Two years after I learned to knit, I still am still learning new techniques. The current non-sock project involves learning cables and buttonholes. Cables were surprisingly easy to grasp, if a bit harder to tink (unknit), but since I was working with bulky wool, the stitches weren’t in a hurry to run away on me.

The buttonhole was a little trickier. I understood the concept: bind off stitches on one side of your fabric; pick them up on the flip side. But I just couldn’t grasp the reality of how to cast on stitches purlside. I tried a couple of my own ideas; no dice. I looked online and didn’t understand what people meant. My frustration level neared dizzying heights as I stomped back and forth between and the couch and the computer during commercial breaks last night.

Finally, I consulted the library. And you know what? Debbie Stoller’s Stitch and Bitch made me understand in three seconds. “Oh! That’s what they were all trying to say!” Yes — a purl stitch is just the backside of a knit stitch. So just flip the whole stupid project over and cast on the two stitches knitwise and then wrap the yarn back around your last stitch before you put in on the needle and resume purling on the wrong side of your work. (Debbie explains it much better on page 70 of her book.)

So thanks, Debbie, for once again helping me understand what in the world I needed to do to move on with the project. Your book consistently helps me out of tight jams in a clear manner. I am grateful.

Oh, and my project? The yarn should come off the needles tonight and might even get sewn up, depending on how long the cabled portion needs to block.

I know today is Wednesday. Which means tomorrow is Thursday. But I keep thinking that it will be Friday, which means it’s time to look ahead to the weekend, right?

Friday night, we head to RFK Stadium to see the Nationals take on the Mets. The Mets have been sucking it up recently, while the Nats seem to be on a bit of a tear. My Mets may have managed (eventually!) to clinch the NL East (which was one of those three beautiful things I knew I meant to include last Thursday, but couldn’t think of), but they seem to be concluding the regular season in a bit of a slump. My hope is that the Mets are just getting the rest of the season’s losing out of the way now so that we can enter the postseason ready to rock. I’m looking forward to the game.

Saturday is the National Book Festival. Lots of cool authors are going to be attending, from Doris Kearns Goodwin (a favorite!) to Poet Laureate Donald Hall, from Alexander McCall Smith to Kevin Clash (Elmo), and from Julia Glass to Louis Sachar. Each author has some main stage time — to read, to answer questions, to speak at large — as well as some time put aside to sign books. (It should be noted that poets get the raw end of the deal because unlike the rest of the authors, they are only allotted 30 minutes to sign their works.) So I figure I’ll be spending the day down at the Mall. Maybe I’ll lunch at the American Indian Museum. They have an excellent cafeteria.

Sunday is the farmers’ market, of course. But it also brings the annual Crafty Bastards fair to Adams Morgan. This is a festival sponsored by our alternative news weekly, The City Paper, and encourages the artistic amongst us to create … stuff … and sell it. Everyone there is very creative. But it’s a matter of finding the ones that you go, “Wow! That’s amazing. I wish I could make something similar. But lacking time/commitment/talent, let me give this person $20-$200 of my money instead in exchange for it.” There are plenty of crafters that make you think, “Wow! Why on God’s earth would you make that? And who would give you $20 for it? I’m not sure that I’d take it home even if you gave me $20.” The festival is supplemented by local food vendors and local musical acts. It’ll be a fun day and I’m looking forward to hitting up Woolarina‘s booth to buy some yarn for my Yarn Aboard II pal. I just have to get there before Lolly arrives. Since she is once again hosting Socktoberfest, I’m afraid she’s going to buy up everything I want.

Okay, I admit it. D.C. does offer a wealth of activities within a very constrained amount of space. I won’t have to drive to any of these events and that definitely wouldn’t have been true in Connecticut.

I’m stuck on a pattern. I’m working Daisy for a friend’s upcoming baby and have hit a snag in my understanding of the pattern.

It’s a raglan cardigan and I’ve knit it successfully up until the neck shaping on the second (left) front side, where the pattern directs me to:

“Work neck shaping to match right front, reversing all shaping.”

The right front neck shaping directs me to:

Row 1:BO 6 sts, k to last 3 sts, k2tog, k1.
Row 2 [and all wrong side rows]: Purl.
Row 3: BO 2 sts, k to last 3 sts, k2tog, k1.
Row 5: BO 1 st, k to last 3 sts, k2tog, k1.
Continue purling WS rows, and repeat Row 5 1[ 2, 3] times– 4 sts remain [all sizes].
Next row: K1, k2tog, k1.
Next row: Purl.
Next row: Sl 1, k2tog, psso, fasten off.

Since I want to reverse that, I imagined what I should knit should be something like:

Row 1: K1, ssk, k to last 6 stitches, bind off last six stitches. etc. etc.

