Sit Up Straight

Here's the command center at Mary Scott Huff Hand Knitter Headquarters. I write books here, tend the blog, and do everything else technicious. What you can't tell from this photo is that my monitor is adjusted to its maximum height, but I still have to squish down in my seat for it to be at eye level when I work. Which messes up my hand and wrist alignment, in addition to my spine and neck.

And I've been using it like this for as long as I can remember.

Before/Wrong Monitor Height

On a recent visit, my friend Carson Demers pointed out that I was slouching in my seat when I work. That's what happens when your besty is Knitting's foremost expert on ergonomics. He further informed me that this arrangement was also creating excess glare and eyestrain. Who knew! Okay, Carson did. Lucky for me.

You can read about this subject, and so much more, in Carson's new book Knitting Comfortably. Get your copy immediately and learn to care for your body so you can knit forever without injury!

I decided to impress Carson next time he's over. And to fix my dumbass posture, of course. I took myself shopping for a monitor stand, to raise both my computer and my ergonomic standards.

Surprising nobody, I couldn't find a riser I thought was pretty and/or cheap enough. Unfazed, I ambled over to the big blue store where the lumber lives, and bought $17 worth of wood. I spent $12 for a piece of birch measuring 12" x 24", and $5 for another one that was 6" x 24". I batted my eyelashes at one of the lumber codgers there, who kindly cut my 6" x 24" piece neatly in half. Mischief managed, and I didn't even have to drag out my saw.

Back at home, I set up shop on the kitchen island. After a light sanding, I glued the short pieces to the outer edges of the top. Notice how the top is placed over the side pieces? This is so the sides bear the weight of the monitor, rather than the fasteners. To hold the sides in place while the glue dried, I drove some finish brads in, down from the top.

Then I patiently (not) waited for the glue to dry. After that there was a little more sanding, and the application of some stain I had leftover from when I built my desk.

Once the stain dried (more patience. Not.), I added four corner braces underneath. They may or may not have been necessary, but my monitor is a 27" all-in-one computer, which is pretty heavy. I'm sort of a belt-and-suspenders type where construction projects are concerned.

And then, because I am bound at a cellular level to decorate everything in the whole wide world, I added these cute nailheads to the edges of the stand. I could have covered my finish nails with putty to hide them, but since I knew I'd be adding the nailheads, I just placed them strategically to cover the brads. Tip: use a ruler to space them precisely.

After/Right Monitor Height

Here's the finished result. I think the nailheads look kinda steampunky and cool. As an added bonus, the space underneath the stand is wide enough to slide my keyboard under when I need room to draw or reference a knitting book. More desktop acreage is always welcome! The whole circus only took one afternoon and a few dollars. The hardest part was waiting for everything to dry. Pleased with myself much? Yup.

And now a challenge for you: Are you like me, and potentially hurting yourself with your computer setup? Well stop it. Make one of these for yourself and sit up straight. And even if your home office is perfect, do check out Carson's book for the benefit of his wisdom in all your fibery pursuits. I love you and I want you to be safe and healthy.

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Written by Mary Elizabeth Scott On In Tagged ,

Some Birds Get Dressed for a Party

In this post I was planning to show you what my own Permission Denied chart looks like as I work. To do that I had to make sure the marks I'm making on it actually reflect what I am knitting; a situation that is never guaranteed, as my Technical Editor will attest. In fact, one of the big challenges I face as a designer is the fact that my ideas sometimes happen so fast that they literally get knitted into my projects before I have time to properly document them. 

Fortunately for you, Gentle Readers, we are working concurrently on a design that is already mostly fleshed out. Which means that if I come up with any interesting twists on the pattern, you can make the same changes I do, right along with me. Those of you who cleverly arrived a little later at the party, and are still planning your own Permission Denied sweater will benefit even more. By the time you get to the point in the knitting where I changed things, I'll have shaken out any errors in the documentation. Hopefully. Below you'll see where my rounds start and finish: I've marked them with pink bars for each motif. By the way, thanks again, Martin Storey, for a pattern with six (6!) different motif stitch counts. Dude, can you even knit? Just wondering.

Notice anything different? I sat down to show you where my rounds are beginning and ending on the chart. But then I started to really study the chart from a purely color-centered point of view, and I decided there are a few more things I'd like to change about this design.

