Knot Knecessarily Known Knitting

Earlier this month, I quickly knocked out a hideous crocheted dumpster fire ornament. South Cobb Arts Alliance hosts a Christmas House arts and crafts show each December. With it, they also have a tea room and silent auction. I believe Friends of the Mable House are also involved. Truth be told, I'm not sure which parts are executed by and for which organization. This group of events is a major fundraiser. The Mable House Arts Complex has a historic home, the art center with workshop and gallery space, and a concert venue. Throughout the year there are opportunities to gain skills in various arts, view and purchase art, attend concerts and live theater, and attend historic re-enactment. Sometimes the arts complex is just a good place for my local community to gather, such as for the farmers' market or food truck night. I made the hideous dumpster fire ornament for the silent auction. I figured someone would connect to it. For many people, 2016 has not been a favorite year....

If you've been reading this blog for awhile, you know I have passions beyond fiber arts. I have a lifelong passion for giant pandas. I'm fortunate to live in the very best city in the whole United States when it comes to pandas. When I moved here more than twenty years ago (yes, before the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games), there were zero pandas in Atlanta. At that time, the only panda in the United States was the geriatric Hsing-Hsing at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. Lun Lun and Yang Yang arrived here in Atlanta in the fall of 1999. I have been a fan ever since. For me, there are few places in the world better than the panda exhibit at ZooAtlanta. Today, I just wanted to blog a happy shout out to ZooAtlanta and Chendgu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. When I think of the International Space Station, I think of the collaboration between the United States and Russia. When I think of ZooAtlanta's giant panda program, I think of the collaboration between the Uni...

When making garments that fit the human form, we sometimes talk about "ease." Ease is a measure of how much extra fabric is in a garment. For example, if a bust measurement is 36 inches, then a sweater that is exactly 36 inches around has no ease. If the sweater is 38 inches, it has 2 inches of positive ease at the bust. If the sweater is 35 inches, is has one inch of negative ease. A big, boxy, oversized sweater might have 6 or 8 inches of positive ease. This is important when you are making garments that both fit and flatter. And ease behaves differently if the fabric is woven than if it is knitted. Woven fabrics generally don't stretch if they have been cut with the grain. (Cutting on the bias is a whole different story.) Knit fabrics are different. They stretch. They move. They might even grow. This also means knit fabrics can match our shape. If the shape you have underneath is not one you want to display to the world, then this is maybe a bug rather than a featu...

The end of October means time for SAFF! This year, I taught Thursday through Saturday. That meant I had Sunday free to crawl the market. I checked out the fleece sale on Friday before I left for dinner. I knew I wanted some locks for lockspinning, corespinning, and just general art yarn mischief. The best fleeces get picked out early; and there are unusually fewer longwool fleeces from the start. Fleeces were arranged in the barn by type of animal (goat, alpaca, and sheep) and then in categories. Wool categories included fine, medium, long, and primitive. There was also a table in the corner for "other." These are fleeces that don't fit well into the established categories. Some people feel very strongly that shepherds should not mix up sheep genes willy-nilly. Others feel this type of cross-breeding experimentation is just more of what humans have been doing for millennia. I don't have a strong opinion. I wouldn't care if you crossed a balrog with a unicorn. If...

I haven't done much knitting in the last month. I do have a project on the needles, but it isn't a design for publication. Instead, I've devoted a fair amount of attention to spinning. Last week was Spinzilla . The Whole Nine Yarns did not field a team this year. I joined the Kromski team. I don't have a Kromski wheel, but Kromski North America is based in Georgia. They have been wonderful, gracious corporate sponsors of Georgia FiberFest for the past two years. And you'll recall I came back from the festival this year with a big pile of Polish merino in the Pavonia Peacock limited edition colorway. My goal was to spin all that fiber into a 2-ply lace weight yarn. I am envisioning a circular shawl in reversible lace. Remember, reversible lace takes twice as many stitches, therefore twice as much yarn. Magic always comes with a price. Well, by the first day I could tell that I wasn't going to get to the plying stage. By about Wednesday, I could tell I wasn...

Whew! I've just come off the whirlwind that is Dragon*Con followed by Georgia FiberFest! As usual, a big thank you goes out to Kromski North America for their corporate sponsorship of the event. Kromski showed off their beautiful wheels and looms this year. They now have a wonderful jumbo flyer option for the Fantasia, if you like to spin art yarns. And they had a Fantasia wheel painted to resemble Polish pottery. In the photograph above, the blue fiber at top is the special edition Pavonia Peacock color. When Kromski gave out fiber last year at the vendor and teacher reception, it was fairly easy to get people to part with it. Not this year! Next year I must remember to be sure to sit at a table with non-spinners. The drop spindle was also included in the vendor and teacher gift bags. No excuse not to learn how to spin. And the gift bags also had assorted packets of Eucalan wool wash. I got the jasmine Wrapture "flavor." Attendees and teachers also receive good...

