Ms.Tania Sultana

Last night, I finished my armband for Tania.

I cast on 20 stitches and knit for 8 3/4 inches.  Then I used the colour charts provided on the microRevolt website to make the 149 with intarsia.  I then knit for 5 rows and divided for the button holes as follows:

• k 6, turn work, and knit the same 6 stitches in stockinette for 8 rows.
• Break yarn, and then knit 8 stitches on left hand needle for 8 rows.
• Break yarn, and then knit remaining 6 stitches for 8 rows.
• Purl across all 20 stitches to join.
• Knit across picking up the loose cross-yarn over the two buttonholes and knitting it together with the next stitch.

I then knit another 5 rows and bound off.  I used chain stitch to outline the button holes and the edge of the armband.

I used handspun and hand dyed yarn – a gift from the old woman who used to live in my borough.  I thought it was fitting.

I’ll post better pictures tomorrow, along with #148: Md. Maruf Hossain.

Tea Cozy

Does anyone remember me talking about the wonderful housewarming gift we got when we moved into this apartment?  Long story short, an elderly woman who used to live in this neighborhood decided to take up spinning and dyeing yarn years ago.  The mother of the woman who used to rent here knew her, and when the old woman passed away, her estate gave her the old woman’s hand dyed, spun, and plied yarn.  The woman who received the yarn never knew what to do with it, so it sat in a bankers box for years.  She saw some stuff I knit when she was helping her daughter move out of this apartment, so I was given the yarn.

There were two marled skeins in the box.  One was  a pure black/white mix, and the other, chocolate/cream.  These skeins weren’t fully washed of lanolin, so they smell really strongly of sheep and they’re almost greasy.  I don’t think I want to make clothes out of them for that reason – the greasiness is useful for other things, and it’s unpleasant to wear rough, greasy cloth, waterproof though it may be.

But, in other news, we have recently acquired a tea pot chez nous, so I’m going to make a tea cozy.  But not just any tea cozy!  Nay, I will make a tea pot of epic proportions using a favourite website of mine.  Knit Pro 2.0 is just about the coolest website ever.

knitPro is a free web application that translates digital images into knit, crochet, needlepoint and cross-stitch patterns. Simply upload jpeg, gif or png images and knitPro will generate a graph sizable for any fiber project. knitPro digitally mimics the tradition of pre-industrial craft circles who freely shared patterns and passed them down from generation to generation.

from http://www.microrevolt.org/knitPro.htm

Isn’t that amazing?  Also, microRevolt is a really cool group.

microRevolt projects investigate the dawn of sweatshops in early industrial capitalism to inform the current crisis of global expansion and the feminization of labor.

microRevolt since 2003.

from http://www.microrevolt.org/mission.htm

I think they’re awesome, and have used their website on a number of occasions.  I have also signed up to participate in their 146+ campaign;  I’ll be knitting the 149th armband, in honor of Ms. Tania Sultana.  She died in a factory fire in Bangladesh making clothes for Wal-Mart, H&M, and JC Penny.  I encourage others to knit armbands.

I made an image from a Julia Child quote by typing the words into Paintbrush (a program similar to Microsoft Paint) and saving the file as a .jpeg.  I then uploaded it onto the knit pro 2.0 website, and whammo! A chart! But the problem with trusting a computer program to make a knitting chart is that computers aren’t as crafty as most knitters out there (see what I did there?) so I spent some time last night going over the chart with a black pen.

The best part about being a person and not a machine is that I can make mistakes and then fix them.  See that second ‘o’ in ‘blowtorch’?  I made a note that it needed to be moved over one stitch.  But there it is; one half of my colour chart.  I’m getting a pretty big gauge with 5 mm needles so I’m going to have to try with 4.5 mm and see how everything fits – not that you want a particularly small tea cozy or anything.

An overview on how I’m making this tea cozy.

