Airport Knitting

I've just gotten back from another short over-nighter. This time, I went well-armed. Well-armed, of course, means having not just a couple of absorbing books but also a good portable knitting project.

What I had underway in the way of candidate knitting projects were the Pine Bark sweater, another project with large pieces, and a small one with little pieces that would be over too soon. None of these was particularly portable. But after the last trip -- caught in a five-hour flight delay with nothing to knit! -- I wasn't going anywhere project-less. Party? Dentist? Gotta have a project. Grocery store? Gotta... (well, no; just kidding.) But, especially, airport? Gotta have a project!

Well, naturally, I had to cast one on. Anyone would.

I packed it in my handy GoKnit bag. And how I love that little bag. It's compact, but big enough for a ball of yarn and small project, and, with its snap tab, it can hook onto my belt, purse strap, or what-have-you. When I don't feel like having things dangling off me, it's small enough to tuck inside my purse. I realize I must sound like an ad, but it pleases me with its usefulness and its bright silly color, and it has gotten more than its share of use.

Of course, having a knitting project, I was proof against airline delays. This time no delays were forthcoming. That's not a bad thing, of course; I can't complain about it, but think of all the potential knitting time missed! I clambered aboard the plane, folded myself into my middle seat -- not having made travel plans far enough ahead to nab one of the hotly contested aisle seats -- tucked my elbows tightly against my sides and contentedly alternated reading and knitting from "ensure that all your belongings are stowed" right on through to "remain in your seats until we arrive at the gate."

I looked around at the people nearby. By the end of the flight, they had stiff backs, popping ears, and grumpy dispositions. Would it be wrong to pity them? For I had all these things and a precious inch or two of lacy little sock cuff!

Scribblin' and Figgerin'

The Orange Effect hats have now been bestowed on their boisterous and appreciative recipients. I wasn't entirely sure how they'd go over, as the Yarnstruck nephews have reached the age of style-consciousness. But I knew it was going to be OK once they all surged into the house. Little niecey spotted the hats on the coffee table, hollered, hey look what I found! -- and they all fell to dividing up the spoils.

In an unexpected development, little niecey claimed the ribbed watchcap for her own. Luckily, I'd made an extra hat, thinking world's-most-patient-husband might want a second one, which was sacrificed in a good cause. Luckily also, the ribbing makes the watchcap very flexible as to size. So there were hats all around and a good deal of silly mugging.

After that, nothing remained to keep me from my knitting goal of the weekend: break loose the blockage and get going again on the Pine Bark sweater. I'd been flirting with it for the last couple of weeks, playing peek-a-boo with little projects like the hats, but hadn't quite mustered the momentum. Indecision is a besetting sin for me and was the cause for the sweater's having gotten stalled in the first place. But in a burst of determination a few weeks ago, I'd swatched until the remaining basic design decisions were made.

Now it was just a matter of the laborious green-eyeshade- and-pointy-pencil working out of all the precise little details. No big decisions, just a whole lot of little ones. But since I'm making it up myself on this one, nobody was going to do it for me.

So I gathered the swatches and the rulers and the sketches and the notes on scraps of paper and the graph paper -- whew! puff, puff -- and a pointy pencil and set myself to scribblin' and figgerin'. I spread out all over the kitchen table and scratched my head and muttered and made mistakes and erased them and muttered some more.

The sweater having been put aside for a couple of months, it took me a fair amount of muttering and head-scratching just to remember exactly where things stood and what I'd had in mind. One good thing, I guess, about giving a project a long enough nap is that it turns you into your own proof-reader and test-knitter. Having forgotten everything, I had to rediscover it all archaeologically from the artifact itself and any accompanying hieroglyphics. This gave me a fresh set of eyes and a certain detachment.

In fact, in laying out the front neck design, I found I'd made a mistake in the completed back of the sweater, that had been done and tucked away all this time. The neck width would have been an inch narrower than planned, because I'd forgotten to account for two times the edging width in calculating the neck opening. Arggh! But on the bright side, picking out and reknitting half a dozen rows of the back helped me to procrastinate just a little longer on the rest of the scribblin' and figgerin'. And let's not even speak of how big an Arggh that would have been if I had figured it out once the whole sweater was done and ready to assemble!

Getting up to go and wind a fresh skein into a nice apple- shaped center- pull ball provided another helpful diversion.

But finally, delaying tactics exhausted, I set back to work and graphed out the front neck and sleeves. And by golly, I think I got the whole thing pretty much licked.

I grabbed the needles, and the sweater front, which had been halted at the armholes pending the front neckline being sorted out and permission granted to proceed, and got back to knitting.

