Master's Knitting Program

I love design and I deeply admire the technical abilities of the great knitters.  It has become increasingly obvious that my technical abilities do not equal the knit designs that are rattling around my brain. I also love stranded work and after designing my Unicorn Hat I realized I needed to learn more techniques than the usual "fly by the seat of my pants" version. I think knitters have many teachers that contribute to their knowledge. 

I think we all learn from each other and the fiber community is amazingly generous in its willingness to share a love of the craft.  But it is time to really explore knitting, hence I have committed to increasing my expertise and have decided to enroll in the Master's Knitting program from the Knitting Guild of America .  This is a three level program with a review committee that guides the learning process. You may not proceed to level two unless you have successfully completed level one.   I have a University level Master's degree and frankly this Master's certification program seems every bit as complex.  It is probably the first certification program that I actually respect, and I have lots of certifications that I have picked up in the mental health field.  I have several goals in taking this course:

1.  To increase my technical abilities and really learn this craft
2.   Learn to design more effectively
3.   I would really, really like to be able to work part time in a knitting shop and know that I had the skills to help those who were just starting out in the very satisfying and addictive world of fiber. 



Design gone Bad

Sometimes the ole family motto:  "Seemed like a good idea at the time" applies when what happens is sorta yuck.

I wanted to design something different than a hat.  But I like the quickness of accessories so I thought I would design a neck/cowl thingy.  I wanted it to be somewhat stranded but not exactly fair isle.  Because it was stranded I thought it should be reversible so the backside of the stranded work wouldn't catch on things.  I also wanted a southwest flavor and since it was going around the neck - not scratchy.  I started fiddling with the math of gauge, size, yarn and charting to make it all work with 3 repeats of the design.  I came up with this:

Ye ole Chart

The white background of the chart would actually be a black yarn and I was looking for gold, turquoise, red and black.  I chose KnitPicks Gloss DK yarn for it's softness; and I was thinking about submitting it to the Independent Design Program.  Well...I have said before I am not the most technical knitter and figured  I would just duplicate stitch the sun motif (which I didn't), and do a modified intarsia for the deer rather than carry the threads from one deer motif to the next.  This brilliant idea gave me a gazillion ends to weave in.  I am thinking a duplicate stitch for the deer motif and the sun would have been a better choice over all.

Now I generally don't mind weaving in ends, but this was just plain obnoxious.  It also created another problem - showing through the front.

You can see the woven ends showing through the black - yuck!

To use the yarn more efficiently I stripped the back side which made it look way to "Cat in the Hat" for me.  But then I am not a big fan of stripping.

I have just sat on this thing for weeks.  I am at the 3 needle purl bind off, once I finish weaving in the rest of the ends, and I am having the hardest time looking at it.  I can say that it won't be going to the IDP program for consideration. I am so disenchanted with this I don't want to spend the money to buy yarn for test knitters.  I might in a moment of madness buy more yarn for myself and do the whole thing over again doing a duplicate stitch for the deer and sun to see what happens. 

 I will probably post it to Ravelry for the usual $1.99 with a serious "You really don't want to do this because you will regret it sales job" description.  Charging for something kicks in the cognitive dissonance function and psychologically peeps are less likely to be irritated then if you give the pattern away for free - go figure.

The Unicorn Hat

Nana in the background

This hat has been hanging out waiting to go live with Knitpicks Independent Designer Program.  I posted it today at Ravelry  http://www.ravelry.com/ under my Victoria Johnston Designs Store, and it should hit Knitpicks next week.

Yep, it is a little hippie or at least the model pronounced it so, the model being my oldest daughter.

  I am really going to have to improve my photo techniques.  My youngest modeled the last hat so I was using my oldest daughter this time around.  Took me almost 3 weeks to catch up with her to take any kind of pictures at all.  Next time I'm going to just grab the nearest body, jam a hat on their head and start snapping pictures - the OMG and WTF moments should be priceless.  The Rav pattern has pictures of my daughter while the Knitpicks pdf  will have pictures of one of their models wearing the hat (I think they preferred a less earthy look).

As for the pattern, I liked the idea of experimenting with stripping and a large one color motif.  This unfortunately made for more fussy color work, but I like the effect.  One of the best things about knitting hats is if you absolutely hate what you are knitting at least it will be over soon.  I would not like tipping into hate territory early in the process with a huge complex sweater thing.  I know this because it took me 17 years to finish "The Sweater from Hell".  I even tried to pay someone to finish it for me, but nooooo.  I finally made a resolution last year to finish everything that was left undone.   I buckled down and finished it in no time.  Amazing what 17 years of practice can do - didn't seem hard at all and knit up really quickly.  I actually don't mind seaming and even that was enjoyable.  The moral to this story is: yes sometimes it is better to put off till tomorrow what you could be doing today.

Happy knitting