Prudence Mapstone Workshop

Ignore me and look at Prudence’s smile.  That sums up this remarkable woman.  She has such a generous, fun spirit—no wonder she has groupies all over the world.  I’ve been a fan for years and now am even more so.  Sign up for her newsletter for some true artistic inspiration.

http://www.knotjustknitting.com

Here’s how it went down on Saturday.

Took the train to Sherwood and Threads and More.  As we arrived at the station, I saw a woman in a crocheted top with a suitcase  getting off with me.  I asked and she was indeed headed to the workshop.  “How did you know?” she asked.  The top, the crocheted bag, and the suitcase—all a dead giveaway.  Jan, from New South Wales, and I sat together in class.

Before class started we got to play with some of Prudence’s work.

Necklace

This one is all knitting.

Jenni, a new friend, models the red necklace which was stunning.

This vest that Prudence was wearing just rang my bell.  Color is vastly important in this type of knitting; also important is not to overdo or overwhelm.  This vest is perfect.  Prudence quickly pointed out the quality of the yarns.  She used all natural vegetable fiber yards plus some silk.  Cotton and hemp and linen.  I fell in deep lust.

I followed her around all day taking notes about it.  The red and green pieces here Jan named Brain St.

Again, people were so nice.  Several offered to take me places or just meet for tea.  The center knitter is Annabel who is taking me to a quilt shop Wednesday and then back to Threads and More to knit.  I hear rumors of Amy Butler fabric which I have never actually handled, but have loved to look at online.  She and Jenny sat in front of Prudence’s shawls all day.  Annabel has two bags of gorgeous scrumbles in blues, purples, greens.  I almost nicked them.  They are looking at copies of Prudence’s book Coat of Many Scrumbles which she gave to each of us.

I also sat near Geraldine who is the one who first told me about this workshop.  I can’t believe this is the only picture I have of her.

She is an unabashed Prudence groupie and has learned well from the master.

These are some of her pieces.

While Prudence worked with some of the newbies, we picked Geraldine’s brain.

I learned to do bullion stitch and lots of tips and tricks for enhancing my pieces.  Prudence is a marvelous teacher and you know my standards on that are very high.  She easily went from Newbie to Groupie making sure everyone got whatever they needed from the class.

Have to also say a bit of praise about Linda and Alyssa of Threads and More.  They made everyone  feel so welcome to the workshop.  Gave everyone a lovely bamboo crochet hook, ran around and helped find just the perfect yarn when you were stumped, and then cooked a lovely lunch in their café.  It was perfect for learning something new.  Keep in touch with their website and take some courses.

More later–

Pesto is finished; Australia still on

FO:  Green Linen Skirt

I love linen.  I love my purple linen skirt.  I learned two important things from the purple skirt.

1.  Make it a bit short and a bit small.  After a couple of washings the linen really relaxes and it grows.

2.  Klutzes shouldn’t wear open lacework where it will catch on chairs and things.  Nuff said.

Let’s review the new one.

I started it in March from the top down.  Knit half a waist band, purl a RS row, knit the other half of the waist band.  Later you can baste the elastic in for trying on purposes.  Hem the band closed at the end.

Establish some sort of pattern.  I look best in an 8 gore skirt—hence, divide number of stitches by 8 and put the last 3 in a seed st pattern . . .

until you get bored . . . and then you can start increasing the seed st without a lot of thought or even a plan.

When do you block it?  Whenever you need to know how long it is really going to be.  Finishing is not a requirement for blocking.

How do you know if you have enough yarn?  You don’t.  No one really does.  And when you see you are going to run out, you frantically assault Ravelry asking for help.  Lots of people will help—or will at least wish you luck.  When you can’t find the same dyelot, you improvise.  I recommend changing the pattern st so any color difference just looks like the light is hitting it differently.   The big ball is the new color.

I began the new color with garter st and then made up a tighter lace than I used on the purple skirt—also knit much less lace.  Then I repeated the garter, did a crochet bindoff followed by a row of crab stitch.

Voila!  I love it.  I’ve worn it.  I’ve humbly and graciously accepted compliments.  Well, fairly graciously anyway.

Some random Australia shots

In King George Square

Coinage

Top row is 5 cents, 10 cents, 20 cents, 50 cents.  They no longer use pennies; they just round it off.  Bottom row is $2.00 and then $1.00 coin.  Yes, the $1 is the larger one.  Guess the two came along later maybe and they didn’t want it to be too big???  Somebody tell me if this is true or false.  Anyway, it is handy to have the $ coins. But you need a strong purse because these things are heavy.

