Past actions, transitions

One thing that I really want from a nice fair isle sweater is a good, smooth flow of colour from one shade to the next. My original sweater is not of that ilk: it has 2-colour stripes. But I like the look of the smooth colour flow and I wanted to try my hand at making it happen.

I had purchased a lot (for me) of palette yarn from Webs. I chose the colours from the website (of course) which has the disadvantage that you can't hold two strands up to each other, so they might not actually run as smoothly one to the other as it appears from the computer screen.

That said, I did have some success. I thought I'd write a little bit more about that over the next few days.

Past Actions

A year or so ago, I tried ordering a large-ish quantity of wool from Webs, the online yarnseller. They speciallise in some 100% wool called Valley Yarn, which seemed pretty much perfect for fair isle. It comes in lots of colours (Palette) and it's hairy enough that it should double-strand nicely.

Over several weeks, I tried a few things with it, including learning how to two-strand and pick at once. And I tried some colourwork patterns. I'll spend some time telling you about it, maybe.

Anything else?

I've been working on a big slow project that may be finished soon. I've been making a lace curtain for the smallest window in the house. I actually started it before this blog re-boot, so it's very much a grandfathered project. It's nothing to do with fair isle, but neither are socks.

Except, of course, that anything I'm knitting does affect everything else that I am knitting, if only because while I knit the curtains, I am not knitting the next fair isle project. Or the latest, either. While I knit socks, I am not working on fixing the cuffs of my sweater.

Still, it's a pretty thing and I'm glad to have worked on it. I'm not sure whether or not I will ever make another lace curtain. It is a lot of making for something which either will look a bit kitschy or will look like something one could have bought for way less than my hourly salary X the number of hours I spent on it. I knit to learn, I guess.

Storm Shadow

I now have the ends of two skeins of Tanis Fibre Arts yarn: one is in the colourway "Storm" and the other is in the colourway "Shadow". Although, if pressed, I would have guessed the other way around, "Shadow" is the paler partner. They look as though they would, together, make something beautiful, if only I could think of what it should be. At the moment, I am thinking of rather small stripey socks. I might be able to get another skein in a different colourway and make a pretty baby sweater. Something, anyway. So lovely a combination should be celebrated.

Travel socks

I've called them "rickrack" because they're a) the pattern Rick from Cookie A's book "Sock Innovation" and b) replete with 90-degree angle turns, like rickrack ribbon.
I like the colourway. It's "shadow" from Tanis Fibre Arts, photograph a coupla days ago. It's a pleasant grey-light-blue combination.

They were great to work on while travelling. I figured out how to kitchener without a tapestry needle (because I think that will still get removed from your on-board luggage), so I was nearly done by the time I got home. They passed pleasingly quickly, especially given that I knit them throw-style because I like my socks good and tight and I know that my throw gauge is much tighter than my pick gauge.

I made this pair a couple of repeats longer than the first pair. I knew from experience that there was absolutely no reason to worry about running out of yarn. And I knew from experience that I prefer socks slightly longer than your average pattern offers.

sucking it up, mk. 2

The bottom of the sweater is in need of a re-do. I haven't re-done it, but it's time for me to, once again, suck it up and do it right. The sweater is (potentially) lovely, and I shouldn't let one bit of it be crappy. It is very hard now that it's (mostly) done, though. I would prefer it to stay done.

I'd like it to be flat like that. But it's only flat like that if I'm actively holding the edge down off-screen. Sigh. Sucking.

Another picture

Here is a picture of the skein of yarn I used to make the second pair of Rick socks. It's light blue, I would say. I like that colourway a lot, and I like Tanis fibre arts' yarn a lot, but I think the next pair of socks I make will be a single colour.

A picture

Here is a picture of the 4-stitch-wide pocket over the ends of my strands of knitting on the arms of the sweater I recently finished (except that I haven't actually finished all of the pockets, yet.

