First, an aside and an apology.  In Friday’s post, on step one of the instructions for knitting backwards, I indicated that the yarn tension was maintained and stabilized by the left index finger.  This is wrong.  It’s the right index finger that performs that task and the post has been corrected.  I think Charlotte was trying to alert me to this in Friday’s comments, but I didn’t understand until long after I had read and responded to her comment.  My apologies to anyone else that this confused :(

We now continue with your regularly scheduled blather…

I’m nearing the end of the Stripes and Bobbles scarf and let me tell you, it’s been a lot of fun to make - a really enjoyable project!

I did a dumb thing when I started this in that I didn’t look at the needle size recommended for the pattern - didn’t even occur to me.  I knew what yarn I was going to use and picked up the needle size that I knew from experience worked well with it, in this case, size 7 (US).  The pattern calls for a size 10 (US) needle!  I’m not familiar with the yarn the pattern recommends and it may be heavier than the one I’m using and so warrant a larger needle size for the width achieved - about 5”.  For the scarf pictured in the book, that meant 4 strips.  For me it’s going to mean 5 strips.

That’s an advantage for the colors I’m using.  Because it’s stash yarn, I only have a limited number of colors available, four for the main body of the scarf - cadet Blue, Sage green, Forest green and dusty Lavender.  They’re all cool shades that play well together so there really isn’t the possibility of serendipitous color riots breaking out.  So that aspect of randomness doesn’t really work.  Five strips gives me an odd number so that I can build a center strip and mirror the other two out on the sides.  So, the center is L, S, L, S, L.  The strips on either side of center are F, B, F, B, F and the edge strips are S, L, S, L, S.

The bobbles are going to be done in fuchsia and rhubarb.  The only gold I have is a mustardy color rather than an orangey color and just doesn’t look good to me.  So the scarf is going to wind up made entirely of cool colors and that will be fine :)

Then there’s the question of how to arrange the ends:

Looking at these, I guess I’d have to say the diagonal and chevron shape treatments do more for me than the random one.  If the colors had more variety, I might feel differently; I love the representative scarf in the book.  It does, however, make me smile to read through a carefully written pattern that proposes a “random” look :)





One last granted, minor, thing - regarding USA’s Monk:  The new character isn’t working and the change of tone in the show makes my teeth itch.  I miss Sharona…

Before I begin, I need to explain that I knit English style; that is I throw the yarn every time I work a stitch.  I don’t know how the following process would work for a Continental-style knitter and I apologize in advance for not being able to cover that base as well. But I can’t share what I don’t know.

You’ve probably heard about a process called ”“knitting backwards”.  Actually, this is a misnomer because you aren’t really knitting; you’re purling from right to left with the front of the fabric facing you.  The big advantage of this technique is that you never have to turn your work.  This is very useful for smaller stockinette pieces and indispensable for Entrelac.  But what do you do if the fabric isn’t stockinette?  What if it’s seed stitch or ribbing - a mixture of knit and purl stitches?  You could work in the round except that’s not always going to be possible.  Or you could turn your work at the end of every row.  That will certainly work, but for a piece that’s only a few stitches wide, it gets tedious really fast.

So what do we need?  We already know how to purl from right to left so we need to figure out how to knit from right to left as well.  We can then work whatever stitch we want from whatever side of the fabric we’re on moving in either direction.  Wouldn’t that be cool?  Heheh...I thought so too.

In the picture above, the stitches to be worked are all on the right-hand needle.  Well, all except for the first stitch which has been slipped and resides on the left-hand needle.  (That is simply my own peculiarity and you needn’t slip first stitches if you don’t want to).  The working yarn is to the front of the material and lies just above the stitch to be worked.  The right index finger stabilizes the tension.





The left needle moves to the back of the work and to a position just beneath the stitch to be worked.





The left needle is inserted into the stitch and angled slightly upwards so that when it emerges on the front side of the fabric, it lies above the working yarn.





Now, tilt the left needle downwards and use the tip to scoop the working yarn through the stitch and to pull a loop through to the back of the fabric.





Drop the stitch off the right hand needle.





This picture is really the same as the first picture, just one stitch later :)

The process isn’t difficult but it will take a bit of practice - not much really, maybe an afternoon’s worth, all together.  It works very nicely with the “purling from right to left” process too - things like seed stitch and ribbing just sort of fly along when you don’t have to turn your work, reposition your hands and readjust your tension at the beginning of every row.  You can really build up a head of steam this way - throwing while you work left to right and “scooping” when you work right to left.

There is a small movie available, KnitDemo, that shows the mechanics of how things go together - I hope!  It’s about 6.5 megs and will take a few minutes to download.  I mention this because it wouldn’t be anything for someone who connects to the internet via cable or DSL, but it will take some time for those on a dial-up connect.

As always, please let me know if something is unclear or difficult to understand.  I’m really excited about the ability to do this and I’d love to spread the good word - but I’d prefer to do it in a way that enables everyone to “get it” and, of course, to have as much fun as possible along the way :)

I woke up at about 3:30 this morning to see the moon shining bright and beautiful in the middle of the bedroom window.  I was just conscious enough, before I went back to sleep, to realize that meant the skies had cleared.  So maybe in the morning there’d be…

...Sun!  We actually have sunshine today!  Yee-hah!

