Gauge Swatch

Gauge, with or without the word swatch attached, is one of ‘those’ terms. I’ve heard knitters say the words as though they were spelled with four letters, and seen them written as ‘g*&#e’ or ‘s@#$%h’ more times than one. Every single knitter has an opinion about swatching, and they’ll defend those opinions with the same fervor they bring to the questions of needle material or continental vs. English vs. combined knitting styles. I’ve called swatching a necessary evil myself in my earlier days as a knitter.

But experience is a great (if painful) teacher, and the longer I knit, the more I find that much-maligned gauge swatch an incredibly useful tool. So let’s take a look at what gauge actually is, and what purposes that swatch can serve. I may even change a mind or two along the way…

Put in the simplest terms, gauge is the number of rows and stitches in any given inch of knitted fabric. That’s perhaps too general, especially given the wide variance between the number of stitches even the same knitter will have in different stitch patterns. But that’s the definition. So what use is it? Well, you can’t knit something to a specific size if you don’t know those numbers for that yarn and needle and stitch pattern.

Now, what makes a useful gauge swatch for a given project? That’s where the definition begins to narrow and the swatch itself becomes a very useful knitting tool.

A useful gauge swatch will show the number of stitches per inch in a particular pattern stitch – the stitch you plan to use for this specific project. A useful gauge swatch will also be knitted in the same fashion as you plan to knit your project.

Huh? A knitter’s gauge over a given pattern stitch (even plain old stockinette) may vary as much as 1-3 stitches per inch, depending on whether they’re knitting flat or in the round. So if you plan to knit your project in the round, knit your swatch in the round; if you’re knitting flat, knit your swatch flat. In order to keep from having to do a 24-inch around gauge swatch on a circular needle, magic loop is a life-saver. It’s a simple technique – add it to your repertoire!

Another point to consider for a useful gauge swatch: use exactly the same needles you’ll use for the project itself. If you do your swatch on bamboo DPN needles and the project on metal circular needles, your gauge may change, even with the same yarn from the same skein.

It should go without saying that you’ll use the same yarn for your swatch that you plan to use for the project – but I’ll say it, anyway. One worsted wool yarn isn’t always identical to another; yardages per pound can vary from as little as 5 to as much as 300 or more! And differences between fibers can make for even greater variation in the numbers. 50 grams of cotton will generally have fewer yards than 50 grams of wool, even though both may be worsted weight.

One more consideration: knitted fabric changes after it’s washed and dried. This is true of any fiber or combination of fibers. Some fibers bloom, some stretch, some shrink, some remain exactly the same. But you won’t know which your particular combination of yarn and needles will do until you wash and dry the swatch!

A swatch can, again, be an extremely useful tool – if you knit it thoughtfully. Start out by casting on some multiple of the pattern stitch. Work in stockinette or garter stitch for a couple of inches – whichever your pattern is based upon. Now switch to the pattern stitch itself, and work at least 2-3 repeats. That way if there’s a problem with the patterning, you’ll find it and be able to work it out before you start into the project. You’ll also get familiar with the stitch pattern - and many knitters’ tension changes after they get used to forming a stitch, thus changing their gauge over that stitch. If your first repeat is at 6 stitches per inch in pattern, but the third repeat is at 5 stitches per inch, which number do you think you should use for figuring your project gauge?

Before you cast off, are there any other stitches or patterns used in this project? If so, work a repeat or two. If one element flows directly into another (ribbing to pattern stitch, for example), try that out on your swatch. Does it look good to you? If not, tweak it here instead of on the project. You’ll rip out a lot less.

Last but far from least, are there instructions in the project pattern that aren’t clear to you? Perhaps short-row directions are different from what you’re used to doing, or directional stitches are a different type, or bind-offs at the arms or neck seem odd. Try these techniques on the swatch. It’s much easier on both knitter and yarn to do these types of tweaking on a smaller scale. Do you know exactly how you’re going to pick up arm or neckline treatment stitches on this patterning? Try it out on the swatch!

Have you tried out everything you have any question about? All right, then do another few rows of stockinette or garter and then bind off as recommended in the pattern. This is a final place to play – if the bind off on the swatch doesn’t look good, decide now on how you’ll modify the project instructions to make it look better and try it out.

Now bind off and measure your swatch. How many rows per inch? How many stitches and rows per inch in stockinette or garter; how many in each pattern? How many in the ribbing stitch? Write these numbers down and save them!

Now wash that swatch. If the yarn ball says to machine wash and dry, do that. If you plan to hand wash and lay flat to dry, do those instead. Don’t short-cut this step – you’ll negate a great deal of the usefulness you built into your swatch if you do!

One final thing before you get out your ruler or tape measure and that sheet of paper again: if your chosen yarn is cotton, silk, alpaca, mohair, hemp, superwash wool or acrylic (or any blend thereof), hang that gauge swatch up for at least 12-24 hours before you measure. Fibers other than plain old untreated wool sometimes stretch vertically as well as horizontally – and some of them stretch quite a lot! Better to know this now instead of two or three hours into the first wearing of your crew-neck tunic, after it’s become a knee-length dress with a scooped neckline!

Now measure the rows and stitches again. Make sure you measure over the stockinette/garter sections, each different stitch pattern, and any other places your swatch appears to widen or narrow. Write these numbers down. Now divide the pre-wash numbers into the after-wash numbers to get the percentages of shrinkage or stretch.

Now this is useful information! You know before you start knitting that in order to fit your 45-inch hip measurement you’ll need to cast on 250 stitches instead of 225; there was slightly over 1% shrinkage in your washed swatch. You’ll also know that you want to do 24 rows of ribbing rather than 26, and only 36 rows instead of 42 between the underarm bindoff and shoulder shaping – your washed and hung sample grew about 1% in length.

How much time will knowing this information before you start knitting save you? Think about this. Without a gauge swatch that contains all the stitches used in the project, that was then washed, dried and hung, you might knit the entire sweater, bind off and finish everything, bury all ends, then wash, block and try on before discovering that – horrors! – you have to take it all apart and start over, or find a recipient to gift with your hard work.

How long does it take to knit a sweater? The general amount of time is measured in weeks or months of spare-time knitting, isn’t it? And if you’d only taken an hour or so at the beginning to actually explore the variables, you’d have something that fits properly now instead of an expensive (both in terms of time and materials) boondoggle.

So you decide for yourself. As far as I’m concerned, especially since I pretty much design my own sweaters and other knitwear these days, I’ll continue to swatch. It’s cheap (in terms of time and materials) insurance that my precious knitting time won’t be wasted. Of course, wasted time is in the eye of the knitter – what I consider a waste of time you may not! But just for the sake of argument, next time you start a new project, take the time to do what I’ve described above as a useful gauge swatch and see if you find it helpful. Then make your final decision!

Shetland Shawls and Me

My knitting plans for this year were fairly simple. Make a summer sweater or two, socks for the winter, a sweater vest for my DH, and spin for a shawl for myself. Life, as it so frequently does, had other ideas.

Occasionally, like most knitters, I get ambitious. Six years ago when we were expecting our first grandchild, I wanted something quite special to welcome that new life into the family. Not considering all the possible repercussions, I pulled about 5 ounces of merino/clun forest fleece from the stash and spun most of it very, very fine, plying for a gossamer-weight two-ply yarn.

I then proceeded to knit a simple Shetland shawl – technically, a hap– with a garter-stitch center section and a wide border of Feather and Fan. That shawl was, to put it mildly, well-received; used for that grandson’s christening and then lovingly packed away to be used for his bride and their children.

Now fast-forward to the late winter/early spring of 2010. My Navy NCO son and daughter-in-law have announced that they are expecting their first child in October. And my darling son has made it clear that he would like for me to make another shawl for this baby. This is how traditions get started in our family…but I still think making an heirloom piece is a wonderful thing to do for a new baby, and I’m off and running.

First I put out the word for more fleece from, if possible, that same sheep. Why that particular sheep? My sons knew him! Luckily, the shepherd (a good friend) had some of the fleece, in roving form, stuck back and was willing to part with it under these circumstances. So I picked it up at a hastily-arranged luncheon in late February and took it home to start spinning.

Since I love designing things, I began designing the shawl as I spun. Again, I spun a gossamer two-ply of about 55 wpi. Definitely a bit on the fine side! But this particular fleece fluffs up beautifully, and the washed yarn is closer to 45 wpi. About 1200 yards and 4.5 ounces later, I was ready to start knitting. The plan I conceived was for a Fir Cone central square surrounded by a Tree of Life border and a Crest o’ the Wave edging.

The central square was planned as a Fir Cone pattern knit on the diagonal. I thought that pattern reflected the mountains of Western Washington and their covering of evergreens quite well, and would give a reminder of the family’s whereabouts when this child was born.

I did, however, feel the need for a large swatch, so I spun a bit extra and cast three stitches onto size 2 needles, then followed the Fir Cone pattern as shown below, increasing each row by K1, yo and inserting patterns as needed to fill the space. When I reached 8 repeats, I removed the stitches from the needle to a cotton yarn, soaked and then blocked to get some idea of the number of repeats necessary to reach the 24-inch square I wanted.

If you plan to use these charts, be advised that there’s a knit row between each pattern row. Stitch conventions are pretty standard as far as yarn-overs and single- or double-decreases are concerned.



