Ithaca Stitch-n-Bitch

Well, I finally finished my first rectangle which turned into a scarf, and I gave it to mom for mother's day. She seemed to like it very much.

Since I had promised Pebbles that she could have it before I changed my mind, I decided to make her a mouse out of the scraps. It's a very cute pattern that Lynn gave me. It only took a couple of hours to knit up, and I think Pebs likes it (although it's a bit big for her - more of a pillow than a toy).

If you didn't come to Stitch'N Bitch on Wednesday, you really missed out. There was much discussion of fair isle and cozy knitting. Actually I believe the whole conversation got started by Mike who said he read an article about a military tank with a pink knitted cozy.

Anyway, I suggested that knitting an espresso machine cozy for Gimme would be a great task for our knitting group. Natasha thought that was a little ambitious, but Chris, I wish you were there because I know you would have joined in with me on this one. We could have discussed construction and taken measurements and everything.

Different project ideas were suggested and doing fair isle knitting for the logo was discussed. Some ideas were stuff like a personalized coffee carrying bag for your take home coffee purchase, earth-friendly felted cup cozies and the very useful tip jar cozy. All with a logo of some sort. Enter the fair isle.

I piped up with one of my favorite tutorials on the web. The Philosopher's Wool Company has an amazing video that teaches two handed fair isle knitting, including how to weave in as you carry along with both hands. More over, there is a little purse pattern they have put up for you to practice on if you feel so inclined.

To do two-handed fair isle one must learn how to knit both ways, you know, continental and english or picking and throwing or however you'd like to call it. So it can be a little intimidating and awkward at first, but it's worth it. The video shows you both methods and one of the great things about it is that since it's up on the web you have access to it whenever you need it. You don't have to wait till you see someone at Stitch'N Bitch or go up to Knitting Etc.

My connection: Last winter or early spring I taught myself how to knit continental from this video and ended up making this little purse. As you can see with the orange and teal or greenblue section, I was twisting some stitches but eventually I got the hang of it, and the inside is simply beautiful, though I had to do a lot of weaving in as this was before I learned to spit felt.

As an aside, my next couple of projects were felted bags and I knit these almost exclusively contintental just for practice. Felting is a good opportunity to practice a new technique without any stress because it all comes out in the wash. No one will ever know about a few twisted stitches here and there or any other goofs that you've made.

So if you are interested in learning two-handed fair isle for the Gimme challenge, or for any other worthwhile purpose, then this is a great way to get going.

Cheers,

Miriam

You could knit a Penguin Sweater....or a pink tank cozy.

The Institute for Figuring is crocheting a gigantic coral reef. They invite crocheters to send in corals and anemones (see the email address at the bottom of the page).

My nautiloid pattern is in Knitty today! I just had to share that.

Remember that shawl Chris and I were working on all month? Well, it got bigger..

...and then it got finished!

I made up the pattern, just a plain ol' square shawl with Falling Leaves in the middle, then Snowdrops, then a little bit of Feather and Fan for an edging.

It came out beautifully. I gave it to my cousin at the baby shower, and she loved it. A happy ending.

My first rectangle is growing up to be my first scarf. I've decided to give it to my mother instead of my cat, hopefully she doesn't read this blog (where "she" can be read as my mother and/or my cat).

Despite the label's insistence that I buy as much yarn as needed up front, I only had one skein and the scarf needed more. I bought a second skein of charcoal which, as promised, didn't quite match. I decided to put a skein of eggplant in between them, to hopefully make the mismatch less obvious. The purple yarn is more slippery than the gray, and it feels softer to me as well, and I like the way it looks, so I'm glad I didn't read that pesky label.

In other news, I've started a green sock to go with my green pajamas. When I finish it, I will probably make another one just like it.

I just wanted to share some adorable pictures. My internet friend, Teyani, has a wonderful blog and farm. Some of her goats and sheep gave birth recently and she's posted pictures. I think the shetland lamb is the cutest thing ever :)

Yarn Goo. I read that description of unblocked lace on someone's blog. I wish I could remember whose. Anyway, that's what my little almost-FO looks like at the moment. I am hoping that it won't look that way tomorrow.

I finished casting off my flower basket shawlette today (I'm calling it a shawlette because it's really not a shawl's normal lusty size, but that's the way I dig it.) and am getting ready to block it. Lace jsut isn't lace until that happens. Anyway....

I don't have a good place to put it while drying, so I bought a big fold-out display board today and some mighty-looking t-pins. I'm planning on using string for the top like a blocking wire and then pinning out the points on the bottom just like the Yarn Harlot. God bless the internet and people that like to write amusing tutorials.

This will be my first time blocking a lacey FO, so wish me luck! I'll keep my camera handy. :-)

Chris and I are working on a shawl, as a gift for someone I know who's having a baby. I don't think she reads this blog, but shh...

Here's the beginning of the shawl (we're starting in the center and knitting outwards) next to a swatch of the stitch pattern.


Here it is, a little further along. Once it gets to this size, it looks like a big lacy bag, and you can use it as one, too. I keep the ball of yarn inside.


After working the leaf pattern for a while, we switched to one called "snowdrops" for the border. (As it turns out, a snowdrop is a little white flower that blooms in very early spring. There are some blooming in the Plantations right now, in the middle of campus.) The shawl has to be done by this weekend, but we're making good progress. And it's definitely big enough to hold my yarn, and probably a few other things besides - my wallet, keys, lunch, etc. (no, I don't actually use it for those!)


In other news, if I'm not officially crazy yet, this project may well finish me off:

It's a "Persian Carpet Bag", done in a combination of fair-isle and intarsia. Yes, every one of those tangled scraps of yarn is a color that is in use. I googled for pictures of other knitters' finished persian carpet bags, but found none - just one lone crazy soul saying she intended to knit it someday. Does this mean I'm the first? If so, who knitted the sample in the book? The mind boggles.

I'm releasing a new version of my Fair Isle Charting program. You can get it here. The improvements are:

1. Some of the more common stitch symbols are now supported (K2Tog, SSK, YO, M1 and double-decrease). You can toggle then using the middle mouse button.
   
2. You can disable the preview if you're working on a pattern which isn't mean to repeat. If the preview is disabled, it's also not printed, so this is also a way to print only the chart.
   
3. Printing now includes line numbers for each row, for clarity of pairing written instructions with a chart.
   

And I am going to add color support at some point, honest. :)

Don't let anybody say knitters are sissies.

This picture shows a woman from Shetland (the part of Scotland that gave us Fair Isle knitting, and Shetland lace shawls) knitting something - I think a sock - while she carries a big bucket of peat on her back.



So, the delicate lacy shawls? Women wore them while they worked, to keep their body and head warm. Hap shawls were the equivalent of a hoodie sweatshirt. You can see the woman above wearing a hap shawl - I can't tell if hers is knitted from lace, or if it's a woven piece of fabric. Both were common.

Another fun time to knit was when you're taking a break from gutting fish:



I feel like I need to mention that I'm not making any of this up.

I finished my olympic sweater!


I've been awake for 30+ hours to finish it, but now I'm wearing it and it's my favorite sweater in the whole world! :) The gory details are here. I'll be wearing it at the Knitting Etc finish line party tomorrow (Sunday, from 2-6). Hope to see some of you there!

A few people asked me about the lace scarf I was wearing last week. It's a very simple pattern called Feather and Fan, and the pattern is here, along with a beginner tutorial on lace knitting. Give it a try - it's not much harder than a garter stitch scarf.

A few weeks ago, Beth got me into spinning. I spun a little bit, but I only made a few dozen yards. A few days ago, I started working on my first large skein, and today I finished plying it. It's about an aran weight (as I understand it, "aran" denotes the weight between worsted and bulky), which is a little heavier than I was going for. It's 256 yards and 158 grams from sheep which are mostly dorset with a little bit of merino in them. Here are some pictures:

Take a look at these two partial sweaters.


On the left, weighing in at 7,566 stitches and 532 cable crossings, is my interpretation of St Brigid. I started this sweater before the Olympics.

On the right, weighing in at 12,276 stitches, is my Olympic project, a gansey. I started it at the Knitting Etc cast-on party.

