Lace: A Steep Learning Curve

I started the triangles shawl over again on Saturday. I don't think I've ever sworn at one piece of knitting so much in my life. I had a lot of trouble with it. I had to rip it out and start it over 5 or 6 times, all right around Row 8. I just couldn't get past Row 8. At the end of the last repeat of Row 8, I kept coming up one stitch short every time. After all those re-starts, I couldn't take it any more, and I gave up and just did an M1 (created the missing stitch), and moved on.

But it was a recurring problem. I'd gotten up to Row 38, but at least every couple rows I'd be a stitch off again somewhere. I knew if I kept fabricating stitches out of thin air, it was just going to screw up the pattern.

Here's how far I had gotten - notice the past tense.

I finally gave up and had to rip this all out, too, for a couple of reasons. The first I'm still confused about. The pattern as sold at Patternworks specifically calls for this particular yarn (Silky Alpaca Lace) and a size 7 needle. This is truly lace-weight yarn, but I thought I'd heard or read that lace is often knit on needles much larger than the yarn weight would suggest, to give it that open lacy effect. So lace weight yarn on a size 7 needle didn't startle me too much. And anyway, that's what the experts said.

I didn't have a size 7 needle I could use to start this, but I did have an Addi bamboo circular in size 6. Since I generally have to drop a couple needle sizes anyway, compared to most people's gauge, I decided that would probably be safe.

This needle was not working out at all. First, I was unhappy with the look of the fabric on a needle this size. The stitches weren't just open and lacy, they were loose and sloppy. I figured it was probably just the way I knit, but regardless, I didn't like it. Second, the join on this set of circulars sucks for yarn this tiny. It's smooth enough, and wouldn't be a problem on a larger yarn, but there's a small gap between the wood needle and the metal cap, just small enough for about 2 stitches of this yarn to fall into. So when the thing began to get big enough that some of it had to slip off the needle onto the cable, I could not get the stitches back onto the needle without much fighting (and more swearing). I knew that once the shawl got really large, I was no way going to be able to fight with those joins constantly.

The last straw was that on the last row I worked, I again came up a stitch short, but this time was determined to unknit back and fix it. I managed to screw the entire row up doing that (and no, I wasn't using a lifeline - a piece of yarn or string run through the stitches of a properly completed row at intervals, so that if you have to rip back, you have a place to rip back to and still get your stitches back on the needles properly).

Anyway, once that happened, I figured the thing was pretty much a lost cause, and ripped it all out last night. I figured I was going to have to order a new needle with a better join, and some smaller stitch markers (more on those later).

But I'm horribly impatient when I want to start a new project. I really wanted to work on it last night, and began a little investigation to see if there was some way I could start it over without ordering a bunch of new stuff. I got the pattern out and read the requirements at the beginning, and something caught my attention. The written pattern calls for fingering weight yarn and size 7 needles - not lace weight yarn and size 7 needles.

Now, someone correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding was that fingering weight yarn is basically sock yarn, or the size most sock yarns come in. If so, the sock yarn I've been using is several times thicker than this very fine lace-weight I'm using for the shawl. I mean, check this out - lace yarn on top, current sock yarn on bottom:



So if the pattern called for fingering weight and size 7s, and I'd dropped it to lace weight (on the recommendation of Patternworks) and was still trying to use even a size 6, no wonder I didn't like it.

So I got out the yarn and looked at the label, and it's recommended needle size is 2. Well, hmm. They know it's lace-weight yarn, and they know you're probably going to want to knit lace with it, and they still recommend a 2. And I'm using a 6, and not liking the fabric. Maybe I should just go try a 2. I had Addi Turbos in that size, and I knew the joins on those needles would give me no grief.

I don't know what the confusion was with the stated recommended yarn being different from what the pattern instructions said, and maybe the confusion is mine alone - maybe the designer did indeed knit the thing in Silky Lace Alpaca on size 7s. Maybe to some people Silky Lace Alpaca is fingering weight. But having discovered all of that, I felt more justified in dropping the needle size to something that worked better for me, and was closer to the recommended needle size on the yarn label.

