15 December 2009 · 2 Comments
I promised to bore you with copious details of a new project. Now I’m not quite ready to cast on, but we all know that casting on is not the first step in a project. Before you cast on, you need to find some yarn. I’ve got some that’s been hibernating in the sash for far too long.
Long long ago, when I was just a wee baby knitter, I decided to make my first venture into a Real Yarn Store. I had finished a grand total of three socks (not three pairs…three socks, there is a fairly substantial difference), and I was convinced I was ready for the good yarn. The only yarn I had worked with up to this point had been either from a big box store or from the sale pile at Knit Picks. Now I have nothing against Knit Picks, but two skeins of their sale sock yarn don’t really give one an adequate sense of the full variety and majesty of the yarn universe. I had a suspicion there was more out there, and I wanted to find it.
I gathered up my courage and went to the Store That Shall Remain Nameless. Let’s say that the experience was not all I could have hoped for. The store had that cliquey feeling that too many yarn stores have. There was a not-so-subtle suggestion that if you weren’t working on an intricate cabled cardigan in fingering weight yarn or a lace shawl big enough to double as a tent you weren’t a real knitter and so clearly weren’t worthy to be in the store. There wasn’t much of an organizational scheme, and nothing had visible prices. I asked about sock yarn and was directed with a head nod to a small basket shoved off in a corner. I didn’t see a single thing I like. Not one.
Now I have this character flaw that makes me feel deeply uncomfortable in stores where the staff is being snotty and superior. It’s ridiculous. I know that I should simply double check my posture, smile politely, and leave with my wallet unopened. I’m working on it. At the time though, I couldn’t quite manage it. Instead I wandered around feeling I had to find something to buy so I would seem worthy. I saw a glimmering skein of Fiesta Yarns’ La Luz Multi. It was silk. It was shiny.
I picked it up and scurried over to the the counter. After finishing her row and having a leisurely sip of her coffee, the owner sauntered over to ring me up. Remember how I said there were no prices on anything? Yeah. The yarn rang up at $35.00 (robbery I now realize, but I didn’t know any better then). That was rather more than I had intended to spend, and rather more than I could comfortably afford, but I was too embarrassed to put it back.
I brought it home and set it somewhere safe where I could gaze at it but not harm it. I had no idea what to do with it. I was obviously not a good enough knitter to deserve it. I eventually put it away so it would stop taunting me. That was more than two years ago.
I just dug it back out. I am a good enough knitter to use whatever yarn I want. I don’t think I actually have too terribly many more skills than I did two years ago, I’m just a heck of a lot more confident. This yarn should not be intimidating. This yarn should not have to bear the weight of the bad juju of a crappy yarn store. This yarn should be used.
I’ve decided to make something indulgent and impractical and frivolous. I’m thinking fingerless gloves. I have an unholy love for them, and I’ve got just the right amount of yarn to make a nice substantial pair. So now I have yarn and a plan. Add in a pattern and it starts to look like a project.
14 December 2009 · 1 Comment
Move on, nothing to see here, keep going, move along.
Lots of knitting, and yet not a thing to show. I’ve got three, count them three finished pairs of socks and a fourth sock on the needles and not a thing to show you. As soon as the current deadline is met I’m casting on something for no other reason than to take excessive pictures of it and bore you with the details of its progress and construction.
For those calculating along at home, my estimate was a tiny bit off. I had a whopping 40 inches of yarn leftover instead of a mere 26. See? And no, it’s not brown yarn, it’s just a sepia tone photo. I can’t even show you the color of the yarn. No more secret projects for me.
9 December 2009 · No Comments
I think I’m running out of yarn. Not in general (perish the thought) but for this particular sock.
In this situation, it would be perfectly normal to: knit 1 full round, rip it out, carefully measure the amount of yarn used, and do the math to determine how much yarn each stitch takes. Then calculate the remaining number of stitches in the sock, measure the amount of yarn remaining in the skein, and do more math to see if you have enough yarn. Entirely reasonable.
