she's just saying...

knitting dreams

I finally finished MyBigBro's second sock. Only eight months for the pair. I guess I'm not ready to join the Sock-of the-Month Club yet. Maybe if they weren't a foot and a half long each, I might have finished earlier. Or if they weren't so boring. But they're essentially done. (In the fluid definition of "finished" by a knitter - I only have one sock with me so I can't officially finish until Steve measures the original length.) 

Steve: here are the instructions:

So of course I'm now eagerly planning the next pair.

This time they'll be interesting, less splitty, smaller and I'll whip them out in a month or so. We knitters dare to dream, each time we gaze at our stash, thumb through our pattern books, consult the Ravelry project pages. Of course I also just started my next big cardigan project after weeks of agonizing about patterns. And I have the never-ending Sea Lettuce scarf going in Lucy N's honor. But that's okay - I allow myself three works-in-progress at a time, so I'm good. 

Okay, I'm off to my sock dreams...

a Famous Knitter comes to town

Bend is honored to have a Famous Knitter here this week. Non-knitting people are always surprised to know that there actually are famous knitters. But why not?  Patterns, other than the simple scarf or washcloth, have to come from somewhere. There are real designers behind them, selling and publishing their work in books and magazines. So the knitting world, like the fashion world, revolves around designers, and there are a number of well-known ones.

But I digress. (I'm going to assign a shorthand abbreviation for that: BID. And now I digress on my digression.)

My knitting group has organizes a two-day workshop with a knitting designer/teacher, and she has arrived. It's Lucy Neatby, she of the blue and fuschia hair and mismatched colored boots. Lucy is a combination of organized, detailed instructor, technically brilliant designer and creative artist. Her DVD series has taught thousands of knitters from the basics to intricate techniques, and she's really cool. And did I mention she's staying with me this week?

My cats are thrilled to have another lap to claim.

All that for this?

Look! I made yarn! 30 whole yards! It's a bit lumpy and uneven, but I call it "art yarn."

  
It's a long way from a sweater, or even a scarf, but I'm powering on.

spinning out of control

Help! I need an intervention! I've gotten into s p i n n i n g.

My more athletically-inclined readers are assuming "indoor group stationary bike workouts" (which is bizarre, frankly).

My Deadhead readers are dreamily reminiscing about those far-out concerts, dancing to Sugar Magnolia.

And my fiber friends are nodding their heads, saying it was just a matter of time...

I am referring to the kind of spinning where you take prepared wool and twist it to form yarn, an ancient domestic art with tons of romance and mystique. Because I don't have enough hobbies. That take a lot of tools and space. That you need to buy stuff for. And that don't get me out of the house.

I always said I'd never take up spinning like many of my other knitting friends have. And I still say I won't buy a pricy spinning wheel with all the expensive ancillary equipment and learn technical wheel mechanics. No, I've gotten sucked in by a basic, non-mechanical piece of wood that's brilliant in its simplicity and functionality: the spindle.

Here's mine, with my first attempt at yarn:

 

Simple and basic. But it's worrisome, none the less. Why do I need more yarn??? I have more yarn than I can knit in my lifetime, so now I've decided to manufacture the stuff on my own? And once you spin it, you don't stop there. You then have to wind it on bobbins, ply it together, skein it, soak it, hang it to dry, and wind it into a ball BEFORE you even begin to knit with it!

So I've taken a hobby I already spend too much time obsessing about and taken it about seven steps back.

What can I say: it's fascinating, mesmerizing, meditative and consuming me right now. Hey, it doesn't hurt anyone, right?  (Though I've been eyeing the cat - all that soft fluffy angora-like raw material right in front of me...)

At least I'm not raising the sheep for the raw fleece, which adds about elebenty billion more steps to the process.

Yet.

Knitting stereotypes: smashed!

Some random sitings at the Madrona Fiber Retreat.

Knit sweaters are all shapeless bulky and itchy.

Habu: Japanese handknit designs fashioned from finely-spun metals, paper, silk and wool fibers. Drapey, deconstructed and divine...

 

Knitters are boring goody-goodies.

A portrait of Stephanie of the Gothsocks that I've written about previously, black-striping yarn with colors like "Dark & Twisty" and "Zombie Prostitute."   She has a huge cult following and sold out her entire booth at Madrona in the first half-hour. And yes, that is her real hair color (inside joke, sorry).

