Nice hat - but what about the mitten?

Wednesday, blog day, and I know I said there would be no knitting other than my twined mitten until it was done, but .... well, I didn't keep my word. Shoot me or hit me with pointy sticks, but its just knitting. I knit something else, not only that but I started something else, yes I did. So today I'll introduce my new knitting project, tell you what I'm up to with the mitten and why the mitten-knittin stopped, and leave you with a video showing making and knitting up backwards loop increases.

Koolhaas hat, by Jared Flood, Erika temped us all a few weeks ago by showing us her finished Koolhaas hat at knit night. Then this week it snowed, just a little off and on Tuesday. Bear rugged up to take the morning bus in the cold cold weather and, well lets face it, he has very little hair and only one really warm hat. Unfortunately it was a bit of a gag gift from his brother, for it is a tartan shooting hat with fake fleece lining and real leather ear flaps. Now when a man of a certain age and body type wears a hat like that, every body, and I do mean every body tends to call him Elmer Fudd. Thats just not nice, my Bear needed a new hat, and I felt like knitting Koolhaas. I rummaged around in my stash and found some Hummingbird Ikaros 12 ply which matches in tension to that required and cast on Tuesday night. Its a quick knit, just look at my progress although much of this did happen in the fracture clinic and physio waiting rooms with Toby today. This hat is a nice knit, I feel one in a more girly colour coming on next for me - or would that make Bear and I one of those couples that start to dress a like?
Now I do know that at least 1,721 people have already knit this, and that is just the ones on Ravelry, and I'll be 1,722nd, but this is a very nice hat, after all 1,947 people have it in their queue. I'm not entirely sure why its important to know how many other people are knitting it, or wanting to knit it, kind of geeky unless I was Jarad Flood, but Ravelry allows us knitters to see info like that.

Now why wasn't I knitting the mittens? The ones I said I would knit until they were done, well I wanted to show some one the live stitches ready to go around the thumb, before I knit up the thumb, so they are on hold. But I have finished the fingertips and grafted the tip, so have only the thumb to do. I've also been spinning a little and after this post I will return to finish plying my lovely blue/purple/red/teal/black/cream Lincoln Romney singles. I am hoping I will have enough to knit a scarf with. The latest spin off arrived, and there are some tempting things in there like the variations on the scarf shown on the front cover - perhaps just right for the plying I'm going back to? I like that magazine, it makes me confident that I can spin for garments, and the mitten patterns seem the perfect solution to the pile of 100g of this and 200g of that fiber that I have collected over the last few months. I have also been dithering around looking for a new project, and am thinking of lace. there are a few things that tempt me, this for example.

And lastly, a technique video showing the backwards loop increases I've used in my BSJ. I explain and talk as I knit, so there is probably not much to add.

ok - so tomorrow i battle the excel beast at work, building a better spreadsheet for marking, and I redesign the booklet our students get for their final paper, tonight I ply and post, and Tuesday I'm on leave for a week and a half, glorious leave, and I've got a guest coming.
So take care, I will
Stella

Brother Amos is off the needles, and I get all philosophical about fussy knitting

I repeat I finished! Brother Amos is off the needles! Today the obligatory front porch photo with snooty concrete cat (never happy with any sock that cat!), and I'll compare the sytk and the sytk with a twist the row after, and the ssk, a bit of musing and explaining why I am so 'fussy', and I'll save the stash enhancement until next time!


Here is a closer look at the brimstone pattern on Brother Amos, I knit the womens size on 2.25mm but used the mens 'lace' pattern.

And here is a fairly quick and ready comparison of the sytk and the sytk+ (my nickname for twisting the resultant decrease stitch clockwise on the next row), and good old ssk. What do you think? First is the SYTK+, 2nd is the SYTK, last is good old SSK.


Not much in it is there? The SYTK+ might be a little teeny bit straighter, but not much difference at all, and these have not been blocked yet. Once the knit has done a few rounds with a wet wash - well you probably wouldn't even say any were different. What I should do is compare these in a swatch in a a high twist, smooth, stitch defining yarn. Plus in this sample, as I trialled the left leaning variations on the leg section, each one was worked in a different sized needle. Ok - I am a trained scientist, I can spot the flaws in this rough and ready pretest, but hey its knitting, as my friend JH says - 'no body dies'.


Just to compare - here is good old ssk done early in the sock, on the toe, which actually looks fine to, a little wobbly, but perfectly acceptable. Whats a knitter to do? any of them, but test first, results may vary by yarn and guage.





