Neater Nupps At Last

So I decided to finish up another UFO languishing too long, Dorothy Siemen's Hugs and Kisses scarf. This is for DD#2, who is in love with the Zephyr I used for Evenstar (I'm using it doubled). I haven't made anything for her in a bit, so I really ought to finish something for her. I'm truly half-way done, just haven't taken a recent shot of it.

I haven't looked at Swallowtail in a bit.

Part of the reason was Evenstar, but I have to admit, a bigger part of the reason was getting bogged down in nupps. Nupps (rhymes with either soups or sups, depending upon whom you ask), are lace-speak for bobbles. Bobbles are easy to do in worsted or Aran-weight yarn, tricky as the dickens in fingering or lace weight, even with sharp needles. A very clever person figured out a much easier way to work them using a crochet hook:



Just the excuse I needed to buy a set of these, right?

After Blocking

And here in her blocked glory is Evenstar:

Backlit (courtesy of DH and DD#2):

It's Finished!

At 9:30 pm Thursday night June 3, I grafted the lace edges of Evenstar together and proclaimed her complete. Techknitter's COWYAK provisional cast-on worked like a charm, leaving me the correct number of stitches to pick up as I unlooped the cotton yarn. The graft is not quite invisible, but who will notice it (I am not the best at Kitchener stitch)? I had to go looking for it and I know it's there.

Blocking in progress using the string method, with much help from DH. Some people curve their blocking wires around for circular shawls, but I didn't want to put an arc in my wires. Also I don't think I have enough wire for the circumference, which I estimate will be 188.4" or 15.7 feet. DH was dear enough to locate some nice unused plywood in 4 x 4 ft increments, to create a platform. And he brought up from the basement a spare round table we use when we have a lot of company to dinner. That'll keep my collie, his visiting brother, and occasional wandering bird off the shawl as it blocks. I set up a fan to speed the drying (the humidity hovers around 90% some days here). So that it might dry some time this summer.

Some new yarn found its way home to me.

First, some Sundara sock yarn in Creme de Menthe, perfect for Evelyn Clark's Twining Lace socks (they need a green yarn, IMO). Next, more Sundara yarn, sport merino in Reaching Out, a deep coral over salmon. I love the entire family of coral/salmon/apricot/shrimp colors; I might just look at this yarn forever. Last, some Yarn Chef Mulligatawny in Bramble Rose, which is more brown than rose. Likely I'll whip up a couple of lacey scarves as gifts for friends out of this.

Now the question is: finish more UFOs or start a new project from my Ravelry queue? Decisions, decisions!!

The Experiential Knitter

Experience is the best teacher they say. Well I've certainly had my fill of that this weekend. That's what I get for 1) putting projects away for nearly 3 years (baby's breath socks, I'm talking about YOU) and 2) not making detailed knitting knotes anywhere about said project. Which meant I frogged and reknit the heel turning 3 times, picked up the heel gusset stitches twice, and redid the gusset decreases twice.
So here are some knitting knotes to self. So I do not have to repeat this decidedly unpleasant experience.
1) Check decreased stitches to be sure one wasn't dropped off needle during decreases (this happened twice when turning the heel; never in my knitting life had I dropped stitches before).
2) When using magic loop technique for socks, I personally found it easiest to keep the instep stitches on 1 needles, and the gusset/heel stitches on the second (YMMV of course).
3) Placing markers between heel and gusset sts made counting easier.
4) The decrease pattern for sts arranged this way are therefore: K1, K2tog, K to marker and slip it, K heel sts, slip marker, K to last 3 sts on needle, SSK, K1.
From the back of the sock, it looks like this (M = marker):

Left side of gusset / M Heel / M /Right side of gusset <-Start here
K1, SSK, K all sts / K all sts / K all sts, K2tog, K1

For all the tsuris (Yiddish for troubles and tribulations), here is the end product:

I might even make more socks after this!

Evenstar nears completion. Only 14 more reps of the border (out of 56 total) and blocking before it's ready for its début.


DH found this beauty I made back when DD#1 was a wee lass:

It's from Anny Blatt book #61, called Félin, and was made of a wool blend plus scraps of angora. Just to remind myself that I really can knit.

Now what?

Now that I've decided to rework my Norah Gaughan top in Mistral instead of Jaeger Ascot, what shall I do with the 26 skeins of Ascot sitting in my cedar chest? Answer: make this luscious lovely!

I need another lightweight cardi anyway, in addition to my favorite Bernat one (a gal can't have too many nice cardis, right?). I was considering making Cerisara but don't think it'll be too flattering on me. I've never made anything from White Lies Designs before, but reading about the designer/founder/creater Joan McGowan-Michael and how she designs for those of us with less than sylph-like proportions (that would include yours truly, *cough cough*), I think Colette would look nicer on moi. Plus it has lace edgings, and I am becoming hooked on lace edgings.

I am officially half-way done with the edging to Evenstar. I am also nearly officially out of beads. To give you an idea of the devotion this project required, the edging alone needs ~11,200 stitches worked, with 5 beads ever other row (nearly 3,000 beads in all). When I need a break from Evenstar, I alternate between the Norah Gaughan top and finishing up (finally) socks promised to DD#1 around 2 years ago (has it been that long, really?)

Ignore the gaping toe; this sock is now complete and the leg of sock #2 is over 80% completed. Yarn is Lana Grossa Meilenweit, a cotton blend, very nice and soft. Pattern is Jeanie Townsend's Baby's Breath. Easy to memorize. Get it from her website.

Lace Knitting: What I Have Learned

This year is turning into the Year of Lace Knitting for me. Although I'd knitted lace or patterns with lace motifs in the past, I've never before knitted so much lace and so many lacy items.
So far this year I learned the following:

1) triangular shawls (Shetland Triangles lace shawls and Swallowtail shawl)
I learned that these are easier than they look and loads of fun to knit.

2) beaded lace knitting (Shetland Triangles lace and Evenstar shawls)
I learned not to use size 8/0 beads with fingering weight yarn, unless I want to spend more time repairing lace than knitting lace. I also learned that spending ~$10 on a set of steel crochet hooks was both a time and money saver,and that size 7 hooks work well with 6/0 beads, and size 10 is the go-to size for 8/0 beads. And I learned that a little half-cup Rubbermaid container makes a handy place to keep my beads at the ready for loading the crochet hook, without worrying about spilling all 3000 of them at once. I put a few on the grooved lid; the most I might lose are those few beads.

3) circular or pi shawl (Evenstar shawl)
I learned I hate all the circular cast-ons, and that the world will not come to an end if I just cast on, do the first increase rows back and forth, then join and start the magic loop technique. I also learned I can darn the beginning pretty near invisibly with the cast on tail. As well I learned that counting stitches between markers every RS row saves a lot of tinking.

4) adding a lace edging perpendicular to the direction of the body of the shawl (Evenstar shawl)
For years I could not wrap my mind around how to do this. Making Evenstar forced me to master how to do it. To add a lace edging or border, one needs to start with a provisional cast on (PCO) using waste yarn. The 2 most popular methods used for PCO are a crocheted PCO (wherein one knits into the crocheted bumps with the main yarn; the crocheted chain is unzipped when the cast on stitches need to be revealed and made live) and an "open" PCO (sort of twisting the main yarn around the waste yarn plus needle). I wondered if one couldn't just start by casting on and knitting a couple of rows with waste yarn, then switching to main yarn. I've had practice picking out cast on rows before. Use a light-colored smooth waste yarn and slightly loose tension and it should should be fine. Well Techknitter beat me to it; she even has a name it: the COWYAK method. COWYAK = cast on with waste yarn and knit. Check the link to her site and see how wonderfully logical it is.


And see how it looks here (I used white cotton yarn for the cast-on, then knit a row in Zephyr before starting the lace pattern; the beading begins on row 2 of this particular pattern). When the edging is done, I'll carefully undo the white yarn, stitch by stitch, back onto a DPN; since it's only 16 stitches I don't think it'll be that difficult. Stay tuned!

And I learned that it's not heresy to cut the yarn from the body before casting on for the edging; after all, what would you do if you were making edging in a contrasting color? In my case, I needed to do it in order to cast on (I was having trouble). Then I noticed I didn't have enough Zephyr wound off the cone for the edging. Bigger pain to deal with adding more Zephyr in the middle of a beading edging. So I wound another few ounces and forged ahead. Someone on Ravelry said a propos of this very pattern "It's a pattern, not a law." I agree. There's often more than one way to achieve a goal in knitting, and life, I find. When the ends are woven in, only a very nosy Nellie looking on the wrong side will be able to see that I cut and rejoined.

5) Most important thing I learned is to start the perpendicular edging on the first stitch of the round. Ask me how I know this is so very important. OK, I'll tell you: because when I tried it on the last stitch of the round, I knitted a beautiful beaded edging facing the wrong side of the shawl. I was lucky I caught it after only part of 1 of 56 repeats of the edging. That's a mistake I hope never to make again.

Knitting Knews

That's what's been keeping me from blogging, the Evenstar shawl. I am done with Clue 5; there are only 2 more clues to go. At nearly 600 stitches per row, it takes about a half hour to do one row. Especially since I count each repeat and each motif inside each repeat. May be slow and may be a bit boring but it's kept me from major screw ups while knitting this shawl.

I would recommend being this compulsive to anyone embarking on a complex lace pattern. The sanity you save may be your own. The other bit of advice I have is to use a good, grippy rubber band (I'm using one from my hair stash) on the ends of the circular needles, to prevent loss of stitches while the project is away. The fancy doo-dads they sell I've heard have a tendency to jump off tiny lace needles at inopportune moments. From what I've read on the Ravelry boards, stitches on complex lace projects have a finite chance of migrating or wandering while the knitter is off doing non-knitterly things. The more complex the lace, the higher the chance that the stitches will wander off the needles according to the formulae:

where z* = complexity of pattern and tau* = patience of knitter to reknit the thing, D being number of stitches the knitter will have to pick up times the number of rows dropped to get back to where the knitter was. Easier to stick a rubber band on the ends.

Since I was in a picture-taking mood, and my boat-load of pins (for blocking Evenstar) came, I decided to take a better photo of the lovely budding lace pattern that is the main part of Swallowtail:

Such a gorgeous little lace pattern! Makes up for the drawbacks of the yarn. You can really see the intriguing Twilight color of the Jamieson's Shetland in the macro. Wonder if adding a bit of hair conditioner to the Eucalan will help it soften.

The Beaverslide Dry Goods yarn and the Miyuki 6/0 beads, came so I can make a pink Shetland Lace Triangles shawl for my little niece, as requested. Just like Mommy's.

While I was gone

Spring sprung around the EK household:




And (cue the trumpets) Carefree was finished at 9:14 pm last night, in time to wear during the next cold front this weekend:


Thoughts on the pattern: Fun to knit, though there were a few confusing spots. In the end, I followed my instincts. I also shortened the collar by a half-inch; I didn't want it coming up so high in the back; I'm glad I did so.

Thoughts on the yarn (Jaggerspun Zephyr 2/8): I love it. I wish it came in more weights (fingering, sport, worsted).

And here's Swallowtail. I confess, much as I like Jamieson's Shetland yarns, I'm not liking Spindrift so much, or maybe I'm not liking Spindrift so much for a shawl. Hope it softens when I soak it in Eucalan. The color (Twilight) is absolutely heavenly.


Evenstar wants a photo taken before I begin the next clue:


And last, some new yarn I've acquired. Both are Dream in Color Starry, Midnight Derby (left) and Good Luck Jade.


Tonight is devoted to knitting clue 4 of Evenstar. Off to do it!

Act II: An (Even)Star Shawl is Born

Scene: EK's bedroom. She is alone in the house except for the collies and birds.
Action: The Evenstar "toe" is on the needles, ready for more wrestling into submission.

EK: (takes deep breath) OK, I boiled the cables of the Addi Lace needles beyond al dente. Oh I like that, cables with no minds at all! Let's move these stitches onto compliant needles. (moves stitches, starts knitting). Behold!! Sharp tips really matter! Soft cables are so much nicer. Joins could be a tad smoother, but what an improvement.

In the space of a few hours, what looks like a shawl, and not a toe, is created:


EK: Wow, 3/4 of the way through the chart. If I didn't have to go out tonight, I'd finish it. What joy!

DH walks in; is shown infant shawl.
DH: Lovely lace but it doesn't look like a shawl yet.
EK is left pondering other uses for sharp needles.
End of Act II.

Evenstar: Act 1

Scene: Experimental Knitter's bedroom. Alone, she can finally take out her huge ball of Zephyr laceweight, her Clover needles, her first clue for Evenstar, and begin the mystery shawl.
Action: EK casts on using Eunny Jang's method, then TECHKnitter's method, then back to Eunny Jang's method. Finally, 9 sts have been cast on. EK knits a round before increasing. The yarn doesn't slip off the bamboo needles but instead jams at the joins. To make matters worse, EK is frantically trying to make the cables behave; they are so much stiffer than her other cables. She had pre-soaked them in very hot water, now she twists them and folds them, but they have minds of their own, evil things that they are. EK decides that enough's enough.
EK: BAH! Enough of this!! Plenty of folk on the Ravelry KAL casted on straight, then joined. I can do the same.

And does: EK uses a long-tail cast-on doubled, knits a row, then purls a row. Now EK performs the increase row to double the stitch number to 18. Chicken that she is, she knits the next 3 rows straight, then prepares for the magic loop technique (ML). Loops out, then realizes she should switch needles to Addi Turbos. Needles switched, EK now performs the second increase row to 36 stitches and knits the 6 intervening rows.
EK: Why does it look like the toe of a sock with eyelets? When will it resemble a shawl? Why did I sign up for this? Will I be a knitting failure if I quit now? Yes (sigh).
EK resumes knitting.

Enter DH.
EK: Don't talk to me.
DH: OK but let me know when I can talk to you.
EK: As of now, it might be never.
DH: Why did I encourage her to sign up for this knit-along? Why?
The next increase row to 72 stitches is performed. Now EK can work on 12 rows of just knitting.
EK: OK, you can talk to me now.
DH: I forgot what I needed to say.

Act 1, Scene 2. EK's home office.
EK: Hmmm, how can I make knitting this thing easier. Sharper tips, more flexible cables, what? Maybe I should boil the cable. No, might ruin the started shawl. Ah, I know: lace needles.
Orders Addi lace needles.

End of Act 1.

And that's the current drama in my knitting life.

Bead All That You Can Bead

No, not a mangled slogan for the US Marine Corps; rather a discovery that I can knit and bead. The Evenstar KAL begins tonight. The shawl calls for 2900 seed beads. That's 3 ounces of size 8/0 beads. Initially I was going to eschew the beads, but the more I looked at beaded swatches (and my own bead stash), the more I thought, "I can do this." Indeed, with a crochet hook (0.6 mm in diameter is what I bought), it's eminently possible to add beads one at a time. Who knew it could be so easy? When my mother knitted with beads or sequins, she strung them all. With this technique, beads can be added at will, in any color order desired. How neat is that? What's even neater is the choice of lovely beads I have. Above are 2 I picked from my stash to coordinate with the Zephyr yarn. I want a subtle shimmer so I picked bead colors fairly close to the yarn color. Both are Matsuno shade 356g, called magenta-lined aurora borealis (AB in bead lingo) or Sparkling Dahlia (listed on my tubes) or Elderberry-lined AB. Maybe that should be Eldar-berry, in keeping with the LotR theme here; bad pun, I know. On the bottom are the smaller size 11/0 and at top the size 8/0 the pattern calls for. I might, just might, try to use the size 11/0; there's something about the more subtle glimmer of them that appeals to me. I want a mysterious look to the shawl, a nighttime look: subtle shimmer that resembles stars twinkling in the sky, not bold glitz and glamour. If I can't get the 11/0 beads on the yarn, well then, the 8/0 beads will have to do.

Now take these beads:

Aren't they gorgeous? Hard to capture the nuances of color, but believe me, they are stunning. This color is called Brownstone Iridescent. I think I'll add these to the edging of my Shetland Triangle shawl. The color will look super against the pale beige. I can't wait for the crochet hook to arrive from Fuzzy Mabel so I can start bead knitting!

And I'll wind up this post with some eye candy for you. Still keeping to the LotR theme, here's a necklace I finished late 2009 I named Arwen. I was inspired to make it by the headpiece she wore at Aragorn's coronation in Return of the King.

Paging Karl Lagerfeld at Chanel

Thursday's New York Times covered Karl Lagerfeld's Chanel show earlier this week. This passage caught my eye:

It was Mr. Lagerfeld’s 54th couture collection for the house, a milestone noted by a man who doesn’t easily observe anniversaries or birthdays. He mentioned the fact only because that’s the number of collections it apparently took him to figure out how to make a dress that doesn’t appear to have seams.

Making a seamless dress was a goal of futurists like Rudi Gernreich and Issey Miyake, and, no, Mr. Lagerfeld didn’t quite succeed. But at least he thought about it. The method he used requires four hours of handwork to cover a length of two inches, but the effect of flat, random stitches on pastel wool bouclé dresses and jackets was successful enough to make the seams appear magically erased.

Pastel wool bouclé. Any bouclé for that matter. In other words, yarn. We knitters know how to make seamless garments, n'est-ce pas? M Lagerfeld, je peux vous tricoter les chemises sans sutures!

In other (knitting) news, I have finished Sleeve #1 of Milkshake. Voilà!

I took the photo right before completing it. It has a strange sleeve cap: all decreases from the armhole. Quite different from the body shaping.

And I did more work on the Shetland Triangle shawl:
This shawl pattern is nice and easy; I don't think my next shawl project Evenstar will be this relaxing. Speaking of which, I ought to start swatching for it soon. I plan to use the JaggerSpun Zephyr 2/18 I have in stash (I have nearly a pound of it, that's over 5,000 yards). Plenty for mistakes, frogging, tinking, and any other disaster I can think of. No joining either. And a pretty dark maroon color (maybe dark is good for hiding mistakes?). This will be my first circular shawl. It'll be an adventure. Maybe not on the order of Frodo's and Sam's; here's hoping it won't feel as if I descended into Mordor!