It was interesting discovering this yarn again as well. This was the Naturally Harmony 8-ply felted merino wool from New Zealand. It's awfully unusual in texture.

Here, see for yourself. It really does seem to be felted, as in what knitters do to shrink and mat a knitted object to a firm, dense texture; not fulled, as in what spinners sometimes do to bring up the soft fuzziness in a woollen-spun yarn. But it's still light and pliable, not at all stiff.

And the important thing is that Pine Bark is finally rolling again. I'm a few inches above the armholes and halfway up the split neck placket. It's going so fast I can feel the wind whistling through my hair! When I say that, of course, just bear in mind that even five miles per hour seems pretty whippy and fast if you've been at a dead standstill for long enough.

Sleeves, here I come!

Knots and Rings Socks Take a Bow

And they're looking rather nice, I think!

I got the Knots and Rings socks finished a few days back. Despite the dangers along the way, they came through just fine, I'm happy to say.

This pair of socks is my good-humored-brother's Christmas gift, albeit a bit late. That is, all but one cuff is late. On the day, he actually opened his present to find a single cuff, still on the needles, along with a big ball of yarn. This worried him a bit, as I have a penchant for offering to teach everybody to knit. But that was not my intention. This time.... :)

Anyway. The Knots and Rings socks are my own design, with a cabled cuff, ribbed foot, and contrast toe. I chose not to make a contrasting heel, mostly because it might peek out of a pair of shoes, making the socks look a little too casual. I was envisioning something businesslike and handsome.

They're knitted in Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks That Rock Lightweight. The main body of the socks is in the Lagoon colorway and the contrast toes in Haida. The colors are more accurate in this picture.

I used US size 2 needles, for a gauge of about 7 1/2 stitches per inch, and made them in a men's large size. I used one full 4 1/2-ounce skein of Lagoon, and about one ounce of Haida.

The Lagoon yarn was actually a little stiff to knit with, which is why, after some experimental swatching, I went with larger needles than the label suggests. At first, knitting with the Lagoon, I wondered why people seem to like Socks That Rock so much. But, thankfully, the Haida yarn used for the toes seemed a little softer. After trying out Haida and a couple of other colorways, I'm a convert. It's pleasant, bouncy yarn, with beautiful stitch definition. And there are scads of great colorways.

And what about those dangers along the way? Well, let's just say it's good to think about what project you might make and how much yarn it is likely to take when you're making that impulse yarn purchase, not a month later and 3,000 miles away. But the contrast toe added of necessity makes for a more interesting sock, and the Haida colorway blends in beautifully.

All's well that ends well. I hope he'll like them.

Heaping Helping of Hats

Maybe it's the suddenly cold weather. Or maybe it's a desire to tidy up some loose ends. Or maybe I just needed a break from knitting socks, socks, and more socks, after knitting three pairs in a row. Whatever it is, it caused me to dip deeply into the Yarnstruck strategic yarn stockpile and come up with the Wool-Ease Thick & Quick.

I bought this yarn a couple of years ago, in the Pumpkin and Claret colors, to make a school-spirit hat as a Christmas present for world's-most-patient-husband. It was kind of an impulse project. I hadn't really been looking for a super-bulky yarn, but that happened to be the one yarn at the local chain store that came in the requisite colors. Not sure how much I'd need and not wanting to run short, I bought four skeins, two in each color. I do like to have a safe margin. But once I'd knit the hat, it was clear I'd bought a ridiculous amount. Between the two colors, I had the equivalent of three full skeins remaining. Since then, it's just been lolling around, idly wondering whether it might want to grow up to be a matching scarf.

Finally, Friday, something clicked. I realized that there were a couple of close family members I'd never hand-crafted anything for. With the help of my new digital scale, I also figured out that the remaining yarn could easily make three more hats. I could make team hats for my brother-in-law and my two teen-aged nephews, football-mad fans all.

The brother-in-law version, like the husband-hat, was loosely adapted from Rebecca Rosen's Just Ribbing watchcap in the Just Hats book and re-worked for a different gauge (3 stitches per inch on US size 11 needles). I also added a graduated striped design. The 3x3 ribbing looked quite different in the super-bulky weight, and made for a lovable hat with a good personality. I hope my brother-in-law will like it; he has a kind heart and plenty of team spirit. (And trust me, it looks better on a person's actual head.)

For the teen-aged nephews, I needed a better idea of what might go over OK in the high-school crowd. I checked out a few ready-to-wear styles on-line. Based on that, I designed a fairly simple hat, and knit it up hoping for the best. It didn't look half bad, so I reversed the color scheme and made another one.

