Tour de France Knitalong 2009

Today tastes like brie, foie gras, and sweaty chamois. But I made it, I made it, I made it!!!

I rode in the Tour de France Knitalong for the first time this year, and I actually finished my project in time!!!



What is the TdF KAL? Well, every year during the Tour, a Ravelry group forms up to watch the race and knit a project. The projects and knitters and teams vary from year to year--sometimes the moderators ask that there be a French/bicycle racing connection, other times it's a free-for-all. Knitters choose thier own projects (i.e., we're not all working the same thing at the same time) and then cast on on the first day of the Tour (July 4 this year), dance on the needles, and try to complete their chosen task by the end of the Tour (July 26 this year).

There are traditionally categories to play in--a yellow jersey for a full challenging project, a polka-dotted jersey for multiple small projects, a white jersey for a new participant or someone providing moral support.

I went for the yellow with a lace stole knitted in an accent foreign to me--the Faux Russian stole from Gathering of Lace.



I'd never worked a stole this way before--you cast on for the edging at the bottom, knit ten repeats, then pick up and knit the stitches at the head and sides, working the edging as you go. I'm familiar with an edging knit on after the body is complete, but turning the corners bumfuzzled me each time I read the directions. Plus the chart is huge and complex--81 stitches and 96 rows per repeat. And did I mention that Gathering is infamous for its errors?

But really, I should have tried this ages ago. Except for a couple of occasions where I misread the chart and had to tink back (and back and back--ten rows at one point) it was smooth knitting.

This was the shawl that inspired this story and post. Its final destination will be over the shoulders of the Lady of Lyhr 2010.

Wedding Gift, Nine Years Later

Today tastes like honeysuckle, asphalt, and monsoons.

Nine years ago this March (the 4th, to be exact) two dear friends of ours got married in our backyard. The yard was turned into a small medieval faire for a weekend, with folks in costume and folks in mundanery milling about. The neighbors still mention this when they see us on the street.

The bride plays in the Society for Creative Anachronism, with a relatively late period persona. Think "encrusted" with lace and frippery dripping from every seam. With this in mind, I pledged her a wedding gift of ten yards of lace edgings, either knitted or crocheted. I explained that she could make up the dress (or what have you) then I could work up the edging to fit and tack it on. The lace could then be removed and sewn to another garment at a later date. A gift that could keep on giving--ten yards is a LOT of collars and cuffs, or one amazing court garb hem trim.

And so, eight years and nine months later, at the New Year's Not a Party, Caladasia wandered over to admire the lace shawl I was draped in. This one, to be exact.

She kept wandering over throughout the evening, petting my arm or shoulder, pulling the wing away from my body for a closer look, asking questions. And finally, at the end of the night, she said softly, from just behind me, "I don't suppose . . . you would do soemthing like that for me?" I turned to face her, and she hurriedly added, "Oh, nothing that big, or even that intricate maybe, but . . . I'd really like a shawl." In the smallest meekest voice.

Honey, you only have to ask.




I had a pattern kicking around for a while that I'd wanted to play with: Liz Lovick's "Orkney Pi" pattern. I loved the swirling diamonds and the border, so decided to modify these old Orkney motifs into a modern Shetland square. Does this then make the shawl Orkney Cornbread?¹



I had some amber beads I wanted to add for flash and sparkle. I intended to go much further with the edging, but by the time I reached the last round of cat's paws, I had hit five and one-half feet across. Much bigger, and I'd have another seven-foot monstrosity on my hands.



It's next to impossible to get good shots of beads--they're more visible as flashes of color and sparkle in motion. I keep trying.

Thorax, at least, is a much more forgiving subject. For certain values of forgiving. She wanted to go travelling for this shot, again. I told her we were not going to Santa Fe just to shoot this finished object. She pouted, whined, and dragged her feet.

She very nearly won. Until i reminded her of how long a drive it is, and then she was happy with this choice of location much closer to home.



And after all, bougainvillas don't grow in the Cit Dif.




1. Because, as Churchy reminds us, "Cornbread are square. Pie are round."

The pi shawl gets its name from the shaping ratio. You double the number of stitches when you double the number of rows. Cast on 8, knit one round, double. Knit 16 rounds, double. Knit 32 rounds, double. This lets you insert lace patterns into the round between your doubling rounds without having to fiddle with half-patterns.

A Perfect Storm of Meh

Today tastes like dry cleaning bags, glass, and sand.

Not every knitting project is successful. Sometimes the lessons learned are useful but not necessarily the ones I wanted to learn.

F'r instance, lessons learned from the following project: always have your batteries charged so you aren't stuck with a cell phone camera, and you'll generally do better to scatter colors in a scrapghan.



I was liking this project a lot until I seamed it all together. The idea was great--pastel colors and a simple lace, with a variegated earthy color at the changes to break it up some and define the chevrons.

Spike, darlin', you would have done better to alternate colors more frequently. Make stripes of 10-15 repeats (even a Fibonnaci sequence if you didn't want a perfectly even striping sequence) rather than pulling one ball and going till the yarn ran out.

Yup. Scrambled, not fried. This binkie is most definitely fried--yolk HERE, white THERE. Blap blap blap, no blending at all. Ah, well, it will keep someone warm and give someone something soft to hang on to during a hard time.

Trying something new with the next big binkie--using the knit 1 in the row below technique in variegated pink/gray/green with shades of deep purple offsetting bias lace text. I like it so far, but again, the proof will be in the final article post-seaming.

Traditional Lyhr Celebration

Today tastes like green glass beads, saltwater mud, and Harold Monro. It must be the solstice, and time for the Festival of Lyhr. This year, it's a tradition¹.

