Author: Lorette

My name is Lorette. I learned to knit in 1999, and took up spinning in 2009. I'm a physician specializing in internal medicine, and live in the Pacific Northwest. Enjoy my blog!

Hat for a friend

I finished a hat today for yet another friend going through chemo. I enjoy knitting for friends, but I hate the reason behind this. Cancer sucks. But the hat is cute.

Project Details:

Pattern: Tebe Slouch hat

Yarn: Cascade Ultra Pima cotton in Cobalt

Needles: 3.25 mm

Modifications: The body of the hat has a k2tog/yo row every 12th row. I substituted a plain knit row for that, since you don’t want a hat full of holes if you are losing your hair.

Project rating: Love it. The yarn is a little splitty, but the color is rich, and the yarn is very soft. The pattern is very well written and easy to follow. John and I both might need one of these in a wooly winter yarn.

45 minutes

I am making progress on my Winter Solstice (aka Longest Night) shawl. I “only” have 80 rows left.

Here’s what it will look like when done. Photo shamelessly copied from the pattern page.

And 45 minutes? That’s how long it is taking me to knit each of those rows. And they keep getting longer by 4 stitches every other row. The shawl should be named Longest Knit.

Lots of lace

I posted a couple of months ago about the leftover yarn from my Evenstar shawl.

I didn’t weigh the yarn on the cone before I started using it, so I decided to wind it off so I could get an accurate yardage measurement for how much is left.

75 grams left, or 1150 yards. I was surprised by how much is left. That’s enough for a nice sized shawl. It’s a lovely cashmere silk blend, so back into the stash it goes to await its own special project.

Here’s to a nice Labor Day weekend for us all! We’re doing our big annual fried chicken dinner for some friends and neighbors tomorrow. I’ll post some photos.

Back to basics

It’s time to get back to flute playing. I had an unintentional 2 1/2 month “break” from practicing this summer. Boy, does it show.

So back to slow scales, long tones, and an easy etude book.

I’m sure the neighbors are overjoyed.

Blog Malfunction

WordPress has been driving me a bit nuts. I mostly post from either my iPhone or iPad, but photos taken with an iOS app end up going sideways when you look at them on a desktop. I’ve known about this for awhile, but figure most people are like me and use mostly the phone/ipad and not my desktop.

I waded in to this today, which turned into a couple hour black hole. You can rotate them all you want on either phone or desktop, and they still come out screwy. So this is one of many attempts to try to fix it.

I’ll hit post. If it’s sideways, I’m going downstairs and pouring myself a big glass of whisky.

And yes, that’s new yarn up there. It will probably be the last for awhile, since we have a couple of big trips coming up that we need to pay for.

Nice recovery

I’m back in business with the cardigan.

Fortunately it’s a fun pattern, and lovely yarn, so I didn’t really mind having a do-over. Now it’s just mindless stockinette with some back shaping thrown in.

And I even remembered to change needle size like I was supposed to after the lace bit. I’m sure I’ll find something else to screw up along the way.

Someone remind me to cast on the correct size for the fronts when I get there.

Oh holy hell

Remember that new sweater I started? The one I showed you a swatch of a while back?

Here’s what it will look like when done, except not pink.

Pretty, eh?

So here is what the back looked like this morning.

And a closeup of that cable/lace pattern.

I finished that section yesterday. This morning before I headed off to work, I did the first row on the plain stockinette section, putting in the stitch markers as I went to mark where the waist shaping goes.

45 stitches, marker, 43 stitches, marker, 45 stitches. Wait, there are more stitches. I counted again. Then I realized that the “leftover” stitches were exactly ONE 14 stitch repeat worth of stitches.

Here are your choices:

A. I can’t count.

B. I cast on and knit that whole f’ing section using the wrong size numbers.

Yup.

I stuffed the whole thing in a bag and went to work. I prayed to the knitting gods that it would be fixed by the time I got home.

Here it is now.

If this wasn’t damned expensive Rowan Cotton Cashmere, I can tell you, I’d be tempted to build a bonfire with it. This better go as planned the next time.

TGIF

Wednesday is really my “Friday” since I started working part time. I do still enjoy Fridays though. I can sleep in, I’ve gotten most of the to-do things off my list on Thursday, and best of all, I have my weekly Friday knitting group.

I realized as I started writing today that I’ve not posted about many things that have happened over the past few months. My life is sort of an open book on Facebook, so if you follow me there, this will mostly be old news.

First off, we lost our kitty Zoe earlier this spring. She just disappeared one day and never came back. I suspect one of the eagles got her, or perhaps the occasional coyote that is seen around here.

Ripley started getting mopey and clingy after Zoe was gone, so we ended up adopting this little boy.

His name is Arlo, and he’s probably about 8-9 months old. After a few days of hissing the two cats are getting along just fine.

