A Stitch to Wear

A Return.

 
For some reason I feel conflicted about garter stitch. I do love it. I use it often. But oh, how I fight it. Though I may ask myself "what is the best way to use this yarn? show off this shape? highlight this color?" and on and on, I will not consider garter stitch first, even if it is the answer (I'll usually get there eventually). I don't know why exactly. Maybe it's because garter stitch is the beginning, the beginning of being a knitter. The inescapable first few rows are almost always just knitting, just garter. How desperately we wish to fling ourselves away from that and towards cables, lace, socks and sweaters. Like garter stitch is the bad past we can't get far enough away from. Or is it more like returning home? To return again to the beginning?

Orb

Backwards

 
I had to rip this back. Normally I would offer you some great design reason, and tell you all about what it could have been and why that didn't come to be. But in reality, I thought that just because I wrote the chart it meant that I knew what I was doing. Wrong. I wrote it down for a reason and I would do better if I remembered to read the chart occasionally. I wasn't helped by this knitting's colluding with my delusion that everything was going well. That, and having those perfect spots of orange.

 
There is some redemption though, at least I caught an error. The bad news is that I don't (yet) know what I want to do to fix it.

 
At least it looks good when it comes unraveled.

 
I wish that I could look that good when I come unraveled.

How do you figure?

 
When you are considering a multicolor project how do you figure out if it will work? Swatching is, of course, obvious. But, for the sake of argument, you are resistant to swatching - How do you figure it out?

 
I for one bundle them all together and let them sit in my line of sight. Somewhere I am sure to see it so that I can distractedly stare at it. I find that distracted consideration is the most direct route to resolution when there are more than 2 equal choices.

 
This method also bloats my sketch book as it creates divergences in designs that must be considered. Is a certain shape suited to certain colors? Because I have placed the bright in the center should I consider highlighting another aspect of the shaping? Is that blue really purple when paired with that pink? Should I move it so that it looks more blue?

 

For a long time I have considered my brain to be too interfering in my hands' work. I think that at some point, somehow, my brain decided that it couldn't completely trust my hands and decided that it needed to micromanage them. Foolish, as ultimately this work is in the hands and these digits have put in many hours attempting to become skilled at what they create. I think that's why colors deserve such consideration. They feel like merino (or silk or any other such thing) to the fingers but they appear as so much more to the brain. It is the brain's turn to truly trump the fingers.

 
To design and to craft. An utterly delicious duality I can not help but to blame for my constant attraction to the possibilities of knitting.

 
Why yes, those are great knots of 7 skeins of Koigu. And yes, I have put my name on them. Though no, I can't remember why. The only thing I can figure is that I have nearly always lived with other knitters or crocheters and this must have seemed like a good idea at the time.

Adrift

 
Now that the significant part of my knitting life is free from major commitment I find that I can't settle to anything. It is perplexing how some deadline knitting breeds resentment and sometimes I lose myself to it. There isn't any rhyme or reason to it either, as I am just as often lost and resentful.

I suppose that the only answer is a rebound project...

Dusk

Have you ever recognized that swell, that urge towards a certain project and knowing that it is coming, do you try to figure out if you will resist it or succumb to it?

I have to confess, the Shetland Hap shawl was thundering towards me, and I dared not step out of its way. As I said I am a lace knitter, and occasionally an utter knitting traditionalist. And these shawls marry both of these personal knitting inclinations perfectly. 

 

I have only one reservation about traditional hap shawls - it's that I don't want to put seams into it. I doubted my ability to maintain tension across the knitting and the seam. In a garment this wouldn't be such a problem as most seams add structure (like at the shoulder) or can be easily eliminated (by working in the round)  but with a shawl the drape would be destructively altered by having seams that were too tight or looked poor. Other designers have made magnificent versions by altering the pattern to be worked in the round usually with the more contemporary rate of double increases in the corners (often a pair of yarn-overs separated by a single stitch). That rate of increase creates such a sharp line - a perfect right angle to make a fraction of a chevron (something that I might adore when paired with another stitch pattern) but I couldn't get behind it for this. I couldn't shake the idea that it could be done with all curves and no angles.