I talked about Lyhr the first year we celebrated, where we all came together in masks to rejoice at the birth of the Holly King and mourn the passing of the glory of the Oak King. I confessed to my CDO (a true compulsive knows the only proper order is alphabetical, after all) and my slightly competitive edge (an edge much like a chainsaw, it's true).

And I skipped Lyhr 2008 as I was merely judging and could not compete (tho' the winners of 2008, well, they deserved it. Amazing isn't the word for their work.)

So this year, I decided to play to my strengths, and instead of sculpting, I knitted.



I was thinking about making a beaded shawl, and wanted to see about the technique--did it really work? Would I be able to stand it? Considering beaded goodies have been dripping from my needles ever since, I'm going to go out on a limb and say yes. But then, I needed a small piece to play with and see. A mask looked like just the right thing.

Do you know how hard it is to keep a secret like that for two years???

And then it hit me last year that I needed a shawl to go with it. What separates us from the animals, after all, is our ability to accessorize. And there's a beautiful beaded shawl from PinkLemonTwist and a great story that goes with it, and well, I had my whole outfit together. The mask took an evening, the accessory took weeks. But it was worth it.



I wasn't really feeling competitive--I had the nifty tiara from the first year (which I have worn each succeeding year thereafter) and so, well, what could top that? I thought it would be a funny little joke--Spike the lace knitter, draped in a lace shawl, wearing a knitted lace mask. Tee hee.

Then I saw this year's prize for the Lady of Lyhr.







If there had been mud, I would have lain there and howled for it. Howled for it in a deep lagoon. Covet. Covet covet covet covet covet.

Last year's Lady of Lyhr had made this mask as a prize for 2009's Lady.

Well. And am I going to leave you wondering just who got to take this piece of awesomeness home with her?

Of course not.



So, for next year, I plan to knit up a mantle for the Lady and a Dracoclava for the Fool. ("What kind of idiot wears a full-face wool balaclava to a party in Arizona in June?" "Not just any idiot--the Fool!")

Part of the fun of watching these more intimate gatherings form is watching people begin pushing their envelopes and trying just a little harder. Learning from their mistakes (and others') and seeing just how far they can go.




Pretty damn far indeed.
______________________



1. The first time is the thing itself. The second time is the way we've always done it. The third time it's traditional.

I is for . . .

Today tastes like illusion, illutation¹, icicles, and ichor.

Thorax says I is for Illustration. Who am I to argue with such a learned and worthy sage? For that, I give you a picture of Nuala's Wings.



When she first saw the finished shawl, Thorax hugged it to her bosom and proclaimed that we simply had to fly to England right now so she could be photographed twirling through a field of wildflowers. "it would be so, so Rowan, so very Heathcliffe and Catherine," she sighed.



We compromised.

I love this shawl for the details. Check the center neckline:



and the transition from the body to the border:



and the edging:



By way of Illustration, I would add that I is also for Inspiration. This shawl has been in my head for years, ever since I saw a picture of Anne Hanson's glorious Wings o' the Moth.

I loved the way the diamonds gave way to the leaves, and the way the undulating leaves led to the eyespots of the Corona. However, I wanted a Faroese shape . . . but with a different texture down the back panel.

I convinced myself that it would be "too hard" to follow all those patterns at once. And how to reconcile the leaves with the eyespots? There's no easy lowest common denominator between the stitch patterns. The leaves simply had to line up with the eyespots--so there's another stitch pattern to work with.

Do you see the capering gremlin, Ikant? Of course you don't. Now.

I gave her swatches and an abacus and told her to prove to me that this was impossible. That there was no way at all to make this complex thing work itself out. That we couldn't bend string and make it go the way we wanted.

Yes, it helped a lot when I flipped the Spade Lace pattern. Like taking a deep breath and walking across a child's wading pool before taking on the Sea of Galilee.

About a third of the way through the knitting, I took a long look at the color, and realized it wasn't so much insectile as fey, and the name dropped into place. Nuala's Wings.

Neil Gaiman is an author I admire very much, and not because our short story voices sound very similar. (I was reading a collection of his shorts, Fragile Things and found a section that delighted me so much I began reading it aloud to DH Gareth, who was in the kitchen. When I finished the pages, Gareth poked his head around the door, frowning quizzically, and asked, "Which of your stories was that from? Is that a new one?")

Long and long ago, Gaiman was writing for a comic book, Sandman. There was a minor character, Nuala, a fairy. Of course she was drawn long and lean and lovely because you can do things on the page that would be grotesque in real life. Well, Nuala and her brother were forced to give up their glamour. (Why? Don't recall in full, and what there is would take forever to line up. This was back in the day where comics were actively working to be serialized graphic novels, rather than a quick self-contained story each month.) Her brother didn't change at all, but Nuala became a drab, brown, skinny little thing with tiny eyes and big pointed ears.

I like to thnk, in my own Jasper Fford way, that perhaps off-page Nuala was able to get at least a little of her former self back. Her wings, perhaps, and a chance to fly in the gardens.




Perhaps.










1. Mud bath

I is for . . .

Well, today it's for interruption. I had another post written, but did not have time to take pictures, without which the post makes absolutely no sense at all (as opposed to the usual word salad rambling sense rife with digression you've come to expect here).

So. Today tastes like irritation, idiopathy, interference, and iodine.

My natal anniversary was this past Saturday, and it feels like this one was a corner-turning one.

I've had them before, some at the usual and expected points (eighteen, when childhood ended) and some not (twenty-four, when adulthood began; or thirty-six, when I started to feel like I could art).

This one . . . this one I feel Lord Shiva dancing in my heart. I is for immolation.

I feel that some significant chapters need to be closed. I'm not going to slam the book shut, tempting though that is, easy though that would be, but some of the principals and semi-laid plans I had are not going to come through the way I initially thought they would. If think is the correct word. I is for intuition.

I love my paper arts, I love my fiber arts, I love my charity knitting, but my studios are in chaos. I can find what I seek, but the finding means moving everything in an N-puzzle algorithm. Move the duffle bag so I can move the couch so I can get to the coffee table, open the door, and then spread the contents out until I find that ball of yarn/piece of cloth/bit of ribbon--then reverse the steps to put it all back.

The time has come 'round to pick the next layer of low-lying fruit and kiss the things I no longer find motivating goodbye. To decide on the ground-level goals, to plan out the 500 foot-level goals, and to see the big picture from space. I am weighed down with shoulds and promises I have made to no one except myself, even though the products may go to others.

Lord Shiva says to open your hands, to clear the path, to sweep the land clean for Brahma.

I is for inspiration.

F Sub 1 is for . . . Footnote, Fotos, Finally, & Finished

Today tastes like frittatas, flan, and farandine.¹

In re: the previous "F is for . . ." post, one Tonstant Weader weighed in with a real life comment that she was going to post a note that my plan sounded, in the words of her esteemed father, "Fine as froghair!" but she doubted anyone would get the reference. Would the rest of you please weigh in on the comments if you do indeed "get it?" Thank you.²

With all that clarified, on to the current blog post:

Thorax has been sitting in the corner, sighing loudly and clearing her throat to let me know She Is Not Amused. Or Pleased. (Divas! Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em.)

It seems that I have not one, not three, but FOUR finished objects, and no pictures of the Divine Ms. T showing them off. This, according to Thorax, is simply unforgivable.

So a picture-heavy post today. Here's the shoot:

Swan Lake from Pink Lemon Twist Patterns. Beads and assymmetry, what's not to love? This goes with a knitted mask to this year's Lyhr Masked Ball. Pictures of that to come much later.


Thorax wanted a strutting-down the runway shot, so I obliged her. Unfortunately, the color of the shawl rather matches her complexion (like the eastern socialite with the beige dress, beige hair, beige skin, and beige teeth) so some of the detail is lost.

Here's a better picture:

The beads do not show up well, in part because they ultimately rely on movement by the wearer and shifting light to twinkle and catch the eye. Thorax is a wonderful model, very patient even as one fiddle with lighting and position. Unfortunately, she is . . . lacking in animation, to a certain extent. She'll need to work on that if she wants to make it in the big leagues.

Next up is Wabenschal from Knitting Delight. I added the beads when the lace looked a little plain. This is destined to be a Christmas gift to a dear friend; I believe in getting gift knitting done early.



Thorax found it amusing that it was a camel blend and camel colored. I don't get her sense of humor sometimes. It was hard to get her to stop giggling and making faces for this shot. I almost made her stand in the fountain. Almost.



Another scarf, the Triinu from Nancy Bush's latest, Knitted Lace of Estonia. Another goodie for another friend. I was busting stash when I made this, I had no idea how much of this yarn I had.


Honestly, I thought I'd kill most of it in this scarf, but I had a bunch left, so I made this for me:


Bad Cat Designs's Autumn In New York shawl. I even had enough yarn to make it a generous, expanded size. In fact, I had to order MORE beads a little less than halfway through. Simple lace, lots of beads . . . siiiiiiigh. Is there anything better? I think not.

And now Thorax has had another installment of her fifteen minutes of fame, so she'll probably let me finish knitting a pair of *whispers* fingerless gloves *returnes to normal volume* for a friend who plans a long chilly hike up the Inca Trail. I'll try to sneak pics past Thorax.

Jealous models, and all that.

1. Silk and wool cloth.

2. Yes, I suspect this is whoring for comments. Feel free to weigh in on that aspect as well, if you like.

F is for . . . Foiled.

Today tastes like fennel and frumenty, falafel and feathers.

As the poet says, the best laid plans of mice and men . . .

I had a post ready to go, but it needed some pictures. Lovely late winter in Arizona day, several finished objects, model champing at the bit . . . and not a single battery in the house.

So I'll be on the back porch taking in the sun with a glass of wine, an audiobook, and a lace knitting project. Pictures shortly.

Bye Bye Blackbird

Today tastes like ribeye rubbed with chile, garlic, and . . . sand. It was all working so well until the finish, which left a lot to be desired.

I have finished the Irtfa'a, and only just barely avoided adding a "FINALLY!" to that sentence. This project was not the best match for where my head is at right now.

It's a moderately complex knit, a Faroese shape with multiple lace patterns. The designer has you working two long lace patterns simultaneously, and the repeat lengths match up only on the very first iteration (row 1 of pattern A and pattern B). When you come to the end of that section, you are on row 16 of pattern A (out of 24 total rows) and row 28 of pattern B (out of 30 total rows) and ready to start pattern C's transition row over pattern B and if your head is swimming, well, so was mine.

I love how the pattern transitions between B and C. It's a lovely detail. I like how she starts the shawl. There's a lot of thought in this pattern, and it's very well written and explained. It was just not a great match for me right now.

I hated working the edging. Words cannot describe just how much I hated working that edging. Part of it was that I misread how many repeats of that blasted edging there were. I read 38 when the instructions said 58. Those "extra" (they felt like "extra") 20 repeats just about made my head explode. I figured I could work 3-4 repeats at lunch and be finished by October 1. Yeah, not so very much, thanks. Grrr . . .

