The following projects have gotten me to try something new for me: taking notes.
You see, usually, I just go by memory and examining the first item I knit of a pair to knit the second one of the set. That doesn’t seem to be working for me anymore.
Case 1:
These are Seed Vessels cowl and mittens from The Country Diary Book of Knitting, knit in Spirit Trail Fiberworks’ Brigantia that I got as part of Jennifer’s club. Actually, it is more accurate to say the cowl and mittens are based on, rather than actually are, as the cowl in the book is over 20 inches long, and I couldn’t imagine someone wanting 20 inches of knit fabric under her chin, so I kept it to 12 inches. That, and the mitten pattern is knit flat and sewn together to make very small mittens that would not fit an adult. This is where the problems came in.
I used Ann Budd’s The Knitter’s Handy Book of Patterns as the basis for the mittens, adding the cable pattern to match seed vessels. I played around with the cap of the mitten, and got the result you see above. When it came time to make the second mitten, I could not get the count right for where to start the cap so that the mittens would match up with the cable pattern. I knitted, ripped, knitted, ripped, and knitted again. I finally got it right, but if I had written things down as I went, I could have saved myself some trouble.
Case 2:
These are the basketweave socks in Sheila’s Hounddog colorway. (On a side note, Sheila is closing the doors to the dye shop, so if you want a particular colorway, you better hurry.) I did the first sock, but didn’t get around to the second sock for a month or so. Figuring out which row I stopped on to start doing the heel was annoying. Again, if I had just made a few notes, I would have saved myself some aggravation.
So, that is where this comes in:
I picked up some journals with grid paper that I can take notes in for my projects. I have a journal for knitting, for weaving, for spinning, and for dyeing.
And I have started using the knitting journal.
This is the Brigantia that I picked up at MDSW. Pretty sweet, huh?
BTW, in totally unrelated news, Mr. Penney and I are now officially married! Woot!
Copyright 2013 by G. P. Donohue for textillian.com
Comments
One response to “Every Day I Write the Book”
Congratulations to you & Mr. Penney on your wedding!!! Are you registered any where? I am so happy to celebrate this joyous occasion with you both 🙂
I know you are very busy and do not blog often, but when you do, it is so nice to see and read about all your projects. I agree with what you said about keeping the cowl to 12 inches. I am knitting a Flared Lace Smoke Ring with leftover handspun and will be lucky to get 6 inches out of what I have instead of the 18 inches recommended in the pattern.
I admire (perhaps envy is more accurate) your knack for combining yarns in lovely colorways with patterns that show the yarn off so beautifully. I especially like the Brigantia and look forward to seeing more. After lots of startitis, I am limiting myself to one interesting project and one plain sock to knit while I am out and about. I certainly could be writing more things down. Thank you for yet another enchanting blog post.