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Terrifying
Gifted
To catch a
sleeve
Block Me,
Amadeus
Torrent
Sheepish
Secrets
Breathless
Nature's first
green is gold
Epiphany
MAY 28, 2006
TERRIFYING
I don't proclaim myself a fearless knitter. To me, anyway, that seems kind of self-indulgent what's there to fear? It's a hobby, not so precious that trying something new is sacrilege or an
act of heroism. Cutting a steek is not like, say, needing to perform gravely risky surgery on
the only astrophysicist left on Earth, with failure meaning the whole planet falls into the sun.
Perspective, perspective in all things.
That is, I thought so until Friday, when the sleeves of the Nowegian Jacket reduced me to
dizzy, squeaking hyperventilation. I'd outlined a cuff treatment I felt pretty good about - it
involved a deeply-slit cuff, finished on either side with a turned-back edging. This was to be
accomplished by working a narrow four-stitch steek, binding off and cutting when the notch
was deep enough, working the edgings, then picking up along their top edges and continuing
with the sleeve. Easy to dream up, easy to describe, and as it turns out, absolutely terrifying
to execute.
TO BUY
Deep V Argyle Vest
Chuck's Cabled Socks
Anemoi Mittens
The steek, cut, and looking quite docile and obedient. The unraveled half-stitch of gold at the
bottom edge was to be expected; the blue steek stitch and gold border stitch appeared to be
holding together just fine. I didn't reinforce in any way in order to minimize bulk at the edge those stitches needed to go inside the hem, and thus needed to be kept clean and
unencumbered. Besides - faith in Shetland wool was easy, glib nonchalance easier.
August 2007
April 2007
GRATIS
March 2007
Print O' The Wave Stole (PDF)
December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006
Bayerische Socks
June 2006
May 2006
April 2006
March 2006
February 2006
January 2006
Endpaper Mitts
December 2005
November 2005
October 2005
September 2005
August 2005
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[What is this?]
The reverse of the stitches picked up all along the gold border stitch. Notice that there's NO
STEEK LEFT - it's unraveled completely. I say again, THE ONLY THING HOLDING IT
TOGETHER ARE THE PICK-UP LOOPS. I didn't believe there was such a thing as scary
knitting until I saw adjoining stitches, one by one, working free and coming undone as I
picked up, totally helpless to stop it.
Unventing A Cable
Dyeing Self-Striping Yarn
Fair Isle Steeks:
Introduction; Setting Up;
Handling Color Changes
Steeks, Pt 2: Planning;
Placing; Handling
Decreases
Steeks, Pt 3:
Traditional/Unreinforced
Steeks, Pt 4: Hand-Sewn
Steeks, Pt 5: Crocheted
Steeks, Pt 6: Putting It All
Together: Working
Sleeves; Blocking;
Finishing
Steeks, Pt 7: A Word on
Norwegian Steeks
Majoring in Lace:
Introduction; Traditional
Shawl Construction
Lace, Pt 2: Yarn Choices;
Needle Choices; Gauge;
Chart Reading 101
The picked-up edging knitted up, the loose steek strands waving and bristling and trying to
escape with every tiny flex and twist of the needles.
Lace, Pt 3: The Structure

of Lace; Movements of
Lace Knitting
Lace, Pt 4: Provisional
and Invisible Cast Ons;
Hard Cast Ons; Circular
Beginnings
Norwegian Jacket
(Original)
Sampler Stole (Hazel
Carter for A Gathering Of
Lace)
Arrowhead Pullover
(Original)
Striped Cardigan
(Original)
Picking up the reverse-side loops for casting off together with the live stitches of the edging
to make a folded hem. I say again, PICKING UP THE LOOPS THAT FORM THE ONLY
BARRIER AGAINST COMPLETE RUIN. Even with a teeny needle, the mere act of picking
them up loosened them dangerously, opening up their already-tenuous hold on those very
short cut ends.
Almost Argyle Socks

(Original)
Twisted Stitch Sweater
(Original)
Texture Shell Original)
Mini-Argyle Stockings
Original)
Frost Flowers and Leaves
(Eugen Bugler for A
Gathering of Lace)
Shedir (Jenna Wilson for
Knitty)
Deep V Argyle Vest
(Original)
Baby Argyle Vest

(Original)
Print O' The Wave Stole
(Original)
Floral Felted Bag
(Interweave Knits, Fall
'04)
Jaywalker Socks
(Grumperina for
Magknits)
I didn't take pictures of the three-needle bindoff. It was horrible - stitches on both needles are
stressed more than usual to knit them together. The cut ends were only 3/8 inch long or so stretching the loops to put the third needle through freed them completely a couple times.
The blindness caused by beads of sweat in my eyes (also: bloody, bitter tears) was not helpful
in mustering the concentration necessary to keep fitful, spastic jerking and jarring at a
minimum.
Was it worth it?
Flared Lace Smoke Ring

(Heartstrings Fiber Arts)
Peacock Feathers Shawl
(Fiddlesticks Knitting)
Fir Cone Square Shawl
(Oberle, Folk Shawls)
Norwegian Stockings
(Bush, Folk Socks)
Union Square Market
Pullover (Interweave
Knits, Fall '05)
Kimono Shawl (Oberle,
Folk Shawls)
Butterfly (Rowan 37)
Macho Aran (Original)
Felted Powerbook Jacket
(Original)
Cabled Hooded Cardigan
(Adrienne Vittadini 15)
Flower Basket Shawl
(Interweave Knits, Fall
'04)
Because those ends are actually tightly encased inside the hem, they're held securely now.
They'll start to felt with the first wash, but the whole shebang is already remarkably solid and
stable. Lesson? Fragile relationships with sanity are best preserved by avoiding stupid
mistakes - even Shetland wool won't hold if coning oil isn't washed off before cutting. Duh.
Even given all that, I might eat the yarn before I'll do it a second time. Please, someone tell
me asymmetric looks are in this year?
Posted by Eunny at 04:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (77)
MAY 26, 2006
GIFTED
I bought myself a little present:
I've been a practically penniless freelancer for a long time, long enough that I haven't bought
new clothes in years, long enough that glomming dinner off of my parents has lost its shame,
and it's only with a lot of rearranging and giving up of old interests that I can buy yarn at all.
Affiknity
Black Olive
Ei Knit
Fig and Plum
Grumperina
Hello Yarn
KnitFix
KnitLit
January One
Moth Heaven
Mustaa Villaa
NakedieKnits
Needles On Fire
Purly Whites
Rose-Kim Knits
Streets and YOs
SweetGeorgia
Sweet Pea Knits
Unwind Knitting
Use Your Hands
Whispering Pine
Yarn Harlot
You've noticed, maybe, that I tend to use economical workhorse yarns; no double-digit balls
of luxury this and hanks of vestal-virgin-spun that for me. No fancy gadgets, either - it was a
really big deal in my knitting life when Jeff bought me a swift for Christmas.
But now, I find myself in the peculiar and wonderful position of work and hobby becoming
the same - it's been little things here and there that I've kept quiet about, all adding up to
some big things I'll talk about eventually - and I figured I ought to celebrate. Champagne!
Caviar! Yachts! Diamonds! Uh...dressforms!
Alright, so it's not exactly the most festive of celebrations. But it's tax-deductible, and will
get lots of use, and it makes me happy. See how easy it is to rationalize?
It's also nice to be able to show you things I'm working on without awkward pinning and
twisting to pose for the camera and asking you to trust that it'll look different when I'm
wearing a different bra, and the front bands are on, and, and, and. The form is adjusted to my
measurements, and I love the way the jacket looks and fits on it.
There was some interest during the planning stages in the princess-line shaping used. Here's a
close-up of the front right side:
You should be able to see how a wedge of pattern down the centerline of a star has been
"removed" with decreases and increases, just as it would be in whole cloth with a dart. Go
back to the first picture - the interruption is hardly noticeable, really, but four wedges in the
whole body add up to a pretty dramatic difference in the silhouette. Putting the shaping there
instead of at the sides brings some fullness to the bust, an absolute necessity in cardigans to
keep the opening from gaping unattractively (it's not closed right now because I'm afraid to
fuss around with the cut steek too much before I put the bands on - it's only two stitches
wide!). Overall, I'm very satisfied with the final effect.
Now - sleeves ahoy!
I started something new, too:
It's an experiment with that cabled bind-off before I start that wrapped shell. I'm calling it
Torc - no sketch necessary to know what's going on. I think I might start over, though; I've
got some soft Phildar crochet cotton right now, but I'm thinking more and more that crisp
linen would be more appropriate on a bunch of levels. Does anyone out there have
experience with Louet Euroflax (the 14/2 sport weight)?
Unraveling - A follow-up to Wednesday's post about blocking is probably in order. I didn't
really set out to write a comprehensive guide to blocking, just how I like to do it, but I missed
some pretty big things. UNfortunately, this afternoon is already kind of crazy - so, look for it
over the long weekend!
MAY 25, 2006
TO CATCH A SLEEVE
One little sleeve, barely begun.

