The Knitting Doctor

Weather Report

This is for Lora. She and her husband are moving to the Pacific Northwest this year, and I got a very plaintive email recently asking about the weather. (Remember when you did this, Kris?)

Here’s the photo of the day. It was cool and grey this morning, then all of a sudden I looked up and the sun was out, one of those famous sun breaks that we get.

Not the best photo in the world, but yes, Lora, the sun does shine here. This is not an April Fools’ joke. Of course it’s supposed to rain all weekend, and it’s only 40 degrees right now. It’s sort of a wimpy little sun break, but sun nonetheless. You can even see shadows on the lawn. All the trees are leafing out, the camellias are bloomed, the pansies are out in full force. I caught a Stellar’s Jay in our front tree right outside my home office yesterday collecting twigs for a nest, so baby birds can’t be far behind. The boy ducks on the lake are starting to jockey around for the attention of the girl ducks. I think spring might be my favorite season here, but then I say that about summer and fall when they roll around, too.

What’s your favorite season where you live?

Blue

As I was rummaging through projects this morning to take photos, I noticed a striking similarity.

Really, I’m generally more eclectic in color choices than this would lead you to believe.

From the top: Baktus, in a lovely merino silk blend DK; Evenstar Mystery Shawl; and my latest spinning project. This is Yarn Chef fiber, I’m too lazy to get up and find the band, but it’s a silk blend of some sort. I’ll post more about it some other time.

I had a little dust-up with those two knitting projects the past few days, both stupid bone-head knitting mistakes. Making an error and having to tink back on a near-cobweb weight shawl is a little more understandable, at least. I got stuck on one patterned row where the stitch markers shifted one stitch sideways all along the row. On one repeat my count was off. I counted, recounted, tried to figure out where the error was, and finally tinked back the whole patterned row, then back the preceding plain knit row until I got to the repeat where the count was off (almost all the way around the row, I might add). By the time I got it tinked back, the count was now right. I counted, recounted, said a few choice swear words, and proceeded forward again, holding my breath and counting every single blasted repeat as I went. There was no error, I just think I can’t count. Or perhaps one of the stitch markers had migrated temporarily under a stitch. Or who knows, the Knitting Goddess might be trying to teach me a lesson. There wasn’t even bourbon involved in this one, I swear.

The blue scarf mistake is really bone-headed, though, almost enough so that I don’t want to put it out here for all of you to laugh at me. I figure it’s my civic duty, however. If you click on over to the pattern, you’ll see that, after the initial set up rows, it’s a simple 8 row pattern repeat. Simple, simple, simple. I got 24 repeats done correctly earlier this week, did a couple more repeats, then picked it up to knit again yesterday. The repeat basically is the lace yarn over row with 3 garter stitch ridges in between. On the last two repeats, there were only 2 garter stitch rows. Damn. Out it came, and I reknitted another two repeats, and noticed that I still only had 2 garter ridges. Out it came again. I’m embarrassed to say that I did this drill one more time before I figured out the mistake.

If you’ll look at the pattern, the last two rows, rows 7 & 8, are plain knit. Because of the way the pattern formats, it printed out on two pages, with rows 7 & 8 on the second page. You can see where this is going, can’t you? I did the first 24 repeats with all 8 pattern rows, then inexplicably just changed the pattern to a 6 row repeat, omitting those last 2 rows. I figured this out last night during about the quintillionth NCIS rerun I watched, at about 1 AM, and just cracked up. If I was Tony DiNozzo, Mark Harmon would have smacked me hard on the back of the head. It’s now fixed, and I’ve hand-written those last two rows on the first page so the pattern is all together, and hopefully I won’t do that again.

It’s late, I’m off to bed. I’ll try to find some other idiotic knitting goofs to regale you with next time!

Blogiversary!

