Feral Knitter

Another Hint for Careless Knitters

One more in the ongoing series....

So, has this ever happened to you? You are knitting along on your Fair Isle garment, making slow but sure progress on some 375 stitches per round, when you realize that something is wrong. Let's say you are on round 60. The stitches you are about to knit into (round 59) were not knit in the correct order. That is, when you look at the next 5 stitches there might be 2 pattern stitches and 3 background stitches when there should have been 1 pattern stitch, 2 background stitches, and 2 pattern stitches.

No need to panic!

Sometimes you can drop those stitches and reknit them in the correct order—this works when there are the same number of pattern and background stitches.  But in the scenario I've postulated above, although there is more than enough yarn to convert the 3 background stitches into 2 background stitches (we don't worry about a longer float), there is definitely not enough yarn to convert 2 pattern stitches into 3. Are you following me?

In other words, you've goobered it up good.

Rather than tink (un-knit, for the uninitiated) back around the entire circumference of the garment—an enthusiasm buster for sure—I take a long piece of yarn in the color I need (in our scenario, I'd pick the pattern color) and I knit the missing stitch with it as follows:

Drop the five stitches.

Reknit the 1 pattern stitch, 2 background stitches, and 1 pattern stitch with the original yarn.

Now knit the missing pattern stitch with your new piece of yarn.

Two ends hang from the new stitch—these will be darned in later.

There you go. Nothing to see here, Ma. Moving on.... You are now ready to continue knitting round 60. 

Speaking of progress, the Lingonberry Sweater is coming along! 

Design Your Own Fair Isle Workshop Announcement

I've decided to offer the 3-day Design Your Own Fair Isle Workshop this August 26-28 at my home in Berkeley, California. 

What's included?

Day one concentrates on choosing colors. We begin by discussing the use of color in Fair Isle knitting, color theory, and helpful resources. After an exercize in value recognition we will plunge into the actual process of identifying colors in our sources of inspiration. Students choose colors and start speed swatching to see how they work together.

Day two will be spent charting motifs and swatching them with the chosen colors. Students can bring their own charts or create their own in the workshop.

The focus on day three is construction and fit issues specific to Fair Isle-type garments: steeks, corrugated ribbing, purl-when-you-can borders, and adding bands are discussed and demonstrated as desired. I provide a basic, customizable pullover pattern and will share some simple ways to calculate armhole and neckline curves. 

This workshop covers a lot of ground, but by the end of the workshop students will be well on their way to finalizing a unique Fair Isle garment pattern.

The class size is limited to 5 people. The cost is $360 plus $20 for handouts and yarn.

Please write me if you have any questions! I'd love to see you at the workshop. janine AT feralknitter DOT com

The photo at the top of the page shows the swatches Suzanne created at a workshop last year.

 

Shetland Wool Holiday

Read this and weep the bitter tears of unfulfilled desire—or pull out your credit card if you are lucky enough to be free October 11-19! The Shetland Wool Holiday promises to be a Fair Isle knitter's dream vacation. 

I SO wish I'd heard about this earlier!!!

Just a Pig in Slop

In first grade our teacher asked us what we wanted to be when we grew up. I responded, "Librarian!" 

This answer proved to be prophetic. The fact that my life took a different direction professionally didn't change the dynamic: I have surrounded myself with books all my life. 

By surrounded I don't mean what interior designers seem to mean, with their minimalist bookshelves filled with knicknacks and carefully curated volumes placed here and there. 

No, I mean there are bookshelves in very room. Filled Crammed with books. Not precious first-edition collections. Books that have been used.

And I've got to say, from this point of view 2011 is shaping up to be a banner year for a book-loving fiberista! First of all, a book that I've been waiting for ages:

The Zig-Zag Jacket modelled at knitting camp

Knit One Knit All by Elizabeth Zimmermann

"I like to think that the very first knitter, doodling with sticks and sinews at the sunny entrance to his cave, or peering at his knitting by the flickering firelight, doodled with, or peered at, Garter stitch; the bread and cheese of knitting, the basic stitch—surely the prototype." EZ

After the publication of Knitting Without Tears, EZ proposed to her publisher that she write a book of patterns based on garter stitch. This project never materialized, but EZ continued to explore the possibilities of garter stitch designs. Many of these appeared in her many books, but a surprising number were never published. Cully Swansen (EZ's grandson) gathered together the bits of written notes, the garments that were never written down, and some designs that were published in newsletters but that never reached a wider audience. These were all made comprehensible and knitted by a slew of EZ fans, some of whom had to reverse engineer some complex garments (witness Medrith Glover's interpretation of the beautiful Mitered Cardigan and Joyce Williams' deconstruction of garter gloves).

Some 39 designs for hats, hand coverings, slippers, baby clothes, vest, sweaters, and jackets in different weights of yarn. All open to interpretation! Not all of these projects are in garter stitch, by the way—some involve stocking stitch knit in the round. 

When available, EZ's original notes are reproduced along with the pattern. My favorite, which she wrote about the Icelandic Overblouse: "Fall '78 I find I'm wearing this a great deal. Peel it off so that it's inside-out every 2nd time."

I was particularly touched by the reproduction of EZ's watercolors at the start of each section and the closing photograph of artist Andrew Wyeth wearing his New Zealand Sweater. 

Norwegian Knitting Designs by Annichen Sibbern Bohn (reprint) $19.95

This sweet, short 1929 classic has been reprinted with a lovely introduction and supplementary material by Terri Shea. This book is about the charts: generall a chart is paired with a black&white photo of the motif used in a garment (generally mittens or knee high sweaters). General directions for 2 sweaters and a cap are included, but this book expects the knitter to know how to create their own pattern. (I carry this book at Feral Knitter.)

And coming up:

The Fiber & Fleece Source Book by Deb Robson and Carol Ekarius  $35 Any minute now... 

I was able to leaf through a preview copy of the veritable encyclopedia of information last weekend and I had to resist the temptation to steal the book when the shopkeeper's back was turned! So beautifully photographed, so filled with information, so inspirational! So BIG at 435+ pages!

From the publisher's blurb: Spinners (and knitters) this is the book you've been asking for: more photos and breeds than In Sheep's Clothing and more sheepy and animal goodness than The Knitter's Book of Wool. A labor of sheepy love and a stellar book.

Little Red in the City by Ysolda Teague At the printers! 

Not just a collection of garment patterns, this includes what promises to be an excellent section on making knits fit, with the specific information that is so difficult to find elsewhere. For example, here you can seen an example of her directions for placing bust darts. You can order a copy from that link.

Traditional Knitting: Aran, Fair Isle, and Fisher Ganseys by Michael Pearson (reprint) $19.95 Pub date: July

This oldie but goodie returns after 27 years—thank you, Dover Press! (I will carry this book at Feral Knitter; you can pre-order.)

200 Fair Isle Motifs by Mary Jane Mucklestone Pub date: September $24.95

I have long admired Mary Jane Mucklestone's vibrant Fair Isle designs, so I am looking forward to this new resource. (I will carry this book at Feral Knitter; you can pre-order.)

Charts for Colour Knitting by Alice Starmore (reprint)  $19.95 Pub date: October

This book has been out of print for years and selling for exorbitant prices on eBay. I've never looked through it, but I can predict that is will be another Fair Isle enthusiast's go-to resource. (I will carry this book at Feral Knitter; you can pre-order)

Whew! I'm a happy knitter....

 

Color!

The Lingonberry Sweater is moving along rapidly! Such bright colors for Fair Isle work, but I felt compelled to move forward with this project for the fun of it as well as for the challenge. The photo capturing the colors? Meh. And of course the knitting is not yet blocked.

But the promise is there.... just like spring.

FIBERSHED DINNER

Last Sunday we went to the Community Cloth fundraising dinner in Point Reyes Station, California. This dinner and fashion show organized by Fibershed Project Rebecca Burgess (I wrote about the Fibershed Project a few weeks ago). The goal was to start raising money for a local fiber mill that can produce the fine yarns—in particular, cotton—needed for industrial fabric processes. 

