June 6, 2008
Waiting
Several years ago, when I was visiting my friend John in Toronto, I was knitting a pair of socks for my brother. It was in my usual pattern (for the knitters out there, Twin Rib, short row heel, made out of Fortissima sock yarn) and I had finished the first sock and was about three quarters done with the second.
I lost the second sock somewhere.
I don’t know where. It could have been at brunch with John, it could have been where we parked. It could have been walking around.
I spent portions of the next two days going back to places, calling and making inquiries to see if it had turned up. When you lose something, places need to be revisited; possibilities need to be crossed off the list. Until that point, the sock still might have been found – I couldn't allow myself to admit it was gone, I had to keep looking. As much frustration there was in losing the sock, dealing with that point before the loss is final was somehow worse. Sometimes, things turn up, like my driver’s license a few days ago when an airline mailed it back to me. Usually they don’t. In the interim, you’re suspended, unable to deal with the loss, because it might not be lost. You just have to wait.
Javi went to the hospital today. She lost a serious amount of weight while I was traveling. I was haunted by thinking that she may have starved herself (cats do) because she was upset. Because she hated going out of the building so much, I tried to get her to eat first without involving a vet. I tried bribing her with different food. For a few days she’d eat temperamentally, eating one food one day and refusing it the next, or eating the same food on a plate but not in a bowl, or on the bed but not at her usual spot. Last weekend, she started hiding and refusing food.
I took her to a local vet. He tried to not be alarmist, but couldn’t help saying, “You have a very sick kitty.” Things yo-yoed. She looked awful that day and much better in the night. We went over and spent time with our neighbors Janet and Mozart and she was social, even though she was weak. The next morning I went to the vet and got food for feeding via syringe. She accepted it, not happily, but she did. I thought if I could feed her, maybe I could help her get better. I could do something. The vet suggested I take her to a nearby hospital for a sonogram.
When I saw her that night my optimism was gone. She came out to greet me listlessly and I really looked at her. She couldn’t jump up and down and even climbing was hard. She needed to find flat surfaces to lie down on, and she had no energy. I had never seen her look like this. When I held her, she didn’t resist, and all I felt was bones and fur. She had lost more than half her body weight.
When something is lost, you can’t admit it is lost until you exhaust the possibilities.
My eyes kept closing and then snapping open. At 4:30 am I took a klonopin and passed out about a half hour later, getting up a little before nine. I didn’t bother showering and took Javi to the hospital.
The female doctor there was very caring, but more aggressive than Dr. Fisch. She didn’t want to do just a sonogram, but also chest x-rays and blood work, and then if treatment was possible, to keep Javi for the weekend for testing and transfusions. I didn’t know what to say; I said yes and handed them my credit card.
When I got home, I called Dr. Fisch. “She’s really very sick.” He said. “I guess the x-rays make sense, I thought of doing them myself, as does the blood work to see if there’s any movement. But I would have done the sonogram first to see if anything further was even necessary.”
The hospital doctor called me about an hour later. “There are possibilities, but I promised, and I want to check in with you before we do anything.” She explained that there was a mass in Javi’s intestine, and bleeding. She was anemic but the cause of the anemia would require further testing.
A hundred possibilities opened. Were any of them not dead ends? When my last cat Winnie died, I took her to the Animal Medical Center. They made her life – and death – hell over a week with exploratory surgery and learned nothing. I asked if I could call Dr. Fisch. “Of course. He speaks to me three times a day. Just tell him to call Jenny.”
Dr. Fisch is easy to read and he’s not one to dissemble. “Well, she has some sort of cancer. They could do something but it would take further tests and at minimum surgery and chemo. Maybe she could live a year. Maybe she’d never get out of the hospital.”
I asked if it was time to put her to sleep. I hate that term.
“I wouldn’t talk you out of it, no.”
I called Jenny and told her what Dr Fisch said. “Honestly, I wouldn’t talk you out of it either. I want to give you every option.”
When something is lost you need to exhaust every possibility before you can admit that it is lost.
I couldn’t. I hope I did it for Javi. But I have to live with the fact that I also did it for me. I couldn’t stay hostage to hope.
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 7:51 PM | TrackBack
March 19, 2007
Why we knit
Beauty and the Beast. Nick's wearing the sweater I knit for him (Connie had the good sense to stuff him into it for my visit); I'm wearing a scarf I made from Noro Nadeshiko (wool/silk/angora) several years ago.
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 10:44 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
February 20, 2007
Chicago Thaw
Looking over the bridge on LaSalle Street, 2/19/07
Despite the inauspicious beginning it was a lovely trip.
I saw the Saturday and Sunday matinées at the Joffrey. The long version will be in Ballet Review, the short version is it was worth the trip, and the alternate version lives here – Franklin, a fellow knitter and blogger was my companion on Sunday. He provided excellent company!
I saw several other good friends and got more sense of the city – what’s to get a sense of, it’s a grid, right? Yeah, and so are New York and San Francisco. Chicago’s grid has the added benefit of forcing you to memorize the early presidents in order.
Before going to Chicago, on David B’s recommendation I read Devil in the White City
The author, Erik Larson, is better on the Fair and its architects than he is on Holmes. It’s probably a good thing, but he has an easier time making more comprehensible men such as Daniel Burnham and Frederick Olmstead come to life than a psychopath such as Holmes who is fascinating in a grisly way, but ultimately reads as a cardboard cutout villain.
That said, Larson does some great things in this ripping yarn. The conjunction of the two plot threads isn’t just historically correct; Larson teases out the opportunity and energy in both Chicago and fin de siècle America that fed both builders and madmen. It’s a portrait of a city and a country that rings true. Larson also pays special attention to architecture that opens your eyes. It could also be that my friends David B. in Chicago (whom I just visited) and David S. who just moved to Atlanta from San Francisco are an architect and a landscape architect respectively. I found myself noticing the lampposts on Madison Avenue as my bus moved uptown on the way to Boston, and staring upwards at cornices and molded decorations.
Larson’s book captures one of Chicago’s most vigorous architectural periods; a trip downtown will bring you face to face with some of the buildings described, except, alas, the World’s Fair itself. What remains of it is far to the south; David took me there on my first visit to Chicago. My hotel (the Club Quarters Central Loop – gotten again on Priceline for $68/night) is right next to the Rookery, which housed the firm of Burnham and Root. Go to see the Joffrey Ballet at the Auditorium Theatre and you are in Adler and Sullivan’s masterpiece. To cap it off, go up the stairs in the Art Institute of Chicago towards their phenomenal Impressionist collection. There is an exhibit of fragments of ironwork and moldings from buildings designed by these very architects. You really are there.
After lunch with David on Monday, as he said with satisfaction the first day above freezing in Chicago in more than a month, I had two hours to kill before heading to O’Hare, and they were profitably spent at the museum. With only that length of time, I decided to see only the Impressionist and American collections, but that means one sees Caillebotte’s amazing scene of Paris in a drizzle, Seurat’s La Grande Jatte and van Gogh’s haunting and claustrophobic picture of his room in Arles. The American collection has Hopper’s brilliant Nighthawks and the iconic American Gothic, a painting that's a good deal better than the image that resides in everyone's imaginations. It was an excellent farewell to a vigorous city.
And to make mischief . . . Franklin looks very hot in leather.
⟨skips merrily away&rang
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February 19, 2007
Darn or Pitch?
Telling a non-knitter that you’re darning socks provokes confusion. Everyone has heard the word “darning,” but few people really know what it is. They usually know it’s repairing, and that seems even more confusing. Why repair something that costs a couple of bucks?
