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.

I have been asked about making kid caps.  I have made some, by accident, in the early days of my capping career. 

I have to admit, though, I am a bit of a Johnny-one-note when it comes to knitting.  Especially as I get older.  I make caps basically for adult women.  As I noted above, early in my cap making days, I did not know the depth of a cap for a woman and made quite a few that would work very well on kid’s  head.  And some of them actually ended up on kid’s heads.

I thought that I might make kid caps later on, maybe, after I had explored the possibilities of a cap for an adult woman.   I have several caps from those days that have ended up on my head for one reason or another.  The practical aspect of wearing my own caps is obvious.  I can see for myself what works and what does not.  As a result of wearing my own work, I have fixed  some of the flaws of the earliest caps.

I got started making the Guy Caps because a tourist shop in Yachats commissioned me to make 5 guy caps in guy colors.  So I have kept making them and keep a few in my inventory like the Inside-Out caps.  And some of my Guy Caps have actually found a home on a woman’s head.   

However, I have not started making kid caps.  When I ask myself “Why not?” I come up with several immediate answers.

1.     There are lots of people who enjoy doing kid caps, including the bigger cap making companies. 

2.     Though it would be a great way to use up yarn scraps, I really have no desire, at this time in my capping career to knit down  that path.  And I have a great idea for using my yarn left-overs that I will begin on after the Christmas season is done.

Those are the two major reasons.  My goal has been since I started capping to make a warm, usable cap for women who love to walk on the beach as much as I do.  A cap that is usable AND beautiful. 

So unless I make a kid cap by accident again, I probably won’t get into doing kid caps.  However, I did stumble onto an internet site called comfykid.com.  They have lots of kid cap patterns.  I have not purchased a patttern from them, but the site has pictures of  some really neat caps for the younger person in your life.

Happy knitting.  Granny LJ

Good morning.

The gorgeous sunny weather continues here on the coast.  Last winter we had a pretty normal Oregon winter, lots of rain — lots and lots of rain.  This year we have had this wonderful oasis of sunshine in January.  The wind was pretty high yesterday, but right now it is calm.  Will try to get out in it a little later when I have a knitting break

Had a quiet day knitting yesterday.  Plan on another one today.  Spent the day topping a cap made out of a varigated red/pink Noro yarn.  Silk Garden, of course.  I have spent so much time on the contest cap lately,  that I have been neglecting getting caps ready for swap-out at the shop for next month.  This month has sped past like the pony express.

I have 5 more rows and this Noro cap is topped.  I also have several other caps, not Noro, that need to be topped and have the finish work done on them.   It is my goal to keep the inventory at the shop changing on a monthly basis so that customers will not see the same caps every time. 

Will finish topping the cap I have on double points this morning and will get that gorgeous olive green on double points today.  It is going to be a  good cap.  I also have a blue inside-out (I-O) cap that needs topping.  That  one will be fun to get done.  It will also be a fun cap to wear, I think. 

With regard to the prototype caps #1 and #2.  I am going to do the finish work on the first one and keep it for myself.  I am also going to do the finish work on the other one and put it into inventory.  It is a good cap.  It just didn’t turn out the way I envisioned it.  Oh well.  One of these days, the right person will come along and say, “That’s the cap for me.”  And it will go home on a head.

Life would have been easier if I could make the caps as fast as I get ideas for them. 

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