The Reluctant Penguin

A Week of Knitting

2010-03-19T13:45:00.001-04:00

My friends thought I was crazy when they heard I was going on a “knitting cruise.” In truth, there were moments when I thought I might be nuts. For one thing, the ship that was far larger than the other ships I had been on, and the thought of being onboard a floating city had always been horrifying to someone with a dislike of crowds and a terrible sense of direction. But when my friend Debby heard about Debbie Stoller’s Stitch ‘N Beach cruise a few months ago, we decided to sign up – even before we knew about the horrific February we were going to have to endure in New Jersey before the much-needed escape.

We had doubts about whether we would make it to the ship, whose main virtue in my view was that it left from Bayonne, NJ, so we didn’t have to fly (unlike many of the participants, some of whom had real horror stories to tell), but departure day was the third day of a snowstorm that paralyzed the entire Northeast. Amazingly, there was absolutely no traffic on the turnpike (for the first time in recorded history) so we made it to the entrance to the port in about 45 minutes, but then it took another hour to crawl to the less-than-2-miles to the terminal. Once on board, we were able to delete those images of snowdrifts, badly shoveled sidewalks, and dangling icicles from our minds and imagine sunshine and balmy Caribbean breezes.

Or not. The first two days were pretty rough. The second night was interesting. I happened to be awake before 4 AM and decided against getting out of bed because it seemed especially rocky. Suddenly I realized that the ship felt like it was listing to one side and not moving. After what seemed like an eternity (but in fact was only a couple of minutes) it righted itself and started moving again. At one point there was a crash as a toiletries case flew off the shelf in the bathroom – no big deal, though we heard later that there was a lot of breakage in the dining room as china set for breakfast flew off the tables. Twenty minutes later the captain got on the PA system and announced that everything was now fine, but that we had been experiencing 40 MPH winds, and then suddenly a 100 MPH wind had blown up from another direction, forced the ship off course and put out the autopilot, and that they had “temporarily lost control of the ship.” (NOT words anyone ever wants to hear.) The autopilot was back on, we were again on course, and all was well. We should all go back to sleep. Yeah. Amazingly, Debby and I didn’t panic, though we spent the next half hour or so giggling about a variety of apocalyptic scenarios. We heard the next day that some people had panicked, donned their lifejackets, and headed for the muster stations before the captain made the announcement. We also heard that a few morons had gone out to the deck to investigate, one telling us that he was glad he was able to light a cigarette in all that wind! (If this had been an IQ test, he would certainly have flunked.)

While that was the most exciting few minutes of the cruise, the rest was fabulous. We spent 8-10 hours knitting each day. On sea days we had morning and afternoon classes, and every night we had dinner together and then adjourned to one of the lounges for a Stitch ‘n Bitch at Sea, bringing either our own knitting projects or something from one of the classes to knit while we chatted and drank mudslides or mojitos. Most nights we went off to bed to knit “just a few more rows” before turning off the lights. Who would think someone could knit that many hours a day without suffering from achy hands and wrists?

Debbie Stoller is wonderful teacher. While the participants had a wide range of knitting skills, everyone left every class having learned something new. We had sessions on such topics as double knitting, slip-stitch designs, alternative cast-ons, crocheting for knitters, designing your own sweater, and how to fix knitting mistakes. Some of us learned that we had been purling wrong all our lives, holding the yarn wrong for a long-tail cast-on, or twisting stitches inadvertently. Others learned how to crochet for the first time or how to hold the hook in a more efficient manner. Even the accomplished lace knitters learned something about the structure of lace stitches and improved our ability to “read our knitting.”

One of the highlights of the cruise was the “Yarn Tasting” event. Debbie had gotten yarn samples from a wide range of companies, from the big companies to very small producers. We were given lengths of yarn to knit into a sampler, so that we were able not only to look and touch but actually to knit. Not only were there wool and silk, but exotic fibers like bison and yak, wonderful blends of these fibers with merino and cashmere, and some lovely hand-dyed yarns. Many of the companies had also sent her full skeins, which she distributed in such a way that we all came away with several skeins of something we loved. We all expanded our yarn horizons and will unfortunately have to expand our yarn budgets as a result!

We did get a few days of the sunshine and the warmth we were craving, but that was the least of it. We had a nine-day “high” with a wonderful group of knitters from a variety of places and backgrounds, learned a lot about knitting, and discovered what nice, friendly, generous people knitters tend to be.

Finishing the year with Finished Objects

2009-12-27T10:29:00.019-05:00

It has been a long time since I have posted a blog entry. Is there material for a New Year's Resolution here?

The last month has been very productive, knitting-wise. I have completed quite a few projects, and while I have entered all the details on my Ravelry site, they didn't quite make it to the blog.

The most ambitious was the Masked Ball in Venice shawl, which I had hoped to finish in time for the High Holidays in the fall, but because I ran out of yarn (twice), that didn't happen. I used yarn that was a slightly heavier gage (really just a tiny bit heavier) than the pattern called for, thinking that it was just a shawl so gauge didn't matter. With all those stitches (about 1200 per row by the end) scrunched up on the needles it was impossible to tell how big it was. Then I bound off and washed it and set it out to block. Oh my goodness -- it was enormous!

Pattern: Masked Ball in Venice by Monika Eckert
Yarn: Jaggerspun Zephyr

This was done as part of a KAL, but I fell far behind. The pattern is gorgeous, and the KAL was fun because in addition to the pattern, sections of the story that inspired it were released from time to time. I really needed a black shawl and had a substantial part of a cone of Zephyr left from another project, thinking it would be enough. Wrong! Unfortunately, the beautiful detail of the pattern will probably not ever be seen, since I will be generally be wearing the black shawl over a black dress. Lesson learned from this project: Gauge does matter, even with shawls. And "a little bit off" can add up to a lot when there are hundreds of stitches to a row.

The two sweaters that were finished this month were both done with Colourmart yarn. The first, a pullover, with cabled neckline and sleeve detail, was done in Extra Fine Merino, which is soft and luscious.

Pattern: 114-8 Jumper with cables by DROPS design
Yarn: Colourmart 100% Extra Fine Merino 12/30NM Super DK Weight
Needles: KnitPicks Harmony US #7

The yak cardigan was a real labor of love. The designer had offered to customize the pattern for members of the Colourmart group and I jumped at the opportunity, fortunately before she realized that her generous offer would be far too much work if more than a few people responded!

Pattern: Classic A-line Yak Cardigan by Margarete Dolff
Yarn: ColourMart Superyak/Extrafine Merino (50/50) 3/14NM Fingering Weight
Needles: KnitPicks Harmony US #3

The yak/merino yarn is very soft, very light, and very warm. Despite the miles of potentially boring stockinette (on very small needles), it was so delightful to knit that it wasn't a problem. It was perfect for knitting during movies, lectures, and conversations with friends. The ribbed band is knit separately and sewn on because it is a different gauge from the stockinette, and that turned out to be the perfect project for one of my flights down to Florida to visit my mother, even when the return flight had a 4-hour delay.

And speaking of labors of love, I made backpacks for my grandsons for Chanukah, but only after asking them if they thought they would like them and asking them to select which of the adorable patterns from Morehouse Farms they would like. One chose the Owl, and the other the Snake.

They are knit with the yarn doubled for the bottom and top band, and a slip-stitch pattern for the body, so they are quite substantial – especially because they are knit on size US #5 needles, quite a bit smaller than what one would normally use with this yarn. My friend Debby, who had made the Hippo backpack for her granddaughter, realized that nylon straps with buckles instead of knitted straps would be much more practical, and she offered to do the same for mine. The kids seemed to like them, so the project was a success. Now on the needles... two more for the other grandchildren.

A New Year's wish for all you knitters... May all your projects knit to gauge, and may all your UFO's be finished by the end of the coming year!

Can you have too many shawls?

2009-05-30T10:59:00.006-04:00

One of my New Year's resolutions this year was not to knit more shawls. I love knitting lace. I love knitting shawls. I love wearing shawls. But how many does one person need? I have a whole shelf of them in one closet. The more delicate and complicated the lace, the more I love it and the less I wear it. Since I live in the northeast, where it is cold most of the year (even in summer, where there is a tendency to over-air-condition public places), I almost always have a shawl with me to throw over the other layers. But I rarely get "dressed up" and the lacier, dressier shawls seem to languish in the closet. But I can't resist the urge to knit more of them!

I also have a hard time resisting a puzzle. So when Kalinumba announced the Wings of Horus KAL, it seemed like a natural. There was even a cone of light blue Zephyr sitting calmly in the stash, perfect for this project. So I succumbed.

But then something terrible happened. Renee of Goddess Knits announced the Anniversary Mystery Shawl 09. Since my previous attempt at one of Renee's shawls ended in a trip to the Frog Pond, this was an opportunity to redeem myself. And... there happened to be some cream-colored Colourmart cashmere available in exactly the right weight. How could I NOT?

Both projects are proceeding nicely. There were some scary moments with Wings of Horus. In order to download each of the weekly clues, we had to solve a riddle involving ancient Egyptian mythology. I solved the first one quickly, but the subsequent riddles were more difficult. Thank goodness for the KAL group on Ravelry! Thanks to Google and some hints provided by more clever and knowledgeable group members, disaster was averted. In fact, there were a few awful hours when I thought that after knitting the first five clues, I wouldn't be able to get the final one! As much fun as it was, I may have to remember those feelings of dread the next time I consider doing something like that. There are just about 20 more rows to finish, but by now there are over 500 stitches in each row, so it may take a while.

And speaking of shawls, I never blogged about the large, lovely, soft alpaca Klabauter shawl from this past winter. That was another KAL by Monika Eckert. (I was seduced into making that one after my experience with Moni's Slow Bee Mystery Shawl, now available as the Icicle Lace Shawl.) It was a fast knit, done in Lavish Superfine Alpaca in a mint green. The yarn is a little heavier weight than most of my lace shawls, but Moni was very clever with the design – she offered edging options at several different points along the way, so there was a lot of flexibility in the size of the finished shawl. It is large enough to snuggle up into, and I expect it to become a staple of my wardrobe in the future.

Unfortunately, it has one problem. The alpaca sheds. I wore it out last night over a black knit top, and by the end of the evening not only did I have little wisps of greenish-white fluff all over my formerly black top, but even the sleeve of my husband's sport jacket was covered. (He had the misfortune of sitting next to me.) I am a little afraid to machine-wash the shawl, but hand-washing didn't remove the loose fibers when I originally blocked it, so I'm not sure where to go from here. Suggestions welcome!

It IS a jacket after all!

2009-03-28T16:47:00.006-04:00

I had my doubts, many times in the course of this project, that this oddly shaped piece of knitting would ever metamorphose into a wearable garment. While I was always an A math student, plane geometry was a challenge, and involved brute memorization of formulas and proofs rather than any intuitive understanding. (Does anyone do proofs any more? My mathematician friends complain that even college math courses are light on proofs until the upper levels.) Visualization of three dimensional objects was totally beyond me, and even two dimensional objects could be problematic.

To backtrack a bit… In Italy in October 2007 I bought 12 skeins of Filatura di Crosa 127 Print. (Probably not enough, but all they had in the little shop in Tuscany where we stopped on our way back to Florence.) I searched for months for a pattern that would not result in horizontal stripes and eventually came across the Boku Mitered Jacket. After purchasing the pattern, I had my first doubts even before casting on. There was no schematic, and I wasn’t sure about whether I could fudge the size, length, or anything else to accommodate the amount of yarn I had. Eventually I ordered a few more balls of yarn from Webs, and while it wasn’t the same dye lot, it was close enough.

At various points I set it aside to work on other things, partly because I was so uncertain of where this was going. With most patterns, you start with the back, then the front(s), then the sleeves, and it is clear where you are at any time. This pattern, though, begins with the center back and works at an angle… okay while you are still on the back, but then it wanders over to the sides and the front, and you pick up stitches at various points along the way. (With any luck, you will pick up the CORRECT stitches, but it is hard to know for sure.)

Eventually it started coming into place, but I was almost ready to give up when nearing the end, since it didn’t seem to fit properly, but adding additional rows to the edging around the collar made a big difference. I had added some solid Elann Peruvian Highland Wool for the cuffs and the band around the bottom and collar, and I think that finished it off nicely. (In truth, I used the solid black because I was still afraid of running short of the 127 Print, but I might have done that anyway.) In the end I was happy, but it was probably the most stressful knit I have ever had… partly because I wasn’t sure all the effort was going to result an a wearable jacket, and partly because the yarn had such wonderful associations with the trip to Tuscany that I didn’t want it to go to waste.

Hats, Hats, Hats

2009-02-25T15:30:00.014-05:00

Earlier this week I looked at my blog and discovered that I hadn't posted since the end of October. I guess it's time for a New Year's (slightly used New Year) resolution to blog more regularly.

It's all Ravelry's fault. In the past several months, the time I would have spent blogging seems to have been gobbled up by Ravelry. Between updating my own projects and looking at other people's projects, it has become a real time sink. But what an amazing one!

This has been a dreadful winter in the Northeast, and as a result I have been on a hat knitting kick. It started with the Meret beret, which was a free pattern offered by Wooly Wormhead as part of a Ravelry KAL. I had just finished it when I suddenly needed a birthday gift for my sister-in-law, so I decided to give it to her and make another one for myself. Only this one I decided to give to a friend as a Chanukah present.

Meret was a well written pattern, and I enjoyed it so much that I bought Wooly Wormhead's book (despite her unfortunate name) Going Straight, a collection of 24 designs using a sideways construction method. The biggest problem was deciding which hat to make first!

The winner was Guimauve, a slouchy beret with an unusual, slightly-pointy shape, though the point is much less pronounced when worn than it is just sitting for a photograph.

Like the other two hats, I made this one from stash yarn – in this case Park Avenue, a now discontinued alpaca-merino blend by Lily Chin. Because the yarn is a heavier gauge than the pattern calls for, I needed only 8 repeats instead of 10. The fit is perfect.I may try the same hat again some time with a variegated yarn as it is shown in WW's pattern photo.

Another ball of Park Avenue was leftover from a sweater and too pretty to abandon, with just enough for a not-too-big hat, so I next tried Trinity. It was a good travel project – extremely portable and not too difficult. It was a little too small – wearable, but too small to be pulled down over both ears. After deciding not to wear it day after day, I decided to extend it by picking up stitches along the bottom and adding a brim. There wasn't quite enough Park Avenue left, so I added some green KnitPicks Wool of the Andes, which blended in perfectly. It is now my favorite hat.

On really cold days, my favorite is Strudel, for which I used Lavish Superfine Alpaca that was leftover from a shawl (a subject for another post). It is another nice warm hat, that fits well and covers the ears. The horizontal cables give it an interesting look, and it stays put even on windy days.

There are still several hat patterns in the WW book that are on my To Do list. Maybe next winter. (If this one ever ends.)

Second Chances

2008-10-30T13:10:00.015-04:00

This was a week for second chances – at least knitting-wise.

Last winter I made the wonderful Oblique sweater by Veronique Avery. It me took about 5 months to knit it, and in the end it was too big. When a member of one of the on-line knitting groups offered to buy it from me, I decided to sell it to her, and immediately bought yarn for another one. It was the same yarn – even the same color, though the dye lot for the second one was a little grayer. I was surprised at how much faster it was to knit the second time! The lace patterns were far less intimidating, and after the first few rows I barely had to look at the instructions for each section. Here is the finished product:

Pattern: Oblique, by Véronik Avery, Knitty, Fall 2007
Yarn: Ella Rae Classic Wool, approx. 9 skeins (1900 yds)
Needles: KnitPicks Options US #8
Modifications: Omitted waist shaping; shortened cuffs

I have already worn it twice and expect it to be my standard grab-it-whenever-cold sweater for this winter.

My other Second Chance was the Alix Shawl. I had made one for my mother over a year ago, using some colorful sock yarn that seemed a little too colorful for socks. She seemed to like the shawl, but it mysteriously disappeared shortly after I gave it to her. I decided to make her another one, since she is always cold, even in Florida, and wanted to use either sock yarn or a washable wool, and found a nice superwash merino in variegated blues. It was good that it was a totally different colorway from the first shawl, since as I was about to finish it, the original one turned up in one of her dresser drawers!

Pattern: Alix's Prayer Shawl
Size: 64" x 30"
Yarn: Fibranatura Baby Merino (superwash), 4 skeins
Modifications: Crocheted bind-off

As with the Oblique sweater, the shawl was much easier the second time. The pattern for each row seemed very easy to memorize. I'm not sure whether it was easier because I had done the same pattern before, or because of all the more complicated lace knitting I have done in the interim. Either way, it certainly shows that experience pays off.

One more object (though this was not a re-do) finished recently is the Syncopation Mitered Bag:

Pattern: Syncopation Miterd Bag by Sheera Designs
Yarn: Cascade 220 (a little more than one skein) andMadil Yarns Rebus (1.5 skeins)
Needles: US #6
Modifications: None
New skill learned: I-cord

This pattern had the potential to be a nightmare, but it has such clear diagrams that even somebody "geometrically challenged" was able to do it. Once I started to pin labels on each completed section to identify the number of the section, it became much easier.

This pattern may have a Second Chance in its future.

I can't believe it's over

2008-09-01T10:55:00.005-04:00

The end of summer always comes as a surprise and a disappointment. Since I love the two months of summer and hate the six months of winter so much, the end of August is always a depressing time. We still operate on an academic year calendar, and while the start of the new school term always brought with it the promise of a fresh start, for a retiree it just means the onset of cold, gray misery.

But enough whining (or whinging, as the Aussies would say).

August was wonderful. We had a delightful vacation cruising in the British Isles (where in fact it was cold, gray, and rainy everywhere we went). And I got an amazing number of UFO's finished.

My "cousin" Michael's wife had twin daughters in July. (The relationship is more complicated than that, but the details are irrelevant and boring.) My major objective for the cruise was to finish these for my visit shortly after our return:

The variegated yarn is Bella Colour, a cotton and acrylic blend from Plymouth Yarn. The pattern is the Toddler Jumper that I got from Discontinued Brand Name Yarn when I bought the yarn in the pink and gray the first time to make a dress for my granddaughter. I bought the blue for the second dress (before I knew the baby would be twins) and had almost enough of the pink left over for another one, but not quite. Fortunately I found the solid gray (Caron Country, a washable wool/acrylic blend) which coordinated color and texture-wise at the local A.C. Moore just before we left. They came out quite nice, don't you think? The babies' mother was delighted with them, which is always nice when you give a hand-knitted gift (and happens far too infrequently).

I couldn't go to visit without a gift for the twins' two-year-old brother, so the few days between our return home and the trip to Miami I went on a knitting blitz and finished the Childhood cardigan just in the nick of time. The yarn was Mission Falls 1824 cotton, which has a very nice feel to it and is supposedly washable (though I would always recommend handwashing for hand knits). The mom was equally delighted with this! One interesting thing about this pattern is that it calls for snaps instead of buttons (though it is shown with fake buttons sown on). I didn't have time to buy buttons, and my wonderful friend Clare had the perfect snaps. I think I like it just as much without buttons, unless you happened to have particularly interesting ones. And it was nice not having to bother with buttonholes.

