robknits

When stash and creativity meet

I always feel that I have to struggle to avoid standardized answers to problems.  That is, I worry that I have to remind myself, for example, that the answer to a household design issue is not necessarily found in the standard stores.  My living room windows have sheer curtains in a sort of burnt orange or dark copper color.  I like them a lot, but they are sheer, and after my house was broken into again a couple of weeks ago, I decided I needed something that created more privacy.  Not that anything that could be seen from those windows was stolen, but still...

I want to keep those curtains on those windows, but add something on the lower half of the windows, leaving trees and sky visible through the top half of the windows.  Interior shutters would prevent cats from sitting on those window sills.  Can't have that.  In addition to pushing the cats off the sills, wood carvings or metal work or shoji screens would make it difficult to open those windows, which I like to do when the temperature drops all the way down to the 80s and like to think I could do if that were my only exit from the house in an emergency.  I thought of bamboo curtains but could only find bamboo shades, difficult to hang halfway down the window. 

Then I thought of weaving something, but figured I wanted a solution that would take fewer than 3 or 4 years to develop.  I played around with an idea from the book Time to Weave, modifying the runner on the cover (the project on the upper left on the cover).  There is a variation on that inside the book that uses stalks of plants instead of sticks that got me thinking. 

   Then I found the Loop Door Curtain crochet pattern here.  Hmmm.  Wandered into the yarn closet.  And I came out with the generic recycled silk yarn that has been hanging around the house for years.  Knitting with the stuff is a nightmare.  I did weave with it as weft, and that was OK, though I never took the piece I wove and made it into the bag I had planned.  So I began playing.  I tried the crochet instructions.  Ok.  Then I began to play with other  ways of producing the strands.  Long rows of just knit-on cast on stitches.     Long rows of knit-on cast on with the next row done as a bind off row.  I began thinking perhaps I could also intersperse just strands of the recycled silk, not knit or crochets. It has actually been kind of entertaining.  But then I decided it actually looked kind of scraggly.  What to do, what to do....

It required another trip to the yarn closet, staring at its residents.  Then I found this stuff (pic on the right).   I bought it at Knitters Connections, which I attended with Terry a few years ago.  I was going to make the Evening in Eden shawl with it, but that never happened.   And I half to admit that while I like what shawls look like, I think that when I wear one I look like an old photograph of an Eastern European immigrant from the turn of the 20th century, sitting on my suitcase at Ellis Island.  I have been thinking of seeing if I have enough for a cropped lacy jacket (it's rayon, good for this climate) but now I think it might dress the windows, not me.  A very satisfying idea, feels very creative, and is produced with materials already in the house. 

Meanwhile, I have finally gotten back to the weaving studio, and have reached the design part of my little wall hanging. I will take a picture tonight.  I am loving weaving with Lamb's Pride.  It doesn't allow for the sort of weft color blending that other yarns allow for in tapestry.  That's when you blend multiple strands of a yarn and use it as a single weft, to create lovely gradations of color.  On the other hand, the fact that I cannot blend colors is leading me toward other types of design.

Back to real life and working on ways of seeing

A lot more knitting took place while I was on break than since I have been back at work.  In terms of progress reports, nothing much to report -- I am still at exactly the same place on Sausalito.  Since I did one front piece and most of the back so quickly, I want to get back to it and get it done.  That way, too, I can get on to Heroine, from the Twist Collective.  The knitting on that will go quickly, since it is knit loosely with two strands of an aran-weight yarn.  I even sat down and, needing something else to do rather than Sausalito, did another hexagon on the Swirl shawl.

On other fronts, though, life has been interesting and challenging.  In an effort to create designs for tapestry weaving, I have been using my camera for skyline and architectural photographs.  My big discovery were all the free, online photo editing programs, like FotoFlexer and, via Flickr, Picnik.  Without loading a memory hog like Photoshop Elements or other imaging software on the laptop, I can play with the photos in dramatic ways, inverting color, hardening edges, making the photos poster-like or like pencil drawings.  The results in terms of my visual education have been dramatic.  I can take a photograph I like and, while playing with, suddenly see it even more clearly -- sometimes just inverting the colors highlights angles I hadn't consciously noted, or shows how the complementary colors in the original contributed to the photo's composition.  Those programs also let me crop photos for better composition, of course.  Very very cool.  My only complaint is that Fotoflexer, which has some great special effects, limits the size of the images really severely, so it works for online images but not very well for print-outs large enough to be used as cartoons for weaving.  Picnik doesn't limit the size of my images, and I have been playing with their special effects filters, but really prefer some of the effects I got on Fotoflexer.  I am considering getting very good small print outs of my Fotoflexer play, and scanning them at high resolutions, to see if I can get good-quality larger print-outs.

So since I don't have any new knitting or weaving to show, and since while I am getting spinning done the yarn looks just like it did in the last two pictures, here are some of the images I am playing with.    The first is a photograph I took at the San Antonio Public Library's main branch, a very interesting building right across the street from the Southwest School of Art and Craft where I take tapestry weaving (and where Northern City LIghts is locked in the tapestry room waiting to be finished).  Unfortunately, I didn't think about changing the resolution on the camera when I was taking the architectural shots, so my print outs are limited.  I once asked my father how to get beautiful landscape photos and he annoyed me by telling me to go someplace beautiful.  But it is true that it is easier to get interesting images when you are someplace interesting!

Anyway, I was able of course to crop this and play with the colors.  One of the versions of this I have used the "posterize" special effect on Picnik.  Here is a small version of that one:  Some version of that might work really well as a tapestry.

And to show you what I mean when I say playing with the colors helps me see aspects of the photos I hadn't really seen originally, here is a version of the photo with the colors inverted.  I don't love the colors, but suddenly saw beyond the architecture of the building itself, to what you can see of the city framed by the architecture: All of a sudden the "nighttime" citiscape emerges, as does the window in the upper left part of the image. 

I would like to scan the rough collage I made for my tropical citiscape idea, and play with that digitally.

     All this has been tremendously evocative.  Now all I have to do is warp the loom and get to work.  As in all weaving, the warp requires a block of time to get done, though I have to say it is considerably easier to warp a tapestry loom --  no ends to cut or cross to maintain, just one continual warp thread.  Tension, of course, is very important but easier to fix (before you start weaving!).  So maybe tomorrow.

Catching up

     It's been so long between blog entries I am scaring relatives.  Everything is fine.  My job is very demanding in August, which is the end of the fiscal year in the Texas state system.  Fortunately I am finding it very interesting but tend to get home late and unwilling to even turn on the computer.

     It's also been a long time between blog entries because of my knitting slump.  I am continuing to knit, working on the mate to the Sockotta socks, and making (slow) progress on the Swirl shawl.  By the way, while I like the Jojoland Melody yarn, it does not stand up well to frogging.  I decided my last hexagon was poorly done and in a dramatically different gauge than the others.  I decided to rip it out and to my dismay discovered that the yarn frayed while I did so.  So I am not sure I would use it for socks at all.  Especially since I tend to frog heels once or twice on each sock.

     During Chatters, Robbyn suggested that the change in climate might be the cause of my knitting slump.  That's a possibility.  But I have collected interesting cotton, linen and rayon blend yarns that I could wear here but haven't dived into those projects.  I did also distract myself from knitting with tapestry weaving, but am not weaving anything at the moment.  I am working on designs and that really is where my creative energy is going.  No surprise I am sure to anyone who reads this blog, but my focus with the tapestry weaving is in intense color.  Certain contemporary artists have been inspirational in this process.  One is Wolf Kahn.  I have asked the art librarian here to buy a couple of his books, and bought a calendar of his work for myself.  I also found a very inspirational book call Raw Colour with Pastels by Mark Leach.  The cover alone set my spirits flying, and my creative juices flowing -- for tapestry.

    So I reorganized my knitting, and while watching Olympic diving was working on the sock.  I think, to really get back into knitting, I have to get some of the creative juices and attention focused there too.  That little stash of unusual Habu yarns was meant to get me thinking about some art knitting projects.  I am slowly working my way toward that, and once I get started, will post my progress.  Meanwhile, when I get home tonight I will add pictures of the WIPs.

