Well, Sometimes my designs lead to design dilemmas. The photo is a preview of my next design, the EGBDF sweater. You might recall I've already knit a sample of this pattern. But I didn't like to original result so I redesigned it. I hate knitting flat and seaming, mostly because I'm too lazy to learn proper seaming techniques, but also because once I finish the actual knitting, I want the sweater to be finished. I'm impatient to start wearing it! Well, anyway, I use Melissa Leapman's excellent book, 6000+ Pullover Patterns as a reference, but adapting her flat patterns to knitting in the "round". Because of the technique I use, with wraps and turns on either side of a marker, the sweater is knit in one piece and seamed as you go. I flew from Tel Aviv to Virginia yesterday (and missed torrential rains in Tel Aviv!), and I was fully prepared to knit all the way. I've joined the sleeves to the body. But then I freaked myself out. I hadn't fully thought about how to accomplish the sleeve cap shaping and armhole shaping contiguously based on flat patterns. So I didn't knit on either flight. I packed everything I needed but the one thing I forgot was Melissa's book ffor reference. So I couldn't even make notes to figure it out. So today, we went to Barnes & Noble but her book is no longer carried in stock; it's only print to order. On the Paris-Virginia flight, I did figure out that I had to think of the flat patterns that I had charted in Stitch Fiddle (I highly recommend it) as a Mercator map. It was a total epiphany. So now, I'll write out line by line directions for my sample sweater. And when I publish the pattern, instead of charts, I think I'll write out line by line instructions for the yoke for all sizes.
]]>All that to say that when I need to learn new techniques, I turn to the web. There are truly wonderful instructors on YouTube, such as Staci from Very Pink Knits. And when I need to learn how to dye yarn and wool, I turn to Rebecca at ChemKnits. On the one hand, she goes into depth on the science behind dyeing, such as depth of shade. On the other hand, she's bubbly and has the kind of infectious personality that makes the videos fun even if you don't want to dye fiber.
As I mentioned last week, I've jumped off the deep end when it comes to spinning, and here's a picture of the fiber I ordered. Each bag is one pound of fiber. I have two pounds of Cheviot and two pounds of Merino (non superwash). And then today, I scored an 8-pack of Procion MX dyes. The store only had two 8-packs in the store; I might go back tomorrow to buy the other one.
Tomorrow, I'll buy a big pot. My goal is to do one color way of reds, purples, and oranges, and another of blues and greens. And with two pounds of each fiber, I'll do one pound of Merino and one of Cheviot in each color way. Last week, I watch a Chemknits tutorial on YouTube in which Rebecca just put the dry ball of roving into the pot of water and then space dye the ball. And then, rewind the ball so that the inside is now on the outside and then redye in another color, and so forth, until the ball is completely dyed. The Cheviot and Merino are slightly different in color with the Cheviot beginning slightly more beige while the merino is pure white. I'm excited and nervous, because that's a lot of fiber to potentially ruin. I'll keep you posted.
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]]>"I ache for the touch of your lips, dearBut much more for the touch of your whips, dearYou can raise weltsLike nobody elseAs we dance to the Masochism Tango"
In this case, my dance partner is knitting. Specifically, this g*#*^m piano sweater. After the last fiasco, where I wound up having to frog about 7 inches of knitting, I decided to use lifelines. I added a lifeline, I knit about 10 rows, I added a new lifeline, removed the old lifeline and knit more rows. So after about 7 inches of knitting, I discovered that I had accidentally knit an inadvertent yarnover, and now had 9 stitches where there should have been only 8. The first method of fixing the mistake I tried was to a short 3 stitch lifeline below the mistake and drop the stitches down, and then using a crochet hook, work back up the columns. Well, the end result looked like total crap. So then I used a spare circular to try adding a lifeline below the mistake. I frogged back but, of course, I didn't place that circular in a straight line so then I had to slowly tink around to try and get to a place where I could start knitting again. Had I been knitting in the round, it would have been easy. But I'm knitting flat and seaming as I go, a technique used in my Shmoneh Shweater, that uses a marker as the beginning of a row and wraps and turns on either side of it. So I had to tink both right and wrong side rows. And I even screwed that up. So then I had added yet another lifeline. I finally (FINALLY!) got back to where I could begin knitting again. And all told, I lost about 8 inches of knitting. I'm honestly to the point where'd I'd be just as happy putting it aside for now and moving on to a new project but I'm going to persevere. And I've decided that I'll keep adding lifelines and not remove any of them until the effing sweater is complete. I can always remove them later. But I, apparently, can't always add them later.
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