Category: project – Tesla

Tesla on the needles!

It’s actually a bit more open and lacy than it appears in this photo.

Aarghh!!!

Notice that I got Tesla twisted on the needles, not once, but twice!  I am knitting in the round, there is no way to untwist this mess.  I can’t decide which is worse, that I let this happen, or that it took me so long to notice.

I hadn’t done this kind of thing for years, since I was a beginning knitter.  About 12 years ago I tried my first circular-knit sweater and I got it all twisted — a horror show.  Afterward, I could never figure out how it happened since the difference between the knit and purl side was so obvious, well I guess it wasn’t obvious to me then…  I would have said only stupid knitters did things like that.

Wrong!!

Well, as a feeble excuse the sweater is in garter stitch so the inside and outside do look much alike.  I must have gotten it twisted early on, before I could really see what I was doing clearly.  I was knitting on the Taconic and the yarn is kind of tricky until you get the hang of it.  Any excuse will do at this point.

The worst thing is, I noticed the twist on the way home from Pittsfield, soon after we left, with a whole 1 1/2 hours in the car ahead of me.  Did I start to rip?  No.  I dreaded casting on in the car, thin yarns with thick nubbins, DANGER ON CURVES.  I could see myself loosing count and starting over and over.  I could see myself trying to use stitch markers to keep the count and dropping them every time we went over a bump.  The car would be littered with hundreds of little tiny round stitch markers and there would be nary a one for my knitting. No I did not rip.

Did I have another project with me, perhaps the socks?  NO, of course not, it was only an afternoon trip.

What did I do?  I did what any compulsive knitter faced with an hour and a half trapped in a car would do.  I kept knitting, even though I knew I would have to rip it out as soon as I got home.  Better to knit anything than to sit there like a lump, bored to tears, squirming around in the car seat making a nuisance of myself.  You think children chanting "are we there yet" is annoying; you haven’t heard an uncomfortable, bored, peevish adult without her knitting.

And so rip I did:

Tabasco thought she would offer advice.

And so I am back at the beginning.  Tomorrow.

Tesla and I have played long enough today.

It’s time to start a new project.  I have been itching to start this:

The yarn is Tesla from Artfibers.  It is a really neat stainless steal cable with cotton nubs throughout.  I have been wanting to knit it since I got it in May, except that I just couldn’t get my mind around it…I didn’t know what I wanted to knit…it was to hot… it required too much thought… other inspiration hit…and so on.  You know how it is.

After going to the Cooper Hewitt to see the Extreme Textiles exhibit I was reminded that I wanted to knit this by a really neat swatch of knitted stainless steel which we were allowed to touch and fondle.  This experience re-kindled my fingers’ need to be knitting Tesla and they have been eagerly awaiting the opportunity.

Remembering Claudia’s comments on her sweater knitted out of this same yarn last spring, I started playing around with guage and decided to go much smaller in guage than that recommended on the yarn label.   I ended up knitting on size 7 needles and as the guage got tighter, I kept thinking I would knit the Adrienne Vittadini sweater shown next to the yarn swatch above, from the Summer 2005 book.  It is knit in garter stitch and I like the firmness of the Tesla yarn in garter stitch.  The simplicity of the shape should be nice with this yarn, at least I hope it will.  The biggest advantage is that the bottom of the sweater is knit in the round (yeah no seams) and then the sleeves are knit (flat unfortunately) up to the yoke, at which everything is picked up and knit together in the round to the neckline.  I am hoping this will work really well with this yarn, and if not, well, life is an experiment, right?

Of course, life is not problem free, and I woke up at 3 AM suddenly thinking I might not have enough yarn.  I managed to lure myself back to sleep, but first thing this morning I was in the sewing/knitting room, looking at how much yarn I had and how much yarn I would need.  The nice people at Artfibers tell you right on the label how many yards it takes to knit 1 sq foot in the recommended guage.  Given that information it is easy enough to extrapolate how much yarn I would need in my guage — bad news.  I have just slightly more than half the yarn I need.    Of course they were getting 12 stitches and 19 rows to 4" whereas I am getting 19 stitches and 33 rows to 4".  It was too early then to call California so I had to wait.

Meanwhile I fretted.  Should I start the sweater anyway, what if the new yarn is too far off in color, if the dye-lots are totally different?  It does have a good bit of hand-dyed variegation in the yarn.  Will the new yarn blend in?  I started looking for a new project.

I did call, more yarn is on the way!  Hoorah!  They think it will not be a problem and now I am back to decisions.  Should I blithely forge ahead with Tesla or should I start something else.  I have decided that Tesla on size 7 needles is not a knit in the dark project, or a knit when not paying attention project either, the little thin strands of steel are too easy to drop.  So another project it is.  Tesla for home and "pay-attention" time.  and another more mindless project for other times.  Project to be announced.