In Other News, I'm Still Here

So I am a lazy bum who just got out of obsessively watching the Olympics for over two weeks and realized that I haven't written a blog post in over a month.  However, this lazy bum also has been spending half her free time studying for the GRE, and the other half trying to keep up with social obligations, projects, and the fact that she really needs to keep her apartment a little cleaner since a roach decided to chase her out of the kitchen yesterday (I'm no where near a slob and the kitchen wasn't insanely dirty either, but I had been keeping dishes in the sink overnight.  Not that you could ever get a kitchen to a level of cleanness that completely stops them from coming in, over, whatever.  I also have a roach phobia so...yeah).

Anyway, I did get my cardigan done, finally:

Of course, this was after I ripped out the collar three times on top of all the stupid little mistakes I make while knitting.  My swatch lied, or otherwise I was blinded with my love of this yarn, this pattern, or both, because when I blocked it the thing grew.  Not massively, but enough that it felt like it was just hanging on my shoulders, with a huge neckline and floppy collar.  Also, I spaced the buttons out too far and they were gaping.  After throwing it into a corner and sleeping on it so I didn't rip the whole thing out in spite, I ripped out the collar and button band.  I then ripped out three rows of the back before realizing that that section was the only one with live stitches and now I had to pick them back up (which didn't work 100% -- there was an unexplainable gap where the extra yarn hung out at the end of the live stitches and the start of the bind-off -- but I was able to hack it enough and the collar hid it anyway).  Once I fixed that, I decided to go down several needle sizes and re-knit it with new yarn (well, that wasn't a choice because I murdered the yarn when I ripped it out).  Along the way I decided to put one more button and less spaced out, and put less decreases in the collar.  The first thing worked (though I did bind off a bit too tightly), the second thing didn't.  Collar was now too small.  So I ripped that part out again, added more decreases and knitted over the short rows a bit more so the fronts were bigger.  That produced a do-able collar, though I had to sew it down to keep it folded.

I'm still not completely happy with it; it really needs a tighter gauge (damn worsted weight acting like a DK), one button band is slightly tighter than the other, and the collar isn't exactly what I would like...but it does fit more or less now and is extremely warm.  Oh well.  Shit happens.

I probably should do a proper debrief, but right now it's 11pm and I'm tired, so I'm off to bed instead.

Knitting by Structure, Part 1: Um...What, Now?

Well that was a break I didn't intend to happen.  I'm behind on a lot of things.  Not my knitting so much, but everything else...yeah.  Happy New Year everyone.

Anyway, here's the start of something helpful for once. I've been meaning to do this post series for a bit, but since I'm lazy I just got around to it.  Might as well actually do something useful after some radio silence.

Knitting by Structure Series: The Part Where I Discuss What I Mean By This, Why You Should Read It, and What It Will Cover
(otherwise known as Part 1 - Introduction)

If you've been around the knitting realm a bit, you've probably noticed how most instructions for knitting are set up.  They usually go something like this: Step 1, do x motion.  Step 2, do y motion, Step 3, Profit.  That is, the instructions focus on the mechanics of the actions you need to complete.  They tell you what direct to put your needle, how exactly you should hold your yarn, and wrap the yarn around the needle, and so on. 

It makes the instructions simple, usually self-contained, and has a huge flaw in that it presumes one way of knitting is correct and makes the average student a slave to the instructions.  Ok, maybe that's a bit harsh, but you get the point.  A lot of people will read the instructions, mechanically follow them, and that's all they know.  If they run into an issue, or need to do something else, they have to go off and find more instructions.

I don't mean to pass judgement on the people that do this.  This is how many things are taught.  It makes it easier to learn as you just have to follow the process, right?  It's also how most of us will explain a new technique to other knitters...me included.  It's normal.

However, I propose a different method of looking at the action of knitting.  I think the focus should be on structure than the mechanics of the knitting process.

What do I mean when I say 'structure'?  Well, I mean the focus should be on the why of knitting, instead of the how.  That we should learn to knit by learning how a stitch works and how different actions influence it.  That the act of knitting should be taught by its generic algorithm, and that style (aka, how one holds the yarn and wraps it around the needle), should not be assumed by the instructions.  Make things modular; teach understanding and build up on that.

I will admit, this is a bit harder way of learning knitting.  The learning curve is steeper in the beginning, and you won't be able to jump straight away to producing results.  But the trade-off is that it levels out sooner.  Instead of just learning a certain set of mechanics, and having to learn to troubleshoot or a different technique after you make a mistake or want to change something, you gain an understanding up-front that makes it much easier to avoid some of the common mistakes one sees when learning to knit.  Or to understand enough to change things on the fly.

I will also admit that this line of thinking is a bias of mine.  I currently code for a living.  Condescending an activity to its essence, modularizing it so each part is semi-separated and re-useable, and building complexity on top of previous structure is good coding practice.  It reduces interdependence, makes things re-usable, can save time, and absolutely saves maintenance and enhancement effort later on. And that's the beauty of this approach.  You may have to put more effort in at first to understand what's going on, but later the whole arsenal of knitting techniques is open to you. To slightly extend another programming-knitting metaphor that someone else really came up with, we want to learn how to be more than compilers, reading instructions and changing them directly into fabric.  We want to be able to program the instructions a bit so that when the compiler reads something that doesn't compute, we don't have to spit out an error and leave it at that.

So with that justification out of the way, the following is the outline of Learning to Knit by Structure:

1.  Learn the structure of a stitch.  What do we mean when we say 'stitch front' or 'left leg'?  How does each stitch interlock with others to form a knitted fabric?
2. Become familiar with the knitting styles (this is things like English and Continental as well as Western, Eastern, and Combined).  How does each direct you to hold the yarn and wrap it around the needle (at this point we are not concerned on how to actually knit and purl)? 
3. Learn and understand how each style effects the stitch orientation.  Why do we get the same fabric using different styles?  How do knitting patterns assume it works? What style do you gravitate to (at this point, you must pick a style to learn first).
4. How do we knit and purl?  What must we do to read the stitch and know where to put the needle and pull the yarn through?  This will be presented in such a way it doesn't matter what style is being used.
5. Certain things presume a specific structure and orientation in common knitting parlance.  What are they?  How do things such as directional decreases actually work?  Twisting stitches (that is, what does 'ssk', 'k2tog', and 'tbl' really mean)?
6. There are other basic techniques that don't rely as much on such presumptions, but should still be learned as a basic: other decreases such as yarn-overs, increasing, picking up stitches, casting on and binding off (these may need to be taught before step 4, at least superficially).

At this point, a knitter that has learned and understood these steps can go off and use the multitude of resources out there to pick up more advanced skills.  Short rows?  Cables?  Lace? Shaping?  All these techniques build on the steps above: how does a stitch work, and how do we make it?  I purposed that anyone who has learned the ideas presented above will be able to pick up these kinds of skills no problem...even if all they can find is mechanical instructions.  As well, knowing the whys of knitting should guide you through any issues or mistakes...or even a shift in preferences.  Even when the fix is a hack.  Especially if the fix is a hack.

Now, of course really learning this comes with practice.  Mistakes will happen, something won't click for a bit, that's all normal.  Learning the basics of each step is enough to go on; once a knitter starts actually knitting, they should be able to learn with action as well as theory.  I know people learn differently, and they will gravitate towards what they find easiest.  Which may mean that a step will be done out of order.  That's ok.

However, if you want to learn this way (even if you already know how to knit), it does take one thing: eagerness to know why what happened happened, and a willingness to learn it...at least at the basic explanation level (after all, what is outlined here is skimming the surface a bit.  But we do have to balance why with how, and I get that most knitters don't have time for an academic-level discussion, me included.  Though if you want to go right ahead).  What I mean is that you can't just want the quick fix, just looking for the detailed instructions that you will follow to produce a result.  These are the people also running to someone when they got a virus again by downloading from a shady source a mistake occurs without even attempting to fix it. I get that you may not know off the top of your head (I don't remember much off the top of my head.  That's what the Internet and books are for), but you must be willing to try and learn at least where to find the answer.

Humans are pretty smart cookies.  Knitting isn't rocket science, or even programming.  You got this.

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.

Crash Landing

Despite the fact that I have all this sock yarn that I should be using, I've been focusing my subway knitting time on an old project:

Yep.  Squares again.  I realized recently that I had technically started this project over a year ago, and hadn't touched it in months.  Of course, this UFO's whole role was to give me something easy to do when I was between projects.  Unfortunately, I've been lining up my projects very well, and so I hadn't done much with it until recently.  And the only reason I picked it up again is because I've been so focused on sewing (which, yes, I'm still doing.  It will never end!), and then my sweater got too big to do on the subway:

(It's being knit on...twice a week...and is starting to annoy me....it'll never end either).  So while I haven't got a lot of knitting done, I'm at least making progress on an old project. That's what I keep telling myself, at least.

Though, I kind of want to start a pair of socks.  Because all I need is another project.  Oye.

In the Random Celebration Department

Happy Pi Day!

Hope you had some pie:

Ok, so it's the frozen kind.  It's still pie.

Mmm, blueberry pie...

In other news...naw, won't bore you with another got nothing post.  I have a real one planned, but I can't get it done tonight. It's in the works though!  I haven't given up yet!

But today, it's pie time.

And Now for Something Completely Different

I had a little childish fun:

That is all.  I though about making hats and/or scarves for them, but I didn't want to leave anything that wasn't snow out in the yard (as I'm not 100% I was supposed to be in the yard in the first place, but anyway...). 

Now back to being an adult and yarn crafting.

Such a Good Start

So, we're half a month into the new year and I haven't written a post yet.  Good job, me.

To be fair, I've been rather busy.  Not with projects, unfortunately.  Not with pattern writing, though I should have that done by this weekend (something something too lazy to do math something).  No, just life.  Holidays and the traveling that entails, work, family hanging around, that kind of stuff.

I guess what I'm saying is I got nothing. 

Well, ok, I got something.  I got a three-year-old store bought work sweater that needs to be replaced, because this lovely thing popped up a month ago, and it's gotten bigger:

And, no, I'm not just wearing it for the picture.  I've been wearing it to work too (though, to be fair, I didn't notice the hole wasn't dime-sized anymore until this week.  Then I folded up the sleeves until said hole was covered).  That's because its replacement, which I've planned for...I don't know, almost a year now...looks like this:

I would blame the holidays and being busy, but its not just that (though that delayed my start.  Then again, I wasn't planning for my other one to get a hole).  I like this pattern and I love this yarn, don't get me wrong, but it is a sport-weight full cardigan, worked back and forth of course.  Purling every other row slows me down; I just don't purl as fast as I knit.  With that, on top of having a charted cable and US5 needles, means I'm not going as fast as I could.  But I guess that's every project I do.  I think I'll get it done in a couple of weeks, but in reality it takes me a month or two (or five, or a year...).

Oh, and working on this thing doesn't help either:

I'm justifying it as my travel project.

In other news, I was reminded recently that VogueKnitting Live is next weekend.  I had forgotten about it in the rush of other things.  Of course, I would have remembered when my name card came in the mail this week:

I can't wait to see what horrifying fashions are being show this year, which is what this event is good for. I mean, it's not like I need any yarn and if it's like last year, I'm not going to find much in the way of yarn anyway as bright, summery colors are not in my color palate.  Which is a good thing; I currently have too much yarn acquired from Rhinebeck and the Manhattan Smiley's sale.  Well, I guess it's also good for the lecture I signed up for.  We'll see.

At least I used and am using what I bought there last year, of which one thing was the book the replacement work cardigan is in.  The yarn I'm using I bought at Rhinebeck this year.  Woot, knitting events.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to all the Americans out there!  Since I'll be busy for the holiday, I won't be keeping up my current posting rate (ha, my best yet, though there's no way I'm doing this long term).

To everyone else, have a good rest of the week. 

Blame Sandy

Another quick post saying that due to external influences I won't be posting until things get back to normal. Just as I was getting my posting rate up too, oye. 

If you are the maybe two people who actually read this blog, you'll know I'm in the NYC area.  If you're in North America and haven't been living off the grid in the middle of nowhere, you've heard about Hurricane Sandy and what happened with that thing. Having said that, I'm fine.  Actually, I got very lucky.  It didn't even knock out the power in my immediate vicinity.  It was freaky, however, hearing the winds whip around that night.  I went out to get stuff a couple of days later and passed by a tree that had crushed someone's car and landed on cable lines.  I just spent three days navigating Manhattan with a flashlight to get to work. But I'm fine. A lot of people here aren't, which sucks.

The aftermath of this is sucking up my time (I can't complain; I'm helping get things back to normal, but it is tiring), so no posting.  Sorry.  Will be back soon, hopefully.

Radio Silence and More Knitting with Tolstoy

Yes, I know, I haven't been updating this thing.  There's a reason, and unfortunately, this reason will continue for at least two more weeks (damn the real world getting in the way).  I am working on things (slowly), but I haven't had time to take pictures, nor the inspiration to write about them here.  Maybe next month I'll update on my June project progress.

So this isn't an excuse post, I do have an update on the book quote thing from my last random post.  You see, I finished War and Peace...oh, about a month ago?  It took me a month to read, I know that.  Not bad, but that's another write-up entirely.

No, what really caught my fancy was two more knitting-related quotes that really stood out from the numerous references to yarn craft that Tolstoy throws in his books. The first one is a good 80% into the book, and oddly, has an unusual character praising the activity of knitting (note, still have the Project Gutenburg version of this book on Kindle):

"She [Natasha] was sitting in an armchair placed sideways, screening the light of the candle from him, and was knitting a stocking.  She had learned to knit stockings since Prince Andrew had casually mentioned that no one nursed the sick so well as old nurses who knit stockings, and that there is something soothing in the knitting of stockings" (loc. 21291).

I think most of us who do yarn crafts can attest that doing such crafts is soothing...well, when you don't want to throw it across the room, at least.  And I can imagine a more relaxed person is a better caretaker (do note that these books take place around 1812, and were written in the same century; hence the assumption that caretakers are female.  The sexism is a product of the author's time, though I find that Tolstoy handles the characterization of women very well for a man writing in the 19th century).  Anyway, given the next line mentions clicking needles, I presume that Prince Andrew had ulterior motives for this suggestion to Natasha. I think he found watching and listening to someone else knit relaxing, more than suggesting that Natasha would find it relaxing.  If you know the context of this scene...well, the request and Natasha's compliance are quite understandable. 

The second is one of the last chapters of the first epilogue (the one that ends the story, not the essays):

"'Two, two!' they [the children] shouted.  This meant two stockings, which by a secret process know only to herself Anna Makarovna used to knit at the same time on the same needles, and which, when they were ready, she always triumphantly drew, one out of the other, in the children's presence" (loc. 21857). 

What I really want to know is 1) what process is being described here, because I  haven't got around to knitting socks yet, and therefore don't know the techniques or the history enough to be able to guess it, and 2) how the hell Tolstoy knew that some weird way to knit two socks at a time existed back then.  It's not like he could just Google it.  Maybe he knew how to knit?  Or maybe his wife?  I don't know much about the author, so I can't say.

There are other quotes I bookmarked, but they're all standard 'so and so was knitting x'.  These two were a lot more thought provoking.  Who know that I could (or would) read War and Peace and geek out on the knitting references?

Anyway, as I need to get some sleep (have to get up early on a Saturday, *sigh*, though it's my own fault), I will sign off.  Hopefully my life will be put back in order by the middle of next month, but I can't make a promise on that.  Until then I most likely won't get around to posting.