Vogue Knitting, early fall 2011

It's that time. I'm looped and am dealing with swimming lessons, so yeah, a fine time to editorialize. As always, pictures are from the VK web site, quotes are from the magazine, everything else is mine. Yee haw whee. Go copyright.

This time around, I'm not going to draw on the pictures. I'm going to try talking YOU GUYS into seeing what I do, just by looking. Oh, and those of you who wonder how I know this stuff? My cousin was a model, and had actual modeling textbooks. My mother decided in my early teens I needed poise, so I was fired off to my cousin to do hair and makeup and posture for a week. It was fun. I read the textbooks. I also learned how to walk in heels. Good stuff. There should be required courses in high school with that stuff.

Anyway, what, where was I? Review. Right.

The letter from the editor flogs VK Live, and their new iPad app. "...so many of the garments we feature are season-spanning". Indeed. Keep that gem in mind, further on.

The featured yarns still lack gauge swatches. Everybody there knits, my ass.

Articles! I think they know I enjoy the articles and are cutting back. It's personal. I swear. Really. IT IS ALL ABOUT ME. -ahem- Meg Swansen discusses the new book coming out, "Knit One Knit All", which is a book of EZ's all-garter-stitch designs. It sounds like it was quite a project - the ideas may have been EZ's, but Meg, her son Cully, and a bunch of others had to work from vague notes, half-documented ideas, and other madness. Looks like fun. Carol Sulcoski discusses schematics, how to read them, and use them. Beginner-level stuff, but if you need the information, it's a good article.


That's it. I think there's something in here somewhere with winners of the mohair design contest, but I can't find it, so what's that tell you? So, two articles, in a magazine I buy for the articles. Delightful.

Section one! (Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.) Brioche socks by Alexandra Richards.

They stuck the photo of these socks on the index page, and nowhere in the editorial content of the magazine. They're like an afterthought, and I'm confused. But they look like nice socks.


Section two, "Into the Woods". Models roam around a barren wood, carrying candelabras and trying to look atmospheric. Everything's red, which is a HUGE relief because after a year of red sections, the last issue DIDN'T, and I JUST COULDN'T COPE. Red is the ONLY fashionable color.

2. Pompom capelet by Yoko Hatta.

Five sizes (?) from 38 to 50 inches/97 to 128 cm. It is a tube of knitting with some pompom cord tied on it. There is no schematic. Finishing requires a safety pin. I would be embarrassed to sell this as a pattern.


3. Reindeer Capelet by Yoko Hatta.

Bizarre sizing that makes no sense to me, 20 and 25 inches/52 and 63cm. No schematic. They have an article on schematics and then don't use any. Cute, innit? Near as I can tell, it's a rectangle with a button. If you decide to knit this, I suggest yarn colors that contrast more - the reindeer are getting lost in the color blending. Also? Fornicating reindeer. Best. Capelet. Ever.


4. Tied capelet by Yoko Hatta.

Four sizes measured at lower edge, from 44 to 56 inches/111 to 142cm. Considering you'd wear it over other clothing, I'd skip straight to the 56i/142cm size and adjust with the draw string, unless I had a REALLY small frame. This is essentially another knit tube, again with no schematic so I can't really say.


5. Cabled Capelet by Yoko Hatta.

Another rectangle with a button. Measured at lower edge, five sizes from 38 to 51 inches/96 to 130cm. Um... yeah.


6. Zippered Cape by Mari Lynn Patrick.

I think the zipper runs diagonally along the edge in the front, where end and side meet. "Neck edge measurement [??!!??] 26, 28, 30"/66, 71, 75cm". Riight. Okay then.


And then, the mohair design contest winners. All of the seem to be pros. Wait, no, one is a student at Parsons School of Design. I wonder if they won for their resumes?

7. Mohair Lace Dress, by Laura Zukaite. (Grand prize winner.)

Five sizes, from 27 to 40 inches/68 to 101cm. They say it is adjustable with back lacing. Hmmm. It looks like a jumble of lace patterns to me, like she sat down with Barbara Walker and knit one stitch pattern for a while, then shifted randomly. It's kind of cute, but you'd have to wear it over stuff, and silk/mohair blend - it's knit with two strands of Silk Mohair held together - is really hot. Plus, $170 USD to knit.


8. Sheath and Wrap by Lynette Meek.

Sheath, four sizes from 35 to 47 inches/89 to 120cm.
Wrap in one size, back between sleeves 20in/51cm.
Personally, the idea of mohair in a close fitting sheath dress makes my skin crawl. It could work as a layering piece for winter, but eeeesh. The wrap is kind of cool, I can imagine swanning about in that in cooler weather. Both have been hand-paint-dyed after knitting; the exact colors chosen aren't to my taste, but that's really easy to change. $223USD to knit the medium dress, $...well, I'd love to tell you how much the wrap is to make, but I can't find the yarn for it. Anywhere. At all. On the INTERNET. Very cute.


9. Bobble Tank Dress by Monica Hofstadter.

Another skin-crawly dress that you have to wear over something else, thereby increasing your chances of heat stroke. Four sizes, from 25 to 38 inches/64 to 97cm. All I can think of when looking at those bobbles is maggots.


Next section, our beloved designer section. Anna Sui checks in with "her signature brand of hippie chic". This stuff looks like the kind of crochet that people have struggled against for years, trying to show crochet can be pretty and not look like, well, like this. It's like everything that was bad about the seventes.

10. Flower Hat, and
11. Flower Vest.

The most appalling abuse of yarn I have witnessed outside a church penny market. Boye is trying to revive the horror that was the Bloom Loom, and I assume roped Sui into making these to demonstrate how cool they are. I hope to hell Sui got paid a lot, because if I were a crocheter I'd be ready to burn this in effigy. As for Boye.. WHAT THE FUCK, PEOPLE?


12. Granny Square Vest.

I just... what... what in fuck? I've been staring at this for days, wondering how in fuck I'm supposed to review it, and I don't know where to start. This is so horribly, awfully cliched. Crocheters feel like they're struggling against a stereotype of stupid-looking, dorky projects, having to live down the avocado and orange granny square monstrosities of the sixties, and now, here's another one. Way to go, Ana Sui and Vogue. You're so far out of touch with reality, I'm not sure you're on the same planet. Everyone, please go look at THIS for some real crochet beauty. It does exist. Just, um, not here. Gods. SERIOUSLY, VK? A project that's actually OFFENSIVE to some crocheters? It's not your grandmother's crochet, YET IT IS! MADE OF GRANNY SQUARES!

Sigh. I've run out of adjectives.

Next section, "Easy Knits, Easy Fits", where you can wear really loose stuff and if you pose JUST RIGHT, still look like you have a waist. Maybe.

13. Cowl by Faith Hale.

One size, so, okay. Call me crazy, but if I were a designer, I wouldn't use a lace pattern made famous by EZ. It would look too much like I ripped it off and slapped it on an unshaped tube and collected money for the 'pattern'.


14. Scoop Neck Top by Faith Hale.

Four sizes from 51 to 63 inches/129 to 160cm. Shown in size 55in/139cm. With the cowl on there, my first thought is "what's wrong with the neck?" Might be nothing, but I can't know that, can I? Schematic (yes, finally) shows a crew neck. I know it's meant to be oversized, and I am a huge fan of 'oversized', but it's knit with bamboo/viscose blend, meaning the fiber has no memory or tensile strength, so while it may START the way it looks now, it will continue to grow until it's around your ankles. Perhaps a nice wool/nylon blend?


15. Cropped Pullover by Lori Steinberg.

Four sizes from 33 to 45 inches/83 to 114cm. This is probably the safest knit in the magazine. Also not the least high fashion, but you can't have everything, right?


16. Boucle Vest by Lori Steinberg.

Three sizes, measured across the back between the shoulders. "Because front pieces are designed to wrap and overlap, vest will fit a wide range of bust sizes within the standards for the sizes given." Oh yeah, you betcha. $144 to knit the medium size. Are you fucking kidding me? Wait, all right. Lesson, grasshoppers. See how the model is holding the front together? That means it probably hangs REALLY strangely if left to its own devices. And look at the actual silhouette of the thing. It's an A-line, sure, but it's stiff as a board, with no draping. So you're going to look like a giant cone with legs sticking out.


17. Tapered Pullover by Renee Lorion.

Five sizes from 36 to 52 inches/91 to 132cm. Another winner for this issue. It'd be flattering to everybody, the edging is interesting, and the color is even flattering (also easily changed). One potential drawback: The shaping is achieved with changes in needle size, rather than increasing and decreasing. Meaning if you knit with a really strange gauge, use caution and work up a LOT of swatches first.


