Two by two, hands of blue, cables make me want to scream

So, I am working on a Bigger on the inside shawl, to coincide with my watching of Doctor Who. It’s actually been going swimmingly, considering my propensity to get bored with what I’m knitting and walk away from a project for years on end.  A lace shawl finished in less than two months?! Inconceivable!

However, I’ve hit the first cables that make up the roofline of the Tardis and the instructions are so freaking unclear. Mainly this is because the designer doesn’t want you to knit these like regular cables, where you slide one stitch off, either to the back or front, and then come back to that stitch later. I can do that no problem. But her instructions call for keeping the stitches all on the same needle, and when I attempt that it comes out totally verkakte. This would all be made clear with a simple video somewhere, but does anyone on the internet have one? No. The best I can find use four stitches instead of two, or call it C2F instead of C2L, but a stitch dictionary I found online made it clear that these aren’t really interchangeable stitch terms, they are slightly different. Also, shouldn’t it be C4F if you are working four stitches, not 2? There is absolutely no standard for this term and so many “teachers” and “designers” online are using the terminology incorrectly I want to scream. Shoot me now. Also, I have a miserable cold so my patience is really low right now.

Ok, upon rereading the stitch dictionary I found online I discovered that the different between C2F and C2L appears to be that one version slips stitches and the other works them on the same needle, as this pattern calls for. Strangely enough, though, the term that calls for the stitches to be worked on one needle is C2F, while this pattern uses that definition for C2L. Do you see what I mean about no freaking standards? Makes me want to tear my hair out.

Thankfully, I did find an online tutorial that was a.) using two stitches for C2F, and was b.) knitting them the way that the designer for this pattern asks that they be knit, even if she’s using the wrong term according to others out there on the web. I’m sharing this video with all of you so that others don’t go through my personal torture. Now I’m going to go take another antihistamine.

UPDATE: Ok, so I tried to start the purl side of C2R and C2L and totally got confused. It was clearly way too late at night and I was too sick because I missed the directions entirely. Though the words didn’t really help at all. However, I found an obscure video about knitting 2-stitch Bavarian twists on the wrong side. At the end of the video, the teacher explains that these “twists can be turned into crosses” (aka C2L or C2R) by turning one knit stitch into a purl stitch. Perfect! Exactly what I was looking for. Though I did stop for a minute and think, “Wait, so does ‘C’ stands for ‘cross’ or ‘cable’? I’m so confused!” I personally followed Method A from the video and after doing it about three times along with the video I could remember it enough to do the two mock cables by myself. Just ignore her when she says to knit the first stitch – it’s always a purl stitch.

So the moral of this story? Sometimes in patterns, less is not more, more is more. After seeing those videos I could do the cables or twists all on one needle, no problem, but not being able to understand what I was doing was very difficult at first. Since these are pretty obscure techniques, in my opinion, more explanations upfront would have made this less of a hair-tearing experience.

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Ravelry lunch date at the Pittsburgh Knit and Crochet Festival

I always enjoy talking to people in real life situations. As much as I love reading and writing and conversing with others online, nothing compares with the subtle hand and facial gestures we all subconsciously make and implicitly understand. That being said, I got to meet up with some fellow Ravelers this weekend at the Pittsburgh Knit and Crochet Festival. So, HiMyNameIsPurple, me (LadyDanio), samie1914, scf1270 and junebug2285 met up in the hotel lobby where this pretty picture below was taken. We had a quick lunch date in the middle of a busy Saturday and it was wonderful getting to know everyone in real life.

Sam (pictured in the pink top) and I (with the ginormous Mini Mania Scarf) met up first. Unbeknownst to me, she had just sent me a Rav message, and I was in the middle of reading a text from Lindsay (pictured in the purple and grey scarf), so we had a hilarious who’s-on-first conversation at the beginning! Once we figured out who we each were, everyone else arrived. We headed off to the hotel bar, which was serving a buffet.

Sam and Heather (in the blue) had just come out of the festival, so they showed off all of their goodies, which included some dynamite SpaceCadet Creations yarns and a handturned wooden nostepinne for ball winding. Lunch was tons of fun as we got to know each other. We discovered that most of us knew the same people from similar knit groups in the area and I think I have been roped into joining them for an evening! 😉

Since Sam and Heather had already shopped and were heading out, they were so kind as to sneak their $15 handtags to Lindsay and I so that we could slip into the festival for a few minutes without having to pay. Lindsay had been there the day before, but hadn’t been able to stay because her toddler is going through the terrible twos, and so she kindly gave me a grand tour so I didn’t waste time (yes, I had the booths I wanted to see mapped out). I think we were only there for 20 minutes, but I definitely plopped down a bunch of money on yarns!

Of course I stopped by SpaceCadet to see the dyer, Stephanie, who’s a friend of mine, and stumbled into friend and fellow designer Sara Bench, aka CelticQueen, who was the Knitty Surprise design feature for their winter issue. Her pattern Love Actually (is all around) is an absolutely adorable heart-patterned cowl.

Then I headed over to Highland Alpaca, whose yarns I love so much that I began their Ravelry database listings several years ago and try to update them whenever I see them at a new show. I was running out of time but I hit Blue Heron Yarns to tell the dyer about my favorite yarn of hers, Blue Heron Silk Merino, which I have in two different colorways. I wear the Hayworth Shawlette that is made out of that ALL THE TIME. It’s my go-to scarf for both indoors and stylish wearing in light winter weather. The dyer confessed that she loves that yarn to death as well, so much so that she keeps a private stock for her own dyeing purposes! But she let it slip that if you contact her personally she’ll do a custom order for you. If you’ve been looking for some high-end silk merino sportweight that is really fab, you should get in touch with her and ask. She also sometimes dyes it on a whim, and there were some skeins she had in kits, so you may be able to get your hands on it that way.

We had wrapped up the day by 1:30 p.m. and were heading out. I think I could have sat and talked for another hour with everyone but we’d just run out of time! It was great seeing everyone and great meeting in real life. Next time I’ll be out and about will be the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival this May. Maybe you’ll see me there!

Mie – The English Translation

Design: Rachel Søgaard

This shawl is knit in the softest merino, with no purl stitches, sideways, using short rows to form the ruffles.

1st edition – March 2011 © Filcolana A / S

Materials:
fingering weight / 4 ply yarn yarn in three coordinating colors: main color (MC), contrasting color (CC) and edging (ED)
Suggested yarn: Filcolana Arwetta ekstra fin merino (100 grams in colorway 516, 100 grams in colorway 1061, and 50 grams in colorway 243)
Circular needles sized 4 mm (6 US), 60 cm (24 inches) in length
Crochet hook 4 mm (size G)
1 stitch marker

Dimensions:
Length 160 cm (63 inches)
Width (at widest point): 43 cm (17 inches)

Gauge:
22 sts and 44 rows in garter stitch on size 4 mm needles (6 US) = 10 x 10 cm (4 inches square)

Increasing:
M1 – Knit through the back of the loop in chain between the space between sts, as it suits.

Color Changes:
To get a nice edge along the top of the shawl (where there is not a crocheted edge) cross the yarns the same way, every change of color.

Shawl:
Knit all rows (back and forth on circular needle).
Cast on 16 sts with MC.
Row 1: Knit 2 sts, PM, knit 14 knit sts.
Row 2: Knit 10 sts, turn.
Row 3: Knit 10 sts, turn.
Row 4: Knit 16 sts
Row 5: (CC): 2 knit sts, M1 before the marker, slip marker, knit 14.
Row 6: Knit 10 sts, turn.
Row 7: Knit 10 sts, turn.
Row 8: Knit 17 sts.
Row 9 (MC): Knit 17 sts.
Row 10: Knit 10, turn.
Row 11: Knit 10, turn.
Row 12: Knit 17 knit sts.
Row 13 (CC): Knit 3 sts, M1 before the marker, slip marker, knit 14 .
Row 14: Knit 10 sts, turn.
Row 15: Knit 10 sts, turn.
Row 16: Knit 18 sts.
Repeat rows 9-16, each time increasing at the row 13 and therefore 1 st more before stitch marker.
When increased a total of 75 times (= 91 sts, ending with 16th row), knit rows 9-12, then again the 9-12 rows with ED, so with MC and again with CC.

Now dec where before you were to inc:
Row 1 (MC): Knit until 2 sts before the stitch marker, k2tog, knit 14 sts.
Row 2: Knit 10 sts, turn.
Row 3: Knit 10 sts turn.
Row 4: Knit all sts.
Row 5 (CC): Knit all sts.
Row 6: Knit 10 sts, turn.
Row 7: Knit 10 sts, turn.
Row 8: Knit all sts.

Repeat row 1-8 until there is 17 sts left. Knit rows 1-3 once. Cast off.

Finishing:
Crochet an edging along the edge of the ruffle with ED. Crochet 1 dc in each garter stitch.
Weave in ends.
Soak shawl, gentle spin and lay flat to dry.

——————————————-

Thanks goes to out to Svipser on Ravelry, for looking over my translation and making final corrections. If anyone has any additional corrections to make to the translation of this pattern, please contact me by email and I’ll be happy to make any necessary changes.

Holy crapola!

I’ve been slowing reorganizing my blog. Adding links here, a couple of more friends there, and studying my statistics carefully as a handful of visitors roll by little corner of the web (three people Monday, another one on Tuesday,seven whole visitors Wednesday…).

Then tonight I logged on before heading to bed and saw that my little visual stat counter had skyrocketed. I absentmindedly swung my mouse over to it, wondering where my visitors were coming from, and the mouse-over produced a number that made me sit up and gasp! Yesterday, 1,121 unique visitors visited my blog! Ok, you can close your mouth.

This statistic blew every other number out of the water. Just last week I was thrilled when 26 people checked out the blog the day I added a new pattern to Ravelry. So you can imagine that I’m a little numb right now from shock. The reason for it, of course, is the magic of publicity.

I mentioned it indirectly in my last post, but a couple of days ago I was wandering around the Internet when I stumbled upon a free pattern website, aptly called Knitting Pattern Central. After thinking about it for a few minutes, I decided that it couldn’t hurt to tell the good people there that I had some free knitting patterns that were available for download to the general public. They sent me a nice email back, and I figured I’d be added eventually to their lists.

I guess I was added all right! According to yesterday’s statistics, 1 person found me by checking out my Ravelry profile, a second person followed a direct blog link out of a swap group in Ravelry, a third found me through Google, and 1,049 people found me through the Knitting Pattern Central! Out of those visitors, 737 alone were interested in finding out what the Betty & Veronica Scarf looked like, and many of them downloaded the pattern. Wow. I think I need to sit down.

Well, if you’ve stumbled across my blog because of Knitting Pattern Central, hello and welcome! (waves) I’m glad to have you checking me out. 🙂 Good night everyone!

Betty & Veronica pattern goes live today!

A new published pattern, the Betty and Veronica Scarf, goes live today! After a month of testing on Ravelry (I had eight fabulous testers helping me out), we’ve worked out all the kinks and come up with an accurate estimate of yardage to make it easier for everyone else to enjoy knitting.  I’m thrilled to report that one of my testers likes the pattern so much that she is starting a knit-a-long for it on Ravelry, in the Fun KALs – Shawls and Such group that she runs.

You’ll notice that currently I only have links to Ravelry for downloading my patterns. Well, that is going to be changing soon as I want to be a gateway drug for Ravelry give those who aren’t on Ravelry the opportunity to download my patterns as well. After all, I clearly remember trolling the Internet looking for great free patterns to knit up for myself, so it only makes sense that I would give others the same courtesy.