I have been anxious about this, the look and the details and the mechanics thereof, debating
and dragging and second-guessing and tapdancing before starting. It seems, though, that no
amount of acrobatics can get around the need to eventually cast on and knit - I'm told it's a
step rather necessary in making a long-sleeve sweater - so I have.
And I really like it.
I think.
In the comments to this post, there were ten squintillion excellent suggestions on how to
handle the sleeves, all of them enormously appealing and many of them things I'm planning
to shamelessly gank for future projects. The main variables:
Belled forearms in pattern - this was my first instinct. I kept thinking about the
austerely graceful sleeves of the Union Square pullover, thinking about how pretty
and feminine and clean they looked. But then, I started thinking about the
combination of ornate fabric and exaggerated shape, and started having nightmares
of looking like a drunk Renaissance Festival attendee, flower garland askew and
loudly telling everyone that my costume is "medieval, or baroque, or whatever." Nix.
Ditto an undersleeve of oatmeal under a generous patterned cuff.
Ditto belled forearms in oatmeal, with the added non-bonus of visual amputation.
Tapered, close-fitting cuffed sleeves - I almost went with this one, too; I really liked
the idea of a shirt cuff closed with a button or even cufflinks, maybe with the sleeve
patterned and the cuff in solid oatmeal. But that would have put me squarely into
"shirtwaist" territory, and while as I type I'm thinking that would be a fun thing to
interpret in knitting, this is not that project. Also: there are lots of triangles in the
pattern, and while I don't generally think of myself as superstitious, that just seems
kind of wrong.
So here's what I've got:
It'll be an almost completely straight sleeve, only an inch of difference between underarm
and hem, the way jacket sleeves are cut. There's the key - this is such a firm fabric,
constructed in such a structured way, suiting lines and seamstress details belong to it, not soft
drape and movement. There will be a simple deep notch without overlap, edged at the
opening with narrow turned-under hems of the camel color, which will also hem the sleeve
itself. Depending on my mood during finishing, I might install hook-and-eyes in the slits to
close them, or maybe just let them lie open. All this will echo the finishing for the colorwork
portion of the body - the front bands in the colorwork section will be camel-colored (oatmeal
in the welt) - and the slit is being planned for in the same way, with a narrow 4-stitch steek to
be cut and then enclosed in the casing formed by the hem. Like I said, I like it.
I think.
MAY 24, 2006
BLOCK ME, AMADEUS
VOLUME 1, NUMBER 6
So often when I see comments/instructions about blocking it seems to be assumed that the
reader will understand what is entailed in 'blocking'. When reading about blocking in
different sources I have become confused as to what is best for what type of knitted fabric.
Should one wash with soap and rinse and wring out before blocking? Should one only
lightly get the knitted fabric damp, no need to actually wash? Is there no need to get the
fabric completely wet and only lightly steam? If one steams, how is the best way to
accomplish getting the steam to the fabric? For how long? Is the steam before or after
pinning/working the fabric? I know that I should block but when a completed project is
ready for blocking I'm completely at sea as to what steps to do next.
Sincerely,
Ruby
Warning: Strong Opinions Ahead.
I block everything. I cringe when I see that something hasn't been blocked - and yes, most of
the time, it is immediately apparent. I wonder why people put hours into the knitting of
something, only to totally ignore an essential finishing element - it's copy without editing,
sashimi thrown haphazardly on a plate, a ball club without a relief pitcher: incomplete, and
sort of pointless.
You can't deny that there are some very good reasons to block handknits:
It make seaming easier, neater and more even by flattening edges and creating
perfectly matched pieces;
It evens stitches out, creating a perfectly smooth, coherent fabric that drapes and
moves beautifully;
It aids in finessing the fit and sizing of a garment
It gives a finished, balanced look to even the least flawed fabric, a look impossible to
achieve otherwise.
Though there are lots of ways to go about blocking, I always wetblock, even when working
with the most delicate fibers and the most textured fabrics. It's not just stubbornness: for me,
a real washing (in exactly the way the garment will be laundered forevermore) is the easiest,
fastest way to all the nice things listed above. It evens the stitches of any garment in any fiber
more quickly than steaming does, and it best accommodates stretching and pinning. And of
course, it cleans a project that I might have been toting around for weeks to coffeeshops and
on subways. It does take a little longer to dry, of course, but I generally think it's worth it.
Here's what I've done for every single non-sock item I've ever knit, whether silk lace or
alpaca sweater or cotton Aran or wool colorwork:
1) Soak in a sink (or tub) of cool water with a dribble of shampoo (or wool wash) for 15-20
minutes, long enough for the fibers to be thoroughly saturated;
2) Drain the soapy knit, either in my hands if they can support the mass or in a colander if
they can't;
3) Rinse without agitating in a fresh basin of cool water;
4) Drain again, squeezing gently to express most of the water and being very careful not to
wring, twist, or otherwise abuse the piece;
5) Lay flat on a thirsty towel, cover with another towel, roll up and stand or lean on it to press
out as much water as possible
6) Take the whole roll to my blocking surface, dump the knit out, and shape the now justslightly-damp piece, whether by pinning to measurements or just patting it flat;
7) Walk away and leave it be for a day or two.
Notes:
I covet a blocking board deeply, but I've never quite found one that suits my needs.
Instead, I block on a corkboard or a mattress - basically, any flat, firm surface that
can have pins stuck in it - made non-porous with a plastic cover (a heavy garbage
bag will do nicely). When blocking stranded knitting and cables, it makes a huge
difference in drying time and threat of mildew (ew!) to keep water from soaking into
the blocking surface.
I check that my lines and angles are straight with the mother of all t-squares, though
lately I've been thinking about marking a large piece of oilcloth or vinyl with a
permanent-marker grid (or buying a piece printed in a 1" gingham check) - voila,
instant, non-porous, portable blocking surface!
I use lots and lots of rustproof quilter's t-pins - enough to keep a well-stretched fabric
from scalloping at the edges, enough to pin necklines and armscyes into the exact
shapes I think they should be. I've found it's always easiest, for any kind of knit, to
pin a few major points around the perimeter first to get the size right and angles
square, and then even it out by bisecting the unpinned sections again and again.
If necessary, I pinch and pull at texture elements to plump them up.

I try to block in pieces whenever possible - flat pieces are much easier, and quickerdrying, than a seamed garment. Later, after seaming and final finishing (collars and
buttonbands applied), I'll gently steam the seams to get them to open nice and flat.
Pinning neccessarily stretches out ribbing along bottom hems and cuffs. To get it
back into springy shape, after the whole thing is dry, I'll hold a hot, steamy iron an
inch or so above the fabric and pull lengthwise to encourage the ribs to draw in
again.
Though I think wetblocking works on most everything, there are some yarns that are
specifically marked as "DO NOT SOAK." Believe them when they say that. Steam
them into submission instead.
If you are in a hurry and prefer to steam, remember that steaming will kill manmade fibers.
Remember, too, that the surface of the iron should never touch the knitting itself - pass the
iron a half inch or so over the surface, letting the steam penetrate. When steaming, you'll
want to:
1) Lay your pieces flat;
2) Cover with a damp cotton cloth;
3) Apply steam to one section at a time, just skimming the cloth and applying no pressure
whatsoever. You can start pinning to size one section at a time, as each is relaxed by the
steam bath.
4) If steaming seams, support curved ones on a rolled towel or pillow. Poke, prod and pat
with your hands to get them to sit the way you want.
I consider spritzing to be pretty worthless. It's generally cited as the best way to deal with
very delicate fibers, but I've found that a little care makes wetblocking work just fine. The
major concern is that water-weakened wet garments will pull and stretch out of shape under
their own saturated weight - just take care to support the whole mass of wadded-up knitting
any time you move it, not allowing any one section to droop or spill.
That's it! It takes just a few extra hours - but I think it's the difference between a sweater that
looks "homemade" and one that looks "handknit."
unraveling is an advice column for knitters, with fresh content every Wednesday and Friday.
Send your questions, signed with your name, blog url, or psuedonym to
unraveling@eunnyjang.com. Your question may be edited for style and space.

MAY 23, 2006
TORRENT
I think I need to keep the details of this new project on the QT for now, but -
Are these colors spectacular, or are they spectacular?