The edging is perfect for the shawl. I really can't see anything else that reads so much like feathers on the edge. It's also d--d fiddly. I had to start four times to get the first edge going. Grrr . . .

Finally, the designer prefers to keep her lace small and modern. I prefer to swaddle myself in yards of the stuff. Call me old-fashioned. My shawls tend to be bigger than I am to allow for draping and folding, and my other Faroese comes almost to my knees. With something swoopy like this, I'd like it to be below my hips, mebbe halfway down my thighs.

This feels more like a shoulderette/shrug. It isn't, not really, but feelings is feelings. If I make it again, I need to remember to put in a repeat or three of the first border. (Yes, yes, and find an edging I can live with.)



But at least Thorax is finally happy that she gets to model a garment.

She insisted that a fine lace shawl deserved a fine setting. Who am I to argue? So off we went to Scottsdale, where DH Gareth oblingingly posed as her escort in front of one of our favorite restaurants, Tapino. If one holds with the "three times is tradition" rule, then this is where we traditionally have New Years' Eve dinner (a wine paired tasting menu, different every year) before heading out to celebrate the turning of the calendar year with our friends.



Thorax suggested we shoot out in the Red and White Lounge--the restaurant was fairly crowded. She sat down on the couch to ponder the menu while we arranged everything, so I snapped this candid shot.



Then she thought she saw Dave Mustaine (Thorax is a huge Megadeth fan) and dropped the shawl on the couch as she ran screaming after him.



Embarassingly enough, she had mistaken ex-Governor Rose Mofford for the heavy metal star. I guess one big head of hair looks much like the next. Fortunately, Rose was very gracious about the mistake, although she declined to have her picture taken with Thorax.

Currently on the needles? Two sweaters, two lace shawls, and two lace scarves for two dear friends for Christmas 2009. And one lonely Linus binkie.

Shooting Star Binkie

Today tastes like flax oil balsamic vinagrette, heirloom tomatoes still warm from the sun, basil, mozzerella, and Thorax.

She's been moping because I don't do progress pics, so there hasn't been any work for her lately. "Have you finished Irtfa'a yet?"

"No, not yet."

"What about those sweaters you added to the Plans for World Domination?"

"Nope, haven't even started those yet."

"Bertha at Knitting Daily sure gets a lot of exposure." [heavy meaningful sigh]

"Bertha has dozens of knitters submitting garments and features every quarter. You have . . . me, babe. And right now, I'm trying to finish off all the ends on the Star Binkie for Project Linus."

"Can I be in the shoot?"

[ blink, blink ] "It's a blanket, Thorax. Not much to see here . . ."

"But I could do something to give it that thing you can only say in French. A little fun, a touch of ironic naughtiness, some sex appeal. A Jane Fonda on the bearskin, Miley Cyrus in the white sheets kind of moment."

So that's how we got this . . .



Yes, it is indeed a moment. And possibly something you can only say in French.

Another One Bites the Dust . . .

Today tastes like capers, yellowfin tuna sashimi,and plum wine. Salty bitter sour, buttery, and sweet. The flavors of a minor victory.

So . . . If you read the last post, you've found out that I am giving up consumption for a while. (Consumption be done about dis?) I feel up to my earlobes in things that never get an honest chance to be used because there's too danged many of them. Like having too many projects on the needles--you knit and knit and knit, but never get anywhere.

A good chunk of the charity stash is in fine weight acrylic on cones. Apparantly I'm not the only knitter with eyes bigger than her needles, because one day, while I was working at a Project Linus Blanket Bee, a donation came in. It seems that they'd finally had to put Aunt Suzie the crazy machine knitter away, so they'd cleaned out Aunt Suzie's attic and found she'd been insulating with yarn; could we use it?

No kidding, there was a pile of yarn about the size of a VW Bug sitting there on the floor. You could swim in the stuff like Scrooge McDuck.

The hoards rushed in and scooped up the worsted, but there was a bunch of acylic laceweight cones left that no one wanted. I was trying to be good, but when our Project Coordinator asked me to take a look and see if any of it could be used . . . well, I only have so much self-control. Prolly take a particle physicist to find it--it's very very small, and has an enormously brief half-life.

So I ended up with cones and cones and cones of laceweight acrylic. To go with the skeins and skeins and skeins of babyweight acrylic I already had . . . but my secret plan was to twine several skeins/cones together to make worsted weight. And I have a pattern I like for this, and you don't have to twine it all before you knit, and . . .

And you can see the same little devil on Crazy Aunt Suzy's shoulder whispering that, hey, after all, she knit with MACHINES, so it was so much FASTER, she'd blow through her stash in NO TIME, so she ought to buy some MORE . . .

So . . . I've been nibbling away at the cones, just like I nibble away at the big skeins, and just as I nibble away at the tiny leftovers until it's all gone into a blanket, buh-bye. But dang, there's a lot of yards on a cone.

Hence, it a little celebration when I finally eat that last bite and leave only a tail to finish in. One of the purtiest sights there is, a nekkid cone.



I wrapped it in part of the binkie it gave its yarn for. One down . . . eleventeen to go. I'm looking forward to the day when I finally finish off the cone of white the SIZE OF MY HIPS. Seriously, that cone has gone into at least two three by five foot blankets, and is still rolling along.

If I Had a Nickle . . .

Today tastes like the remains of a good idea, and frustration with what I hath wrought. Yup, carmalized brown butter Rice Krispie Treats just about sums it up.

See, I had almost the perfect pattern for a Linus binkie. One pattern row, one simple return row. But I wanted it in strips for portability and because it is so hot and humid that my brain cell has wilted and I can't remember the winter when I shivered in my thin, thin blood and moaned about freezing in the sub-100's and wore fingerless gloves to the office amid remarks about not getting but a half-day at Christmas and my diminutive (stature-challenged, differently large) son (male offspring) Tim.

So do I listen to good sense and sit down with the pattern? Well, to a point. Perhaps the one on my head.

I count out the repeat (15 stitches) and then, rather than spending 20 whole minutes swatching, I go off chasing undomesticated waterfowl across the 'Net, looking for the PERFECT perfect pattern--a ripple afghan, knitted, in strips.

I spend 40 minutes on this wild goose chase. Fruitless? Absolutely. Like a plum tree in Phoenix in the height of summer. Crispy fruitles; branches on the ground fruitless; crawling off to dip roots in the pool before expiring, gasping, on the lawn fruitless.

Then I sat down, counted carefully, cast on . . . and in ten minutes had my pattern proofed. Grrrrrr . . .

It's gotta be the heat.

Here goes: the PERFECT Ripple Pattern

Leftmost strip: CO odd multiple of 15 plus 4: 1 SS, 2 garter edge, pattern, 1 SS

Center strips: CO same odd multiple of 15 plus 2: 1 SS, pattern, 1 SS

Rightmost strip: CO same odd multiple of 15 plus 4: 1 SS, pattern, 2 garter edge, 1 SS.

Work first 4 rows and last 4 rows in garter.

Pattern: Sl 1, k 2, *k2tog, k 5, yo, k1, yo, k5, ssk* end as per strip. Purl back starting on row 6.

Gotta be the heat.

Citius, Altius, Decubis

Today tastes like endive, licorice basil, fresh tomatoes still warm from the sun, and balsamic vinaigrette with enough garlic. All the very best parts of late summer.

It’s Friday and once again the weekend is rolling up like a 48 hour juggernaut. Tonight, apres gym , I plan to sit in my favorite armchair with something cold and tasty and knit on the current obsession until my fingers fall asleep. Which may not take very long. Yesterday’s workout included 135 pull-ups, so by the time we finished, I had trouble getting my fingers to wrap around the combination lock. My hands still feel a little off.

Saturday means a Project Linus gathering and an opportunity to work on the blanket nearest completion. I have learned that I like the strip blankies a lot better–they’re so much more portable and less ghastly during the dog days. It’s worth the finishing work to sew the seams and add a border post-knit. I have two strips and a bit done in an estonian star stitch, and one strip and a bit in a favorite knit and purl pattern.

Sunday will get poured into the current obsession again. Why no pictures? It’s a black lace shawl, which will be lovely when it’s off the needles and blocked, but right now . . . it’s a forlorn black blob. It started as a little black strip, then became a little black blob, and now it’s a bigger black blob. Not very exciting to look at. (Although Thorax thinks it’s stunning cool in the sun where you can see the blues and greens underlying the black, and is scouting locations for the shoot. I have been telling her that there is no way in hell I am subsidizing a trip to the Manhattan garment district for a blog post.)

After this, I have a couple more shawls that need to be worked up, but my heart is lusting after garments. Real garments. Made to fit a body, not just shapes. Garments with sleeves and closures.

Bizarre, huh?

Maybe not so much. I have cones of rayon chenille I bought back when I was flirting with the idea of knitted suits (before I understood just how much stockinette that would entail). I’ve meant to knit up some twinsets, because that might actually happen. The rayon doesn’t hold heat well, so these would be cozy and nice in the air-conditioning of summer, and just enough in winter. I’m thinking top-down u-neck shells in the round with bust darts and waist shaping and shirt-tail hems paired with cabled v-neck cardis that button up. I have a jacket whose fit I like a lot (length and everything) to mimic for the cardis.

I’m woozy with lust for this one pattern in the fall 2005 Knitty (an online knitting magazine). I love the trees on the front, so of course I want to make copious changes.

I want the trees on the back; I want something more like the Gondor motif in LOTR; and while I want the leaves on the sleeves, I want saddle sleeves that are bracelet/three-quarter length. I’m thinking I’ll have to knit the back from the bottom up, but then I can construct the saddles, sleeves, and fronts from the top down. And rather than do the fronts in a pattern per se, I want to do stochastic cables like Lucy Neatby’s Cables After Whiskey. That’ll be enough texture to make the sweater cohesive without being fussy and over-the-top.

See, the back will be fussy and elaborate, with fancy sleeves, and the front will be interestingly crunchy with nifty buttons and fancy sleeves, so the sweater will look like it all belongs together. It’s all crunchy and textured from any viewpoint. But at the same time, it’s not all complex and ethnic funkified museum-piece work.

But first I’ll need to swatch. I think I’ll swatch random cables, as that should give me a good idea how many stitches I’ll have to play with over the back. I may design trees on the fly up to where the branches go, or steal a tree from another designer.

And I have more ideas for Linus binkies. I want to use some multi-strand knitting and do random cables in a strippie so the colors shift softly while the stitches wander around. I want to take odd balls and do the three-ball trick where you knit one row of color a, purl one row of color b, then knit one row of color c and just keep moving them along. This creates a kind of blend between variegated and its homemade pooling tendencies and “I’m trying to use up every bit of my yarn” stripes. Doing slip-stitch work at the same time makes cheerful peerie type patterns.

