It's Not Just Beginners and Perfectionists Who Rip It Out and Start Over

I sat next to a beginning knitter at knitting group last week. She was working on a baby blanket, graduating from simple stockinette, to a basket stitch. But although she knew how to knit and purl, she was off on her pattern and had at least an inch to unknit. In frustration, she ripped the whole thing out, even the inch and a half garter stitch border that was just fine. She was frustrated, maybe the blanket was too difficult for her, maybe she shouldn’t try to do a stitch pattern.

I told her I do a lot of unknitting. She expressed amazement. I wanted her to feel better, didn’t want her to give up on knitting, but I wasn’t exagerating. I do a lot of reknitting. I told her I frequently have to redo my starts. There’s something about getting started on a new piece or a new technique that requires me to knit, unknit and reknit several times before I get into the groove. I told her I make mistakes when I’m not focused on my knitting, that after our last knitting get together I went home and ripped out everything I did in group, two hours of knitting lost. Sometimes I’ll put a piece aside too long and not be able to pick it up again without a lot of mistakes. I make mistakes at the end of a piece, when I’m in a hurry to finish and start something new. I make mistakes when I’m trying to carry on a conversation, knit in the car, knit while watching television or listenning to an audio book. And I make mistakes when I’m trying too hard.

Sometimes I unknit because I lose track of where I am, sometimes I get sloppy and my tension is off, sometimes I’ll notice a split stitch several rows below and for some reason, especially if its lace, I can’t figure out how to drop down and fix it, so I unknit those rows instead.

I’ve learned not to fight it. I’ve learned to accept it as part of knitting, as what I need to do to get the results I want.

Often other knitters say when they find a mistake they just fudge it, no one will ever notice. But if I can see the mistake now, I’ll see it ever after. Better to fix it.

And that leads me to the Vine Vest I was knitting in Provence. I seamed it all up with the skills I learned in Margaret Fisher’s Perfect Seams class. The seams were beautiful. I added the edging. No problem. I put it on. Ugh! I ripped it all out and am knitting the yarn into a new February Lady Sweater. If I were a perfectionist, I would have soaked the kinks out of the yarn before reknitting.

Where have you been and what have you been doing?

OK - It's been quite a while since I've posted. I intended to post, really I did. But...

I have two spring sweaters on the needles: a February Lady Sweater in Classic Elite's Provence and a lovely soft pink pullover in Rowan organic cotton. Both would be perfect for the beautiful weather we are having right now. But, I keep getting distracted by shawls:

Luna Moth Shawl

I purchased Black Water Abbey's organic fingering weight wool in ecru at Stitches West. Several vendors had the Luna Moth Pattern knitted up to show off their yarn. When I saw it knitted up, much prettier than it had appeared in pictures I had seen, I had to make it. It knit up quickly into an elegant shawl and will make a nice gift.

Here is a detail of the lace:

Evelyn Clark's Lace Leaf Shawl

This is a fast pattern I'll make again soon! It's in Misti Alpaca sport weight. Soft, cuddly and warm.

Stitches West!

Swatches ready to go for Margaret Fisher's Perfect Seams class!

I have never been confident or satisfied with my seams. Hopefully that will change!

I'm taking my Vine Vest which has waited unseamed since last summer. I'm hoping to seam it up in my hotel room after the class. Then pick up and knit the edging and wear it this spring.

God reached into Himself and created her

Caroline St. John Close

Born
October 18, 1925
Boonville, California

Died
January 29, 2009
Bakersfield, California

She asked that this hymn be sung at her funeral,

Hymn of Promise

In the bulb there is a flower
In the seed an apple tree.
In cocoons, a hidden promise.
Butterflies will soon be free!
In the cold and snow of winter,
There’s a spring that waits to be
Unrevealed until its season.
Something God alone can see.

-Natalie Sleeth, 1986

She was my mother and I ache to talk with her again.

Sigh of Relief

I spent most of yesterday watching television, watching the inauguration and watching the crowds of people in Washington, D.C. and all over the world, watching and celebrating together.

