On Thanksgiving day, 2006, I dipped my toe into the vast ocean of knitting blogs as the Scarlet Knitter... and here I am, happily swimming along three years later. How fitting, then, that the day when I mean to pause and thank you for your friendly and supporting comments along the way is a day set aside for taking stock of so many reasons to be grateful.
Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate it today, and un grand merci to all.
Here is the Palindrome scarf, all blocked and ready to wear. I need to take a better photo of it, wrapped around a human neck, but this will have to do in the meantime. The pattern is easy and ingenious and I have already cast on for another version since.
But woman cannot live by scarves alone, so I have started to swatch for another project.
Buried deep in the stash, yet never forgotten, are four skeins of a discontinued yarn from Brooks Farm called Harmony -- a blend of kid mohair, merino and silk. I bought them with the thought of knitting a turtleneck pattern from an old Rowan magazine. But this was four years ago, and I have come to my senses since, and realized that a pullover this warm would not be of much use in California, even in the dead of winter.
I'd much rather have a cardigan -- longish, almost knee-length. I happen to have a storebought version which fits just right at the shoulders and hips, so I'll use my great Sweater Wizard software to produce the right schematics and come up with a pattern. The swatch was step one; it helped me to determine that I want to knit this fabric relatively tightly, on #5 needles. The yarn is interesting enough on its own that it doesn't need much texture; I am leaning towards a wide border in garter stitch and a body in stockinette. By the weekend, I hope to have a pattern and perhaps the beginnings of the back.
While I was waiting for the swatch to dry, my thoughts turned to color, so I cast on for this:
Noro Silk Garden #84, I love you to distraction. And the ten skeins in my stash aren't going to be enough to keep me satisfied.
Still playing catch-up with the contents of my knitting basket, I finally finished and blocked the baby blanket started back in August, for the current afghans For Afghans baby-blanket drive.
In spite of the many weeks that have passed since I cast on, this was actually a very fast project, with the actual knitting taking barely more than a week. My simple trick was to knit a (mostly) stockinette blanket in the round, then steek it and knit facings for the two long edges. I took a few photos in the process in order to share the very simple method with other knitters on the lookout for satisfying, fast, stash-busting projects, and especially for those who like to contribute knitted goods to the charity of their choice.
I started with 5 skeins of mohair, Laines du Nord Kiddy Print, in a variegated blue colorway. On its own the mohair was a tad scratchy and I didn't have enough for a blanket anyway, but the stash drawers of blue yarns were overflowing with single skeins of fingering-weight wools ranging from periwinkle to sky blue. I even added a tiny bit of off-white to the mix, to suggest a hint of clouds in my sky-colored rectangle.
A swatch in stockinette gave me the basic gauge, so I cast on about 100 stitches to yield a blanket that would be 40" wide, plus 10 stitches for the center area where steeking would take place later. I placed a marker at the end of the round to mark that center point. This is where I changed colors of fingering-weight wools every two or three rows. The mohair was used throughout. Since I was going to steek, the color jog didn't matter and I didn't bother with weaving ends of joining them, either.
This is what the inside of my knitted tube looked like.
Two years ago, I had knitted a long shawl this way, and that first steeked project had taught me that stockinette knitted in the round wants to curl even more than stockinette knitted flat. It had taken two rows of single crochet to tame that very stubborn roll. This time, I started my tube with about two inches of seed stiches and ended it the same way.
Combining the two strands, I knitted my cylinder with a large #9 circular needle, which meant the blanket grew at a very steady rate, consuming several small skeins of fingering-weight wool at a satsifying clip. I was pleased at how the mohair softened and yet the blanket remained light and lofty.
Before subjecting the finished tube to my sharp scissors, I basted a cutting line in red yarn, smack in the heart of those center stitches.
