Gail's Good Yarn

Kate's Cardigan for Gail

2010-05-25T10:29:00.006-05:00

This is a very belated post. I made Kate's Cardigan last spring, but am finally writing about it this spring, after a season of wear and a winter in the basement closet! My apologies to those who think I am a speed knitter--I truly am not!!

I definitely have a soft spot for anything named "Kate," and I don't know why. I wanted to name my second daughter Katherine just so I could call her Kate. (I was overruled by my husband) My fascination with all things "Kate" has nothing to do with "Taming of the Shrew" but may have something to do with Thomas More's beloved daughter. (I am too old to have another daughter, just to use the name. But if my daughter's ever get pregnant, there will be a lot of lobbying on my part for the best girl's name!) I also have a thing for pie crust collars--me, a woman who eschews ruffles and typically wears only unadorned and very simple items of clothing.

So, last year when Knit Circus (Issue #5) came out with the Kate's Cardigan and put the signature sample in my LYS, I had to make the cardigan-- it even had a pie crust collar!!! It was made in lovely green wool, but I wanted the cardigan for summer wear. I selected Queensland Bebe Cotsoy as my yarn of choice, due to the color, the drape, the gauge and the light weight.

The sleeve construction was quite interesting--stitches picked up across the top of the armhole, working short rows to pick up additional stitches along the armhole, then knitting down. Unfortunately, did the body of the sweater in one piece (I hate to sew fronts and backs together) and then had a difficult time doing the short rows. But, fudging a bit it all worked out.
This sideways photo (I don't know how to turn photos once they are uploaded into Blogger) shows a couple of my attempts to make Kate's Cardigan truly "Gail's Cardigan." First, I loved the simple diagonal lace accent up the front. Why not put it also in the middle of the back?? Done! A few more air holes for a summer cardigan, and it give people something to look at in the back--that is, people can think, "Oh, what pretty lace detail down the back of that cardigan" rather than, "Oh, that woman is getting big in the hips."

I also wanted to be sure that the bound off edge of the pie crust collar did not pull in. therefore, while binding off I added stitches so that the bound off edge would continue the minimal ruffle and lie flat. Success.
Third modification--I added I-cord up the button bands. I dislike button holes in ribbing or in stockinette. I don't know why, but they always shout "home-made!!" to me. Therefore, I usually find a way to use I-cord to make hidden button holes. Praise to Elizabeth Zimmermann and Meg Swansen. Those women know detail.
Fourth modification--I knit the lace edging perpendicularly onto the bottom of the cardigan. I abhor sewing knitted pieces together if there is a way to knit them together. With some fudging, this worked well.

A few weeks ago I dug into my summer clothes bin in the basement and found the cardigan. I took it with me to the Smokey Mountains and didn't wear it--due to the fact that there was unseasonably warmer weather in the mountains than typical! I would have worn the cardigan, had I needed it!! Just looking at the cardigan made me evaluate my choices.

Evaluation one year later:

1) good pattern selection. Love the lace detail on the back.

2) bad yarn selection. Great drape, great color. But the cotsoy pills under the arms and along the side. Ugh!!!

3) "dreaded frontal droop" Meg Swansen's phrase for sweaters that end up being longer in the front than in the back. One problem for this sweater is that the lace border stretches more than the stockinette. When picking up the button bands I should have picked up fewer stitches. now, I think I will do a chain crochet up the inside of the button bands to pull the fronts up.

4) button misplacement. I put a button hole in the bottom lace edging. This pulls in a weird manner. My tummy and hips are too big and the pulling makes them look even bigger. Solution--Weight Watchers.

5) good drape. The cardigan lends itself to a drapey yarn, in my opinion. The waist shaping holds its own and gives the illusion of having a waist when one no longer has one. And the draping is great for summer. Just select a yarn that does not pill.

Meanwhile, my college daughter is home for the summer and the house now feels complete again! My older daughter drops by more often and the cat is in his heaven--sleeping next to her on her bed. Life is good.

Double Applied I-Cord with Apologies to Elizabeth Zimmerman

2010-04-17T10:55:00.009-05:00

Apologies to my husband whom I blamed for deleting photos of the blanket I made for Daughter #2. I found the photos on i-Photo!

I thought I would do a small tutorial on using I-cord to join two knitted fabrics. I could not find anything about this technique in Elizabeth Zimmerman's books, so I un-vented the technique myself. I later learned that Meg Swansen has a demonstration of this on one of her videos. Experience doing applied I-cord to an edge of fabric is helpful.

Tutorial:

Getting ready: Pin the two fabrics together with the amount of ease you need to make the two pieces match.

STEP ONE:

Perhaps you can see that I am applying a double edging (the pink garter stitch strip with the purple knitted-on lace) to the blanket. The section on the middle left has already been applied with green yarn using I-cord. The upper middle shows the edging pinned to the blanket but not yet applied. There are three stitches on my (sharp points) double pointed needle. This is a three stitch I-cord. I simply cast on three stitches to begin.

Concept: The idea is to generate one stitch from each fabric being joined. In this case, I generated one stitch from the blanket and one stitch from the edging. I obtain easy and good stitches from the blanket, which was knit on the bias, I did a single crochet in the green yarn all the way around the blanket, doing one single crochet stitch in each garter stitch "valley" row.

STEP TWO: Picking up stitch from the edging.

I "generated" an I-cord stitch from the edging after working the three I-cord stitches. Using the working yarn from the left, I pulled the yarn through the slipped stitch edge of the edging using a second double pointed needle. I found that this all worked much easier with very sharp double pointed needles.

STEP THREE:

Put this new stitch on the right side of your working needle and knit it together with the second stitch (previously the first stitch) on the needle.

STEP FOUR:

Do the same idea for the blanket edge. You have already knit the first (new) and second stitch on your needle together. You then knit the middle stitch of the I-cord on the needle. Then, you slip the third I-cord stitch.
Put your left needle under both loops of the single crochet edge of the blanket. Pull the working yarn through these loops so that you have one strand of yarn on the left needle as a fourth stitch. Put this stitch on the right needle.

STEP FIVE:

Pass the slipped (third) stitch over the new stitch. Slide the stitches to the other end of the needle and repeat from the top.

This photo (ABOVE) was taken just after I slipped the third stitch over the new stitch. You can also see the single crochet edging on the blanket (left of center) and the edge of the pink and purple edging to the right of center.

Here is the corner of the completed blanket with the I-cord holding together the edging strip and the blanket. I think it gives a nice framed picture kind of look. The I-cord adds texture and depth to the blanket.

I am very proud of how the blanket turned out. As with most projects, there was a point at which I thought the entire project was stupid and should be tossed into the trash barrel.
Because the knitting of the squares was so easy (garter stitch squares on the bias), I concluded that I needed to have a very nice edging. I didn't want future generations to say the blanket was ugly or that great-grandmother really didn't have many knitting tricks up her sleeve.

I like how the squares go together to form x's and diamonds. The effect is of an optical illusion at some points.
Credit where credit is due to Cosmic the Knitting Kitty. He helps with blocking, sitting on the wet wool to help it dry and removing the pins holding the pointed edges of the blanket in place.

Keeping My Girl Warm

2010-04-06T12:26:00.005-05:00

As a knitter and as a mother my main goal in life seems to be keeping my daughters warm. The main goal of my daughters, however, seems to be avoiding receiving un-stylish sweaters from their mother. Un-stylish translates as "anything mom would knit." They do accept hats, mittens and gloves, provided that they have approved the yarn and the style ahead of time. Daughter #1 also accepts socks--in certain colors and certain (plain) styles.

These smaller projects were not enough to fulfill my mother/knitter goal however. Four years ago I convinced Daughter #2 that she needed a blanket for when she went to college. I began to make a blanket on size 2.5mm needles, using leftover sock yarn. The blanket went slowly, since I needed to generate leftover sock yarn. Then, people began to give me their leftover sock yarn, but progress was still slow. Gradually the blanket grew and grew and my daughter, while in high school, kept the unfinished blanket on her bed. Click here for previous posts about the blanket.

Well, in September Daughter #2 left for college and the blanket still needed an edging!! There is nothing wrong with her memory, and she reminded me as we dropped her off at college, "Mom, where is my blanket!!??" Now, I knew that the weather wouldn't require a blanket until late October, when I finally finished the blanket.

Unfortunately, my husband's camera (or my husband) deleted the photos of the blanket that I had taken while it was blocking. This is a photo taken by a friend at The Sow's Ear, a much loved knitting and coffee shop. I think the sun shining through gives the blanket a nice effect.
I made a chart for Daughter #2 identifying the yarn in each square, for whom the socks were knitted and whether the yarn was donated. When she comes home from college, I will take better photos.

The blanket edging was a life time project in itself. Daughter #2 selected the edging colors while we were on vacation in 2008. She wanted a three colored edging, to give the blanket a framed and matted effect. I first knit miles of a 10 stitch garter stitch strip, with mitered corners. (The blanket is the size of a sheet for a long twin size bed.) That nearly drove me insane. In my blind need to find a more interesting stitch, I found a garter stitch lace diamond pattern, which I knit onto the garter stitch strip using a purple sock yarn. Although that was far more interesting to knit, it was twice as wide as the plain pink garter stitch and took about three times as long to knit.

I was ready to stop right there. Forget the green yarn my daughter had selected. But, promises are promises and mothers have to keep their promises. So, I determined to minimize the number of stitches using the green. I "un-vented" the double-applied-I-cord. If Elizabeth Zimmer could un-vent knitting techniques, I figured that I could un-vent something that she probably tried, but never published. I attached the pink/purple strip to the blanket using the green yarn and a four stitch I-cord, picking up one stitch on the edge of the blanket and one stitch on the edge of the edging. After a few fits and starts, I got into the rhythm and it worked!!

I delivered the blanket to my daughter's dorm in early December 2009, hoping to keep her cozy and warm from the brisk, frigid winter winds of Minnesota. Her bunk bed is right against the uninsulated windows of the room. Has she used it? No. The dorm heating system blasts out hot air 24 hours a day and she is always too hot. Does anyone see it? No. To make room for three girls in a room built for two, the beds are elevated with the desks and dressers underneath. No one can see what is on top of the bed. Does she love it? Yes--she treasures the blanket and would not part with it.

I guess, after all, what is most important is that we mother-knitters warm our children's hearts, even if we are unsuccessful at warming their bodies.

15 Seconds of Fame

2010-03-18T18:10:00.003-05:00

I'm basking in my 15 seconds of fame. Kay of Mason Dixon Knitting recent blog posting showed me (minus my head) and my recently de-bottomed Dale of Norway sweater. The "Gail" she described, that's me!! She thought I was brave/delusional/insane for cutting the bottom off of my recently finished sweater. No one else has knocked at my door to admire my sweater, but I'm honored nonetheless.

Here are some photos of my other Olympic entries.

1) Completed Blackberry Mittens, pattern from Blackberry Ridge. Made out of sock yarns from Shi Bui (hand dyed) and Kraemer (white). I made one mitten two years ago for my Christmas gift basket. Unfortunately, no one selected the mitten as a present, even though I promised to make a second one. Therefore, during the Olympics I started and finished the second mitten and now I am wearing them. Perfect weight for Wisconsin early spring-late winter.

2) Leftover Sock Yarn Blanket. Before Christmas I finished the leftover sock yarn blanket for daughter #2. (More about this blanket in a later post.) Upon seeing the blanket, daughter #1 asked, "Where's mine?" Note that I worked for four years on the blanket for daughter #2. Not wanting to be accused of unfair or unequal mothering, I began to make squares for the second blanket. During the Olympics, I sewed these squares together, to show my good faith in actually making a blanket for daughter #1. Check back in 2014 to see the completed object. Meanwhile, I'll be generating leftover sock yarn by continuing to make socks.

Tonight I'll be scrubbing mold and mildew out of the shower, from under old caulking. Nasty job. I'd rather be knitting. But, the state of the shower was caused by regular knitting rather than regular house cleaning. Rats!!

Back in the Saddle Again--but still struggling to stay on!

2010-03-17T14:22:00.006-05:00

As Gene Autry, the old cowboy crooner, used to sing, I'm back in the saddle again, after a long absence. I don't have any good excuses, I guess. Life got in the way, but I kept on knitting.

For my private knitting olympics I resolved to finish all incomplete projects. Let's say that my medal is not the gold.

For three years I have been working on a Dale of Norway Tiur sweater known by two different numbers (17008 or 10014) but no name. It appears in the ill-fated "Best of Tiur" and in Book 100. In year #1 I knit two sleeves whose cuffs were too tight. I shut the sleeves into the closet of denial. In year #2 I dug out the sleeves, cut off the cuffs, picked up the stitches and knit wider cuffs. Actually, I did that for only one sleeve. The other sleeve had stitch-pick-up issues and I ripped out the entire sleeve and knit a new one. I followed by knitting 2/3 of the torso. In year #3, before the Olympics, I finished the torso, joined the sleeves and torso and knit about 2/3 of the yoke.

I started strong out of the gate. The color work went quickly. Then, I almost veered off course. The yoke required duplicate stitch and embroidery. I found a basic embroidery book and learned the boullion stitch, the chain stitch and the lazy daisy.

Weaving in hundreds of ends threw me off balance onto one ski, but I recovered, weakened but determined. Before long, I was ready to block. My blocking-buddy, Cosmic the Cat, helped.

The sweater looked gorgeous--until I put it on.
Let's just say that my derriere should not be emphasized, regardless of the quality of yarn hugging it tightly. Spectators at the the finish line were supportive, arguing that if I purchased a pair of tight leggings, maybe the ribbing wouldn't cling so to the bottom curve of the butt. Or, maybe I could lose some weight. No, I decided, I am not getting younger. My two decade attempt to return to the svelte shape of my youth did not bode well for the weight loss option. And, I wore leggings and tight knit pants their first time around the fashion scene (thing Mary Tyler Moore on the Dick Van Dyke Show). I won't be doing leggings again. I waited until after the Olympics to make my decision. My rationale--I had a completed object in hand. Alterations can always be done later. So, on March 12 I made my decision.

Scissors, that's what I needed.

First, I marked the row in the texture pattern where I wanted to cut. then,

I picked up 288 stitches around the sweater. After which,
emboldened by friends at the Sow's Ear and by a surprise visiting knitting celebrity who ventured north for the weekend, I snipped half of one stitch and proceeded to pull out the row. (Yes, a Mason-Dixon sister watched me do this!! She was even impressed and took photos!! Will I make it onto her blog, only time will tell!)

My approach to applying scissors to painstakingly knit items is as follows: 1) Measure 29 times, cut once; 2) cut in public and pretend you know what you are doing, you have a reputation to uphold; 3) if you insist on cutting alone in the privacy of your own home you will NEVER do it; 4) don't look back.

In violation of my rule #4, I had a brief thought of kitchener stitching the cut-off piece back onto the torso. I moved forward and unraveled the entire lower piece. I dutifully washed the yarn and hung it to dry. Now, I'm taking my bravery pills (as my husband says) and am planning the re-knit. I think I will do a few rows of color pattern before starting the ribbing.

I need to finish this sweater before spring really comes. We've been experiencing the fickle false spring, so common to the upper midwest. All the snow has melted, The daffodil greens have shot up through the matted leaves. Runners have switched from polar fleece to shorts! But, snow is forecast for this weekend. I still have time to wear the sweater if I finish it soon!!!

Socks, Calcetines, Swapetines

2009-04-25T18:05:00.003-05:00

Spring is here in Wisconsin--in fits and starts. Yesterday the temperature was 85 F and today we have rain, grey skies and chilly temperatures. Daffodils and tulip have closed their blossoms to protect themselves from the inclement weather. Only two weeks ago the snowdrops were the only flowers around!
I love these brave little flowers that look so fragile but are so very strong. They hold such promise of warm weather to come, even though they shoot their leaves through snow and like chilly temperatures.

Es la primavera aquí enWisconsin--!poco a poco! Ayer la temperatura estaba 29 C pero hoy está 15C--con lluvia, cielo gris y viento! Brrr. Los tulipanes y narcisos han cerrados sus flores para protegerles contra el tiempo. Hace dos semanas los "snowdrops" eran las unicas flores en los jardines. Me encantan estas flores, tan valientes. Parecen muy frágiles pero son muy fuertes. Tienen el espero del tiempo caliente pero sus hojas aparecen en la vieve y frío.

I have had such a good time participating in a Spanish sock exchange called "Swapetines." The exchange has brightened a very busy spring! Above are the socks in their final form, with the ceramic buttons made by Jennie the Potter. Jennie makes wonderful mugs, bowls and other items for the knitter who wants more than yarn and needles in her life! She decorates the items with cute sheep and unravelling balls of yarn. Not too cute and not too serious!

Encima son los calcetines para Penelope, mi receptora de Swapetines! Me encanta participar en Swapetines. He comprado los botones para les calcetines de Jennie la alfara. Sus tazas, tazones y más tienen ovejas y madejas de lana que se dehacen. !No demasiado mono y no demasiado serio!
The buttons were absolutely perfect! I was very happy to find yarn dyed by a local woman and buttons from a neighboring state. When I send something to another country, I try to find items that are locally made, even if they look as if they could be from anywhere!! Some of my favorite souvenirs from my travels are very ordinary, everyday useful items; only I know that they came from a location far away.

Pienso que los botones son perfectos. Estaba muy contenta de encontrar una lana teñida por una mujer de mi ciudad y botones hechos en un estado a lado del mío. Cuando envio algo al extranjero, me gusta enviar algo hecho muy cerca, aunque parece que fue hecho en qualquier parte. Unos de mis recuerdos preferidos son algo cotidiano muy utíl. Pero, yo se que vienen del extranjero.

(I know that I rotated this photo before uploading, but somehow these socks are sideways! Sorry!) I was worried that the wool socks that I made would be too warm for central Spain. So I made some short, summer socks out of Cascade's Fixation. I have made many of these for myself. I wear them with sandals, even though it's not very stylish. I continue to love them, however. For these socks, I used one strand of solid purple and one strand of variegated yarn. For the cuff, I made a hem with a picot turning row.

Me preocupaba que los calcetines de lana dieran demasiado calor en Espana. Por eso, tejé calcetines de algodón para Penelope. La lana es Fixation de Cascade--es de algodón y un poco de elástico. Hice muchos calcetines iguales para mí y los llevo con sandalias aunque sé que no son elegantes. Para estos calcetines, usé una hebra (hilo?) de un color y una hebra de multicolores. Para el puño tejé una vuelta de "picot" para doblar y formar un ribete.
I made my favorite heel, eye of partridge. When you alternate yarns every two rows the effect is quite striking.
El talón es de "eye of partridge" en vez de un talon tejido entero a vueltas acortadas.

Finally, in the package to Spain, I enclosed some postcards of my town, and a wonderful knitting magazine published right here, KnitCircus. If you have never heard of KnitCircus, click and check it out! It has knitting patterns, some recipes, book reviews and more. My next project is the Kate cardigan from issue #5, the one on the cover.

Finalmente, puse cartas postales de mi ciudad y una revista de labor de punto--publicado en mi ciudad. Mi proximo proyecto es el "cardi" de la portada. Penelope,!! espero que todo te guste!!

I hope that my sock exchange partner likes everything that I sent. I hope it all represents a little bit of the knitting here in the Midwest!!

Transitions

2009-03-29T17:35:00.009-05:00

In a few short months, my precious Daughter #2 will flap her wings and head off for college. This fledging has been a wonderful chick in our nest. She was an inquisitive and excited little sprite who danced and pranced her way into life. She's been a devoted child, who still loves to spend time with her older parents, charming them with her tender heart, hard work and good spirit. Although normally I love the transition of winter to spring, with the lengthening daylight , this year it is bitter sweet. I know that her time with us is shorter and shorter.

Daughter #2 has delighted us with her love of choral music. She began singing in a choir at age 4 and now participates in four choirs! She loathes solos, but finds that choral participation is the only time she truly relaxes--and buries herself in the intertwining melodies. This month, as last year, she scored a "#1" in the regional competition of solo and ensemble vocal music. This means she will go to the state level competition again--something that makes her very proud.

My precious girl is on the right, one of her good friends (a superb soprano) is on the left. They sing in three choirs together.

My daughter selected her college of choice based on their fabulous choral music program. She does not want to major in music, but she wants to continue to take voice lessons and to participate in a hard-working and excellent choir. Unfortunately, although this college accepted her, it did not offer her a scholarship. Two other colleges accepted her and offered her scholarships. We have some tough decisions to make. I would love to stop time and to keep this precious daughter at home for years to come. But, her time has come to flutter her wings and we all have to let go. Sigh.

Meanwhile, on the knitting front, I've also been experiencing some frustrations. Last year I started a Dale of Norway sweater for myself. It's in my favorite color--red! But, it took back seat to items for other people. I started with the sleeves and only finished the sleeves. After completing the Shetland Garden Faroese Shawl, I dug out the red sweater. (after I located it, that is. For a few panic-ed weeks I was sure that I had lost it. Found it in the back of a closet.)

When I pulled on the sleeves I realized the truth about why I stuffed the project into the back of a closet! The cuffs were too tight! I couldn't hide from facts--I needed to re-knit the cuffs. There was no way around it. I got out the scissors.

I cut off the cuffs and then picked up the stitches and re-knit the cuffs going down, rather than up. That means that the cuff's edge was bound off rather than cast on. See---

Trust me, it looks better in person.
My cut-and-pick-up-stitches solution worked for only sleeve #1. For some reason, the textured stitches of sleeve #2 refused to cooperate. I finally gave into my fate. Here's sleeve #2.

That is what Tiur yarn looks like after being knit into a textured sleeve, sitting one year in the back of a dark closet, and being ripped out. Kind of like spiral pasta soaked in tomato sauce. The solution?
A good long soak in wool wash, hanging to dry, winding and re-knitting.

Here's sleeve #2--version #2. What's wrong with this picture?

Notice the pink chain where the cuff should be? Because cuff #2 on sleeve#1 was knit DOWN rather than UP, I didn't want to knit cuff #3 on sleeve #2 UP rather than DOWN. I didn't want two different looking and different feeling cuffs. So, I cast on provisionally, using pink yarn for a crochet chain. After taking this photo, I picked up the live stitches as I undid the chain, took out my smaller needles and knit the cuff for sleeve #2 for the second time. Then, I finished sleeve #2 for the second time and I have two complete sleeves back in the knitting bag. Back to where I started two weeks ago. Definitely a knitting time warp!

