Knitting – Page 27 – The Knitting Doctor

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.

Socks, Old And New

And they’re done. Finally. The two color socks that have taken forever to finish are in the finished pile.

Project Notes:

Yarn: Lorna’s Laces, in Rainbow and Bold Red.
Pattern: Sensational Knitted Socks, by Charlene Schurch. It’s one of the Four-Stitch Reticulated Patterns, using a solid color combined with a multicolored yarn.
Started: Way back in January. These went on hold while I did a simple stocking stitch pair during Wintergrass, then have languished a bit, as I got bored with them.
Finished: June 25th, 2006
Needles: Lantern Moon ebony, size 1. I used a pair of size 0 bamboos for the ribbing.
For: Me

What I learned: Lots of things. Two color knitting is denser than one color (duh). If I did these again, I’d do a gauge swatch and try bigger needles and fewer stitches. These practically will stand up by themselves. I also learned that it does make a difference which color goes in which hand. I held the red (background color) in my right hand, and the multi in the left. This seemed to make the background color pop a bit more. When I did it the other way, the red stood out more. I also got to practice two-handed knitting, with one color in each hand.

I also learned that two color socks take more yarn. I used about three quarters of the skein of the Rainbow, and about one and a third skeins of the solid color. Because I hadn’t planned on this, the dye lot of the Bold Red is different in the two skeins. I used the different dye lot in the two color part of the second sock, where it’s camoflauged by the busy nature of the pattern, and saved the tail end of the first dye lot to match the toes, where it would show more. You can tell the difference, but not so much when they’re on your feet. I’m not sure I’d do these again but it was fun to practice the two color thing.

Now that those are done, I immediately started on a new pair of socks. I have been jonesing to start a pair from Socks That Rock, as I have a bunch in the stash. This is the Rainforest Jasper color, which was the first skein sent out in the Rockin’ Sock Club. I’m not doing the pattern that came with the yarn, as I’m not in the mood to follow directions. I’m doing what’s developing into Lorette’s Famous Sock Pattern, which will be unveiled as this thing goes along. This is being fine tuned by taking bits and pieces of many sock patterns that I’ve seen and tried.

First step; Cast on. For this sock, I’m doing a picot hem, just because I love those little spikes on the top. They remind me of the points on a queenly crown. (My family will be well aware that this motif fits.) The cast on is a long tail cast on, because it will be turned under and won’t be seen. When I’m doing a plain ribbed-topped sock, I use the German Twisted Cast On, described here.

Here it is in the process of being hemmed.

How-to: cast on 64 stitches on size 2 mm needles, divide between four needles, knit seven rounds. Next round: YO, knit 2 together all the way around. Switch to 2.25mm needles. Knit seven more rounds. On the next round, fold up the hem along the yo-k2tog row, and knit each live stitch together with its corresponding cast on stitch. This is fidgety, and takes a little time to make sure the rows line up, but makes a nice hem. You’ll need to weave in the end of the yarn from the cast on edge before you hem it up. Use a stitch marker to mark where the round starts, if you care about that sort of thing.

Note that this is still a little experimental. I tend to just wade in with sock yarn instead of doing gauge swatches, so the stitch count may get revised if it looks too big even for Bigfoot (me). If you are going to follow along, you need to figure out how many stitches you need for your own foot. The official way to do this is to knit a gauge swatch, then measure your foot around the ball of your foot. Multiply the two numbers. So if you get 8 stitches per inch, and your foot measures 8 inches, you cast on 64 stitches. Or something like that. I prefer the trial and error method, as I hate doing gauge swatches with sock weight yarn.

Also note that my needles coordinate with the yarn. These are my Pony Pearls, some of my favorite sock knitting needles.

So far my verdict on the STR yarn: Wow. The colors are intense, and the yarn very nicely spun. I can see why everybody loves this stuff. I’m using the lightweight variety, and it feels just a bit heavier than the Lorna’s Laces or Opal.

And just because I know you guys count on me to point out stuff that you need to buy, here’s something more:

My very own Emergency Sock Knitting Kit, made by Cassie.

What’s inside, you might ask?

