I Don't Stash - I Collect.

Some of you may have felt a slight tremor in the force (that would be the Jedi knitting force) in the last few weeks. It was the result of setting my personal expectation bar just a tad too high. I foolishly revealed in a previous blog that one of my two New's Year's resolutions, was to use the yarn I have without purchasing more. My road to ruin began with the purchase of a set of interchangeable knitting needles - not against the rules because it wasn't yarn. Unfortunately that purchase led to a box full of this:

Which was swiftly followed by a box of this:

I then purchased a pattern by Kate Davies, called Rams and Yowes - here's a link if you'd like to take a gander:

http://katedaviesdesigns.com/designs/rams-and-yowes/

So now I have a cool new knitting challenge in front of me, daring me to purchase Shetland yarn, straight from the Shetland Isles. Why oh why can't I just knit the damn sheep in the stripey hand painted stuff that arrived in the mail yesterday? Why am I now craving the natural shades that come straight off Mary's little lamb? Do I make a total mockery of my 1st New Year's resolution and send away to Great Britain? Or do I show even a tad of restraint and wait a couple of days and place the order anyway? Thank goodness for my 2nd New Year's resolution or I would have ordered the yarn last night. The 2nd Resolution, is the hard and fast resolution, the one I've nearly broken but has thus far remained intact. Resolution: No online purchases after 8:00pm at night - and no playing silly bugger with time zones etc. So far so good.

While I consider the Shetland purchase and to assuage some of my buyers remorse, I've returned to my pile of projects on-the-go and pretty much finished one and nearly finished another. I know, I know, pretty much finished and nearly finished aren't the same as totally finished. As I write this blog post the on-the-go projects in baskets around my chair include: a dishcloth, a sock, the Irish Chain afghan blocks, a tea cosy (pretty much finished) and a Fair Isle fish and anchors pillow (nearly finished - okay, half finished). Meanwhile the new yarn beckons, enticing me a way from the current work and insisting that it is time to start something new. Ballwinder!

Really, it was more of a suggestion than a resolution. I knew I'd need to purchase more yarn to complete the ongoing saga of the Irish Chain Afghan - that would have been a planned break and therefore okay because most of the yarn was from my current collection. I seldom use the word the 'stash' in reference to my yarn because it envisions a small amount of an illegal substance - I don't have one of those - a yarn habit is quite sufficient thank-you very much.

Besides how do you stash a room full of yarn? I don't stash, I collect. In my mind a collection is something you purchase because you have some but you want more. Also, you primarily just look at your collection, you don't necessarily use it a whole lot. That would describe my room full of yarn. I have some, I want more, I like to look at it and I don't use it very often. That's not completely right, I do knit everyday. The problem is that my knitting speed is slower than my purchasing speed, I think the calculation is Y= KS/$2'd (Yarn = Knitting Speed over Dollars squared). Essentially it means that when I die, my children will receive a large amount yarn and very little cash. In the meantime I'll try to maximize my knitting, and minimize my collecting - for at least a few more days...

Join the Prince Rupert Library Knitters. Teens (and a few adults) meet every Wednesday at 3:30 pm and the adults meet every other Thursday evening at 7:00pm. The next adult meeting is Thursday, April 5th, 2012.

 

Creativity, Variety and UFOs (un-finished objects)

 

I have at least 51 areas where UFO's reside in my life. If we take household, yard, pets and personal growth out of the equation, then I have 1 area for UFO's - it's called a craft room. Although my husband could successfully argue that it's called a craft room and a living room and a kitchen and a bedroom... Before I had a craft room it was called under the bed and a closet (and a kitchen and a living room and a bedroom...).

When it comes to making things I'm a bit like a kitten after string, I chase whatever catches my eye. If they looked around my craft room, UFO spotters would find a lace scarf - make that 2 lace scarves, a felted bag, an un-felted bag, a Double Irish Chain Afghan (blocks in process), a Mitered Square Afghan (blocks done), a crochet afghan of indeterminate age (blocks mostly done), an alpaca bunny, a Fair Isle Pillow (knitting complete), a Fair Isle Pillow (knitting complete but undecided whether to make it a pillow or a bag), a Fair Isle stole, another Fair Isle pillow, 2 pairs of socks, and 1 hemp grocery bag.

Don't believe me? Fine, here's a picture - just don't blame me if Christmas is ruined.

Rats I forgot to add the socks, the stole and the 3rd Fair Isle pillow to the picture, but I think you get the idea.

