Myria is playing Guild Wars - has been for a couple of weeks.  This game is played on-line and, as you might imagine, there are lots and lots of people running around in this fictional realm slaying monsters, executing missions and going on quests. Folks play as any of several various types - warrior, necromancer, elementalist, ranger, etc.  Often they group into teams but it is quite possible to play a solo game as well.

Perhaps inescapably, different players have their own ways of doing things but basically they fall into two groups: the PVPs (Player vs Player) and the PVEs (Player vs Environment). 

The PVPs tend to play to win - at any cost.  They are linear, intellectual and mostly male.  They are inclined to join guilds and form teams.  They tend to view their character or avatar as a tool, a means to an end.  Their approach is that creating the best, most effective tool for the job is the only way to go.  They have little or no interest in exploring the game’s world.  They live to fight and their attitude is If you didn’t want to battle, what are you here for?

The PVEs prefer to experience the world and the environment.  Their approach is more emotional and their avatars tend to be extensions of themselves.  They take the world as it comes and are interested in experiencing all the game has to offer besides battle, which is considerable.  They aren’t overly concerned with racking up points or wiping out more monsters than somebody else (though, of course monster control is necessarily, from time to time, required by the game).

Apollonian and Dionysian.

Unfortunately and also, perhaps, inescapably, each group despises the other and feels that the presence of the opposite type of player ruins the games.

As Myria was explaining all this to me last night, my mind was drawing parallels to the knitting world - my game, if you will, as a similar type of unceasing conflict seems to reign here as well: knitters of the classic style vs newer knitters.  We’ve all heard the arguments and complaints from both sides.  The classicists feel that the newcomers are ruining things because shops drop old favorites and pick up newer, brighter and less generally useful things.  The newcomers see the classicists as fascists, unwilling to accept anything that isn’t done on their terms.  Although cogent and compelling arguments have been presented on both sides, neither side seems to hear the other.  In fact they don’t even seem to be speaking the same language and, maybe even more telling, they aren’t interested in setting their own interests aside long enough to make the effort at true communication.

Classic style knitting isn’t going to die.  There are too many people invested in the traditional methods and materials.  It may be true that it will be overshadowed for a while but that is the natural, pendulum nature of these things.  LYSs may carry an overabundance of froufy novelties at the moment with scant attention paid to classic worsted.  How can they be blamed?  They’re businesses and any business that doesn’t pay attention to the wants and needs of its customer base isn’t in business for long.  To a large extent, the customer base of the LYS is the younger, hipper knitter.  At the moment, there are droves of them and they are primarily interested in what’s fun and colorful.

And let’s face it, fun and colorful is by no means a bad thing - in fact sometimes it’s just the thing!  A bad day or a nasty mood can sometimes be helped considerably by the taking up of bright yarn and large needles.  And it can be extraordinarily gratifying to be able to turn out a finished item in just a few hours.  Sometimes, it just does a soul good :)  Those fuzzy scarves have been very popular - even with non-knitters.  No wonder there’s such a high demand!

However, garter stitch and novelty yarn aren’t going to overtake and destroy classical knitting - much though it may seem so at the moment because there isn’t enough there to really hold much interest after the first few dozen scarves.  Those who aren’t interested in going further will either continue to produce bright, colorful, fluffy bits, or will drop out of the knitting arena entirely.  Those who decide there’s more to life than eyelash will go on to acquire new techniques and more skill.  Possibly they will decide that something smaller than a size 15 needle might be acceptable, that a smooth yarn in less than super-bulky-chunky size might make a more generally useful garment and that maybe the fascists weren’t so far off the mark after all.  Not that there should be anything regulating what people knit or how they should go about it, but that there are many other techniques, yarns and tools that it’s useful to know about.

