That's a lot of garter stitch

This project had been on the needles for a while but I finally finished it and gave it to Tadpole as a mother's day gift (hobbit style) last weekend. A quick check of my ravelry notes revealed that I cast on for this blanket in October of last year. I know I worked on this one for a while but I didn't realize quite how long!

It's a little tough to see in these photos (since I opted to unpin the blanket and get it off the island before breakfast and completely forgot to snap a blocking shot) but this is a square hap blanket.

Specs:
Yarn: 3 skeins of Knitting Notions Classic Merino Lace in ironstone and 1 skein of Knitting Notions Classic Merino Lace in thyme. I used just about every yard of the yarn. I was so close on the darker blue/green, in fact, that I had to frog the bind-off halfway through the second side when I realized that I didn't have enough yardage left to complete the edging. In other words, the light piping along the edge was not planned.
Needles: a 32" circular needle for the entire thing, including the i-cord bind-off.
Time to knit: seven months, off and on.
Pattern: . . . does "winging it" count?

Like many of you, I love looking through the BrooklynTweed patterns and I particularly liked the hap blanket design that Jared wrote up over a year ago. Gudrun and Ysolda have published similar patterns.  I found an outline of the basic design in one of my knitting books and decided that I'd try to whip up a working pattern myself (at the very least, the exercise would keep my from caving and buying some Shelter for the project).

Here's the bare bones version (assuming four skeins of yarn, two for the center square and two for the border): Cast on one stitch and, working in garter stitch, *k1f&b, knit to the end of the row, repeating from * until you run out of yarn in the first skein. Join the second skein and *k2tog, knit to the end of the row, repeating from * until you have one stitch left (and presumably are almost out of yarn). Bind off that last stitch. Then pick up and knit along the edges of the garter stitch square you just made, using a ratio of 3 stitches for every 2 garter ridges (in other words: k1f&b in the first garter ridge and k1 in the second, and repeat all the way around).

Now is the one tricky part: figure out what lace pattern you want to use for the border. I used Old Shale, but anything will work. Then calculate the number of stitches you will need for the lace pattern and corner stitches (per side, to make things easy). Subtract from that figure the number of stitches you have on any particular side to determine how many stitches you will need to increase in order to work the lace. Then work a few rows in garter stitch or some other filler pattern and work the necessary increases into those rows. And if you realize (like I did) that you didn't drink enough coffee to count or add correctly when you did that initial calculation, you can always fudge things at the corners on the first few lace rows and it all works out.

Work the lace pattern until you are nearly out of yarn (don't forget to save enough to cast off!) and then bind off using a 2-stitch i-cord.

I made this blanket so that tadpole would have something light to use at night now that spring is here and the nights are getting warmer. That's all well and good in theory, but how did it work out in practice?

Let's compare the new blanket with her current favorite: the Bear Claw:

Getting all dreamy-eyed - she loves this blanket.

Seriously, she really loves this blanket.

What? What's this new thing?

No, really, give me back my Bear Claw!

Here, you take it.

It only took one day and now the new blanket is a big hit. So much so that we can't leave it out during play time since all she wants to do is snuggle with it. Score one for mom on the knitting front.

Exciting stuff

Well hello again. It's been a while, hasn't it? We have some exciting things going on at chez Tinks and Frogs.

First off, I thought I'd start a new feature: Tadpole Tuesdays. My knitting is not nearly as prolific as it used to be now that I'm back at work so I figured it's time to spice things up on the blog front. Every Tuesday I'm going to comment on some aspect of knitting for baby. What this really means is that you'll probably get lots of cute pictures of Tadpole wearing handknits that I made a while ago but didn't have any modeled shots to show.

For today's Tadpole Tuesday, I'm debuting my second pattern: the appropriately named Tadpole's Purple Sweater, which you may remember from the summer.

Tadpole has gotten quite a bit bigger since the first photo shoot (she was four and a half months old at the time) but the sweater still looks great on her at almost nine months old. Quick digression: when did that happen?!?!

The pattern is available as a free ravelry download here.

One final bit of excitement - I'm on twitter! Disclaimer: what I mean by "I'm on twitter!" is that I've signed up and haven't done anything else at this point.

Why am I telling you this? Jacey, Phoe, Lauren, Erin, and I are doing a knit-a-long for Stripe Study. Since the other four ladies were already on twitter (and since it can take a while to get up a blog post - I'm looking at you, cat sitting on my lap where the computer should be), I thought I'd take the plunge and tweet the KAL. That's not to say that I won't blog about it, too, but this way I can talk about what I'm doing without worrying so much about pictures during the week. And that's really nice when I can only try to get good shots on the weekends these days.

Wish me luck!

A rant, a question, and a yarn giveaway

Quick Note: My efforts to work through my yarn stash haven't been nearly as successful as I'd hoped (it's amazing how much less knitting one can do when parenting a small person all day long). So it's time for a change of plan. This will be the first of several posts where if you leave a comment, you get entered into a drawing to receive some yarn from my stash. I'll be opening up comments to everyone, not just those with google/livejournal/etc. accounts. I hope we can get a great discussion going (and work down my stash!).

Today I want to talk about something that I've been thinking about a lot lately: pattern support.

Back in November I published my first pattern and since then I've been really flattered by the support, praise, and encouragement I've received both here on the blog but also on ravelry. I truly enjoyed coming up with the design. Knitting it a couple of times and having friends jump on the scarflet bandwagon was a blast. And then I got to have the fun of turning my thoughts and ideas into a printable document that anyone could use.

I put this pattern out for free. I didn't (and still don't) think that what I had done was different enough from what was already available to warrant charging someone money for it. I also didn't want to deal with the hassle of setting up a system of payment, figuring out about taxes, and dealing with the other business aspects of knitwear design. This is something I do for fun; it's not my job. And I wanted to contribute something to the knitting community that has been very good to me and has helped me grow.

However, publishing that pattern came with something that I really haven't enjoyed and didn't expect. I have received a number of requests from knitters asking for help with the pattern. For the most part, these requests have pinpointed a specific section of the pattern causing difficulty. But some of them were general cries for help where I couldn't even tell what the problem was, never mind begin to think of how to fix it.

I like to think that I am a nice person. I genuinely like to help people when I can. And I really like to encourage people in a craft that I enjoy quite a bit. For all of these reasons, I answer each and every request for pattern support that I receive.

But here's the problem: all of these request for pattern support could have been answered succinctly in one of two ways.

1. Read the pattern (again).
2. Count your stitches (again).

While I've been tempted to say this, I haven't. And instead I prepared a thoughtful response that usually involved just repeating what I had written in the pattern. I might rephrase something slightly but that's it.

All of this involves time, quite a bit of time. And time is not something that I have a lot of these days. I am the mother of a three-and-a-half month old daughter. This is a 24/7 job. In a few months, I go back to my "real" job where I will be working 60-hour weeks if not more. And I will still be the mother of an infant daughter. All of this means that I want to spend as much time with her (and my husband) as I can while also recognizing that I am an adult who uses real words in full sentences and has interests other than all things baby.

If someone genuinely thinks that there is a mistake in the pattern, I want to know about it so that I can fix the problem and issue a correction that everyone can use. But I don't want to spend what little bit of free time that I have gently urging someone to reread the pattern because I have already answered her question halfway down page three.

I accept that the knitting community has come to expect, and paid designers have come to provide, a fair amount of pattern support. But I can't do this. 

There are plenty of resources out there if you have difficulty understanding a pattern. You could call a knitter friend for help. You could look on ravelry forums to see if someone else had encountered a similar problem or could help you better understand the directions. And if that didn't work, you could go to a help session at a LYS, pay the money for an hour with the on-site expert, and seek advice there. 

