twinset.us

In which we love the number 5, talk of knitting retreats and fiber festivals, twin spin, learn about the best yarn for cables, find out that singles are singular, hear a Cat’s purr, count our blessings post-Hurricane, hear about a beloved knitting mentor and talk about loss including that of Judith MacKenzie’s studio, ask our listeners to support Hurrican survivors and help Judith get back on her feet and offer not one, but two contests!

Click HERE to listen!

Best wishes to all on the east coast for a quick and safe storm recovery.  I encourage all to donate to your favorite relief agency.  Ravelry members may want to participate in the Subway Knitter fund raising event found here. The Subway Knitter podcasts from Brooklyn, where Jan’s daughter and her wife live and , and where my daughter lived before moving to Manhattan.  Said daughter is in upper Manhattan and stayed dry through the storm and feels very fortunate.

Dear Jan,

I know you’ve heard it, that giant sucking sound when you are knitting.  It happens all the time when you are knitting cables - they really suck up the fabric.  I have just added a cabled panel to the plain stockinette back of a cardigan, so I have data to back this up (no flip charts, sorry).

I knit up two swatches - one in the specified stockinette gauge and one in the cable pattern I wanted to add.  In this photo I’ve marked off 16 stitches on each.  Quite a difference, eh?

To convert the pattern,  I counted the stitches in my cable pattern and calculated how many inches that would convert to, based on my cable gauge.  I then calculated how many inches that would have been if I’d stuck with stockinette stitch.  The difference is the amount of stockinette stitch I need to add back to keep the width of the garment as designed.

For an example (I made these numbers up for ease of demonstration):

• Cable gauge is 3.5 sts/inch.  Stockinette gauge is 5 sts/inch.
• Cable panel is 28 stitches wide.  28 sts divided by 3.5 sts/inch = 8 inches.
• 8 inches of stockinette would have been 8 inches times 5 sts/inch = 40 sts.
• 40 sts minus 28 sts = 12 additional sts need to be cast on to keep the same width.

My actual pattern specified casting on 114 sts.  Based on my actual numbers, I cast on 134.  The cable sucked up 20 extra stitches!  (Did you hear it?)

If you were doing this for a full garment panel, you could just multiply the cable gauge times the width of the panel and get the proper number of stitches for the garment.

Row gauge can change, too so if your pattern specifies how many rows to knit before executing some maneuver, you will want to convert those in a similar manner.  In my case, I am knitting to specified lengths so can blissfully ignore row gauge.*

While I was occupied knitting swatches, the season seems to be sneaking up on me.  The Thanksgiving cactus prepares to bloom!

And I prepare to go to bed!  I hope you’re having a wonderful retreat out in Washington.

Love,

Ellen

*Can one ever blissfully ignore any gauge?  I may regret being so bold.

Don’t forget that cables also use a lot more yarn.  Plan accordingly.

Dear Ellen,

I’m just about recovered from the fantastic time we had at Rhinebeck and now need to get packed for my next trip.  I’m not complaining, not one bit!  I’m really just relieved that I was able to have several down days between the two…not sure I could have gone straight from one to the next as the fibromyalgia cum compression fracture had my back screaming and my body aching the first part of this week.  Before I get out the suitcase (didn’t need one for Rhinebeck since I drove there), I thought I’d throw up a few of my own Rhinebeck photos and some others.  Here’s my version of the sheepy photo op.

I had a great time in Jane Woodhouse’s class on natural dyeing.  It was helpful to me to walk through the entire process — a quick review of everything needed to get started.  Saves me all that book reading, you know.  It will be a bit before I put it to use…maybe even the new year as the end of the year seems pretty full already!

The fall colors were stunning…my favorite foliage picture is this one with the contrast of the black and golden yellow in this maple.  Our little maple we planted this past spring is decked out in a gorgeous crimson.  I’d love to plant one like this right next to it.

The podcaster meetup was great fun…you’re right — we need to come up with our own uniform for such events.  I am liking the idea of slacks and twin sets with pearls and penny loafers.  What do you think?

Fleece acquisition was so much better with the likes of experts like Deb, you and Erica.  I would have done it on my own, but would have been crossing my fingers while faking my way through picking out the ideal fleece!

