Morning Has Broken
Frozen Grapes
Good morning, all. I was absent yesterday due to an evil migraine. Stayed home from work, which always makes me nervous.
Whenever I sat up the headache got much worse. [My father’s solution: “Don’t sit up.” What a guy.] So mostly I lay in bed, listening to my Jeeves Clock tick, thinking about the different kinds of head pain and how a headache oozes and flows from one part of your head to the other and back again. Comparing it (favorably) to dental pain.
As evening approached, I ate some frozen grapes and listened to the thunderstorm that swept through our area (and attacked my nice pot of wildflowers). Then I went back to sleep. All in all, a very exciting day. [Anyone else love frozen grapes? Go throw some in the freezer and let me know what you think.
The yarn is prettier in person.
Anyway, before yesterday I continued work on the CPH (rav lnk), which I’m making in conjunction with Danielle’s knitalong. Already, I have an issue (surprised? I didn’t think so).
I thought I was smarter than the pattern early on, didn’t look closely at the charts, and added some purl stitches where knit stitches needed to be. Can you tell?
[The yarn is actually a gorgeous teal blue. My camera just doesn’t want to show you that part. You might get too excited and run over here to steal it from me.
So I am now more than halfway through the back, and I have several reasons for wanting to frog and start over:
- the mistake, which is plaguing me;
- maybe some nice waist shaping?
- general boredom and malaise.
I’ll probably frog it tonight. Of course, it’s a delicate thing, because if I frog it I might not start again. So I am committing, here on this blog and before you people, to finish the CPH, by hook or by crook
And now, off to work.
Back from Abroad…
…or from the Knit-A-Gogo blog, anyway. Nice to be home!
I am still a very fickle knitter. I am plugging along on the back of the Central Park Hoodie (rav lnk) but keep thinking it should be another size, a different color, a different pattern. This is my traditional distractable knitter problem. I know that, if I move on to another sweater, I will just get distracted from it as well. So I am continuing with the CPH, but with trepidation as I still am concerned that it could make me look somewhat stumpy.
Meanwhile, I am also concerned because I made an error in row TWO of the post-ribbing section, and I just keep looking at it. This is one of those things that separates Slap-Dash Kathleen from Kathleen Who Can Wear What She Just Made. I am trying to listen to the Good Kathleen, but since that could involve tinking or frogging a fair amount of the back…well, it might not happen.
Easy As Pie
This is a cross-post from Knit-A-Gogo.
Some techniques in knitting look difficult, but are actually easy. Such things probably vary from knitter to knitter. Two of mine are socks and cabling.
That said, I haven’t tried cabled socks yet.
Cabling is pretty simple, and the cables in the Central Park Hoodie (rav lnk) are simple indeed. This is one of those projects you’ll want to knit in public, so that people will come up and admire your sweater and your cleverness wherever you may roam.
So by now you have your gauge swatch done, and you’ve selected your larger and smaller needles (smaller ones should be two sizes below the larger ones — US6 if you’re using US8 needles, US4 if you’re using US6 needles, etc.).
A few words on pattern-reading:
1. As Amanda mentioned in the comments yesterday, it’s a good idea to highlight the instructions for the size you’re using so your eye doesn’t skip around and have you knitting the ribbing length for a size 32 if you’re actually knitting a 40.
2. If you’re intimidated by the first line of the non-ribbing section, just take a deep breath and look at the charts. Other than the one cabled row, you’re just knitting and purling. You can even write out the charts, but that may ultimately be more trouble than it’s worth.
3. If you’re planning to take your knitting with you, put it in a handy-dandy clear plastic sleeve. You’ll thank me later.
4. Especially since we’re using more than one chart here, get some nice sticky notes and use them to mark where you are on your various charts.
Now that I’ve found my cable needles, which were hiding in my winter knitting bag (don’t ask), I’m off and running. How about yourselves?
Measuring Your Swatch…And Meeting Up
This is a cross-post from Knit-A-Gogo.
Hello, all,
Welcome to Day Two of our knitalong! My Central Park Hoodie (rav lnk) is coming along nicely, especially since I am now using the correct size needles to knit the ribbing, rather than the US8s with which I started.
In case you’re still swatching, I thought I’d give a few hints about measuring your gauge swatch.
First off, if you can possibly get a Susan Bates “Knit-Chek” like the one in the picture, do so. These are more readily available in some parts of the country than others. I got all the way to upstate New York without mine a few years ago, and not only did the LYS not have one, they looked at me like I had three noses when I described it.
