Mother of Purl by Eig, Edith (best desktop ebook reader .TXT) 📗

flexible, forgiving medium. If you can approach your problem creatively, you can probably figure out a way to work with it. Here are some knitting mistakes we’ve encountered at the store and the solutions we found to fix them.

[EDITH KNIT TIPS]

Washing Wisely

To avoid the risk of felting your garment, only use cold water and let it soak for the recommend time noted on the label. When using Eucalan or like products, do not rinse; just gently squeeze (and don’t ring it) out the excess water. Preferably, place the garment in the spin cycle of your washing machine to remove the excess water. Lay it on a flat surface to dry.

TO ERR IS HUMAN

Take a look at a sweater you purchased from a department store. No matter what the style, you know the tension will be perfect, the stitch work flawless. Machines don’t make mistakes. If you find a flaw in your hand–knit sweater, don’t be disheartened by it. That flaw means you’re human, and it reflects the uniqueness of your work, proof that, unlike mass–produced sweaters, yours is one of a kind. For example, did you know that when you tour the United Nations, the guide will point out the flaws in the most amazing handmade wall hangings, explaining, “If it was perfect, it would have been made by the hands of God.” In fact, I have a client who purposely leaves one wrong stitch in her work. This stems from the time she accidentally made a slight mistake and refused to rip it out. This has become her trademark.

One of my clients, Jodi, is very creative and passionate about her knitting. She only makes a few pieces a year and strives to make them perfect and beautiful. Unfortunately, they don’t always end up as perfect as they could, since she doesn’t always heed my advice. This January her big project was a pretty, hot pink cardigan, knitted in a bulky wool, with a long fringe trim around the edges. The sweater turned out lopsided, with one side of the front hanging lower than the other. Disaster. Jodi was distraught. I looked at it for a minute and realized that all we had to do was a little nip ‘n’ tuck. Instead of ripping out the front, I threaded a piece of yarn up the sagging side, hiding the thread between the heavy fringe and the front band. As the other women in the knitting circle looked on, I pulled gently at the yarn until the fronts were even and then anchored the yarn at the neckline, making sure the stitches were evenly spaced along the band. This isn’t always the solution for sagging sweaters, especially if they sag more than one inch, but it worked with her design.

Eliza is a sporadic knitter. I may see her every day for a month, then not see her for a year. Because she doesn’t knit consistently, her work often has flaws. Recently she came in with a poncho she had just completed. The neck was far too wide and slid annoyingly down her shoulders. I knew that if Eliza couldn’t save this project, she’d probably give up knitting for good, so I devised a way to fix it. I suggested she crochet a band around the neck, working with a contrasting yarn so it looked like a design feature. However, instead of picking up every stitch, I had her pick up three stitches for every four, ending up with forty–five stitches instead of the sixty she started with. This narrowed the neckline enough so that the poncho now sat comfortably on her shoulders. Eliza was happy with the result, and she even comes to the knitting circle a little more frequently than she did before.

Felting is a one–way process; it can’t be undone—most of the time. A newcomer to the shop’s knitting circle had spent many months finishing a mohair sweater—only to find that her very efficient housekeeper had ruined it in the washer and dryer. I didn’t want her to become discouraged and throw in the knitting towel. I wasn’t sure whether I could fix this felting problem, but I intended to try a process that had worked for me in the past. I took her sweater home and immersed it in cold water in my washing machine, using a highly sudsy shampoo, like Prell. I let it soak overnight, then ran the spin cycle without rinsing it, and stretched it into shape and let it dry. The delicate mohair blossomed again, and the sweater was almost as good as new. When I gave it to her, I suggested she “not wear this one in the rain.”

Rather than toss that oversized sweater from the ‘80s, you might consider cutting it down to size. You’ll want to find a tailor who has a serger machine to prevent the stitches from running as the sweater is cut and sewn back together.

One of my clients ran out of wool for her scarf and I didn’t have any more, so I divided a ball of novelty yarn, and we knitted at either end of the scarf so that the different yarn was a design feature rather than a fix.

The point of these stories is to encourage you to look creatively at your mistakes, and to devise your own solutions by approaching your errors rationally and analytically. Check your emotions at the door, until you’ve devised a solution.

[EDITH KNIT TIPS]

Joining in the Round with a Circular Needle

Joining in the round is the process by which you join the beginning and the end of a row together to create a continuous circle. Joining in the round can be tricky. I suggest to first knit or purl a row, then join as this will prevent the row from twisting.

TAL MEIRSON

A high–profile production supervisor, Tal’s résumé includes such hits as the Academy Award–winning film Million Dollar Baby, starring Hilary Swank and Clint Eastwood; The Human Stain, starring Nicole Kidman and