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January 14, 2015

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Completing a House – Sardaukar Cowl

Happy New Year! I hope it is treating you and yours well. Mine started out with a nasty bout of the flu – I have decided to consider it good that I got that out of the way early.

Onward and upward!

For the new year I have decided to revisit an old idea. The impetus behind my designing was pieces inspired by Frank Herbert’s Dune. I began with House Atreides and it yielded 5 crescent shaped shawls Atreides, Mapes, Alia, Lady Jessica, and Caladan. From there I moved to House Corrino with Golden Lion Throne and Irulan.

But Corrino has never felt … finished … to me. It always seemed that there was one more lurking in there, but it was elusive. That was until I went to TNNA and met Mira from Baah! Yarns. I was wearing Golden Lion Throne and she really liked the mosaic motif. But she wanted a cowl. A tall cowl. A cowl that would keep her ears warm. And she had beautiful, beautiful yarn for me to work with. Shasta is a 100% merino super-wash in worsted weight. It is wonderful to knit with and the colors are fabulous.

Yarn in hand, it was time to address the most infamous arm of House Corrino. While this cowl was going to be beautiful, it also needed to be functional. Its ability to do its job could not be sacrificed just to look pretty. And so I ended up tinkering with, manipulating, and expanding the motifs of Golden Lion Throne to create Sardaukar.

Sardaukar: Two color mosaic lace cowl by Barbara Benson

Sardaukar the cowl

I had always known that Sardaukar was going to be a cowl. The costuming from the SciFi mini-series had the troopers in these giant, bulky, black cowls and when you think of it a cowl is a logical and functional accessory. It is protective and elegant, just like the Sardaukar. But I didn’t want to be too literal with the cowl and I had to wait for the inspiration to hit. And I am glad I waited

Flat size is 11 x 19 1/2

The mosaic pattern has been expanded a great deal from what is in GLT, and the lace has been pared down to its bare essentials. Working the mosaic in the round is much easier than working it flat and the same goes for the lace. You don’t have to think about where the yarn is positioned when you slip stitches – it is always on the inside of the cowl. And the only purling that occurs is in the edge ribbing and when you need to purl a YO that is framing a slipped stitch.

As you can see, your neck will be warm.

Now, I did something with this pattern I don’t normally do. The instructions are only available charted. That is because the pattern is one giant chart (I split it up so that it is on several pages). Due to the nature of the mosaic, there are no repeated rows. That makes this much more of a color-work project than lace. But even with that it is no where near as challenging as GLT. If you have been considering GLT but have been intimidated, this might help you get your feet wet.

A bit of detail.

Now that House Corrino is done, the next logical place to go is Harkonnen. And I am going to go there, when I find the inspiration. I have to admit I am stumped a bit for ideas because they are just so … so … evil. There is a part of me that wants to do something named Feyd and riff on his … umm … bathing costume from the movie. But I just don’t know. I am open to suggestions and would love to hear them (and your thoughts on this new piece) in the comments.

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Barbara

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May 22, 2014

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How I learned to stop worrying and love the chart

Well, not precisely but I like amusing myself with silly titles (as y’all well know).

Once I figured out charts I totally fell in love with them. They are such a concise method of conveying a huge amount of information in a small amount of space. Take Golden Lion Throne. To communicate the information needed to knit the pattern you can either use 2 pages of charts or 5 pages of written text. For me that is pretty much a non-decision.

But I know that some people aren’t fans of charts so I try to include written instructions whenever possible. And I know some people will never be fans of charts – and that’s OK. But if you want to be able to knit from charts then one of the prizes in the Lace-a-long might be for you!

This book could be yours!

How can you go wrong with a book named Charts Made Simple? I was lucky enough to win this book as a door prize at Small Knits Symposium and I was cackling with delight. But when I got home and was sorting my swag like Smaug I realized that while I wanted this book that there might be others out there that needed the book more than I. And really, what better prize for a Lace-a-long? So now it is a prize (it is even signed).

How cool!

There are many reviews of this book out there, so I don’t think I need to throw mine on the pile right now. You can check here, or here, or here or even here and scroll down for the Amazon reviews. There is pretty much a general consensus that JC Briar has written a great book to help the knitter better grasp the concepts of how charts work.

So, even if you cannot currently knit from charts, you can pick out one of my lace pieces and knit from the written directions (except Atreides), win this book and then confidently knit everything else from charts! This is the second post about prizes for the -a long and there will be a couple more so I hope you are enjoying them. Even if you don’t want to knit a long it is fun to look at cool knitting related stuff, eh?

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Barbara

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March 10, 2011

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Chart Crazy

Back in September I decided to get crazy with the cheez-whiz and learn how to knit solely from a chart. What is a chart you might ask if you were a question asking kind of person? Most patterns I have seen, up to this point, are written patterns. They are a set of instructions written in Knitting Kode that tell you what to do – k1, p2, yo … the ever popular p2togtbl … and such things. Like a recipe, you follow the directions for “ingredient” and quantity and eventually you get a finished object.

A chart is a method of visually conveying that same information, kind of like a map. You have a legend that tells you what symbol represents which stitches and then those symbols are arranged on a grid that you follow in a specific manner. Most commonly you follow the chart in the same way that you knit; starting in the bottom right hand corner and reading right to left. When you hit the next row you do not return to the right hand side but instead read the return row from left to right. Exactly how you knit.

The deciding factor for me learning this technique is that I fell in love with a pattern The Bromeliad Shawl by Nicole Eitzinger (sorry, Ravelry link). And so the first chart I decided to use:

Did I mention crazy?

I might have been smoking something when I made this decision, who knows?

On the plus side, the yarn that I decided to use for this? I only had one skein. So I had to modify the pattern a bit from a shawl to a scarf. In the above chart I kept the edging (the two columns on the outside edges) dropped the next two columns (coming in from both sides) and kept the 3 center columns. Then I knit and knit and knit and knit and knit ….

until I ran out of yarn. Which I did last week and now it is all blocked and finished!

A multicolor red scarf knitted in a lace pattern

The finished Scarf

The yarn is Socks that Rock in colorway Firebird and I was a little worried that it would be too busy for the pattern. But I think that the movement of the stitches really accentuates the color and vice versus.

The whole schebang

It was a bit of a pain in the ass, but I think it was worth the results. And now, now I am confident in my ability to use a chart to produce a finished product. If there is anyone out there that has been timid about using charts I tell you go for it. It really is a better way to navigate lace than a written pattern.

Anyone out there have a pattern that they have been eyeballing but afraid of because of a chart? Share it with us and I am sure we (the internet) can help you thorough the ordeal.