Fix It, Frog It or Toss It

I found myself at something of loose ends the past couple of days....my Annapurna 3 is off the needles, I have done a few swatches for the ColourMart Lovers Spring Contest and have charted the first 50 or so rows of that, but other than that there was nothing on my needles I wanted to knit.

No socks.

No blankets. (Well not, strictly speaking,  true but we will get there)

No sweaters. (Also not true, but we will get there.)

I can't cast on for my Contest Entry until March 20th, and if I swatch with that yarn any more I am liable to run out before I run out of shawl to knit.  So that was right out.  I was actually in a right funk about it.  Until I looked at my Ravelry Project Page and noticed that there are several things there that just haven't been finished.

Usually somewhere in the Spring I go on a Fix It or Forget It Spree with my WIPS, because there are only a couple of reasons for projects to end up tossed in the corner.*

The first being - there is a problem with the project.  Maybe the instructions weren't clear or I made a mistake.  Maybe the yarn doesn't play well with the pattern.  Or the colors didn't work out the way I wanted them to.

The second being - I got bored with it.  In a world where at least nine times a day I get an email telling me about a great yarn sale or I log onto Ravelry and see that 47 new patterns have been published since I was there this morning, it is very easy to drop a project for the New Thing!

The third being - the project is big!  I knew it was a long term project and that lots of other little things would get done while it was being worked on.  That is the project that I keep going back to, in the usual way, and work on a bit at a time until I get a bee in my bonnet about getting it off the needles and give it that final push to get done.  Great Big Monster Blankets in thinner yarns come to mind.

But back to my Ravelry Project Page.  I pulled out the projects that still listed as "in progress" and gave them all a good hard look.

Some needed some major or minor fixing (cat snagged yarn or my screwing up a chart) those are hibernating until I am ready to deal with them, which is not today!  Some just needed to be frogged, errors in the pattern that I wasn't willing to overcome or mismatched yarn and project, and one pair of socks that TOB decided were "too loud" for his tastes.

There is (was)a sweater.  I have blogged about, even semi recently, chevron cardigan, top down, beautiful striped yarn in shades of pink through purple.  Body is done to the waist, one sleeve is just past the elbow and....and...I am just not feeling it any more! I really thought I could live with the stripes on the sleeves being different than the stripes on the body.

But the cold hard truth is....

I can't.

I am a matchy, matchy kind of girl.  And short of cutting yarn out of the ball every couple of rows to make the stripes match, there is nothing that will make these sleeves match the body and even if I finished knitting it, I wouldn't wear it.  It's a pity, really, that I didn't think it through before I cast on.  The pattern is beautiful, elegant even.  The instructions are very detailed, you get the how, the why and the when, every single step of the way.  It just isn't me.

Which left me with one.

One big project that I started over a year ago.  A test knit that I let get out of hand.

"It was like this..." started no good story ever!  But, really!  It was like this.  Andrea Jurgrau, of Bad Cat Designs, was creating a very pretty, very useful, use up your scraps of sock yarn, modular blanket for a magazine.  We test knitters got the file and I had these high hopes of making a very colorful and useful blanket out of all my scraps of sock yarns.

Remember what I said about being a matchy, matchy kind of gal, and that the stripes on the sleeve of a sweater not matching was bothering me?  Well, as it would turn out, a jumble of colors, even in a blanket are not my cup of tea. (And by that I mean coffee, I don't drink tea!)

So.....I gathered together some scraps and some full balls and I created a plan that would have my Margarita's Coverlet looking like a Grandmother's Flower Garden Quilt.  I made what some would consider pretty good progress, and knit a hex or two between other things, then one day, I don't know why, I threw all the yarn, the completed hexes and the needles in a rather large project bag and never took them out again! (We won't mention that there are actually 5 hexes still on a blocking mat that has been hiding behind the love seat for the best part of 6 months now!)
 
There are 8 "flowers" completed there, of the minimum of 12 that I need!  (I might change that to 15 when I see how big four rows of three flowers gets me.)  But, each flower takes 7 hexes, with 4 more hexes between them, and 9 hexes between each row of flowers.  And if I decide to put a cream border all the way around the outside.....I'm not good at math, but I know that is going to be a lot of knitting!  Which for some reason the knitting elves did not work on while the project was stuffed in a bag!

You get three guesses what is my WIP Wednesday Project this week!

~M

*For a while projects were getting dropped because I didn't have the capability of knitting them correctly.  Fingers that were not cooperating or moving at speeds that made race cars look like they plodded around a track, but gave me the attention span of a gnat. (Yeah, I miss all the stuff I got done each day, even if it was a "little here, little there, start this, then that, go back to this, then that" then...might not have been healthy to be running at a million miles an hour but now that I am slowed down to what the medical profession calls normal I feel like I am constantly walking through hip deep water, with heavy boots and ankle weights on. Not to mention needing more than 4 hours sleep in a day really shortens up my useful hours!)

3.14 Kicked out of the Mom's Union Again

Every time that I get let back in, I do something that gets me kicked out again!

What, you may ask?  Kicked out?  Kicked out of what?

The Mom's Union.

Every time I do the "right" mom things, you know make the kids clean their rooms, brush their teeth, eat their veggies (that last one is actually pretty easy, we eat vegetarian a lot of the time, if you don't eat your veggies you would get pretty hungry!) which get's me back into the Mom Union,  I then turn around and do something unspeakable that I get kicked right back out again.


We do eat really healthy most of the time around here.  We claim it is a 90/10 split with us eating well 90% of the time and whatever we want the other 10%, but when I look at the calendar where I keep track of "what's for dinner" the actual amount of 10% days is no where near as high as 10%. (Shhh, don't tell the kids that!)

Where is this going?

Well, if you live in the United States and write dates the way we do, today is special. Today is 3.14, which is pi.  It deserves celebration and celebrate we will.

(photo shamelessly stolen from a list of google images that stated they were public domain.)

I am feeding my family apple pie for dinner!

Yep, kicked out of the Mom's Union again!

But, to bring this back to knitting, if you want a healthier way of celebrating Pi Day, you could cast on a Pi Shawl.

Ravelry has tons to pick from.

Here is one of  my favorites!

Snow Queen, by Andrea Jurgrau.


Happy Pi Day!

~M

What's on My Needles Sunday

Actually, I have a surprising lack of things on my needles this Sunday, having finished the bind off on my Annapurna 3.

Annapurna 3 is going to be the biggest of the three versions that I have knit of this pattern.  Largest needles, heaviest yarn, and 8/0 beads.  I know that even before I soak her in some tepid water and give her the "spa treatment" known as blocking.  (I always liken that to a massage, the kind where to start with you wonder if someone is trying to kill you and then when all is said and done you feel wonderful!)

As I mentioned before I was playing a pretty serious game of bead chicken with this one.  I am very happy to say I won!  When all was said and done I was down to two beads in the tube.  I held my breath each time I poked my crochet hook through a bead on those final two rows though!

But, alas, I do not have blocking pictures to show you.

It is a grey, rainy, downright icky day here.  The kind of day that makes you feel chilly just looking at it, even though really, it isn't that cold.  Just not the sort of day where I want to be playing with wet wool.

Yesterday was sunny and pretty.  Yesterday I wanted to take some photo's of some other things that I have on the back burner, but after our errands were run, the models all declared they were tired and hungry and couldn't we please push it off until tomorrow.  I should have looked at the weather forecast before I said yes.

So no fancy blocking pictures.

No other pictures for my own files.

In short the camera was feeling a little left out of things!

So, to make sure that the camera didn't decide to act the same way the dishwasher is, I took a few pictures.  I would hate for her to feel she wasn't appreciated!

Next up for my needles are swatches.  I have 7 days to figure out gauge and pattern stitches for whatever I decide to design for the ColourMart Lovers Spring Contest.  But, I will also need a portable project.  Got any suggestions?

See you during the week, hopefully with blocking pictures of Annapurna.  I am really excited to see the differences between this one and the other two.

~M

I think I blame kids programming

Saturday Musings: my opinions on things I have seen or heard that made me think. Read at your own risk!

I have been thinking a lot about language in pattern writing the past few months, and apparently I am not alone because there have been several threads with discussions on the same types of things on Ravelry.

When I was really learning how to knit, and read patterns, the world was a different place.  I am dating myself a little here, but there was not google, there was no emailing the designer when you didn't understand something, and sometimes months after I had tried making something and hit a wall the magazine that published the pattern would release their next issue with all the errata from the prior issue and it would turn out that the wall I hit wasn't my lack of knowledge, but an actual error in the pattern.

Patterns were different then too. Not as abbreviated as the ones that Franklin Habit finds in old bookstores or gets given, where there is often not a picture or description of what you are knitting.  He blogged about one such adventure on the Skacel site here.  But it was usually taken for granted that the knitter was going to do some thinking on their own.  For example, words like "reversing the shaping" or "keeping the continuity of the pattern"  or "continue as established" were much more liberally used then than what I see in pdf pattern sales today.

I am sure that part of that is with a pdf file I can make my pattern as long as I want, give you as much instruction as I possibly can and the only person who pays the price in paper and ink is the purchaser.  But, there is still a fine line between pattern overload (did you really want a 27 page pattern on how to knit a basic cuff down sock with a slipped stitch heel flap and rounded toe?) and not enough information to duplicate the item that you saw in the picture. (cast on some stitches, work in the round to the heel, put in a heel, add a gusset, knit to toe.)

Taking a couple of those old fashioned concepts and diving a little deeper into them....

Reverse Shaping.  There is actually a lot of ambiguity here.  Let's say you are knitting a bottom up cardigan with set in sleeves, the left front is all spelled out for you, you reach the armholes and cast off a few stitches at the beginning of  a right side row, work some decreases (again at the beginning of your right side rows) and get to the shoulder where you cast off.  For the right front the instructions say to "reversing all shaping make right side to match left."  Obviously you will not be casting off at the beginning of your right side row, that would be the center opening, but if you just cast off at the end of that row, suddenly you no longer have your yarn attached to your knitting.  Do you work all the shaping on the wrong side rows, figuring out if that is a purl two together regularly or through the back loops to get a slanted decrease leaning in the right direction, or do you cast off purlwise but keep the decreases on the right hand side and replace any knit two togethers with an ssk and vise versa?  Or does it even matter?  You won't know until you knit it, or swatch it.

Keeping the Continuity of the Pattern.  Let's stay with our cardigan example, but lets add a fancy lace pattern stitch to it.  When you cast off those underarm stitches, suddenly that beautiful lace pattern no longer starts at stitch one, as in the instructions.  An 8 stitch pattern repeat that has lost it's first 6 stitches might not line up the way you think it should.  Every decrease in lace patterns (typically) needs an equal increase to maintain stitch counts, but do you know what to do with the "leftover" stitches, those pesky little increases or decreases that don't have a matching opposite?

Both of those examples would require that the knitter think it through before plunging headlong into the knitting, or be prepared to rip out what didn't work.

Not surprisingly the opinions vary vastly on what should be included in the pattern.  On one side of the spectrum you have knitters stating that they want every detail spelled out along with  a mini-project and tutorials for all "new concepts" *to be included, and the other you have knitters stating that they cross out all the information that they don't need to condense the pattern down to something manageable to them.

One of the most important things that I learned recently, as a pattern writer, during the test knits that I was running is this; I can't assume that as people are working from my pattern  are actually reading any of it!  So sometimes giving them all the information isn't really enough.

The specific case that comes to mind is for a sock pattern.

There are many different ways of knitting socks, starting from how many and what arrangement of needles you decide to use (one small cabled circular, a large cabled circular, double points varying in numbers from 4 to 5, two circulars) to toe up, cuff down, there are even patterns that have you start in the middle of the top of the foot and work around and up and down until you have a sock.

This particular sock is cuff down with a heel flap and rounded toe.  That is my comfort zone for knitting socks and creating patterns in a basic template that I know is easier for me.  I know what physical pieces (cuff, heel, gusset and toe) need to go where and can play with all the blank spaces in between to my hearts content!

I tell the knitter in the "romance story" or blurb at the beginning it is a cuff down sock with heel flap, I tell the knitter in the notes it is a cuff down sock with a heel flap, the pattern starts with the cuff....and the most popular question was.....wait for it...Is this a toe up sock?

I tell the knitter in the notes that they will repeat the chart two times in each round.  I tell them in the pattern instructions to knit the chart two times in each round.....most popular question....How many times around do I knit the chart?  (After that one I have gone to the "tell me three times" theory and tell knitters in the notes that I am going to tell them to knit the chart however many times in each round, in the pattern I tell them to knit the chart however many times in each round and under the chart I tell them that I told them to knit the chart however many times in each round!)

