Alternative Yarn Retreat

A perfect combination of factors: excellent company, pleasant weather and comfortable surroundings, very poor/non-existant cell phone service, tasty food prepared by someone else, multiple knitting projects including new Webs acquisitions, and sanctioned time away from reality.  What would make this better?  Learning to weave!

Behold the Ashford Rigid Heddle Loom with 10 dent-per-inch reed!  Once again, Oogy has exposed me to yet another fiber-dependent activity.  I had not considered learning to weave before, although I have often admired the work of others.  The Yarn Harlot's scarf from this May was beautiful, and Nova has brought some of her exquisite work to our knitting group.  There's something very appealing about the flat nature of the fabric, the way it drapes, that is not easy to achieve with knitting.  Plus, weaving is faster and uses less yarn. 

Now that I have some experience I can recognize other features of weaving that make it increasingly appealing.  I have learned that lace- or fingering-weight hand-spun yarn lends itself beautifully to weaving, revealing color and textural features that can be hidden in a knitted fabric.  Weaving shares with knitting a soothing, repetitive action that quickly becomes habitual.  It also shares with knitting the opportunity to watch a project develop as each row is completed, though this happens more quickly with the simple weaving we accomplished this past weekend.  

It was not too difficult for us to learn.  The YouTube video provided by Ashford was invaluable.  From it we learned how to warp:

This is best done with 2 people, even if neither one really knows what's happening.  Once the loom is warped, the weaving can begin:

Our trial run, done with beige and off-white worsted weight wool, yielded a scarf that we determined to be gift-worthy.  I would not say this about my first knitted project!

This scarf is the second project, made with Oogy-spun hand-dyed Romney wool:

It's really very beautiful, the way the colors come through.

You can view the third project on Oogy's blog!  We did encounter some difficulty with the warping process for this project, but it was remedied quickly and you can see that the weaving is in full swing.  Thanks to Mr. Oogy, who it turns out grew up with a master weaver and was able to offer some assistance when we encountered this, and other, minor snags. 

I'm still mulling all of the implications of learning to weave.  I would not give up knitting, but what is the harm of adding another fun yarn-related activity to the repertoire?  A long time ago I said I would never be interested in spinning, but that turned out to be very wrong.  In fact, weaving and spinning complement each other beautifully.  Even if I decide to forego weaving, it was awesome to learn the craft with Oogy, who is a constant source of inspiration to me.  Oogy, I often wish we lived closer together, but imagine all the trouble we'd be in! 

So-called Easy Lace

Way back in 2011 Oogy and I decided to focus on knitting lace projects.  I began this Large Rectangle shawl from Victorian Lace Today by Jane Sowerby, thinking it would be a relatively quick project.  I had to leave it languishing for many months because it was not mindless knitting.  Even though it is labeled "easy lace" in the book, I found that it required all of my attention, even after doing many repeats of the pattern within a short time.  The other thing about lace is that it requires concentration just keeping it on the needles.  So, it sat until about a month ago when I decided that I needed a total escape from thinking about work.  I found it so therapeutic to pause the incessant internal work narrative and focus just on knitting.

The pattern is a traditional diamond motif with a 12-row knitted-on border.

  
I used Misti Alpaca Lace in a color I can't remember.  It's a moss-like green.

One of the most challenging aspects of making lace is blocking it to show its pattern most effectively.  I have sewn the wet shawl onto a quilt!

I thought once this project was complete that I would not be interested in making lace for a very long time.  However, I'm now eyeing the considerable stash of lace-weight yarn and wondering which project to tackle next.  Perhaps one that Jane Sowerby calls "intermediate lace"?

New Normal

I was going to call this "back to normal", but this has been a transformative year and what was a normal level of busy last year seems a bit leisurely now.  Right now I'm happy to focus on something other than work at 10 o'clock at night.

A few weeks ago Oogy posted pictures of her Wingspan projects, and as is often the case, I did not hesitate to follow her example and made my own.  She is my project guru.

I began with a few sock blanks from Knit Picks.