Hand knitters understand. A pair of hand knit socks takes upwards of twenty hours to make and is an object worth repairing.
I believe my first pair of socks is approaching its tenth anniversary; others are coming up on theirs. Socks get more abuse than almost any other knitted item; they’re bound to need fixing.
Here are some of the repairs made. It’s interesting for me to see how my sock making evolved from bed socks to socks wearable in shoes.
My first sock was striped in DK weight wool. I think the blue is Wendy Ascot, the gray is Swilan Favora and the yellow is Nylamb. I believe I used a basic pattern by Theresa Gaffney from Threads Magazine with a shaped calf and a gusseted heel. It’s got awkward stripes and only good as a bed sock, but oh, it’s nice on cold winter nights.
The sock sprouted a hole high up in the calf. That’s not from wear, so I have to assume that it was the bane of my existence, a carpet beetle. I have no more Wendy Ascot, so I matched the color as best I could – though not the fiber remotely. My closest match was Euroflax linen. Though distinctly unkosher, I think it was no harm otherwise on a small graft, pictured below.
Apologies for my poor photo manipulation skills.
I’ve had to graft these next socks from Koigu yarn several times already, but I can’t bear to part with them because the colors are so pretty. Koigu Painter’s Palette is 100% merino, so there’s nothing to reinforce them. The painful truth is that if a sock needs a repair. It will soon need more. The fibers have weakened. The other lesson I keep forgetting is that once a sock has needed a repair, you shouldn’t machine wash it any longer. I keep forgetting and tossing these in the watch, only to have them come out sprouting new holes.
These socks from Froehlich Wolle are the first socks I made (in 2000) for myself that could be worn as a normal sock. Froehlich wears very well, but I could see the area behind the heel (and naturally, immediately above where I reinforced the sock) was not fraying but becoming thinner and thinner. Instead of grafting, I took matching yarn and wove it through the back of the sock to reinforce it. Yet, see lesson above. I just machine washed this pair, only to find one had come out with the cuff frayed and needing repair.
So sock knitters, what do you do? Do you try to prolong your socks’ lives by darning or do you take the first hole as a sign that more will soon follow and retire them?
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 11:14 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
February 14, 2007
Latest Knitting Article
Extreme Knitting, in the Spring 2007 issue of Knit.1. This one took time to come together, but doing the interviews with people like Debbie New
“That’s really relaxing, isn’t it?” People associate knitting with relaxation. We know better. Ask any knitter feverishly trying to do the last two inches of a sleeve on the ride over to a holiday gathering.Sometimes the tension is self-inflicted. “I need more yarn!” my friend Grace Judson said urgently to me on a fall day in Union Square Park in Manhattan. I complied and pulled more yarn from a skein, laying it down neatly so it would feed unobstructed on to her needles. We weren’t shopping; she about to win [in 2002] the fastest knitter in America competition, and I was her obedient, if inept, yarn boy.
. . .
"Sock Wars came about as a natural progression," [Julie] Gardner continues. " I wanted it to be interactive, as opposed to people doing their own thing. I was mulling over how to achieve this when I heard about ‘Street Wars.’ I had a thousand possibilities rattling around in my head. Death by Knitting appealed the minute it occurred to me. I love the idea of moving knitting outside the traditional realm. Anything that gets us away from the ‘knitting is the new yoga’ cliché is progress.”
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 8:18 PM | TrackBack
February 7, 2007
Latest FO's
The cabled hat is finished
But alas, it's too small for its intended victim's head. It will go in the gift basket and I'll make Frankie another hat.
I imagine that older siblings feel deprived of attentions when newborns arrive so I made Alex's brother a cap based on the fez I made for Knit.1 Magazine. Instead of embellishing with I-cord I knit the contrast colors directly into the hat.
And Nick's Sweater is all done, with blocking and little star buttons.
Here's a closer look.
I think Nick approves.
I didn't do much knitting in San Francisco. I'll continue with David's scarf in earnest once I'm sure about the design - I've taken a photo of it in progress and sent it to him for approval.
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 7:52 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
February 1, 2007
Preparing knitting for traveling
I’ve always got knitting with me; on a long trip I think I’d go nuts without it.
You can bring knitting on planes in the United States, but each country sets their own security policy. The only time I ever was asked to put away my knitting was on a BMI flight from Charles de Gaulle airport to Heathrow. My project, the wedding afghan for my brother and sister-in-law made it through security with no comment and the plane was on the runway as I was busily trying to get the thing done; I had three days left and a foot to go. The stewardess had the usual reaction of amused fascination, but the purser then came by and asked apologetically if I would put my knitting away. “It’s not what you would do but what others might.” CDG-LHR is a 45 minute flight and not worth the argument; I simply put it away no matter how silly I thought the logic was. You can kill someone with your bare hands if you’ve a mind to (I don’t!) what I had was a long blunt plastic circular needle with four pounds of cabled wool afghan hanging from it. As far as I’m concerned, if I could figure out how to hijack a plane with an unfinished wool throw, I deserve to. And I deserve to have the plane take me wherever I please.
Me shaking cabled wool throw at pilot threateningly: Take this plane to Reykjavik!
Even though current TSA rules permit knitting needles in carryon luggage, TSA screeners are permitted discretion to not allow any item they construe as dangerous. To raise the fewest objections, use blunt-tipped circular needles in plastic, bamboo or other non-metallic material.
What knitting project to bring? Small is beautiful. So are things that don’t involve multiple balls of yarn. I’ve broken those rules when I needed the time to make headway on a project, but I truly regretted the zillion color Fair Isle sweater I dragged from Paris to Antwerp to Rotterdam to Amsterdam to Bruges to Brussels. And the damn thing still isn't done.
Currently tucked into my carryon are John’s socks – both at the heel turning, and a scarf for my friend David from silk/mohair I bought at Artfibers on my last trip to San Francisco. More than enough knitting for the weekend, and each fits into a gallon Ziploc bag with room to spare and crush.
Along with the project and needles, I tuck in a plastic darning needle and a small package of ring markers. And I’m off to the airport.
See you in San Francisco!
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 12:09 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
January 29, 2007
Swag winners!
It's my contest, I can have multiple winners. We've got three.
Javasmom and Deb D get skeins of evil and wonderful Jaeger furry yarn (either sparkly cherry-red Vienna or sparkly blue Wolga - you two get to fight it out.) Javasmom gets some because, unlike her dog, it won't felt and Deb D gets some for the best save after assuming I had a vagina. I don't, not even a spare. I am hoping she will knit something drag-o-licious.
As for the calendar, it's going rather randomly to Tallguy in Alberta. Probably because he's in Alberta. I want to suck up to him, 'cause I intend to visit Banff one of these days.
Thanks for commenting, and stick around for more knitting, dance and other stuff.
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 10:42 PM | TrackBack
January 25, 2007
Current Knitting
The socks in Confetti are now both at the heel turning. They're large, so they've found a home with my friend John in Toronto, who is a size 12. It's appropriate; the yarn was bought in Toronto, so it is returning home. John's birthday isn't for several months, so they've been set aside in favor of more pressing tasks.
The current walking project is a cabled hat made much like the one I made last year for my brother. I may not be knitting while walking much in the next few days; it's bitterly cold.
I began Nicholas' sweater back in October, but restarted it at the beginning of this year, feeling there were enough small errors that I was happier just starting again. The bottom chevron stitch curls naturally and will need blocking. I tried several different stitches for the yoke before deciding on a modification of Swag Stitch, which had both a nice horizontal effect (a good thing at the yoke, not that a baby needs to look broad shouldered) and a pretty retro feel. Swag Stitch, in the Walker treasuries, also works up lickety-split. I need to complete the seaming, do borders and buttons and finally block it. It better turn out well. Though I had nothing to do with his creation (scout's honor, though I was never a scout), it seems Nicholas Leigh is my partial namesake.
Here is a closer look.
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 10:59 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
January 20, 2007
Swag!
I have an extra copy of the Stitch 'n Bitch 2007 Calendar
Here's the contest. Leave a comment, any comment. Why you want the calendar, contribute a quick-knit pattern or link, follow up on something else I've written, whatever. Amuse, entertain and/or enlighten us. I'll give the calendar to one of the commenters at the end of next week. If you make a comment as a contest entry on some other thread than this one, put something to the effect of "by the way, gimme the calendar!" at the end. Because of comment spam, I need to approve all comments so be patient. I usually get to them within a short while if I'm at the computer. Multiple entries permitted, but don't turn into comment spam yourself.
Have fun!
[Update: You don't need to deserve this calendar to get it. Say something funny. Say something useful. Say something interesting. Say something amusing. Have fun.]
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 2:11 PM | Comments (36) | TrackBack
January 16, 2007
Latest Knitting Articles
The Opposite of Love is Moths (I don't title 'em, I just write 'em) in the current issue of Knit.1
Knitted items are like relationships: It takes work and tender loving care to keep them in shape. Both are also inherently fragile and gradually disintegrate over time, but who’s bitter?Brandon Mably's Colorful Wanderlust in the current issue of Vogue Knitting. That's the one with my sweater in it; his (the "handprint" sweater) is right next to mine.
At 8:30 a.m. en route from Seattle to Portland, Brandon Mably whoops with satisfaction and relief. Somewhere near Centralia, Washington, hometown of modern dance legend Merce Cunningham, Mably needs his morning caffeine and has finally found a Starbucks. He brings the same joyous enthusiasm to the workshops in color and design he teaches around the world and now to his new book, Knitting Color.
Note the completely gratuitous reference to Merce Cunningham. Can't help it; it's the first thing I think of when I think of Centralia. This gratuitous Cunningham reference is brought to you by my friend Nancy Dalva, whose love for Merce and elegant, passionate writing about his work helped me understand and appreciate it.
The articles are only available in print.
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 11:22 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
December 24, 2006
The Rest of the Knitting
Catching up on what I was knitting while I wasn’t blogging:
Besides Owen Robert’s Aran I took two other projects off my UFO list.
I finished Danny Ouellette’s Easy Head Hugger Hat back in March, 2005 but hadn’t darned in the ends or blocked the hat to give it its fez shape. I went to Toronto in November and brought assorted knitted gifts for friends; something I’m now trying to do when I travel. Instead of picking what hat to give each person, I make one or two extra and let everyone pick the one they like. Good thing, that; no one in Toronto chose the object I thought they would. My friend Desirée chose the hat; I thought she would chose the elongated scarf in Biggy Print (it went to Denise). The night before I left John and I searched for a form to block the hat. We were downstairs in the den watching TV; John pointed to the wastepaper basket.
Voila.
The hat ended up looking more cloche-like than fez-like on Des, but I think it’s rather fetching.
The disaster socks for Dad from last year are now socks for my friend Mary, because I like her and she has the smallest feet of anyone I know. One sock was at the toe decrease (actually it needed to be ripped back a few rows) and the other was just past the heel turning. Alas, I hated knitting these every inch of the way. I got the bright idea that because sugar-stick ribbing is meant for circular knitting, it would make a neat sock. Well, it’s a neat sock, but not a good sock. The pattern is fiddly to knit and has limited elasticity. Further, because I’m a glutton for punishment, I just had to knit the foot so the pattern was only on the top of the foot and the sole was knit plain. This meant inserting compensating increases and decreases at the start and finish, which would have been nifty except it didn’t stop the whole pattern from shifting over slowly. That’s the nature of the stitch, and why it was meant to be knit in the round so it could spiral. The whole foot twists a quarter turn. I jammed my foot into the sock and luckily it seems the twist disappears in wearing, but still. I’m glad I finished them; never again for that design.
I also finished a pair of my standard socks for my sister-in-law, but those never made it out of WIP status to UFO. I cast them on in September and they were finished just before I took the bus back to London from Bristol. I forgot to bring wooly nylon with me on the trip, so the toes were knit in Bristol (after checking fit) and I borrowed a spool of black sewing thread to use as reinforcement.
The last holiday gift was made for my Mom. It’s her birthday today, but I give her a separate Christmas gift; almost everyone born near Christmas feels gypped by combined presents. This one is the another lengthwise garter striped scarf, but I think the color combination is particularly nice and it stretched out the dark blue yarn, “Curly” from the Goldman’s haul enough for a full scarf. That’s the best thing about a lengthwise scarf.
Besides the projects already described as part of the quick knit resources, I also made three more blouse scarves, four more London Beanies (it’s now my hat of choice for male friends and one of Helen Fleischer’s felted hats awaiting felting.
The baby sweater for Nicholas (formerly known as Kangaroo) moves into WIP position, but I was weak; I read about Judy Becker's Magic Toe-Up Cast-on in Knitty and had to try it with some sock yarn in stash. (DCB Confetti - a self patterning yarn I bought in Toronto)
Now that I've tried the cast on, I'm committed to knitting the socks, but they are moving quickly as I'm using K3, P1 instead of my usual Twin Rib. Mary Dominski ("Dr. Sock") suggested this to me a few years back when I first tried self-patterning yarns; Twin Rib obliterated the pattern while K3, P1 gave elasticity while letting the patterning show. I’m still not fully converted to toe-up cast ons. I find them fiddly for the same reason as sugar-stick ribbing. Both involve a lot of increases and a "make one" increase with 12" circular needles is harder to manipulate than decreasing.
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 11:25 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
December 23, 2006
Sneak Preview of the Bamboo Sweater in Vogue Knitting
Woohoo! It's up on VK's website. It's the first picture in the "By Invitation Only: Man to Man" feature. (Note: This link will probably only be good until the next issue comes out about two months later.)
I like the contrast between the three sweaters pictured (according to the table of contents, there is one more not shown). It's nice to be doing the "practical" sweater for a change.
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 12:34 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
December 21, 2006
FO: Owen Robert's Aran
Well, this one took a while, but I'm really happy with it. According to my records I cast it on in May of 2003. It's a miniature Aran, but because of the scale (and the Sausage Cable in the middle) it has Tyrolean echoes as well. There is no pattern; it's a basic boxy sweater with a saddle shoulder that accommodates a central cable. I stopped working on the sweater in October of 2003 because I thought it would not fit the intended wearer, my friend Connie's first child Alex. (I was wrong). I picked up again in September of this year, and finished it. It needed half of one sleeve, all of the second, assembly and borders. And repair of a carpet beetle hole.
The yarn is a superwash wool I bought at Smileys several years ago, Swilan Turbo. Superwash wool often grows with washing; in this case that was a good thing, and it probably happened because the tightly knit textured stitches relaxed. Above is after soaking in a basin with soap to get rid of accumulated dirt from handling and knitting; below is the sweater before washing.
Here's the back. The patterns are all from Barbara Walker's treasuries. Aran Moss Diamond and Bobble, Sauasage Cable and Staghorn Cable. The Staghorn Cable is broken in two in the front of the cardigan. I hope it makes a special sweater for a first child.
Here's a closer look:
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 5:46 PM | TrackBack
December 20, 2006
Quick Knit Resources
I’ve been doing a lot of knitting, much of it gifts to bring to friends when I travel and holiday gifts. For my benefit and yours, here are some good, fast patterns all gathered into one place for when you’ve got one more gift to make, now.
