Ruthless Knitting

The winner of the Ugly Slipper Contest, who will receive these beauties here . . .

. . . is Jeni!

Jeni might strike some of you as a dark horse candidate for the slippers, since she snuck her entry in at the end, and she didn’t write a poem. But Jeni was clever in ways that you may not have noticed. Her entry read: “You should give them to me because: (1.) I actually like the color combination. (2.) I also wear an 8.5, the felting will be easy. (3.) You won’t have to pay shipping, you can send them to work with David.” Do you see what she did there? She began by appealing to my vanity — I love how so many of you claimed to “like” or even “love” the slippers — and then quickly moved on to cater to my laziness and cheapness. And it worked! On Saturday morning, when I was ready to felt, I did not want to have to wait to find out the winner’s shoe size, and this alone vaulted Jeni to the top of the list. Well played, Jeni! Your slippers will be making their way to you shortly.

Here’s the obligatory pre-felting Giant Slipper Picture, with my feet for scale:

And this is how the second pair turned out:

I finished them in the nick of time — yesterday, I had to throw out my original slippers, as the holes in the sole were beginning to merge together to become a giant hole. The new slippers seem to be working out as a suitable replacement.

I’m not going to do a finished object post for the slippers, since I’ve made them before and have no observations of significance. Instead, I give you the Clif Notes version: I used Nashua Creative Focus Worsted for the ugly pair and double-stranded Andes yarn with Peace Fleece Worsted for the other pair. I used one pair of size 13 needles and figured out that I don’t need a second needle for the three-needle bind-offs on each slipper, because you can just poke the first needle through both stitches at once and bind them off. That is all.

In other news, I got the buttons I ordered for the Middlebury cardigan, but they’re all wrong. After moping around the house for a while, convinced that I am doomed never to finish that sweater, I asked Melanie of Earthenwood Studio if she could reglaze them darker, and she said she would try again on some new buttons, which I consider to be beyond the call of duty. I’ll keep you posted.

Meanwhile, I started a new sweater a few days ago — the third one in the Ruthless Knitting Fall/Winter 2007 collection, for those of you who are keeping track. Here’s my sketch:

This will be herringbone only on the front, with a slipped-stitch vertical stripe type thing on the sleeves and back. I may add elbow patches, as well. The cuffs and bottom will be hemmed, with the facing in the contrast color. I’ve started on the first sleeve, and my progress so far has been slow but satisfactory. Here’s where I was yesterday; I’ve since made it to the 6″ mark.

I’m using light sportweight yarn from Beaverslide Dry Goods for this sweater, and I’m knitting it on US size 2.5 (3.0 mm) needles. I’m getting about 7 stitches to the inch, which makes this project somewhat like knitting a gigantic sock. This morning, I’m blocking what I have managed to finish so far in order to make sure I don’t have any big gauge catastrophes. One thing I’ve learned about fine-gauge knitting is that small errors in gauge calculation become terribly magnified, so it’s important to get it right the first time.

I expect this will take until about Christmas to finish, and I will probably need to do some small projects in the middle to take the edge off once I get bored, but I’m hoping I can at least finish the first sleeve before that happens.

Happy Halloween!

Today is my dad’s birthday. Happy birthday, Dad! Here is his hat:

Pattern: Pentagon #5 from Anna Zilboorg’s 45 Fine and Fanciful Hats to Knit (New York, NY: Sterling, 1999)
Size: The band at the bottom is sized at about 19″.
Yarn: Knit Picks Telemark (100 percent wool; 103 yds per 50g skein), one skein each of Lichen, Colonial Blue, Delft Heather, Squirrel Heather, and Icicle.
Yardage: I’m not sure. I have a lot left. Does that help?
Source: Knit Picks
Needles: US 5 Denise circular needles
Gauge: About 6.5 stitches per inch in color pattern
Notes: Dad requested that I make him a hat several months ago. (Dad: “Your mother sent you a hat book, right?” Me: “Yes.” Dad: “So where is my hat?”) This was a fun and really quick project, which I completed when I was supposed to be making the Middlebury cardigan sleeves.

