Ruthless Knitting

There are three things in this picture that ought to catch your eye. First, I finished a sock. Isn’t it pretty? You can see the picot hem in the corner of the picture, and it has a garter-stitch short-row heel that I learned how to do from Lucy Neatby. It is an all-round champ of a sock.

Second, I have painted toenails. I got a pedicure on Thursday with my friend Rebecca as part of our ritual preparations for the birth of her second baby later this month. I chose toenail polish to go with the sock. It’s important that you know about Rebecca’s baby because now that I have finished the Secret Design Project (!), the knitting around here will be All Rebecca All the Time for a while. Not only do I have plans to knit a teensy garment for the baby, I also told Rebecca that I would finish all of her unfinished knitting projects, which will entail knitting two sleeves for a sweater and 1.25 legs for a pair of baby pants. She’s due in three weeks, so I have to get moving!

The third thing you should take note of is that the sun is shining and there are flowers in the background. Non-dead flowers. Though it did frost a little last night, it would seem that spring is more or less here to stay. Thank goodness. My mom had a bunch of annuals delivered to me, and I got them planted today. It’s nice to see some bright pinks and purples when I look out the windows.

I didn’t get a chance last week to report on the knitting classes that I took at the Midwest Masters. (I’ve been working a lot.) I came out of the experience glad that I had tried it, but also fairly sure that knitting classes just aren’t for me, for a couple of reasons. First, I learn very easily from books. I don’t think I have ever encountered a stitch in Barbara Walker’s treasuries that I wanted to knit but could not execute. This makes me willing to try pretty much anything, and that attitude has exposed me to a lot of information about knitting already. It seems that these knitterly qualities are more rare than I had realized. In my brioche stitch class, for example, I was the only one in the class who had already made something (a scarf) in brioche stitch. In Lucy Neatby’s class, I had already done several of the things on the agenda on my own at home, and we didn’t get to other techniques that I was more interested in because it took us too long to get through those techniques I’d already been exposed to.

This brings me to the second reason knitting classes may not be for me: I have always had trouble in art/craft classes with getting finished ahead of the pack. When I was in elementary school, the art teacher gave me a hard time for "rushing" through the projects each week, but I was never trying to rush — I just worked fast! In the knitting classes, I found it a little draining to have to wait for everyone to learn something before we could move on to the next thing. In Janet Szabo’s brioche class, we were pretty much able to work at our own pace on the different types of stitches, which was great, but then I ended up feeling that I could have just followed the directions at home, rather than sitting in an uncomfortable chair in a conference room. So, yeah. It was a good experience, the teachers did a great job, the conference was well-run, but I probably won’t do it again next year.

Have any of you had similar experiences? Or taken a class so phenomenal that you’d urge me to try again?

Though I like to knit socks now and again, I wouldn’t say that I’m a “sock knitter,” since my level of fanaticism is fairly low, and I’d usually prefer to knit a sweater. Moreover, though I have one of Cat Bordhi’s previous books (Socks Soar on Two Circular Needles), it hasn’t proven to be an important one in my collection, and I haven’t been tempted by any of her other popular titles. So when I say that I bought New Pathways for Sock Knitters: Book One (Friday Harbor, WA: Passing Paws Press, 2007) as soon as I had an opportunity to flip through it at the yarn shop — and despite the fact that it cost $28.95 — I hope you’ll take that as an indication of how truly innovative and interesting this book is.

With this volume, the first of three in a planned series, Bordhi has begun an exploration of sock “architecture” — which is to say that she’s begun detailing ways in which socks can be knit to fit the human foot that are different than what we’ve grown accustomed to. In her introduction, under the heading “Five hundred years, two styles of socks,” Bordhi explains that hand-knit socks “have been dominated by two architectural styles” for a very long time, but that in fact “sockitecture” is infinitely variable.

This first volume introduces eight new architectures, or “pathways,” for knitting socks. These pathways all begin at the cuff or the toe. In Bordhi’s second volume, the pathways will begin elsewhere, i.e. mid-foot or leg. The third volume will explore “ancient pathways” for sock knitting inspired by Bordhi’s research at the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto.

What really impresses me about this book is not that Bordhi came up with new ways to knit socks but rather that she came up with exceedingly clever ways to teach others how to knit these new architectures while simultaneously encouraging them to make these socks their own. Following the introduction, New Pathways for Sock Knitters contains a set-up chapter that orients the knitter to Bordhi’s book and the symbols she uses and then offers patterns for two differerent baby socks as a way of introducing the basic techniques used in the book. Each sock architecture then gets its own chapter, which explains how the sock is shaped, offers another orienting baby sock pattern or two, and then provides at least one adult sock pattern (often stunning) in the new architecture, as well as a “master pattern” for that architecture that the knitter can adapt to suit.