Hats
Hats are the fastest gift you can make except for headbands. Those barely need a pattern except to note that they should be about 4.5 inches wide and a double thickness is better than a single one, with a nice soft yarn next to the ear.
Ribbed watch cap:
My watch cap recipe lives here. I can make one of these in worsted yarn or heavier in a few hours. This is a great all around hat that everyone wears and can be made plain or fancy depending on the yarn.
Shorthand version: Cast on a multiple of 4. p2 k2 tube for appx 7 inches w/o cuff, 9 inches with.
Decrease rounds -
p2tog,K2tog
P1, K1
K2tog
K
K2tog
Mitered hat:
Choose this if you have a textured yarn; it looks great in thick and thin or slubbed yarn. I think it makes more of a woman’s hat, but I’ve had male friends choose it from the gift basket. It takes a bit longer to make that the watch cap because of the grafting, but it is still quite fast in worsted weight or larger.
Nancie Kremer’s original pattern has vanished due to “link rot” but can be found here. My version is here
Shorthand for both versions. You’re working the hat laterally rather than vertically in short-rowed pie wedges to create the crown. Cast on your stitches provisionally. Working in garter stitch or stockinette (textured yarns look best turned inside out to the purl side) place a marker about 1/3 of the way from the crown. Work short rows from the crown, 1 stitch per row until you reach the marker, then reverse shaping. Repeat wedges until the hat is correct size (that will be more wedges in garter than stockinette). Graft, sew or cast off the edges together.
London Beanie:
This is the perfect gift hat for young or fashion conscious men. The one above was in fact given to my friend Alexander in London! Mark Thrailkill’s original pattern lives here.
I usually use sport or DK weight yarn on a US 6 needle with 81 stitches to start, or fingering wool as above (that's the leftovers of a skein of Haneke Merino) on a US 3 with 117 stitches to begin. I also use a long-tail cast on instead of cable cast on and I work a plain row between each row of decreases. Even in thinner wool this pattern doesn’t take more than two days to make, and less in sport weight. The pattern uses less than a skein of wool, plus uses up various oddments that were too nice to throw away and can be tucked into a stripe. It’s great portable mindless knitting, so make a batch of them while you’re on the go and save them for gift-giving occasions.
Shorthand for my version. Cast on a multiple of 9, K2, P1 rib for about 1.25 ins. Increase round: K9, inc1 across round. Work in stockinette with whatever stripes are desired until 5.25 ins (or try it on and see if it fits round ears as you want).
Decrease rounds:
K8, K2tog
K
K7, K2tog
K
etc until you only K2tog. Break yarn, pull through rem sts
TP cap
I made this originally as a toilet paper cozy for the wonderful “Art” issue of Knit.1 Magazine and I reproduce it here with their permission (Thank you, Adina!)
Embellish it like crazy as in the issue, or made plain with just a pompom it makes a great close fitting cap that knits up in a few hours.
Yarn: 1 skein Woolease or other light worsted yarn worked double throughout pattern.US 10.5 needle (16 or 24 in circ) and US 10.5 dpns.
Pattern Stitch:
Twin Rib
Multiple of 6Round 1 K3, P3
Round 2 K1, P1
Repeat these two roundsBody
CO 66 sts. Join round.
Work K1,P1 rib 5 rounds
Work twin rib 20 rounds or 5 inches total (or to fit.)Top
Purl 1 round
Work 3 more rounds (starting with pattern round 1) in twin rib.Decrease for top
*K1 K2tog, P1, P2tog * 44 sts
K2,P2
*K2tog,P2tog* 22 sts
K
*SSK* - 11 sts
K
K1, *K2tog* 6 sts
Break yarn, thread through final stitches and pull tight.
Tam
This one is fast. I made this one with three strands of yarn held together on 8mm needles in about two hours and given to my friend Lynette in London. Here’s a shorthand pattern:
Cast on 60 sts (or a multiple of 6), placing 6 markers. Work k1, p1 ribbing for 1.5 ins. Change to stockinette stitch, work an increase after each marker every other round (so you increase six stitches total in the round). Keep going until there are 84 sts, or you’ve increased 40% of the original number. Work even until the hat is four inches total. Now K2tog after each marker every other round until there are 48 sts, or 80% of the original number. Work even one more round, decrease after each marker every round until you have 6 sts left. Break yarn, pull through remaining stitches.
Amelia Earhart cap
This one has also vanished from link rot, but can still be found at archive.org. It takes a little longer than the other hats to make, especially if you graft the end, but it is so much fun to knit. Use a smooth, cabled yarn. I’ve used Filatura di Crosa Zara, Baruffa Maratona and Lion Brand Microspun. The latter has a smaller gauge, so I increased the length to 44 sts and added two more sets of short rows – it could have been slightly smaller. I think this hat looks its most charming on a woman with long hair and bangs.
Scarves
Blouse scarf
This is a classic fast gift and excuse to play with novelty yarns. It knits up in only a few hours but usually a bit more time than a hat. My original source was Dez Crawford’s pattern.
Here’s a shorthand version. Use a novelty yarn; they’re a bitch to knit with, but plain yarn will make something that looks very po’faced. Cast on 3 sts, work in garter, inc 1 st at beginning of each row until scarf is 4” wide. Work to desired length (about 4 feet), dec 1 st at beg of row until 3 sts remain, K3tog to cast off.
Lengthwise garter scarf
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had what looked like more yarn in stash than I needed for a hat, but a questionable amount for a scarf.
I think a slightly thin scarf is the lesser evil compared to a too-short scarf, so cast on sufficient stitches for the right length and keep striping (two rows or four) as long as you can while maintaining symmetry.
A standard "chain" cast off does not match the cast on, and a long edge, the disparity becomes striking. Try the sewn garter stitch cast off from Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitter's Almanac
Begin with yarn at the right side. Break yarn, thread through needle.*Thread needle through first two stitches as if to purl. Thread needle back through the first stitch as if to knit. Drop off first stitch*
Continue until you've cast off all the stitches. This has a similar tension and look to a cast on; use it where you want the cast off edge to match the cast on.
Elongated stitch scarf
This is another great way to stretch out novelty yarn, and it is fast as the wind. Rowan Biggy Print is super-duper bulky, but has only 33 yards per skein. With this pattern I was able to stretch two skeins into a thin four foot scarf.
By doing the garter ridges with one four ounce skein of plain worsted black wool, I was able to make a little more than one skein 50g skein of Divé Lauren into a full size scarf for my friend Jane in London.
Because of the gauge, this took longer; about 8-10 hours from start to finish. The Rowan scarf might have taken three.
You’re just working in garter stitch (9 sts, US 17 for the Rowan, 30 sts, US 10 for the Lauren) and making 3 (5 for Lauren) ridges to begin. You may work the ridges in plain yarn. Introduce your novelty yarn as follows:
K the st, *wrap the yarn twice round the needle and K the next st.* Continue across the row.
K the next row, dropping the wraps.
I worked three more knit rows on the Rowan scarf in between elongated stitches, and seven in the Lauren.
Multidirectional scarf
This one seems to be the latest fad among knitters. It looks great in yarns with long striped color changes like Noro yarns. I did the one here in Lion Brand Fun Fur (I am finally using all the stuff up that my knit.1 editor yarn-bombed me with when I was doing the embellishing article). The changes of direction can’t be seen through the fur, but it makes the colors into interesting polygonal blocks. Depending on the gauge of the yarn, the thickness and the length of the scarf, it doesn’t take that much longer than a blouse scarf.
