Knitting frustration

So I had decided to use Cotton Fleece for baby-to-be Olivia's Elizabeth Zimmermann 2 needle sweater. Seemed like a skein would be enough yarn, but I took a look around Ravelry to see what other people's experience was. This was indeed a case of "your mileage may vary". I saw amounts listed for everything from one skein to two and a half! But of course, I tempted fate. I have one skein, and I bought it at least 3 years ago, so while it's still available, the dye lot will no doubt be very different. And I got... 2 inches from the end, and ran out. Yep. Now, I have a lighter shade of green, and I could have used that from the beginning for the yoke and the border and been sure I had enough, between the 2 skeins, but did I? No, of course not. So, now I go to place an order for another skein, cross my fingers that it won't look ridiculously different, and work on my Noro scarf for myself for now...

Olympic Knitting

So I finished the Noro scarf on Sunday - exactly one week; pretty fast considering it's more than 6 feet of knitting on size 7 needles. I was pretty sick of k1p1 ribbing by the end, but the colors are so mesmerizing I ordered superbright colors for my own version. Pictures to come- my personal photographer hasn't been around in a while. The whole point of knitting it, in fact, was to get some good knitting backdrop pictures for my website. Once those are done, the scarf will go on to its new owner- the photographer's brother, in fact. It's a surprise- and I mean a real surprise; it's not a birthday or occasion of any kind. Those are the best kinds of surprises. Now, I'm once again snowbound at my mother's house (it's a lot easier to get to my job from here when it snows) and I have 2 projects with me; the baby sweater for a friend and the brighter scarf for me. And while here, I received a box of yarn from Webs for the next project- love love love it, but can't start that project here- can only look at the yarn longingly. Anyway, knitting progresses; pictures to follow eventually...

A knitter's candy store...

I took another trip "overseas" today to Brooklyn General Store for more yarn... ahhh. I love that store. You have to know what you're looking for- the awning over the door says "Frank's Department Store"- luckily I'd seen a picture of the storefront on the website so recognized it- but once you get inside, knitter heaven.

Actually, I shouldn't say that- one knitter's heaven has nothing another wants. But it's the kind of place I go into and almost hyperventilate, because I get overwhelmed with wanting EVERYTHING. Lots of beautiful yarn, Rowan, Alchemy, Noro, Morehouse, Manos, things I'd never heard of, plus buttons and felting supplies and fabrics and fabric paint- sigh. And all kinds of beautiful ribbons, and even European knitted tights (a little randomly, admitted, but I got some last time and needed to get more). When I arrived, there was a (sewing) pattern making class going on in the back- they have tons of classes and I only wish I lived close enough to make that more do-able. Then again, if I lived closer, I'd be even deeper in debt.

Don't get me wrong; no store has EVERYTHING, and this one definitely has a specific market, with certain colors and fibers predominating- it's not terribly huge so they have to be selective, and luckily for me, my taste and theirs seems to coincide. The only thing I'd change (and there's always something, isn't there?!) is that some areas are not well lit; for example, lower shelves, and since I have trouble seeing color anyway, that can be an issue. But it's a minor consideration and easily worked around.

All in all, I look forward to a trip there as though I'm five and going to the toy store, though it's definitely a test of my self control (budget? what budget?) I'm so glad Jared Flood (BrooklynTweed.net) pointed me in their direction- if you're ever in the neighborhood, definitely stop by... (and no, I'm not a paid spokesman!)

Some of the booty

Nothing gold (or purple) can stay...

Well, the gloves were received with great appreciation which of course makes it all worthwhile.

