Friday Funnies
Humpday Update: Designing the Bryce Canyon Shawl
The design of the Bryce Canyon Shawl is coming together. I selected two more lace diamonds to incorporate; they’ll start at the midpoint of the center medallion. I’m estimating the shape on the fly, rather than working it out mathematically; I decided I didn’t want to draw it out but am trusting my gut. We shall see.
I’m loving the colors and the way the yarn looks in the pattern. Lion Brand did a nice job with this fiber.
As an aside, my birthday present arrived from KnitPicks and now I’m all excited. I want to play with it (16 balls of electric dark blue and 16 balls of maple syrup brown), but I’m staying focused on the shawl at the moment. I don’t know if I want to make one blue sweater and one brown, or do two mosaics with both colors. We shall see.
But for now, here are some pictures of the Bryce Canyon Shawl so you can see how the design progresses:
This is a picture from last week, and you can see the start of the center medallion. It will be a diamond and has a 3 stitch border in plain stockinette stitch on either side, with a yarn over (i.e. a hole) just inside that.
The two small clear crystals aren’t beads, those are stitch markers and they sit on either side of the medallion (this is one way you can keep track of knitting pattern changes). They don’t have to be fancy, and in fact I have several plain steel rings on the needles but I wanted to use my fancy rings for the medallion since I have them and they’re pretty.
They’re actually a little annoying to work with, to be honest. There’s a bar that hangs down from the ring, and it’s twisted metal. That’s what is used to attach the crystal. The problem is that a) it attaches to the stitches sometimes, and b) it gets in the way of the needles when I’m knitting. I make it work, because I like the way they look as I’m working, but they’re not the most practical of beasts. I prefer the plain steel rings my husband made for me from heavy-gauge steel wire.
Here is how it looks today. The faux cable look of the center “V” is deceptive; that’s just because the needle isn’t long enough to let the pattern lay flat. But in this view, you can see the center medallion progressing up to its middle panel (a helix laying sideways that mimics the vertical one you can see).
The little white bit that looks like a scrap of paper on the left is a scrap of paper. 🙂 I was knitting outside yesterday, sitting on the grass by the river, and dropped one of my rings. The grass ate it. I spent quit a while looking for it, too, but no luck.
I decided to stop increasing the lace lattice that is on the outside. Since I’m adding two medallions and they have their own increases/decreases, I stopped adding stitches at the sides and will let it grow from the stitches within the medallions. I may change my mind once it grows some more, but we’ll see. (That’s the geometry I mentioned earlier.)
This final image shows the right-hand medallion just beginning. There are only about 6 rows so far, so it’s not easy to see in this image, but you can at least get an idea of where it will go. The lattice will continue between the medallions on the sides and the center panel, to keep the overall feel of the shawl consistent.
That’s our Wednesday update. Happy knitting!
New Shawl Design
I bought some lovely yarn from Lion Brand, called “Amazing.” The colorway is Regatta, which is a subtle rainbow of overdyed colors. I decided to make a triangle shawl with it, using a couple different lace patterns and center diamonds from Barbara Walker’s Fourth Treasury of Knitting Patterns.
In designing, I first tried a swatch of stockinette stitch. Somehow, I misread the ball band and thought it wanted Size 6 U.S. and made the swatch with those needles. It didn’t look the way I wanted, especially the honeycomb slipped stitch design.
Then I read the ball band. Size 9 U.S.
Oh.
Trying it with Size 9 produced better results, but still too dense of a pattern when I knitted a simple moss stitch. I took that out and played with Vertical Lace Trellis, also by Barbara Walker but this time in her A Treasury of Knitting Patterns. I added an increase stitch on either side of every even row. Due to the nature of the pattern, I simply didn’t use a decrease on the one side, but added a make 1 to the other. While this allowed me to get the correct stitch count, it pulled the design out of shape.
I’m going to pull this swatch out, and try it again with simple make ones, while banding the lace with a simple garter stitch edge. That will let me center the triangle in the middle, keeping the edges straight. We’ll see how that works from here.