I’ve had 45 Fine and Fanciful Hats to Knit for a while now, but this is the first thing I’ve made from the book. One reason for this is that there are some seriously strange hats in it. Well, okay, maybe “strange” is unkind. Let’s say that there are some seriously fanciful hats in this book. And while there is nothing wrong with fanciful hats, I found it hard to decide whether I would really like any of these hats, for myself or for someone else. Still, I was determined to knit a hat for my dad as he requested. The “cone” hats tempted me because they are relatively conservative in shape, but I kept being drawn to the pentagon hats. After getting input from my mom, who favored the pentagons, I decided on Pentagon #5, with the understanding that it might just be too strange for my dad to wear it.

45 Fine and Fanciful Hats receives some rather hostile reviews on Amazon.com from people who argue that it is not really a pattern book, since Zilboorg omits to give anything but scanty information about gauge, does not specify yarns, possibly gives incorrect instructions about what weight of yarn to use, and provides only very brief written directions and charts for each hat. I would agree that the book could be easier to use. To make a hat, you have to start in the introduction to figure out your gauge and yarn choice, and you have to pick which one of three edgings you want to do. Then you have to follow the brief instructions at the beginning of your particular chapter to determine how many stitches to cast on and what kind of increases and decreases to use. You have to go with your own gut to determine how to do the stranding and where to place the increases and decreases, and you also have to know enough about charted patterns to understand how to turn the chart for your particular hat into the hat shown. Oh, and you have to use the photographs to gauge where to switch colors, since the charts don’t show color changes. To my mind, all of this made using the book a challenge and an adventure, and I am always up for a nice knitting challenge. Still, I can see why everyone wouldn’t necessarily feel the same way.

I only made a few modifications to the pattern. First and most obviously, I wanted to use DK rather than worsted yarn, so I added an extra repeat to the pattern, turning it into a hexagon hat. I also used some soft sock yarn (leftover Henry’s Attic Kona Superwash Fingering) to knit a hemmed lining. I did this because the braided edge was curling, because I thought the sock yarn would feel better against Dad’s forehead than Telemark (which is tolerably soft, but not luxurious), and because the lining makes the hat thicker and therefore warmer.

I disregarded the blocking instructions, which involve using an iron, in favor of wet-blocking the hat over cardboard forms that I made to fit inside the hexagon and the brim. In the process, I was reminded of how poor my grasp of geometry is. Let’s not discuss how many times I tried to draw a hexagon of the proper dimensions on cardboard, only to find that I had drawn an octagon.

Despite these tribulations, the results are good: I like this hat! It’s plenty weird, but I think its weirdness falls within acceptable bounds. We’ll see what my dad thinks.

Dear Ann,

A while back, you were gracious enough to compliment my Buster sweater via e-mail after I left a comment about something or another on your website. In a return e-mail, I pointed out that the stitch gauge for Buster was the same as the gauge for the Perfect Sweater, and I floated the idea of offering Buster up as an optional “module” for the Perfect Sweater, so that those Perfect Sweater knitters who wished to could throw a little argyle intarsia action into the mix. You agreed that this was a good idea. I replied that it might take me a few weeks to get the pattern ready. You said that was no big deal, since one of the great things about knitting is that there’s no deadline pressure.

At least, that’s how I remember the conversation going. It’s been so long since we had it, however — like, since February — that I’ve already deleted all my sent e-mail from that period, and I can’t be sure of the details any longer. What I know for sure is that it’s been unforgiveably long, and I never did send you that sweater pattern.

You’ll be pleased to know, however, that I have a very respectable excuse: temptation arrived in the guise of the Jimmy Beans Wool pattern contest. The winners of this contest get an impressive amount of swag. How much, you ask? Check out the list on the contest page here. There’s a gift certificate! Needles! Lots of free yarn! Kits! Patterns! It’s enough to make any knitter’s pulse race.

Forced to choose between submitting the pattern to you so that it could become a Perfect Sweater module — and being rewarded with, what, gratitude? the solidification of online correspondence into an online friendship? — or submitting the pattern to Jimmy Beans Wool in return for the possibility of a great heap of swag, well. I think we both know what happened next. I sent off the Buster pattern to Jimmy Beans Wool without so much as a backward glance in your direction.