Which I dyed to varying degrees of intensity with the color Wedgewood from Prochem dyes.

 

I got impatient and scrapped my original plan to make the husband stand over the stove holding the sock blanks and lowering them slowly with exact timing.  I did this instead.

By the time I had lowered both blanks into the bath, the dye was mostly used.

 

The color progression was not perfect, but I was OK with that.

With the dyeing finished, I was very eager to begin knitting.

The variations of Wingspan that most impressed me were ones with gradual color progression, so I was hoping to achieve that with the wedgewood-dyed wool.  It sorta worked...

This pattern is very good for semi-mindless knitting.  It's all garter stitch, with markers doing all the counting work.  Just when it gets boring, it's time to begin a new wedge.  I can see doing this again.

It's April, which means that my job has completely consumed my life.  There have been mornings this month in which there was no time to knit.
I have no projects to show--they exist, but I haven't had time to take any pictures.  Husband took these, after he was nice enough to put together the 2nd set of shelves for my Pretend Yarn Store.

Brownie helped as best he could.

sock update

The teal/blue/purple yarn was not looking so good with plain stockinette stitch, so these have become entrelac socks.  We'll see how long I can keep this up!

Dad's socks turned out great and he was very pleased to receive them.

Focus on Socks

The demands of work have meant that I only have energy to make one sock after another (and to write very short blog posts).  The only way to make it fun is to use wonderful colors.  

From this assortment, my step mom chose teal blue, slate blue and deep purple.

Her yarn looks like this and is in line to be knit into socks soon.  Dad's socks are first (lilac and slate blue).  There are some lightly-dyed strands of pink, but we won't tell him (he's color blind and only wears the socks in the house).

I've put my own on hold (golden pear, slate blue, pine green).

Brain Shifting Progress

Another milestone reached in the fair isle project: the second border pattern is done!

Brownie is shown because I know how much you love him.  He is not at all aware of, nor does he care, what is happening here.

By now the knitting is probably not requiring much prefrontal cortex.  I don't need to look at the pattern chart anymore, and I get through half a row thinking of other stuff before I realize where I am.  A few times this weekend I was surprised to find myself at the end of a row.  Interestingly, I can immediately tell if I've made a mistake.  Then I have to carefully consider the pattern and figure out where I am.  It happens about once every other row.  I believe that's a function of the striatum, which responds to the mistake by halting ongoing behavior.

What keeps me addicted to this project is watching the color progression.  I love each of these colors and it's fun to see how they look together.

The next step is to do another peerie, like the one that separates the first and second patterns, and then it will be time to begin the all-over pattern.

As I'm working on this project I think of all the stories I've read about the knitters who originally used this technique to make garments for their families or to sell.  They would do the work while they were doing "real" work, like farming or gathering wood.  Walking around getting things done while managing to make such intricate pieces.  I could work on my sweater and lecture at the same time!  Maybe not.

Striatum-dependent knitting

There's been some progress made on the fair isle project:

The first motif on the body is finished.  I changed the colors in the center to add further contrast in the background.  It looks a bit loud here, but the red-orange color will brighten up the sweater without being too overwhelming (I hope).  It's been so much fun getting re-immersed in fair isle knitting.  I love how the pattern evolves on every row, even though each row takes forever (364 stitches, #2 needles).

I've also been working on the Virgin sweater:

I started with the sleeve because I was too lazy to do a swatch.  Luckily my gauge is right, although the yarn I am using (Brown Sheep Nature Spun sport weight on size 3 needles) is not producing as dense a fabric as the pattern calls for.  The safety pin is placed at the point when I felt I was not using my prefrontal cortex excessively to keep track of the pattern.  The next marker, where I stopped knitting to take this picture, is where I felt the knitting became primarily striatum-dependent.  By that I mean that I could knit without paying much attention.  I had developed the habit necessary to following the pattern without having to keep it in working memory.  As each row was worked I was able to recognize that I was changing the yarn appropriately, getting a little pulse of dopamine in the nucleus accumbens each time.  I put it away to play with the fair isle sweater, so I'll need to use my prefrontal cortex for a few rows when I get back to it.  I'll need to reclaim it from Mr. Brown, who has recognized its value as a pillow.