My other major project for the trip was the Revontuli (Northern Lights) shawl. (Yes, I know the pattern is in Finnish, but the designer fortunately translated it into English.) My mother lives in Florida but is always cold, so I wanted to make her something both colorful and warm. When I saw this pattern on Ravelry I knew it would be perfect in Kauni wool yarn, which comes in a rainbow colorway with very long repeats. It was, unfortunately, less soft than I would have liked, but once knit and washed, it was acceptable. I wasn't sure if my mother would like the colors, but she seemed to be very happy with it. (And she doesn't fake happiness very well.) I had two skeins of yarn and still have about 1/3 of the total left. Until it got really big, it was a good travel project, because the pattern was very easy to keep in mind with only an occasional glimpse at the pattern at the beginning of each row.

I actually did some more knitting in August, but that's enough for one post. More coming... along with some photos from the trip.

Slow Bee finished on time (more or less)

2008-07-27T12:25:00.004-04:00

I love this shawl!!! It is a beautiful design, large enough to wrap up in (even for zaftig person), in a wonderful color, shimmering with little silver beads.
Pattern: Slow-Bee Mystery Shawl by Monika Eckert
Yarn: JaggerSpun Zephyr Wool-Silk 2/18, teal
Needles: KnitPicks Harmony #US3
Beads: Silver-lined crystal beads (8/0) - approx. 75 gm from Emelia Beadelia
Modifications: Used Version 2; omitted beads in last two rows before the end

The shawl was a delight to knit. I blew up the charts a bit to make them easier to see, but they were well done. I used an itty bitty crochet hook to add the beads, and it wasn't difficult but it really slowed things down on rows that had a lot of beads. By the end of the shawl, there were over 800 stitches per row, so even the simplest rows took a lot of time. No matter, though – it was fun watching the pattern evolve, and the icy-greenish-blue color along with the shimmery silver beads were perfect for summer knitting.

Mystery KAL organizers always emphasize that it isn't important to keep up with the schedule of clue releases, but it does impose a kind of internal deadline. There were a couple of weeks that I didn't quite make it for one reason or another, but did manage to catch up during the next week. I really wanted to finish it in time to take it on our summer vacation, and just managed to do it with a day or two to spare.

Blocking a shawl this large was something of a challenge. Thank goodness for interlocking foam pads! I didn't much like having to get down on my hands and knees to lay it out, and probably didn't do an optimum job as a result, but the shawl is lovely in spite of a mediocre blocking job. At one point I accidentally stepped on an edge of the shawl, complete with little glass beads... I won't be doing that again any time soon!

Welcome, Mother Earth

2008-07-06T14:20:00.006-04:00

Today I am happy to introduce Mother Earth, a.k.a. Spring Shawl Surprise:
Pattern: Mother Earth by Lul (Lene Unmack Larson)
Yarn: ColourMart Cashmere 3/28NM Heavy Lace Weight, approx. 300 gm
Needles: KnitPicks Harmony US#5
Size: 24" x 96" blocked

The yarn is heavier than recommended, so I was concerned that it would be too large, but it is absolutely perfect. Like other Colourmart cashmere, it metamorphosed into something soft and warm and scrumptious after the Tough Love treatment (wash in very hot water with Dawn, subject to the dryer on low for about 15 minutes before blocking). One of the true pleasures of knitting lace is the very last step... seeing it change from an amorphous blob to a beautiful objet d'art. That effect is magnified when the yarn is Colourmart cashmere, which doesn't look or feel like anything special on the cone, but becomes transformed once the spinning oil is washed out and it is fluffed up in the dryer.

According to Lul, her main thought about the design was "to bring out circles and curves (which I pretty soon realized isn’t easy in lace knitting). Circles to represent how almost everything in life is repeating itself again and again, the changing of the seasons, being born –growing up-getting old-dying and a new human born again, sunrise-daytime-sun set and night. It all moves in circles and we are all just part of a bigger event 'Life' , let it be human or nature. Curves to represent the curves of a woman –the main image of the stole being a rather modernistic shape of a pregnant woman. She is standing on the bigger circle that represents the Earth, with the tree of life in the center to remind us that we are all part of the world and we all live important lifes. We may look differently, but we are all the same –man or woman."

Note on photo: Because of the length of the shawl, it was difficult to get a good photo of the whole thing. I finally took a series of shots and let Photoshop do its magic with photomerge. Despite the odd perspective and lighting effects, the shawl really is rectangular and a uniform color.

Trouble is waiting...

2008-07-01T19:08:00.004-04:00

Where, o where, is Ma Bell? We have been without phone service for two days, and the Verizon Trouble Report Status page says only that "Trouble is waiting to be dispatched to a technician." Waiting, and waiting, and waiting. I can only imagine a knitter, impatiently tapping her foot as she knits, waiting to be dispatched. This cartoon from A Good Yarn portrays it pretty well.

In the "olden days," the phone line almost never went dead. One the rare occasions that it did, the phone company repaired it the same day. Yet this is the third time in the last three or four months we have lost our phone service, and each time it took two days before it was repaired. (Once we were away, and it was out for over two weeks.) At least this time they didn't insist that we wait at home for their repairman to show up.

Knitting in lieu of tranquilizers

2008-06-22T14:27:00.008-04:00

The more we travel, the more stressful it seems to be. I used to get nervous a day or two before a trip. Now it is more like three or four days, and the anxiety is even more intense. When the actual day arrives, it reaches a peak as we wait for the ride to the airport, then sit and wait the obligatory two or three hours for the flight. I have found recently that a combination of knitting and listening to music can help pass the time and is sufficiently distracting to lower the stress level. The same is true during the 3 or 5 or 12 hours of flight time.

This time we had a 12 hour flight to visit our son and grandchildren. I was only gone for 5 days but planned my knitting very carefully. I managed to finish the various pieces of the Scallop Edge Pullover from a recent issue of Knit Simple, worked on the Luscious Lace Scarf from Pixie's Paraphernalia, and fiddled with a ball of Louisa Harding's Kimono Angora until it found a pattern it liked.

The Scallop Edge Pullover is an easy knit, though I made a few changes to the pattern. The back was excruciatingly boring (plain stockinette), but the detail in the front made it much more interesting.

Pattern: Scallop Edge Pullover by Lauren L., Knit Simple (Spr.-Sum. 2008)
Yarn: Lily Chin Chelsea (cotton, merino, acrylic blend) - 8 balls
Needles: Knit Picks Harmony US #4

Modifications:
GAUGE – larger gauge than pattern calls for. I miscalculated the number of stitches to cast on, and then decided to make it an “A” shape, wider at the hips, partly out of laziness (since I didn’t want to frog) and partly because that style is usually flattering. I probably should have ripped it out and started again.
HEM – Simple crocheted edging, because I was afraid the picot hem would be too bulky. That was a mistake. After I did the picot edging around the neck I realized that it would have been fine. Sleeve hem – ditto, but used garter edge.
LENGTH – added several inches. The pattern was much too short.

When all that stockinette got to be too much, I switched to lace. The Luscious Lace Scarf was easy enough to knit with only an occasional glance at the pattern at the beginning of every few rows. The fine cashmere yarn was soft and stretchy and felt lovely in the hand. I am still debating how many more pattern repeats to do. Maybe I will just keep it as an UFO for our summer vacation.

The other project for this trip was to find a satisfactory scarf pattern for the Kimono Angora. It is nice and soft but the colors are really strange. I bought it on sale and thought I liked the colors, then vacillated between love and hate. After trying several different patterns I gave up and just did a simple stockinette rectangle, adding a drop stitch across the row at random intervals, sometimes using single yarnovers and sometimes doubles. This was also good airplane knitting, because there was no pattern to juggle, but the occasional drop stitch rows kept it interesting, along with watching the effect of the color changes.

A lot of knitting was done in those five days. Because of the impossibility of sleeping in the tortured position those airline seats force you into, I alternated knitting (while watching movies or listening to music) with reading. And thanks to jet lag, there was also a lot of knitting time at night once we were there. And thanks to all that knitting, I was much calmer during all that time, and I have a completed sweater and two 75%-finished scarves to show for it – instead of just high blood pressure and palpitations.

Finally, a Cabled Tee

2008-05-26T11:47:00.004-04:00

One of the first patterns that caught my eye when I started knitting sweaters again (after a 20+ year hiatus) was the Cabled Tee. Many members of the Ample Knitters group had made this sweater, and the pattern was even written for larger sizes without having to do advanced mathematics to adapt it, but I hadn't done cables for a long time and was a bit intimidated. Plus, I was having so much luxuriating with wool, alpaca, and cashmere, that cotton seemed a little boring. This yarn was a closeout at Web's, and it seemed like a good compromise.

Pattern: Cabled Tee by Maureen Taylor & Patricia Brunner
Yarn: Lily Chin Chelsea (30% merino wool, 35% cotton, 35% acrylic) – 8 skeins
Size: 1X
Needles: Knitpicks Harmony US #5
Modifications: Ribbing in the Twisted Rib pattern used in the Oblique cardigan

I love the way this pattern was written. Directions were given for a variety of sizes at three different gauges, so it wasn't necessary to recalculate anything. O that there were more patterns like this one!

This week I met a friend for a shopping expedition. She wanted to go to the anniversary sale at the Wooly Lamb, a lovely yarn shop in Pennington – not so far for her, but too much of a trip for me under normal circumstances. The staff was very friendly and they had by far the best selection of gorgeous yarns I have ever seen in a real live LYS. The only reason I managed to walk out empty-handed was their sale discount policy: On entering the store, everyone was asked to pick a little slip of paper out of a basket and would get the discount written on the slip. Mine was a 15% discount, and my friend's was a 25% discount. Another friend, who met us there, got a 35% discount! I simply couldn't bring myself to buy anything with my measly 15% off when other people could buy the same items for a lot less. A gorgeous alpaca-silk yarn for a sweater for me would have been over $200 at list price but with S's discount, I might have splurged... after all, my birthday is coming in another 5 months! The truth is that I didn't need it anyway, given the size of my stash, so maybe they were doing me a favor.

Cabling on the Edge

2008-05-12T11:34:00.011-04:00

In the many years I have knit sweaters with cables, I never knit (or even thought of knitting) a cable right at the edge. But the beautiful and original pattern by Anna Dalvi for the Mystic Light Shawl KAL includes a cable along the short edges of the triangular shawl. The cable provides for nice firm edges, as well as complementing the design, which also includes a cable down the center.

It was quite daunting to do a cable right at the edge at the beginning of the Knit-Along. Upon the advice of my sister, who managed to start this shawl before I did, I learned how to do the cables without a needle using this tutorial by Wendy Johnson. What a revelation that was! Once you get the hang of it, it is far easier than looking for the cable needle, juggling it around, knitting the cable, and putting it down again (hopefully in a place where it won't get lost before the next cable). It felt awkward at the beginning or the end of a row, but after a few tries it seemed perfectly natural.

Here is the finished shawl and a detailed view of the cables:

Pattern: Mystic Light by Anna Dalvi
Yarn: 2 skeins Fleece Artist Merino Sock 2/6 (764 yards)
Needles: US #7
Size: 34" x 68"

Another interesting aspect of this pattern is that it calls for fingering weight yarn, so it went much faster than most lace. The yarn (amazingly enough, I used the yarn suggested by the designer) is nice and soft, with good drape, and it should offer a little more warmth than lace-weight fabrics.

My very next project after completing this shawl is the Cabled Tee, a short-sleeve sweater with a cable down the front that branches up along the neck. Even after looking at the picture, it didn't occur to me that the cable along the v-neck was right at the edge. (Surely there was a stitch or two border beyond the cable???) In fact, the cable is right at the edge, just like the shawl. It really isn't any harder than a standard cable, though it can be tricky to move those stitches around without dropping the end stitch in the process.

What's next? A break from cables, though I'm sure there will be more in the not-too-distant future. Yesterday was the Cast-on for the Slow Bee Mystery Shawl, and here is the first half of the first clue. The recommended color is "something really cold, like white or natural yarn, icy blue or very dark violet or dark blue" with seed beads. After considering both Teal and Ice Blue Zephyr, both with silver-lined crystal beads, I finally decided on the teal, though both remind me of this photo that I took in Antarctica:

When a Gauge Swatch Isn't Enough

2008-04-28T17:17:00.007-04:00

I swatched. I washed the swatch. I measured. I knit – to gauge, I thought. In the 5 months it took to finish this sweater I never thought to try it on, and the dimensions of the pieces seemed to match the schematic. Over the weekend I finished the collar and button band, sewed the pieces together with only two crises (putting the button band on the wrong side of one the fronts, and then sewing the sleeve to the wrong side). This morning I tried it on. Yikes! It could be a tent!

Pattern: Oblique, by Véronik Avery, Knitty, Fall 2007
Yarn: Ella Rae Classic Wool, approx. 9 skeins (1900 yds)
Needles: Denise US #8
Modifications: Omitted waist shaping; shortened cuffs

Things I like about this pattern:

The design, with its diagonal focus
The combination of lace patterns, including the twisted rib
The use of lace patterns with worsted weight yarn
Well-written pattern which was easy to follow, even after putting it down for weeks at a time

The only problem is that it is way too big. I should probably have made a size smaller, but past experience had led me to believe that sweaters can't be too big. I am looking for a solution that does not involve frogging the whole sweater and starting from scratch... as much as I enjoyed knitting it, once was enough. Controlled shrinking???

Drops Jacket Drops off the Needles

2008-04-27T12:27:00.006-04:00

Sometimes the yarn is absolutely right for a project, even if it isn't the yarn recommended by the pattern. That was the case with the Kathmandu Aran Tweed I bought for myself after using it for the Cobblestone sweater for R. I had thought about making another Cobblestone sweater for myself and then came upon the Drops Jacket. Here it is:

Pattern: Drops Jacket from Garnstudio.com
Yarn: Queensland Kathmandu Aran Tweed (Sea Green) – approx. 1400 yds
Size: XXXL
Modifications: Buttons omitted (forgot to put in buttonholes); Collar simplified

It was quite distressing to realize that I zipped through the second front without putting in the buttonholes. (The instructions said to do it the same way as the other front, but in reverse, and with buttonholes.) But then a quick look through the Drops Jackets on Ravelry showed that I wasn't the only one, and it looked fine with a shawl pin as a closure, or even with nothing at all. The collar modification was more intentional: The collar as shown with the original pattern seemed bulky, especially given the heavy yarn, so I made it smaller and simpler. I wasn't sure how it was going to come out, but in the end it was perfect.

With the arrival of spring, this sweater (jacket?) is perfect for those days when it is colder outside than it looks. We've had lots of those lately.

A Close Call

2008-04-12T10:38:00.008-04:00

Spring has finally come! Here is the ornamental plum tree in our front yard. It always blooms at the beginning of April and was a little late this year, when we were about to despair that winter was going to hang on forever.

One of the ironies of the arrival of spring after a too-long winter is that I am finishing up several items that we won't use until the weather turns cold again.

There is nothing like knitting to get your heartrate up, when it looks like you might not make a deadline or, even worse, you might run out of yarn. Yesterday I was about to start the edging of the Hemlock Ring Throw and realized that there wouldn't be enough yarn to complete the edging, so the last repeat of the Feather and Fan section was frogged before starting the edging. Half-way around, the remaining ball of yarn started looking very small. Too small. Miniscule. The remaining circumference was looking very, very large. What to do??? Knit faster! It was hard to take the suspense, and I could feel myself breathing harder, my pulse rate up, and the tension was still mounting as I started the last of the eight sections. What would happen if I missed by a yard? A foot? Would I ever find another skein of yarn in the same dye lot? Finally it was over...

The photo shows how much yarn was left at the end, barely enough to thread through a tapestry needle to weave in, maybe 2 inches. And that was after cheating a bit on a few of the loops in the last section. Whew! The edging takes a lot more yarn than one would think! It is now blocking and I think we will get a lot of use out of it next winter. I may even consider making another one as a gift.
Pattern: Hemlock Ring Blanket by Jared Flood, a.k.a. Brooklyntweed
Yarn: Cascade Ecological Wool, 2 skeins (956 yards less 2 inches) Color #8063
Needles: Denise #10
Size: approx. 48" diameter (blocked)

Travel knitting: a scarf, a shawl, and a hat (or 3)

2008-04-01T09:31:00.011-04:00

Planning knitting for a trip can be a challenge. It can't be big and bulky (like an afghan or most sweaters); it has to be interesting enough to keep you from getting bored, and it can't be so complicated that it is hard to concentrate in adverse conditions like airplanes and noisy airports.

For our recent trip to South America I settled on the Kiri Shawl plus a scarf and a hat. The Kiri was a good choice pattern-wise, though my color choice – black – was probably not the wisest choice for the dim lighting of airplanes and hotel rooms. I really need a black shawl, which is why I decided on this yarn for this pattern, and the Kiri seemed like a good straight-forward design for something in a dark color, where a lot of detail would be lost. The yarn was lace-weight Zephyr, doubled. (I wound a ball off the cone, then wound yarn from the ball together with yarn from the cone. At home, I probably would have just knit with the ball and the cone without bothering to wind them together.)

Sometimes the yarn just doesn't want to be knitted into a particular pattern. I had a few balls of Filatura di Crosa 127 Print that I thought of using for a scarf in a feather-and-fan pattern, but it just wasn't working. There was lots of time on a 12-hour flight to experiment, sleep not being an option, so there was much frogging and re-knitting before I settled on a simple rectangle with yarnovers every eight rows. With the yarn that was left I was able to make two hats, the Floppy Brim Hat me and a simple ribbed cap for R. (His hat is photo-less since it is temporarily MIA.)

The other project for this trip was the North Star Tam from Arctic Lace. In the absence of quiviut yarn, I used some Yubina Laceweight Cashmere, doubled. There was a little problem with gauge, and being away from home I didn't have a wide variety of needles or other resources, so I just plugged away and then made some modifications at the end. The shape of the resulting hat isn't really a tam, but it is soft and warm and covers the ears. There was still time (and yarn) to do the scarf, but I got through two pattern repeats before deciding that I didn't love it enough to knit all those stitches in such fine yarn, so the scarf is now a permanent UFO and will eventually be frogged.

Other knitters like to work on socks while travelling, but I always seem to be at the complicated part (the heel), where I have to pay close attention to the instructions. Somehow it take more effort planning the knitting for a trip than the wardrobe. What I learned this time is that one project isn't enough... If it doesn't work out, it would be terrible to be stranded on an airplane/ship/tour with nothing to knit!

Last week I had to make an emergency trip to Florida. The flight was 3 hours each way, plus the requisite 2 hours in the airport for the departing and returning flights, so even if I had no other time to knit, there would be a solid 10 hours of knitting. There was some Colourmart cashmere in my stash left over from the oh-so-aggravating Sprinkle Lace Cardigan, and I chose the Falling Water Scarf as a gift for a friend. It is a beautiful but simple lace pattern, and it worked well in the cashmere. It was almost finished by the time I got home. This pattern is definitely a keeper... in the right yarn it would work for either a woman or a man.

