Demonic Progress

Putting Cables in Your Knitting

After completing October Frost in the Ravellenic games, I was all fired up to knit cables. It was such a relief to know that I could do it again! 

Designing with cables is fun, but it can be tricky. You can't just stick the cable in without making allowances for how much it will pull in; cables suck up a lot of horizontal real estate. I saw once a woman wearing a beautiful summer top that used cables in a very ingenious fashion, forming a tighter fabric just below the bust. She said it was from the spring/summer Sandra magazine that year ... unfortunately, I can't remember what show it was that I saw her at, so I can't remember what year it was, but it sure was a good use of cables in the design.

So. Suppose you have a stitch guide that has a really pretty cable in it -- or several (if you're like me). How do you put the cables in without having the thing just pull in and hug you tight? You might make a bigger size, but that's an iffy way to design. I learned (from somewhere a long time ago, can't remember where) that for every stitch crossed in a cable, add a stitch in your knitting: a three-over-three cable would then have three stitches added to make up for the three stitches crossed over.

If you design a pair of gloves that have three two-over-two stitch cables up the back, add 6 stitches -- 3 * 2 = 6. If you're designing a sweater that is stockinette stitch on the bottom, but you want an interesting cably thing at the top, count the number of stitches crossed over on the row with the most cable crossings, and add the stitches to keep the same width in your knitting and to prevent puckering (unless you want that).

Cabling is a lot of fun, and designing with cables is even funner :) I was in the middle of designing a great cabled sweater for the knitting cruise when I had my stroke; I still have my notes somewhere. I lost hope when I found my cabling ability was compromised, but now maybe I'll pull it out and look at it again. The Isaac Evans knitting cruise goes out this week -- I sure miss doing that! I'll go with you knitters in my heart :)

 

Gadgets

Just thought I should show you a picture of my knitting rig:

One end slides under my leg, to hold it. The mechanism basically just holds the needles, as you can see in this picture. The white conical shaped piece is the collet that holds the needle in place. There is a different sized collet for each size needle; I have a collet for sizes 0, 1, 2, 3 , 4, 5, and 6. I'd like to get more collets for sizes 7, 8, 9, 10, and 10 1/2, but I can't really afford them right now. It is highly adjustable, too: you can raise and lower it, and adjust the exact position of the arm and the angle of the collet. The device is entirely hand made by my occupational therapist's husband. I think it's a pretty clever way to knit with four needles!

Cables Without the Cable Needle

I finally figured out how to do cables faster, without the cable needle. Before my stoke, I used to cable this way all the time. After my stroke, it was nearly impossible; but, as they say, where there's a will there's a way. I find cables without a cable needle are much easier. There's the added fear of losing a stitch, but there's less fear of losing the cable needle (or some other needle) AND losing a stitch. 

Here's the video that Wendy Gaal made for the Crosswired  sock KAL that shows how to cable both with and without a needle. I perused it mightily and tried to figure out how I could do it with only one hand. I succeeded. I can show you how I do it later, if I get someone to hold the video camera.

It's great that I learned how to do this, as it frees my mind a bit about cables. It's much faster, too. 

Counting, and Buttonholes

You'd never know it to look at me, but counting never used to bother me. Got 357 stitches? No problem, I'll just count 'em for ya, and in a zipppppp I was off, counting, and it was always correct.

Now, not so much. Counting to three is usually pretty ok, counting to ten marginally so, counting to bigger numbers than that, I get antsy because I never know if its right. I just don't know. If I count it three times and get the same number, used to be, I would say it was right ... but now, I could count it wrong three times in a row, and I have done just that, when I counted stitches in the grey vest and set the neck over by about five stitches. Ooops. 

Rather than cry miserably and say "I'm a failure, I used to be able to COUNT for God's sake (I have done that, too), I have devised ways of getting my counting right even when it is not, and I'm putting it here because maybe there are some folks out there who would find it helpful. Have you had a stroke, and can't count? You're not alone. Do you have waaaaay to many stitches to cast on, and the thought of counting those little stitches not once, but two or three or more times makes you run screaming from the project? Then come sit here by me.

I had to cast on 185 stitches for my baby kimono, and I needed to get it right. I thought, I don't want to cast them all on here and spend a whole day counting them over and over to make sure they are right, and I am not asking my husband to count them for me. So I decided to use markers. 

I put a marker on the needle after 10 stitches; after 18 markers, I had 180 stitches, and I just added on five more stitches.

