One of my secret projects is no longer a secret! The Popknits Spring Preview is live, and you can get a sneak peek at the Day’s Eye Hat.
I’ll have more to say about the project when it goes live (March 4th), but for now, I just wanted to show off!
Archive for February, 2009
Day’s Eye!
February 26, 2009The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test
February 25, 2009
Just like Ken Kesey’s, except that mine involved only the citric acid from the Kool Aid, and there were no hippies, and there wasn’t a bus, and…well, OK, it was nothing like Ken Kesey’s Electric Kool Aid Acid Test. But it was a test involving Kool Aid.
Check it out! Yarn! Dyed by me! With Kool Aid!
Months and months ago, I ordered a skein of Knit Picks Shadow in Oregon Coast. I did this because I had a pattern calling for three skeins of Shadow and I had three skeins of Shadow, but then, when I read the pattern, I realized that the swatch part of the pattern used a lot of yarn, and the pattern never said whether I needed an extra skein for that or not. I figured I’d be safe and I ordered one. I picked the Oregon Coast color because it looked like an off white on my computer screen, and I thought it would shown the lace pattern clearly.
It arrived, and while it was pretty, it turned out to be beige. I liked it in the abstract, but I couldn’t picture doing anything with it. This was OK for as long as I harbored the illusion that it was just swatch yarn, but once I decided to scrap the project in question (a bed jacket that may have had some sizing issues) I was stuck with 440 random yards of beige.
Last night, in a fit of inspiration, I grabbed the sucker, unwound it (it had been in ball form from the days when it was being swatched) and proceeded to dye it in Kool Aid.
I actually messed up. The first time I stuck it in, I used two packets of Black Cherry and one of Grape, and the color was perfect, but for some reason, I didn’t manage to distribute it evenly. I looked at the skein and decided that I wasn’t happy with the way the dye was distributed, so I made a new pot with two packets of Orange and one of Lemon. Then I popped the skein back in.
It’s just right now – better than what I had originally intended. The orange and yellow toned down the dark red and purple, and it’s got a more unified look, but still a lot of nice variation. This Kool Aid thing is a little addictive, I’m afraid.
I’m going to make the skein of yarn into a lace scarf – one half of a pattern I have in my head for a scarf and shawl in a lace pattern I made up.
Pauline and Paulette
February 24, 2009Pauline first: I noticed an error when I was rereading the pattern the other night. I have no idea how I missed it for so long, but here’s the correction: For the smaller size, when you reach the Back Shaping, Row 1 should read, “Knit 39 sts,” instead of the 40 stitches it currently specifies. If you downloaded the pattern from Ravelry, you should have received an email to this effect. I’ve updated the pattern on here and on Ravelry, so if you download it from here on out, it should be correct.
On to Paulette.
I took some modeled shots of the 4T Paulette today. In French, the -ette suffix is like the Spanish -ita; it’s a diminutive nickname implying youth and cuteness. I figured Paulette was the perfect name for the diminutive Pauline.
As much as I love the ties on this pattern, I think they could be a strangling hazard for younger children, so the smaller sizes will have a short under-the-chin strap with a snap. I’ll be making a wee(er) version of Paulette in pale pale pink before I release the pattern. But I wanted to show off my pretty girl before then (and also, I wanted to have something to blog about – so much of what I’m doing lately is not very interesting to look at) so here are some of the pictures now.
Hopefully, I’ll have a really small Paulette to show you shortly! Then all I need to do is find a baby to borrow.
Makes me happy
February 23, 2009I made a simple mushroom and barley soup for lunch the other day, and you know, it’s a small thing, but man, it was so good.
I love when something simple turns out well. I used shitake mushrooms when I’d usually use crimini mushrooms, and I was out of chicken broth, so I created a broth out of the onions and mushrooms and a little bit of white wine and soy sauce. Good stuff.
Also good: Classic Elite Moorland.
I’m writing a new version of my Pauline pattern, this one for littlies. I’m going with sizes new person through nine year old person, and I wanted to find some good yarns to use for the project. The Moorland is a lovely soft yarn with a beautiful halo of mohair and alpaca, and it comes in the most gorgeous smoky colors. Seriously, when I saw it, I ended up standing in front of the various shades for what seemed an age, just mesmerized by the subtle tones. I was torn between the dusty lavender I ultimately picked and a beautiful smoky rose or a muddied blue. This is a very rich yarn with a lot of depth.
