Hurricane Bill

Combine the awesome wonder of nature and power of a hurricane with the awesome wonder and power of the internet and instant satellite pictures, and as long as my roof stays on, it is actually very cool to watch the outer bands of this hurricane approach us on satellite and then step outside and watch exactly the same thing.   We just had a huge downpour that lasted maybe five minutes, and when I go out I can still see blue sky peeking through some of the wispy lower clouds and it’s not raining a drop, and the humidity is incredibly high (well, 100%).  You can just picture it as a wispy outer arm that must have passed over us, all spiralling in exactly the direction that it should be.

 

That’s all – just a moment of weather awe and geekiness.

Retro moth fashion?

Wow. Just…..wow. I have never seen a moth like this before. Nor can I find anything like it when I search Google Images. That pattern is amazing (and I also see that I need to wash my windows). Anyone know what kind of moth this might be?

Travel Fun

I love to travel, and I don’t get nearly enough opportunity to do so. However, I just recently returned from a great trip to Montreal to visit my sister, and during our visit we took a day and drove to Plattsburgh, New York and Burlington, Vermont. Armed with a GPS and my internal “yarn radar” (okay, and a little pre-trip Googling), we found a very nice yarn shop in Essex Junction, Vermont: Kaleidoscope Yarns.

The one thing I wanted to try to get, so that I could avoid having to buy it via mail order, was the previously blogged about KnitKit, and it was my lucky day that day – they had two. It’s a bit bigger than I imagined it was, but every bit as slick and ingenious.

Oh, and of course I bought a little bit of yarn too!

I'm not sure what I'll make yet - maybe mittens with the Plymouth and socks with the Jitterbug. I’ll check out Ravelry and see what cool things other people are making with these yarns. That is one of my favourite features of the Ravelry site.

Later!

DI(y) Shopping Bag

Materials: 1 ball (50 gm) Bernat Handicrafter Cotton, natural, 2 balls (50 gm) Rodel Cotton Spezial, black, 4.5 mm crochet hook, 3 mm crochet hook, small amount of black felt (optional), stitch markers

Gauge: not important

Note: except where noted, bag and pocket are worked in "spiral rounds" - use a stitch marker to mark end.

Bag Instructions

With black yarn and 3 mm crochet hook, starting at the bottom of the bag, make an adjustable ring . 8 sc in ring, draw up tight, pm in eighth sc to mark end of rnd and replace end of each rnd. Next rnd: 2 sc in each (16 sc). Next rnd: *1 sc, 2 sc in next sc, repeat from * around (24 sc). Next rnd: *2 sc, 2sc in next sc, repeat from * around (32 sc). Repeat in this manner, increasing 1 sc 8 times evenly, until there are 120 sc around (or until bottom of bag is desired size). On last rnd, join to beg sc with sl st.

Next rnd: Ch 2, dc in each back loop around. Sl st in first dc of rnd.

Mesh rnd: Ch 5, sk 2 dc, *1 dc in next dc, ch 2, sk 2 dc, repeat from * to end of rnd, sl st in 3rd ch of beg ch 5.

Repeat this rnd 30 times, or until bag is desired depth.

Solid rnd: Ch 2, dc in each dc, 2 dc in each ch 2 sp around (120 dc). Repeat this round once more.

Next rnd: Repeat "mesh" rnd once.

Next rnd: Repeat "solid" rnd twice.

Finish with one rnd crab stitch.

Ties

Do two lengths of foundation sc - 240 sc's long.

Pocket

With natural coloured yarn and 4.5 mm hook, repeat bag bottom instructions until you have 48 sts in rnd. Next rnd: *1 sc, ch 3, sk 3, 1 sc, 2 sc in next, repeat from * around. Next rnd: *6 sc (3 of these in ch 3 sp as appropriate), 2 sc in next sc, repeat from * around. Next rnd: *1 sc, ch 5, sk 5, 1 sc, 2 sc in next, repeat from * around. Next rnd: *8 sc (5 of these in ch 5 sp as appropriate), 2 sc in next sc, repeat from * around. Next rnd: *1 sc, ch 7, sk 7, 1 sc, 2 sc in next, repeat from * around. Last rnd: *10 sc (7 of these in ch 7 sp as appropriate), 2 sc in next sc, repeat from * around. Break yarn.

