Yarn Harlot on Tour!

The Yarn Harlot (Stephanie Pearl-McPhee) is currently on a tour which tonight brought her to my neighborhood Barnes and Noble. She spoke, and read a little from her most recent book, Free Range Knitter.



Really, she talked as much about publishing as she did about knitting, often sticking to the overlap of knitting and publishing/blogging. Things like she's learned not to say that she writes/blogs about knitting if she can at all avoid it: somehow writing/blogging about knitting is automatically not a "real" book/blog to many. (I think people who think a book/blog about knitting isn't a "real" book/blog need to be stabbed repeatedly with sock needles, cut up, carded and spun.)

The whole thing had a vaguely This American Life sensibility to it. I wonder if Ira Glass would be willing to extend the "American" part to include Canadians.

And there were the obligatory photos-of-crowd-with-Sock she posts on her blog -- and, apparently, sends to her mom. I'll come back with the link to her post when she gets it up. And if you're familiar with her blog, you'll know she posts sometimes posts pictures of people with their knitting. Quite a few people tonight took pictures of her with our knitting. I offered her a choice of two projects and she suggested both:



One's a scarf, using the "Ostrich Plumes" pattern from Barbara Walker's Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns. The other is the "Silk Purse" pattern (in wool) from Véronik Avery's Knitting Classic Style. And the junk stuff on the left's mine, but I was practically tied to it and couldn't put it anywhere.

---

UPDATE:
Pearl-McPhee's blog post about this stop is up. It can be found here.

Photos (as promised) of Yesterday's Knitting

Yesterday afternoon I reported that I was nearly finished with a pair of armwarmers. I finished them yesterday, and took pictures. They're a bit fuzzy (the photos, that is), but if you're on Ravelry, you can check the project page there in a week or two: hopefully I'll have some better shots up by then.

In fact, though I took three pictures that made it as far as my Flickr photostream, there's really only one photo in which you can get any sense of what these things look like:





The pattern, Alexandra Tinsley's "Salad Wristers" (from Presents Knits) is knit as directed, except that I worked the first five rows in knit 1, purl 1 ribbing. I used Cascade 220 in Charcoal Gray for this pair, but I expect to make more -- this is a great pattern to be knitting when you expect to be waiting around a bit, but not for extended periods at one go.

Links:
Project page on Ravelry
"Salad Wristers" pattern
"Salad Wristers" pattern on Ravelry
Cascade 220 on Ravelry
Cascade 220 on Yarndex.com

A Pint-Sized Sweater (and some other stuff)

Back at the beginning of June, I told you I'd gotten the yarn for my knitting circle's first-ever Knit-Along. We chose Elizabeth Zimmerman's "Baby Surprise Jacket" through a complicated (read: messy) process involving several rounds of voting on two different websites. While I don't yet have the ends woven in or the buttons sewn on, the sweater is, essentially, done. The yarn pooled nicely, don't you think?



In a week or two, we'll be starting our next knit-along. The pattern, the Foliage hat from Knitty's Fall 2007 issue, came in a close second in the voting. (The pattern was my first choice; details on why can be found in this post from late May.)

Among my other knitting updates, I'm within a row of binding off a pair of ruffled armwarmers (pictures to follow within a few days). I printed out the pattern last month, shortly before I left for Seattle, and finally got them started three weeks ago. And now, after a false start involving the wrong cast-on method and too-small needles, I'm nearly done. I'll tell you more about them when I post the photography.

More wooly goodness

Tonight my knitting circle is beginning our first knit-along. Despite my objections to a larger project and/or one for a very specific type of recipient (and my stated preference for a small project that is not especially difficult and has no confusing assembly issues), the final winner was Elizabeth Zimmerman's Baby Surprise Jacket which has acquired both a following and a shorthand name ("BSJ"). The fact that it's acquired a following doesn't mean much in itself: Fetching has a following as well, but only got a single vote in the final round of voting, if memory serves. But still.

