In The Garden Living an RPG Life

Finally figured out how to add a button or badge to the sidebar when the image in on my local server and not the originators. Had to have me a Ravelry button.  Now if I can just figure out how to add the Huna button and get things to show when I’m done.  Oh, well.
Oh, and I found out that I have to actively administer comments. Didn’t even know I had any! And now I have to go an apologize to my sole commenter for neglecting her.

Gave myself some boundaries for the wedding present. So many inches of the scarf each day and a day to finish by. This is such a new process for me. It allows me to take the time I’d be using to get more frustrated and apply it to being more productive. I swatched some yarn I had in the house to get a feeling for what happens when I use needles larger than recommended for knitting lace. I also don’t know what the yarn weight designations mean in relation to knitting lace. I get tired of the really fine lace weight knitting. I want to have something more substantial that I can use to get experience with the stitches and how they interact.

And yet, I want to have finished pieces and fun. I like the sock yarns that are out there. I like some of the hand paints that are out there. It would be nice to play in those while working on my skills. The more time I spend with a single project, the more questions I have about knitting in general and the construction of lace in particular.

That’s where the knitting is. Turns out I was knitting the pattern the wrong way round. My printer is mostly out of ink and the only part of the pattern that I can see easily is the chart. So, I’m knitting it, right? Well, even though the pattern looks the same, it’s not knitting right. It took me five tries to think that maybe there really is a difference between the beginning and the end.

I will eventually knit the pattern that way deliberately and see what happens. Meanwhile, I am going to try again.

Oh, and who knew! Evidently, according to my Scottish Mum, Bird’s Eye and Print of the Wave are traditional baby shawl patterns. And the prospect of knitting them acted as sufficient birth control! You don’t see that in the knitting books!

OK. Taking a break from Ravelry. And making dinner.

This is the Bird’s Eye pattern begun. And about to be frogged!

I don’t mind. It’s taken me this long to get it started and there is very nice progress. That I can see the little circles this time. I’ve been trying to really see the pattern, locked in all those little marks on the chart, and it’s taken me on quite a journey.

First I tried writing it out. This helped a little bit. I at least got to see where the rhythms might be. I could see what the pattern was built from Then I knit just those stitches.

. This doesn’t tell much about the pattern. I knit the pattern with knit rows in between the pattern rows. I almost went with this idea, of adding knit rows between the pattern stitches and making a quite different object.

The pattern, this bird’s eye, as it is to be knit, scared me. When I get scared of something printed, I go on a search. I seem to take the long way round to find myself at the center of my search, but it works. There’s a benefit.

I found more Shetland patterns online. Knitting-and has a group of knitting patterns called “spider” and they have a structure similar to the bird’s eye. In my Knitting Shetland Patterns From Charts I found the pattern again. There’s a Lace Symposium online that told me that for all their apparent complexity, Shetland patterns are relatively simple. The simplicity of the pattern made it easy to memorize, and thus profitable to knit.

I could see that simplicity in the Spider stitch patterns. I saw that and more. I saw a quarternary, if that’s a real word, number system. If binary is base two. These patterns are base four, quarternary. 0=yarn over, k=1, k2t=2, sk2p=3. Spiders and number systems. Mmmm. Story fodder.

When she knits, she knits a particular rhythm. Pod notices it and comes to see that what her husband can’t express to the other musicians, was the idea of phrasing. She has that idea in her fingers. Maybe, she knits the same combination of stitches but with a different phrasing. Does this make a different pattern to her? It could be so. This could be what else Pod notices, another step he can take towards her acquaintance.

So, I will be frogging the rows, I’ve knitted already. My plan is to move the knitting along by only using the Bird’s Eye as the end of the wrap and not the whole thing. Not this time. I don’t have time for that. I’ve figured out where the center of the shawl pattern is and I will echo the shape of the point in the knitted part. The shawl is charted for points at both ends, for a diamond. A very useful arrangement.

Meanwhile, I’ve practiced the combinations of yarn-overs, the rhythms of the stitch combinations. Like practicing scales and other combinations in preparation for playing a more complex work.

I finally listened to the Purl Diving podcast. I had been feelng frustrated with this process. I’ve been designing, or trying to design a gift. The piece has to fit the person, the occasion, and my skill. There is more to the process, but that’s all I’m going to say about it for now. So, hearing the podcast telling about the process as I was experiencing it, and after the fact of my coming to the end of the preparation, hearing it after all that I felt comforted. Soothed. Well accompanied.

Whew! That’s enough for now. Ravelry calls!

The header is up and it looks really good. Of course I had to start with a decent photo and that was mostly good fortune. Work has some nice surfaces to work from.

Not to deny my own input. If you look at the bottom of the knitting chart you will see a couple of words. Originally it said something like “Stop knitting when you get to …” Not what I want to remember. So, I changed it. I’m happy with the whole serendipity of the thing.

Next? Get Flickr up. The original of the banner photo is there plus photos of the MS3 in some of its progress.

I’ve spent the last few minutes uploading photos of other projects, projects that i’ll be telling more about as I rebuild the content of the blog I “frogged”. 

There are a couple of pictures of swatch squares in the Knitting Lace Triangles book. Only there are no directions for knitting them.

So… I looked in my Mary Thomas’ Book of Knitting and found the directions for knitting square medallions. First, I found something to practice with. I didn’t want to use a true lace weight… yet. I found an acrylic sportweight that works up well enough for me to enjoy the practice of practice.

First, I knit a swatch in garter stitch just to get a feel for the combination of #6 bamboo needles and this Red Heart LusterSheen.

Then I knit the square. I used bamboo needles again and it took me a while to remember how to use 5 double-points. I like how it turned out. The step of knitting in the back of the stitch on the first round seems to close up the threatening hole.

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