I've had a fully pieced, and 1/4 hand quilted quilt tucked away in my cedar chest for...approximately....21 years (perhaps I shouldn't count it because the cedar chest isn't in my craft room). Oh and there's all that flannel I bought at Mount Rushmore last summer. I suspect this list just scratches the surface. I'm not counting the planned projects waiting patiently with yarn and pattern packaged together. I started packaging my yarn with it's intended pattern or at least a note describing intent, when I began looking at yarn and thinking "Now why the heck did I buy this?" I don't think these technically qualify as UFO's because I haven't started them yet. The urge to make multi-colour fish mittens may pass and I'll turn the yarn into something else...or not. My point is, if it was never started does it really qualify as unfinished? I think not, but I'll leave that for you to decide.

Both my daughters poked their way around my craft room and said "Mom, you really should finish some of this stuff". They are right, I should finish some of my UFO's and in fact, I do finish them - often and frequently. I'm always returning to partial projects and finishing them off. Or I'm tweeking that nasty Fair Isle vest (forgot that in my initial list) and turning it into a bag (for which one of my daughters should be eternally grateful). It's the circle of life or more accurately it's the circle of crafts. If you are the type of crafter that can start a project, work on that project until it is done without purchasing or planning any other projects, then give yourself a Gold Star (but don't make the star unless you've finished your current project).

I have every intention of finishing or tweeking the UFOs in my craft room. I'm still working on the roughly 900 two inch squares of my Double Irish Chain Afghan (156 squares down and 744 to go), but in the mean time I started and finished

a cashmere hat,

and this...amigurumi bird (yes Meghan, it is crochet).

Crafting variety is not a mere spice in my life it's a main course or at the very least a substantial side dish. That's okay with me. When it comes to creative variety I believe it's a crucial part of my well being so I keep starting new projects and finishing old ones and leave worrying about the UFO's to aliens.

The adult group of the Library Knitters meets every other Thursday at 7:00pm at the Prince Rupert Library. Next meeting is March 22nd.

Bring your UFO or better still bring something new!

The Miracle of Garter Stitch

Okay, maybe miracle is too strong.  But garter stitch is a great stitch.  It's easy, fast and versatile.

Top 5 Reasons Why I Like the Garter Stitch:

1. It is easy, just keep knitting and knitting and knitting...
   
2. It looks the same from the front or the back.
   
3. Garter stitch fabric lies flat and doesn't curl at the edges.
   
4. Garter stitch is not the same as a garter snake.
   
5. I use garter stitch to make small projects into a big projects and knit away spare time in 5-10 minute intervals.

For many knitters learning to knit meant learning the garter stitch.  It's the first stitch I learned and as far as I know, it was the only stitch my father learned.  And with that statement allow me to digress and reminisce.

Long ago in a galaxy far, far away....Westlock, Alberta, 1968-ish, when the moon was in the 7th house...

When I was a kid the winters were long and cold.  This isn't a story about walking for hours and hours through huge drifts of snow knitting my way to school on snow shoes 8 days a week or daring my brothers  to stick their tongue on the slide in 20 below weather.  It's a story about a blue-ish grey garter stitch scarf that I remember wearing.  I really liked that scarf (or did I? it was kind of itchy and it froze like ice and rubbed my chin raw. Okay, I tolerated that scarf).  Tolerance turned to love, when my father revealed that he had knit that scarf when he was a child.  Mind blowing information for 2 reasons.  Firstly, in my narrow little world of the 1960's only Brownies and Grandmothers knit. Secondly, my dad could not possibly have ever been a kid.   My Dad persisted through my scoffing to explain that during World War II, (dub-ya, dub-ya 2), all the kids in his elementary school had to learn to knit for the war effort.  The kids and teachers of my Dad's small Viking, Alberta, school spent some time knitting scarves to send to the soldiers overseas.  It didn't occur to me to ask why 'my' blue scarf did not go overseas with the others. For a while I pictured some poor soldier with a cold neck, but mostly my 7 year old self was just glad it ended up with me (except for when it was itchy and frozen).  The scarf and I parted ways decades ago, but I suspect my mother might know if it still exists. 

Back to the future my point and I do have one (barely), is that as knitters we've all learned the garter stitch.  

Why then, is it so often abandoned for better stitches like stockinette, cable, lace or moss?  I suspect it is  because it is the first stitch we learned and once we mastered it we moved on to greener knitting pastures. 

For those of you new to kntting, the garter stitch is what you get when you knit every  stitch of every row, back and forth, and back and forth and... I think you get the idea.  You say boring, I say hypnotic, which makes it a great stitch for people who like to keep their hands busy without thinking about what they are doing. When I decided to blog on a bit about garter stitch my initial thought was that it would be  a quick and easy topic, because it's a quick and easy stitch.  Wrong again Leah.

The simplicity of the stitch and the vast array of garter stitch possibilities makes the topic anything but quick.  I'll do my best to distill the topic down to manageable proportions.

