Not So Fancy Nancy

Charlotte's Web - my new love (for today)

Charlotte's Web is finished. This makes me happy.

I deserve the happiness of yarn. I've been on 100% 3-year-old duty since Friday morning and I'm tired. I stay up way too late and then don't sleep well when Brian and Rachel are on these camp-outs (Catalina Island this time) and Emily gets up at the same time anyway. And boy, threes beat the heck out of twos for trouble. Twos are learning emotional control, which yes, can be trying. But threes are creative and sneaky - their messes are grander. Good thing they just get more charming each day. Saving grace.

Not much writing for today - time for photos. All done with a timer, so please forgive focus issues. Emily helped, so yes, I do look tired and that Ray crease is in full force between my eyes. If you could see the chaos that surrounds these "calm" pics you'd laugh yourself silly. Nothing like the Pavlovian stress of an ever tightening beeper intervals while straightening the shawl and trying find some measure of poise.

I like it with this v-neck wrap t-shirt. Didn't get a good front shot standing in this shirt, but it ties nicely along the shirt's seam line that goes across where the wrap is joined and kind of gets that stylish bolero-tied look. Worn this way the entire shawl shows down the back.

Indoor and outdoor to show the effects of light. Yeah, gratuitous, but humor me - I'm excited.

The pattern revealed. I followed it except for the bind off, which I improvised as I knitted. Closed the pattern and created a row of yarn-overs like the top of the shawl. No fringe either. Total weight 150 grams exactly using five colors (sold in 50 g skeins). Will post exact weights used and color number in the photo gallery entry. I choose these five colors from the fewer than ten available at my LYS, so I just got lucky - the magic of Koigu indeed!

This is how I'm wearing it out today. Ever since Clapotis I'm into this idea of looking vaguely French in my English/Irish/Scottish way. Also like the look of the new Rowan line. Guess I'm "mature" as they say in the new Rowan Classic Cafe book. (Who the hell let that through editing???)

Have had this silk tank hanging in my closet for almost four years without being worn (very rare for me). It was waiting for its perfect match -Charlotte.

Now if only I could live in a town with some style so people won't ask "Why are you so dressed up?" when you're not wearing athletic clothes. Going to go out to the LYS's when Brian gets back - need to be among my people.

Gonna wrap myself in ...

If you've been to enough Kindergarten recitals, you've probably heard this song. This and the chorus in Beethoven's 9th are guaranteed to bring tears to my eyes. Our music teacher always works this into the K-3 performances and the sight of all those little hands doing the gestures with great passion but totally out of sync gets me every year.

I'm gonna wrap myself in paper;
I'm gonna dab myself with glue.
Stick some stamps on top of my head;
I'm gonna mail myself to you!

When you see me in your mailbox,
cut the string and let me out.
Wipe the glue off my fingers,
and stick some bubblegum in my mouth!

So, why was I singing this song this morning? Well, while engaging a very relaxing KID FREE (school's back in session - yippee) game of Nancy the Knit Stylist (my dream career you know) I couldn't stop that song in my head and it morphed to I'm gonna wrap myself in Colinette, Rowan and Koigu...

Koigu Charlotte's Web is almost complete! Just started merging the last ball on the right. After 10 more merged rows there will be 16 rows of just the blue and then I'll be done. Of course, as many of you know, it gets much slower at the end. Not planning on doing fringe, so I still need to pick my bindoff pattern, which may add a little knit time. I'm weighing each ball after that color is done and will post my totals when finished so those of you with leftover sock yarn can see if it might work into a Charlotte somehow. I think by forgoing fringe one might get two, or at least close to two, Charlotte's out of 5 skeins.

This poor Colinette wrap has been on the needles since last spring, so I think it deserves to be finished up. I've made it my car knitting now, which should help. No pattern, I just CO a bunch of stitches on 10's and am alternating Colinette Giotto (1 hank) and Colinette Enigma (1 hank) with Classic Elite Avignon Cotton Silk (3 balls) running between each row of the Colinettes (whose name I've been misspelling with two L's all this time! Sorry, will change). It's all garter stitch and I'm just knitting until the yarn runs out. Couldn't be easier, but now I'm thinking of doing short rows to shape the shoulders so it hangs better. Can't have things too easy huh?

Cozy in Rowan Summer Tweed has not been forgotten either.

Doesn't it look nice against our spiffy new chair? Married over 8 years and we finally bought living room chairs! We agreed immediately on them and the sale was made in about 10 minutes with the kids in tow - miracles do happen!

