Opinions Needed!

I've been knitting a bit. (No one should be surprised.) Before my yarn came yesterday, I knit up a wee little swatch. I rather like it ... an Irish Lace Edging pattern from Heirloom Knitting. I think it will grow up to be a double-bordered scarf. The question I am wondering about is whether or not I should lengthen the repeats by adding another row of holes around the large hole. I think so ... which means my entry into redesigning lace may be at hand. Oh dearie, oh my.

But that is not the opinion I need. No, I am humbly soliciting mitten opinions. You see below a mitten. Would it look better if the natural (gray) and moss (brown) were switched in the cuff? How about in the mitten body?




















Here's a comparison of what the bottom three bands look like, switched. And, as an aside, I am delighted to note that after FOUR tries of rendering a M1, I have finally achieved one that gives the proper results. Who'd've thunk a M1 could be so tricky?

It's not Christmas yet

The Rainbow Baby Jacket

The Armenian Knitting Hat

and I am DONE with Christmas knitting. I even did a project I wasn't planning on doing. I am also done with Christmas sewing, and I even have the pattern put away! (Speaking of which, if any of my gentle readers happen to have some Navy Chambray in their fabric stash, I would love to have some. The stuff shrinks, and for the past several years I've had a not-quite-all-cut-out shirt for my husband in the craft room. All I need is enough fabric for the right front of an XL men's shirt. The fabric stores haven't been carrying it whenver I remember to look. Simplicity 7030, I think.)

The yarn for my next project will be arriving in a few hours. Beyond that, I have the challenge of Knitting Small Stuff until Christmas. Because really, who wants to be working on Old Projects after opening New and Delightful Knitterly Things?

Frog Tree Alpaca and some lace swatches are in my sights at the moment.

I'm cheating

Somewhat.

Because after all, the Knit From Your Shelf 2009 is something that has flexible rules. I have just flexed things in the direction of either starting early, or else trimming my book queue down to size before 2009 begins.

For you see, I have a new cousin being born in March. (Technically, he's a first cousin once removed, but that's too technical for newborns, so he gets to be a cousin or nephew.) And I had some yarn in my stash, see? And then Ravelry told me that in my Very Own Library was a nice baby item that was suitable for the yarn I had in my stash ... and is it terribly horrible if the book the project came from was on my list of books to use next year? No!

Thus, I have started a Baby Jacket, from Sally Melville's Color book. She likes the back side of linen stitch for the right side, but I am liking the right side for the right side. Time to ad lib!

I have also finished another Twined and Felted Hat, and decided that I need to regard felting with more respect. Yes, the hat is Too Small again. It was fine at one point (perhaps not suitable for the recipient, but still an adult M), but it is no longer fine. It is, instead, a Class Sample.



Today we are having a lovely, gorgeous blizzard. Tomorrow we are planning to enjoy some more of the same blizzard. This is good for knitting. If we have a power outage, I won't even feel bad about not working on Christmas sewing. Since Wisteria is finished (sorry, no pictures yet), my new goal is to get the baby jacket finished before the yarn arrives for some mittens. We shall see how that goes!

I just figured out how to use Macro on Filia's camera. Yay!!

Knit From Your Shelf 2009

As the year is starting to wrap up, it's time to take stock of the task before me. I have nine 'unused' books on my shelf at the moment, am almost assuredly getting one more for Christmas, and may get even another one. Leaving aside the eager anticipation (Thanks, mom!) and speculation (did dh get the book?), that gives me

• Arctic Lace
• Sally Melville's Color
• The Art of Fair Isle Knitting
• Fair Isle Sweaters Simplified
• Knitter's Stash
• Armenian Knitting
• Meg Swansen's Knitting
• Robin Melanson's Mittens and Gloves book
• 2 Debbie Macomber books

Now, the last two were sent to my author-dh, and I am not sure if they should count. I mean, just because someone sends your HUSBAND a knitting book, does that mean it's part of my shelf? The Mittens and Gloves book was given me (to rescue it from a fate worse than death), and I am wondering if Fair Isle Sweaters Simplified needs to find a new home. I do *not* like the technique they teach for stranding. We'll see if I still have that book at year's end.

