I’ve been informed that it’s mildly terrifying when, in the midst of free-skeining (which is bad enough), I give up and toss my yarn on the floor, letting it turn into this.
But I don’t see what the big deal is—moments later it turns to this!
Apparently it freaks out other knitters, though.
(Wait! Come back! Don’t run screaming from the blog!)
So about a week and a half ago, at about three in the morning, I said on Twitter that I wished I could teach a math for knitters course; I love math, I love knitting, I really love teaching, so it seemed a natural extension. Immediately after tweeting, I thought to myself, why the heck can’t I? So I started putting together a class list and all of these ideas on what I wanted to teach, and even generated an outline for the first class. I figured within a month or two I could even start posting the classes for sale.
Then Dani showed up here on her Craft Culture summer tour, and, in a terrifying take no prisoners tone, told me that I would be publishing the first class by Sunday. As in tomorrow. I told her she was crazy, but we went to my usual coffeeshop on Thursday, where we spent 8 hours working and chatting.
By the end, my class was pretty much done, and she had written a book proposal, which made me feel both really accomplished and also like my life is really, really ridiculous, because this is what I do for a living.
But the upside is, now you can have a class!
Math for Knitters
There are plenty of tutorials, calculators, and other helpful guides out there to instruct you on how to customize patterns, how to shape a sleeve cap, how to calculate rates of increases and decreases for a proper fit. Here’s the thing, though: for the math-averse, it can be overwhelming! To be told nothing more than to take x stitches over y inches and make that equal to the ratio of z stitches over some other seemingly made up number… it’s mind boggling. And worse, when it doesn’t quite turn out the result you intended, it can be nearly impossible to figure out exactly what went wrong—and how to make it better.
These classes are designed to demystify the math and make the logic behind the numbers easier to understand, as well as provide insight into what makes knitting go. Rather than simply providing formulas or instructions for how to calculate your way through your knitting, this course seeks to examine why and how these equations work in a friendly, non-intimidating format. It is not about understanding knitting through math; rather, it’s about understanding math through knitting.
Highly recommended for those of you who love to learn and are looking to get more out of your knitting.
CLASS 1 (available here)
Pre-algebra and an introduction to knitting math; full description available at the product page.
CLASS 2
Algebra and gauge math, including but not limited to discussions on swatches, ratios, basic upsizing and downsizing, and yarn substitution.
CLASS 3
Geometry and fit, including but not limited to how to allow for curves, measuring for the right fit, and short rows vs. darts.
CLASS 4
Advanced algebra and shaping techniques, including but not limited to working with stitch patterns, knitting as word problems, and keeping track of several different pieces of shaping at the same time.
CLASS 5
Math for designing from scratch, including but not limited to complex shaping and systems of equations, sleeve cap math, and grading patterns to fit a variety of shapes and sizes.
CLASS 6
A full tutorial on a completely custom fit, choose your own adventure sweater.
All of these classes will be available in the shop for $10 each. Purchase of any class includes free support via email on all of the mathematics presented in that class, as well as a discount on my mathematics consulting services. Those who purchase the first five classes will receive 50% off the final class; when the series is completed, it will be compiled into an e-book, available for $55. (Those who have purchased the entire series previously can also receive the full e-book at this time for no extra charge.)
And if you’d like to hear me blather on further about it, I talked a bit about it on this week’s episode of Dani’s Craft Culture podcast.
New shop: I haz it! And there’s a shiny new splash page up, too.
There are still a few minor details here and there to tweak with the cart software, and I’d love to have your help—so anyone who purchases something today from the new site and tells me how it goes will get 25% refunded from their purchase price. Happy shopping!
The heat heard me asking if it had gone, and came back with a vengeance. Oof.
Fortunately I thought ahead and knit a tank top.
Pattern: Elvira (all grown up) by Sanne Bjerregaard
Yarn: Knitpicks Comfy Fingering Weight in Blackberry (with thanks to my local yarn friends for helping me break out of my green/blue color rut), 5 skeins
Needles: US1.5/2.5mm and US2.5/3mm Knitpicks fixed circulars and Addi Turbos, respectively
Buttons: from the stash, three small vintage metal seashells
Mods: Full modification notes are on Ravelry; I used a smaller gauge and added bust and waist shaping to keep it from looking like a pretty purple potato sack. Also, I sewed the back of the yoke closed (but added buttons anyway because come on, this is me we’re talking about here. I love buttons.)
