Knitting on Impulse

Torch Lighting in Whistler

I suspect it has cost me a few days of flu relapse, but it was well worth heading out with the kids last night.  Ten thousand people packed Skier's Plaza to see the Olympic torch arrive in Whistler.

 
On account of the densely packed crowds and Liam's fearful insistence on being hoisted high on a hip rather than on shoulders (Catrionagh was on Rob's shoulders, as I wasn't sure I could manage her weight) my one-arm-in-the-sky-point-and-shoot photos are less than stellar...

but the kids had a good view, which is what counts, and the atmosphere was spine-tinglingly electric.

Canadians aren't generally loud about our love of country - we don't have a lot of use for arrogance, and despite being one of the most tolerant and egalitarian societies on the planet, we spend far more time agonizing over what we could do better than bragging about our attributes. Which makes these rare demonstrations of communal patriotic exuberance all the more poignant. Still waters run deep, you know?

Five days to the Opening Ceremonies... and definitely feeling the fever!

We interrupt this blog to say

I'm sick. I've been trying to pretend it wasn't happening, reluctant to admit defeat in my healthiest winter in years, if not decades, hoping that if I didn't say anything I would magically have the energy to keep up a normal work schedule. Not working. And the Olympics are looming - in a good and exciting way, but also in a "oh crap, I wanted to get SO much done before the 12th because it will be difficult to work during the last two weeks of Feburary and also I want the freedom to go experience this once-in-a-lifetime (OK twice, in my case) thing."

One of the things I try to ask myself when feeling overwhelmed is: "How much of this HAS to be this hard?" I self-inflict a lot of Hard - most of it with good intentions like Being Consistent, Sticking With a Plan, Being a Good Mother, etc. The latter, of course, trumps everything, the first two are a bit of a reaction to that, a way of digging in my heels, resisting the sinking fear that I must always and forever give in, give up, and settle for a half-assed version (or no version at all) of the creations that are burning a hole in my gut to get out. 

It's not that I think the world will come to an end if, say, the yarn update is late, it's not even OCD or perfectionism about the thing or event itself. It's that every time I have to defer and settle, it feels like the flimsy outline around my essential Self is dissolving again. (That may have something to do with the lingering effects of burn-out - I spent the last several years of my medical career with a kind of surreal sense that I had completely ceased to exist and was merely a walking aggregate of reactions to other people's demands. Then I had kids.)

I'm sure there's a balance in there somewhere, a way to simultaneously feel safely Real, and deal with the demands of external reality... and I'm sure I'll get there eventually.

In the meantime, that was all a dreadfully long-winded way of saying that February website updates will be irregular - this week's will most definitely not happen tomorrow, and the odds of it happening Friday are falling steadily.  If you are on the email list, you will be the absolute first to know as soon as it does happen (and there'll be some really good stuff in there, like 18 skein batches of Beary Surprise and Cherry in BFL worsted. Also lace - cashmere and silk and the like.)

The good news is that although I feel too crappy for physical exertion, I don't feel too badly to knit. I put yesterday to good use swatching motifs for the body of the Olympic sweater, and now have a plan I'm pretty happy with.

Speaking of good things, after a couple of weeks of insulin, the cat has sproinged back from death's door and is rapidly recovering his feisty, quirky nature. Keeping him on his diet is the biggest challenge, as he is adept at bullying the dog away from her dish in order to snarf down an illicit meal.

2010 Tribute Sweater: Carving Some Turns (the yoke)

We left off at the base of the funnel neck.... here's the yoke:

And the (hand-drawn) charted version:

 

Here's what you need to do:

1) Figure out (based on your gauge and measurements) how many rounds you will need to cover the distance from the base of the neckline to the point of your shoulder. (The ski tracks design ends at that point, with the bear claw motifs "hanging" from a horizontal braid immediatlely underneath the tracks.) This number is all you need to draw up your own "ski track" chart - you can adjust the increase rate (see #3) on the fly if you need to.

2) Grab a piece of graph paper, mark the number of squares corresponding to the number of rounds determined in #1 and draw a wave that starts where the neckline wave leaves off and ends at the apex of a curve. (The bear claw design will complete the other half of the curve.) This will be your central rib wave. Refine it to whatever degree you require to be able to see where to cross the twisted stitch rib left or right.

3) Decide how big around you want the yoke to be at the point of the shoulder. If you have square shoulders, you will probably want to achieve most of your maximal yoke circumference by then; if you have very round shoulders, you may want to spread the increases out over the full depth of the yoke. Or something in between. Number of increase points = # of neck stitches/8.  (Stitches at the shoulder point) minus (stitches at the neck) divided by no. of increase points = frequency of increase rounds. (Probably every third round if your size is similar to mine.)

4) The knitting (starting at the base of the neck ribbing and twisting all knit stitches):

Rnd 1: *k1,p1,k1,p1,k1,p1,pfb,p1; rep. from * to the end. This is the first increase round and creates groups of 3 ribs with a p4 section between.  Mark the middle rib of each group with a moveable stitch marker.

Thereafter: follow your chart. The middle rib of each triplet follows the charted wave exactly for the entire distance. The ribs on either side start off parallel to the middle one, but as the increases create more room, they may be allowed to move away from the middle rib to keep all ribs approximately equidistant. You could chart out the whole thing, but it requires lots of math and careful visualisation of a simultaneously expanding and waving wedge - I found it simpler and just as effective to ad lib their movements. The general principle (illustrated above) is to either shorten or lengthen the apex of the curve in relation to the middle rib. 

A word about increases: The increases go in the space between the rib triplets - one increase in each space, every third round, or as your calculations have determined. After the first increase round, I used m1p to create the increases. By trial and error, I found the most invisible location to be on the inside of a curve - if the increase stitch is crossed by a rib on the following round, any irregularity is completely hidden. On the straightaways, placing the m1p adjacent to a rib is still preferable to the middle of a purl section.

And that will get you to the bottom of the ski run. Those who are knitting along, please feel free to comment if you need clarification on any point....

Here's a quick and nasty bathroom mirror self-portrait of the sweater progress as of this evening:

One last note - I have elected not to work short-rows to raise the back of the neck/shoulders. I'm normally a huge fan of this technique, as I hate a restrictive neckline at the throat and love the fit yielded by short-rows in a circular yoke, but I really didn't want to mess with separately charting waves for the back of the sweater in order to make them all finish at the same place. I figure my funnel neck has enough ease to mitigate the situation.

A Slice of Humility

A while back (I suspect longer ago than I think it was) I blogged about how the mailing list collected by my website garnered me several spam complaints when I used it to send a newsletter.  I set up an alternate means of collection, asking folk to send a brief personal email indicating their interest in being on the mailing list for weekly yarn updates.  That worked really well, and I left notes about the yarn list around the site, figuring I'd done a pretty good job of communicating.

Day before yesterday, I got around to sending a note to the website list, just to round up the half-dozen or so folk I guessed might have been missed by the current process.  As of this moment, I've got 187 responses.

I'm both mortified and gratified - mortified by the magnitude of my communication FAIL, and deeply gratified that so many of you still want to hear from me after I basically (albeit inadvertantly) snubbed you all this time.

I did notice something interesting though - there were loads of undeliverable addresses on there.  Some were gibberish looking ones, but some looked like real email addresses misspelled eg. yaho.com, frontie.net etc.  I can't discount the possibility that some people may have entered invalid addresses on purpose, so I'm not going to correct and resend, but if you thought you signed up and a) haven't been getting weekly yarn updates and b) didn't get Tuesday's email.... you might want to drop me a note (ruth@impulse-of-delight.com)

Speaking of humility... here's how the sweater yoke is coming along after a bit of frogging:

Much better, I think.
 

2010 Tribute Sweater: Part 3

Just a quick one tonight - I got this far:

 
and realized that the look of the purlwise increases sucks.  I thought they would be pretty invisible, but I think I'll have to rip back and align them in proximity to the twisted stitch waves so they look like part of the design rather than random wonkiness.  (Even the cat is disdainful, though he might just be crabby about the daily ear stab and therefore less than objective in his artistic criticism.) 

I'm going to rip back to the dotted line:

I terminated one out of every 4 waves at the bottom of the neck and had planned to terminate 2 of each remaining trio halfway down, with an embossed motif (likely a bear claw) to go at the end of each single wave, just below the point of the shoulder. Looking at it though, and trying it on, I think I'll keep the extra waves after all - it will disguise the increases more effectively, add stability to the critical shoulder area, and generally look better. 

I'll give more detailed math once I'm happy with the yoke, however, for those who are proceeding freestyle, what I've done is this: divide the cast on number by 8 to get the number of segments (in my case 11).  I'm working a single increase in each segment every third round in order to reach my maximum yoke circumference at the appropriate point.  (If your cast on number is really different from mine, the distance between increase rounds will likely also be different.) At the same time, I'm waving the three lines in each segment back and forth and simultaneously spreading them out a bit as the increases give me more room to maneuver. It is actually simple enough to doodle up on a piece of graph paper.

