The Cure for Acrylic

I am embarrassed to admit that I have quite a bit of acrylic in my stash. Some I bought when I was a college student and couldn't afford better. But most I bought during those manic episodes when, after months and months of no knitting, I declared "I must knit! I WILL knit! I need new yarn!" And in those moments I never had the patience to drive past the craft store and find real yarn. No, in those moments cheap acrylic seemed like just what I needed. And of course, I've kept every inch of it. It might be useful someday!

Well, friends, I have found the cure. Finger weaving! God bless whoever taught my two grade schoolers this craft! My middle child, the energizer bunny of children, learned finger weaving yesterday and BEHOLD the wondrous quantity of acrylic he consumed in LESS THAN 24 HOURS!

Let's unravel that ball and ponder its wondrousness, shall we?

From the family room sofa...

Up the front stairs...

...across the upstairs game room...












...down the back stairs...











...and to the family room sofa again.








I have always been amazed at this little guy's ability to churn out projects, but he has surpassed himself. We'll be able to knit a blanket for King Kong from his weaving by the end of the summer. Or, if he won't consent to having it knit, it will take over his room and force him to move in with his big brother and the dogs.

Although I've neglected to mention her, my daughter is quite an accomplished finger weaver. She has been at it since last fall, and tends to be more quality conscious and deliberate than her brother. She has begun experimenting with "2 finger finger-weaving" and novelty yarns.

Tonight when we returned home from day camp/dinner/tae kwon do/shopping, both kids were clamoring for "more yarn." Woohoo! Here they are with their new supplies:

For the uninitiated, finger weaving is really i-cord knitting with your fingers instead of a needle holding the stitches. My kids are all over me to try it -- they clearly believe it is superior to knitting as crafts go.

Yes, I have been doing some knitting. I'm almost to the bodice on the back of Josephine, and I got another inch of sock knitting done during my daughter's tae kwon do class tonight.

P. S. Before I could finish this post, the kids shouted downstairs -- K had finished her ball of novelty yarn, and E had finished the 1/2 skein of green and is starting on the burgundy. Heaven help me. They've turned into yarn disposals.

Some progress

I spent a little time on all my projects over the long weekend, but most of my time went to Josephine:

The stitch pattern is now memorized, and now that I've gotten used to working cotton on Addi's I can move pretty fast. My usual issues with knit columns on a purl ground are surfacing -- I'm hoping I can straighten them a bit when I block the pieces. I keep looking at the sample in IK, and am reassured that the knit columns wiggle there a little bit too. So far the gage is just right -- how often does that happen?

Here's a smallish photo of (nearly) the whole piece, so far. Smallish so that I can publicly pretend it's very very even knitting. Can you see how clever the shaping is? To get a bit of an A-line, the pattern calls for decreasing 1 purl stitch from the knit/purl pattern -- the stitches between the knit columns goes from 4 to 3. Almost imperceptible in the stitch pattern, but noticeable in the garment.

The Jaywalkers got some attention as the spouse and I drove around the furniture stores in search of hte Perfect Sofa. I was surprised at how quickly little bits added up to a couple of inches of knitting. We're driving to the Woodlands next weekend to visit his parents -- bet I can finish through the heel.

And, finally, Iris. Believe it or not, I did spend time ripping stitches this weekend. It is pitifully slow. No, I am not winding it into a skein so that I can "recondition" it properly. I'm just winding the damn stuff back into a ball and am going to knit it again. And I'm still trying to figure out why the garter stitch hem on the full-size piece curls but the hem on the swatch doesn't. This is going to be one of those projects that takes waaaaay too long. Am I weak to want to do something else with the knitting machine for a while?

Long weekend...Woohoo!

I'm really looking forward to this long Memorial Day weekend. The weather is a bit gloomy today -- good napping weather, but also good watching-movies-and-knitting weather!

I've cast on the 2nd Jaywalker sock, and have a little over 2" done now. I'm carrying it in my purse and snatching any spare time I can to work on it -- I got about an inch done last night waiting for my taekwondo class to start. And yes, I did feel a little self conscious knitting in that setting.

A short non-knitting digression here: The class was a sparring class -- I really enjoy those, now that I'm good enough to not get pummeled. But my ego is suffering a bit these days. One of the other moms who joined with her kids about year after I joined with my kids has been KICKING MY ASS every time we spar. We're both tall, but she's a smidgen taller. We both have long legs and can kick high, but she can kick higher. And faster. Much faster. In short, everything I can do well she can do better. So I try the tricks of the shorter, slower moms -- but I'm terrible at them. To be clear, I don't mind losing a match so long as it's to someone who's my rank or higher, or is 10 to 20 years younger than me. But it feels very un-feminist somehow to begrudge another mom her ability. And I wonder if the moms whose butts I kick feel the same about me. I'm a little ashamed of myself.