• Step 1: Acquire a tea pot.  Tea as well, if possible.  Measure a loose circumference around said pot.
• Step 2: Choose a charming image; perhaps a quote, perhaps a graphic.  Make sure it’s in .jpg, .png, or .gif format.  Upload it onto microRevolt’s knit pro app 2.0.  Have realistic expectations about how many colours you want and the definition of the image – after all, you’re smarter than any computer.  Then, print off the resulting .pdf!

• Step 3: Knit a gauge swatch.  Make sure that the number of stitches provided makes sense for your project.  As you can imagine, having a 154 stitch round tea cozy with a gauge of 3.75 sts/inch is pretty silly, so I’m going to end up doing some math tonight.
• Step 4: Highlight the chart you’ve printed off using a bright pen.  I used black to clear up my quote because the font was teal.
• Step 5: Knit cozy, making sure to decrease at some point.  Is there any purpose for a tea pot sized cowl?
• Step 6: Put kettle on.
• Step 7: Drink tea.
• Step 8: Knit an armband in commemoration of a fellow textile worker who has passed away because of the western world’s desire  for cheap clothes.

Any questions?

You’re more than welcome to use the chart I made as is, by the way.  Best of luck!

Mrow

Look at that:  a classic action shot.  I said, “Bazzy, don’t do that!” and my hand closed on the camera button as I reached to protect my new sweater.  Amazing, really.  More of a cultural portrait than a fancy knitting picture, but you can see the ribbing.  I think the best aspect of the picture is Bazzy’s expression.  He so clearly does not care what I think, but he can tell that I don’t want him to destroy my sweater, so he’s being tentative.  Jerk.

I think I have about 0.75 of an inch done.  The mission falls 136 in charcoal has been behaving a lot more nicely.  There are still loosely spun bits, but I don’t have to do nearly as much corrective surgery to fix it.  I ran out of my ball last night and didn’t bother to join a new one because it was 10 o’clock at night and I’m an early-to-bed kind of gal.  I also eat lots of fresh veggies and whole grains, which is much less boring than it sounds.

I’ve knit a bunch more on my vintage neckerchief.  I have no idea how big it is right now;  I just keep rubbing that gorgeous bamboo/merino/silk blend across my face and thinking about how much more awesome living in the 1800s would have been if scarfs were this soft.

It’s clear to me that I have to knit at least another two inches to make it wide enough.  I don’t want to rely on the edging to make this neckerchief big and bold, so I’m doing all the embiggening and enboldening now.  (I think I just made those two words up, but I don’t care.)

I like this yarn (crystal palace panda silk print in forest tones) and I like mission falls 136.  I feel as fancy and elegant as a cat washing his whiskers after a crunchy breakfast.

Mrow.

Collared by a Neckerchief

I was going to cast on for a snood, but I’m using the needles that I need to get proper gauge with the yarn I want to use, so that’s going to have to wait.

I started poking around ravelry, and I happened upon this pattern:  a free pattern for a knitted neckerchief from the 1800s.

I think it’s lovely.  I told Mollyann from Ariadne that I was going to knit it, and she looked at me skeptically and said, “That’s Shetland lace, hey?”

I looked back at her, tipped my jaw haughtily, and said that I was going to do it anyway.  But!  I would say that the main body of this neckerchief is actually lace knitting (with yarn overs only happening on the right side of the knitting) whereas the border is true knitted lace.  The distinction is, of course, a bit silly, but it somehow renders my attempt at this project valid.  (If you’re interested in learning more, Eunny Jang does a great job of discussing different kinds of lace here.)

I’m knitting it in Crystal Palace Panda Silk Print, colour way 4012 Forest Tones.

It’s a beautiful yarn.  It’s 52% bamboo, 43% superwash merino, and 5% combed silk.  Delicious – and I love that it’s superwash.  I like to pretend that I, someday, will wear this scarf to a picnic and end up delicately wiping my chin of a sticky sauce.

