Today is a sad day for me. There are times in life when you face your mortality. This is one of those days. You know that time is passing by and something dearly cherished is gone.

Today is the last day of the 2007 Tour de France. Another year has passed. I must wait another year, and be another year older, to enjoy the tour again.

I'm not a big sports fan, but every year I eagerly anticipate the start of the penultimate bike race. Tivo is set up to record the longest broadcast every day. I don't get to watch it each and every day, so I scream "LA LA LA LA LA" if anyone starts to talk about what happened on a stage I haven't watched yet. And then, when I do get to watch, I curl up on the couch with both corgis and any kind of knitting I want to do. And I sit. And watch. Sometimes for 6 hours at a time. Pure joy.

This year, I elected to forego some knitting time to spin and joined Tour de Fleece. I set two spinning goals. Well, really three. First, to make a dent in my large fiber stash that had been sitting idle for months. Second, to spin every day. Third, to finally learn how to do chained singles (commonly called Navajo plying). I prefer a 3-ply yarn for knitting and I'm still trying to figure out how to best use the lovely hand painted fibers out there. Chained singles may or may not be the best way, but before I can decide, I have to know how.

I didn't really participate. I had the best of intentions to spin every day, but I got a late start because I was stuck in Chicago after attending Meg Swansen's Knitting Camp. And then I skipped a couple of days to just knit on my Pi Shawl. But I rallyed at the end--just like Contador.

Here's the results:

First we have some 3-ply BFL from dyed fiber purchased from Lisa Souza. I love these colors.

This is my first attempt at chain plying. I'm actually very pleased with this skein, although the photo looks a bit messy. This is Tulip from Spunky Eclectic's fiber club. Lovely fiber. When I showed it to the folks at the yarn store, they tried to figure out where I bought it. Even though they know I'm learning to spin, they didn't recognize it as my imperfect handspun. Always a good sign that I'm making progress!

To show a bit more process...here's another entry from the fiber club, Forecast.

First, the predrafted puffs:

then the singles: which leads to this:

Forecast is a merino. I ended up with a bit over 250 yards from the 4 ounces. I'm getting much smoother with my navajo plying! Unlike many beginning spinners, I tend to underspin. My singles aren't particularly consistent, but I'm ok with that. I love the results and I'll enjoy knitting this. Just don't ask me what I'm going to knit. Socks would be the obvious choice, but I've got some other ideas in mind. I'm imagining a cardigan. A cardigan made with 4 or 5 different hand-dyed yarns pulled together with a single neutral anchor yarn, maybe black or taupe.

I think I'm getting a bit cocky with my spinning since my yarn is all turning out about the same weight. I think I could actually spin enough consistent yarn to make a sweater. And since it is close to 90 degrees, my thoughts obviously turn to wool sweaters (!?!)

During the tour, a new fiber arrived. Wanna see it?

Celebration--the latest arrival from the Spunky Eclectic Fiber Club. This is shetland and I learned something very important about my knitting self. I love Shetland. I love knitting with Shetland. I love spinning Shetland. I'm about 1/4 of the way through the bobbin and it is going to be gorgeous. I instantly went back to Amy and ordered her Shetland sampler. (Umm...I guess ordering more fiber negates any progress I made in using up my fiber stash!)

You know, maybe I shouldn't think of the end of the Tour as sad. Maybe this new Shetland fiber is a sign. I should celebrate the passing of time. As time passes, I gain new skills and more wisdom. Yes, I get a few more gray hairs and lots more wrinkles. But each day is a new adventure and there is much yarn to knit before I'm done.

Structure is a GOOD Thing!

I went to school in southern California in the 60's and 70's. It was an era of experimentation and freedom. Being an intellectually gifted child, I was put in all those programs parents brag about these days. In these programs, the educators prided themselves on encouraging intellectual curiosity. Their approach was to avoid too much structure, let the child find their own way. They succeeded. I'm really good at research and creative pursuits. But I have an abnormal aversion to structure. I become a rebellious 3-year-old when anyone tries to enforce structure. Hmmm....

DH asked me the other day to do my laundry on Tuesdays so it doesn't get in the way of his laundry on Thursdays. Huh? You mean you do your laundry on a specific day of the week? How strange! I do my laundry when the spirit moves me--or I run out of clothes. (See, no structure.)

Lack of structure, however, doesn't lend itself to getting crap done. So, in the interest of actually doing something, we're going to set some goals and add some structure to this blog thing.

First: the goals. I'm going to blog 3 days a week for the month of August. There. Goal set.

Second: To add a bit of structure and alliteration, I'm going to use the following framework.

Technology Tuesday: On Tuesdays, I'll write about techniques, tools, or technology I use or have recently discovered in my knitting. Since I've only been knitting a few years, I suspect my discoveries may be old hat to experienced knitters, but it will be fun for me to look back on my blog entries and see my progress as a knitter. And really, this blog is for me anyway!

