KNITTING CURRENT AFFAIRS

ANSWERS TO EVERYONE"S QUESTIONS INSIDE...

It's evening out here on the ocean and we need a little light to shift into our deep currents but first we must begin to add a few streams. Take a look at your colors and choose a yarn that's a little lighter than your first. Try blending two yarns together the way I did (a purple silk straw with a dark grey-mauve wool/silk).

Take that yarn and about 5 stitches in on your right-side row, knit four stitches with the new color while leaving a yarn tail of about 2 inches. This tail end can be easily looped over your new color as you knit until it's effectively tucked away, or you can leave it dangling until the finishing. Just to make things interesting, I do both. Meanwhile, begin random rows of seed stitch in your background stitches.

In the picture below, I've scoped out in white the design of the color knitting. When working the currents, there's no need to be exact. Just keep working the new color along with the first, carrying the unused yarn along the back IN A VERY LOOSE TENSION. Occasionally, pick up your old color to knit a few stitches to form an undulating ocean-like stream of color (still very subtle).

Now, let's call up a moon. Circles and streams of color give this design it's unique flavour and a simple Fair Isle circle plays an important role--nothing complicated but a good introduction to the stranding technique.

Choose a color of yarn paler than your current and cast-on yarn. We'll be going back over this moon later with surface embellishments so the color really isn't a issue. I use an abalone-colored silk doubled over which I'll be adding an abalone button. You'll be working the circle in the middle of your background colors, carrying the unused yarn across the back of circle in a watered-down version of the Fair Isle technique. Yes, you'll have three yarns going at once—part of the adventure!

Because the circle is small, this is an easy pattern easy to do. Later, I'll show you other techniques for other kinds of color knitting. Here's the chart for your circle:

You'll start off working 3 stitches with your new yarn followed by 5 stitches, followed by 7 building the circle. Work 4 rows of while holding at 7 stitchjes of moon color to form the swell of your circle. Begin shaping your circle by reducing 1 contrasting color stitch at each end of the moon shape for 5 stitches, then 3, until your circle is complete. Remember to always making changes on right-side rows. Voila! A circle!

KNITALONG WITH ME...

You're such an eager crew—I love it! So, here we are, standing on the dock ready to set sail and I know you're very eager to get started. To begin, I thought I'd better show you a map, just something to give you a general overview of where we're headed. I sketched it up hastily, you see, nothing formal, just a rough guide jotted out on an old piece of parchment I took off a sailor. But you get the gist, aye? It's a simple structure, straight on one side and increased along one side. We'll be knitting from the bottom up and sailing due south (it's minus 17C here--I have to go south if only in my imagination!)

Okay, then. Let's consider what you're taking along on this adventure. Your yarns are all laid out on the deck but I'm going to ask you to organize those balls, hanks, whatevers, according to tone. Put the darkest ones first and then arrange all the others going from dark to light.

That's what I did in that stash photograph below. The darkest is the inky purple-blue Judi&Co ribbon with others moving up in tone until we hit the magentas. See the ball next to the inky ribbon? That's a mixed media creation—Great Adriondack Surprise in Onyx and that's what I'm starting with. Choose yours.

You'll need approximately 700 yards of yarn altogether. I think.

All organized? Okay, then, I have one more decision for you to make: straights or circs? The original blue Ocean Streams was knit completely with straights: I knit two identical structural pieces and sewed them together. You can do that, too, if you find it easier or you can do what I'm going to do this time: start with straights, move to circs. As Mardi said, I'm knitting continental style, though not with any fancy slings (where can I get one of those?) just a rather primitive tuck-under-the-arm style that suits me.

Once you've made that choice them, at long last, the moment you've been waiting for: CAST ON! AHAR, ME MATETIES!

With one of your darkest yarns and needles of choice everyone cast on 3 stitches. 

Circular and soon-to- switch-to-circular folks get to work both sides at once and, after the 3 stitch cast on, you'll be increasing 1 stitch at the start and end of every row whereas the totally straight knitters will be increasing at the start of every row only. Got that? Simple increases make up the only structural knitting you'll be doing for most of the journey—no heavy rowing, no swabbing the decks.

My cast-on, starting with the Surprise mixed-media yarn (ignore that little silk ball in the background. It just muscled its way into my photo), I cast on 3 stitches and began increasing one stitch at the start and end of every row. I'm using straights to start but will switch to circs when the width exceeds my berth. That's it for many, many rows: knit, adding a stitch according to the needle and approach you've chose and work approximately 5 inches from the bottom.

FREE RANGE KNITTING: PACKING TIPS

I know you're eager to get started and probably want a packing list for our adventure. Should you go heavy-weight or light, pack straight needles or plan on circumnavigating circulars? (Be warned:  sailing metaphors ad nauseum ahead. Humor the captain; she's got her quirks.) Well, here's the most critical requirement of free range adventuring: ANYTHING GOES.

It's true—absolutely anything. Color matters more than fiber or weight. So, choose your colors first. The photo above shows the first take on my adventure knitting kit: pools of purple with shifts of green, dark blue, silvery abalone and a color that considers itself magenta, all in every possible weight and fiber. The thin yarns will be doubled or mixed with other yarns to create color transitions (more on that later) but otherwise, if the color suits, it's coming along.

I'll be writing much more about color in the days to come but for now, just gather together the shades that please you. Maybe you're going blue and green like the original Ocean Streams or perhaps you're off on an earthy adventure. The principles will be the same no matter what colors you select.

For needles, aim for sizes between 5.5 - 8mm (US 9-11) with one in the smaller size and another a few degrees larger. I'll be using 5.5 to start before going up to 8. The smaller needle starts the voyage as I prefer a tighter, more sturdy, bottom edge from which to launch our fiber adventure. You can choose to use the same needles throughout. 

I'll explain how to work the pattern on either circs or straights as we proceed but I'll most likely be using both. Since I knit with my right needle tucked under my arm, manipulating circulars feels awkward to me so I only use them when I must, like when the width can't comfortably fit on straights, as with this project later on. All explainations for this will unfold as we proceed, have no fear. 

For the packing list, click within: