August 2012

It’s been a very strange year, with incredible highs and lows.  Much of my time is still being spent job-hunting, although a part-time temporary assignment has been extended and I do have some hope of eventually being hired.  So that portion of life has been challenging. But I also have wonderful children and grandchildren, and that most exciting of all things, new grandchildren!  And since I’m not working full-time any longer, I’ve had time to spend with these wonderful people.

On the knitting front, I’ve been plugging away at several things, including christening gowns for the two new granddaughters.  One was born earlier this month; she’s absolutely beautiful, healthy and growing; her gown is complete, and my daughter loves it. And I got to go play with my 20-month-old grandson while my daughter was busy birthing that new granddaughter!  Time spent with grandchildren is always at least three things – wondrous, happy and exhausting.  And so incredibly precious!  My younger grandson is an easy-going, busy young man who is content as long as something around him has wheels. We played with a Brio train set for hours and hours.  And at least a little of that time Grammy was considering the purchase of knee pads – I haven’t spent that many hours in the floor in quite a few years! The gown is below, and there are more photos on Ravelry – my handle is pjkite.

The second christening gown, for the granddaughter due in December, is in progress.  At this point, the overgown is about 1/3 complete and the undergown isn’t even started.  But I do have time, and it’s a lace pattern that goes quickly. I just need to buckle down and spend a couple of weeks of dedicated knitting time on that specific project.  Of course, that’s true for several of the other projects I have going, as well…a sweater, several pair of socks, another sweater, some slippers…best not to enumerate further.

Classes I’ve taught this summer have focused on a sweater class – Knitting to Fit – that’s been reprised at my LYS, Clinch River Yarn Company.  In fact, this is the fifth iteration of the class during the past three years.  So we’ve planned a reunion in October where everybody can wear their summer or winter creations and show them off.  Plans call for lots of photos, a little food, and perhaps some celebratory spirits!

 

Just at this moment, I’m teaching a beginner, top-down sock class on DPNs.  The first session was yesterday, and I have seven students.  Yes, seven, only one of whom had ever tried DPNs before.  Luckily, there were two other instructors in the shop during class time, and they graciously contributed their expertise by giving individual attention to some of the class members.  Thank you, Marie and Julia!  Without your help, we might have spent the night at the shop!

This is a standard, top-down, flap-heel construction; nothing fancy.  The student knitters’ expertise is  all over the place, from knitting for 20+ years to one new knitter who didn’t know how to purl yet.  Yesterday we took measurements; learned to handle DPN’s; figured our cast-on number and then cast on; joined and began to knit the leg.  In worsted-weight yarn, on mostly size 3 or 4 DPNs.  We talked about why I insisted on a wool content to their yarn choices, how the fiber choice impacts the cast-on numbers and why, and why we are using such tiny needles.

 

Luckily, there are two students in this group who just finished my sweater class; they reassured the other class members that knitting without a pattern, making it up for yourself, is perfectly possible.  These ladies are the personification of adventurous knitters – neither of them has been knitting all that long, and both designed and knitted lovely, perfectly-fitting sweaters.  These ladies are kind enough to give me some credit for showing them how to do that, and I’m so grateful to them – they make me feel  good!

On a personal note, I’m feeling healthier and more energetic than I have in a very long time.  A food sensitivity was diagnosed, I removed the culprit from my diet, and the results have been extraordinary!  The most visible result is the loss of more than thirty pounds.  Of course, this means none of my clothes fit any longer, and isn’t that terrible!  For the first time in decades, it’s actually fun to shop for clothes, and I can buy things off the rack that fit and look nice.  But I can’t indulge very often – no full-time job, remember? – so I’ve been dusting off the sewing machine and re-working some of the clothes I’ve shrunk out of.  That’s been entertaining, and has allowed me to re-learn some of the sewing skills I’d forgotten.  I’ll also need to rip back those sweaters in progress and start them over…

The extra time has also let me dust off another fiber-oriented accessory – the loom!  Yes, I’ve been weaving again, on both a rigid-heddle and on the Baby Wolf.  I didn’t realize how much I’d missed weaving until I had the opportunity to get back to it.  Nothing fancy as yet – just some twill wool yardage planned for a jacket – but I’ve got some cottolin ready to warp for guest towels as soon as I get a little time. 