Thoughtful Thursday: On Thursday, I'll think about goals and planning and why I knit. This will be the day I'll go through my current WIP and decide which will continue and which will be set aside. I'll set up my goals for the next week. It could be a thoughtful meandering about ideas, it could be a straightforward report on progress. We'll talk about inspiration. We'll dream about stuff.

Spinning Saturday: On Saturday (or Sunday), let's look at spinning, and more specifically spinning something I actually want to knit with. This may be a simple post on what I've spun during the week. I'm a really new spinner, so this would be a great time to have some pics of what I'm spinning and what I learned, techniques that are or aren't working for me. I'm very interested in how to take advantage of beautiful hand-dyed rovings and we'll probably be exploring how color works in knitting.

Originally, I planned for each post to include progress reports and stash acquisition reports, but I think not. Instead, I think that fiber stash acquisition will be reported on Spinning Saturday. Tool acquisition will be on Technology Tuesday. Yarn for specific projects will be on Thoughtful Thursday--since that's the day we'll be talking about what projects are progressing and plans for future projects. Work In Process progress reports will almost always be included in the Thursday post, but if something momentous has happened, I'll include it in any day I want to. (Uh oh, that rebellious nature is sneaking out.)

Na Craga--Done!

Impatient Na Craga
Originally uploaded by K2Karen

A finished UFO! The seaming I was so afraid of was trivial. The neck sucked. This alpaca just made the neck droop. In the spirit of Joyce Williams, I decided to make it work. I could have ripped it out and knit it tighter, but I decided to put a bit of elastic around the edge. It made a ruffle, but you know, I kind of like the ruffle.

I still have enough yarn to re-do the neck, but I think I'll just let this be. For a second sweater, it's not too bad.

OMG! I finally have a great excuse to upgrade my plain old 20gb iPod to a fancy, 80GB video iPod. The excuse? Knitting of course.

Oh sure, the 80GB gives me more space for the podcasts I love. But the video? What do I care about video? Just 2 word: Elizabeth Zimmermann. As we speak, I'm transferring my copy of the EZ Knitting Glossary onto my video iPod. Whenever I want to remember how to do a German twisted cast on, all I have to do is whip out my trusty iPod and watch Elizabeth or Meg show me how. This is a wonderful use of technology.

Now I'm a die-hard Zimmermaniac. During my week at camp, I learned something very important. Whenever I think I'm being clever with some technique, I'm not. EZ already tried it and discarded it for a better way. There's very little not on that glossary that I need to have in my toolbox. Cabling without a cable needle? Meg's got it covered. Kichener? It's there too. And I don't have to carry along any little books. Just my iPod. Of course, there are other technique DVDs out there: Lucy Neatby? Maybe the videos from KnittingHelp.com?

I'm loving this idea. I bet you are too. I'm sure someone out there is more skilled than I at working with DVD's and video transfer, but here's how I'm doing it.

First off, I'm using Handbrake on Windows XP. This is an open-source tool, so it is free for you to use. Once you install it, there is a nice link to a step-by-step document on converting your DVD's to your iPod. I don't think I need to duplicate it for you here. However, I do have a couple of tips specific to this project.

BitRate: The preset bit rate for iPod (1.33) sets the bit rate at 1000. At this bit rate, the whole Glossary video comes in at about 1.1 gigabyte. I lowered the bitrate to 512 to reduce the file size to about 650 megabytes (or 0.6 gigabytes). When I watched the two videos on my fancy big computer monitor, I could see some small differences in the quality. However, I doubt I'll notice it on the iPod. Knitter's choice.

Chapters: At first, I just encoded the whole video into one big file. Hmmm....not so useful when you want to see one technique for casting off. When I see it on my television, I can "pick" the chapter to go to. I don't see how I can do that on my iPod. So....always the clever girl...I used Handbrake to put each chapter in a separate file. There are about 75 chapters on the video. Right now, my naming convention is a bit stupid: EZChapter3, EZChapter65, etc. Once I get done encoding all the chapters, I'll go back and give them meaningful names: CablingWithoutNeedle, GermanTwistedCastOn, etc. I'll set up a playlist on my iPod for the EZ GLOSSARY and then have all the different techniques. Or I may group them as she does on the video: a playlist for Aran Techniques for example.

Time: This stuff takes forever to do. Hours and hours. The whole video took about 4 hours to process on my dual processor computer. So...set it up before you go to bed (I used the cool feature to Queue up each chapter, then selected Encode Queue) and then press go. In the morning, it should be all ready for you.