Now, on to the body!

!Swapetines!

2009-03-25T18:05:00.008-05:00

!Hola, guapas!

My apologies to my Spanish knitting blogger friends! I have neglected my duty to blog about my Swapetines efforts! Let me explain.

Pilar, from Tejiendo en la Isla (Knitting on the Island), lives in the Canary Islands. Despite living on gorgeous islands where the snow never falls, Pilar is an enthusiastic and talented knitter. Following the success of Sockapalooza, Pilar started a Spanish sock knitting exchange. The name, Swapetines, is a play on the English word "swap" and the Spanish word for socks "calcetines". I love the fact that knitting has put me into contact with people around the world. I also love practicing my terrible Spanish. I will try to put some of this post into Spanish.

Lo siento, mis amigas de Swapetines, de no haber descrito el proyecto de calcetines. !Estoy enamorada de participar en Swapetines! Puedo leer castellano mejor que puedo escribirlo y hablarlo. Por favor, !corregid mis errores!

My swap friend is from Spain, a country where the sun shines hot and bright in blue skies. The landscape is frequently arid, in comparison with my verdant Wisconsin. She said that she would probably wear the socks indoors--the weather being too hot for wool socks and the Spanish women being much too stylish to wear socks with sandals! My yarn choice reflected these considerations.

La receptora de mis calcetines es de España, donde el sol brilla fuertamenta en un cielo azul. La tierra es árida; al contrario mi Wisconsin es muy verde. La receptora me dijo que va a poner los calcetines en casa, por que hace demasiado calor para llevar calcetines de lana. También las espanolas van de moda cuando salen de casa. No llevan calcetines con sandalias! He escogido una lana de acuerdo con esto.

The yarn was hand dyed by a woman I know named Sandy. I selected her "Pair of Sox" yarn, a single ply of wool and nylon, in the color of the hot sun, arid landscape, blue skies and the sea and ocean! The yarn seemed as if it would be long-wearing when worn without shoes.

Una mujer de mi región ha teñida la lana a mano. He eligido la lana que se llama "Pair of Sox", una lana de un solo hebra de una mezcla de lana y polyamid. Las colores son del sol brillante, la tierra árida, el cielo azul y el mar. Me parece que la lana durara bien, especialmente cuando los calcetines se llevan sin zapatos.

For a pattern, I selected "Rock and Weave" from Blue Moon Fibers, whose sock yarn is known as "Socks That Rock." The cuff is made separately, using the linen stitch. I love the picot edging and the fact that buttons are used to close the cuff!! I reinforced the sole of the sock using wooly nylon and I purchased hand made ceramic buttons from Jennie the Potter. I would love to send the recipient one of Jennie's coffee mugs, but the air postage would be prohibitive. To see her buttons, click here.

Como patrón, elegí "Rock and Weave" de Blue Moon Fibers, la suya lana para calcetines se conoce como "Socks that Rock." Hice el puño por separado usando el punto de lino. Me encantan el ribete de "picot" y el hecho que el puno se cierra con botones. Reforcé la planta con un hilo que se llama "wooly nylon" y compré botones de cerámico hechos para Jennie la alfarera. Me gustaría enviar una taza para café hecha para Jennie, pero el franqueo para enviar tal cosa es muy caro. Para ver sus botones, clique aquí.

Here is a close-up of the cuff. Tomorrow, I'll try to sew in the ends and attach the buttons.

Aquí está una foto de primer plano. Mañana, voy a coser los cabos de lana y los botones.

Finally, here is a sock I just finished for myself. I absolutely love wearing hand made socks. Fortunately, here in Wisconsin the winter is long and I can wear wool socks every day from November through mid-April. These socks were made with Trekking XXL yarn and my standard flap-heel sock pattern. I made a fake cable on the sides, using four twisted stitches. Very warm and cozy.

!Vengo de acabar calcetines nuevos para mí! Estoy enamorada de llevar calcetines que hice para mis proprios pies. Afortunadamente el invierno en Wisconsin dura de noviembre hasta abril. Hice los calcetines de la lana "Trekking XXL". Anadi una trenza falsa, usando puntos de vueltas (??). De abriga.

I love all colors and styles of socks. Most people in Wisconsin are very informal. Wearing wool socks with every-day shoes is very acceptable. All of my winter shoes are wide enough to accommodate my wool socks. My 83 year old mother, however, dresses very carefully. She wears primarily dress shoes that accommodate only thin socks. She had to buy new shoes when I started making wool socks for her to wear in the winter! Her feet aren't quite as formal, but she is warm!

Me gustan todos colores y todos estilos de calcetines. La gente en Wisconsin es informal. Es aceptable llevar calcetines de lana con zapatos de cada día. Todos mis zapatos para invierno son tan anchos que puedo llevar calcetines hechos de mano. Sin embargo me madre se viste muy cuidosamente. Lleva zapatos de moda que aceptan calcetines finos. !Cuando empecé a hacerle calcetines se compró zapatos más anchos! Por eso ahora tiene calor en el invierno.

!Besos y abrazos a todas!

Accomplishment!!

2009-03-07T10:31:00.010-06:00

I am a proud woman. For some reason, finishing a lace project makes me feel like a superior human being. I understand that many sweaters and other projects are more challenging, warmer and infinitely beautiful. But, I happen to find great satisfaction in knitting lace.

For many years I have wanted to make a piece de resistance and I have worked my way ever upwards in complexity and ever downwards in thickness of yarn. I'm almost there.

I finally finished Sivia Harding's Shetland Garden Faroese Shawl out of Cashwool. And I added a knit on lace edging rather than the garter stitch and cast off that she called for. If I must say so, I think my ultimate product is outstanding! Beautiful! A work of supreme diligence and patience! And the mistakes are hard to find!!! (Many, many thanks to Jo of Celtic Memory Yarns who encouraged me to leave two of the mistakes in the shawl. They would have been cumbersome and unsatisfactory to fix. And, I dare you to find them!!)

Best of all, the shawl is a true wedding ring shawl: I can pull it all through my wedding ring!! For some reason, I have always wanted a shawl so fine that I can pull it through a wedding ring!!
This photo and the one above capture the true color, called "ocean."

This and the following photos are terrible on color, but show the lace. This is a field of leaves, outlined by fan ferns.
This is the rose trellis and the leaf border I added.

A little demonstration of the drapiness of the shawl.
And a view of one side.

Here is the shaping of the faroese styling. After a bit of the blocking.

And, the horrifying mess before getting it all pinned out.

This is the point where I do a lot of praying. Such a blob of twisted and interlaced thread. Who would imagine that this blob would be a thing of beauty?? This is why knitting lace makes me a superior human being. ;) Who else would have faith that the thousands of hours knitting have not been in vain? Who else would have faith that the thing will not fall apart when taken out of the sink? Who else would dare to wear the shawl, fearing that it would be caught on an errant nail, or a twig, or a sliver of wood?

Only a knitter would have faith and daring to make, block and wear a lace shawl--and not put it away in a drawer wrapped perpetually in tissue paper. Which is why I did not give the shawl to my mother. I couldn't part with it. I thought she would save it "for good", fearing to wear it lest it get caught, tangled or harmed. I plan to wear this shawl as soon as the Wisconsin weather gets a bit warmer--when I can throw it casually over my shoulders and have it billow behind me as I walk outside. With a carefree toss of my head, I will reply to compliments with, "Oh, this? I made it!"

Oh, the weather outside is frightful....

2009-02-19T16:13:00.007-06:00

"And the fire is so delightful,
Since we've no place to go,
Let it snow
Let it snow
Let it snow." (with gratitude to the composer Jule Style and lyricist Sammy Cahn)

Being a true Wisconsinite, this is one of my favorite winter songs. I also managed to convince daughter #2 that this is the best song in the world. She and I would sing it with great vigor and enthusiasm when she was little, sitting in front of the fire and watching the snow come down outside. I have successfully raised her as a winter-lover.

Therefore, when I opened the Fall 2008 Vogue Knitting's Mitten Issue, I fell head over heels in love with the "Let IT Snow" mittens. Perfect Christmas present, I thought. I finished only the "Snow" mitten for Christmas, however, and made the second in early January.
I used Paton's sock yarn so the palms would last forever. Maybe that threw off my gauge. The first mitten was wide enough for two hands. Realizing that I could not simply wash and shrink the mitten (cause I was using sock yarn) I had to rip out the first mitten and alter the pattern. I took four stitches out of each side of the pattern (16 stitches in total).

My color choice (blue and green) was determined by a hat I made for my daughter when she was in grade school and that she still loves. She refuses to let me knit her another hat. "I already have a hat, Mom!" How many 17 year old girls do you know who refuse new clothing??

Although I love the backs of the mittens with the pine trees and drifting snow flakes, I also heartily love the palms of the mittens.

As a special treat, I told my daughter that I would knit an angora lining into the mittens. She declined. Her hands are too sensitive, apparently, for even angora. She begged for polar fleece lining. Sigh, what is a knitting mother to do??

I went to JoAnn Fabric store to find some microfleece. Nada. So, I purchased the lightest weight non-pilling fleece that I could find--a remnant with seashells on it!! I figured that the incongruous fabric would be inside the mittens and no one would know that serious winter mittens are lined with a beach scene fabric!! I simply traced the mitten on the fleece, extending the thumb a bit, cut it out and seamed it up.
I slid the fleece mitten inside of the knit mitten,

and whip stitched the two together at the cuff. I made the fleece cuff a little narrower so that the mitten would hug the wrist to stay on.

My daughter loves the mittens and wears them when the weather is really cold. She has some cheap, lined acrylic mittens (given to her by a school friend for Christmas) that she wears for normally cold Wisconsin weather. (Here in Wisconsin we need a variety of mittens to get through winter. When the temperature is below 0 F and the wind is blowing, unlined mittens are useless!! For snowblowing and snow shoveling, I use insulated, deep cuffed leather gloves that look like something for Antarctica.

I've been wearing her mittens recently and I find that the fleece lining is very soft, nice and insulating and cozy. Not too bulky. Very fast to make. Much faster than angora knitting. I may be on to something.

Holes in the walls, in the knitting and in my head

2009-02-11T23:09:00.014-06:00

Normally, at this time of year in Wisconsin, the ground is covered in snow and ice and we need to wear warm wool hats, mittens and scarves when we venture out of the house. Some of us also wear hats, mittens and scarves inside of our homes because our old windows leak dreadfully. Fortunately, earlier this week Great Mother Earth blessed us with a 50F day--the same day that the Window Men came to remove most of the windows in our house, leaving large gaping holes in our walls. Two capable, strong, polite and handsome young men arrived at 8:00 a.m. and proceeded to efficiently remove the 60 year old single pane windows that let in so much cold air that we needed to wear wool mittens to wash dishes! (Well, not really, but you get the idea.)
The day was so warm that I considered telling the young men to leave the holes in the walls for a few days--just so we could enjoy the unseasonable warmth. But, they had a job to do and they climbed right up on top of my sink and installed the new window!

The window installation is almost done. Just a few more trim strips and some finish work on the outside of the house and we will be cozy warm inside when the next blast of arctic air swoops down on us. No more holes.

The efficient creation of gaping holes in our walls followed by prompt installation of the windows is in sharp contrast to my progress on the Shetland Garden Faroese Shawl. Although I tried and tried to make sure that every stitch was perfect, sometimes the cobweb laceweight yarn conspired with some evil force to make a neatly twisted yarn over into a gaping hole.

Look above to the "southeast" of my knuckle. The line of nice, neat faggoting type yarn overs is broken by that large hole.
And in another spot the yarn over line is broken by a wayward sideways "ladder". I have no idea of what happened. Did I notice the mistake when doing that row and fall victime to the "blocking-will-take-care-of-that" syndrome? Or, did I miss the mistake altogether?

Now what do I do? These hole-y mistakes are tens of thousands of stitches away from where I am now. They sicken me. Can I fix the mistakes by the judicious use of after-the-fact darning? Or, do I pretend the mistakes aren't there?

I've been in the denial. Actually, I've been focusing on a rather inspired (even if I say so myself) decision to change the edging of the shawl. Sivia Harding, the designer, called for about 3-5 ridges of garter stitch along the 453 stitch long edge, followed by binding off!!! I couldn't do it. So, I searched and searched for an edge lace that would complement the stitch patterns in the shawl.

The patterns in the body of the shawl include roses inside of a trellis.
And pretty little flowers and leaves.

I took my stack of lace books to our Guild's weekend Knitting Retreat. Finally, I happened upon a pattern in "Victorian Lace Today." The shawl has the uninspired name of "Large Rectangle" on page 54. The knitted on edging is called "trellis border". OK, I thought that would be lovelier than three ridges of garter stitch.
Knitting on a border is quite simple, actually, in concept. You knit perpendicularly to the live edge stitches, knitting one stitch of the border with one of the live edge stitches in every other row. Easy, right? Well, I neglected to do the simple math ahead of time. If I had done so, I may have had second thoughts.

Six rows of garter stitch--to produce three ridges--over 453 or so stitches per row would have been 2,718 stitches, plus bind off of 453 stitches--meaning 3171 stitches until completion.

OK, my "simple" knitted border solution has approximately 25 stitches per row in an 18 row pattern repeat. This is a total of 450 stitches per pattern repeat. One "eats up" only 9 live shawl stitches per pattern repeat. So, 453 divided by 9 is about 50--pattern repeats that is. So, 50 times 450 is 22,500 stitches!!!! I must have holes in my head!!

My solution to avoid the constricting bind off of garter stitches has resulted in 19,329 extra stitches!!!

But, it's lovely, don't you think?? After two weeks of work, I have only 10 pattern repeats to go. Let's see, that's 4,500 stitches....
And then, I need to focus on fixing the yarn over hole issues and this dropped stitch.

Struggling towards monogamy

2009-01-27T13:20:00.006-06:00

I have been trying, for about 20 years now, to establish a clear pattern of monogamy--in my knitting, that is. [Although sometimes my dear husband seems like he is trying to drive me away from monogamy--such as when he puts dirty dishes on the countertop above the empty dishwasher, and when he........But that's another story.]

Back to knitting monogamy. I'm afraid that I have a limited attention span for any particular project. I need different projects for different situations.

For example, I like to have an easy project that I can do in the dark of movie theaters, in the back pew at church, while at stop signs, etc. Typically this is a simple sock project.
Like his one. The fake cables on the side are two twisted stitches, side by side. The yarn is Trekking. This projects fits in a zip lock sandwich bag in my purse.

Then, I usually have a repair project or two. Such as duplicate stitching my mittens where they have worn out on the palms and inner thumbs, from driving I believe. Or such as this little breach of knitting know-how.
My dad is diabetic; his feet and lower legs swell during the day.I made him these socks, using the short row garter stitch heel as shown in the bottom. Lucy Neatby advocates using more than half of the total stitches for the heel. Usually her advice is excellent, but in this case it failed. The resulting sock had a heel big enough for an elephant with swollen feet. My dad's heels don't swell--his ankles, foot and calves swell. These socks bulged out over his shoes, creating other problems. He wore the socks as a dutiful father, but they were clearly uncomfortable. So I simply cut off the cuff, frogged the foot and heel and made my typical flap heel on half the stitches. The new (upper) sock fits perfectly. Now I need to do the same thing to the lower sock.

I also love to have a lace project in the works. To give me a little challenge. For when I have alone time to focus only on my knitting. My current challenge is Sivia Harding's Shetland Garden Faroese Shawl. Challenge is an understatement. This shawl brought me sobbing to my knees last week!!! But, I'm over that now.

You can't see in this photo, but I added a lifeline on row 151. (If you click to embiggen you can see the blue lifeline.) My bravado of knitting without a safety net failed me. No mistakes thus far, and I'm 2/3 of the way through the last pattern segment!!

Usually I have at least one present for someone on my needles. I long to knit cute little things for children, such as grandchildren. Alas, my dear husband and I do not have any grandkids, despite having children aged 42 and 32. The 17 year old has no business reproducing yet! So, we've "adopted" some surrogate grandkids: two little boys aged 6 and 4. The 6 year old started kindergarten this year, so in August I decided to make him a shawl collared cardigan for school. Well, Christmas knitting intervened and I never finished it.
Here are the back, two fronts and most of one sleeve. The project has languished because the ribbed pattern makes the pieces look as if they will never fit a real human. I'm hoping blocking will solve the problem. (don't we all!! ) The pattern is from Sirdar's Sweet Pea Knits. I've been hoping that this 6 year does not grow in girth this year!! I've added this project to my car knitting so that I can finish it for Valentine's day!

But, I would throw over all of these projects to concentrate solely and monogamously on this one:

It's for me. I thought I had lost it. I searched the house from top to bottom four times--in secret because if Dear Husband or Dear Daughters caught me searching for a lost project, I would be subject to long recriminating lectures about organization, too many projects at once, etc., etc., etc. Finally, when a pair of mittens fell to the closet floor I noticed this army green zipped bag from Knitting Camp. I opened it--my long lost love, waiting for me!!! A bag of discontinued Tiur. Two partially finished sleeves! A Dale of Norway yoke necked pullover for me. In my favorite color. In my favorite yarn. It is calling me. It has seduced me.

I am longing to commit myself exclusively to this seductive garment. The solid color body is worked in a knit and purl pattern stitch to hold my wandering attention until I get to the multi colored yoke.

However, the other projects are closer to being finished. They have entertained and occupied my knitting time and are close to fruition. Should I toss them aside for true love? How fickle am I?? Should I finish the socks for my dad, and the shawl for my mother and the cardigan for the little boy?? Or, should I selfishly focus only on myself and my heart's desire??

I am caught in a web of anguish of my own creation. If I were a monogamous knitter, I never would have started so many projects. I would have gone sensibly from one to the next, only after complete exploration of each relationship.

Ah well, now I need to clean the kitchen, mop the floor and put away folded wash. I'll think about the situation.....

Do NOT follow my example

2009-01-21T19:42:00.009-06:00

This post is a lesson to lace knitters. If you are dutiful, you will follow my recommendation and learn from my painful lesson. If you are like me, well......read on.

I have been working on Sivia Harding's gorgeous Shetland Garden Faroese Shawl for months. Well, not consistently. I took it along for a two week car trip and quickly discovered that the slight rumbling of the car on the road made it impossible to do lace knitting with cobweb laceweight yarn. I'm using Cashwool color 988 ocean. Therefore, I waited to begin the shawl until I was on the steady unmoving sofa in my family room.

The pattern is challenging in that there are three or four designs in each row. One cannot simply memorize each row's pattern repeat and hum the mantra until the end of the row. One must slavishly follow the charts--at least I must.

So, after about 119 rows, progressing through various charts to Chart F, and repeating rows 24 to 39 of Chart "Center Panel" 6 times (are you with me??) I got to row 120.
It is "clear as day" on this fuzzy photo that after working rows 24 to 39 six times, one goes up to row 120 for the center panel. You can see that I use Post It notes to keep my place moving the note up each row, showing all previous rows. I guess you had to be there at the time because this was NOT clear to me. For some now inexplicable reason I returned to row 24 of the center panel and worked that along with rows 122 to 126 of the pattern. When thousands (!!) of stitches on my needle, I looked at the lovely photo of the shawl. I then realized that my Post-It note was hiding row 120 and I needed to rip back 6 times about 300 (or so) cobweb stitches that liked to enthusiastically fly off the needles when I wasn't looking.

"Oh, easy," you experienced knitters say, "Just rip back to your lifeline." I am an experienced knitter, but I tend to work without a safety net! No lifeline. Nada. Ningun. Rien. Rip, baby, rip!

Aha, I thought. I will just rip out the center panel stitches, put them on another needle and work back up. Theoretically, this sounded just fine. In practice....

After dropping back the stitches, here is what I had. Angel hair spaghetti strands, all wrapped around each other.

So, I tried to separate them.
Can you tell which is the bottom yarn?? Each time I thought I had the bottom-most yarn on one side of the center panel, it wasn't the bottom-most yarn on the other side.

I finally selected the order of the yarns, found new needles of the same size, and began to work my way back up.

After hours of ripping, sorting, taking time-outs to calm down, and drinking strong beverages, I worked back the rows. The inside of the panel was fine, but the side column of yarn overs was pure trash. Trash, trash, trash!! How did that happen?? I followed the chart exactly. Honest!
Do you think blocking would work it out? I almost convinced myself that it would, and I went to bed.
The next morning I ripped back again, used straight needles and worked back up.

Still trash on the sides.

Time to rip out six complete rows. Time for a retro-fit life line.
I threaded a needle with leftover sock yarn and tried to follow a straight line of stitches from one side of the shawl to the other.

This is harder, much harder, much, much harder, than one would think. Looks as if I had been drinking the Yarn Harlot's screech rather than some herbal tea.
As I worked my way along, dis-assembling the shawl stitch by stitch, I made another heart stopping discovery. I had actually pierced the shawl yarn in some places when making my lifeline. What are the odds?? The cashwool is about 1/4 the thickness of the sock yarn. I used a blunt needle. I cried.

When I had all seven or so rows ripped back I looked at the tangled web of yarn and cried some more. Then, I put down the camera and set to work untangling and rewinding the yarn.

I have now worked correctly to row 150. There are now 429 stitches on the needle. Surely, you say, you must have numerous life lines in the work!! Nope. Nada. Ningun. Rien. Non! I have continued to work foolishly without a safety net!! I'm following the chart in careful numerical order. I only have 25 more rows to go and then I do the applied border!! Lifelines take too much time............ I won't make another mistake that I can't fix!!!

Stay tuned.

