Masters Monday, week three - lots of re-knitting ahead

This week, I knit a LOT. Got up through the first nine swatches, and discovered several important things:

1. Knitting ribbing is tricky. The trick is to make all the stitches the same size, and there sure is a trick to it.
2. Stockinette should be smooth - all the stitches the same width and height. There's a couple of tricks to that, too, and it's important, since a lot of the swatches are "stuff done to stockinette stitch".
3. Selvedge stitches should all be the same size, on both sides of the swatch... and should be the same size as the stitches next to them, too.
4. Increase and decrease stitches should be the same size as the stitches around them - there are a lot of tricks for that.
5. Casting on and binding off need to be appropriate for the swatch involved in size and appearance.
6. Basically, there are a lot of tricks involved just to get the basic appearance of the swatches to the point where they're worth turning in for evaluation - and I haven't mastered any of them!

Now, to get to this point, I had to do a few things. First, I chose to lug all my stuff - and there's a lot of stuff involved! - over to my parents' house, which actually has tables.


Then I started getting organized. Got all my "On Your Way to the Masters" articles sorted out in order of subject (casting on, tension, gauge, increases, decreases, binding off, cables, lace, pattern writing...), got my four reference books out (Montse Stanley's "Knitter's Handbook", "Big Book of Knitting Stitch Patterns", "Knitting for Dummies" and Maggie Righetti's "Knitting in Plain English".


Now, "Knitting for Dummies" isn't in anyone's bibliography, but it really should be. For the very, very basic stuff, (cast on, increases, decreases) it has explanations that make sense and don't assume that you know anything - which means you may actually learn something, rather than making assumptions yourself. While I won't cite it as a sole source, I'm going to cite it so it's on radar. And recommend it for folks building up their knitting library - even if, like me, they've been knitting for double-digit numbers of years.

One of the coolest things to organize was my Basics, Basics, Basics binder. In addition to all the revised materials that Arenda just did (which are just wonderful, btw - if you've been thinking of taking the course, these materials are even better and clearer than the ones I had, and they were pretty darned good!), I've got all her responses to my answers and swatches right there, and, knowing what's involved in passing Masters I, I have a better idea of what she was telling me, and how to apply it to my knitting.





Then, research on the questions. While there are a lot of questions (like the gauge one!) that require properly knit and blocked swatches to supply the answers, there are a lot that are answerable with even a not-so-wonderfully knit, un-blocked swatch. I've been going through my resources subject by subject, and getting as much written on my answers as I can. I figure I'm about 1/3 through the actual questions. Likewise, I've got the bare-bones outline of my blocking report ready to go, and I'm tracking down my sources for that.

Actual knitting... well, here are some swatch photos, and what's wrong with each of them that I'd like to fix. And yes, I understand this is hand knitting, and they're not going to be perfect. I'd like to hand them in with the minimum number of flaws that my style of knitting allows, however.


ribbing is uneven

really visible increases

increases on the right aren't really visible - but the ones on the left are

seed stitch - may actually be OK!
Chose my "choose your own cable" - decided to do a set of mated cables, to make sure I could get both types of crossover to work up to the standard I'd like to have.


Then... there is The Hat. The Hat scares me. Getting gauge is really, really important, and it's gauge after blocking that counts. And it's in the round... flat swatches and round swatches can be quite different in size. While I'm not too worried about the increases across the top of the ribbing section, picking the right decrease will be crucial. And can't affect the gauge. Plus, there's that whole "jogless stripes" thing - luckily, TechKnitter just had an article about that very thing in Interweave Knits! And I'll be finishing the hat with a pretty, fluffy pom-pom. I'm quite good (I hope) at pretty, fluffy pom-poms, and I like them better than the i-cord loopy-bow. I'm trying to decide whether to go two colors or three colors... there's strong temptation to make a white-and-red Where's Waldo sort of hat, since I could see wearing it (I'll be doing the medium-sized adult hat for myself), or go patriotic with red, white and blue. I'm certainly going to stay away from my usual eye-bleed-inducing color choices, since that's just not nice to the reviewers.

So, this week, I'm going to try to finish up the answers to the rest of my questions that I can answer without having swatches finished, and get all my references in approved Blue Book format. No, Blue Book format is not required, but after Law Review and years at a reference desk, I'd just feel silly if I didn't use it. I'm also going to try to get at least six swatches that I'm willing to turn in (that actually show what I feel actually is my "best work"), choose the other color (s) for my hat and get going on that, and start writing up my cable pattern.

Or not... it *is* a three day weekend coming up, so I might just kick back and goof off!!