Blessings of Family

There are moments in life when sudden unexpected events in life causes one to stop and reorganize priorities in life to Thank God for his blessings of Family.

Upon arriving home from work, I received a call from my son’s partner the weekend before Thanksgiving. She was taking her mother to the hospital and asked if I could help my son take care of his 3-month old son and 2-year old daughter. He had not taken care of both alone. I immediately went to their home but in the back of my mind, I was thinking whether I should cancel all the Thanksgiving plans I had made. This year, my work was given the delightful surprise of being allowed to take the full Thanksgiving week off. I had planned a full week of cooking and decorating to celebrate this Thanksgiving at my house with my family.

It was beginning to look like I would be spending my preparation days, babysitting as the other grandmother continued to be hospitalized and then convalesced at home, unable to take care of the grandchildren, which was her usual arrangement. As I contemplated how I would prepare for Thanksgiving, arriving home exhausted from 12 hr days with my active grandchildren, I started receiving calls. I was getting offers from the invitees to bring the turkey and all the fixings. My husband and son pitched in to help clean the house while I was gone. Little by little it all came together so that we all celebrated a wonderful Thanksgiving together. It really brought the true meaning of being in a “family” home to us all.

On those exhausting days, I didn’t have the energy to even pick up the knitting needles. However, I found that spinning helped me relax and think about the days activities. I loved being with my grandchildren. It brought back precious memories of raising my boys. My two oldest were about the same age difference. I remember the days of exhaustion juggling feedings, diaperings and entertaining an active two-yr-old.

As I was spinning, it gave me time to think and my thoughts wandered to how best to use my spun yarn. With so many projects started, I strayed away from starting another involved project and toward making simple Charity hats from my handspun yarn. As Christmas is near, I picked a soft red and green Romney wool yarn I dyed two summers ago. I decided to experiment with a basket stitch but gave it up when I saw how this yarn was a nice self-striping yarn. These are some of the results…..

Another hat I started was Jared Flood’s Koohaas Hat. I found a skein of handspun grey merino and decided to figure this pattern out. Lo and behold, I realized that he wrote this pattern for my style of knitting (Eastern Uncrossed), which is “through the back loop”. The single cables make it go slow, but once the pattern is established, the knitting progressed at a steady pace. I think I’ll offer it to my son, who is traveling to The White House to sing for the Holidays with his choral group. The weather will be chilly and the warm hat may help.

Eastern Uncrossed Knitting: Coming Out of the Closet

As with most knitters like myself, we have secretly marveled at our ingenuity of creating a knit garment, perhaps even gloating that we didn’t need a teacher to figure this out, unknowing that it was not the mainstream or Western way of knitting. As others have witnessed our amazing feats, we have been appalled and confused by comments that ”we learned to knit “wrong”’! Nevertheless, we have presevered in secret, often embarrassed to knit in public or explain why we were knitting the way we do. Only when our creations were finished did we dare to venture out to show off the beautiful examples of needlework, to the oooh’s and aaah’s of admirers, who had no idea how we created it.

Well, the time has come to “come out of the closet”. We have Annie Modesitt to thank for convincing the world that it IS possible to knit in a different way and come out with amazing knitted things. I understand she makes the argument so eloquently in her book, “Confessions of a Knitting Heretic”. I still need to get myself a copy. We need not be afraid of teaching others our style of knitting. I understand that Annie’s classes in “Combination Knitting” seem to be sold out. Is that telling us something? Wouldn’t you want to learn a new way to knit if you found that it was easier, faster, less of a strain on your hands and wrists and produced a more even fabric in stockinette? As I grow older I sure can appreciate these things and thank my lucky stars, my knitting has not given me arthritis or carpel tunnel. I have heard more horror stories of Western knitter’s who "throw" doing this.

Learning that Eastern knitting started somewhere about 200 AD in Arabia, made me realize that Western or American knitting came later. The Eastern knitters, had the technique down earlier, and have the right to claim that Western knitters learned it “wrong”. Isn’t that enlightening?

Actually, neither style is “wrong”. What does it matter when you can come out with the same result? When teaching the style, it should be labeled correctly and patterns should differentiate what style the pattern is written, so knitter’s can make adjustments in their techniques if needed.

Pictures are worth a thousands words, but a video is worth much more. This is why I thought I would show how I knit in the Eastern Uncrossed Style. I’m not much of a talker, so I tried to show you what I’m doing by doing several stitches rather the one. I knit alot faster than the demo. For instruction purposes, I wanted the viewers to understand exactly how I do it. I hope it helps. By the way, I knit Eastern Uncrossed Continental Style. I hold the yarn just like I learned when I first crocheted. To me this is a faster and smoother way of knitting that allows the tension to be more even.

Video #1 Diana’s Eastern Purling and Knitting
Video #2 Diana’s SSK: right-slanted decrease
Video #3 Diana’s K2tog: left slanted decrease
Video #4 Diana’s Eastern SSK-PSSO: double decrease left slant
Video #5 Diana’s Vertical Double decrease: center stitch on top

Medallion Capelet done & Eastern Uncrossed and Not Combination Knitting

I finished the Nicky Epstein’s Medallion Capelet from the Winter Vougue Magazine 2007-08. Yipeee!!! I REALLY like how it turned out. It reminds me of a moth. Isn’t that ironic? Making a moth looking cape when moths are things we wool-lovers hate to see around our wool? Moths like to nibble wool.
I steam blocked the cape since it was made with Acrylic. This helped prevent the edges from rolling in. I must buy or make a closure of some kind. I wore it tonight to church in about 40-50 degree weather and am thinking I need to make one in wool or alpaca. This one in acrylic would be great for spring or summer. It has lots of air vents that the cold can penetrate easily. However, it sure looks good. I am seeing more people try to knit this on Ravelry. One person knit it in one night! Of course, she was a very petite size and this is a project that seems to go quickly and keep one’s attention.

Combination Knitting

I discovered a group on Ravelry for Combination Knitters. We have been having a very interesting discussion. Some have shared their thoughts on the “knitting bullies” who like to tell them they are knitting “wrong”. My opinion is that there is no wrong way to knit, only a multitude of different ways. It’s the finished product that counts, no matter how you got there.

I have tried to make a short video of the way I knit and purl in Eastern Uncrossed knitting. I had thought I knit just like Annie Modesitt, designer extraodinaire, but the more I look at her video, I realize that she purls through the front loop and I purl through the back. We might even wrap our yarn in a different direction.

Edit: I have since learned that there is a difference between Eastern Uncrossed and Combination knitting. My style of knitting is Eastern Uncrossed which knit and purl opposite of Western. In Combination knitting one knits or purls in Western and does Eastern in the opposite stitch (knit or purl), therefore, a "combination" of the two.

Initially, I had trouble uploading the 2-minute video to YouTube until I downloaded their YouTube downloader. It took about an hour but it finally uploaded. Now I see that it could take hours before I actually see the video on Youtube. There has got to be a better way of doing this. When I get a link I will include it here.

If this works, I’ll upload my other demo videos on the way I do different kinds of stitches: decreases….the right slanted (SSK) and the left slanted(k2tog). I know you Western knitters will say this is backwards and you are right. This is how I do it when I knit the way I do (Eastern Uncrossed ) the Continental way. I also have mini demos of double decreases…the SSK-psso dbl dec and the vertical dbl dec. These techniques may actually be the same as for Western Knitters.