Wool For Brains

No knitting to show today, next time I should have two pairs of socks to show and maybe some lace as well but today is all about finished objects of a different kind.

The last time we saw this photo was at the end of April last year. At the time I said “This one isn’t in the drawer at all, it’s waiting for me to get the scissors and make it into something, I keep putting it off in case I get it wrong and wreck my precious fabric. Hopefully the next time we see this it will have been transformed, either that or we will not speak of it again”. I certainly didn’t imagine that it would be eleven months for the transformation to take place. This is a pattern that weavers call log cabin. I spent a long while as a quilter and from that perspective log cabin is a totally different beast, this pattern in quilting is rail fence except that the colour placement is all wrong. We will not quibble over names, what it is is something that looks fiendishly difficult but isn’t. It’s the old impact to effort ratio in action again. The brown is Opal sock yarn and the green is blue faced leicester that I dyed with some leftover dye. The yellow wasn’t entirely dissolved and it made a slightly variegated green-yellow green roving.

This was planned from the start for a specific purpose. David bought himself a new laptop and asked for a slip cover to stop it from getting scratched while in his workbag. The critical thing was that the fabric finished up 10″ wide so I could join two pieces at the edges, any smaller and it wouldn’t fit, any bigger and it would be too floppy around the laptop.  I planned it very carefully and ended up with a fabric that was about one inch too narrow. That’s the real reason that it’s been sidelined for so long, there was no chance that the fabric would grow or the laptop shrink but I hoped that given enough time I’d come up with some sort of a solution.

In the time since I put this on one side I’ve cut up and sewn different bits of fabric that I’ve woven and although I’ve a lot to learn I am getting better at it. I’ve got the answer to handles now – cotton fabric over scraps of batting gives a nice firm feel and although the inkle straps were pretty these are an easier solution.  I”m not frightened of cutting into the handwoven stuff any more, it doesn’t start unraveling as soon as you cut into it in the same way as a dropped stitch doesn’t run all by itself. Wool is naturally sticky, if you want it to move then you have to pull it. If you don’t pull it until you’ve got it stabilised then it doesn’t unravel.

What I didn’t realise was that my log cabin fabric had something else wrong with it as well as that missing inch. I’d not beat it evenly over the length of the piece so the squares at the start aren’t the same height as those at the end. If I’d realised this I could have minimised the effect by joining two lengths cut from the same end but because it never occurred to me I did the worst thing I could have done and cut a length from each end. This meant that I was doomed, I had a seam that would never join well. (Remember, I make these mistakes so you don’t have to) There wasn’t enough fabric to cut another length so the dodgy seam has had to stay.

Rather than have an insert of one inch, I thought it would look better to make it wider and have it as more of a feature than an excuse. I made a 2″ (finished) insert for the front and had no inset at the back. This was a big mistake caused by me not wanting to waste the precious handwoven stuff. If it had been ordinary yardage I’d have made my 2″ insert front and back and cut off the excess at the sides. This would have made the sewing really straightforward. As it was I’d now made the front bigger than the back, left myself with a plain back that would wrap over into the flap and caused the non-matching centre back seam. You don’t notice that the fronts don’t match because of the inset whereas the back is rather obvious.

To get the insert on the flap I had to make the flap separately to the back and join it, all work that I could have saved myself if I’d just chopped a bit off the sides. Clearly I still have some way still to travel towards my goal of approaching woven fabric with scissors and the thought of “It’s just yardage”. It does have some inbuilt wonkiness, I lined the pattern up on the flap because the only reason that I offset it in the body was to have the back line up properly. That was before I realised that it wouldn’t line up even with glue and nails. My novel and never to be repeated construction for the flap means that it’s not on quite straight, by then I was happy that I’d found a way to get it on at all and was past caring.

Verdict – it’s fit for purpose, it’s padded well, the Mac fits in it and it’s not going to fall apart. More importantly it’s finished (apart from the purchase of no snag Velcro for the underside of the flap). If I could turn back time I’d run the stripe all the way around and either cut the excess off at the sides or lay a 2″ stripe over a 1″ gap. I still think that the wider stripe was the right decision but I’d not predicted what a mess it would get me into. If I could turn the clock back even further I’d not use a pattern with all those unforgiving lines or even better weave something that was the right width to start with.

Recently there was a discussion on Ravelry about setting the twist in handspun and it set me thinking as to whether there was any situation where I might not set the twist before using my handspun yarn. I thought about it while walking the dog and washing the pots and eventually thought of one possible case where I might go directly from bobbin to project. It would be woven (because I don’t think I’d like knitting with lively yarn) and it would need to be something that was going to be fulled so that any effects from finishing the yarn would be overshadowed by the finishing of the piece.

