Entrelac in the Round

I have decided to add a new sub-skill to one of my favorite techniques - entrelac! I've been sitting on two skeins of Knit Picks Chroma Worsted in Paperback - a soft, subtle blend of greys and tans, and while the original plan was to knit a scarf for sale, I now have a much more exciting, if less profitable idea - legwarmers!

Chroma looks GORGEOUS in entrelac, and having just knit some legwarmers for a friend, I'm feeling the need for some of my own.  The weather is getting colder, I just bought some new skinny jeans, and I have the totally awesome book Entrelac: The Essential Guide to Interlace Knitting to guide me.

I have pretty large calves, so much so that I have a lot of difficulty finding tall boots that fit, and knee-high sock patterns always have to be extensively modified, so this will be quite the challenge.  Do I make the legwarmers loose all around and then drawstring them at the knee? That could be cute, especially if I put little pompoms on the drawstring.  Or do I want to do some shaping? And if so, how do I handle shaping with entrelac? Do I switch needle sizes? Do I increase internally in the squares?  I can't wait to get started!

Oh and by the way, how freaking cute does my daughter look in her her knitwear?

Backwards is the New Forwards!

While glancing through yesterday's Knitting Daily blog post on bobbles (truly just glancing; I despise bobbles), I was startled to read that somewhere in the midst of Eunny Jang's bobble tutorial video, there were instructions for knitting backwards.  Not tinking (i.e. unknitting), but actually knitting (or in my case, purling) from left to right.  This effectively means that you don't have to turn the work to do the wrong side rows.

Well, I couldn't be convinced to watch a tutorial on bobbles just to see this miracle, but I figured it couldn't be that hard to figure out.  It's just the logical reversal of what I already do.  And here's what happened:

It was exactly like learning to french braid my own hair.  By the time I was eight or nine, I was a whiz at three-strand plaits - my fingers flew through them.  By eleven or so I had mastered the slightly more complicated technique of french braiding - but only on my friends' heads.  One summer, while staying at my grammom's place at the shore, I decided that I was going to french braid my own hair, with no help from anyone. 

It was unbelievably awkward.  My elbows and wrists twisted around behind me, not being able to see what I was doing... I was taking a set of motions that had become muscle memory, and forcing myself to do them inside-out.  Ever try to tie your shoes a different way than you're used to?  The results were a mess - it was severely lopsided and there were bits sticking up and out all over.  In its own beachy, summery way, I suppose it could have been passed it off as cutely mussed.  In fact, I probably did just that.  But it took years of practice before my hands felt really comfortable with the motions, and my braids started to look as neat and straight as when my mom did them.  Now I do it all the time, sometimes to work, sometimes to just casually and quickly pull my hair back.

Thankfully, thinking through what exactly I'd need to do to purl a stitch on the wrong side - from the right side - and then getting my fingers to do it without dropping the needles, only took about ten minutes and a dozen stitches.  But despite the difference in scale, the process felt exactly the same.  For a few minutes, knitting managed to feel alien to me all over again.

It was pretty fun.

And let me tell you how not having to turn my work every eight stitches on this entrelac scarf is a HUGE time saver!

Always, Always Learning

A little less than two years ago, I produced my first extremely irregular square of stockinette stitch in baby blue Super Saver, probably on size 10 needles, although now I couldn't tell you for sure. It's still sitting in a drawer somewhere in my craft room; it's boring, it's uneven, and it's made of the crappiest acrylic known to knitter-kind, but I can't bring myself to do away with it. After months of only being comfortable with a crochet hook and one or two failed attempts at having a friend teach me to knit, I finally, one day, just picked up those shiny, chunky Boye straights and made myself swear that I wasn't going to put them down until I had figured this knitting thing out.

Cause, you know, I can do anything!

And eventually, I did. Of course, I used the cheapest yarn I could find, intending to waste plenty of it in the pursuit of this elusive skill. It didn't take me an entire skein to get the hang of it, but given what I've accomplished as a knitter since that determined day, I think it's safe to say I got my money's worth.

The primary reason I learned to knit, in the beginning, was because I loved crochet, and was producing some pretty snazzy pieces with the hooks, but I was irritated that there was this whole other method that I couldn't do. And not being able to do things kind of pisses me off. Naturally, I have to admire the finished project to want to learn the craft - quilting and embroidery just don't appeal to me, and sewing only vaguely. I am firmly convinced that scrapbooking was invented by some evil genius to destroy all the trees on the planet while convincing crafters they're making something attractive and not at all hideously tacky. But knitting! I was seeing so many fabulous patterns and projects on Ravelry only to be let down when I saw that it was knit and I couldn't get one for myself.

