Scotland the Brave

About 18 months ago I started a Shetland-style shawl with a Scottish theme in celebration of my first trip back in about 10 years. I made great progress through the center Saltire (the Scottish flag is called the Saltire or St Andrew's Cross). Then I breezed through the thistle (see Heradry section) border. But when it came to knitting off the edging, I faltered. Considering there were something over 1,000 stitches to knit off it's not surprising. About that time came along a number of other projects and the shawl got moved to the side table from which it would call and let out sad cries. I resisted. Until the last couple of weeks.

I finally got it temporarily finished last night. Temporarily because as I looked it over, I realized I'd made some major mistakes in the edging. Not little niggly things but major things. It's ugly. Real ugly. Heartbreakingly ugly. I was so focused on getting all those little stitches off my needle that I didn't notice. It wasn't the pattern. The pattern was gorgeous and easy. It seems that the places I hit bumps were:

1. When I picked it up after it sat for a year
2. When I knitted while my eyes were closing with exhaustion
3. When I was watching The Bourne Identity

I tried to pretend it didn't matter. I tried to pretend it was okay. But I knew it did matter and that it wasn't okay. I love the shawl and the design and the fact that it's 64" x 64". Just what I wanted and what I saw when I started planning it. You can see the thistles in the border but I also used a climbing vine pattern for the corner sections and am very pleased with how that came out. So there's no way that I could leave it. I'm doing the edging over, knitting it on its own and then I'll attach it later. I think it will go much faster that way. At least I'm telling myself it will.

Anyway, here are some pictures of the finished project:

(blocked on a red cover)


(in daylight and foled in half)

Physics of wool

Woohoo! I’m done! I’m really done. I’m really actually done. But I have a few comments.

How is it that I weighed out my 8 ounces of fiber as I split it into 2 4-oz bunches but when I spun them up, one bobbin was finished and the other wasn't. Like this:

I solved the problem, by the way, by using the Andean-ply method but believe me, it was a significant difference.

It’s been really hard to get a picture that shows the colors but you get a little of the idea here.

It’s not really lace weight but it’s definitely a light fingering weight so I don’t think that went too badly. The yardage was not quite up to the 1,000 yards I was hoping for but it was about 975 yards so I’m definitely happy about that. 975 yards.

Now, of course, the question is, what to do with it. You know what I’m thinking? I’m kind of thinking of a lacy poncho. I’ve got triangular shawls and rectangular shawls but how about a circular(ish) shawl? I’m thinking really open pattern on size 6 needles or so. The only issue will be that there will definitely not be any running to the store to buy an extra skein of yarn, although I think I could probably find a solid roving that would go with this but I’ll need something that I can work until I run out and then be happy.

Space/Time Continuum

There is a point in some projects that you hit a wall. It’s kind of like waiting for the punch line in Uncle Ed’s joke or like standing in line at the grocery store or like watching the kettle waiting for it to boil. No matter how much you knit, no matter how much you spin, there’s no progress. You can knit for 2 hours and the silly thing only measures about ½ inch from where you started. I spun for 2 ½ hours the other night and still had exactly the same length of roving I started out with. I swear. Exactly the same length.

I’ve actually got 2 projects going right now that fall into this category. One is the edging of a shawl I started before I went to Scotland a year and a half ago. The other is spinning some wool roving into some lace weight (I hope) yarn.

The shawl has something like 1,200 stitches to knit off and I’m basically halfway around. But each stitch to knit off requires doing 2 rows of the edging and every time I hold it up to see how much progress I’m making, I feel like there’s a little knitting gremlin adding stitches to the back of my needle. I don’t know how that’s accomplished but I know it’s happening.

The spinning project entails some Ashland Bay Colonial Wool Top in the Northern Lights colorway that I got from Karen Poulakos. I have another package of this in the old stash but I’ve never gotten to spinning it. The colors on this one are so subtle (as you can see from the picture on the link above) that I’m still not sure how it’s going to look. I think some of the colors will show up better once it’s plied and off the bobbin but it’s hard to know. I’ve been trying to spin as finely as I can and, for the most part, I’ve been pleased with the effort. I’m hoping to get at least 800 yards out of the 8 oz but we’ll have to see.