I am working on a baby sweater design at the moment and I would love to share it with you. I think it's going to be a really great solution to the problem of figuring out how to make a sweater to fit a baby you haven't met yet (and to make that sweater last longer than two weeks). But for all of the reasons I've laid out above I can't keep answering questions asking for help with the pattern.

So here's my question: How can I contribute patterns to the knitting community while making clear that I can't and won't provide the sort of pattern support that many knitters have come to expect?

How would you feel if a free pattern came with a disclaimer telling you that the designer would not answer questions asking for help understanding the pattern?

Would you still want to use the pattern or would this put you off? More importantly, would you think to yourself "if I ask really nicely, perhaps she'll make an exception just for me"?

Would it help if I had an FAQ page on the blog where I answered common questions or provided clarification if people had questions?

Would it be better if I skipped the disclaimer on the pattern and instead went with a generic response to requests for help, saying that I don't provide pattern support?

Thanks for reading. I know this is quite a bit longer than my usual posts and not the rosy picture of knitting motherhood that you normally get here. But this issue is very important to me and I wanted to take a break from the usual content and talk about it. And I am really looking forward to hearing your thoughts and responses. 

As an extra thank you to everyone who participates in the discussion, I'm giving away three skeins of Woolen Rabbit Essence in the oakmoss colorway.

How does this work? Just leave a comment letting me know what you think and I'll enter you into a drawing (random number generator) to receive one of the three skeins. Any comment whenever? No. Leave the comment by noon central time on Monday, June 27. I'll post the three winners on Tuesday, June 28, and ask them to tell me their mailing addresses so I can send off the skeins.

Next time: the best skein I have ever spun. Seriously.

FO: Venezia Pillows

I've actually got progress to show on the gift-knitting front. My Venezia Pillows are done!

For the moment, I'm going to ignore the fact that these were supposed to be a birthday present for N, whose birthday is in mid-November, and just enjoy the fact that I have another FO. N, I hope you like your birthday/xmas present.

Here's the back:

This shot makes it much more clear that I flipped the colors for pillow #2. The venezia pattern is so well-balanced that you have to look closely to see which color is dominant. Not so with the lozenge pattern on the back. And that's a big part of how I avoided "second pillow syndrome." It's much easier to knit #2 when it's not exactly the same as #1.

The yarn, Cascade 220 Heathers, performs very nicely in stranded colorwork. Far better than I had expected, actually.

This was definitely a pattern mod, albeit a heavy modification of Eunny Jang's gorgeous Venezia Pullover (ravelry link). I'm not going to put out a pattern on this one (even a free pattern) since that comes far too close to a copyright violation for my liking (also, any "pattern" should really include a copy of the chart that I put together and that would definitely violate copyright).

All that said, I will happily share my notes/design process for anyone who wants to make some of these. Here goes . . . 

How to Make Venezia Pillows

Yarn: 1 skein each of a Main Color and a Contrast Color in Cascade 220 for one pillow. To be on the safe side, shoot for 2 pillows (2 skeins of each color). The venezia pattern is balanced, i.e., it uses up the same amount of each color. The lozenge pattern on the back is not balanced - it uses up far more of the main color than the contrast color. I was able to finish the first pillow with only one skein of each color but had to steal a bit of those leftovers in the main color to finish pillow #2. If you like living on the wild side, go ahead and try one pillow (just don't say I didn't warn you).

Needles: I used size 6 circular needles for the striped top and bottom (more on that in a minute) and size 8 circular needles for the colorwork sections. That was what I needed to maintain consistent gauge. Of course, use whatever combination works for you.

Gauge: I got 5.5 stitches per inch in the venezia chart pattern on size 8 needles. Stitch gauge is what matters here. Row gauge is pretty much irrelevant since you just knit until the piece covers your pillow form. 

