Category: Knitting

The Holy Gusset

Many, many moons ago, as a young and novice sock knitter, I produced my first socks.  I read my book.  I followed the directions.  I made the heel flap, turned the heel, picked up stitches, did the decreases and — and — and!

I had holes at the very top of my gusset.

I ripped it all out.  I read my book.  I followed the directions.  And there, once again, was those pesky holes.

I ripped out.  I read my book.

You get the idea.

Finally, in frustration, I just knit some extra stitches and did some strange things, and the holes magically disappeared. But, I had not followed the rules laid out in the sock pattern directions, and felt that, somehow, my inadequacy as a knitter was to blame.

Now mind you all, this was back in the days before internet, when yarn stores did not exist except far and between.  Libraries and books and relatives and friends were the only sources of information.  No one I knew knit socks.  I was on my own.

Fast forward a century or two.  Nancy Bush’s book Folk Socks debuted.  More sock books were published.  Sock knitting was In!  And The-Hole-at-the-Top-of-the-Gusset came out of the closet.

These memories tumbled out of the past as I was browsing YouTube.  This little jewel of a video shows you that nasty hole and how to conquer it.  Thank you KatAutumn!

Knitting Offenses

The other day, I was over at the local bookstore, and decided to grab a few knitting magazines to peruse with my coffee.   I saw some great designs in texture combined with lousy garment construction and finishing techniques.  The biggest offenders are the shoulders, sleeves, bodies, and necklines.

Garment Design. As an example, not too long ago, I bought a pattern booklet from a famous yarn maker.  The cover hat and glove set caught my  eye.  I bought it, without reading it.  When I read it, I was stunned.  The hat pattern – the same as for the back of the glove – was   knitted back and forth on two needles, and then seamed!  The gloves were knitted on four needles, in the round.

Huh??  Am I missing something here?

Necklines. I always look at the construction of the neckline, and I read the pattern.  Is there sewing to be done?  Is it knitted and attached as you go along, or done separately and then sewn on?  Is the neckline shaping capable of supporting the rest of the sweater body?   How does that V-neck or scoop neck look?  Too low?  Too high?  Do the edges of the neckline have a finished look, or do they look sloppy and stretched out?  Is it flattering?  Does it make the sweater fall off the shoulder?

Badly Designed Sleeves. Under this heading, you can find poorly sewn sleeves, at the shoulder and into the armpit, and along the length of the arm.  First question:  Who did the finishing?  Next question:  Why would you design a sweater with sleeve seams?

In one of the magazines I looked at, it was pretty obvious that the person who pieced together the sweater could not do the job.  The sleeve seam was messy and ragged.  The knitted pattern did not add to the offense; some stitches make it difficult to knit a “sewable” edge, but the designer can eliminate this problem if they must have sleeve seams.

Another picture in the same magazine showed inset sleeves with the same crappy finishing.  Puckers, uneven sewing.  This destroyed the sweater.  Here, the knitting designer was at fault to a degree because the pattern stitches used did not make the sewing-up easy.

Finally, photography.   A lot of magazines show evidence of pinning and pulling to make an item “fit” the model.   Here is when design flaws can really show up, as well as poor finishing techniques.  Thank the photographer for this!  It may make you re-think doing that pattern.

Body. This has been written up by some rather famous people.  Elizabeth Zimmermann said it all.  She documented this issue quite well when she sold her seamless Fair Isle sweater pattern to a famous magazine.  Said magazine rewrote the pattern to have side seams, shoulder seams, and sewn-in sleeves, even though it was pretty obvious in the picture that there were no seams at all – or that the seamstress was superb!

Poorly designed sweaters can result in sweaters which can never be sewn together well, no matter the talent.  I have some ski sweater designs from the 40s and 50s.  The raglan sleeves are sewn in, and the patterns – snowflakes, elk, stars – are placed in the middle of the raglan seam.  Not nicely sewn in the photos, and not worth doing, unless it is in the round.

What to do? Well…what can you do?  If you really like something, is it something you can do?  Do you have the skill, creativity, know-how to fix problems?  Do you want to take the time to do it?  Do you want to learn to do it?

If you answer yes, then have at it.  If you answer no, then look for another pattern!  You know your own personality, so why make yourself crazy and frustrated to the point of misery?

IMHO. I am a frump and a snob.  I don’t wear trendy clothing, and I don’t make fashionable designs.  I like well-tailored, comfortable clothing.  I like good shoes.  I like good materials and craftsmanship.

When it comes to knitting anything, I really appreciate good construction design, good finishing, and elegance.   Most of this can be done with a minimal of sewing.

Self-Indulgence

Ah, the power of the state!  I’ve been working nearly every day in a desire to finish up the curriculum for the program I teach.  The state requested it, prior to renewing our permit.