The tables were covered with naturally dyed and printed fabrics and scattered with leaves and casual centerpieces.

And there was music! Banjo!!! Performed by Tim Weed & Friends.

HARVESTING COLOR

Rebecca Burgess's lovely book Harvesting Color: How to Find Plants and Make Natural Dyes came out just in time for this event. In addition to exploring the dye possibilities available to her near her home north of San Francisco, Burgess also learned from experienced dyers in the Southwest and the Midwest. Harvesting Color differs greatly from other books on natural dyeing. Burgess talks in depth about where to find dye material—how to work with restoration ecologists, for example, to gather invasive weeds while clearing areas—and how to grow dye material. 

The harvesting instructions are quite detailed and respectful of the plant's role in the environment. For example, here are the instructions for harvesting California sagebrush:

Sagebrush is most potent for dye use in the mid- to late srping through the beginning of summer, when the rains have subsided. I harvest sprigs from the plant, gently pruning back the long, leggy branches to keep the plant confined to a dense and bushy state. If there are late rains the plant will often stay green well into the early-to-mid-summer. It is important to let the plant successfully seed, so all harvesting should be completed prior to the seed head's emergence in the midsummer.

I am fascinated by the 1-day Japanese indigo recipe that uses Specralite and the 3-day version calling for corn syrup and wheat bran. 

Paige Green's photographs in this book are spectacular: evocative yet detailed enough to be useful.

I think this is a marvelous book, well worth the $24.95 price. 

NATURE'S CAULDRON CSA

And if gathering dye materials sounds like something you are quite unlikely to do—and don't feel bad about that, we don't have time to do EVERYTHING!—Birdsong has just started the first natural dye CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), Nature's Cauldron. She will be growing and gathering natural dyestuffs and will be sending out four shipments for the subscription price (which includes a copy of Harvesting Color). 

Corrugated Rib

Ribbing is on my mind. No surprise, given the topic of the last post.

By the way, readers offered excellent suggestions to the problem of chronic "join, being careful not to twist" stupidity: 

After I cast on 370 stitches in corrugated ribbing and knit 6 rounds (TWICE!!!) I found a trick that has since saved my sanity. I bought a bunch of small hair clips .... the curved kind that snaps..... and I place one every inch or so around my ribbing..... that makes it possible to see any twists, as you are not comparing long stretches, just tiny ones. As long as I get to the end and all the clips point the same way, I'm safe! It's a nuisance to do, but nowhere as annoying as ripping out corrugated ribbing once, let alone TWICE!!!! Barbara M.

My trick for not twisting the cast on is to knit the first row back as if I were knitting flat, and to join at the SECOND row to knit in the round. A moebius error becomes glaringly obvious at that point. Also, because your cast on is now its own row, when weaving in the ends you can create a neat stitch with the tail yarn invisibly completing the circle of the cast on row. Don't remember who taught me this, but I do often offer thanks. Mary Arrr.

Thanks for the tips!

At any rate, corrugated ribbing.... Corrugated ribbing, in which the knit column uses one color and the purl column uses another, is not a true rib because the same yarn is not being knit AND purled. Therefore, it does not have a rib's non-rolling quality. 

Here's my trick (I think I made this up—I don't recall learning it from anyone): 

• Cast on using any cast on except the e-wrap version. I use a standard long-tail cast on.
• Join, being careful not to twist (don't be a fool).
• Round 1: Knit 1, purl 1 around (a 1/1 rib).
• Round 2: NOW start the corrugated rib.

That single round of K1P1 at the start seems to calm the rolling tendency. At least it does for me! 

The most common form of corrugated rib is a 2x2 arrangement, as in the photo at the top of this post. Both the knit and the purl columns can have color movement—in this example, only the knit column changes color.

But corrugated rib can be less rigid than this! 

What people generally love about corrugated ribbing is the effect of luminosity created when there is a clear color at the center point sandwiched by grayed colors. (I learned this from Joen Wolfrom's Color Play, available at Feral Knitter.)

There you have it: pretty much everything I know about corrugated rib!