Sew pocket to bag leaving top 1/4 of diameter open. Weave ties through mesh round at top of bag. Sew in ends. If desired, cut small swan or other shape from black felt and sew or glue to pocket as pictured.

Blog surfing again

Here is another great blog on using Adobe Illustrator to make colour charts, this time in the form of a video.  Enjoy!

Part 5: Making templates with basic garment shapes

This is the final part of my series on using Excel to chart knit and crochet designs.

Making a template spreadsheet of basic shapes that you will use over and over again will save you a lot of time in the initial set up. My suggestion would be to open a blank spreadsheet, and, one per worksheet, outline (with the line drawing tool) some basic flat shapes - sweater, sock, mitten, etc. Whatever will be of most use to you. Or collect these basic shapes as you develop your own library by copying and pasting into a specially designated "Template" spreadsheet for easy access.

Here is a basic sweater front and back shape.

This example is not done to any realistic scale (six shoulder stitches would be a seriously chunky yarn!), so you may wish to make your initial template a little closer to a realistic gauge. Once you copy your template into a working spreadsheet for an individual design, you can easily add rows and columns and edit the aspect ratio of the cells so that your schematic will be to scale from your swatch.

Look carefully at existing schematic drawings in published patterns for help with representing your design in a flat pattern visual. There are also many books available - one of my favourite resources is Deborah Newton's Designing Knitwear.

I hope this series has been helpful and provided you with some ideas for using Excel in creative ways!

Workin' it

Computers and spreadsheets are great, but sometimes plain old paper and pencil are the best design tools going.  I used to keep swatches in a binder along with yarn notes etc, but the swatches add a lot of bulk, so I had a brainstorm one day – make a colour photocopy of the swatch to put in the binder.  Not only does it cut down on the bulk in the binder, but printer/scanner/copiers make pretty much actual size photocopies of things, so measuring gauge right on the paper instead of a 3D stretchy swatch is a great way to get an accurate measure.  AND, I can use this colour (or black and white) copy of a swatch and design right on it.  I’m not going to say right now what the design is that I have in process, but keen eyes might be able to guess the inspiration.

 

Namaste!

Happy Mother's Day!

Beautiful flowers from my awesome family J !

Catch Up

Just a few catch up items today.

First, I've finished and photographed the Calico Afghan kit from Mary Maxim. I absolutely love the colours, and really enjoyed working on it.

Second, I was "blog surfing" a few days ago and I stumbled onto "Tales of a Techno-Hooker", and a really great series on how to chart crochet symbols using Adobe Illustrator. I don't own or use Adobe Illustrator, but it's still a very interesting read to compare that with Excel.

Third, I hope to finish my series on Charting with Excel sometime in the next week or two, so watch for that. There is just Part 5, on reusable templates, left to write about.

And lastly, I'm very much looking forward to the season finale of Lost this week, although at the same time sad to be entering another eight or nine month hiatus until the final season starts at the beginning of 2010. I think I can say without a doubt that it is, IMHO, the best tv show ever made. Ever. AND, I am keeping my fingers crossed on this, I really really hope to get to the theatre at the end of the week to see the new Star Trek movie. I can hardly wait!

Later!

Ready to Assemble

I hope to get the final instalment of the Excel series done soon, but in the meantime, this will just be a short check-in. I've been working on a pattern I found in a recent Mary Maxim catalogue called Calico Afghan. It's been fun doing the squares in my spare time - little snippets of stolen time in fact, waiting for a pot to boil, talking on the phone, etc. I finished the last of the squares yesterday evening while listening to my favourite LOST podcasts - The Transmission and Jay and Jack. Even the though, obviously, the afghan is yet to be assembled, I got such a satisfying sense of accomplishment when I lined all the squares all up for inspection, that I just had to share.

I've also finished a baby afghan for a friend who is due is June. This one is from Vogue Knitting on the Go: Baby Blankets. Very nice pattern, fun to knit.

