Lorette

Opal Candystripe Socks

Details:

Yarn: Opal, #518, from the 2002 collection. I named it Candy Stripes.

Pattern: Basic top-down, flap-heel, stocking stitch. I used a picot hem on the top, which I shamelessly copied from Claudia. This is my first picot hem, and it is fun, easy, and flirty. Perfect for girlie socks.

Needles: 2.25mm dpns.

Started: February 2006 as the Wintergrass knitting project
Finished: 4-9-06.

What I learned: I love plain socks. I think all those other fancy socks are very pretty, and no doubt fun to knit, but I love the process of just knitting around and around mindlessly in plain stocking stitch, and coming up with a sock at the end. The picot hem was new, and I might put it on everything else that I ever knit, it was that much fun. This was also my first experience with Opal yarn, and it is indeed as wonderful as everyone claims.

Lead Or Follow Lace Scarf

Pattern: Lead or Follow Lace Scarf, by Jackie Erickson-Schweitzer. Her website is here.

Yarn: Richesse et Soie, by K1C2, a cashmere-silk blend; color is #9633, which is a pretty cornflower blue.

Needles: 3.75mm

Started: July 2005. Actually I started this a couple of years ago, but it sat in hibernation for awhile, so I had to restart it because I couldn’t figure out where I was in the pattern.

Finished: January 24, 2006
Who For: My sister Linda, for her birthday.
What I Learned: This is a great pattern. It’s clear and well-written, and once I figured out that it doesn’t mix well with bourbon, I did OK with it. It’s “knitted lace” instead of “lace knitting”, meaning that every row is a pattern row with increases and decreases. “Lace knitting” means that every other row is a plain row, either knitted or purled. I didn’t know that before. “Knitted lace” is really no harder than the other kind, it just means you don’t have that long easy row every other row to relax with.
The yarn is heavenly too, though spendy for anything more than a scarf. It’s fingering weight, so it’s a little easier to handle for someone relatively new to lace.

Nordic Ski Hat

Pattern: Bea Ellis, her own design, purchased as a kit here.

Yarn: Dale Heilo in red and white, and cotton sportweight for the headband lining.

Started: December 2005

Finished: January 7, 2006
Needles: size 3.5mm. (3mm for the lining)

What I learned: Two color-knitting is a blast. I practiced knitting with one color in each hand. This required that I polish up my continental style knitting, which was awkward at best.
Would I do this one again? Yes, ma’am. I thought it might be too warm to wear this where I live, but the Heilo is a sportweight yarn so it’s not too heavy. I really, really liked making the tassle!

Stick A Fork In It, It’s Done

The Estonian Garden Scarf is finally done. I cruised across the knitting finish line yesterday, then got out the camera and the blocking gadgets and went to work. I love blocking lace. The pre-blocking product looks so unimpressive, then voila, you have a work of art. I’ve been carrying this thing around for weeks working on it, and everybody that looks at it mumbles nice things, but I could tell that they were really thinking, “that looks like a pile of crap”. Well, here’s the reward.

Preblocked scarf:

You might note some little ends sticking out if you look closely. Because the lace gets stretched quite a bit during the blocking process, when I wove in the ends, I left about an inch and a half when I trimmed them. After it was blocked and dry, I trimmed them close. I have no desire to see things unravel before my eyes.

I believe in the full-immersion theory of lace blocking. Sort of like full-immersion baptism, it turns it into a completely new thing.

I let it soak in a combo of wool wash and cool water for fifteen or twenty minutes, which gets it thorougly soaked and removes the road dust. I use Kookaburra wool wash, which you can get any number of places. I buy mine here. It also smells very nice (if you like tea tree oil; if not, use something else). After the wash, I rolled the scarf up in a bath towel and pressed out the excess water.

Then out come the blocking wires. I bought a blocking kit years ago, but it didn’t have very many pieces with it. Instead of paying a fortune for another kit, I went to the local welding supply place this week and bought more wires. The guy at Airgas was a hoot. He told me all about his wife’s knitting, and I’m pretty sure I am the only knitter who has bought welding rods from him for blocking purposes.

