Knitting With Granny LJ

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

Good morning.

This is going to be a rather exciting week.  Karen and I are getting ready for the first show of the new year – this coming weekend. We set up on Saturday morning at 8 a.m. and show all day Saturday and Sunday at the Commons in Yachats. 

When we went into Newport yesterday, we talked about the market and made a list of things we needed to do to get ready.  All of a sudden,  a no-brainer thing like getting set up took on a whole new perspective.  It is the first time we have done Winterfest and so we will not be in the same space as we have for Crafts on the Coast.  So we have to figure out how to make the best use of the space and make sure we have all bases covered like:  lunches made and taken along, money totes, projects to work on, change.  You name it.

Also this morning I downloaded an application and a copy of the regulations for the 40th Annual Yachats Original Arts and Crafts Fair.  We did it several years ago during that year when we were working every weekend at a show or a market.  To my great excitement, Karen has decided to work more on her art work and develop that aspect of her creativity.  So I will fill out the application for the show today and get it ready to drive down to the Yachats Chamber of Commerce this week.

I am looking foward to the markets and shows and I can hardly sit still.  Which is a problem, since what I do for the markets and shows requires sitting — a lot of it — and it is difficult to knit while hopping around like a little kid just before Christmas vacation.

I have been waking  up before my alarm lately, so I have decided to make good use of the time.  I have been working on a lace cap.  It is a pretty easy pattern and requires only Yarn Over, SK, and K2tog to create the lace.  The pattern is only an 11 stitch repeat.  I have had to tink it once because I was not paying attention to the pattern or the stitch count or something and ended up after the second row of the pattern with only 10 stitches where I should have had 11.  But it is now going along very well, and I have about 1 inch of the pattern done. 

Actually, lace is not as hard as I envisioned it and the result is an eye-feast when the cap is done.  I have decided to learn one kind of a lace stitch at a time.  I can do an SK without any difficulty, but am still stymied by the SSK process.  Will work on it later. 

Hope you have a great day.  Happy knitting.  Granny LJ

Good morning.

I have had the question come up about making a career out of knitting — as in how to.

I am not really a very good person to ask about careers in knitting. Those of you who have read my earlier blog entries know that I sort of stumbled into this capping career. 

First let me say that I am not sure that a younger person could make a career knitting.  Knitting is more of a cottage craft and the income is so variable and unpredictable that I would not recommend it as career opportunity.  Knitting and/or crafting is a great way to express your artistic side and bring in a little money while doing it.  Don’t expect to get rich, because except in rare occasions does getting rich happen.

That said, this is how I do it. 

I selected caps because I know myself well enough to know that if I did sweaters, I would probably do a back and move on to the back of another sweater.  I mean, with sweaters you have to do 2 of everything…. A front AND a back, 2 sleeves that also have a front and a back.   Mittens and socks are the same — you have to make 2 mittens and 2 socks.  And I know that I would make one mitten or one sock and never get to the other one.  I tried making long straight things that end up being mufflers.  Those were totally boring and I really do not like working on straight needles. 

I settled on caps because people only  have 1 head, I like to work in really wonderful yarns and I can work in those wonderful yarns without exhausting my budget getting enough yarn to do a larger project.  A cap takes only about 200 yards of yarn. And the left-over yarns from one cap project can be used in another cap project.  Caps are limitless.  There is no end to what can be done with 200 yards of yarn and a pair of circular needles. So I have always told myself and anyone else who would listen that when I ran out of cap ideas, I would try knitting something else.

I try to knit at least 4 hours a day.  I have set up this schedule because, given my Creaky Body Syndrome (CBS), those 4 hours are when I am most alert and focused.  I work in  some  patterns that are pretty complicated, and alternate those with simple projects like guy caps. 

My record keeping is as easy as I can make it.  Right now I am experimenting with 3 x 5 cards which give me the cap number, and where the cap is located. 

I sell my caps at markets and shows and at Shorebirds.  As noted above, the sales are really sporadic and one time you go to a market and sell nothing and the next time you sell maybe 3 or 4.  It is unpredictable. And if I were making the caps my sole source of income, I would not need to be going to Weight Watchers. 

