Knitting With Granny LJ

Good morning.

I have been asked about taking out stitches that are on circular needles.  Taking out stitches in a knitted work is tricky.  When I first started knitting I would discover a mistake and say a few rude things to the project I was working on and tear the whole thing out and start again.  I really do not like starting things over.  But I was still tearing out projects that I discovered a mistake in when I started shopping at Yarn for All Seasons.

Dodie, my friend and mentor, taught me how to tink.  It is as important as learning to knit and purl.  It is easy and a skill that every knitter, in my opinion, should have.

Tinking:

Examine the piece you are working on and find the problem.  The problem is, of course, what needs to be taken out and reknit.  I usually mark the problem with a stitch marker.  If the candidate for thinking is in the same row you may want to skip the marker.  If it is several rows back, trust me, mark the place.

Put the point of the left hand needle in the stitch below the row you had been working on.  Pull the stitch onto the left hand needle and slip the upper stitch (the one on the right hand needle) off and pull the yarn so that the upper stitch is gone.  

Because the word  “purl”  comes out “lrup”  I use  the word tinking for taking out both knitting and purling. 

The one thing to remember is to get those lower row stitches back onto the left needle in the same direction they were knit or purled onto the right needle.  Otherwise, when you get to replacing the stitches, they are difficult to re-knit or re-purl.   And those re-knit/re-purled stitches  are visible in the finished work.  I have done that frequently in my early knitting days and have ended up taking  out work that I wanted to avoid taking out by the tinking.  Some of my more frustrating knitting moments. 

So that is tinking.  I work on circular needles, as I have said before, and switch to double point needles for topping off.  I have tinked on the double points, too.  And the method is the same as on the circular. 

Until I learned to tink, I was seriously considering crocheting my caps because crochet is so easy to pull out and redo.  But thanks to Dodie, I can now tink my projects, if necessary, as well as I can knit  or purl them in the first place. 

Happy knitting.  Granny LJ

Good morning.

For those who do not know me, I was originally a Salemite.  I happened to be born in Seattle because The War was on and that is where Dad was stationed.  But if there hadn’t been a war, I would have been born in Salem.

When I was a kid, the Thomas K. Woolen Mill still existed.  Big and red and making wool fabrics.  There was also a retail store there that faced out onto 12th Street.  I went there with my parents one time, so Dad could pick out fabric for a suit.   Somewhere along the line the Mill closed and stood empty for most of my life in Salem.  Then a while back, some historically significant houses were to be torn down in some sort of city improvement plan. However, somebody (or several somebodies) opted to have the houses moved near the old woolen mill and a some others polished up the woolen mill itself and started giving tours.  And so the Mission Mill Museum was born. 

A day or so ago, I mentioned the yarn shop that was in the Mission Mill complex many years ago.  The other day I found out it was more than 10 years ago.  And, how did I find this out, you ask.

Because the owner of a new yarn store that has opened in the Mission Mill complex emailed me in response to my Blog page on the beginning of my yarnaholic years.  It is called Teaselwick Wools.  What an wonderful name.  And there is wool yarn  in the old woolen mill’s shops again. 

This week I am going to be working on a list of places for folks to get yarns and have the list ready for the market and show this month.  Although I have not  been to the shop in the Mission Mill complex I will be going there the next time I am in Salem, for sure. 

It was one of those events that brings a smile to my face and makes my head nod.  Lately there have been too many businesses who want to knock down some of the historical places in Salem and build parking lots.  Am glad to see that the Mission Mill is going to be breathing a bit of history  back into Salem with Teaselwick Wools.  My best to the owner, Tracy. 

Have a great day.  Granny LJ

Good morning.