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go lie in front of the fan and put all thoughts of wool out of my mind.
Okay, seriously. Something about the first summer heat wave just melts my brain completely. I’m behind on blogging, my inbox is a mess, I have packages to mail out that are refusing to walk themselves to the post office. But! The heat broke last night, and it’s gorgeous out now (I even had to turn my fan down), so I think I can finally brain again.
Er. Maybe.
So! There’s a lot to catch up on here. First things first, my seasonally inappropriate sweater, let me show you it:
I love, love, love this sweater. I love, love, love when something just comes together as it’s supposed to with a minimum of fuss. (The pattern writing is a different story—but my test knitters are on it.) And hopefully at some point soon I can get together with Ellen for some photoshoot fun.
Then I decided I needed a quick diversion project while waiting for yarn on a secret project, so I cast on for a modified Hyrna Herborgar. Er, which I finished five days later.
Of course then I realized that (unblocked, at least) it looks like a giant lettuce leaf when wrapped around my neck, and I hate lettuce. So I’ll send it off to someone who will appreciate it! The modifications I made were stupid simple; I really love the double yarn over columns that the first part of the chart makes, so I just continued working that over and over again until I was just about out of yarn, at which point I did the transition charts just to close the columns into tidy little points. This is definitely a version I’ll be knitting again. But not for myself, because I never seem to knit any variation of Hyrna for myself.
And my secret yarn still isn’t here, so I cast on for a tank top.
A tank top which looks awfully small, though I’ve tried it on several times and it does fit. I suppose we’ll see in a few days when I finish and block it! (And please pardon the terrible picture. It was knit night, there was alcohol, I was giggling too hard to hold the camera steady.)
That’s all I’ve got, really; the site’s undergoing some clean up and re-organizing in preparation to finally launch the on-site shop, I’m hoping to catch up on some email today, and maybe if I’m very, very lucky, my secret yarn will get here. I’ll let you know how it goes!
I haz it.
I don’t know what occurred between last month (which was full of knitting fail) and this month (which is already almost at two finished sweaters). Did Mercury leave retrograde or something? Whatever the reason, I’m glad that it’s happened. And I really, really love this sweater. I love the hem, I love the neck, I love the cables up the sleeves.
I really, really love the ultra-fitted seamless shoulders:
I have a problem with a lot of store-bought clothes (and handknit sweater patterns, really) with there being far too much fabric for my narrow shoulders—but that’s the glory of designing! I can make my shoulders as short as I want! So I did. (The pattern will have shoulders sized to fit normal people, and of course I’m always happy to advise on adjusting the fit.)
All that’s left now is to graft up the underarms, come up with a plan for the shawl collar (I’ll do those today), knit the shawl collar (tomorrow), and then give the whole thing a good block and hopefully get rid of the curling at the hem. Then I’ll enlist the help of my trusty tech editor to make the pattern go, and you can have one too.
Just in time for the middle of summer! Because I’m all about seasonally appropriate knits.
can I knit this sweater? Can I finish it in another week? That’s going to be about all the time I have before work begins on a secret project with a tight deadline that I really need to meet.
Fortunately so far I haven’t hit any major roadblocks—the sleeves are done
and while out tonight (er, last night, at this point) I worked up a swatch of the motif that’s going to appear at the hem.
I had to make some minor adjustments to it so it’ll flow well on the actual sweater, but I cast on and worked the first round and it looks like it’ll fit just fine. But I’ll never get it done in time if I don’t go knit it, so I’m off to see if I can knock out a few more rounds before bed.
But before that, because we haven’t had Caturday in forever,
I don’t know what’s gotten into me. After a few days of total knitting burnout, all of a sudden I am all sweaters all the time. I cranked out a quick test knit for (surprise!) Laura.
This is pre-blocking—after a wash the shoulders no longer stick up like that! I’m going to find a cute dress so I can do a for real photoshoot for it, because it is super adorable.
Then I worked up the courage to rip out a significant portion of the Kata pullover. Emphasis on ‘significant’—
all the way back to the waist shaping! Honestly, there was a lot more wrong with it than just the shoulders, and now that I’ve gained some distance (and with it, perspective), I’m actually re-thinking the whole shape of the garment. In the end this may turn into a sleeveless blouse just to get it off the needles and out of my hair.
And then, last night at knit night, after spending a day or so trying to convince myself to work on some other WIPS (yeah right), I gave in and started work on a sleeve for a new sweater.
Which turned out to be just the thing, because I’ve already finished the first and started on the second. This sweater was actually originally intended to be the companion piece to Kata, but since that may no longer actually be a sweater, I’ll probably just separate the two and try to give this one its own, distinct feel. And hopefully it’ll work up faster too!
I always forget how much shows take out of me; usually I need at least a week after I get home to chill out and process and start getting back to normal. And of course the fact that I came back terribly sunburned this time is not helping matters!
So, Massachusetts Sheep and Woolcraft: there was the usual assortment of friends, food, fun, and fiber, plus the added bonus of a much needed road trip and vacation. Which means that all of the recovery (and sunburn) is so worth it.
I found a llama that looks like me:
And a wheel that matches mine:
And I found out how fast I can’t spin:
Wait, though—that one needs the backstory.
A few months ago, after hearing rumors that she had a super fast short draw, I challenged Lynn to a contest. A short draw showdown, of sorts. And showdown, we did, although it is now being proclaimed as more of a smackdown, but I maintain that I could’ve been defeated by much less if my yarn hadn’t broke at an inopportune moment.
In any case, after we spun fast and furiously for about ten minutes, our yarn was wound off together as one skein. This also gave us the opportunity to answer the age old question, “how many spinners does it take to wind yarn off of two wheels?”
And my yarn ran out first. (Lynn had a good 24 yards on me, which is what I’m holding above. She’s got the amount that we both spun—though you’ll have to ask her on the yardage of it.)
Still, it was my own fault for challenging her in the first place, and next year we’re going to have at it again in a long draw brouhaha. Neither of us are as good with long draw as short draw, so I’ll need to do some practicing.
I also ran into my fellow ISO/destash mod Kim, who happily handed over a copy of the fantastic Think Outside the Sox book in exchange for nothing but a hug and a handful of peanut m&ms.
There was Wollmeise on offer as well, but honestly it’s not my favorite and the book is much easier for Hillary and I to share anyway, as the m&ms weren’t just mine.
And that’s the highlights, really! I picked up a few skeins of yarn, one for a design project and one to knit Jennifer one of these:
Since she was quite enamored of it when I pulled it out to show off on Sunday.
I also grabbed some super delicious cormo/alpaca fiber, but then (stupidly!) handed over my flyer to have more bobbins made, so I can’t start playing with it just yet. It’ll be worth the wait, though; I love cormo quite a bit and having it blended with alpaca makes it extra delicious.
Oh, I did finally manage to find a project for the road, and worked on it quite a bit:
(blurry picture brought to you by how difficult it is to take a picture of my right hand with my left)
I ended up using the stitch pattern from the not-working socks after all—with a few alterations and in a different yarn, I think it looks fantastic. And I also think it’ll look way neater as full-fingered gloves than it would’ve done in just a simple sock. Hopefully I can get a pattern written up for them, too!
There’s also a quick test knit on the needles that I’ll hopefully have done and ready to show off sometime this weekend. Must knit faster!
The good news: The handspun and kits are all finished and packed up,
diversion shawl is done and blocking, and the weather for this weekend looks awesome.
The bad news: I still have six spindles to finish, ALL of the spindles need to be weighed and labeled, I can’t find my spindle labels, I wasted an hour of prime packing time fighting with my stupid @#*%ing blocking pins to get the diversion shawl laid out, I’ve got a cold from hell, and all of my attempts at drinking hot tea to combat said cold are being thwarted by the 90 degree weather today.
Also, I tried to start a new sock project so I would have some travel knitting, but variegated yarn + lace pattern + not even using the right size needle = frog.