Back to knitting...Josephine is coming along nicely if slowly. Good knitting when I'm "watching" TV with the kids (I really only need to hear the shows.) The stitch definition is lovely.

And I have begun ripping out Iris. It is slow going -- see my earlier comments about the yarn -- but I try to rip a few rows whenever I am on the phone. I'll need to recalculate the pattern, but it won't be too bad -- just an inch or two of ease here and there, then rewrite my instructions with revised row and hook numbers.

I promise pictures of progress on something later this weekend.

So Much for Accountability by Confession...

...I'm already changing my rules. Instead of 2 categories -- hand knitting and machine knitting -- I will allow myself 3: hand knitting, machine knitting, and pool knitting.

Pool knitting is the knitting I do when I'm watching the kids in the pool and have very little else to do. I have to be outside to arbitrate fights over kick-boards and torpedoes, to scold the boys for blasting their sister in the face, to make sure there's no head-first anything, and to rescue someone if, God forbid, one of my warnings comes true. For the reasons just listed, I don't like being in the pool with the kids, I don't care how hot it is. But I can knit.

Pool projects have to be small enough that they don't actually touch my lap while I knit. Socks are a natural candidate, as are hats, wash cloths, baby garments. Maybe scarves, we'll see. I've learned too that pool projects should not be too precious -- they will get splashed with pool water, and it would spoil everyone's fun if I freaked out.

I almost finished my 1st Jaywalker sock by the pool this weekend. I actually finished it while watching the World Combat League finals -- but that's another story. The second Jaywalder is now a Pool Project. Which has freed up a spot for Josephine.


I fell in love with Josephine in the latest issue of Interweave Knits, and even had appropriate yarn in my stash. I like the general style with the not-too-open lace, but what hooked me were the lovely details. The garter-stitch cap sleeves with short row shaping, the cross-over V-neck, the gently decreasing rib pattern in the main body.

My gage on the lace section is a smidge loose (an extra 1/4-1/2" on a 4" swatch), but I can use the extra room around the middle. I'm making a couple of deliberate modifications as well (moving the empire waist below my nipples, moving the V to the top of my cleavage) so I'll double check my math tomorrow. But I cast on for the back tonight.

Here's the lace-and-rib swatch (not blocked, just pinned down to keep it from curling up):

I

A Confession

First, I must explain: I'm trying to get control of my stash and my project backlog by imposing some simple rules on myself.

(1) I will have only one active handknitting project and one active machine knitting project at any given time.
(2) Before I start a new knitting project, I must "close out" one of my stalled out/abandoned projects.
(3) I won't buy yarn for a new project unless I have finished an active project and a back-log project. (I'm having a seriously difficult time with this one.)
(4) Socks don't count.

So now the point of this blog -- my most recent "new" machine knitting project has become a hopeless stalled-out mess. Several years ago I bought some Fiesta rayon boucle in a color called "Iris." Despite the years and all the trouble it has given me, the colors still thrill me:


I had the yarn for a while, wondering what to do with it, when one day I was perusing Vogue Knitting on the news stand and saw...


Same yarn, different color. Simple stockinette, perfectly complimented by the picot trim on the neck and hems. I wanted something a little more fitted, with short sleeves, and with shaping to fit my mother-of-three body. I worked out my own dimensions for the project. I swatched. I let the swatch rest. I measured and calculated and double checked. I knit the back and held it up to my shoulders and...

It is too small. My error, in hindsight is that I assumed the weight of the rayon would cause the fabric to grow slightly. I normally add an inch or two to the charted dimensions to compensate for the machines' tendency to knit slightly tighter row gage on the garment than on the swatch. But for this project I thought the fabric weight would off-set the machine factor. I was wrong.

Now let me say that this yarn is a collossal PAIN IN THE ASS to work with. It is rayon, so it slips and slides all over the place if you're trying to keep a ball in one piece, or if you're trying to cast on a hand-knitting needle. But it is boucle, so it sticks to itself at every turn, especially if you're trying to wind a hank into a ball. Think 8 hours on hands and knees on the guest room floor, unknotting the damned stuff. For ONE hank. And it just loves to clump up in tight snarls on the yarn guides of the tension pole.

I know I should rip this out and start over so that this can be a sweater I love instead of another pretty closet decoration. I just have not been able to get myself over that hump. I'm hoping that this public confession will break the impasse. Especially because there are two projects in the latest Interweave Knits that I want to use the machine for...