English is a great language.  It takes a little bit from here or from there and makes new words.  Rather like moss growing on a stone.  For instance the word alcoholic is, as everyone knows, the word for a person who drinks too much alcohol.  Well, our English took that word and incorporated the end “-holic” into the language.  And now we can have all sorts of -holics.  I have known people who were sugarholics, gismoholics and on and on.  I have a cousin who is a toolholic.  My father was an odds-and-endsholic.  I swear the man never threw a thing away.   My younger brother says he does not have a -holic problem, but I think he may be kidding himself.  You should see his garage. 

Me?  I’d like to say that I don’t have any -holics, but I can’t and continue to consider myself an honorable person. 

I am a bookaholic and a yarnaholic.  (I’m sure I have more -holics, but will not discuss any now, thank you very much.)

When I was a kid I was at least a year younger than the other kids in the neighborhood.  They all went to school and learned to read.  I was the only one I knew who could not read.  My mother got me a Dick and Jane book and I learned to read “Run, Dick, run.”  “See funny Jane.”  “Come, Spot, come.”   It really wasn’t  all that much, but I could read.  The next step was to get a library card and I was reading everything I could find — in the way of horse stories and dog stories. Later I advanced to Sue Barton, Student Nurse, and followed her career until she got into administration stories. 

The yarnaholic time of my life started many, many years later.  When I started knitting caps, I got yarn from BiMart and some plastic (and bent) knitting needles from my mother.  I would make one cap at a time and even do the finish work before I cast on a new cap. 

Then I went into the yarn store that was in the Mission-Mill Museum complex and discovered the book on knitted tams.  I got it.  And I got yarn for a simple cap for a good friend of mine.  It was almost her  birthday. While I was there, I found some really gorgeous yarn in a rusty colored brown.  I had no idea what to do with it, but like the book, it called out to me.  So I took it home too.  The next trip to the yarn store at the Mission-Mill  netted me some metal straight needles, size 8, and enough yarn to make caps for several family members for Christmas. 

Thus  a yarnaholic was born.  What I did not realize at the time I gave into my yarnaholism was that it also gave me a great opportunity to feed my bookaholism.  You would not believe the number of books that are out there to teach you the ultimate in knitting techniques.  I was on cloud-9.  I could go into one store and feed both my -holics at once. 

What I think is that everybody has a -holic or two.  I am delighted with mine.  I hope you are with yours, too.

Happy knitting.   Granny LJ

Good morning.

Had a great week last week.  The weather has been almost balmy — and is balmy, compared to what is happing in Des Moines (where my eldest son and his family live) and New York City (where my second son and his wife live).  We have had sun shine, not much wind, and tides that are so low, it feels like you could walk to China.  As a result, Karen and I have been getting Parker and Red out for very long wonderful walks. 

I have been knitting my fingers to the quick, though, after the walks.  Karen and I found out that we are juried into a show in March.  This one is in Yachats, at the Commons, and it is over 40 years old.  The organizers have taken trouble to keep the show pretty exclusive.  We sent out the application on a kind of a dare without much hope of getting in to it.  We got notification last week that we are in it.  What a morale boost.

Enough news.  I was recently asked how I make a cap with eyelash yarn.  I do them as inside-out (IO) caps because of the peculiar way I knit.   The IO caps started out as a bit of an accident.  I was working a varigated brown Splash yarn with a coordinating brown Galway.  I had tried to do a cap out of only the Splash and it was pretty floppy and not very good for beach walking.  So with this cap I put it with the sturdier yarn and was knitting away.  Because of the goofy way I knit (I’m self taught, remember?) all the Splash yarn was on the inside of the cap. 

Needless to say, I was pretty grumpy because I thought I would  have to pull all the fibers of the Splash back through to the outside of the cap with a crochet hook.  I had done that on a couple of earlier caps and pretty much resented the time it took to get all those fibers back to the outside.  Well, the brown Splash and Galway cap got  topped.  I put it in the basket of “to be finished” work, and went to work on a new cap. 