First off, for those of you who need pictures, this is a photo of garter stitch.

Knitting the garter stitch creates a fabric made of simple ridges.  In fact 2 knit rows creates 1 garter stitch ridge.  The fabric looks the same from the front as it does from the back.  Before I carry on too far, I feel the need to point out that when I think about garter stitch (and I do), I think in terms of the knit stitch, because that is how most of us create garter stitch fabric.  We knit every single stitch.  But here's a head popper for some of you.  You can create the garter stitch just as well by purling every stitch.  So if you like to purl, by all means create garter stitch that way.  Just don't mix your knit and purl stitches, it's like crossing the beams in ghost busters...okay, no it isn't.  For the garter stitch pick one stitch (knit or purl) and stick with it.  

All this advice applies to straight needles though. You can create garter stitch using circular needles, but everything I just said about picking either knitting and purling and sticking with it gets tossed out the window.  If you want garter stitch in the round you have to knit one row and purl the next, if you don't, you get stockinette stitch which is nice, but a topic for another day.

Here's a double photo showing garter stitch from the right (front) side and from the wrong (back) side.  Just to keep you on your toes the right side photo is on the left side of the screen. 

The other thing I did with the above swatch was start my garter stitch knitting all the rows and ending the garter stitch block by purling all the rows.  Not much difference, except in my case I was surprised to find that my knitted garter stitch gauge is slightly tighter than my purled garter stitch gauge.  Nerdy interesting and important to know when gauge is important.  I'm saving that for future cocktail party trivia.

In her Learn-to-Knit Afghan Book, c1974,  knitting guru Barbara Walker, claimed  that the garter stitch square is square because it has exactly as many 2-row ridges as the number of stitches cast on.  That is such a cool notion that I had to give it a try.  Sadly my gauge isn't up to snuff, because for the life of me I can't quite duplicate Barbara Walker's results.  I can come close but not exact.  Which will lead one day to a blog about gauge, but not today.   My current project involves 10 stitches by 8 ridges to get a square - not to Barbara Walker's standard but it was fun in a geeky knitting kind of way to test the theory.

My favourite way to knit garter stitch is in small squares that can be knit together to create bigger squares. 

These squares are from a pattern I purchased on Ravelry.  It was designed by Kay Gardiner and it is called the Mitered Crosses Blanket.  The squares were fun and easy to knit and all the proceeds from the patterns purchased went towards Japan Tsunami relief.  So I got to knit a fun project and feel good while I was at it.

The next project also features mitered garter stitch squares.  The pattern was designed by Vivian Hoxbro, and is called "Kalahari Tote".  I found it in the Interweave Knits Summer 2009 issue (available at the library).  Now that I have the squares together, the bag is supposed to be felted.  I'll get there, eventually.

My latest project is to try to knit a Double Irish Chain Quilt.  Okay, not quilt, afghan.  I don't have a pattern because I don't really need one, it's just a bunch of squares.  I started with one small garter stitch square and I'll keep adding squares until it's done.  I could knit the whole thing in one huge piece, but I'm a one block at time girl, so I plan to sew, knit or crochet my blocks together when I'm done.  I'm using 4.5mm double -pointed knitting needles and worsted weight yarn from my stash.

One of my more "elastic" new year's resolutions this year was to try curb my crazy yarn purchases.  The reason I consider this resolution to be "elastic" is because there is no way I can (or want to) go a whole year without buying yarn.  I want to curb, not quit. I'll be in Vancouver and Victoria in May. How could I possible go from a no yarn town (Prince Rupert) to yarn nirvana (almost anywhere else) and not purchase more yarn!  I don't have it in me, so far better to keep that resolution fairly loose, so I don't disappoint myself.  And as far as the Irish Chain Afghan goes, I already know I'll need a few more balls of white and perhaps green and then there's the borders to consider....  I think you see my problem.

If you want to explore garter stitch in small bites, you can google the web for Domino Knitting, Modular Knitting, Patchwork Knitting and Knitting by Numbers and you'll find a swack of reference materials.  Here are a few books that I have found very helpful and worth the reading. (They are available from the very friendly folks at your local library)(inter-library loan in Prince Rupert).

• Domino Knitting, by Vivian Hoxbro
  
• Exciting Patchwork Knitting, by Horst Schulz
  
• Modular Knits, by Iris Schreier

So take it one square at a time.  Choose something that you can pick up and knit without frying your synapses.  Keep the pieces small enough to haul around with you and you can say good-bye to reading 2 year old magazines in waiting rooms.  

Join the Library Knitters on March 8th at 7:00pm in the Prince Rupert Library multi-purpose room.  I'll bring my garter stitch.