Back in the Game

2009-01-10T14:36:00.007-06:00

Well, I didn't fall off the face of the earth, but I did take a longer break from blogging than I had intended. During the interim my retired husband and I explored:

1. the coast of Maine. We stayed in Brooklin where E.B. White had a farm. If you wrote papers while in college you probably used his guide to writing and grammar called Elements of Style. Or, if you loved to read as a child or to your children you probably read Charlotte's Web--not the movie version. Here is the farm (now gussied up as a luxury vacation home):
And, here is the former pig pen at a neighboring farm that inspired the character of Wilbur:
2. the Bay of Fundy, location of the famous Tidal Bore. I wasn't so terribly impressed. I was looking for a wall of water similar to what is said to have occurred when Moses parted the sea, but the reality of nature sometimes is not as dramatic as the hype when on vacation.
3. Prince Edward Island (and Anne of Green Gables land). If you loved the Anne of Green Gables books, or even the movies, this is the place for you. Although Anne was a fictional character, thousands of tourists from around the world (particularly the Japanese!!??) look for the places that this young girl lived, went to school, first kissed Gilbert, etc. Great, great fun.

3. a bit of Nova Scotia. While in Halifax, I crossed the river and visited Lucy Neatby's home/office/studio. She was on tour but her able assistant showed me the yarn--impossible to resist. I loved handling the originals of her creations, seeing her piles of yarn and needles and stacks of her fabulous DVD's.

We also visited Seattle and the San Juan Island area where I purchased more yarn. (the summer was actually an Atlantic to Pacific knitting journey.)

Yarn purchased in Anacortes was destined for a blanket for my husband's daughter and her new husband, to keep warm in their vacation yurt on Decatur Island. I knit and knit and knit while on vacation--making uninspiring diagonal garter stitch squares out of Cascade's Ecological Wool. The result was better than I had dreamed:

I changed colors somewhat randomly in the first 24 squares, then duplicated them for the second 24 squares. I did not at all anticipate the star effect in the middle, but I love the unplanned surprise.

I cannot take credit for the idea of the blanket, as much as I would like to believe that I have such a high level of creativity. Rather, I brazenly took the idea from Anna in Finland, whose blankets are an absolute work of art. If you haven't seen her blog, check it out and stand in awe. She has made more than 125 blankets that she has given away to charities. I can no longer find the link to her gallery of blankets. Maybe if you sent her a message she would send you the link.

I love making blankets for other people. I think of the people wrapped in warmth, love and my best wishes for their well being. I certainly hope that the recipients find warmth, love and good wishes when keeping when wrapped in all that wool. But, blankets take a long, long time to make. I think the next one will be for me. But, I'm still looking for the perfect pattern whose color will go perfectly with my decor (or lack thereof).

Have you made a blanket for yourself? How did you select the color, yarn, pattern? Fancy or plain? In pieces or knit all in one large rectangle, square or circle?? How do I choose???

Providing comfort

2008-06-23T12:19:00.006-05:00

I'm sure all of you know about the Prayer Shawl ministry that has been spreading across religions and the US. People in our church come from many different faith and non-faith backgrounds. Therefore, in our liberal church we recently began a "Comfort" Shawl ministry.

There is something very appealing in knitting a shawl that will wrap someone in comfort, care and warmth. At a time in his/her life when spirits might be low, physical strength might be waning and need for caring is high. I felt very good when I made this shawl, but sad knowing that it will be given to someone in the time of need, illness or great stress.

I stepped in to the Comfort Shawl ministry with great enthusiasm. I know that many comfort/prayer shawls are made of acrylic for ease in laundering. Because I believe that wool from an animal's back is more healing than spun petroleum, I decided to use a machine washable sport weight yarn from Lorna's Laces. The colorway may not be available; I purchased it as a "mill end" from the dying location in Chicago.

I wanted a shawl that would stay on someone's shoulders, so I used the Litla Dimun pattern from Folk Shawls--a Faroese style. by the way, I am very enthusiastic about the Folk Shawls book. I return to it often, to dream and plan and knit.

So, here's the finished shawl, blocking.
The symbol of our church is the "flaming chalice." I thought that the design up the middle panel of the back looked like chalices. Therefore, I added a lace-type flame from one of Barbara Walker's books. It is very hard to see the flame, but the recipient will know that it is there.
Here is the shawl with the patterning from the book.
And here you can see the entire middle back patterning, including the chalice.

I feel good about doing this, even though I don't know who will be the recipient. I hope it will be received in the spirit of sharing and caring.
The shawl was my big project. These Sockotta short socks were my "ziplock bag knitting." I keep a small project in my purse for knitting at stop signs, restaurants, in dark movie theaters and the like. My daughters have convinced me that wearing socks with sandals in the summer is just too out of style to be tolerated! So, I've been making short socks to wear with sandals. I don't know about you, but for some reason my feet are always cold, even in the summer. I think these socks are perfectly stylish, no matter what the muggles think!!

Still Stuck on Short Rows

2008-06-17T16:36:00.005-05:00

Here it is the middle of June and I am still stuck on short rows. There is something so very soothing and hypnotic about every row being two stitches shorter than the previous row!! And, I had some Lorna's Laces sock yarn just begging to be made into something elegant. And, due to the end of school year rush at our house, garter stitch was about all I could tolerate. No more stress needed in our household when the 11th grader has tests, exams, reports, performances, recitals, SAT's, ACT's and so on and so forth. I am so glad that I am no longer in school and that I'm not a teenager any longer. I firmly believe that our schools expect too much of teenagers in terms of heavy load of homework, extracurricular activities, volunteer work, etc. Horrifyingly, I find that I am no longer surprised when a teenager commits suicide due to pressure; rather, I am surprised that more do not. We expect way to much of our children.

Back go garter stitch and short rows. Once again, Rachel Rocking Chair has volunteered to model my Easy Pie Wedge Shawl.

The mail color is Lorna's Laces pine, from the mill ends available only by visiting the dying facility in Chicago. I'm not sure if the color is available in stores.
I was concerned, unnecessarily so, that I wouldn't have enough yarn to finish the shawl and, therefore, I added a six row inset between each pie wedge, using Colinette's Jitterbug. Although the color of the camera is poor, the lime green really sets off the darker green--in my humble opinion.
Also, because I used only 100 stitches for the longest row in each wedge, rather than the 120 that I used in my previous pie wedge shawl, I was concerned that the shawl would not be wide enough to wrap elegantly. Therefore, I made 8 wedges, about 2/3 to 3/4 of the complete circle. this made for great drape.
Rachel Rocking Chair is about a wide as I am, but not as thick (shall we say) and the shawl still has a nice drape on me too.
I love the scalloped/pointed edging that is knitted into the shawl.

I seem to be at a point in my life these days when I need to knit simple things. Life is going too fast, my husband is too cranky, there is too much gardening that needs to be done, the flooding in Wisconsin and Iowa is so disastrous and worrisome, we are about to embark on a 2.5 week vacation (about 1.5 weeks too long in my estimation) and my soul needs simplicity. I bow to those of you who can knit intricate lace to relax. I find that I need peace in order to work on complex knitting.

I recall studying Maslov's hierarchy of needs in some psychology class ages ago. He posited that higher order thinking and creativity could not be accomplished unless certain basic human needs were met. In times of stress, I think that I revert to easier knitting because it soothes my soul and permits me to "veg" rather than think. Something I need these days.

Stuck on Short Rows

2008-05-05T10:04:00.005-05:00

Since my last post spring has come to Wisconsin. Typical spring, that is. Some days with temperatures in the 60's and sunshine. Some days with temperatures in the 40's with grey skies and rain. All in all, still weather for comfy shawls.

The Easy Pie Wedge Shawl that I made last month has been very popular with knitters and non-knitters who see me wearing it. The photos of the shawl that I posted were not very good, so here is the famous model, Ms. Rachel Rocking Chair, sporting the shawl in a jaunty fashion!
Rachel here wears the shawl in devil-may-care fashion without any pin to hold the end on the shoulder. I, on the contrary, like to secure the shawl end with an understated blue stitch holder, on the shoulder, to keep myself together!! (Pattern was free on the band for Lorna's Laces Helen's Lace, but $4.50 here.)

For some reason, the rhythm of the short rows simply mesmerized me. Ordinarily, I'm not very entranced with garter stitch. However, the short rows were easy but seductive. So, I set out to use some mohair that has been in my stash for at least 8 years.

[I was in high school in the 60's, when v-neck cabled mohair sweaters were all the rage. I didn't have enough money to purchase one of those sweaters, so I've been compensating for my deprivation ever since. I have an entire of mohair! One hank has been calling to me but I never had the right pattern for it. Ellen's Half Pint Farms Brushed Mohair (one pound) in Northern Lights colorway. I once saw the Northern Lights while camping in Ontario, while floating in a river at night. thus, the blues, purples and greens were like a Siren song. ]

The pattern was another short row half-circle from Fiber Trends, Marvelous Mohair shawls and blankets. Each wedge of this mohair "pie" uses short rows going up to the maximum number of stitches and then going down, making a full pie slice. The previous shawl only made half of a slice, so to speak.

Ms. Rachel R. C. has again volunteered to model.

Rachel didn't like the flash of this photo.
So, here's a photo without flash. A little better. The shawl will be worn with my black winter coat, which is a wrap coat, unlined and uninsulated. Here in Wisconsin we need warmer winter wear, but I love the very simple black coat. So, I figured, rather than a scarf, I would wear a shawl over the coat. To make sure that the shawl would wrap sufficiently in front to keep out the very cold Arctic winds here in Wisconsin, I made five wedges, rather than the called-for four. This, I have 5/8 of the pie, rather than half!
Each pie wedge is set off by a yarn over inset that used Colinette's Jitterbug sockyarn, in a very deep plum color. I thought this would set up the glorious colors of the mohair, just as black sets off the glorious colors of traditional Amish quilts.

Here's the back.

I'm still not over the short rows. I'm making another Easy Pie Wedge Shawl using Lorna's Laces shepherd sock yarn in Pine green and some Claudia's Hand Paint (or is it Fleece Artist??) for the insert. Yes, I bought the Lorna's Laces yarn when the Guild's Knitting Safari visited the company in Chicago.

Meanwhile, back at Borders, the Yarn Harlot herself came to entertain us and sell her books. Believe it or not, she is funnier in person than in her blog and in her books! Her story about walking 14 km in the snow and cold of remote Ontario was even funnier when she told it--and I had already laughed out loud when reading her blog about it.
See her if she comes your way. The woman is very, very good and very very devoted to her fans. She sign books and is entertaining even when she should be in bed sleeping!

Thank you Stephanie!!

I am a simple woman

2008-04-29T11:18:00.006-05:00

As the Yarn Harlot said last night at Border's, knitters are an inconsistent lot. Some like cashmere, some like acrylic--but all are knitters. I find the same inconsistencies in myself. Earlier this year I was totally distraught when I learned that production of Tiur had ended. I scoured the country to accumulate enough Tiur in the correct colors to make about 7 or 8 Dale of Norway sweaters. One would think that by now I would have completed at least two of them.
But no, it turns out that I am a simple woman--not a stupid woman, not an "easy" woman, mind you, but a plain woman. I have been bewitched by short rows and garter stitch.

It all began with a visit to my favorite LYS where a beautiful functional shawl was on display, casually but every so elegantly draped around a manikin. Made out of 8 skeins of Koigu KPPM. Made from a simple short row garter stitch pattern from the ball band of Lorna's Laces Helen's Lace. I had to have it. That manikin looked so very elegant. Wouldn't I look equally elegant?? But, Koigu is a little "spendy" as my father would say. So, I purchased three skeins of Rio de la Plata sock yarn from Uruguay. Less than half the cost of the display model.

And, I made it in about a week. And, I wear it all the time. And, I get compliments on it every time I wear it, even from non-knitters.
Don't you love those cute little serrated edges?? Knit into every row. None of this pick up stitches and knit on later. When you cast off the last stitch you are DONE!

The lighting was bad, but you can get the idea of the swirls of the short rows.
More short row swirls.

Two weeks ago our Guild went to Lorna's Laces Yarns for a tour. Oh my. We all wanted to steal everything in sight. Of course, knitters are an honorable bunch and we only looked, and salivated.
We managed to score some "seconds" which were definitely "firsts" in our opinion.

Not Spring!

2008-04-08T20:18:00.006-05:00

It is definitely not yet spring here in Wisconsin. I don't have any dreadful photos to post about rain, cold temperatures and the snow that is falling as I write this in the northern part of the state. My daffodils have bravely sent up some green shoots, but with tonights low temperatures, they are wishing they could reduce themselves right back into the ground.

My knitting progress is not much to brag about. While on our spring break tour of colleges for daughter #2, I tried some stash reduction. I had two large skeins of some of Sirdar's wool/acrylic bulky yarn, and I thought I would have a flash of genius for what to do with it.

Something simple, I needed, that I could do in the car while still navigating and that I could do while paying attention at the college introductory presentations. I decided to make a small Linus blanket that would be used as a security item, rather than something used for warmth. For a pattern, I thought I would do a variation on the garter stitch diagonally knit washcloth (k2, yo at the beginning of each row until half the size you want; then, k2, yo, k2tog at the beginning of each row.)

For my variation, I thought I would do sections of reverse stockinette and stockinette stacked on each other--dividing the little blanket into quarters. Can you guess what I forgot? I forgot that garter stitch is square and stockinette stitch is rectangular--taller than it is wide. Thus, the garter stitch wash cloth is square because the rows and stitches are square. Stockinette on the bias using the same k2, yo, etc., at the beginning of each row makes a diamond. NO amount of blocking will turn that kite into a square. It looked a little bizarre, to say the least. I couldn't give that thing to a sick child in the hospital.

So, I purchased some pretty ribbon in different colors, and threaded it through the yo holes.

It's still a diamond, and the ribbon kind of makes it look more like a kite, but I think it's OK. I hope that some sick child will enjoy holding this blankie close, playing with the ribbons and maybe thinking of spring!

On the Road with Cat Bordhi

2008-03-25T12:03:00.005-05:00

The week before Easter found us (me, hubby and daughter #2 age 16) driving around Indiana, Michigan and Ohio looking at colleges for daughter #2. Daughter remained very positive all throughout the trip, even though she kept checking her "facebook" to check the progress of her friends who were on vacation in Florida, California, the Virgin Islands, Barbados and other warm, sunny, sandy locations. We, on the other hand, had cold and chilly temps and rain. Only one day of sun. But, I digress from knitting.

Fortunately, hubby is the anxious sort and likes to drive. So, I was able to knit. Although I can make the standard sock recipe blindfolded (flap or short row heel) I thought I should stretch my knitting wings and try Cat Bordhi's gusset-less sock from her new book "New Pathways for Sock Knitters." I had a lot of car knitting hours and I wanted a project that was small but interesting.

I chose the cedar architecture and modified the slipped stitch version because I had only one color of sock yarn with me on the trip.

I decided to do slip stitches in the rows after the most intense colors ended--the bright pink, green and blue. Given the color way, I thought that the result was little spring flowers. Although, this may have been a mere fantasy dream of mine, since there were no little spring flowers poking up their heads in Michigan, Indiana OR Ohio!
The sock ended up being quite long because of the placement of the increases for the ankle of the sock. I put a pin where I began the increases--there are four increases every 20 rows!
The number and placement of the increases did not work for my foot and ankle. I have a narrow ankle and heel. Therefore, if you look closely at this photo, you can see the gap of excess fabric in the sock just above my heel. In the second sock, I plan to delay the increases, to put them closer together, and to delete the last row of increases. I also plan to concentrate the increases on the instep of the sock, rather than distributing them around the circumference of the entire sock. We'll see if that works better.
I've not made star toes before, preferring to do a toe that is shaped to my actual foot. However, the star toe on these socks is rather pretty, I thought!
Here's the bottom of the foot flap that is used for the shaping of foot. The blue stripe below the ankle shows how wide the sock is before you begin to shape on the bottom of the foot. This pattern was fun to do as a diversion from the standard recipe. But, it has fit problems for my feet. I'm not sure that I will do this particular architecture again, unless I was making some type of pattern that I did not want to interrupt when working the heel.

Daughter #1 saw the sock and decided that she liked it. It fit her foot better than mine. So, I will make the second sock for her and try another of Cat's patterns for me. Now I know the fitting pitfalls to anticipate and maybe the second pair will be better--for me. The Coriolis architecture is calling!

Daughter #2 and I are happy to be home. Today is her first day back at school. I'm sure she will come home with lots of stories about friends who had relaxing vacations in sunny and attractive locations!!

Gluttony

2008-03-11T22:00:00.004-05:00

Hello. My name is Gail and I am a yarn-aholic. I joined Ravelry recently and began to catalog and record my yarn. I was in complete denial about the number of bins and number of skeins in my collection. I realized my addiction was out of control when I purchased sufficient Dale of Norway Tiur yarn to make 8 Dale sweaters. As if I didn't already have enough projects for which supplies had been purchased to last a lifetime. Today I neared the end of my cataloging of yarn. I am in the 300's for the number of entries. This does NOT count skeins.
I hereby resolve, with the help of my fiends, not to purchase any additional yarn in 2008 and to knit madly to make a dent in my stash.
Thank you for listening.
See you at the next meeting.

Can't Compete with the Yarn Harlot!

2008-03-03T11:37:00.005-06:00

Stephanie, the Yarn Harlot, has been posting wonderful photos of her isolated Canadian snowy retreat. I can't match that for isolation, but we also have snow here in the Midwest US. Here's a shot of non-isolated country side in New Glarus Wisconsin, a town settled by the Swiss and where you can find lots of wonderful Swiss chalets. Our local knitters' guild hosted a weekend of knitting (no lessons, just fellowship and knitting) in a chalet style motel. While we knitted blissfully and fearlessly away, Mother Nature did what she does best here, she snowed!

CNN today has an article about the top 10 places to ice skate.
I beg to differ with them about places to include. Here in Wisconsin we have lots and lots of ice skating ponds--all of them natural. None of these ice sheets poured in the middle of cities and tended by Zambonies. Of course, my favorite ice skating place was the lake in front of one of my childhood homes. The surface was never smooth (unless no snow had fallen after the lake froze and you could see through the clear black ice and watch fish swim underneath!). And we had to shovel the snow ourselves. But we would ice skate while my father ice fished. I don't know that he caught anything....we usually got cold way before the fish bit!
At any rate, Madison Wisconsin has a Currier and Ives style park called Tenney Park. In the winter, the lagoon freezes and the park shelter is given plywood walls to create a warming house and skate rental concession. Oh, you can also purchase hot chocolate. I couldn't find a photo of the skaters, but this photo gives you an idea. When the ice is sufficiently frozen, the parks department sends out a pick up truck with plow and some water hoses to add a smooth surface to the ice. Skaters and hockey players skate under the arched bridges and go into the shelter for hot chocolate. Great fun!! Especially when the shelter is not open and the flood light are not on and you can skate under the stars.

In my last post, I lamented my slow knitting progress, at least as it compares to Stephanie the Yarn Harlot. (Why do I feel such competition with her?? She's younger, driven, etc., etc. Get a grip, Gail!! Chill!!) I thought that maybe I could post photos of items I completed a while ago, to make it look like I've accomplished more than I have recently.

This is the scarf daughter #1 ordered for Christmas. I made the mistake of taking her to a yarn shop and telling her to select yarn for a scarf. She selected some gorgeous nearly cobweb lace weight yarn and said she wanted a wide scarf, about 6 feet long. I used size 2 needles and doubled the yarn. That said, I also used a wrap stitch to make faster progress. Here are some photos. I finished it in mid-January. It was a Christmas present.

I separated the wrap stitches with smaller and larger segments of garter stitch. And used both double and triple wrap segments.

It has a somewhat lacy texture--my daughter said, "Don't bother with lace, I won't notice it anyway." Here, I was thinking heirloom lace, exquisite knitting....

Another reason I can't compete with Stephanie is that I tend to do more stupid things than she does. Rather than stick to my basic sock "recipe", which is the same as her "recipe", although I did NOT copy her, I thought I'd try a short row heel in these socks for my father. I used Lucy Neatby's idea that one should take 60% of the stitches of the leg of the sock. But, I used stockinette instead of garter stitch, as she does, and I achieved a heel that would fit an elephant.

I will save the photo of the finished socks for another post. That way, it will look like I've been knitting like crazy and keeping up with Ms. Y. H. Stay tuned!!

One for you, one for me

2008-02-23T18:10:00.005-06:00

I admit it. I am not among the ranks of the knitting super women. Take Stephanie P-McP. How does the Yarn Harlot do it? I mean, she started her grey cardigan just a few days ago; then abandoned it to make a pair of socks, then finished the cardigan before I could even select my next knitting project!! During this time she flew to Madrona, took classes and gave a speech, took care of 3 teenager daughters and husband, and is working on a gazillion more books no doubt!!

Here at my homefront, where I have only one teenager, am retired but do volunteer work and am equally buried in snow and grey and cold, it was all I could do to finish these: the first ever socks REQUESTED by daughter #2, the 16 year old!!
The yarn is a Kaffe Fasset colorway that Regia came out with recently. I did a k3, p2 ribbing on the entire cuff and leg and the top of the instep. She wears the socks inside of her fake Ugg boots, to school, to keep her feet warm during this the winter to end all winters in the upper Mid-west!! She likes them, the really likes them!!

Now, for me these socks took time. They weren't difficult, but they did take time. Size 2 mm needles, size 8.5 feet. I mean, I didn't knock them off while taking a short breather from a cabled cardigan!

It took me a while to select my next big project. I don't get to make myself a lot of items, since I am now keeping myself, my father, daughter #1 and daughter #2 in handmade socks!! I showed you several possibilities for my perfect project. I didn't select any of them. I went off on a wild tangent.

Did you hear that Dale of Norway has discontinued the production of they fabulous yarn, Tiur?? I didn't. I think I was the last US knitter to learn of this. I panicked. I have had in my mind, for at least 8 years, to make about 8 or so Dale of Norway sweaters for myself in Tiur. I never accumulated the yarn, but I (incorrectly) had faith that the venerable Dale would never discontinue a staple of their stable. My faith was utterly misplaced.

I went on a mission to collect, by hook or by crook, sufficient Tiur to make all the sweaters that were bubbling back in my mind. I collected enough Tiur to make about 8 sweaters. I spent the entirety of my of my 2008 yarn budget. Forget the sewing machine that my yarn diet was accumulating money for.

Here is my first project. I purchased the pattern for this when I visited Norway in 2001. Red is my favorite color. Despite being brunette/grey haired, I think I became convinced that I would look like this model if I made the sweater.