Ahem...I’m fine now.  Really :)

The shawlette is growing a bit at a time.  Despite the awkwardness of the rayon thread, this is turning out beautifully.  There are several flowers now and the middle section is showing up nicely.  I’m still debating about fringe which could be either awesome or dreadful - though I no longer have any doubts about whether there will be enough thread to make it.  There should be plenty.  I lean towards having fringe, it’s just that the thread is so slippery, I’m not sure the usual method of attachment (larks head knot) is going to hold well enough and don’t quite know what else to try.  Something to think about.





This has begun to worm a bit - not really a surprise.  I don’t think I’m going to worry about it because I’m not sure there’s anything I can do about it.  I did find another ball of this stuff while I was rummaging through the stash this morning, so any fears of running out (even when you’re sure you have enough, there’s always a niggle, isn’t there?) were pretty much allayed.  Once the length has been achieved, I think I’ll resort to crochet for an edging - shells probably, my old standby.  Maybe a modest ruffle?  It couldn’t be too “ruffley” - the chenille doesn’t have the body for that - but something that waves gently should work…





The first strip for the Stripes and Bobbles scarf is nearly complete.  I’m having such fun working on it that I forget I have other things to do as well.  No matter - if I continue on at this rate, it will be done by next week and the regular schedule can resume.  I’ve been looking at how the pattern handles the joining bobble and am not quite sure I can envision it.  Specifically, I can’t see how to hide the yarn ends of the thing once the bobble is in place.  But, I think there are other options for making it that will work nicely and look good too.  I’ll be playing with that a little bit today.

And I found a bobble yarn color in the stash that will work nicely!

It’s bright and perky which I wanted, but it too, like the main colors, is a cool tone.  So I still think I want to get something orangey/golden for a warm spark and I’ll swap off between that and the fuchsia.  Sound like a plan?  That yarn, in case you’re curious, is Red Heart TLC which I found absolutely loathsome to knit with.  But I can manage it for the bobbles just fine.  Sometimes the right color overides everything else :)

I made pea soup in the crock pot last night.  Really simple and wonderful to wake up to :)

All you really need is:

1 lb split, green peas
1/2 lb of smoky ham (bacon works nicely too, cook it first)
2 qts water
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper

Combine in the crock pot and cook at low for 10 hours or so (and if something comes up you can leave in in the crock, on low, for as much time as you need to with no ill effects).

Of course you can add anything else you like to this - a grated carrot or two, a couple of diced celery ribs, a chopped onion, 1 or 2 cloves minced garlic, etc.  I made the plain version because I’m going to take some over to my father later on today and he prefers it plain.  But, after I take his couple of cups out, I’m going to throw in some onions and garlic and let it go for another few hours.

Oh, and get some nice Italian or French bread to go with it :)

I love the whimsy of Amanda Blair Brown’s Stripes and Bobbles scarf.  The idea of knitting each stripe separately and then joining them with bobbles is enchanting, cool, and cute.  Of course I started one last night and plan to proceed with the colors shown.  This is some of what I have left of the Classic Elite Follies that I was using for Christmas presents last year.  I admit, I’m jealously guarding my remnants because when it’s gone, it’s gone.  And it’s such nice stuff.

The colors above are quite cool in tone and I would like to find something (or a couple somethings) a bit brighter and/or warmer for the bobbles.  I have some deep red (also Follies) but while it would work with the other colors, it wouldn’t brighten things up any.  On the other hand, maybe that would be a good thing?  Not something I have to worry about right away, in any case.

I did discover that turning the work back and forth to work the short row of the stripe got a little tedious after a while, so I played with a notion that’s been percolating in my tiny little brain for some time now.  I already knew how to purl from the front (going left to right), but how would you do a knit stitch?  Well, stick around - I’m going to put a tutorial together to post on Friday.  It certainly can be done and, while not a technique you’d want to use on everything you make, it’s a useful little bugger for things like this :) And the work just flies!

YAM - Yet another mitten :)

I found the pattern for these mittens at Charitable Crafters .  They’re Lisa Messerer’s Classic Mittens.  It covers children’s sizes, S, M and L and also Women’s and Men’s.  The layout is easy to follow, but read it through before you start the mitten because of the way some of the instructions are given.  Also, there is no needle information given.  I used size 7s (US) and that seemed to do the trick handily.

This is a pretty standard gusset mitten and it worked out just fine.  I also made a discovery - well, at least it worked for me.  I’ve always had issues with gaps at the base of the thumb on mittens made in the round.  This pattern, in standard fashion, has you place the thumb stitches on a holder (11 stitches, for the size I made) and then cast on stitches to continue working the round.  For this mitten, the instructions were to cast on 2 stitches.  I didn’t do that.  Instead, I increased 1 in each of the next two stitches I worked.  This seemed help!

Then, when I got to picking up for the thumb I picked up every stitch I could find (as per Ryan’s long-ago advise) and decreased to the requisite number when I worked the first row.  Using both of these techniques seem to virtually eliminate the gaposis problem!  I don’t know how well the increase trick would work if there were many more than two stitches to cast on, but I think I’d want to give it a try in any case.

At least the sun is making an attempt today.  I should go down and clean the car off but the wind is blowing like hell out there and I know how cold it’s going to feel.  So I think I’m going to stay in for a while longer.  Maybe make some more coffee.  Yeah!  That’s the ticket :)