Knititude

Happy Chinese New Year!

A few weeks ago I finally finished my Year of the Monkey design, the Shadow Monkey Hat-- just in time for the end of the year. Now that we've entered the Year of the Rooster, I've started thinking about what to create for this year's design. For me it will do double duty as a nod to my last name, Hahn, which means rooster in German.  

Although I've done several stranded designs in past years (Sheep, Horse and Rabbit), I try to mix it up a bit, doing lace one year (Year of the Dragon) and cables another (Year of the Snake), and I've tried not to simply translate a picture of the animal into knitting every time. For the Sheep/Goat/Ram project I did a fairly abstract representation of a ram's head, made into a border; for the Horse project I used the Chinese character for horse. For the Shadow Monkey Hat, I tried several different motifs before choosing the one I derived from the "Barrel of Monkeys" game, even though it didn't look like the monkeys usually depicted in artwork celebrating the Year of the Monkey. (Nor did I use the bright primary colors found in the game, preferring the slightly sinister effect of dark monkeys marching in rank...I suppose you could add wings if you really wanted to get scary.)

So I'm thinking about doing something more abstract for the Year of the Rooster; whenever I look at rooster photos, I find myself focusing on the gorgeous iridescent feathers. This led me to wonder whether there was an iridescent yarn, or a variegated yarn that imitated that effect, that I could use in my design. In just a few minutes of Googling, I found Tahki Tandem yarn (above), which is a blend of different fibers and has an iridescent sheen, and Manos del Uruguay Wool Clasica Space Dyed (below), which is 100% worsted wool.

So now I'll have to think further about how I could incorporate an iridescent-effect yarn into a rooster-themed knitting pattern. Fun, fun!

(Top photo found here.)

 

Of clouds and dragons

In Chinese mythology, dragons and clouds go together: dragons create clouds with their breath, bring life giving rain, and are often pictured surrounded by stylized clouds. (Photo above from nationsonline.org.)

So when I was working on the lace dragon for the Dragon Lace Pullover, I also experimented with some lace clouds. I wanted them to be swirling and asymmetrical, and I tried out a couple of different sizes. I liked the results, but didn't end up using them for the Dragon Lace pullover because I thought the overall design would end up being too busy.

Recently my cloud swatches turned up, but when I went looking for the charts I had drawn with them, I couldn't find them. So I guess if I want to use them for something, I'll have to recreate the charts from the swatches (a PITA, for sure!). Oh well  :-/

Errata for Dragon Lace Pullover

The chart symbol for "purl on RS, knit on WS" (a dot inside the stitch box) was omitted from the chart key. This error has been corrected on patterns purchased on or after 6/6/13.

Dragon Lace Pullover pattern now available!

It took me about 6 to 7 months from swatching to finished pattern, but the idea for the Dragon Lace Pullover first germinated 6 or 7 years ago. When I first started designing knitting patterns, I purchased all four of Barbara Walker's stitch dictionaries, and in the fourth one, I spotted a lace stitch pattern ("Leaning Ladders" that to me evoked the body of a dragon--that is, minus the head, limbs and tail. So I made a mental note to return to that stitch pattern one day, and try to develop the rest of the dragon, outlined in eyelets and decreases. 

Well, 2012 was the Chinese Year of the Dragon, so it seemed like an opportune time to work on my lace dragon. I had already created a pattern, the Bunny Yoke Pullover, for the Year of the Rabbit in 2011, and I thought I would just keep going.* So I perused Google images for sketches of Chinese dragons, made my own sketches, and swatched away; the tail turned out to be fairly easy, but the limbs were a bit trickier (one claw? several claws? where to attach them to the body?)...and the head, not surprisingly, was trickiest of all. I sketched big, bug-eyed heads like the ones on dragon costumes for Chinese New Year parades; fire-breathing heads; heads in profile; finally I decided that the head that seemed to translate best into lace was a narrow one, turned to look straight at the viewer, with a long snout and a couple of horns. It took me several more swatches after that, but I finally arrived at a head that sat properly on the neck, and utilized carefully placed decreases to add a bit of fierceness to its gaze.

I had already decided that the best placement for the dragon would be on the upper back; since it was going to be a good 8-10 inches high, I didn't want it to obscured if the wearer sat down, and I didn't want to have to worry about placing it so that a claw wasn't grabbing at a nipple (yes, knitwear designers have to think about that sort of thing!). And I knew I was going to use a cotton-based yarn, for comfortable three-season wear. The last decisions before beginning on the sample were about the rest of the sweater: more lace? shaping? raglan or set in sleeves? I ended up going with a classic hip-length slihouette with waist shaping, set-in 3/4 length sleeve, V-neck, turned hem, and lots of stockinette.

I wasn't quite finished with tinkering with the dragon, though; after I completed the sample, I decided that the tail had to be lengthened to better balance the neck and head, and I also decided that the bother of wrong-side lace stitches to curve the talons wasn't worth it, and went back to an earlier, simpler version. (So the final lace dragon only has wrong-side eyelets on a couple of rows, in the head/neck area; the final version of the tail is shown in the detail photo, while the earlier version appears in the top photo; both photos show several versions of the limbs, with the final version of the claws shown on the lower limbs). 

*I'm presently at work on a design for 2013, the Year of the Snake-- stay tuned!

Goodbye, Year of the Dragon...

 

Chinese New Year is tomorrow, which means that the Year of the Dragon is ending, and the Year of the Snake is beginning...and which means that technically, I have successfully completed my design for the Year of the Dragon on time! (The sample is done anyway, even if I still have to write up the pattern). 

For 2011, the Year of the Rabbit, I designed the Bunny Yoke Pullover. It was kind of a labor of love, in that I, my mother, my friend, and my friend's baby (born in March 2011) are all rabbits (born in a Year of the Rabbit), and it was fun, even if I spent way too much time fiddling with the bunny design! And it was completed, pattern and all, in fall of 2011.

Like the Bunny Yoke Pullover, the Dragon Lace Pullover also took up way too much time. I first had the idea years ago: when I saw the stitch pattern "Leaning Ladders" in one of Barbara Walker's stitch dictionaries, I immediately thought that it looked like the body of a dragon. But I've been busy, so I didn't get around to designing the rest of the dragon until the Year of the Dragon arrived, motivating me to finally get to work on creating a lace dragon. 

Among the tags I have for blog post content are "Design Process" and "Problems;" can we all just assume that the latter goes with the former? In this case, it took me a number of tries to figure out how I wanted to picture a dragon's claws and head in eyelets and decreases-- and in the end I went back to one of my first attempts for both, with a few refinements to the dragon's face. Then, I did several swatches trying to create a lace pattern that looked like stylized clouds, for around the hem of pullover; I ended up deciding they were all too busy, and scrapping that idea in favor of a simple stockinette body and sleeves. And finally, I started out with the idea of an empire waist, defined by a band of bound off stitches, with the dragon beginning slightly above the waistline, but after I had the body and back finished, I didn't like the way the vertical line of the pullover was interrupted by the waistband, so rather than re-knit the whole thing, I cut it, unraveled the waistband, and then grafted top and bottom back together. And now I am wondering if the body of the dragon should be longer betwen his last leg and his tail. Aargh!!

In the last photo, you can (sort of) see the view out my office window; Blizzard Nemo is just winding down, so hopefully our internet, phone and cable will be restored fairly soon-- in the meantime, thank goodness for generators, laptops, batteries and aircards.

I am definitely getting an early start on my Year of the Snake design! (May involve cables....)