So I’ve got startitis again. (Which is a good thing, actually. Earlier this week I didn’t want to knit on the current obsession, I didn’t want to think about knitting, I didn’t want anything to do with sticks and string.¹) I just need to get some of these off the needles before I wind myself up into too many things at once.



1. This is how my obsessions usually end–I took down the quilting frame, and haven’t made a top in years. I put down the crochet hook, and aside from knitting-related work, I haven’t made a crocheted item in forever–although the aragumi movement is calling me, a little². I deco’d for about a year before the fire died.

2. I want to knit or crochet tiny penguin mascots³ for me and Gareth.

3. We were working out one day, and I was frustrated at my utter lack of pullups. I growled, “I’m tired of being weak,” and Gareth misheard me as saying “I’m a tiny penguin.” The Tiny Penguin has become our gym mascot, embodying perseverance and fierceness. Penguin up!

Meet Thorax

Today tastes like lavendar, candied violets, and nasturtiums. With balsamic vinagrette and prosecco. It is indeed the height of summer.

The problem with knitting shawls is displaying your finished objects for the eye candy. Wearing them is no problem at all--the stores and movie theaters and malls--pretty much any public gathering place--keep the air conditioner turned down to 72 F. Which is basically late fall/early winter here. It feels good for a few minutes after stpping in from a high over 100 (109 today, down from 113 yesterday). A shawl functions like a horse blanket, easing the artificial transition between seasons.

But blog display, that's another matter entirely. Blocking shots are good if you use a white/neutral light sheet to block on. My blocking shots tend to show all the various colored towels I use, even the stripes on some. A bit jarring--and that's coming from me!

If I ask DH Gareth to shoot me from behind, he tends to focus on his favorite bits, which are . . . not my favorites. Even if they were, it's the SHAWL I want emphasised. And while Gareth worships the needles I knit with, and is willing to do anything to help, he doesn't wear shawls well. He always looks so stiff and uncomfortable. Maybe it's the shoes.

So I put an ad in the paper, looking to hire a model. I wasn't going to be able to pay a lot, mind, I'm doing this for fun. But perhaps someone who was looking to build a little portfolio might work for pictures, right? Or someone who wasn't built for the runway, but entertained some Snoopyesque fantasies ("Here's the world-famous model getting ready to slink down the runway in Milan, when suddenly, diving out of the sun--O, CURSE YOU RED BARON!!!")(ahem)--entertained some fantasies about modeling might be willing to play along.

I was delighted to get a response directly, and we set up a time and date to meet and do a dry run with Veil of Isis, the shawl I'd just finished knitting.

The doorbell rang, and I opened the door to find . . .



Thorax. No, just Thorax, thank you. Like Madonna, or Cher.

Uhm. Won't you come in, Thorax?

So we sat down in my studio (Thorax said she'd prefer to stand, it had been a long drive) and discussed what we each wanted out of this project. Thorax was happy to work for photos for her portfolio, so off we went to the site, fresh batteries in the camera.

I wanted something sylvan . . .



But Thorax was thinking something edgy. "Urban decay," she said, twirling on the swing. "Very deconstructed, post-apocalypse, chaos creeping in contrast to the grandmotherly order and sweetness associated with lace and knitting. Rust to play off the beads."



"It's all about the existential loneliness of the millenium," she called down from the treehouse. "We buy and consume to fill the void that gnaws us from within. These pictures should reflect that essential emptiness at the core of it all."



I'm not sure how that's going to play for Vogue, but it's nice to meet a model with a good head on her shoulders.

We compromised.



Once she loosened up, we had a good time with it. "Pout for me, Thorax!"



"Give me haughty! Enigmatic!"



"Now the money shot . . ."



"Can you look over your shoulder for me? That's IT!!!"



That Thorax. So expressive, with hands like a Thai temple dancer's. She's going to go far.

What Does It Mean When . . .

Today tastes like durian fruit, sweatsocks, and day old reheated coffee.

Just realized I hadn't touched this for two weeks. I'm behind on the stories project; working on finishing up June. I wanted to be done with Veil of Isis by July 5, to work on Irtfa'a for the Tour de France. I'm not. I haven't made a single ATC this year except for a private swap group among four artpals.

Things that make you say Hmmmmmm.

It's a chicken and egg thing. Has my production (and joy in production) slowed down because I'm monitoring it? Because I shifted to a goal-oriented list rather than a list of inspiration? Is this a Heisenberg I see, handle toward my hand? Maybe.

Or have I just now become aware of slacking because I started monitoring? Because I set goals up, and now know when I fall short?

Or on the third hand, is it part and parcel of the listmaker's bent, that putting things down on a list makes it seem like EVERYTHING on that list is attainable? "Goals for the year: Win the lottery; lose seventy-five pounds; become a supermodel/actress/ballerina/veteranarian/astronaut; write a world-changing novel; found my own religion." Hey, that's only five things. If I take two whole months to accomplish each one, I'll still have eight weeks to spare.

Well, that way lies the path to the Self-Flagellation Machine^TM. Hear it warming up in the background? (should should should should Ought Ought Ought Ought MUST MUST MUST MUST) [ hits off switch ]

So. Groundhog Review Day has been an interesting experiment, but I think it's going in the shed with the other tools that didn't work. I think it might be useful for another application, something with finite boundaries that lends itself better to being broken into chunks and then periodically reviewed.

Oh, you mean like GOALS, rather than PATTERNS. My GOAL is to attend Fashion Institute of Technology and get a degree in Fashion Design. My PATTERN is to design and fabricate knitted articles, both clothing and blankets. My GOAL is to lose twenty-five pounds this year, my PATTERN is to find a fitness routine I can enjoy and put it into practice.

I've been trying to use a hammer as a screwdriver. It works eventually. The key word being "eventually."

TGIM

Today tastes like green chile pork stew where the onions were left on the heat too long and carmelized/burned. With a side of coconut cotton candy. Not quite what I had expected, but workable.

It's been one of those weekends where you'd think I'd be delighted with everything that got done. I think I had eight arms, and every hand full of something.

See, I finished the Neverending Binkie of Modular Doom:




Then this:



became this:



became this:



and this:



became these:




More about the beading and the dyeing in later posts. Promise. Right now, I'm just so glad to be back at work where I can rest and recuperate from the weekend.

Fourth Review

In February, I made the following Groundhog's Day Resolutions:

1. I will not beat myself up for falling short of perfection with respect to this list.

2. I will complete 9 knitted projects this year.

3. I will complete three spreads per month in the art journal.

And as before, I'm hanging on to 1 and 3 by the skin of my teeth.

I finished a pair of complex socks for Gareth, then a blanket for Project Linus, and a shawl for me.

Now another binkie:



On top of that, I'm keeping up with the exchanges that are near and dear to my heart--the Hideous Fairy, and soon a Beaded Bag. Somehow I forgot to take into account my love of exchanges with strangers when I set up my goals.

I know I've re-thought this ad nauseam, but really, it's the process that matters. If it ain't fun it don't get done, and all that. Now I'm wondering if I can quantify the process of what I do to make it possible to set goals.

I've planned out how I want to play the remainder of the knitting year--I plan to work on this month's binkie as a travel project, and work on Veil of Isis as the home project till July 5, when I hop onto the Tour de France KAL¹ (virtually). Then the all-consuming nature of a closed ended KAL will have me carrying the Irtfa'a everywhere with me, knitting away every moment of my waking hours to strive for completion.

Then in August is the Knitting Olympics, and another shawl--PinkLemonKnits' Swan Lake with a similar level of commitment.

Once that fun is over, then I'm planning a Low-Sew version of the Psychedelic Squares and to complete just one more binkie for Linus (which is, yes, on the needles).

The good part is that this will clear my needles of everything that was started at the beginning of the year. Incomplete projects give me hives, so I try not to start too many things.

On the other hand, I'm a polyandrous knitter. I love cables, I love lace, I love simple texture stitches that let me play with color. I love stranded knitting, I love modular knitting, I love bizarre shaping. I love complex projects that tie me to charts, I love easy projects that can be memorized in a moment.

Nine in a year seems to be a reasonably good match for appetite and time. Now if I can only find my happy place with respect to the visual journal.

Four in a year? Perhaps.


1. See, every sporting event on TV is fodder for a knitalong. You start when the
event begins, and shoot for completing the project by the time the event ends. And it gives you something to watch while you knit. The Tour de France begins July 5 and ends July 27.

This ensures that you get to start lots of projects, promise yourself a deadline date for completion, and then start more stuff even if you haven't finished the first. Great for we obsessive types.

Which Chinaman Did I Just P*ss Off?

Todays tastes like chop suey with pencil shavings, sweet and sour lamb, and pine needle dumplings. Interesting, but not something I would have chosen intentionally.

Work is . . . interesting. SideKick, the associate, just gave notice; Boo's health is questionable; and Hopalong is debating striking out on his own. I am tap-dancing.

Hopalong just came to feel me out about my future plans. If he leaves to form "Hopalong, P.C." would I come with? More work, more money. If he stays with "Boo and Hopalong, P.C." am I interested in staying and moving up a rung in what I do for the firm while they hire Jennifer to come in and do what I do? And on the third hand, what if we do something totally different?

The only real answer to that is, "I'm always interested in discussing options."

Jeez, I feel like a politician. This language is not natural to me.

So I'll just sit down and knit. Knitting is soothing. Hey, I just started something on MmarionKknits about Clark's Southwestern shawl--someone asked if there were cows, and I suggested an O'Keefian motif of clouds, orchids and cow skulls--and eight people said they'd add something like THAT to the queue. And I see in my head a ruana-like garment with a semi-circular back, and neck shaping, and rectangular panels down the fronts. A big cow skull (right) and a big saguaro cactus (left) and then clouds at the top of the back, orchids in the middle, and smaller cow skulls at the base, edged with three-four vertical repeats of horseshoe lace blocked to points.

Oh, and I wanna knit Irtfa'a for the Tour de France KAL, and maybe get to my Spade shawl for the Olympics, and I have one Linus all but finished--what's this? Mmario has a Pi R Square variant up? I have GOT to knit that! Oh, and I have Veil of Isis OTN, my first beaded shawl, and I need to knit up the Mystery Stole with the swan's wing for Lyhr 2009, and I have these great cool knitting project bags that I NEED to start using and . . .

Uhm, knitting? Not so soothing. Interesting, but not soothing.

Sewing! Sewing is fun and Zen. Dollmaking is sculpting with a needle, where you take the fabric and then cut away everything that does not look like a Hideous Fairy cum Dweller of the Deep.



And then if you're really lucky, you know a group of dollmakers to trade with, and there's all kinds of cool projects like a beaded bag. Which I have cut, and am ready to quilt as soon as I get the batting and get started and it's only due in a month . . . oh.

Sewing. Interesting. Not calming.

So who set this curse on my head? And how do I get it off?

Flippin' Spades

Today tastes like bitter coffee and wafer cookies--the good ones with the creamy frosting, not the crappy buck-a-pack ones. The vanilla ones were okay, but the chocolate were bad, and the strawberry were only good for feeding to the seagulls.