Conundrum, with short rows

The picture is not the conundrum.  It is a piece of stained glass that I bought a couple of weeks ago at the Texas State Arts and Crafts sale in Kerrville.  There was almost no fiber-based art at the fair at all, but I kept running into women who use blow torches and work with glass and metal   The artist who created this, Jan whose-last-name-Ijust-forgot, will be at next week's Texas Folk Life festival too.  I will make sure to pick up another of her cards.

The conundrum is about the Pearl Buck Swing jacket from Interweave Knits's Winter 2005 issue.  There are actually two conundrums.  The first involved my idea about lengthening it a bit.  I didn't think of that til I had already completed one side of the front up to the beginning of the armhole.  So if I want to lengthen it, I need to go straight up for a bit, though I don't think I would do it for more than 2 inches.  This blog entry by Bluestocking Knits, in what was apparently a knitalong for this jacket, mentions some concerns about lengthening a jacket that has a yoke and a pleat in back.  I still think it would be possible to lengthen it below the armholes and the yoke, but that pleat would need to be taken into account.  So then I thought, I don't need to lengthen it, I need to do some shortrows on the fronts of the cardigan so that the front will hang at the same length of the back despite my much curvier front.

And there's the conundrum.  I have quite a library of directions and instructions and explanations about short rows but I don't think a single item mentions doing this for cardigans. Usually when using short rows to create bust darts, the instructions talk about knitting them across the front piece of the sweater.  You work the extra rows from point to point, so to speak.  So, in a cardigan, do you make a separate pouch for each side of the cardigan?  Somehow divide the short row section in half so that it actually does continue across the entire front of the cardigan?  Does anyone know?

In addition, the band of the cardigan is knit along with the fronts, and has a charming design knit into it that is worked, of course, across a predetermined number of rows.  I could certainly incorporate the design of the bands if I were working separate short row sections for each side of the cardi -- basically the band would be put on hold as the short rows were being worked, and in the row when I return to working all the way across the piece I would work the next row of the design.  Right? 

I love this design, but think I especially need those short row sections on a short swing jacket.  So please chime in with recommendations.

And on the shawl/stole front, I have decided to use the purple copper novelty yarn for something other than the Lattice lace shawl.  Bascially because I found a stockinette swatch I did with this yarn and it is stunning.  So I am going to develop a stole pattern that uses a lot of stockinette for this particular yarn, and go back to the lattice lace stole some other time.  I also fell in love with Knitty's Jeanie, a wrap that uses fingering weight yarn, cables and drop stitches, but I am trying to resist buying 3 skeins of Dream in Color Smooshy.  Though I think it is a perfect yarn for that pattern.  I can feel my resistance dropping, oozing from my pores.  The only fingering weight I have enough of for this pattern is the self-striping Jojoland Melody, which I bought for another shawl.  And I don't think self striping is right for Jeanie.  I also have enough of Knitpicks Gloss in burgundy.  A gorgeous yarn, but I want something with subtle color changes or a heathery look.  OK.  I think I'll try to find the pattern I bought to use with the Jojoland.  That way, I can start something cool, use yarn I have already bought, and put off the purchase of the Smooshy for a bit.  Anyone taking bets on the odds of my actually doing this?  I might, because that would mean working on this intriguing stole:

You can see it at the Jojoland site, at knittingsoftware.com where Carol Wulster also has some notes about knitting it, and at the Knitting Zone, where I bought the yarn and the pattern.  All I have to do is find the pattern, which gives me some much needed motivation to tackle more organizational tasks here at the house.

Creativity and Basics

    Work on the blue variegated socks, out of yarn from the Blauband stash, is progressing as I try to figure out what larger project would satisfy both my fingers and my mind.  The socks had stalled while I tried to figure out the stitch to use on the leg.  After wearing one of my favorite pairs of handknit socks (these red ones), I decided to do the same basic K3P1 rib on the blue ones.  Very nice.  I like the way it looks, I like knitting them.

     During a search through everything knitting that I own (part of the "need the right project" mania), I pulled a swatch out of a project bag.  I was stunned by how interesting it was, and it took me a minute to analyze it.  Ready?  It was ....  Garter stitch.  In a Galway heather.  Basic ²  .

