Big Foot Knits--because socks aren't as simple as they sound

The more I read about the book Big Foot Knits by Andi Smith, the more I think I've GOT to get me a copy.

My feet are size 10 narrow. I didn't think at first that would qualify for this book, just going by the title.

But actually, this book is about customizing socks to your own unique feet. I've heard the author interviewed, and it sounds like she did a LOT of research regarding different shapes of feet and toes.

There are people out there who knit any old sock pattern that appeals to them and they fit just fine. But I've knit two pairs of socks (one for myself, and one for hubby), and crocheted one pair too, and they just DON'T fit.

OK, I'll grant you, the first two pairs I just blindly followed instructions. But the third pair, I tried really hard... and knit them toe-up so I could try them on along the way, and they SEEMED to fit when I was 3/4 of the way up the foot. But once I went to actually wear them, it turned out they were actually too big around. It was those darn narrow feet again.

I'm still thinking about it... We'll see if I have any crafting budget left after Stitches Midwest next weekend. ;-)

Cardigans large and small—WIP Wednesday

Last night I cast on for the pattern Climbing Lace Cardigan, by Vanessa Ewing. (Side note: this pattern was recently translated into French. Do I have any Francophones reading my blog?) I'm knitting this cardigan for myself.

Here are the swatches I knit first: one in the lace pattern, and one in stockinette. I'm glad I swatched the lace pattern—it tripped me up a few times. Probably because rows 2 and 4 are identical, so I sometimes lost track.

I'll be using the techniques I learned from Amy Herzog in her Fit to Flatter class and her book Knit to Flatter to make sure it fits me properly. This includes adding waist shaping, since the original pattern doesn't have any—it goes straight from hip to shoulder. That's not how I'm shaped!

The yarn is Peace Fleece Sport DK, in the colorway Sheplova Mushroom. I bought this for a different sweater about three years ago, before I understood that it's nearly impossible to make DK weight yarn work in a pattern that calls for Aran weight.

It's wool and mohair, very crunchy and rustic. I love crunchy rustic yarns. The swatches are noticeably softer after washing, though I'm sure they'll never be as soft as merino. That's fine; I'll always be wearing a shirt under this cardigan.

Oh, and I'm knitting this as part of the Yarniacs Podcast Fall 2013 knitalong. I figure this is close enough to the color Pantone is calling Samba.

The small cardigan referenced in the title is for my nephew, who's currently 8 months old. The pattern is called L'illo and is available in the Fall 2008 issue of Knitty. (Click over and have a look at the pattern model! Isn't he a cutie? Of course, my nephew is cuter....)

This photo shows the back and half of the right front. I'm knitting the 12-month size and shooting to have it done for his first birthday in November.

The yarn is Takhi Cotton Classic Lite, 100% mercerized cotton in sport weight. My nephew (and his mom and dad) live in a suburb of Dallas, so he doesn't need tons of cold-weather gear, and I already knit him an acrylic cardigan before he was born.... it was supposed to be a newborn size, but apparently my yarn was too thick, so I told my sister to save it for next winter. I'm hoping a cotton cardigan will get more use.

I wish I had started it on wooden needles instead of aluminum. The combination of slick needles and slick yarn means I have to take it slow. But I can't change in the middle. It might affect my gauge, and then the pieces wouldn't fit together.

The back looks short, but that's because this sweater has saddle shoulders. I've never knit that kind of shoulder before, so it'll be interesting.

Here are links to my project pages on Ravelry: Li'l Cardi and Climbing Lace Cardigan. (I guess I should come up with my own name for it?)

Can knitting be an idol?

The Second Commandment, out of only ten: Do not worship idols.

It was the subject of a recent sermon at my church. The preacher acknowledged that actual idols that people literally bow down to are vanishingly rare in modern Western culture. And yet, humans still have this need to worship something. And we still have this tendency to drop our eyes from God to something we can actually see.

I certainly do, anyway. I didn't write for ten years, because writing had become my idol. And when I write that, I don't mean that I nobly and selflessly put it away from me and now I'm all righteous. I mean that I had my idol smashed before my eyes, revealed as the false hope it was, and all my desire to write evaporated.

But that's a story for another time. Because now I'm worried about knitting.

