Frog It

For reasons largely chemical -- having my pupils dilated for an eye exam -- I'm unable to tackle my nightly writing assignment, since I'm unable to handle any sort of related reading. So far, I have managed to be a nuisance around the house by badly loading the dishwasher and not being trusted to cook dinner for the kids, since I can't actually read the controls on the oven, and thus I've been banished to the far reaches of the house where I can sit in semi-darkness and not harm myself or others or pose a fire hazard to anyone.

So I'm going to ramble here, and talk about knitting.

I learned around fifteen years ago or so, when my then-only child was in preschool: I vaguely remember one of my very first projects was a slightly lumpen and uneven toy bear for one of his classmates who was about to become a big brother. My wife taught me to knit, and I love her dearly, but she and I are of very different mindsets to life, and knitting is one of those things that, if you must be taught by someone, should be taught by someone who thinks like you do, or who you have the proper amount of respect/fear for (a dear old grandmother is perfect.) My wife's lessons, no matter how often she repeated them, did not take, leaving me to my own devices in the pre YouTube days to puzzle it through from diagrams and books, and to finally wind up getting it right in the "Continental" style. Did you know there's more than one style? I didn't, but I learned it the opposite way that I was taught. She knits "English," which basically means that she uses one hand to manage the loose yarn and I use the opposite hand. Luckily, we're both right-handed, or chances are I'd still be learning. Continental is, from personal experience, unusual among the few knitters I've met in my area, and a male knitting is even rarer still, though I did strike up a very pleasant conversation with a gentleman about how he and his siblings had all learned as children, and were put to work by their mother making socks for themselves during the winter months. Having children of my own who tend to come undone during winter, I see this as exceptionally good parenting. Anyhow, those first few attempts at making anything other than odd lumpen animals, or slightly crooked socks (I tried) or overlarge hats were not wild successes. And although it's not really any more difficult than tying a shoe -- it's practically the same motion, in fact -- you're still doing it with a pair of sharp pointy tools and about a million times in a row.

There's three aspects of knitting that make it pleasant, though, and more pleasant than tying endless shoes. First is setting the expectations appropriately. I have little desire to make myself a nice complicated anything, and certainly less desire to impose such a project on another person. Sweaters are involved. Even proper socks are a hassle -- turning the heel, ugh ugh ugh -- but scarves are super easy, and baby blankets are just scarves without boundaries. I do a pretty brisk business in churning out baby shower gifts for my coworkers thanks to the innate simplicity of the rectangular form.

Second, it's very soothing. Once you get past the agony of actually learning the motions and the silly mnemonic rhymes to do them in the right order ("through the fence, catch the sheep, back we go, off you leap") and you learn your knits from your purls, it's possible to become a veritable fibre-slinging machine. When I had a longer commute, I'd work on the train, and provided that someone in my office is expecting, I can be seen hauling a black bag (manly) of fuzzy pink yarn (less manly) to my kids' soccer games, or pulling it out in front of our nightly murder-mystery TV, or whenever. It's easy, almost enough that you don't need to look at your work after a while. You can feel it -- you learn to know when you've placed the needle wrong and can fix it nearly automatically. I doubt I would have believed this all those years ago when my wife was patiently and fruitlessly trying to teach me how to Catch The Sheep. It's meditative, clicking the needles and handling the yarn and feeling the piece grow beneath your fingers. I've heard it releases serotonin even, one of the brain's built in "happy chemicals." I can believe it. The temptation to stay up late to knit just One More Row... well, it's kind of a buzz, actually. A socially-acceptable grandmotherly buzz, but a buzz nonetheless.

Third and finally, though, is overcoming one's fear of frogs. Or of "frogging" one's work by ripping it out when it's beyond repair or just not working. Frogging a piece can be traumatic, especially if you're really invested in it -- like a sweater or some infernally complex sock, and you may be tempted to just forge on ahead, or bargain with yourself to rip back just a little bit, just a few rows. Since I'm in the realm of rectangles, ripping out is not such a big deal. When you take as much pleasure in the pulling-apart of bad piece as you do in the putting-together of a good one -- well, that's supposedly when you've Leveled Up at knitting. That you can embrace the creation and destruction as integral parts of the piece... or something. It can be an infernal pain (pro tip: never attempt to rip out boucle) but it is a literal unwinding and remaking, too. A fresh start, with lessons learned from the last attempt. Taking a new approach to the summit. Insert your own metaphor here -- it's a do-over, and with the added benefit of wallowing in more happybrain chemistry.