The thought hung around a while and I decided to make two scarves, I would say “identical scarves” but the idea of me ever making two things the same is laughable. I can do it with sweater parts but everything else is fraternal. I thought I’d make two the same but set the twist in the yarn for one and make the other with yarn straight from the bobbin. I was sure that I’d learn something along the way even if it was “always set the twist”. I did think this through first, I was using a singles yarn so there was no plying stage to take some of the twist out. I knew that it might be a bit lively but providing it was kept under tension it would be fine. I was indirect warping so the warp would be under tension there, I can slide the loom along to meet the warping peg so the warp would be under tension the whole time I was winding it onto the back beam. I could tension the bobbin while I was filling the shuttle – what could possibly go wrong?

For those of you who don’t watch much children’s television the phrase “what could possibly go wrong?” always precedes an unfortunate occurrence. When I was thinking through the process to see if this was a reasonable idea I’d managed to miss a step in warping. That would be the step right at the end where you need to release the tension and cut the ends of the warp loops before passing them through the reed. The photo shows what happened the instant the yarn was no longer under tension, at this point it was all still safe because although the yarn is all twisty there’s no way for that twist to escape. The next step was to cut the yarn loop to make two separate pieces, that was the step where there was a strong likelihood of them untwisting to the extent that the yarn fell apart. Yet again I was saved by the rubber faced clips, I cut the loops one at a time, put one end in the clip to stop it untwisting, passed the other through the heddle eye and then straight into the clip. It was not the most fun weaving experience I’ve ever had but fortunately there wasn’t much of it to do.

The second scarf took a day longer from start to finish because that’s how long a skein of yarn takes to dry at this time of year. I set the twist so the warping was less of a thrilling experience (will I drop the clip, will the yarn untwist and fall apart before I get the knots in) but the biggest benefit was in the weft which sat happily in the shed instead of writhing about.

It’s a handspun merino single in two colours, the merino was so soft that if you gave it a hard glance it would felt. I used the 10 dent heddle, threaded 10 ends dark, 10 ends air, 10 ends light and I wove it in the same pattern with card spacers between the sections. I rolled it around a plastic carrier bag with socks over it to hold it all together and ran it through the washer. I thought I’d lose 40% in shrinkeage, the finished length was 70″ and the starting warp length was 114″. It measured 13″ in the reed and finished to 8″ wide.

After fulling there’s nothing to chose between them, they look the same in every way. There were clear differences before shrinking, you can see that one of these is sitting there nicely and one is wriggling trying to escape from its captivity in the woven fabric. There are no prizes for guessing that the one on the left is the one that did not have the twist set.

So what have I learned? I love the absence of yarn handling that you get from using the stuff straight from a bobbin, it saves making a skein, soaking it, drying it and winding a ball. I still think that this will be the only circumstances in which I dare to do it though, I’ve seen yarn change drastically on finishing so many times that I’d worry about what that change would do to the final product. I was surprised to end up with two scarves the same given that they looked so different off the loom, I was convinced that the lively one would end badly. I already knew that you can use soft spun merino singles for warp on a rigid heddle loom because I’ve done it before. The big question has to be if I was making another scarf what would I do? I can answer that because I’m making one now and I’m going straight from the bobbin again.

Let me first thank everyone for their comments. There was a time when I would have responded to every one but of late I’ve been a bit of a slacker and instead of replying straight away I wait until I have a bit more time. It’s a recipe for failure because I should know by now that I never do have more time, if I do I’m off researching doubleweave or norwegian purling. Thank you all for taking the time from your day to comment, I would promise to buck my ideas up but we both know that I am a lost cause and that’s unlikely to happen.

I did have today’s post written, it was a compare and contrast of two scarves except the comparison is rather straightforward at the moment. Once has been through the wash and is 8″ wide, the other hasn’t and is 13″ wide. I didn’t find the time to full the second one so that is a post for another day. Fortunately I have enough stray knitting for a substitute post.

My hat was indeed The One, or at least The One That Is Good Enough For The Time Being. It’s the one I reach for as I walk out of the door, it’s getting warm enough not to need a hat but I need something to keep my hair in order so I’ll be wearing wool until I get a haircut. The boy doesn’t want my hat now (and by the way full marks to all those who recognised “cheesehead” as his way of getting me to give it over to him). He picked a hat from the book and would not be swayed from his choice. I think the cone shape is not exactly flattering and you probably know my thoughts on bobbles. I suspected that what I was knitting would become a tea cosy but I was wrong. It is apparently a cool hat, his friends want one in different colours and he loves it. I liked the yarn (I spun it) but that was about all. It’s cone #2 from “45 Fine and Fanciful hats to knit” except that my stitches per inch went the other way this time. The hat should have four panels, mine has three that are slightly larger. One day I’ll knit one of the hats in the right sized yarn and things will be so much easier.