When I arrived at church a couple weeks ago, I realized I'd forgotten to bring my tithe—again. Now, if it were just a bill to be paid, I'd be ok, because there was one more Sunday in the month, I could catch up then. But it's not just a bill... or at least, it shouldn't be. It bothers me that in some ways it IS just another bill to me. It's not the act of worship it should be.

By contrast, I went to a fiber event the day before. I planned way ahead for that. I carefully hoarded my spending money, made sure to get my cash together, thought about what I'd shop for.

Follow the money. What's my priority?

OK, it's not a perfect comparison. Fiber events are rare for me; church is every week, there IS always next week. However, one of the criteria our preacher mentioned for identifying an idol was, "What do you always seem to find money for?" Hmm.

The jury's still out; I don't see most of the other criteria applying to fiber crafts in my life.

However, I do see signs that there may be people out there in the "fiber community" who DO put their crafts in the place of a deity in their lives.

No, they don't bow down before their yarn stashes. But how about acquiring more stash than you can possibly ever knit—and then continuing to purchase more?

Some other criteria from the sermon:

• It is the source of our security.
• It is the source of our identity.
• What do you treasure? Dream about, dwell on?

I see people writing about yarncrafting as if it's their comfort and their solace and their ultimate. Like it's the cure for all social ills. Like only at a fiber-oriented event can they find true fellowship. Is this worship?

Maybe; not necessarily. There's nothing wrong with using knitting to relax after work. Crafts can be a creative outlet, and yarncrafts have the potential for something really useful as the end result.

The trick is that just because something is lovely and comforting and whatever other good qualities it may have, doesn't mean it can provide ultimate fulfillment.

The key statement in the sermon for me came, oddly, in the middle. This is what I want to take away and evaluate myself against whenever I seem to be getting too much into something:

Idols are usually good things that we have made god things.

Another way of thinking about it is, what do I look to for life? (I don't remember where I picked that up; possibly John Piper.)  What do I look to for fulfillment?

I just want to remember that He is the ultimate; anything else good in my life is a gift from Him.

WIP Wednesday: Background Radiation

This week I'm going to show some love to a project that I keep forgetting about in the context of WIPs. It's like the background radiation of the universe: always there, humming along.

The pattern for this shawl, "Mie," was originally written in Danish and then translated into English. I'm surprised it's only got 47 projects on Ravelry... especially since it's free! My project page is here.

I bought the yarn at Stitches Midwest 2012, and started knitting it last October. This photo shows it a little past halfway done. It's a simple end-to-end garter stitch pattern with a ruffle formed by short rows. It takes about four rows to memorize the pattern. Therefore it's become my social and stoplight knitting. I barely have to look at it. I've also knit on it while reading.

It's so perfect for those situations, in fact, that I seriously wonder what will take its place when it's finished!

The yarn is Madelinetosh Tosh Merino Light in the colorway Lowland, which doesn't appear to be available any more. It was actually a limited run of short skeins (which was stated up front and priced specially because of that). It was a case where I saw the color and said "Oh my," and made a wild guess how much I would need. I bought two skeins at first, then went back and bought a third skein, thinking that might be enough for a sweater.

Ha! nope. After I got home, I strained my Ravelry search skills to the limit trying to find ANYTHING within the yardage I'd purchased. I wanted to use as much of it as possible, but it seemed I'd bought exactly the wrong quantity.

And then I ran across Mie.

Although it's not written that way, it seemed to me I could weigh my yarn, knit increase rows until I'd used up half of it, and then knit decrease rows until I used it up. It might actually turn out incredibly long... but I have ahem a generous circumference, so that'll probably be fine.

So that is exactly what I'm doing.

The pattern IS written for striping two colors. Since Madelinetosh is notorious for color pooling, I decided to knit from all three balls in succession. I switched every time the pattern called for switching colors (which is every time you get back to the straight edge). I think this scatters the colors nicely.

My photo doesn't do justice to the colors... When it's finished, I hope to get some really nice photos. Closeups and all that.

I like a challenging knit as much as the next yarncrafter, but there's a lot to be said for the elegant simplicity of this pattern.

