THE ELECTRONIC CAMEL
Newsletter of the Oasis Knitting Guild in Israel
Vol. 1, no. 4 (Dec. 2000)
Editor: Avital Pinnick
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SHORT NOTES
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PATTERN: Socks, by Marian
DESIGNER PROFILE: BRENDA ZUK, by Avital
Canadian knitting designer, Brenda Zuk (
http://www.needlebeetle.com
) of Milton,
Ontario, is a newcomer, having read her first handknitting magazines in 1998. A
graduate of Ryerson Polytechnical Institute (now Ryerson University, Toronto),
she took up machine knitting from 1993 to 1998, doing only intarsia. She
started re-learning to handknit in 1998 and found it to be a lot more fun and
creative. Since the fall of that year she has been publishing her own designs,
including the amazing Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly Shawl and numerous intarsia
designs of dogs and other subjects.
The Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly was her first lace design:
"In 1999, I was working on the Truly Tasha from Knitnet.com. I was bored out of
my mind with this design, I'd never made a shawl before and at that point, I'd
only been handknitting for about 8 months. I thought, I can do something more
exciting than this and much harder, then it will keep my attention. I finished
the Truly Tasha and gave it to my son. I made it small cause it was so boring.
I thought that the image of a butterfly would fit quite nicely into a triangle
shape.
"Then I started on the butterfly: I scanned in the image of a Tiger Swallowtail
into Adobe Photoshop, used the brightness/contrast to bring it down to 2
colours, white and black. I had to change the dimensions of it in Photoshop,
you have to lengthen the height cause the pixels are square, but knitted
stitches are rectangles. I brought that into Stitch Painter and then started
putting yo's on every second row around the black parts. The black became
garter stitch, the white became stockinette stitch, then I decided on a border
and thought purls with yo's would look good, cut out the bottom between the 2
tails cause there was too much fabric and it would have made the shawl too long
at the back.
"Basically I faked it, I don't know what I was doing, but I knew what I wanted
it to look like. I worked for about three months on that thing and couldn't
believe the response I got. Besides Arctic Frost, my Siberian husky design, the
TS Shawl is one of my best sellers. Lisa Souza (
http://www.lisaknit.com
) and
Kathleen Day, my two very good Internet friends told me that it would be a
classic but I didn't believe them until I started getting such a wild response.
In truth it kind of scared me because then my next thought was, gees, these
people seem to think I know what I'm doing! Yikes, I don't, I really don't, I
just see things in my head then try to duplicate it in knitting. I wouldn't say
I'm a knitwear designer, because I don't know very much about knitting or the
technical aspects of it, I don't answer questions on Knit-U or the Knitlist
because I don't know the answers half the time. I'm one of those people that
would have to look it up. I am learning, but I'm not killing myself to know
everything about it, I'm just trying to have fun and make people happy with my
pictures in intarsia and lace and make a bit of money at the same time. That's
my story and I'm sticking to it!"
I asked Brenda whether she had any comments on David Xenakis's article,
available on Knit-U as a PDF file, on using Adobe Photoshop to create knitting
graphs. She was not enthusiastic about it:
"Yes, I downloaded the whole thing and after reading through it discovered it
was an exceedingly complicated way to make another pixel graph that didn't have
any cleaning up in it. There's no way a professional cross-stitch designer
would ever use something like that as a design to work up or sell, which also
means it's not a good way for non-professionals to do their graphs either. I
think people should just pay the few bucks for a simple program that will do
colour imports for them instead of using Photoshop."
This is the process she uses to design her realistic intarsia knits: "I use
either photos or artwork to design from. I create a grid/graph in Adobe
Illustrator that is exactly the tension/gauge I will be using for the knitted
motif in intarsia. I place the photo/picture behind the graph. Then I open up
Stitch Painter Gold. I look at the picture behind the graph in Adobe
Illustrator on the right-hand side of my computer monitor and design the chart
in Stitch Painter Gold on the left-hand side.
"As an artist/designer, I have a much better idea as to where colours should go
in an intarsia design and how many colours I will be using. Importing photos
from Adobe Photoshop into Stitch Painter does not work for me. I cannot get the
simplistic detail I need from a colour import. Using Adobe Photoshop or using
Stitch Painter to decide where colours should go is not an option for me. I use
my artistic talent to decide that instead."
TOP
REPORT FROM THE LAST MEETING, by Jennifer
The guild meeting this month was attended by Michelle R., Yael B., Marian
and myself. Yael and Michelle contemplated knitting terms in French and
their English/Hebrew equivalents. They exchanged phone numbers so they can
continue their efforts. Michelle brought a multi-colored striped pullover that
she knit for her granddaughter and which she is embellishing using ideas from
Nicky Epstein's embellishing book. Marian brought several of her knitting
projects: a mitered afghan square, a vest she is working on and a sock from
Lorna's Laces merino. I got to show (again) the hooded baby surprise sweater
and the test sock that I am knitting for a friend.
Next month's meeting is planned to be in Jerusalem; the date to be announced
later.
Oh one last thing, if anyone would like a copy of the guild membership list in
Excel format by email, just let me know.
TOP
MEMBER PROFILE: MARIAN
I moved to Israel in 1977 with my two young children. I worked as a cataloger
at Tel Aviv University for 5 years and then went on to work as an optician.
My sanity is definitely related to my knitting, which I started when my kids
were pretty new. At the beginning I was not very good, being mostly self
taught. I did take a course at the Y to get the basics. I didn't have anyone to
talk knitting with so my learning curve was a slow one, but since I loved to
knit, I guess it didn't really matter. Just before Alice Starmore's book on
Fair Isles came out, I had finally taught myself to knit Continental style and
had done a whole sweater just that way, so I was ready to take up Fair Isles
using both hands to knit them. At this point, my knitting began to get a lot
better.
I think it's fair to say that I have the largest collection of knitting mags
and books in Israel, if not the entire Middle East! My collection of yarns is
also huge. I continue to add to both lately buying more from Elann or on Ebay
but only from a few sellers. I am generally pretty wary of Ebay purchases.
I knit rather slowly, doing about 12 sweaters a year plus lots of small stuff
like socks, hats, and things. I usually do my own patterns at this point as my
gauge is loose and it's just easier for me to adapt things or come up with my
own stuff. I did have one Fair Isle sweater accepted by Meg Swansen for a new
book she's doing on Fair Isles. It has about 20 colors and my kids like it a
lot!
I started a knitting group many years ago and we met in downtown Tel Aviv at
the AACI. We also had some interesting speakers including the Ries family from
London. I met Ellen S. then and also a lot of other knitters most of whom I
haven't seen since. I gave it up finally. Soon after that, I went to TKGA in
Denver and was approached by Jennifer who told me she was shortly moving
back here to Herzliya! Well, that was quite a nice suprise. I also bought my
copy of POK at that convention. Jennifer, did you buy one? I remember just
standing by this huge stack of them with a lot of others and just putting in my
hand and grabbing one of them. It was also sold with a slight discount off the
price.
Anyway, when Jennifer arrived, we started to hold meetings and I made her the
chairman and the Oasis Guild was born.
I want to add one more note here. My two kids are quite successful now in their
careers, but what is important for me is that both of them feel quite adept in
the knitting world too. Both of them have been trained by me to be able to
bring me home yarns, etc. Just last week Dayana showed up with 4 Chinese
knitting books bought in Beiping. Probably the finest Japanese knitting book I
own was given to me by my son. This boy, by the way, had a rather tough time
from me. One year he told me he was going to pass through London on his winter
vac from college. So I told him to drop into the LYS of the Ries' which was on
High Holborn in London. All he had to do was pick up the yarn as I was
prepaying for it. The day he was supposed to fly home from London I got a call
from him at the airport. Bad news and good news. Turns out he got the yarn OK,
but then on the way to the airport he left it in the trunk of the car which was
now speeding home to a place about 1 1/2 hours on the other side of London!
Well, I told him the yarn was worth $400 so it couldn't be mailed to me as the
customs would be horrendous and he'd just have to go back for it! He said, "But
Mommy, I also lost my wallet and have no money." I told him as a world
traveller, he'd just have to come up with something. He said: "OK, Mommy." Well
a few days later he did show up and the first thing I did was to open the yarns
and count them. One was missing: a bright yellow. He asked me if he'd have to
go back for it.
So this was a very big training lesson for him and I'm happy to say he's now
much improved.
The reason I've gone into all of this is because so many knitters tell me their
kids won't wear any knitted sweaters and my feeling is that the mothers did a
bad job in raising them! You have to work on them from a very early age by
training them to look at pattern books, teaching them how to knit and taking
them to yarnstores to examine the yarns. There's no other way. In addition,
they get to choose the yarns for their sweaters and the patterns, under
suitable direction of course and then they have to wear the sweaters.
Eventually, both you and the kids are going to improve and now my kids really
do enjoy their sweaters.
One year my son went traveling and was going by Macchu Picchu and the Indians
were knitting hats and sitting on the moutainside as he passed. They started to
chase him and were calling to him: who knit you that sweater? It was a nice
Rowan wool one in about 8 colors. Another time he told me his boss in NY was
very impressed by a sweater I had made him. One problem is that all his
girlfriends (why won't that kid settle down?) want his sweaters. I know a few
of his Fair Isles have wandered off that way.
TOP
SHORT NOTES
Japanese women swoon over the Knitting Prince -
http://www.cnn.com/2000/ASIANOW/east/12/21/knitting.prince/
(contributed Jennifer)
Teva Durham's "Loop-de-Loop" knits:
http://www.loop-d-loop.com
. In case you'd
wondered how much a ribbed tube could cost.... (contributed by Avital)
"From Hand-Knit Bikinis to Punk-Rock Scarves, Knitting Takes on a New
Attitude." Web article about the "new knitters"
http://www.foxnews.com/etcetera/050200/knitters.sml
(contributed by Jennifer)
Congratulations to Guild Member Sonia Gantman on her new job. She is now
working for VManage as a Senior Programmer.
TOP
PATTERN
Socks, by Marian
|
Now I happen to be a very loose knitter so I need to explain that a tighter
knitter may have to change the number of stitches.
Ladies sock size 40. Total length is 10.25".
Materials: 2 balls sock yarn
Needles: 2.25mm or whatever gets gauge of 6 sts= 1" on st st.
Note: if you want a tighter gauge you need to add more stitches in multiple of
4. My sock fits me when it comes out about 8" around and I like it fairly
fitted.
C4B: place first 2 sts on cable needle and hold behind. Knit next 2 sts and
then knit 2 sts on the cable needle.
C4F: place first 2 sts on cable needle and hold in front. Knit next 2 sts and
then knit 2 sts on the cable needle.
Cast on (long tail cast on) 56 sts. Rib k2, 2 for 2".
Leg pattern:
Row 1: k7,* p2, k4, p1, k4, p2*, k15, repeat from **, k 8.
Rows 2-3. Repeat row 1.
Row 4: k7, *p2, C4 back, p1, C4F, p2*, k 15, repeat from **, k8.
Continue to work in pattern until you reach 7" or desired length.
Heel flap:
K14 sts. Turn work. Sl 1, p 27 sts. Place remaining 28 sts on needle and hold.
Wrking back and forth on the heel sts and starting with the right side facing,
*sl 1, k1, repeat from * across row.
Next row: sl 1, p to end.
Repeat these 2 rows 13 times more. End ready to start a right side row.
Turn the heel:
Knit to the middle of the row, k2, sl 1, k1, PSSO, k1, turn.
Next row: sl 1, p5, k 2 tog, p1, turn.
Next row: sl 1, knit to 1 stitch away from gap, sl 1, k1, PSSO, k1, turn.
Next row: Sl 1, p to within one stitch away from gap, p2 tog, p1, turn.
Continue the last two rows until all stitches have been used.
Gusset:
Starting on right side row: knit the sts remaining and then pick up 14 sts
along the left side of the heel. With empty needle, work across instep sts.
With the remaining empty needle, pick up 14 sts along right side of heel and
work half the remaining heel sts. The needles will have 14 + 8 sts on the heel
sides and 28 sts on the instep. Decrease the stitches on the heel side EOR
[= end of row]. Left side: knit to three last stitches. k 2 tog, k1. Knit 28
sts. K1, SSk, work to end. Next row is just knit.
(Note: since my gauge is 6 sts= 1", I will also decrease the 28 sts at the
instep to 24 sts. But if you are knitting a tighter gauge, you may not have to
do this. The main idea is to measure your gauge and make a sock that is no more
than 8" all around.)
Continue until you have 12 sts on first and third needles and then continue
knitting around until you reach desired length which is about 2" less than
total length. (8.25" works for size 40)
Shape the toe:
Next round: work to 3 sts away from end of needle #1, k2 tog, k1. K1, SSK at
beg of needle #2, work to 3 away from end of needle #2, k2 tog, k1. K1, SSK at
beg of needle #3, work to end.
Next round: work plain st st around.
Repeat these two rounds until you have 24 sts remaining. Now work decreases
every round until 8 sts remain. Cut yarn leaving an 8" tail. Thread the yarn
through a darning needle and do kitchener stitch.
I'm going to make a second pair using a different cable stitch but the basic
sock is going to be the same.
TOP
© The Oasis Knitting Guild, 2000. "The Electronic Camel" is edited and
distributed by Avital to members of the Oasis Knitting Guild at the end of each
month. In order to include your stories and announcements, please try to submit
them to mspinnik@mscc.huji.ac.il no later than the 25th of each month (civil
calendar).