----------------------------------
VOLUME 1, NUMBER 5
So, Sweaters That Fit, Part II. The current popularity of handknitting is certainly a good thing
- wild demand encourages available patterns, instruction and materials to get better all the
time. We have so many choices - technique and styling are no longer region- or functionbound; rare fibers and closely-guarded secrets of method and technique are available to any
of us. There's a downside, though: as the industry of handknitting supply grows, swallowing
intuition and knowledge with shortcuts and workarounds, the knitting itself becomes less and
less personal. As we move away from custom-knitting the same utility garment over and over
for one or two people whose measurements we know intimately, and more towards the "new"
knitting - graded patterns with line-by-line instructions - understanding your knitting, making
it to suit you personally, becomes more useful than ever.
Could you possibly help with an idiot's guide to the math of yarn
substitution?
For example, I have a pattern specifying a yarn which knits up at 4"=22 sts/30 rows, but I
want to knit it at a gauge of 4"=16 sts/22 rows. Obviously it won't be anything like the
same garment, but it's the shape I'm after and I think it would work well in a more robust
fabric.
My haphazard guess as far as it goes is this: if the pattern specifies 'cast on 120 sts', for
example, this should measure 22", so in my substituted yarn I would cast on 88 st. And if
is this is right where do I go from here? Do I just do the same kind of math to calculate
how many rows I should knit before starting the shaping? And what about the shaping
itself? If the patterns specifies a decrease every four rows, should I do it every three, over
fewer rows? And what about the decreases themselves? Will I need fewer of them if I have
thicker yarn, or maybe a different kind of decrease?

Please help! This has been worrying me for ages and if I had a walk-though tutorial I'd be
much more confident about making yarn substitutions and maybe even trying to design
something myself.
Philippa
-I believe in the power of the swatch and swatch faithfully but have been thrown off by row
gauge. What should I do if my stitch gauge in right on but my row gauge is off? It seems
reasonable to think that a different size needle might fix the row gauge problem but end up
throwing my stitch gauge off. What I've been doing is going through the pattern, working
the math (i.e. work 18 rows means knit 3 inches according to the pattern's row gauge) and
then rewriting the pattern based on my row gauge. Is there a less complicated way to go
about this?
Emily in VT
aka E to the M
-I would like to knit the Soleil tank from Knitty, but am having issues figuring out what to
do to ensure a good fit. I measured myself and length and the strap length are the same
size (2nd size option), but the bottom and waist are a different size (4th size option). And
I'm sure that there will be a size issue since I am a 38F cup size.
Basically, how does one go about adjusting a pattern to ensure a good fit all over, but
especially in the bust and waist?
Reagan
(The discussion that follows is relevant whenever knitters want to modify a pattern - whether
by substituting yarns/gauge or changing the shape lines. It's also useful when doing the math
for a garment from scratch.)
When changing the yarn and/or gauge called for in a given pattern, take Philippa's lead and
consider first what that'll mean for the finished look of the garment. Hopefully, the designer
has put some thought into what kind of yarn and gauge would work best for that particular
pattern -
if the instructions call for fingering-weight alpaca at a very

fine gauge, it's because the sweater is intended to cling and
drape.
Maybe a many-plied cotton in a gauge tighter than normal

for worsted weight yarns is used because it makes the
stitches really pop.
And so forth. I'm all for experimenting with gauges and

yarns and in general personalizing patterns, but do think about whether it'll change the
essential character of the garment, and whether you'll like that change or not.
Before beginning anything, of course, be like Emily and make a swatch. Yes, it might be true
that over time you'll be able to predict gauge by looking at the yarn. Yes, it's true that some
plans, like top-downs, can be tried on as you knit. Yes, it's true that swatching can be a major
pain. It's also true that nothing is more useful to creativity: the numbers are absolutely
necessary when trying to draft a structured garment or try a unique construction, and it's
invaluable in deciding how to show off a given yarn. A generous swatch will show you the
way that particular fiber at that particular gauge in that particular stitch moves, drapes, feels
against the skin - probably not things you want to discover the efficacy of halfway into a pet
project. Wash and block your swatches the same way you'll wash and block your
finished project - there's no other way to get an accurate picture.
This isn't to say that I swatch for everything, all the time, but I do think it's important when
you're trying something new or making heavy adjustments. Everyone's had the experience of
trying to fudge a quarter stitch - and winding up with a sweater three inches too big. It
matters, people!
If you're trying to get gauge but seem to be off, take the swatch that comes closest to the
required gauge and see if you can wet-block it to the right stitch and/or row count without
sacrificing the look of the fabric - you'll be shocked at how much give knits have (and how
much better thorough blocking can make handknitting look). If you're having row gauge
issues, try blocking it to the required gauge or adjusting to the next needle size - often, a
quarter millimeter won't make much of a difference in stitch gauge, but a huge difference in
row gauge.
Okay, maybe there's just no way you're going to get gauge, or you've got gauge but need to
adjust parts of the pattern. I'm assuming everyone knows this, but just to get it all down:
So, if 22 stitches = 4", you know that there are 5.5 stitches in every inch (22/4). Your new
gauge is 16 stitches = 4", so there are 4 stitches in every inch (16/4). Now set it up this way
with your different gauge:
Balance it out, and you'll find number you're looking for - the number of stitches needed in a
given place at the old gauge. Here, just as Philippa said, it's more or less 87 (120*4/5.5).
That "more or less" shows you the second important relationship: that between the written
instructions and the finished measuremens of the garment. Because of relatively large units
(individual stitches) used in handknit fabrics, the written instructions in any given pattern
will almost never produce something exactly to the measurements given in the schematic. A
little fudging is almost always done to preserve design elements and work with those
awkward building blocks (this is why instructions always* say "Block to measurements").
So, you have a decision to make - use the lengths and widths of the schematic/finished
measurements as your target, or the extrapolated lengths/widths from the written instructions.
I tend to think that rewriting the pattern to the schematic whenever you can is more accurate,
but it's usually only a loss of a fraction of an inch either way. It's not a big deal, as long as
you block to the finished measurements: to let you do so, round your calculated stitch counts
in a way that makes the piece slightly smaller rather than larger. In our example above, the
calculations say that we should cast on 87.272727 stitches. Obviously, we can't do that - I'd
round down to 87 stitches, and make up the difference in blocking. Then, too, you'll
occasionally need to fudge one or two stitches to maintain a pattern - a multiple of four for
ribbing, for example. Don't stress too much about being exact - as long as it's only a few
stitches overall either way (less than .5" worth, say), it's not a big deal.
Now, you need to figure out increases and decreases. Using the above, we know that the old
row gauge gave 7.5 rows to the inch, and the new one 5.5. Say the pattern says to decrease
about 1.5" worth of stitches evenly in the 4" worth of rows between the hem and the waist either you'll be able to see this in the schematic, or you can read the instructions and count 9
stitches decreased at each edge over a total of 30 rows. With the new gauge, you'll want to
decrease the same width over the same length - 6 stitches (9*4/5.5) over 22 rows
(30*5.5/7.5). Divide those decreases as evenly as you can - the quotient of 6 into 22 is 3,
remainder 4, or 6 "groups" of 3 rows with 4 rows left over. All you need to do is spread those
4 extra rows out among the groups to make 2 groups of 3 rows and 4 of 4 rows, otherwise
written as "decrease 1 stitch every 3rd row two times, and then every 4th row 4 times."
Increases and bindoffs can be handled in the same way.
Changing a pattern with the same gauge is even easier - just establish the measurements you
want using the guidelines given yesterday, and with the very first formula, calculate the new
number of stitches or rows you need to make that measurement happen. For specific thoughts
on shaping at the bust, check out this post.
Boo to droopy, dumpy, frumpy handknits - huzzah for ones that flatter and fit!
MAY 22, 2006
SHEEPISH
I don't like knitting socks. In fact, I believe I made a rather public declaration to that effect. I
don't wear 'em, have no use for 'em, no more, I'm done, finished.
I also don't like Magic Loop. It's awkward and ugly and inelegant and tough on expensive
circulars. I'll never knit that way, it's useless, who needs it, case closed, over.
How can something so wrong feel so right?