I already know my first official project will be something from Armenian Knitting, probably the hat with the flower. Beyond that ... I was disappointed in the book. How one can take a technique which could be summed up as "Take an design normally worked in Intarsia and work it by stranding the unused yarn, trapping it every 4 stitches or so" and turn it into a book is beyond me.

Also in January, I hope to knit a sweater for Filius. The 'hope' is in there because I would like to use the yarn Elann is offering starting December 30th, and if there is a major Feeding Frenzy of Yarn Lovers and I don't get the color I'd like, then I won't be making it. The sweater is projected to be Rosemary's Not-Quite-Middle Sweater, from Green Mountain Spinnery (with adaptations. I mean, how CAN you jump from a 32" chest to a 40" chest in a basic sweater?)

From Color, I hope to knit one of the wraps. I forget if it's the Linen Stitch one or the Big Bang one. But that's the likely project there. Ann Feitelson's book has several very makeable projects, but the Fridarey Vest is my favorite. Knitter's Stash has a shawl in it a friend has asked for, and also the Celtic Cardigan, and some other nifty projects. I *think* I may have made a washcloth from that book, though. Maybe it needs to be dropped from the list?

That leaves me with Meg Swansen's Knitting. Box the Compass is the obvious choice there, for my mom ... but perhaps she will want something else.

That, plus two shawls, plus a pair of mittens, plus some other carefully chosen miscellaneous knitting, should take care of my bookshelf.

On my needles now is Wisteria. I started it earlier this week, and hope to finish it by Christmas. Which means ... I should go knit.

I wonder how long it takes Colourmart to send their samples? Maybe if I work REALLY hard, I can have Wisteria finished before they get here, and start playing immediately?

(edited to zap books which were used even before Christmas arrived.)

What I've Been Knitting

I've been doing some Christmas knitting lately (no pictures, and no progress report either. The recipient is a devoted reader of her mother's blog.)

I've done some other knitting, too. First, there was the Twined and Felted Hat. You see it displayed on an obliging child who shall remain nameless. (Partly because my best guess as to which one it is has to do with where the child is positioned in the house. ) The white threads are marking out a 4x4 square so I can get some good data on how twined knitting felts. I've done a pair of twined and felted mittens, which shrank 0% in width and 10% in length, but this is a larger sample. As you can see, I'm ready for the 10% in length!

But the hat didn't cooperate. It shrunk 7% in width and 30% in length, so as to fit a 5 year old quite nicely. The cuteness of it being yet apparent, and the warmth indubitable, I have another one on the needles for a travelling project.







Next to jump on the Traveling Project bandwagon was a pair of Endpaper Mitts, using a pattern from Latvian Dreams. They came out so nicely, that I decided I'd have to make another pair with a different pattern.




















And then, I cast on for a puppy sweater. I've never made one before, but our dog has the knack of shivering when it's 80 degrees inside, and it's closer to 60 at the moment. (61.2 on top of the piano, to be precise.) I had some sport yarn that wasn't saying "Make Me Into Mittens!" so I used that, and with the help of a web pattern, had a dog sweater. It fit much better the first day than it does now, and I can see how to improve the fit in future sweaters, should they occur. But, it's done, and he Actually Wears It.

Although I did wake up a few days ago with an empty dog sweater next to me. There was a dog in it when I went to bed, and the dog was in HIS bed.

Sleeve Issues

(Yes, I really do like to be this organized)

One of the things contributing to my lack of blogging is the lack of publicly documentable progress. One of my projects is 'under the radar' and the other is a test knitting project, and I'm not sure what the proper netiquette is for revealing that sort of thing. Given my background in National Security (which is not random at all, so I didn't mention it then), I decided that 'twas best left unmentioned.

