][ Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

I was going to post an age and a half ago about the progress on my QR, but I finished the thing before I got around to doing so.


Yes, it scans! In fact, this picture scans even more easily than the object. Try it out if you like.
The steeked edges still look a little raw; I may eventually knit on a border, or perhaps knit outward from there and make it the center of a blanket or something, I don’t know. For now I’m content to call it done. It needs to be blocked, really, but one thing at a time. Definitely not getting that done during the work week.

I’ve decided to be good and move on to more Christmas knitting, because I know if I don’t, said Christmas knitting will never get done. I’ve never really done any-- one year a handful of people got scarves, but at least some of those were oh-crap-last-minute scarves, done up on my trusty #17s in the days leading up to the holidays. That was my dedicated BIG NEEDLES ONLY phase. Knitting entire sweaters, even sweaters for babbies, is a bit much to leave that long. And not really doable on size 17’s.


This is my cat absolutely not being helpful.
Actually, the 6s and 7s feel huge after a month of mostly knitting the QR on 2s. It’s kind of hilarious, really. Anywho, I cast on the sleeves (two at a time, knitting from both ends of both balls for the colorwork, because I’m an overachiever) over the holiday weekend… made great progress over the weekend and basically took the whole rest of the week to get anything more done. Hah.


And here are some sleeves! Gosh I love this color combo.
I do manage to get a row or two done each evening, at least, as I catch up on Welcome to Night Vale. Which is great for knitting to-- something I don’t have to look at, so even reasonably complicated pieces are an option. Not that the sweater is all that complicated-- I find it intimidating but only because I’ve never really done that before. Last night I got the length I wanted and bound off sleeve number one before passing out; tonight I finished off sleeve 2 and need to re-wind the balls again so I can move on to the next bit of the sweater. (I started with the sleeves because when I’ve made doll sweaters and the like, I find those hardest to concentrate on. I figured it’d help to get ‘em out of the way, especially as they’re one of the more finicky bits of this design.)


Gratuitous closeup.
My other ongoing project-- my subway knitting, by and large-- is knitting washcloths, as I mentioned last time. I finished my first and started a second at the Schoolbus Demolition Derby the other weekend, and have been continuing in that vein since. The tentative plan is to keep at it and have enough to give everyone one or two with a little bar of fancy soap as part of Ecksmuss festivities. I don’t care if these don’t come as a surprise, so they’re also good knitting for when I need to be around people I can’t knit my main project around.

Mostly I’m just dumping ‘em all in a perpetual WIP entry on Ravelry, though my current one will probably get its own entry eventually, since I think I’m going to write up its accidental pattern. It’s kind of cute.


Thinking of calling it 6H-- Hannah’s Happy Happenstance Handmade Herringbone Hexagon.
The shape is due to me not bothering to count and belatedly realizing I’d messed up the stitch pattern to include an unintentional increase on every row. Way to go, self. But, hey, that’s the happy accident part. The rampant alliteration is just me being a terrible human being.

Anywho, that’s the state of the knitting this week. Stay tuned for tomorrow next week next month whenever I next remember to actually update this, and I’ll try not to let it wait til next bloody year.

Wooohooo.

][ Call it textile speed-dating

I’ve written a half dozen posts about stuff I was working on / thinking about, only to end up scrapping them unused as I pushed past problems and finished projects like a boss. So a quick recap, with some pictures.

CHRISTMAS KNITTING


’Tis the season to have foresight
OFFICIALLY STARTED. These are posevantar, according to my grandfather. (I think). They’re modelled after the inner liners of the leather work-mittens he used as a fisherman; kind of a sentimental choice more than anything. The pattern I used was in Swedish, which of course I don’t speak (and even though I understand a bit when they’re talking, I definitely don’t read it, and I definitely don’t know knitting terms. I also think it’s a bit loose of a pattern.) They’re a bit too big but I hope he will like them. Honestly, if I can get a laugh out of it, I won’t mind if he never wears them. (I’ll get him something else, too, I just really wanted to make these.)

COOL KNITTING:


Hi-tech handicraft
Here is my Modern Day Defarge, a knit QR code that points right to this here blawgh. I’m doing it in the round and will cut and weave in the long floats, then steek and cut the fabric to make a big ol’ patch which I’ll probably just stitch down to a tote bag. If it doesn’t read, if I end up needing to re-knit it, I will probably do it in wool, though-- I think better blocking capability would help. I might also make a (second?) smaller one to see if it will read with one-stitch pixels instead of four, just to sate my curiosity.