According to my measurements, I should have about 26 inches of yarn left over. I’m confident in the math, but I’m not sure how good my measurements are as yarn is a bit stretchy (though I did measure 3 times and take the average). We’ll know soon. Even having measured and calculated, I know I’ll be eyeing the remaining ball with great suspicion the whole time.
7 December 2009 · No Comments
Now for some actual knitting. That empty box over there, the one under “On the Needles?” It’s a lie. The needles are not empty. They are, in fact, quite full. Alas, almost all the current knitting is secret, so I can’t show you pictures. I’m realizing now that this was poor planning. I can’t show you pretty pictures, but I can let you know a bit about the schedule and what you can expect to see over the next little while.
The next pattern you will see is part of Penny Rose’s Wicked Women yarn club. While only club members will be able to get the particular yarn I used, everyone will be able to buy the pattern. This one comes with its own fairy tale and a bonus history lesson. It will be out in early to mid January. I’ve finished my knitting, my marvelous testers have worked their magic, and The Boy spent a very amusing hour taking pictures of my feet yesterday, so this one is officially finished. Now I just have to wait to show them off. In the meantime, I’ll console myself by wearing them.
In February, you’ll see another sock club pattern, this time with Gaia’s Colours. These will be exclusive to the club for a while, but I’ll torment you with photos and try and try to talk you into putting the public release on your calendars. One sock is done, and the second is waiting for a few more yards of yarn. Testers have the pattern, and I’m lovingly fondling the existing sock (it’s a super thick and wonderfully warm) while I wait to finish its mate.
There are two more secret projects on the needles, one for publication (yay) and one for another sock club, but they’re for a bit later in the year and must remain unmentionable for a while longer. Some time very soon now (this week with any luck) the combined pattern for Crenellation will be available. It was up in pieces for the KAL, but I wanted to redo it as a single download with pictures.
Nope, no empty needles around here.
4 December 2009 · 1 Comment
So there I was, feeling awfully pleased with myself. I had made socks, two whole pairs. They fit. They were lovely. I was quickly approaching smug. You know those lists you see detailing why you should knit socks? The ones that talk about the practicality and the comfort and the portability and the reasonable cost and the creativity? I proudly ‘discovered’ each and every one of these marvelous traits and was completely sure I was the very first to do so.
There was just one problem. A pair of socks has an ungodly number of stitches. Do the math. It’s astonishing. I was a very new (and hence dreadfully slow) knitter. That many stitches was weeks and weeks of work. So I had a brilliant idea. I would use thicker yarn. Thicker yarn would cover the same amount of area with a smaller number of stitches. Genius.
This was the beginning of what I now think of as my deeply unsuitable yarn period.
Now it’s not (usually) that there was anything all that wrong with the yarn itself. It’s more that it wasn’t right for socks, at least not at the gauge I was using. So the next dozen or so pairs were knit with poorly chosen yarn at far too loose a gauge. The upside was that I couldn’t just follow patterns without some serious alterations because I didn’t need as many stitches as most patterns called for. I quickly learned that if you kept the basic structure of a sock in mind you could do pretty much whatever you wanted with the stitch patterns.
Most of those socks got holes within a few months which prompted me to wise up about gauge, yarn selection, and their rather fundamental role in creating long lasting socks. I even got (slightly) faster and switched to using standard patterns. These socks proved much more durable. Then I found out about stitch dictionaries and gleefully abandoned other people’s patterns in favor of making up my own. I even toyed with making some without benefit of stitch dictionaries.
A few people saw some of these socks and asked where I got the patterns. I stammered something about making them up, and they suggested I write them down. I don’t mind writing, and I have an unreasonable fondness for telling other people what to do, so I gave it a shot. The first iteration of this website was tossed together at 3 in the morning one night in the middle of March to host one of these patterns. People liked it. People knit it. Some lousy stuff was going on in my non-knitting life, and knitting was soothing, so I knit. People saying nice things about my pattern was also soothing, so I wrote another one. Then another. Some people were kind enough to suggest that the patterns might be worth charging for. Ravelry made that easy so I gave it a shot. It seemed to work.
