Monday, October 31, 2011

It Only Takes One ...

Recently I had someone misinterpret that little catch phrase of mine ... "It Only Takes One."

So while laying out my outfit for work today, I decided to share my Halloween costume with you all as well as the meaning behind the phrase.  It has nothing to do with Ayn Rand, Keynesian Economics, Religion, or the power of a single person who is willing to stand up against an evil law, corporation or tank.  

None of those things.
It's about what happened to that prodigal sock.  You have the mate to it in your sock drawer because you keep hoping against hope that you'll find that missing sock one day. You probably even remember the day that one sock went missing.

Well, I'm here to tell you that "It [the Laundry Sock Monster] Only Takes One."  It does that just to let you know that it is there.  It does that just to let you know that it can ....

EAT

YOUR

SOCKS ..... Mwahahahaahahahahaha!!!!!

So there.  Something new for you to worry about when you're trying to go to sleep tonight.  

Happy Halloween.

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Synchronicity

Everyone Needs a Pocket Monkey

I just got an email from the Knit and Crochet Now TV show and was following a link for knooking (a knit and crochet technique I still don't understand) when I came across their Facebook page and a picture of a teensey sock monkey and a disclaimer that they didn't have the pattern.  Theirs is cute and the proportions are better than mine ... but here's my version:

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 has tough work in it. But the monkey is so tiny ... not much bigger than a standard business card ... that it's quick to finish.  [You may want to choose something like Red Heart Soft or a DK weight yarn for this just to make it easier on your hands.  The arms and legs will not be as stiff, but that can be a good thing.]


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.

Modifications:  I have ideas about putting a cap on this fellow and ways to control the size of the color changes on the four hands so that they are uniform.  If you'd like to see them here, let me know.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Idiotic Things

I mentioned to my friend Sandy that the biggest project I'm working on right now is a Prohibition Shawl modification.  She's been talking about knitting armor for a production her play company is putting on next year. (Which impresses me immensely.)  I told her the shawl wasn't much more than an Idiot Washrag expanded and she drew a blank.  She had never knit one.  Though she had friends who have done that she didn't see the need.

Personally, I find these washcloths to be the epitome of luxury.  When they are hung to dry they are as rough as any loofah -- which unfortunately doesn't translate to the shower. When flopping around in a tub full of hot water they are silky suds manufacturers. 

But more important than a daily brush with necessary excess is the concept of knitting on the bias and what you can do with that. First a link to the Blog I use most often to remind myself how to knit an Idiots Washcloth.


In the washrag pattern she supplies, you increase at the beginning of each row until you get to a certain width, and then you decrease each row until you get to the right number of stitches to bind off.  Washrags usually expand to a little less than 50 stitches before beginning the decrease back down to 4 stitches.  I've seen Baby Binkys that use the same design and take the number of stitches up to that number needed to wrap a newborn. It would work as well for afghans or any other large warm square thing -- including a poncho.

It occurred to me, some time ago, that once the width of a piece was reached, it would be possible to continue knitting on the bias to create a rectangle by balancing a decrease on one side with an increase on the other.  Here is an example of three uses for the increase/decrease.  

In no way am I unique in this discovery.  I've seen large shawls, small scarves, headbands and terrifying mittens made this way.  It's an AHA! moment for any knitter who masters the idiot washcloth and I am, perhaps, breaking a rule in mentioning it.  Perhaps this is an AHA! that every knitter should discover on her own. Kind of like the "never knit a boyfriend a sweater unless you WANT him to leave," rule.

:::come on, say it with me sotto voce::: The Sweater Curse.

Perhaps I should keep my trap shut and instead urge my friends to knit washcloths as housewarming presents and keep on insisting, no matter how much the new knitter protests that the cloths are goofy, gross, old-ladyish and truly stupid presents.  You know, so they can get to the AHA! on their own.

But then you have people giving away patterns of Idiot modifications, so keeping my trap shut actually verges on self-gratifying mock-aesthetics and misplaced hyperaltruism.  If you are AHA-prone, you'll have one.  If not, let's cut to the chase.

The Prohibition Shawl is an example of using the increase/decrease on one side only:  Increase only for the left front wing, an increase/decrease option for the back and decrease only for the right front wing.  

From a design point of view, anytime you want the speed and warmth of garter stitch paired with the stabilizing effect of knitting on the bias while leaving eyelets at the edges, the Idiot pattern works.  

On the left, I have a sampler of kitchen things in orange and red cotton craft yarn.  The left towel is a combination of mitered square ends connected with knit and purl texture.  The kitchen rug is an experiment in mock-window pane weaving on a rigid heddle loom. The towel on the right is the idiot towel from the previous picture and as far as I'm concened it wins the hangability contest.  Because it's knit on the bias, it doesn't stretch out of shape while hanging. Since it's knit in cotton craft yarn, it also doesn't absorb anything, but that's what the ugly towels in the drawer are for, right?

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Finding a Style

I took a needle-felting class over a year ago and was taught how to make sheep -- standing and lying down -- because a. The class was given at the WS&WF and b. Xmas is perpetually 'right around the corner.' There must be a creche somewhere without a purchased ovine totem and I have the needles and wool to correct that deficiency.  

It's taken over a year but the idea of needle-felting something fun has been bubbling away in the dark recesses of my mind and I've finally unleashed that unholy desire.

My first attempt at needle-felted Day-of-the-Dead Catrina earrings was successful in that the eye-pins are the right length, and the sterling ear wires are easy to manipulate.  I have plenty of wool that is just this side of unspinnable and plenty of bits and pieces of spun and unspun materials. My ideas on hair styling work very well and I'm pleased with the little buns and soon (hopefully) Pompadours.  The one thing I don't have is a style. 

In cruising the Internet for inspiration, I ran across a critique of a painting of a Day of the Dead celebrant with Catrina-like make-up.  The critic blasted the artist by assuming he/she was attempting to make some sort of statement with half-baked zombie imagery.  The critic made much of the 'sewn lips' and the 'racoon eyes.'  It's a good thing several passers by left comments correcting the critic's under-educated assumptions, otherwise my google search for "Catrina" wouldn't have pulled it up.  It's also good because that's the main problem with my first earrings.  They look more like shrunken heads than Catrinas, which is okay of course, but not what I was trying for here.

I started with a different size and shape of wool blob for the second set of earrings.  I also started with an idea that Frida Kahlo deserves more than just standing on the sidelines while Catrina has all the fun.  The Braid Experiment was a success as was the use of dark gray alpaca for the eyes, nose and limited success with tooth definition.  I just don't like the skull shape.  And I hated the Kahlo uni-brow so much I pulled it off.  I'll use her hair styles but she gets to keep her signature facial hair.  

The second set are fun but I'm still not happy with the shape of the skull.  While there are plenty of people who are horse-faced and plenty of Catrina images that represent that homely caucasian bone structure.  I'm looking for the apple-head shape.  

I think.

Starting with cylinders isn't the way to go then.

Which didn't stop me from trying it again, at least to get a better handle on the tooth construction.  The third set of earrings will be more abstract in construction as far as shape is concerned.  I will be using more of the Catrina type paraphernalia to accessorize them as well.

I can see that there will be many permutations of these earrings as I work towards the style I want to use for each type: Catrina; Zombie;Shrunken Head.  I know there are enough people who are going to want these earrings all year long and so there will be no reason to force their construction into the two-months before Halloween.

The single most important thing about these earrings is the weight.  I love big earrings but they can be painful and disfiguring if they are heavy, and they usually are -- very.  My felted earrings are so light that they don't tip over this empty plastic cup.

 More Halloween later ....


Thursday, October 6, 2011

I Wish I Had a Thousand Words

The two barns given over to the sale of all things woolly at the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival remind me a lot of the Dealer's Room at a Science Fiction Convention.  You have to walk very slowly to avoid missing anything and breath very shallowly to avoid hyperventilating and refuse to spend a dime the first and second time you walk that path of fiscal destruction.  This mohair was beautiful hanging and swaying in the warm September breeze that blew through the wide barn doors.
You have to remember, it's not just one barn that is half a city block long with two aisles all jam packed with dealers of spinning wheels, fiber, knitting and felting needles, books, fiber, hand dyed felt, silk, hand-spun yarn, roving and fiber, looms, spindles, and patterns for knitting, crochet, tatting, spinning, dyeing, weaving and felting.  It's that there are two barns full.  They should just supply brown paper hyperventilation bags and drool cups at the door.
Demonstration pieces like this lace cape and gorgeous cardigan that show precisely what kinds of exquisite clothing you could make if you had the time AND the patience using this purveyor's hand spun and that dealer's dye -- these examples hang everywhere. 


 
I never thought seriously about learning how to double knit until I saw this scarf.  Like some of Barbara Walker's knit stitches it appears that double knitting like summer-and-winter weaving does spectacular things with hand dyed variegated yarn.  That scarf on the left is a single piece, flipped so you can see both sides.  The crocheted shawl to the right displays yet another way to use variegated yarn (on sale at that booth) to best effect.  FYI, I couldn't dye a yarn like this.  It would require a dyeing table about half as long as the barn, meticulous attention to detail and impeccable skill in applying just the right amount of dye in just the right amount of wool. 

And there are inventors there too.  Here is Nels Wiberg, inventor of my favorite spinning wheel the PVC Babe. On the table before him from left to right are: teaching drop-spindles, his Little Spider Charkha Wheel which sits behind 1, 1.5 and 2 yard niddy-noddys lying next to plying bobbins which are in front of the Pinkie spinning wheel which stands behind a box of odd bobbins.

Then there's Nels writing up my receipt for a single 1 yard niddy-noddy.


Behind him there are the fliers and bobbins and maidens he has built from Patio Furniture Pipe so that I can afford to spin.  And behind that, more dealers.


And that is it for pictures from the 2011 Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival.  There are more, of course, but I won't be taunting you with them.  You'll just have to go and see for yourself next year.


Next week.  Halloween is coming ... oooOOOOoeeeeeEEEEeeoooooOOOOoo.

Monday, October 3, 2011

A Brave New Pattern

Born to Rock
I need Beta testers for my Halloween cap patterns.  I've knitted about 20 of these Li'l Punk Skull Caps and have settled on a pattern that makes them one-size-fits-all-babies.


The problem is I automatically adjust patterns written by other people to suit myself as I'm knitting.  I'm afraid that I may have done that unconsciously while following my own pattern.  


If you would like a free copy, or have a knitting friend who would like a free copy of the pattern in exchange for a critique, let me know.  I'm going to be charging around $5 for these patterns online, so it would be a more than suitable 'just because' present for someone you know who finds fault in table salt and is vocal about it.


Thank You!