This step took very little time but garanteed there would be no accident. Then I dusted off my sewing machine; the key here is to work slowly. This is no pedal-to-the-metal sewing, obviously; my machine has a dial on the side that allows me to modify the setting of the pressure-foot. I rarely touch it when sewing regular fabrics, but for something this bulky, it is very useful. One can also use needles designed for knit fabrics but I forgot to do this. Really, all that matters is to take one's time.
You can see the navy thread of the machine-made stitches on either side of the red basting line. In some cases, it is a good idea to sew two lines of stitches on each side of the red line, but mohair is such a secure, sticky yarn that I didn't bother. It was time to cut, a task I always find immensely exciting.
After cutting, the blanket opened up, and the edges looked like this -- a mess of blue, wooly spaghetti. I trimmed them to about 1/2 inch or less, then picked up stitches on the cut ends, using a ratio of 4 stitches for 5 rows, knitting a few rows of seed stitch.
By then I was on my last skein of mohair, so I had to limit myself to a skimpy border, not as wide as I would have liked. After about 4 rows of seed stitch, I knitted one purl row and went on in stockinette. (You can see the thin edging on the photo at the top of this post. Hard to believe there are four rows of seed stitch there. Darn yarn shortage!)
The purl row served as a fold line between the seed stitch edging and the stockinette facing. The facing had to be wide enough to cover all those wild yarn ends. I don't know why it didn't occur to me to keep it in seed stitch. Somehow I thought of facings as always knitted in stockinette, for no good reason, really.
It took very little time to tack on the facings on the inside of the blanket, using one of the thin wools as thread. This was a learn-as-you-go project, and in the future I would probably knit facings for all sides of the blanket to end with a more polished result even though the top and bottom edges don't have any ends to camouflage.
For those who are nervous about steeking and cutting their knitting, don't be. Try it first on a project like this one, where no armhole or neck-shaping is called for. At this point I feel ready for the real thing; several bloggers have done an excellent job of virtually holding your hand through the whole process, most recently the very talented Elinor. She even demonstrates the crochet-steek version for those who lack access to a sewing-machine. Check it out.
Over on Ravelry, I spend a good chunk of my time reading and posting on the Stash Knit Down group. What I love about it is that there is no initiation ritual, no solemn oath not to buy yarn for a month, a year, forever, no hard and fast rules. Instead, the moderators have come up with several clever challenges that are easy to follow or adapt. I can't claim that I have made a huge dent in my stash during the past two years as an active member of the group, but some space has been cleared. While I used to solve stash overflow issues by dropping by the Container Store every year or so, now I celebrate downsizing in whatever form I see it. Blue yarns have recently been consolidated in one drawer instead of two; same for purple yarns. Slowly but surely, knitting progress is being made and see-through plastic drawers can be reclaimed for other uses.
For 2009, one challenge offered by our brilliant moderator was to knit or crochet 100 skeins of stash yarn. For a brief moment of delusion, I wondered if I actually owned 100 skeins; it only took counting the brown, purple and red yarns to come to my senses. Forget the greys and pinks and greens. Forget the separate container of Kidsilk Haze and Manos collected through many years. I could face a "100 skeins challenge" for another year or two.
(This may be a good time to point out that I have been knitting, on and off but mostly on, since the age of 14. Some skeins in my stash are close to 25 years old. I love them that much.)
This reality check propelled me to sign up. The simplicity of the goal appealed to me. I became like a kindergartner obsessed with stickers for good behavior. Blankets, especially the ones involving multiple strands knitted together, gave me a good start back in January, allowing me to slow down and knit a little bit of lace later on. I noticed my scarves would go on past a reasonable length just so I could check another skein off and get closer to my goal.
Obsessive knitting behavior has paid off; I kept a tally on my Ravelry profile page and reached my goal on Halloween. One hundred skeins all knitted up; this has made me ridiculously satisfied, just the way one feels after dropping off huge bags of discarded clothing or toys at Goodwill after a good Spring cleaning. Aaaah. Deep cleansing breath.