Coming down from Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to everyone out there! We had a wonderful Mother's Day weekend. My in-laws came to visit, and (1) the dogs all got along, (2) my father in law got to play in the pool with my kids, (3) my kids got to play in the pool some more, (4) the weather was sunny and not too hot, and (5) the food and conversation were very very pleasant. And I have discovered that sock knitting dramatically increases my patience for pool-watching. The kids got to swim until they were tired of it, and never once heard me say "You've been in there for an hour! Five more minutes, then everyone gets out!"

So I got in lots of good knitting time. I frogged and restarted my Jaywalkers last Tuesday, and as of Sunday night was almost done with the instep decreases:

Now I have a new dilemma:

Do you think that's enough yarn to finish a sock for a size 10 foot? I didn't think so either. I'm planning to knit to the end of the skein and then decide whether to find a 3rd matching skein OR recycle my swatches OR knit the toes in a different color. I have some left-over shades-of-brown cotton/wool sock yarn in a very similar texture and weight that might work. If there's enough. I'm regretting having used some of it in a dog sweater...

All in all, though, I'm enjoying the Jaywalker pattern very much. It does make a very firm fabric, and it's still a bit of effort to get it over my heel, but it fits very well over my skinny ankles after all. But mostly, it knits up fast, and it makes my hand knitting look better than it really is:

AAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!

That was a scream.

See the progress on my lovely Jaywalkers:

See how my lovely sock tops get STUCK on my heal when I try them on!

No, wait! Look closer! It's not the ribbing that's getting stuck. See the strained stitches in the Jaywalker fabric as I tug!

I should have known that things were Not Right when after the first couple of hours of knitting I had a hole in my left index finger:

It is a small hole, as only 2mm knitting needles can make. And it has made me painfully aware of a habit that is completely unconscious and which I find myself helpless to stop-- the habit of pushing the tip of the needle back through the loop. (At work we might call this a "repetitive motion injury.")

But I do still love the way the zigzag pattern works with this yarn, so I will rip it back and start again. Maybe I should try to find some 2.25mm needles? The gage with the 2.5mm needles was way too loose for this pattern. I may have enormous heals, but I have skinny ankles and I can't afford for the socks to be too loose. Maybe instead of 7 stitches between zigs and zags, I could go with 6. It would make it a little ziggier.

I'm going to finish this glass of wine before I start ripping.

While I'm at it, I think I'll start with the black or brown section of yarn for the cast on...

One Up, One Down

This may be a long-ish post -- it has been a busy week for knitting (by my standards, anyway.)

I finally finished the second mitten of my daugther's "beret and mittens" set (just in time for summer!) I'm not sure why I had thought mitten-knitting was so tedious when I did the first one. The second one took three evenings to knit. And if I had bothered to write down the measurements ("begin shaping when...") when I knit the first mitten, I could have saved myself at least one evening.

I knit it with Patton's Classic Wool, found at the local craft store. OK to work with, but I don't expect it to be very durable. Daughter loves the hat because it is BLUE like her eyes, and because the big fat tassel bounces so distinctively when she tosses her head. She likes the mittens because they match and because I haven't made any for her brothers.

So with three recently completed projects, I felt entitled to go off in search of new yarn. Specifically, cotton-rich sock yarn -- I want to knit a pair of Jaywalkers. I have some perfectly suitable wool sock yarn, but I can't wear wool until November if I'm lucky and no way am I waiting until November to wear a pair of socks.

I found some self-striping 45% cotton sock yarn on Saturday and stayed up until the wee hours swatching. And then casting on. And then finishing the ribbing and then knitting a few rows in the pattern so I can get an idea what they will look like. On Sunday I slept in.

For the swatches I had two purposes -- first to test gage, then to practice a tubular cast on. I have never mastered a tubular cast on -- I lose count on evens/odds, and it all falls apart when I stop to figure it out -- but I was determined to make a neater-looking sock top. First swatch, with 2mm addis, tubular CO, with 2 rows of tubular rib. The cast on went perfectly with the 1x1 rib but felt a tiny bit firm, so for the second swatch...

I tried Montse Stanley's advice for a "softer edge." On 2.5mm addis, tubular CO, and straight into 1x1 rib with no tubular rib. I know I used larger needles, but the edge looked disproportionately sloppy.

After swatching, I concluded that the 2mm addis were the right needles, and that there was still enough stretch with 2 rows of tubular rib, so I pulled out the Jaywalker instructions, eager to proceed. And...Jaywalkers start with an inch of 2x2 rib. I debated for a while -- follow the pattern, or switch to 1x1 rib? In the end, as you can see, I opted to stick with the pattern, and I used my trusty old two-strand cast-on. So far I am pleased with results: