The Knitting Doctor

I Almost Forgot! Blogiversary!

It’s 12 years here at Chez Knitting Doctor! I opened up my calendar to check something and saw that today is my Blogiversary. Nothing much new to say about that, except that I’d really like to get back to blogging more regularly.

So what else is new? The knitting projects are all the same. It’s been a bit of a slog around here, and I actually haven’t gotten much knitting done. I’m just plugging away on the same old projects, which is fine with me.

Here’s Hitchhiker:

And socks:

One sock done, the other nicely started. I’m not dragging out any other projects to take pictures of, that’s all you get. The Hitchhiker yarn is Wollmeise Pure fingering weight, which is gorgeous. And the sock yarn is Skinny Bugga from Verdant Gryphon. I might have a few other skeins of this in the stash. It is just the best sock yarn, it’s a merino, cashmere, and nylon blend.

The other thing going on around here is fluting, as you might notice from the photos.

I had a little excitement last week. I had a medical conference in Boston, and the second full day we were there, I developed a whole raft of floaters in one eye. Long story short, I ended up having a posterior vitreous detachment and a couple of tiny retinal tears. I ended up at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Hospital, was seen in the ER there around mid morning, diagnosed, sent upstairs to the retina center, and had laser surgery. I was back “home” at the hotel by noon. If you have to have a retina problem, having your hotel located 10 minutes from a major eye hospital isn’t a bad idea. I still have a big jellyfish floater and a bunch of little ones that are driving me nuts, but my vision is fine, so all in all things are OK.

As a public service announcement, these things are more common as we get older, and way more common in people with severe myopia. Symptoms are a sudden splash of floaters in one eye, and lightning flashes. It can be accompanied by a retinal detachment, so it’s one of those things that is a relative emergency.

Zoe is doing very well. She has morphed from the shy, compliant little kitty that she was when she showed up on our doorstep to a very confident zany alpha cat. She and Will are actually turning into buddies, they chase each other around and have little pretend kitty brawls. I think he’s actually enjoying having someone to play with.

Last but not least, this is the new obsession around here:

It’s a Peloton spin bike! I’m not sure exactly what’s come over me. I guess some switch finally flipped and turned off the couch potato in me. I’ve had it for a month (minus the week we were in Boston), have done 21 rides, lost 7 pounds, and I’m noticeably stronger already. It’s a spin bike, but also comes with live and on-demand classes via a monthly membership. And I really needed to do this. I’ll be 60 this year, and already have a couple of medical issues related to weight and being out of shape, so it’s sort of now or never. I’m actually looking forward to getting up before 5AM every morning to get my butt on the bike.

That’s all I’ve got. I’m going to practice before it’s time to get going to Easter Vigil services tonight. Happy Easter to everybody!

The Church of Bluegrass-Day 3

We’re having some Great Big Fun here, let me tell you. As usual, it’s a pretty eclectic group of performers here. The music has ranged from old time Appalachian flat pick twangy banjo (yes, that is a music style), to Portland Swing, to Celtic, and everything in between. We saw a group last night that set William Blake’s poetry (yes, that William Blake that they made you read in college English class) to Appalachian roots/funk/soul/gospel/tribal music (Martha Redbone).

So far, it’s tough to pick a favorite, though Steel Wheels is a contender. We’ve heard two of their sets, both superb. Today should be terrific as well. Seldom Scene is doing only two sets this year, both tonight. Doyle Lawson performs a couple of sets today, he is a little twangy traditional bluegrass for me, but his band is polished and very entertaining.

And then there is Väsen. Not bluegrass, but one of my favorite performing groups here. They play Swedish folk music, but it’s more exciting than that makes it sound. I try to hit all of their sets when they are here.

As in previous years, it might be tough to choose my favorite performer of the weekend, but we’ll see. There’s lots of bluegrass left to hear.

Knitting at the ready. I’m off to chase the banjos. Or nyckelharpas. Whatever.

We Are Ready

Wintergrass has begun! Even Sweetpea is ready.*

Things started up last night. Here are some really crappy phone photos.

That is Solas, an Irish band. Very high energy, with talented musicians. And a flute! You can't beat a flute at a bluegrass festival. They had an accordion man too.

Steel Wheels. They were a huge hit last night, just as they were last year. They are playing a couple more sets this weekend, so I'm sure I'll get to hear them again.

Wintergrass has been in Bellevue for the last few years, which was a bit odd at first. Bellevue isn't exactly known for its roots/folk/banjo vibe. It's more of a glass walled high rise/expensive restaurants and Nordstrom's place. The theme the first year they moved the festival up here was something like “Bellevue–it's a hard place to suffer”. We've come to appreciate it though. I have three words: Din Tai Fung. It's the famous dumpling restaurant, and it's right across the street from our hotel. We can almost see them making dumplings from our room. We're headed there later this morning as soon as they open.

And even more fun! Dorothy of Missouri Star blog and her husband Bill are here for their first WG weekend! Here are the two of us last night, knitting and spinning.

As usual, it was the man sitting next to John that asked me about the spindle. His mother was a spinner, spun and dyed her own wool, with natural dyes no less.

More updates later!

*And no, Sweetpea didn't get her own wristband. That's mine. My hands are so skinny that I can just slide the band off. They don't need to worry about me loaning my ticket to anybody though, I'm not sharing.

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Decisions, Decisions

Or,

Cast On Saturday!

I finished my Seahawks Color Affection earlier this week. It's not blocked, so you don't get the Finished Project post just yet.

But that left me without a mindless-but-not-a-sock project. I have a big-ass sweater project on the needles (Rogue), a sock, and two lace shawls, one of which is in the active knitting rotation, and one that is patiently waiting her turn.

Of course, I have yarn and pattern ideas for eleventy billion mindless projects. After meandering around Ravelry yesterday, I realized that I am likely the last person on the planet to have knit a Hitchhiker shawl. As of this morning, there are 22,564 Ravelers that have knit (or are knitting) this. I've done a couple of her other small shawls and have enjoyed them, and wear them often. And I have the yarn! It's a win-win.

That's Wollmeise Pure, color Bluebell. 525 meters of perfect merino.

I wound up the yarn, put it in a project bag with needles, set it up in Knit Companion, and cast on this morning.

But not before I saw this in a box in my closet.

Isn't THAT pretty? It was at the very top of one of my yarn storage boxes, and it practically jumped up and down, waving its arms yelling “Pick me! Pick Me!”.

So I did. I wound that one up too, and cast on another little “shawlette”. (Does anybody else hate that word besides me?)

This will be a Find A Penny shawl.

Follow the links to Ravelry to see what these look like.

Now I have some good mindless knitting all ready to go. And those of you who have been around here for awhile know what's coming up at the end of February. Wintergrass! Two full days and three nights of bluegrass, perfect for mindless knitting.

I might go see what else I've got up there that I can cast on.

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Finished Stuff, Forgot To Post

It figures. I actually finish a couple of knitting projects and then forget all about blogging it.

First up is John’s Crazy Hat of Many Colors:

Project Details:

Pattern: Toboggan Hat, modified for the current Peace Fleece worsted weight

Yarn: Peace Fleece mini skeins

Needles: US 6/4.0 mm

Started: October 16, 2015

Finished: Noivember 21, 2015

For: John

Modifications: The pattern is written for wider two-color stripes. I went all out and did four row stripes in many colors (33!). I bought all the mini skeins that Peace Fleece sells, and didn’t repeat any of the colors. I also did ribbing instead of a rolled cuff at the beginning.

What I Learned:: Hats go quick in heavy worsted weight yarn. I also learned a new trick to do a color join right where I want the color to change at the beginning of the round. It was fidgety, but not as fidgety as weaving in all those ends would have been.

Next up is socks. Tiptoe Through the Tulips Socks

Project Details:

Pattern: Same old same old. Plain vanilla pattern, let the yarn do the talking. 72 stitches around. Picot tops.

