another knitting blog

blogging delinquency

Bad, bad blogger! Bad, bad, naughty, irresponsible blogger! Twenty lashes with a US2 circular needle! [Please note that these statements are steeped in irony].

Truthfully, it's been an uphill struggle around here lately. I'm sick again. Maybe it's allergies. In any case, I have a doctor's appointment next week to try and ascertain why my favorite pastime is now napping instead of knitting.

Must be sharp for the rest of the week however because I'm off tomorrow to a conference at a very nice mountain resort. I don't want to sleep through that. When not fulfilling conference duties, I would like to be hiking rather than snoozing.

On the knitting front: my problems with the tank were not as dire as the comic linked in the previous post implied. Front and back are done and I'm going to bring the pieces with me to assemble. If that goes well, I will have a lovely new tank. If it doesn't go well, I'm burying it under a rock while on one of my hikes.

In other knitting news, a miracle has happened and the most recent Knitter's magazine (Fall 2004, K76) has a design in it worth knitting. Among the usual crap is an attractive tie-waisted raglan knit from Karabella Aurora 8. I want. This probably isn't enough though to keep me from letting my subscription run out.

Ugh! Must now remain lucid long enough to go pack.

How is the tank going?

Well, I hit a little snag.

warping the fabric of space and time

Whoa, where did the last week go? I have no idea how that happened. Black hole, perhaps?

I suppose it's time for me to say something about the Silky Wool tank since it's about 80% done. I could have written most of this post when I got back from vacation last month; however, I've been avoiding talking about it because I'm trying to maintain the happy fantasy world I'm living in where this thing actually works out.

Just to refresh your memory after all this time: I'm knitting the tank on the front of the Summer 2004 Interweave Knits in Elsebeth Lavold's Silky Wool. That isn't the yarn that's called for in the pattern. That's OK, because like a good little knitter, I swatched and determined that I could easily substitute the Silky Wool...or so I thought.

[insert ominous background music here]

Things started out bright and cheery enough. This was my vacation knitting and I managed to make quick progress on my first attempt at the back. Ah, yes, the first attempt.

Didn't I say that I swatched? Didn't I check this out ahead of time? Why then, oh, why was the back turning out to be way too wide? [Why the first swatch was so wildly inaccurate is a mystery, but I'm betting black hole again].

Never mind. I pulled out a US2 and cast on fewer stitches. I probably could have gotten away with only reducing the number of stitches. Going from a US3 to a US2 didn't change the size all that much and I liked the hand I got with the 3s better.

At this point, I'm flying by the seat of my pants. I'm using the pattern as inspiration and aspects of both the smallest size and the third size to fudge the armhole shaping. Trouble is, I haven't been keeping very good track of what the fudging is. I finished the back and now I'm trying to reconstruct what I did for the front. I exist in a parallel universe where all my knitting works out and there are no mistakes. How did I get here? It's obvious, black hole.

[I am being very bad. DO NOT follow my example. There will be nothing but tears in the end].

Now, if I were one of the design modification divas like Bonne Marie, Becky, or Alison I would have sat down to figure this all out on paper first to make sure that things would work out.

Unfortunately, I have a diva deficiency. I plunged ahead blindly in the sad and naive hope that everything will work out in the end. It still may; and if/when it doesn't, I'll sit down and do the math. I promise.

[Take a picture of me; I'm prettier than any stupid tank top]

And now:
Let us have a moment of silence for true knitting diva Geane of Knitpix, who folded her blogging tent last month. I'll miss you Geane.

[Note: I guess the comments are back. I kept forgetting to turn them off. I may still take them off of posts from time to time if I feel that I need to. I've managed to wean myself from the stats almost completely. Maybe that will be enough].

Sasha Kagan Workshop

ATTENTION!: Genuine Knitting Related Content Ahead!

I took half a day off from work Tuesday to attend the Sasha Kagan Workshop, Finding Your Inner Color, at Knit Happens. Intarsia devotee that I am, I was excited to have the opportunity to meet her. [As an added bonus, I also got to meet Wendy and some other terrific Knit Happens regulars].

Sasha showed us a slide show of her Welsh garden, her inspirations, and her designs over the years. There were plenty of oohs and aahs to be heard.

Since the goal of this workshop was not to teach us color theory, but to help us find our 'inner color', Sasha presented a series of exercises designed to tap into each person's intuitive color sense. First, she had us use our colored pencils to fill two sheets of paper with patches of 'colors we love' and 'colors we do not love'. I believe that most of us had more colors on the 'love' than 'not love' sheet.

[One amusing side note: I and the woman sitting across from me quite easily could have exchanged sheets; however, we also would have had to swap our 'like/not like' labels. All the colors on my 'ick' page were all of her favorites and vice versa. At least we will never have to worry about fighting over the same yarn].

Next, we did the same exercise with small lengths of yarn. We all had brought leftovers to work with so there was a nice range of colors to choose from. Here is just just a sample of the yarn at the table where I sat.

Finally, Sasha asked us to pick yarn in five colors we loved and two that we didn't and to knit a striped swatch. After we all had our swatches, we showed them off and talked about what we did and didn't like and what we had learned. It was interesting to see the variety in the swatches that we produced. And even though we were really just playing around, many of the swatches were surprisingly effective and quite inspiring. In fact, I liked almost every other swatch better than my own.

As we went around the room discussing our swatches, the recurring observation was made that the what really 'made' many of the combinations was the inclusion of the 'don't like' colors. If left to pick only the colors that we are drawn to, our swatches would likely have been dull and lacking contrast. [Too much of good thing]. Adding little dashes of the colors we aren't wild about often made the palette pop. Aha! The goal of the lesson is revealed.

[This would also appear to be a useful approach to life. Only sticking to things that you 'like' and that are comfortable can make life eventually feel flat and featureless. If you mix it up and add small doses of things that are outside of your comfort zone, the result could be an overall more vibrant experience].

At one point, we took a break to examine and try on the sweater samples that Sasha brought. My future projects list grew.

Sasha and Kristine

Wendy

I'm sorry that I didn't get pictures of a wider variety of designs. I'm also sorry about the color balance on these two photos; my camera was still set for taking pictures outside.

Shop owner, Kristine, has a post on the store blog with lots of pictures [There's even a rare picture of me]. And, of course, Wendy has photos in her entry about the workshop.

[My autographed copy of Sasha Kagan's Country Inspirations, my homely color swatch, and a skein of Noro Daria for a crocheted change purse].

This was a great opportunity and I really had a good time. I feel lucky to have gotten a chance to meet Sasha and hear about her design philosophy.