I'm moving!

I've got my very own super sweet new blog location riiiiiight here:

http://durhamknits.com

It's like I'm an official grown up or something!

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire

It's my gauge that's lying. Two sweaters have been half-knit and then frogged due to gauge issues.

Now, I'm a super relaxed knitter. Loosey-goosey, according to some. I knit my socks on 0s and generally don't even bother to swatch with the needle size given in a pattern (I go down at least one to start, and often end up two down!)

But lately, my swatches are lying. I do it the "right way": knit at least a 4" by 4" swatch, wash it, block it, all of what I should be doing, and yet somehow, SOMEHOW... I've twice ended up with a sweater at least two sizes too big.

I ended up knitting the Contrasting Wrap Sweater on US 7s, TWO sizes smaller than what my measurements called for after a horrific failure on the needles I'd used to get gauge (size US 8). When I went back to check gauge... somehow my gauge on the 7s was STILL bigger than what the pattern called for. I would've needed another size or two smaller to come even close.

And now it's Gemini's turn. Attempt one ended in a much too floppy neckline and a body that drooped, and a gauge a full stitch per inch bigger than it should've been according to my swatch.

What's going on with my swatches?!

Al-Alim (99 Names, #19)

I'm on the third circle of names. Beading each bit is slow going, but it's amazing to see how such an abstract concept is turning into a real item.

The Omnicient/All-knowing, Al-Alim (العليم)

This is name #19 on my list, and I'll use it as an example of my process for creating my charts.

For the purposes of chart simplicity, I've removed the article from the word, instead choosing to wrap the numbers associated with it (1, 30) into my center mandala.

The name contains four written letters: ayn, lam, ya, mim, with corresponding numbers of 70, 30, 10, 40. That's 8 digits: 7, 0, 3, 0, 1, 0, 4, 0

I created a grid, 10 stitches tall (for numbers 0-9) and 8 stitches wide (one column for each digit). Since knitting goes right to left, just like Arabic, I charted the bead placement right to left.

Al-Alim:

And there's the process I'm using to chart each name.

99 Names (#2)

Work on the shawl continues - actual knitting, now! In a different post, I'll give a few examples of the charts I've made for each name, but right now, I have a ring of names:

This is a simple center increase with five names in the first ring. These names are ar-Rahman (The Compassionate), ar-Rahim (The Merciful), al-Malik (The King), al-Quddus (The Holy), as-Salam (The Peace). Ar-Rahman and ar-Rahim occur the most often in the Qu'ran of any of the other attributes. The names are drawn from the list compiled by al-Walid ibn Muslim. There are several similar lists and some of the later names vary by list; this list is by no means official.

The attributes or names all point to the unity of the Greatest Name, the name of God Himself. It will take all 99 names to make this shawl into something greater than the little beaded doily above.

99 Names of God

I've always admired circular shawls, particularly the Elizabeth Zimmerman Pi Shawls. The math, combined with the delicate lace, make for a gorgeous and geeky knit. I've always planned on knitting one, and I think it's about time.

If I'm going to knit something this geeky, however... I'm going to do it EXTRA geeky. In that effort, I'm pulling out something I haven't used in years. My Arabic.

In Islamic tradition, there are 99 names or attributes of God. Those used most in the Qu'ran are Ar-Rahman (The Compassionate) and Ar-Rahim (The Merciful), and there are certainly more than 99 attributes given to God throughout Islamic texts. One such list sits on my mantle.

  I've decided to do something that might qualify as a bit insane. Using the methodology blogged by my friend (gannet on Ravelry), I've decided to chart out 99 names of God using Abjad numerals (assigning a numeric value to each Arabic letter), and bead the names of God into a shawl.

First I need to design a central mandala, though. Something including Allah in its Abjad form (1, 30, 30, 5), either beaded or in the number of stitches or rows in the pattern or or or...

This might be insane. It will definitely be geeky. And by golly, it will be FUN.

