Cheers and Tears

Hip Hip Hooray for Fran Baker, wonderful lady, wonderful author - check out her Regency series here, to share the adventures of Miss Rose, Miss Francie and Miss Pippa! (or her Amazon page to find even more of her exciting titles), and wonderful knitter, who sent me a skein of SuperSocke 100 yarn from her latest giveaway on Romancing The Yarn. It's colorway 1056, a cheery combo of red, yellow, white and blue that reminds me of a carnival tent. I'm sorry not to have a pic, camera problems again. OK, the truth is I left the camera at Mom's, so technically it's a memory problem.

Gratitude also goes out to Create For Less and their blog, Think Crafts, which celebrated a recent anniversary by giving away 10 $10 GCs a day for a month! I was lucky enough to receive two, and finally chose two books - Son of Stitch & Bitch and Classic Elite Knits.

Another generous company, Leisure Arts, whose blog is Everyday Life At Lesiure Arts, sent me the entire colection of six books of patterns for their new Knook product. You may recall that I'd won the Knook set in a previous giveaway, so winning the pattern books is a nice treat indeed! The set includes Baby Beanies, Baby Blankets, Dishcloths, Learn To Knook, Simple Scarves and Urban Hats. Thanks!

Congratulations to my good blog-buddy Vivianne, who has been quite fortunate herself lately!

Now we move on to the ugly side of life, AKA: my knitting. I'd designed a dress for Mom's Christmas present, which was to have a large scale entrelac skirt, knit from the bottom up, that would be joined by three-needle bindoff to a top-down circular yoke bodice with a single band of smaller entrelac, and even smaller entrelac at the cuffs. I'd done a couple small entrelac pieces before, so I naturally considered myself an expert at, if not the actual inventor of, this fascinating knitting technique!

Merrily I go knitting the skirt, starting with a crochet provisional caston at the hem, so I can knit up a folded hem later. With my stockinette guage as a guide, I cast on enough stitches for a full skirt. Decreasing along the way, I planned to have a nice tapered line.

The nature of entrelac on the needles makes if very difficult to get an accurate idea of size, since what you've got is several sections of bias knitting hanging at angles, but it seemed to be somewhat according to plan. It wasn't until I'd done the top triangles that I could see it hanging as it would when worn.

It should have been about 28" inches long, based on the stockinette gauge. I'd seen that it looked shorter than that while I was working it, but thought that the weight would pull it down some when it was hanging properly. It didn't. Tug and pull as I might, it did not want to be more than 22-23" long.

Ok, thinks I, perhaps the tight provisional caston is part of the problem, and if the fabric is released to hang as it wants, it will straighten out and lengthen some. So, out comes the caston, and yes indeed, the fabric did grow! Unfortunately, not down, but around. The hem circumfrence was a whopping 68"! SO, what I'd planned as a gracefully tapered skirt, ankle length, turned out to mid-calf length hoop skirt, without the hoops.

Out came the reference books and the computer searches. It seems to be a well known fact that the slanted fabric of entrelac knitting results in a wider/shorter fabric than indicated by the stockinette gauge. It has been widely discussed and written about. Many fora and symposia have been held on the subject. I guess my invitations blew off the porch.

Froggy came a courting' and he did rip, uh-huh, uh-huh! On to plan B.

Merry Christmas Mom, I made you an ashtray in the shape of my hand! Out of yarn!