Porom Gauge

Hi everyone, but Libby specifically, I was wondering if you had made the Porom hat yet, and if so, if you had any trouble finding a yarn with which you could manage the proper gauge. Mom and I just bought a dk weight yarn because the Blue Sky alpaca silk (I know you were wondering what the content was before Mom, so there you are) stuff that you generously gave me wasn't working out for this pattern. (I made a different floppy hat instead, it's still pretty neat.) Anyway, if you have the pattern handy, could you consult with me on maybe increasing the number of stitches so that I can make a smaller gauge without making a smaller hat? I think it could just be any number divisible by twenty (because that's how many sts there are in chart B), but I'm not sure how the crown shapping will work, obviously with more stitches there will have to be more decrease rows. I know you're busy and I may be able to figure this out on my own, but if you get a chance I'd appreciate a consult. Also, do you think you could email me the Thermis pattern? Please and thank you.
Love to everyone,
Laura Anne

I love this, I couldn't really tell from the picture what you were talking about...you and laura crack me up sometimes! I think we should post the rules in the sidebar to keep track!

Very soon I promise to post photos of the blanket in progress and soon after that I promise pictures of the apartment and my stash organization efforts. After THAT I will indulge in a discussion (monologue perhaps?) regarding what I want to cast on (or rescue from UFO-hood) to provide a bit more stimulation than giant garter stitch rectangles. Consider this post a placeholder for those more interesting posts to come!

love you~

No Mother/Daughter Blog Would be Complete Without This

A list of rules! Granted, I don't have a whole list for you today. Just a rule that I applied (uncharacteristically) last night, and I'm so glad I did. So here it is, (ta da!) rule #1 in the Tightly Knit Rule Book:

1. No frogging after 11 p.m.

While I'm at it, here's rule #2:

2. Always, always, always have an unfinished scarf or sock (or three) handy to make it even conceivably possible to adhere to rule #1.

This morning, I see that the hideously stretched out edge stitch on the right front of my current project is not the result of a mistake in laddering, reladdering and then, for good measure, laddering again both of the twisted stockinette stitch stitches adjacent to the slipped edge stitch all the way down to the cast-on edge. No, my dear daughters, it was the result of being stretched out. And as every modern knitter (post Stitch and Bitch, that is) should know, it is in our power to wrestle stretched out stitches into submission.

So why am I displaying the "wrong" side of my edge? Because, dear girls, that is where the slipped edge stitch rolls to hide in this ingenious edge treatment. And don't they all look remarkably even and under control? It is wonderful to have this power. And I'd have never felt such joy if I had done what seemed like the only logical next step last night when it was past my bedtime and frogged the damn thing. I'm not saying these are the world's most even stitches, but they are fine.

And just to leave you with a little eye candy, here's what the front side looks like.



Knit on!

Judi

Another Great Knitting Magazine

Dear Girls,
Have you been holding out on me? I just randomly clicked on an ad on Ravelry (hardly ever do that unless I'm seriously interested, since I know it costs the advertiser half a penny or something like that) and am now in love with Knotions Magazine. How come I didn't know about this? I think it replaces MagKnits, which I never knew about, either, until it was history.


Here's the reason love Knotions so much. I've been searching hard for a shell to make to go under my current project. I've done several really serious searches on Ravelry, and even though I saw this, it didn't stand out from the crowd for some reason. I'm sure I can modify this a little to echo some of the design elements of the Retro Jacket. I'm so excited!

Judi

From Judi: And Here We Are Again!

Well, my dear Libby, Baltimore doesn't know how lucky it is to have such an accomplished knitter moving in. And Cleveland's knitting community is a diminished thing without you in our midst.

But I am not sad because we are Tightly Knit! And even though you only semi-officially moved out this morning (leaving a shocking amount of stuff behind in some very unexpected places), I have a knitting dilemma and need your advice.

As you know, last night I started the Drop Stitch Scarf, #13 from VogueKnitting Spring/Summer 2009, and even though it is mega fun to knit the triple-wrap stitches to get the cross-wise "ladders," I'm dying see how it looks with the dropped stitches laddered, too. The pattern doesn't have you do this until the end. There's no way I can wait 'till the end. I know we freely laddered Jeanie while in progress, but I can't remember what we did with the top stitch. Just pick it up (as in a M1) and knit into it on the next row? Will that work?