Fabric As Inspiration
In working with the Artist’s Way, one of the things we focus on is baby steps. I am finding that my baby steps are much smaller than I assume they “should” be. As a friend reminds me, “shoulds” are poison.
It’s frustrating, though, that there are so many relative to sewing. Putting that aside is difficult. I went to an amazing fabric store with a friend, the Textile Discount Outlet. It’s overwhelming and fun at the same time. They have a whole wall of fabric that’s under $4 a yard, where I found a lovely, satiny black fabric with blue detailing that looks Asian.
Here’s a detail of the images on the fabric. Trees and structures are all over it. I’d like to make a long vest or jacket with it, so that it can take advantage of the flow of the fabric.
Here’s the reverse; I like it just as much as the other side.
I find it interesting how my inner Critic wants to fight with my decision, though. I look at the fabric and doubts surface. I can see that it’s my Critic and not something realistic, but it’s painful regardless.
What do you do to conquer your own Critic?
A Bit of Baby…
Wow, it’s already October! Time passes so quickly, eh?
I have been knitting, just not writing about it. Currently, I am working on holiday gifts and a very quick baby blanket for my husband’s boss, to give to him tonight at his birthday party. He just had a baby (well, his wife did), and so I wanted to have the blanket done when I see him. JUST finished it today! ~pants~
It’s from a very easy pattern book by Jean Leinhauser and Rita Weiss called 7 Day Afghans called “Raspberries and Cream.” I varied the pattern a bit and used two slip stitches for the main color rather than one; I like the receding window pane effect as well as the loft of the resultant fabric.
I don’t have time to wash it before tonight, and it needs to be; while blocking isn’t strictly necessary with the acrylic yarn I used it does need to be reshaped and washing will help that. It has a two-inch seed-stitch border around it which allows it to lay flat.
In this image, you can see the back of the blanket and how the two-stitch carries along the back help it to be extra fluffy. It’s a nice blanket to squish against and I think it will feel really nice against baby’s skin.
Fiji Kit
My friend works in an industrial sales office, and is around men most of the day. She lives in the Midwest, but I think would be more comfortable in a writing cabana by the ocean where she had nothing to do all day but write.
Since I can’t buy her the cabana in the Caribbean, I’m making her a desk set instead. It’s one of those awful, uber-cute desk sets, too – the kind you find at White Elephant sales and bad parties.
Yes, I’m that kind of friend. ~leer~
But in all seriousness, the box for paperclips and the stapler cover shaped like a shark are worth the kitsch. Here’s a picture of the kit in its entirety:
I’ve finished knitting the cabana box cover bits, and now all that’s left is to felt them. Since the rest needs to be felted too, I figured I’d do it all at one time to save washer water. Here are the box pieces:
This is the base piece, done in plain stockinette stitch (which is knit a row, purl a row). I actually finished these and realize I don’t have a picture of that, so that will have to wait. But here are some more pix:
This is the base all finished up. As you can see, it’s quite long. It will shrink when it’s felted, and it will be sewn together over a plastic mesh base.
The bottom is knit in plain stockinette in a sand color. At first, I couldn’t figure out why they selected a mud brown for such a cheerful piece, and then I realized that it’s supposed to be the sand floor.
Duh.
These were fun to knit. The cabana caps are just about the right size to be a cat hat.
Yeah, don’t try that at home…
Knit in the round, you can see the gradual decrease pattern in the grid under the knitting. You decrease each of the four sides on the decrease rounds, so it has a very pronounced triangular or pyramidical shape.
Next we come to the wrist rest. Knit in intarsia, it’s got a complex little picture of fish and kelp. Quite cute, if you’re needlepointing.
Rather more complex if you’re knitting. Each of those strings hanging down is a bobbin of color that you pick up and knit with at the relevant point in the design. While one could knit complex needlepoint or counted cross-stitch charts this way, it is very detailed and requires concentration.
