Category Archives: FYI

Stellar’s Jay Cardigan: Closing Time

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Originally, I had planned to add a typical button band to my cardigan.  But, of course, I changed my mind (because I like to make things difficult for myself).  Once the sweater was nearing completion, it occurred to me that a vertical button band would totally break up the beautiful, simple horizontal lines of the sweater.  So what’s a girl to do?  What could I use to close up my sweater invisibly?

My first thought was to use hooks and eyes.  I bought a couple packs of great big hooks and eyes (sized to be used on a coat), and attached them to the front edge of my sweater.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI sewed 20 stupid little hooks in place, and then I tried it on.  And then, I just about cried.  It looked terrible!  It was all weird and pucker-y.  It pulled at every single hook when I wore it.  (Of course some of the terrible-ness came from me sewing the hooks on incorrectly-too far from the edge, but a part of it was just the nature of the hooks.  Hook-and-eye fastenings work best with stiffer fabrics, not soft, stretchy wool sweaters.)OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI immediately cut off the hooks and eyes.  I’ve still got them, so maybe I’ll use them for another project down the line, but definitely not another sweater.

Instead, I bought myself a nice long separating zipper and sewed it carefully by hand along the front plackets. Because the zipper has absolutely no stretch to it, I made sure to sew it in very carefully.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAWhen I closed up my sweater this time, I was overjoyed with how it turned out. The edges match up perfectly!  There’s no unsightly gap or puckering, and I even managed to make sure the zipper didn’t buckle or pull at the front of the sweater.  Victory!

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A Very Special Hook

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I don’t talk a lot about crochet.  I’m mostly a knitter, after all.  But I do enjoy a good crochet project from time to time.  There’s something very gratifying about the speed that you can work up a lovely afghan.  And I love the idea that you can use a tool as simple as a little hook to make such beautiful and complicated patterns.

Hooks like this one that I received in the mail from one of great-aunts:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAIt’s a beautiful  little tool.  It’s wooden, and well worn to satin-y smoothness with years of use.  And the most amazing part:  It was hand-made by my great-grandfather for my great-grandmother.  And (amazingly!) it’s managed to survive all these years.

Can you imagine whittling a crochet hook by hand?  I can only imagine how many times my great-grandfather must have started this hook, only to end up cutting all the way through and having to start again.  (Or at least that’s what I would have done, but then again, I’m a knitter, not a woodworker.)

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI haven’t worked up the guts to try crocheting with the hook yet, but it would be perfect for making a lovely cozy blanket with chunky yarn (the hook is about a size US M).  I’m afraid of breaking it all these years!  For now, I think I’ll keep it in a shadow box in my knitting studio, where it will stay nice and safe.

What’s that smell?

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I was trying to buy a ball of white Sugar ‘n Cream the other day.  The only one I could find at JoAnn’s was this:

WP_20140620_001Can you read the label?  It says “Sugar ‘n Cream Scents.”  It’s scented yarn.  What terrible fever dream birthed this idea?  It smells like a mix between that stinky aisle in Wal-Mart where they keep the candles and a nursing home.  (Or, as the folks at Lily claim, “Powder,”  whatever the heck that means.)

It’s pretty much the worst thing I’ve seen in knitting in a long time, and I hope it goes away really quickly.  Would you ever knit with scented yarn?

Young Girl with Two Sheep

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Last week, in Portland, my husband and I visited the Portland Art Museum.  It’s a nice little museum, and a lovely way to escape the heat of July for the afternoon.  We had wandered through most of the museum, when we stumbled upon an exhibition of photographs of gardens, and the people who enjoyed them.  It sounds like a weird show to curate, but it was actually pretty neat.  There were modern photographs as well as pictures from the beginnings of photography, when ‘snapshots’ were less popular.  It was interesting to see how, though the clothing has changed from the 1800’s, people still enjoy their gardens in pretty much the same way.

My favorite photograph was a tiny (about 4inches by 6) print that had been taken in France in the late 1870’s by someone called “Auguste Giraudon’s Artist.”  I looked online for more information about him, but came up blank.  I can only assume that Auguste Giraudon must have been a member of the aristocracy, and his unnamed artist must have been paid to take photographs of his holdings and the people that lived there.  Of course, I’m just making that up, so it could be totally wrong.