So I'm in the middle of a piece now, a pen wrap for myself, and I just ripped it out for the fifth time in a row. I'm working without a pattern, without a plan, just a picture in my head of what the end product should look like and feel like, and I'm far too lazy to make a small sample swatch and do all the math and figure out how it should count out. I'm leaping in, something sharp and poky in both hands. It's taking shape again, and I think it might be right this time. And like the other creative endeavors I've worked on over the last fifteen plus years, it's teaching me more about making mistakes, and trusting instincts, and being brutal about editing (and starting over) and working through process along the way to a finished product.

I'm a computer programmer by hobby originally and by trade later, and there's very much an immediacy and a correctness to that sort of creation -- errors are reported quickly, and results are true/false without a lot of unpleasant nebulousness in the middle. Knitting -- and writing, and typing, and music, and carpentry -- is not like that, thank goodness, and although I'm not sure I'm good at it, I'm not terrible, either. And when I am, I'm happy to haul it off to the frog pond and rip it, rip it, rip it.

Guys Do It, Too

No time for a full typecast this week, but I thought I'd share another one of those confluence of interest moments with you. (Otherwise known as I just learned a new search term this week.)

First, this Make post started it all, by showing an antique sock-knitting machine connected to a windmill, which is turning out a scarf worthy of Dr. Seuss or your favorite Gallifreyan. Sock machines aren't made anymore, at least not of this quality: they are fairly complex to work and wildly expensive and so of course this wind-powered monstrosity is tickling my want receptors.

Knitting machines come in other forms, too. I passed up a "flat" knitter once, on the basis that it was too freaking big for our house (true) that I didn't know how to work it (also true) and that honestly, we don't need it (yet again true.) I should also mention that I still regret that. (So very, very true.) Of course, it's all the clickety-clack parts that get me worked up. I'm sure I would lose interest after the fifth blanket or so.

Maybe.

Intrigued, I poked around a little more on the Tube of You, and found this former engineer's forays into the world of home-made, computer-driven knitting paraphernalia. (See version one and its successor.) Perhaps not as green as the wind-powered setup, but as a software and computer guy, I've got to give it up for correx37's esprit de knit. And for those without a workshop and the smarts to put together something like this (raises hand) I submit a much humbler -- though no less impressive -- homebrew solution. And if you feel the need to go large-scale, try it with with hard hats and diesel engines and a big hook.

True enough, my own efforts at the blending of the machine and fiber arts are modest by comparison, but I had not considered tapping into my geek as well. Patterns abound for that scarf, for example, and of course there's the world of mathematics to provide inspiration. Now, if only there was a way to rig up needles to typebars...

Thickening

From the archives of Life magazine.

Fingers at the ready? We're on October's doorstop, perched to ring that bell...

• My second knit typing pad is complete. I learned some lessons from making my first one last year, specifically the importance of thickness, so I took a suggestion from Monda and made the entire thing a knit-one-purl-one rib knit, then folded it into fourths before washing. The good: this thing is crazy thick, and should be able to muffle my typing sounds, even if I choose to use a hammer on the typewriter this November (tempting, when the plot goes awry.) The bad: I threw caution to the wind and did not test a swatch of yarn first to see how it would shrink, so the result is less of a pad, and more of an elongated rectangle. Two typewriters could easily perch back-to-back upon it. This may not be a bad thing. The original pad is sitting under Norma Jean at the office. I might sleep on the second one.
  
• October also means that I start focusing on filling in the many gaps on this year's novel, which is going to be a comic/humorous fantasy-type story. My last two attempts have been serious works (ahem) and so I would not let myself take advantage of the "ceiling ninja" technique of unsticking a jammed plot ("Suddenly, ninjas leapt from the ceiling!") I'm going to rectify that this year. In 2009 I shall embrace the ninjas. The plot is thickening.
  
• I've been remiss in lazily re-posting Links of Interest, so here's a few to tide you over:


• Typewriters Fall From the Sky
• The Typer-Piper
• A Valentine Notebook?
  