The test knitting was not without issues, and one of them was entirely mine. It comes from reading directions and then doing them. Except I'm dealing with two sets of directions, and if one set gets applied to the other item ... then it comes about, after the passage of time, that one will look at one's knitting and say "Oh. No."

As did I, one day not that long ago. SSK. K2tog. Not K2tog. SSK. I quickly ran through my options. Ignore it? Not on a test knit. As a gift, sure. For myself, no doubt. But I would have done it differently in either of those cases anyways. Frog it? Time consuming. Working down the column of stitches? BINGO!

Since I didn't discover the Issue until halfway through the second sleeve, and the issue only involved the first sleeve, my first act was to Identify the Offending Sleeve.

The sleeve being identified (ablative absolute construction), I proceeded to finish the second sleeve, then discovered that some smaller issues had arisen and 5 rows of frogging were necessary on both sleeves. Easy peasy. So, I hit 'start' on the timer, frogged the last 5 rows, picked up a few oodles of stitches, and observed that I had spent 2 minutes in the repair effort.

The next thing to do was to allow the offending column of stitches to unravel. With great encouragement, it did so in less than a minute. As it ran, I gathered up the decreased stitches on a dpn. (That reminds me. Do NOT try this with one long circular needle. Magic Loop may work for some things, but not in the OR. It's akin to doing a heart transplant through three little incisions.)

Then, I pulled out a crochet hook, repressed my natural aversion to the tool, and spent a minute picking up the stitches, working the decreases with the proper slant. That took less than 2 minutes.

Easy, right? I even improved on the technique, by picking up the 'decreased' stitches on a dpn BEFORE unraveling the other column of stitches.

And I was so delighted with myself for noticing that I hadn't unraveled far enough to get the last increase (or first increase) on the first column of stitches. I muttered slightly, but the times involved were so insignificant that I didn't mutter much. Then I realized that I was making the same error on the second set of stitches. Oops. Fortunately, I realized that before I started any constructive repairs.

The finished sleeve looks lovely. My SSKs are gorgeous. The moral of the story could be: If you want perfect SSKs, work them as K2tog, then unravel the knitting when you're just about done and fix it with a crochet hook.

But not you, Rachel. That would be avoiding the whole issue, wouldn't it?

The Terrible Thumb Trickery

In keeping with my non-random personality, I shall now write about mitten thumbs. (May as well expand it to be about mitten cuffs too, although that's more of a personal quest for enlightenment at the moment, as opposed to tension issues.)

The thumbs. You see here two mittens, rather identical except for the thumbs. Did you ever wonder about color dominance? Or ask yourself if, when push came to shove, it really mattered which hand you held which color in? Or, if you don't bother using the TWO hands the good Lord has given you to hold yarns with, how you hold them in a single hand?

Yes, Virginia, it does.

The mitten on the left has a lovely thumb. Pink, with little splotches of green, staggered 'just so.' The mitten on the right, in comparison, rather looks like the green flecks are about to take over the thumb. They are exercising dominion over the pink, are taking many steriods illegally, and are no doubt making orations to their lesser brothers on the hand to Rise Up and Conquer!

All because I don't *like* working with the yarn in my left hand, so I assigned the green to that hand since there's less of it than there is the pink. Ahem. I ignored my preferences when it came to knitting the thumb on the left. Such a cute thumb. No scary Asparagus Supremacy sprouting over there. Let that be a lesson to you. I gave the green a serious talking to (stretched the steroids right out of that thumb) and they are now behaving much better. Subdued ... until the next time.

The cuff is a much happier story. It wasn't *my* dumb error. But I wasn't quite aiming for the effect I got. It's supposed to look more entrelacquie. The pattern hinges on an adjacent m1 and k2togtbl, but I didn't know WHAT kind of m1. So I started off with a m1l, because that was the easiest to do. (I hadn't done the thumbs yet, so I didn't know to steer away from that on this particular mitten). When the results turned out Not Quite As Desired, I decided that a m1r was the thing to do. (That's the right mitten.) But as you can see, those results were even less than Not Quite As Desired. So it must (MUST) be an open m1. I've never worked anything calling for that. But I will! Because I need to write a pattern up for these mittens, and knit some up for photographs, and guess what kind of m1 I will use? You're RIGHT!

I will also hold the fleck color in my right hand while working the thumbs. Trust me.

Keeping things in order

We'll begin with the Crockpot Pound Cake Flop.

I have been enjoying a wonderful blog lately, A Year of Crockpotting. The recipes tend to be gluten free, which makes it even more appealing to me. When I found a pound cake recipe, I thought it would be the perfect birthday cake for my GF husband. Foolproof, even!

Not so foolproof as to survive a crockpot that has been around as long as I have, give or take five years. But still, how hard could it be? Grease crockpot, mix ingredients, pop them in, vent the lid, and cook for four hours.

Except after 3 hours, a burning smell filled the house. Maybe it cooked fast? Old crockpots can be temperamental, I suppose. So, I turned the crockpot upside down with a plate held in the critical position, tapped, and awaited the deliciousness of pound cake.

But to no avail. This is what glared at me from the crockpot.










And, after carefully loosening the edge of the cake and trying again, this is what came out. Ashes of Pound Cake, and a buttery-eggy ooze.

Not good.

If a cake is unbaked, but burnt, what does one do? I decided not to try for longer, but rather to see if there was anything edible. So, by cutting the cake in to fourths and using an extractor, I was able to get it out of the crockpot (which, after 2 days of soaking and some water changes, was back to its normal self). The cake was incredibly dense (undoubtedly helped by my substituting a GF flour for Pamela's Baking Mix, and not realizing that the baking mix included baking powder and other goodies), but the semi-cooked/not-quite-burned-parts were good.

I think I'm getting a newer crockpot for Christmas. Maybe mom wants this one back? It is GREAT for soups and mulled apple cider. The cider is on today's menu.

Tagged?

It's been too long since I last posted. And there's so much to say! I could write about

• the Pound Cake Disaster
  
• the Terrible Thumb Trickery
• Sleeve Issues
• what I've been knitting
• my new pattern on Ravlery

but no, I tell myself I should really write a post about Knit From Your Shelf 2009. Because, it's time to remind those of you insane enough to think this is a good idea that we have 26 days left to plot out our first project. I've not gotten around to writing that post yet.

Because TwistedinStitches tagged me. Otherwise, I'd be knitting right now and doing things other than staring at this computer and typing.

Sigh.

1. Link to the person who tagged you.

2. Post the rules on your blog.

3. Write six random, arbitrary things about yourself.

4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.

5. Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.

6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

Thing One and Thing Two are done. Six random, arbitrary things?

1. I don't do random and arbitrary. It's not in my genes. I'm sure there will be a trend in what is to come, but I'm not writing them down beforehand and selecting them. It's as random as I get.
   
2. I have sold FOUR original designs this year.
3. I own a sewing machine and know how to use it. I'd just rather not. At this time of year, there are Christmas PJs to make.
   
4. I bake bread from scratch without recourse to a recipe or measuring implements. It's edible.
   
5. I love parsing sentences and diagramming them, and even have a small job doing just that.
   
6. I can't draw worth a hoot. Or beans. Or whatever goes for next to nothing in this economy.

Tag six people? Oh dear. I'm not a tagger, and so shall decree all who wish to participate in this after reading my blog, or those who don't want to participate but wish they'd been tagged, to consider themselves tagged.

Now, those of you who are going to Knit From Your Shelf 2009 ... fess up and join in! I will stretch my abilities and pop in a sidebar with a list of who is setting this worthy goal.

Another step in the Felted Slipper Saga

My blue clogs are felted.

Very felted.

Curiously felted.

How, I ask, does one knitter, using one brand of yarn, in just one weight, by dropping down one slipper size, and by felting ten minutes less, end up going from a Ladies size 10 narrow to a CHILD's 13?

