Desert Island Yarn*

It's always good to lead with a picture - it peaks the interest, right? Here are some of my top candidates for Desert Island Yarn:

Here's how you play the Desert Island Yarn Game:

First, you must create categories from the yarn you currently have in your stash (or, if you have some restraint, would like to have - ha!) and that you would be likely to have with you if you were stranded on a Desert Island. Your categories may vary from mine. For instance, I'm not a big novelty yarn girl, so I have one big category that I label "Novelty". You may need to subdivide into "Eyelash" and "Fun Fur". (If so, I hope we end up on different islands. No offense. I'd just rather be stranded with a wool girl.) Here are my categories:

Alpaca
Cashmere blends
Merino
Rare blends (camel, quiviut, etc.)
Wool
Mohair blends
Cotton
Tencel blends
Linen
Silk blends
Novelty
Variegateds

My categories are predominantly by fiber, but yours may be organized in another way. I can imagine categories like sock yarn, lace weight, or felting yarn, for instance. Personally, if I could only have one weight of yarn on my island, it would likely be a DK or a worsted. Given a little more flexibility, I would add in sport weight or fingering for interest.

Once you've gotten the categories in place, choose the ones you feel you cannot go without. This should be a small number. Mine is six. Aim for five, but if you really have to, you can have seven categories. If you go up to eight you have to be honest with yourself. You're really not ready for Desert Island living, are you? Check yourself into a spa and knit with whatever you want for a week or so to get it out of your system and then try again.

Remember to take some thought. These may or may not be your favorite categories, but they are the ones you would really need to do a full array of seasonal knitting. (Or maybe not - maybe your Desert Island is in the tundra - it can happen - DC seems to have broken off from the Mid-Atlantic and floated substantially northward.) Categories may be yarn-driven as well. If you have a single yarn in a category that you can't live without, it may push the category to Desert Island status. Choose wisely.

My final, adjusted categories are:

Alpaca (favorite)
Merino (next favorite)
Cotton-worsted (Yarn-driven and also practical)
Cotton-sport (Yarn-driven)
Mohair blends (Mostly for the effect)
Merino Variegated (Yarn-driven)

Now, within each category, you must choose no more than five different yarns that you feel are your absolute favorites to work with - either for the great feeling you get from the process or from the effects they produce. Mine before further subdivision were:

Alpaca - Classic Elite Inca Alpaca, Cascade Lana D'Oro, and Blue Sky Alpaca's 100% Alpaca

Merino - Jaeger Extrafine Merino DK, Artyarns Supermerino (hence the subcategory), KPPPM

Cotton - Rowan ASC, Tahki Cotton Classic and Tweedy Cotton Classic (another subcategory), Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece, Rowan Cotton Glace.

Mohair - K1C2 Doucuer et Soie, Rowan Kidsilk Haze, Anny Blatt Fine Kid, GGH Kid Soft

Finally, you must choose only one yarn in each category that you would have to have on your Desert Island. This is tough, and you may have to subdivide categories to do it. Just remember - aim for five, no more than seven. (If you can get by on four, I'll be really impressed.)

My final choices are:

Classic Elite Inca Alpaca (Alpaca) - I love the beautiful heathered colors and soft feel of this yarn. It's timeless. I knit with it ten years ago and I return to it still.

Jaeger Extrafine Merino DK (Merino) - Surprisingly, I have been to only one yarn shop that carries this yarn (Skein in Pasadena). It gets overlooked because it's a basic, and generally shop owners choose a basic from another line - Karabella Aurora 8 or something Cashmerino by Debbie Bliss (not really a substitute in my humble opinion) in most cases - I'm here to tell you for a 100% merino this stuff cannot be beat for feel and beauty. I'll order EFMDK rather than get a quick fix from somewhere else. It's definitely my standard for merino.

Rowan All Season's Cotton (Cotton - Worsted) - It took me a long time to realize that this was a Desert Island Yarn, becasue in many ways it's a plain jane, but as I've been working on Asana (which is turning out beautifully) I've recognized that ASC's amazing qualities cannot be overlooked any longer. It has gorgeous stitch definition without highlighting flaws (a rare combo), and it feels like butta' next to your skin. Although the colors tend to be a bit muted, there's a good range. It's machine washable as well, and you know how I feel about that.

Tahki Cotton Classic (Cotton - Sport) - This is just a great yarn. It has an amazing range of uses - knit it tight and you can create sculptural pieces with a lot of structural integrity, knit it at a normal guage and achieve a lovely draping fabric. It's excellently priced as well, at $4-$5 a skein. Cotton Fleece is extremely similar (and has great yardage at 215 yards/skein), but with a huge selection of rich colors (I believe it's around 140 - more if you count the Tweedy Cotton Classic) Tahki gains the edge.

