Last One

No, I'm not waxing lyrical about the last weekend of the year (though it's good and long, so I'm not complaining or anything), it's just that I completed the last class sample for the lot that are due on Wednesday, and handed them off.

I actually had a necklace in the package, but the beaded beads on that necklace used seed beads instead of fire-polished beads like these earrings, and were so monochromatic that you really couldn't see much. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, big monochrome fan that I am. These earrings positively pop compared to the necklace.

Contrast is all very relative, isn't it? All the beads in the earrings are in the same sector of the colour wheel, but some colours are darker or more saturated or duller than others, and there are different finishes on the beads, so there's some appearance of contrast. Value contrast, not hue. (I think I have it right).

And then I noodled this little pendant instead of working on instructions for the upcoming class. (It's over a week away. I feel no pressure).

 It hangs at an angle, and the back has a little window (which is all dark in the picture below so you can't see and will have to take my word on it) showing a sort of floral motif.

I whipped it up in no time, apparently too quickly to actually make into even short-term memory, because I'm having the worst time trying to make another.

Also less fun this time because the beads I'm using now are enough bigger than the beads used above that the beadwork doesn't fit snugly over the spike which wants to wobble right out of its cap.

I've been knitting a tweaked version of Vertizontal as I make my way through Breaking Bad (towards the end of Season four currently) and I have to say that much as I love knitting things in non-traditional ways, socks are poorly served when the knitting is at ninety degrees to the usual angle, as the stretch is not the same, and it affects the fit and the comfort and I think I shall avoid it in the future. Once these socks are done.

I've noticed a similar degradation when using entrelac, mitred squares and triangles in socks, but this quarter-circle rotation is the worst of the lot.

I suspect those who knit socks through which you can see (spend much time darning? No? Never ambulate in the socks?) won't have this issue to the extent that I observe it. When you knit socks for wearability and comfort (no fossils - those imprints caused by too-loose fabric - on my soles, thank you), there's quite a bit less stretch at a tighter gauge than at a looser gauge, and the difference between stretch horizontally versus vertically is quite marked.

For the same reason I found many of the socks in Cat Bordhi's book impossible at a sensible (to me) gauge.

They puckered and bound and were altogether a Very Bad Idea (quite apart from the book itself, the format and style of which annoyed me no end). If you move a set of two or three or four or more stitches diagonally around the foot, unless you short-row over this little band of stitches, you will have Issues since these poor little stitches, already rather constrained by the overall gauge, now have to cover a longer distance than their neighbours which are already managing on the bare minimum amount of yarn (tight gauge, remember) and can spare none for these wastrels that plan on spanning a diagonal length rather than a vertical. The distance each diagonal stitch must span is about twenty-five percent (if the height of your row measures about three-quarters of the width of your stitch, then the diagonal formed by the rectangle with height 0.75 and width 1 is 1.25) more than its perfectly vertical neighbours cover, which is not insignificant.

You know how they give the diagonal measurements of TV sets? It's because it's much bigger than either the horizontal or vertical measurement (you can thank Pythagoras. Think math is irrelevant to your daily life? Think again), and I would bet money that plenty of people have diligently measured spaces before buying the TV of their dreams only to find plenty of wiggle room because they ignored the word "diagonal", even though all the advertisements generally do include the it in the sentence with the measurement.

Or cynic that I am, I could be vastly underestimating the vast unwashed masses and no one has in fact ever confused "diagonal" with "width". I'd be surprised though.