green

Try your hand at their selection of World War II era knitting patterns from their archives and knit your bit.

On the heels of last issue’s yarn quiz, this should come as no surprise… (I am bamboo)

A play by Theresa Rebeck

Set in New York, in the backdrop of a women’s knitting group that gets together weekly to share life’s pitfalls and hopes. We meet seven women and men, searching for the perfect something or someone. The characters are ALL emblematic of someone we know or are perhaps even a slice of our own selves. And, if you’ve been exposed to the “knitting” rage, you’ll appreciate their own woes on “decreasing” the wrong way and “binding off.” Anyone who has ever held a pair of knitting needles will sympathize and enjoy.

Completed: March, 2004
Lion Brand Yarn / Wool-Ease
80% Acrylic, 20% Wool
Main color No. 151 - Grey Heather [1 skein]
Contrasting color No. 152 - Oxford Grey [1 skein]
Needles: 6.5 DPNs
Stockinette stitch

My brother is a Raider fan, and after making scarves for his wife and daughter for Christmas, he tells me that he wants a knit beanie. A Raider beanie. A grey Raider beanie (he already has a black one). I think I can handle that.

So I look around for a pattern, and find one I like called the London Beanie. I remember my brother wearing his beanies kind of low, so I throw in a few rows to give it some length. It still seems kind of small, so I throw in a few more, and start decreasing toward the crown, all the while thinking that this hat will not fit. I’ve got a big ol’head, and so does my brother, and I was right: it turned out to be more of a short skullcap than full-sized hat. To be fair, the pattern does say that “it’s just a tight-fitting cap in the round” and it is a cute little hat, but it’s just a bit too small for big-heads like us. I do like the pattern, however, and plan to try expanding it to make a larger version (I think this one may go to my 6-year-old nephew, instead).

Another little thing I learned knitting this hat: when knitting and purling on double pointed needles, I should always start with a K stitch when transitioning to the next needle. Somehow when I started with a P, I did something which caused a large hole to form at these junctions. I’m not exactly sure what it is I was doing wrong here, but a test swatch I made afterwards where I was careful to K stitch on the transitions confirmed this was the problem (i.e., no holes).

Completed: March, 2004
Both swatches partially knit with
Trendsetter / Flora
76% viscose, 24% polyamide

For those of you unfamiliar with the term, felting* is the process of washing and agitating wool and other untreated animal yarns so the fibers bind together. Have you ever washed a wool sweater in a washing machine? Using hot water? And when you took it out, it was fuzzy, matted, and 5 sizes smaller? Well, that’s felting. It sucks when you do it by accident, but can be used to make thick, strong materials with a soft’n'fuzzy appearance.

I made two test swatches for this little experiment, one bulky weight and the other, worsted. One was 100% wool and the other a wool/mohair blend. Both included a small strip of novelty yarn to check the compatability of the two types of yarns when felted together. Both were washed and agitated in warm water, in 5 minute intervals. The swatches were washed in a zipper-close pillow cover to contain any lint, and were stretched and reshaped after each
interval. Total washing time was about 25-30 minutes.

Articles I’ve read about felting suggest a loose knit, so I used a slightly larger needle size that the manufacturer suggested. Swatch #2 was actually quite loose to begin with; not surprisingly, it didn’t felt as tightly as Swatch #1, but also retained a bit more of its flexibility.

Both swatches shrunk in row height by about 30%. Stitch widths also decreased, although Swatch #1 shrunk by 21% whereas Swatch #2 shrunk only by 16%. Swatch #1 resulted in a nice, thick pad, with shiny long hairs: this should work great for bags, slippers, and other projects which require a thick, stiff fabric. Swatch #2 has a duller matte texture and a nubbier finish. This might work well for accenting larger pieces.

It’s kinda magical how a little water and friction can produce an entirely different look and feel. I’m really looking forward to making my first felted creation.

* OK, I guess what I’m describing is technically called fulling–I’ve read that felting purists take unspun wool or fleece and repeatedly stab it with very sharp barbed needles to produce a felted fabric, but most knitters also refer to the washing/agitating-of-spun-yarn method as felting.

Take this small (silly) quiz

Last spring, Interweave Knits asked readers to try their hand at knitting shoes. They featured a couple of the entries in the Winter `03 magazine, but all the entries may be viewed on their Web site. Check `em out!