knitting » creative.mother.thinking

How I started to crochet, and knit

Mar 152009

When, about two years ago, I became obsessed with knitting and sewing again, my husband was very puzzled. He asked me, since when I had become a crafter. My first reaction was, “Well, always.” but then, if this were true he wouldn’t have been puzzled. The fact is that I was crafting like crazy all through my teen years, then I did less in my twenties, and when my husband and I met, I only had one knitting or crochet project going on, and those projects tended to spend months and month in my knitting basket without being touched.

So, while my husband knew that I sometimes knit or sew a bit he was quite unprepared for today’s situation where yarn, fabric, and needles are everywhere. There’s an on-going knitting project in every room of the house (well, not the basement at least), and my fiber-related paraphernalia is crammed into every available closet. For example I now am the proud owner of three functioning sewing machines (I only use one of them, though), and I own at least two pairs of knitting needles in every size available.

Of course I started thinking about when did this start, and why did I have the feeling that it never stopped. And I realized how important making socks, and sweaters, and skirts had once been to me, and how I slowly gave it up. First the things I sew almost never fit, and the sweaters didn’t either, and then I stopped wearing hand-knit socks in the house because I started wearing sneakers indoors. So there was no need to knit new socks because the old ones didn’t wear out.

And then I was looking for a warm woolen cardigan, and there were none to be found, so I bought wool, found a pattern and made one. And then I found knitting blogs, and ravelry, and since then I have been knitting like a madwoman. With occasional sewing. (I just made an apron for my son last weekend. Fun, and quick.)

It all started when, in the summer of 1975, my parents, sister, and I were vacationing in Hungary. We were camping, and some other woman that we met had a crochet shawl. My mother loved it and the woman showed her how to make one. I wanted to make one to, and so we bought yarn (very acrylic in orange and blue), and my mother showed me how to do double crochet and chain stitches. It is a nice simple pattern like half a giant granny square. I actually finished the shawl on my own. I only never got around to attaching the fringe, I think my mother did that for me. Seems I always had a problem with the finishing.

Sorry for the bad quality, this was a group shot from a carnival party. I was supposed to be a gypsy. My mother made a skirt for this. As you can see, already the orange and pink-combo appealed to me. The look and face remind me of my son a lot.

The summer after that we had to learn crochet in school but since I already knew how to do it, I got to make advanced pot holders. I was so proud!

That year a friend of mine and I met to play with our Monchichis (those were all the rage, then, I had to buy my own because my mother is against horrible plastic toys), and lamented our lack of Monchichi clothing. Since we didn’t have any money we asked our mother’s for yarn, took our crochet hooks, and this is what I made:

My very first “design”:

A dress, complete with a slit for her tail, a coat and a hat. I actually have more of the clothes I made for this doll and another one, and I took pictures of all of them. Shall I show them to you?

In the summer of 1977 our vacation lead us to Cornwall. Here we met another German woman who knit sweaters for all of her four daughters. Again, my mother loved the sweaters, and that woman showed her how to make them. And I got more yarn and needles and learned how to knit. I wanted to make a sleeping bag for my Sindy-doll. To this day the two parts haven’t been sewn together.

That’s me, age 10, playing. It’s a bit weird that I have a picture of the very first garter stitch square that I knit, and almost no pictures of any of the dozens of sweaters I made. Maybe my parents have more pictures of that time than I do.

Back at home I picked up a book on knitting from the library and tried to teach myself how to purl. If I had been left on my own I would have become a combination knitter but my mother looked at my purl stitches, and showed me how to to them “right”. The first thing I knit after that “sleeping bag” was a horrible vest, made of bulky yarn. My mother made me knit it because she thought it was the perfect beginners project. Quick, and easy. She always tried to dress me in blue because she likes it, and she thinks I look good in blue. Of course I don’t like blue, never have, never will, and avoid it as much as I can. Knitting things of blue yarn actually makes me feel uncomfortable. Nevertheless I eventually finished the vest because I only got new yarn after finishing a project.

The next thing was one that I chose myself. It was a glorious cardigan, made with four different colors, it had stripes, and textured patterns of knit and purls, set-in pockets, buttonholes and everything. The brochure from the yarn shop showed it in different olive, and rust-colored yarns but my mother was adamant, she didn’t like those colors (I still dream of them. I would have looked so great in that sweater!), so I got to make it in four shades of – blue.