1.  In the original, there are no transitions between the bands of color. This is only true for those of us not using the original (unavailable) yarn. Rowan's Colorspun has/had the property of blending lots of colors together, so that the motif bands in the sweater are connected to one another in color by some overlap within the yarn. The original version depends on this quality in the yarn to lend cohesion between the differently-shaded bands.  My yarn, however, lacks any such subtle sophistication. In fact, the uncomplicated, single-hue skeins I'm using look positively primitive when I work the charts as they were originally planned. And that's fine, if the simple look makes me happy, which it mostly does, especially when the charts are really busy, like these are. Vines, and birds, and flowers and braids, O My. But on further reflection, I decided that I wanted to do something to change the abruptness of the color changes between motif bands in my sweater.

2.  I don't love the original, narrow geometric peerie bands between the rows of knots on the upper part of the sweater. Everything down in the lower borders is curvy and natural and soft, and everything in the upper part is straight and geometric. Another disconnect, to my eye. I realized that changing the separator bands on the upper body could solve more than one problem for my project: Repeating both the colors, and one of the motifs from my lower borders (red, blue, and the flower from the birds band) makes my version feel more cohesive to me.

3.  Once I had added the repeated elements to the upper body, I realized that I wanted to pull some of my taupe color down into the lower area. Which I have already knitted. Bother. Not to worry: I can increase the taupeyness down there with a few strategically-placed duplicate stitches. I changed those areas on my chart to show me where to embroider. Knitters following after me could choose weather to do the same, or if you'd rather just work a few rounds with three strands in them. And while I was at it, I added some pops of red in the taupe bands, and, um, I *may* have had a conversation with my birds.

4.  It seems that now I've created this sweater full of jewel tones, and knots that feel kind of Medieval and illuminated, and my birds wanted to get more dressed up. Who am I to argue with a bunch of birds that I haven't even finished knitting yet? I pulled out my imaginary bird jewelry box (like you don't have one, too), and gave them some pretty necklaces, as well as royal crowns. Bird crowns! What could be more obvious?

These really are the diversions that keep me up at all hours. If you'd like to dress up your birds, too, head on over to the Ravelry group, where you'll find a link to my personal chart in the charts thread. These birds are going to one very fancy party, and of course, your birds are invited too. Think they'll invite us?

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Written by Mary Elizabeth Scott On In Tagged

Twist and Shout

Yeah. So, that happened. Fortunately I only worked the first band before realizing what I had done. Has this ever happened to you? If so, now you can prove that you are not alone. If not, shut it: no one likes a showoff.

But of course, jacking up knitting is just one more service I provide: I have seized this teachable moment to share with you how I proceed when this happens. First, I cussed a blue streak.

Next, I bound off all 6 steek stitches. Then, with a hand needle and sewing thread, I secured the knitted stitches on either side of the center. Sorry; there's no photo of that part because I couldn't sew and hold the camera at the same time. Visualize what sewing looks like. Sewing while still swearing.

Then I cut the infant steek, and removed the twist from my round. Swearing began to slow at that point.

Being careful not to put too much pressure on the stitches at the cut edges, I picked up and knit new steek stitches through the bound-off ones. The stream of invective dissipated after that. And I felt better without the twist in my round.

Now that I've knit away from it a bit more, you can see that the cut area is really small. The rest of the steek will get cut too, before we're done, and then covered up with something. So it's only ugly for now, and only for the first inch or so. 

And swearing is super cathartic, at least the way I do it.

Oh, and I got so excited about getting started knitting, I forgot to tell you the winner of the blog poll on which yarn I should choose: Paragon, by Knit Picks. It's actually on sale, as of this writing, which is a bonus if you want some too. I'm really enjoying the sheen of the silk, and the awesome twist, too. It is a bit slippery, but thanks to a nice, toothy wooden needle, it's tensioning okay. I would not want to work with this yarn on a metal needle, though, if it could be helped. Oh, and that blue strand at the bottom is a provisional cast on, in case you're wondering. I just couldn't commit to an edge treatment, so I started without one.

Notice how the braids and the vine-y bits are mirroring each other exactly? I love it when a plan comes together.

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Written by Mary Elizabeth Scott On In , Tagged