Knitting, Finished #10 - Exploration Station, and mitochondrion progress

I have lots to show today.  First is a quick shawlette I made last week. It is Woven, made from a single skein of Chugiak (from Pagewood Farms) sock yarn. When the yarn arrived a few years ago I loved the colors but wondered about the very hard, tightly spun feeling of the yarn. I didn't know if it would feel good on the sole of the foot. It has made a nice drapey fabric when knit in linen stitch. The scarf/shawl is asymmetric and doesn't look great in the picture but  is easy to wear. The closeup shows the right and wrong sides of the fabric - both are interesting.

Next come something I am proud of even though I hate it. I started Stephen West's mystery knit-a-long, now called Exploration Station,  in November 2014. I participated in the knit-a-long in 2013 and loved the final product even though I had my doubts along the way. I ordered yarn from Quince - Tern for its drape and muted colours. This year the doubts crept in earlier and when we got to Clue 2 I put the whole project away. The pattern called for many rows of two colour brioche stitch. Not only do I hate doing that stitch but the photos of that section from other knit-a-long participants looked very messy. But in January I went back it, realizing that it had very nearly become a UFO. It came so close that I have designated it as #10 in my finishing series.

I came up with what I thought would be a good, but equally time consuming, alternative to the brioche stitch. I even persisted when I had to order and wait for more yarn. It is done now and is definitely not my style but it is well enough knitted that I will be happy to pass it along to someone who will appreciate it more than I do.

For Michelle - here are some photos of the mystery Stephen West project from 2013. Color Craving. It is an attenuated triangle with some other features I have never seen before, principally the large holes which run down the spine. Knit from Quince Finch.

On the needles now - Wake from great Canadian designer Veronik Avery in blue Finch. And a secret project that will be revealed later.

I made lots of progress on the mitochondrion yesterday. It is complete and ready for dyeing along with the background on which it will be placed. Then I turned my attention to making muscle tissue. I did lots of experimenting and am finally content but there were a lot of fabrics, spools of thread and watercolor pencils and crayons in the "won't work" pile before I was satisfied. Those decisions have influenced what colour I will dye the mitochondrion so I am happy to have that final problem worked out.

I sometimes envy the people who create their art by working more spontaneously than I do. Then I get to the end of a day like yesterday and realize how engrossed I was and how much fun I had. I know that my methodical 'scientific method' approach doesn't appeal to most people but it works for me and it ensures that I will have no doubts about the final product.

There's a great article in this week's New Yorker about commas. I just used it to decide where to put commas in the title of this post. I am known for deleting extraneous commas when I edit but there are times when an extra one improves meaning. 

New sweater

I finished a new-to-me sweater weekend before last. It is Lila and I knit it from Fibre Company Canopy worsted. I started a different design but ripped it out after an hour of knitting. Nothing about the process was making me happy. I went back to my favourites on Ravelry and chose Lila. I am so glad I did. I plan to remake the design several more times.

The yarn I wanted to use was knit at a larger gauge than the pattern called for so I did a gauge swatch and altered the pattern. In the process I lost a little of the ease I wanted. I also added an inch and a half to the length. The sweater is great but I will make it again with two inches more ease and another inch of length.

The biggest problem with the sweater is the yarn. I love the yarn in the abstract. It is the same type I used (in a fingering version) for the Lace Canopy Cardi Wrap. It is lovely to knit with and wears well. But this batch had serious dye problems. It is shown as all from the same dye lot but if that's the case, the quality control in the vat was very bad. I bought it on sale at WEBS so maybe that's why it was inexpensive.

You may be able to see in the picture that the first skein at the bottom was variegated and that subsequent skeins were solid colors but very different from one another. I realized this early on but decided to keep knitting because this is meant to be a slob-around-the-house sweater and I wouldn't care. If it turns out that I do, I'll just overdye it. (BTW, the front is meant to be shorter than the back. It is very attractive when worn.)

I wore the sweater for the first time today and it wonderful - very warm and the sleeves come down over the backs of my hands. I will definitely be knitting another very soon.

Finished #9 - Sawtelle

I have finished another UFO (except for purchasing three buttons). This one was started to support a friend. Now I think it might become my go-to sweater in spring and fall. It is Sawtelle, a free pattern from Berocco. The yarn is Remix. I don't usually use the specified yarn but chose to do so on this project because my friend was doing the same. I'm glad I did. It is a machine washable yarn made from nylon, silk, linen, cotton and acrylic. It was nice to work with, although somewhat fragile when used for sewing.

Time = 0 (spent too much time learning Wordpress but that will pass soon enough)

Productive day

The day did not start well. Early on I ran out of yarn on my current knitting project. I turned my yarn supply upside down and then found the notes I had made when I placed my order for the project. I figured out that I had mixed up two colours so I have too much of one and not enough of another. I went on-line and ordered what I needed. I will tell the story of this project when it is complete but it is enough for now to say that I am struggling against the inclination to let it be a UFO.

That struggle turned my thoughts to other UFOs so I did a complete inventory today. I found two sweaters that just needed the ends woven in. That was done by 10:30 am and I am now waiting for them to dry after the wet blocking process. Pictures tomorrow.

I found four incomplete sweaters which no longer appeal to me. So I have ripped those back and will spend the next few weeks thinking about more suitable uses for the yarn.

I also picked up a sweater which just needs one and a half sleeves. It was something that I was doing along with a friend who was learning to knit. I remember why I stopped working on this one. I got to the point where I had to pick up stitches for the sleeves and knit down from the shoulder. I was using two long circular needles and they were driving me crazy. In addition, I was annoyed by having to turn the whole sweater in my lap several times each round. My friend didn't even get as far as the sleeves before she ran out of steam so I didn't have any incentive to keep working.

Today I put the sleeve stitches on one short circular needle and will only switch to two when absolutely necessary. I also wove in all the loose ends so they wouldn't catch on the working yarn. I will now finish up in a day or so. Beth - do you want to pick up yours again?

At last - a use for that yarn

Many years ago my friend Joan and her family took a summer vacation on Prince Edward Island. They visited Belfast Mini Mills and had a wonderful tour of the mill. Their experience is what prompted my visit a few months ago. Joan came home with a beautiful yarn that had been produced by the staff at the mini mills operation. It was a two ply yarn, about 100 m/50 g, in a really unusual combination of colours. There is green and orange and a pinky colour. It almost glows in both skeins and balls. When I saw her yarn I asked Joan if she would mind if I ordered some to arrive by mail. She said I should go ahead so I bought three or four skeins.

Over the years both Joan and I have struggled to find a project that made best use of the yarn. Both of us have knit up and ripped out projects. A few months ago Joan asked if I would sell her one of my skeins because she had finally settled on a pattern and needed more yarn. I was happy to help by supplying a skein - I still didn't have any ideas about how I would use my lot.

Last week I had to go to a series of doctors' appointments, at the same location but separated by hours. I had finished my gift knitting but I needed a project to make the waiting bearable. I poked about on Ravelry and found an interesting hat pattern. Then I went into my yarn room and grabbed a couple of things that appealed to me. I took a heathered brown in Cascade 220 and a skein of the PEI yarn. The pattern I had chosen used two colours in two row stripes.

About ten minutes after I started the striping I realized why we had been unable to make effective use of the beautiful and unique yarn. It needs help to stand out. It needs a backdrop against which to glow. When knit up on its own it just looks weird. With another yarn it looks exotic.

I finished the hat a few days later. George will wear it and seems to like it. He went and peered at himself in the mirror the first time he put it on.

Lesson learned. The next time I struggle with an unusual yarn I will pair it with a solid which will help set if off.

What is the attraction of a knit-a-long?

A couple of years ago I did my first mystery knit-a-long. For those you who have not participated in something similar (knitting or quilting or crocheting), a designer creates a pattern but does not release it immediately. Instead s/he announces a mystery a-long and states what materials will be required. Then a section of the pattern is released every one to two weeks. The final form of the project is not revealed until the very end.

Participants spend the weeks preceding the first release choosing their yarns or fabrics and they often share and discuss their choices on line. As soon as the first pattern section is released many people drop everything to work on it and post photos on line. Most knit-a-longs are carefully managed so that people who do not want to see the project until they have done the work can avoid spoilers. On Ravelry, there are separate chat and spoiler threads and moderators are vigilant and remove offending posts quickly.

Several designers have successfully made a knit-a-long into a major event. For example, last year I was part of Stephen West's third KAL. I don't know how many people bought the pattern but there are over 2000 projects posted on Ravelry. I'll bet there were four to five times as many purchases. I, for one, finished the shawl (and love it) but didn't post a photo. I did, however, lurk in the related on-line forums and enjoyed seeing the choices other people made and others' excitement as the project changed from clue to clue.

Based on that experience, I joined again this year even though at the time I made my purchase I could not knit because of damage to my thumb. Once again, there has been lots of chatter about colour choices. Yesterday morning the first part of the pattern was released. By the way, Mr. West does a great job with these releases. He prepares a video which walks people through the particularly tricky parts of the construction. Within minutes of the availability of the first clue people had posted photos of their own work in progress and a few hours later there were pictures of the completed first section of the shawl. As I write this, 24 hours after the release, there are almost 600 posts in the spoiler thread and close to 3000 in the thread devoted to yarn choice.

Why am I writing all of this? Because I feel left out. My thumb is better but my yarn hasn't arrived yet. I am itching to get started and be part of the group, even though it is unlikely that I will participate in any of the chatter. What is the attraction of working on the same project at the same time as thousands of strangers? What other activities could benefit from a knit-a-long type experience?

If you are curious, I am waiting for this yarn to arrive. I chose barnacle (main colour), syrah, mist and terra cotta.

Finished: #6 - Lace Canopy Cardi Wrap

I finished this one last week. It is the first crocheted sweater I have made in decades. But it won't be my last. It turns out that I love the feeling of dense crochet, so long as it is made with a light yarn and worked to a gauge that allows drape.

This one can be worn many ways. I will probably use it more as a blanket when I am in hospital but I can also wrap the ends around my neck or let them hang and use a belt.

Finishing plans are on hold until I am discharged. Then I am going to work on a sweater for George. In the meantime I will work on the log cabin blanket.

Connections

My brain automatically sees patterns as well as connections between various activities in which I become engaged. I can't help it. I don't offer up all of my observations but they swirl around in my brain.

Here's someone else who has seen and written about a connection. And there's knitting.

Clean slate

I have spent the last few days tidying the house in anticipation of being unable to do so for the next three months. Is there anything more distracting than winding balls of yarn, putting beads back in their numbered containers, organizing scrap fabric and sorting thread? I recommend it to everyone with a life-threatening illness who is facing surgery or some other scary treatment. Anything that takes you into the here and now is a good thing.

Along the way I found another unfinished sweater to add to the pile. The pattern wasn't with this one and I was about to put up a plea for help on Ravelry. Then I thought to check my Ravelry 'projects' file. Uncharacteristically I had noted the details of the sweater so I can print the pattern and pick up where I left off.

Life is too short

Finishing a sweater that is already making me unhappy is not a good way to spend time in August. The sweater goes in the trash. There is enough yarn left for a pretty hat. That will have to do.

Finished: #4 - Ogunquit and Finished: #5 - Alby

Two more projects have been transferred from random knitting bags to the 'finished' shelf. The sweater is OK - it hangs strangely short in the back but I love the (sadly discontinued) yarn, Bamboucle from Elsebeth Lavold. The close-up is problematic as a photo but shows the pattern down the back. This was an easy stitch pattern that is very effective as a detail. I wore the sweater yesterday and will use it a lot around the house in spring and fall. 