South America – Many Sheep, Not Much Yarn

2008-03-17T11:44:00.006-04:00

We spent two weeks recently on a wonderful cruise in South America. We started in Valparaiso, Chile, sailed along the coast of Chile through the starkly beautiful fjords, continued down to Tierra del Fuego and throught the Straits of Magellan, and up the east coast of Argentina to Buenos Aires with additional visits to the Falkland Islands and Montevideo, Uruguay). All of these areas are major sheep-grazing regions, with mile after mile of Patagonia devoted to grazing sheep and, in some areas, the occasional herd of alpacas. And yet... NOWHERE* was I able to find a place to buy yarn! Since much of the commercially available yarn in the U.S. comes from South America, this was a real surprise.

The only yarn that came home with me were two hanks of roughly processed undyed wool that I bought in Coyhaique, Chile, a town that seems pretty far from anywhere else. When I asked our charming young guide if there was a place in town to buy yarn, she told me that her Grandma might have some in the market. Indeed, as we walked through the plaza to the market I spotted two women winding yarn, and the woman on the right was Grandma. She knits sweaters, hats, and ponchos and sells them in her small shop. I bought two hanks of yarn from her

though I am not sure what to do with it. It is too rough to wear close to the skin, but might work for a poncho if there is enough yarn. Our guide was so bright and enthusiastic, and I was feeling so yarn-deprived, that I just wanted to buy something there.

The other irony of this situation was that Michelle, the aforementioned guide, told us that the main industry of this region (near Puerto Chacabuco and Puerto Aisen) is salmon fisheries. The salmon is raised on farms and shipped directly to Japan. None of the fish is available to residents of the area, unless it comes back from Japan in a can. (An interesting discussion of the ecological problem with these fisheries can be found here.)

Perhaps the yarn produced in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, and Peru (where I failed to find yarn last year) has the same problem... It originates here in large quantities but is produced only for export. So back to buying high-quality wool and Alpaca on line!
_____
*There are several yarn shops in Buenos Aires, but our "tour" between the ship and the airport didn't take us to that area.

My New Favorite Sweater

2008-01-21T08:00:00.000-05:00

This is my new favorite sweater. I finished weaving in the ends over the weekend and tried it on for size. And then I didn't want to take it off!

Pattern: Central Park Hoodie by Heather Lodinsky
Size: 52
Yarn: Queensland Kathmandu DK, 12 balls (approx. 1750 yd.)
Needles: Knitpicks Options US #6

The yarn is a beautiful tweed, 85% wool, 10% silk, and 5% cashmere. I originally bought it because I really wanted the Aran tweed, but it was out of stock at Webs (where it was a closeout). Of course, after I bought the DK version, Webs got in a new shipment of the Aran, so I had to buy that too! As it turns out, though, the DK was a better choice for this sweater. It has just the right weight, drape, and warmth for a sweater to wear all winter in my too-cold house. I still need buttons for it, but it is fine even without them.

The pattern was originally published in Knitscene (Fall, 2006) and was so popular that Interweave Press offered it for sale as a separate pattern, with additional sizes (up to 60"). Way to go, Interweave!!! The best part is that the plus sizes were actually worked up separately by Lisa Shroyer, and not simply resized proportionately. (You can see it modelled on a Gallery at Knitting Daily.) Lisa also provided an alternative button band, with crocheted loops instead of buttonholes.

I fought the urge to wear the CPH today for the third day in a row, but my efforts were useless. I only hope that I don't wear it out before I can make another cardigan from that Kathmandu Aran Tweed sitting in my stash.

And now for something completely different...

The Spring Shawl Surprise mystery KAL proceeds and now awaits the fourth clue. There are a few little errors that I hope nobody else will notice. Unfortunately I didn't notice them myself until I pinned it out to take the photo, and they were too far back to frog. Now I am worried about the yarn – luscious as Colourmart cashmere is, I am having doubts about whether it was right for this project. On the other hand, if the yarn is gorgeous enough, maybe it will compensate for knitting errors...

Ending the year with a Finished Object

2008-01-07T09:47:00.000-05:00

The knitting year ended with completion of the Cobblestone Sweater. It was received so enthusiastically by its recipient that I am even contemplating knitting him another sweater!

Pattern: Cobblestone by Jared Flood, Interweave Knits, Fall 2007
Yarn: Queensland Kathmandu Aran Tweed, 12 skeins (approx. 1200 yds)
Needles: Knitpicks Harmony US #7
Size: 48"

Despite the fact that I swatched and seemed to be knitting to gauge, the sweater is a little too big, though he seems to like it that way. I am tempted to try to shrink it a bit, but am nervous about overdoing it. But more about shrinkage later...

The yarn is very soft, with an interesting texture. I bought the same yarn in green for a sweater for myself, and I may even do the same pattern, though maybe at a slightly tighter gauge.

Another year-end project was totally inadvertent... I washed my beautiful Alberta shawl, which has been dragged around mercilessly over the past year, and which was looking decidedly dingy. I put it in the washing machine on the extra gentle cycle, and out came my first felted object!

The "new" shawl is still wearable, but it is smaller both in width and in length. The plus side is that it is probably warmer than the original.

The new year has brought with it the usual array of resolutions, including completing the backlog of UFO's, going on a yarn diet (not to mention the other kind), and refraining from casting on new projects until the old ones are finished. It is now one week into 2008 and I have already violated all of them.

Late last week I read comments on several blogs about the Spring Shawl Surprice (yes, spelled that way!) KAL. After Swan Lake, aka Mystery Stole 3, I decided to forego mystery shawls for a while, since I have a long To Do list of patterns that I have actually seen. But then I was drawn in by photos of the first clue of Spring Shawl, and discussions of the spelling (just a typo by someone who is not a native English speaker) and couldn't resist. Some green Colourmart cashmere was calling out from my stash and seemed like the perfect choice for this project.

Because 2007 ended with the demise of my computer and the sudden purchase of a new one, the last few weeks have been consumed with setting up the new computer, installing software, recovering data from backups, and dealing with assorted driver and software conflicts. This all put a huge crimp in my knitting time. I am hoping to spend more time knitting and less time in front of the computer in 2008.

Cables and Cashmere

2007-11-28T11:20:00.000-05:00

About three years ago I bought the book Knitter's Stash and immediately put a bookmark in the page for the Cable-Wise Cashmere Pullover. I hadn't yet discovered Colourmart yarn, so cashmere seemed far too extravagant, but I envisioned the sweater in a merino or alpaca. Then other sweaters came along, plus a long spate of lace knitting, and I forgot about it. In the meantime I had succumbed to "a few" cones of Colourmart cashmere, and made the Sprinkle Lace Cardigan (plus its accompanying shell) from 100% cashmere DK, which didn't break the bank. A recent reorganization of my stash revealed 4 cones of a Colourmart cashmere-merino blend, and this sweater leaped to mind and was swatched and cast on practically before I could catch my breath.

Pattern: Cable-Wise Cashmere by Karen Damskey and Leslie Storman in Knitter's Stash
Yarn: Colourmart Cashmere/Merino 8/28NM DK Weight - color Air Force - approx. 400 gm
Size: XL
Needles: Denise US #7 and #6

The pattern required a little tinkering because the maximum size was too small, and because the initial swatch indicated that there would be some shrinkage after washing and blocking. (Like the Colourmart 100% cashmere, the cashmere/merino requires washing in hot water to remove the spinning oil and fluffing briefly in the dryer.)

The sweater as blocked and worn looks a little different from the one in the photo in the book. The reverse stockinette bands surrounding the cables are much more evident, both on the body and on the sleeves, but I don't think that detracts from the sweater at all, even if it isn't exactly what the designers had in mind.

Lesson Learned from this project: Weave in the ends, but don't snip them off before blocking. I keep finding little endlets peeking out on the right side.

A running start on Cobblestones

2007-11-18T12:13:00.000-05:00

Much to my surprise, my husband recently hinted that he would like a new sweater. It was only a surprise because he has a lot of sweaters, including several well-worn ones that I made for him in my previous incarnation as a knitter too many decades ago to count. Most of them are "bought" sweaters, though, and he is beginning to appreciate the difference between handmade and commercial knitwear. Oddly enough, the fall issue of Interweave Knits had a beautiful men's sweater and I had turned down the page "just in case." It is the Cobblestone Pullover by Jared Flood (a.k.a. Brooklyn Tweed). Not only is it a gorgeous sweater, but it is done in the round with no seams. And Webs had a closeout on Queensland Aran Tweed in a scrumptious brown that reminds me of chocolate tossed with flecks of chopped pecans and almonds.

This sweater had to wait a few days after the yarn arrived because my Denise needles were occupied by the Cablewise Cashmere sweater from Knitter's Stash. Unfortunately, this sweater does NOT have a seamless construction, so it may be a while before it gets pieced together. The only thing that may encourage me to do the dreaded seaming is that the yarn is a soft and luscious 50/50 cashmere-merino blend, and I am anxious to wear it.

The one drawback to seamless sweaters is that they become a bit cumbersome to carry around. I was afraid the Cobblestone sweater-in-progress wouldn't fit in my pocketbook for the trek into New York yesterday to see The Marriage of Figaro at the Metropolitan Opera with Bryn Terfel. (It was fabulous, in case you're interested.) An hour on the train each way plus intermission time provided a good opportunity for knitting, but even my quite commodious pocketbook has its limits. So a day or two earlier I started another sweater, Oblique from this month's Knitty. This seemed like a good choice, because I have taken a brief respite from lace knitting, and this cardigan is constructed from several lace patterns, though it is done in worsted-weight yarn. I had bought some EllaRae Classic Wool from Webs (who can resist a sale???) when I ordered the yarn for R's Cobblestone, and it was the perfect gauge for this sweater.

And then I remembered... Lace, even in a heavy gauge, is too hard (at least for me) to knit in public, certainly on a moving train. So the Cobblestone gained a few more inches after all – and it did manage to squish into my Save Your Back bag after all.

Knitaly '07

2007-10-25T14:54:00.000-04:00

It has taken me a week at home to write about Knitaly '07, Jane Thornley's knitting adventure in Tuscany. How to describe perfection? Spending 10 days with a congenial group of woman (plus one lone husband), staying in a castle on a Tuscan hilltop, eating fabulous food, and learning new ways of thinking about knitting... Even the weather cooperated, with unseasonable warmth and sunshine every day and not a single drop of rain.

After a few days in Florence (which I won't describe since I have written about it before) we stayed at the Castello di Gargonza, a 14th century castle between Siena and Arezzo. The castle and much of the village have been renovated with modern plumbing and heating. The accommodations are simple but comfortable, with fireplaces and even kitchens. My cousin Barbara and I stayed in the guard house just outside the castle walls, a short (uphill) walk to the main building.

Everywhere we looked the scenery was like a picture postcard. This is the view from the garden, but everywhere the views were like picture postcards. One hardly knew where to look first! What was particularly striking was the colors... the palette of Tuscany was uniform, no matter where we went, with its greens, browns, and terracotta. This time of year the colors are a bit more subdued than in the summer, when the landscape is ablaze with right yellow fields of sunflowers. But the more subtle October palette was beautiful in its own way and provided an inspiration for our knitting projects.

Jane's knitting workshops involved "free range knitting," wherein one ignores almost all rules, and combines different fibers, colors, and textures in an imaginative way. As Jane says, "Remember that knitting free-range style requires a different approach than regular, pattern-driven knitting... Free range knitting is about following your own knitting spirit and letting go." For somebody as left-brained as I am, that is a tall order!

Our projects consisted of a scarf/shawl inspired by the colors of Tuscany. Jane provided us each with a pack of gorgeous yarn before the trip, and each one was a little different. The basic yarns were assorted colors of La Lana Bombyx Silk, with a variety of ribbon and novelty yarns thrown in. We were encouraged to supplement the yarn with bits and pieces from our own stash, but several of us had nothing that was suitable and stuck to the yarns in the pack. We were told to cast on 30 stitches, increase for a while and then decrease for a while to make the center section, and then to knit straight on one end, then pick up stitches and knit straight on the other end. Of course, since Jane doesn't believe in rules, she fully expected (and probably hoped) that some of us would totally ignore even those simple guidelines.

The results definitely provide an interesting fabric, though I'm not entirely convinced that I would wear something with that much color. I still have about 1,000 ends to weave in – a definite drawback to the multi-yarn approach – and some embellishing to do with beads, so it is still very much a work-in-progress. Isn't it amazing how we all started with similar yarn and came up with such different results?

Of course we spent a lot of time sight-seeing, visiting San Gimignano, Siena, Volterra, Chianti, Cortona... There was a twist, though – on the bus there was always a lot of knitting going on, either on our Knitaly project or other projects we brought from home, and our shopping expeditions included yarn and bead shops whenever possible. And nobody said "Are you knitting again???" There is a lot to be said for travelling with other knitters!

Finished Green Objects

2007-10-04T14:57:00.000-04:00

September was a month for finishing green objects.

The lovely Bee Fields Shawl is actually a springlike green-and-yellow mix that makes me smile whenever I look at it. The hand-dyed laceweight merino from Wooly Wonka Fibers is a perfect fiber for this stole. It has a beautiful drape and the subtle color changes do not at all detract from the complex lace pattern.

Pattern: Bee Fields Shawl by Anne Hanson
Yarn: Hand-dyed merino laceweight by Wooly Wonka Fibers, approx. 1200 yds.
Colorway: Tupelo Gold (actually greener than gold, but lighter than it looks in the photo)
Size: 74" x 36"
Needles: Addi Lace Needles #US 5

This may have been the most difficult lace project I have ever knit. The instructions were comprehensive and detailed, even when they seemed to make no sense at all, they were right. I enjoyed it immensely and look forward to doing more of Anne's patterns in the future.

Another green project completed in September was the Filey Sweater by Alice Starmore. I was inspired to knit a Gansey by Liz Lovick's Gansey workshop in the EZasPi group. After poring over patterns and books my eye always came back to the Filey style. I found this pattern in Alice Starmore's Fishermens' Sweaters, which had been on my bookshelf for quite some time. The only problem was that the pattern was written for a Rowan yarn that has 20% shrinkage in length, and the yarn I had chosen for it had very little shrinkage. (Even less, it turned out, than the swatch, which I must have washed more aggressively than the finished sweater.)

Pattern: Filey by Alice Starmore in Fishermen's Sweaters
Yarn: Frangipani Guernsey 5 Ply Wool from Frangipani approx. 1.5 cones for XL size
Needles: Denise US #5
Modifications: Much recalculation was necessary because of the difference in gauge and shrinkage rate of the substitute fiber. Additional seed stitch panel added on sides after I initially failed to take into account the effect of gauge of cables.

My calculations weren't quite right so the sweater is a little bigger than it should have been, but it's hard for sweaters to be TOO big... I imagine wearing it with two layers underneath once the weather turns cold.

As if that weren't enough green, I decided to use some of the leftover yarn to make this hat:

Pattern: Gretel Beret by Ysolda S. Teague
Yarn: Frangipani Guernsey 5 Ply Wool from Frangipani
Needles: Denise #5 & 7
Size: Slouch (largest of three sizes in pattern)
Modifications: Because of an error and various efforts to compensate, the top of the hat isn't quite right, but I still like the way it looks.

There is still one green UFO awaiting completion, the Fiddlesticks Garden Shawl, whose edging goes on and on and on... Maybe October will be the month to finish that one.

Icelandic Lace Shawl photos

2007-09-16T09:51:00.000-04:00

It never ceases to amaze me how much magic is involved in the blocking process. Here are some photos of the completed shawl.

It is soft and light and beautiful and should be a pleasure to wear. Or maybe I should just leave it folded over the sofa as an objet d'art.

Icelandic Lace - Ready for Winter

2007-09-15T15:53:00.001-04:00

The beginning of fall is always a difficult time for me. It means that the glorious warm sunshine of summer is coming to an end, and the frigid gloom of winter is about to descend after a brief autumnal interlude. On my personal calendar we have two months each of spring, summer, and fall, and then six months of winter. O that it were reversed!

This year I greeted fall, which begins, according to my personal calendar, on the first of September, by knitting the Icelandic Lace Shawl. The yarn isn't terribly heavy, so it isn't difficult to knit even when the weather is still warm in summer's last gasps. The neutral colors – cream and several shades of gray and brown – are certainly reminiscent of stark winter landscapes, a real contrast to the spring-like light green and yellow of the Bee Fields Shawl!

This shawl was finished in record time, but I'm not sure why. The pattern wasn't difficult, though I did make several mistakes, and despite some serious tinking there are still a few which will remain. It may just be that I was able to spend more time on it than usual because it didn't require heavy concentration.

Here are a couple of before and after (blocking) pictures. You can see why the errors didn't show up clearly in the "before" state.

(The pinkish and yellow colors in the photo on the right are from the blocking squares under the shawl and not the shawl itself.)

I did make several changes to the pattern. About half way through I became nervous that it would be too small. Because of the interesting construction it was tricky to figure out if I could just add some extra rows, but in desperation I tried. I also switched from #6 to #7 needles at the same time. In the "edging" part (the edging is a rather wide section beyond the wide white band) I added a couple of extra rows to the brown bands and then repeated the medium and dark gray bands (though narrower than in the first part). (I also used the dark gray for the final bind-off instead of black.) I did the optional edging at the top in order to obtain another inch, but I think it finishes off the shawl nicely.

After all that, the final dimensions are very close to the dimensions given in the pattern (76" x 37"). That seems odd, because I used the yarn called for in the pattern, I was using #6 needles instead of the recommended #4's, and my gauge is generally average (though I confess to not swatching this time). It may be that a more aggressive blocking would gain another inch or two in each direction, but that decision will have to wait until it is completely dry and I can try it on.

Even if it is a little smaller than I would like (and how often that seems to be the case!) I expect to get a lot of use out of this shawl when the Season of Suffering arrives this year.

'Tis easier to knit than to tink

2007-09-08T15:38:00.000-04:00

One advantage of a shawl that starts at the tip and gets wider is that if you make a mistake before the pattern is firmly in your head, it is no big deal to tink out a few rows. But if the pattern begins with "Cast on 339 stitches" it is another story. And so it is with the Icelandic Lace Shawl from Knitting Daily. It is a beautiful shawl and promises to be nice and cozy in the Jaggerspun Main Line that Sarah's Yarn kindly put up into kits for the Icelandic Lace Shawl KAL. This yarn is fingering weight, and since I am also working on the Bee Fields Shawl in very fine merino at the same time, this one seems like a fast and easy knit.

Maybe that's the problem: since it isn't too complicated, maybe I don't give it the attention it deserves. On Thursday night, I was knitting while watching the Channel 13 tribute to Luciano Pavarotti – a replay of a wonderful production of l'Elisir d'Amore from the early 1980's. I didn't think it would be a problem knitting this shawl while keeping an eye on the subtitles of the opera, though I knew that it would be out of the question with Bee Fields. Unfortunately I overestimated my multitasking capabilities, and after doing one the the last gray-beige section realized that the whole row was one stitch off in the second row, throwing the whole lace pattern out of whack. So, stitch by stitch, I worked my way back to were the first error was made. What a tedious process! When I finally got to reknit these rows, it because clear that it takes much less time to knit than to tink the exact same stitches.