Extra needles, a ruler, a tiny crochet hook, scissors, darning needle pinned to the fabric, and a stitch marker pinned to the fabric.Of course, you are responsible for loading up your own kit. It doesn’t come with all that loot.

And what’s on the card, you might ask?

My instructions for kitchener grafting, for the toes. Because I can never remember how to do it.

I’m Bored To Death By These Socks

That’s my latest favorite picture of Riley. The box sits by our front door, and Alan the UPS man leaves packages there if we’re not home when he comes around. He also carries Costco dog bones in his truck, which explains why Riley just loves him. She hears his truck about 3 blocks away, and goes bonkers until we open the door. Then she gallops out of the house and gets in the truck with him.

Every time she goes by that box, she gives it a sniff, then looks at us as if to say, “just open it, I’m sure there’s a bone in there.” Of course, every time I go by that box, I open the lid, just to make sure that somebody didn’t leave me any yarn when I wasn’t looking. At least I don’t go out and jump in the UPS truck when he drives up.

Here’s what I’m knitting today.

I just need those socks to be done, now. I’m sick of two-color sock knitting, enough so that I’d consider getting rid of a few toes on one foot so they’d fit. I have about 15-20 pattern rows left, then the toe decreases, then I will be done with them. To make matters worse, I know that I won’t be able to wear them until fall, since they are way too heavy for summer socks. I have been so tempted to cast on for a different pair, but I know myself too well. If I do, these will be relegated to the “never finished” pile. I don’t actually have a “never finished” pile, and I don’t want to start now. So I might line up about ten hours of Law & Order or JAG reruns, and knit all night to finish them. JAG makes especially good knitting television. All the plots are the same, so you don’t really miss anything if you are paying attention to the knitting.

The next picture shows my latest knitting related purchase.

This is probably an example of why I shouldn’t be allowed to have an internet connection and a credit card at the same time. Susan mentioned this tape on her blog a few weeks ago, and of course, I had to have it. I really did not need to buy it in every color, and in all three widths, but there you have it. There is enough highlighter tape to highlight chart rows for the rest of my life right there. I bought it here, if you are interested. Though I’m not sure they have any left. Here’s an action shot:

I’m off to finish those socks.

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For those of you who comment, I added “comment verification” to the blog. I hate this, as it’s a pain in the ass, but I’ve gotten a bunch of spam comments lately. So blame “cellphone Sam” and others like him for this.

11 Days

11 days since my last post, that is. That has to be some kind of record. Let me explain. (No, there is too much. Let me sum up.*)

I’ve been on vacation in lovely North Dakota, visiting my sister. This year was her 40th high school reunion, and I came along for moral support. We’ve had so much fun here that I just haven’t had time to even think about blogging. Actually, her computer is a bit slow, so I haven’t had the patience to download pictures and do the whole blog post thing until this morning. I have been knitting this week, however.

I brought two projects with me, the orange Pippa cardigan, and Langsjal Johonnu. Most of the week we spent in Fargo, where she lives, and I alternated between the two projects. I can work on the stole when I have relative peace and quiet and can pay attention, and the cardigan is for the rest of the time. I packed both for the road trip to Edgeley, the little town that we grew up in. Of course I managed to sit on the bag that the cardigan was in, and snapped one of my ebony (sob) circular needles within about ten minutes of getting there. Let me just say that Edgeley doesn’t have a good yarn shop so I could replace it. Then I got stuck while knitting the stole, at the section where you change from knitting the border to knitting the middle part. For some reason I couldn’t make the numbers work out. The lace pattern is charted, and the horizontal repeat isn’t marked on the chart, so I had to figure out which stitches were the borders, and which stitches repeated nine hundred times across the width of the shawl. I finally figured this out yesterday morning (in a sober moment) and I’m off to the races. It looks like a mess of wadded up lace at the moment, so no pictures of the progress for now. That will have to wait until I’m home and can pin it out on the blocking mat for a proper photo.

Here is one photo however. This one was taken before I figured out the numbers on the chart.

Perhaps the bourbon had something to do with my counting difficulties. I’m not willing to concede that just yet.

In case you think that North Dakota has no cultural activities, check out this link. Make sure you look through the gallery of photos.

* Inigo Montoya, Princess Bride

Langsjal Johonnu

Or, I Can Stop Anytime I Want

Here’s where I am in the Amazing Lace shawl. I’ve finished the first border, and have gotten to the second border. Once I finish that, I can start on the center section, all eighty thousand repeats of it, and really get to the fun part. Here’s a photo:

This is just so addicting. I even get up early to get in a row or two before I go to work. Those of you in my family know that this is serious knitting addiction we’re talking about. I am so not a morning person, and there is little that will get me out of bed earlier than I absolutely have to. I’ve given up reading, as I can’t knit and read at the same time. The TV choices have been pared down to mindless drivel that I can knit to without paying attention. I’ve considered buying a lottery ticket, so I can win big, retire from my job, and knit Icelandic lace forever. The lace and I have seriously bonded. My next post hopefully will have my second entry for the Amazing Lace challenge.

By the way, I am not sure whether or not I should be proud of the fact that if you enter “nupps” into Google, mine is the first site that comes up. That is truly weird. Try it, if you don’t believe me.

The house project is coming along. The stucco guys are here working on things, and it’s looking a little more promising. Yes, I’m still under the circus tent. Oh well, soon enough, they tell me. Here are my new ground-level closets that we gained in the course of the project. There is one of these on each end of the house.

And this next one just makes me laugh. For a while there, my house resembled a Holstein cow.

I’m off to knit. I’m starting to dream in Icelandic.

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Annie of Knitty Gritty asked us all to let you know that she is taking a blog break. She had a last post composed but her bloghost shut her down a little more expeditiously than she expected. If you are a reader, she wanted to let everybody know that she is taking the summer off, and may be back later in the year in a group blog.

One Row Forward, Two Rows Back

First of all, I haven’t dropped off the face of the earth. Last week was my 7-day work week, and was just busy enough that I didn’t get much knitting done, much less blogging. This week, my internet connection has been on the fritz. We took Comcast up on the offer to switch our phone service over to cable, and it worked well, for the first week. For the past week, it has been less than ideal. Some days I have internet, some days not. To give the Comcast folks credit, they have sent guys out twice, both times on the same day that we called, and were very helpful. So far today it’s been OK, since the cable guy came out yesterday. There were a couple days when we didn’t have phone service, either, but now that’s working as well.

I thereby proclaim today an official email-blog-post-answering amnesty day. I will go through all the comments and answer questions, but being as I’m over 60 emails behind (and that’s just the blog comments), I’m not answering all of them. Thank you to everybody who has 1) said how lovely my sister’s scarf was, 2) liked my Amazing Lace post, 3)felt sorry for me because my house has been eaten away by wood rot, 4) complimented my dog, and 5) offered Icelandic translation services. There, I think I’ve covered it all.

Oh, and I was joking when I said that I had Icelandic music loaded up on the Ipod. I have listened to some songs on Rhapsody, but they have precious little from Iceland. Lots of Scandinavian artists, not so much Icelandic. Though it might help if I knew what I was looking for.

Today was sort of a loss. I have been very distracted by all the pounding and sawing going on here. The stucco guys start tomorrow (at 6:30 AM, on a Saturday), so they are definitely making progress, but the noise is starting to get to me. It’s been rainy, so we’re still under the Big Top, which is starting to drive me nuts. Normally Riley gets to go for a long walk to the park every day, but today it was raining off and on, so I took advantage of a lull in the drizzle to take her out just around the neighborhood. I got about ten minutes away from the house, and the sky just opened up. Even Riley tried to hide under the bushes, and she normally likes the rain. By the time I got back to the house, I was drenched, and soaked all the way down to my underwear.

Then I started knitting. I should have just known better, given the way the day had started. I’ve been working on those two-color socks, and have gotten the second one done past the gussets, so now I “just” have the foot to go.* As a reward, I picked up the Langsjal Johonnu, and did a couple of rows. Then I found a mistake, and ended up tinking back the same two rows. Here’s a picture that shows about where I am. The idea is blatantly stolen from Claudia.

I’m starting to like the yarn more, though some parts of it worry me a bit. It is unevenly spun, with some parts looking more like a fingering weight than laceweight. And there have been a few short sections where calling it “cobweb” would have been generous. I’m hoping that these hold up to vigorous blocking. We’ll see.

I am liking the pattern. I think I might do the two ends first. The construction goes like this: you knit one border and the center section, put it on a holder, then knit the second border and graft the two together. I’m thinking that if I do the two borders first, then I don’t have to think about how much yarn I might need for the second one, and can just knit merrily away on the center part until I nearly run out, leaving just enough to graft the last row. Smart eh? We’ll see on that, too.

Everybody think good thoughts for sunshine in western Washington. I’m just sick of rain. Even the ducks look like they are sick of rain. I’d even settle for just overcast and dry.

*”Just”. I have size 10 1/2 feet, so this is not much consolation.

Amazing Lace!

Challenge #1,

Or, A Very Long Post

I have indeed joined the hordes of laceknitters that have signed up for the Amazing Lace summer knitalong. After a great deal of dithering and mind-changing, I’ve chosen my trusty teammate for the summer. It was a difficult choice, as I have a multitude of lace patterns on my to-do list, and it finally came down to two:

Frost Flowers & Leaves, from A Gathering of Lace, compiled by Meg Swansen, for which I have the yarn and pattern, and have wanted to knit ever since I first saw the book.

Langsjal Johonnu, from Three Cornered & Long Shawls, by Sigridur Halldorsdottir.

I was leaning towards the former, as I wasn’t sure that I wanted to have to be able to spell Langsjal Johonnu for the next several months. Then my husband, ever helpful, made a somewhat disparaging remark about collecting patterns written in foreign languages which I don’t speak or read, when there are plenty of fine patterns written in English, which I do read, more or less.

That settled it. The gauntlet was thrown down. Langsjal Johonnu it is. I’ve collected all the parts of my team, and present them to you here.

The yarn is genuine Icelandic laceweight wool, purchased here (color number 9808). It’s actually somewhere between laceweight and fingering weight, and is not a sissy yarn. It is substantial, hearty wool, made to get you through those long Icelandic winters in style. The color is a little more purple than shown in that picture. And yes, I have already cast on and started. Once I got past row 3 (don’t you dare laugh, it’s harder than it looks), I am zooming right along.

The pattern book is also purchased from Schoolhouse Press (scroll down the page a bit). It has a number of lovely shawls and stoles, and though it’s a bit spendy, I probably will do more than one out of this at some point.

Next up, we have my “Learn Icelandic” kit.

Just kidding. The pattern book does come with a translation. Though it worries me a bit that the original book, in Icelandic, has 78 pages, and the English version only has 16 pages. There might be a few things lost in the translation.

The stole on the cover of the translation booklet is the chosen team member, Langsjal Johonnu (I just love that name). Here’s a better look.

I also just love this woman. She models all the pieces in the book, and has exactly that same “don’t screw with me” expression on her face in every photo. That’s the other reason I chose this one over the FF&L. She means business.

Here are some of the other teammates, gathered together to help out.

There is the photocopy of the pattern, my gadget bag, and my trusty Denise needles, which are honored to be chosen for the lace race. I have a little notebook and pencil to keep track of stuff, and my reading glasses, which I’ll surely need. Actually I may take this one to the copy place and blow it up a bit bigger. Those Icelanders must have good eyes.

I use a music stand to keep my pattern where I can see it. I have a large magnet board that has a permanent home here, and a smaller 8 by 10 version that slides right into the plastic page protector with the pattern page. The Ipod is loaded up with Icelandic music for the occasion. The second picture is my trusty clicker counter, to keep track of rows. I also ordered one of these to hold my magnet board:

because you just can’t have too many gadgets.

Because I’m optimistic that I will eventually finish this, my blocking gear is ready.

Last but not least, I have plenty of refreshments ready. First, a nice selection of fine tea from Adagio:

And just in case, a brand new bottle of the Knitting Doctor house bourbon:

Just in case.

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.