This was something of a challenge to knit, since the stacked double-decreases at the exact top of the stacked yarn-overs makes for a popcorn-looking texture on the needles. I wasn’t at all sure that I wouldn’t end up pulling the entire thing back out if those decreases didn’t block flat – that was one of the reasons for such a large sample. The other reason, of course, was to have a ‘working copy’ on which to try out the other elements of the pattern.

Reassured by the blocked sample that the shawl would indeed block flat, I cast on again for the actual shawl and started knitting. When I reached the 17 repeats necessary for the 24-inch square, I began the decreases in a mirror fashion to the increases; K2tog, yo, k2tog at the beginning of each row, using up pattern repeats as I went.

After again reaching 3 stitches, I k3tog and bound off that stitch. Next step was to wash and block the square, since I had decided that it would make picking up all those stitches (140 each side = 560 total stitches) much easier – and it did!

I had originally thought to use a single, small 20-stitch repeat Tree of Life pattern followed by a larger version spaced between the small repeats. But I changed my mind while picking up stitches and reworked the chart to do three offset rows of trees instead. I decided that the large trees were just too large for a small person. The chart is shown below, rotated 180-degrees simply because I’m feeling too lazy to switch it around.



I’m presently at row 16 of the chart, beginning the decrease portion of the first line of trees. Other than the slow-seeming purl rounds, it’s going well – and the slowness of those rounds is strictly illusion. I clocked a pattern row and a purl row, and there’s no difference in the actual time required to knit them.

The shawl is shaping up just as I’d hoped – it appears as if the fir cones have fallen from the trees. Again, this is a reflection of the Washington coastline. On a visit a couple of years back, my husband and I drove up the peninsula, marveling at the way the evergreen-covered mountains tumble into the bay.

The final touch will be to knit on the edging. I thought Crest ‘o the Wave would be appropriate, both for the family background (my dad was also an NCO in the Navy) and the ocean surrounding the peninsula where the children live. I’m planning to use Eunny Jung’s variation from her Print o’ the Wave Stole pattern (www.eunnyjang.com/images/knit/0511joycesscarf/stole_print_o_the_wave.pdf), since I prefer it to the ‘standard’ Shetland variation. I’m debating whether to use a garter-stitch ground or the stockinette she shows in her pattern, but since I’ve chosen garter for the rest of the shawl, I’ll probably go with that.

Photos of shawls in progress are pretty bleah, but here’s one for those who can visualize the finished product from the cleaning rag it appears to be now.



Returning to the subject of family traditions, there’s a second installment to this story. Turns out I need to complete another shawl, for another grandchild, before year’s end. While another grandchild is always fantastic news, I must admit that as a knitter I’m a bit overwhelmed. A lace shawl every year or two (or six) isn’t too bad – you’ve got plenty of time to spin, design and knit, and I enjoy the challenge of doing so intermittently. But knitting two shawls in less than a single year is enough to panic even me just a bit!

I’m currently trying to decide whether to start spinning the superfine Jamison & Smith Shetland top I bought (as a possible fiber for a shawl for myself next year) or simply work on the design for the present and leave the spinning until the current shawl is complete. There’s a part of me that is leery of starting another spinning project while I’m still working with this yarn; what if 1200 yards isn’t enough to complete the shawl? I’m doing my usual ‘just in case’ on that possibility – spinning 20-30 yards of the merino/clun forest every couple of days so that I can match the yarn I’ve used to date.

But since designing can be done while knitting (even knitting a different pattern!), I do have a preliminary design in mind for this second shawl. Different parents, different personal histories, so a very different shawl. I’m considering a center star surrounded by Celtic knots flowing into a framed rose pattern for the border. Knit in the round, but with increases placed (after the star is complete) so as to form a square, or perhaps an octagon. I’ll likely continue the rose motif into the edging, unless I find a pattern I like better. Stockinette ground rather than garter. Yes, a very different shawl.

I can hear someone asking if there aren’t enough lovely patterns out there for me to find one that will suit me instead of going through the design process. The short answer is “probably.” The longer explanation is that I want these shawls/baby blankets to be absolutely unique, as is each of these children. These are to be heirlooms, passed down from generation to generation. Each will be accompanied by an explanation of the patterns chosen, and tell the story of how, why and by whom it was made. Luckily, my children grew up with the mindset that certain handmade things are quite special and worthy of protection from the rough and tumble of daily use. So I can count on them to keep these shawls in such a way that they will be available for future generations.

There’s also the fact that I have great difficulty following someone else’s pattern. I want my own individual stamp on anything I make. Otherwise, why spend all that time and energy?

So if you don’t hear much from me for the remainder of this year, now you know why. As happens all too frequently in life, plans for this year have changed drastically– and I’m trying to keep up!

And The Wheel Spins ‘Round

It’s funny how our fiber journeys wind around and around. I started, 40-plus years ago, as a seamstress, quilter and crocheter. Give or take a couple of years, I added other types of sewing and pattern-making in my 20’s; tatting and four-harness weaving and needle lace in my 30’s; spinning, knitting, and multiple-harness weaving in my 40’s. Now I’m in my 50’s and teaching almost all of these things in turn to a whole new group – and not a few members of my own generation!

Teaching is something I’ve always done. As a girl, I was the oldest – so I taught my younger cousins the same things my great-grandmother and grandmother had taught me. As a teen in the 1960’s, I taught the other young people around me to crochet and sew the stuff we wanted. In my 20’s, 30’s and 40’s I taught sewing and other crafting techniques as an income supplement – and I’m still doing the same today. I’ve never really expanded my teaching focus beyond the local area, and have yet to write that book I keep thinking about. I don’t yet feel an overwhelming need to do those things; I’m happy with my local teaching gigs. They’re fun, fulfilling, and I’m always learning something new from my students.

And learning is also something I’ve always done. Most of my fiber arts techniques were learned pre-internet, largely from books and magazines and other artists. Learning intermediate weaving techniques and re-learning to knit more or less coincided with the surge in internet use, and I’ve learned a lot on-line. Ravelry and the Knitters’ Review Forums have taken on a life quite unlike the weaving bulletin boards and lists of the 1990’s! Regardless of the resources available online, however, I’m still a bibliophile – I collect books on all the arts I practice. When I die my children are going to have quite a chore just sorting through all the books in the house! Then they’ll need to decide what to do with them… Luckily I’ll no longer be around to see the long-suffering looks and hear the sighs!

You’d think that after years of practicing various fiber arts I’d have stopped purchasing new books. Nope! I have become more choosey about what I buy, though. My focus has never been on pattern books (I like to make up my own patterns!), but I’m still a sucker for design books. Take knitting, for example: I’ve got stitch dictionaries galore, all the “must-have” design books (Righetti, Zimmerman, Walker, Gibson-Roberts), including some of the newcomers like Wendy Barnard, and most of the lace design books out there. I have fewer spinning books per se (Alden Amos, Judith McKenzie McCuin, etc.), but literally decades worth of Spin-Off magazines.

I’ve always found books a wonderful repository of wisdom. They let you see what other people have done and how – and more importantly, why – and give you a starting point for your own explorations. I’d never have become much of a knitter if I hadn’t stumbled across EZ’s Knitting Without Tears in my local library. I would have drowned in knitting patterns and never gathered the knowledge and courage to strike out with my own designs! Ditto Spin-Off, which held my hand between spinning guild meetings and led me gently down the path to trusting my own instincts about fiber.

Creativity spawns more creativity. I think that’s why so many of us gather together within our chosen disciplines, and within related ones as well. Ideas come from so many sources, and one idea may generate another that bears little or no relationship to the first! Each of us brings our own experiences to bear on our art; but we borrow from the experiences of others, as well.

Fiber people are amazingly generous. They’re willing to share their knowledge, experiences, tips, tricks and failures with fellow travelers. As artists, we do learn from someone else’s failure; sometimes we try to do something similar while avoiding the things that made them fail. Many times this leads to a success; sometimes it leads to another failure – but from a different cause! And we get back together and share those stories, which leads to more experimentation, which leads to more successes or failures, which leads to more stories…you get the idea.

Books take this wealth or experience and distill it. Yes, you have only one voice in a book – but that one voice, if you’re lucky, brings decades of experience along with it, both the writer’s and that of those around her. I think the books that become classics in a given field do this particularly well. They generally have something else in common as well; they’re written in a very human fashion. We become friends with the author. Elizabeth Zimmerman is probably the quintessential example of this, but there are numerous others.

One of the things I hope I teach my students is that the knowledge they need is in many different places – not only online. Yes, the online community is a wonderful resource. But internet connections go down; computers break; cell phones are terrible web browsers. Besides, you may not have the leisure to wade through 3,000 links to find the one with the information you need. A book lives silently on a shelf until you need it, and it won’t disappear like the link you bookmarked five years ago. A fiber friend is a phone call or a short distance away. Inspiration is found in unlikely places; it works best coupled with a bit of perspiration. But it can be lost or diluted while you’re clicking on links – focus is necessary for fruition.

And the wheel turns around…From being a student, I’ve become one of the older practitioners – I’m now the “go to” person. Yet I’m still a student myself. I’ve signed up for a quilting class next month. Except for minor projects, I haven’t quilted in 20 years. But I have this idea for taking some of my wool hand-woven and hand-knit fabrics…

Musings on My Current Class…

I’m finishing a sweater class right now at my LYS. I sweated over the class instructions for literally months, re-writing, editing, changing and re-writing yet again. Mostly because this class isn’t supposed to teach students how to make a single sweater pattern. No, this one is titled “Knitting to Fit” and is designed to show knitters how to modify a design or design a well-fitting sweater for themselves.