The end result is so soft, so luxurious, so subtle and sophisticated…I’m in love. The yarn has the lovely halo of mohair but none of the scratchiness that can sometimes occur. The only thing I’d warn you about is that the yarn did have a tendency to shed as I was knitting with it, but I think it’s all worthwhile. It’s like knitting with a kitten.
The flower is made with a little Felted Tweed all doubled up and the leaves are leftover Malabrigo in Stone Blue. I’d originally planned green leaves, but Eleanor, who is the intended owner of this hat, expressed a preference for blue, and I think her instincts were right on with this one.
I’m going to make a baby sized version with a snapping chin strap rather than ties – no choking or strangling hazards for new little people – and then I’ll release the pattern. I’m going to use a different DK yarn for the baby version. I thought it might be helpful to folks to see how it looks in a couple of different yarns, and to get some ideas of substitutes. The best thing about these smaller hats is how little yarn they use. It’s a great way to use up a bit of lovely soft stuff that you’ve got lying about.
The design process
February 20, 2009First off, thank yous to everyone who replied to my last post. I took all the comments to heart, and I think I have a game plan now. My original instincts were too defensive before they really needed to be. Anyway, I’m going to wait and finish the jacket as it is now. Then I’ll ask Liam if he still wants a pink edging. If he does, we’ll go ahead and do it. If he’s off the idea, I could make him something else in pink for later. I’m going to arm him with all the great anedotes and stories people posted so that he can use them if anyone teases him. I don’t want to reject his idea and teach him that it’s not OK to like pink. So, thank you very much!
Onward! I’ve been working more on schematics and pattern writing than knitting in the past couple of days, and I thought it might be interesting to other beginning designers to hear a little bit more about how I do that and how it’s changed over time. I’m a lot less slapdash than I used to be, though I know I still take a long time.
Most of my recent designs have been far more planned than in the past. I’ve been sketching a lot more than I used to, and then swatching from my sketches. However, I’m working primarily on Maude Louise right now, which has already been knitted, so let’s talk a little about grading and schematics.
Grading, for those unfamiliar with the term, is the process of taking a pattern written in one size and translating it to many sizes. My Maude is knit in a size small, with a 32″ bust, but now I’m writing the pattern for a range of sizes, starting at a 28″ bust and going up to a 52″ bust. I started from scratch on this process, because I wasn’t happy with the proportions of the sweater as it was previously written.
In sizing Maude Louise, I’m referring to many excellent articles by other designers. I’m using Ysolda Teague’s sizing charts, Jenna Wilson’s articles on multisizing from Knitty, Marnie MacLean’s tutorial on creating schematics in Illustrator, and Pam Allen’s article on set in sleeves from the Winter 2007 Interweave Knits. I’m also studying well written patterns that are designed in pieces, and that utilize set in sleeves, like Maude Louise, to see how other people handled the steps needed to create a good fit.
When I was knitting my Maude, I kept copious notes, and I tried to keep them in the form of a pattern, to save myself trouble later. This meant that when I was done, writing up the size 32 pattern was essentially a matter of transcribing into Word what I’d already written down. Once I had the size 32 written up, I made myself a chart and plugged the numbers in. I used those numbers to figure out how much ease there was in each section of the pattern and to calculate the width and length for each of the other sizes. That chart is one of my master documents now. Based on the chart, I made a series of smaller charts calculating how many stitches and rows are required in each section and then determining how much of an increase or decrease it is from the previous section. For example, from the waist to the chest requires a decrease in the number of stitches, but that decrease varies considerably from one size to another.
I made a schematic based on the measurements for the size 32, and have printed it out, as seen above. I’m a visual person, so being able to plug the numbers for the different sizes onto the schematic helps me understand the shaping as I deal with different numbers of stitches to get the same basic shape.
With both old and new Maude, my bugbear is the set in sleeves. There are very different numbers of stitches to cast off at the sleeve point, and I want to achieve a similar curve on all the different sizes. I’m hoping again that the visual schematic will help me understand how best to manage that curve and make sure that all of the sleeves, for all the sizes, fit in a way that is figure flattering.
So that’s where that’s at for the moment. A number of folks currently working on Maude Louise have asked about the new button bands. I am waiting to release the new pattern until it is finished for all sizes, but if you are working on the sweater and would like instructions for the new bands, let me know and I’ll be happy to help.
I’ve got sunshine
February 19, 2009It’s been rainy, rainy, rainy. A good thing, truly, as we’re in a drought, but that the rains should decide to come the week the boys are out of school is an unfortunate turn of events. It’s winter break or something (I don’t know – there’s a holiday break, but then another week long break later in winter, which is confusing) and the poor kiddos have been trapped in the house. On top of that, Nora got sick and had a series of bad asthma attacks, so we’ve had quite the week so far.
