Tiers of Joy

You know, I’m so happy I could just knit! Have you ever had what you thought was a great idea and then it turns out to be a great idea? Well, I’ve just had one of those days! I’m on a roll! First of all, my son Rory, took my new bike and adjusted it for me - raised the seat, lowered the handlebars, and tightened all the cables and it’s great. So, I’m back to cycling - it’s less than a month to Cleveland/ Inspiration ‘08 and I have a few pounds to take care of before then. I’m feeling confident that I can do it - I’m up to about 25 km in 90 minutes - which is good for me. Then I got an email from Cindy in NM, inviting me to do a workshop in November. WOW! I love to travel!!
I’ve had this idea for a skirt rolling around in my head for a while and something just clicked the other day and I had a pretty clear picture of how I was going to proceed. My prototype is - get this - in black!! I know that I’m going to have to make the skirt a couple of times to iron out the kinks, to get a workable pattern to put in K’words, and although black is my favourite wardrobe colour - I don’t care what Stacey and Clinton think - I rarely knit with black, at least that you get to see. Every once in a while I treat myself and re-knit something that’s been in the magazine in a more photo-able colour, in black. Last month, once I got No 46 off to the printers, I knit ‘Let’s Swing Again’ from No 44 with this gorgeous ‘midnight black’ Wool Crepe Deluxe that I’d been saving for something special. The one shown in the mag was done in a variegated rayon. It was really nice and I’d worn it quite a few times, getting compliments from non-knitters, so I wanted to re-do it in something really good. Anyway, the long and the short of it is I had some of the black WCD leftover. I also had Mini Dina and Skinny Majesty leftovers in close to the same shade of black.
My vision of this skirt is a tiered thing, that really needs a taller person than me, but I’m okay with that. I wanted the bottom tier to have hankie points, sort of, so it’s sideways knit, using a slip stitch program to shortrow sharp angles that worked out cool. The next tier is lacy with the Mini Dina and the third tier is stockinette in the Skinny Majesty. So, I knit 2 sets of each panel for the back and front and I’m thinking about how to join it all together and make sure the whole thing is not too heavy. So I used the WCD at a much looser tension - it goes further and produces a thinner fabric.
My on-the-fly plan was to hang the edge of the bottom flounce on the machine and then knit the underskirt up to when the next tier would be joined. I hung it on without really thinking and when I was finished, realized I’d hung it with the knit side facing me. Which meant that knitting over this, the purl side would be facing. But then it dawned on me - to add the next tier, I would have to remove the underskirt, hang the tier with the wrong side facing, replace the underskirt and continue to the next tier and repeat that. Way too much work and what the heck - who cares if the purl side of the "underskirt" that no one will see, is on the outside?? Hello!!! Knit up the way it was, add the next tier, keep knitting and only turn it at the top for the yoke part!!! Sometimes I do feel like a rocket scientist!!
Look for various lengths and versions of this new skirt - Tiers of Joy is my working title - in No 47 and also at the show in Cleveland - I’m going to make one for Sue J to wear too!! Her and I are about the same size, except she’s about the eight inches taller that I’d like to be - but hers won’t be black...