Happy birthday Ravelry

May 2017 marks the 10th anniversary of Ravelry.

I know it's hard to believe. It's grown steadily from tens of members in the beginning to millions today.

Their blog post about their birthday can be found here. 

Do you utilize ravelry? What are your favorite parts?

I utilize it, but definitely not to its fullest.  I hunt for patterns.  I might see how yarns are used by others.  I check other people's projects.

I don't use the project page to my benefit or its fullest. I have not even used the stash section.  I try to keep my library up to date and fail.

Stash Dash by TheKnitGirllls

Ever since I heard about this event,  I have thought it was a great idea.  The basic idea is not to run thru your stash of yarn. The basic idea IS to finish wips, ufos, and things that are hibernating.   Rules for the way they run it can be found here from last year. The main rules stay the same.  

Sadly I don't get a lot of time to participate. I have a huge commitment each July that takes many, many hours for my church.  So I make my own time frame rules. I don't declare how much distance I'm working towards.  If I do, life conspires against me.  If I don't,  I have a better chance of time being available all over.

Check my list of wips from earlier this year.  I already know I have no chance of whipping through these. I started crochet dolls for my granddaughters birthday at the end of the month.  The girls are Star Wars fans and I'm doing Chewbacca and Yoda. There are also "Little Golden" books  with Star Wars themes to accompany.   And now to get to work on them.

My LYS

Where do you look for YOUR local yarn shop?  As a little girl,  there was one place.  The yellow pages of the phone book.  Sadly I no longer get a phone book.  I miss it but can see how it's been mafe obsolete.

Today there are a plethora of options.   A few years ago, we got a Garmin gps.  In the search parameters you can put in yarn shop or knit shop and will give a list of shops in an ever widening circle from your location. Side note: it made every road trip much more pleasant by eliminating arguments. I wholeheartedly suggest getting a Garmin,  rand McNally gps, Google maps or Apple's gps.

You can Google this information. A little less reliable but not by much. 

I found the knitmap app for Android devices.  It's backed up by a website for those who can't download the app.  This relies on shop owners and customers to keep it up to date.  This is just for yarn and possibly fiber.  It covers major international cities as well.

There's also needle travel.  Needle travel is almost exactly like knitmap.  The big differences?  Needle travel covers quilting,  needlepoint,  cross stitch,  weaving,  and spinning in addition to knit/crochet.  Another difference is that the people who put this together call each shop to be sure it's still operating.  It's also a book (reminding me of a AAA travel book) and a website.   There is no app, but you can

A quick look at any/all of these resources gives me this list of shops.  Within 2 hours of driving i have this rich abundance of yarn shops.  For those I've visited,  so far, everyone in those shops has been kind and knowledgeable.

Little owls knit shop               
2209 paxton church rd         
Harrisburg                          
4120900

Knitter's dream
2340 mockingbird rd
HArrisburg
5997665

Tucker yarn
950 Hamilton St.
Allentown
6104341846

Knitter's edge
1001 w. Broad street
Bethlehem
6104199276

Stormy hill criations
52 York Street
Gettysburg
717-818-9691 or 717-225-0780

Lancaster yarn shop
3519 Old Philadelphia Pike,
Kitchen Kettle Village
Intercourse, PA 17534
7688007

String theory yarn shop
829 state st.
Suite 2003
Lemoyne
7751618

Ewebiquitous
39 e. Main street
Lititz
5688890

Ball & skein
2 e. 28tg division hwy
Lititz
6254371

Kraemer yarn shop
240  s. Main street
Nazareth

I know from research that most people don't have this abundance.  These people rely on big box craft stores or just plain big box stores or online ordering from a variety of websites. For them, I'm sorry. A big part of the experience is to touch and smell and see in a variety of lights the true colors.

Where is your local yarn shop?  What do you think of the things it offers?  How are the people?  Are they friendly and knowledgeable?  Where do you go for help if not there?

The closer it gets the further away it is

As I typed this title,  strains of the song "the closer you get" by the group Alabama  flickered through my mind.  It has very little to actually do with this post though.

With a wedding one week away and counting,  I've been hunting for the little things that are needed.  I lost a camera and have been hunting high and low.  There's a good camera for stills, but I thought it would be great to have video of the exchange of vows.  The only camera we have that can do it was missing. I have found it.

