Smitty is Knitting

Tag: stashbuster

  • WIP Wednesday: Aquamarline

    WIP Wednesday: Aquamarline

    Well, my quest to reduce my stash continues as I’ve begun AquaMarline by Park Williams. I recently finished two cardigans (I’ll cover those in a FO Friday post) and I was itching to start something new, mainly because I will be traveling soon and I wanted to have a project in-progress for the planes, trains, and automobiles.

    Four balls of yarn. From clockwise bottom left: A deep blue and purple yarn, a silver yarn with pink speckles, a light green yarn speckled with yellow and dark blue gray, and a multicolor yarn with brigh yellow, hot pink, and blank.
    Four of the many colors that will comprise the sweater. Clockwise from bottom left: Hamilton, David Hess, and Block Party in Rustic Fingering from Neighborhood Fiber Co, and a Skinny Single from Hedgehog Fibres (lost the label so I’m not sure of the color name!)

    Is a bulky sweater knit primarily from four strands of single-ply fingering the most practical choice for a travel project? No, but I’ve been on a large project kick for a while, so I stuffed the project and all four yarn balls into my backpack and moved a pair of shoes into my partner’s luggage.

    I didn’t notice until I went to cast on that AquaMarline is a raglan knit from the bottom up. And it wasn’t until I was nearly done with the torso that I thought that might interrupt the marling gradient; I didn’t want the sleeves, knit separately and then attached to the body, to have a completely different color scheme and then have a noticeable border when they joined. So instead of starting the sleeves from the cuff, I started them from the other end. I did a crochet cast-on for the number of stitches needed for the widest part of the sleeve, and knit a couple of rounds in the same colors used in the torso. Then I attached the sleeves, and when I finish the body, I’ll return and knit the sleeves down to the cuffs. A crochet cast-on, like a provisional cast-on, will let me pick up live stitches when I’m ready.

    The torso of my Aquamarline with the beginnings of the sleeves attached.

    I think this pattern would offer much smoother color distribution if it was designed to be top-down rather than bottom-up, but as the design description says, this pattern is all about playing with color and experimenting. Maybe I’m just a little too much of a control freak to allow for some heavily randomized color schemes.

    Where I’m traveling

    I brought my Aquamarline with me on the Amtrak to Philadelphia, where I saw one of my very favorite bands at Citizen’s Bank Arena. Yes, after 20 years of trying to see them live, I finally saw My Chemical Romance in concert. Truly, truly a dream come true for me. In the days since I’ve been relishing the feeling of being 13 years old again listening to Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge. It’s such a deep nostalgia for not just a time in my life, but for the imagination my preteen self had and how this particular band helped me indulge it.

    This MCR tour is all about The Black Parade, which is the album that broke them into the mainstream. The first act of their performance, or pageant, really was the entirety of the album. The band dressed in their marching-band outfits and acted as the entertainment for a dictator of a fictional nation called Draag. During the set there was a firing squad, an appearance by the Philly Phanatic, Variety Puzzles, a launch of a nuclear warhead, a murder by a clown, a burlesque performance by the clown, and a suicide bombing by the clown. If MCR is good at anything, they are experts at theatrics.

    Their second set was very stripped back. After Gerard Way, the lead singer, had his throat slashed and the rest of the members were taken off the stage with bags on their heads by Draag’s secret police, they reappeared on a second stage in the middle of the crowd and played a selection from their other albums. I don’t think there was a single person in the audience who didn’t know the words to every song, in either set. Here’s my selection of bad photos – I wish I had more but my phone battery was at 20% by the time they took the stage.

    On the left side, the band plays on the stage; on the right, GerardWay appears on the jumbotron behind a podium.
    a closeup of the stage with all the band members, an actor, and the Philly Phanatic (a mascot who is tall, green, and fuzzy)
    Gerard Way is sitting cross-legged in a chair on stage with an open issue of Variety Puzzles. He has a pen in his mouth as though he is thinking.
    A wide shot of the stage. There is fire at the edge of the stage, in the back, and the banners on either side of the band are catching fire. Everything is orange, black, and red.

    The Variety Puzzle bit was very exciting for me. I love Variety Puzzles.