 

Knitters are frumpy.

I couldn't take a picture of her as I was sitting right by her, but sitting in the lobby next to me was an elegant and stylish woman with thigh-high boots, sleek up-do, trendy glasses and a martini glass motoring along on a drapey piece of knitting. Extra points as she was reading a book as she was knitting, sitting under an original Chuck Close painting. There were also a number of young urban trendies with tights and combat boots, tattoos and tiny tank tops, spinning on wheels and knitting intricate socks. No photos - I was too shy.

 

Men who knit must be effeminate girly-men.

Meet Charlton, my tablemate in the "Advanced Cables" class. After we discussed the Bosox spring training prospects and he dissed Carl Crawford (!), he got out his tools and got to work. On size 1 needles. I was impressed

My latest crush

He's cute, he's nice, he's hip and he can really knit. Jared Flood of Brooklyn Tweed. Of course he's young enough to be my son, or at least a kid I once babysat. It's not that kind of crush. Much. He's an incredible designer and photographer and teacher and the coolest guy. Go check out his work. It's okay, I'll wait.

I took two classes with him today: "A Taste of Lace" and "Advanced Cabling" which were very enlightening, and if you ask me nicely I'll share some of my new-found wisdom with you over a glass of wine.

Here he is enlightening us about steeks, a frightening technique where you cut your knitting right up the front without fear.

Here we are after class. Whew, made it through the scary part!

And he inscribed my copy of his book, Made in Brooklyn, but I can't share that with you 'cause it's private. Sigh.

OK. Time to go dream about all things wool.

Tomorrow: knitting stereotypes shattered! Stay tuned.

Must have been the yarn fumes

So happy to be back in the land of the Spiritual Room Service Menu! I think this time I'll order up the body pillow with the Tao Te Ching, or maybe the Bhagavad Gita. I'm not even sure that that last one is. I'm going to arrange them all on my bed before my as-yet-unknown roommate gets in. That'll freak her out!

Yes, I'm back at the Hotel Murano for the Madrona Fiber Arts Retreat, my fourth year here. More crazy knitting ladies wearing their handmades. This time there's a lot more. The hotel, a 20-something floor nouveau remade of an old Sheraton, is completely sold out. So is the rest of Tacoma - we hear that there's a wrestling tournament and a cheerleaders' convention in town as well. My suggestion: all three groups get together in one convention center, make new friends and learn new skills. We could cheer on a knitting throwdown! Whoo! Who's with me?

Anyway, I went by Lollipop Cabin's booth to collect my pay for doing a sample knit for her and this is what I picked out:

Not sure what got into me - this is pretty rainbow pastelly, or what we call in the knitting world "unicorn barf." I love love love it though. No idea what I'll make out of it. Maybe a cuddly lap robe, 'cause it's unlikely I could ever wear these colors out in the world.

And here's the answer to the question I posed about the pronunciation of Ialiuxh, the first name of the very cool yarntrepreneur behind Lollipop Cabin: it's ill-ay'-uh. No one even came close.

More yarny goodness to come. I'm off to my first class: "Designing your own stitch patterns." Another useless skill to add to my repertoire! Wish me luck.

Reading about knitting

A measure of one's obsession with a hobby is the number of books you read on the subject. Fishermen read fishing books, gardeners read seed catalogues, travelers read travel guides, etc. I read about knitting. How boring have I become, really?

I have to confess that for me reading about knitting is sometimes a way of procrastinating from actually doing it. That might seem confusing to non-knitters -- if I love to knit so much, why would I procrastinate? -- a behavior which I frankly can't explain.

Knitting book titles tend to lean heavily on bad puns, especially the knitting/mystery sub-genre, for example:

Dropped Dead Stitch, A Killer Yarn, Skein of the Crime (which is confusing: I've always pronounced "skein" as skane, not skeen), Sins and Needles. I've never actually read any of these - I like my mysteries more gritty than twee.

Then there are the instruction and pattern books. A sampling of titles:

Dominaknitrix: Whip your knitting into shape  Fun book, but I couldn't find one pattern I'd actually wear in it. It's going into the swap pile for my knitting group.

