Knitting – Page 26 – The Knitting Doctor

Firsts

I was tagged by Denise to post a list of “firsts”. Here goes.

What is the first thing you did in the new year?

Cleaned up the kitchen from the NY Eve party. There were no wine bottles on the lawn this time, thankfully.

What is the first thing you ate in the new year?

I don’t remember. I think I had a banana and peanut butter for breakfast. The first “real” meal was those BEPs from the last post.

What is the first thing you knit in the new year?

See below.

What is your first ‘blessing’ of the new year?

Waking up next to my sweetiepie, the lovely man I’m married to.

What is the first thing you will do to make the world a better place in the new year?

Not tag anyone for this meme.*

Just kidding, I’m not really anti-meme. I just liked the whiskey part.

Post the first photo you took in the new year!

Those peas turned out just lovely, by the way. A little overdone, but I had an excuse. Kris came over yesterday afternoon to knit, and before we knew it, the peas were done and it was time to eat. So I shared our good-luck peas with her, and she took the leftovers home for her family. And yes, BEPs do bring good luck; I got to knit half the afternoon with a friend!

Here’s what I worked on. This is the Jo Sharp sweater that’s been in the timeout pile for a long while. I have the front finished, and started on the back yesterday.

The pattern directed me to bind off the shoulder stitches, then later sew the shoulders together. As these have no shaping, but are just straight across, that made no sense to me. Ever one to look for shortcuts, the shoulders are on string holders, to bind off together later.

Last but not least, my New Year’s Resolutions. They’re simple. Knit more, read more. And knit more from the stash, read more from the stacks. I have enough books and yarn around here to last more than one lifetime. I’m not outlawing purchases of either books or yarn, just resolving to at least look at the current stash before I buy more. There you go.

I’m off to Arizona to visit my sisters. One of them lives in Phoenix, the other is going there on a holiday. I’ve mentioned our rule previously, if any two of us get together, the third one has to show up, too. Otherwise the other two might talk about her. So we’re going for a few days, will get caught up on a lot of celebrations we’ve missed, and party a bit. Diane does have internet access, so if there’s a moment when we’re not either shopping or partying (or getting tattooed-remember the last trip?), I might get a post in.

Enough of this! Now let’s go have some whiskey!

*If you want to be tagged for this one, have at it. Leave me a comment so I can go gawk at your answers.

More Knitting, More Cruising

Well, not really more cruising, just more cruise pictures. Yes, there are more. In my last post, I left you on the coast of Africa. We sailed from there to the Canary Islands, to Lanzarote. We were just there long enough for a short tour of the island, and a camel ride. Touristy, yes, but it was worth a lot of laughs. I will admit that it was a bit like the pony rides at the carnival, but good for a few photos.

Doesn’t everybody knit socks on the back of a camel?

John made friends with the girl camel behind us. At least we think she was a girl.

We also made friends with the couple on the camel behind us, Bert and Suzie.

That photo also shows a little of the landscape of Lanzarote, which is more or less a volcanic rock pile. For the record, these animals are actually dromedaries. Check out the link for an explanation of what makes a dromedary a dromedary.

Our next stop was Funchal, on the island of Madeira. This was probably one of my favorite places on the trip, and we actually plan to go back (hopefully next year!). We took a little tour by bus up into the mountains for the day.

I even met another knitter. We didn’t share more than about three words in common (Madeira is Portuguese), but we spoke the universal language of the world, knitting.

She knits those hats on long double points, with the working yarn looped around her neck. The wool is from local sheep. We had a short stitch-n-bitch session together.

Of course, she wasn’t just standing there knitting. She was selling those hats, and I had to buy one as the price of the photos. It was worth it.

I didn’t have time to find a yarn shop in Funchal before we had to board the ship, but I know there must be one. Of course, that’s not the only reason I want to go back. They make wine there, too. Our last stop at the end of the tour was at the Old Blandy Wine Lodge, to taste some fine Madeira. Here I am with a couple of my cruise buddies, enjoying some of the local agricultural products.

Next up on the cruise: we set sail for America!

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And to prove that this is indeed a knitting blog, here are a couple photos of the finished Pippa sweater. I got the buttons sewn on this morning, and did one of those flash-in-the-mirror photos. I’ll try to get a better one when my photographer gets home. For now this will have to do.

It’s currently in the washing machine getting a much needed wash. I decided that this didn’t need blocking prior to seaming, so I didn’t wash the pieces before putting them together. Since this one got dragged all over Europe and parts of Africa, it really needed a good soak. Once it’s dry, I’ll get John to get a better modeling shot. Though I kind of like the flash over the face look. It hides the fact that I didn’t bother with makeup this morning.

