Letters
My Handknits Are Waving at Me
Dear Kay,
Maybe I’m spending too much time on the knitting these days, but I feel like my armwarmers are trying to communicate with me.
“Hi.”
“Oh hey.”
Fraternal twins, these Hyacinthus Armwarmers. The second one, on the right, gave me some drama when the two balls of yarn both headed into light blue. Must . . . knit . . . through the fog . . . I knew if I just motored along, it would resolve itself somehow. I like the vagueness of that area. I mean: it’s an armwarmer, not the Bayeux Tapestry, though it’s clear enough that a few helical stripes would have perked up that ratty old thing.
Kidding! I love the Bayeux Tapestry!
It has been good fun to watch everybody’s Zauberballs turn into helical stripes. The unstinting drama of it all! We’re just a week into A Year of Techniques, and already the merging, converging, and diverging of color is hypnotic to see, over at Instagram #AYearofTechniques and the Hyacinthus Armwarmers project page on Ravelry.
(Thanks to everyone who’s ordered up their own Zauberball. MDK ecommerce maven Liz and aide de yarn Paiden have used all their zauber to get these balls to their forever homes, a heroic effort!)
I’m not a big modeler of handknits, but I did want to memorialize these little flipperflappers in action, because they look so deflated when they’re lying on a table waving at ya, and so stinkin’ cute when they’re warming the arms of a person.
Here they are performing their highest, best use: cat grabbers.
This experience with helical stripes has left me with a powerful urge to make something else with helical stripes. I want to make a sweater with narrow stripes. I woke up in the middle of the night thinking about this!
Love,
Ann
PS I keep meaning to say that I am still sailing aboard the Pequod, with the Moby-Dick Big Read that we began back in the fall. After being becalmed for a while, I’m back at it and at Chapter 57, “Of Whales in Paint; in Teeth.” How very odd this book must have seemed back in 1851. I continue to be amazed at how loose it all is: some scenes written as if a play, followed chapters about whales rendered in art, then all of a sudden a spectacular tale of a mutiny wedged into the story. Melville would have been an excellent blogger—he just lets it rip. Benedict Cumberbatch’s narration is next, a chapter called “Brit.”
I want to try helical stripes, but I don’t get how they work. I’m stubborn that way. I want to understand something befor I try it out. What to do?
I was intimidated too but had already ordered the yarn and the book, so had to commit. The video makes it all crystal clear ( and even looks easy! ).
Stubborn here too. Knitting them on DPNs makes the most sense to me. Think about knitting with two different yarns (even if they are halves of the same skein), letting them pile themselves one on top of the other as they chase each other around your four needles (only three at a time). That might help. Knitting the stitches on three needles, skipping the fourth, and then picking up the next color/totally different yarn to knit three needles, leap-frogging around and around.
Watch the video on MDK! Also you can use the google…..
I commiserate with stubbornness of any kind, as it’s my hallmark personality trait, but in this instance you gotta get the needles in your hands!
I love how C. Shayne’s work captures the Situation so well. Feeling a little homesick for the Isolation Chamber.
I am now wondering: if the weavers of the Bayeux Tapestry had such magical things as self-striping and gradient yarns, would they have bothered to weave the Bayeux Tapestry? Or would they be happily knitting helical stripe armwarmers? Discuss.
Wendy, have you seen embroidery done with overdyed gradient silk floss? It is absolutely lovely, and something I think the Bayeux embroiderers would have enjoyed using (just to be a history pedant and “use” my medieval lit/history degree, the Bayeux Tapestry actually is embroidered on linen in wool yarn/thread. Stem stitch and laid work (couching) for the most part). Silks would have been nicer to work with in general, if you ask this cross-stitcher, but even gradient wools would have spiced things up in the ol’ stitchery room. One does have to marvel at the durability of the colors they had. Unexciting blues, reds, browns, golds, etc., but wow have they endured for 900+ years!
While I’m all for depicting a good battle scene, I think I’d have wanted a break for knitting after a long stretch of stitching Normans vs. Saxons.
I live the mitts. Also glad I am not the only one that let the whale slip under the waves, as it were. I shall recommence forthwith. Or fifthwith, maybe.
Please, stop enticing me with Zauberballs! I have a boring sweater to finish.
WHY is it so easy to start a project and so hard to finish?!
If you find the answer to your question, please let me know. I was happily knitting on Apres Anything Sock #1 when the Zauberball/Helical Stripes thing exploded. I have a Crazy Zauberball in the stash and some solid color yarn to put with it but I will finish these socks before starting any stripes. I’d also like to know why I’m always a project behind, even with skipping the Bang-Out KALs, but I suspect that’s a whole ‘nother issue.
Be careful, you’ll get some wool fibers on that handsome cat. 😉
Love the light blue area on the mitt. It looks to me like the worn areas you see in old stone work.(Speaking of seeing things in knitting…) Also, did someone decide that he “needed” to be part of the photo shoot? So cute!
Ann, put the cat down before he hurts you. He wants to go knock some Zauberballs down the stairs. Besides, how dare you interrupt his nap? (P.S.: Great photos Clif! How much did you bill your mom?)
I finally finished listening to Moby Dick this weekend. Hang in there, those of you languishing in the 132 chapters of diffuse foreboding. There is plenty of action in the end.
I often design possible knit projects while waiting to fall asleep at night. One of my latest, inspired by your helical stripes revelation, is a helical stripes hat that will use my two skeins of Sweet Annie (a merino/angora blend worsted). Happily, there is already a pattern for one on Ravelry.
“photos by clif shayne, long-suffering resident of the same house as me” HAR