I was wrong and I freely admit it. Remember the post in which I described a method for estimating the depth of stripes that would be produced by a skein of space dyed or multicolor patch yarn? I applied that method to my skein of Noro Kureyon Sock, and it flat out missed the mark.

Based on skein size and color strand counting, I estimated that each solid color stripe would last 4-6 rows or so before shading into the next. I still stand by that for the yarn on the outside of the skein, but I didn't factor into my estimation how seemingly random Noro yarns can be. Here's the skein:

I see lots of turquoise and magenta, with side trips to royal blue and deep green. The color segments of the yarn on the outside of the skein appear to last for the lengths I indicated.

But here's the resulting slouch sock (a sock with a deliberately wide ankle part), knit from the center of the ball out. It's brother is just a tiny turquoise cast-on speck right now:

Huh? where did that huge lump of royal blue above the heel come from? And the green/orange mix directly above that? And why is the pink/purple section so unexpectedly wide? Counting the strands on the inner layer visible on the un-dissected skein, pink/purple should be equal in width to green. What gives?

I might have been less surprised had there been more than one skein of this color number available on the day I bought the yarn. Looking at several, each starting at a different spot in the color progression might have revealed larger (or different) color segments than I anticipated. In any case, the color repeat has gone through about one and a half cycles in this sock, hitting the toe's hue blend about halfway between orange stripe and densest part of the magenta, although factoring in the wider circumference of the ankle part than the foot, the second appearance of the pink/purple is longer than that combo's debut.

So there's my caveat. I still say my estimation method works. Mostly. Except for Noro, where all bets are off.

Pattern footnote:

How to do a slouch sock? Easy. US #00s. Standard figure-8 cast on toe, worked on a set of five DPNs. Increase to 17 stitches per needle until just before the heel (68 st total). Increase one stitch per needle to 18 (72 st total), work a standard short row heel across two needles (36 stitches), instead of decreasing away the two sneaky stitches used to minimize any top-of-heel-decrease gaps, keep them, and increase one stitch each on the two non-heel needles for a total of 19 stitches per needle (76 st total). Work leg part equal in length to foot (folded along the heel's natural equator), then work about 20 rows of K2, P2 ribbing and end off.

Why do a slouch sock? Between the wild colors, thick/thin spin, and overtwist, any lacy or texture pattern would be lost in this stuff. Also this yarn isn't a good candidate for stranding or striping with another (although two different but closely related skeins in a simple stranding pattern might be interesting). I've had some breakage, and I'm not inclined to use this stuff for a nice, snug sock that takes a lot of stretching to put on. The roomy top will diminish that strain.

Technorati : knitting

I got a private note yesterday from a knitter who seeing the fuzzy entrelac blanket posted yesterday, wanted to know how I knew the spotty yarn would work well for it. I reply.

Frankly, I wasn't sure what I was going to do with my spotted yarn. But multicolors come in several flavors. While there are no hard and fast rules in knitting, there are some general principles I use to help figure out what to do with multicolors, especially because I'm one of the yarn-first folk. I rarely have a specific project in mind when I purchase yarn, and usually have to find or invent something to do with my new treasures. Also, as long time readers here have seen - I don't always hit on the best use right away. Sometimes it takes me a couple of starts before things work out. I don't mind ripping back. To me it's part of the process of exploration and discovery. Now these thoughts are things that work for me. Your taste is probably different from mine, and there's nothing wrong with that, so please don't think these are put forward as rules for everyone.

For me, first comes yarn choice. Multicolors come in all sorts of types and color combos. I have to like the color set and mix proportions as a whole. I like to look at my target yarn from a distance - 10 feet at least, to see if the skeins "read" well as an aggregate. Lots of times one or more of the colors pops out strangely from a more harmonious background. I tend to avoid those mixes. I do however like multicolors that are composed of different colors but similar intensities.

Once a color combo has caught my eye, I look at the length of the repeat. On skeined yarn, this is relatively easy, especially if the yarn shop allows customers to untwist a skein. Never do this unless you have asked permission and you know you can return the yarn to the original twist, neat enough to be indistinguishable from the on-shelf stock. Then do so once you've made your evaluation. Or ask the yarn shop staff if they can untwist/retwist for you.

On DK and worsted gauge, I figure about 1.5 stitches per linear inch of yarn. On sport and fingering, figure 2.5-3.5 stitches per inch of yarn. A run of a single color as wide as my palm on a DK is probably a bit over 5 stitches when knit up - just under an inch worth of knitting in DK gauge. Shorter areas of color end up looking like little spots. Longer ones produce broken stripes. Really long segments produce larger stripes (depending on the circumference of the piece being knit and the gauge).

What to do if the yarn comes in a ball rather than a skein? You've got to guess and estimate. Look at the put-up. Estimate about how long one circumference wrap of the ball is. For example, if you look at the Noro Kureyon Sock below you can see that the wrap goes diagonally around the ball, and that there are about four or five wraps before the color changes.

The ball is approximately 7 inches long (the spread from my index tip to small finger tip with my hand splayed - it's good to know some standard biometrics of your own hand for guesstimation), so a rough estimate is that one wrap around the ball would be about 15-16 inches. The individual color patches on this yarn are probably on the order of 65-75 inches long, probably something like 24-30 linear inches of knitting at an approximate sock gauge. (My socks are about 11.5 inches in circumference on the ankle, so for socks one color segment would probably make a stripe a bit over two or three rows deep).

A yarn with lots of rapid color changes will read very differently from a yarn that's mostly background color with scattered spots. The rapid color change yarn will, from a distance, almost seem to do an impressionist's blend, and appear as a hue median to all the colors being represented. That means that a yarn with a zillion little spots of color, each individually quite clear will end up looking like a muted blend of all of them from a distance. Tweeds and multi-strand ragg style yarns (two or more plies of different, sometimes variegated color twisted together) are good examples of this effect. My Impossible Socks uses a ragg-twist multicolor tweed in combo with solid blue. The overall effect of the tweedy yarn is much darker and muddier than its constituent bits, even without the navy stripes.

Colors that blend one to the next can also present problems. Sometimes the nondescript areas between vivid colors predominate if evaluated as a general proportion of total skein length. A lovely multicolor on the shelf may actually knit up rather muddy, with only small flashes of the marquee hues. Conversely, colors that shift abruptly from one to the next can produce a rather motley and jarring effect, with each jostling against its neighbors. In longer repeats, I tend to favor yarns that have few or no blended transitions. I also prefer that any transition areas make up less than 10% of the total color cycle.

