Sweater shoulders: transform stair steps to short rows and radically improve shoulder shaping

4 illustrations, click any illustration to enlarge
Sometimes, a sweater pattern will have you cast off your sweater shoulders in "stair steps."  For a sweater worked in stockinette stitch, the directions might look something like this:

• 16 sts on needle.  Purl to outer edge of shoulder.  Turn work. Knit side facing
• Using ordinary chain bind off, bind off 5 sts.  Knit remaining 11 sts.  Turn work.
• Purl 11 sts.  Turn work
• Bind off 5 sts. Knit remaining 6 sts. Turn work.
• Purl 6 sts.  Turn work.
• Bind off remaining 6 stitches.  Shoulder bind off completed. 

In real life, these directions are going to get you the fabric illustrated below, with the bind off shown in DARK GREEN. 

Stair-step shoulders (bind off in dark green)

As you can see, this method of bind off creates "stair steps" at the top of the shoulder.  When you come to connect the shoulders to one another at the sweater top, this jagged fabric is difficult to sew up nicely.

How about if we use short rows instead?  Instead of that jagged edge, we'll make a lovely smooth shoulder top--a top which will be a pleasure to sew up when the time comes.

Before we begin, if you're a little rusty on short rows, you might wish to consider reviewing these illustrated posts:

• Short rows: theory
• Short rows: method

The particular kind of short rows we are going to use for the shoulders are a mash up of ordinary wrap-and-turn short rows and Japanese short rows--we'll steal the wrapping and turning from the former and the slip stitching from the latter.

If all this sounds WAY complicated, hang on!!  This really is far easier than it sounds so far, I promise!   Even if short rows seem scary, it'll all come clear when we take this step by step. (You might even want to cast on a 16 st swatch and follow along.)

• Step 1. 16 sts on needle.  Knit to within 5 sts of outer edge of shoulder.   You will now have 5 sts on your left needle and 11 on your right. 
• Step 2. slip the stitch on the tip of the left needle (shown in PURPLE below) onto right needle.  (Slip this and all other slipped stitches "purlwise," which means slip the stitch from one needle to the other without changing the stitch mount--the RIGHT arm of the stitch should remain the forward arm.) Draw running yarn forward, slip purple st back onto left needle, draw running yarn to back again.  The running yarn has been turned into a "wrap" around the purple stitch.  The wrap is shown in RED, below.   Continuing to hold the running yarn in the back, slip the st on the tip of the right needle (shown in ORANGE, below) to the tip of the left needle.  You now have 6 sts on the left needle, and 10 sts on the right needle, as shown below.

Wrap the purple stitch with the red running yarn as described
above and then slip the orange stitch

Here is a closeup of the wrap and slip detail.

Close up

• Turn work, purl the remaining 10 sts.
• Turn work again and knit 6 sts.  
• Repeat step 2, except that when you finish wrapping the purple st and slipping the orange stitch, this time, you will have 11 sts on the left needle and 5 on the right.
• Turn work and purl these 5 stitches.
• You will now have all 16 sts on one needle and you'll end up on the neck edge of the shoulder.
• You will now knit across the entire shoulder top from neck edge to outside edge, all 16 sts, as shown by the DARK GREEN stitches below.  As you come to each wrap, fish around with your needles and "unwrap" the red wrap from around the neck of the purple stitch, placing the wrap on the tip of the left needle.  Then, k2tog the red wrap together with the purple st.  The TURQUOISE stitches along the top row in the below illustration  show where these two were knit together.  

In real life, these directions would get you the fabric below.  If you compare the final row (DARK GREEN) to the bind off in the first illustration above, you can see that the short row method yields a single smooth descent along the shoulder line: the jagged steps have been eliminated. 

Stair steps eliminated via short rows

You can now attach this shoulder to its mate by a three needle bind off, or you could bind it off via ordinary chain bind off on the next row, then sew the shoulders shut.  

PS:  Geek note:  If you intend to bind off anyway, you could just as well bind off the DARK GREEN stitches the last row.  In other words, that last row could have been worked as an ordinary chain bind off as it was made, instead of working this row and then working the bind off on the following row.

Good knitting, TK

Fixing a run in garter or seed stitch

If you get a run in garter or seed stitch, it is easy to fix, as long as you keep your wits about you. (And if you already know how to do this, scroll to the bottom of this post for two shortcuts.)

Garter stitch, seed stitch
Garter stitch and seed stitch don't look much alike.  Yet if you go up a column in either fabric, you'll discover that column-wise, both have the same identical structure:  a stack of alternating knits and purls.

Row-wise, the fabrics differ--in garter stitch, every stitch along a row is the same, while in seed stitch, the rows alternate just like the columns: alternating knits and purls.

The upshot of this is that, although we have to establish the foundation stitch of any run-out column opposite-wise in each fabric, yet once we get started, we can fix single-column runs in each fabric by the exact same method, since column-wise they are identical.

Establishing the foundation stitch
Before we get started on the actual process, there is going to be a LOT of confusion if we lose sight of a home-truth about knitting:

• a loop waiting to be worked is neither a purl nor a knit.  

That's right.  A loop just sitting there has the capacity to be either a knit OR a purl. It is not until a second loop is DRAWN THROUGH IT on the following row that the loop becomes transformed--frozen into position as a knit or a purl stitch.  (If this confuses you, you might want to consider reviewing this post.)

A loop sitting at the bottom of a run-out ladder shares this characteristic.  It is neither a knit nor a purl...yet!  It is not until we draw the next ladder rung through that bottom loop that the loop becomes transformed into a knit or a purl stitch.

Another important thing to remember about stitches is that knit stitches have their heads popped onto the BACK of the fabric, while purl stitches have their heads popped onto the FRONT of the fabric.  Stated otherwise, it does not really matter what lays at the foot of any loop.  It is the top of the loop--its head, which determines whether a stitch is a knit or a purl. (For further information about head orientation, consider reviewing this post.)

The consequence of all this is as follows.  The first step for correcting a run in garter stitch or in seed stitch is examine the two stitches immediately neighboring the lowest loop of the run out column, in order to determine whether the lowest loop ought to be transformed into a knit or a purl.  As this relates to the diagram, you can see that we are working in garter stitch, because in garter stitch, each stitch along any one row is the same as its neighbors.  The orange loop sitting forlornly at the bottom of the ladder has two immediate neighbors which are knit stitches (dark green), and this lets us know that it, too, must be transformed into that same kind of stitch--a knit stitch.

