Sisyphus is no myth

Have you ever noticed that sometimes in some areas of your life you're just pushing that rock up the hill only to watch it tumble back, while in others you have some semblance of control? I've been knitting like a stampeding horse of late, knitting being my area of control. Since blogging last, I've begun and finished two sweaters, one lacey, the other with a mad agglomeration of cables. And have begun another comfort knitting shrug, this one out of the new Noro cotton yarn.

Pictures, you want pictures?

The mad cable sweater: See how boxy it looks lying flat?

I was the photographer on this one, standing on a chair over at my LYS while no one was looking except Karen, who dragged me outside to take this one, telling me too late to behave myself:

and this one, in which I stood still:

See how well the sweater fits? Well and truly a knitting trophy. If it sounds like I'm crowing here, you betcha. This one's got all the makings of an everyday sweater, one of those that get worn out rather than hidden in the back of the closet.

The details: Summer Hours pattern by Chris Bylsma
Yarn: Owool Balance, which is half cotton, half wool, very light weight. You'd think this sweater would weigh a ton but it's more like a butterfly. The pattern calls for DK weight yarn. Balance is definitely worsted weight, but that old swatching and knitters' math and some shaping tricks worked their magic once again.

Next up we have the cover pattern from the current Vogue Knitting magazine, made in K1C2's Second Time Cotton:
Yes, I know, the VK cover version bares midriff. This is what I prefer to think of as the adult version. If you want to know what changes I made to the pattern, drop me a comment. And yes, this pattern was written for DK weight yarn, not the worsted weight I used. More simple magic, made even easier by the fact that the pattern begins with a 24-stitch cast-on for the sleeve. Sounded like a gauge swatch to me. If gauge works, just keep on knitting, which is what I did. The whole sweater took fewer than four skeins, which makes it a cheap thrill. I kept two more skeins, because come fall I'm going to grow some long sleeves on this sucker.

Photos of cotton Noro shrug later. Right now I'm going to go knit. It's a control thing.

Immersion knitting

I think I'm in love with the Blue Ridge Mountains, and I know I'm in love with North Carolina knitters. And I should know, after spending four days knitting/teaching knitting/fixing knitting and playing with yarn at the Baskets of Yarn winter retreat. This, my friends, was total fun. I walked into the Broyhill Inn on Thursday before lunch and didn't realize I hadn't stepped outside until the retreat was done and Betsy Macholz, the brilliant young owner/founder of Baskets, and I were driving down to lunch with the rest of the group.

It was also not until late Saturday night that I realized I'd completely forgotten about the camera in my knitting bag. That's when my husband innocently asked, "Have you taken lots of pictures?" Uh, that would be no. Mind full of yarn not pictures.

So here's what I've got:

This is Rachel wearing her Sahara sweater:
Notice the zero ease fit, as per the pattern (Stitch Diva, totally excellent). I've since stitched closed the front opening about halfway, per Rachel's instructions (also totally excellent). The painting behind her is by her mom, MB.

This is MB, in a Knitmaven production shrug:

It's the Wedge Watusi pattern by Colleen Davis, knit mostly out of Colinette Giotto ribbon. One day I will make this for myself in smaller (translation: for short people) gauge.

And here we have my one and only photo from the retreat:

Meet (left to right) Janet, Joy and Linda. On Joy's lap is Rex, who doesn't knit but knows everything Joy knows about knitting, which is lots. The three bipeds are holding up the beginnings of their versions of my stash jacket (see mine on page 100 of Knit Fix). From their Ravelry postings, it's evident that the jacket has become an addiction. Don't say I didn't warn you all. In fact, while I was there I bought some silver linen/rayon yarn to begin another stashie for moi.

All for now. If I get my act in gear, I'll have the body of a Ty Dy entrelac sweater to show you in a day or so. Don't know why, but it's been a very fast knit. Oh, and my own Sahara, in some Noro. MB is making same in a different colorway. With ease. You gotta be Rachel's age to do that zero ease thing.

Way up there

When you live in Illinois, hills are relative. It's flat around here, until you ride your bicycle, when you discover maybe not quite flat flat. But tomorrow I'm headed up into actual mountains, the Blue Ridge Mountains, to be exact. I'm teaching at the Baskets of Yarn Winter Retreat in Boone, NC. I'm told it's cold up there. But then, given Chicago's endless winter this year, cold, too, is relative.

Before I go, I wanted to post something I've been meaning to put up since coming back from NC last time. See all those lovely teenagers learning to knit about two posts ago? Well, as I was darting around the class from knitting crisis to knitting success, I overheard MB telling the following story to this or that beginning knitter:

"If you've been hired as an assassin, it is critical that you be COMPLETELY successful. Thus, if you are 'shanking' your victim, it is best if you make the thrust underhanded. For if you strike from top to bottom, you run the risk of the knife being deflected by bones like the skull or sternum. Yes, you'll hurt the victim; however, without that you can't say you've completed the job.

"How does this relate to knitting? STEP ONE in knitting is to thrust the needle into your stitch as if it were your victim. Additionally, assassins, usually, have a signature 'thing.' As a knitting assassin, your signature is to split your victim's head in half. Nothing fancy, just chop it in half. That's STEP TWO in making the knit stitch.

"Now, STEP THREE, slide your needle through the stitch. What to do now? Proof of the assassination is to send the victim's head to your client. To end the stitch, STEP FOUR, pop the stitch off the end of the left needle.

"You get a rhythm that goes like this:
Stab it (or shank it)
Slice it (their heads in half)
Scoop it
Pop the little head off (the needle)"

I was so entertained that I insisted she write this down for me. She did, signing it, "Enjoy. The Knitting Assassin." Ever the artist, she also drew pictures, which I'm afraid you'll just have to imagine until I figure out how to copy them into the blog.

In the meantime, have a nice weekend, whether you're way up there or out in the flat. I'll post mountain photos next week, along with a photo of Rachel in her new Sahara/Bonsai sweater (it's finished, ta da!). Weather and U.S. Airways permitting, as always. Can you tell I'm not a big believer in heavier-than-air flight?

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.

Quadrupeds

In my house, there are three cats who definitely help the knitting process. In fact, I don't think Knit Fix would have come about without the help of cats playing with a ball of yarn, dashing upstairs with it and ripping the knitting off my needles as they dashed. I'm laughing while figuring out how to fix the mess. It happened again last night when Oz was having way too much fun with a ball of Bonsai while I was working on a gift sweater. It's back on the needles now:

What's this, you're asking. Dog sweater? No, that comes later. Wait for it...
Stitch Diva Studio's Sahara sweater -- that's the pattern in the photo -- starts with a provisional cast-on, knits up to the shoulders (coilless orange pins) then down the front. After I try this on Rachel next week (wait for it...) for fit, then the two fronts combine and eventually the whole shebang is knit in the round. This is Berroco's Bonsai, which I'm in love with. It's rather like knitting with silk brocade. The photo here doesn't do it justice. I'm hoping that there will be enough yarn left over from Sahara to make a little something for moi. Maybe combined with another Bonsai color.

Now, as to why today's post is titled "Quadrupeds." My sister-in-law sent me two photos of the cats who operate her house. One actually has to do with knitting:

The caption: "Hey, there's a mistake in row 132."
Everyone's a critic.
But here's the photo that cracked me up:

"I'll have whiskey, straight up. Give the kid some milk."

All right, more knitting later. I have hopes to get my hands on some Berroco Seduce today to play with, if the nice UPS man comes through at String Theory.