Because of the "tweens" challenge with shading multicolors and the perceived meld problem in general, I tend to stay away from yarns with wildly disparate color combos, and stick mostly to multicolors with either a well established and pleasing uniting background color; to yarns that present either multiple variants of the same color (like a continuum from light blue to navy); or to yarns that offer up two or at the most three closely allied colors (like red to yellow, with side trips to orange). The Paisley shawl illustrates this visual mind meld. It's a raspberry to blueberry blend. The detail shows the color spots clearly, but the big picture blends both into a medium purply garnet.

In terms of color repeat length, I try to match projects to the repeat length. I've found in general that unless I can engineer repeats to deliberately and predictably flash, I am not wildly fond of large areas of multicolor yarns knit flat. They're just not very interesting to me worked that way. I much prefer trying to introduce movement or to break up the large-field effect. Entrelac works nicely. The color repeats in the strip below (from my Chest of Knitting Horrors ™ graveyard of unfinished projects) uses Entrelac to make the most of a short color repeat. Each square is only about an inch across.

If the repeat is long, you can engineer something fun like my Snake scarf, displaying the long repeat's gradations to maximum advantage, or working center-out medallions that radiate from one color to another (the brown throw is all knit from the same color number Blauband sock yarn).

If the color bits are extremely short, the diagonal movement introduced by the Entrelac patches combined with the narrow "bounce area" of the patch width evens out the distribution of the spots, and makes them look like ice cream sprinkles (jimmies to my fellow Bostonians).

Sometimes I've broken the rules and used directional-distortion texture patterns with self stripers to break up the march of concentric rings of color by zigging the texture this way and that. My SeeSaw socks, published in KnitNet ages ago are a good example. These are in fact my original SeeSaws, still in service after all these years:

If I can engineer it, I really like making yarns flash - knitting them in the round so that patches of the same color align on top of each other to create an almost painterly effect. The wildly jarring colors of my Rainbow Mills Matisse sweater would not have worked well together if the piece hadn't been designed to flash. Look at the cuffs and waist ribbing to see how muddy and non-descript the blend is without color stacking. You can also see the difference in the flash pattern produced by the difference in body and sleeve circumference.

An alternative approach is to limit the width of the strip so that colors bounce back and forth across a narrower strip of ground. That can make the individual stripes deeper, and add interest by adding the "collision lines" where the repeats abut. The piece below was interesting because it was made from four skeins of hand-dyed from the same batch. They were close, but different enough to each present its own periodicity of repeat when knit into strips of equal width.

Sometimes I'm faced with multicolors that just can't be tamed by stitch direction, calculating garment widths to make them flash, or working them in narrow strips. My favorite solution for those yarns is to find another yarn that coordinates - either by picking up a color from the repeat itself, or by adding another color in contrast. Then I work my solid along with the variegated in stripes or other patterning, in a proportion that tames the wild mix, in effect forcing an new uniting background color into the repeat. In the sock top below, the solid is the magenta. The variegated was turquoise, yellow and hunter green. An unlikely and loud combo, but one that worked.

So to sum up, there's a use for almost every multicolor yarn. Things that make using multicolors easier include harmonious, balanced color sets (even if they're bright), and a minimum of muddy areas. Introducing movement by stitch direction or by narrowing the strip being knit can be more interesting than the same yarn knit totally flat in stockinette. It IS possible to use texture patterns with multicolors, and even the most savage multicolor can usually be tamed by introducing a background or contrasting solid.

Hope someone finds this useful, so that a skein that's been languishing in stash somewhere finally meets inspiration.

Technorati : knitting

For some reason the automatic spell checker kicked in and (without my approval) obfuscated my meaning a bit. I repost, with corrections. Apologies for the confusion.

I did do a small amount of gift knitting this holiday season - mostly large-gauge hiking or slipper socks, knit from DK or worsted weight yarn, respectively. I give all my socks with a must-fit guarantee. If they're not optimal, I usually make another pair or fix the sub-standard offering.

I had to honor that warranty this year for one pair in particular. The recipient was thrilled, but my foot size estimate was off. I based my estimate on a pair of shoes which turned out to belong to someone other than the target. Since the only defect was foot length, and the yarn is nice and big (and I have a small amount of additional yarn but not enough to do a whole new pair), I decided to lengthen rather than make another pair. Plus a tutorial on doing so might be of use to my one reader out there in blogland. :)

The re-toeing process works in fundamentally the same way, regardless of whether the original sock was knit toe-up or cuff-down. I use this opportunity to present a quick how-to for those looking to add length or replace worn areas on the toe or ball of the foot.

Here's my original pair, knit from the Jaeger Matchmaker DK leftovers from my dropped leaf sweater:

The measurement from the tip of the toe to the back of the heel is about 9 inches. The recipient has requested about an additional half inch of length.

Step one is to unravel the toe area. It's always easier to unravel any area that contains increases, decreases or cable crossings from the top. Knitting can be unraveled from the bottom, but anything other than plain stockinette or garter stitch can be problematic. Because these socks were knit toe-up, I need to start unraveling above the increases that form the toe. If these were cuff-down socks, I'd begin unraveling at my grafted or bound-off seam. In both cases, the process is the same. Identify the stitches that in the toe form the decrease line (in flat feature toes), then boldly snip and get on with it. Here I've put a safety pin between the side stitches a few rows up into the sock foot from my snipping point, and am about to cut. Note that the only one stitch needs to be snipped to start the process:

Having cut, I'm now placing the newly freed stitches of the sock foot on my needles as they are liberated. If I wanted to re-employ the knit part that I'm excising here, I would use two sets of needles, picking up the stitches on both sides of the unraveled row. (I might do this if I were lengthening a sleeve or sweater body above the ribbing, if I intended on grafting the ribbing back on rather than totally re-knitting it). In this case, I'll just rip out the toe and stash the remaining mini-balls in my Box of Future Stripes(tm) - there being few yarn scraps in this world that I find too short to save. The less frugal than I would probably give them the fling.

Why not use the raveled yarn to re-knit the toes? Because I already know that the bit ripped back is too short. Socks benefit from there being as few joins as possible, especially in the sensitive toe and heel areas. If I were to use the ripped back yarn I'm guaranteed to run out, and will need to add on more. That means that instead of three ends to darn in on each reworked toe (the original sock body end, plus the two ends of the re-knit area), I'd have five (original, re-knit section, extra yarn added to eke out raveled bits). More ends = less comfort for the wearer.