Last weekend I attended my twenty-second consecutive Dragon*Con. I've written about Dragon*Con before. Cuddly Hubby and I refer to it as the best weekend of the year, even better than Christmas. Over the years we have attended a variety of panels and activities. With 40 programming tracks, this is the sort of show where you could wear out a time turner. It isn't uncommon to decide to do something this year and to skip it next year in favor of something else we had to skip this year. But this year I did something I had never done before — I donated blood. The Cuddly Hubby donates blood every year, usually on Thursday. Our tradition is to go pick up our badges on Thursday afternoon. Then Cuddly Hubby spends an hour or so donating blood. Then we go eat a good dinner at Max Lager's brew pub. But this year, Cuddly Hubby had doctors' appointments the week before the convention. Some of his test results weren't back. He wasn't able to donate. It helps to know tha...

Sometimes part of the fun of writing a knitting pattern is coming up with unique instructions. For awhile, I've wanted to write a pattern that ends with, "Tie yarn securely to the roof of your car. Drive around for a couple weeks. Untie. Attach yarn 'feathers' to project." Unfortunately, I have discovered this works only for very specific yarns. Those of you who have seen my car in person may know that I typically have a little streamer "poof" coming off the radio antenna. This is made from several strands of Filatura Di Crosa Timo in color 13. Sadly, this yarn has been discontinued. I only change out the streamer about once a year, so I figure my one skein (60 meters) should last the life of the car. I purchased this particular yarn because I was looking for a ribbon yarn in a colorway that would look good with my very red little car. What I did not realize was how the yarn would change when tied to the roof. The ends start out plain.  But aft...

In early summer I was knitting projects quickly. It seem that knitting is much faster than pattern-writing, photography, videography, and all the other elements that go into self-publishing a pattern. For the Mach Wave cowl, I decided to use some stash yarn. I had purchased Wool2dye4 Tweed Worsted in a "learn to dye with Kool-Aid" kit at The Whole Nine Yarns. This yarn has three plies, two of which are wool and the third is superwash wool. The third ply takes dye differently from the other two, creating the tweedy effect. I did quite a bit of outdoor dyeing back in June. That first burst of scorching summer weather triggered the impulse to execute the dye projects that had languished through the cooler months. Although I have a big pile of Kool-Aid packets in my dyestuff stash, for this project I used Jaquard acid dyes. Before applying the dye, I decided I wanted the skein to become a center-out möbius. I divided the yarn into 11 lengths, placing a pin at each division. (...

On the Alacrity mitts, I knit myself into a spot a didn't expect. I cast-on. I worked in the round. I introduced the thumb gusset using a bridge. I decreased away most of the thumb gusset. And then I got to the bottom of the gusset and realized I needed to work a reversible 5 into 1 decrease to keep everything in pattern. Yes, this is a reversible centered quadruple decrease. Park the five knits on one needle and the five purls on another needle. Use a crochet hook to enter the obverse stitches in order 3-2-4-1-5. Yes, you will need to park stitch #1 and remove stitches from the needle as you work. Using the hook, pull a stitch up through the whole stack. Place the stitch on the right needle. Turn the work. Repeat on the reverse. Turn the work back. Not fast, but it can be done.

As I continue to explore reversible lace, there are more and more techniques to develop. I've already posted how to work left-leaning and right-leaning decreases. The obvious corollary is how to work double decreases. I need to explain there are different types of reversibility. For example, if the obverse is this: /O/O The reverse could be this: O\O\ or this: /O/O The first example is mirrored reversibility, but the second example is identical reversibility. In a centered double-decrease, there are also two possible configurations. The stitches start out on the needle as left - center - right. The final stacks could be either: center                    center right           or         left  left                 ...

I gave the direction to use a bridge to create a thumb gusset. As this is an unusual maneuver, I thought I should explain. In a top-down mitt, you cast-on in the round and work a tube. At some point, you may want to create a thumb gusset without breaking the yarn. You can do that by casting on more stitches, joining them back to the main tube, then continuing in the round. For reversible lace, I use a waste yarn tab to mimic the tubular cast-on and bind-off I've used elsewhere in the project. Knit across the tab, turn, yarn over and slip one purlwise with yarn in front for the first pair, then work alternating knit 1 in the running thread, slip 1 purlwise with yarn in front across the tab. After that, turn and work 1×1 ribbing across the tab. Now that the tab is established, join to the body of the mitt using a crochet hook to work the last knit-purl pair on the body a second time. This produces a secure join that won't gap. At that point, I can return to working...

