Swirl and More Yarn

Current progress:

The original inspiration had the swirls going towards the corners, but as I knitted, I kept fretting over how to do those corners--how to square the circle and the swirl.

However, as it grew, I came to understand that maybe I didn't have to square it off. If I just kept going on either side, keeping the curve, then I would have a sort of oblong afghan, and that would work fine. So that is what I'm trying.

Here are more details.

I also wanted to finish the story of my weekend. I've found that I am far more likely to knit with wound or balled yarn as compared to the same yarn on a cone. I just like the look of wound yarn more. So I was winding some yarn from various cones, as Sandy looked through my stash. And I forget if I brought this up or if she did, but we were reminded of these commercial yarns that have been intriguing me for a while. Both of them are several things wound together.

The color mixes were fun to look at.

Inspired by these, and on the heels of my magic balls and Angelica's beautiful yarns, Sandy got me started mixing some of my yarns, particularly with the coned yarns. Then we also started creating mixes with some of my thinner yarns, since I rarely knit on small needles anymore, and yet, sock yarn is so enticing, I keep buying it.

Anyway, the results were so beautiful, I kept at it until the end of the weekend. I didn't knit at all until Sunday night!

Here is a closer look.

The colors don't come out very well, so I'll ask you to trust me, they would make your fingers itch to start knitting.

I have so many things calling me to knit with them. What a great problem!

Yarn Yarn Yarn

My friend Sandy came over for a yarn orgy, and this time I thought to take pictures (unlike when Loree was here and she picked out lovely colorways).

We pulled out my entire stash. It's mostly oddballs (single balls) sorted by color.

Then the fun begins.

It starts with a couple of yarns.

And then yarns get added and subtracted.

And other piles grow, as we look through the bags, or as parts of a pile become their own piles.

And when they reach a critical mass, the new groupings get bagged up, and I have colorways all ready for future projects.

And afterward, I want to start three new projects, because the colors are so intoxicating.

But I don't.

(But I hear them calling......calling...)

Swirling Around

Current progress:

The piece is growing, and I've started to make the strips wider.

It makes me think of hurricanes.

The funny thing is that I reversed the pattern from the picture I was using as inspiration, so I've had to scan and flip it. I find that I do that fairly often, mirror-image the pattern. I'm not sure why that is, but perhaps it is due to the nature of knitting: I look at the pattern left-to-right, but my knitting is made right-to-left.

Proof that I'm a little backwards?

The New One -- A Real Experiment

I've started the next one, and this one is a wild guess. It's based on a design in an ad, I think for IBM, so I can't show the screengrab.

The middle is the most colorful yarn from Angelique, and it makes the middle sort of glow.

And here's another bit.

Let's see if I can explain it.

The A lines show how wide it will be. The center swirls will come out to meet them.

B shows sketchily how the circles will grow.

C shows where the circle straightens out.

Now that I look at it, D is sort of just hanging out at the edge. Overall, it looks like a double snail shape, until it fills out.

Thanks to a workshop I once took with Debbie New, I can deal with circles, but I'm not sure of the proportions for this combination of circles and straight lines. Since this one is in stockinette, to get right angles I decrease in two out of 3 rows. I decrease at the start of the row (joining to the straight part), do the circle increases until I get to the straight part, and then decrease at the end of the row. The straight part will eventually get eaten up by the circular increases, when the panel will get squared off.

That is, if I've figured it out correctly. Can't wait to find out.

Third 2010 One Done

Ta-Dah! I call it Interlocking Chevrons.

I hate to admit it, but this looks slightly more dramatic in the photo than in real life. But I'll settle...

Here are some details. The edging really brought out the colors.

Update: the edging was straight garter, picked up at the rate of 14 stitches for every 10 rows for the segments (since it's on the diagonal).

Colors thanks to Loree and Angelique, with thick-and-thin black border yarn a present from Denver.

And now I have nothing on the needles. That always feels strange. I'm very tempted to just use these same colors in something, because they look so great. Or do I go with the next set Loree made for me....what a great problem to have.