I’m just past the halfway point in the intarsia design, and should be done in another week. The rows take about 15 minutes each, since they require wrapping each new color. I could not for the life of me figure out why the stripes on the edges are brown and light brown, until someone said “oh, when does the color start after the sand?”
Bong.
Sand.
Duh.
~knityfy~
Update from the Itinerant Knitter
Our writing group, the Writers Retreat, had a mini-retreat March 4th through the 6th in Indianapolis, Indiana. Authors A. Catherine Noon, Nicole Gordon, Darla M. Sands, and the Pack Rat met for a weekend of touring and hanging out and, of course, writing.
Since I went along, we of course had to do a side-trip to the LYS (Local Yarn Shop). We visited:
Mass. Ave. Knit Shop
Susan Brennan, Proprietor
862 Virginia Avenue
Indianapolis, Indiana 46203
Main tel: (317) 638-1833
Website
It’s a very large store with a big sale room. I found some neat stuff on sale:
di.ve brand, from Biella – Itally, a ribbon yarn that’s full of luscious fall colors and a startlingly bright silver splash. It’s the Luxus line, which is 91% Polyamid and 9% Polyester; I bought color 29204, lot 1496.
I first swatched with garter stitch on size 10 needles. It yielded a very dense fabric, springy and stiff. I didn’t like it, and since garter uses up so much yarn and I only bought three balls, I decided to try something else.
I swatched a pattern from Barbara Walker’s A Treasury of Knitting Patterns called “Vertical Lace Trellis.”
Vertical Lace Trellis
Odd # sts.
R1 & 3 (WS): P
R2: K1 *YO, K2T
R4 *SSK, YO, REP *, END K1
Since it’s only 4 rows, and only 2 of those rows are the pattern row and the rest is purl stitches, it’s a very easy pattern to follow. I’ve done another scarf in this pattern, but need to post some pictures of it. In the meantime, here’s what I’m trying with the Luxus:
CO 3
YO after first and before last stitch, all even-numbered rows; do pattern in the middle on the odd-numbered stitches.
This will create a triangle shawl.
I think I’ll add a bead at the point of the triangle for weight, or maybe some tassels. We’ll see.
It’s All About the Fabric
I am weaving on a Schact table loom that’s been converted to a floor loom. It is an eight-harness loom, but I’m only using four of the harnesses. Unlike my previous project, which I wove on a four harness table loom, this loom uses floor pedals to control the raising and lowering of the heddles. If you remember, the heddles are what control which warp threads are up or down for each pass of the shuttle; this is what creates the weave structure (like, for example, a houndstooth pattern or herringbone).
For my Quesquemitl, which is a type of shawl and poncho, I am weaving a 2-2 twill: this means that 2 harnesses are up and 2 harnesses are down for each pass of the shuttle. Twills are characterized by movement, meaning that the patterns are created by something called a “twill circle.” This is in contrast to a balanced weave, like plain weave or basketweave. (If you made potholders as a child, that is plain weave: an equal amount of threads on the warp and the weft, and an equal weight to both.)
Here are some pictures that will illustrate what I’m talking about.
Here is a view of the fabric. The bottom two-thirds of the image is the actual fabric, and you can see the diagonal striping leading from the bottom right to the top left. This is the characteristic of the twill family of weave structures. Beyond the fabric, at the top of the image, are the warp threads waiting to be woven. The warp is a darker tonal family than the weft (the warp are the vertical threads, the weft are the horizontal ones); the combination of the two is surprisingly pleasing.
Here is a closeup of the same fabric, showing the apparent ‘movement’ of the fabric. This fabric is a 2-2 twill, which means two warp threads are up, and two are down, for each pass of the shuttle. For the weavers among you, I’m using a floating selvage for this project, which is a first for me; I like the edges very much. They’re a lot cleaner than my last project, where I didn’t use them.
Here is a view of the fabric unwound from the front beam; I included my hand in the shot so you can get perspective on the sizing. I’m holding this fairly taut; in the next image, you can see more of the drape.
