Thursday, April 29, 2010

Isn't This Well Named For Me?

I buy more quilt books than knitting books these days, even though I don't sew. They tweak my imagination.

One of the most inspiring of the more recent ones is The New Modern Workshop. It has very simple designs which are just different enough to interest me, and it also has one of my favorite features: examples of what a quilt pattern would look like in different color combinations.

This one is actually the reason I ended up buying the book (although it had other ones I liked as well). (Used with permission) It is called Outside the Box.

 
Can't you just see how this will translate into modular pieces?

If you can't, you soon will.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Fifth 2010 One Done

Here we go. (That's a yardstick for size.)


Here's some close-ups.

The middle (the shininess of the center yarn doesn't come through so much)


And the edges:





And a close-up of the edging, where you can see the shiny yarn show through:


I'm very happy with it!

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Drum Roll, Please

Here is the afghan still on the needles for the edging, just before I bound off.


It looks dramatic in the slanted morning light, doesn't it? But the moment is dramatic, because right now it is like an unknown flower about to unfold. This is the moment of trepidation and excitement, when I wonder if I'll see success, failure, or -- actually most common -- something totally unexpected.

Here is what I saw.


The dark edging really pulled the design together! I'd rate it as a success with a dash of unexpected, because I was worried that the design would look too choppy.

This is the unblocked version. I'll block it tonight and post the final pictures tomorrow, and you'll see two changes.

1) The proportions will grow. See the yardstick at the top? Compare this to how long the afghan will be tomorrow.

2) The segments and the edging will even out.  Here is a closer look at the edging, showing some waviness.


Tomorrow, the edging will lie flat. Similarly, some of the slightly awkward joinings between the segments will relax.

Blocking relaxes the yarn, softens it, and evens out the tension. I won't be using blocking wires with this one, though, because I think it will lie flat by itself, and I won't want it to be larger.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Slightly Over the Edge

Current progress:


Notice anything? In the bottom corner?


Yes, a little bit extra. As I was knitting that segment, when I had finished decreasing in from the upper corner of the segment, I thought I could simply continue knitting, but I should have bound that bottom side off at that point instead.

How to fix it? Unravel the segment? That's no fun. Here's what I did instead.

First, I cut the extra part off, being careful to cut a couple of rows below where I wanted the final edge.



Then I unraveled to the first whole row, and then hooked the stitches closed, somewhat like how one binds off. Here is the process halfway done, from the backside.


A is where I have hooked the stiches closed, so it wouldn't unravel any more, and B is the part that I was still preparing to hook.

Below is how it looks all chained. I tied the side yarns together to keep them secured.


The chained edge is a little tight, but when I pick up for the edging, I'll pick up one row in where it is looser. However, now the edge is stable, and I'll weave in the tied off part in the back.

Elizabeth Zimmermann was right: I am the boss of my knitting.

Friday, April 16, 2010

Time to Go Darker

Yes, time to add a vampire....or a serial killer...or something else on the emo side.

Okay, really, just time to start using the darker yarns in my colorway.

Current progress:


It is starting to come together.

I am doing the segments in various knit-and-purl patterns, to add some complexity and keep it interesting.

Here are some detail views.


Monday, April 12, 2010

Progress

Here is where it is:


It is going well, but I think I need to bring in more color pretty quickly.



In true life, the bits of color show more than the pictures indicate. It has been fun figuring out the various pieces, trying to keep the design balanced, and thinking of something different to do, to keep it interesting.

I'm going to have to watch that the proportions don't grow, by having me pick up more stitches than I should, which is my tendency.

Saturday, April 10, 2010

New One Started

This one is going to be all about the middle.


The middle yarn is a glittery colorful yarn, a gift from my Denver relatives.



My friend Sandy put together a subdued colorway for me, and then when she added this yarn to it, the combination came alive.



I took an entire two days to get this one properly started, because I was trying to visualize where I was going to go. My initial idea was to have the center segment, and then other segments wrapping around it, but I also kept seeing long pieces with the center yarn showing through in between the ridges.

Finally, it occurred to me that I could have both. When I get a little further away from the middle, I'll start adding bits of the middle yarn as contrast.

The middle will have the lightest yarns in the colorway, shading out to the darker yarns at the edges. Each segment will have another yarn sweetening it, so the lightest will have the mediums as contrast, and the mediums will have the darks. The darks will probably have each other, with the middle yarn showing up here and there.


I'm going to call it Mirror, or something like that.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Fourth 2010 One Done

Here is the final form of the Spiral.


It came out faintly oval, around 4 x 5 feet. It probably could have been blocked out round, but I decided not to block it on wires because it was already big enough.

I'm pleased with it. This is one that looks nicer in person, because of the different textures which don't show up so much in the pictures.

Here are some details.




This was done in the same colorway as my previous one, because I enjoyed the colors so much.


But the next one will be a new colorway, since I now have several pre-created ones taunting me with their color goodness.

Saturday, April 3, 2010

It Shouldn't Be Smiling

Well, it didn't work out quite how I imagined.  Here is current progress:


I thought I could just keep knitting on either side, and the circular sides would stack nicely, making a straight edge at the top and bottom. Instead, my knitting is smiling at me.


Now what do I do? How do I use what I already have? (Well, that's why I call it Conditional Knitting.)

What I finally decided was to try to fill in these areas and then start knitting around the entire piece. Instead of making this piece into a rectangular oblong, the final piece will be circular.

At least, that's the current theory and hope.

Here is what I'm doing.



I picked up along the part that was essentially straight (it turned out to be 36 stitches at my gauge), and then I'm knitting one from the side each time I get there. Since I have three stripes of eight stitches to fill in, I will add 24 stitches on either side. By my count, I will have a few stitches over 400 for the final entire circle, so 8 segments of 50 stitches, give or take a few, and then I'll continue the normal circle increase of 8 stitches in every other round.

Again, in theory. Here is another picture of the middle, which I really like. Let's end on a happy note.