A Bluestocking Knits

Knitting the "Knitter's Almanac": Borders, Small Stuff for Summer Knitting (Three Hats)

This month in the Knitter's Almanac, Elizabeth talks about hats and borders.  "I will come out flat-footed and personally disapprove of crocheted borders on knitted cardigans, but without in anyway trying to convert those who crochet borders expertly and with pleasure.  May their paths run smooth."  Ahem!  Garter stitch -- it should come as no surprise to anyone who has read even a few chapters of any of her books -- is her favorite, worked sideways or straight, to create a simple, flat border for sweaters and cardigans, shawls and blankets.

(She does say, touching on the subject of borders at the neck of a cardigan, "Don't forget to increase at the front neck-corners, and to decrease at the inside corners of a square neck," which I fear that she neglected to point out in the January chapter, regarding the Aran.)

Like Elizabeth, I'm not much of a fan of grosgrain borders, either, which always seems to end up slightly smaller than the knitted part, however sturdy it makes the buttonband.

As for hats this month, she says, "A good summer project is a bevy of hats.  They don't take much wool, and are an excellent means of using up leftovers and oddments in the form of stripes or color-patterns."  I do have about four balls' worth of the teal-green Cleckheaton left from last month's mittens, and so I will use that.

The mitered or "ganomy" hat -- gnome, to us, with that pronunciation like "gaze-bo" or "sword" with the "w" firmly pronounced, which has stuck with us since childhood -- looks very practical indeed, with the miters coming down over one's ears most warmingly, and the Maltese Fisherman's Hat even more so (with its "ridiculous tassel of a couple of dozen ends ... make still more antic by cutting them at different lengths and putting a knot at the end of each"!) -- but since I am going to make a set with the mittens from last month, which look rather less casual than the Ganomy, I will do the Three-Cornered Hat for this month's Almanac project.

Mittens Redux

Mary Tess sent me some photos of her very handsome Norwegian Mitten, the other mitten pattern in the May chapter of Knitter's Almanac, which she finished at about the same time I did my mitered mittens.  Elizabeth would be proud, don't you think?!

Mary Tess writes,

"Specs: Norwegian Mittens from Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitter's Almanac
Yarn: Dalegarn Falk 100% superwash wool 50 g. 116 yds/106 m. 
Colors: grass green (a much brighter green than appears on the monitor) and cream
Needles: Rosewood 2.5 mm (U.S. 1 1/2) dpns
Gauge: 15 1/2 stitches & 15 rows per 2 inches in stranded pattern
Completed size: 10 1/8 inches long, 7 inches around hand
Completed width at cuff: 4 inches
One mitten used less than 50 g. of yarn
This size would fit a child."

Thoughts on the Mittens for Next Winter

Elizabeth discusses a variety of mittens in this chapter of the Knitter's Almanac -- thumbs at the side (thus at first interchangeable for right or left hands), thumbs that fold naturally against the palm, Norwegian-patterns on front and back, and the ones that I knitted this week, mitered ones that shape themselves into a point at the top.

I used two balls of Cleckheaton Machinewash 8 Ply Crepe, in a bright teal green with colored flecks, which I fondly imagine would be lovely against snow, although I don't know if living here in Southern California will give me much chance to find out!  The miters, alternating an increase and a decrease, shape the mitten very prettily.  At the spot where you want the mitten to curve around the ends of your fingers, you simply eliminate the increases at the sides and continue with the decreases, which pulls the sides of the mitten into a point at the top -- which discovery cheers Elizabeth enormously!

I added one more decrease round at the tip, because it was easier to graft that way, and it made the grafting all of a piece with the line of mitering up the front and back -- thus,

Elizabeth also digresses a little onto the subject of color, with which mittens are an ideal means of experimentation.  Do people see the same colors differently, and does this account for the different preferences for the same colors that people have, she wonders.  And associations with certain colors can matter enormously -- "For years," she says, "I loathed purple because it was the color of a droopy and voluminous hand-me-down coat I had to wear"!  Mittens, since they take so little wool, can be a way to try different colors, or combinations, of course, with little emotional or financial investment!

