home! part 2– yarn purchases, FO’s, and toys!

holy god, it’s been awhile since i posted about knitting. well, hopefully this post will make up for it.

FO: baby’s first endpapers
Pattern: eunny jang’s endpaper mitts
Yarn: j. knits superwash me sock in providence and bristol yarn gallery buckingham in natural
Needles: US Size 0 and 1
Started: April 2, 2008
Finished: May 1, 2008

i mentioned that i’d finished these, and on saturday i finally got a chance to take some photos. i love the way these turned out, and it’s actually given me a new curiosity about small gauge knitting. it’s so much easier on your wrists and shoulders! i gave these mitts fingers because i couldn’t imagine a time that i’d want wool gloves without fingers (either it’s cold out or it isn’t… and in toronto it’s much more likely to be the former). i also cast on using TECHknitter’s genius provisional tail method of 1×1 tubular cast on. i made the wrist extremely small (about 5″ around, unstretched) and then increased more often during the thumb gusset so that it measures about 6″ around the palm. this way, they fit me “like a glove” (for lack of less lame expression). anyways, i love them, and i’m sure they’ll get a lot of use when (god forbid) the weather begins to cool off again.

my only complaint was the j. knits yarn. the colourway is absolutely gorgeous, but while i was knitting it made me sort of sneezy and itchy. DH, who’s more sensitive to wool than i am, had to leave the room while i skeined it. after i finished knitting, i washed them thoroughly before blocking and they didn’t give me any more trouble. i assume this is a personal allergy and not a flaw with the yarn, but i don’t think i’ll buy it again for this reason.

FO: 1-hour camera cozy
Pattern: none
Yarn: berroco comfort
Needles: machine knit
Started: May 3, 2008
Finished: May 3, 2008

saturday morning i opened the new digital camera and used my endpaper mitt as a case. which worked fine, except that it was cold and i probably should have been wearing the gloves. when i got home, i noticed my old knitting machine and decided to play around with some of my new yarn. an hour later, i was seaming and adding buttons. i really like the case despite how basic it is, and i hope i get to play around with the machine again in the future (it was too big to take home on the plane)

i absolutely loved working with this yarn. i took a total leap of faith making my first online yarn order with WEBS and berroco comfort was everything i was hoping for.

speaking of that WEBS order, here it is in full:

berroco comfort. i LOVE this yarn– it’s my new favourite acrylic (sorry caron simply soft!). the gauge is slightly larger and it has a stretchiness and sheen that i haven’t seen before. i don’t even know what to make with this. i just want to wrap up in it. maybe a bainbridge scarf

SWTC twize. this yarn was also a leap of faith. i knew i loved the feel of bamboo but the fibre construction of this yarn is very different. it has a bunch of tiny ply’s in a bunch of different colours that are very loosely spun. from far away, it almost looks like a variegated yarn knit at a small gauge. again, this yarn is unbelievably soft, and has the shininess that you’d expect from a bamboo yarn. i did a swatch on size 5’s (smaller than recommended but they were the largest needles i had with me) and got 6 st/in. my only problem so far is that the first yarn i inspected had a big ol’ knot right on the outside of the skein. not a good sign. sigh. oh well.

classic elite inca print. yummy. nice, fluffy alpaca in gorgeous colours. nuff said.

i also had some yarn waiting for me from brooklyn handspun:

it’s instant gratification in “lazy day”. i’ll be honest here– i was speaking to marie about which type of yarn i should get and initially wanted soft spun. she explained that she only picks extremely soft yarn and reccomended instant gratification since it would knit at a larger gauge, and i agreed, even though i really didn’t believe her. let me tell you, marie is NOT a liar. this 100% merino is INCREDIBLE. it feels so close to the inca print 100% alpaca i couldn’t even tell the difference with my eyes closed. i will never doubt her again :). i swatched it on a pair of 4’s and got 7 st and 8 rows/in.

going home to NY also meant shopping! everything here in toronto is way too expensive, so things like wii games, books, and knitting supplies have been neglected up until now.