Fair Isle Knitting: the ideal prefrontal cortex exercise

Oogy and I have decided that our focus this year is on stranded color knitting.  I've been a big fan of Fair Isle knitting for many years.  One of my fondest memories of the grad school years is spending several hours sitting on the floor in the shetland wool aisle at Shuttles, Spindles and Skeins in Boulder, Colorado.  I was with my buddy Julie and we were picking out yarn to make some Alice Starmore sweaters.  We kept poor Maggie running back and forth to check how many skeins of this or that she had in stock.  I made Rona, and Julie made Roscalie Cardigan, both from the In the Hebrides collection.  It must have been around 1995 or 96.  I didn't follow the pattern exactly, making my sweater a lot shorter and using plain ribbing instead of the fancy edging that Starmore called for.  Here is a picture of the sweater: 

Here's another project I did several years later--I used border patterns from Starmore's Book of Fair Isle Knitting to make this vest, using the fancy border that I was supposed to use on Rona.

Here are some swatches I am making in preparation for the next fair isle project, using Knit Pick's Palette:

    
So what does fair isle knitting have to do with the brain?  The basic structure of this type of knitting is the use of only 2 colors on any given row, with color changes every few rows to create the subtle variations that are so appealing in this knitting style.  It has a complicated appearance, but it is actually very simple, with a pattern that is repeated many times to complete the row.  For example, I used border pattern #159 from Mary Jane Mucklestone's 200 Fair Isle Motifs in the middle of the second swatch pictured above.

In a sweater the sequence of 16 stitches in the pattern would get repeated 21 times.  This is where the brain comes in.  The prefrontal cortex, which serves as the brain's executive processor, makes decisions and plans for the future.  It also houses our "working" memory, our ability to use new and remembered information to perform a task.  The dorsolateral portion of the prefrontal cortex serves as a template for spatial information.  It has neurons that will get active when something is happening in a particular place, and the same neurons will keep firing so that we can keep in mind what is supposed to happen in that place after a delay of a few seconds.  So, as row 1 in the border pattern is worked, the sequence of 1 Turmeric, 2 Bark, 5 Turmeric, 2 Bark, 3 Turmeric, 1 Bark, 3 Turmeric, 2 Bark...gets tracked by the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and after a few repeats I can work the row without consulting the pattern, until all 21 repeats are done.  The spatial map in my dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is keeping the pattern in focus and directing the motor cortex to control the muscles in my fingers, allowing me to choose Tumeric or Bark, as appropriate.  Then, the pattern repeat, and maybe one or both colors, changes.  This taps into another function of the prefrontal cortex: it allows for flexible behavior that responds to changing demands of the environment.  Someone with damage to this brain area would be able to follow the pattern, but once it was established, it would be difficult for this person to shift to a different pattern.  But when the prefrontal cortex is functioning well, it is possible to replace the working memory for row 1 with the pattern for row 2.  Three hundred and thirty-six stitches later, things change again and the working memory is replaced for another row.

A different part of the prefrontal cortex is important for making decisions.  Should I do another row, or should I work on my lecture for next week?  The immediate reward of seeing the effect of the next color on the next row needs to be weighed against the benefit of getting the lecture prepared.  Do I really want to be up until 1am working on the lecture the night before it's delivered?  Or should I put the knitting down and get to work?  These decisions that involve delayed gratification are very difficult, but a functioning ventromedial prefrontal cortex can anticipate the emotional impact of an action, making it possible to make a decision.  I know from experience how painful and unpleasant it is to be preparing a lecture when I'm supposed to be sleeping, so the anticipation of this unpleasantness will factor into my decision, if my ventromedial prefrontal cortex is working.  

To see some figures of the prefrontal cortex and read about many other brain functions, check out a very cool site maintained by McGill University called The Brain From Top to Bottom.  The link will take you to the module that is focused on the function of the prefrontal cortex.  You can adjust the level of explanation from beginner to advanced, and you can also change the level of analysis, from neurological to psychological, or even social.