Time to pick up

It's Tuesday, and my octopus only has seven legs.

This non-sequitur is brought to you by my latest knitting project. In knitting, the first row of stitches made is called the "cast on" row. That language puts me in the mind of fishing, and it's not a bad comparison, hopefully throwing your line into the water to see what you catch. I've only really managed one of the many methods of casting on, but it serves me well. My problem now with the octopus is that I need to go back and revisit that first row to attach legs, so the end product will look like a something, and not like a blob.

My knitting -- like my writing -- tends to shape up after a few rows (lines), so my cast-on row is numerically correct with the proper number of stitches, but may have serious style problems. Typically the tension in the yarn is wrong, and picking over it uncovers all the weak spots and funny gaps that even out over the course of the project. Now with this pattern, I have to go back and "pick up" stitches, which means just what it sounds like. Stitches that are done and in the past, stuff I laid down at the start of the project now suddenly fund themselves back on the needle and under scrutiny, being asked to support something else. And somehow, despite my ability to count to numbers higher than ten, I seem to be running out of room to attach the legs on the octopus. I just started leg number six last night, and without some creative rejiggering, it looks like I might be making a septopus after all. I'll figure this out, though. Knitting can be surprisingly tolerant of failure, especially when you're just doing it for fun. I'll work around it and it'll come out OK.

Now, it's Tuesday night -- the night of my wife's knitting class, coincidentally -- which leaves me and the offspring alone tonight. Once they're abed this evening, I will have about ninety minutes of quiet-in-the-house time. Unlike last week when I squandered this by actively ignoring the NaNo draft sitting right there on the side table, I think I'll dig out the pen and the note cards and start dealing with all those early lines, those cast-on pages that laid the foundation for the final story. Lines and pages that need reworking and revisiting, to ease out the tension and straighten things up. (Or maybe just ripping them out altogether.)

It's time to pick up and get to work.

It all comes out in the wash

One week of work, and only one extra trip to the store for another skein, and the typing pad project is nearly done. I've just pulled it out of the wash, sodden brown murky mess that it is, and am well-pleased with the results. Unfolded, the piece was about five and a half feet long, with the random gaps and goofs that say "this was a project done in a hurry." It all comes out in the wash though: the row that I randomly reversed stitches, the rough edges, the strange gappy oversized overall yuck of the raw piece is now square, damp, and smooth. I could probably shrink it a bit more, but I'm considering tossing it into the dryer to get it from the completely-dripping stage to the merely-damp stage. Pictures of the completed work to come once it's dry enough to play with Gomez, but you can get a glimpse of the "before" piece and its accoutrements perched on a TV tray this morning, before its date with the Kenmore. I was skeptical at first that the finished product would be as good as it is. Just goes to show what a little attention, friction, and a good soak can do for your first draft.

Update: after drying 12 hours later:

Warp-speed procrastination

Am I the last person on Earth to notice Google Reader? I keep toying with a "blogroll" section so I can keep an eye out for new posts on everyone's space, or obsessively reload Strikethru since she's on top of finding new type-blogs. Thanks to Reader, I just subscribe to 'em. It's incredibly cool, and now makes me look like ever more the cyber-stalker.

Lots of good discussions going on about NaNoWriMo and maintaining the balance between writing fast and writing well. Again, hoping for the latter, but only worrying about the former this year.

Halfway through the typing pad project. I tried for a casual-posed shot showing the work-in-progress along side the Skyriter, but the fabric totally dwarfs that poor machine. It looked like it was being swallowed by a giant brown poo. Will try for a more flattering "before" photo before I run it through the wash. Only 130 rows to go...

DIY Typing Pad

(The craft-averse should look away now, perhaps at Olivander's relaunched photo gallery. Feel free to pretend that I'm saying something pithy and observational about the unfortunate collapse of typewriter beauty and the rise of the featureless smooth laptop.)