In other notes, I received some skeins of Koigu KPPPM years (and years) ago from a dear online friend. I loved it but struggled to find projects worthy of the skeins- it can be hard to think of something that will be more beautiful than some yarns are, just in the skein. I finally decided to try a pair of socks in the dark purple, but as they were planned for a man with rather large feet, I worried that the 2 skeins would be insufficient, so I searched around online and hunted down some more skeins. Now, it's true, we as knitters know colors change from dye lot to dye lot. This is a bit extreme however- you can clearly see in the photo that the 2 original skeins are dark purple, while the 2 newer ones (which aren't that new since the color appears to be out of production) are far far lighter. Okay, THAT won't work. It's okay, in the meantime I ordered some sockweight Noro to make striped socks (and some more Silk Garden to make myself a Noro striped scarf- this yarn is knitters' crack).

In the meanwhile, though, I dragged out my old knitting machine to see if it still works and used the old purple KPPPM on that- and discovered that a. the machine works; b. it can handle fingering weight yarn and c. the yarn has all kinds of breaks and hair thin spots in it- see all the tiny balls I had to wind from one skein?! I don't know if it's just that skein (fingers crossed!) or if it has anything to do with it being in storage so long (and I don't know how long it was in storage in my friend's stash before she gifted it to me) but I doubt it helped. So let me encourage you to USE those lovely eye-candy skeins and don't just let them languish in a basket looking pretty- you may not be able to get more if you need it, and sitting in the skein might not be good for it. Like the good china and the nice lingerie- USE IT, don't save it for some mythical perfect day....

The once and future Olivia

So now that I'm halfway through the Noro scarf, that means- right, time to start ANOTHER project. This time, it's a baby sweater for an upcoming Olivia due in April. Making a baby sweater is more complex than people sometimes realize.

First of all, I have learned there is no point in wasting the effort on a sweater if the baby's parents don't really appreciate hand knitted gifts- it's smarter then to just give the gift card or registry item (these parents appreciate it).

Next, except in very very rare cases there is no point in giving cashmere or other high maintenance sweaters. I find cotton or cotton blends work well for babies and kids no matter what the season- people tend to over-bundle babies, it seems to me, and with this one being born in April, a light sweater might be best.

Then, color- in this case, I know the baby to be is already overloaded with pink and purple, so I wanted something NOT pink or purple, but something that would coordinate, so I chose green. I had several options on hand, so next I chose pattern.

I had been planning to design something original, but sometimes, you have to ask yourself, why reinvent the wheel? Some patterns are perfect- and sometimes it's easier to foll

ow a tried and true recipe. One of my favorites (and knitters in general) is Elizabeth Zimmerman's Baby Sweater on 2 Needles- I first saw and used it years ago when it appeared in Vogue Knitting; it's also in her book Knitter's Almanac, and Vogue's American Collection (I think)- it's a true classic. I've made it dozens of times in dozens of yarns and it still never bores me.

As for the yarn choice, I had originally planned to use a light green, but it was too thick for the pattern. Then I remembered I had some Cotton Fleece from Brown Sheep in holly green. I

love the hand of this yarn- nice and soft for a baby; a little wool for warmth, a lot of cotton for comfort. The bright green will look great with pinks and purples all summer and into fall- this sweater tends to fit babies almost all of their first year, depending on the baby- and I love bright colors on babies. And the funny thing? I had originally gotten the yarn for a friend to make a hat for another friend's baby Olivia- and that Olivia is now no longer a baby. So, apparently, this yarn was always destined for SOME baby Olivia....

And so it begins....

The $227 scarf

The Noro Scarf is now 25% done, and it really is the perfect mindless knitting project. I brought it with me to the doctor's office this morning and it was yet another occasion where the color changes and texture of the yarn were enough to keep me happy, but the pattern was mindless enough to continue on it no matter how I was feeling. In fact, I would be tempted to keep one constantly on my needles- it's just the kind of project people see you knitting and want one- but let's face it, each scarf is about $50 worth of yarn. Totally worth it for the luscious color and texture, but how many people do you know that you want to give a scarf to that cost $50 in materials alone, or how many people do you know that would be willing to pay the price? After all (and here's what people don't understand about why knitters don't sell their projects for a song) let's figure it out. Bear with me, there's going to be math, but there's a lot of math in knitting.