And KathyR, here is a little bit of a response to your observation that I notice the little things about my knitting, I wasn't always that way, and your comment got me thinking so - The theory post: A Theory of thinking knitters.

But before we start I am not an educational theorist, I have done some work on the edges of educational theory, but feel a complete newbie in that area, so forgive any mistakes please, and correct my gaps with good grace please?

The thinking knitter or perhaps the fussy knitter in me has only come recently, and perhaps is a result of my teaching, and learning. Once I as a fabric clothes maker, and I was happy if it fitted and looked like I expected. Then I taught that stuff. Once I was a teacher I had to think about about control and quality, and things like that. Before I was a teacher, working on my higher degree, the methodology requirements meant I had to think quite clearly and cleanly about what choices I made and why was it best. That critical thinking flowed naturally on to how to make better garments, some how this thinking has also spilled into my knit life
In teaching you do the same, especially in the 'arts' of pattern making and garment construction, where you are always encouraging students to spot little control things that lift the quality, or that can lessen the price whilst they keep the quality intact. I had to assess them, to do that I had to some how quantify what made 'this' better than 'that'. Not easy when the question is 2+2=4 you know it is right, when a collar is perfect but the pocket lumpy - how right is it as a whole?

This thinking and judging and balancing has also crept into my knitting and is also part of designing pieces for all knitters. By that I mean you have to choose, to use this decrease or that one, this increase or that one and in doing so you control the end result. I think that this in part comes with proficiency and time and thinking, and comfort with a variety of skills, but I know beginner knitters who are stressed when their decreases don't match, and experienced life time knitters who don't notice. Neither is wrong, I am just in the first camp, and I moved over from the second camp. I will let you work out where you are.

In my resent study I learned about the solo taxonomy, a theory of increasing sophistication in understanding that is used to explain steps/stages or leaps in student learning.
If we adopt the solo taxonomy, then you can see the knitters at different stages, and beyond that the different levels we are at in a range of things in our lives. Laundry - -I'm just processing, knitting - I'm thinking I'm up around the top, Tv watching - again processing, mostly but occassionally I make links.

The other theory I became aware of is the Communities of Practice, initially with assessment, but lately i see it all around me. Basically in any community, the theory supposes that experts teach tacit knowledge, that is things that are unspoken. If you have ever taught some one something, you will have discovered Tacit knowledge, the other day I watched Toby set the table, he carried the forks and spoons by the 'eating ends', I had to tell him we carry them by the handles so we don't touch the eating end with our hands. It is not polite, When I taught him to set the table, the arrangement and number of cutlery was taught, but I missed the tacit bit - where we know how to carry stuff. Tacit is all the little things you do and reccognise are 'wrong' or 'right' but wouldn't think to explain when teaching.

The initial work was on tailors in africa, which I like. The apprentices didn't learn maths separately in a isolated subject form, but in working with the master tailor learned all the maths skill they needed as they worked. They aced maths tests even though they had never had a 'maths lesson'. I see the on line knit community as a community of practice, we see those around us and become aware of things like sock knitting, and the popular socks, and we become aware also of little traditions or ways of working. The Frog pond, the frog for which this blog was named, arise totally out of the community of on line knitters, who blog about frogging and so I learned, not from any book, or specific place, that we aim for good knitting, and successful fitting, for good matches between pattern and yarn. I learned again from the community of knitters out there that it was not only ok but almost expected for Knitters not to tolerate mistakes in their work. I learned to frog. To do that I had to work out when to frog. The books only taught me how to frog. The Tacit knowledge I absorbed from the on-line community was WHEN to frog.

Once i became aware of the frogging aspect of knitting, I had to examine my work anew and work out when to frog. So recently a knitter on Ravelry left a comment about how she was loving the SYTK, and I had to ask what is a SYTK?, once I knew, it made me aware and then being me - I had to play and play now, in the middle of Brother Amos.

Of course this applies only to me, to my knitting, I admire all other knitters work, and am always impressed by any knitter who has made anything, the act of knitting takes planning and thinking and time, lots of time, so any knitted object deserves credit for all of that.

In the meantime if any one needs light entertainment, here are the photos of my students graduate show, although all 3 years of the degree get to participate. The 3rd years are my main teaching focus, so I'm proudest of them.

oh - down off soap box, but if any one wonders why I am a fussy knitter - you all out there in the interknit world made me one! And I had a little bit of an obsessive streak coming thru from my work.

next time- well, it will be after the weekend, and back to standard knitting photos, Grandad insists we visit Waimate, home of no internet at his house, but I promise to show some lovely stash enhancement a good friend supplied me with.