Don't you love that "come hither" look in the model's eyes?? In that warm sweater with cables, color work, embroidery and textured stitches, I will be a sultry, blond 20-something Scandinavian! Forget the Marilyn Monroe and Lindsay Lohan nude photos, I will give them a run for their money in the allure department, dressed in wool/mohair and pointsettia/stars.

It took me longer to do my swatch than it did the Yarn Harlot to start and finish her socks!! Why I worried and did two swatches with two different needle sizes I'll never know. The gauge instructions gave dimensions over stockinette. There is NO area of stockinette in the entire sweater. Be that as it may, I achieved gauge for a stockinette sweater; not that I'm making a stockinette sweater....
So, I started with the sleeve. Turns out that the cuff was too narrow and the sleeve increases too dramatic for my taste. Rip out, start again. Use larger needles for the small needle size. Increase for the sleeve more slowly.
And I finished, one sleeve!! Looks like it will fit!! And, it's for ME!!!! Now, cast on for sleeve #2, and finish the second sock for my father. By the time I finish sleeve #2, Stephanie will have made her next cabled sweater in a more lively color AND made more grape leaves for another pair of Vintage socks for another friend........

We mere mortals slog on.

Some Assembly Required

2008-02-09T21:56:00.002-06:00

Ta, daaaa!!!!
Look at this handsome, proud man. This is my husband wearing his Dale of Norway sweater that I FINALLY finished. Was the finishing painful? Not really. Was it intimidating? Definitely.

Back in 2006 I gave my husband what I thought was a wonderful Christmas present. I gave him a Dale of Norway pattern and invited him to my favorite LYS to select yarn. Well, he didn't like the pattern I selected ("too flowery" ?????). It took several trips to more than one LYS to select the above pattern and yarn. This was a painful process. He finally selected the winning "daring" color combination: navy blue, dark red and grey. Aren't 98% of men's sweaters done in navy blue, dark red and grey?? But I digress.

I shouldn't berate my husband, however, for the long and painful time it took for him to select a pattern and yarn-- it took me nearly two years to knit the sweater!! We who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones!!

I finished the actual knitting of the sweater just after Christmas. But, somehow, the steek and other assembly intimidated me. I previously suffered traumatic experiences with two other steeks in intricate color work. I used baby ull and the shoulders and upper torsos unravelled as I sewed in the sleeves, despite the fact that I thought I had securely prepared the steeked area. PTSS--Post-traumatic-steek-syndrome--haunted this sweater.

This past week I finally faced my "issues" and tackled the beast.
Here is the torso awaiting dissection. I liked the little faux cables running down the front.
Here is the obligatory photo of the innards. I thought I had done quite well, thank you very much. I hated the thought to cutting into those perfect little stitches, on which I had worked so very, very hard!

In my unwillingness to do the steek, I completely forgot to photograph the entire process. I thought I had, but my camera bears no photos of early steps. Oh well.

Step 1: measure and remeasure and measure again the width of the upper sleeve.

Step 2: locate, relocate and locate again the side stitches of the torso. You don't want a sleeve hole in the middle of the chest! AT least, I didn't.....

Step 3: insert sweater into sewing machine. Realize that sewing down the middle of a navy blue stitch next to other navy blue stitches would cause blindness. Remove sweater from sewing machine.

Step 4: Take some contrasting color sock yarn and sew down the middle of the stitches to be cut. Re-insert sweater into sewing machine. Sew up (or down) the middle of the stitch on either side of the marked line of stitches. Remember previous traumas and sweat profusely. Sew up (or down) the middle of the next line of stitches as well.

Step 5: Remove sweater from machine and pace to release tension.

Here's the cut edge. Not bad.. Very clean--no blood and no unravelled stitches!!
Step 6: Sew up the shoulder seams using the modified whip stitch shown in the pattern book. Dale typically leaves a bit up to your imagination in its instructions. The photo showing the seaming of the shoulders and arms was blurry!!! I didn't know if my shoulder seam was as it "should" be, but it looked good enough.
Step 7: Figure out how to sew the sleeves in. I had two sleeves with five rows of reverse stockinette at the top, which was to form a facing to cover the cut edges of the torso.
OK, right sides together. Ok........ Use lots of pins. I wanted the resulting product to have a neat seam along one line of stitches, following that line from the arm pit, up the arm, over the shoulder, down the arm and back to the pit. But, following navy blue stitches lined up with navy blue stitches resulted in stars before my eyes.
Step 8: Remove the pins and sew a contrasting sock yarn up the middle of the stitch I would be following for the seam. Much better. Blindness averted.

Step 9: Replace the pins, admire the neat rows of tiny machine stitches, and place right sides together. No, that didn't seem to work.
Step 10: Pin sleeve into steeked hole WRONG sides together. And begin to kitchener (is that a verb?) the pieces together.

I hope you can see that I inserted the needle through the body of the sweater just above the contrast thread. That way, I didn't have to pick out the contrast "thread"!!! Nifty, huh?

Here's a shot of the sleeve (on the bottom) going into the armhole, and the five rows of reverse stockinette efficiently being "sucked up" under the torso edge. I used the row of stitching just under the reverse stockinette on the sleeve as the "base" of my kitchener stitches.

Step 11: Admire one's handiwork. Do a little finished steek dance! Ignore stares of family members.
Step 12: sew up the hem of the sweater. See those two itty-bitty yarn over holes in the center of the hem? Those are for the elastic cord that gets inserted to snug up the bottom of the sweater to keep out those cold Norwegian (and Wisconsin) gusts of bitter cold wind and to make the wearer look dashing. A loose sweater bottom is simply unattractive!

But wait, isn't the black cord hanging out of the sweater also unattractive??

Step 13: Research mission. Go to LYS and inspect Dale sweaters hanging on display from the wall. Look at what they do! How clever!
They single crochet a couple of inches of yarn and sew it into the side "seam" (or lack thereof on a circularly knit hand made sweater) and the elastic cord passes through the little loop. Now, why didn't I think of that??

Step 14: Are we ever going to finish this thing??? Pick up stitches for around the neck. Ask husband whether he wants stripes on the neckband, as shown in the photo in the pattern book. Ask husband whether he wants the neck band as high as shown in the photo in the pattern book. Hubby says no stripes. Therefore, knit stripes to be on the INSIDE of the neck band, just for cuteness sake. I was very tired of working only in navy blue at this point. Show hubby the progress. Hubby now asks if the stripes can be on the OUTSIDE. Respond, "No!! It's too late. I'm done with this project!!!

Step 15: Put away the leftover yarn, the pattern book with notes about what I changed in the pattern. Skip the finished sweater dance. Go directly to step 16.

Step 16: Narrow choices for new project for myself!!!! Order yarn!!! Begin swatch!!! Yippee!! Do new sweater project dance!

Dre-ee-ee-ee-am, dream, dream, dream, dream...

2008-01-30T16:49:00.001-06:00

As I'm finishing the socks for daughter #2 and for my father, I've been dreaming of what I can make for myself after I finish those socks and my husband's sweater. I can't decide what to make.
What are my criteria? Well, I want it to be something I will wear a lot; something that a grey-haired woman of a certain age can wear without looking like she is finding lost youth; something that is challenging to knit, and something for which I can use stash yarn.

I haven't mentioned this before, but I long for a new sewing machine. Mine was purchased when husband #1 sold his French horn in 1971 and purchased me a snazzy Singer Touch and Sew. That machine has sewn miles and miles, to the moon and beyond. In recent years I haven't sewn much, but I can't imagine life without a sewing machine ready to do its job. Mine still sews, but only after a fashion. At any rate, I figure if I don't buy yarn this year, I can save enough for a nice Pfaff that has the dual feed feature. Therefore, I must knit from my voluminous stash.

But, I digress.

Here is a pattern in the recent KnitPicks. I like the loose neck that stands up. I can wear a turtleneck underneath to keep warmer. (This is Wisconsin, after all). I love cables. But, maybe I would vary the cables used rather than use the same one over and over and over and over....

Or, how about this airy little cowl from Knitty. I could use this when it wasn't too windy here in the upper Midwest. I would look like some heiress from an English novel.
Now, this zipper and hooded jacket is lovely. I like the cables on the sleeves. I might add a cable panel up the front as well. And, maybe I'd make it a bit longer. I like the idea of a zipper, but I think I might do an applied I-cord on the edges before putting in the zipper.
I've been to Meg Swansen's knitting camp twice and I've always longed to make one of the old, classic shetland sweaters. This photo is not a good selection of colors, in my opinion. But, I would love to design a color combination of my own. And, I might make the model with a placket neck opening. And, maybe a little decoration around the bottom of the sweater. But, that might draw attention to my hips and stomach that are wider than desired these days.
And, I've always longed to make this Rogue pullover. I have some lovely pale blue angora/merino yarn as well as a more vibrant blue. I can't recall whether I purchased the yarn from Mielke's or from Kimmet Croft, another Wisconsin small family business that makes wonderful angora/wool yarn. Upon further thought, I think it is Kimmet Croft's fairy hare, a yarn I've wanted to use for years. (I don't think they have a website, alas!)

Of course, there are thousands of potential projects to choose from. I've always wanted to make a Bohus sweater, and something from Meg Swansen's "Sweaters from Camp" and one of the Dale of Norways sweaters in the 12+ booklets that I have, or.......

What's your next knitting project for yourself?? How did you select it??

There Will Be Yarn

2008-01-28T17:35:00.002-06:00

Ok, what have I been doing during my long absence from my blog? Follow me through my life since Dec. 11. Don't despair, there will be yarn--just not much of it. It seemed that I was knitting constantly--but I didn't achieve much.

First, my husband retired , ending a 42 year career as a college professor. As a true professor/scientist, however, he continues to go to work everyday. His last class lecture was in mid December. But, he can always find tasks to occupy him in his office, which he gets to keep until he dies or the department needs it. Our 16-year old daughter and I attended the last lecture and presented him with flowers at the end. A true bittersweet moment for him. He loves teaching. (I knit during his last lecture.)
Next, I attended numerous concerts. Just as the Yarn Harlot documented, mothers love their children's concerts. I have attended dozens of concerts of dear daughter #2. She is terrified of solo performances, but loves being part of a chorus. So much so that she participates in four choirs. Here in the US, or at least here in Wisconsin, schools seem to have December concerts without mention of Christmas or Christmas trees or presents, etc. Although we feel festive in attending the concert, the concert is distinctly non-sectarian to the core. We had the all-of-the-school choirs winter concert and the jazz band and choir concert. Here's daughter #2 in a small choir of 10 girls, five juniors and five seniors, who sing wonderful madrigal type music. (I knit during the concert, except when my daughter was performing!)
Daughter #1 is tool old for school concerts, but she demanded attention due to the slow, slow progress of her scuzzy condo renovation. It has been three steps forward and two steps back since September. One major step back is that the dryer is 3/4" too wide to fit in the alloted space in the kitchen. Now it holds court, unplugged, in the second bedroom which is the storeroom/office. (I couldn't knit when helping with the condo--I only have two hands!! Rats!!)
Back to another concert with daughter #2, this time in our church where appropriate seasonal music (for Christmas type holidays) was sung. However, also sung were festival of lights type music and Solstice type of music. We are ecumenical. (I couldn't bring myself to knit during the service, even though I had project in my purse calling to me!!)
We also struggled through low temperatures (below 0 F) and lots of snow. Daughter #2, an avid photographer, donned warm clothing on the coldest day to document ice on every pine needle. (I knit while she was outside. I wasn't stupid enough to frostbite my cheeks out there!!)
And then Christmas was upon us. Who decorated the tree all by herself?? Who did all the shopping for presents all by herself?? Who did all the grocery shopping and cooking and baking all by herself?? Who wasn't able to knit while doing all the above activities?? You guess.

The holiday was wonderful. My parents spent a few days with us. My mother does the most beautiful present wrapping, while recycling. She takes old Christmas cards, cuts out the drawings, and tapes them to plainly wrapped packages. The result is spectacular!!

Yes, I knit a number of Christmas presents, including two Wallaby sweaters for our surrogate grand children, a pair of socks for my mother, a six foot long scarf for daughter #1 made out of cobweb lace yarn and size 2 needles, a hat and mittens for a friend, a hat and mittens for daughter #2, a scarf for my father and a basket of scarves and mittens for friends and other family to choose from.
And, I put together a 1,000 piece jig-saw puzzle. I am now the only family member who observes tradition by putting together a jig-saw puzzle. I can't abandon the tradition. It used to be a way for family members to communicate, to laugh and catch up on the year. Daughter #2 helped out periodically, offering "new eyes" to the pieces that just didn't seem to fit anywhere. And, as usual, the empty spots were filled at the end even though I swore that the company failed to pack two essential pieces!!!
Then, my Fiber Arts Group, held a service project day during which we cut and sewed 106 hats for cold children's heads!! One of our group member has orchestrated the making of 10,000 hats in the past few years! She is a force of nature. We were swept in for only one day.
Our local knitters' guild has set a goal of making 500 items to donate to various local charities. January was "baby sweater" month, so I made an Elizabeth Zimmerman Baby Surprise Jacket. I started with some self-striping worsted weight yarn that did not stripe, and quickly ran out. I switched to white Red Heart yarn. The charities require yarn that can be machine washed and dried. My changes to the standard pattern were two: 1) use an I-cord bind off and 2) pick up stitches along the cuffs of the sleeves to extend the sleeves to the wrist. (Check out our charity blog at http://mkgckc.blogspot.com!
I gave up on the socks I was making, using a pattern definitely NOT appropriate for self striping yarn.
I experimented with my my fave--Lucy Neatby's mermaid socks pattern. This pattern enhances the allure of self striping yarn. Much, much better. I frogged the ugly sock and made another matching mermaid sock. Success. Finally something for myself.
Now, I've been catching up with requests made at Christmas time. My dad finally realized that hand made socks are great for the feet of diabetics. So, he requested another pair (the first pair I made for him were made 4 years ago; he finally got around to wearing them!!). Daughter #1 didn't find anything in the basket that she wanted for Christmas, so she selected some yarn and has ordered socks. Daughter #2 decided that full, hand made wool socks were perfect to wear in the fake-Ugg boots she got for Christmas. So, she also, requested a pair of socks.

Christmas knitting fall out will last to mid-February I figure, when I will finally start a project for myself!! What oh what shall I make???

Somewhat Fetching Peace Fleece

2007-12-11T11:11:00.002-06:00

Too many of my knitting projects evolve erratically from repeated failures rather than develop serenely from swatches and careful planning. If the Yarn Harlot's friend, Lene, made me a Christmas Knitting Schedule, there is no way I could possibly keep up with it. It would be doomed from the beginning.

Example #1.
While sipping coffee in my favorite LYS/Coffee Shop I found some lovely grey/blue/white speckled Peace Fleece. Who could resist Peace Fleece at this time of year?? Let me quote from their website:

Peter Hagerty and his wife Marty Tracy started buying wool from the Soviet Union back in 1985 in hopes that through trade they could help diffuse the threat of nuclear war. Since then they have worked with shepherds in Russia, Kyrgyzia, Israel and the West Bank, as well as in Montana, Ohio, Texas and Maine. By working with people who tend livestock every day, they hope to find a common ground that slowly leads to mutual understanding and economic interdependence. After twenty-one years, their goals remain the same.

Definitely the world needs peace in 2007 as much, if not more, than it did in 1985. So, I bought the Peace Fleece, determined to give a friend or family member some hope for peace as well as a warm hat. So, I made a hat.
Cute, I thought. I avoided the pitfalls that caused previous hats to be rejected by my youthful and fashion minded daughters. First, the hat shall not cover the ears. Who would want warm ears in Wisconsin winter?? Second, no dorky ribbing at the bottom of the hat. Instead, I used Elizabeth Zimmerman's I-cord cast off to give a finished edge. the pattern was from Lion Brand yarns from which I removed the dorky ribbing.

OK, I had yarn left over. How about some fingerless gloves to match?? I thought I would have enough yarn for fingerless gloves. The Fetching gloves from Knitty looked pretty good. Of course, Peace Fleece was heavier than the yarn called for, and I used size 8 needles for the hat, so I reduced the number of glove stitches to 30. And, I ALWAYS make thumb gussets--I hate it when mittens and gloves stretch uncomfortably then I move my thumb. So, I added thumb gussets. Good enough.

So far, so good. Now we enter the knitting zone called "WHAT WAS I POSSIBLY THINKING???"

I finished the hand part of the gloves and was about to start the short thumb when I decided that I had enough yarn for a full thumb! So, I made two full thumbs on fingerless gloves.!! I saved you the horrible vision of these deformed Fingerless-but-not-thumbless-gloves by not taking a photo. Rather than simply rip out the thumbs, I realized that I had enough yarn to make mittens!!! Let's look carefully at the lovely Fetching fingerless gloves and think about what problem we could avoid when turning them into mittens, shall we?

Do you see any problem?? No? Well, neither did I. so, I blissfully removed the cast off edge, and continued the cute cable pattern to the tip of the new mitten. Now do you see the problem?
No? Maybe the photo is too dark. I didn't see a problem either. I was floundering in the knitting River of De Nile (denial!).
What was I possibly thinking??? Skinny narrow cabled mitten tops?? Cables eat up width. Fingers do not like to feel constricted. Fingers like to splay out at times, wiggle, breathe. They do not like to be folded up upon themselves. I determined to remove the cables. But, thankfully, I had not cabled the palms.
It seems that in knitting once completely submerged in the River of De Nile I tend to stay there. I can't quite get out of it. Rather than frog the entire tops of the mittens, down to the thumb, I decided to SAVE TIME by dropping down the cabled stitches and knitting them back up. Dear reader, does this sound like a good idea to you? Did you say, "no"? If so, you are much smarter than I. You, dear reader, are not dog paddling in the River of De Nile with me.

OK, here is what the mitten looks like when you drop the first of the four stitch cables. Did I think this was a problem?
Nooooo,.......... Here I am with my faithful cable hook picking up the first of the four cable stitches to form stockinette ribs of 4 x 1.
Here is the mitten-in-progress with the first of the cables removed and replaced with stockinette. Is there a visible problem at this point, dear reader? No. I think not. Let's continue.

Here are the finished mittens.
They look pretty good, don't they?? Cables on the cuffs. None on the hands. None on the fingers. Good. But no, now some type of weird perfectionism crept in and I continued to tread water in the River of De Nile. In examining the mitten I remembered that cabling four stitches takes more yarn than knitting those same four stitches in stockinette. This meant that the last stitch that I crocheted up after dropping each set of four stitches was looser than the other stitches. This, I felt, would let in too much cold winter air. This, I felt, would not go away after blocking.
Again, WHAT WAS I THINKING?? I frogged the entire top of the mittens , down to the thumb, and re-knit the mittens from thumb to tip.
Tell me, dear reader, had I saved any time??? No, I had not saved any time. By this time, I had gobbled up approximately three times the amount of time needed to knit the entire mitten!!! Fortunately, I realized this after re-knitting the first mitten. I left the second mitten as is. I think it is fine, just fine. I have finally crawled up the bank and and onto the sandy shore of the River of De Nile!!
And, voila, here they are! The beanie hat without dorky ribbing and the Somewhat Fetching thumb gusset mittens!

Ok, let's take a break from knitting. As I write this it is snowing heavily outside. Here's the view out of my front door.
Look closely in the lower corner!
A melange of Christmas and Halloween decorations! We never managed to remove the pumpkin from the bench, although we got Santa up. The Snowman wind sock is draped over the bench, awaiting being hung from the tree. Oh well, with the cone of snow on top, it kind of looks like a Halloween elf helper for santa!
At least this Christmas decoration is completely up. The antique wagon belonged to my husband's mother, who played with it as a child. My husband also played with it when he visited his grandparents in rural Iowa. Now, we keep it at our front door. My mother in law passed away a number of years ago, but we honor her every year by filling it with wrapped (but empty) boxes, ready to deliver. We like to think that Helen is watching from heaven and smiling.
In 1971 I sent out my first batch of Christmas cards as a young adult. This was the time of the Vietnam war, which we opposed. I found a card with a lion and lamb on it, and with the message "Peace" inside. Each year since I have sent Lion and Lamb Christmas cards, but they have been harder and harder to find--just as world peace each year has been harder and harder to find. At Christmas time I scatter little lions and lambs around the house, in the hope that I will do all that I can in the coming year to work towards peace and understanding. May 2008 be filled with peace, understanding and acceptance for you and for the world!

Awash in Seafoam and Surrounded by Scarves

2007-12-05T10:56:00.000-06:00

Many of my knitting friends as well as people I see on the street and in yarn shops ask me for the pattern for the "seafoam scarves" that I make and wear. Therefore, I promised to put the pattern on my blog. I assure people that it is easy to make, but they don't always believe me. Here's a photo of some of the seafoam scarves that I have made for my Christmas gift basket this year.
Free Pattern for Seafoam Scarves

1. Buying yarn. I use one skein of yarn--typically medium weight hand dyed sock type yarn such as Koigu KPPM, Mirasol Hacho, Interlacements Tiny Toes and the like. I have found that Hacho makes the shortest scarf (37 inches) when using only one skein, then for a slightly longer scarf (41 inches) Tiny Toes (my LYS carried Tiny Toes in "one-sock" skeins), and for my longest scarves (52 inches), Koigu. Of course, you can use any weight yarn and any amount that you wish. Simply adjust needle size accordingly . Self striping and shadow type yarns work very well. I used one skein of Skace's Avanti for a scarf for my sister and she loved it!

2. Selecting needle size. I use size 4 needles for the yarns listed above, or, if you use a heavier yarn, I use one needle size smaller than recommended on the ball band.

3. Number of stitches to cast on: Cast on a multiple of 10 plus 6 stitches. For my one-skein scarves, I used 26 stitches.

4. The knitting: All rows are knit.
Rows 1-8 (or rows 1-4, or rows 1-6--knitter's choice!) Knit every row. This is the beginning edge of the scarf. After this, do the pattern stitch until you have enough yarn to knit 8 (or 4 or 6) rows to end the scarf. Bind off loosely. I use the Elizabeth Zimmerman's sewn bind off that can be found in all of her books, I believe.

Seafoam Pattern Stitch: (from Barbara Walker's Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns)
Rows 1 and 2: Knit

Row 3 (right side): K 6, *(yo) 2 times, k1, (yo) 3 times, k 1,(yo) 4 times, k 1, (yo) 3 times, k 1, (yo) 2 times, K 6* repeat from * to end of row.

Row 4: Knit, dropping all yo's off the needle without knitting them.

Rows 5 and 6: Knit

Row 7: K1, rep from * of Row 3, end last repeat k1 instead of k6.

Row 8: As row 4.

Blocking instructions are important. See this post for instructions. The scarf looks best when blocked quite severely.

My Dad's scarf
Last year I made my 81 year old father some lightly felted mittens using a Komi pattern. This year I made him a reversible scarf to match the mittens, but using a knit and purl stitch pattern instead of a color pattern. I can't remember the name of the stitch pattern that I used. I just pulled out my leftover Cascade 220 from the mitten project, pulled out some size 5 needles, cast on stitches until it looked like enough, then worked the pattern until it looked long enough, but not too long!!

In his older years, my father has become a very appreciative recipient of my knitting. When I was younger, I made him a cabled vest out of fingering weight yarn in browns. I don't recall that he ever wore it. Brown wasn't his color and neither were vests. I'm glad that I can finally make him something that he will wear--he loved his mittens last year. Said they were the warmest mittens he ever had!! (He sure knows how to sweet-talk a knitter, doesn't he!) He even asked me to make a cord to put through the sleeves of his parka to hold his mittens. He doesn't want to loose them!!!

My father has made us many wonderful wood items for Christmas presents. Beautiful boxes to hold treasures, a stable for our Nativity set, a gorgeous quilt rack, a clock, a pen, a candle holder with a hurricane glass top, and more. The first item I remember was a ranch style doll house with a removable roof--and a book of wallpaper samples to use in decorating the walls!!

Mosaic Scarves
After making the one-color scarves, I decided to do something more challenging--two color scarves! I saw an Amy Anderson scarf from her pattern called "Pardon Me Your Slip Is Showing". (Amy doesn't have a website, but you can order her patterns (by telephone) from Lakeside Fibers.) Unfortunately, I failed to read Amy's carefully written instructions before buying the yarn. I selected two yarns, one solid and one hand painted, and one of the hand painted colors overlapped with the solid color. Result: complete lack of mosaic effect, but attractive nonetheless. I used a beautiful merino/silk blend from Manos del Uruguay called descriptively "Silk Blend". The fabric is soft and the color shimmers. Perfect for the NorthWest USA.
Now, for my second mosaic scarf, I decided to use two colors of shetland wool. Because I was using my stash and because I wanted the scarf to be manly, I picked a reddish and a grey . I thought, for sure, that the mosaic design would be discernable. But it wasn't. Nevertheless, I liked the effect--and I wasn't about to rip it out and start over with new colors.

Lo and behold, when I photographed the scarf, I started to see a pattern!
Can you see it? Maybe not. Maybe it was an optical or wishful illusion.
It's subtle, I grant you that. My apologies to Amy Anderson--her pattern clearly says to use "contrasting" yarns and not to have a hand painted yarn that overlaps with the solid color! Next time, Amy!

Meanwhile, I'm off to make a beanie and fingerless gloves out of Peace Fleece!

Reversible Scarves or Living Inside Out

2007-12-01T17:14:00.000-06:00

As I write this in Wisconsin, Mother Nature is giving us good reason to keep on knitting. Snow, wind, sleet, ice coming at us from all directions and encouraging us to sit in front of the fire and knit! Alas, my knitting these days is mind numbingly boring. I long to make beautiful Dale of Norway patterned sweaters-- thick, beautiful and warm. Protection against elements that Mother Nature throws at us periodically.

Unfortunately, in my post-menopausal temperature recalibration, I can no longer wear warm wool sweaters for more than 15 minutes. My body temperature has changed from being constantly cold and blue fingered in my youth to tending toward toasty in my somewhat older years. Wool socks on my feet and a warm, wool scarf around my neck and I can practically trot around nude in winter. Well, not quite, but I can dress comfortably in a cotton turtleneck and jeans without shivvering. A wool sweater does what the word suggests--I sweat!

This means, I've been making a lot of scarves, for myself and for others. I have practiced wearing them in as many ways as possible--wrapped twice around my neck (I have a short stubby neck and I long for the Audrey Hepburn type women who have giraffe like necks that look good in repeated, multiple wraps of wool!) ; folded in half with the ends tucked into the fold a la European style; hanging loosely over my shoulders, dangerously dangling ends that might get caught in revolving machinery; tied over my shoulder with one end in front and one in back.

But, none of these methods guarantees that the pattern side of the lace or cable design will be dazzingly on the "public" side of the scarf, to impress the passers by. I am constantly rearranging the "casual" panache that I try to impart with my dramatic hand made scarves!! The panache goes down a few points when the scarf is obviously inside out! How can I be dashing and daring with an insideout scarf???

Therefore, I've been trying to produce reversible scarves. Two posts ago I displayed a seafoam stitch scarf that has two identical public sides. I've now made about 10 of these scarves for myself, family and friends, out of beautiful handpainted yarns, and I needed to branch out.

Barbara Walker to the rescue. Her seafoam stitch is on page 218 of her Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns. Lo and behold, on the opposite page, page 219, is another reversible pattern--the Vertical Drop-Stitch. Fortunately, this reversible stitch gives two equally attractive but different public sides.

OK, here is one of the public sides, with a weird stripped effect from the flash. This is a sideways view.

Here are the two public sides, next to each other. Can you tell the difference? No? Good. It's subtle and will not make the casual observer think you are wearing part of your clothing inside out, as if you don't know what you are doing.
But here, closer up, you can see that there IS actually a difference, noticeable mostly to knitters. The left side of the picture has wavy two-stitch columns. The right side shows wavy one stitch columns.
Still don't see it? Maybe this is better. It's hard to photograph.
The yarn is a hand dyed wool/mohair from a Wisconsin dyer--Joslyn's Fiber Farm, that I purchased this summer at Meg Swansen's Knitting Camp.

Next post, a manly man reversible stitch pattern for my father's scarf!

Working the Wonderful Wallaby

2007-11-20T09:54:00.001-06:00

When I was younger, I never felt the ticking of a biological clock warning me that time was running out for reproduction. Somehow I managed to have children nevertheless. I had one child at age 27 (planned) and another at age 42 (unplanned) and each one provided a different and exciting foray into motherhood. However, neither provided an opportunity to knit cute little baby things. I was working full time when pregnant with each child; and as they grew I continued to work. I sewed lots of clothes, nightgowns, doll clothes and Beanie Baby outfits, but I never had the time to knit.

Now that I am a woman of "a certain age" and have time to knit, my grandmother biological clock is ticking loudly; it's screaming "I want grandchildren, NOW!!" Maybe it is that I want little ones for whom I can knit cute little Dale of Norway sweaters, dresses, hats, mittens-- you name it, I want to make it--preferably for little girls. I want to knit frills and flowers. Alas, neither my husband's older daughter nor mine want children. Therefore, I have "adopted" two little boys as my "surrogate grandchildren." (I couldn't find any little girls; besides, we like the parents and we weren't about to dictate the gender of their children!) Thomas and Sean are 4.5 and 2.3 years old, energetic, noisy and adventuresome. Not frilly. Not pink. After having girls, I am astounded at the energy packed into these two little male bodies! These guys need clothing that will stand up to tough wear and that can go directly into the washer and dryer after rolling in the mud.

What to do?? The Wonderful Wallaby to the rescue!!! (Despite the comments that follow, the Wonderful Wallaby is a fantastic pattern, quick to knit, ingenious, etc. Make one, or two!)
No fuss knitting, no fuss wear and no fuss care. These are knitted hooded sweatshirts, with kangaroo pouch pockets and no-drawstring hoods. Pattern by Carol Anderson, from 1984, but not out of print. Carol Anderson channels Elizabeth Zimmerman--both overlapped with their knitting in Wisconsin and I believe Carol attended the early knitting camps. Carol started "Cottage Creations" for her no fuss creative patterns, illustrated by her artist-daughter. She now lives in Iowa and has numerous grandchildren. Unfortunately, she doesn't have a website. But, you can find her patterns here. If you haven't tried one of her no-nonsense, clever, knit-all-in-one-piece patterns, try one.

The Wallaby has only two small seams--the underarm stitches. I'm not going to show you the arm pits of the blue sweater. That was my first Wallaby, and I must admit that my fudging in the pits will not stand the scrutiny of blogdom. But, by the time I got to the arm pits of the second, green sweater, I was ready for prime time--or so I thought.

Here's the sweater when it comes off the needles, needing only grafting of the underarm stitches to the matching number of body stitches. Easy, right? I've done lots of sock toes. I can do this, no sweat. Hmmmmmm, Knitting Rule #10: Beware the technique that seems easy!"

Here's the raw pit:

Here's the full sweater just off the needles. Minimal finishing required. Should take just 5 minutes tops!
See the gap between the last live stitch on the underarm, and the first stitch on the body?? Note: stitches are held on fuschia sock yarn. That is not blood and arteries showing.
Well, I thought, this is a minimal finishing sweater. The directions say only to graft the stitches, and you're done!! I told myself that gap will disappear in the grafting!!! Lies, all lies. I know these boys play hard, but I don't think they need ventilation holes in the underarms of their sweaters. Somehow I had to close the gaps.
I can't really explain what I did. I tugged and pulled at the adjacent stitches, hoping to reduce the size of the holes. Didn't work. So I did a version of duplicate stitch and creation of new stitches to work the gaps together. I think it turned out well. At least, I'm counting on the Thomas and Sean not to examine the arm pits closely. I'm pretty sure their first response on opening the presents will not be, "Oh, cool sweaters. Let's check out the finishing details!" Rather, I think they will say, "Sweaters??!! Where are the toys?? !!" I'm thinking of getting some little matchbox cars to put in the pockets. Little cute knitted bears won't cut it with these guys.
Lucy Neatby to the Rescue!
A few days after finishing these sweaters, I watched a Lucy Neatby DVD about socks. She demonstrates how to eliminate the little holes created when picking up stitches for the heel gusset. I can't quite imitate Lucy's succinct description of the technique--basically she sews a little circle around the hole, on the reverse side, then pulls the circle taught. She makes a duplicate stitch over the tightened hole on the right side and, ahoy matey, the hole is ship shape and all is well! I'll remember this on my next Wallaby!

I think my next wallaby will be fitted in the body and made out of a merino/angora yarn I've had in my stash for a while. And, it will be for me!!

Seafoam Stitch blocking tutorial

2007-11-09T11:25:00.001-06:00

I know, I've been ignoring my blog. Sometimes life just gets in the way. However, I've been knitting like crazy on Christmas presents. This year I will reprise my successful Basket of HandKnit Items, from which family members and friends can select a present. This year the basket will be filled with scarves and socks. Last year it was mainly hats.

This year I am in production knitting mode for the basket. I find that I am more broadminded than others, even if I say so myself, on what type of hand knitted items I will wear. Therefore, rather than getting "creative" with my knitting, this year I am sticking with a scarf pattern on which I have received rave reviews from recipients and observers alike--a one-skein scarf using the seafoam stitch. I should carry patterns for this scarf because MANY people, knitters and non-knitters alike, ask me how I made the scarf when I wear one.

I recently drove my parents to Colorado to visit my sisters in Denver and Boulder. When I was not driving, I worked on a seafoam stitch scarf. My mother fell in love with the scarf and decided that she would make one for a Christmas present. However, my mother hates knitting. She hates building fabric one stitch at a time. But, she can't bring her sewing machine with her when she spends a month in Colorado. Therefore, to pass the time in Colorado, she decided that she would knit. Otherwise, she spends all of her time cleaning my sisters' houses. (Somehow, the "keep the house clean" gene did not find its way to any of my mother's three daughters!!)

My mom is an insecure knitter. Every wrapped stitch and evolving pattern in the scarf on her needles is examined for perfection. I keep telling her, "Relax, mom. Blocking will eliminate all the perceived problems and you will have a gorgeous finished object. " She doesn't believe me. She wants it all to be perfect while still on the needles!

This post is my "blocking tutorial" for my mom and for whomever needs a little knitting reassurance on-line. Believe me, it's hard for a scarf to go wrong with the seafoam stitch and some pretty handpainted yarn. (Mom, I know that you are not working with Koigu yarn, and the following photos show a scarf in Koigu. If your scarf doesn't look exactly like this one it's OK. Yours will also be beautiful!!)

Mom, this is for you!

BLOCKING THE SEAFOAM STITCH SCARF TUTORIAL

Step 1: Soak the finished item in cool water for 30 minutes.

See how some of the scarf is dark purple and some is light purple? The light purple portion of the scarf is floating on top of the water. Wait until all of the scarf is underwater! You need to have every little wool fiber saturated with water. That's why I said to soak the scarf for 30 minutes. If your scarf is saturated in 15 minutes, move to step 2. Don't shortchange the soaking.

Step 2: Squish the water out of the scarf by pressing it against the side of the sink bowl. (Oh, don't forget to pull the drainplug first!!) DO NOT WRING the scarf. Just gently squish it against the side of the bowl. Don't worry if the scarf is still dripping when you move to step 3.

Step 3: Plop the scarf onto a towel and fold the towel over the scarf.
Step 4: Stomp on the towel.
Step 5: Spread out the scarf on a bed sheet on top of a bed or on a floor carpet. I spread a bed sheet out on the living room floor carpet. You need something underneath the sheet into which you will stick pins.
Step 6: On one end of the scarf, pin out the points created by the seafoam stitch pattern; see below.

Step 7: With your hand, gently pull out the scarf until you have the degree of "airy-ness" that you want in the scarf. Mom, with the yarn you are using, you will need to stretch the scarf quite a bit to get it long enough to be a scarf.

Don't worry, you stretch as you go with the pinning. The yarn won't break. As you can see in the photo, I put a pin at each segment along the edge where there is an accumulation of four ridges of garter stitch.

I also spread out the scarf width-wise as I pin, because when I stretched the scarf for length, the scarf got too skinny. The un-pinned section of the scarf is on the left of the photo above. The pinned portion is on the right of the photo.

Step 8: Now, after you have finished pinning out the scarf, with points pinned out on each end, you can check the seafoam ovals for perfection!

Ah, HA! I found a wiggly strand in a seafoam oval!!! Look just to the right to the yellow-headed pin that is on the middle left of the scarf photo below! Baaadd, baaaadd, baaaadd!!!
I would just leave it alone. But I know, Mom, that this will bug you to your grave! So, get out a pointy object, like a knitting needle, and stick it under that wiggly strand. Give the needle a tug.
When you gently tug the strand, you will see or feel a neighboring strand move and become straight. Go in the opposite direction, gently tugging successive strands, until you have worked in the excess wiggles of that miscreant wiggly strand. For a moment, it will look as if you have created more of a mess than you had in the first place. Keep cool. As you work along, you will see that you have used up the excess and the oval now looks perfect. If it doesn't look perfect to you, just tug at the scarf as a whole around that area. It will all work in. See photo below for proof!
See mom, I told you so! It will all work out in the blocking!! Good luck on your scarf!!! Hugs and kisses to you and Dad, and to the dogs and cats and humans at the places you are visiting!!

Love, Gail

Holiday Knitting and My Mom

2007-10-09T13:17:00.001-05:00

Making presents for Christmas was always a tradition in my family. I think it may have started during the depression, when my parents' parents didn't have any money to purchase presents. I remember my mother telling me about how her father would glue colored pictures (from magazines? calendars?) to a piece of wood and then cut it into pieces with his jig-saw making jigsaw puzzles!!

My mother always made each of us (five of us) a new outfit or new pajamas for Christmas. Usually it was a new outfit, and for the girls, a matching outfit for our dolls. One Christmas she made a three piece wool suit (jacket, pleated skirt, vest) for my teenage sister, in addition to making items for everyone else. And, she made everything in secret. How, on earth, did she do this??

My dad also made things, such as a doll house one year. It was a simple ranch home with a removable roof and removable walls. He also gave us a discarded wallpaper book. We decorated the walls and floors with ever changing wall paper! We also made furniture out of boxes and cardboard.

These days my dad makes beautiful wood items for each of us, carefully turned decorations, lovely boxes with fitted joints and inside shelves. As they've aged, my dad's creations have become smaller and more intricate and my mom's have become simpler. Sometimes she makes placemats or decorative pillows out of sale item placemats!

One thing my mother never did was to knit. She was a seamstress who hated making "fabric" stitch by stitch. Knitting was not relaxing to her. She learned to knit in the late 1940's when all the girls made argyle socks for their boyfriends. No wonder she didn't like to knit, when you first project is argyle socks, who could ever fall in love with the process???!!!

However, she must have knit a little when I was young. She described knitting wool soakers, felted wool diaper covers in the days when rubber was in short supply after "THE" war. No wonder babies in those days were "trained" early!

My mom also must have made two wool ascot style scarves that were in our mitten/scarf/hat drawer throughout my childhood and that of my four siblings. There was a smaller pink scarf and a larger red one. The little kids wore the pink one and graduated to the red one at some point. I'm not sure what my brothers did--maybe they went straight to the red one. Those scarves are long gone, but they looked like this.

The neck portion was just long enough to go around our necks, outside of our jackets, as I recall.
The ends looked like little hearts, I always thought, or maybe triangles, or spades from the deck of cards.
The narrow part was a little pass through for inserting the other end. The flanges of the heart end prevented the end from slipping out.

A few years ago, while teaching elementary school kids how to knit, I 'unvented' the pattern from my memory of what the scarves looked like. I'm sure there must be published patterns around, but I haven't seen them. I made this scarf as a sample and the kids liked making it. It may be the first scarf ever finished by a beginning knitter!!

At any rate, I resurrected the pattern for my knitters' guild charity knitting challenge. Instead of a knit along this year, we are making monthly items for donation to local charities and schools. For November, the item is kids scarves. You can find the pattern here, scroll down to the second half of the post--look for the photos.

If you make one of these scarves, consider donating one to your favorite local charity. And, think of all the moms, whose skills, care and love kept us warm during the cold winters!!

Meanwhile, I am busy knitting items for presents this winter. I flit from project to project, beginning many, finishing few. Photos and more later.

A little of this and a little of that

2007-09-18T20:03:00.000-05:00

I've not been blogging much lately as you may have noticed. The end of the summer has turned me into an isolationist. How did the summer come to such a precipitous ending? It was just June and now it is simply September. My mind is still back in June, when possibilities are endless, when the sweet summer smell convinces you that all is within reach. And suddenly, September springs on you from its hiding spot--evenings are shorter, the heat of August dissipates and the projects planned in June are embarrassingly incomplete.

In my defense, I plead a rush of family activity. I attended my 40th high school class reunion in mid August and all of a sudden school planning stared me in the face. Trips to Kohl's, Target, Macy's, back to Kohl's and two more trips to Target. My 16 year old had a hard time deciding what to buy--from folders and note books to tops, shoes and T-shirts. Unfortunately, she doesn't yet have her independent driving license so I have to accompany her on each and every indecisive trip.

Daughter #1 purchased a scuzzy condo earlier in the summer. She knew that a lot of work would be required to turn the disgusting place into something habitable, but she vastly underestimated the amount of work necessary. This wasn't her fault--she is short on cash, she bought a condo built in the late 1930's, in an up and coming location, that was cheap because it needed work--a lot of work. She had the eyes of youth and promise and saw through the scuzz to something beautiful. I (mother that I am) saw the scuzz and saw a mountain of work. It has been the entire Himalaya range of work. We are trying to do it ourselves. All of us are complete neophytes at ripping out carpet and installing a bamboo floor; at patching rotting concrete and plaster and painting over; at determining whether the wiring is good or rotten; at every possible task required!!!

Maybe this has something to do with my magnificent lack of good taste in planning an Elizabeth Zimmerman baby sweater for a new baby in my husband's department at the University. I decided to work from my stash--and I didn't have much good in washable baby yarn. I didn't have enough of any color to make an entire sweater. But, I held up some baby blue, some baby yellow, some white ------and some avocado green. Oh, I know, avocado green just doesn't go with the first three colors. But, I thought it might be funky, cool and creative. (note, I am a child of the 60's and 70's--decades of terrible taste in color and style). The yarn was fingering weight and I wanted to finish this little sweater fast, so I doubled the yarn. I had faith in EZ--nothing done in her style could possibly fail. Right?? Wrong!
The result?? An inflexible, ugly, ugly little thing, but I plugged on. I finished the first sleeve.

Finishing the sleeve didn't help. Both of my daughters told me the sweater was "just ugly, Mom". I stopped. Finally, I realized that I knew it was ugly from the get-go. I went back to the stash and found some pink yarn I purchased 17 years ago for daughter #2. I never finished that sweater. So, the pink yarn became:

Earlier in September I dug out the Dale sweater I started 18 months ago for my husband. I stopped and put the thing in the back of the closet when I became dissatisfied with how the lighter yarn showed through when I twisted it so that the carry wouldn't be too long. I had been trying not to carry more than three stitches.

Ugly, ugly, ugly. Something needed to change. Then the light dawned. At Meg Swansen's Knitting Camp she and Joyce Williams displayed some of their projects for their new book on Armenian knitting. I recognized my Norwegian sweater for what it was--an example of Armenian knitting where the floating yarn is "trapped" every few stitches. The result is a tweed-y texture. Now I felt better; I had used an Armenian technique for a scandinavian sweater. Why not return to a scandinavian technique of long floats?? So I frogged....

And I re-knit.

As you can see I did some trapping when the carries were about 7 stitches long. Much, much better.

Maybe I'll actually finish the sweater for this Christmas!! Two years after I "gave" him the idea of the sweater for Christmas!

The socks I knit for my Sockapalooza sock pal, inspired me to knit a similar pair for myself. Because I wear my home made socks year round, I need something suitable for summer. I made these short socks out of a cotton/wool blend using my favorite pattern of all time--Feather and Fan from Socks, Socks, socks. The snug fit, the cute little scallop on the cuff--perfect!

