quick sketch, then turns to show the sketch to Arann who giggles, claps and squeals,

“Wonderful! Black, white and gray are neutral. Camel is neutral. I think we’ve got it!”

© lucia for The Knitting Fiend, 2006. | Permalink | 2 comments
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Table of contents for Top Down Circular

1. Circular Yoke Sweater: Pattern Request.
2. Circular Yoke Sweater: Neck
3. Yoke-u-lator Sweater: Raise back neck
4. Progress on Yoke Sweater
5. The Yoke-u-lator Itself!

I’ve decided to give this sweater a name: The Yoke-u-lator Sweater. Clever, huh? Yeah, I could call it something like “The Circe” or “Caldera”, but what’s the point? What knitters remember about my patterns is they can run a program to get the pattern in their size. “Yoke-u-lator” says that.¹

Earliler this week, I cast on and knit the neck band; I’ve now raised the back neck. See the bit that hangs down? That’s the part that raises the back neck!

I know, that looks backwards. But when the rest of the yoke is added and the sweater is worn, you’ll see that part shifts up, and the back neck is raised compared to the front neck. When you knit a sweater with a nicely fitted “crew neck” or “turtleneck” type opening, raising the back neck prevents the front neck from riding up and feeling like it’s choking you.²

How do you “raise” the neck? It’s done by working some short rows over the stitches of the back neck. I’m only going to explain the general idea here: The yokeulator will provide more specific directions. The general idea of short rows is you work back and forth, but turn the work before you work all the stitches on the left needle tip.

In this case, what you are going to do is first place the stitches for the back neck on the circular needle you plan to use for stockinette. Leave those for the front neck on the ribbing needle. The yoke-u-lator w ill tell you how many are required for the back neck and front neck.

Next, with the “public” or “outside” of the garment facing, and knit across the “back neck stitches” to the point labeled with the number “1″ shown in the figure to the right. Notice there are stitches between the number 1 and the edge? (There were 3 on the right tip when I stopped knitting; there may be a different number for your sweater. The yoke-u-lator will calculate the number.)

Even though there are still stitches on the right needle tip, you need to turn the work so the purl side (or inside of the garment) is facing and purl row 2. However, to avoid a hole, you work a “wrap and turn”, details are provided in the footnotes.³

Next, you purl over to the number labeled “2″; wrap and turn.⁴

Next work row 3: This is fiddly! Examine the figure above;y ou will knit up to point 3 in the figure. Notice point 3 is further to the right than point 1? That’s important– you will leave 1 fewer stitch on the right needle tip each time you work an odd row. This means that the last stitch you work will have been wrapped when you worked the previous row. (There were 2 stitches on my left needle tip when I turned.) Then you wrap and turn.

I bet that sounds easy enough — but I left something out. While working over to the point labeled “3″ you will increase 4 stitches evenly over the stitches you actually knit! Those increases are indicated with the red dots in the figure above. You want to sprinkle the increases about evenly — but don’t fret too much about absolutely precision. (The increases prevent the neck from jutting out unattractively. )

Row 4: Purl until 2 stitches are left on the left needle tip. (Note: the last stitch you purl when working row 4 was wrapped when you worked row 2.)

Row 5 and up: Continue to repeat rows 3 and 4– each time leaving 1 stitch less when you turn– until you have wrapped the edge stitch on a purl row and also, increasing 4 stitches evenly when working odd numbered rows.

It’s actually easy to do– but harder to describe because you need to do two things at once on those pesky odd numbered rows! When you finish, the back neck is “raised.”

After the neck is raised, find two safety pins. Hang these between the front and back neck stitches so that later on you know where the shoulders are. (This will help you when you divide for the sleeves.) Pick up the front neck stitches on the circualr needle holding the back neck stitiches, organizing so you can begin knitting rounds without breaking the yarn.

From now on you will knit all stitches working around and around and around, occasionally increasing stitches to widen the work. I’ll describe in more detail in a future article!

2. Notice the conditions: Turtleneck or crewneck? Nicely fitted? (As opposed to wide neck– or off the shoulder.) Most my circular yoke sweaters have these type of necklines. The main reason to shape the back neck is to make the front neck drop down a bit so it doesn’r rise up and choke you. If the sweater is an off the shoulder design, or has a very wide neck opening, you can skip this step. The Yoke-u-lator is designed to actually fit the neck— not be off the shoulder.

3. To work a wrap and turn at the end of a knit row: The yarn is in back. [ Bring the yarn forward as to purl, slip the next stitch, take the yarn back as to knit. Now, turn as you would to start working another row. After turning, slip the first stitch.] (The stuff in the [ ] is the wrap and turn. The wrapped stitch is never knit– it’s slipped twice and the yarn ends up “wrapped” around it!) You are now ready to purl the next row.

4. To work a wrap and turn at the end of a purl row. The yarn is positioned in front. [ Slip the next stitch, bring the yarn back as to knit. Turn the work. Slip the stitch. Bring the yarn back as to knit.] (The stuff in the [] is the wrap and turn. ) You are now ready to knit.

© lucia for The Knitting Fiend, 2006. | Permalink | 4 comments
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We’ve all seen this. It happens nearly every time a knitter buys her first skein of self-striping sock yarn and knits two socks. The knitter thinks, “What fun! I can just cast on and have neat striped socks!”

She knits her first sock and thinks, “Lovely!”

As she begins to knit her second sock she notices her socks are going to be fraternal twins.

She may consult with a more experienced sock knitter who tells her that to create identical twins, she must cast on both socks at the same spot in the yarn color sequence. But that may not be enough. Sometimes, even if the knitter takes special pains, variations in the dyeing process or the knitter’s own gauge can add up and the socks stripes match near the cast on but end up fraternal as the knitter approaches the bind off.

Now, as it happens, Dorre and I both agree fraternal socks can be fun. But there are plenty of knitters who think otherwise. Let’s rea what Carole of Carole Knits thinks about mismatched socks she knit:

The crossed foot pose has nothing to do with me trying to distract you from the mismatched stripes. It’s just the way she was sitting. Yup, she always sits on the deck with her feet balanced over a pot of petunias. Really. I swear. And, while those mismatched stripes bug me, they don’t bug me nearly as much as they would if these were my socks. Just saying.

In all honesty, I think Carole’s socks are very cute. I would wear them. I rarely align my feet perfectly, and anyway, the feather and fan pattern also distracts the eye. So the slight mismatch is ok by me.

Still, even though I like Carole’s sock, I totally understand her feelings. Why, because when I see mismatched stripes across a neckline I knit, I just groan. That just bugs the heck out of me! The fact that they match below the split only makes this worse.

I shared this opinion with Doree; she said, “Doesn’t bug me one bit. Nope. Not one bit!”

Obviously, my sentiment is not universal.

Still, it bugs me enough that if I discovered this mismatch after knitting the placket, I’d rip it back and try to figure out if I could cast on at the same spot in the color sequence. Unfortunately, rumor has it the color pattern never actually repeats with some yarns. If it doesn’t repeat, then solving “the problem” would mean steeking. (Eeeek!) Which, involves cutting. (Eeeek!) Which, as many constantly tell me “is really not that hard.”

True enough. Still, to solve “this problem”, I might need to resort to technique that requires me to cut the neck slit after knitting! I’m not particularly enchanted with cutting my knititng, and I don’t like the fact that I can’t really try on the sweater to see if I really liked the neck until after I cut. Once cut, the option of unraveling is pretty well shot.

So why would work steeks when knitting variegated yarns whose advantage is– supposedly– that they make knitting beautiful self-patterning multicolored sweaters “easy and foolproof?”

I have an easier solution to this problem. I don’t use any self striping yarn to knit sweaters with this type of neck!³

© lucia for The Knitting Fiend, 2006. | Permalink | 6 comments
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