But having something like this will help you measure one row (or column) of stitches, and that row only. Line the inside edge up with a row/column of stitches in your swatch that look pretty uniform.
Second, use something to point at the stitches. This feels a little elementary, but it keeps me from getting confused by stitch legs. I use one of my blocking needles and trace the little vee of each knit stitch as I count.
Third, and this is certainly important with the CPH, pay attention to partial stitches. The gauge for our pattern is 17 stitches to every four inches, which means 8 1/2 stitches to two inches and 4 1/4 to one inch. Those partial stitches in your measured area definitely make a difference to your gauge.
Finally, I’m at St. Elmo’s this morning and early afternoon, knitting. Stop by if you like! And I suggest we try to meet up next Wednesday (July 30) at Knit Happens late night to show off our progress.
Sunday Morning
Good morning, all,
I’m at St. Elmo’s this morning, with some Earl Greyer Tea, some yogurt, and the Central Park Hoodie (rav lnk).
As is traditional for me, I have already:
1. Knit 3.5″ of ribbing on US8s;
2. Remembered that the ribbing was meant to be done on US6s;
3. Muttered, cursed, considered the idea of a hoodie with very floppy ribbing;
4. Discarded that option;
5. Ripped out ribbing, while thinking about just making the Hourglass Sweater (rav lnk): so simple, so hourglassy! Would probably be the answer to all my problems (social, professional, and emotional). Promised self I could rip out the CPH just after finishing, in order to make Hourglass Sweater;
6. Realized that my own inconstancy may be the cause of this yarn’s being cursed;
7. Promised self new yarn for the Hourglass Sweater in exchange for pushing on with current project. New yarn! What kind of new yarn should I…
Story of my life.
Kathleen
Unexpected Green Beacon
While going through my mother’s “important paper bag” (don’t we often have this: a purse, and then a second bag we carry that has our Things We Absolutely Must Do Something About This Week papers in them? No? Just me? Oh well), I found…a bag of seeds. A file of income tax information, a new 2008 appointment book, a print-out of her schedule for the week, various bills and other paperwork, and seeds.
My mother loved to garden. I remember weekends of digging in the dirt with her (but getting bored quickly) and watching her weed out the azaleas in our front yard. She loved spring; she loved flowers; she loved watching her yard bloom all over again. Her kitchen has a wall of windows in the breakfast nook, and when she was alive these were filled with aloe plants, cuttings, cacti in bloom — a whole wall of living things. After she died, my sister and I each took an aloe plant, and another relative took some geranium cuttings. I may put some of her roses into the yard at our house, but I am definitely not the gardener she was.
Anyway, the seeds. I suspect they were swag from one of the conferences she attended, and she planned to plant them inside last winter. I wasn’t sure what to do with them, especially because I do not have a green thumb. At best, my thumb is yellow; sometimes, it is brown. For Mom’s aloe plant, my thumb is yellowish-green, with a few brown spots, and a generally crumpled look. Finally one day I re-potted the poor thing, only to discover a week or so later that the pot I’d used (glazed) and the soil I’d put inside (regular) were probably doing more harm than good.
After re-re-potting (about which perhaps more later) I had left over a glazed pot and some nice Miracle Gro potting soil inside. As I looked at the potted soil, a strange idea began unfurling in the back of my head: pot…soil…seeds…surely we can make something of this…
So I dropped the seeds in the soil, watered them, and forgot about them. I pretty much assumed they wouldn’t sprout, because the package looked really old and, as I said, the thumb’s not so good.
But just a few days later they sprouted. It felt like an absolute miracle. Which, of course, seeds turning into plants always is: the miracle of something entirely new and alive, where a season before it was brown and inert.
Thanks, Mom.
…And We’re Off!
This is a cross-post from Knit-A-Gogo.
Well, campers, today is the first day of the Central Park Hoodie DC knitalong. Happy CPHDCK Day!
I myself have gone through 5 gauge swatches just to find the right needles, but now I’m happily working on the ribbing.
How about you? Let us know about your progress.
Why Do We Swatch?
This is a cross-post from Knit-A-Gogo.
The question I ask myself every time I have an exciting pattern and delicious yarn: why do I have to start with this stupid gauge swatch?
