If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around...

So, I knitted a blanket for my friend Florina's son, due to appear in October 2013.  The Baby Shane blanket pattern, by Tanis Fiber Arts, is one of my favorites, and among the yarns I used (for the red and butter-yellow stripes) were Rowan Pure Wool Aran (yellow) and Classic Elite's Waterspun, (production discontinued), in an iodine red. I washed the blanket in Woolite in icy cold water, without agitation, and rinsed it in icy cold water, without agitation.  After draining the tub and rolling the blanket in a series of towels to absorb the moisture, I was horrified to discover that some of the red dye had bled onto the yellow yarn.

The Knitting Goddess, whom I consulted, said, "That's why you should always make a swatch." She did some research and found a product called Carbona Color Run Remover that sucks up "fugitive" dye. I did some research and discovered Carbona for sale at a nearby Walmart. I drove to Walmart.

Entering Walmart was almost as dismaying as discovering the dye damage. Why is it that the killer shark theme from "Jaws" starts to pound in my brain the minute I set foot in there? Why does everyone inside that big concrete box look like an inmate of a halfway house? Why did I have to walk the entire six mile length of the store before I could locate the laundry products aisle? Is it possible that some people are born knowing how to navigate a Walmart, or is this a new field of academic research?

At long last I found the product, purchased it, and discovered, on reading the box at home that it works only in "the hottest water permitted by the fabric care label."

Neuroknitter thought I might be able to wash the blanket in hot water if I didn't agitate it. I called the toll-free phone number on the Carbona box and got a recording that said the office was closed, and if I had ingested Carbona I should immediately call a Poison Control center.

I discussed this with H, who, under torture, will confess that he holds a doctorate in chemistry. He examined the list of Carbona's ingredients. Then he said, "I think you should knit a swatch with those yarns, wash the swatch as you did the blanket, then, when the dye runs, try the Carbona in hot water and see what happens. But if you ask me, I think the blanket really looks okay, and Florina and her baby won't notice."

I knitted a swatch a couple of evenings ago, during the CBS news, local and national. I measured the swatch prior to washing.

I washed the swatch exactly as I'd washed the blanket. Guess what? The dye didn't run.

My laboratory.

The testing ground and materials.

Woolite added to icy cold water begins to foam as they mix.

Swatch immersed in Woolite and icy cold water.

Swatch after rinsing and drying. No runs. No significant shrinkage either.

H told me that I needed to repeat the experiment until the dye ran, so I could see if Carbona and very hot water removed the color run without shrinking the blanket. I repeated the experiment.

The dye, as you can see, still didn't run.

H again opined that neither Florina nor baby would notice anything amiss. My friend Maa-gret said the effect was like a madras fabric. It looked like it was meant to be that way. Meanwhile I was thinking, suppose I do wash the blanket in Carbona and the dye comes out and the blanket doesn't shrink. That would seem the best possible result, but...did I really want a newborn to be wrapped in a chemically-treated blanket?

I showed the blanket to the Knitting Goddess, who told me that the dye must have run because the yarn was "crocked." 

The Free Dictionary (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/crock) says this is a term originating in New England [possibly because of New England's historic and role in the U.S. textile industry?] meaning

v. crocked, crock·ing, crocks

v.tr.

To soil with or as if with crock.

v.intr.

To give off soot or color.

The Knitting Goddess said, "Really, it looks fine.  No one will notice the bleed."

If no one notices, then maybe the dye didn't run after all? Just like the tree in the forest, which, when no one is around, falls ever so silently...?

Celebrating World Wide Knit in Public week

Neuro and I met at New London's Bean and Leaf Café, whose iced coffee I highly recommend, last week.  Neuro brought along a pair of beauteous gray socks she made for her dad for Father's Day, and was working on a shawl variant of the Clapotis (can't remember the exact title, but perhaps she will comment with the proper info) using a yarn she'd dyed herself in an inimitable yellow and gray colorway.  In the foreground please notice the baby blanket I recently completed and washed, only to discover that the red dye ran onto some of the yellow stripes.  This tale of disaster, with perhaps a  happier ending, will be related at length in a future post.

The nicest knitting teacher in the world

Knitters who regularly read this blog know that I'm a great admirer of Helen Bingham, teacher, designer and knitting and crochet expert from Rehoboth, Massachusetts.  I've known Helen through her tenure at two Providence LYS, A Stitch Above and Fresh Purls, now both, sadly, closed. However, I wanted you-all to know that Helen will be running an amazing class in Providence during the month of June, at the beautiful Hamilton House on Angell Street. I'll let Helen tell you about this in her own words, and I hope you can benefit from her magical knitting intuition!

