spud says hi

Hexagon Coat, significantly reduced

OK, a few more notes on this, now that it's properly blocked and all.  Some of this hopefully answers your questions, desiknitter.

The pattern for the hexagon coat comes from Norah Gaughan's Knitting Nature.  The pictures in the book suggest a coat that fits rather like my final version, I think. (Woah... while googling for a link to a picture, look what came up!)

When I first started to knit this, I realized that the actual dimensions of the coat were for something much bigger and, frankly, baggier.  This is not what I wanted.

The pattern is, despite, that, very well written--the dimensions of my pieces were EXACTLY right, per the diagrams in the book.  The construction of the hexes, which are really the most innovative part of the pattern, worked really well.  So all I wanted to do for my second try at knitting this was to cut the whole thing down in size.

I did this by pinning my original pieces together (I'd finished the back and both sides, and had also knit a bunch of the hexagons onto the front pieces).  Trying it on, and then pinning it down to a size I liked better.  Then I mentally sketched out what that meant in terms of knitting.

I ended up with a couple of post-it notes stuck in my book, which included the deep and scary math (that's a joke) required to do this.

And then I jumped in.  I had the first time through decided not to use ribbing on the edges, because I'm not that much a fan of ribbing, really, and it's not like the stitch pattern here would roll.  I did, however, use smaller needles for the first inch or so to keep that bottom edge tight.

So, I cast on 118 stitches, placed markers for the sides, and went at it, knitting the whole body at once.  This was, I think, a very good idea.  In the original version, the back, in particular, got very, very boring to knit.  This time, though, at least until I got up to the armholes there was always shaping at the edges, to make the indents into which the hexagons fit.  That kept things interesting.

From this point on, this was really easy.  The indents keep you on track.  I sized down the armholes slightly.  I knit on all the hexagons, and they, too, worked perfectly.

The sleeves weren't bad, either, though I dreaded them.  I cast on on the smaller needles, did about ten rows of the pattern, then switched up a needle size for another ten rows, then started to increase at both sides every ten rows until the sleeve got broad enough for my upper arm.  Then I continued until the sleeve was long enough.  Then I shaped the end using more or less the same decreases called for in the original, but frequently comparing the sleeve cap to the armhole, making sure that I had the same length edge on both (this is tricky, because the geometry of this kind of sleeve involves non-matching curves).

Now, the yarn.

I used Laura's Granada, which is a lovely springy merino wool.  Unlike a lot of Laura's yarns, it's essentially a single color (though it's got a strand of black running through the whole thing).  But even it has some very nice subtle variations of color in it, which gives the whole thing some extra interest.  It's really, really nice, I think.

I also quite like how it works in a sweater this length.  In the first iteration, which was another couple of hexes longer, it got really quite stretched out when worn--the weight of the bottom pulled the top out of shape.  I actually ended up doing one more hex repeat on this version than I expected to do--based on the stretched out version, I thought I'd only want three indents before the armholes; in reality, with the springier version, I did four.

That's the only thing I'd keep in mind as far as fiber choice.  I thought of doing this in a wool/silk blend, and I actually do think it'd work reasonably well.  It is quite a nice shape done this way, and I think it could easily be dressed up or down based on the yarn you use.  Mine is, I think, nice and basic (it's also a little more brown than these pictures suggest--the sun bleached the color a bit when I was taking pictures outside yesterday, even though I used an umbrella for shade), and should let the coat/sweater be dressed up or down; dressier yarn would really make it pop, though.

Because the shape of the coat itself is so basic, I think you could easily substitute yarns of all sorts, as long as you're willing to do a bit of math to figure out where you want to start.  The only issues to be faced in that case have to do with the hexagons.  I assume that if your gauge dimensions are proportional to those called for the hexagons will knit up well.  If they're off significantly, though, you might have to tweak the hexagons to get them to knit flat. 

There's also the issue of the armhole.  You have to end the fronts at a particular place in the hexagon indent pattern, so you have to start the armhole shaping so that you'll have the right amount of length when you get to that spot--if it's not enough, you'd have to do an entire additional indentation, which might be way too much.

So, once again, I'm very happy with this sweater, and I think that it'll get a lot of wear.  In the fall.  Because now spring is springing, and... well, I might get a couple of wears out of it before summer... summs?... but, basically, this will be a staple come fall.

Time, she flies.

You know how when you go for a while without writing or calling someone it gets harder and harder to start a letter or pick up the phone, because more and more stuff has happened and where do you even start?  Or is that just me?

Not that it's been terribly eventful since I last blogged, but still, where to start?

• I went to Chicagoland for nearly a week.  I helped out around my parents' house, I saw a lot of friends, and I presented a paper.  All good, all tiring.
• I took no pictures there.  NONE!  Well, except for two pictures of toilet seats at Home Depot, because we weren't exactly sure which one would work better.  And then we never looked at the pictures.  Erk.
• I should have taken pictures, because it was lovely.  Well, and then kind of cold and rainy.  But at first, lovely.
• Almost as soon as I got there my mom and I went for pedicures.  This is tradition.  And it made more aesthetically pleasing the wearing of sandals during the lovely weather.
• Also, over the course of several days, we went into THREE Targets.  (As an aside, and realizing that this makes me seem like a horrible consumer driven person, but whatever, one of the hardest things culturally [what?  it's culture!] for me about having moved to Canada is that THERE IS NO TARGET HERE.  This sucks, because Target is awesome.) 
• I went to three because I was looking for this, which used also to be sold at a drug store chain here, but seems no longer to be (or at least not in my local one).  But I was unsuccessful.  I did, however, find several cute tops.
• I am gearing up to container garden this summer.  This is very exciting.  No, seriously.
• I am also attempting to make my own vinegar.  This came about first because I had half a bottle of red wine sitting around while I was gone, and second because my existing bottle of (organic!) vinegar got a big goopy mother in it.  So I poured the mother into the wine, and am now waiting to see what happens.
• I discovered that there's a new pub with really very good food near my apartment.  And I was reminded that I like a nice hoppy beer.

There has also been knitting.  My black alpaca shawl is coming along nicely.  It's not quite half as long as it's supposed to be.  It's going to be obscenely heavy and warm, and right now is serving as a lovely lap blanket as I knit it.  This means I should try to finish it before it gets hot.

And I finished this, my dramatically pared down version of Norah Gaughan's Hexagon Coat.

This is it before blocking (it's currently drying after a wash and a block, but I couldn't wait).  All the ends are woven in, though.  So it's really virtually done.

As an example of the pared-down-ness of it, the smallest written size calls for a cast on of 88 stitches for just the back.  I did 118 stitches for the whole body.

I then also made fewer hexagons before the armhole shaping, and then a much shorter, shallower armhole.  The sleeves were a lot slimmer, too, and the sleeve cap required... well, actually, it required just jumping in and trying it.  I kind of worked off the pattern, but with fewer decreases here and there, and... well, actually, in the end it sewed in PERFECTLY.  This has never, ever happened with any other sleeve I've knit separate and then had to sew in.  So... yay!

I am, in short, very pleased.

Various other knitting things

I am attempting to keep my knitting down to two projects on needles at one time.  I've allowed myself a bit of swatching or winding or planning for future projects, but no real casting on.

There's not a real reason for this, other than hoping to keep myself a bit focused, and also to keep my knitting basket from going chaotic.

(Actually, I'm a fairly ordered, organized person, at least for my job profile.  People are perpetually amazed at how neat my office is at school--there's much more of a norm of the crazy, messy professor than the relatively neat one.  I'm just like, I've got a huge file cabinet, so why not use it?)

So, I finished off my Noro socks this week.  For those of you who aren't knitters, Noro's a cool Japanese company that's particularly famous for deep colors and self-striping capabilities.  And they just came out with sock yarn (i.e., a thinner weight yarn than any they've produced before).  It's kind of a big deal--or at least a deal that people (knitters) are paying attention to. 

I bought some, and in particular a colorway that screamed spring to me.  The pinky purples, the greens... lovely. 

The sock pattern is more or less the broadripple pattern, here.  Except I added in some ribbing.  And knit them from the bottom up.  And I gave them different toes, meant to fix my toes poking through problem.

When I finished them, I started up something new.  Here we have the first pattern repeat and then some of a shawl I quite like, Lily Chin's reversible rib shawl from Vogue American Collection.

Basically, it looks like this on the other side, with the cables swirling the ribs a bit.  And it's just going on like this for a long time, until it makes a long rectangular shawl.  It's exactly the semi-mindless, semi-thoughtful knitting I'm in the mood for right now, as classes end and the term comes to a close.

The yarn is the black alpaca I bought from Laura before I left Colorado that has tried to be various other things.  Like, first it was going to be a top-down raglan cardigan.  Then I decided that was going to be too heavy and just not right, so I frogged it.

Then it was going to be the Union Square pullover, but then I decided that I so rarely wear pullover sweaters anymore, it would be a lot of boring work for very little reward.

Now, it's going to be this.  It'll be a significantly heavier shawl than the pattern describes, because the yarn's a bit heavier.  But I sort of love the idea of a big, black, alpaca cozy wrap, even as it starts to get warmer, and less cozy wrap-weather-like, outside.

The second thing I have on needles right now is a totally reconstructed version of the hex coat, which I started last fall.  It was far too big and long and wrong.  So I frogged the whole damn thing, which was a pain in the tuchus, because I'd knit a bunch of the hexagons AND started the process of weaving in the ends before deciding it wasn't working.

But, I did it.  And I reknit the body all in one piece, cutting WAY back on the size, like this would be an XXXXS according to the pattern as written (OK, a slight exaggeration).

I think I'm happy with the length and the size, generally.  It'll be kind of an open jacket in the end, which is what I wanted in the first place.  I should perhaps have made it a touch larger, but I think I'm going to decide that I need to trip my hips a bit, which is totally a fact, instead.

I've got three more hexagons to knit, and then I have to tackle the sleeves.  That does require a little tackling, mostly because I have to do a little calculating before I do them.  Particularly for the sleeve cap.  I hate refiguring out sleeve caps, because the geometry of how the armscye and the sleeve cap fit together is not entirely straightforward.

But, tackle it I will.  Yeehaw!  Math ahead!

Things I've bought that I love

(With apologies to Mindy Kaling.)

... both of which are striped.

So, among my various resolutions for this fall, most of which have fallen by the wayside, was the goal to bring my lunch with me to the office more often.  I eat better (the options near my office are crappy pizza, mediocre subs, cafeteria Asian, and hot dogs... all of these have their time and place, but, really), and I'm sure to eat, which I don't always do if I don't bring lunch with me, which ends up with me crashing from hunger sometime in the afternoon.

However, although I have discovered a microwave in the lounge in which I can heat up food I bring, I do not apparently have access to a refrigerator.  And there are some things I refuse to leave out even for a morning.  I know they'd probably be OK, but I worry.

So, I needed an insulated lunch bag.  And isn't this one pretty!!??  It's that kind of foamy material that they now makes wine and beer sleeve/cooler things out of, and I love it.  It's got a flat bottom, and fits a surprisingly large amount of stuff.  At this point, I just need to get some smaller ice packs for it--the large ones I have fit, but they're heavy, too, and don't even remotely thaw even by the end of the day, so clearly I can get away with less.

I've also invested, finally, in a set of interchangeable circular needles.  For those who aren't knitters, that means a set of separate needle tips of different sizes and cables of different lengths that can be mixed and matched at will, hugely multiplying the number of needles you own.

I've been vaguely thinking of doing this, but most of the sets out there are metal, and I really prefer knitting with wood or bamboo.

And then, these appeared at knitpicks.  Multicolored birch (I think) needles.

I had to have them.  And they're really, really nice.  Very pointy, very smooth, great joins, and super flexible cords.  That last bit is amazing.  Usually when you buy circular needles, the cords want to stay coiled up like they were in the package.  You've usually have to relax them with boiling water to get them to straighten out.  These don't do that at all... they don't hold the coiled shape, and instead are amazingly flexible and, well, awesome.  I've futzed with them a fair bit already, and can say fairly definitively that I like them a lot, to the point that I'm going to order the individual smaller sized needles, too (they only sell interchangeable tips down to a certain size, because (I assume) the screw on attachment is itself wider than smaller needle sizes).  I'm looking forward to doing socks on size 0s.

I'm currently using them on these... I'm not sure whether they're going to be mittens or gloves.  I've never made the latter, but I think I might try them.

I bought some heavy thick and thin hand-spun, hand-dyed yarn in Berlin this summer.  One big old hank.  It made a scarf (in plain garter stitch, since there was so much going on in the yarn), and I still had left overs.  So I paired it with this brown wool/silk/yak mix to make a matching hat.  And I still had left overs.  So I'm using it with the brown yarn for the cuff of a mitten (or glove), and then doing the hand in just the brown.  I'm liking how it's working so far, I've got to say (although I must admit that there's a hole at the base of the thumb... I'm still not great at picking up stitches to avoid that, and may have to frog and start that again).

One reason I'm doing this, incidentally, is because I'm letting the Hex Coat hibernate.  I've realized two things.  First, that my individual knitted pieces are exactly the size they're supposed to be according to the schematics.  In other words, the pattern calls for such a large armhole.  And second, that it's just too big for me.  Not just the armhole, but the whole thing.  It's going to end up being something I knit and never wear.  So, I've decided to wait to make a decision about frogging it until my mom comes to visit.  If it fits her, I'll finish it and give it to her.  If it's too big for her, too (a real possibility), it's frogging time.

Drat.

Well, hmpf.

I'm fairly sure that under every possible conceivable circumstance, this is a too-big armhole.  Like, WAY too big.

This means frogging ahead.  I should be able to just frog back one hex repeat and be OK, as far as I can tell.  And I've got to double check the instructions, because I just can't believe that this could possibly be what they call for.  I get that it's a coat, but armholes halfway down my ribs seems utterly wrong.

If it's my mistake, we're all good.  If it's in the pattern, I've got more of a problem, since I'll then have to rework how to do the sleeves.

At least the fall tv season has started up again, so there's stuff to watch while knitting.

Also, ravelry, into which I just entered is amazingly cool (I'm spudsayshi there).  And skype is, too.  I've been having video chats with my mom!  It's awesome!

Uncertainty

I didn't bring it to Chicago because it's a lot of pieces and big skeins of yarn, but this is where I left the Hex Coat.  Sides done, hexagons on one side done, hexagon on other side started, and back done up to the point that I have to start the armhole shaping.

And now here's the uncertainty.

I'm almost 100 % sure that the armholes are too big.  And by too big, I mean WAY too big.

I'm actually a little annoyed with the pattern book.  I think that the pattern is indeed written with roomy sleeves, and that makes sense given the title of the pattern--it's a coat.  But the pictures, I have to say, really don't give that impression.  They look not skin tight, but not really bulky, either.  Hmpf.

So, I think I'm going to finish the back, and then pin the pieces together to see just how big and drapey it's going to be.  If I think I can live with it, I'll keep going.  If not, I'll rip back the tops to make a smaller armhole, and then adjust the sleeves accordingly.

While in (and traveling to and from) Chicago, I did, however, make good progress on these socks.  I had earlier knit them in plain stockinette midway through the foot.  Then I decided they were a) too big, and b) too boring.  And so I frogged back to the toes, and picked out the "wavy rib" pattern from, I think, a Harmony guide.  The feet were 52 stitches around.  I actually knit a whole heel and frogged it because I started it too soon--I forgot that the fewer stitches would make a shorter heel.  But I finished off the second heel, and started up the calf, last night.  It's going well, I think, and I'm likeing how the yarn's turning out--though I'm still amazed at how much color's actually in it, compared to how it looked in the skein.

And finally, a bit of jewelry.  As we looked through things, my mother had my sister and me pick out a few items to start wearing now.  I liked these Victorian filigree balls.  One was still on wires, the other had lost it's wires long ago.  We stopped by a jewelry store to get the wired one snipped off, and to pick up replacement wires.  And I wore them yesterday!

Progress

Progress is a word that makes me realize I'm in Canada. 

But that's not the point.

The point is that the Hex coat is coming along quickly.  For the moment, I've abandoned the lace scarf and the alpaca cardigan (about which I'm having second thoughts, anyway).  I've been working on nothing but socks and this.

I've finished both front halves, as far as the main panels go.  And now I'm doing the hexagons along the front, and also, when I want something more mindless, working on the back, which is... really pretty boring (but not in a bad way!) knitting.

The pattern calls for the hexagons to be knitted on after the whole thing is assembled, but I'm doing as many as I can now.  That's for several reasons.

First, I wanted to be sure that they worked.  Even though my gauge is pretty good for this, I worried.  There've been problems with a lot of the patterns in this book, and I wanted to check this out early.

Second, as it is it's annoying having to rotate the whole side piece as I knit around the hexagons.  Having the whole sweater to rotate would be yet more annoying.

And third, and most importantly, I want to be able to block them well.  And it'll be easier to block the side piece alone than block the whole sweater.

I mean, they actually look decent to begin with... they're pretty flat, and I'm really surprisingly happy with how they're turning out.

But I know they need a good, strong blocking to fulfill their ultimate potential as decoration.  And thus, I'm doing them this way.  So there.

Oh, a note on the length.  The full sized coat, as pictured in the book, goes to the knee.  I decided to cut three hexagons from the length, which, on the picture, takes the coat to lower hip length.  I think that's about what I want, so hopefully that'll work out well. 

So far this has been a wonderfully fast knit, I have to say.  And, really, it's making me realize that it's awfully nice to work from a pattern.  I'm not going to give up figuring things out on my own, or anything, but this is a pleasant change.

On a completely different note, Ziti continues to be cute. 

Stricken!

By inspiration, that is!

So, first, I cast on for socks with the sock yarn featured in the last post.  And I did something new.  First, two at a time!  So exciting.  And a little confusing.  But mostly exciting.

And second, the magic cast-on, or, rather, my variation thereon.  I couldn't quite figure out the finger manipulations involved in this description of the magic cast-on.  Or I kept not managing to get the two strands to interlock.  But I got the sense of what you're supposed to do:  kind of braid the two ends of yarn onto two needles.

And so, instead of the fancy fingerwork involved in that, I left the ends hanging and... indeed, braided them onto the two needles.  Much happier for my brain, and a fine end result (not that you can see it from this picture).

I'm also doing something possibly problematic, which is knitting from both ends of the same skein (i.e., one sock's coming off the outside of the yarn cake, one's coming off the inside).  This could lead to tangles, but so far hasn't.  It may also lead to more radically different looking socks than many people can tolerate.  But, for the most part, I'm OK with socks not matching perfectly.  I think.  We'll see what I get.

I also sat down yesterday (I finished an academic project in the morning, and thus allowed myself a bit of time to do things like go to the grocery store [and, oh, man, I decided to go to a store I'd heard about but never been to, a huge Asian supermarket that was both CRAZY and amazing] and futz with knitting) to think of a new project.  And I wanted a project for which I had a pattern, and yarn that pretty much matched gauge, because I don't want to think something up right now (other than socks).  So I looked through my yarn and figured out more or less the sorts of gauge I had available.  And then I pulled out my pattern books and magazines and looked through them to see what I could knit with the yarns I have at hand.

And then I made this swatch, using some of the yarn I got from L, of Textiles a Mano, before we both left CO.  It's a really nice, springy merino in a mostly grey/olive, with a little bit of black in it too.  And it's EXACTLY (well, just about) right on gauge for a pattern I've been wanting to make for ages.  And, yes, I kind of sinned against the swatch deity by not washing it, but I'm pretty sure, based on the nearness of its exactness, that it's going to be OK.  Yes, I might be shooting myself in the foot.  There you go.  I'm choosing to live dangerously, a bit.

So, next on the needles is:  the Hex Coat from Knitting Nature, by Norah Gaughan.  (It's the bottom right picture here.)

I don't think I have quite enough yarn to make it full sized.  The pattern is for quite a serious coat--it goes down to the model's knees in the book picture.  And, anyway, I don't think I'd want it that long.  But I am thinking it'll be long enough to cover my butt.  I've got three 550 yard skeins, and that should be plenty for that.

Here's what I've got done already.  I'm right away making a change to the pattern.  It calls for ribbing at the bottom edge, but I think that's kind of odd.  So instead I did the same moss stitch pattern (it's a double moss stitch, I think) that's on the main body for the bottom edge, just on the called-for smaller sized needles.

You can see the first indentation for the hexagons along the edge.  It's kind of cool, and a basically easy pattern.  It should be good mostly mindless knitting, with just enough attention required that it's not totally boring.  Except for the back.  The back's going to be really, really boring.  But, that's not yet.