When I finally got to doing the finish work, I grabbed up the brown Galway and Splash cap and turned it inside-out  to start working in the ends.  And I had one of those “No DUH!”  moments.  I did not have to pull all the ends of the Splash through.  I just had to finish the cap as if the inside were the outside.  And the 7-point top-off really worked well inside out.  And thus the Inside-Out cap was born.

If you are interested in doing a cap with an eyelash yarn, I would suggest that you do a simple watch cap alternating 2 rows of the eyelash with 2 rows of the base yarn.  The two rows of the base yarn give the cap a sturdiness that the eyelash lacks and the eyelash essentially covers the 2 rows of the base yarn. 

When the cap is knit and topped, do the finish work  on whichever side of the cap has the most eyelash yarn showing. 

I have also found that  making a chemo cap this way is better, too.  When I started chemo caps, I was just making them out of the Chinchilla, a Berroco yarn.   This method  gave them a floppy, almost too soft feel.  Once I discovered the IO cap method, I started using a base yarn for chemo caps, too.  And I am more satisfied with the outcome of the chemo caps with this method, too. 

Try it. I am sure you will like it. 

Happy knitting.  Granny LJ

Good morning:

Knitting is filled with all sorts of very necessary abbreviations.  Some include:  K2tog  aka knit two stitchs  together;  YO aka yarn over; P aka purl and the list goes on and on.  But I think that most crafts have their own special terminology.  I know that a rock-hound uncle of mine introduced me to a rock called leaverite.  I was very interested in finding some leaverite until I realized I was walking on leaverite and that most of the river’s rock bed was composed of leaverite. For those who are not rock hounds leaverite is the rock you leave right where you find it. 

As noted above, knitting has its own incredible abbreviations.  One that still has me kind of bewildered is the SSK.  Am still looking at pictures in the back of magazines trying to figure that one out. I can do an SK just fine.  That is the stitch where you slip one stitch from the left needle to the right needle, knit the next stitch and then slip the first stitch back over the knitted stitch.   But that SSK still  has me bafffled.

Two really important knitting abbreviations that you will probably never find in a knitting magazine or knitting instruction book are:  WIP and UKO.

The WIP is the easiest to grasp.  It is the project that is on your needles or the Work in Progress.  Now a lot of knitters, I know, have only one WIP.  The table on the left side of my work chair is my WIP table.  At this precise moment, I have a WIP table reaching close to the height of Mt Everest.  This is because I have several sets of circular needles and have a cap cast on to all of them  most of the time.  Along with the projects are the directions for the various WIPs.  And along with the WIPs and the directions for them are the latest additions to my yarn stash, like the beautiful rainbow colored yarn I got at the Winterfest Market last weekend.  That yarn is so gorgeous that I just want to keep looking at it.  Eventually, I will find the right pattern for it.  The colorway of the yarn is pretty busy with all the color changes.  But I think I will probably make it up in a busy pattern that keeps the eyes  bouncing. 

At any rate, that is WIP. 

The next abbreviations necessary to a lot of knitters — myself in particular — is UKO.  Translated out of knitting and into English is Unidentified Knitted Object.  I have not a clue how many knitters have UKOs.  I have a lot.  I created one last weekend when I was  at the market.  Thought I had an idea for using some left over yarn and worked hard on it all day Saturday and Sunday.  Yesterday, I took it out of my little project  bag and pulled the needles out and cast on something else.   It was just that the longer I worked on the UKO the worse it got.  Eventually,  I’ll take out the stitches, rewind the yarn and let it rest and then cast it on in another cap.  The one I worked on so diligently all weekend was just too ugly for words  — the only thing reasonable to do with it was UKO the thing. 

Happy knitting.  Granny LJ

Good morning.

I have not lost much weight at Weight Watchers since I started.  But I have found a new friend.  She came to the meeting one Thursday in a hand knit cap.  I am always interested in caps when I see them, so I took myself by the hand and walked across the room and asked if she had made the cap.  She had not made it, but was learning to knit. 

A week or so later, she was wearing a beautiful off-white cap in a simple lace pattern.  I asked her again, and she said, yes she had made the cap.  After the meeting we talked a little more about knitting.  She is a new knitter and like a lot of new knitters has several projects going.  She told me that she wanted to do a cap like the off-white but a bit smaller for her daughter.  I suggested she cast on 92 stitches instead of the more than 100 stitches the pattern called for.  We talked for a little bit longer about knitting. 

Then, I found out about the Spin-In.  At the next meeting I asked if she would like to go.  She said she would. 

So, last Saturday, off we went to  Newport and the Spin-In. My plan was to introduce my new friend to some old friends and give her a chance to see another side of things.  I was NOT going to get any yarn.  I was going to look and  see if  next year’s Spin-In might be a venue for selling my caps.  And I was NOT going to get any yarn. 

We got to the Spin-In about 1 p.m. and there were 2 or 3 big circles of  with 10 to 20 spinners per circle.  Around the edge of the room were the vendors.  The first person I saw was Elsie, a spinner I know from a couple of summers ago when Karen and I did the Saturday Market in Newport.  I introduced Elise to my new friend and we looked briefly at the rovings she had in her space.  A couple spaces to the left were Arlene and Lyle, my friends from Crafts on the Coast.  I introduced her to them.  Arlene was spinning and Lyle was selling his small area rugs.   

My friend and I visited a bit with Lyle and Arlene and then wandered off to look at the other spaces.  About that time, the Spin-In organizers drew a number for a door prize.  Arlene won a beautiful skein of handspun, undyed Shetland.  The color is hard to define.  Sort of a white with strands of gray and brown through it.  It is gorgeous.  I promised Arlene I would have it done up by Crafts On the Coast in May. 

As my friend and I wandered around the edge of the room, I found a space with some of the most wonderful, incredible varigated lavender, purple, red and blue yarn.  It was so soft that I wanted to sped the rest of the day rubbing it against my cheek. But I bought some instead.   We managed to get through the rest of the vendor area without finding any more things that I could not live without. 

We saw Kristy at the sign-in table and I introduced her to my friend and we talked a minute.  Kristy is going to be at Winterfest next weekend.  Told her that I had one skein of the yarn I got from her in January done up and would be showing it in the February show. 

My friend and I started toward the door then.  I think she was a little overwhelmed by it all.  I know I was.  And then I got hooked in again.  By the door to the parking lot was a booth that displayed the most incredible lavender/burgundy colored yarn.  It is just about 20 yards shy of the 200 yards needed to make a cap. I tried to talk myself out of getting it, and lost the argument.  So when I left the Spin-In I was possessed with the makings for 3 great caps. 

My friend was a bit more provident than I was and when we left the parking lot I suggested that we stop at Yarn for All Seasons on our way home.  I had spent all my cash, but I wanted to introduce my friend to that shop  ….    Well, more about that stop tomorrow.

Good morning.

I love doing the shows and markets.  Besides the obvious perk of being able to show my work and earn some money for new yarn, I get to meet people and can talk knitting with lots of them.

I met a lady at the show this month.  She is from Portland.  She is a beginning knitter.  She has made some socks and is starting to learn how to do a cap.  We swapped knitting histories.  She is taking classes and I, of course, started by looking at pictures in a Seventeen magazine.  I have taken a class and made a tiny sock for a person with only 1 toe.  Not very successful, obviously.

In her cap making class, the instructor was having her work on double point needles on about 72 stitches and she could not see how a cap on 72 stitches would fit an adult head.  I told her how I make caps, and the stitch counts and the needle size and switching to double points for top off. 

I did not want to say crappy things about a knitting teacher I did not know and had no idea what her goals for the students were.  So I launched my little monolog  about the several ways there are to knit:  Continental, English, Near East, Elizabeth Zimmerman, and all the rest of us. 