Yarn: Zitron Trekking XXL

Needles: US 1/2.25 mm

Started: April 19, 2015

Finished: January 22, 2016

For: Me

Modifications: None

What I Learned:: Socks shouldn’t take this long. And I’m still not tired of white bread socks.

Zoe is settling in just fine. She came home for good on Monday. There is a bit of hissing and caterwauling going on, mostly by Will, but things are getting calmer.

I have discovered that it is NOT ok to leave anything knitting related laying around with her here. Yesterday she knocked my knitting gadget bag on the floor, then tried to get in my big knitting bag. And I was merrily knitting away on a shawl and looked down to find her chewing her way through the working yarn. The adventures of having a kitten!

Mexico!

Guayabitos, to be specific. We spent a week at exactly this same spot last year. We loved it so much that we booked for this year as soon as we got home. I won't do a long post with lots of photos, since the wifi is a bit slow, but here's my morning.

And that's pretty much been my week. Sunshine, ocean in the background, knitting, practicing flute, siestas, and a cold Pacifico or two. Happy hour daily with margaritas at sunset. Strolls into town for lunch and/or dinner.

We go home tomorrow, which will be OK, since you can't really stay here forever. And Zoe is patiently waiting for us! She became officially “abandoned” by her previous so-called family on Wednesday last week, and we left Friday for here, so she is being boarded with her vet family. We'll pick her up and bring her home on Monday!

Adios!

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Baby Helen, and Baby Zoe

It’s a real finished project! One of my coworkers had her baby very early a couple of weeks ago, at 25 weeks. (Baby Helen and mama are both doing OK.) I didn’t have anything hand knit ready for her, but fortunately preemie baby sweaters don’t take long to knit.

Project Details:

Pattern: Design D Cardigan; that’s a really catchy name

Yarn:Dale Baby Ull in hot pink

Needles: 3.25 mm (2.75 for the edging)

Started: 12/23/15

Finished: 12/27/15

For: Baby Helen

Modifications: The neckband as written in the pattern is just plain fidgety. It calls for casting on a few extra stitches along the front bands, knitting a long strip to reach the center back, repeat on the other side, then sew it down and graft together. For a freaking baby sweater that might get worn a handful of times before she grows out of it, that seems like major overkill. I just finished the neck decreases, changed to the smaller needles, did a few rows of garter stitch to match the bottom edge, then did a yarn over /knit 2 together eyelet row, knit another row, then bound off.

What I Learned:: Baby sweaters don’t take long, especially in preemie sizes. This pattern was a mess. It worked, but the instructions for the raglan decreases were written out in a fashion that made them nearly incomprehensible.

I just realized while doing this that I never did a finished project post for John’s Toboggan hat. I will remedy that soon.

In other news, I finally splurged and bought myself a late Christmas present of a really nice wooden swift and ball winder. The rickety plastic ones that I have are just not a lot of fun to use, especially for finer yarns. I’ve had to rewind more balls of yarn by hand to fix total screwups than I can count. Here they are.

I bought them both on Amazon. The winder is the Heavy Duty Ball Winder by Nancy’s Knitknacks, the swift is a large size Swedish Glimakra. They are lovely. And it inspired me to clear off this wooden shelf to make room for them.

Last but certainly not least, we are 99.9% certain of bringing home a new family member. Those of you who follow me on Facebook have already heard this story. Last Saturday evening we had a knock on our door. Our neighbors had a black kitty show up at their door, they thought it was Willie and brought him down to our house. It wasn’t Will, but a little lost girl kitty. Nobody in our neighborhood has a black cat (except us), so we kept her over the weekend. Monday we took her in to our vet clinic where they checked her over and found she was microchipped. They contacted the owners, who apparently live a few miles from here. They didn’t sound very enthusiastic, but promised to pick her up and take her home on Monday.

Of course by this time we’d fallen totally in love with her. She is adorable, very silky fur, about 8 months old, and as sweet as she can be.

Five days later, today, and three phone calls from our vet to the so-called owners, and they still haven’t come to get her, and are not answering calls. The vet has to keep her and give them ten days to claim her, though it’s almost certain at this point that they have no interest. We strongly suspect that she was dumped in our driveway. It was a very cold night, and she hadn’t been outside for very long when she came to us. I just wish they would step up and say they don’t want her so we can bring her home. Though everybody at our vet clinic has fallen in love with her as well, she is getting a lot of love there too.