Meanwhile, work proceeds slowly on the Bee Fields Shawl by Anne Hanson. What a gorgeous design! What a difficult thing to knit! The first sign of trouble was the instruction to p2tog tbl (purl two together through the back loops). I could never have figured out how to engage in this particular maneuvre without Anne's explicit explanation, and I still feel like I am doing a backbend when I do it, but it seems to be right, because the Bee Swarm section does (with a little imagination) look like a swarm of bees.

If I thought that was bad, the third section asked for a knitting move that I couldn't imagine doing until I had the needles in my hand. It involves a series of multiple yarnovers and dropping of yarnovers and picking up of multiple rows of dropped yarnovers... It is almost like magic how it all works out to look sort of like bees after the 6-row repeat is completed. (See the "bees" just below the needles in the above photo.) The yarn, from Wooly Wonka fibers, is absolutely scrumptious, and the shading of the green and yellow is even more subtle and interesting than it looks in the skein.

I am knitting this shawl (gasp!) without lifelines. I usually put in lifelines at least between sections, on a row that is plain K or plain P... but there are no rows that simple in this pattern. So I spend a lot of time holding my breath while knitting. Does that count as multitasking?

Swan Lake Update

2007-08-19T11:31:00.001-04:00

Here is Swan Lake, displayed as worn by the best available model:

I'm sorry I doubted Melanie's design – right up to the moment of draping it over the hanger. I really wasn't sure about the "asymmetry thing."

Pattern: Swan Lake Stole ("Mystery Stole 3) by Melanie Gibbons
Yarn: Colourmart Smooth Silk 8/56NM, doubled, 220 gm
Needles: Addi Lace Needles size 3.75 (US #5)
Size: 23" x 85"

According to Melanie's description of the pattern, the pointed end begins with the traditional Wings of the Swan lace pattern, which splits in half and continues up the sides of the point and along the edges of the first two thirds of the stole as a border... In the ballet, "there are several dances by the swan maidens, but this one is done by four dancers, each holding to the next one, moving in unison doing the pas de chat step. Pas de Chat means literally step of the cat, so using the Cat’s Paw lace design seemed natural in this stole. The final third of the stole is a wing. It obviously fits as the swan part of the theme, but the single wing with the more formal first part of the stole also alludes to Odette’s cursed existence as both swan and princess."

Sigh.

If you haven't seen the ballet recently, here is an excerpt with Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn:

Adblock

and an excerpt from an alternative version by the Rudolf Nureyev and Miss Piggy:

Adblock

and another from the extraordinary Ballet Trockadero:

Adblock

Added at 7:15 PM:
In response to a comment, here is a picture of the back of the stole:

Last Days of the Swan

2007-08-18T15:39:00.000-04:00

Today is a milestone. The Swan Lake Stole (the stole formerly known as "Mystery Stole 3") is officially finished. It has been pinned out on puzzle blocks with blocking wires and pins and is waiting patiently to dry. What a back-breaking task! (Who ever said that knitting isn't hard work???)
The jury is still out on whether I like it or not. The "wing" section is beautiful; here is a close-up:
In fact, both sections are beautiful – I'm just not sure I like them together. I can imagine doing two more stoles, one using a symmetrical version of the first part, and another with two wings. In fact, when Melanie writes up the pattern for sale, I think she is going to offer all three options. The true test will be to see it worn, after it is finished blocking.

And now onto other things!

Trouble Visualizing

2007-08-12T13:15:00.000-04:00

Now that Clue 6 of Mystery Stole 6 is complete, I am really having trouble visualizing it, perhaps even more so than before. The "wing" (the section on the left in the photo) indeed looks like a feathered object, but how it is going to fit together once the final section is added is a Major Mystery. And how the finished garment is going to be worn is an even greater Mystery! But onward we knit, all 6,000 of us, or at least some substantial percentage of that number that hasn't given up (or is waiting to see photos of the Early Birds' finished objects).

While in between clues, R's gray-and-white socks received Finished Object status. Here they are, modeled by the recipient:

They are Queen Kahuna's Crazy Toes & Heels socks, knit together on two circular needles. This poor pair of socks was a long time in the knitting. They kept getting lost (misplaced? stored carefully in a clever location?) and spent 3 days keeping me sane during a surprise hospital visit in May. The yarn is scrumptious Lisa Souza hand-dyed sock yarn, knit on #1 needles. This was my third pair of CT&H socks, so they should have been easy, but maybe I just had too many bad associations with where I had worked on them, so it took a while to get around to finishing them. And then finally came the bind-off, as always too tight. Now that they are finally done, they are a perfect fit, and R is very pleased with his first pair of hand-knit socks.

As for that bind-off, the first time I just tried binding off with a larger (#4) needle. That didn't do it though -- he couldn't even get it over his instep. Next I tried K2 tog, return to left needle and repeat (there may be a name for this bind-off but I don't know what it is), but that was also too tight. Finally I discovered Peggy's Stretchy Bind-off, and that did the trick. For K2,P2 ribbing this involves K2, M1, P2, M1, etc. across the row before the bind-off, and then doing a regular bind-off but slipping the M1's instead of knitting them. The M1's are created by creating a half-hitch loop, so you are essentially adding extra yarn to the edge before the actual bind-off. I may try this technique on lace that is going to be heavily blocked, since tight bind-offs can be a problem there too.

After all that gray I was feeling color-deprived so I cast on for another pair of socks in blue and green. Again based on CT&H for the basic pattern, these have the garter rib on the top and the cuff from Charlene Schurch's Sensational Knitted Socks. They are really zipping along quickly, but I had reached the point where it is time to start the heel turn when we were about to head off the the wilds of New York City and I needed something simple for knitting on the train, so I started another pair:

Never having used self-striping yarn before, I thought it would be a good idea to start both socks at the same place in the yarn repeat. But look what happened... they aren't the same. It looks like one ball was wound in the opposite direction from the other. NOT that anybody would notice once they are on the feet, but it is interesting... I also decided, several inches along, that the garter rib didn't look good in this yarn, so they were frogged back to the top of the toe and started again in plain stockinette.

For somebody who always thought that knitting socks was a waste of time (who can see them, anyway?) I seem to be becoming addicted. It's nice wearing non-black socks that look interesting and actually fit properly!

While we wait...

2007-08-03T10:48:00.000-04:00

While we were waiting for the next clue of MS3, I finished the Merging Colors Arioso Scarf by Candace Eisner Strick. Unfortunately, the photo doesn't do it justice. Knit in lovely fine merino wool with three strands at a time, the colors are changed one strand at a time, with the result that the color changes are very gradual. I actually eliminated the last color, because the scarf was already long enough. The pattern is easy to knit, though there were several errors in the instructions, but once I figured out how to fix the errors it was a good in-the-car or knit-in-public project. (I must confess that I was extremely irritated to find errors in a pattern purchased as part of a kit. If errors are reported, it wouldn't be difficult or expensive to send retailers an addendum to include with the kits.) Only three rows of each 30-row repeat require close attention, and the rest is easy. Much though I dread the coming (too soon) cold weather, I am looking forward to wearing this scarf.

This morning we got Clue 5 for MS3. Though I had needles poised and ready when it finally came out at 7:30 AM, I gasped when I read through the instructions. Melanie has done something very unusual and mysterious this time with the design. The theme has been revealed to be Swan Lake, and the next part of the stole is to be shaped like a wing. All my brain could say was "Does not compute." There is always the option of repeating the first half and grafting the two sides together to make a symmetrical shawl, which certainly be some participants' choice, but the intended design may be wonderful, as Melanie's designs have been in the past. In response to the pleading of several bewildered KAL members, Melanie posted a schematic of the complete stole, which cleared the fog somewhat, so I am ready to plunge ahead, but anxiously awaiting the early photos of the fast knitters in the KAL group!

A case of startitis

2007-07-27T10:46:00.000-04:00

Startitis is defined, more or less, as a condition wherein one achieves a sense of euphoria by beginning a new project. The longer the condition persists, the more projects metamorphose into UFO's (UnFinished Objects), which can languish indefinitely. There is no known cure.

I have been suffering from this ailment for a while, but this was an especially bad week. I have been working diligently on Mystery Stole 3, but Melanie took off a week in honor of the release of the Harry Potter book, so I finished Clue 4 a week early. I could use that time to finish the Endless Edging of the Garden Shawl, R's nearly-finished socks (which I keep misplacing), the Hanne Falkenberg jacket that has been about 85% finished for two years, the alpaca shawl I started in the spring (but is too fuzzy to work on in the summer)... I actually sank so low as to order a kit for the lovely Bee Fields Shawl – in spite of my long "To Do" list and rapidly increasing stash.

The photo on the left shows MS3 completed through Clue 4. The one on the right shows more detail, and it is the first photo in which the beads are visible. The evolving design is beautiful, and I am enjoying the Kit-along immensely, in spite of the huge volume of email it has generated.

The other consequence of having to wait a week for the next clue is an increase on reading time. Inspired by Roberta's recommendation, I decided to eliminate one of the many lacunae in my literary education and read Beowulf. This particular edition, translated by Seamus Heaney, is extremely readable. In fact, I am finding it hard to put down. One of the most fascinating things about it is that the original Old English text is printed alongside the translation, and the occasional glimpse at the original shows very little correlation to modern English. Languages, we are told, change all the time, and a thousand years is a long time, but I am still astonished that there is almost nothing in the Anglo-Saxon text that is recognizable.

Of Singing and Knitting

2007-07-17T13:14:00.000-04:00

Last week we went to the 18th Annual North American Jewish Choral Festival. In all those years I have missed only two, and every year it is surprising how fabulous it is. It is four solid days of singing, going to workshops, listening to performances, and eating worse-than-mediocre food (but then we keep reminding ourselves that "it isn't about the food"). Workshops and performances covered 500 years of Jewish choral music in every conceivable style, from Italian Renaissance to "hot-off-the-presses" American and Canadian. This year's honoree was Theodore Bikel, storyteller, actor, activist, and folk singer par excellence. He spoke, he sang, and he charmed all 500+ attendees, whose only regret was that his time on stage was limited to one afternoon session and an evening performance.

One thing that was different this year was amount of knitting going on during the brief "down" periods between sessions, or while waiting for something to begin. Waiting for the first "community sing" session to begin, I was knitting the cuffs of the almost-finished socks and the person on my left said "phooey, I should have brought my knitting too... I left it in the room!" Then somebody sat down on my right and started knitting on a hat. At almost every session I spotted somebody nearby knitting something, and many were people I had known for years without knowing they were knitters. Question to ponder: Why is it that this was the year we all brought along our knitting for the first time?

Not surprisingly, this wasn't the time or the place for knitting lace, but I couldn't bear to get behind on Mystery Stole 3 – especially since my decision to redo Clue 1 with a double strand (on the night before Clue 2 was released) meant that I was already behind. (Yeah, yeah, I know it isn't a competition.) So lace-knitting time was restricted to 5:30-7:00 every morning. Clue 2 was finished within an hour of the release of Clue 3 on Friday morning!

The decision to restart was a good one. I am much happier with the look and feel of the doubled yarn, and the 6/0 silver beads are more visible than the 8/0 beads on the single-stranded version. (Trust me on this, despite their invisibility in the photo.) The design is starting to take shape and is looking really beautiful.

Before going away I finished the Alix's Shawl from the Interlacements merino sock yarn that had a previous incarnation as the too-pink-for-a-boy baby sweater. It knit up very fast, and like Myrna Stahman's other patterns, it is nicely shaped to fit easily over the shoulders without slipping off. The 500-yard skein was just enough for a smallish (54" x 28") shawl which will be perfect for a birthday gift for my mother, who often wears these colors and frequently suffers from the cold in over-air-conditioned Florida. If I make this pattern again I will make a few more pattern repeats to make it larger.

Second Thoughts

2007-07-01T12:15:00.000-04:00

This morning I finished Clue 1 of Mystery Stole 3. I liked the way the swatch knit up on #4 needles, but I am wondering if the fabric isn't a bit too loose now that the first 99 rows of the actual pattern are finished. Since lace always looks really crummy before it is blocked, it is hard to tell for sure. There is time for a do-over before Clue 2 is released next Friday, but do I really want to do that??

On another front, the beginning of MS3 coincided with the end of Icarus. I will always think of this as my "Florence shawl," since most of it was knit during the far-too-many hours in airports and on airplanes on the way to and from Florence last month. This was a wonderful project for traveling, because the yarn squishes up to almost nothing and can be tucked away into a corner of a purse, and the pattern for most of the shawl is simple enough to memorize. (I have to confess that the more complicated charts were done at home after the trip and could never have been done on an airplane.)

Pattern: Icarus Shawl by Miriam Felton, Interweave Knits, Summer 2006
Yarn: Jaggerspun Zephyr - Aegean blue, just under 100g
Needles: Addi Turbo US #5
Size: 80" across the top; 37" top to bottom

I finally got my invitation to Ravelry this week. What a fabulous site! I have started entering a few projects in my notebook, but mostly I have been browsing. It was nice to see how other people's Icarus shawls and MS3 beginnings turned out in other yarns and colors, and the site is set up in such a way as to make that easy to do. I wish Jessica and Casey much luck with this endeavor.

Ready, Set, Go...

2007-06-29T14:13:00.000-04:00

Today the first clue for Mystery Stole 3 was released. I was ready... yarn purchased, swatches knit, beads ordered, tools lined up.

New tools for this project include new Addi Lace Needles, a crochet hook with such a tiny hook that it is practically invisible, and highlighter tape.

The Addi lace needles have lovely sharp points, but they are not so slippery that the silk yarn slides off promiscuously. So far, they seem perfect for this project.

The #14 crochet hook looks like something you might find on the dentist's tray. The hook is so tiny that it is nearly impossible to see with the naked eye. It has to be that small to fit the holes in the beads. Fortunately, it is possible to do this by feel rather than by sight!

The other new item, which I had read about but could never find locally, is Highlighter Tape. It is wonderful for lace charts – just put a strip of tape above the line you are knitting, and move it up as you knit. It is far superior to my previous solutions: Post-It notes, strips of paper held with a paper clip, and even magnetic strips on an old metal document holder. The tape comes in several colors, and it is easy to move when you want to move it, but it sticks well when you don't want it to move. I had looked for it locally but never found it, and I finally ordered it online. Highly recommended!!

The beads are beautiful, but they are tiny (size 8/0), silver-lined clear glass. I haven't figured out how to handle them without dumping them all over the floor... it happened once, though fortunately I had put a few of them in a little plastic medicine cup, so I didn't lose too many. Maybe some kind of little mat would work better than grabbing them from the cup with the hook – this is my first experience with beads, and some experimentation may be in order.

I did swatch for this project, but I knit the swatches before the beads arrived. I chose these beads to create a subtle effect against the silver-gray silk, but I am now wondering if the effect is too subtle. (They don't show up well in the photo, but they don't show up well in real life either!) I also have some larger (6/0) beads that I ordered by mistake, and I am considering using those in the center section of the stole. More experimentation in order...

This stole, like Mystery Stole 2, promises to be a challenging project but extremely engaging. It is compelling to knit "just one more row" to see how the design is evolving, even when there are other things to be done.

The first few rows did not get off to a good start. I was having a lot of trouble maneuvering the two ends of the needle, the yarn, the crochet hook, and the bead without dropping any of them. O to be an octopus! It is getting easier, but another hand or two would still be helpful.

Thanks, Melanie, for the opportunity to be part of this community of over 3000 knitters from all over the world working on a project that will be interesting to knit and will result in learning new techniques... and will, undoubtedly, be beautiful when finished.

Shopping in Florence

2007-06-21T14:18:00.000-04:00

Anyone who knows me knows that shopping ranks on my list of enjoyable activities down around cleaning and ironing. But occasionally shopping (or, more accurately, browsing) can actually be enjoyable – especially in a foreign country, when you don't actually have to buy anything.

As a knitter, I sought out the two yarn stores in Florence. One of them, Campolmi Roberto Filati (not far from the Duomo), is actually a manufacturer, with a large array of colors in several different fibers, mainly cottons, acrylics, and some wool, though the wool didn't feel especially soft. I may have been overtired and overheated by the time I got there, so I didn't find anything especially compelling, but it looked like there were some real bargains, and I would definitely check it out more carefully on another visit.

On the other hand, one of the highlights of my week was the visit to Beatrice Galli's shop in the Oltrarno area, right on the "other" side of the Ponte Vecchio. The charming Beatrice has run her shop for 40 years, and despite her claims of not speaking English, she has customers from all over the world. I got there just as she opened in the morning and was the only customer, and she patiently endured my primitive Italian for over half an hour as I looked, fondled, and lusted after her gorgeous skeins in wool, silk, and blends. I didn't buy anything, but I promised to return in October with some knitting friends and a clear idea of patterns and quantities – and a spare suitcase.

On another morning, I went to the Mercato Centrale, the large market near San Lorenzo, which is truly a feast for the eyes. This 19th century building houses a huge array of butcher shops, cheese shops, and stalls selling prepared foods, dried mushrooms, pasta, wine, and olive oil. The upper floor has stall after stall of fresh produce, with the aroma of basil wafting throughout. (Click on the picture for a brief slideshow.) It was hard not to be seduced by the beauty of the various displays and to walk out empty-handed. Of course, I didn't. After tasting several varieties of olive oil and aged balsamic vinegar, I bought a bottle of each... but I did manage to leave behind the fresh black truffles at €25 each. And then the cheese – after tasting several samples of parmegian reggiano I bought a large wedge that weighed in at over 2 kilos. When the woman behind the counter asked which I wanted, I said "non troppo grande, non troppo piccolo," but when she weighed them I kept thinking that bigger would be better, since it keeps well, and I would be sorry later if we used it up too quickly.

Even the little markets on quiet side streets provided pleasant surprises. A close look at the purple flowers reveals that they are artichokes! Inside the little shop we succumbed to a basket of tiny fraises des bois, the intensely flavored wild strawberries that are almost impossible to find at home.

And then there were all the jewelry shops on and near the Ponte Vecchio. My favorite time there was in the morning, as the shops were just opening. Other times it was so crowded that there was no temptation to linger!

Walking around Florence is a treat. The markets, the amazing artwork, the huge centuries-old palazzos, the nice little shops in unexpected places on side streets... You can even see art in the making – sidewalk artists working hard to create copies of masterpieces for the pennies people throw into a basket as a donation. This artist was working all day. When we walked by in the morning, he had just finished the head, and in the evening he was still working on the almost finished picture – the same Leonardo da Vinci that was on the wall in our hotel room.

A week (almost) in Florence

2007-06-19T18:17:00.000-04:00

It was really the Trip from Hell. A late departure from Newark, missed connections, cancelled flights, lost luggage. After 26 hours (and an unexpected 4 1/2 hour bus ride from Milan to Florence), we finally arrived at the hotel. I kept asking myself why I thought it was a good idea to accompany R on this trip. Art and history only get you so far!!!