While I'm picking up, I don't pay any attention to how many stitches end up on each needle. Because I've marked the exact center of the side, I can assort the stitches appropriately among the needles once they've been rescued. Here you see the result. All stitches reclaimed and on the needles:

Once the stitches are on the needles, it's a simple matter to knit extra length and work a standard toe, ending with Kitchener grafting. As you can see in the after picture below taken after the toe was re-knit, there is no line of demarcation between the body of the foot (knit toe-up) and the new toe (knit in the other direction). My cuff-down grafted toes do turn out to be a bit pointier than my no-sew figure-8 cast-on toes. In any case, here's After Sock and Before Sock. Measured against each other, I've added a bit over a half an inch to the sock's heel to toe length. All I have to do now is fix the other one.

Ripping back and picking up after a garment is finished is a handy technique to have in one's bag of knitting tricks, and one that many people overlook. I've used it to replace worn sock feet, re-knit mitten ends and glove fingers that sprouted holes, lengthen the cuffs and body of sweaters for rapidly growing children, and replace worn elbows or ripped cuffs. So finished doesn't always mean permanently done. Think of it more as "in a resting state that's presently useful" than as absolute finality.

Hope you found this useful!

Technorati : knitting

Apparently my last post caused some confusion. A couple of people wrote to say that they didn't understand why the original graph wasn't knit-able. I'll try to explain again.

One principle of lacy and other texture knitting is the equivalence of decreases and increases. In patterns with parallel edges, for every new stitch introduced into a row via a YO, Make 1 or cast on, there is an equivalent stitch removed by a complementing decrease. That decrease can come in many forms - a K2tog, a SSK, a cast-off, or as part of a multiple stitch decrease (Sl-K2tog-PSSO, K3tog, SSSSK, etc.) Yes, there are some exceptions - patterns that deviate by having a decreased stitch count on one or more rows, but if they have parallel edges, they must restore the stitch count on subsequent rows. I've graphed both types here before.

Walker's Porcupine Stitch uses increases and decreases balanced throughout to maintain parallel edges

By contrast, her Starlight Lace Stitch is a parallel edge insertion that has a modified stitch count on rows 16 and 14, that is restored in both places on the next right-side pattern row. The presence of those evil gray "no stitch" boxes is a dead give-away that stitch count monkeying has happened.

To create a panel with one or more decorative edges - edges that zig in and out to make nifty curves, scallops, or sawtooth or triangle points - the stitch count has to be deliberately altered so that the width of the piece grows and then shrinks in a predictable manner. Most of these decorative panels are edgings - strips with one nice firm straight edge that is usually knit or sewn onto the thing being trimmed, and one fantastical dagged edge - the decorative points or ruffles that hang free. There are two-edged edgings that in the past were used as trim or decorative strips all by themselves - lingerie straps, camouflage for shelf edges, free strips appliqued onto towels and house linen, but they're far less common and are rarely seen in modern pattern collections.

The stitches introduced (or decreased) to form the points can occur anywhere in a row. Placement as well as the number helps determine the overall shape and depth of the point. If the new stitches accumulate or disappear from the left of the location of increase/decrease, the points tend to be a bit sharper. If they accumulate between the stable edge and the location of the increase/decrease the points formed are more like waves or scallops. We saw that in the pattern I charted in the last post, where the point-forming increases/decreases were relatively close to the stable right edge of the piece, stitches were accumulated between the stable right edge and the location of increase decrease, and that spot was followed by a relatively large section that had a stable stitch count. Here are simple graphs of a few basic edging shapes, stripped of all lace detail. Note that in each and every one, if a row has more (or fewer) stitches than the one that preceded it, there is a clearly discernible cause on that preceding row - an increase or a decrease that's clearly to blame.

It's the absence of any stitch-to-blame in the historical chart that made it un-knitable:

Yes, the graph looks good. The points march in and out in clearly defined order - but the causes for that patterning are absent. Every YO on this graph is countered by a decrease. There are none left over to form the basic triangle point shape.

Now as to why the chart was published this way - the pattern book I was working from is a direct facsimile of a work produced in Germany in 1921, in a language I can't read. I did double check the instructions, both against the English key thoughtfully provided by the book's modern editors; and against the original diagrams presented at the front of the book. Those show standard symbols and a little engraving of what the resulting work should look like. I also successfully reproduced another pattern on the page that uses the same symbols, so I'm pretty sure that in spite of not being able to read the accompanying text I didn't miss anything substantive.

My guess is that because charting was new, and the symbols used in the original book are not standard (charting symbols aren't standard even today), among the pattern designers, the artist that laid out the pattern, the typesetter, and the proofer, errors slipped in. Proofing knitting patterns isn't an easy thing, as any modern professional pattern writer/editor can tell you. In my experience, the most accurate patterns appear to have been produced between 1950 and arbitrarily - 1985. Stuff before in general isn't as stitch for stitch perfect or isn't in modern notation; and stuff after seems to have suffered from a lack of skilled manpower and/or editorial time. Not to say everything published after 1985 is junk, but we've all seen books rushed to market that required dozens of pages of errata. Books published during the designated "sweet spot of knitting" era tended to require far fewer corrections than do many contemporary works. Kudos to those professional authors/editors/publishers who have taken on the extra time and expense in pursuit of perfection. Eyebrows are raised at those who cut corners. Slack is cut for pre-modern works, especially those that pioneered new forms of instruction.

So the moral of the story in knitting as in far more weighty world matters, is "trust, but verify."

Afterword: People new to charting might find the Charting 101-107 series here on String useful. You can find those posts under my Reference Shelf tag.

Technorati : knitting

More on corners. Using the same principles as the knit-from-center-out framing area on my cashmere shawl, I've done a mitered corner on my baby blanket. I do envision a problem now that I've finished a credible Corner #1, but I'll deal with it when I get there.

The first step was to make sure that I had a multiple of my halved row count available as live stitches along each edge of the project (small alerts should be going off in your head right now, but back to this later). That's because using my chosen attachment method, two rows of edging are attached to each live stitch.

Edging right side row: S1, work pattern to end
Edging wrong side row: Work pattern to penultimate stitch, SSK last stitch together with a live stitch of the body.

I can modify this scheme by doing an occasional SSSK on that wrong side row, in which one edging stitch is knit together with two live stitches from the body. This can be periodic and eat a specific number of stitches over a given number of repeats (eating one on every Edging Row 1, or every third row of the edging, for example); or it can be ad-hoc - performed when the thing looks like it's getting too ruffly. Being a precise person, I prefer the former, but I'm not above sneaking one in using the latter should it be necessary. You've probably already figured out that working an edging onto a top or bottom of live knit stitches (or stitches rescued after unzipping a provisional cast on) will require a different rate of attachment than would knitting them onto stitches picked up off a side edge formed when the body was knit, via a standard slip stitch edge.