Here are a few more photos from today, we went to the vet to see her.

Her new name is Zoe! In 5 more days we will be her people!

Solstice 2015

And another Solstice is in the history books.

I don't have a lot of photos of the actual event, John has a few on his “real” camera, but we tend to not take a lot of photos once the actual party starts. This year's dinner was a six course sit down meal for ten of our friends, most of whom are also neighbors. I consider myself a lucky woman to have that many people to cook and enjoy a fine meal for/with, and the fact that they are neighbors as well is a lovely bonus. I know a lot of people who don't even know their neighbors, much less like them enough to invite them to dinner.

Here's Lewey at the groomer getting ready.

Here is the menu:

That's mostly correct. The pork roast recipe came from the December/January issue of Fine Cooking, I did the roast per the recipe, but just ended up making up the sauce. The dried morels were hideously expensive, so I used part morels and part cremini mushrooms, and it was white wine and cream instead of red wine. I sauteed the sliced crimini mushrooms in butter, added white wine and the morel soaking sauce and cooked that down some, then added cream and cooked it more to thicken it. I added the morels at the very end so they didn't fall apart. The sauce in the recipe called for using the pan drippings, but I just made it ahead so I didn't have that last minute thing to do.

The appetizers were Jacques Pepin's salmon rillettes, from his new cookbook and PBS series. This was a huge hit, and can be made well ahead. I have two of these little pots of rillettes left. I'm thinking football game day food. This was served with crackers, though it would be good on baguette slices as well.

The other two appetizers were from Dorie Greenspan's Around My French Table cookbook. Seriously, go buy this. Most of the recipes are not fidgety, they can be prepared with readily available ingredients, and work well for parties (or just-the-two-of-us meals). The herbed olives are just that, olives in a herb blend that really kick up a plain olive mix. The tomato tarts as she does them are for more of a larger sit down course, I made them as individual tarts. They use puff pastry that you can bake ahead, then top with tapenade (I used store bought), a slice of tomato and mozzarella. Pop them under the broiler for a few minutes, then add salt, pepper, and a drizzle of olive oil and good balsamic vinegar and basil.

The ceviche was also from her cookbook.

No photo of the soup, also Dorie's recipe. I made this on pure faith, pretty convinced that it would be weird. It uses pears, leeks, onion, celery, and vacuum packed chestnuts, all cooked together in stock ( I used turkey stock since I have a surplus in the freezer). When it was done I ran it through my food mill. You can made this ahead, it doesn't have any cream/dairy so it keeps for a few days. I stirred a bit of creme fraiche into it before serving. It was actually very good.

The salad was mixed greens: romaine, radicchio, escarole, frisee, tossed with a basic vinaigrette, and topped with chopped pecans.

The pork couldn't have been easier. I've never done one of these, but you just season it with the herb blend the day before and let it sit uncovered in the refrigerator, then roast when you need it. Ask your butcher for a bone-in pork rib roast, frenched. Count on one rib per person for a generous serving. I served this with the mushroom/white wine cream sauce. Did I mention there was a lot of cream in this menu?

The same issue of Fine Cooking has two recipes for a potato gratin, I did the “fancier” version but left out the chestnuts since I thought that might be chestnut overkill. Next time I might add them. It's a fairly standard gratin recipe, but with a layer of sauteed prosciutto added before the gruyere cheese. It was divine. It had a lot of cream, bacon, and a ton of really good gruyere cheese.

And roasted beets, for some reason beets have become a Solstice tradition. I usually serve them in one form or another. I just toss these in olive oil, season with salt and pepper, toss in some rosemary sprigs and roast. There are some shallots in there as well.

And trifle. I haven't made a trifle in quite a while. See my last post for the recipe and photos. There was fortunately some left, we had it for breakfast this morning.