You snip a stitch where you want the thumb to go, and unravel a bit (I was amazed at how easy this was, after cutting the Aran last January -- I was quite blasé, and snipped without a second thought),

then pick up 15 or so stitches and work the thumb in the round.

I put the thumbs a bit low, I realized afterwards, and would recommend that you judge by the spot where your thumb connects to your palm, not at the bottom of your thumb joint (this part is a little vague in the book).  That spot will be at the outside edge of the mitten, keeping in mind that the miter will cause the unravelled row to run downwards at a 45° angle towards the center of the mitten.  (You will need to mark the spot at the edge, and then follow that row down to the middle of the miter, because you need to snip in the middle and then use the unravelled ends to reinforce the edges of the hole, as in the photos above.)

I added a bit of length to the thumb to compensate for the smaller gauge of the Cleckheaton, but that was all.

I found that the easiest way of sewing in the ends was in fact to wear the mitten, which gave the odd but amusing sensation of sewing on my own hand!

These are not perfectly anatomically correct mittens, and this is something of a detraction, for it means that the thumb when worn pulls the miter away from its line --

but on the whole, I think that the sheer ease of this pattern is much in its favor.

"Stash them away as they are finished, and when the time comes, next winter, you can deal them out with a liberal hand"!

Knitting the "Knitter's Almanac": Mittens for Next Winter

Ack! it's the 17th of May already, and I've not even cracked open the Almanac for this month's project!

I've thought about it, any number of times, but last month's blanket is not even a quarter of the way to being finished -- Hedera, and the Swing Jacket, of course, and secret birthday projects coming up -- and life in general.  You know how it is.  So, here's the plan -- the Mystery Blanket will plug along happily behind the scenes (I can crank out a square while watching a longish movie, but there are twenty-four of the bally things to do, you don't need to see each one), as will the secret birthday projects, and I'll do the Mittens for Next Winter now.  Luckily, this is a fairly modest project!

But -- deep breath, relax -- "it is better," Elizabeth says, "not to make mittens in a hurry."  When you want them, "when snow flies and small frozen hands beg for warmth (sob)," the knitting gets rushed and perfunctory -- so "let's make them in May; let's take our time over them; let's venture into new approaches and designs; let's enjoy them"!

I had been tempted before, when considering this Almanac project, by the lovely Norwegian mittens, with the big eight-pointed star on the back of the hand -- but I think I will be realistic, and plump for the single-colored ones "gingered up" with mitered shaping.  On this scale, perhaps, color work would not take much extra time, but there is a deadline, after all, if only a modest and self-imposed one!  I have in fact never knit mittens before, so either would do quite nicely.

I'm thinking about the Cleckheaton 8-Ply Crepe which I bought last summer at Mui Tong Wools ....

Knitting the "Knitter's Almanac": Mystery Blanket

April's Knitter's Almanac project is a "mystery blanket," the mystery being in the fact that it has no apparent beginning.  Elizabeth pondered the idea of weaving together squares that had been knitted in the round, thereby "[producing] the mysterious effect of the blanket having been knitted in all directions at once," and this pattern was the result.  The technique may have been quite inscrutable at the time, but these days with our sometimes-emphasis on the eye-catching and marvellous (sometimes merely for the effect of being startling), it's not so unusual, I think.  It was used quite gracefully by Selma Miriam in her Kousa Dogwood Shawl in Melanie Falick's Knitting in America (reprinted in paperback as America Knits), which I remember knitting a number of years ago.  Still, Elizabeth's blanket is very handsome, and the technique is not to be scorned simply because it is not so unusual as it once was!

Elizabeth used her 4-Ply Sheepswool, which is apparently now 3-Ply, working up originally at 12 sts per 4 in./10cm.  This pattern looks extremely adaptable to different weights of wool, and so since I'm on a b*dg*t, I'm using Patons Classic Wool with those handy weekly 40%-off coupons from Michaels.  The Classic Wool works up to about 20 sts per 4 in./10 cm, so you can either knit the squares to the given stitch count, and simply make more squares, or work to the given measurements, and weave more per square.  (Let's see, 96 sts divided by 4 is 24, so 24 sts at 3 sts per inch in the Sheepswool would make 8-inch squares.  And 96-stitch squares at 5 sts per inch in the Classic Wool would make 4.8-inch squares.  Or 8-inch squares at 5 sts per inch means 40 sts per side, 160 altogether.)