I am retired and so I have a bit of income each  month from other sources and I am able to put my earnings from sales back into  yarn and have a pretty good sized yarn stash. 

Also, I live in a county, Lincoln County, which runs real high to retired folks and it has 2 good connections to the Willamette Valley, which  adds up to  lots of tourists in the summer and fall months.  Not only does this mean customers, it also means that the Lincoln County retired people who have been waiting until retirement to do that thing that they have always wanted to do (wood carving, furniture making, herbal remedies, jewelry creating and so forth)  are also in high supply. As a result it is possible to work the shows and markets year round if you have enough time to keep the product as plentiful as the potential customers. 

Well, that is an overview of things and I will continue later with some more details and a look at other crafters, artisans and artists that I know and how they do their art and sell it, too. 

Happy knitting.  Granny LJ

Good morning.

I have recently been asked about making a watch cap.  They are very easy caps to make.  When I first started knitting caps, I was so excited about the possibilities of caps and color and design, that I really quit making watch caps.   I had made one out of Lamb’s Pride (Brown Sheep Company) for my son, Ian, several years ago when he was still in Bend.  But I did it in the same dimensions as I did the women’s caps in.  It was too small and he ended up giving it away.  After he moved to Nashville, I did another with the same result — it was too small and he  gave it away.  (I always have been somewhat of a slow learner.)

Then I got a commission to do 5 guy caps for a gift shop in Yachats.  I thought about the two I had done for Ian and decided that I needed more stitches.  I put the cap on 100 stitches and made the ribbing and  the body appropriately deeper. 

So how does one make a watch cap (which I also call a guy cap)? 

I use circular needles size 6. I use the smaller needle because the smaller the stitch the less wind blows through the stitches.  So  my directions will be based on size 6 circular needles.

A Watch Cap aka Guy Cap.

The yarn can be any good wool or wool blend yarn, about 200 yards. I like both the Lamb’s Pride and Galway for doing watch caps.  The Lamb’s Pride is a wool and mohair blend and feels good against the skin.  The Galway is a 100% wool with the scratch taken out.  The yarns feel different in the skein — the mohair makes the wool feel a little more soft, but both make up into great guy caps.

So you have your needles, size 6 circular — many knitters like working caps on a 16 inch circular needle.  I prefer 20 inch needles.  I tried the 16 and everything was so crunched together that I really could not figure out what I was doing.  So I have 20 inch needles. 

Cast on 100 stitches with 1 extra so you can knit the first cast on stitch and the last one together, making a unified circle.

Next comes the ribbing.  I do a K2, P2 ribbing instead of the more usual K1, P1 ribbing.  Why?  I like it better.  Whatever ribbing works for you, use it.  The ribbing should be about 2 inches deep.

Then knit the body.  And that is easy because you knit around and around and around.  It is a great project to carry along, because once you start the body you  knit and that is all.  Do 6 to 7 inches of the  body.  Depth, of course, depends on if you are making a general sort of a watch cap or one for a specific head. If you are working for a specific head, take measurements of the head and adjust the cap body  to the head.

Once the body is done, I do a 7-point top off.   Count the stitches and divide by 7.  You may need to add or decrease a few stitches to get a number that can be divided by 7.  As noted in earlier blogs I do the 7-point top off because I like it, but there are literally dozens of potential top offs.  Be sure to switch to double pointed needles for the  top off, though.

When the top off is done, it is time for finish work.  Get all the loose ends worked in.  A yarn bobble at the top of the cap is optional.  I do not like the bobbles so don’t put them on any of my caps.  If you like them, do one and attach it to the top. 

Well, that is all there is to a watch cap/guy cap.  It is good as a beginner’s project or something for an experienced knitter to take along when traveling or for a change of pace. 

Hope you have a great day.  Good knitting.  Granny LJ

Good morning,

I was rooting around in my work area before breakfast this morning and found a book that was one of the launch points of my capping career.