Knitting outside the Socks. Groan.

Hattitude Lots and lots of hats.

Knitting with Balls: a hands-on guide to knitting for the modern man. I wish I knew someone to gift this with.

Knitting for Barbie: 75 Fabulous Fashions Please shoot me if you ever see me with this.

And my favorite, though I doubt I'll ever take up this technique:

Knitting with Dog Hair : Better a sweater from a dog you know and love than from a sheep you'll never meet.

The blurb reads: "Stop vacuuming and start knitting! Learn to recycle Rover into beautiful garments and accessories as the authors teach you this wacky new spin on an old craft."

I hope they warn you to never get caught in the rain.

 

 

Knitting post: indie dyers

Here's a poor photo of the sample knit I just finished. Better photo to come.

As with many other industries, the fiber world has seen the growth of "independent" producers in the last decade. These are entrepreneurs who spin and/or dye their own yarn for sale, as compared to big corporate fiber companies. It's a little fuzzy (ha) as to how big you can be before you're no longer an indie. But generally, these are in-home DIY'ers who sell on-line via their own websites and etsy.com, at fiber shows and to a few shops.

Like many knitters, I've traveled the path from originally buying acrylic yarn at big-box stores, moving to nicer wools at yarn shops, and now collecting mostly handspuns and hand-dyed from artisans. Of course the prices have traveled the same upward path. But what befits a handmade article more than handmade yarn? And once you've used it it's hard to go back.

I haven't taken the final steps to spinning and dying my own yarn and raising the sheep as some knitters have, and hopefully I won't, as the last thing I need is more craft equipment or animals. I think I'll stop at supporting those who do.

I knit this Dandy Neckerchief as a favor is to show off yarn for a dyer's booth at upcoming fiber shows. (Plus I get paid back in yarn.) The dyer has the inpronouncable name of Ialiuxh and her company is called Lollipop Cabin.  The yarn is called "Phluffiee," described as follows:

Only available once a year, this organic yarn from Canadian sheep is spun by a small North American mill then hand-dyed by Lollipop Cabin, one skein at a time in a wee little cabin with rain water from the Pacific Northwest Cascades, using environmentally friendly dyes suitable for a grey water system.

How indie/artisan/DIY is that?

And today's challenge: how would you pronounce "Ialiuxh?" edited to add: the first letter is an i, not an L.

Knitted Resolutions 2011

Hey - remember top ten Tuesdays? Me neither. But here's one now!

I made great knitting resolutions in 2009, and none in 2010. Maybe because none of the 2009 ones were kept, so they fit under my resolution-carryover rule. Anyway, here are some for 2011:

1. Finish my Christmas gift knitting (only four three to go!).
2. No more knit gifts for people unless specifically requested, and then maybe. If I think they're really going to wear it.
   
3. Finish my Solstice sweater before I start another big project.
4. Knit a complicated fair-isle something.
5. Learn a little more crochet.
6. Master the toe-up sock heel, or give it up entirely.
7. Start going to my knitting group meetings again. No, really.
8. Gift, trade or sell yarn I'm never going to use.
9. Knit from my stash - ha! 
10. And finally: knit whatever I want however I want to or not. 'Cause it's a hobby.

The Knitmas tally to date

In the tradition of knitters everywhere, I cling to very optimistic views of what I can produce on deadline. I've been on the Knitmas train since early October, and here's the tally of finished objects so far (identifying details have been removed to protect the surprise):

• 2 hats (plus 2 more orphan hats that I rejected as gifts)
• 2 sets of fingerless mitts
• 1 pair of footwear
• 1 sock
• 1 cowl
• 1 scarf
• 1 bag
• 1 chapstick cozy
• 3 mini Santa hat ornaments (my version of procrastinating)

 I still have to finish: 1 scarf (halfway done), 3 hats (2 started so far), 1 sock and 1 set of mitts. There are six knitting days left until Christmas. Piece of cake, right?

I've already informed several recipients that they're not getting their gifts til after Christmas, so that buys me a little more time. Meanwhile, I won't be blogging, or doing much of anything but knitting with grim determination and focus. Other than taking four planes to North Carolina, setting up my parents' tree, baking cookies, making meals, doing errands and shopping and trying to keep Henry entertained. Should be a fun week! Really.