Nora’s fine now, though, and on top of that, the sun came out and this lovely golden yarn arrived in the mail from Sarah! It’s nice when life turns around when you need it to. I’m up for more rain as long as we get the occasional break to run out to the park.
I’ve been working on the sleeve of Liam’s Tomten. I had forgotten how much longer the sleeves take on a Tomten that I expect. Somehow I’d expected to bang out a sleeve an evening and be done with it, but it’s a little slower going than that. I’m almost done with the first sleeve, though, and I had an idea for the second sleeve. Possibly a bad idea, but an idea that may be worth a try.
My two skeins of Wool of the Andes were just enough for the torso of the jacket as well as the pocket linings, and I’ve been considering colors for the i-cord edging or mitered garter edge. I need something to contrast with the bright green and the powder blue, but also something that won’t look, well, bad. I narrowed the possibilities down to a goldy yellow or an orangey red, and then I mentioned them to Liam.
And he wants pink.
Now, I’m not anti-pink-for-boys, but I think pink would look awful with the colors I’ve used, and I am anti-that. On the other hand, it’s his jacket. And he’s a sweet, adorable seven year old boy who carries a sparkly Hello Kitty backpack to school, who thinks that pink is a beautiful color, and who wants a jacket with a rainbow on it.
It’s funny how mixed I feel about these things. He’s an unselfconscious little person by nature, but he’s getting to the age where other kids notice when you don’t confine yourself strictly to the gender expectations they’ve laid out, and I’ve already seen (and glared at) little boys sniggering at his backpack as he walks by. Liam’s autism is actually something of a blessing in that instance, because he tends to read that sort of response as interest, and he will generally walk up and explain that his backpack is sparkly and has Hello Kitty on it, and that he likes it. But when he understands that people are laughing at him, he’s very, very hurt, and it’s painful to see him hurt. I don’t want other children to take away his love of pink or cats or rainbows based on stupid, stupid gender roles (I mean, who decided that pink was girly, or that boys can’t love cats, and who doesn’t love to see a rainbow??) but I also don’t want his differences to be exaggerated when I know he’s starting to become self conscious about them.
Le sigh.
It’s not really a big problem, but when I have visions of sending my little guy off to school, happy with his new jacket, and seeing him come home in tears, all of a sudden it seems like a very big deal. Talk me down, please! I mean, it’s just a color, right?
Dreaming of Spring
February 12, 2009
I played around with Kool Aid the other day and dyed this skein of Rowanspun 4 ply. I’m pleased with it – it’s a nice red, and I do love me some red. No idea what I’ll do with it, but it was fun to try dying. I’d like to try a more nuanced approach, but honestly, I haven’t got the money, or really the time, to start a new and potentially expensive hobby right now. Still, it was fun to try mixing Kool Aid shades and dying the yarn, and it sure smells yummy.
It’s very cold lately – for here – and today it’s grey and overcast and off and on stormy, so of course I’m dreaming of Spring and all the lighter, faster transitional garments one can knit then. For some reason, I’ve been intrigued by vests lately, but I haven’t seen any patterns that really fit what I’m looking for. I flipped through my inspiration folder and found these pictures that I clipped from an Anthropologie catalog some years back. Forgive the quality – these are photos of photos.
I really like the bobble-y gold one, and the sideway garter vest is really intriguing, too. I don’t know if I’m mess about with trying to recreate any of these, but I like them a lot.
Making progress
February 11, 2009
Liam’s Tomten progresses apace. I’ve started the sky portion and now need to assess whether the sky will extend all the way to the collar, or whether I will place boundaries on atmosphere and return to the green before we get all the way to the top. The color Liam chose for the sky is Knit Picks’ Wool of the Andes in Powder, which is a discontinued color.
Kudos to Knit Picks, by the way, for listening to its customers. When I last looked at the Wool of the Andes page, the shade Powder was listed as Clearance, even though it was and is still the same price as regularly priced Wool of the Andes. Many knitters have noticed Knit Picks’ practice of referring to yarns as clearance when they are discontinued, but not discounted. Since clearance is usually synonymous with a discount, many people found this confusing. I’m pleased to note the change.