Since conquering the basic knit and purl stitches, I have been utterly fascinated by the wealth of techniques available to knitters. Colorwork, cables, lace, ribbing, twisted stitches, slipped stitches, brioche stitches, entrelac! It was this last one that I had seen often in yarn shops, advertising a particular yarn, or an entrelac class. It looked so complicated and difficult, I was sure that it was something I would only be confident in tackling once I was a very experienced knitter. And then I forgot about it.

But entrelac popped back into my awareness with the introduction of Knit Picks new self-striping yarn "Chroma." Its vibrant colors and long repeats were perfect for an entrelac project, and you know what? I'm a very experienced knitter! Bring it on!

I found a free scarf pattern, chose needles for a slightly looser gauge, and went to town! I made some mods along the way - I abandoned the author's garter stitch selvedge and used a different increase method, but overall, I was thrilled with the pattern. And even more thrilled with the result:


I have been getting compliments everywhere I wear this scarf, and it just makes me want to learn more and more intricate techniques. And I will. Cause, you know, I can do anything!

PS: Entrelac? Not that hard. :P

Last Five Months

Just an update to let you know what I've gotten up to in the five months and change since my last post. I've made a few hats, a couple pairs of socks, most of a vest, and the most adorable teeny tiny sweaters I've ever seen.

I've gotten MUCH better at stranded knitting - come a long way since the pillow I made for my brother's wedding. I mean, that turned out very nicely and all, but the two and four strand work on these teensy sweaters was far more complicated.

Apart from the world of knitting, I've gotten married. Yeah, that was pretty awesome. I've started up the new school year and been through some pretty dramatic ups and downs where that's concerned. I've taken two big scary licensure exams and have another one scheduled for this weekend.

I was a princess for Halloween (fit into my old prom dress, whee!) and got to give out lots of candy. Had Thanksgiving with friends and got to experience some of the tastiest turkey ever, though I miss mom's mashed potatoes. Looking forward to Christmas, though as of yet we don't have very specific plans for the tree or the gifts or where on earth we're going to put the stockings now that we live in a place with no mantle...

So, here's a look-see at what I've knitted since June. Enjoy!

Cabling without Cable Needles

Knitting Daily released their Fall 2009 gallery today, featuring designs from the latest issue of Interweave Knits, along with a Digital Supplement to the magazine, which includes, among other things, a free pattern for a very interesting cabled scarf, and a two page spread on doing cables without any extra hardware. The technique isn't significantly faster (or perhaps that's only because I lack practice), but what really makes it exciting for me is that I no longer have to juggle three needles at a time, and that's a relief.

When working with larger gauge projects, the extra needle isn't such a huge deal - I have those fat, bent or bobby-pin shaped cable needles that hang down away from my hands so politely. But it seems that the only cable needles I can find smaller than a size 10 simply look more or less like dpns, with or without the offset bit in the middle. When in use, they swivel about like a twirler's batons, searching determinedly for the most inconvenient place to poke themselves into, which usually winds up being directly between my hands, the yarn, and the needle I'm trying to work from. Then, of course, especially with the perfectly straight ones, there is always a danger of the cable needle simply falling out of the stitches if you're not careful.

This new technique (and I say new because it's new to me, and recently published on Knitting Daily, but it's simple enough that people could have been quietly doing it for ages), basically involves taking the stitches off the left needle, switching them about into what would be their final position anyway, putting them back on the left needle, and proceeding to knit or purl them as they lie. It does take a bit of manual dexterity, but hey, we're knitters, right? We've already got that down.

I've already practiced this technique with the next few rows of the Celtic Cable Neckwarmer, and much to my relieved delight, the results are completely indistinguishable from the cables done with the needle. It was awkward at first, as all new skills are, but I'm getting comfortable with it pretty quickly. Other WIPs that still need cabling and will afford me extra practice: the Aran Wrist Warmers, the Cabled Boatneck Pullover and the Bella Scarf (Ravelry link - must be a member to view).

But, because nothing is ever perfect: there is a simple but very important mistake in the directions given in the Digital Supplement. I have already written to Interweave about it, and I'm sure I'm not the only one, but in case they don't fix it before someone links to it from this post, I'll spell it out:

On page 10, in Step 2, where it says that you'd insert the needle into the front of the stitches if you'd normally hold the cable needle to the back, and vice-versa, this is WRONG. If you're supposed to be holding the cable needle to the back, insert the left hand needle through the back of the stitches that would go on the cable needle. If you're supposed to be holding the cable needle to the front, insert the left hand needle through the front of the stitches that would go on the cable needle. In other words, Figure 1 will actually produce a left-leaning cable, not a right, and Figure 2 will produce a right-leaning cable, not a left.

Otherwise, it's a great technique, I haven't had any problems with it, and I will continue to use it whenever I can!