Heathered yarn. That's got to be the answer. I wanted the red clogs, but about 1/2" shorter. I dropped down a size, and on just the SECOND check of the washer (the red ones took 5 checks, and I was afeared they'd get too narrow if I kept trying to get them shorter) out popped these cute little piggy covers. This makes four (4) slippers that I have knitted and felted in an attempt to replace my current pair. First pair - too small. Second pair - nice, but they let in too much cold air at the ankle. Third pair - a trial for the real pair. Fourth pair - struck by shrinking dust.

A fifth pair will jump on the needles shortly after my next yarn order. It's got to. My current slippers already resemble a pair of sling-back flats more than they do their original shape.

A neglected blog

A neglected blog is an uninformative blog.

So, what's been happening here in the background, whilst nothing is happening in the foreground?

At long last the Baby Leggings are done. I will like them better when I see them on a tot, no doubt. But at the moment, they are done, and that is a very nice thing about them.

Finishing the leggings allowed me to tackle some yarn that arrived last week (or was it the week before? Things have been package-rich around here, and I forget).

First, the clogs. Two felted, two unfelted. The unfelted ones won't be so tomorrow noonish, if the morning goes as planned. And having them almost done allowed me to put on the needles, with good conscience, some dishcloths. Four need to be done by the 22nd, and I got the yarn for the first two yesterday. Two down, two to go.

And now there is nothing on my non-super-secret-Christmas-knitting needles. There are three--no, four--things on my to-do list, but I'm not quite ready to start any of them because I may get some Serious Knitting to work on tomorrow, and I don't want to have just started something if it should arrive.

But, let me talk about last Thursday and Friday. Thursday was a Long Day. First off, it was pouring rain. And in the pouring rain we went out to do our big monthly shopping trip. Thursday made me glad I cancelled school on the last 'nice' day of the year, Monday, so we could sit outside reading. But Thursday was cold and rainy. And dashing into stores is all well and good, but if one of the shopping party (and trust me, we had a shopping party) walks slowly, and the other has a wheelchair to load and unload ... well, dashing in becomes somewhat impracticable. So, we got a bit wet. And we got lots of stuff. Two shoeboxes' worth of goodies for Operation Christmas Child. New not-so-mentionables for a child who shall remain anonymous because said child vowed said child was down to just two pair of aforementioned item. Groceries. Lots of groceries. And then, we rejoiced because the rain had gone away temporarily and we could unload in relative comfort at my mom's house. The afternoon was spent at mom's (knitting, of course!) and then KnitNight in the evening, then home to re-unpack the groceries, tackle the day's 200 e-mails, and head to bed.

Friday was a day that should go down in the annals of conflicting emotions. In the morning, I checked to see if I should scurry to the post office to get a box from Amazon. Project delivery was the 10th, so I decided not to scurry. In the afternoon, I got an e-mail from Amazon telling me my package was unable to be delivered and I could pick it up at the post office. So, off I scurried. Package! Replacement for Bible which is in multiple pieces! Joy!

Walking home, I did not scurry. I trod slowly and heavily, laden down by TWO boxes. Large boxes. But packages are good, so all was well in my world.

Then I opened the packages (over the next few hours, which tells you loads about my Friday). The yarn I got London Tweed Bag Sale at Elann) wasn't the color the website said. Sniff. But liveable. The actual Tuesday sale was a bit of a frenzy ... twice I got to the checkout only to find that the color I wanted was no longer available. The color that my mom wanted, and the color that my friend wanted ... those were still around. But not my Autumn Glory, nor my Mallard.

The books were yet another matter. Herodotus has a mildly dinged corner. I can live with that. Thucydides was paperback, not hardback. I goofed :( and it's not fun to good. And my bible had a different binding from what the website said it did. That was annoying. But, the sunny side was that one part of the order was undinged and correct, and we've all been enjoying it.

Tomorrow is package day at the post office. I'm sending out yarn, books, and some miscellany. Who knows what I will get?

Next Monday will be the mailing date for hats. We've got a big box full already, and more are dropping off the needles of an industrious Filia daily.

