The Science of "Cute"

The Power of Perky

There are children around the world who are addicted to animi shows and even more who have special little toys made in the orient that seem to have magical powers, for the children at least. These toys take on talisman status and many children can't leave the house without either stuffing it into a pocket or lunch box, or ensuring that it has been safely hidden.

My younger sister had one such toy, a tiny baby doll that would fit in her 6 year-old hand. It was jointed and according to today's standards wouldn't have been suitable for any child as it had more choking hazards than you could shake a stick at. But for a period of two years, she had to have that doll with her at all times. Unfortunately it could only be purchased at a toy story in Evansville, Indiana. When it lost one of its legs and it was determined that it could not be satisfactorily repaired, we all piled into the car for a three hour road trip with the purpose of doing anything humanly possible to shut my sister up.

I enjoyed the trip, even though I didn't get a toy, because at that time they had a live dancing chicken in a glass-boxed vending machine at the store. If you put a quarter into the machine
the chicken would dance. I didn't learn until much, much later that the chicken danced because the quarter sent an electrical charge through the floor of its glass cage.

So right now you're saying to yourself, how horrific! Encouraging children to torture an animal in a toy store?!? That's monstrous!! Well yeah it is now, but then it was cute. And there are more than a few adults out here who will testify in court that being forced to go to a toy store with any child is cruel and unusual punishment.

The thing is I have noticed that the majority of cute things in this world are also at least mildly repulsive on some level. Troll dolls, baby-dolls, amigurumi of all sorts while irresistible to children do make me slightly uneasy. It's probably the flip side of the clown-thing in action. A perfectly harmless fellow in grease-paint and floppy clothes is hilarious to adults and terrifying to children.

But as I mentioned earlier, the Japanese have harnessed the power of perky with their Hello Kitty and Animi and now their amigurumi, so a Box-Store-Agoraphobic Crafty Person had best learn a thing or two about creating cutely.

An Example of Proportion



Here, I have made myself "cute," starting with a photo in the upper left hand corner and then running counter-clockwise to the baby doll version of me in the upper right. I painted over the original "cute" version of me, because it was just too devil-doll creepy-crawly for me, but here's the basics of it.

Take any normal adult image and draw a line from the top of the eyes to just below the bottom lip. That whole area will be collapsed and will be the basis of the face. Onto your re-sized "face" you will paste the eyebrows at normal size. Increase the size of the eyes by 50%. Reduce the size of the nose, mouth and body to 50%.

So How Do I Use This?

When designing amigurumi, on the face of the poppet the forehead and eyes should take up 75% of the area. The head of the poppet should be at least 30% of the total height of the toy and up to 50%. Any more diminishment of the body, frankly, makes the thing look like a tick to me. Enter something creepy-crawly that has been rendered cute via crochet. My Amigurumi Medusa Monster.

Like many amigurumi, the body of the poppet begins with a spiralling circle of at least three rounds of crochet. By employing stitch increases of varying frequency, your circle will lie flat. If you think of the body of the toy as the bottom of a cup, once you have the base diameter you need, you create the sides of the cup by stopping any increases and just crocheting up. Googling "crocheted circle" will send you to several sites that will explain how often you should increase in order to get a flat circle.

When Medusa's body cylinder still seemed "chubby to me I changed from white yarn to some "camo" yarn I'd picked up while studying planned variegation in dyeing. I crocheted a single row in camo, and then began creating tentacles by:


Chain 9 stitches. Beginning with the second chain from hook, slip stitch in each stitch back to the base. Single crochet 2 stitches. repeat.


The slip stitching makes the chain curl and writhe like a snake. As you're working your way around the second row, you begin setting your "snakes so that they lie between those already crocheted in the row below which means that you may need to crochet 1 stitch between snakes and sometimes 3. Additionally at this point, you'll want to start decreasing stitches.


For those of you who have never decreased while crocheting, it's a simple matter of:


Pull loop up through first stitch and hold on the hook. Pull loop up through second stitch. Yarn Over and pull loop through all three loops as if to single crochet. In this way your reduce one stitch.


Before I had the top of the head completely closed, I rolled some bubble wrap very tightly and inserted it to create stuffing.


Another Kind of Cute


My sister's baby doll wasn't misshapen as Amigurumi is. It was just tiny, and that is the second part of cute and one that is more age difference friendly. I have always found sock monkeys hilarious but have been leery of purchasing or knitting socks specifically for the purpose of cutting them up and sewing them into a doll.


It occurred to me that it should be fairly easy to knit a tiny Sock Monkey, and if you have metal double points, it is. I chose size 2 metal double points and Red Heart worsted weight acrylic for this pattern, so you can already see that the knitting was tough work on it. But the monkey is so tiny ... not much bigger than a standard business card ... that it's quickly finished.


Cheeky Monkey Pattern -- 4 to 5 Dbl. Point Knitting needles and 2 different colors of yarn.

For the legs, using double pointed needles cast on 3 stitches in white and in first row, increase one in the center stitch so that you have 4 stitches on the needle. Knit I-cord with white for about 1/2", change to brown and continue until I-cord is 2" long. Leaving your first leg on one needle, give yourself about 3" of yarn to use to sew up the crotch later, and cut the yarn. Make another leg. TIP: I used a Russian join to join the white to the brown so I wouldn't have any ends to secure later, so their little feet don't match exactly, but what the hell.

When you've finished the second leg, don't cut yarn. Cast on 2 stitches for crotch, then knit across first leg, and cast on 2 more stitches for butt. You're going to start knitting the body in the round now, so space your stitches on three needles and then join up to leg one.

(If you have 5 needles in the same size you can add the tail and arms as you knit, otherwise just get some safety pins handy to use as stitch holders.)