2012.81.4Anyway, look at this beautiful little picture of a young shepherdess and her two charges.  It’s almost 150 years old, and it’s still a lovely little photograph.  And, look closely at the girl’s hands.  See that?  She’s knitting!  I know it’s historical whitewashing, but tending over your flock while knitting socks for your family sounds like a lovely way to spend your time.

Stellar’s Jay Sweater: Progress!

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Hey!  Look what I managed to get done last week!   It’s an almost-finished Stellar’s Jay Sweater!

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAIsn’t it amazing what you can get done when you only bring one project on a week-long car trip?

My husband and I spent the week driving up the Oregon Coast.  Well, mostly he drove, and I knit (because I’m a rather nervous driver, especially on those twisty-turny roads).  The Oregon coast is absolutely gorgeous!  If you live within a three-state radius of Oregon, make sure you visit.  There are lush redwood forests, beautiful rocky cliffs teeming with sea birds, gray whales and sea lions frolicking in the ocean, and tide pools full of neon green sea anemones.  It’s a magical place.

Unfortunately, right about when we made it back up to Portland, I ran out of yarn!  That’s why there’s a rather large chunk missing between my left elbow and shoulder.  It’s not me being avant-garde, it’s me being bad at ordering enough yarn to finish a project.

I’ve put the order in, and you’d better believe that as soon as that package hits my front door, I’ll grab my needles and finish up my soon-to-be favorite sweater!

Knifty Knitter is Knot So Bad

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Going into the whole “teaching kids to knit” thing, I would have looked down my nose at the Knifty Knitter and other knitting looms.

71WfQ65azgS._SL1500_[1]In fact, when my boss gave me the tub of knitting supplies for the class, I shuddered at the presence of the Knifty Knitters, and the bag of Fun Fur (did you know that Fun Fur survived the last decade?).  I always thought they were dumb, useless tools for people who didn’t have the attention span to learn how to knit properly.  But, being a dutiful employee (and one paid by the hour), I sat down to try making a project on the loom.

I looked at the instructions, and realized that the Knifty Knitters are basically gigantic versions of those old-fashioned spool knitting mushrooms.  You wrap your yarn around each peg twice, then slip the bottom loop around the top loop.  Then you wrap and slip again (and again and again).

gk-knitting-mushroom2[1]Quickly enough, a decent little hat grew off the bottom of my loom.  I still thought it was a clunky way of knitting.  Unlike needles, the loom takes up quite a bit of space.  And, the stockinette stitch it produces is oddly gappy, with every stitch twisted, giving the stretched fabric a strange vertically-striped look.  Also, there is really no way to easily increase or decrease from the set number of stitches, or change the gauge.  I’ve since poked around on Ravelry, and it looks like some people have found ways to get around this aspect of the looms, but it seems like too much work, when using needles is so simple.

But, the best part of the Knifty Knitter appeared when I brought the looms out for the girls in my class.  About half the class was doing fairly well with their needles, but the other half was seriously struggling.   Once everyone had given their needles a fair try, I broke out the Knifty Knitters for those who wanted to use them.  Girls who had been unable to make a single stitch before were suddenly flying around the looms making hats, purses, cowls, and stuffed animals.

Charity_hat__6_medium2[1]Knitted Hat by Provo Craft

I’m not saying that I would recommend the Knifty Knitter as a substitute for knitting needles.  And, I will probably never use one again.  But, as a supplementary tool for young kids who are unable to wrangle needles and yarn, or people with issues that prevent them from knitting the “normal” way,  these tools get my enthusiastic thumbs up.

Knitting with Kids

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Almost a month ago, I spent the week teaching a beginning knitting class to a group of 10 school-aged girls (ages 7-11).   I couldn’t wait to see what would happen.  I’ve taught people to knit before (but always grown-ups), and I’ve taught kids before (I teach sewing lessons as my day-job).  But, this would be an interesting new experience.  I was excited, but also oddly nervous.  Would they be able to do it?  Would they like it?  Would they get too frustrated?

Here are some things that I learned:

1.  Fine motor skills are definitely needed for knitting.  I don’t think any of the girls under 8 really “got” knitting, which is too bad.  I just hope they remember that knitting is fun, the next time they try it.  It also makes me wonder about those stories you hear of girls in Ye-Olden-Times, who learned to knit at the age of 4 to help their mothers with keeping the family clothed.  Maybe olden-time-y girls had better dexterity, but that seems unlikely.

2.  Focus isn’t really a problem, when the kids are excited about what they’re making.  My girls complained and whined when they had to leave class for recess!  It kind of made my day to hear them all go, “Just let me finish this row!”

