Episode 37: Diet Meeting

Episode 37: Diet Meeting (38:15)

Diet Update

No new yarn! Can we make it till the new year? Can we make it till Stitches West?
Future Yarn carrots:

• The Fibre Company
• Mountain Mohair
• Sylvan Spirit

Penalty Box: Extending the diet
A dollar a day?

Tips and Tricks

• The Webs 'cast
• Pick up and knit or pick up?
• The Bucket Hat by Bonne Marie
• Brioche stitch
• Casting on for brioche stitch
• The brioche scarf (knit by freckles and purls) from Weekend Knitting
• The knitted on i-cord
• Lucy Neatby's DVDs
• the one step provisional cast on with crochet hook
• Turkish cast on
• Figure 8 cast on
• Two stranded tubular cast on
• picking up ratio on vertical borders

Badges!

Music:

Dig Me Out: Sleater Kinney
The Spell You're Under: Versus

Comments

[Leslie]

thanks for another fun episode. do you recommend the lucy neatby dvds, by the way? i've contemplated buying them but even on ebay they're pretty pricey... have a wonderful thanksgiving!

[Julia]

Hi guys! Another great podcast - I love spending my Tuesday mornings with you.

With the long-tail cast-on all you have to do is begin on the WS of the work with your first row. You can do this by either adding or subtracting a row from your pattern. So, if the pattern says to do 14 rows of ribbing, you can either do 13 or 15. The reason for this is that the long tail actually creates a cast-on edge and your first row of knitting AT THE SAME TIME! Insane, huh? So the side facing you when you start to knit is the purl side of your cast on row. Eureka! The long-tail *can* be used for almost anything!

As for picking up and knitting sts, I thought I wasn't doing it right for a long time, too, because there really isn't anything that seems like knitting going on - it's a silly term, if you ask me. I think a 4:5 ratio for sts on a slope is usually about right, but I don't pick up that number. For the first round I pick up evenly around the neckline, stitch for stitch, so no ugly holes are created. On the next round I reduce down to the number I'm supposed to have by k2togging at intervals. I think that the ratio should be 1:1 on the horizontal edges, and about 4:5 on the slopes. If the edge looks better with more or less sts than the pattern calls for, I don't follow the pattern. I just make sure I have the right multiple of sts for whatever pattern I'm doing the neckline in - so, say 4+2 for 2x2 ribbing, or 2+1 for 1X1 ribbing.

Hope this helps!

xox, J

P.S. Nicole - you re-invented the figure-8 cast-on! Don't you feel smart for working out a technique on your own?!

[Lorraine]

Thanks for the banners! I just put oen on my blog.

Have you guys seen the Elizabeth Zimmermann DVDs? On 'A Knitting Glossary' she goes over every technique imaginable.

[JulieB]

Ever since I discovered it, I've been using Eunny's provisional cast on - http://www.eunnyjang.com/knit/2006/03/majoring_in_lace_part_iv.html It's incredibly fast (once I've spent some time relearning it), and I've never had any problems getting the live stitches off. Way better than fiddling with a crochet hook!

[Sarah]

Is this the provisional cast on that you were talking about from Barbara Walker?

http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEfall05/FEATfall05TT.html

This was easy for me to figure out. (My first provisional cast on) I think it may be the same as Eunny's method, but these directions are much simpler!

[Sarah]

I love the crocheted provisional cast on! If I'm thinking of the same thing you were talking about, you basically start a crochet chain with the hook and then continue it by wrapping the yarn behind and around the knitting needle before you pull it through the loop of the chain. It winds up looking very much like a long-tail cast on -- loops on the needle, with a "braid" of V-shaped stiches underneath.

[Miss Muffy]

Almost everything you talked about this week I was all; "ME TOO!!!" Get out of my brain!

[chris]

Couldn't have come at a better time. I had become overwhelmed with my stash and really tried hard to not buy any yarn from about august until the last 2 weeks : then I succumbed to 1. STR sock club 2008 2. the STR destash sale that I went to and spent $200 and 3. a little knits sale...ugh!
I know in my heart I have enough yarn to last for years......must stop!

[Deborah]

I don't want to be the yarn diet police or anything, but isn't rewarding yourself in January with the money you would have spent on yarn during the diet kind of counterproductive?

I found provisional cast on pretty simple - perhaps because I was already familiar with the crochet cast on. Provisional cast on is simply done by working crochet cast on with waste yarn.

Thanks for all the other tips and have a wonderful Thanksgiving! Love the new banner, Harold!

[Abigail]

I also do the "wrap it around two needles" provisional cast on. I like it a lot. If you have an interchangable needle set you can use an extra cord for that to hold the provisional stitches until you need them.

Oh, and I was on a yarn diet until the end of this year but I broke it this week to buy some more yarn of something I already had because I didn't have enough for Oblique. Does that count as going off the wagon? It probably does so I think I'll go until Stitches now.

Thanks for your show! I really enjoy it. :)

[Sharon]

Two comments. First, with the long tail cast on you definitely can manipulate the stitch as to whether the purl bump is in the front or back of the work. I normally cast on in pattern. It's all in whether you have the needle enter the loop on your left thumb as if to knit, or as if to purl. Second--picking up without knitting? I would have said never, too, until last weekend, when someone next to me in a sock class did exactly that!
Love your podcast. Hope you have a wonderful Turkey Day.

[Debi]

Hi! I noticed that you linked to my tutorial and just to reiterate, the Turkish Cast on does give you a bi-directional first row with no waste yarn. I wrote the tutorial but I didn't invent the technique (dagnabit!, lol) but it is very cool, you should try it, It' MUCH less fiddly than a provisional or a figure 8 cast on.

Secondly, the cast on in the IK issue for the Embossed Leaves sock is wrong! It is NOT a tubular cast on, I frankly don't know what it is...I've done the tubular cast on before and I knew something was wrong so I contacted the designer, Mona Schmidt. She posted the proper way to do the cast on on her blog, it's basically the "italian" cast on or similar to the one the Keyboard Biologist demonstrated.

I have sat down with Barbara Walker's book and tried and tried to get her cast on to work and it was a no go for me too :)

Thanks for the linkage, now give it a try!

[Bonne]

Hi girls! Great podcast as usual. How about for the Vogue cardigan with the O-wool instead of actual shaping, drop down a needle size or two in the waist area? I have a Teva Durham pattern that is highly cabled and the waist shaping is done that way.
Keep up the great work!

[Julia]

Just came back to read the comments - Sharon is friggin brilliant. Even though I knew the long-tail was creating a knit row, I never thought to purl it on instead. So clever.

[Shannon]

I had no trouble with the Barbara Walker cast-on, but I suspect because it is very similar to Cat Bordhi's Moebius cast-on, except you only work one side of it at a time. And it's really easy to take the yarn out! Take a look at the pictures in Cat's moebius knitting book and you'll see what I mean.

[Phoe]

Great podcast, as usual. When I first started knitting I didn't understand the pick up and knit idea, I snapped two Denise cables by trying to pick up all the stiches around the bottom of the Booga bag and then knit them on the next row. Since learning the proper way my Denises, and my hands are a lot happier. :)

[Elizabeth]

I was laughing as you were discussing the IK issue with the cast on--because I tried to do it a week or so ago and just looked at those instructions and went "HUH?!" So I surfed around and found this tutorial which made it so simple. http://fluffyknitterdeb.blogspot.com/2005/10/knitting-made-easier-turkish-cast-on.html
Great picks and goes step by step through the process. Hope this helps. Thanks for all the great ideas, though every time I listen to your podcast, it is like going to a Weight Watcher's meeting, I just come out hungry--and usually I discover some new yarn or pattern I MUST knit and I end up shopping online. Bad for the diet! But keep it up, I love the things I find through your chats.

[Kate Y.]

Thank you so much for discussing your bafflement over the phrase "Pick up and knit"!! I agree completely -- that creating the first set of stitches by pulling loops through the existing fabric feels like "picking up stitches" all by itself, so what's that "and knit" doing there? Soooo glad to know that I've parsed that stupid instruction the right way.

You're dubious whether I-cord edging would prevent rolling. I've just finished a sweater with a garter-stitch edging and the sucker just FOLDS. Arrgh! Any thoughts on this phenomenon?

[Sally Villarreal]

On New Year's Eve, I was sick. I called in sick to work and I skipped the family event with food and friends. But then I saw my LYS yarn shop's "Gumball sale" (and I had a gift certificate.) I went and told the owner I wasn't going to buy more until next year.

http://emptynestknitter.prettyposies.com/archives/000302.html

PS - I only got 10% off.

I knit during breaks and lunch at work. At my last telemarketing job I could knit and take calls if I didn't have to count.

I will be so jealous if Jenny makes a sweater of "Road to China."

I've made two Brioche rib scarves. They are great in chunky yarn. I cast on just like every other project, and added no edging.
http://sallycomesunraveled.blogspot.com/2008/01/fo-sams-scarf.html
http://sallycomesunraveled.blogspot.com/2007/11/fo-jules-scarf.html

Nicole, did you accidentally discover Judy's Magic Cast On?
http://www.knitty.com/issuespring06/FEATmagiccaston.html