Lots of Pictures, Some Knitting

The knitting photos are at the bottom of the post, for those of you that are sick of the cruise photos.

In case you hadn’t guessed, the final photo in the last post was of Rick’s Cafe in Casablanca (there are actually two, neither of them authentic). We didn’t stop there, but drove by, and got one of those lovely out-the-bus-window photos. Casablanca was something of a letdown. It’s mostly a dirty, underdeveloped mess of a city, with a few exceptions. The new mosque is huge, probably one of the largest in the world (third-largest, actually, I just checked). We weren’t allowed to go in, but the next couple of photos give you an idea.

This out-the-bus-window photo gives you an idea of the contrasts in Morocco. It’s definitely a Muslim country, but one of the most liberal and diverse. There is extreme poverty, and later on we saw some of the poshest seaside resorts you can imagine. The three women on the street under that billboard made me giggle, for some reason.

We took a bus tour to Rabat, which took us through part of the Morocco countryside. I saw lots of sheep and goats, but no yarn shops. This handsome guy standing guard outside one of the local sights let us get photos, for a fee of course. I’d have handed him my sock for a photo, but I think he would have charged extra for that.

This one proves that we were in Morocco together. The royal palace is in the background.

The Hassan tower:

The next two photos are at the Mohammed V mausoleum.

And another whizzing-by-in-the-bus photo. The billboards here just cracked me up.

The next day we were in port at Agadir, a bit south of Casablanca. Agadir was destroyed by a tsunami in 1960, and has been completely rebuilt. It has very little local character, and mostly looks like a seaside playground for wealthy tourists. We took a little side tour to a smaller village, Taroudant, with a more traditional flavor, and got to see goats in trees on the way.

No yarn shops there, either.

On the way to the market we got to watch of couple of fine fellows playing and dancing. The guy in the red hat is our tour guide, Ahmed. You’ll see more of him later.

The market was fascinating. You can buy almost anything here, and bargaining is the order of the day. Taroudant is called “Little Marrakesh”; lots of shopping, less hectic than Marrakesh, which was too far to travel on a day-trip from the boat.

Here’s the seaside part of the bus drive.

When we got off our bus back “home” at our ship, I handed my sock to Ahmed for a photo. He reached up and took John’s hat, and put his on John’s head. Then he proceeded to put on a great show of knitting, wrapping the yarn around and around the needles. I was a bit worried about that sock and its survival, but figured the photo would be worth it. This is one of the few times that I wished I had a video feature on my camera.

And another sunset for all you sunset-lovers out there.

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Finally, the knitting part. There has been no button-sewing going on around here. I just want to knit warm wool sweaters, and have them done now. It has been just freaking cold here, with this stuff on the ground.

You’d think that I’d be able to handle a bit of snow and cold, given that I’m from one of those deep-freeze prairie states originally. Yesterday I had to put on two pairs of heavy wool socks just to get warm.

I grabbed an orphan ball of Rowan Yorkshire Tweed Aran out of the stash and started a hat. Yes, that’s homemade bread. Sometimes I’m so domestic that I can’t stand it.

After a few inches, I decided it wasn’t warm enough, so I ripped it out and started over, adding more yarn. I am knitting it together with a strand of King Cole mohair from a past project. This will fit an adult with a small head, or better yet, a cold kid someplace. I have three more skeins of that mohair stuff in the stash, so I’m going to see what else I have in the orphan ball stash to combine it with.

Last but not least, is the Jo Sharp sweater that’s been in time-out for months. This is the back. Or the front. It’s a boxy sweater with no shaping, so it doesn’t matter, as long as I remember to knit two of them.

I’m off to find more warm stuff to wear.

Concessions

Miss Pearl would like to thank everyone who voted for her in the 2006 Midterm Button Elections. It wasn’t even a close race, and she graciously concedes to the jubilant winner, Ms. Rosie, who never quite got around to getting a good campaign photo taken.

The Roses will be stitched on very soon, and the Inaugural Ball will be photographed shortly thereafter. Miss Pearl promises to run for reelection in the near future.
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And now, what you really came for, more travelogue photos. After Barcelona, we had a short (half-day) stop in Valencia. I was feeling the severe effects of jetlag, and didn’t even bother to get off the ship that day. After another night at sea, we arrived in Malaga, on the southern coast of Spain. Although we had been to Granada, and the Alhambra, on our last Spain trip, we couldn’t pass up a bus tour that was offered by the cruise line. Here are just a couple of photos. The Alhambra, a 13th-14th century fortress and palace built by the Moorish rulers of Spain, is just exquisite, and well-worth a second trip.

The long bus ride home provided ample opportunity for sock knitting.