----------------------------------
VOLUME 1, NUMBER 4
I haven't knit very many sweaters, yet, only having knit about two years, or less. My first, a
short sleeve t-shirt published in MagKnits, was fantastic fitting (although the finishing left
something to be desired). The next item was the famous Ribby Cardi from the famous
Bonne Marie and I began to think "wow - this sweater stuff is pretty easy." I still thought
that even after my Knitting Olympics project - a cabled trim cardigan from the Nashua
North American Designer Collection book out of their Creative Focus worsted.
But then all hell broke loose. I tried "Starsky" from Knitty and although the body was
great the sleeves were ginormous. And then Rosedale United - also from Knitty - and it
would fit a small elephant. I got gauge on both - but the finished results just sucked.
I THOUGHT I'd knitted the size to fit my 38" chest - but perhaps I didn't. Can you provide
a primer on how to choose the correct size?
Colleen
First, a crash course in choosing a sweater pattern at all. My general rule? Be really frank
with yourself: you know what flatters, and what doesn't. For example, I love voluminous,
flowing silhouettes, and would love to knit them - but I'm pretty sure that they'd make me
look like a ship in full sail, and thus avoid them. Likewise, being fairly top-heavy steers me
away from wearing plain high necklines and teeny cap sleeves (O! how I wish I could wear
cap sleeves), and my lack of height makes me look twice before considering anything with
large-scale motifs or in a very thick fabric. There's nothing wrong with being a process
knitter (I'd put myself in the same category), but as long as you're knitting something, it's
probably worth the effort to choose things that don't make you feel abysmally unattractive
when worn.
On to fit. I'll go out on a limb, here: everyone looks good in fitted clothes (the main variable
being whether the lines are very close to or just barely skim the body). Think of the classic
drop-shouldered, generously cut sweater - amazing on athletic men and tall women with very
straight silhouettes, and like swaddling clothes on everyone else. With that in mind, consider
fit carefully before beginning.
Patterns are generally defined as close-fitting (with 0"-2" ease), "classic" fitting (with 3"-6"
ease), and "exaggerated" or "oversized", with "ease" meaning the difference between the
actual body measurement and the actual garment measurement (for sweaters, the bust
circumference is usually used). Myself, I like just a little bit of ease, but you know what
works best for you. Take a look at how the sweater is supposed to fit, the base fabric, the
desired aesthetic - is it a drapey cowl-neck in a soft, relaxed yarn or a cozy enveloping
cardigan? Leave plenty of room to let the sweater do its thing. Is it a structured jacket or
funnel-neck pullover with architectural details? Make it fit closely, or those clean lines will
look sloppy.
The human body, of course, is built of cylinders and cones with all kinds of odd bumps and
lumps sticking out in inconvenient places. While sewn garments can take advantage of darts
and complicated shaping to accommodate all those weird shapes, knitted garments are, by
neccessity, almost entirely two-dimensional and symmetrical from front/back and left/right.
There are a few things we can do, of course - short rows and simple shaping - but in general,
the give and flex of knitted fabric creates the fit. To better understand how handknits work on
the body, try reducing your own measurements to flat shapes on graph paper:
It's not perfect - the shape of the body changes even as you stand up, sit down, stretch, and
breathe - but take the measurements standing up straight in your underwear (with arms fully
extended), and you'll have a pretty good starting point. Hey, wait a minute, you say. That
looks a lot like a pattern schematic!
Right-o. Now, you can take any given pattern and compare it against "your" schematic to
spot potential problem areas. Scale it the same as your skeleton chart, of course, and butt the
top of the sleeve cap wherever it needs to go (against the edge of the armscye for a set-in or
dropped sleeve, with the neck for a raglan). Schematics typically aren't nearly as detailed as
your body chart, but you should be able to guesstimate and extrapolate from the written
instructions.
I can see here, for example, that this (totally made-up) pullover would fit well around my
shoulders, but the sleeves would be really long, it would come all the way to the hip, and my
waist would be totally lost in it. This is exactly why this exercise is useful - it gives you a
visual, easy-to-use map that shows you, right away, the things that you may or may not want
to address for a perfect fit.
But wait! you say. Even with all those fancy graphics, how do I know what fits well and what
doesn't?
The answer? Knit lots and lots of garments that don't fit until you finally achieve a decentfitting sweater (poor comfort, since you'll have been shipped off to the nuthouse long before),
or the easy way: measure clothes you already own that fit you perfectly, however you define
that, in the way you're aiming for. Say you're knitting a gently shaped crew-neck sweater:
take one that looks great on you, pin it flat without stretching, and take some pretty detailed
measurements with a rigid metal tape:
The key is to measure something that fits the way you want your project to fit. If you're
knitting a loose shell, measure something comparable; likewise for a teeny little halter top
(it's also best to measure knits to help you account for the way your project will stretch).
Compare these measurements to your body schematic to see what measurements work on
you, and then to the pattern schematic to see if you'll want to make any changes.
I encourage everyone to try this at least once - like readymade clothes, all patterns are sized
for a generic set of body measurements. No one fits exactly into a "standard" size - we all
have little idiosyncrasies of length and breadth. If you do this a couple of times, you'll start to
be able to "see" whether a pattern will fit you well as written, just by glancing at the
schematic. If you do it a few more times, you'll really have an understanding of what looks
good on you and what doesn't, what fits miserably and what fits perfectly - well worth the
effort, in my opinion.
I tend to prefer the beautiful, handspun, hand dyed stuff that's thick-and-thin, and I
currently have an obsession with boucle. But once I have this delicious stuff in hand, I'm
paralyzed with the question of what to do with it.
How do you decide what will make a good project for "bumpy" yarns? For fuzzy yarns
(mohair gives me the same paralysis)? And "loopy" yarns?
Because I'm always nervous about this question, I tend to buy just one "experimental"
ball of the yarn in question, and then never, ever use it. I have a small stack of single
skeins of really pretty, really fun things, and no idea whatsoever what to do with them.
Any insight into how you think about projects and textured yarns would be greatly
appreciated!
The Nerdy Knitter
Ahh, good question. I'm not generally one to use yarns with lots of interest - I prefer plain,
workhorse yarns - but I can certainly see their appeal. I'd keep it simple: that is, when the
yarn is the focus, keep it there with a very plain stitch and an even plainer shape. A simple
top-down pullover in stockinette would be a great showcase for a really beautiful handspun.
For novelty-ish fibers - I put eyelashes, boucles and other "textured" yarns in this category I'd say you're on track with your single balls. A whole garment in these yarns can look kind
of...well...novelty, so keep it to accessories that can provide a bit of punch against a simple
outfit. Leigh Radford's One Skein> is a book that provides lots of these kinds of projects.
Mohair, on the other hand, can look really wonderful in a variety of situations. I think it looks
great in simply-shaped sweaters, and that very open lace worked with mohair can be
absolutely stunning. It works because the two textures - surface and structural - don't
compete, they compliment.
Have you ever been to a trying-too-hard restaurant where every dish read like a laundry list
of all the of-the-moment food trends? You know what I mean - "Papparadelle with duck ragu,
garlic confit, Alsatian goat cheese, wilted arugula and pepper-crusted oven-dried tomatoes"?
Or seen a girl wearing great jewelry, but you can't see any of it because she's wearing
everything she owns all at once? Too much can be just that - too much. Let one thing shine at
a time.
Part II - substituting yarns, adjusting for gauge, and making mods - tomorrow.
MAY 19, 2006
SECRETS
That cabled bind-off is easy as pie:
All it is is a fat i-cord bindoff, with a cable twist and a purled edge stitch to provide the
necessary recess for the cable to pop. It has a little bit of a tendency to curl forward, but only
enough for the twist of the cable to show properly. Because of this, it won't add much length,
but it does fall nicely in line with the body of the work.
To my eye, a six stitch round cable looks more or less equivalent to a four stitch flat cable. Be
aware, too, that the difference between row gauge and stitch gauge will create a softly
gathered effect along the cable, unless you compensate with a larger needle for the bindoff,
or by attaching only three out of four rows (or whatever works). Or just block it out. Or plan
to use it in a way that takes advantage of the slight ruching.
If, like me, you're going to pick up stitches and keep working vertically, just pick up the
never-quite-perfectly-tight strands where the yarn was brought around to close the i-cord.
Knit from those, twisting each strand as you work to tighten them up and force the cable to
straddle the two sections of knitting evenly. For some reason, it's enormously satisfying to me
that the neat, tidy back of the work hardly hints at all at what's going on in front:
I can think of lots and lots and lots of ways to use this - as an edging along lapels and hems
(use a provisional cast-on and work this bind-off later), lying in heavy bracelets around a
cuff, combined with short rows to spiral up a sleeve, as an edge for a structured, felted
baguette...endless! (In all this, I guess I'll be pretty embarassed if this is already in, like,
Knitting on the Edge or something. For the record, though the idea's probably not new, I did
think through this version myself).
Unraveling will be up over the weekend. I have some really interesting questions, and am
totally absorbed in writing my answer - a treatise on How To Personalize Knitting, with notes
on choosing a pattern, making sure it will fit, adjusting for gauge, choosing a yarn, all kinds
of interesting things. It's taking longer than I expected, though (I want to do the subject
matter justice), and besides, there is a ballgame beckoning me. See you tomorrow!
MAY 18, 2006
BREATHLESS
I've been thinking for a little while about a light, drapey shell in a soft cotton, wrapped
around the body with long, sinuous ropes of cables. At first, I was thinking that they'd be
worked along with the body and shaped with increases and decreases, but that method doesn't
proved a cable as distinct as what I imagined - I wanted to evoke the clingy flow of the
earliest Regency dresses, chiton-inspired loose muslin made dangerously form-fitting with
twists of cord. Last night, chattering away with Amie, I fiddled around and came up with the
bind-off you see above. It's perfect - it pops with wonderful three dimensionality from the
plain fabric. It's also worked perpendicular to the direction of the knitting - the shell is going
to become an interesting exercise in using short rows, and in constructing a piece out of
many puzzle-like sections of knitting. Working theory: the difference between row gauge and
stitch gauge will make the plain portions gather a just a little bit along the cable lines - a
reminder of billowy fabric wrapped and tied.
Norwegian Jacket
The ideas for handling the sleeves on that jacket were really wonderful (thank you!!); so
many of them things I could never have come up with on my own. I'm still waffling a little
bit - I'm nervous, since I feel like this is where the mood of the sweater gets decided once and
for all. The slightest bell, combined with that ornate brocade-like pattern, would feel awfully
medieval, but a fitted sleeve with a turned-back cuff would give the jacket more shirt styling
than I want. The aesthetic I want is confusing, even to me - I'm finding it very difficult to
articulate what I want it to look like, or decide exactly how to make that happen. I guess I'm
looking to temper the forbiddingly antique look with some youth: the historical source, a
sensible Norwegian brocade blouse with no-nonsense drop shoulders and sturdy ribbed cuffs,
hangs over my head and leaves a vauge sense of depression, but dozens of hook-and-eye
closures up the front and a tall collar lined with a shockingly pink ribbon facing might go a
long way towards sweet freshness.
Anyway, here's the body before cutting:
And after:
I blocked it as-is to make sure I'm on track with measurements, and tried it on a couple
minutes ago - discovering thereby that the phrase like a glove dispells malaise pretty quickly,
too.
MAY 17, 2006
NATURE'S FIRST GREEN IS GOLD
Her hardest hue to hold.