These are sold as “Cut Length Rods”, and are stainless steel, the 1/16th inch size, which was the narrowest diameter that they carried. There are about 24 pieces in a tube, and the tube itself provides handy storage. The ends are not rounded, so you have to be a bit careful with them, but I might get John to file them off for me at some point. These were much cheaper than a professional blocking kit. One other bit of advice; if you buy these, take a damp cloth and wipe them down before you use them. And make sure you get stainless steel, for obvious reasons.

I used two on each long side of the scarf, and carefully threaded them through the edges. This is a bit fidgety, but not nearly as fidgety as using nine million pins to get an even edge. I used a couple of shorter pieces from my old kit for the ends. If you buy the welding rods to use, you could probably cut some of the longer ones in half for this.

Then you stretch it out and pin it down:

One of the nice things about laceweight yarn is that it dries fast. Here’s what I had this morning:

A closeup of the nupps:

And the obligatory lake shot.

This will get packaged up and sent off to my sister for her birthday next week.

Project Details:

Pattern: Estonian Garden Wrap, pattern by Evelyn C. Clark.
Yarn: Zephyr wool-silk laceweight, color Basil. The pattern called for 2 oz, I ended up using about 1 1/2 oz.
Needles: Holz & Stein ebony circular, size 3.25mm.
Started: February 2006
Finished: May 19, 2006
For: my sister, for her birthday. (Shhhhh, it’s a surprise.)
What I learned: I learned more about making lace, which I’m beginning to think is my favorite kind of knitting. I learned how to do a provisional cast on, and then to unzip it to get “live” stitches. Most importantly, I learned about the behavior of nupps. I even learned to like them a little bit. They are quite pretty once they are done; it’s the doing that’s the trouble.
Verdict: I love this one enough to do another. The pattern has two versions, the narrower scarf, as shown here, and a wider stole. I can see making this again in the larger version. The pattern is clearly written, and without errors that I could find. The lace directions are written out as well as charted, and the charts are very easy to follow. I give it 5 stars.

Next up: New lace project in the making. I joined the Amazing Lace knitalong, and have finally picked a project after changing my mind fifteen times. The first challenge is to introduce your “team”, so that will be my next post. You’ll just have to stand the suspense until then.

Nupps, Again

I’m not done with those nupps yet. I did get half of them done, however. Here’s where I am on the Estonian Garden Wrap:

The first border and edging is done, and I have the provisional cast on stitches back on the needles, and am half done with the first repeat of the nupps section. I’ve never knit from a provisional cast on before, so that was a little anxiety-provoking. If you’ve never done this, you cast on with waste yarn (there are a variety of ways to do this so it comes undone easily when you’re ready). When you get to that part, you simply unzip the waste yarn, placing the live stitches on the needle, then you’re off knitting in the other direction. Very cool. Eunny has a whole post about cast on methods for lace here. Here is another site, showing the method I used. Here are a few pictures of the unzipping part.

And the finished stitches, back on the needle.

This was a load of fun, really. I guess I am easily entertained. I kept calling John out to the patio to watch. He was polite enough to pretend like this was a major feat of knitting engineering.

I did put this aside for awhile over the weekend to do a little more on the Orange Pippa sweater. I got enough done on the sleeve to determine that the gauge is correct. Here it is:

What do you think? Are the yarn and the pattern a match made in heaven? Or not?

Last but not least, more house pictures. The circus tent came up yesterday, and is rolled up on the roof for now, so we went out last evening and got a few photos.

Deck 1:

Deck 2:

There is still a lot of work left to do, but it’s looking less depressing by the day. And it’s nice to be able to see the lake again. I was getting a bit claustrophobic in here. Also, we have new arrivals on the lake, who were out for a brief evening swim last night for the first time with their parents. If I can catch them on camera (they are all very shy), I’ll post pictures later this week.

Nupps, Take Two

Here are the Nupps:

And a close up. Click on the photo to get a better view.

The arrows point to the little troublemakers. For those of you who don’t know what “nupps” are, they are evil little bobble-like creatures, in this case intended to look like lily of the valley buds. You make them by doing a K1-yo-K1-ko-K1, all in the same stitch, thereby increasing 5 stitches in one. On the next row, you purl those 5 stitches together to make the nupp. Or you can cheat, and do K1-yo-K1, followed by purl 3 together on the flip side. Kate (no blog) had a good suggestion in the comments from my last post. She recommended pushing the stitches down to the cable part of the circular needle, then purling them together. That works pretty well. So does getting them all bunched up on the very tip of the needles, but they tend to do the lemming thing and jump off the edge, so I abandoned that approach.

Once the nupps and I had a little “come to Jesus” meeting, we are getting along fine. Though I would recommend very sharp pointed needles. And a good vocabulary of swear words.

I pinned this out slightly so you could see what the lace looks like. I really have fallen in love with the Zephyr yarn. It’s a wool-silk blend, and comes in lots of lovely colors. I have one more repeat of the nupps section, then the final edging, then the same thing on the other end of the scarf, then it’s done.

The “unbuilding” phase is mostly done, and the rebuilding has started in earnest. We are going to have two huge decks on the lake side of the house when this is all done. Now I only hope it’s done in time to enjoy at least a little of the summer out there. Here’s one photo. It’s hard to get a good idea of what the decks will look like, as we’re still under the “big top”. The kitchen windows still need to come out so they can rebuild around them, but I think they are saving that for when it’s hopefully a bit warmer so we don’t freeze to death. Actually I think they are saving that for when the decks are framed in so it’s easier to get to the windows.

Have a good weekend, and a nice Mother’s Day for all you mothers!

Nupps!

Or, Open Letter To My Dearest Husband:

My dear John,

I sincerely apologize for yelling at you tonight and shouting, “shut up, I’m counting”, followed by “leave that f*****g light on”. I have reached the “nupps” section of my Estonian Garden Scarf, and while “nupps” sound like something cute and innocent, they are anything but that.

This behavior most certainly does not reflect my true feelings for you. It only means that I apparently don’t have a drop of Estonian blood in my heritage. It also means that my cockiness at finishing the center section of the scarf, followed by the statement that “I most probably will finish this over the weekend”, was pure folly.

“Nupps!”, henceforth, will be a euphemism for another swear word that cannot be printed in a family knitting blog. As of tonight, I have modified the 5-stitch nupp to a 3-stitch nupp. I refuse to give in and abandon the nupps altogether.

No pictures, as I’ve ripped out the damned thing enough times that it’s now too late to dig out the camera for a photo shoot. At least I had the sense and humility to put in a lifeline thread before I started the nupps section.

Sheepishly,

Lorette

Project Roundup

I haven’t posted pictures of everything on the needles for awhile, so here goes. A couple of these are old, a couple are even older, and a couple are new-to-the-blog.

That’s the Estonian Garden Scarf, which I really need to get working on, as it will be a gift. I’m a little over halfway done with the center lace section, which is way more mindless than it looks.

This is a Euroflax linen “warshcloth”. I started this a long time ago, from a pattern in Knitters’ Stash, but got inspired to pull it out by Kay and Ann’s book. I’m a little over half done with that one, too.

That’s the Eggplant Sweater, from Jo Sharp DK Wool. This one has been sitting in time out, as it’s gotten to the stage where it’s too bulky to drag around everywhere. I’m also sick of knitting wool when it’s been turning into spring outside, so this one may sit in the basket for a few months. I will finish it later this year, I’m just not terribly inspired by it right at the moment.

Here’s the sock pair, back from its trip to the Big Apple:

And here’s the current siren song:

That’s the yarn I bought from Elann last week while I was on my “free” yarn day spree. I had a little trouble deciding which color to get, and finally asked myself WWCD? (What Would Claudia Do?) Of course I bought the orange. (Coppered Sienna, which sounds much more elegant than orange.)

I am a bit perturbed by this yarn. It’s listed on the label as knitting to a DK weight, at 22st/4in. When I swatched it at that gauge, it is floppy and a bit see-through for my taste. When I went down in needle size to get a fabric I liked, the gauge was more like 28st/4 inches. I had contemplated making the Marla sweater out of Hot Knits, by Melissa Leapman, but the gauge wouldn’t work. (That lovely example of the sweater was knit by Laurie, from Etherknitter.) After dithering around for awhile, discarding several possibilities, I’ve almost decided on Pippa, a beautiful cardigan pattern by the very talented Anna. I’m still in the undecided stage, but once I finish the cuff on the sleeve and get to the main pattern stitch, I should be able to tell if it will look ok in this yarn or not. If not, it will be back to the drawing board. Here’s the first inch of the cuff.

