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.