If you're willing to tolerate the terrible disservice I'm doing to Mr. Frost, hear me now: gold
really is the hardest hue to hold, for my Olympus, anyway. The perpetually grey light we've
been having lately - a run of rotten weather - isn't helping, either. In person, the pattern is
subtle but clearly visible, creating a richly ornate, parlor carpet-like effect; in pixels, it looks
like a muddy mess.
At any rate, I'm almost done with the body of this jacket; only a couple more rows until the
neck shaping starts. Then, we'll just have sleeves and finishing to go. Can I ask your opinion
on something?
My first sketch had sleeves patterned all the way to a close-fitting wrist, finished with a cuff
covered in the same small dice patterning the collar. I've been thinking, though, that maybe
the colorwork should end below the elbow, and continue into a lower arm of plain oatmeal,
echoing the body welt. What do you think? Then, there's the issue of shape - should it be a
tapering, fitted sleeve with a narrow hem, or a slightly belled sleeve with a narrow hem, or a
fitted sleeve with a wide turned-back cuff? Decisions, decisions.
--------------------------------------------
VOLUME 1, NUMBER 3
I have an idea for a spring sweater with cables on the bias, but first I need to teach myself
how to do this. Can you help?
Thanks,
Irina
You're planning to knit the body straight up and down, crossed with diagonal cables as a
design element, yes? If so, it's easy-peasy to make rope cables slant however you like:
All you need to do is create a section of biased fabric enclosing the cable, with decreases on
one side and increases on the other. For the cable above, the chart would look like this:
The cable will slant towards the side with decreases, and away from the side with increases.
As you can see, adding shaping on every row creates a fairly steep decrease. You could shape
only every right-side row, or even less often than that, for a subtler slope.
Be aware that making a bias fabric in this way will cause the bottom edge of the fabric to
scallop, and the entire piece to slope a little (unless you have a mirror-image slopes balancing
each other). Both issues can be corrected in blocking - or they can become design elements.
If you mean a cable that runs truly horizontal, your best choice is to knit a cable panel first,
and then pick up stitches along the sides and work perpendicularly from it. Check out this
tasty pattern to see this at work.
When blocking Branching Out in Kid Merino, do you recommend the soak, spritz, or
steam method? (I'm thinking soak, but I'd love your opinion.)
Many thanks!
Presbytera
I almost always recommend the soaking method for lace, but it depends on the finished effect
you'd like. For a very flat fabric with nice drape, soak and pin aggressively. For a cushier,
cozier piece, spritz it and just gently pull it into shape with your fingers.
I generally feel that lace worked in mohair or mohair-blend yarns really benefits from a very
thorough blocking - opening up the yarnovers lets the pattern shine, and has the added benefit
of showing off that gorgeous halo against lots of negative space. I'd recommend soaking the
scarf in lukewarm water with a dribble of wool wash or shampoo, rinsing carefully in water
of the same temperature, and rolling it up in a thirsty towel to get almost all the water out.
Pin the four corners out first - use a big T-square to check your angles - to your target
measurements. Then, place a pin bisecting each side. Place eight more pins, dividing each
new "section" in half - and again, and again, until the whole thing has been satisfactorily
pinned out.
If scalloping edges are a concern (as it is for me - I usually block lace so tightly it rises off
the blocking surface as it dries and shrinks, like a drumskin), you might try running a very
long length of sturdy cotton yarn all around the perimeter of the scarf before washing,
making a running stitch close to the edge that catches every other row. Leave a loop at each
corner. Pin it out as usual - you will find that drawing the string taut will help you create very
straight edges without blocking wires.
I have been working up some different ideas for doing some colour/Norwegian/Fair Isle
knitting (the obsession can be viewed on my blog), and I have a question about materials.
I live in the SF Bay area and do not necessarily want a heavy wool pullover as it's never
quite cold enough for one, but would like to make one of the range of Alice
Starmore/Poetry in Stitches/etc pullies in cotton or a silk blend. The book "More
Sweaters" by Lise Kolstad and Tone Takle talks briefly about using fibers other than wool,
but not in any great detail.
My question is regarding the steeking and fibers other than wool. I have never gotten up
the nerve to do a steek, so I have a lack of knowledge there, but all the things I have read
on others blogs and some books talk about the wool "sticking to itself", and thus it would
be hard for it to come apart.
If I knit a sweater in cotton that requires a steek in it, do you think it would hold together
once cut? Obviously I have a lack of knowledge about the steeking, but thought I would
ask before
attempting, what are your thoughts are on knitting a colourwork sweater with non-wool
fibers? What are the drawbacks? Would it even work?
Liz
Bravo on you for thinking outside the box! It's so easy to order a kit and whip out a
(gorgeous) McFairIsle; I'm glad you're looking to put some personality into patterns, thinking
about how to make them work better for you. A few thoughts:
The first thing I would encourage you to consider is the reason why stranded colorwork in
wool works so well.
Source
The luminous, painterly shifting of colors in a well-planned pattern owes a lot to the
properties of the yarn itself. Shetland wool is quite fuzzy, with a halo of hairs sticking out of
the knitted fabric - he resulting fabric traps light, and the patterns have an organic depth. The
contrast between light pattern and dark background (or vice-versa) becomes the knitted
equivalent of chiaroscuro, hinting at countours with shadow and light.
A completely smooth yarn, as most cottons are, would create a flatter, more graphic effect
(though the feathered lines created by knit stitch Vs blur the lines a little) - imagine a pieced
quilt, or a cut-out. This in itself is not a bad thing (I hear some guy named Matisse made
some cut-outs that were pretty good), but it's something to think about.
Then, make sure that the materials you'll want to use actually exist. Wools meant for
colorwork - jumperweight Shetland and some nice Icelandic and Norwegian wools - come in
dizzyingly expansive palettes of colors, but most other yarn lines have much smaller ranges.
It will be difficult to get a, say, Starmore-style effect if the yarn you're using only has two
shades of blue.
Last, some technical issues. You're absolutely right; cotton, silk, and other non-felting yarns
aren't great for traditional steeks, which rely on the natural tendency of wool fibers to grab
onto each other to keep from falling apart (for further reading on what will and won't work
for different types of yarn, check out this series about steeks from the archives). With cotton
yarn, you pretty much have two choices: machine-sew the steek before cutting (boo! hiss! In
my opinion, machine sewing and hand knitting are never good for each other, though lots of
people feel differently), or work a wound steek. You can either wrap the yarn several times
around the needle at each steek, drop the loops on the previous row, wind some more on, and
cut up the center of the ladders when you're done, or knit a steek all the way up the side and
then ladder the stitches before or after cutting. Either way, you'll end up with a bush of ends
(two for every row) that need to be woven in, braided, or otherwise dealt with:
and that's a royal pain. It's almost worth just knitting flat, in pieces, instead.
Cotton is also a lot less forgiving of imperfect execution than wool - almost any
inconsistency in stranded knitting will block out with a good washing and pinning in wool
yarns, but cotton stitches will more or less hold the shapes they were made in. Take care as
you work to make sure everything already looks good on the needle.
The last thing: cotton is heavy. Remember that stranded knitting produces a double-thick
fabric at a fairly dense gauge. Walking around in two layers of fingering weight cotton may
not be too warm, but it might be exhausting!
All that said, I encourage you to swatch away. Colorwork in cotton and silk can look fresh
and modern and very lovely - just take a second to think about how you'll handle those issues
before you begin.
MAY 15, 2006
EPIPHANY
Self-discovery can be a disquieting, disturbing thing. Those suffocating moments when
excuses, finger-pointing, I'll-think-about-it-tomorrows, and all the other carefully woven
protective veils fall away, and you force yourself, for the first time, to look at things as they
really are? Tragic, really - there are realizations that turn the world into a suddenly cold and
shelterless place, that rock the very foundations of identity! For, how can you move on, if
you never really knew who you were? All goes dark in one terrifying moment.
I don't think I like to knit socks.
I know, I know - it's even worse than you imagined.
I've started dozens of pairs of socks in my life, but finished only three. Three! For a long
time, I blamed it on a perpetually missing tapestry needle, and thus no way to graft toes
closed (never mind that they cost 80 cents). When that wore through, I shrugged, said
"Everyone gets second sock syndrome," and knitted merrily on other things. When that
excuse started to show its age, oh, sock knitting hurt my hands (curiosly, the only kind that
ever did). I wanted to knit socks, I wanted to be a sock knitter! I would stop at nothing to
preserve the illusion.
Lies, all lies, I see that now. It's time to stop hiding, to see the truth - I just don't really care
for sock knitting. I hate the fiddliness of heel construction, the cramped canvas, the forcing of
fit to make a pattern work. And besides, I hardly ever wear 'em - if I'm not in heels, I'm
barefoot. What's the point?
Three single socks, socks I'm admitting here and now will never, ever see mates:
Embossed Leaves sock
Pattern: Embossed Leaves Socks, by Mona Schmidt for Interweave Knits Winter 2005
Yarn: Spirit Trail sock yarn
Yardage: about 150 yards
Yarn Source: Maryland Sheep & Wool 2006
Needles: 2.25mm (US 1) Brittany birch DPNs
Gauge: -Modifications: needle substition
Raindrop Lace Sock
Pattern: Raindrop Lace Socks, by Evelyn Clark for Fiber Trends

