Good Day, Sunshine

Sorry it has been a while, but I've been working late, and it's been cloudy, so I haven't been able to take a good picture.

But I took off early today, so here we are!

I'm still not sure what the final result will look like, but I still like it.

Some closer looks.

I've actually just realized that I've knitted my way into a mistake.

You see a loop of yarn hanging off the back because I accidentally combined the yarn from one side of the entrelac with the yarn for the middle. The middle yarn is several strands thick, and I'd just started a section with fluffy yarn, so I didn't even notice.

I tried to undo it, but I'd combined the middle yarn into the entrelac on the other side, and I wasn't about to undo two layer of entrelac squares.

So I just knitted it back, knitting in the loop as I went, and divided the two yarns again.

That is one of the benefits of magic ball knitting: no one knows you screwed up.

Unless you blog about it.....

And Another Set

The next three.

Taken left to right.

This was a variation on the Swiss Cheese scarf.It's a variation because I read the pattern wrong, so it has larger holes than the originial.

It's a design feature. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

This was a simple chevron (the simplest of zig-zags). It made me think of a fish shape -- that's an idea for the future, a fish scarf.

I alternated three yarns, doing three rows of each yarn and then picking up whichever yarn was waiting on that side.

One of the yarns was a patterned sock yarn, which gave the scarf a lovely watercolor appearance.

This one was just some greens and browns, with the beige lace yarn to contrast it.

Large needles, knitted side-to-side, because I need to crank them out to make my count!

Failure and Success

So I made yet another scarf. They just go so fast, and the magic balls make them exciting.

I was trying to make a nice ruffly pattern. I did a row down the middle, picked up along the cast-on side and knit around and around in a flat piece with yarnovers for a lacy look.

Then I began doubling with yarnovers between each stitch, to get a ruffle. I think I did this twice and then cast off in a fashion that added another stitch.

And it did look ruffly. Unfortunately, well, it was ugly.

The problem was the round-and-round pattern, so that the colors weren't allowed to pool at all. This ended up looking just like random yarn, which, to my eye, defeats the purpose of arranging a gradated colors magic ball.

Here is a closer look.

 

Even the changes in textures didn't work in this design.

I think the basic idea was sound, and this could look good in a single colorful yarn, or a Noro with similar colors in it (such as shades of green). Here is a close-up, so you can see the lacy middle.

But even for me, with a rather loose idea of what works, this didn't make it. So I ended up pulling it all out again, so it can live to scarf another day.

I hate doing that. I hate to undo work. It feels so inefficient. I'd much rather figure out a way to make it work, even if that takes more time -- at least one is doing something new. But when the piece is a scarf, there's no room for adjustment.

Ah, well.

On a more successful note, here is progress on the major work.

I love the mosaic appearance. Here is a closer look at the part I'm currently working on.

 

 At least the big project is successful.

Wreck, Tangled!

Okay, the title is a bit of hyperbole, but I did get myself into some trouble. I got absorbed in making rows while having the piece all draped across my lap, and I didn't pay close enough attention. It isn't easy trace entrelac lines across knee bumps.

Can you see it?

Here's a closer look, flipped from the above view.

See it yet? Here it is, marked out.

Not only are there extra squares, but I went a couple of rows too far.

One more look.

The green rows should have stayed next to each other, instead becoming unzipped.

I'll have to take out the rogue squares -- that should be fun. (Not.) And I'll have to decide whether to add a couple of rows on each end to even it out, or whether to take out the two extra partial rows.

It's knitting, so I can make it do what I want, so I'm not really worried about fixing it.

I do regret having to give up precious knitting time to do it.

Dye, Darn You, Dye!

Beautiful and bright in theory.

Here's how it looked after washing and drying:

Not quite like I'd hoped.

My guess is that, even though I soaked the yarn in Soda Ash before adding the colors, and used hot water to mix the dye, there wasn't enough heat on the yarn. I think that I should have carefully wrapped the yarn in the plastic and microwaved it to get brighter colors.

Oh, well, it does look a bit opalescent.

The next adventure was turning it back into plain unplied yarn.

Despite the fact that the Navajo plying should have unzipped, this yarn is not smooth. It was clingy, and in the end it took me an entire day to unzip, unzip, unzip, and then wind.

Here are the final results.

And that is the end of my dyeing adventure. It was a nice interlude, but really I'd rather be knitting!

Spreading Out

First came the extension to the east.

Reaching out, making the way for a diagonal.

Then came a front from the north.

And that's when the weather metaphors ran out, because it took me a while to figure this part out.

The problem was that the entrelac changed directions going from left to right -- it couldn't all be knit in one strip. The trouble spot was where the needle shows below.

Here was the problem.

These segments needed to be knit in different directions.

What I did was knit from the middle to the left, and then I went to the far right and knit from the outside to the middle.

Knitting it in two sections helped me understand the topology a little better. I did have one lesson learned: I picked up all along the ridges, instead of just on one side like in regular entrelac, trying to be efficient. This made it difficult to make sure I was knitting the proper number of rows. In normal entrelac, you know you're done with a square because there are no more stitches to pick up.

Next time, I'll only pick up on one side of each ridge, so I'll know when I'm done without having to continually count. Sometimes being less efficient is being more efficient.

However, I think there's a better solution, maybe an extra row on the left to even it out? I'll look at it more closely on the next row.

This is still a lot of fun!

Double, Double, Toil and Trouble

The renovated fish, newly perked up via double stitch:

Much better! Thank you for the suggestion, Kabira!

Here is the completed second row of squares:

And here is the the third row:

Let me show you a close-up of the edge:

And now, confession time. It wasn't until I took the pictures that I noticed this.

I wasn't paying close enough attention, so I ended up making a double-square corner where it didn't belong. I even remember thinking that this row of squares was taking a long time, and that I kept turning corners, but it didn't make me look at what I was doing.

Fortunately, this is easy to fix. I'll move the knitting around on the needles until I get to the incorrect section, then unravel those two squares and knit a correct one instead, and then cut off the extra yarn and tie it off.

Now, if I hadn't discovered it for another row or two, well, that would have been a fix to remember!

Almost Done

The body is finished.

Not too bad.

Before I started on the edging, I took a break and tackled another problem: a tangle.

Do you remember this research about knots?

By tumbling a string of rope inside a box, biophysicists Dorian Raymer and Douglas Smith have discovered that knots--even complex knots--form surprisingly fast and often.

No surprise to knitters. We prove it all the time.

Most of it wasn't a true knot -- I just had to keep the tangle loose, and pull out different strands. I also have to admit, I enjoy untangling, because it's pleasant to end up with a tangible and tidy outcome.

Then, on to the edging.

I decided to go with a crocheted edging, mostly because my hands were tired of knitting the thick yarns, and I found it mentally easier to face one stitch at a time rather than a long line of stitches. I did start with single crochet, to give a nice linear look to match the garter stitch. However, I also wanted to add a little width, because the proportions looked a little too stretched out, so I added an extra row to the top and bottom.

(The bottom is on the right in this picture.)

I need to add at least one more row, in the same color as the centers of the triangles, as a final way to tie it all together.

I do love how the edging changes so much.

Minor Complication

Here is how far I am.

Looks pretty nice. I had to add a small 5-stitch border along the bottom and right side to even it out, before adding the edging. The edging is 12 stitches wide, one ridge in green, and one ridge in a Noro that complements the colors.

Here is a closer look.

And do you see the issue? That's all the green I have left. Maybe I should have made the edging just 10 stitches wide.

I hope I can find a little more. If not, well, the much more varied edging will become a design feature.

While waiting for time to look for yarn, I started the next one, all in whites and beiges.

This will start with a 'log-cabin' triangle. More about this anon.

Slightly Over the Edge

Current progress:

Notice anything? In the bottom corner?

Yes, a little bit extra. As I was knitting that segment, when I had finished decreasing in from the upper corner of the segment, I thought I could simply continue knitting, but I should have bound that bottom side off at that point instead.

How to fix it? Unravel the segment? That's no fun. Here's what I did instead.

First, I cut the extra part off, being careful to cut a couple of rows below where I wanted the final edge.

Then I unraveled to the first whole row, and then hooked the stitches closed, somewhat like how one binds off. Here is the process halfway done, from the backside.

A is where I have hooked the stiches closed, so it wouldn't unravel any more, and B is the part that I was still preparing to hook.

Below is how it looks all chained. I tied the side yarns together to keep them secured.

The chained edge is a little tight, but when I pick up for the edging, I'll pick up one row in where it is looser. However, now the edge is stable, and I'll weave in the tied off part in the back.

Elizabeth Zimmermann was right: I am the boss of my knitting.

It Shouldn't Be Smiling

Well, it didn't work out quite how I imagined.  Here is current progress:

I thought I could just keep knitting on either side, and the circular sides would stack nicely, making a straight edge at the top and bottom. Instead, my knitting is smiling at me.

Now what do I do? How do I use what I already have? (Well, that's why I call it Conditional Knitting.)

What I finally decided was to try to fill in these areas and then start knitting around the entire piece. Instead of making this piece into a rectangular oblong, the final piece will be circular.

At least, that's the current theory and hope.

Here is what I'm doing.

I picked up along the part that was essentially straight (it turned out to be 36 stitches at my gauge), and then I'm knitting one from the side each time I get there. Since I have three stripes of eight stitches to fill in, I will add 24 stitches on either side. By my count, I will have a few stitches over 400 for the final entire circle, so 8 segments of 50 stitches, give or take a few, and then I'll continue the normal circle increase of 8 stitches in every other round.

Again, in theory. Here is another picture of the middle, which I really like. Let's end on a happy note.