In the Wake

In months and years when I look back at this post, I want to remember the heartache I feel. A mentally ill man -- not much older than a child -- walked into a school where his mother volunteered and shot up a classroom of little children. I don't want to remember more details. I can't handle most of the news as it is, with my own darling boys playing before me as we ready the house for Christmas guests and gifts.  There are parents and brothers and sisters and grandparents and friends in a little town in Connecticut, and their networks of family across the country, who are saying goodbye, instead of Merry Christmas.

What I want to remember is the outpouring of grief and support in my own community. In that case, my community is both here in Durham, NC, but also worldwide through the knitters on Ravelry and beyond. I'm part of a Ravelry group knitting critters to send to the children and families affected by the tragedy: 600 Monsters Strong for Connecticut. The lovely ladies at Three Irish Girls are offering colorways with donations going to the town; they are also planning to organize knitting blankets for the bereaved families.

Now how's that for beauty from horror? It makes my heart feel slightly lighter, to use my stitches in the hopes that someone hurting from this loss will feel one tiny ounce of support from someone who they will never meet. As always, the knitters step up.

I love this community.

Busy Little Knits

I've been working on an idea. Working hard. And that idea became something I'm quite proud of.

That idea became the Bull City Scarf.

This scarf has a secret, too. Hidden in the lace is a Durham "D".

Can you see it? I love honoring my adopted home in yarn!

Looming

The best thing about learning a new craft is exploration. When I carted Nilus into my living room, I'd done a tiny bit of reading and planned on purchasing a simple rigid heddle loom. That was back in our old house, where space was a premium and all craft items were required to fold up and fit into half of a closet.

Our new house has twice the space. My crafts get a WHOLE closet. And the loom gets its own place of glory.

Setting up the loom has taught me plenty already. I had to track down some replacement parts that disappeared over the years it was in storage (thanks, Earth Guild!). I had to get instruction as to how one winds a warp. I then wound that warp three different times before it met what I needed it to be.

Youtube and I had a nice little sitdown, as I watched videos of people warping looms and studied books at the same time. And now, lo and behold...

Warp.

Almost ready to weave.

Oh, and I had a bit of help.

I have a loom.

My wonderful, wonderful friend got wind of a potentially awesome loom, and checked it out for me, as she knows a lot more about weaving than I do. I almost bought a simple rigid heddle model last year at SAFF, but decided that it wouldn’t do what I wanted, so I’d wait.

So now I have a loom. A floor loom. A 45” LeClerc Nilus in a gorgeous dark finish, with all pieces accounted for and no rust on things that matter.

For free.

I’m in joy and awe and everything else because of the generosity of my friend, and of the woman who gifted me the loom because she wanted someone to have it that would use it. So here's my newest project (to go along with the standing 6-month-old and the running and jumping 2-year-old...)

Nilus LeClerc.

She needs a name.

Waldorf Crochet Cap

I've been working on a Waldorf-style doll, and I've been completely unable to find a pattern for a crochet cap for a 10 inch doll. I've worked one out and offer it here for free, in case someone else needs one. The hat requires less than 20 yards of worsted weight yarn for the base and should fit snugly to the doll's head.

Crochet Cap for 10” Waldorf Doll Hair

Using a size F hook and worsted weight yarn, chain 6 and join to make a circle.

Rnd 1: ch 3, then dc 11 times into the circle (12 sts), place marker to keep track of rounds

From now on, ALL stitches are made into the back of each stitch. This forms a ridge of loops that can be used for tying on hair.

Rnd 2: dc 2 into each stitch (24 sts)

Rnd 3: dc 2 into stitch, dc 1 into next stitch. Repeat for the rest of the round. (36 sts)

Rnd 4: dc 2 into stitch, dc 1 into next 3 stitches. Repeat for the rest of the round. (45 sts)

Test hair on doll’s head to see if the cap is the right size. You may need to add stitches in the next round. This size fit my doll’s head (circumference XX inches) perfectly.