Olympic Sliding Track: a little preview

Rob had a smallish bobsleigh and skeleton race to officiate on Saturday, so we headed up as a family (being as it's only a short walk and a wee chairlift ride from home.) The kids hung out in the race office at the finish dock, with various amusements to tide them through lulls in the action (not to mention dire warnings about the consequences of poking buttons!) 

 
I got to strap on a pair of ice-walkers and wander across the icy dock and out to the end of the media platform (during the Olympics, this will be a winding corridor of media through which each athlete must pass after their run.)

 
The "Look of the Games" is being installed at a furious pace - banners and flags, enormous grandstands and media booths.

Unfortunately, the Olympic infrastucture obscures most of the usual sightlines, but I did manage a few good shots from my vantage point (I wasn't free to wander at this point, because of the ongoing construction, but standing room spectators will pretty much have the run of the inside field & railings during the actual events. I splurged on a single ticket, so I'll let you know how that works out!)

 
The kids were real troopers for the better part of 3 1/2 hours, so when it was time to head home...

we took a wee detour:

2010 Tribute Sweater: Part 2

Here's the overall idea:

The sweater is a longish, heavily textured pullover, constructed from the top down, with a round yoke for maximum sizing flexibility.  There will be a little waist shaping, and the strips of motifs/cables running down the body will be organized so that you can use both the underarm strip and the spaces between the other strips for shaping - again, giving a fair bit of leeway in terms of how aggressively you want to bring in the waist (if at all).

My own version is intended to be outerwear that is roomy enough to accomodate a variety of layering options, as I plan to be standing or strolling for hours at a time in weather that could vary from a few degrees above freezing to really really cold. Consequently, I'll be figuring in 6 inches or so of ease, but the design will work quite nicely with much less (though since it's fairly heavy yarn, I wouldn't suggest negative ease.)

Wool: Custom Woolen Mills mule spinner 3 ply - I would describe this as a heavy Aran weight. Yardage I am going to leave up to you to estimate, as it will vary considerably by size, length, ease, etc.  Ann Budd's guide to yarn requirements is excellent; online, I often use this for a quick reference.  I was pretty liberal with my calculations, especially as I plan to be doing lots of swatching.

Gauge: 4 stitches (SG) and 5.75 rows (RG) to the inch in stockinette. You don't have to match my gauge - I'll lay out the math so that you can calculate everything to your own gauge, but if you're not at least in the ballpark, the design features are going to look pretty different.

Needles: I'm using 5mm (US8) circulars in a variety of lengths - 16 inch to start, 32 inches and up as the circumference expands.

Let's get started!

Here's a rough schematic for the neck and yoke:

Neckline:

I've chosen a moderately roomy funnel neck that reaches to my jawline, and can be folded down as required - I wanted something that would keep the wind off my neck, with enough room to tuck a little cashmere cowl inside for extra warmth. You can easily substitute a crew neck if you wish.

Using a tubular cast-on, begin with a multiple of 8 stitches in 1x1 twisted rib. I used my head circumference (22 in.) x SG (4) to come up with the number of stitches for the funnel circumference (88).

The overall yoke design is a series of parallel waves of varying size that mimic the smooth curves of a downhill skier's fresh tracks and diverge as the yoke widens. The waves are created by moving the columns of twisted knit stitches left and right (ie. crossing a knit stitch over the adjacent purl stitch.) 

 
I haven't written up a chart for the funnel portion, as I expect there will be considerable variation in heights. I will do one for the yoke, so as you ad lib the wave down the neck, ensure that it ends as the stitches are leaning left (looking towards the bottom of the sweater). Alternatively, a simple vertical 1x1 twisted rib will work just as well, particularly if you are creating a crew neck.

Next post: calculating and beginning the yoke.

2010 Tribute Sweater: Part 1

Since there does seem to be some interest out there in knitting along, or at least contemplating knitting along with the sweater project, I thought I'd give it a category of its own and a series of posts dedicated to it in logical, manageable chunks.

Also, since I've taken the definitive step of inviting people along on the ride, I'm thinking it would be a good idea to state my intentions clearly from the very beginning.

1) This is NOT going to be a graded, line by line pattern.  What I plan to do is create a pullover for my own measurements, and let you in on the design logic, charts for specific motifs, and process of creating it.  I will endeavour to design the sweater in a way that is modular enough to allow a variety of sizes and body shapes to create their own versions, to their own measurements. I'll make the process transparent, suggest easier options for tricky bits, I'll walk you through the math and planning... but I won't do it for you. (Not to sound overly abrupt, but thanks to lurking on the designer forums, I know that if I'm not clear on this point, someone will inevitably feel terribly let down and disappointed.) This is a project best done by knitters who are comfy with doing math, and independent enough that they wouldn't be daunted by whipping up a basic knit-to-fit sweater based on their measurements and a gauge swatch.

2) I do hope that it will be an interactive process, with discussion, questions, ideas, and lots of scope for individual creativity and personalization. A cabled or texture heavy sweater is, by its very nature, dreadfully unwieldy to grade to multiple sizes - if your circumference varies from mine by a significant margin, your sweater is necessarily going to look quite different. That, to my mind, is where the fun comes in - I'll provide themes and motifs and panels, with suggestions for combining them - you make the ultimate design decisions for your own version.

3) This is a pretty informal thing - there's no real rules or "joining" or deadlines, other than whatever you care to impose on yourself.  I've set my own goal of finishing by the start of the Winter Games, because I live in the host town and plan to wear the sweater out and about during that time.  You might well want to sit back and see how mine comes along before deciding whether to jump in... or you might want to take a leap of faith and knit along in real time - bearing in mind there's no absolute guarantee I won't rip back something that doesn't work at some point. And if nobody joins me, that's completely fine - it'll still be a fun exercise to work through the process out loud.

4) The purpose of the sweater is to celebrate and commemorate both Whistler and the 2010 Games in ways and with symbols that are meaningful to me. IF (and that's a big if) I decide to create a motif for my sweater that crosses the line into Olympic trademark territory, I won't be publishing charts for it. I don't need an army of IOC lawyers on my doorstep waving cease and desist letters - and they do go after little guys. (I'm pretty sure I'm safe to make something for personal use and celebration - after all, every store in town is being encouraged to decorate in Olympic themes, but I'll be checking out the legalities before I get to that point.) I'll show you what I knit, I'll likely provide hints and/or alternatives, but you'll have to use your own ingenuity if you want to go there.

Having got that out of the way.... let's save the proper introduction to the sweater itself for the next post.  I want to talk about yarn, do up a simple schematic, a couple of photos, some preliminary numbers, and my brain is rapidly shutting down for the evening.

Our 2010 Olympics

They're coming.  To my little town of Whistler.  In three weeks.  It's a Really Big Deal, the preparations for which have consumed our community for the last six years, so much so that the best way I can describe my feelings about it is Christmas On Steroids.  I know, it's an unfortunate analogy, but I'm talking about the twin emotions of 1) eager anticipation of an experience that has been built up to epic proportions and 2) crippling anxiety that one is facing an unparalled opportunity that will never happen again and what if it isn't Special Enough?  Our extended family in Vancouver is dimly aware of preparations, but aside from minor traffic inconveniences if they choose to leave their suburb during the Games, they really aren't affected. Here in Whistler, the Olympics are literally on our doorstep, in our schools, the topic of every committee meeting, the prime concern of every business, the signage on every corner, banner, and boulevard... it's everywhere. 

Here it is on Rob:

(Really, he's quite pleased with the uniform - it's just hard to break a lifelong military habit of looking grim for photographs.)

The lovely ensemble above is his reward for volunteering 12-18 hour days at the Sliding Centre for the two week duration of the Games (not to mention the hundreds of hours of preparation and training put in over the last couple of years).

Due to a variety of factors - some voluntary, many not (sore subject, not going there) I will not have a participatory role in the Games (exhibitor, seller, volunteer... whatever.) Instead, I will spend the two weeks with my kids, soaking up, photographing, and blogging every Olympic experience that will fit into our budget. I'd like to think that counts for something in its own right and I don't see why I shouldn't have some Special Clothes of my own in which to do it.  Being a knitter and designer, I can make that happen:

 
I'm envisioning a heavy Aran weight pullover in Canadian grown and milled wool, with a smidge of shaping, but lots of room for layers, covered in cabled and embossed motifs symbolic of Whistler and the Games. I've done some preliminary sketching and swatching, but with only three weeks to go this is going to be largely invented as I go along.  Want to watch?

If anybody wants to take a leap of faith and follow along with a version of your own, let me know and I'll make my notes reasonably detailed (that would be notes and suggestions, NOT a fully graded pattern).  It will be top down, round yoked for maximal flexibility in fitting.

A Snowy Romp

First time properly off leash - we chose the golf course, with fresh deep snow, kids along and nobody else around.  She was in heaven!