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 11:40 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
October 21, 2006
Portland: Coming and Leaving II
Bernie dropped me off at the hotel and I met my friend Joan Schrouder shortly after to go to Oregon Ballet Theatre. Joan is a knitting buddy. She teaches nationally; she and I met a decade ago at Stitches. After a quick Thai meal we walked to the Keller Auditorium. The crowd milling in front of the theater was more dressed up than I had anticipated; I forgot this was the opening night of the season.
When I invited Joan, I described the program as being “a great program for someone who doesn’t get to go to the ballet all the time.” This isn’t an insult; that’s 99% of OBT’s audience. We’re spoiled in the dance capitals. The company was bringing The Four Temperaments and The Concert to Portland for the first time. It was heartening to see the house very full. OBT danced 4Ts as I’ve seen other smaller regional companies do it – like a precious gift. It’s great to see it from a fresher perspective. Francia Russell, artistic director Christopher Stowell’s mother (and director emeritus at Pacific Northwest Ballet) set this version – which is slightly different than City Ballets (think pink lampshades instead of white ones). We know each other tangentially from the series of interviews I did with her in 1997 about Agon and Melissa Hayden’s coaching sessions at the Balanchine Foundation but we’ve talked more often than she’s seen me. I waved at her from my seat and she returned the greeting with the sickly look I recognized from the times I’ve had to warmly greet someone while I was racking my brains trying to figure out who they were.
A group of PNB dancers (I recognized Benjamin Griffiths and Jordan Pacitti) were two rows behind me to cheer on their fellow dancers; sure enough, there was Peter.
“You again!” I pointed at him in mock accusation.
“You’re everywhere,” he said, bemused.
The best part of all was that Joan loved the evening. It’s such a joy to take someone to the ballet that doesn’t usually get to go.
Sunday morning I was scheduled to meet internet knitting buddies at Mabel’s, a yarn shop/café. Just as I was about to find the #4 bus Gary called and asked me if I wanted a ride in the rain. We drove through bohemian neighborhoods across the Willamette River. I met Duffy and Melissa there and we spent a relaxing morning knitting and gabbing. I worked primarily on the sleeve of Owen Robert’s Aran. Duffy was starting the toe of a sock; Melissa was working on afghan squares in a mauve ombre alpaca and Gary was making a very simple scarf but in the most tactile yarn – Jo Sharp Alpaca Georgette. Really tasty stuff; we were all copping a feel. I took a tour round the shop, but beyond the Blackberry scone (thank you, Gary!) and the almond hot chocolate; I remained on my yarn diet.
I met Bernie and his daughter Gwen at the matinee. Gwen is getting ready to go down to Miami City Ballet to study at the school. Unfortunately but understandably, the Keller auditorium was more sparsely populated than at the opening and the performance was slightly weaker. One of the big differences between a smaller company and a major one is the depth of the company in casting. That’s a direct function of size. OBT may double cast each ballet, but they don’t really have two casts.
After the performance we walked around the fountain directly opposite the theater and I took a picture reminiscent of the Japanese Gardens.
We then went out for the seafood I had been craving at Jake’s. When in Portland, go to Jake's (Yes, it's part of a chain. No, it doesn't taste that way at all.) Get the crab and shrimp cakes, and also the Dungeness Crab Leg cocktail. They go perfectly together. If you ask nicely, the waiters might do half orders (ours added a crab cake to the plate to make for even splitting). I placed myself in the amiably pushy waitress' hands (I like waitresses who tell you what’s particularly good on the menu) and she insisted I have the locally caught wild salmon and then the Chocolate Bag for dessert. The salmon was cedar plank roasted with slight woody tang and exactly as she promised, the chocolate bag containing white chocolate mousse and berries in raspberry sauce was lighter than the description made one suspect. It was an absolutely wonderful meal, as was the company.
On Monday morning the sky began a sodden gray, but as in Vermont, the weather in Portland changes rapidly because of the mountains. It brightened up about an hour later and I had just enough to have time for a walk along the river – the hotel was right next to it. There were flocks of geese, leaves turning colors, boats and joggers.
I bought a blueberry muffin from a shop on the walk and sat down on a bench to watch the river.
By the time I rode back to the airport on light rail it was overcast again, but the scenery was still lovely with grays, greens and yellows. Portland, like Seattle, is a city that prides itself on quality of life; clean public transit and free wifi in the airport. It seems almost quaint to a New Yorker, we don’t do “quality of life” here. But then again, we can’t.
On the walk back from the river just as I got back to the Four Points, I paused to admire a climbing rose on the side of the hotel. Most of the flowers were fading, but lower down one was still in full flower.
It was a lovely way to say goodbye to the City of Roses.
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October 19, 2006
Current Knitting: Oooh, baby, baby
Everyone is breeding.
Connie's second child, who when I last spoke to her still had his placeholder name of "Kangaroo," made his debut last Thursday. I didn't know this, but spent most of the flight the next day to San Francisco (en route to Portland) knitting his sweater.
(Apologies, it's not your eyes, it's my lousy camera skills.) The yarn is Emu Superwash, bought in the basement sale room at Romni Wools in Toronto last year on a foray with Stephanie, Danny and Cassandra. Like most machine washable wools and cottons, it was bought with future babies in mind. When I use an ombre yarn, chevron knitting patterns are among the first I try; they tend to make the variegation more interesting.
I'm at the armhole division and was swatching for the yoke. I planned on using trinity (or blackberry, or bramble, or whatever of a zillion names you call it) stitch; in other sweaters it's also worked well with variegated yarns with short repeats, breaking the colors into little multicolored popcorns.
I've done the merest scrap of a swatch here, but I'm already concerned.
That's looking not very bobbly and suspiciously muddy. I may try again because I changed the way I increased for the bobbles. Usually I knit, purl and knit into the same stitch; this time I knit three times into the stitch. It makes a smaller hole, but it also throws the bobble off center, and that may be why it looks wrong. If not, I've pulled out my Walker treasuries to find other patterns to swatch on the plane.
Connie wanted something simpler than the Aran below.
This will now go to Amy's boy to be, Owen Robert. That is how it looked after the flight to Portland. I redid the end of one of the sleeves that wasn't in proportion and flared too much, and finished the other sleeve and it looked like this yesterday:
I'm now working on the bottom border. Connie's reasoning was kind; the elaborate sweater is more meant for a first baby. Indeed it was; it was originally knit for her first child Alex, and set aside about 3/4 done because I thought it would be too small for him (I was wrong, by the way.)
The back:
And in closer detail:
In the office, today was Jennifer's last day; she should be giving birth to Jay Dee in about two weeks time.
The blue hat was my gift; it's yet another toilet paper cozy cap, but topped off with I-Cord. Instead of decreasing down to 6 stitches, I decreased to 12 and worked 3 I-Cords of 4 stitches each, knotting them in different spots.
I made the same hat in the Turkish Fez colors I used in the Knit.1 article for a gift for Alex. I figured with all the attention Kangaroo will be getting, he may need some acknowledgment as well.
In non-baby knitting, the scarf for Rajika was quickly finished and presented to her when we both went to Shen Wei. I thought the brilliant colors were right for her; happily she was delighted.
Currently on the needles, socks for my sister-in-law.
The usual pattern, knit on US1 needles in Brown Sheep Wildfoote; the older formulation that everyone complained about, so I figured I had best knit it to get it out of my stash. I can’t say it is the most wonderful sock yarn I have ever used, but it isn’t the worst. To prevent second sock syndrome, I do each sock part alternatively; first one cuff then the next, then one calf to the heel turning, then the other and so on. It also seems like the socks are more consistent than if I knit the first entirely and then the second.