There are nine of us in the class, including me. We’re in all sizes; even the three or four of us who have a petite height and frame have widely-varying measurements. Including those who wear exactly the same size! Our body types are different, ranging from oval to hourglass to triangle to rectangular. And most of the class members are making different types of sweaters, ranging from set-in sleeves to raglan and yoked styles. A couple are going bottom-up, most top-down. Most are using wool or wool blends – one chose cotton. It’s definitely a challenge for the instructor!

Just to keep it interesting (I know I’m nuts), I set myself a task for the class, too. I’m using three-ply handspun Blue-faced Leicester in a fingering weight – about 2000 yards per pound – in natural gray-taupe and some white that I space-dyed at the roving stage. I’ve made several raglan or yoked sweaters from the top down for the grandkids, but not for myself, so that’s my challenge – a yoked/raglan combo sweater knitted on size 3 needles. I finished it up this weekend, and love it! It fits beautifully, and shows me as well as the class members that knitting, done properly, is indeed a beautiful thing!

Needless to say, we’ve made extensive use of reference materials in this class. I’ve been lugging a box of books by Zimmerman, Walker, Righetti, Gibson-Roberts and others to each class, and using them. Class members have purchased their favorites to use, as well. Several years back, by using bits and pieces from each of these knitting icons, I finally learned to make a sweater that fits well, not only for myself, but for anyone else I could measure. And that’s what I’ve tried to communicate to my students.

The knitting is almost incidental to this class, in a way. Learning about the different body types and what looks good on them, learning measuring and shaping techniques, discovering how to control your knitting and trust your instincts, planning your knitting and how to make a useful swatch are the most important things. Techniques for set-in sleeves that are knitted from the shoulder down, re-figuring raglan lines, learning provisional cast-ons and learning to incorporate stitch patterns into shaping options are second in importance. Doing the actual knitting is almost anticlimactic.

So why is everyone making a sweater rather than a single enormous swatch? Because nothing teaches like a successful project. Besides, swatches that go on forever are…well, boring…even if they are terribly useful! Part of making a sweater is falling in love with it - choosing the yarn and needles, choosing the fabric you want to make, transferring the measurements you have to the garment you want to make, knowing how to modify details so that you can change a shawl collar to a ribbed band without anguish. And all of that is much more fun to do in full-size rather than in miniature.

Could I have chosen a single sweater style (perhaps a set-in sleeve, fitted style with princess lines), designed the sweater and the pattern, and taught how to modify it? Yes, and I considered that. But I eventually decided against it, because my aim for this class is for everyone to make a sweater that they love. And not everyone likes to wear set-in sleeves and fitted, princess lines.

Did I perhaps bite off more than I can possibly chew? Perhaps. Although so far (seven sessions into the eight of the class), I don’t believe so. What I was hoping for is happening instead. Knitters are making different sweater styles, and are helping and learning from one another. Only one knitter chose to use a pattern – everyone else is designing their own sweater! This class is proving what I’ve always known about fiber folks – they’re unfailingly generous with their time, their expertise and their encouragement, and much, much smarter than they think they are!

This is indeed turning out to be a very successful class. As I hoped, my students now feel empowered to change whatever they like in a knitted design, with confidence that they won’t encounter any problems that can’t be solved with a bit of ingenuity, a willingness to rip as needed, and asking questions of other knitters! They have also gained the confidence to design and make their very own garments, which is a wonderful bonus. I’ve loved this class, and hope to do many more like it!

Why Do We Make It So Hard?

I’d like to start by saying that I know I’m not any smarter than my grandmother. Or you. My skill set is different from hers due to the time and place I live; I have no need to kill, pluck and cut apart a chicken to fix for dinner, for example, just as my grandmother had no need to learn to operate a computer.

Nonetheless, Grandma and I have some things in common. She was a gutsy lady who never gave up when she wanted to do a thing. It earned her the appellation “stubborn” from her husband and children on occasion, as it does me, my mother, my daughter and most of my female cousins. I’ve never understood why it’s ‘persistence’ when a man wants you to learn something, and ‘stubbornness’ when he finds your focus inconvenient, but that’s a rant for another time.

Grandma was also an accomplished analytical thinker, again from necessity. She had to plan sufficient garden each year to feed her family of sixteen, including an allowance for varmint depredations, weather variations, and other possible catastrophes like illness. There needed to be enough to share with those less fortunate, too. She needed to save enough seed for the next year’s planting, and devise critter-proof storage for that seed – otherwise her family would go hungry. Since canning and drying were the only preservation methods, she needed to know how many jars she needed and in what sizes, as well as how many seals and lids were required for those jars each year.

She needed to know exactly how much flour, meal, sugar and salt (not to mention other staples like baking powder and soda) she would require for 4-6 months at a time, that being the usual amount of time between visits to town. Ditto fabric requirements so that she’d have enough cloth to keep everyone covered and warm. How much yarn or fiber it would take to knit socks, mittens, scarves and hats for everyone for the winter, as well as occasional sweaters.

She needed to decide how many piglets to sell and which one(s) to keep, how many chickens to allow to sit their eggs rather than using those eggs for breakfast, and how much grain to feed the steer for proper fattening. All necessary skills, and ones she learned well enough to raise a large, healthy brood in an era when many people lost more children than they raised to adulthood. Grandma had to learn to plan ahead to manage that, so she learned.

Yes, we have it much easier day to day. Groceries come from a supermarket where we can purchase them fresh, frozen or canned in infinite variety and from all corners of the globe. Cooking can be as simple or as complicated as the cook desires. Vacuum cleaners are both faster and easier than sweeping and beating rugs. Central heating and electric or gas stoves beat a fireplace and coal- or wood-fueled stoves all hollow, even if you don’t include the mess involved in cleaning them. I’ll take indoor plumbing and hot-water heaters over an outhouse and water heated on the stovetop anytime. I prefer a daily shower to a weekly bath. If I want or need something from the next town, I can be there in 20 minutes, including putting on my good jeans and finding my car keys.

So why do we make it so tough on ourselves? We make that 20-minute drive twice a day instead of keeping a list and going once or twice a week. Our usual reason? ________ (Fill in the blank with husband, child, etc.’s name) needs it now. But why do they need it now?

I absolutely believe a sign I’ve had hanging in my office for years. It reads, “A lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.” I first saw that more years ago than I want to acknowledge, in the office of an office practices instructor at a local college. It made good sense to me – and didn’t only apply to the gentlemen (in most cases) with whom I worked.

An older lady who attended our church was horrified one afternoon to hear me tell my then seven-year-old, “I’ll take care of it as soon as I finish this.” She thought I should have dropped whatever I was doing to run and respond to a very minor request. I was astonished, and informed her that as long as the child wasn’t hurt, I considered what I was doing at least as important as his request. I’ve never seen any reason to change that attitude, and think that may be part of the reason my DH and I managed to raise three fairly considerate adults.

So I’ll reiterate: why do we make it so hard for ourselves? Rather than show and teach our children (or spouse) that they truly don’t need every single thing right now; that they can learn to plan ahead, thus saving time and resources and perhaps even fostering a bit of imaginative thinking; we jump and run. This leaves us all too often feeling exhausted, martyred, and inconsequential. Grandma may have felt the first two on occasion, but I’m fairly sure she never felt the last one! She knew quite well that her well-being mattered to the people who depended on her.
You may very well be asking what brought this on…and I can truly answer that I’m not sure. Perhaps it has something to do with having to work these past couple of weekends and not getting any of the usual Christmas stuff done; and then discovering that my DH is perfectly happy to take care of any of that stuff that matters to him all by himself. Perhaps it has something to do with my remembering how to say “no” to some of the chores I’ve always done - due to both a lack of time and a dislike for paying the price in pain and suffering.

Maybe those things are part of the reason I actually enjoyed Christmas this year. Instead of rushing around trying to do everything to make the holiday perfect for everyone near and dear to me, I sat back and reflected on the past 25 or so Christmases and the years between them. Discovering links in strange places, and abilities I’d forgotten I had, such as planning errands to all be done in a single afternoon on the way home from work. Perhaps it has something to do with combining an unplanned evening of Christmas shopping and a lovely dinner with my DH after work last Saturday. Or enjoying time spent around my son and his girl doing nothing much.

The only thing that’s been a constant is the phrase that’s been running through my head: “Why do we make it so hard?” And I can’t think of a single reason why we should. So I’ll close by wishing you a happy 2010 with plenty of time to simply enjoy the best things around you: warmth, food you didn’t have to raise (or that you did, if that’s your thing to do), and the company of the people you choose to love.

New Spinners...are wonderful!

The spindling class ended Saturday at lunchtime. I'm quite pleased - out of six students, I had three total fiberholic spinners! The remaining three students learned what they wanted from the class - a lot more about how yarns are formed and how to choose them for their projects. So I can call this one a success, I think.

New spinners are full of enthusiasm! They find everything about spinning fascinating, want to produce enormous amounts of various yarns in various weights as quickly as possible, and want to push the envelope as far as it will go. After learning spindling basics, dyeing is the next possibility, and the final class included quite a bit of information on that.

