Monday, September 22, 2014

Lazy Lacy? NO!

Best Quote I Heard All Day

“Really, all you need to become a good knitter are wool, needles, hands, and slightly below-average intelligence. Of course superior intelligence, such as yours and mine, is an advantage.” --Elizabeth Zimmerman

Lazy Lacy

Yeah, I love creating titles for my designs and articles. I'm busy doing a lace shawl design, made with the new Koigu Lace Merino. Can't show ya the lace design due to its submission to Knitty, but here's a picture of what I'm using.



The lace stitch pattern is relatively easy, Lazy Lacy. HA! It's pretty and memorizable.

I often teach my knitting friends and their lace mistakes are big problems. Here are a couple, with slight solutions .

Mistake #1: On the wrong side, my stitches next to my yarnovers (YOs) are twisted, yanked down and I have to twist them back so I can insert the needle. If the yarnover is wrapped tightly on the needle, it will yank the stitch next to it and cause the twist. So when you make a yarnover, do it loosely so that the nextdoor stitches aren't twisted. Couldn't do a picture of this. So just make sure you create your YO loosely.

Mistake #2: Forgot to make a yarnover. You can pick up the strand between the two stitches where the yarnover should have been, making a little yarnover that hasn't been made correctly. Obviously, this yarnover is going to be smaller than the others. Depends on how extensive the lace pattern is. If it's simple, tink the stitches and reknit the row or round.
Using a lifeline can be helpful if you tend to screw up your lace pattern. Here's a YouTube KnitPicks video on how to do it. I don't put in a lifeline because I rarely make mistakes on lace patterns. 

I've been busy designing for two submissions to Knitty.com and I am about to put a bunch of sock designs up on Ravelry. 

Editing my own directions is easy. I tell my designer friends that they can edit their directions by ignoring them for at least a week. Once you've not read your directions, they become strange to your eyeballs and you can read and edit them accurately.

My Knitting Life History

Back when I was 22, I restarted knitting because working at a mental health hospital as a psychiatric technician, our head nurse, Florence, was a knitter. The ward that I worked at was a "Medical Ward" that cared for the operated patients, some psychotic and most were elderly. Once our patients were asleep, Florence and the patient carers sat by the patients' beds, watching TV. Florence knitted, one of my coworkers crocheted, and Florence told me to knit. I hadn't knitted since I was 18, knitting my first sweater, an Aran sweater for my uncle. After that, I didn't knit. But Florence got me back to knitting.

At that time, hubby Jimmy, who was an expert wooden ship modeler, told me that if I was going to knit, I should learn everything about knitting and become an expert like he was. Jimmy wrote a book that I edited.
Yes, it's still sold on Amazon.com. Here's the link

So as of 1972, I became a big knitter...and had my second daughter, Corinne. There is no knitting technique that I haven't done. Jimmy was proud of me and bought me my Schacht Matchless spinning wheel in 1999 when he took me to MD Sheep & Wool Festival. I lost Jimmy in 2002 and I know he'd be proud of me, having written a book too, along with knitting articles. When Knitty.com started, back in 2002, I submitted a sock design, Crusoe, and an article. Swatch Out!. Jimmy died in 2002. 

Next week comes another post, Tonstant Weaders! Gotta go back to knitting my lace shawl. 

2 comments:

Sharon said...

Pretty yarn. Can't wait to see the lace design

Unknown said...

I hope it gets accepted by Knitty.com but if it isn't, I'll put it up on Ravelry.