My hours have been cut to 32 / week for the Spring term.  I have been working more than my allocated hours on the critter, at least it is getting done.  Until last night.

After 5 days (yes, that includes last Sunday), with many days going into the double-digits, I finally said enough!

My brain died.  And I said, “It is good!”

I lay on the couch until 11:30 p.m. last night, watching the DVD of the first season of “Damages.”  Do I like it?  Don’t know.  Seems sort of like a wanna-be “Boston Legal,” but without the humor.  Result?  A mystery which sort of intrigues, but not a lot of buy-in or sympathy for the characters.  There is the desire, though, to find out who all these evil people are, and that is where it is for now.

I am usually in bed at 9:00, and up at 5:30 at the latest.  Even today.  But I have a wierd thing – the later I go to bed, the earlier I get up.  This morning – 4:30.  Not something I would like to happen on a work day.  Fridays, now, are non-working days, unless I choose.  Up I came, and back to bed for a very nice nap at 9:30 a.m. until just after 11:00 a.m.

So, here I sit, drinking the second cup of coffee, knitting a pair of really cheery socks, in a patterned yarn sock yarn from Berocco – teals and greens and rather scrumptious colors.  Mindless knitting with delicious colors is great entertainment value.

And then I thought of knitting needles.  The self-indulgent moi gave in to deciding to order size 2, Signature Needle Arts, stilletto DPNs.  $45.00 for a set of 4 six-inch sock needles.  Will I like them?  Don’t know!  My favorite size for sock knitting (with sock yarn) is size 1 1/2 by Crystal Palace.  I knit loosely.  So, I chose size 2, in a cheery bright red.  When will they arrive?  They say 7-10 days for 5.99 shipping.  Let’s see when they get here, and then give them a test drive.

I don’t need more needles, but I am sure curious about these!  I like metal needles, but am allergic to nickel.  As long as I don’t touch the metal of the Addi turbos, I am okay.  All I get is a kind of tingling on my fingertips.  I love my old aluminum needles, and my bamboo, and my wooden ones.  So, let’s see what the needle fairy shall bring – and how soon!

And because, like Alice, I cannot see the value of a book without pictures, here are some pictures of the above-mentioned socks.  A blog without pictures is (methinks) also worthless.

BTW, I knit inside out, and am now decreasing for the toe. I’ll get a right-side-out picture later.

Old Vines Scarf

Last week I completed a scarf I had been knitting for awhile, using up some of the stash I “discovered” (read “rediscovered”!) out in the garage:  3 balls of a handpainted Paton’s yarn I bought some time ago.

Once finished, I did something I have never done in my life – I blocked a knitted item!  To do this, yet another item was excavated – the cutting board from my sewing days.  T-pins were boughten from the nearby JoAnn’s.  Then, into the washing machine on the washable woolens cycle, soaked and rinsed, spun out, and given a final soak in hair rinse before the final spin-out.  Then, out to the patio, to the picnic table, and the process began.  The old cutting board was spread out, the scarf was flattened and blocked out.  It sat there from about 8 a.m. to the end of the day.

The scarf wanted to curl up on itself, so the first step was to move along its very long length (just over 6 feet), and begin patting it flat.

Next decision on how wide it was going to be.  I decided on 8 inches wide, and pinned it out so that the curves created by the pattern were enhanced.  I pinned each crest on the edge out to 3 inches apart.  Making the scarf 8 inches wide opened up the eyelets – on the needles, the scarf was about 6 inches.

The scarf was too long for the cutting board, so I folded it over on itself.  Dried, there was a bit of a crease, but easily enough steamed out.

On the backside of the scarf, you can see the pattern of the eyelets.  These next pictures give a better idea about the color of the yarn, as well as the overall pattern.

The picture below is a pretty good approximation of the real color of the yarn – soft and misty.

Normally, I don’t really like variegated yarns with lace or textural patterns.  Everything gets lost in the color, so why waste the energy on a fancy design as well?  This, though, worked out.  The colors are soft and subtle, and make me thing of vineyards in the fall and the fog rolls in.  Soft colors, subtle shadings.

Next on the agenda:  write up the pattern, take “professional” pictures (ha!) with my husband modeling, and create the pdf file.  This, and my Clouds beret are nearly ready for publication and offering on Ravelry!  Tomorrow, my in-laws are coming for brunch, and my MIL, Judy, will be bringing her Clouds for show and tell.

And in the meantime – ARF!  I’m actually knitting Continental, using what I learned from Heather’s Norwegian Purl video.  Sweet!  The only thing I do differently is how I knit – I knit through the front of the stitch, but do that oh-so-easy Norwegian Purl.  (What a pearl of a video!)  Pictures at a later date!

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!!!