     So that has me thinking about using basic yarns and basic stitches.  Maybe an antidote to my focus on lace.  But I am going to try to do non-basic things with basic yarns and basic stitches.  One is the the aran I have been thinking about for quite some time.  The other might involve taking material I have been studying for a while -- in this case, modular design.  I took at look at 2 books recently.  One is Woolly Thoughts, a great basic (and cheap!) introduction to modular knitting and modular design, and the other was Knits from the Painter's Palette by Maie Landra of Koigu yarn fame.  They got me thinking about two other modular design/pattern books, Dazzling Knits and Ginger Luter's Module Magic.  I bought Woolly Thoughts locally, and am trying to decide which other I will buy on Wednesday (payday).  Woolly Thoughts will teach you how to knit modular patches if you don't already know, but I bought it for the great images, in gray and white, of the different shapes that can be created and how they can be put together in different ways.  No patterns.  The authors focus on shape and how anyone who knits can create shapes.  Very inspiring.  And we have seen how inspiring knitting a shape can be, if you notice what Norah Gaughan has been doing -- she began knitting hexagons and continues to experiment with what you can do with them.   Maie Landra's book is inspiring in a directly opposite kind of way -- amazing colors (that Koigu yarn), brilliant pictures, lots of patterns. 

     The aran still hasn't happened.  I have been searching for patterns for aran-weight cardigans and jackets, and of course have not found the mythical perfect match of yarn and pattern.  The Fitted Aran by Norah Gaughan still attracts me tremendously, and I took at look at what people have done with it on Ravelry, which has increased my interest. (Yeah, I know I said I didn't think I would use Ravelry that way, but hey, I do.)  The problem is sizing.  As written, the pattern offers a size that is, oh, two or three inches too small across the chest, and one that is 5" larger.  After measuring the heavier cardigans in my closet, I decided the 47" sweater would be too big on me.  So I need to figure out some modifications, made a bit more complicated in this case because of the aran designs.  I have thought of 3 ways I could modify the size to get it to fit.

• First idea.  I am talking of adding 2.5 inches.  That means, rounding it off, adding 11 or 12 stitches to the entire sweater.  That means adding 3 stitches to each front and to either side of the back.  Since the "fancy rib" pattern at each side is a multiple of 3+1 stitches, that should not be difficult at all.  And since that is the pattern in the bottom band as well... well hey, maybe this won't be complicated at all.   
• Second idea.  Sort of the flip side of idea #1.  Making the larger size and substracting a total of 2 inches.  That would mean figuring out how to take out 9 stitches.  OK, 8.  How hard could that be?
• Third idea.  Do lots of swatches and see what happens if I make a larger size with a worsted rather than an aran yarn.  That gets very complicated.  If my math is right (and it most likely is not), the difference in stockinette between the number of stitches for the larger size done at 4.5/in and 5/in is the difference between 59 and 53 inches around.  So I really would have to swatch everything -- the fancy rib, cable A and cable B.  The whole thing makes my head hurt.

So ideas 1 and 2 seem most likely.  After the fancy rib bottom band, the pattern has you decrease 7 stitches.  I guess I could change that to make up for either deleted stitches around Cable B or, most likely, added rows of fancy rib.  No no... I would make an extra fancy rib column on each of four sides. Yeah, that's it.  But then I have to figure out how many to cast on, since you cast on, work several rows in rib, then increase for the fancy rib band.  AND, you increase the same number of stitches no matter which size you are making.  7 for each front, 14 for the back.  So I have to figure out why, and then figure out how many stitches to increase and then decrease back after the fancy rib band where you start the cables.

   OK, so now we all see why I have loved this sweater since I saw it in the Winter 01/02 issue of IK but have never knit it. Sigh.  I don't know how close I am to making it now.  Plus, I need to figure out the sizing of armholes.  Seems to me if I need more room across the chest (but not across the shoulders) I need the larger armhole too.  So maybe I should go for removing a few stitches from the larger size after all.   Nope, the shoulders would be wider.  I think I need to add some stitches to the size 42.5" and knit the longer armhole.   I am going to sit down with it now and decide.  I change dimensions on sweaters all the time, but the different ribs and cables have me intimidated here.