It's $50 for the yarn. Each stripe takes me 3 minutes to knit (and I'm a fast knitter). There will be about 176 stripes in the finished piece. That means it will take me about 528 minutes to knit. (Not worrying about extra time for casting on, binding off, untangling yarn, whatever- this is rough math). Or, 8.8 hours. (Actually, less time than I would have thought). Although I am a skilled worker whose work is worth far more, let's say I agree to work for minimum wage, which in NYS in 2010 is $7.25. That's $63.80 for the labor. Add to the materials cost (assuming I already own the needles, etc.) and you have $113.80. If I were to sell through a boutique, the standard markup is at LEAST 100%. Which now makes our little scarf $227.60. Minimum.

Of course, you could argue that I don't have to sell through a boutique, and I don't. But if this were going to be a business for me, I'd still have to (close to at least) double the price to cover things like advertising, labels, business phone, business credit card accounts, rent, utilities, insurance, etc. AND this doesn't take into account time spent developing the design (if I had), test knitting, etc., or paying licensing fees for using someone else's pattern.

All of which is way too much to explain to every fool who comments "Oh, why don't you make ME one of those" or offers to pay a generous fee like $10 for a scarf, which is why I usually just answer "you can't afford me" with a smile. And which is why I knit things like this scarf not just for people I care about, but for people who truly appreciate it, perhaps even more than it's worth. To paraphrase the commercials, Yarn, $50 on Mastercard. Labor, $63.80. Appreciation by recipient, priceless....

Holidays

So it's Valentine's Day, and Chinese New Year, and the Olympics (which to me is a holiday- I think schools should be closed for the duration of the games). Now that the gloves are done (think of them as a Chinese New Year gift, I guess) I'm on to the main Olympic knitting. The requirements for this is a project that is basically foolproof and dead easy, so I can't mess it up during exciting moments, but still interesting enough the I enjoy it and am pleased with the outcome (which, ideally, is completed during the closing ceremonies...). Also, it should be worked in a yarn that's pleasant to work with. Add to the equation that I'm currently rather sick with some lovely lung infection and don't want to have to think in any way- so designing and swatching is totally out. Perfect project? A striped Noro scarf swiped from (I'm sorry, as an homage to) Jared Flood, aka Brooklyn Tweed- check his out here= brooklyn tweed. See the before picture above. I have plenty more to say about brookyntweed, the yarn, the place I bought it, but I'll save it for future posts- for now, I'm going back to bed...

Are we there yet???

Ever notice how much longer the second glove (or sock, or mitten, or sleeve) seems to take? In this case, having finished gloves and ripped them out and started over, I guess it's actually the...4th glove. Sigh. Let's hope they fit, shall we? Details? Pattern from Ann Budd's Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns, cuffs in "red dragon" cashmere from Black Pearl Yarns via One Planet Yarns; main portion of glove in Jo Sharp Alpaca Kid Lustre, worked at 6 spi. If I did them again? Hmmm... the red's a little brighter than I planned for (the gloves match a scarf done in the cashmere in grey and the red)- for both projects, I'd probably have chosen more of a maroon, and I wanted to do the entire glove in cashmere, but there wasn't enough of it. Other than that, they're serviceable and should be warm, if not exciting; these can be the base gloves and I'll do something more dramatic another time. (Although the bright red does lend an "I slit my wrists" look to them that perversely amuses me)

Farewell to McQueen

I was so sad to read about the death of Alexander McQueen today- most people who have heard of him associate him with outrageous fashion shows, and those were certainly part of his repertoire. However, when I think of McQueen, I think of one of the few designers who actually had the skills of a classically trained tailor. His wildly inventive imagination was matched by incredible craftsmanship- he had the creativity but also the training to back it up. More importantly, if the reports are true, it's so incredibly sad to me that anyone would be so distraught over the death of his parent that he lost hope. Having lost my own parent so recently, my heart breaks for him, not matter what the true story of his death turns out to be. He is a loss to the fashion community, and to humanity.

Stranded indeed....

snowed in, although how snowed in can you really be in New York, or at least in this neighborhood where you can walk to anything you really need? While I'm grateful schools are closed, so far it hasn't been much of a day off as I've been dealing with college students' email issues- (Is class cancelled? Well, if the college is closed, obviously...), bills, taxes, getting the website going, hooking this up to ravelry- it's 2pm and I'm finally getting to think about knitting. Working on the gloves, and then I'm on to a supersimple but really beautiful Noro scarf.

There are so many reasons for choosing a project to work on. The gloves, because a friend's hands were cold. The scarf, because it will make a great project to photograph for backgrounds on the website. Sometimes it's because I want to work with a particular yarn, or color, or needle size, or because it's a portable project and I'm going somewhere.

As the snow continues to fall, I can't help hoping for another day tomorrow to knit, now that I've taken care of everything else....

Rookie Mistakes

I decided to make a pair of gloves for a dear friend. So far so good. I got alpaca yarn, nice and warm, for the hands, and cashmere, supersoft, for the wrists. Again, so far so good. I wanted to get them done quickly- it's cold out there! So rather than re-invent the wheel, I turned to the tried and true "recipe book" by Ann Budd and just decided to make plain and simple standard gloves for now- I'll make fancy ones at some later point.

Ok, in my infinite wisdom, I decided to trace his hand to be sure the gloves would fit perfectly. Done. Then I measured the tracing and did a gauge swatch. Got it all set up, started off, knitted the glove- then thought, wait, that looks fairly small. I compared it with the tracing, and it looked fine, but when I put it on, it was just a smidge bigger than my hand- and the hand of the recipient is considerably bigger. Then light broke- duh; I failed to take into account the thickness of the hand- sigh. You'd think I was new to all this.

So off I go again, next size up, get the glove done and have this nagging feeling something's STILL wrong- it seems as big as a baseball glove to me. I dragoon my poor brother into trying it on in lieu of the intended owner, and while it's loose on his large hand, he tells me it's not so bad. But I'm not satisfied. Before I start glove 2, I look at #1, measure it, and realize.... somewhere along the road my gauge has gone from 7 sts per inch to 6. That's right, the oldest, most basic mistake in the book- check, check, and recheck your gauge. ARRGH. So now, we're off on version 3 of glove #1. Sigh. Thank god, in knitting, you can just rip out and start over when you make a mistake, without even ruining the materials. That may be the thing I like best about it- it's never a complete loss.

Lost in cyberspace

There doesn't seem to be much point in writing a blog entry at this point, since between godaddy! and blogger my blog seems lost in cyberspace, but I have faith the eventually, all the glitches will be resolved.
Lately I've been talking to some people in the arts other than design about creativity, and it seems a common theme that surrounding yourself with creative people, whatever specific field they're in, sparks your own creativity. It's as though, as one person put it, art is contagious. By the same token, surrounding yourself (or in any case, myself) with people who are... let's say, less creative- tends to deaden my creativity, in a way. I suppose there are plenty of creative people who survive or even thrive on their own, but I seem to do better with that spark around me.

And of course, nothing sparks creativity (again, at least for me) like unconditional support. Everyone needs a fan, if not a fan club. I suppose we all need critics to some degree as well- some people seem to love to rise to the challenge when someone knocks them down and do even better in the face of opposition. Not me- I do better with praise. You liked that? Well, you'll love what I make you next!

Anyway, here's hoping all creative types out there find other creative people to inspire them, as well as a fan or two to support their efforts.

And, we're back....

So it's been a few years since I left the world of blogging and knitwear design and now I'm back, albeit in a limited way. Things like work and real life tend to get in the way of the important things, like knitting and designing, but it's important to find balance. Or, I function better with too much to do than not enough. So, we'll see where this goes- and if anyone's still reading!