Pattern Design – Ink, Yarn & Beer

A Gansey for Autumn

The summer is winding down, and my last two days off work lie ahead. I have not done much painting as my interest in the visual arts is currently on photography. On the other hand, knitting, while not prolific, has been steady. I have been working on a gansey in Rowan’s Felted Tweed for the past several weeks.

The design is sort of original, and sort of not, as it is based on a gansey pattern design by Beth Brown-Reinsel‘s book Knitting Ganseys, specifically the child’s gansey “Snakes and Ladders,” which is pictured on the cover of her book. I’ve expanded the stitch count – I’m no toddler in size! – and have decided to make it more in the EZ style, with raglan sleeves, and possibly a placket opening in the front or a boat neck, just because in California a high-necked sweater would be too hot for me.

It’s been quite a while since I have made a sweater. Admittedly, Josh’s sweater fell to the wayside – it was too, too boring. I needed a brighter color, and texture. I purchased the Rowan yarn several years ago, but had no idea what I wanted to make out of it, so of course it sat around. The color is one of my favorites, a rust color or what some might call a spiced pumpkin color, as it is not a deep rust, but more the color of autumn leaves which have not completely faded.

Designing a sweater takes a bit of work! While the design itself was essentially there in Beth’s book, I needed to expand on it. In the end, rather than a 6-stitch snake cable, I upped it to an 8-stitch cable. The bar sections (7 rnds. of stockinette with one rnd. of purl) became 10 stitches. I thought I had it all set up, and then as I was knitting realized I had not taken into account the fact that centering of a pattern section was critical for success. Duh! Once that was solved, though, the body proceeded nicely.

I have finished the body to the point where I am ready to add sleeves. I am about 2/3 done with the first sleeve, which is knitting up amazingly fast, and I am enjoying the simplicity of the overall sweater pattern quite a bit. As with the body, the sleeve took a bit of thought, but is going along quite nicely now that I have completed the increases.

It always feels good to see progress on a project – especially after frogging a major sweater elsewhere!

Boyfriend Sweater vs. Man Sweater vs. Dogosaurus Rex

Once upon a time I had a boyfriend. He liked the idea of my knitting him an Aran sweater. He wanted to design it.

And so he did, and I began to knit. And knit. And knit.

He decided he wanted to make some changes. So I ravelled. And then I knit. And knit again.

The design was not to his liking. “Let us change this, and this, and this,” he said.

I dumped him.

Now, many years later, I have yet to endeavor upon another sweater for a member of the opposite sex older than three, but since I’m now an old married woman, perhaps it is time to reconsider. It is a gamble, as the esposo doesn’t tend to wear sweaters.

“What would you like?” I ask.

“Oh, anything is fine,” he says.

“Do you want a pullover?”

“No.”

“A cardigan? Cables? No cables? Pattern stitch? Nothing stitch?”

“How about a cardigan, and Nothing certainly sounds Perfect. You know me, I like Dull.”

And I know me, I don’t like dull. But I do like simple, and tailored. I also like color, but I am the magpie, not he. He likes dull. Not even slightly shiny.

So the search is on for something which will not bore me to death, and will not offend the esposo’s need for dull. I am considering ribbed cables, knit through the back loop. Attractive, tailored, flat, won’t put me to sleep in the process, and I can do while listening to an audio book. A pattern tailored in appearance. I am also considering an incredibly simple rib, but one with a slightly different edge to it, one which is vertical, simple, and with a wee amount of texture.

The yarn is from a fleece I had spun into a medium-weight two ply. I have tons of it, and the color is a lovely chocolately brown. (Mmmmm. Chocolate.)

Swatching is begun; the design process is percolating. One piece knitting, cutting?, saddle vs raglan sleeves.

On the other hand, knitting for the other main man in my life, Wicket, would be easy. He would gladly wear the Dogosaurus Sweater, but I’m afraid that when I get it done, he will die. Wicket is very old, and I am superstitious.

Summer’s End

Somewhere I remember reading about a “rosy dawn,” but today’s rosy dawn is because of the fires burning in the San Gabriel area in Southern California. Yesterday as I drove home from Ventura, the billows of smoke from more than 80 miles away could be seen piling up in the sky, much like a volcano’s ash and smoke as it travels upward. This morning, the air is thick, and ash is falling on the streets in very fine particles.

The entire state of California is very vulnerable to these fires, which are part of the eco-system, and the fact that we have had a drought for several years, makes massive fires a very likely probability.

Where we live, we are in a valley surrounded by mountains. So far, we have not had anything major since moving here nearly five years ago, but I wouldn’t be surprised if our time will be soon. So many things can cause a fire, from a spark from electrical equipment to a bird on fire after hitting a power line (yes, it has happened), that you just don’t know where it will occur. You just need to be ready. Fires and earthquakes – a fact of life in California.