I  also found several wips that I really want done.  One is a design of my own for a crocodile stitch shawl. The yarn is patons lace in cream.

Another one is a flower sweater. The yarn is ella rae chunky acrylic/ alpaca blend.  Instead of the blue/beige ombre in the pattern, I'm choosing a golden yellow with dark brown  and gingerbread. I have an affinity for sunflowers. The yarn in the pattern is a fine weight but I zipped it up to a bulky weight.

The last one i found is Cancun Boxy Lace Top.  The yarn i chose is Tahki Stacy Charles mercerized cotton dk weight in shades of blues and greens.  I'm also making it longer than indicated. 

So as you can see,  I am closer to having no wips by virtue of frogging and dismantling the kits i made but have changed my mind about.   But I'm further away because I added 3 more.

Are my knit stitches crossed or twisted?

If someone were to ask you what is the difference between crossed and twisted stitches in knitting,  would you be able to help?  I ask because it came to me as I worked on a guild project called wingspan by maylin Tri'Coterie Designs.  This project is from several years ago and older than that from its designing. It's a really nice shawl and I look forward to finishing it sometime soon.  Because then, I can wear it.

But back to the question at hand. Let's explore this. 

Cables are crossed.  Anyone who has seen Aran sweaters, whether machine knit or hand knit, knows about cables.   The background is one stitch pattern.   There are ropes snaking around the surface that lay over each other at regular intervals.   The point where they lay over each other is the cross.  Cables are at least 2 stitches over at least 2 stitches.  They usually use a cable needle.   Some knitters are adept at crossing cables without a cable needle.    

Now for the slightly harder part. What if there's only one stitch over one stitch?   Is that a cable?   No.  But what is it? Those are called twisted stitches.  They don't use a cable needle. You would drop it if you tried to use one.  Twisted stitches are crossed when doing the actual knitting rather than before.

So that leaves crossed stitches.  What are those?   If you think of a knit stitch as a pair of pants, the top of the stitch that goes on the top of the needle is the part of the pants that goes around hips and waist.  Each leg is a leg of the stitch. Cross the pant legs at the ankle and that is what a crossed knit stitch looks like.  Crossed  stitches are formed by a combination of where in the stitch the needle is put and the direction of the wrapping of the yarn around the needle.

But there are also knit stitch patterns called cross stitch.   They are very lovely to see and fun to knit. Below is a favorite cross stitch of mine.  It's a variety slip stitch knitting.

Earth day

I'm late but happy earth day!

Locally,  earth day is about cleaning up the streams and abandoned areas and volunteering at non profit organizations and charities.   As most of us know,  it all started back in the early 70s when Americans were guzzling petroleum products and just starting to be concerned with the state of our land and waterways.   We've come far but there's still a lot we can do.

"How can we tie knitting and crocheting with earth day" you ask.   Let's start with the easy stuff of the mantra reduce, re-use, recyle, make do or do without.

1.  Use reusable shopping bags.   Then we don't have to have so many of those cheap grocery bags.  These are being made to disintegrate in the landfills.  If they don't get used quick enough from date of manufacturing they start falling apart in the boxes and that spells trouble for shoppers. Have you had a bag split in the parking lot dropping something breakable?  This  is annoying and expensive.   You can purchase reusable shopping bags or you can make them.

Some would have you use those plastic bags to make something more permanent and sturdier.   I encourage you not to do this.   Kitchen cotton such as sugar and creme peaches and cream are fabulous.  Acrylic yarns can do a great job, possibly better than the cottons.

However,  in the reduce, re-use and recycle vein, what about tarn?  Have you heard about this?  Recycle your old t-shirts.  I have a bunch that have seen better days. Over the years,  tiny holes open in the fabric.  These shirts then make it to my ok for cleaning or other dirty activity wardrobe. But eventually even that part of the closet becomes overflowing and something must be done. So I make tarn. 

Here is a quick run-through of my process.
     1. Lay shirt flat on a solid surface. Smooth wrinkles.
     2. With a scissor or rotary cutter (think pizza wheel for fabric) cut across shirt from under arm seam to under arm seam.  Remove the neck/sleeve portion.
     3.  Using a yardstick,  cut across the body in even and straight strips,  ending 2 inches from the fold.
     4.  Pick up the fabric.  Using scissors,  cut, angling up from one cut to the very next one.  Taper ends if desired.  This will give you a continuous strip. 
     5.  Stretch to cause curling as you wrap into a ball or wrap in a ball and stretch as you knit or crochet with it.