Knit your 12 stitch tube for 3 rounds. On the butt side, using a safety pin set aside 2 stitches for the tail, and cast on 2 stitches to replace. Continue knitting in the round for 1 inch. Then on the left and right side, directly above the legs, set aside 2 stitches each for the left and right arm, casting on 2 stitches to replace them.

Continue knitting the tube for 3 more rounds.

Reposition your stitches so that the 6 front stitches are on one needle and join the white. At this point you knit a short row mouth.

Short Row Mouth:

Knit 6 stitches white, turn
Slip 1st stitch, purl 4, turn
Knit 5 stitches
Purl 6 stitches

Rejoin brown.


Stop at this point to lash down your mouth white yarn ends on the inside of the monkey's face. You don't have to be fussy. No one's going to see it.

Knit in brown for 3 more rounds.


Before closing up the top of his little head you'll want to add the French knot eyes, ears and mouth. For the eyes, I whip stitch attached the white to the inside of his head then did one 3 wrap French knot for each eye, then ran the rest of the white through the backside of a couple of stitches to hold it. For the ears, I did 7-10 wrap French knots on either side of the mouth. The red of the mouth is just some red yarn in a lining stitch across the center of the white.

Stuff all your yarn ends into his head.

Closing his head: knit 2 together around. 6 stitches remaining. 3 needle or Kitchener stitch bind off.

For the arms and tail, leaving a 2 or 3 inch tail of yarn, pick up the 2 stitches you set aside on a safety pin. Knit 1, Make 1, Knit 1.

Arms: work brown idiot cord for 1", change to white and work cord another 1/2", bind off.
Tail: work brown idiot cord for 2" in brown and bind off.

When done, use the yarn tails on the arms and tail to close up any gaps and firmly attach the arms and tail to the body. Since you're doing some serious whipping here, you can get away with leaving the tails loose on the inside of the monkey's body.

Stuff 3-4 cotton balls into the monkey and sew up his crotch with the 2" of yarn you left on leg one.

That's it for this month! Hopefully next month will be a bit more timely!

Sandy's 2 Circ 2torial

I didn't buy my first set of four double-pointed needles to make anything in particular. Oh, I rationalized that I would need to learn how to make a seamless sleeve and that one day I might actually want to knit socks, but I had neither of those projects in mind. For me, double-points held the excitement of using several dangerous objects to do something any sane human would consider impossible.

I could almost hear the carnival barker in the background, "Step right down and see the lovely and exotic Janice of Atlantis as she defies fate while juggling hundreds of deadly, pointy sticks AND produces a horrifyingly hideous garment with no known use!!" And the crowd gasps and shivers as the monstrous thing ensuing from my flying needles grows at an alarming rate.

So when a knitting sage stated disdainfully that Americans should give up the foolish habit of knitting in the round with 4 needles and do the sensible thing and buy Continental sets of 5 needles, I was overjoyed. One more deadly pointy stick to amaze and horrify the quivering crowd!

When I first heard of knitting in the round on two circular needles, I was unimpressed. Though my experiments at knitting large tubes with several double-pointed needles had been disasterous, using circular needles seemed like cheating. Much more enticing was the Magic Loop Method. Oooooh! It's Magic!

But my most recent request is not for magic-loop and so I've relegated the online videos of that technique to the sidebar of the newsletter. Once you master knitting in the round on two circulars, the jump to magic loop will be easy.

But let's not come back to reality just yet. I'm going to ask you to turn on your creative thinking and tell yourself that knitting in the round on two circular needles is exactly the same as working in the round with double-points. There is nothing to fear. The only difference is that even though you will still be working with 4 needlepoints, your four double points have been magically attached by a flexible cord so that they appear to be two needles. If you can tell yourself that it only LOOKS like you have two needles -- the oddness of it will go away.

Equipment

If you've been knitting sweaters with circular needles for a while, you probably have at least two circulars of different lengths for the needle size you usually use. the small one will normally be used for sleeves and collars, the larger one for the body of the sweater.

Both circulars should be the same needle size but they don't have to match each other or be the same length. As a matter of fact, it's handy if they are of different lengths or a different needle color or both. The 20" circular I'm using has silver needle tips and the 28" has blue.

1. Casting On

When working with double-points, I have always cast on to a long single-point of the same size, and then transferred the stitches to the round. Same goes here. Cast an even number of stitches onto one of the circulars. I've cast on 20 stitches using the long tail method for this example.

2. Divide
After casting on using the long single-point, I would then begin slipping the stitches to double-pointed needles. Since I normally found myself with 4-needle sets, I would divide the number of stitches by 3 and slip the result to individual needles. That usually ended up being 5, 5, 6 or 7,7,8. In the case of two circular needles your job is simpler. Divide by two. Here, I've slipped half the stitches to my second circular.

Your first reaction will be "How the hell am I supposed to knit this! The needle points are nowhere near the yarn! Am I supposed to carry the yarn up and weave in later!"

Well, no. A little bit more magic is needed here and that is to...

3. Slide
You're now going to slide the stitches on both needles to the opposite end. Grab the stitches loosely in one hand and, one at a time, pull the stiches over the cable to the opposite needle point. Not all the way onto the needlepoint, just right up to it. The pink arrows show the direction of pull.

Once your stitches are butting up against the opposite needle points, gently ease them over the cable connection so that a few are actually on the metal part of the needles.

The last of the cast-on tail, and the working yarn from the ball should both be nearest the points of the needles. By sliding the stitches to the other end of the needles, you've positioned your stitches near the working points where the working yarn from the ball can be knit.

4. Join
Many tutorals will tell you to just start knitting here, and at some point you may choose to do that. But for the sake of clarity about what goes where, when, how and why, I like to do one last step.

