Frogs Everywhere

I think I've done more frogging than knitting the past couple of weeks. 

I can't say much because at least I'm now working on yarn crafting projects again.  Between the month of sewing I had to do this summer and some other miscellaneous stuff going on, I didn't really get back in the yarn crafting gear until the fall hit.

Sure, I did finish a pair of socks for my husband (finally, and without losing one this time!):

But the rest of the time since went like this:

• Finish up the custom baby dress and write up the pattern (which, being a on the fly pattern, mostly involves trying to figure out how the heck you wrote down what you wrote when making the darn thing). 
• Finally start an adult sweater to replace the one I been wearing so long I've had to darn both sleeves at the elbow (anyone remember when the work sweater was completed? It's been awhile; I can't say I'm surprised).
• Realize that I could get a sweater done for NYS Sheep and Wool if I pick up the one I was designing and knitting two years ago and un-screw up the neckline idea. 
• Get past the neckline, do another trim, then decide on another neckline trim to better match the other trim, redo the neckline.
• Finally get to the sleeves, so I do the math for the sleeves, try to work the sleeves, realize sleeve doesn't fit, rip sleeve out, adjust and restart sleeve. Now sleeve is too big on cap but tight elsewhere, rip sleeve out, get peeved at sweater when as I'm not going to finish it in time for Sheep and Wool and have no clue how to actually mathematically calculate an afterthought sleeve.  I then banned sweater to the time-out corner for a couple of days. 
• Decide that due to all the other crap that I should start a nice seed stitch cowl out of some soft yarn bought two years ago. Then I realized that the yarn is too thin to work for a good seed stitch cowl, so I surf patterns, don't like any of the patterns, get idea, try idea, rip idea out, try another idea, rip idea out, chart third idea, start idea, rip idea out, adjust chart, start idea, rip idea out, repeat two more times. I finally get an idea I'm mostly happy with off ground, but at this point I've created a time-consuming pattern for what was supposed to be an easy cowl. I resisted the urge to go find more yarn in the stash to do that seed stitch cowl.  Work on not-easy cowl on the subway for some reason.
• Go back to sweater, figure out a way to recalculate the stupid sleeves, start sleeve again, get half way done, realize it's still screwed up, rip it out.  I then realize I was using the stitch gauge instead of the row gauge to calculate everything for the sleeve, not that my method didn't work. Recalculate using correct gauge and start sleeve again.
• Decide to also work on getting baby dress pattern tech edited, tech editor finds first row has one stitch off of cast on, realize the one stitch off is because all the other calculations are screwed up and spend all night trying to figure out how the heck I managed to knit the thing in the first place.
• Then decided that I should write this blog post instead of working on sleeve or anything else I decided to design or start at the same time.

I mean, it's probably a good thing that I've gotten my design groove back.  I'm looking forward to getting something out there given the time it's been since I've had actual time and inspiration to devote to this.  But why do I have to make it so hard on myself when I could just simply work on something already written or easy without struggling through all the frogs?  Then again, I write software as a day job.  It all involves sitting there and beating your head against the wall wondering why on earth you're doing this when what you did isn't working for the 5th time...until you figure it out, get something done, and feel accomplished and confident.  Then you're more than willing dive right back into another wall because it won't be as crazy this time...right?

And if I have to frog that cowl or the sleeves one more time, the yarn is shot and I won't know what to do with myself.  Probably ban it back to the timeout corner.

For What it's Worth

While, given it's a week into February, that my hopes for getting a new pattern out around New Year's are dashed, I am working on one.  Here's a hint:

One of the reasons I have no pattern still is simply because I keep changing my mind.  I keep changing my mind partly because I keep trying things out and they don't work.  Or I don't like them.  Or it's too small, too big, wrong yarn, etc, etc. It isn't helping that I only did one swatch, and it was small.

This is what happens when you think you can knock out a 'simple' item of your own design without doing much pre-planning, out of scrap yarn.  I should have known it doesn't work that way. Now, it doesn't help that I haven't had much time for knitting recently, let alone calculating things officially in a spreadsheet.  Spreadsheets require hours in front of the computer working on them.  I can knit on the subway,  the bus, and wherever I may be at the moment. Might have contributed to my throw-it-to-the-wind half-ass planning, that did.

Anyway, it seems to be working now.  Hopefully.  Though I can't promise when it'll be written up and out, or if I'll be more than one size,  I can promise that I'll release it for free.