Which brings me to the space/time fiber work continuum mentioned above. Before I started out I weighed it out so I knew I had 4 oz in each section so I’d be able to 2-ply it when I was finished with the singles. The first 4 ounces went well enough but I got a little bit into the second batch when it hit. I spun and spun and spun and spun but it wasn’t going anywhere. For a while I thought it was because I was spinning so finely but after a while that excuse wouldn’t fly anymore. It was multiplying. I know it was.

But I’m finally there. I spun at night, I got up early in the morning and spun for a hour before work, I spun at lunchtime and finally, today I finished – the singles, that is. Now I have to start the plying! I have a feeling I’m going to have to either sit outside or bring in an extra light to do the plying because it’s so dark, I can’t see the twists. I already have a problem with not getting enough twist into the ply so I’m not taking any chances with this stuff. Last thing I want is to have to ply it a second time!!

Edited: I've now got most of the Colonial top plied. The first skein is about 480 yards and the second one, though not finished, looks like it will be almost the same so I should definitely have my 800 yards. Now I have to figure out what to make with it...

Anatomy of Baby's Bloomers

As you know, I've been knitting for baby(ies), though I believe I'm nearing the end both in terms of having enough for upcoming babies and in desire to knit for babies. But I've learned something really easy I thought I'd pass along. For one of the babies I knit a little dress but I wanted bloomers to go under and discovered an easy-peasy way to make them.
The little dress was very blousy at the bottom so I used about 80% of the stitches I cast on for the dress to cast in the round for the bloomers. I'd decided I wanted to use elastic for the waist so I knit 4 rows in stockinette, did K2together/yo for the next row (for a picot edge), then knitted 6 more rows in stockinette before I started my little eyelet pattern.

Next I knit even using my eyelet pattern until the tube measured 7.5 inches from the picot edge. I then marked 10 stitches from the middle back and 10 stitches from the middle front to use as the crotch. I put all the other stitches on stitch holders. I knit about 10 rows over the 10 stitches on either side, then bound them off using a 3-needle bind off.

Now I was ready to do the legs. I did the same thing for the legs that I did for the waist because I was lazy and just ready to be done but you could knit longer and make little shorts or even pants out of it. I picked up the stitches from one of the legs and then picked up 10 stitches from the crotch piece I'd just finished. The gave me the stitches I needed for the leg so then I used my double pointed needles to finish off the leg edging. I did the second leg the same way and boomps-a-daisy, we have baby's bloomers!

It all adds up

I finished another 8 oz of the Wisconsin wool that I’ve been working on. That gives me 1.5 lbs spun so far and another pound to go. I'm having to rethink what I was going to do with it because, after having done the swatch, I realize that it's more chunky than I thought it was going to be. If I've figured my yardage right, I only have about 730 yards of 3-ply.

So I’ve now done a swatch to figure out how much yardage I’ll need for a sweater with this yarn and I’m going to have to spin a little more but not too much. Want to know how I figured it out? I learned this technique from Pat Maley at a cotton spinning workshop.

1. I started a swatch that let me measure over 4 inches with a selvedge on each side.
2. After I knitted about 1 inch, I knit 4 stitches into the swatch and tied a string tightly around the yarn immediately as it came off the right hand needle.
3. I measured out exactly 1 yard of yarn and tied another string tightly around the 1 yard mark.
4. Next I continued knitting my swatch as normal until I was able to measure the rows per inch over 4 inches.
5. I counted the number of stitches knitted using the yard of yarn.
6. Then I figured out the stitches per inch and rows per inch.
7. Knowing the measurements I would need for the sweater, I figured out roughly the number of stitches that would be needed for the body of the sweater.
8. Now I could divide that total number of stitches by the number of stitches knitted with my yard of yarn which gives me about how many yards I would need for the body. From that number, I guestimated how much I would need for the sleeves.

So, for instance, let’s say (for sake of easier maths) I have a swatch measuring 5 stitches to the inch and 7 rows to the inch. My sweater is going to be 40 inches around which means I will need to cast on 200 stitches. The body is going to be 18 inches from the cast on to the shoulder. 18 x 7 = 126 rows. 126 rows x 200 stitches = 25,200 stitches. Now, let’s say my yard of yarn allowed me to knit 45 stitches. 25,200 stitches divided by my 45 stitches tells me that I’ll need 560 yards for the body. I’ve guestimated that I’ll need another third of that for the sleeves. That’s about 187 yards + 560 yards = 747 yards for the garment. I don't know how close this will give me an idea of where I’m headed.