But each of the "tell me what you are going to tell me, tell me and tell me what you told me" instances  has a cost in terms of how long it makes the pattern appear.  As a picture tells the story, often times better than the written word, adding photo's helps but again adds pages to what could be a very simple pattern in terms of actual construction.  So I am adding one more thing to my notes, I tell you up front which pages you really need to print and keep the pictures and extra notes off them.  If the page has a picture on it you still need to read it, or look at it, in order to duplicate the item I am writing a pattern for, but I am going to try and save you some ink and paper by putting the "meat and potatoes" as purely text and charts.**

Now why, you ask, do I blame children's programming for this change?  When my kids were little, even when I was little, there were several "educational" programs on public broadcasting, that essentially spoon fed sound bites of education to kids in 30 second blasts.  Lots of bright colors, and catchy little jingles, but nothing that took over a minute to absorb and process.  I think, and this is me standing on my soapbox preaching here, that we have done everyone a disservice by teaching them little bits of things in 30 second bites instead of teaching them to pay attention, figure things out and try new things on their own.  Even with all the resources available to us, (google, youtube for video tutorials to name just two) it seems that people want all the answers right in front of them, all the time!  Unfortunately, sometimes even when those answers are there, people don't see them.

The thread in one of the designers forums on Ravelry that talked about some of this had several people chiming in with "I am a better designer because I had to figure things out for myself" along with "but when I am knitting other people's patterns I want it all spelled out for me, that is when I am doing my mindless knitting and don't want to think about what I am doing."  Which then begs the question, if we got better at designing by figuring things out, but we give everyone terribly explicit instructions so they don't have to think....where is the next generation of designers going to learn?

What do you think?  I'd love to hear what you have to say on the subject.

Leave me a comment letting me know what you like to see in patterns.  Do you want every move spelled out precisely?  Do you want everything in the pattern itself, or is my solution, of putting notes and pictures on different pages so you can print what you need, a good one?

~M

*Swatch!  That is your mini project.  It used to be that patterns told you to "Take time to swatch to save time later" more for matching gauge than anything else, but it can certainly save you time learning a new technique or stitch pattern.  Don't like giving the knitting god's their tithe of yarn and time?  Make your swatch in cotton and use it as a dish cloth.

**That changeover will be available in my next sock pattern, Follow that Stripe, coming soon.

Not Yarn Chicken This Time!

Around Chez YarnDiet, we all know that the chief yarn wrangler (that would be me!) seems to be awfully fond of a good game of yarn chicken.  But did you know that the chief yarn wrangler also enjoys a good game of bead chicken?

When I cast on the fingering weight version of my Annapurna, in a discontinued yarn, I knew that I had plenty of yarn to knit her.  I actually had a blankets quantity of this yarn, but got discouraged knitting the blanket and re-purposed the yarn.  A few hanks became my Winter Wheat, which left me with several hanks to become Annapurna 3. 

I also had a plan for the beads.  The plan was to use gold lined clear beads on the edges and some brilliant green beads in the body of the shawl.  However, when I tried using the brilliant green beads I realized that they were much too small to a) show up and b) go over the yarn without splitting it.  I recalled buying two tubes of the gold lined beads so I went merrily on my way knitting and beading without giving it a second thought.

No second thoughts, that is, until the tube started looking a little bit empty-ish.  Having gone through the exercise of sorting my stash (both the yarn version and the bead version) I knew right where to look for the second tube.  At least I thought I did, because when I went to the drawer where the beads are stored I found all kinds of shiny things, but not a single tube of gold lined clear beads.

Hmmmmm

This might be the problem with having children who craft!

So I poured out the beads that were left in that tube and counted them.  Then very carefully put them back in the tube while I pulled out the chart and counted how many more beads I would need.

Can I get a drum roll please......

As of that counting I would have three beads left over.

But wait!

I said I was playing bead chicken here, there has to be more to that story, right?

You guessed it!  There is more!

I would have had three beads left over so long as ....... I didn't drop any*......and....none were completely gold filled instead of gold lined.

I already hit one "dud" in the bunch.  A gold filled bead rather than a gold lined bead.

I need 12 more usable beads out of the 14 that are left in the tube as of today.

I haven't bought more, because you know what they say.....

I am taking a calculated risk.  But, I am not very good at math!

What would you do? Buy more now or wait until you get to that final beading row and have to stop part way through? Let me know in the comments!

~M

*A friend suggested that along with having no-one breathe while I knit that final row that I lay a large sheet in the middle of the living room and sit on it to knit.  That way, if I do drop one it will be easy to find.