Note: this is not happening again next Christmas. Target gift certificates for all!

How are you all doing on your Christmas lists?

The Color Purple

Over my life, I've fallen in and out of love with many different... colors. [I bet you thought I was going to say men. That's also true, though a topic for another post.]  As a child, gazing at pink and blue together actually gave me a physical thrill. That's no longer true, sadly. I went through a red phase, including painting a bedroom wall deep enamel red in high school which my mother approved, bless her heart. Pink and coral are still perennial favorites, though not with blue, and brown has wormed its way back into my wardrobe, almost supplanting black, though not totally. And you may remember my recent fling with chartreuse that continues still.

But as #1 Sister knows, I've always intensely disliked the color purple. This makes me an anomaly in my family: it's MyBigBro's favorite non-black color, my mom and #1 both like it, and Dr. Sister likes "jewel-tones" including purple; but me, not. [Note to self: query dad re: opinion of purple.]

That's why I was more than a little freaked out when I realized that the last six balls of yarn I've purchased have all included purple. Real purple, not just a certain shade of blue-ish lilac which I've always kind of liked.

Check this out:

So clearly I can no longer categorically state that I don't like purple.

However, I can still say that I really dislike dark green. And burnt orange. Especially together, or when they're with purple. I don't think that will change, but you never know...

I think it's interesting that color preferences can change. Have you warmed up to a formerly-rejected color, or fallen out of love with a certain hue?

Knitmas mania

There's a knitter's blog titled "I'm knitting as fast as I can!" and I so relate right now. Due to the confluence of my deepening knitting obsession and being broke, I've decided to produce all my Christmas gifts via the needles this year. Since everyone in my family still gives a present to everyone else (despite vowing for years to stop the practice), that means 11 gifts right there. Then there are friends, co-workers-who-are-friends, special teachers and neighbors. Actually, many of those are getting canned goods, i.e. lovingly-homemade jams, sauces and chutneys that were my September obsession. Still, that leaves a lot of knitting to be done.

Things I'm making: berets, watchcaps, fingerless mitts, scarves, cowls, slippers and if I panic and run out of time, a washcloth or two, and possibly a few more felted mice and coffee cozies. I'm about halfway through, and if I'm averaging one gift every five days, I should just make it. I can't show you anything I've made as you may be a lucky recipient, so I'll just flash my stash, as we say in the knitting crowd.

All of this will be knitted up, within my lifetime. Really.

Eureka! (not the city)

I've taught myself how to do many things with the help of library books and Google. Minor plumbing, household repairs, computer upgrades, child-rearing (no family elders this side of the Rockies). But, I'm not much of a self-taught knitter. It tends to be too frustrating, so I rely on classes and workshops for advanced techniques. Plus they're fun.

However, while knitting a sock leg in the middle of a flight last week, I taught myself the Magic Loop. It's an approach to knitting with one circular needle for small diameter tube knitting, when the circumference of your tube is smaller than will actually fit around from point to point.

I won't describe the technique here, sparing you all. It always seemed too technical and fiddly, but while drinking the free wine from Alaska Air, I looked at my knitting and thought "what if I...?" And it worked! I wanted to shout "Eureka!" down the length of the plane, but held back and just smiled as I kept going around and around this never-ending sock...

Knitting countdown starts now

Starting tomorrow, I'm putting aside all personal knitting (sob!) and working on Christmas presents. Once again, with no money and lots of yarn, I'm setting the goal of knitting all presents for family and friends. So, no talking about what's on the needles or showing works in progress on the blog sidebar til January, assuming I hit my target dates...

So, the perennial question: would you rather ask for and receive exactly the gifts you want or would you rather be surprised by the imaginative choice of the giver? For me, this becomes the dilemma of whether to choose a pattern/yarn/color I think the recipient would like or whether to ask them beforehand, which isn't as much fun. I've thought of choosing a few options I want to knit and having them pick from those, but that's a lot of work, frankly.

It's not so hard with my sisters as I know their tastes, but for nieces/nephews, it gets tricky. Those twenty-somethings can be very choosy. Of course, I know what they really want and probably need more than any knitted item: cold hard cash.