Check out the motto.

I just noticed this on the sign from the scene of the butterscotch waffle fiasco.

Wraparound Eyelet Shawl Finished

I bought this pattern through Ravelry.  The shawl was designed by Tess Young and I wanted to see how she placed her increases to get this shape.  I had two skeins of Koigu that I bought from Yarnhouse in Noda and a pretty grey fingering weight that I bought somewhere.  Sorry, I just don’t remember and the label was gone.

I started this just before leaving for Australia.  I wanted yarn a bit thicker than the laceweight I was using for another shawl.  I know.  Some of you would never consider fingering weight as “thick” but it’s all relative.  I used a size 5 needle just for the heck of it.

The pattern is simple and extremely well written.  That doesn’t mean I can’t mess it up.  The design calls for the yarnover bit in the pink section to be there on every repeat.  Well, the mind sometimes wanders and suddenly I had knit eight rows of garter stitch—no yarnover pattern.  What to do?  Take it out or make it part of the pattern.   Plan B worked just fine and you would never know if I hadn’t told you.  And I only tell you this for instructional reasons.  Generally, we should just shut up about our mistakes.  Can you find the others?

What do you do when you run out of yarn?  Oft asked question.  You improvise.  But note my ugly bind off

I ran out of the pink before the bindoff.  Okay, I thought, I’ll just bind off with the grey.  So I hastily did, adding the “invisible” beads for weight.  It looked bad.  First, the blips because I failed to prevent them, and I don’t like them.  Some people do and that’s fine.

Second, there is too little grey and it looks like an error—which it is, but we don’t want it to look like it is.  So I grabbed the crochet hook and played.

Making a sample is so much to be preferred than just blasting off and knitting long rows not knowing how it will look.  I know this, I just sometimes forget. This sample worked for me.  It covered the blips and added enough grey to look like I intended this from the start—which in future I will claim.

Ergo, never pull it out until you have thought about what else it can be or talked to some fellow knitters for their ideas.

I highly recommend this pattern.  The drape over the shoulders if wonderful and the ends curl beautifully in front.  It won’t fall off.  It can easily be made larger if you should wish, but this size works nicely as both shawl and scarf.

Less than 500 meters of fingering weight yarn and can be made of sock yarn scraps.

More later—-

Daybreak Adapted Finished

Yeah!  I finished the knitalong shawl and I really like it.

Getting through the garter stitch was easy since I had a group to report to every two weeks.  Thanks for the encouragement.  The ruffle started just fine, but I bogged down near the middle of it.  I had planned to use beads instead of the picot bind off, so I needed to figure how many beads I would need if I placed them about every three stitches.  That meant I had to count the stitches.

The horror!  You don’t want to know how many stitches are in the ruffle.  I plugged along and finally, about row 25, I decided that since my shawl was much shorter than the original design, I should also use a shorter ruffle.  You know, balance and proportion.  Yeah, that’s it.

When you have to bind off 4 gazillion stitches, a crochet bind off is the only way not to lose your mind.  Adding beads along the way is better done by prestringing and just chaining them in at the edge.  Even including the prestringing of 2 grams of seed beads (size 8/0) this is the quicker way to finish before you grow old and die.

Tackling the top, as tired of the whole thing as I was, I just ignored the instructions, picked up stitches, knit 4 rows of garter and did a crochet picot bind off.  I am satisfied with it.

I know I will get a lot of wear from this shawl.  The only thing I don’t like about it is the yarn.  Both balls of my yarn had lots of slubs and twist errors.  When knitting with the first one, I just thought I had gotten the last ball of the batch and perservered.  No one else was having this trouble, not even the people knitting with the same color.  I don’t think this can be a frequent problem with Zephyr; the whole WWW raves about it.  When I began the second ball—same errors.  Again I plowed on.  Still don’t understand it.   Have any of you experienced this?  Maybe my yarn is just cursed.  Clearly I must buy more just to check this out.

I plan to write up the pattern—sometime.  I will use the shaping from the second side as it is smoother.  You can still see the bump in the first shaping when the shawl is hanging, but it isn’t noticeable when I am wearing it.  I’m particularly pleased with the blocking considering my lack of tools.  Knitters improvise.

