New on the needles

I've started in on a new design project, a simple cotton shell with some lace (what else) at the lower edge. I'm working with Paton's "Grace", a sport weight mercerized cotton. I like it. It has a good firm twist, so it doesn't split easily, and has good stitch definition. This style of cotton isn't as soft as some of the more loosely spun varieties, but it seems to be working up with a nice drape.






The color result on this photo is too weird. On my monitor it looks kind of periwinkle, but the color name is Taupe, and it's actually almost more like Cocoa. A rather handsome, not too dark, brown. Neither my camera nor my software has any kind of color adjustment, so you will just have to imagine it.


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I always like it when I hear from pattern customers. If there's a question I want to answer it. If there's a problem I want to know, so I can clarify or correct it. So questions and concerns are always welcome. But, oh, it does a designer's heart good to receive a comment like this one about the lace fichu knitting pattern:


"... I bought the Lace Fichu pattern from you back in September last year. I just wanted to say that it is the best pattern for shoulder shawls I have came across. I have knitted it up in different yarns, and my favourite needle size is 5.5mm, it gives me the size of shawl that drapes around my shoulders that I like."


Thanks for writing to share that, Margaret!


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Speaking of the fichu, my friend Ellen says was pleased with the results when she was inspired to wear hers collar style: with the ends crossed in front and tucked underneath and then tied behind the neck. Neat idea, Ellen!

An Afternoon of Lovely Connections

I drove up to Madison today for "Last Saturday" knitting. This was my first time to drop in on the group. I was looking forward to meeting Elizabeth and Laura in person, and they are just as interesting and nice as I had expected. (Plus I got to see Laura's striped hoodie almost completed and pet Elizabeth's lovely alpaca lace scarf, previously known to me only from their blogs). And I very much enjoyed making a new connection when I met Linda: who was, I thought, previously unknown to me. That's what I thought until she emailed me this evening, because she had put two and two together, and figured out that we both post to the about.com knitting forum. Yup, for any about.com buds who are reading, it was Linda/8grasshopper in person. And I got to see her Calico (as in cat) afghan in progress, which really and truly was new to me because she doesn't knitblog.

All I brought to work on were these really rather uninteresting socks (which had been sitting unfinished in a corner for months.)

Uninteresting, but 1) I needed something relatively mindless if I was going to talk 2) I didn't have anything else on the needles that was ready to pick up and go and 3) it was either finish these or start mending the three pairs that are now sitting in the corner with holes in their heels, and I would rather knit any day.

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Back at home I opened the back door to let Baxter out and "whoosh", a blue jay went swooping about six inches in front of me at just about knee level. It was dive bombing Baxter. And then it sat in the lilac and scolded as only a jay can do. So I'm wondering if there is a nest near by. Baxter looked a little confused and slightly abashed, and decided to come back into the house with me (but that wasn't because of a bird, that was because it was wet.)

Proof that the rains came

Peonies outside



Peonies inside



I love those tight, hard, almost perfectly spherical buds. How can such an enormous explosion of petals burst out of them overnight? I love the extravagence of the flowers. I love the scent, which is heavy, almost-but not exactly-rose.

So despite their attractiveness to ants, and despite the flowers' predilection to shatter and drop those huge masses of petals in a heap on the table, I'll be bringing these in as long as the all too brief season lasts.

Feels like I've just finished finals week

The baby project is done. Three sweaters, three blankets, three hats. Patterns written, photographic models completed. Box packed.











Yesterday it went to the Post Office, on it's way to the publisher at last. I always suffer "project fatigue" about three quarters of the way through the knitting, assailed by doubts, wracked by thoughts of how I should have done something differently. It's just part of the process. But as I took a last fond look at this bunch before sealing up the box I thought, "You know, these are pretty darn cute!" Now on to the next project...



In the evening I went downtown for the Women's Club project I enjoy most in the year: planting the flower barrels along Main Street.









It doesn't look like much now, but those petunias are going to fill out and look lovely. As we women planted, Jim followed along watering from milk jugs he had filled from the river. Jim is a bit eccentric, (or maybe just a little crotchety), but he takes the job of keeping the barrels watered seriously.


We also planted red and white petunias in the Historical Society window box.







It's a banner year for the yellow iris. Women's Club can't take credit for those, another volunteer took on that bed as her special project. This town pretty much runs on volunteers.



The weather has been hot dry and windy. Plants out in the yard are starting to droop. But I expect we will have a downpour before long, because:








The peonies are starting to open (hand holding stem because of high wind). Every year when the peonies are at their height, we get a downpour that pretty much flattens them. I'm not whining. I'm just saying how it is. It gives me an excuse to cut them and bring them into the house. So I'm looking forward to a good rain.

Dreaming of Mousies

Dreaming of Mousies
Originally uploaded by baxterknits.