Oh, geez, pictures soon

You know, I just noticed how long it's been since I last put a picture on this site. Whoops. I mean for it to be visually interesting, really, I do. But lately my camera and I haven't been bonding. It's been dark or if it hasn't been dark, I've been thinking that I'd rather be out in the sun than in a sunny window taking photos. I know, it's all very well, this "posting every day" thing, but it's a bit of a poor show to post without images for weeks. Sorry. Pictures. I'll get right on that.

Am I the only one whose urge to take snaps ebbs and flows? Surely not.

What next, next?

Much as I have enjoyed the sock knitting (and I have), I need another project now. I will soon return to travel mode, so at the very least I need something to keep my hands occupied while the earth rolls by beneath me.

I don't want it to be a big, elaborate thing (for the reasons stated earlier), but I don't want it to be another pair of Ricks, either. I am obsessive and compulsive but not insane.

Mittens? I like the idea of making 2-colour lovely things, but two balls of yarn on the plane and all the fuss and bother of thumbs... it seems like trickiness.

Baby garments? My friends and relations have been squeezing out a few of late. Perhaps I should share my knitting with others. Again, with the fussiness, but then I have added motivation of wanting to finish before the thing gets to be, say, pubescent.

A big, unelaborate sweater?

Lace? There's plenty of that to be made out of a single skein or ball.

Don't know. Need to choose soon.

Working socks

The work that I travel for is often shift work, and sometimes, when I'm feeling nice & like the people I'm sharing the shifts with are people I want to be generous towards, I take the attitude that since I've come from a time zone 4 hours earlier, it's easier for me to take shifts that are crappy (like midnight to 8 AM) than it is for the locals. On the other hand, sometimes I take the attitude that I've done my share of those crappy shifts and some young thing with something to prove (possibly involving machismo) should take a turn.

Anyway, I took my turn to do the night shift and I used some of it to knit. The work is periodic and, for the most part, a matter of being watchful, rather than active. It's ideal for knitting. Better yet, the particular place I was working on this occasion has at least on other knitter. It's nice to know, at 3 AM, that there might be someone else knitting in the building.

I finished sock one on the night shift. I even grafted the toe up, without the use of a tapestry needle. I hadn't brought one, and it wasn't necessary. I started the next sock almost immediately. I did stop after I'd got to the end of the cuff. But that is one heck of a productive night.

I have a colleague who brings knitting or crocheting to every meeting she attends. That way, she says, the meeting is guaranteed to be productive. I wish I had the nerve to do that. I wish I could concentrate on the meeting as well as the knitting, but I know I can't and I know that the knitting would win. And I'd lose my job. And rightly so.

Instead, I will occasionally knit in caught moments between monitoring things on the night shift and celebrate a done sock in the darkest hours before dawn.

Aeroplane socks

The bad thing about a long flight is that it's a long flight. I live on the Atlantic ocean and for one reason or another, I get on aeroplanes and fly to the Pacific ocean more than once per year. I agree, it's not the right way to live in this day and age. It should, definitely, be possible for me to conduct collaborative activities without crossing the continent. Mine is not a line of work that intrinsically requires the burning of vast quantities of liquified former dinosaurs. Except that it turns out that I take a lot of long flights for my work.

The good thing about a long flight is that it's a long period of time without the usual interruptions of work as we now know it. There isn't really an in-flight equivalent of checking your email every 3 minutes. Some people find long flights to be the ideal time to catch up on work. I don't. I am tired and stressed and easily distracted and, furthermore, I like to have a lot of space to about which to spread whatever it is that I'm working on. This isn't an option on an aeroplane. I could, and sometimes do, take advantage of being tired and, at the same time, stuck in a seat for several hours, and just sleep the whole way. I find myself less and less able to manage that, though. I don't know what it is about an older body that makes it less willing to conk out in public, but whereas I used to sleep like a baby the instant we were in the air, I am now usually awake from take-off to touchdown.

