How Many Skeins of Another Type of Yarn?

In the description of this blog I mentioned math. We'll start with an easy calculation, and below I even provide an Excel sheet where you can "plug and chug."

How many skeins do you need of another kind of yarn?

Q:
Say you find a pattern that you love and it calls for Cascade 220 (220 yards per skein).  The size you need requires 7 skeins.  You don't want to use Cascade 220. You want to use an alpaca blend instead.  The yarn you have in mind comes in skeins that contain 165 yards.  How many skeins of alpaca blend do you need?

A:   (220 x 7) / 165 =  9.33

      Round up... you will need 10 skeins.

Working it:

First take the numbers from the original pattern.
Multiply the amount of yards in one skein times the number of skeins required.
This gives you the amount of yards required in the original pattern.

Then divide the the amount yards required in the original pattern by the amount of yards in one skein of the yarn you want to use.

Here is a link to a Google Docs spreadsheet that I created.  How Many Skeins of Another Type Of Yarn  I'm still working out the kinks in this so if it doesn't work bear with me.  I have yet to figure out how to protect cells in the Google docs format so please only type in the three cells with the white backgrounds   I hope that this will be a useful tool for some.

Vertical Double Decrease with a Twisted Stitch

That kind of sounds like a cocktail.

Anyway, one of my new patterns, Sugar Bunn, calls for the working of a vertical double decrease with a twisted stitch.
Here is a photo tutorial explaining how this is done.

Figure 1: The stitches are labeled A, B and C. B is the top stitch in the row of twisted stitches. 

Figure 2: Slip A onto cable needle as if to purl and hold in back. 

Figure 3: Slip B from left needle to right needle as if to purl

Figure 4: Place A from the cable needle onto the right hand needle.

Figure 5: Knit C.

Figure 6: Pass A and B over the stitch just knit. 

Figure 7: Done, three stitches decreased into one with the center stitch twisted. 

Two Newly Published Patterns

I just self-published two new designs up on Ravelry.

Damn it feels good.

Angora Sugar Bunn Mitts

Tompkins Square Mitts

If you want to read some interesting history about Tompkins Square, read this.

A Snails Pace is still good, as long as it's forward.

Two month since the last post.
Procrastination got the better of me.
I got my lovely friend Alyssa to take photos of the finished objects made from my designs. (We bartered mitts for photos of course.)

Here is another dish that will be served up sometime in the future.

Yum.

The purple is Imperial Yarn Columbia, it's bouncy, and soft, and tweedy.  The multi-colored yarn is Noro Aya, It's cottony, and color-saturated, and discontinued. I am designing a shawlette type wrap with heavy graphical lines.  It will include a chevron pattern and some intarsia work.

I have to mention the bowl which I just got from a friend who brought it as a gift from Uganda.  It's a lovely handwoven basket made from banana and palm fibers. Once the yarn is out of the way you will see that the bowl has a sunflower pattern.

Coming Soon. Fresh Patterns.

Who hates cold hands?

Well soon you can cover your hands with knitwear of my own design!

I have been working on three patterns for the hands:

1) Sugar Bunn. A sweet cabled fingerless mitt made out of an angora blend.

2) Tompkins Square. An edgy fingerless mitt that has interesting construction, and makes use of self striping yarn.

3) Levittown. A thick wooly mitten with a decidedly vintage feel.

Soon, soon.  I still have to meet with the lovely photographer, and then tidy up the layout of the written patterns.

Did you know that I already have one pattern for sale on Ravelry?

It's called Secret Esthetic.

It's a bulky reversible scarf with cables and bobbles.  The bobbles are placed to hide the distasteful backside of the cable crosses.  

Here is a picture of me,the scarf, and the Williamsburg Bridge.  I love how aspects in the bridge construction look like design elements in the scarf.  The rivets are like bobbles and the cables are like...cables. 

  

The Secret Esthetic Scarf

Seattle Road Trip

In the last post I said that I was world-traveling.  Well actually my friend and I took road trip to Seattle.  But according to my calculations, the distance traveled from NJ to Seattle equals 16% of the earths circumference at the 45th parallel. So that's a good chunk of the earth as far as I'm concerned.

It was a door to door dog delivery adventure.  A friend moved from NY to Seattle, but couldn't take her dog with her right away, so two of us from the east coast took the adventure to reunite them.

I would like to tell this story in pictures, but just so regular people and knitters will understand, I will include two pictures for each part of the story. The pictures on the left are for regular people, while the pictures on the right are for knitters.

The driving took four days.

We drove 5079360 yards in this Mini Cooper

We drove 2886 miles in this Mini Cooper

The goal of the trip was to bring this dog across the country.

Sophie wearing my Honeycomb Hat

Sophie

When I wasn't driving, there was lots of time to relax and take in pretty things.

Pretty knitting inside the car

Pretty scenery outside the car

Then there were the stunning colors.

Some awesome Noro yarn I took home

An awesome South Dakota sunset I took in

I also got to stop off at Mountain Meadow Wool Mill, but that will be another post all it's own.

Mountain Meadow Teaser

Sorry for the Gap in Posts

World travel was calling.

Tool Box Tuesday: Knitting Needles

Welcome to first installment of Tool Box Tuesday. 

The discussion will be about knitting needles.

Knitting needles are the most basic knitting tool.  You can’t knit without them!
(That’s not technically true you can knit without knitting needles, but for now let’s not worry about that.)

There are three main components that are used to describe a set of knitting needles; the size, the material, and the type.

The Size:

It is the diameter of the tube of the needle dictates its size. Easy, right?  Wrong.  Right from the get-go, here’s where things get complicated.  Different countries use different number schemes to classify the size of the needle. 

The most straightforward is metric.  In the metric system, the measurement in millimeters refers to the diameter of the needle.  That seems as if it would be the easiest, despite this, or maybe because of this, it is not the classification system used in either the US or in England.  Each of those countries have their own system of classification…which are pretty much the opposite from each other. 

In US sizing, the smaller numbers refer to the smaller diameter needles, and larger numbers refer to larger diameter needles.  

In UK sizing the smaller numbers refer to the larger diameter needles, and the larger numbers refer to the smaller diameter needles.

Here’s a partial chart to illustrate this.  If you want a full chart, I’ll leave it up to you to search one out yourself. 

The Material:

The most common materials used for knitting needles are wood, bamboo, metal, and plastic.  Each have their advantages and drawbacks. 

The foremost difference is the smoothness of the needles, the way they grip the yarn.  Wood and bamboo needles offer the most grip. Metal needles are the slipperiest. Plastic ones are somewhere in the middle.

Is grip a good thing or a bad thing?  The answer is both. 

Sometimes I am afraid that the stitches might fall off the end of the needle. That is when I use wood or bamboo.  Sometimes I want speed. That is when I will use metal needles.  If I’m working with cotton, or another slippery yarn I would use wood.  I am using bamboo needles to knit a lacy shawl right now because the fabric is very open compared to the needle size, and I don’t want it to slip off.  If I am working on say…the back of a sweater, and I have row after row of stockinette stitch, then I hopefully am working that on metal needles.

Other considerations:  Metal needles are heavier, bamboo needles can wear out and become splintery at the tip, plastic needles tend to have blunt tips…the list goes on. No one needle is best. It comes down mostly to personal preference.

Then there are needles which are made out of exotic materials, fancy woods, or fancy metals.  This is done for pure luxury and joy.   I would love, love, love, to get a pair of hand forged bronze or sterling silver needles inlayed with precious stones. Like fine folks at Celtic Swan make.  Wouldn't you?

Dreaming is Free

The Type:

The three types of needles are straight needles, circular needles, and double pointed needles (dpns).

Straight needles. The archetypical knitting needle. They come in sets of 2 and are a stick which is pointy on one end and has a stopper affixed to the other end. The typical length of a straight needle is between 9 and 14 inches. They are used for knitting flat pieces.  A project on straight needles is worked back and forth. This is done by first working all the way across with the right side of the knitting facing, and then turning it around and working all the way across with the wrong side of the knitting facing.  Unless the project is a scarf, there will be seams to sew together at the end.

Circular needles are made up of two needles whose ends are smoothly joined together with a cable.  The cable is anywhere from 10 to 60 inches, and resembles thick fishing line material.   Circular needles are used to knit projects in the round.  Knitting in the round can produce a tube (it can also produce a flat circle, but I’m not discussing techniques, I’m discussing tools.)  The entire bottom of a sweater can be made on circular needles by knitting a big tube. A lot of knitters like this because it means that they don’t have to sew up seams.  When using circular needles the right side of the knitting is always facing.  Essentially the knitting is being made in a spiral.  Circular needles can also be used to knit pieces flat when the project has just too many stitches to fit on straight needles.  

Double pointed needles are called dpns by those in the know.  Dpns come in sets of 4 or 5, and they look like enlarged toothpicks.  They are used for knitting in the round, when a small tube is desired.  Socks and mittens are commonly knit on dpns.  Just like circular needles, when knitting on dpns the right side is always facing and the knitting goes around in a spiral.  The great thing about this type of needle is that knitting can be done in the round with a minimal number of stitches.  For instance, they are quite handy for closing the top end of a hat knitted in the round.


Below is a picture that wraps it up.  Three needles representing different sizes, materials, and types:  

Size 10.5 brass circular needles
Size 5 plastic dpns
Size 6 bamboo straight needles.

Well that concludes the first installment of Tool Box Tuesday.

From Order comes Chaos...sometimes pretty chaos.

Any material formed into a long, thin, flexible line will get massively tangled at the slightest hint of provocation.

I believe I have just united chaos theory and string theory.

Be it string, or yarn, or headphone wires, or old-timey fishermens' rope, these things just love to get tangled up when we're not looking.

Look at this pretty knot that my yarn formed the other day.

Now if I can only find an old-timey fisherman to tell me what that knot is called.

Expand Your Library Greatly

Here is a great tip for any crafters who use Ravelry.

In addition to cataloging the books you actually own in your Ravelry "Library" section, consider this...

Add all the books that your local library carries also.  You can create a "set" and include all the library books in that set so you won't get confused between what is lying around your own house and what is gathering dust down the street somewhere.

You can most likely access the list of books your library has right from your own home, and then type in the ones of your choosing.

Here's how to create a set and add books to it

1. After you have added the first book, you will see a thumbnail picture of the book and right next to that will be an icon with a check-mark and the words "in library".  
2. Click the "in library" icon and a window will come up. 
3. Click "select sets" on the right of that window.
4. Click "create a new set"  
5. Create a set titled "Yourtown Library" (or whatever)
6.  Put a check-mark in the box to add the book to that set.

 For each additional book added there is no need to repeat steps 4 and 5.    

Why is this a good idea?
Two reasons.

1. Because now you can browse all the patterns in a library book without even having to have it in front of you.

And more importantly

2. Because now when you are conducting pattern searches, if you filter by "in library" you will see all the patterns in books to which you have access.  Suddenly you have access to a lot more patterns for free!

I mean, it's your library. Use it.

What I'm Working on Anyway

So knitting, yeah...

I have been knitting the Rock Island Shawl by Jared Flood.

Incidentally I cannot get this song out of my head.  That's fine I really like that song.

Here's a picture of my progress so far.

The Rock Island Shawl is a mighty good shawl.

This promises to look very different after blocking than before.

I'm using two of my Fiesta dishes to help me out with this project.  The teacup holds my yarn as I am working from the outside of the center-pull ball that I wound.  The bowl in the background holds the project when I'm not working on it.  I love my Fiesta dishes, and I like to use them whenever, and for whatever possible.  

I have also been working on designing my own patterns.

Here are the ingredients to a pair of mittens that I have been busy with.

Pretty things.

The only other thing I'll say about the mittens right now is... Honeycomb Brioche.

Book Review: Learn to Knit in Just One Day

Learn to Knit in Just One Day 

by Jean Leinhauser

The book is laid out in step by step sections.  Very much for a beginner. Not like the pattern books I see where they attempt to instruct you in one paragraph how to do a knit stitch.  This book to my recollection had at least 3 pages on the knit stitch.  It would describe a technique, show some line drawing pictures, and then instruct and encourage you to do the thing it was describing.

 

It was published in 1993, so the style is outdated to say the least.  Most of the items wouldn't look that bad if made in more “fashionable” colors.  So keep an open and creative mind.

My favorite part of this book was that it told you when to take a break.  Almost like it was saying; “You learned that thing, good job, now go have lunch or something and come back later.”  I did have lunch or something and I did come back later, this really helped. 

This book really did let me learn to knit in just one day.

How I Learned to Knit (Part 2)

My quest to learn to knit had begun.  I successfully purchased a booklet, some yarn and some needles.  I excitedly went home.  Once at home I sat on the living room floor, cross-legged with the book laid out in front of me.  I started to read.  I felt confident, and excited.

Please understand that this was 2001 and there was no You Tube in order for me to see knitting in motion.  Please understand that I had no seasoned family member around to teach me. It was just me and my $6 booklet.

It was a bit daunting, but I had a mission.  With slow and calculated concentration, and careful attention to detail in the pictures I began casting on.  The casting on was not too hard.  The knitting was very hard that initial time.  I had no idea what I was looking at.  I couldn't get the yarn to go where it was supposed to. I got extremely frustrated.

 The author instructed to knit loosely.  What’s loosely?  That’s a relative term.  After trying and trying, I got a bit snarky.  Loosely huh?  Ok, I’ll show you (i.e. me) loosely.  I exaggeratingly and spitefully made the cast on as loose as I could.  I exaggeratingly and spitefully pulled the loops through the other loops as loose as I could. It worked!  Holy hell, I was knitting.  That will show me.  So there.

How I Learned to Knit (Part 1)

In 2001 I decided that I wanted to learn how to knit.  Down to The Rag Shop I went. First I found the yarn aisle, that part was easy. Then I turned the corner…

There I was faced with a large and untidy set of racks with loads of magazine-sized booklets sporting uninspired titles like "Weekend Afghans to Knit and Crochet", and "Knitting Patterns for the Whole Family."

As I just mentioned, the entire area was a mess, and the booklets all seemed to be published in the early 90’s.  It was frightful.

Tons of stuff like this.  

They were all so ugly not my style. However, if I wanted to learn to knit, I had to persevere.  What I needed was an instructional booklet.  I found and settled on one titled “Learn to Knit in Just One Day”. 

Just one day? Perfect! 

You know the saying about books and covers and judging.

The booklet recommended starting with a pair of 10 inch long, size 7 needles. It also recommended getting some worsted weight yarn in a light color.  I chose a pair of metal Boyle needles that were medium grey, and some acrylic yarn which was medium grey.  (I didn't do color back then.)

That book which cost all of $6 and change is one of the best purchases I have made in my entire life.   

To be continued…

Hello & Welcome

Hello and welcome to my new blog.

Here I will write about knitting projects, and my own designs.  I will write about yarn, yarn tools, knitting math, knitting books, and anything else I can think of.