The gansey, I'm sad to say, hurts like hell. I can't work long hours on such tiny needles without my hands being sore the next day. I've tried different hand positions, but I am, officially, out of this event because of an injury. If I continued with this gansey, I would be setting myself up for failure. This is against the rules. So, I'm swapping these projects: St. Brigid will be my olympic sweater, and Miss Gansey will be a finish-on-my-own-time thing.

The original St. Brigid, which I'm adapting to my own nefarious ways, goes a little something like this.

Just a reminder, the Stitch-n-Bitch meeting is tonight from 7pm-9pm at the Gimme Coffee on State Street (it's closer to route 13 than to the commons). Everyone is very welcome, young or old, male or female, experienced or just starting, knitter or crocheter or anything else having to do with stitching. I hope to see you there!

I found this neat little document on how fleece gets turned into yarn - it's 2 pages and describes the whole process, from flicking and washing up to spinning and plying. It's a good quick read if you've ever been curious about spinning.

Some of you may remember a discussion at this week's SnB about Chris knitting and wearing a kilt.

Chris says that he will not wear a kilt because of his ethnic heritage - he believes he needs to be, genetically, at least 50% from kilt-wearing nationalities. Then he mutters something about not being Scottish.

I would like to point out that Chris is 25% Irish:


...and 50% Greek:


Thank you, that is all.

Woohoo! Check it out:
This is the wheel that my Dad built (with my help) this weekend. I'm still learning to spin - Heck, I'm only just starting to figure out the drop spindle - but I made some yarn on my new wheel! I'm so happy about it. Don't the thumbtacks and rough plywood give it a, um, charmingly rugged look? :)

There are some more pictures at my other blog. One interesting thing I did with the yarn was including some fur from my parents' dog, Pete. He's an American Eskimo, with long white fur. Like I had heard, the yarn came out very soft and fuzzy, like angora. I'll definitely be using this fiber again, if Pete cooperates :)

In the latest Knitting Etc. news letter, the free pattern is one of mine! It's a pattern for a plain sock done in really big yarn to be worn in place of slippers when lounging about. It's a really fast and easy sock, and it's a really conversational pattern. Anyhow, it's the first pattern I've ever had published, so I'm excited. :)

(By the way, I've noticed that I've been posting a lot lately, so I'd like to take a moment to encourage everyone else to post too. You don't need pictures; tell us what you're working on. Thoughts about knitting (or crocheting) are fine too. Anything stitching-related is great. If you have a question about something, post it and maybe someone will have the answer for you in the comments section. In short, please don't be intimidated out of posting; the more the merrier.)

If you look at my recent seamless sweater, you'll notice that the neck isn't very snug. When worn, it tends to be even less snug, since the weight of the sweater pulls the neck apart. It's not excessive, but it's enough to make me want a scarf.

If you've been in Knitting Etc. and looked in the Alpaca Grande cubbies, you'll have seen a really pretty aran scarf in a beautiful cream color. The pattern for it will be coming out relatively soon, I gather, in one of Hickory's news letters. Being impatient, however, I decided to copy it from the store model. It was a little tricky to figure out what was going on — the author used an interesting technique I hadn't run accross — but I figured it out. I changed it a little (of course), then bought 2 skeins of a dark blue color and went home to start it.

After I finished the first skein, it became very apparent that the scarf needs 3 skeins, not 2. And of course, the reason that the pattern hasn't come out yet is that Plymouth Yarns hasn't shipped the yarn to Hickory yet. So back to the store I go, knowing full well that all Hickory has left are plenty of skeins in infant and feminine colors. (Does it bother anyone else how close those two color ranges are?) Well, there was a skein of light and dark blue variagated yarn, which was the closest thing available. I made a point of sanity-checking the idea with a few people there (thanks Hickory, Kylie, and Andrea!), and since my neck gets cold in cold weather and no one openly said that I'd be crazy to do it, I let my impatience get the better part of my judgement. That's the useful aspect to having no fashion sense: if it keeps me warm and no one openly laughs, I'll be quite happy. So, here it is:



(Click to see the full size.)

By the way, while I'm happy with the two-stranded twist that I did, it was at least partially motivated by laziness. The three-stranded braid on the scarf in the store is prettier.

I'll be teaching a class at Knitting Etc. about making a Fair Isle hat like this:



The hat pictured is in the women's size; there's also a pattern for making a men's size hat.

