Leaping Molly

I started it in 2012, finished it last night, and prepped it for final wearing today, this leap day.

After taking a class from JC Briar and appreciating her description of the construction of the sweater she wore, I purchased the kit at Stitches West in 2012 from Shelridge Yarns and started pretty quickly.

A month later there were some issues, and some separation was needed.  I might have picked up a bad habit along the way.

Progress a year later?  Two steps forward and nearly two steps backward.

Reconciliation occurred soon afterward. There was commitment to bring this beauty forward.

Finally, half of the piece was finished!  Wearing it was a dream.  Still more to do, though. It became the piece I dedicated myself to each February, commemorating Stitches West. And the sleeves took three (3) years to complete.

I would have been lost if I had not taken notes.

The notes saved me and reflected the amount of planning, work, and rework that I devoted to this piece over the years.

My struggles with the piece are a reflection of my desire to speed things up and not pay attention to the pattern in front of me.  I have no regrets from this experience, and I hope I am a better knitter.

JC Briar is a fantastic designer.  The pattern is beautifully designed and very well written.  You can find it here, and purchase it here.

Molly

Venus de Molly awaits arms (sleeves), although this version is also acceptable. Feels like a good dream.

Planning ahead for the sleeves.

SW 2013

I'll start with a summary of the damage report:

fiber ... yarn and hardware.

There was reconciliation with Molly.

There were daily visits to A Verb for Keeping Warm's booth and Lisa Souza's booth. Because it's good to visit kind souls and beauty.

I took Andrea Wong's class on "Knitting in the Portuguese style", where the yarn is tensioned around the back of one's neck. I've seen pictures of South Americans knitting in this manner, and apparently this method is also used in areas of Asia and the Middle East, too. The tension created by looping the yarn around the neck actually assists in maneuvering the yarn at the needles. The left hand thumb flicks the working yarn over the right needle tip. When I use this technique I'll need to swatch to get gage. It's quite different from "English" and "Continental" methods that I currently use interchangebly.

I also took Galina Khmeleva's class on "Spinning for Lace Knitting." Great introduction to precious fine fibers and spinning with a traditional Russian supported spindle.

The left photo shows samples of singles on spindles as well as plied yarn in balls. The right photo shows my sequential single of cashmere, buffalo, pygora, and quiviut winding onto the plying spindle with white silk. Oo-la-la.

The yarn on the round card is from class; the yarn on the square card is my practice yarn after class. Plies need more twist, I see.


Here's a fitting toast to the entire experience. It was wonderful.

Order, chaos, order

I thought this was going so smoothly. Then I saw that I didn't increase for the hips. And then I saw something else that happened much MUCH earlier. So I had no other choice.

I resumed knitting but there's now a new issue I discovered in the area I resurrected. I cannot write about this now. It is sitting in the project bag in a corner of my room, and I look at it occasionally, wondering how to solve the problem.

==
Here's a new venture! Double weave that makes doubled cloth.

The advice is to warp the loom back to front, but I chose to warp front to back.

Data: sock yarn, 2/dent, 15d reed. It takes twice as long to warp because the number of ends is 2x - it being a double weave and all. (Obvious? but I need to tell myself these things.)

Observations: the yarn is very sticky, especially with the close spacing. Turning the back beam while warping puts alot of tension on the fiber, and is likely why warping back to front was advised. High tension is needed during weaving so that the yarns can pass by each other in the same dent.

Shot

A shot of Jamesons to steel oneself.

I needed to rip out an inch but soon saw that there were other issues that required redoing, so I planned to take it down to the pencil. The first rows were the most difficult to rip out. I slowly pulled the yarn and heard each stitch pop and saw the time I spent on this heap up in that tangled pile of undone knitting.

Once I reached the intended pencil-row, though, I saw more flaws. What the heck, I continued to rip out stitches, pulling the yarn with long easy sweeps.

It's easier to pick up dropped stitches when you're relaxed.

Ready to start again.

I celebrated with a shot of Bushmills.