Yesterday’s celebration followed a great big national sigh of relief. It would have been unseemly to cheer the departure of the 43rd president, to have shouted “good riddance” as his helicopter flew over the crowds on the Capitol Mall. And so we celebrated the incoming president instead.

The commentators seemed to think that what we were celebrating was our first black president. And, yes, that was a very important part of what we celebrating. On the day following what would have been Martin Luther King’s 80th birthday, in the presence of members of the Tuskegee Airmen who chose to fight for their country in a segregated military, of Congressman John Lewis who was almost beaten to death for his role in the civil rights movement, and thousands of others who believe in an ideal denied them only because of the color of their skin, a black man was inaugurated as president of the United States. It was a day many of us, black and white, did not expect to see in our lifetimes.

But to me, that Obama is African American, is symbolic of more. And his election promises more. If we can overcome our history of racism, we can overcome much more.

Yesterday came in a very dark hour. It came when it seemed our nation had lost its way, surrendered to fear and given into the intoxication of consumption. It seemed we had forgotten that our strength comes from justice and that what unites us as Americans is the common ideals codified in our constitution.

Yesterday we remembered who we are called to be. Yesterday we knew we could do better in all the ways we are challenged to do better.

Knitting with Sari Silk

I sat for three quiet hours last night knitting a scarf from recycled sari silk. It wasn’t on my to-do list, wasn’t planned as a present for anyone, wasn’t practice intended to make me a more skillful knitter. I cast on and knit for the sheer pleasure of working with this yarn, of feeling its softness with my fingers and watching its unexpected colors reveal themselves in the scarf flowing from my needles.

This was the yarn that had made me a knitter again after a decade long hiatus. Discouraged because I didn’t have time to knit, I didn’t know how to knit the things I wanted to knit and my knitting didn’t meet my standards, I had given all my knitting needles, yarn and unfinished projects to Goodwill. I remember looking at the back and partly finished front of a silk vest that had sat unfinished for several years and thinking they weren’t as bad as I had thought, but into the Goodwill bag it went. Still, I loved the look of knitted garments, loved the look of yarn in the ball and one day when I happened on a new yarn shop, I wandered in and there, right by the front door, found a basket of sari silk yarn. Soft, colorful with a rich luster. I’d never seen anything like it. I bought three balls and planned to make a shawl.

From the beginning it was a difficult relationship. Even before I left the store, I was frustrated by the colors. There were no color numbers and no dye lots. The yarn comes in all the colors of saris seemingly picked at random and spun into balls. Rich jewel tones, purples, jade and ruby red, and warm autumn colors, browns, oranges and yellow green, predominate. But these are suddenly interupted by the black and orange of Halloween or the red and green of Christmas. I wanted four balls for my shawl, but after pawing unsucessfully through the basket of yarn searching for balls in the same color way, I settled for three similiarly colored balls, enough I thought for a smaller shawl.

When I began to knit I alternated between love for the colors of the yarn, the softness of its feel and exasperation at what seemed to me to be the yarn’s poor quality. It varied in thickness from a single thread to heavy worsted weight, it twisted and kinked as it came off the ball, very difficult for someone who hadn’t held a knitting needle in many years. Unrefined furry puffs of silk marred the smooth appearance of my knitting. And when I finally learned to catch all the varying textures of the yarn in my needles, all of a sudden the colors changed mid ball from rich jewel tones to the warm colors of autumn. I put it away in frustration until I found more of the yarn at another shop and after again searching for a ball in the jewel tones and finished the shawl. After much frustration I finished the shawl only to immediately discover a hole where a thin thread had broken. I mended it with a piece of wool and decided the yarn simply didn’t work.