And I almost missed it, imagine that. Actually I started a post earlier today. WordPress has been nagging me to upgrade to the newest version for a while now, so I went ahead and clicked the button that said “OK, already, upgrade me and quit bugging me”*. Then I went to the blog to check to make sure everything happened like it should, and on first glance, it did. Then I noticed that all the little things that you click on, like the words that should tell you to “comment here” were in German. Um, right. Turns out there’s also a new version of the theme that I use, which is by a German web designer. It ended up taking me the better part of a beautiful spring day to get it fixed. By that time I was done blogging.

Now I’m back, and no longer in a blog-induced snit. I think I’ve fixed stuff, but if you notice weirdness, let me know.

Six years. That’s how long I’ve been doing the knit-blog thing. I started a knitting journal on the computer several months prior to that, then just decided one day to do it. I have to say it’s been a nearly life-transforming experience. I’ve learned so much about knitting, about “computering”, and about writing. I’ve met some incredible people, both in real life and “imaginary”. I’ve shared food stories, travel stories, and just stories about life in general. You’ve all learned about my foibles, my inability to drink and knit at the same time, and about my inability to walk and drink at the same time. You’ve all perhaps perceived that I’m one of the slowest knitters on the planet, but that I make it up in enthusiasm for each new project.

I haven’t been posting much over the past year, but it’s been a challenging year of transition in many ways. Most of it is work-related, which I can’t really write about here. That has gotten immeasurably better with the new job, though it’s been a process getting there. I hope you will all stick with me, since I have no intention of giving up the blog just yet. I have a bunch of stuff to show you, both spun and knitted, so hang in there! Thanks for reading, commenting, and being friends!

*Well, it really didn’t say that, but you know what I mean.

Okayyyyyy….

I didn’t mean to just disappear like that for almost a month. You all must have thought that I ran off with a banjo player at Wintergrass. Let’s catch up, shall we?

Wintergrass was swell. It’s hard to pick my favorite artist of the festival, though the Swedish group Väsen was right up there. Not traditional bluegrass by any means, but great Swedish folk music. Dry Branch Fire Squad, a more traditional Appalachian style group, was another favorite. You can’t beat a guy who sings great gospel, tells great stories, and plays hambone like a pro. We don’t have tickets yet for next year, but we’ll surely go again.

We also did a quick three day weekend trip to Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago. Round about January it dawned on me that we had neglected to plan a winter vacation this year to someplace with sunshine. If you live in the Pacific Northwest, and if you tend a bit towards letting the undertoad get to you in the dark rainy months, this is not a good plan. So we did a little get-away. I even won a bit of money, though we undoubtedly spent it all on food. The best thing we did there was eat at Joel Robuchon’s French restaurant. Yum. Just yum. It was seriously one of the best restaurants I’ve ever eaten at.

Otherwise the winter’s been about work, knitting, spinning, reading. Work is going well, just the usual winter busy-ness. I’m still loving the not-so-new job.

Knitting: I still have pretty much the same projects going. I’ll try to update them here over the next week, but here’s a new one. I joined the Evenstar Mystery Shawl KAL on Ravelry, and I’m partly through the second of three clues. Of course you all know that photos of lace at this stage look like crap. This one’s a circular shawl, which I’ve never done before. There was some serious swearing that went on over the circular cast on, but after a couple of tries, I got it going.

The yarn is from Colourmart, and it’s a silk/cashmere blend, in a 28/2 light laceweight. The color is Aquamarine, and it’s pretty much finer than anything I’ve knit with. The finished shawl will have beads on the edging, and I’m planning on using clear silver lined beads. At least that’s the current plan.

OK, that’s enough for one post. I don’t want to overwhelm you. I have more to say about knitting and spinning, as well as an upcoming blogiversary, so stay tuned!

The Church Of Bluegrass, Days 1 & 2

Well here we are again. It’s that time of year again, the Wintergrass festival. This year is one of great changes. The festival has had 16 years in Tacoma, and this year, its 17th year, it packed up and moved up north to Bellevue, for a variety of reasons. This was very traumatic to those of us who have been loyal fans for years. It’s always been convenient for us since we lived twenty minutes from the previous venue. As I’d already purchased tickets when they announced the move, we decided to go for it. Of course this means a three-night hotel stay, and figuring out pet arrangements, and a house-sitter. I went into this figuring nothing could be as good as the old Wintergrass. Bluegrass, at the upscale Hyatt, in upscale Bellevue? Hmmph. I was prepared to be disappointed.