Ta da da da da

The scarf is a mystery. I made it from Shetland wool which is scratchy at the best of times. Even after washing and blocking it is definitely not a next-to-the-skin accessory. I must have started if when I was itching to cast on something quick and easy. It was all done but the blocking when I found it at the bottom of the bag. I think that confirms that I am a 'process' knitter. But I have to admit that this period of finishing projects has made me more appreciative of 'product'.

Ta da da da da da

Red or Finished: #3 - Cable Collar Pullover

From the garden

From my needles, Ta da da da

Planning ahead

I am facing a two week hospitalization followed by twelve weeks or so of recuperation at home. As soon as I get out of the ICU I anticipate that I will pick up my iPad and connect with the world, do some work and watch movies. But I know there will be a limit to how much I can rely on the iPad to entertain me. On top of that I will start to get disgusted at how unproductive much of the time spent with technology can be.

So I am planning some knitting projects. I already know that I want to knit a lace scarf for one of my surgeons and socks for the other but both types of knitting require a lot of concentration. They are not well-suited to how I expect to feel for the first eight weeks. 

For the last few months I have had the urge to knit a blanket. I think it started with this.

Now that I look at the details of that blanket it doesn't hold the appeal it did when I first saw it. The modular idea is a good one, however. It will let me work at a manageable scale and I'll get a bit of reinforcement every time I finish a block. I started looking for alternatives that could be made in a modular fashion. 

I think I have settled on my choice. I will make a log cabin block and then frame it. The blocks will be made of Noro Kureyon and the frame of Berroco Vintage. I have some Noro at home but it is not sufficient for an entire blanket so I went shopping for something complimentary.

Here are my choices of approaches to a log cabin blanket. Both projects are made by user sprucetree18 on Ravelry and use Sarah Bradberry's formula for a log cabin block. I like the second one best. It is the same concept as the first but the frame colour also appears at the centre of each square.

Here are my color choices for the first experimental blanket which may be more lap robe sized.

Finished: #2 - February Fitted Pullover

Ta da da!

The second sweater is finished. It's not particularly attractive which may be why it languished in a bag for a few years. But it is done and I will get some use from it.

I am knitting the collar for #3 and then need to sew up the side seams. #4 will be a piece of cake. #5 has been selected.

Finished: #1 - Charvet Pullover

Ta da!!! It's done. This isn't a beauty shot. It is too hot here for a selfie. You will have to take my word for it that this is a wonderful sweater that fits really well. The waist shaping is perfect. Lesson learned - I missed out on four years of this by letting it languish in the unfinished pile.

#2 will be complete tomorrow. #3 has been selected.

Finishing feels great. Does anyone want to join the finishing fest? Send me a photo of your before and after and I'll post them and celebrate with you. Knitting, quilting, housework - what have you been putting off?

What to do with a bad plan

I completed the front and back of the Charvet sweater in the new yarns. I like it better than the first iteration. So far, so good. Then I started on the sleeve. I thought I had figured out how to make it longer - from 3/4 to full length. I knit and knit and even when it was clear that I had a Frankensleeve on my hands I just kept knitting. When I got to the end I could see that no amount of squinting, pushing, shoving or blocking would make it right.

What to do? I did what I tell my students to do: make a plan but when it is no longer working for you be quick to abandon the plan!! This plan - to lengthen the sleeves - was clearly a bad one. It stalled the first try at the sweater four years ago, consumed valuable time this time around and, worst of all, it sucked all of the fun out of the process of completing this sweater. So I ripped, I tinked, I frogged all the way back to the point where I could rejoin the original pattern. I will have two short-ish sleeves by the end of the weekend and a completed sweater not long after that. The sweater will be something to wear around the house because I don't like shorter sleeves inside winter coats. But that's OK. Each time I wear it I will be able to celebrate leaving a bad idea behind and finishing what I started.

