For Good Causes

I've been touched, awed, and amazed recently by a number of knitting designers who have created e-books that support various great causes. I guess my awakening to this was Juniper Moon Farms' The Shepherd and the Shearer, which raised money for the training of artisan sheep shearers. (and no, I haven't finished my Shepherd sweater yet. I took a break from it, but I'll get going again soon, I promise.)

The Yarn Harlot proved to the world the power that a multitude of knitters can wield and the good that it can do when she rounded us up to form Knitters Without Borders, which to date has contributed well over $1,000,000 to Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres. Really, with a statement like this, how can you resist?

By any North American standard, I am not a wealthy woman. Still, there has never been a day that I went hungry or wondered where I would put my kids to bed. I choose between my clothing in the morning and at least once a week I throw away food that went bad before we could eat it, buying fresh without even feeling a pang of decadence. I have never wanted for anything more than "more" of what I already have. I am...to most of the people that the tsunami effected, obscenely wealthy...
As are you.

You could go right now and make a donation. Report it to the Harlot so she can roll it into the KWB total. We'll wait right here till you're done.

.....

So here, for your consideration, are some recent e-publications that will raise funds for some much more obscure, yet wonderful causes:

Kate Davies is just one of many designers who have contributed to a pattern collection to support the Gawthorpe Collection, a British charity dedicated to the preservation and exhibition of Miss Rachel Kay-Shuttleworth's textile collection and sharing the skills and techniques represented there. The pattern collection is available on Ravelry here, and, I'm sure, from the designers and other online sources.

Next is Deb Robson, whom you may be acquainted with from her magnum opus The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook as well as The Field Guide to Fleece and other works. To fund a year's study for her in Shetland learning all she can about Shetland sheep, Donna Druchanas has headed up a group of designers to produce a pattern collection e-book, Dreaming of Shetland.

 Besides the patterns, there are little essays by some of the designers giving background on their patterns and/or their relationship with Deb Robson. The most touching, to me, came from Priscilla Gibson-Roberts, who, despite problems with vision and dexterity, wanted to contribute a pattern for a mini decorative sock. When she threw her 000 needles and lace-weight yarn across the room in frustration, a friend came up with a sample she had knitted many years ago. Dreaming of Shetland is available from the book's web site linked above, from Ravelry, and elsewhere.

My third offering is from Cat Bordhi, one of the most amazing and creative minds in knitting today. If I get started on what she's done with shapes and techniques, we'll never get down to her e-book, which is both a new expression of her genius and a stunning cause to support. Here--I'll let Cat explain it all to you:

A gentler way to treat cancer AND warm ingenious slippers for the whole family? What are you waiting for? Get the book from Cat or Ravelry. 

And finally, one of the many advantages of these e-books is that you can, upon purchase, have them included in your Ravelry library, to be downloaded to any device, anywhere you are. Ain't the Interwebs grand?!?!?!?!

HAT, Two, Three, Four.......

'Ten-SHUN! (oooo, knitting pun! 'tenshun, tension, geddit?)  Hats for the Alaska Mountain Hut auction are on the march! Here is my second one:

A Sixareen Kep, (almost) as designed by Kate Davies, and made in the specified yarn, Shetland Heritage. It uses all the current colors of this new yarn, made of 100% Shetland fiber, and spun in the worsted manner instead of the modern woolen, then dyed in traditional colors to recreate the material of historic knitted items in the Shetland Islands.

To explain the "almost" above: In the fair isle section, 3 rows too late, I discovered that I omitted a change from the brown to burgundy. Rather than rip that far back, I just carried on, repeating the error in the top half of the pattern in order to stay symmetrical. To me, this seems to look ok and not a big deal. 2 other changes were intentional. The lozenges at top and bottom of the fair isle were one stitch off of symmetry with the center design. I pondered and pondered the situation, and could see no purpose, aesthetic or structural, served by this offset, so I moved it over one. And then to balance my color blooper, I made the i-cord bindoff at the bottom in burgundy. (It was supposed to be brown.) All in all, I think it looks very much like the designer's original intention, but I hope Ms. Davies can find it in her heart to forgive me if it's not.

I learned some things in making my kep--never done Turkish Cast on before, but I really like it. It made it very easy to extend the lining when it proved too short, and seems like it would be good to use with toe-up socks, shawls, and in other situations. I had used attached i-cord before (see Viola), but never for the edge of a hat. Works great!

