Super easy garter tab for lace shawls.

While trying and failing repeatedly to do the garter tab for a Haruni shawl, and giving up and doing my own thing, I figured out a way to do one that is way easier than picking up stitches on the side of garter stitch (of course after I had made it through about 100 rows of the shawl). It needs some prep work but the results are very neat and even and it's difficult to mess up.

You need to start with a provisional cast on. I chose the crochet method, seen here. You also need to thread a tapestry needle with yarn the same thickness as your project yarn, or as close as you have to it, and move the needle to the center of the yarn, so it's doubled up. Like this.



Once you have the needle threaded and your provisional cast on done, attach your project yarn and knit the first row normally, EXCEPT THE LAST STITCH. With the last stitch, you need to knit both front and back loops. You will have four stitches, like this.



Now, take your threaded tapestry needle and thread it into that fourth stitch, from left to right, like this.





This stitch is being held as a 'waste stitch' and will be used later. Don't do anything to it now. Simply turn the work and knit across the other way. Two things; pull the working yarn so the waste stitch isn't huge. Don't pull too tight or it will be hard to work later on. The double stranded yarn helps keep this stitch the same size as your normal stitches. Also, do NOT slip the first stitch when you turn and knit across after making a waste stitch. You are already technically 'slipping' a stitch, the waste stitch. Slipping the first stitch still on your knitting needle will cause you to skip one and will distort the fabric and leave a large strand going across. Knit all stitches on the wrong side.

On the right side again, you can slip the first stitch. The right edge on the front side doesn't have waste stitches, so you can slip that first stitch if you so desire. I personally do it because I think it looks neater. Increase in the final stitch again, thread that stitch onto your needle, turn, tug the yarn gently, knit across. Keep doing this until you have three stitches on your tapestry needle.



Knit across the row, slipping the first stitch if desired. Do not increase this time. You will now transfer the held stitches onto your left hand needle (I picked them up directly from the tapestry needle with my right hand needle, dropped the tapestry needle, and moved those 3 unworked stitches to the left hand neeedle). Knit across those stitches.



The three stitches on the right were the original three we cast on. The three on the left were the three held stitches we got from increasing and then held on the waste yarn. Now just unravel your provisional cast on, pick up and knit those stitches, and proceed with your pattern like normal.



It might seem like a lot of steps but it's very easy once you know how it works. This cast on looks very neat and all stitches look almost exactly the same, unlike a standard garter tab which can leave your knitting distorted, you may accidentally pick up different strands of yarn, and is very fiddly and awkward to do.

Me, 0. Basic knife skills, 1.

Well I was going to film a small video of myself doing lever knitting (partly to show off to friends, partly to ask for help from people smarter than I on how to refine my technique). Before that though I went to get some lunch. I grabbed an avocado to cut up, picked up a large butcher's knife, and went to slice it open.

Suffice to say that the knife made contact with my left index finger. It didn't bleed very much but it hurts like shit to do anything with that finger. Surprise, surprise, I can't knit lever style with a bandage on that finger with any sort of speed unless I like the needle getting stuck in the adhesive and then getting the yarn all sticky while I yell obscenities out of pain.. So it looks like my little video will have to wait until my finger recovers. I can knit still but it's very slow and not very interesting looking.

Purling and ribbing can both still blow me but we've managed to work out a bit of an agreement. They suck less and I stop ignoring patterns because I hate them.

It was like really awful porn.

Did some vacuuming today and the vacuum cleaner wasn't working very well. Didn't have much suction power and I could smell something burning in it. We flipped it over and nothing was smoking but we could smell it; it was like dust was getting hot and singing a bit. So we open the intake and find the hose entirely clogged (not surprising considering Dad's wealthy, spoiled brat of a boss threw the thing away and we snapped it up for free). We tried to shake it loose but only a few puffs of dust would come out. Not even water, poured into one end over a sink, would flow through the mass. So for the next ten minutes, me and Dad had to "massage" it out.