It feels a little bit like denim, but much softer. It’s a rayon blend and I love it. As I weave, it creates a lot of fuzz; I hope that isn’t a property of the finished fabric after blocking.
As I mentioned earlier, the heddles are controlled on this loom by foot pedals. The cool thing is that the foot pedals are variable: you select which heddles correspond with which pedal. For my project, you can see there is an A, a B, and 1 through 4. A and B are set up for plain weave, and the 1 through 4 are set up as a 2-2 twill. That means that for each pedal, two heddles are controlled – this way, I just have to press 1 through 4 in succession and I have my pattern.
I’ll admit that was very difficult for me to grasp when I first sat down to weave on this loom; my instructor set up the heddles. The geometry of it just refused to penetrate my brain (I think it’s that old 2-D/3-D problem). But now that I’ve woven this project on it, and am nearing completion, it makes a lot more sense.
Here is a view of the back beam, for those of you curious to see where the warp goes. The left foreground shows the warp threads traveling over the back beam and down onto the roller. The gray paper is there to keep successive rolls of the threads from knotting across each other; each layer is protected by paper (or one could use clear plastic or even newsprint, whatever is handy).
This final image is the boat shuttle, so named because the bobbin of thread sits inside the shuttle on a peg. This allows the weaver to load multiple bobbins and not have to get up each time the end of the thread is reached. It’s taken a little bit to get used to how wide this loom is; my last project wasn’t this wide. But once I got the hang of it, it’s rather fun to whiz back and forth.
News from the World of Weave
I continue to attend weaving classes at the Chicago Weaving School, which in turn continues to grow and prosper. Founder and Instructor Natalie Boyett conceived yet another excellent idea called WeaveSpa – single weaving classes with a pre-dressed loom or packages of lessons for very reasonable prices. It’s a great way for people to dip a toe into the weaving world without having to take an expensive and time-consuming plunge. (It’s also a great way to get hooked on the weaving addiction, but that’s beside the point…)
The first WeaveSpa is February 2, 2011. Check it out on Facebook.
As for what the heck I’m weaving, I’m weaving a Quesquemitl!
Nope, doesn’t make sense to me either, other than it’s a Mestizo shawl thingie. It’s pretty cool. Here’s a pic:
The schematic on the left is the drawing of what you weave: it’s a long rectangle with fringe on the ends. I think I might add some clear crystal beads to the ends of fringe and macrame them in some fashion; we’ll see. I don’t have to decide that til next week.
Why next week? BECAUSE I’M NEARLY DONE!!! I’m so excited. Here is a picture of the loom I’m using; you can see the fabric in the front wound around the beam and the threads on the back with the knots sticking out – those knots are the end of the warp! That means I only have a few more inches that I can weave before I’m all finished!
And since a friend of mine asked me about what the school is like, and I realized I haven’t posted any pictures, here are some views of the school.
‘My’ loom is in the back on the left. In the foreground on the left is another floor loom, and the yellow threads are the warp of what will be a blanket. The bookshelves are the weaving library, and the odd shapes on the right are, in the foreground, my jacket over a chair and behind that my classmate’s coat hanging on the corner stantion of a giant floor loom.
The left is the back of that same enormous floor loom, then the back door that leads to the other room of the school, a long hallway and the all-important restroom. What you can’t see is there’s a little bit on the right where there’s a sink and more shelves with looms. In the foreground on the right is the castle of another loom; what you’re looking at are the levers that control the harnesses.
This is looking toward the front of the school. The center table is the main worktable, and looks different each time I come depending which students will be working. When not in use, those table looms go on shelves. On the left is a floor loom with a blue warp; beyond it are three more floor looms and a large wooden contraption for winding lengths of warp threads. It’s got a name but I can’t call it to mind at the moment.
It’s a fun shop, full of electric and creative energy. The students are just as interesting as the instructor; I’ve really enjoyed the time I spend here and look forward to many more days weaving here.