(By contrast, if the fabric were seed stitch, the fact of two dark-green neighbor knit stitches would mean that the orange loop ought to be transformed into the opposite of its neighbors--a purl stitch.)

This is a garter stitch fabric--every stitch in any row
is the same type as its neighboring stitches.  Therefore,
the orange loop at the bottom of the run must be
transformed into a knit stitch, so that it is same type
of stitch as its two neighboring stitches
(dark green), which are knit stitches.  (You can tell
that the two dark green stitches are knit stitches
by the fact that their heads are popped onto the
back of the knit fabric.)

Here's how to transform a loop into a knit stitch
Slip the stitches on the knitting needles along, transferring them from one needle to another as necessary until the run is between the needles, as shown in the diagram.  To transform a loop into a knit stitch, hold a crochet hook on the FRONT of the fabric.  Insert the hook into the lowest loop (orange) from front to back, as shown.  Next, reach up and hook the next rung of the ladder (purple).  Draw the purple rung through the orange loop.  Given the direction of insertion, the act of drawing through the purple ladder will pop the head of the orange loop to the back of the fabric, leaving the arms aligned on the front in a sort of a little "v."  In this way, you have transformed the bottom loop of the ladder into a knit.  At the same time, the rung doing the transforming--the purple rung which was drawn through--becomes the loop at the bottom of the run, waiting in its turn to be transformed from a loop to a stitch.

Insert crochet hook into the orange loop from
the front, then draw through the next rung on the
ladder (purple).  This not only transforms the orange
loop into a knit stitch, but also turns the purple
rung into the next bottom loop, waiting in its
 turn to be transformed from a loop into a stitch

Here's how to work a loop as a purl stitch
In our garter stitch diagram, we started with an orange loop which had to be worked as a knit. As stated previously, garter and seed stitch runs are corrected by creating an alternating stack of knit and purl stitches. Therefore, we know that the next loop after a knit stitch has to be transformed into a purl stitch. So, the next step is to draw through the following rung (brown) in the opposite direction--to work it from back to front, thus transforming the purple loop into a purl.

We can double-check that this is correct because in a garter stitch fabric, the bottom loop is to be transformed into the same sort of stitch as its two immediate neighbors, and these stitches (now colored pink) are both purls--their heads are popped to the front of the fabric. Therefore, the brown rung must be drawn through the purple loop in such a manner as to transform the purple loop into a purl stitch.

(Again, if the fabric were seed stitch, the fact of two pink neighbor purl stitches would mean that the purple loop ought to be transformed into the opposite of its neighbor stitches--a knit stitch.)

Specifically, whenever you need to work a loop at the bottom of a ladder as a purl, here's how: Insert the crochet hook from the back of the fabric, through the purple loop, from back to front, as shown. Then, draw through the next ladder loop (brown), working from back to front.

Insert crochet hook into the purple loop from
the back, then draw through the next rung on the
ladder (brown).  This not only transforms the purple
loop into a purl stitch, but also turns the brown
rung into the next bottom loop, waiting in its
 turn to be transformed from a loop into a stitch

Summary:
To transform a loop into a KNIT stitch, insert the crochet hook into the loop from the FRONT and draw through the next ladder rung from that position.  To transform a loop into a PURL stitch, insert the crochet hook from the BACK and draw through the next ladder rung from that position (but keep reading down to shortcuts for an easier way!)


Repeating the process
Keep repeating this process, moving the crochet hook to opposite faces of the fabric and drawing the next ladder rung through the loop below. To get the crochet hook to the other side of the fabric, you've actually got to remove it from the loop you just drew up, pinch that loop with your fingers, put the hook on the other side of the fabric, and insert the hook into the loop you are pinching.

Once you have drawn up each new loop to alternate faces of the knit fabric, you will have created a column composed of a stack of alternating knits and purls, as shown in the last diagram, below.

final result: an alternating stack of knits and purls

Shortcuts
I have illustrated the process in the conceptually simplest manner, showing the work as if it were always to be seen from the same side of the fabric.  This is fine for a dropped stitch or two, and this orientation makes it easy to understand, I think. However, here are two shortcuts which make this process easier to work if you should happen to have more than a stitch or two to fix.

Shortcut 1--fabric flipping
Once you have gone through the pinching-neede-switching-and-inserting process two or three times, you will see that it really annoying to have to insert the crochet hook from the back.  Luckily, as we all know, the opposite of a purl is a knit.  Therefore, when it appears from the front of the fabric that the next stitch ought to be a purl, you will find that it is much easier to flip the fabric around front-to-back instead, so that you are always inserting the crochet hook into the bottom loop from the front, thus transforming the loop into a knit stitch.  The back of the knit is a purl, so all is well.

Shortcut 2--double ended hook or double-ended latch hook
After you have worked a few runs as for shortcut 1, you will discover that even though flipping so that you can always insert from the front is easier than trying to insert from the back, it is still quite annoying to have to continuously remove the crochet hook, only to have to insert it again once the fabric has been flipped.  It is at this point that you might wish to consider buying a double-ended crochet hook or a special kind of double-ended latch hook tool called a "seed-stitcher."

With a double-ended hook, you can do all the latching-up from the front.  This is done by sliding the needle from one end to the other, using opposite hooks alternately, for each stitch to be made.  Although this sounds very complicated, it isn't--once you get  hold of a double ended hook you will see how much easier this is. Here is a link to a video showing how to use a certain kind of double ended crochet hook called a "fix-a-stitch" and here is another  link to a you-tube video by the makers of the "seed-stitcher" double ended latch hook tool,  also showing how to do this.  The second video shows machine knitting being latched up, but the same technique is used for hand knitting.  At 24 seconds, you can see the seed stitcher being pushed through to its other end to make a purl stitch after a knit stitch, at 35 seconds, you can see the seed stitcher being pulled forward to make a knit stitch after a purl stitch. Both the double-ended crochet hook and the double-ended latch hook work in the same manner, although you might find the latch hook easier to use.

Good knitting, TK
PS:  Special thanks to Joan Schrouder who first clued me in to the seed stitcher tool.
You have been reading TECHknitting blog on fixing a run in garter stitch, fixing a run in seed stitch

Sharps and flats: sewing needles, part 2

Way back in May 2007, TECHknitting had a post on the two types of sewing needles: blunt pointed and sharp pointed.  The point (ha!) was that each kind has a different use.  Blunt points are best for such tasks as weaving, where you don't want to split the plies of the underlying yarn. Sharp points work well for splitting plies, good for such jobs as skimming in ends.