my first EZ book! i don’t know why i never bought one before, but i flipped through knitting without tears at B&N and no longer had an excuse not to buy it. such great tips! i also got drawn into victorian lace today which sounded kind of dorky and lame, but it turned out to be SO interesting. i guess that makes me dorky and lame. but i’ve been really interested in lace since i knit the swallowtail shawl and haven’t been able to find any lace that was “my style”– everything i see i can only imagine on my grandmother. some of the stuff here is sort of frumpy, but some is so amazingly intricate and modern. i think my first project from this book will be the curved shawl– love those lace circles.

i also made my way around to a bunch of yarn stores. we were only there for two days so i couldn’t get to all of them, but i tried to rate them in importance and convenience.

first in both categories was knitty city. since it opened a few years ago, it seems that this has been the premier yarn store to everyone in the city. i’d been there a few times but they were always very busy so i never felt welcome. i was surprised when i walked in that there were actually only a few other people shopping. the cashier welcomed me and we had a conversation while i searched their DPNs. the store owner came over and introduced herself to me, and after a quick but very friendly conversation she asked if i would be interested in having my i <3 NY hat pattern in her store. i promptly freaked out, purchased my needles, and proceeded to call my entire direct family to brag. we haven’t finalized anything yet but hopefully within the next week or so i’ll be able to say i have a pattern in the best yarn store in the best city in the world.

after hearing a truckload of good reviews of yarntopia, i trekked all the way up there to check it out. the store was empty, aside from the cashier and her friend sitting and chatting with each other, and i wasn’t terribly impressed by the yarn selection or prices. i’d heard on the ravelry forums that they had addi’s for $13, but the prices had all been ticketed over with a new price of $16.99. i picked up a pack of susan bates DPN sock set and hightailed it outta there. don’t think i’ll be stopping in again.

i also managed to get to stitches east. i was perplexed that there was a store right in midtown that i must have walked by a billion times and never even noticed. when i got there, i realized why i never saw it before. it’s tucked away in a plaza on a side street with no signage at all. the store was empty. there are no prices on any of the yarns, and i felt like i would have been bothering the old lady behind the counter if i asked (she was on the phone and didn’t even say hi when i walked in). there were prices handwritten on a few of the needles and they were not impressive. i think the only way i’d go here again was if i desperately needed something and couldn’t get to the west side or to the yarn connection (again, not a good store– but closer to my parents’ apartment and at least they talk to you!– not to be confused with the yarn co. on the upper west side which i would not go to with a gun to my head.)

on my way to stitches east, i passed lee’s– which experience told me was an overpriced, stuffy art supply store, but curiosity convinced me to at least take a look in. sure enough, prices were still cheaper than curry’s or aboveground in toronto and they’ve expanded their craft section to include felt and yarn. yes, lee’s art store– that pretentious department-style art shop– now carries lion brand. i picked up some eucalan and a dry erase board in the form of a wallpaper roll. if i knew how awful stitches was going to be, i would have taken a closer look at the lion brand organic cotton.

well, i promised toys, didn’t i? one of my goals this weekend was to find something i could use to make a swift. the original plan was tinkertoys, but i only had time for one store, and essentials plus didn’t have any. plan B: k’nex. fast forward to that night and i present to you: the k’nex swift.

i need one more yellow piece and one more orange connector for the arms. they’re not even right now. but i’m not sure i want to buy a whole second set, considering it works fine being a little off balance.

when i got home i googled k’nex yarn swift and noticed a lot of people have made a lot cooler versions, but i’m pretty sure i don’t have enough pieces to recreate any of them. this one’s sort of minimal. but it works so heyy, i have my very first yarn swift!!

geez, that’s a lot of blogging for one day. time to play with the fun new yarns…

EDIT:

made the swift a bit sturdier. just a few mods in case anyone’s gonna use this setup:

sturdier base (since the k’nex are kind of bendy it was falling over a bit)

bigger arms:

home! part 1– agenda

boy do i love new york. i’ve been feeling so crappy in toronto that i figured i was just becoming a melodramatic manic depressive, but everything i remembered about the city (and assumed was nostalgia) is even better than i expected.

