The Princess Diaries

31 Down…

Hi K.,

You know, there ought to be a knitter’s version of the song “100 Bottles of Beer on a Wall”. It would be useful to sing while working a project as large as the Princess.

With this being the Victoria Day long weekend and the weather being miserable, I put my nose to the needles and today I completed row 31 of the border. Here it is, roughly pinned out.

I thought this was fairly significant, being as there are 62 rows on the first of the 3 pattern pages for the border. I was feeling quite smug…until I looked at the picture of the shawl and realized just how much more there is to do in the border. Then I hooted with laughter at myself.

One thing that I’ve noticed and am feeling nervous about is that my gauge on the edging was looser than what I’m getting for the border. I think this is because the edging is much more open. The border, in comparison, has larger patches of plain garter stitch, and because there are proportionately fewer overs than in the edging, the gauge is coming in tighter. More thorough sampling on my part would have revealed that, I think. Oi: chalk it up to learning for the future. I hope that blocking the finished shawl into its curved shape will compensate for this difference, because, as I figure it, the only other thing to do is start all over. And if that's the case, I'll need to shelve the project for a couple of months before I'd be psychologically ready to do that.

The reason I’m pushing at working some rows now is that when I’m on vacation in June I won’t be taking the Princess with me – unless folks want to see it. (Even then I won’t work on it.) Between now and my departure, I’ll aim to work 1 or 2 rows daily.

It’s really been very enjoyable working this. As the motifs have developed on the fabric, it’s great to feel like progress is being made. It’s also been interesting to look at how some of the motifs have been built from simpler units. Useful learning for future projects.

That’s it for now: hope you’re knitting away on your Princess.

we aim to please

Hi, Ted,

I don't know about you, but sometimes I get frustrated when having to choose yarns for projects, especially yarns like the ones used for heirloom pieces such as Princess.  Generally the only way to acquire them is via the internet, and sometimes you just want to look at them, touch them, maybe knit a small sample before you invest in a whole project's worth, especially if the project is going to take rather a chunk out of your life.

It's helpful that Sharon includes some samples with her patterns, truly helpful.

Recently the Knitting Beyond the Hebrides list held a virtual lace conference, and I was thrilled to read the piece by Lark Burger, a "Comparison of Lace Yarns".  Lark has knitted up samples of a wide variety of the available gossamer type yarns out there, and she has provided some excellent photos of the yarns and samples before and after blocking, as well as some useful commentary on each.

Lark is sampling specifically with the Wedding Ring Shawl in mind, and I know that there are rather a number of folks out there, yourself included (heck, myself included) who are planning on working this shawl. 

I already know I'm going to be working with Sharon's own gossamer silk (a seemingly impossibly small cone of which is tucked away until that far off day when Princess finally comes off the needles, a day that is moving farther and farther off into the mists of time as I struggle with the damn stitches over the needle join issue).  But I was interested in Lark's comment that she would use a smaller needle for the silk, and her swatch would certainly seem to bear that out.

(And I went right out and bought a 120cm Inox in the 2.0 mm size.  Just in case.)

I have to say that the swatch that appealed to me most was the Treenaway silk/wool blend.  Had I seen that before I got my impossibly small cone of gossamer silk, I might have been tempted to try that out.  Though the pure silk is absolutely exquisite.

Let's hope it slides over that damn needle join more easily than the gossamer merino does.

Get your kicks on Route 866

866.

That's right.  Not 865, 866.

I got The Other to count the stitches last night, as I didn't trust myself to do it.  After a bit of counting and ticking off groups of ten or eleven, he turned to me and asked if I was supposed to have a group of twelve.

Nope.  Uh-uh.

I stuck one of those Clover stitch thingees in it, and he kept on going.  In the end, he decided that there were -- wait for it -- 865 stitches.

And I decided that this made absolutely no sense, because, of course, there was that group of twelve, which meant that unless I'd missed out somewhere else and picked up a group of nine, then I had to have one stitch too many.  The Other re-did his math, and came up with 865 stitches.  I counted the stitch markers on the bottom, and realized he'd counted one too many groups of ten, and in the end it all worked out to 866 stitches.

And then, this morning, just to be sure, I sat down and counted it all myself.

Sure enough, 866.

And now it makes sense why I had a hard time knitting up ten stitches instead of nine in the last edging repeat.  So, I'll just rip out the last one, make it a group of nine, and voilà, 865 stitches.