I've already stated that for reversible lace, I like the tubular Italian cast-on. I have discovered, however, that it is not the easiest cast-on to work in the round. It is very easy to introduce an unintentional twist! Could there be an easier way? This alternative is not as fast and requires waste yarn. However, I think it is easier to work. And it creates the same tubular structure as Italian cast-on. Cast-on auxiliary yarn using whatever cast-on you like and casting on one stitch for each knit-purl pair you want for your project. In other words, cast on half as many stitches as you intend to have. Work several rows back and forth to create the auxiliary yarn tab. You can work in garter or stockinette, as you prefer. Since the tab is what keeps the work from twisting, please don't skimp on it. I would work at least five rows, maybe more. I like to work one row of a separate thin and slippery waste yarn. That way I can reuse the auxiliary yarn tab in another project ...

Time for more reversible lace! The Whole Nine Yarns hosts an annual Christmas in July event. This year's event will be this Sunday, 24 July 2016, starting at noon. My contribution this year is a reversible lace pattern I've named Alacrity. These are fingerless mitts worked from the top down. If you know how to work two tubes simultaneously, you can work these until you run out of yarn. This is a yummy luxury yarn you won't want to waste — The Fibre Company Road to China Light, containing alpaca, silk, camel, and cashmere. I had less than a yard leftover. This pattern will also help you work your way up the reversible lace learning curve. It uses double increases and centered double decreases. The mitts are identical, so there aren't any weird directions about making a left-hand versus making a right-hand. And they are reversible, which means you can even turn them inside-out! The freebie version of the pattern is somewhat abbreviated. I'll post the full v...

A few months ago, a member of Atlanta Knitting Guild arrived at a meeting with a challenge. She was making a blanket in pieces and was ready to seam it together. She had used slipped-stitch selvedges and was discovering that mattress stitch did not appear to be a pleasing solution. There was quite a bit of discussion amongst members but no sure-fire solution. I let this question mull in my mind for awhile. Then I remembered a trick I had seen Gayle Roehm use in her "Sssinuous" scarf pattern , Knitter's Magazine #117, Winter 2014 . As you might guess from the name, Gayle's scarf twists around and back on itself. Because it is a scarf, a tidy slipped-stitch edge is appealing. After all, most of the selvedge is visible in the finished accessory. But there are places where the scarf needs to be seamed together. And the scarf will be seen on both sides, so reversibility is highly desirable. I am pleased to report that Gayle has thought this problem through and solved it...

As you know, sometimes I'm working on a project that suits a vision, and sometimes I'm just experimenting to see what happens. ("Experiment" — isn't that just a grown-up word for "play?") Four ounces of Corriedale recently hit my fiber stash. This was from A Good Yarn in Sarasota, Florida . I had been a winner in last year's Spinzilla , but somehow we had never quite coordinated getting the prize into my mailbox. No worries, as it arrived just in time for the summer dyeing season. Yes, while the rest of Atlanta melts in the heat, I figure I should make use of this free and excess heat energy. I divided the fiber into thirds. Using Jaquard acid dyes, I dyed one chunk with 602 bright yellow, the second chunk with 608 pink, and the third chunk with 624 turquoise. I did the sun tea version of dyeing, but I should have used larger jars. I had trouble with the fiber not dyeing evenly. I got the yellow saturated in only one or two tries, but the pin...

Today is the first day of Tour de Fleece 2016. While I am not formally participating in it, I do have my fingers in some spinning projects right now. To kick off the occasion, I decide to post this video from July of 2014. These are Leicester longwool locks from Rivendell Farm in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania. These raw locks came from a ram. As you can see, Brûlée likes the male smell. He rolls around in the locks so as to get the smell on himself. I've seen this scent anointing behavior in other animals, such as my favorite pandas at ZooAtlanta. As a spinner, knitter, crocheter, and weaver, haven't we all had a moment when we wanted to just roll in the stash?