I love this method of using baby socks as a teaching tool, since they are quick, cute, and satisfying to knit. And I’m thrilled that Borhdi has provided master patterns for each of her architectures, because while I do occasionally like to follow other people’s patterns, I’d usually much prefer to do my own thing.

This book also shines in its design, illustration, and photography, all but the last of which Bordhi was responsible for herself. Self-published books are often not as attractive or easy to use as professionally published ones, nor are they usually edited well, but this volume is an exception. It’s visually appealing, and a great deal of thought has clearly been put into the layout and illustrations. It’s also packed with beautiful and inspiring photographs of socks.

New Pathways for Sock Knitters has been getting a lot of praise lately from knitting bloggers, and in this case I’m happy to jump on the bandwagon. I’d recommend it to anyone who likes to knit socks and is interested in learning new constructions to expand their repertoire. I imagine it will become an essential volume in many knitters’ libraries.

I begin with a confession: I bought KnitKnit: Profiles + Projects from Knitting’s New Wave because I wanted Anna Bell’s Bridie pattern, and buying KnitKnit is the only way to get it. Really, can you blame me?

Thus, when KnitKnit arrived, I had no particular expectations about what else it might have to offer. I was pleasantly suprised to discover in an afternoon’s reading that KnitKnit is a really neat book. As the subtitle promises, it is a collection of profiles of people who work in art and knitting — knitwear designers of a variety of types, artists who use knitted fabric in their work, artists who knit radically or in unusual ways, bloggers and zine authors who write about knitters, and so forth. It’s a bit hard to classify this group, but Gschwandtner — herself an artist/knitter, as well as the compiler of a popular knitting publication of the same name as her book — has done an excellent job of identifying an inspiring cross-section of subjects.

The book is oversized and beautifully laid out, with interesting photographs by Kiriko Shirobayashi. A typical profile takes up about four pages, balancing images with descriptive text. The profiles all include a full-page photograph of the artist taken in his or her work environment, a few pages of text, and a pattern by the profiled artist. This picture shows the first two pages about Catherine Lowe, a designer known for her elegant designs and her lengthy, extremely detailed patterns, which focus on couture detailing.

Many of the patterns included in KnitKnit strike me more as bonus material than as a reason on their own to buy the book. There’s an interesting mixure of avant garde and more wearable garments, of accessories and giant concept pieces, but there are only a handful of patterns (in addition to Bridie) that I would consider knitting. One is this pretty pullover by Joelle Hoverson, who owns Purl in New York City:

I’m also intrigued by the shape and construction of this jacket by Risto Bimbiloski, which is not for me, alas, but might inspire some future design.

Though a number of patterns are too “conceptual” or “outright strange” for me, this, too, is in keeping with the book’s purpose and character, and I like it.

I’d recommend KnitKnit to those interested in knitting’s role in art and fashion, as well as to anyone with a taste for doing interesting or conceptual work with their knitting needles. I’m also planning to recommend it to my friend who teaches textile art to undergraduates, as I think it could be a source of inspiration to budding textile artists.

I’ve been looking forward to reading No Sheep for You since I first learned from Amy Singer’s blog that she was in the midst of writing it. I preordered it from Amazon months in advance of the publication date and have waited patiently for it to ship while many, many other people found and bought their own copies all across North America. (Sometimes Amazon is the greatest, but this was not one of those times.)

So it is with some pleasure that I announce that I have received it, I have read it, and I think No Sheep for You is a great book.

No Sheep for You is a pattern book and guide to knitting with non-wool yarns, including cotton, linen, silk, hemp, and others. It ought to be particularly helpful to people with wool allergies or sensitivities, as well as to people who do not wish to knit with wool for ethnical reasons. I am not one of those people — in fact, I am quite a big fan of wool, and I rarely venture into knitting with other types of yarn. In part, this is because I am more at home in a wool sweater and jeans than in virtually anything else, but there is more to it than that. The fact is that I haven’t seen very many patterns knit in non-wool that I wanted to make for myself, though I’ve seen plenty of beautiful ones. Something about the whole category of summer sweaters and wraps — which is usually where cotton and linen and bamboo yarns pop up in the magazines — just doesn’t suit me. So why not make up my own patterns in non-wool yarns? Since I haven’t gained much familiarity with how they behave in the course of knitting other people’s patterns, and since I’ve made some mistakes with cotton yarn (too-heavy blanket; too-heavy baby sweater), I’ve been reluctant to explore the non-wool arena.