18. Cable Rib Jacket by Vladmir Teriokhin.

Three sizes from 46 to 54 inches/116 to 137cm. An interesting idea that's been used by other designers for a while - a jacket worn either way, right side up and upside down, so to speak. Interesting idea, decent execution. The shoulder seams kind of worry me, but it's possible that jacket was really dragged at before being photographed. $339 to knit the medium size. But it's just wool, so substitute at will.


Section, oh, whatever the hell.

19. Lace Pattern Cardigan by Lisa Hoffman.

Four sizes from 37 to 50 inches/94 to 128cm. Another classic you can knit, and wear for forty years until it falls apart. (Which means it probably isn't Fashion, but whatever.) No shaping, which is hidden by the Arm Trick, but it is what it is. And that's classic.


20. Lace Vest by Kristin Omdahl.

Two sizes, 35 and 38 inches/89 and 98 cm. They're calling the 38in/98cm size Large/X-Large. And mind you, it's something meant to go over other clothes they're defining as "loose fitting". Shouldn't VK allow for boob jobs, even if they don't allow for plus sizes?


21. Lace Trimmed Top by Shiri Mor.

Four sizes from 33 to 38 inches/84 to 98cm. VOGUE, YOU ASSHOLES. 38 INCHES AS THE LARGEST SIZE FOR JACKETS AND VESTS IS TOTAL AND COMPLETE BULLSHIT. For the two of you who can fit into this when worn over other clothes, I'd consider altering it for a button closure instead of the belt. That way it'll look less like a bath robe, and you'll look less like a stump with four layers of knitting swathed 'round your middle. Oh, and VK? A 38 INCH BUST IS NOT EXTRA LARGE, PARTICULARLY NOT FOR A JACKET, FUCKERS!


22. Lace Jacket by Iris Schreier.

ONE size, 38 inches/96cm. Uses only two skeins of ArtYarns' Beaded Mohair ($87USD), so if you can fit into it, and are looking to try the yarn, this'd make a cool project. If you can fit into it.


Next section, "The fashion blueprint: Lithe, drapey tunics with vertical detailing lengthen and strengthen the knit silhouette." Apparently, the copy writers (or their editor) don't know the diff between vertical, horizontal, and diagonal.

23. Welted Pullover by John Brinegar.

Three sizes from 35 to 41 inches/89 to 104cm. I suppose if you want a welted tunic, this would work. The yarn choice is a cotton/nylon blend, and I'm not sure the nylon is enough to keep it from 'growing' until it's around your ankles, though.


24. Drop Shoulder Top by Rosemary Drysdale.

I fail to see any "vertical detailing". Anyone else? Six sizes from 43 to 58 inches/109 to 147cm. A yarn company special; uses tencel yarn from Prism. $163USD to knit the middle size. Bet you could do it cheaper.


25. Cabled Poncho by Daniela Nii.

Wow, that's not fantastically unflattering or anything. Put the cable on the front of a regular sweater and call it a win. (Also: When did ponchos acquire sleeves? No one told me.)


26. Boatneck Top by Sinje Ollen.

Three sizes from 50 to 67 inches/127 to 170cm. Another winner. Really pretty. It's a silk/alpaca blend, so it may be too freaking hot for between seasons, but it'd be easy to substitute something else. Try to get a decent percentage of rayon, bamboo, or tencel, so it'll drape properly. This version uses two colors to emphasize the wavyness of the Old Shale pattern. If you'd rather de-emphasize, use one color and switch the purl-on-right-side to knit-on-right-side rows. I'm tempted to knit this myself, but it's on size 2/2.75mm needles and I swore off crazy knits for the year. Maybe next year.


27. Striped Tunic by Josh Bennett.

HEY EVERYBODY! LOOK HOW BIG MY BUTT IS!


28. Colorwork Poncho by Deborah Newton.

IT IS A SWEATER, PEOPLE! PONCHOS DON'T HAVE SLEEVES! Four sizes from 39 to 46 inches/99 to 118cm. $375 to knit the next to largest size. Not a typo. But the gauge being what it is, you could knit it with Cascade 220 for a hell of a lot less. Oh, and that's $375 for 100% wool.


29. Long Vest by John Brinegar.

Yup. That's what it is, all right. Six sizes measured by width of back. That's whole lotta stockinette to grind out. It's also really unshaped.


30. Relaxed Cardigan by Mari Lynn Patrick.

Six sizes from 34 to 45 inches/86 to 114cm. Fastened, it's loose and baggy and unflattering, and unfastened, it's chaos and confusion and baggy and loose. And unflattering. I don't get it.



Well, thankfully, this wraps up another VK review. As always some real gems in with the WTFery. Until next time, knit wisely.

Crashing for the night.

I tried to finish the VK review. Really. But I ran out of vitriol.

Usually I do have to take a break about halfway through, because I start saying "meh" to everything, with no details. Can't have that. So with luck, the VK review will be here tomorrow.

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Tonight I knit at the Goob's swimming class. Just the teal KAL sweater, nothing exotic. There was a woman in front of me, a little to the left, who kept turning around to look at it, and me. I smiled at first, half expecting her to come over, sit down next to me, and whip out her own project. (It has happened before, usually in air ports.) Alas, no. Just odd looks. So I quit noticing her. Sort of.

Maybe tomorrow she'll bring her knitting? We can hope, anyway.

Those little black motherfuckers.

We have ants.

In case you are new around House O Samurai, well, folks who've been around a while know I hate the little bastards with the fire of a thousand suns. Come payday, we'll take care of the situation, but that leaves me with two days of creepy-crawly skin, dunking ant-covered things in hot water, and teaching the Goober words she really, really shouldn't know yet.

Son. Of. A. Bitching. Mother. Fuckers.

Could Sekhmet eat the ants? NO. Because she is fucking evil and unhelpful, the fucking furbag. All she does is lay in sunbeams and CHEW ON MY BACK DOOR. 

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I had a photo to upload here, but there's some fucktastic fucking fuckup between my phone, Flickr (A PAID FOR ACCOUNT, COULD IT WORK PLEASE?) and Blogger. So, well, fuck. Fuckers.

As if I was not neurotic and flat-out crazy enough, today we started swimming classes for the Goober. The Red Cross does "water safety" (they don't do swimming lessons any more, insert eye roll here) at the local high school every quarter and I can sign up through our very excellent Recreation Committee. I thought I had to get in the pool with the Goob, so I showed up in a bathing suit, royally pissed off. Turns out I DIDN'T have to get in the pool, and I amused all the other parents with "Yippee!"

Along with five certified Red Cross teachers, they had two kids from the high school who were certified as life guards, also hanging around. One of the kids spent his time wrapping little kids in towels and catching them when they slipped. It was really cute. I wanted to find his mother, give her a high five, and tell her job well done.

It turns out I am not a helicopter parent. (You know, one who hovers all the time.) I had worried about this, what with the Goob and I spending so much time together. But, no, the kids went off to swim, and I was like "Right! Have fun!" and was out in the hall drinking soda and Tweeting. All the other parents sat in the bleachers and watched every move. This goes on at Karate, too: Parents sit in bleachers and watch like it's a performance instead of a class. I do not get this. Maybe because the parents don't see their kids all day like I do, so they feel the need to watch them in lessons? I dunno. Karate or swim, you may find me out in the hall, texting and playing Bejeweled and drinking soda.

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All these stupid painkillers I take? Turns out when I'm eating sensibly and have a negative caloric intake, I get loopy. Dizzy, sarcastic (er), like that. Don't know exactly what's going on, but I'm going to try to enjoy it, since I can't really fix it. (Fixing it means eating constantly, and I really don't need the Boobs of Doom to expand further.) Brace yourselves for some crazy blogging.

Yes, it strikes me that this is a fine time to review VK. Cheers?

I must be near Amish country!

I am about halfway between Lancaster County, PA, and Tuscarawas County, OH. That's pretty much Amish and Mennonite ground zero. The relevance of this? I live in the land of People Who Make Stuff. Go to the county fair and ask sheep herders about buying fleeces? They don't bat an eye. Knit in public? The further out into the country you go, the less people seem to notice. (Also, HAND MADE CHEESES, but that's another blog post.) What does this mean in practicality?

Vogue Knitting at the grocery store. Yep. Not kidding.