I actually thought about that for a bit, even though this pattern is pretty simple and in the end I decided that it'd only be worth between $0.50 and a dollar, which means it doesn't pay to get it tech edited.  And I won't sell a pattern that hasn't been tech edited, because that's not respectful of my users.  If it's free, well, I try to make sure there's no errors, but that's the trade off for getting a free pattern.

However, it does have a different aspect to it, which is why I paused at first.  Even something as simple as this takes a good amount of planning and some time investment.  This is something I have very little of at the moment.  And since my last pattern was put for sale, there's the aspect of going legit on top of it.  Where's the line between free and not?  Should I give my efforts away like that, after I've said they're worth something?

But then I realize, who am I kidding, I ain't a professional in this nor do I want to be.  So, free pattern. At some point.

I did also get this done:

Pattern is Flame Hat by Irina Dmitrieva.  I did the beret version.

Yay, shiny cable hat.  It's a little big, but it stays on my head, covers my ears, and is warm enough. Now what to do with the other skein of that yarn...

The VogueKnitting Live 2015 Debrief

Oh look, I did make it to VogueKnitting Live.  Barely.  Only because even though everything goes wrong the weekend you plan to do something fun (and by everything I mean a burst pipe flooding kitchen of the unoccupied house I'm responsible for), I had good relatives who stepped in and took care of the stuff someone had to be there for.  You know, so I wasn't out $100.  Instead, I spent more money.

Anyway, I'll make this shorter and sweeter than I usually do, in the interest of time (given I'm already late to this party).

In General
Two things worked in my favor this year: I noticed that they had the guide on their website (it was linked at the bottom of a copro-spam email from them. I was lucky I noticed it) and since Rhinebeck wasn't as awesome of a time as usually, for reasons completely unrelated to Rhinebeck, I said screw it and signed up for a class and went yarn-shopping.

So, since I saw the guide way ahead of time, I found out that yes, all the fashion shows were on Saturday again and I need to go early, which I did.  I actually went a bit too early; by the end of Saturday I was ready to leave and spent 30 minutes sitting on the floor waiting for my knit group. That didn't stop me from running around the marketplace on Sunday, of course.

The Class
This year I took my chances again and signed up for 'Knitting Bag of Tricks' taught by Patty Lyons.

It was way better than last year's class.  The instructor taught well, including taking into consideration what we wanted to learn, while keeping control of the class and not going off the rails.  While a couple of the tricks taught ended up not applying to me since the hack was 'knit combined' and I normally am a combination knitter, I learned several things I didn't even think of.  Like the fact that you can cast on purl-wise using long tail cast on.  Or twisting the back stitch of an standard k2tog or ssk makes it neater.  Also, it turns out that she's been teaching the whole Knitting by Structure concept I though I was clever in figuring out.  Guess I'm glad I didn't continue on with those posts (sorry).

I highly recommend this class, and I'm glad I just pony-ed up 90% of its cost instead of not bothering when the 50% coupon didn't show up.

Fashion Shows and the Panels
Having gone early for the fashion shows, I first was slightly disappointed. The first two shows I saw, Vogue Knitting and Classic Elite Yarns were pretty tame. Though Vogue Knitting did have these questionable items on display:

But anyway, as I got to the Rowan show, I looked at the pamphlet, realize it was full of standard boxy cut, cable laden sweaters, and skedaddled off to shop the marketplace.  While seeing patterns I either kind of like or or are so far in the box it's not funny modeled isn't bad, I really go for the WTF factor.  Which, when I came back in the middle of the Stephen & Steven fashion show I got it in spades:

This show made up for the last three.  All the knitwear in that show was an insane conglomerate of brightly-colored sacks and scarves that served more purpose as decoration for the strutting and dancing models than anything resembling an actual outfit. Don't get me wrong, it was a fun spectacle.  But it wasn't really a knitwear showcase, and I have no clue what patterns were modeled. Maybe it's was better because it didn't pretend to be one.

Which leads me to the last fashion show I saw, Koigu.  This was the standard fashion show I'm used to.  Some stuff that's ok, some stuff that's trying to pass itself off as a wearable item but you still wonder what went through the designers mind when she came up with that.  Like the target vest:

and the knitted yoga pants that don't even look flattering on the model, and the carpet sweater:

 and, to top it off, your granny's doilies turned into a dress:

Oh, VogueKnitting Live, never change.