Here's the artsy top view. I've given the hat a name, too: Orange Effect.

The nephew hats looked pretty decent. But I still had yarn left. Yes, I wanted to do something nice for the guys, but I'd also been hoping to clear out that yarn. The scale told me it was enough for yet one more hat. I thought, why not? World's-most-patient-husband could use an updated one. So I grabbed the needles and had at it one more time.

In the end, those skeins I'd bought for one hat wound up stretching to five. Four of those, all but the original one, were knitted in the last three days in an on-again- off-again marathon of big yarn and hefty needles.

Here's the whole stack-o'-hats. (The original one sneaked in there too, on the bottom floor.) And, yes, the yarn, for the most part, is finally wiped out. Close enough, anyway. All in all, a pretty good weekend's work, I'd say.

Big Yarn

Builds Strong Bodies

I've been knitting with big yarn this weekend. After the last few projects with tiny little yarns, precise and delicate, this comes as something of a shock to the system. No neurosurgery here with sensitive little instruments, no fine motor skills, no grasping things gently. No, this is all muscles and sinews, pulling and levering sturdy yarn with big, thick needles.

I'm knitting hats with Lion Brand's Wool-Ease Thick & Quick, a super-bulky-weight yarn. This is no gently bred raised-with-a-silver-spoon yarn, it's a hearty, hard-working, level-headed, wheaties-for-breakfast-and- a-cup-of-strong-black-coffee yarn. You don't knit it with skinny little needles, either. The label calls for massive US size 13s. I'm using US size 11s for a warm, dense fabric. I suppose using smaller needles than recommended is adding to the physicality of the whole experience. But even at that, these are big needles. After weeks of knitting socks with US size 2s, they feel like cudgels. And if it came to that, in hand-to-hand combat between this yarn and me, I think I would win, but it would give me a good run for my money.

With each stitch, the yarn courses through my fingers in great inch-long bounds. My fingers and thumbs work hard, pushing and pulling. And, since I'm knitting in the round on double-points, the yarn constantly threatens to come off the ends of the needles. Although it's just a few stitches on each 7-inch needle, they sprawl and push their way to the ends of the needles through sheer bulk.

But when I get to the end of each row, I really feel I've done something. With big yarn, you don't knit row after row wondering if you'll ever get anywhere. Each row is a sizable chunk of visible progress. Inches of thick fabric practically leap from the needles. When I say I'm making hats, I mean I'm on the third hat in two days. It's not that I'm any champion knitter; it's just that it goes so fast with the super-bulky yarn. And not only do I see quick progress, but I feel it, too. I can feel the workout I'm getting in my biceps and in the meaty parts of my forearms.

I'd better get in shape, too, because I've got a whole sweater's worth of another super-bulky yarn waiting for me in the stockpile. Truthfully, though, it will probably be easier, because I most likely won't be knitting it at a dense gauge with smaller-than- recommended needles.

The yarns I'd been using lately are finely spun, made of precious fibers, individually hand-dyed, bearing the hand of the artisan. This acrylic-blend yarn is more redolent of large-scale production. And yet, part of it is lambswool. 20% of this mass-market juggernaut grew on a little baby lamb gamboling on a hillside somewhere. This whole business continues to amaze me.

Now, please excuse me while I go look for a hot compress and some Ben-Gay ointment.

Frost Flowers

Sometimes nature is just astonishing.

Just a quick one today. Yesterday's enchanted lull being at an end, I could no longer act as if I were snowbound. I went out to my car this morning to hurry to an early meeting. There was a thick coat of frost over everything, and my windshields would need to be cleared.

But when I leaned over with my icescraper, what I saw sent me running instead for the camera.

Feathers.
















A fleur- de-lis.










Irises and roses.












I am so glad I was lucky enough to open my eyes and see it, rather than heedlessly destroying such beauty.

Lovely, Lovely Snow

It's been a busy week for me, rushing from all-day meetings to the airport for a quick trip to Boston. I didn't expect to have much time there, and hadn't brought along any knitting. My projects in hand were either at a tricky stage or large.

I rushed through security, armed myself with a snack and a book, rushed to my gate, and prepared to board the plane. There all the rushing stopped. They were boarding, all right, but the display said Orlando, not Boston. Well, I thought, I'd better check the departure board to make sure I haven't made a mistake, hadn't I? As it turned out, my flight had been delayed. And, startlingly, it wasn't delayed for 10 or 15 minutes, but for four hours. (It was actually closer to five, when all was said and done, but four is what the board said.) No shortage of time now.