I'll let you know.

I've Decided

I think this is as wide as it's going to get -- just the one final triangle in the corner to do (not counting the edging).

That's a yardstick, to give you an idea of the size, but it will block out longer, I'm sure. I was considering going a couple of more rows, but I like how it looks now.

It looks even better sideways.

Time to start thinking about the next one.

In the meantime, I got wonderful, fabulous, terrific, beautiful hand-spun yarn in a trade from the amazingly talented Angelique. Some of the local wildlife dove right in.

Here is some of it wound into balls. The craziest yarn has these large tufts spun in.

How fun is that? And look at the red/grey pair, opposites of each other, just screaming to be transitional in something.

The platypus is modeling the ultimate surprise: a piece of her exquisite jewelry.

I had to keep it by me to look at, although this is a terrible setting.

It's hard to stop smiling.

Taking a Break

planes been framed!
Originally uploaded by xfreshbatteryx

I saw the plane on Knithacker and loved the way the stitches bring out the shape. I'm thinking there should be a way to make it an embeddable motif in a flat piece as well.

I've been taking a short break from my knitting to wind some more magic balls. It's amazing how many balls can be made out of what seems like not a lot of yarn.

So: I gather a lot of odds and ends from my knitting, and when they reach a critical mass, I make magic balls, and when they reach a critical mass, I knit something out of them, and when the amount of fun yarn I have reaches a deficit, I buy more, which, when knitted, produces odd and ends, etc., etc.

It's the circle of knitting life.

Here's current progress:

It's wider top to bottom than I thought it would be at this point (which is fairly common for me, I have to admit). I could just add another row of the light segments and be done with it, and have a rectangular afghan, or I might continue with the original plan and have more of a square.

Fortunately, I don't even have to decide until I add the row of light segments, since that fits both plans. I may want to keep going into a square simply because when one is knitting in solid segments (as opposed to using something like Noro, which transitions), the more complexity in the final piece, the better.

We'll find out together.

Three Beaks

I've turned a corner.

After seeing the light/dark pictures from last time, I've decided to echo the colors on the way back. I'm not using the same colors, only similar ones. I'll do the same thing for the light-colored chevrons above these.

Here is a detail look.

To show how the corner was turned, here's an annotated picture. (Full confession, I had to think about it and even started to pick up from the left side of the afghan, before realizing it needed to start on the right.)

I cast on 30 at A,, and increased one at the end of each right-side row for 5 ridges, until I had 35 stitches on the needles. (This is the turning point of the B corner.) Then I picked up 5 stitches from the lower segment (along where the -5 is, just by threading my needle through the 5 tops of the ridges in the lower segment), and then knitted the last stitch together with one of the picked up stitches, turned, and then knitted two together and finished the row. This decreases one on each ridge, so that when the segment was finished, I again had 30 stitches on the needle (the 30 at the dotted line).

Then I cast on 10 at C, and with the other end of the needle I picked up 10 stitches along D. Then I knitted down the 10 and the 30, and repeated the knit-last-stitch-with-picked-up-stitch-turn-knit-2-together-finish row. By the end of the segment, there are again 30 stitches on the needle. Repeat the process for the rest of the rows.

A couple of details.

• I still have to knit the small piece to the right of the A edge.
• When I'm knitting the last stitch together with the picked up stitch, because these are being joined at an angle, I was getting gaps, so before knitting them together, I pick up another stitch from the lower segment and knit all three together. It makes a better join.
• When I knit the cast-on 10 stitches, I begin weaving the tail from the previous color into the 10th stitch, which helps the join. (And then continue weaving it in on the back.)

So, you may be asking, where are the beaks in the title?

I had this grouping on a chair, and realized what they had in common. Happy Silly Saturday.

 

Dark and Light

Here's the latest.

Almost done with the second row. That's one-third done, not counting the edging.

As I was uploading this, the small thumbnail looked very dramatic, like the light and dark side of an edge.

It made me wonder about a similar pattern done vertically, but balancing the colors a little more so it looks like there's a shadow side.

Maybe for the next one....