The second step was to identify a clear diagonal on the existing pattern, and use that as an alignment point on which to build my mitered corner. In this case, the edge of the eyelet diamonds makes a good divider.

So having stated the obvious, I violate it all. To create the live stitches all the way around my perimeter, I picked up, putting all the new stitches on a large circ. I started at the end of a knit-side row of stockinette, placed a marker and picked up a stitch in every slip stitch selvage on my left side edge. Then - not having done a provisional cast-on because I was on vacation and was lazy - I placed a marker and picked up the same number of stitches as I had stockinette stitches across the bottom of my half-hitch cast-on row. Then it was a march back to the origin point, placing a marker then picking up stitches along the remaining selvage.

It so happened that my picked up stitch count on each side is pretty close to a multiple of my edging row count-halved. So I started knitting my edging a couple of stitches in from my corner, commencing with good old Edging Row #1. (Hearing that ding-ding alert again? You should be.)

All is well and good (sort of). I've now marched around three of my four corners, and am in the home stretch, working my last straight side. Then it's on to the final corner and graft.

Now. Why all those alerts?

Because my corner as graphed works best when I commence it on the tallest row of my point - not on Row #1, which is the shortest row. I didn't figure that out until I was well along. Not wanting to rip it all back a THIRD time, I'm going to see if I can somehow cheat on Corner #4.

Here's a graph for my modified edging and corner, with attachment instructions (done to the best of my ability).

Technorati : knitting

Where have I been? Well, first there was another spate of chaos deadlines at work. Then it was the beginning of Birthday Week here in the String household (they're 7 years and four days apart, with mine shortly thereafter). And to no one's surprise, I came down with a nasty flu. I'm not yet over that, but it was severe enough for me to stay home from work - something I've done only once or twice in the last decade.

For her birthday Smaller Daughter specified a volcano cake with a dragon on it. She'd seen something like this in a kiddie cookbook - a bundt with a lava-like frosting poured on, surmounted by some clever marzipan decorations. So we made it a group project. I provided the almond bundt with chocolate fudge filling and frosting; Older Daughter molded the marzipan dragon with dried apricot wings; and Smaller Daughter made the strange red prey creatures fleeing from the dragon:

We were hard pressed to find enough room for the obligatory birthday candles. The cake and decorations however were delicious.

I did manage to make some progress on the lace scarf over the last week. I've finished the center section, and am working on the edging. It looks like I'll have to nip into my third skein of Prescott, so I'm thinking of pausing on the edging to go back and add some length to the center section before lapping all the way around that last end. I'm not doing anything fancy here - no mitered corners. I'm just working an extra repeat of the pattern into the cornermost stitch, and hoping that all blocks out evenly later.

I played with quite a few edging patterns for this piece, finally settling on the "Doris Edging" from Miller's Heirloom Lace. It has framed diamonds that exactly complement the center strip. Along the way I noodled up another simple triangle-based edging. This is an out-take, and didn't end up on the scarf. I won't violate copyright by sharing Miller's edging (which I used more or less verbatim), but I will share this one:

Knitting an edging onto a piece isn't difficult. It helps if your base item was worked with a slip stitch selvage edge, but that's not mandatory. I've knit edgings onto all sorts of things, including finished fulled/felted items, fabric, and leather (some caveats on this, below). The slip stitch selvage just makes it easier. Your chosen trim will have one edge intended to hang free. Most often that will be dagged, serrated, scalloped or otherwise fancified. It will also have one (more or less) straight edge. This straight edge is intended to be sewn or knit onto something else. I like to work in the orientation shown in the knit sample and pattern, above - with my straight edge on the right, and the fancy edge on the left. My right-side rows commence from my main piece outward, and my wrong-side rows return from the fancy edge back to the main piece.

Sometimes I use a provisional cast-on and start my lace rows immediately after it. Other times I use a half hitch cast on, then work one row back in knits before starting my lace patterns. There's no real rhyme or reason here. It's just what I felt like doing at the time. In this case, I cast on using half-hitch, and worked a row of knits back, working my first join on that "back from cast-on" non-repeated row. The join itself is quite simple. When I get to the last stitch of my wrong side row, I pick up one stitch in the edge of my established body piece. Then, for the first stitch of my right-side lace row, I either knit or purl that newly created stitch along with the next stitch after it on my needle.

If I knit those two together I end up with a neat column of stitches that makes a visual line between the lace edge and the main body. While this can be desirable in some cases, it does present a different appearance on the front and reverse of the work. Because the lace center of this piece is garter, and the edging is also presented in garter, I used a P2tog to make the join. The front and back of the work look less different from each other if I purl the join instead of knit it. Once the join is made, I work out the remainder of my right-side lacy row, and the return row. So long as I remember to pick up one stitch at the end of every wrong-side/return row, then work that stitch together with the next one as I begin the right side row, my edging will be firmly united with my main body.

Sometimes you don't want to do a row-for-row join. Occasionally the stretch of the lace edging or the ratio of the edging rows to body rows isn't 1:1. This might happen if you are working the edging on smaller needles; or if you are working the edging across a row of live stitches (or across the top or bottom cast-on or bound-off edge) rather than along the "long side" of the work, parallel to the main body's knitting. In that case you may need to either work additional non-attached lace rows every so often, or pick up at the end of the wrong-side/return rows by knitting two body stitches together, again every so often. The former adds more length to the lace, the latter subtracts width from the body. Which method is used depends on the stretch of the body.

The biggest caveat in attaching knitting by knitting on rather than by seaming is that if you do so, the lace is no longer "portable." Let's say in a fit of Suzy Homemaker frenzy, you edged out a set of exquisite hand towels. It's now some years later, and your children have stained those towels beyond recognition, but the edging still looked good. If you had knit the edging separately and seamed it on it would be very easy to remove and re-apply to new towels. But even if you had run a band of slip stitch crochet down the edge of the towel to provide an easy edge for attachment first, if you had knit that edging onto the towel, removing the fancy lace from the towel will be ...problematic.

As far as knitting onto fabric, fulled material or leather - it CAN be done. If the edge can be pierced by a needle tip (or was conveniently punched beforehand), you can knit right onto the edge of anything. BUT the warning about not being able to take the lace off again or adjust it later is strongly in effect. If you want to attach a lace edging to any of these substrates, it's worth it to work one row of slip stitch or single crochet along the item first, then knit (or seam) your knitted edging onto that crocheted foundation row. The foundation row of crochet gives you a stable, evenly placed line of stitches for the joins, and stabilizes the base item's edge somewhat. It also (in the case of leather) makes working into previously punched holes easier (a crochet hook is much easier to thread through and grab a strand than is a knitting needle's tip). Plus, if you think the item being trimmed might shrink, consider seaming rather than knitting on so you can make adjustments later.

So. If you plan on using a lace edging again on another item, or you think your base item might shrink - take the time to seam (collars, cuffs, bed or bath linens). If the edging will remain on that piece, living and dying with the item that bears it - consider knitting on instead (knit counterpanes, scarves). To illustrate this post I wish I still had the denim jacket I trimmed out in knitted lace, or the baseball jacket that used strips of recycled fur interposed with white Aran style heavy cables...

In any case, back to sniffling and a nice lie-down.

Technorati : knitting

Apparently my post on knitting patterns from books published prior to 1920 or so has struck a chord. I've gotten a couple of requests on how to go about translating these older knitting patterns to modern notation. I did a six part section on how to graph up patterns from written notation before (Charting 101, 102, 103, 104, 105 and 106 ), so this sort of follows as optional post-lesson workshop.

This time I'll start with a web-available pattern. K. Harris at Vintage Connection has posted a transcription of a knitted insertion pattern that first appeared in The Delineator magazine, in June 1896. I'll be producing a modern notation graph for that lace panel. Before we begin, it's worth noting some common features of turn-of-the-century knitting. Not every technique known today was widely used, and terms varied a bit - even more widely than they do now. I'll try to cover some of the most common notations.

Knit and purl - k, p

Not much difference. Basic knits and purls were pretty much as we know them. There were however a couple of associated usages that are less common today. Knit plain usually meant work in knit stitch only. One complication - it follows then that for things knit in the round knit plain came to mean "work in stockinette." Occasionally by extension knit plain was used to indicate stockinette done in the flat rather than in the round, even though intervening rows of purl by necessity exist. I've also seen it used very infrequently to mean "continue working in established pattern," but that's rare. More often the term work even was used in that context.

Another alternate usage - purls were sometimes referred to by the term seam, as in the instruction "knit two, seam two" to produce k2 p2 rib. This is probably a hold-over from early sock making, in which a column of purls on the back of the leg was used in imitation of a seam line.

Narrow - n, k. 2t, t,

The modern equivalent of narrow is K2tog - the standard right leaning decrease. Sometimes this is written up as K2, with the "tog" part of K2tog being left out entirely. Older patterns did not use SSK. Occasionally they call out a SSK equivalent of "slip one, knit one, pass slip stitch over" (see below) but most often they don't bother with a left leaning decrease, and use K2tog, even when the cognate would be visually more balanced or appealing. Close inspection of accompanying illustrations reveals that the knitters did employ K2tog for almost all decreases. Less frequently this decrease is referred to as together (t) or knit 2 together (k. 2t.).

One unusual notation on narrow - a couple of patterns I've seen use n followed by the note "by slipping the needle through the back of the stitches." This does sound a bit like a proto-SSK. But unless otherwise modified or explained, it's pretty safe to assume that any n means k2tog.

Slip - s

Another movement that's pretty standard. Unless otherwise modified, slip in historical context means slip purlwise - transferring the stitch from the left to the right hand needle without changing its orientation.

Slip and bind off - sb, sbo, sl&b,

Another historical way of referring to the left leaning decrease or SSK equivalent, this refers to the s1-k1-psso unit.

Over - o, th, w, tho, th. o,

Yarn overs or eyelet producing increases - still a source of multiple terms today - have even more names if you go back through time. I've seen YO referred to as over (o), throw (th), throw over needle (tho or thn) eyelet (e), widen (w), make (m), put over (po), yarn on needle aka yarn over needle (yon), wool round needle (wo, wrn, won).

Special note on double YOs. Most of the time modern patterns use a multiple-unit YO if a really big eyelet is needed. But in historical patterns when YOs were used to make columns of fagot-stitch lace, it was common for the YO that formed them to be specified as a double yarn over, probably because of the yarn manipulation used to create them needed to allow for a subsequent p2tog. If a pattern with fagoting calls for a double yarn over but the stitch count on the subsequent row doesn't account for the additional new stitch (or doesn't mention dropping it), it's a good indication that a modern redaction will call for only one YO and not two.

This can be problematic. It's on the previous list as a euphemism for YO, but it is also used in historical patterns for invisible increases - where an additional stitch is added without creating the eyelet hole formed by a YO. Modern "make" is usually interpreted as a raised bar increase, although other forms of adding a stitch like knitting into a stitch on the row below are also sometimes used. A bit of close examination of any illustrations or even experimentation may be called for here. The term made stitch is also sometimes used to indicate the new stitch formed by a YO in a previous row - especially when more than one YO created multiple adjacent loops on the needle.

Purl two together - p. 2 t., p2to, pto

Purl two together was a very common instruction, especially when columns of fagoting style lacy knitting were used.

Crossed knit - c, t, b, tw

Crossed knits are modern twisted knit stitches, produced by knitting into the back of a stitch (ktbl). I haven't seen a historical pattern that includes a purl through the back of the loop (ptbl), but that doesn't mean that one doesn't exist.

Now with all this set out, I can graph up the diamond insertion from the Delineator. It starts out with a cast-on of 23 stitches. It includes double YOs, but all double YOs are followed by p2tog units, producing the columns of fagoting in either side of the center design. I'll show the progression from as-described rows through modern notation.

First, as written, preserving the double YOs; without flipping the wrong-side rows in accordance with the modern charting convention of showing the work as it appears on the front (public) side; and without centering the rows or norming the chart to have parallel edges we get this: (click on images below for larger versions):

We quickly see that stitch counts vary from row to row, although the pattern is more or less internally proofed because wrong side rows do contain the same number of stitches as the right side rows that preceded them. We also see that the double YO followed by P2tog problem is here. Were those YOs to each be "real" each following wrong side row would need to be two stitches longer, and the lacy effect would not be achieved.

Other features of this pattern are pretty straightforward. YOs are YOs, whether they appear on the front or reverse side rows. The K3tog unit only shows up on front (even) side rows. P2tog when seen from the back is a plain old k2tog, so that's also easy to flip.

So. Norming the presentation so that wrong-side rows are shown using the correct right-side row equivalent symbol, and isolating the side columns of fagot stitch, and consolidating the YOs we get:

I've gone through all of this not only for the fun of sharing, but also because I am using this particular pattern to knit up a new quick lace scarf. I'll edge the thing out with something complementary, but for now, here's how it looks:

Knit somewhat overscale in Swift River Prescott on US #8s, one panel of this lacy pattern is perfect for a scarf - curl-free and totally reversible!

Technorati : knitting

Self stripers, multi-ply color twist yarns, and hand-dyed yarns are lots of fun. There's a ton of color there to enjoy. But sometimes a vast and unbroken expanse of color play can be boring or can produce some oddly pooled or cluttered results that look nowhere as nice as the yarn did in the skein. That's why I like to fool around with multicolor yarns, trying to find a way that they play best, or are shown to better advantage. Sometimes it's not easy (regular readers here know of at least two of my multicolor yarn experiments have landed in the limbo of my Chest of Knitting Horrors^tm over the past couple years. But sometimes it is easy.

I finished up a pair of socks as a "chaser" after the vest was done. I used a stash-aged 50g ball of Stahl Wolle Socka Color, in a multistrand twist of maroon, pine, blue, and marigold - #9140, plus another well-aged 50g ball of Patons Kroy Socks in hunter green - #409. While the colors aren't exact matches, they are close enough to complement each other. Both of these were found in last-ball sales, but several years and many miles apart. Since I need around 80-90g of most fingering weight sock yarns to make a pair, between the two bargain basement balls I had enough to finish and still have leftovers - provided I used more or less equal amounts of each.

My solution was to work heels, toes, and ribbing, plus about a little under a third of the sock's body in my solid green, plus the remainder in the multicolor. I used very simple seven-row striping repeat, working five rows of multi, and then two rows of solid green (2/7 = about 28% of my sock's body). I like how the multi is visually broken by the bands of solid green. The end result has at once more contrast and more subtlety than working the whole sock from multi alone, even if I still did contrasting color toes, heels and ribbing.

Of course the other advantage of working simple stripes on socks is to idiot-proof achieving two socks of identical size. It's very easy to count five row units and two row units. When I had completed ten muticolored stripes, it was time to start the heel, which is much easier than having to count every row or trust in doing a measured or eyeballed estimation of foot length.

So. If you find yourself with odd lots of sock yarn, don't despair. 100g of fingering weight sock yarn knitting is ample for most socks up to around men's US shoe size 10.5 or so (slightly smaller if yarn-eating textures are used). You can either work color block style, using up one leftover and then another, or you can stripe. But how wide to make the stripes?

Heels, toes, and ribbing in my standard short-rowed heel sock consume about 25g (a conservative estimate). I have large and wide feet for a fem, so if you are knitting for yourself chances are that you use roughly what I do or less. Weigh it out and set it aside. Then weigh the rest of your leftovers. If you have (for example) 40g of blue, 20g of yellow and 20g of green, you've got a ratio of 2:1:1. If you worked a stripe repeat conforming to that ratio (let's say two rows of blue, two rows of yellow, two rows of blue, two rows of green), you should have enough of each color to complete the pair.

Obviously, I had enough and did complete my pair. And I did have leftovers. As expected, I had a bit more of the multi left than I did the green, because my heels, toes, and narrow green stripes added up to about 60% of total yarn consumption.

Technorati : knitting

Rebecca notes that the patterns in the on-line repros of antique knitting and crochet books that I reported on yesterday call for needles specified by outmoded sizing systems, and asks for help in translating those sizes to modern ones.

I reply that there several sources for info on knitting from these older patterns floating around the Web. Here are a couple.

• The most complete size comparison chart I know about that shows older vs. modern needle sizes is at Lois Baker's Fiber Gypsy website.
  
• I've also got one here at String that speaks to the equivalents between historical and modern needle sizes. I add some common vintage yarns typically used with those needle sizes along with suggestions for equivalent modern yarns (I'll be updating this soon based on the new info from yesterday's books).
  
• The list of ancient yarns with approximate yardages maintained at Vintage Knits is also very useful if you're trying to work from an older pattern specifying an unknown yarn (often without yarn specs.)
  
• The yarn database here at wiseNeedle can be helpful, too. We've got a smattering of reviews for actual vintage yarns have entered by knitters who stumbled across older products in stashes or yard sales (reviews of discontinued yarns are always welcome here!). Other people have posted reviews noting that they have used various modern products as substitutes for now discontinued yarns. You can find the former by looking up the old yarn name like you would any modern one. You can also use the search comments field on our advanced search page to look for mention of an older yarn in any review.
  
  If you've got a yarn review to add, the most efficient way to do it is to first look up the name and see if it's in the collection. If it is - click on the link on the yarn's page to add your comments. Or if the yarn is new to our collection, here's a page where you can add both basic data and your comments at the same time.
  
• The knitting terms glossary also maintained here at wiseNeedle contains historical British and American usages as well as modern ones. You can limit the result to two or more languages by holding down your <CTRL> key and highlighting the desired ones from the drop-down list.
  

Technorati : knitting

Out web-walking again, I've stumbled across a treasure trove of books on spinning, weaving, and other textile arts. It includes historical and recent works on lacemaking, embroidery, tatting, knitting, crochet and some other less practiced crafts, as well as ethnographic material, periodicals, and academic papers. I'm sure I'm the last to find out about it, but I share the reference all the same.

This textile-related archive is maintained by the University of Arizona. Its collections are available on-line, with the individual works so distributed either aged out of copyright, or presented with the authors' permission. There are thousands of items - mostly geared to industry and manufacture, but with a healthy smattering of works detailing hand production. Scans are available as PDFs, with the larger books broken out into smaller segments of under 15MB. Not all are in English.

Among the works I found that are of greatest interest to me in specific are:

Whiting, Olive. Khaki Knitting Book, Allies Special Aid, 1917, 58 pages. PDF

This compendium of knitting patterns presents sweaters, wristlets, socks, scarves, mittens, hats, caps, and baby clothes intended in part for troops overseas during WWI, and for the comfort of refugee families displaced by the war. Patterns for knitting and crochet are both included. The socks shown mostly knit top-down, some have a gradually decreased instead of grafted toe. Some of the socks are worked on two needles and seamed. One pair in particular (marked as a pattern from the American Red Cross, p. 13) seems to include a written description of a grafted toe, but it does not name the technique. Directions are a bit more detailed than is usual for pre 1940 knitting booklets. Fewer than a quarter of the patterns are illustrated with finished item photos. Aside from a list of abbreviations in the front, there are no how-to or technique illustrations.

