Designing Sleeves

With great joy I opened the large envelope in my mailbox. My book arrived!
I turned right to the part about designing sleeves and learned the type of sleeve I want to make is the most complicated. Nice.

The information I had to go on were measurements in the given pattern (from which I deviated) for the length of the sleeve and the adult-size pattern of a sleeve I'd used on a garment for myself.

I read about how the sleeve opening should compare to the measurements around the sleeve cap and how tall the sleeve cap should be.

Then I started writing down a pattern, looking at the instructions for the adult sleeve and keeping my gauge in mind. That part was largely guess work.

I made a practice sleeve and measured all its aspects against the book's recommendations. Changes were needed. I did not have enough fabric in the sleeve cap compared to the arm hole opening. So I re-wound the yarn into a ball and started again from mid-sleeve this time. I had confirmed the proportions at the cuff end of the sleeve were correct.

On the second try I was pleased with my modifications.

Next I looked here for some knitters graph paper. Once I had printed the paper I had to plot a schematic of the sleeves. To keep with the crazy intarsia puzzle pieces on the body of the sweater two drawings would be needed. These sleeves were not going to look alike. The artist had chosen the colors for the sleeves herself. I did decide to change the right and left from her wishes though. It took me several tries (five or six) to make a nice ribbing with the two colors. I put them on her left in hopes to protect them from extra wear her right sleeve may get.

Finally, I have something to show for my efforts. In the future I'll need to make a schematic as a mirror image of the desired final product. It looks like these are turning out backwards. With this design, luckily, it does not matter at all. In this part of the project I'm employing lifelines for the first time. Those are the grey worsted weight yarns running through the stitches. I put in the first one at row 15 after completing the ribbing for what seemed like the hundredth time, and it looked great! At row 30 I added another lifeline because I had two fibers on hand to use. At row 45 I'll pull out the first lifeline and use it again at that point. Now that I've gotten the schematics done I'm confident I can complete the knitting quickly.

Katrina Update

Note-- the photos have credit in parentheses below image.

I got a call from my cousin in Greater New Orleans a few days ago. He was on the way to his house because he had finally gotten doors hung. He was headed over to coat them with primer and prepare for painting.

He asked me if all the news up here (Ohio) was still about Katrina. I told him no, we did hear about the one year anniversary coming up, but Katrina coverage was not a daily feature in the news.

With incredulity in his voice he told me that still, down there, it was a daily news feature. The talk radio is all about the trash that needs to be removed:

(my photo)
(New Orleans 7 months after Katrina, NOLA.com, Michelle Strickland / Knoxville, TN)

Other talk topics are financial assistance and getting building, repair & handyman services, and the countless junked cars stashed under the city's elevated freeway system: (Ruined Automobiles. This picture was taken in New Orleans East just off of I-10, NOLA.com, Rusty Costanza / Times Picayune)

The church groups are still all about Katrina relief:

(NOLA.com, Greg Livaudais / Metairie, LA)

He guessed about 10% of the homes damaged in the storm were fully recovered at this point. Most all the damaged homes were gutted now, one year later. And lots of homes are somewhere in the repair process. He spoke of flood insurance vs. wind damage insurance and storm insurance woes. He spoke of keeping spreadsheets, estimating costs and federal funds for repairs.

Finally, with joy, he gave the good news: he could now revise his estimate of when he would be able to move his family out of their trailer and back into their house. They might be home for Thanksgiving. Life in the metro area was still very different from pre-Katrina life when I was there in May. Restaurants and stores completely closed or open for a few short hours in the day. Furniture stores were stuffed to the gills and had more goods for sale under guard in their parking lots.

The city held a scaled down Mardi Gras in February:

(Mardi Gras day., NOLA.com, Greg Livaudais / Metairie)

And celebrations still include walking bands in the French Quarter. (A second-line parade, Sarah Griffin Thibodeaux / NOLA.com)

In my neck of the woods -- yesterday I got a lot of weeds and hopeless veggies turned into the soil in my garden. I was able to dig out and throw away a dead rose I had unsuccessfully planted in the spring. And I found this fuchsia bloom on the other rose I bought in the spring. It looks like this one will make it. The roses the previous owner planted are all pale pinks and corals. This one really stands out.

Tournament

Yesterday the Artist participated in a Tae Kwon Do tournament. She competed in two events, poomse (forms) and board breaking. She performed her form the best the Quipper and I had seen from her yet. Drat! I never took my camera from its case during the forms competition! In this competition she merited a third place medal. Board breaking was something new for her. She had an idea of what she was supposed to do. She had practiced without boards many times. She had practiced with wood boards once. At the tournament rebreakable boards were used. I like this because they don't splinter. But even better, they require more force to break than the wood student boards. Best of all, they require an accurate aim and a precise strike in order to break.

Board Breaking competitors await competition instructions. Each competitor is responsible for positioning their board holders and informing them how to hold the board (angle & height level) for the break to be executed. The artist gives a fearsome "KIAPP" during her axe kick, but her foot glances off the board. Her hammer fist strike, however is a resounding success. The man kneeling on the right is holding a board destined to receive a spin-round kick. What the Artist imagined might be something "really cool" to do to demonstrate her skills yielded a less than stellar success rate of completed breaks and some scraped up feet. (No worries, not too much damage on the feet). By Divine providence she took a third place medal from this competition. The other two contestants got the first and second!!!

Here she is with her good friend and first place finisher in the two events, happy that her work is done.

On to the Next Phase

Last night I finished the knitting on the front panel of the intarsia sweater I'm making for my daughter. Here the front is on the left of the photo. There are some 20 trails of yarn hanging out on the reverse side of the front waiting to be woven in. That will keep be busy while I'm waiting for my book on designing knit garments to arrive. I'm expecting it on Monday. Isn't that what they call just-in-time information? If (that is a big IF) I get the ends woven in before my book arrives I begin making a demo sleeve to see if my ideas will pan out all right. The demo will be all one color for ease of knitting!

Ready! Set! Preschool!

The Engineer has a new love -- working with scissors. He knows he has to do some pages in his workbook before we can start an art project. And he is the type to make haste and get the less tasteful job done so he can enjoy his favorites.

Here he is getting the work out of the way.
The first day I taught him how to hold his scissors. I held my hands over his hands while he awkwardly opened and closed his hand. Endless times I reminded him to hold his paper with his left hand, and helped him place it in the appropriate spots.

I drew lines on construction paper for him to practice and he was off and running.

The next morning I found my knitting scissor and my plastic tape measure on the den floor. The tape measure was a snake beckoning my son into temptation. And the little knitting scissor was the same size as his own craft scissor.
Oh! How could I have forgotten?! I had the discussion myriad times with the Artist when she was this age: "We Only Cut The Paper." I'd neglected this admonition completely. And my tape measure was snipped in two places to witness my neglect. Worst of all, I could not really be too mad, because I didn't explain to my son "We Only Cut The Paper."

So the lesson of what to cut and what not to cut was dealt with the next day. No more mishaps to date, some 20 crafts later. Now he is reading most of the directions and cutting out his crafts by himself, with occasional reminders of how to hold the paper for best results.

Here he is cutting out finger puppets for a finger play The Three Little Pigs. I got a new tape measure for $0.99. It could have been much worse.

Some Music

Your Taste in Music:

80's Alternative: High Influence Classic Rock: High Influence Progressive Rock: High Influence 80's Pop: Medium Influence 80's Rock: Medium Influence

How's Your Taste in Music?

I thought I'd jump on the music bandwagon: The Quipper is asking for musical suggestions and Scottius Maximus provided me a link to a fun little quiz. (Why do we like doing these so much, perhaps it has to do with categorizing and profiling? See the Quipper to learn more.)

Hey, how come my favorites were not on the quiz?

Moody Blues
Frank Sinatra
The Kinks
Dean Martin
Cole Porter
Bing Crosby
Perry Como
Nat King Cole
Roy Orbison
Glenn Miller Orchestra

Your Captions Please!

Please post your captions -- I'll get you started with one of my own.

We always thought this feline was kind of a hot-head.

Inauspicious Beginning

This morning I awoke to a strange noise from the monitor in my son's room. Daddy was in there talking to the poor little Engineer and cleaning up a mess. I stumbled downstairs to see if I can help so the Quipper can go about the business of getting ready for work.
It seems the little guy had an upset tummy. No fever, through. And nothing in his tummy either, as he earned himself a bedtime at about 3 p.m. with no supper for his misbehaviors earlier in the day.

Perhaps he is still too little for the immediate-bed-without-supper consequence.

Now, two hours later, he appears to be keeping food down and instead of lying on the couch he is reading his books to himself. Hopefully he is headed for full recovery! I'm glad this happened now rather than Sept. 5th. It would not bode well to deal with this on the first day of school.

I did get a little more organizing done in the school room last night. There is still a bit more to do, but not an overwhelming amount. I have more things I'd like to put on shelves than shelf space will accommodate. Some of the preschool items are larger and when the little one is through with them they can be replaced with more advanced activities.

Over the weekend I started the front panel of the sweater I'm knitting. Last night I did get to pick up my knitting again, but I did not knit one stitch. I spent two hours weaving in some ends and watching some TV. Well, I got about half the ends woven in. I was unmotivated, I suppose. Things were getting too chaotic on the wrong side of the fabric and I needed to get it cleared up so I could continue more easily.

Since the last photos I have completed the back panel of the sweater. The shoulders are on holders so I can knit the shoulder seams together as I saw on a video recently. If I'm not happy with that outcome, plan B can be to bind off the stitches and sew the seams. The pattern calls for binding off the neck stitches too, but I prefer to pick them up with I knit the collar. I hope I'm not creating a problem for myself here. I plan to keep the number of stitches in the collar that the pattern calls for.

I'm so much happier with the front panel that I considered ripping out the back and re-working it. I think I'm kidding myself here though. I'll have to determine that when I have the sleeves done and I can better imagine how it will look as a completed garment.

Lene recommendedDesigning Knitwear by Deborah Newton (sorry, I cannot get the link to work) to me in a recent comment. I found the book at the library and began browsing through it. To meet my immediate project needs I found a section on designing sleeves. But there is so much more, and too much to take in all at once. The search was on, and I found a knitter on eBay who was downsizing her knitting library. Soon my own copy will arrive in my mailbox. Thank you for the recommendation!

The Garden, Alas

For many reasons, this year my garden is more a failure than a success.
Thank you, Martha, of Your Daily Art for introducing me to Tom Thomson! I love the way his work reminds me of Cezanne's. This is Burnt Country by Tom Thomson. When I saw it I was immediately reminded of my garden this year, hence this post.

The green beans I have always had excellent results with were nibbled to an early death by deer and chipmunks. I ended up harvesting about one seventh my usual yield.

I planted lettuce for the first time, two long rows and two short rows. The short rows were in a part of the garden I had cultivated last year. The long rows were in an area where I had removed some hosta to expand the produce area. The long rows failed miserably. I think I harvested fewer than ten leaves from those rows.

The peppers were deer fodder, the tomatoes suffered draught and neglect and were less fruitful than I'd hoped, but the ones we have eaten are quite good. The kohlrabi seems to have been a favorite of the small vermin. I can't even tell where it was.

This year I planted more snap peas than ever before, and thankfully we have been enjoying them more than ever before. We've had lots of yummy stir fry meals. So much that I've had to restock ginger in my spice cabinet.

Notes for next year:
Add some peat to the area where the lettuce failed.
Buy a net to make the deer work harder for their snacks.
Start green beans indoors so I can plant seedlings rather than seed outdoors.

Yesterday in Finland there was a hint of Fall in the air. I could not detect it here yet, but there are other measures more sensitive than my observations. My daughter found a cicada shell clinging to a sedum. Come to think of it, I have been hearing them sing in the twilight for about a week now. I'm so glad I've only ever met his shell.!

Whatever Happened To....

I have not looked at my baseball sock in a long time. I've been so pleasantly busy with other knitting projects. But the multicolored sweater I'm working on now is not too portable with having six large and unruly butterflies dangling and tangling from the wrong side.

So yesterday, knowing I'd be away at the Artist's drawing lesson for hours, I dug the spiral striped sock from my cupboard to finally give it a proper send off. This is the sock I fancied I'd work on while I listened to my Cleveland Indians baseball games. It seems I cannot keep track of k3, p3 while watching TV, but while a baseball game is playing I didn't lose my place in the counting. Well, the team and the sock both seemed doomed this year. Now the yarn is all rewound into a ball and waiting to become a proper pair of socks. Maybe for Christmas?

The art class is small enough to have moved out doors yesterday. This is the first time my Artist has an art teacher who can help her learn about drawing, perspective, proportion, vanishing points, horizons, etc. She is taking it all in. While the Artist is drawing, the Engineer is working on his reading, writing and coloring. He still thinks "school activities" are fun. After we returned home and accomplished the days chores I settled into some more knitting on the intarsia sweater. This is the back panel of the sweater to date.

Off to a Good Start

Knitting on the intarsia sweater is coming along. I decided I do not yet have enough experience in designing to create my own design. Perhaps because the process calls for creating a graphed stitch chart to follow when knitting. I have not yet learned to follow one of these charts. First things first. Also, if I am going to experiment I think I should do it with a doll outfit or one for myself. Not a garment my daughter looks forward to wearing that ends up not turning out so well or being rewound into balls. You can see my thick, black progress line rising like a thermometer along the right margin.

So I found a pattern that my Artist likes. I had bought more colors than the pattern calls for so I deviate from the color scheme a little in the body and a lot in the sleeves. I also prefer the set in sleeves, so I have made some modifications to the pattern for the body.

When I get to the sleeves I'll have to look up the pattern for my crimson cable sweater's sleeves (photos June 21 & 28, 2006 of archives). They are very comfortable and shapely on the arms. I'm excited to try out some of those nifty pattern converters on the web to get the proportions right. I'll probably need to knit up a sleeve in a solid color to make sure it is the right size before I work the intarsia sleeves. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.For now, I'm a mere 1.5 inches plus 21 rows of pattern into the back panel of the sweater. It is fun to work with this very bright yarn! I could never wear these colors, but the Artist can. I am pleased with the vertical effect of the light and lie of yarn (click on Our Yarns in left column, then on Microspun) in the stockinette stitch rows.

DSL Blues

Our internet service had been most unreliable lately. If you are reading this three weeks past the posting date, it would not surprise me.

Yesterday was a fun day for the kids. We had guests, children of Barb the Evil Genius, over for a visit. A great time was had by all!

Swatching

The end of summer vacation is near. So my time to stay up late into the night and knit is also coming to an end for a while. I'd love to get one more sweater done before school kicks into high gear. Here are the swatches -- I'm trying to find the right needle size to give me 19 sts and 26 rows to the inch with this yarn. It looks like I'll be using US 8 for the main body of the sweater and 6 for the ribbing.

He Likes It!!!

I'm so glad! My son loves the sweater. As it happens, the Quipper likes it too, he wants a match for a Father/Son set. We'll see about that. Although, if I make it over this winter, the set would be available next winter when the little Engineer will likely grow into his sweater. Hmmm...

The next order of business is the Artist's intarsia project.

Speaking of the Artist, she finished a project too. Her doll, Honey, wanted a new apron. My girl made it all by herself. Great job, Sweetie!

Loose Ends

And lots of them! Two for each white rectangle plus the occasional green ones. I am very pleased with the way this sweater is coming along. I spent Tuesday just weaving in loose ends. Today I picked up stitches, sewed the shoulder seams, added the collar and got one side seam completed.

I stopped to get some snapshots of the side seam on the body of the sweater here because this is the smoothest job yet I have done with the mattress stitch. The first one is approaching the under arm seam: And this one is about two inches after it, heading down the arm towards the cuff. I guess this means tomorrow I finish this project. Now I need to get serious about the design for the Artist's multi-colored intarsia sweater.

Sunday's Sightseeing

Here is how the Engineer spent his time while the Quipper and the Artist were watching a movie and I was knitting. Thank you, Hampton Inn, for providing the lap desk in the room.
After a fun-filled day on Saturday, we had an even more, more relaxing time on Sunday. Again, the events of the day concluding with the long evening swim helped the kids sleep in. After breakfasting we went to something called the Incredible Community Playground. It was as advertised to be sure! We were the only ones there and we had a blast. One lazy cloud dropped sprinkles on us for five minutes and kept everyone else away for an hour or so. The structures to climb on were creative and the towers, crawlways and walkways went on and on.And in the sandbox, dad teaches son to operate the back hoes... ...Lesson learned! After lunch we went to our last stop, an old house called Marietta Castle. It was an interesting tour (one of four in my family agree. I guess I'll enjoy stuff like this by myself more in the future). It would have been better if the docent had cut some information from our tour however. Our family was the entire group, so we asked our guide if we could have an abbreviated tour to accommodate a four-year-old. An hour and ten minutes later we were done. Well done. The advertised tour length is 50 minutes! Grrrrr. The house is a mix of renovations (the greater portion) and restorations. The Quipper and I gave each other a look when the tour began in the coach house with the docent pointing out the knob and tubing lighting. Yep, just like the lighting in our attic.