The crux of the Apollonian vs Dionysian conflict is not who is right and deserves to “win” or who is wrong and deserves to “lose”.  It is the tension generated between the two.  Out of this tension comes progress - new methods, new tools, and new ideas.  Without that tension, everything stagnates.  The biggest problem in dealing with that is that it can be very uncomfortable.  And so we withdraw our perceptions to our own little pieces of the game and refuse to look at the whole board.  In time, a balance will be established between the two and things will quiet down for a while.  Yarn shops will carry a more integrated range of stock and most people will be able to find something that suits them.

And won’t that be boring :)

If at first you don’t succeed - try again :)

The first issue was one of size and the original pattern was worked in rounds of 70 stitches.  There were five shells.  I reduced the pattern to four shells and increased the width of each shell by two stitches.  So instead of five pattern repeats of 14 stitches (70 stitches total) I have four pattern repeats of 16 stitches for 64 stitches total.  This is about perfect.  In addition to tailoring the stitch number a little better, the four pattern repeats make things very simple to work on four DPNs, working around with the fifth needle.  The five pattern repeat, while do-able, was very awkward.

I am using the same size needles (European size 1s, 2.5mm), but they are bamboo double points instead of a metal circular (haven’t dropped a stitch yet!) and have tried a different yarn.  This is Socka in a nice, autumn-color variegate.

The yarn works beautifully in this pattern as the stitch pattern shows nicely without obscuring the colors.  In fact it’s almost a classic “diagonal pattern showing off a variegated yarn”.  I love the way this looks - nice and clear with no muddiness or visual confusion.

The second point was the dimple created by the shell pattern when it was started.

I can’t think how this might be solved except for starting the pattern at the top instead of doing a couple of inches of ribbing first.  I think I prefer to have the ribbing there and have decided I can live with the dimples.  They will straighten out a bit when the socks are worn, but not entirely.  I’ve decided it’s a feature :)

Next are the eyelets.  I decided not to use a yarnover.  Instead I picked up the running thread between the needles, inserting the needles from front to back and placing the acquired loop back on the left-hand needle.  For an M1, you would knit this loop through the back to that it wouldn’t make a hole.  Because I want a hole here, I knit it normally.  It really works nicely.  The “M1” eyelets are a bit smaller that yarnover eyelets would be, but they are nice looking and not the least bit sloppy.

I’m working the ribbing normally without twisting the knit stitches.  It is a bit loose but I believe between the washing and the wearing, that will work itself out.  There are five rib stitches (K1, P1, K1, P1, K1) between each pattern repeat.

I’m now thinking about what kind of heel and toe I want to use and how I want to orient the shells for the top of the foot.  When I figure it out, you all will be the first to know :)  But I think I have my razor shell socks!

Well, this was not a resounding success - but I learned a bunch of things that were worth finding out :)

Initially I was really pleased at how things were turning out.  Once the ribbing was completed the razor shell part of the sock began with a segment of the yarn that was self-striping.  The stripes formed up as chevrons as the pattern played out and I thought they looked pretty good.

As I continued, however, it became clear that there were problems that needed to be worked out.

Problem 1

It’s too big :)  I had thought I knew what the stitch count should have been and I’m not certain why it’s not right.  It isn’t too big by a lot - just enough so that when it’s worn the sock would be sloppy.  Not what I want really.

The solution will be to subtract a few stitches and recalculate the pattern.  I don’t think this will be difficult.

Problem 2

Because of the sl1-k2tog-psso, the tip of the razor shell forms a deep dimple or pucker at the ribbing line.  If there weren’t other problems, I’d be tempted to let this lie because it will probably smooth out in the wearing.  But because there are other issues, I want to try to figure this one out too.

I’m not really sure how to address this but I think knitting a few rounds plain past the ribbing might ammeliorate the effect, if not get rid of it.  I will try this next time.

Problem 3

The striping section past the ribbing looked really nice to me, but as soon as the yarn transitioned to a pattern things muddied up.

I’m not sure the solution to this is to use a solid or less pattern-cluttered yarn.  Part of the issue to my eye is that so many of the colors are dark.  I’m not sure lighter colors wouldn’t work better - even if nothing else were to change.  Certainly a yarn that was strictly self-striping (or a sock yarn that was variegated the way a regular worsted weight yarn might be) would probably yeild more aesthetically pleasing results.

Problem 4

Finally there was the ribbing and the eyelets.  Initially I was pleased at their appearance except for one thing - the ribbing appeared loose and no matter how I tried to tighten up the gauge, it remained sloppy looking.  So I decided that I would work the knit stitches of the ribbing through the back loop to tighten them up.  That did work but…

You can see that the eyelets went to hell as soon as I changed the way I was knitting the rib stitches.

As a re-do, I think I’d leave the knitted rib stitches alone and knit them in the ordinary way.  They might look a bit sloppy at first, but I imagine washing would even out a lot of things.  I’m also trying to consider other ways of making an eyelet.  I could do an M1, lifting the running thread between the stitches and then knitting into the front of the stitch so that a small hole results.  Perhaps that would make the eyelet a little more stable.

All in all, it’s been interesting to work this through and see where the pitfalls and problems are.  I can’t imagine any other way to do it but by setting the thing up and having a whack at it :)  This attempt will be frogged and a new attempt (perhaps with different yarn) will be made before long.

And it was way fun to play with!

I’ve been working something out, albeit slowly.  I have said that I don’t have a lot of sock-making experience and that’s true.  But I have enough to know that plain stockinette socks never stay up properly for me.  I almost always use a rib stitch all the way down (and around) the leg and down the top of the foot (for continuity). It works to keep the sock from getting slouchy and it works with variegated yarns as the ribbing doesn’t interfere with the yarn’s own patterning.

However, it does get a little boring.  I could certainly get some solid sock yarn and probably will in time - but what I have on hand is self striping/patterning.  How can I jazz that up a bit without making a visual mess?

I was inspired, in part, by Colleen’s and Rainy’s comments on Wednesday’s post.  Colleen had said “To me, the idea is to get nice looking socks, not nice looking individual stitches…” and Rainy’s comment was “I’ve discovered that razor shell is quite possibly the greatest stitch pattern ever for busy yarn…  Together these have been working away in the back of my head and last night the notion popped to the fore.

Why not make a pair of socks based on the razor shell pattern?  They would look wonderful in any of the “patterned” yarns I have and they wouldn’t be just a boring old rib stitch.  Oh wait, there aren’t any purls in the pattern - not any kind of ribbing at all.  They’ll just be slouchy and falling down all the time.  Poop…

Well, not necessarily :)  I sat down last night with pen and paper to do a little figuring.  Myria always gets nervous when I do this because she knows it means I might be up till three in the morning, if I really get my brain going.  As it happened, I was too tired for that - but I did work out some basic numbers that I think are going to work.

Razor shell, done in flat knitting, is a multiple of 10 + 1 and goes like this:

Row 1: K1, *yo, k3, sl1-K2tog-psso, k3, yo, k1; repeat from *, end K1
Row 2: Purl

Very simple and very pretty.  In the round, for a sock, it’s simply a multiple of 10 (that “+1” was there to balance the edges of a flat knitted piece.  Knitting in the round, there aren’t any edges so you don’t need it!)

In the round, on a multiple of 10 stitches, it would go like this:

Round 1: *K1, yo, k3, sl1-k2tog-psso, k3, yo; repeat from * around.
Round 2: Knit

I know for the size needles I’ll be using (European size 1 - 2.5mm) I’ll need around 68 - 70 stitches for the circumference of my sock and somehow, I want to work a few purl stitches in there at regular intervals so that there’s at least a nod to ribbing.  Okay, if I replace the initial K1 in round one of the pattern, with a k2, p1, k2 (or possibly k1, p1, k1, p1, k1) - that gives me a bit of ribbing between each repeat of the razor shell pattern.  Working that in also gives me a pattern repeat of 14 sts.  14 x 5 = 70.

Bingo!  Perfect.