Spinning wheels are probably in the near future for all three of these students, although each is loving spinning on spindles. We talked about the way spindles can be stored, since they're already interested in spinning different weights. We have one crocheter and two who both knit and crochet; one wants to learn weaving immediately.

It was a good class, with lively discussions and lots of input from very bright folks who already knew a good bit about fibers. They'll challenge each other and themselves, and expand the frontiers of spinning knowledge a bit further during our fourth Saturday afternoon gatherings, which will be held at Clinch River Yarn Company beginning about 2:00 pm.

Rant Warning! In Defense of Designers!

All of you are well aware that I'm a total fiber junkie who explores odd nooks and crannies that might hold yarn and fiber wherever I happen to be. Most of you know that I teach various fiber-related classes. Some of you also know that I design knitting, weaving, tatting and crochet patterns, although I keep that fairly quiet. I prefer to help others design rather than have people making my designs.

Yesterday afternoon I was indulging my fiber junkie in a most unexpected way. I actually found a small local store that carries some basic (and decent!) yarns and was happily poking around in a back corner. This place does not advertise itself as a yarn store, and the only reason they carry yarn is that the owner's wife crochets and knits. I was there for a completely un-fiber-related reason, and the yarn was a lovely bonus.

So I'm poking around behind a pillar, happily fondling some skeins, when another customer enters. I carefully put down the skein I was currently cuddling to my cheek (some people simply don't understand yarn etiquette) and prepared to act like a normal person until she had concluded her business and left. The other customer seemed like a nice lady, probably a little older than I, and from her conversation an equally- doting grandmother. But then she made three comments that revealed her as a complete fiend! "I DID follow the pattern - and the sweater didn't fit at all!" To compound matters, she then commented that she never did get gauge with the recommended needles, although she used them for the entire sweater! Her final comment was "If I couldn't do any better than that, I wouldn't have the nerve to make people pay for the pattern!"

You would be so proud of me! I didn't know her, it wasn't my LYS, she wasn't a student of mine, and so I kept my mouth shut. I made none of the snarky comments that were clamoring for release, biting my tongue instead. But this overheard encounter festered through yesterday evening's sit and knit at my LYS; I actually dreamed about it last night; and this morning I've decided to have my say.

First is a sore point of long standing. Patterns are a record of how one (or perhaps two or three) knitters made a certain design to specified measurements. They aren't edicts from a higher power, and you can't leave your brain and common sense behind when you decide to knit that pattern. If all you want to do is completely mindless knitting, stick to knitting items where size doesn't matter. Scarves, shawls, dishcloths, bags, items to be felted later...there are many items at myriad skill levels that don't require fitting. They can keep a knitter happy for decades.

Second, if your actual measurements don't match those stated in the pattern, the resulting garment won't fit you. Don't whine about it and don't blame the designer. You are as your genes and your life choices have made you, and if those have culminated in a 5-foot nothing, 150-pound top-heavy grandmother, you can't logically expect a design created for a 5-foot 8-inch, 135 pound woman with a B cup size to fit!

Finally, if you DO choose to make a knitted item following a pattern marketed by a designer who (I guarantee!) sweated for hours over the details you love, engage your brain and common sense BEFORE you pick up your needles! Do a large gauge swatch in the same knitting technique (back and forth or in the round, in stockinette or in pattern, as specified by the designer) in a yarn identical to or as close as possible to the fiber and weight of the original design. (No, I didn't say color - color doesn't matter - only fiber type and yarn weight!)

Measure, then wash that swatch, let it dry, then measure it again. If your measurements differ from the gauge specified in the pattern, change needles appropriately, make another swatch in the same knitting technique (back and forth or in the round, in stockinette or in pattern, as specified by the designer) in a yarn identical to or as close as possible to the fiber and weight of the original design. Measure, wash the second swatch, let it dry, then measure it again. If your measurements still differ from those specified by the designer, change needles appropriately and do it a third time. Continue as required until your gauge matches the one in the pattern!

If you can't be bothered to perform this step as many times as it takes, don't whine about it when the garment doesn't drape or fit like the one in the photo! The fault isn't with the designer - it's with you! Ditto if you decide to use worsted weight cotton yarn for a design that was made with fingering-weight wool-silk blend. Don't blame the designer for your own choices!

All right, you did five gauge swatches in a fingering-weight wool-silk blend until you got gauge with a needle three sizes smaller than the designer recommended for that same yarn. You chose the bust measurement closest to your own, cast on and knitted as directed, decreasing, increasing, binding off, etc., as specified. The garment STILL doesn't fit. That can't be my fault - it's got to be a bad design!

When and where did you leave your brain, may I ask? There is more to a body than a bust measurement! Some of us are short-waisted, some are long-waisted. Some have hourglass figures, some are straight from hips to shoulders. Remember my second point above? "If your actual measurements don't match those stated in the pattern, the resulting garment won't fit you."

Before you cast on (while your gauge swatch(es) are drying?) sit down with the pattern, a (gasp!) calculator and a list of your own measurements. If the pattern has 6 inches (at the row gauge given) between the hip and the waist, and you have 4.5, make the necessary adjustments to the pattern! If the pattern calls for an 8-inch armhole and you need 9.5, make the necessary adjustments to the pattern! If you need short-rows to accommodate your bust, plan them out before you cast on - decide how many rows you need, how you'll incorporate them into the stitch pattern, and how far above the hem and below the armholes you need to place them.

Do this and any other planning before you cast on. Then knit, trying on as you go. If your plan isn't working, as demonstrated by trying the in-progress garment on your actual body, analyze why and fix it! Don't ever be afraid to rip out knitting - you like to knit, remember? If you rip out, you'll simply have more knitting to do!

All this ranting boils down to two simple points. Every single body is different. Every single knitter must learn how to make a plan for their own knitting.

Of course you can start with a pattern - designers themselves start with a general idea of what they want. Just don't leave your brain behind and allow someone else to make all the decisions for you! It doesn't work in knitting any better than it works in life.

Rant is now complete!

I'm So Proud...

My spinning class on Saturday got off to a great start! Of course there were the usual beginning bobbles and fluffs, but by the end of the class everyone was making yarn! I'm so proud of these ladies - they're truly wonderful and such good sports!

My ramblings last week appear to have borne something or other. I did indeed break down the spindling process to minimal bits, starting with fondling and dissecting the spindles, then moving on to the fiber itself. We pulled a single fiber to check length, pulled a couple more to check how easy it was to break them, pulled and twisted a few to see what difference that made, etc., etc., etc. Baby steps? Sure! But everybody learns to walk with baby steps!

We stopped with park and draft, and everyone promised at least 15 minutes of practice each day. For those who emailed me directly to ask, we're using Louet Octo spindles and Louet's BFL top. This is a nice top, with enough tooth to help beginners along, yet enough sheen and softness to keep knitters' fingers happy.

I do like Louet's fibers, although I'm not as crazy about their spindles, and the Octo spindles are a perfect example of why. These spindles came in very rough. Careful sanding was required before they could be used, so as to smooth the many rough spots without affecting the balance. Luckily, the spindles arrived enough in advance of the first class to allow this to be done.

On the plus side, the spindles could be individualized with permanent markers in various colors and a couple of coats of beeswax and lemon oil made the sanded wood feel warmer and much more pleasant in the hands. The spindles function well, with excellent balance and a long spin time. Also on the plus side, the hooks are very sturdy and seem to travel well. However, it makes me a bit unhappy to purchase a fixer-upper that isn't labeled as such.

Saturday we'll travel a bit further along the road to fiber addiction, taking a look at the various ways to wind a cop, plying options, and moving from park and draft to drop spindling. We'll talk about finishing yarn - washing, weighting to dry (or not) and some of the commercial fiber options out there. Creating new fiber addicts is so much fun!

Spindling Class Begins Saturday!

A note to any of my students who read this prior to the class: you WILL succeed in learning to spindle - as long as you're willing to give yourself time to learn. Muscle memory isn't built in a single two-hour class, or even in three. It's built with patient practice, a little bit every day. It's akin to learning to play a musical instrument; in order to become proficient you must not only study theory (learn about fiber), but practice playing (spindling). Everyone knows that learning to play an instrument takes some time. So be gentle with yourself, and grant yourself the time needed to learn. The reward, as with music, is a lifetime of pleasure.

Now to the blog entry! I'm teaching a spindling class beginning on Saturday. My LYS is offering it because there's a lot of interest - partially engendered by my sitting and spindling or wheel spinning at Thursday evening work sessions and before or after my knitting classes. Not to mention showing off fiber purchases!

I'm looking forward to the class, especially since all the students have become fiber buddies, either through taking a previous class or sharing time at the shop. While I teach spinning one-on-one on a regular basis, it's been a couple of years since I taught multiple students simultaneously, and those classes are always fun. (I work hard to make them fun!)

I've been thinking a lot as I go about the studio and house getting everything ready. Not about the tools or the fibers, or even the instructional materials - I've been thinking about spinning itself. Turning it around in my mind, so to speak. Since I already know and like these folks, I'm investing a lot of myself in this class (even more so than usual). I truly want them all to succeed in learning this new skill so we can share that as well as our knitting and crochet. My thoughts have ranged widely, dissecting past classes and trying to incorporate lessons I've learned from teaching so many through the past fifteen-plus years. Since writing things out helps my thought processes, here goes!

The basis of spinning is deceptively simple - start the spindle going, pinch, pull, release the prepared fiber until the spindle is at the floor, then gather that make on your hand and transfer it to the spindle shaft; begin again. Children get it in no time - my grandchildren could spin usable yarn by the age of five, and my then pre-teen children were spinning wonderful yarn well before I was. Adults, on the other hand, find it more challenging. Perhaps because we've already built long-standing muscle memories for other skills; perhaps because we're not as tuned to our bodies as children. I have no idea. I simply offer it as an observed fact.

I've tried in several ways to communicate that to my students, with less success than I would like. They watch me demonstrate, listen to the steps, then many get discouraged when their muscles don't perform perfectly the first time - or even the tenth. Reminders that spinning requires muscle memory and practice to build that memory fall on already-discouraged ears. And at least one or two decide that they 'can't' spindle. (These are usually the same ones who want to spin enough to go ahead and invest in a wheel, practice even more steps on that until they have the muscle memory built, then come back to spindling a couple of years later to find that it isn't nearly as difficult as they thought. More on these students later.)

Perhaps it has to do with our initial monetary investment. A good spindle costs $20 to $60 - a couple or three of hours of work at most local jobs. So we expect to learn in a similar proportion of our time. A good wheel runs several hundred dollars or our salary for a week or more of work. So we work longer at mastering the instrument in which we've invested more hard-earned dollars. We have to justify the spending. I'm not sure this explains the motivations of everyone who gives up on spindling and goes on to wheel spinning, but I have seen it happen in about half of the cases of people who decide they 'can't' spindle.

Some students do spend the time to develop the muscle memory for the basic steps, but are unhappy with their beginner yarn. After they learn to spin, shouldn't they be producing perfectly even singles within a few hours at most? Explanations that practice is the only medium by which a beginner reaches intermediate or master status again fall on ears un-tuned to that wavelength. The spindle they bought gathers dust for a while, then gets put into a yard sale or tossed out with the trash during spring cleaning. Such a shame.

Still other students decide that spindling is too slow. They master the muscle memory, and make good yarn. But they don't comprehend the contemplative nature of the dance. The meditative pace of preparing fiber and then spinning, dyeing and finishing yarn distresses them rather than providing a sanctuary. Sometimes these students persist and eventually tune into the melody of history and nature, becoming dedicated spinners and even teachers themselves; sometimes they go back to buying all their yarns because spinning is 'just too slow.' Again, a shame.

The students who come to learn the dance, on the other hand, are frequently the ones who stay with spindling. Their expectations are simple and varied - to learn something new, to learn to use a tool they find fascinating, to make a connection with history or to make their own yarns from their own sheep. Or perhaps just to inject some calm and a semblance of control into their life. These students aren't always the ones who learn the fastest - sometimes they struggle long after the class ends. But they see something in spindling that appeals to them at a level they can't always express. They are the students who start out as spinners, requiring only the skills and practice to succeed.

Of course, there are the occasional students who pick up a spindle, hook it into fiber they've instinctively pre-drafted, give it a twirl, and begin to spin perfect lace-weight singles immediately. It truly is instinct for these lucky few - they seem to channel the spirits of spinners who have come before them. They make a teacher look good, and tend to earn the envy (at least) of their fellow students (grin).

I tend to feel for the other students when a student like this appears in a class. I struggled a bit myself in the beginning. And didn't have the luxury of doing so in private - I learned to spindle at a public demonstration, by demonstrating for the public! So all my first over-twisted singles, dropped spindles when I compensated by under-twisting, and lumpy, misshapen beginner yarn were observed by a couple of hundred strangers who all felt free to comment on my mistakes. After that sort of public humiliation, I simply HAD to learn to spin. So I practiced doggedly, learning mostly on my own, but watching other spinners at every opportunity. I was one of those spinners who 'couldn't' learn on a spindle, by the way. But when I invested a week's salary in a used wheel, I forced myself to practice until I mastered it all.

Upon coming back to spindling, I found something I had missed in wheel spinning - a level of contemplation and calm I found essential to my well-being. Now I spindle and wheel spin, and love both for different reasons, even though the final product, yarn, is identical in both cases. So identical that I frequently can't tell later which way I originally spun the yarn!

Hoping for a high level of student success as well as even more fun, this time I've broken the instruction down into the most basic single components. We'll complete one stage before we move to the next. We'll begin with fondling, investigating, and tearing apart a little fiber, then move on to basic drafting. We'll add finger-twisting, then hooked-stick twisting, and then team spindling. Only after we've done all those will we actually tie a leader onto a spindle, loop prepared fibers through, and begin park and draft spindling one at a time. This may not (probably won't) all happen the first week, but hopefully by the end of the third week I'll have seven new spinners to add to the fold, and three weeks of happy memories on which we can all build!

Those Fingerless Mitts I Mentioned...

Those were truly a fun project - and one from which I learned a lot (again) about spinning for a specific purpose! But let's start at the beginning of the story. Picture me climbing into the passenger seat of a very high full-size van en route to do something undefined at that strange place where I earn the money I put into necessities like fiber and yarn.

My partner in staving off tedium threw a red blob in my general direction. "Hey, you knit, right? Can you make these? I go through about five pairs a winter cleaning out the barn."

Well, that's a challenge! What are these necessities for the horsey...good grief - these are just fingerless mitts!

"Why on earth do you go through so many?" I questioned.

"Because hay and pitchforks are tough on dime-store mitts," he replied. "These are crap!"

I took a closer look. While probably not literally dime-store mitts (anybody got a dime-store around these days?), they weren't what I would expect to see as working wear. Loosely-spun and -plied acrylic yarn, knit at a gauge that, while perfect for a sweater, isn't too good for something you're planning to wear while actually working. The palms were abraded by the pitchfork handle, the ribbing at wrist and fingers too short and also abraded, and the backs of the hands picked almost to pieces by the hay.

I cogitated for a couple of weeks. It is summer, so I had plenty of time. Every once in a while, my brain would throw out a question for my partner in the effort. "Does color matter?" "Put your hand down on this piece of paper and let me draw around it." I threw a couple of swatches (knit in the round from various handspun samples) in the right general direction and asked, "Is this OK, or is it too prickly?" We both withstood the teasing that came our way from our co-workers.

The result of this was a two-ply sport-weight yarn worsted-spun from about 2 ounces of gray Corriedale top purchased from somewhere or other several years ago that's been marinating in my stash. Bradford count on this was low for Corriedale - about 52 - so it was a good, sturdy yarn. I did try three-plying, by the way, but the mitts were more like armor (too stiff and too heavy for East Tennessee), so I dropped back to two-ply. Firmly spun and firmly plied. Final yarn is 16 wpi. Then I started swatching again, wanting a firm fabric that wasn't so stiff it wouldn't move with the hands. A final gauge of 6 sts and 8.5 rows per inch on size 2 needles worked out quite well.

These are simple, fingerless mitts. Patterns abound, and I won't post another one here. I did "modify" them to fit the needs of the wearer with longer cuffs (3.5 inches to slide under a barn jacket) and tighter fit (negative ease of about an inch) to keep them from sliding around on the pitchfork. The gauge was firm enough to keep hay from scratching through the mitts. I kept it simple despite an impulse to make a button-back mitten over the fingers.

I tossed them on my buddy's desk last week. He was totally delighted! But he's a Minnesota boy who appreciates warm, well-made knitwear. Otherwise, despite the intriguing nature of the challenge, I wouldn't have bothered. Just goes to show that a challenge (and appreciation) can come from the most unlikely places...

Teaching thinking knitters...

I'm having such fun right now! A new LYS has opened up right down the road from my home, and I'm happily teaching my first knitting class in almost a year. Socks are fun to teach, fun to learn, and such a wonderful summer project! I have five wonderful students, all at different stages of their knitting life, and they're providing both a challenge and a camaraderie that I've been missing recently. Work has just been interfering too much with my fiber life!

I'm a bit of a shock to these lovely knitters in several ways - hopefully a pleasant shock, but nonetheless a shock. I announced first that we wouldn't be using a pattern for their socks - they would have to create their own pattern. At least two of the students had taken the class specifically because it would include design elements, and the newest knitter is wonderfully courageous, so that's settled. Next was the announcement that I didn't care what knitting method they used; any system that gets a knitted fabric is fine with me.

We talked about fiber. My Fiber 101 lecture has been given here before, so I won't repeat. Some of these students have been knitting for decades, but strictly by pattern, and know surprisingly little about the raw stuff of yarn itself. One of my goals for this class is to teach them how to intelligently choose a fiber. Yes, this is a sock class - but this is basic information that all knitters should learn, and too many of them don't! Superwash has different characteristics than untreated wool, nylon and acrylic blends have yet other characteristics, and a good gauge swatch will tell you so much more than you think at first glance!

The next shock? Measuring their foot as an aid to assist in creating the sock design. The difference in six (with my own) individual feet was a surprise to everyone in this time of standardized sizes. Almost everyone will have a different cast-on number, some will need to decrease down the leg, others will need additional gusset decreases to fit properly...light bulbs started to pop, and I became almost giddy!