How to Knit a Typing Pad (I hope)

You need:

* the ability to knit, or pay someone who can
* needles of sufficient size
* a quantity of feltable wool
* a means for felting said wool
* old towels or jeans
* mild washing soap (soak flakes, or a wool wash like Eucalan)
* time, time, time (optional)

This is my first go at making a felted or "fulled" piece. I'm well-versed in the school of "knit a large rectangle" since I have made numerous baby blankets for co-workers' showers, including doubles for the two pairs of twins. I wanted to make this project felted, since the original style was done that way, and felting nicely covers up knitting mistakes, which I fully expect to make. My lovely wife has knit a number of felted items, so any advice related to the actual mechanics of felting is hers, just channeled through me.

Needles and wool:

For my pad, I'm using Lion Brand Fisherman's Wool in brown, mainly because it's cheap for the yardage and being brown, it will hide the stray hairs of my large black dog, which are absolutely everywhere. Needle size recommended is a U.S. 9, and for felted items you want the stiches to be loose and open, so go up a couple of sizes. I'm using U.S. 11 for mine, though I could go for bigger.

Sizing:

You must, must, must swatch here. I figured out that I wanted to make a 15" x 15" pad, because that's about the size of an SM9 case, plus a little fudge factor. With felting, it's easy to make a project go smaller, so plan bigger. Knit up a small swatch (mine was 16 sts x 18 rows), write down your stitches and rows, and measure it carefully. You'll need this later.

Felting:

Supposedly the best way to do this is in a top-loading washing machine, since you really want the agitation cycle. Of course, we swapped ours out some time ago for a water-sipping front-loader, but it still works, just with more time. Take your swatch and toss it into a mesh bag or old pillowcase, taking care to close the opening securely (rubber band it shut.) Include some old towels in the load, or jeans that you don't mind shrinking, or in our case, the cheapo jean jacket that was a quarter at Goodwill and is now "the felting jacket."

Run the machine on its hottest wash cycle and coldest rinse, and wait. You want to catch the machine before it gets into a high spin, because "if it folds over when the machine is spinning, you're screwed." The heat and friction will conspire to give your little swatch a wicked beating, and make the fibers rub together and shrink. Mine took two wash cycles before I couldn't see light through the piece (my highly scientific test) and I thought it looked good. Lay flat on a towel and roll up to dry.

Math time:

Sorry. With your pre-felting swatch measurements at hand, measure the width and length of your new, teeny felted swatch. Figure out how many stitches-per-felted-inch and rows-per-felted-inch you knitted. Multiply these ratios by your target measurements to figure out how many stitches you'll be casting on, and how many rows you'll be knitting. These will be big, upsetting numbers. It's OK.

Pictures of real pads show them to be thick, so I'm planning on actually knitting mine twice as long, folding it over, and sewing the edges together before felting, so I'm doing:

CO 72 sts
K in sts 249 rows
BO

This thing will look like a freaking blanket when I'm done, but that's OK! There will be a lot of shrinking in the wash. And exact measurements are not required: I just rounded up a bit. I can always felt it smaller, or just chop off the edges with a rotary cutter if it's really way crazy too big.

For the real wash, include the soap flakes/wool wash, mostly to keep everything from stinking of wet sheep. Check your project often, since it's easy to get the whole thing too small if you just left it go.

And that's the plan. If nothing else, this should keep my hands busy until November. Stay tuned for the occasional update.

Snippets of news

A couple of things of interest today:

Just when you thought it was time to put away the banners and bunting, the Typewriter Day celebration continues! Despite events both unfortunate (a few drop-outs) and fortunate (a wedding and a major move -- both for the same person) I believe all of the T.D. packets are still accounted for, with one making the cross-country trek as I type this, hopefully to arrive on Western shores... soonish. Everyone think positive thoughts for the postal service and pray for mild headwinds.

After a bit of technical hysterics, the NaNoWriMo.org site is up and going again, and hopefully for the duration. All Typewriter Brigade members and supporters are encouraged to join up and become one with the collective. There is no escape.

Realizing that my participation in the T.B. may upset a few denizens of my house (read: everyone) while I'm banging out my nightly 1,667 after bedtime, I'm going to make a felt typing pad to act as a cushy barrier between the bottom of the chosen machine(s) and the writing surface of choice. Watch this space for thrilling updates of the knitting variety.

Finally, typecaster "Desert Loon" has posted pictures of his new daughter, and I have to say that she may be the third most beautiful little girl on the planet (after my own two, natch.) Click on over and get your awwww on.