Nicoll, Maud Churchill. Knitting and Sewing. How to Make Seventy Useful Articles for Men in the Army and Navy, George H. Doran Company, New York, 1918, 209 pages. PDF

This book is a bit more detailed than the previous one. It also contains a rundown of standard troop knitting patterns - hats, mufflers, balaclavas (called helmets), mittens, socks and the like. Every project is illustrated either with a photo or a line drawing of the finished product. Instructions are written out in a fuller format than in the Khaki Knitting Book. It also has some valuable bits of instruction including a list of yarn substitutions, plus two full size color plates showing the wools used, identified by name; a small stitch dictionary section,

Of special note are some unusual mittens (including a mitten with truncated thumbs and index fingers - p.68), half-mittens - p. 77, "doddies" or mittens with an open thumb, p. 80, and double heavy mittens intended for seamen or mine sweepers hauling cables - p. 94). The grafting method of closing up sock toes is clearly described AND illustrated, but it is called "Swiss darning" (p.131). I've heard that term used for duplicate stitch embroidery on knitting, especially when the decorative stitches are sewn in rows mimicking actual knitting, rather than being stitched vertically, but I have never before seen it applied to actual grafting. The entire section on socks and stockings is particularly clear and useful. There are even a couple of crocheted and knit mens' ties in the sewing section.

Finally, the sewing section (about a quarter of the book) might be useful to people doing historical costuming or regimental re-creators who are looking to augment their kit. The one drawback is that most of the sewing patterns are predicated on Butterick printed patterns, and the schematics are not provided in the book. Among the offerings are money belts, a chamois leather body protector and waistcoat, various types of shirts and undergarments, pajamas made from heavy blanket fabric, and a book bag (like a messenger's bag).

Egenolf, Christian. Modelbuch aller art Nehewercks un Strickens, George Gilbers, 1880, 75 pages. Note: Reprint of 1527 book. PDF

Ostaus, Giovanni. La Vera Perfezione del Disegno [True Perfection in Design], 1561, 92 pages. Note: 1909 facsimile. PDF

These are two modelbooks of the 1500s. There are several others in the collection, but they are mostly books of needle lace designs. Ostaus also offers up mostly patterns for the various forms of needle lace, plus some patterns that can be adapted to free-hand (as opposed to counted) embroidery, plus a large section of allegorical plates to inspire stitched medallions, slips, and cabinets. One thing I've always liked are some of his negative/positive patterns. These are designs that if laid out on a strip of thin leather or paper and cut can be separated longitudinally into two identical pieces. There are several of these scattered around the middle of the book.

Starting around page 73 or so there is a section of graphed patterns, a number of which landed in my New Carolingian Modelbook collection.

The Egenolf book also is mostly line drawing suitable for freehand embroidery. Some are pretty cluttered, but some are very graceful. The oak border on p. 32 has always been one of my favorites. There's one plate with a counted pattern, on p. 72.

---. Priscilla Cotton Knitting Book, Priscilla Publishing Co., 51 pages. PDF1, PDF2, PDF3, PDF4, PDF5, PDF6.

This books is obviously a seminal source behind many of today's reference books on knitting technique and patterns. Notation is sparse and "antique" with n (narrow) being used for k2tog, and o for yarn over, and other oddities. There's a fair bit of circular doily knitting, but it is of the knit radially and seamed variety seen also in Abbey's Knitting Lace. In fact many of the doilies appearing in Abbey appear to have been adapted directly from this work. You'll also recognize many Walker treasury edging patterns in these pages.

In addition to the stitch texture and lacy knitting sections, there's a bit on "cameo knitting" which appears to be another name for stranding (in PDF2). The section on filet knitting (in PDF3) is relatively extensive, and clearly shows both the strengths and weaknesses of this rarely described style.

---. Priscilla Irish Crochet Book No. 2, Priscilla Publishing Co., 52 pages. PDF1, PDF2, PDF3, PDF4, PDF5, PDF6, PDF7, PDF8.

This has got to be the single most complete and eye-popping source I've ever seen on Irish crochet. Not only does this contain an amazing amount of eye candy, it also gives directions on how to create it, offering up pattern descriptions for the individual motifs, the joining brides and grounds, and the working method of fastening the motifs to a temporary backing while the grounds are being worked.

---. Egyptisch Vlechtwerk [Sprang], Holkema & Warendorf, 36 pages.PDF1, PDF2

As an example of the depth of the collection, here's a work on Sprang, one of the lesser known fiber manipulation crafts sometimes mistaken for early knitting. It is in Dutch and appears to be from before WWI, but it is illustrated with photos of finished pieces and works in progress.

These are just a small sample of the hundreds of works available at the University's website. Again, most are on the industrial aspects of the textile arts, from fiber acquisition (including sericulture and sheep raising) through spinning, and weaving, but a goodly number are of direct interest to hand-crafters. Topic lists exist for knitting, crochet, embroidery, cross stitch, lace, tatting, and a multitude of other subjects. Support this valuable resource by visiting and using it. I know I'll be combing through here for years...

Technorati : crochet, embroidery, knitting, lace

Techknitting is posting an interesting series on stranding, and as part of it, mentioned the use of Strickfingerhuts (knitting yarn guides/knitting thimbles), linking back to my original post on the subject.

For those who are unfamiliar with them, they are those gizmos that sit on the end of the left hand index finger, that are used by Continental style knitters (pickers) to hold and separate two or more yarns while doing stranded colorwork.

Adding some more detail on the subject, I'd like to address a problem TK points out as being common among those who hold two yarns in one hand while stranding - differential feed.

If a row has more or less equal numbers of stitches of both colors, both yarn strands are consumed at the same rate. But if a row has lots of Color A, but very little Color B, A will be eaten at a much greater rate, eventually causing the knitter to readjust his or her grasp of the yarn to even things out.

Those of us who do use Strickfingerhuts find that the differential feed rate problem is greatly minimized compared to trying to hold both yarns in the left hand unassisted. Yes, eventually the difference in yarn consumption catches up with us and we have to yank the strands even, but no where near as often.

We do however find that over time we prefer to put the dominant color (the color most represented on a row) in either the left or right eyelet to minimize the feed problem. There's no hard and fast rule to this, it's a matter of personal preference.