This has been a rambling post, but I wanted to catch everyone up on what’s been happening.  I do hope you’re looking forward to fall of 2012 as much as I am, and that you have a happy, fibery time over the next few months!

Grandchildren Hijack Knitting Plans - Again!

Sounds like a headline in a newspaper dedicated to knitters, right?  I thought so, too!  So I’m cruising along, with plans to spin and knit sweaters for Christmas for the existing grandchildren and maybe even some of the parents, make my DH a replacement pair of felted clogs and his long-awaited sweater vest, and make myself a couple of summer sweaters.  Fiber and yarn have been purchased, bagged with their patterns or measurements of the children concerned, and I’m finishing up a couple of UFO’s in preparation to begin.  A lovely year of knitting planned, with room in the timetable for those “gotta make this” projects you run into occasionally.

Then my daughter announces that we’re having another grandchild.  Okay, that can take the place of all those “gotta make this” projects I was going to do…a bump in the road, not a complete closure.  However, I just cannot face the idea of designing another baby shawl.  My mind shuts down at the very thought, running around a hamster-wheel of…what lace pattern, what kind of fleece, what lace pattern…endlessly.  It doesn’t take more than a week of that to realize that another baby shawl is NOT going to happen.  So my hamster-cage moves on to “what can I do instead to welcome this little bundle of joy?”  Spinning, spinning (pun intended)…the wheel stops on the idea of a christening gown.  That’s doable, right?  It’s an heirloom-type project, very special, and shouldn’t be all that hard to design…and babies are little!

A couple of hours of web research later sends me scrabbling through my knitting books.  A couple of weeks of thinking about doing one of Sharon Miller’s designs sends me to the spinning wheel.  A couple more weeks of spinning and the announcement that my daughter is expecting a daughter sends me back to the web to the Jameson and Smith site.  Three more weeks and I’m the happy recipient of a kilo of their gossamer-weight 2-ply.  And during that three weeks comes the discovery that my daughter-in-law and son are also expecting another child – not quite five months after my daughter and her husband!

I’m truly delighted at the idea of two more grandchildren – don’t get me wrong!  The ones we already have are fabulous, fantastic and incredible, and I can’t wait to get my hands on the new ones.  Nonetheless there’s a knitterly part of me that mourns the hijacked sweater vest and clogs for my DH, the summer sweaters for myself, and the other planned fiber adventures for this year. 

Back to the saga of the christening gowns…yes, there are now two of them planned.  I dropped the Sharon Miller design…it’s a lovely design, and wonderfully practical for cool, wet Great Britain.  However, the idea of wrapping defenseless infants in two layers of even gossamer-weight wool in the much warmer climate of the southern United States is much less practical.  A lacy wool christening gown – with lots and lots of holes – that can be worn over a onesie and tights or something similar is much more practical.  [Update:  I've finally decided on a handsewn batiste underdress, and am heading out to get the fabric this afternoon.  Much prettier, right?]  So (to nobody’s surprise) I’ve designed my own variation on a christening gown and begun knitting.  What if the second grandchild is a boy, you ask?  Christening gowns are unisex – I think he’ll survive wearing one skirted item during his babyhood with no scars on his psyche. 

And now I’m headed back to my unexpected knitting projects with lots of wonderful feelings about having two more little people to call me Grammy!

Pattern Up on Ravelry!

The Summer Sherbet Sweater, as promised, is available on Ravelry at http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/summer-sherbet-sweater.  It's also available directly from this site at the following URL: http://fibertime.blogspot.com/p/summer-sherbet-sweater.html.  If you run into any problems or have any questions, please drop me a note - I'll be glad to help!

Changes in Attitude...

