A Lot Can Happen in a Year

By checking on my last blog, I realized just how fast a year can go (actually a year and three months, but who is counting?).
Last May, on a visit to my daughter, I found out that it isn't really wise for a woman of a certain age to play soccer with the dog. I hit the ground running, so to speak, and all my weight came down on my right shoulder. Thankfully, the shoulder itself wasn't damaged enough to bother with, but the upper arm bone was broken. It didn't need to be put in a cast (another thing I am very thankful for; immobilization for four weeks is the worst thing you can do with arthritis), but I did need to wear a sling for about three-and-a-half weeks with passive movement whenever the pain level allowed it.

As soon as I felt ready to do it, I picked up my knitting needles and managed a few stitches. Good, it was a start because one of my great fears about the whole incident was losing the ability to knit. This was a valid fear: I was already struggling with the effects of rheumatoid arthritis, and I was concerned that I might have lost whatever ability I still had.

Slow recovery, but eventually I have returned pretty much to where I was before--except for my hands. The shoulder and upper arm are fine, but for some reason (my doc says it is just a coincidence that my hand went wonky at the same time) after all the pain was over with and physical therapy had done its job, I realized the fingers on my right hand didn't want to do as they had done before--I was able to type, to freely move my fingers, to knit with no problem. After the accident and recovery, I realized I was typing with only my index finger as though I had no use of those other three fingers. As it turns out, I did have very little use of the middle finger--it didn't want to move as instructed. In fact, it is still recalcitrant in regards to being able to lift it much. Needless to say, this is a big problem with a lot of things when one is used to freely using her digits. And in addition, I now have a "goose egg" on my right wrist (another manifestation of RA) which impedes movement of the hand. It's just one jolly thing after another.

So enough of whining; see previous blog about having the right tools. This tool user is looking for ways to get around the fact that my primary tools (hands) are getting harder to work with and I must monitor closely the amount I use them, or I will cause a flare that will last three or more days: No knitting, no handwork any kind, unless I can do the job without using the flared joint.

I have continued knitting hats for the hospital, and some other projects as well, so have not been idle, at least in that area (housework is another story entirely!). I got curious about unfinished projects so decided to do a count of them: So far (seriously, I will get an idea and nothing will do but to start it right away), I have about 10 or 12 projects in various stages of progress. Eventually they will all get done.

I figure I have to live to 120 years to finish all my yarn--given I break no more bones or get laid up some other way.

Gnarly Gnitter, wishing you a better year than my last one.

The Importance of Good Equipment

Any endeavor that one takes on is, of course, made easier if one has the right tools: I'm not just talking about having any old hammer to pound with (although any old hammer sure beats using a piece of 2x4 to drive a nail), or a simple pair of pliers to grab with. There are hammers and there are hammers; there are pliers and there are pliers. Anybody who uses tools on a steady basis knows this, and will usually try, over time, to have handy the tool that does the best job.

Needlework is no different. I have long enjoyed sewing applique quilt tops, and the best needle for my purposes was either a beading needle or a millinery needle--certainly not the usual sewing needle,
since they weren't long enough for a
comfortable grip, the eyes were too small
for easy threading and usually they were

too dull. I was thrilled when I found the
longer, sharper millinery needles--they
made the craft way easier. And when-
ever I feel I can again take on another
quilt top (one left to go), I will again
use those needles I like so much.

Again, in the long ago when I first began knitting (never mind how long ago), I used straight metal needles. Eventually, my hands began to get painful and crampy from using those needles, and I switched to crochet. But I never have cared for the look of crochet as much as knitting, and it had the drawback of being way quicker than knitting, so I had trouble keeping up with buying the yarn.
Someone to whom I happened to mention my problem suggested I use circular needles because the weight of the project is held by the cable between the needles, resting in the lap, and not by the hands. It made a great deal of difference in how comfortable I felt knitting, and I proceeded to build up an array of circular needles.

