purlsandmurmers

Nantucket Shawl

The Nantucket cotton wrap is done. 

Yarn:  L'Atelier Joy

Fiber: cotton

Pattern:  None really.  Stripes consisted of alternating 16 rows of white with 8-row stripes of the colors.  I had twice as much navy as the other two blues, so the navy was alternated between each color.

Gauge: roughly  15 stitches and 16 rows to 4" on size 10 1/2 needles in seed stitch

Finished Dimensions: 22" by  120".

 

 

I actually finished knitting it about a week ago, but the time from completion to photo session dragged on for several reasons.  The wrap occupied much of the length of library for several days while blocking.  The thick cotton was not the fastest to dry, but I also must admit I did enjoy just admiring it while it lay there, and I may have delayed unpinning slightly longer than was necessary.  By the time I did release it from its bonds, my energy for a photo shoot may have waned, although not because I was at all unhappy with the shawl.

. 

 

It is unusually large and bulky for a wrap.  Wider and shorter and it would have been a blanket.   And in fact it may still fulfill a blanket-like role as an oversized snuggly wrap for evenings at home.  I love it anyway even if I am not necessarily convinced it will see tons of wear outside the house.  It may.  I don't yet know.   It is long enough that its function, while providing warmth, would fill the role more of a statement piece than an accessory. 

In fact, I would have made it a foot longer given my druthers, not necessarily due to a wish for additional length, but merely to use up more yarn.  One full skein of the white remains. It was the navy that petered out.  In fact I was able to knit 3 fewer rows of navy than of white per skein.  Assuming the skeins were the same weight this means that the navy was heavier than the white, and yielded fewer yards per skein.  This is not particularly unusual for dark-hued yarns, at least in that it has happened to me enough in the past that I am not surprised.  But my math did not account for this, although I did weigh the initial usage in the stripe sequencing.  Based on weight, I calculated that I could get one more navy stripe and one more medium blue stripe (for which I do have enough yarn) as well as two more long white stripes. This would have left me with less than half a skein of white, and only small bits of the three other colors.  The best laid plans.

 

Never mind.  It is a deliciously cool morning, and I enjoyed my first espresso of the morning, wrapped in this new shawl, watching the sun rise.

 

The Joys of Mindless Knitting

I found myself caught between projects upon completion of the Blue Wave Wrap.  I had a bag of yarn for a project I really wanted to knit, based solely on the yarns and colors, but I did not yet have a pattern.  I had other projects as well, but that bag of colored yarns was calling my name.  

In the meantime, it was not like I didn't have other projects crying out for attention after all.  Three of then to be exact.  I picked up the cotton wrap I started in order to have a portable, easy, project that could be be knitted while chatting with others.  You can see the full progression of the colors in the swatch above.  The colors remind me of Nantucket, and Nantucket can easily be cool enough in the morning or evening to require a wrap, so I am calling it Nantucket Summer.  Even though I am not in Nantucket, knitting this project brings back many happy memories of lazy days and walks on that island.  I've used up two of my eight skeins of the background color and gotten one full color repeat; I can state that this length will work and the wrap is therefore about a quarter done.  I will end up having some of the lighter blue-gray and blue-green yarns left over but should use up everything else.  

 

As much as I am happy with the cotton wrap however, my attentions were also pulled back to the temperature blanket.  I had put it aside just as I began knitting April.  Even though I didn't start this project until March, it has become abundantly evident that I am not the kind of person who can routinely knit one garter ridge a day. I am more of an all-in, or all-out kind of person.  I knit and knit and knit and knit, until I am bored with something and then I work on something else.  

Truthfully this has been true my whole life.  I do finish things, but I don't necessarily work on them at an even pace straight through.  In fact the only thing I consistently manage to accomplish in a routine, orderly, evenly-paced way is housekeeping, and that only because doing so allows me more time for my passions.  That doesn't mean that housework doesn't fall by the wayside; everything fell by the wayside over the past two years between falls, and cardiac irregularities and cancer, and I am just beginning to get myself back on an even keel.  

 

But, blankets.  Above is April.  The project is fun because it is fun to see what is going to happen next.  I get long calming rows of garter stitch, a great meditative and relaxing knit, and I get fun color changes. Well, I also love knitting with Rowan's felted tweed.   I was so excited about knitting April that I thought I could knit straight through and get caught up, at least until the end of June.  

 

I finished May in 5 days, 34 garter rows, or 68 rows total.  There are three ridges at the end of each month representing the average high for that month.  As you can see, May is warmer, more pink rows heading into red.  In fact the average high in May 2022 was 10 degrees higher than our historical average high for May.  Knitting this blanket is bringing all kinds of interesting information into my head.  

May 2022 was as hot as May 2012, my first year here, the year I thought we had been crazy to move here from New York and I terribly missed the cold.  I don't think it even got below 50 in January or February that year, and I was in shock.  Perhaps I still am, although there have been colder winters and milder springs.  Every year in the past 10 years has been above our historical average, although there have occasionally been wide temperature swings.  But that is not just true of Knoxville.  The phenomenon is much more widespread. For me, a person who does not thrive in the sun and who hates heat (yes I know I grew up in Texas), all I can do is bear up and remind myself it could be worse. Actually, there have been worse years, heat-wise at least, here since I moved here.  

 

It would be fascinating to knit a series of temperature blankets over the course of a person's life, at least if that person stayed in one place as their home base.  Moving could be problematic.  Regional differences would not be terribly significant, but wider moves would throw everything off, at least if one was comparing one blanket to the previous one as there would be no fixed comparison point.  I've moved too much, although given the internet, one could get that information for any locale.  Just random thoughts, I am not (yet) contemplating knitting a series of blankets.  

 

Anyway, as I finished knitting May, I was hit by a case of ennui.  I still wish, on an intellectual level at least, to finish June, but I am less thrilled about the prospect.  There will be wider swaths of a single color. Although not changing colors will be slightly faster, it will also be more boring. Therefore I do not believe I will be as devoted to the project and finish it up in another five days, although it is possible I could surprise myself.

Update

Another month, another blog post.  Not my intent, but hey.

 

The photo above was taken at the very end of June, when I finished knitting the first part of this scarf, which I had in fact been quite obsessed with for a week. I momentarily had hopes that this would be a two-week project, but I was distracted by other things after that first, almost-compulsive push, where I wanted to do nothing but knit and had to force myself away.   I probably spent less time in the actual knitting with the second part though, you know, being more familiar with the pattern and the design and all.  In this pattern two pieces are knit and kept live.  Then they are joined together.

 

It was really an incredibly fun knit, and terribly addictive as well.  There wasn't anything particularly difficult, German short rows, perhaps, if you have not done them before, but mostly the challenge, and the fun was in the layout of the pattern.  I actually finished knitting it and got it blocked on Saturday, so you will be seeing a final post on this soon, where I will go into the details.

 

While I was knitting this project I also started going to a knitting afternoon/night at my local yarn shop, which I am really enjoying.  I finished up the knitting of the New Orleans cardigan from my last post there, and I had already finished the first piece of this scarf before I got back.  I realized pretty quickly that, fun as this pattern is, it is not a good knitting group project as you do have to pay attention to your counts and your place in the pattern. I can be far too easily distracted.

So another wrap was born.  I have the two blankets at home, but somehow I didn't feel like carrying either of them around with me in the 90 degree heat, even the short distance from car to yarn shop. I also had this  bulky weight but fairly lightly-plied cotton which was originally intended to be a cardigan, a cardigan I neither feel like knitting or wearing.  So I decided to knit a wrap.  I like the weight and drape of the fabric being created by the seed stitch on size 10 needles.  Now that I have a nice sized piece of knitted fabric, I can see that it would indeed make a lovely cardigan, but I think I will get far more use and joy out of the wrap.

 

More later.

 

 

Another Monthly Update

Once again, time rolls around and it has been a month since my last post.  Let me not delve into all that happened in that month; it was not all good, although some was, and it is now past.  Instead we look forward. 

 

But first, before all progress, we must celebrate a finished object.

Presenting Shawlography.  Here draped on my great, great, grandmother's spinning wheel, where it still resides.  I decided this is an attractive storage place, and easy enough to grab when I am heading out the door.

 

Admittedly I alternated between loving and hating this project.  I had serious doubts about both my color choices and their placement in the shawl.  I love the colors, but it is difficult to choose colors when one is ignorant of the final result.  Granted I could have used one of Stephen West's collated collections, and perhaps I should have.  But it worked out and I love the final shawl.

 

I worried about the striped border.  I was afraid that it could either pull the entire thing together or it could make it look like something that walked out of a circus act.  Happily I think it leans more toward the former.  I thoroughly enjoyed knitting the shawl, it made me think about combining stitches in new ways, and was fun to knit.  I like the result and will wear it.  I do not need to knit another.

 

There are some minor changes to the band.  I used only four colors instead of five.  I also made an error in the stripe band in that I initially neglected to decrease at the outer edge, so from the beginning my band gets gradually wider, then levels out into a wider band than specified.  By the time I figured out what I had done, I decided I would not rip, and I actually like the way the shawl looks.  My error looks like an intentional design feature. 

 

My yardage usage was as follows:

Mominoki Finnwool, l Kerry:  400 meters

Mominoki Sock Yarn Fine, Coral:  388.8 meters

Mominoki Finnwool, Cassis:  356 meters

Mominoki Finnwool, Nasu (purple): 344 meters

Mominoki Finnwool, Copper: 192 meters.

 

The remaining yarns are already being used in another project, but I will update you on all of that in the near future.

 

 

 

Whatever Else is Going On, Knitting Will Happen

What can I say?  It's been a month.   That statement is intentional in all its potential interpretations. 

 

It has been a month of pulling myself together, of putting to rights, of overwhelm, and ultimately of acceptance.  2022 has opened with a growing acceptance that my diverse interests are not, in fact, in competition for my time, but that each and every amorphous idea and unfinished yet ongoing piece, is in fact a thread in a more complex cloth, the fabric that makes up a person. Me.  

 

There has been much activity around finally unpacking, around sorting and cataloging.  These are seemingly mundane, perhaps even obsessive qualities, and yet they are necessary.  I need to find materials.  I need to know what I have, to be inspired.  For all the exhaustion unpacking entails, it also feeds an imaginary world filled with ideas.

 

Although my imagination has remained fertile, my body has often been overwhelmed by fatigue.  Actual knitting therefore tended toward the repose of simple repetition.   Another block on a garter stitch blanket perhaps?  Yes. 

I finished stage three of the Stephen West MKAL shawl about a week after my last post.  At the same time I felt plagued by trepidation concerning the next stage.  I feared the border could either pull the shawl together or send it off into clownish carnival-land. I felt too sapped of strength to carry on.   Enter deep purple alpaca.  The blanket is now about three feet square.  It is actually a nice lap robe size, and it has warmed my legs on cool evenings. 

Blanket knitting also allowed time for my misgivings concerning the shawl border to subside.   With thought, and some quick sampling, it seemed that four colors, rather than five, would work.  I am now knitting the border and loving every moment of it.

 

Do we note the similarities in colors between these two projects?  Do we wonder why I get myself so worked up about the worthiness of my own choices?  I am surrounded with them, with myself then, every day.  You would think I would have learned by now what works.  And yet refinement is an ongoing thing, not a competition, not a need to do less, but a process of allowing more ideas in and then those ideas battle it out between themselves to see what works in this moment.  Obviously this is a purple, green and pink moment.

A Return to Knitting

I'm about to settle in for an evening of knitting and write up a quick update. 

 

 

Above are my two current knitting projects curled up next to me.  At the top of the photo, the blue and deep purple section, is the alpaca blanket that will be a long-term project.  I have been working primarily on that this week, mostly because I have been tired in the evenings, too tired to pick up the Westknits shawl, too tired to work on brioche, where the potenitial for an absent-minded mistake is just too high.

 

Tonight however, I am working on the shawl.  I hope to finish the brioche section.  I am only three rows shy of doing that, and I am excited.

 

This section has actually been a long ordeal of a knit.  I took it with me to Tucson over Christmas, thinking I would knit it in my hotel in the evenings or early mornings.   I knew it would not be a good knit for the craziness of family gatherings.  But what I actually spent most of the week in Tucson doing was learning how to fix errors in brioche.  That is not an easy process.    After a week of effort and the occasional knitting of a row only to rip and discover even more errors, I actually began to get the hang of picking up and repairing mis-knit stitches in this complicated pattern.  In the process I learned to appreciate the stitch even more, even if figuring it out felt like standing on my head.  

 

But then, when I finally started knitting again, on the fifth and final repeat, I had learned so much that, when I looked at my knitting, I saw all the places I had gone wrong, all the way back to the first row of brioche.  I contemplated the situation and realized that there were so many errors that it would actually take me far longer to fix them than just to rip the whole section and begin again.  So I ripped and flew back to Knoxville with less done on the shawl than when I began.    Even though I made no actual progress, I felt that I had made great leaps in knitting knowledge.

 

Those leaps weren't enough to make me want to pick the project up again however.  I was home a week before I flew out again, this time to Key West, Florida.  I did not even look at the shawl during that period.  But I did pack it in my suitcase.  And I did actually knit most of the brioche section while I was in Florida, sitting happily on my shady balcony in the afternoons, or indoors if I was fleeing from the heat.  Knitting time contributed to my enjoyment of the trip.  I had one row I had to partially rip, but otherwise, this time around all went smoothly.  When I left Key West there were three rows remaining in the brioche section.

 

Notice that nothing has changed since I returned, 5 days ago.  The first couple of days back I was too tired for anything but mindless knitting, and I was definitely not up for the intricacies of brioche repair.  There is a reason it is good to have a mindless project on the needles while working on something more complicated.

Tonight, I shall finish this section. Or at least that is my hope.  I will finish it this weekend. Here is another photo.  I was hoping for greater detail, but my focus is a little fuzzy.  As long as the knitting is not fuzzy all is good. 

Tending to Loose Ends

As the year winds down, some form of end-of-year madness occupies the knitter's brain.  Although the blanket was never intended to be finished in this calendar year, the thought of finishing two projects remains within the realm of possibility.

 

To that end, I spent a good chunk of time on Saturday with finishing the Raspberry Confection cardigan, which has been languishing in my knitting basket for nigh unto two months now.

I was somewhat worried about seaming the lace sleeves and setting them into the body of the sweater, although in retrospect that anxiety was much over-blown.  Easy peasy.  As often seems to be the case, more time is wasted in anxiety than in just doing whatever task comes along that causes the anxiety in the first place.  The setting-in of sleeves was simple, the only problem I had was joining the neck band at the back neck, where the three-needle bind off was slightly bulkier than the rest of the seam and my fingers were a little recalcitrant.  That particular seam may yet be ripped and redone, or it may simply serve the purpose of reminding myself that the best we can do at any given moment is often enough. My closet contains several purchased garments with less than perfect seams.

There remains a question concerning which part of my existing wardrobe will play nicely with this cardigan.  I finished the knitting at the time of the great closet-emptying, with most of the potential play-dates going to new homes. And so, in a fit of anxious pique, the blouse shown in this photo was also altered, in hopes that the two pieces would play nicely together.  That is proving to be not quite so simple:  they play nicely on the hanger but not so much with the other residents of the closet.  

 

When I was younger, I always had to let new clothes marinate in my closet for a while before I actually wore them anyway.  Things aren't people of course, but it always seemed like any newcomers needed to hang out in the crowd for a while, just to get the feel of the place and make friends. Or perhaps that is all about me and not so much the clothes. 

A hangar shot is lovely, but of course you cannot really see the sweater as it is meant to be worn.   Enter the sucky selfie.  The mirror situation and the photography situation are issues not addressed in 2021 which must be addressed in 2022. 

 

I also finished the third square on the alpaca blanket project. There is still a long way to go: the blanket is probably about baby-blanket size at the moment, just right as a small lap blanket on a chilly evening. It looks perfectly at home on the purple sofa, where it can rest happily until 2022.

And I have resumed work on the Stephen West Mystery KAL shawl, which is, of course, no longer a mystery.  

I am on clue3, beginning with the brioche section.  I knit something in brioche years and years ago, perhaps when a book on the subject came out, and was not thrilled.  This time however I am finding it all grand fun.  I have dreams of finishing before the end of the year even though I acknowledge that this is not likely given holiday obligations, time with family obligations and scheduled travel.  No complaints about any of that, but the challenge is on.

Short and To the Point

Usually, I love bobbles.  I love sweaters with bobbles, not that I own any at the moment; I even love knitting bobbles.  That said a long row of forty-some odd bobbles did get a little tedious.  I didn't mind knitting them per se, but I can also admit that I prefer my bobbles scattered out across the body of a sweater rather than marching like soldiers along a solitary row.  At least I prefer not to knit the long row.

 

 

But the final result, that happy row of bobbles,  makes me smile.  

 

The west knits shawl continues slowly, and I am in no particular rush.  I have seen some of the finished pictures; I feel no need to be surprised, am in fact content to know what is coming.  Life seems filled with more than enough surprises without deliberately adding more.  I also find that, despite my initial misgivings, I like my colors and they way they are playing out, even where the contrast is less obvious.  I think I will enjoy not only the knitting, but the wearing of the final shawl.

 

 

Other than this, there is not a lot of knitting progress.  I knit every day.  But my energy is also returning and many things pull my attention away from knitting. There were a few days where that knitting might consist of three bobbles.  But at the moment I find that it is good not to define myself as a person who accomplishes things, a woman of projects, rather instead, just to occupy my own space and do what I will, be what I will.  How long that will last, I have no idea.  It is the antithesis to a lifetime of training. 

 

I did spend about a week winding the yarn for a blanket project that is in the works.  That too was slow work as turning the ball winder was difficult on my hands as well.  Intermittent stiffness, tingling, even occasional pain, is just the backdrop to life however.  There are days I can do more, and days I can do less.  The point seems not to be bemoan what is not, but to celebrate the work of creation itself, to find new ways to work.

 

 

The blanket is still more or less in the planning stage.  It will be modular.  I am knitting the first square, which is more or less a gauge swatch.  I have learned that very large swatches, knit over a period of days, are the only way I can adequately compensate for the variations in gauge due to the varying stiffness of my fingers.  I like the fabric that is being produced, and these larger, size US 10 1/2 needles, are easier when my fingers are more recalcitrant, but am not yet ready to tackle the math and finalize the design. 

 

Winter is just around the corner.  A new shawl, and a new blanket for that matter, may be appreciated.

 

 

 

 

 

Shawlography and General Status Update

I am a slow knitter.  There are times when my fingers are speedier than others; just as there are times when my attention is more focused on competition and finishing.  Neither of those options are in play at the moment, and I have decided I am ok with that.

 

Last week I may not have been quite so sanguine; may have, in fact, been rather frustrated with myself.  Not that my frustration served to speed up my knitting. But I realized that, aside from a few brief moments of competitive spirit often sparked by necessity, I am simply not temperamentally so inclined.  There was a period where I took a class on techniques to speed my knitting, and I probably diligently practiced for about six months, only to decide that, although it was true that I finished more objects during that time, I really didn't care about speed, and the focus on knitting quickly was antithetical to the the meandering flow of thoughts and ideas, the purling of life which accompanies the purling of a different sort that is employed in knitting.  In short, there is a reason this blog is so named.

 

I finally finished the first part of the shawlography KAL, just as the third clue was being released.  So, true, no speed here.  I have accommodated myself to the idea that I shall simply not win this race, and it doesn't really matter.  Only I will wear my shawl.  Only I will enjoy the knitting.  It is not as if this a last ditch effort to keep myself warm during the coming winter.  There is a definite sense of privilege that comes with modern life after all.

I still have mixed feelings about my choice of colors, about whether or not I lined them up in the right order.  I say this even as I recognize that there is no "right" in this equation, and I do in fact like the way the shawl is turning out so far.   Whatever my choices, I have no idea what I will think of the finished shawl other than that I will have thoroughly enjoyed knitting it.  I am enjoying the knitting, even when my fingers are slow and I need to take frequent breaks, during those periods I can let my murmuring thoughts wend their own way.

 

So there continues to be little to report in terms of knitting progress: I am currently only slightly into part two of the shawl, even though the fourth clue will be released this week.  I haven't yet finished winding the yarn for the alpaca blanket project, much less started swatching.  Nor have I seamed the raspberry confection cardigan.  Last weekend my fingers were still a little too stiff and tingly to easily manage a darning needle.  

 

Instead I have been focusing on a grand closet sort and purge.  This is still in process as I am trying on everything I own from underpinnings to coats and everything in between. There are three large piles, so far about equal in size/volume:  1.  Things that fit, look good, and I can wear now.  2. Things that are in good shape and are being donated; these are for the most part too large although there are a couple of items that fit my body but not my sense of what I want to wear.  3. Things that can be altered, need mending, or in which the fabric or yarn  is nice and there is enough that I believe it can be reconfigured.  

 

The third stack will probably shrink further as I look at the remaining clothes in my closet and start the process of thinking about what I actually need to fill in gaps so that everything I do own now has wearable companion pieces.  In short, no closet orphans will be allowed and the same will apply to the mended/altered garments.  What I knit/sew/alter will have to work with something already in my closet or fill a specific need, at least at the moment.  There is no point in fixing something if it cannot be worn with anything else in my closet.   This focus will shift as we move through winter and approach spring, because at the moment there is very little in my closet that can be worn next spring or summer.  But it is too soon to think about that now.

 

The last part of the closet to be sorted are the sweater drawers, including hand-knits, so we will see what comes of that.  Everything must be analyzed, including recent knits.  There are moments I dream of sweaters I gave away because they had become much too small.  I could probably wear them now.  There are moments I put off trying on sweaters because I fear that everything I have knit recently will have to be pulled apart and started again.  Already there are two old cashmere sweaters that are slated to be ripped, the yarn washed and reknit. One is lightweight, probably fingering, yarn from the late 1990s.  I never actually wore that sweater much because as much as I loved it in an abstract sense, it was not then, and is not now, flattering. It is well past time to reclaim the yarn. The second is bulky weight cashmere, knit sometime between 2001 and 2005. It didn't get much wear after I moved to Knoxville, although I did wear it last year.  Now it is noticeably too large but I believe the yarn is still usable. A part of me wants to reknit the sweater exactly as is, in the same pattern, except that I don't seem to have any records of what I knit before I started this blog in 2005.  Of course this is exactly why I started the blog, to create my own knitting record, because notebooks and bits of paper tend to disappear  when left under my management.  

 

The actual status of the yarn from these projects will be determined at the time I start to rip.  I have already lost one rediscovered sweater.  I wore it a couple of times in the fall, until it needed washing.  The sweater partially dissolved in the water and I was in tears.  At least I got to wear it a few times before we said goodbye. In retrospect, I think that giving things away has benefit.  I may miss something I gave away a long time ago, but I can also hope it had a good life and was loved by someone.  Better to be worn and used than to sit lifeless in a drawer. 

 

Anyway, I will keep you updated.