I went back to my graph paper and attempted to consolidate all the shaping into the pattern round. In most lace patterns the yarn-overs are paired with a decrease so that the stitch count remains constant. If that balance is lost, then increases or decreases occur. To put it another way, if you remove an increase its corresponding decrease remains to decrease the stitch count. If you remove a decrease, its corresponding increase remains to increase the stitch count. I took the paired increases out of the corners and inserted them into the stitch pattern by removing their corresponding decreases. In doing this I also achieved my goal of removing the angles to leave only the curves.

Every project has it's own momentum, doesn't it? Especially ones where the rows or rounds get longer and longer. I felt like I threw myself at this shawl as if all it took was my attention and it would bloom into being. Not exactly. I had milestones, I had goals. There were things I expected of this project because this was the project where I realized that I had a collection and a book. Though I diligently put my hours into it at some point the same amount of time yielded fewer and fewer rounds. I might not get to the pattern round this sitting I might not change colors until tomorrow or the next day. It was the gentle blending of colors that I enjoyed in those long rounds towards the end. The soothing transition from gray to blue and back again. I attempted to make similarly soothing transitions in the swatches so that when the first color was used again it would seem like a welcome return.

Dawn

How do you know when to wield a tool or perhaps which tool to wield? Blocking for instance. For Shale I knew that to block it would be to lose all the ripples and puckers that are the consequence of the lace pattern. For Dawn I knew that blocking was the only way to go. I must take the time to attempt to translate from one digital to another (fingers to bytes) and speak about yarn choice. I know that wool is not for everybody but if you are considering this project I ask you to consider wool especially a classic single ply 100% wool lace weight like Isager Wool 1. Can you see the softness in the folds? The drape and the lightness? Can you see the body and crispness yet definition of the yarn-overs? Isn't it part of what makes this shawl?

Admittedly I was not smitten with Dawn the instant I saw it off the needles. It wasn't until I was stowing the pins from blocking it and had Dawn over my shoulder and realized as I walked from room to room exactly how fantastic it had become.

These images were taken at the break of dawn as the lighting reflected the colors that I most tried to capture - the reds pinks and oranges. This design being the one that uses the fewest stripe colors in the book (only 3) and a single contrast color, I found it hard to put together only 3 alternate colorways.

 

Horizon

This design was the hardest to explain to people as it was on the needles. Because at various stages it will seem as though you are knitting a tiny triangle, a triangular shawl or an angular blob. I think I've littered many scraps of paper with bizarre angular doodles across interested parties lives for the entire time I was knitting this. It is because those chevrons are not formed with intarsia or slipped stitches but are simple stripes.

I melded the angles of Volt with the configuration of Shale and then filled in the corners. When put like that it seems much, much simpler than it was. I had to exercise faith in my own calculations until it was about 3/4 done - not an easy thing to maintain while knitting to a deadline.  It was this design that put my adherence to that which I conceived in my sketchbook to the test. Could I make this work? I did enjoy a deep sigh of relief when I finally knitted to the point where I knew that it would.

I don't know how I feel about purple. It's kind of like that family member that you've always accepted because they're family but were you to stop and think about it you might not. Were I to gain new perspective on purple I might consider it differently. As it is, I think that mustard color needs the amethyst to make the acquaintance of the chartreuse. I'm unsure that those 3 browns in a row would have befriended the unusual pairing were it not for that purple's charm. I can be sure that I am not a "purple person" but I know I am not against it. Purple is the contrast color. Purple is necessary. Purple is family.

I think that this is why I chose this colorway for the sample. If I were not an "orange person" I might have knitted the right colorway for the book. Instead I attempted to expand my own horizon by joining in the conversation that purple was having.