Boy, was I wrong. This is a fabulous venue. All of the concert venues are in the hotel complex itself, instead of being scattered all over downtown Tacoma. There are literally dozens of good restaurants and shops within a few blocks, if you choose to leave the hotel. The staff at the Hyatt have just taken this on as a mission, and could not be more welcoming. The public spaces for vendors and the multitudes of jammers are much more spacious.

The festival runs Thursday night, Friday night, and all day Saturday and Sunday. We had tickets to the Seattle Symphony on Thursday night, so we missed the first evening. Last night was terrific. My favorite group from yesterday was the Infamous Stringdusters, but a close second was the Steep Canyon Rangers. My only complaint so far is that there are too many fine artists here, and it is impossible to see them all. Oh, and one of us forgot to put the camera cord in the bag, so there will be no Wintergrass photos posted to the blog for now.

I also brought numerous knitting projects with me on the trip. You can’t have too many knitting projects when you’re away from home for a few days. So far all I’ve worked on is a spindle project. I’ve gotten most of the way through a half a pound of natural-colored Blue Faced Leicester over the past few months, and I brought the spindle and fiber to the Ballroom with me last night. If I thought knitting was an oddity here, you should see the looks I get while spinning in between music sets. I’m certain that I’m the only one with a spindle here, but I’m hoping to start a trend. I’ll have John get photos so I can post them later, when we get that camera cord. We’re off to find breakfast, then to stalk some banjo men.

Perfect Day

There are a lot of wonderful benefits to blogging that I’ve discovered in the last almost six years. The most incredible, and unexpected bonus is all the lovely people I’ve gotten to know over the last few years. Some sadly remain only “imaginary friends”, as my husband calls all of you. I’ve been lucky enough to meet some of you in real life as well. Today was one of those days. I got to meet Jennifer, AKA the Major Knitter today. I don’t remember when I first discovered her blog, but we’ve become two of those imaginary friends over the years. She’s a great knitter, and a good writer. She and her husband were in town on business for a few days, so we arranged for a play date for the two of us today. The weather cooperated beautifully, and we had a stellar sunny, clear, and warm day together.

We hit a couple of yarn stores, went to the Seattle Art Museum for a couple of hours, had lunch, and gossiped. And compared knitting projects:

If you’ll all remember, we’re both doing the Faery Ring sweater. The Major is a bit ahead of me. We noodled a bit over the sleeve issue. The pattern is written in two size ranges, and the one we’re using isn’t finished, so we have to make up the sleeve instructions. After a little inspection of the pattern photos, I think we have a plan. Hopefully this won’t involve too much ripping and swearing.

Here’s another photo. We saw this funny tree outside a house on the way to lunch.

The birdhouses were just a hoot. You can tell what a beautiful day it was here! Thanks for a great day, Jennifer!

New Beginnings

Oops. I forgot to post for almost a month. I blame it on stupid Facebook games. Somehow I got sucked into both Farmville and Mafia Wars, and not much exciting has happened around here since. This weekend I plowed up the crops and I’m giving up the farm and the family (the Mafia family, not the real one) for Lent.

In honor of all the regained knitting time, I started a new project. Actually, this falls in the category of “Finish It Or Frog It“. I bought some lovely yarn a couple of years ago from Shelly of Butternut Woolens. It’s a 50% silk, 50% merino DK blend, in a gorgeous ice blue. Right after I got it, I cast on and started a ribbed scarf, got about 6 inches done, and just wasn’t loving the pattern-yarn combo. So it has been stuck in a bag for a couple of years. This morning I dragged it out, ripped it out, and started something new.

