Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Scappy
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Well, I've Had a Very Fun Weekend, Indeed.
Next, I headed to the vendor area (my real goal all along). Stopped in to say "hi" to Kristi from the Argyle Fiber Mill, who I actually hadn't seen in a few months, ever though we are practically next door neighbors (well Blanchardville is about 5 miles from Argyle, but around here that's nothing). Dropped in at Sandy's booth (Sandy's Palette). I hadn't seen her since the Jefferson Wool and Fiber festival last summer. Couldn't resist some of her "Merino Sox", and couldn't decide which color, so:
Then I got to talking with a really nice young woman (Shelly?) with some very pretty yarn in her booth, and thinnish rovings that her young daughter was finger knitting into bracelets. These (the rovings, not the bracelets) would make wonderfully warm thrums for mittens. I didn't buy any now because it turns out that her business, Alpacas of Prairie Station, is also practically just up the road in Mineral Point. And they have a Farm Store open two Saturdays a month. Yay! Another field trip in the offing.
Plus, while roaming I bumped into Elizabeth and Jen, and even though I had just seen them yesterday it felt like a treat. Especially since I got to meet Jen's family and Elizabeth's friends from Milwaukee.
By the time I left, I was starving, so on the way home I swung through Verona and stopped at the Sow's Ear, not for yarn, but for quiche and coffee.
An altogether satisfying morning.
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Even the weekend knitting has been purely fun: hats made with bits and pieces of leftover yarns. These are fun because
1) I don't have to take notes. I'm not trying to write a pattern, just use up some yarn in an enjoyable and productive fashion, without having to think about the mechanics too much.
2) I don't have to worry about gauge or fit. I start at the top, increase to a likely looking number of stitches, work even awhile and bind off. These will go to afghans for Afghans or Dulaan, and as long as they are generally child sized they are sure to fit somebody.
3) This is the main thing: I really enjoy improvising (playing) with colors.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Made it in time
The Ackward Socks are all done. I was a bit dubious when they came off the needles. They were a bit, um, lumpy. But blocking really did work it's magic. (I don't usually block socks at all, but I wanted them to look nice for their picture.)
All in all, if I do these again I'm going to handle to patterning on the gusset and sole differently. But they will be nice and warm next winter, with a sort of homey, folksy feel.
So what's next on the list? Well I do still have one more afghan's worth of Warm Up America blocks.
These have been "out of sight, out of mind" for I'd guess at least a year. All acrylic, mostly rather firmly crocheted, made by volunteers who sent them to the Craft Yarn Council, who sent them to me. High time I got started on putting them together (I did volunteer,after all). I'm not even going to try to get this all done in a month. I'll get started and work diligently, if intermittently (promise to self and the world).
That leaves me needing a "sure to be finished before May is done project". I think I'll improvise a hat. That's always fun.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Monday, April 21, 2008
Knitting with Brillo
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Fog
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Edging Along
Maybe I like them so much because the first lace I ever knit was an edging from a pattern I found on a page torn out of an old Workbasket magazine. As I was working on it (and I was a fairly new knitter in those days) I thought it was just about the prettiest thing I had ever seen. Wish I knew where that page went to. It would be fun to take a look at the pattern again.
Maybe I'm fond of them because I learned how to "read" lace, and deal with double yarn overs, and patterning on both right and wrong sides (and got over being intimidated by small needle sizes) while working on other edging patterns that I was able to scrounge up here and there. In those days we lived miles and miles from a yarn store, I hardly knew anyone who knit and if the Internet existed I sure didn't know about it. Thank goodness for books and magazines. Threads showed me how a wide edging with just a bit of a curve could be a collar. Mary Thomas showed me how one could be the launching point for an entire Shetland shawl (though this was knowledge I enjoyed in theory, rather than actual practice.)
Maybe it's because an edging by itself is very portable. Get one that's not too wide with a relatively short row repeat and you can have it memorized quickly, can pick it up and work a few repeats and feel like you've accomplished something. It doesn't take long to work several inches, enough to see that you are getting somewhere. And if you do make a mistake, it's much faster to pick back than, say 300 odd stitches on the far side of a shawl.