On my most recent long flight across the continent, I mostly knit. I live in not-the-centre-of-the-universe, and so therefore almost always need to stop somewhere in the middle of the continent and change planes. That's OK, but it slightly interrupts the knitting rhythm. On the most recent flight, I was so engrossed in my knitting that I got a little worried when we landed and actually spent a good chunk of the stopover reading instead of knitting. I thought (for once) that my wrists could use a break.

The sock is a fantastic travel project. People are not kidding when they say that. It's small and therefore portable. It has large stretches of leg and foot which are basically interruptible. It has punctuating moments of counting and trickiness about the heel. Yes, it's better if you have a tape measure**, but if you don't it's not the end of the world if you need to try the sock on. The only disadvantage of the sock is that it is finite. I came bloody close to finishing the first Rick just on the flight out.

I was hoping to have this pair of socks be the project I took on two trips, but I think it will end up being the project for only one.

** I didn't bring a tape measure with me, and I was kicking myself because the instructions call for the heel flap to be knit until it is 2.5 inches long. But then I worked out something so clever I feel I must share it with you. I was working from a photocopy of the pattern; the photocopy was on standard letter paper (the north american standard, that is). Letter paper is 8.5 X 11 inches. 11 inches - 8.5 inches is actually 2.5 inches. So, all I needed to do was to make a diagonal (45 degree) fold on the sheet to make the bottom align with a side. Where the other side crossed the page was now 2.5 inches below the top. So handy!

Snow socks

I admit it, sock knitting happened before I left home. There was snow, and time, and ... well, one thing led to another and there I was with a well-started sock on my hands. In my hands, actually. My rhythmically moving hands. My rhythmically moving, yarn-weilding hands.

What is it about knitting? Why can I do it for hours and hours? Why do I find it so difficult to set it down in the middle of a row? Why does time travel differently when string is being turned into fabric?

Why isn't blogging like that?

Socks, all the time, socks!

As mentioned before, I have some travelling to do & I wanted a small, portable project for the long hours in airports and on planes.

I've got some nice light blue/grey wool from Tanis fibre arts. The last time I had wool from her, it was the lovely colourway storm (which is dark blue/grey). What I did with it was to knit up a pair of Ricks from Cookie A's book "Sock Innovation".

This time, I un-skeinned the yarn and had a look at the patterns for socks I had on hand. I admired a number of other socks in the Cookie A book, but in the end, I opted to make another pair of Ricks. I do like them. They're an ideal combination of easy and difficult. They've got payoff for handknitting (you get socks that have mirror symmetry) and I know that they fit.

Designing decisions

I made short little pouffy cuffs at the collar and wrists of this sweater because that's what I like. I didn't want a big focal point at those places. I don't want a big focal point at the hips, but if I made a little pouffy cuff there, it would end up being a focal point. What I want is something that can anchor the fabric and make it not curl. I also want something that can act as a frame to the patterning of the sweater.

I want, therefore, something short, plain (not corrugated ribbing, say), but structurally significant.

My first try was a few rows of rib in needles several sizes smaller than the body of the sweater had been made. I also decreased by a stitch, but that was just to settle the even/odd problem. But that popped out at the bottom, worryingly, as though it might not be dedicated to the task of holding the end up. I thought about letting the problem get solved in blocking, but instead, I think the right thing to do will be to un-pick it and replace it with something tighter.

I haven't yet decided if I should get rid of some stitches & stay with this needle dimension or keep the large stitch count and reduce the needle size. I suspect that I am near the limit of what varying needle size can accomplish. Eventually, the bulk of the yarn makes the decisions. So, I guess I'll reduce the number of stitches by some reasonable amount, say, 5%.

What next?

Like all red-blooded knitters staring down the barrel of an almost-finished project, I keep finding my mind turning to what's next.