But there was the problem of the kinky, stiff cables--a dip in hot water would take out the kink, but it would return as soon as the needle was curled again to store it. Prior to about 2002, the magic loop method of knitting hadn't been thought of yet, probably because those old, stiff cables didn't lend themselves to being pinched into a magic loop. With the discovery of Magic Loop by Sarah Hauschka, circular knitting took on an entirely new dimension. New materials made cables softer and more pliable so an entire project--say a sweater--could be knit on one circular needle. No need for either 16" circulars, or double pointed needles to work the lower sleeves. From start to finish, only one circular was needed using the magic loop method. Now we have available switchable tips and cables to make an infinite variety of needle set ups--we had switchable tips before, but because they were using the stiff, kinky cables, they were no better than the fixed needles. Personally, I prefer the needle sets sold by Knitpicks (www.knitpicks.com). I haven't found better tips (I prefer lace tips over standard tips) or more pliable cables, and better still, all their circular needles are switchable above size 3 (sizes 3, 2 and 1 are too small to allow the joining mechanism) so any length cable can be joined to any tip sized 4 and above.

Options Interchangeable Rainbow Wood Circular Knitting Needle Tips
Sadly, although I have found what I feel to be the perfect needles, I have developed a problem that precludes really enjoying those needles. For a bit over a year, my rheumatoid arthritis has been getting more active until now, I must be very careful how I use my hands, and not to stress them out too much by over knitting. I still knit and at times it is actually helpful, like in the morning when I first awake. I usually try to do a few rows of lace knitting (size 6 needles, right now about 288 stitches and a simple lace pattern called Gull Wings) and I find that the motions of knitting help to loosen up my joints, but I have to stop at some point because over use will just make them more sore.
And it isn't just my hands--it is wrists and shoulders (so far, not elbows).

When I was first diagnosed with the RA, I thought it prudent to learn other ways of knitting. In the event that I found one way too stressful, I could switch to another way to relieve that stress, and so far it has worked rather well, although some of the ways are slower than my usual pace. And in case you're wondering what those other ways are:
Usually, I do Continental knitting--hold the yarn in the left hand, right needle goes into the next stitch on the left needle, over the top of the yarn, back out and slip the new stitch onto the right needle.
If needed I switch to English knitting: hold the yarn in the right hand, put the needle through the next stitch on the left needle, "throw" the yarn under the needle, pull the loop back through on the right needle. This method is made easier (at least for me) by wrapping the working yarn around my long finger, then over my index finger. I find I have better control and the yarn doesn't get in the way of the action.
A third method is Portuguese or South American knitting. The yarn goes around the back of the neck and down to the work, which puts it in a position for extremely easy purling but difficult knitting--just the opposite of usual knitting, where the knit stitch is easy, but purl stitch not so easy.
But lately, I have begun not purling at all--I don't turn my work when I reach the end of a knit row. Instead, I knit back with English knitting--throwing the yarn over the needle tip. I learned this doing Entrelac knitting, where most pattern books tell you to turn and purl back after knitting just 8 or 10 stitches. I find that tremendously clunky, to say nothing of tangling the daylights out of your yarn (I tend to knit Entrelac with multiple colors). When I knit back, I always have the right side of my work facing me and I don't have to purl--my least favorite thing about knitting.
There are other methods of knitting, but the differences are so small--like Norwegian purling, in which the yarn remains on the same side of the work as knitting--it doesn't make a difference in how my hands respond to the new method.

For the time being, I will work with what I have and hope for the time when my "hand" tools will be as sharp as my working tools.

The rest of the story

I had intended to publish a post last summer, but after I typed the post, my computer put it somewhere I couldn't find, so I sort of gave up, and as so often happens, I "accidentally" found it--in the blog draft pages, for which there are no links on the regular post page, so I am not sure how one finds the drafts even now.

Anyway, the last post was found, finished and published today, even tho' the day says December 28, 2013. Try not to be too confused.