In stockinette in the round, I prefer to have the dominant color in the right eyelet, and the less represented color in the left. This helps when I lock in my floats:

Although I usually work stranding in the round, occasionally I have to do it in the flat. If I'm knitting stockinette in the flat using a Strickfingerhut, and I'm on the purl side, I prefer to have the dominant color in the left hand eyelet.

For the record, I notice no difference in the appearance of the finished product if I mix eyelets - sometimes putting the dominant color in one, and sometimes in the other. I do however note that some other Strickfingerhut users do, and advocate always keeping the background color in the same eyelet regardless of its relative dominance on any one row. Again, experimentation is your friend.

Technorati : knitting

I've played around some with methods of producing and applying the edge finish to the khaki vest. First I tried the separately knit/sewn on band method, using a couple of different approaches to the seaming (fold band longitudinally, sew the band up, then apply it; sew on both sides in one pass; sew on the display side, then do a separate seam to affix the facing side). Of all of them, the last method worked best, but it was the most effort intensive of them all.

So I looked further. Plain I-Cord (knit on or applied) was too narrow to stabilize the edge, and two courses of it would have been too bulky. I didn't like the way that picking up along the edge then knitting out looked - especially along the curve of the armhole.

Even more experiments ensued. Finally I landed on knitting-on a strip parallel to the edge, then going back and seaming down the free side on the inside of the piece. Doing that I could produce an edge of any desired width, go around curves and even plan on mitering the vest point corner. Here's a swatch with a mitered corner. Note that I haven't sewn down the facing on the inside yet, but natural stockinette curl is keeping it nice and neat. (For some, the inside seaming might be optional, but I plan on doing it on my finished piece).

To miter the corner of this 8-stitch strip, I used short rows. Here's how I did it:

Applied 8-stitch Strip Facing with Mitered Corner

Start with the public side of the work facing you, holding it with the bulk of the piece on the left, so that you're working up the right side of the thing (upside down from the picture above). Using straight needles, cast on 9 stitches, then pick up one stitch in the edge of the piece being finished. While the strip is 9 stitches wide, one is consumed during joining, so the part that protrudes is really only 8 stitches wide.

Row 1 (wrong side): P8, k1.
Row 2: S1, k6, ssk, pick up one stitch in edge of swatch
Row 3: S1, p7, k1

Repeat Rows 2 and 3 until you reach the corner, having just completed an odd number (wrong side row)

Row 4: S1, k6, wrap and turn.
Row 5: Slip the wrapped stitch, p6, wrap and turn
Row 6: Ignoring any previously wrapped stitches, S1, k5, wrap and turn
Row 7: Ignoring any previously wrapped stitches, Slip the wrapped stitch, p4, wrap and turn
Row 8: Ignoring any previously wrapped stitches, S1, k3, wrap and turn
Row 9: Ignoring any previously wrapped stitches, S1, p2, wrap and turn
Row 10: Ignoring any previously wrapped stitches, S1, k2, knit the next stitch along with the loop around its base, turn
Row 11: Ignoring any previously wrapped stitches, S the stitch you just knit, p2, purl the next stitch along with the loop around its base, turn
Row 12: Ignoring any previously wrapped stitches, S1, k3, knit the next stitch along with the loop around its base, turn
Row 13: Ignoring any previously wrapped stitches, Slip the stitch you just knit, p4, purl the next stitch along with the loop around its base, turn
Row 14: Ignoring any previously wrapped stitches, S1, k5, knit the next stitch along with the loop around its base, turn
Row 15: Ignoring any previously wrapped stitches, Slip the stitch you just knit, p6, purl the next stitch along with the loop around its base, turn

The corner is complete, return to repeating Rows 2 and 3. Optional finish - seam down the inside edge of this facing.

I've stated applying this same edging to the armholes of my vest (having previously seamed the shoulders).

I plan to do the bottom edge next, incorporating the mitered corner on the vest points. But I haven't played with the buttonhole band treatments yet. Sadly, I have misplaced my copy of InkKNitters. It's here. Somewhere... Weekend plans include tossing my knitting library to find it.

Oh. Unless a monsoon is upon us, weekend plans also include attending the annual Gore Place Sheepshearing Festival in Waltham, Massachusetts. Not a big festival as fiber fairs go, but very local and lots of fun. Look for me with both Elder and Smaller Daughter in tow.

Technorati : knitting

After yesterday's post on my Galaga Hat, I've gotten a couple of questions about the method for working back and forth seamlessly to make a tube. In specific, some people wanted to see illustrated how I make the wrap and turn join. I try to oblige them (click on pix to see them larger):

I've shown just the knit-side round. The purl side round works in exactly the same way. Work to the marker, making sure to work the last stitch before the marker along with the loop around its base, shift the marker over, wrap the stitch after the marker, flip the piece over, return the marker to the right-hand needle, and continue with the rest of the round.

Why go through all this trouble?

I don't have enough yarn to strand around the entire piece. Nor do my motifs span the entire circumference of my hat. I am in effect working spot Intarsia motifs (actually I'm stranding between them, but limiting that stranding to the spot motifs). Rather than cut the yarn at the end of each motif, or stretch it back to the beginning of the spot design on each row, I am working the equivalent of flat knitting - going back and forth, alternating rows of knit and rows of purl. When I purl or knit back to my spot motif, my contrasting color ends are on the correct side of the motif for the next round. But I hate sewing up, and want to make a hat without seams. Rather than knit this totally flat (a valid option), I'm using wrap and turn to make the join at the end of each round.

Technorati : knitting

I had started this post back when I was up to the shoulders of my ribbed leaf pullover, but life intervened and it languished. Also, the diagrams ended up taking more time than I thought they would. For the record, I write these entries mostly in the half-hour I steal in the morning after breakfast, while my kids are getting dressed for school. Some of the longer and more illustrated ones can take a couple of days to pull together. Yet another reason why my blogging rate has fallen back since leaving the world of consulting for full-time employment.

For the record, I'm now just a couple of rows away from completing the sleeves of the ribbed leaf pullover. I'll use the piece to do some assembly and finishing posts later this week and next.

------------------------

Some deadlines have passed, others remain. I did have an hour or so of knitting time last night, which I used to excellent effect, both for some much needed relaxation, and to advance my leaf pullover. I am now finishing up the front, at the point where the centermost stitches are set aside and the shoulders are completed.

Now this stage of production is one that has inspired a huge number of wiseNeedle advice board questions. The directions to join in a second ball of yarn and knit both shoulders at the same time tend to confuse people who are new to knitting. Here's the basic concept. My postulated directions say something like

Work across 25 in pattern, place center 20 on holder, attach second ball of yarn