 

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

what's on the needles late summer

I was doing so well. Practicing knitting monogamy. Focusing solely on the Summer Solstice cardigan. Well, there was that little fling with the market bag, but I needed a travel project over the fourth. And I did return to Solstice when it was over.

Unfortunately, it's now become clear that the honeymoon is over. I've hit the really boring part: straight stockinette stitch for long rows forever. But I still have to keep track of the rows because every 4, 8, or 12 I have to increase or decrease a few times. This means it's boring knitting, but not mindless knitting. A crucial difference. Mindless knitting means totally zoning out, not paying any attention, finding a zen state where you just form the stitches, over and over. This is not that. I have to count every row, which just emphasizes the slowness of my knitting progress. So the sweater has become one of those works-in-progress that I'll pick up now and then, rather than one I'm enamored of.

So the itch to cast on was not to be denied. I have an excuse - Doctor Sister is having a big birthday in September, and it calls for a lovingly-hand-knitted gift. Plus I'm broke, and one thing I have is yarn. So I had to start a mystery project that can't be discussed here until it's done and wrapped and mailed and received on time by September 17. Or as soon thereafter as is possible. (OK, now she knows kind of what she's getting. But the anticipation of what it actually is should be thrilling.)

Then there's the next project. Due to the shopping frenzy and subsequent swapping action from the Goth Socks sale, I'm now the proud owner of some new yarn. Sadly for my stash, the newest skeins are always the most attractive. So I'm back to endless perusal of patterns on Ravelry, planning and scheming, pulling out needles, swatching samples and itching for the day when I cast on again.

Not Dr. Sister's yarn.

Urban renewal

I flew up to Seattle and back yesterday. For an eye doctor appointment -- gone are the days when I would fly a one-day r/t for business. It was fun to be back on city sidewalks.

There's nothing like a city for energy and buzz. Bend, on the other hand, does not have buzz. It has mellow. Pleasant, but definitely laid-back, even if you're working just as hard. I used to be hooked on that buzz, but I don't know if I could handle it now on a daily basis. But it sure is good to experience it now and then, and there's a lot about cities I miss.

You can now take a sparkly bright new train from the airport right to downtown for $5 round-trip. I put on my city commuter face and it was very easy. Sometimes cities do things right for a change. After my 4-hour appointment (seriously!) I had time to experience the city and so of course headed for the nearest yarn store for an absolutely necessary purchase.

This is what I love about cities - here are the other stores on that block:

• Alchemy, a bookstore with "magical" books and supplies. It looked intriguing but I didn't explore.
• The Honey Hole, a neighborhood cafe. Ditto the above.
• Babeland, a sex toys shop. Um, ditto?
• Stitches, the yarn store, my destination.

That's as far as I could go, as I had to stumble my way back to the airport. Stumble because (irony alert!) I broke a contact lens at the eye doctor's. My eyes had been dilated and because I didn't bring my prescription sunglasses I had to wear one contact under my regular sunglasses. Blurry and half-blind, I wasn't in the mood for more shopping or sightseeing. I needed to sit down near the flight gate, have a beer and peer at a magazine.

All in all, another novel day. For those who are wondering, this new eye doctor does recommend the still-somewhat-experimental surgery for my right eye. For those who are now really wondering, I have glaucoma and underwent a long and annoying surgery experience on my left eye that no one wants to repeat. Though the drugs were good while they lasted. Until they weren't.

Marketing genius a la Goth

This is a post about yarn, but don't turn away! It's really about marketing, and a case study in creating a frenzied demand for a commodity product.

In the yarn world, there's an overwhelming movement toward hand-dyed and handspun yarn produced primarily by a lot of 20 and 30 somethings who (seriously) are very counter-culture. It's the whole etsy, handmade, back to nature neo-hippie thing.

So, the marketing genius part. There's a woman in Washington named Stephanie who dyes her own yarn for sale and has a cult following. She's very goth, and her yarn lines are goth-inspired. There's a lot of black plus color striping yarn designed primarily for striped socks, often worn with clunky round-toed shoes.

© RedScathach

(At this point, if you're not a knitter, you probably think I'm making this up. I'm not.)

She has lovely and weird color mixes and soft yarns, but frankly, there are a lot of other yarn designers out there who have similar product. (Don't jump on me, gothsocks people!) But she sells out every run, at a price of $28 per skein. That's one hank of yarn, enough for two socks. And people are lined up begging for any yarn they can get, at prices up to $40.