One of the things I've discovered over the years of doing big dinners like this is to minimize the number of last minute fidgety things that need to be done. We served from the kitchen in courses, so while a guest or two are helping clear the previous course, I have time to plate the next one. Plenty of wine helps as well to keep people occupied during course changes.

The other important thing is planning. I plan the menu well ahead, get all the shopping done based on the menu, then have lists and more lists. I have a detailed game plan of what gets done when, which helps me identify stuff that can be done ahead. It also helps identify when I've planned a menu with too many last minute fidgety things. John periodically reminds me of THAT ONE year when I didn't plan so well, and there was a lot of chaos at dinner time. Planning ahead also helps cut down duplication, for example, if I have multiple items with chopped or sliced onions, a detailed plan lets me know that so I can do them all at once.

There you go. I think it was a successful event, if the number of wine glasses are any indication.

And here is my pretty table before dinner:

And cleaned up, ready for the next meal!

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Solstice Time, or Trifle Recipe

It’s that time of year again. We are having our winter solstice dinner tonight for neighbors and friends. I have a six course sit down dinner for 10 people and I should be cooking instead of blogging. I posted a photo of the trifle on FB, and a family member asked for the recipe so here it is. This is a little updated for how the recipe has morphed a bit over the years.

Lorette’s English Trifle

1 large clear glass bowl

Sara Lee frozen pound cake, 2 of them. I actually only used about half of the second cake. If you slice it thinner you can get by with 1 cake.

Whipped cream, I used about a quart of whipping cream, whipped with a bit of sugar and vanilla. Use real cream, heavy whipping cream works best, and beat it fairly stiffly so it doesn’t wilt on you.

Vanilla pudding…NOT INSTANT, it will separate out in the trifle unless you eat it right away. I used 2 large packages of Jello brand pudding. Make this the day before so it can chill. Warm pudding won’t work.

Fruit. Fresh berries work best, of all the things I’ve tried. Raspberries, strawberries, and blueberries hold up best and don’t get soggy. And kiwis for the sides and top. A big trifle like this one used a dozen or so kiwis, peeled and thinly sliced. I probably used 3 or four cups of berries plus the kiwis.

Seedless raspberry jam. I used about a quarter to a third of an 8 oz. jar.

Sherry. Doesn’t have to be really expensive, but make sure it is not cooking sherry, use something you would actually drink.

Slice cake into about half inch slices, then cut these in half or thirds and line the bottom of the bowl. Spread a thin layer of jam on the cake pieces. After trying various utensils to do this, I decided that just using my fingers to spread it around works best.

Sprinkle with a bit of sherry…I used about 2-3 tablespoons per cake layer, maybe more, maybe less.

Stand your kiwi slices on end around the side of the bowl. See picture.
The idea is that you see the layers of kiwi slices through the glass, so you have to be a little fussy about placement. Putting the kiwi in place before you plop on the other layers keeps it all neater.
Layer fruit next, then a layer of pudding, then a layer of whipped cream.
Now do another repeat of the same layers…cake, sherry, jam, kiwi, fruit, pudding, whipped cream. Depending on the size of your bowl you might get a third repeat, but my bowl holds 2 sets.

On top of the last layer of whipped cream, arrange fruit slices in a decorative pattern.

Chill for at least 2 hours, then serve. You can make this earlier in the day as well. If you make it the day before, things get a little soggy, and the whipped cream doesn’t hold up as well.

You can vary this by using different fruit, different jam, flavor your cream, etc. I’ve seen variations that use chocolate cake, chocolate pudding, etc. If you’re not feeding the whole neighborhood, obviously you can cut this back and do it in a smaller bowl. The leftovers are great for breakfast, though, and people will eat more of this than you think. Even after devouring about twelve pounds of prime rib, we ate two-thirds of this bowl last night.

If you were Martha, you would make your pudding from scratch instead of a mix, and would make real pound cake yourself instead of buying it. It’s good even with the shortcuts, though. There were grown people standing around the bowl just digging in with spoons by the end of the party.

There you go. I’m getting back to work.