My next completion project will have much less drama - I just need to finish a simple neckline and sew up some sleeve seams to have a sweater. It, too, may not be my favorite garment but it will be done and my plan to work on unfinished business will look like a good one.

Small actions

I am so glad that I picked up my knitting again after ignoring it for a few months. I'm not sure whyI put it down but I now realize that I missed it. I am making fantastic progress on redoing the Charvet pullover - the back is done and I am halfway through the front. I love the idea that a long dormant project will be complete within the week.

But what I love more is the simple act of knitting. The 'engineering' is remarkable and the repetitive movement is soothing. But beyond that, it has always seemed to me that knitting (and perhaps lacemaking as well) is a statement of confidence. It takes so many actions, each built on the last, to create the final product. And throughout the process there is no way to visualize the final product until all of the tiny steps have been completed. All you have is the belief that the accumulation of many actions will create something satisfactory and possibly wondrous.

I agree with what Stephanie Pearl-MacPhee, the Yarn Harlot, wrote on this subject. She was contemplating the enormous generosity of knitters with respect to her participation in a fund-raising bike ride for the People With Aids organization in Toronto.

"I just don’t know what to say, or what to do, or how to ever thank you, or how to tell you that someone who is one of the crappiest riders going to Montreal is now the top fundraiser for the whole rally… or how to tell you about the look on people's faces when I explain that it’s knitters. It’s just how knitters are… and how much what you’re doing is changing the idea of who cares about this, and how crazy wonderful knitters are, and how I think it’s because you’re knitters that you do this.

I’ve been telling people for years that knitting changes your brain. Changes the way you think and teaches important lessons, and that one of them is the idea of cumulative action. Cumulative action is the idea that small actions aren’t unimportant if they are combined with other small actions. It’s a lesson that not everyone learns. Some people go their whole lives thinking that unless you can do something big, there’s no point in doing anything at all… and they have trouble seeing how one small action in their life could ripple and matter. They can’t see the possibility, and so they don’t do what they could. The problems seem too large for a small action to change anything.

Here’s the thing though, there are no knitters like that. None. Knitting teaches you that one small action does matter. That one small action, like knitting a stitch, isn’t unimportant. It’s vital. One small action repeated many times is a sweater. Or a shawl. Or a pair of socks to hold the feet of someone you love, and that idea? The concept of cumulative action? It makes knitters the most remarkable fundraisers of all. Other groups, they have to rely on the part of their community that understands that… knitters? Our whole group gets it. Our whole group sees that one small thing – put together with many other things can create something enormous, and wonderful, and magical.

Why are knitters like this? Because they knit, and they have learned everything they need to know about little things mattering."    Stephanie Pearl-MacPhee (July 26, 2012)

Unfinished business

Last week I was poking around in the spare room looking for a gift for a friend's new puppy. The toy wasn't there (because, for reasons I can't recall, it was on the top shelf of the coat closet) but I did come across several bags with unfinished knitting projects. I will have a lot of sitting around time in the next little while so I think I will work on some finishing. I won't make a commitment to every one - I reserve the right to rip or throw out any that no longer appeal to me.

Here's the first. It is a pattern that appealed to me as soon as I saw it in Interweave Knits. I wanted it to replace a well loved V-neck pullover in blue silk.

My project notes on Ravelry show that I started this in late 2010. It is a complicated pattern because it is knit on the bias and has waist shaping and shaping for inset sleeves. I motored through the front and back and then got a little stumped on the sleeves because I wanted full length rather than the 3/4 sleeves called for in the pattern. I wrote to the designer to ask her how she suggested I make that change. She wrote back on December 3, 2010. I can't really tell whether I followed her advice so I will probably rip out the few inches of the first sleeve and start again.