After Judy G's experience with The Clap, I suddenly have a deathly fear of knitting an entire scarf only to find out the drop stitches won't drop! Tried to Google this question and got nothing I could use. You are my only hope. Am praying you took your computer to Baltimore!

From Judi: This Was Such a Great Idea ...

... and then Libby graduated, moved home, and suddenly the whole motivation went up in smoke! We both still like the idea of blogging about knitting, but since we talk with each other about knitting almost constantly (when we're not working), we don't really need to blog about it any more.


And Ravelry is filling a big need to show off our knitting to others. (I'm JudiP53, and Libby is LibbyP. Laura, who really does knit, is not obsessed the way Libby and I are, so she doesn't have a Ravelry account and I think she thinks we're a little goofy, but we're living with that.)

So where does that leave Tightly Knit? I'm not sure. Frankly, I'm hoping that Libby will move out soon (I mean that in the nicest, most supportive way and her continually ursurping my spot in front of the computer and in the best knitting chair hardly enter into the sentiment at all) and then we'll need Tightly Knit again. In the meantime, I'm making a New Year's resolution to try to blog at least once in a while if for no other reason than to have a good place to document knitting learnings and insights for posterity.

My most recent learning has to do with the forethought heel I'm using in the Kureyon socks I'm making. Lib, Laura and I all got skeins of this yarn for Christmas (one smart Santa, eh?) and Lib shot ahead with her sock and used a flap heel. I convinced her to frog it because the flap really messed up the gradual transiton of colors on the instep. (Actually, she made me frog it for her. I really enjoyed it!)

We decided to do afterthought heels but to make things a little easier/less scary by knitting in a "zipper" of scrap yarn that we could take out to create the opening. I swear, this was the day before Stephanie documented her afterthought heel revelation, which She had for a totally different reason. Crazy coincidence, eh? Actually, this isn't the first time that She has blogged about a topic at almost exactly the same time I was dealing with the same issue. I think we're like cosmically linked or something, but I'm sure She doesn't know it 'cause I almost never even have the nerve to post comments on The Yarn Harlot (the standard for amusing comments is outrageously high over there), so even though we "met" at her signing in Cleveland, we don't exactly have a relationship.

Anyhow, I digress. Stephanie mentioned that Elizabeth Zimmermann had discussed afterthought heels, although I can't find a mention in any of her books. (Afterthought pockets, yes.) So I'm sure Elizabeth Zimmermann also invented what we're calling the forethought heel, but I can't prove it.

In the process of knitting in the zipper, I made one dumb mistake and learned (or was reminded of) something about my knitting personality. But I balanced this by having a small but I think important revelation.

I learned that when inserting the scrap yarn zipper, you should be really careful not to inadvertently catch up a stitch below. Which, honestly, I don't remember ever doing before, but I did do it while knitting in the zipper, and consequently had to frog a whole day's worth of instep, which was about three inches and really ticked me off at myself! I was even less happy with myself because I'm sure the better solution would have been to just snip the yarn and rip out that row and end up with exactly the same setup as if one had done the true afterthought heel (as She did). But one can be somewhat compulsive at times, and avoiding snipping the yarn was the whole motivation for the forethought heel in the first place, so I frogged. Good thing I enjoy frogging, although I found it was distinctly more fun frogging Libby's sock than mine.

Now for the insight: I realized that it would be a bit of a challenge to know where to start the toe (not that I'm there yet - I still haven't caught up to the point where I frogged the instep last weekend). Since all I had was a tube, my usual trick of trying the sock on to see how it was fitting might/probably would lead to ambiguous results. So, instead of waiting until the tube and toe were done to unzip the zipper, I realized I could unzip it whenever I felt like it (as it turned out, after having knitted only 3 or 4 more rounds after zipper #2) and try it on when the time came and have a very good idea of where the toe should start. In fact, if I want to, I can just put in the afterthought heel whenever I want - although not yet, because I haven't figured out if I want to use the Noro or find a solid color to use for the heel and toe, a look I really like. This insight actually led to a second, which is that when I pick up for the heel, I'm going to pick up at least four stitches in each corner. Trying on the sock with the zipper unzipped (actually, I watched Libby try hers on -- she finished with her first sock already) demonstrates that there's a lot of stretch needed at that point.