And guess what?! Buster brought home the blue ribbon! We had a celebratory photoshoot after we heard the news:

My Giant Box of Swag is scheduled to arrive on Monday, and the pattern is now available for free from Jimmy Beans here. Since the gauge of the pattern is virtually unchanged — I did adjust it a bit from 20 to 21 stitches over 4 inches, but knitters are good at fudging — all the Perfect Sweater knitters out there are welcome to use the charts that accompany the pattern. All they have to do is center their chosen charts on the front of their sweater and they’re good to go. I even wrote up some tips for the intarsia-phobic.

I hope you’ll forgive my lapse in good taste and agree that some prizes cannot be resisted.

Yours in knitting solidarity,
Ruth

Pattern: Red Herring by Cookie A, published in the Fall 2006 Knitty
Size: Women’s medium (one size)
Yarn: Hand Jive Knits Nature’s Palette Fingering (100 percent merino wool; 180 yds per 50 g skein) in Dark Indigo and Indian Paintbrush
Yardage: 1 skein of each color. I’d guess that I used about 300 yards.
Source: Knit/Purl in Portland, OR
Needles: Knit Picks Classic Circular needles in US size 1 (2.25 mm)
Gauge: 32 sts = 4″ in Stockinette stitch
Notes: These are great socks! They fit well, they’re snazzy, and I like the yarn a lot. They were fun to knit, and the five-month hiatus between the first and second socks made them even funner.

I already wrote about these socks on several occasions, and I don’t have a whole lot more to add. I did modify the pattern slightly by making the leg shorter, because I’m just not the kind of gal who wants long socks. Also, I stretched my one skein of red yarn as far as I possibly could, but I ran out eight rows from the end of the second sock, so it has a slightly larger blue toe. If I had cared much, I might have made the toes match or striped one foot to smooth over the transition, but I don’t.

It was fun to see how much knitting I could get out of that one skein of red yarn. I would have been golden if I could have unraveled and used my swatch, but unfortunately I knit it in the round and then cut it so it would lay flat to be measured, so no dice. I suppose I should learn my lesson and stop cutting my swatches, but I doubt that I will.

–
There is still time to enter the contest! So far, only Desiknitter has shown an interest in the slippers, though maybe others are intimidated by her formidable entry, which she submitted in verse. I am not surprised that the rest of you think the slippers are ugly, only that this is stopping you from trying to obtain them. Don’t you have an aged grandmother with cold feet? Someone who needs a great white elephant gift? Someone with whom you can (virtually) reenact the scene from The Office in which Phyllis gives Michael a knitted oven mitt? This is your chance, people! I’d hate for you to miss out on this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

I am not particularly discriminating in my nighttime/early morning attire. Indeed, what I wear to bed is often embarrassing. In the winter, for example, it usually involves red flannel pants with game on them — that is, deer, ducks, trout, and pheasants. (Yes, there is a story there, and no, I’m not going to tell it.) And of course, as documented, I’ve been wearing orange and red slippers around the house for more than two years. I make quite a picture in this get-up. Nonetheless, one has to draw the line somewhere, and I’m going to draw it here:

I cannot wear these slippers, because they are surpassingly ugly.

Oh, you disagree? Perhaps you just need to see them from another angle:

Somehow, the combination of hot pink and copper manages to be all wrong, but not in the cute way. This disappointing color combination was not the result of a moment of feverish inspiration, but rather the result of my having run out of turquoise yarn. Sometimes, knitting with leftovers forces poor choices upon one.

Though these slippers are not for me, perhaps they are just the thing for you or one of your loved ones. Perhaps, indeed, you would be thrilled to have something this colorful and warm to grace your feet this winter. So I’ll make you a deal: leave me a comment saying why I should send these hideous slippers to you, and the person who submits my favorite comment will get them, felted to their personal slipper size. Multiple submissions are allowed and, in fact, encouraged. Should I have trouble deciding who the winner is, I will enlist David’s expert help. (And no, he doesn’t want the slippers either.)