The problem wasn't in Boston. They had had 15 inches of snow the day before, but that had been dealt with by then. New Englanders do pride themselves on how well they cope with the snow and how poorly they think we handle it here in the mid-Atlantic. They have it plowed, and salted, and cleared in the blink of an eye. They take it all in stride, never missing a beat. We know this because they often take the opportunity to explain it to us. But this late plane was coming from elsewhere, actually a warm-weather place, so the Boston weather had nothing to do with the delay. There was nothing to do but wait it out. I wandered the airport until its diversions palled and settled in to read. It made for a late night getting in to the hotel, followed by an early morning and a breathless day.

Meetings over with, the return trip was smooth, with no ripple greater than an exceptionally chatty seatmate. I got home, sank gratefully into bed, and awoke to...
lovely, lovely snow!

I was delighted. Snow does fall here a few times each winter, but not so often that we lose our joy in it. And this time, I was particularly happy to see it. It snowed all day. It blanketed and muffled and damped down work's anxiety, and urgency, and hurry. It gave me just the excuse I needed (roads might ice up!) to decide to stay home for some much-needed time to relax. And sit by the fire. And knit. I lunched on home-made soup. I finished the Knots and Rings socks for my good-humored brother.

I had a peaceful, pleasant day looking out at the snow falling and doing exactly as I pleased.

And they think they know how to handle snow!

The Importance of Being Earnest

What about the Knitting Pattern-a-Day calendar -- what's inside?

Well, it's got a totally different personality. It is just what it says. It really is essentially a pattern every day, six days a week (since Saturday and Sunday are combined). That's a lot of patterns. This calendar is earnest and hardworking.

Deducting for the combined weekend entries, and a few that continue over more than one day, that's something close to 300 patterns. What a staggering job it must be to put all that together. When there are so many to compile, you aren't going to get there by commissioning new patterns from top designers. Instead, they issue an invitation each year to all and sundry to submit patterns for consideration. And all and sundry respond.

As far as I can tell, they hear mostly from three categories of submitters: yarn companies providing pattern support to sell more yarn, designers and bloggers trying to establish or expand a following, and just everyday ordinary folks saying, hey look at me, I've got my pattern in the calendar!

So the patterns run the gamut. Some are extremely simple, obvious, even. Lots of scarf/baby blanket/shell patterns in this yarn or that, or in a generic weight. Sometimes they're in a nice stitch pattern, or in an interesting colorway. Sometimes they're just as plain as can be but have a lovely warm thought from the submitter to accompany them. There are afghans and accessories, dishcloths and spa mitts, toys and strange things, like knitted lace bookmarks and decorative sleeves for votive candleholders. Some days it's just the stitch pattern itself. Then there are plenty of sweaters, hats, mittens, you name it. Some are attractive, and some unfortunate, some stodgy, and some really stylish.

Sometimes there's something interesting and authentic. A traditional Norwegian sweater from Arnhild Knitting Studio. A sock adapted from Dutch fisherman's style sweaters by Joanna Daneman.

Sometimes there's something arrestingly original, like the gansey-styled sock (whose designer I'm sorry I can't remember off the top of my head), that translates the gansey's traditional underarm gusset to serve as a heel.

And once in a while, there's something gorgeous. An elegant sweater by Annie Modesitt. A sock by Cat Bordhi. A domino knitting project by Vivian Hoxbro. A beautiful mosaic pattern. A chevron-patterned capelet in handspun alpaca.

The quality is patchy, from amateurish to great. Some days the pattern is a groaner, the photo muddy and hard to make out, the project laid out lumpily or modeled by a loved one feeling awkward in front of the camera. Other days, the pattern shows a real eye for style. Maybe this unevenness is what has me pulling for it. It's like a child getting the hang of riding a bicycle, with someone running along behind, pushing and steadying it, just on the verge of wobbling off on its own with its training wheels.

This year, I notice they've changed editors. We'll have to see if the new editor helps with smoothing out the bumps without losing the nice parts. Signs so far are mixed. The photography seems clearer and more consistent. Some of the patterns continue to be strange. Maybe stranger than ever. A shoulder car-seat-belt cozy. String bikinis for your hands. (Really. Narrow bands around the wrist and each finger, all connected by strings.) Oh, and dear new editor, one request is to avoid continuing multi-day patterns onto that combined Saturday/Sunday entry. It just makes for yet one more day without a new surprise.

It's the daily uncertainty that makes it exciting. People who complain that there aren't many patterns they'd like to make are missing the point. If you want to know what you're getting or have a particular style in mind, this is not the place to look.

But if you love the jelly-beans-all-sorts chanciness of never knowing what's next, it's interesting, maddening, pleasing, disappointing, and utterly... wonderful.