Maybe I just like the idea of towels and pillowcases trimmed with lace. (I say "idea of" because I'm the last person on earth who would actually iron those items after washing to keep the lace in proper shape). A few years back, I did trim a some terry cloth hand towels, couching down the lace with sewing thread to hold it's shape. The technique worked only moderately well. But I must say, after many trips through the washer and dryer, the terry cloth wore out before the trim did. This is the last of them.
All this is really just a roundabout way of getting to saying how very grateful I am to Sarah Bradberry for the work she has done re-writing, charting and knitting samples of an extensive collection of old edging patterns. These have been available for some time on her website: knitting-and.com. Now, bless her, she getting them all entered on Ravelry, where it's even easier to browse through the lot. Knitting benisons on her head!
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Today's Agenda
Monday, April 14, 2008
Another One Done
That's 3 down for Mission Possible. Yeah, we're half way through month four of the year, but the socks are almost finished, too.
The edges do roll inward a bit, but I've decided that when worn this won't matter at all.
Specs: A little under 100 grams of sock yarn (DGB "Confetti": 75% wool/25% nylon) on US size 3 needles. Four repeats of "Little Leaf Lace Stripe" from Barbara Walker's first collection (centered) with a 3 stitch garter border along each side, and 6 rows of plain garter at each end.
I blocked without pins, just dampened and spread to shape, so that was pretty easy-peasy, too.
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I'm rolling along on the body of the new scarf in Brooklyn Handspun "Soft Spun". The big question is, how much yarn do I reserve for the edgings that will go at the ends? I think I need to do some weighing and measuring.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
A Pile O' Lace
The Little Leaf Stripe Scarf is off the needles - finished the last bit at the regular Thursday knit/gossip session.
Now to weave in ends and block, and I'll be able to cross off another Mission Possible item.
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I'm sorry to say that The Garter Belt website may not be around much longer. Elizabeth summed up the situation well in her post on the Ravelry forum:
"Many of you have been aware that we’ve had communication issues over the last 1.5 years. I want to give everyone a fair warning that the domain registry for The Garter Belt site expired on Mar 18, 2008. We have not had contact with Wendy Wonnacott in several months and we do not have the log-in information necessary to maintain the site. Right now, we’re on borrowed time and the site might vanish any day between now and the end of June. Most of us will be making our patterns, both free and paid, available either from our blogs or through Ravelry. If there’s a particular pattern you want, and can’t find it after TGB vanishes, please contact the individual designer.
Thanks so much for all your support during this venture. It’s been quite a ride!"
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Zipping Along
Monday, April 07, 2008
Provisional
Saturday, April 05, 2008
I Meant To Do My Work Today
But a brown bird sang in the apple tree,
And a butterfly flitted across the field,
And all the leaves were calling me.
And the wind went sighing over the land
Tossing the grasses to and fro,
And a rainbow held out its shining hand-
So what could I do but laugh and go?
-Richard LeGallienne
Friday, April 04, 2008
41 years
41 years ago, April 4 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave this speech. It speaks more eloquently to our current position than anything I have heard in the last five years and more.
If you go to the site, click on the video for the spoken version. Scroll down a bit and ignore the film clips; they just distract from the power of the spoken word. The written transcript on the page is longer than the spoken version, but I think not so compelling. It's worth reading. But first, just listen.
Look What The Mailman Brought
I'm working on a new lace scarf design, and Marie from Brooklyn Handspun is graciously providing yarn support.
This is hand dyed 100% merino fingering, in a semi-solid colorway called High Sea. It has lovely very subtle variations of blue-greens. The second photo comes a little closer to capturing it, but neither really do it justice.
Of course, I could hardly wait to start swatching.
Well, I really could hardly wait to jump right in to the scarf. But I knew better. There isn't any way to tell how lace is going to block out until you do, you know, block it. The swatch is drying now, and I may in fact go down a needle size. Which means I may just have to go to Late Night Knitting at the Sow's Ear tonight, because somehow I don't seem to have a bamboo circ in the next size down. Not that the advertised big yarn sale has anything to do with my urge to head north.... But again, I digress.
My intention for the scarf pattern is a basic, easy lace with optional knit on edgings at the ends. Prior to the arrival of the "real" yarn I tried out a few possibilities using some of the sock yarn stash, and I think I have settled on the combination I want. I'm chompin' at the bit to really get rolling.