Changing Colors

I promised a mini-tutorial on how I'm doing the color changes for my crazy many-stripes Toboggan hat. I'm changing colors every four rows, and the thought of weaving in all those ends was enough to make ME crazy.

Here's how I did it.

Knit to the spot where you want your color to change. My new color will be the first stitch on the needle to the left.

Put a safety pin in the yarn coming from the last stitch you just knit. Snug it right up to the finished stitch.

Now unknit the last three stitches. Your safety pin will be in the working yarn right at the point of the third stitch (now unknit).

Take your new color, and crossing the two yarns, make interlocking loops as in the photo below. Make sure your “tail” end of the new yarn will be enough to knit three stitches and a little bit. You want the point of crossing right where the safety pin is in the first yarn.

Now, get your fingers tight right where the two yarns meet, take the safety pin out, and arrange your yarn so you can reknit those three stitches, this time with both strands of the first yarn color. Keep a good grip on the point where the yarns cross until you have at least one stitch knit to lock it in place.

Ready to knit the first stitch. Once you've knit the first stitch, you can let go of the death grip on the point where the yarns cross.

Two stitches knit, ready to knit the last white stitch.

Now knit the first stitch with the new color (mine happens to be on the next double point needle).

Three stitches knit with the new color. If you put your safety pin in the right spot, and didn't let the yarns slip, the color should change with the first stitch.

And there you go. Color change right where you want it.

The yarns should be overlapped enough that you won't need to weave them in further, especially if it's a nice wooly yarn. I suppose if I were doing this with something very slippery, I'd leave a longer tail and weave it, but with the Peace Fleece, I'm just trimming it to about 3/4 inch. It's on the inside of a hat, so it won't show.

Of course, on your next row/round, you'll need to remember to knit those two-strand stitches as one stitch.

Here's my project bag for the hat. The shawl I bought in Ecuador came with this bag.

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Toboggan Hat (And Ecuador!)

We're back from Ecuador as of late yesterday. This was a contender for one of the best vacations we've ever done. I've got the first load of laundry in the washer, but other than unpacking haven't gotten much productive done, such as download photos from the camera. So another major Ecuador post will have to wait. John is planning on doing posts on his blog One Eclectic Guy, so I might just leave it to him. I do have some fiber tourist photos though.

I found yarn shops in both Quito and Cuenca, but nothing was inspiring enough to take up suitcase space for the ride home. Most of it was fairly brightly colored yarn in big unlabeled skeins, so it was tough to even identify fiber composition. Here are a couple of photos. The one with all the yarn was in the back of a clothing shop.

The one souvenir I did buy was a woven shawl from a tiny little weaving shop we stopped at on a day trip out of Cuenca. It is a family run operation, they dye the yarn with natural dyes (those photos are on John's camera), then weave it and make shawls with hand tied fringe. Here are a couple photos.

The blue shawl I'm wearing in that photo is the one I bought.

That yarn was in a big basket in the shop. It wasn't for sale.

I am sort of discombulated today after a long travel day home. We left our hotel in Cuenca about 6:30 PM Thursday night, and got home from the airport aroung 2 PM yesterday. I have gotten some knitting done this morning on my Peace Fleece Toboggan hat though. I am making good progress on this. I took some photos of the technique for changing colors, but I'll save those for another post. Here's the hat.

I have lots more mini skeins in many colors to choose from for stripes!

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Ecuador!

And we're off again! This is John's big birthday bucket list trip, but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy it too! I figured I'd do a quick update since we leave for the cruise part tomorrow and who knows what the wifi situation will be at that point.

We left home Wednesday early AM. Our flight took us from Seatac to Atlanta, then on to Quito, Ecuador. Yesterday was our first full day here. We had a lovely 6 hour tour that included walking through part of the old city center. We saw some fabulous churches, including the San Francisco Church, which is right across the plaza from our hotel. Because all the good photos are on my good camera (and the little widget that transfers them to my ipad is conveniently at home), you get iphone and swiped web photos. You can't take photos inside anyway.

That really doesn't do it justice. You just need to make a trip here.

Here's the other major church we saw, the La Compania Jesuit church, which is also magnificent. This one has more gold leaf than anything I've ever seen.