Although each type is good at what it does, the truth is that it can get rather tiresome having to switch back and forth, for example: first threading to a blunt point for weaving in an end, then rethreading to a sharp point to skim in the last nub of the tail.  The temptation is to skimp and just muddle through with whatever kind of needle comes to hand first.

Recently, Patti from Canada was reviewing this old post.  In response, she sent her own little trick to avoid needle switching.  Her e-mail reads as follows:

> If you need to use both kinds of needles, 
> it is easiest to thread onto a sharp needle, and 
> then just push it wrong way around
> (eye first instead of point first) 
> in those places you need the blunt point.
> Just be careful not to stab yourself.

What a swell idea!  No more muddling, no more skimping!

Weaving with a sharp needle held wrong way around

Close up

No need to rethread onto a sharp point
when the time comes for skimming in

Using a sharp needle backwards: really very clever! (And I will try not to stab myself.)  Thanks, Patti.

--TK

Pattern beta/test knitters

Dear readers: you are amazing.  Wow.  There have already been more responses than I can keep up with--so thank you very much. I'll leave this up for reference, but with the text crossed out. Hopefully, the pattern will soon be available, if the test knits work out.

Thanks again, and happy, happy new year. TK

Lately, more patterns have been generated here at chezTECH.  The latest of these is a ladies' cap called "Spice Road."  It's a pretty neat pattern: it's knit flat in stockinette, all in one piece, utilizing a lot of short rows. Then, the fabric is folded, welted, seamed.


I named it that after the fabled spice road of old, because it has three design features found in central Asian headgear: a wide smooth expanse over the brow, a little brim which runs around the top, and a turban-like fold in the back.

One problem is making sure TECHknitting patterns are correct. Lately, I've been doing all the test knitting myself.  Yet, this is not a great idea. Because I know how the item ought to come out, I'm afraid I'd gloss over any error in the pattern.  Spice Road is, I think, ready for release, but I wonder if any my lovely TECHknitting readers out there would consider test knitting it first? The pattern is designed for intermediate knitters and above (but a bold advanced beginner could probably manage).


Here's the deal:  It would be great to have a three (or so) test knits. So, to those volunteers, I'll send the pattern as a PDF.  You buy the yarn or use up stash, and knit the cap by January 31, 2012.  Once you've gotten back to me with your comments, and once the cap is posted as a project on your Ravelry page, I will send you a $25.00 honorarium.  This will hopefully cover your yarn cost.


$25.00 for test knitting isn't a lot, and in an ideal world, it would be more, for sure.  However, in this non-ideal world, any money from the sale of the Spice Road cap pattern over and above the honoraria is instead slated to go towards snowpants, socks, boots and science club funds, all of which the local schools around here are finding in precious short supply.


Tech details:  a single 100 gram skein of worsted weight yarn will suffice. Common yarns in this weight include Cascade 220, Wool of the Andes, Northampton Valley Yarn, Pattons Classic wool, and the like.  The cap would best be made in wool--synthetics, especially "soft" synthetics,  may not have the body required for the details of this cap to work out. The gauge is 5 st/in, 7 rows/in, pretty standard for this weight of yarn. A circular needle 22" or longer is required for knitting stockinette back and forth at the required gauge (there are possibly too many sts on the needle at one time for a single-pointed needle to work). A 16" circular needle a size smaller is also required, as is a crochet hook of size proportional to the yarn. A steam iron will be handy for blocking.


Bottom line: if you are an intermediate knitter or above, if you are interested in being a test knitter for Spice Road ladies' cap, and if you can can afford to do so under these terms, write to me at the e-mail address under "profile," at the top of the right side bar. We'll work out the details to our mutual satisfaction, and then I'll send you the PDF pattern. And for everyone else, if the test knits work out, the pattern for the Spice Road cap will be for sale: this winter, hopefully.


Thanks for your consideration,
Best, TK

Three needle bind off (for real, this time)

A reader wrote to ask about the three needle bind-off.  (For the first TECHknitting 3-needle post published, I skipped a brain gear and got the illustrations actually backwards.  In this post, the error has--hopefully, anyhow--been eliminated.)

The three needle bind-off is a variant of the chain bind off  but with two major differences:

1. instead of drawing the running yarn through the one live stitch, you instead hold two pieces of fabric together and draw the running yarn through two live stitches: one from each fabric. 
2. working in this manner not only binds off both fabrics, but also connects them, thus creating a seam. 

Here's how it's done:

Each fabric is worked to the very top, then held with the live loops of the last row on its own needle.  Next, the fabrics are held together, front-to-front.  This orientation puts the seam you are creating on the inside of the garment.

In the below illustration, both fabrics to be connected are knit in stockinette, and the knit side of the fabric is meant to be seen when the garment is worn.  Accordingly, both fabrics are being held with their purl sides facing outwards, which means that their knit sides are rubbing against one another as the fabrics are being held front-to-front.

From the position of the knitter doing the seaming, the red fabric held in front shows its purl side, while the green fabric held behind shows the knit face--its purl face is showing outside on the back of the work. When the seam is finished, the fabric will be flipped open so that both knit sides show while the purl sides (and the seam) will be hidden inside the garment.

This trick is called the "three needle bind off" because, besides the two needles acting as holders for the live loops at the top of each fabric, a third needle does the actual work, as shown below.  Specifically, the third needle (silver) is inserted into BOTH first loops of the two fabrics.  You can see that the insertion is from front to back in the same way you'd insert if you were going to knit the next stitch.  The yarn doing the actual bind off--shown in blue--can be either a scrap of loose yarn, or the tail from one of the fabrics being seamed and bound off.

Using the third needle, the blue yarn is knit through both first loops, and both first loops just knit are dropped off.  Next, the third needle is again inserted into two loops, another stitch is knit with the blue yarn, and again, the two loops just knit are dropped off.  The below illustration shows two blue loops drawn through, as they rest on the working (right) needle, waiting for the bind off step. As you see, the blue loops pass through the top loops of both the red and the green fabric. 

The last step is to pass the first blue loop over the second.  This is done exactly as for the chain bind off discussed earlier.  Note that at any point in the process, there will always either be two loops on the right needle, which happens when the first loop is waiting to be drawn over the second, or there will be one loop on the right needle when, as below, the first loop has already been drawn over the second.

