DesigKnit

I haven’t posted in a while, but I have been knitting away. The garter stripes circular scarf quickly outgrew my commute knitting bag, and then became evening knitting instead. I threw in a few stockinette sections, and some beads for texture, but mostly stuck with the garter stitch because I liked the color blending.

The scarf is a roughly 5-foot loop, just the right length to wrap twice around my shoulders like a shrug. I haven’t quite figured out the most graceful way to wear it yet (draping is not something that comes naturally to me), but it is very warm. It’s long enough that there are about a thousand different ways to wear it, but I haven’t quite settled on the best one.

When the garter stitch scarf grew too big for my knitting bag, I looked around for something else to cast on, and hit on this handspun, which is a mix of one ply of fiber optic BFL-silk, and one ply of my own semisolid brown rambouillet.

I also had a couple of 1-oz braids of pure silk top that I’d picked up at Rhinebeck in 2011 that I’ve had my eye on as a match for this yarn. I spun up a little sample to try it out.

I had expected to like the singles better, but I ended up preferring the 2-ply. I spun up about 30 yards of each, as an accent to go with the moebius scarf/cowl that I’m knitting from the base yarn. I’ve never knit a moebius before, but I really liked knitting the garter scarf in the round, and so thought I’d give the moebius a try.

The yarn itself is a fine laceweight, and is knitting into a very loose, stretchy stockinette on size 1 needles. The cowl will be another long one for doubling up, and will probably be about 5′ in length. I didn’t want a split at the cast on line with knits above and purls below, so I switch from knit to purl halfway through each row of the moebius. That does give me a join where the “right side” fabric switches from knit to purl, but I’ve decided that I’m ok with that. If I had to do it again I might design in a knit/purl block pattern to minimize the effect of the join, but I don’t think it will be very noticeable in the final garment, especially if that’s where I choose to locate the moebius twist. Each row is 800 stitches, but it’s moving along very quickly (that’s 2 weeks of train knitting), and I love the fabric that’s coming out. The accent yarns will be just a few rows near the outside edge of the cowl, enough to emphasize the handspun colors without dominating the piece.

I’ve also made it through the body of the to-be embroidered sweater, which I have taken to calling Daisy. Not sure why, but that’s the name that popped into my head first, and it has refused to leave. The flowers don’t look much like daisies to me, but sometimes there’s no arguing with these things.

In any case, the sweater body is complete, and the shoulder seams are sewn. I picked up and knit one of the sleevecaps, and have now switched to dpns for the rest. The upper body and sleevecap is usually the part that goes the slowest for me, so I should be zipping along on those sleeves soon.

Such a lot of very fine stockinette doesn’t make for very exciting blogging, but I have been enjoying the mindless and meditative rhythm of it. The circular and moebius scarves especially let me just sink into the knitting while my thoughts go elsewhere.

Looking at how quickly these projects are going, I suppose I should start sending my thoughts out to figure out what’s next…I have two trips coming up in August, and wouldn’t want to run out of knitting on the road!

There has been lots going on in the kitchen lately. But first, I don’t think I ever posted before and after photos of the garden. This was our back yard in March:

Less than inspiring, to say the least.

Here it is a few weeks ago:

We have been enjoying eating out on the patio and looking at the plants and flowers, and I’m also thoroughly enjoying my herb garden. Every week, I go out and cut the plants back, and end up with a new collection on my herb wall in the kitchen:

I don’t know what the previous tenant did with all those nails in the wall, but they’re in all the downstairs walls, and this is a perfect use for them. A week from now, the dried herbs will go into jars, and I’ll hang a new batch up to dry.

I’ve also been playing around with some fermentation experiments. My first batch of root beer fell a little flat. (Do you suppose that’s where the expression comes from?) It bubbled and fizzed, but it didn’t taste carbonated. I’ve been tweaking and poking to figure out the control parameters, and I think that I didn’t build up enough pressure in the container before stopping the yeast. Yesterday I started my second batch, with a slightly different recipe. (The half-empty bottle on the left is the old one, which is still in use as a playground and learning experience, the one on the right is the new bottle.) The new bottle is rock hard and still bubbling merrily away, so I think we might get enough pressure in there to see real carbonation this time.

Yesterday, I picked up some pickling cucumbers at the farmers’ market, and they are also bubbling quietly away in a salt brine, on their way to becoming deli sours (we hope).

And finally, I have finished up some kitchen towels from the loom. I finished the weaving months ago, but just got around to hand-sewing the hems yesterday. These aren’t for my kitchen; they’re destined to be a gift for a family friend.

That’s it for now, but I’m pretty sure that there will be new kitchen things happening soon! (I can’t wait to see how those pickles come out…)

Once the to-be embroidered sweater had grown too big for train knitting, I needed another commuting project. After a few more weeks of bubbling away in the background, I was ready to return to this swatch:

I still love the colors, I love the way it feels, and I especially love the way the colors blend in the garter stitch.

Since sweaters are my favorite thing to knit, I spent a good deal of time thinking about how this swatch might turn into a sweater. I even tried it on.

I decided that I definitely preferred the main color motif to be diagonal rather than horizontal, and was somewhat amused when that wide white band suddenly turned into a belt buckle when it was part of a piece of clothing. I didn’t love it as the main design element in a garment, though.

Felt a little too Star-Trek-y to me.

It didn’t really help to turn it sideways, either.

This second sketch actually came much later in the series, and combines the belt element with a more interesting wrapped look, which I liked quite a lot:

In fact, I think that this was one of the first designs that I sketched out, and is probably the one that I like the best. That didn’t stop me from mucking around a bit more, though.

I tried mixing it with color pattern

And with a solid sweater base.

And tried it out as an asymmetric garment. (I so wish I had a figure that this would flatter, but I don’t. Probably just as well, as asymmetric garments are pretty much the only style of clothing that Branden systematically doesn’t like.)

Then, I went back toward my original design idea.

I didn’t like this one much (for me) at all. I do like the chevron stripes, but they make even the drawing’s shoulders look small, and more visual weight in my hips is the last thing I need.

Then, I returned to the more modern look. The blocky, graphic design was one of the things that drew me to the sketch in the first place, so I decided to play around a bit with those.

These were all unsuccessful. I really love modern pieces on other people and in other people’s houses, but it never quite feels like me.

Then I went back and tried a more traditional, Raglan-type patterning.

And a pretty basic, mitered squares type design.

This last one is actually my second favorite of the lot, I think. There’s something about the uneven diagonals made by the miters that really appeals to me.

In the end, though, I went back to the swatch. And I looked at it, really hard. The modular design was nice and all, but it was interfering with my ability to see the other pieces of the fabric (a strong design element will do that, sometimes). Fortunately, that central white stripe was the part that really made it modular to me, and it was easily taken out.

Not as visually exciting perhaps, but it accents the color changes that I like so much, and it just felt more wearable to me.

And so, I cast on. I abandoned the sweaters as an interesting design exercise, and cast on for an infinity scarf instead. It uses the amount of yarn that I have, doesn’t require a lot of fancy geometry to get the design to lay flat, and it’s knit in the round so I won’t be made crazy with all the flipping and short rows.

And there you have it. Right back at the beginning, with a simple garter stitch design. I threw in a few beads to add interest and pick up the color in the Blue Eyes handspun. With that, I’m well on my way to having another scarf for the fall. It was a fun journey, though, even if I came back to the same place in the end.

Lots of small progress around here. A sweater finished and blocked (though I’m sorry to say that it still needs its ends woven.)

A man who will try on a wool sweater when it’s 90 degrees outside probably deserves one, yes?

Knitting continues slowly on the to-be-embroidered sweater. It has now grown too big for train knitting, at least until I get to the sleeves. This means that it goes a bit more slowly, but the shorter rows are helping.

I’ve also been spinning away on the Briar Rose seconds, and have ended up with about 1300 yards of three-ply fingering weight. I don’t know yet what this is to become, but I do love the colors and can’t wait to use it for something.

And finally, I may be tottering toward a new rabbithole:

Our first experiment in home-brewed rootbeer came out flat, but it has new yeast and a bit more sugar, and we’ll try again. It truly is an art, and one that I’m excited to learn. I love cultures, but have given up both sourdough and cheesemaking since discovering the food intolerances (not much point in making things you can’t have). Now, reading these books, I’m thinking that there might be other interesting things to try. So many things to learn!