My gauge was 35 stitches to 4 inches/10 cm, so I cast on 91 stitches.  The pattern recommends that you cast on a multiple of 6 minus 1 (for a total of 89 stitches in my gauge), but I added two stitches at either end for selvage.

I really hope someone else casts on this project.  It’s gorgeous!  C’mon – knit a long!

Taking a Break

I made up a pattern in September for a cabled sweater.  I’ve knit the damn thing twice – casting off the second one in the first week of January.  I have extensive notes and sketches and colour coded schematics on the pattern, and I just need to edit it and type it up.  But it’s so hard!  And I think faster than I can write, so I’ve skipped out little bits like a k1 here or a p1 there.  I have realized a few crucial errors that made writing up the pattern seem like an indomitable mountain of details so things are ticking along more easily than before, but hot diggity.  I have loads of respect for designers.  I’m about a third of the way through the yoke.  I was hoping to get a bit further tonight, and then pick it up again tomorrow for the win, but somehow, I’m beginning to doubt my stamina.

Regardless, I have a pretty blue and gold work in progress in Mission Falls 136 that is coquettishly sneaking in and out of my consciousness.  I may have to pay it its due later on.

I’ve tried it on every few inches to ensure a great fit.  I decided to knit four more decrease rounds (for a total of 40 stitches decreased).  I then knit another inch and a half or so and then started increasing by picking up the stitch knit below and knitting it.  I’m planning on increasing 40 stitches so the decreases are mirrored.  I have a strong personal preference for sweaters that are long enough to hit the hips because I have a short waist and I can pretend to myself that longer sweaters make me look taller.

I was looking at the projects page on ravelry.com, and I saw that one knitter said,

I increased until the total length of the sweater (along an increase) was 9”. It ended up being 72 sts for each front and back and 56 sts for each sleeve. I’m not entirely sure why it is no longer in the ratio that I cast on in, but it fits so I’m not asking questions.

Well, I can try to explain why.  If you cast on (as she did) 96 stitches with 16 stitches for each sleeve and 32 stitches for the front and back and end up with 256 stitches total (56 stitches for each sleeve and 72 stitches for the front and back), you have increased 160 stitches over 40 rounds or 20 increase rounds.

The pattern/formula instructs you to cast on a number of stitches that is both divisible by four (so you can do 2×2 ribbing) and three (so you can divide the cast on number into thirds; one third for the front, one for the back, and one sixth each for the sleeves).  You then place markers between the front and the sleeves and the back and the sleeves (four markers total).  Every second row after the ribbing requires that you increase 1 stitch before and after each marker – 8 increases per round – but the increases are unevenly placed so that the sleeves (only one third of the total cast on) get 4 increases per round and the front and back only get 2 each.  That means that one third of the stitches cast on is increasing at twice the rate of the other two thirds.  Get it?

Let’s try to express this algebraically.

32 + 2 (20) = 72 or, the cast on number plus twice the number of increase rounds (because there are two increases per increase round) equals the final number of stitches for the back or front. Simplified, this becomes…

1/3 C + x(R) = F where C = cast on stitches, x = some integer that represents the number of increases per round, R = the number of increase rounds, and F = the final number of stitches.  Applied to the sleeves on this knitter’s sweater, this becomes…

32 + 4(20) = 112 Don’t forget the final step though!  The sleeves were only 1/6 of the total CO amount, so we need to divide 112 by 2, ending up with 56 stitches for the sleeves.

Just thought I’d get that off of my chest.  What’s that Patrick?

Striae

I’m still chugging along on my striped raglan pullover.  It’s coming along nicely;  I really like how the colourways (charcoal and curry) go together.  My friend said that they reminded her of streaks of mineral deposits in shale, so I’m calling this blog post striae in her honour.

I’ve been having some troubles with a single ply in this batch of Mission Falls 136 being too loosely spun or not properly dyed.  I’ve been rectifying it by pulling out the extra merino and twisting the yarn until it sort of looks normal.  I’m hoping that, as Mollyann from Ariadne said, it’ll just make the sweater look more handmade.