With the exception of my  German-Swiss aunt shrieking at me over my first project and some quiet and good instruction and encouragement from my friend Dodie, I am really pretty much self taught.  And what that means is  that this way IS my way.  And I told this very nice beginner to do it her way.  I told her about the pattern I saw that started by casting on 1 stitch on one double pointed needle and then increasing until the  top was on 4 double points and then working down to the ribbing at  the brim.

I have no idea why some patterns are written in this complicated way.    I know that I have seen some cap pictures that made the cap look like it was on steroids.  I have seen cap patterns where you start on straight needles and work back and forth with the ribbing on one end of the needle and the top off at the other end of the needle.  In addition, this format leaves that seam up the back of the cap. 

However, I told the woman at the show that there is no wrong way to make a cap.  You simply find the way that works for you and knit and enjoy.  

Now, if any one out there reading this knows how to do an SSK, I would love some instruction …

Happy knitting.  Granny LJ

Good morning.

Most of the shows I have done here on the coast have been pretty good experiences. The vendors are vending or cruising to get acquainted with other vendors, or working on their art/craft to show the customers how their work is created. 

I’m sort of in between.  I like to cruise some and spend the time at our space working on a cap as well as greeting potential customers.  With both of us working the space  we have it covered because I can show Karen’s work as well as she can show mine. 

But this last weekend, we had a vendor who definitely fit the category of “not-so-good.” 

She was in the Waldport summer market last year.  She always arrived late.  She came with the candles she had made and at least one child and sometimes both her kids.  I noticed  she spent more time taking care of her kids than her space.   But that is what a mother does when she has 2 kids in diapers.   I was never close enough to her space that I was much bothered by her and the children and really did not pay too much attention to them.

Well, she was at the market last weekend, and even an enclosed space as large as a gym is not big enough for some things.   She came late (we opened at 10 a.m. and she got there about 11:30 a.m.) and had to have a table carried to her space.  She brought the older kid.  He was asleep while she set up.  

By the time she was set up, her son was awake and wanting to walk around and be a kid.   So she had to take him on a walk before she could start selling.  And she was doing candlemaking demonstrations — or trying to.  At one point she was cleaning  up spilled  red wax from the floor and her son was making loud protestations over something that did not suit him.  Toward the end of the day, a woman stopped by our space and I started talking to her.  She was a friend of the candle lady and would be working the space on Sunday while the candle lady and her family went to church. 

The next day, Karen had a phone call from the candle lady wanting more candles brought to the show from her space at Shorebirds.  So we gathered up the rest of her candles and took them to Yachats when we drove down.  We put the box in the candle lady’s space and left it. 

Her friend arrived and obligingly worked the space until noon, when the candle lady was supposed to be there.  However, she was a no-show.  All day long.  She did not call her friend or let anyone know that she was not going to work her space.  At 4 o’clock, tear down time, there was still no word from her.  

Well, since Sunday, the scuttlebutt is that she did not come back to the show because the  show’s organizer  advised her to leave her child at home and concentrate on working her space.  She had apparently shut off her phone on Sunday so no one could contact her. The friend working the space was sure she had been in a car wreck  But what she was doing was hiding out. The last rumor we heard about her is that she was going to leave her kids with her parents and go to Haiti and join the rescue work there. 

Knowing the organizer of the market as I do, my guess is, if the candle lady  does not go to Haiti, she will have to sell her candles someplace else.  Her  behavior was a rotten example to both vendors and potential customers.  And I think she will be looking for a new friend, too.  

Well, I have a bunch of lovely lavender and purple yarns to roll and I need to get going.

Happy knitting.   Granny LJ

Good morning.

Well, the first show if the new year is history.  Karen  got 1 special order and the probability of 3 more.  Her special orders are for pet portraits.  Though she did not make any cash money, the special orders will generate money a little later. 

I actually made 3 cap sales.   I had 1 the first day and 2 the second day. So we  paid for our space and did a lot of   talking to other vendors.  A show is really made by its vendors.  And for the most part, this show was a good one –everyone working at their space and getting out and around a little bit and making friends and looking at the work of the other  vendors. 