That's it - back to taxes now.

Part 4 - A Simple Knit Lace Chart

This is essentially the same procedure as the crochet lace chart except the symbols will be different. You can refer back to this blog entry for instructions on getting the worksheet set up.

Some of the symbols that I use for charting knitting stitches can be seen in this screen shot, and can be found in the "Symbols" menu.

Now I'm ready to copy and paste the symbols from the legend in to my 21 stitch x 20 row "digital swatch". I've chosen "Old Shale", a pretty traditional lace pattern that is probably familiar to most readers. I'm using Mary Thomas's Book of Knitting Patterns. The first thing the pattern tells me is that I need a number of stitches cast on that is divisible by 11, so I will need to insert a column so that I have 22 stitches to work with. Here is what the finished chart looks like.

Once you have charted the first four rows, you can copy and paste them as a whole (ie select the entire area of 22 stitches by 4 rows) the rest of the way up the chart.

Be sure to read all the previous entries in this series for more detailed instructions on some of the more basic operations in Excel.

So far we've only graphed "digital swatches", but the next and final lesson will be setting up garment shaped templates for use (and re-use) so that you can chart texture or colour patterns over the entire garment. This is very useful in design so that you can ensure that patterns are centred properly and work well in relation to one another.

As always, comments welcome.

Plausible Posers

I'm a fan of Phil Plait (the Bad Astronomer) , I read his blog every day, and never fail to be entertained AND learn something new at the same time. Of all the things I might expect to learn from Phil, and he does cover a diversity of topics, I might be forgiven if I had "crochet" on the bottom of such a list. But I should have known better!

Check this out:
Oh, yeah, it's Adam and Jaime, my favourite Mythbusters, rendered here in crochet! And, no disrespect Phil, but I do think they are a remarkable likeness, although Adam's hairline probably isn't receding quite that much! Check out PaperheroesNet for the lowdown, and while you're there check out some of the other figures (Star Wars, Superman, to name a couple). They've even included the YouTube video for Discovery Channel's "Boom-de-yadda" commercial, which makes me smile every time I see it.

The world IS just awesome!

Part 3 Simple Crochet Lace Chart

For this tutorial, you can open a new Excel file, or just use the same one and work on Sheet 2. We'll use a 20 x 20 area again, the same as in Part 2, with the same cell sizes. You can refer back to this entry for instructions on setting up the sheet.

The next thing to do is to set up a Key or Legend to define the symbols we're going to use. You can put this anywhere on the sheet, I've chosen to put it just to the right of the area that I'm going to chart. Here is what my Key looks like.

For the heading, I merged eight cells together, shaded the resulting cell, and drew a border around it. I then inserted the symbols that I wanted using the "Symbol" menu icon seen below on the far right.

When you click this icon, the following comes up:

You can see from the screen shot above that my "recently used symbols" include the items in my Key. Explore and see what you can find among the fonts on your computer, and when you find symbols that you like, click on them and then click "insert" (make sure that you have selected the cell on your worksheet where you want the symbol to be first).

Once I have completed my "key" I draw a border around each symbol. I also change the colour of each symbol so that they show up on the chart a little better, but that is a personal preference. To do this, you use the text colour function, not the paint function (paint changes the cell background colour, not the contents). Once I have all of this set, it is then simply a matter of copying and pasting each symbol where I want it in the chart. Below is an example of a chart for a small swatch done in a mesh or filet crochet pattern.

You can see that I've also added a stitch count across the bottom, and row numbering up the side, as well as "direction of work" arrows for further clarity.

And speaking of "direction" - you may notice that in the symbol menu the symbol I chose for the turning chain 2 is two small ovals horizontally oriented, but in my key they are vertically oriented. You can change the orientation of text with this menu icon:

I touched on "aspect ratio" in a previous blog entry, it can become even more important with crochet, especially when using double or treble crochet stitches, where clearly stitches are much taller than they are wide. In my chart above, I kept the cells square, so the aspect ratio is 1, however, here is the resulting swatch:

The stitches and rows are exactly as charted, but as you can see I have a rectangle that actually measures 4.5 inches wide and 7.5 inches long, which would make an aspect ratio of 1.67. Therefore, if I wanted my chart to represent the true proportions, and my cell width is 26 pixels, then I would have to make the cell height 43 pixels (1.67 x 26).

As always, comments, feedback and/or questions welcome!

Part 2 Addendum

First, I have just realized that I had quite a few restrictions on the comment section, so I've opened that up. Nothing like inviting comments and then making it nearly impossible for people to do so - duh.

Second, and this is probably obvious, but just in case, don't forget to save your worksheet regularly. There is nothing worse than doing a whole lot of work and then having the power go out or something and realizing that you didn't save anything. Ask me how I know this.

Third, to inspire your "doodling", I've done more simple examples below (perhaps somewhat lacking in inspiration, but it's early in the morning). You can use colour charting to audition colour combinations, make sure your design placement is centred, will fit within the area, etc. I should also note here that, particularly if you want to knit a picture, knit stitches are taller than they are wide. This means that if you use squares in your chart, your knitting results might distort the picture (it will be taller, but not wider, than you might expect or want). In the tutorial, I had you set the square size at 24 x 24 pixels. If you are designing a picture for a knitted item and you want a truer representation of how the chart will translate to the knitting, you might wish to set the cell size at 34 pixels high and 24 pixels wide. This will give an aspect ratio of 1.4. You may have to experiment a bit with that - there is an excellent explanation of how to determine your aspect ratio here.

Charting with Excel - Part 2: Colour Charts

• Open a new Excel file

• You'll notice that the default size of each cell is a fairly wide rectangle. We want to change these cells to be much more square. In order to do that, hold your mouse over the square immediately to the left of column A and immediately above row 1 and click once. This will highlight the entire worksheet, and you do this when you want to make a universal change to the entire worksheet (such as formatting, font, or cell size). Your worksheet should now look something like this:

• Now hold your mouse on the vertical line that separated the column heading A and the column heading B. You cursor should change from a cross shape, to a black vertical line bissected with a black horizontal line with arrows at either end. Click and hold the left mouse button and drag the cursor to the left until the number of pixels reads 24. Release the mouse button and your spreadsheet should look like this.

• The next thing I like to do is block out the area (stitches and rows) that I want to chart. If we think of this sample as a small "swatch", then let's draw a square or border around an area 20 stitches (or cells) wide and 20 rows tall. To do this, "select" cells by clicking once on cell F6. Notice that there is a bold line around this cell. This isn't permanent, it is just an indicator of what cell you have selected. Hold down your left mouse button and move your mouse horizontally across the spreadsheet until you have 20 cells highlighted, and then continuing to hold the left mouse button down, move the mouse vertically so that you can select 20 rows down as well. You can tell the number of rows and columns you have selected by looking in the area just above the column headers - 20 R x 20 C.

• When you release the button, your spreadsheet should look like this.

• Now we need to draw a permanent border around this square. In the menu area, just to the left of the paint can, is an image of a small block of four squares with a line drawn across the two bottom squares.

• Click on the tiny triangle just to the right of that to bring down a drop down menu of types of borders, and choose the "thick box border" (eighth one down).

• Your spreadsheet should now look like this.

• Now we want to incorporate a simple colour pattern by colouring the squares. To do this, select cell I23, and then click on the small triangle to the right of the paint can (see earlier screen shot) to bring up a pallet of available colours. If this selection isn't enough colours to choose from, have some fun clicking on "more colours" and have a look at both the standard and custom tabs!

• For our tutorial, let's just click on basic red. This is what you should now have.

• Now you can chart a simple design by either (a) copying and pasting this square to other squares, or (b) selecting other squares and clicking once on the paint box (which will show red). You can make any design you wish, or try your hand at the following design.

• You are of course not limited to one colour, nor do you need to be limited to a 20 x 20 space. Feel free to experiment. Perhaps try your hand at charting out a picture, or a fairisle design. Most importantly, though, have some fun and play a little!

I hope that this has been helpful. Please feel free to post comments! Next time: charting crochet stitches.

Charting Patterns with Excel - Part 1

Over the next few blog entries, I hope to lead you through a tutorial on how I use the Excel spreadsheet program to chart patterns - both for colour charts for stranded or intarsia knitting or crochet, and for stitch types (lace/texture), again for knit (hand or machine) or crochet.

I use Microsoft Excel Version 2007. Most of the functions that I will describe are available on earlier versions of Excel, but the menu paths may differ somewhat. The "Help" menu for Excel is excellent, and should help you to find the functions I describe for earlier versions of Excel.

There are a few limitations with the program. One is that, as far as I'm aware (and please correct me if I'm wrong!), Excel will not do a polar graph (circular, not to be confused with a pie chart, which Excel does do), so charting such things as doilies or table cloths, knit or crocheted in the round, is not possible. However, if you google "polar graph paper" there are sites that provide free templates that you can print off and use the old fashioned way.

The other limitation is with the fonts. There are standard knit and crochet symbols found in published patterns, and you can download free (for personal use only) knitting symbols fonts from The Knitting Universe. As far as a font for crochet symbols goes, there must be something out there but I could only find one (please update me if anyone knows of any!). My solution for the time being is to improvise with the many symbols that are available, and just define them carefully in a "key" or "legend".

Finally, a word about reading charts. Charts, particularly those for knitting and crochet patterns, are generally (unless otherwise indicated) read from the bottom right, the first row being read right to left, the second row left to right, and alternating in that manner to the top of the chart. I put directional arrows on most of my charts so that it is clear.

I have a rough outline for this Excel tutorial series as follows:

• Part 2: a step by step tutorial (with lots of screen shots for clarity) on making a simple colour chart.
• Part 3: a simple crochet lace chart.
• Part 4: a simple knit lace chart.
• Part 5: making "reusable" templates with basic garment shapes.

Please leave your comments or questions or feedback!

Quick Update

Just a quick note to show off the first pair of thrummed mittens from my chart. I am quite happy with the results!

The only thing I'm a bit surprised about is that the yellow diamond pattern, once the mittens are sewn up, is noticeably off centre. I think this has to do with the fact that I didn't take into account the stitches that are sacrificed in the sewing up.

I have had a couple of requests for a more detailed tutorial on charting patterns using Excel, so I hope to have the first of several blog posts up on that topic in a few days. Check back!

EXCELling

I definitely prefer to read patterns in chart form. I also prefer to make up patterns in chart form, and my favourite software for doing this is Excel. I know that there are a number of software packages on the market especially for knitters and craftspeople, but for me Excel does everything I need it to do.

Here's an example of a pattern I was testing for another designer. The designer provided me with written instructions, and I converted them to a chart before I did my test swatch.


















Not only is Excel (and the Symbol font) great for charting lace, it's also great for charting colour. In fact, before embarking on my next pair of thrummed mittens, I decided to play around with some colour possibilities, below.
















It's a quiet afternoon here today, so I'm going to get started with the first mitten, using Briggs and Little Heritage in charcoal as my main yarn, and with my Studio SK860 midgauge machine set to T8 (T7 for the cuff). I'll let you know they turn out!

By the way, if anyone reads this blog (anyone?) and would like more information on how I use Excel to chart patterns, or if you already use Excel this way and have some tips for me, please leave me a comment!

Rule of Thrum

As previously promised, here is a group photo of the multi-coloured sample pack of fleece that I bought ages ago from Rovings. This definitely is the antidote to my colourless winter, although now I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed by the possibilities.

As you can see, it's not carded, and although thrums are small and easily formed by hand (see Knitting Daily's great instructions), some of this fleece is a bit matted (because it has been languishing in my stash for so long, I'm sure).

So I had a brainwave, since I don't have actual wool carders - the Pet Store!! (Never overlook entirely knitting-unrelated stores for Fibre Accessory Potential).




















For my first pair of mittens, I decided to go with a blue and orange combination (think sunset), using up some leftover yarn from A Noble Cowl.





















I'm quite happy with the colour combination. I think next some multi-coloured thrumming is in order though, and I'm thinking that a black yarn background will really make the colours pop.

Stay tuned.........