Blog in Stasis

In spite of how it appears, I haven't forgotten this blog exists.  I'm so sorry I have not posted recently. We have had a lot of family sturm und drang in the last 6 or 7 weeks.

I am planning on posting soon, maybe even this week.  But I just wanted to pop in and make sure I was at least posting *something* again. 

It will be soon. 

Yarning for Something Better

I said at the conclusion of my last post that I was going to talk about a tool next. I have all my photos ready to go. But it occurred to me that I should discuss the reason I decided to invest in the tool in the first place.

One of the things I discovered with alarming speed is that I hate cheap yarn. Hate. It. I have no desire to create ill will. But if you read my earlier posts, you may have noticed what my tiny stash consisted of. And it is heavy on Lionbrand (I won't do them the discourtesy of linking to them). Which I now consider pretty much scrap.

I dislike it for so many reasons. For one thing, it just feels rough on my hands. Both the Fishermens Wool, and the Amazing make my hands dry and raw as I pull yarn across them in the course of knitting. It also breaks ridiculously easily, often when I was frogging, and not even tugging hard. And it tangled on itself. Its fuzziness made it difficult to clearly see stitches. As I was just figuring out how to recognize stitches and mistakes in pieces I was working on. I needed yarn with less fuzz, greater strength, easier on my skin, and that created distinct stitches..

But with so many migraines, it is hard for me to get out to yarn stores. And having quickly discovered how much yarn was going to cost if I was going to turn up my nose at Lionbrand, I didn't like being unable to feel the yarn before purchasing it.  Nonetheless, I needed yarn,

So I took a deep breath, and plunged into the world of recycled yarn.  One place to look for recycled yarn is Etsy, which has a multitude of stores. These are people who buy commercially made sweaters they find at thrift shops (there is a knack to knowing what to pick apparently). They then frog them for the yarn, wash it, and wind the yarn into skeins.  You can get very nice quality yarn very inexpensively. Also, some of them are spinners, and use the yarn they get from different sweaters and spin them together for unique and beautiful yarns. Also you can find hand-dyed yarn very inexpensively.

This is my favorite hand spun yarn so far.  I am making a very textured scarf (most of what I do is scarves still, remember) for my sister's birthday in November. I am going to finish it long before then, but I realized I have to start working on Christmas/Chanukah presents immediately.

This picture was when it was only about 50% done, I am more like 80% now. I am still quite slow. And sorry, blurry, plus I learned why white isn't a good color for cameras. The right side gives you a clearer view of the texture, the pattern is The Rolling Plains scarf:

I'm pleased with it, I admit. I lurve the yarn, it is so soft, and the texture of the pattern just feels lovely. I think this is pretty enough that even my fashionista sister will be happy to include it in her wardrobe.

But I went on a bit of a yarn buying binge when I discovered these shops. I don't always use the same seller twice. Nothing wrong with their yarn, but nothing special either. Others I peruse, and purchase something useful but not very exciting now and again.

But there are two stores that are a challenge to my budget. Not because they are overpriced, but because I always make huge orders.  my two "superstar" Etsy shops are NeedleclicksEtc (the woman who made the above handspun), and a shop with an unlikely name and gorgeous hand-dyed yarn, sby4718. They are largely the reason I am knee deep in skeins of beautiful yarn.  Oh, sure, there was that other boring yarn before. But now I have yarn I just go to look at because it's pretty. New experience. True story.

Yet all those lovely, lovely skeins left me with a problem....

Knitting for Knitting's Sake

One thing you should know about me is that I am disabled. I have transformed migraine, which mean I get several days of migraines each week, along with other less well known symptoms. This makes it very hard to have much of a social life.

So at this point in my life, I am very much a homebody. Fortunately, I am not the sort to get lonely when I spend a lot time by myself. But I can get bored. Knitting is a perfect hobby for a "shut-in," and is definitely not boring.

I already had a new pattern picked out for the next time I would be able to go to a class: A chemo cap, for my close friend being treated for breast cancer (she is on the mend, now). But for a hat, I needed help learning how to use circular needles. Because of my headaches, I often had to miss my knitting class at the Adult Education center. In fact, I missed week after week.

But in the meantime, I wanted to knit. I was shocked at how much I missed having a project to be working on. I wanted a really easy project, so that I just had something to knit for the sake of knitting,  but also something didn't require much counting, and was limited to purl and knit stitches. I Googled and searched, and then I found the perfect project for the painfully new knitter, titled tellingly: Easy Dish Rag.  I then realized I didn't even have the right type of yarn to make a dishrag, cotton. I decided to go ahead and make the dish cloth anyway, just because I wanted something to do, even though it wouldn't be useful. So I used the yarn I had bought just to have some yarn around: Lionbrand Amazing Yarn, in the colorway Olympia.

It was just a stockinette cloth with a garter stitch border, but it still took me a couple of days at that point.