I haven’t moved, so couldn’t use “Changes in Latitude,” but I am changing an attitude I never thought I would!  I’ve steadfastly resisted publishing any patterns, preferring instead to challenge knitters to make their own variations.  After all, knitting is hardly difficult, and variations are myriad!  But many, many requests by fellow knitters have modified my notion a bit – some knitters just need a starting point for those modifications, and others simply prefer to follow someone else’s lead.  Nothing wrong with either of those, and it’s all good, after all.  So…

The cabled cardigan I made a couple of months back has been test knitted and is now available as a pattern.  To get a copy, you’ll need to talk to Sandy and Robin at Clinch River Yarn Company.  The link will take you to the shop’s main page; phone and email information are on the site.  Pattern cost is approximately $6.00 US plus sales tax.

A second project from my Ravelry page, the Vine Lace Summer Sweater, is available directly from me.  This is the same top as the Summer Waves Linen Top, except for the lace pattern.  I’ll have it ready before the weekend is out.  To substitute the lace patterns, you’ll just find a feather and fan pattern in your stitch dictionary and start knitting!

There’s more fun ahead for the spinners in the group, too!  I have a beautiful local fleece in hand and we’re going to be doing a two- or three-part session on how to take a raw fleece to yarn later this month, over the weekend of May 17.  Call Clinch River Yarn Company for details and to sign up.  This one is going to be a lot of fun!

Coming Full Circle

Remember that old saying “what goes around, comes around?”  I’m feeling just a bit that way lately.  After concentrating on the spinning and knitting for the last nine or ten years, I find myself back in the arms of my first love – weaving.  All the way back, actually, to my very first weaving tool, a rigid-heddle (RH) loom.  And I’m falling in love with weaving all over again…

Knitters have discovered that weaving is a fabulous stash-buster.  That woven fabrics can be wonderfully complemented by their knitting/crocheting skills.  And that, while weaving may take a bit more yarn than knitting (although that depends on the project), you can successfully mix yarns, fibers and textures in woven cloth that you’d never try to combine in a looped fabric.  That weaving, especially on a rigid-heddle loom, is faster than knitting.  You can weave a 9- or 12-foot long Dr. Who scarf in two or three evenings, use up all those ten to twenty-five yard bits and pieces of yarn stuck in your storage, and know that it’s absolutely original.  Nobody has exactly the same stash!  It’s fairly portable if you choose your loom carefully, and modern RH loom makers have discovered ways to enhance that portability.

There is definitely a learning curve to weaving, and a sometimes confusing vocabulary.  But that’s true of knitting and spinning as well.  If you become frustrated by that curve, think back to when you started knitting or spinning – I bet you got pretty frustrated at times then, too.  Weaving is a skill worth learning, and not just as a way to use up all those odd bits of yarn.  It’s a free-form, yet structured process that exercises our creativity and stretches our brains in new directions.  It lets us look at our beloved yarns in new and exciting ways.  And it’s quite a lot of fun!

My first weaving was done on a rigid-heddle loom approximately two and a half decades ago.  I wove yards and yards of plain-weave fabric on that 32-inch Beka, and learned so much about setts, beats and how to make decent cloth from different fibers!  Warp and weft-faced weaves, pick-up weaves, working with two heddles…I spent hours and hours happily weaving.  But after acquiring my first multi-harness loom I left the Beka to gather dust, and eventually it found a new home.   I thought of it as a loom I’d outgrown, and although I regularly utilized inkle and card looms, I seldom thought of a rigid-heddle again.

 

After going back to work outside the house full-time, after the children left, after I’d spent 15 years or more exploring and then teaching knitting and spinning…my LYS owner started asking questions about my "other" hobby.  She’d taken a weaving class at a retail event and gotten interested, and wanted to know if I would teach a basic weaving class.  We kicked it around for a while, I did some research, and I eventually realized that the reappearance of rigid-heddle looms I’d largely ignored was a true weaving resurgence.  So I bought a modern rigid-heddle loom and started playing (a Kromski Harp in the 16-inch width).  I didn’t expect to fall in love all over again; after all, I still weave on my floor looms!  But a RH loom is a wonderfully versatile tool for serious weavers as well as for knitters in search of ways to use stash and those wondering if weaving is something they’d like to do.