i ended my last post on the brink of tears, making statements about how the universe was somehow out to get me and that i was going to be stuck in ontario for the rest of my life. rereading it, i am put back into that mindset, and can only say that i am so glad for porter air. no, the flight was not perfect. a lot went wrong, and at times i was worried about everything from being stuck in toronto to drowning in a turboprop plane. but we DID get off the ground and landed only 4 and a half hours late in newark. my history with airlines could be seven hundred blog posts, but i’ll hold back and just say that it is extraordinarily rare for a plane i’m on to actually take off. this time, i figured if i’m going to end up back at home at the end of the night, i wanted to fly out of the downtown airport (walking distance from my apartment)– and porter just added a route to NY

it wasn’t exactly enticing when the intercom in the airport lounge announced that a plane from ottawa had “missed the runway”, but it was even worse when it came on an hour later stating that the plane from montreal was going to “try to land”. egh. it did, and we got to newark at around 1am saturday morning. we were hungry, scared, cold, and tired, but we were finally home a mere hour later.

DH and i stayed at my parent’s apartment in midtown, and even though i spent the first seventeen years of my life here, it feels strangely unfamiliar.

there’s something both comforting and disconcerting about a place that is constantly evolving, and i’m not sure which feeling comes through more. there is also a static undertone that exists in “old new york”– my breakfast at tal bagel was exactly the same as my breakfasts there ten years ago. delicious. even though my starbucks across the street had closed (and nearly given me a heart attack), i walked about two blocks and found another one, where my latte had exactly the right combination of ingredients. i met up with DH and the in-laws, and we stopped by emack and bolio’s which was delicious as always– even though jarod (the owner) was doing his best to convince mike and i not to move to new hampshire. i couldn’t stay mad while eating a free ice cream cone, so no harm done.

for dinner, i just wanted plain old americanized chinese food. not fancy like shun lee, or glorified like lili’s. just some hole in the wall with a menu written in engrish and some sweet, sticky brown sauce. we just wandered into a random place and, of course, it hit the spot. grand sichuan was absolutely the best chinese food i’ve had in at least a year. it’s probably not the best in new york or anything like that, but considering it was just a random walk-in, it was infinitely better than the most highly rated chinese food in toronto. (mike got a bubble tea, and it was actually extremely good, even though their ad campaign baffles me)

after dinner, i looked down at my totally busted rainboots. i’ve been wearing them for almost two years, and of course the rubber has given out and been replaced by duct tape. i had only ever seen these boots at one store, so we took a quick trip to 8th street and macdougal (don’t know the name of the store but it’s next to underground tattoo) and sure enough they still had the boots! i even got 10% off because the owner was either tickled or embarrassed by the fact that i was still wearing these destroyed boots years later.

sunday night was magnificent– it was warm with a light breeze, and so clear that the lights off the city just barely reflected off the clouds, making the black, starless sky look more like a computer background than reality. we walked for miles and sat in quiet tudor park until we couldn’t stay awake any longer.

the flight home monday afternoon was all i could ask for– we took off on time and arrived early. having the customs inspection in the TCCA is incredibly quick and simple. the shuttle bus took us right to the subway which got us home in a matter of ten minutes. i couldn’t have planned a better weekend.

next up– part 2– yarn purchases, FO’s, and toys!

luck

i don’t believe in luck. but just for the next few minutes i’m going to give it a try.

a few months ago was the first bearded hat fiasco– in which a mailing envelope, although duct taped closed, was actually cut open (not ripped, torn, etc), the contents were stolen, and the envelope was delivered empty. i managed to get the next version hand-delivered (my parents were visiting a few weeks later, and the recipient lives in NY) and stopped using the postal system for the most part. instead of ordering online, i bought nearly everything local, which turned out to be exhausting with the awful prices here (addi’s are around $13 online and in NY, but closer to $20 in downtown toronto plus 15% tax). I also tried ordering online and having it shipped to my parents, meaning pretty much all the yarn i’ve bought in the last four months is still sitting in its box, waiting on my old bedroom floor.

