Looking back

Before I get to reminiscing, look at the pretty yarnz that came in the mail today!

They're from String Theory, one of my very favorite dyers. Cookie A introduced them to me. Yum! They're for a fun little secret project that I hope you will love! We are also talking about a sweater's worth of yarny goodness for a Burnham Wood cardi. I think we have a winner here!

Onward. :) Today, as I was going through my stash - I like to pet and drool at intervals before choosing yarn for my next project - I came upon an old UFO. Not just any UFO, but a beaded shawl design in lace weight silk. I was about halfway through my Faroese-inspired Muir Triangle when I gave it up. It was unwieldy and the chart was different almost every row. Actually, looking back, I don't think any two rows - other than the purl rows - were the same. In this pre-charting software era of my designing, I had actually taped together sheets of graph paper into 20 x 30 size and written out the whole chart in pencil, not really considering how I was going to get the behemoth into pattern form for knitters!

At the time, I definitely wasn't anywhere near as experienced with lace knitting as I am now. My obsessive side stuck to a concrete plan of 4 increases every right side row for a triangle, no matter what the cost in chart misery. Now I can look back and laugh at myself. After having knit so much lace in the intervening time, I realize that lace is one of the most forgiving knitted fabrics. Two increases or 6 now and again, rather than 4 on every single right side row don't really make much of a difference after blocking. But for the ease of working the pattern? Rearranging increase rates on a chart can be the difference between pages and pages of charts that are difficult to memorize, and two or three charts that are repeated and so very memorable and simple to work. That's one of the big things I've learned over the past few years. Now when I design a pattern, I am constantly thinking of the ease of working it, and how it flows. That's why, even though this is a pretty pattern, I am going to rip it out. The yarn and beads are perfect, but the pattern? Not so much. I wouldn't perpetrate it on any of you poor unsuspecting lace knitters out there. At least not until it's been completely redesigned and rewritten. Yes, there will still be a Faroese-inspired Muir Triangle. But by the time it comes out, it will actually be enjoyable to knit!

Ooh! Before I forget - tomorrow I will be posting prices for 2012's Pins & Lace Club, and I will be opening the first round of sign-ups on the afternoon of September 15th. The options are changing and I think you'll like them! Stand by!!

Miscellany

Hypothetical Conversation

Kid #1: Mom, [Kid #2] took my notebook that I got at his birthday party. Could you make him give it back?
Kid #2: It was on the floor.
Kid #1: So? It has my NAME on it!
Kid #2: But it was on the FLOOR!
Kid #1: SO!?!?!?
Kid #2: It's MINE!
Kid #1: No it's NOT!
Kid #2: You didn't get ANYthing at my birthday party!
Kid #1: Yes, I DID!!!
Mom: This is why parents look so much older than other people. Did you know I'm really only 22?
Kid #1: Could you deal with it?
Mom to Kid #2: Do you have the notebook?
Kid #2: Yes. It's MINE!!!
Kid #1: It has my name on it!
Mom to Kid #2: Does it have [Kid #1]'s name on it?
Kid #2: Now?
Mom: Yes.
Kid #2: No.
Mom: Did you erase it?
Kid #2: Yes.
Mom: Give it back.

------------------------

Hey, I just heard that my Muir shawl is mentioned in a web comic! How freakin' cool is that?!?!!?

The Fair, Part I

It's fair time! I am a total sucker for the Sonoma County fair. Love it! :) I have a ton of pictures, so I'm going to split up my posts and start with (big surprise) the kid and fibery stuff.

Besides entering his rabbit in the show this year, #1 Son entered a stool made in the 4H woodworking class the toymaker and fine furniture/cabinet-maker extraordinaire (aka my husband) taught this past year. And he won 1st place! Wooo!

And so did the other two kids who entered their stools from the class,

in their respective age divisions!

How cool is that?! They are all Windsor style stools, made with hand tools (including a shaving horse) and without any metal or other types of fasteners. The legs fit through the seat and are lodged tightly. They were all painted with milk paint.

This was the first year that I entered a piece of knitting in the fair, and I have my friend, blogless Dana to thank for finally getting it together! She enters every year, and she was right: the fair is way more fun when you (and your kids) enter!

I admit, part of the reason that I have never entered is the giant and probably irrational fear that they will lose my entry. And this year, it looked like they had. Honestly. I entered the original Muir, and my husband and I looked everywhere for it, but could only find one piece of lace anywhere. Then we had the fair volunteers helping. No one could find anything. They looked in the book, and it had been judged, which was a Good Thing because that meant it was, indeed, there. Somewhere. But where?

And then, someone with sharp eyes found my name attached to a shapeless blob in a display case. We all looked closely, and there it was!

Nice display, eh?

I know, I'm dripping with sarcasm, here. My new-found knitting friends Diane

and Cindy

agreed that quilters had arranged everything. And the quilts truly were gorgeous and beautifully displayed! But the knitting display really left something to be desired. Cindy's lovely Swan Lake mystery stole was folded into a nondescript little square. She had been looking right at one of her pieces beside it (she entered 8 pieces and took 7 ribbons!) and didn't even see her shawl. Her friend Diane, who overheard my panic, finally found it right after mine was located. Diane and I had a wonderful chat before the boys dragged me away from the knitting to look around more. I was so relieved that they hadn't lost my Muir that I forgot even to be happy that it won a first place!

There was a spinning display (but the picture turned out terrible) and weaving.

I was kicking myself for not entering some of my handspun. I didn't even think of it! Next year. More tomorrow!

Tutorial: The Side Picot on Muir

Lately, I've had a few questions about doing the picots along the side of Muir, particularly the beaded picot. So here we go!

At the beginning of the row in which a picot falls, cast on 2 stitches using the knitted cast on. This cast on allows you to knit extra stitches onto the needle before the stitches in the row are worked. It will look like the following picture after the stitches are cast on.

Edited because my brain was obviously on a different planet when I wrote the tutorial: Knit the first two stitches you have just cast on together through the back loop, twisting the stitch. For a beaded picot, place a bead on the next stitch using a crochet hook or other method. (Ignore the next 3 bead placement steps if you are not beading the picot).

Bead placement step 1: Place bead on crochet hook as shown below. Hook the stitch over which you wish to place bead.

Bead placement step 2: Pull stitch through bead.

Bead placement step 3: Replace stitch on left needle.

Knit stitch through the back loop then bind off one stitch. Knit the next stitch on the left needle and bind off another stitch. Two stitches have been cast on and immediately bound off and you have now worked the first stitch in the row. Continue with the second stitch on the chart. (There is no change in stitch count on picot rows.)

And there you have it!

Perfect picots!

For those of you who do not yet have the urls, here is a beaded swatch for Muir, and here is the full beaded chart.

If anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask away: here on my blog, in the Yahoo Group or in my Ravelry groups (Muir-along or Romi's Studio)! I will respond to any questions on my blog in my next post! Hope this helps. :)

Title Here

Last Friday (here you must forgive me for being on Sonoma County time and not posting earlier about it), Therese and I went down to Knitterly in Petaluma for a Habu trunk show. It was fabulous, although both of us missed dear Susan, who had hurt her back that very morning, and was in some serious pain (good vibes to Susan everyone!).

I forgot my camera. :sigh: But you must believe me when I say it was a gorgeous sight. As always, Takako was wonderful: kind, helpful and gracious. She had extra yarn and sample garments to try. And she was looking cool and unruffled as ever, although it was an absurdly hot day.

Even though I have a healthy Habu stash, I couldn't leave without another cool little item. It followed me around the store and begged me to take it home.

Isn't it nifty?

It's rayon, if you can believe it.

It is fairly stiff, but softens dramatically when knitted and worn.

I am planning on pairing it with some black silk/stainless steel in my stash.

In other news, Faroese Muir is progressing, but my progress at this point is about as interesting as watching paint dry! Here it is all rumpled.

And as "The Blob."

As my friend, blogless Dana knows, lace looks like cr*p until you block it! :)

I am in the home stretch. So much knitting to do, so little time!

Lace surgery, part deux

Wow! You all! Thanks for all the kind words! But it really looks way more impressive than it is. All lace surgery really takes is some patience and a towel to wipe your sweaty palms. Once you get past the shock of ripping the lace out, this method is very straightforward!

When I first tried fixing lace mistakes, I didn't pin them and I usually got messed up with the yarn overs. Yarn overs twist two rows of yarn together in such a way that it is difficult to differentiate between rows. Which brings us to my biggest problem: joining the already knitted section of lace with the newly knitted section without twisting the yarn together and mixing up the rows. Am I making sense? I hope?

So here's the process I followed to make sure that I didn't twist those rows into the wrong order! First, I looked at the piece of lace and figured out exactly what needed to be ripped in order to fix the mistake. I made sure no other stitches would be dropped in the process (I put point protectors on my needles) and I ripped those rows back one by one, making sure I could tell the order of the yarn strands by pinning them out. I put the stitches on the dpn and grabbed my chart to compare to the mess patient. I wanted to be sure not to put in extra yarn overs, so I compared the edge stitches particularly carefully. I recognized that the odd tangle on either side of the ripped area:

resulted from knitting yarn overs together with other stitches on subsequent rows, so I knew that the edge stitch in the ripped area was not a yarn over. That meant it was a k2tog or an ssk. I counted the stitches across and determined the exact spot that I had ripped. I marked it on my chart. This is the area I re-knit:

As I re-knit the piece, I checked to make sure that I was, indeed, not missing a yarn over. As you can see here:

the yarn over looks totally normal when the row is knit across. After that, it was only a matter of following the chart for every row. Kind of a pain, but not terrible. The chart is pretty straightforward. And with the pins holding the rows, I even left part of it over night when the light got bad, and picked it up again in the morning. This is really, totally, something you all can do. The pins make a giant difference! And even without caffeine, no children, spouses or pets were harmed during the process. :)

I hope I made sense. But if not, please feel free to ask questions! You can all do this!

Lace Surgery

Important note: next time you go off caffeine, don't knit lace for at least a week.

Exhibit A:

16 rows of screw up! So.

There was nothing to do but rip it down within the repeat. I always try this once at least. If it doesn't work, then I rip the whole rows. I whipped out the foam core, my double points and the pins.

I chose not to rip the entire repeat, but rather did just the affected area. I took the lace off the needles and put point protectors on the ends of my working needles (very important!).

I began carefully ripping row by row and pinning each length of yarn as I did. This is an important step when there are so many rows to knit back up. It is easy to lose track of the working yarn when you rip yarn overs.

At the last row I intended to rip, I took out one stitch at a time, putting each stitch carefully on a double pointed needle.

I began with US 6s, and then recalled how difficult it is using the same size as the working needles, and so I switched to US 2s. The smaller needle size left more play in the yarn and made the process much much easier.

I took out my chart and located the problem area (boy, it looked huge!). And then I took in the full impact of the situation.

I started knitting.

Row by row.

As I went along, I evened out the stitches at the end of each row.

I knit each row from left to right right to left (caffeine issues again - thanks Susan!) - much easier to do when everything is pinned out, but requiring constant futzing with tension at each end of the affected area (sounds important, eh? "affected area" Hee).

I knit some more.

I evened out stitches.

I knit.

And then it was time to put it all back on the working needles. Yay!!!

I had a pile of pins.

And a fixed lace project!

And I'm even starting to get used to being caffeine free. Sort of. :)

It's growing!

Slowly but surely...

It's too big now to pin the whole thing out, so we are just looking at one side as it grows from the center panel.

I cannot wait to block it and see how it looks! :)

Still in love...

The Faroese inspired Muir is progressing, albeit slowly. There are other projects going on, and I promise to let you all know as soon as I can what they are! I am very very excited. :) But of course, all of the other fun goings on are taking attention! And time. Lots of time.

Here we are after a repeat and a half. You can see that the leaves are growing out of the center panel in a more aesthetically pleasing way!

And here you can see a little closer.

I am liking this version way better! The frogging was a Good Thing.

And as those of you who have knit my lace designs know, I love those picot edges! Just a little bit of an ornament, but not too much. Not as plain as straight garter stitch, but so much simpler than a lace edging.

I love the beads in the picot. I used this method on Ice Queen, as well, and really like the weight it adds to the edges. It adds a wonderful drape!

I don't have much of an update on the mittens: just a couple more rows. So no pics! My progress is a bit like watching paint dry. And, of course, the stealth projects are, well, stealthy.

Happy Friday!

A ripping good time

The weather has been froggy around here lately. First it was the mittens Dr. Steph made me knit; I saw hers and I could not resist them. I love them with a mad passion. You may wonder at me, and why not? I mean, after all, it isn't mitten weather here. But I could not resist. And since I don't have the time to knit a big thing like one of Anne's gorgeous creations, I figured I could take a little break with some mittens. But. Back to the frogginess. I am usually a very tight knitter, except when I have been knitting lace. So when I saw the needle size required, I figured no problem. I went stash diving for the yarn and the US 2 needles and I was off to the races. Because really. Who could resist these colors?

And then I realized that I was knitting mittens for King Kong.

So I ripped. And then I restarted, this time using white for the pattern:

and US 0 needles. I like it much better.

Okay. I am totally and madly in love. And so far it fits, which is always a bonus. :)

Then there is my new version of Muir. I decided to design it using the Faroese structure as a model because I wanted a leaf panel down the center back. I swatched on larger needles with bigger yarn. I thought I had this one down. I got this far, and I realized that I hated the way the leaf motif was growing next to the center leaf here:

so I ripped.

almost down to nothing. (I love the way this shawl begins - I can't wait for you to see it!)

And then I reknit.

I am absolutely loving it now. I am so glad I ripped!

Gratuitous beauty and the bead shot:

and another.

I am almost back up to where I was before I ripped. Woo! I can't wait to finish. My lace projects look so horrible until I block them - it's always a pleasant surprise to me when I see that everything has turned out well in the end. I think that's why I generally finish lace so quickly!

Oh! And don't forget to get your free shipping!!!