Designing Plans

I am amazed at the progress I have made this year in designing. I started with one idea and now have several. I was impressed by Cat Bordhi in one of her classes that I took at Tempe Yarn and Fiber in Tempe, AZ to design something with the rib stitch. She gave us a sample to examine and asked the class to discover how the pattern was knitted. I did and was fascinated with the stitch design. That started my "design juices" flowing and I began my first pattern. I call my pattern "Cable Me One Side - Rib Me The Other". I have already completed patterns for a hat, a mobius, a scarf, a skirt and I am currently designing a tank top. I have plans for patterns for hand warmers, matching leg warmers, socks, and sweaters, both pullover and cardigan. Each of these patterns use the basic rib design with cables on one side. I have changed the cable pattern so that it is different for each pattern. The skirt is designed with several options that totally change the look of each skirt but use the same basic pattern. This will be true for the sweaters, too. It seems that each time I finish one pattern, another variation pops into my mind. I am hoping that I can finish all of these and even get them printed into a book maybe. Right now, however, I am just enjoying the process of creating my own designs.

Today I will attend the session with my knitting group, The Needlers, at Jessica Knits & Crochets in Scottsdale, AZ. We meet each Wednesday for a couple hours to knit and socialize. I am currently knitting a pair of mittens during those sessions. I really enjoy sitting and knitting and chatting and knitting and shopping and knitting. We have such fun each week. We are a close-knit group, pun intended.

Returning home, I will engage myself with completing five rows of the Fair Isle Pullover Sweater that I am knitting for the class I am taking at The Fiber Factory in Mesa, AZ each Tuesday morning. I have estimated that I need to knit five rows daily in order to be at the place in the pattern requiring help from the instructor. I am knitting the sweater in the round on circular needles, which will make one long tubular sweater. When the tube is long enough to reach the underarms, I must make steeks at each juncture where the sleeves will be placed. I have never knitted a steek before, which is why I am taking the class. Once the steeks are knitted and the sweater tube is completed to the top, the steeks are then cut (yes, I said cut - you know, with scissors) and the stitches around the cut opening are picked up so the sleeves can be knitted onto the tube. I have this humongus fascination with the idea of cutting the yarn that I have finished knitting. I am wondering how the garment will stay in tack without any unraveling. But since this is not a new technique, having been done for years and years over in Europe and maybe other countries I don't know, I am sure that it works. I just don't know how it is done. That is why I am taking the time to knit this sweater so I can learn.

Plus, as I have been knitting, especially the ribbing for the waistband, my mind has been toying with ideas of using Fair Isle designs in a ribbed/cabled pattern for my collection above. Hhhhmmmm, interesting! The ribbing is really neat looking with the seven color yarns I am using. It is a simple k2p2 ribbing and the colors are interchanged each two stitches. The main color is used for knitting and the other six colors are used for purling. The six colors are changed approximately every three or four rows, which can be altered any way I would want. This creates a very pretty pattern of striping. I can see how that would easily be adapted to cables across the ribbing. This pattern would require a lot more work than the simple patterns I have already designed. But I am up to the challenge. My mind is racing with the idea already. Okay, need to slow down a little. Too many other projects right now. I will save this one for next year. Whew!

END OF THE DAY
Well I really enjoyed my time with The Needlers. Elizabeth had returned from her vacation and we were all thrilled to see her again. I discovered immediately that I had already two rows too many with one color on the mittens. So I took out all those stitches and reknit them. I finished the five required rows and changed colors. I had knit three rows when I noticed that I had a hole where the last two colors were exchanged. So I took out those three rows and started again. Two rows later I still had a hole at the joining. So I took out the two rows and rejoined the yarns again. This time I got the join correct and was able to finish the three rows once again. The problem with joining yarns is that the yarn being added must be joined from underneath the yarn being replaced. There must be a twisting of sorts so that a hole doesn't remain. For some reason I just couldn't get the yarns twisted correctly. Strange, because I have done this many, many times. Oh well. It is fixed now.

After arriving home, I prepared some raspberries and some kiwi for dehydrating. I have a new dehydrator and wanted to try it. I made the raspberries into a fruit rollup and just sliced the kiwis. This took most of the afternoon, so it was pretty late in the day when I actually sat down to knit the last four rows of my required "five a day" for the Fair Isle Pullover. I was able to knit one row this morning after blogging and before attending my knitting session. So glad I did. I was really pushing it to finish the 5th row before going to bed. But I did.