OK, a success. I decided to start another pair of socks for myself for the approaching fall. I like the self striping yarn, but I get bored with stockinette stitch. And, I just finished Feather and fan. I decided to do something new. How about Canal du Midi from Knitting on the Road?? Sure, let's go to France!
Next time, I'll go to France with a solid color yarn. The wonderful patterning of the travelling stitches is not shown off by the striping yarn. The stripes of the yarn are blurred by the traveling stitches, and the traveling stitches lose their definition due to the stripes.

Oh well, I'll make the second sock. The socks are for me and I like the pattern and the yarn.

Knitting is kind of like life these days--I take two steps forward, then one or two steps back with each project....

Hope your projects are perfect the first time!!

Knitting on the Road

2007-08-19T13:09:00.000-05:00

No, this isn't a post about the wonderful book of socks. Rather, it is about some of my knitting while traveling this summer. I didn't finish, or start, anything extraordinary. Rather, I just knit things I didn't have to concentrate on. We were on the road for three weeks exploring northern Idaho and Washington State, on our way to Seattle for the wedding celebration of my step-daughter.

In an earlier post, I showed you the not-lacey wedding shawl on the floor, being blocked. Here are two photos of the finished product.

This is daughter #2 (now 16 years old!!) modeling the shawl at the family gathering that celebrated the marriage of step-daughter #1 (now 40 years old!). You can see how sheer the shawl is. I used laceweight cotton. Never again.
And, here is the front. Pattern is the Landscape Shawl by Evelyn Clark, available through Fiber Trends.

And finally, the bride and groom, cutting the wedding cake, with the shawl draped around the bride's shoulders. I was very happy to participate in the wedding by making the shawl. And, I think that the bride truly loved the shawl. I hope she wears it frequently.

I knit a lot while in the car and on airplanes. For airplane knitting, I decided to take bamboo circular needles and not my 2.5mm circular needles on which socks-in-progress were dangling. On the way out of the door when we were leaving on vacation I grabbed three balls of variegated cotton yarn--I purchased the yarn last summer while in Barcelona, Spain, from a yarn shop owned by a knitting friend in Barcelona. She is American, her spouse is Catalan/Spanish. I didn't know what to do with the yarn at the time. But, I like bright colors. After I get home with bright yarn I question my sanity. However, I thought an airplane ride would be perfect for forcing me to make a decision.

After swatching (I tried the seafoam stitch--doesn't work well with cotton, I discovered) I decided to use the yarn for a fishnet lace scarf, from the Montego Bay Scharf pattern in Summer 2007 Interweave knits. Amy Singer wrote the pattern. It's not difficult at all. A simple four row pattern that is really a two row pattern. But, somehow I managed to get off track at the beginning. Maybe the airplane hit some turbulence. Or the man next needed to climb across me to get into the aisle. Do you see the problem??
I didn't see the problem right away. I just kept merrily knitting along. When I finally realized that my fishnet rows didn't line up in row 6 or so, I had three options:
1) rip out 12 inches of knitting to fix it
2) pretend there was not problem and that no one would ever notice
3) cut off the beginning and knit on a border.

I chose option #2. Denial. Belief that the knitting fairy could come one night and fix it. Pretend that the end of the scarf is supposed to be wonky.

So, I knitted and knitted. About 5 or six feet of knitting. Because I made a garter stitch border on the sides, at the end of the scarf I did 8 rows of garter stitch and bound off. Then, I looked at the beginning again. Option #2 was not the right option. I needed to implement Option #3. Cut it off!!!

By this time, I was in a long distance car ride and hubby was driving. Bless him.

I figured that I could use waste yarn (that I luckily had in my purse) to make a safety line. But, I couldn't seem to follow a straight line. The scarf is really on the bias. And I could not, for the life of me, seem to follow the pattern. So, after multiple false starts, I painstakingly used a needle to pick up the stitches, tugging on each stitch to find out where it led to the next stitch. Painstaking. Real painstaking. Did I mention that I was doing this in the car?

Well, it worked. I used the picked up stitches to do 8 rows of garter stitch, and then cast off! I didn't add the fringe that Amy Singer used. I decided to give this scarf to my Boulder, Co sister and she is only 5 feet 1 inch tall.

Why did I ever think that #2--denial of the problem--was ever an option? I would have been embarrassed to give the scarf to my sister, who would never have noticed the problem. But, I would have known. Why do I do this--pretend that a mistake will never be noticed, when I would notice--even if I never saw the item again in my lifetime??

Ah well, here are some photos from the road trip.
The first one is sunset over either Priest Lake or Pend d'Oreille lake in northern Idaho.

Next photo is not photoshopped! For some strange reason, there is a miniature statue of liberty at the beach in Sandpoint, Id. The sign did not explain.

We stayed one night in Leavenworth, WA. This was a dead or dying former lumber town back in the 1960's. Then, some civic minded citizens decided to save their town by turning it into a Bavarian village. They succeeded and it is now a tourist destination, complete with Bavarian style buildings all over, Bavarian dressed store clerks, and a production of Sound of Music every summer in an outdoor ampitheater near the ski hill.

Last week I attended the 40th high school graduation weekend of my small (33 graduates) girl's convent school. Here are some of us looking grey but happy!!
More of my on the road knitting later.

Fabulous Sock Pal!

2007-08-17T13:57:00.001-05:00

Do I have the best sock pal of all, or what?? Kathy of Vast Amount of Spare Time
used her sparse time to make me this delicious pair of "Rock and Weave" socks out of sumptuous Cherry Hill Supersock yarn in a color called Spanish moss.
Not only are the socks beautifully made, not only do they fit perfectly, not only are they a perfect color, but everything about them shows that Kathy read my blog carefully to determine what I like. What a woman!! I can't tell you how touched I was by her thoughtfulness. For example, she knew I lived in Spain and chose "Spanish Moss" as the colorway.
Cute of all cute things, she mailed the items in a ball winder box!!! Of course, my photo is upside down; she packed everything right side up. When I hit the turn arrow on the photo manager site, somehow the photo flipped twice and I didn't notice. Sorry, Kathy.

She also knows that I am making a blanket for my 16 year old (and now one for my 30 year old) out of leftover sock yarn. She knows even that I beg for leftover sock yarn. So, she included some of her leftover sock yarn, as well as the leftovers from the sock she made for me! What a woman!

Plus, she knows that I make a variety of knitted items for Christmas presents and put them in a basket from which family and friends can select an item. She thoughtfully added some very soft fleecy yarn that will make a great hat for Christmas 2007.

Moreover, she knows that I like Chocolate with spice in it. She noted that I liked a chocolate bar from Barcelona that had pepper in. What a blog-reader that woman is!! She sent me some made-in-Oregon chocolate bars with chili. I can't wait to try them. My 30 year old (who went to school in Eugene, OR and who lived in Portland for a while) is salivating over the bars and can't wait for me to open one.

And finally, she sent me some badger cream for cuticles. How did she know that I have hangnails and cuticle problems? Did she realize that Wisconsin is the Badger state and, thus, purchase some Badger cream for me???

Kathy, you are truly a thoughtful and caring person.

Thank you. Now, I need to read your blog more carefully. I know there was just a wedding in the family, and that you made an outstandingly fabulous shawl, and ties, and purses and more. And, I know that you lost your beloved cat. How sad, but how wonderful Tabby was in your life. We have a very beloved Cosmic, who follows the psychotic Molly (blessedly short-lived) and the most loved Pippin. Cats are such wonderful personalities and they are missed terribly when they go.

Sockapalooza and deadlines

2007-08-05T15:14:00.000-05:00

I met the deadline. Honest I did. I finished my Sockapalooza socks long before August 1. In fact, I finished them before July 3. I wrapped them up with a bar of chocolate from Barcelona, Spain, personally delivered by Betty who visited me from July 3 until July 13 and who attended Knitting Camp with me. I even wrapped them up with a little bag to hold sock knitting on my sock pal's wrist so that she can knit socks while walking. And, I included cookie cutters for making heart cookies of varying sizes. After all, don't all knitters love cookies???

But, did I take photos of all these delights and post them??? No! Why?? Well, to tell the truth, I wasn't organized enough. But, I did take photos of the socks (worn on my legs that show stubble! Ugh!!)

I made short spring, summer, early fall socks. I love the scalloped cuff made by the chevron design.
The chevron design makes the cotton/wool/nylon yarn hold a snug shape on the foot. And the terra cotta, brown, gold and peach-y colors went well, I hope, with my sock pal's home in New Mexico. I never make exact match socks with self striping yarn. I like the slight randomness given by not matching exactly. I figure if I wanted exact matching socks I would purchase them.

Oops, there's another photo of the socks. Look closely at the balls of the feet. Can you see htat I added two sections of short rows on the balls of the feet? This is to add more sock and more yarn where one needs it--on the blump of the ball of the foot where many of us wear out the socks. Adding a few more rows results in less stretch and stress on that part of the sock and no more holes!
I didn't take the chevron/lace pattern into the toe portion of the sock. I did that once on a pair of my socks and the lacy yarn overs quickly wore thin and I had to duplicate stitch the entire toe area.

My sock pal already received her socks and says they fit! Whew!! After knitting her socks, I became jealous of her receiving new cotton/wool/nylon shortie socks. I wear the shortie socks in the summer when the weather is a little cool or when going to air conditioned movie theaters and the like. So, I make myself a pair while travelling in Idaho and Washington the past three weeks. But, I wasn't yet organized to take a photo to post!
Truth be told, I haven't yet unpacked and I don't know where my camera is!!!!

Ah, Knitting Camp!

2007-07-20T14:12:00.000-05:00

Oh my, I died and went to heaven! And, look what they have in heaven!!

This photo says it all--Sweaters from Camp in the flesh--actually, in the wool! What a fabulous experience. As you saw in my earlier posts, I attended Meg Swansen's Knitting Camp, the continuation of her mother Elizabeth Zimmerman's camp. She brings all the sweaters photographed for all the books she and her mother have written. Best of all, the campers can try on the sweaters and wear them during the instruction periods and after. Just return them to the tables before you go to bed!! Wearing an EZ original, what could possibly be better??
This is the Bavarian Jacket EZ knit for her beloved husband, Arnold, and the photo of which is in at least two of the books. I actually put this on and had my photo taken in it. But, I didn't look nearly as dapper as Arnold was in it!!

And, listening to Meg describe all the techniques and construction details for each sweater. Again, priceless!! She is holding the sweater I long to knit--I've added it to my knitter's life list.
As Meg demonstrates, the campers knit along with their own swatches. A camera focuses on her hands so everyone can look at the closest TV monitor arranged throughout the room. You can see my yarns for my projects. I had a startitis problem--I couldn't figure out which project to start, which yarn to use, etc., so as not to embarrass myself in front of all these wonderful knitters!
In the afternoon there is Show and Tell where campers show off their projects or seek suggestions for their disasters. This young woman from Toronto brought her "homework" project--a precious little steeked sweater. She finished it at camp and was very proud of her first steeks (as well she should be!) Meg is the most gracious of women and enthusiastically complimented each person's project, technique or idea. She couldn't say "that piece of knitting is crap" if you paid her $1 million!! Of course, the photo above is not of knitting crap. There was no knitting crap in the room. But, if there were, I'm sure Meg would find something very positive to say about it.
Not only were campers surrounded by fabulous items knit my the famous, famous hands of EZ, Meg Swansen, Joyce Williams and Amy Detjen, and by outstanding creations of the campers, we were surrounded by yarn. A half-ballroom was set up with tables displaying all the yarn and books and items carried by Schoolhouse Press. Who could resist? These bulging sausages are the shipping form of the unspun Icelandic wool that Schoolhouse carries. Very compact way to ship the yarn. And what fun when Meg demonstrated cutting the binding twine and the sausages exploded into wheels of fluffy yarn!!!

There were five men at our camp (or was that four?)!! They ranged in age from early 20's to maybe my age. The older man came with his daughter. They had a great, great time together!! I forgot to get his permission to post his photo, so I will show just his hands, winding yarn.
You can just see the corner of his nametag--a tie he knit for himself with his name knitted into it vertically. Everyone was required to wear a nametag. Most of the knitters made some lovely, creative name tag out of yarn and needles. In another post, I'll show you how I wimped out!

My posts are few and far between because immediately after knitting camp I went to Door County , Wisconsin to visit friends. Actually "we" went to Door County. My good friend, Betty from Barcelona, came to Wisconsin to go to Knitting Camp with me. We had a great, great time!! In Door County we purchased more yarn at a corriedale sheep farm--we hadn't purchased enough yarn at knitting camp, apparently!!!

We then returned home for two days before she departed to Barcelona. We left two days later to go to Idaho, where I am currently writing this post in a coffee shop. We are surrounded by pine forested mountains, lakes long, deep and blue, twisty-turny highways and backroads--and where do we spend our time?? In a coffee shop!!!

Hooray for Knitting Camp!!!

2007-07-08T15:25:00.000-05:00

I haven't posted for a while due to the arrival of Betty from Sin Control, the 4th of July holiday and our travel to Meg Swansen's Knitting Camp! The days have flown by as we all learn new techniques, try on all the original EZ creations, the original Meg Swansen creations and others. Can you imagine, actually wearing something created by Elizabeth Zimmerman's own hands??? Priceless.

I will post photos and provide more information later. Now, as a service to the fellow campers (intrepid, marvelous and creative knitters all) I am listing links to the knitting blogs of the campers who participate in the fabulous land of Knitting Blog-dom.

Elisabet can be found at Sin Control.

Mary can be found at Knit This and That and Two Kitty Kats.

Kellie can be found at Knitting Inspiration.

Angela can be found at KnitNerd.

Sam writes about life and knitting at Tychoish.

Amy is the Amy at Amy Knits On.

Suzette can be found at Squishy Blue.

Michael can be found in magazines, in Knit with Balls and TrickyTricot.

Karen can be found at K2knits.

Have a great time meeting all of these knitters--they are great, great, great!

Mystery Laundry Basket Winner; Landscape Shawl; Travel Mystery

2007-06-29T14:27:00.001-05:00

The Prize Winner!!
Do you see this sweet, sweet kitty? His name is Cosmic and he is well loved by daughter #2, who calls him her little brother. Cosmic is also a knitting kitty; he loves to help pull the yarn out of the ball and he removes pins from items while they are blocking. He also loves to go outside in the nice weather. Can you imagine how sad we would all be if he ran away, was attacked by a dog or eaten by a coyote. (our last kitty was attached by something and died in the backyard. That psychotic cat was no great loss, but Cosmic would be mourned for decades.
Well, we solved the problem! In my last post I showed this photo and asked whether anyone could guess what it was used for. There were many great, imaginative guesses. Some were close, but no one got the correct answer.
Vicki Knitorious guessed it was a trap.
HPNY Knits loves riddles and mystery.
Diana thought it was a little boy's trap.
sherriknits Sherri guessed a trap, such as a cat trap.
Karen thought of something for gardening.
Kate anticipated the Yarn Harlot's battle with the local yarn stealing squirrel and thought it was a means of protecting yarn that I was drying.
Melissa also thought of a trap.
greno Bea from France suggested that my neighbor (male) is a secret knitter and he didn't want his wife to know so he hid the yarn under the basket!! I love that idea!
Pilar from the Canary Islands thought that I asked my husband to put up a clothes line from which to hang freshly laundered hand knit socks, and he did it upside down!! How does she know my husband so well??
Acuarela from Spain thought that it was a play area for cats or rabbits. Actually, her guess is the closest. and she gets the prize!

We put a blue harness on our precious Cosmic and attach the end of the long rope to the harness. He can then roam around the backyard, pulling his laundry basket as he goes. However, he can't really leave the yard because the laundry basket gets caught on bushes. Sometimes his leash gets caught on rocks, flowers and so forth. Then, he sits quietly until we come to rescue him. We only put him out when we are home and can keep an eye on him. He loves his harness and leash, and will sit next to the box in which they are kept on the screened porch. He cries mournfully and hopefully until we open the lid. He recognizes the sound and stands still so we can put his harness on him. Then, we carry him outside and attach him to the long leash.

Aquarela wins two skeins of Manos of Uruguay Cotton Striata.

Landscape Wedding Shawl

In my last post, I explained that I was making a Landscape Shawl for my step-daughter's wedding on July 2. I finished it on Sunday, mailed it on Monday and it arrived on Tuesday!! And she loves it!! Here it is, blocking. I will post a photo of her wearing it in August. The wedding is a small private affair. The family party will take place in Seattle at the end of July.
Although the shawl is perfect for her (not lacy, lightweight cotton, dusty blue) I would not make another shawl out of fine lace weight cotton. Maintaining tension was impossible and I tried to master 3 different ways of holding the thread/yarn. Nothing worked completely well. Although I love the feel of the lightweight cotton shawl, and the drape, I can't see fighting with the thread/yarn for thousands upon thousands of fine, fine stitches again. I can see why such fine cotton is used in crocheting, but not in knitting.
This is the second Landscape Shawl that I have made. You can see the different shades of blue in the photo; this was caused by different knit and purl stitch patterns. The pattern is for a perfect triangle of a shawl. However, I wanted the shawl to fit better on the shoulders, like faroese shawls. the shawl is knit from the tip, beginning with one stitch. When I got to the tip of the last triangle, that is, the last V that you see in the middle of the shawl, I began doing short rows on either side of the yarn over increases that define the final V. I knit two rows between each short row. The shaping worked out well, giving a bit of extra shawl on each side of the neck.
I am not a big fan of triangle shawls, I've decided, because I like more shawl to keep my chest warm. (Being flat chested, I don't have much insulation there to keep me warm!!) I was glad that the short row shaping worked. I will have to figure out how to do this in lacy patterned shawls.
Summer Pleasure
Travel Mystery
I love it when knitting bloggers post photos of places to which they have traveled. Here are some photos of a place to which we traveled recently. All photos are from the same city, as is the photo of the flowers and sun-umbrellas above. I have enough yarn in my stash for two lifetimes. Therefore, I thought that rather than tell you where I went and what I saw, I would let you tell me!! Name the city and answer one of the questions. Take a wild guess. The names of all commenters will be put into a hat (handknit, of course) and I will draw the winner!

Where is this and why did it give me the shivers??

Who or what can cross this bridge and what river does it cross??

What is this building?

I will tell you what this is. I took this photo in the ladies bathroom of the building in the photo above. This is a sink without a faucet. You simply run your hands under the little etched drops of water and water comes out. Unfortunately, the little drops of water are hard to see. My husband came out of the men's room (which must have the same type of sink) complaining that the bathroom had soap dispensers but no water!!

Knitting and Astronomy; Thanks to Amy

2007-06-19T11:53:00.001-05:00

I'm sure all of you know what I'm talking about in the title to this post. Yes, the BLACK HOLE. I am sucked into the never ending portion of a triangular shawl. I have only the last 36 rows of the landscape shawl. the longest 36 rows of the shawl. I haven't counted stitches, but I can calculate. It is LOTS!! I reduced the size of the shawl because it is for a summer wedding and the bride did not want such a long shawl. Nevertheless, this is a lot of steady, production knitting that I am into. I am on the last of the five stitch patterns. My husband the mathematician tells me that 20% of the shawl remains to be done--not counting the edging on the hypotenuse. Man alive, my goal of 15 rows per evening until I finish this shawl is unattainable. Nine or ten rows is my max, I find. I knit and knit, and purl and purl, and yarn over and knit two together and I don't get any further towards my goal. I have a severe case of start-itis for a new project.

Meanwhile, to add brightness to my knitting life, I won some yarn from Amy at Frenchy Knits. My photo in the sun does not do the yarn justice. It is a skein of Andes Yarn, 100% wool.It has my favorite color, purple, along with some luscious olive-y green. I can't wait to knit with it. I will make a scarf using the seafoam stitch. It will be awesome. Thanks, Amy!!!!

I love to garden, but I'm not a good gardener. I love shades of green in the garden more than the colors. But, my astilbe are blooming beautifully.
And, I love my day lilies, which require no attention once they get started.

Now, here is something else in my yard. What could it be?? A laundry basket, upside down, with a rope?? When the yellow rope ends, a black one is tied on.

And, the black robe disappears into the neighbor's garden, under a tree.
What could this weird contraption be used for???

Leave your answer in the comments and I will draw a name from the accurate guesses. The lucky winner will receive some yarn--as yet to be determined--from the stash that is taking over the house!!!

Experiments in knitting

2007-06-12T12:56:00.001-05:00

Here at Gail's Good Yarn, we wish to report the results of important scientific study pertaining to uses of yarn and needles to produce excellent products. We bring you periodic results from our laboratories.

Experiment #1

Materials: Fortissima Socka, Cotton Color, Southwest type terracotta and browns
Two Circular Needles: Sizes 2mm and 2.25 mm
Pattern: Sensational Knitted Socks, Chevron Patterns, Chevron

Goal: Short summer/spring socks for Sockapalooza pal who lives in New Mexico

Method: Begin heel after one pattern repeat

Results:

Use of smaller needle for the sole to make fabric denser to increase lifetime of wear: Excellent
Effect of self striping yarn with chevron pattern: good
Effect of colorway: poor
Snugness of fit around ankle: Below poor.
Comments for further study: Rip this baby out!!! Start over. Next time with this pattern, use wool, not cotton, sock yarn.

Experiment #2.
Materials: Fortissima Socka, Cotton Color, Blues
Needles: Two circular needles, sizes 2.oo and 2.25
Pattern: Feather and Fan from Socks, Socks, Socks

Goal: Short summer/spring socks for Sockapalooza pal who lives in New Mexico

Method: Begin heel after three pattern repeats

Results:
Use of smaller needle for the sole to make fabric denser to increase lifetime of wear: Excellent
Effect of self striping yarn with feather and fan pattern: Excellent
Effect of colorway: Excellent

Snugness around ankle: Excellent
Comments for further study: Continue with this method. Make 2 socks. However, question whether these socks are appropriate for sockapalooza exchange. Feedback from question posted on Sockapalooza blog suggested discontinue idea of short socks for New Mexico summer. Further study recommended for Sockapalooza exchange socks.

Experiment #3.