Anyway, back to the Tomten. This is my first time using Wool of the Andes. It’s definitely scratchier than the Cascade 220, and when I look at both at an angle, I see a lot of little hairs sticking up from the Wool of the Andes, though the Cascade appears to be smooth. I would not say WotA is an inherently scratchy yarn, though, and I expect it to soften up during blocking. I have an admittedly high tolerance for wool, but I do think that it’s a wearable yarn. In any case, I get what I paid for – at $1.99 for 110 yards, the price can’t be beat, and the yarn does come in a wide range of attractive colors.
There’s been a lot of swatching this week, as well as the making of a style board, which I hesitate to post because I used a bunch of pictures I found randomly on the internet, and I’m not sure if I’d be violating any copyrights in posting it, since I can’t credit the original photographers and artists. In any case, I’m looking at a lot of red, gold, and grey, and a lot of vintage styles from different periods for inspiration. Anna Karina‘s style from the fifties is one I’m keen to study, but I’m also feeling drawn to old fashioned cloches, cabled berets, lace stockings and big, fuzzy collars.
I spent a lot of time using Google Image Search, and adventures in Google Image Search are always exciting. Check out this garter stitch knitted bonnet from the 1850s! I’m intrigued.
I’m working on some booties for a friend’s twins, using Colinette Jitterbug that Mai just sent after I was randomly selected in her blog contest. It’s absolutely gorgeous, and I’m loving working with it!
o w l s and eye wrinkles
February 9, 2009
I’ve been watching, through the magic of Netflix instant viewing (now for Mac, too!) a lot of documentaries lately, among them, The Human Face. It’s a very good and very interesting program, and I’m enjoying it muchly. And it’s because of the documentary that I noticed what is wrong with my o w l s photos – no eye wrinkles. That’s not a real smile.
Which is a shame, because I really do love this sweater. My excuse is that this was taken on Saturday after my Algebra class, and I was so so tired, too tired to muster up anything like enthusiasm.
I extended the cuffs, as planned, using garter stitch, which looks a little weird, but is fine for a project with limited yarn made specifically to keep me warm. And I do plan on making another of these sweaters later with more attention to detail and fit, so anything a little off on this one is OK.
Still no eyes on the owls, as the lime green buttons are definitely not going to work. I heard that there is a sale on buttons at Joann’s, and there’s a Joann’s in walking distance, so I may check that out later this week.
In the meantime, I’m wearing the owls a lot, and they’re lovely and warm, however disenchanted I may appear.
My meanderings, let me share them with you
February 7, 2009I know. I’m the slowest of slow pattern writers. Maude Louise II, though, is almost graded and finished, and all the secret projects are coming along well. I just hestitate to set a date when a particular pattern will be done now, because my record is terrible. Even when I think I’m done, I find more issues I want to resolve. However, I’m working on Maude, and I’m feeling really good about the changes. Changes, like, you know, making it a finished pattern with a lot of different sizes.
In the nifty news department, I had my first pattern accepted for publication in the Spring Popknits! I love the Popknits concept…updated vintage clothing is right up my alley…and I love so many of the patterns in the two issues that have come out so far, so I’m very excited to get to be a part of it myself. I hope you all like the new pattern!
Hey, you remember how, almost a year ago now, I made my mother a Drops swing jacket like mine? Well, she was up visiting recently, and we finally got pictures of it.
I think it looks adorable on her. Her sweater is far lighter than the version I made for myself, which is fitting, as the weather where she lives is usually a good bit warmer than the weather here. The color is off in the above photo, and it’s hard to see the minute variations in the yarn I used, but I think the color is very flattering for her as well.
Sorry, this is a bit of a mess of a post. I’m trying to post daily or nearly daily, but writing after attending a five hour Algebra class (for which I consumed an inordinate amount of tea in order to stay awake) makes my brain sort of pulpy, so you’re getting the mushy brain version of what I wanted to write.
Um, what else? The Spring Interweave preview is up, and I’m pleasantly surprised! I let my subscription to Interweave expire after the Spring 2008 issue, and I have not regretted it, though I think Interweave’s quality has remained high. It just hasn’t been much to my personal taste. I also had low expectations after seeing the Spring Knitscene preview. The patterns look good, but I hate the styling so much that I have trouble seeing past it. But the Spring Interweave looks great – a lot of variety, and a lot of very pretty designs that aren’t overwhelmed by the styling. There’s a lot to like, but I was immediately struck by the Petal Halter, the Sweet Tee, the Zickzack Tunic, and Bettie’s Lace Stockings. I think I’ll be picking up the issue when it hits the stores.
Owls later today!