So she ran a mystery yarn sale last month via etsy. You were limited to two skeins for $25 each, they were seconds, and you had no say in what type or color of yarn you got. The yarn was available for sale at 10 am that day, and so many people logged in to etsy that it couldn't handle the traffic. And she sold out in minutes.

Of course, since I'm writing about it, you can assume I was part of the frenzy. I got my two skeins, one a beautiful, subtle mix of grays and one a pretty garish striping yarn of black, brown, orange and red, and I have a list of people wanting to buy them from me. These are yarns I would not have looked at in a yarn store, but, trend-wagon person that I am, I had to have them. I'm not what you'd call goth, and I don't even like stripey yarn!

This is cool stuff. Stephanie does what she does for love. She makes beautiful yarn, with a clear positioning and attitude, and has an adoring fan base because of it. All power to her. And boy, she knows how to drive demand:  keep the product exclusive, make it an event, let your evangelists spread the word.

(Here's her booth at a yarn show - photo by her)

Five words knitters fear most

"...while at the same time..."

Most sweater patterns involve a lot of shaping of each piece to achieve the most flattering fit (as most of us are not square cubes, hopefully). To shape a piece, you have to get rid of or add on stitches to a row to make it curve in or jut out etc. to form a v-neck, shape an underarm or taper down a sleeve.

(Bored yet? Hang on.)

So, one side of a sweater (say the left side of a cardigan front) has to accommodate waist shaping, an underarm and sleeve hole; while the other side of that piece has to make a rounded neck and maybe a flared waist. In order to do this on one piece, you have to be shaping the beginning of each row WHILE AT THE SAME TIME shaping the other end. And rarely symmetrically. Not to mention that if there's a pattern in the sweater, say, cabling, there are three different things going on in every row that don't repeat regularly. Like rubbing your stomach and patting your head with pointy sticks and string. And whistling "Ode to Joy."

So the instructions may say, "decrease two stitches every fifth row six times then one stitch every third row five times while at the same time increase [at the other end] every seven rows four times, then every six rows three times, then increase two stitches the next four rows," etc. And do all this while watching "Law and Order," letting the dog and cats in and out and putting Henry to bed.

This either involves several stitch counters, pencil and paper notations, counting and re-counting, swearing and ripping out repeatedly; or you can take on the initially laborious task of writing out every row by hand and following each one. (A few patterns do this for you, but most don't.) For me it's worth the three hours designing an excel chart at the beginning of the project for the sake of my sanity and the finished object.

Anyway, that's how I spent my morning. Good thing it's cool and rainy out or I'd never get going on this thing.

Here's someone else's diagram of the sweater I'm starting, from another Ravelry knitter, MoniqueQc. Her blog post is very helpful if you speak French. As she puts it: "Bon, une photo vaut mille mots qui, je l'espère, vous enlèvera mille maux. ;-)"

Oh, I'm sorry, you don't speak French? Quel dommage.

Multi-tasking while doing nothing

Our school year was just cut by two days as of immediately, and it just hit me that I need to produce year-end gifts for Henry's wonderful teachers by Tuesday a.m. The great Mr. G. will probably get a giftcard with a personal note. Miss T., who's been Henry's advocate, cheerleader, biggest fan and confidante, needs something extra-special. So of course I picked up the needles and cast on. Goal: finish a market string bag in the next two days.

I picked pattern, yarn and needles already on hand and am knitting furiously while watching the World Cup.  That background whining horn sound during the game is driving me crazy though, so I'm watching the game on mute and listening to the Phillies/Red Sox game on the computer while knitting a lace pattern at the same time. I can't attest to the final result.

(It's a vuvuzela and according to Wikopedia is "associated with permanent noise-induced hearing loss, cited as a possible safety risk when spectators can't hear evacuation announcements, and potentially spreads colds and flu germs on a greater scale than coughing or shouting.") Not the pleasant summer murmur of baseball, for sure. More like an approaching swarm of killer bees.

Anyway, everything's on hold while I finish this project. Parents out there, weigh in on year-end teacher gifts: pro or con?  Suggestions?  Favorites? Discuss, while I knit on.