More later–

Some Knitting Content–ssk, selvedge

Before I flood this blog with Aussie content, let’s see some knitting tips.  I think I owe you that.

I’ve been saving my technique for a left leaning decrease.  It’s an ssk with one step removed.  One less step means less time–if you care about that.  Here’s what I do—and I know a million others do this, but I haven’t seen it written down.

1)  Slip the first st kwise;

2)  Return it to the left hand needle (pwise);  it is now twisted.

3)  K2tog tbl

This eliminates the slipping of the second stitch.  For years, this has been discussed, but I agree with those who say slipping only the first stitch makes the decrease lie flatter and look better.  Yes, we are picking nits.  Besides, I mostly still use the sl1, k1, psso.  Old habits die hard–and I make it look better this way.

Another discovery—a new selvedge that I really like.

While working on a sweater design, I noticed how sturdy and flat the side edge was.  I always knit top down and in pieces, so I will always be sewing the side seam.  The pattern for the body of the sweater is k4, p1.  This edge resulted by accident, but I will be playing with it on purpose.

Here’s how it’s done.

On the right side of the work, k1,p1,k1,–pattern across—k1, p1, k1

On the wrong side of the work, k2, p1—pattern across—p1, k2.

I am going to try this for a scarf or shawl edge to see if it stays flat and strong.  If you try it, let me know what you think.

Also, if you know of a great selvedge, share it with me–and the readers.  Please.

********

I’m still addles over the quick time from before Steve leaves (tomorrow).  We just found out today where we are staying—and it is nice and dead in the middle of Brisbane.  I’m making lots of lists and holding Jake.  I located a Target only a few blocks from our apartment.  Makes packing easier.  You can buy just about anything at Target.

FOs-Homespun Hat

Just to catch up.  I finished the Handspun Hat.  I like it with the Icord bind off.  It lets the botton flare just a bit which I think better suits my round face.Here are some detailed pics and a link to the free pattern.

Icord Bind off

The inside view of 2X2 rib

A bit of Quilted Lattice St

I think I’ll wear it like this:

One side up

and the other side down.

The pattern recipe is located here; send me a picture.  Oh, if you knit it or any other hat on magic loop, you can just shove all the stitches onto the cable and try it on at any time.  That is how I decide when to stop increasing.

More later —

Buy this book!

I knew that I didn’t know it all about socks.  These girls do.

I’ve followed Stephanie for years as a member of  her sock knitalong group.  Her work is beautiful and modern and new, within traditional sock knitting.  She doesn’t do fancy architecture, but every pattern just seems new.

That isn’t why you need this book.  Yes, it has some patterns, but they are really only there because some publisher thought they needed to be or in case a newbie sock person bought the book.  This book is for those of us who have knit many socks.  It researches socks from all over the world and shares the techniques.  We get the Chinese Restaurant Menu of sock techniques.  Great heels and toes to use when you wish.  Three ways to do a tubular cast on!

This is my first sample sock using some of the techniques here. 

I tried the crochet tubular cast on and liked it very much.  Much easier for me than the revolving wrist provisional method.

I also did the beaded heel flap–no slipping the first sts and I got the best heel flap ever.

This round toe looks perfect for my wide feel.  I will try it in my next regular sized sock. 

The square heel is identified by these German girls as the standard heel.  My friend Pat Moore has always used it, but I don’t think I’ve really seen it used much in my circles.  I like it and will teach it.  The book has a great chart to help with the number of sts on each needle.

I’ll be swatching these techniques for the next year.  What fun.

More later–

Knitting with my Handspun

I’ve been doing some research about knitting with handspun singles.  Even though I’m not a big fan of singles, not plying yarn is an easy way for a spinner to keep the colors pure, much like Mr. Noro does.

This fiber was purchased years and years ago on the then young ebay site.  It is 100% wool and was dyed by Ruth Fortune in a colorway she named Fiesta.  (Thank goodness for those little tags on a string that stay firmly fastened.)  I spun this yarn, probably on my old Ashford Traveler, in a single so that I could control the color.  After all the pure color was what attracted me to it.  It is worsted spun–and, as always, by the seat of my pants.  Details, wpi, ratios interest me NOT AT ALL.  Spinning for me is rhythm, touch, meditation—all process.

