Brady Scarf from Ruhama's

Dynamic Favorite...

Next time I get the ridiculous notion that I can finish a six foot scarf in three weeks on #3 needles, remind me what my life is like.  Remind me how many times my plans have been hijacked by low-level chaos and how nothing ever goes as planned for the Pleiter family.  Wisdom teeth, camp physicals, short notice house guests, and fun phrases like “I think we need an xray” and “How could your tear your meniscus without knowing it?” have been too much a part of my life this week.

This week, I’ve been feeling fortunate if I even get half my paid writing word count in...I do have a novel due in September, after all.  Four different sets of plans spun on a dime to entirely new scenarios, and making fiction has felt like pulling teeth (something I am far too familiar with this week).

In all this hysteria, however, I was reminded how much knitting soothes me.  Many times when my workload made me want to run for the hills, when I couldn’t seem to think in straight lines, a few rows of knitting returned me to functionality.  It’s the one thing I seem to be able to accomplish when I can’t accomplish anything else--even if I can’t accomplish enough of it to get where I want to in a pattern.

I do love this pattern, but I am worried it won’t wash up as soft as I like a scarf.  Still, I doubt I’ll have much call for a wool scarf in summer, so we’ve got some time to let it soften up.  A friend suggested I add a drop of fabric softener or hair conditioner to my usual Dawn blue bath, so I’m game to try.  Even if it does end up a bit rough, the piece is dynamic enough to still be a favorite.

And a favorite scarf is a thing of beauty indeed.  Thanks, Ruhama's, for a clever, amusing project I'm sure to enjoy for many years.

Up next, we hear from another knitting publishing professional--my lovely agent Karen Solem, and start the nifty Feza vest from Fiberwood Studios.

Brady Scarf from Ruhama's - Day 5

The Knitting Prize Patrol...

I thought I’d be so much farther along by now!  This is our fifth of six installments and I’ve got a clear foot--if not more--to go.  On itty bitty #3 needles, no less.  I’m such an impatient knitter!

I’ve discovered that being what I call “ambikniterous” is an advantage on this project. “Ambikniterous” is my self-coined term for being able to knit both Continental (or “pick) and English (or “throw”) styles.  I consider it one of the best tools you can add to your toolbox as a knitter.  A smart knitter can wield both.  

Briefly put, Continental is faster, but English is more consistent.  I don’t purl well in Continental, nor do I handle tricker stitches like yarn-overs, or pass-overs.  On those long stretches of garter, however, Continental is the speed demon of knitting.

The good news is this isn’t an all-or-nothing endeavor.  No stitch police will bang on my door for doing some rows in Continental and some in English.  You can’t look at my scarf and tell I’ve switch hit.  On the contrary, I think they ought to come applaud me for my inventive use of multiple skills.  Rather like the Publishers Clearing House Prize Patrol, only with chocolate and yarn instead of flowers and a gigantic check.  Don’t you think that’d be wonderful?

For the rows involving cast on and bind off stitches, I use American style.  For the rows of garter in between, roar through using Continental.  The only other trick I’ve adopted is that I can’t talk to you while doing the bind off or cast on rows, because I’ve proved--quite competently--that I can’t talk and count at the same time.

As it has all along, this continues to be a show-stopper.  Tomorrow is Knit In Public day, and I’ll be taking this out and about.  Everyone remarks on it--fellow knitters ask questions, people admire the color and pattern, everyone wants to touch it.  I expect the same will be true when I finally do finish this scarf and I wear it, and that’s a good thing.

Brady Scarf from Ruhama's - Day 4

Finished and unfinished

This week was all about things finished and things unfinished for me.  Professionally, I turned in a manuscript--an unheard of two days early!  That tug you feel when you’re finishing the first sock or mitten? The siren song of a new and more exciting project?  How suddenly ANYTHING looks more interesting than finishing what you’ve got on your needles?  Multiply that by about ten and you’ll feel what every writer feels at the 3/4 mark of their manuscript.  Your head is suddenly filled with new stories, deeper characters, more promising plots...everything but the resolve you need to finish your current manuscript.  Both are lessons in discipline.

I’m over the halfway mark of my Brady scarf, and I won’t lie to you...despite its wonderful design and enthralling colorway, my eye is wandering.  I keep fingering the yarn of my next project, lured in by the silky brown fibers.  I’m grateful to you, DestiKNITters, because you keep me accountable.  I do really like this scarf, but were it not for you (and my admittedly self-imposed deadline of no more than six episodes per project), I might stumble and lay this down.  But I won’t, I promise to soldier on, row after colorful row. I finished my book, and I’ll finish my scarf.

As a lesson to myself, I took today to sort through what I call my “knitting tower,” the place where I keep all my current projects.  And some...ahem...not so current ones.  I said goodbye to socks that I knew, deep down in my heart, would never welcome their mates into the world.  With a sad but resolute sigh, I unwound the second set of toes and pulled out the needles.  Same with two scarves half done, for I’ve admitted they’ll never see bind offs.  Two other unfinished projects, however, I kept.  I dubbed them worthy of finding the time to finish.  Balls of yarn--both those pristine and those unwound off forgotten projects--were returned to my stash while other fragments went into the trash.  Into the drawers went a succession of planned new projects, which felt tremendously satisfying.

It wasn’t easy, but it felt wonderful.  A reboot, as it were, of my creative fiber self while I reboot my creative writing self into another book.  For on both fronts--like my projects--I am finished and unfinished.

Brady Scarf from Ruhama's - Day 3

Who’s wearing who?

Halfway done, and I’m truly enjoying myself.  This is definitely an eye-catcher, as I get stopped every single time I knit this in public.

I’m finally getting to the length that I can see the impact of the yarn’s gradual color change.  Depending on how and where I tie it, this scarf will either look red, pink, or something in between.  That could be very versatile.    

  

Granted, I’ve seen some photographs of this fiber in more dramatic color changes, but I’m particularly happy with the one I chose.  Sometimes, when you get drama in both the pattern and the yarn, it ends up too much.  More like the scarf that’s wearing you rather than you wearing the scarf.  

Coco Chanel, who was more into pearls than scarves (and we’ll forgive her for that) understood this truth.  Her famous quote “Dress shabbily, they notice the dress--dress impeccably, they notice the woman” has an application here.  When the scarf is right for the outfit and the person, you notice the style of the person wearing it.  When it overpowers either the rest of what one is wearing, or the person herself, all you can see is the scarf.

Come on, every one of us has made something (think eyelash yarn or that thick stuff calling for size 19 needles) that swallows you whole when you wear it.  It happens.

That’s not the same thing as a statement scarf or a statement necklace.  When you let a piece take center stage in an elegant way, it works.  Provided, I believe, that nothing else on your body is fighting for the attention.  If I did this scarf in the rainbow colorway, I’d need to wear a solid black, white, or neutral top.  I think I still may need to do that with this red-pink progression, but not as strictly.  

And besides, we all know I love center stage.

Brady Scarf from Ruhama's - Day 2

Mind the bind...

Bind off’s are my least favorite part of knitting.  Not because it means the project is over--which especially in this case it doesn’t mean at all--but because they never come out right for me.  I’m leery of scarves knit lengthwise because my cast-on and bind-off never come out close to each other.  I’ve got a few that look more like parenthesis than scarves, if you know what I mean.

At first I thought of this scarf as a way to change that.  Before I’m done, I’ll be given hundreds of chances to match my cast-on with my bind-off.  That worries me a bit, as I think the backward loop bind-on is the least manageable.  I always end up with an extra length of yarn between the stitches when I go to knit the next row.  It looks sloppy.

What’s helped?  It should come as no surprise to you that what’s helped the most is (drumroll, please....) reading the directions.  

Oh, the novelty of such an idea!  Normally, my go-to bind-off is the one where you knit two stitches together, then put the stitch back onto the left needle, knit that one together with the next one, etc.  And for the first two repeats of the pattern, that’s exactly what I did.

Which is not the bind-off recommended by the pattern.  It might be important to follow their directions, don’t you think? 

So, when I shifted to the knit two, slip the first stitch over bind-off, things lined up much more nicely.   Imagine that--the designer actually knowing which technique to use!  For a writer, you’d think I’d show the pattern author a bit more respect.

Like I always say, knitting teaches you more about life than you think.

Brady Scarf from Ruhama’s - Day 1

A cool scarf is one of life’s great pleasures.  

A cool scarf that’s easy yet stunning?  Definitely worth hunting down.

Good thing lots of cool knitting comes to me (not that I don’t enjoy a good fiber hunt!) in this nifty recommendation for my new friends at Ruhama’s.  I’ve been knitting Sally Brandl’s “Brady Scarf” in several public places, and I’m always stopped and asked to explain the pattern.

If you’re looking to expand your cast-on tool box, this pattern uses two.  The first cast on should be done with the long tail (my personal favorite) to ensure good elasticity.  The trademark holes, however, are accomplished with the backward loop cast-on.  Make sure you follow the directions on how to count stitches in the bind-off and cast-on rows closely, or you’ll end up with too many stitches.

While this is a highly portable pattern, the store ball is big enough to fight being stuffed into my handbag (I like to keep my knitting close at all times).  I started to wind it into to smaller, more portable balls, but quickly stopped myself.  The Kauni colorway--which is key to this scarf--is too continual to allow easy dividing.  Even if you pulled from the inside, the subsequent yardage would be on the inside of the second ball.  The only way you could manage it--and I’m not sure this is practical--would be to have two flat balls (i.e. the ones wound from a mechanized winder) and pull from the inside of both.

The holes lay out nice and distinct, which makes me happy.  My other scarf with holes doesn’t show the detail well, and you know me, I like to show off.

MILWAUKEE, WI - Day 1: North

The wonders of Whitefish Bay...

You’d think, living as close as I do, that Milwaukee would have been one of the first cities DestiKNITions visited.  It never worked out that way, so I was glad when well-known book blogger Barbara Vey invited me to a luncheon in that city last month.  This gave me an opportunity to turn a single luncheon event into two days of fiber wonderfulness.  You could certainly go farther afield and make a larger trip out of it, but I’ll share my quick visit with you.

I started up north of the city in the lovely section of Milwaukee called Whitefish Bay.  It’s the perfect setup for a DestiKNITions adventure: a great store with a highly walkable neighborhood all around it.

If you haven’t yet reached optimum caffeination, there’s a Starbuck’s just down the street on Whitefish Bay’s main drag, Silver Spring Drive.  The entire block holds some marvelous stores, and these were two of my favorites:

Think Toys

308 E. Silver Spring Drive

Whitefish Bay, WI 53217

414-961-0997

You’ve heard me say it before--good, independent toy stores are gems to find in this big-box, dot-com world.  Even if you have no little ones, no nieces or nephews or grandkids, chances are some corner of your inner child will find a place to play in this chock-full-of-quality-fun store.

Just a bit farther down the street, indulge the other little (or maybe not so little) person in your life--the one with fur:

Hounds Around Town

330 E. Silver Spring Drive

Whitefish Bay, WI  53217

414-431-8661

www.houndsaroundtown.net

I struck up a conversation about my dog’s limping with the very helpful person behind the counter, and walked away with a bevy of good information.  The collection of adorable collars, mats, and an awe-inspiring display of canine cookies (or “ruffins” instead of muffins!) will surely serve up something to take home to Fido.

More than one person recommended the lovely gifts and personalized stationery in:

Three Wishes

304 E Silver Spring Dr 

Whitefish Bay, WI 53217

http://www.threewisheswfb.com/

I was particularly fond of the baby gifts, the aprons, and the whimsical birdhouses in the window.  In this day of e-everything, nothing stands out like a handwritten note or invitation.  This store has an excellent choice of graduation and shower gifts, not to mention some really adorable totes and such.

As you walk by, choose and buy your tickets to tonight’s entertainment at:

Fox Bay Cinema Grill 

334 E. Silver Spring Dr. 

Whitefish Bay, WI 53217 

414-906-9994

http://www.foxbaycinemagrill.com

This place takes dinner and a movie to its natural conclusion--convergence.  You get your dinner served to you while you watch the movie!  No popcorn and giant stuffed pretzels here (unless you want them, of course); everything is cooked to order.  Salads, pizzas, pub food, grilled sandwiches, drinks and desert offer a far greater spread than any standard moviegoing experience.  I love that they say their wait staff is “trained to be as unobtrusive and stealth as possible, but always available.”

Stash your tickets for later and keep walking to reach today’s fiber fix:

Ruhama’s Yarn and Needlepoint

420 E. Silver Spring Dr.

Milwaukee, WI  53217

414-332-2660

www.ruhamas.com

I love a yarn store that not only gets the atmosphere right, but gets it down to the tiny details.  Open up the folding business card for Ruhama’s, and you get a handy chart for which needles you already own--a brilliant idea to keep you from buying a third set of size 8 24” circulars (not that I own four or anything).  

The great wash of sunshine coming through the large front windows offers natural light to the classic gathering table that hosted a needlepoint class during my visit.  In fact, I was surprised to find that Ruhama’s is the only needlepoint store in the entire state. 

The depth of stock--one of the longest walls of yarn I’ve ever seen--suits every single taste and project.  While the establishment takes its name from the original owner, vibrant and fun owner Dawn Slugg has had the store for over 30 years.  I was sorely tempted by the collection of custom designed sweaters for sale as well as the array of Hadaki, Amy Butler, and Lantern Moon bags.  Add the loads of sock yarn, the nurtured community, and the know-their-stuff staff, and this sums up as an outstanding store.  Here are just some of the projects that you might want to consider:

Rosa Sweater

Brits have revered Marion Foale for her stunning knitwear designs, and now we can do the same--outside of Barney’s and Bergdorf’s!  Taken from her outstanding book Marion Foale’s Knitting Collection 1, this sweater is a wonderful example of what can be done with her fine-guage washable merino.  Dawn can advise you on the many Marion Foale patterns with delicate gages or some nifty ones that make use of double-stranding, too.  If you like details and don’t mind tiny stitches, this is for you.

BeSweet Mohair Swing Wrap

Knit up up 4-5 balls of Be Sweet’s medium brushed baby mohair for this frothy wrap that can spiff up everything from a sundress to a tanktop and jeans.  Given Be Sweet’s lush spectrum of colors, you could have loads of fun with this.

Our knit-long from Ruhama’s is this artful piece:

Brady Scarf

Done up in the striking colorways of Kauni, a wool from Estonia that Dawn wholesales herself, this scarf utilizes simple bind-off and cast-on combinations to create an eye-catcher of an accessory.  A versatile pattern from Sally Brandl, this can be adapted to be a wider shawl by adding a second ball and more stitches.

I asked Dawn for her favorite knitting gadget, and she showed me something I love but haven’t seen before:  Lee Products highlighter tape.  It beats my usual post-it-note pattern tracking trick by a mile. Removable, transparent, won’t slip off when you fold your pattern page, and comes in several colors.  Never lose track of your row again!

Now that you’ve satisfied your yarn appetite, wander across the street to:

The City Market Bakehouse & Cafe

527 E. Silver Spring Drive

Whitefish Bay, WI 53217

414-332-0300

While this place has received a wide range of reviews, I had a good experience and felt like the friendly folks at Ruhama’s had given me a solid recommendation.  I found the sandwiches to be inventive enough to please me (I had the basil baked chicken), and I’m not really a sandwich person.  I’ll admit service wasn’t especially speedy, but I did find the food fresh and tasty.  It certainly was busy--I didn’t mind the noise, and it seemed like the kind of place you could take a boisterous toddler and not have to eat a McAnything.  The bakery shelves certainly had my attention--buy some goodies for your knitting alfresco this afternoon if you don’t want to indulge right then.  Under other circumstances, I’d have gone back for a second visit to verify my take on the place, but that wasn’t possible here, so I’ll just have to tell you to try it and make up your own mind.

For a bit more shopping, take in any of the other stores on the street including:

Placesetters

501 E. Silver Spring Drive

Whitefish Bay WI  53217

http://www.placesetterswfb.com/

I love little gift treasures like this...small stores with an inventive selection of just about everything.  It’s hard to find linens that catch my eye...it’s not my thing...but I wanted several of the pieces they had in here.  It was small enough to make it feel very personal, yet filled with goodies.  Again, a very good place for wedding or shower gifts.

Now, if it’s a nice day, there’s really only one place to spend the afternoon knitting:  Big Bay Park.  There’s even benches facing the wide expanse of the lake.  On a sunny warm day, there’s nothing like it to finish off a great day of fiber finds and other treats.  

When it’s show time, pack up your yarn and double back to the Fox Bay for dinner and a movie.

There you have it, a perfect day in Whitefish Bay.  My lodgings for this visit was the lovely:

Schuster Mansion Bed & Breakfast

3209 W. Wells Street

Milwaukee, WI  53208

414-342-3210

www.schustermansion.com

It’s not in the center of town--the historic mansion sits like a secret find in the western part of town over by Marquette University--but I found the friendly service and comfortable rooms well worth going out of my way.  Playing fetch with the resident pooch, a wonderful breakfast, high tea, and a delightfully deep bathtub made my stay just about perfect.  

But, hey, we’re not done in the dairy state.  Stick around for the next episode, when we take in two stores bracketing the charming town of Wauwatosa.