I have often thought that this type of knitting is one way to exercise the prefrontal cortex.  Maybe Fair Isle knitting can be used to strengthen the prefrontal cortex when depression and anxiety have been wearing it down.

The perennial knitter's problem

I told Oogy I wanted to see something new on her blog, to which she replied she had nothing but unfinished objects [see her pile here].  Me, too, Oogy!
We are very good at starting something, but not as good at finishing.  I don't mean the Deborah Newton you-should-know-better-how-to-finish-your-knitting sense, but more the finish-SOMETHING-before-you-start-the-next-project sense.  I wish I could say this is my UFO pile in its entirety...

The green lace project has been targeted to be finished before the year of lace knitting is over.  Just 5 more repeats of the center panel (50 more rows), then the 12-row border to be repeated 86 times (1032 rows of 7-12 stitches each).  This is the deception of lace knitting: you're almost done, except for the border.

The purple and bright green items are for the community knitting project I'm doing with a group of students and the Camel Knitters.  We are making hats and mitts for kids at a shelter in our city.  We plan to visit the shelter's after-school program and do a knitting lesson soon.

New Inspiration

We are headed into the end of a year of lace, Oogy and I, so my eye is wandering to other possibilities.  I was inspired recently by a friend's sweater in progress, which you can see here (see the 6th picture).  My version will have a different design and will use the yarn pictured here.

gauntlet mitts and knitting as therapy

Sometimes I would rather be knitting, but if I can't be knitting, at least I can be wearing something that I knit.  These mitts have seen a number of hours at the keyboard recently.

Most of the knitters I know would agree that knitting offers some form of therapy.  I have often found it to be a soothing break from work, to take out my "office knitting" and do a few rows.  The therapeutic benefit of knitting (and crochet and cross-stitch) is being studied by a group in Bath, England.  Betsan Corkhill has a website called Stitchlinks that is very interesting.  She runs a clinic in which her clients use knitting or stitching to help them cope with chronic pain.  She's also convinced nearby neuroscientists to examine the impact of knitting on brain function.  I'm especially intrigued by the evidence for improved memory.

I sometimes will use knitting as a means to cope with frustration.  I'm making another pair of mitts for a friend who is experiencing some challenges.  I can't help her, but I can make her a pair of mitts.

A Smaller Girasole

One of the lace knit-a-longs that Oogy and I have done this year is the shawl Girasole, a pattern by Jared Flood.  Hers is the larger, blanket version, while mine is the smaller, shawl version, made with Knit Picks Palette in Iris Heather.  I was so happy to find a use for that yarn, which has been languishing in the stash for years, with multiple false starts in other projects.  I was so dismayed when I ran out of yarn about 2/3 around the border.  Luckily, the additional skeins of Iris Heather I purchased were a perfect match.  When does that ever happen?

Purple Pain

I've been thinking a lot about the experience my friends are having as they learn to knit.  They've gone into the endeavor with the idea that it looks impossible, only to learn that it's really quite easy, at first.  Then things get complicated, like when extra stitches appear, or the yarn begins to shed.  It turns out that knitting is really very complicated, and even with 25 years of experience, mistakes happen.  These thoughts came to me as I was tearing out the Lutz and Patmos cardigan that I made from a pattern in the Early Fall 2010 issue of Vogue Knitting.  I used a different yarn, but the huge dimensions were as directed in the pattern.  The problem was that such a sweater is not meant for a larger person, with it's chunky yarn and big cables. Cables every inch!  I've had it sitting in the closet for a year now, so today was the day it got dismantled.

 It looks so nice, laid out on the floor.  I actually tried it on again, thinking maybe it would be OK, but no, it still looked like a big robe.

 Brownie, ever the helper.

I have vague plans to use the yarn to make a simple (no cables) V-neck sweater, with a matching scarf.

Goodbye August

August has been a blur—transitioning from lab work to home modification work, and then back to school has disrupted the normal routine.  This has not, however, had a significant impact on the amount of knitting getting done around here.