Yarn: Claudia Handpaints sock yarn in Calypso
Yardage: about 150 yards
Yarn Source: All About Yarn
Gauge: --
Modifications: needle substition

Cabled Sock
Pattern: My own
Yarn: Claudia Handpaints sock yarn in Jungle; Dale Baby Ull
Yardage: about 125 yards each
Gauge: -Modifications: -I feel so free!
MAY 13, 2006
WITH JOY
My very first substantial length of finished handspun yarn, a little less than half an ounce that
measures at 43 yards. More or less right for a light fingering weight of ~190 yards/50 grams,
right?
The spun color is quite different from the deep clear garnet of the top - the yarn is almost
rusty, a lot warmer than the cool unspun tone. The recipe? 2 envelopes of Tropical Punch
Kool-Aid, plus a little more, for about 2 ounces of shaela (silvery grey) Shetland top.
MAY 12, 2006
BRIGHTER
VOLUME 1, NUMBER 2
I would love to have the following explained once and for all:
What's the difference between sweater types:
Aran, Celtic, gansey, and fishermen's sweaters??
Thank you,
Sue
Ah! (rubs hands together) I love this question!
Source
A FISHERMAN'S SWEATER is, to put it simply, any sweater a fisherman would wear. It
might come from Scotland, from the north lands, from Newfoundland - anywhere people
knitted and fished, men at sea wore sweaters knit with their own hands and by those of their
women at home.
A GANSEY, or GUERNSEY, is a particular type of fisherman's jumper with origins in the
Britsh Channel Isles. Most prominent during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century,
it takes its name, of course, from the island of Guernsey.
Source
The most familiar form of the gansey is a very thick, densely knit sweater with a plain welt
and a yoke patterned with geometric knit/purl patterns and simple rope cables in vertical and
horizontal arrangements. Patterns and construction methods were borrowed and changed,
improved and corrupted, in port villages all around the North Sea as boats (and the knitters
on board) followed the fish. There are patterns peculiar to tiny communities, passed along
from family to family - motifs of anchor and rope, nets and weather signs. Eminent
practicality distinguishes the gansey as much as distinctive styling does: most ganseys are
constructed for speed and ease of making up, and durability and utility during wear. The welt
is knit as one piece in the round, then split at the armscye to work the back and front flat.
There may or may not be a shoulder strap. Sleeves are picked up and worked down to the
cuff, for a garment that may be made quickly, all in one piece, with no seams to unravel or
burst.
The traditional yarn is a deep indigo 5-ply mill-spun, round and firm, knit very tightly for
water-proofness and warmth. The cuffs often end well above the wrists, to keep out of the
wet - knitting the sleeves top-down allows a worn-through elbow or cuff to be unraveled and
reknit as often as necessary. The drop-shoulder shape, with a diamond-shaped gusset at the
underarm, allows for the full range of motion a fisherman needs. The back and front neck are
even, to allow for a completely reversible garment. All in all - a really wonderful example of
human ingenuity, of the instinct to make what is utilitarian beautiful as well.
The ARAN SWEATER is a garment densely patterned with cables and traveling lines, most
often arranged in vertical columns mirrored out from a wide center pattern.
It's not really a traditional Irish garment, any more than the fortune cookie is a traditional
Chinese food. It seems to be a natural progression from the simple cables of the gansey, but
the laborious (and less durable) seamed construction and lack of gussets in even the earliest
museum pieces suggest that the "Aran sweater" was never meant as a functional piece for
Aran fishermen, but rather a sale good, a product for export. There is no evidence that the
"traditional" patterns are clan symbols, or have any time-shrouded meaning associated with
them at all - they are simply beautiful patterns developed by skilled production knitters
during the last two centuries. And that balderdash about patterns being used to identify
bodies recovered from the sea? Is just that, romantic legend, since these sweaters were never
worn by real fishermen at all (many sources point to J. M. Synge's play, Riders From the Sea,
as the source of this story - a dropped stitch in a stocking identifies a drowned man).
The hallmarks of the Aran sweater are seamed construction (there are a couple reasons to this
- first, most cable patterns alternate plain and patterned rows, easier to keep track of with
back-and-forth knitting; second, the twisted stitches often seen in traveling lines and ribs
must not be twisted in the same direction every row, or the whole tube will bias), dropped
shoulders, and sleeves knit flat with a saddle or strap extension at the top. The standardized
construction and pattern arrangement makes the Aran one of the easiest sweaters to "design"
- this motif may be swapped for that one, that cable for this - and only a little math is
required for a completely new-looking sweater. At the same time, the infinite variations on
the cable patterns that may be used - split cables, ribbed cables, braided panels in all kinds of
arrangements - make Aran sweater knitting one of the most satisfying creative exercises in
knitting.
CELTIC motifs are just motifs inspired by the beautiful, intricate knots and braids of Celtic
metalwork and art.
With a little patience and graph paper in hand, any knot can be expressed in cabled lines - I
charted the motif above based on a beautiful knot glimpsed in a modern piece. The infinite
line techniques taught by Alice Starmore in her book Aran Knitting come in handy here.
So there - sweaters debunked, demystified, and hopefully shown to be even more beautiful
and inspiring for it.
--------------------------------------------I finally got the needles I needed to work on the Norwegian Jacket:
Much better. I'd been using 3.00mm needles before, for the colorwork - hate that quirky
European needle sizing - because they were the only wooden needles readily available to me,
and I have the patience of, say, a 4-year-old. "Oh," I thought, "that quarter millimeter doesn't
matter. I'm sure the slight compression stranding causes will compensate for it, and it'll be
just like I knit it on a 2.75 mm needle."
Um, not so, of course. It was just wishful thinking - the colorwork looked sloppy and ugly,
and my row gauge was disastrously off. So, doing what for me is harder than bearding a lion
in its den - waiting - I ordered a Crystal Palace bamboo needle, the only wooden circular
needle in existence that comes in 2.75 mm. The result is even, pretty fabric with a readable
pattern and a nicely sturdy hand. Maybe there's a lesson to be learned here.
Probably not.
I've started working on a pretty pair of socks, too, with the yarn I got from Spirit Trail at
Sheep & Wool, and the Embossed Leaves sock pattern from the winter IK:
And then, I've been thinking about this whole spinning thing.
"I should," says I, "I should spin some yarn, and use it for something. I should use it for
something interesting, something nice enough to keep me spinning - maybe a pair of
Norwegian mittens. A pair of Norwegian mittens in two colors. In two colors, grey and red.
Red I should dye myself. I should dye and then spin 400 yards of fingering-weight wool on a
drop spindle for colorwork mittens."
These are the conversations I have with myself.
I'm thinking this justifies it, though:
That beautiful garnet came from Kool-Aid, if you can believe it (I know, I know, I should use
real dye - but remember what I said about the whole waiting thing?), the result of dyeing grey
Shetland fiber. The fiber feels different after dyeing, though - it's not felted in the least, but it
feels coarse and scratchy, the way Shetland wool should feel. The undyed top is silky and
ridiculously soft, but the dyed top is suddenly crimpy and hairy. I wish I knew enough about
fiber to know what I've done to it...right now, I'm thinking that the individual hairs are just
going in different directions, no longer in the alignment the top's been combed into, but I
don't know. It spins just fine, so I'm not going to stress about it.
The little sample I made shows that there are darker hairs scattered throughout, almost black,
giving a wonderful depth to the finished yarn:
All this maybe isn't the best project for a very new spinner to jump into right away...but the
goal is winter wear, so there's plenty of time to decide whether or not all this is moonstruck
madness.
MAY 10, 2006
GET THIS PARTY STARTED
VOLUME 1, NUMBER 1
My question is that I am thinking of making a camisole that's lingerie, not for wearing out of
the house, in some very fine silk lace, but I'm curious about how you would design the pattern
for the cups. It would be for an A/B cup, so it wouldn't really bear much weight there, but if it
were held up by straps halter-style, there would be a kind of crosswise pulling on the cup. I
thought I might give this pattern a try, but I didn't really like the angular quality of the little
in-between triangle, and I wanted to make a halter. It has the stitches going diagonally. Sorry
my question isn't more specific, but I was just hoping for some open-ended thoughts before I
start experimenting.
Thanks,
Mona
First, I have to give vent to a small rant. Knitted bikinis and knitted bras meant to be worn as
real swimsuits and underthings? Are a distintly terrible idea. Handknit fabrics lack the
structure functional lingerie and swimwear demand - the wires and seams and hooks and
elastic of boughten lingerie are there for a reason, and I'd imagine that there's quite a bit of
engineering behind their use and placement. Knit fabrics, without being knit at a VERY
dense gauge (denser than most of us care to knit whole garments at), and without clever
boning insertions or well-thought-out seams or sturdy facings, are simply too stretchy to
make functional bra-tops without looking saggy and sloppy.
But. Your project - a filmy, floaty camisole, in a smaller cup size, that isn't really meant to do
all-day duty - is the PERFECT kind of knitted lingerie. Swimsuits, too, that are meant more
for sunning or showing off than for swimming, can be wearable and cute. All that said, there
are a couple ways I can think of to handle the cups.
The first, easiest solution would be to do nothing at all.
You could just knit the cups as flat triangles, fairly tight across the breast, and let the stretch
of the fabric create a supportive fit. If the cups are going to be of lace, this would be my
preferred solution - allover lace stretches and opens marvelously, and you could get a skintight, peekaboo sort of thing going. In that case, I'd use a motif stacked in vertical columns,
or a true allover pattern. An edging would definitely be in order, whether the cups are solid or
openwork - you could pick up and knit all around the edges, working whatever edging
appeals to you. I'd work it slightly shorter than the space it's meant to fill - this'll create an
edge that lies flat across the skin, and a slight fullness to the cup.
Or, you could take this idea one step further, and sew the cups into the body with a shirred or
gathered bottom:
Think of how a string bikini top is gathered along the bottom to create fullness in the cup.
You'll want only a slight gather for an A/B cup - your flat cup piece should be somewhat
elongated, like this:
I'd say start with a triangle an inch or two wider at the base than the space it'll go in, and
experiment from there. You could avoid seaming, too, and simulate this with lots of increases
all in one row just as the cup begins.
