Happy Valentine's day! Here's a heart, knitted Celtic-knot style, for you!
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| Happy Valentines! |
I've already shown how to knit pretty hearts this "infinity loop" way, so I won't repeat all that here. But! readers have been writing, saying they would appreciate video of some of the more unusual infinity loop procedures. So, hearts for Valentine's day. The bottom part of post is really part 2 of the original heart post: it features 3 video clips of the Celtic heart process, as requested.
HOWEVER! The top part of this post is more important. On this Valentine's day, I write my married U.S. readers about your love, your marriage and, believe it or not...your birth certificate.
See, if you are in majority of American married women, you probably changed your name on your beautiful wedding day. Love, roses, a new life, a new name. A family name for your children.
Yet now, that name change might mean something very different. It might now prevent you, an American citizen, from voting. Yes, believe it or not, if you are married, and if you changed your name upon marriage, then that name change you did in the name of love? Well, it might stop you from voting.
The "SAVE" act
Currently before Congress is something called the "SAVE" act. It's supposed to fix things so non-US citizens can't vote in US elections. The idea is that you have to present a birth certificate or your passport, to prove you are a US citizen before you can register to vote. Most people use their birth certificate. Eleanor Roosevelt, married her fifth cousin once removed so her maiden and married names were the same, but that is unlikely to be your case.
There's nothing in the SAVE act saying that your marriage certificate can be presented along with your birth certificate to prove that you are you. The way the bill is currently written, it requires your current name to be the same as what's on your birth certificate in order for you to register to vote. Which, unless you are Eleanor R., it isn't.
Now, perhaps this isn't all that big of a deal.
--Perhaps a judge will fix this after someone brings a lawsuit.
--Perhaps the act will be changed to allow proof of marriage name change before it is passed into law (especially if you call your representative and senators).
--Perhaps the "SAVE" act will not pass into law at all.
But, here's another "perhaps."
-->Perhaps we ladies are on our own in this matter<--
It certainly wouldn't be the first time we've been on our own, and you know it won't be the last time, either. But there IS something we can do about it right now, without waiting for any other "perhaps" to happen, or some similar gosh-darned foolishness to come down the pike next year.
Get a passport
If your birth certificate is the document you would ordinarily choose to use, and if your married name is different, the solution is a passport. A passport establishes your citizenship and your name. Even under the SAVE act as currently written, there's no question that a US passport serves as ID for voting. So, on this Valentine's day of love, if you love your country and want to leave no doubt about your ability to do your duty as a citizen and vote, consider applying if you haven't got one already.
To get a passport, you'll need to have at least your birth certificate and a passport photo.
If you know where your birth certificate is, great. If you need a new copy, here's how to get one, and here's a list of every states' vital records offices." Vital records offices" are the ones staffed by the same kind of helpful folks who registered your birth in the first place.
As to the passport photo, any old photo won't do, it has to fit certain requirements. Maybe, the next time you're at the drugstore (Walgreens, CVS) or sending a package (Fed Ex, UPS) or getting a photocopy (Staples) maybe stop by the service desk and have them take two US passport-sized photo of you! Or, if you're handy with your computer, take a clear photo of yourself, and then you can create proper passport photos from home (Walmart, PhotoBooth).
A passport would make lovely Valentine's gift to yourself. Perhaps, if you had one, you could take a romantic trip somewhere with that handsome guy you changed your name for! And, you know, also retain your right as an American citizen to vote regardless of "SAVE" or any other foolishness coming up.
💙💚💕💖💗💘💛💜
Celtic Heart Valentines--some video clips
And now to the knitting portion of today's heart-related post! The requested video clips. If you're only going to watch one, watch clip number 3, the last one--that's the real action shot, IMHO.
The easiest way to integrate these video clips might be to return to the original Celtic Heart post, which I have now updated to include links to the video clips below in the appropriate part of the narrative. However, if you have already internalized the steps for my new "infinity loop" method of knitting Celtic knots, I also present the video clips here, below.
Below (but not in the original heart post) I've also pasted a transcript of each clip. Readers in other countries have written to say that You-tube does not translate the subtitles into their language, but Google does translate written text of the blog. (To better read the tiny type, copy and paste into a word processing program or note app.)
Clip 1: Getting the bottom four stitches onto the placeholder
TRANSCRIPT: Hi Techknitter here, showing how to knit the contrasting color Celtic heart. Please forgive my hoarse voice, I’m just getting over a cold. So, what I’m doing here is putting on two stitches from this blue placeholder, I’m putting them onto my left needle. Now this red yarn here in the back is the color that I’m going to knit the heart, and this is the bottom of the ninety-inch fold, as is explained in the pattern. So, now what I’m going to do is knit two stitches, one, two, into the placeholder, there they are. Now, I’m going to make sure that this white yarn here is actually not under, but instead is over this whole assembly. So there it is, it’s over. And, I’m going to purl one stitch, which is the spacer stitch—that’s explained in the pattern. There’s the spacer stitch, and now I’m going to put two more stitches from the placeholder onto the left needle. I’m going to grab them with the right needle just because I find that easier, and then transfer them: transfer one, transfer two. I’m now going to lift the left strand of the ninety-inch red over the white, and I’m going to knit two more stitches—one, two—so these stitches are knit into the placeholder, they’re not knit into the underlying main color. I’m again lifting over the main color background and I’m purling to the end of the row. So, let me show you what I’ve done, what it looks like on the back—let me just get past here. So, here we are the—this is the right arm, and this is the left arm, and they’re on the placeholder, there’s the (blue) placeholder, there’s the (white) spacer, and then we’ll see you at the next clip.
Clip 2: crossing the stitches over one another in contrasting color work to prevent holes, as shown from the back.