Warping was the first difference I noticed between then and now.  Direct warping may have been around the first time I used a RH loom, but I never ran across the concept.  This was pre-internet, remember.  Warping meant a warping board, and my first one was home-made and 45-inches square.  Definite overkill for the purpose, but I used that board for years and years until I bought a warping mill.  Direct warping a RH loom is so easy!  And fast!  Who knew you could warp an entire loom with a single clamped peg!

The second thing I re-learned is that RH weaving doesn’t have very many ends.  My weaving life for many years has consisted of setts of 36 or more ends per inch (epi).  10 or 12 epi feels vaguely like cheating.  But those are the setts necessary for utilizing knitting yarns of approximately 1800-2400 yards per pound.   That range includes sport, fingering, sock and lace yarns and is perfect for making a wonderfully wearable cloth with lovely drape or a sturdy warp-or weft-faced fabric.  Perfect for scarves, household linens like placemats and table runners, or fabric well-suited (pun not intended) for vests, tops and skirts. 

The last thing I recalled was the pure fun of making simple plain-weave fabrics.  I’m loving sock yarn for RH weaving.  The fabric, sett at 10 or 12 epi and with carefully-placed weft threads to make a balanced fabric, is lightweight, easy to weave and wear, and I’m becoming excited about combining it with knitting to make garments.  It also has fantastic color-and-weave properties.  Space-dyed sock yarns combine on a loom to make subtle (or bold) plaids; the same yarns used as either warp or weft with complementary colors can give lively, playful fabrics.

I’ve seen some beautiful worsted-weight woven fabric, too.  While my own taste and climate runs toward lighter fabrics, there is absolutely a climate and place for worsted-weight wools.  And I will use worsted-weight yarns as an accent in woven yardage; some of them add just the right zing.

All of this is a precursor to the main thrust of this entry – I taught my first weaving class in more than a decade on Saturday afternoon:  Beginning Rigid Heddle Weaving.  I think, from the assessments submitted to the LYS owner, that the class members had almost as much fun as I did.  I loved doing this class and being able to share my first fiber love with other fiber people.  I look forward to teaching more weaving classes.  I hadn’t realized how much I missed sharing weaving with other people, and I’m grateful to my LYS for jump-starting me again! 

So if you’re a spinner or a long-time knitter with a bump of curiosity about weaving, go for it!  You’ve got nothing to lose but some stash!

On Leaving Your Comfort Zone

Blocking Multnomah

Most of the folks around me are well aware that I’m not a pattern knitter.  I prefer to come up with my own interpretation of a given garment.  There are several reasons, really.  I’m not all that easy to fit, I have firm opinions regarding what styles and textures look good on me, and I love the challenge of making up my own patterns.  Check my Ravelry profile at pjkite – you’ll see that most of the projects listed are original designs.  However, once in a while I see something that I want to make.  Multnomah, a shawl by Kate Ray, was one of those. 

Some of you may realize that it’s quite similar to a square shawl I made back in 2004 – a handspun Merino-Clun Forest-cross garter-stitch square knitted on the diagonal with a Feather and Fan edging.  That one was a baby shawl for my first grandson.  I love F&F laces – I’ve made that shawl, a couple pair of socks, trim for a sweater or two, another shawl in a Beugler variation of F&F…you get the idea.  I needed a lightweight shawl for occasional wear, I’d seen several versions of this made during a LYS KAL last year during which I was making baby shawls and I’d liked it.  This yarn was a souvenir from a trip to North Carolina.  So I left my comfort zone of self-design behind and printed out the pattern.  Now that the finished shawl is blocking on the spare room bed, I must admit I’m quite happy with it.  If you’re familiar with the pattern, you realize that I extended the lace a bit.  Two reasons, actually – I wanted to use all of the yarn and I thought the pattern as written was a bit shorter than I wanted.  So there are 13 lace repeats instead of 10.

