Fudge Friday: I can knit it, but can I write it? (Copy)
This technically may not be a fudge because it’s still a work in progress.
I love the idea of open-front cardigans with a fine little details. For this one, I wanted to have a little textured collar that flowed into the front bands. The texture pattern would then be mimicked in a triangular faux pleat in the back with another little bit of texture along the side seams.
WIP: The future Cenere cardigan in Barrett Wool Co. Woolens, color October Road.
This WIP has been dormant since November. I love how it’s turning out and have the math all worked out for all 8 sizes. The knitting is flying and the yarn is lovely - toothy and rich, but I can’t quite figure out how to write this back pleat without actually doing line-by-line instructions for every.single. size!
So I’ve stopped. Hit a road block. Can’t see my way out.
I might just finish it with my original idea in tact, and let my tech editor do her magic, but I love a good problem to solve, so I’m still thinking about it and considering my options (which all involve ripping to the underarms — doing a simple panel of texture down the back instead of the triangle or making the texture much wider at each side seam or eliminating the texture completely. And while I’m thinking, the knitting has stopped on this. And I’m on to something else — distracted by stash yarn and shiny new ideas.
Math Monday: Yarn Weight (category) vs. Yardage
Last Monday, I wrote about how to calculate yardage of a mystery skein based on weight by using ratios. (If you haven’t read that one, it’s worth a look - there’s some good, old-fashioned algebra there.)
Most knitters know that when we speak about yarn weight, we’re not really talking about how much the yarn weighs, but the category the yarn falls into - lace, fingering, sport, DK, worsted, aran, bulky or super bulky.
Yarn weight study in pink
counterclockwise from front left: Shibui Silk Cloud (lace), Madelinetosh Tosh Merino Light (fingering), Stolen Stitches Nua (sport), unknown bulky, Brooklyn Tweed Shelter (worsted), The Knitting Boutique Anacostia (DK).
A Rough Yardage Guide to Yarn Weight Categories
lace 550 - 800 yards per 100g
fingering 380 - 460 yards per 100g
sport 300 - 360 yards per 100g
DK 240 - 280 yards per 100g
worsted 200 - 240 yards per 100g
aran 120 -180 yards per 100g
bulky 100 - 120 yards per 100g
super bulky <100 yards per 100g
And there is some wiggle room, too. One dyer may call a skein sport weight, while another calls the same skein light DK. And there is quite a bit of confusion about the difference between bulky and super bulky, and if there is really any point to distinguishing them from each other.
In this week’s installment of Math Mondays, we’ll work out what yarn weight our mystery yarn is using more ratios.
In order for us to use our chart accurately, we'll need to figure out how many yards of our mystery yarn would be in a 100g skein, not the 113g skein we have. So we set up another ratio.
The calculations indicate that a 100g skein of the mystery yarn would be 150 yards, meaning that it would fall into the aran weight category of yarns.
Of course, not all yarn comes in 100g skeins. Some yarns, like this one - Manos del Uruguay Serena - comes in 50g skeins. Serena has 170 yards per skein. To find out how much would be in a 100g skein, simply multiply the yardage by 2 (because you’d need to multiply the 50g by 2 to get to 100g.). A 100g skein of Serena, therefore, would have 340 yards, putting it in the sport weight category.
This works just the same with meterage (for my non-US knitter friends). Just substitute meters wherever yards are used. And there are still some companies putting up skeins in ounces. If ounces are being used, standard skeins are either 4 oz. which converts to 113g, or 3.5 oz. which is very close to 100g.
Of course, you can also use this neat trick when you’re buying yarn online or at a shop. (Remember those days, when we could browse around our LYS?) Some yarn labels have the yarn weight category. Some shops and online sites have their yarns sorted out or list the yarn’s weight category, but many don’t. So knowing how to do this will give you a super power that will impress your knit night friends and fellow LYS customers.
Look what you can do with a little math!
Fudge Friday: Distractions
We’re back to Fudge Fridays where I confess my knitting mess ups.