Battery: Video ipods really suck up battery life. I don't want to find myself stuck at the SnB without my handy reference. I have a thing in my car that charges my iPod, but I don't see myself running out to the car to figure out how to do channel island cast on. When I was stuck at the Chicago airport, I picked up a little iPod battery pack that lets me run my iPod on a AA battery. A single AA battery ran my plain old non-video iPod for about 2 hours. I have a stack of rechargeable AA lithium batteries from my original digital camera. We'll have to experiment and see how well these rechargeables work with the video iPod. There's lots of other power options, but this one was particularly small and lightweight--perfect for travelling or for my knitting bag.

Headphones: I bet you can use your video iPod without headphones to see a technique, but you'll probably want to listen too. And someone in the room will want to borrow your video. I promise that's going to happen. Since I don't think I want to share my ear buds (yuck!), I'm going to toss a cheap pair of headphones into my knitting bag--you know those free ones that came in the package with your first portable tape player?

Too much technology for you? Maybe. But you'll be green with envy when you see me at the SnB with all my techniques on video.

Still Life with Zimmermann

Nothing kills creativity faster than too much choice. Nothing inspires creativity more than constraints. If you only knit socks, you find sock options everywhere. If you only knit lace, you are free to play and experiment. Limiting yourself to cotton, silk, or a specific color can be very freeing.

Every now and then, I like to think up ways to inspire creativity by limiting my choice. One of my favorite ideas is to limit my knitting to one book, or one designer, and then going wild with choices of color, interpretation, and fibers.

If I limited myself to only knitting from Elizabeth Zimmermann's books or publications, could I even call it a constraint? There are so many choices. As I gear up to head out to Knitting Camp in Wisconsin, I think I'll go through my EZ book & pattern stash and make a list. If I had unlimited time and materials, what items would I most want to knit?

Let's start with the books. First up, Knitting Without Tears. I'd knit:

• The Seamless Yoke Sweater using the Fair Isle yoke pattern from the book. (I've made a couple of these using other yoke patterns, but I find this one quite appealing.)
  
• The Tomten Jacket, but I might make it with chunky yarn for me rather than for a child. (Explored again in Knitting Workshop and more updated notes are included in The Opinionated Knitter)
  
• The Prime Rib hat--Meg goes into more detail about this hat in Opinionated Knitter on Page 30

EZ also introduces some alternative shoulder shapings, but those are explored more thoroughly in Knitting Workshop.

Next up, the Knitter's Almanac.

• The Aran Sweater. Yup, the cardigan. This is also called the Fishtrap Aran--however, I like the one in Opinionated Knitter better.


• Everyone wants to make the February Sweater. I'll add it, but it isn't high on my list.


• I do, however, want to make the double knitted blanket. But either as a dog blanket or a larger afghan out of something wonderful.


• The Difficult Sweater from March. I love the twisted, stained glass-like pattern


• The Pi Shawl--the simple version. (This may be my next project using some Silk/Alpaca from Lisa Souza). This is also discussed in Knitting Workshop.


• Pi Shawl--the more complicated version.

Next on the list of books is Knitting Workshop.

• The Seamless Yoke Sweater again, but this time with the Hawser yoke pattern. There is a great photograph in this book of variations of the seamless yoke that I particularly like. My favorites include the Aspen, Medusa, but those will get added to the list when I review my stash of Wool Gatherings or Spun Out issues.


• The Shaded Aspen-Leaf sweater, but I want it as a cardigan.


• A Raglan Cardigan. Something simple out of a luxurious chunky, kettle-dyed merino like Malabrigo. I want striking buttons on this one.


• A Saddle Shoulder sweater.


• Like everyone else, my favorite is probably the seamless hybrid. I see this in a great, tweedy yarn.


• A Set-In Sleeve Sweater with a V-neck out of a smooth yarn, maybe even a silk/merino blend.


• The Rorschach Sweater


• The Epaulet Jacket


• Maybe, just maybe, a rib warmer. I like the way they look on, so I should probably try one.


• The Stonington Shetland Shawl. Maybe in some handspun lace.


• Hand to Hand Aran

We move now to "Knitting Around", first published in 1989. I have no problem skipping the sock patterns. While they may be beautiful and interesting, I already have my hands full with great sock patterns. I've already made one of the fair-isle yoke sweaters from this book, so I'll skip that one.

• Fair Isle, circular yoke sweater with the henley neck.


• The garter stitch moebius. I'd rather play with Cat Bohrdi's version, but I'll make this one once out of some luxurious handspun just because it sounds easy and fun.


• Moebius Jacket. This one has always appealed to me. Shoot! There was some Noro Iro yarn I saw last night. There was only 5 skeins. I couldn't figure out how I could do anything interesting with just 5 skeins. I wonder if I could make this vest from it?


• Bog Jacket. This one seems very flattering when you include the waist shaping


• A Three & One Fair Isle cardigan in sage green, olive green, cream, pale lavendar--better instructions are in Opinionated Knitter.