I apologize for the velvety ear in the picture.  Sometimes, curiosity just gets the better of my cats.

I measured and estimated and knit, and slipped all the stitches onto scrap yarn not once but twice to make sure the yoke fits reasonably well.  The boundary with which I am currently dealing with is, erm, well, my bust line.  It is (as the kids used to say) busting my groove – see what I did there?  As is true of the bustier ladies, the widest part of my chest is lower than my armpit, so I’m going to have to figure out some way to subtly increase so as to accommodate my, ahem, Bat signal… if you’re picking up what I’m putting down.

I’ll detail my solution on ravelry and here on this blog.  I’m sure it’ll be brilliant.

So much to say

I’ve been rocking through yarn and needles as of late, and have been very nearly too busy to blog properly.  I’m also working on a top secret project, and can’t take pictures of it lest it find its way onto the internet.

That said, I have explored new territory in the world of textiles.

I have breached the barricades of needle felting.  And after a few hours on a lovely Tuesday afternoon, I was left with a sweet little penguin friend.

I think she’s just about the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.  I’m also amazed at how simple it was to make her.  After all, this was the first needle felting project that I’ve ever attempted, and I was alone when I started it.  I’m amazed and impressed  - and I’m also trying to think of some practical applications.

The best wool for needle felting is minimally processed and has this delightfully sheepy smell.  The smell attracts cats like a magnet.  That is why I’m glad this little penguin is going to live at Ariadne Knits, away from my little kitten friends.  It was nearly impossible to take a good shot of this penguin without a cat face in the picture.

I’ve been chugging away at my raglan top-down sweater.  I’m doing it in Mission Falls 136, and while I’m loving the colour combination, I’m not loving the number of knots in every ball.

I’m one of those picky knitters that will cut out sections of yarn if a ply has been severed and rejoin for knitting.  I’ve had to do that a couple of times.  I understand that other knitters may not care about things like that, but I just can’t imagine missing a ply not affecting the finished garment.  Having had to do this process six times and only having 6.5 inches knit, I’m a tad wary of picking up this project.  Hopefully, the next few balls will work out better.

In other news, my partner has finished his first knitting project!

Doesn’t it look marvelous?  I’m very proud of him and his sticktoitiveness.

And miles to go before I sleep

Last night, I re-cast on my sweater.  I’m making that my start date for this sweater?  Why?  Because I did it three times, and I think casting on that many times negates the first attempt at knitting.  I may be wrong, and the knitting deities may chastise me, but that’s how I roll.  That said, here’s my collar! (In lovely Mission Falls 136 superwash, using the Candy-Striped raglan pullover calculation, that is.)

The stockinette is rolling, so it’s actually quite a lot more impressive than it looks.  Or at least, it’s quite a lot more impressive than it looks to me, which is an entirely different thing.  Still, having knit 2.5 inches in about that many hours ain’t bad.  And that’s taking the work I did on my socks into consideration.

I knit two inches on my socks as well.  That’s using 2.75 mm needles, and I’m a tight knitter.  It took a long time, and my right thumb hurt when I went to bed, but that’s what I did.

See, I’m knitting them two-at-a-time.  That means that the two inches I knit last night is actually equal to four.  This is what I keep telling myself, at least.

I cast these socks on January 11th.  That was 11 days ago!  And I think I probably have another two inches per sock (four inches total) and then the two inches of decreases per sock for the toes left.  Now, I know that I haven’t knit for at least two days out of being busy, and another two days making my Saartje’s booties, but still. I feel like a bit of a slow poke, and it’s affecting my self-esteem more than I’d care to admit.  That said, from what I recall, I usually can knit one adult sized sock in about 5-6 days.  Then I knit the other one, which usually takes less time because I’m not figuring out the pattern, so let’s say 4-5 days.  At the outset, I knew I was in for about 11 days of knitting.  Subtracting the four days of impetuous relaxing or knitting baby booties, I have four days to finish these before my ego has been entirely deflated.

