Capitalism - Feudalism without the Kings

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Knitting Friday

 

Tooth area is finally feeling better; I'm finally feeling better. My advice to kids everywhere: Helmets are essential in bike riding but if you don't wear mouth gear, be sure to have excellent dental insurance as an adult.

 

What a color!

I have some crazy things to talk about this Knitting Friday: designing sweaters for crocheting, the double knot, and Boye Needlemaster interchangeable needles.

 

But first, a picture. There's nothing new about the green?, green-yellow?, ugly-ugly? colored top-down shell on the right. I'm posting it to show that you don't have to rip out a top after you have knitted to the underarm and realize that, in order to keep in your 12-stitch pattern, you must cast on 12 stitches at one underarm and 6 stitches at the other one. If ever I yearn for a better math education when I was a little tike, it's at times like this.  How could I make such a mistake? After all, I had been knitting in a multiple of 12 (144) stitches all along. 

 

I had two choices: throw in the proverbial towel and frog it or think out of the box. And, being lazy, I thunk!  The lace pattern is called Little Leaf and it's a 12-stitch, 24 row pattern. Knowing that stockinette and garter are the most forgiving of patterns (any number of stitches can be used), after reaching the armhole using the LL pattern, I decided to work some stockinette. So I CO 12 stitches for each underarm and worked stockinette on 96 stitches (12 x 8) for 5 rows. I repeated LL pattern followed by stockinette two times and reached my waist. So I changed to US 8 needles and worked 1" in seed stitch.

So while this was not the top I started out making (it was to be Little Leaf all the way), I'm showing it for "inspiration"; that is, don't get discouraged when you hit a snag over 5" into your work, you can be Mr./Ms. Fix-it!

Miss M

 So let's take a short intermission from knitting because I just found this picture of Miss M, the younger years. Did I mention that she has been placed in OK? Did I mention that we really miss her?

 

I know, I know, she is doing valuable work and we all have to be proud that we helped to get her there. But it hurts.

 

OK, back to knitting:

1. I was attempting to design a top-down crocheted shell a while back. Well, that idea is kaput. What was I thinking? You can't just crochet down from the neckband as you do with knitting. Well, you can if you want to make a 1970's poncho. It was a disaster. I will not be winning the Nobel Prize for a crocheting breakthrough. If you have any better luck with a crocheted, top-down shell, please let me know.

 

2. This a good trick; and it's not mine. 

 

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nq_7EXTWHE

 

This link will take you to a YouTube on how to make a double knot when joining yarn, especially of different colors. It's a trick which should be practiced unless you're a boy scout since knot tying is not second nature, at least not to me.At the end of the video, she cuts the yarn ends very, very close to the knot. Then she gives it some strong tugs to make sure it'll keep. I don't know if I would be this brave and I might spend all the time I'm wearing a garment with these knots worrying: When is this sucker going to unravel?

But this method does have testimonials in the comments and I'm thinking: How about using this instead of splicing with wool joins? That is, after you follow the directions in the video, you wet the wool knot and roll it in your hands to felt it. Thus making a very, very secure, very, very tiny joint. Once the colder weather and wool knitting sets in for me, I'll try this and report back.

3. Boye Needlemaster Interchangeable Needles: Apparently, in the world of interchangeable needles, Boye is the granddaddy of them all. I would never, ever consider buy Boye ("never, say never", you say) because they are roundly criticized in Ravelry forums because: the cables are stiff and the points unscrew. Boo! Banish them!

Recently however, I inherited an old Needlemaster set (The shame!) which was really a nice gift since I think it's older than the big store coupons and therefore cost full freight. But I would never, never sully my hands on Boye!  Oh, what a knitting snob I am! (I hope the sarcasm is coming across here.) That is, until I realized that I needed US 10 needles and all of mine were in use. So ever so reluctantly, I zipped open the Boye kit, figured out how to connect the needles and started in knitting.......

 

Let me just end this little knitting melodrama by saying that today I am ordering another Boye Needlemaster set. Perhaps because I know how to knit with interchangeables, the slight unscrewing I get with the Boye is not troublesome. The metal tips are smooth and the joins are not objectionable. A big plus is that needle size ranges from US 2 through US 15. Not any other interchangeable set has so many sizes. And, don't forget the low cost with coupons.

As soon as I get them, I'll post a detailed review. But, I am humbled. And you can each write your moral for my little tale.

See you next week. Happy knitting.