Knitting With Granny LJ

Good morning.

For those who do not know me, I was originally a Salemite.  I happened to be born in Seattle because The War was on and that is where Dad was stationed.  But if there hadn’t been a war, I would have been born in Salem.

When I was a kid, the Thomas K. Woolen Mill still existed.  Big and red and making wool fabrics.  There was also a retail store there that faced out onto 12th Street.  I went there with my parents one time, so Dad could pick out fabric for a suit.   Somewhere along the line the Mill closed and stood empty for most of my life in Salem.  Then a while back, some historically significant houses were to be torn down in some sort of city improvement plan. However, somebody (or several somebodies) opted to have the houses moved near the old woolen mill and a some others polished up the woolen mill itself and started giving tours.  And so the Mission Mill Museum was born. 

A day or so ago, I mentioned the yarn shop that was in the Mission Mill complex many years ago.  The other day I found out it was more than 10 years ago.  And, how did I find this out, you ask.

Because the owner of a new yarn store that has opened in the Mission Mill complex emailed me in response to my Blog page on the beginning of my yarnaholic years.  It is called Teaselwick Wools.  What an wonderful name.  And there is wool yarn  in the old woolen mill’s shops again. 

This week I am going to be working on a list of places for folks to get yarns and have the list ready for the market and show this month.  Although I have not  been to the shop in the Mission Mill complex I will be going there the next time I am in Salem, for sure. 

It was one of those events that brings a smile to my face and makes my head nod.  Lately there have been too many businesses who want to knock down some of the historical places in Salem and build parking lots.  Am glad to see that the Mission Mill is going to be breathing a bit of history  back into Salem with Teaselwick Wools.  My best to the owner, Tracy. 

Have a great day.  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.

Saturday was an interesting day.  I was downtown to go to the meeting for Waldport’s new outdoor market.  

Saw some familiar faces when I was at the meeting.  We open on the 13th of next month.  Good thing I am not worried about things like the 13th.  I was not going to do the outdoor market because the weather here can be pretty iffy — even in summer.  But it turns out that I have a couple of choices besides setting up out in the open. 

The first is that one of the Shorebirds vendors is probably going to do the market  and she has told Karen that I can share her tent. She makes jewelry so my caps should not clash with her work.  And I was talking to Karen about the market yesterday morning over breakfast and she said that she is going to be at Shorebirds on Wednesdays and I can use the back end of car and work from a parking spot.  The cost of that space is about $4 less than the cost of a space to set up a tent.

Also at the meeting, the friend who does the 4-H show at the fair grounds each spring asked if I was going to do that show.  I said no because of the car-thing.  She said to contact her because she was sure that I could get a ride with someone from this area who is doing that show.

This whole business of not driving is an annoyance, but I have been lucky in that Karen is willing to give me ride-alongs and the folks here in Lincoln County know that sometimes other folks need a bit of assistance in doing things. 

So the pluses of the meeting really out-weighed the other thing of the day.  I checked the mail before I went to the meeting.  I found the letter from the contest folks who let me know that they appreciated my entry, but that it was not selected to be among the finalists.  Which is really OK with me.  I can get the cap tagged and out with the rest of the caps that are for sale.  I am pleased with the way the cap looks and fits and I am sure that someone else will buy it and be just as pleased.  And — besides that, what would I do with $1000 more in yarn, when right now I have so much that my place is more like an obstacle course than a room. 

Well, I need to be getting to work on the caps.  I got one topped yesterday and have a beautiful Noro 100% wool on double point needles.  And I have to retag some of the caps I was going to put out on Saturday at the shop, because I messed up the information on the tags. 

I hope you have a great day today.  Happy knitting.  Granny LJ

Good morning.

I got to thinking in the shower this morning about working in wool and how careful you have to be with it.  That information comes from personal experience.

Growing up, I was told that  I should get a “college degree so that if, god forbid, anything happens to your husband you can get a job. ”   So I was dutiful and went to college.  I learned history and English literature, how to write interesting sentences and a host of other really wonderful things.  I finally graduated about 6 years later, with over 300 hours and with a BA in English literature and  minors in general social science and writing.  I also learned that if you washed colored items with underware the underware often took on the color of the colored things.  I learned to cook:  Two casseroles.  I learned to drink coffee that was horribly black and thick.  But I had my degree and I was ready to get married.

I found the man of my dreams.  He loved William Faulkner as much as I did.  So with all these plusses in my world, we did the natural thing and got married.

We had not been married long when my husband walked into the living room.  I was on the sofa reading something by William Faulkner.  He (the husband not William Faulkner) had a black sock on his left hand with the index finger sticking out a hole in the toe. 

“Look at this.”   He announced.

I looked at the finger sticking out from the sock toe, and said, “OK. What do you want me to do about it?”

“I want you to darn it.”

My response was, rather predictably, “Darn. Darn. Darn. Darn.” 

We did not speak for a couple of weeks.  And this was after I had discovered that he would not eat either of the two things I knew how to cook.

Obviously, my education to prepare myself for taking care of myself if something should happen to my husband was not yet needed.  But the education of taking care of the husband until the above mentioned time had been missed somewhere along the line. 

We struggled on until our son was born.  That was pretty rough, but by the time  our son was about 4 months old I had figured out how to get all the bottles clean and sanitized and refilled AND get a dinner on the table. 

At this time, my husband had a beautiful Aran knit sweater in 100 per cent wool (probably Aran wool, now that I think about it ).  He had put the sweater into the dirty clothes.  I had figured out  that the sweater had to go to the cleaners.  Several weeks  passed and I would find the sweater in the dirty clothes and would take it out, fold it neatly and put it on the shelf of the closet.  The next morning it would be in the dirty clothes again. 

One morning I found the sweater in the dirty clothes basket yet another time.  I was getting ready  to wash  a load of baby clothes. I looked at the sweater and figured that with the gentle cycle and only warm water I could get it washed.  So into the washer it went. 

Then I got busy sterilizing bottles — and forgot about the sweater.  An hour or so later, I started to move the baby’s things into the dryer and pulled out a very small off-white sweater.  I knew the baby did not have a sweater like that so I did the only reasonable thing and put it back into the washer.  I emptied all the baby things into the dryer and the felted, off-white sweater materialized again. I could not figure out where it had come from.  I stared at it for several minutes and finally remembered.  It was my husband’s Aran sweater.

I placed a rather hysterical phone call to a friend asking how one could unshrink a shrunk sweater.  She said I was doomed.  The sweater could not be unshrunk.

So I did the, again,  only reasonable thing.  I hid the sweater under a pile of old newspapers.  And promptly forgot about it  because the baby was announcing he needed changed or fed or something. 

About 6 months later, we were getting ready to move to a larger house and my husband picked me up from work and looked, calmly, at me and said in a very quiet voice, ” Did you think that when the baby got bigger that  I would quit buying him clothes?” 

I choked as I suddenly remembered the secret of the stack of newspapers in the laundry room.   I could feel my shoulders draw up toward my ears and then he laughed.  So I laughed too.  From then on until I started working on my caps, I stayed away from any fiber that I could not toss into the washer and dryer and have it come out looking, more or less,  like it did when I put it in, only cleaner. 

Have a good day.  Happy knitting.  Granny LJ

Good morning. 

Just got back from a walk on the beach with Parker.  (Again, see Karen’s blog about Parker and Red).  We have come to an agreement about our walks together.  We walk out from the cliff to the water’s edge and walk south until the first creek.  I am looking for rocks.  He is impatient.  Then on the way back we walk in the dry sand and drift wood along the edge of the cliff.  It is a leisurely return because he has to stop and smell everything that there is to smell, and follow some trails,  and hope they take him some place fascinating.  In a past life, I am sure he was a knitter.

Or maybe some of me rubbed off on him, because that is the way I am in a yarn store.  My neighbor, Karen, almost never goes with me into a yarn store any more.  She is entranced by all the speciality yarns.  And they are beautiful, but they don’t make very good caps.  Too flimsy.  To make the kind of cap I want in my inventory, I have to use a yarn that the wind cannot blow through too easily.  That is why I work in the sturdy wools and wool blends to make the caps sturdy enough to keep the coastal wind out of  the ears. 

Yesterday, I spent most of the day working on the new Galway cap with the Handpaint colored yarn.  I have about 6 or 7 rows of the pattern done and I discovered that I had made a mistake at the seam where the old row blends into the new row.  It looks like somebody stomped on an Easter egg.  I was extremely grumpy when I saw it.  So I put it aside and grabbed up some brownish-gray wool and started a Guy Cap.  Usually I find the Guy Caps pretty boring to do, but yesterday it was just the right thing. 

Now I have two caps to take out and redo.  I know I sound pretty grumpy about it.  But that is the wonderful thing about knitting, when something does not turn out right, it can be taken out and done again.  I always feel pretty good about a cap that looks just right,  and am pleased that I took the time to make it just right.

Well, that is about all from here for today.  Good knitting to you all.  Granny LJ

Good morning.

I am pretty excited about this contest.  I got about 2 inches of the prototype done.  Have made some mistakes.  Some I have caught and tinked.  Some I did not find until several rows up the body of the cap.   Have opted to leave them for now since this is a prototype.  But when it comes to doing the cap for the contest, I’ll set markers about every 20 stitches. 

The cap, itself, is looking good.  If you ignore the errors.   I think that the finished cap will be an interesting cap visually, as well as one to keep a beach-walkers ears warm. 

I rooted around in my stash this morning and found a Noro yarn that is in  bright colors.  Looks like  spring just before summer gets here. 

The Noro yarn I use for my caps is Silk Garden.  It is wool and silk combination that does not scratch the ears and always has a wide selection of good colors to choose from.  I like to have 2 or 3 of the Noro caps in inventory.  They sell well and look good on the wearer’s head. 

Well, this entry is going to be shorter than usual.  I am anxious to get back to working on the prototype cap so I can get going on the one for the contest. 

I hope you all have a goood day.  Happy knitting.  Granny LJ