Stitching with a Shimmy

Shimmying through life with needles and thread…
October 18th, 2010

The Yarn Harlot is Mistaken.

The "unfiled" thread stash drawer #1

Now that I have your attention. :)

Let me start by saying that I LOVE Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. I wish very much that I could write humor like her. Cute I can be. Whimsical, yes. Drop dead laugh out loud funny I’ve never managed. Durn it. I think the embroidery world needs someone like her. It probably ain’t gonna be me, though, sadly. Though who knows? Writing styles evolve.

I’ve been rereading the book Stephanie Pearl-McPhee Casts Off.  And rolling off the couch laughing, especially if I’m reading it out loud to my heart-sister, who is… knitting.  I’m not a Knitter (with a capital K), but I am a knitter. I say this because I am not obsessed forever with knitting. In 30 years of knitting my stash has not really grown bigger than two bins, and I’m getting rid of one of them this month! In fact, I started knitting up a sock this week and  I hadn’t held knitting needles (except to stick them in my hair to hold it up) for a year (I often find my laying tools there, too… but that’s another story).

Anyway. There’s a chapter on geography of the land of knitting, and she includes these words:

“You may find knitting’s geography all over the planet, but some geography you can find only [emphasis mine] in Knitting. Of all these features, the most significant is the phenomenon of stash.”

As all embroiderers know, this is completely untrue. I first ran into ALL the terminology knitters use in the embroidery world: frogging, stash, SABLE (Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy). The only things missing were “knit” and “purl” (embroiderers have needles, too, they’re just slightly different!)

stash boxes

Some of the thread/accessory boxes for the Stash. Yes. The one on the bottome DOES say "bunny fur." I swear I'll find a use for it someday!

So I would like to propose a slightly expanded geography of this world of ours. We all live on the continent of Fiber Arts.  Lacers, Embroiderers, Knitters, all.  Me, I live in the county that’s the equivalent of Alsace-Lorraine. Always being fought over. Never sure if I’m part of France or Germany (or Lace, or Knit, or Embroidery). Most of my life I’ve been more a part of Embroidery (and I migrate among ALL the counties – Cross Stitch, Stumpwork, Goldwork, Crewel, etc.) than the other two, but I do make quite regular forays into the others. Beading is an island off our continent — like the UK with Europe, it shares some of the same geography, such as stash, but has a very different view of culture and life.

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Posted in Techniques | 3 Comments »

September 8th, 2009

So many Kinds of Needlework…

And so little time to play with them!

Just offhand, I can think of bargello, berlin, broderie anglaise, hardanger, mountmellick, stumpwork, cutwork, punto in aria, zardozi, bunka, japanese embroidery, wessex embroidery, counted cross stitch, band samplers of every ilk, canvaswork, goldwork, shisha, macramé, blackwork, or nué, crewelwork, schwalmwork, Dresdenwork, Assissiwork, and so on…

My problem, of course, is that when it comes to thread I am a glutton. I want to learn everything and try every technique, no matter how complex. Of course, this isn’t feasible, especially when you realize that I include all thread work in that desire – including knitting, crochet, bobbin lace, needlelace, sprang and any number of other techniques that escape me at the moment, including plain sewing. (I have made a conscious decision NOT to try naålbinding — knitting on TWO needles was confusing enough for me. I don’t really want to try knitting with only one, however historical it is. :)

There isn’t, of course, enough time in the day to explore everything I want tot do. I try not to let that stall me, and just keep going. I do find myself back at three in particular that I love: cross stitch, silk shading, and crewelwork. I’m sentimental, and these are the three that my mother and grandmother taught me. Somewhere I still have my first cross stitch sampler — the one that took me four years to finish because I kept getting bored. When I find it I’ll post it. I have some sort of idea of charting it (it was stamped on cheap muslin) and doing it again in my current ability level and then framing them side by side. I think it would be cool. Will I make the time? Who knows.

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April 14th, 2008

Rebecca

These quick lace mitts were designed and made for my friend Rebecca. She hasn’t seen them yet, so if I see a “squee” on her blog I’ll know she reads this one. J

 

I learned the lace pattern in some sweater that I knit a while ago that didn’t work on me at all. I had the swatch left over, though and applied it to mitts. :)

 

Pattern below the picture. As usual, copyright belongs to G. Romilly Mueller, all rights reserved, feel free to use for personal use only, no commercial use, and if you’d like to post to your site, please post a link here rather than reprinting.

 rebeccamitts3.jpg

Patons classic merino in Royal Purple

Size 4 (3.5mm) and 2 (2.75mm) needles

Gauge: 12 stitches over 2 inches on smaller needles         

Cast on 48 stitches on larger needles.

Work k2p2 ribbing for 2 inches.

Switch to smaller needles and begin lace pattern as follows:

Row 1: P1, K1, SSK, YO, SSK, YO, K1, YO, K2tog, YO, K2tog, K1 Repeat 3 more times.

