links I like

Last night I tried to explain to someone at the yarn shop how to pick up the purl bumps on a heel gusset and I totally failed. I know it was a video and I know I found it on a thread on Ravelry and I know the guy who did it was Australian, but I haven't a clue how to google for it.

And I generally use facebook or google+ to jot down notes as I'm designing things. But those posts can get lost on the shuffle and although many of my friends find my enthusiasm for knitting interesting and fun to read, I sometimes feel like I'm spamming them with crap they don't want to read.

So, I'm going to utlise this blog to store my knitting ideas and inspirations and whenever I find a web or video tutorial that I think it's helpful I'm going to link to it here.

Like this one: German short rows

I thought I had settled on using Japanese short rows (from nonaKnits) and I did like the way they looked but the pins are fiddly. The German short rows don't use pins and it looks pretty good.

Now I have to figure out how to write out what I'm doing. I can't just put that in the pattern, Now use German short rows to work the sleeves, go look at this video. I suppose I can mention where I found it - I did that for the hat pattern and my directions were merely 'for best results use a provisional cast on, I liked this one' But provisional cast ons are pretty basic, in my opinion. And people can trawl Ravelry or the internet to find out how to do them. And the hat didn't absolutely need a provisional cast on, it just gave slightly better results, in my opinion. But this sleeve *needs* short rows to accomplish this wonky angle.

I may need to take pictures for the pattern. I definitely need to write out some sort of instructions. Which won't be easy to do without practically plagiarising other websites - I mean, I'm getting this information off the internet! But I'm planning on selling this pattern, so how can I justify using someone else's information? Well, partially because I'm not getting info from just one source, I google a lot. And partially because my pattern will be the design as a whole.

And frankly I'm not so sure that selling patterns is the way to go for me. It's not going to make me enough money to justify having that stupid tax license, so, should I even bother keeping my patterns for sale?

Anyway. The point of this post was Links I Like, so I'll leave it at that :)

some things right, other things wrong

OK, so, Japanese short rows are the answer to my wonky angle problem BUT I did the math wrong, so, I have to rip out both sleeves to the cast off bit and start them over. Paying attention to how I do the short rows. I should get clips or at least try it with some bobby pins or something.

I almost had to knit it out first to catch on to my mistakes, so I'm not terribly upset at having to rip it out. Because I'm determined to make this a proper, size-able pattern and not just something that I I fling on and say I winged it.

And I had to pencil it out on the graph - I hate graphing it out! It won't need a graphed pattern for the final version, but I need to graph it out so I can check the math. *sigh*

Anyway. Even though I do have to rip it out I'm not going to to do that just yet, I want to take it to the yarn shop.

I am not going to take this project on vacation with me. I want more portable things like hats and probably that giant skein of cotton/rayon. I can put .pdf files on my Nook, so I can pop the patterns on there for the trip.

details, details. details

I really should have revisited the nonaknits site where I found out about Japanese short rows, because I really did the purl version wrong and ended up with strands on the purl side and loose, uneven stitches.

I am actually debating ripping it out to the cast off/back sleeve section, just so I can do the pinned short rows properly. And hopefully if I understand what I'm doing well enough then I can explain it well enough.

Too many design ideas!

Still working on the starflower jacket. I didn't go with the short rows angle idea because I though front flappy pieces would be nice too. And I thought I could do it sideways by just adding stitches to the bottom bit. It might look fine on a very thin girl, but alas, I am not that girl.

I think front flappy bits would work, but need to be worked from the bottom up or the top down and then pieced together. And I will likely work on that design some other time, but for now I really prefer the design as a shrug.

The Japanese short row technique worked really well for this. Although I didn't actually use the pins, I just used my left needle to pick up the purl bump and thus tighten up the stitch.

Making this pattern in different sizes is going to be a non-trivial problem. I may need to hire a tech knitter for help with actually writing this pattern because I don't know if I can convey my directions very well. People had problems with the hat pattern and I thought I was being clear and concise and that it was a simple pattern.

So, if I can't even do something that basic, I doubt my abilities to make this pattern understandable to anyone but me.

solutions

I think short rows might be the answer to my weirdy triangle shape.

I test knit a bit in some other yarn which isn't quite the right gauge, but the angles look good. I think.

Sleeves

Years ago I made up this jacket/shrug thing with an octagon as the back piece. I just winged it, like always, 'cos back then I figured, who else but me would ever wear it? I created it a bit before Ravelry existed, so I didn't have access to design info or anything like that. It was all my Inner Designer. Who occasionally gets things wrong.

I did the sleeves wrong. I calculated from the wrong angle. No wonder it always lay wonky. The angle I created is actually warping and twisting the bottom/back point that the front is connected to.

So. I need to erase the pencil lines I did yesterday, print out a few more pages of graph paper and start in again.

I don't think I really have the proper brains to be a designer!

knitting woes and musings

Last night when it finally got cool enough to knit I settled down for some telly and to hopefully finish that circle. OK, so it's really an octagon. It's going to be the back part of a jacket, but I need that done so that I can properly graph out sleeves. Well, I noticed some wonky lines in one section - seems I messed it up about 4 rows back. Which meant I had to tink all those rows. Because I don't have the talent of being able to rip out just a section and re-knit just a section. I really should learn how to do that! Why am I re-making a sweater I have already made? Because every time I wear people say, that's awesome, do you have a pattern? Why did I not make a pattern? Well, I made it somewhen around when Ravelry was created, so I figured no one but me would ever wear it, it didn't matter how I did it. Which is how I thought for twenty years.

I did write things down, I still have some of my old notebooks. But typically it was more of jotting down how many rows I did, or quick calculations for size, or the pattern I used in one section, rather than instructions for the project as a whole. Because I never believed that anybody other than me would make it. As for sizes, it was usually made to fit whatever person I intended to give it to. Could I have worked out the math for various sizes? Sure, but why would I, I was only making it for one person.

Ravelry didn't exist, the internet didn't exist, and I rarely liked patterns in magazines. So I made up my own. Why didn't I submit anything to knitting magazines? I think I thought those people were 'real designers', that they went to school and had a degree or something. And I rarely bought those magazines and so never read the fine print on whatever page asking for submissions.

I used to not really knit over summer and it took me a long time to do projects. Then I discovered that I really could do a large cabled-all-over sweater in about 3 months, when I thought it would take 3 years! The internet existed then, but only as a dialup. A few yarn shops existed, but never quite had the yarn I wanted to use. ACMoore had coupons, which was the only reason I really shopped there. And I still kept getting design ideas. Sometimes they worked out, but usually they didn't. I never minded, I'd just rip it out and start over. After all, it was only for me.

And then Glenda opened her shop and whenever I did something new she was ask if I could write the pattern and I thought, 'yeah, how hard can it be to just write down what you do?' And then Ravelry happened and there were all these fabulous patterns and I didn't have to think about or re-calculate or anything! So, I made other people's patterns for a while, but my inner designer just won't give up and so I'm back to doing my own designs. And writing them out, with various sizes. And making sure that the directions I write out are understandable to knitters with varying degrees of skill.

And I wish I had done this back when Rav first started up, I might have become an established designer. As it is now, I'm a goldfish in Lake Superior and no matter how cute my designs are I'm not going to get any recognition any time soon.

I'm going to have to advertise on Rav, but I think I should have a few more patterns up for sale first. Only I need to make the hats and take pictures and I don't have any good models near me. And I don't look good in hats or clothes. So I'm kinda stuck!