Here's a quick cheat on figuring out gauge (yes, do a swatch, but this will help you figure out which needles to start with so that you only need to swatch once): I like the way Cascade 220 knits up on size 7 needles - I get 5 spi with that combination. Since I know that stranded colorwork compresses stitch gauge, I went up one needle size to get something close to 5spi (I ended up with 5.5 spi). And because I know that I get 5spi with size 7 needles, I needed to go down to size 6 needles to hit 5.5 spi to match my colorwork gauge.

Figuring out how big to make your pillow (aka, how many stitches you need to cast on): 

1. Measure your pillow form. I bought 14" pillow forms, which measured 14.125 inches on a side (28.25" total).

2. Chart out the venezia pattern (yes you will need the actual sweater pattern for this - it's in an old issue of Interweave Knits (check out one of the links above for details)). I made a 73-stitch chart (one right side, one left side, and one center stitch). Happily, the lozenge pattern also worked out to 73 stitches (it's a multiple of 6 plus 1).

3. Multiply the number of stitches in your venezia chart by your stitch gauge. Subtract this number from half the circumference of your pillow. Now add about half an inch worth of stitches to this number (ease). This tells you how many extra stitches you need to add. Finally, figure out a stripe pattern to act as a filler for those extra stitches. 

I used this border/side pattern: 2 MC, 1 CC, 1 MC, 1 CC, 1MC, 1 CC, 2 MC (9 stitches). 

When visualizing the pattern, it goes something like this: 9 border stitches, 73 venezia chart stitches, 9 border stitches, 73 lozenge pattern stitches.

Actually Knitting the Thing:

1. Cast on 164 stitches with the center color from your border pattern using the smaller needle size (that's my number - you should use whatever you need for your gauge and your pillow form). In my 9 stitch border pattern, the center color is CC. Join, being careful not to twist, for working in the round.

If you leave a very long tail here, you can use it to close up the bottom of the pillow cover later.

2. Work half of the border pattern, starting with the center color. In my case the rows looked like this: 1 CC, 1 MC, 1 CC, 2 MC

3. Switch to larger needles and work colorwork pattern (9 border stitches, 73 venezia chart stitches, 9 border stitches, 73 lozenge pattern stitches).

4. Keep knitting until the piece is long enough to cover your pillow form. Actually, when you're an inch or two away from that point, measure the length of your striped section at the bottom of the tube. Now subtract that number from the amount you need to knit to cover the pillow - this will tell you where to stop the colorwork pattern and work border stripes like you did on the bottom (just reverse what you did below). 

5. When you've knit enough to cover the pillow, turn the work inside out and close with a 3-needle bind off.

6. Lightly steam block to even out the stitches.

7. Put the pillow form in the knitted cover and sew the cast on edge shut. I did something that vaguely resembled kitchener stitch and that worked out pretty well. 

8. I hate to say this, but tie a knot (or three) in the end of your yarn and hide the knot under the edge of the pillow cover like you would when sewing or quilting.

9. Flip the colors (if desired) and knit a second one.

My first pattern!

I finished another scarflet a few weeks ago and haven't posted about it until now because I've been working on the pattern, too.

This one was worked with a single skein of Handmaiden Casbah on size 4 needles.

A while back Rachel had asked what I'm planning on knitting for holiday gifts this year. The short answer is "not a lot" - actually, I'm "outsourcing." But more on that later.

Anyway, I thought I'd offer you all a little pre-holiday gift instead: my first pattern.

Larch is a quick and easy little neck scarf that can be worked in a single skein of fingering or sock weight yarn.

I've linked to the ravelry pattern page because that's where I've posted the pdf. If you're reading this in a feed reader, the link is also available in the right sidebar on the main page of this blog.

I'd love to post the pdf here (or on google docs), along with a thumbnail pic. So, for those of you out there with more blogger/techie skills than I have, here are a couple of questions:

1. How do I post a pdf on blogger?
2. How do I put a thumbnail picture in the sidebar that links to the pattern? (I'd love something like the right-hand pattern list here)

Enjoy!