I like to join my work by exchanging the first stitches from both needles. At left, you'll see that the silver circular holds mostly yellow and the blue holds mostly green stitches of this variegated yarn. I took the green stitch closest to the blue needle point (with my fingers :::gasp:::) and slipped it onto the silver needle. Then I took the yellow stitch closest to the silver needle point and pulled it up and over the green stitch and put it onto the blue needle. With everything joined up this way, there's less risk of the circulars flopping around and doing their best to confuse you.

Note: There is no confusion here about whether or not your stitches are twisted as there would be with 3 or 4 double-points. It's easy to see that the cast-on ridge is towards the center.

The working yarn (which is turning purple here) is still attached to the stitches on the silver needle. This means that the silver needle will be your PASSIVE needle.

Note:Whenever you set your work down, from now on, there will be no question about which direction you should be knitting. If you're in the middle of a needle's worth, you continue knitting as normal. If, on the other hand, the working yarn is hanging off the end of one needle, then that needle is the passive needle. You will begin knitting on the other needle, the active needle.


5. Knitting Re-Visualized
Your first instinct will be to pick up the silver needle point in your right hand and begin knitting stitches off the blue needle-point in your left. But that defeats the purpose, doesn't it? Again, you'll be asked to look at knitting in a completely and somewhat jarring way.

Grabbing the Active Blue needle with your left hand, pull the passive silver needle point to the right in order to slide its stitches to the center of the silver cable. Let the passive needle hang.

Pick up the dangling Blue needle point and begin knitting.

All of the stiches on the Blue needle will always stay on the blue needle. Likewise, all of the stitches on the silver needle, will always stay on the silver needle.

You will never knit stitches off the blue needle with the silver, and vice versa. Each needle's stitches stay on their same needle. It sounds impossible when I say it, but you can see how that would work by the picture at the left. It's as though you were knitting a gigantic idiot cord.

When you get to the end of the stitches on the Blue needle it immediately becomes the passive needle. Slide the stitches to the center of the blue needle's cable and pick up the active silver needle. Slide the silver needle point closest to the working yarn into working position. Knit silver to silver until you get through that side of stitches, and voila, the silver needle becomes the passive needle again.

When you sit the work down and walk away and come back to it again, the needle that has the working yarn hanging off it is always the PASSIVE NEEDLE.

Things to watch out for

Eureka! No more lost double pointed needles in the bottom of the knitting bag. No more picking up and reknitting stitches that were dropped by that wayward double-point.

Well, yes, there is that big benefit. But there is a construction problem that must be overcome as well as some often overlooked benefits.

Ladders

In Two-Circular and Magic-Loop knitting, it is very easy to leave ladders on both sides of the knitting. Now I don't mean 'ladders' created by a dropped stitch. The ladders I'm talking about are stitches that are visably looser than the others. They are created by a change in tension between the last stitch on one needle and the first stitch on the other. If you've knitted in the round on double points, you're accustomed to the snugging of the first stitch on every needle.

The technique on two circulars is similar, but the tug you are accustomed to giving the yarn may not be enough. Additionally, giving that first stitch a really hard tug may render that first stitch too small to easily slip over the connection between the needle and the cable.

My technique is to give a really hard cinch to the 2nd stitch -- not the first. This gives the yarn two avenues for ease, the first and third stitch. If you're still getting ladders, you might want to give a hard cinch to the next-to-the-last stitch on the needle as well. Same principle.

Your object is not to completely eliminate the ladder. While you're knitting that won't be possible. Your intention is to reduce it to the point that the first wash you give the piece will allow the stitches around the ladder to ease in and erase it.

Your first few projects will be laddered to some extent. This is not a failure ... it's an opportunity. You have contrasting colored and novelty yarns in your stash. Use them to put 'running stripes down the sides of your socks or your sleeves, by needle-weaving through the ladder.

Benefits

No more shifting needles when you have to make a heel. No more reshifting needles to make the toe.

With this technique you can easily knit a short-row heel on one needle. With this technique (and a stitch holder or a third circular) you can do a provisional cast-on to knit a peasant heel. And yes, Sandy, you can even do a good old fashioned dutch heel just by working back and forth on the 'heel' needle and then ensuring that all of the picked up stitches also end up on the 'heel' needle before beginning your gusset decreases.

After you finish your heel on one circular and begin knitting in the round again, your sock is already positioned correctly to decrease the toe (when you get there) with the K1,k2tog ... ssk, k1 combo.

Cable, lace and other patterned stitches become simple. No more intense examination of your work every time you pick up a new needle. You aren't required to keep an equal number of stitches on each needle. You can divide your work by the garter stitch or stockinette stitch gutter between each motif. Once you're finished with the heel of a sock, for instance, you can easily continue the lace down the top of your sock while knitting the soul in stockinette.

The possible practice project I'd like to give you is the door snake. If you live in the north, and most of us do, you know how a draft under the kitchen door can make walking barefoot in the kitchen during the winter, uncomfy. If you also happen to have a cat, a doorsnake will give them hours of amusement.

My dearly departed Tommy developed a technique for accidentally making the snake move, and then (:::gasp:::) surprised by the sudden threat (LOL) of a live snake in the house, would attack and attempt to disembowel it.

Cheap red-heart yarn or old odds and ends of acrylic yarns are great for this project. The doorsnake begins with an idiot cord, increases quickly, continues for the width of the door to be blocked, and then decreases to the nose.

Door Snake

1. Using one circular needle and your preferred cast-on technique) cast on 3 stitches.
   
2. Slide the stitches to the opposite end of the needle, so that the working yarn is at the wrong side.
   
3. Pull the working yarn to the stitch nearest the needle point, and knit. You may want to cinch this first stitch to pull up as much slack as possible.
   