This fair isle thing has been a blast and a half and I should start the next thing soon before I've forgotten all of the good lessons I learned. However, I am going to be travelling a fair bit in the next little while (for work, all you would-be housebreakers -- only one member of my household will be away) and I would like to have a little portable project to take with me.

I have knit a few pairs of socks (all designed by Cookie A) and enjoyed that. I didn't think that I would, given that it's a lot of work for something I don't want to stand out. But I do understand the pleasure of a compact project. I understand the delight of a nice bit of architecture (and what is a heel if not architecture?). I also, now, know the fabulous warmth of woollen, well-fitting socks.

I have a pair of socks worth of yarn waiting in the wings, too. That helps.

However, I think I'd better return my brain to the project at hand. That really, really, really wants finishing. I really, really, really want to be able to walk around wearing that sweater. I'm itching for it to be on. Must stop blogging. Must start knitting.

Hooray! Error fixed.

After I'd got my brain around the problem, it turned out that I could in fact manage to fix the stitches that had escaped from the bottom. It was tricky to remember what a stitch should look like upside down, and trickier still to reconstruct the ones that were lost over two rows and two colours. But I'm a pro, right? (Wrong.)

However, I am pleased to announce that the stitches are so very convincingly re-introduced that I can no longer remember which ones they were.

That is all. Today is a busy day.

Hooray! A month! Boo! ANOTHER error.

I have posted every day since January 11. Yey for me.

When I went to pick up the stitches for the cuff at the hips (those that I had casually put onto a holder when I started, to avoid designing at the outset), I discovered that a few of the stitches had come free. URK! Many, many days had gone by since I started. The sweater had been swung all around the place, it had been tried on a few times, and it had been stretched and squished and stored. Apparently, the knot holding the scrap yarn became undone in all of that turmoil.

In retrospect, I am lucky that so few stitches became free.

But I must say that fixing up from the bottom up, being something I don't have much experience with, is much harder than picking up from the top down.

Sucking it up.

Sometimes I think that the only difference between fine work and rough work is the willingness of the maker to go back and correct mistakes.

I spent several hours fixing a slight problem in the second sleeve. It wasn't a big mistake; I had skipped a row when I was picking up so there was a little bit of pull or curve on the outer fabric of the sleeve. I easily could have left it and hoped that I could flatten it out in the blocking.

But instead, I sucked it up and unpicked back to a point safely before the mistake. I then started the pocket knitting again, picking up much more carefully than I had been.

My opening statement is of course an oversimplification. There is such a thing as skill. There is practice and learning and style and technique. But at any level of actual skill, there is a range of workmanship. That range, I think, comes from what I would call "care", because it depends on how willing the worker is to suck it up and fix errors.

Second sleeve

I took better photos of the start of the second sleeve. I had 8 stitches on a scrap-yarn holder. The row after I knit that one, I started 8 new stitches of steek (which have already been cut in the photo below).

I knit those 8 stitches in the usual way, except the last stitch I knit together with the first pick-up on the side. And when I came round to the beginning I knit the last stitch on the edge together with the first of the held stitches. This helps to keep away those gaping holes that sometimes appear at corners.
I then did a round of pick-up-and-knit. It's different from pick up, in that you don't really put the picked up stitches onto the needles (as I did with the 8 held stitches, above).

You simply stick the point of the needle through the stitch you're picking up and knitting from. For my sleeves, that was the torso-side loop of the first (or last) steek stitch. None of the steek stitches are visible on the outside of the finished sweater.
And then you bring the yarn around as though you're knitting in the usual way (except that there is only one needle involved).
And then you've got a stitch.

My stitches occupy slightly more space than my rows (if I knit 25 st by 25 rows, it'll be wider than it is tall), so I needed to pick up fewer stitches than the full number of rows available. I worked out what I thought was a nice pattern, with even spacing between the rows skipped, but no skipped rows at vulnerable points like the shoulder top or armhole corners.