By the way, gauge hasn't entered into this conversation because, no, I didn't do a gauge swatch. The instructions said to do the stitch and row count after the swatch had been blocked. With all the trouble I'd had getting this thing started, I wasn't about to take it off the needles and use as it as a gauge swatch. But once I had to rip it out anyway, I did take a sort of semi-blocked gauge swatch, and was getting about 8 stitches to the inch. The pattern called for 4.5. That alone told me that was something was not kosher.

So I started it over with a 2, and I'm up to Row 15 without a single problem. It's easier to knit, the stitches look much better, and the fabric is turning out much nicer.

Most gratifying of all, my stitch count has remained correct so far. I think I figured out what I was doing wrong before - the last yarn-over at the end of right side rows was right next to a stitch marker, and I was managing to either lose it or forgetting to make it every couple rows. Apparently I've stopped doing that on this second try.

The only problem is, I guess I'm going to need more yarn, having dropped the needle size so much, but I have no idea how to figure out how much. I should order it now, while I can still get it, and in the same dye lot number, but I hate to play around with $10 balls of lace weight yarn (okay, actually I'd love to play around with it - this stuff feels sinful - but, you know, money and all).

Meanwhile, I'm very happy with the way this new attempt is turning out. I'm not at all sure that I wouldn't also be happy with it on a size 3, and have debated going ahead and starting over yet again on size 3s, since I'm not very far into it. But I don't really want to. I could take a second ball of the yarn, and start a new one on size 3s, so I don't have to rip out my current work, then compare the two. That's a possibility.

So the story with those markers. I couldn't find anything to use as markers when I was working on the size 6s. My standard white plastic rings were too thick, and causing me grief working around them with this fine yarn. I looked for anything else that would work, and finally decided to try safety pins. It worked, in theory - their odd shape made them difficult to work around, but helped with one tricky thing. There are yarn-overs at the beginning and end of each pattern repeat (yarn-overs are simply a loop of yarn around the needle, that isn't a full stitch; it doesn't turn into anything like a real stitch until the next row, when you knit or purl it from the other side; until then, they are dangerous, as there's precious little except the knitter's own attention that keeps the slippery things on the needle; and if they do fall off, you can't always tell for sure, because they don't unravel like a regular stitch, they just relegate themselves back to the horizontal threads of knitting, hiding out there). At first I was having a hard time with those yarn-overs slipping around the marker rings. With safety pins they couldn't do that.

But I wasn't very happy with them by Row 38. They were just too fiddly, and this whole lace thing is fiddly enough without making it worse. I had some jewelry making components upstairs, and when I switched to the smaller needles, I discovered these metal spacer rings fit on the size 2 needles and made quite serviceable markers.

So, I'm back on track with the shawl, for now anyway. I'm discovering that I really like lace knitting, but only on smaller needles. If I have to use larger needles for this tiny, delicate yarn, I'm not going to like it at all. The pattern did say that it's easily adaptable to other yarns and needles by simply adjusting the number of pattern repeats once you get into the main body of the shawl - but it also said you'd need to adjust your yarn requirements accordingly. So I know I can make it on these size 2s, but as I said, figuring out how much more yarn I need is a process that's eluding me. I'm just not sure how to do that part.

Back to Fiber; House Update

I was so excited about the house I didn't even post that I'd finished the socks.

It was an interesting pattern. This was my first pair from Cat Bordhi's book "New Pathways For Sock Knitters". It worked out well, the socks are very comfortable. I'm looking forward to making my next pair, but first ...

... that was my first attempt at the lace shawl. I think I could benefit from smaller markers. This pattern is especially tricky because each repeat ends with a yarn-over, which means you have to worry about losing your marker sliding around that yarn-over. Or perhaps, this is better - larger markers may be harder to "knit around" but may also be harder to lose stitches around.