aside from some ridiculous customs fees on DH’s birthday presents and slow postage on our premieres movies, i’ve avoided mail and completely forgot about its frustrations. until now. (ominous/corny *dun dun dunnnnn*)

for my birthday, i asked my father for a new camera. the last one i bought was a fujifilm finepix about… six and a half years ago? (i can’t believe it’s been that long!) which stopped turning on last month, hence the awful camera phone photos with which i have embarrassingly filled this blog. anyway, i asked him for a sony cyber-shot. yesterday i finally asked if it had come, and he said that the box had been cut open, emptied, and resealed before it was delivered to him. sony won’t give him a refund, so now he has to file a freight claim and in the meantime generously ordered another and had it expedited so that it would be there when i fly in this weekend. very nice of him indeed, but is this what mail has come to? ordering two of something and then waiting for someone out in the customer service world to “award” you a refund for something they did?

is this just me? how can other people use postal services if everyone has luck like this? is it luck, or am i on a no-mail list somewhere? (when i asked that to my DH, he responded, “well, you are a gnome”)

ok. i now cease to believe in bad luck, once again, and will continue my search for a ball winder for under $40 in downtown toronto

ps. i know i said i wouldn’t post again until the endpapers were done. well, they are. but i’ll post about them when i get back from NY so i can actually post pretty photos for the first time in a long time

have a good rainy weekend, ya’ll

edited to add: luck or no luck, if my flight out of here tonight gets canceled i swear i will cry. i’ve been living in toronto for a year now and i think i’ve actually managed to fly once… and it was after sleeping at pearson. this time i’m flying out of TCCA and the weather is not promising. but i have been too excited about this trip for a little wind and rain to get in the way!!! i called customer service and they said if there was a weather related delay that the airline would shuttle us to another airport and fly from there… i don’t believe them, but if it’s true, porter will be my new favourite airline. otherwise, it’s gonna be megabus to buffalo where we can catch jetblue from now on. *fingers crossed, tissues ready*

recovering from a transit-free weekend

well, last weekend was the knitter’s frolic, which was amazing– no thanks to the TTC who inconveniently and unwarningly went on strike a mere eight hours before the frolic. i could rant for pages about how angry this makes me, but i’ll hold back. really. i will. the JCCC was packed regardless of the strike, so i can’t even imagine how it would have been if everyone had managed to get there.

i’m off to nyc this weekend so i tried to restrain myself– no more addi’s– although they were 25% off at just about every stand, the american MSRP is about that anyway. my goal was to pick out a small amount of beautiful, local, handspun/handdyed yarn, and i think i managed to do it. for under $80, i might add.

skein#1- sweet sheep superwash merino. 980 yds!! i’ve been wanting to make a variegated clapotis for awhile now but didn’t want to worry about odd colour changes– talk about late to the bandwagon– but i’ve never seen a skein this large before. perfect! did i mention it’s beautiful? brighter than in this photo. i’ll take a new one when i get that new camera.

skein #2- hand maiden 2 ply silk cashmere. i had never heard of this brand before, but it seemed to be stocked at half the stands so obviously i’m recovering from some strange gorgeous-yarn-blindness, and thank god! i spent a good hour at various stands picking out exactly which colourway and fibre i wanted to start with, and ended up in a sale section holding this. it’s brighter in person as well, and insanely soft. i unravelled it to show the colour variegation but i can’t really manage to do it justice in a low quality photo. i have no idea what this is going to be, but something about it calls out to spirogyra

i also have some brooklyn handspun waiting for me in new york. i’ll be writing up a pattern of some sort. i think arm warmers, but that might change since i seem to be in an arm warmer kick right now.

last thing–endpapers are coming along. i had to mod them a bit but wanted to leave them at least looking like endpapers. but so far so good– i really like them and they’re super warm (seriously, i break out in a sweat everytime i try them on)

on a side note, i think i’m going to be writing here a little less in the future. or at least make an effort to. for some reason it’s easier for me to procrastinate and document progress than actually sit down and knit. and because of that i’ve been posting stuff lately that even i don’t care about– like what i did that day. if my mother doesn’t even care, why would the internet? i’m going to restrain myself from posting again until at least the endpapers are done. i hope.