I'm almost finished with the fifth ball with three remaining, but may stop if I feel it's gotten to a length I like. Jen on the Cozy KAL posted a photo of her Summer Tweed version using only six balls and it made a perfect shoulder wrap when fixed with a pin.

Oh heck, let's put all this talk of design aside and tell the truth - after ball six I'll stop when I'm so sick of it I can't imagine another repeat. Pathetic but true.

Jen reports that it does indeed wash to a softer hand, which I've heard elsewhere about Summer Tweed. Also planning to block it hard to bring out the pattern.

Finally, a wrap to be:

A very kind knitblogger sent this Zephyr laceweight silk/wool to me. The amazing thing is that I'd just ordered Fiber Trends' Pacific Northwest Shawl pattern. Karma? Serendipity? Athena is happy with me? All I know is that it looked so beautiful on August the orange boy lounging in the morning sun, until...

Thoughts on lace knitting

I'm on a binge here. I've fallen hard for lace. It's fun and extraordinarily satisfying - when it goes right.

Cast on Charlotte's Web in Koigu yesterday. Beautiful yarn. Nice looking and easy pattern. Worst pattern layout I've ever seen in any book, magazine or blog. Hard returns are cheap and there's no excuse not to use them! This is how I managed to read each line in the 29 line set up section. I've not shown the whole pattern out of respect for copyright, but imagine one long run-on paragraph of 15 pattern lines made up of very similar stitches with no breaks (except across pages). As a former document designer this kind of laziness just annoys the heck out of me.

Also turns out my copy was missing the middle page with the chart (took a bit to figure that out as it looked complete with a page of photos and the ending copy-write stuff at the bottom of the last page). That's being sent to me now, but I perversely forged ahead, compelled by wanting to see how the Koigu works out. That post-it with writing shows how I worked out the alignment of beginning and ending st st wedges with the pattern repeats. I should hope the chart shows it since it's not clear in the written instructions.

OK, enough grousing, here's how it looks so far:

The knitters on the Cozy KAL have been talking about lace patterns and avoiding mistakes. I just posted these thoughts to that group and thought I'd put them here (see below) -- gotta get all the mileage I can out of my limited PC time with both kids here. The second week of spring break, particularly when half the neighborhood has returned to other schools, is looong.

This may all be obvious to long time knitters, but as I said, it wasn't to me at first and I can't believe I’m completely alone.

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I'm newish to lace too, but have finally figured it out enough to dream of doing more (though I have miles to go). I knew it had to be easier than I was making it or all these lovely shawls I see on blogs and in books wouldn't get made. This is how I've come to understand it -- may not work for everyone, but I'm sharing in the spirit of saving someone all the counting and frogging I've done!

First, the way the pattern is written - *knit here to here* - is designed to get the pattern placed correctly in the row, but it's rarely the best way to think the pattern while knitting. Since I’m self-taught and knit by myself, it took me a while to see that. I used to memorize the instructions and count it out 1:K, 2:YO, 3,4:SKPO, etc, which was not relaxing and prone to errors with any interruption. Do any of us knit without interruption? :) The trick is to re-visualize the pattern into its natural flow. For example, a pattern repeat of 8 might be written *K1, YO, SKPO, K1, K2tog, YO, K2*, but will flow across the row as YO, SKPO, K1, K2tog, YO, -- K3 between each pattern -- YO, SKPO, K1, K2tog, YO. How to think it is personal, very flexible and will change for every pattern, but it's easy one you get the hang of it - and so liberating!

Now I follow the instructions while the pattern reveals itself (if there's no chart), but afterward, I only glance at the pattern at the start and finish of a row. With Cozy there are very strong vertical lines that develop where you can see if the current row "lines up" as it should with the last RS row below. This gives you a good checkpoint much like a marker will. After a few repeats you can see which type of stitches get made into which from the lines below.

If the line up doesn't happen you're off and need to sort it out - it won't get better on its own and it won't go away. I've tried, but no amount of prayer or cursing works. If things don't line up, stop immediately and look down a row to find the mistake. You may be able to fix it by dipping down. For me, it's usually a missing YO or a slipped stitch that didn't get passed over. When fixing it, don't forget the mistake will have been purled (or not purled) in the last WS row, so you'll need to fix that too. With practice I've found I'm almost always able to pick back a couple of stitches, then drop down to make up the right stitches and then be on my way - certainly worth trying. It's very scary to open up those stitches the first time, but you'll really learn your knitting by doing it. I can promise it's one great feeling when you get away with only dipping the tips of your toes in the frog pond. I've never been one for pond or creek swimming - too squishy and murky. And the big kids were always sure to tell me about water moccasins right before we jumped in.