A scarf pic, finally! (WIP Wednesday)

I've talked about this scarf in every WIP Wednesday post... now I can finally show you a WIP photo. I had to get my husband to snap the picture while I stretched it out between my fingers.

Pretty yarn, eh? It's the "Happy Forest" colorway in Dream in Color Smooshy. Obviously it'll have to be blocked severely when the time comes. The pattern is "Not a Drop" by Arlene's World of Lace.

I'm in a finishing mode this week... I finished two items already, and I just got the hook & eye tape in the mail today for my cardigan--everything else is done. I'll have to create a Finished Objects post sometime when it isn't Wednesday.

That's it for today. I have a couple pictures to take--can't do it now, though, there's a storm wrecking the light.

More on "holity"

I have further thoughts on "holity" that didn't quite fit in the page for it. I originally planned to include these in that page, until I realized it needed to define the word more than anything.

I mentioned not wanting to write just a Christan blog. That's not to diss those who do write Christian blogs. There are reasons why that's not such a great idea for me.

Compartmentalization

I have to guard against compartmentalizing my life into "spiritual" and "not spiritual." Maybe a lot of Christians do, but it's been such a strong tendency for much of my life that I still find it rearing its ugly head.

I looked for a definition of the word "compartmentalization" and found it's used in psychology, which I didn't know. Wikipedia says: "Compartmentalization is an unconscious psychological defense mechanism used to avoid cognitive dissonance, or the mental discomfort and anxiety caused by a person's having conflicting values, cognitions, emotions, beliefs, etc. within themselves."

I don't think I achieved pathological levels with it, but I think this could describe the nominal and/or weak Christian who does things during the week that they hope no one at church hears about. Yes, that has been me from time to time, of course. And that's a huge reason to guard against it—because compartmentalization can lead to hypocrisy.

On a milder level, though, it can mean merely thinking that there's church/spiritual life and then there's "real life," and that they don't have a lot to do with each other. That my job, my hobbies, my activities during the week, my Facebook wall, my friends outside church, are somehow separate from my spirituality. This is a lot  more insidious and hard to detect, and yet it can probably lead to the hypocrisy I mentioned in the last paragraph.

That's what I want to guard against. It would be too easy to chat about knitting without ever thinking about God. So what's wrong with knitting? Nothing, in and of itself. And yet, I observe some things in the knitting community that I'd like to write about sometime from a spiritual standpoint.

And sometimes I just want to write about knitting, or gardening, or whatever. Like I said on the definition page, it'll be the whole of the blog, ALL the posts, that combined will show who I am (especially after I've been at it a while).

Spiritual vs. Secular

The other swing of the pendulum from compartmentalization is the idea that if you're a Christian, the only thing you should talk about or think about or read or do is overtly Christian ideas, books, activities. Perhaps that's how some people guard against compartmentalization—but that's no reason to go too far in the other direction.

God created the whole world and everything in it. He created our creativity and our intellect and our appreciation for beauty. He created sheep and their wool, and created them so they're better off if they get sheared every spring. That wool is amazingly versatile. We can use it only to keep warm, but how much better if we also use our talents to make warm items that are also beautiful? Part of the "image of God" in us is that he made us creative, like He is.

That's just one example of "holity"... the sort of holistic approach I'm talking about and hoping to achieve.

WIP Wednesday: starting to look like a cardi!

My Andie's Cardigan is all seamed up—it looks a lot like a cardi!

Now all I have to do is pick up & knit the collar and the i-cord trim down the front, and sew in the hook & eye tape... as soon as I find some hook & eye tape. Tried two stores the other day, no luck.

While I was at Jo-Ann's, I picked up buttons for my Comfort of a Friend shawl. Vintage look for a vintage design.

 

The scarf is proceeding slowly, and I just knit 2 more swatches for the baby cardigan. The first swatches didn't give me gauge so I am trying a larger needle size, and you have to swatch both plain stockinette and the stitch pattern. I haven't measured yet.

 

I am starting to think about picking up the socks that have been in time-out since last winter. I've got to rip back a couple inches, yuck. But is it really THAT bad? Well, the difficulty is I'm knitting two-at-a-time on two circulars and I'm worried I will muck them up.

 

Still, I should just get going on them so they aren't nagging me in the back of my mind.