Knitting Page Archives: July 2003

July 30, 2003. I broke my vow and started a new project. I think I have a pretty good excuse though. Read about it here.

When I was at the yarn store yesterday, the owner was rearranging a bunch of things. I didn't really think much of it, because it's always a somewhat disorganized shop (in a good way), so I figured she was just doing some reorganizing. But then someone came in and asked what she was doing, and she said, "I have to move all the needles to the front of the store because of theft." I was astounded. Theft! Knitters! She said people will take needles out of the package, and shove the empty package to the back of the display. She said it's usually short circulars, and figures people don't want to buy the needles just to do the neck of a sweater. She said people have also stolen some of the scarves she knits up as yarn samples. I was completely astounded. I'm very disappointed in the knitters of Cape Elizabeth, Maine. (Or, at least, I'm very disappointed with the stealing knitters.) It made me wonder how much gets stolen in other kinds of stores.

July 24, 2003. I got my Fall issue of Interweave Knits in the mail today, and I am completely in love with the sweater on the cover (the "Cafe Bastille Cables" sweater). I'm not sure why, since it's not really like any other sweater I have. But I think it has worked its way to the top of the "want to make" list. I've been wanting to make something in Lamb's Pride Bulky anyway (all those colors!), which is the yarn they call for in the pattern.

Now if I could only make some progress on the Rowan Jack sleeves. They seem to be taking forever since I'm doing both sleeves at once (and since sleeves always seem tedious anyway, since you're increasing stitches rather than decreasing). I'm up to row 36, and I'm estimating the sleeves will be done around row 130. So I still have a long way to go.

July 18, 2003. Not much to report in knitting news. I'm working away on the sleeves for Rowan Jack, but still have a lot left (I'm maybe 10% done). I'm looking forward to finishing this sweater and starting on something new. (I am, however, determined to finish the sweater completely before even swatching for anything else.)

July 9, 2003. I didn't have enough Opal Mexiko yarn left to complete a baby tam. I thought I was being clever by shortening the body of the hat, but then I realized that that would only make it sit on my kid's head like a pancake, rather than pull down enough to stay on securely in any sort of hat-like manner. And if I'm going to make him wear a stripey hat that's essentially a beret, I'm not going to further the humiliation by having it sit on his head like a pancake. So I ripped it out, and haven't bothered to do anything else with the yarn. I probably won't. I think I'm sick of Opal Mexiko right now. So I moved the teeny baby socks into the Finished Knitting section of my site, since I'm thinking there won't be any matching hat.

It's still been pretty hot here, so I'm having trouble getting motivated to work on the sleeves of Rowan Jack. Here's how slowly it's going: I've cast on for one sleeve. And I'm doing them both at the same time. So, right now, there's just one little row of cast on stitches, waiting for me to cast on for the other sleeve, so I can start actually knitting. Sad.

I bought a copy of The Knitter's Handbook by Montse Stanley yesterday, which I've been meaning to get for a while. So many other knitbloggers have talked about what a great book it is. It does look really good. I love those type of reference books, so that I've got several sources to go to if I want the best way to cast on, sew something together, or if I can't remember if a k2tog decrease is left-leaning or right-leaning. I'm finding, however, upon closer reading of the book, that it's a little condescending. Stanley seems to imply that there are certain techniques in knitting that are just plain wrong, and, if you do them, you're probably an idiot. Rather than maybe suggesting that there's a more efficient technique. I like to think that, if you end up with something that looks like knitting, stays together, and doesn't have massive unintentional holes all over it, you're doing it right for you.

Maybe I'm just feeling defensive because I think I do a version of what she is describing here (p. 27): "A method often betraying a knitter who has learned from books, or one who could not cope with needle as pen. After inserting the right needle into the stitch, the needle is dropped and forgotten. The yarn is then picked up, wrapped and dropped, leaving the hand free to go back to the needle and draw the loop through. It is the slowest, most awkward, most tiring, and least even way of knitting. Very little control over the work is maintained." I do keep the yarn wrapped around my (right) hand (so I don't have to stop to pick up the yarn), but I think I do sort of drop the right needle (and yes, I learned from a book -- is it my fault that I'd never met another real live knitter until I started knitting?). She (um, I'm assuming Montse Stanley is a woman, but I actually have no idea) also mentions something about how two common problems that could lead to slow knitting are "not keeping the needles under full control" and "trying to keep one needle still while the other does all the work." I might do both of these things. What's frustrating is that I have yet to see her description of how exactly I am supposed to be knitting, of what the needles are supposed to be doing. This had better be in this book somewhere. I do really want to knit more efficiently, and boy would I ever like to knit faster. But I'm not too happy to be told that I'm doing it a slow, stupid way, and then never told how to do it right.

Ok, now I see that, in an introductory manner, Stanley has written, "Although nothing is intrinsically right or wrong if it achieves the desired results, there are certainly ways which are easier to learn than others and ways which make it hard to work evenly." So it's possible that I'm just feeling cranky right now and taking perfectly neutral knitting description to be a personal attack. Still, I don't see any solid explanation of what the needles are supposed to be doing. Might have to go whining to my LYS.

July 3, 2003. I finally finished the front of Rowan Jack, so I feel like there's some real progress happening there. You had better believe I'll be doing both sleeves at the same time. Often I feel like doing them both at once gets too heavy, but I'm so ready to be finished with this sweater that I think I would cry if I finished one sleeve, and still had to do another one.

I also made a pair of baby socks from leftover Opal Mexiko. There seems to be plenty of the yarn still, so I cast on for a baby tam, which may have to get ripped out and made into a regular hat if I don't have enough yarn. But I figured it was worth a try, just to make a different kind of hat. I'm using the tam pattern from Ann Budd's Handy Book of Patterns.