The Scarlet Knitter

Travel knitting

This is a summer of weekend trips. Last Friday we went there

(that would be Ashland, Oregon) to see a few plays, sit in the shade in beautiful Lithia park

and catch a play in the open-air theater that can be seen over the trees in the above photograph

and peek at the costumes room through an open back door.

I also discovered a wonderful yarn store. For years I noticed ads for Web-sters in knitting magazines, without paying much attention. It is a spacious, well-laid out store with lots of striking ready-to-wear clothing as well as a first rate selection of yarns, needles, and patterns, and a friendly, knowledgeable staff. We have several great yarn shops in the the Bay Area, but space tends to be rare here, while  Web-sters is able to stock a much wider selection of colorways for each yarn than what I usually see locally, and an extensive selection of books and patterns too.

Travel-knitting progressed at a good pace; I came home with four more squares for my Stria baby blanket. I now have 17 squares done, with 3 more to go, I think, for a good stroller-size baby blanket. The challenge with this slubby yarn is to find textured stitches that actually show. With five colors, I have assigned arbitrarily one stitch pattern to each color:

Garter stitch for the minty green squares,

Seed stitch for the darker green (darker than the photograph indicates),

stockinette for the medium blue squares,

and rice stitch for the yellowish green squares (again, yellower than it appears here.

The 5th color is a nice, not too bright white, for which I swatched quite a few patterns that proved disappointing. I finally hit on something I like, alternating garter ridges with stockinette with enough contrast for the stitches to show...but I forgot to photograph that first white square. Later.

Manos Stria is so soft that I was concerned about how it would hold up in the wash, not a trivial consideration when it comes to baby blankets. I hand-washed the blue squares today, to check on color-fastness while I was at it. There was no color bleeding at all, to my surprise. I laid the squares flat to dry, and once they were almost dry, I entrusted them to my dryer for a quick five-minute spin. This tightened up the stitches very nicely with minimal shrinkage. And the cotton fiber is even softer than it was before. I don't know how long this blanket will last; I suspect this kind of cotton doesn't lend itself to heirloom-status items, but if it keeps this one baby cozy for a while, I'll be happy. The baby shower is just one month from today.

stripey steeks and wooly logs

It's a FOrmidable FO day here at the Scarlet Knitter's headquarters. Actually, the O's have been F(inishe)d for a while, but we had a heat wave and the mere thought of photographing wooly things had me hyperventilating. Now the Bay Area's natural air-conditioning has returned, and I feel civilized again and quite happy to plug in the iron and give these wooly things a final burst of steam before their turn in front of the camera.

Oldest and warmest is the minimalist log cabin blanket which will be given to my friend MK for her birthday later this month. MK has minimalist tastes so the colors were an easy choice. Like several other projects, this started with the sincere hope of using all stash yarns. I did have a lot of red at hand, but not enough greys and blacks, so the project required a visit or two to the yarn store. The Yarn Boutique in Lafayette had a good selection of Berrocco Peruvia yarn and the shades of grey sold me on this yarn as opposed to other possibilities. I have already lost track of how much yarn was used -- about 4 skeins of each, maybe more.

The red yarns were two different shades of Cascade Lana d'Oro: a cherry red and a darker scarlet one, bought around 2001. I contemplated making a larger blanket but couldn't find those same reds listed on the current Cascade color cards. This yarn is a bit thinner than the Peruvian, so I sometimes remembered to switch to a #7 needle instead of the #8 I used for the grey and black logs. Then again, sometimes I forgot.

I love the visual impact of Mason-Dixon's Log Cabin blanket pattern, but I am wary of trying the pattern as a true stash-buster. I think homogeneity in the yarns' feel and weight gives the simple design a definite polish.

Second is the alpaca shawl for the current afghans For Afghans drive. I had knitted striped scarves side to side before, but the steeking was a new and utterly addictive twist for me. I am convinced it is the way to go if you have more than, say, 150 stitches on the needle. I had 300, and after the cast on, the knitting took no time at all.