Here is a picture of the finished project:

As I was pinning the shawl in place with the blocking wires, I noticed four little stitches near the beginning of the project that were sort of hanging loose with little connection to the rest of the stitches--this was not good. Apparently, when I purled all four of the stitches together, I picked up more fuzz (it is a mohair yarn) than yarn, and in the process of being washed, the fuzz gave up and turned those four stitches loose. Since I am inherently unable to rip down an entire project, I had to devise a solution to corral those four renegade stitches: I took a piece of yarn and did duplicate stitches as though I were knitting the all over again; tucked in the ends and viola! hole closed, stitches safely under control and only I know it (and whoever reads this blog, of course).

And once again, I will try to keep to a better schedule of blog entries. It's not like I have nothing to report, since at any given time, I have six or eight projects in various stages of completion. In fact, I am working on another cobweb scarf, but more of that later.

Newest Challenge--as if I didn't already have enough!

     Here is my latest challenge: A shawl knitted in cobweb yarn. I'm not sure if it will actually pass through a wedding ring when I'm finished, but it may come close. I can't imagine knitting with anything much smaller than cobweb, altho' I did knit two doilies with size 30 thread once. They were gorgeous (one was the Azalea pattern in Marianne Kinzel's Modern Lace Knitting book), I loved the way they looked but two things became very clear after I had finished them: I don't decorate my house with things like antimacassars and doilies (they tend to get covered up by whatever makes its way to the table), and knitted doilies are very needy items. As long as they stay undisturbed on the table top, they behave beautifully. If they need washing, they get very unhappy and refuse to go back to their pre-wash loveliness by sitting in a sullen, shrunken lump. They must be severely disciplined with pins or blocking wires--lots and lots of pins, much time spent attaching every point on the edge to the cutting board with all those pins and waiting for it to dry.
     I solved the problem of my needy doilies by giving them to a friend and a sister and undoubtedly, they have been sitting in a drawer somewhere, languishing for attention, because the new owners didn't want to spend all that time on them either. That was my last attempt at fine knitting but in the intervening years (30+) I have never lost interest in working another project--I just had to solve the problem of what to do with it after the project is done.

     I believe I have solved much of the problem with blocking wires, which I bought from Knitpicks a few years ago, and have tried them successfully on other lace knitting. So the new shawl is a go.
    
     There are better than 350 stitches on the size 3 needle (Knitpicks needle because it has awesome lace tips, and when the pattern calls for purling together four stitches, you want awesome!). Whenever I mention that there are over 350 stitches on the needles, I hear groans coming from the listener. But my philosophy is this: No matter what you are working on, it is knit one stitch at a time; whether it is eight stitches or 800 on the needle, you are still doing one stitch at a time. You just don't get a finished product as soon as if you are knitting on 85 stitches. It all depends on what you want. I want a challenge project, not an easy one (I've been knitting Entrelac chemo caps all summer; very easy and done quickly) and maybe just to see how long it will take to finish it. My target is a shawl about five feet long by three feet wide. I manage to get two to four rows done in the morning, which seems to be the only time I can really work on it. It is slow going, not only because of time restraints, but hand restraints as well. An entire chemo cap amounts to less than 500 stitches (if my figures are right); one row of the lace shawl is almost that, in one sitting, so I am knitting a cap and a half every time I knit two rows on the shawl.

The picture shows the shawl about a fourth of the way done. Can you notice a faint blue line running through the work? That is a lifeline, absolutely vital in a pattern like this. If the design should ravel down, there would be no saving it except to un-knit to the point where the run stopped and with 350 stitches on the needle, I think I would throw it away and start over!

This one is going to take a while, so will report back when it's done.

No, It Couldn't Be Five Months!

Five months is way too long to let a blog go begging for a new post, but too many things interfered: Busyness with the holidays, most of January spent getting over bronchitis (including coughing so hard I was practically paralyzed by the pain in my back), pneumonia, other problems not easily mentioned and, again, too much busyness.