This is the first time I've done the calculation of where to pick up stitches and how many I should have. For previous sweaters, when I've picked up stitches at the shoulders, I have picked up every stitch and then been slightly surprised at how the sleeves puff up a bit. These shoulders (while not being perfect) don't have the puffy problem.

What is in a name?

You may have noticed that I've been labelling the posts about my pink and green (and black and grey) sweater "Blomidon". You may not have noticed it. Whatever.

Blomidon is a place. It's a peninsula on the west coast of Nova Scotia. Better yet, it's that curly bit that sticks into the Bay of Fundy from the right side. It's also staggeringly beautiful. The beaches are a rich red.

(There is a jumpy bug in that picture. Can you spot it?)

At low tide, there is a lot of pink beach. It's so pink, and the beaches are so huge at low tide, that you can see it from space. Or from Google maps, anyway. The Bay of Fundy has some of the most dramatic tides in the world. Blomidon is a wonderful place to watch it because beside the glorious stretches of red sand beach, there are exquisite red cliffs.

The cliffs are topped with lush green growth. And they are elegantly striated with clay.

Occasionally, a gigantic boulder will tumble onto the beach (remember that the huge tidal forces of the Bay of Fundy tear into the cliffs twice a day) and you can see how nice the greys and pinks look.

So, clearly this sweater is a Blomidon sweater. I didn't choose the colours to make it so, I just selected what I could from the yarn store's selection. I like the way it ended up being about one of the prettiest places in my neck of the woods, though.

Trying it on

I meant to say the other day when I was showing pictures of the first try-on, that I am also pleased with the way things look at the join. I had a bit of uncertainty about whether or not I should do the whole top pattern or only half (which is where the torso ended). But I'm very glad that it's the whole thing; it looks right, especially given the way the top of the shoulders are joined.

I'll also draw to your attention the fact that you can't see the "shirt collar" envelope holding the steek ends from the sides of the neck.

Did I mention that I'm pleased? Because I am. Pleased. Yes.

Hairy armpits

I believe I have already shown you what the sleeve looked like at the join.

That is a lot of loose ends. It makes for a messy, hairy armpit. Every time I change yarn colour there are two ends (the beginning of the new and the end of the old). That's true on the sleeve, and that's true on the torso. And then there are all of the steeked rows on top of that.
I needed to do something about all of those ends! So, when I finished the sleeve, I knit the cuff. I made it in the same manner as the neckline, knitting 9 rows of k1p1 ribbing ending on a row where I k2tog with the stitch 9 rows earlier. Then I cast off, but not all the stitches. I left 4 stitches on the needle so I could make a little envelope.
But I couldn't hope to incorporate all of the hairy loose ends in the envelope with them flopping about willy-nilly. So I tied them off (in pairs, as usual, although this time, it was the start/finish pairs). Then I carefully clipped the hairs to manageable lengths.
And then, all that was left was to knit the envelope.

Oh, yes. And the other sleeve. That thing.

Sleeve!

As I mentioned in the last post, I knit my first sleeve without being able to try it on.

The instant I had cut open the second sleeve steek, I pulled it on. (Note still unfinished, rolly-polly bottom.) It was just fine from the first try. I have to say, it's a little bit weird to wear a sweater with only one sleeve, though. The other arm feels strangely chilly.

It's a little bit tight. Next time I knit a sleeve, I'll give it more ease. I will especially leave more ease at the cuff. However, I'm happy with things as they are and it's certainly a wearable thing.

One other thing I'll do next time is make an underarm gusset. I wasn't planning well enough in advance, nor was I technically ready to do so on this sweater, but the underarm gets a little bit ruched up when my arm is down and that wouldn't happen if there were a gusset.

Straitjacket

While in no way finding the idea of being in a straitjacket appealing, I like the way the sweater looked after I'd finished the neck, but before I had started the sleeves.

