Nuts and Bolts

Warning: This blog post contains graphic photos of sweater in progress being cut with scissors. Readers who don’t want to know how the sausage is made should maybe sit this one out.

The rubber is starting to hit the road, here at Mary Elizabeth Scott Handknitter International Headquarters. As always, while I knit/design, I keep meticulous notes about what I’m doing, how I’m doing it, and what numbers are involved. Usually they are scary-looking, and unintelligeable to anyone but me. For example, the scribble below represents a cross-section of the sweater body tube, with the division of stitches called out for cutting. My loved ones refer to my notebook as evidence of a “beautiful mind”.

The running commentary

Project Milestone: The sweater body tube is complete! Time to secure the center front and neckline steeks. This time I’m securing the steek with machine stitching. I’ve chosen this technique because it works best for the particular edge treatment I’ve imagined for the center front and neckline edges. It also allows me to simply cut off the 8 trillion yarn tails created during color changes in the knitting. That’s right: I WILL NOT BE WEAVING ANY TAILS. Let that sink in for a minute. I just CUT THEM ALL OFF:

Yarn tails in Combover formation

Yarn tails machine-secured along with steek stitches (tails controlled with painters tape)

Lift the tape to hold all the tails up for removal

Cut off all the tails close to the machine stitching

It’s okay; I’ll wait while your loved ones retrieve the smelling salts to revive you.

Next it’s time to plan the actual cutting. The center front steek is already secured in this photo, though the machine stitches are not visible from the front of the work. At the top of the body tube, you can see that all the knit stitches are still live. They’re divided into sections for shoulder seams, armhole slot locations and neckline areas, and held by waste yarn.

Blue cotton waste yarn markers in place for precision placement of front neckline curve

Surprise! I’ve created a smaller-scale version of the thistle border for the upper edge of the cardigan. Combined with the sexy edge treatments I have planned, it will draw attention up to your beautiful face. Because the wearer is the most important element of all my designs.

Tactical error requires surgical removal of the hem. Oops.

Mistakes are part of my process. Although the lower edge treatment was as beautiful as can be, I worked it too early. A more elegant order of operations is required, so away it goes (for now). I just snip out one round of knitting, placing the resulting live stitches on a slender needle as I go. Afterward, I’ll crochet a temporary waste yarn bindoff to hold them safe until I’m ready to work the final lower edge.

The most wonderful thing about knitting is that it never goes on your permanent record. There is almost nothing you can knit that can’t be turned back into yarn.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this brief glimpse into the process of translating my crazy into a coherent and knittable design. Next stop: Working a straight edge in a circle. Because why not?

I promise I am mad but North-Northwest.

Enamored

Have you ever experienced a visceral, physical craving to knit?

The Pink Thistle on Thanksgiving Day last week was moving to my office, but abandoned en route on the staircase.

You’re minding your own beeswax, doing something else. Some non-knitting, alledgedly productive but utterly mindnumbing thing, such as “work”, “grocery-getting”, or God help you, “housekeeping”.

That’s when it hits. The itch in the fingers to touch the wool. The shimmering vision of the Finished Thing, in the wearing or the giving, or just out in the world being seen.

The sense memories of the Making flood over you - the touch of the string - soft and smooth or firm and crunchy, the sweet smell of the wool and the irresistable gleam of the perfect, sleek needles.

They all sing their Sirens’ Call:

“Heed!” the Knitting shouts. “Abandon the banal and sink into our warm embrace! Here are comfort, and peace, and thoughtful intention.”

“But the chores,” you protest. “They matter not.” Says the Knitting. “Here is contentment. Here is contemplation. Here is your Happy Place!”

I gently steamed it flat in order to measure. 13 ½ inches long, gauge, spot on. And the Sirens continued their song.

So you have to relent. The pull is too beguling; the alternatives too mundane.

A peek at the steek, inside, where the colors change and the Magic happens.

You find the chair, the light, the cup of tea. The cat or dog curls up at your feet - they, too, know you have come back to where you belong. You pick up the knitting, and surrender to the spell.

Too bewitching to ignore…

Whatever you’re knitting, Gentle Readers, I wish you enchantment.

Noodling on a Thistle

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Swatching the Pink Thistle and making notes with my new favorite mechanical pencil. Get one of these beauties for yourself HERE.

As promised, the start-itis is real over here, and I’ve been dilligently swatching while thinking about how best to address the new design I’ve promised you. The news is great - I love the pink colorway as much as the original purple, which I never thought possible. I also love this yarn more than is probably reasonable. I’ll tell you all about it in detail going forward, but first thing’s first: Many sincere thanks, Gentle Readers, for your votes on the sillhouette of the Thistle sweater to come!

Wouldn’t you know it: The comments are evenly split between Yokes and Drop-Shoulders. Therefore, I’ve made a considered decision as your tiebreaker in chief. Here’s a look inside my thought process:

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How to give a thistle a wedgie

The OG Thistle chart was created for a rectangular shawl, free of any garment shaping. For that I designed the thistle “picture” on a flat canvas. To alter the chart for circular yoke shaping, I would have to remove wedges of knitting via decreases from that picture. The illustration above shows roughly how that might go.

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You knew there would be scissors, right?

Here’s an old-school way of playing with shaping in the chart - actual cut and paste. This mockup shows a version of what happens when I remove wedges of knitting from my rectangle to create a circular yoke: In a word: Crowding. They still look like thistles, kinda, but only to those of us who have seen the original. The leaves, while still leafy, are no longer Thistly. And the blossoms don’t retain their fluffy topknots. While not altogether awful, I don’t think this is good enough for MY knitters.

Could I design a completely different thistle that fits properly into a circular yoke? Probably. But I’d be losing the charm of the original chart, which 10k knitters around the world have voted for with their purchases. My instinct is that the original Thistle chart isn’t broken, so I shouldn’t tinker with it.

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Lazlo sent the Scotties to Time Out so he could properly supervise the Thistle Cardigan cast-on. (The bright green you see here is the hem facing that is only visible on the inside).

One of the other considerations that you have helpfully mentioned is the direction of knitting. For those who asked for a top-down construction, I’m afraid I’ll have to disappoint you. There are two reasons for this:

1. I have strong opinions (surprise) about the orientation of each stitch in the motif chart. I cannot abide an upside-down stitch (“^” vs “v” shaped) unless the chart is intentionally drawn for it. The thistle motifs are drawn in upright orientation. Reversing the direction of construction will call for the reversal of every stitch’s orientation. While many would not be bothered by that at all, it would cause MY teeth to hurt.

2. While undeniably fun to knit, top-down construction for a circular yoke requires shaping via stitch increases, while bottom-up shaping is achieved with stitch decreases. My prejudice is that in most cases, decreased yokes look prettier in the knitting and fit better on the body. The fitting can be engineered in reverse to accommodate this issue, sort of. But not inside the limited acreage of a motif chart that is already suffering from dreadful crowding. So yeah: This sweater needs to be worked from the bottom up.

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The lower edge of my new pink thistle is happening! I forgot how muuch I love this Celtic Knot border.

To sum up, with your help and input, I’ve decided that Thistle 2.0 will be a cardigan, it will be worked in the round with steeks, from the bottom up, and it will have a drop-shoulder sillhouette.

One final word on the overall design: I’ve envisioned a really unusual and flattering finish for it that I think will knock all of our (handknit) socks off. Stay tuned!