Everybody wants a rock...

Doing the sidebar shuffle

I've been wanting to rearrange for awhile, so expect to see things shuffling around. I'd like to get down to one sidebar, so that I can increase the picture size. Dialups, beware!

One thing, the "get set" doesn't really reflect what is coming next - too many potential projects. It will now be reserved for things that move into the swatching stage, or that are actively being designed. Patterns that I am simply following, that are not swatched, will move directly to "go."

So instead, I present all of the projects that I have the [majority of] materials to do:
Small (two weeks or less)
Kitty Pi bed #n
Fingerless mittens #3
Lace scarf
Shawl bag (need another skein of Daria, #9 DPNs)
Bernoulli bag
DPN case (need frog closure)

Medium (two-four weeks)
Curtains
Baby wall hanging

Large (more than four weeks)
Shadow shawl #2
Shadow shawl #3
Tectonics shawl

Eureka!

I have had a fractal pattern that has been stewing for awhile (so old it is not in the notebook that my SP gifted me, but rather on random scraps of paper). I have had a real block with translating it into knitting, since the principle of fractals means increasing amounts of negative space; so fair isle would work on the small scale, but on the larger scale it would mean intarsia. Or else making smaller blocks and joining together. Ugh to both, since it seems very inelegant. I just realized, while answering a question on what to do with two colors other than intarsia or fair isle, that the solution is double-knitting! *slaps forehead* Though for larger projects, joining blocks might be the way to go.

The other issue is distortion; I was thinking of a felting project, since the typical felting shrinkage results in stitch height becoming about equal to width, instead of stretched 2:3 for stockinette. Perhaps done in garter? That would be awfully stretchy for a large project. Must think more on this issue. The distortion does not matter to the fractal, it would still be self-similar, but it might not be pleasing to the eye.

The Fractal patterns I was thinking of knitting were based on the Cantor set, where in each iteration, the middle third of the line is removed and becomes negative space. This could make a really striking cuff or neckband. Or a sideways knit scarf. I was thinking of using the Sierpinski triangle on the side of a felted bag (I'm now working on a cellular automata pattern, though). The Sierpinski carpet would make a stunning afghan. Or, the triangle could be tiled into a hexagon, which would also be gorgeous.

In the queue

Knittingwise, I'm reaping the rewards of knitting side-to-side, and gaining increasing momentum for finishing the shadow shawl; I should be finished with it this weekend. Probably with the thumbs on the fingerless mittens, too (provided I resist the temptation of casting on the next set, which would tie up the needles).

Prepwise, I've narrowed down the curtain pattern to the following stitch patterns:
Barbara Walker's 1st Treasury
p. 190 Zigzag Lace Trellis
p. 193 Arrowhead Lace
p. 196 Star Ridge Mesh
p. 203 Diagonal Madeira Lace
p. 221 Trellis Grapevine
p. 229 Madeira Diamond Stitch (except it has p3tbl - oof!)

Barbara Walker's 2nd Treasury
p. 261 Sunray Pattern
p. 267 Mermaid's Mesh
p. 283 Milanese Lace

I am planning to swatch about four of these. From these stitch patterns one can gather that I like strong geometric shapes, even in lace.

This game called life

Or John Conway's Life, in any case. Introduced in 1970 in an article in Scientific American, this was the first example of cellular automata. Counters placed on a two-dimensional grid live, die, and reproduce based on certain rules (in this case, live if surrounded by two or three counters, and reproduce into empty squares surrounded by three counters) - the entire board changes with each timestep. Of course knitting is not going to blink around in this fashion! - but the stitches already knitted can be used to formulate rules for the next stitch. The easiest way to think of it is the row beneath (1-dimensional) generates the row above in the next "timestep." Though technically, you can also include the stitch just knitted in your rules (the coming stitch determined by the three stitches below, or the three stitches below plus the one just knitted).

I was thinking about developing a fractal pattern (more thoughts on that later, Sahara! - I will get to that eventually) - but wasn't enthused about combining fair isle with intarsia, which would be necessary for the pattern I was going to use. Enter Debbie New's Unexpected Knitting, with her cellular automata knitting. Voila! What could be geekier?

Okay, maybe it is all about me

The swatch that ate Manhattan
Originally uploaded by thomasina.

Presenting the giant swatch - what a way to overcome the fear of "wasting" yarn and running out. It's only a $6.60 skein of Cascade, if I need to use the whole dang thing to figure out the design, then so be it. I can get more.

I'm trying for a felted bag pattern, that can be used as a knitting bag for a 1-2 skein project. It needs to accomodate DPNs, a couple skeins, patterns, notions, etc. Of course, it also has to be geeky! The design I'm trying, including "how to knit a circle" -

The internet ate my brain, part II...

Way, way, way back I posted about the desire to design an inexpensive swift. It was a nice little engineering challenge, come up with a design that was cheap and easy to make. Yet again, all my fun was taken away. A few days after that post, I discovered that my knitting geologist colleague from GeoKnitting had already found an elegant solution: behold the $10 swift...
Overview
Base
Side view of lazy susan part
Back. Note elaborate assembly methods
Front. Lots of wood glue for stability
Arms. Note sophisticated yarn-holding mechanism (binder clip)

Too many geeky knitters around. Bah. Need to thin the herd, or else stop using the internet!

Design plans for baby wall hanging

Closeup, planning for baby wall hanging
Originally uploaded by thomasina.

Current incarnation for wall hanging:
All cabling and dragon skin stitch done in Twisted Sisters Iris Voodoo, with the background reverse stockinette in Araucania Nature Wool. Fafnir knotwork dragons (elongated with cable repeat) reflected around baby's name in runes. Dragon skin stitch as either a complete frame or two bars along the vertical edge, like a scroll. For the latter case, there needs to be finishing on horizontal edges -- plain o' garter, whip stitch, icord... is it time to get one of the edging books? Hmmm.

Final dimensions should be on the order of 220 x 65 stitches. Gauge for the Nature Wool: 6 sts / in, 4.5 rows / in. This ends up being about 1 x 3 ft... that is really insane. It will be knitted on the smallest sized needles on the wrapper (US #5), and I knit a bit tight, but even at 75% of the size above, that might be too big.

A tale (tail?) of two dragon skins

Week six shed
Originally uploaded by thomasina.

Mr. Underhill over the weekend. His current cricket size is looking a bit small, so I bought 10 of the next cricket size up to try (about 3/8 to 1/2 inch). About a half hour later, he started running back and forth on his perch, opened his mouth really wide like he was yawning (or trying to throw up), rubbing his face on the branch... fortunately the cause was not imminent death through impaction -- facial shed! Here he is sulking and not showing off for the camera like usual. He now has a faint orange underneath his ears, which is presumably adult coloration and not mold.

Also, I present the second, very different dragon skin:

Two and a bit reps knitted, and it will probably need 10 in all. The stitch pattern is found in the Barbara Walker Second Treasury (p. 136), though I am using the pattern as reproduced in Knitter's Stash. I first saw the pattern on NoNoKitty. This trial run for the wall hanging has brought some issues to light: incorporate the wave at the edge, or try to block it out? Half a pattern on the sides (a bit small) or a full pattern (very large, 26 stitches)? Or an entirely new idea: just do the dragon stitch on the sides, (for a horizontal scroll look) instead of a full frame. Going with the scroll look:
dragon stitch / Fafnir knotwork dragon / baby's name / Fafnir knotwork dragon / dragon stitch.
But then what finishing for the "bare" edges?

Closeup of the dragon stitch follows...

And yet more yarn!

Twisted Sisters Voodoo in Iris
Originally uploaded by thomasina.

The Twisted Sisters Iris Voodoo really deserved its own post. Look at the fibery closeup shot... yum! It is so soft and shiney and petable. Almost too purple, if such a thing is possible.

The solution to every problem: more yarn!

Euroflax
Originally uploaded by thomasina.

I have been making a little progress on the shadow shawl, I have added another two stripes to the chevron, so I am almost halfway through the chevrons (for real this time, there are 5 pairs of stripes, not 5 stripes). But it is not earth-shatteringly different, plus I've been feeling under the weather, so not much going on to feed the blog. (Of course if I would actually block things, that would help...)

I did go ahead and buy the very pretty Voodoo Iris yarn, and I have the Araucania soft black yarn, and I have the dragon skin pattern and the knotwork patterns (and I've finally gone ahead and PM'ed ak_swedegirl about the runes). But have I worked on the design? No. I think I am stalled on the dragon skin stitch, since I hate the thought of knitting it up as practice to figure out how to do it... this in spite of the fact that this is what I did with the DNA cable pattern. So the solution? More yarn. I finally went ahead and bought the Euroflax I've been dying to have, so I will do up a pretty purple face cloth in dragon skin stitch for my bathroom in purple. Yay!