The Amazing Lace Challenge #4: Straitjacket

Strait-jacket \Strait"-jack`et\, n. A dress of strong materials for restraining maniacs or those who are violently delirious.

Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall ... ninety-nine bottles of beer ...

Sucker for a Good Yarn Sale

My knitting group, the BAWDies (Bay Area Wool Divas) met today at Allyne Park in San Francisco. Since our regular Sunday spot, Valencia Street Books, recently closed, we've been on the lookout for a permanent place to meet on Sundays. In the meantime, we're a floating knitting group - not unlike a floating crap game - and we pass the word of our meeting places along to our members via a well-established Yahoo group.

After knitting, Tina of Knitwhits and I walked down to Greenwich Yarn, which is having their annual yarn sale. I must admit, I was a bit apprehensive. The last time I had been there, I didn't feel welcome, almost a burden to the salespeople. This time, my experience was completely different. The salesperson was courteous and helpful, and didn't make a fuss when I mentioned I had a store credit to use. The sale was in full swing - many yarns on the shelves were marked down. And on the back patio, baskets and tables piled with high-end yarns marked way, way down made me gasp. I had to avoid touching the luscious Classic Elite Lush (angora and wool) - so soft, it's nearly irresistible. Debbie Bliss, Lang and Rowan were among the choices on the sales tables. Temptation was almost too much for me. I did pick up some goodies pictured here.

Madil "Film" - 60% viscose, 40% tactel, 25g, 87m (gold, fine, Italian ladder yarn)
Louisa Harding "Impression" - 84% nylon, 16% mohair (sportweight, supersoft, slightly glam Italian yarn)
GGH "Marathon" - 75% superwash wool, 25% polyamide (sock yarn from Germany)

The sale is worth a trip. It runs through the end of July.

One weird thing: If you're out there on the back patio looking at oodles of smashingly good wool and things, and you hear profanities beyond the back fence, don't worry. A neighbor hanging his laundry on the line may repeatedly announce, "... f***ing wind ..." and intermittantly curse is blasted socks.

Monet and A Tale of Two Beanies

What a lovely foggy day in San Francisco! My sister, my brother-in-law, my friend and I decided to visit the Legion of Honor's Monet Exhibition which runs through September 17, 2006. The exhibit comprises 53 paintings by the artist Claude Monet. Admission is $15 and includes the exhibition, plus access to the Legion of Honor and the DeYoung Museum all day. (On the first Tuesday of the month, admission is free, but you must pay $5 for the Monet exhibit.)

We arrived early at 10:00 am. The parking lot was nearly full, and the crowds were thickening. We managed to see everything (twice) by the time the crowd became overwhelming.

My favorite paintings were "Road at La Cavee" and "Low Tide at Varengeville." Seeing them up close is inspirational. The colors and textures cannot be captured in the books and prints of Monet's work that we so often see. We also toured the Legion’s resident collections, including works by Rodin, Rembrandt, Matisse, Picasso and more.

We stepped outside into the light of day and the fresh foggy air to snap some photos of my sister in her new Susan Shawl, a gift from me. Also, I presented my brother-in-law and my friend with their very own handknit beanies.

The grey beanie is 100% baby alpaca and the multicolored beanie is 100% hand-dyed superwash wool from Interlacements. The pattern is very simple and easy to memorize.

OceanKnitter's Basic Beanie

Gauge:
22 sts and 24 rows = 4" x 4"

Materials:
50 grams DK weight yarn (two balls to be safe)
Size 5 - 16" circular needle
Size 7 - 16" circular and dpns (dpns to finish the crown)
Tapestry needle

Cast on 90 sts with smaller needle.
Join in the round.
K1P1 rib for 1.5 inches.
Switch to larger needle.
Knit in stockinette for 3.5 inches (snug) or 4 inches (if you want a little air in the top)

Decrease rounds:
Rnd 1: *K2tog, K8, repeat from * around
Rnd 2 and all even rounds: Knit
Rnd 3: *K2tog, K7, repeat from * around
Rnd 5: *K2tog, K6, repeat from * around
Rnd 7: *K2tog, K5, repeat from * around
Rnd 9: *K2tog, K4, repeat from * around
Rnd 11: *K2tog, K3, repeat from * around
Rnd 13: *K2tog, K2, repeat from * around
Rnd 15: *K2tog, K1, repeat from * around
Rnd 17: *K2tog, repeat from * around
Rnd 18: Knit last round

Cut yarn leaving about an 8" tail. Thread tail through remaining stitches with a tapestry needle. Sew in ends.

The Amazing Lace Challenge #2: A Lifeline Runs Through It

When I began several months ago to knit Lyra, I dutifully added two lifelines at strategic points. Since Lyra has been neglected for the past few months, she decided to break one of her lifelines, just to cause me worry. I guess sitting in my knitting basket unattended, a youngster will get into trouble.

For those unfamiliar, a lifeline is usually yarn or thread of a different color woven through all the stitches of one row, using a sewing needle. This is best accomplished after completing a plain row in lace knitting - i.e., a purl row. If I were to drop a stitch or make an error, I could rip back to the lifeline and not lose any stitches. I should add another lifeline, but I keep thinking about the Labor Day deadline and how much time it will take out of my knitting schedule.

So, I'm now on Row 134, and I'm knitting without a net. With 1,004 stitches currently on the needle, that's pretty X-treme. From Row 124 to Row 134, I've knit 12,412 stitches. I don't know if I can keep up this pace. Lyra is running me ragged. Her gauge is tiny, at about 11 sts/inch in stockinette, and she's feisty and particular. She wears me out, but I'm thrilled with her progress.