Works for me. Anyone can use this. Instead of casting on stitches and then laboriously counting to make sure you got the right number, just place a marker every 10 or 20 stitches, and count the markers. 

My baby kimono has two little buttonholes, and the pattern recommended Barbara Walker's one-row buttonhole. I did that once, and it seemed a little fiddly for me, and I went back to my two-row buttonhole and kept on going. But this time, I thought, what the hell, I'll give it another try.

The instuctions I followed are here. They are also in Barbara Walker's wonderful knitting book, A Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns. There is a video tutorial here, too. It makes a nice, reinforced little buttonhole in one row. It looks a little funny, and  I think that's why I didn't like it before. After having done lots of buttonholes that start out looking perfect and then sag out of shape, I think it's time to change. I wish I had used them in my Little Girls Cardigan! Next time :)

Picot Edge Bind Off

You may have noticed the picot edge on my Arroyo shawlette that I did:

It's a pretty edging, but it's an awfully useful bind-off technique, too. The bind-off technique that was stated in the pattern was Jeny's Surprisingly Stretchy Bind-Off, and I have used that on pairs of socks that I knit from the toe up. I like it for that, because it's very stretchy and it looks good when it's stretched. On my scarf/shawlette though, it just needed to lie there and not be tight, but not necessarily stretch, and to tell the truth, I didn't really like the look of it. I would normally have done a tubular bind-off, but given my one-handedness, I thought that was too hard for me right now.

So, I dug into my Vogue Knitting: The Ultimate Knitting Book, and the picot-bind off fit the bill nicely. It is a stretchy bind-of that is pleasingly nice to look at as well!

To do it, you start by casting on two stitches using a cable cast-on (go between the first and second stitches, pull up a loop, and put it on the needle), and then bind off four stitches, then repeat until all your stitches are off but one, and cut the yarn and pull it through.

Watch the video here.  (I love the username "iknitwithcatfur" ... watch out Nicky! Heh.)

It takes a longer amount of time to do, especially when you have 241 stitches like I did; I had to bind off 361 stitches all together, but it was well worth it. I ended up with exactly what I wanted.

This edging makes a bound-off edge that is a bit larger than a regularly bound-off edge would be, making it nice for edgings on shawls or scarves. Perhaps I might try it using a smaller needle and see what happens; something to consider. Might be fun! 

Why Don't We Knit Sweaters That Fit?

Lots of people knit, but not sweaters, never ever. They knit hats and mittens and washcloths and scarves and shawls and things that look like sweaters, but that don't have to actually fit. We have gotten away from our bodies, hoping things will just fit. 

I used to see it all the time in the yarn store, people getting all excited about a sweater project but when choosing the size their eyes kind of glaze over, and they'd say, oh, medium I guess. I had to tell them I wasn't going to sell them the yarn unless I measured them, and you know, that's what they wanted -- someone to measure them and tell them what size to make.

I had to learn how to make patterns fit in different gauges, different arm lengths, with different necklines. Some people wanted a size large on bottom and a size small on top. These are things they do not teach you in knitting school*. I had to do it all with math.

MATH. There, I've said it. Walk around the word until it isn't scary anymore. Math, numbers, angles. They are things which will not kill you, and if you become familiar with them, you'll control the world.

Well, maybe that's going a little far, but women used to knit sweaters rather than buy them to save the money, and the sweaters they made fit well. Somewhere along the way we forgot that important skill and started to blindly follow patterns and sizes that Somebody said were right, and made sweaters that did not fit, and nothing in the world makes you into a raving loon more than spending the money and the time and have a sweater not fit. And you know what? We got convinced that the reason we got it so wrong was because our knitting was bad. And that's just wrong. And we stopped making sweaters.

It's time to take back control of your knitting. Measure yourself, measure what fits you well, do a gauge swatch that is not miniscule and know how to measure it well. Find out how long your arms are. Draw a diagram for your size, with the increases or decreases that you have to do to make it work, using the diagram that the pattern comes with as just a guide. You are in control of your knitting. These things are not hard to do, but they require effort; spend the time to do it right and you'll be rewarded with sweaters that fit every time. {Rant mode off.}

And remember, math will not kill you. But you could freeze to death if your sweater's too short :)

*There's no such thing as knitting school, really, except maybe in England. The only degree in knitting I ever heard of was from there.

How To Get from Casting On to the Final Stitch

You're so excited, you've just discovered the most perfect, fun-to-knit pattern in the most lovely yarn imaginable, and you cast on and go! It stays fun for about three days ... and then its slows down a little, and then it  slows down a bit more, and you start looking at other patterns and yarn, or the next Knitty comes out ... and you stop. You don't know you've stopped; you just put it down for a while and you cast on for the next project. 