I'm working on several projects right now. I've finished my Christmas in July project for The Whole Nine Yarns (more about that next month). I need to come up with a pattern for Georgia FiberFest . Several nights ago I woke up about 3 AM and could not get back to sleep for nearly two hours! I had an idea. After I got up late that morning, I cast on a möbius. I was knitting along fairly well. Then I decided to swatch from the other end in 1×1 ribbing. When you are working with a long-print yarn, the number of stitches in a row or round matters. Behold! On a round of 450 stitches, the long print in Cascade Tangier is not long enough. It produces one-row stripes. However, on a much shorter pitch of 40 stitches back and forth, the result is a nice gradient. In fact, for a gradient back and forth, I wouldn't want to work on much more than 40 stitches. Now that I think of it, wouldn't it be wonderful if yarn manufacturers included this information on long-pr...

I'm having a couple of days where my tools and I are just not getting along. I've been working on a fine-gauge reversible lace scarf. It is a lovely thing, indeed; all 75,000 stitches, 60 hours, and 97 repeats of 5 multiples of pattern. I finished it and blocked it, using the beautiful bronze Lacis blocking wires I wrote about previously . I used my typical method for blocking: thread blocking wires through the edges, pin onto mat, spray with water, ignore overnight. In less than 24 hours, the bronze oxidized and left blue-green stains on the edges of the ivory-colored scarf. Sigh. Fortunately, I was able to dig up some stain-removal information (thank you, Internet). The key was lemon juice and salt. I purchased half a dozen lemons at the grocery store. Once I squeezed them, I was armed with a cup of fresh juice. I laid the scarf in a glass baking dish, spooned lemon juice along the stained edge, and then salted. It worked! It took multiple iterations, as the whole sc...

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, the only class I took at STITCHES South 2016 was "Reversible Entrelac" with Gwen Bortner. It was an advanced class and on Sunday morning. I was a little concerned the class might not make, but we had exactly four people. Whew! Some of you may be wondering why I would take this class. After all, I've already posted the Sir Thomas scarf , which is a reversible entrelac project. But Gwen's approach is different from Jay Petersen's. Always good to survey the range of technique. You'll recall in entrelac you are joining little blocks as you go. These blocks join in two places. When you start a new block, you work up stitches off the side of a block in the previous tier. That is one place to think about reversibility. As you work back and forth on the new block, you also join one selvedge edge to live stitches from a block in the previous tier. That's the second place to think about reversibility. You'll recall f...

At the beginning of April I drove up to Nashville for STITCHES South 2016. First off, the Tennessee Department of Transportation does not seem to realize that tourism is an important component of their state economy. A drive that should have taken just under four hours took more than six! Due to construction, traffic was unbelievable around Chattanooga. I expect that kind of slow crawl in a snow storm but not on a pretty spring Saturday. More construction on I-24 heading over the mountains added another hour. By the time I got to the STITCHES South market, I needed to walk around and just unwind as I breathed in the calming yarn fumes. I did just a little shopping on Saturday but more on Sunday right before I left. I haven't read Knit My Skirt yet. Like many people, I was a little uncertain about the book. Skirts? As it turned out, a friend gave me a lovely embroidered Indian blouse and I am having a poor time finding a skirt that matches. I bought the coral-colored Claudia...

As I explore and develop reversible lace, I keep adding new techniques. I usually start with, "Ok, I like this technique on one-sided fabric. How do I do it reversibly?" One of the increases I like is the yarn-over version of make 1. There are at least three different increase methods I know of that go by the name "make 1." One technique involves co-opting the running thread. The second method (used by Elizabeth Zimmermann) is casting on a backward loop. The third method is throwing a yarn over or reverse yarn over and then twisting it closed on the next row or round. Since it is twisted, this means there is a left-leaning and a right-leaning version. Working reversibly, here is the version that leans left on the obverse and right on the reverse. And here is the version that leans to the right on the obverse and the left on the reverse. Of course, there are other ways to increase. And I admit these are fairly fiddly. As with so many things in knitting, th...

I can crochet. I don't always remember I can do this. I learned to crochet when I was about nine or ten years old. I can remember working on crochet in school when I was in fourth or fifth grade. Both of my grandmothers as well as my great grandmother were crocheters. And when I was in college, I used to crochet snowflakes. That was a great way to learn the basic stitches, because snowflakes usually incorporate a variety of stitch heights to create their patterns. I would hang the snowflakes against the large sliding glass windows of my dorm room. As we know, Ravelry is the Internet Wonderland of knit and crochet. On the Woolly Thoughts board was a thread titled " Amish Puzzle Ball ." What's that? For an adult, the puzzle ball isn't that difficult. But for a child, it would be an interesting object for learning three dimensions (width, length, height or for pilots, pitch, roll, and yaw). I followed links over to this website , where I learned what a puzzle ball ...