Rnd 5: dc into each stitch

Rnd 6: dc into each stitch

Rnd 7: dc into each stitch for about half the round. Test to see if the cap fits snuggly onto doll’s head and reaches the nape of the neck and high on forehead.

If cap doesn’t reach the nape of the neck, repeat Rnd 7 until it fits.

If cap fits well, hdc into next stitch, sc into next two stitches, slip stitch into next stitch to bind off and give a nice smooth edge.

Secure the cap to doll’s head with needle and thread. Use a crochet hook to knot hair into each of the loops left by crocheting through the back loop.

High School

I'll admit it. I watch Glee. There's plenty I don't like about the show, but I appreciate musicals making it to the small screen, and the first season was truly a joy to watch. Last night was the season finale, the graduation episode, and I watched my favorite characters make stupid decisions as they headed off to become adults and leave school behind.

I could say plenty about my opinions on how the writers handled their transitions in the show, but that's not what this blog is about.

So how does Glee have anything to do with knitting? It's actually just a coincidence. While I've been watching the seniors at McKinley get ready to graduate, I've also been thinking a lot about my high school friends. My two best friends are getting married this summer, and I can't make it to either wedding. It's incredibly disappointing that I can't be there. I've got two kids, now, and flights are expensive. One of the weddings is happening when my husband is at a trade show, and there's just no way I can drag a 2-year-old and a then 7-month-old to Boston alone. No chance.

These were my two best friends, though. I need to do something VERY special for them.

And so I'm knitting.

Not just anything, however. I'm knitting complicated, cabled things. Things that will take hours of work to make into reality, with my hopes and memories knit into every stitch. I only hope they will appreciate the love I'm putting into their afghans as much as I appreciate their continued friendship, no matter where they end up in the world.

Austen spun up

Three Waters Farm, my favorite dyer, has done a series of Polworth/Silk braids based on the interior colors popular during the Regency period -- aka Jane Austen's time. The braid was a gorgeous blue/green with a tiny bit of taupe. Spun up, however, it's even more luscious. I can't wait to knit this up!

February is for Finishing

In Bubbo's Pants on Ravelry (a group of awesome women and a couple of men who are truly excellent to each other), February is for finishing projects. I'm proud to say that I finally finished my large sized Clara Shawl.

Right at the end, with half a ball of Knit Picks Shimmer in Eucalyptus left, I decided to snag the edging from Annis and stuck it on Clara. It fits perfectly.

I also spun up some Three Waters Farm BFL in Sarah's Imperative. I'm so very much in love with BFL, and the depth of color on this fiber is just incredible. Yummy!

Excuse the mess

Hi, blog.

Two kids are busymaking. I promise I will get back to you soon.

In the meantime, I've been completely obsessed with knitting mini-sized Annis Shawls.

There will be pictures someday. Right now, DKJr wants down, and TinyDK is still on my lap. Must run. And run, and run, and run...

The Reason for the Season

Being this enormously pregnant at this time of year has led me to think quite a lot about the reason for the season. Such a trite, overused phrase it is – ‘reason for the season’ – bandied about by almost every church message board in the days leading up to Christmas, yet it’s a reminder that all the pressure to shop, shop, shop and spend, spend, spend is just a cultural holiday. There’s more to this particular day than just that, and we should take pause to remember it.

I was pregnant with my first son during the Christmas season, too, but only about six months in. Large enough for knowing smiles in the grocery store, but not nearly huge enough for overly-kindly Southern women to pull me aside and express what a miracle a Christmas baby would be.

At this point, I don’t care if he’s a Christmas baby, you see. I just want him out. I’m enormously uncomfortable, the Gestational Diabetes is a pain in the rear end during the carb laden Christmas season, and I just want to get on with the joy of being a mother instead of lugging my not-so-aerodynamic belly up and down the stairs while being unable to keep up with my toddler. I feel like I am so, so done with this, and the little guy is taking his time making his appearance.