Not quite as classic as the navy Baby Cashmerino called for in the pattern, but we’ll see. I couldn’t see springing $90 or so for yarn right now when my house is falling apart.

Speaking of which, here are a couple of photos of the house.

That one shows the horizontal beam being deconstructed. The next photo shows it being hauled off, and the last one shows it gone.

The three arrows in that picture (the top one is hard to see) show the other beams that are being taken out. We’ve decided that we are only going to have the vertical beams replaced up to the level of the decks, not all the way to the top. It would be prohibitively more expensive to get the heavy equipment back there to rebuild it the way it was. So it will be a very different looking house when done. The side benefit is that it will open up our north-facing house to a lot more light, not an inconsequential thing in the Pacific Northwest.

Those Darn Socks

I had a little interlude from knitting yesterday after I found this post by Theresa from Knitting Underway. She has a series of posts about darning socks, and why you might want to do this. There is a “Part 1” and a “Part 3” as well, so check them all out.

I just happened to have a pair of holey socks in the basket by my sink in the bathroom, waiting for a decision. These happen to be one of my favorite pair, though they are nothing special. They are plain ribbed socks that were knit out of heavy worsted Peace Fleece, but they are great for wearing around the house, and with Birkenstocks. (Yes, this is considered “fashionable” in the Pacific NW, if not anywhere else in the world.)

Several weeks ago I noticed a big hole in one heel, and the other heel was on the way out as well, so I tossed them in the basket. I’m fairly brutal on my socks, both handknit and otherwise, as I hardly ever wear shoes in the house. To darn, or not to darn? I am not much for sewing, and was mostly tempted to toss them in the trash. Then I found Theresa’s posts, and she inspired me to give darning a try.

Here are the socks pre-darning:

Sad, eh?

First I gathered my tools. Yes, I have a darning egg, doesn’t everybody? And I went rummaging in the boxes in the yarn closet and found the leftovers of the Peace Fleece yarn. I knew there was a reason that I never throw anything away.

Then I made myself a cup of tea, because I can’t imagine Great-Great-Grandmother darning her socks without a cup of tea. That, and it was too early in the day for a glass of wine.

Notice the Cinnamon Graham Cracker from Trader Joe’s. Best partner for a cup of tea that I’ve ever found.

Here’s how it starts:

Now go back over and visit Theresa and follow her instructions, and check out her links. I didn’t take pictures while I was actually darning, but it looked like a real mess while it was in progress. Apparently that’s how it’s supposed to look.

Here’s the finished socks. I did a combination of duplicate stitch and weaving on the one with the big hole, and duplicate stitched over the bare one.

And there they are, good for another couple of years!

Home Again

And I know what you all REALLY want to know about is the yarn shops in New York City! Never mind all the lovely tourist things to do, and the lovely restaurants, and the excitement of the city. You wanna see YARN!

Cara escorted me on the yarn-shop-crawl to beat all yarn-shop-crawls on Tuesday. It was a total blast to meet her, after reading her blog for so long. If you go to NYC, you have to talk her into showing you around. I used Tuesday as my “free” yarn buying day*, after nearly a month of abstinence. I was pretty good, though, and only bought a few things. No doubt the house project expenses figured into that. I did also get online that morning and buy some yarn for a sweater from Elann. This stuff, if you’re curious.

But, the shopping. Back to the shopping. We went to School Products, Habu, Purl, The Point, and Seaport. I think. Am I missing any, Cara? They are all fabulous. School Products is upstairs in an office building, and has more Karabella yarn than I’ve ever seen in one place, Purl is a beautiful sight to behold, Habu has some of the most creative yarns I’ve ever seen, and the Point has a cafe and yarn in baskets on the walls. Seaport is an office, not just in an office building. It’s a working marketing firm with yarn stuffed in every corner. You’ll be looking at a rack of yarn and some guy is at a computer at a desk behind you, working. It’s probably the most unique yarn shop I’ve ever been in.

