The Spiral of Theodorus

It has taken much longer then expected to get a few pictures of a shawl.  But the stars aligned and I finally have pictures of the completed Spiral of Theodorus.  This was a mathematically challenging pattern to write up.  There were so many numbers to calculate in order to ensure everything came out as desired.  I finally managed to pare the pattern down to the critical numbers and find a way to make it understandable.  I unfortunately lost a lot of time trying to find a way to make the pattern easier which had the unexpected side effect of making it even more complicated.  So I had to frog several starts before going back to the original way of making the pattern.

The Spiral of Theodorus is actually a really cool spiral.  What other shawl can you cast on four stitches and cast off four stitches and have most of a circle.  I am really glad this pattern finally came together.  While it comes out asymmetrical, something I really dislike in most other patterns, it wears symmetrically which is what I really love about it.  Each triangle grows larger as you work your way around the center point.  This is knit in one piece with no seaming.  I hate seaming so my goal has been no seaming in my patterns.  I really hope you enjoy this pattern.  Please visit my Ravelry page and like it or add it to your queues so I will know if I should keep up this line of thought.  I have another really cool spiral in the design queue, I just need to knit another one then work on getting the pattern written and everything that goes into the writing process.

The weather here has been absolutely crazy, just like most of the country.  While we have not been getting torrential downpours, it has been way too dry and very hot.  We desperately need moisture.

Math; A Designer's Friend or Foe?

I remember really liking math when I was in High School, then I hit college and calculus, ugh!  So I can do most basic math, although the calculator is really handy, without complaints.  Most of the math I use is to figure out if I am getting a good buy at the store, so enter the latest pattern I am working on.  This pattern is mathematically complex and has a lot going on.  And everything is a triangle, so I have hypotenuses (hypoteni?) to calculate, lots of short rows, and extra stitches galore.  The calculator, and a spreadsheet, was definitely a must have here.

All these calculations have really bogged down my free time but I think I finally have a grip on all the numbers and feel like everything has come together.  I did all the math so you don't have to.  I thought that was the real challenge but it turns out that writing the pattern will be the real challenge, how to get all the different numbers to come together and make sense to someone else.

Math really is pretty cool.  A random image search lead to a cool idea for a shawl and even with all the number crunching I had to do, I am really pleased with the outcome.  The shawl is a spiral that is composed of triangles each knit individually to make a whole.  The pattern is simple and complex, with a lovely drape.  I think I can also make a couple of modifications and make a lovely scarf from the pattern too.

Now all I need to do is actually wait for all this rainy and cloudy weather to blow through so I can go out and get some nice pictures in some nice light.  Stay tuned for some pictures and hopefully a link to a pattern soon.

Road Trip!!

As almost every knitter knows, road trips are a great time to get a ton of knitting done and also possibly aggravate any carpal tunnel or tendonitis you might have.  Or perhaps set off that motion sickness you are prone to.  Luckily I don't have motion sickness and I have managed to be careful about avoiding carpal tunnel and their ilk.  So I should have been able to get a ton of knitting done on our 13 hour, each direction, marathon road trip.  Nope!  I actually got nothing done.  It wasn't because I didn't want to, or I didn't have the time, rather I was sitting in the back keeping my little boy happy.  And being crammed between a large carseat and the door doesn't make for comfortable or ergonomic knitting (when is knitting ergonomic anyways!).  And it wasn't for lack of trying, I have tried in the past to knit while crammed in and alas the carseat is just at the wrong height for me to knit at all.  Sigh.

I was also hopeful that I could get some knitting done when I reached our destination but again I barely managed to start a shawl I have been designing and working on for a while.  I figured out that since I am not up on my British accents, it was really hard to knit and watch Downton Abbey, yes I am only just now finally getting around to watching it.  This is the drawback to not having cable, but the savings are totally worth the lack of cable right now.  While I did manage to get most of the numbers figured out, I really need to just sit down and knit the whole thing to determine if the numbers will work out to the right size.  So now we are finally back home and I don't have to worry about the house proofing or the stairs.  I do have to slowly wean the little guy off the non-stop attention he got so he can once again play on his own some more and I can get stuff done without him hanging on or wanting to be held (my poor arm).

Hopefully everyone got more knitting done then I did.

Designing is Fun

I haven't been designing patterns for that long, really I consider myself a newbie in the design department even if I consider myself a fairly advanced knitter (at least when it comes to lace).  I started a few months ago trying to design a crescent shaped shawl with the fan and feather along the bottom edge.  Yes, I know, I think everyone has a pattern out for something like this.  I just couldn't figure out how to get the center point fan to not pucker the surrounding shawl.  So I put it down for a while hoping inspiration would come to me as I worked on something else.

Well, inspiration did come to me.  Unfortunately it didn't resolve the puckering issue.  Instead it came in the form of another idea for a shawl.  A better form for the crescent and a nice apple leaf detail along the bottom (check out the Apple Leaf pattern on Ravelry).  So I sketched out the idea, whipped up a sample and it looked great along the edge, but turned out way too long.   This was a scarf not a shawl!  So back to the drawing board and not only did I resolve the scarf versus shawl issue but along came another idea.

