Ply-Split Progression

Incorrect braid, but still pretty

I bought a ply-split project from Etsy a few days ago, a pdf pattern, and I’ve been dying to try it out, which is why I spent the better part of the day a couple of days ago making cord. The piece calls for 24 cords, in five different colors. Eight of one, and four each for the rest.

I used Scheepjes Catona for the cord. Since trying it out, it has rapidly become my go-to yarn. The colors are gorgeous, and the yarn is soft and strong. Love, love, love this yarn, and I wish it was more easily accessible here in the States. Shopping online is great, but nothing replaces viewing an item with your own eyes.

I didn’t realize how time-consuming the cordmaking would be. The battery-powered cordmaker can only do so much so quickly, unlike the drill-driven cordmaker I’ve seen in videos. But though my setup isn’t the best, the job got done.

What I’ve learned, though, is that I didn’t pay quite enough attention to detail as I thought with the cordmaking. Yup. I posted a pic in the Facebook group and asked if I’d done everything correctly, and it seems that though my cords are made with 4 strands, they are still 2-ply cords. Why? Because the four strands were to be twisted separately, then be twisted together. What yours truly did was twist two strands together, then twist all four.

Oops.

It would be the one time I post a video that I did it wrong, wouldn’t it?!

New cords, this time made properly!

I’m going to finish the pattern anyway, then try to make my cords correctly and do the pattern again. The piece I currently have is still pretty, if incorrect, and I figure since I can’t use those cords for anything else, I might as well finish what I started. It is giving me a feel for how to place the gripfid, which is a good thing. And I have gone back and made more cords, properly. I definitely need a better setup for cordmaking, and that means getting into the garage to find the other cordmaker. I’ll get there…eventually.

As much as I’m finding that I’m enjoying ply-split braiding, it also leaves me in a bit of a quandary, because Scheepjes Catona doesn’t come in huge skeins. So far, when I make cords, I use two four-yard lengths of yarn for one cord. If I need four cords of one color, that’s already sixteen yards used…that’s a significant amount of the skein. It means that if another project comes up, I will have to buy more yarn. Not that that is a hardship, mind, and a skein isn’t expensive at $3.85, but there are 109 colors in the Catona colorway. I’m trying to have at least one full skein of each color on hand, because I use Catona in weaving, crochet, and now ply-split braiding. Having multiple skeins of each color is going to get pricey quick, and having multiples would be the ideal situation. My wallet, however, is screaming at even the idea. Can you hear it? I think there might be tears…

Maybe what I should do is a destash trade kind of thing. I’ve been trying to get away from acrylic yarn, of which I have plenty. Maybe someone would trade away their Catona. Hmmm…

On the left, the new braid, with different colors, and proper cords

So that’s the quandary: I need a large amount of the Catona if I’m going to use it in those three crafts. Something I’ll have to work on.

Today, I started the same pattern over again, with different colors, proper cords, and there is a noticeable difference. I haven’t quite finished the first, incorrect one, but I really wanted to try doing it right. One mistake I made, right off the bat, is using black as the dominant color. I wanted to make the colors pop, and they do, but I didn’t stop to think about the fact that seeing the plies is really, really difficult. As in, I can’t work on this one in the living room. I need to be in the studio at my desk, with the magnifying light on. 

Once I got it going, I didn’t need the magnifier so much anymore, and I think I can thank the time I’ve spent on the other braid for that, getting a feel for where the fid needs to go. I’m beginning to be able to see it in this braid as well, and starting to go a little faster. It’s fun, and the pattern really isn’t hard. Once you’ve done a couple of repeats, you can look at it and know where you are and what you need to do next.

I don’t know what I’m going to do with these two braids, but I’m sure my children will have ideas of their own, and will claim them if I don’t have an instant answer to that question!

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Keeping Busy and Sane…Sort Of

Several rows of Apache Trail of Tears in Scheepjes Catona.

The governor of North Carolina has issued a statewide “shelter in place” order, effective this coming Monday. Not that we weren’t pretty much doing that anyway, but now it’s official, and it’s a class 2 misdemeanor if you don’t follow it. Not a problem; I have every intention of following it. But sanity, what little of that I can claim, is now seriously lacking, what with the girls home until at least May 15th, and having to homeschool Bryony.

I have learned that I am not cut out to be a teacher. I’ve always respected them, but my respect has increased since dealing with Bryony’s schoolwork. She knows exactly what buttons to push to piss me off, and does so every chance she gets. I know she doesn’t behave like this at school, at least not with adults, but at home, when it comes to schoolwork, it is the stuff of nightmares. Teachers have twenty or more children to deal with per class. I can barely tolerate my one. If I had to go into a classroom to teach, I’d be out of work in less than a week. I don’t know how they do it. My hat is off to them!

As you can see, retaining my temper and staying out of prison is key at this point. To that end, I’ve got a number of works in progress going. As mentioned previously, there’s the attempt at soutache, a weaving project, and a spinning project. I’ve added another one, as if I didn’t give myself enough already. But there’s a blanket pattern I really, really love, and I’ve wanted to try it for a couple of years. And it so happens that I also have this box of Scheepjes Catona cotton. There are 109 little skeins of yarn, the entire colorway, and they’re perfect for this blanket, which has what I consider an odd name: Apache Trail of Tears. It’s odd, because historically speaking, the Cherokee move west to Oklahoma is called the Trail of Tears. I’ve never heard anything Apache referred to by that name, except for this blanket pattern.

Educational note for those interested: Cherokee and Apache are the European names for the nations. They don’t call themselves by those names. The Cherokee call themselves Tsalagi. The Apache call themselves Inde.

Anyway, I’ve started the blanket after watching several tutorials on it. I had to do that, because for some reason, anything that involves front post crochet is difficult for me, which means waffle stitch and this blanket, among others. I don’t exactly hate front post crochet, but it’s not my favorite thing to do either, simply because it never seems to look right when I do it. I’ve seen other crocheters do it, and it looks perfect. The front post stitches are absolutely ramrod straight, where mine are invariably curved or diagonal or some other nonsense. And I have a lot of trouble keeping track of which stitches to skip because I’ve crocheted around a post. The good thing about this particular pattern is that once you’ve got the first row of “tears” (ie front post crochet) done, every row thereafter, the post goes next to the one from the previous row, so I don’t need the stitch markers, or to keep track of too much. The repeat is an odd number of stitches, as in odds/evens, not strangeness. I chose to do mine as a repeat of 7, so it’s six single crochet, then a triple crochet tear, and it continues that way across the row. Since I know where the next tear is going to be, I count backward six stitches from that point to my most recent tear, instead of moving it aside to see what stitch to skip. It seems to work better for me that way.

I’m truly loving the Scheepjes Catona. I really wish the larger skeins were available locally! The skeins in the Color Pack boxes are tiny, 10 grams each, which works out to 25 meters of yarn per skein. I’m horrible with math, so I couldn’t even begin to tell you what that is in our American math system, and I’m not even going to try. Suffice it to say, it’s not as though you can use a single skein to make something like a scarf. My blanket is 322 stitches across, so I’m doing one row in each color. I do still have yarn left in the skein at the end of the row, but I don’t know that there’s enough to make it across a second row. I guess I’ll find out after I’ve done 109 rows, then I’ll pick up some of the leftover yarn and try to get across a second row!

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