K1C2's Douceur et Soie (Mohair blend) - Despite the fact that I look like an ass every time I try to pronounce it, I love this yarn. Right up front I will tell you that the only difference betwee DES and Rowan's Kidsilk Haze is color palette and the loose fluffy way that K1C2 winds their mohair. The fiber content and guage of these two yarns is otherwise exactly the same. Still, DES wins for color. It could be unseated by a recent acquisition pictured above - the Anny Blatt Fine Kid - which is a mohair/wool combo rather than mohair/silk, but despite the obvious draw of that gorgeous tangerine color I can't quite see DES getting beat out. It's hard to top the sheen of the silk. This mohair blend gives you a wonderful mix of warnth, shine and airy femininity that you just can't find elsewhere.

Artyarns Supermerino (Variegated Merino) - This is a new yarn on my list, as the Chevron Scarf was the first thing I made with it. It's such a lovely merino that I just can't resist it. And for a variagated yarn (not a big category for me) it's impressive. No pooling, puddling, flashing, zipping - whatever - that you usually get out of those deceptively pretty yarns. Once again, folks, machine washable. Oooh. Aaah.

Your turn! (If you play on your own site rather than in the comments, please post a link for me. I'd love to know what the favorite sock yarns, lace weights, etc. are out there.)

* I try to be conservative with this term in the "Impressions" section of my pattern notes, however, I do use it to describe the top yarn from a category that I may or may not have on my Desert Island. Berroco Suede, for instance, is a really close Desert Island call. It's so good that I might be tempted to take a "Novelty" to my own personal DI.

Additional Aspiring

We interrupt this blog to bring you new aspirations, hot off the presses:

There has been a meeting of the Aspiration Committee and several more 2005 Aspriations have been adopted:

K.R. 1.11 Swatching does not count toward the seven aspired to projects "on the needles," but merely signifies that the item will soon be "in the queue".

K.R. 1.11a New categories, "in the queue" and "recently completed" shall be added to the sidebar to aid in adequately reflecting the number of items in the "on the needles" category.

K.R. 1.12 Should the temperature in Ye Olde District of Columbia, formerly thought by this knitter to be part of the "South" or at the very least a member of the "Mid Atlantic" states, dip below freezing and display tundra-like characteristics, such that thoughts of fleeing back to southern California with or without her beloved husband and animal menagerie begin to plague her subconscious, emergency small item knitting, including items such as Broad Street Mittens or Gifted Hand Cozies, may ensue without penalty, regardless of the number of knits currently "on the needles".

K.R. 1.12a In light of recent tundra-like conditions, an "emergency knitting" shall be added to the sidebar to aid in adequately reflecting the number of items in the "on the needles" category.

K.R. 1.12b When the summer months approach and Ye Olde District is assaulted by those twin evils, "Heat" and the dreaded "Humidity," the "emergency knitting" category may be expanded to include such items as tastefully crocheted bikinis and beer cozies.

Next Up: The Desert Island Yarn Decree

Favorite Things: My Chibis and String

I always keep a bit (about 4 feet) of fine garrish-colored cotton yarn and my Chibis around in my "doctor's bag" (the mesh bag that holds all of my knitting gadgets) so that at any time I can take what I'm working on off the sticks like so:

This may seem like a really simple thing to do, but you'd be amazed at: 1) how many knitters don't do it and 2) how many times it has either allowed me to reassure myself that a knit is going to fit or saved me from spending too much time on something that really just wasn't the right size.

It's good to make sure that you have enough yarn to really allow whatever you are working on to stretch to it's maximum with room to spare. Using a darning needle (Clover's chibi's are my faves), slip each stitch as if to purl from your straights or circs. It will give you a chance to try on whatever you are working on at a very early stage and give you a very good idea of fit (You can measure fit on the needles, but you can't really see it there. I usually take whatever I'm working on off of the needles about 2.5 to 3 inches into the work. I use this trick for hats, tanks, sweaters in the round, gloves, etc. After you're done, slip the stitches purlwise back onto the needle.

As an added bonus, if you're working a piece "in the flat" and want to see it all stitched up, you can do a quick crude whip stitch without fear of having trouble taking the seam out (due to that great garrish color):

So far, so good....

For instance, if you are knitting a hat flat, but want to see it in the round, it's not so big a deal:

Meet Wallace, my latest hat pattern. Click the pic for another silly bathroom shot.

Chevron Scarf

While Winter's "mind" was here in DC, I was off galavanting in LA for the week, courtesy of Moxie. In a brilliant last-minute move, he managed to spirit us away from this insane little town just in time to avoid inauguration week and the onslaught of real winter (which, despite the blog name, is taking me a while to readjust to).* Great fun was had by all, with highlights including many a scenic hike, great food and afternoons at the beach. In addition to the outdoor revelry, I was granted leave to take part in two lovely afternoons of knitting - the first at the Knit Cafe with Suzan (the owner) and Mary Heather (the manager) (MH has a new blog - she's a wonderful chick with killer skills, so definitely go check her out). As I just said to another wonderful knitting friend, I consider LA to be the home of my communal knitting, and these two, Dan (another staffer) and several others at the Knit Cafe to be my brethren. I can easily lose an afternoon talking yarn, technique, pattern, etc. with them and that is exactly what I did. It was completely inspiring to be out there again. Although I love DC and have settled in nicely, it's out in LA that I still feel most at home. It's just a very freeing, fun environment - and the weather doesn't hurt!

My second knitting foray was a meet up with Marnie for the afternoon, which was equally enchanting. (She hinted about this on her blog, and was subtle for my sake, since I'm not a big meeter-upper, but I'm okay with "coming out" this time!) Among the highlights of the day was her hem technique which I think I have successfully coerced her into blogging about ("If you don't post a tutorial, I will!" - though of course I'd give credit - copyright and all that...) Marnie is a great sport - she met me at the hair salon and taught one of the stylists to knit while I was being blown out, and then accompanied me and Moxie to our favorite spot in Chinatown where we raved about the food like lunatics (I doubt anything could have lived up to the expectations we set) and then ate like zoo animals on feeding day. As reward for her patience, I dragged her across LA to hang out in Pasadena and knit for the afternoon (Marnie, I cannot fathom what Friday traffic must have been going back across LA at rush hour - forgive me!) It was really wonderful to hang out and chat about all things "knit". Marnie's knitting style is much more liberated than mine, and it's great to be able to let some of that creativity rub off on me, if only for an afternoon. Her hem technique is brilliant, so look for it soon. I know I'll be using it.

Amidst all this outdoor and knitting talk fun, I also managed to get quite a bit of actual knitting done. I've made substantial progress on Asana (though I have some fear of running short on yarn - I'm going to have to see if Suzan and MH have my dyelot in White ASC at the Knit Cafe, since I've cleaned out my new LYS, Stitch DC) and the Chevron Scarf is fini (lacking only blocking, which it sorely needs). Here, without further ado, are the pattern notes on that one:

The Chevron Scarf

Deja Vu Anyone?

Last Minute Knitted Gifts,
designed by Joelle Hoverson
Knit with 3 skeins (104 yards/95m/skein) of Artyarns Supermerino (100% Superwash Merino), in variegated Reds, Blues and Purples (111) on Clover bamboo straights in size US7 (4.5 mm), in a guage of 4.5 sts per inch over Stst.

Finished Dimensions:
6.5 inches wide and 60 inches in length.

Pattern Notes:
This is a fabulously fun, yet simple pattern, which produces a beautiful scarf. I would highly recommend it as a "next step" pattern for new knitters. You can learn to increase and decrease, and practice both techniques at regular intervals. By the end of the scarf these moves will be automatic and you'll have a beautiful piece to wear. This is one of those instances where less is definitely more. Personally, I will be making two more of these scarves (much!) later in the year for my MIL and SIL's Xmas presents.** They're easy and fast but look terribly impressive.

I would highly recommend the rest of Joelle Hoverson's Last Minute Knitted Gifts patterns as well. I think Joelle has done an excellent job of presenting very simple patterns that create intricate-seeming finished objects. She has a keen eye for color and her use of color and discussion of it throughout the book are really instructive for those who don't usually foray into the area (and even for those who do). I usually stick to tomes when it comes to knitting books, but despite the fact that LMNG is no treatise, it serves as great inspiration. I would place this book in league with Erica Knight's books (some of my favs for color and style inspiration), but give Joelle extra stars for actually giving us real patterns (Erica sometimes skimps on this!).

Modifications:
I cast on 36 sts instead of the number in the pattern, and then followed the directions using multiples of three sts rather than four to adjust for the guage of Supermerino, which is chunkier than the recommended Koigu. Additionally, I scrapped using a second yarn in this incarnation, as I had just the right amount of Supermerino to do the job. It's very easy to tinker with this pattern to adjust for guage - just use different multiples of sts for the main pattern row and you're set.

Impressions of Artyarns Supermerino:
This is yet another Desert Island Yarn. (Watch out folks - I think I have now named at least three Desert Island Yarns on this blog which means that a list and a lengthy post detailing Desert Island Yarn Criteria are soon to follow.) Despite the high number of variegated yarns that have snuck their way into my stash recently, I am not a Variegated Yarn Person. I have no patience for things like pooling, flashing, puddling, etc. (click to read an informed discussion of such things) and don't generally care for great swathes of clashing bright colors in close proximity my physical being. (The Chrysalis Pullover is half knit and I'm still deciding whether I will love it or live to call it my variegated nemesis.)

Supermerino, however, creates an exception to my Thou Shalt Not Knit Multicolored Yarn for Attire Rule (again, broken previously only for Chrysalis - we'll see how that goes). Its colors are strangely harmonious, the feel is amazing, and for goshsakes it's machine washable. (Every baby I know will soon be swathed in variegated, not-quite-clashing, cozy Supermerino bliss. Machine Washable. I just had to repeat that. It's a joy to work with. Springy, forgiving, with depth of color. Oh yeah, and second only in importance to the fact that it is machine washable, it does not appear to flash, pool, puddle or otherwise create an ungodly mess in the middle of your knitting. I've seen it worked up for a sock as well as in my own scarf and it truly does not offend in its variegatedness (a gargantuan task). It is so true in this sense that I did the unthinkable with it - I didn't bother to alternate skeins every two rows to even out the color balance. I always do this with space-dyed yarns, because otherwise they look like crap. Now, there was some variation among the three skeins, such that for a sweater I would recommend alternating, but in a scarf, the differences were negligible. Very impressive. Artyarns has done a great job. I would place great confidence in their other yarns on the basis of Supermerino alone - sight unseen. Bravo!

Possible substitute yarns:
Koigu's KPPPM is the obvious substitute for this scarf, since it is the recommended yarn. It's smaller in guage, so it will work up more slowly, and I think you will find that it is also more textured. I really like KPPPM, but I'll continue to stick with the Supermerino. Can we say machine washable? If you're looking for a similar-guaged substitute, I think that Koigu's Kersti would likely do the trick. (Do your fact checking on this - I'm winging it here - it looks like it has a slightly smaller guage from the info online.) Others rave about it, but since I have yet to acquire any, I will leave comparisons until another day.

More Photos:
To follow in a later post. I have some blocking to do, but then we'll go out in the snow for a proper winter photoshoot.

Tips for Others Making the Chevron Scarf:
Be prepared to block! Otherwise, this is an easy, fast, rewarding knit.

*This trip was ostensibly for my birthday, which was a couple of weeks ago, but I have no doubt that the fact that my work has been making me a bit nutty lately played a big factor! Moxie gets BIG BIG points for this one.

**This year is the year of the knitted gift since last year I bailed almost completely on knitting for the fam. I'm going to plan early and knit these gifties throughout the year, rather than attempting the usual knitting cram in late December. Wish me luck!

Deja Vu

Anyone recognize this?

It's my version of the Chevron Scarf from Joelle Hoverson's Last Minute Knitted Gifts. Or is it? Could it instead be considered an original design?

If you haven't guessed by now, this is yet another post on copyright. This time, I'm not motivated by any particular incident. Rather, I'm motivated because I've been thinking about the issue a lot, and I've been reading again. (Look out, folks, it's always dangerous - and long - when I've been reading.) One of the many aspirations I committed to (though it remains unenumerated) was reading more in the new year, and in particular getting through some of my back issues of my favorite mag, The New Yorker.

When I released my free teeny tiny sweater before Christmas, shortly after my rather infamous copyright post (which concerned the bejeezus out of several blogging friends and concerned the real offender not one bit), I did a lot of ruminating about copyright, mostly because the pattern struck me as cute and fun, but not terribly original. It got me thinking about what exactly we protect when we copyright something and the societal purpose behind copyright. I had a lot of nebulous thoughts about creativity and uniqueness, but I didn't ever articulate those thoughts clearly in my own head, and I certainly did not entertain a post on the subject. Enter the New Yorker, and one of my all time favorite contributors, Malcolm Gladwell.*

Enter, more specifically, this article. Go ahead and read it. Mr. Gladwell is more able to say what he says than I am to paraphrase it, and it's very interesting.

The Article
Gladwell uses music to discuss some of the concepts that are key to copyright, most specifically: originality, triviality (or in legalese whether the copying is de minimus), and traditionality (I think I just made up a word, but basically what I'm getting at is whether something has been around so long that it is in the public domain).

He takes a series of four notes from Beethoven's famous symphony - you know the ones - da da da duuuummmm....... (G, G, G, E flat) - and looks at whether they are original. The answer is both yes and no. The notes themselves are too small a thing to be copyrighted. If you copied them it would be trivial or de minimus. And this makes sense. There are a very finite number of notes in the musical scale and if you could restrict the use of tiny little sequences, new songs would never get written. In fact, the notes have been used in many a composition since Beethoven wrote them, and before he wrote them as well. The analogy in knitting is something like the seed stitch. There may be some very elaborate stitch patterns (such as something Barbara Walker cooked up) that are large scale enough to be copyrighted, but for the most part, a series of stitches is just that. No one owns it, because it forms the building blocks for everything else, and no one could get anything done without access to this basic sequence.

Beethoven's phrasing of the notes in this combination is what makes them distinctive or "original". It's that "little bit more" that lets you know this is Beethoven. Those distinctive combinations of elements are what make knitted works original as well. In the case of the Chevron scarf its the garter stitch used next to the chevron, which repeats with a certain regularity, using a distinctive yarn, etc. If you saw it somewhere else, you would know where it originated.

Finally, there's my new word, "traditionality". This is really the best element of all, because it dictates that whether the thing you've created is really unique or not, after a certain amount of time it's up for grabs, regardless. Today, anyone can da da da duuuummmm....... to their heart's content. We all know where it came from, but irrespective of its origin, it belongs to everyone now. Lucky us. For knitters there are thousands of beautiful, complex stitch patterns - Andean tigers, Celtic-looking cables - that are in the public domain and available for use. I think this is a particularly great thing, as some of the best creative works are the ones that reference the great creative works of the past.**

The Minisweater
Alright, I think I muttered something about relating this to the teeny tiny sweaters. When I first designed one myself, I had some concern about sharing the pattern with you, because I thought that perhaps the original (not mine) was too original. Then I realized that I had seen sweater ornaments in at least three books (and upon later reflection, five books, and upon further inspection, I even found a free pattern from Springwater Fiber Workshop for a top-down minisweater - also very cute - you should give it a try). And as I thought about it, I began to understand that a minisweater is just an item, like a mitten, or a hat, or anything else and that the idea of it is not unique. Futhermore, you could take any basic sweater shape and just scale it down and voila! New minisweater. Which is why I felt comfortable passing it on to you, and also why I didn't put a really biting copyright message at the bottom of it. True, if you use my instructions and put my special little cable in your minisweater and call it your own, I will consider you to be a very bad person and someone who has violated copyright, but I didn't want to make anyone think that the mere idea of the minisweater ornament was copyrightable (is that another new word? It's early here). I also didn't want to stop people from playing around and posting variations, because in general I like to see variations on my patterns, and in particular I am not so attached to this one that I mind it if you repeat some of the instructions on your own site as long as you stick my name and a link in there somewhere (repeating instructions from someone else's pattern is usually a no-no, so don't do it for my other patterns or anyone else's without permission).

The Scarf
I'm guessing you've noticed that the scarf pictured above isn't listed in the sidebar. I bet you're wondering if it's going to be listed as a design or a commercial pattern, as well. Well, despite the obvious incentive to have another knit in the design column, I'm calling this one Joelle's.

Technically, I may not have to. The chevron pattern itself is traditional and no longer subject to copyright protection (if it ever was). My scarf is made with a different yarn, and knit on different size needles. I used only one color of yarn rather than two. I cast on a different number of stitches, and in fact, the pattern itself is different (it's based on a chevron with multiples of 3 sts rather than 4).

Joelle might be able to get me because the scarf's defining characteristics are copied. I used a variegated merino wool in a triple-chevron repeat to make a scarf with a purled border. Just looking at it you can tell its intended to be the same thing. (If you can learn to describe things in this way and be airtight about it you're well on your way to patent certification - better you than me.) Still, I could have come up with the same thing independently...

The point is that I didn't, and I know I didn't. I bought the book, coveted the pattern, and decided to make it work for Artyarns Supermerino,*** since that is what I had on hand. In this case, what makes the copyright for me is not so much the uniqueness of the design, but rather the fact that I know I pirated the concept.

Still, it's something to think about.

*As an aside let me note right now that I have never, ever read an article by this man that wasn't fascinating. He writes on myriad topics and finds relationships between seemingly unrelated subjects. As soon as I move from the article-reading phase of my aspiration to the book-reading phase I am getting myself to the nearest independent bookseller and buying one of his books. You should, too.

**Didn't you love it when The Simpsons referenced All in the Family? What an amazingly clever show - and I'm not even a Simpsons fan. That my friends, is art.

***If you own Joelle's book and would like to use Supermerino to make a Chevron scarf like mine, all you need to do is cast on 36 sts instead of the number in the pattern, and then follow the directions using multiples of 3 rather than 4. For example, if Joelle says k2tog 8 times, instead k2tog 6 times. Those of you who own the pattern now have enough info to modify it, and those who don't - well, you don't. If you need the scarf that badly, go buy the book. It has wonderful ideas for simple uses of color and texture that create beautiful finished items. It's well worth the money simply for the inspiration.

Fresh Baked Bread For Your Feet*

One of the nicest side effects of this blog has been the wonderful people that I have met through keeping it. Despite my outgoing bloginality, I'm fairly private about the blog/realworld divide and have only ventured across it a handful of times. One of those times I met the wonderful person who created these socks. (She's pretty private, too, so I won't name her here.)

Have you ever seen anything more lovely? Click for a different view.

These socks fit perfectly, despite the fact that my friend does not know my sock measurements. I'm not sure how she did it. Evidence:

The Toes...

And The Heels. Sheer Perfection.

I am truly impressed, and fully intend to make these socks my official "house socks" - the ones I hang around my living room in on weekends. They are so pretty I don't want to put shoes over them.

This experience has me pretty excited about Sockapalooza. I've been so focused on the socks that I'm going to knit for my sockapalozee - what colors she likes, style, etc. - that I almost forgot that I would be receiving anything. While the giving is truly the most fun part, I can tell you from my lovely fresh baked tootsies that receiving ain't so bad, either!

*Title shamelessly stolen from a recent post over at Julia FC's Moth Heaven (see Are You Poor? in December)

Apparently, I've Gone International

Check out this link if you want to read Mind of Winter in Japanese. I found it this morning in my stats. How cool is that?

Postcard from Cleveland & Cat in a Hat

El Hatto Grey-O

One of the great perks of having a blog. Within days, an old friend can print and knit your goofy hat pattern and send you a fun pic to share!
El Hatto Grey-O, knit-o by Cancoi, Jo Sharp Silkroad DK Tweed (85% wool, 10% silk, 5% cashmere) in Night (409).
Testimonials: "Knits right on gauge and is thick AND yummy. This was so fun, Jules! Great pattern!"

And Now, For Your Viewing Pleasure....

El Gato Negro en El Hatto Greyo

And He's Out! Goodnight Edison....

2005 Knitting Aspirations* or "Rules"

On several of the blogs I've been reading lately, knitters have declared that they do not believe in New Year's resolutions, and therefore will not be posting about knitting resolutions on their blogs. I admire these folks, because most of their messages imply that they are the kind of organized, balanced people who don't need a resolution to get a particular task accomplished and who don't see the wisdom of getting all riled up for a few weeks in January over nothing. While I share the sentiment, and have no intentions of promising myself to do the impossible, I do think that it is useful to think about what I want to accomplish a few times a year and take the time to write it down. I'm also a traditionalist and a ruminator at heart, so times like the first of January, the beginning of spring, and say, fall, when kids go back to school (because that wasn't so long ago, right?) seem like good times to do it. Lists, particularly public ones, help spur me into action.

This knitting year has been an extremely atypical one for me. The discovery of knitting blogs, followed shortly by starting one of my very own, managed to turn my knitting on it's head. Witness:

1. Although I have had quite a stash for a while now, prior to 2004 I worked on one project at a time and only started something new when I had finished or officially abandoned the previous project. Last spring I had as many as 13 UFOs on the needles.

2. Although I knit a fair amount every year, there used to be not only days, but even months when I did not knit. In 2004, from the period between March and mid-September, there were exactly two days that I did not knit. (The mere fact that I know this for certain is frightening.)

3. It is my normal pattern to focus particularly on one of my extracurricular activities (knitting, reading, photography, running and cycling are the big ones) over the others for a few months at a time while continuing the others at a less frequent interval. After a while I switch to the next thing for a couple months, focus, then move on. It creates a sort of "season" for each thing I do. This year the focus was on knitting for the entire year. My other activities continued, but reading (the activity that is most similar in nature and therefore most easily usurped) got neglected. Well, except for reading about knitting - that was at an all-time high...

Although it has been a wonderful resource in many ways and introduced me to a whole world (literally) of amazing people, blogging added a frenetic energy to my knitting that I have been working steadily to rid myself of. I feel that I have done a fairly good job of getting things under control. In the early summer, I resolved to get down to 5-7 projects by fall. I did that, and currently have only 3 projects on the needles. (As Carrieoke would say, "Yay Me!"). When we moved from California and took our trip across country to Lake George, I didn't touch a computer for a week and a half, and didn't blog for about three weeks. I worked toward finishing current (and often stale!) projects rather than starting new ones. I instituted a plan of only joining Knit-Alongs if they were really things I had already planned to do, rather than getting swayed by the bright lights of other bloggers' project choices. I've cut back on surfing, and only have 20 blogs at a time in my bloglines rotation. A couple of times a month I allow myself to surf around and see what all the others are doing. My stash is unreal, and always will be. I know myself well enough to know that I am never, ever going to knit it all. But I make a point of knitting from the stash first if I can make a good substitution on a pattern, and I set a yarn budget and stay within it. Collecting is a typical feminine habit, and since yarn is the only thing I collect, I'm Zen with it.

As well as I've done pulling myself back together, I feel I can do better. The point of starting a blog was to create a space to foster and track my creativity, that would hopefully serve as a resource for a handful of other people. I planned to use it as a mechanism to learn more about my own craft, and to create and ultimately publish all the designs that have been stumbling around in my head for so many years. The one thing I have not been good about is executing and submitting designs for publication. I get easily side-tracked by other designers' work and ideas and find myself seduced away from my own projects way too readily. The goals of my list are to focus my knitting on design, learning new techniques, and giving (this year has taught me that charity knitting is important and can make a difference - look at all those Afghan squares!) and to restore more balance in the rest of my life (so I can read those back issues of the New Yorker and finish The Namesake, and run the Cherry Blossom 10 miler in the spring at a decent pace rather than simply completing it).

To accomplish that, here is my list of rules, or more correctly, aspirations. They are "organic" and sometimes contradictory. But so is balance.**

K.R.1.01. I aspire to have no more than 7 projects on the needles at one time.

K.R.1.01a. If I have 5 projects going, 2 of those must be for publication.

K.R.1.01b. If I have 7 projects going, 3 must be my own designs, whether for publication or not.

K.R.1.02. Only 2 projects may be "commercial" designs.

K.R.1.02a. "Commercial" does not include designs by friends or projects that are so little that they're done in a few days - it predominantly refers to BIG projects. All bloggers are "friends" even if they don't know me! Hence, Annie Modesitt is in the "friend" category - I love ya, Annie! The Commercial Restriction (see K.R.1.02) does not include Knit-Alongs, as long as: i) the number of what would normally be "commercial" KAL designs does not cause the number of total commercial designs to exceed 4; AND ii) I have 3 original designs on the needles.

K.R.1.02b. Any commercial design that I knit must either i) employ some technique or construction that I haven't used before; or ii) be so stunning that I just can't stand not to make it.

K.R.1.02c. I aspire to always have 1 project that is a "learning" project - e.g. very challenging lace, intarsia, etc. If a commercial pattern is challenging enough to be a learning project it can be added even if I have 2 commercial projects on the needles, but only if I have less than 7 projects started.

K.R.1.03. I aspire to usually have one long term (perhaps year-long) big project on the needles.

K.R.1.04. Very small projects - hats, mittens, tea cups, etc. count as half a project, but only up to 2. (A tea set is a whole project.)

K.R.1.05. I aspire to knit more for charity. Charity knitting never counts as a project and can and should be added at any time.

K.R.1.06. Small gifts never count as a project and can be added at any time.

K.R.1.07. To help keep track of the Rules (and becasue I am a big geek and like labels), I will label my projects in the sidebar as one of the following:

Design,
Freebie (design not for publication),
Commercial (new technique),
Commercial (must have),
KAL,
Learning,
Small Project,
Long Term Project,
Friend,
Charity,
Gift.

K.R.1.08. I will make a point of alternating older and newer projects.

K.R.1.09. I will find creative ways to make use of my scraps. An annual teeny tiny sweater making festival at Christmas may be in order.

K.R.1.10. I will blog regularly, but not maniacally. No less than once a week, no more than three times a week. Vacations don't count.

Them's the rules, or, er, aspirations. I suppose next January we can look back and see how well I've done.

*In law, there are a whole slew of ethical rules that are gathered from a bunch of different sources which you have to be aware of in order to practice. (I know, it's hard to believe given our reputation as a profession!) Ironically, despite this plethora of seeming regulation, many of the rules are actually merely "aspirations" - whatever that means. Personally, I've long found it a little pathetic that lawyers can't just get their acts together and simply commit to having some scruples. However, when faced with my own list of rules, I kind of got the point. There are times when we really wish we could do something, yet we suspect we might not be able to. We wish we could do it so much that we write it down, for all to see, and call it a "rule". Still, we're not really sure that in the final analysis we'll be able to come through. Enter "aspiration". Rather brilliant, and lawyerly, in addition to being pathetic.

**The Ethical Rules are numbered E.R.1.01, etc. To keep form, the Knitting Rules are numbered K.R.1.01, etc. I was going to do the rules in lawyerspeak to boot, but I was unsure you'd make it as far as this footnote even without the gibberish, and didn't want to press my luck!

The Peace Cardigan

I knit alomst all of the Peace Cardigan in one week, during the Presidential debates in Lake George last fall. This, despite the fact that it is in fine yarn and made on small needles. So I truly expected that it would be the first DC finished project to appear on the blog in October. I was soooo wrong. First there was the problem of running out of yarn with only a few rows left on the sleeve cap and collar, then there were adjustments to be made, and then there was a bit of finishing that had to be done. After all that, it is finally, happily complete. Thanks again to Restless Knitter Jill for helping me out with the extra cotton glace in the right dyelot. Jill was a lifesaver, and the cardi would not have been completed without her.

The Peace Cardi on a Sunny New Year's Day...Click for a Bigger Pic

Rowan, Magazine No. 25,
designed by Kim Hargreaves
Knit with 8 skeins (137 yards/115m/skein) of Rowan Cotton Glace (100% Cotton), in Splendor (810) on Addi Turbo brass-plated circulars in sizes US2 (3.0 mm) and US3 (3.25 mm), length 24", at a guage of 23 sts and 32 rows per inch.

Pattern Notes:
One of the most important things to know about this pattern is that the yarn requirements section is wrong for the cardigan with 3/4 sleeves. It appears to be on track to generous for the vest version, but I offer you no guarantees. I made the smallest size with sleeves, and it took me about 7 1/4 balls of yarn rather than a mere 7. I consider this to be an important difference. If you make the cardi, I would add at least one skein to the recommended number - two to be really safe. I have been knitting seriously for about 15 years and have never run out of yarn before (despite my practice of never buying an extra skein and designing stuff with no wiggle room for yardage), so rest assured that a mere 7 skeins won't make it. My guage is true.

The second thing to know about this pattern is that it involves miles and miles of stockinette with a 100% cotton yarn. All of this stockinette is regularly (and thankfully!) punctuated by some serious shaping. This combination produces a very unforgiving fabric - you need to have a nice, even guage and a good knowledge of what to do to perfectly "reverse" the shaping to make it turn out well. Your every mistake will be highlighted. Bottom line - not a beginner pattern, and probably not a barely intermediate pattern either. (As an aside, I will let you know that it is my personal opinion that a complicated wool cable sweater is more suited to a new knitter than a delicate stockinette stitch sweater in cotton. It shows fewer mistakes and gives a much nicer result while allowing you to learn a thing or two. Even guage and tension are hard to learn and come with time and practice. In the meantime, however, you can learn techniques, like cabling. Just my two cents!)

This was a cabin in the woods knit for me. Meaning, that the only way all the knitting was going to get done was if I was in a cabin in the woods on vacation, working on nothing else. Luckily, I was. Had I been anywhere else, you would doubtless see me slogging away on a row or two here and there over the course of several years. If you don't concentrate on all that stockinette, you'll likely put it down out of boredom. Still, there was a certain attraction to knitting it, and I think that came from two things: One, the absolute perfection of cotton stitches on tiny needles - mesmerizing. Two, the very prominent and fairly frequent (every 7-8 rows) shaping that occurs. If you're say, a Virgo, or some other fussy type who enjoys seeing things work out just so, this is the cardigan for you! I was in a cabin in the woods, so I was in the right frame of mind for this sweater. That wouldn't always be the case. Bottom line - it requires patience.

Modifications:
I only made two modifications to this sweater, but I consider both to have been rather vital to its tailored good looks:

1. I made adjustments to the collar.

2. I sewed in grossgrain ribbon to reinforce the placket. On the subject of placket sewing, I defer completely to Bonne Marie Burns and direct you to her instructions.

Impressions of Rowan Cotton Glace:
Cotton Glace is a wonderful yarn to work with if you want blindingly sharp stitch definition and vibrant color. For texture, I find it reminiscent of kitchen string, which can take a bit of getting used to if you are a wool gal at heart. Like kitchen string, it can be hard on the hands and knits up rather stiffly. It's perfect for this cardigan, lending it tailored sophistication and structural integrity all at once. I think it would also be great yarn for fun sculptural knits like Annie Modesitt's Fiesta Tea Set, or perhaps a knitted chicken toy. (Everyone needs a knitted chicken toy, right? I sure did after I saw Becky make one!) It's a yarn well-suited to the perfectionist in all of us, and it can be rather addictive to knit. Pick it up when you need a cotton with structure rather than drape.

Possible substitute yarns:
Although I have yet to work with it myself, I've heard tell (scroll down to Ann's June 24 entry) that Paton's Grace is a great poor gal's substitute for Cotton Glace. I got my cotton glace deeply discounted at the Knit Cafe's summer sale, but next time around I may try Grace to see how it works out. The other cottons I've known, like Tahki Cotton Classic and Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece are substitutable, but of slightly larger guage and not really the same in texture. (These are two of my favorites, and I highly recommend them, but if you're looking for the fancy equivalent of kitchen string, look elsewhere.)

Another Photo:

It's Cute Unbuttoned, Too...Click Me!

Tips for Others Making the Peace Cardigan:

1. Heed my warnings regarding yardage and buy an extra skein or two for the cardigan version.

2. Seriously consider modifying the collar and reinforcing the placket. In my humble opinion, all your beautiful work will be undone if you don't.

3. Patience, grasshopper!

Peace Out!