Blitherings – Page 240 – Ink, Yarn & Beer

Old Dog

I am a hopelessly English-style knitter. I’ve been doing it forever. I keep my hands very close to the needles when I knit, moving my hands forward along the needles and use motion to wrap the yarn around the needle before popping the new stitch off. Unlike many English-style knitters, I don’t “throw” my yarn by making a big, sweeping circle around the needle. My purling is not so graceful.

I’ve tried learning Continental, but have never found a method I liked. So many people have their index finger sticking straight out, like a flag pole. It looks tiring. Trying it, I got exhausted and frustrated. The same with flipping the yarn to the front of the needle.

And then, in the middle of the night, looking at YouTube, I came across a really cool video called “Norwegian Purling” – and a light bulb went off! Heather (hsailormoon on YouTube and Ravelry) has produced a very clear clip. She knits very nicely! Her scarf in the demo has very even tension (the link to the scarf is here: http://www.cometosilver.com/patterns/palindrome.htm).

Watch Heather knit!

This was pretty informative and impressive – and even better, easy.

Cat Bordhi also has a type of purl she does for tightening up purl stitches when knitting Continental, and like Heather, she keeps the working yarn for the purl on the back side of the needle. Here is her video:

If you look closely, you will see (and hear) Heather wraps her yarn differently than Cat. Heather wraps her needle over the top of the working yarn, and Cat goes from underneath.

These next two videos are very short, but once you understand how the Norwegian purl works, you can observe what is being done by elsteffo.

Knitting:

Purling:

As I said above, knitting Continental with the left index finger sticking out is uncomfortable and tiring for me. Here is a video which shows the hands close to the needles, knitting and purling with the yarn on the back of the needles:

Ribbing:

Efficient, easy movements!

Now, something else to learn: watch the Knit Witch:

Arf!

And Sarah:

Arf! Arf!! Arf!!!

Lines

There is something so inherently interesting about lines. Outlines. Lines of color. Lines leading into the distance. Lines of a car. Lines of a leaf. Ink lines. Paint lines. The swoop of telephone lines alongside the road.

A brush can express a line, which in turn, expresses something else. A line can be straight. A line can curve. A line can undulate. A line can be created without a change of pressure on the brush, or changing the angle of the brush. Or, it can be created with movement and pressure.

Lines can be used to enhance the sense of something, such as the veins in a leaf. Or give a subtle – and not so subtle – sense of a shape, by outlining it.

Coloring books have lines, too, and good kids stay inside the lines, and are tidy.

Lines can say many things. Yet, a part of me rebels against lines. “The shortest distance between two points is a line.” Is it?

Lines can contain. Lines delineate. Lines define.

Lines express. Lines move beyond the seen, on into infinity, leading the imagination to the unknown, leaving the mind to fill in what is expressed – the experience becomes unique to the person, the imagined is more real than that which is seen.

Lines can be broken. Lines can be solid. Lines can be heavy or light or medium in density, or gradated by the addition of color or more ink.

Any brush stroke, long or short, is a line. What is on that brush becomes an experience on paper, the process of loading ink or paint, choosing the angle of the brush, the tip, the pressure. Paper determines if the paint or ink runs and bleeds, or sits on the surface to be slowly absorbed by the fibers. Is the paper sized? Unsized? Has it been moistened or not?

A line. Not so simple.

Bamboo 1b

Life in the Stash Lane

The other day while I was walking through the garage – which is something I seldom do, and generally avoid – I noticed a number of my plastic storage bins, which I had not seen for quite some time. It’s not that they have been hidden or anything….I just don’t see them. They are there, but not accounted for, therefore, invisible.

Until the other day.

Now, as Josh chops up bacon and fries it for carbonara, as the pasta boils, as the eggs are prepped, as the parsley is chopped, I have sneaked out to the garage, curious as to what is in there.

Fortunately, no spiders.

There are lots of UFOs – mostly socks – a scarf, balls of yarn without any labels, some beautiful stuff, but only one skein, and then enough for a hat or some other small item. Some handspun. Lots of needles, too – any wonder why I have to keep buying more??? And I only looked at two boxes. I think there may be at least 5 or 6 more.

It’s been crossing my mind that I should go on a yarn diet, and use what I have (with buying only what I really need). That would take the rest of my life!

So, I pulled out a few things – no matter that I have a hat to finish, a scarf, lots of other socks, some of this and some of that….but I have gotten some things done! See this?

Alicia in the Clouds

The second beret – now known as “Clouds” – and some photos, too, of it. The PDF is done – it just needs another picture or two, and proofing by the test knitters, and then – corrections? And publication! I can hardly wait!

Pattern Design – Layout, Writing, Photos, Oh My!

I have spent a lot of hours over the past few days, trying to write out my beret pattern! Talk about work, headaches, and so on. It really is a nuisance – or maybe it’s just me? Not only do I want clear instructions, I want to create a pattern which is pleasant to look at when it is published in a PDF format. What to do? Where to begin?

There are probably”obvious” places to begin…but I expect they vary with each individual. This is the sequence I followed as far as publishing went:

Create the diagrams of the patterns, the body and the decrease. From there, export them into a PNG format and divide them up into sections.
Decide on the layout – pictures, text – what to put where. Also decide on a logical sequence.
Create the pattern in MS Publisher.
Convert to PDF

Steps 1 to 3 were easy enough, but for whatever reason, Adobe would not convert the Publisher file into a PDF document. Finally, I hit on saving each page in Publisher as a PNG, and combined all 5 pages of the pattern into one PDF file. Whew! Of course, I’ve already discovered a few mistakes in spelling, and design flaws (biggies, IMHO), and thoughts for better instructions. Despite this, the PDF is sent off to the test knitters, and I will need to make corrections – but not tonight, thank you!

Oriel Pic 4

Lastly, a friend has the beret, to photograph for me! Certainly the pictures will be better than the ones I took. The ones in the original PDF will be replaced by ones far better than my sad little ones….

Isn’t it good?

There is just something about color knitting – stranded knitting – that gets me more than anything else. Of late, I’ve been enjoying the making of hats and mitts and gloves, in cables and in lace, but ahhh! Color! Truly addicting. This WIP is from Terri Shea’s book Selbuvotter, and this is NHM #7.

NHM 7 - d

NHM 7 - c

I’ve only been working on these for a few days, but I think I should be done in about a week, between work and classes and life….

NHM 7 - b