As I mentioned earlier, I didn't stop buying yarn this year, so my net result isn't really one hundred skeins gone from the stash. Still I bought way less than in the past. I also buy yarn differently now -- almost always with a precise and immediate purpose, and with the aim of rounding up stash, and improving it too. It is a very nice feeling to look around and love the yarn I do own.
I am going to keep going, counting skeins all used up until the New Year, and start anew in January. The Rav group also gives us the chance to formulate monthly goals; since I recently registered for Stitches West, which comes to the Bay Area at the end of next February, I decided that my priority is going to be using up yarns accumulated during past Stitches conventions.
You see (I know many knitters do see this), there is stash yarn, and then there is Stash Yarn, the kind brought back from a one-of-a-kind source, a fiber festival, a scene of utter debauchery like the Stitches Market, or a unique pilgrimage to a local yarn shop during a visit to a foreign country. Rare and precious stash, the kind that might wait around for years for the Right Project.
Focusing on using my stash yarns first helps me to learn that there isn't really One Right Project looming up there, waiting for me to discover it. Instead, I might comb the yarn database on Ravelry, to see what others have made with my precious stuff. Or I may just figure it out myself. If it doesn't work out, one could always (gasp) frog it and try it again later. But for all of this to take place, one does have to visit the stash often enough to be reminded of all its potential.
Yesterday, I did just that. Then I acted like a grown-up and used the Stash feature on Ravelry for the first time; I skipped the photograph stage because I just don't want to give up more knitting time to Ravelry as it is, but at least I listed most of the yarns I have brought back from previous Stitches conventions. This should help me as I challenge myself to knit at least some of them up between now and February, 2010.
Exhibit A: these four skeins of hand-dyed silk-wool blend followed me home from La Lana's booth several Stitches West ago. I bought them impulsively, imagined I had enough for a shawl, swatched once or twice, but never decided what to use them for. Last week, inspired by Norma's blog, I remembered the Palindrome scarf, a reversible cable number that I had bookmarked ages ago. The clever, easy-to-memorize pattern is here.
I didn't expect the thick and thin yarn, Phat Silk Fine, to work out this perfectly with a classic cable texture, but I was wrong. The only issue was a pronounced difference in color saturation among the four skeins. I ended up alternating two rows from a dark skein with two rows of a lighter one. The general effect is one of subtle striping. It adds an interesting depth to the overall color, in addition to the slight shine of the yarn.
This is a pre-blocked close-up (there is a slight traffic jam on the blocking board right now and simple scarves need to wait their turn), but I am already very pleased with the result and determined to cast on for another Palindrome later this week. With stash yarn, naturellement.
I didn't just buy yarn when I was in New York two weeks ago. I also got a bit of knitting done.
With some gorgeous Harrisville shetland from the stash, I returned to a favorite pattern, Evelyn A. Clark's Flower Basket Shawl (Rav link) . My first Flower Basket shawl is the one I wear most often, because it isn't too long and because I like to wear it with the point under the neck or slightly to the side, where the scalloped edging frames the face in a way I really like. I have other triangle shawls of similar dimensions, like my good old Charlotte's Web, but their straight edges appeal less.
Loved it unblocked and crinkly, love it even more now.
Truth be told, the shetland could stand a bit of softening. I am going to see if that happens naturally, with frequent wearing. My Stonington shawl was knitted with the same yarn and when I reach for it on most mornings, it feels utterly soft and squishy -- and this after it was soaked and blocked only once. Shetland is really exceptional this way; and light, and warm. Best of all, it absorbs dyes in the most exquisite way. There is no way I could capture this colorway properly; there are tiny flecks of pink in the red, and a slightly blueish tint at times. The shawl took very little time and under two skeins of yarn, even though I added one pattern repeat to extend the length.
I have another FO to report, also a stash project, started yesterday, finished yesterday, dressed-up today with a black button. The Manhattan Freshman had requested a grey hat, to go with her black scarf perhaps.