The Best of the Worst

I have a new favorite worst movie of all times. I know it will show how behind the curve I am but I just discovered that you can get video podcasts from iTunes. I came across one called “Matinee Movies” which has provided me the most amusement I’ve had for ages. First there was “Luck of the Irish” or some such. Then there was “Dr. Kildare’s Strange Case” where he discusses providing insulin shock therapy to a man who’s mentally deranged (the proof of which is a whole different discussion).

But the cream of the crop has been a movie that barely even deserves the designation as a ‘B’ movie called “The Horrors of Spider Island.” It’s a 1962 cross between SciFi and Beach Barbi Bingo. It starts out with Gary and his lovely assistant Georgia auditioning dancers for a troop going to Singapore. Considering all one ‘dancer’ does to audition is to take off her dress, you can imagine how impressive this dance troop is. Her name, by the way, is Babs and you want to keep an eye out for her because she’s involved in the most memorable line of the whole movie a little later on.

Anyway, on the flight to Singapore, the plane crashes (of course) and they bob around in the lifeboat (hair, clothing and heels in tact) until they come across an island. Big Gary, strapping young man that he is and without his shirt, has to carry all of the poor helpless ladies ashore. But at least he does it without disturbing above mentioned hair, clothing and heels. They gather strength to explore the island and come across a cabin which contains, much to their horror (thus the title – get it?) a dead man caught in a giant spider web (get it?). As they read his diary they realize he was on this remote island mining for uranium. Now Gary had already guessed there must be uranium so he’s a smart joe (not to be confused with Joe – he comes later).

The women recover enough to get into bikinis (or maybe it was just underwear – I don’t know what 1962 underwear looks like) and make passes at Gary. Georgia, Gary’s assistant and love interest, catches him kissing one of the girls and he walks off with the professor’s gun to cool his heels. On his travels he comes across a giant spider (title – get it?) and shoots it. But somehow, in shooting it, he becomes a spider man (but not in the good way). Spiders, evidently, don’t wear shirts but they do have hairy faces and fangs (looked a bit like a werewolf spider, actually).

The girls just don’t know what to do. They’re helpless and stalk around the island not knowing what to do. But don’t worry. They won’t be alone for long.

Unbeknownst to the girls, 2 research assistants (Joe and Bob) get dropped off at the island to assist the professor in his research. We discover that the research ship is going to pick them up 2 days later but don’t worry, they’ve brought plenty of supplies, including a case of whiskey. Sounds like some sort of research, doesn’t it? Imagine their surprise when they discover the professor has been killed by some giant spider but the island is populated by this randy bunch of beautiful women with no man to protect them. I haven’t yet mentioned the groovy music but this was the early ‘60s and the music will have you moving.

I’m going to just sum up to say they dance and carouse and drink whiskey until one of the men falls for the ‘innocent’ Ann. Babs (remember her? the sometimes stripper?) tries to lure him with her wily ways but he resists her. Ann doesn’t know this until Babs tells her which results in the best line of the movie: “Is it really true, Babs?” Really, that’s the best line. Honest.

It winds up with the spider man chasing Gladys to her death and then the women chasing the spider man with torches into the bog because there is a bog on this remote tropical island (who knew?). The spider man sinks into the bog and the research ship comes and picks everyone up and the rest of them live happily ever after. I’m just assuming the ever after. They didn’t say that, I’m just sure it must be after surviving a downed ship in the ocean, days on a raft and the Horror of Spider Island.

Heavy, Baby

Well, ladies and gentlemen, it's done. It's finally done. The grooviest purse I've ever made. The yarn was bought more than a year ago and has gone through various permutation until it came to this.

One thing I hadn't planned on, indeed never thought about, was the weight of it all. Just under a pound with nothing in it. I may not use it too much but I still dig it!

I continue in baby land with a little lavendar dress and an afghan in the works. The doctor moved the due date up by 2 weeks for one of the babies so I'm working in overdrive to finish.