Fracturing a Fractal

Before we get to the knitting portion of today's entry, let me take a moment to recognize that for a large part of the American population today was a day of BBQ, beer, cookouts...and generally acknowledging Dads.  For every Father, son of a father, brother of a father...you know the drill here from Mother's Day.... Not one person on the planet could have accomplished anything without the part you played. Happy Father's Day.

Now onto the knitting portion.

Some time ago, Andrea, of Bad Cat Designs, was inspired by her daughter's love of math.  Math plays a huge role in knitting anyway, but for our Knit Along (To Infinity and Beyond) math concepts showed up in new and different ways.

Knitting a Mobius Strip, with lace included, was one, yes it is a math concept!  The Fractal Stole or Blanket was another.

If you will recall I knit a blanket from the Fractal pattern, fingering weight yarn, in a gradient colorway so that each square was just a little different, but as with all Fractals the further you went (in or out) the more of the same you got.  Like a Mandelbrot Set.  But, being me, I wasn't content to leave the pattern alone.  As with The Summer Squares Projects, I was sure that I could use that pattern to make more than a stole, or an adult size blanket.  I could use it in my Baby Blankets Through Time collection, I could use it for gifts, and for part of the knitting it was infinitely more portable than a full size blanket (and in the summer who wouldn't rather knit a smaller square than a bigger blanket that had to sit in your lap, warming you up when you didn't need any warming.)

The first step was the change up the yarn.  New Mom's are not the best at having to hand wash and block things when they need cleaning, and babies are not always sweet smelling little angels who don't spit up, drool or leak onto their blankets.  I wanted machine washable, and for convenience something that could go through the dryer as well.

Paton's Beehive Baby Sport came in colors other than the traditional (for American babies at least) colors of white, blue, pink, pale green and yellow, and I wanted neutral tones that potentially could be used places other than just around a baby!  Needle size also had to be adjusted and while I was messing around with gauge I played with changing up the border and how the squares attached to each other so that I had mini-borders between the squares. (More of that fractal thing.)

At first, the blanket was to go in my stash of blankets, but then I found out that someone I knew was expecting a baby this month,
 
 and nothing makes me finish things as well as a deadline, so I decided it was for him and his wife and actually devoted a little bit of time to it.

To keep things consistent, the lateral braid that I put in place around each square, also edged the border and kept it a little separate from the edging, and finally this past week I finished with grafting the two ends of the edging together.  Just in time, probably the last time I would see him before the baby is born was last Wednesday.....it hit the blocking mats Tuesday evening!

Yep, like I said, nothing inspires like a deadline!

~M

Yet again, the blog fell by the wayside!

Time keeps flying past me, it seems like the "to do" list gets more and more things pushed off until that vague time of "later" and I am left prioritizing things into the "I have to get this done" and "The deadline is today, I HAVE TO GET THIS DONE" groups.

As seems to be the normal, summer coming brought staffing changes and my team of 6, including myself, is a team of 4 now, including myself.  Just in time for the summer teaching schedule to start (we teach more classes in the summer than the winter) and festival season to start (where we have tables to staff).  Add to that all the end of school year stuff and I have been running in six different directions at once and trying to do the work of three people at the paying job!

Each day, to keep my sanity, I get a little bit of knitting done, but sometimes that little bit is 20 stitches of an edging.

Luckily there are unblogged knits to talk about first!

As I have said before, Andrea Jurgrau's book The New Vintage Lace, has lots of really nice patterns in it.  Something for every knitter, from those who want hats to those who want to work on intricate lace. 

This time around I am going to share Cherry Blossom Stole. Fancy lace on the edges, a more simple repetitive lace in the middle, which makes it a good travel piece because you can easily memorize the middle.

I knit mine in Jade Sapphire's Lacey Lamb in blue, so I called it Frozen Cherry Blossom on my project page!  Lacey Lamb is an amazing yarn to block and holds it blocking beautifully when it is taken off the pins. 

But, back to the 20 stitches at a time, the Fractured Fractal is finally getting it's edging!  I do a good job of forgetting just how much knitting is involved in edging a blanket, and this one should be fairly quick because it is a baby blanket, but the edging still seems to go on forever!
 
 I decided to end the border the same way I did the individual squares, which I think turned out pretty well.

As an experiment I had cast on another one, in pink and white, slightly finer yarn, and handled the joining differently but kept the lateral braid at the end of each square.  Again, four center squares, but rather than grafting the pieces together I tried a three needle bind off.  I need to get some work done of this one, the baby it is supposed to wrap up is due this month!

Well, that is all my blogging time for the day!  Until next time, in the words of Andrea...

Knit on!

~M

Ready for Another one?

Some things I am never ready for another of.....but some things, like knitting things, I am always up for more!

Today's trip down memory lane (for me at least, remember it takes a long time from concept to published book) is Blue Dahlia!

Well, sort of, mine is Hollyhock Dahlia, and if I remember correctly this is actually in Madeline Tosh Light.

As you might have guessed it is another piece from the book that Andrea Jurgrau has out, called The New Vintage Lace.

This one was inspired by a German Doily and has bold leaves and beads.

I love the shaping of this one, it sits perfectly on your shoulders without needing to be pinned to stay put, even when teaching financial education to 30 middle school students in the basement of a building downtown.

In other knitting news, there seems to be a run on baby blankets at work again this year.  Although I have not yet finished my Fractured Fractal in grey and white, I might have cast on another version in pink and white for a baby girl.

If I ever get a lunch break again, maybe I can actually do some knitting on them!

~M

Happy American Mother's Day

For all the mothers, sisters of mothers, children of mothers and mothers of mothers out there....Happy Mother's Day! (I stole those words from another knitter, Thanks Jeri, I loved the way you phrased that and couldn't resist borrowing it, I changed it a little but it is still your sentiment!)

Mine has been mostly quiet, with a little knitting time and some help with yard work.  TDQ made me a bracelet (that's her thing these days, bracelets and necklaces, then running around selling them to her friends.)  It was a rough week so I needed a little peace and quiet in my life before Monday rolls around and rough week the second begins!

As I have mentioned before, Andrea, of Bad Cat Designs has a book that is soon to be at a bookseller near you (or available through Amazon as a dead tree version and Interweave as an e-book.)  As one of her faithful test knitters, I of course got a sneak peek at the designs when they were still in the charting and initial knitting phases.

It takes a long time to get from there to publication date, and I did not keep very good track at all of what yarns I used, which beads and needles...but I did manage to dig out some of my finished object photo's that I shared with Andrea when I was done with the knitting portion of each project.

Just to be different I am going to move right to the ending chapters of the book.  Where Andrea discusses and demonstrates how to take a vintage doily and turn it into something new!

We start with an 8 wedge doily.

Just like this one!

 Add some particularly luscious yarn (Lara's Creations Majestic in Your Highness)

Slightly larger needles, with a slightly adjusted chart gets you....

A pretty Purple Shawl!

TDQ hasn't had hair that long in quite a while, which helps to show just how long the process from ideas to book has been!

Of course, being a purple shawl it was immediately stolen by that sassy little model!

There are 22 patterns in the book, various shapes and sizes of shawls, doilies and hats. Pretty much something for every knitter, from beginners (The Purple Shawl is a good one for that) to the expert who wants a bit of a challenge.

~M

The Problem With Test Knitting

Now don't misunderstand me, I love test knitting for some of my favorite knit wear designers.  When my hands were doing their own thing and I found knitting difficult (some days impossible) it broke my heart that a couple of designs got knit by people other than me first (well second, the designer usually does get first go at things!)  But, occasionally there is a problem with test knitting.

You see, the timing between coming up with a great idea, charting it and knitting it, knitting it again, sending the pattern to your testers, getting input, making corrections (or changes to the design), sending it to the publisher, edits and more edits, to publication is a long (and if you are the designer, harrowing) road.

Part of the commitment with being a test knitter is you have to be able to keep a secret, so things get knit, photographed to show the designer and then packed away until they can be shared. (Ok, maybe I cheat on the packed away part sometimes and wear the things, or use them, which is probably why I have the small problem I do now!)

The New Vintage Lace, by Andrea Jurgrau is hitting a book store near you very shortly!  For those that can't wait, Interweave has an e-book version  and for those that want a sneak peek Amazon has a Look Inside feature.  Andrea has started putting the patterns on Ravelry so that we can link projects, and suggested that her test knitters could post a few of their finished object pictures.

Herein lies the problem!  First up she has posted the hats and some doilies, and while the hats were easy to get my hands on, and I know I knit the doilies I have no idea where I put them all!

So until I do, here is a small sampling of some of the test knits!

Clematis Doily

and hat




 Peaseblossom Hat


 


And finally, Giverny Beret
 

In other knitting news, the second fractal blanket went through a few more modifications and is one quarter the way through the border.  I haven't been getting much knitting time lately so it is pretty slow going.  Maybe one day soon I will post pictures of that too!

~M

Quiet

I suppose I have been a little quiet recently.

Mostly I think it has been a case of somebody (and I will be bold and name names here, Lara) allowed me to obtain some of the knitters equivalent to crack cocaine (she conned me into it, I tell you!) and then somebody else (again naming names, Andrea of Bad Cat Designs) showed me a way of using that drug, a way that used all but the barest fraction of a gram of the crack, and told me to go play with my new toys!

So that is exactly what I did.

I sat in the corner (well not really, my knitting station is pretty central to the rest of the house) and got out some pointy sticks, and tubs of beads, and a teeny, tiny little crochet hook, and I stayed quiet for simply ages!

But, not being the monogamous type with my knitting, there was more that one thing going on in  my corner, and before I knew it nearly a month had slipped by and a parade of finished objects had been put on wires and molded into shape.  (But not all of them will be shared today).

First up we have the crack cocaine project.....aka Martinique.

In my rush to put this one on the needles, I actually grabbed the needles I had out for another project, which were bigger than what the pattern called for, so this version is just a little longer and drapes a little more than the original version
 
 that I knit using some cheapo lace yarn from Joannes Fabric and Crafts (Patons Lace for those that are interested.)

Of the two, obviously my Crack Infinity (the greeny-to-teelish) one was my favorite to knit,
 
 even with the rows of beading which really slow me down...first you have to catch the pesky bead with the crochet hook, then put it on the stitch, yarn over, purl two together and start bead wrangling again.....but the yarn itself more than made up for those slow going rows by being such a joy to knit with.


If you have the opportunity, I highly recommend the yarn, not to mention the dye job, that Lara sells on Etsy.  The base for this one, Soft n Single is exactly what it claims to be, very soft, single ply lace yarn with just a little bit of grab to it, which helps stop things from sliding too quickly off the needles!  I center wound my hank and, against all advice, worked from the center of my ball without any problems.  If singles aren't your style, check out some of her other yarns, I haven't met one yet that I didn't fall in love with at first touch.

Once the Martiniques were off the needles I was a bit at loose ends for what to knit next.

There are always test knits waiting in the wings, but nothing that had to be knit "right now, the deadline is looming".  And test knitting doesn't give me a lot to put up on the blog to show I am still alive and kicking for those that keep track.

So I decided to Fracture the Fractal Blanket and turn it into another Baby Blanket for my stash o baby blankets that grows and dwindles through the year.

Now I have Fractal Blanket Version Two ready for it's border.....


While I had the camera out I also took a better  (comparatively) picture of my fractal blanket,

which got a lot of use over Spring Break as the weather was not very springlike (cue really bad picture of spring break snow when it was just getting started, we ended up with a light covering of snow over ice pellets on everything!)
 
and we had a movie binge.  Which just goes to show, that being quiet is contagious!  We all were quiet and still for the break.

In other Knitting News, the look inside feature has been enabled for Andrea's book.  I can tell you that the patterns in there are gorgeous and her explanations about how things work in knitting lace and deciphering older lace doily patterns will be well worth the price of admission!

Maybe I will be back sooner than a month from now......we'll see!

~M

Fractals

Today was a special day for my Fractal Blanket, she finally got a good long soak in some wool wash in the sink....it was a long enough soak that we shoveled the driveway and the sidewalk before she was done with her spa treatment!

But, before we get into that, I have a confession.

I was trying very hard to be good and not give in to temptation.  We all know that temptation sometimes leads us down precarious paths, but Andrea posted the new infinity wrap on the group site last week and every time I turned around a little voice was telling me that really I needed to cast it on!

I thought I could push that tempting voice away, but it had other ideas.

I tried to sway the other ideas with some Paton's Lace, as I wouldn't be adding beads to that yarn (the mohair and my crochet hook to bead don't get along really well and I end up yanking the hook so hard to pull the yarn through that I break the yarn!) it would make a good travel project.
 
 But that little voice kept on at me.....reminding me of the fabulous yarn that Lara had dyed that moves through a yellowy green to a brilliant teal blue.

As the pictures show, I gave into temptation.

But still managed to pin out my blanket (too tightly as it is drying it is bending the floor mats I use as a blocking board so I am about to go and move the pins!) before I needed to put dinner in the oven!

 So what's on your needles, or whispering in your ears?

~M