spring cleaning

is it even still spring? i can’t keep up with the weather here in toronto.

i was really hoping to post the “spring cleaning” song from rocko’s modern life here, but it seems viacom took it off youtube and i can’t embed myspace videos, so… here’s the best substitute i could find.

anyways, after i wrote that last post this morning i looked around my apartment and realized the amount of school crap that i still have laying around. my WIP bin is in disregard, and i even had a few… erm, misplaced WIPs that i could only hope were not going to turn up under the couch alog with a gaping hole in the leather. it was time for some spring cleaning (*queue rocko’s modern life here*)

the WIP bin, obviously, was of utmost importance so it got done first.

let me tell you, untangling hundreds of yards of sock yarn is something i would definitely like to avoid in the future. so now all WIPs are beautifully seperated in grocery bags. not pretty but hopefully effective.

next, the couch and floor. guess what? i found the min cardi sleeve! lookie!

you might think, how much stuff could possibly been covering that? it’s pretty obvious, right? i must not have looked for it.

this is what was on top of it.

i am ashamed to share this with the entire web, but i am glad to have this out of my couch and in the recycling bin.

i also frogged the endpaper mitts. i wasn’t sure if i had enough of the off white yarn and wanted to remeasure. good thing– i don’t. these are gonna have to be a lot shorter than i planned. plus, the ribbing was REALLY messy and i just came across a new provisional tail method cast on on TECHknitting (my new obsession, by the way) which would be a perfect solution. plus, frogging gave me yet another opportunity to appreciate the pretty yarns

the cast on was sort of hard to deal with on size 0 needles, but well worth it. i now officially love this method and will be using it as often as i can, along with the matching bind off

that’s all for now. i want to work on these mitts all night and just get them done but DH made plans with friends and i’m expected to participate. i’m pretty sure neglecting friends for a habit is one of the signs of addiction so i might as well make an effort to not think about knitting every waking minute. or maybe just tonight. or maybe i’ll bring the mitts along, just in case, yaknow

neverending WIPs

ok so it’s been a little while since i’ve posted a FO. thankfully, yesterday was my last final! i still don’t have much to show, but i thought i should at least post progress photos

the two-tone ribbed shrug. oh my god this ribbing is SO boring. and it doesn’t help that my stupid boye needlemasters won’t stay together.this has become my before-bed project because i fall asleep after about a row (although i love the way it looks!)

kirby hat. this one is inspired by Mysterious on craftster, except i wanted to make one that was inhaling your head rather than holding it. it started off alright–just a basic earflap hat, a little longer in the back

then i started the embroidery, feet first

looks alright, right? sure. except…

it’s backwards! so now i have to tear out the hat up to the bottom of the feet…

now do you see why i haven’t finished anything lately? everything will be done in due time. or at least that’s what i keep telling myself. the min cardi hasn’t seen much progress– one sleeve is almost done but now i can’t find it so that doesn’t help anything. tomorrow is the knitter’s frolic. as if i didn’t have enough yarn. i’m ridiculously excited, though– hopefully DH and i can get there before all the good stuff’s sold out.

this conversation

is about cheese

i die laughing every time i watch this. DH and i are in the process of watching all of both seasons of big love on DVD right now (we don’t have cable, let alone HBO) and i can’t believe it but we’re almost out of shows. c’mon, HBO– we need season 3!!

what is the breaking point?

i am well aware of the american dream. white picket fence, 2.2 kids, a dog, and a three-car garage. maybe i am the sort of person who always questions this sort of thing, but here i feel i can at least ask the outside world– when will this generation of american dreamers alter their standards? even if gas supplies last another fifty years, what is the breaking point? when will people change their lifestyles and finally refuse to pay these insane prices for a completely standardized dream?