Here’s the old:

Here’s the new:

The pattern is Baktus, and I’m doing a modification that has rows of yarnover holes every 8 rows, on a garter background. It’s as simple as it gets, but will be a much better match for this lovely yarn. I will end up with a small triangular shawl out of this. The beauty of this pattern is that you can use any yarn. You start from one narrow end of the shawl or scarf, knit until you have used half your yarn, then decrease away to the other tip. It will be perfect for those handspun skeins. I read about this pattern over on Knitorious, go check out what Vicki is doing with sock yarn.

There are more New Beginnings, and one or two Finishings, but I’ll save them for another post!

Finished Project

I’m going to start putting my finished spinning projects on the blog, mostly so I have a record of them. Here’s that golden yellow Cormo I’ve been working on over the past few weeks, all spun up, washed, and dried.

That’s just a little more orangey than in real life, but it’s more of a harvest gold. It’s difficult to get that color to photograph well with incandescent light and a flash, and it’s January in Washington, so a good outside sunny shot is out of the question. I need to build me a light box. Here are the details:

Finished Spinning Project:

Fiber: Cormo roving, purchased from Apple Rose Fibers on Etsy. This was 8 ounces of roving, nicely prepared. There was a bit of vegetal matter in it, mostly bits of hay or straw, easily picked out.

Wheel Or Spindle? Spun on my Schacht Matchless, using the Scotch tension set-up. I used the fast speed whorl on the larger groove, I think that would be a 13:1 ratio.

Style of Spinning: Style? Who, me, style? I spun this using a worsted style of spinning, mostly a short forward draw. Mostly. I’m still new enough at this that I occasionally get a little off track. It’s a two ply.

Yardage/Yarn Weight: This ended up being somewhere between a heavy fingering weight and a light sport weight.. I got about 850 yards from this.

What I Plan To Make With This: I think this would be a great shawl. It’s very soft and squishy, and would also be good sweater material, if I had several times as much of it. Though it’s a little soft for a sweater, it might pill like crazy. I have in mind this shawl. Rav link here, for you Ravelers.

What I learned: Well, how to answer that one. I’m so new at spinning that everything is a new experience. This was my first Cormo. I have another whole bag of this in a pretty bright aqua color, too. Every fiber has been a new experience to me. This drafts differently than the merino stuff I’ve mostly been working with. It’s not difficult, just different. It’s sproingier to draft, and either the fiber was well-prepared, or I’m getting better at drafting. I didn’t have to do much fiddling with it or pre-drafting at all. I just pulled it out of the bag and started spinning. The worsted style yarn I ended up with is lovely, but I’d like to try this fiber again using a long draw technique.

I also learned not to judge the yarn until it’s all done. This looked like a twisty overplied mess before I finished it, and I was almost tempted to run it back through the wheel to unply it a bit. I soaked it, snapped the hanks a bit, hung them to dry, and it all looks beautiful.

In case you’re roaming around my blog looking for something specific, I’ve started categorizing the new posts. There’s a drop-down box over in the right menu bar that will get you there. I’ve done this with all the posts since I moved the blog, and I’m slowly working through the older posts, moving photos and cleaning up links. “Finished Spinning Projects” is the newest category!

Rescued Off The Back Burner

This WIP update is brought to you by the True Blood Faery sweater. This one has been on the back burner since before Christmas, and I was starting to have a few doubts about it. I’ve gotten the bottom cable done, and am about 4 inches or so into the body of the lower part of the sweater. The whole thing is knit in one piece up to the armholes, then split at that point. So now it’s this big unwieldy mess, and I’m in a morass of stockinette until I hit the lovely cables of the bodice part.

This Faery almost bit the dust this week. I’m sure it was that huge expanse of stocking stitch that got to me, but I started squinting sideways at it sitting over there innocently in its bag, having second thoughts about it. It looks so…huge. The other thing that’s been bugging me is the sleeves. The designer did the initial pattern in smaller sizes, then due to popular demand, sized it up to include 3 larger sizes. That version still isn’t complete, since she hasn’t added the instructions for upsizing the sleeves. I’m pretty sure I can figure that out by using one of the smaller pattern sizes and adding stockinette stitches to make up the difference, but still. It annoys me. So I’ve been putting off getting back at it. Two days ago, on my way home from work, I just figured, OK, I’ll get it out tonight, make a decision. Rip or not, but just do it.