3.  Except when focus is a problem.  Sometimes the chatting got a little too much for the girls, and that’s when they’d start adding extra stitches, dropping stitches and otherwise causing themselves problems.  But that’s not really a kid problem.  Everyone messes up their knitting when they get distracted.

4.  Nothing is better than when a difficult, new skill “clicks” with a kid.  They get all excited and giggly and proud.  One girl had never picked up knitting needles at the beginning of the week.  Her first project was more hole than knitting, and her second project looked sort-of like knitting, albeit a little wonky.  But halfway through her third project, you could actually look at her knitting and see the row where she finally figured out  knitting.  It was amazing.  She got so excited, and told me that she had even gone to JoAnn’s the night before to pick out her first pair of knitting needles and her first ball of yarn.

5.  Knitting is a slow process, and sometimes kids need someone to push them a little bit.  I didn’t force anyone to work on a project that they didn’t want to do, but there were definitely a couple times when one of my girls wanted to stop halfway through a project, and I gently suggested that they kept going.  Once they got back in the swing of things, they’d invariably finish the project.  When kids are used to instant-gratification, working on a single project for a whole day (or two or three), can be a test of their patience.

6. The best part of knitting, whether you are a kid or a grown-up, is sitting around with your friends and shooting the shit.  I ran my class like a knitting circle, helping one kid at a time with their projects, while everyone chatted.  I had a few super-basic projects for everyone to start with  (a garter-stitch book mark, a garter-stitch headband, a garter-stitch bracelet…see a pattern?).  But, everyone worked on their favorite pattern at their own speed, chatting and helping each other out.

I hope that I sparked at least a couple of the girls to take up needles and do some knitting on their own.  But even if they never knit again, I think everyone had a fun week, and at least walked away from class thinking that knitting is pretty neat.

Needles that Rule

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J0yDjiKJust a quickie today, something silly and fun.   I stumbled across this ad from the fifties for the “Measure Knit.”  They’re knitting needles with markings for inches, so you can use them as rulers.  How smart is that?  I’m always loosing my tape measures, so having a ruler/knitting needle hybrid would be super useful.

And, if the ladies in the ad are any indication, these needles are more exciting than a barrel full of monkeys.

Keeping Warm, Old-School Style

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A few months ago, my mom visited one of her cousins.   She showed my mother a bedspread she had inherited from their grandmother (my great-grandmother).  And, knowing my love of anything fiber arts, especially anything related to fiber arts with a sentimental back story, Mom sent me a picture:

Zimmer Counterpane

It’s a beautiful crocheted counterpane.  Counterpanes are traditionally knit or crocheted bed spreads, worked in white or off-white cotton yarn.  They usually are comprised of separately-worked pieces (squares, octagons, etc.) which include textural elements that work together  to make a bigger pattern once sewn together.

See how this blanket is made of large squares, sewn together?

Zimmer Counterpane large squaresBut, when the big squares line up, smaller squares appear?

Zimmer Counterpane small squaresMy great-grandmother was a prolific knitter and crocheter, but through the years, most of her projects have been lost to moths, given away, or otherwise misplaced.  I always get excited to see a piece of her work that has been kept safe over the years, especially as beautiful and well-preserved as this blanket.

Stellar’s Jay Sweater: Stagnation

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So, I have this spreadsheet that I use to plan out my blog posts (because I am a nerd, and like to be organized).  Today I was supposed to tell you about how I knit up the arms on my Stellar’s Jay Cardigan.  It was going to be a nice little post, to give you an update on my progress, and tell you about how well everything was going.

Well.   It turns out that today’s post will actually be a little different.  It will be about how I forgot to work on my sweater at all since you last saw it, over a month ago.

It’s sitting in its little project bag, between my stash of sock yarn and my little chest of finished projects.  I look at it every couple days and think, “I should probably pick that up and knit a row or two.”  But, still it sits there, forlorn and neglected.

I could make excuses, pleading that I have been too busy with other projects (which is sort of true).  I could say that I have been busy with work, or getting ready for summer.  But the truth of it is, I’m just not feeling inspired by my little blue sweater.

I’m sure I’ll pick it up again, one of these days.  I’ll suddenly get the urge to finish it, and I’ll dive back in head first, but for right now, I’m happy chugging away on some other projects I’ve got in the works.  It’ll be waiting for me  when I get back to it.

Do you ever put a project on hold?  What do you do to get your inspiration back?