I guess my mother secretly resigned herself to make something out of that yarn after I would have given up on it. She never would have finished it for me since she doesn’t like her knitting to be complicated. Well, I do like it to be complicated, obviously, because I finished it. The project after that was a Norwegian sweater with a yoke in stranded knitting. Again, I had to do it in blues.

The next thing (I think) was a sweater that was knit in one piece from the front to the back, increasing for gigantic sleeves of the kind that we call “bat-wing”-sleeves in German (I don’t know how to call them in English, they basically start after the waist, and look as if you could go hang-gliding using only your pullover). It had an intarsia pattern with 12 different colors. Again, I couldn’t have the yarn the pattern called for, the only yarn available that had that many colors that worked together was a mohair yarn. My father sat down and re-calculated the pattern for me, which was very, very nice, only since he didn’t have a clue how knitting works (and I basically was a beginner, too), I tried to do things that are impossible with a yarn that you can’t rip back. It took me a long time but I finished this one too. It never looked as it should have, though. The colors were wrong, the drape was wrong, and I had made the increases and decreases for the sleeves in a way that made the sleeves much too tight, also it was too warm.

After that I stopped using patterns and made up my own designs. The first of those was a bright pink cotton sweater with a lace pattern. Sadly, there are almost no pictures of me wearing my sweaters, and I have thrown them all away over the years. You also have to remember that those were the 80s when sweaters were boxy and had no shaping. I designed a striped hat when I was thirteen that was very popular with my friends, and I made several for them as gifts. I taught myself how to knit socks from a book, I figured out how to knit gloves on my own, and I learned to look at other people’s sweaters and copy the stitch patterns. A friend of mine had an entrelac sweater her grandmother had made for her, and I remember sitting in class one day, looking at her back and trying to figure out how that was done. (I did figure it out, and made myself a white cotton vest). You have to know that I knit so much at that point that my English teacher said he didn’t recognize me without my knitting in my hands. (Back then we were allowed to knit in class.)

Over time I got weary of the fact that most of my sweaters didn’t fit, and I thought this was because I never could use the yarn the pattern called for. I didn’t know then, that swatching is more complicated than knitting up a tiny piece of stockinette, measuring it any which way, and guestimating how many stitches to cast on. In the nineties I started knitting from patterns again. I made a silk lace cardigan with a crochet edging I have worn so often that it’s starting to fall apart. That one didn’t fit either, at first, I had to make the back much wider than the pattern stated to save it.

Then I made a couple of sweaters using fashionable novelty yarn. None of them fit, and you can’t rip back novelty yarn, so I threw them away, knitted sweaters got out of fashion, and it took me three years to make a measly crochet scarf.

Until about two years ago. Now I’ve found a new determination. I’m much more thorough in preparing and executing my knitting, and I’m also willing to rip back everything and start anew. Also, I no longer use novelty yarn or mohair which makes the whole ripping back-approach much easier.

I have always been proud of how independent and fearless a knitter I am. I will approach everything in knitting with fierce determination, and work my way through it. I like to learn from books, and the internet helps a lot. But only the other day, when I was threading my tapestry needle, was I realizing how much I have learned from my mother. She has a hard time following a pattern, and she doesn’t like intricate stitch patterns, complicated construction, or doing colorwork. But she was the one who taught me how to cast on, and off, and how to sew knitting together, how to thread a tapestry needle, and how to alter a pattern on the go when you see that it won’t fit. She was the one I could take my failed attempts at self-designed sweaters too, and then she’d help me think of a way to save it.

I’ve been so much in my own with my knitting that only last year did I realize how firmly I am embedded in a tradition of crafty women. My maternal grandmother was the master-crafter. All her daughters know how to knit, and sew, and crochet, and do embroidery. Every one of the them has something she likes doing best, one is knitting socks for children, one is making embroidered tablecloths out of the linen their mother weaved, and one is quilting, and sewing.

I’ve always considered myself to be on my own but I’m not. Even my sister is knitting, and crocheting, and quilting, and making things, and has a spinning wheel. It seems to be a family thing.