My interest in No Sheep for You grew out of my hope that it would give me the information I needed to do so. I also hoped that it would include patterns that I liked and could use as models for my own explorations. It has met and exceeded my expectations.

The more I look at the patterns, the more I find that I like. Not only are many of them a good fit with my aesthetic, but — more important — many of them are smart, and a close examination of their construction and the designers’ choices reveals a lot of information about working with particular types of fiber.

Take Intoxicating, the mosaic-knit silk sweater, for example:

I think this sweater is really cute. I’m not sure I would wear it, but I like the details that went into its construction — the different front and back panels, the echoing of the orange from the back panel on the neckline, the lace sleeves. Even more, though, I like what the pattern and accompanying text reveals about working with silk yarn: mosaic stitch patterns help to stabilize slippery silk and make it behave more predictably. I’ve never seen much point to doing mosaic in wool (sorry, fans of mosaic knitting!), but when I see it done in shiny, bright-colored silk, it opens up new possibilities to my imagination.

There are at least nine other patterns that I like enough that I would knit them, which is quite a few more than I find in most books. I won’t post pictures here; rather, I’ll encourage you to check out the book’s page on Amazon, at Interweave, and at Knit Picks. Those three sites all have plenty of inside peeks. I couldn’t find a photo of Morrigan, the cotton Aran, but if I had, I would have posted it here: this sweater, by Jenna Wilson, is to die for. And I’m not even a big fan of cables!

At first, I was a bit disappointed with the information section at the beginning of the book, in which Singer discusses how various classes of non-wool fibers are created, their properties, and how to go about familiarizing yourself with a non-wool yarn in order to be able to design with it intelligently. I am a rather ravenous collector of information, and I think what I wanted was an encyclopedia of tips about each fiber — “Such-and-such works best when knit on the bias” and that sort of thing. I enjoyed the chapter on swatching (titled “Learn to Love Your Geeky Thing”), but I’m already a committed swatcher, so it wasn’t the godsend I was looking for. The more I think about it, though, the more I realize that the book tells me everything I need to know to start knitting and designing in non-wool fibers without getting bogged down in specific rules that would most likely be of little use. After all, new non-wool fibers are constantly being invented, blended with other fibers in new ways, and spun and plied creatively. What could one book tell me about them that would be more helpful than general guidelines about how to figure these fibers out myself?

I’m inspired by No Sheep for You to branch out a bit, to work more with hemp, linen, cotton, and their ilk and see where they take me. For some time, I’ve thought of creating a new version of a sweater I once had that my grandma knit for my mom: a cap-sleeved, short pullover in light blue cotton that I used to wear in the summer. I think I will take Singer’s advice, buy a single ball of each of several different yarns, and see what I can come up with.

I received Stefanie Japel’s new book, Fitted Knits: Twenty-Five Designs for the Fashionable Knitter, in the mail today (an Amazon.com preorder), and I’m very impressed with it. I ordered it because I generally like Stefanie’s sweater designs — though her aesthetic is sometimes too funky for me — and I wanted to add a book to my collection that had some specific instructions about shaping patterns to fit.

Fitted Knits is beautifully designed and laid out, and the number of patterns (twenty-five) seems generous. There’s a lot of lovely knitting to look at here, and a nice variety of pretty, wearable garments. I saw several things that I would be happy to add to my wardrobe, and there are interesting ideas behind some of the patterns that don’t quite suit me.

Here are a few of my favorites. You can click to get a better view, but these are quickie pictures, so don’t expect much by way of quality.

I was a little disappointed only in my hope of finding extensive instructions about fitting. Don’t get me wrong: Stefanie describes how to modify her patterns, provides great schematics, and breaks her instructions up into yoke, body, and peplum (where it applies) so that you can see where to modify. All of this is great. Because she knits all of her garments in one piece from the top down, however, there are no instructions here that would be helpful in designing or modifying garments knit in pieces from the bottom up. This is not really a criticism of Stefanie’s book, of course; it just means I’ll have to keep looking for the reference I’m lacking. Her “reference library” at the back of the book provides some good leads.

The patterns in Fitted Knits cover a range from easy to more complicated, from quick knits to more intricate ones, and from inexpensive to pricey yarn. There’s also an excellent variety of color in the book (and some smart patterns that use variegated yarns). I suspect there’s something for everyone here. I’m certainly pleased to have added Fitted Knits to my collection.