01/28/2012- Readers Digest Knitters Handbook by Montse Stanley

In my personal opinion Readers Digest Knitters Handbook by Montse Stanley should be required reading by anyone that wants to learn to knit, learn more about knitting, be ecouraged by seeing new ways to get designs.....

I can't get over seeing pics of things that were knitted in the 1800's that's still in great shape (considering). It's so surreal to think that something someone knitted that long ago is still around, muchless still beautiful. I am still in awe.

Listed below are my personal notes from the book. All rights reserved to the original author and Readers Digest.

Pg 14- The size of stitches with needles depends upon yarn tension. Length of yarn drawn thru.

pg 15- The stitch size of a fabric is measured by the number of stitches and rows to a given square, normally a 4"x4".

pg 16- when designing, check stitches at 2-3" deep sample check row count later over the partly knitted project.

to measure sample
1-places tape (edge) measure or ruler at least 2 stitches away from left edge and mark with straight pin.
2-keeping tape horizontal, place another pin at 4"
(with fine yarns you can do smaller sample measure 2" with extrememly thick yarns you may need 6-8"
too many stitches go up needle size
too few stitches go down needle size.
stitches in repeat xs 4('")______
                                               width or length of repeat.

pg 19- to know how many stitches in 4", then know how many to get certain width just divide stitches in 4" _______
               4(")

yarns affect character of stitches. Never decide on a pattern without first knitting it in the yarn you intend to use.

pg 20- to know whether a stitch is nearly square medium or wide, find out the gauge in 4" divide number of rows__________
                           number of stitches

under 1-a rare tall stitch
1.0 square
1.1-1.2-nearly square
1.3-1.6-medium
1.7 and over-wide

a chart/graph is done on ratio/graph paper garter stitches in not use square

-Problems-
pg 22- slanted- this may be caused by a very high twist in yarn by continuously twisting stitches-stresses fabric
*uneven fabrics-something is wrong with gauge

pg 42-yarns
basically 2 types
natural-animal or vegetal (cotton i.e) may shrink
man made-fibers, acrylics, etc

blends best of both
pg 43
shrinkage test with sample
cut paper to exact size of sample or photocopy eample
wash/dry block and then compare

elasticity-wool is good

silk, man made, vegetal are not

resilience test-
cut an 8" strand of yarn
stretch it as far as it will go, measure to see how far it stretches release and measure again. Yarn that does not lenghten, or remains stretched w/ these yarns are not resilient. ALWAYS BLOCK SAMPLES

page 44
to check if 2 different yarns are the same thickness use yarn gauge or cut short length of both, link the 2 lengths, twist both well->if a bunp is felt yarn is different thickness

page 45
colors
solid
heather mixtures-are very subtle combination of fibers-dyed & blended b4 spinning
twists-are combinations of piles of different color
ombre-yarns have different shades of the same color appearing at regular or irregular intervals.

pg 46
colorfastness test
1 take white cloth (4") fold cloth and wrap 8-12" of yarn tightly around
wash/dry
unwind yarn. If cloth is still white color is fast.

pg 47
lables have
fiber content
weight
cleaning instructions
approx length in meters (yds)
suggested needle size and gauge

the manufacturers recommend a guague of 24 sts and 32 rows of stockinette stitch. An average knitter will obtain this with 4mm needles then use 3.5mm needles for ribbing.

pg 49 join yarn at end of row
when nearing the end of the yarn to see if theres enough left for another row, (2 rows actually)
fold what is left in half
make slip knot
knit 1st row
if you have reached the knot b4 end of row 1 you won't have enough for row 2.

pg 127
if darts are placed in a regular sequence a curve will form

pg 159
vertical stripes are worked in jacquard if they are narrow and intersia if they are wide

pg 162
intarsia-aka geometric, aka tartan, aka collage, aka patchwork knitting
when changing from 1 color to the other wrap 1st color around 2nd

pg 163
jacquard-aka fair isle, aka stranded aka 2 color, aka double knitting

1/26/12- unsure and scared

http://www.ravelry.com/projects/SugarMomma/tkga-basics-basics-basics

I have posted my blocks project on Rav. I can not tell you how many times I've knit, re-knit, re-re-knit (you get the idea) these little blocks. I'm still not satisfied with them. I don't know if I ever will be.

I have answered all my questions, completed my Bibliography/ Reference List and gone over them & re-looked over them...over and over...so much so that now it's a blur. I'm not sure if I'm making sense or not with how I answered the questions.

I don't know if I will even mail these in. I don't know. I may feel like I need to re-re-re-re-knit before I send them off. I just wish I felt more sure of what I've knitted.

slow go.......

I'm just trying to keep my head above water.....trucking right along........slow go...........

why I love knitting socks

I have had this love-love affair with socks since I first taught myself to use DPN's, and then later magic loop just so that I could knit them.

I've knitted baby socks, gigantor 6'8" tall brother socks, size 4 little woman mil socks and everything in between. I've used patterns, made up patterns, thrown away pages that I coudn't turn into patterns....I've almost pulled out my hair, pulled out my DPN's because of dropped stitches or some other travesty...

I've shown off with pride socks that I've made, looked back on them years later & wondered how in the world I even knitted that and it stayed together and a million other things.

And all of that was before I found out the truth of my knitting.......as readers of this blog knows I have been twisting my stitches & going backwards (and making things so hard on me!)....

I love socks because I can make them to fit my flat feet & not have the budge where my arch should be...I love that I can knit toe socks & make the pinky toe part of the sock just right for my crooked pinky toe.

socks are small enough of a project that you can take them just about anywhere. When you take them out there's usually a conversation from others wanting to know what I'm doing...etc. They can be complicated so that I have to concentrate with every stitch, or simple enough that I can do mindless knitting. I love that.

Here you see a picture of a pair of socks I knitted for just me with a pattern I made up...

the other foot I tried to duplicate stitch type lizard. Believe it or not people actually can tell that's what it is looking at it in real life....

since learning everything I was doing wrong I can't help but see the millions of mistakes that I've made in my knitting projects. It almost makes me cry to think of the projects I've sent out without knowing I was crossing my stitches and going backwards....and it makes me so sad to know that I didn't have to re-do all those patterns the way that I did in order for them to look like the picture...I just needed to get my stitches right.

out of everything I am most looking forward to knitting correctly it has to be socks. I can't wait to sit & knit a pair of socks & see my finished work. I can't wait to see how they wear & how they hold up....they've always held up so well, and I hope that continues with my new adventure.

Socks can cheer you up on dreary days. Who can wear a pair of brightly colored socks and feel depressed? What a conversation starter to have someone compliment you on the colors, ask you where you got them & then act impressed to find out you knitted them yourself.

if I could answer one question & never answer again it would be

"Aren't they more expensive to knit socks than to buy a pair?"

"yes...they are...but I do love them so & they are fantasic"(says I)

What is your favorite thing to knit?

this past weekend

I celebrated my b'day this weekend. My weekend was full of love, well wishes, and happiness. Thank you all so much for everything each of you did to make it special for me.

I did very little knitting (on any level) and instead concentrated on all the articles to be studied in this program. If one tries to take it all in at once it will feel very overwhelming...or at least to me it would.

Who knew there was so much to learn with this craft? Who knew that re-training yourself to do something right instead of the wrong way you've done it for years would be so hard? I guess others did, but not me...I assumed it would come more natural than it is for me. I am having renmind myself 'counter-clockwise wrap' over and over. It's rough. But......I know it will be worth it when all is said and done...(which is a funny way to put things but I won't go chasing the rabbit down that hole).

I can not believe all the projects that I have completed with stitches twisted. I have like 80 listed on Ravelry, but I've completed way more than that. It's very daunting....and discouraging....but I'm not giving up....I will get this right & it will become 2nd nature to me...someday.

Today I am back on the fast-track to my knitting studies and I am hoping that today will go better for me & more will soak in for me.

flower power

I am not going to post many personal things on this blog, but I had to share this

I know some people won't believe this actually happened to me....but those of you that know the story of "the gum that wouldn't leave my shirt" and the story of "how I discovered doggie poop on the bottom of my shoe when in an interview...it couldn't be denied either, he saw it at the same time I did" will KNOW this is a true story.

I decided yesterday to get an angus burger from McD's. Since I o...nly had my Kymco I had to go inside. Now, anyone that was here yesterday will understand why I needed my leather jacket..it was cold & windy on the back of that thing!

I go inside

I am greeted by a cashier. She looks at me. Looks shocked. Looks back at me. Looks at my jacket. Looks at the register....can't seem to stop looking at my chest. (WHAT???)

I place my order and am puzzled by her fascination with me, my chest, and her apparent need to stare at my jacket....sooooo I decide as I take my receipt that I would just casually look at my chest on my jacket where she was looking...not in a hurry...just look at it like...hey...there's my chest...kind of thing.

I look down.

I see what she saw.

I am torn

should I laugh, cry, or what?

there....on the front left of my jacket is what I can only call a hairball flower....lovingly deposited on my jacket by my Ezma. I swear this thing was big enough to have taken legs & walked off.