More on those socks in a future post. I promised a bear tale a few posts ago. Sweetpea is a rather unadventurous bear, at least up until now. Generally, she’s been satisfied to hang out in hotel rooms and ship cabins. Occasionally we get a room/cabin attendant with a sense of humor, and we find her perched in different places in our room when we get “home” at the end of the day. But that’s about as much fun as she usually has.

Until now. One day on the cruise we came back to our cabin after being out and around the ship, and found our room all cleaned up, as usual. Don’t ask me how, but the cabin attendants unerringly know when you’ve left the room, and whiz right in to tidy up and make the bed. This particular day I was rummaging around to find my knitting, and noticed that Sweetpea was gone. She was nowhere to be found. I rather frantically called the number listed on the card that our attendant had left. I found that she was on a break, and I had reached room service. They listened quite patiently to my rather lunatic-sounding story of the missing teddy bear, and I could almost hear the eye-rolling and snickering in the background, though the man on the phone was well-trained enough to not laugh out loud. He said he would look into it.

Not five minutes later there was a knock on the door. A young woman had rescued Sweetpea from the laundry, where she had apparently arrived wrapped up in our sheets. She was very happy to be home, and did not even think about having any more adventures for the entire rest of the trip.

Next stop:

You Guessed It…

More Pictures!

This handy landmark stands right at the harbor in Barcelona. Good old Chris pointed the way back to our ship so we didn’t get lost while wandering the city. Unfortunately, the main problem with cruises is that you don’t get to spend much time in any one city. Of all the stops on the trip, Barcelona was one of the places that I would love to revisit.

While wandering the warren of city streets, we found these cool guys.

We did the required ramble down the main pedestrian walkway, La Rambla. This is not for the claustrophobic, or for those paranoid about pickpockets.

The next day (we spent the night in harbor on the ship), we went back into the city for a cooking class. There were a dozen of us that learned how to make gazpacho, potato tortilla, and paella, as well as a custard dessert. Here’s John showing off in the kitchen.

And the finished paella. If it seems like none of us look very excited in this photo, we’d already eaten two courses, and had several glasses of wine.

Back on the ship, I’d been on vacation long enough to have to wash socks. Fortunately, there was a clothesline in our bathroom.

And sunset as we sailed back out into the Mediterranean.

On to knitting content. The buttons came! And the neckband is finished!

Closer….

Finally, you can actually see them.

Here’s where you all can help. Vote on which ones you like better. I’m partial to the middle one, though those sharp little edges aren’t going to work very well with the buttonholes I made. So which is it, the pearl ones, or the gold roses?

Edited later: I removed the poll, as it was screwing with my blog colors. If you’re reading this after the fact, the antique rose buttons won, by a landslide.

I’m Back

Actually I’ve been back for a week from our cruise. Life sort of got in the way of posting, not an unusual occurrence around here. I’ve decided to declare a blanket blog amnesty around here. I revved up the computer on our return, to find that you all left me about 900 posts to read on Bloglines. I finally gave up even trying to catch up today, and hit the “mark all read” button this morning. It didn’t help that we got home late Monday night and I had to be at work at 7 AM the next morning. Then I got sick with some deadly variant of a stomach virus that I believe was the “cruise ship” bug*. I ended up taking three days off last week, and only went back to work under some protest. I’m mostly recovered at present, and off work for the holiday week (hooray!), so time to dig out the knitting, take some pictures, and sort through the trip photos.

Our trip was wonderful, and we have hundreds of photos to prove it. We flew to Nice, France, where we spent a couple of days before boarding the cruise ship, where we lived for the next sixteen days. We wandered around Nice on our last day there, and came upon this shop.

If you can’t tell, that’s a yarn shop. And an Anny Blatt yarn shop, not just any ordinary yarn shop. Really, I didn’t plan that, though my husband remains suspicious. Of course we went in.

That would be a yarn purchase on the counter. I only bought a few little skeins of yarn, but only because luggage space was a bit tight. This will probably be a pretty scarf someday.

Later on, as we wandered the same street, we happened upon the Nice version of La Drogerie. Two yarn shops on one street! Did I mention that I love Nice? I didn’t buy anything there, though John managed to shoot this photo before a stern clerk came over and wagged her finger at him. Apparently they haven’t figured out the power of free advertising via knitting blogs, and don’t allow photos.

I do have several photos that proved that I got some knitting done on vacation, but I’m going to dole them out a little at a time. Otherwise the excitement might be too much for some of you. Here’s one.

That’s in the airport lounge, waiting for our flight. Note that Sweetpea got to go on the trip. Doesn’t she look happy holding my yarn ball for me? Sweetpea had a few adventures of her own on the trip that I’ll tell you about in a later post.

Jump ahead to our return home. I have finished all the major knitting on that orange Pippa sweater, and have it all sewn together. I am just a couple rows from finishing the neck band, but I’m planning on ripping that and reknitting it, as I don’t like the way it looks, but it won’t take long for that. I have buttons on the way via online ordering. Please don’t tell me that it would be far easier, and faster, to go to the local fabric/sewing store and buy buttons. That would ruin my satisfaction at finding the perfect set of buttons online (okay, three sets of buttons, I couldn’t decide). I’ll show them to you when they get here. Here’s a bad picture of the sweater. It’s way more coppery and less like a ripe tomato than this. This one needs daylight, I think, to get the color right. That means you’ll have to wait until May, since I live in western Washington.

Last but not least, I was the first one up this morning, and got a couple photos of my housemates.

Yes, that’s where Lucy usually sleeps, generally plastered up against me as close as she can get. And yes, she likes hiding under the covers.

Riley got in bed with the other two after I got up, and didn’t get out again until about 10 AM.

I’m off to rip that neckband out. Hopefully there will be a finished sweater soon, with or without buttons. There might even be a button election, if I can’t make a decision.

* This wasn’t our ship, we were on the Regent Seven Seas Navigator, but I swear this is the same bug that I had.

Birthday Update, Knitting Update

First of all, thank you, everybody, for the great birthday wishes! The day was great, even though I had to go to work. I got chocolate cake twice, so not much to complain about, really. We had dinner at the neighbors’ house, and the birthday girl got to wear a crown.

At least they didn’t insist on 50 candles. That’s my own crown by the way. Every girl needs one.

As part of my birthday present we drove up to the big city to the Tractor Tavern Tuesday night for a little music. We heard Chip Taylor and Carrie Rodriguez, and they were fabulous. Those of you not familiar with either might recognize Chip Taylor as the guy who wrote “Angel of the Morning”, way back when. One of the highlights of the evening was that Merrilee Rush, who made that song a hit in the 60’s, did a duet with him on the song. She lives in the Seattle area, and dropped in to listen, and he invited her up on stage. Very cool.

On the knitting front, I have way too many projects going, and really need to finish something. At last count, there were two shawls, two sweaters, and 1 pair of socks, all in various stages of completion. This much unfinished-ness doesn’t sit well with me. I’m quite happy having the yarn and patterns for 900 projects in the stash, but once they’re started, I’m happiest with three. So I’ve been working away at that orange Pippa sweater.

It’s more copper colored, and less marinara sauce colored than that photo would lead you to believe. I think it’s the yellow background that throws it off. I have the sleeves done, and that’s the back, and I’ve started on one of the front pieces. I modified the shoulders to do short row finishing, as I despise stairstep finished shoulders. They are nearly impossible to seam neatly.

I was going to show a few pictures and add an explanation of how to do this, but others have already done so, and better. I used Nancie Wiseman’s Knitters Book of Finishing Techniques, and nonaKnits has a great post on the subject. It turned out pretty well, I think. I had to do a little juggling so I wasn’t wrapping stitches in the middle of those twisted columns, but once I figured out that I could shift the wrapped stitch one way or the other 1 or 2 stitches, I was off and running. I even wrote down where I did the wraps on the back so I can match them on the front.

Now if I just can keep track of where I wrote it down.

It’s cocktail hour, and I’m off. Have a good evening, everybody!

The Dog Ate My Blogpost

I have an even better excuse than that one for not posting.

First of all, I didn’t die, or get abducted by aliens, or anything like that. It was worse.

I got a new computer. An IMac, to be exact. I’ve spent the last 2 weeks with my butt in front of the computer, getting everything set up just the way I want it. In the process, I’ve become a Mac evangelist. Mic****ft s*cks, is all I have to say. You pull this thing out of the box, and after that first shock of how astoundingly beautiful it is, and where all the other cables and parts went, you put the thing on the desk, take the ONE cable that hooks to the back and to the wall outlet, plug it in, and you’re off.

One might assume that I haven’t been doing much knitting while I was playing with my new toy. You’d be right. I do have a new sock project to show you, but you’ll have to wait a paragraph or two.

I did pull my head out of the computer long enough to invite friends over for dinner this weekend. I’m lucky enough to live close to a number of knitters, one of whom is Kris. She and her husband, Dana, and their daughter, Anna Grace, and another couple (non-knitters, sorry to say) all came over for an evening of fun and food, and wine, of course. A good time was had by all. One of the best parts? Kris brought a non-traditional but very welcome “hostess gift”. Here it is:

This one shows the color of the yarn better.

How cool is that? Kris can come to my house for dinner anytime.

I also have done a bit of shopping, though that was actually before the computer came. I just had to figure out how to get photos on this thing to post it. This is from KnitPicks. Kris made me buy the chart holder thing, and I couldn’t just order that. Here’s the loot.

I’ve wanted that electronic row counter ever since I saw it. I know I said that I love my little cheap tally counters from the office supply store. I lied. I really love this one better. It appeals to my enthusiasm for new gadgets.

Here’s the chart holder. The magnets are just not pink. I have no idea why the photo came out that way. So if the only reason that you are clicking over to Knitpicks to buy this is for the pink magnets, forget it. They’re sort of lavendar, but not Pepto pink.

And what’s in that little green bag? Why, my current sock project, of course.

Isn’t that just the pinkest pink you’ve ever seen? That yarn really is that pink. It’s called Hot Flash, and is Socks That Rock from Blue Moon Fiber Arts. It’s not listed on the website, but if you email Tina, she might have some. You never know. That’s how I got mine. I think I told her some sob story about how I’m menopausal and might cry if I didn’t get some of this, and she took pity on me and sent it. I’m not above grovelling for yarn.

I promised Project Specs on that last pair of socks that I did. I’ll get it done, really. I’ll post it in the Finished Projects section when I get a minute. It’s a basic top down sock, 64 stitches, STR in Rainforest Jasper, for me. There you go.

Next post will be the “Ten songs, ten bloggers” meme that’s going around. I got tagged by Wendy. I’m just having a bit of trouble picking only ten of each. I’m working on it.

One More Finished Project

But first, it’s that time of the year again. We all packed up and went to the Puyallup Fair yesterday. We didn’t lug the camera along, as we had enough to hang on to already, but did take a few photos with our camera phones. (Did you realize that it takes about six pairs of hands to manage two small children at a fair?)

We looked at more kinds of rabbits than I knew existed, rode rides (some of us), ate Elephant Ears (no, I didn’t even bother to calculate WW points for those), looked at the crafts, and watched the Mutton Busting contest. I didn’t get pictures of that one, but none of us could quite figure out why you would put a three-year old child on a terrified sheep, wearing flip-flops, no less. It was funny, but in a disturbing, watching a car wreck sort of way. Here are a few photos of the rest of the day.

For some reason, I didn’t take any pictures of the knitted items in the craft pavilion, but this crocheted doll caught my eye. I’ve blocked out the names of the winner to protect the innocent, but note that this thing won a blue ribbon. I don’t mean to offend anyone here, but WTF? I’m sure that there is some little girl somewhere who would like this on her nightstand, but this would just give me nightmares. Kris, you and I are so entering the fair next year. Surely we can beat this.

The kids rode the kiddie rides. Those of you who have been with me for awhile might remember this one from last year that George and I dared to ride.

We rode the one on the right, the Turbo Force. That was last year. We just chickened out this year. The only scarier ride is that slingshot thing on the left, and there is not enough yarn in the world that could induce me to strapping myself into that thing. Maybe next year.

Here’s Alicia and Penelope. I’m not sure either one of them realized what they were standing in front of, but John, being the guy that he is, couldn’t pass up the opportunity for a good photo.

Note that Penelope is having a very good time. So did Sam:

So did I. After enjoying the crowds, and the junk food, and the legions of screaming children, John and I needed a respite, and found the wine garden:

The people at the wine tasting booth said that the Fair organizers couldn’t ignore the fact that wine is a big agricultural crop in Washington, so had to include it in the fun.

I conned George into holding the sock for a picture. I finally figured out how the Harlot gets away with this one. You stuff the sock into their hands, jump back and shoot before they know what hit them.

And Sam, at the end of the day.

Whew, that’s over with for another year.

Here are the socks, done:

I’ll post Project Specs next time. I’m off to cast on the next pair.

Saturday Sky, and Finished Project Redux

The sun has slowly started to appear since I took that one, but clearly, fall has arrived. There’s a nice chill in the air, getting down into the 40’s at night, fine sleeping weather. It makes me want to break out all that fine wool and start knitting sweaters.

I was able to get a better picture of the completed Forest Canopy shawl yesterday. One benefit of the ridiculous amount of money we spent fixing our wood rot problems is that I have a great glass deck wall to model shawls. You have no idea how much better that makes me feel about the whole project.

And as promised, I started a new one, from the same pattern.

Those of you paying attention might note that the yarn is not Knitpicks Alpaca in Vineyard that I posted about last time. I had this Zephyr left over from another project, and there is a little more than 2 oz. of it, probably 700 yards or so. I thought the color suited the name of the shawl, so there you have it. I’ll use the alpaca for something else. (A third one, perhaps?)

I started this on the Knitpicks Options needles, but had a heck of a time with the wool silk blend slipsliding away from me, so switched to my favorite needles of all time, Holz & Stein ebonies (3.25 mm, for future reference). I bought some of these previously via a friend who lives in Germany, but the shop that used to carry them doesn’t anymore. Fortunately I found the motherlode of Holz & Stein, and after several emails back and forth with a lovely woman named Ursula, this arrived yesterday.

These are simply the most decadent needles I’ve ever used. Here is their website, though it acts a bit squirrelly if you use Firefox as your browser. Email Ursula, and these could belong to you, too. They are not cheap by any stretch of the imagination, but just perfect. The tips aren’t as sharp as the Options, but the join is lovely, and the ebony divine. Any of you spouses out there that are looking for a gift that will make your knitter-spouse swoon, this might be it.

I especially love that Ursula put this in the package:

It’s a cute little ebony pencil with Holz & Stein stamped on it, and a tape measure wrapped up to look like a sweet. How sweet!

The grandkids are here this weekend, so who knows how much actual knitting will get done. I’ll show you two last pictures of the day. First is Willie, as you don’t get to see many pictures of him here. Now that the weather is cooler, he’s hanging out in the house more. Yesterday was a fine day for a cat to enjoy a patch of sunshine.

And here’s John explaining the finer points of opening a bottle of wine to one of his grandsons:

Don’t worry, he didn’t get to drink any of it with his cinnamon grahams. Have a good weekend!

Finished Project!

First of all, many thanks to all of you who gave me moral support regarding my hearing thing. The good news is that it’s nearly back to normal. I still have a tiny bit of deficit in the very low frequency tones, but not so much as to be noticable without an audiologist telling me that. The ringing in my ear is gone, and I’ll be off the steroids as of tomorrow. So all is well. I still have to get an MRI, just as a precaution, but it’s not scheduled for another week, and I don’t expect any surprises there. I still cry at weird moments, thanks to the prednisone, and am having bizarre dreams, but I’m having to take fewer drugs to counteract the side effects of the original drugs, so that’s a good thing. I hate polypharmacy.

The one really swell side effect of prednisone? Though it’s made me terribly nauseated, so I can’t eat much, I haven’t lost an ounce, in fact I have gained weight. Son of a bitch, is all I have to say about that. This is all making me really sympathetic to the complaints of my patients when they whine about drug side effects. Count me in on the side of whining.

Now, on to the knitting. I finished the Forest Canopy Shoulder Shawl last night in the wee hours, and it’s on the blocking board. Here are photos. The Ipod is for scale.

Before the big stretch:

And after:

Sorry it looks a little technicolor. Next time I’ll grab mats of the same color.

Project Specifications:

Yarn: Mountain Colors Weavers Wool quarters, color Sagebrush. I used all but a few yards of the skein, though I possibly could have squeezed one more pattern repeat out of it.
Pattern: Forest Canopy Shoulder Shawl, by Susan Pierce Lawrence. This is just one of my favorite patterns. It looks all fancy and complicated, but is easy-peasy. The pattern repeat is just 8 rows, half of which are purled on the wrong side, so it’s easy to memorize after a couple of repeats. It’s also very easy to tell immediately if you’ve gotten off a stitch.
Started: September 1, 2006
Finished: September 14, 2006. I’d have finished it sooner if I was not such an easily distracted person. And I’m the slowest knitter in the west.
Needles: Knitpicks Options circular, size 4mm.
For: ?? This one is going in the gift pile, I can’t say for whom just yet.
What I learned: Lace can be fun and easy. I knew about the fun part, but easy? That was a new one. I also learned a bit about the construction of lace shawls.
I liked this one so much that I’m going to knit another one, this time in lace weight. Susan has a picture up from yesterday of one that she knit in Knitpicks Shadow. What do you know? I just happen to have one skein of that in the stash! Here it is, in a lovely red wine color.

This one might have to be for me. I’m off to wind up yarn.

Slippery Slope

Or,

How Projects Multiply When You’re Not Careful

I am generally most comfortable with a “three project” rule. One generally is a sweater-like project, one is a sock, and the third is something else, a lace shawl, for example. I am a slow knitter anyway, so having a multitude of things in progress makes me a bit nutty, as it seems like I never get anything finished.

In the past few months, though, I have started down that slippery slope of multiple WIPs. First it was that eggplant sweater that got put into timeout. (It’s still there, I plan on working on it this fall.) Now that I’ve found that it isn’t so bad to have two sweaters going at the same time, I am throwing caution to the wind.

Yes, I started a second lace project this morning. I still have that purple Icelandic thing going, and I still love the pattern, and the yarn, and the book. I’ll keep working on that one, too. But I found this on my blog excursions this morning, and couldn’t resist.

You can get yours here. It uses one skein of Mountain Colors Weaver’s Wool, and I just happened to have about ten different colors of this in the stash, earmarked for socks. This color is Sagebrush, by the way. Susan has come up with an easy lace shawl pattern that is intended to ~~suck in~~ introduce beginning lace knitters to the joys of making intentional holes in their knitting.

Here’s another photo. I haven’t decided if I like this on this size needle or not.

I might try going down a needle size (this is a size 4.5mm) to see what it looks like. Or maybe not. Susan thinks that I can finish this in a weekend. We’ll see. That would get the project numbers back towards balance, wouldn’t it?
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I haven’t forgotten that I promised a link to the house remodeling photo show. John finally finished getting the last of the photos sorted and uploaded, and you’ll find it here. I’ll warn you ahead of time, there are about a gazillion photos in there. Have a great holiday weekend!

Saturday Sky

Or,

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

First, the Ugly. As the ticker shows, the Volkswagon went in reverse this week. I got all rebellious on the point-tracking system this week. “Points?? I don’t need to count no stinking points!” And it showed on the scale. I think part of the gain was a major hormonal fluid-shift-salt-binge attack. All I can say is that it’s just not fair to have hot flashes and PMS at the same time. The Good news is that I went to that meeting even knowing I’d probably gained, sat through the meeting, and came away knowing what I need to do to fix it. We’ll see what happens next week.

The Good? We’re at a bluegrass festival this weekend. The same folks that do Wintergrass do a summer festival in Stevenson, WA, called Adventure Bluegrass. Stevenson is located on the southern border of Washington, on the Columbia Gorge. If you want to know what heaven looks like, drive along the Gorge from I-5 east. The river is spectacular, the mountains are lovely, and it is a perfect setting for a weekend of fine bluegrass, including my favorite bluegrass band, the US Navy Band, Country Current. We arrived yesterday, and the first evening of bluegrass was as fine as it gets. Early in the evening it was sunny and warm, then it got cool as the sun went down. Cool enough, in fact, for me to wear Rogue. Yes, an Aran weight wool cabled sweater with a hood. In late July. That’s the beauty of the weather here; it can be shorts-and-sandals hot during the day, and wool-sweater cold at night.

Our cabin is right on the Gorge, and here is my Saturday Sky:

One really Good thing about bluegrass festivals is all the free knitting time. I finished the first STR Rainforest Jasper sock last night, and started the second.

I only saw one other knitter last night, though she wasn’t actually knitting. She had a t-shirt on that said “Knitters Have Balls”. Let me tell you, I was tempted to hit her upside the head with my knitting bag when I ran into her by herself in the bathroom, just so I could steal that shirt. She better not show up anywhere unaccompanied today.

The Bad? A big old Douglas fir had to be taken out of our back yard this past week. I’ll post some pictures later when I’ve had a chance to sort through the ten thousand photos we took to document its demise, but I’ll leave you with a couple of Good pictures. Doug and Zeb are our new “foresters”, and they were in my backyard all day, which is not necessarily a Bad thing.

Yes, they really are that cute.

I hear the call of the banjos, so I’m off!

I’m Such A Loser!

I couldn’t resist that title. My first weigh-in after starting Weight Watchers was Saturday. I was a little concerned, as the first week on the plan was a bit experimental, while I was figuring everything out. Turns out that the experiment worked, at least for the first week. I faithfully promise right here that I will update that ticker weekly, whether it’s a success story or not. If that doesn’t keep me motivated, nothing will.

In Knitting News:

I have mostly been working on non-Amazing Lace projects. I’ve gotten exactly one row of that Langsjal Johonnu done in the last week. Don’t even ask why, I have no idea. The Socks That Rock might be part of the problem. Boy, is that yarn addictive. And those stripes, I just keep knitting to see the next one appear.

The colors flashed a bit over the instep, but then the stripes straightened right back out again. A little bit of flashing is OK.

The first sock’s worth of gusset decreases are done, it’s all round and round from here.

Instructions for Lorette’s Famous Sock pattern continue. Check this post for the cuff down to the heel.

Put the 32 (half the total) heel stitches on one needle, the other 32 instep stitches should be on the other two needles, ignore them for now. Set this up so the working yarn is at the left end of the row of heel stitches, turn and purl back across them. Now you are ready to do the heel stitch. I like a simple knit one-slip one stitch, though you can get fancy and do variations of this.
Row 1: *Slip 1, Knit 1*, repeat all the way across.
Row 2: Slip 1, then purl all the way across.
Repeat these until you’ve done 32 rows. There should be roughly 16 slipped stitches along the side of the heel. These are the ones you will pick up for the gussets. If you like your socks a little looser around the instep, just do a few more rows of the heel.

Now it’s time for my favorite part, turning the heel. This is just magic, especially when you remember to do it before picking up the gussets. Start the heel turning with a knit-side row.
Row 1: Slip 1, Knit 17 stitches, K2 tog, K1. Turn around so you are heading back the other direction, leaving the remaining stitches unworked.
Row 2: Slip 1, Purl 5, P2 tog, P1, turn again.
Row 3: Slip 1, Knit 6, K2 tog, K1, turn
Row 4: Slip 1, Purl 7, P2tog, P1, turn

Keep doing this until you have worked all the way across the heel stitches, working one more stitch on each pass back and forth. You should end up having just finished a purl row.

Knit across the heel, then pick up 16 stitches along the first side of the heel flap. You may need to pick up more or less to make it work out. I also try to pick up one in the tight little spot between the first side of the gusset and the first needle of the instep, to prevent a hole. Knit across your instep stitches, then pick up the stitches across the other side of the heel flap in the same way. I now rearrange the stitches so I have the instep stitches divided between two needles (16 each in this example), and each side of the gusset along with half the heel stitches on two needles (roughly 26 each, depending on how many gusset stitches you really picked up). I now just knit one round all the way around plain just to settle things down and get ready for the gusset decreases, which I’ll get to in the next post. This is a good time to look at your gussets and make sure you like the
way it looks. If it looks weird, rip it out and do it again. You won’t
like it any better later, trust me.

Last but not least, a gratuitous cat picture.

Relax, Lucy, relax!

Fifty and Fit by 50

More about that title later.

The Yarn Focus Challenge, organized by Rebekah of Knit Knack, is now over. This was an interesting challenge for me. I have found that I tend to buy on impulse, and the lure of internet shopping is always there. Being “forced” to only buy on one day a month made me think just for a minute every time I was all set to hit that “buy now” button. I plan on continuing this yarn-buying habit on my own, since it’s really not much of a hardship. In reality, I already have more yarn and projects stored up than I will ever knit before I die.

Which brings me to the title, and the new ticker.

I am seriously going to have to live until I’m about 105 to use up all the yarn I have in the stash, and to do all the projects I want to finish. I’ve decided that I need to get healthy and fit so I can live that long, in good enough shape to do the things I want to do. The first “fifty” in the title refers to fifty pounds that have crept on over the years. The second “50” refers to the age I will be turning later this year. It’s actually close enough (October) that I won’t get rid of the whole “fifty” by then, but it makes a good campaign slogan, I thought. The “fit” refers to the exercise component, sadly missing from my daily routine. Knitting apparently doesn’t count as an aerobic activity, unless you do it while on the treadmill, and I am not that coordinated.

I’m putting this out here in blogland for motivation. I figure that you all are a bit like all the regular girlfriends that a woman has in real life, except that there are more of you. Having that ticker up there will keep me honest. I’m pretty sure none of you will let me slide on this. I have a date to go to my first Weight Watcher’s meeting later today, and today was the second day in a row that I got on the treadmill before my morning shower. PJ, of Golden Oasis, led me to the American Heart Association’s program, Choose To Move, a 12-week program to encourage women to exercise regularly.

So there you have it. Don’t cut me any slack.
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In knitting progress, here are some photos. There has been little knitting around here this past week, for a variety of reasons. Here they are, anyway.

First, the STR sock. I can’t say enough good things about this yarn. It’s a good thing that I like it, as I have several more skeins of it in a variety of colors.

I like the way this is striping. Some of the socks that I’ve seen in this color have had quite a bit of pooling, and though I’m not opposed to pooling, I like nice tidy little stripes better. Watch, now that I’ve said that, it will pool like crazy on the rest of it.

Here’s the Pippa cardigan. Sleeve of a cardigan, that is. There has been more backwards progress on this one than forwards this week. I got off a stitch on one column of twisted stitches, right in the middle of the sleeve, and knit about three inches before I noticed it. I tried to just drop down a few stitches in the middle rather than unknitting the whole thing, and made a total mess of it. The result was about four inches of frogged sleeve. It then had to spend a few days in the time out chair.

Last but not least, is my Amazing Lace teammate, Langsjal Johonnu. I haven’t worked much on this since I last posted, as I’ve been distracted and busy, and this one requires at least a half a brain in order to not screw it up. Way back when, I promised a pinned-out picture so you could see what it looks like. Here you go.

Only about ninety-billion repeats to go, and it will be a stole. I really like this pattern, and the yarn. The yarn is rustic in feel, but I’ve decided that I like it. It’s definitely different than the smooth wool-silk of the Zephyr from the last lace that I did. Once I got past the mental block I had in figuring out the center portion pattern repeat, this one’s not difficult, it just requires that I pay attention. I have the other border all done and waiting on a holder, so as soon as I run out of yarn, I can graft it together.

I’m off to eat carrot sticks. And yes, I already know how many Points bourbon has.