     Finally, I have found an online bookstore that seems really great -- Books XYZ.  GREAT prices on knitting books, large inventory, and part of each sale is donated to the school of your choice.  Their web page says they have already donated more than $590,000.  So on payday, I am not going to head to Amazon.  I am going to Books XYZ.  The Rosebud Elementary school in South Dakota is one of the schools on the list and that, or perhaps one of the Gulf Coast schools rebuilding after Katrina, will get a little something every time I fall off the (book) wagon.

Secret swatching

     (rushed entry before work) While continuing to work on both pairs of socks and the Ostrich Plumes stole, I wound some Knit Picks Shadow lace yarn, in the Lost Lake color, and swatched for the Secret of the Stole project.

     The Shadow is nowhere as soft as the Tess laceweight I am using for Ostrich Plumes.  At the same time, Tess is a single and I see a bit of fuzz developing in areas that I ripped out redid.  Anyway, I did the swatch using two different sets of beads.  The first beads I tried are shiny beads I bought at Michaels.  In the box, you see they have different colors -- some silver, some gold, some a bit more bronze.  As you can see in the swatch, they just die next to the dark green.  So I tried the copper beads I got at eebeads.com.  I am not really thrilled with that either.  The copper beads are the ones you can barely see in the repeat at the bottom of the image on the right.   This image was done using the scanner.  The copper beads actually pop quite a bit more than that.  So I tried taking a picture on the deck, in natural morning light.  Stupid camera.   The picture came out extremely blue, and the copper beads were no more visible than they are in the scan.  They really do pop more. 

     Anyway, I am not satisfied.   I think I may continue to hunt up some other beads.  And, I think maybe I need to go down a needle size.  What do you think?

Knitting in DC and more on sketchbooks

     Along with 29,999 other librarians, I will be in D.C. for the American Library Association meeting this weekend.  I actually am supposed to be there now, but am still running around getting packed (actually I am on the computer but I am supposed to be running around getting packed).  I met up with Martha in Seattle at our midwinter librarians meeting -- she was there with her librarian spouse, and we hit So Much Wool together.  So we are meeting in DC on Sunday, at 4 pm, at StitchDC's Capitol Hill store.  Sigh, a yarn store open Sundays.  A working knitter's dream.  Martha is bringing at least one friend from her knitting group, and I am hoping Lanea can join us as well.  If you read this in time, and are in the DC area, please meet us there!
     More on sketchbooks: Leigh and Robbyn, this is attempt number Gazillion for me.  I think what is helping me this time is a completely exploded understanding of a sketchbook.  The "sketchbook" consists of those index cards residing in a shoe box, pictures cut from magazines and printed from the web, random pieces of paper, and, for moment anyway, my new little sketchpad, all of which will -- might -- or might not -- come together in a looseleaf binder.  That way I can shuffle things, don't need to have one specific book with me when the mood or an idea hits, etc.   So far so good but hey, it's been a week.
     Gotta wash the dishes, load the car, double check my list, buy gasoline and hit the road.  To meet up with 29,999 other librarians, listen, talk, visit the Textile Museum, StitchDC, Martha, eat good food, maybe hear live jazz....

Creative focus

    

