swatch til you're crosseyed

That's how I'm feeling right now.

It's too cold to go out if I can help it, so the last two days have been spent adding to the pile o' swatches. Funny how often something that looks good in your head, or even on paper, doesn't always work out right when translated into actual yarn. Well, there's something a little head-clearing about ripping out six inches of work. The pile would have been bigger if I hadn't done so much ripping.



The company I want to submit the design proposal to has specified yarn that is easily available from the large craft/hobby/fabric stores. So I picked acrylic yarns from three different makers. All of the labels say 22 sts + 4 inches. Not surprisingly they are all slightly different thicknesses, not to mention different textures. Well, they are all essentially smooth yarns, but one is a sort of fluffy smooth, one mid-range, and one downright slick. Which is to say that the "recommended gauge" on yarn labels is more of a broad suggestion based on a chart somewhere, than something any real person sat down and figured out with needles in hand. So there were the initial plain stockinette gauge swatches, not necessarily to try to match the labels with 100% accuracy, but to find what works for me.

Then I started playing around with motifs. The general idea here is to come up with three baby blankets with coordinating sweaters and hats, using lace/eyelet stitches. I have sketches for concepts. Swatching is one way to decide that certain concepts aren't workable. It is also a good way to get ideas to replace those unworkables. It's like making sketches before slapping paint on a full sized canvas. At least one of the sets is going to be quite different from my original scrawl.

But darn, it's a slow process.

What's Up?

On Sunday morning I drove up to Madison for brunch with my lovely daughter. She's working two jobs these days, so we fit it in before she had to head out to the bookstore. Her company is always a treat. After we ate, we headed over to Jo Ann's Fabrics where I picked up



a pile o' baby yarn, which led to Monday's work on



the beginning of a pile o' swatches (displayed against the Kerry Blue shawl which has reverted pretty much to it's pre-blocking dimensions).

No, I haven't got anyone near and dear expecting. I'm going to try to work on some design proposals.

"Be aware...that your freshly blocked piece of lace may change considerably after has sat around, or been worn or hung for a while. The degree of change depends on the elasticity and resiliency of the yarn as well as the type of pattern worked." - Susanna E. Lewis, Knitting Lace: A Workshop with Patterns and Projects

A question on the Knitters Review forum sent me in search of this book. As it is out of print, and selling on the Internet at prices ranging from $100 to $500, I turned to the library. And as so often happens, the library came through for me. I'm going to have a hard time returning it.

In the first half of the book Lewis charts out all 90 patterns from a 15 ft long (!) lace sampler in the Brooklyn museum. But this isn't why I want it. Some of the patterns are familiar from other sources. Some are not all that visually interesting. I'll make photo copies of a few, including one I've modified to incorporate at the center of the Gypsy Girl shawl (which is slowly growing).

At the end of the book she gives some garment patterns of her own design, and these aren't why I want the book, either. To be honest, I'm not all that crazy about any of them.

What I want is the center section, which is Lewis's step by step analysis of how knitted lace is structured, how motifs can be built and arranged and how technique chosen affect the final appearance and behavior of the patterns produced. It's not that I didn't already know some of what she has to say. It's not that I couldn't learn much of the rest from other writers or by trial and error.

But it's a really good reference, well presented and I would like to have it where I could put my hands on it anytime, pick it up for bedtime reading. And even more I would just like to know that I have this work of solid scholarship on my bookshelf.

There is a rumor that Schoolhouse Press is trying to reissue this book. That would be lovely, but I'm not holding my breath. I've never paid $100 for a book in my life, and I'm not going to do it for this one. But I'll keep my fingers crossed, and if I get a second chance at acquiring it for a reasonable price (I foolishly passed it by when it was first published), I'll grab it.

Wallpaper for Kmkat

She asked everyone to share, so here's mine.



What? You're not surprised?

I thought I was going to use that for yarn, but....

There is actually a book for sale titled "Never Too Old to Knit: Beautiful Basics for Baby Boomers." Well, get out of the way. There's going to be a stampede of Fifty-Something women trying to get their hands on if. "Oh thank God! You mean I'm not too doddering to learn a basic handcraft? At my age? Oh I have to get a copy right now!"

Who is doing the marketing on this one? I envision a twenty-something editor (beg the goddess not a woman) who thinks like this:
1) Hip young women buy knitting books 2) Baby Boomers are not hip young women 3) therefore Baby Boomers will not buy knitting books unless we put it right in the title that they really aren't too f*****g old. I won't even try to list the ways this logic and this title are wrong.

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Well, now that I've got that off my chest, I did a swatch with the grey alpaca for the Tiger scarf. It's lovely yarn, but the pattern didn't show off well. So I picked some yarn from the stash. This is an older version of Paton's Kroy, from back in the day when it had a full 85% wool and was a touch more loosely twisted than the current version.

The color on my monitor looks a bit dark. In real life it's a very pretty dark lavender or light bluish-purple heather.



I think I will take it with me to the Yarns Ewe-nited group tonight. It is not conversational knitting, but these women are mostly natural fiber handspinners and I just can't bring myself to show up with my acrylic garter stitch. Besides, once supper is over it's OK to work and not talk. The one's who aren't spinning tend to bring complicated knitting, too. They understand.

Mother of All Romance Novels

Whoo Hoo! Jane Eyre on PBS last night. I'm loving it. Of course, every filming of a favorite book has to bear comparison with one's own mental images. In this one some of the childhood scenes were a little more visually lurid than Yorkshire grim. But that's minor. And there is definitely chemistry between Jane and Mr. Rochester.....

But on to knitting. I'm so excited that Mmario modified the Progressive for a square shawl, and it came out just beautifully. With his permission, I'm sharing his picture.



Now he's working on a circular version. I can hardly wait.

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Christine asked if there is a way to modify the Tiger, Tiger to be done without grafting. Well, yes and no, I guess. The Tiger Eye pattern is highly directional, and I wanted both ends to match, hence the grafting. As Calamintha mentioned, it's possible to start in the middle with a provisional cast on and worked outwards, but in this case that would have changed the "flow" of the pattern. A real challenge would be to try to work the Tiger Eye from top to bottom so I could do that. My mind boggles a little at the thought of attempting it, but it would be a good design exercise.

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While I was down at the Argyle Fiber Mill picking up some nice alpaca yarn for a scarf, Elizabeth mentioned that she is interested in carrying knitting patterns by local/regional designers. If you are a Wisconsin, or even upper Midwest designer with patterns in hard copy format you might want to contact her.

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Also want to mention that on his blog, Mmario has a really nifty summary of various ways to shape shawls (and there are a lot).

And now that I'm on useful bits of information -

Marie has shared her technique for working cables without a cable needle. You have to scroll down a bit, but that will give you a chance to see her really pretty dayflower washcloth.

Fleegle has a different take on a provisional cast on. It looks rather brilliant to me, but I haven't actually tried it yet (on my "to do very soon" list)

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That's all for now. I have to go wind some alpaca.