There are several answers to that age-old question:
Fundamentally, when I don’t swatch it’s because I think I’m smarter than the yarn, the pattern, the designer, or all three. I have a huge ego to go with my tiny self-esteem, and I love to pretend I am smart enough not to have to walk before I run. “Gauge swatches are for sissies,” I tell myself, and then I end up with a sweater that is somehow wrong and will not fit a human being without surgical intervention.
I’m sorry to say that this has happened several times.
When people design patterns, they knit up the item using the needle size that they feel is the best for the yarn, in terms of drape and stitch space. Then, after they have finished the item, they knit a gauge swatch using the same yarn and needles, and that’s how they figure out the gauge for the project. So when you are knitting a gauge swatch you are trying to find a way to compensate for the differences between your natural style of knitting and theirs. Me, I knit tight, but I think I knit loose. Doubly dangerous.
“But, look,” I used to think, “if I don’t quite match the gauge I’ll just have a [sweater/hat/sock] that’s a little [larger/smaller] than I expected.” Sadly, this is not always true, and here’s why:
For me, not knitting a gauge swatch meant the two sweaters pictured in this post (rav lnk1; rav lnk2) were much wider than they were tall. I looked like a snowwoman who wanted to show off her belly. Not a good look for me. Not a good use of my time. [Let’s not talk about my yarn choice for that second project; it’s like a Cosby Sweater!]
So — here endeth the lecture. Hope your swatches are coming along well; we cast on tomorrow!
Show Me The Swatches!
This is a cross-post from Knit-A-Gogo.
Dearest DC-CPHers,
It is I, your guest blogger. I can generally be found here, but be aware we just migrated to wordpress so are in some ways still under construction. Danielle and I got to know each other when I was looking for A Very Particular Yarn and she had it. We met up and she sold me the yarn out of her car. Ah, the illicit feeling of paying cash for yarn in a parking lot. What’s not to love? Some of you met me at the Mother’s Day retreat, where I was one of the teachers.
I’ve been knitting, off and on, since I was 15. Some years I’m better at it than others. My first project was a scarf that I brought with me on a two-week car tour of the lake country in Scotland. Because my mother was driving and knitting was a good distraction, said scarf wound up looking an awful lot like that worn by the Fourth Doctor (ravelry link). You can tell I bring enthusiasm to knitting, but not always common sense.
For example, when I knit a sweater, I dive in feet first and then discover I’ve made some grievous error. Then I
If I’m not careful I might find myself swatching for another sweater while glaring at the ribbing of the first, still pitifully small on the needles.
All of which is to say that I found myself with a small problem on the CPH. Due to unusual circumstances, I knit three swatches for this sweater, on US8/US7/US6 needles, telling myself they would be an excellent illustration of what to look for in swatching (but really just amusing myself). When I blocked them, I didn’t label them, because they were very obviously small (6), medium (7), and large (8).
Then I lost one of the swatches and couldn’t tell whether I was left with small and medium, medium and large, or small and large. [This is textbook, I have to tell you. Even after almost 20 years of knitting I seem to be an idiot.] It was like one of those awful GRE logic problems. Sadder still, one of the remaining swatches was the correct gauge—but there was no way of knowing which needles I’d used.
It was around this time I found myself wondering whether I could use some stash yarn for Rogue (rav lnk), Eastlake (rav lnk), or even just a nice log cabin blanket (rav lnk). I was halfway to my LYS when I remembered that I had to write this guest blog.
So I will persist. I have knit up two more swatches, in US7 and US8, and am blocking them right now. Meanwhile, you all need to show me your swatches! Post some photos on your blog or in Flickr and send me the links in the comments section. Any problems, pop those into the comments as well. We’ll chat about measuring a gauge swatch tomorrow.
Gluten-Free Cookies
We interrupt this swatching adventure to bring you a plate of gluten-free cookies.
Because that’s how much we care about you at this here blog.
These actually weren’t bad, much better than other GF cookies I’ve had. For GF cupcakes, nothing beats Buzz Bakery on Slaters Lane. I just wish they wouldn’t put almonds on top of them.
Knitting-wise, I’m guest-blogging about the Central Park Hoodie for Danielle this week. So feel free to head on over there and read about my swatching nightmare: missing swatch.
As a friend told me when I explained that I had subscribed to the International Herald Tribune because I needed articles from the Washington Post but the crossword from the New York Times…there is such a thing as over-thinking.
Knit Like You Mean It. 