I haven’t got round to ripping and reknitting the heel on these (a time management issue again). I’ve been on a run of flap and gusset heels and I fancied a change. It’s been a while since I knitted a short row heel and I was sat in front of the tv when I realised that I wasn’t sure how many stitches to work to in the middle. The sensible thing would have been to look it up but I decided that I should be able to remember it, after all I’ve knitted it often enough. Seven seemed like a good number at the time so I went with that. Seven is a good number for many things, days of the week, prime numbers under ten, but it’s no good in this situation. When I tried the sock on to check for the start of the toe decreases I found that I’d made a pointy heel. I’m going to snip a stitch above the pointy section, rip it back to 12 stitches unworked in the centre and graft it back together. You can see that it’s not a lot of knitting to come out but if there’s one place that you need something to fit it’s a sock heel.

This was the start of a pair of Kissing Koi mittens, 9 stitches per inch on 2.75mm needles. That was yesterday, today it’s slightly smaller, 10 spi on 2.5mm needles. I refuse to sub the needles again, if I need to go to 2mm to get them to fit I’ll take a pencil to the pattern and lose a few stitches from the width. I should of course have measured my hand before deciding I was a “large”, one designer’s definition can be very much different to that of another. I know this but instead of investing a few minutes in finding a tape measure I spent an evening knitting something in the wrong size.

I thought the common thread was substitution but on reflection I can see that there’s another theme here. Look at all the time I would have saved if I’d spent a couple of minutes at the start by doing things right and finding a tape measure or checking my dodgy memory of heel construction against reality. It’s a good thing I like knitting because poor planning means that I get to do so much more of it on the same project. If I can’t be a good example then at least I can be a terrible warning.

PS The wool is now in the washer – seize the moment and all that. Maybe I have learned something after all.

Long time readers will be aware of my ongoing search for a hat that keeps my ears warm in the winter and doesn’t make me look like “a torpedo head” or “a numpty”. I keep on knitting them, every time I cast on I’m convinced that this one will be the perfect hat. What I’ve used for dog walking all winter is the one in this photo, the one that Daniel knitted. It’s a perfectly good hat but it’s a bit bright and when it’s really cold the wind blows straight through it. I’m frequently reminded that it’s not mine and I’m only borrowing it and when he can’t find his he claims what I see as mine.

This one is really mine, it’s warm and it fits. It bears no relation to the hat that I spotted in the Olympic crowd but that doesn’t matter. It’s based on pentagon number five from “45 Fine and Fanciful Hats to Knit” (Anna Zilboorg) except that it veered away from the pattern fairly rapidly. I used the Cascade 220 that was left over from knitting the penguin hot water bottle cover together with some handspun yarn from a set of mini batts that I got from a Ravelry swap. They were polwarth, merino, alpaca, bamboo and twinkle, I added some jade falkland to make them go further and carded the lot together. I knew that my yarn wasn’t going to knit at 5 stitches per inch so I started at the top of the hat rather than the bottom. I knew that I would have worked out what my tension was by the time I reached the part of the hat that needed to fit. It turned out to be six stitches per inch so I added another few sets of increases before I worked the band and started decreasing back to something the size of my head.

It’s very warm, the wind doesn’t blow through it and I don’t feel as if I’m wearing hi vis workwear. If I was knitting it again I’d probably make life easy and knit a hexagon or (radical idea coming up here) just use the right weight yarn. The bottom edge doesn’t curl up in wear because it’s a bit smaller than my head and it’s the stretching that stops it curling. I might knit that bit on smaller needles another time because I suspect that this time I just got lucky.

I will be knitting some more of the hats from this book, there are some interesting shapes in there. The book reviews tend to focus on the errors in the charts and I’ve amended pages 45,47,49,51,69,75,85 and 87 in my copy but in the main they are all the same printing error. The instructions tell you to decrease on each side of a central spine of stitches but some of the charts only show shaping on one side. There should be shaded “no stitch” shaping on the other side and that’s been omitted. All you need to do is draw in the mirror image of the shaping on the other side.

The child refused to take photos of me because I look like “a cheese head” and because I wouldn’t give him the hat so this is the best I can come up with. I know it’s a poor photo but you should have seen the other nine.

