Month: March 2006

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Touchstone knee-high socks

I’ve made nearly a dozen pairs of socks since I took up knitting in earnest a few years ago, but have never tried making knee-high socks. I didn’t think much about making some until I attended Judith’s class on spinning for socks last year. During a discussion on fit, I showed her a pair of my hand knit socks that bulged at the ankles and asked her how I could avoid it.  The solution was simple, add some strategic shaping to the leg. She recommended getting a copy of The Complete Book of Progressive Knitting by Ida Riley Duncan to help figure out the details. I got a copy of the book soon after the class but let the idea linger in my knitting thoughts until now.

While my foot tends to fit any medium sized sock pattern, I usually end up shortening the length of the leg about one inch so it will “fit” below the meaty part of my drumstick shaped leg. It’s a trick that works well for most patterns, especially ones with ribbing, but last month after knitting a few inches of the Fair Isle socks from Blue Moon Fiber Arts , I realized that such a colorful sock would look great with a much longer leg.  At this point I wasn’t able to ignore reality, if the leg was to be longer, I’d have to figure out how to shape the sock so it fit properly. I ripped out what I had done and set the yarn aside so I could worked out the details on a simple sock, without any motifs. A couple of skeins of Mountain Colors 4/8 wool (Northern Lights & Yellowstone) have been lingering in my yarn reserve so I pulled them out and started knitting away after checking various references on the subject*.

Knee_sock

One of the most helpful sources of information came from Holly Shaltz’s tutorial called Shaping Knee Socks. I printed out the worksheets, entered my measurements, did the calculations and started knitting. Her instructions start with knitting the socks from the top to toe so, against my better judgment, that’s how I started.

It’s easy to plug in all the numbers and calculate figures but it’s hard to know how much ease to allow. I started out casting on 104 stitches and ended up revising that to 88. After knitting the ribbing, I worked several alternating rows of increases to reach a total of 96 stitches for the widest part of the calf. This part of the leg is knit  straight for a couple of inches before starting decreases which continue until several inches short of the ankle.

As my knitting progressed, I tried on the sock every few inches or so and thought all was going well after a few initial adjustments. Once off the needles, I immediately tried on the sock and walked around the house.  It didn’t take long for the top to droop and the ankle to sag. There was no doubt that this sock needed more adjustments so I pulled out my safety pins and carefully pinched out the extra fabric. I retested the droop factor by walking around but also added a short trip down the stairs. Turns out that walking down stairs seems to be the ultimate test of whether a sock will stay up.

During the next week, I’ll start working on the second sock making adjustments after considering the amount of ease that I was able to pinch out of the leg of the first. This time I change knitting directioon and start the toe so that adjustments to the width of the leg will be easier to manage and test as I knit.

* References:
– The Complete Book of Progressive Knitting by Ida Riley Duncan
– Hand-Knitting Techniques from Threads
– Knitting Around the World from Threads
– Socks: A Spin-Off Special Publication for Knitters and Spinners

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Cotton: back to square one

Judith’s last class at the Madrona Fiber Arts Winter Retreat was called, “Summer Breeze: Spinning Cotton for a Summer Top”. Here’s the Description straight from the website

Thinking that cotton is hard to spin? Think again!
Judith guarantees that this will be a breeze! You will spin a wonderful
cotton novelty yarn and the blues about spinning cotton will vanish.
Come and join the fun and learn Judith’s secrets!  All the cotton fiber
needed for a summer top and pattern are supplied.  You can’t miss!

Cotton

Sounds easy, right? Although Judith never  said out right that spinning cotton was difficult, it didn’t take long to figure that out.

This combed cotton top required learning a spinning technique that I’m not familiar  with doing – long draw. The idea is to let twist into the fiber supply while pulling the hand with the fiber supply away from the wheel. The other hand holds the spun cotton and pinches out any slubs that happen to form. Since  cotton has very short fibers it  needs a lot of twist to make a sturdy yarn. To put lots of twist into our spinning Judith had us put on our smallest whorl and set the drive band tension so that the intake was very light; similar to what we did for spinning lace and cashmere.