As you knit in a contrasting color, there's always the problem of twisting together the yarns on the back, so holes don't develop. Here's a little clip showing the twisting process as viewed rom the back fabric face. I chose to show this from the back fabric face because that's where the crossing actually takes place, making it easier to see. However, the process is the same when performed from the front fabric face. In other words, when you do the left- or right-purl twist (per pattern) you also cross over the new contrasting color yarn the same way. Again, the cross is on the back fabric face, so the difference is, it's harder to see what you're doing because all that crossing is going on behind the fabric, away from your eyes.
If the below video does not play for you, view it directly on you-tube via this linkTRANSCRIPT: Hi! TECHknitter here and this is clip number two of the contrast color Celtic hearts. So, you see I've knit the bottom of the heart and I've divided for the lobes. In both cases where the red starts, it starts on these blue placeholders. Now, I'm working on the back and I want to show how you change the color, how you pin it down when you change the color. So, I've already done this arm and this part of the lobe here. I'm now knitting the white again. On the front of the fabric, the white is a reverse stockinette, so when I'm working on the back of the fabric, as I am now, I have to do the opposite, and knit. So, now I've dropped the white, I picked up the red and I crossed the red over. Right here, where I'm pointing to with my finger, the red crosses over the white and that's the important part. Again, we're doing the opposite of how it looks on the front, so I have to purl the Red. Purl, purl. Now I'm changing color again and so I drop the red and I pick up the white, and I want to always make sure with the reds that I'm working with the correct dedicated strand. Like I don't want to take this strand and by accident knit this! So I have to make sure always that I have the correct strand here. I'm confident now that I did that with the right strand, with the correct strand, so I'm going to knit my way over to the last red and then we'll cross over one more time just to make sure how it's done. So now we're ...Hmmm! Here let me get that Stitch a little better! There we go! Now I'm dropping the white I'm picking up the red again. I'm confident I have the correct strand (I have to check that!) and now I'm going to purl with the red. And again you see, right here between my two thumbs, that the red cross is over the white. So, it's purl, purl, drop the yarn, pick up the white. Again between my thumbs you see that the white is now crossing over, and now I'm going to knit with the white. So that's how you cross the colors on the back, and we'll see you at the next little clip.
Clip 3-- unhooking, standing the stitches on their heads, and re-hooking them.
Per above, this is really the action shot IMHO. It is kind of fascinating to stand the stitches on their heads! Please don't be discouraged by how slow this seems to be. For one thing, the camera was in my way and for another, you can work batchwise, which makes things go oh! so much faster.
Again, remember that the entire method is laid out in several previous posts ("infinity loop" method of knitting Celtic knots, Celtic Heart post). These videos only touch the high points.
If the below video doesn't load for you, here's the direct You-tube link
TRANSCRIPT: Hi! TECHknitter here with a third of three little clips about transforming contrast color Celtic Hearts knit in the infinity loop style. Now what I want to do is, I want to connect the points here-- the points here the top of the lobe here, and the top of the lobe here, and this is a process called transformation. It's explained and Illustrated in the blog but people have been asking for a video so here's a very brief video. (Edit: lol, not really very brief!)
You can see that the problem is that, if I were to connect this and this, the stitches wouldn't really look very nice where they're connected at the top. These stitches point down and the heads point up, these stitches point down-- the tails point down and the heads point up. And, if they were connected, they wouldn't fit into one another. They are both going UP and one needs to go DOWN.
So I'm going to transform just a little bit of this, because once you've seen how it's done, it's not very hard. So the first thing I do is, I take out the bobby pen out, only the outer column is released. So, I'm going to put the bobby pin back into the inner column, and I want to catch that outer column here on my needle before it gets away from me. So, there it is, and now I just want to get this down. There we go. Now the same situation on the other side. This time I'll catch, catch the stitches before I let them go. That'd be smarter huh? So there we go, and I'm going to put the inner loop back on its holder: we're not going to deal with that now.
So now we have the two loops on a needle, and we're going to transfer this loop here to a crochet hook. So this is called the dominant column, and now comes the tricky part! So the dominant column is on the crochet hook and the non-dominant column is now going to be transformed from a stitch that points up into a stitch that points down. So here's what I'm going to do: I'm going to actually pull this out. Now I have this stitch that was below, and I have this loose loop here. And so what I'm going to do is, I'm going to stand this loose loop on its head! I'm going to turn it into a stitch that points down. See? Now it points down. Let me do it again. I take this out, I'm going to pull out the strand here. I'm going to going to catch that back on the needle and now I'm going to pull this stitch through this loop. And, I'll do it one more time. Out comes the strand, it's picked out very carefully.
There it is the loop below, it goes back on the needle for safekeeping, and the crochet hook grabs the loose loop and pulls it through. So there you have transformation. Now if you look closely at what I've done, you can see that now the stitches are walking around in a very nice curve. They're all pointing in the same direction, and after I do that here, so I have to transform this and then when I get here, these ones will be going the right way, but then all these ones will be going the wrong way. So all these ones here have to be transformed. All that explained with pictures and words in the blog but I just did want to show the process of transformation. Uh, we'll just do it one more time so you can see it again. I'm picking out the strand out of the stitch, I'm catching the stitch so it doesn't go anywhere, I am catching... so I had the dominant column on my crochet hook. I'm catching this non-dominant stitch and I'm drawing it through (or at least I'm trying to draw it through!) Alright, so there it is: a very nice line of stitches is developing. Thank you very much for watching, we'll see you back at the blog.
💙💚💕💖💗💘💛💜
--TK
PS: Last time I promised you the new "double fold back steek," and that's coming up next. But somehow, Valentine's day snuck up on me so I had to get this blog entry out first. Stay tuned... double fold-back really is coming up.