Ruth Lantz, Judy Ditmore and Maureen Mason-Jamieson taught great classes at the Knitters Connection, the new knitting event in Columbus OH.  This first event went very well, so they are already scheduling and planning next year's.  It was very well organized, and those who preregistered got an amazing goody bag when we signed in -- a zippable clear tote bag filled with magazines (4) and 7 or 8 skeins of different yarns.  So I have a skein of Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride to add to my knitter's palette collection, as well as samples of Twisted Sisters new yarn and Claudia Handpaint (in bronze and yellows), a skein of Wisdom Yarns Poems (the space-dyed one in blues) that would work very well with Lamb's Pride (same gauge and also a single).  That yarn was new to me, but I see it advertised in the current magazines.   A full skein of Nashua's Creative Focus Superwash (aran weight, the first time I have seen this yarn in person), a skein of Plymouth Fantasy Natural cotton, a skein of Ella Rae Classic wool (5/in) in a light olive color.  That's a new yarn to me too.  And a skein of Berroco's Ultra Alpaca Light,  a DK/sport weight that is half wool and half alpaca.  And all that before the classes even started.
    Ruth Lanz's color class inspired all kinds of creative thought for me.  She distributed a handout and I thought, "Rats, a whole class of sampling slip stitches??!" but no... I apologize Ruth!  We were experimenting with slip stitches but even more than that with color.  She lays out an entire palette of yarns on the table (very possibly Lamb's Pride, or at least something very like it) and then she taught about color progressions, and designing with TWO color progressions working "against" each other.  So, for example, a progression of my blues and purples AND a progression of naturals.  A progression of greens AND a progressions of yellows.  So as you do your simple slip stitch design, you move through both progressions.  The results were very interesting, and her samples were fascinating to look at.  When I got home I began pulling out colors and trying to build these progressions.  My problem with color design is in value -- while I choose different colors, I tend to choose the same values.  That may work (I am going to sample that with my stash of Lavold Silky Wool) but it really works better if you have some progression of values as well. 
     The next class was Judy Ditmore's designing with strips class.  First thing I learned was the very interesting trinity stitch, which creates a lot of texture.  Then she taught us how to knit a second strip right onto the first strip.  And then she talked about designing with strips.  We had knit some sample strips that we never go to use -- I think she intended to show us how to knit them together.  She had one WIP that she was going to connect with I-cord, which is a great idea.  She also taught us her basic rule: Always use Fibonacci when designing!  So I left her class with a partial design for a strip jacket using Fibonacci and Ruth's progressions with the Silky Wool.  Oh, next rule, shared by both Ruth and Judy -- odd numbers!  Odd number of colors, odd number of strips.
     My last class was with Maureen Mason-Jamieson.  Amazingly, the first thing she asked was whether I had taken another class with her.  Wow.  I did, years ago, at Stitches, when I took her Collar Obedience class.  Considering how much teaching she does, that was amazing in and of itself.  One of the things I like about Maureen's classes -- and this was true of Judy's and Ruth's as well -- is that they are very well organized and with useful handouts.  This class of Maureen's was about short rows.  That makes this the second or third class I had taken about short rows, but it was worth it.  For one thing, we did a swatch comparing the three types of short rows --  using YOs, wraps and the Japanese method.  She had very useful tips for all three, on both right and wrong side rows.  I finally understand how to convert stair-step shoulders to short-row shoulders too.  Then she taught about designing with short rows.
     A very useful set of classes.  I finally feel I have a full understanding of short row techniques and how to use them, and I had three classes with significant design elements.  So I am ready to go!
     I also understand that designing a sweater the way I want to takes time and sampling.  So I am going to continue to work on Campanula (very slowly) and on the Bamboozled tunic I pulled out of the closet.  I spent my knitting time at Knitter's Connection tinking the front back to the seed stitch border, since I saw I had made a major error in the lace panel at the center that had jogged the pattern over to the right.  So I am going to switch off between those two projects.  A week with no Campanula meant no sign at all of the tendonitis.  And I repeat, that is a great pattern.  And the designer dropped by my blog!  And while I work on those patterns, I am going to work on a strip jacket pattern, using Fibonacci and color progressions, with the Silky Wool, sampling madly.  Oops, that's weaving-talk.  Swatching madly.  Stay tuned for pictures of the samples.

Here I am

     The March blahs and back spasms combined with a dropped DSL connection, so basically I have been either working like a maniac (March 31 deadlines approaching) or sucking my thumb in a corner of the couch.  Most of my knitting has been unknitting, even though I was working on simple things -- the back of the Bamboozled tunic, the bias scarf.  On the plus side though, I was doing some more swatching and discovered I really like the Fall Herbs colorway of Kid Merino when held doubled.  At the same time, my concerns about the lace shrug pictured in the last entry though are more definite.  This shrug is created by knitting a rectangular stole 20" wide, then folding it in half and sewing sleeve seams.  That means the length of the front is going to be 10".  That's the depth of an average armhole for me, not the elegantly draped thingy seen on the mannequin.  I have to remind myself that I do not like how things like that look on me.  So I have decided to burst out of my March blahs by doing some design-play.  I am going to experiment .