Before I cut the neck, after I had attached the shoulders, it was a sort of mis-shapen thing. The neck steek was much narrower than the neck itself, so it pulled the top tight into a tetrahedron. It wouldn't lie flat.

Once I had finished the neck, I had my first chance to look at the whole thing and admire it. I found things to admire. I'm pleased.

The downside of this stage was that I couldn't try it on (since my shoulders are actually wider than my torso). In fact, I couldn't try it on until I had cut both armholes. I had to knit one whole sleeve without being able to check it along the way. I could, I suppose, have started the second sleeve while the first was in progress. But that's not what I did. I just knit away on the sleeve until I thought it was the right length.

Finishing the neck

At last post, I had cut, tied and picked up the stitches from the neck steek. I was quite pleased with myself. I did a pick-up and knit for the first row (that becomes relevant later) and then a simple k1p1 rib all around. At this point, on the outside, it looks just as it would have had I used non-steek techniques to make the neckline.

On the inside, it looks different. The stitches from the steek are still there, although only on the sides. The neck front and back was just created from stitches held on spare needles -- I didn't have to do real picking up. You can see that for the neck, I was less practiced/more paranoid about the steek stitches so I tied off after unpicking only one stitch. This left me with very short ends to be tying with. I am happier with the sleeve tying-off where I unpicked two stitches.

This picture is actually taken after I'd finished all of the neck knitting. The cuff is small, as I like that look. It's barely more substantial than an i-cord, although of course, being ribbing, it's much much more elastic than an i-cord would be.

I mentioned earlier that I'm being pigheadded about sewing on this sweater and I'm vowing to have none. Not one stitch. To close off the cuff on the inside, (as a way to avoid sewing it shut) I knit a row into the stitches I had originally picked up and knit. Clear description? No? I would slip the stitch 9 rows earlier onto the needle and then k2tog. The next row, I cast off, except at the sides where there were still steek ends to be dealt with.

I simply knit a little envelope, sealing it at the sides and end as I described before (by slipping a float or the inside of a stitch onto the needle and then knitting 2 together). I quite like the way it looks on the inside now, like a collared shirt. On the outside, it doesn't show.

On steeking: cutting the neckline

Last post, I was talking about cutting the neckline. I did it. This time, it was uneventful.

I didn't suddenly lose pattern stitches and stitches on holders. I just had a big, gaping wound, waiting to be made secure.

See how the stitches don't unravel without some coaxing? They can sit there and do nothing if they're treated gently. Of course, I will be going to stretch them every which way as I stick my big head through the neckhole, so I can't just leave them hanging.

So, I tied a few knots in the strands. Every pair of strands of yarn (because pretty much every row has two colours) got tied together in a double granny knot because I'm not a sailor and that's all I know how to do.

After they've been tied off, they're secure enough to support stitches being picked up, which has happened in the photo above. There's still the neck to knit and then finish, but the scary cutting part is all done.

On steeking: the neckline

Before I went off into the steeking description, I had just recovered from my mistake at the neck (I was nowhere near the sleeves, yet). I had picked up the stitches and knit a new neckline steek, with all neck shaping achieved through decreases after the first row (which I put on spare needles to hold).

I did a nice 3-needle bind off to join the two sides of the torso at the shoulder. I flatter myself that it looks spectacular. I am totally pleased with how well it worked. It's not perfectly like the pattern, as it would have been had I kitchener-stitched it, but it's stronger and still quite pleasing to the eye. And, if I have my way, this sweater will have not one stitch of sewing in the whole bloody thing. Not one.

Close up, the steek looks like that. You can see that I like a wide steek (8 stitches) which lets me have 4 stitches per side and that lets me unravel 2 stitches and leave 2 stitches to hold the pick-ups on. If I had been more experienced, I would have left the steek stitches un-cast off, and made a hard edge to the cast-off. Then I wouldn't be cutting through that cast-off edge in the steeking time.