The next step would be a cup with decreases along a line that extends from the base to the
nipple.
This, and all princess seam-style shapings, simulate cutting and seaming a piece of flat fabric
with a dart to create a contour. Sort of like this:
The knitted fabric is made in one piece, of course, but the same kind of sculptural effect is
acheived. You'd want to use centered double decrease, all along one line.
Or, use short rows to create a cup shape.
You can make the short row area as deep as you like, as round as you like, or as flat as you
like, just by adding or taking away additional short rows and playing with the length of each
one. Start wrapping and turning an inch or so into the cup, making increasingly shorter rows.
Then, work across the whole length again, to create a rounded cup.
You can always play with the placement of the short rows, too, for different effects - moving
the bulk of the rows to the inner edge, for instance, would flatten the outer edge and create a
push-up bra effect.
More thorough instructions for short rows can be found in this nice Knitty article.
Remember that an A/B cup is usually considered to have betwen .5 and 2 inches difference
between the measurement of the ribcage (just below the bust) and the fullest point of the
bust. Don't go overboard with the shaping...err on the side of slightly-too-small, and the
worst that can happen is that you'll look as if your cup overfloweth.
Opinions?
unraveling is an advice column for knitters, with fresh content every Wednesday and Friday. Send your
questions to unraveling@eunnyjang.com.
MAY 09, 2006
TEXTURE SHELL
Otherwise known as, "The Adventures of Little Big-Head"
I am really fond of this one, though a high boat neck isn't exactly the most flattering thing in
the world for a busty girl like me. I like the sweet little details, though - particularly the way
the cables continue into the hem and cross at the turning row. It works both ways - under a
jacket at the office, or on its own after hours, accessorized only with skin.
Pattern: My own (pattern available someday)
Yarn: Elsebeth Lavold Hempathy, in color 4 (White Beach)
Yardage: 3.5 50 gram balls (about 525 yards)
Needles: 3.25mm (US 3) Addi Turbo circular needles
Gauge: 6 st/inch over basket weave pattern
Modifications: -See all entries on this project
Stay tuned for the first installment of Unraveling this afternoon!
MAY 08, 2006
OVERLOADED
It's sort of amazing - we had a gloomy forecast for the whole of the weekend, but the weather
was absolutely glorious for both days of Sheep & Wool. At 6pm on Sunday, just as the doors
closed on the festival, the sky promptly started spitting cold drizzle. I'm taking this as a sign
that the yarn gods were well pleased.
The weekend was wonderfully educational, as out-of-the-ordinary exciting as a field trip and
as pleasantly overwhelming. There's so much to learn, know, watch, wonder about sheep and
sheepbreeding and fiber and spinning and weaving and dyeing! I really think my chiefest
pleasure in the weekend was catching snippets of conversation between vendors knowledgeable people talking, debating, confiding about what they love to do.
We saw all kinds of great-looking animals -
For someone who comes purely from a knitting background, a consumer background, it's
immensely exciting to see the animals themselves. I loved seeing the bulky Bluefaced
Leicesters, the hairy-faced, wrinkly Merinos, the dreadlocked Cotswolds, the short, stubby
Shetlands with their ruff of silky neck wool. And like true city girls, we stood stock-still,
fascinated, and watched the sheep being given a final brushing and clipping before show baaaing at the indignity of it all - and the tiny lambs stumbling about their shaded pens
(though, now, it's kind of troubling me that I apparantly don't have any sort of mental conflict
between "What beautiful, perfect examples of Nature's deft hand!" and "Mmmm, delicious.")
I picked up Stephanie on Friday night, and the rest of the weekend went by in kind of a blur. I
didn't take nearly as many pictures as I should have, but we tried wheels with Amie, stopped
by Cara's sprawling, enormous meetup, drank beers and ate burgers and shouted over the
music at Clyde's with Erin and Coleen and Eileen, and ogled and fondled miles and miles of
yarn betweentimes. Brooks Farm was the most wonderful new-to-me discovery of the
weekend:
I somehow managed to restrain myself here, but Stephanie walked away with a hank of
Merino/Mohair in some really extraordinary shades of lavender and sage and old gold. I
made only a couple purchases all weekend - a couple hanks of sock yarn from Spirit Trail,
and some spinning supplies.
My interest in spinning is end-use based - wheel or no wheel, I'd like to eventually be able to
spin a good, strong 2-ply cobweb weight, and 2-ply jumperweight Shetland. How wonderful
would it be to be able to spin my own Fair Isle wools, maybe even learn to dye? For
experimenting with motifs and coming up with new garment patterns, it'd be invaluable to be
able to make just a few grams of yarn in perfectly realized color schemes. And, of course, I'd
love to make my own cozy, bloomy yarns for shawls and stoles - threadlike-singles to ply
together for Shetland lace, and to ply with mill-spun silk for Orenburg shawls. Intoxicating
possibilities! To that end, I bought some beautifully prepared Shetland top, and a very wee,
very lovely Golding spindle, on which I've been spinning up a storm of damn consistent and
tolerably skinny laceweight.
Though I was worried the light weight of the spindle (scarcely three-quarters of an ounce)
would mean a very short spin, it's a wonderfully balanced, suprisingly fast-spinning little
thing. I tend to roll the shaft off my thigh, which gets it turning quickly enough - and for long
enough - that I can do something approximating a long-draw. While spinning very thin
singles, the spindle will spin, without losing speed and without a wobble, for a couple
minutes straight. We are very pleased.
I also bought some Merino/Tussah silk top in a bright pink shot through with white,
peppermint-like:
along with some pink no-name roving, in almost the same color, for practicing with when
The Theoretical Wheel becomes The Actual Wheel. All in all, almost a pound and a half of
delicious wooly goodness.
The one great tragedy of the weekend is that I ate very little at the actual festival. I am a
connoisseur of fair food - the worst kind of fair food, the deep-fried, the cheese-slathered, the
pit-roasted, the sugar-frosted, the oil-drenched. There were ribbon chips with sour cream and
chives and cheese calling my name; funnel cakes and fried Twinkies begging me to eat them;
lonely kernels of kettle corn beseeching me as I walked past, but I ate only one lamb gyro.
What a gyro it was, though - properly horrible and delicious, a good tablespoon of orange
grease showing in the empty cone of tinfoil after wolfing the sandwich down. I got to live
vicariously through Stephanie, though:
The picture is horribly back-lit (proof of the good weather!), but you may be able to see her
grinning and holding up the world's quickest-melting peanut-butter-dipped chocolate softserve.
Good times, good times.
Columbia Knit-Night
We're holding an impromptu knit-night tonight, at the Panera on Dobbin! If you can make it,
we'll be there starting from 6:30. Hope to see you there!
Advice Column
Thanks for all the great suggestions- really clever, one and all. I really like "Unraveling" - I
think Sumitra was the first person to suggest it (email me, and let me know the colorway of
the Koigu PPPM you'd like). I have a really good, meaty question already for tomorrow keep 'em coming, to unraveling@eunnyjang.com. I'll use your name and link to you when I
quote the question - if you'd like me to do otherwise, just sign an advice column-style
psuedonym, and I'll take it as a sign to leave you totally anonymous.
MAY 05, 2006
WHITE HOT
I worked a little bit on the Texture Shell last night, finishing up the neck hem. I did consider
snipping the stitch rather than ripping back, but decided against it in the end. The deciding
factor was mostly the yarn itself - Hempathy is a cotton/hemp/modal blend, quite firm and
slippery, and I was nervous about the ends getting away before they could be tacked down.
Then, too, my bind-off edge included three stitches chained over the dropped yarn loop for
width, and two hem stitches cast on over it - snipping and dropping would have created a
ladder, but would have left me with a too-narrow left side of the shell. Just a small difference,
to be sure, but trying it on while deciding what to do showed that even that two-stitch
difference made the thing drape queerly and pull at the most unattractive point of the
armscye.
I'm glad I ripped and re-knit - while I was at it, I re-worked the neck a half-inch higher for a
prettier boatneck (it just barely exposes the collarbones and hollow of the throat now), and
tried a different treatment for the corner at the small of the back:
A tidy miter, done with paired decreases on the front side of the hem and paired increases on
the folded-back side. No floppy, sloppy juncture, that - the whole thing lies smooth and flat
across the skin now.
The armhole finishing should go blazing quick, then a good wash to unkink the ladders and a
pinning to tame those rolling hems - and we'll be ready to conquer the world. Because, verily,
a world that won't be conquered by a drop-stitch sweater and Manolos is not a world I want
any part of.
Maryland Sheep & Wool
Are you going to be in town this weekend for MD S&W? I'm going to try to swing by Cara's
meetup at 1:30 on Saturday, and will definitely be at Mama-E's hang-out at Clyde's on
Saturday night. It's my first time at the festival, but I've got big plans - I want to try out
wheels (!), source Shetland roving in a big spectrum of natural fleece colors, meet people, eat
myself silly, and buy enough yarn to outfit the Spanish Armada with self-striping sails. Hope
to see you there!
Novelty is a good thing
The whole blog thing can get a little stagnant, sometimes - I love the wonderful discussions
that blossom in the comments, and the totally selfish, preening part of me loves showing stuff
I'm proud of, but I occasionally feel really dull. I mean, how many progress shots of one
project can you show?
I get a lot of really interesting questions via email - in the last week or so, I've answered
queries about the advisability of using black mohair yarn in a very dense lace; blocking
alpaca lace; fixing a too-large sleeve cap, etc. I love thinking about these kinds of questions,
and dealing with the knitty, knobbly little wrinkles that come up during knitting - I try to be
good about answering questions in the comments and answering email, but maybe it'd be fun
to turn it into a feature of the blog.
It would be an advice column, kind of, for knitters - the kind of issue that pops up while
working, but isn't easily researchable. What kind of picot bind-off would be best for x body
stitch? How should ends be dealt with in stranded knitting? Where can I source 8/0 beads for
knitting? That kind of thing. I'm by no means an expert, but I do feel reasonably well
qualified to answer a lot of these kinds of questions - with way more theory and detail and
more illustrations and diagrams than anyone wants - and commenters will have a lot to say,
too.
What do you think? Send questions to questions AT eunnyjang DOT com, and we'll deal with
a bunch every Tuesday and Thursday. What should we call it? "The Lifeline"? That seems
cheesy beyond belief - got a suggestion? Two skeins of any Koigu PPPM color are in it for
the best contribution.
MAY 04, 2006
ILLUMINATED
I do believe it could be called real yarn.

