pepperknit

I’m always fascinated by the thousands of different ways there are to knit. People learn from books, from teachers, from grandmothers, from mothers. We all make it comfortable for us, in our own ways.

My mom taught me to knit when I was about 8 years old. She knits English, so that’s how I knit. But even then we knit differently—back then, we only had straight needles (long ones!), and mom tucks the needle into the crook of her elbow, something I find impossibly awkward. I’ve since moved exclusively to circular needles, and after taking a class (in double knitting, natch!) at Stitches East, in which I sat next to a woman who knit Continental, I’ve switched to knitting with my left hand. (So I’m a completely self-taught Continental knitter—I saw it in action out of the corner of my eye, and I just unvented it for myself when I was back home.)

I’ve mentioned before, but I’ll say it again: Making the switch to Continental was really rather difficult. Getting an even gauge and even feeling comfortable with the motion (heck, remembering to knit Continental, and not just go back to the old way) took a lot of time. The payoff is so so worth it, though—I’d been a quick knitter before, but I’m lightning-fast now. And since I’m a product knitter, I like speed. (I’m also just an impatient person, so speed works for my personality.)

Here’s a video of me knitting. I don’t try to show you how to form a stitch, I don’t explain how I wrap the yarn: I am just working on my project. Note: This isn’t only knitting—I’m doing a k10, p1. Because purling looks so wacked out, and because I didn’t want people to be confused and think I was actually knitting the entire time, I say “purl” when I get to the purl. (So those of you who haven’t purchased the Tapestry Cowl or who don’t know me in person will get to hear my voice! If I sound stuffy, it’s fall allergy season.)

It’s funny to watch it and dissect the actions. Damn, I move the tips of my index fingers a LOT! Much more than I thought I did. In all the various times I’ve taught someone to knit, I’ve noticed more and more quirks to my style—how I hold the stitch I just knit with the tip of my right index finger. But there are some things I’d never realized until today—I feed myself more yarn by lightly pressing the middle finger of my left hand against the yarn.

I just filmed three short videos showing my technique in slower-motion—more of a tutorial on my version of Continental—with the aim to share that with you, too, but I’m having trouble getting them up onto the web. (And putting all 4 in one post might have been too much for the blog, anyway!) I hope I’ll be able to share them soon.

Knitting is so visual, and yet we rarely take the time to really look at how we do it. I’m loving making these little videos, and I hope to include video with all my future patterns so that the patterns are as clear as possible. But I maybe need some actual video editing software—as it is, I’m uploading straight out of the camera! Does anyone have a suggestion for something easy and, preferably, free?

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!

Just so I’m clear–which I definitely wasn’t in the last post–the picot edging I did was a simple, no-fuss, picot bindoff. Yeah, I italicize a single word and think I’ve made the entire situation clear. But I didn’t do some fancy picot edging, I bound off into picots.

Still saying “dude, you are using synonyms here”? Yeah, I am. I can do better.

I did the following to bind off:
Cast off 2 stitches like normal. *Transfer the stitch on the right needle to the left. Using the cable caston method, cast on 2 stitches. Bind off 4 stitches like normal. Repeat from * around.

This creates little picots. There was no fancy row of picot-making, then some straight knitting, then folding and sewing the flap down. Lolly’s tutorial seemed to only mention these fold-down kinds. Until I read her tutorial, I didn’t even know that this fold-down picot thing existed! I just assumed that all picot-ed socks had a picot bindoff. Maybe it’s clear to the rest of you–or maybe I didn’t read the tutorial closely enough–but I went with what I perceived to be the lazy knitter’s way out! My problem with the technique is that the cable caston sucks, and the whole process was tedious and time-consuming. I couldn’t locate my small crochet hook, or it would have been a TON better.

So anyway, play with your own picot bindoff or edging and see what works for you!

Now that I’m redoing the Sunrise, I’ve decided to work on all the little things that could have been done better the first time around. I’m also being as OCD as humanly possible—I’ve already taken part of the sleeve out once! (I forgot which M1 was R and which was L, but went ahead without checking, and turned out to have had them backward. This would have meant nothing in the grand scheme, but I wanted it to be right. My boyfriend gave me an intense ironic face and said “this is for your mother. are you going to settle?” :) ). So anyway, fixing the k2togtbls is a high priority, because they’re all fat and ugly in the original (look along the right shoulder of the jacket, to the left in the photo, here)—it’s a constant problem for me all the time with those ssk/k2togtbl decreases.

I knit up a swatch, and here it is:

I tried 4 different left-leaning stitches. They’re the stitches that are slightly ‘bigger’ than the others along the left side of the column, and they appear every other row—if you click on the photo you can see the Notes I made on the photo in Flickr. The right-hand side of the column are normal old k2togs. Starting from the bottom, we have

* A standard k2togtbl. I was trying to keep the stitches only on the tips of the needles, but I’m not sure how successful I was. This stitch looks big to me, and it’s exactly how all the stitches on my completed Sunrise look.
* An ssk. For this one, I slipped just the first stitch knitwise, then k2togtbl.
* A true ssk. Here I slipped both stitches knitwise and then k2togtbl.
* An off-standard k2togtbl in which I worked the purl row before differently: I wrapped the yarn backward on the two stitches that would be knit together, so that when I came to knit them they were already turned and the tension was taut. I got this tip from the Knitty boards.

I didn’t try an ssk in which I slip the first stitch purlwise and the second knitwise; I should have tried that. But I kind of doubt that it will fix the problem any better—it’s the first stitch that always ends up looking ugly, and this method 1) manipulates the stitch more than might be necessary and 2) doesn’t actually change anything about that first stitch.

I think the best two are the straight-up ssk (the 3rd from the bottom) and the off-standard k2togtbl (4th from the bottom), which are really just the same stitch but produced via different means. I think I’m going to use the method of the off-standard, mostly because it means less moving around of the stitches and because it won’t be hard to know where the two stitches that need to be wrapped wrong are. I could still use to finesse my purl tension vs. my knit tension for those stitches, but all in all this creates a nice, smooth, tight little decrease that I’m pleased with.

Maybe this experiment will help you, too, the next time you have to do a left-leaning decrease! I hope so.

The speediness with which I finished the baby sweater was helped enormously by the fact that I did little to nothing all weekend. The boy and I lazed around the house, quite deliberately, both days of the weekend. So while I do crank out stitches pretty quickly, this surprised even me.

And as for my “kitchener stitch” at the armhole. It wasn’t a true kitchener stitch, of course, because there weren’t live stitches along the armhole. But by weaving in and out of the live stitches and going into the side of the armholes, I created what looks like a line of knits and leaves the seams perfectly aligned. I don’t know how else one does armholes, actually, and you can definitely do it without live stitches; I just find it easier.

Next time I do this I’ll have to take some step-by-step shots to further illustrate it.

If magic loop looks like this (the piece wouldn’t sit still, so it looks a little weird):

Then lazy loop looks like this:

With this arrangement, you don’t risk getting a ladder in two spots and you can very easily shift the stitches around. It’s easy to scrunch all the stitches up to make the circle of knitting really small, providing plenty of empty cord to knit onto. I found that if I tried to shift the stitches while using “proper” magic loop, I was accidentally eliminating the second loop anyway.

This is also nice because it makes the beginning of the round immediately obvious. While I know that stitch markers are easy and cheap, sometimes my notions supply is not within reach. (Like, it’s on the floor next to the couch and I’m sitting on the couch. Obviously way too far away.)

As I said this morning, this simplified magic loop won’t work as well for a small piece, like a sock—you need the stitches to be numerous enough to create a continuous loop with one “needle” in the circle. Hope this helps you visualize it, and I hope it comes in handy (if you haven’t happened upon it yourself already).

The Top Five for 2005
1. New technique: Magic Join: The felted join that makes my days bright. And Magic Loop: the knitting-in-the-round technique that makes hats a breeze.

2. Favorite FO: Legwarmers: an impulsive knit that changed my life. And Pam: a semi-reluctant knit (it wasn’t a pattern I was in love with, but it looked fine) that I’ve incorporated into my wardrobe fully. Note that I still haven’t put on the buttons!

3. Favorite KAL: Well, I kind of have to say Cover Your Ankles, right? It’s the one I started! I also enjoyed the Union Square Market KAL, even though I still haven’t finished that sweater. I will, I swear.

4. Favorite LYS: I’m so excited to share this with everyone—on Saturday I went to Loop, at 19th and South, for the first time. It was heaven. Everything I would do if I were opening my own yarn shop. Clean, crisp, modern, chic, but comfy all at the same time. Super-friendly owner, delicious yarns, and a huge variety of product. I wish it were closer to where I live! I will definitely go out of my way to go there, however. It’s worth it.

5. Favorite tool: I suppose 40-inch circulars, for magic looping. But I also finally got one of those needle size doo-dads, so that I don’t have to peer at the cord of circulars to figure out the size anymore.

Six Goals for 2006
1. Knit for all the many babies that are being born to friends. So far, I have 3 things to knit before July.

2. Finish the Union Square Market Pullover.

3. Clean up and organize the stash.

4. Try some lace, for real. Maybe with that Wool in the Woods I got at Stitches.

5. Maybe actually finish a pair of socks? (I’ve so far done about 3 socks, none matching. I bore easily.)

6. I think this will be my only “real” (i.e., non-knitting) resolution for the year: Dress up more. I have loads of nice clothing, but always opt for jeans and simple shirts. Let’s start being more grown-up and professional.

Don’t feel bad if you prefer dpns! Especially if you’ve tried magic loop but didn’t like it. They’re just not for me. And it’s not a question of tension that irritates me about those last few stitches, it’s purely an issue of physics: The needles are sticking out everywhere, and when I get to the last two stitches they’re harder to access, because they kind of tuck under the next needle. I suppose I should try overlapping the needles the other way, but then tension comes into play—I feel I get more even tension if I start knitting with the new needle under the one that preceded it.

Anyway, for those thinking about trying Magic Loop, it is, of course, a little awkward at first. But the idea that I could knit absolutely anything requiring size 3 needles on just one pair of needles is appealing. With a large needle I can do a sweater—flat or in the round. I can do socks in the round. I can start and finish a hat on the same needles, without having to switch to dpns or having to use dpns the entire time.

To each her/his own, of course. And to tell the truth, now that I’ve been working on the dpns for a little longer, I’m back into a groove with them. I still don’t really like it, but it’s moving faster. (Plus the other issue at hand, the suckiness of the needles themselves, is still a factor.) Anyway, all this to say you can basically get used to anything, but for me, the practicality of just a few large circulars and the simplicity of magic loop (I didn’t have any tension issues with it) outweighs having multiple sets of various sizes of needles.

There was a time when I didn’t know about Magic Loop. During that time, I, like many other people, used these horrible dpn contraptions. Since discovering Magic Loop, I’ve been forcing every project to conform to size 3 needles—the only size circular I bought that’s long enough to use Magic Loop on. (Yes, I have plans to get myself a whole lot more.)

But I’m working on this sock right now. (BTW: Jaax, where the heck are you? What’s happening with our mini toeup sockalong? I’m nearly done with the first sock now!) I was able to use Magic Loop for the body, but the top wants a smaller sized needle. Hence, these sharp little daggers I have encasing my sock.

I’d forgotten just how awkward working with dpns is compared with Magic Loop. Those last two stitches on each needle are a real pain in the ass! The needles are long, so I have to move the yarn all over the place to clear them. And when I’ve finished a row, I drop the needle from my left hand as I’ve come accustomed to doing with Magic Loop, but now a little lance lands on my leg.

And can I just fawn a bit over Addi Turbos? See, I’ve been using Addis for all my projects for a long while now, and I’d forgotten how pathetic some other needles can be. These size 2s that I’m on now—an old pair that I’ve had for years—are kind of flexible (I have no idea what material they are; they’re too sharp to be plastic, I think), and they are not nearly so easy to work with.

Ah yes, bitch bitch bitch. The Christmas spirit is all over my house :) No, I’m all complain-y but I’m not really upset. Just determined to buy a TON more super-long Addi Turbos as soon as I can!

In a side note, I can’t believe how quickly this sock knits up. I’ve only ever knit one sock before (that’s right, one), and I felt like it took me forever. I’m definitely going to be able to knit the other one while I’m visiting my parents this weekend, but I wonder if I should be packing something else, too!

I tried mistake-stitch rib (before you suggested it!) and even k1p1 again, but ultimately I decided that brioche was where it was at—thick, plush, dense—and in order to get it tighter, I’d just have to go to smaller needles.

I dropped down to size 3s. In Manos! And it’s created the perfect density. In fact, I bound one of them off just about an hour ago, before leaving for work. I didn’t knit it in the round, because I wasn’t exactly sure that brioche would work in the round. Once I got through some more inches, I knew how I could make it work, but by then I was on a roll and decided that a quick seam down the side wouldn’t be so bad. Plus knitting flat meant I didn’t have to think at all (it’s the same exact row every time; in the round I’d have had to switch each row)—and I hit a particularly pleasant groove with the yo, sl1 combination.

Laura, why did you say that you couldn’t “do it”? If you think brioche would be too hard, just try it! It’s really easy. On an even number of stitchs, the prep row is to yo, sl1, k1. Then all other rows are to yo, sl1, k2tog (knitting together the slipped stitch and the yo). To bind off, I did p1, k2tog across, because otherwise it ended up too tight if I bound off using the slipped stitches without working them. I’m sure this is making sense only to those who’ve worked with brioche before, but in case you try it, that’s the solution I decided on.