I got home, dragged it out, and got out a coat that fits me that’s roughly the same length and shape, and compared.

It’s a little hard to tell from the photo, but I think it will be perfect.

Back to stocking stitch. I’ll think about those sleeves later.

Spinning With Friends

I had a wonderful time last weekend, though I’m just getting around to posting about it. Dorothy (Missouri Star) and her husband Bill came to visit us over the weekend. They live just a few hours from here, though we rarely get to see one another, for one reason or another. Now that she’s retired, and I have a more sane work schedule, I hope that situation changes!

Dorothy and I both used to say that we would never take up spinning. Ha! I fell hard last summer, and it was only a few months later that she was asking questions about spindles and wheels. When she joined the Beginning Spinners group on Ravelry, I knew that it was all over. She bought a spindle, then got a wheel last month. She brought her wheel with her, a nice Ashford Traveller, and some pretty hostess gift Romney fiber from a neighbor’s sheep, named Rainbow! We did a little spinning, a lot of chatting, eating, and generally having fun. John & Bill hit it off, and managed to find things to do that didn’t involve spinning or talking about spinning. They brought their Corgi, Maggie, along with them, and after a bit of jousting amongst the dogs to figure out who the biggest alpha bitch was, everybody got along just fine.

Dorothy is a natural as a spinner. Go look at what she’s been spinning on her blog (but come back!). After just a few weeks, she’s spinning nearly laceweight, very evenly.

I managed to finish spinning a whole pile of Cormo (that insulation yellow stuff from several posts back, though it hasn’t been washed up yet, so it’s not ready for a photo op). I did start a new spinning project while Dorothy was here.

The fiber is from Chasing Rainbows Dyeworks, in the color Forest. I bought 2 ounces of this color in a merino-bombyx silk blend, and another 2 ounces in the same color in merino-tencel. I have the silk blend all spun, and I’m about half way through the tencel, then plan to ply them together. We’ll see how that works out. I did do a little couple yard sample, and I think I’ll like it. Here’s where I bought the fiber. The colors really are that rich.

Last but not least, here’s one of my spinning helpers. Lewey tends to sit right under my feet while I’m spinning, and Will is just pretty sure this is where he belongs.

And this is probably why he’s so friendly lately. When the weather’s better, he’s outside a lot, but he’s not a big fan of rain.

Come to think of it, I’m getting a bit tired of that rain myself!

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If you haven’t done so already, go here and read Stephanie’s post about Haiti. She’s said it much better than I can. If Doctors Without Borders isn’t your favorite charity, pick another one, but dig deep and give. If we can all afford to have computers and yarn and fiber toys, we can certainly sacrifice a bit of cash to those affected by this horrifying disaster.

Another WIP

This is just a quick post from my office desk in the few minutes I have left before the afternoon patients start to arrive. I have another new WIP to show you that I’ve been working on awhile, but neglected to post.

Want a little closer look?

Mittens! How exciting! The most exciting thing about them is that it’s my own yarn, that I spun myself! Yee-hah! The photos don’t really do justice to the sparkly goodness that this fiber is. Click the photos to get a little better look. The fiber is a merino/silk blend with some Firestar added to the batts for sparkle. It comes from Anna at Corgi Hill Farms, and it’s just delicious. This is one of my earlier spinning efforts, so it’s a bit uneven, but it turned out to be roughly all the same gauge, so it works for me. The pattern is a combination of one of Ann Budd’s mitten patterns from her book The Knitter’s Handy Book of Patterns, and my own jerry-rigging. I used her numbers to get the thing started, then just adjusted on the fly. I’ll post general directions as to my modifications when I get the things done.

I’ll post more later, but I just had to get this up here. I pulled them out to knit a bit after lunch and thought, why, I’ll show the blog world what I’m up to!