I didn’t start anything last night, but I woke up at 6:45 this morning with my brain going “Sock! Sock! Sock!” at me so I got up, gathered my paraphernalia into the kitchen (so I wouldn’t risk waking Myria) and went to work.  I paused briefly around 7:30 to make a cup of tea and grab something sweet and nutritionally null and went back to work.

I’m sorry there isn’t more to show you than that, but there will be - trust me, there will be :)  Even if it turns out to be a bust, I’ll show the results of the razor shell experiment.  But I don’t think it’s going to be a bust - I think it’s going to work:)

This is the yarn I’m using - a gift from Myria’s sister back in May.  It’s pretty nice and the blues are gorgeous!  Thanks again Donna :)

I love starting a new project!  But you all knew that, didn’t you?

Hope your weekends are fine and fun :)

Thanks to you all who held a good thought for my dad yesterday - he’s just fine.  In fact, as we were leaving the treatment center (and you saw this coming, didn’t you?) he muttered to me: “I don’t know why they don’t want me to drive.  I could drive just fine!”  And I said “Yes.  That’s why we came in my car.”  And then we both laughed at the amusing stubbornness of Kenyons.

The first version of the boob is complete.  This shows me where changes should be made and what I should do differently next time.  For one thing, having all my life been as big or bigger than the largest available size, I went ahead and made the thing to the largest pattern specs.  Guess what?  No big deal though. I can always take out the seam, undo the bind-off and rip out a few rows - next time I’ll know.

Stuffing is also something you have to get a feel for - or at least I did.  When I first stuffed the completed form,  I wasn’t really thinking about it and wound up with mega-boob!  And, of course, it was very firm (read: solid) and had no give at all.  So I removed about half of the stuffing and smooshed the remainder around until it acquired the right approximate distribution and shape.  That was quite a bit better.

The pattern is very easy and even manages a nice looking appearance.  The line of increases swirls gently around the form and the shape is darn near perfect.

I mis-read the pattern and increased in the last stitch of each section rather than the next to last, but I don’t see as that impairs the appearance any.

And by the way, does anyone else think that if another color were used and the bottom edge was extended into ribbing, this might be kind of a cute hat?

I am at best a novice sock knitter.  I have made a few pair - but only a few.  I very much like the idea of knitting my own socks and, while I’m not exactly hoarding sock yarn, do have the stuff for at least three pair in waiting.  I also have some pretty, solid colored sport weight that will probably also go that way.

But I’m puzzled because there’s something I clearly don’t understand.

Have you seen Margene’s new Birch Leaf socks?  They are a pure marvel - absolutely the perfect marriage of yarn to design.  Those socks are gorgeous.  As are Bliss’ socks here: a lovely solid yarn and a knock-out pattern.  These and these are also splendid examples.  In both of these cases, it’s the yarn that’s complex and the sock design is kept simple.

Okay, nothing confusing yet, is there?  Right!  What confuses me is that I often (very often) see a self-patterning yarn being coerced into a busily textured stitch pattern.  To my eye, that ruins them both.  The beauty of the yarn is completely lost in the stitch design of the sock and the intricate texture of the stitches is utterly obscured by the self-patterning yarn.

They cancel each other out.  As this sort of thing doesn’t seem to be at all uncommon,  I am kind of assuming it’s me that’s missing something.

You may have noticed that I’m writing this at 3:30 AM or so.  I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep.  See?  Blogs are useful critters - gives me something to do in the middle of the night :)

I’m bringing dad to the eye doctor tomorrow.  He’s going to have a laser procedure to help clear up some fogginess and he won’t be able to drive afterwards for a while.  Right, we’ve been here before with dad and the not driving thing.  He always says “Yessir, yessir, three bags full” to the doctor and, on the day of the procedure, brings me along as a dupe.  Then, when he leaves the doctor’s office, he plops his little elderly butt right behind the wheel as though no one had ever mentioned to him that it might not be a good idea.