Knitted things I finished in February

crafts, knitting, projects 4 Responses »

Mar 062009

Don’t get that wrong, these aren’t things that I knitted in February, I only finished them last month. I’ll start with the one that had been laying around the longest. It’s also the one I’m extremely proud of, look:

I started them on a whim more than a year ago. The pattern is Tiffany by Sabine Riefler. I used leftover yarn from a crochet scarf, and in their first incarnation they looked completely different. I had to frog them since they were a) way too big for me, which wasn’t much of a problem since my husband said he’d like them, but then I b) ran out of yarn. I ripped, I started a doll’s sweater with the yarn, I ripped the sweater, I read a bit about doing two-handed stranded knitting, I tried again on tiny, tiny needles, and there they are. In two-handed stranded knitting you’re holding one color of yarn in each hand, and you knit continental with one hand, and English with the other. It was very weird at first, especially since I had to modify the way I knit continental, too, since usually when I’m knitting I’m using both hands. In this case I had to free my right index finger. At first I felt like wearing handcuffs, and my right hand hurt but in the end it got easier and more comfortable. And I really love the way the knitting looks and feels, and most of all that there are no strands on the inside. Someday I will make a whole sweater using this technique, I’m sure.

By the way these are all crappy photos because it’s still grey in grey here.

Then there’s the cardigan that I started last year in June. It still needs washing, blocking, and a button. It looks really crumpled because the yarn used to be an almost finished bobbled and cabled sweater that lay in the attic for something like 14 years. It survived the big de-cluttering of 2004 only because I like the color, and I thought that it might become a new sweater eventually. Last year when I saw the pattern Something Red by Wendy Bernard I wanted to make it immediately, and I thought about the yarn in the attic. So I unraveled the bobbled monstrosity, wound up the yarn and re-knit it. No, I didn’t wash the yarn first. Silly. I’ll have to wash and block the finished thing anyway. I made it a bit too small because I think the cotton will become bigger with wearing. This will either be something that I wear all the time, or something that I don’t love at all. The knitting went really fast, until I got bored with the plain stockinette, and with the cotton (because I really don’t like knitting with cotton). I have this feeling that maybe my knitting basket dooms project because the cotton sweater sat in there, only lacking one sleeve for months, and months, and now I have started a new sweater which lives in the basket, and again I am both enthusiastic, and reserved. We’ll see how that one turns out.

I also finished my Clapotis. I had bought some Wollmeise Lace Yarn, which I wanted to use for Mystic Earth. Well, it was much too colorful for that. So I made it into this:

Much better. Also needs blocking, of course. If I go on finishing things at this rate, and not blocking them I will need a special closet for “things to be washed and blocked”. Right now they are blocking both of our dressers. Ahem.

Another one from Wollmeise, this time Wollmeise sock yarn:

The pattern is Ornette by Cookie A. I love the intricacy of her patterns and also the fact that she named so many of them after Jazz musicians. I will have to knit a Thelonious Sock eventually because Thelonious Monk is one of my favorite musicians of all times.

Then there was the re-knit of Gretel because the first one turned out too big for me:

You can find a picture of the bigger one here, and there you can actually see the pattern of the hat. I really love Ysolda’s designs, they make me very happy.

The last thing I want to show you for today is yet another shawl out of Wollmeise Lace, Irtfa’a by Anne Hanson. When you click on the link you’ll see that it is supposed to look like a raven’s wing, well, mine rather looks like a bird of paradise, maybe a psychedelic bird of paradise:

Again with the crumpled look because again, not blocked. Which is why you can’t really see how beautiful it’s going to be. In my defense I have to say that the drum set is sitting on the rug that I use for blocking. But who knows, maybe someday I’ll block everything, and then the sun will shine, and I’ll show you even more pictures of knitting in reds.

For those few of you who’d want to read even more about my projects, you can find me on ravelry. And of course I already started three new projects, or rather four, a pair of plain socks to take with me when riding trains and such, a little doll designed by Ysolda for my son, an olive green turtleneck for me, and a lace stole. Not that much, don’t you think?

My Yarn Stash

crafts, creativity, knitting, lists 6 Responses »

Jan 262009

Just the other day I was telling somebody on ravelry that I don’t have much stash, also I’m running out of sock yarn. When I have finished the two pairs of socks currently on my needles there is no more new sock yarn.

On the other hand I can barely close my yarn drawer, and there are projects, patterns, yarn and needles everywhere in the house. How can those two things be true at the same time?

So I decided to a) think about it, and b) pull out the wool and have a look at it. I haven’t gotten as far as actually looking at it right now but thinking about it helped a little. I think I might start to understand what’s going on here.