After the nightmare of the trip, the taxi dropped us off on a dark little street close to the Duomo. There was a scary moment when we thought the hotel didn't really exist, but we found the buzzer and someone did open the huge door to let us in. Then we saw it... a little sign that said "Hotel Centrale on the second floor." Can you imagine anything I would like seeing LESS than a huge flight of stairs at that point? Not only stairs, but Florentine stairs. This is a former palazzo, and each flight of stairs is about a mile up. (And in Europe "second floor" means two flights up from the ground level.) Of course we had no suitcases to carry, so it could have been worse! I almost expected the hotel to say "You were so late that we cancelled your reservation" – but for once everything was in order, and we were shown to our room, which was simple but pretty and spotless, with a copy of a Leonardo da Vinci painting on the wall. By the way, I would recommend this hotel highly.

Despite the crowds (June already being peak tourist season), despite the heat, and despite the horrible time we had getting there, Florence is still a wonderful city. It is small enough that you can walk everywhere, though the cobblestone streets can be hard on the ankles. R was busy with the conference every day, and my job was to play tourist. It wasn't hard to do – it was just hard to narrow down the choices!

The conference seems to have been a big success for the participants, quite a few of whom R has known for decades, and some of whom (along with their wives) I met many, many years ago. One day I spent wandering around the city with three of the wives, one from Argentina who has lived in Italy for many years, one from Belgium who has lived in Switzerland with her Scottish husband for many years, and one Belgian. The common denominator, of course, was English, and all of them speak it fluently, so I felt linguistically inferior but enjoyed the fact that they could all communicate with me anyway. I tried to rejuvenate my somewhat pathetic Italian, and it was really a pleasure to hear the music of the language all around me, even when I can't understand what people are saying.

My obligatory visit to the Uffizi was, as expected, delightful. With a reservation I was able to walk right in at the appointed time and stroll leisurely through, though I was told that without a reservation there would be a 3-4 hour wait to get in. Unfortunately, the museum (like Florence in general) suffers from far too many tourists per square meter. There were some rooms where it was impossible to see the artwork, though patience paid off – usually after a wait of a few minutes the crowd would disperse and I could catch a glimpse before the next surge.

One night there was a lovely banquet at a restaurant in one of Florence's many, many converted palazzi, and the food was wonderful. The guest of honor, whose 65th birthday was the excuse for holding this conference, seemed truly touched by the very nice (and brief, and in one case extremely witty) speeches made about him. Another night, also as part of the conference, there was a concert of piano music for 4 hands. We met two professors from Florence for dinner first ("American style," a.k.a. unfashionably early) at a little out-of-the-way trattoria with wonderful authentic Florentine food. A day of fabulous art, food, and music... what could be better?

Our last three nights we had dinner in three different restaurants. Twice we went with Italians to little trattorias we would never have discovered on our own, and the food was excellent at both. The other night we went back to Acqua al Due and it was just as wonderful as we had remembered. We had "assaggio di primi" -- a tasting of 5 different kinds of pasta, and then shared bistecca fiorentina al aceto balsamico, a steak with balsamic vinegar. We then shared an "assaggio di dolci" -- tasting of 5 different desserts -- which we would have skipped except that the couple with us was an evil influence!

R was busy at the conference every day except Sunday, when we did a lot of walking and visited both the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo (see the amazing choir loft by Della Robbia here) and the church of Santa Maria Novella, which has some phenomenal artwork by many of the Big Names in Italian Renaissance art like Brunelleschi, Masaccio, Filippino Lippi, Ghirlandaio, etc. Our favorite is the Lippi fresco of St. Phillip driving the dragon from a Roman temple. It is a stinky dragon, and you can see people holding their noses, and the king's son actually faints from the smell. You can see it here. The decision of what to do that day was made easier by the fact that most museums are closed on Sundays, and the churches are open to tourists only in the afternoons. In the late afternoon we walked over to the Piazza della Signoria to take a last look at the wonderful statues out in the open, including a copy of Michelangelo's David and my favorite, Giambologna's amazing Rape of the Sabine Women. Nearby is a Cellini bronze of Perseus holding the head of Medusa plus a variety of other really gory statues.

All in all, it was an interesting -- though far too short -- visit. The conference attendees all seemed to agree that it was an exceptionally good conference, and the spouses had no problem keeping ourselves entertained. It may be the City of Aching Ankles, but it is also a city that is imbued with the history of art, the history of science, and fabulous food. I can't wait to go back. (But maybe on a different airline next time. After all the trouble they gave us on the way to Italy, Continental/Alitalia also managed to lose one suitcase and damage another one on the way home.)

Itty Bitty Raglan Cardigan

2007-05-24T15:22:00.003-04:00

After all the discussion about whether boy babies could possibly wear a multicolor sweater with some shocking pink in it (see previous entry), I decided that it would be better to use the yarn in question for some other project and make the Baby in Question something completely different. Plan B was a very cute pullover with a big question mark in front, but I wasn't happy with the way it was knitting up in the reddish-orange I had chosen (thinking "cardinal" meant red) and black. Fortunately, I did the front first, so frogging it wasn't particularly painful. So on to Plan C, a generic raglan cardigan, with black uneven stripes and edging to add a little interest. Voilà:

Pattern: Baby Cardigan by Joy Jannotti, Size 12 mo.
Yarn: Mission Falls 1824 Cotton, 4 balls (200g)
Needles: Denise #5US
Revisions: Added unequal stripes generated by Random Stripes Generator and contrast edging

Despite all the false starts, it is very nice, and I liked the feel of the yarn. I have an extra ball of the orange and the black, so I will have to buy more to have enough for another baby sweater, but it should age well in the stash for the time being. The yarn has a slightly nubby feel to it, which makes it a little more interesting than plain cotton – definitely something I would use again. And now I have a color card, so there shouldn't be any color surprises when I order more!

The day after finishing the baby sweater, I cast on new socks for DH. (It isn't as if I didn't have several other projects going at the same time, but nothing that was simple enough or small enough to carry around in my purse.) This is my third attempt at Crazy Toes and Heels socks:

No, this isn't what it looks like... it is the toes of two socks knit simultaneously on two circular needles, according to the excellent manual by Mary Ann Beattie, aka "Queen Kahuna." Each previous time I had trouble getting started, but once I got going, they weren't at all difficult. This time I expected no trouble at all, given that it was the third time, but I still had to frog and restart several times. I'm still not sure why the tippy toes look a little strange. Maybe it will take 4 or 5 pairs before getting it right. At least, doing it this way, they both come out exactly the same!

The endless edging on the Garden Shawl continues... Why am I not comforted by the fact that I passed the half-way mark???

Seeing pink

2007-05-10T15:44:00.000-04:00

First, a disclaimer: I hate pink and I have always hated pink. Even as a child, I wouldn't have been caught dead wearing pink. It's okay in a rose or a tulip, but not on me. And, having had two sons, it was never an issue in terms of clothing in this household.

I recently encountered a skein of beautiful, soft merino sock yarn from Interlacements that someone had given me. It has a variety of intense colors, including dark blue, green, purple, orange, brown, and.... shocking pink. (Okay, the pink was there, but it looks nice as an accent among other colors.) It seemed too pretty to waste on socks and the 500-yard skein enough to make a baby sweater. I found a pattern for a V-neck pullover that seemed perfect, and the knitting began. And then it happened – as the sweater got bigger, the pink began to take over. I took an informal survey and asked 7 women if they would put this sweater on a boy, and 5 said "yes, it's beautiful;" one said "no way!"; and one said that her daughter would put it on a boy but her daughter-in-law wouldn't. So, given that the Baby in Question lives 7,000 miles away, and his mother's taste is really an unknown, and the yarn is too expensive to be stuck in a drawer and never worn, it is, sadly, on its way to the frog pond.

Plan B is the Quiz pullover from Mission Falls 1824 cotton. But instead of black and white, I decided to do it in red and black. Ordering yarn over the internet is always dangerous, and I should have learned my lesson a long time ago, but since there is no LYS near by, it is pretty hard to avoid it. The color I ordered was called "cardinal," and it looked red on my monitor, but the yarn that appeared looks more like a coral than a true red. Okay, coral is sort of orange, and that should be okay for a boy. So I started knitting. And something very funny happened. The "cardinal" started getting pinker and pinker. So now it isn't clear what to do. Maybe the lesson is to stick to Boring Blue for boys.

Second Heartbeat

2007-04-27T10:06:00.000-04:00

No, this is not a reference to twins. It is my second Heartbeat Sweater. I enjoyed knitting the first one so much that I immediately started a second. The first one was a solid green, and I thought it would be interesting to do it in a variegated yarn as shown in the pattern photo.

The yarn was a real bargain from Smiley's Yarns for $1.50 per 50g skein. There was a lot of waste because of the scant yardage per skein (80 yds), and a lot of ends to weave in (ugh). It took 13 skeins, but the total weight of the finished sweater is only 550 g, which sounds like it should have been 11 skeins. And it is heavy – 550 g is nearly 1.25 pounds – I can only imagine how much it weighs wet! But it has a very nice feel and an interesting texture.

I do like the way the variations in the yarn emphasize the truncated diamond shape of the pattern.

Pattern: Heartbeat Sweater by Jill Vosburg, Just One More Row
Yarn: Filatura Lanarota Circus (85% cotton, 15% Acrylic)
Needles: Denise Size 5
Gauge: ~ 4 sts/inch
Yardage: approx. 1000 yds for 48" size
Modifications: unintentional slight contrast on sleeve edges, since I grabbed the wrong skein of yarn on the first sleeve and it didn't look bad, so I used the same skein for the second sleeve instead of frogging. It became a "design element." I thought about using the same yarn on the neck edging but chickened out.

Having knit this sweater twice, I am still mystified by the geometry. It is an ingenious design, and somehow it all works out to be the right shape for a sweater, thought there were times when I had my doubts.

And, speaking of doubts, here is the Garden Shawl from Fiddlesticks in its "amorphous blob" state. This is a scary time in the life of a lace knitter, when a huge amount of time has been invested and it isn't at all clear that the object of all this effort will look like anything but a lump when it is finished. And it isn't clear that it will ever be finished because the edging (knit perpendicular to the edge of the shawl) goes on and on and on...

Yesterday I had an odd Knitting in Public experience. On a whim I had decided to go to the Johnson & Johnson annual shareholders' meeting, something I had never done before. Since I had been warned to get there early to be sure to get a seat in the main ballroom and not have to listen to sound piped into one of several overflow rooms, I had stuck a pair of socks-in-progress in my pocketbook. I was happily knitting when an elderly gentleman sat down next to me and asked if he could put in an order for a pair. He turned out to be a retired J&J engineer who had worked in the division that made tampons (in the days when things were actually manufactured in NJ). Occasionally they had to reject spools of the extremely strong reinforced cotton string they used, and employees could take them home, so he gave some to his mother to use around the house. A few years later she showed him a tablecloth she had crocheted... from the rejected tampon string! He says he still has the tablecloth and chuckles whenever he looks at it.

Punishment and Reward

2007-04-13T10:18:00.000-04:00

I must have committed some terrible knitting sin in the past to have earned the ordeal of knitting the Cotton Chenille Baby Sweater. In fact, it was so awful to knit with this yarn (Crystal Palace Cotton Chenille) that it took months to finish. Because of the texture of the yarn (thick and unstretchy) and the fact that I had to use size US #2 needles to get a decent fabric (despite the fact that the pattern called for #6 needles with this exact yarn), my hands would ache after knitting just a few rows, and it was hard to work up the energy to pick it up again. I finally realized that if I didn't finish it soon, the Baby in Question will have outgrown it, if she hasn't already! So here it is, not exactly as it was supposed to be, but at least finished:

It was much too hard to do the bobbles in the multicolored trim with the #2 needles, so I just did plain garter stitch. I hope the baby and (more important) her mother like it.

Note: if you are wondering why I used #2 needles, check out my blog entry on swatching for this sweater.

Immediately after finishing this sweater I cast on for a sweater for the soon-to-be new baby in the family. The Cascade Pima Tencel I used for this sweater was a total delight. My reward for suffering through the "chenille ordeal"??? It took only days to finish the sweater (based loosely on a pattern in The Yarn Girls' Guide to Kid Knits) and the hat (generic baby hat, no known pattern):

The hat was an afterthought, since there was a little of each ball of yarn left and it would be a shame to let it go to waste. The color combination is admittedly a little weird for a newborn, so I hope my daughter-in-law likes it. At least it was fun to knit!

Heartbeat Sweater

2007-03-27T09:01:00.000-04:00

With a little trepidation I started a Knit-along for the Heartbeat Sweater from Just One More Row. One knitter mentioned a problem with the neckline being too wide and deep, and after my experience with the Sprinkle Lace Cardigan I wasn't anxious to deal with that again! But the pattern looked like it was easily adjustable, it seemed like a quick and easy knit (compared to the barely visible yarn for my current lace project), and there was even yarn in my stash that seemed suitable, so why not?

Pattern: Heartbeat Sweater by Jill Vosburg, Just One More Row
Yarn: Filatura Lanarota Luxor D.K. (50% cotton, 50% Acrylic)
Needles: Denise Size 6
Gauge: 5 sts/inch
Yardage: approx. 1200 yds for 48" size

The construction of this sweater is very unusual. It begins at the center neckline and is knit outwards, with vertical side panels in garter stitch, and sleeves knit onto the side panels. The pattern is very well written, with a large number of diagrams – and thank goodness for those, because I had the whole front nearly finished before I could figure out how this bizarre shape was going to turn into a sweater! (I find that a certain amount of faith is sometimes necessary in knitting.)

Because of the design of the sweater, there are no exact measurements in the pattern – you have to take measurements (Jill recommends measuring a garment that fits you well), and from time to time there are reassuring comments like "Don't worry, the side panels will allow you to adjust the fit exactly to your size." It is possible to try it on as you go, so adjustments can be made at various points without major surgery (for yourself or the sweater).

Because I was concerned about the neckline, which is sometimes a problem with patterns written for smaller sizes and calculated proportionally for larger sizes, I followed the suggestion of one knitter in the Knit-along (I'm sorry, I don't remember who it was) and added a few extra increases on each side at the top, though it might not have been necessary.

The only other modification I made was to make the sweater a little longer than shown in the picture, so my yardage was more than the estimate for that size, even though the gauge was the same.

The Denise needles were perfect for this project, since at several different times you are instructed to slip stitches onto a holder or smooth string. With the Denise needles and several extra cables it is possible just to detach the needle tips, screw on a cap, and leave the stitches on a cable until you are ready to continue with that section. Then unscrew the cap, put the needle tip back on, and knit away.

Finishing is easy, since you use a 3-needle bind-off to join the sides. The one thing I found annoying was a seemingly endless array of ends to weave in. The truth is that I am spoiled – I have done a lot of knitting recently with yarn on cones (so there is no need to join yarn from separate skeins), and even when knitting with smaller skeins I generally use animal fibers that I can join with a spit-splice, and hence no ends. Since this yarn was a cotton blend in 130-yd. balls, there were lots of ends, and that is always my least favorite part of any project (aside from sewing pieces together).

I enjoyed knitting this sweater, I like the style, and I like the way it fits. So the only question in my mind is what yarn to use on the next one... maybe something variegated, like the one shown in the pattern photo.

Reluctant Sweater Set

2007-03-15T09:54:00.000-04:00

The problem with the Sprinkle Lace Cardigan's low neckline has been solved, thanks to the generosity and ingenuity of several knitters on two different knitting group lists who offered suggestions after my last post. Suggestions ranged from varying degrees of major surgery to adding additional edging to the neckline or just wearing something else under it. Probably the most clever was to lace ribbon all the way around the neckline (instead of just as a tie, as suggested in the pattern) to gather and pull it up. Since that solution required the least effort, I decided to try that first... but I had already started a matching shell with the remaining cone of yarn. So I now have a beautiful sweater set:

CARDIGAN:
Pattern: Sprinkle Lace Cardigan by Natalie Wilson
Yarn: 100% cashmere DK from Colourmart - color China Blue - approx. 400 gm
Needles: Denise US #8 and #7
Modifications: Additional crocheted edging on neckline; eliminated waist shaping on body but knit bottom 4" on larger needles

SHELL:
Pattern: based on Quick & Easy Shell by Kate Winkler
Yarn: 100% cashmere DK (see above) - approx. 180 gm
Needles: Denise US #8 and #7
Modifications: Added Sprinkle Lace pattern to match the cardigan

Here is a somewhat blurry picture of it on a reluctant model (but the only one available):

Despite all the crises, I am delighted with the final product. The advantage for me, the wearer, is that I get to feel how lovely and soft it is; everyone else just gets to see it.

I have learned a few lessons from this experience. One is to try on the item as y0u go. I didn't do that because I had allowed for shrinkage, and as long as the gauge was still on track I thought it would be okay. But that didn't allow for errors in the pattern or errors in following the pattern. If I had even tried it on just before doing the 3-needle bind-off at the shoulders, it would have been easy to make adjustments before assembling the whole sweater.

AND... I learned how to crochet!

The good news and the bad news

2007-03-03T15:09:00.000-05:00

The good news is that I have finished the lace sprinkle sweater. It is beautiful. The bad news is that I don't like the way it fits, and I'm not sure it's my fault.

As you can see from the photo, the neckline is too wide and too deep. After all, the purpose of a cashmere sweater is to keep you warm, not to show off one's assets! I don't know what went wrong – a comparison with the designer's photo (see previous blog entry) shows that the neck wasn't supposed to be low and sexy.

I already tried to compensate by increasing the edging around the neck. (Yes, I did figure out how to do a single crochet and half double crochet for the edging all the way around, and managed it quite nicely, if I do say so myself.)

The additional row of edging around the neck looks good, but it didn't solve the problem. It really needs a few more inches, so it's hard to imagine doing enough edging to fill in the gap. I'm open to suggestions!

The yarn, Colourmart cashmere DK weight, is fabulous. It was a pleasure to knit, and after the "tough love" treatment of washing in hot water and drying for several minutes in the dryer, it bloomed into something so soft that it is hard to be in the same room with it and not want to caress it. So it would really be a shame to let this sweater just hide away in a drawer, neglected.

Today's project: Learn to crochet

2007-02-24T15:41:00.000-05:00

Today I have to learn to crochet. I have finished knitting the Sprinkle Lace Cardigan and even sewed/grafted/wove the pieces together, a job for which I have so little aptitude that it is clear why I prefer knitting shawls to sweaters. The sweater is finished with a crocheted edging around the edges of the sleeves, bottom, and neck. And I don't know how to crochet.

[Why, I ask myself, did I buy a pattern that includes something as esoteric as a crocheted edging? Maybe because I was seduced by the picture of the sweater without realizing that it involved something I didn't have a clue about. Then, why did I start it, once saw the instructions? There are no answers to these questions. And here we are.]

It would be hard to overstate the mess I made of putting the pieces together. The fronts were the same length (thankfully I had knit them simultaneously), but somehow the fronts came out a little longer than the back, so there was some serious fudging involved in the seaming. Then there was the brilliant job I did of sewing the second front NOT to the back, but to one of the sleeve seams. A lot of unsewing went on to the accompaniment of some unladylike verbiage. (Is there a sewing equivalent of "frogging?" one wonders.) At least unsewing an 18" seam and redoing it takes a lot less time than having to frog and re-knit 18" of almost anything. As a result, the edging has to be less frustrating, even counting learning time for a totally new technique! I am armed with memories of my grandmother teaching me how to crochet a chain, plus the Vogue Knitting Crochet Basics, and will find out if it really is possible to learn how to crochet from a book.