Tomorrow we’re going in my car.  And he doesn’t have keys for it :)

This whole laser eye thing gives me the willies.  Dad’s real blasé about it and I suppose that’s a good way to feel if you’re going to go through this sort of thing.  I am profoundly myopic - take my glasses and the world becomes a colorful blur.  Several times over the last 20 years or so, dad has offered to pay for - or to help me pay for - laser surgery to counter the near-sightedness.  I have thought about it - it would be nice not to need spectacles or to have to worry about them (when swimming, showering, sleeping, etc…).  It would be nice to be able to wake up in the middle of the night and be able to see clearly immediately instead of having to fumble for the cheaters before things resolve themselves out of the myopic fog :)  It would be especially nice to be able to wear regular sunglasses and not have to spend a small fortune to obtain shades one can actually see out of.

But every time I tried to seriously consider the laser surgery, I bailed.  All I could think was:  Nuh-uh - you aren’t getting near the only eyes I have with that thing!  I know, I know - it’s a common procedure, doesn’t hurt, doesn’t take any time.  Bing, Bang Boom and you’re outta there, seeing like Ted Williams on a clear day.

I have tried contact lenses - wore them when I was in college and tried them again a few years ago.  I decided that if I had to have corrective lenses I’d rather have the glasses.  The contacts were more work than they were worth to me and the last time I tried them I had to wear reading glasses anyway, so there really didn’t seem to be much point.

So I kind of admire my father’s all-part-of-life approach to this.  When and if I ever do have to deal with the prospect personally, I’ll probably have to be anaesthetized.

But he still ain’t driving :)

Oh well.  This past weekend was crappy in proportion to how good the weekend before was.  I don’t know, this business of the Universe keeping itself balanced - it can be disconcerting.  You know?  So I took yesterday off posting and violated my own promise to myself.  I took some of the new KnitPicks yarn and started something new (sorry Lisa :).

I’m not sure when the idea occurred to me, but somewhere in that back of my head, apparently, lives a little pixie who does nothing but look at and sort through colors.  Yesterday, he happened to mention that the new merino lace weight would look nice with that rayon flake I’ve had lying around for so long.  You know, the one I keep getting drawn to because of the fabulous, hand-painted colors and keep setting aside because it’s just too slick to work with?

Click!  Oooooooh….

So out came the rayon (already wound and ready to go) and the merino.  I couldn’t believe how long it took me to wind two balls of yarn from the lace weight.  I didn’t really mind but it’s interesting to realize that 440 yards is a lot longer piece of yarn than you get in most 50 gram hanks. 

Together, these make a truly luscious fabric.  The merino provides warmth and a bit of “grab” for the needles while the rayon colors glow and shine.  The fabric is very soft and has a beautiful drape.  The wool doesn’t entirely counter the thread’s slickness, however.  At 11:30 last night, having worked (played) all day to get things going, I set the circular down less carefully than I should have and when I picked it up, three stitches had fallen off the left needle and run straight to the bottom of about 25 rows.  Slippery you see :)

After I stopped cussing myself for thirty kinds of a fool, I took it all apart and started again on a slightly smaller scale.

Really, this is an experiment.  Some time ago (I don’t remember exactly when or where - Cast-On maybe? ) I read an article about creating your own yarns by combining colors and textures to achieve something unique.  While I basically agreed with the idea I didn’t see any way to do it practically without having to use size 35 needles to work with the result.  Evidently, my pixie also remembered the article because suddenly, the idea of four strands of lace weight in two complimentary colors dropped into my noggin.  Hey, that shouldn’t be too heavy or thick, right?  Well, actually it’s thicker than I had imagined.  While this could easily be worked on size 7 or 8 needles, I’m using 10s - just to keep things loose.  A nod to the lace weight yarns, I suppose, though this isn’t very lacy :)

And now I will go back to the regularly scheduled projects and do both yesterday’s and today’s work on them.  I am happy with my experiment and it’s success has helped balance the definitely yucky weekend.  Now I can go back to work :)

I hope all your weeks are well begun!