A few caveats:
(1) I made these in a women’s size large to fit my size 8.5 feet. They can probably be felted as small as a women’s 7 or as large as a 10. If you have larger or smaller feet, you are probably out of luck, unless you like your slippers very tight or very loose, as the case may be.
(2) The slippers may become cuter when felted. If they do, I cannot be held responsible. And don’t worry, I won’t decide to keep them if this happens.

While y’all are fighting amongst yourselves, I’m going to make a second, more restrained pair of slippers. The contest ends whenever I finish the second pair (probably Thursday or Friday) and am ready to felt both pairs at once.

Giant shoes are always funny.

My favorite house slippers (chronicled here) are getting noticeably holey, so I’ve been spurred on to knit some new ones. So far, so gigantically good, though it’s clear that clog no. 1 used so much yarn that clog no. 2 will have to be rather different in its color scheme. I’m rolling with it. In fact, these clogs use up so much leftover yarn so quickly and are so entertaining to knit that I find myself hatching grand plans to turn all the non-superwash-wool leftovers in my stash into clogs. No two clogs will be alike! If I have three or four pairs, I can rotate them, so they will last longer! (As if two years is not long enough for knitted footwear to hold out.) I will make clogs for everyone I know!

David is skeptical. He suspects that I will get bored with the clogs after I finish the second one — or possibly the third. No doubt he is right, but for now I will press on, with visions of dozens of felt clogs dancing in my head.

—

P.S. The Red Herring socks are finished, but the new one is still wet from its blocking. I’ll try to do a photoshoot and FO post tomorrow.

The Middlebury cardigan is done but for the buttons. It’s a great relief to have it totally off the needles, as it seems like I’ve been knitting it for a long time (though it’s apparently only been since September). I’m immensely pleased with how it turned out. I’ll do a full finished object rundown with pictures as soon as my buttons arrive and I sew them on.

This has been one of those weeks in which I spent several days wanting to cast on something new RIGHT NOW. Indeed, I actually cast on a number of different things, but I ripped all of them back out about twenty minutes later. It’s become clear to me that my frantic-wish-for-new-knitting moods have nothing to do with knitting and everything to do with my mental health (which, have no fear, is excellent — but we all have our bad days). The weather this week was rather relentlessly bleak, and it made me feel dissatisfied and easily distracted. On Wednesday, the rain cleared up, so I rode my bike to the arboretum, ran hard for six miles, and rode home. That made me feel better, and my knitting woes evaporated.

Now that Middlebury is done, I’ve happily resumed knitting my Red Herring socks.

I made the first one in May, intending to give it to my mother for her birthday, but it turned out to be too small for her and perfect for me. Since I had other priorities at the time — namely, starting and finishing the Oriel Lace Socks for her — I never did get around to knitting the second Red Herring, which was a shame, since I did love the first one dearly.

What’s great about returning to the socks at this point is that (a) it’s an all-new pattern, since I’ve pretty much forgotten everything about knitting the first one, (b) it allows me to check off the only substantial project on my list of unfinished objects, and (c) it goes so quickly! At some point during the summer, I got the ribbing cast on for the second sock and knit a few pattern repeats. At a meeting on Tuesday, I knit a few more pattern repeats. That meant that when I turned to the sock last night, I had finished the seventh pattern repeat in no time flat, leaving only four more for today. I did three while having my morning tea, so once I do the last one, I’m on to the foot and the smooth sailing of plain stockinette. Whee!

Throughout the process of working on this sock, I’ve been using my Go Knit Pouch (link goes to Scout’s Swag, where they can be ogled and purchased) to carry the sock around and knit from. Just last night, I started suspending the pouch from the arm of my knitting chair instead of dropping it unceremoniously on the floor at my feet. This feels like a great leap forward in pouch usage. I love this bag — it keeps everything neat and tangle-free while I’m knitting. I think I shall get a bigger one for my sweater projects.

I have to hold off on my promised good news until next week. Meanwhile, have a great weekend!

The good news
I found some buttons that I think will work for my cardigan. I ordered them from Earthenwood Studios; you can look at them here. I chose the pill shape, the berryleaf pattern, and the amethyst color. I think the color is just the right purpley-brown to work with the Middlebury sweater.