On Sunday, I did go to see a specific panel called 'Design is a Process', which was a good look into how different designers approach designing.  It really got me thinking about the designs I want to do, which is bad because I currently have absolutely no time to do them. But I bought the yarn for a couple anyway. Mission accomplished, VogueKnitting?

Purchases
So, yeah, I bought way too much yarn for myself.  And some yarn for my mother and the sister who got screwed dealing with the brunt of the burst pipe crisis while I frolicked here.  And some stitch markers. And a shawl pin.  Also, I have no pictures of any of it as I already packed it up (well, all but the skein I'm already using).

Let's just say that I'm set for awhile in yarn.  Which didn't stop me from ordering more two weekends later (one planned since I didn't find it at VogueKnitting, one because my original plan didn't work).

Conclusion
This year was a better year than last year as I got to see fashion shows and had a great class. And bought too much yarn, which is always fun.  Here's to next year, where hopefully I'm not ducking around making phone calls to the insurance company and relatives on top of everything.

Sometimes the Mistakes Work in My Favor

First, it's time for a beer because in this whole post, most of it works out in the end (or maybe it was time, thought I guess it's always time because it's always beer'o'clock somewhere):

In the interest of explaining that I'm not an alcoholic, I took this picture weeks ago.  It is really too late for a beer right now.

 Anyway...a couple of weeks ago, I started the actual knitting process for the tank I'm designing.  And started it.  And started it.  But after that, I finally got past the first five rows and managed to make some progress on the garment.

I then did the absolutely correct thing and after getting a bit into it, I steam-blocked it and re-took my gauge measurements. It turns out that, of course, the gauge swatch I made, and even took measurements on just like the class I took told me to (take a bunch and average), is a lying liar that lies.  My gauge in the project is about 0.5 stitches more per inch than I used for my calculations, and 1.5 rows less.

My first thought was 'oh, great, I got to rip it out AGAIN.'  But first, I went back to my spreadsheet and changed the gauge listed there.  I looked at the new results of my calculations.  Looked back at the garment.  It didn't seem right.  If I were to cast on the number of stitches my spreadsheet now produced with the new stitch gauge, it would be too big for me.  To test this, I tried on the little bottom strip I had.  It fit as is. 

So, screw it, I'm keeping my calculations as my original stitch gauge.  This yarn has some sort of weird gauge warping ability, as this isn't the first time something's come out bigger than it should in this yarn (remember my first tank attempt?).  I should note that this is after I calculated a -1 negative ease into my calculations because I was worried about the cotton stretching too much. Oye. But that part worked out.

However, that leaves me with the row gauge being off.  Now, I had already started on the waist shaping, so changing the row gauge would mean changing the whole frequency of the shaping.  This meant I may have to rip it out, at least part way, anyway.  So, steeling myself for the inevitable, I went back to my huge spreadsheet and stuck in the new row gauge.

I then looked at the column for my custom size and went 'huh?'  It had barely changed.  All the standard size ones had changed, but my size didn't.  It didn't make any sense.  So, I kept studying it and tracing back my calculations...only to find that I had pointed to the wrong cell for a couple of the length calculations, and it was calculating a length about half of what it should be.  The waist decreases were wrong in the first place, let alone the row gauge being off.

This is where I would have thrown up my hands and walked away, except that when I fixed the calculations, the frequency of decreases it returned not only made more sense, it worked with what I had already done!  My other mistake had literally saved me from having to re-do the waist shaping already completed.

So, sometimes, they work in my favor.  If only I could say the same thing for a couple of other things I've done recently, like get a hot iron too close to an acrylic baby sweater (no, a piece of scrap linen does not work in substitute for a pillowcase), or cutting fabric (me? Cut or sew straight?  Never.  This is why I like yarn craft, you build the fabric, not cut it and attach the pieces into shapes).

And before it's asked, no, I didn't completely ruin the baby sweater with that bit of stupidity.  It's just a bit shiny and slightly different color green (yes, it looks blue in the photo.  It's not; it's green) in the front (because I was trying to get the bands to lay flat, despite the fact that that is why you knit them, but that's another post):

At least my first attempt at colorwork was successful:

So...I can still knit?  Yay!

Plans, Classes, and Decisions

In the black hole of my disappearing act, of which only part of it had to do with knitting, I've been trying to design a tank.

It is not the same tank I started with in the last post, no.  That was the tank I did my usual 'throw planning to the wind, swatch once, and start' act on, and it failed miserably.  I was so certain I would start from the bottom, but I kept ending up with too many stitches.  Several tweaks later, I decided to start at the band.  I calculated how many repeats I would need based on a similarly designed swatch, and went at it.  It started looking a bit big, but no matter, the cables will close it up.  It kept looking a bit big until I ended the chart, held it up to me, and...oops, did about seven too many repeats. 

I checked my gauge, found it wanting, so I looked at my half-assed calculations, which were changing with every whim I hit.  It was all wrong.  I ripped out the last ball I joined, looked at it, and...decided that this was the wrong yarn to use.  Too bulky, too big, didn't work.

Oye.

So I started hunting down more suitable yarn.  I actually went and bought a skein of one 'okay it may work' yarn and wound it up.  Then I decided to work on other things that didn't require as much thought (and need to get done as well):

Also, I'm still not done with the baby sweater and my Mom finished the blanket already.  That never happens!

Well, ok, maybe a little.  I had to rip out a few things in that sweater too. 

Anyway, while I was putzing about on where I would get the yarn for this tank I want to make, I also kept thinking about what to do with the yarn I had originally bought.  It was just sitting there because I didn't bother putting them up, of course.

Then I got a better idea.  Another tank, but one that would work with this yarn.  Simple, easy...

 ...and, it turns out, a pain in the butt to calculate everything. Of course it is.

I know this because I swore I would do this properly this time.  I would not quickly calculate how many to cast on for my size and go.  I would swatch properly, calculate everything out, then adapt to my size and go.  It helps that I got a 'up to 75% off your first class' coupon from Craftsy (because I signed up and only took free courses, then forgot about it) and I used it for this class.  Because, hey, ten bucks for instructions on the crap I keep doing wrong; it's a good deal, right?

Well, I haven't finished the class, but while it was worth the 10 bucks for the sparks I needed to figure out how to organize this stuff into a set of competent calculations, there are parts I've either 1) got so bored because it was below my skill level (computer skills, actually, not knitting.  She explains in minute detail how to use a spreadsheet.  I get why, but some of us have, you know, even programmed macros before) or 2) didn't get the reasoning behind it.  I'm at a part that is supposed to help me, but her setup wasn't working out for my tank.  I don't know why, because there's some magic numbers in her calculations and even when someone asked her in the comments to explain it, she didn't.  But thanks to the comments, I remembered I bought this book:

It was a random, get free shipping on Amazon buy.  I half-forgot about it, thinking a lot of it wasn't so relevant.  However, a comment in the class pointed me in the right direction, and I found that it contains a much simpler way of doing the same thing.  That worked.  Translate it into a spreadsheet to auto-calculate and...ta da.  Another thing half done.

Because desipte having spent...I don't know, three weeks doing this, I'm still not done.

Ok, part of it is my life intruding.  But most of it is because I keep going off on one tangent, deciding against it or running into a brick wall, and going off again.  That part of the class I got confused on?  Was about calculating slope.  Which I first tried to do using inches and the slope of a line formula, and couldn't quite even out the slope to go where I wanted it to in stitches.  That's when I watched that segment of the class.  So I've done that part about three times now.

At this point I could technically cast on.  I have the stitch count where I need it, I just need to adjust for my size directly (I've been using standard measurements so I have a constant).  However, since my efforts have been all over the place, I'm not sure if I have everything to at least easily calculate where to proceed.  And I'm still not done with the class.  Decisions, decisions. The problem with designing is there is no base and way too many decisions.

So, I'll probably continue on to the end of the class, then do a quick look at what I have and start writing/knitting  But it's taking all my effort not to get frustrated at all the wasted planning and just cast on already.  However, we know where that goes.  It goes like this:

Badly.

Rush Jobs

I hate rushing through projects.

Unfortunately, when one starts socks for Hanukkah less than a month before the holiday starts, it will end up being a rush job.  Well, at least for me.  I'm not the fastest knitter out there, so it takes me about a month to complete a pair of socks.  Especially ribbed socks with cables.

The good news is they did get done, even if it was at 2am last Sunday when I cast off the last toe, and I did have to cut out certain things I was planning to do.  Mainly, I'm very lucky the sock top was stretchy enough even with the provisional long-tail cast.  And that the yarn I used for the cast-on matched the sock.  It let me just weave in the ends and call it a day without having to go back and pick up at the top.

It did leave me with left over yarn, though.  Boo.

Since it was a rush job, I didn't get any pictures of the finished socks before I gave them to my mom.  Hell, hey were still damp from the steam blocking job I did when I handed them over.  I just didn't have any more time before I left the house.

(Speaking of blocking, I did re-block Crazy Cable Blanket.  Though it turns out that my iron at my parents' house also had hard water dust in it...however, it wasn't as bad as mine.  Oh well.  Hopefully it stays blocked this time, but most likely I'll never know.) 

Anyway, you would think I'd be smart and let that be the end of it, but no.  I had to decide to knit something for a gift swap. And not only that, I was designing it as well.

Let me go back to the beginning here.  I suck at buying presents, unless it's certain people in my family who I just get what they like. Despite this, I signed up for a gift swap where the recipient of said gifts didn't know who was giving it to them, I had a price limit, and all I had to go by was a set of answers to four questions. Hoo boy.

When thinking about what to get, I started settling on the idea of knitting something cheap and quick.  I had the favorite color of the recipient, and I had other ways of feeling out what they liked, knitting-wise.  What else was I going to do?  So I did a half-prototype where I took yarn out of my stash, found a pattern (which I had no intention using to make as the gift.  I don't know what I was thinking)...and ended up a day later with something else.  I basically went from this to this:

Yeah...my creative side took over there big time.  I was pretty much going on the fly; deciding what to do by row.  Oye.  The only thing that little exercise that took over when I was supposed to be knitting a pair of socks did was prove that I could knit a bulky yarn, small-sized cowl in a day.  Well, that and it gave me something to hand to my mom the first night of Hanukkah. 

After that, I decided that I was going to take a trip to Purl Soho (which I'd never been to) on a day I took off for unrelated reasons and see if I could find a skein of yarn that worked.  I was then going to find a store in the Fashion District and get buttons (which...holy shit why didn't I figure this out earlier?  The first store I walked into had tons and tons of buttons!  They had the perfect buttons for both cowls!  I need to go to the Fashion District more often).  After I got materials, I was going to sit down, change the pattern a bit on the cowl I did on the fly, and have four days to get it done.  Except that I was still working on the socks 'til Sunday, which left me with two days instead.

Not deterred and with a cable pattern I came up with Friday night,  I calculated how many stitches I needed to cast on and started in the car on the way to a relative's house.  I promptly screwed up on said math and had to re-start during the same ride.  No matter; at said relative's house, I was able to get half-way through the cowl while watching the Jets game (yeah, yeah, I know, 'Jets suck' and all of that.  Still a fan, though).  Got close to done on the way back to my apartment, and finished the knitting Sunday night (and managed to write the pattern down, even though I wasn't 100% happy with the design.  Not bad, but not amazing). 

'Yes!' I thought, 'I'll just block it, sew on the buttons Monday night, and it'll be done by Tuesday!'

Except one little thing I didn't do. I never saved and blocked the swatches I had done Friday night...no time and needed the yarn, you see.  So when I wet the yarn, I wasn't expecting it to go all limp and crappy-looking like it did.  It looked horrible.  You could see through the thing, that's how loose the stitches were.  Where I had joined in the initial round looked like it was going to come apart any second.  It had no structure at all.  There was no way I could give that away.

Now, I'm thinking: 'Crap, I screwed.  I have to knit another one!'  So I did.  Except I changed several things, including the cable (which I again designed partly on the fly).  I knit on the subway, on my lunch break, at home Monday night.  At 10pm, I was done (and had documented it as well).  I steamed blocked it this time, created the buttonhole loops and sewed on the buttons , and got this:

Its a small cowl.  A neck warmer, if you will.  But I like it,  and I had my gift and enough notes to write up a new pattern (though said pattern isn't done yet because I managed to get a cold yesterday and didn't feel like it.  I'll do it this weekend).

Oh, and the recipient?  Loved it.  I guess I can get it right sometimes.

As for the crappy cowl...well, that has a happy ending as well.  See, Tuesday night I looked at it again after it had dried a bit and it was now just fine.  It was a tad looser than I planned, but it was not too floppy or crappy looking anymore. So I sewed some snaps in it to shut it (as I didn't have buttons anymore) and here it is:

Another usable cowl.  Which I'll never use, so I have to figure out who to pawn it off on.  This pattern will also be written up and posted this weekend.  I figured that maybe someone else would like it more than I do.