For a final illustration, here is an actual photo of a partially finished three-needle bind off, "in the wool."  The two shiny holder needles are being held upright, out of the way. The third--the grey working needle--has already been poked through the front (red) as well as the back (green) fabric, getting ready to catch up the next blue loop. Showing to the right is the blue chain of the seam being formed as the fabric-tops are chain bound off together.

To work the seam to completion, you would repeatedly work the insertion, the drawing up and the passing over, all the way to the end of the holder needles.  At the last stitch, cut the blue yarn, leaving a tail at least several inches long.  Draw this tail through the last loops as is done for chain bind off (scroll to the bottom of the chain bind off post for several different methods).  Then work in the tail.

Three needle bind off is often recommended for shoulder seams, but it can be used anywhere that two lines of live loops come together and require a sturdy seam to connect them.

One last thing:  usually, an equal number of stitches will be on each of the two holder needles when working a three needle bind off.  Sometimes, however, you wind up with an uneven number, either by accident or design.  In such a case, you have two choices:

1. either work three stitches off together with the working needle and the running yarn, which is a trick to even up the numbers of stitches while seaming
2. get rid of an extra stitch of by passing it over a neighboring stitch while the stitches are still on the holder needle.  With this second option, you are reducing the count so that equal numbers of stitches will be on both needles before seaming. 

Good knitting--TK

You have been reading TECHknitting blog on 3 needle bind off

Author error--three needle bind off

TECHknitting blog published a post on three needle bind off.  Unfortunately, I skipped a brain gear and wrote the directions BACKWARDS which I did not realize until an alert reader commented.

If you read the original post, please erase your memory banks and go to this corrected post, instead.

With apologies, TK

Dear Club Osinka/Уважаемый клуб Осинка

Please stop pirating my illustrations. It takes a long time to draw each one, each is copyrighted, and it is disheartening to see them ripped off.  If you want to supply a Russian translation, feel free, but link back to the original illustrations, instead of pasting them into your own document.

Пожалуйста, прекратите воровство моего иллюстраций.
Нарисовать каждую из них занимает много времени, они все

защищены авторским правом, и мне грустно видеть их
украденными. Если вы захотите перевести надписи на
иллюстрациях, пожалуйста, я не против. Однако вы должны
добавить ссылки на оригинальные изображения, а не просто
вставить мои картинки в свой собственный текст.

--TECHknitter

Increasing in seed stitch (and decreasing in seed stitch, too!)

Seed stitch (sometimes called moss stitch) is a stitch pattern which arranges knits and purls checkerboard-fashion so that every purl is surrounded by 4 knits, and every knit by 4 purls.

seed stitch arranges knits and purls checkerboard-fashion

Increasing and decreasing in a very regular stitch pattern like this is disruptive, and several recent e-mails to TECHknitting blog have asked how to do this smoothly.

No doubt there are several different methods, but my own little trick is to run a single column of knits, and increase or decrease along that line.  Stated otherwise, pushing the stitch pattern discontinuity up against a continuous column of knit stitches smooths and hides the irregularity.

Increasing seed stitch in circular knitting

Here is a schematic of what this would look like when knitting circularly, with the increase running along a single increase line, as it might be for a sleeve knit in the round.

circular knit seed stitch: increasing
along the center line, schematic

In the above schematic, the work is laid flat so you can see it, but in the real world, this sleeve will have been knit into a continuous spiral--a cone-shape, open at the bottom.  You have to use your imagination to "zip it shut" into a circle, along the red dotted lines.  In other words, for a circularly-knit sleeve, you would actually have knit this around and around, connected at the dotted lines.  The continuous column of knits running down the schematic center is actually the sleeve underarm "seam."

Below is a photo of what an increase along a center line for an underarm looks like "in the wool."

circular knit seed stitch: increasing
along the center line, "in the wool"

How to make the increases

The little red loops stand for the increases, and you can use any kind of increases you like. I personally use backwards loops slanting in different directions, as detailed here, but many kinds of increases will give a perfectly lovely result, such as kfb (knit front and back) or the nearly invisible increase.  Using a yo (yarn over) will result in holes, however, so yo's are not a great choice.

This all sounds very simple, and ultimately it is, but a lot of confusion typically surrounds increasing in pattern, so let's run through increasing one more time, in more detail, OK?

The surprising fact is that when you come to make the increases, you can just make whatever kinds of increases you prefer, not worrying about whether the stitch to which the increase gives rise is ultimately going to be a knit or a purl.  That's right--when you make the increases, you just make them however you like. Only on the FOLLOWING row do you have to worry about working that increased stitch as a knit or a purl, according to the checkerboard pattern established by the surrounding stitches.

Stated otherwise, a loop added to the fabric in the form of an added stitch does not take on the character of a knit or a purl until it is worked on the FOLLOWING row.  (If you are curious why this should be, a fuller explanation about this particular mystery of knitting is found in this post.) So the bottom line is, just make a pair of increases, and on the row or round after the increase, then work those new stitches as whatever they ought to be (whether knit or purl) as required to keep the checkerboard pattern going.

Increasing seed stitch in flat (back-and-forth) knitting

So far, we've shown the trick of increasing along a center line, such as would occur in circular knitting of a sleeve.  However, many patterns call for seed stitch to be worked flat (back-and-forth).  Here is what the trick looks like when knitting flat (back-and-forth) and the increase is along the outer edges, instead of down the middle.

flat knit seed stitch: increasing
along the edges, schematic

Above is the schematic, and below is the final result "in the wool." The seam (red dotted lines) has not yet been sewn shut, and the sleeve is laying flat.

flat knit seed stitch: increasing
along the edges, "in the wool"

Rate of increase

In both situations illustrated in this post, I tried to cram lots of increases into a small sample, so the increases are worked every fourth row.  However, an increase every 6th or 8th row might be more common for a sleeve, for example.  Nevertheless, although the RATE may differ, the METHOD remains the same.  Just work your increases on either side of a center line (if working circular) or one stitch in from the edge line (if working back-and-forth), at the rate required.  Then, on the NEXT row, worry about whether the increased stitch should be worked as a knit or a purl, according to the seed stitch pattern established by the surrounding stitches.

Variation--more than one knit column separating increases

I have chosen to have a single center column of knits, or a single column of knits along the fabric edge.  There is nothing to stop you from running two or three or more columns of knits, instead.  In fact, for a situation where there will be seaming, remember that the edge stitches might be completely consumed in the seaming process, so an extra knit column along each outer edge might come in very handy. Consider all this ahead of time, and adjust the stitch count, if necessary, so as to allow for the all-knit column(s) as well as to provide an odd or even number of stitches, as circumstances dictate, so that the stitch pattern is uninterrupted.

DEcreasing in seed stitch

All of the above relates to INCREASING in seed stitch, as might occur in a sleeve started at the bottom increasing from wrist diameter to shoulder diameter.  Sometimes, however, you might be working the other way around, such as a sleeve started at the shoulder, and required to DECREASE to the wrist diameter as the sleeve is worked.

Luckily, DEcreasing in seed stitch is exactly the same theory, except that you simply work two stitches TOGETHER at the required rate, rather than form an increase. It is a nice touch to employ symmetrical decreases such as the right leaning k2tog and the left leaning SSK (or the left-leaning SYTK).

Once the excess stitch has been removed on either side of the center line, or on either edge of the row, continue to work the remaining stitches in checkerboard pattern as required by the surrounding stitches. Stated otherwise, the LOCATION of the decreases is the same as the location of the increases: if working circularly, one on either side of a center line of knits; if working back and forth, one decrease on each end of the indicated decrease row, one stitch in from the knit column(s) along each edge.

Does this look familiar?

When you get right down to it, this trick of shaping on either side of a column of knits is really just an adaptation of a method widely used in circular-knit raglan sweaters: if you have ever knit a raglan sweater in the round, this is the shaping which is done on either side of the 4 raglan seams, keeping the center column(s) in all-knits.  The difference here is that the shaping (increasing or decreasing) is done in pattern of seed stitch, instead of stockinette, and the column of knits is used to disguise the stitch pattern discontinuity resulting from shaping.

--TK
You have been reading TECHknitting blog on increasing in seed stitch, and decreasing in seed stitch, too!

Handy knitting links

Here are some great links I've been saving up. Thanksgiving seemed the right time to share these.

• A burn chart to help identify mystery fibers
• Print off your own true-to-scale knitting graph paper
• LibriVox--5000+ free audio recordings in the public domain: enjoy while knitting.

Happy turkey day!

--TK

Thinking about thinking about knitting / Two old sweaters stage a cedar closet jail break

Two different strands wind through today's post, but never fear, they come together at the end.

1. Thinking about thinking about knitting

When I knit, my thoughts sometimes wander to knitting to the past. Then I think about the long-ago knitters and what they were thinking about, a sort of recursive trip down memory lane

As they knit along, those old time knitters knew for sure they were making something valuable. Long ago people thought about their clothes much differently. In that society, people listed clothes in their estate inventories, or made made them part of their will. A nice pair of hand-knit stockings were worthy of being passed along as a special bequest for usefulness and remembrance. That attitude lasted a long time, too.  When asked why she kept old clothes which no longer fit, my grandmother (born in Austria in 1902) used to reply with a German proverb that "clothes outlive their people."

Today, clothes don't have that resonance.  Clothes are not really considered valuable.  That, too, is something I think about when knitting: after all, it takes a certain thickness of skin to be a confirmed hand-knitter in the day of cheap ready-made sweaters and expensive yarn. However difficult life was for the old-time knitters, the usefulness of their craft was never at issue.  So, while we think about knitting's value while we knit, that's one thing with which the old-time knitters never had to concern themselves: clothes in that day were valuable and scarce.

2. Two old sweaters stage a cedar closet jail break 

Another by-product of clothes not being considered valuable nowadays is that, when people pass on, it seems a bit creepy, almost, to keep their old clothes around.  The old way of passing your clothes on to others hardly exists: those clothes are more likely to end up in the goodwill store than being worn around. And yet, hand-knitting, at least around here, recently broke this trend.

two old sweaters

Here are a couple of sweaters I knit a long time ago for my father (brown sweater) and my stepfather (green vest).  When both men passed on, I got the garments back.  For years and years they sat in the cedar closet.

Meanwhile, my son was born, and grew and grew. Last year, at 12, he outgrew the sweater he'd been wearing as a sort of a dress-uniform for semi-formal occasions.  He told me he needed a new one.  I almost cast on then and there, but something passing though my mind sent me upstairs to the cedar closet instead. Down came the brown sweater. To my surprise, it fit him.  For the past year, this old sweater has become his new dress-uniform. A few weeks ago, I was up in the closet again, looking for an old project to photograph for the blog. There sat the green vest.  That turned out to fit, also, so now he has a sort of a uniform-rotation. (And who says the knitter's children have no sweaters?  That kid has two!)

I almost didn't bring the sweaters out of the closet, because I thought it would be kind of unsettling. Instead, the sight of those old sweaters given a new life turns out to be a sort of relief.  I feel like I can think about their original owners again without  the first thought being "oh! they're both dead now." For one thing, I have to remember just how small both my father and stepfather really were, when I see the kid running around in their old sweaters.

sitting on the shelf with the everyday clothes

When these two old sweaters escaped from the cedar closet to sit on the shelf with the every-day clothes, they turned out to be something valuable, like something made by the old-time knitters: a glimpse of my family's past as well a glimpse of the textile-past, both brought to life.

Further, I now know something about the old time knitters and their thoughts which I didn't know before.  When we knit, we think a lot about the person we are knitting for.  But when they knit, the long ago knitters were making making a garment independent, in a certain way, of the person for whom it was knit.  I mean, I'm sure they thought about the sweater-recipient, but they also expected that the garment would be passed along when the recipient had no further need of it; not gotten rid of, or stuck in a cedar-closet jail of remembrance.

* * *

Something new to think about while I knit, I guess.

TK

"Picture Frame" your color knitting to eliminate the jog on discontinuous rounds

A recent post on Ravelry showed the problem with discontinuous rounds of color knitting against a solid background. 

Color knitting in the round forms a spiral.  Therefore, the end of each round is 1 stitch above the beginning of that same round, forming an unattractive "jog."

When knitting is worked in CONTINUOUS stripes, there are two really nifty tricks to mitigate that jog:

• Jogless stripes, both stationary and traveling, for stripes of 3 or more rounds
• Helix stripes, for continuous 1 round high stripes, like a barber-pole

However, although both the jogless stripe trick and the helix stripe trick are nifty tricks that really work, they have their limitations.  Specifically, where the colors are one round or more rounds high, but AREN'T CONTINUOUS, neither jogless nor helix will work.

The most common example of non-continuous stripes are one-stitch high stripes in different colors: Fair-Isle knitting is a subset of that category, since each motif is typically made up of single-stitch-high color changing rounds.

Traditionally in Fair Isle-type knitting, the color jog wasn't hidden, but was placed as far out of sight as possible: under the left arm. A different traditional treatment was to center the color change dab smack in the middle of the sweater front, and then cut the sweater (called "steeking")  up the discontinuity.  (For those unfamiliar, a steek is secured by sewing before cutting, then the front bands are put on either side of the cut afterwards.)  Putting the color change at the steek separates the offset by the width of the front bands, making it indiscernible.

A third trick, not much known, is called "picture framing."  By this trick, the patterns forming color-stripes are purposely kept apart by a few columns of either an added color, or a few background-colored stitches, as shown below.

Any Fair-Isle (or any other kind of colorwork) sweater can be adapted by picture-framing: you just add a few columns (stitches) to the pattern and always knit those stitches in the frame-color.

Here is a real life example of picture-framing on the side seam of a Fair-Isle inspired garment.  This frame is quite a bit more complicated than the simple background-colored vertical stripe shown in the line drawings above, but follows from the same idea.

As for the how to, you can carry the yarn frame color along, up the columns by winding it into a small butterfly or bobbin and keep that hanging on-site (don't carry it around the round).  When you get to the frame, draw the running yarn from the bobbin back to the starting point and knit the frame columns with it.  The other colors are simply stranded behind the picture frame columns, every time you come to them. Alternatively, if the same colors are always used in the frame as in the main body of the work, as in the photo above, you can just knit the frame as part of the ordinary colorwork.

Obviously, if you make a very wide frame, this will make something of a welt (raised ridge) at the frame, because of the stranding yarn behind the columns of the frame.  However, over a short span (2 or 3 or even 4 stitches) maintaining a loose tension will generally avoid the welting problem.

PS:  In the comments, Beverly mentions a pair of socks she designed which feature picture framing separating patterned panels from one another.  These socks are a good example of using simple background-color picture framing to avoid a pattern jog, go have a look.

Good knitting, TK
You have been reading TECHknitting on "how to avoid a jog in Fair-Isle knitting"

A felting primer for hand knits (wet felting)

Felting knitting, or "what's in a name?"

Let's untangle the name first.  Some call it fulling and some call it felting. Although there are technical differences between these terms, they have come to mean the same thing in common speech. "Felting" is the better-known term, so that's the word going to be used in this post.

Another name worth untangling is "boiled wool."  The fabric which results from felting is sometimes called this, yet this is misleading. You CAN boil wool to felt it, but you certainly don't have to.

So, what IS felting?

This post is about wet felting.  Wet felting happens when wool is subjected to three factors simultaneously.  First, there must be WETTING; second, TEMPERATURE CHANGE and third, AGITATION.  When all three of these things happen at once, woolen fabric will shrink substantially, becoming both thicker and smaller. (There is another kind of felting done dry which is worked with barbed needles.  This is called needle felting, but it is not covered in today's post.)

Why felt?

Felting has two sides to its nature: the utility aspect, and beauty inherent in such a dense fabric.

utility

Felt is as close to a miracle fiber as you can make outside of a lab.  It is somewhat rain-proof, somewhat wind-proof, immensely warm and very hard-wearing--nomads in some of the world's coldest places live in felt huts, dress themselves in felted hats and shoes and use felt saddle cloths on their horses. Closer to home, my kids have worn felted mittens here in Wisconsin for years: here is the same pair as shown in the opening illustration after they were worn for two years by a little boy for snowball fights, sledding and all-around tom-foolery.  An unfelted mitten would never have survived, but these are tucked away safe, waiting for another little kid who needs bomb-proof mittens.

< threadjack >
If you want to make the mittens illustrated in this post, they are available in a couple of ways:
For recipe (free)  click here
For the pattern ($3.25, child's XS-XL) you can
*Click through to the pattern page
*Click through to the project page 
*or buy the pattern now

<  / threadjack >

beauty of the fabric

However, utility knits aren't the only reason to felt.  Felting has an inherent beauty: a soft, lush look.  The stitches lose definition and meld into a harmonious whole, the surface becomes matte. Here is a peek at the fabric of a felted cushion.  The density of the fabric not only makes it wear hard, but makes it almost luminous--the depth of the fabric reacts with light differently than a thinner or smoother or shinier fabric would, leaving the colors more saturated.  Of all the cushions we have in the house, this is the one that people find themselves holding and carrying around from place to place.

Felting is irreversible

Felting is an irreversible process.  Once felted, a hand knit garment cannot be unraveled. The yarn has stuck to itself and congealed, so to speak, into a solid mass. This irreversibility has both a downside and an upside.

• On the downside, that beautiful hand knit which went into the washing machine by accident has been ruined, yes.  Nothing--not vinegar, not yogurt, not shampoo, not conditioner--can bring it back to its pre-felted state.  
• On the upside, it is the very irreversibility of the process that makes felted items so hard-wearing. Felted knitting can be cut, sewn and shaped. It will not unravel, so a felted sweater can have a long and lovely second act cut up and sewn into cozy mittens and slippers. 

Felting is unpredictable

Besides being irreversible, felting is also unpredictable.  Sometimes, felting occurs gradually and evenly across an entire garment.  More often, the process occurs suddenly and unevenly. Accordingly, felting garments to fit is something of a gamble. It is true that felted garments are available for sale--"boiled wool" jackets are a famous example. However, these garments are made from sheets of knitting which has been felted and then cut and sewn.  The jackets are not "boiled," the fabric is. For this reason, most knit-and-felt patterns are for bags, or mittens, or slippers: items where the fit isn't super-important.

Four ways to felt

The two main ways to felt are by hand, or using a washing machine.  Two other methods are by using a (clean!) toilet-plunger or by using a dryer. Whichever way you choose, however, consider turning the item inside out first, because the exposed side can get a bit roughed up by the process.

With hand-felting, you have more control over the project.  The mittens in the photo above were stopped from felting further at just the right time by having a paper pattern handy, against which the mittens were frequently compared as the size got nearer and nearer.

For larger projects, or for projects where fit is not so much of an issue, felting in the washing machine is a good choice.  Felting a large project by hand makes you realize the immense strength that the old washer-women must have had, to wrestle wet and heavy fabrics by hand.

hand felting

The basis of felting is that you knead and rub with the aid of dish-washing detergent—the suds act as a lubricant, making the rubbing easier.  (That's hand dishwashing detergent, not machine detergent!)