I must say that my recommended pattern, Foliage, was only a few votes behind the BSJ when the results were in. I'll probably be starting a knit-along for that pattern as soon as this one gets finished. Anyone who can knit an amoeba and turn it into a baby jacket has no reason to complain about a mere hat. So what if it's a lace hat? It's not like it's a difficult lace pattern.

Despite my general lack of babies to knit for (there's only one baby in the family, and she lives several time zones away) -- which probably means I should be sticking to gender-neuteral colors -- I did buy a yarn in a colorway that is clearly better suited to one kind of baby than the other. The photo, of course, doesn't do it justice. I fell in love with the colorway and actually sent one of the staffers downstairs for the second skein I needed (believe you me, I wouldn't normally do that).



The yarn is Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted in "Vera", and contains a bit more of the dark brown than one might think from the photo. There are 225 yards to a skein, which is on the high end. And yes, it's incredibly soft and, of course, superwash. We'll see how it looks knitted (I tend to use yarns with only one color to them). Stay tuned for photos.

Electioneering

I just posted the final poll to select a pattern for my knitting circle's first knit-along. (Members will be getting an e-mail about it as soon as I have a link for this post. Non-members may join by clicking on the big red and white thing at left.) After an extended period of nominations and preliminary voting, the finalists are:

• Calorimetry.
• Baby Surprise Jacket.
• Foliage.
• Fetching.
• Basic Sock Recipe.

I've already knit three of these patterns. As I mentioned last week, I've managed to crank out three Foliages (among other things) since January. I've also shown off one pair of Fetchings I knit with leftovers from the first of the hats -- the third pair of that pattern I've made. A second also uses Cascade 220 in an unidentified shade of blue (I lost its ID tag); a third uses Road to China, a very shed-prone yarn from The Fibre Company.




I even knit a Calorimetry a while back:



Of the five finalists, I'm partial to these three. My logic is that the other two are more likely to cause trouble. The Baby Surprise sweater is a large project for a first knit-along (and not as simple as it looks, apparently), and not all of us have babies at hand to show off our knitting skill. And socks are something that seem to require a lot of attention on the first pair, attention we don't necessarily want to lavish on something at the moment.

Fetching, on the other hand, is a tiny project (heck, I knit up a pair using leftovers) and requires nothing more advanced than double-pointeds and a few cable rounds. Foliage, my personal favorite, takes some attention and a circular needle, but is still reasonably small -- especially if you go for the version with the bulkier yarn. Calorimetry runs big and will need some raveling and tweaking (even if you have the gauge specified), but again, it's small and simple and a fairly painless introduction to short rows.

So, my advice is this: vote Foliage. If you don't feel up to that pattern, vote Fetching (or perhaps Calorimetry, if you don't mind adjusting to size).

On the Needles -- a trio again, but of scarves

Scarf, close-up
Originally uploaded by The Loopweaver

It's about time I posted projects in progress, and not just the ones I got done. At right is the scarf I'm working on now. (In fact, it's in my lap as I type this.) The pattern is variously called "Feather and Fan" or "Old Shale." It's a popular pattern which can be found all over the web -- though I got it from Barbara G. Walker's upbiquitous A Treasury of Knitting Patterns.

I have a few more scarves that are at various stages approaching completion. Two of them are meant to illustrate stitch patterns -- from that same Walker book -- on Ravelry. The first of these, my "Cloverleaf Eyelet Miniscarf" (using the "Cloverleaf Eyelet" pattern) can barely be called in progress, as all that's left is to sew on a button and weave in two yarn tails. A picture of it at an earlier stage:


My third in-progress scarf is near enough to being finished that I'm not bringing it to the office for fear of being cought without knitting. I've had to troubleshoot it a few too many times recently, anyway. I'm calling it my "Trellisleaf Scarf," a shortened version of "Trellis-Framed Leaf Pattern" the name of the stitch.