No matter, I was knitting again. I found internet sites to teach me what I didn’t know about knitting, about tension, gauge, and stitch definition. I collected skeins of wool, organic cotton linen and hemp and made more shawls, scarves, sweaters and hats. I kept the little parts of the balls of recycled silk I had left over in a bowl, beautiful to look at. There was a quality to the yarn I could not resist. Every now and then I’d pick it up, feel it and look at it. I knit a little into a wool scarf and some into a hat. And then I decided to try it alone again. My knitting skills had improved. I felt able to handle its flaws. I started a scarf. And as I knit I understood this was a yarn without guile, its flaws were not flaws, they made the yarn what it was.

Recycled sari silk isn’t really recycled and it isn’t made from old saris. It is made in Nepal from the ends of warp threads remaining on the loom where the new sari was woven. After the sari has been cut from the loom, the threads are gathered, teased and spun by hand on drop spindles. The yarn I buy is fair trade. I am assured my money goes to women’s cooperatives where the women who work in their homes earn enough to support their families.

As I knit with this yarn I wonder about the women who spun it. I know very little about them or the distant part of the world where they work and make their home. The land of Everest, Three Cups of Tea and a Nepalese man I met some years ago who had turned his home in Katmandu into an an orphanage. I imagine these women with a quiet dignity going about their work, kneeling on the floor with the colorful silk laid out before them working their drop spindles. Sometimes my fingers touch a little bit of their lives, pieces of grass, splinters of wood, twisted into the yarn.

There is a quality to this yarn that brings to mind two very elegant elderly sisters who were my neighbors in South Caroline thirty years ago, one a widow, the other never married. They welcomed me into their apartment, furnished with dark wooden furniture with clawed feet, perhaps inherited from their parents, heavy upholestery, drapery, oil paintings and china. And while I would have set such things aside, packed them up to protect them, bringing them out only for special occasions, these were the things with which the elderly sisters were comfortable, the things making their apartment their home. A small crack in a tea cup, wear on the upholstery. These made me comfortable when they invited me in for a cup of tea and freshly baked cookie.

I imagine the women who wear the saris cut from the threads that will be spun into my yarn. These women will have chose their saris for the intracies of the patterns and rich rich colors woven into the silk. When they put on their sari they will study themselves in the mirror and apply a bit of paint to their faces, in a self conscious effort at beauty.

There is no self consciousness to this yarn as their was no self consciousness to my elderly neighbors. Still useful. Unpretentious. And beautiful.

Mother’s Helena: What I Did

This is Clara's mother's Helena. I made Helena for Clara and knew it would please both Clara, and her mother if I made a matching sweater for mom. See Clara's Helena and Clara's and Mom's together below.

Step-by-step, here's how I made a Mom's Helena...

1. I babysit once a week, so on one of my babysitting days I found one of my daughter in law’s sweaters, measured the bust, arm length, sleeve depth and body length. My dil had a sweater with ¾ sleeves and a bit of swing so I was able to use those measurements. If you only have a traditional sweater to measure, the bust is the important measurement. You can guesstimate the others.

2. Generated a pattern for a top down v-neck cardigan with Sweater Wizard, using the measurements from dil’s own sweater. Size 7 needle; Cascade 220. Any top down v neck cardigan pattern would do.

3. Modified the sleeve increases so that the last four increases were spaced every four rows followed by 1 ½ inches without increases.

4. Modified my basic pattern to make it a Helena as follows:

Worked in stockinette 3 rows after separating for the sleeves.
Using size 5 (2 sizes down) needles worked raised band (k2 rows, p1 row, k2 row)
Back to size 7 needles
Increased to 200 stitches from 168 for bodice swing immediately below raised band
Worked lace pattern for 8 repeats
Switched to size 5 needles and worked 6 rows, then eyelet row, then four rows and bind off

5. Sleeves: I needed to go up a needle size to size 8 because I knit tighter in the round

6. Knitted on the 7 row garter stitch edging pretty much as directed in Helena directions. I used one button right below where I had finished the neck shaping. I put the button hole in the middle row of the edging, the 4th row.

The sweater was easy to knit and looks great. I’m pretty pleased with myself right now!

In Time for Christmas! Whew!