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 11:26 PM | TrackBack
October 5, 2006
Life Imitates Article
While in Seattle, I was working on both an article on caring for knitted items (including washing, storage and avoiding insects) and also this baby sweater:
I had started it three years ago and abandoned it when I thought it would be too small for the baby in question. I was wrong, but didn't find that out until after I has made a second sweater.
The sweater is a rather elaborate cabled affair that feels part Irish, part Tyrolean to me. For the record, the patterns are Moss Diamond and Bobble, Sausage Cable and Staghorn Cable, all from the Walker Treasuries. These pictures are from before I left for Seattle.
On the plane I finished out one of the unfinished sleeves and picked up stitches for the second. Looking at this picture now, there was something there I didn't notice at the time. It's at the bottom right.
See it?
Yup, three years of indifferent storage took its toll. The evil carpet beetles found a spot to munch.
There's what the hole looked like after I had been knitting and handling it a bit and the weak spots gave way.
What to do? Microsurgery. This took double pointed needles and a yarn needle as well. Pick the hole apart until all the frayed and broken area is gone. Leave the threads, don't clip them back. Catch the loops on dpns.
Thread matching yarn through the yarn needle. Duplicate stitch one stitch at the bottom corner, then knit the stiches on the dpn in pattern. At the other side, duplicate stitch to attach the yarn and bring the yarn up one row. Then work in pattern back on the dpns. Continue until all the rows are repaired -
And you can graft the final row together as if you were grafting the toe of a sock. The fix is below the needle. It needs some neatening, and also looks much better at actual size.
This is the back. They frayed sections stay unclipped so they don't work loose.
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 11:03 PM | TrackBack
September 18, 2006
FO and Yarnapalooza
The Bamboo Sweater’s final few ends were darned in Saturday before I taught a class on entrelac at the uncivilized hour of 9 am. Thankfully, the students were not uncivilized at all. I enjoyed the folks at the LI Knitting and Crochet Guild very much and hope they’ll have me back in the future. I had one embarrassing brainfart; I teach workshops from a detailed handout and syllabus but haven’t taught entrelac for a few years. I started to show entrelac in the round and realized I hadn’t joined a round in a while. It took me a few tries to rejigger my brain to show exactly how the stitches needed to be picked up. That information got placed in careful detail in my syllabus, along with notes on what I want to add to the class to develop it.
The next day I braved the chaos of the Knit Out at Union Square. I met the perennially stylish Eve Ng (it’s like “Millionaire Playboy Bruce Wayne” – I can’t write Eve’s name without putting “perennially stylish” in front of it) after a game of Cell Phone Marco Polo.
“I’m at the east end of the Fashion Show. Can you see me?”
“Marco!”
I ran into several of my students from yesterday who trekked in from Westbury to be part of the hoopla, and then went to the Soho Publishing Booth to say hello to Leslie Barber and the other staff. Stephanie Pearl and my editor Adina Klein were doing the fashion show with judicious skepticism. Neither of them are all that tall, so when a model swept by in a full length crocheted duster, both immediately asked, “How tall are you?” The model found time to answer – 5’9” – and Steph observed that if she wore it she’d be pleased to have a coat with a train so that she could sweep the floor at the same time. Another model walked past and Steph observed her with a gimlet eye. “I wouldn’t let my 17 year old daughter leave the house in that, eh?”
Eve and I had lunch together, then met Stephanie after her book signing. She seemed a little fried; having been the performing seal at one or two knitting conventions I understood at least a little. She grabbed food and a beer and we headed into the park to illegally picnic on the grass, next to a boy in leather pants and grubby thrift store ties including one of – was it Donald Duck? As he stalked past working his rebellious punkitude, I learned over to Steph’s friend Cassie and whispered, “Don’t tell me, you’re from Wisconsin, right?” Yep, I’m a cranky New Yorker.
Cassie said she needed to meet Joe at 4 pm at a statue behind the main stage of the Knit Out, and to memorialize the Bamboo Sweater, before it went away to the folks at Vogue Knitting for a year, Eve took a picture of me in it.
I loathe almost all pictures of me, but I look slightly less like the love child of Queen Victoria and Richard Milhous Nixon here, though no less constipated than usual. I'd also like to mention what a joy it is to wear that sweater in 80 degree weather. Ecch. I took it off immediately. If I made it again, I'd shorten the sleeves about half an inch and set the neck slightly higher - I began it about 4 ins. from the shoulders - I'd raise it 1/2 to 1 inch. (I'd also consider making it in Aurora 8 instead of Aurora Bulky to make it lighter and more affordable, but don't tell anyone.)
After handing off the sweater and I met the associate and tech editors and got to know the Soho Publishing folks a little better. Be nice to the tech editor, unless you want your pattern to have three backs and four sleeves. Michelle, the associate editor, and I discussed sock yarn, a topic knitters are about as fond of as the British are of discussing the weather. When in doubt or at a loss for polite conversation, discuss sock yarn. She’s currently working in Trekking; I’m making my usual Twin Rib socks for my sister in law in old Brown Sheep Wildfoote I want to see out of my stash.
Eve went home and I bumped into Steph and Cassie again. I asked Cassie if she met her husband yet, assuming that was Joe – Steph’s husband is also named Joe, which is what brought about that assumption. Whoops. Joe was Jo, Cassie’s friend from Canada. After about 30 minutes of talking, Jo and I formally introduced each other and we immediately realized, laughing, that we had known each other from another knit list for several years. Cassie brought us on a short walk to Stuyvesant Square – a lovely little pleasure since I had never seen it before and we sat and knit for a few minutes before Jo had to leave for the airport.
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 2:06 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
September 15, 2006
Leigh's Dance (and Knitting) Card
The dance season is starting again for me -
Tonight I'm going to see the program of new choreography at the Miller Theatre. I'm not on duty with this one (my friend Aleba is doing the PR and I assisted slightly with that, so I'm happy to avoid yet another conflict of interest)
I'm teaching a workshop on entrelac tomorrow at the Long Island Knitting and Crochet Guild's "Day of Learning". I've got a love-hate relationship with the technique; you can make some gorgeous mosaic-like effects with it, but it's incredibly fiddly. I do it once every several years after I've forgotten just how tedious it was the last time I did it.
On Sunday, I'll be at the New York Knit Out, a chaotic yarnapalooza in Union Square. When I'm not overwhelmed by the crowd and hiding in a corner, it's a lot of fun and I get to see a few people I only see a couple of times a year.
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 4:13 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
September 12, 2006
Bus(t) Knitting
This odd looking neon bustier is actually an Amelia Earhart cap, shown flat before the back seam (the "bustline") is sewn - in this case, grafted, but one could just sew or do a three needle bind-off.
As knitting patterns go, this one is extremely knitterly. The triple lobes that form the earflaps and head cover are created by shortrowing; the complex ridged swirls are nothing more than k2, p2 rib done in a spiral by moving it over one stitch every two rows. The hat looks incredibly hard but once it’s set up it’s really simple.
Flor’s original pattern calls for sport or worsted weight wool; I made this in Lion Brand Microfiber, which is DK weight so increased stitch and row counts on the fly by about 20%. Even with more stitches I was able to knit the whole hat on the bus ride to and from Boston, except for the cast on and about four rows I had knit a few days before to get the project ready for taking on the bus with a minimum of fussing. It’s a great travel project – there's a picture of a finished cap and more tips on knitting one here.
