[Nfb-krafters-korner] Kitchner Stitch and other Techniques

[Henrietta Brewer]

Hi Susan,
Your discriptions of your knitting are way beyond me. But your stories of you family warm my heart. I am so glad to hear such lovely stories of family.
Henrietta
On Jan 24, 2011, at 1:18 PM, Susan Roe wrote:

> Hi Ninn,
> 
> A Liberty Cap, also called Foresters or Voyagers Cap, is a style of wool cap from France that was worn in the 1700's and 1800's by the French, Brits and Colonials in the Americas at that time.  The Liberty Cap was usually dark blue, the Foresters Cap was green and the Voyagers Cap was dark red.  I have also been told that French trappers also wore their caps red.
> 
> They are smoothly knit with no ribbing, just stockenet in the round.  Often along the front of the fused brim there would be a line of just X's all around or even slogans like "Don't tred on me".  The caps are also long and tapered, not quite to a point with a tassel dangling at the end.  Men would often take a fancy pin or even a broach and fasten it just above the tassel and secure the cap's slouched top to one side of the cap.  Picture a Santa hat all in dark blue, cut the top 3 inches off, fasten a tassel instead of a pompom and secure the floppy top with a pin.  My sister says she has seen pictures of caps with a feather attached where the pin would be.
> 
> It does call for a thin yarn, but not as thin as sock yarn.  I am using a worsted because I couldn't see myself trying to use a light sports weight on such small needles.  The pattern notes called for a zero, but I had only worked with a 2, so I compromised and went with a one.  For the conversion in size, I didn't trust any kind of recalculations on what it could probably look like.  I took the time to use their initial instructions of casting on 130 stitches and knitting about 10 rows.  I took that straight off the needles and pinched it up to where it should fit and decided to take off 26 stitches and went with 104 stitches instead.  I went back to the directions on how to work a provisional cast on and hoped I was doing it correctly and went on from there.
> 
> I can say with a smile on my face, I have successfully knit the provisional cast on, knit the first flap of the brim, put in the brim welp, knit the front half of the 3 inch brim, put in a trapeze line, and fused the brim together.  I am already about one inch up from the brim.I stayed up past 10 o'clock Saturday night because once I started fusing the brim, I was afraid to stop until all 104 of those tiny little stitches were locked forever in their place.  LOL
> 
> I haven't herd of the site you mentioned "knitter's math".  My gauges never fit what is called for, that is why I do so much modifying and running trapeze lines as I go.  It is my way of sculpting in yarn.
> 
> Fusing a brim is first shaping your brim to be folded flat and then locked in place almost like the kitchner stitch, but not quite.  For this pattern, a fused brim has three important parts, the provisional cast on, the brim welp and "fusing" the stitches you picked up from un raveling the provisional cast on onto a second kneedle, and then looping them one by one up and over the corresponding stitches on your working kneedle.
> 
> A trapeze line is the same thing as a life-line.  It has saved my sanity more than once and has definitely kept me from tossing several attempts at complicated stitch patterns in the trash.  LOL
> I am very blessed to have my sister next door.  She is sighted, however, she is not a knitter and does very little crochetting, however, she is outstanding in reading and comprehending diagrams and pictures.  If she can read it and describe it to me, then I have no problems doing it.  Her talent is painting/drawing and when she started having some sight problems, she shifted to wood carving and has done nothing but excelled.  No surprise there.  My husband paints/draws as well, does functional wood work,and Native American style leather work.  He grew up with a mother and two grandmothers who knitted and crochetted.  He has the patients of Jobe looking through my pattern books when I'm trying to find something specific in mind and will read the pattern for me.  I can't help but smile and thank God for him when he is down on his knees in front of me looking over something I've knitted, trying to find something visually where I just know something dosen't"feel" right to me.  He also can't stand to see me ripping something out after I've spent days or even weeks working on because he knows when I say it doesn't feel right to me, he can tell me 100 times it looks fine, but I won't be happy until it does.
> 
> Susan
> dogwoodfarm at verizon.net
> 
> 
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