Jen from Two Purls, and her charming little son Xavier, joined us, as did Kay from Mason-Dixon Knitting. Kay even autographed my new copy of their book, which I bought for the occasion.

Two stinking yarn shop photos are below. Unfortunately, I’m much better at my day job than I am at photography, and most of the shopping pictures either didn’t turn out or were unflattering. It’s written in the Knitbloggers Code Of Honor that you will not post unflattering pictures of other knitbloggers, especially when they are lovely ladies like the ones I was shopping with. And I completely forgot to whip out the camera at most of the shops. Here’s Cara at Habu:

And here’s Seaport:

Trust me, Jen and Kay were there, I wasn’t imagining it, and we went to all of those places, I didn’t imagine that either. I apparently was drooling too much over the yarn to take pictures.

And here’s what I bought:

From right to left: first is a cone of cotton lace weight tape, from Habu. The color may not show very well in that photo, but it is a pale mint-sea green. I think that will be a shawl. In the middle is a cotton-viscose blend from Garnstudio Yarns, purchased at Seaport. It will be perfect for a scarf, maybe the Branching Out scarf from Knitty. Last but not least is Euroflax linen, for a handtowel, inspired by Kay and Ann’s book. Never mind that I already have a bunch of this in the stash, I didn’t have any in this color, and apparently the mood of the day was green.

Oh, and I bought this, because I couldn’t resist it, and because you can never have too many tape measures.

All in all, a great day! Thanks girls–I couldn’t have imagined doing this any other way!

Next post will be knitting project photos, house project photos, and maybe a few scattered NYC pics. I leave you with a picture of someone who was very glad to see us come home:

*Remember, the Yarn Focus doesn’t prohibit yarn buying; you can buy yarn on one day a month, on a day of your own choosing. The ticker doesn’t need to be reset for that day, only if you succumb and buy yarn on a second day in any month.

Socks And The City

Sorry, I couldn’t resist that title.

I cast on for the second sock late last night, so I’m ready for the Yankee’s game today, assuming it quits raining. And yes, I was the only person knitting in the line waiting for a table at the Carnegie Deli.

And yes, Sweet Pea is enjoying NYC very much, thank you.

Skyscrapers, And Everything

Yup, I’m in New York City. We arrived yesterday just in time to experience the joys of rush hour traffic on the way from the airport in Newark. We’re staying in Midtown, near Times Square, so we’re right in the middle of things. It took all day to get here, but I’m looking forward to a good time. I’ve never been to NYC before, so there will be lots of tourist things to do. Today I think we’re going to do one of those boat tours around Manhattan to get an overview, then just pick a spot and start walking. This is my Christmas present from 2005 from my husband; I opened up the package and found guide books to NY along with a card promising a trip this spring.

And of course there are the yarn stores. I’ve been saving my “free” yarn-buying day for April for this event, and plan to see a few of them, at least. Not that I need yarn, but since when does that have anything to do with anything?

I have to thank everybody who has sent condolences on the house problem. It’s slowly becoming a more definable project as they work on it. The decks are completely off, the beams that support the kitchen alcove have all been removed, and today they start work on the windows and supporting wood. We have the plans in place for rebuilding, and it seems less like a monster project, and more like something that eventually will be finished. An expensive something, I grant you, but at least we can see that there will be an end to it in the next several weeks.

Here are some photos:

Willie is the only one who thinks this whole thing is fun.

And of course it started raining last week, as usual for spring in Washington. I now live inside a circus tent.

And yes, we’ve been sitting in those chairs, even with the kitchen beams gone. I refuse to give in to fear.

On the knitting front, I have little to report. I’ve mostly been working on the two-color socks, and I don’t even have a miserable picture to show you. I’m on the toe decreases on the first one, and almost finished it on the airplane here yesterday.

OK, I quit being lazy and got up to take a picture. What I don’t do for you guys.

And just because I knew you were worried, they do fit. Tightly, but they fit.

Socks, Finished

The Candy Stripe Opal socks are finished, and on my feet!

Please note that those flipping stripes match perfectly.

Details:

Yarn: Opal, #518, from the 2002 collection. I named it Candy Stripes.
Pattern: Basic top-down, flap-heel, stocking stitch. I used a picot hem on the top, which I shamelessly copied from Claudia. This is my first picot hem, and it is fun, easy, and flirty. Perfect for girlie socks.
Needles: 2.25mm dpns.
Started in February 2006 as the Wintergrass knitting project, finished 4-9-06.
What I learned: I love plain socks. I think all those other fancy socks are very pretty, and no doubt fun to knit, but I love the process of just knitting around and around mindlessly in plain stocking stitch, and coming up with a sock at the end. The picot hem was new, and I might put it on everything else that I ever knit, it was that much fun. This was also my first experience with Opal yarn, and it is indeed as wonderful as everyone claims.
——————————————————————————-

There’s A Big Gaping Hole Where The Deck Used To Be*

The guys came back today, with reinforcements. It seems that we have it all: wood rot, termites, huge cost overruns. The deck is nearly gone, and the “first pass” estimate is that at least one or two of the beams holding up the kitchen (that glass curved wall) will have to be replaced. The kitchen windows and all the surrounding wall will have to go as well.

That big three-story beam in the left of that last photo may need to go too. Yee-ha. The guy driving the Bobcat is having a blast in our backyard, and I’m pretty sure that our contractor (the Bobcat driver’s dad) has a guaranteed job for the summer.

It’s a good thing that I have a good Yarn 401K plan. I might be knitting from it for the foreseeable future.

*That could be the title of a hit honky-tonk song, don’t you think?

Uh-Oh, There Goes The Yarn Budget

This year’s house project is going to be the deck overlooking the lake. We’ve known that there were some problems lurking underneath the deck surface, and had scheduled the guys to come out this past week to start work. We knew that it would be more than just a resurfacing project, as the beam under the railing has progressively become more warped and twisted, leading us all to believe that there was some major water damage underneath.

The guys started by taking off the railing, then started to peel off the stucco. Here’s what they found, in a photo essay.

If there was a soundtrack to this post, I think there would be puking noises accompanying that last photo.

The damage extends at least under the bay windows of the kitchen, which means that it’s not just a deck project any more. They are coming back Monday with reinforcements to peel more stucco and find out just how far this goes.

We decided to drink martinis that night. Lots of them. And every night since. Needless to say, we’re not sitting on the deck to drink them.

And I’m not just on a yarn buying freeze anymore. Horrors, the wine budget might have to get slashed, too. Good thing I have a decent stash of both.

I’m a bit too queasy after that pictorial essay to post any knitting pictures. Maybe next time.

On Google searches:

Now this is the best google search that got someone here in a very long time. “Knitting related tattoos”. If you type that into Google, I’m the first thing that comes up. Makes a nearly-fifty year old girl proud.

At The Zoo

Someone told me
It’s all happening at the zoo
I do believe it
I do believe it’s true…*

Monday we had two of John’s grandkids here for a visit (well, their parents, too), and we took a little trip to our local zoo. The weather wasn’t great, but if you live around here, you know better than to wait around for a sunny day in order to do something fun. We had a lovely time anyway, and it really is all happening at the zoo.

The walrus was showing off:

And here are a series of beluga whale photos. They have an underwater viewing room, and these shots were taken indoors without a flash, through the glass. There is no touching-up involved with these, and some are a bit blurry from the animals’ movement, or with reflection off the glass. There were a couple of busloads of schoolkids at the zoo, and I think they were all the the whale room when I took these.

Just so you don’t think it was all about the whales, here’s a fine fellow napping on a rock, waiting for the sun to come out.

Then the peacock and penguins and owls:

Then there was this guy, who is sadly in need of a trip to the spa.

He’s a muskox, in case you were wondering. The way he was scratching, I’m pretty sure he missed his Frontline treatment this month.

Here’s my favorite picture of the day. These two were a little reluctant to sit here at first, until they were reassured about the glass between them and the tiger.

Tomorrow, some knitting progress, I hope.

*Apologies to Simon & Garfunkel!