It’s mostly just been momentum and deep and abiding selfishness from there. Knitters keep saying nice things, and it makes me feel good. Knitters keep buying patterns, and that lets me buy more yarn. I’m going to be knitting socks anyways, so as long as other knitters keep making me feel good and keep funding my yarn habit, I’m going to keep indulging my bossy streak by writing patterns.
So back to the questions that started this (unreasonably long and rambly) story. No, I haven’t been knitting for ages. I’ve been knitting for just over two years, and I’m still a slowish knitter. And as for how I learned how to design socks? Well mostly by being too lazy to follow proper sock patterns. So the moral of the story is that it takes no magical talents to write patterns, just laziness and a willingness to tell others what to do. If you’re wondering if you could do it, I’m guessing you can. Give it a shot.
3 December 2009 · No Comments
I get a fair number of people asking me how I learned to design socks or asking if I’ve been knitting for ages. This is very flattering, but I feel the need to confess. I’ve only been knitting seriously for about two years. I’ll explain.
About seven or eight years ago, I decided to learn to knit. I cobbled together something resembling the knit stitch and made a large and very ugly rectangle.
Having never been very good at taking small steps, I then decided that I was destined to create intricate cables. I got Elsebeth Lavold’s Viking Patterns for Knitting, picked out the most complicated cable pattern in the thing, and decided to whack it on a scarf.
Alas, I had no real concept of gauge or yarn selection. I picked out some nubbly blue acrylic stuff from Walmart and proceeded to successfully execute the cable pattern (more or less figuring out how to purl and wield a cable needle along the way). The nubbly bits hid the cable almost completely, and the yarn/needle combo resulted in a fabric so dense it could be used to hold up a sagging porch. But I did make cables. Unfortunately, I didn’t know how to add on more yarn, so I was stymied about 18 inches in. I stopped knitting for a while after that.
A few years later I decided to try again, this time with lace. I thought that a skein of laceweight was long enough that I wouldn’t ever have to worry about joining on new yarn. So the third attempt (after the ugly rectangle and the unexpectedly structural cables) was Knitty’s Branching Out scarf knit in some Knit Picks laceweight.
Along the way, I learned to do increases and decreases. Unfortunately I did not learn about winding my yarn into a ball. Instead I would open up the loop, wind off ten rounds or so, twist the loop closed, and knit that yarn. I did that for the whole scarf. I did learn rather a lot about picking knots out of laceweight yarn. I also found that you can use up that seemingly endless skein of yarn long before you’ve reached the hoped for length of scarf. I’ve still got this (rather short) scarf tucked away in the bottom of a drawer somewhere. I took another break.
Just over two years ago I decided that socks were obviously the answer. Each sock took only one ball of yarn (no joining on) and the yarn came in tidy balls (no terrible tangled loops). I found a free pattern (Mock Crock Socks, again on Knit Picks). I bought the yarn and needles called for and just followed the instructions. Two months later, I had learned to work on dpns, had some sort of notion of how you turn a heel, and had socks. They even looked more or less like socks meant for an adult human. I found another pattern and did it again. All seemed to be going well.
Then I got cocky. I’ll tell you that story next time.
2 December 2009 · 2 Comments
I painted my fingernails with a deeply immodest shade of glittery red polish, and I’m finding the constant flashes of shimmery awesomeness seriously distracting. I try to look at the stitches on my needles and am sidetracked by the shiny. It’s possible I’m just easily distracted (um, it’s more than possible, it’s medically documented), but this is just ridiculous. I could just take the polish off, but that simply won’t do. Instead I’ll just have to keep it on all the time for a week or two until I get used to it. This will be the perfect excuse for any errors in my knitting for the next few days.
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