***

Hello Knitters in the Providence, RI area,

I am offering a series of “Help Clinics” at Hamilton House during the month of June. Hamilton House is located at 276 Angell Street which is on the corner of Hope Street on the East Side. There is street parking available. Jessica and Anna are allowing me to rent space in this beautiful building so I may continue to teach after Fresh Purls closes on May 31st.

Every Tuesday from 10:30 - noon we will be meeting in their beautiful sitting rooms. This is a chance for you to receive lots of help with a wide array of knitting or crochet related items. Do you need help reading a pattern? Do you want to learn how to knit? Have you made a mistake and need assistance getting back on track? Do you want to learn how to do cables? Do you want to learn how to do the Magic Loop? These are just some of the things I can help you with.

To sign up for all four Tuesdays (4, 11, 18, 25) it will be $30. If you want to commit to one Tuesday then it is $10 per session. These Clinics are limited to fifteen students. To reserve your spot please go towww.helenbinghamdesigns.com then continue to “Hamilton House” to pay in advance. To learn more about Hamilton House please go to www.historichamilton.com.

Please contact me if you have any questions via Ravelry or hhelsmile@aol.com.
Thank you
Helen

Socks and Natural Selection

Like many of you, I love to knit socks. Behold a recently-completed pair, modeled by my Companion in Life:

These socks are entirely typical of my repertoire, consisting of about three variations of an archetypally basic pattern, the brainchild of my friend and local Langworthy Librarian, Jane Green. It has served me well during the first three years of my sock-knitting mania (life total to date: 40 completed pairs). A pattern like this is a great teacher of sock knitting, and an excellent way to showcase variegated or printed yarn, being, as it were, a blank canvas.

Almost two years ago I started a complicated pattern, with faux cables and lacy bits. It looks great, but I cannot knit it unless I'm in isolation, so I save it for when I have hours on Amtrak ahead of me. This Sterling Lace pattern, while beautiful, has furthered my resolve to simplify, simplify, simplify, as HDT says.

A free download,  Lace Sterling is designed by Clara Masessa for Kraemer Yarns.

Frankly, though, I am getting a wee bit bored by knitting the same old same old, so have been searching for a subtle variation. I found a much-touted pattern on Ravelry that looked like just the ticket, a classic rib with nice detail over two stitches:  SKYP; but I should have known something was wacko when I saw the sizing chart offered the following options only:  Men's X-Small [Small, Medium, Large].  OMG, I wondered.  Where would my women's size 8 feetsies fit into this? Regardless of all warning signs and alarm clocks, I dove right in.

This beautiful yarn is from Dirty Water Dyeworks, a New England hand-dyeing atelier.

It took me until the heel, when I tried it on, that I realized continuance was futile. The gauge and size were enough off to be tacitly annoying for the rest of my life, and suddenly, like a big blurp of water down the drain, the entire pattern lost its allure. I felt annoyed at all the hours I'd wasted, until I thought of how to adapt the herringbone pattern formed by the designer's SKYP (slip 1 purlwise, knit 1, yarn over, pass slipped stitch over).  Then this seemed to me a useful rehearsal for the next iteration, which I will share with you before too long, I hope.

Up close and personal so you can see the SKYP.

So ultimately, the time spent seemed more like a good practice, and possibly an evolutionary stage.

Ripped and ready to roll.

Farewell, Fresh Purls

A sad fact: yet another LYS bites the dust. The latest casualty, Fresh Purls on Hope Street in Providence, Rhode Island, will shut its winsome little door before the end of the month.

Now Providence has no yarn shop. What, I wonder, will fill the void? Since every other LYS in the state is at some distance from the city, knitters will have to drive or be driven to buy yarn locally.

Sudden Yarn Store Death (SYSD) is on the rise, alas. Maybe it's the economy; maybe it's because of increasing Internet sales, maybe it's a lot of snowballing factors.  Knit One Purl Two in Wakefield, Rhode Island, and Windsor Button in Boston have also recently succumbed. Here's an interesting article , "The Assault on Local Yarn Stores" from the Albany, New York area paper, The Times Union, on the SYSD phenomenon. The article raises some questions worth pondering.