This is an old photo, included as my first attempt to use Flickr. I finally set up an account because I discovered the Selbuvotter group , which has many beautiful pictures, and also a good discussion of where to find patterns for knitting Norwegian mittens (free and otherwise). I'm still new enough with Flicker that I'm not sure whether you have to join the group to see the discussion, but I do know that anyone can join. It's administered by Strikkelise. Her blog, Norway Needles, is in English, and has lovely photos - the current entry has Bunads on Syttende Mai. (and if you don't know what that means, you've never been in Stoughton, WI).

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kmkat tagged me to list eight random things about myself. These are really random.

1. I can't drive and talk at the same time, at least not in traffic. Sometimes I can't listen to the radio and drive at the same time.
2. One of my knitting student's father did typewriter repair for Lenin's daughter. I know, just a "six degrees" thing, but it kind of blew my mind.
3. Mr. S and I met in theological school in Berkely, CA. We are both Masters of Divinity. (Ain't that a grand sounding degree?)
4. I was born in an army camp, delivered by a doctor that my father (when he finally rounded him up) was sure was drunk. Bleary eyed, unshaven, turns out he had been up delivering babies for about 36 hours straight. (they didn't call it the baby boom for nothing.) The "camp" has since been promoted to a "fort", so the place listed on my birth certificate technically doesn't exist.
5. I took ballet lessons on and off for about 14 years, but really never got past Beginner II. The flat feet didn't help.
6. I like sweet/sour combinations: lemon curd, rhubarb pie. And I love the combination of chocolate and orange (also chocolate and raspberry, chocolate and marzipan, chocolate and coconut.....)
7. When I was in fifth or sixth grade our pet cat went missing for a number of weeks. One day when I was out at recesses I saw her (the school was about 8 blocks from our house). I grabbed her and convinced someone in the office to call my Mom for me. Mom didn't believe it was really Miss Titi, but I was so persistent that she finally gave up and agreed to bring the car over. And it was our cat. And I rode home with the cat on my lap. I'm sort of amazed at myself in retrospect. I'm not assertive now and was even less so then.
8. I've eaten lutefisk once in my life, and that was enough. Though I'm told that perhaps my Mom didn't actually know how to prepare it properly, and I do believe that she only made it that once in her entire life, and maybe there was a reason for that.

Whew.... that's eight. I think I'm supposed to tag more people, but I always was the one who broke the chain letter...... The first one to call me a party pooper gets tagged.

"Assembling sweaters correctly is tedious monotonous work. If the work is done in a hurry you can easily ruin an otherwise beautiful sweater...."

-Gertrude Taylor, America's Knitting Book, 1968

Ms Taylor is a firm and exacting teacher, not exactly Knitting Without Tears (which may explain the wild popularity of Elizabeth Zimmerman when she hit the scene). But Ms Taylor is also often right.


Sigh.... Finishing.... I don't mind weaving in ends, though there often seem to be more of them than can logically be accounted for. Weaving in is rather soothingly boring as long as I'm patient about it. I can do a decent vertical seam in mattress stitch without thinking about it too much. But setting in sleeves is nerve wracking, even little sleeves.

I mark the center stitch on the sleeve and match it to the shoulder join. I whip stitch baste the sleeve top to the armhole edge.






I mattress stitch the two pieces together.





And darned if nine times out of ten I don't end up picking out some or all of it, because even with the basting I've eased too little or too much.




Sometimes I just say "the heck with it" and backstitch from the inside. For some reason, I find matching the pieces simpler that way. But it's a bulkier seam, and less elastic, so it's a trade off.

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Back to the "have/haven't done" meme

I have done mittens from the cuff up and Norwegian knitting.

The sweater is a very basic "Louse Coat". I made it with yarn and a pattern that my Mom brought me from her first trip to Norway (she asked what I wanted....). The pattern was in Norwegian, but that didn't really matter, because it was pretty fully charted, and I had books* that described the construction and assembly techniques.

I charted out the mittens myself from pattern graphs in some of the same books. The green and white pair are an object lesson in "color dominance" in stranded knitting. It wasn't until I finished the second mitten that I realised I had carried the green with my left hand on one mitten and with the right hand on the other. I have craftily laid them out in the photo so this is not quite so obvious, but if you put them next to each other right side up, it's pretty blatant. On the other hand, I don't think anyone has ever looked closely enough at my hands to notice when I've actually worn them.

* Books

Dale Yarn Company; Knit Your Own Norwegian Sweaters

Gibson-Roberts, Priscilla A.; Knitting in the Old Way

Lind, Vibeke; Knitting in the Nordic Tradition

McGregor, Sheila; The Complete Book of Tradition Scandinavian Knitting

Pagoldh, Susanne; Nordic Knitting

and of course Zimmerman, Elizabeth; Knitting Without Tears and A Knitters Almanac

Despite this wealth of source material, I do rather find myself craving a new book that just showed up on the Knit Picks site: Selbuvotter (The name just means Selbu Mittens) (and Selbu is the district they come from) by Terri Shea.

Edited to add: Oh yeah, I've never knit mittens from the top down, but I'm not ruling it out.