First, prepare a basin with cold water, and another with hot water, as hot as you can stand.  (Hint: wearing dishwashing gloves lets you use far hotter water than you could stand without them.) Wet the item to be felted in the hot water, then lift it out of the water and rub and knead a drop or two of dish detergent through it.  Hold one part of the item in one hand and the other part in the other hand, and rub the item on itself, changing your grip frequently to bring new parts into the process. Rubbing evenly all over gets the best all-over felting. 

Dunk the item into the hot water again, and begin to wash the detergent out, then abruptly dunk the item in the cold water and continue kneading and rubbing.  Again lift the item out of the water, add a drop or two of detergent, then agitate and rub for a while. Continue in the manner, alternating sudsy kneading under hot and cold shocks until the item is the size you want. The felting and shrinking usually occurs when the cold water shocks the wool, although it sometimes occurs on a hot-water shock.

Sometimes glove fingers or mitten thumbs fingers might try and felt shut.  Keep a wooden-spoon handle or chopstick handy to poke apart unwanted interior felting.

If you want to try boiling, dunk the project into a pot of boiling water , stir it with a wooden spoon, dunk it back in the cold water and do the soap and agitation cold.  Repeat. One thing about boiling is that dyes used on woolens aren't always benign. Be sure to wash the pot very thoroughly afterwards, and use only a stainless steel pot to avoid unwanted interaction of the pot-metal with the dyes. 

However you do it, this process sometimes takes a LOT longer than you think, and you might have to replace the hot water with fresh if it gets too cool.  Depending on the color and type of wool, it has taken me as long as 20 minutes of constant agitation and temperature shocks to felt one measly mitten.  Other times, however, the process takes place so fast you can hardly see it happening.  If it is taking a while, take heart: although you may doubt it while you are wrestling away, as long as the item was knit with ordinary wool (NOT SUPERWASH!!!) it will eventually shrink. 

When the item is the size you want, stop rubbing.  Let the item come to room temperature, then gently rinse out the suds in fresh lukewarm water, then lay flat to dry out of the sun. 

washing machine felting: 

top loaders vs. front loaders

The easiest machine for felting in an old-fashioned top loader you can stop in mid cycle. This lets you haul out the wet item to test the size as the process progresses.  These old top-loaders also let you re-position stuff--sometimes items to be felted get folded on themselves during the spin cycle, and the marks left behind can be hard to get rid of. Another advantage is that, on most top-loaders, you can change the cycle with the twist of a dial, easily switching from wash to rinse to spin. Yet another advantage is that you can keep cleaning the lint screen if your project sheds. Top loaders do have one important downside, though: believe it or not, a washing machine agitator can break your arm. Be sure the machine is turned OFF before you reach in. 

Felting can also be done with a front-loader.  These machines lock and it is often difficult to change the pre-set program once its started, so to get around this, choose the shortest cycle. This lets you keep checking the size after each run-through.

machine how-to

The principles of felting are the same whether by hand or machine: lots of temperature changes, lots of agitation. Each machine has different settings, so look for a heavy-duty cycle (lots of agitation) with abrupt temperature changes (hot wash followed by cold rinse, or vice versa).  Unless the item is massive, it probably makes more sense to toss your felting in with a compatible load (or loads!) you were planning to run anyway. 

Some people prefer to run the item through the washer in a mesh bag or a pillow case. This does help catch the fibers from the wool, but has the downside that the fibers may be re-deposited on the surface of the item. Nevertheless, if your machine is elderly or likely to get clogged from a particularly wooly project, a bag is probably a good idea. 

If you are using a method where you can't get at the item during the felting process (the item is in a pillow case or a mesh bag, or if you are using a front loader which can't be stopped) you might want to consider stuffing the project loosely with a small rag.  This helps keep the item from folding over on itself inside the bag or during the spin cycle: folding can leave crease marks. For small items, a loose stuffing can also help prevent the item from starting to felt to itself.

Yet another trick: a toilet plunger

A toilet plunger offers yet another way to felt.  Yes, this sounds d.i.s.g.u.s.t.i.n.g, and so it would be if you used the same plunger for felting as for your toilet.  Yuk.  Don't do that. Buy a brand new toilet plunger and hide it away when you're not felting.

Fill the tub with hot water, and the bathroom sink with cold water and have at it with the plunger. This is more work that machine felting but less work than hand-felting.  Plus, unlike front-loader felting, with a toilet plunger, you can stop at any time to check the project. 

A final trick: dryer felting

You can also felt hand knits, sort of, in a dryer.  You put in the wet item (turn it inside out) and the dryer does the temperature change and agitation part.  The upside of this is that you can stop the dryer at any time and have a look, the downside is that it often takes multiple wetting/drying cycles to get a moderate amount of felting:  the temperature change is gradual, and the agitation less than if the item were in water. This will eventually work, but it's slow, and even slower if you put it into a bag or pillow case. 

Washing felted items

Just because something is felted doesn't mean it won't shrink if you wash it again.  The upside is that if the item is still too big, you can re-felt it.  But if you'd like the felted item to retain its size, wash it the same way you would wash all woolens: cool water, no agitation, no temperature shocks, and no dryer. On the other hand, felt doesn't really seem to get very dirty--to my recollection, I've never actually had to wash a pair of felted mittens.

Embroidery

There is something about felted wool which pairs well with embroidery.  Below are some "alien eyeball" mittens (also much worn) which were embroidered after felting with a sharp needle and woolen (called "tapestry") yarn.  Although there are exceptions, knitting generally doesn't play well with embroidery because the embroidery sinks into the stitches.  However, felted knitting has no such problem. 

(These are child's size large from the kid-mitt pattern, just somewhat misshapen, you know, from long wear.)

--Good knitting, TK

You have been reading TECHknitting on "felting knitting." 

The stretchiest (and easiest) cast on and bind off

There are many elegant and stretchy ways to start and end knitting, and particularly, ribbing. Among these are:

Tubular cast on
Tubular bind off
Elizabeth Zimmerman's sewn bind off
JSSCO (cast on)
JSSBO (bind off)
Reverse stockinette cast on
The "miraculous" stretchy bind off

Every single one of these is a great invention, a monument to human ingenuity.