I have finally managed to flip the spade lace! Here comes the knitting wonk post I warned you about. The rest of you can look at the pretty pictures and come back when we have more fiction, or other pretty pictures, or some cheese to go with the whine.

So--you have a pretty lace pattern and a great idea for its use. The only thing is . . you want the pattern to orient from a different direction.

Example: Meet Mr. Spade Lace.



He's very handsome. I like the lines of texture that form along the edges where the decreases make the spade point. Another designer, Anne Hanson, has created a very pretty shawl (click here to see) using Spade Lace.

I like her choices of stitches . . . except that the spades are upside down in the final garment.

See, Spade Lace orients such that the points point away from the cast-on edge. Anne knit Casino from the top, i.e., the cast-on edge is at the neck of the garment, and it flows down the back from there. So the points of Spade Lace trail down the back of the wearer.

Anne did a nice job turning this into a feature of the pattern (go see here). She knit a triangle shaped shawl, so the bottom point is the final repeat of Spade Lace.

Personally, I don't like simple triangle shawls. They require clutching and pinning and fiddling to keep on your shoulders, for the most part. I really like faroese shawls. They give you wings! Really, when they're on, they have these neat little pockets that your shoulders slip into, and then they hang on your body like they're part of you. You have to take them off to get out of them, they don't slip and slide and crawl all over.

And I'll bet you saw this coming: I like to knit them from the top down.

Bottom up directions read like this: Cast on a gazillion stitches, or knit three miles of edging and pick up one stitch for every other row. Knit forever, decreasing at the edges and center back panel. When you're almost done, decrease frantically at the shoulders in order to get to the neckline before you run out of yarn.

Bleh. And bleh again. I like the control that comes with top-down. I can decide when to quit and have a finished garment, even if it's more a capelet than a shawl. The rows get longer as I go, but psychologically, that's easier for me than facing long long rows to start. And I can control the fullness of the thing from the top, making fake increases when it's "big enough, but not long enough."

So, inspired by Anne's Casino I decided to make a faroese using an inverted variant of Spade Lace.

Ready for some acrobatics? Ready, set, flip!




And here's the boiz side by side:



How's it done?

Knitted lace is a tricksy thing. Sometimes, you can get away with just knitting the pattern in reverse, changing left-leaning decreases to right-leaning decreases and vice versa. Othertimes, you're going to have to re-engineer the pattern to make it flow the way you want.

First, get a good grip on the pattern you want to flip. I knit several repeats of Spade Lace to see how the increases and decreases made the pattern what it is. When I turned my swatch around, I noted that I was going to have to reverse the order of the YO's and decreases. As you can see, this made the individual motifs a little smaller. I also needed more rows to get all the features in.

Second, consider what you want from the final product. You may--or may not-- get a perfect horizontal mirror of your original pattern. What about the design is making you want to turn it over?

What appealed to me about the lace was the line of the decreases as they outlined the spade, and the little turnunder that changed the shape from an arrow (pointy tip growing at an angle, then going perfectly level to a stem) to a spade (pointy tip growing at an angle, then rounding at the corners and dimpling at the stem). But increases and decreases often do not exactly mirror each other--a three to one decrease doesn't look quite the same as a one to three increase. You'll note that in the Inverted variation, the yo's and the dec's are reversed from the original. The stem is smaller. Those were choices I made as I went through making it come out right.

Preserve what you love.

Third, have a good understanding of lace engineering. For every increase, you need a decrease SOMEWHERE IN THE PATTERN or you will wind up with a bunch of stitches you didn't account for. Oops. This especially bites when your pattern insists that it's ready to repeat . . . if only you knew what to do with those extra three stitches.

The original Spade Lace ("OSL") is 12 rows, multiple of 18 plus 1. Motifs are alternated on the half-drop principal so they tile. As one spade grows thicker, the two neighboring spades taper off, until maximal bulge meets stems. And just for fun, there's patterning on both sides. The knit rows have four increases and two decreases. The extra stitches are decreased away on the purl side. One repeat of the lace, therefore, is a half-motif, a full motif, then a half-motif.

So okay--we'll have a half-motif, full motif, half-motif in the inverted lace ("ISL") as well. That's part of how a half-drop works, after all. We know we'll want lace to define the stems and outline the motif. We know we have the option to work decreases on the purl side to compensate for increases on the knit side.

I knit a swatch of OSL, placed a lifeline, then started my ISL right on top. This let me see what I was trying to reverse right there on the needles.

I started with flipping the pointy tip. In OSL, the tip is formed with a double decrease on the purl side halfway through. I made this a double increase on the knit side at the beginning. Gotta start somewhere.

I counted increases and decreases on the knit row, then incorporated additional decreases on the purl row to make the stitch count come back even. That set up the lines of the lace, and after that, it was mostly following the logic of the pattern as far as increases/decreases. And ripping! Lots and lots of ripping! The blessing of the lifeline was that I could rip back, knowing I couldn't lose anything serious.

The most challenging rows were where the old motif falls off and curls under and the new motif begins. This happens twice--once for the center and once for each side. Unfortunately, there's no substitute for skull sweat and elbow grease sometimes.

Keep copious notes of what you do. It took about three weeks of real time to get this flipped, so about 12 hours actually interacting with the needles. You won't remember it all. I reached row 14 of my initial run, and realized I was going to have to make some major changes at row 7. My notes gave me a starting place to determine where this point should be.

Some laces may not flip attractively. But this method gave me a place to get my fingernails under it and get the piece pried up.