But that doesn’t work because then I have knitted stitches, a gap of six bound off stitches and then one final stitch way over at the left end on the button band. Which is clearly wrong.

So should I instead knit across a row and start my work on the wrong side and reverse all the decreases to the purl side? That would allow me to bind off the stitches along the button band first and continue increasing up to the shoulder seam on the other side.

And if so, do I want to purl 2 stitches together to get what should be a left-leaning decrease on the right side of the garment?

Or is there some other way that I’m not seeing? I’ve googled the question and no one else seems to have had difficulty understanding this part of the pattern but me.

Can anyone help?

(If not, I’ll wait for Stephanie to submit her book proposal before I harass her about what she meant in her pattern, herself.)

This is my September Sock-a-Month 2 contribution and the most recent finished objects in my collection.

Rudi’s boss had his first grandbaby last week, so I thought it would be nice to send along a gift. The pair is made of Cascade Fixation and is pretty much a straight-up Magic Loop adaptation of the Baby Fixation Socks. Rudi picked out the yarn from my stash and picked this pattern over another one. They are very quick to knit up (doable in a day, really) and immediately elicit “Awwwwwws” from all the women in my office because they are just so deliciously tiny. (And, yes, that’s a quarter in the photo for perspective.)

(Click on the photos to open them in a larger format.)

Also, as promised earlier, I offer you some recent fibery goodness as well as some of the other pretty things that insisted on coming home with us from Salt Lake:

So last Thursday evening we flew out to Salt Lake City, purportedly to visit Rudi’s mother for a long weekend.

I admit, that while visiting my mother-not-in-law is as good a reason as any to visit Utah, I had a secondary motive — the Yarn Harlot was coming to speak.

(more…)

It occured to me a few weeks ago that knitting is good training for life, if only I would apply the lessons I learn on the needles to the real world:

1. New things are neither as hard nor as scary as I think they’re going to be. Turning a heel intimidated me tremendously, as do things like sending in resumes for interesting sounding jobs. Turning a heel turns out to be remarkably simple, so why shouldn’t writing a cover letter be similarly so? (Picking up gusset stitches on the other hand may always remain hard — or, at least, odious…)
2. On the other hand, you shouldn’t attempt the unfamiliar (be it a cast-on that will affect your whole bloody project, microeconomics, or how to use Excel’s formulas) when you are already tired and cranky and ought to have been in bed a while ago. Hint: When your partner wishes you good luck and heads to bed is the point at which you should stop learning new skills for the night.
3. Little stuff takes the most time. I never think weaving in ends should take very long but it regularly takes me three to four times how long I believe it will. The same goes for those “last few boxes” when packing up for a move.
4. New projects should be approached as adventures. Knitters notoriously love to start new projects. The act of combining a pattern and yarn is deliciously addictive. Joining a group (like a knitting group or a volleyball team) ought to be approached with a similarly adventurous spirit.
5. Projects that don’t go as planned can be adapted into something wholly my own. For instance, I once neglected to realize that patterns are altered when you knit in the round and you have to approach it that way from the start. I didn’t, and as long as I continued on as if I’d intended for it to look the way it came out, no one was going to be any the wiser. This is somewhat similar to the “Whistle a Happy Tune” song from The King and I. You will make mistakes, but you can minimize how many people know about them by trying to remain open to new options. New trends have to start someplace, right?
6. Try to strike a balance between doing for yourself and doing for others. Never knitting for yourself will make you sad. Never putting yourself first in life will make you equally frustrated. Always focusing on yourself loses you the wonderful feeling of giving of yourself to someone who loves or needs you.
7. Don’t waste your time on people who won’t appreciate your talents. Don’t knit a hat for the friend who hates hats (or wool or whatever). Similarly don’t spend days arguing with someone whose mind is made up on a subject that you feel passionately or strongly about. (Alternately, you can surround yourself only with those who will fully appreciate you and your quirky self (although there is then the potential for ego overdevelopment).)
8. It might seem like you’re just going around in circles, but usually you are making progress. It’s just that you’re too close to notice it. Step away from the situation (or your knitting) for a little while and come back to it later. You’ll be surprised by how far you’ve actually come and how much less you still have to do to accomplish your goal.
9. Look for patterns. On its own a yarnover is just a hole. Combined with a decrease and repeated regularly, it’s lace. On its own, a single response to a situation is unique. Looked at in the context of similar situations, though, you discover how you cope (for better or for worse) with life. Life is in the details, sometimes.
10. Things that totally don’t work out or that I hate can (and possibly should) be scrapped. Life is too short to live with a garment or a situation I don’t like.