Fixits

Some interesting questions have been coming in to me at knitmaven@sbcglobal.net. One in particular intrigues me because it happens to all of us:

Please help! I have a recurring problem of knitting into the stitch in the row below and slipping off both stitches together. This occurs when doing stockinette stitch more times than I'd care to admit. I usually don't discover the mistake until many more rows have been knit. I've tried dropping the stitch back to the mistake, but can't hook it up properly. The first "bar" doesn't line up. So I drop down the stitch next to it which helps if I drop the one on the correct side! I've looked and looked for an answer to this in books from Mary Thomas to the current ones and have yet to see it addressed. Certainly it must happen to other folks, but they probably catch it on the next row or round. Sure hope you can help. Thanks, Marylyn in VA

Well, I thought, what does an accidental stitch knit along with its downstairs neighbor (a la brioche) look like? All by its lonesome?
This:
See that big fat stitch right in the middle, two rows down from the needle, the stitch that's elbowing the stitches to its right and left out of vertical allignment? Yes, that one. That's the one I knit along with its next-row-below neighbor. (I love making mistakes on purpose. Go figure.)

What to do about it? Time for a vertical fix. Get out your crochet hook, nimble fingers, whatever you use to grab a stitch when it's off the needle. Knit to the stitch before the big fat one (B.F.O.). Drop down to B.F.O. It looks like this:
If you look closely at the stitch, it's doubled. That's because it grabbed its neighbor during knitting -- and its neighbor's ladder. That's why you only see one ladder in this photo.
If you pull apart B.F.O., it looks like it ought to:
B.F.O. is now just an ordinary stitch, one that's leaving its neighbors in peace. Now there are ladders that can easily be hooked up back to the needle:


This is what peaceful coexistence looks like:
Nobody trying to elbow out the neighbors. Nobody pushing things out of whack. Feel free to send this photo to your favorite world leader. Just a thought.

60 new knitters

Yup, you read that correctly. Last week MB and I taught 60 high school art students to knit. And they did beautifully. Most of them got the knit stitch right off on Tuesday. Wednesday they were lined up with really good knitting questions, having made all the mistakes that everyone has made. All knitters, without exception. The mistakes I call the official hazing for knitters -- increasing by accident by holding the yarn over the needle and in back for the first stitch, and then accidental YOs further in the row -- were quite popular by day 2. But check this out: photos from Wednesday, their 2nd day as knitters:

and



and


Other teachers told us our students were knitting in their classes. We put out the word that knitting increases concentration and attention span. All knitters know that, but not all teachers are knitters. Hmm. Maybe they should be...

This is MB with class notes for Wednesday:

Students at work:

Notice that he's knitting two yarns together ALREADY, and that one of them is that slippery railroad yarn. Love fearless knitters.

He's planning to make a sweater next. And maybe a Pidge or two.

Another fearless knitter -- that's hand-dyed heavy-gauge chenille he's working with, and he was the first to finish his scarf. Did I mention that they're taking the scarves to a women's shelter tomorrow, for Valentine's Day? Too wonderful.

More chenille, in the hands of a true artist: it's a hat/scarf. Cool.

And finally, the first period class pulled it all together for me to photograph:

This was so much fun. We want to do it next year. Maybe squares for Afghans for Afghans? Premie caps? Consider the possibilities. Thanks so much, you all. It was a blast.

It's 70 degrees somewhere

Just not here, west suburban Chicago. We had what was evidently an unexpected blizzard Thursday, since the snowplows where sleeping wherever plows sleep. Yesterday and today: more snow, though mere frosting. However, on Monday I'm headed to where it's going to be 70: Charlotte, NC.

In Charlotte, best friend (years before My Space homogenized the phrase) MB teaches art to high school students. She's got a grant to teach them knitting, the idea being that knitting creates community. Her students will be donating the scarves the knit in class to a local women's shelter. And I'm off to help teach them. MB has it all organized; I just have to show up. Of course, it's supposed to rain and snow at O'Hare Monday, so showing up may be something of a trick. Oh, and 140 American Airlines pilots retired yesterday. Expect delays. I'm taking three knitting projects, one book and iPod loaded with two complete audio books. Did you know you could actually fill up a Nano?

One of the knitting projects is a spring-weight entrelac shrug made of Noro Sakura:


Sakura is out of print, so to speak. But when I called Three Bags Full Knitting Studio and asked if they happened to have some, since they carry just about everything Noro, they did. Lynette, owner of Three Bags Full (or 3BF, as it appears in my calendar), is one of those wonderfully encouraging people who said "Sure" when I suggested fixing mistakes classes at her shop so I could test out what I was writing in Knit Fix. 3BF is located in what used to be somebody's house. Now it has a basement full of yarn back-stock. When I called about Sakura, I was hoping there might be some down there, and sure enough they had plenty for the shrug I had in mind.

The Sakura will be a slight variation on this one, finished last week:

This, by the way, is as glamorous as the Knit Maven gets. I asked Michael, owner of Camp Cosmetics (across the street from String Theory), to photograph me. Sure, but first he dusted and brushed and smoothed and generally did his cosmetic thing. How good is he? Well, when Project Runway was in Chicago, they sent a limousine for him. Twice.