Cables! I haven't really done cables before.  I have done mock cables and while they are easy and look nice I wasn't a huge fan of them.  So what on earth possessed me to design a shawl with not one cable but two cables, one along the neck edge and one in the border detail.  Well, cables really are not that hard and the shawl knit up pretty quickly.  Mostly I think this was because I had learned from the first two shawls.  Plan more in advance.  I just posted the Cabled Lace pattern on Ravelry and already people have it in their queues with over 20+ likes on it.  Check it out and give it a like if you think it is nice.

It doesn't stop there either.  Suddenly I had not one, not two, but three more ideas pop into my head for more shawls and even a little shrug/bolero.  I sketched them all out so I wouldn't forget and even started test knitting them.  The shrug is really cute and works well in bulky, and fingering.  I am working on making it both a long sleeve and short sleeve.  I will have to play around with adding more details to it so people have options while knitting it.

I didn't realize that design work could beget more ideas.  It is like I have opened up a door and everything is rushing to push itself inside.

Frogging; Knitting Therapy

The worst enemy to a knitter is themselves.  I am harshly critical of my own work, yet I am oblivious to mistakes made by other knitters.  Not only am I not looking for them but I really don't care if they made a mistake(s) as long as the whole piece looks nice.  So why do my mistakes bother me so much?

They bother me because not only do I know they are there, and exactly where they are, but also because it ruins the piece for me.  It will always be flawed to me.  This has pushed me to figure out how to correct mistakes several rows down so I can fix them as soon as I find them.  But I will no longer hesitate to just frog a piece and start fresh.  I remember when I picked up knitting again after more then ten years away and could barely remember how to cast off.  Imagine my frustration at knitting a sweater in the round for the first time and getting a twist in it; not once, not twice, but three times in a row.  And of course you never discover this after just one or two rows.  Frogging was a huge thing after struggling to get everything to work.  But I always felt so much better afterwards because I was once again moving forward with the project.  I also didn't have this large mistake hanging over my head and weighing me down.

Frogging has become a form of therapy for a project that just isn't going right.  I pull out the needles and just pull on that working thread.  I can frog something quite quickly sending hours or even days worth of work back onto the ball.  And while there is some initial pain, the relief of moving forward even if I am going backwards is a much better reward.  If I really think about it, I always know that frogging is the best solution for a major problem, whether I am starting over completely or just frogging back to a better point, my brain always knows it is the right thing to do.  My heart sometimes tries to rebel but I just can't justify stopping a project because I don't like how it is going or because of a mistake.  I don't need a WIP with an error hanging over my head.

Design work has really upped the ante on my frogging rate.  So many times, a pattern that seems good on paper doesn't make it past more then a few rows before I have to frog it back and rework the pattern to account for shape, or stitches I didn't count.  I am now quite zen about frogging, maybe a little too zen.  What's your take on frogging?

I am a Lace Junkie

I am a lace junkie.  I love knitting lace, I love the feel of it as I knit, and I love the rhythm of the actual knitting.  No matter how complex the pattern, I feel that this is a zen process in which I can just relax and knit.  If the pattern has a nice memorizable repeat then I can really just knit mindlessly despite the complexity.  The process of blocking, while not the most pleasant of tasks, is really the climax of the whole process.  It is amazing how the blocking brings the whole piece to life.

That's great!  Except... The problem is, I really have no excuse or place to wear nice lace shawls.  So I have a box of shawls all sealed up in Ziploc bags to prevent the moths from getting to them.  It is really quite sad when I think about it.  Pretty much every shawl is different; in color and design.  I think I have an entire rainbow in that box.  What is going to make things even worse is that I have started to design patterns recently.  So this means I can bust down some of the stash by making and remaking the same pattern until I have it as perfect as I can get it.  Now I am starting to get repeats in my box, some of those repeats also have imperfections.  I'm not saying they have errors in them because really I just changed the pattern mid-stride and the first incarnation didn't get the change.  Compared to the final pattern, they are different and not quite as polished.

I have decided that I love designing patterns; or at least coming up with the idea, sketching it out, and beginning to knit the first one.  I also realized that I dislike knitting something again, and again, and again just to get it right.  Good thing I discover most errors early on and can fix them on the go rather then having to frog an entire project or just live with the error.

My first attempt at "designing" was actually taking one pattern that I loved the center panel from (Garden of Alla) and combining it with another pattern where I loved the edging (Haruni).  After posting pictures of the finished lace on Ravelry, I had more then a few comments asking how I had done it.  So I had to deconstruct what I had done on the fly and post that for everyone who was interested.   Nothing special, but I was happy I had received a few comments from people who liked it enough to want to have one of their own.

So now I am starting to have fun with design and just posted my first pattern for sale on Ravelry.  I can't be more excited about this.  Seeing my pattern up and having people buy it is just the icing on the cake.  I can't wait to get the next pattern up and available.  Go check out the Apple Leaf Shawl on Ravelry and if you like it let me know.