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 9:52 AM | TrackBack
September 5, 2006
Home Stretch (II)
I'm fascinated by the home stretch of creation. Whether it's knitting, choreography or cooking, that's the point at which unknown variables make themselves known. There are things that just aren't apparent until the thing is put together, no matter how much you chart the pieces or do the dance in the studio or read the recipe. How will the garment drape on a body - will the audience laugh at that spot - is this dessert going to be too heavy for the entree? You can anticipate all you want; you often don't know until the sweater is put together or the audience is there or the meal is served.
I'm at that point now with the Bamboo Sweater.
Basting threads are removed, pieces laid flat and the shoulders bound off together using a three needle bind off. The pattern, for standardization, will say to bind off the piece and sew the shoulder seams. If you're making the sweater, do the one you think is firmest - you might consider a backstitch here.
Close up of the shoulder seam. The corded ribbing and bamboo columns don't match at the shoulders. It's barely noticeable when wearing, but I've corrected the pattern to center and match the columns.
Sleeves set in.
Sides seams sewn, on to the sleeves. It takes shape. The factors coming to the fore are the sweater's weight (more than three pounds), thickness, and relatively close fit.
The neckline - a stand up collar in the baby cable pattern at the borders is next, then working in all the ends. Et fini.
As an antidote to a month of solid gray knitting, I cast on this to knit while walking.
It's a scarf in Plymouth Yarn's "Parrot". The colors are even more deliciously garish than in the picture, think saris on crack. It's mindless, blindingly fast knitting in plain garter stitch on US 15 needles and soothes my Inner Carmen Miranda.
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 11:12 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
September 3, 2006
Home Stretch (I)
Frankenbamboosweater.
I've knit all the pieces of the sweater, and basted them together to check fit. Stitches are live, needles still in it; I've bound off nothing in case length needed to be added or subtracted. I'm knitting to the measurements of previous sweaters that fit me, so neither seems necessary.
Confession: If you knit the pattern of the sweater as it will be in Vogue Knitting, you will not knit this sweater. You will knit a better one, by and large. Things I didn't do in the knitted prototype (like centering the rib pattern so columns match at the shoulder) will be corrected in the pattern. Other things I will change for simplicity - I stepped the neckhole very slightly (one row) in the prototype. I'm going to make the neckhole square in the pattern.
Other observations. The yarn is heavy - it's taking every ball of yarn they gave me (29) to make a man's size L sweater. I'm hoping the twist stitch columns will help it hold its shape against the weight of the yarn. The yarn also feels delicious - soft like fur. Because of the ribbing, the sweater hugs the body with relatively little ease. It's going to look best on people who are slender.
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 11:38 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
September 2, 2006
Eye of the beholder
Last night, I was heading home after dinner with my friend Andrea, a classmate from ballet days and class with the formidable Madame Darvash. Can’t recall the name of the restaurant, the credit card receipt only lists them as “Vietnamese Food”, but it’s at 121 University Place. Excellent Bo Luc Lac, reasonable prices, but it was a busy Friday night and the waiters practically grabbed plates away from you the moment you didn’t seem to be finishing it and cleaned the table up around you.
On the subway ride back, I was working on the last sleeve of the Bamboo sweater. The car was relatively empty at West 4th, and filled a bit with each subsequent stops. Two twenty-something guys sat next to me at West 14th. A man got on at 34th. He looked as if he had come from a fantasy equestrian event; thigh high leather boots over khaki pants, blue blazer, green walking stick, straw hat with what looked like Christmas ornaments decorating the brim.
I’m thinking, “Work the outfit!” I notice one of the twenty something kids stealing glances at him too. My guess is we’re both thinking the guy is a bit of a New York character – a freak. I think about this for a moment. I’m sitting here like the screaming faggot I am knitting on the subway and the boy next to me has a ring through his nose. And we’re all over the equestrian freak across the car?
The moral of this subway story is either: Scratch a normal person and there’s a freak underneath, or scratch a freak and there’s a normal person.
You pick.
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 12:36 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
August 31, 2006
Latest Knitting Article
Technical Difficulties in the "TV" issue of Knit.1 (Fall 2006) - an article on recognizing and fixing mistakes that will make my life easier. Now I'll just bring it in to my beginner class for the section on what to do about mistakes.
Advanced mistake-makingThe Accidental Möbius. If you’re working in the round, check carefully before you join the round that all the stitches are aligned without twisting (I make sure that my cast-on edge is at the bottom of the needles.) If you leave in a twist, you will make a sort of Möbius strip instead of a tube and it may take several rows before you realize it. There is a quick and dirty fudge if you catch this in the first round or two: At the beginning of the round, align the knitted tube correctly – the running threads between the last and first stitches of the round will become twisted instead. Continue knitting and neaten that small area with the yarn tail when darning it in. If you notice the twist after a few rounds of knitting, there is nothing to do but rip it out.
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 10:52 PM | TrackBack
August 24, 2006
"Knitterly"
The sweater is progressing. The back is completed, the front is about two inches below the neck division and I’ve done about half of one sleeve. It also has a name now in my mind, the “Bamboo” sweater because of the look of the tied cables.
One of my artistic loves is something that uses its medium perfectly: a ballet dance that couldn’t be done in anything other than ballet or a sweater that could only be knit. An example in knitting is a cardigan design by Patricia Roberts I recall from when I first began to knit. Instead of using princess seams or darting or another method imported from sewing, the design inserted cabled darts to shape the waist. It’s a solution to shaping that’s unique to knitting and I love that. As inspirational as I found Kaffe Fassett’s work, my one reservation as I became a better knitter is that he saw knitted fabric the same as a painted canvas and kept trying to force knitting to be painting. He never explored what knitting could do other than color, but color was his love - not knitting. He explored one aspect over several media rather than several aspects of one medium.
The bamboo sweater is a knitterly sweater. Its approach to shaping – using ribbed fabric - is from knitting. Its patterns are all organically based on 2x2 ribbing. The knitting is a good balance for the knitter between repetitive and variable. It accounts for the qualities of the yarn (cabled construction and bulkiness) and shows them off.
The flip side of this for me is that creatively, I don’t always get the fascination with (or necessity of) “thinking outside the box”. I’m usually more interested in exploring what the box does best.
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 11:10 PM | TrackBack
August 21, 2006
Beat the clock knitting
The back is completed, the front is at the underarm bind off, and I've completed the ribbing on one sleeve.
Most of the knitting is being done on the walk to and from work - it's 40 minutes of useful time there and back. That's why I have multiple pieces going. At this point the front is too cumbersome to knit while moving, so I will work on the sleeve while walking and save the front for long phone calls. When this sleeve gets too big, I'll cast on the other. Real planning (like approaching the underarms and shoulder or plotting the increases on the sleeve) gets done as a foreground task.
Aurora Bulky is delicious to work with, but there's going to be about $250 of it in this sweater, which makes it the most expensive sweater I have ever made. All the better that I didn't have to buy the yarn! The yarn has good stitch definition, but swatching is necessary; a stitch pattern that looks good in finer wool may look overbearing. All the ribs and cabling in this are only 2 stitches wide, but that is about 1/2 inch - wide enough.
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 11:02 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
August 14, 2006
Reading Leigh
I was a busy boy this Spring – here are several articles that have recently been published:
Dance
These are not online, but I have pieces in the current issues of Ballet Review and Dance Now –
In the Summer ’06 issue of B-R there are three pieces – a report on Pennsylvania Ballet dancing two Balanchine programs (Theme/Prodigal/Western and Midsummer):
[The company] has a particularly good Prodigal in Philip Colucci. Reminiscent in build and masculinity to Edward Villella, Colucci turned in a vigorous and powerfully impatient performance.. . .