Now this project was a true stash-buster. I used all the olive green Honey Lane alpaca I had left after my hooded scarf project, and several odd skeins of purple Pastaza and Lana d'Oro, so old I cannot possibly remember why I brought them home in the first place six or seven years ago. Every skein was used to the last couple of inches, and my only yarn purchase was a skein of Berrocco Peruvia (my new yarn crush, I guess) in a heathered purple, for the edging.

I had planned to do an i-cord edging, but I discovered the one drawback of the side to side method: long edges curl mercilessly, and the applied i-cord was no match for hundreds of stockinette stitches determined to roll (even though I had started and finished the shawl with one ridge of garter stitch). Next time, I would resort to several rows of seed stitch for the first and last stripes. Meanwhile, I managed to tame the curling beast with two rows of single crochet on each long edge. I am so glad I took a crochet class last summer!  The straightforward appearance of this edging goes well with the geometry of the stripes, too ... and took a fraction of the time I was about to spend on an applied i-cord edging.

The backside of the stripes looks as attractive to me; I love the way striped reverse stockinette looks like those gorgeous ikat fabrics. But the backside is saddled with the steek facings and thus the shawl isn't truly reversible. Still, it will be fine once draped on the recipient's head and shoulders, I hope.

It feels good to check this pile of wooly, stripey goodness off the List, but first I need to admire it one last time and enjoy the sight of yards and yards all folded up before I send them on their way. It's as though all my hours of addictive TV watching had turned into something of substance, literally.

knitting myself a beach vacation

If you can't go to the beach, you could always knit yourself a cool and cooling summer scene. That was how I spent the knitting portion of last weekend. I had a few skeins of Manos Stria stashed away, with no idea how best to use them. The Yarn feature of Ravelry, one of my favorite places to squander a good hour, showed me a number of attractive blankets, so I decided to go that route. Fresh in my mind was Beverly Anne's baby blanket done in an elegant cream white. I knitted a swatch along the same lines as that blanket, with seed stitch patterning, but the lines of the motifs didn't show well in the loosely plied Stria cotton. So I am improvising this blanket, using texture in an allover way, perhaps assigning different textures to different colors (these stockinette squares are a much brighter blue than my camera indicates). I haven't figured out my way yet. I notice how difficult for me it is to trust improvisation. Part of me wants to find a published pattern and stick with it, but really, how hard it is to come up with enough squares to make a baby blanket? For a dear young friend of mine is expecting a baby boy by the end of summer. Which leads me to a key question: would it be outrageous to use my single skein of hot pink Stria for the edging of the blanket, which will be knitted entirely in blues and greens and whites? As the mother of three girls, I never had to confront this particular dilemma.

The fish was the product of another bout of fooling around with old stash yarn, this time, a trove of Brown Sheep Cotton Classic still waiting for the Right Project. Years ago, back in the Golden Years of Knitter's magazine (that would be the 90's), I bookmarked a lovely blanket made up of red and white fish. Literally, I used my patented PostIt method (yellow for afghans, scarves and other accessories, pink for women's clothing, orange for children, green for technical articles) and returned to this page of the magazine every year or so. In the meantime, the pattern was reprinted in one of the "Knitter's Dozen" books published by XRX, and I stumbled into several variations of the blanket over on Ravelry. A search for "Festive Fish", designed by Paula Levy, will take you there if you are curious.
Knitting fish One took a little less than an hour and I was pleasantly surprised to end up with a good size fish, not a puny one as I had anticipated, in spite of using a lighter weight yarn than the worsted called for. Knitting this blanket would be a huge temptation if the thought of sewing up this many fish heads and fins didn't give me pause. The technique recommended in the pattern sounds a bit too elaborate for me. For now I will stick with my one green fish and pile on the Stria squares instead.

And why can the Scarlet Knitter entertain thoughts of starting two new projects, you may ask? Why, because I just crossed two off my list. The steeked shawl is now edged and ready for a final bath and blocking; it was just a matter of letting the finished and blocked log cabin blanket dry thoroughly first.

More pictures next time. Off to knit a bit more beach.

The Happy Steeker

I had a few free hours on Saturday, so I knit around and around until I had a 21" high cylinder ready to be bound off.