I had done all the caps for the Women’s Crisis Center for Christmas and was in the yarn shop at the Mission Mill Museum, in Salem, when I saw a book entitled “Knitted Tams.”  I looked at the pictures on the cover and was spellbound.  I leafed through the book and saw more tams that were so beautiful that they took my breath away.  At that time, my skill level was no  more than  casting on and knitting and purling and casting off, but I got the book anyway. 

My first experiment with the book was to cast on and start to knit.  I was using a pinkish yarn and I figured that I would learn to do the shape and then worry about learning how to do the designs  later.  At this time in my knitting career, I had no one to ask how to do things like adding a stitch or knitting in the round or much of anything else.  Everything was going along well, until I had to add stitches.  I read the instructions and then read them again and the only thing I could figure out to do was to do what I, now, know as a yarn over.  The only thing wrong with that was that it left a hole in the body which I did not like.  So I put the whole project aside and eventually threw it away when I moved here to the Coast.

But the book came with me and got kind of knocked around while I was adjusting to a new job and new place to live and walking on the beach as much as I could.

When I started making  caps seriously, the book surfaced again almost by magic.  By this time I knew how to knit, purl, cast on and off, and work on  circular and double pointed needles.  Fortunately, my soon to be friend, Dodie who was the owner of Yarn for All Seasons in Toledo had opened her shop and so I went out to get some yarn, and got both the yarn and acquainted with her.  Eventually, as our friendship grew, Dodie taught me how to increase and decrease neatly, cast on correctly, and a multitude of other skills that I use now in my capping.

And the tams still were out there waiting to be tried.  The next tam I cast on was a bit of a disappointment, because the body of the tam was so shallow, it really did not offer much cover for the ears. 

Hence the beram was born.  It is a cross between a beret and a tam, and has a deep body for ear-care when  the wearer is on a  beach walk. 

When I was plowing through my work area and the tam book turned up, it was like seeing an old friend.  I still have not done any true tams, nor have I tried the color work in the book.  And it is pretty battered from being moved several times and stacked under piles of whatevers on a number of occasions. But for anyone who wants to work in the classic tam pattern, get the book.  Knitted Tams, by Mary Rowe, published by Interweave Press in 1989.  Even if you don’t want to knit tams, get it anyway.  The color pictures in the book are an inspiration in themselves. 

Happy knittting,  Granny LJ

Good morning,

Well, the New Year here in Waldport got ushered in quietly.  When I first moved into the duplex, the landlord lived at the end of the street.  He had a cannon and there was always a giant New Year’s Eve party with the cannon  fired at midnight.  It was hard to sleep through.  But now he and his cannon are gone so even the giant party is a thing of the past.   I have never been a new year fanatic, though, so a quiet new year is welcome.

Yet I am always glad that there is time when it is a new start for things.  Rather like turning the page in a book. 

OK, so what does my 2010 new book going to look like, so far.  

Well, my son, Ian, has married and his wife, Mikelle, is now in my life.  They stopped by to see me between Christmas and New Year and they both left wearing caps.  Mikelle picked a green and black wool, hand spun by my friend, Arlene.  Ian picked a brown and black Galway guy cap.   It was fun watching them look the caps over and pick which one they wanted.

That is the biggest news of the new year. 

My knitting and showing year starts the weekend of January 16. The show is called Winterfest and is in Yachats at the Commons.  I was lucky to get a spot because it is a pretty big do, despite its being only about 3-years-old.  I have 11 caps that are ready for finish work so will be going to Winterfest with a good supply of caps after I trade the ones at Shorebirds for some new ones.

I have decided that I need to show my caps when caps are most thought about — winter and fall.  So I have worked out a schedule that includes showing in cap-wearing weather as well as at Shorebirds through the year. 

Am really excited about the new year, and I hope you are too.  I have started working some of the lace stitches and have a cap cast on that will be good practice for me once I get the  gray and white rolled brim topped and ready for finish work  — and that should be today.

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and that 2010 starts a wonderful decade for you. 

Happy knitting.  Granny LJ