Two thousand years ago, a heavily pregnant woman was also making preparations. Not for the Christmas season. It didn’t exist, yet. She was preparing for a journey to a different town to do her civic duty at the side of her husband, the man who loved her so much that he stayed with her even when told her child wasn’t his. An angel messenger is a pretty good pregnancy test, one that comes with an accurate due date, unlike what women at the time must’ve normally done to calculate when a child might arrive. Still, she probably had no idea when setting off on her trip that her child would be born outside of her home, in her husband’s hometown, not hers.

As the tradition goes, Mary and Joseph made their way from the Galilee to Bethlehem with Mary riding on a donkey. Nine months pregnant and riding about 100 miles, 158 kilometers, on the back of a donkey. I’m so huge that I can barely sit up straight in my car. And add to that the problem of lodging – a whole city filled to the brim for the census, leaving hugely pregnant Mary forced to sleep on a bed of hay, no matter how uncomfortable it must’ve left her.

And so that night of all nights, a new baby was born. A hundred miles from home, she labored without her friends or midwife, with only her new husband to hold her hand and guide the baby into the world. Women did, and still do, die in labor, especially in those conditions. She must’ve been so scared that night, giving birth on a pile of hay surrounded by animals instead of her loved ones. There’s more than one miracle to celebrate on Christmas morning: Jesus was born, yes. But his mother made it through, too, despite all the terrible conditions and hardships she had to face. Alone in a stable in an unfamiliar city, a baby was born, and a family gained a member, regardless of who that baby would become.

Tonight, I’ll no doubt sit in church and get all sorts of knowing smiles and parades of people asking when I’m due. It’s uncomfortable to me, being the center of that attention when all I really want is to be at home with my feet up and tea in my hands to keep the constant late-pregnancy swelling down. But tonight, I need to keep in mind what another woman went through long before me.

Will it be a pain for my son to share his birthday with a season so full of hype? Will he complain about joint birthday-Christmas presents, and a birthday party overshadowed by Santa? Yes. But he’ll also share his birthday season with the Son of God. That’s pretty special. It’s my job to help him understand that.

Spinning: Black Hills Gold

Something scrumptious off of my wheel. 4oz. of merino/bamboo/silk, dyed by Miss Babs.

260 yards in worsted weight.

Gestational Diabetes

I haven't used this forum to talk much about my current pregnancy for various reasons, but I wanted to take a moment to jot down some notes about my experiences with gestational diabetes. I wish I'd found a post on a blog somewhere when I was first diagnosed as it scared the crap out of me and I didn't know where to start.

I didn't have GD with my first term pregnancy. My GD has nothing to do with weight -- I actually weighed less at the start of this pregnancy than I did at the start of Jr.'s. This particular placenta is producing hormones that make it tough for my body to produce enough insulin to compensate. As a result, my body is going nuts trying to make enough if I eat too many carbs, and poof. Baby is on a constant sugar high if I don't control what I eat.

The good news is, in most cases, diet DOES fix the problem. Granted, I'm very, very borderline for GD. I've had absolutely ZERO problem getting my blood glucose numbers to come back as they should be if I just pay attention to what I'm eating.

This is where I had trouble before taking a class, however. I couldn't find enough info in a form that was helpful to me to make an informed change of diet immediately. So here it is, a list of what I'm allowed to eat (and generally what guidelines most people are given) and a short meal plan for a single day.

Breakfast: 30g-45g of carbs total

I usually have a piece of whole wheat toast with PB on it and a smallish serving of fruit. I've noticed that if I err on the 45g edge of the range, my blood glucose readings are usually on the high end later. This is the only meal that tends to give me this reaction.

Snack 1: 15g carbs

A piece of string cheese and a 100 calorie pack of crackers. I was glad to find that the prepackaged 100 calorie packs often have at or about 15g of carbs in each pack. I hate the extra waste, but it's a very, very easy way to take my snack with me and not be guessing about serving size.

Lunch: 45g carbs

A sandwich and a small piece of fruit. The more protein on the sandwich the better!