On the Finished Objects front, there is one F.O. to report, the Gansey Pillow that was part of Elizabeth Lovick's Gansey Workshop. I didn't swatch (after all, it was just a pillow, so what difference did it make), and instead of a 12" pillow ended up with a 17" pillow. It was an interesting project, because reading a gansey chart is much different from reading a lace chart, and I actually like the finished product. I tried doing a little controlled shrinkage by washing it in hot water after it was blocked, but it wouldn't budge. I could buy an 18" pillow form instead of the loosely-fitting 16" form it currently occupies... we'll see. I still have to figure out how to close the back, whether with buttons or Velcro, or just let the overlap do the job. It might have been simpler if I'd followed Liz's instructions and put in buttonholes, but that would have been too easy.

The Shetland Garden shawls proceeds apace, but no pictures yet. And for a quickie trip to Florida to visit my mother (two hours in the airport and 3 1/2 hours in the plane each way) I started the Lady of the Forest wrap in some beautiful alpaca, which unfortunately shed all over my black clothes, but it helped to pass the time and divert my attention from the extremely unpleasant conditions of modern air travel.

And now to learn how to crochet...

Shetland Garden Shawl

2007-01-24T10:36:00.000-05:00

When I saw this pattern I knew it had to jump to the head of the To Do list, and I knew exactly which yarn I wanted to use... the first cone of cashmere I bought from Colourmart, which has been quietly sitting and waiting for the perfect project. Here it is:

The photo doesn't really do it justice... it was hard to get the whole shawl into the picture, and the lighting wasn't ideal. Here is a closeup:

Pattern: Shetland Garden Faroese Shawl by Sivia Harding
Yarn: 4-ply Cashmere from Colourmart, approx. 120 gm
Needles: Addi Turbos size US 5
Blocked size: 26" long at center back, 31" from neck to tip at center front

Sivia Harding describes the shawl as "a lacy garden of delights: marguerite daisies, Shetland ferns and Shetland leaves fall gracefully over the shoulders, while rose trellises adorn the bottom border." It is knit from the center top down, and the Faroese shape lets it sit gently on the shoulders without slipping off. It was a pleasure to knit. The charts are easy to follow, though I admit to having blown them up to see them better.

And then there is the yarn. On the cone, it looks more or less like a thin twine you might use to tie up a box. But the Colourmart instructions (and the advice of other users) warn you that it contains oil from spinning and that the finished garment should be washed in HOT water in dishwashing liquid and then... get this... put on low heat in a clothes dryer for a few minutes before blocking. I had done that with a swatch, and the metamorphosis was amazing! Nonetheless, washing a finished object in very hot water was nerve wracking, and I don't think I was able to breathe while it was in the dryer. But when it came out of the dryer, still a bit damp, I could already see how incredibly soft it had become, and blocking did its usual magic on the lace design.

Thank you, Colourmart, for this amazing yarn, and thank you, Sivia Harding, for your beautiful design.

Travel Knitting

2007-01-13T13:07:00.000-05:00

For our winter getaway trip to Panama and Costa Rica it was hard to know what knitting project to pack. It had to be

small enough to be portable
light-weight so as not to be uncomfortable to handle in a warm environment
interesting enough to work on in airports, on long flights, and during "down time"
simple enough to knit while enjoying scenery, chatting, or watching a movie

After a few false starts I settled on the Lacy Moebius Scarf, using leftover Zephyr laceweight yarn. It met all the above requirements, and it turned out to be the perfect travel project. I swatched and cast on the day before we left home, and finished the last row on the (seemingly interminable) plane-ride home. The only thing left to do was the Kitchener stitch to join the ends, and since I couldn't remember how to do that, the finishing had to wait until our return. Here it is:

Pattern: Lacy Moebius Scarf by Mary J. Saunders
Based on: Roman Stripe pattern from Barbara Walker's Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns
Yarn: Jaggerspun Zephyr laceweight, Aegean Blue, approx. 40 gms
Needles: Addi Turbos #US 3
Modifications: Slipped first stitch of every row
Finished size: 15" wide by approx. 30" around. (I should have measured it before joining the ends together!)

I really enjoyed knitting this scarf. The pattern is simple, with a 7-row repeat, and easy to memorize. Zephyr is delicious to handle and squishes up to practically nothing, and so it was perfect to stick in a pocketbook or backpack. I know the moebius will be a staple of my winter wardrobe, maybe even indoors, now that winter has arrived in earnest.

More about the trip in a few days when I get the photos together...

A sad tale of scratchy yarn

2006-12-09T10:04:00.000-05:00

Recently I purchased some beautiful-looking hand-dyed New Zealand wool on eBay. When it arrived, I didn't immediately notice that there was anything strange or unpleasant about it, and my friend Clare kindly wound the skeins into balls for me. It was only about two weeks later, when I started swatching for a shawl, that I realized that it had an awful, scratchy feel. I wasn't alarmed right away, because I have had experience with cashmere that had a sort of stiff feel but became incredibly soft and drapy after the oil from spinning was washed out.

This time, though, washing didn't help. The washed swatches were scratchy and stiff. I wrote to the vendor asking for advice, and also posted a query to the Knitlist. Several suggestions were offered, including a long (overnight) soak in a solution of white vinegar, fabric softener, or hair conditioner. I tried them all. The final result? Stiff scratchy swatches. I have over 1,000 yards of this yarn and was ready to write it off, when several Knitlist members suggested using it for felting. So instead of a shawl, this yarn has a tote bag and maybe a hat in its future.

On a happier note, I have finished my first pair of socks! They look a bit lumpy in the photo, possibly because they haven't been blocked. (But then, I don't plan to block them... they will block themselves on my feet when I wear them.) Because of my big feet, the only socks I wear are men's black synthetic socks, so it will be really strange to have something with color on my feet!

Pattern: Based on Queen Kahuna's Crazy Toes and Heels
Yarn: KnitPicks Dancing – 41% Cotton, 39% Wool, 13% Nylon, 7% Elastic, 2 skeins with a little left over
Needles: Addi Turbo US #1 (both socks knit simultaneously on two circulars)
Pattern choices: Regular toe, slip-stitch heel, K4P2 ribbed cuff

The second pair of socks is already on the needles, and I have to confess that even on the second pair I had to frog (but only once) before I got the toe right. It isn't hard, it's just confusing, until you get into the rhythm of turning the needles properly. This pair is for my husband, and they will be just as long but smaller around the calf, so I should be able to make the cuffs longer. I always wondered why people would go to the trouble of knitting socks, since they are tucked inside shoes and generally unseen, but now that I've done it once I can see doing it again. And again. And again.

Alberta finished!

2006-12-05T20:10:00.000-05:00

I have a new favorite shawl, Alberta. It is my second Faroese shawl from Myrna Stahman's Shawls and Scarves, and it is destined to be worn as often as the first. It is warm, soft, and very pretty.

Pattern: Alberta by Myrna Stahman, in Stahman's Shawls and Scarves
Yarn: Hand-dyed Merino wool from Uruguay, purchased from 100purewool on eBay, single ply worsted weight, approx. 1200 yards; color Mamao
Needles: Denise size US 10 1/2
Blocked size: Length 32" (center back) x 88" (wingspan)

The Faroese shawls have a very nice shape that sits easily on the shoulders without sliding off. The GS Gracie I made a few months ago has become a staple of my wardrobe – I slip it into my tote bag and carry it everywhere, just in case I'm cold (a far too frequent occurrence). Brenda Dayne of Cast On says "If you're cold, put on a sweater... That's what they're for." I would add to that "If you're cold and already wearing a sweater, put on a shawl... That's what they're for."

Swallowtail Shawl

2006-11-25T14:15:00.000-05:00

The Swallowtail Shawl is complete – and several weeks before the deadline! It is a Chanukah gift for my daughter-in-law, who said she liked the picture in Interweave Knits, where the pattern was published. I hope she likes it when she sees it in finished form – and actually wears it! The nupps drove me crazy, but otherwise it was a delightful pattern to knit and went very quickly. As usual it looked like a total blob before blocking, and then metamorphosed like the caterpillar to the eponymous butterfly.

Pattern: Swallowtail Shawl by Evelyn A. Clark, Interweave Knits, Fall 2006
Yarn: Jaggerspun Zephyr, Aegean blue, approx. 30 grams
Needles: Addi Turbos size US 5
Blocked size: 48" x 25"

I eventually cheated on the nupps, but after blocking they are practically indistinguishable from the real ones at the beginning. So if I do this pattern again (which is a distinct possibility) I will definitely do them as Sl2, P 3 tog, Pass slipped sts over, instead of P5 tog. The only difference is that this time I won't feel guilty about it.

What is it that is so addictive about lace knitting??? I have my second (Myrna Stahmann's) Faroese shawl on the needles, in another warm squishy worsted wool from Uruguay, but after finishing the Swallowtail I have a longing to start any of the 6 or 8 other lace patterns sitting in a stack on my desk. Oddly enough, two of them are by Evelyn A. Clark, the same designer who created both the Swallowtail and the Pacific Northwest Shawl. I never even noticed who the designer was until after I had bought the patterns. There is a je ne sais quoi about her patterns that must speak to me.

Oddly enough, in the middle of all this lace knitting, I suddenly got to urge to learn how to make socks. Could it be the onset of cold weather? The fact that "bought" socks never fit me properly? The fact that the only socks that do fit are boring? Or the fact that every other knitter in the world is talking about socks and I don't have a clue how to make them? Or all that beautiful sock yarn that suddenly seems to be available? [The correct answer is "all of the above."]

With the plethora of sock patterns available, it was hard to know where to start. But one thing was clear... that I would have to do a toe-up pattern, to make sure I wouldn't run out of yarn. (Why is it that sock yarn is generally sold in skeins large enough for an average sock? Another case of discrimination against ampleness?) Finger-less gloves are one thing, but the toe-less sock is an idea whose time has definitely not come! I had been looking at the Queen Kahuna approach, which made a lot of sense, since you knit both socks together on two circular needles. So this week I took up my new size 1 Addi turbos, two skeins of Knitpicks Dancing, and Page 1 of Queen Kahuna's book.

The less said about the first three attempts the better! On three different days I started, reading every word of the extremely explicit instructions and studying the many diagrams, only to finish the session by frogging the whole thing. On the fourth day, though, it came together, and I made it past the toe section and up thorough the foot. Yesterday, when everybody else in New Jersey was at one mall or another, I tackled the heel section, and despite struggling with a few of the instructions and somehow being off by one stitch in the slip-stitch section of the heel, got to the point of starting the cuff. I took a deep breath and slipped one onto my foot and ... (drumroll, please) ... it actually fits!

This process is not for the dimensionally challenged. You are juggling two socks, with two balls of yarn, on two circular needles (the front of each sock on one needle and the back on the other). When turning the work at the end of each row you have to be careful to (1) knit on the correct part of the sock using (2) the correct needle end and (3) the correct ball of yarn. It sounds easy, but on several separate occasions I noticed that I had knit onto the wrong needle (easy enough to undo) or, worse, joined the two socks to each other. I now know to check after each round that they are NOT connected, so in the worst case I just have to tink a row. In the long run, though, this method has distinct advantages: the socks will come out the same (barring some horrible mistake) and, even better, they will be finished at the same time, thereby avoiding the Second Sock syndrome that plagues so many knitters. The only down side is that one of the big arguments for knitting socks is their portability. The two-at-once approach makes them somewhat less portable. But that seems to be a small price to pay.

Weekend at the Frog Pond

2006-11-17T15:53:00.000-05:00

I spent this past weekend in central Pennsylvania with 5 other members of the A-K knitting group. It was a delightful weekend way out in the country (as in chickens, goats, and horses) – a nice change from central NJ – in good company. We spent the weekend knitting, talking, eating, and laughing. One of the highlights was going through a huge stack of old knitting magazines and practically rolling on the floor in hysteria at some of the designs.

The others were working on a variety of interesting projects, while I spent most of my time frogging. My first sweater after my 20+ year knitting hiatus was an Einstein jacket in Noro Kureyon. It looked absolutely terrible on me – I didn't realize that the stripes would be so pronounced, and the vertical stripes didn't counteract the effect of the horizontal stripes. It has been sitting in a lump, never blocked and ends never woven in, waiting for a reincarnation. The yarn finally decided that it wanted to be a knitting bag, so I took it along with an unfinished hat and a shawl to work on over the weekend. What a project! Because of the construction of the jacket, which is knit in one piece, with top part knit perpendicular to the bottom, it is extremely difficult to unravel, and seemed to take forever. I was beginning to think it was going to take as long to frog it as it did to knit it.

Back on the home front, I finished the Swallowtail shawl, which is blocking. Despite the torment of the nupps, it is a lovely design. I'll take a picture when it finishes trying.

On another note, the Reluctant Penguin was just accepted into the Knitting Blogs webring!

Pacific Northwest Shawl

2006-11-08T16:51:00.000-05:00

This pattern seemed to call my name the first time I saw it. Since I had never knit lace more complicated than a simple scarf, it was quite a while before I tackled it. Here it is:

Pattern: Pacific Northwest Shawl by Evelyn A. Clark
Yarn: Jaggerspun Zephyr, peacock, approx. 75 grams
Needles: Addi Turbos size US 6
Blocked size: 36" x 72"
Modifications: Omitted I-cord edging along top edge (because I have never done I-cord before and couldn't figure out how to do it)

This shawl was a pleasure to knit, and it went very fast. The Zephyr yarn has a wonderful feel, and the pattern was generally easy to follow. The only problem was the small size of the charts, but thanks to the wonders of modern technology I was able to blow them up to a size large enough to see. It isn't quite as large as it should be, but blocking was a problem – it didn't fit on my blocking board and even the bed in the spare room was iffy. I may try re-blocking it, if I can figure out where to do it.

Here is another view:

By sheer coincidence, my next project was designed by the same designer. It is the Swallowtail Shawl from the Fall Interweave Knits. Here it is about 3/4 done:

It doesn't look like much, but then lace always seems to look like an amorphous blob before it is blocked.

The problem with this pattern, in a word, is... NUPPS. Nupps are bobbles made by knitting several stitches into a single stitch, and then on the next row purling them all together. In this pattern the nupps are formed by K1 YO K1 YO K1 in a single stitch, and then on the next row doing a P5 tog. Ouch! I don't consider myself a particularly tight knitter, but getting the needle through 5 stitches at a time is incredibly difficult. I even bought Bryspun needles, having read that they have sharper points than Addis, and in fact they do... but not sharp enough! The first part, the budding leaf pattern, was uneventful, and it seemed to be going well. Then came the next section... NUPPville! The lily of the valley pattern is very pretty, but almost led me to frog the whole thing.

Fortunately, there is a Knitalong for this shawl, and several knitters shared tips for dealing with nupps. The one that worked best for me was to slip 2, P3 tog, pass the 2 slipped stitches over. There is apparently a slight difference in how it looks at the end, but in my case it was either "cheat" or quit.

Thank goodness for internet support groups!

Shetland Tea-ish Shawl Finished!

2006-11-01T10:05:00.000-05:00

This is absolutely gorgeous (if I do say so myself). It took a long time to knit, and then there was the saga of the missing blocking wires (which, in the end, I didn't use), but here it is...

Original Pattern: Shetland Tea Shawl by Dale Long in A Gathering of Lace
Yarn: Handpainted 100% Cashmere from Mystical Creation Yarns, approx. 4 oz. (~1625 yds)
Needles: Addi Turbos size US 4
Blocked size: 48" diameter
Pattern modifications: Open circle instead of circular pi shawl; substituted Madeira and Diamond pattern (fromHeirloom Knitting) for Diamond Madeira pattern; added additional repeat of Horseshoe before the edging

The yarn is absolutely gorgeous, but was so fine that it was like knitting with dental floss. As a result the shawl is somewhat smaller than I would have liked... but I just couldn't bring myself to face another increase round to over 1000 stitches! (As it was, the edging seemed to take forever... it would have been "forever times 2.") I may try blocking it out a little more, but it is wearable as it is, and soooooooo sooooooft.

This project was probably a little too ambitious for my limited experience with lace. By knitting an open pi shawl instead of a full circle, it was necessary to knit back and forth instead of around, which meant re-writing some of the lace patterns. Fortunately, most of them had plain knit on the alternate rows (or purl, when doing it back-and-forth), but the Diamond Madeira pattern was much more complicated. On the advice of several members of the Knitted Lace forum I bought the expensive but oh-so-worth-it Sharon Miller book, Heirloom Knitting, and found a similar pattern that was easier to do back-and-forth.

Now I just need an occasion to wear it!

Please, Mr. Mailman...

2006-10-24T09:01:00.000-04:00

In the words of the old song, "Please, Mr. Mailman, bring me my blocking wires!" Well, maybe that wasn't how the song was originally written, but that's how it has been going around and around in my head for the past week. I ordered blocking wires about 10 days ago, with a few other items. The other items arrived promptly, but the blocking wires, which were sent out on the same day in a separate box, have been (according to the USPS tracking info) sitting in a warehouse a few miles from my house for the past five days. Meanwhile, the Shetland Tea-ish shawl is sitting in an undistinguished blob on my dresser, waiting and waiting...

In the meantime, I have started my next project, the Pacific Northwest Shawl, from the long-backordered peacock Zephyr. Thank goodness for scanners! To see the charts at a practical distance I had to scan them and blow them up to at least 150% the original size, then print them out on 8.5 x 14" paper held sideways. Now that the preliminary work is done I am full speed ahead (if you don't count tinking a few rows here and there, or having to frog about 10 rows down to a lifeline after trying unsuccesfully to find a missing stitch). I am counting incessantly and still manage to be short a stitch here and there – fortunately, the alternate rows are plain knit, so it gives me a chance for a recount and an opportunity to fix a missed yarn-over. Even then, though, mistakes slip through. There must be gremlins about who slip a stitch or add an extra when I'm not looking.

Endless edging

2006-10-13T15:11:00.000-04:00

On and on and on I knit. It should have been obvious – an edging that is knit perpendicular to the body of a circular shawl is going to take forever. This particular shawl is about 500 stitches around the bottom edge. (Thank goodness I didn't do another doubling to 1000 stitches and opted to count on aggressive blocking to increase the length.)I have been knitting nothing but edging for days and am only about 1/4 of the way around... How many synonyms are there for the word "tedious"?

Shetland Tea-ish Shawl

2006-10-03T17:08:00.000-04:00

I can't even enumerate the number of rules I broke in attempting the Shetland Tea Shawl (from A Gathering of Lace) with some gorgeous hand-dyed lace-weight cashmere. The pattern called for lace-weight yarn, and this was lace-weight. I didn't swatch first (after all, it is a shawl, and gauge doesn't matter so much for a shawl, right???) and just plunged ahead.