Titania suits [Julie] Diana’s gifts; she has the delicacy of a spring afternoon. She doesn’t have the expansive attack of a dancer like Suzanne Farrell, but she has her soft, pale innocence. The squabbles with Oberon weren’t laden with ire, but she was funny in her scenes with Bottom as only a beautiful woman can be – by playing the scene straight and letting the situation get the laughs.
An article on English one-act narrative ballets in repertory at the Royal and Birmingham Royal Ballets:
De Valois’ choreography for the female corps [in Checkmate] is also revealing. The pointe work - walks, hops and changes of weight from foot to foot - require strong feet rather than supple ones. Though de Valois was not a chess player and needed to be taught the moves of the pieces, she moved her dancers as one might move chess pieces, decisively and forcefully into designs and tableaux.. . .
Les Rendezvous is a relatively early work, but one can already see Ashtonisms. There are familiar opposing walks on either relevé or pointe and the final “shrug” of the arms that crops up, done here by four female demi-soloists. . . In a completely different way from ,em>Checkmate, the work is just as specific to the time and as expertly and cannily crafted.
For the men Ashton created an ingeniously designed Spanish-influenced dance. It starts with character steps and moves to classical ones, such as assemblés and beats but even the turns are constructed to finish in forgiving positions and look harder than they are. The dance seems designed not to overexpose the men in a fledgling company but to still make them better dancers.
And a report on two La Sylphides, Johan Kobborg’s in London and Nikolaj Hübbe’s in Toronto:
London: [Sorella] Englund’s conceit that Madge is actually a damaged sylph attracted to James is too pat for my tastes. The ballet is more resonant if Madge is governed by larger cosmic forces rather than smaller personal ones. Still, Englund has earned a right to her interpretation over the years and it’s acceptable if one takes her brilliant performances in isolation. But it is better left to enriching the interior dialogue of the performer than seeping into the accepted interpretation of the ballet.Toronto:The details of [Guillaume] Côté’s interpretation were similar to [Aleksandr] Antonijevic’s, including the wedding ring stopping his flight, but his strongest attribute as a romantic hero is his unshakable innocence. He makes the repertory believable. He’s got ballon as well; even his petit allegro is big, though Antonijevic’s petit allegro is sharper. Ironically, the one thing Côté doesn’t do affectingly is die. Perhaps that’s the price of innocence.
In the Summer ’06 issue of Dance Now, a feature Yuri Possokhov and his Cinderella for the Bolshoi:
His soul shows in his ballets as well. Reflections, created in 2005 for San Francisco Ballet and yet to be seen in London, shows the passion that makes Possokhov interesting. An enormous work set to Mendelssohn’s first symphony, it has a corps of women in tutus (also by Woodall) complete with fascinating echoes of corsetry. The work is formally crafted but suddenly a ballerina slides across the stage on her pointes and tumbles to the floor. There’s an emotional rawness sometimes to the point of awkwardness. Possokhov wears his heart on his sleeve. Even so, he can craft steps eloquently; combined with the honesty of his sentiments, he’s an expressionist whom formalists can love. “Critics in Moscow said I brought American ballet to Russian stage. Here in San Francisco, I am too Russian. It’s unpredictable. More and more, I think that audiences everywhere are different.”
I'm also working on a longer interview with Possokhov that will be in a coming issue of Dance View (print version).
Available online, I provided a link to my review of San Francisco Ballet’s Sylvia but not Ashton-esque, the one I did three weeks earlier of Ashton’s version for ABT.
It would be delightful to see an Ashtonian “Sylvia” from ABT, but I’d be satisfied to see a “Sylvia” danced in the company style. If only they had one. What we saw on Wednesday night was a hodgepodge of influences that through lack of a point of view never coalesced. There are also restaurants, usually chains in any and every city, where you know the food will be fine, even good. One year, everything is served with chipotle and the next it’s all in green curry, depending on the trends. It’s not really Mexican or Thai, perhaps it’s Mexican-ish or Thai-esque. In the end though, it’s still the same inoffensive chicken breast that you forget by the next meal.
If you’d like to compare, here’s a journal I did of a week’s worth of Sylvia danced by the Royal Ballet in London.
Knitting
In the Fall ’06 issue of knitsimple Mischief Managed, an article on (irony of ironies) project management for knitters:
My own project journal is just a list, but that’s all I need. Projects are divided into the following categories (acronyms courtesy of the KnitList:)FO – Finished Object. Nirvana.
AFO – Almost Finished Object. Needs darning, blocking or seaming.
WIP – Work in Progress. Currently being knit
UFO – Unfinished Object. Houston, we have a problem.
In the Queue. – Amazingly enough, there is no acronym for this category, and it’s one of the most important.
HALFPINT – “Have a Lovely Fantasy Project, I’ve no Time”. Ideas that will have to wait until the right moment.
TOAD – Trashed Object, Abandoned in Disgust. Disgust can be liberating.
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 12:34 AM | TrackBack
August 12, 2006
Current Knitting (finally!)
I didn't knit at all for several weeks after getting back from Europe; too many other things to do and the weather didn't make me feel like it either. But I have an assignment to do, so I shall be knitting for the next few weeks come heat wave or cold snap. With the permission of the fabulous Adina Klein, my editor at Soho Publishing, I’m giving a sneak preview of an upcoming sweater I am doing for Vogue Knitting.
It was an ego stroke to be asked to be in the upcoming “By Invitation Only” by the editor-in-chief Trisha Malcolm. I haven’t done a design for a magazine for a while. This is by choice; I can’t make it cost-efficient. But I can't resist the ego boost.
Adina and I decided on the yarn (Aurora Bulky by Karabella Yarns in color 31 - charcoal) and general category (single color, textured) several months ago a little bit after the toilet paper cozy assignment.
The idea is slightly different than other assignments in theory; I’m making a sweater for myself. In practice, I admit I did the same thing when I made the Puzzle Box Aran for Knitters in 1997. They gave it back to me after about 18 months)
Most designs men like are duller than dirt to knit. Though this sweater is for me, I want people to knit it. So, the skill level had to be accessible, the design had to be wearable and the knitting had to be fast and interesting. Sounds obvious but it takes work to blend all of that.
My inspirations were the patterns in Japanese knitting magazines. They are classic “investment knitting” designs, but with enough of a twist to be interesting knitting. I decided early on this design would be based on classic ribbing because it’s flattering to most people. I looked through my stitch dictionaries for variations and started swatching. I had in mind a sort of barred effect and wanted to see what looked best, slipping stitches or tying them. Tying worked best. I swatched several other patterns (mostly rick racks) before I decided I wanted baby cables for the border. Once I chose them, I moved from rick rack to corded ribbing – simply a variation of baby cabling.
I like the way the pattern integrates – no matters what section I am on, the reverse side is always k2, p2 ribbing. Aurora Bulky has low yardage (I knit up at least a ball a day and I am not knitting nonstop) but it’s got a great hand and handsome stitch definition. It’s really satisfying to me when I feel like I have created the right pattern for the yarn; I feel like this is what this yarn wants to do. The knitting is quick at this gauge, I cast on Monday and I’m past the underarm.
Here’s the sweater a few days ago.
In closer detail.
Posted by Leigh Witchel at 9:26 PM | TrackBack
June 8, 2006
Actually Knitting to Relax
Usually I hate the question asked if someone sees me knitting, “That’s very relaxing isn’t it?” Yesterday, I knit to calm down for the first time in a while. When I came to check in at 1