They both are going to be indoor cats, if I have anything to say about it. There is less decimation of the bird and bunny population that way, and the cats have a better life span. Our departed kitty Will announced his intent to be an outside cat early on, and tore holes in all our screen doors to prove it, and Zoe just followed in his footsteps. Ripley has been out, so knows the way to get back in if she escapes, but doesn’t really show any interest in being outside except on our enclosed decks. So far Arlo hasn’t made any escape attempts.

The other big event of the past several months is that I joined the Episcopal Church (and left the Catholic Church). There were a lot of reasons behind this decision, but I’ve really found my spiritual home. I was received into the church at Pentecost, along with several other adults, and a baby and older child who were baptized at the service.

I found some knitters among the congregation, and we started a Friday knitting group!

We celebrated July 4th holiday with family and friends.

No, it wasn’t all that cold. My California relatives just aren’t used to 70 degree temps in July.

I got a great sticky note from one of my clinic nurses last week. I didn’t think I’d done anything all that awesome, but she evidently thought so. It made me smile, and I saved it on my bulletin board.

On the knitting front, John’s sock (first of the pair) is almost done.

Last but not least, I started yet another knitting project, because, why not? It’s a Patty Lyons summer sweater KAL, and I love the pattern. The first clue just dropped this week, so it’s not too late to join.

I just got my yarn in the mail yesterday, so haven’t cast on yet. I haven’t washed that swatch yet, but the prewash measurement matches the pattern gauge perfectly.

I have a few more of those to-dos to get off my list today, then I get to knit with friends and go out for pizza with the neighbors this evening. Happy Friday to all of you!

493

That’s how many stitches I have on the needles for this shawl right now. I have about 100 rows left. Every other row increases this by 4 more stitches. The ending stitch count is 693 stitches to bind off.

Here’s the stitch pattern for the current chart.

This is going to be gorgeous once it is done, and don’t get me wrong, I’m enjoying every stitch of it, but OMG this is taking forever.

And yes, I’m almost out of the first hank of yarn, I do have the second hank wound and at the ready.

Stash fluffing*

I dragged out all of the yarn boxes yesterday and sorted through some things. Doing this every now and then reminds me of how much lovely yarn I have, and reminds me as well (or it should) that I don’t need any more yarn.

Here are a few photos:

No, that is not all the boxes.

I don’t need any more lace yarn. That’s not all the lace yarn, either.

I apparently don’t need any more Opal sock yarn. There is more Opal squirreled away in other boxes as well.

Or Three Irish Girls sock yarn.

Or anything else, for that matter. I sorted out a few things to get rid of that I know I’ll never use, those are going to my knitting group today to see if anybody there wants them, or knows someone who will want them. I put a few things back in the boxes that I’m pretty sure I won’t use ever, but couldn’t part with (I’m looking at you, 1500 yards of black lace weight cashmere), but overall I have a pretty fine stash of lovely yarn.

Whilst I was rummaging around in the lace yarn, I found the leftover silk lace from my Evenstar shawl. There is plenty leftover, but I have no idea how much. I started with 150 grams, but I didn’t think to weigh it on the cone before I started knitting. So now I’m winding it off so I can weigh it. It’s fine enough that I don’t want to use my industrial strength ball winder, so I’m doing it the old fashioned way.

Please send whisky. This is a very tedious project.

*Stash fluffing: pulling the yarn out of all the boxes, admiring it, and imagining what it might be some day.

Balvraid Hap

There is a finished shawl at Chez Knitting Doctor!

Project Details:

Pattern: Balvraid Hap

Yarn: Blacker Swan 4-ply. The color is Tussac. This is just the most divinely soft merino. I’m not sure how well it would wear in a sweater, but it is lovely wrapped around my neck. The shawl took 6 balls, a little over 1100 yards. The yarn comes from a small farm in the Falkland Islands, and they get one shipment a year. I have my credit card at the ready for the next shearing.

Needles: 4 mm for the main section and the border, 4.5 for the lace edging.

For: Me

Started/Finished: 6/3/18–6/9/19

Modifications: None

What I learned: Technically, I learned a new bind off, the suspended bind off. It looks very tidy, and is nice and stretchy without being sloppy.

The construction of this was fun. You start with a few stitches, then knit a big garter stitch triangle. About the time you are about to stab yourself to death with the needles out of boredom, you cast off the top edge, pick up stitches along the sides of the triangle, and knit the lace border. The edging is knit on sideways (applied edging).

Pattern Rating: ***** This is well written, the charts for the lace are very clear, and no errors that I could find. And it’s free. Of course that free pattern likely will lead you to Blacker’s shop online, which is a dangerous place.

I love knitting and wearing shawls. Even in the summer around here it is often cool enough to have something snuggly and pretty around my shoulders. This will keep me warm during cocktail hour on cool evenings.