Also, for those of you interested less in the knitting aspect of this project and more in the owning of said scarves, I am selling two of the finished projects in my Etsy shop. The Raspberry Cheesecake Souffle one was the scarf that was actually the first of my final design prototype, and was knit in an extra-ruffly style that really makes the Veronica version of the scarf stand out. The second one I am selling is Veronica’s Dark Secret, and it was inspired by the fictional character Veronica Mars, from the television show of the same name. There’s just something lovely and deep about that scarf, and it is the first fine-tuned version of the pattern. The others have been traded and given away in turn as promotional efforts for the pattern.

Again, I want to give a huge thanks to all of my testers and everyone who willingly helped me out by knitting one, or two, or even  more of these for me! In truth, this pattern is slightly addictive, and many found that they couldn’t resist doing a second or a third to see how different it came out every time! I’ve actually knit this scarf six times already, and I’m currently on my seventh scarf. As soon as I get a chance to push aside my other deadline knitting projects, that is. This is a great stashbuster – my favorite kind of project!

Betty & Veronica are rockin’ it

I’m sugar and spice and everything nice but if you wanna mess with me you better think twice.

I knit this scarf twice – once with the general idea of the pattern I wanted, and then a second time after I realized what I had done wrong the first time. UGH. I hate frogging. It was only sheer determination that kept me going. Basically, what I wanted to do was pair together two complementary yarns in my stash. Because one was handspun and the other a very expensive skein of yarn, they didn’t have much yardage, and therefore weren’t worth much by themselves. But together, they were more than the sum total of themselves alone.

I split the Rapture yarn evenly into two balls based on weight (which weighed about 22 grams each). Then I cast on with the Rapture yarn. Ik nit four rows of k2, p2 ribbing to create a loose ruffle. At this point I was torn – my original idea was to create short-rows a la Laura Chau’s Just Enough Ruffles, but I wasn’t sure I’d have enough. As I sat and envisioned how the final project would look, I got more and more mentally frustrated by things not knitting up properly, and decided that a short scarf with the added problem of having narrow ends probably wasn’t a good idea.

Instead, I retreated to my favorite knitting technique – ruching! Unlike most of the ruched patterns on Ravelry, I stuck to all stockinette stitch in order to show off the handspun look of my center yarn, as opposed to hiding it with garter stitch. Then I created a second ruffle at the other end, cast off, and viola! The Betty & Veronica Scarf. Now it’s time to write this pattern up and get it out there to share with the world! Ok ok, just with like-minded knitters on Ravelry. 😉 I’m also going to knit it again with slightly different yardages and weights in an effort to gauge how differently it can come out. Yey!

A pocket, a posy…

…a ring around the rosy…

Obviously I have  pattern design on the brain now. This week, it’s the contemplation of the perfect shawl for my grandmother. Well, I suppose I’ve been building toward this. First I had to acquire the perfect yarn:

Check.

Then I had to find some inspiration:

Check.

Then I had to find the perfect pattern:

Uhh…

See, the problem is that the yarn’s colorway is called “Forget Me Not.” The yarn itself looks like the flowers from a forget-me-not, and I was immediately drawn to the idea of creating a shawl for her that looked like forget-me-nots. At first I thought Miriam Felton’s Seraphim Shawl would be divine, but hers used fingering weight yarn and I really wanted something a bit more flowery. Unfortunately, the only flower-like shawl patterns are either ugly, or, in the case of the Forget-Me-Not shawl patterns on Ravelry, look nothing like the petals of this flower.

So I’ve done some research today. I wandered through my favorites first, looking for something that might look like a flower, and then through the other flower patterns on Ravelry. And I found something! As I was wandering through one of my lace books, Victorian Lace Today, I noticed a really intriguing edgework that implemented a design feature that looked like the six petals of a forget-me-not flower.. “A Curved Shawl with diamond edging” apparently uses the traditional Shetland lace stitch “cat’s paw” with some success. I think the best picture of the edging can be seen here, on jeanneknits2’s Ravelry project page. I don’t think “cat’s paw lace” looks anything like a cat’s paw. Well, ok, it remotely resembles a cat’s paw, but what it really resembles is a small button-type posy of a flower. After seeing it knit up on some other shawls I’m excited by the idea of a whole shawl knit out of it:

Photo courtesy the blog, "Knitting Through the Looking Glass" by Pamela Lee

I tried to find a pattern that used the petals like I wanted them to be used (starting at the shoulders with just a few and eventually scattering outward until the shawl is covered with them), but that pattern just doesn’t exist – except in my mind. I’m not sure I’m experienced enough yet to actually physically design this pattern, as currently my only lace shawl, the Ishbel, is sitting in purgatory until it learns to behave itself, but…we shall see. My grndmother is old, and doesn’t have many years left, so that should spur me into learning how to do this quickly!

I am officially published!

IT’S HERE! MY FIRST PATTERN! I DESIGNED IT ALL BY MYSELF!

Ahem, and now back to your regularly scheduled programming. No seriously, I am very excited about my pattern. People have been favoriting and queuing for a couple days now, and I was getting anxious because after I wrote it up, it occurred tom e that I needed test knitters to check my work and make sure I didn’t make a mistake! So I dawdled, people found my errors, and now it is finally ready to go, a day late. I’ve been having so much fun watching people favorite and queue the pattern – I’m up to almost 80 hearts! – and cast on and knit it as well.

This was so freeing – I feel like I can design anything now! Now go check out my work, and knit it up if you so desire!

Ruched Sleep Eye Mask

Mask is done!

I reknit the mask and it’s gorgeous. It took a bit more yarn than the last one (26 yards), but every design flaw has been mended. I immediately laid it on the table that I use for photographing my yarns and moved everything else away from it so that it didn’t get rumpled. I finally got a chance to photograph it and edit the images yesterday, and I think everything came out pretty well. It was kinda dark outside (ok, raining and miserable), so I decided to go for a moody, spa-like look. I nabbed a crappy candle that I’d never used from one shelf and a shell that was filled with stylish toothpicks from another and shoved them together. Then I prayed that I didn’t set the curtain on fire, since I create my “lightbox” effect by wrapping the white sheers around the table. Oy! Everything went well. I found a wee little mistake in my seed stitch border on the mask (oops!) but it’s tiny and hopefully no will notice or care. Oh, and I used the pink ribbon for color and to mimic the effect of ties (if you are into that sort of thing, which I am not). Here’s some photo p0rn for you:

Oh! And I’ve been working on getting submitted as a pattern designer on Ravelry! It’s harder than it looks, so I’m actually glad I started before my official “release” date, which I randomly decided would be Oct. 1. I got OK’d today, so here’s a link to the page, even though the pattern isn’t up yet. People are already favoriting it!

More ruching fun

Yey! I am shocked at how fast my masks knit up! It was much harder to actually come up with the design than it was to actually knit them. I did two – one which I am calling my “prototype” and my second one which was perfect.  It  took me a couple hours to knit them, and I was watching TV and taking notes while I did it, so I think it went pretty well. The hardest part was making sure I got the ruching to look correct – I had to knit and then tink and then scratch out my notes and then reknit and then frog and then recount and reknit multiple times.

I made a seed stitch border, and had to do that a couple different times to make sure I was hiding the cast-on edge and the bind-off as well. I feel like I am teaching myself a lot as I knit this. The first one was a  little too large for my head and doesn’t really have great “lift.” I used size US 8s, as your average worsted weight yarn calls for, and after examining it, decided the mask would work much better on smaller needles. I cast on 13 stitches and only used 27 grams yarn, or 24 yards.

For the second prototype I cast on 17 stitches using size US 6 needles, and I could tell right from the beginning that it was working much better. The seed stitch pattern was more even (I had to make sure everything was symmetrical) and instead of a seed stitch band across the nose bridge, which lets in too much light, I just continued the stockinette stitch pattern. Tomorrow I’m going to make a third mask for photographing purposes because this poor mask is so beat up from my ripping back multiple times to get the pattern written correctly.