August began with a great deal of activity in the dye “studio”, that area of the basement where the floor is colorful and jars of dye grow fuzzy things.  It got some serious use for a few weeks, as this picture demonstrates.  A good fiber buddy came over for an afternoon to observe and sample the activity (see her coverage of the event here). 

Once the dye studio was taken over by the home modification effort, my attention was shifted to teaching a colleague how to knit.  I even had the chance to meet her at the yarn store and show her some of the possibilities for her first project. 

She is off to a great start:

The process of learning how to knit has been going well for her, though there has been more than one session of “forensic knitting” in which I have closely observed her technique to discern how her scarf was developing holes and wings.  Initially, she was not completing every stitch, resulting in a slipped stitch and a yarnover, which turned into an eyelet on the next row.  We cured her of that habit, but then she developed a new symptom of knitting in the garter stitch row below, creating 2 stitches that should have been one.  We seem to have worked that one out, too.  It’s been a few days since I have heard about the scarf (Irene might have increased time to knit, but she has not fostered electronic forms of communication), but hopefully some good progress has been made. 

Convolutions

Oogy has sent my cortex!  It turns out to be a tea cozy, which is so very awesome.  It's about 100 degrees out, but I'm going to make some tea, anyway.

She also sent a blank canvas--sock yarn ready and waiting to be dyed.  There's about 450 g here, so that's about 4 pairs of socks.  Good timing, because my order from Knit Picks of Bare lace- and fingering-weight yarn arrived on the same day.  Definitely time to fire up the dye studio!

Yarn in DC

A few days away gives one a renewed appreciation for home. Going away, however, gives one an opportunity to discover new yarn shops! During a recent trip to DC (grant review meeting: lots of interesting work, great fun, hung out with a grad school mentor who was on the same review panel) I found Looped Yarn Works. After 2 days of reviewing grants in a windowless conference room, I was sprung loose on DC and went immediately, well, after a nice lunch with my mentor friend, to the yarn store. I was greeted warmly by the owners, Janie and Susan, and got a tour of the place from Janie. I'm a frequent yarn store visitor, so there isn't much that can be new for me, but Janie enthusiastically showed me some yarn that was indeed unique. It's created by Elisabeth Drumm and is also sold on her Etsy shop. It was difficult to choose which colors to get, and I now see on her shop that there is a vast range to choose from. The gradual color variation is achieved by changing the number of plies of each color, starting with all the same, then substituting 1, then 2, then 3, and finally changing the color all together. It's explained better by the artist on her shop site. Now for what to do with them...

Annual Fawn Visit

It seems every year at this time we are introduced to a new family in the back yard. This photo was taken from inside the house today. As I write this the family is walking down our street!

Nature and Girasole Spin-off

Our year of lace is half over! I still have quite a lot of lace weight yarn left...

In the process of working on what is now the massive Girasole, I found myself liking Chart E. It's simple enough that I don't have to consult the chart anymore, and I like the fabric it makes: lacy but not too frilly. I decided to make a sweater with that pattern as a prominent feature. I'm calling it Girasole Spin-off, Chart E. I'm making it up as I go along, with the idea that it will be something I can wear when it's warm out (short sleeved, open in the front). This is what's been knit in the past week. One of my favorite things about lace is that it can be very fast to knit.

This picture shows it folded in half, with the left front on the left side of the photo. I'm using Rowan Purelife naturally dyed organic cotton in "rhubarb". I thought rhubarb had a pinkish hue, but this yarn is ever-so-slightly green, with subtle variations in intensity, plus the tiny area that I hand dyed with a bit of shiraz. That part looks more like what I imagined rhubarb to be.

Oogy and I are tackling another lace project together--a "tidy" of all things. This would be a rectangular doily. Here's my progress thus far:

It is a pattern called Apple Leaf Tidy and is available for free here.

Camel Knitters Yarnbombing

Today is the inaugural International Yarnbombing Day, which the Camel Knitters Guild observed at Connecticut College.

We had only 4 days notice, but we manufactured a good number of these, uh, squiggly things.