The Knitting Fiend

Gaudy Cones

I saw the variegated yarn at Midwest Discount Knitting and exclaimed “Perfect for baby and kid’s stuff!”

The variegated yarn is 2/24 weight; that means two strands knit together is equivalent to a light fingering weight yarn. Perfect for baby clothes. And that’s what I intended it for. Baby things.

But, yes, you heard correctly two strands. Mary advised knitting two variegated strands together would look muddy: “Get a solid color yarn to knit along with it. ” We put our heads together, and decided that, since we didn’t know whether the baby I plan to knit for is a boy or a girl, red, yellow or green would do. I already had a nearly full cone of bright yellow 2/24 acrylic at home, but, I thought red would be a nice carry along too and bought a cone of that color. (My favorite color, by the way.)

There you see the red, yellow and multi-color yarn all posing together. Sunglasses, Quick!

Ok. Now, I may be an adult, but why pretend? I have to admit it; I like gaudy colors. Heck, I like garish colors. And forget that darn baby, I like them for me. Still, these colors are more appropriate for kids and babies, right?

I threaded up my Brother 910, and knit mini-swatches.

Yellow and multi

Red and multi

One look and I thought to myself: “Wow, I like that. I really like that. For me, me me!”

I know those of you with refined taste are rolling your eyes and muttering “Good gracious! A middle aged woman in those colors?”

But things get worse.

You’d think only one adult on the planet could want me to wear brights like this. Not true. When I showed the swatches to Jim, sounding optimistic, he said: “You know…….. uhmmm….. Tube tops have just got to come back in fashion. Why don’t you knit yourself a tube top?”

So, I gave him “the look”. You know the look I mean. The look 45 year old wives give husbands who suggest they go out in public wearing a tube top.

Catching that look, Jim, an experienced and adroit husband, coughed and added, “Or … that would make a great table runner to protect the cedar chest in the room I just painted yellow for you!”

I guess I’ll need to decide: Baby poncho? Table runner? Husband pleasing tube top? I’ll do laundry while I ponder.

Coned Yarn
Midwest Discount Yarns
5723 W. Irving Park Rd.,
Chicago.

I wanted some coned yarn to use on my knitting machine; I couldn’t find what I wanted on line, or nearby. So, my friend Mary suggested I visit Midwest Discount Yarns, near her house on the North Side of Chicago. I motored east.

Why have I never been there before?!

Cones on shelves, cones in bins, in big cardboard boxes. Inexpensive, expensive, acrylic, cotton, wool, silk. Whatever. Most of it is mill ends, so it’s the type of yarn you see in garments in stores. And there is a humongo-nourmous variety!

Admittedly there are only one or two of each specific type of yarn, and the yarn display is sort of semi-organized. The huge cardboard boxes in the back room are labeled “Cotton” , “2/24″ , “Wool” etc. But, other than that, you’ll find a range of things in each container. Shelves are organized similarly.

Mary and I dug through boxes. You should have heard our “oohs and aahhs”!

We both loved a teal and white cotton slub cone. “Not for now, I said”. I concentrated and stayed focused on my to current planned project: A raglan cardigan for Jim and variegated yarn suitable for baby things. I found both! I spent $30 and got enough to knit Jim a 100% wool sweater in olive green and to make several baby things. (I’ll take pictures and post them after I swatch.)

Hanks.

My yarn bag was pretty big.

Mary’s was even bigger. She got a variegated acrylic yarn, some skeins of Red Heart, the gorgeous teal cotton slub and something else. I think a wool. I didn’t peak over to see what she spent, but I’m sure it will all go to a good cause.

I took some pictures of the store so you can see 2% of what they have. Oh… did I mention they have hand knitting stuff too? Skeins on shelves, tables, bins and, as you can see, walls.

Let me tell you, I’ll be back.

Close up.

I have fitting issues with drop sleeves.

On the positive side: drop sleeves are easy to knit, and they are a snap for a beginning designer to design.

Design-wise, you don’t need to know many details about the wearer’s size. Not their shoulder width and if you plan for fold back cuffs, you can rely on a table of standard measurements for most people’s arm lengths.

Knitting-wise, you don’t need to shape the sleeve cap or armhole. This is makes a drop sleeve sweater a good ‘commuter knitting’ project. You can ride in car or on a train, knit mindlessly and not worry about missing the precise shaping locations.

That said: I rarely knit drop sleeves for women. Let’s look at one of the negatives:

Just look at those folds at Colocha’s underarm! Those are always there with a drop sleeve sweater. They may be large folds or small folds, but they are there. “Why?” asks a reader (and asks herself “Why don’t I always notice them?”. (Don’t you like the way I can hear your questions? )

Well, click to compare these two schematics: drop sleeve , fitted sleeve.

The notice the shaping on the fitted sleeve takes some fabric out from the general shoulder-arm area and especially the armpit? (It does other nice things too, but we won’t get into that.) The folds are that extra fabric!

Ok. But we all know drop sleeves look good on most athletic college men and slender men in general; you never notice those folds. That’s because men, especially slender men, have broad shoulders in proportion to their chest size. If you were to compared the schematics for a drop sleeve and fitted sleeve sweater for a slender man, you’d notice the shaping only removes a little bit of fabric. In contrast, everyone notices that plump, busty, or curvy women generally find drop sleeve sweaters unflattering. One reason is the folds under the arm can be enormous. This happens because busty women usually have very small shoulders compared to their chest. All that extra fabric ends up under their arms.

Oh, so, you don’t notice these folds in patterns in your pattern books? Ever notice the models are prancing around with their arms flying in the air? Or over their heads? Guess why?

Anyway, here’s another secret about fashion models: They are never plump, rarely extremely busty, and they often have broad shoulders compared to other women. Translation: Models are very, very skinny. Betcha’ didn’t know that!

Oh, and about Colocha. She’s a doll. She’s built like a fashion model– large shoulders compared to her flat little chest. So, the folds under her arms aren’t very large.

I don’t have a bust, but I do have small shoulders. I’m leaning toward making my sideways knit cardigan with fitted shoulders. Or maybe raglan sleeves.