And, oh yes, there will be a lot of weaving!  "If you are one who hates and fears weaving (or grafting, or -- why -- Kitchener-stitch), and tries to con others into doing it for you, now is the time to take yourself in hand"!

Thoughts on the Difficult Sweater (Not Really, It's a Hot Water Bottle Cover)

We've been a bit preoccupied around here lately, due to the generosity of schoolchildren in the area sharing the stomach flu among their classmates!  Julia's had the worst of it, poor lamb, and is still not well after most of the week, but at least she actually wants to eat, today.  (By the way, grape-flavored Pedialyte stains.)  I sat with Julia after lunch today and watched "Sesame Street" while I darned in the ends of my March "Knitter's Almanac" project, which in more ambitious hands would have been a Difficult Sweater (Not Really), also known as a Chainmail or Trellis sweater, but for me is a tidy little hot water bottle cover.

(The wools were all unlabeled, except for the light gray, which was a fairly ancient Chat Botté -- some of the others may have been Anny Blatt, but I can't say for certain.  The piece is approximately 7.5 in./19 cm by 11 in./28 cm, and about 28 sts per 4 in./10 cm, blocked to fit.)

Here is a close-up of the Trellis stitch --

Like apparently many other knitters (some of whom commented here at the beginning of the month), I did not find this pattern particularly appealing at first.  I will say now, though, that color choice can make the world of difference.  I don't love it yet, but I don't hate it, at least!

You can also see here the difference between plain stockinette with color changes and purl-when-you-can (or purl on the first row of a new color).  The plain parts, "inside" the trellises, are quite straightforward, and the parts "outside" are livelier, more subtly so when the colors are similar in tone, and more obviously when there is more of a contrast, such as here where the gray makes a distinct fleck against the blue or the lavendar.

I did realize after the second pattern repeat that I should have had fewer color changes at the "busy" part of it, where the twists and the smaller oval are -- so many purls there make it harder to see the shifts of the trellis.  I would recommend color bands of at least three rows at that point, instead of the two that I used, to make the twists stand out.

As for shaping, I made my life a lot easier by simply knitting a tube as the Trellis pattern dictated, and did not attempt to shape it to my hot water bottle.  (To be honest, I didn't swatch -- this was my swatch -- so I had no idea of how big it was going to be.  I did start it over after the first inch, when it was obviously going to be too small to go around, but other than that it was just a good guess.)  I'd thought that when sewing up I would leave a little slit at the bottom, because the bottle has a tab there for hanging, but since I knitted four repeats of the Trellis (for looks), the piece was quite long enough to cover the whole thing.  I added plain white shanked buttons and crochet chain loops at the shoulders, and there you have it!

Knitting the "Knitter's Almanac": Difficult Sweater (Not Really)

I really did mean to do every project in this book.  It seems a bit of a swiz to say that I'm going to work my way through the Knitter's Almanac, and then skip a project early on -- although Elizabeth herself would probably tell me, gently but firmly, not to be an idiot and knit something that I have no use for!  But it's March, and the project for this month is a sweater, and instead of Bleak Midwinter or anything even remotely along those lines, here where I live it is sunny and 70° F/21° C -- or at the least 60°/15° -- as it has been since before Christmas.

Sigh.

I Googled the "Chainmail Sweater," to see if I could find any inspiration, and at Knitty.com was "Knitting for Maniacs" by Julie Theaker, an heir to Elizabeth's philosophies if I ever saw one.  She includes in her article a photo of her Chainmail Sweater, Elizabeth's other name for this month's Almanac project, and it's incredible.  I'm very impressed -- the photos in the Almanac are rather sedate, really, and Julie's is an eye-popping mix of blue lines against a shifting background of pinks, reds, and oranges.  She also steeked it into a cardigan.  While I don't think I would ever be bold enough to choose this color scheme, it's certainly a fabulous piece of work.

But, no, this one still doesn't do much for me.  I was tempted to do another EZ pattern as a compromise, perhaps one of the lovely 3&1 sweaters in Knitting Around (there is one at the lower left on the cover), but that didn't seem quite right, somehow.  I thought I should just make a swatch, at any rate.  Elizabeth sounded very pleased with herself for coming up with the trellis pattern of this month's sweater -- and rightfully so, as she managed to overcome that rather herky-jerky shift of colors that comes with colored diagonals in knitting, in that a stitch has to (well, usually) go up and over a stitch to make a diagonal.  She decided to use K2togs and SSKs with our old friend from January, the Left Twist, to make a vertical line that actually flows -- very clever.  "Shall we make a colored Travelling-Stitch on a differently-colored background?  We shall"!  So I dug around in the stash and came up with four balls of wool that were fairly pleasing together, and of a similar weight, to give it a try, but all of this improvisation was making me nervous, so I drew up a homemade chart and tried out a few schemes with colored pencils before casting on.

The photo in the book, I'll admit, is not very inspiring, due I suspect mostly to its being black-and-white.  Funny, how spoiled we've gotten with color photos in knitting books!  The pattern is more interesting in color, even as it comes off of one's needles.

It is also good practice for that Bohus pullover I keep dreaming of, using the Bohus technique of purling on the first row of a new color.  It makes a kind of optical illusion with the colors, pulling a little dash of color from the previous row into the different color of the new one.

(Elizabeth also mentions keeping a record of one's knitting projects, something I've been pondering for a while, but am a bit indecisive about the format.  Does anyone keep a knitting journal that they would be willing to show-and-tell?  Leave a comment here --)

But what will this swatch turn out to be?  Ah --

Thoughts on the February Baby Sweater

Thanks to a few well-scheduled TV programs, I finished the knitting for the Baby Sweater on Saturday -- watched "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" that night, and a few days earlier an episode of "Secrets of the Dead" called "Titanic's Ghosts".  Despite the lurid title and opening sequences, this was actually a serious documentary about using DNA testing to identify survivors of the Titanic disaster.  I've always been fascinated by archaeology, which manages to be both romantic and scientific at the same time -- recreating past lives, researching history, and using analytical techniques to gather and record information.  This one was fascinating for its use of genealogical research techniques to identify and locate surviving relatives, the still-amazing way that DNA evidence can be used to identify blood relationships between the living and the long-dead, and the photographs and personal stories that made us identify sometimes nearly unbearably closely with the people on the Titanic  and their families.  (Imagine having one seat on a lifeboat available, and looking at your five children there on the deck.)

Anyway, this was an easy-peasy knit.  I used less than two and a half balls of the Merinogold, so it takes almost as little wool as it does time.

I also loved that the Gull pattern fit perfectly into the shaping that Elizabeth devised, with the repeats ending just at the places where you divide for the sleeves (and adding on 7 fits another repeat in just as perfectly).  I actually added eight stitches, instead of seven, on the sleeves, because the lace pattern made a rather wonky edge and I wanted to firm that up to make seaming easier; I just knitted the first and last stitch of every row.

The sleeve shaping gave me a bit of pause, and I had to think about it for some minutes until it made sense.  It is essentially a T, with the crossbar to be seamed along the underarm and the downward stroke becoming the sleeve seam.  This is how it goes together --

That extra K stitch on each side of the sleeve seam came in very handy, as the seam turned out almost invisible.  I am, I confess, rather lazy when it comes to finishing (Reason #47 to Love Shawls: There are no seams), so I faithfully followed a little tutorial on seaming by Theresa Stenersen -- good practice for the Swing Jacket coming up.

These white pearly buttons were the only shanked ones I had in the button jar, so they are merely prodded into place for the photo.  Obviously I am starting to get into swing-jacket mode -- I thought this jacket would look as pretty with three buttons as with the six of the original, and it does.

"Result: a beguiling baby sweater with only two seams to sew"!