To my great excitement, a local spinner was at the show.  So the first day,  I got  200 yards of a wonderful hot pink yarn and spent the rest of the day getting it wound into a workable ball and casting on and kitting the base of a new cap.   During that time, I sold a cap.  It was the one Noro Silk Garden cap that I had left.  I felt pretty good after that sale, because that sale paid for our space at the show.

The next morning, I cleaned out all my various money sources — I mean, who really needs bread and butter when there are great yarns waiting to be brought home and turned into incredible caps.  So, the first thing the morning of the second day, I  bought over 400 yards of a lovely pale lavender she had dyed and spun. 

Then, who would have thought it — I sold 2 more caps.  So a trotted off to the spinner’s space and bought 200 yards each of a burgundy yarn and a grape purple yarn.  And, guess what folks?  The three are complimentary colors.  So I now have the  yarn to make 2 really gorgeous 3-color caps, with enough yarn left over for a 3rd cap out of the pale lavender. 

I have no errands to run today so I will get my exercise in and get to knitting.  I sure wish knitting burned as much energy and adipose tissue as jumping jacks.  Oh well, it was a great weekend, and I will probably write about it all week.

Happy knitting.  Granny LJ

Good morning.

Remember?  I wrote on my Blog on 01/09 about how I came to be a capper — the story about knitting 2 or even 4 parts of a piece before it is done.  I have often thought of myself as a “little Johnny-one-note”  with respect to knitting.  And have even apologized for not doing more than the caps.  However, last night I had a moment of definition and justification.

One thing nobody ever tells you about hitting old age  is the problem with sleep.  For as long as I can remember I have gone to bed with a book — or several books — and read until I could no longer see the words, then turned off the light and slept.  Lately, that has not  really worked very well.  I have to take pills at a certain time at night, so some of my reading is done between the first set of pills and the second set.  And then I read a little bit more and eventually nod off.   But in the last year or so, I have not been able to go to sleep after the second set of pills is done. I find that I have to get up, drink some milk and go back to bed if I want get any sleep. 

OK, that said:  Last night was a little different.  Instead of playing computer games while I drank my milk, I sat in my knitting chair and grabbed up a knitting magazine that was near.  It happened to be a copy of KnitSimple, the holiday issue of 2008.  I leafed through the magazine and looked at the projects and wondered again why a simple project like a cap needed to be complicated.  I wandered page by page through to the end of the magazine and on the final page was the column “Last Stitch.”  I still had half of my mug of milk left so I decided to read the article entitled “Process makes perfect”  by Laura Bristow. 

I read down to the second paragraph, still sipping my milk, and discovered a knitter after my own heart, almost.  She has the same “problem”  as I have.  She apparently knit a lot of socks for people with only one foot and mittens for people with only one hand, when she started knitting.  My German-Swiss ancestors rose up yelling in my head about the waste of time, waste of yarn  — the whole litany of reasons for not doing multi-faceted project — i.e. two mittens.  Please see my  earlier Blog entry. 

So now I KNOW.  I am a process knitter.  I really do enjoy  knitting  the caps.  I am all but gleeful when I cast on a new cap and try to envision the yarn becoming what I see in my mind.  I love working the body as the yarn actually becomes what I have visualized.  And topping off?  That is a giant “WOW!”  when everything looks like it should and even matches what I saw in my mind.  What is more, the ancestors are saying not a word about the work. 

Where things become, for me, a little unhinged is getting to the finish work, and the tagging,  and  logging each cap into my record  system.  But I grit my teeth and do the work, because I really love to see the caps when they are laid out for a show. 

So thank you, Laura Bristow, and KnitSimple for giving me a name for what I have been doing this past decade — I am a process knitter who makes beach-walk caps. 

Have a great day.  Happy knitting.  Granny LJ