I decide to go to the restroom to take the most of it off....took my food as I avoided all eye contact with said cashier.

I get home & start to wonder....
1. How'd it get there?
2. How long had it been there?
3. Why didn't I notice it before?
4. Have I gone other places with my hairball flowered jacket & not known what I was...wearing????...on my jacket?
5. Why hadn't the wind taken it off my jacket in the time that I was riding on my Kymco?

and lastly

6. Why on Earth am I not more aware when I have costume malfunctions BEFORE they happen?

todays block is one with color other than white! LOL. I am sorry that it's upside down!~ But I am excited that I have it! I finally have it! I am actually doing the K & P correctly! YEY ME!

I also learned how to do the long tail cast on. Yep. I bit the bullet and learned how to do it. I have been doing my own form of cast on, but I sure do like this one a lot better!!

clap your hands with me ladies and gents!!! I did something correctly!

wrong!!!!!!!

if it weren't true or happening to me it would be so funny.......wanna hear it?

I knit left handed yes....but guess what? I've been doing the knit stitches and purl stitches wrong...I've been going over needle with knit and under with purl and it's vice versa..wouldn't you know it?

I am having to re-train myself the right way now...can't send in any work with anything twisted now can I?

I can not brag on my instructor enough. I am so blessed to have someone so patient to be here with me thru this. I am happy she's the one I have.

I have also found a lot of people on the TKGA group on www.ravelry.com and they've been a great help. One of the nice ladies is even going to write down instructions for me because sometimes people learn better with reading than visual.

lifted increases are made of the devil.

Yes, I am up early this AM trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong with my lifted increases

I just wish I could figure out what I'm doing wrong! A lot of times it has to do with the fact I knit left handed. I'm hoping that is all it is.

Can you see on the left hand side close to where the yarn is? See the holes? Not supposed to be that way........

I contacted my fearless leader, my instructor....and this is what she said via first email

There is something else going on with the increases that I can't quite see. If you look at a knit stitch, notice that it has two sides--these are often called the left and right legs of the stitch. When you make lifted increases you lift the left or right leg of the stitch below and use it to make the new stitch. I think I won't be able to figure out what you are doing until I see the actual swatch. One thing you might want to do is look at the photo I have posted of this swatch on my ravelry project page. If you click on it, you can make it larger.

This is what the increase is supposed to look like.

Arenda

 

and via her 2nd email

I've been thinking about this some more...How do you knit? From right to left or left to right? Many left handed knitters knit from right to left since you use both hands pretty equally when you knit. If you knit from left to right, you have to sort of reverse the lifted increases. On the left side (if you are coming from that direction), you would lift the left leg of the stitch below the stitch on your needle. When you get to the right side you would knit the stitch, then use the right leg of the stitch 2 stitches below.

There have been tons of left handed knitters go through the Masters Program. I know some have made adjustments to techniques. In the Basics class & in the Masters program we don't evaluate HOW someone knits but the results. These should be the same for left and right handed knitters.

One thing you might want to do, is to post a topic on Ravelry for left handed knitters. They might be able to give you some insight on how to alter techniques that I haven't thought of.

Arenda

I am so happy that I have such a great person to help me thru this and onto my road to the masters programs and eventually take the judges course.

I am making note of what she said on this blog so that I can remember it.....I hope I can figure this out.

 

of blocks and swatches

I finally talked my camera into communicating with my computer and here's some swatches I've been working on as I try to 'master' my own domain. (Lol)

this is known as block one it has many errors I can see a mile away. For one thing I was wrapping my yarn the wrong way & causing funky stitches

I don't know if you can see it clearly, but see that fluffy looking stitch? That's me accidently going back into old habits of wrapping the wrong way! 

underside of block 2. yulk.

---

todays new block

I'm going to have to go take a better pic. This one was a practice block & I like the looks of it thus far.

You will notice here I am trying to learn to do left leaning and right leanning increases. I do not like the left side of my increases, see?

can you see it? GAH. I've got to figure this out. I don't know if it's because I knit left handed or what. I've contacted my instructor for guidance on this. :o(

all this time...what I've been doing...different...

When I first started wanting to learn to knit, I knew nothing about www.ravelry.com and the backwoods of 'bama didn't produce any humans to help me learn to knit so I was forced to teach myself....fast forward all these years & enter into this road to my masters & I found out quite by accident that I not only knit left handed, and sometimes backwards (like with socks) but I also have been wrapping my knitted stitches 'incorrectly'. Thus the reason why my yarn overs & my knitted stitches look a little different when compared to others that have done the same pattern.