Close-up of lace edging

 

Of course, after finishing this project this morning, I’ve cast on a baby sweater for charity based on a pattern of my own…I’m unlikely to stray from my comfort zone too often, after all!

Other things on the burner include lace-weight locally-raised Shetland for another grandchild.  Probably not a shawl this time, though (I think I’ve burned out on complicated shawls for a while).  I’m leaning more in the direction of a christening gown.  But a final decision will depend on the ultrasound next week and what it shows about the sex of this newest family addition.  Another little boy may send me in the direction of a bunting or a sweater, cap and leggings!  In whichever case, the laceweight yarn will be needed – so I’ve started spinning and have the first 100 yards of 2-ply drying.

Let’s see…a Rigid Heddle loom class is scheduled for later this month at my LYS, so I’m working on a sample project (a scarf from sock yarns) and writing up the class material.  I’m really looking forward to this one – it’s been too long since I taught a weaving class, and no matter how much I love spinning, knitting, tatting and all the rest, weaving will always be my first love.  I hope to finish up the weaving itself tomorrow or Tuesday, the finishing the next day, and have it complete.  Then it will be on to the next warp!

Historical Knitting Redux

Knitting has been around for a while now.  Franklin Habit and others have looked back through patterns from the past and updated them for modern knitters.  But what about those who find patterns they want to knit that haven’t been updated?  Sail fearlessly onward – but realize that common sense, math and tinking are required tools for the trip!

Patterns from prior to World War I are frequently rather imprecise to modern minds.  But modern patterns are of quite recent historical origin.  “Recipe” knitting, with yarn, needles, and gauge specified, is definitely new-fangled.  Publishers before the mid-twentieth century found this an unnecessary waste of paper, being well aware that the knitters could and would modify patterns to suit themselves.  How could publishers know this?  Because they had either knitted themselves as children or watched female relatives knitting for as long as they could remember.

A digression:  My great-grandmother, born in 1876, taught me the basics of knitting and other needlework (quilting, embroidery and crochet) in my early childhood years.  She was horrified that at the ripe old age of 6, I didn’t already know the basics, and had some sharp words to say to my long-suffering mother.  Mother, in her defense, was great at polishing skills, but didn’t have the patience to start from scratch (especially with a tomboy daughter who really didn’t want to learn).  Grandma Lay taught me the same way she learned from her mother – she gave me the appropriate tools, showed me how it was supposed to be done a couple of times, and then made me practice.  While that had its bad points (I couldn’t tension English-fashion purl for decades – it was a mental block), it also had its good ones.  Specifically, I'm not dependent on patterns for more than a starting suggestion, and I modify anything that appeals to me in whatever fashion I like.  I do gauge swatches and actually use them (even when they lie to me), and am not intimidated by simple mathematics.  All are useful skills to have in areas outside knitting…

Patterns written prior to WWI had several purposes, including education and relief from the feeling of isolation experienced by many rural women or those tending several small children at home.  The population was now largely literate and was finally able to count on timely mail delivery, so publication was practical.  A certain amount of both leisure time and disposable income was becoming available to the middle class, and that middle class was growing in size.  The industrial revolution and faster transportation had begun to touch daily life, making household production of fabrics and food more a matter of choice than a never-ending chore.  Magazines devoted to various aspects of daily life became quite popular, especially with women in rural or small-town areas who wanted to know about the latest styles and trends in the larger cities.  These magazines are fascinating reading; they touch on almost every aspect of daily life, and give a fairly accurate picture of that life.  My grandmother kept the most important of her magazines (1920’s through 1970’s) handy, and referred to them often for needlework ideas and recipes. 

Patterns written within the time frame referenced above make a lot of assumptions.  First is that you already know more than a little bit about knitting, because you've been doing it since you were a child.  You already know that changing your needle size will change your gauge and fabric drape.  So there isn't a recommendation as to needle size.  It’s assumed that you know what sort of fabric you want, and you'll swatch or modify your knitting method to get that fabric.  If it’s a pattern for socks, you know to use small needles for a firm fabric.  If it’s a lace pattern, you’ll choose thread/yarn to match the weight of either the fabric you’re matching or the fabric you want to create, and swatch with your chosen thread to be sure you’re actually getting that fabric.  You know that a warm shawl can be made in a lace pattern with worsted or even light-weight wool, and that a lacy summer piece requires a fine cotton thread and smaller needles.