WIP Sunday

I finally couldn't take listening to my fingering weight Annapurna whimpering from the corner of my desk any more, and picked her up to do a little bit of work on her this weekend.  At first I was a little taken aback that she was just plain green, and then I remembered that it was Lacesheknits version I was remembering in a gorgeous gradient!  Of course, once she was in my fingers I remembered how much I really like the yarn I am working with and how the pattern, that looks so complex, has such a relaxing rhythm to it.

There are only two reasons to knit the same pattern three times!  Either you are a sucker for punishment (I'm not!) or it is a really great pattern.

I have just finished up Chart B, so the end is literally in sight now.

Which is a very good thing, because as much as I am enjoying knitting this, and crossing my fingers that my beads will hold out and I won't have to go buy more, the Spring Equinox is nearly here which can only mean one thing!  The Colourmart Lover's group on Ravelry is having their Spring Contest.

For the Fall Contest I designed and knit Caramel with Cinnamon Shawl.  When I was knitting it one of the stitch patterns I used sparked another idea, that has been percolating in my back brain ever since, so I have a vague idea what I want to do for the next contest.....and need some swatching time (which is allowed) before we actually start on March 20th.

In other news, I finally got a Kim Harrison book that was the beginning of a series. (She is the author who wrote the dragon pattern that I made twice, once for TDQ and once to send as a Stash Dragon to a friend.)  The Drafter is a pretty entertaining read.  One of the things the the main character, Peri Reed, does to keep herself busy when not running around trying to find out why her name is on the list of "corrupt operatives" is knit!  Every time I see her knitting in the book I have to snicker and wonder how much of that is Ms, Harrison and how much is Peri Reed.  It appears that Peri doesn't finish much as all. (Which is not what Ms Harrison's number of dragons, tea cozies etc I have seen on her blog would lead me to believe about her,  so that must be all Peri!) All I have seen so far, for Peri,  is works-in-progress, but she reminds me of me...those wips are in the car, the living room and her "to go" bag!  (I also really like the idea of traveling clothes for women, specifically the mention of pants with pockets big enough to hold your id and phone!  I need to get some of those!!!!)

Hopefully I will have more stuff to show you later in the week.  Until then, keep on knitting!

~M

A Fairly Quick Test Knit and Changes in the Blog

I finished my Hop O My Thumb test knit for a fellow raveller this week.  I picked the mirrored option for the second sock and I think that they actually turned out pretty well.

I got a chunk of knitting time in on those socks waiting for a repair man to look at the dishwasher.  He quoted me a repair price that is just slightly less than an entire new dishwasher!  Even though it is only one portion of a pump that has gone bad, it comes as a single piece unit, two pumps and a motor!  Guess I get better at handwashing dishes for a while as both the numbers (his quote and the new dishwasher) are a couple of hundred dollars above what I am willing, or able, to spend on it at the moment.*

The yarn is from my (hoarded) stash of Land O Lace Steffi and I knit the socks on 1.5 US needles.  To the rest of the world that would be 2.5mm.  I think in total there are about 64 beads in my version, more if you follow the pattern and work them all the way down to the toe.


TDQ does not like beads inside her shoes so I left the ones on the feet off and we like long socks around here so I also repeated the leg chart an extra time which gives us a really tall tree on the back of the socks and a long path through the woods on the front.

Sorry, I wasn't up to going out in the (really soft and fluffy looking) snow today to get pictures, so I just had TDQ stand on a chair so that I could give you an idea of what they look like.  When the pattern is released I will let you know so you can knit your own pair!


Speaking of pattern releases, I have three patterns, no four patterns, with test knitters now, that hopefully will be making their debut soon!  With so many designers looking for test knitters on Ravelry it is sometimes hit or miss if you get a good selection of skill levels in a test...so... I have decided it would be worth my while to announce upcoming tests and pattern releases a different way.

If you look over on the sidebar you will see a place where you can sign up for a newsletter.  I swear upon my yarn stash, especially that (hoarded) stash of discontinued Land O Lace yarn I have that I will never share your information and I am not going to bombard you with emails, but about once a month I will let you know what is upcoming for testing and give you a way of joining in if you want, what is about to be, or has just been, published so you can grab a copy of the pattern if you would like, maybe some knitting tips, and a hidden promo code to make it worth your while actually reading the thing!  If you sign up, expect the first newsletter later this month.

Happy Weekend!

~M

*TFB did offer to raid his "Money to Take over the World" can to buy a new dishwasher, and as he is my saver he has enough, but I am not (quite) sick enough of doing dishes the old fashioned way yet to take him up on it.