I had only gotten a row or two past this when I already had a mistake, so I just ripped it out, and haven't started it over yet. I started it at a bad time, though - in a rush Tuesday while waiting for it to be time to go see the farm house. I'm sure my concentration was off. I may try it again tonight, and see if I can do better (and get a little farther).

Something else very cool that I haven't gotten to post about - my friends Ray and Su got me this!!

How cool is that? A real, honest-to-God loom. Okay, it's marketed as a 'toy' but, pshaw. It's made out of wood, sturdy, and is a perfectly working loom ... I can make a variety of things on it, and I'm really looking forward to trying it out. With all the flurry of activity this week I haven't had a chance yet - warping it is going to be the trickiest bit to begin with, and I need a time when I'm awake (i.e., not exhausted as I've been a lot lately), have several hours to spend with it, in quiet, with no distractions. Maybe tomorrow.

So the house project. Well, here's the update. A friend of mine is kind of an expert on renovating old houses - he's done that type of work in the past, and lives in a renovated Victorian house. He generously offered to come out to the property with us today and do a walk-through, and check the place out - look for any serious structural problems we may have missed, advise us on just how much work the place is, and give us tips on making the heating costs bearable.

Oh yeah - gas. Because the house had free gas from a gas well, but when they sold off a large chunk of the land to the church, they transferred the mineral rights. So no more gas to the house. Which means no free gas and enormous heating bills - a definite down-side.

Anyway, Troy gave the place a thorough going-over, and his thoughts on it were that it would probably be worth fixing up, if we could get it for far less than the current asking price. But at the current price ($59K), no way. It needs many thousands of dollars worth of work, too much to be worth that price.

The good news is, the basement is sound, and the roof is mostly in good shape - he said there were maybe about 25 slate tile that need replaced, and some drip-edge repairs - but for a 120 year old slate roof, that was very minimal, and the roof is generally in very good shape.

Those were two good pieces of information, because if either the roof or the basement had serious issues, I was writing the place off.

But that leaves us in a whole new place, because while the most major issues aren't structural, they are still serious. One is that gas problem - not just the cost of heating, but the fact the the house doesn't have public gas run or hooked up (due to having had free gas all this time). So we'd have to pay to have all that done.

The second major expense is the septic upgrade. That alone can cost between $12,000 and $25,000, but we have an additional concern - since they parceled off the property so close to the house, and the septic system is now basically on the property line, we don't know that some part of the adjacent land (which doesn't go with the house) may not be used for the septic - and if so it would have to not only be upgraded, but moved. More major expense.

Then there are interior water issues, which appear to be coming from second-floor plumbing problems. Fixable, but a pain in the ass (involving taking up floors, etc.). Worse, apparently people have come in through the broken basement window and just cut out all the copper pipe in the basement, meaning much of the plumbing lines have just been cut and stolen.

Well. I haven't written the place off yet, but I will say my hope for the place is dwindling. I've decided the next step is probably going to be seeing if we can get a septic company to come out and review the situation with us, for free (I'm certainly not putting any money to any of these inspections or estimates), and finding out some info from the gas company.

Once we know how bad those two situations are, we'll reasses things, and consider making an offer - one far, far below the asking price. But hey - if we could get this place for $25,000, it may well be worth all the cost of upgrading and repair.

Because the house would be very beautiful inside - most of the original woodwork remains, and is in very good repair. Most of the wood floors remain and are in mostly good shape. The rooms are beautiful, large, and three of them have bays - like a bay window, only that is the full height of the room from floor to ceiling. The house is in good enough shape over-all to deserve fixing up and restoring, and it would be a beautiful place to live afterwards.

But meanwhile, we're going to have to continue to look at other houses.

W. O. W.

Things have been happening fast around here. You know I've been complaining for awhile about my closet of a house, which I've grown to just freaking hate. The claustrophobic clutter is driving me mad. I can't move without having to step over something, shift something, or walk around something.

For more than a year we've toyed with the idea of buying a bigger house. We looked at some last year, but got sidetracked for awhile. Then last Sunday I kind of snapped and told the Dread Reverend, "I've got to get out of here!" There ensued a flurry of looking up houses online, etc. etc. yadda yadda. Monday we spent all evening driving all over Trumbull County looking at houses we'd found online (outside only; no inside tours).

Then we found this. An 1880s farmhouse in need of much TLC, but not, miraculously, a lot of structural repair. Apparently, anyway - we haven't had any experts look at it yet, but we took our first inside tour today, and we did not see any structural issues at all. Lots of filth, a bit of very tacky subdivisioning (a family subdivided it for privacy, partitioned off the stairway and the living room, put a second kitchen upstairs - all easily removed), lots of needed cosmetic repair. But no apparent roof leaks, basement walls straight and solid, no real problems at all. I'm still in shock.

So I think we're gearing ourselves up for some serious negotiation on this place. I've been doing research on renovation loans, because (a) the price on this place is good, which means we can afford to add renovation costs onto the initial mortgage and still keep it affordable; and (b) obviously it needs a lot of work, and a renovation loan would allow us to get some of the major work out of the way quickly, by getting extra money for the fixing up rolled right into the mortgage and having it to hand immediately, instead of having to wait to save up for it.

'Nuff of that, let's get to the pictures!

And then the adorable Poo ... pouting because we couldn't take him with us tonight to see the house. Next time, Poo!

Well, there's what's going on with us. We're gearing up for this place big time, and I'm PSYCHED. Yes, it's a ton of work. No, I don't mind at all. I've always kind of wanted a house I could fix up ... in my own way, not stuck with someone else's ideas of 'nice.' And something that would actually be really nice after the work was done. I truly don't mind doing the work, in fact I'm already so psyched about all the fixing-up - even sanding and painting and stripping wallpaper! For a place like this, I don't mind. And this one will highly reward us for the effort put in, it's got such potential.

The only real down side is there isn't a lot of property with it - 3/4 of an acre, which translates into a big front yard, and a bit of a back yard. The family sold off the other 20 acres that used to go with the house to a local church who plans to build there. Of course, that's not so terrible - a church on 20 acres can't really be a bad neighbor. It's not like we'd have someone else's houses surrounding us 20' away like where I live now. And we already plan to privacy-fence most of the yard - the back and part of the sides, at least - so though it may not be a huge yard, it will be bigger than what we have now; private; and still out in the country.

But the house is three times the size of the current one, not to mention the 2+car garage with an entire second story on it as well!

Now the tricky part - the financials. Can we afford this???

What A Weekend.

Especially if you count it as beginning Friday evening. Because of some serious ridiculosity at work, I had to work till 8:00 Friday night. Consider I am usually done for the day at 3:00, and you'll see why that was extremely annoying.

But moving on ... the weather was gorgeous this weekend! Sunny, warm - in the 60s. I was so inspired, I bought flowers. I mean, if this doesn't scream spring ...

... nothing does.

I did a ton of outdoor work this weekend - it was great. Anyone who knows me or has sporadically read the blog in warmer months knows how I love my porch. Well, it had gotten trashed over the winter. It was never really cleaned up to weather the cold months, and then a few wind storms blew things into a hideous mess. I forgot to take 'before' pictures of the worst of it, but this is an 'after.'


It's a good 'after.' Prior to this cleaning, there was stuff piled all over the table and all over the floor behind the table. I did take one picture of the other side of the porch, still in the middle of the cleaning project.


Ugh. I'm glad I got this done this weekend. The other side looks mostly better now as well, although the porch swing hasn't gotten cleaned off yet. I also cleaned up a couple other areas, trimmed my rose bush, lilac and azalea, and did some other general yard clearing. I just wish I had another week of days like today. This time of year there is so much I want to do that even two days full of progress doesn't feel like enough.

Saturday night we had our first official 'porch party' of the year. There was a fire (a huge fire - it was still smoldering this afternoon when I used it to burn some yard waste), lots of rum, and way too many kinds of pop. Rum experimentation at its best. We didn't have any archery or croquet this time, but we'll get there - when the yard dries up.

No, I didn't get eaten by zombie snowmen

I never intended to leave those pictures for so long as the first thing blog visitors would see ... the more I looked at them, the more disturbing they got. But I've gotten very busy in the last week, and had no time to post anything new. Barely any time to knit.

To backtrack, last weekend my bother, sister-in-law, and nieces came to visit, which was awesome. My niece had been to London for New Year's Eve, and she brought me a very cool present - mead from the Globe Theater.


Now, I don't generally care much for mead, and have rarely tasted any I really liked. But I have to tell you what ... this was good mead. I really liked it! Thanks, Ashley - you rock! Internationally, even.

Meanwhile, other distractions. I'm going to be recording a CD this year. Yeah, I don't talk much about it, but I have been playing guitar and piano and singing for most of my life. I've been in a couple bands, which never lasted long because I hate - absolutely detest - performing live. Last year we discovered that technology has advanced to the point where, with minimal equipment, one can have a very functional recording studio in their own home. If you have a decent computer and other equipment (microphones, a good mixer helps) and you download the free Audacity - a totally awesome program I thoroughly recommend! - you can do a lot in your own home.

Initially that's what I was planning to do. But I'm not very technically proficient, and it took more tweaking and fiddling than I was happy with. Of course, I'm an excessive perfectionist, which doesn't help. I have a friend who has a recording studio - a real one, he does this for a living - and I've opted to pay him to do the mechanical tweaking for me. So I'm going to be recording the CD at his studio over the next - oh, probably year or so. I'm slow, and since it's pay by the hour and money's tight, it will take awhile. But that's okay ... it'll be worth it, and when it's done, it'll be phenomenal.

Anyway - now that my boyfriend's back to work and there is some cash flow again, it got to be time to start scheduling the recording sessions ... and with that came the panic of "I'm not ready!" I began to practice a lot, which is what has taken up much of the week.

But the home recording still serves a useful purpose. I found that recording practice versions of songs, even if they're not the final CD version, is a very helpful thing ... to be able to listen analytically to what I'm doing, how different things sounds, what works and what needs work, is a great thing. So I've spent much of the week in my erstwhile home recording studio.


Yeah, it's pretty trashed. Again. I had it all cleaned up once, but as soon as I start working up there, it just goes to hell. I guess that's the curse of creativity - mess. I can either play, or clean. Guess which I usually choose?

But there is some knitting news. Sock progress:


I don't think it's going to be done by the end of March, unless I get a lot of work done on it today and tomorrow. But that's okay - it's almost done.

Then I have this to start on!


Sorry for the blurry picture. I don't know what was wrong with me. This is that simple yet compelling shawl I got obsessed with, so I ordered the pattern and the exact yarn shown in the picture (because I love that shade of purple), and it's all here ready for me to start.

This will be interesting. I've never worked with lace-weight yarn, and I've never knit a lace pattern out of yarn this tiny. The only other shawl I made was with sport weight yarn. I'm looking forward to this.

Although all of this has completely halted work on both Celtic Icon and the pirate coat. And the pirate coat is due for its debut at the end of May. Hmmm. Balancing all this out is going to be interesting.

Last, but not least, I had to share this ... have you ever seen a more comfortable dog?

Zombie Snowmen ! ! ! ! !

Just trying to enjoy a nice spring Saturday snowfall ... and then ...

Yeah. I know. We're just not right.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

It's been an interesting weekend. My friends' band, Tara's Fire, has been playing all weekend. Well, not non-stop ... a show Saturday afternoon, a private party Saturay night, a show Sunday afternoon, and two shows today. Okay, it maybe almost feels like non-stop.

Here are some pictures from their gig Saturday.

That party Saturday night pretty well kicked my butt. It took me all day Sunday to recover from it. I took a couple days off to have a long weekend for some R&R, but there hasn't been much of either, with all the partying and groupie-ing. Today's my last day off, and I haven't decided what I'm going to do yet ... I'm dying to go watch the guys play today, but I'd also really like my last 'vacation' day to just be simple and relaxing. So I'm really torn.

I may feel the sock calling, though ... .