The overall feel of knitting cotton took some getting used to, but I’m coming to like it and the fabric it produces is pretty attractive.

QUICK KNITTING:

In fact, between that and the passionate defense of the art of the washcloth on the Yarn Harlot’s blawgh last week, I started down that rabbit hole too.


But, shit, it was 99 cents! Er, the yarn, I mean.
And there were big ol’ skeins of Bernat cotton on sale half price-- clearing the summer yarn, you know-- so I’m loosely planning to try and whip up a big stack for stocking-stuffers. First up is one seed-stitch with a garter border, though, which I will probably keep; and I’m considering making a second, smaller one in linen-and-garter because I feel like that would make a magnificent facecloth-- smooth as you like on one side, scrubby on the other with the clustered slipstitchy purl-bumps. I’m gonna have to go down a few needlesizes, though; most things I am seeing suggest 7s or 6s for washcloth knitting, but I feel like this is way too loose for my tastes!

EASY CHEEZY:


I kind of love how this yarn looks in the sun...
My coworker asked me to whip up something for an impending babby in the family, and since I can pretty much knit baby hats in my sleep I figured why not. Decided to add a pair of matching booties, tho without the random lace bits. (They’re calling the little Cheezy since they don’t know the sex yet. So I made a cheezy hat. The holes’re supposed to be the bubbles in the cheese, get it?)

This was fast. So fast that between the time I started writing this post and the time I posted it, I finished hat and booties alike. Bam. Pair of booties in just a smidge over a day, and a work-day at that.

And that’s a quick glance at all that! Whooo. Back to relative monogamy with the QR, for a while, until/unless I cast on the first Christmas s w e a t e r . Whew. Did it get panicky in here all of a sudden?

][ Strangely Therapeutic...

I am not a fan of visiting the proverbial frog-pond.

I'm usually pretty good at following directions and catching mistakes early, and I have no qualms about ripping back a row or two or tinking down a few more if I need to fix a stitch... and more often than not I am willing to live with little mistakes, because a) no one but me notices and b) if I need perfect knitting, there are a billion stores selling machine-knit flawless everything. A little glitch here and there is part of the handmade charm. Usually, when I choose to live with a mistake instead of fixing it, I have good reasons. Maybe my short-row is one stitch too short, and I don’t care. Maybe I can’t figure out where my math went wrong and I like the look anyway. The point is, I think I have a pretty healthy attitude about hiccups.

But full-scale frogging?

I ripped out... maybe 12 pattern repeats of my reality knits scarf the first time I started it, because I realized I hadn’t properly thought out the provisional cast-on and it was going to cause me all sorts of misery and angst. (Ironically, I don’t love the ends on the finished version, either! but I don’t hate them enough to kill nine feet and three-years of complicated colorwork.) It hurt like hell, even though I knew it was for the best-- like going to the dentist or picking out a splinter.

And ‘til this week that traumatic necessity was probably my biggest frogged project. Once you hit that point of no return, man, it’s tough! I’ve got a little niche in my craft closet full of swatches-- not the nice, organized swatch stash (say that six times fast) that people recommend a conscientious knitter keep, so no pictures-- that may or may not also include a few ill-fitting hats and other poor choices. I figure eventually, I’ll come up with some use for them-- and I do! I’ve given away hats to other people who fit into them, and now and then a decorative such-and-such comes in handy.

Late last week, though, when I finished my latest charity baby hat (a twisted rib one of which I’m rather proud) I had the bright idea to cast on a reverse-stockinette faux rolled-brim hat next-- the brim knit in stockinette, a small ribbed band to keep it well-fitted, and the rest purled in the same pattern as a plain hat. I got through the brim, the ribbed band, and figured out a clever fix to let me turn the whole thing inside out and knit to the end rather than purl... and....

I hated it.

There'd be a picture here, but I hated it too much to bother taking one.
I hated everything about it. The way it rolled, how wide the ribbing had to be to pull in at all and how poorly it did the job, the way the colors were striping, the gauge of the stockinette, everything. So I did the logical thing: I... kept knitting and knitting, convinced it would even out in a few more rounds and I’d hate it less.

On the train on Wednesday, though, I took a good long look at it. I can usually do 2 of these hats a week pretty easily-- especially stockinette stitch! But there it was Wednesday, and I think I’d cast on on Saturday, and I was going nowhere. So instead of spending my train ride knitting.....