4. Knit across all stitches.
   
5. Again, slide the stitches to the opposite end of the needle, so that the working yarn is at the wrong side.
   
6. Again, pull the working yarn to the stitch nearest the needle point, and knit. You may want to cinch this first stitch to pull up as much slack as possible.
   
7. Continue knitting in this fashion. You will notice that you are creating something that looks a lot like a thick cord.
   
8. When your chord is about 1 inch long, increase one stitch in every stitch. You'll now have 6 stitches.
   
9. Before beginning to knit again, slip 3 stitches to your second circular.
   
10. Your passive needle will be the needle that is attached to the working yarn. Slide the stitches on the passive needle to the center of that cable, and knit the three stitches on the active needle and then knit the three stitches on the other needle. This is an ease row and is knit with no increases.
    
11. On the next round, increase one stitch in each stitch. You will now have 6 stitches on each needle.
    
12. Work an ease round.
    
13. Continue working one increase round and one ease round until the circumference of your knitting is large enough to block a draft from the door. This usually means a one or two inch diameter.
    
14. While you're knitting you can also be thinking about what materials you will use to stuff the snake. It helps, every 6 inches or so, to prestuff the snake. Older patterns for this knitting project call for old panty-hose as the perfect stuffer. Now that sadistic HR directors don't force us to wear those any longer, you might want to take a look in your underwear drawer. Socks that you keep meaning to darn but never do, underpants that have seen better days, and tights that have pills or you never are going to wear again make perfect snake stuffing.
    
15. Continue knitting, with no increases, and stuffing when you have enough room, until the snake is long enough to reach across the door jamb. This is your perfect opportunity to work on cinching your second stitches to reduce the ladder that will appear. If your stuffing is of a different color, you'll easily be able to guage your progress as you knit and stuff.
    
16. The neck of the snake requires no decreases. Instead, change to K1, P1 for about 2 inches. The ribbing will contract enough to make the head appear to be a head.
    
17. The base of the snake's head is created by returning to stockinette (knitting around) for about an inch.
    At this point, you'll want to stop and gently stuff the ribbed neck. Feel free to overstuff here, because you'll want to squish the excess towards the nose of the snake when you've finished.
    
18. Now, to create the wedge nose of the snake begin decreasing as for a peasant heel.
    
19. On each needle, k1 K2tog, knit to last 3 stitches, K2tog k1.
    
20. The next round is an ease round. Knit all around.
    
21. Continue decreasing one round, knitting one ease round until you still have an opening large enough to stuff through. Check to see if you have anything you can stuff into the head which will fit without getting in the way of knitting. Having the cat disembowel a stuffed toy for this purpose is encouraged. As a matter of fact, if it's a stuffed toy from a lying, cheating, ex-whatever, you could always cut the legs and part of the bottom of the toy off and stitch the last stitches of the snake mouth to the toy to make it appear to be a little more realistic than even I can stomach.
    
22. Continue decreasing one round and easing the next until you have about 6 to 8 stitches left.
    
23. Bind off using 3-needle bind-off or kitchener stitch. Knead the head stuffing towards the 'nose'up from the ribbed 'neck.'
    

If realism is important to you, you can now hotglue a felt tongue and embroider eyes on the head and throw it on the floor for your cat to disembowel. If your cat is anything like mine was, it's already tried to disembowel while you were knitting it.

Or you can wait to finish your snake until ...

Next Month

... when I haul out the crochet hook and discuss techniques for creating original Amigurumi Toys.

It's Alive!!!

What is that thing crawling around that poor headless woman's neck! Is it alive? Is it dead? Is it endangered?

This Möbius Strip collar was knitted on 10-1/2 needles and used only one 50g, 85 yard ball of Skacel EVO yarn. All man-made fiber, EVO is 45% Polyester, 30% Acrylic and 25% Polyamid lace-weight boucle with loosely woven, braided strands spun into the yarn here and there. I prefer wool. I don't usually use machine-made yarns except for children's clothing or design tests. But this was one of those irresistible yarns we all have in the bottom of our stash. The one we kick ourselves for buying, but dig out and admire from time to time.

So no, it's not alive, dead or endangered. No I didn't think up a Möbius collar, and no I didn't think up the lace stitch. But using a Novelty yarn to knit a lace collar was one of those wicked flashes of insight that pops up when each and every one of us works with fiber.

If you were spinning a yarn like this, you would spin one single of very fine lace weight yarn and then ply it boucle (or spiral) style around a machine made thread. Every so often ... every 6 inches let's say ... you'd introduce a 1 to 2 inch long piece of yarn in between the twisting threads. I would suggest that you consider running the commercial thread up and down around the join as you treadle to tie the snippet in with coils.

You don't have to go to that trouble. Joann's, Herrschner's and many other online yarn stores are having fire sales right now, and you can pick up a skein of expensive novelty yarn (online or in their store) for $.99 cents to $2.00. If you're goofy enough to sign up for their email fliers (like me) you'll also get 40, 50 and 60% off coupons to make the deal even sweeter. Or, if you have a local privately owned yarn shop in your town, now's the time to dig around in their bargain box. You'll find all kinds of dreadfully mangled, single skein wonders in there.

So it's time to dig down in your stash and pull up that tiny skein of novelty yarn that you couldn't resist buying and still haven't used.

Gideon's Knot is Nothing

The main problem with novelty yarns like these is that you have to use extremely large knitting needles in order to show off their true beauty and you still get a loopy mess that has very little warmth to it. Needles you would normally use to knit a sport or worsted weight wool can turn the yarn into a little dollhouse welcome mat. If you make a mistake with Novelties on smaller needles, you might as well cut your yarn and pitch it. These yarns are almost invariably un-ravel-able if not completely incomprehensible and unwearable when knitted on normal sized needles.

Personally I hate using any knitting needles larger than 8. I'll use 10-1/2 if necessary, and that size worked very well for this project. But they still don't feel comfortable in my hands, and have a tendency to drop straight out of the work if I don't have a good grip on them. I won't be seen knitting with those, it's just too much of a caricature.

But there is a way to deal with Novelties by knitting them up with a simple lace stitch called faggoting. The two columns of garter stitch and two columns of yarn-overs produces a knitted piece that marries the novelty yarn extremes of TOO dense and TOO loose into one delightfully wearable piece with just a touch of warmth.

An extra long cast-on tail can be used to blanket-stitch the two ends together to make a Möbius strip. I suggest snipping away the fluff and tassels where you can on the cast-on tail. Take it down to the base threads if possible. I didn't when I made the sample and spent a lot of time cussing when every snippet festooned stitch tangled. Luckily it's not that noticeable but it is an infuriatingly messy join.

The Graph!

If you've never used a lace knitting graph before, it's much simpler than working the written pattern. A key explaining each symbol usually accompanies a graph. In our key, a circle equals a yarn-over, a slash equals K2tog and a blank equals a knit stitch. You read a knitting graph from right to left, just the same way you knit.

This pattern works with a multiple of 4 stitches. The Möbius scarf has 24 stitches, though if you wanted you could work with 16, 20, 24, 32 ...

If you know a flashy nun, 3 or 4 skeins of yarn worked on 72 stitches would make a racy wimple.
Cast on the number of stitches, multiple of four, that you want to work.

Knit one row, turn.
*Knit the first four stitches (white blanks from right to left), then yarn-over, K2tog, K2 (the yellow portion from right to left).
Repeat the yellow portion only until you get to the end of the row. Turn. Repeat from *.

Another way to write this pattern would be: *Knit 4, [YO, K2tog, K2] Repeat between [ ] to the end of the row. Turn.* Repeat between * until you're out of yarn.

You'll be repeating this simple sequence --knitting the first four stitches of the row and then repeating the lace block to the end of the row -- on both the wrong and right side of the work, until you get down to the last couple of yards of yarn.

Finishing: Plain knit one row. You're matching the first knit row at the other end where you cast on. Now Bind Off. Sew the two ends together. Weave in any stray ends.

Whew!

Melissa, a friend I'm knit-coaching, inspired this project.

Sandy has sent in the first suggestion. She's curious to learn how to knit a sock on two circular needles. That and knitting with the magic loop will be the topic of August's Newsletter. If you have suggestions on what you'd like to learn or what you'd like to see in the newsletter, let me know. You can email the name Suggestions at prodigalsock, or just use the "Contact" button on the front page of the web site.

Have you made a blog or website about fiber arts? Send me the link. If you don't have the time to blog because you're busy reading them, but have pictures or tips you'd like to share ... send them along. I pay nothing and I can't promise not to edit it down to the bare bones, but I won't charge you anything to broadcast it to my Newsletter subscribers, your name attached of course. And I'm sure everyone will enjoy the relief from the "I, I, I" .

If you're looking for a good laugh, and there is something you'd like to see me try to explain, send it on. Sandy did. You can too!

Links to resources I've mentioned will only be found on the Prodigal Sock Newsletter.
Anyone can unsubscribe as anonymously as they subscribe. Click the sock above go to the free section of the Prodigal Sock Website and follow the link to the subscription page there.

That's if for July! See you all in August!

Dancing with Chaos

Walking along a deer path in the woods or looking at an herb garden gives me a feeling of peace that can't be found in manicured lawns or well weeded kitchen gardens. I had noticed that for sometime before realizing what I was appreciating and interpreting as 'beauty' can also be an art form. Each tree in a forest has a genetic map controlling its growth and the way it reacts to the conditions around it. Each plant in a helterskelter herb garden follows its own genetic laws of leaf and flower production. Even the outside forces that constrain these plants have their own rules ... the speed of the winds, the rain that falls, the sun that radiates, the soil that feeds.

One would think that my options for experiencing this quiet inspiration would be nil in an urban environment. And I thought so too, before I discovered the Lincoln Park North Pond and the Lincoln Park Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool. These are public places that the exercise obsessed park users skate, bike, and power-walk past blindly. There are small poorly hidden (and so invisible) benches and steps scattered throughout the area ... apparently placed there for people just like me. People who want to stop, sit and see.

I can't find the name of the landscape architect of the Lincoln Park North Pond, which is a migratory bird sanctuary -- though there is a volunteer conservation group which is working to restore the the area to it's prairie ecology. According to the Park District website, "Throughout Lincoln Park's history, renowned artists, landscape designers, and architects contributed to its development. These included sculptor Augustus-Saint Gaudens, landscape designers Ossian Cole Simonds and Alfred Caldwell, and architects Joseph Lyman Silsbee and Dwight H. Perkins. "

It's very nearly Prodigal. Frankly, the North Pond and Caldwell's lily pond are. They were neglected for years and have just recently been the objects of restoration efforts.

Whims

On a whim, I ordered a 1 foot by 3 foot rectangular modular loom from Hazel Rose. My first project involved 4 oz. of alpaca spun 2-ply and dyed spruce. It resulted in two rectangular panels which when joined together made one 6 foot x 1 foot scarf. Unfortunately, it shrunk considerably during dry-cleaning, but it was woven on the bias. It will stretch.


My second experiment


To the right is a spindle filled with various colors. It is constrained by:

1. The colors I chose to dye wool for other projects
2. The amount of roving left over and available for this use
3. The personal whim of which color to select next
4. The english long-draw method of spinning interspersed with slub spinning -- also controlled by whim.
5. Plied with a white, non-slub, english-draw single.

Two Whims Combined

Two finished panels, the one still on the loom and the one hanging left of the easel are made from the same skein described above. As I spun, the amount of available roving changed from predominantly yellow and orange (hanging panel) to blue and green (on the loom).

IF More Constraint Were Added

About the loom and the mathematics of variegation

The loom is equal to 3 one foot squares. Dividing one square diagonally gives two right-angle triangles. When weaving with the 'continuous method' on a tri-loom, one learns that each and every pass of yard will be equal to the hypotenuse of the triangle.


The hypotenuse, the diagonal line from one corner of a 1 foot square to the other can be calculated:

• A²+ B²= C² OR 1² + 1² = 2²
• C (the hypotenuse) = 1.4142135623730950488016887242097 feet

With 3 feet to one yard, this means that it takes approximately, 1.4 yards for each pass on this rectangular loom. This means that in order to create more than one panel of cloth that will 'match' the other panels, any variegated repeat should take place within every 1.4, 2.8, 4.2, 5.6, or 7 yards.


Right now I'm spinning yarn for a 2 - 3 panel scarf of variegated yarn in these proportions:

• 80% Chestnut Brown (warmed with a little red) hand dyed variegated by the dying process from beige to brown
• 10% Commercially dyed Black roving w/white and gray strips
• 5% Periwinkle hand dyed mohair - again variegated by the hand dying process
• 5% Wine hand dyed wool -again variegated by the hand dying process

I'm thinking one ply of the lighter brown.

It's of interest to note here that when I spin 'english-draw,' each draw is about 1 yard. Some times more, sometimes a little less -- more often than not, more. Then with the variegate single I'll spin :

• 5 long english-draws of darker brown
• 1.5 Draws of variegated black and gray (one long and one short english-draw)
• .5 Draw of color alternating between periwinkle and wine.

OR

• 5 long english-draws of darker brown
• 1 Draw of variegated black and gray
• Small corespin slub - alternating periwinkle and wine.
• 1 Draw of variegated black and gray

I'm leaning towards the second option because it adds the additional chaos of texture in what will result in about 30 to 40 variegation repeats per panel.

If I discover that the spots of color clump at one side on two of the panels, then they'll go at the ends. If I discover that the color clumps are more randomly spread on two panels, then they'll go at the ends.

I'll keep you advised.

Hooded Shawl

Yes I weave too.

Once I started spinning, knitting couldn't keep up with the amount of yarn coming off my wheel. Frankly, weaving can't keep up either, but it puts a wider dent (sorry) in the stash.

I have a rigid heddle, and it does a good job of eating up the yarn, but I discovered early, that extra care had to be taken in spinning the warp. The heddle can wear through handspun yarn quickly. It takes a lot of time and care to spin warp that is strong enough to stand up to the punishment. While it is gratifying to spend the extra time spinning yards and yards of worsted two-ply, there's a lot of loom waste -- that is -- you end up cutting off and throwing away hours of yarn.

You can pretty much forget about using handspun slub singles, granny knot, beehive coils or any of the other fun-to-spin novelty yarns as warp. Either they won't fit through the heddle, or they are too delicate to stand up to the abrasion or the tension necessary to weave cloth on a loom that depends on heddles to create sheds.

But you can use novelty yarns on modular looms. I won't go into what a modular loom is here, because you can google Tri-Loom or Triloom and find a lot of sites that will explain it far better than I could here. You can even watch a Fineweaver working on a rectangular modular loom on Youtube. She also has a great video of Weaving with Mohair on a triloom. Mohair, with it's fluffy loose construction is a particularly challenging fiber to use, and as you can see from the video, even handweaving it without the mechanical intervention of a heddle can be daunting.

I belong to a Triloom Group on Yahoo where we talk about looms and making them and weaving on them and design ideas. That's where this post started with an ascii art experiment.

I was trying to explain how to put a hood on a triangular shawl and I'm afraid I didn't explain it well.

I'm going to try again with lots and lots of words and some illustrations.

I've not tried this yet. It's just theory here. But this looks like it would work.

First, I'm assuming that the person who is making the hooded shawl has a 7 foot Triloom and a 14 inch square loom, and further that they know how to weave on both.

After weaving the triangle and two squares, you sew/crochet/knit the two squares together to make a 14 x 28" rectangle, then center and attach that rectangle to the top center of the triangle. At left is an illustration of a 7foot triangle with two 14 inch squares centered on the hypotenuse -- the longest side of this right-angle triangle.

If you only have a 6 foot triloom and a 1 foot square loom to work with, the proportions would be the same. Two squares attached to each other are equal to 1/3 the length of the triangle's hypotenuse. I'd think that after fulling the weaving, you'd probably want to crochet or knit an edging to extend the depth of a hood made with a 12 inch square loom, but that's something to decide once you've pieced it together.





Now let's say you don't have a square loom at all, but you do have various sizes of trilooms. You could piece together several triangles as shown here.

Or, let's say you only have one triloom -- and that is the most probable scenario since trilooms are handmade and not a small investment.

That's when it pays to belong to the yahoo triloom group, because you can find instructions on how to run a line/wire/rod part of the way down a large triloom to create a shorter hypotenuse -- and thus weave a smaller triangle. With a bit of ingenuity and a great deal of swearing, you can do it with a single large loom. With a lot of patience and an eye for mosaics or quilting layout, you can do it with a single small triloom.




Once you've got your pieced-together rectangle attached to your shawl triangle, fold it in half and sew/crochet/knit together the top of the hood.

Now, I'm also assuming here that you've made hoodless shawls with similar yarn on the triloom prior to the hood experiment and have a fairly good idea of how much the shawl will shrink with fulling. You can expect the attached hood to shrink in a similar way.

Measuring from the center back of my head to my nose is about 1 foot. With take-up in fulling, a 14" square won't quite meet my nose ... and frankly a good hood from my point of view should have some windbreak on each side. But again, this is a matter of preference.

So, now. There you go.

P.S. Recently, yet another member of the Yahoo Triloom Group mentioned a way to make hoods using triangles only, and this would actually make an attractive medieval type with the longer tip on the hood.

In this example, equal sized triangles are joined to create a shape that will open into a pyramid shape. I believe this would make a much more agreeable drape to the hood ... but again, this is something which would need to be tested.

Button, Button, Who's Got The Button

The Ribbon Bow Tie Method

It's been brought to my attention that my "cuff-link" solution to buttons on knitted items that are bulky, just doesn't work for everyone. I've been asked to post other fun and hopefully easy ways to deal with the button dilemma.

First off is the ribbon tie alternative. With this, you select a complimentary ribbon at the store. Four yards should do you.

Cut off a yard of the ribbon and double it to make a loop. Push the loop through the top of the collar from the front to the back, and then again back to front so that you have the loop and the ends both on the front of the collar. Then push the two ends through the loop and pull snug. You have your first lace.

On the other end of the collar do the same, then tie the two laces together in a bow knot like the bow in the picture. Do the same for the bottom bow. If it's too long, snip it off to your preferred length.

The Crochet Method


With this method, you haul out the crochet hook and crochet button holes up on end of the collar. Start by attaching the yarn to the top or the bottom of the collar, single crochet a couple of stitches to anchor, then chain 1, 2 or 3 stitches and then go back down and put a single crochet in the next stitch on the collar. The number of free floating chains you create depends on the size of the button and you can check that by trying to push the button through the chain loop you've created.

Make as many loops as you have buttons. You would then sew the buttons to the other end of the collar so that they correspond with your crocheted button holes. Voila!

The Knit Method


And finally, the knit method. Knitted buttonholes take a lot more prior planning in that you have to decide before you finish the collar how many buttonholes you want and where you want to place them on the collar. In this example we're using two large buttons.

A basic knitted buttonhole is a bind-off and then cast on. You'll see here, that our button needs a 3 stitch space to pass through. So we've cast off three stitches (as if we were ending the work) and then immediately gone back and cast three stitches on to the right needle (orange yarn). After you cast on, you keep on knitting until you get to the place where you want your next button hole. Again, cast off 3, cast 3 onto the right needle and continue knitting. Once the buttonholes are complete you'll need to knit a few more rows.

Rule of thumb on button holes is to figure out how many stitches the button covers when you lay it on the collar, then subtract 1 or 2 from that and use that number for your bind-off. If your buttonhole ends up being too large, and gapes, you can always go back and cheat and use a darning needle and yarn and sew it up a little on either side to make it snugger.

If your buttons are small enough to be pushed through the knitted material, don't even make a buttonhole!

Securing the Buttons

Finally, when using Buttons, you'll want to put some ease in between the button and the knitted fabric. That is, you don't want to sew the button down tight. Take a look at the buttons on a cardigan or other knitted garment you already have. You'll see that there is a shank of thread between the button and the cloth it's attached to in order to accommodate the thickness of the material it's being buttoned to.

That's it for the Buttons Post. Hope it helps! If not, don't hesitate to ask for clarification!!

The Other Part of Prodigal

If you look up the word prodigal in the dictionary, you get words like spend-thrift, profligate, and wastrel. These are all good definitions of how one goes about becoming prodigal, but not how one goes about being prodigal. While becoming prodigal involves a great deal of action, primarily ill-advised action, being prodigal involves such complete inaction as to render oneself invisible. Being prodigal involves being lost. Being prodigal is the absence that is only seen when a single member of a pair is visible.

So how does prodigal have anything to do with socks. It has to do with creating only ONE sock. It has to do with challenging the idea that socks only come in pairs. It has to do with creating a lot of individual socks that are sometimes deceptively similar in size and shape, but otherwise completely unique.

What does Prodigal have to do with wearing socks? It has to do with wearing socks that might be made from the same skein of yarn, and might not. It has to do with wearing socks that have absolutely nothing to do with each other aesthetically. We're not talking one brown sock and one navy blue, here.

What does it mean when you wear socks that cannot be blamed on a dark morning or a inattention to detail, socks that are so radically different from each other that even color-blindness cannot be plead? It means that above the hem you conform and below it you retain your rights.

It means a political statement. It means that one has chosen NOT to part one's hair. It means choosing NOT to wear casual togs (that actually cost more than formal business attire) on "Casual Friday." It means choosing NOT to wear "business casual" when one is doing business. It means choosing to say, publically, that the Kafeteria Kulture is dead and Less is NOT More. Less is Less.

I want Less Monotonous Manufactured Crap. I want luxury and diversity.

That means consistently wearing business clothes to work along with socks that appear to be, but are not mismatched. They cannot be mismatched because they are matchlessly and luxuriously beautiful.

Missy's Loop Hole

The most gratifying thing about teaching someone how to do something is the amount you learn yourself. And not just old techniques that have been revamped by new designers and given a new flash name by them, but new ways of seeing.

Specifically, multimedia in fiber art, is something that wilted in the neglected back corner of the art department when I was a child and is now something that is so hot it's very nearly passe already.

But before multi-media is discarded as a way to work in fiber, several other dyed in the wool concepts need to be jetisoned. Correct lengths for scarves ... out the window. Correct size and shape for hats ... down the toilet. Correct types of yarns, buttons and button holes for handmade clothing ... in the garbage.

A student came up with a few images of scarves she'd be interested in making and two of the three incorporated over sized buttons. The technique the student thought they needed to learn was making button-holes. The technique they actually needed to learn was misdirection of the eye.

The primary scarf pattern pictured here, Missy's Loop Hole, is very, very simple and employs one type of button hole technique, though it's not used for buttons. The other three scarves will employ the misdirection of the eye. Though I'm calling them scarves, these patterns could just as easily be called neck cuffs or dickeys.

This simple cabled neck cuff, though takes on a slightly different look depending on whether it's executed in Red Heart Grande Craft Yarn (like the one at the top of this posting) or in handspun wool dyed "Sky Blue." In both cases, bright yellow asterisk buttons are used deceptively. In both cases, too much fun. In both cases, less than 100 yards of yarn and less than 8 hours spent completing this necessary accessory.

Yellow Wheat Sonja Van Gogh Head Band

Awhile back I started reading about different kinds of novelty yarns that involved rough drum carding of different colors so that the colors and textures remained distinct in the finished roving. At that time I had some extra unspun wool that I'd dyed for a couple of different projects. In looking at the colors -- gold ochre and chestnut brown -- I realized they reminded me of one of my favorite Van Gogh paintings .... "Wheat Field with Crows."

The left-over wool became three short skeins of yarn. One skein became a neck cuff. One may be enough for mittens -- though that may be a prodigal thought. The third wasn't really large enough for anything other than something small, fast, and useful.

background on the pattern

Currently fashion demands we keep our ears warm with unisex ear muffs or slip-on fleece head bands. These accessories cost around $20 to $30 dollars, depend on the sweat of workers in 3rd world countries, send our money elsewhere and are... well ... ugly. I don't like slavery. I don't like shipping jobs overseas. I don't like sending money elsewhere to buy trash. And finally, I don't like being forced to pay for ugly.

The best way to strike back? Design something that is quick and simple to make that employs the basic skills of knitting and purling. Add in a couple of intermediate, but actually quite easy, techniques to expand the skills. And, last but definately not least, make it attractive on a visual and fashion level.

color and retro

1940s movies are full of women who were stars of the silver-screen for swimming or dancing or skating better than anyone else. Sonja Henie often wore a simple headband that kept her ears warm, her bangs out of her eyes and her medium-long hair bouncing behind her as she leapt, twirled, spun and danced across the ice. These headbands tied under the chin and often appeared to be made of embroidered felt or kid leather with rabbit fur lining or intarsia knitted wool.

And, of course, the whole ear connection thing with ears of wheat and Van Gogh ears was irresistable.Yellow Wheat Sonja Van Gogh Head Band is the result and you can find the pattern over on prodigalsock.com by clicking on the name or by clicking the Prodigal Sock picture, upper left.

The only thing I have left to do, to make it complete, is bake some sculpey crow baubles to sew on here and there. I think I'll resist adding some red gauze to the right side.

I'll be putting together a collection of ear-warmer designs for sale in a couple of weeks. Let me know if you'd be interested. In the meantime, make yourself a unique earwarmer to celebrate women who do things better than anyone else, individual vision and, well, ears.

Never Quite Enough for Two

This blog isn't about conservation. It isn't about buying enough yarn in the same dye-lot in order to finish a project. It isn't about forcing a certain number of stitches-per-inch from a specific type of yarn on a specific size of needle. This blog is about profligate, spend-thrift, wild and unconstrained creation and the babbling that goes along with it. This blog is about starting at the end and working to the beginning.

Not quite enough for two but way too much for ten. Isn't that the absolute foundation, the universal precursor, to all prodigals. For me, a prodigal sock is not only that second-of-a-pair that never becomes real. For me, a prodigal is a creation that stumbles before completion.

Sometimes I over-estimate the size of a skein. Halfway through the second sock I'm out of yarn, and I end up with one sock and a squiggly ball of not-quite-a-sock yarn.

Sometimes a Prodigal is caused by an over-enthusiastic idea about a new kind of heel or toe or bright hopes for a lace pattern. Once started, the learning or working process becomes so taxing that after the first sock is finished a second is unthinkable.

Sometimes a Prodigal Sock is caused by a sudden and vicious attack of ennui. The yarn was beautiful and the pattern was interesting but the merging of stitches and fiber muddies and tangles and leaves a truly ugly single sock in my lap. I not only begin to doubt the yarn, I begin to doubt my ability to create.

Prodigals don't have to be socks and they don't all belong to me.

In the United States alone, there are millions of sweaters hidden in drawers and under hampers, perfect except they are minus one arm. There are hundreds of thousands of nearly finished afghans stuffed in the back corners of closets. The knitting needles or afghan or crochet hooks are still in place. The completed portion of the throws are neatly wrapped around the remaining unworked skeins of yarn.

I don't need to do any surveys to say this is true. I don't need any fact-finding safaris through knitting-circles and needlework shops. I don't need hard factual data supplied by accountants with abaci and brief cases. I know those are good numbers on unfinished sweaters and afghans. All I have to do is look in my closet and under the hamper, count the number of fiber related blogs on the web and do the math.

Prodigals happen to everyone. Prodigals happen when we somehow overstep and have no idea of how to gracefully recover from our fall into reality.

My trip-up has always been the short skein. What looks like enough yarn for a few socks, ends up being enough for 1-1/2. What looks like enough yarn for three caps, is actually enough for 3/4 of one. No amount of weighing, measuring or wraps-per-inch checking helps.

I've found a way around the short skein pitfall by changing the direction I travel in the creation process. I no longer look for the perfect finished yarn to re-create a perfect finished pattern. Now I decide I want to find a new way to make something to do something. Then I think about it. Then I draw it. Then I spin for it. Then I start and stop and rip, and start and stop, and start again.

Sometimes, when I'm done I have a pattern that starts at the end and moves towards the beginning, at least one sample item, and occasionally, a couple of skeins of one-of-a-kind yarn for sale.  Othertimes, I throw it all in the garbage.  Occasionally, I don't even take the needles out first.  Just straight in the trash.


ProdigalSock is here so that I can share the process with you.  There will be a lot of stumbling, there will be a lot of creating and there will be a lot of babbling about it.