Knitting With 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:

The outside market is drawing to a close.  Next week will be my last outdoor market.  Then beginning in the middle of October we move into the Senior Center  and to Saturdays.  I have opted to make the last Wednesday of September my last outdoor market.

I have done that for a couple of reasons.  One is the weather beginning in September gets rather iffy.  And the second is that while I have not sold a lot of caps, between the market and Shorebirds, my inventory is pretty limited right now. 

Also, the musician and I had a discussion about the cap I made for him and the changes that need to be done.  So I will be casting on a black tam again.  I really want to get this cap right, because I want him to look good while he is on stage and because I really want to unlock the secrets of the tam.  All the patterns I have seen for tams make the body of the tam very shallow.  And what it looks like in the pictures is a decorated plate on the head.  I cannot imagine a true Scot wearing that kind of thing on his head.  Actually, I cannot imagine anyone wearing that kind of a cap — for any reason.  Will keep  you posted on the tam news as it develops. 

Started another rolled brim cap at market this week.  It is a lovely color-way in light blues, lavenders and purple.  One of the other vendors at the market came over to my space on Wednesday and saw me working on it.  She loves purples.  I think she may want to get it when it is done. 

I plan to spend the break time between markets getting the finish work done on the pile of caps I have waiting.  There are 4 that need finish work and 3 that need tops.  I also have a couple that need to be taken out.  And an IO cap that needs some serious unknotting.  That one I was working in a black wool with a dark red eyelash.  And the eyelash has snarled so badly that I have had to cut it several times just to be able to keep knitting.  I am leaning toward taking that one out.  I really love working, occasionally, in an eyelash yarn, but I usually rewind the skein on a toilet paper roll before I start knitting with it.  As you can guess, I  did not do that this time.  Won’t make the same decision next time.

Well, that is about all the news from here for now.  Have a great day and happy knitting.

Granny LJ