Not quite. My first deviation from the pattern was to make it an open circle, so instead of making a complete circle it was necessary to knit back and forth on circular needles. Big deal, you might say -- just purl on the alternate rows and all will be well. If only it were that easy! The first two lace patterns weren't much of a problem, since the even-numbered rows were plain knit. But then came the Diamond Madeira pattern, which is much more complex and in fact has yarnovers and decreases on all rows. It was quite a project to convert the pattern from knitting in the round to knitting back and forth, but with the help of the conversions in Barbara Walker's Charted Knitting Designs it seemed possible. It was really hard!!! After about 8 rows (which involved much tinking) it was time to rethink. Several members of the Knitted-Lace group mentioned Sharon Miller's Heirloom Knitting book for a Diamond Madeira pattern knit not in the round, so I took a deep breath and ordered this very expensive (but quite wonderful, as it turns out), book.

The next step was to frog the 8-or-so rows of the STS's Diamond Madeira, back to the lifeline I had fortunately put in before starting it. It is much, much easier to knit lace that has plain K or P on the alternate rows!!! (Those plain rows are not only faster and easier to knit, but they also allow for the chance to double-check the counts between all the stitch markers and fix any problems right away.)

It still isn't a fast knit – each row (about 500 stitches) takes about half an hour. But at least I haven't had to frog or tink more than a few stitches at a time.

Now here is the problem. Because the yarn is apparently finer than the yarn called for in the pattern, this shawl is going to be much too small, even allowing for enthusiastic blocking. The Diamond Madeira pattern I am now using has a 52-row repeat, instead of the 36-row repeat of the original. If my calculations are correct, this level of the shawl can have about 96 rows before another doubling is required, so I could do another repeat of the Diamond Madeira before doing the edging. OR I could return to one of the earlier patterns (Horseshoe and Shetland Fern) and do enough repeats to accommodate the correct number of rows. I'm not sure which would be better from a design point of view. One thing I am sure of, though -- I hope it won't be necessary to do another doubling and have to deal with 1,000-stitch rows!

Exercising options

2006-09-27T09:30:00.000-04:00

It was with great anticipation that I opened my package of KnitPicks Options needles last week. They had received excellent reviews in the knitting blogs and from Knitter's Review. I love my Denise needles but was looking for something with sharper points (not to mention that they don't have anything smaller than a size 5). Grumperina's scientific comparison of the weight of various alternatives had me a little concerned when the Knitpicks Options ranked heaviest, but it wasn't even clear that the difference would be noticeable.

Alas, this was not a match made in heaven. I hated the packaging and was really put off by the fact that the sizes were not marked on the needles. (This problem was mentioned by several knitters, but most found that to be a minor drawback.) I did order an optional set of Needle Size ID Tags, though it wasn't clear how to attach them to the needle tips when they weren't in use. More serious was the fact that the tips kept loosening from the cable. They didn't loosen enough to become detached, since I could always use the little key to re-tighten them, but the very fine laceweight yarn would snag in the join, and it was difficult to free it. Perhaps it was my fault for knitting too tightly, but after the fifth or sixth time I gave up and switched to an old Addi Turbo.

Grumperina was right. They are heavy. But there were things I liked: the skinny cables, the sharp points, the hole through which you can carry a thread for a lifeline (though I probably wouldn't do that anyway because of my liberal use of stitch markers when knitting lace). So it was with regret that I packed them up and shipped them back, exercising the option to return them within 30 days.

Blocking Gracie

2006-09-20T08:39:00.000-04:00

With GS Gracie off the needles, it was time to block (or, as they say in England, to dress) the shawl. After blocking Scheherazade, I thought this one was going to be simple. It didn't fit on my blocking board, but it wasn't too big for the bed in the guest room, so with a beach towel laid out on the bed, I headed to the sink with Gracie and some shampoo to give it a quick wash. The rinse water was bright green – as was the second rinse, the third rinse... Off to the internet to check out excess dye in hand-dyed wool. "Heat and acid" they said, so the next washing was in warmer water with a little white vinegar. This looked like it could be a very slow process, so Gracie and I headed to the laundry room and the washing machine. Set to soak on the Very Delicate setting, with a little white vinegar in hot water, the washing machine took charge as I nervously waited, jumping up every time the sound changed to make sure it didn't actually spin after the water drained out. (Visions of a felted blob danced in my head.) One more rinse in warm water and – voilà! No more green water! The final test would be the color of the yellow beach towel after the shawl finished blocking, and in fact, there was no hint of green on the towel.

It took two days to dry, but finally Gracie was ready for the official photo:

Pattern: GS Gracie, by Myrna Stahman, in Stahman's Shawls and Scarves
Yarn: Hand-dyed Merino wool from Uruguay, purchased from 100purewool on eBay, single ply worsted weight, approx. 1100 yds
Needles: Denise size US 8
Blocked size: length 30" (center back) x 84" (wingspan)

The yarn is delightfully soft and snuggly. I have a feeling that Gracie and I are going to be spending a lot of time together this winter.

When is there one mistake too many?

2006-09-06T18:35:00.000-04:00

While on vacation I started a Print O'The Waves stole and violated almost every one of the basic rules of lace knitting, including knitting on a transatlantic flight while cramped into a bizarre position and in inadequate light. Much to my horror, though not to my surprise, when I got home and picked it up again I noticed quite a few mistakes. I considered frogging the whole thing (about 15" worth of the central panel) but my husband convinced me that "nobody will notice." Since then I have done another several pattern repeats and made a few more errors. The question is... will the mistakes be more or less obvious after it is blocked? AND... can I give the stole as a gift knowing that it isn't 100% perfect?

In the meantime, I borrowed the Myrna Stahman book on Faroese shawls from a friend. What wonderful and practical designs! There was some nice green Uruguayan wool that was happily stowed in my stash just begging to be knit as a GS Gracie. I guess after all that lace-weight yarn it was time to switch to something thick and warm and cozy, especially with summer over and the temperature dropping. I have ordered my own copy of the book, but the yarn didn't want to wait until it arrived, so I just had to get started right away. It seems to be going very quickly, which is a good thing, because I have some more Zephyr on the way and another shawl at the top of the project list. (And we won't even mention UFO'S!)

Introducing Scheherazade...

2006-08-28T19:37:00.000-04:00

Here she is... Scheherazade...

Pattern: Scheherazade, by Melanie Gibbons
Yarn: Jaggerspun Zephyr in Aegean Blue from Sarah's Yarns, approx. 90 gm
Needles: Addi Turbo size US 4
Blocked size: Approx. 22" x 78"

I have learned a lot from this project. It was my first lace shawl, and I probably couldn't have done it without the online support group from the Mystery Stole 2 Knitalong. There were hints about everything from the provisional cast-on to marking up and following charts, inserting lifelines, and blocking. What a wonderful group of knitters!

This has been a delightful knit, right from the beginning. I love the feel of the laceweight Zephyr, which is 50% merino/50% silk. It is light and airy and soft and squishy and drapes beautifully. The picture really doesn't do it justice.

So what's next? Maybe finish a few of the other projects already on the needles? Lace knitting seems to be addictive, and I already miss working on Scheherazade, so I have the feeling another lace project is in my near future. Maybe another knitalong?

57,559 stitches later...

2006-08-25T15:26:00.000-04:00

Scheherazade, formerly known as Mystery Stole 2, is now finished and blocking on the bed in the guest room. I seem to be suffering from separation anxiety after 57,559 stitches (more or less, not counting re-do's). We have been close companions for nearly two months. The last few days were especially intense, working on the edging. Then this afternoon I bound off the last stitch and set it out to block. Instead of feeling the sense of accomplishment I expected after finishing this gorgeous stole, I was struck by a sense of emptiness. It's not like I don't have a whole basket full of other projects on the needles and a long To Do list!

Pictures tomorrow...

Knitting in the air

2006-08-19T10:05:00.000-04:00

It has been a real challenge to prepare for knitting on an airplane – restrictions on scissors and other metal objects, not to mention knitting needles, required a lot of advance preparation. On our recent flight to Paris in June I had it all figured out: a simple top with interesting yarn but mindless stockinette, knit on plastic Denise needles, and even plastic stitch holders just in case they decided that a 6" metal stitch holder could be used as a weapon. A Clover yarn cutter pendant was tucked in my purse, though I subsequently heard that they had also been banned by some airlines. I got a lot of knitting done, and finished the top on a flight to Miami to visit my mother a few weeks later. Airport sitting time and squished-like-a-sardine time on the plane passed much more quickly, and there was even something to show for it at the end.

This time it was different. We were in Europe on a wonderful Baltic cruise when the news broke that a new terrorist plot had been foiled, but that it involved flights from London to the U.S., and that nobody would be allowed to carry anything onto the airplane – only travel documents, money, and non-liquid medicines needed for the duration of the flight, all in a transparent plastic bag. Everything else (cameras, electronic equipment, house keys, jewelry, and knitting) had to be put into our (unlocked, of course) checked luggage.

While the arrests by Scotland Yard of over 25 terrorist suspects was somewhat reassuring, we weren't entirely convinced that they had them all. (Maybe somebody didn't get the email that said the gig was off?) It was just too awful to contemplate being blown up, so most of us managed to shift our focus to the horrors of having our precious belongings lost, stolen, or otherwise "disappeared" once in the hands of the airlines. Some people were trying to calculate how much jewelry they could wear at one time and even suggested adorning their husbands with necklaces and earrings. Others were trying to figure out how much data to delete from their laptops and other electronic devices, lest they fall into the wrong hands.

Just imagine... you get to your destination, your checked-in carry-on bag has disappeared, and you have no car keys to get home from the airport, no cell phone to call someone to help you, and no keys to get into your house once you manage to get there. Meanwhile, you have had to sit on an airplane for 7, 8, or even 12 hours, with nothing to read and nothing to knit. How can anyone be expected to survive that???

It was difficult to put my camera, Archos video player, and laptop into a suitcase, but it was really torture to put in my knitting. I had started and completed a panta on the flight to Europe and it really helped to pass the endless sleepless hours on the plane. On the cruise I had worked on both the Mystery Stole 2 (see previous posts) and Eunny Jang's Print O'The Waves Stole and couldn't bear parting with them. After all, electronic gadgets can be replaced, but all those hours and hours of knitting. Even if I could get my hands on enough antihistamines/tranquilizers/sleeping pills to sleep on the plane without reading and/or knitting, what if they lost or absconded with the suitcase carrying these treasures???

In the eleventh hour (literally), the airlines relaxed the restrictions, allowing each of us one small carry-on (read pocketbook size), that could contain wallets, keys, even cell phones, cameras, and MP3 players. It was too small for the laptop, but I managed to squeeze in my camera. My husband used a small carry-on they had given us on the ship, which we filled with a book for each of us and.... (drumroll)... some knitting. I chose the Print O'The Waves on the grounds that it was less far along, so it was less bulky and I would lose less if they confiscated it, and it is being done on #5 needles, so I could use my Denise plastics, while the Mystery Stole is on #4 Addis. (It is really a shame that Denise doesn't come in 4's.)

The airport in London was a nightmare, even at 6:30 AM. It was totally mobbed, and it took us almost 4 hours to get checked in and get through two sets of security. We made it through the first security check exhausted but unscathed, and then they had another security check at the gate. They pulled my husband aside, patted him down, and then opened his carry-on (yes, the one with the knitting). I was literally holding my breath while they did it, but after poking around in it, they closed it up and handed it back to him with my knitting intact. Phew!

After a sleepless night, I violated one of my rules of lace knitting: DON'T KNIT WHEN YOU ARE TIRED. I haven't yet had the guts to look at what I knit on that flight, but at least it helped pass the time.

The good news was that we arrived safely in Newark. And, as a bonus, our luggage did too.

Lace Lessons Learned

2006-08-01T00:06:00.000-04:00

As a beginning lace knitter, I have learned an enormous amount by working on the Fiddlesticks Venus Vest and then Mystery Stole 2 by Melanie Gibbons. Here are a few tips for anybody just beginning to knit lace:

Don't be afraid of charts. They might be intimidating at first, but they really are easier to use than written instructions.
Make an extra copy of your chart so that you can mark it up with colored pencils, and still have the original "just in case." Depending on the pattern, it might make sense to mark off every x stitches, where x is an arbitrary number like 10 or 20; or, if there are multiple repeats across a row, mark off each repeat.
Use some kind of ruler (PostIt notes work well) to block off the rows above the one you are working on. That way you can see the current row as well as previous ones, so you can check your progress against the pattern.
Make liberal use of stitch markers. If practical, use them in the same places as the colored lines you have put on the chart. Sometimes they have to be moved, if there is a multiple-stitch figure (K2tog, SSK, etc.) that spans the marker, but it is a small price to pay.
Use a row marker to keep track of which row you are working in case you put your work down and come back to it a day, week, or month later.
Count, count count! Count the stitches between markers, and count again on the wrong-side row if it is a plain purl row. If you have lost or gained a stitch, you will be much more likely to find it right away and not have to tink or frog.
Use lifelines! They are easy to do... just thread a contrasting piece of yarn through the stitches on the needle after you have completed a row that you know is correct. It seems easiest to do this on a wrong side row, at least with patterns that do purl (or knit) across WS rows. If you make a mistake that you can't correct, you just have to frog back to the lifeline and pick up the stitches -- much better than having to start all over from scratch!
Don't panic if you are off by a stitch. It is often possible to fix the error in the next row, as long as you have been counting and catch it right away.
Don't knit in bad light.
DON'T KNIT WHEN YOU ARE TIRED.

Thanks to many of the members of the Mystery Stole group who made several suggestions that I wouldn't have discovered by myself without much more trial and much, much more error.

Venus in the Closet

2006-07-24T17:21:00.000-04:00

Venus has now been confined to the closet and is waiting for the weather to break before going out in public. The yarn is silk but it is a sort of fluffy silk that feels more like merino... lovely to knit with and I'm sure lovely to wear when it isn't 90 degrees out.

Here is a closeup of the lace pattern, complete with the white lifelines, before assembly and blocking:

I am almost sorry to be finished with her, since it was such an interesting pattern to knit and the yarn was so scrumptious.

And, speaking of scrumptious yarn, the Zephyr for the Mystery Stole 2 is also wonderful. As is the pattern. I have completed the first side of Part 3 and am extremely sad to have to leave it for the time being, since I won't be able to get the remaining clues while we are on vacation. It has been so much fun watching the pattern reveal itself that I'm not sure I can stand the suspense until we get back.

Meanwhile, I am trying to figure out what to take on the Baltic cruise. I have enough Zepyr to make another shawl but haven't decided which one. The Zephyr should be perfect for travelling, because it is very lightweight and scrunches up to almost nothing. Now that I am hooked on lace knitting I'd like to try something interesting, but will be out of range of help if I run into trouble. What to do??? For somebody who only started knitting two years ago (after a 20+ year hiatus) it seems pretty psycho to be planning my knitting for the trip even before I start thinking about what clothes to pack!

What I won't be taking: the cotton chenille baby sweater on size 2 needles that I hate working on. It is just stockinette, but it makes my hands hurt after just a few rows. I have to finish it before my granddaughter comes to visit in September, so there is a deadline. I have a feeling that I know what I'll be doing Labor Day weekend!

Just in time

2006-07-13T20:58:00.000-04:00

Against all odds I managed to finish Part 1 of the Mystery Stole just in time for Part 2 of the instructions to be released. I had to stop for a few days to go down to Miami to visit my mother... lace doesn't make for good airport or airplane knitting since it requires so much concentration, and the complicated pattern means having lots of space to spread out. So instead of unpacking and doing the wash today I treated myself to a long knitting session, and here is how it looks now:

The photo doesn't do it justice, since one end of Part 1 is squished on a stitch holder – it is symmetrical both horizontally and vertically (but I wasn't willing to take the stitches off the holder for the sake of the photo). The next section will be knit from the bottom and then repeated at the other end. The yarn is wonderfully fine and soft... the whole thing can be mushed up into the palm of your hand.

As for airplane knitting, I took along a summer top that I started on the plane to Paris. I had finished the back and was planning to do the front and cap sleeves on this trip. Unfortunately, because of several extra hours in the airport when the plane was delayed, I finished it all before the plane eventually took off and had nothing to work on for the whole flight. I suppose I should have put it together today, but it was much more fun working on the Mystery Stole!

Venus: Vedi, Vidi, Vici

2006-07-09T06:36:00.000-04:00

Venus is now complete! Well, not completely complete. It is officially off the needles, just in time to start the Mystery Stole (more about that below) since I had promised myself "Just Say No" to new projects until at least one was finished.

Here is Venus in her unblocked form, complete with dangling ends and lifelines:

The photo is a bit distorted because of the angle necessary to get the whole vest in the photo, but you get the idea. The yarn is Fiddlesticks hand-dyed Country Silk, and it is scrumptious.

This was my first real lace project, after doing several scarves. The instructions were extremely well written. There were charts, which I had never used before and found somewhat intimidating at first, but they were very easy to follow. The liberal use of stitch markers and lifelines kept me on track and I rarely had to do more fixing than pick up a dropped stitch between markers. It is knit from side to side, with a 16-row repeat, so I threaded in a lifeline at the end of every repeat. Even though I never had to frog it down to a lifeline, they came in handy for keeping track of where I was. Here are closeups of the lace patterns:

Blocking will have to wait, since I will be away part of this coming week and part of next week. But then it is too warm to wear it before fall anyway.

On to the Mystery Stole! I had already made four swatches in ivory alpaca to get it up to gauge. As you can see in my last post, the Penguin is looking at them dubiously, so I ended up buying a cone of the lace weight Zephyr (50% silk, 50% merino wool) that the designer was using. It was touch and go whether the yarn would come in time... I was itching to start, and if it didn't come in yesterday's mail I was going to have to wait until Thursday. But, miracle of miracles, it arrived late yesterday afternoon, just as I was about to dunk Venus in the sink! So Venus got a reprieve, and I started winding manageable-sized balls from the cone.

There were several false starts, not even counting the previous swatches. I decided not to do another swatch, since everyone else using Zephyr was using #3 or #4 needles, and I didn't have any #3's and would rather have it a little bigger anyway. I started on an inexpensive bamboo circular and after carefully marking up the charts, doing the provisional cast on, and putting in stitch markers, I did the first few rows. There were lots of booboos along the way... counting to 10 or 12 would seem to be a simple matter, but on the way back the number of stitches between markers would change. Aaaargh! And then the yarn kept catching on the join of the needle. Clearly it was meant to be frogged and restarted on the Addis I had once bought and never used. I was afraid that the Addis would be too slippery and stitches would slide off the needle too easily, but the snagging and catching with the bamboos was ridiculous. So back to the beginning!

By the time my eyes were announcing the end of the evening I had completed the first 20 rows of the chart:

...

This looks like it is going to be a beautiful design... but with 2 inches to show for an entire evening's work (with absolutely no distractions) it could be a very long process indeed.

And yes, I plan to thread in a lifeline before I do one more row!

Couldn't resist a mystery

2006-07-03T13:58:00.000-04:00

For someone whose favorite genre of (junk) literature is the mystery, the Mystery Stole Knitalong was irresistible... even though I already have too many projects on the needles and had promised myself not to start anything new until at least one project was complete. The plan is for Melanie to post directions for a lace stole in six sections, one each week for six weeks. There is a Yahoo Group for the participants to discuss progress, questions, etc. as we go along. It sounds like fun, even though we won't know what the stole is supposed to look like until the end – but judging from Melanie's other designs, it should be a beauty.