For this I unearthed two ancient skeins from the stash, so old that I can't remember when or where I found them (before I realized I didn't enjoy knitting with boucle, at any rate.) The yarn, long since discontinued, is Anny Blatt's Chimere, a blend of wool and kid mohair that is much softer than it looks. I knitted it double with a size 9 circular, following a basic template from Ann Budd's indispensable book of knitting patterns.
All in all, not bad for a little over a week's worth.
In other news...
Happy Halloweeen!
A few blocks away is the street to visit on Halloween in my town. I'll be home handing out candy while the festivities are on in full force, but I got to see a preview of things to come during my afternoon walk.
Homage to Attack of the Killer Tomatoes
And a tribute, both ghoulish and elegant, to the Day of the Dead
Off to light candles and fill up the magic cauldron of candy!
This very corner of the living-room couch is where I camped most of Saturday and Sunday afternoons and evenings, adding sleeves to what threatened to remain a colorful (also, collar-less) vest. Mission accomplished, although I suspect all the rules of knitting-ergonomics were broken in the process. But that's what Advil is for.
Presenting my version of Kiki, a Kiki-lite, with non-stranded sleeves and a collar. Next time I try stranded-colorwork, and there will be several next times, I'll do it all the way and try my hand at steeks for the armholes and neck. I was a bit chicken this time as the deadline for this project loomed close. Also, I didn't want my first steeked pullover to be knitted with worsted weight yarns; the bulk seems like an additional challenge at this point in my very limited experience with steeking (especially around armholes.)
In order to make this sweater, I started with Sweater Wizard software to generate a standard pattern for a modified drop-sleeve pullover. If I had given the matter more thought, I should have selected a simple drop-sleeve design. The sleeves were knitted from the armhole down, flat for an inch or so, then in the round, and attached in a way that I don't find very attractive.
I supposed this wouldn't show so much if the sweater was the same unified color as the sleeve, but at any rate -- next time, drop sleeves.
On the positive side, I used my favorite collar trick for warmth and elasticity: knit the crew neck edge twice as long, don't bind off, tack the live stitches one by one on the inside of the neck. It looks and feels just right.
This was the ideal stash-busting project: unfortunately, I have much more stash to bust.
It was Parents' weekend at Olivia's school, so off I went again, to give my New York daughters, the Freshman and her big sister, actual hugs and even a bit of knitwear or two.
The Freshman had requested a black scarf, no doubt influenced by her chic and minimalist Manhattan environment. I remembered I had stashed some lace yarn from Morehouse Merino a few years back, and then the yarn dictated the pattern. There was no way I was going to knit a plain black scarf in lace yarn; I needed a bit of interest, which is how I remembered the Victorian Ruby scarf from Jane Sowerby's beautiful lace book, Victorian Lace Today.
I first knitted this scarf for myself after Knitter's Magazine published the pattern a few years back, out of some deep red Rowan Kidsilk Haze. It is a very wearable pattern, with two lace panels bracketing a simple scarf knitted in elongated garter stitch.
Since my new New Yorker likes long scarves that wrap around the neck several times over, I made the plain, center section much longer on her version. As a result, I had to block the super-long finished scarf in three parts as I couldn't find a surface long enough to do the whole job at once.
I think it was worth it.
This scarf is so long, I don't have a way to photograph it properly (also, it is truly jet black, not the dull black that came out in several photographs).
(Ooops, I was in a rush when I took photos. Once in New York, I wove in that pesky little end, I promise).
The traditional scarf-hanging-from-the-dining-room-window shot:
The yarn is absolutely delicious to use, smooth and soft but with some character; I only wish Morehouse Merino offered it in more colors. I'll confess to some trepidations leaving this pretty, warm, lighweight, slightly dainty item in the recesses of a college dorm room, but a mother's love needs to be tested this way now and then, I suppose.
My older New-York daughter did not get a scarf this time. Her boyfriend did.
