Topic: Knitting

I never used to like garter stitch [1] very much, and hadn't really knit things with a lot of garter stitch. Sure, a scarf here or there in the beginning, and I think I used it for the hem of an early sweater that didn't turn out particularly well. There are so many clever patterns that use a lot of garter stitch, and I'd never really felt it. While I don't know that I'm rushing to knit or design patterns out of a lot of garter stitch, I've definitely discovered that I've softened on it over my hiatus.

My earlier discontent with garter stitch was the combination of:

• garter stitch is quite dense, because the fabric pulls in so much vertically, so it takes a lot of yarn and a lot of time, and results in a warmer fabric that I often don't like'
• the vertical pull in of the fabric can get pulled out by blocking or by the weight of the fabric which can be rather uneven.
• normal tension irregularity is super apparent.
• I've never much liked the way that knitting things with rows require you to flip the knitting and I don't like the way that this can break up the rhythm of the knitting.
• the strong horizontal line of the garter ridges always feels awkward to work with.
• I always struggled to get a selvage edge that I really liked that wasn't totally sloppy.

These, however, are tractable problems I realized, and I've always used a few garter stitches for selvage on the edge of sock heel flaps. The things that I've realized:

• garter stitch often works best with very fine yarn, which helps ameliorate the additional bulk, and at least for me, helps provide for more even tension.
• the look of garter stitch sideways is quite compelling, for me, and in most cases it won't stretch out in the same way.
• a little bit goes a long way, particularly when embedded in another piece of knitting.
• I've settled down and find that knitting, rather than slipping, the first stitch and giving the yarn a slight tug when knitting the second stitch leads to a pretty clean edge.
• designing with garter stitch is quite compelling, because the ratio of stitches to rows is basically 2:1, because of the way the ridges pull in, you can sort of approach it as "square," picking up one stitch for every garter ridge lays very flat, so the math is never very complicated.

I'm working on a hat where I knit a ~2 inch wide garter stitch strip to fit around my head and then picked up to knit the crown of the hat along one of the sides of the strip, and along the other to knit a lining. I could have used a provisional cast on, of course, but the strip allowed me to be more confident about sizing, and it ends up being pretty sharp.

I'm not sure I'm going to plan to knit things out of primarily garter stitch, but I've definitely softened rather a lot.

[1]	The fabric that results from knitting all stitches on both the front and back of the fabric. The fabric is dense, and it grows slowly, because the "ridges" account for two rows of knitting and it pulls in rather a lot.

Hand knitting provides the opportunity to customize sizing and shaping to fit your body (or that of whomever you're knitting for,) and it's possible to produce garments that really fit, but even though it's possible it's not always easy.

First, measuring a body directly is complicated:

• posture impacts the measurements, and it's difficult to get measurements of the body in the kinds of shapes and positions that you're likely to hold while wearing the garment.
• ease, or the difference between the actual measurement of your body and the actual measurement of the garment, is both subjective and a matter of preference.

For this reason, I normally recommend measuring another sweater that has a fit that you enjoy as a starting point, but there are challenges:

• measurements for different styles of sweaters can have different internal proportions: the length of the sleeve depends on the width of the shoulders, and the depth of the armhole
• most machine produced garments and conventional knitting patterns are based on typical measurements and proportions which are good as starting points but typically leave something to be desired.

While people's measurements are broadly similar, and proportional, they're not the same, so if you have slightly longer arms or shoulders that are a bit more broad or angular, the "average" might be off by an inch or two, which might be enough to care about.

I'd still recommend starting from a garment that you know fits well, and record the garment's measurements as clearly as possible, but also note modifications separately. The basic idea is lay the garment out as flat as possible and measure the garment which is less likely to move than a person. There are three or four measurements that are really critical:

• width of body at across the chest below the arms.
• width of the body at the bottom hem/edge.
• distance from the middle of the back of the neck to the cuff.
• length of the sweater from the top of the shoulder to the bottom hem.

Sleeve length is pretty stable when measured from the bottom of the sleeve (where it joins the body at the underarm) to the cuff, as this avoids the impact of shoulder shape on the sleeve. Measuring arm length from a common point, the middle back of the neck, to the cuff is also a stable way to take this measurement. You may also require additional measurement's if you want the body of the garment to have contores.

While it's true that you can deduce other measurements from the four basic measurements, there are other fit considerations that are worth noting: width of the sleeve at/above the cuff and at the shoulder; depth, height, and aperture of the collar; as well as "true" shoulder width. May of these details I've figured out empirically and iteratively for myself: it's sometimes difficult to get these measurements correctly from a model garment.

I've been knitting a sweater out of HD (Harrisville Designs) Shetland yarn for the past week or so and it's been great, but there's not a lot to look at because it's just a plain sweater in black yarn, but I thought I'd write a bit about the experience.

I've knit a lot out of this yarn, mostly in stranded color work, and it's probably the yarn that I have the most of in my possesion, but I've never really used it alone until recently, and hadn't really knit anything with it in years. I'm a bit more than half way through a plain sweater in this yarn, and I find myself entranced.

It's a simple 2-ply yarn, woolen spun, dyed before spinning, and it comes in hanks (which I've never used,) and on half pound cones. In color work, I tend to get 8 or 8.5 stitches to the inch (US 2.5/3mm), against a plain 7 stitches to the inch (US 0/2mm), and the fabric is light but solid. There are a bunch of colors, which is why I started using it for color work, including a number of heathers as well as natural colors. I would by a pound (2 cones) of each color to make a stranded sweater, but I always ended up with a lot of left overs. A plain sweater (for me) is under a pound, though I expect fewer left overs.

The name "Shetland" describes the weight, not the fiber contribution: the wool is a blend of unspecified breeds (probably some collection of Corriedale, another Merino cross, and/or Merino), but the effect is quite similar to actual Shetland Wool. While the wool is imported, the Mill is in New England, and the yarn is stocked by many yarn stores that supply weavers (though you can buy directly from the mill as well.) There's something classic about the yarn: it smells like wool (probably the spinning oil, but still,) and the way that the fibers cling to each other makes it a jot to knit with.

HD Shetland isn't exactly soft, but it isn't rough either. I think part of this is about expectation management: because we know that this isn't going to be yarn to wear against more sensitive skin (wrists, etc.), the fact that it's actually pretty soft is a pleasant surprise. I also think that because the yarn is lofty and woolen spun the ends of the individual fibers end up less likely to be irritating or trigger reactions in the same way that smoother yarns can.

Conclusion: heartily recommend!

One of the things I've realized about myself is a knitter is that I really like epic projects, or sequences of projects.

Before my knitting hiatus, I bought a kilo of undyed sock yarn--because I liked the fiber content, and I wanted to explore knitting sweaters at finer gauges, because heavier weight yarns always made sweaters that felt too warm. Seemed like a good project. Due to a sizing error, I was only really able to get 2 sweaters out of the cone of yarn, but I think in the future three sweaters from a kilo seems useful. There's something epic about this as a project, and I definitely intend to knit more sweaters in this vein. I was thinking about "epic knitting projects," and came up with the following ideas:

• 10 identical socks: After many years of having a somewhat hodgepodge and recently well worn collection of socks, this year, I purchased 14 pairs of new socks and it's been great, both because nothing is teetering on the edge of being worn out, and I decided to buy 5 pairs of two different kinds of socks that I like a lot, plus 4 of a heavier weight, and I like that every day is a "good sock" day. I also like that having a bunch of identical socks socks makes it easier to wash and pair them up. I've never really knit more than one pair of socks that matched so it seems like a fun challenge.
• Knit all of Elizabeth Zimmerman's Yoke Sweater shaping variations. I think I've made about three of them, and none of these yoke sweaters have really ever entered more regular rotation. I think knitting them in lighter weights, and reducing the yoke depth a bit to fit more could help a lot.
• Knit a collection of sweater's inspired by classic Alice Starmore patterns, but modified for modern sensibilities in terms of fit and shaping. I've knit three patterns (Henry VIII, Norway, and Faroe) and would gladly knit them all again and I'd love to try the cabled sweaters as well. While the designs and stitch patterns of these sweaters are compelling the fit is not, which is probably a feature of these patterns being written in the late 80s and early 90s. I think the changes would be mostly to knit things at a finer gauge (Faroe, Norway, and the cabled sweaters,) but also to modify the shaping for better fits at the shoulder, and maybe modify neck shape for v-necks or open necklines.

I've also thought about knitting a bunch of lace, but I lack the floor space in my current apartment to actually block any kind of lace shawl reasonably.

Anyone else have Epic-scale knitting projects for this list?

While I've been working on this knitting book project, I've realized that I've developed something of a backlog of sweaters that I want to knit (for this project, and others,) and I thought I'd write them all down for our collective enjoyment.

• A second version of the favorite sweater I knit during college: a plain sweater with a black body, gray at shoulders, drop shoulder, steeks, and gray sleeves. I want to do this out of fingering weight wool, probably HD Shetland. [in progress]
• The same sweater as above, except with set in sleeves, and probably light blue as the contrasting color at the sleeve.
• Sock yarn sweater, superwash, with v-neck, and some kind of textrued stitch pattern at the yoke that would be knitted without. I made one of these sweaters already, but it came out a touch smaller than I think I really want, and there are a collection of small modifications that I'd like to make, again for verification purposes.
• A fully gray sweater, also out of HD Shetland, with the sleeves knit cuff-up, and with the yoke knit with "set-in sleeves," in the round. I knit a sweater like this in the fall, and I want to verify that a basic a set of changes would make the sweater really wearable.
• I have the first 3-5 inches of a color work cardigan that I started before my hiatus from knitting: I think there are a number of flaws with this sweater: the sizing is off, I didn't handle the bottom hem correctly, and I don't think I have enough yarn in these specific collors, but I think I'd like to attempt the pattern again.
• A color work sweater with set in sleeves. Because knitting rows (back and forth) in stranded is annoying and a bit fussy, most patterns use drop shoulder shaping, but I'd like to experiment and see if I can perfect the technique a more fitted style for these sweaters.
• Using a "garter rib" stitch for the full body of a sweater, both because I like the idea of a gentle rib pulling in to provide more fit, while also being fun and keeping a fairly simple shape over the entire length of the sweater.

I think that's enough for now!

A couple of months ago I started writing a thing that I think will be a book, or something close, about knitting. A few weeks ago, I jokingly called it "Gestalt Knitting," and the name stuck, at least for myself for now. The idea is to write a book, that's mostly about knitting, that's less a collection of patterns, and more of a meditation on the process of designing and knitting some sweaters, hats, and socks.

As a knitter, I've never really followed patterns: even when I see a design that I like, I always end up changing it somehow: changing the process to be something that I'd enjoy more (e.g. knitting in the round,) or modifying the size a bit (I've always been slim and I know I like to avoid wearing things that feel like tents,) or adding features that I know increase the comfort (e.g. making the neckline more open, or the sleeves a touch wider.) Patterns, thus, for me are sort of an opening volley in a conversation about a project rather than a description of a project, and I think in practice this is pretty common, though I think that often, knitters think about their modification as minor and inconsequential when really they're super cool and important.

I'm less interested in any specific design or pattern, and more interested in these kinds of basic patterns that we can reach to when faced with a pile of yarn and a desire to knit a sweater (or socks, etc.). Sort of the knitting equivalent of a family recipe that you can make without looking at any instructions and maybe without really measuring the ingredients. After a while, I suspect many knitters have a few things that they can just make on their own--like a hat or some simple socks--and one of my goals of this project is to help expand the collection of "house patterns" by explaining and exploring some of the basic garments that I tend to knit.

As a writer, I have a lot of practice writing about the details of complicated ideas and processes in unambiguous and clear terms. I'm interested in seeing if I can take my style for writing about procedures and concepts can translate to another subject area. Knitting patterns are, by convention, super concise and linear in a way that gives people just enough information to reproduce a specific garment, but ends up leaving out so much useful information about why you would knit something in a specific way, options for modification, or interactions between the pattern, the shape, and the process of knitting. When I'm knitting I get a lot of delight from the way all of details of a project come together, and I want to frame and present knitting projects in ways that really highlight that aspect of knitting. I also want to write something that's knitters would find engaging to read all on its own, even without overlapping any of my specific knitting projects.

While I've made a lot of progress on the draft, I still have a bunch of work to do on this project: both in terms of more writing and also knitting "research." I suspect I'll write a bit about it here. Stay tuned!

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I made a new instagram account, because that seems to be a thing, for knitting specific things: @gestaltknitting

While I knit a lot in college, and for a few years afterwords, my attention to knitting as a hobby kind of trailed off, and I have basically not knit at all in the last five years, but suddenly a bit before Thanksgiving, I found myself listening to an audio book and playing a silly game on my phone really wishing that I could knit, and given that it was 2020 I did, and it's been a lot of fun and pretty satisfying to get back into knitting.

There were lots of reasons for the hiatus, but the leading reasons were:

• My professional work, first technical writing for software engineers, and then software engineering itself, was actually quite similar to knitting at least conceptually: knitting and software require lots of problem solving and similar kinds of iterative math. Particularly for the first few years where I was teaching myself how to program, I felt like knitting ended up being more like work than I wanted.
• I lived in southern Wisconsin in college, and it was actually cold. Between climate change, and ending up living in New York City--being a huge city that holds heat, and being on a island with the harbor as a heat sink, most buildings in the City have very aggressive heating systems--it felt like I never really wanted to wear wool, because I was often too warm.

These problems seem solveable: my learning curve as a programmer has become less steep, and my day-to-day engineering work tends has shifted to be higher level and organizational in some ways that feel less like knitting. I think the "always too warm" feeling about my city has changed a bit as I've acclimated and I think it will be possible to just knit very light weight things and combine them with light weight jackets for increased wearability.

So I'm back.

I've finished the sweater I started in 2015 (it's not exceptional, but I know how to fix it for the future,) knit another sweater that I'm pretty pleased with, and I've started a third and I've been working on a book about knitting that I'm quite excited about. I never kept a really extensive collection of yarn, but I have enough to keep me busy for a while, and using the yarn I already have has been interesting as a constraining function in planning new projects.

I suspect I'll be blogging about knitting a bit more over the next little bit, about both specific projects and maybe some higher level things. I hope you don't mind!

I wrote this post nearly 5 years ago, and have been sitting on the draft for a long time: not for any reason, I think it's actually pretty good post. For non-knitters, this is kind of a "ask a great cook for their comfort food recpie," but in a narrative form.

In any case, I haven't really been knitting very much recently, and while I enjoy writing knitting patterns there's a lot of work in writing a well formed knitting pattern that I'm poorly positioned for ring now (test knitting! good photography! talking with knitters!) But, perhaps someone will find it useful... Enjoy!

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Part of my recent return to knitting has been about taking a much more simple approach to yarn. I think yarn is cool and working with good yarn is awesome but at a certain point, I think yarn distracts from the things that I like most about knitting: the consistency, the dependability, the rhythm of the activity, and coordination of parallel activities.

Novel yarns and yarn variety actually makes the process of knitting less enjoyable for me. It also doesn't really jive with my taste in clothing: I like plain things that fit well without a lot of adornment. While I enjoy knitting patterned sweaters for the rhythm, I don't really wear them much. I also, live and spend my time in a climate where a I'm almost always wearing a light sweater (during the cold months) and inside during the rest of the months.

The result of this is that I've mostly been working on sock knitting. I like wearing wool socks, and after a period of not wearing them for a few reasons, I didn't actually have that many wool socks. Which has lead me to get acclimated to knitting fingering weight yarn with size 0 needles.

So I want to make a sweater in this mold: fingering weight, very plain lines, probably knit in the round using the Elizabeth Zimmerman system. Starting from the bottom, I've been leaning away from ribbings at the bottom, and have tended to like hems though they sometimes flare. Ususally, I just cast on provisionally and add the hem (or whatever) at the end anyway. There's time yet to decide.

More importantly, I'm quite interested in having a rolled collar for the neck, but I tend to think that rolled ends mostly have a flare look anyway. I can defer this decision for a while.

For shaping and even most of the styling I intend to copy the Chrome Cobra Zip Up, which is, by far, my favorite article of clothing.

I think really subtle increases (so that the sweater tapers to the waist) is a good feature and might choose to do some of those, particularly if the model sweater has them. The model sweater has a really long back, and I think I might moderate this slightly.

The shoulders are an open question. If this goes well, I think I'd like to knit my way though most of the standard EZ shoulder constructions: I think I've knit all of the options at least once, but I've not done all of them in plain knitting, and most of the sweaters are a bit odd in one way or another. There's a long project. I want to start with, and hopefully master, the set-in-sleeve.

For those of you playing along at home, set-in-sleeves are probably what you think of as "normal" sleeves, the garment fits in the shoulders, and the sleeves angle gently down from the shoulders. Most shirts have this shaping but the shapes aren't terribly natural for knitting.

To knit set in sleeves in the round, you join the sleeves to the body, setting some stitches aside where the pieces meet and then decreasing body snitches into the sleeves as you knit until the body is just as wide as the shoulders. Then decrease the sleeve stitches into the body until you have about 3 inches of sleeve stitches left. Finally, knit knit short rows across the front and back (or just the front) stitches, decreasing the remaining stitches in the short rows ending with a 3 needle bind-off at the appropriate moment. To get a good crew neck, begin shaping the front of the neck every row 1.5 inches before you start the shoulder short-rows, and shape the back of the neck every other row when you start the shoulder short rows.

The shaping and body of the knitting is pretty straightforward from design perspective. The hard part from the perspective of the success of the sweater is the hems and/or ribbing, and figuring out the right thing to for each hem. It's always something.