Heidi and I were walking along when I “squee’ed” — she thought I was reacting to a gorgeous sweater that had just gone by, but I had actually just made a Stephen West sighting.  He was, as always, so gracious and sweet and pasted a smile on his face while grudgingly smiled broadly while posing for a photo with me.

Here are my Flat Feet socks that I finished at the cabins.  My project page has a photo that shows the sock blank in the background of one of the socks in progress.  This blank was pre-dyed, but I do have another in natural.  I expect it will benefit from some of what I learned this last week!

Gotta go finish publishing Episode 4…then on to packing!

Love, Jan

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Episode 3  is available!  In which we chat about the wedding, the setting, the bride’s beauty, the folks who helped make it happen, and our very special guests who grazed their way through the ceremony.  We also chatted about Noro Kureyon, various knitting accomplishments, a hat for Wilson and our anticipation of attending the Dutchess County Sheep and Wool Festival (aka Rhinebeck!).

Dear Ellen,

The last few weeks have been a blur — podcast recording, podcast editing, wedding organizing, wedding supply buying, wedding contract verifying…and on and on.  Nonetheless, I did finish a few knits and managed to fit in some recreation as well.

First off my needles was my Hiya, Brooke! shawl, the Hyla Brook pattern by Paula Emons-Fuessle.  I made the two sides mirror-image vice as in the pattern, so I was changing gears at the spine on each lace row.  The pattern (which is just lovely and a very fun, fast knit by the way) doesn’t do the mirror image.  If you start a lace row with “YO, K2tog”, then you continue from the spine with the same “YO, K2tog”.  That means that as you go out from the spine on one side you have your eyelet a stitch away from the spine whereas on the other side the eyelet is right next to the spine.  This really isn’t noticeable to the casual observer.  But I’m all about the symmetry, so I made sure that each time I hit the spine I reversed the order of the YO’s and the K2tog’s.   I like the result.

I also moved the closure that was bothering me on Fooling Around, the Devonshire pattern by Pam Powers, and have blocked out the additional bit of lace that is knit after piecing the sweater together.   (This is just the continuation of the front edging around the back of the collar.)  The geometry of this sweater makes it very easy to wear.  The collar lies neatly against your upper back and neck and with the closure in the right place (an scant half inch above the apex of the bustline) it hangs without a perceived need to keep pulling it closed.  I’ve had that problem with other single closure sweaters.  And I need a sweater I can keep open — especially when my own personal summers decide to kick in!  You’ll see this sweater at Rhinebeck for sure — it’s very, very light, but just perfectly cozy warm.  I think it’s the possum in the Kauri yarn.  I bought this yarn while on a work trip to New Zealand — with this pattern in mind.  Take note — perhaps the first time I’ve bought yarn for a specific pattern, put it in my stash and then years later actually knit that pattern.  Until now it has only been when casting on immediately that I have been true to my yarn/pattern matchings.

Our playtime was mostly at the West Lampeter Agricultural Fair.  It also was another opportunity for gratuitous ego boosting as I entered seven knitted items and came home with seven ribbons (and also a ribbon for my dilly garlic squash pickles at the SOLANCO Fair!).  I mentioned on the podcast that I won first prize for three — all designs of my own.  I need to get busy on publishing those!  Dale enjoyed riding the practice roping calf.   We both enjoyed watching the ducklings at play (<= video link!) on the water-slide set up by Rohrer Seed Company.  I wanted to take some ducklings home, you would have too.

The fairs both had many adorable goats and Dale is on the verge of readiness for goat acquisition.  One of the farmers assured him that goats will do just fine with only a run-in shelter in our climate.  So, after the wedding we’ve got fencing going in and we’ll be looking for some pygmies…preferably pygmy angoras, but we’re not averse to having a mix.  Dale spotted this guy trying to drive his owner’s tractor — the thought that they could be trained to help with plowing, etc., may have been what clinched his decision that we should move forward.

The next week will be fully focused on wedding preparations.  Lots yet to do, including the seating chart.  With some of our guests, the results of our decision making could be interesting!

Love, Jan