I've knitted up the stitches on an 80cm Aero needle.  I still love those Aero points, but the stitches keep catching on the join, and it is *really* irritating.  And although the 80cm needle is perfectly serviceable, I think I'd be much happier with a 100 or 120 cm needle instead, so that means a trip into Toronto to the One Store I Vowed to Never Shop in Again, because they're the only ones so far who seem to have them.  Sigh.  Never say never, because it just comes back to bite you on the tuchus.

The Other has suggested that he drop me somewhere for a coffee and go himself to get the needle, so I don't have to break my vow.  But since we now know he can't count, how can we be sure he will get the right needle?  How can we ever trust him again?  Obviously he doesn't have the Moral Authority to govern.

I mean, to buy needles.  That's it.  To buy needles.

gin, jazz, giro

Dear First Officer Knitterguy:

Here:

Happy now?

That was taken last night.  The knit-up from the edging is now done.  It took two stages of the Giro d'Italia (though I did stop to watch Ivan Basso's spectacular final yesterday), as well as the DVD of Rob Marshall's film "Chicago".

Those little orange things that look like tiny padlocks?  Those are neat stitch markers made by the Clover people.  What they are marking on the edging are the spots where I needed to pick up eleven stitches rather than ten.  The red markers on the needles separate the groups of ten/eleven on each point of the edging.

As for the decision to continue on with the first ball or start a second one, it became obvious once I looked at the edging.  I don't know about you, but I have a right side and a wrong side.  The difference is really minimal, but enough that I knew I wanted to knit up from end that didn't have a ball of yarn attached, so I decided to start in with a fresh one.

I did get the chart enlarged last week during my hiatus from the knitting world, so that's ready to go once I get through the three plain rows and the eyelet section.

The end of the edging is still sitting on the needle, with the first ball of yarn attached.   I suppose I should dig out a stitch holder and break the yarn.

And as I'm writing this, I have this awful, creeping feeling that I would have been better off doing the knit-up the other way.  Am I going to regret this when I have to finish the edging at the end?  It's been so long since I read the pattern all the way through that I just don't remember. 

No, I'm just making up stuff to worry about now, aren't I?

Aren't I?

No, don't tell me.  I'm not ripping out 865 stitches and starting over.  I'll deal with it when I get there.  There will be a solution to every problem.

Captain's Log: Stardate 051406

First Officer Knitterguy reporting.

With Captain K. still MIA -- we hope she will soon be returned to us with her gnac restored -- I have pressed ahead this weekend with working on the shawl, completing 10 rows*.

I am pleased to report that as I completed motifs withing the design, I found the work much easier to manage. Often I needed to rely less on the chart, since I could recognize within the fabric what needed to be done next. (Shetland lace frequently has a predictability about it, based on the geometry involved.) There was great satisfaction in this, which encouraged me on.

Pictures will be posted at a later date, when the digital imaging device's batteries have been recharged.

Knitterguy out.

* That's 8,650 stitches, but who's counting?

The clock is ticking...

and our fifteen minutes of fame will soon be over.

Ted -- seems you were as surprised as I was to discover (via Jean's site) that we've been mentioned in Interweave Knits. 

(page 8 of the summer issue, according to Jean -- I've still not seen it, and I assume you haven't yet, either)

I thought perhaps as a bit of a public service to anyone showing up here for the first time that I should clarify how things work around here:

Ted (thinks):  That Princess Shawl is quite a pattern.  A real challenge for a lace knitter to sink his or her teeth into. 

K (thinks):  Ooo, lace, pretty!

Ted (thinks):  That's just the type of challenge I could use right now.  I could recalculate the pick-up off the edging.  I could come up with a technique for making the final grafting of the edging easier.

K (thinks): Oooo, lace, pretty!

Ted (thinks):  I could research all sorts of stuff.  Little known tricks.  Great tips.  I could create a masterpiece!

K (thinks):  Ooooo, lace, pretty!

There.  I think that just about sums it up perfectly, don't you?

Film at Eleven

Click to view late breaking news.

Mission Possible

Good morning, Interested Readers.

One of the participants in "The Princess Diaries", code-named "K.", seems to be MIA, and not working on the amazing Princess Shawl project. Last seen in this photo

taken while she was staying in France (specifically: after hiking up a mountain near Annecy), "K.'s" posts to the blog have cited fatigue after completing a project for her guild show, a general syndrome resulting in the loss of gnac, and the employment of fancy technological tricks to mask the fact that she hasn't even knitted up stitches yet.