It's curious - I like to measure progress in things like narrowing a range of movement;
shaving unnecessary seconds off the execution of a technique; understanding why each thing
happens and how improving one will improve the other. . . but spinning defies those
standards. I'm starting to think that improvement in spinning just sort of . . . happens. I can
see, yes, that I'm starting to learn the approximate amount of overtwist I want in a single, but
I'll be damned if I can explain how I think I know when it's just right. Likewise with pulling
out the same amount of yarn with every drafting motion, with knowing just how much to
twist during plying . . . the things that feel right often are. Some shadowy, cobwebbed corner
of my brain is immensely satisfied by this.

Too bad knitting isn't the same. The neckline hem is almost done on my basketweave shell:
Which is all well and good, except, um:
I somehow completely forgot to drop one of the cable-flanking stitches. 10 nearly 300-stitch
rows of hem will need to be pulled out, the shoulder picked open, and the neck shaping
ripped to free it. Gah!
Posted by Eunny at 11:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (34)
MAY 02, 2006
UNBEARABLY SMUG
Can you guess what this is made of? It's slubby and bumpy and generally ugly, but I am
unabashedly proud of it - sort of like admiring your baby's spit-up, I'd imagine.
The lovely Amie (check out her article for Knitter's Review - wonderfully written and a
must-read for anyone traveling to Sheep & Wool this weekend) came armed with tasty things
last night: a drop spindle, her own excellent instruction, and more than enough fiber for me to
spin happily, clumsily, obliviously, until it was suddenly much later at night than anyone had
planned on.
From left to right: a little Dorset roving, a little Merino top, and an attempt at some mohair.
Not pictured: the snarled, slubbly, broken, knotted, and tangled bits and gibbles my office is
littered with.
What a wonderfully thoughtful gift (I've been meaning to learn to spin for months) - what a
frighteningly effective way to lose hours! It's gratifying to know that you're making progress,
of course, but to actually see that each attempt is a little better, drafting a little easier,
thickness a little more even, plied yarn balanced a bit better? Completely addicting. The
possibility of a wheel, of laceweight, of shawls knit in my own cobwebby yarn? Intoxicating.
Thank you, Amie!
Summer sweater
The breather from last week is...still breathing. I knit hardly at all over the weekend, but I'm
getting back to it - a light summer shell in Hempathy. The hand is quite soft, but the
patterning is nice and crisp.
It'll have a high, very wide boatneck - demure and sweet over a camisole, except -
The back is cut to the curve of the spine. Worn the right way - over a backless, nude-colored
bustier, with a businesslike pencil skirt and Serious Slingbacks - it will be incendiary.

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April 2006 | Main | June 2006

MAY 28, 2006

Chuck's Cabled Socks

Print O' The Wave Stole (PDF)

Lace, Pt 3: The Structure

Almost Argyle Socks

Baby Argyle Vest

Flared Lace Smoke Ring

MAY 26, 2006

MAY 25, 2006

One little sleeve, barely begun.

So here's what I've got:

MAY 24, 2006

BLOCK ME, AMADEUS

If necessary, I pinch and pull at texture elements to plump them up.

unraveling@eunnyjang.com. Your question may be edited for style and space.

MAY 23, 2006

Are these colors spectacular, or are they spectacular?

thicker yarn, or maybe a different kind of decrease?

if the instructions call for fingering-weight alpaca at a very

Maybe a many-plied cotton in a gauge tighter than normal

And so forth. I'm all for experimenting with gauges and

MAY 22, 2006

How can something so wrong feel so right?

MAY 19, 2006

MAY 18, 2006

MAY 17, 2006

NATURE'S FIRST GREEN IS GOLD

Her hardest hue to hold.

MAY 15, 2006

Pattern: Raindrop Lace Socks, by Evelyn Clark for Fiber Trends

Modifications: needle substition

MAY 13, 2006

MAY 12, 2006

MAY 10, 2006

GET THIS PARTY STARTED

MAY 09, 2006

MAY 08, 2006

MAY 05, 2006

MAY 04, 2006

I do believe it could be called real yarn.

of my brain is immensely satisfied by this.

Which is all well and good, except, um:

MAY 02, 2006

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