The final shock for this class? To look at their gauge swatch as a method of playing with different design elements. Swatching as play? Absolutely! It's the best place to try out the different ribbings you might want to use, see how those flow into the leg patterning you want, see how things change between the patterning and the stockinette you'll use on the bottom of the foot, check out if your stitch pattern will show up in the yarn...of course you're playing!

Many thanks to Sandy and Robin for opening Clinch River Yarn Company - a lovely haven for knitters in the East Tennessee area. Please visit their website at http://www.clinchriveryarns.com/ for directions, hours, class schedules, newsletters and updates. New yarns are arriving for fall, new classes are being formed, and a welcoming, peaceful fiber oasis is in the process of creation. Please stop by - they would love to meet you! My thanks to them for giving me an opportunity to do what I love most - teaching!

Learning...

Many thanks to everyone who has continued to visit this blog, and leave me lovely comments about what they've learned or enjoyed.

What have I been up to, and why has it been so long since my last post? Well, things change during our lives, and sometimes they change in most unexpected ways. As you can see from the photo above, I've done a little travelling this last year. Italy was an education in many ways, and my time there was much too short. It was a work-related trip, and I did indeed work hard for the first portion of the trip. But the second portion was pure pleasure - a solitary trip across from Genoa to Venice via Trenitalia and four days in a beautiful city before another crossing delivered me back to Genoa for the flight home.

The trip grew out of a change in my daytime job. A promotion of sorts and much-changed responsibilities and duties have kept me learning steadily. I'm finally (16 months later) beginning to feel that I know more or less what's expected of me, and have a routine in place to meet those expectations. The change has been good for me, letting me stretch myself in unexpected directions, and changing my focus. Change is indeed a good thing at times in our lives... I have no time to be anything but grateful about our recently emptied nest!

From a fiber standpoint, I've been learning, and applying, some...not new lessons, but new applications of old lessons. When you have little time for spinning and knitting, you tend to make that time count. I've concentrated on project planning as the path to that. I don't have time or energy to expend on failed projects right now. That sounds a bit arrogant, I suppose, so let me explain. I've gone from 10-20 hours per week for knitting and/or spinning to less than 4. Failed projects are certainly learning experiences, but analysis is often required to extract that learning. Analysis takes time. Since I'd rather spend as much time playing with fiber as possible, I've concentrated on designing "successful" projects. How on earth do I guarantee (within limits, of course) that a project will be successful?

Planning.

I think about what I want, first of all. I've been working on lots of sweaters this year, mostly for summer or three-season wear. I've actually only completed one, but I have three others at various stages from barely cast-on to finishing up sleeves. I'm quite pleased with all of them. Let's see if I can go back through the planning process so you can see what I'm talking about.

East Tennessee's central valley is a moderate climate. We have little in the way of snow, and temperatures range from a high of the upper-90's in July-August to the upper 30's and low 40's in January. Humidity levels are quite high during the summer, and compared to someplace like the desert southwest, fairly high year-round. That means we wear lots of cotton, some linen, rayon, and silk, and lace- to sport-weight wool. Even lace-weight alpaca is for the rare one or two days per year it actually stays in the teens and 20's - except for caps and gloves. But cotton is a year-round option. Wool-cotton mixtures are three-season wear.

My usual routine is work, gym and home, with occasional forays for an evening out for dinner, at a theatre performance or concert. Making my own gym clothes...doesn't appeal to me. Occasions for "dressy" clothes in my life are few - it's a relaxed part of the country where even high-end restaurants find jeans and a nice top, perhaps with the addition of a jacket, sufficient. My work clothes are, for electrical safety reasons, non-conductive natural fibers. Mostly that translates to khakis and a knit t-shirt during the summer and jeans with a t-shirt topped by a sweater or vest in the fall, winter and spring. The clothes I wear to work, with minor changes in accessories, will go pretty much anywhere I do.

Like most others, I live within a definite budget. While good yarn isn't completely outside my means, I do have to shop carefully. Some of the changes I talked about involve income changes linked to the current economic recession. While our overall income has dropped only a bit, any drop makes a difference. I still get sticker shock from paying as much for a week's worth of food for two people as I used to pay for a family of five. Which is a long-winded way of saying that I want value for my dollars. So I think about which yarns will give me the look and weight of fabric I want while still standing up to more than a single year's wear. And while I don't mind hand-washing, I must admit that I love machine-washable convenience for most of my everyday clothes.

Styles that will carry over multiple years are another part of the planning. I don't knit that quickly, so I look for well-fitted, timeless styles that flatter my body, in colors that suit me well. How do I know what colors and styles suit me well? Folks, I'm well into my fifties. By now, I've learned what colors work with my skin and what colors don't. Ditto styles - collars, silhouettes, lengths. If you haven't figured that out yet, schedule a shopping trip with a really good (and truthful) friend - or almost any female teenager. Try on a variety of styles and colors, asking for an opinion each time. You'll learn a lot in a hurry. Oh, did I mention you should leave your tender feelings behind on this expedition? Never ask for an opinion if you don't want to hear it...

By the time I'd worked my way through this process a handful of times with my daughter and/or mother, I had a pretty good idea what works on me. I have an hourglass shape that is short-waisted and heavy-breasted. Sounds great - but I'm only 5 feet tall. So standard natural waist shaping with ribbing works well on me; so does a high hip-length with close shaping at waist and bust. Princess lines are good on me, as are v- or crew necklines. I stay away from tunic-length tops unless I plan to wear them as a dress substitute; boat necks don't flatter me at all; and turtlenecks only work as a layering item. Even then, mock turtlenecks are better. Cowel necklines...don't work.

Waist shaping is easy, and can be incorporated not only on the "side" seams, but also at the back (center or 3-4 inches either side of the center), included in the stitch design (cables, ribbing) or however you can make it work. While I've tried vertical bust darts once, I didn't like the look with the other pattern elements in that design, and ripped it back out to go back to my usual short-row bust shaping. (I'll try it in another design, though.) Sleeves...I wear almost every style of fitted sleeve (short bell sleeves aren't good with a heavy bust), but fitting sleeveless styles so they don't gap can be a challenge. I usually meet it with a set of decreases between the high bust in front and lower shoulder blade in back, oriented on a tangent to the binding.

So now you have my personal "standard" styles, and some guidelines about the type of fiber I will find most wearable. So it's time to shop for either fiber or yarn.

I do like cotton, and I like to spin cotton. However, my previous knitting projects with my handspun cotton were only moderately successful. The yarns pilled and wore too fast to suit me, even when spun with a great deal of twist and plyed to balance. The cotton yarns I like to wear are soft, but with body enough to stand up to wear - in other words, multiple plies. I don't really have any desire at this time to spin 8-ply cotton yarns. That may change, but right now it doesn't appeal. There are plenty of commercially-spun possibilities available, and some of my favorite include cotton/silk and cotton/linen blends. I've also used cotton/modal and cotton/rayon blends with some success. Cotton is practical for my climate, offering year-round wear, and if lace, fingering or sport weight, moves well on my body. So cotton is almost always a component in yarns I choose.

I'm a spinner - I LOVE wool. It breathes, it moves, it cushions, it bounces...a wonderful fiber. But in this part of the country, it's at best mid-winter wear. Oh, you can get away with a fingering-weight wool vest from perhaps mid-November through mid-March (more likely mid-December through mid-February), but whatever you're wearing underneath had best be summer-weight! I already have a couple of sweaters that fit this bill, and a Fair-Isle vest on the needles...wool is out. I want something I can wear a lot.

I like knitted linen...the texture, the colors, and the drape always scream "summer" to me. And unlike woven linen, knitted fabrics don't wrinkle whenever you glance their way. It's only soft after considerable washing, though, and I promised myself after my last knitted linen project I'd never knit something big from it again - my hands hurt for months, both during and after I'd finished. Perhaps a blend of linen and cotton?

Silk...is there anyone who doesn't love the feel of silk fabric? Whether textured or smooth, knitted or woven, crunchy or soft, silk is the fiber I feel defines the word decadence. It's fairly easy-care, in lace or fingering weight you get a lot of knitting for your fiber buck, nothing else drapes like it, clings like it, moves like it. It's one of my favorite fibers to spin, especially from caps or handkerchief preps. Dyeing silk is pure pleasure. Silk is always on my list of possibilities. But designing with silk yarn takes careful work to make sure the cling and the stretch which sometimes comes along with wearing is controlled. I'll never forget the handspun silk t-shirt I knitted early in my knitting life. It hung straight from the bust, and the longer I wore it, the longer it became. A mid-hip length with a crew neckline was a knee-length scoop-necked dress after only 3-4 hours! But I've learned a lot since then, and silk is definitely a contender.

All right, I have some ideas about design, and I've narrowed my fiber choices some. Now comes the next big decision - purchase fiber and spin it, or buy yarn and get straight to the knitting?

I love spinning. The feel of my feet moving in a gentle rhythm with my hands, fiber slipping through and gathering on the bobbin...it's was these moments of peace that got me through raising three teenagers. Fiber is less expensive than yarn, which is always nice for the fiber/yarn budget. Time spent spinning is always pleasant, spinning the yarn myself lets me completely control the design process...time to explore some options. I'll start with the fiber stash.

Let's see...I have plenty of silk caps. I could dye either before or after spinning, and it would be fun to spin the yarn myself. But it will take a lot longer, meaning I'll not wear the top until at least next spring, and time spent spinning will definitely cut into my overall fiber time. What about silk yarn? Hit the internet and yarn catalogs. Ouch! Silk would definitely need to be spun from fiber already on hand. Final decision: it's a great idea for a project, and I'd love doing it, perhaps spinning during the winter or during our vacation in the fall. But for now, let's put a handspun silk sweater on the back burner.

