One Dreambird Done

Arising from the heat of my knitting frenzy, Firebird is born. Hey, somewhere down deep inside of me is a frustrated novelist, what can I say? Anyway, it's what I'm calling my first Dreambird. (There are three more on my needles). In case there are any non-Ravelers out there, everyone on Ravelry names their projects something. My good friend, Yvonne, suggested the name and I have to admit it's perfect. I couldn't love this piece more.

If you read my earlier post on Dreambird, you'll remember that this started out as a very challenging knit, which doesn't happen to me very often. Now that I have one under my belt, I can practically knit this pattern in my sleep but that's okay because it's simply one of the most enjoyable knits ever.

Thanks go to my husband, Ira for picking out the gorgeous colors and Mrrrp, my cat, for being on my lap throughout the entire project.

My New Favorite Technique: The Double Stitch in Short Rows

Riffing off of my last post and segueing into an "old dog, new tricks" theme, I just have to enthuse about my new favorite technique that I learned by knitting Dreambird: the German Double Stitch. Learning this technique was one of those OMG! moments and it has revolutionized my short row knitting. And, with all the short row knitting I've been doing lately, it couldn't have happened at a more propitious time.

Dreambird by Nadita Swings

Briefly, a short row is a used to shape your knitting into the triangular and lovely flowing lines of Dreambird, the wedge shaping of Spectra, bust darts, or sock heels. It is a row where you don't knit to the end of the needle. Instead, you work part of the way across the row, turn, and then work back the other way. At the point of the turn, you must do "something" to prevent a hole. Most commonly, you do a Wrap and Turn, (W&T). But you can also do the double stitch.

So why am I so enamored with the double stitch? Because I was a total slave to the W&T method but was never entirely pleased with how it looked. I tend to fall into technique ruts and it didn't occur to me that there might be a different way to knit short rows. The W&T was simply okay enough. By wrapping the yarn around the stitch at the turning point and then, on the following row, picking up that wrap and knitting it with its corresponding stitch you certainly close up the hole, but for me that wrap was always too loose. Generally, it would block out or block out enough and yet...

My Spectra

With the Double Stitch, there is no wrap. You slip the last stitch of your short row to the right needle but instead of wrapping the working yarn around that stitch, you simply bring the working yarn over the needle and pull on it enough to bring the two legs of that stitch up to the top of the needle. It looks a little weird but then on the row that you would normally pick up the wrap, you just knit the those two legs together. It makes for clean, crisp short rows. There's a great explanation of this on Ravelry as well as the W&T.

The (Dream)Bird is The Word

Dreambird

When you've been knitting as long and prolifically as I have, it can be tough to find patterns that are as interesting and challenging as they are beautiful. It's been a very long time since a pattern has required me to sit in a quiet room and knit without any other distractions. You see I have this innate ability to memorize patterns. Its almost like music for me, once I've sung a few bars or knit a few rows, the song or pattern just flows in a logical sequence. (I should stop right here and say that I'm a much better knitter than I am a singer.) Even complicated Aran or lace knitting quickly becomes something I can knit while watching TV or with my knitting group, a loud, boisterous bunch that has been known to cause people to screw up garter stitch. So, just as I had begun to think that there was really nothing new or challenging under the knitting sun, along comes Dreambird by Nadita Swings -- a visually spectacular pattern using the foundation of the pattern Wingspan while incorporating the challenging technique of Swing Knitting into a wrap that resembles long, flowing feathers of brightly colored birds.

Wingspan

Wingspan a very popular pattern by maylin Tri'Coterie Designs. It's a small shawl or wrap knit in triangular sections. Swing Knitting is a specialized practice of short row knitting (for more info click here) that has always intrigued me. As with other short row patterns like Spectra, Tiffany, Leftie, and Rockefeller, you get a lot of two-color "wow" while only knitting with one color at a time. Where Swing Knitting differs is that its multidirectional short row shaping creates a much more graceful line of contour in the pattern.  As part of the technique a series of light and dark pins are used to mark the turning point of the short rows. I purchased the beginning workshop pattern for Swing Knitting--a pair of wrist warmers. I started the wrist warmers and got the basic idea of Swing Knitting but the wrist warmers didn't really appeal to me to enough to overcome getting a little bogged down with all the light and dark pins so I never finished them.

Nadita wrote her pattern in a very conversational style and translated it into several languages from the original German. She even provided a simpler, bare bones, row-by-row chart that tells you exactly how many stitches to knit in each row, making the pins unnecessary. Although there have been complaints about how the pattern was written, I personally think she did a fabulous job of explaining the Swing Knitting technique. It took me two feathers and three days of uninterrupted knitting to get (Dare I say it?) the swing of it. On my third feather, I ditched the pins and am now knitting it by the row chart alone.

My Dreambird in progress

Dreambird is the only pattern I've given a higher than "easy" difficulty rating on Ravelry. Even then, I give it a "medium" and that's only because the conversational style of the pattern takes some getting used to. But for those who might find it a bit more daunting, there's a great thread on Dreambird in Ravelry's Swing Knitting group that answers a lot of questions and provides lots of help.

I'm not sure Dreambird will ever be a TV or knitting group kind of project. And I'm not sure I would want it be. I've grown to love the undistracted quiet time I spend with it.

 If you'd like more information on my particular Dreambird, check out my Ravelry page by clicking here.