We were give a head start to choose the yarn, do the gauge swatches, and cast on the first 99 stitches. Here the Penguin is watching over the four swatches as they are blocked...

The yarn is a fine ivory Superalpaca that I bought on eBay a few months ago. It took four tries to get it up to Melanie's gauge – I was actually hoping for a little larger so that the stole would end up bigger than specified in the initial specs. The first swatch is on size 4 needles, then 6's, 7's, and finally 8's.

I've already learned a few things. I cast off way too tightly, as you can probably tell from the swatches, and will have to devise a way around that. (There's only so much you can do with blocking!) I also tend to cast on too tightly but have learned to cast on with a much larger needle to solve that problem. This pattern calls for a provisional cast-on, which I learned to do from the excellent video from Knitting at Knoon. A provisional cast-on always sounded a bit intimidating, but it wasn't at all difficult and, in fact, I may adopt the crocheted cast-on on which it is based in the future. I've also learned (as if every knitter and pattern designer didn't already stress it over and over) how important it is to do a swatch. Or two. Or four.

A week in Paris

2006-06-27T10:07:00.000-04:00

Not much knitting got done last week, other than on the plane. R had to go to Paris for a conference, and in an act of wifely devotion I agreed to go with him. We were celebrating a BIG anniversary, and our friends D & L were also celebrating theirs, so the four of us went together, and while R was staring at blackboards the rest of us enjoyed walking (hobbling?) around Paris and visiting museum after museum.

Since I have been there quite a few times, it was fun to seek out places I hadn't visited before (in addition to -- not instead of -- pilgrimages to the Musée d'Orsay and the Louvre). On Monday, our actual anniversary, the four of us went to visit the enormous and fascinating Père Lachaise Cemetery, where "everybody who is anybody" in French art, literature, music, and politics in the 19th and 20th centuries was buried.

On the same day, after a walking tour through the Marais section, we visited the new Mémorial de la Shoah, a beautiful memorial to the 76,000 Jews who were deported to concentration camps in 1942-44, of whom only 2500 survived. The memorial includes a wall of names of all 76,000, and has a huge collection of photographs, documents, and videos, everything beautifully displayed but also catalogued for serious Holocaust research. Our visit was particularly poignant because we found the names of L's father and other relatives on the wall.

The next day we dubbed "Gray Tuesday." All our attempts to absorb a little culture went awry. On our short list of "must sees" for this trip was Giverny, the home of Claude Monet, about 40 miles outside Paris. We planned to take the train from Paris and then a bus from the Vernon train station to Giverny. After taking the Metro (with two changes) to Gare St. Lazare, we discovered that the train schedule was extremely limited, with only two return trains, one too early and one too late. So back to the drawing boards. (Of course, because we weren't planning to visit museums that day, we didn't have a guidebook with us.)

First we headed down the Champs Elysées to the Petit Palais, one of the many Paris museums that has recently reopened after a long renovation period. There was a wonderful exhibit of the 3000 Years of the Art of Peru, beautifully displayed, but the building itself is just as interesting as the exhibits. Then off to the newly re-opened Musée de l'Orangerie at the end of the Tuileries.... Whoops! Closed on Tuesdays! After lunch in a nice little café we walked over the the Musée D'art Décoratif, one of D's favorites... Whoops! Closed Tuesdays! Sore of foot and weary of heart, we decided to spring for a cab back to the Left Bank to visit the Cluny Museum, not far from the hotel and home to the fabulous 15th century "Lady with a Unicorn" series of tapestries. Awful traffic, lunatic driver, but we got there safely. Whoops! Closed Tuesday! (We did eventually get to the Cluny later in the week and were not disappointed.) As we dragged ourselves back to the hotel we found a nice little jewelry store where D and I consoled ourselves.

Then back to the hotel, which was one of the small hotels on the Left Bank with a great location, adequate rooms, and a tiny elevator. The three of us got into the elevator, pushed the button, and up it went... for about 10 seconds... and then it came to a dead stop about 4 feet up. There we were, between floors, and nothing we did would convince it to start again. After we rang the alarm a few times, Mademoiselle behind the desk managed to put down her phone and come to help. She forced open the outer door, we pushed upen the inner door, and then by sitting on the floor we were able to jump down to safety. They had to call the "fixer" (who took 24 hours to fix it) and in the meantime we had to climb up and down 5 flights of stairs. Aaaargh!

The rest if the week was much better. We were really lucky with the weather, which was sufficiently overcast to keep it from being hot and we had no rain except for a few sprinkles. There were some real highlights: dinner with L's cousins at their home outside Paris; visits to the Louvre and the Musée d'Orsay; and our eventual visit to l'Orangerie, with its incredible Monet Water Lilies panoramic paintings totally occupying the oval walls of two large galleries. It almost made up for missing the garden at Giverny where they were painted! Almost as an afterthought we went downstairs to see the "small collection of Impressionists" donated by the widow of art dealer Paul Guillaume... over 100 works by Renoir, Cézanne, Matisse, Monet, Modigliani, Derain, Soutine, and Picasso. What a gem of a museum!

Another obscure highlight was the Manufactures de Gobelins, whose history consists of 500 years of tapestries. By chance we discovered that one can still visit the ateliers of weavers who still weave magnificent tapestries on huge looms using historical techniques. One can no longer commission a piece – even assuming one could afford it – since the factory is now owned by the French government and the works created there are exclusively for government buildings or for gifts to foreign governments. They no longer make any of the old designs but only modern designs copied from paintings commissioned for that purpose. The entire tour was in French, so I missed a lot, but it was still amazing to watch people at their looms. The weavers have to serve a four year apprenticeship, and it takes several years to complete each piece, so these people have to be incredibly patient and immune to tedium!

And then the pièce de la resistance... the Opera! I've always wanted to see the old Garnier Opera House and never got there, even to tour the inside of the building. This time we made reservations two months in advance and got tickets for a performance of Gluck's Iphenigenia en Taurus. The production was a bit strange (why do they insist on setting old operas in modern times???) but the setting was extraordinary, as were the performances.

.

.

What an incredible week! Art, music, great food, good friends... What more could one want??? Well, too bad R had to work for most of the week. Otherwise (if we discount Gray Tuesday) it would have been perfect.

Perfection is overrated

2006-06-15T12:46:00.000-04:00

This time last week I was in a tizzy because of a dropped stitch in my fircone lace shawl. It didn't show up in its initial incarnation as a lumpy blob before blocking:

but then, stretched out for blocking, there it was:

After fiddling around with a tapestry needle and a spare piece of yarn I managed to anchor the stitch so that it wouldn't unravel. It hardly even shows... though to me it might as well have little red lights blinking all around it. The truth is that very few peope would notice it -- the lacy design and the slightly fuzzy texture of the alpaca do a pretty good job of concealing the imperfection. Even my weaver friend Maxine could't find it until I pointed it out to her. And why am I so fixated on perfection anyway???

I found a wonderful quote from Isaac Babel (How it Was Done in Odessa) on the subject:

If you need my life you may have it, but all make mistakes, God included. A terrible mistake has been made, Aunt Pesya. But wasn't it a mistake on the part of God to settle Jews in Russia, for them to be tormented worse than in Hell? How would it hurt if the Jews lived in Switzerland, where they would be surrounded by first-class lakes, mountain air, and nothing but Frenchies? All make mistakes, God not excepted.

How could this have happened??

2006-06-09T17:13:00.000-04:00

Disaster has struck. I just finished my third lace scarf, washed it, set it out to block and discovered -- about 4 inches from the beginning -- a dropped stitch!!!! I don't know how this could have happened, since on the next row I had the right number of stitches. Maybe it was one of the times a few stitches slipped off the needle and, in picking them back up, I missed the actual stitch and picked up something else instead. Aaaaargh!!!!! Once it dries I'll try to mend it. Guess I won't be giving this one as a gift!

The Reluctant Penguin discovers Librivox!

2006-06-03T19:39:00.000-04:00

Literature to knit by, and all free! Librivox.com provides books, poems, and short stories that are read by volunteers. I first discovered it via the CraftLit podcast, wherein a former English teacher discusses knitting, spinning, and assorted other crafts and introduces a few chapters of an audiobook every week. She is currently doing one of my all-time favorite books, Pride and Prejudice, nicely read by Annie Coleman via Librivox. Now that I'm caught up, I may just skip ahead directly to the Librivox version so I don't have to wait a week for the next installment!

So here's the scoop on Librivox. Anyone can volunteer to read... all it requires is a little time, a microphone, and free recording software. The literature is all in the public domain, meaning that it is mostly pre-1923, but that covers a lot of classic literature. The catalog is expanding all the time. The Reluctant Penguin got her feet wet with a few poems from Fables for the Frivolous by Guy Wetmore Carryl and Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters (still in progress) and then went on to read several chapters of Candide by Voltaire (still in progress). Some projects are collaborative, with different people reading one or several chapters of a book, and others are solo, with a single individual reading an entire book.

Knitting is much more interesting while listening to a good book, especially this time of year when everything on TV seems to be a rerun.

Thank you, Theresa

2006-05-26T15:53:00.000-04:00

If you use the long-tail cast on method, you know the intense frustration of casting on 90% (or 80% or 70% or all but one) of your stitches and running out of "tail." Rip it out and start again. Aaaaaargh!!! Try doing it with a pattern that begins with "cast on 501 stitches." After 3 attempts, I finally gave up and joined another ball of yarn for the last 40 stitches... it still remains to be seen whether it will show when the sweater is finished.

Then one day recently I discovered a solution while browsing the Techniques section of knitty.com. An article by Theresa Vinson Stenersen on "Casting On" says:

Another good way to avoid this problem is by using two balls of yarn -- or both ends of the same ball of yarn -- joined at the slip knot. Just cast on one extra stitch and unknot the slip knot when you're finished casting on.

Why didn't I ever think of that??? It seems so obvious when somebody points it out! I don't even know why I was reading the article, since I have done a long-tail cast on since my grandmother first taught me how to knit, but I will never do it another way if I have to cast on more than about 30 stitches. Thank you, Theresa.

Two projects off the needles

2006-05-18T14:49:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I finished my opera shawl. (I call it that because most of it was knitted while sitting in a wonderful 10-week "Opera Without Tears" course.) Yesterday was the last day of the class, and the shawl seemed long enough. Plus, the room was cold, so there was an extra incentive to bind off and throw it over my shoulders. There is enough yarn left to make some fringe -- I just haven't decided yet whether it needs it or not.

This week was a good one for finishing things. I also finished my second lace scarf from Elizabeth Lovick's Shetland Lace Workshop, this one the Horseshoe pattern. Just like the first one, this one metamorphosed after blocking from a blob of alpaca spaghetti to a beautiful scarf:

Next project: Summer Braids Cardigan from Cabin Fever. I cast on yesterday and knit a few rows in light blue cotton. Then UPS arrived with some scrumptious light green superfine alpaca I had ordered. The cotton looks nice for a summer sweater, but the alpaca is soft and luscious and it even knits up in the right gauge. What to do???

A tale of three swatches

2006-05-13T15:07:00.000-04:00

Last week I started the Cotton Chenille Baby Cardigan for Gaia. It just wasn't knitting up the way I had envisioned. My original swatch knitted up exactly to gauge... 4 sts = 1" on size 6 needles. But the fabric was far too loose. Even the multicolor bauble trim looked funny. So I did another swatch on size 4 needles, and another on size 2's. After washing them it was clear that the cotton wasn't going to shrink enough to tighten up the fabric very much. So off to the frog pond with the back, which was almost finished. (At least baby sweaters aren't that big... it is much more painful to frog the back of an adult sweater!)

I'm going with the size 2 needles, though it isn't easy knitting the heavy chenille yarn on such tiny needles. While I was at it, I'm redoing the multicolor trim -- instead of baubles a plain garter stitch. Much easier on the fingers with this yarn, and I think it looks better. It's beginning to look like I knit the way I cook... the pattern is like a recipe, just a set of suggestions rather than commandments.

It was a busy week at the frog pond. While there I had to rip a whole 16-or-so rows of the sleeve of my Hanne Falkenberg Lastrada. It was my own stupid fault -- I read the chart wrong and knit two rows of the wrong color, and it was a long time before I noticed. The good news... they were sleeve rows with 70-something stitches, and not body rows, with 400-something stitches, or I might have thrown myself right into the pond!

My first Shetland Lace project

2006-05-05T11:33:00.000-04:00

After seeing many photos of beautiful Shetland Lace shawls knitted by Maureen Taylor I decided a few weeks ago to give it a try. I started with Elizabeth Lovick's Shetland Lace Workshop (at Maureen's suggestion) and a skein of leftover blue Superfine Alpaca. (I won't even discuss the number of time I had to frog it before I discovered that the yarn was less likely to slip off bamboo needles.) It sure didn't look like much on the needles!

Everyone says not to give up hope... that once blocked, lace will take on its shape and the design will come through. I didn't' really believe it, but here are the results:

This is an extremely simple pattern (New Shell) ... I have already cast on for the next one (Horseshoe), which looks exponentially more difficult. Eventually I hope to be able to do a shawl, but that's like anticipating calculus when you're still in kindergarten!

OTN: Hanne Falkenberg Lastrada

2006-05-02T09:34:00.000-04:00

When I first saw Lastrada I loved it, all the more so because it was available in large sizes. I couldn't wait until the kit arrived from Kangaroo in England, and when I opened it up, my first reaction was disappointment. The colors of the yarn didn't look at all like the colors on the screen. They were much more muted and earthy than the colors on my monitor - or, for that matter, the colors on the photo that came with the kit. What I thought would be blue (maybe because it was called "blueberry" ) was actually gray, and what I thought would be a light camel-ish is a very dark brownish yellow. But the colors seem to work together, so I plunged ahead.

My second moment of horror came when the instructions started with "Cast on 501 stitches." 501??? It wasn't a misprint - the sweater is made in two pieces, with the front, sleeve, and half the back on each part. You cast on the stitches across the bottom (front and half the back) plus the stitches that form the vertical front edge. The design is brilliant... but at no time could I visualize how this was going to fit together! Only after I got to the first sleeve and was struggling to figure out the directions was I able to try it on and see that it was going to work.

I'm still not sure I am doing the sleeve correctly. But I knit on, in the hopes that, like the main part, it will all come together at the end. Let's hope the frog pond is not in my travel plans.

Grandmothers knit...

2006-04-29T15:07:00.000-04:00

One of the inspirations for starting to knit again was that my grandmother, Nannie Belle, was a fabulous knitter and made almost all of my sweaters when I was growing up. Except when she was cooking (which she also did very well), it's hard to remember her without knitting needles in her hands in those days. So when I found out that my daughter-in-law was pregnant I just assumed I had to start knitting baby sweaters for the baby. That lead to a number of friends asking me to make sweaters for their soon-to-arrive grandchildren, and then my other daughter-in-law had a baby, so more projects were lined up. Here are some of the things I've done in the past year:

(Left) Max, age 8 days, modelling his first sweater and hat knit by Nonna. Okay, so the the hat is a little big...

(Right)Here is Max again, about nine months later, in his Cable Patchwork Sweater (from Beautiful Baby). I wasn't used to juggling different balls of yarn at the same time and they kept getting tangled. It was interesting managing three different patterns with different repeats. Thank goodness for stitch and row counters!

(Left) When we found out that Gaia was on her way, the needles went back into action. I had found some pink baby alpaca on the internet but it turned out to be a darker color than I thought, and I made the same sweater I had made for Max using one strand of the baby alpaca knit together with one strand of white KnitPicks Palette. It is incredibly soft and has a slightly heathery look that doesn't come across in the photo.

When we went to Israel to visit Gaia, I worked on this blue poncho. It's too big for her now, but she will grow into it eventually. It is blue acrylic from stash and the trim is KFI Liberty.

The Dinosaur sweater from Bernat Kids is waiting for Max to grow into it. I had planned to make it from Knitpicks Wool of the Andes, but that isn't available in white. In fact, it turned out to be trickier than I thought to find 100% wool worsted in white, so I used Cascade 220 for the white and the purplish blue. Colors are really hard to match on the internet - I really thought I was ordering a light blue and was surprised when it turned out to be purple-er than it looked on all three of our monitors. Oh, well -- a dinosaur can't be too fussy about the color of its legs.

QUESTION: I am now trying to figure out which pattern to make next... It is Gaia's turn and there are about 8 different things that are candidates, including Anouk, a dress from Knitty. Have any of you had any experience with this pattern?

Knitting Projects Recently Completed

2006-04-28T13:51:00.000-04:00

Here are some projects I have complete in the past few months.

This is a sweater I made from a faded old copy of the Leisure Arts leaflet, Seamless Raglans. I had made a few sweaters this way in the "olden days" and really liked the top-down approach with a minimum of sewing at the end. The yarn is hand-dyed wool from Weston Hill Farms. I was afraid I wouldn't have enough, so added some KnitPicks Wool of the Andes for the ribbing and a few subtle stripes near the top in a Fibonacci configuration. It is so
subtle that you don't really see the stripes.

It's really hard to take a picture of yourself through a mirror!

My first modular knitting project, the Multidirectional Scarf from Iris Schreier's Modular Knits. The yarn is KnitPicks Wool of the Andes and Memories. I wasn't entirely happy with my choice of yarns for this scarf - there isn't enough contrast between the variegated triangles and the solid/variegated striped triangles. Next time I will choose two solids. But there wasn't much I could do about it - I knit it on the plane to and from Israel in March, and there wasn't any other yarn handy.

I bought some really wonderful superfine alpaca yarn on eBay and then had to figure out what to do with it. The off-white was a strange shade, which looked a little greener than the photo on eBay - one of the hazards of buying yarn over the internet. But it combined well with the blue heathery yarn. Each section was knit using a double strand of the respective color.

This was the yarn that started my whole knitting renaissance. I bought it several years ago in Ushuaia, the southernmost city in Argentina, on our way back from Antarctica in January, 2005. (That's another story!) Quite a few people on the ship were knitting, and I wondered why I had ever stopped... When I bought the yarn I thought it was wool, but it seems to be a wool-acrylic blend, and the scarf is already starting to show signs of wear after just a few months.

The old and the new... The blue hat was knit in 2006 in wool I found with a half-finished sweater in the back of my closet. It had been sitting there for over 20 years. The gray hat is one I made for Roger at least 20 years ago. It is now ready to be retired.

What? You don't have a blog?

2006-04-27T15:06:00.000-04:00

"What? You don't have a blog???" I guess it's finally time to join the 21st century and start my own blog. So here I am.

Why The Reluctant Penguin? As someone who is always cold but always finding herself in cold environments (like my house in the winter or over-air-conditioned buildings in the summer), I took on the nom de plume of Reluctant Penguin many years ago. It seemed like a good persona for my blog, especially after falling in love with REAL penguins in South America and Antarctica on several trips in the past few years.

My recent preoccupation with knitting (after a many-year hiatus) was another reason to start a blog. Several knitting blogs have served as sources of inspiration, encouragement, and assistance with a variety of projects. Maybe this one will be of some interest or help to other people!

My focus will be on knitting projects - though I may not be able to resist talking about our travels from time to time.