I've never been happier to see wrinkly yarn.
Well, you know how it goes.

For the first time, tearing something out was a relief. I wouldn’t have to hope, wouldn’t have to struggle to fix it in the end, and best of all, I wouldn’t have to look at that damn yarn for a while. (I mean I do love it, but I’ve found that more than 2 hats in a row of any yarn makes me start to hate it.)

Now I’m back to a plain ribbed pattern, which completely flies in the face of my recent I KNOW WHAT I’M DOING I CAN IMPROVISE ANYTHING I WANNA trend, but sometimes it’s not about being innovative. Sometimes a squishy, soft hat with colors pooling in attractive ways is all you need.


Look at those swirrrrls!!!
Yay!

][ Like a broken top

So maybe I was a little wicked the other week. And last week. And this week. And always, really.

I’m not on Tumblr, but from time to time I do glance at various people’s various tumblrs, and I happened to see a reblog of these really cool sheep. As much as I would like to imagine myself some kind of sheep-savvy fiber goddess, I’m really not (yet), but I like Jacobs enough on principle to know them on sight, evidently. And, you know how it is, one thing led to another, and I bought some roving from their etsy store, and it came last Monday (my sole qualm with the long weekend, I could’ve had that Friday if it were a normal week... not that I am really complaining...) and I love it.


Baaaa
I got 3 oz of each color, and they’re really pretty and wonderfully soft. It’s all I can do not to ruin them by over-fondling.

I kept from starting by making deals with myself that I won’t start spinning it until I do something with the hemp disaster currently on the bobbin, which is halfway because I feel this weirdly dutiful urge to make myself enjoy spinning hemp, and halfway because I’ve got company this week and I really shouldn’t start a big new project when I ought to be cleaning stuff instead. Besides, I actually had a brainstorm about something I might want to knit with hemp yarn-- even my weird, overspun, not quite even hemp yarn-- so if I could work up a bit more before I surrender and start on my Jacob adventure, that would be best.

But. I’m not that good. And she threw in a little sample of stripey roving. And I have spindles, many of which aren’t even currently in use, so.


Oops.
I need to be a little more careful drafting so I don’t get too much striping, I like the marled look so much, but it’s pretty lovely to work with so far.

And on that topic, this is the first time I’ve really played around with this spindle. I bought it at Maryland Sheep and Wool last year because I wanted a second heavy spindle (my first was an Ashford beginner spindle of some sort), and because I really liked the vaguely menacing cabal of sheep on the whorl, who are clearly about to perform some arcane ritual. (It’s a Louet Beginner High Whorl Spindle, for the record. Not all that fancy.) And man do I love it. I knew when I got it that I really wanted that-- a heavy, no-nonsense spindle-- but I’ve done a lot of my admittedly limited spinning on lighter ones, and I forgot how much easier a good chunk of weight makes it. This baby spins forever even if I just give it a little flick-- on the lightest spindle I have, even thigh-rolling doesn’t always make it to the floor without untwisting. I find that getting a fast/long enough spin is difficult for me so having that to babysit me helps quite a bit. If I get too risky and thin it’s gonna be trouble, I’m sure, but I find that easier to fix than insufficient twist problems.

I really do think the fact that I know the basics of both drop-spindles and wheels has helped me improve as a spinner in general; the spindle gives me a better sense of appropriate twist, and the wheel helps my drafting skills. (Though I want to stress again that I’m not all that great at either, but I’m getting better all the time.) Right now what I think I need is to keep practicing, practicing, practicing. Which shouldn’t be a problem because holy crap do I have a lot of fiber.

Anyway, the bulk of the Jacob is getting tucked away for at least a couple more weeks, but I’m ruminating on making a drop spindle bag so I can start spinning on the go a little without worrying about messing up my roving. Guess we’ll see how my time looks, but it’s on the long-term crafty to-do list, for sure. (Then again, what isn’t?)

Right now I’ve got the whole kit and caboodle wrapped in a bandana, and I’ve been doing a couple feet here and there during lunch. It’s also surprisingly popular; several of my coworkers have asked for a demonstration, and of course I’m always pleased to oblige.


Lunchtime spinning adds up, there's even more now!
I wanted to ply it, because I’m fundamentally happier with plied yarns, but I think I might have to keep it as singles just because there’s so little. I don’t even know what I’ll make with it... a wristband? A headband? Hrmn. The current plan is, I think, to finish as singles and check length on the niddy-noddy, then go from there and either ply or set it and start knittin’.