Here's part of the lobby of our hotel.

And our hotel from the plaza. It's the taller building on the right, peeking through the umbrella.

We went up to one of the volcanoes outside the city for lunch, there is a little restaurant that looks down on the caldera. The volcano is Pululahua, and a couple hundred families actually live and farm down at the bottom of the caldera. You guessed it, the photos will have to wait until I get home.

After lunch we went to the Equator! Those of you on Facebook have seen these photos, but this was a total touristy hoot. There is a nice monument that has a cool museum inside, and a yellow line painted on the Equator line.

And that's us standing on the Equator. John's in the Northern Hemisphere, I'm in the Southern Hemisphere.

I'm off for a bit of a siesta before dinner. Quito is at about 9000 feet, and the altitude is kicking my butt just a bit. More updates later!

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Project Roundup

I haven’t done one of these posts in awhile. There’s a reason I had all my projects out on the floor of my office, which I’ll get to later. First here’s what’s up in my knitting world.

The sock in progress. Slow progress, but I do have one finished and the second one started.

Douglas Fir Hap for ~~Harriet~~ Lorette shawl. I finished the increase section and now just knit straight on until I have a about a third of the yarn left then decrease again. I was struggling with this until I decided to change needles. I started this on Knitter’s Pride straight needles, and I have to say, I really wasn’t enjoying knitting with them. It didn’t help that the needle body is made out of some kind of black carbon fiber composite, and made it almost impossible to see what I was doing unless I was in bright light. I switched to my Chiaogoo circulars and am having much more fun with this.

Hawk Affection. The Seahawks finally won this week, so I guess this won’t have to get burned in the back yard after all. That’s a good thing, this yarn is Hazel Knits Divine, and it really is divine. It would be a shame to burn it.

Rogue! I’m having a blast with this one. The pattern is as much fun as the first time, and of course I love Peace Fleece. If you can’t figure out what’s going on in that photo, the sweater is knit in the round to the underarm shaping. You start with ribbing, then purl a turning row, then knit more stitches, then turn up the hem and stitch in place. Then you knit a few rounds and put the main body on a holder while you knit the pocket. The cables at the sides are more fun than a barrel of monkeys. And this time I get to knit this using Knit Companion, which is a whole lot easier. This pattern is well written, but it is a bit on the wordy side, with about eleventy billion pages. Knit Companion lets me just see the parts I really need.

And a new project! This is a hat. A Toboggan hat, to be precise. The original pattern was written with 2 color wide stripes and a rolled brim. I hate rolled hems on anything, so I did ribbing. I then got the bright idea to buy a million little mini skeins of Peace Fleece in many colors and do mini stripes. It will be a stocking cap with a long tapered end and a braided tassel. And I’ll probably have enough leftover mini skein-lets to make more of these! Or, I know, a sweater! I have a whole sweater’s worth of that grey that I did the ribbing in, I could do a sweater with one row stripes of many colors!

When I get a minute I’ll show you the neat trick I learned to change colors exactly where you want it to change, while weaving in the ends at the same time. Remind me if I forget.

Last but not least, this one is in time out.

This is the Ruby Slippers Cathedral Stole. It’s a fine pattern, with gorgeous yarn. I just had too many lace things on the needles. Once I finish the Hap shawl, this one is next in line.

So, back to the original question of why all my knitting projects were out of bags and on the floor of my office. The exciting news is that it’s time for our big fall vacation extravaganza. This one is John’s trip, he is having one of those big birthdays this week (sssshhhh, he turns 70 on Friday), so he got to pick the trip. We are going on a cruise, but not just any cruise. Wednesday we fly to Ecuador, spend a few days there, then fly to the Galapagos Islands where we hop on the Silversea Silver Galapagos for a week. We will spend a few days back in Ecuador then home.

I do have the knitting projects packed. I’m taking the first three projects in that line up. Because I’m ~~delusional~~ an eternal optimist, I have a spare ball of sock yarn packed as well. I also, uncharacteristically, have everything else packed as well except the last minute stuff. I get to work Monday and Tuesday, and we leave for the airport Tuesday right after work, so I need to be ready. I’m sure I’ll pack and repack a few times before then. Who knows what the internet situation will be once we get there, but if we are wired, you will hear from me along the way.

