Capitalism - Feudalism without the King
Tax the Rich
Tax the Rich
Knitting Friday
I have two sagas today: my diet and my first originally designed knitted scarf/shawl pattern.
First, the diet. With my current level of stress I have fooled myself for close to 6 months by saying: Once hospice is over for DM, I will go on a diet in earnest. My thinking being: carbohydrates do soothe the nerve endings in the midst of stress.
First, the diet. With my current level of stress I have fooled myself for close to 6 months by saying: Once hospice is over for DM, I will go on a diet in earnest. My thinking being: carbohydrates do soothe the nerve endings in the midst of stress.
Two nights ago, I really, really decided, that I was blowing smoke with such thinking and if I was serious on losing my many extra pounds I had to start ASAP.
I'm starting in baby steps by going back to my typical daily diet before hospice started. Yesterday's meals: breakfast was coffee, fruit and a protein power bar (No bagel, no cinnabon, nothing.); lunch was a biscuit, chicken noodle soup (homemade) and dinner was Greek yogurt. Really boring but at least half the calories of a typical hospice eating day. I'll let you know how it works; you can say that this is a continuing saga.
Now on to my first designed lace scarf, which I have already frogged. OK, so I've given you the spoiler up front. The story:
Recently, I found a caplet I had knitted in hues of red and a lot of burnt copper. Of course, since I've never worn a knitted cape in my life, I frogged it, washed it, soaked it in conditioner of hours, and then hung in with plastic hanger weights until it dried. I wanted to make a long Lenny Kravitz style scarf from it:
Now on to my first designed lace scarf, which I have already frogged. OK, so I've given you the spoiler up front. The story:
Recently, I found a caplet I had knitted in hues of red and a lot of burnt copper. Of course, since I've never worn a knitted cape in my life, I frogged it, washed it, soaked it in conditioner of hours, and then hung in with plastic hanger weights until it dried. I wanted to make a long Lenny Kravitz style scarf from it:
(OK, I am not making one that wide nor long but LK and I are the small height so I use him as a model for the length and width of scarves I want long and wide.) So I had the design concept but I knew, working with this reused yarn, I had to work in a stitch to hide the kinkiness which no amount of soaking could remove. I also knew that I wanted big holes but not dropped stitches, a garter stitch because I didn't want to block, and a pattern which was easily memorized and could be a travel pattern.
First, I worked on the big holes which would not be created by dropped stitches. (With dropped stitches, you can work a *YO, K1* on one row, doubling you stitch count and then drop the YOs on the second row to return to your original stitch count. I've always found this procedure tedious.) So I decided on a YO 2xs (a double yarn over) on the first row and then working the YOs on the next row as P the first YO and K the second or vica versa. (You can not only K or only P the double YO stitches on the next row without a big mess.)
Now, since I wasn't dropping the YOs on the next row, these YO rows would always be increase rows but I didn't want any increases so for every YO 2x in a row I would have to place 2 decreasing stitches ( a SSK and a K2tog). I could have just used either SSK or K2tog but one leans to the right, the other to the left. Since the YO row would always start from the same side, using only either K2tog or SSK would have the scarf skew to the right or left. Using both would keep the scarve straight.
Since I wanted the scarf to be in garter, the "WS" row would have to be all K except for the double YOs which would be: K the first YO, P the second.
So far, so good by now the real thinking started. Should I make a simple 2 row pattern? How should I space my double YOs and corresponding SSKs and K2tog? Should I work it: SSK, YO 2z, K2tog or K2tog, YO 2x, SSK or SSK, YO 2x, K2tog, etc.? I settled for R1 as: Sl1, K1 *SSK, K2tog, YO 2x.* K2 and R2 as:
Sl1P, K1*YO 2x, SSK, K2tog* K2 so that each side of the pattern would have a lacy, "holey" look.
Sl1P, K1*YO 2x, SSK, K2tog* K2 so that each side of the pattern would have a lacy, "holey" look.
 |
| #1 My 1st designed scarf |
 |
| #2, "WS" w/obvious color change |
And finally, the pattern:
My 1st designed No Name As Yet Scarf:
DK weight, US 9 lace needles, 4x stitches + edging stitches
SSK = Sl 1 st as K, sl1 st as K, K them together back loop
K2tog = Treat the next 2 stitches as one and K together
YO 2x = wrap yarn around needle two times; when you get to this YO 2x on the next row, K the 1st YO and P the 2nd
Sl1P = with the yarn in front, slip the stitch
Picot Cast-On (*CO 4, BO 2, RN stitch back to LN* - this adds 2 stitches each time) a multiple of 4 stitches for the pattern plus your edge stitches (Note: All knit designs pull so you may want to CO extra repeats of the multiple to get you desired width.)
R1: Sl1P, K1, *SSK, K2tog, YO 2x* K2
R 2 & 4: Sl1P, K1 *K but at YO 2x (K 1st YO, P 2nd YO)* , K 2
R3: Sl1P, K1* YO 2x, SSK, K2tog* K2
Work rows 1 - 4 to length and then: Picot Bind Off as: *CO 2, BO 4, sl RN st to LN*
No need to block
Special notes:
1: Use a stitch counter and mark the side where you work R 1 & R3. While this is not a shawl/scarf to work on during a nuclear physics discussion, you could work it in a company setting as long as you remember whether you are on R1 or R3.
2. Use lace needles since you can easily miss a loop on a K2tog. (A safety pin will help to hold the missed loop till you tink back to it.) I didn't have lace needles with my swatch and I lost K2togs frequently.
3. If you don't have lace needles in the size you need, change all the K2tog to SSK. (Haven't tried this and you will get a different look.) I find SSK more tedious that K2tog, but I never missed a loop on SSK.
4. Use the slickest needles you can (metal is slicker than wood/plastic). Slickest is usually not recommended for lace (the complicated stitches tend to fly off the needle) but with the double YO, plastic (and I assume wood) is too grabby.
5. I know the K into the 1st YO, P into the 2nd is cumbersome but I don't think you can treat a double YO any other way such as: K into the front of the 1st YO, K into the back of the 2nd, etc.
6: How to work a double YO on the next row: K into the 1st loop of the double YO and drop it from the LN, bring your yarn to the front and P into the 2nd loop, then drop that from the needle. Be sure not to add an extra stitch here.
R1: Sl1P, K1, *SSK, K2tog, YO 2x* K2
R 2 & 4: Sl1P, K1 *K but at YO 2x (K 1st YO, P 2nd YO)* , K 2
R3: Sl1P, K1* YO 2x, SSK, K2tog* K2
Work rows 1 - 4 to length and then: Picot Bind Off as: *CO 2, BO 4, sl RN st to LN*
No need to block
Special notes:
1: Use a stitch counter and mark the side where you work R 1 & R3. While this is not a shawl/scarf to work on during a nuclear physics discussion, you could work it in a company setting as long as you remember whether you are on R1 or R3.
2. Use lace needles since you can easily miss a loop on a K2tog. (A safety pin will help to hold the missed loop till you tink back to it.) I didn't have lace needles with my swatch and I lost K2togs frequently.
3. If you don't have lace needles in the size you need, change all the K2tog to SSK. (Haven't tried this and you will get a different look.) I find SSK more tedious that K2tog, but I never missed a loop on SSK.
4. Use the slickest needles you can (metal is slicker than wood/plastic). Slickest is usually not recommended for lace (the complicated stitches tend to fly off the needle) but with the double YO, plastic (and I assume wood) is too grabby.
5. I know the K into the 1st YO, P into the 2nd is cumbersome but I don't think you can treat a double YO any other way such as: K into the front of the 1st YO, K into the back of the 2nd, etc.
6: How to work a double YO on the next row: K into the 1st loop of the double YO and drop it from the LN, bring your yarn to the front and P into the 2nd loop, then drop that from the needle. Be sure not to add an extra stitch here.
7. Be sure you remember that R1 ends with the YO 2x while R3 ends with SSK, K2tog. You can easily add or decrease 2 stitches if you forget.
8. Do not eliminate the K edging on the garter version. You must work at least 2 K stitches each side for the edging. Why? Because if you only work 1 K stitch ES for the edging, R3 will pull at the beginning since you Slip 1 as purl, and then start with a YO. Adding the extra edging stitch (Sl1P, K1 *YO 2x...........) will eliminate this. Of course you can add more than 2 or 3 edge stitches, your choice.
 |
| #3 Now in a stockinette stitch version |
As you can see from pic #1 and #2, I had worked pretty fast on the knit version of this scarf so I did have an investment in it when I decided to frog it. Yes, the K version of this scarf is no more because I decided that this pattern should have a right and wrong side. Here's a picture of this in #3. Surprisingly this version was easier to work and although the WS is in purl, it doesn't curl in. Here's the adjusted pattern for it:
My 1st designed No Name As Yet Scarf, Version 2:
(Changes are in red.)
DK weight, US 9 lace needles, 4x stitches + edging stitches
SSK = Sl 1 st as K, sl1 st as K, K them together back loop
K2tog = Treat the next 2 stitches as one and K together
YO 2x = wrap yarn around needle two times; when you get to this YO 2x on the next row, P the 1st YO and K the 2nd YO
Sl1P = with the yarn in front, slip the stitch
Picot Cast-On (*CO 4, BO 2, RN stitch back to LN* - this adds 2 stitches each time) a multiple of 4 for the pattern plus your edge stitches
R1: Sl1P, K2, *SSK, K2tog, YO 2x* K3
R 2 & 4: Sl1P, K2 *P but at YO 2x (P 1st YO, K 2nd YO)* K 3
R3: Sl1P, K2 * YO 2x, SSK, K2tog* K3
Work rows 1 - 4 to length and then: Picot Bind Off as: *CO 2, BO 4, sl RN st to LN*
R1: Sl1P, K2, *SSK, K2tog, YO 2x* K3
R 2 & 4: Sl1P, K2 *P but at YO 2x (P 1st YO, K 2nd YO)* K 3
R3: Sl1P, K2 * YO 2x, SSK, K2tog* K3
Work rows 1 - 4 to length and then: Picot Bind Off as: *CO 2, BO 4, sl RN st to LN*
No need to block. (Looks like this version doesn't need blocking either.)
But this design saga is far from over. I really like this pattern but, as many knitters say: it was not a good marriage between yarn and pattern. So Version 1 and Version 2 returned to the frog pond and the yarn has re-emerged in this pattern:
I know it's a blanket pattern but just size it down. I love this no chain concept and it works well with any yarn. In case this pattern catches your fancy, I'm using DK weight on an N hook. Love the results. Pictures next week.
That's it for today. What have I learned: I have a greater respect for designers (always respected them but now it's greater) and I learned that designing a pattern takes a lot of twists and turns, and thinking.
That's it for today. See you next week. Happy knitting.
No comments:
Post a Comment