Links:
Plumberry Stripes scarf, on Ravelry
Feather and Fan Stitch, or Old Shale, on Ravelry
Cloverleaf Eyelet Miniscarf, on Ravelry
Cloverleaf Eyelet pattern, on Ravelry
Trellisleaf Scarf, on Ravelry
Trellis-Framed Leaf Pattern, on Ravelry
Barbara Walker's A Treasury of Knitting Patterns, on Ravelry
Barbara Walker's A Treasury of Knitting Patterns, on LibraryThing

Knitting coverage continued: Leftovers

Yesterday I promised to tell you what I did with the leftovers from those three hats. The short answer is that I made a pair of gloves, and three swatches to test stitch patterns. The long answer -- that is, the illustrated one -- is as follows.

The brown Foliage hat only used half a skein of Cascade 220. I used the other half to make a pair of fingerless mitts. The pattern, which appears on Knitty, is called "Fetching."



Neither of the other two hats left enough yarn for much in the way of obviously-useful projects. Instead, I knit up swatches from the two stitch dictionaries I have. The point of these is threefold. First, I get the hang of a new pattern; with said hang I also get some idea of the relative difficulty of various patterns. Second, should I decide to keep the swatch, I end up with a record of the properties of different patterns. Most of the time, I remember to make a note of the pattern, yarn, and needle size I used: I have a bunch of file cards I've cut in half and put holes through for just this kind of tagging. Third and finally, I've joined the effort to enter these patterns into Ravelry's database; if I'm entering the pattern into the database, I feel I ought to at least make some effort at illustrating them.

I made three swatches with the leftovers from my hats: the "Vertical Lace Trellis" pattern from Barbara G. Walker's A Treasury of Knitting Patterns, and the "Larkspurs" and "Little Lace Diamonds" patterns from the Big Book of Knitting Stitch Patterns.

I made the "Vertical Lace Trellis" swatch using leftovers from the green foliage. I had a very hard time getting photographing it.


I made the "Larkspurs" pattern using the rest of the Cascade 220 from the green Foliage (and the swatch above). This is how it looks unblocked:


As you can probably guess by the photo below, the "Little Lace Diamonds" swatch with the leftovers from the blue hat. This swatch is also unblocked. I hope to get blocking wires soon: this promises to look even better once I've gotten it to shape.



Links:
Projects:
My brown Fetchings, on Ravelry
My green Vertical Lace Trellis swatch, on Ravelry
My green Larkspurs swatch, on Ravelry
My blue Little Lace Diamonds swatch, on Ravelry

Patterns:
"Fetching" pattern, on Knitty
"Fetching" pattern, on Ravelry
"Vertical Lace Trellis" pattern, on Ravelry
"Larkspurs" pattern, on Ravelry
"Little Lace Diamonds" pattern, on Ravelry

Books:
A Treasury of Knitting Patterns on LibraryThing
A Treasury of Knitting Patterns on Ravelry
Big Book of Knitting Stitch Patterns on LibraryThing
Big Book of Knitting Stitch Patterns on Ravelry

Partial knitting coverage -- three hats

It's probably about time I covered some of what I knit in that multimonth absence. For lack of a better starting point, I'll begin with the hat pattern I knit from in triplicate.

The hats, all made using the "Foliage" pattern in last fall's issue of Knitty, are as follows.

The first was knit strictly to the pattern using Cascade 220 Superwash in brown. I don't have a picture of me in the hat, so I'm stuck posting a photo of my knitting in the hat:


Bear with me while I skip ahead to the third hat. It was more or less squarely knit to pattern, using the version for thicker yarns. The only change was neccessitated by the fact that my gauge tends to be short as well as fat (the latter often meaning I have to use smaller needles than is normally suggested; this is, I think, the source of the shortness). All I did was repeat the dozen-row repeat a third time beween crown and ribbing.


The second hat was also knit in Cascade 220 Superwash (like the first), but in green. But while the brown was perfectly content as an ordinary Foliage, the green wanted to be a slightly looser version. I started on needles a size larger than I used for the brown hat, then changed to needles yet another size bigger at the point in the crown chart where those knitting the big-yarn version would depart for the hat body. I knit the leaf lace an extra time through, before doing an extra half-repeat back in the original needles and going on to the ribbing. Believe me it sounds worse than it is, and it came out well:


That's the hats. Stay tuned to hear what I did with the leftovers!


Links:
"Foliage" pattern on Knitty
"Foliage" pattern on Ravelry
The brown version, on Ravelry
The blue version, on Ravelry
The green version, on Ravelry

Knitting Pattern: Not-Exactly-Garter-Stitch Scarf

Green Stockinette Stripes
Originally uploaded by The Loopweaver

This scarf was literally my first full project. The stockinette and reverse stockinette stitch sections are small enough to keep the scarf from rolling, but it's not as boring as ordinary garter stitch. Sooner or later, I'll create the "neckwarmer" version.

Here's the pattern:

Not-Exactly-Garter-Stitch Scarf
Easy Stockinette/Reverse Stockinette Scarf

Yarn: GGH Savanna (50 g, 80 yds), 2 skeins. I have no idea what the color is, besides "green" -- I knit this scarf several years ago and no longer have the band.
Gauge: 4¼ sts = 1” in St st on U.S. size 9 (5.5 mm) needles
Needles: U.S. size 9 (5.5 mm), 1 pair

Pattern:
Cast on 20 stitches. Work three rows stockinette stitch and three rows reverse stockinette stitch as follows:

• Row 1: Knit
• Row 2: Purl
• Row 3: Knit
  
• Row 4: Knit
• Row 5: Purl
• Row 6: Knit

Work this pattern until scarf is the desired length, ending on a Row 3 or a Row 6.

Bind off all stitches.

Links:
* The pattern page on Ravelry.
* My version of it, also on Ravelry.

Was that really a month?

Well, I successfully managed to lose track of my own blog for a full month. Initially, it was the whole Christmas giftmaking mess, but that was shortly followed by world events. Without anything "relevent" to say, I decided to keep my trap shut. (And kept it shut for a month.)

In knitting news, I recently listed the Susan Mitts pattern from my previous post on Ravelry. Half a dozen people have favorited them and, unbelievably, someone else has started their own pair. I also finished the cabled scarf I was working on. Here's a newer photo of it:


I started another scarf, and just to be brave in my knitting, it's a lace pattern knit in a nylon/mohair blend. It isn't even an existing scarf pattern, but a stitch pattern: the "Openwork Leaf Pattern" from Barbara Walker's A Treasury of Knitting Patterns. I perched it on a hat perched on a soda bottle for this photo:


Anyway, here's to being back in the saddle.

Links:
* Susan Mitts pattern on Ravelry
* My grey cabled scarf, which I'm calling "Pewter Bells", also on Ravelry.
* "Mohair & Lace" scarf on Ravelry
* "Openwork Leaf Pattern" on Ravelry
* Barbara Walker's A Treasury of Knitting Patterns on Ravelry
* Barbara Walker's A Treasury of Knitting Patterns on LibraryThing

Knitting Pattern: Susan wristwarmers

Here's a free pattern for wristwarmers I knit for my mother, and they're named for her.

Susan

Easy Ribbed Mitts

Yarn: ▪ Blue Sky Alpacas Worsted Hand Dyes (100 g, 109 yds; 50% alpaca, 50% merino) in color #2000 Red; 1 skein.

Gauge: 4 sts = 1” in Rib Pattern on size 10 needles

Needles: U.S. size 10 (6mm), 1 set of 4 double-pointed needles (dpn)

Rib Pattern: *K2, P1, K1, P1. Repeat from *

Left Mitt:

Cast on 30 stitches. Distribute over 3 size 10 dpn. Join for working in the round.

Knit 1 round.

Work in Rib Pattern until piece measures 4” from cast-on edge.

Next round: K1. Using waste yarn, K5; return these to the left-hand needle. With working yarn, cont in Rib Pattern until piece measures 6” from cast-on edge.

Bind off all stitches.

Thumb: Remove waste yarn and place live stitches on 2 dpn. K 5 sts from bottom needle; (M1) twice. K 6 sts from top needle; (M1) twice. K 1 rnd even. BO all sts.

Right Mitt:

Work as for Left Mitt, except working the round with the thumb opening as follows:

(K2, P1, K1, P1) four times, K2, P1, K1. Using waste yarn, K5; return these to the left-hand needle. Continue as for Left Mitt.

Scarves, one red and one gray

As I said on Tuesday, I got that lace scarf finished. It's 57 inches long in finished length. Here's the promised photo of the completed scarf (I'll post one of it being worn by its intended recipient when I get ahold of such a shot):



I'm working on another scarf, but not the lace stashbuster I mentioned a while back. I found a lovely merino/cotton/nylon blend when I went to show off the last scarf at the yarn store. The gauge swatch looked like this:


The pattern I'm using is called "Irish Hiking Scarf" and is available from Hello Yarn. It's a fairly popular pattern on Ravelry: with just under a thousand made by Ravelry members, it's currently in the top ten (if only barely). For those of you who aren't on Ravelry, the pattern is available for free here.

Here's the obligatory photo. It's a detail of two of the cables (though this shot seems to have come out light).

Finished!

I've got my red lace gift scarf in my lap as I type this. I'm on the last row before binding off; I'm working on that row while waiting for stuff to load. Except for weaving in the tails, I'll be done by the time I get home from work. I'll post photos as soon as I have them available.

Still not sure what I'll do next though.

Progress!

I just measured that red lace scarf I'm knitting at 52 inches. That's four-foot-four. Yes, that said four-foot-four. I still have plenty of yarn left, though without access to my little yarn scale, I won't be able to tell you how much. Anyway, here's a photo from earlier in the week:



I'm looking into what else I can knit, possibly for other gifts. Even if I can't figure out who to give stuff to, I have plenty of other stuff to knit, now that I have all that new yarn. I made several "Yo! Drop It!" scarves from Stitch 'N Bitch Nation before I knew the "correct" way of making a yarnover (I went backwards), but I might do another of those. I've also been looking at some free patterns linked to in Ravelry: two from Knitty but some others from other blogs. On the theory of one good plug turn deserving another, I'll list a few of them here.

• I'm always short of hats, and that's where the Knitty patterns come in. I might make the "Urchin" hat in that fuzzy yarn I got on Wednesday.
• I also kinda like the "Foliage" hats, but I'm not sure I have a good yarn for either of them.
• I like the Pumpkin in-the-round pattern from the blog Mummble-Jummble2. While I think that fluffy orange yarn from earlier this week might work, I don't have a fluffy green. Maybe I'll find a pair of good feltable yarns somewhere or other.
• The first of two scarves I'm posting is the "Irish Hiking Scarf" from Hello Yarn. This is another project waiting for good yarn, but I have some ideas...
• The other scarf is the "Easy Lace Stashbuster Scarf" from the Hockey Mom Knits blog. Having read the pattern through, it looks highly adaptable with little effort -- which is a definite plus, since often enough I can't leave a pattern alone.

So what will I end up doing? If the gauge work for the "Urchin" hat in that fuzzy yarn, I might make a hat & scarf set using that pattern and the Stashbuster. I might do the Hiking Scarf in, say, that chenille. But on the other hand, there's a good chance I'll do something else entirely.

Yarn Overkill

Along with all the other members of the Park Slope Knitting Circle, I received an e-mail from its organizer the other day about Smiley's Yarn's Manhattan Sale. For those of you readers unfamiliar with Smiley's, they offer yarns for cheap. Granted' it's not the high-end deluxe stuff, but it isn't exactly the kind of bargain-basement yarn of questionable fiber content one might associate with the word "cheap" either. What there is a lot of is good, mid-range stuff: companies like Bernat, Patons, Red Heart, and Lion Brand are all well-represented here.

Now, this is the first time I've bought from Smiley's. Why? Mostly because they're somewhere out in Queens, and I don't know my way around Queens. So when I heard about the Manhattan Sale I pretty much knew I was going quicker than you can say "yarn sale." (I even considered calling in 'sick' to work.) For $85 and the modest effort of traipsing up to Columbus Circle after work (half a block from Herald Square), I waddled home with ten balls of Adriafil Felis, ten more of Lucci Yarn Whisper, nine skeins of Lion Brand's Lion Chenille Print, and three balls of Lion Brand Trellis in each of three colors. It took up two-thirds of a garbage bag. Here's what the haul looked like on the dining-room table:


Not bad for $85 and an extra subway fare. Not bad at all. (Better pictures will come when I decide what the hell I'm going to do with all this yarn.)

Lace trauma

It was bound to happen some time or other; when it did, I was surprised by how simple it was, and how easy to prevent.

I made a noticable mistake on my knitting and kept on going for a good three or four inches.

Sometime yesterday evening (or maybe this morning, but I doubt it), I either added or left out a row. In other words, I worked a pattern repeat of four rows as either three or five rows. This might not be too bad if the front and back weren't noticably different, but as it was I had to pull out a day's work to fix the problem.

Really, it's not so much the mistake that gets me. It's that 1) this happened before I spliced on that third ball of yarn, so I now have a huge tangle instead of a moderate one, and 2) it's a whole day's work. I suppose it could be worse, though: the yarn I'm using isn't one that's hard to unravel - it came out easily, in fact, unlike that mohair that spat a needle and didn't drop a stitch.

Here's to an ounce of prevention.

The Scarf Lengthens...

I measured my scarf last night at 39", and have done some more knitting since. I've just spit-spliced on the last of the three balls of yarn - a process that sounds a lot less disgusting than it really is.

Video: "The Last Knit"

I'll test YouTube's embedding function and post this animation:

Very Quick Knitting Update

So far in my blog I've discussed two of my knits-in-progress. It's been a few days so it's now time for an update.

The lace scarf I introduced on Wednesday has doubled in length since I posted about it, from a piece of Victorianesque lace to something actually resembling a scarf. I've spliced on the second ball of yarn (of three).

Tuesday's Sweater, which stayed home from the Thanksgiving festivities, has been mostly through the knitting phase all week. In the name of visible progress, I'll be putting in a few seams for the parts that I've already done. Once I get that damn button back on my coat.

Under the River and Past the Malls

Like many people, I will be traveling today in advance of Thanksgiving. In my case, instead of crowds at the airport it will be crowds at the train station: I'm going one state over, to New Jersey. I am not looking forward to the number of people I will be fighting trying to fight to get there. The Population density at Manhattan's Penn Station is high enough during a normal rush hour, and many more people than usual will be trying to get to the far side of the Hudson. What's more, my "weapons" as such are more of a hinderance than a help: a big leather bag which won't stay where I put it, a ratty green tote bag, and one six-inch cheesecake.

I hope we close early.

As a pragmatic decision, I decided not to bring the "Nevis" cardigan I talked about yesterday. It's grown too big and requires five balls of yarn in three colors, a chart, and directions in British (I knit in American, and there are some subtle differences that require translation). In it's place is a scarf I'm knitting as a gift. (Its Ravelry page is here: I doubt the scarf's recipient will sign up before said recipient has the scarf.) It measured 7½" wide yesterday afternoon, at which point the progress was:


The pattern is Jo Sharp's "Misty Garden" and comes from a book called Scarf Style, published by Interweave Press. I'm using a chubbier yarn than the tiny mohair used in the original. It comes out bigger but the effects of the stitch pattern are still the same. Yarnovers create holes; the holes happen at the same place in every row, creating a column of eyelets:


Since yarnovers increase the number of stitches in a row, you gotta add some decreases if you want to keep the width stable. Like the yarnovers, these are grouped. The result is a festoon-like hem:


The whole thing is light and fluffy, and someone commented to me that it's "Victorian" in appearance. (I agree.)

I like this pattern. I'll have to make one for myself.