The Mother Daughter Helena's are done! I hope mother and daughter will model their new sweaters for the camera Christmas morning.

Mom' sweater is in Cascade 220 in a slightly muted pink, Clara's is in Berroco Comfort DK in bright pink. Close enough to satisfy Miss Clara, I think!

Mother Daughter Helenas

Here is Clara's Helena. I love the picot hem. I'd never seen it before but now I see it everywhere. It is so easy and so pretty! See my December 5th post for pictures before turning the hem under.

And here's Mom's! I have one sleeve, the hem and the edging to do. Hopefully I'll have pictures of that one soon. I started with a Sweater Wizard v-neck cardigan and modified it to be akin to the girl's Helena. I'll post the details when I get it done and know it works! Right now I best get knitting!

February Lady Sweater Hints

The February Lady Sweater is done and looks terrific on my daughter. I complained about this pattern as I was working on it but I stuck to the pattern, deviated not a wit, and the end result is just what I wanted.

That said, here are some hints for success:

· Everyone says the sweater runs big, or stretches. Pay attention to gauge and choose the finished bust size, not your ready-to-wear size. I made a small for a 41 inch finished bust.

· Mark the front of the sweater after the first row or two so you make sure to get the raglan increases on the right side – every time! With garter stitch it would be easy to get confused.

· Raglan increases: This is the one change I would make to the pattern. The pattern has you make raglan increases every knit row a prescribed number of times and then stop the increases and finish the yoke. But many knitters complain that the pattern results in folds in the underarm. I agree, although they looked better in the end than I feared. So: next time I am going to taper off my increases rather than end them abruptly. I’ll do the last three increases every other knit row rather than every knit row.

I did the M1 front and back increases as suggested. They give a nice look. If you aren’t sure what they are, check out the video at http://www.knittinghelp.com/videos/increases. BTW – I love all the videos at knittinghelp.com. I frequently turn to them when I become confused about something I think I should know or used to know and can’t remember.

· Eyelet increases: The pattern calls for a row of eyelet increases in the first knit row after the last raglan increase. I ended up with 12 rows in the yoke below my eyelet increases. I thought that was too much, just for looks. If I were to do it again I’d do the eyelet increases 3 rows up from the last garter stitch row.

Then the question is: to do eyelet increases or not. I thought they looked silly. My daughter thought they were a nice design element. Some knitters try to do an invisible increase but really, right across the yoke, any increase is going to be visible. I thought about doing invisible (knit front and back) increases in the last garter stitch row, right above the beginning of the lace, and think that would work.

· Buttonholes: I ended up with four. Three looks better. I had to do four because I made my second one too soon and there would have been too much yoke below the last buttonhole had I only done three. So don’t make your second buttonhole too soon.

And pay attention to which side you make your buttonhole on. It may not matter to you, but traditionally a woman’s buttonhole goes on the wearer’s right side. If you want it that way, make sure that’s the side you put it on. I used the buttonhole directions referenced in the pattern. It’s ok but I wasn’t thrilled. If anyone knows a better way or has suggestions I’d love to hear them.

· The rest of the sweater went together easily. I knit the sleeves at the end. Others have suggested doing the sleeves earlier so you don’t have so much sweater to maneuver. I wished I had until I finally realized (duh!) I didn’t have to keep turning the sweater everytime I did a round on the sleeve if I turned the sleeve instead. I’ll probably do the sleeve last again just because I always worry I’m running low on yarn and if I ever really am running low it would be easier to make the sleeves shorter than to make the body shorter.

Oops... I forgot to mention one intentional pattern modification I did make. On the sleeves, I decreased one stitch per lace repeat in the last row of the lace. Garter stitch is wider than the lace stitch and I didn't want the cuffs to bell out quite as much as they do on the pattern. If I were to do it again, I think I'd take them in even more. However, once again, my daughter preferred the slight bell aas written in the pattern.

All in all this is a lovely pattern, a quick knit and I’m going to make it again. Soon!