This design was a take on an artist’s smock. I loved this little cardigan. It had three buttons up top and flared open. On the back was a pleat with an “artist’s palette” with 10 different colors of yarn, knit in intarsia.
I designed the cardi for Knit.1 magazine, a funky little publication now out of print, to be knit in pieces from the bottom up. I was on a tight deadline (as always), but had written the pattern. I started with the back. The pleat was dead center of the back and as it went up to the neck, stitches were decreased on each side (in black).
I confess, I was watching a baseball game (my team, the Yankees - I was born in the Bronx) and my husband was talking to me. I shouldn’t have been anywhere near anyone for the set up, at least, but…you guessed it: I miscalculated and the pleat wasn’t centered.
It wouldn’t have been that bad if I only had to take out the cast on, but I was at the underarm before I realized it!
ALL THAT RIPPING IN 10 DIFFERENT COLORS! I was so upset that I had wasted all that time and now the deadline was even tighter. But, in the end, it turned out perfectly. It’s still one of my favorite pieces.
Lesson: Pay attention to the set up!
The Pleat Back Smock pattern is available from the Vogue Knitting store here.
Math Monday: Calculating Yards per Gram
Last week I wrote about the mystery yarn I picked up from Harrisville Designs at Rhinebeck - the one without a name or a label to list yardage or weight.
Maybe you have some yarn in your stash that doesn’t have a label or a partial skein that you knitted long ago, but you have no idea what it is. This week, I’m going to show you how to use simple measuring and math to calculate how much yardage is in my mystery yarn. You can try it with your stash mysteries too!
You’ll need 3 things: a rigid ruler, a scale that measures grams and a calculator - your phone calculator will do nicely.
Step 1: Weigh your skein or cake. In this picture, you can see that the cake’s weight is 113 grams.
Step 2: This ruler is 1 foot long. A yard is 3 feet long. I wrapped the yarn (without pulling too tightly) around the ruler 9 times. 9 feet of yarn divided by 3 feet per yard = 3 yards. So I have 3 yards of yarn.
Step 3: Weigh 3 yards of yarn you measured out. You can see that the 3 yards weighs 2 grams.
Step 4: Now the math part. We’ll set up a ratio. Don’t be scared. You did this in 8th grade.
x is the unknown yardage of the cake. We know the cake weighs 113g. So on one side of the equation we write x over 113. We also know that 3 yards of yarn weigh 2g. On the other side of the equation we write 3 over 2. When you do this, be sure that your yardage is on top and your weights are on the bottom on both sides of the equation.
Now cross multiply: x multiplied by 2 on one side of the equation (2x) and 113 multiplied by 3 (339) on the other side of the equation.
Now solve for x. You might remember that what you do to one side of the equation, you must do to the other side of the equation. So divide both sides by 2: 2x divided by 2 equals x; 339 divided by 2 equals 169.5.
And there you have it. You’ve calculated your yardage!!! This means that 113g of this yarn has 169.5 yards in a cake of 113g.
Of course, each skein varies a little in weight. I can use my calculated yardage per skein as an estimate or, if I want a more accurate accounting of how much yarn I have, I can weigh each skein and calculate more precisely by substituting the weight of each skein for 113g in the example above.
Give it a try and let me know how it goes.
Fudge Friday: Rotten Heel
We all mess up sometimes. It’s part of being human. And I’m going to use this space to discuss the times I’ve done it in knitting. Hey, you never know…maybe I’ll occasionally even use the space to talk about the times I’ve messed up in life. I’m calling it Fudge Fridays because I’m trying not to use the other fu… word.
Recently, I designed socks. (If you’re interested in testing them, follow me on Instagram, or sign up for my testing newsletter). They’re highly cabled with a smidgeon of lace. I think the main cable looks like a delicate shield, and I love how the cables to each side complement the main cable.
The good sock - blocking.
In any case, this particular sock was being knit from the cuff down, meaning I was having a grand time knitting all over cables. Now, in my head I knew that there was a difference in gauge between the cable and the Stockinette stitch sole, but I thought (wrongly) that I could adjust for this after the heel flap was done by having more gusset decreases.
Turns out I couldn’t because it makes the gusset too long, making for a baggy sock. So, R I P went the gusset, R I P went the heel turn, R I P went the heel flap. And as all you sock knitters know, those are the parts of the sock where you use the most energy. The rest (cuff and foot) are usually smooth sailing.
This is the moment I decided to rip. You can see the sock is off the needles. Here goes…
I was a bit frustrated, but after sitting awhile to think about it, I decided to decrease before I started the flap. Voilà. All better!
Math Monday: Mystery Yarn - The Adventure Begins
Way back in a far away time that seems eons ago (October 2017) my good friend Lee and I went to Rhinebeck, otherwise known as the NYS Sheep and Wool Festival, and not for the first time. Up to that point, we had gone every year for a good many years. For a bunch of reasons, we haven’t been back since, but once this is all over…
As we trolled through the outside buildings on a warm autumn day we came across the Harrisville Designs’ booth. Besides having their own great yarns, Harrisville also does custom spinning for a number of other well-known brands of yarn. We stopped in our tracks when we saw that they were launching n I g h t s h a d e s and spent awhile admiring it. I bought a sweater’s quantity of their lovely WATERshed. Lee kept looking. And then she called me over to the sale bin.
See our Harrisville bags?
Inside was a rustic two-ply wool that was unlabeled. We asked about it, but the only thing the kind Harrisville lady told us was that it was a mill end and that it was 100% wool. Harrisville spins for Brooklyn Tweed, We were both a little smitten. Lee bought 5 skeins. I bought the remaining 3. Occasionally, Lee or I would talk about the yarn, yet neither of us ever did anything with it.
All 8 skeins nestled together!
Fast forward to January 2021. I was doing my semi-annual stash purge and once again came across this yarn. I was still in love. Now you should know that I never to design with any yarn that is discontinued or that I know will be, and certainly never with homespun or an unknown yarn. But this yarn was calling out to be a textured pullover. My 3 skeins wouldn’t do it. So I called Lee, asked her if we could trade - she gave it to me - and it started. The pullover is done, but not yet released.
Over the next few Mondays, I’m going to be writing in this space about yardage. We’ll be estimating and calculating. Yes, it’s math, but don’t be scared! It’s not trigonometry and it’s really rather simple. How will it help you, the knitter? You can calculate yardage you’ve used or how much you need, or how much you’d need if you change an element in your own knitting - like making short sleeves instead of long, or lengthening the body of a sweater. Or perhaps you have your own mystery yarn and want to know if you have enough? Once we’re through, we’ll figure out how we can estimate yarn weight based on yardage.
Analyze this!
Working Cattail Stripes
The Cattail cardigan was released last week on Ravelry and in the shop here. The cardigan has stripes worked in a textured pattern I love.
I’ve uploaded two new videos on YouTube that give some guidance on working the 4-stitch, 4-row repeat of the of the texture. Part 1 is how to work the pattern itself…
…while Part 2 shows you how to maintain the pattern when the rows contain extra stitches (as in, not a multiple of 4 sts). This is important as you’re working the v-neckline from the top down.
I love how it works it’s magic on highly variegated and tonal yarns.
Living in a strange time
This is not about knitting. If you came for knitting today, don’t read on. This is just my little story - one of millions. I’m sure there are worse. In fact, I know it.
The unedited email below was in response to an Australian friend who I’ve known for 20 years. He was someone I’d taught with in Brooklyn and he wrote to check in on me. The date of the email was April 8th, more than a month ago. It sums up how I felt then and mostly how I still feel. The parts in brackets are for explanation purposes. The pictures are just random, non-knitting pictures I have taken during this time.
Before you read this you should know that I feel very lucky and grateful - I’ve regained my health, the people I love are well and safe, and I’m still employed.
You should also know that I live in a suburb of New York City, about 50 miles out. To give you some idea of the toll this has taken in my part of the world, as of this writing, the county I live in, Suffolk, has had more COVID-related deaths than the entire state of Ohio, and more deaths by half than Texas.
Dear Paul,
First, I am glad you are keeping well and safe. The world is indeed a very new and different place. Never in my wildest imagination could I have thought that I would not be at Mass on Palm Sunday with the thought of not doing it again this Sunday on Easter. This whole week is shaping up to be particularly sad. I'm sure there's a reason for it (slow down, spend more time with those you love, read more, pray more, etc.) although I'm having trouble seeing the devastation. But like my dad always says, the world isn't waiting for you to catch up with it, you need to adjust, and I guess we all do. When this is finally over, we will all need to rethink how we live our daily lives.
Apparently, NYC is a ghost town. The last time I was there was March 13th and the last time I took the train was the 11th. I saw pictures of Penn Station the other day at "rush hour" .... empty. Very little street traffic, NYPD has a record number of officers sick with the virus, the public neighborhood parks are mostly closed. The governor has put our state on “pause” until May 15th and is doing a good job of keeping everyone calm and managing resources. [The “pause” was just extended to June 7th this weekend.]
Next I haven't been well. I have non-COVID pneumonia.
On March 13th, we were notified that school would be closing, effective end of day. We all came in on Monday, 16th to prepare for how we were going to handle online learning in the interim. Even the PreK needed to do it, but the DOE [Department of Education] provided no direction, so as the director I needed to come up with a plan. At the same time, my own parents were still in Florida. I had begged them to come up the week before, offering to fly down and drive them back myself. Everyone was against it, including my brother. It is the very last time I do not trust my instincts because by the time they decided to leave, we were in the middle of it. On Thursday, 19th, they drove up to North Carolina and my brother and I drove down to meet them and then I hopped in my parents' car and drove my dad while my brother drove my mom back in his car. We did it in one long 17-hour day, but we did not have to stay overnight anywhere, for which I was grateful. However, it took a toll on my health, I suppose.
When I got home, I was exhausted and rested most of that Friday, but by Sunday morning I was running a fever. Joe [my husband] called the doctor on Monday, 23rd who had a virtual visit with me and said I should self-quarantine and see if the fever broke, but it didn't. By Monday afternoon, Joe was on the phone with the state DOH [Department of Health] to see if they could get me in for testing. They said they would call back, but didn't until Friday, 27th. They could not get me into Stony Brook (a bike ride away), so sent me to Jones Beach for testing the following Tuesday, 31st! By that time, I still had a fever and the doctor wanted to see me in his office after the testing. He diagnosed the pneumonia, sent me over for a chest x ray and put me on antibiotics. The following day I got the negative test results back, but I didn't feel better (or get rid of the temperature) until this past Saturday night. It's been a long haul. I feel much better, but I am still too tired to stand too long or walk too far. I am trying to slow down but that is not always so easy for me to do, as you know.
Luckily, the miracle in all this is that no one else got sick from my being sick. No one at work with whom I am in close contact daily, not my brother or parents with whom I was in a car for hours and hours, and no one at home, particularly Joe who was so sweet in taking such good care of me through all this, even with all his own health issues. And I am very grateful for all the people who were praying for me. Turns out there were quite a lot, some I didn't even know about.
I am still "virtually" in the classroom with the teachers and students for about 1.5 hours each day, and the teachers and I meet regularly to plan, but it is not the same. In my heart I feel like this school year is over [It is.]. Connie [my daughter and knitwear model] is still working from home and Peter [my youngest son] is still virtually going to school. Gerard's [my middle son] company shut down, but I'm sure he'll be called back when things are normal again, although he's saying he's not even sure he wants to go back, so he's re-assessing which, in his case, is a good thing. Another sad thing is that Peter is scheduled to graduate [from college] next month, but there will be no public ceremony I am sure, and my last little chick will not walk across the stage to get his undergraduate diploma. He's not devastated, but Joe and I are.
It is so nice of you to think of us. I’m very happy that you and Sue are well and that you are able to be with your daughter and son-in-law and especially the boys. What a distraction! Oh, how I wish I had that one. I’m sure you and Sue will be able to reschedule the trip and all will be well. We'll get through this and hopefully you'll come back to NY too.
Be safe and be well and enjoy those beautiful boys!!!
Love,
Joan