Best of all, making the hat was a sort of exaggerated swatch for what I really want to make for myself, a Sixareen Cape. And I not only have got gauge (or 'ten-SHUN!), but will be more wide awake with color changes.

But before I do that, there's at least one more hat to make for the auction:

Can you guess what it is?

P.S. What's a sixareen? Look it up and see one in action.

Blinding Insight In the Lamplight

In the depth of winter in Alaska one thinks a good deal about light. There's plenty of darkness to think about it in. Cranking along on the WSC, it suddenly struck me that much as I adore seeing the subtle colors of this thing as it develops, it's easy to work on because there are only two strands in each row, Light and Dark. And as long as you can keep your eesit for this row distinct from the ball of cream for that row, it's 3 lights, 1 dark, 1 light, 1 dark, 5 lights and no bother as long as you've got the right yarn balls for the right rows.

Now, the Shetland Islands and Fair Isle, where this brand of knitting was concocted or perfected, is on a similar lattitude to Alaska. And for sure it was developed in a world that was lit only by fire, right? In wintertime knitters were sitting by a peat-burning fireplace, an oil or a kerosene lamp. Less light even than all the bulbs and tubes burning in my house. (And I still can't see the colors properly except in daylight.)

Here comes the Blinding Insight, which I'm sure has occurred to you by now, too: The majority of knitting time would have been in the winter when there were fewer outdoor chores to do. Wouldn't it have been a natural thing to limit your colorwork to two per row, a Dark and a Light, so that you could carry on without daylight and have fewer chances for mistakes?

This idea is suddenly so totally obvious that I don't want to check knitting histories to find out who has already thought of it. I don't care. It came to me independently, as it did to the first fair isle knitters (probably), and I like to feel a kinship with them as they sat before the fire, chatting, telling and hearing stories, or singing, and I sit before the dvd film with an electric lamp on my work, while we all create a dance of color in wool.

PS: Scandinavian knitting. Two colors, dark and light. Think about it.

PPS: I'm now halfway through the second pattern repeat!

Progress in the Afternoon

When the light got bright this afternoon I just had to mark the progress of the WSC. Crunching on toward the end of the first pattern repeat. And once I got outside with camera and knitting, it filled me with a crazy amount of pleasure to see how great the colors are and how totally appropriate the Winter Sunset Cardigan looked set in the snow against the spruces in the late winter afternoon. Melanie Elizondo, all is forgiven.

Department of Corrections

I nearly called this post "Smack Upside the Head" or "Duh". Why I didn't think of looking for the errata for this book I can't imagine. Head to the publisher's web site and there it is, a pdf ready to download. And confirmation of the flubs in all 3 charts, and a bunch of fixes for text that describes the armholes and armhole steeks. Goodness, am I glad I found this before I got any further!

So--lesson learned. Check for errata before beginning a complex project. This should tone down the dialogue a good deal, but it's still no substitute for thinking through the instructions of a pattern and having a little mental chat with the designer anyway.

And take a look--I'm out of the border and into the main pattern!

Dialogue in the Bleak Midwinter

These bleak midwinter days sure are hard on an Alaska knitblogger's photography. There are only about 3 hours in the middle of the day when it's bright enough to take photos that, even with a flash, show your knitting decently. So it's not always possible to get a picture of every stage that you'd like to illustrate. Ponder the irony of a pattern called Winter Sunset.


Reader, I've cast on. 346 stitches. And I commenced the 16 rows of bottom facing. And then I contemplated what the pattern had asked me to do and cussed at it. (This happened at night, ergo no photo.) What the pattern wanted was a 2-color checkerboard garter stitch. Really? I checked the book and rechecked it about 43 times. Can you think of a FATTER fabric than 2-color checkerboard garter stitch? For a facing? Melanie Elizondo (the designer), are you kidding me? What you want in a facing (well, certainly what I want) is something slightly smaller than the outside of the sweater, knit possibly in a smaller gauge (check) with fewer stitches (check) that will lie flat inside out of sight, doing its job of stabilizing and weighting the edge without calling attention to itself. If ever there was a formula for a foofy flaring bottom edge it is this garter stitch inside with stocking stitch outside. So rip it, rip it, rip it and cast it all on again and do it in checkerboard stocking stitch. I was tempted to be really radical and do an even thinner single color stocking stitch (or stripes?) but decided on this middle path.