I’ve tried to make myself feel better by reminding myself that I usually automatically deduct 10 stitches from the cast on amount because I have tiny feet, and usually only knit about 4-5 inches on the foot before I decrease for the toes.

I’m knitting this pattern as specified because it’s for Ariadne Knits, and also because I want to start listening to other patterns before I stampede off and end up drowning myself in redundant stitches.  But golly.  I didn’t know it would be this hard.

I broke my breakfast!

This morning, I had the deepest and darkest craving for a hard-boiled egg.  I wanted it to be eggy, and fatty, and salty.  And I wanted to have fun peeling it.  There’s a reason chocolate eggs are so magical.  They were inspired by hard-boiled eggs.

I, however, have a deep-seated fear of getting a steam burn.  I therefore tend to flinch and cower when faced with boiling water, and usually fling whatever I need to boil into the water from at least six inches away.  What can I say?  Steam burns look scary, and don’t heal super quickly.  So that’s what I did to my eggs this morning – and the shells cracked ever so slightly against the bottom of the pot.  I broke my much anticipated breakfast.

The best part of eggy deliciousness is that these eggs were still good!  I don’t know how eggs do it, but they get me every time.

On another note, I cast on for a new sweater last night.  I left too long of an end, so I’m going to express my persnickety nature and re-cast on until it’s perfect.  I’m knitting the Candy Stripe Noro raglan pullover in Mission Falls 136.  My main colour is Charcoal, and I’m going to do the stripes in one colour, Curry.  I love the combination.

I like the gold of the curry and the blue-green-grey of the charcoal.  It’s lovely, and sort of nautical.  And, as someone pointed out at knit night last night, matches colours I usually wear.

The rightmost ball is wound differently because Bazzy decided to show his true colours and rip the hell out of it.  I guess he wanted to be the only soft charcoal coloured thing around!

Raspberry

I promised a while ago to post pictures of the baby sweater and booties I’ve knit in the past few weeks.

That’s Elizabeth Zimmerman’s February baby sweater on two needles and Saartje’s booties in Mission Falls 136 in Raspberry.   I did yarn overs instead of increases in the yoke of the sweater so I could pull some satin pink ribbon through, and used matching buttons on the booties and sweater.  I also knit the booties on 4mm needles.  I didn’t do an increasing row on the booties, and reduced my decreases accordingly.  You can look at my ravelry page for more details.  I also knit buttonholes instead of sewing buttonholes into the flaps after the fact by adding an extra knit row, and binding off in the second knit row.  I used a knit cast on instead of a long tail cast on, and cast on an extra three stitches for extra space.  I then embroidered around the buttonholes on the booties.

There are white birds embossed into these baby pink buttons.  They kind of look like cave drawings.  They’re hard to photograph, but they look really cool.

I really like how my partner and I chose the supplies for this project.  Yes, this is a gift for a little baby girl whose name means “womanly”, but I wanted to make a sweater that wasn’t just pretty and pink.  I think it’s super cool when modern mothers dress their kids in bright, lively colours and let the child’s personality develop through providing a variety of activities or styles from which the child can choose.  What resulted by our choosing a dynamic main colour and more ‘girly’ accents is, I hope, a happy medium.  A feminine garment that emphasizes this new person’s middle name, which means “noble strength” or “storm”.

The ribbons are pretty, but they also make the sweater more adjustable.  I hope that it’s usable more quickly that way; after all, the baby was only born a few weeks ago.  She’s tiny as of yet!  And I hope the buttons will keep it on for longer.

I’m going to include extra buttons and ribbon in the box, with the hope that this new baby runs and plays a heck of a lot.  I hope this sweater gets dirty, muddy, and stretched out, and that once this person grows into an adult, she can look at herself in pictures roughhousing wearing this sweater and feel good.