That pretty much leaves cotton. While I can certainly spin cotton (and do!), I still have the drawbacks outlined above. It's a much less expensive yarn purchase, wearability is great, you can usually machine wash and frequently machine dry. Let's see what's out there...nothing online strikes my fancy. I'll wait. An impromptu day-trip led to a 'crawl' of yarn shops that aren't quite local, and... Oh, this is nice! A variegated "ocean"colorway in fingering-weight 8-ply cotton that's fairly soft, yet with enough body for ribbing and/or lace designs. Not too dear, since 100-gram skeins are about $18 each and I can do a short or cap-sleeve design with three skeins. Even better, I'm getting a definite "picture" of a sweater that would be wonderfully wearable on me.

Needless to say, I bought the skeins. No guilt at all, since my DH was along on this trip and absolutely pushed me into it (he loved the colors). Now for a swatch! The size 4 mm needles recommended on the skein band gave a terrible fabric - stitches too big and floppy, fabric sleezy, washing and blocking just made it worse, gauge for me was 4 sts/inch instead of the recommended 5.25-6. I ravelled it back out to save the yarn and cast on again - to a size 2.75 mm needle! Within a dozen rows, I knew I had to find a happy medium - the swatch was waaaaay too stiff! I moved up to a 3.25 mm needle, and found the right balance. A nice fabric, gauge 5.25 sts/inch, stitch definition in the pattern I wanted was lovely, with lace holes that were just right. Washing softened the hand, 'set' the stitches, and made the final decision easy.

The 'picture' I'd formed in my head wasn't complicated. A high-hip length top, with a modified horseshoe lace pattern at the bottom, and 2 purl stitches between lace repeats forming ribs up the fabric. Sleeveless, or cap sleeves? Cap sleeves, if there's enough yarn; if not, I can wear it as a top in the summer and a vest the rest of the year. Waist shaping, short-row bust shaping, and a slightly-scooped neckline. Neck finishing...probably pick up and knit a 'collar' of the lace, or just an i-cord edging. Let's see when I get there. A little basic math later, and I cast on and began knitting from the bottom in the round.

The knitting on this one is going quite well. I did tink back about a dozen rows when I decided that the vertical bust darts just wouldn't work within the ribbed patterning (yep, this was the one!) and that I'd be better served by my usual short-row bust shaping. I'm through that now, and almost ready to start the decreases between the bust and armholes. It fits beautifully (yes, I do consider time spent transferring a couple of hundred stitches to a ribbon, then trying on the garment in process, and slowly slipping all those stitches back to the needles time VERY well spent), the colors aren't pooling unpleasantly, and it just feels good!

Of course, I won't be wearing it too soon...I got a request for a pair of fingerless mitts from a friend who does a lot of barn work, and that sidetracked me into designing a wool yarn for those, and now I'm knitting. I don't usually knit for someone outside the family (and not all of them!), but this particular friend both knows and appreciates the effort.

So now you have it - what I've been doing, and perhaps a few things to think about next time you start a new project. Hopefully I'll get back to posting on a fairly regular basis now... Till next time!

Baby Sweaters and EZ and Me…

About three years ago we went through one of those periods at work where it seemed that everyone was having a baby. You know what that’s like – you get one person making an announcement and next thing you know there are five, and you’re seriously debating the merits of bottled water as an alternative work-time liquid!

Since three of the people bursting at the seams were friends of mine, I started looking at baby sweater patterns. I had managed to pretty much skip that part of the “becoming a knitter” process – at the time I probably should have made a couple, I didn’t have anyone around who needed a baby sweater! Needless to say, one of the first things I found was Elizabeth Zimmerman’s lovely baby surprise jacket (BSJ) in garter stitch. I was intrigued, and decided to knit one just to give it a try. Next thing I knew I was casting on for my fourth! These things are not only fun, they’re quite addictive and wonderfully magical! The sweaters were received with great awe, and I was hailed as something of a magician myself.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that I had begun a tradition. I work, day in and day out, with about 200 people. So babies, while not an everyday occurrence, are still born at least a couple of times a year. I’ve now become almost bored with baby sweaters. I’ve tried different patterns (from various sources), in various yarn weights, and enjoyed all of them – they’re fast and pretty. But I still prefer, for simple, fun knitting, the old reliable EZ standby.

In order to liven up that old standby for the newest arrival (a girl), I decided that I ought to be able to insert some lace into the pattern. Heaven forbid I should do an all-over lace stitch, though! Actually, I was afraid to do a lace fabric. I wasn’t too sure how the twists and turns would look when the whole thing was finished, and I also was a bit nervous about keeping the pattern aligned during all the decreases and increases. Not to mention what an all-over lace pattern might do to the shaping of this gem!

So I hit the world-wide web and Googled “baby surprise sweater in lace.” I couldn’t possibly be the only person who had ever thought of this, right? I came up empty. There were all sorts of hits for the BSJ, of course, but none of them seemed to include lace! I gave up and emailed Meg Swanson. Just in case some of you are brand-new knitters, I’ll explain that Meg is Elizabeth’s daughter as well as a gifted designer in her own right. I asked if she had seen any BSJ’s that included lace patterning, secure in the knowledge that she could probably point me in the direction of a dozen or more. Imagine my surprise when she responded that while she thought she’d heard about one, she hadn’t really seen anything!

Obviously, I was in trouble. I couldn’t get the idea out of my head, wanted to knit this BSJ, didn’t really have time to knit it twice and…got out the paper and scissors. I drew (badly) a diagram of the BSJ before seaming, sketched in the areas where I wanted lace to show up, and started trying to work them into the instructions. After a couple of hours and most of an eraser, I thought I had the start of a procedure that would give me something acceptable. Below is a picture of the finished BSJ with lace insert.




As you can see, I had some challenges. I chose a simple Shetland flower pattern as an insert, trying to arrange things so that it provided an edging around the sweater. The sleeves and back were perfect, and the bottom worked out well. But the inserts on the fronts didn’t work out quite as I had hoped. They look pretty, but didn’t quite make it all the way down either side of the buttons from collar to hem, which was what I had visualized.

However, I now have some additional ideas for the next iteration. There’s another baby on the way at the end of the summer, and I’m hoping for another girl. This time I actually DO want to try an all-over lace pattern, probably in a simple garter-stitch lace that will echo the construction lines of the sweater itself. I think it will work! Elizabeth, thank you so much for this incredible design – and for empowering knitters everywhere with the gift of supportive exploration!

Post-Holiday knitting and notes on my own design process

I’ve been busily knitting since the holidays – mostly several versions of Knitty’s Ice Queen in Kid Silk haze of blue and bright pink, followed by the wimple below in a pattern of my own devising. “How can you possibly make up your own patterns?” is something I hear all the time from both knitters and non-knitters. So I thought I’d detail the process that led to this leaf-lace wimple, and share the resulting pattern.

I had decided on a wimple for my mother for Christmas back in early November, and had cast on in a basic Shetland horseshoe pattern. Yarn was doubled lace-weight natural-colored cashmere on size 4 needles – I wanted something light-weight and very warm that she could wear with anything. My mother exercises in all kinds of weather, and even in East Tennessee it can get cold. So I did three repeats of the horseshoe pattern; then did simple double yarn-overs placed at the point of the horseshoe until I hit 18 inches, when I did five more repeats of the horseshoe pattern and bound off after 3 rounds of garter stitch. Pretty, warm, and won’t crush my mother’s hairdo. I washed, blocked and wrapped it for the holiday one Sunday afternoon before Thanksgiving.

Enter my current student intern. She saw the wimple I’d done for my mother just before it was finished, and fell in love with it. So I thought I’d make one for her in blue kid mohair to match her pretty blue eyes, and went yarn shopping at my local LYS. I splurged – there’s no other word for it – on two skeins of blue and two of bright pink Kid-Silk haze. Came home and decided to cast on for the intern’s version in another lace pattern I love – feather and fan – and got a couple of inches completed that very day.

Within the next day or two, the winter Knitty was brought to my attention. I enjoy this on-line ‘zine for knitters, and have used several designs from its talented crew as a starting point for my own creations over the past couple of years. But I hadn’t knit something entirely from the magazine as yet. As you may have gathered, I’m just not a pattern knitter! Ice Queen changed that temporarily.

I had already completed quite a bit of the intern’s version, and went on with my original plan. She loved my own feather and fan version, by the way, and couldn’t believe I had made her something for the holiday. I do enjoy knitting for those who appreciate it! But I still wanted to do the Ice Queen in the pattern as shown – the decreases intrigued me, and I thought they’d solve the one problem I’d run into – the face is a bit wide. I thought I’d prefer something more snuggled up to keep the breezes out.

I had already decided that I’d like another wimple for myself. My winter leather coat is warm enough, except for the leather right around the neck that leads into the collar. That gets cold! I usually use a scarf to cover my neck in that area, and wear a hat. But I don’t really like stocking caps – they flatten my hair in an odd fashion, and I’m now working in an office where day-long hat hair is a bit too informal! So I used the pink mohair-silk and cast on as directed in the Ice Queen pattern. Knitting went very quickly (especially without beads!), and I had my own Ice Queen finished in time to wear on Christmas Eve. Talk about garnering compliments – everybody loved it!