I have tried to keep up with the spinning without a whole lot of success. I believe it was a mistake to buy almost a pound of the same roving because it truly becomes boring spinning an almost monochrome fiber, bobbin after bobbin full, then plying. It is a lovely heather color somewhere between blue and purple and I like the finished result--but it is hard getting there, and I tend not to be terribly disciplined when to comes to boring.

In addition, when I came down with the bronchitis, I had to stop weekly injections of Enbrel, which I had been taking for rheumatoid arthritis. Over the course of weeks from early January to now, I have noticed a return of the pain I had in my hands and other body parts as the "benefits" of Enbrel wear off. I have to guard now against using my hands/wrists/elbows/shoulders too much, lest I trigger an inflammatory response which prevents me from enjoying my usual activities. Of course, one could question why I simply don't go back on the Enbrel. Well, there is a problem: Insurance copay for Enbrel is close to $300 a month (total price for Enbrel is somewhere in the neighborhood of $2,300 a month), and without financial assistance from a foundation somewhere, I can't begin to afford it. My doctor's assistant has been working on finding that assistance since last Fall and so far, I've heard nothing regarding her finding it. I can go each week to pick up one injector, but that is not a long-term solution. And quite frankly,  I have never been comfortable taking a med that costs that much because the perceived benefit to me is not all that great. When I was on the Enbrel, my hands felt pretty good, but the rest of my body continued a slow, downward slide and I felt worse on it then I did prior to starting it. Since being off the Enbrel, I have felt better than in a long time. But I do have to deal with the pain in my hands and not take on as much as I once did. So my production output is slower.

But there is good news as well: I have begun making Entrelac chemo caps. In a way, the pattern is becoming more and more my own, because I have adapted an Entrelac pattern to my own way of working. All the directions I've found so far for working Entrelac require you to turn your work after each row--eight or so stitches--and purl back. I find that tedious, time consuming and clunky. For years I have knitted Entrelac by knitting a row, then reverse knitting a row. In other words, I knit across and without turning the work, I knit back. In fact, I am in the process of teaching some others how to do this type of Entrelac knitting and have come to the conclusion that I won't teach anyone to knit Entrelac unless I first teach them to do Reverse Knitting (RK). It is surprising how easily the skill is picked up, once the principle is understood, and how freeing it is not to have to purl back! I RK on almost everything I knit that requires a return purl row. I just don't turn the work. One of my students grabbed hold of the skill right away and took off knitting hats for donation to Babies in Need.

We use a very soft yarn to make the hats for obvious reasons and all hats must be acrylic (I once swore that I would never knit with acrylic again, but that was before they began doing some pretty good stuff with the yarns. Not as good a wool, ever, but better than before). I also used bamboo for a hat and that was very soft, but I think that with wear, it will get looser and looser and have to be tossed in the wash to make it tighten up again, like cotton. Oh, yeah, I did a few hats in cotton as well.

Pictured is the current hat, knitted with Deborah Norville Garden yarn. It is Draylon microfiber (no clue as to what that is!) and is very soft, but I think it will come out wearing like the bamboo hat, getting looser and needing to be tightened up by washing/drying. And notice that cable sticking out of the work? It is a Knitpicks Harmony cable needle with interchangeable tips. I absolutely love working with it. The tips are lace tips (sharper), not regular tips, and that makes a great deal of difference in picking up stitches. I highly recommend their Harmony needles.

I will definitely work harder at keeping this blog more updated than once every five months! I do have a life to report on.

A Hat of a Different Color

     This is no ordinary hat: Aside from the actual shearing and processing of the wool, this hat was made from yarn spun with my own hot little hands and Matilda.
     At the weaving/spinning shop, the roving was in a basket intended as practice material for beginning spinners. I loved the colors, even tho' they looked a bit garish in their raw state and I shamelessly begged them to sell it to me. As I suspected, it spun up into a beautiful yarn, which in turn almost demanded that I knit something in Entrelac. I had only one ball of the yarn, barely 80 or so yards, so the project had to be small. The hat seemed small enough, so I began by knitting a rectangle in Entrelac and when it got big enough to fit around my head, I planned to knit the top closed with the classic shaping for hats--k2tog every 10th stitch, one row plain, k2tog every 9th st, etc. But--oops--when I got to the end of the rectangle, there was no yarn left to close the top of the hat and I had no more roving to make more yarn. My only hope was to try to dye enough yarn to match. I came close but, as they say, no cigar.
     I was using some already-dyed roving and adding Kool-aid color to intensify the original. In other words, I started with a pale blue roving and dunked it in a blue Kool-Aid bath, and a pale pink roving dunked in a (what I thought was) pink bath. Both colors were way off the mark. The blue was more navy with a small hint of green; the pink was red! But with judicious blending I was able to at least approximate my original colors with the exception of the deep, clear blue. As you can see in the picture, the top melds with the body, but won't bear close inspection. But then, I wouldn't expect anybody to rip the hat off my head just to examine whether or not the top matches the rest of the hat. On the other hand, this is near Portland, OR, whose new city motto is "Keep Portland Weird" so anything could happen, including an overly-inquisitive hat inspector.
     On a side note, this particular hat has at least one admirer, almost to the point of embarrassement--she keeps hinting that I should sell it to her. I had originally intended it as a chemo cap, but being wool, it can't be donated for that purpose. That's okay, I can always make other hats, and this one I am beginning to like more and more, and suspect it will become the hat of choice for winter weather.

Happy handcrafting!

"…spinning wheel got to go ‘round…"

Like my kids used to say “it just gots to.” She sits in the corner, luring me from things I have to do, should do, want to do and she won’t listen to any excuses: “Get over here now and start spinning!” It does no good to tell Matilda the Wheel (as in Waltzing Matilda” because when she is on a tear, she dances all over the floor) that I have many other pressing things to do, like finish a wedding shawl and a crazy quilt by September, continue knitting a comfort shawl for an ailing friend, clean house, take a nap, eat. She is very adamant about her position in the hierarchy of “hobbies” and somehow ended up thinking she is #1 (spinning), followed by #2 (plying) and by #3, unspinning and unplying. The rest of the hierarchy she couldn’t care less about as long as I pay dutiful attention and spend enough time spinning, et. al. I can do all the other necessary things in odd moments when not using the wheel.

And you know what? I agree with her! As much as I dearly love knitting I never thought I would find another craft I would love as much; spinning is it. And strangely enough, even though Matilda is so demanding and never stops nagging me, I don’t feel enslaved to her. In fact, after lots of practice, I’m beginning to feel we have become friends rather than adversaries (Why do you keep breaking the yarn, Matilda???) even to the point of producing a yarn that I actually want to knit.

My first attempts at getting to know Matilda the Wheel were pathetic. I think I threw out as much ruined fiber as I actually managed to spin into a sort-of useable yarn—it ended up being crocheted into a floor runner. I am fortunate in that I found a shop that sells shopworn top and roving for $1 a pound so I had almost endless supplies of differing  fibers to play with and now with some practice behind me, I can say that my early failures were not due to using “inferior” fiber, but rather to my own hasty nature and a lack of understanding of what I was working with. They say that spinning is like yoga, very relaxing. I may be getting there, but at first, I sat at the wheel drafting out too thick, then too thin bits of fiber, watching them either blob up or be so thin that they broke from the stress of being spun, and gritting my teeth throughout, literally. I clench my jaw when I’m under stress, and I had a pretty sore mouth for quite a while. Did Matilda the Wheel care? Not a bit, she just sat there doing her thing and made no attempt to help me at all!

But now I think we understand each other…Matilda the Wheel still sits there unmindful of my struggles, but I am becoming used to her ways and know how to get around her. However, I may have to remain vigilant with her to make sure she doesn’t sneak a friend in when my back is turned.

Happy Fibering