Knot Knecessarily Known Knitting

So far, 2014 has consisted for me mostly of trying to put 2013 to bed. The list of unfinished business has been long. I have been particularly troubled by a certain entrelac scarf. The very kind folks at Crystal Palace Yarns sent me four skeins of Mochi Plus last March with the specific purpose that they become a scarf similar to the lovely block I had knit for the TNNA Great Wall of Yarn. And according to my Ravelry projects page, I cast on 12 March and bound off 11 May. Not quite as fast as I would have liked, but nonetheless completed in the middle of STITCHES South, Unwind, and the disruption of my life that came from my Cuddly Hubby moving to Maryland. I made notes for writing the pattern. I shot some how-to videos. And on 16 June I even got Cuddly Hubby to take some pictures of me modeling the scarf at Point Lookout State Park, where the Potomac River empties into the Chesapeake Bay. And yet, somehow, this pattern just refused to finish. During my three-week trek to the Ma...

Just before the holidays, the yarn for the Winter TNNA Great Wall of Yarn swatches arrived. I actually squealed like a preteen when I opened the package! This time I only requested three skeins of yarn, as I have a lot of other work to do right now. Two of the three skeins are long-print yarns. The third, Trendsetter Phoenix, has long-print textural changes. I figured these swatches would be a great opportunity to play with three techniques: short rows, entrelac, and labyrinth. For Trendsetter Phoenix, I chose the short row technique. I used Alice Yu's shadow wrap or twin stitch technique. The pattern is a variation of Lizard Ridge. Instead of working five plain rows between the short row pattern, I've worked only four. And I've worked those four rows as all knit. This means that both knit and purl sides of the short rows show. I thought this yarn looked good from both sides and that the change from stockinette to reverse stockinette only served to further accentuate the...

For the SEFAA Square Foot Fiber Pin-Up Show, I knit up an entrelac square. The rules for the show were simply that the entry should be 12" square in a fiber art. It was a wonderful opportunity to play around. After all, a single square foot is hardly too much effort in either time or materials. And it was a great opportunity to play around and try something new. "Residue of 2011" obverse In this case, I already knew how to do entrelac. After all, I took a class with Gwen Bortner, the Queen of Entrelac herself. But this was a chance for me to try out the techniques I learned from Jay Petersen. Jay writes the Fuzzy Logic blog that has been in my blog links for quite some time. You'll recall that I met Jay in person last summer in Portland, Oregon. Jay and I both share an interest in reversible (both sides the same) and double-faced (both sides good but different) knit fabrics. Jay spent a great deal of time exploring entrelac construction. He was interested in...

On Saturday, I took a class from Gwen Bortner. Gwen was here in town to teach for Atlanta Knitting Guild. On Saturday she taught "Entrelac: Beyond the Basics." I had been out of practice on entrelac, so I did some swatches earlier in the week. Specifically, I tried Jay Petersen's clever trick for joining entrelac. Oh my gosh, awesome! Here's what I did: First, I ran a vertical lifeline up the side of the work. You are going to have to pick up stitches on the selvedge in entrelac, so you might as well trap a piece of yarn as you turn. When you need to pick up the stitches, they are then already there on the waste yarn and you don't have to hunt for them. Second, I used Rick Mondragon's technique for modular intarsia. Jay is the clever person who realized you could use Rick's technique to make entrelac lie better. Instead of working ssk or p2tog to join a new unit to a unit on the previous course, pull up a loop in the live stitch. Knit out with the l...