Tuesday, July 30, 2013

The Laziest Knitter

I may be the world's laziest knitter.  There hasn't been an official poll, though if anyone wants to conduct one do let me know the results.  Just based on personal experience.  I spend a fair amount of time knitting  -- okay, way too much time -- helping knitters and teaching knitting.  It's an addiction: Hi, my name is Lisa and I'm an enabler.

As addictions go, knitting is pretty healthy.  It won't kill you.  It doesn't immediately go to your thighs or increase your cholesterol or tamper with you blood sugar.
You end up with a product.  Eventually.

Eventually.  Which brings me to what kind of knitter I am.  I'm process all the way.  Eventually I finish stuff.  I'm really good at meeting deadlines, having been a magazine journalist and book author in my checkered past, but I also work way ahead of time.

Right now I'm knitting the following on September deadlines:

1.  Milano, a big boxy pullover in nine colors of HiKoo Cobasi, designed by the brilliant Carol    Sunday;

2.  Lea & Lola, finely cabled cardigan knit in Knit One Crochet Too's Cozette, from the book Essentially Feminine Knits;

3.  Morning Hour Shawl, a pattern that turned up on Ravelry, in a gradient yarn called Color Flow.  I'm adding beads to the edging;

4.  Cladonia, a.k.a. Rachel's wedding shawl, in Classic Elite Silky Alpaca -- the color is called Wedding White, isn't that perfect?  This is a Kirsten Kapur pattern.  The actual wedding shawl is the fourth I've made from this pattern.  I've added beading and doubled the lace border and knit it in lace-weight instead of fingering weight.  Odd that I've knit this pattern four times, since three is usually my limit.  Pictures of two of my Cladonia are on Ravelry.

Plus for a class I'm teaching at String Theory Yarn Company in Glen Ellyn, Illinois:
5.  my second Resistance shawl, a fascinating modular pattern in the current Knit Scene Accessories magazine (see info about version one on Ravelry; I'm Knitmaven).
Resistance 2 alternates two BFL (Blue Faced Leicester, apparently a very happy type of sheep because this yarn is so soft I find myself cuddling it) yarns from Feederbrook Farm, a semi-solid called Uncommon Ground and a gradient called Entropy.  This is great fun. 


Plus just for me I'm making:
6. Phiaro scarf #3, having gifted the first two.  This one is out of Artyarns Ensemble Light striped against Handmaiden Rumple.  The former is silk+cashmere, the latter pure silk.  I'm keeping this Phiaro.  You can't have it.  And it's every color of red.

Yesterday I worked on 2, 3, 5 and 6.  And taught 5.

So here's what I'm thinking of doing with this blog:  talking about the current Laziest Knitter move --  from here on in to be referred to as LK.
It might be about fiber and how to meet fiber halfway to convince it to work for you.
It might be about a pattern.
It might be about a technique.
It might be about a knitting tool that just really works for me.
It might work for you, it might not, but it's worth knowing about.
It might be about a fix -- I wrote a book called Knit Fix a few years ago, which implies that I make mistakes ALL THE TIME but that I love to come up with fixits.  Call me weird.  You won't be the first.  But it's all about process.  Trying stuff.  Seeing if it works.  If it does, you get to wear your trophy.
(Or your cat gets to curl up on it, as Loveday is right now.  She's tucked up behind me on another Carol Sunday design, Old Town, made from Noro Taiyo Sock, with which I got to play again with striping yarn, convincing it to stripe where I want it to stripe. Old Town was on my shoulders until a minute ago. You'll notice that Loveday is also seriously striped.  Coincidence?)

One of the lovely things about teaching and working at String Theory is that the owner, Janet Avila, has this sort of market-wide reach that brings in all kinds of cool new stuff to try.  For example, she met the owner of Feederbrook Farm at the TNNA show last month and brought the yarn back for us to try.  I nabbed it for Resistance 2: the sequel.
(See Janet's blog at www.stringtheoryyarncompany.com for the whole Feederbrook story.) 

So, TA DA! we begin.  The first LK move is a trick for the Resistance shawl*
When you're doing the left join, leave your 20 level two stitches on the dpn and continue to work from dpn and circular.  It's SO MUCH easier.  Then do the same for the right join. Doing it this way is why I'm on Resistance 2 and have plans for Resistance 3.


*For all pattern references, you'll have to own the pattern for my comments to make sense.  I'm a big believer in copyright, as is any author or, as the publishers think of authors and designers, "content providers."  We content providers don't make much money from our work as it is. Please don't steal our stuff, i.e. don't copy our work and share it with friends. Thanks.  End of lecture.  Promise.