Yet, when I go to cast on or bind off, the technique I use more than any other is the simple rolled edge.

simple rolled edge on 1x1 ribbing

This edge can take it--hats and mittens go through three kids and the edge still looks good.  Socks last until the heels wear out. The main thing, though, is that it Could.Not.Be.Easier.

• Step 1: cast on any way you like: long-tail, cable cast on, literally any method at all. The only thing is make it LOOSE.  Much looser than you think.  Use larger needles if you need to. 
• Step 2: switch to the needles you'll use for the ribbing and make the rolled edge by working several rows or rounds of stockinette. 
• Step 3: start your ribbing.

That's it.

For bind off, reverse:  work several rows or rounds of stockinette, then bind off any way you like.  Just make it LOOSE. Bonus points:  bind off and cast on match.

The stockinette rolls over, hides the edge, wears like iron, never binds.

--TK

Elizabeth Cap pattern available for purchase

The TECHknitting pattern is now available for Elizabeth Cap.  The pattern is 7 pages long and includes tutorials on two kinds of garter stitch selvedges and picking up stitches, as well as written instructions plus schematics for the project.

Inspired by the soft flattering caps worn by women for hundreds of years, the cap is worked in modular sections.  The cap is all flat-knit (back and forth) in garter stitch, and was designed especially for "hand painted" yarns. Gauge and yarn info are on the cover shown below (click image to enlarge).

You can view projects made with this pattern on Ravelry or
You can purchase the pattern through Ravelry or
You can purchase the pattern directly by clicking below

The cost is $5.00 USD

Good knitting
--TK

What the yarn wants to be

The last post was about a new pattern coming out by the end of this week, which represents something of a new direction for TECHknitting blog--a pattern offered for sale.  This is a small pattern for a ladies cap, called the "Elizabeth cap."  In the comments, a reader wrote:

 "...I'll be especially interested to read about your process."

Which got me thinking backwards and thus begat today's post.

* * *

The drive for every knitting project comes from a different place, I think.  Sometimes, the project is product-driven ("I need a red sweater for the Christmas party").  Sometimes, the project is process-driven ("I love knitting cables"). Often, a couple of drives collide ("I'll knit a red cable sweater!")  But this particular project, this cap, was mostly yarn-driven.

As stated in the last post, I was away from knitting for a long time.  Oh, I did keep knitting the occasional project, but mostly on yarn I had laying around.  When I sold my yarn shop, I held back a *bunch* of my favorite yarn--for years, yarn shopping was unnecessary.  When the long drought was over, yarn shops were full of all kinds of new yarn.  Gone were the old standards (sniff, Brunswick Germantown, RIP).  In their place were new! exciting! yarns!

Among these new yarns were "hand painted."  These looked excellent in the skein, but when knit up in stockinette, they seemed odd and splotchy. Yet, the colors were intriguing and inspired, so I kept trying.

Texture work was a flop--knitting cables and other textures in these yarns was a waste of energy.  The textures were nearly invisible against the surging colors.

Lace work was a flop--the repetitive patterns which make lace inserts so attractive were disrupted by the non-repetitive color placement.  The variations-on-a-theme which anchor the most beautiful lace projects were equally lost.

What the heck was that yarn trying to be?  Not stockinette, not cables, not lace inserts, not lace projects, so what? It bugged me for a long time.

Of course, by this time, I had a bunch of this kind of yarn laying around.  So, one day, just to use up the yarn, I made a pair of socks in stockinette, with garter stitch heels.

Well! The heel was everything the rest of the sock was not--the socks were splotchy, the heels were beautiful strips of color. The "heads" of the stitches alternating down the length of the garter ridges made dots of contrasting color all the way down the row, so the colors worked together in the fabric in the same way they worked in the skein.  Finally. Hallelujah.

Yet, although this solved the color-splotch problem,  garter stitch has issues of its own.  In garter stitch, the yarn is laid into the fabric at an angle, rather than laying in flat sheets, as it does is stockinette. All these angled stitches make the yarn thick rather than tall, so for a fabric of the same height, garter stitch takes considerately more yarn than does stockinette.  As a result:

• the fabric is heavy.
• containing as much reserve yarn as it does, garter-stitch fabric is stretchy and unstable lengthwise.  In other words, garter stitch wants to stretch and stretch and stretch when it is worn, as those angled stitches get dragged straighter and straighter through wear and gravity.  Harnessed in a good way, this is excellent.  For one example, garter stitch jackets made for children almost magically grow with their wearers, and this a really swell thing for little people. But for grownups, not so much.
• because of the amount of yarn it takes, garter stitch is s-l-o-w to knit, which translates into b-o-r-i-n-g. 

The constraints were clear.  The project must be small; stretch must be wanted, but not so much that the garment became misshapen; and the yarn used be of a light weight, so that stretch and distortion could be combated by knitting more tightly.So, that was one train coming down the track--the need to find a project in which hand painted yarn of a light weight could be knit up in garter stitch.

Coming down the track in the other direction was the perennial train of necessity, here in the upper Midwest, to find a winter hat. The ideal hat would not create hat-hair and would not pin one's ears to one's head so that they ached after a short time.  Versatility would be a good thing, too: the choice to wear hair in, or hair out, and for the hat to be light enough to store in a pocket until needed.

Eventually, these two trains got switched onto the same track when I sat down to knit the nth winter hat of my career, using some light-weight hand-painted yarn knit in garter stitch.  This little cap emerged after several experiments in adding ease over the ears and over the cap back, but not over the front of the cap.  The final profile owes a lot to Elizabethan-era caps, which led to the name "Elizabeth cap." After all, Elizabethan women were required by custom to cover their hair at all times.  They must, I thought, have figured out a comfortable, attractive solution.

The yarn I chose, Pagewood Farms' Glacier Bay, has a lovely crunchy hand when firmly knit in garter stitch. Yet, the unfortunate reality is that Glacier Bay is not commonly available (although if you can find it, try it--it is a unique yarn, at a unique weight, and no, I am not related to the fine folks at Pagewood Farms in any way). So, I re-worked the cap in hand painted sock yarn, and that was satisfactory, also.

I've made four of these so far, and they seem popular.  This led me to write up the pattern (which will be available Thursday or Friday of this week).

That's a lot of backstory to freight down such a little cap.  But, it was fun to research and fun to write.  It's also been fun to wear, and to knit a bunch of them, and it's been a trip down memory lane to write the pattern.

In a nutshell, the process of designing this little project was letting the yarn be what wants to be.

--Best, TK