Bad omen

Many comments and emails later from concerned knitizens ... I'm thinking ... are they right? Are 60,000+ stitches too many to contemplate? Can I finish Lyra by Labor Day? I would need to dedicate myself to my Lyra. I would need to dedicate about an hour a day. I'm a competent lace knitter, accomplished in some aspects. But is it too insane?

More numbers ...

With 90 days, I'd need to produce about 666 stitches per day -- an obviously bad omen. To be more realistic, let's guess that I'd skip 30 of those days in favor of other pursuits. That would give me 60 days to knit 1,000 stitches per day. I'll be frank ... it's the chart that makes me dizzy and bugeyed. Many, many, teeny, tiny squares and symbols.

At this moment, I'm still with Lyra. I'm giving her a fighting chance (and me, too).

The Amazing Lace Challenge #1: Languishing Lyra

I gave birth to my Lyra in the Fall of 2005. It was a difficult birth, foreign and nerve-wracking, with size 20 DMC Cebelia thread, and size 0 (2.0 mm) steel dpns. Herbert Niebling, a German designer who passed in 1966, created the original pattern for this masterpiece in lace. His pattern of tiny squares and symbols is the most complex of any doily I've attempted.

We got along famously in the beginning, but soon, Lyra became a difficult child, requiring so much attention, I could no longer take her with me on my daily commute. I found that my eyes would tire of looking at her. Upon my last eye examination, the doctor informed me that I was in the early stages of presbyopia -- could Lyra have hastened the onset of this affliction?

Lyra has languished in my knitting basket for months, neglected. I feel it is now time to give her another chance. After all, she is only half-grown at Row 123, with 876 stitches on my 60" size 0 (2.0 mm) circular needle. My calculations indicate that by the time she is fully grown at Row 179, there will be 1,420 stitches on the needle. It will take 30,968 61,936* stitches to complete her from this point to the finish, on Labor Day 2006.

*(Edited: 30,968 includes only the odd rows -- 61,936 is the correct number of stitches, including the even and odd rows.)

It's a Purple Thing

Okay, I wear purple. I like purple. But not everything I knit is purple! My sis, who also likes purple, requested a purple shawl. She still hasn't seen it, so this is its debut (currently unblocked), here in OceanKnitterland. This is the Susan Shawl from Stahman's Shawls and Scarves. Myrna Stahman moderates the Faroese Shawl Knitalong on Yahoo groups. I've had such a great time knitting this shawl, I'm thinking about making another one soon. The shawls in the book are knit from the neck down, starting with a short neckband, and gradually working outward. The lace border is knitted on sideways -- yep, I said sideways. The lace border rows are perpendicular to the last row of the main body of the shawl. As you knit the border, you gradually eat up one stitch at a time off the last row of the body. Surprisingly, this is easy to do, even though it may sound intimidating. Myrna's instructions are foolproof. You just have to trust the pattern.

The yarn (if you can call it that) was fingering weight mercerized cotton, hand dyed by Interlacements. I bought a huge hank of this at Stitches, probably over 3,000 yards. It was a bit daunting to wind the stuff into useable balls, but I was determined. I wound about half of it one night by hand. I know, you think I'm nuts, but for fine yarn or thread, I have always done this by hand. The important thing to me was to make sure there were no knots, and that I had one continuous ball for the entire shawl.

THREAD WINDING, OceanKnitter-style

My method is to wind the thread in a figure eight around my thumb and index eight times. Then, I fold the figure eight in half, leaving the start of the ball hanging loose, and begin winding around and around. I always keep two or three fingers under the yarn I am winding to keep it soft and loose. After ten or twelve winds around, I pull my fingers out of the ball, and put them on the outside again, continuing in this manner until the ball is the size of my fist.

Now, this is the part that I may do differently than other knitters, but it works for me. I take a piece of scrap yarn and tie up that first ball like a bakery box. That means, the ball is now secured and will not unwind and roll away from me, as I start ball #2 from the same hank, without cutting the yarn. For this particular shawl, I made eight center-pull balls, all daisy-chained together, without cutting the yarn once. Each ball is tied up. I only untie a ball when I'm ready to use it.

The good: you will only have two ends to weave in when you are done.

The bad: you will have to carry around all eight balls of yarn with you while the work is in progress.

You might say, why not use coned yarn? Well, sometimes a particularly nice hank of yarn calls to you, and it's not on a cone. Also, some coned yarns will have knots hidden inside, and you won't know about it until you get halfway through the cone. It's just a matter of preference. For this shawl, I wanted it to be as perfect as possible for my sister.

I'm hoping to have time to block it in the coming week, in between working on samples for Kristin Omdahl, who is making great strides in the knit and crochet design world. I'm excited to be working with Kristin again, after working with her on two other sweater samples.

A baby raglan cardigan

This is the baby raglan cardigan I made for my neighbors across the street. Mike and Kelly are a very sweet couple, and they have an adorable new baby girl. The cardigan pattern is a very old one, knit from the top down with raglan shaping. I modified it with seed stitch trim. The only seams are the two that run under the arms and down the sides. I love the flower buttons, which leave no doubt the wearer is a little girl.

A drop in the ocean ...

I am no longer "blogless." As fast as my fingers will let me, I am starting a blog, knitting projects for books, knitting sweaters for babies, a scarf for my favorite aunt who turned eighty, and a lace shawl for my sister who likes lacy things. A photo pinned on her bulletin board of one of my lace shawls is a hint - she must have one! I'm in the midst of a Faroese Shawl, the Susan Shawl from Stahman's Shawls and Scarves. I'll post photos as soon as it's ready to block. In the meantime, I'll knit in my favorite chair, think of things to say, and post when I am able.