In the comments to this post, she noted

I think it might be helpful if people started harassing me to get going on Princess again. I respond well to that sort of outside pressure.

Your task, Interested Readers -- should you choose to accept it -- is to harass "K.", by leaving comments in any blog entry posted by her, urging her to get back at it. You may offer words of praise,  loud cheers of support, various kinds of guilt tactics, bribes -- whichever methods of encouragement you are most skilled at.

Should you send notes or comments of encouragement in this scheme to get "K." back to the project, "Ted" aka "Mighty Knitter" will disavow any knowledge of having written this post.

This post will self-distruct on completion of The Princess Diaries project.*

* With apologies to Barbara Bain, Martin Landau, Peter Lupus, Peter Graves, Greg Morris, et al

This just in

Moving along...

Hi K.,

I am sorry to hear that you have been overtaken by this malaise that has sidelined your knitting. I hope you will be up and back at it soon.

After finishing the Rosebud, I took a week off from knitting, did some spinning, thought about a few future projects, and so on. This weekend past, I started back in on the Princess’ border, and completed...are you ready?...5 whole rows.

Actually I did 6 and a bit rows. On my first start at the chart, I made a mistake somewhere in the first row which wasn’t revealed until partly through the second row. After fiddling with it, I decided it would be best to rip out the first row and start over. All in all, about 3 hours of work to get me back to a clean start. This reinforced for me the importance of “no distractions” when working that first row. When working it, there are no guideposts in the fabric to give you clues as to where you are: it’s just you, the chart and a bunch of identical-looking stitches.

And a bunch of markers. I hate using markers in a lace pattern to indicate the start of the pattern repeat. I don’t know why it is that so many of the patterns I’ve worked have had the pattern repeat starting between a YO and a decrease, and it’s a PITA when you have a marker there. You know how it goes: you position the yarn in front of the needle to form the YO, slip the existing YO, remove the marker from the needle, figure out how to put it on the right needle to the right of the YO you just slipped; knit the stitch and pass the YO, and hope that the marker is now where it’s supposed to be. For the first 4 rows I really did need the markers to see where I was: there wasn’t enough pattern created in the fabric that I could compare it to the chart to know. At row 5 there is, so I’ve dropped the markers out of the work. I hope I won’t be regretting that in the near future.

Do you use one of those metal chart-holder gadgets – the sheet of metal with magnetic strips? The magnetic strips hold the page of the chart on the metal sheet? An essential tool for every knitter, IMO.* The problem with mine is this.

It’s too short to hold the chart page. Complicating matters, the chart is a bit too small for my eyesight. I started thinking about this, and wondered “What would the Knitting Goddess do?” (Note to self: discuss with Franklin as potential bumper sticker for knitters’ cars.) So I went to Her blog to see if she’s given this any thought.

As it turns out, She has considered the matter of the metal chart holder. You know Kim Salazar’s blog, I think? She has this wonderful gift for exploring technical matters related to knitting and other fibercrafts, and some of her work is really wonderful. (I’m waiting for her to take up spinning.) I like reading what she has to say about things: the presentation is clear, practical, and to the point. Following her efforts on the matter, I bought a cookie sheet, and then one thing lead to the next and I enlarged the charts on the photocopier. A bit of tape to hold the page to the sheet, and voila: large size chart holder.

It isn’t a perfect solution. Because my glasses are bifocals, I’ve found I like to have the chart on the arm of my knitting chair so I can see it. The cookie sheet is large enough and slippery enough that it keeps sliding into my lap; I can read it easily but it feels a bit clumsy and awkward. I’ll adapt though, because the enlarged chart is great to use with the metal strips positioned immediately above the row I’m working on. I can see the preceding pattern rows so I understand how the pattern is developing, and I can compare with what’s happening in the fabric. All in all, a very nice solution.

So, I’m set to go now and will talk with you later. I hope the ill wind that has blown this malaise into you will pass through, and that you will be back knitting soon.

* I’ve had mine for so long I don’t remember when or where I got it – ‘though I do remember that the nice saleslady who rang in the purchase treated me in a rather cool manner. I almost had the feeling that she didn’t want me in her shop: she didn’t ask me if I was buying it for my mom; no smile; no “come back and see us again”. I think she must have been having a bad day, don’t you?