Materials: Old sweaters, washed in hot water

Needles: Sewing Machine

Goal: Make mittens faster than knitting

Results: excellent

Problems noted: Unevenness of thickness of wool once "felted". Holes developed in thumb gore where hands grip steering wheel of car. Note different types of construction of fabrics before felting.

Remedy: duplicate stitch with sock yarn!!
Results: Destruction of pattern design of original fabric. Gauge is larger. Longevity of wear increased.
Comments for further study: wear mittens for additional year and report back to laboratory.

Experiment #4.

Materials: Laceweight cotton yarn, unmercerized, unidentified source. Yarn on top in photo is sock yarn. Yarn on bottom is yarn used in experiment.

Needles: Size 4 Addi Turbo Lace Needles
Pattern: Landscape Shawl

Goal: Make non-lacy shawl for step-daughter's wedding on July 2 in Seattle. Make shawl to recipient's specifications; i.e. use cotton, lightweight, non-lacy

Method: Knit as directed pattern.

Results:
Use of laceweight cotton: effect of draping--excellent
Ease of use of laceweight cotton: Poor. Hard on fingers. Hard on knitting technique. Need to develop new technique for holding yarn.
Use of AddiTurbo lace needles: Poor to average. Cotton lace weight yarn gets stuck on the join of the cable with the needle. Ability to push stitches onto the working end of the needles is difficult.
Ability to maintain consistent tension with laceweight cotton: poor
Comments for future: Pray that blocking will remove unevenness of tension. Pray that step-daughter will like result.

Thank you for reading this installment of reports from the experimental knitting laboratory. At the present, these are the only experiments in progress in our laboratory. Our scientist is working at breakneck speed to complete Experiment #4 in time to mail to Seattle before end of the month.

Taking care of those treasures!

2007-06-04T11:00:00.000-05:00

As with all other sock knitters, I LOVE my hand knit socks. I love wearing them. I love seeing them in my drawer, I love making them. What I don't love is finding a hole when I go to put them on. Given the amount of time that went into making each sock, I subconsciously plan on them lasting at least 25 years! Consciously, however, I realize that holes happen!
After graduation from library school, I had a little time on my hands, or on my feet......I washed all of my wool socks carefully. Then, I applied a little pill-buster "machine" to them. This is a little hand held, battery operated pill remover that I found at the hardware store. I love it. It keeps my socks and other wool items looking spiffy! Then, I examined each sock for signs of wear. I rummaged through my leftover yarn box to find matching yarn, and I duplicate stitched any worn spots. Then, I put them out in the sunshine for a nice group photo! (these are only my wool socks. My cotton/wool/nylon socks are still in the sock drawer.) Then, I put them in a box to save for next fall.
I realized that I need a little more color and variety in my sock stash! I love the fit and texture of Lucy Neatby's Mermaid Socks, so I'll add that to my list of socks for the fall. I'll also add another pair or two of the Feather and Fan socks from Socks, Socks, Socks. And, I'll try some new sock patterns that the bloggers are making. Finally, I'll make some more of the elegant rib socks--elegant rib is from Barbara Walker's stitch guides and it is a fabulous snug rib with cross-cables every once in a while. I'll also get out a knee sock pattern to see if I can make some that stay up!
With my left over sock yarn, and left over sock yarn from friends, I've been steadily working on daughter #2's leftover sock yarn blanket. You can see that she uses it every night on her bed, even though it is not finished. (Her beloved cat sleeps in the "nest" on top, with the baby blanket I made for her. The cat loves the little bobbles--in a way-too-Freudian way--and sucks the baby blanket before curling down to sleep!!!) Currently, the leftover sock yarn blanket is 13 by 11 squares. We think it needs to be 12 squares wide and 14 squares long to make a real blanket for her bed while in college. After knitting up those additional squares (let's see; I've knit 13 x 11=143 squares and I need 25 more squares, for a total of 168 squares total!!!!) I will put applied I-cord around to keep all the edges in line. However, I'm not finished with sock yarn squares. Now daughter #1 says she wants a similar blanket. So I've got 168 plus 25 more squares to make!! This is a very long term project.

Non-knitting and knitting friends alike ask me how long it takes to knit a blanket (not a smaller size afghan) out of sock yarn on size 2.5 mm needles. Well, 168 squares times 2389 stitches per square equals--401,352 stitches!!!! (or, 401.352 for European readers). Multiply time-per-stitch by 401,352 and then add the time of sewing the sides together (roughly four sides times 168 equals 672 and subtract one side for each of the edge squares) and you have the total!!! I sew the squares in as I complete enough for a side or edge and, therefore, reduce the angst of sewing together. Just doing the math makes me tired.

I've been on a spring house cleaning of my unfinished knitting projects. I had only a few items on the needles and I decided to finish them all before starting anything new. (does this ring a bell with anyone???) I finished the shaped shawl that I showed in my previous blog and gave myself a big pat on the back. Then, I finished my Potomaous (spelling??) socks from the Knitty pattern. They are made out of wool/cotton/nylon. Therefore, they went into the sock drawer, not into the box for next fall.

I also got out my husband's Dale of Norway sweater which needed 1.75 sleeves. It now needs only 1 sleeve. Sorry, I don't have a photo.

I got sidetracked onto a new project!! I know, I can't control my start-itis. My step daughter (age 40) will be getting married on July 2. Last week I offered to make her a shawl for the wedding!! Why I didn't make this offer a month ago,I don't know. (yes, I do know. I was overwhelmed with finishing projects for my MLS degree!! How quickly we forget labor pains!!) I am now making a shawl out of very fine lace weight cotton. Because her dress is lacy, she wanted a plain shawl. I can't show photos or divulge the pattern until after I send the shawl to her. I'm using size 4 needles (the new Addi Turbo lace needles for which I have mixed reviews). Laceweight cotton is more difficult to work with than I anticipated. Plus, the stitches get stuck on the join between the needle and the cable. Rats!!

After washing and mending all of my wool socks, I got to work on my wool sweaters. I washed all of them in my super dooper front loading washing machine that has a superb hand wash cycle. I spread the sweaters on my floor to dry. This attracted Cosmic, who loves damp wool. I, being human, do not understand the glories of damp wool as a bed, but who am I to say.
Cosmic's eyes are flashing a warning--do not disturb!!!

I've been tagged!

2007-05-29T21:04:00.000-05:00

Wow! I've finally made it in the blogging world. I've been tagged for the first time; by The Knitting Ewe!! Thanks, I think. I must tell seven random things about me. Compared to the Knitting Ewe, I'm not terribly interesting.

Here we go:1) I spent four years in a convent. Not just a Catholic girls' school, but a real convent where we all wanted to become nuns. This was in the 1960's when there weren't a lot of opportunities for girls. The nuns in "my" convent were quite accomplished--my French teacher was a Fulbright student; two nuns ran a printing press operation; my Chemistry teacher was the first woman to attend Marquette Dental School; the financial managers for the order were nuns; the woman who ran the physical plant and huge boilers was a nun. Wow! I was "in the convent" during my high school years after which .....(see #2)

2) My family moved to Northern Nigeria for two years. My father was with a government project. Very, very interesting experience, to say the least.

3) I learned how to knit in the convent from my fellow high schoolers. I loved it. I knit while studying. For a period of time knitting was prohibited on Sundays because it was "work." I protested this, since we were required to do schoolwork on Sundays. The ban on knitting on Sundays was lifted!!

4) I hide yarn from my husband. I think he has good reason to complain about the size of my stash. My problem is that I have to keep the yarn in the basement and I forget what yarn I have. I've made lists, etc., but that doesn't help. I keep finding surprises whenever I look.

5) I stopped knitting when I was about 30 and started again when I was in my late 40's. I'm not sure why I didn't knit for 15 or more years. During that time I made lots of my own clothes. When I began to knit again, I was shocked at all the new yarns and interest in knitting. In my previous knitting life I was a lonely solitary knitter. It's so much fun to have a vitual and a tangible knitting community!!

6) I just graduated from library school (a master's degree in library sciences) at age 57. Now, I must look for a job. I'd rather knit!!!

7) I love coats and jackets--this must be because I live in the upper Midwest. I would own 25 coats if I had the money and the closet space. I believe life is better with a coat or jacket for every temperature. Some casual, some dressy. I would even love a fur coat ( I know, this is not politically correct), but I would wear only a vintage fur coat--at least 50 years old. when I was in college I had an old ratty racoon coat from the 1920's that I wore on campus in northern Wisconsin. It was so cozy warm. I've never been so warm in the winter.

8) I started taking piano lessons at age 50! I had always wanted to take them when I was a child, but our family had no money for lessons, much less a piano. I stopped lessons when I started graduate school and had no time to practice. If I find a part time job, I will take lessons again. I loved it. I wasn't very good, but I loved it. The music sounded magical to me--to think, that my hands could make music!!!

Whoops, I've gone beyond seven. I'm not too good at following directions!!
I'm still looking for ideas for socks for my sock pal for sockapalooza. She is from New Mexico. I'm not sure what people wear on their feet in a warm climate--since I'm from the frozen north!
Thanks!!

Sock decisions!

2007-05-29T19:33:00.000-05:00

I am participating in Sockapalooza 4, for the first time. Unfortunately, however, my sock pal does not have a website, so I can't scope her out. I do know, however, that she lives in New Mexico. Hmmm. I live in Wisconsin where wool socks can be worn nearly every month of the year, depending on the weather on a particular date. I would imagine that New Mexico's weather requires wool socks in only a few months of the year. Therefore, I thought of using cotton/wool/nylon yarn and making shortie socks; i.e. socks that come just above the ankle. Or, could shortie socks be cheating--less knitting. Not so fancy. I'd use a lacy stitch, perhaps. Or, make two pair to make up for the fewer rows needed for the socks.

Any comments? What would you recommend??

Thanks to those who commented on where they wear their shawls. Jeans and t-shirts seem to be perfect shawl partners. I've been wearing my lace shawls only for dress wear, but I think I will loosen up a bit and wear them on most any occasion!!

Cheers to all you sock knitters!

Milestones

2007-05-23T20:49:00.001-05:00

Milestones, those markers on the road of life that let us know that we have accomplished something. Somehow our lives are changed when passing the milestones--usually for the good. I passed an important milestone on May 20, and I hope it is good. I finally received my masters degree in library and information studies. I also am now eligible to receive the appropriate license to be a school librarian.

I knit my way through many classes, until the classes became so complicated that I needed both hands to take notes!! Information technology was one such class, as was information architecture and cataloging.

Here I am in my robe, hood and hat with my daughter #2! She was more excited about my graduation than I was!! She earned it--she got me up to go to my 7:45 a.m. Spanish class more than once. And she set an example of how to stick to one's homework until it is done. And how to keep at it until you understand it. And how to go to school even when you are not feeling well--no wimp scholar is she!! High school kids have a hard life; harder than I ever had it and harder than my graduate school life.

Here I am with my parents. I am wearing my father's PhD robe, the one he wore when he was a faculty member and marched in annual graduation processions. I wore the robe out of respect for his accomplishment. He started college when I was 1 month old, after he returned from WWII. He finished his PhD when I was 16--and there were a total of five children in the family. He worked full time and studied whenever he could. Of course, my mother sacrificed a lot to achieve the goal--she deserves an honorary PhD. (She never went to college because she was at home taking care of us kids.) Nothing I experienced as a late in life graduate student compared with the hard times they had making ends meet and burning the candle at both ends.
Knitting milestones are also important. Blocking an item is like a graduation, of sorts. all the coursework is completed; all the papers are handed in and this is the ultimate final step before sending it off into the world to do good!! Here is my Shaped Triangle Shawl from Gathering of Lace; the one I started in 2002 after Knitting Camp. Or, maybe I started it in 2003. At any rate, I purchased the yarn, Joslyn's lace weight yarn called angel hair, at Knitting Camp. (the yarn is truly deserving of the name. It is wonderful laceweight yarn!!) The shawl sat smushed in a bag for years and I finally retrieved it this winter. I vowed to finish it by June 1, and I blocked it this evening!!!

Ignore the little blips--There are some in the photos. I'm planning on wearing it with great pride, even with the little problems for which I did NOT rip back. I ripped back for a number of problems, let me assure you. But, at some point I just had to get this baby done!!

And done it is!! The temperatures are in the mid to upper 80's this week and I don't have anyplace to wear this. Maybe I'll have my husband take me out to dinner at an air conditioned restaurant. I plan to wear it to Knitting Camp beginning July 5, regardless of the temperature!!!!

Where do all of you wear your shawls?? Do you have an elegant life that I don't?? Maybe I should celebrate finishing the shawl and graduation all in one!! Although, dh already paid for a dinner for 10 family and friends after the ceremony........ Clearly, I need more milestones to celebrate by wearing my shawls!

One down, two to go

2007-05-18T15:21:00.000-05:00

Yes, the big project for instructional technology is done!!! It is a DVD on how to make a bibliography, for 4/5 graders. I showed it to kids at a school. Some liked it, some said it was helpful, one boy said it was "cheap" and others said they knew everything already (teacher says they didn't). At least it is about to be handed in.

Then, at 7:45 tomorrow morning, a spanish grammar test, for which I haven't studied.

And then write a short paper on making the DVD, etc.

Then, clean the house. Then, go to bed.

Sunday morning--graduation at 9:00 a.m. and dinner at 4:oo.

I'll do a little mindless knitting to get through all this--squares of left over sock yarn for the famous sock yarn blanket. My 30 year old now says she wants one too. I figure I need about 200 more squares!!!

Procrastinaaaaaation

2007-05-15T12:15:00.000-05:00

Please, don't tell my professor that I haven't been working on my instructional technology project 24 hours a day!! I've been procrastinating.......
On Sunday my daughters and husband took me to a mother's day brunch and afterward we did our traditional Mother's Day activity--went to the local arboretum to view the lilacs in bloom. This is the 30'th consecutive mother's day that we've done this--except for the year we were in Spain but I figure that doesn't count. Daughter #1 who remained in the US visited the lilacs in our place.

Put your nose into this clump of blossoms and smellllllll!!

In addition to ooohing and aaahing we take pictures. I've trained daughter #2 well--she and I have a contest to see who can take the best (and the most) photos. she always wins!

Last night I went to my church knitting group and we took this photo of 8 of the 10 members who worked on the blanket. The blanket brought in $1,130 to the auction proceeds!!! We sold raffle tickets for $5 each, 5 for $20. This was the highest earning item at the auction!!! And, surprise of all, a member of the group got the blanket!!! She is the one on the lower left.
Also, last night I went to the local Knitters' Guild stash reduction sale--I gave away lots of baby yarn. To people who knit for charity. And I purchased only sock yarn, of which there was only a little.
Now, I'm updating the blog, downloading photos, etc., etc. Anything to stay away from that horrible project!!! Here I go, back to the school work.....I'm going, really I am, after I check a few knitting blogs.....

Oh, by the way, if you want to see LOTS of other photos of lilacs, just click on the flicker box in the upper right.

Progress on Shaped Triangle

2007-05-12T11:55:00.000-05:00

Time is screaming past me and my projects are having a hard time establishing their priority order. Top on the list should be the completion (rather, the beginning and completion) of a complicated project for my instructional technology class. Second on the list should be studying for my Spanish advanced grammar and composition class. Third should be knitting. However, the knitting seems to creep to the top of the list at all times!! Graduation is on May 20, so I'd better make sure I finish my coursework so that I can actually graduate!

Meanwhile, let me show you which knitting has been putting itself on the top of the list. I've been working on the Shaped Triangle shawl from Gathering of Lace. This is the shawl I started in 2002--but we won't talk about how long the shawl has wallowed.

I love the pattern. And found no problems with it. Only problems were that of execution! Until this week. I did 29 repeats of the 16-row lace edging, and this all proceeded without incident. Then, I got to the center turn. Fortuitously, the stitches all lined up. I had the correct number of stitches, according to the pattern chart. I was so thrilled!!! Thrill turned to tears, however. Look.
The center point of the lace edging did not match up with the center row of yarn overs of the shawl. You can see the three triangles that form the center turn of the lace edging. The center triangle was started two rows too soon. The green line shows the problem. Drats!! What were they thinking?? It all looked great on the charts, but in practice it is off.

So, I did what all good knitters do, I practiced ripping out, one stitch at a time. I will adjust. All knitters know about adjusting--their attitude as well as the instructions.

I'm taking this shawl to Knitting Camp this summer, Meg Swansen's camp, as in EZ's daughter. And as in the editor of Gathering of Lace. We'll discuss what went wrong. In the meantime, I'm reworking the turn of the lace edging at the point. I'll post a photo of what works out.

Meanwhile, shed a few tears for me, please, as I devote the remainder of the glorious weekend (perfect for gardening, bike riding and knitting out of doors) to my course projects.

Enjoy the woods with me

2007-04-27T17:15:00.000-05:00

Every year one of our neighbors invites all of us to stroll through their woodland garden, when the tulips, daffodils and Virginia bluebells are blooming. Come with me, and enjoy!

Confessions of an embarrassed knitter

2007-04-20T17:20:00.000-05:00

OK, I know there is a code of conduct and truth-in-disclosure among knitting bloggers. We all have taken an oath not to mislead readers about the status of our knitting. In the past, I have confessed to having a LARGE stash of works in progress. Works in l--o--n--g progress. And, I have proudly posted photos of some of these objects after their completion. However, I confess, I have not disclosed one project. One project has remained hidden from your view because---well---it's been a long time since I've worked on it.

Here it is. A pile of dark yarn.
I know, what was I thinking?? A lace shawl out of dark, dark yarn. And a not-so-simple lace pattern from Gathering of Lace, still one of my all time favorite books.
Let me start from the hopeful beginning. I attended Meg Swansen's Knitting Camp (Meg is the daughter of Elizabeth Zimmerman and has continued her famous knitting camps) in October 2002. Needless to say, I was inspired by the time at camp. I was also dazzled by the array of drop dead gorgeous yarns available for sale at camp. In addition to all the yarn stocked by Schoolhouse Press, two or three vendors from Wisconsin attended. One was Joslyn of Joslyn's Fiber Farm. Joslyn makes outstandingly beautiful hand painted yarn in a variety of weights. Her laceweight (called Angel Hair) is perfect--nice and springy and thin. Lovely, lovely, lovely. And, I fell in love with the colorway that looked like perfectly ripe Bing cherries--a childhood favorite of mine. The slight variations in color, some inch long bits of almost coral and some inch long bits of blue, lent themselves to a lace shawl. I figured the colors would not overwhelm an intricate lace pattern. And, the yarn came in a 1700 yard hank. No ends to join or weave in!!!

I also purchased The Gathering of Lace book at camp, and had it autographed by Meg herself. My project was blessed!! No evil could befall the project!! Or so I thought.

The yarn sat in splendor in my stash until the summer of 2003 when it joined us in a four week cross country road trip following the Lewis and Clark trail from Wisconsin to Oregon and back. While in the car, someplace in Montana as I recall, I wound that yarn by hand into one huge cantalope size ball. And, I started the "little raspberry" part of the shawl.

Then, for some reason beyond my current recollection, the project was abandoned. I dutifully packed the project in my yarn suitcase when we moved to Spain for 2004-05. I am sorry to say that I never took the project out of its plastic bag. I made two other shawls and many other items, but for some reason I did not pick up this shawl. I brought the project back to the US in summer 2005 in my yarn suitcase. This is a well travelled project!!

Filled with guilt and remorse, I dug out the project this year. Now I remember why it was placed on a multi-year time out! I had reached the more complex diamond part of the pattern and somehow I made a mistake. I didn't keep good notes on where I was in the pattern. Or, as I like to think, the notes got lost someplace over the Atlantic Ocean!!!

It took a while to read the pattern to discover where I was, but I finally determined where I went wrong, frogged a bit, and started again. Then, Christmas knitting intervened and the project went back to the bottom drawer.
A few weeks ago, beset with guilt, I again dug out the project. And again, it appeared that I was off on the pattern. So, I put a grey lifeline in. Dear reader, in the interest of full confession, I admit that knit the segment between the blue/grey lifeline and the yellow lifeline (14 rows of hundreds, thousands of stitches!) THREE times!!!

I could have delayed posting about this shawl until the finished product was blocked. I could have bragged that I whipped this baby out in three weeks. I could have hidden the life lines and said that making the shawl was a breeze! But, I faced deep embarrassment and opened my heart to all of you.

I am now committed to finishing this shawl before I go to Knitting Camp 2007 in July. I can't possibly face Meg and the other knitters without completing the project from 2002!! I am at the stage where I knit on the lace edging. At the same time, I am trying to complete all of the projects for my graduate school courses so that I can graduate on May 20! My goal is to finish this elegant shawl by June 1. I'll keep you posted!

Sticking to the shawl will be difficult however. Susan, from I'm Knitting As Fast As I Can, read my last post about running out of left over sock yarn for my 15 year old's blanket. She graciously offered to send me her leftover yarn. In exchange, I sent her some new sock yarn and some other yarn. I got the best of the deal. Look at all this wonderful yarn!! I can't wait to get started on it!!! My 30 year old recently informed me that she was jealous of the 15 year old's blanket and she wants one too!!! The colors of the photo are not good--bad lighting. There are leftovers from Regia, Opal, Trekking and more. Reds, blues, pastels and others. Perfect, just perfect.

Finally, I have struggled to come to grips with the horror of the shootings at Virginia Tech. Here in Wisconsin the trial of a young man who shot the school principal and wounded others has just begun. In addition, the Colombine anniversary is today. I hold my children close and commit myself to supporting more treatment options for the mentally ill and troubled and alienated youth in our society. Although I was a junior member of the NRA when young, and did target shooting, I strongly support increased gun control. In what form, I'm not sure. But, I know that our troubled youth have easy access to deadly weapons when they should have easy access to mental health services. All in all, I feel helpless.

Flushed with success

2007-04-13T10:22:00.000-05:00

Do you see those happy, smiling faces??? Those are faces of knitters who have just spent 2.5 hours on their knees and "arses" (as the Yarn Harlot would say) sewing the garter stitch red border strips to the completely assembled blanket. Our faces show a mixture of pride, relief and pain--none of us are young enough to sit or kneel on the floor that long, with legs under or splayed out. The five of us are only half of the group, but we are the ones who put in the last stitch! Dee, second from the right, has the unwelcome job of weaving in all the remaining ends. Although, after I wove in about 35,000 ends 10 days ago, there are not many remaining. Click on the photo to see a larger image.
Here is the blanket in all its splendor. I had a hard time getting a good, non-distorted image without a wide angle lens. And, somehow the ugly fireplace ended up taking a prominent place in the photo as well.