I usually put my leftover yarn in the attic. Sadly the “leftover yarn boxes” are full. More knitting means more leftovers. This is one of the reasons why there is a lot of yarn in my yarn drawer.
When I ordered the yarn for my last two sweaters online I, of course, ordered a bit more than I thought I’d need. Since the shop isn’t nearby I can’t just go and get more. Actually, with the last sweater I ordered the exact amount of yarn needed and I have about 2 1/2 skeins left over. I know, it’s a mystery. That accounts for 400 g of yarn between the two sweaters. The leftover yarn would make great mittens or hats (I don’t knit scarfs, hate making them). Only the colors don’t match anyone’s coats.
Even though I thought I don’t have any more sock yarn there is in my yarn drawer: a) an almost finished pair of summer socks, b) leftovers of two pairs of socks, enough yarn two knit another pair out of the same yarn, c) between 40 and 60 grams of each skein of Wollmeise sock yarn that I’ve ever owned (which might become either striped or fair isle socks at one point).
There is leftover Wollmeise lace yarn, enough for a lace scarf, or if combined with the two other colorways of Wollmeise lace that I have (that accounts for two of my currently active projects), there might be enough for yet another stole,
There is yarn I bought in order to make yet another lace stole, this one will be for a friend.
There is leftover yarn from making a scarf and hat that will eventually become a pair of fair isle mittens for me. (
And it would be nice if I finished those before August. So that I can actually wear them.
There are three balls of cotton sock yarn that I wanted to design socks for. They have been sitting in the drawer, untouched since July. I had an epiphany last week, and have declared that I will just make socks following a pattern. Designing should be fun, not a chore. The pattern is sitting on my piano at the moment, the yarn is in the yarn drawer. And I won’t start them soon, since it’s not summer yet.
There is enough cotton from 1994 to make yet another preemie blanket. Only I hate working with cotton.

I think that’s all, apart from the hat that needs seaming that sits on top of the fridge, the lace shawl and pirate scarf that need blocking that sit on top of the dresser, the two pairs of socks, and two lace shawls in progress that sit on the kitchen bench, the unfinished cotton sweater that sits in the knitting basket in the living room (it only needs another sleeve and a button band to be finished), and a ziploc bag with the cast-on for the aforementioned baby blanket that probably will never happen.

So, you can easily see why I have the feeling that I’m in desperate need of wool, can’t you? O already ordered yarn for another sweater (one that I really need), a knitted doll, and a pair of socks. I’m desperately waiting for them to arrive. Before I run out of yarn and things to knit.

I feel quite virtuous, though, because only half of the drawer is full of wool. The other one is occupied by my fabric stash. That somehow overflows into the rest of the bedroom too…

P.S.: I just remembered the spinning stash, and the handspun. And the yarn that was a hat that was too big for me until half an hour ago when I wound it on the niddy-noddy to re-knit the hat. Ouch.

Hail the gauge swatch!

crafts, fashion, knitting 2 Responses »

Nov 272008

Some of you might ask, “What’s a gauge swatch?”, well, I wrote about this particular gauge swatch way back in March. (A gauge swatch, by the way, and for those of you who really don’t know, is when you knit a small piece of about 10 x 10 cm or 4 x 4 inches to determine what size needles to use, and how many stitches you will need for the thing you intend to make.) The swatching for this particular sweater was the most extensive I have ever done. I knit a long piece of fabric with three different sizes of needles, measured all the parts to determine how many stitches and rows gave me 10 cm, then I washed and blocked it, let it dry and measured again. And I had something of a revelation because after washing everything was much bigger than before.

With the needles that I used I had 16 stitches and 23 rows on 4 inches pre-washing, and 15 stitches and 20 rows after washing. You’d think that isn’t much, won’t you? What’s a measly stitch? Let’s see: for this particular sweater I cast on 141 stitches. 141 divided by 16 is 8.8 that is 88 cm. And trust me, that is not enough to fit me. But after washing it’s 141 divided by 15, and that is 9.4 which is 94 cm, much better. So just by washing the sweater and blocking it it would become 6 cm (or 2.3″) wider. That’s how much difference the measly stitch makes.

So, back to the actual sweater. I did everything right, I swatched, and measured, and washed, and measured, and chose a size that would hopefully fit me, and then I knit the whole thing in one piece instead of making a lot of weirdly shaped pieces that have to be sewn together. The sweater is quite fitted, and the designer obviously isn’t afraid of sewing everything on, including the buttonbands. (It’s the L’il Red Riding Hoodie by Jennifer Stafford, by the way.) And while I do love the design, and while I’m certainly not afraid of seaming, I don’t like it much, it always looks wonky, and I stubbornly refuse to sew together a raglan. Raglan yokes are meant to be knit in one piece.

The knitting experience was quite interesting. I was knitting something that looked about two sizes too small. I had to put together the instructions for the fronts, buttonbands, back, and sleeves in one place at one point, and these weren’t of the “now decrease two stitches every fourth row” kind. Even though the whole thing is in plain, boring stockinette, it was more challenging than knitting lace. Also I don’t really like the yarn. I wanted something plain, not too expensive and hard-wearing, and that’s what I got. In a color that goes with everything I own, so the color isn’t particularly exciting too. It’s no wonder that I actually started two more sweaters before finishing this one. (Actually, upon further thinking I recall that I started three more sweaters before finishing this one.)

But at last, and through sheer stubbornness, I finished it. There wasn’t much seaming, of course, and I even managed to graft everything that needed seaming nicely together (a first for me). But then there was the zipper. I had to put a zipper into a knitted garment. Argh. Here are pictures of the unwashed hoodie, pre-blocking and pre-zipper:

Of course it took more than a month before I even bought a zipper. I managed to wash and block the sweater, and, alas, finally it matched the intended dimensions. For months I had been sure it was all a mistake, and I’d end up with a hoodie fit only for my son. I even worried about what to do about the waist shaping and bust darts, something he really has no need for.

I carefully measured the hoodie, went to the store with my huge gauge swatch for color-reference and bought a zipper. When I came home I immediately was sure that the zipper was too long. Also too heavy. And I didn’t know how to put a zipper into a sweater. I’d certainly not use a sewing machine but what to do? Thanks to ravelry and the internet I found two excellent tutorials, one by Grumperina and one by Claudia. I mostly followed the latter because of the, as Grumperina put it, “absolute quality in every shortcut”. I’m very keen on shortcuts when sewing (come to think of it, I like them in knitting as well, only you can’t use any in music). And I actually basted my zipper in! I never baste anything in, but finally I have been convinced to make exceptions for zippers. Some shortcuts aren’t shortcuts but time-wasters. It’s a good thing to know the difference.

So, after about nine months I finally have a nice everyday hoodie that I made all by myself. It’s thick wool which will help me to stay warm through winter, and I love the fit. It will surely get a bit longer since I have knitted it all in one piece and there are no seams to prevent it from sagging but that suits me fine, it’s a bit short now anyway. Here are the pictures of the hoodie after washing and blocking:

Also I seem to be in sweater knitting mode. I think it has something to do with several things: a) it’s becoming quite cold, b) I am a bit sick of my two winter sweaters, the red one and the terracotta one that I have been wearing all winter long for the past four years (and both of them have sleeves that are too short), c) I realized that knitting a lace stole or shawl doesn’t take more time and work than knitting a sweater but while I clearly don’t need more than four, or let’s say five, lace stoles and shawls I can easily need more than four winter sweaters.

And now that I have experienced the wonders of knitting gauge swatches, and measuring them, and even of such extreme steps as looking up the measurements of the finished sweater in the pattern, and – instead of just assuming that I need something in size M – actually measuring me, and some sweater that fits, and choosing the size accordingly, well, they might even look good on me.

Which is why I set out to knit a sweater in November. It’s red. I love it so far but since it’s not been washed yet it’s still too small for me. I started on November 8th, and completed it two days ago. Happy NaKniSweMo!