Now I'm trying to re-train myself the 'correct' way...this is so hard...... :o(

pre-work samples

I was looking over different pages on TKGA and realized that I have been knitting with twisted stitches due to the fact of the way that I have trained myself to knit.

I knit one sample of my usual way of knitting (block 1) and then of the new 'corrected' way of knitting (block 2)

block 1-
bottom curled terribly
stitches seem to lean left and are 'fat'

block 2-
bottom didn't seem to curl as much
the stitches were more uniform.
Eventhough there were a few places I forgot & went to my usual way of knitting, I feel it's a way of showing the difference in the knitting techniques.

the k2p2 seemed to be way in on the margin on block 1
while on block 2 it seemed more uniform.

also, I 'almost' have spaces on block 1
can not find any gaps on block 2 of k2p2

the reverse of the blocks you can really tell the difference! I will post the pics to show the difference asap.

a video showing HOW NOT TO KNIT.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4_XNKOuODU&feature=youtube_gdata_player


fuuunnnyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

Arendje rocks!

I am so excited I can not stand it!! Arendje soooo 'gets' me & understands how excited I am to get started! LOL LOL!!!

I messaged her back & told her not to trouble herself too much....but I am excited if she can do it for me today without too much trouble!

I have an awesome instructor!!

From: arendje
	re: BBB links? If you just placed the order this weekend, it is still with the office staff in Zanesville so I probably will not receive it until tomorrow and I generally do not process orders until they contact me. With that said, I am sure you are anxious to get started so I will send you the materials but I need your email address. As soon as you get me that, I will send you the links.

you learn as you prepare to prepare.lol 1/15/12

today I was doing some preplanning and preparing for my classes & came up on things I didn't know & I think I will be able to fix to make my work acceptable for my classes.

I am a self-taught knitter and I guess I didn't exactly teach myself the exact right way to do a couple of things...namely
* When I taught myself to do the knit stitch while I did it right, I have found I was doing it backwards. I am thinking changing the way that I do my knit stitch will changed for the better by doing it the 'correct' way. No more leaning work, no more twisted stitches. Yey. Let the celebration begin! I am hoping that I can remember to do this correctly so that when I turn in my samples I will pass with flying colors.
*my blocking has been wayyyyy to stretched. I need to follow the directions for blocking as found on knitty(dot)com. Over stretching flattens the pattern & we don't want that!

video 'how to'

how to be awesome at masters knitting

this is my video reference source for my Masters program for knitting

Basics, Basics, Basics description, 1/15/12

“BASICS, BASICS, BASICS COURSE (Hand Knitting)
In three clear and concise lessons, Arenda Holladay will help you experiment with and become proficient in several basic skills. This course is an excellent preview for the Master Knitter Program because it introduces the basic format you will follow as a Master Knitting Program enrollee. Even if you do not enroll in the Masters Program, you will gain valuable knitting knowledge and skill. Arenda has you work small swatches in various techniques so you can gain an appreciation for the importance of gauge and how it varies with different stitches. The course includes written materials as well as knitted swatches for Arenda to review and return to you.” from http://www.tkga.com

I consider this my prep-class for my Masters program & is necessary in my opinion an absolute must for me to feel like I have covered all the bases to have truly earned my masters in this area.

TKGA project page on Ravelry

the parking place for my projects in my masters class on Ravelry

1/15/12-prep work for my classes

I prepare. It's what I do.

I have pulled down the following books from my library to look over & study while waiting to start my basics, basics, basics class on my road to my masters.

"Stitchionary" by Vogue Kning (Volume one Knit & Purl)

"Complete Guide To Needlework" by Readers Digest (my version is an oldie but goodie!)*mine has a different cover*

"Victorian Lace Today" by Jane Sowerby (a very valuable resource to lace knitting)

I have prepared a HUGE 3 ring binder for my work, paper for writings, and plastic protective sheets

I purchased the suggested Cascade 220 yarn (after reading others responses from others who have taken the classes as to what has worked well for them)...I hope I have enough!

Basics, Basics, Basics!

on Friday 13, 2012 I paid to become a member of The Knitting Guild Association.

I also paid to start my journey to my masters to become a master knitter.

I am planning to take the following:

Basics, Basics, Basics

Mosaic Knitting

Professional Finishing

Swatch to Sweater - Create Your Own Pattern

Certification for Knitting Judges

 Masters Level 1

 Masters Level 2

 Masters Level 3

 Certification for Knitting Judges

I am very excited to start down this road to become a master knitter. I'm getting my masters, babeh!