It will be two saturdays (Feb 11 and 18) from 2pm to 4pm. Ask at knitting etc. for requirements, fees, availability, etc.

I've never tought a knitting class before, and I think that it will be fun. Fair Isle knitting is actually a lot easier than it looks (it's no harder than cable work for aran designs, and probably easier than aran patterns worked on a tight gauge), and it will be good to spread it around a bit. There are also some interesting tips and tricks for making it easier that I'll be able to spread, which is always nice too.

(By the way, while I tend to post about Knitting Etc. a lot since that's the yarn shop that I frequently go to, it would be great if anyone who visits other Ithaca yarn shops would post about events going on at those. I think that knowing about what's available in the Ithaca area (and beyond) benefits all stitchers, so please don't be shy.)

I'm releasing version 0.2.1 of my Fair Isle charting program. I haven't added color yet, but there are some improvements:

• Masks — you can now mask out stitches to represent decreases. These masks are saved, and float counts take them into account. Masking stitches is toggled with the right mouse button, and can be drawn in lines just like regular toggling.


• The charting area is now scrolled, so that larger patterns can be worked on conveniently. The preview is of course still fully visible, since it would defeat the purpose for it not to be.


• Remember working directory — when you save or load a file, the directory is stored so that when you next load the program, the file open dialog starts there.


• A recent patterns menu — the last 10 items you've saved are now listed in a recent patterns menu so that you can get back to them easily.


• The preview of stitches is now a square. This isn't the final version (they should be the sort of V that a stitch actually makes), but it's more correct than the previous attempt at getting a correct aspect ratio, since Fair Isle patterns tend to produce the same row gauge as stitch gauge.


• The preview's size is now dynamically adjusted to the height of your screen, so editing larger patterns should be a lot more comfortable (and for later patterns, possible).


• In printing, if the preview won't fit on the same page as the pattern, the preview is moved to a second page.


• In printing, the dimensions and longest float length are printed immediately below the chart.

Just a quick screen shot to show off masking:


So, without further ado, please grab the jar file.

Hey, just a quick note to anyone who attends the Ithaca Stitch-n-Bitch who doesn't yet have an account on this blog. If you'd like one (and we hope that you do), please just use the contact page to let Beth or I know your name and email address so we can add you.

And for those of you who do have accounts, please don't be shy about posting. It would be great to post pictures of finished objects, but just as great to post pictures of stuff that you're working on. You may have noticed that there's a category called "Works in Progress", meant for exactly that. Also, tips, tricks, observations, musing etc. are all great.

And thanks to the people who've already posted!

Oh, and if anyone has a blog which has anything to do with knitting and ithaca, drop me a line and I'll add you to the blogroll.

Thanks!

I've got both socks, in the pair of black socks that I'm currently working on, ready to do the heel. The problem is that I'm doing them in Paton's Merino Classic black, and last I checked A.C. Moore is all out of that color. I hope that they'll have some on their sale this saturday.

Anyhow, this pair really shows off the masonry twine I use to hold the stitches for the peasant heel:



(You really need to click to see the higher resolution version.)

I found out about an interesting way to join yarn without having to weave ends in. Many of you probably know about the spit-splice join, where you just roll the ends between your hands with a drop of water (or spit). It only works with feltable yarns like non-superwash wool.

Next time I'm working with a non-feltable yarn, I'm going to try this: the Russian join. It has the same effect, but you pull the yarn through itself using a needle.

About a year ago, I started a sweater in a white washable wool, with the intention of making a reasonably tight fitting sweater that I could wear under some of the jackets that I have which don't give much room (like my Australian riding coat). I really like Elizabeth Zimmerman's seamless sweaters, so I started one. I finished the two arms and about a third of the body, then put it in a bag and put it aside. After I finished Beth's socks, I pulled it out again and finished it. (If you look closely, you can see a line about a third of the way up in the body where the tension changes just slightly.) It's not much to look at, especially with me in it, but it's surprisingly warm for being worsted weight wool on size 8 needles (and I knit loosely; the gauge is 4 sts/inch).

I originally went with a ribbed collar, but I was inspired by Beth's alteration to her Icelandic sweater and ripped out the collar and substituted a rolled hem. I like the aesthetics of it, and it stays off of my neck. Even though it's a very soft wool which isn't scratchy at all, it's still annoying having anything at all loosely spun near my neck because unless I'm very recently shaven, my whiskers catch on it.

So, who's doing the Knitting Olympics? The idea is to start knitting something during the olympics that you finish before they put the torch out. That's 16 days, and it should be something that is a challenge to complete in that time. The link above has all the details.

I'll be doing a gansey type sweater out of wool salvaged from a Salvation Army bargain sweater (I have an idea for a really awesome knit/purl pattern for it, too). There's a longish post about my olympic "training" at my other blog.

Okay so after two years and countless other projects in between I finally finished the pipi kneestockings from the original Stitch n' Bitch book! Hooray!!
Despite all the heartache, I did learn quite a few things about socks, thanks to this project:
1. Double pointed needles are actually fun and increase your knitting "cred"
2. Weaving in ends sucks!!
2a. Always use self striping yarn
3. Ankle socks are just fine
4. Don't fear the kitchener stitch
5. Hand knit socks are far superior to store bought
I will certainly knit more socks in the future...not the near future, mind you, but someday.

I just finished a pair of plain socks (with a peasant heel) for Beth made with Patton's Classic Merino. The color is Natural Mix. They're nothing special, but since I think that everyone in the Ithaca Stitch-n-Bitch should post pictures of all of their finished objects here, I figure that I should set a good example:

I did it!

The pattern is from Debbie Bliss's Toy Knits. The yarn is Lamb's Pride in "Aran" for the white and "Spice" for the red. I ran out of white, so I did the forehead and ears in red; the sewing-up thread was Fisherman's Wool, which matched the "Aran" color pretty well; and for the udder, I took some white Lamb's pride that I had (in a bright snowy white) and dyed it as lightly as I could with Pink Lemonade Kool-Aid. I'm really happy with the dye job. The eyes are 15mm, I think, from CR's Crafts.

Once you get through Intarsia Hell, it's all gravy. Well, gravy and sewing up. It's really more of a sewing project than a knitting project. I have a few beefs with the pattern, mostly due to the style the directions are given in - I hear that style is common in Debbie Bliss patterns. It's really hard to keep track of where you are. It would have been really helpful to have schematics. I was really confused, at first, about which part of the cow I'm working on. In lieu of schematics, here are my cow parts after I knitted them and before I sewed them up:



Also, half of Chart 1 is missing on page 53. (It's one of the intarsia cow spots). I emailed the author and the publisher, but so far there are no errata pages and nobody seems to care! Here it is for anybody who might want to knit it (I drew it from the photo in the book):


The cow was "easy" in the sense that it was all garter stitch; but it was really a challenge to keep track of where I was in the pattern and avoid mistakes. I also gained new respect for intarsia; it's hard to manage all those yarn bobs. So the cow was a challenge, and I'm glad I accomplished it.

Just a reminder: today is the start of the big sale at Knitting Etc.. It lasts through Sunday. (See the link for details.)

I recently bought Elizabeth Zimmerman's book Knitting Around at Knitting Etc. because I was looking for a good scandanavian mitten pattern. While I think that Knitting Without Tears is her best book, I like this one too. Anyhow, the mitten pattern that she gives for a scandanavian mitten was fairly easy to adapt to what I wanted. The instructions for making the mitten I followed pretty closely, varying only in the number of stitches I used since I wanted a different size. The pattern that I liked best was just on a mitten in a picture — there was no chart for it, so I adapted the pattern to the chart in the middle of the picture, though mostly what I took was the outlined norwegian star. I didn't like the X's that were in the original in place of my stacked diamonds, and I also didn't like how hers had a partial second repeat of the star. So instead I came up with the chevron pattern over the diamon. While hardly an inspired choice, it keeps the floats small and its pattern isn't damaged by the decreases, so for mittens that I made to be practical, it's good enough. If I had it to do over again, I would continue the small stacked diamonds underneath the norwegian star to try to give the illusion of depth.

Anyhow, so here they are. I blocked them with steam but haven't had a chance to wash them yet:



(If it's not obvious, click on the picture to see a higher resolution version of the image.)