Spun singles are easy to over spin and if you do that, the yarn will bias or slant your stitches when you knit.  (See above)  You probably don’t want this.  There are finishing processes that can minimize some of this. Or, like me, you can do nothing–but you have to do nothing for a long time.  When yarn sits without any tension on it, Mother Nature uses physics to balance it.  Slowly, over time, like making diamonds, the twist migrates along the yarn until it is balanced.

The zigzaggy swatch beside the two balls of yarn was my first attempt to knit this yarn umpteen years ago.  I’m guessing the bias is still there because the yarn was knit in small bound off pieces.  I chose garter swtitch for the swatch because garter balances normal yarn.  However, you see the result.

The new swatches look pretty good.  The mitered square is square and the seed stitch is even, yet they still retain the “energy” we treasure in our handspun singles.

The stockinette swatch shows you the effect of needle sizes.  I began knitting this DK weight with a US3.  The middle section is a size 5 and the top a 7.  I like all three for different purposes.  I especially like the energy effect of the size 7 swatch.

Now what to do with this yarn.  Color purity directed the spinning, but what if you want to knit it which will mix the colors?  How?  I hate it when a beautiful skein of hand dye knits up into a blah fabric.  I’m thinking slip stitch patterns are helpful here.

Which is more important to you?  The stitch pattern or the color? You have to choose one.  I chose color.  Here’s what I did and what I challenge you to do.

I made a hat.

I started with four stitches cast on to my magic loop.  I increased (Kf&b) 8 sts every other row until it reached the largest circumference I wanted–pretty big actually–128 sts.  I threw in an occasional K2, sl 1 wyif row and one yo, k2tog row.  Most of the energy came from the handspun.

Then I went to the reference books–for me, Barbara Walker.  I picked a pattern I’d never knitted before–“Quilted Lattice” in vol. 1.  I knit it just to see what it looked like in this hand dye.  I like it.  Oh, I had to add 4 sts to make the pattern work out but that was easy.

Then, I moved to my new favorite ribbing.  It’s a 3X3 rib with slip sts every other row.  I’ve used it with handpainted sock yarn, so I’m now trying it in a DK weight.  The hat was knit on a size 7 and then I changed to the 5 for the ribbing.  I’m trying to figure out a way to trim the edge before binding off, so it is still on the needles.

So, I feel good.  (Actually I have a cold) Here’s what I learned.

1–I’ve knit and learned from my own handspun, so I’ve used stash.

2–I’ve learned a new stitch pattern.

3–I’ve demonstrated a blind faith that some day, Charlotte, NC, will again be dry and cool and hat weather.

Do this!!!  I dare you.  It’s fun–even if it doesn’t work out well, you’ll learn.  If you hat turns out ugly, give it to someone you don’t like very much and continually ask if they are enjoying it.   I am so mean sometimes.

More later–

Conquering the fiddley start

Holding it steady

Starting a project with lace weight yarn and only a few stitches is annoying because the yarn flips and flops everywhere.  I just added a weight and was much happier.  If you are knitting the Daybreak Gold Shawl, try this.  Check out the classes tab above to get the scoop on the Charlotte Yarn Knitalong using Zephyr yarn.  You can make any shawl you wish.  I’ll be sharing some lace knitting tips.

Another failure—The socks I started for Steve this month turned out to be too little to go onto his foot.  This is the result of trying so hard to fit his dainty ankle.  New sock knitting rule:  Steve gets simple ribbing and arch shaped foot knit with a yarn that feels great in my hands.  That way—-we both win.  I get simple, mindless knitting and he gets a pair of socks.

Mary Ellen’s Knitting

Mary Ellen is my mentor, my guru, both for knitting and for parenting adults.  She, her daughter Paula Sue and daughter-in-law Mimi come to camp each year.  Mary Ellen makes Fair Isle and complex cable knitting look easy.  And fast.  She knits sweaters in abundance each and every year.  One year she and Paula Sue, a really good colorist and quilter, collaborated on a fair isle sweater.  Finding the perfect complement of colors is hard and requires much swatching.  Mary Ellen swatches–Not the 4″ or 8″ squares usually recommended.  NO, for Mary Ellen, you swatch a sweater at the full size of the sweater.

The swatches that don’t make it into completed sweaters are large.  Paula Sue cannot stand letting them just sit, so she creates with them.  The following purse is Mary Ellen’s knitting as designed by Paula Sue and the lining is all Paula Sue.  I will treasure it.  When I am not using it, it will hang on the screen in the living room.  It must be shared.

The Lining: