Can’t Be Done
So the other day The BoyTM and I had an e-mail exchange along the… oh, wait. Full disclosure. The BoyTM and I are in some respects thoroughly modern: not only do we frequently send each other e-mails when we are sitting in the same room, but… we’re not even embarrassed about it. We don’t find it shocking. We think it’s amusing, and occasionally very practical. So there. In this case, actually, we were sending them up and down a whole flight of stairs (I should traceroute this some time - shades of “travel round the world to meet the fella next door”), but still.
So anyway, the other day we had an e-mail exchange along the following lines:
BoyTM: How long would it take you to make the color band from 9 Tailors, but freestanding with a bit of fringe on both ends?
Me: Can’t be done.
Me: Why, you thinking bookmark?
BoyTM: Yes.
Me: Can’t be done.
BoyTM: Why not?
Me: Because the colorwork has to be done in the round.
BoyTM: But what if you did it double-width and folded it in half?
Me slowly and patiently, not: I said, IN THE ROUND. As in, NOT FLAT. As in, it wouldn’t work that way, it just wouldn’t.
BoyTM: Why not?
Me: Because of the way the base-color float is woven in and because of the way you hold the colors and you can’t purl it this way and what would you do with the float on the other side and…
(did I mention that by this time he has come downstairs and we are actually low-tech-ily conversing, F2F and IRL? Oh. Well, such is the case.)
Me lamely but condescendingly: …anyway, it just wouldn’t work.
BoyTM: OK, never mind. It was just an idea.
pause….
Me: …unless… maybe….
BoyTM: No, really. Never mind.
Me reaching for needles and yarn: …maybe if I could turn the….
A short-lived silence, as I cast on and start fiddling, then a string of muttered curses. The BoyTM watches me for a minute or two, then quietly wanders upstairs again.
After about an hour, I go upstairs - because some things can’t be e-mailed (OK, I could have e-mailed this, but I didn’t have the camera handy and, hey, I’m the first to admit that sometimes low-tech is WAY better and easier) - and show him an inch or so of “flat” Kent Treble Bob Major, with a seed stitch border.
“That looks great!” says he.
“Working the purl side,” I remark, “is a pain in the ass.” He nods sympathetically.
“Or maybe I just haven’t quite got the hang of that part yet.” He nods.
“I need to keep playing with it.” He nods.
One of The BoyTM’s most sterling qualities: he never, and I mean NEVER, gets all I-told-you-so about these things.
Even though, really, he has every right to. Because… check this out:
(Yes, I’m a geek and a dork. I totally love the way the back of this looks. “Wrong” Side? Don’t look so wrong to me!)
Of course I’m making another one now. With a different starting order.
(I’m not going to do all 720. I’m NOT! But there’s absolutely no reason to repeat oneself.)
Later that evening, after the bookmark is off the needles and blocking, I check my e-mail again, and I find this new arrival under the same heading as the earlier exchange:
BoyTM: Never say never. I have someone working on it.
OK, so maybe just a tiny bit I-told-you-so-ish.
Can you blame him?
November 30th, 2007 at 6:03 pm
it would work in double knitting too.. (and be twice as much as a PITA!)
alternately, you could do make a bigger block..
1 stitch becomes 4
K (a single block array)
KK
kk (a block of color that is 2 stitches wide/2 stitches tall) the k’s are worked purls)
by not changing colors EXCEPT on right side, it become easier.. but in order to do that, you need to have a 4 stitch array of color.. (or the symetry/color relationships will change)
K
and
KK
kk
are proportional ..
but
K
and
K
k
aren’t….
(shall i duck now, as you throw the brick bat?)
November 30th, 2007 at 6:03 pm
That is so beyond cool, it’s frozen! I wanna DO this - IMMEDIATELY! You’re right, there isn’t a “wrong” side - just two different sides.
Better knit another gold star onto The Boy’s ™ headband…
(And what a uniquely Tsarina-ish freebie pattern it would be!)
November 30th, 2007 at 8:36 pm
The bookmark looks fantastic. My boyfriend is kind of similar. He suggests some things that seem totally crazy, but then I start thinking about it and low and behold I find a way.
November 30th, 2007 at 9:09 pm
Did I mention the geek of my heart thing? I mean, just contemplating it makes my head hurt - not so much with the maths, me - but really really cool..
November 30th, 2007 at 11:58 pm
Glad to hear I’m not the only one that emails across the room.
December 1st, 2007 at 5:10 am
I think that’s really terrific - and what really appeals to my convent school upbringing, the back of the work is so neat and tidy …! It would probably make a great scarf in a chunky yarn, and with the stitch pattern scaled up the way Helen (of Troy) suggested
December 1st, 2007 at 4:04 pm
Oooh! *babbles incoherently, then gets a grip* Tell The Boy that he is *so* bad, because I want to make that. Immediately. Several times. And possibly put it in wristwarmers.
It’s all his fault.
Surprising, how non-knitters sometimes get ideas that work, just because they have no idea (or only the vaguest) of how knitting actually, technically works.
And yes, the backside is just as awesome as the front. Wow.
December 1st, 2007 at 8:57 pm
Amazing. Just amazing. It makes my head hurt, but still . . .
And just to come up with another weirdly impractical way of doing making a Nine Tailors bookmark, I suppose you could just knit it in the round, with the plain background on the back side, so that it’s a tube. It would be the thickest bookmark in the world, of course!
December 2nd, 2007 at 1:34 am
A TUBE!!!
That’s a fantastic idea!
December 2nd, 2007 at 3:44 pm
I think it appropriate to elaborate a bit on my comment above.
Our Tsarina’s patience is so nearly boundless that I sometimes forget that even it has limits. Not to worry–I regularly bother her until I finally determine just how far beyond Job’s her patience truly extends.
The conversation reported above was one of those occasions.
A less abridged version will explain the enthusiasm of my response to Astrid Bear’s capital suggestion.
In the beginning, I was rather dense about the distinction between knitting on circs and knitting “in the round.” The Tsarina’s initial comment did not call me to my senses. Instead–only God knows why–it conjured in my mind an image like one of those sweaters we have all seen, in which the pretty color pattern on the front side is supported by a vast telephone exchange nightmare of carried yarns.
“Well then,” I said, “why not just knit it double-wide and then fold it over and sew it shut? That would hide the back side nicely, no?”
No.
“I said I have to knit it in the round.”
Oh.
Hmmmm.
Light dawned.
“You mean that you have to knit and keep knitting in circles on your circs and there are no edges! I get it!!! Then maybe you can just make a tube.”
“I am not knitting a tube.”
“I suppose it would be kinda tight with only 16 stitches, but it could be done, right?”
“I am not knitting a tube.”
“Suppose you added some grey on each side to make the circle bigger. That would work, wouldn’t it?”
“I am not knitting a tube.”
“We could iron it flat!”
“I am not knitting a tube.”
“It wouldn’t be ideal, but it could be done, couldn’t it? Done is beautiful!”
“I don’t do ‘done.’”
“OK, I was just curious.”
“I am thinking about how to do it.”
“Don’t worry about it, I was …”
“I am TRYING to think about how to do it.”
My work was done.
December 2nd, 2007 at 5:02 pm
Nice to hear the story of how the utter ridiculousness of a tubular bookmark precipitated the mental gymnastics that resulted in the amazing flat colorwork!
December 2nd, 2007 at 7:42 pm
O…M…G!!! I am laughing so hard right now….
I am also standing in utter awe of the finished product. Now, being totally iggerant of the principles involved here, is this worked similar to the Rovaniemi (yep, I know I can’t spell it) mitten patterns the Harlot was sooo taken with a while back?
Just wondering….
December 2nd, 2007 at 11:56 pm
I think I like the purl side more than the knit - the color lines seems more defined. And um, the pattern will be available when?
December 7th, 2007 at 11:14 am
Haha. that’s fantastic!
December 10th, 2007 at 2:14 am
Ha!
How different is the flat technique from the circular? Just working the color-pattern backwards and in purl, or *more* convolutions than that? Might the strip make good practice before tackling the sock? I haven’t done the Rovaniemi (sp?) technique at all before, so I don’t know from beans about the stranding — just that you move over only 1 stitch at a time and the strands automatically interlock.
December 13th, 2007 at 6:34 am
is this inspired by the Sayers book?
December 14th, 2007 at 10:28 am
O.M.G. I TOTALLY LURVE that! AWESOME!
May 1st, 2008 at 12:30 pm
hehe, i like the purl side much better, the colors are more defined