After practicing with a natural brown she handout some cotton colored light blue by bits of recycled demin mixed into it. That’s what’s on the bobbin in the top of the picture. It didn’t seem to go much easier than the brown. While the long draw is a satisfying graceful and sweeping technique, I seemed to always get large slubs as twist from the wheel first entered the fiber supply. As I pulled back with the fiber supply, the yarn would get thinner and thinner until I let it wind onto the bobbin. Then it would repeat all over again, a slub of fiber that progressively got thinner until it was wound back onto the bobbin.

I almost felt as helpless as when I first tried to spin wool on a wheel.

This week I plied the rest of the blue which I didn’t manage to finished during class. I also practiced spinning some white fiber that Judith sent home with us.

Spun_cotton

You can see a bit of progress being made. The mix skein on the left is my first attempt and the white on the right is what I did this week.

I still have a whole bag of white cotton that Judith sent home with us along with a pattern for a knitted cotton top. At this point I need much more practice before attempting to spin for a knitting project. To tell you the truth, I’m currently not all that interested in spinning cotton. Not to say it was a bad class, because some of the skills she had been teaching earlier in the week really started to click, but knitting my hand spun cotton just doesn’t appeal to me.

There’s two bits of info in my notes that I should share.

1. To finished the plied skein, boil it with a detergent like Tide. Change the water several times until the water is clear. Colored cotton will get darker each time you wash it.

2. Judith got this cotton from Little Barn.

These days I’ve been thinking about knee-high socks and mittens. Socks for me and convertible mittens for my husband.

He wants convertible mittens with a subtle design around the hand so I’ve been looking around.

At the same time I’m also looking for unique knee-high sock designs. A few weeks ago I started my “Socks that Rock” Fair Isle socks but then got to thinking – what if I make them knee-highs. How would I increase/decrease while knitting the leg and keep design repeat correct.

So, while surfing the web for more info on these two subjects, I came across Catherine Devine‘s gallery of socks and small knits. I especially like the long spiral socks.

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Bargains

Vancouver
I just returned from a quick weekend trip to Vancouver.

Two wonderful crystal clear days that we in the Northwest cherish and vistors are convinced near appear. Everyone was out strolling along the waterfront or in one of the many scenic parks enjoying the sunshine.

After breakfast we wondered through the Museum of Anthropology and then scooted over to Birkeland Bros. Wool before leaving the city. While I managed to refrain from purchasing some very soft polworth sliver, I did pick up some very reasonably priced Quebecoise wool for a fingerless glove project that has yet to get started. I found out about this place via an article on Vancouver in Spun Magazine. Cara is indeed very friendly and keen to show her stock. Besides plain wool she also carries beautiful hand painted yarns.

Japanese_string_1

On the way up to the city, we made a detour to Daiso. I wanted to see if I could find some of that Japanese string Judith MacKenzie McCuin brought to her classes at the winter retreat. She says it makes great drive bands for lace weight yarn. The package she brought with her was purchased in a Japanese store in San Jose. She mentioned that she hasn’t found it anywhere else including Uwajimaya in Seattle.

When I found out about the Daiso in Richmond, I had a hunch that they might carry it. Last fall while in Tokyo I happened to visit their Harajuku store and was amazed at the abundance of cheap (100 yen) stuff they carried. I was so overwhelmed that I didn’t purchase anything. I just soaked in the the 100 yen experience.

Once again I felt overwhelmed. Much like in Japan, there were people everywhere in the tiny isles. It took a bit of searching but I finally found several different packages tucked away in two different places. I first spotted it in the sewing section near the pins, needles and etc. Next to it was another package of similar string, but this one had an English label that said it was “kite string”. I also found some, with yet different packaging, in the kitchen paper wear section next to the picnic supplies.

This week I’ll give it a try while I attempt to finish my cotton samples from Judith’s last class on spinning cotton.

During the search for string, I happened to find this small counter that records up to 999. What a bargain – only 2 Canadian Dollars. The Kacha-Kacha’s from Clover run about 10 US dollars and only count to 99.

Counter

Love the packaging. Looks like it can be used to entertain blond headed siblings that love to see who can count the most cars or birds.

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Diagonal Hat

Diagonal_hat_4

Late this week I received Jean Wong‘s* diagonal hat pattern that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. The next day I ran over to a local yarn store and picked up a couple of skeins of Noro Kureyon. Once on the needles, I couldn’t put it down. It took just over one day to finish.

This hat is cleverly constructed by knitting back and forth diagonally between the brim and the crown without the need for short-rows. To finish the hat, the provisionally cast-on beginning edge is grafted together with the other edge at a section where garter stitch rows meet.

Thanks to Principles of Knitting, it wasn’t too difficult to figure out how to graft garter stitches. It’s similar to grafting stockinette stitch from two knitting needles except the sequence is a bit different.

Grafting Garter Stitches:

Place needles parallel. Front needle has purl stitches and back has knit stitches.

1. Starting stitches:
With threaded sewing needle enter first stitch on front needle as if to purl. Pull thread through. Now enter first stitch on back needle as if to purl. Pull thread through

2. With sewing needle slip first front stitch knitwise and remove stitch from the knitting needle, pulling thread through the loop. Enter next stitch on front needle purlwise and pull thread through.

3. With sewing needle slip first back stitch knitwise and remove stitch from knitting needles, pulling thread through the loop. Enter next stitch on back needle purlwise and pull thread through.

4. Repeat 2 & 3 until no stitches remain.

 *Jean doesn’t have the pattern listed on her website. I found out about her pattern when she was the featured speaker at a local guild meeting. Everyone at the meeting was very impressed with her work and asked about purchasing patterns. A week later I asked via email if I could purchase a copy of the hat pattern and she graciously put one together. She’s been teaching for quite sometime at Wool and Wicker in Richmond BC and is apparently branching out. She’s put a lot of work into the DVD on her website but I not sure if she has anticipated requests for patterns of her designs. If you’re interested in this pattern you can email her via her website. Just keep in mind that’s she’s probably doing this in her spare time.

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Spinning Cashmere

Last weekend I finished plying the singles from Judith’s half day class on spinning cashmere and here they are.

Cashmere_samples

We started with a light brown 17 micron cashmere (at the bottom) and continued across a small spectrum of cashmere blends.

The spinning technique for cashmere is similar to lace in that the tension should be light and the whorl should be small so that lots of twist gets into the yarn.

It was interesting to hear Judith explain that cashmere isn’t a breed of goat but rather a set of certain characteristic of fine goat hair.  The 17 micron fiber that we started with was very soft compared to fine merino but not as fine as the white 16 micron cashmere that we worked with next. While the white fiber was so much finer and a bit tricky to spin, I enjoyed it much more than the 17 micron. The 17 micron fiber had bits of “scurf” that look like dandruff – yuck. Judith says it’s caused by a disease that goats get but isn’t harmful to humans. If, in the future I decide to buy cashmere for a project, I’ll be sure to check for scurf.

After spinning pure cashmere we were given samples of cashmere blends from combed tops. After spinning the pure cashmere the merino and cashmere blends were so much easier to spin; the merino seemed to give the top a bit of grip. The silk and cashmere blend didn’t seem all that hard to spin although not quite as easy as the merino. As you can see, I twisted the heck out of it and it seemed to respond well to all that twist.

When blending silk and cashmere Judith suggested to first cut the silk fiber to the same length as the cashmere so that it blends well. She likes to use cotton cards to “brush” the fibers together, letting them fall a bit off the tips of one of the cards. She then spins straight from the card.

If you ever get a chance to take this class I highly recommend it. While it was challenging, it was also very interesting to try a variety of fibers that were new to me.