windward

My Windward scarf is done, well almost. I do have all those pesky ends to sew in since I decided to add random stripes with a left over odd ball of sock yarn with the Alpaca Fine (by Berroco) I used for the main colour.

The reason this scarf has fascinated me is because the direction of knitting changes. It's nerdy knitting at it's best.

The big open arrows are the direction of knitting. It begins at the left end in a more or less usual way. Starting with section D the direction of knitting changes. Cast On for E at the bottom and work across D & E, Cast On for G and then work D, E, F & G at the same time. Finally cast on a bit for H and work back and forth across D, E, F, G & H. You can see the squiggly arrow I put in to show what a row looks like - an S shape. I love that. Cast Off across the top, leaving the stitches of H open and work I & J in a more usual way. Fascinating.

Unfortunately, when worn, no one will know that this is a very cleverly designed scarf. Oh well. I'll know.

-Deb

Reading too much Blogging advice

I think it is possible to read too much of certain subjects. Fiction, too much? Never. Self-help, yeah, too much can convince you you'll never be what you should be. But I think business books must be the worst. There is sooo much information on how to make it all work. It's overwhelming. And what does overwhelm usually lead to? Chocolate, cookies, wine and not writing the blog.

Blog advice I have read recently:

1. Be useful. So what is useful? Does that mean only technical advice on techniques? Help with getting difficult parts of your knitting figured out? Sometimes a good laugh is really useful. Or feeling like you are not alone in not finishing the 13 projects you have started. Or that you are not the only one struggling to sew on those damn buttons an hour before you want to wear your sweater even though it sat there without buttons for 6 months.

2.  Show videos. But it's also not advisable to send people to other sites because they may not come back. Hello, hello, anybody there? So do your own videos because videos are so easy to dash off in 1 or 2, 3, 4 or more likely 5 hours, to professional standards, of course. And that's after getting a manicure and elocution lessons, learning to handle your camera and keeping your hands in the assigned area that the camera can record (that's the really, really hard part because who can talk without using your hands even when they have knitting needles in them).

3.  Speak in your own voice. Obviously mine is a little cranky today but hey, we all have cranky days. But I should put my big girl pants on and say something nice about all the information I have gained reading how to have a great blog. Not.

So I'm adding new advice. Note to self: Just write your blog. Mine will be part diary of my knitting, part advice and technical help, part whatever else is on my mind, usually about knitting. I'm burning all these blog advice books. No, no, burning books is wrong! I'm taking them to the free bin at the library where they can cause someone else grief many hours of reading pleasure.

After taking a month off, I'M BACK.
Deb

Eek, a Steek Retreat

The challenge for the Knitting at Lake Lauzon was to come up with a steek project. They asked for steeking, really they did. So we steeked. Steeks are beneficial when knitting with 2 colours. Mosaic knitting is 2-colour knitting where you only use one colour at a time. A great technique.

First we all worked on the Mosaic pattern. Then we sewed along the 5 extra steek stitches we added to the hat circumference.

Then we CUT.

No one fainted, everyone sewed and cut, everyone! Then we worked the buttonband and the crown of the hat. A marvelous job by all and wonderful finished hats.

Liz finished with a headband.

A terrific weekend at Lake Lauzon Resort. There will be another retreat in 2016, same weekend, same place. Looking forward to it already.

-Deb

Our theme at the Yarn Over Sleep Over Retreat last weekend was to

Laugh a Lot,

Eat a Lot (I know I definitely pulled my weight there, ha, ha),

 Learn a Lot (I learned a couple of "new to me" techniques so I could teach them for our Speed Knitting:  new stretchy cast on and a new lace bind off),

and partake in some extra curricular activities.

 Same weekend next year at the Fern Resort.

 Have you been to a retreat lately? What did you really love about it.

I'm still retreating. Off to another retreat on Friday: Knitting at Lake Lauzon in Algoma Mills, ON (northern Ontario). We're going to Steek. The first cut is the deepest (song) right? There may be some sweaty palms. I hope everyone survives.
-Deb

YarnOverSleepOver Retreat

It's retreat time. This is the Yarn Over Sleep Over retreat that 9 needlework professionals, including Lyn and I, run together and teach at. We are being pro-active. Why wait to be chosen to teach when we could run a retreat of our own? This is our third year and the organization over the year leading up to this weekend is interesting, as all group work is, and very rewarding. Nine strong-minded entrepreneurial minds coming together, well you can imagine the sparks fly sometimes, all to the good. We have a wonderful weekend planned for our 43 attendees.

I've got all my samples for my two classes, a fashion show and for the Speed Dating Knitting.

What may you ask is Speed Knitting? Our first activity at the retreat is based on Speed Dating where one set of people, for example Women, sit in chairs along a wall and across from them sit those that came to date. Each person spends 2 minutes with the person in front of them and then moves to the next table. In our case, we're not looking for dates but for knitting know-how. A group of knitter sits at one table and tries a technique for 10 minutes then moves to the next table. It's quick, it's fun and hopefully educational. Our 4 tables this year are: Nupps, Garter Stitch Cast Off, Stretchy Cast On and Machine Knitting. As we all know, knowledge is power, power to the knitter.
Hope you have a great weekend, I am going to,
-Deb

Mosaic Sample

I've working up my first sample for a Steek workshop I'm running in Northern Ontario. It's a weekend at Lake Lauzon Resort in Algoma Mills, ON on April 25 & 26. Yikes, it's coming up soon.

Steeks work really well for 2-colour knitting because it's so much easier to do colourwork in the round. For this workshop we're going to make a hat or headband with 2 colours with a steek which will be cut and a buttonband put in it's place. Although the usual method for colourwork is to work a fairisle pattern, I decided to tackle Mosaic knitting.

I think I am in love. Have you tried this? There are lots of advantages, especially when worked in the round.
1.  Work with only 1 colour on a round at a time, perfect. No need to carry a second colour.
2.  The charts are easy to read once you know the trick. The trick is that each row of the chart must be worked twice with the same colour of wool.
3. The charts are easy to work with. Working with the dark colour, knit the dark stitches on the chart, slip the light stitches.
2.  The second round in the same colour is a snap. Phew. Always nice to have a comfortable, easy round. Work the stitches that are in the colour you're working with and slip the other stitches. You can have fun with the stitches on this round. By knitting the stitches you produce stockinette stitch or by purling them, garter stitch.

I see possibilities here. I worked the green (light colour) in stockinette stitch and the blue (dark colour) in garter stitch. What if I did it the other way around and made the green in garter stitch and the blue in stockinette stitch? How different would it look? What if I made the background the light colour and the shape in the dark colour? What if I did it all in garter stitch?

As you can see I have some more mosaic knitting in my near future. I can't wait to see what will happen.
-Deb

Stalled, why?

I'm stalled on my Blue. It just sits there making me feel guilty. I need to decide how long to make it which isn't a huge decision but I'm not making it. How come?

I like the colour.
I like the design.
I like the knitting, of course. But still, there it sits.

I don't want to write it out as a pattern. AH-HA, There it is.

The thought of writing it out has stopped me in my tracks. I think I have been knitting ahead of the writing. There is a tricky part around the buttonholes which has me questioning myself. Could I have worked this out better? Maybe and maybe not. I don't think even if I had anticipated the entire design before I started I could have set this up any better. Besides I don't generally work that way. I think up things as I knit along and then figure out how to do them. I did that several times on this sweater with much ripping back and reworking. I like the result.

It's easy enough to work the buttonhole, A-line increase and add another stitch pattern repeat, all at the same time, while I'm knitting but I'm anticipating a challenge when it comes to writing it out coherently. Did you catch those magic pattern writer words, "at the same time"? I know all knitters are a little suspicious when you see those words so I'm going to try not use them.

Reframe how I think about this:

It's a challenge I'm capable of meeting.
It will improve my pattern writing skills.
This may open up new avenues for more complex designing and writing.

I've almost convinced myself. I'm going to take this on and write a little bit of this pattern each day. And finish knitting it of course. Let's not forget about that. LOL.
-Deb