Happy Hat

crafts, knitting, spinning 6 Responses »

Nov 172008

I have been wanting to show this to you for weeks now. Before starting to knit on October 24th I took a picture: I wrote about it on ravelry:

All of a sudden I had this urge to knit something from my handspun. What good is all this new yarn if it’s only sitting around looking all artsy? So I looked for patterns. Since there is only so much you can knit with 90 grams of very bulky and uneven yarn (this is the second yarn I spun on my wheel), I was glad to find this pattern [Urchin] by Ysolda. I knew I probably had just enough yarn to make it. Of course I wanted to cast on immediately but then I had to first wind the yarn into a ball, and then wait until work was done. Friday in the evening I sat down and started making it in the smaller size but with bigger needles to compensate. Because it’s all garter stitch I got confused about which stitches were wrapped and which weren’t a lot. At the end of the evening I had about a third of the hat, and was afraid that it would be too small. So I started again on Saturday. I went up a size and knit a bit more loosely. It all went beautifully and was much fun to knit. Then I started the final wedge and found myself eyeing the ball of yarn every other second. Would there be enough? With about 1.5 m of yarn left and eight more rows to go I remembered the leftover singles I still had on the bobbin, and went to ply them very sloppily. I went back and knit the remaining eight rows, and found that the yarn was just barely enough without the “emergency yarn”. I had two little snippets left in the end, about 5 cm altogether. The hat looks much better than I thought it would. I’m very, very happy with it. Now I only have to take pictures…

Since then I have been waiting for the stars to align so that I can take pictures of me wearing the finished hat. I wanted three things to come together: a) the sun should be shining, b) I should be wearing make-up, c) I should have time to take pictures. Today I realized that the next time that would happen would probably be in spring, and so I decided to take pictures anyway:

And, whoosh, the week went by

knitting, life, lists 3 Responses »

Oct 242008

I’m feeling a bit stupid (again), here I am, realizing that the last post I wrote was about weekend to-do-lists, and all of a sudden it’s time for a new weekend. I could swear they are making the weeks shorter, and shorter these days.

I had wanted to write posts about how to learn to love exercise, about me and my son, how we had weeks of fighting and yelling, and now it’s all getting better, about how this same son wakes up early every single day now, so that my poor husband who doesn’t respond well to the traditional fighting over getting dressed, fighting over breakfast, and fighting to get out of the house on time, especially when he had been woken an hour early, resigned himself to sleeping in the guest room, well, I wanted to write about the usual things.

Also I have been on a finishing frenzy, knitting-wise. I’m just about to finish a cardigan, and a huge lace shawl, and then, today, in the middle of the day, just a few minutes before my first student of the day was to arrive I decided to do something wild and crazy and start a completely irrational project just like that.

But then I looked at the yarn and saw that it needed to be wound into balls before I can use it, and while I might be crazy enough to try and start a project in ten minutes, I’m clear enough to see that ten minutes doesn’t work if you have to wind the yarn first.

Time for the next weekend to-do-list, I think.

Celebrating the last day of summer break

knitting, life, lists 4 Responses »

Sep 142008

It’s a quiet celebration but a celebration nonetheless. (And there will be champagne. And salmon.) As much as I like not working I also love to start teaching again in fall. It really feels like fall today, the temperatures just dropped from “warm enough to swim in a lake” to “maybe we should turn on central heating again”.

I also love going back to a more regular life, I only hope that it won’t turn out to include only housework and teaching. We’ll see how that goes.

At the start of summer break I posted my to-do-list here on the blog. I thought it might be interesting to see what I managed to do. Here we go:

1. I did not read the books I borrowed from a friend (“Those Left Behind”, and “Quicksilver” by Neal Stephenson) but I read all the books of the “Twilight”-series (sorry, Mad), and a couple of mystery novels.

2. I did play my piano once or twice.

3. I did play my guitar a bit more often than the piano.

4. I spun 200g of combed merino top with my drop spindles. I’m quite pleased with how it went in the end. I would have spun more if I hadn’t decided to get me a spinning wheel. I’ve been waiting for that for ten days now, not wanting to start spinning something on the drop spindle.

5. I almost sew the dress I have been wanting to make since last summer. I spent an afternoon sewing it, then I found that the part where the top and the skirt connect (you know, the waist seam) are not the same width (that’s what happens if you just eyeball everything, especially seam allowances), and use marker that fades over time), I got frustrated and since then I have been waiting to have a bit of free time together with enough patience to fiddle with the seams for as long as it might take to somehow make those two things connect.

6. I sew two reusable grocery bags. One for a friend of mine, and one for me. Now I only have fabric and notions for one more bag around, a bag that will match the summer dress.

7. I went on vacation.

8. I didn’t take my son to the zoo. But we did a couple of other things together.

9. I didn’t visit the botanical garden (I wanted to see the roses in bloom, in fact I have been wanting to see that for years now but never managed.) I think the roses will be blooming again next year…

10. I went swimming two times. In actual natural water.

11. I had my eyes checked, and had my contacts cleaned so that I can wear them again.

12. I didn’t finish the red and the green cardigan I’m working on. But I finished another lace shawl.

13. I didn’t design socks for red cotton yarn and knit them. But I knit my “Poisoned with Chili“-socks, and I even got an award for them. I belong to a ravelry-group for German sock knitters who have a competition for “sock of the month”. What can I say, the winner got one more vote than me. But I’m happy and proud.

14. I didn’t have dinner at the Osteria Italiana.

15. I didn’t see a movie with my husband in an actual movie theater

16. I did more exercise but not quite as much as I had wanted.

17. I didn’t read my two NaNoWriMo-novels

18. I wrote two stories that might turn into something longer. I’m really excited.

19. I did get back into the habit of doing housework but not cooking.

20. I didn’t sing and record any improvisations.

On my husband’s list there was also:

1. We didn’t go to the mountains with our son but decided to postpone the mountain hike until next year.

2. We didn’t go to the Olympiaturm with our son, but we went to a Buddhist celebration.

3. We did harvest our own potatoes. They are already eaten up (and they were delicious).

4. We did take a walk to the Andechs monastery with our son (and have some of their delicious beer of which our son doesn’t get any). We had considered this something like a long-ish stroll but to our son it was enough for one day. That was the reason we didn’t go to the mountains this year.

I did spend an awful lot of time dealing with my broken computer, first making sure it was broken, then taking it to the shop, getting my old computer out, setting that up again, looking for backups, and software, and updates, then I had my new computer fixed, and had to do the whole software, update, backup routine again since all data on my hard disk was lost. (Folks, please backup. Everything. regularly. And see if your backups work. I have a nice DVD labeled “iTunes music May 2008″ that won’t load.)

Computer problems not withstanding these were about the best summer months we’ve had in years. We also bought a new bed for our son, spent quite a bit of time as a family, sat in beer gardens, and took it easy. It’s summer break, so it isn’t so much about to-do-lists.

Now I’m ready for fall.

And today isn’t only the last day of summer break, it’s also De‘s birthday. Happy birthday to you, De.

I didn’t quite know what to write about her but then I found I had said it all when I wrote her a letter last year. So, let’s drink a bit of champagne again, to a new school year, and another year of bloggy friends.

Third sock syndrome

knitting 1 Response »

Aug 082008

There is a thing called “Second Sock Syndrome”. I hadn’t heard about it until about a year ago. Apparently there are people who, after finishing a sock, procrastinate about knitting the second one. This is a problem since most people come equipped with two feet and appreciate wearing a sock on each of them, preferably matching ones. So there seem to be knitters out there who have a mountain of single socks at home. There are even self-help groups where people send each other single socks and the rest of the yarn and make the second sock for somebody else.

That is not a problem of mine. I’m always happy to find problems that I don’t have in addition to the ones I do have – it makes me feel a bit less, well, problematic.

The problem I do have is something I have decided to call “Third Sock Syndrome”. This problem also had been unknown to me until about a year ago (and I really might be the only knitter suffering from it). It started when I made my first pair of socks following a pattern. Until then all I had knit were socks that we Germans call “Stinos” (when I was a young knitter we didn’t call them Stinos by the way, we called them “Socken”). “Stinos” is short for “stinknormale Socken” which means socks that are so ordinary that they practically reek ordinariness. You don’t need a written pattern for “Stinos” you get shown how to do them by relatives or friends, and they are done following a formula. (Be glad because I just edited that whole formula out of the post so you don’t have to read through it.) That formula-aspect means that you can knit them in all sizes with any ribbing or cabling or colors you like. Since they are so easy to produce there is nothing like this fancy “swatching” and such, you just eye somebody’s feet, go like “It looks like his feet are a bit bigger than mine.” and cast on any number of stitches that feel right. Then you just knit on until you have reached the tip of that person’s little toe (at which point you let that person try on the unfinished sock – you better don’t believe it when people are telling you that you can’t try on a cuff-down sock on double-pointed needles) and make a toe.

But since I like both a challenge and pretty socks I started knitting socks from designer patterns. With different heels and short rows, socks knitted toe-up, with all sorts of lace, and cables, and whatnot. Since then I have developed third sock syndrome which means for every pair of socks that I make I have to knit the equivalent of about three socks. Often more.

Take that sock I’m currently working on right now. The pattern is absolutely gorgeous by Yarnissima, one of my very favorite sock designers. I bought the pattern, pulled out some Wollmeise yarn, wound it into a ball and started knitting, all in a continuous, fluid motion, regardless of the fact that until then I was frantically working on two cardigans and a lace shawl at the same time. I got a bit frustrated by the toe but that’s only to be expected in a toe-up sock, they start out fiddly. Everything went fine, I often stopped to admire my nice, shiny new sock, I managed to turn the heel without much fuss, then I tried on the sock and – it was too short. Ugh. I had to rip back the entire heel and gusset in order to make it longer. I calmed myself by telling me that it was all for the best, I wouldn’t want a sock that’s too short, and the second time I really got the hang of the gusset, and it looks much better. I didn’t like the toe that much though because the cabling started a little later than I would have liked but since I followed the pattern, surely everything would turn out right. I knit on, enjoying myself tremendously.

Oh, and the too short foot? That’s the thing that happens when you decide to knit the sock in the smallest size so that your socks won’t turn out too wide without compensating for the fact that while your foot’s circumference might be small, the length of your foot is not. Duh.

I knit on and on, and didn’t make a lot of mistakes, even when I knit on the train at 11.30 pm after three beers. I had a bit of a trouble with the start of the cuff because I couldn’t figure it out at first, which meant that I knit one round, thought a bit, un-knit it again because I thought it was wrong, thought a bit more, knit half of it in the other direction, finally got it, and knit it again exactly the same way I had done it the first time.

But that’s not a problem. Things like that happen all the time in knitting. Maybe I should put a sign on my knitting bag(s) “Think before ripping.” (And another one that says, “Just do as the pattern tells you to.”) but I was okay with that. Then I saw it: I forgot to cross the cables after the gusset. It looks unpleasant. I really don’t like it.

Could I live with a mistake like that? I looked at the very, very long sock, almost finished, I looked at the missing cable. I thought about how that part will be hidden by my shoes anyway (not to mention that the whole of the sock will be hidden by my shoes and pants but that can’t be helped). I looked at the sock again. I finished it and bound off.

Today I cast on for the second sock. (See, I told you that I don’t have second sock syndrome.) I fiddled with the provisional crocheted cast-on. I did it for the first time in my life, and it will certainly be the last time. Apart from the fact that it takes three times as long as my usual provisional cast-on, it also requires me to find a crochet hook and waste yarn. Nah, I won’t do that again. So, I started the toe, and then I got to the part in the instructions that said “knit row 4 of chart 1″ and suddenly it hit me: That didn’t mean knitting row 4 of chart 1 and then starting with row 1 of chart 1 in the following row, no, it probably meant knitting rows 4 to 6 before starting row 1. No wonder the toe of my first sock looked too un-cabled. I had started the crossing of the cables four rows too late.

Even that I could have stomached but now I want to do the second sock the way it should be done. Which means that apart from it being nicer looking, and more cabled, it also will be four rows longer. Which would make it the perfect length since the first sock is still a bit too short. But now, do you see what that means?

I will have to frog the whole first sock from cuff to toe. The whole thing that took three days of dedicated knitting. There is no other way. (No, there isn’t. I mean it.)

For now I’ll just knit the second first sock, formerly known as second sock. I feel a bit of frustration here but I’m almost ready to accept that that is how it goes every single time. In order to get a pair of nice, hand-knit socks, I need to knit not 2 but 3 of them. Third sock syndrome. Meet sock minus one, formerly known as first sock:

And that also is the answer to the question of “How do you manage to knit all these nice things?” It’s easy. I just don’t give up.

Pictures of my finished Storyteller Stole

crafts, knitting, projects 8 Responses »

Jun 302008

So, today the sun was shining again, and I finally managed to take picture of the finished stole. It only took me ten days… (I wrote aboug the stole and it’s transformation in another post. That’s where those of you who want to know can also find the information about pattern and yarn.)

I found the pattern when I followed a link to the Hanami stole I had seen on somebody else’s blog. It’s by the same designer. The swirls and ornaments appealed to me instantly. I wanted to knit this stole for myself.

It’s called Scheherazade, and I thought of mine as my storyteller stole. Telling stories seems to be more important to me than I have recognized in the past. So this stole became a symbol to me.