    The next day my partner and I spent the day wandering Philadelphia. After checking out of the hotel, we found a very high-quality cafe, Thank You Thank You, offering lots of different roasts that my partner has been wanting to try – he’s a huge coffee enthusiast – and had a couple of pourovers. Then i foudn the nearest yarn store, which was Yarnphoria just south of Center City. This is a lovely spot with cool, contemporary samples, displays of crocheted amigurumi, and the cutest little shop dog there ever was: Gertie.

    A small, long-haired black dog with gray on her chin lounges on a brown couch cushion.
    Gertie ❤

    When we walked in there were already some customers there who looked very much like they had also been to the concert the night before, so I felt very at home. The owner (or who I assume was the owner) was extremely welcoming and helpful, pointing out all the local brands they had available. I left with two skeins of Scout from Kelbourne Woolens, which is also a local Philadelphia business. At one point, Gertie got up from her couch, barked, and individually sniffed every person in the store. Definitely worth a visit if you’re ever in town. I would have loved to visit Wild Hand as well, but unfortunately we didn’t have time that day to travel to the Mt. Airy neighborhood from downtown.

    And in just under a week, I’ll be leaving town again for Venice! My partner, who works in the film industry as an AC (assistant camera), worked on the documentary Cover Up about the career of Seymour Hersh. The documentary is from Laura Poitras and Mark Obenhaus (Citizenfour), and it was accepted to premier at the Venice Film Festival. This documentary is probably my partner’s favorite of the work he’s done, as he’s an ardent follower of politics and history, so it was beyond exciting for him that he was invited to attend the premiere. And I’m even luckier that I get to join him!

  • FO Friday: Granny squares at the sludge metal show

    FO Friday: Granny squares at the sludge metal show

    I love granny squares. Despite their fixed shape, I think they’re pretty versatile. You can stop at any point and make them whatever size you want, and they have a delicious kind of pixelated appeal. And of course they don’t have to be squares, which just opens their potential even more. They can be arranged and built upon, like legos or tessellation blocks, into endless configurations.

    It probably won’t surpise you to learn that these were my fuckin jam as a kid

    And the granny stitch is really having a moment, particularly among the young folks. The younger-than-me folks, they in their teens and 20s. There’s an interesting phenomenon about the way Gen Z finds and consumes knitting and crochet patterns versus those of us in older generations, who have been using Ravelry, books, and magazines. They create and consume on video – Youtube tutorials and shorter-form Tiktok clips. These designs are more custom, fitted to a single body, often experimental and artistic. They’re tied to one of many microtrends and “vibes”. A lot of them are sexy! And when they do go viral, it’s often because the technique is so simple it hardly requires the effort of a written pattern – it’s better to show than tell, get views instead of individual pattern sales, or just make the item to sell.

    Jack Black and Jason Momoa wear granny-stitch hexagon cardigans while promoting the Minecraft movie. The sweaters were made by Tosha Marie @treatyoselfcrochet, and there are many tutorials on Youtube on how to make your own. I’m thinking of making a couple for my niece and nephew for Christmas this year.

    Granny stitch – so hot right now. Last year I couldn’t resist jumping aboard, so I pulled together some odd partials of sock yarn from Neighborhood Fiber Co. to create my own granny square cardigan.

    My granny square cardigan unmodeled showing all the ends I never wove in

    This project was improvised and only made with my own body in mind, but I did take much inspiration from Amy Christoffer’s Ariana Cardigan. I just kept making squares and attaching them as I went until I felt I had enough to reasonably cover my back and shoulders. It was a great travel project – I remember I was working on this quite a bit during the 2023 holidays and driving to see family, and it’s nice not to need a pattern pulled up on my phone or printed out.

    Once all the squares were assembled, I draped the two front panels over my shoulders and marked enough room for arm holes, then seamed up the sides. Then I just did simple granny stitch sleeves in the round, decreasing every ten rounds or so until they got to 3/4 length. While I had just enough of my contrast colors, I did not luck out with the main color, and had to get two more skeins to complete the project. No regrets, I love this color (Petworth).

    I wore my granny square cardigan out this week when I went to see Faetooth during their first east coast tour. Faetooth is a three-piece from LA who describes their ethereal, shoegazey metal as “fairy doom”, and when I saw they were coming to my city I jumped on a ticket (good thing too, the show was sold out). They were touring with Sunrot, who I hadn’t heard of before, but were an absolute pleasure. Sunrot especially has incredible stage presence and messaging; they had free fentanyl testing strips, narcan, and condoms available for the crowd, and brought an expert on harm reduction on stage to talk about community care. When it looked like a fight might break out in the crowd, Sunrot’s singer stopped the set to make sure everything was cool and that no one was about to get hurt. And both they and Faetooth delivered messages of love for trans and non-binary people and solidarity for Palestine. There’s been many metal musicians who’ve gained notoriety for acts of violence and depravity to shock the “normies”; but there are as many metal musicians who point out that violence and depravity are in fact very mainstream, especially when perpetrated by our governments. The message of this show was that taking care of one another is the radical act.

    I knew I wanted to wear something handmade to this show because DIY is a big part of metal and punk music, and well, this is how I DIY. In addition to enjoying the music, I enjoyed the crowd and the hand-stitched patches on their battle jackets, their hand-painted and dyed clothes, their repurposed and mended fabrics. There is an interesting event horizon here, where sustainability for aesthetics and sustainability for economic necessity meet and it’s unclear which came first. Either way, it’s craft, and craft/art/music says “If it does not exist, make it.”

    My granny square cardigan, modeled and still showing some of the ends I never wove in

    Yarn

    Neighborhood Fiber Co. Studio Sock, colors (Center of the granny squares outward) Oliver, Federal Hill, Cedarcroft, Upton, Petworth)

  • FO Friday: My Bookkeeper Cardigan/ My anarchy playlist

    Stripes are probably the most efficient way to use up as many odd skeins in my stash as possible. And I had been itching for a cardigan because so many of my sweater projects recently have been pullovers. Enter Taylor Owen’s Bookkeeper.

    Raglan, top-down, and stockinette, the Bookkeeper Cardigan makes use of thin stripes and a corrugated hem/button-band to funkify a chill layering piece. It has a pretty low armpit, creating a wider fit that is gently snatched with some subtle waist shaping. This cardigan is very relaxed, and the waist decreases could always be skipped if you prefer a more rectangular torso.

    However, because this was a stashbusting project, I skipped the corrugated ribbing because I was afraid I would only have enough of one of my contrast colors for the body. I ended up not even having even that much, and needing to order an additional skein anyway, so joke’s on me. Shoulda just gone for it (sigh).

    I will say I don’t mind having most of an extra skein of Junction Fiber Mill’s Making Tracks around though. I love this yarn, and Peg and Amanda are gems. I’ve been enjoying their drops of pop-inspired colors. I first used Making Tracks in my Junco sweater; I’ll probably share that in another FO Friday post soon since I’ve been meaning to take modeled photos of it.

    Mods

    • No corrugated ribbing, just straight 1×1 on the button bands and hems
    • Different frequency of decreases on the sleeves for desperate yarn conservation (🧶🐓)
    • Sleeves are shorter because i have t-rex arms.

    Yarn

    • Kelbourne Woolens Scout, “Navy Heather” (MC)
    • Junction Fiber Mill Making Tracks, “Constellation” (CC1)
    • Mystery sport weight, terra cotta orange (CC2)

    What I’m listening to

    The other day my good friend asked if I had an “anarchy playlist”, because they’re building one of their own and were looking for inspiration. I just happened to have something for them, which I’ll link below. I’m excited to hear theirs when they’re finished with it.

    I also took a deep dive looking for new metal to listen to, but metal is a genre unfortunately plagued by fascist and nazi sympathizers. Luckily, the Anti-fascist Black Metal Network is here to help boost bands and labels that have progressive politics.

    I’m not telling anyone to listen to metal with me, I’m aware that it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s not just these fringe subcultures that have a nazi problem. Obviously it’s the entire American government, which is disappearing people, both documented and undocumented, and sending them to concentration camps. This is not hyperbole. That prison in El Salvador is a concentration camp, and the government wants to send whoever they want there.

    With that, I’ll leave you with my playlist, and this: trans women are women, immigrants are your neighbors, release Kilmar Abrego Garcia and Merwil Gutiérrez and anyone imprisoned in CECOT, and no one is illegal on stolen land.