A digression on one comment above:  Why modify your knitting rather than simply change needle size?  A couple of reasons come immediately to mind, both practical.  First, because a knitter in the mid-nineteenth century probably only had two or three sets of double-point needles - one small, fine set of steel lace/sock needles in about a size 0 or 00, one mid-size set of something about a size 3-4, and one large set of around a size 8.  Those were all the average rural knitter had to work with.  And, when you think about it, those are also probably the needles you use most often yourself as a modern knitter.

Needle manufacture was a bit different then, as well.  Steel needles were machine-made of hardened wire or made by a local smith, and were usually purchased - at a relatively high cost.  The mid- and large-size needles, at least in the Appalachians, were usually whittled by a sweetheart, father or brother, or perhaps by the knitter herself, and size would vary with the skill of the whittler and the desire of the knitter.  The fine steel needles were frequently a gift - my great-grandmother received hers the year before she married (in the 1890’s), and she still had them in 1962.  They were carefully stored in a wooden container between uses, and there were 12 in the set, allowing them to be used for large circular items as well as fine two-needle work.  She simply used the number of needles she needed for the project at hand.  Her larger needles were made from branches of trees located nearby.  Some were gifts, hand-whittled by her husband or sons; most she had whittled out herself as she needed them.  They were polished smooth from years of use.  Aluminum needles were just becoming readily available in the rural Southeast in 1962, and she enjoyed looking at them, but I noticed that she used the wooden needles most of the time and left the ‘new’ needles for us.  She also liked the idea of the circular needles becoming available at that time, but found them frustrating to use because of the poor joins.

The second reason patterns were modified by individual knitters had to do with the yarn itself.  By the 1850's and 60's, mill-spun yarns were available.  But hand-spinning was still going on, especially in rural areas.  So patterns concentrated on showing new stitches, techniques and currently fashionable fit and allowed those experienced knitters to choose how they wanted to use the information.  Those of us who are spinners know all too well the differences between commercially- and hand-spun yarns.  Modern knitters who are fortunate enough to be gifted with good handspun frequently become spinners themselves!  And in the 1850’s and 60’s, spinning wheels were still basic pieces of equipment in most rural homes, and using handspun was a matter of economy – the sheep were there and grew wool every year that had to be sheared, so why let it go to waste?

Reasonable estimates of needle sizes used with specific yarns…again, it depends on the fabric you want.  My own estimates, worked out from my own experience and watching my knitting friends and relatives are: size 30 or finer cotton – use 000’s to 2’s.  Lace-weight wool/alpaca/silk/cotton – size 0 to size 5, depending on the fabric you want.  Sport-weight yarn will use about a size 3-4; worsted weight yarns will call for something like those ubiquitous size 8’s or even a 10.  Of course, if you’re doing socks, all needles sizes go down – you want a firm fabric.  If you’re doing lace, needles sizes may go way up. 

Great-grandma never fussed about swatching.  She actually seemed to enjoy it and her ‘swatch blankets’ (afghans today) were treasured by those fortunate enough to receive one.  She saved swatches, stacked neatly in a wooden box, until she had enough to crochet together into a blanket.  Those swatches…sometimes she would make three or four 4-inch squares before she found the exact fabric she wanted.  I can remember my grandmother teasing her that she wanted to finish up another blanket more than she wanted to make a new cap or sweater. 

So, my advice to those attempting ‘historical’ knitting is to swatch before you begin, and knit mindfully.  Abbreviations aren’t necessarily the same, and you may not have a key.  Hopefully you’ll have a picture of a finished article – use the scanner or a magnifying glass and blow it up as much as possible.  You’ll be surprised at the detail that you can see that way.  And don’t fret if you have to do more tinking and ripping than usual.  Just think of all the experience you’re gaining!