On Monday, I took my giant loop to my sewing and knitting studio, aka the garage, and dusted off my long-neglected sewing machine. I had reviewed the hand-out from the class on steeking I had taken a couple of years ago at Stitches West, taught by Maureen Mason-Jamieson, a favorite teacher of mine.

First, she instructed me to baste the vertical line where the cut would take place, which I did quickly, by hand. For slippery yarns, she recommended machine stitching in the groove in between stockinette stitches close to the stitch where the cut will take place, first with a straight stitch, then with a narrow zigzag stitch for more stability -- for a total of 4 lines of machine stitching. So I did just that, practicing on a swatch first. Old swatches are great for this kind of surgery. I wanted to be sure my machine could handle worsted weight knitted fabric and I needed to figure out what width I needed for the zigzag stitches, what foot-pressure setting, etc.... Practicing on the swatch went a long way towards making me ready to entrust my alpaca loop to the machine. That's tip number one. Tip number two: don't rush. Don't pick up the telephone. Look where you are going. Three tips rolled into one!

The cutting went faster than the sewing, and I loved it. All at once my loop became a long stole; I couldn't wait to pick up stitches on one side and to get to work on the first facing. I made that facing over 1" wide, so that it would go beyond covering yarn ends and add something to the back of the stole. I knitted it in stockinette, ending with one garter stitch ridge to keep it from curling, then I hemmed it with a blind stitch. That was the trickiest part of the operation since the facing had less stretch than the knitted fabric of the stole which goes in a perpendicular direction. I wonder if one could simply forgo binding off the facing and tack its live stitches to the fabric. Then again, it might encourage the ends of the shawl to fan out, whereas the facing I did will give them more structure.

Caveat: these are all pre-blocking candid shots. My pictures are awfully amateurish but I know from several comments that knitters are always curious about this kind of surgery, so here is how the second facing is looking, with just two rows done so far:

You can see the fringe created by the steeking on the reverse side. The front looks cleaner already, although it (and the facings) will look better once I give them a good steam-blocking.

And then it will be time to pick up my 300 or so stitches and come up with an edging. I am leaning towards i-cord to keep with the minimalist striped design. All of the olive green and purple alpaca in my stash has been devoured by this project, but I found a heathered purple shade of Berrocco Peruvia that looked made to order for the job.

how to make stockinette fun

Cast on 300 stitches on a long circular needle. Knit two rows in garter stitch. At the end of the second row, join, being careful not to twist the stitches. Since there are hundreds of them packed on the needle, this maneuver is going to take quite a while. I recommend doing it on a large flat surface, like the floor, pressing the edge on the inside of the needle, doing it over and over until it looks all right.

Now the fun can start. Place marker, knit in the round. When you get tired of one color, or the skein is starting to look dangerously skinny, add a different color to the mix. Let your fancy and the state of your stash dictate the width of the stripes. Keep going in circles. After a while, the knitting seems to go on its own momentum. Circular knitting is even more relaxing than mindless garter stitch. Removing the easy step of turning your work around shouldn't make such a difference, but it does.

Also, work on stockinette grows so fast that one feels one is accomplishing so much with very little effort.
14 inches done, 7 more inches to go on my quick and dirty, soft and happy striped rectangle shawl for afghans For Afghans.

alpaca stripes, take two, no, take three

No, this is not a giant cowl or the beginnings of an alpaca skirt. This is my second attempt at a rectangular shawl for the current afghans For Afghans campaign. After knitting back and forth over about 300 stitches in boring stockinette, I had a (tiny) brainstorm. I decided to knit the shawl in the round, which gives me miles of relaxing, almost rhythmic uninterrupted circular fun.

I love finding a way to try my hand at something new to me, an as-yet-untried trick of the trade, when I am dealing with plain vanilla projects; in this case, something new will be taking scissors to this giant circle and practicing steeks in earnest, for the first time since I took a very good class on the topic. Taking a class and never putting my new knowledge to the test afterwards has become a specialty of mine; entrelac anyone? knitting back backwards?

This particular project seems ideal for my purposes; after I cut the scarf open, I plan to pick up and knit facings on each narrow side to cover the yarn ends and give the stole a bit of heft there to help it drape properly. I haven't decided yet how I will finish the long edges: crochet or icord, most likely.