The bad news
Since the buttons are made to order, they could take as long as three weeks to arrive. I think this is entirely reasonable, given what’s involved in their creation, but still. Three weeks.

Meanwhile, I set in the first sleeve all over again this morning. It looks better now. And I’m making progress on sleeve number two. I have an hour-long meeting tomorrow, and I bet I’ll finish the cap before it’s over. Then I can finish the seaming and weave in the ends to get the sweater ready for the arrival of the buttons.

Sorry, no pictures today — but I have a suprise I’m saving. I’ll post some pictures and good news later this week!

The good news
Progress on the Middlebury sweater continues apace. I got one sleeve finished and sewn in, the other one about two-thirds knit, and I completed the button bands and collar, too. It’s looking mighty fine, if I do say so myself.

The bad news
I think the sleeve cap might be too puckery at the top, so I might have to set it in again. Or reknit it for the third time. I am not yet willing even to look closely at it, much less consider what has to be done.

More good news
I ordered five different buttons to try out, and they finally arrived yesterday.

More bad news
I don’t like any of them. I ordered some purple ones today, and I’m investigating a vintage button source. Buttons are hard.

The good thing about “two steps forward, one step back” is that you do get there eventually. Don’t you?

Though I like to knit socks now and again, I wouldn’t say that I’m a “sock knitter,” since my level of fanaticism is fairly low, and I’d usually prefer to knit a sweater. Moreover, though I have one of Cat Bordhi’s previous books (Socks Soar on Two Circular Needles), it hasn’t proven to be an important one in my collection, and I haven’t been tempted by any of her other popular titles. So when I say that I bought New Pathways for Sock Knitters: Book One (Friday Harbor, WA: Passing Paws Press, 2007) as soon as I had an opportunity to flip through it at the yarn shop — and despite the fact that it cost $28.95 — I hope you’ll take that as an indication of how truly innovative and interesting this book is.

With this volume, the first of three in a planned series, Bordhi has begun an exploration of sock “architecture” — which is to say that she’s begun detailing ways in which socks can be knit to fit the human foot that are different than what we’ve grown accustomed to. In her introduction, under the heading “Five hundred years, two styles of socks,” Bordhi explains that hand-knit socks “have been dominated by two architectural styles” for a very long time, but that in fact “sockitecture” is infinitely variable.

This first volume introduces eight new architectures, or “pathways,” for knitting socks. These pathways all begin at the cuff or the toe. In Bordhi’s second volume, the pathways will begin elsewhere, i.e. mid-foot or leg. The third volume will explore “ancient pathways” for sock knitting inspired by Bordhi’s research at the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto.

What really impresses me about this book is not that Bordhi came up with new ways to knit socks but rather that she came up with exceedingly clever ways to teach others how to knit these new architectures while simultaneously encouraging them to make these socks their own. Following the introduction, New Pathways for Sock Knitters contains a set-up chapter that orients the knitter to Bordhi’s book and the symbols she uses and then offers patterns for two differerent baby socks as a way of introducing the basic techniques used in the book. Each sock architecture then gets its own chapter, which explains how the sock is shaped, offers another orienting baby sock pattern or two, and then provides at least one adult sock pattern (often stunning) in the new architecture, as well as a “master pattern” for that architecture that the knitter can adapt to suit.

I love this method of using baby socks as a teaching tool, since they are quick, cute, and satisfying to knit. And I’m thrilled that Borhdi has provided master patterns for each of her architectures, because while I do occasionally like to follow other people’s patterns, I’d usually much prefer to do my own thing.

This book also shines in its design, illustration, and photography, all but the last of which Bordhi was responsible for herself. Self-published books are often not as attractive or easy to use as professionally published ones, nor are they usually edited well, but this volume is an exception. It’s visually appealing, and a great deal of thought has clearly been put into the layout and illustrations. It’s also packed with beautiful and inspiring photographs of socks.

New Pathways for Sock Knitters has been getting a lot of praise lately from knitting bloggers, and in this case I’m happy to jump on the bandwagon. I’d recommend it to anyone who likes to knit socks and is interested in learning new constructions to expand their repertoire. I imagine it will become an essential volume in many knitters’ libraries.