Next I realized that the pattern does not call for what always serves turned edges well, namely a purl row to define said edge. At about this point I realized that Winter Sunset Cardigan is not going to be a pattern, but a dialogue between Melanie E and me. She will present her ideas and I will evaluate them for reasonableness and liklihood of good results, and then proceed with what experience tells me is a reasonable course. This is not going to be a quick knit.

Darker shade of pale

This is old news, but I still want to show off, so bear with me. The items above were my contributions to the faaaaabulous prizes in the attendance promotion for one of my water aerobics classes. The prizes have to be something you've made yourself or gotten for free. Scarves are a synthetic pink/blue/silver ribbon yarn, two furry ones (they are so fluffy they almost look like real fur) made from and elann.com eyelash, and a black kettle-dyed merino one. Also in the group is the linen string bag you've seen previously, plus a water bottle from I can't remember where, a cookbook that I got as a prize elsewhere, and a pair of commercial snowman socks that are cute, but wouldn't fit my clodhoppers. They are all by now gone to their new homes, to ladies who have been maintaining their committment to fitness!
On to the real reason for the post. More swatcherama for the Winter Sunset fair isle cardigan. I took Lori's advice, bit the bullet, and got me the original background yarn. You see above the three tan colors I have now swatched. On the left the KnitPicks Palette in Oyster, on the right KnitPicks Palette in Camel heather, and in the middle the winnah, Jamieson's Shetland Spindrift 2-Ply in Eesit, all photographed on a background of snow for best contrast with the ultimate white. It even looks like the gauge will still work with the mixed yarns; I will know for sure when the washed and blocked new swatch is dry.

Nerdlinks: Eesit is one of the wonderful Shetland names for natural fleece color. Others are Moorit, Shaela, Awt, Emsket, Mooskit, Sholmit. The yarns are here; examples of the fleeces here.

I promise that the next time I bore you with this sweater I will have actually cast on! Aren't you thrilled?

The Ptarmigan Goes Fibrous

For a long time I have followed knitting blogs, laughed at, learned from, been appalled by, bored by, frustrated by, energized by, inspired by, and enlightened by knitting blogs. For almost as long a time I have itched to have my own. Now that blogs are becoming passe and twitterbook and inyourfacespace are all the rage, here I am finally knitblogging. Thank goodness my self esteem is not founded on being the vanguard of the latest trend.

I pledge to myself (and you, O mythical reader) that I will post at least once a week and that said self-imposed structure will surely help me document my projects and egg me on to challenge and achievement with this craft.

For starters we have my Big Project To Be, the Winter Sunset Cardigan from Jamieson's Shetland Knitting Book 1. I have been inspired by FAIR*ISLE to do another big fair isle project. Trouble is, I am too cheap to use the original real Shetland yarns. That would be at least $130 plus shipping, I figure. Only about $30 (plus shipping) to use Knit Pick's Palette yarn, and Palette is softer, not as scratchy as Shetland wool. But of course, Palette does not come in the same shades as the original yarn. That and potential difference in gauge mean serious swatching. So I have swatched. Seriously. That's them in the photo at the top.

The big problem is the main background color--none of the Palette options are really satisfactory. The original Shetland is a color named Eesit, a heathered tan named for one of the many natural color variations of Shetland sheep. Clockwise, from upper left, I have tried Oyster Heather, Marble Heather, Camel Heather, and Iris Heather. The photo makes Oyster look like a match to the photo, but it's not. Oyster is not different enough from the Cream contrast stripe (despite what the photo makes it look like). What I need is something between Oyster and Camel, but it's just not available.

Swatching has helped with a couple of things, though. I know I need to go one needle size down to get gauge, and I like Oyster for the light contrast stripe in the darker colors. I still haven't made up my mind about the main color yet. Camel? I really don't want such a brown sweater. Iris is ok, and I really like the variation in the heather, but the other contrast colors (aquas) don't work well with it. Marble is probably the best of the lot. Knitted up it looks more of a steel blue-grey, darker than I'd like, but the aquas really pop with it.

Thank goodness I'm not in a rush--I can let this all marinate a little while longer. There's plenty of pre-Xmas knitting to be done before I can even think about casting Winter Sunset on. What do you think?