I went to Varna this weekend to an annual meeting of the Black Sheep (?) spinners. I brought my two-year old or, like Beth, I would have started spinning. I was lucky to get out with some handspun yarn and a new place to visit for fibers: Graceful Arts Fiber Studio in Burdett (4760 SR 414). Karey Solomon, proprietor and spinner.

I was there early, and she still had some beautiful yarns, but I limited myself to two skeins. The first a bulky pink (4oz / $5.50), which I've knit into a hat and ripped already twice (too small).



And then the multi-color looped mohair (4 oz./$9). If anyone has any pretty scarf patterns for this yarn, I'd love to see them.



By the way, AC Moore is having a 25% off sale on all yarn and yarn accessories Saturday 1/28 from 11am-3pm (coupon needed). Someplace to go after Knitting Etc.!

My big project for this month is a Clapotis from Knitty. I loved this pattern since I first saw it and knew that I wanted to knit it up sometime. But the question became, "What yarn?"

After seeing many finished clapotisi (how do you pluralize that word?), I decided that I wanted to make mine out of Silk Garden by Noro. Noro self striping yarns are a wonder to knit up. The color transitions are lovely and I am always suprised by the overall beauty of FO's done in Kureyon or SG. It's such a simple thing really but I think there is a very fine eye behind the creation of these colorways. After knitting a few it's become apparent to me that not all self-striping yarns are equal.

Anyway, this xmas my father gifted me with enough SG in colorway 84 to embark on my journey to clapotis land.

At this point I am more than halfway through by the pattern, but I have a little more yardage than called for and I am making my clapotis with a tad fewer stitches as I am knitting with larger needles. But I am almost halfway there. :smiles:

Before:


During:


After:


Spinning was a lot of fun. It's hard to get good, even, straight yarn, but there is instant gratification in being able to make fluffy thick-and-thin yarn right away. As I kept going, my singles were looking better and better. I'm going to make a hat, with this yarn at the bottom and, as I spin more, newer yarn at the top. Like a sampler of my progress and the different fibers I play with.

I went to Rock Day and got to talk to some spinners and even try spinning on a wheel! It was loads of fun, and I came home with a ton of pretty fiber (roving, top, and some silk hankies) that I can't wait to play with.

I've finally reached a milestone on the sweater I'm working on:


(This is the sweater I'm making out of the three colors of Cascade Eco Wool that I bought while visiting my parents in Long Island.)

These are my first ever socks.



I only have one finished of each pair. Chris, thanks again for casting on the blue. I ripped 3 or 4 times trying to figure out how to knit in the round. (I kept knitting on the wrong side.) But once I got the hang of it, it was easy. Some rough moments picking up stitches (first time ever doing that), but all turned out ok, if ugly. I like the multi-colored (Encore) socks - 75% wool - very comfortable and thick. I knit and ripped a sweater twice with this yarn.

Hi all.

I've really enjoyed reading your posts this week. (ie Chris's and Beth's posts!) so have been wanting to stop in and say hello - community building etc. etc.

Here is one of my projects:

So far all the pieces are done, except the front, which I started this weekend. First time at intarsia! Don't mind the bobbins so much (using cardboard) but trying to avoid the holes isn't working out yet. I'm looking forward to Beth's instruction on how to manage the cross-over method.

I also started felting this past week. The straps are done. This project uses reynold's lite lopi and this yarn creates a lot of fuzz. I went through 7 straight razors (one ruined manicure and a sliced thumb) trying to de-fuzz, and it worked pretty well.

FELTING NOTE: I have one of those water-saving front-loading washers (which I love) but they don't allow you to open then mid-cycle (or water would be all over the floor). I have to try to fast-forward the buttons and fool the machine into thinking the cycle's finished before the final spin. Any thoughts or experiences with felting and front-loading washers?

Hope to see you all Wednesday, but it depends on a babysitter. My husband is working nights now.

All the best, Jennifer

PS I'm buying those boots.

I didn't do too badly this Christmas. Nearly all of my presents were ready by the time that I gave them to people. The one exception was the norwegian hat which I was making for my father. Well, this morning I finished it and Fedex is even now, as I type, speeding it on its way to his office on monday morning so that he can wear it on his evening commute home. :)

Anyhow, here are the pictures (photo credits go to Beth):