my husband works construction in downtown. we live downtown. he walks to work, i walk to school. people he works with don’t believe we can afford a condo downtown, and they just assume that he makes a lot more money than they do. he doesn’t. we just don’t have a car. with prices the way they are, both in real estate and gas, his coworkers are moving further and further outside the city, therefore paying more and more for gas– but since it registers to them as a necessity they will not consider any alternative way to live. these people were always told that this was the dream. commuting 2 or 3 hours on congested highways, paying out most of their wage in gas, and wasting hours of their lives in the drivers seat. as the price rises, they will sacrifice anything for this dream, even if it includes commuting hours and hours and paying hundreds of dollars in gas every day.

today, gas is $1.25/L here in toronto. that’s nearly $5/gallon for you americans. for the last week, there has been a talk of a transit strike– luckily it didn’t happen, but what was the city’s plan? main streets are HOV lanes. parking only on side streets. it’s suddenly a good idea to turn a bustling, lively metropolis into a crowded highway. how about closing off main streets to cars? rent out bikes for the price of a transit pass. ask people to walk. yeah, that thing with your legs. believe it or not, it uses no oil and can actually be good for you. especially since this week is going to be absolutely beautiful. i know a lot of people without cars have made plans to purchase bikes and that’s great– but it’s not an inconvenience like they think it is. it’s an excuse to get out and take your bike for a ride. as long as the rider considers it a problem that they’re on a bike, it will be one. it’s the mentality that has to change here, even though some peoples actions are becoming more productive reflexively.

this isn’t about sustainability or the war on iraq. or any other buzzword or generic headline. this is a mentality. america’s railroads have been left to become rusty metal in the prairies, and the most important thing in the news is how much more money you will be paying in gas, not whether or not you should use your car tomorrow. in england they scoff at us– there are trains that pass through every town. they are affordable and run relatively on time, so it is almost completely unnecessary to have a car. amtrak and via rail have an enormous market share here in north america, but are pathetic as far as usability goes. we need something better if this car-centric lifestyle is ever going to change.

i know lots of people depend on their cars right now. big families, people in rural areas or even suburbia, etc. i’m not saying cars should be banned. i’m just searching for an alternative dream– one for kids right now who don’t want to look into their future and see themselves paying $10/gal at the pump. i know it’s not as convenient and i could go on with problems and solutions for a long, long time. meanwhile, if you’re reading this, think about a way you can use your car a little less today. the world won’t thank you, but your wallet just might.

EDITED TO ADD:
i thought it might be a good idea to include some links here, for those of you who might be interested in being part of the solution.

if you absolutely can’t stand the idea of giving up your beloved car, there’s always the prius, but if you want to go one step further than that, check out hybrid technologies, who are modifying some gas guzzlers into full electrics. almost 200 miles per charge can surely get you to the soccer field and back, and it seems they might actually drive better than the common car. it is completely noiseless and emits zero emissions.

if you don’t have the $25 grand to invest in something that only loses value over time (and don’t ever want to drive on a highway again), you might want to take a look at the gizmo, a neighboorhood electric vehicle with a more limited battery and a top speed of 45 mph. for only 12 grand, you can’t take the kids to soccer practice, but you can get to the grocery store. (yeah, 45 mph, not so great– but for those of you in NYC, how often do you go more than 45 anyway?)

if you’re more open to riding your bike but hate how open it makes you to the elements (and don’t care how silly you look), check out the velomobile, a human-powered vehicle (aka bicycle) with a hard covering so you don’t get rained on.

obviously, hybrid and electric vehicle transport has a long way to go, but i know that i personally can pledge to depend on mass transit only until someone comes out with a better , more functional electric vehicle. i hope some people out there are waiting out with me

fo: freedom hat

this little guy took about four days total, but it could’ve been done in two if i’d actually sat down and just done it. in fact, i think more time went into charting the patterns than actually knitting.

(click to enlarge)

Pattern: double knit earflap hat
Yarn: caron simply soft in dark country blue and blue sky organic cotton in natural (colour #81)
Needles: US Size 7 and 5
Started: April 10, 2008
Finished: April 14, 2008

it’s got a few alterations from the pattern, but mostly the same. the one major change is that i grafted the seams to make them look continuous. if you’re going to do this, make sure you try it on because grafting is NOT stretchy and if you make it too small it will suck. it looks really good though– i wish there was something similar i could do on the earflap seams because now those REALLY bother me.

other than that, all that’s different is the pattern. the amagi pattern is described in my post below, along with the chart. the porcupine is adapted from the free state project logo below. this one is done in regular double knit (reversible) so that he’s always facing foward.

this logo also influenced the colour choice, although the blue i used is a little darker than this. i tried to get all the libertarian propaganda i could into one garment, while still making a very subtle front. i wish i had done all this on a smaller gauge, though, because both designs look quite pixelated. next time i’ll try adapting one of these on size 3 or 4’s and i’ll write up another version of the pattern.

i suppose that’s all for now. i’d love to know what ya’ll think!

by the way, i never did think of a better name. if you do, PLEASE let me know.

ama-gi

from wikipedia: “Ama-gi is an ancient Sumerian word (AMA.GI) thought to mean “freedom”. It is believed to be the first instance of humans using writing to represent that concept.”

i wanted to knit this on my next hat (which i have so far deemed “the freedom hat”– i know– it’s just a working title) but didn’t want to have it reverse on one side as with regular double knitting because well… who knows what kind of bad karma would result from reversing the symbol for freedom? that’s nothing i want to tap into right now.

so i mocked up a chart…

and then bent my mind and made it reversible (i’ll explain below– it’s not as complicated as it looks. well, actually it sort of is)

and here’s my swatch! look, no bad karma!! fantastic. for the record this is a long-tail cast on that’s been knit in the front and purled in the back of each stitch, with a grafted top seam. i think i’m gonna put this on the nape of the hat… right in between the earflaps.

once i finished, i realized that this was something NOBODY would notice. like, not even a knitter would imagine how complicated and annoying this chart is. but i still think its an amazing thing to be able to conceptualize so let me try to explain it…

a quick tutorial on charting for non-reversible double knitting: (click any photo to enlarge)

OK so here’s the thing about double knit charts. usually, with regular, reversible double knitting, the colours are worked in pairs– one stitch on the front (knit) side and one on the back (purl) side. these stitches are represented together on one square of the chart. in order to work a reversible design, these stitches will ALWAYS be opposite one another. so it’s not hard to imagine that by working a different colour pattern in the front and back, you can make a non-reversible pattern. great, concept: over. the hard part is actually charting it.

start with any colourwork chart. i’ll use my own as an example:

now, in order to have a different pattern in the front and back, add an extra stitch in between each column. now what’s below is just the stitches you will be making on the RS. the stitches in between are for the WS

copy and paste that image, mirror it, and invert the colours. these are the WS stitches.

then place it on top of the first image, shifted one cell to the right. confused? yeah.

at this point, i inverted the colours of the whole chart– this isn’t really necessary, but i wanted the dark and light yarns to correspond with the squares on the chart.

so when you’re ready to begin, instead of each square corresponding to two stitches, one in front and one in back, each stitch will now have its own. you will still switch off knitting and purling, ensuring that each side retains its stockinette appearance, but the colours will read more like a fair isle chart. when working, you will zigzag through the rows. i began at the top left and worked right, and then the next row down worked from the right to the left.

one major difference between a regular dk chart and this method is that on a regular chart, worked flat, the chart is only colour accurate every other row. in other words, since the RS and WS colours switch every row, the chart doesn’t correspond to which colour you are working, just when you will be working the MC or CC. with this chart, the colour on the chart will always represent the colour you are working.

basically, you’re knitting the same thing, but from two different ends of the chart, so that they will appear the same on both sides and not mirrored. you could do this with two completely different images as well– just place one chart every other column, and the other in the spaces in between. eventually you’ll get used to knitting this way and it actually doesn’t take as long as you’d think

well. i hope i helped at least someone grasp this concept. if anything is unclear, leave a comment or send me an email and i’ll gladly clarify. it’s something that’s really fascinating to me and i’ll probably have more on this subject in the weeks to come (i just finished my last class of the semester– summer break, woohoo!)