Not bad for series of rush jobs.  I still don't like to do things this way, though.

Procrastinating and Creating

For once, I should be doing other things such as packing and maybe trying to get some rows of Crazy Cable Blanket done, but instead I'm writing a blog post and making little pumpkin breads:

(I actually don't care for cooking, but I like fresh food and saving money)

But anyway, this weekend my ass is going to be upstate, a trip for which I even took a few days off from work for (yay limited vacation time). I've stopped packing because I'm trying to convince myself that, no, I don't need to bring my whole knitting needle set because I have enough projects going that I don't need to start anything from the yarn I plan to buy at Rhinebeck before I get back home.  I'm also trying to pack for four days in a small suitcase while leaving enough room for more stuff.  Over packing (which I always do, unfortunately) is one thing.  Trying to lug an over packed suitcase on the subway and a bus is a completely different story.  My trip involves at least six staircases, crowded subways, a long distance style bus, and a long hill, and yes, you count when you're lugging bags.

I probably don't need all my projects with me either, but they're going.  Crazy Cable Blanket (of which I have 30 rows left) is going.  The spatterdashers (halfway through the second one!) are going.  Those  Log Cabin squares I make when I can't do anything else are going.  That blue crochet thing from the last post is going:

That will be my fourth posted pattern, and I swear it, because I have the pattern written down already and I'm following it.  It's a long time coming; I haven't tried making my own pattern since the baby sweater, and haven't posted one since the baby hat I did.  I'd admit, for awhile I just wasn't feeling it.  I didn't want to deal with the creative process, and I had enough projects going I didn't need to.  After really gearing up at the beginning of the year I fell flat.  I think I was hoping to get going with the design thing, but got overwhelmed with life, then said screw it and forgot about it for awhile.

Reciently, though, something clicked. It started when I went on a yarn crawl and ended up with this yarn:

I bought the blue-green yarn with the idea of making my mom's Hanukkah present out of it.  It's alpaca, of course, and the plan was another hat.  But I wasn't sure if I would find a good pattern for it.  Then an idea hit me. I knew exactly what that hat's going to look like, and I sat down and charted out the cable I wanted and drew sketches:

Now, I haven't tested the design yet in yarn, nor written the pattern (I need to figure out how I'm doing the top still, and if I want to do a contrasting brim), but I figured after I get done with the Halloween stuff I'd get down to that.  I may need extensive modification, who knows.

Then I realized that the other yarn, which I bought thinking I had three skeins of it in my stash already, was the wrong color.

Oops.  I called the yarn store I bought the three black skeins from and asked if they had any of the charcoal color I actually have in my stash. No such luck; they didn't have it.  Now I'm stuck with three skeins of charcoal and three skeins of black yarn, which killed my first idea of what I was going to do with that yarn.

Then I realized I needed yarn for that class I'm taking at Rhinebeck.  Ok then, I'll try to come up with my first sweater pattern using that yarn.  Which may or may not happen, but that yarn's what I'm bringing to class.

I did sketch out some ideas of sweaters, though.  I'm not sure how far along this class wants you, but they mentioned bringing fashion pictures.  I don't really have any inspirational pictures right now, so I just sketched, and I'm hoping to wear the jacket I want to mimic in a cardigan pattern at some point (since, you know, it's already got a hole in it).

Finally, after setting out all these knitting projects, and knitting stuff like worsted weight yarn on size 0 needles, I decided I really needed a easy, bulky, crochet project. I also decided I needed a wrap because it was cold outside and the heat wasn't on yet in my apartment (because I was totally going to get it done before the landlord got around to turning the heat on.  Didn't happen; the heat kicked in a week ago).

Luckily I have tons of Loops & Threads Charisma in my stash that really needs to stop living there.  Out comes the big crochet hook, and I started crocheting a wrap.  Then I frogged it.  Then I crocheted a square.  Then I frogged it.  Then I searched Ravelry in vein and got sick of all the repetitive crochet blanket patterns. Then I found this stitch in a crochet stitch dictionary and thought, hm, that looks interesting.  So I charted out a repeat from memory (which meant it's different than the actual stitch dictionary version), figured out the arrangement I wanted, actually figured out my gauge for it, calculated the number of chains to do to start, and went at it.  I'm actually shocked it's coming out as nicely as it is in this yarn.  I was thinking that my pattern idea may be more suited for a worsted weight, or maybe even a sport weight, but I was doing bulky first because stash.  You'll see.  When I'm done with the bulky version, I'll post the pattern.  Then maybe I'll figure out a worsted weight one (though I would have to buy yarn for that one, oye).

But I really need to pack now.  It's amazing what you do when you have something else that needs to get done.

The Dilemma of Classes

If any of you went to VogueKnitting Live New York last year, you probably received an email stating that you could pre-register a couple of weeks ago (turns out, you can only pre-register for the crazy expensive all-inclusive packages, so the rest of us are stuck waiting).  Ok, cool, I thought.  Now I won't sign up last minute...hm, class list; maybe I should take a class this time...

As I was looking down the list of classes, I noticed a lot of them are of the vein 'learn a this technique' or 'learn more ways to cast-on and off'.  Which is all fun and good...except I could find you instructions for ten different ways of casting on in ten minutes just sitting here at my computer.  I could even find a couple of videos for some of them if written instructions aren't your thing.  What's the point, then, of spending around $50-$60 to learn something I could just Google, or even spend at most $25-$30 for a book that has that has ten times more information that I can refer to indefinitely?

Now, I do get that there are people out there that need or want the physical presence of the instructor and the interactive instruction to learn something in knitting and crocheting, no matter how simple.  The point of this post isn't to behoove them, or make fun of the fact that the classes exist. No.  My dilemma, as an active self-teacher, is at what point is taking the class worth it?  At what point is what is being taught too complicated to detail on a web site, show on a YouTube video, or follow from a book?  What wisdom can only be found by paying $60 for a class?

It's not an easy question, though I have some notion of the answer.  You see, a couple of months ago I decided to make a mini-vacation out of Rhinebeck, partly as a gift to myself for last July (see, I *can* sign up for these things before the last minute). Since I earned overtime for that month, money wasn't so much of a concern.  So, the first thing I did was decide to take a class.  Unlike VogueKnitting Live, however, I looked through the class list for Rhinebeck once and immediately found what I wanted to take.  I'm going to be learning how to design a sweater.

Of course, I've already technically designed a sweater.  Two, if you count this disaster.  So why that class?  Because I haven't been successful in actually getting a pattern down, and I'm hoping that learning some techniques for designing will help me knock out my half-assed design-on-the-fly methodology that isn't working as well as I'd like.  Also, unlike cast on techniques or how to do stranded color-work, learning design and pattern-writing isn't a concrete, step-by-step process.   There's no 'do x, then y', so it doesn't lend itself to online tutorials, nor does it benefit designers to over-think themselves and explain it for free.  Sure, there's books out there.  I own a couple and have more in my (private) Amazon wish list. But what I've done obviously isn't enough.

So, is my self-teaching limit at the point of designing from scratch?  No, I don't think so; there's more books I can read, and I could benefit from a good stitch dictionary right now at least.  But it is the point where self-teaching becomes experimental and frustrating; where there's no straight how-to and over-researching is paralyzing so I do too little of it, ending up stuck.  It makes me realize how little I know of this craft.  So, when money isn't an object and I'm treating myself, it makes some sense to take the class.  Who knows, it may help, and hopefully it's fun.

But that brings me back to VogueKnitting.  Can I justify even taking a class on design when I have to justify spending the money?  Can I justify any of them?  That's my dilemma, and at this point that depends what I end up using from any class I rationalize myself into taking.

Knowing me, I'll end up signing up for something anyway.  It's not like I needed to attend a lecture either, but I've been to one of those already (it was more due to the pricing structure and wanting to get the hell out of my apartment that time).  I have into November 27th to decide before it costs more.

How Not to Wind a Hank, with Some Reflections on Designing

So, this weekend, I didn't get much knitting stuff done.  Did a couple of rows on Crazy Cable Blanket, worked on a couple of squares (partly while waiting in a waiting room; partly during the Super Bowl, though I didn't get nearly as much done during the Super Bowl as I thought I would.  Something about being at a party and being from NY, that kind of thing).  Oh, and decided I was going to swatch for this baby sweater/shirt/whatever that I can't really decide what I want it to look like, let alone actually sit down and do the math.  But anyway, that little side journey was thrawted by one of the hanks of cotton.  You see, I had these hanks:

And one, once a swift and ball winder were utalized, quickly became this:

However, the second hank quickly became this:

(Yes, that wooden thing is a swift.  It's an Amish-style swift, verses the more common umbrella type)

Yep.  A big, steaming pile of yarn mess.  Why did it become such a mess?  Well, whoever wound the hank up did a shitty job.  Both ends of the hank were tangled up with the other strands of the hank, making winding off a swift impossible.  I tried.  For awhile, I was weaving the ball winder in and out of the hank on the swift when needed.  Then, I got to a point where the space the yarn went through was not and could never be big enough for the ball winder to go through.  So, I took the partial cake of yarn off the winder, tried winding it by hand off the hank, watched the partial cake start to disintegrate while the hank tangles became more numerous, and therefore got frustrated and took the hank off the swift.  Which meant that it disintegrated into the mess in the picture above.  And that's after I spent an hour attempting to untangle it.

Ug, how hard it is to wind a hank, people?  Big circle of yarn.  Really now.  The last time I had this issue was also a hank of cotton, too.  Different company though.

I finally did get it untangled and wound up into a non-disintegrating yarn cake, though it took me at least two hours to do it, split across two days.  Which meant I got no swatching done.  Oye.

Of course, the whole swatching and knitting of this yarn is another issue.  I want to create the pattern for this baby sweater/cardigan/whatever myself and write it down.  I have some ideas, and some constraints (needs to be short-sleeved, gender-neutral, and I only have one hank of each color plus some black cotton from another FO), and no idea how the variegated yarn knits up, which is a problem I need to fix.  But what this also means is that I have to sit down, do the math for whatever I design (which will probably be way too complicated and will therefore have to be toned down), knit it, hack it, fix my math, and then figure out how to size it.  I've never done a sweater pattern before (well, I tried once, but while I did get a FO out of it, I did not get anything I liked or useful to write a pattern up with).  I have 'till June for the FO. 

Which brings me to another mistake of mine that I realized somewhat recently.  You see, when I first started writing my patterns down (back when I just crocheted), I thought that designers usually designed while knitting/crocheting, wrote down what they did, and then released it into the world.  So that's what I did, both successfully and not.  I BS'ed a pattern while I created it, tried to keep track of what I was doing and not do anything too crazy,  made it pretty and posted it.

Well, except that's not how it works in the real world.  Most designers write the whole pattern first, or at least most of it.  And, there are designers out there that never make the patterns they write.  They write the pattern, and then send it off to be tested by other knitters/crocheters.  This blew my mind.  Really?  You can design something before you make it?  How do you know it's going to work, or what it's going to look like?

Then I actually thought about it, and realized that I'm an idiot.  Of course you can write a pattern before you make it.  It's like writing pseudo-code or planning out a program to the function level.  If you know what you're working in and what it's supposed to do, you should know what's possible or not, and therefore write fine code or patterns without ever executing it or making the pattern.  Theory and thought will show you what will work or not.

Of course...I also plan a lot of my programs partly on the fly.  It's just the way I think; I need to see it working to really say 'yeah, this works'.  Now, don't get me wrong, I do plan the logic flow, gather requirements, do mockups of screens, and all the other fun planning steps that come with coding.  But I tend to plan the actual structure and/or some details of the program itself by just coding it and getting it up and running.  So is it really surprising that, knowing no designers or anything about the process, that's how I was designing as well? 

Except that, why I don't mind coding this way (to a point), on-the-fly planning in yarn craft is way more annoying.  See, to change something in code can be very simple (well, I should say in the environments and languages I currently work in).  You go, you figure out what you want, you write it (or copy and paste it), and you run it.  All the rest of the code you've written and tested is still there.  To change something while making it in yarn usually ends up requiring scrapping part of the project.  Or the whole project.  Or even the yarn you bought for the project.  You can't reuse stitches you knitted after the change, at least not usually.  And a different construction?  You can't just copy and paste what you want and piece it back together, you know.

Hence, I'm planning on writing down most of this baby sweater/cardigan/whatever pattern before I attempt to knit it.  I'll swatch to see what color and stitch combinations look good, I'll do the math and write down everything.  Sure, something will change after I start it.  But I won't be doing half-assed math calculations that lead to a too-wide neckline like my last sweater project.  Or a too-loose gauge that just didn't work, that I didn't bother pulling out because that meant losing everything I'd done before.

Famous last words, I know.