It's Magic

My friend Macky loaned me the pattern for this hat, which I am making for Warren. It is incredibly simple to do, but how the heck does it work?

I hope some day to understand knitting deeply enough to come up with something like this myself.


You can make the hat any size, but you have to cast on a multiple of four.
On circular or double-pointed needles (DPN) start with a cable cast on, which I demonstrated for the green baby poncho (scroll down). Put a marker on the first sticth after you join.
Work two rows of the dark color as follows
K1, P1, K1, YTF, SL1, YTB repeat
Work two rows of the light color as follows
K1, YTR, SL1, YTB, K1, P1 repeat
YTF means "yarn to the front." YTB means "yarn to the back." SL means "slip."
Basically, what you do is you move the yarn to the front as if you were going to purl the stitch, but instead of purling, you just slip that stitch without knitting it or purling it, onto the right-hand needle (or left if you're a lefty). Then you move the yarn to the back in order to knit the next stitch.
Tip: When you change color you can tell if you're doing it right because you will always purl the stitch that is the same color as the yarn you are using on the first and third rows.

Progress

The baby Poncho is coming along nicely. This is the first head hole I've ever made. I screwed up a little bit on it, but no one will be able to tell by looking.

I've left a few mistakes in, which I don't think will be very, very noticeable. I've had to unravel so many times on this project that at some point I just decided to let some small errors slide. That's part of the handmade charm, after all.

It's been very interesting learning to read the cable chart. I'm going to do a scarf for myself with cables of my own invention. There is an excellent article in knitty about designing cable trees.

I've gone from reading the chart to reading the knitting. I'm now almost to the point of being bored by the repetition, since the difficulty has vanished.

Stalled Sock

I was trucking right along on this sock for Erik (I plan to make two), when I did a very dumb thing. I completely forgot to turn the heel. Just plain forgot. I picked up the stitches on the side and started knitting in the round again for a day before I realized. Then it took me a week to get around to the unpleasant job of unraveling it, and I still haven't gotten back to it yet. Time to turn the heel.

Animation Made Easy

Use this site to make incredibly easy flip-book animations. My first one is called "Birth."

People You Know in Art

"Cheyney and Eileen Disturb a Historian at Pompeii"
by Lucy McKenzie

I ran across this on ArtMoCo this morning. I know Cheyney and Eileen, so I found it funny. Actually, I know Cheyney. I've only met his wife Eileen once.

You Knit What?!

Some things are begging to be made fun of.

(From the knitters tribe.)

My first Cables

This is the baby poncho I'm making for little Lucas, to learn how to knit cables. The pattern is from a Norwegian book of baby knits from Sandnes Lanette Superwash (number 9). I'm using CascadeYarns 100% Superwash Wool 100g yarn color 850.


The first thing I needed to do was to find out how to knit cables. I went online and found a good written explanation, and a video. (I think Beth posted about these videos months ago.)
Next, I made myself a cable needle by bending a hair pin.

This is the chart I have to follow.

I knit about 15 rows, but something was terribly wrong. The simpler cables were coming out all right, except for one small mistake where I knit when I should have purled.

But the more complicated cables looked just terrible.

Finally, I figured out that I was reading the chart backwards. It's obvious, of course, but I hadn't realized that I had to read the odd-numbered lines of the chart from right to left and the even rows from left to right.
I took out all of my 1,980 finished stitches, and started over. This time I numbered the lines of the chart, writing the odd numbers on the right side and the even numbers on the left. I'm also using a mini-post-it note to underline the row I'm in the process of knitting.
And this is how that chart translates into fuzzy green reality.

Socks

Knitty, excellent as usual, has a very good article about your basic sock, from last Spring. This issue's article about mittens looks pretty interesting.

Nip and Tuck

I had this red cotton jersey shirt I had found in the bulk pile at the Garment District, which was too big for me. I couldn't wear it because whenever I leaned forward the top gaped and exposed my chest. It's been in the mending pile for almost a year. I finally got around to doing something about it.

Get a closer look.