• Pi Are Square shawl.


• Norwegian Pullover with all the lovely lice--but probably as a cardigan.


• Hooded Aran Coat--just the thing a girl needs in southern California. Great pictures and some notes from Meg in Opinionated Knitter

And on to my favorite picture book, Opinionated Knitter, which is really the collection of her newsletters.

• Scandinavian Ski Sweater--but not right away. It is too warm here to really enjoy this sweater.


• Classic Brooks Sweater--I think this is just the saddle shoulder, but the photographs in this book are lovely.


• Norwegian Sweater again, but with a different stranded pattern that I particularly like. It could look very modern with the right color combinations.


• Circular Aran as shown in Page 38 in a soft cream wool with bobbles down the center front. I love how this sweater has great vertical lines.


• Some of the hats look fun, but hats don't get worn much around here.


• The Aran Cardigan as shown on page 68--this is very similar to the fishtrap, but V-necked. This is my favorite.


• I could probably include the "kangaroo pouch" sweater for a simple boat neck ribbed sweater like the one on page 100.


• Adult Suprise Jacket. I'm almost done with this one. I might do it again and make some changes using a nice bulky yarn.

I haven't even gotten to my issues of Spun Out and the variations in Meg's books. If I made one a month--an ambitious goal--it would take me 3 years to finish. I'm thinking that's not going to happen. I may actually have to, uh, prioritize. But it is nice to dream.

Token for Forgiveness: Socks for You

Bad bad bad blogger. Bad blogger. I'm not going to offer you any lame excuses for WHY I haven't been blogging. I'm just a bad blogger. But I have gifts to redeem myself. Several of you have asked for a PDF of my chart for the widdershin heel. One lovely reader even created a PDF file of my post for me. Do you have any idea how challenging it is to find a way to "host" pdfs for the blogger impaired? Rather than just give you the chart, I give you this, dear readers. Here's the short form of my basic sock pattern for you to use as you see fit (as long as it isn't to sell). It includes:

- My widdershin chart

- A table of foot lengths based on shoe sizes

- A gauge guesstimater to give you a starting point on how far to increase your toe.

It doesn't tell you which increase to use where. (I tend to use the e-loop everywhere except in the heel flap. I use M1 there. I don't know why.) It isn't particularly detailed. But it is short and you can print it and play with it.

K2Karen's Basic Sock Pattern

Sorry, this is in RTF. If someone wants to convert it to PDF for me (hint, hint), I'll be glad to change it. Here's the pdf of the original post and just the chart:

Original "Widdershin Revisited" post with chart

We'll consider this an experiment in file hosting. If it works, great. If not, I'll keep searching for a better way to host documents. If you hate the service, let me know and I'll see if I can find a better way. If you're a talented blogger and want to offer tips, I'll listen :) I'm also experimenting with Google Docs and Spreadsheets--could be an interesting tool.

(PS: The socks in the photograph were created from this basic pattern: I just used a lace pattern from an old sock pattern instead of stockinette. The possibilities are ENDLESS!!!)

OTN: A Kauni Cardigan (which I should be steeking) and some butterfly socks for my sockapalooza pal.

Lost my Knitting Mojo

I haven't fallen off the earth, I've just been a bit preoccupied. My baby boy pup and I travelled to the Corgi Nationals in northern California. For weeks in advance, we trained for our one goal: to NOT look like a goober. I'm not entirely sure we achieved that goal, but the look on his face says it all. We had a good time.

What surprised me most about this trip is that I had no interest in knitting. I did finish one of the Grasshopper Socks from the Blue Moon Fiber Arts Club KAL. It doesn't fit. It is loose and sloppy and I don't love it. I think that was the last time I saw my knitting mojo. I had tons of knitting with me--even the lovely Bohus socks. Oh, wait, I did finish one of the Bohus socks on the trip too. (more pics later on that).

So how to get the knitting mojo back?

Make a list. I made a mutha list of all the unfinished projects and projects I really want to work on. Then I ranked them. (Yes, I am a bit obssessive.) I ranked based on how much was left to do, difficulty, desire, etc. I agreed with myself that I'd work on just one project: the one with the highest rating.

Here's the results:

Klaralund

Noro Silk Garden Lite, Color #2028

No major pattern modifications, except that I knitted the body in the round rather than 2 parts. After casting on and knitting half the body, I found out that the errata noted that the number of stitches in the pattern was wrong. Instead of ripping, I just increased at just above the waist. Fits the important parts better that way :)

Nothing like a finished object to restore the knitting mojo. Next on the list: Bohus Socks--I can't wait to show you.

Oh, by the way, someday I'm going to learn how to reply to your comments, but I don't really know how yet. So if I don't reply, don't think me rude, just technically challenged.