I’m off to find what else needs to go in my suitcase!

The New Shiny

I need a new sweater. And it's October, so it needs to be wool. I've got a cardigan in progress, but I'm just not inspired by it. It's a top down thing in a lightweight yarn, and I'm just not loving the pattern. It's one of those patterns that has you go through all sorts of contortions while knitting just so you don't have to sew a few simple seams at the end. So it's been in time out, and I finally realized why I'm not working on it. Perhaps the time out will be permanent.

Instead, I started this.

As usual, the color isn't quite right in that photo. This is Peace Fleece, the color is Amaranth. In real life it is a deep garnet colored red, with tiny flecks of an almost blue-black. It is going to make a gorgeous sweater. Here is a photo lifted from the Peace Fleece website that shows the color better. Go buy some, so I don't feel so guilty about having enough Peace Fleece to make six or seven sweaters.

This, my friends, is the beginning of a new Rogue for me. I knitted one of these back in 2005. Those of you who have been hanging around with me for a long time might remember a little escapade involving a wine glass and three months off work that delayed the completion of my first Rogue.

Here's what the first one looked like.

My old one is starting to look a bit bedraggled, though still wearable. This pattern is so much fun, it almost knits itself. This time I have no plans to try to cut my hand to pieces with a wine glass stem though, so maybe it won't take all year to finish.

Maybe.

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Evenstar

Project Details:

Pattern: Evenstar, by Susan Pandorf

Yarn: Colourmart Cashmere/Silk 2/28 NM lace weight, 1500 yards

Needles: 2.75 mm

Started: February 12, 2010

Finished: September 18, 2015

For: Me!

Modifications: None

What I Learned: Oh boy. I learned that slow and steady gets you there eventually. This is easily the most complex thing I’ve ever knitted. The pattern itself isn’t that difficult. The yarn I chose is just a hair heavier than thread, and has absolutely no memory, and it’s a bit on the slippery side. So this wasn’t mindless knitting by any means. And the border is endless. You knit the whole thing in big concentric rings, then knit the edging on perpendicularly to the shawl. The edging is a mindless 20 row repeat, but in thread and with beads so it took forever. There were a couple of complex stitches in there but mostly it’s just following a series of charts.

The pattern is well written, this is the first of hers that I’ve done, but it was clear and mostly without errors (there is a link to errata on the Ravelry page). The lace is charted and written, though why anybody would want to knit lace from written text is beyond me. I started this before I was using Knit Companion, but used it for the last couple sections after I pulled this out of the UFO pile to finish.

Lora asked in the comments on a previous post about the blocking process. I soaked the shawl in slightly soapy water (Kookaburra wool wash), then rinsed in cool water. Silk and cashmere aren’t as durable as wool when wet, so you really need to support the wet lace when pulling it out of the bath. Then I blotted most of the water out with a bath towel, and pinned it out on my blocking mats, which are foam play mats that you can get in carpet shops or places like Costco. I have a ton of them so I can block almost anything.

Before I tossed it in the water, I ran a cotton thread through all the points, then pinned the thread and not the actual shawl. I forgot to take a photo before I had all the pins out this morning, but here’s a mini-recreation to illustrate.

Lora, I start by stretching it out gently by hand into as close to a circle as I can get it, then start pinning the running thread between the points to stretch. It takes a few times around, pulling a little more each time, and smoothing out from the center to get it as even as possible. I probably could have blocked this a bit larger, but I wanted to retain just a bit of the texture of some of those stitch patterns. I use a yard stick to measure in places to see if I have it even, but mostly I just eyeball it.

I love this one! It’s by no means a practical warm shawl, but I can see wearing it for special occasions. In fact, we have symphony tickets tonight, so I’ll wear it there. I’ll probably leave the tiara at home though.

Edited with one more photo. John wanted me to add a photo of just the edging. Here you go.