One of my favorite recently learned knitting tips comes from Colleen Borodkin who works at The Net Loft, here in Cordova. When she’s guesstimating how much yarn to spool out for a long-tail cast on, she uses her shoulder width as a guide: 20 stitches per shoulder length. So if you needed 100 stitches, you’d pull off 5 shoulder-widths of yarn. It’s a measuring stick that’s always with you! It works for me too, and works best with worsted weight yarn, bulkier yarn needs more inches per stitch, so add a few extra lengths to compensate.

Of course, if you’re casting on for a giant project you may want to use both ends of your ball instead of a tail—take the two ends and tie them together, then make your slip knot or just a loop. Since you’re pulling from both ends, you’ll never run out or have too much. Just cut the outside edge before you start knitting. That becomes your tail.

This morning I met with my new contract crocheter–she’s a new but very talented crocheter and she worked up one project for me already, and we’re starting on another. I’m so excited to have someone in town to work with, it means I can design a lot more. We have had torrential rain and gale force winds the last few days and everyone is sick of it. The rain has let up at least for the moment, so I’m headed outside!

GRANNIES!!!!!!!!!! This is how Julie Holetz and I have felt lately talking about granny squares.  Julie and I are working on a new project: A small book of granny square and granny inspired projects that will have you running for your hooks and your scraps of yarn.

What is it about grannies that are so appealing? Maybe it’s because they’re small, self-contained and take only a few minutes to make each one. They allow you to play with color.

“Grantastic” by ChocolateGirl64 on Flickr CC, some rights reserved.

We’ve been brainstorming and coming up with ideas and trying to limit ourselves because the possibilities are endless. So I’ve been thinking a lot about how granny squares are designed and I thought I’d share a bit of my process here.

First the important bit: Granny Squares are not *really* squares. When you’re making a granny square, you’re working in the round and your artfully placed chain spaces determine the ultimate shape of the thing. (Note in the photo above, that the first two rounds are, indeed, round, but the ultimate motif is square).

You can design your own granny squares! You just need to be consistent. Just like when you’re working a hat in the round, making a granny square involves using a consistent number of increases. In a traditional granny square, like the one in the chart below, there are 20 new stitches per round.

So, if you wanted to play around with the look of the square–you could alter the arrangement of the stitches and chain spaces as long as you kept the number of stitches and the rate of increase consistent.

A first round like this one:

Establishes the corners right away, but one like this:

Would work just as well. Sort of like this one:

The way they get to square is by concentrating the increases in the corners in the final few rounds.

I love how this one by KnittyCent turns the square on its side, then back again.

Julie is working on a great post about planning the arrangement of your squares in a project. Stay tuned to the Skamama blog to see it.

Last week I was thinking it would be fun to make something valentiney, and then while I was working at The Net Loft, I re-discovered the Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride Worsted semi-solid colors. This combined with the fact that I’m currently taking a knitting class in designing nordic mittens led me to try out a stranded hat with the new yarn and Valentine theme. I’m considering it a warm-up for the crocheted fair-isle bear sweater I’m about to start. I was out of practice doing crocheted colorwork, and I had to play around a bit with holding the yarn to get a comfortable technique. I ended up holding both colors in the left hand.

I began the hat at the top, and concentrated the increases instead of spiraling them throughout the crown so that I didn’t have to worry about changing colors and increasing at the same time. I also didn’t want obvious increase lines since the color patterning is what should get the attention.

I used the special tapestry crochet graph paper from Carol Ventura’s More Tapestry Crochet to initially chart the hearts. The slanted graph paper shows what the charts look like in crocheted stitches which don’t stack vertically, especially when worked in the round. I then transferred it to standard graph paper so it’s easier to follow while crocheting.

Then after working the heart chart, I worked even to create the rolled brim. (BTW, the mist on the lake behind me? They call that “frozen fog.” Selma and I think the back yard looks like Narnia under the rule of the White Witch.)

I didn’t write a conventional pattern, but I drew out the chart so if you want to make the hat too, you can.

I used a partial skein of skein of Lamb’s Pride in Creme (M-10) and almost the whole skein of Strawberry Smoothies (M-200). My gauge with a 5mm hook was about 4.3 sts per inch. The hat has about a 23″ circumference.

Starting with 6 sts, I doubled in the sts in the 2nd and 3rd rounds and again in the 5th. In rnd 9, I increased again in every other st, and in rnd 12 in every 3rd st for a total of 96 sts. I increased once more to 99 sts before beginning the hearts.

The chart represents 1/2 of the hat. So, you’ll continue each pattern row as you began to the end of the round. (The rounds are spiraled, but I’d recommend placing a marker at the beginning, so you can keep track.) The x’s mark the white stitches. Clicking on the chart will take you to its flickr page where you can download a hi-res version.

Like I said, I had to fiddle a bit before getting comfortable again changing colors. I made a little (low-quality) video so you could see what I ultimately ended up doing. It also demonstrates how to yarn over with the new color in the stitch before the color change.

Let me know if you have questions. I’d be happy to answer them. We’re taking a trip to Anchorage with the kids for Valentine’s day. It will be my first time on the ferry in Prince William Sound and I’m looking forward to it. We’ll be seeing the new movie Coraline based on the book by Neil Gaiman that Selma got for Christmas and loved, and we’ll be stocking up on chocolate hard-to-find groceries.

Carol Ventura has a great post today about how she designed the Sunburst Bowl that’s in the current issue of Crochet Today (A must-have issue, by the way, that features top designers and great editors working within the strict constraints of using only one family of yarns–Red Heart–doing a fabulous job of creating home and fashion projects.) Carol is an amazing evangalist for tapestry crochet–she shares her immense knowledge with love and generosity and it shows. More and more people are trying out the technique as evidenced by the lively ravelry group on the subject.

Here’s a quick round-up of my Sheep and Wool week which started on Wednesday with a class!

This is Maggie Casey–here she’s spinning fiber right off of a comb. For years, I’ve ignored the lure of the spinning wheel, but somehow the impending move to Alaska made me change my mind. I signed up for Maggie’s two-day beginning spinning class, and I was hooked. Spinning is fun. Really fun. Also, learning to spin has taught me a lot about yarn, which I’m sure will inform my knitting and crochet work. Making yarn is cool–and I actually have no aspirations to make yarn for any knitting or crochet projects–I just like playing with the fiber. I liked it so much that I asked for this for mother’s day:

James, being an avid cyclist, I think was partially convinced to buy it because my new toy contained an actual wheel. (When I first told him I had signed up for a spinning class, he thought I mean the exercising kind!) When I told my dad about the wheel, he said, “Wow, you’ve really gone over the edge.” I have to say I agree, but I went over happily.

I chose the Lendrum wheel after trying Maggie’s. I loved how it spun and she advised me that it was easy to care for and right for the kind of yarn I’d like to make. (On the thinner side, good for crochet).

The first day of the class we learned about carding and about preparing fleeces for spinning, then we learned about “woolen” spinning. Woolen means that while you are spinning, you let the yarn twist between your front hand (which controls the twist) and the back hand which is drafting (drawing the fibers apart. Woolen spinning is bouncy, elastic and soft. Woolen yarn is made with “carded” fiber. It’s Maggie’s favorite kind to spin. It’s good for soft things but because it’s fuzzier, woolen yarn can pill and wear–maybe not a great choice for say, socks or even fancy textured work because the stitches don’t show up as well. I liked spinning woolen too because we got to learn the “long draw” method which is a dramatic way of pulling the fiber back about an arm’s length–it’s a fast way to make lots of yarn, and it’s not as hard on your body as other methods.

The next day, we tried plying yarn. I had tried plying at home with some yarn I spun just to see if I could, in preparation for the class. In the class I found out plying is great for fixing some imperfections in your “singles” (the yarn before it’s plied)–for instance, you can possibly straighten bits of over-twist, something I do a lot as a beginner.

After plying we learned about “worsted” spinning. Worsted yarn is made from combed fiber. Maggie showed us how to use combs, and then she showed us how to comb using our carders. I loved taking a small lock of fiber and coming it, then spinning it–seems like instant gratification–you don’t have to prepare a whole skein’s worth at a time, and you can sort of “design” the yarn as you go by choosing different fibers and colors. Spinning worsted, you don’t let the yarn twist at all between your hands, and you draft the yarn by pulling forward with the front hand (the opposite of what we were doing the day before. This was a little hard for me to do after having spent so much time with the woolen spinning, but I finally got the hang of it. I especially liked spinning “over the fold” where you take a combed lock of wool and fold it over your index finger, spinning it from there. Worsted yarn is much smoother than woolen and therefore is good for cables, socks, things that require durability over softness.

Today I finally washed the yarn I made, and it’s drying in the sun. I’ll get a proper photo once my camera battery has charged.

So, on Saturday at the festival, I spent the morning in the Cloverhill Yarn Booth where I was selling my patterns–what fun! Jolene, the new owner of the Cloverhill Yarn Shop put together a booth of *all* indie yarn dyers and spinners and invited me to sell my patterns. The booth had a great location and drew big crowds. After lunch, James and I bought the wheel, then we all went home–so I didn’t look at the booths at all. Luckily, we came back on Sunday.

Saturday night, we went to the Ravelry Party. I’ll let you read Emily’s round-up of the party. Also, Martha has a great photoset on Flickr. (Pay special attention to the photo of Barbara after she had set her pattern on fire–only my mom thought to dunk the pattern in a drink–the rest of the folks at the table were too busy looking for their cameras so they could take a picture for their blogs!) Emily and I showed up in time to help out handing drink tickets and raffle tickets to the party-goers. My mom was a “bouncer” keeping people out of the main area until it was time to come in. The party was such fun–it was great to meet so many ravelers in person, finally.

On Sunday morning, we were exhausted, but we went on back. The weather was milder, the crowds were thinner–it was lovely. I looked at all the booths, and had a great time buying bits of fiber. I wasn’t in the market for yarn, but couldn’t resist some Savannah (a organic cotton/wool blend from the Fibre Company that was on sale).

Here’s a slide show of all my photos.
Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

OK, well, not literally. A not so new crochet technique has been getting some attention lately, and it’s a little confusing to people for several reasons. It’s what I call the Chainless Foundation. It’s a method of starting a project, or adding stitches within a project without using a foundation ch.

Why would you want to do that?

1) Foundation chains are often tighter than the garment you’re working on. No matter how loosely you make your foundation ch, it’s not going to stretch the same way your crochet stitches do. This is especially problematic if you’re crocheting a side-to side garment where the chain runs vertically.

2) Foundation chains require a lot of counting, sometimes, and if you don’t count right, it can be difficult to remedy without starting over. Also, you have to work out the foundation ch, plus the turning ch, which can be tricky.

3) adding stitches with a regular ch in the middle of a garment can add a tight spot where you don’t want one (see point #1)

4) A foundation ch has a definite look to it–if you’re making a scarf and you want both ends to look the same, you’ll probably want to opt-out of a traditional foundation.

5) Say you need to work into both sides of a foundation–a chainless foundation makes a “back side” that’s much easier to work into.

Convinced? I am, I use a chainless foundation all the time, tho’ not for absolutely anything.

One of the reasons they’re a bit confusing is there’s not much of a naming standard for them… Mary Rhodes calls it the Foundation Stitch, Doris Chan and many others use the term “Base ch/sc” based on the idea that you’re combining the ch with the first row of crochet. (BTW, it doesn’t have to be done with sc, you can use any stitch.

***UPDATE: Interweave has chosen to use fsc “foundation single crochet” and “fdc” foundation double crochet,” these abbreviations are clear and simple, and I’ll adopt them too. Thanks Interweave!***

How do you do it?

If you’ve ever made an extended sc (Amie’s got a great video tutorial on that), or linked stitches, then this should feel pretty familiar.

In general terms, you create an extended stitch, and then use the extra loop you created in that stitch to create the next stitch.

So, start by ch 2, insert hook into 2nd ch from hook, pull up a loop, yo draw up loop, yo, draw through both loops on hk.

To create all subsequent stitches, insert hook into bottom 2 lps of st, pull up a loop, yo, draw up loop, yo draw through both loops on hk.

That’s it! You have a nice, stretchy foundation for whatever project you’re working on.

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I’ve been obsessing lately about crocheting in rounds. I’m teaching a class at Pins and Needles in Princeton, NJ on crocheted bowls and baskets… It’s definitely an exercise in letting go for some of my students. When you crochet in the round your work grows organically, you may need to adjust the increase here and there so your circle stays flat. The idea that a fixed pattern will not work was particularly disturbing for one student. She actually went home and developed a mathematical formula for how her particular piece should increase. I was impressed that she’d spend so much time working it out. Unfortunately, it didn’t work. Since her hands aren’t machines, the piece still needed to be massaged into being nice and flat. I suggested she might want to take up machine knitting.

Here’s the basic formula I use for flat circles:

Ch 4, Join with a slip stitch.

Round 1: 8 sc into the center of your hole. Don’t join the yarn at the ends of rounds; instead just let your circle “spiral” onward.
Round 2: (sc in first stitch, 2 sc in next stitch)* repeat from * to the end of the round. [12 stitches]
Round 3: Same as round 2 [18 stitches]
Round 4: (sc, sc, 2 sc)* repeat from * to the end of the round. [24 stitches]

Continue building the circle, each row increasing less (sc, sc, sc, 2 sc), etc. If your circle starts to look wavy, try smoothing it out on a flat surface. If it won’t stay flat, you’ll have to rip out your work to where it lies flat and add at least 2 more sc between each increase. If the edges are curling up, try increasing a bit more—go back to the last flat round and repeat it for another round before changing your increase.

I like to make small things–I’m an instant gratification kind of gal, but I’ve always been attracted to the idea of making a rug from strips of fabric. If I ever run out of yarn, I may have to try it.