I realized wash clothes were a good way to teach myself new things, because they are so varied, but are relatively quick to knit. And each time I finished a dish cloth, I knew something new about knitting. I like to try something new for each project, whether it was it is a type of stitch, a weight of yarn, or a tool.

What I had learned from the above project was that cotton was a must for dish and face clothes. So I ventured to a nearby LYS, that unfortunately, has since become online-only store, Bobbin's Nest. It was the first time I had seen a yarn and needle crafts store other than the two aisles at Michael's. The first time I went was when I had purchased the Berocco yarn for the scarf in the previous post. I went a bit crazy, I bought needles galore; I also bought some "notions," which have become a real weakness of mine.

I figured I wasn't really ready for nice yarn, and was going to "ruin" it anyway. At that point, I knew nothing about frogging. I  bought a few inexpensive,  rather boring yarns, and a bunch of cotton yarn that was on massive sale. I didn't know anything about yarn at that point (and I don't really know that much more, now). I didn't really know what I was looking for, other than cotton for the dish clothes. I wanted what I considered a good assortment of yarns to try on different projects. But I had no idea what I was doing. At that point, I actually thought that Aran always meant cotton.

The next project I made was fun. I have a French Bulldog, and found a washcloth with a pattern that forms a Frenchie face. Every row was different, and I was still pretty slow, but I got to try out my new row counter. 

The yarn I used was Jil Eaton Cottontail, in the colorway Azure. Cotton Aran. This is where I got the idea that Aran = Cotton. I'm still barely starting to figure out all sorts of really basic stuff!

This period during which I really wanted to knit, but was not able to make it to class, I produced a lot of wash clothes. I next did a pattern that was supposed to resemble a weave stitch.  This pattern is Simple Weave Waschcloth, was also done in Jil Eaton Cottontail, but this time the colorway is Blush:

I actually use this one a lot, it is a nice texture for a facecloth. But the washcloth pattern that has become my go-to "I want something easy to knit" pattern is the apparently hugely popular Grandmother's Favorite Dishcloth.

The lighting is awful, but the top and bottom colorway is Azure, and the color that looks yellow is actually Blush. The variegated yarn is a different brand, Lily Sugar 'n Cream in the Batik colorway.

This was my first pattern that had increases and decreases, and the eyelets were the closest thing to lace that I had managed to knit. I had already struggled with a couple of different lace or lace-type patterns. I have a feeling lace is going to be a real challenge for me.

I think my next post will be about a tool.

Casting On

Once upon a time, I wanted to learn how to knit. But distance prevented one grandmother, and temperament the other, from teaching me as a child. I've always been too shy to ask people to teach me, because it seemed as if it would require so much of their time.

Right after my 48th birthday last September, I realized that if I were ever going to learn, and become reasonably competent, the time had come to figure out how.  I was surprised to find that Santa Clara Adult Education included knitting for all abilities, including novice. I promptly signed up, and my foray into knitting began.

I really enjoyed knitting from the get go.  I still cannot figure out how something so frustrating can be so enjoyable.  I began with knitting and purling, of course. When I first made several inches of stockinette, I was thrilled by the texture of the fabric.

The class was basically a stitch 'n bitch that had two instructors there to help decode whatever tangle any of my classmates got themselves into. A lot of them were very talented. They all pitched in to educate me about the basics of knitting.

Soon I felt ready to start my first project.  This was the beginning of a lot of learning through trial and error.

I first planned to make a very simple shawl, the Tweedy Shawl pattern that is free on the Lion Brand Yarn site.  I bought a skein of their Fishermen's Wool, and some size 8 circular needles, as suggested by my instructors. I began the shawl, and quickly realized I had taken on too ambitious of a project. It wasn't that the pattern was difficult, so much as it was many columns, and very long. It was just too big of a project if I wanted the gratification of a finished object sometime in the near future. As a new knitter,  I wanted to make sure I got the reward of a finished object reasonably soon.

So after not that much Googling, I came across a pattern called The Bad Math Scarf. But the yarn for the shawl definitely was not good for a scarf, which lies against skin. In fact, none of the yarn I had seen at the local Michael's box store seemed all that soft, or pretty.  That is when I learned about what knitters refer to as LYS, for Local Yarn Stores. These are usually small local businesses.  The one nearest me is the eco-friendly Green Planet Yarn. It was there that I was initiated into the usual knitters' obsession, yarn.

I like to be as green as possible, and will talk about that in another post.

For the next 6 weeks, I struggled through my first scarf. This is when I began to learn about frogging, which is the term that knitters use for ripping apart a project to try again, or to use the yarn for another project. I got a third of the way through the scarf, and was so unhappy with the many mistakes, and how it looked, I ripped it all apart and started over.

I now know that a lot of the stitches are twisted, but it is a fairly well done scarf. My teachers actually seemed astonished at how good it is. My guess is that I tolerate fewer mistakes than the average new knitter, being very detail oriented (which is a kind way of saying obsessive).

I used the colorway Primary Red, from the Berroco Comfort line of yarn.

I think I will stop here for now.