Meanwhile, after discovering an especially ugly dropped stitch towards the edge of my gigantic circle of alpaca today, I have frogged it all. Attempt #2 is dead, long live attempt #3. Let's hope I don't have to cast on 300 stitches for this project yet again after today.

my blue period

Back from New York after a short trip, a happy graduation, a sad goodbye -- again. Maybe this is what I ought to knit next: a giant net in which to catch my growing and grown-up daughters and keep them ever close.

It rained hard and constantly on our first day, and the whole city looked grey, except for the top floor of MOMA which offered us so many shades of blue:



















and bluish greys




















A perfect match in mood for the knitting on my lap during the long flights there and back.
 
Typead is not allowing me to link to the wonderful site where photographs of these masterpieces by Picasso, Van Gogh and Rodin can be studied and admired: it is www.moma.org/collection/

Climbing the cabled rope

My first attempts at a striped stole with the odd skeins of alpaca have been disappointing. I had several inches of random stripes hanging on the needle before I decided to frog and cut my losses. At least I was able to enjoy the drape of a piece of alpaca knitted in stockinette; since the stole will be worn on a woman's head and shoulders, I am hesitant to consider more textured stitches.  Anyway, I need to reconsider random stripes before I cast on again. Sometimes randomness looks like a giant mistake. Attractive randomness is hard to come by.

Meanwhile, my blue cabled cardi grows and grows. We did in fact encounter some growing pains, otherwise known as cables crossed the wrong way

But the cardigan and I are all better now; cables have been repaired, and I learned my lesson: take a good look at every stitch at the end of a cable-crossing row. I have also added a stitch marker at the middle back to remind myself that all small cables after the marker need to be reversed. This is a tiny refinement I added to the original pullover pattern, which didn't have mirror-image cables.

I have a trip coming up later this week, with lots of airport and airline time to keep progressing on all that cabled goodness, so for now I am going to give my hands and wrists a break and return to wool.  The alpaca log cabin has acquired a log or two since I last posted a progress report, and it makes for lovely lazy mindless sleep-deprived knitting -- if not for riveting photography.

I finished my second Misty Garden scarf last week and finally got around to taking pictures:

Like my first one, this one used Shibui Knits Silk Cloud, a blend of kid mohair and silk, double stranded, and knitted on a size 8 needle. I used an Addi Lace needle which gave me the point I needed to grab the two strands at once and the stickiness to help hold on to this fairly slippery yarn.
I had misgivings about the variegation of this yarn, but now I have reconciled myself with it completely. Feather and Fan helped, and also the fact that the color range was not all over the place; I mean the colorway doesn't look or feel too busy to me. Still, I now feel as though I have indulged in too many desserts; I need to remember how delicious plain colors are to my knitting palate. Not sure where the metaphor is going to take me -- clearly dinner time must be on my prosaic mind right now -- so I'll end this post before getting in too deep.

alpaca odds and ends

Afghans For Afghans has a drive going on for rectangular shawls . These will be handed to the mothers who deliver their babies at the Cure hospital in Kabul. The guidelines are precise and I have been pondering what my rectangle should look like.

I started by pulling out medium weight yarns that could work together. It turns out my few alpaca leftovers look pretty good together:

That light pink skein on top is really a pale lilac shade, but the other colors are fairly accurate. There is more olive green yarn than purple, so I will probably frame the shawl in green.
I needed more inspiration and my books weren't providing it, so I brought this home:

This well-produced dictionary fills a niche next to my classic Barbara Walker volumes which can't very well satisfy my color fix. Lots of swatches, a clear presentation, a few ideas to think about. Still, this shawl drive is a challenge: we are asked to avoid lacy fabrics and we need to make sure the resulting shawls are light enough to be draped over a head and shoulders. At this point I am leaning towards stripes, either in stockinette or in seed stitch. So clever, so original, I know. I don't look great in them but I sure love to knit them.

Wait a minute now. Typepad has apparently lost the picture documenting all my 298 stitches of blue cables. Here it is for good measure: