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which_chickI had a busy evening of afghan work. Lookit!
I got done the first 2w1b square, which has also had all the ends woven in and been washed and is drying on the blocking board:
You might be thinking that I'm trying to get one over on you by just doing another picture of the 2b1w square and hoping you will not notice.
Nope. The 2b1w squares are hella darker than the 2w1b squares. See?
Why is there a safety pin on the barely-begun 2b1w square? The safety pin indicates the "front" of the knitting because I have to do two rows the same (knit into the knit stitches, purls into the purl stitches) and then change. Because distractions are a thing, the safety pin indicates which side of the fabric I am on. If I can see the safety pin, it's time to do "purls into knit stitches" and "knits into purl stitches". Otherwise, I knit into knits and purl into purls.
Can ye not read yer knitting?
Fuck off. The safety pin is easy and very obvious. Some people use stitch markers and row counters and stuff. That's not me. But this helps me not fuck it up, so it's what I do.
In the interests of documenting some of the time sink efforts, I also timed my not-fast knitting.
Two rows of 40 sts (one "block" row) took 5 minutes in "English" knitting last night -- I timed it. Sometimes I knit English and sometimes I knit continental and it kinda depends on my mood. My gauge is the same for both, so it doesn't really matter much in terms of the finished product. Casting on takes a little less than that except I struggle to count to 40 without getting distracted and losing my place so there is more counting than you probably think. (How many times do I have to recount? Like three or four, usually. It's important to get it right, see, and I get distracted so...) Casting off is a pain and I don't enjoy it so it feels like it takes forever. Probably it does not take forever.
But anyway, now we have information we can use to determine approximately how long a square takes to knit. I referred to a plain brown square picture because it's easier to see the rows on there. Take a look, I've indicated with red dots HALF of the blocks.
By my count there are 20 red dots and between them 19 non-dot rows of blocks. 39 block rows, give or take. Each block row is five minutes of time, so that turns out to be 3 hours 15 minutes per afghan square. This does not include any weaving in of ends, blocking, sewing seams together, or spinning/washing/plying of yarn. Wow. Maybe it's faster if I get in the zone? I should probably measure a bigger stretch of knitting, way more than two rows, for a more accurate "in the zone" result.
But still, production of textiles (of any kind) is a huge amount of labor that I think is undervalued in all manner of entertainment media. Like, we modern folks -- and particularly modern folks who don't DO any sort of textile production even in a tiny little "I crocheted some potholders once" sort of way -- have no flipping idea how damn labor intensive textile production was, back in the day.
I also did some spinning, finished out a bobbin of brown and started on more of the white roving which is very soft and very fine but kind of sudden in its self-adhesion. It's... grippy and grippy and grippy and then NOT GRIPPY. My drafting or my take-up or something is not getting along with it the best. I can spin it but it's... wow, the brown is a lot more tractable. I need to negotiate a peace with it because it really is very nice stuff and also I have many squares that need white yarn left to do.
Yes, I have done several bobbins of it already. No, I still have not made my peace with it. I'm persistent, is all. Maybe the problem is that I don't have a lot of experience with commercially prepared roving? (Yes, yes, people learning to spin buy roving that is clean and aligned and in yarn vomit colors except... I didn't do it that way. I bought a sheep fleece, because of course I did. And I learned about processing and scouring and carding and whatnot RIGHT ALONGSIDE LEARNING TO SPIN. It was fine.) Maybe the problem is that I'm not a good spinner? I'm an OK spinner. I make yarn that I can use. Is it the best yarn? Probably not. On the handspinning subreddit there are people making amazing fucking yarn. I'm not that guy.
Sidebar: I think it's delightful that, for many folks, the measure of success in handspinning is to generate product that looks machine-made. Lol. So hilarious.
It'll be interesting to see if my spinning changes at all through the course of this afghan project. It'll certainly be a bunch of dedicated practice, and that's going to have some sort of an effect, for sure.
I got done the first 2w1b square, which has also had all the ends woven in and been washed and is drying on the blocking board:
You might be thinking that I'm trying to get one over on you by just doing another picture of the 2b1w square and hoping you will not notice.
Nope. The 2b1w squares are hella darker than the 2w1b squares. See?
Why is there a safety pin on the barely-begun 2b1w square? The safety pin indicates the "front" of the knitting because I have to do two rows the same (knit into the knit stitches, purls into the purl stitches) and then change. Because distractions are a thing, the safety pin indicates which side of the fabric I am on. If I can see the safety pin, it's time to do "purls into knit stitches" and "knits into purl stitches". Otherwise, I knit into knits and purl into purls.
Can ye not read yer knitting?
Fuck off. The safety pin is easy and very obvious. Some people use stitch markers and row counters and stuff. That's not me. But this helps me not fuck it up, so it's what I do.
In the interests of documenting some of the time sink efforts, I also timed my not-fast knitting.
Two rows of 40 sts (one "block" row) took 5 minutes in "English" knitting last night -- I timed it. Sometimes I knit English and sometimes I knit continental and it kinda depends on my mood. My gauge is the same for both, so it doesn't really matter much in terms of the finished product. Casting on takes a little less than that except I struggle to count to 40 without getting distracted and losing my place so there is more counting than you probably think. (How many times do I have to recount? Like three or four, usually. It's important to get it right, see, and I get distracted so...) Casting off is a pain and I don't enjoy it so it feels like it takes forever. Probably it does not take forever.
But anyway, now we have information we can use to determine approximately how long a square takes to knit. I referred to a plain brown square picture because it's easier to see the rows on there. Take a look, I've indicated with red dots HALF of the blocks.
By my count there are 20 red dots and between them 19 non-dot rows of blocks. 39 block rows, give or take. Each block row is five minutes of time, so that turns out to be 3 hours 15 minutes per afghan square. This does not include any weaving in of ends, blocking, sewing seams together, or spinning/washing/plying of yarn. Wow. Maybe it's faster if I get in the zone? I should probably measure a bigger stretch of knitting, way more than two rows, for a more accurate "in the zone" result.
But still, production of textiles (of any kind) is a huge amount of labor that I think is undervalued in all manner of entertainment media. Like, we modern folks -- and particularly modern folks who don't DO any sort of textile production even in a tiny little "I crocheted some potholders once" sort of way -- have no flipping idea how damn labor intensive textile production was, back in the day.
I also did some spinning, finished out a bobbin of brown and started on more of the white roving which is very soft and very fine but kind of sudden in its self-adhesion. It's... grippy and grippy and grippy and then NOT GRIPPY. My drafting or my take-up or something is not getting along with it the best. I can spin it but it's... wow, the brown is a lot more tractable. I need to negotiate a peace with it because it really is very nice stuff and also I have many squares that need white yarn left to do.
Yes, I have done several bobbins of it already. No, I still have not made my peace with it. I'm persistent, is all. Maybe the problem is that I don't have a lot of experience with commercially prepared roving? (Yes, yes, people learning to spin buy roving that is clean and aligned and in yarn vomit colors except... I didn't do it that way. I bought a sheep fleece, because of course I did. And I learned about processing and scouring and carding and whatnot RIGHT ALONGSIDE LEARNING TO SPIN. It was fine.) Maybe the problem is that I'm not a good spinner? I'm an OK spinner. I make yarn that I can use. Is it the best yarn? Probably not. On the handspinning subreddit there are people making amazing fucking yarn. I'm not that guy.
Sidebar: I think it's delightful that, for many folks, the measure of success in handspinning is to generate product that looks machine-made. Lol. So hilarious.
It'll be interesting to see if my spinning changes at all through the course of this afghan project. It'll certainly be a bunch of dedicated practice, and that's going to have some sort of an effect, for sure.
no subject
Date: 2026-02-24 06:27 pm (UTC)Yeah, I know, I could have knit the whole thing. But I don't like knitting. I can, but I'm not good at it and don't like it. Crochet on the other hand -is- my thing.
no subject
Date: 2026-02-24 06:52 pm (UTC)