It’s fun, though, and surprisingly portable-- maybe it’s time to dig out that green roving and the Ashford spindle, once this batch is done. The spindles are nearly of a size so the bag I want to make should fit either....

][ Stuff I made!

Just dropping by to show off a few things. First up, I finished that little green bump I've been working on forever:


Eventually I'll try to figure out what to call it weight-wise (it's very, very light. Shockingly light. Must learn to spin bulkier yarns, stat,) and what to make with it. Something a little lacy would be nice. Something not too complex. There's not that much.

I've been putting in a lot of work on that green cloche, which is officially the longest day of the year, but which I am colloquially calling The Great Hatsby.


This is basically my favorite picture ever.
I spent a lovely evening with it in our backyard, and today I'm taking it out to Long Island, as seems appropriate. I'm currently picking up stitches for the second concentric circle.


And finally I made....


I swear I'll find a method of spinning hemp that doesn't make me completely batty, someday. I couldn't even tell you why I'm so determined, but I am.

][ But myself keeps slipping away...

The other day on the train I was... well, call it what it was, I was swatching. Not exactly for a particular project, because I just grabbed some handy yarn without a particular destiny and a convenient pair of circulars, but because I wanted to test out a stitch pattern I’d been reading about.


It’s a linen stitch, worked flat here across a 30ish stitch swatch, tho the pattern is written with an odd number in the round. (There are purl-side instructions for the short row sections, I just followed those.)

I am in love.

But that aside, it made me think about the ways in which I learn. By preference, I have never been the sort to just dive in and get my hands dirty to learn to do something. I find it wasteful. (Actually, that’s why I don’t like swatching to begin with, even if rationally I know it’s not wasteful, but that’s a whole other debate.) I like to have a conceptual understanding of what I am trying to do before I do it... and though I don’t always meet instant success, generally I do better if I have it than if I don’t. I need to grok it first.

Which brings me back to the linen stitch. (Linen stitch. This is a swatch of maybe an inch knit in old, not terribly soft acrylic, but I like it so much I want to rub my face all over it. Hnnngh. Sorry. What were we talking about?) I’d never encountered this stitch til I bought this book (as a side note, I also love this book so much I want to rub my face all over it, and the pattern I’m toying with is the fabulous hat on the cover,) but the basic building block that makes it go is something I’ve encountered before in pattern reading: slipped stitches.

Seriously what the hell is with slipped stitches?

I have been trying to wrap my mind around the idea, mainly in the context of slipped stitch or mosaic colorwork, and I never could get it. I mean, I think I understand the procedure, but not the why? (This is the exact opposite of my problems with calculus, where I could understand the concept perfectly but could never manage to do the math. My teacher was encouraging because the conceptual part was the “hard” part. I was inconsolable because I had never gotten grades that terrible in my life.)

As I understand mosaic knitting, you knit across a row with one color at a time, knitting the stitches that should be color 1 and slipping the color 2s, then knit across again with color 2, slipping the stitches you just did and knitting the ones you slipped last time. Okay. I think I see how that would make the pattern, but why? Is it just that it’s easier to handle one ball of yarn at a time? On the reverse side, wouldn’t it look the same as fair-isle style work with the floats hanging around in back? (This is something I try like mad to avoid in colorwork, so I don’t see the appeal. I twist on every stitch even if I’m not changing colors. I like the thickness of the fabric it creates, I like the look of the wrong side, and I like that I’m less likely to catch my scarf on everything around me.)

The linen stitch made a little more sense to me, because all the carrying of yarn for slipped stitches takes place on the right side of the fabric. It’s a little like seed stitch, but smoother, with minute floats across the front instead of purls. It looks pretty. It feels lovely. It makes sense, even if it takes twice as long to knit a row, or at least feels that way. (Since you’re knitting or purling the slipped stitches on alternate passes the length doesn’t increase as quickly as my hands want it to.) Hooray for slipping stitches!

That said... I still don’t understand the advantage for colorwork.

Which maybe means it’s time to accept I won’t grok it any better ‘til I get my hands dirty. Hmn.

At any rate, my plans for my next project had been up in the air-- either the Shipwreck shawl I’ve been yarn-hoarding for for literal years now, or the big gray and green checkered blanket that this Billow I bought on a lark wants to be. (Possibly it wants a few skeins more to go with it. I want a big damn blanket. I should see how I feel about knitting it, though, and how far a skein goes, before I invest tons more.)

All that said... every time I looked at this linen stitch, with its charming texture....

well.


The yarn is totally wrong and the gauge feels insane (though the circumference doesn’t seem unreasonable) but I’m going to soldier on a while and see if I can swing it.

][ a wild post appears!

I sort of conceived blogging about my textile adventures as a way to keep myself honest about how much I was (or wasn’t) doing, though of course on the wasn’t side that’s a bit self-defeating... since if I’m not spinning and knitting I have no spinning and knitting to talk about. But I’m doing some things and dreaming of some other things so I figured, may as well talk about that. And then eight months from now when I’ve finished my current project and not touched anything else-- or maybe worse,

On the spinning front: soon I need to make a post documenting the state of my stash, but for now I’ll tell you I am still working away on that green roving. I decided to, as best as I could manage, measure and re-wind the leftover bit, spin an equivalent (re-measured and rewound) bit on the second bobbin, then split the rest of the roving and hope for the best. I think it’s going..... terribly, to be honest. I don’t feel like the second bobbin’s going to have enough and I’m worried the yarn is too thin to stay together to be plied. But I’m soldiering on because I don’t really have a lot of options, and hoping I’m wrong about the various issues. At any rate, all this is a learning experience, which is why I’m using the little curl of kool-aid dyed fluff I got for a couple bucks instead of the huge (and not inexpensive) braids of hand-painted merino or the limited-edition tussah roving or the hot pink bamboo.

That said I’ll still be really depressed if it turns out horribly, or doesn’t turn out at all and just dissolves in my hands when I go to ply it.

After this I think I am going to play around a bit with the interminable bag of hemp roving, and... I don’t know what I will do with it. Yup. I’ve never loved spinning hemp on a spindle, though I sort of had a breakthrough last time I tried, but this roving is a safe “learning” fiber for me, because I won’t cry if I totally ruin it. And I can always get funky and ply it with something else if I really want to in the end. Or dye it. And anyway I’ve never knit with hemp yarn, it’ll be an experience.

It’s not that I believe I will fail, I just don’t want to get ahead of myself.

Some things I have learned, which I will put here so I might actually remember them:

- if the yarn is drafted too thin, don't overcompensate by following it with a thick chunk. That won't help, it will just give you a thick chunk. If the twist hasn't gone into the fiber yet, keep it pinched out and reach back for more fiber. If it has, and you don't want to pause and untwist a couple inches and fix it, giving it a little extra twist to keep the thin spot from unwinding and slipping apart might do the trick.

- slow down. The most important thing is to stay steady. It's not a race, and just like on a bicycle, if you go too quickly you will get out of control and veer off and crash into a fence and mangle your leg and die horribly. Or probably just make some crappy yarn. But! Slowing down means more time to put the twist in, make sure you're pleased with it, and feed it on in to wind on the bobbin. Do that too quickly and you end up way overspun.

- you will overspin things. Plying will take a lot of that out, setting will help even more, and it's handspun. If you wanted perfect yarn you should've bought it at the craft store. As my cousin says, the imperfect spots show where the love is.



I bought some plain white roving too, because I have terrible self-control and when I was trying to buy some extra cables for my interchangeable needles I... well, there were four skeins of chunky cotton, some lace-weight wool, the roving, and a few other bits and pieces in my box, let's just leave it at that.

Anyway. In the name of keeping myself honest here's a knitting to-do list of sorts:

- That Green and Grey Thick Cotton I Bought in a Moment of Weakness: I am envisioning a perfect little checkerboard throw thingie. This means I will need to learn intarsia.

- Socks. Socks socks socks. I might be working on a little something right now (more about that later no doubt,) but I want to knit myself some socks. And I want to knit my mother some socks. To start with I have two skeins of yarn in the closet that want to be socks for me, I think I'm ready to let that happen

- Something Dramatic: every time I go to a fiber festival I'm depressed that I have nothing to wear, as all my knits are pretty... well, warm and wooly. Even the non-woolen ones. I'm eyeing either the shipwreck shawl, which I have been hoarding a skein of Lorna's Lace for, or a sweater... which doesn't help the summer issue, but I think the next thing I might go to is Rhinebeck and that's october so it's okay.

- Other Things.


I wanted to be more verbose but I think I've lost my thin thread of conversation, and I'd better go get dinner started, ooghhh.