We were heading for the Midwest to see two of the children just after the New Year, and I needed a car project for the half-time my DH was driving. My daughter has beautiful blue eyes as well, and loves pretty, feminine things. I had one skein of the blue Kid Silk Haze left – and two ounces of beautiful Czech beads in the right size to make pinpoints of starlight when the light catches the knitted fabric! So I cast on (can you believe it of me!) another Ice Queen – this time in a beaded version! I finished it up during our visit, and she does indeed love it.

But before we ever left home, I was tinkering with another possibility. I wanted the same general shape, wider at the shoulders to as to anchor firmly under a coat, but tighter around the face to keep the ears warm. I liked the picot edging in both the beaded and unbeaded versions of Ice Queen – it was simple to work and an effective, pretty edging. But I was finally (and almost-certainly temporarily) tired of feather and fan. I wanted to try another stitch!

I had bought a ball of Mongolian lace-weight that had 400 yards of pure softness in a lovely light gray that would work much better than the fuchsia pink with my red wool coat! I had spent one evening at my daughter’s dining room table sketching lace patterns out on graph paper, figuring out ways to get the decreases I wanted, and finally settled on a Shetland leaf-lace pattern. I took the cashmere along on the trip, knowing I’d also need a project for the car on the way home, and cast on as we headed east. So my Leaf Lace Wimple pattern is below:

Leaf Lace Wimple Pattern

Yarn: Lace-weight cashmere, 55 gms = 400 yds
Suggested needle sizes: US 3 for main body, US 1 for face edge, circular, 24-inch
Gauge: 4.5 – 5.0 stitches per inch

Cast on 11 repeats of 14 stitches – 154 stitches; join into round and knit one round.

Follow pattern as written, knitting even rows, and repeating rows 49 through 60 (green shaded rows) until length from cast-on is approximately 20 inches (about 100 rows), ending on row 52 or 60 of pattern as shown. (Click for a larger version of the chart.)



After the final repeat of either row 52 or row 60, K3P2 around for two rows.
On the third row, K3, twist 2 purl stitches around.

Bind off with either a picot bind-off pattern (like the one from Knitty’s Ice Queen pattern) or another decorative BO. Go back and crochet an edging on the shoulder end, or pick up stitches and repeat the picot bind-off.

Wash and block and enjoy! And here's a photo of my own version - apologies for the shortcomings of the model are hereby tendered!

Dribs and Drabs

Dribs and Drabs

Work is interfering with my fiber life to an incredible degree right now, and I don’t like it! However, work is necessary to pay the everyday bills as well as underwrite the fiber things, so I can’t complain too much.

I have made two interesting fiber-related trips in recent months. First, there was The Seattle-Tacoma-Olympia-Silverdale Washington area over Memorial Day week. The primary reason for the visit was to see the two older children. A secondary reason was to have a ‘family’ vacation – Mom and Dad were going out to see the older children and their spouses. But another secondary reason was to find some of the fiber-related things in the area that I’d missed on my trip in January!

We had a wonderful time! We visited Mt. Ranier in a snowstorm, saw our first black-sand beach, and wandered the Peninsula during various times that week. Sage Book Store in Shelton (beginning spinner Sage herself!) showed us the way to Fancy Image Yarns, where I bought the makings for a fall sweater. Allyn Yarn Shop yielded a spindle and some lovely hand-dyed merino-silk roving.

Poulsbo was beautiful, and if you ever get the chance to see this quaint Norwegian-village transplant, you should grab it. A lovely way to spend a morning or afternoon of shopping or just browsing, including at least one yarn shop – Wild & Wooly (http://www.wildandwooly.com/) on Front Street!


Next was a business trip to Albuquerque (for the Particle Accelerator Conference 2007). I found Village Wools (http://www.villagewools.com/) on my last day in town and stocked up on some lovely bamboo roving, various wools, including a lovely purple fine-wool, and a locally-made drop spindle from mesquite wood! I can’t believe how heavy it is – about three times the weight of most of my spindles!

Jut off the wheel and onto the needles is some lace-weight merino-clun forest cross dyed in rainbow pastels plied with another single of natural kid mohair. This was spun with a shawl in mind. I’ve started the Shetland Garden shawl and am currently at the beginning of chart F of that pattern.

Just off the wheel and needles is some slightly less than fingering-weight in the same merino-clun forest cross that was made into a baby sweater for a brand-new baby girl among my work friends. I usually do an EZ baby sweater, but this time Sharon Miller’s lace-trimmed garter-stitch baby sweater in her Heirloom Lace book seduced me. I enjoyed the knitting – garter stitch is soothing – but kept changing my mind about the edging. The one in the book didn’t thrill me, and I decided to try to find something that wasn’t so directional – starting at the center neck back, knitting around to the center back, then going back and picking up stitches just to do the whole thing over and graft things together doesn’t sound like fun to me. But I bit the bullet and did it anyway, and now I’m glad I did – the finished sweater is nice!

Also on the needles is a vest for a Christmas gift from some commercial yarn. Lovely blue color, and a simple pattern – Mona Schmidt’s Tweedy Vest pattern from knittingdaily at Interweave Press. Changed the yarn, of course, which changed the gauge and needle size, so the initial set-up was a challenge, but now the pattern is modified and the knitting is going quickly.

Otherwise, I’ve been working – on actual paying work, as opposed to fun stuff! One new thing that has proved a distraction from fiber fun – a new plucked psaltery - is taking up some time. I’ve also decided to get the house organized, and that’s turning into a major endeavor. It’s amazing what five people can accumulate in 20 years, especially if all of them are pack rats! But I still knit a bit most days, and a half-hour here and there does add up to finished projects! I haven't forgotten my teaching promise when I started this blog, either - but life does sometimes interfere! I'll get back to more explorations of spinning and knitting design soon!

Fiber for Knitters

I received an email the other day from a local knitting group asking me to talk to a group of knitters about spinning. They didn't really want a spinning demonstration (it couldn't be that easy!), but rather a discussion of what knitters need to know about fibers to help them make more successful projects.

So I started looking at what I call “Fibers 101,” a course that I’ve added to this blog in the past (see http://fiberlife.blogspot.com/2006/08/fiber-101.html and http://fiberlife.blogspot.com/2006/08/fiber-101-continued.html), with a view to revising that material for these knitters. I didn’t find much that needed to be changed.

So I went off to do my presentation, said my piece, handed out copies of the material to the 20 or so attendees, and invited questions. That’s when the true learning experience of the day took place - for me!

I’ve commented in the past that many young folk don’t get any sort of fiber education. First, let’s define “young” as less than 40 years of age. To my mind, anyone over 40 had a pool of cultural knowledge on which to draw that included some basic fiber knowledge of the “cotton comes from a plant and wool from an animal” sort. At least, I thought they did! But obviously we’ve been an industrial, non-agricultural society for longer than I believed.

The knitters in this particular group ranged in age from 14 to over 70, but most of them were between 25 and 50. So the large number of questions regarding the harvesting of various animal fibers came as something of a surprise. I did NOT expect the old, “Do you have to kill the sheep to harvest wool?” chestnut from this group – although I got it. Also unexpected were questions on which animal produces polymid (???) and why cotton, flax and silk fibers were all shorter than any animal fibers (again, ???).

Needless to say, I backed up. Obviously, I had thrown a lot of information at these folks quickly, and some of it just hadn’t sunk in. I explained that animals may be killed to harvest fiber, but usually aren’t, because top-notch fiber produced year after year pays for the cost of keeping that animal alive and in good health. I again went over the various types of manmade fibers, including polymid, and talked about the relative lengths of cotton, flax and silk fibers. And assumed we were finished with those sorts of questions.

I was ready to move on to why you choose woolen-spun fibers for baby sweaters and fuzzy shawls and felted mittens, and worsted-spun ones for gloves and outerwear sweaters and soft, fine wools, and how to look at yarn labels to find out this sort of information. I had quite a few samples of current yarn labels to help. I also wanted to expound on the affordability of fibers versus yarns, and the satisfaction you get from doing a project from the fuzz to the finished object –adding to the ranks of new spinners is always fun.

But the next questions were about the high price of natural fiber yarn, and why acrylics weren’t considered to be superior to any natural fibers. I mentally threw up my hands at this point, consigning all my carefully-prepared yarn labels and handspun natural fiber and yarn samples to the storage bin in which they normally live. I then spoke passionately about the feel, breathability, insulating properties and environmental friendliness of natural fibers; the ease of finding a perfect natural fiber for any project and the satisfaction of using natural fibers. I tried to explain a bit of the cost factor as a return on the investments in land, equipment, livestock, feed and health care needed to produce those fibers. I’m not sure anyone bought the message.

I suppose what I’m asking is whether I’m completely outmoded in my liking for natural fibers? Are most knitters these days primarily interested in manufactured fibers, or was that strictly this particular group of relatively-new knitters? And is there a correlation between the length of time you’ve been knitting and your fiber preferences? I’d like to have some feedback on this, gentle fiberpeople, before my next “Fiber 101” presentation. Which is set up for early June…to a local group of museum curators…who are probably going to be primarily interested in the pre-polyester era… Do I sound as confused as I am at this particular moment in time?