Snack 2: 15g carbs

I'm boring, so I eat the same thing as snack 1. Sometimes I'll have a pudding cup instead, but it's not usually substantial enough to keep me from being hungry before dinner.

Dinner: 45g-60g carbs

Salmon (grilled), asparagus, fluffy dinner roll. Or chicken wrap with whole wheat tortilla, salad. I've been able to push the carb limit here and not have adverse reactions, but I know others who have had terrible problems.

Snack 3: 15g-30g carbs

Pudding cup and crackers and cheese. Definitely needs something protein oriented. This snack is super important -- if I don't eat enough carbs here, my morning readings go wonky as my blood glucose crashes in the middle of the night and the pancreas shoots out extra glucose to compensate, which triggers the weird placenta response. I've noticed I can tell if I don't have enough snack at about 2am -- the baby gets a sugar rush from the excess glucose my pancreas decided to make and wakes me up with a dance party.

The hardest part of GD in my experience is making sure I eat enough protein so that I'm still gaining as I should be. My first few weeks after being diagnosed, my weight plateaued and at one point I actually lost weight, not something I'd recommend for a pregnant woman. Couple that with the holidays approaching, and I've been pretty miserable, food-wise.

Only a month or so to go, and he is here, and the GD should simply disappear once the placenta is out. I can't wait to drink orange juice again. Nothing like some wasted delicious carbs.

Hats and Hats Abound

This Christmas seems to be all about hats, for me. And a few other things I can't share yet, as the recipients might happen upon the pictures, but here are just a couple of the things I've been up to.

Four Minnesota Wild hats, though in various shades of forest green. The top beret is handspun, the earflap hat with the Charlie Brown zigzag is Cascade 220, and the two cabled children's hats are Knit Picks Comfy Worsted (and are some old, old leftovers. Feels nice to be done with the yarn!) These hats will soon be making a trip to the snowy north to live with some dear friends and hockey fans, and I'm hoping to get a picture of them watching a game in the hats!

And then, the little hat I'm most fond of: a gift for Durham Knits, Jr. in Misti Alpaca Worsted.

The pattern is Kate Oates' Plaid Hatter, and I can't wait to make it again in an adult size for me. I LOVE it! The little mittens are leftovers in a basic toddler mitt pattern.

Tis the Season

... well, maybe it isn't quite yet, but it's been the season for knitting presents for Christmas. As I have an Impending Arrival right around the holidays (and it's entirely possible that Little Brother might make his appearance on December 25 or so), I've been trying to get all of my holiday preparations out of the way as early as possible. Of course, that makes for no pretty pictures for the blog until after gifting.

Instead, here's a cute cat.

Sun Yarn

After experimenting with dyeing in my crockpot, I decided to try dyeing using Kool Aid in the sun, inspired by a thread in Ravelry's A Kool Way to Dye group.

This is what I came up with:



A couple of my friends asked for me to write out the instructions for this mottled sun yarn, so here it is for future use.

I supersaturated Kool Aid in lemon lime and blue raspberry ice in boiling water, 2 packets of each in separate pots. After it cooled somewhat, I poured it into an ice cube tray and let them freeze into super colored dye cubes overnight.

The next day (forecast to be 100F+, though I've heard it's possible to do this at a much lower temp) I filled a dark casserole dish halfway with clear water and my 4oz. of yarn, just covering the yarn in the pot, then let it sit for an hour in the sun until very warm. I then randomly placed dye ice cubes on the yarn. This created the brightest spots of green and blue. I left the yarn in the sun for the rest of the afternoon to be sure it set.

There were still large amounts of white left after the ice cube treatment, so the next afternoon I mixed another 2 packets of lemon lime and replaced the water in the casserole with the newly mixed Kool Aid solution. I again left the yarn in the dye for the afternoon in the sun.

When I removed and washed the yarn, I was left with this lovely mottled effect. I'd love to try it again with more dye cube colors!