Again, I have knitted the pattern before; it is the geometric scarf (Ravelry link) from the first "Vogue on the Go: Scarves" book. I used the KPM Koigu called for but made this scarf much longer so that it could be wrapped around the neck in a manly way.
Hard to tell from my so-so photos, but this project swallowed a whole five skeins of gorgeous, warm, heavenly-to-knit-with Koigu KPM. I wouldn't do this for just any young man, only a very fine one.
I had some doubts about how masculine the pattern was, what with the way the corners fan out from the body of the scarf as the vertical ribbing progressively becomes horizontal. But Sarah assured me this would be perfect. She should know as she confiscated my first version of this scarf last winter. (I did refrain from adding the beads that are an integral part of the original design).
In contrast with the Victorian Ruby scarf, this one, knitted painstakingly on #4 needles, takes forever, even for a fast knitter. I found my way around this issue by working on it exclusively outside the house, in waiting-room, boarding gates, on various flights. It led to some good conversations with strangers here and there, and the short segments of time never allowed me to get bored, even if it took me from March to August to finish (and then all the way to October to weave the ends and blog about it, ahem).
Give and you shall receive, or so they say. On my first morning in New York, I discovered that the closest, neatest yarn shop was located literally across the street from my hotel. And its sale yarn of the month happened to be Koigu -- need I say more?
Even though I am this close to tacking down a border and calling my mohair blanket an F.O., I just couldn't wait to embark on a deliciously addictive new project.
Meet my tribute to two brilliant multicolor patterns, Mason-Dixon Knitting's Kiki Mariko rug (Ravelry link) and the Kiki sweater that inspired it in the first place. Kiki claims that this diagonal pattern will work well with just about any combination of colors, and amazingly, she is right. The wools I pulled out of the stash for this project are an assortment of pinks, reds, purples, two greens and one brown. (I have some orange wool on standby but I still hesitate to add it to the mix). I can't believe how well they play together.
The inside looks like this:
cushy and warm, just what is needed for a child living in a cold, harsh climate. This sweater is my contribution to the new afghans For Afghans Youth drive . I plan to continue with this pattern to the armholes, but I'll switch to something different afterwards, when I need to work the back and front flat as I dislike stranding on purl rows.
This is as close to designing on the needles as I have come, and it is a true pleasure. I love it when putting this many colors together actually makes some sense. It gives me the courage to branch out of plain stripes into more adventurous territory. One day I'll be brave enough to try steeking the armholes and neck too... but not just yet.
Meet Alice.
I was feeling a bit out of sorts with this empty-nest business, so when a knitalong came up on the Ravelry Sasha doll group, I jumped right in and spent two lazy afternoons listening to podcasts and knitting this sweater. The fact that I chose pink yarn made the task even more pleasant.
The yarn is my beloved Harrisville Shetland, straight from the stash. Not much of a stash-buster however -- the sweater took about half one skein. And the rich, heathery color is not a good match for the guernsey-style patterning which all but disappears here:
Which can mean only one thing: I need to knit Alice another sweater. The pattern and others in various doll sizes can be found here .
I have another pink F.O. to brag about, but I need to give it away before I can risk a full unveiling on the blog. Here is a peek because I can't resist:
More F.O's to show later this week; as for my mohair blanket for the afghans For Afghans baby blanket drive, the knitting and steeking are all done. It now waits for the border facings to be sewn, a step I'll cover in more detail as soon as I actually execute it.
Stay tuned.
The view from C's dorm room:
(Seriously).
The road trip that helped me pretend that we hadn't just dropped off our third daughter at school before returning to a very empty house:
(Cayucos, just South of San Simeon on the central Coast)
The gem of a motel we discovered there:
The small patio was a veritable riot of tree houses (or perhaps just a riot, period).
Each room had a theme. Want to venture a guess as to the theme of ours?
Clue # 1.
Getting warmer?
The theme extended to the bathroom ( and really on to every corner of the room, ceiling included, but you get the idea); our very favorite sunflower had to be this one, hands down.
Serendipity!