Which just goes to prove that seeing things with your own eyes can really make you a lot smarter!

Oh, by the way, if you've never done the zipper trick, don't do what Libby did and clip your working yarn to pick up on the other side of the zipper. Just side your new zipper stitches onto your left needle and pick up with the working yarn where you left off, knitting over the zipper stitches. I didn't figure this out for myself, but I did do a good job of reading the tutorial that, in all fairness, Libby actually found on the Web. Now all I have to do is stop gloating about it!

Judi

I'd Like to Do This More Often

I'd really love to post to the blog more often, but it seems the moon and stars have to align. First, I need to have interesting knitting to show. Then I have to have a decent photo of my interesting knitting. (Surprisingly difficult to come by.) And then I have to have a few minutes to pull it all together.

I could blame my lack of time on Libby living at home now and Laura popping in at random intervals, but in all fairness, it's mostly because I finally took the plunge and began redecorating the guest bath. I chose it as a jumping off point to a total wallpaper purge. We've got wallpaper in eight rooms and our realtor says we have to get rid of all of it. I figure it would cost $10,000 to have it done by a proper professional, so I'm having a whack at it to see what I can accomplish myself. I think I could do it, too, if I didn't have a full-time job!

DH lacks the confidence to do much on his own, and I do agree it took some nerve to keep going after I saw what the walls looked like under the paper in the guest bath. I started there because it was small. Turns out small is a problem. You can hardly turn around, no one can fit in there to give you a hand, and every two feet it seems you run into a corner or crevice that requires infinite patience to get right. Anyhow, I've discovered that I'm capable of applying skim coat to smooth the walls. Now the next test is whether I'm capable of sanding it off to actually result in walls smooth enough to paint. I'm hoping that DH is capable of being trained to help with the sanding!

I am managing to do some knitting in between frantically trashing the bathroom and adjoining laundry room. I've got all the pieces done on my cable maze cardigan, and now only have to weave in ends, block everything, assemble, knit neck and button bands and sew on buttons. I just realized that my fantasy of wearing it to the department party on Saturday evening is pretty ridiculous. I'd forgotten about knitting the bands, I guess. And I don't have buttons yet. Not gonna happen in time. I am happy with how it's turning out. Of course, I still don't believe it will fit me, but that's only because every other sweater I've ever knit has turned out to have the flattering properties of a feed sack. I do love the Plymouth Royal Bamboo as a finished product, but DAMN that stuff is splitty! I'm not sure how durable it is going to turn out to be either, but it is SOFT and has a nice sheen. It reminds me a lot of rayon, but it's not nearly as slippery to work with. I spoke to a local LYS owner at the guild meeting last week, and he told me, "Everyone hates bamboo." Nice thing to say to someone in the middle of a bamboo project! I think to be a good YS owner, you need to have a better bedside manner than that!

I also started swatching and dyeing main color for a housewarming gift for Laura's first apartment -- a set of placemats in her favorite colors - rust with navy trim. I'm using the felted trivet pattern from Felted Knits by Beverly Galeskas, resized to placemats. KnitPicks didn't have the rust color I wanted in their bulky, feltable stuff, so I bought "bare" and some of their Jacquard acid dye and took the afternoon off to dye it yesterday. It's not as deep a color as I'd envisioned, but it is pretty. I think she'll like it. I was surprised how much yarn 600 grams turned out to be! I had to do the dyeing in the washing machine because it was way too much for my stainless steel dutch oven. That required an extra 2 gallons of water (ideally would have used 4, ended up having to use 6 to fill the tub to cover the yarn), and of course I couldn't "cook" it in the washer, so that probably accounts somewhat for the light color. All things considered, I guess it turned out pretty well! Now all I have to do is untangle the hanks (I swear I cannot understand how it gets tangled the way it does even though it's secured in two places on the hank) and wind them into my hand-made flat center-pull balls for knitting.

What is the "logic" that prompts me to start a new project just BEFORE finishing a prior project, I wonder. Surely it would be smarter to finish project one before diving into project two. I know I'm not the only knitter who struggles with "start-itis." And it sure is fun to get new yarn in the mail and play with dye and all that. It's a constant battle to maintain discipline, though! Ah, hell with it. I'm having a good time!