Although I still have only one item on the needles the socks aren’t growing as they should be. I was trying to work out what had been cutting into my knitting time and I think this is the guilty party. I have this idea that to make a bag I just have to cut and sew a bit of lining but when I’ve really thought about it I’ve realised that I’m far off the mark with that idea. It took me the whole of music school to pin it and sew the side seams and top edges. That’s an hour and a half of quality knitting time gone. I spent most of “Mastercrafts” (Friday 9pm and this week they will be weaving) putting gold beads on the fringe, running out, taking some off and replacing them with bronze beads. It took two evenings of Agatha Christie’s Poirot to twist the fringe by hand (I’ve lost the battery case off the fringe twister) and no time at all to sew the lining, make the cord for the top and fashion a tassel. Despite all the time that it took it’s pretty and so I forgive it everything.

I can’t spin and knit at the same time so there must be some knitting hours lost here. The sock yarn was 400 yards before I soaked it, I should remeasure it now but I have better things to be doing. It’s a three ply superwash merino and nylon and it looks very like sock yarn to me. The others are very soft merino and I’ve given them the hot and cold water treatment to hopefully stop them pilling. They run about 200 yards to 100g and I like them too which surprises me no end. They are soft and squishy and nothing like what I usually spin or knit and I’m sure that they have been good for my personal development.

These have been the other time suck. These are rather large bookmarks in Jaggerspun Zephyr at 30 epi (ends per inch, the weaving equivalent of stitches per inch). I didn’t measure a bookmark before I started, just looked at a ruler, and as a result they are wider than they needed to be. I can now read a weaving draft and negotiate an eight shaft pattern with floating selvedges and two shuttles all at the same time. My brain hurts. The warp was long enough to make more bookmarks but after the second I reviewed my learning.

I had discovered that I’m not longer scared of the big scary table loom, that I have a deep dislike of floating selvedges because they slow everything down, that changing sheds sounds just like slamming the knife drawer and that I don’t much like working with tiny yarn because it takes too long to see any progress (also slamming the knife drawer thirty times an inch is not much fun). I couldn’t see what I would learn from a third bookmark other than selvedge improvement so I cut off the rest of the warp and chained it up. I have a lot to learn and I’d rather spend the time trying doubleweave or any of those other chapters in “Learning to Weave” (ideally without a floating selvedge and with thicker yarn. The drawer slamming I’ll learn to live with). I should say that some of the weaving is that of the husband who took to tabby with tiny yarn better than I thought he would.

The big surprise was that the new noise didn’t need barking at. Nothing interferes with the morning nap, not even me slamming the knife drawer over and over again. If it had sounded like the fridge door opening that might have been a different matter altogether.

I didn’t join any of the various knitting things that run alongside the Olympics. This is because I am not in general a joiner of things, I know my limitations and I know that I’m not good with deadlines or authority. It doesn’t even matter if I’m the authority that made the deadline, if I have to knit X then I’ll be wanting to knit Y. It’s far simpler for me to just watch the Olympics and do some knitting.

Having knitted my way through the Christmas stocking I found myself with an empty knitting bag. This is of course a total fabrication, I had knitting but not the sort that I wanted to knit. I didn’t have second sock syndrome with these so much as first sock syndrome, I’d had enough by the first heel. These have got to be the front runners in any “most boring sock I’ve ever knitted” competition. I couldn’t see the point in adding any patterning because the yarn is so dark that it would be a waste of effort so it was all plain knitting with boring dark splitty yarn. The only way these were ever going to be finished (they’ve been in progress since September) was to ignore the call of the cast on and get on with it. I did seriously consider ripping them just after the second heel (yes, they were that tedious) but I stuck it out. The obvious question is why did I buy such boring yarn in such a hard to knit colour? I bought it with a red semi striping Trekking yarn with the plan to knit stranded socks except that this yarn is boring, dark, splitty and elasticated and I couldn’t manage to get anything like an even tension. The sorry tale is here, it’s taken me three years to knit up the frogged yarn.

Having seen off the boringest knitting in the history of knitting I could cast on with a clear conscience. These are some of the leftovers from my Ophelia sweater, when I dyed the yarn one skein came out lighter than the others and that’s the one that I’m using here. It just happened that when I took a photo of the sock against the tv that the four man bob chose that moment to invert. Sorry America 3, it was all my fault.

There is the potential for more Olympic knitting even though the closing ceremonies are over. I can pause live tv and rewind it which is good for getting replays of things that went past too quickly the first time. I’ve been using it for stalking hats in the crowd and I think this is the one on the top of my list. The second placed hat exists only in my memory because I didn’t think of catching it with the camera so it’s fair to assume that it is now lost for all time. I like this one, a dubbelmossa, plain except for the detail on the roll over cuff (a good warm four layers there over the ears), knit long with a tassel on top. The other hat had a heavily patterned band in different colours to the rest of the plain hat. The common feature is a patterned band on an otherwise plain hat so that’s what I’ll be going with.