Knitting With 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.