So, while in there to pick up lemons (lemonade) and chocolate (PMS), I swung through to pick up the new VK so I could review it. And there, lo and behold, in the rack right above the VK? SPIN*OFF. Can you believe it?? Spin*Off at the GROCERY STORE?

A couple pygora goats in the back yard, and life would be about perfect. Okay, and some 'blue' angora bunnies. And a sheep.

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This was supposed to be a blog post about black smokers. (The geothermal vents, no tobacco involved.) Unfortunately I got bogged down on the Goob's school, and I do need to start photo-editing the VK review. Maybe tomorrow.

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The Goob is sitting here reading Phineas and Ferb magazine (also at the grocery store), and watching Mythbusters. That's my little geek.

The other day we were watching a school video, and the teacher asked "What's a baby pigeon called?" and the Goober yelled "A PIDGELING!" I think we're going to have to keep that word.

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Anyone seen my ball winder? It has disappeared into The Pit. I know I unpacked it, but I can't find the damn thing. Soon as I buy a new one, I'll find the fucker, so I'm hand-winding Cascade 220 and cursing.

So. Where's the damn ball winder??!!!!!

Pictures!

Sort of my weekend in photos.

We had really amazing weather over the weekend. Perfect, mid-seventies, sunny, breeze. The Goober and I celebrated by going out and buying a few outside toys to play with.

She spent the whole weekend out there. She'd still be out there, but she's sunburned and it rained today. My nest on the porch swing looked more like this:

Saturday night, for some diversion, we went to the tractor and truck pull, down at the county fairgrounds. (Yes, yes, we live out in the boonies. It's fun here. And quiet.)

This is what the Goob thought of the tractor pull:

Sunday's diversion revolved around the glory of a Five Guys bacon cheeseburger:

Best. Burger. EVER. They put the bacon on the bottom so the cheese doesn't make it soggy. Perfection.

By then, well, the kid was burned, fried, overstimulated, and pretty darn sozzled:

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See this? This is the evil fucker. This is the evil fucker, looking guilty, next to her evil handiwork.

See the flaking paint to the left? That's my back door. The paint had cracked and just barely begun to peel. I was leaving it alone. Then, this weekend, because we were out on the back porch ignoring the cat, she grabbed on to the flake of paint and pulled it loose. MORE THAN ONCE. When I yelled, she gave me that "oh, do I have your attention now?" tail flick that cats do.

Evil fucker.

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The knitting continues apace.

This is a better representation of the color than my other pictures, but still not accurate. It's what I think of as a 'between' color, you know, one of those that wavers between shades depending on the light. This one's a teal that is sometimes blue and sometimes green. In natural light, apparently it looks blue. I think I like it.

Still here!

I think the weird shutdown of the blog earlier this week was - ha - due to that hacking problem with China. Once I confirmed that I was me, and changed my password to something more secure, all has been well. It's so odd to me. I've got another e-mail account I use for The Really Serious Stuff, so if China needs to hack me to find links to LOL Cats e-mailed to my mother-in-law, well, I hope there's no problem with national security from me.

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This week was kinda nuts. We all went to a family get-together on Monday for Memorial Day. We did kind of a pot luck. There were eleven kids and nine adults hanging around, and the kids ran wild, and the Goob got put in time out, so, you know. Traditional American holiday. I made cookies and cupcakes and took potato chips.

Then, the Goober went home with her grandparents, and I spent all day Tuesday reveling in the silence and NOT DOING ANYTHING. It was the best day ever. The Goober went to the zoo.

Wednesday she came home, and looked a little worn out. We sat down to watch Mythbusters, and...

She NEVER does that. But she did last night.

Then, today, I asked if she wanted to go outside with me. She said yes (of course) and raced out the door. By the time I got out on the back porch, there, in the porch swing...

Yeah.

We didn't do much today, either. Though I actually had to feed the kid and like that.

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I'm sort of knitting! I've got a little done on my KAL sweater.

You can see the purl fold line; I've got the hem and about two inches of it done. My hands are bothering me, so it's going slow. You guys don't have to wait on me, though. Once a couple of you get to the arm pits, I'll talk you through the sleeves, which are next.

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With the shifting of the sun, we're now getting bright light in the back windows in the afternoons and evenings, which is lovely.

Sekhmet digs it.

...hello?

Apparently someone got into my Google account. So passwords have been changed, and I've been verified, and blah de blah.

Let's see if this works.

Sekhmet, you fucker.

I put the sick kid to bed, sat down to read my Kindle in peace for the first time all day, and... I'm having trouble... concentrating... what...

KAL 05.5: The A line.

There were questions about how many stitches to cast on, when working an A-line. That can be kind of subjective. I've seen A-lines with bottom hems that are positively voluminous (1000% or more). That's not going to be any fun at all to knit in plain stockinette, and depending on the weight of the fabric, it wouldn't look good.

So all I've got are guidelines.

250% is a pretty good rule of thumb. If you're using a heavier fabric (3 stitches per inch or heavier), I'd consider 200%. For thinner fabrics you could go up as high as 500% but I'd think twice because DAMN, that would be a lot of stitches.

250% with a hem is what I'd do. You need to decrease down to 100% by the time you get to the arm pits, or 100% + 8 stitches if you're doing a cardigan with a steek. To figure decreasing, first you'd need a row gauge and a measurement for how long you wanted the 'skirt' of the jacket to be.

Let's say your 100% figure is 100, for the sake of argument. And you need 75 rows to make your skirt long enough. The cast on would be 250 stitches - 250%. You would need to decrease 150 stitches to get down to your 100% figure (total cast on, minus your one hundred percent figure, equals how many stitches you need to decrease). To figure out how many stitches to decrease per row, you divide 150 by 75: you get two stitches per row (total number of stitches to decrease, divided by the number of rows you need to do it in, equals how many stitches to decrease per row). To put it in knitter-ese, then, cast on 250 stitches, and decrease two stitches per row until you arrive at 100 stitches and the arm pits of your sweater.

You can either distribute the decreases randomly over the skirt to make it a circular piece, or you can decrease at two distinct points to make it more angular. Up to you.

There you go. No swooning.

KAL 05: Math and CASTING ON!

Okay. This knit along is based on EPS, and I wrote an article about it ages go for Knitty. So, before we go further, it may be wise for you to go read it, if you haven't yet. THE ARTICLE HERE.

To repeat: I wrote the article. I still hold the copyright for everything in it because it is my creation. It is licensed to Knitty, essentially. I still hold the rights. So I'm allowed to use graphics from it, which I'm going to do. 'Cause it's mine. We can save the copyright freak-out for another more deserving occasion.

100%. Mine is 42 inches. (I'm knitting a cardigan that I want to fit over other clothes. Plus I have big boobs.) I got that by measuring a jacket that I like the fit of; armpit to armpit was 21 inches, so it's 42 inches the whole way around. Make sense, I hope?

My gauge is 5.3 stitches to the inch. Being lazy and using my lucky calculator, 5.3 x 42 = 222.6. WE WANT AN EVEN NUMBER OF STITCHES FOR THE BODY. Easy peasy. The body for me is 222 stitches.

From here you could cast on right now, or you could do ALL THE MATH at once:

If you're doing ribbing on the bottom edge, cast on 90% instead of 100%. It's easy to figure: Just push in (your 100% figure) x 90% = and the figure will pop up on your calculator.

If you are knitting a cardigan, you will need a steek in the front to cut open later. For the steek, add eight stitches. You need those to stabilize and cut later.

The cheat sheet:

TO FIGURE 100%: Multiply stitches per inch/cm by the circumference you want. You want an even number of stitches; it will make sense later.

TO FIGURE 90%: On your calculator, put in your 100% figure (the number of stitches, not inches or cm) then press x 90 % = on your calculator.

FOR A PULLOVER WITH RIBBING: Cast on 90%. Join and work in the round. Knit your ribbing, increase to 100% (easiest is to knit nine and make one around). Continue working in stockinette to the arm pits.

FOR A CARDIGAN WITH RIBBING: Cast on 90% plus eight stitches. (Mark the eight stitches). Join and knit in the round. Knit your ribbing, then increase to 100% plus eight stitches (easiest is to knit nine, make one around.) Work to arm pits.

FOR A PULLOVER WITH A HEM: Cast on 100% using some kind of provisional cast- on. Join and knit in the round. Use needles a size or two smaller than your main body. Knit 1.5 inches/3cm for the hem. Work one round in purl, for folding later. Shift to main needles and work body to arm pits.

FOR A CARDIGAN WITH A HEM: (This one is a little confusing. Just follow along, I'll take photos as I do mine.) Cast on 100% using some kind of provisional cast on, and smaller needles. KNIT FLAT IN STOCKINETTE (back and forth) for 1.5 inches/3cm. This is the hem. Work a row of reverse stockinette for the purl fold line. THEN, cast on eight stitches (your steek) join and knit in the round up to the arm pits. To summarize, you knit the hem flat (reduces bulk in the steek later), then cast on your eight steek stitches as a bridge between the edges and work in the round. I'll be documenting this one with photos, promise.


Questions? I bet there are questions.

Q & A

To address some questions folks have asked:

There's still some worry over the prototype. It's going to be a starting point, no more. You have to start SOMEWHERE. Find a sweater or sweatshirt that fits properly through the chest. If you don't like the sleeves or the length, that's fine. Figure out what you want to change about it. This way you don't have to play the ease game, which is very difficult.

Traditionally, a sweater is knit by measuring around the chest at the arm pits, or wherever your boobs create the largest circumference. Then you add four inches for ease. But that's too simplistic. Some folks like tight sweaters. Some folks like really loose sweaters. So it is much, MUCH easier in the long run to just measure something.

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Since I'm thinking of this as the "EPS Long Form", we are tagging projects on Ravelry with "LongForm" so that anyone who wants to look at all of them, can. Enjoy.

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An ass ton is approximately 800 yards of yarn.

ETA: The metric conversion would be "arse tonne".

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The hem issue will be discussed in more detail when we cast on. (This weekend. I promise.) But you use a needle one or two sizes smaller than the main sweater body and work a short length in stockinette. Then you do one row/round in reverse stockinette (or purl) because it makes a VERY neat fold line. Then you go back to stockinette and the regular needles, and work on the body. There are a few more details, depending on whether you're doing a cardigan or pullover, but that's the gist.

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Roxie, I will be talking everyone through the math, because, well, your method in the comments kind of scared me.

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I think that covers it. Apologies to folks who really want to get moving NOW, but I've got a bunch of folks still catching up. But we're gonna get moving soon. After we do the math it's going to go quickly. Honest.

KAL 04: 100% and proportion

This is more about the philosophy behind what we're doing, than actual DOING, but since this is about really understanding what's going on, it needs said.

The EPS is based on PROPORTION. That is the great thing about it, as well as the potential problem. Everything is a fraction of the body circumference, also called (in various books) the key number, or the 100% figure. Once you arrive at the correct figure, you can play around with it quite a lot. But if you blow this first part, nothing's going to come out right, ever after, amen.

To get the figure, lay out your prototype. Don't stretch it or anything silly, but smooth it flat, on a flat surface. Measure it from arm pit to arm pit, and double the figure. Make sure you measure straight across and not crookedly.Write down the figure you get.

Now. Once you've got your 100% figure, you CAN start knitting. Cast on some kind of edging and let it rip, on up to the armpits.

However. (There's always a however, isn't there?)

Look at your prototype. What do you like or not like about it? Does the bottom edge suck in to a ribbing that makes you look like a mushroom? Does it drape out in an A line? If you like the way the bottom edge works, measure it too, and hang on to it for our upcoming step involving math. If you don't like it, figure out what it takes to make you like it (what kind of edging do you want on the bottom hem?) and jot it down for the horrifying math part.

Traditional edgings include:

-The Usual Ribbing Edge: casting on 90% on smaller needles, working some kind of ribbing, increasing to 100% at the end of the ribbing, changing to the regular needles, and knitting up from there

-Hem: casting on 100% on smaller needles, knitting an inch and a half/3cm of stockinette, working a purl fold round, switching to the usual needles, and knitting from there; the raw stitches of the cast-on are either worked as a knit-in hem or stitched down later

-A Line: casting on up to 250%, working a hem or ribbing, then decreasing down to 100% gradually over the bottom portion of the sweater until the arm pits are reached (this method uses an ass ton of yarn)

Your homework for now is to measure your prototype, get your 100% figure, and then decide what kind of bottom edge you want. I'll be doing a hem.

FYI: I suggest a notebook or a document on your computer, or some other single spot to write all this stuff down. We've barely started with the measurements and math and figures, and trust me: you lose your plans halfway through the project, you're in a world of hurt. I've been there. It sucked.

It's like the fuckin' Jetsons.

I thought I'd write another blog post tonight (no swooning!) There's a photo I wanted off my phone, and since I needed to pull the battery any way (to reset it), I figured, hell, I'd pull the chip while I was at it. My phone (a Blackberry Curve SomethingRecent) uses solid state (no moving parts) storage on a secondary chip for all music, pictures, movies, TV shows, and other media. So I pulled the chip out of the phone, PLUGGED IT INTO MY COMPUTER, moved the file I wanted, then put the chip back in my phone. Okay. This is stuff we dreamed of as kids (at least I did, and my friends). I have got more computing power (WAY MORE) in my phone than they did in all the Apollo spacecraft combined. This is messed up. Then I dropped the chip, picked it up, and really started to think about it.

That is eight gigabytes of storage capacity, almost exactly the size of my thumbnail.

I am too old for this shit.

Except I'm dealing with it well enough (except for that droppage issue) so I guess I'm not. IT IS STILL NOT RIGHT.

The husbeast is downstairs watching a movie on his super large screen TV, that is plugged into his giant large screen TV. THE ONE WITH AN iPOD DOCK.

---

Anyway. The blog post. After a fashion.

This is the picture I wanted off my phone.

As with so many really good photos, it was just one of those things. The Goober appeared at the back door with a handful of dandelions, I had the phone in my hand, and there you go. I tried to do it again later with a real camera, and of course the results weren't nearly so good.

The Goober has lately gotten hooked, playing Bejeweled. Last night we had this discussion:

ME: Okay. Time for bed.
GOOBER: But I have to teleport!
ME: Fine, but as soon as you teleport, it's bed time.

Sounds like a geek house, to me.

---

In the Sekhmet You Fucker stories, we have a new one. War has been declared. Remember my new chair?

She thinks it's hers. And the nice, high quality fake suede? (It's fake, but it feels really close to real.) Yeah. Hangs on to fur like a fuckin' MAGNET.

EVIL. EVIL I TELL YOU.

And of course, the person most annoyed by this is the husbeast. (Forgivably. He did go out and buy the chair for me.) So it's this constant war and somehow I'm stuck in the middle.

Yes, I've taken advantage of the catapult effect of the chair's shape. More than once.

---

Remember the blanket I want to knit for the living room? It got this far:

Has anyone seen my motivation? Yes? No? Well, can you find it and send it over here? Pleeeeease?

Group created!

The Ravelry group has been created.

I know some of you don't want to participate in the giant time suck that is Ravelry. That's fine. I get where you're coming from. My goal is for all KAL information to be here on the blog, easily found to the whole wide internet. So there's no loss by not joining. But if you wanna... HERE IT IS.

So, anyway...

I actually felt like blogging this week, but Blogger ate itself, so, um. Here we are. (Do you think "my dog ate the server" works as a valid excuse at Google HQ? I'm thinking not, but I'd love to be a fly on the wall.)

I've wondered what to do about questions and answers with the knit-along. I've finally decided I'll address them on the fly (like, right here, as they come up), but then I'll go back and add the comments to the relevant post. Ideally, I'd like to put ALL THE POSTS together into a PDF and upload it to Rav (or otherwise make it available) as a sort of EPS long form for anyone who wants it.

There've been lots of questions about using things in place of gauge swatches. It's your sweater, I'm not telling anyone they HAVE to do anything. HOWEVER. Youse guys who are talking about some kind of flat-knit sample, and using it as an in-the-round swatch? Proceed with extreme caution. Lots of folks think their gauge is the same, flat and in the round. It almost never is. If you've run the numbers before, and you KNOW, then knock yourselves out. Personally, I vary by about half a stitch per inch. That's a lot. (And I knit more loosely in the round. I'm told that's unusual. I'm always special.) So... yeah. It's up to you. If you've never compared before, you might want to. It's a good thing to know. For instance, when I do back-and-forth short rows at an in-the-round neck line, I always make sure to knit loosely so it 'goes' with the rest of the sweater.

Incidentally, it's 'fixin' to rain' (as some folk in the south are known to say). I'm sitting in my living room, watching lightning repeatedly strike a natural gas well over the ridge from our neighborhood. There's a lightning rod on it, so there's no worry, but I almost hope the lightning rod fails. It would be interesting. (No one lives near enough to it for it to be dangerous if it were to blow.)

Anyway. Knitting.

Someone had an intelligent question about my two different colors of yarn from swatch to sweater, and wouldn't that make a difference in the gauge? (Good question, and bravo for thinking of it.) Yes. A very slight one. If I were doing a tailored anything, I would, indeed, knit a new swatch with the proper yarn. But I'm knitting myself a loose pullover (okay, possibly a cardigan, I haven't decided yet) so it doesn't matter too much.

I'm setting up a Ravelry group for us. I don't intend it to be our primary anything, but one of my Beloved Readers pointed out that it would be easy to post photos there, in case of questions. It's a good point. So, I'll do that and get a link out to everyone. For those of you not on Ravelry, it's free if you want to. For those of you worried about getting sucked into the madness that is Ravelry, you don't have to join the group if you don't want to.

Okay. I think that's it for the knitting questions. I'll probably remember something as soon as I click "publish", so heck, I'll just have to blog again tomorrow. Heavens.

KAL03: Measuring gauge

So. We measure gauge. This involves a bit of math, nothing too horrific. I usually scratch it out on the back of an envelope or possibly a notebook, but a calculator is also a valid solution, if decimal points really scare you THAT much.

Lay out your gauge swatch. Stick a pin somewhere in the middle of it, between two stitches. Lay out a tape measure (centimeters or inches, doesn't matter; I'm running in inches just because that's where my brain is right now). Make sure the tape measure along the row, so that you are measuring across ONE row, not several. (That's my favorite mistake.) Stick the second pin in, one inch away from the first. DO NOT LOOK AT WHERE YOU PUT IT. Do not shift it a little to one side or the other to make it 'fit' or be neat.

This, incidentally, is 5.25 stitches per inch.

Things to remember:
-DO NOT LOOK WHERE YOU ARE PUTTING THE PIN, YOU WILL SHIFT IT AROUND TO MAKE IT NEAT.
-MAKE SURE TO MEASURE ACROSS ONE ROW, NOT TWO OR THREE.

Write down what you get, down to two decimal places. My measurement would be 5.25 inches. Measure three or four more times. Write down each stitch count you get. Once you've got AT LEAST THREE (but five is better) measurements, average them out. (Add them all together, then divide by the number of figures you have.) That is your UNWASHED STITCH COUNT.

Now go wash your swatch, however you intend to wash your sweater. For me this means a trip through the sink or washing machine, soaking in mild detergent, then a rinse, then a spin to get out the water. I let it dry flat, wherever it's convenient.

When the swatch is dry, measure it all again for the WASHED STITCH COUNT.

The washed stitch count is the figure you are going to use for everything, in terms of the EPS math.

The unwashed stitch count is for when the sweater is halfway done, and you look at it and say "OMG IT DOESN'T LOOK RIGHT". You can measure it right there, and know whether or not it will all work out in the blocking.

For simple, casual knits like the one we're doing, I often skip the unwashed stitch count - it's most useful for tailored knits, when you're trying to fit things precisely and a half an inch is a big freaking deal. But for now, well, you guys can use the practice, so I had you do it. But you can skip it if you really want.

Hey! I'm well!

Whaddaya know! Poof! Feel great, yesiree!

Years ago (I am reasonably sure it was 2000, but I would not stake my life on it), the husbeast and I had an... incident, you could say. The annoying start of a trend, you could say.

2000 was the year my mother was sick in Ohio, and I was living in Hawaii. Well, there were three years like that, but 2000 is the year I logged enough miles (in planes) to go around the earth more than once. (I quit keeping track. It was depressing.) Between the stress, the jet lag, and the fact that planes are seething pits of germs, I got sick. A lot. All the time.

The husbeast, unreasonably, I thought, found this upsetting and worrisome.

I kept explaining that it was a series of colds. I was run down. I was on planes all the time. I WAS FINE. His answer to this, after a few months, was to make a doctor's appointment for me, haul me down there, and physically shove me into Dr. R's office. Given no choice about it (the husbeast, y'all may have noticed, is considerably larger than I am), I arrived at the doctor's office spitting mad. Dr. R asked me what was wrong, and I delivered a five-minute rant that started with "I've been sick for a couple months".

It took some effort, but Dr. R did not laugh. He did allow that my being sick for months did seem like a reasonable thing for the husbeast to be upset about. (Bah. Dr. R ALWAYS sided with the husbeast.) However, he did agree with my assessment, wrote me a prescription for chicken noodle soup and bunny slippers (seriously; I loved that guy), told the husbeast I was fine, and turned me loose. You could tell Dr. R loved the whole thing.

Spring in Hawaii, I used to get pneumonia. Some pollinating plant or other combined in unholy union with my asthma, and if I wasn't super careful, blammo. (One of the few things I found truly annoying about living there.) I would resist going to the doctor, usually giving in (with no grace whatsoever) when the husbeast made noises about taking me. Again stress reared its fucking head, though, and got the better of me.

I'd been in a nasty, four year long lawsuit, and we had just about settled the whole damn thing, when the plants pollinated and my asthma went crazy. I figured I could sleep it off. (In my defense, some years, I really could.) I felt worse and worse, my voice began to disappear, and a fever started creeping in. BUT I WAS FINE, DAMN IT. Then, one afternoon, the husbeast called. You guessed it. He informed me I could go in my pajamas, wrapped in a blanket, or I could get dressed. He was on his way to pick me up at that moment.

I got dressed.

By then, Dr. R was using the husbeast as a gauge for how sick I was; if the husbeast appeared with me in the waiting room, it was time for concern. I went into the exam room. The husbeast waited. I came out (imagine, if you will; doctor, nurses, receptionist, patients all over) and told the husbeast, "It's pneumonia again." He replied, "YOU DUMBASS". Everyone gasped. I rolled my eyes.

Down at the pharmacy, they asked me if I'd had those drugs before. I said yes, I'd taken them when I had pneumonia the year before. The husbeast said "YOU DUMBASS". The pharmacists and customers were horrified. I rolled my eyes.

So, this Friday on the phone, the husbeast said "you've been sick for two weeks. It's probably time you saw Dr. B." After some quick negotiation, I have the weekend and if I'm not doing better Monday, I can make my own appointment or I'm sure the husbeast will do it for me.

I FEEL JUST FINE, DAMN IT.

(We'll get back to the knit-along Monday, latest. Thanks for your patience.)

Well, hell.

There will be a slight pause in our knit-along as I deal with the lung snot from hell. I wanted to soldier on through it, but I'm to the point where I can't think straight, and that does nothing for my tech-writing skills.

Maybe this will give more folks a chance to get organized and join in.

With luck I'll be back in a day or two, this time able to string together a coherent sentence.

Sorry!

KAL02: Gauge swatch, part one.

This was supposed to be one super-long post, but last week's germs are making a return visit (or some new damn germ has moved in), so we're gonna take this slowly.

That means, more time for you guys who hope to join in later, to get joining!

So, the swatch. I don't always knit a swatch. Particularly not in a case where I'm using yarns I've used before. It's not unheard of for me to measure gauge off a sweater I've worn for a year, or even measure gauge off a sweater I gave to someone else as a gift. ("Hey, you know that sweater I gave you last Christmas? Can I see it a minute?") Just be absolutely sure you're using the same needles and the same exact yarn. And don't measure the gauge in a place that stretches a lot, like across the shoulders or elbows. Chest or belly area is best for measuring gauge in old garments.

For this knit along, I'm going to assume it's a yarn you've never met before and cover the gory details. Adjust to your own situation as you will.

The good news about the EPS is, we don't need to match our gauge to anything. Whatever we get in our little swatch, we get, and that's it, and no re-doing on smaller needles or re-working the pattern or any of that shit. If it's 6.29 stitches per inch, that's what you deal with. (Bust out a calculator if you've gotta.) The sort of bad news is, for the EPS to work properly, you REALLY need for the gauge to be accurate. EVERYTHING is figured from stitches per inch (or centimeter), so if it's off, you're doomed.

Remember the 'you're doomed' bit, when I'm getting really crazy on the measurement. I may bust out the calipers, just on principle. It really does matter.

But first, we've gotta knit the damn thing, right?

So, get out a ball/swatch/skein/hunk of your yarn and take a good look at the label. Here's mine.

In case you can't read that, it says 18 to 20 stitches over four inches, on size seven or eight needles. So that's what you're going to do. Using THAT general information, cast on SIX INCHES (or about fourteen centimeters) worth of stitches. Going by this information, I'll cast on (at least) thirty stitches. Use a provisional cast on of some kind. Now. You're going to knit the vast majority of this sweater in the round, so you've got to knit the swatch in the round.

One way to knit a swatch in the round is to knit it like a sock and cut it open. Or, you can do it like I do. Knit across the row. When you're finished, cut the yarn, scootch the stitches back to the right, join the yarn in and knit across the row again with the right side facing. You wind up with something like this:

You can swoon at all the ends, if you like. I think of it as a sacrifice to the knitting gods, to make my stuff fit right. It doesn't take THAT much yarn, and doesn't need to be that big. Also, all the ends? I knit into the back of the first two and last two stitches to sort of lock the yarn in place. It works.

KNIT UNTIL THE SWATCH IS SQUARE. Fold it diagonally on itself. When the corners touch and the sides line up, you've got a square and can quit knitting. Put the yarn tail on a sewing needle and run it through the stitches on your knitting needle to keep it from unraveling. Remove the cast on, put the stitches on a string, and you're done. THAT IS IT. By putting the stitches on a holding string, you allow them to move around, giving a more accurate gauge measurement. Don't do anything else. Don't wash it, don't mess with it. Admire it from afar. We'll talk about this, tomorrow. When my head is hopefully empty of snot. 

VARIATIONS:
Well, really, there shouldn't be any at this point. You can use different needles if you want. I'll be knitting mine on sixes because I like the fabric that it creates better. You can do this in seed stitch, or ribbing, or who knows what. Just knit the swatch as-is. I suggest we all follow along in stockinette, but you'll get the gist and figure out how to variate to your heart's desire.

Oh, and I just got done knitting a purple sweater for the Goob in this very yarn, so while my sweater is going to be teal, I'm using the swatches I did for the other. So there will be some purple and teal confusion in these first posts.

KAL01: The Prototype

Every project needs a starting point. Even if you're going to change everything about it. This is mine:

The sleeves seem a little short, but that's because they're not full length. I like that. And I'll have to add a little bit of ease because I wear this without anything under it, and the new one I'm knitting will go over a tee shirt. But the length of the body is just how I like it, and like I said, you've gotta start somewhere. Once I've got a starting point and a clear idea what I want, I can alter the general plan to produce that clear idea.

For now, here are some things to think about:

-Cardigan or pullover (for this, a cardigan means steeking; IF STEEKING YOU NEED WOOL OR BE PREPARED TO SEW)
-shaping or not (I will do a bit of shaping and discuss it, BUT THIS IS MEANT TO BE A CASUAL SWEATER, it will not be fitted)
-length you want your sleeves
-what kind of neck
-double or single layer on cuffs and neck ribbing
-length of body

With those answers, and a gauge swatch, we should be okay.

Tomorrow, be ready to cast on a gauge swatch. You can skip it, but I'm not responsible.

The Lilac

As a plant freak, I have strong memories of the house I grew up in - my family moved into the house when I was six months old, and my parents sold it when I was twenty-three. Long, strong memories. And that includes the plants. I've gradually been planting a few of the plants I remember around the new house the husbeast and I bought last year. Nothing extreme, I don't intend to replicate the entire yard, but some iris at the corner, stuff like that. I might put in some poppies. And I wanted to plant a lilac.

When I was growing up, the lilac bush under the window of my parents' bedroom was a subject of hilarity. Well, for us it was. We kept the hilarity quiet, though, because my mother had an ongoing war with the lilac bush.

The damn thing wouldn't flower.

It thrived away, full of lush foliage, tall, green. Every few years, my little mother (five feet tall and maybe a hundred pounds) would gather her gardening tools and go to war. While the rest of us played, she'd prune the beast back so they could see out their bedroom windows. She'd mutter under her breath at it as she went. One year she was furious, got her shovel, and chopped all around the root ball, playing hell with the nutrient system, trying to spark it into action.

The next spring there were two sprigs of flowers on the entire, massive shrub. We giggled (when she wasn't looking) and Mom threatened it with her pruning shears.

So, I've been thinking my yard needed a lilac bush. They always make me smile, thinking of her, and anything that makes you smile is worth doing, as I see it.

Then spring hit, and things started blooming. There, in the bed behind the house, near our bedroom window, is, guess what. A lilac bush. Poor thing is frost-damaged like hell from the weather, but I ALREADY HAVE A LILAC IN MY YARD

Somewhere, Mom is laughing. And so am I.

Ready to Rock

It's been a jolly week here at House O'Samurai. The husbeast tracked home a particularly nasty germ (I'm convinced an influenza variant) and we all got it. So, lots of sleeping and nose-blowing and all that fun stuff. The Goober was silent for a whole day because her 'froat hut'. It was creepy. She just sat there. We're all doing better now, though.

I was unwilling to track the killer germs through my local yarn store, so I hit WEBS and purchased the yarn for my sweater. (KNIT ALONG TO COMMENCE MAY 1!!)

It's not remotely what I was planning. I'd thought to knit something in a light peach-pink-orange sort of color. But WEBS didn't have anything that looked right, so I sort of squinted at the computer screen and chose a likely-looking bluish. It turned out to be a dark teal heather. Since I like strong, solid colors, it will do fine.

For those joining in, it will be a slow start with discussion of fit, planning, and swatch knitting. You'll have plenty of time to get organized before we cast on the actual sweater. So if you're still getting yourself situated, that's fine. This is going to be a leisurely kind of KAL.

There have been questions about knitting cardigans, V-necks, and other types of things. I'm considering knitting a cardigan myself, so there will definitely be discussion of methods. BE PREPARED TO STEEK. This is an EPS sweater, based on Elizabeth Zimmermann's Percentage System. She'd have never knit a sweater flat, so we won't either. I'm not as fundamentally opposed to purling as EZ was, but I'll definitely steek before I knit a whole darn sweater flat.

Maybe, after we do this one, we'll do another, top down this time, based on EPS AND Barbara Walker. Hmmm. There's a thought.

At any rate, on May 1, the knit along will begin, and I'll cover all the minute, gory details of how I do it. That's more for education and interest. The point of the EPS is being able to make choices, so I'll do all I can to accommodate and discuss them. I'm hoping everyone else shares their details, too. We'll all learn something, that's the idea.

Whee! Knitting! Brace for a hideously detailed gauge swatch! WITH MATH!

Oh, and go find a sweater or sweatshirt you like the fit of, 'cause you're gonna need it.

Furthermore...

(If you're here for fiber content and don't give a fig about education philosophies, SCROLL DOWN!)

I've been thinking a lot about what folks have shared, over schooling and kids and related topics. I didn't expect to hit the nerve I did - I was worried about people thinking I was criticizing their children or their jobs. Apparently that wasn't much of a worry. Interesting.

I guess, what it comes down to, is that children are individual and have different needs. (Ohmigosh. REALLY?) We all seem to have figured that out, except for the government wonks who decide policies for this stuff. Some children CAN be pushed hard, and some even enjoy it. By all means fast track those kids. Some kids need more repetition and should be able to get it without slowing down the entire classroom or being criticized. And most children are fine in that zone between the other two. The old system of placing kids by skill rather than age had a lot of things going for it (so long as we didn't send eight year olds to college, I still think that's a tricky situation).

The Goober in particular is thriving with the current system we've got going. I may think some (more than some) things she's learning are ridiculous, but she's learning them. There's a lot of the curricula I think is screwy, but again, I can customize a great deal so it's no big deal. (Though... Venn Diagrams? In Kindergarten? Seriously?)

The 'creative spelling' topic came up in the comments. The school advocates it, but I don't. (Yay for customizing.) There's whole lot of "it is okay for your child to write however they want" in the parental handbook. I disagree. I'm with my blog readers, in that it's best to start the kid off doing things as closely as possible to correct. I've stressed that it's important to write like everyone else (both in spelling and penmanship) so that we can all understand each other. I've even told her that her ideas on grammar are more logical (because they are), but we still have to do it like everyone else. Obviously she's not getting things right on the first try, but we're working to get there. I don't know about neural pathways, but it just seems dumb to let a kid do things wrong without even attempting to correct. It'll make things harder later, one way or another.

Anyway, thanks to everyone for sharing your thoughts. Those of you who went anonymous to disagree with me, you're certainly free to, but you don't have to. I enjoy disagreement, especially when it's laid out coherently like it has been in the comments. It gives me things to think about. There's a HUGE difference between "I disagree, and here is why" and "YOU SUCK!" While I will always sneer at the second type of comment, I enjoy the first.

---

Remember the knit-along coming up May 1? We're still doing it. For now, all you need to be doing is buying yarn. Any type, any weight, though I suggest worsted-ish so you can keep up with the rest of us. I'm still planning to use Cascade 220 for an adult size XL sweater, to give you an idea. For amounts, find a pattern for a stockinette sweater using the yarn you want, and buy enough to knit that. If it seems a little on the low side, get a skein for luck.

Do we need a knit-along button? Or a group on Ravelry? I fully intend to put all directions, commentary, and digressions up here on the blog for posterity, but a Ravelry group might make it easier to communicate questions... I don't know. Everyone's always free to comment or e-mail or bug me on Ravelry or Twitter, so it's not like I'm hard to find.

Thoughts?

Kindergarten.

NOTE: This post is intended more as a rhetorical question, WTF kind of thing. It's not aimed at parents, children, or teachers. If you're one of the handful of legislators who decide children's curricula in this country, then yeah, feel guilty or insulted, OR THINK ABOUT THIS. Otherwise? We're all stuck in this system together and my intention is not to insult anyone. Particularly not children.

I'm - well, WE'RE - in an odd sort of limbo situation here at my house. PA Cyber, the home schooling outfit we use, is in fact considered a charter school in this state. If I were to switch the Goober over to brick-and-mortar school, it would be treated as a transfer between two school districts, not a fresh enrollment. When I DID enroll the kid, it was done in person, with all the stuff (vaccine records, eye tests, you name it) that goes along with other public school admissions. We follow the same mandated state curricula as every other public school in Pennsylvania - we just do it at home, on the computer. The Goober has an official teacher with a degree and certificate and it is not me. I do not know how other states do this. I do not know how other home schooling outfits do this. I'm sure some home-schooling parents pull it out of their ass; I'm also sure that the majority of them follow a set curricula like I do, one way or another. I'm also sure there is HUGE variance between different public schools, private schools, home schools, and even classrooms across the hall from each other.

That said, because I'm home-schooling (sorta), I'm more intimately acquainted with what the Goober is learning than most parents probably are, whose children are in more traditional schools. (I AM NOT SAYING IT IS BAD OR GOOD, I'M ABSOLUTELY NOT IMPLYING ANYTHING ABOUT MYSELF OR OTHER PARENTS. IT JUST IS.) We're chugging our way through, and the Goober surprises me regularly, with what she knows and how fast she learns new stuff. She's reading well and learning to write and having a fine time. But I keep thinking one thing.

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?

The stuff they're expecting these kids to learn is completely ridiculous. I understand reading is fundamental and writing is right behind it on the scale of importance. BUT THIS IS BLEEDING KINDERGARTEN.

They've got these kids doing illustrated journal entries, BEFORE they formally teach them writing. This is stuff I didn't do until second grade, thirty-five years ago. Today's science lesson involved first learning what a chart is, drawing one, labeling it, then sorting animals into it by habitat. ONE SUBJECT. ONE DAY. Social studies seems to be concentrating on traditional kindergarten-level stuff like what a family is and conversing without being irritating. Science is going on ad nauseum about what makes a thing living or 'non-living'. Fine. But then they've got the kids reading and writing with no real lead-in.

When I was in kindergarten in the mid seventies, we spent the year learning social skills, basic counting, colors, shapes, and letters. There were three of us in the entire school district who started kindergarten knowing how to read, and they didn't know what to do with us and basically ignored us for the year. (We played and hung out with the other kids. No drama from administration or us.) Now? Kids are expected to know all of that going in. ALL OF IT. This was explained to me; apparently the kids are supposed to learn all that kindergarten stuff in preschool.

HUH?

Kindergarten was invented in the 1800s to basically acclimate kids to the idea of school, what to do in a class room, and lay the foundation for starting real school - FIRST GRADE, AS IN ONE - the next year. Now, what, they read War and Peace in first grade? Yes, yes, I know there are all sorts of psychological and educational justifications on why we're dumping all this shit on five year old children. I've read it all, while researching home school vs. formal school. They've certainly worked out their reasons and excuses.

Meanwhile, the problems children have in school here in the US are skyrocketing. Behavioral problems, developmental problems, anxiety, depression, you name it. Depressed five year olds. Statistically it's worrisome. No, it's horrifying. (Also, these charts with "unknown factor"? YEAH THANKS FOR THE HELP. Good gourd.)

But I wonder. (Of course I wonder. I think too much.) Is the problem really the kids, or the curricula? Imagine, it seems no one has done a study on this! Shock! Yes, some kids have problems. No, I am not claiming to know specifically what an exact cause for an exact child is. But here's a thought. Maybe so many kids are having problems, because we're pushing them too hard? Sure, some kids have always been able to read early, have been great at math early, have been skilled artists early. But is it fair to expect ALL THE CHILDREN to live up to that? Mozart wrote chamber music at age five. Should they expect all kids to do that?

Most of all, is it fair to the kids to have no fallback plan when they can't live up to it?

Not knitting, but damn fine.

The husbeast is a serious gadget-head, which is probably news to no one. A while back, he got cords and stuff so we could hook my external hard drive to my TV, and further, run my computer through the TV. Plants Vs. Zombies on the flat screen. Jolly good fun. Or, you know, gigantic Twitter.

I've also been running iTunes through the TV/bass speaker setup and rocking out on the daily grind. (The Goober got in big trouble last week after throwing a fit when I switched from rock to classical.)

A couple weeks ago, the husbeast came home and found me seated on the foot stool, typing on my computer on the console table so I could blast music and write at the same time. We were chatting about it (he loves to see me writing because it means I feel pretty good and I'm not drugged to the gills) and he mentioned a cordless keyboard so I could write while laying on the couch. I replied with something like "what would make that PERFECT would be one of those gamer chairs like we saw when we were buying the living room furniture."

Next thing I know?

Innit sweeeeeeet? The husbeast, I mean, not that chair-stealing bag of fur in the picture.

I'm using the setup now to write this. Near as I can tell, there are only two drawbacks. One is my orthopedic mess; getting out of this seat will take a bit of practice, and I'm not sure it makes my shoulders happy. (Screw it. I needed more motivation to do my shoulder exercises, and HERE IT IS.) Second isn't exactly a drawback. Or not entirely. The TV screen doesn't have as much definition as my computer screen. So I have to wear my glasses to see anything I'm writing. BUT, because of the fuzzier screen definition, I can run video AND a bunch of other things at the same time. Not a bad trade off.

Now, I am going to go read Girl Genius and pretend it is IMAX for comics.

That damn finger.

I was going to try to avoid getting graphic and posting a picture of my cut finger. But, everyone had good suggestions (that unfortunately won't work for one reason or another) and my finger's not so bad, so, what the hell. Here, then, is the damn finger.

Keeping in mind that I knit Continental, it's like I set out to fuck with my ability to knit. I don't think I could have done worse with planning and deliberate effort. I was using a bread knife with serrations, with a pretty drastic sawing motion (serrations work best when the knife moves laterally as much as possible). The cut went nearly to the bone. The husbeast scoffs a bit at this (politely), but he wasn't there to see me pull the damn knife out of my finger, and he sure as hell didn't feel the teeth bumping through my skin. Blech. (The Goober, however, was mightily impressed when she saw me dripping blood into the sink.) Anyway, since it's been a week, I'm sure it's not infected, which means it will, eventually, heal just fine. It's the meantime that's making me squirrelly.

With where the cut is, I can't just ignore it. Yarn and loose fiber catch on the edge of the cut and pull it open. (And what a lovely feeling that is.) I am one of those really strange people to whom Super Glue does not stick. So that's out. Seriously. I glued it shut to do some cleaning, and the glue held for about two hours before peeling off - and you can see, that's not a spot in my finger that's bendy. Bandages, finger condoms (ha) and gloves are also out because they all fuck with my ability to control/hang on to yarn and fiber. Remember, my right hand is already fucked up, so my left hand compensates. Basically, I've got nowhere to go but bonkers.

Really, if this is the worst health crisis I have this year, it's gonna be a great year. I was just, um, a lot frustrated yesterday when I wrote that blog post. I AM able to skein yarn with a bandage on my finger, so I'll get on that. And take lots of pictures when I dye it.

Plus, I have Phineas and Ferb Band-Aids. So I'm cool. (When I bought them, the Goober informed the checkout clerk "those are for MOM". Thanks a lot, kid.)

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In other news, Sekhmet has been guarding her kitten.

I don't know why, and I know better than to ask.

What's this?

Could it be... potential fiber fun?

Yup. Acid dyes. I've messed with a few, not in any sort of competent way. But with this cut finger, being unable to knit or spin, well, I've gotta do SOMETHING. So I guess what I'm doing is learning how to use industrial dyes better.

There's just one drawback.

I want to knit this blanket. We need a knit blanket for the living room, and all proceeds go to help Japan, and I think it's really pretty. All good things. Figuring it was a fine time to learn more about industrial dyes, I thought I could dye the yarn, since it will look best in a variegated but it's not vital that the colors be short or long or anything in particular. Dandy. WEBS was having their sale and I've been on a Cascade 220 kick, so I ordered in seven skeins of superwash to dye and knit up. You know how regular Cascade 220 comes in skeins?

NOT THE SUPERWASH.

Bugger.

Now I've got to skein up over 1500 yards of yarn, dye it, wash it, then ball it back up, and THEN knit it. Right. Might be ready to knit by the time my damn cut finger heals. It has been a week. I took the bandage off today, thinking I could give some knitting a try. Didn't get that far. HAS NOT HEALED YET.This had better not be some Actual Problem. No sign of infection, it seems to have closed, it's just still a damn cut. Remind me I'm not 17 and cuts do not heal that fast any more. HAS NOT HEALED YET.

Bugger.

I never thought I relied on spinning and knitting for my sanity so much. You know, fun hobby, blah blah. IF I DO NOT MAKE SOMETHING SOON I WILL LOSE MY MIND AND TAKE THE REST OF YOU WITH ME. I've got maybe ten (short) rounds and some grafting left to do on the Goob's sweater. I have a knit-along coming up on May 1. I HAVE STUFF TO DO. BONKERS.

HAS NOT HEALED YET. 

Buggering fuck. HEAL YOU DAMN FINGER!

What's going on.

Nothing. Nothing fibery, anyway.

This is my left index finger. Last weekend I cut it nearly to the bone with a bread knife. (The sucky part was feeling the serrations go through.) Since the husbeast keeps the knives fucking sharp around here, minor cuts are kind of rare. It is healing fine and there doesn't seem to be any permanent damage, but I've got to keep a bandage on it to keep dirt out of it. The bandages make things awkward.

It turns out that I use my left index finger for a lot more than I'd have thought. Since I knit continental, I need it to carry yarn, WITHOUT snagging on anything like, oh, a bandage. So no knitting. And drafting fiber? Forget it. Ever gotten fiber stuck in a bandaid? NOT VERY ATTRACTIVE. And I'm not going to ATTEMPT plying.

So, I started writing a novel. What the hell. We'll see how it goes. At the least, I've not gone bonkers in five whole days without knitting. That's something.

Oh, the bandaid? Curious George. I switch off between that and Hello Kitty. I haven't touched the Tinkerbell bandages. The Goober would have a fit.

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In other news, Sekhmet is a fucker.

The Goober took that picture. Not bad, huh?

Silverswords!

Meet the Hawaiian Silversword. It's actually a group of plants known as the Argyroxiphium genus. I doubt it's possible to know how many species there are, for reasons I'll explain. (Photo from Wiki Commons, very similar to one I took about ten years ago and can't find now.)

Silverswords are native to Hawaii and only grow there, mostly on the islands of Maui and Hawaii (the newest ones). They grow in fresh volcanic soil, and are in fact one of the first plants to move in after a volcanic eruption, which is why I think they should be the state flower. (The state flower is actually the hibiscus.) Silverswords are flowering plants, in the Aster family. It's assumed that some wind-borne seeds blew through to Hawaii from the Americas sometime in the last seven thousand years, and proceeded to adapt like crazy into the plants we know now. Because they flower, they hybridize like mad. Every time they think one is extinct, a hybrid turns up somewhere.

The freaky growing conditions (acidic, volcanic soil, high altitude, cool-to-cold temperatures), these little guys are always classified as endangered. They DO have limited ecosystems, and they aren't very many in number. But honestly? They grow in such incredibly isolated places that no one's really sure how well they're doing. Within those growing conditions, they seem all right.

Back when we lived in Hawaii, the in-laws came to visit. We all went on a tour of the islands, and one of the things we did was drive to the top of Haleakala, the not-quite-dormant volcano on Maui. I was a plant freak, so I was hoping I might be able to spot a silversword. I didn't have much hope, though, because they're endangered. So, we get to the summit, get out of the car - and I nearly tripped over a silversword growing right next to the parking lot. (In fact, if you look at the top picture, you can see a sliver of curb and parking lot in the upper right.) It was about the size of a soccer ball, and seemed to be thriving away.

They were all over the place, within their own little ecosystem.

You'll find that a lot with Hawaiian plants - many have VERY limited habitats, but within the habitat, they're doing as well as they ever did. Some Hawaiian plants have habitats measured in acres. Calling them endangered seems misleading, though I'm not sure what else we're supposed to call them. Really freaky? Limited? Hawaiian?

Oh, and one last bit. If you're going to remember one thing, remember this: Hawaiian plants often have very fragile root systems. So don't go tromping up to one, if you ever see one. And if you do, don't complain when a gardener jumps you. (One of my teachers regularly threatened the lives of the school's groundskeepers for driving mowers near her indigenous trees.)

Maybe tomorrow, I'll have something fibery to say. For now, I'm hitting "publish" before lightning strikes again.

Overwhelmed and freaked out.

(For anyone wanting fiber blogging, scroll down. There's a bit at the bottom.)

This week we got the first quarter of the Goober's new home-schooling curricula from PA Cyber. We'd decided to continue home-schooling next year for a long list of reasons (one of those deals where no one reason was a deciding factor, but when you made a list, it was easy to see). Due to that, facing the fact that this might not be stop-gap due to local school district pigheadedness but an actual PLAN, I shifted the plan. I went from a more traditional, on-paper system to one that's more computer-based. At the time, it seemed like a good idea, and in moments of clarity when I'm not freaking out, it STILL seems like a good idea.

Then the boxes came in the mail. We got ONE QUARTER of supplies. Not the full year, a single nine-week quarter's worth. Remember that when looking at the following photos. ONE. QUARTER. We got three freaking boxes for ONE. QUARTER.

Parent's manual, check.

Just looking at it makes me crave tranquilizers. The accompanying work books make a stack equally high, but that's okay 'cause kid's worksheets are heavy on pictures and take up space. MINE IS ALL TEXT. Give me a minute for a good old Victorian swoon.

Books? Yeah. This part BLOWS ME AWAY, in the best way possible. Let's encourage kids to read. Let's give them good books. Check.

One box was entirely full of children's books. Some are used for lessons, but many are just in there to give the kids reading material. These aren't crap books, either!

Many are Caldecott and/or Newberry Award winners or honorees, and the rest are very obviously relevant and apply. (One fave is a children's biography of Thomas Edison.) The Goober has been poring over them for three days and is totally psyched.

Another box held science lesson and other school supplies. Someone thoughtfully put it all in one of those giant fifty quart plastic bins we all use to store yarn in. There's a tool box. There's a bag of dirt and seeds and even peat pots. Two magnet boards, a two-inch-thick pile of tri-ruled kid's writing paper. The zinger?

Kid's got her own freakin' balance scale.

Mind you, this is on top of the box of supplies we got last October that contained a foot-high pile of writing and construction paper. I could open my own office supply store at the moment.

Really, the curricula is great. It's a simple, step-by-step operation that is really well done, if I'd just chill the hell out. Each day has its own little check list of computer, on-paper, and other activities. All I have to do is work through it step by step, like a really giant algebra problem.

Algebra made me freak out, too.

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Otherwise. Spinning. Spinning chills me out, so I've been doing that.

I am finally plying the Steampunk yarn. This is the unadorned skein (I'm doing three, total). No beads or prickly gears in this one, so that my friend can knit collars and cuffs and other close-to-the-skin bits with it and not mangle her skin. I can't see it too well in the photo but there's a 'ply' of copper metallic thread in there with the black and colored plies.

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Sekhmet has been helping me do PT.

Fucker.

Oh, geez. Me in my pajamas on the floor. MOST FLATTERING PHOTO EVER. 

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And, um, that's about it. I'm almost done with the Goob Sweater. I'm on the neck ribbing. Once that's half-grated down, I'll graft the arm pits, darn in the ends, and it's done.I could do it in a day if I'd quit freaking the hell out.

Pictures soon.