Without trying to answer them, I'll say this--our local knitting community is poorer for having lost Fresh Purls. Its owner, Karen, did her best to welcome everyone, provide yarn-craft education, and contribute to good causes. I first met her when I joined a group the shop sponsored, "Needed Knits," wherein the estimable Helen Bingham offered patterns and advice, weekly, for those who wanted to sit and knit for a little while to make hats for good charitable causes--such as a women's shelter in Providence, and for people who frequented a soup kitchen in the Portsmouth area.

Fresh Purls provided much of that yarn.

My final purchase from Fresh Purls.  Sigh.

The Best of Boston

The City of Boston and charity knitting have been much on my mind recently, the former because of the horrific Marathon bombings of April 15th, and the latter because I'm writing a magazine article about said topic. I was in Boston yesterday for a meeting near the bombing site, so betook myself over to Boylston Street.

What can I say? If you happened to arrive from Mars yesterday, you'd have no idea of the mayhem and tragedy that occurred almost exactly two weeks ago. There are a few boarded up windows to notice, flags flying at half staff, a strong police presence, and this small spontaneous memorial around a newly-planted tree.

Knitters, ever generous, often contribute their work to people and organizations that  can benefit from hand-crafted warmth. But there's not a whole lot a knitter can do to assuage the pain of the bombing victims and their families. However, one company, Classic Elite Yarns, has dedicated the proceeds from a downloadable and beautiful shawl pattern, White Clover, to the One Fund Boston which serves the Marathon victims. This company's thoughtful gesture is something any knitter can easily support. The pattern itself is timeless, so if you can't knit it immediately, you won't have to worry about its going out of style.

White Clover, designed by Susan Mills, for Classic Elite Yarns

Yarniana: let the games begin!

For the past year or so I've been the happy recipient of review copies of knitting books, so it seems proper to dedicate some space here, maybe once a month, to telling y'all what's riding the latest incoming wave. Some of these volumes will be familiar to you, or at least their authors will, and others will be novel and amazing. I shall offer my humble opinions, and feel free to agree or not. (Full disclosure:  I prefer to review only books that have what I define as merit. Life is too short to read, or review, unappealing work.) Since summer approaches, I'm going to start by reviewing books that offer heat-friendly knitting, inasmuch as they're dedicated to small or lightweight projects.

***

So here it is, The Vogue Knitting Ultimate Hat Book (Sixth & Spring Press, 2012)

Maybe the grandest thing about this compendium of designs that have appeared previously in Vogue Knitting magazine, is its educational value. If a knitter were to make each one of the fifty (50!) hat patterns here, s/he would come away with a very full knowledge of knitting technique and knitting propriety, by which I mean that the designs are perfectly suited to the kinds of yarn required. (For example, one would not be advised to make the Double-Knit Hat designed by Elli Stubenrauch in a yarn heavier or less elastic than the fingering-weight called for, as that would most likely doom it to failure.)

One side of the Double-Knit Hat, designed by Elli Stubenrauch.

So, if you followed the directions as written, you'd practice (and perhaps learn for the first time) double knitting (i.e. reversible!) and intarsia. And you'd come away with a clever and useful little cap. Though I'm generally not a big fan of pictorial knitting, I must admit that I find this design, called "bird on a wire," very adorable.

The other side.

The designs are prefaced by short sections on the history of hats, anatomy of hats, and types--the latter offers useful images of basic hat shapes--and there's a mercifully brief boilerplate discussion of basic techniques. (At least there is no seemingly-obligatory section on "how to knit," which most knitting books, no matter how advanced, compulsively repeat.) The patterns themselves reflect a range of designers, from well-known (Deborah Newton, Pam Allen, Norah Gaughan) to up-and-coming (Jacqueline van Dillen, Mari Tobita, Anna Al). The fifty designs as a whole reflect the delightful way that modern knitting incorporates the textile heritage of Europe, Asia, and the Americas through technique, motif, color, and style. 

Does it have any limitations at all? Yes--these are designs intended for women, though some, like the chullos, trapper, beanie-style, and aviator hats could easily be adapted to fit those of the male persuasion. But apart from that, it really is, as the title claims, an ultimate compendium. Great photography, clear layout, instructions, charts, and timeless designs--it's really one of the best knitting books I've found, and the list price of $24.95 (obviously even less if you buy through a discounter) is quite modest considering what's included.

Isn't this pilbox by Mari Tobita elegant? And just think what a good cabler you'd be if you knitted it!