pepperknit

If you recall my last skirt, the Snapping Turtle, well, it was hugging my then-minimal curves. My curves have gotten a bit bigger now that I’m in Singapore—you have been reading about all my food adventures, after all. Yes, in Singapore I need a swishy, hide-all-evils skirt.

Skirt #12 (they can’t come up with real names for the patterns in that magazine?)
Knit.1 Magazine
Size: Medium (36 1/2″ hip; I wanted it to sit on my hips so I went with that measurement)
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Wool Cotton
Skeins: 10
Needles: Addi Turbo US 5 (and 3)
Started: Sunday, June 29
Finished: Blocked and dry Sunday, July 13

I cast on all 455 stitches for this skirt the day before I left to come to Singapore, and worked on the bulk of it on my 30-hour trip (and during lots of in-flight movies). The Friday before, my friend Julia and I had been poking through a pile of old Vogue company knitting magazines I have. This skirt from knit.1 caught my eye. I trust Norah Gaughan, so another knitted skirt made me intrigued rather than nervous. Plus I could see that the stitches were going in different directions due to the bias; I figured that would combat any butt sag.

So I went stash-diving and found the burgundy Debbie Bliss Wool Cotton. I knit Pam out of it, in blue, years back, and I’d bought the yarn in bulk at Stitches back when Stitches was still in King of Prussia, PA.

The skirt is held up with a long twisted cord woven into a ribbed waistband. I have plenty of room to make this bigger or smaller. And the drape of the skirt allows for any amount of gathering—I think it would hang nicely no matter what!

The eyelet feature is dead-easy to remember (it’s only 2 rows of eyelet—though the pattern is written in such a way that you might think it was more complicated). The pattern itself is also so straightforward, it made for excellent plane knitting. I’ll admit to major impatience to have it DONE already. It felt like it was taking forever, and I was also afraid I was going to run out of yarn. I have more at home, so it was going to irritate me greatly if I’d not brought enough. But I had just enough, so this was blocked and dried last weekend! The skirt barely touches your skin, so the 50% wool wasn’t too hot in the Singapore humidity. I swear! I’ve also grown really used to the heat here, so maybe I’m delusional. But if you get too hot, you can swish around and create your own breeze!

Time to knit this skirt: 2 weeks.

Time to weave in the (many) ends: 2.5 hours.

Time between finishing the knitting and finishing the finishing: 4 months.

When I left for Singapore for Christmas, I brought my skeins of Tess Designer Yarns Superwash Merino, my size 8 needles, and a photocopy of the pattern. My goal was to finish it while on vacation. As it turne dout, I finished up the knitting while on my flights back, and I even went so far as to block it in a jet-lagged hazed at 3:45 the morning I returned home.

I chalked it up to a success, because I had finished the hard part! But then it sat. In truth, it sat in a crumpled heap at the bottom of my closet. But finally, this past weekend, I got my act together and wove in all the ends. Unfortunately, I was about 4 days too late to have Lolly photograph the FO, which really would have been awesome—if only because exactly one year ago I finished my Shocking Skirt and she photographed it for me. We were on a photo-taking rampage last week anyway! Oh well, I made do by myself in the subway.

Snapping Turtle Skirt
Knitting Nature, by Norah Gaughan
Yarn: Tess Designer Yarns Superwash Merino
Skeins: 1.25
Size: 34″
Modifications: Rather than the zipper, which I think would have been ultimately nonfunctional, I attached each successive row of hexagons continuously so there would be no seam, and then instead of the little rolled waistband, I knit for 9 rows and made a casing for some 1/2-inch elastic.

More skirts are in my future—hopefully more than once a year!

I definitely love the skirt, though it hugs every curve. Luckily, I like my curves.

Several years ago a friend said to me, in an off-hand way, “well, you’re not a skirt person.”

My reaction was swift and indignant. How dare she say such a thing! But then I thought about it. And, yeah, it’s true, I never wore skirts at the time. I was a jeans-and-a-T-shirt gal, and my skirts required just too much work. More thoughtful shoe choices, potential need for tights (depending on the season), and attention to seated positioning were all necessary when wearing skirts.

I’m not sure if it’s because of her comment or some growth and maturity, but, though my wardrobe remains dominated by slacks, I do enjoy skirting it up from time to time. And my recent foray into the knitted skirt had such resounding success, I was eager to give it another whirl. “Not a skirt person,” pshaw.

Enter Knitting Nature and its cover skirt. The Snapping Turtle Skirt caught my eye immediately–and when I saw Patti’s yarn choice for her version, I knew I wanted to use a yarn that variegated. The individual hexagons would nip any pooling in the bud–or it would at least look artful, I told myself.

At Stitches I had a short list of yarn to buy for specific projects, and the Tess booth came through for the skirt. It’s their Superwash Merino in a colorway that features the darkest chocolate brown, black, gray, and even tan. The photos are a bit washed out–the color is intense.

So intense that it comes off all over your fingers, and you look like you spent time in a newspaper printing plant. (Not that I know if you’re ever likely to get ink on your fingers at a newspaper printing plant–maybe it’s all automated these days.) My flight to Singapore was a night flight, so all the cabin lights were off, and my spot light was a tiny, bright white halogen-quality light–not actually helpful for the seeing. I knit merrily away for a few hours–it’s pretty mindless knitting–and when I saw my blackened fingers later, I was horrified at the sight. I spent the entire time in Singapore with dirty fingers, despite washing my hands all the time. Let’s hope a good washing plus the soak in water and vinegar will nip the skirt’s bleeding in the bud.

Because, I’m happy to report, I finished knitting all the hexagons on my flight back! That was the goal, actually–cast on on the way there, cast off on the way back, 2 weeks later. I would have finished much sooner, but I, uh, didn’t read the directions very closely. See, the third and fourth rows of hexagons are actually increasingly larger than the two rows that preceded them. (I had to take out a row and a half.)

The actual finishing is going to take some time (note all the ends in the shot of me knitting, above). Also, the pattern calls for a zipper, and I left a space for it (though I joined all the other hexagons in the round as I knit), but I’m just going to sew the opening up and re-knit the hem in order to make an elastic casing. How do I know that a zipper won’t work? Because when I arrived home at 2:45 in the morning from my grueling, 30+-hour journey to New York from Singapore, I was unable to sleep–so I blocked the skirt. It was dry by the end of the next day, and I tried it on. I love it–but a zipper is going to do no good. Needs elastic. Needs time to be fixed. Soon, soon.

I’m smitten. Why?

Because my skirt is totally awesome, that’s why.

I was walking on air all day long today, suffused with the knowledge that I was wearing a skirt I made, and it came out completely perfect. All I could think to myself all day long was “I made it myself!”

It’s not often that I’m THIS excited about an FO. It’s also not often that I finish something and can wear it the very next day for all to see–lately I’m knitting all socks or baby toys.

I whined the other day about my troubles with the hem. Thursday I went straight home, eschewed making dinner, and instead opted for a quick Subway sub (a comfort food–and with minimal flirting on my part I was charged for a 6-inch when I got a footlong) so I could buckle down. And buckle down I did. In just two+ hours I had both the waistband and hem finished, and I had a completely steam-blocked skirt.

Pattern: The Shocking! Skirt from the Winter 04 Interweave Knits
Needles: US 7
Yarn: KnitPicks Wool of the Andes in gray, black, and “iron ore”
Size: Small (Too lazy to measure; I’m a US size 4 for clothing, and the pattern’s smallest size was perfect)
Started: Monday, April 2
Finished: Thursday, April 19 (Finished all but the waistband and hem on Saturday, April 14)
Notes: Let me first say, unequivocably, that I recommend this skirt pattern to anyone considering making a skirt. The A-line shaping is really forgiving, and the orientation of the stitches means little to no vertical drooping. It’s also a very straightforward project–the ticking row (the red) is perhaps a little hard to grasp if you’re a beginner, but if you put faith in the directions it’ll come out fine. (I made some modifications to the ticking row; see below.) The only other thing that’s tricky is that you knit the whole thing around sideways in one piece, and then you Kitchener the beginning to the end. If you’re not comfortable with Kitchener, well, it’ll kill you to do it over 108 stitches (and that’s for size small). I actually love Kitchener stitch, but it was a pain for me, too, because I did it without looking, and when I was about a third of the way across I realized that I’d been counting the wrap+turn stitches incorrectly, so I was off–I was going to run out of cast-on stitches way before I’d used up the final row of stitches. So I had to take that all out and be a bit more smart about it. (Lolly was with me for this, and she watched me start to crumple when I realized my error, but I was able to fix it that night without much strife.)

Modifications: There were several modifications, and I’m not entirely sure if they were useful or necessary. Useful modifications included spit-felting all joinings of new balls of yarn and even spit-felting some of the color changes (just from gray to red, not at evey gray-black color change! I carried those yarns along the same side, and was careful to wrap them in the same way at every color change.). Here’s one thing I learned: Spit-felting actually works better when you use SPIT. I’d in the past had a little dish of water handy for the felted join, but I’ve since read that enzymes help the felting process, and then when I was on Greyhound to MD last Thursday I had a cherry coke instead of a water, so I used spit instead. I was shocked (appropriately enough) at the results.

Another modification that I personally like is that the bottom hem doesn’t have that purl turning row. I hate the purl turning row on turned-down hems. I much prefer it to look as if the knitting just continues around. Otherwise, it just looks like a cast-on, and I don’t really like the way most cast-ons look. I also made the bottom hem a tiny bit shorter than called for–the pattern says to knit 3 rows, then do the purl row, then 3 more rows for the inside, and you’re done. I did a total of 4 rows (knit) and then sewed it down. (I did the waistband exactly as the pattern specified.) Oh, and I thought about doing something tricky like knitting down the hem and waistband but that was just too precious a technique, so I eventually whip-stitched the damn things down, and they’re FINE.

A big “modification” was my interpretation of the transition from panel to panel. The pattern doesn’t actually say so, but I think one plain row in gray is necessary to work all the wrap+turns, and if you knit this skirt you’ll know why. I think the pattern is a bit vague on this point.

Modification that may have been useless? The extra row of the ticking row. I’ve thought about this for a long time, actually, and I have come around to the fact that my modification was a good decision–I wanted to be able to spit-felt the red to the gray and have the gray begin at the side of the work where the red ended, and the only way to do that was to knit an extra row of red and do the actual ticking with gray on a knit row. (This only makes sense if you knit the skirt, but I hope someone does, so I’ll persist in my explanation.) I found that performing the ticking on a knit row was much easier than on a purl row, as the pattern expected, so the extra row made for easier work, too.

The reason doing the extra ticking row might have been bad is because at the very end, when you Kitchener, you end up with one extra row of gray. No one in their right mind will ever look at the skirt and identify the extra row of gray. But, naturally, I notice it (helps me know how to wear the skirt, actually). If I hadn’t done the ticking row the way I had, I believe that I’d have not had this undesirable extra row of gray. But it only appears in one spot, and ultimately I think it’s a small price to pay for the convenience of having practically no ends to weave in at the end. So, final verdict: Extra row of ticking worth it despite the flaw it yielded.

Now, about the elastic in the waistband. (Pam expressed keen interest in this subject.) Honestly, I don’t have much to say. The pattern called for 1cm elastic, so i got some, and it said to cut it to 1 inch less than the desired waist measurement, so I put the skirt on and then wrapped the elastic around me–I cut it exactly to my desired measurement, though. Ultimately, I probably shaved off 1.5 inches for the final waistband. The elastic isn’t much more grabby than the knitting was, but it gives just a bit of added security. It didn’t pull funny, and it doesn’t dig into my belly. I measured it to ride right around my hips, because I like lower-slung waistlines. I must confess: I didn’t actually sew the elastic to itself to secure it. I just pinned it with a safety pin. (I was afraid I’d wear it all day and discover it was too tight or too loose or something and I’d want to adjust.) So it’s pinned with about 1.5 inches of overlap, and since it wore just fine today, you know I’m leaving it as is and that safety pin is in there for life.

Many thanks to Lolly, who took all the photos of me with the skirt today at lunch! It was a delight meeting up for photo shoot and MoMA–seeing her twice in one week was total happenstance. (Shots of me with that rusty background are in the MoMA garden, where this large sculpture was taking up most of the grounds. It was echo-y in that little corridor-like space, and I totally loved the piece.)

I finished knitting the Shocking! Skirt on Saturday. That was just shy of 2 weeks after I got the yarn. A finished skirt!

Yeah, no.

The skirt has a waistband (with elastic) and a hem at the bottom. You pick up stitches to create a turned hem in both spots. The pattern calls for you to bind off loosely and sew each band down. Oh, but I have to be fancy, right? I can’t just do it the potentially time-consuming but straightforward way. I have to fiddle. And faddle. And change my mind eight zillion times. And what do I resolve in the end?

To bind off loosely and sew each band down. Yeah, just like the pattern says.

But even that I’m not doing exactly as proscribed. Because while wrestling with the bottom hem, I stopped to actually look at it. And it looks enormous to me. It’s about half an inch deep, but that’s too much for this skirt. So I’m revisiting that. And the waistband? I bought elastic and am ready to go, but to bind off loosely enough I opted for a sewn bindoff, which is tedious over that many stitches.

Crappy photos to properly depict my crappy mood about this element of the otherwise much-loved skirt.

All this isn’t even such a big issue, if I could only find the time to sit and finish up. The weather might actually get springy soon, and I won’t be able to wear this! That’s just wrong. My goal is to have it complete by the end of the weekend, at the latest. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

The Shocking! Skirt is in the works. There are no good pictures in the magazine or online anywhere to help me out with any close-up details of this thing. I’ve completed one panel, and it’s going well–the skirt is pretty straightforward–but I hit a small snag and as a result I’m rejiggering the pattern a bit. Annie and I dissected and discussed it tonight, and I feel pretty confident with my new direction. I’ll give full notes upon completion, especially because by then I’ll know for sure if it’s a good change.

Basically, the deal is that I want to weave in next to no ends at the end, and obviously with three colors in the works that’s going to be tough. In order to achieve this, I spit-spliced two colors together for the very first time. I asked the folks at knitting group if anyone had experience with two-color split-splicing, and Dame Candle Company (yes! I sat next to the woman behind Dame Candle Company; I’m a geeky Cast On fan, what can I say) said she’d not had resounding success with her attempts. I was daunted but unwilling to give up on the idea that I could make it work. Embarrassing aside: I was all brazen about declaring spit-felting god’s gift to knitting, showing people who didn’t know the technique how cool it is, and of course the first time I was impatient and it didn’t felt all the way, so my triumphant “and then see! it’s one strand!” declaration was a pathetic, separating mess.

On my second try (”for reals this time”), it felted the way it should, and I hit the right color-changing spot exactly. Success!

But the biggest issue with wanting to weave in no ends is that is seems the pattern wants you to knit each consecutive panel in a nonconsecutive piece. That is, the last row worked is a WS row, but the first row of the next panel is also a WS row. Well that will just not do. So I’m going to work it out that the last row worked is RS. We’ll see if this is all foolhardy laziness or a smart trick.

At knitting group tonight we all got to meet Anastasia, Annie’s 2.5-week-old baby! She slept pretty much the whole time and is SO TINY. Mom’s planning to knit them matching Anastasia socks–quite an honor for me!