This week, our very good friend, Jerry, and his wife, Raka, have been here from Japan. They were married a year ago, and only now is their wedding reception being celebrated by their friends and family in the U.S. And, their first child is on the way! It is so good to see them, and wonderful to have the time to visit. They return to Japan tomorrow.

For me, the end of my all-too-brief summer holiday is winding to a close. I’ve had a few weeks off from students and school, but I still have had to deal with them even though I have tried to keep it to a minimum. We all begin again on 1 September.

I am also becoming a student again. Now that I have finished my teaching credential, the brain finally has time to pick up Japanese once again. I’ve tried different routes, but nothing seems to have been successful. I tried a community college class two nights a week while working on my credential. Beret Patt - First Page Too much work on all levels. Another time I tried a language class offered through a local adult school, but did not learn anything. Now I am trying to do it once more, this time through the Oxnard Japanese Language School. As the course meets state high school language standards, I expect it will be much be more to my liking. My class is for beginning adults; there are five adults, and seven kids, the youngest of whom is thirteen. Once we all settle in, I think it is going to be a lot of fun.

Finally, I’ve written down a very windy “how to” for making your own beret. Take a look at it. The purpose of this “Basic Beret” pattern is to help out the beginning knitter trying to design a hat. You can find the file on Ravelry, or here on the Pattern page, or under the heading of “Matataki Designs” to the right.

Old Vines Scarf: Pattern & Process

Friday was a really big day for me! I decided to post to Ravelry, and to here, my first “pay for” pattern. It is the that I wrote about last March. You can find it on the “Patterns for Sale” page. Please give some consideration to buying this pattern!

Writing up a pattern takes some time, as does creating the knitting schematic, shooting the pictures, doing a layout, and finally creating the PDF file that goes along with it! It really is a major process, far more than I anticipated. And the thing is, the item has to be knitted before you can photograph it.

I used Knit Visualizer for the pattern schematic. It is a fairly expensive piece of software, but it is really worth the price paid because it is so easy to use.

My camera is a Casio Exilim, and I can get pretty decent pictures with it. My preferred settings are with all 9 sensors being used, along with soft flash and a +1 light setting.

For the PDF, I begin in MS Publisher, and then create the document using text boxes, clip art, my photos, and Knit Visualizer schematics saved in a PNG format, and then imported to Paint Shop, and saved as a JPEG. Once I am happy with my Publisher file, I save it, and then, beginning on the first page, I “save as” and create a PNG file. Finally, I use Acrobat Pro to create the PDF by choosing “create PDF from multiple files.” My preferred PDF is “highest quality” for better detail. It works very well.

Photos are really odd creatures. You think you have a good one, but you don’t. This is why I love digital pictures and software. Cutting, editing, whatever – all can be done pretty readily. Fonts and so on are also important, for headers, subheads, and content. Everything needs to work well together. The direction of a model in the layout leads the eye in, or out, of the page. Busy-ness is distracting. Too-much-of-the-same, in density and visual rhythm creates a visual yawn.

Anyway, there you go. Here are some of the more than 40 pictures I took for the photo shoot. These were some I liked, in addition to the ones you will find in the Old Vines Scarf pattern itself.

Freedom from the Albatross*

I think I am getting stuck on Albatross* this, Albatross* that. It just feels so good to let go of an annoying project in such a constructive way – writing up a pattern that may be of some benefit to someone else. Although I have not gotten a lot of comments on the Albatross Socks*, a lot of people have clicked on the pattern, so I guess that is good news.

With the encroaching graduation of my students, I am looking for something to do, and have settled on to designing a lightweight sweater in cotton. I’ve had this yarn lying around since 2005 (found the receipt in the bag), and to break the boredom of the being Connected to the Cold Pack, I decided to dig out a few knitting books. In particular, I dug out Eva Weichmann’s Simple Stitches, and began working on one of the sweaters. Unfortunately, the yarn I am using is not going to get anywhere near any of her gauges, so I decided to use a few elements of one sweater in particular to build one of my own creation.

I have about 1440 yards of this stuff, called “Second Time Cotton,” which can make a substantial sweater. According to the label, on US 8, the gauge is 17 st / inch. On US size 6, I get about 4.5.

Things I am considering in the design of this sweater is the material – cotton – and the fact that I don’t want to seam more than necessary. 3/4 length sleeves are also appealing. I want a cardigan or jacket which can be worn by itself, or over a lightweight knit top. The fact that cotton sweaters can look baggy and messy means I want stitches which will help maintain the sweater’s shape. And I want something rather mindless, but still interesting to do, and something which will have a rather tailored appearance, yet still fit close to the body (and the bulges!). And something which can be easily worked into a 1-piece, no sew, pattern.