     The first idea that comes to mind was inspired by the mini and lace ponchos seen here (if you scroll down).  The retro poncho trend left me completely cold -- I do NOT have to wear anything now that I wore in junior high school!  But these light short "mini-ponchos" -- really rectangular shawls with a sort of permanent pin -- might be very nice over a sleeveless top, since I prefer to wear something over the top of tanks or sleeveless tops.  Nice over cotton turtlenecks on cooler days too.

     Another possibility is similar -- those moebius shoulder wraps like this one by Fiddlesticks.  I particularly like the second one.   Once again, they are just rectangular stoles connected at the end, this time with a twist.  So...  I am going to play with reversible lacy stitch patterns til I find one I like, and then give it a try.  This might be the answer both for the Kid Merino and for some gorgeous violet and copper novelty yarn I bought years ago at a Stitches East convention.  Meanwhile the temperatures are up, we actually had a half-day's worth of sun yesterday and we are inching our way unsteadily into a Pennsylvania spring.

More experimenting

     Julia of Knitting History  spotted a new pattern in Magknits that uses short row shaping on a cardigan knit side to side.  That was just the information I needed, Julia, thanks a lot.  Since my idea is to use garter stitch side to side, I then did a google search "short rows garter stitch" and came across the very useful information that, according to knitting guru Elizabeth Zimmerman, when using short rows and garter stitch you just ignore the wraps.  No picking up and knitting.
    The Magknits sweater incorporates this very good idea for shaping, but the designer appears to have decided that was all the design the sweater needed -- there is no shoulder shaping, huge sleeves, no collar.  The first formal step in my design of this experiment will be to figure out where to put the short rows and how to design the armhole.  I use Sweater Wizard a lot when I am playing with either modifying a pattern or designing my own.  it is great -- you choose the direction you want to knit, the basic features of the sweater (i.e., raglan or set-in sleeve, what kind of neckline, what kind of collar), the chest size, et voila, it generates instructions and a schematic with dimensions you can modify.  But... the only armhole options it offers for side to side sweaters are drop shoulders or raglan.  Hmmm.  I could try raglan.  The nice part is it also offers a top down option for this, which might be a really nice way to do this -- that way you can try it on obsessively to tweak size and shape all the way down, and it would also allow me to decide on length based on how much yarn I have left.  So this sweater might be a top-down, side-to-side, short-row shaped garter jacket.  Whew!  On the other hand, I can always modify Barbara Walker's instructions for top-down set in sleeves from her book Knitting from the Top.  A wonderful and, I think, underutilized book.
     More swatching -- I tried to swatch some stitches from Lana Gross's magazine Filati 29.  That book has some great patterns that of course I want to modify -- to change necklines, or use different gauge yarns (that's another thing I use Sweater Wizard for -- to rework commercial patterns for different gauges).  I originally bought the magazine for its Model 7 -- a gorgeous raglan-shouldered, peasant-style pullover.  There are a number of other patterns I liked, and I was trying to swatch a stitch they used.  Here are the instructions from model 28, over 7 stitches:

Row 1: *p1 k1* across the row, ending p1

Row 2:  K1, slip 1 purlwise with yo, K1, P1, k1, slip 1 purlwise with yo, k1

Row 3:   P1, K tog st of previous row with yo, p1, k1, p1, K tog st of previous row with yo, p1

Row 4: K1, slip 1 purlwise with yo, K1, P1, k1, slip 1 purlwise with yo, k1

They have it charted, which is much easier to read, though I had to make up a symbol for exactly the part of the pattern that is giving me fits -- the "slip one purlwise with yo":

  So, what the heck does "slip 1 purlwise with yo" mean?  And what does"K tog st of previous row with yo" mean?  Nothing I have tried results in a stitch like the one in the pattern.  Any suggestions welcome. 

    We are having a second gorgeous day in a row.  I am off to spin on the deck, to try to finish my Tour de Fleece project.