Hooray!

Well, I finished the TTC Subway Scarf.
I do a lot of my knitting on the subway. Partly because I have about 2 hours on transit every day when I don't have much else to do. Also because I find it to be a really good environment for knitting in. There's something really fascinating about creating something in lots of different places - the finished product has been all over the city.
I feel another affinity with the subway, because Beth's dad is a subway driver. He's been working for TTC for 26 years now, and everybody that works there knows who he is. He's a natural storyteller, and his tales of life on the TTC are unparalleled. He even considered writing a book at one point, but I don't know if he'll ever get round to it.
I find it fascinating being in his family. Subway drivers are some of those unsung heroes. When you get on the train, you rarely see the driver. He (or she) is hidden away in the front of the train, and the only real contact you have with any employees of the TTC is when you pay your fare. I love knowing someone on the inside.

The TTC map is sort of iconic for me. It's up there with the London Underground map. Smaller, less extensive, but of a similar design. I love the colours, the style.
When I started this project, I wanted to create something that demonstrated this love of the subway. I think it's very appropriate that it was knitted through many of the stops and tunnels shown on it.

I don't know what I'll do with it. I wanted to staple it over the top of one of the real maps, but I can't face parting with it. Maybe I'll frame it and put it in my office. Any thoughts?

Shopping Trip

Bethany and I ventured out of the house this weekend. This is no mean feat, as Beth is 39 weeks pregnant, and finding walking increasingly difficult. Nevertheless, we decided that we'd been in our little apartment for too long, and Bethany was starting to get cabin fever.
I have been reading the Yarn Harlot's blog recently. The Yarn Harlot (real name Stephanie Pearl-McPhee) is a legend in the knitting world. She has written 6 books, as well as contributing to several magazines, doing lectures on knitting and writing this brilliant blog on a regular basis. Somehow, she still finds time to knit some of the most fantastic things I have ever seen. No wonder she's well known. Best of all, she lives in Toronto, so I can check out all the yarn shops that she likes to frequent.

Beth suggested we visit a couple of these yarn shops, so we took the subway to Queen Street, and hopped on a streeetcar to Bathurst.
First, we stopped at Americo. This place is incredible. It's full of hand-spun yarns, and is very bohemian. There are beautiful hand knits everywhere, but non of them are for sale. They are there to display what you can make if you attend one of their knitting classes. The classes are free, but you have to buy the wool there. Pricey, but well worth it. They also have a knitting group on Tuesday nights, and I think we're going to show up in the not too distant future.

Then we moved on to Romni Wools. I'd heard that a first visit to Romni could be a very emotional experience for a knitter. It's true. Romni is HUGE. This picture doesn't even start to do it justice. This is only one of the walls in the main room, and you can't see the selection of needles, the book room (full of publications, patterns and more wool) or the basement - the home of the spinning wheels. I could have spent days in there, but time was short, so I had a poke around and we decided to come back soon.

If you live in Toronto, or even nearby, I really recommend both of these stores. There are more in the city, and we'll check those out soon too. But it's certainly something to be getting on with.

In other news, I've nearly finished the TTC Subway map scarf. I've been working on it for ages now, and I finished the colours a while ago. But I still have a good way to go in stocking stitch. There's only so much of that I can handle in one go, so I keep putting it down and doing something else for a while. It's good to pick it up when I want to knit something simple.
I'm also trying out some more complicated stitch manipulations. A friend of mine, Dirk, found a really good one - star stitch. I had a go at it, and now I want to knit Bethany a hat using it. I just have to work out my gauge and (more importantly) the decreases that I'll need to use. I'm going to have to knit it back and forth, so I won't be able to make full use of my double-pointed needle skills yet; but to be honest, they were a bit fiddly, so that's no loss.

Right, I actually have a job to do, so I'm going to get back to it. Let me know what you're knitting at the moment by commenting on the post, or emailing:
salvatordarling@gmail.com

PS Sorry to Lillian for stealing her picture of Romni - I'll go get my own soon!

Seamless Knitting

One of my New Year's resolutions was to learn to knit in the round. I had looked at loads of patterns that required this skill, and at first dismissed it as something that was far too complicated. I mean, look at the picture. That's a lot of needles. I was also put off trying earlier by my personal knitting expert, my mum. She's been knitting for years, and has given me loads of good advice. She suggested that, certainly for hats, all she does is knit back and forth on straight needles, and then seaming it up the back. While this is easier than learning a new technique, it has a few downfalls.
Firstly, you obviously get a seam. that's not so much of a problem, but it does look a bit conspicuous, and it makes that side of the piece a bit less flexible.
Secondly, you can't use that method on everything. If you want to knit a pair of socks, for example, or a pair of gloves, then it's no good at all.
Lastly (if you can think of any other reasons not to knit a round project back and forth, please comment on this post), there's never any harm in trying something new when it comes to knitting.

Well, today was the day for me. I got a set of double-pointed needles, and set to work. I followed instructions from books and websites, and got myself into a bit of a twist at first. But perseverance had the victory, and I'm now 5 rows into my little masterpiece.

I've been knitting sleeves for take-out coffee cups for a couple of weeks now. I got the idea from a friend who adapted a swatch she'd made, and then was inspired further by a pattern in the fantastic book Knitting with Balls by Michael del Vecchio.

I'd been making these things like crazy - trying out different patterns and designs; attempting to get the gauge right...
I figured that maybe this was the right project to jump off the deep end into. You know, not too big, something I've had a bit of practice at...

Well. I started on the subway this morning, and it quickly became very confusing. I was accidentally knitting back and forth instead of in the round, even though I was using the double pointed needles. I was confused as to how to move to a new needle. I was in pain from stabbing myself in the hand with all the extra needles.

But a bit of practice later, and I was well on the way to making my first seamless piece. It's not done yet, but I'll let you know how I get on.
As always, if you've got any tips, advice, questions or anything else to say, leave me a comment, or email me at salvatordarling@gmail.com

Fair Isle is Fairly Easy

This is the first hat that I ever made. I got the pattern from an amazing book called Just Hats by Lion Brand Yarn (they have a Just Scarves version too).
As I understand it, there are two ways of knitting with more than one colour to create patterns and pictures. One of them is intarsia, which I haven't gotten to grips with yet. It's one of my New Year's knitting resolutions to conquer this style.
The other is known as Fair Isle, named after the Scottish island that spawned it. The name originally referred to the designs created by the Fair Isle people (something like these), but has come to mean the technique used. Technically, the method is called stranding, and Fair Isle is a form of stranding. But let's not get into semantics here (we can leave that to this excellent article).

The idea is to knit with the different colours, simply stringing the yarn not currently in use across the back of the work. For example, if my main colour is black (as on this hat), and my contrast colour is white, then when I am knitting with the black, I have to string the white yarn across the back. The back looks like this:

There are two things to remember when doing this. The first is to make sure that you string the yarn loosely. If you don't do this, you will end up with a piece of knitting that is pulled together by the yarn on the back, and that will ruin it. The second thing is to catch the yarn in the one being used every 3 stitches. By this, I mean that if you have a large section of white, for example, every 3 stitches you should catch up the black yarn in the white, so that you don't just have a huge string on the back. If this doesn't make sense to you (it took me a while to get hold of the idea) don't worry. Get hold of one of the many fantastic knitting books that are bound to be in your local library, or in your bookstore. Other options are to Google for it (this is what I do) or find a knitting group that meets near you, and get someone to show you.

Anyway, I was rather pleased with the outcome, and am using the same technique (although not technically Fair Isle) to construct my TTC subway map scarf. The only problem with this is that the back of the piece tends to look a little shoddy, so I'm going to have to sew some fleece or something onto the back of that. I'll show you when I'm finished.
My suggestion, then, is to keep Fair Isle for things like hats and sweaters - pieces that only show the right side.

As usual, if you've got any great tips, advice or questions, drop me a line at salvatordarling@gmail.com, or by commenting on this blog.

A Scarf for Jacob

This is the first thing I knit. I had just learned to purl, and so I made full use of my new skill, by creating this scarf in a knit 2 rows, purl 2 rows pattern. It makes a nice horizontal ribbing, and is a bit more interesting than basic garter stitch (knit every row). Also, it doesn't roll up like stocking stitch (knit one row, purl one row), and it creates a bulky fabric that's nice and warm.
I used a cheap multicoloured yarn from Walmart, of which there was more than enough to make the scarf.
To finish the piece, I tied on black tassles. Very manly.

p.s. The image got a bit damaged by the computer, but I'll get a replacement up soon.

A Brief History

"A history of what?" you ask.
Well, we'll start with my personal knitting history. Perhaps soon we'll look at a history of knitting in general, and a history of men knitting. But for now, we'll settle with me.

I've always been rather interested in knitting. When I was very small (too small to remember how old I was), my mum and nana taught me how to knit. I think I had my own little needles and everything. But, inevitably, I grew tired of it when I didn't have a sweater within ten minutes or so.
I made several attempts to get on with the hobby throughout my childhood, but was never any good at it, and never got past the basic knit stitch. I wanted to learn how to purl, but there was no point if I couldn't make a half decent job of knitting something.

About two years ago, my now wife, then girlfriend, knit me a scarf for Christmas.
I was aware of the task that she had undertaken (mainly because she didn't know how to cast off, and I was given the job of finding out) and got her to teach me again.

I knit a scarf for my friends' baby, but it was too scratchy, and he wouldn't wear it. Thus ended that brief excursion into the world of knitting.

Finally (and this is where the past meets the present), I was in my local library in Noevember, and I found some rather cool looking knitting books. I took them out on a whim, and had a look through them at home, thinking that I could make a few Christmas presents for friends and family. I found that there were plenty of things that I wanted to make, but that I would have to finally face my old foe, the purl stitch.
I Googled for it (something that turns out to be a useful tool of the modern knitter), and printed out the instructions. Thus prepared, and with a ball of wool and a pair of needles, I headed to my favourite coffee shop with a friend who also wanted to learn to purl.
We sat for some time getting our yarn in a twist, but finally I shouted with triumph that I had cracked it. From then on, I've not been able to stop. Once I could purl, I knit a ribbed scarf for my friend Jacob. No sooner was it off my needles than I started a scarf for my mum, for which I learned the cable stitch. Next on the list was a hat for my wife, Bethany, and I combined the new technique of decreasing, with Fairisle (a method of knitting with more than one colour to make a pattern). Having finished that, Jacob got a hat to match his scarf, this time with earflaps. Then I knitted Bethany a multi-cabled hat. In the meantime, I'd bought myself a new pair of needles, and I had another scarf on the go; this one a more adventurous combination of Fairisle, stocking stitch and garter stitch edging, with a pattern I had created myself.

So that brings us to where we are now. In the past 7 weeks, I have learned to purl, knit several things, and started a knitting club. I can't stop. It's too much fun.

So, the purpose of this blog is multi-faceted: to keep people up to date with the activities of my knitting group; to show off new projects; to share advice and techniques; to ask for help; to share patterns; to learn more about knitting and the history of knitting.

If you have any advice for me, or would like more information about Knit it Up, then drop me an email at salvatordarling@gmail.com, or comment on this blog.