Row 2: P11, K1, repeat 3 more times.

Row 3: P1, SSK, YO, SSK, YO, K3, YO, K2tog, YO, K2tog. Repeat 3 more times.

Row 4: P11, K1, repeat 3 more times.

Repeat lace pattern until work measures 6 inches, ending with a wrong side row.

Knit a row.

Purl a row.

Switch to larger needles and work K2P2 ribbing for 1 ½ inches.

Bind off.

Seam the 1 ½ inch long ribbing, leave 2 ½ inches open for the thumbhole, and seam the rest of the mitt.

Pick up and knit 24 stitches around the thumbhole on the smaller needles. I did this in the round, but you could pick up the ribbing straight before you stitch the lower part of the glove together, and then just run the seam up the thumb ribbing as well. 

Work 2 rounds of K1P1 ribbing. Cast off.

Weave in ends.

Make the second one.

Copyright G. Romilly Mueller, 2008

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December 21st, 2007

Sweater as promised…

I did promise y’all a photo of the finished “Shapely Tank.” Well, here you go. First time ever trying to take a photo of myself in a mirror. Taken about a month and a half and 20 pounds ago! So now there is actually a full inch of ease in it. Still the nicest top I’ve ever knit, though. And *I* look better!

Knit on size six needles with KnitPicks Shine yarn. I love this stuff. And it really DOES wash well!

Anyway. On to the bad picture!

 100_0468.JPG

I think when I knit it again I’ll make a couple of changes: First, despite the called-for amount of garter stitch edging, the hem rolls. I’ll double it at least. It’s not a big deal right now, but I could see it being a problem in a silk top intended for something other than my casual office.

I’ll add a half-inch to the armhole depth . Although I like the fact that they come up higher than most, they just aren’t quite deep enough to be comfortable for me. That extra half-inch should solve the problem.

Highly recommended. On me it doesn’t look very good with more than an inch of ease. Your mileage may vary.

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February 7th, 2007

Only had the blog for two weeks…

And already late! But I’ve got a good excuse… I fell and broke my arm on Saturday. But I’m back! 

Those who know me know, I am not a small lady. I am not petite, though I am told repeatedly that I do not look my size. This is wonderful. I’m five foot eight and a half, and come from good German peasant stock… I’m solid. I was teaching a dance class last week when my pseudo-nephew, trying to figure out his arms, touched mine and said, “You have steel bars!” This is not bad at all.

But this means that my knitting, if I knit for myself, has to be large. It means that my knitting, if it’s going to look good on me, cannot be knit with bulky or super-bulky yarns. I knit loosely, often going down 3-4 needle sizes when knitting. SO I end up knitting huge sweaters on… er… American size 2 needles? (That’s 2.75mm for the rest of you). Socks are the same way, although my tension is tighter in the round, so I don’t have to go down needle sizes so much. I admit: I sometimes break these rules just to knit a giant sweater faster… When I want warm, I don’t necessarily care about stylish, despite what Stacy and Clinton of What not to Wear tell me!

The other problem with this is that I have giant clown feet (many thanks to Wendy at WendyKnits for the terminology…). I can’t complain about knitting socks for my husband, because, while our feet may be slightly different in size, that extra inch in length on him isn’t that much! (And knitting sweaters for him will be much easier, because his chest is 10 inches smaller than mine…)

Giant clown feet for me mean that women’s knit patterns are never big enough: Standard women’s sock patterns are for an 8.5 inch circumference around the foot. A lot of designers also like the short row heel because it’s smoother. Now I’m 10 inches around the foot, in addition to a 10 inch LONG foot. And my heel is deeper than can comfortably fit in a short row heel. Discovering the heel pattern on Widdershins at knitty.com was pure serendipity.

And most men’s knit sock patterns are boring, because most men don’t WANT interesting patterns…(harumph) I’ll never be able to knit the jaywalkers everyone is drooling over without completely revamping the pattern for my giant feet.

But enough whinging. In any case, I’m knitting myself a pair of knee-highs right now. (Why, you ask, if you have giant feet and tree trunks for legs?) Because I’m cold. That’s why. Of course, by the time I’m finished, the trees will be in bloom and the wonderful southern spring will probably be turning to 80 degree, 100% humidity, but what the heck. I’m cold now, so I’m knitting knee-highs. Theoretically, it will get cold next year, too! :)

Giant Pink knee socks

I am knitting them in Patons Classic wool, in the Rosewood colorway. This means that they are striping (kind of – it’s an ombre pattern). It’s also a worsted weight yarn, mostly so it would knit faster, though I’m still knitting them on number 2 needles (I THOUGHT I had fours at work… and just HAD to start them on my break last week…) My feet and legs are going to have horizontal pseudo-stripes in pink, maroon and brown. I plan to wear them with skirts and my Birkenstock sandals to keep my legs warm in winter. Take that, Stacy and Clinton!

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