Rosewood

I stopped for a moment last night just before dividing for the Baby Jacket sleeves, to admire the way that the knitting curves on the circular needles.  It's like a little magic trick -- I'm knitting straight rows, but it turns into a circle, voilà!

I'd started it on straight needles, then decided that the gauge was just a little tight after all, and moved to these lovely rosewood circulars.  Are they not beautiful? so light, so smooth, so rich in their browns and golds, so warm like the grain of a fine violin.

Excuse me, I feel a little "Citizen Kane" moment coming on ...

"Rosewood!"

Knitting the "Knitter's Almanac": Some Babies' Things

The Knitter's Almanac projects for February are snuggly babies' things, a simple blanket, a mat or sleeping bag, a jacket and matching hat, and footed leggings.  I made a throw/shawl to Elizabeth's baby blanket pattern here a few years ago, for my sister, in one of those fortunate coincidences where I had a lot of yarn and Christmas was coming up and I saw the photo and put one and one and one together.  I used a plain black wool I'd had stashed in a box under the bed for far too long, and I tried the Gull Stitch Elizabeth recommends, which is very pretty indeed.  It made a very handsome throw, if I may say so myself.  And another shawl that I made (ostensibly for Laura when she was born, but to be honest, I kept it for myself) was inspired by this, too, although using the Old Shale charted out by Martha Waterman.

I definitely approve of Elizabeth's views on colors for babies.  Soft heather-grey -- "especially if you incorporate some white around the edge of the bonnet" -- navy blue, greenish-blue Shetland.  "And what's wrong with scarlet?"!  (I seem to recall making one of these double-knit mats in a dashing peacock blue.  This was, as it happens, my first introduction to double knitting.)  The traditional pastel pinks and blues are all right in their way, but I'm always impressed by the less-traditional things that folks come up with for babies.

"Our favorite longies are those on which we used up odd remnants of wool.  A green pair has a cute grey color-pattern at the calf, and then becomes steel-grey for the feet.  A navy pair has a white pattern at the knees and scarlet calves and feet.  They must actually be seen on young legs for their true charm to become apparent." ("Thrift and conservation are in the wind: how delightful to find that using up wool-remains improves the appearance of our finished product"!)

New technique for this month: knitting from the top down.  Frankly, I'm a bit surprised that I've never done this; there must be dozens of patterns in my collection alone.  But I've always been a bit leery -- like with cutting -- that it just looks upside-down.  Well ... I will let Elizabeth take me by my lily-white hand and lead me over the water.  The Gull pattern does look nice upside-down, too, I'll say that.  And personally, I am always grateful to those designers who, like Elizabeth, arrange things so that the fiddly bits of a pattern stitch are on one round and the other round is the "mindless and relaxing one" of knitting all the way!

This is the merino left over from Ene's Scarf.  I also appreciate what Elizabeth has to say about wool.  While I understand that some people really do have an allergy to certain fibers, others object to wool simple because they've succumbed to the notion that wool is hard to wash, and so I find very amusing Elizabeth's underhanded methods for dealing with those stubbornly ignorant of the "warmth and comfort of wool": "If I were stuck with a child allergic to wool I would become very sneaky: I would make it a sweater of orlon or whatever, into which I would knit one color-pattern of wool. If this were received and worn without carping comment, I would increase the dose -- next sweater, two patterns, next one, three.  After twenty sweaters -- in theory, at least -- I would have a nice normal wool-wearing child.  At least I would have tried.  If caught at my fell deed, I could always say that the particular color I wanted was only available in wool."  "Pass by the synthetic yarn department, then, with your nose in the air."  Synthetics have come a long way since 1974, it must be admitted, and I am not so much a snob that I refuse to work with synthetics on principle, but I do love natural fibers the best, by far.

And this just makes me laugh: "My special technique for car-cat-naps is to sit bolt upright, and let the chin drop down as far as it can on the chest, relaxing all neck-muscles.  My reflexes are now so conditioned that this pose sends me to sleep almost immediately; the head doesn't loll, the mouth doesn't open degradingly, and I like to think that there is no snoring, although the family is in a conspiracy to tell me that I always snore, which is plain nonsense."