Knitting With 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 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.

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