Patterns abound for shopping bag and market bags.  Choose from flat to those with a more boxlike shape to string bags.

Oh and don't toss those bits not used.  They are great for dirty jobs instead of buying paper towels.

2.  I've talked before about frogging sweaters to get a luxury fiber that is either out of my budget or just not available to me.  But, have you changed shape? Kids grown?   Usually our wardrobes are centered around a few colors that mix and match.   If you've shrunk, first congratulations on your weight loss.  Second consider donating the clothes outgrown so others can utilize.  Third, frog appropriate garments that work well together and rework into a garment that will fit your new body.

3.  Make due with what you have.  This is a harder one.   Are some of your clothes and soft home furnishings looking i bit faded?  Maybe you can't stand the dated colors but can't afford new.  Or perhaps you can't see spending  $$ when there's nothing wrong with the things except for the color.   Here's where dye can be a huge help.

Any natural fibers can be dyed.  Synthetic fibers are a mixed bag.   Some will take dye, some won't.   Rit dyes found in most grocery stores and craft stores are readily available. They work well with natural fibers.  They even say that synthetic fibers will work with their dye.  The few times I tried synthetics, i didn't have success.  Light colors can go darker. Dark colors can go darker. Plant fibers can be bleached out with rit color remover.  Animal fibers will be damaged by the color remover process. Synthetics have the color in the structure of the thread and is part of the processing. These can't have the color removed.

Moebius for knit and crochet

Recently at a guild meeting,  I taught how to knit a moebius shawl or cowl. As Cat Bordhi taught, a moebius not only has no beginning or end but grows from the center up and down and has a twist.  The right side is always the side you see when knitting.  I use Cat's method to cast on.

It also reminded me of one of the hats I saw at another retreat.   The ribbing had a twist, making it look & to u.   But.... it grew up from the edge in one direction.   I suggested rather than the knitter ripping,  she should keep it.  Knitting around the twist can straighten out the rest of the project but leaves the twist in the ribbing.   Add an embellishment and it's fabulous.

These seemingly separate and random things have led me to think about moebius and crochet. As usual,  while washing dishes, the thoughts turned to how to combine crochet and moebius.  Each time I tried to work it through in my mind, I ran into one particular problem. The cross kept getting wider and thicker.  It goes to show,  having yarn and tools in hand can let you see things that the mind can't.

YouTube can be very helpful.   I found two different approaches to the same end.  One followed my idea (working in the chain on both sides)  but showed a different stitch pattern than the same old same old. Another showed a much nicer and easier to work option.  This is from Kristin Omdahl.  Her solution allows you to work around the chain on both sides. It's fast and easy.

The one thing I found was I could not do was crochet a twisted, one edge worked piece of fabric. Possibly there is a way, but since I wasn't looking in that direction I didn't find it, nor did I explore to hunt down a solution.  I did like the process so much I made a bunch of samples. I also thought of a couple of prayer shawl patterns for this technique.

Prayer shawl

16 oz worsted weight yarn, color of choice

J or K hook

Ch 4, dc in 4th ch from hook.  Rep this sequence 25 - 35 times.  Join with a sl st in the first ch of the first eyelet.

Ch 3 (counts as a dc now and throughout), 2 dc in same eyelet.  3 dc in each of the next eyelets until you reach the beginning.  Twist the eyelet chain 180* so the empty side of the eyelets is facing out.  3 dc in each of the eyelets around.  Join with a sl st in the top of the ch 3 at the beginning.

You now have a ring that is double sided and has one twist in it. 

Ch 3, 2 dc in same sp. work 3 dc in each sp around.  Join with a sl st in top of ch 3. 

**Ch 2, 2 dc cluster over next 2 sts, end with yarn around the hook and pull through 3, ch 2, * 3 dc cl over next 3 dc, ch 2.  Rep from * around.  Join with sl st in top of ch 3.

Rep from ** until the yarn is gone with a whole round finished, or you have 15" of depth. 

Give with joy or keep for yourself and gift the next one.  It's like giving a hug to the recipient even if you aren't there.