We stood over a large plastic garbage bag in the kitchen, Dad holding one end of the hose as high as he could, the both of us vigorously jerking off the huge black rubber dick of a vacuum hose, yelling such things as "Find the lump and rub it!" or "There, some just came out!". Dad even tried using his mouth at one point to blow some of it out. And then several huge clumps of hair and dust and debris shot out of the end and into the bag in two or three spurts like the world's biggest money shot short of Animal Planet's elephant, whale, and rhinocerous mating habit special.

I'm not sure I can look Dad in the eye for a while.

It's like expecting a new baby.

9 months.

Estimated date of moving out of Shitcago and to Missouri with two of my best friends in the whole damn world whom I have never met in person.

9 months.

Holy shit, the entire rest of the world is out there. What do I do? Do they eat with the same utensils as us? Do I have to learn another language? Are my manners good enough? What if I act like a huge doofus and my friends hate me and fling me back here in a trebuchet?

I'm scared.

Things I learned today, volume 1.

1: I love fingering weight yarn and 2.5mm needles. Love.

2: I have, for the most part, gotten the hang of Irish cottage/lever knitting.



I have moments of being as fast as my beloved Yarn Harlot, though I make some mistakes. My first few rounds on my sock cuff have some dropped stitches I had to pick up.

3: My cat Leo is a brick shithouse. My other cat, Malachi, is delicate and dainty. He will open my door with his front paws and eats his food slowly, chewing every bite a few times. Leo plows my door open with his face and inhales food and treats as fast as he possibly can.

4: DPNs are awesome. I need more. My previous love for circulars is dying. While you can knit 2 socks at a time on one or two large circs, you can not use lever knitting on them very effectively.

5: Chicago is ass. I want out of this city.

I hate Layne Staley.

Layne Staley, vocalist of Alice in Chains, was one of the greatest singing voices I have ever heard. His ghostly harmonies, the exposing and depressing lyrics, the spine tingling vibrato...I have yet to hear anyone that can grasp these qualities like he did, only come close (David Eugene Edwards, Warrel Dane, Mikael Åkerfeldt). So why do I hate him?

He killed himself with drugs.

One of the greatest artists and singers of this generation and he destroyed it. He injected poison into his veins and deprived the world of his voice. I can't forgive someone who could ruin something so amazing.

Now, there's this.



Now, I'm all for a new Alice in Chains song. But there's no Layne. Willian Duvall is not Layne. Try as I might to understand why people claim that he does, Duvall does not sound like him. They do not have the same voice. People are trying to say that this is like the old Alice in Chains and it isn't. This is Jerry Cantrell doing the same things he did before but without the second half of the dynamic duo that made up the majority of Alice in Chains' qualities. The emotion isn't there, the self-defeating loneliness isn't there. How people can say this is an Alice in Chains comeback is beyond me.

This wouldn't aggravate me as much if they used a different name. I'd probably enjoy it if they pushed it as a new band featuring the surviving Alice in Chains members. But no, they want to ride the popularity train as hard as they can and I truly think they're going to fail for it. This is just disappointing. It's insulting to people like me who really appreciate Layne Staley's talent. Until I hear Layne's voice coaxing me into a sweet depression, Alice in Chains is gone. This new band is something different that I don't recognise.

Ribbing can fuck off.

I hate ribbing. I hate it so. I have yet to do any project with more than 2 inches or so of ribbing because by that time I'm ready to run myself through with a DPN. I think it's a combination of how I hold the yarn and pull it from the ball and the fact that I'm a thrower. Changing sides with the yarn is a pain, and purling is a pain, so combine the two and ribbing is a nightmare.

I'm trying a few different methods of holding the yarn in my right hand since any attempt to learn continental just leads to frustration and sloppysloppy stitches. I also saw the pretty interesting Norwegian purl and Cat Bordhi's purl which are both very similar. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to mesh well with throwing; trying to purl like that is extremely awkward and sloppy and slow. I dislike the Norwegian method because it really stretches out the stitch, and one of the reasons I tried it was to tighten my purls, and Cat Bordhi's has you bending the needle in a very tight space to pull up the loop and I just can not manage to do it properly as a thrower.

Sigh. My sock knitting stuff should be here Monday. Size 1 DPNs and a few balls of tweed sock yarn. Then after I get my size 7 DPNs I can start knitting hats again. All I have left are smaller size ones that don't fit on my circulars.