I know. It's so damn easy to do. 

How do you make yourself keep going on that project? It depends on why, exactly, you're knitting or crocheting it in the first place. If it is a present -- especially a present with a deadline -- you can motivate yourself to get it done. Bribery is the key here. Bribe yourself with images of the recipient getting the gift and being giddy with  delight, agog at your thoughtfulness, brimming with smiles ... and contrast it with images of the recipient opening a wad of needles and yarn, half-knit, and saying "thank you" very quietly and putting it quickly back in the box for you to take back. Half-knit things look so bad when they are half knit. 

You can also bribe yourself with promises of wonderful things that you will knit When Gift Knitting Is Finished, wiling away your time knitting on the gray, stockinette stitch boring sweater for your father, while thinking of that raspberry cowl-necked cabled Thing of Loveliness instead. Just don't drool on your father's sweater, unless you have time to wash it before giving it away.

And there's chocolate. Give yourself a piece of chocolate for every inch you knit. Simple, but it works.

But what if it's not knitted for a deadline? What if no one is waiting for it? What if it is just for you?? Scary.

We tend to put clever things made just for us on the back burner, then the back-back burner, then off to the side, and finally in the cupboard. For me, the death throes of a project came when it went upstairs. I'm still pulling things out of the stash that "went upstairs". Socks, mittens, hats, gloves, scarves, I can finish; it's the sweaters on circular needles that I can't. I suppose someday I'll just unravel them all and make something else out of the yarn, but it's still too painful. I keep thinking my hand will just wake up, and my circular needles (and my spindles and my roving and my spinning wheels) will be useful again.

If you're slowing down on your project, there are things you can do. Recapture some of the magic you had when you started the project -- write about it publically on your blog, in a Facebook post, show it off to your knitting group. When other people see it, they will love it and you will love it again too, and you'll want to finish it and show it off! 

Use little pins to mark your progress. Put a pin every ten rows (followed by a piece of chocolate!) or put a pin when you started knitting each day. Those little markers tell us that hey, we are in fact doing something, making progress! Set deadlines for when you'll think you be done to the underarm, done the back, one sleeve: everything has a deadline. Before you know it, you'll be done! 

Think of the fun you'll have shopping in your imagination (but be careful it stays in your imagination), getting ready for the next big project. And most importantly, think about how fun it will be to have finished your current project. Believe me, no one knows better than I how it can weigh you down having 30 unfinished projects in the background. I always envied people who just had one or two things going at a time. Now I am one of them, and trust me, it feels good!

The Importance of Getting Gauge

So ... I started my vest after doing a gauge swatch. I'm getting 5 stitches per inch with size 5 needles; it's a DK weight yarn, a bit on the heavy side, but it is ok. It's kind of thick and thin, which is funky feeling, but that's ok too. I think he's going to like the resulting fabric. It feels good and it's got some interest.

The yarn is Farmhouse Silk Blend (DK weight) -- 34% silk, 33% cotton, and 33% American-grown lamb's wool. It is 350 yards per 4-ounce skein, and I have 5 of them, or 1750 yards. Presumably, that's enough yarn ... but just in case, I have a back up plan to buy more, hehe. It's really nice to work with, and I'm loving it. I wish I had appreciated it more when I sold it. I'm making up my own pattern; it's just a simple V-neck vest, so gauge was really necessary to planning how many stitches to cast on.

How many people just start knitting without doing a gauge swatch? I was always amazed when someone would come in all teary-eyed and say, "It's too big!" -- or too small, and then say, "Oh, I never do a swatch, it just seems like a big waste of time" ... or my favorite, "I always knit to gauge!" Duh. Like their gauge being off is somehow reflective of their ability to knit. Well, it isn't. It's how that particular yarn acts with their tension, and if the size determined in the pattern is going to be the size they want, they better have the sensibility to see what size needle to use to get the same results as the designer did. Pretty basic.

Except ... what if people don't know how to test their gauge? One of the things that became really clear to me when I had a yarn shop was that people who have been knitting for years really didn't know how to check their gauge, or they were afraid to because it was Math and Measurement and Science and stuff, therefore to be feared. The relief I'd see on their faces when I'd say, "Just knit a little piece about this big--" showing with my fingers about a three inch square -- "and bring it in; I'll check your gauge for you" told me this was something they hated and feared. They didn't hate knitting a gauge swatch ... they hated not knowing what to do with it after they had knit it.

When they came in with their swatch, dutifully washed if possible, I would mark off with pins the number off stitches per inch they were supposed to get, and measure between the pins. If the number was right, they had the right gauge and could knit on with a clear conscience, sure that they had gotten the gauge right. If it was too small, less than an inch, they had to make the stitches bigger by using a bigger needle. If it was too big, measured more than an inch, they had to make the stitches smaller by using a smaller needle. Usually one needle size makes a half a stitch difference per inch per needle size. I could tell them what size needle would probably get the desired gauge, but I told them they should knit another gauge swatch. Sometimes they did, sometimes they didn't. They always left happy, though, and they could finally get the gauge thing. It wasn't scary anymore.

And no, I didn't wash my gauge swatch, so he only gets to wear it if it comes out of the wash ok. Doh!

Carding Wool and Getting Good Karma

I've been resting today, trying to fight off a cold (which I think I have succeeded in doing, yay!), but I did manage to card the wool for my Knitting Olympics project. 

Here is the BFL (pink) and nylon (orange) that I started with:

It's 4 ounces of wool and 1 ounce of nylon. I dyed the fibers a couple days ago.

The first thing I did was to divide both fibers into 16 separate but equal pieces:

See the striped toes on the left? Nora had to help.

 

Then I divided each 1/16th of wool and 1/16th of nylon into quarters:

 

My pieces are getting itty bitty. 
 

Each 1/16th got attenuated and layered:

 

I think the secret to successful carding is to make the wool wispy, very very very wispy, and to turn the drum s-l-o-w-l-y...

 

You have to build the fiber up, a quarter of a sixteenth at a time.... and then you have to take it off the carder and card it again, a quarter at a time. I could have carded it a couple more times but I wanted to keep the orange nylon a little bit visible, not entirely blended in.

Then I had a lovely teeny batt of fiber:

 

So pretty. Here's a close-up:

Then I rolled it up like a little sausage, and it is ready to spin: 

Lather, rinse, repeat, and after fifteen more times, here is my wool for my Olympic Knitting event:

 

It was all I could do not to start spinning them immediately, but I refrained. I really really really want to spin them now. Even though they do look like pink insulation.

   
 Oh, and at the store? Yesterday I met Jim from Good Karma Farm in Belfast, Maine, who stopped by to show me some of his yarn. I bought all he had on him, about 23 skeins, and he promises to make more soon. I love that Good Karma Farm uses fiber from local animals, spins the yarn on their own farm, and dyes it there too. This yarn is 60% Secret Island Sheep fiber and 40% Good Karma alpaca fiber from their own farm. And yes, the sheep are on one of the Maine islands, and it is a secret where. So just knit, and never mind :) 

Here is what I got:

 

I wish you could feel how yummy this feels. I would say it is between a worsted and a bulky weight, a chunky weight along the lines of Classic Elite's Montera. I have not yet swatched with it to find out. Each skein has 200 yards and retails for $16.00.

I plucked out two skeins to use for a modular knit scarf I am thinking of designing for my Modular Knitting class later this spring:

 

I can't wait to start knitting with this stuff :)
 
 

   

Mystery Sock short row heel .... and cats, of course

I finished the Mystery Sock Clue #4 on Saturday night, and it was fun. I don't usually do short row heels, but that is the type of heel this Mystery Sock requires, so I did it, and it was actually kind of fun. This Mystery Sock is good for me; I don't usually knit socks from the toe up, and I don't usually knit socks with beads, either, but this is a fun sock to knit!

I found a great series of 3 videos on youtube.com that shows the exact same short row heel that I just knit. If you would like to try a short row heel, you can check it out:

Short Row Heel with YO's, Part 1

Short Row Heel with YO's, Part 2

Short Row Heel with YO's, Part 3

You know me. Once I get on YouTube, I can't stop. So I found this knitting video by a person with unbelievable fingernails. I mean, how does she do anything, really? Let along knit? Here it is:

Knitting with Looooong Fingernails

And then of course, I can't leave YouTube without a few cat & yarn videos:

Not the Sock Yarn!  (this cat must be related to Nora)

Kitty Stealing Yarn (I knew it! Little thieves...)

Cute Japanese Kitten Yarn song (Warning: this video contains potentially life-threatening cuteness. Watch with caution, as you may be overcome with cutekittenitis.) The song is about kittens and yarn, but I had to take their word for it, as it was in Japanese. There are, however, subtitles...... in Japanese.... )