How Did It Know??

Just a photo:

This was one of those “captcha” things you enter for comment verification. Sometimes I just try to make words in my head out of them, but this one made me laugh out loud. Yes, I’m easily amused.

Happy New Year!

A day late, but better late than never. At least I have an excuse. Over the weekend, that would be last weekend, I developed something I’m calling Ebola virus. I got both flu vaccines earlier in the fall/winter, but the symptoms are quite flu-like, and I’ve now had it for 7 days. I took two days off work last week, then fortunately have the 3 day New Year’s weekend off, so hopefully I’ll mostly be recovered by Monday when I have to go back to work. I actually went in to the office on Wednesday, but the nurses quarantined me, then sent me home as soon as they could get the patients rescheduled. So, Happy Fracking New Year! I’m having so much fun so far! I have a relentless cough, a squeaking voice, and today I got to add Imodium to the lineup of pills I’m taking for this! What fun!

We did sort of celebrate the New Year, though I was out cold long before midnight. If there were any fireworks on the lake this year, I missed them. We had clam chowder and champagne for NYE dinner, then blackeyed peas yesterday for supper for good luck. Today I’m thinking tea and toast, since my tummy is a little iffy.

Now, on to New Year’s knitting resolutions. They’re pretty much the same as last year. I want to knit more of everything, knit more of my stash, learn to be a better spinner (a new resolution this year!). First up is to go through all the WIPs and UFOs and clean house. It will be finish or frog around here.

Here’s the first UFO/WIP. It’s now officially a WIP again. This is the Froot Loops Morning Glory stole, which according to the blog and Ravelry, I started in May of last year. Who knows why it got sent to the UFO pile, since the pattern is a lot of fun, and the yarn is delightful. Here’s the non-Rav link for those of you still in the dark ages. The yarn is Brooks Farm Harmony, which has been discontinued. It’s a mohair, wool, and silk blend that is very lustrous and just a little bit on the fuzzy side.

The stole is knit in two pieces, then grafted down the center. I’ve finished the edging and the mesh border on the first piece, and am in the first repeat of the main part of the stole.

I’m off to find more cough syrup. Stay tuned next time for the next WIP/UFO!

Peony Socks!

Whew! I finally finished something.

Project Details:

Started: April 30th, 2009 (hey, at least it was in the same calendar year!)

Finished: December 26th, 2009

Yarn: Zoe Shalimar Sock, color Peonies, purchased from Kris at Sonny & Shear

Needles: Signature dpns, size 2.25mm

For: Me

What I learned: Knitting plain socks is still endlessly amusing. And I love wearing plain socks in every color of the rainbow.

This yarn is quite nice. It’s superwash merino, and I added a bit of pink Wooly Nylon when I knitted the heels and toes, to give it a little more durability. I tend to just wear through my socks at the bottom of the heels, though it’s better if I wear them with real shoes, and not Birkenstocks. For some reason, the open clogs rub more on the sock. If you want to try the Wooly Nylon, here’s where I got mine, though you can find it in fabric shops as well. I have it in a bunch of colors, though it’s fine enough that even if it doesn’t match perfectly, it just disappears. I just try to get in the same general color family and intensity.

I hope everyone’s holiday was lovely. We are still having ours, with the last set of family arriving today for dinner and gift exchanging. Santa will probably be glad, he’s had a busy week. I had the honor of working for the four-day Christmas weekend, and have to go in today as well, but then I have a couple of days off, and I do get the New Year’s weekend off as well. Just as a public service announcement, remember to go buy your black eyed peas for the annual New Year’s Day BEP cook-off. I wouldn’t want you to get caught short without them!

The Tour of the Christmas Tree

Everybody else is doing it, so I thought I’d jump on the bandwagon and show photos of some of the ornaments on our tree. Our ornaments are best described as “eclectic”, with no apparent theme. We’ve collected them over the years, and a few are from our respective childhoods. Here are some of our favorites:

And last, but not least:

Have a very merry and blessed Christmas, everyone!