In addition, I finished another strip of 11 squares for my daughter's similar but not so artistic left over sock yarn blanket. Unfortunately, the socks I've been making recently have used up nearly all of the yarn in the balls. For example, the upper right corner has a yellowish square that used up every inch of the leftover yarn from those socks. Same story with the square that is third from the top right.

I now have two friends who are making similar blankets. However they aren't following THE RULES. That is, they purchase sock yarn specifically for the purpose of making squares for the blanket. Whereas, my original RULES required using only left over sock yarn. That is, I have to make a pair of socks first, then use the remaining yarn for the blanket. However, since I have been getting only one square per pair of socks, and there are now 110 squares in the blanket and I will need at least 36 more squares, that means 36 more pair of socks...... I think I may also bend the rules. My friends are swapping sock yarn. Therefore, if they give me some of their remaining sock yarn, the yarn is--technically speaking--leftover, even though the skein was not originally used to make socks. What do you think?? Am I cheating if I bend the rules???
Here is an example of the problem. Do you see this sock?? I have two skeins of JaWoll sock yarn--should be enough to make two socks with a little left over for a square for the blanket, wouldn't you think??

Look carefully at this toe. I had to add solid grey in two row stripes at the toe to extend the yarn enough just to finish the sock!! I must admit that the striping solution worked beautifully, but it means that my plan to knit socks to generate left over yarn will not work.

Mother Nature has bent the rules about spring here in the upper Midwest. The daffodils and tulips were luxuriating in the warmer spring weather and poking up their hopeful heads this weekend when, wham!, Mother Nature sent 6 inches of wet, sloppy snow!! This was after some nights of freezing that bent the flower stems and flattened most of the blossoming daffodils and tulips. However, this little ice coated guy remained upright in the gloom of the dreary, cold day. He gave us hope that spring would eventually come!!

The birch clump in front of our house was especially burdened with the soft wet snow. The clump split in two, with the branches of each side nearly touching the ground, even after I tried to shake off the snow.
Our wind vane was frozen in place and did not move, despite the strong winds.

I hope spring is coming more quickly in your area. I feel positively lighthearted today--there is sunshine and the snow is melting. We can again see green grass in some spots!! The trees are now standing upright again and by tomorrow I should be able to take stock of the daffodils and tulips to see what has survived Mother Nature's test of our patience and belief in springtime!!

Yarn Harlot and I breathed the same air!!

2007-04-09T16:36:00.000-05:00

For an hour, the Yarn Harlot and I breathed the same air, were present in the same space and took photos of the same crowd. The place--William Mitchell Law School in St. Paul, Minnesota. It was COLD outside, and windy. Stephanie, and all the other knitters in attendance, needed as much wool on their bodies as possible.

However, the crowd gave a warm, warm welcome to the Toronto knitter/writer/humorist and friend of wool. Here is a fellow Canadian singing O Canada, in English and French, with none other than the Harlot herself!! This is the best photo I took all night!

I was very impressed with Stephanie's humor and insightful commentary on the identity of knitters/women in our society. Here is the obligatory bad photo of Stephanie taking a photo of the crowd.
And then Ms. Yarn Harlot stripped!!! That is, she took off her spectacular Bohus masterpiece and showed off her T-shirt.
I didn't get a photo of me and my knitting along with the SOCK and Ms. Harlot. The line was very, very long. And Ms. Harlot seemed upbeat but very, very tired. After her disastrous attempt to get to Detroit, I thought the woman deserved a few more minutes of sleep. Therefore, I forewent chatting with her in favor of letting her get to her hotel a few minutes early!
Because my photos of Ms. Harlot were turning out so terribly, I took photos of lovely knitted items around me in the audience.

We did not travel from Wisconsin to Minnesota just to see the Yarn Harlot,however. I know, it would have been sufficient reason for ME to drive four hours each way, but NOT sufficient reason for hubby and daughter to drive the distance. We were an inseparable team for spring break. Our daughter is in high school. She is thinking about colleges. Can you guess what we were doing for our week of travel in frozen, windblown Minnesota? Here are some pictures to help you guess.

Yes, we braced ourselves for tours of five colleges in Minnesota!! We saw lots of frozen parents meekly following undergraduate tour guides as they tried to look excited about historic or important campus buildings.

As a reward (for daughter, not for parents) we visited this place outside of Mpls.

Yes, the Mall of America, which is much overrated in my book. Aside from the unusual indoor amusement park and Legoland, the stores are predominantly the same as in shopping malls in my home town. Daughter shopped at all the stores she visits at home and purchased items she could have purchased here. The benefit of Mall of America?? No sales tax on clothing items and the thrill of being there--I guess.

Did I knit during the week? yes. I made two lovely lovely hats to donate at the Yarn Harlot's presentation. Unfortunately, I was disappointed with the collection of the hats. We simply deposited them in large bags at the entrance to the auditorium. They were then whisked away someplace and we never saw them again. I would have liked to have seen a display of some sort (just spread out on a folding table) so that we could have admired our collective work.

Back at home I am still piecing together the blanket that has consumed my life!! Remind me never again to organize a group project blanket!!!!!!

As a final note about Ms. Harlot's talk--the venue was particularly important to me. The auditorium was in a law school, where presentations are not typically punctuated with uproarious laughter and good will. I attended law school in the dark ages of the early 1970's when liberated women abandoned hand craft in favor of making a difference in the world. Although I continued to knit during law school, I certainly did it in the privacy of my own home, never in public and absolutely never in law school. Knitting was not for the liberated woman. Decades later I have abandoned the practice of law and have joyously brought my knitting out of the closet, into the public eye and YES!! into a law school lecture hall. True liberation has finally arrived.

Blanket Under Construction-2

2007-03-29T11:51:00.000-05:00

First things first--A thousand thank yous to my "wonder publicist" Vicki from Knitorious !! She mentioned my last post on her blog. I received three times more comments than ever before!! Thank you dear Vicki. She also said that the "flag" blanket project that I described was the best knitting project she had ever seen. She was going too far, but I thank her from the bottom of my knitterly heart. It was a labor of true love and international understanding.

One or two of the comments from my last post asked how I sew the squares of the FLW blanket together. Here's what I have worked out ("unvented" as EZ would say) for joining the bias garter stitch squares.

I hold two squares so that they abut each other, right sides facing up. Basically, I sew into the garter ridge bump at the end of every other row, and I alternate sides. I slip the needle through the bump mid-way between the side and top of the bump.

Then, I go over to the other square and do the same thing.
Do not pull the yarn too tight; you will want the seam to have some "ease." For good measure, you can repeat this on the wrong side. This technique (which is probably simply the garter stitch mattress stitch) makes an almost completely reversible item if you stitch along only the front side.

I think that the resulting join/seam looks like a zipper, with the garter ridges interlocking.
I have been using the existing ends to sew the squares together. However, if you did not weave in the ends of yarn when changing colors, you could use those ends as well to make a perfectly invisible seam.
To hold everything together in a finished sort of way, we are knitting long strips of garter stitch (15 stitches wide and on size 5 needles--two sizes smaller than were used for the squares). The strips will be stretched slightly when I sew them onto the blanket. The blanket is quite heavy and I hope the strips will keep the blanket from distorting.
In my previous post, I bemoaned the many miles of stitching necessary to assemble this queen size coverlet! Here is one of my fellow group members, working hard during one of our two assembly meetings. People assembled the squares in groups of four, and I then sewed the groups of four together. Worked well.

Here's another group member paying very close attention to her sewing gauge!!

Our cat, Cosmic, has given the blanket his full approval. At this point, the blanket was 7 squares long and five squares wide. We decided to make another column of 7 squares to make the blanket 7 x 6--and just the right size for a coverlet on a queen size bed. We hope Frank Lloyd Wright would approve!!
Tonight I plan to assemble the last strip of squares. This weekend I will stitch the strips along the edges. As serious knitters, you might ask how I mitred the corners. Well, we didn't. FLW did not mitre the edges of the wood trim strips around windows and doors in our church. Rather, he extended the strips to abut each other. Therefore, I am taking the easy way out for knitting purposes and following his design techniques!!!

Thanks to those of you who sent good wishes for my brother. He got out of ICU yesterday and he should be going home tomorrow!!! He still needs to sleep at a 45 degree angle, not do anything stressful, etc., for a month. But, he is thrilled about being able to go home!! And we are thrilled for him. He has not uttered one word of complaint during this ordeal. He's a better person than I.

Warning: Blanket Under Construction

2007-03-25T20:34:00.000-05:00

There are two things that I love about knitting. (OK, there are more than two things, but for purposes of this post I'm only going to write about two!!)

The first is the process--knitting is meditative, challenging, creative, essential; it binds me to all those who make fabric with sticks and string since the beginning of the craft and until the end of time.

Second is the spirit of community that knitters share. I especially value group projects. Oh, I know, some group projects have turned out so unspeakably ugly that only their mother could love them. I've organized a number of group projects and they all have produced items more beautiful than you could imagine.

Before I describe the current project that is the topic of this post, let me brag about one of my other group projects.

I used to teach an after school knitting club at the neighborhood elementary school. The children at the school are from more than 50 different countries in the world, mainly due to the fact that the University's student family housing is close by. Every year the kids, the teachers, mothers, fathers, grandparents, the school principal and even the school nurse would knit squares that I would then sew into a patchwork afghan. In 2003 I designed patterns to knit the flags of all the countries represented in the school!! Children from first grade through fifth grade worked on squares/flags, along with teachers, parents, etc., etc. Everyone was so proud of the resulting blanket.
In addition to the sense of pride that all the children had (can you see it in their faces??) I was most pleased with the how the blanket brought together the parents from different, and sometimes warring, countries. Dozens of people at a time crowded around the blanket at the annual school auction to locate their flag, or the flag someone they knew worked on. The blanket created a world community. I was hooked on group blankets!! (click the photo for a larger view.)

This year I started a fiber arts circle at my church. The ten of us meet regularly to create a smaller community within the larger community of our church. We bring our handwork--everyone knits, but some members are mainly quilters, or mainly weavers. We explore ourselves and our spirituality through the commonality of our love for working with fiber.

(NOW to the group project!!!)
The ten of us decided to make a blanket for the church auction in April. Because our church was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright we decided to make a blanket that is inspired by the the structure and the colors of our church. We debated the merits of various designs, various techniques and various colors. We debated the merits of everyone following a pattern versus everyone riffing on a theme. We talked about gauge and needle size. We talked about the number of squares and the size of squares. I talked about the mind numbing task of sewing the squares together, making an edging, etc.

We finally agree to knit bias squares, with mandatory color changes every 12 garter ridges and permissive color changes every 6 garter ridges except for the beginning and ending 12 garter ridges. We agreed on a gauge that would result in squares 11 inches on each side.

We selected colors from our church--the famous Frank Lloyd Wright brick red, the gold and tan of the limestone walls, the teal and greens of the bench cushions, the greens of the well loved trees on the property. We also took found these colors in the original drapery designed and woven by Frank Lloyd Wright's wife Oglivanna and women of the church. The drapery wore out years ago and is gone, except for a restored section that is on display in a locked case. We examined the drapery and found shades of purple, which we included in our squares. We went to a local yarn shop to select yarn and colors. We took a color card to our church, holding tiny bits of yarn to stone, floor, cushion and drapery. We held a meeting to wind the 33 skeins of Cascade 220 into small and medium size balls--five swifts and ball winders attached to a dining room table!!
Then, we retreated to our homes, to cafes, to automobiles, etc., to knit our squares.

As any experienced knitter would expect, the squares were somewhat irregular in size and the "rules" were followed to the best of the knitters' interpretations. Each knitter was proud of her work and eager to see the result.

We held a meeting at the studio of a group member who is a fabulous weaver--and who has a large table.

Ok. We had 35 squares to arrange. Five on one side and seven on the other side. My scientist husband (PhD from MIT) says that the number of possible arrangements of 35 squares in a 5 x 7 format is either 612 or "35 factorial". (my brother--a MENSA member--tried to calculate 35 factorial on my daughters fancy calculator and received the message "overflow error." ) I think we tried every arrangement with the squares on the table--our brains were definitely on "overflow error" mode! (My daughter just calculated 35 factorial on her calculator and received the answer of 1 followed by 40 zeros!!!!)

The results are fantastic, we think. The photos do not do the colors justice, however. The flash of the camera made the colors too bright and garish.

thirty five squares are sewn together as I write this. However, 35,000 ends need to be sewn in. We also need another column of seven squares. "Emergency volunteers" are knitting them as we speak. Also, more "emergency knitters" are knitting long 15 stitch bands of dark brick red to "frame" the blanket. It will be big enough for a coverlet on a queen size bed.

The blanket construction takes place at my house. It currently occupies the living room floor. It also occupies all of my knitting time for the moment. Group members stop by to drop off squares, strips or just to view the blanket-under-construction.

I will keep you posted on the progress.

Knit on, through all crises

2007-03-19T12:05:00.000-05:00

More Crises
I don't know if you recall, but my youngest brother (age 45) had a stroke last fall. His recovery has been slow. Although he has been back at work, he is able to work only part time. In addition, his vision is not sufficiently restored to be able to drive or read well. Each day involves a tremendous amount of effort, physical as well as emotional.
Last Friday, after a week of full time days at work, he developed severe headaches. Although he went to the ER twice, the diagnosis was only tension headache. Finally, on Sunday morning, his vision was worse. One eye drifted off to the far side and his eyelid was closed. Another trip to the ER resulted in a MRI, which showed a tumor on his pituitary gland that had swollen and bled, resulting in pressure on his optic nerves. The headaches were the first sign of the swollen and bleeding tumor. Last night he had emergency neuro surgery to remove the pituitary gland. Once again he is in the hospital. Pituitary surgery would be difficult enough, but the recovery is compounded by his ongoing, slow recovery from his stroke.
I went to the ER and hospital last night to stay with my sister-in-law. The surgery went well and there will be further tests, etc., today. My brother is absolutely exhausted, as one might expect.

My Knitting Life
My knitting seems to pale in comparison with the seriousness of my brother's situation. However, my last two posts have not shared any photos, and I am proud of my few efforts on the knitting front. My graduate school projects have taken precedence this semester!!!

Saving Well Loved Mittens
First of all, my wonderful nordic mittens from Charlene Schurch's book wore thin. I described this problem in a previous post. The angora contrast yarn did not stand up to normal wear. Here you can see the broken and thin light blue angora.
I love these mittens. So, I dedicated two days to duplicate stitching all of the light blue angora on the palms and thumbs. I know, perhaps this angora will also wear away. But, I love the feel of the angora on the inside. Now, with duplicate thickness, I am hoping for two more years of wear.

Inability To Save Cold Teenage Feet
I have also been trying to make something that my 15 year old daughter will wear. She is the yarn-heathen, conservative fashionista. She won't wear anything that will call attention to herself. This means, she must wear only what EVERYONE else is wearing. Nothing on the fringe. It's cold here in Wisconsin in the winter!! She wears little white cotton sock-ettes and clog type shoes. She walks home from school, in the snow and cold, and her toes are blue with cold when she arrives home. I thought I had the perfect solution!! Wool sock-ettes!!! Fashion perfect. Hidden by the long jeans!!! Keep the toes warm. I used sock yarn she had admired.
See, aren't they cute and perfect??
I was very impressed with them. I used a picot hem at the top. And, they even fit!!

I bet the Yarn Harlot's three teen-age daughters would LOVE to have such a pair of sock-ettes!!! These socks, however, have stayed out of sight in my daughter's sock drawer since they were finished. They have never seen the light of day, much less the dark of the inside of a pair of shoes. Daughter-dear says she loves the socks. She just won't wear them. They would make her stand out. "People" will laugh. Other people would not be seen dead in such socks. Sigh..........

Saving My Sanity
I tend to take my laptop to knitting cafes in order to do homework for my courses this semester. Usually I have a small project in my backpack, purse or car and I struggle with concentrating on my homework when the project is whining and begging. Two weeks ago I was at the knitting cafe with NO PROJECT!!! I worked on my homework, but then I couldn't stand it any longer. My fingers itched. My brain needed the salve of rhythmic repetitive actions. I gave in. I purchased some yarn and some needles. Size 4. I have at least 10 size 4 needles--either straight pairs or every length of circular--at home. But I needed the NOW!! I purchased some hand dyed sock yarn and cast on. Here's the result.
A one-skein Seafoam stitch narrow scarf. 36 stitches wide. Size four needles. Aren't those colors fabulous????
Unfortunately, in my crazed, addicted state of mind at the yarn shop, rushed to get the project on the needles, I ripped off the ball band and tossed it aside. I believe it is ArtYarns sock yarn. Don't know which colorway.

Socks For Me!!!
The two pair of Lucy Neatby Mermaid Socks that I made before Christmas went to good feet, but not my feet. Daughter #1 took the blue ones. Step-daughter took the fall colored ones. My feet needed some of those spectacular, snug-but-not-too-tight fitting socks. So, I cast on for myself.

Sock #1 done, sock #2 on the way. Don't you just love what this pattern does to self striping yarns?? It looks like entrelac, but it's not. Lucy Neatby, you're my hero!!

Church Project
I haven't blogged about this yet. My church has been growing in the past few years and we have missed the intimacy of the smaller congregation. As a result, the church started some Chalice Groups--small groups of 10 or so who meet regularly to explore some theme of issues and to create community. I decided that knitting, as a spiritual/creative activity, was a good theme for a Chalice Group. I started a group of fiber artists--some knitters, weavers, quilters--and we meet monthly. Each Chalice Group must do a service project. We decided to make a blanket for our upcoming church auction. Our church building was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and it is too small for the congregation. We are in the process/throes of having an addition designed and built. In honor of our historic structure (which remains intact) we selected colors and themes from the building. The blanket is still under construction--as will be the new addition at the time of the auction! Here are some sneak previews.

Square-placement design is driving us nuts!!!!

Milestones Reached
Daughter #2 has received her learner's permit for driving. Thus far she has spent 2 hours behind the wheel in a large and almost-empty parking lot. I was along for one of the sessions, in the back seat knitting and providing moral support. Dad was in the front seat giving directions. Daughter was behind the wheel nervously trying to accelerate to 15 mph, turn square corners,, etc, and telling Dad that his directions were confusing. Dad was trying to defend his instructions. I was trying to mediate. Knitting was essential to sanity.

I leave you with photos of our favorite season--SNOW!!! All the snow here is gone and spring bulbs are forcing up their tentative green shoots. We miss our snowman and snow tunnel.

Happy Spring to All!!!

el once de marzo

2007-03-12T09:24:00.000-05:00

Here in the USA we tend to focus only on September 11 as the day our world changed forever. However, we need to remember that in Madrid, Spain, on March 11, 2004 terrorists detonated multiple bombs in train stations and on trains during the busy commuter time. Ten simultaneous explosions on four trains at 8:00 a.m. killed 191 people and wounded more than 1700 more. Yesterday, Spain honored the dead and wounded with a stunning glass memorial. In memory of those killed and injured by terrorist bombings the world over, let us all take the opportunity to learn more about those who are different than we are, about those from other countries and cultures and those who do not share our same religion. Reach out to someone you would not ordinarily talk with. Make the world smaller and more tolerant with your own actions. Maybe we knitters can begin to change the world!!

Not knitting!

2007-03-07T11:32:00.000-06:00

I am sitting in a local yarn/coffee shop with NO knitting in my bag. How did that happen??? I have my laptop and my homework for three classes. Am I doing homework?? No. I'm browsing through knitting books I have already memorized, I'm inspecting yarn on the shelves and in bins, and I'm contemplating purchasing needles and yarn for a new project. Not that I need a new project mind you; I have several projects on the needles at home. I find it soooooo hard to focus on my homework.

The past few weeks have been filled with homework, visits from my parents, cooking, cleaning, shoveling snow, grocery shopping. Not much time left for knitting. Why is the world so incredibly boring without knitting? I despair at the fact I am not sufficiently witty or creative to make a living on writing about knitting or designing knitting patterns. Spending my life centered around knitting, wouldn't that be wonderful???

I don't have my camera with me so I can't show you the gorgeous view from the window--beautiful blue ski and the dazzling white snow atop the frozen lake. Ice fishermen are huddled on their overturned pails or cozy inside their shanties hoping for the best perch/bluegill/other fish to bite. I'm inside the shop, seated next to the window, drinking a latte and munching on some cherry/flax/pecan bread. I don't think you could ever get me to sit on a frozen lake, atop a plastic pail, with a string hanging through a hole in the ice--not unless it was warm enough to take off my mittens and knit. In that case, it would be too dangerous to be out on the frozen lake.

Alas, I also can't show you the pair of Lucy Neatby Marietta socks I finished for myself, made out of flourescent green, yellow and black Trekking yarn, or the first of a pair of Mermaid Socks, another Lucy Neatby pattern, made out of some rose and green Trekking. The first of the Marietta socks is here. Thankfully, I can't show you that I've made NO progress on my husband's Dale sweater. However, I would like to show you that I actually duplicate stitched the palms of a pair of Norwegian mittens I made last winter--I used angora for the lighter color and it did not hold up to wear on the palms. I won't make that mistake again. It took an entire Harry Potter movie plus an evening of CSI to repair the palms. I must remember that angora is only for dress mittens, not for everyday use. It feels sooooo soft, but it doesn't stand up to driving, opening doors, running the snowblower, etc.

I'm sure my husband would want me to take a photo of the 15 balls of yarn sitting on a table in the family room since Thanksgiving. I intended to use up that yarn before Christmas on hats, scarves, etc, etc. I still haven't put it away. I'm relieved I can't show you that I have not yet removed the Christmas decorations from the front door. We still have deep snow on the ground, so the season isn't officially over!!

Thanks for listening to me. I will return to my homework--an analysis of Walk Two Moons, an essay for Spanish 226, and planning an interactive instructional technology lesson. Urgh........