Random Updates

1. It snowed on Sunday. I love snow.
   
2. The power was out when we got home that day. It stayed off for 6 hours.
   
3. Wool sweaters are nice to wear when the power is out.
4. Hot chocolate, knitting and quiet music get condensed to knitting without electricity.
   
5. Our printer is in my list of companies to get coal in their stockings. They changed their printing prices and didn't notify their users of that fact by e-mail.
   
6. Adrenaline helps a body regroup quickly and multitask across many browser windows.
7. The Baby Leggings aren't going anywhere fast.
8. Boxes in the mail are fun. This week has seen a box from Woolgirl, KnitPicks, two MK boxes, and compression stockings.
9. Thirty two. That's how many hats we have in the box for Filia's contribution to a James 2 project.
   
10. It's time to go knit.
    

The Poems Twined Hat

You can't judge a skein ...

by its color?

You can't judge a skein's color by its color?

Or perhaps, skeins are hard to judge?

Exhibit A, above, depicts two balls of yarn before use. Exhibit B depicts those Same Two Balls, knit up. (Ideally, Exhibit C should be a close-up of the ball band with the color number and a link to the proper color but the ball band has gone inexplicably missing. (The band turned up! It's color 581)

Oh well. I was looking forward to a blue/red hat. I think I've got pink/green instead. Still, it's warm, and will be warmer yet when I finish it. The plan is to do a checked hem. Toastyness. If a little ice age creeps up on Minnesota (or do ice ages creep down?) I think I just might finally have some people interested in learning twined knitting. It beats acrylic stockinette hands down. Ears unfrozen.

Upcoming knitting includes Mitten 2 of Annemor #4, thumbs and a top for Annemor #5 (I found someone to send me yarn!!!), and baby hats to contribute to Filia's participation in a James 2 project.

Upcoming this evening is chat about Meno, Socrates, and the teachability of virtue.

Upcoming this week is a day visiting friends and talking about knitting.

Upcoming in 2.5 months is Knit From Your Shelf 2009!

So many things to look forwards to.

Fall - that wonderful time!

The soybean harvest is well under way, and that means that fall is here. And Japanese Beetles, and Box Elder Bugs. So far, they're staying outside the house, but I don't expect that to last much longer. The beetles manage to get into the house somehow, and then spend their evenings dashing themselves against the lights.

Knitting is, as always, proceeding apace. Can it proceed any other way? Can something not proceed apace? I understand that it can be going nowhere, of course (albeit not in an experiential understanding, but rather a cognitive one).

This weekend seemed to have a cream theme. The Latvian mittens were finished and blocked, a hat was made from stash yarn, and a garter stitch mug cozy was made from some yarn that's sitting in my knitting box and waiting for a knitting class next Saturday. Does that count as stash? I'm not sure. It's pre-consumer recycling, I suppose.

In my quest for something small to take along on a long drive Sunday, I started Annemor #5. Surely 32g would be enough for a main color in a child's pair of mittens? No. Shirley was wrong. I have - to the row - the top decreases to do on one mitten, and two thumbs left. Ravelry to the rescue! One (and only one) person has the proper color in her stash, and we've arranged a small swap so the mittens can get finished.

While away, I bumped into my knitting student from camp this summer. She'd been having some problems with a pattern for short row booties, and I could understand why. The pattern isn't crystal clear about some things .. so I set about knitting a pair of booties to disentangle the pattern. And voila ... booties!

We're in our third week of school (not counting the 3 weeks of Intense History before school, nor the Preview Week between surgery and school) and although no one replaced my fallible children with perfect students, nor the multi-tasking teacher who under-explains with the ideal mentor, I think things are going well. I've promised we'll open up my chocolate Easter bunny (yes, from this Easter) as soon as we make it through a day of math without the words "Show your work" being spoken as an admonishment. Filius has given up on ever getting a taste of the bunny. (My bunny, let me say. He already ate his) Henle 2 Latin is going much better than I thought it might. Many errors of thought seem to have floated away over the summer. Will they stay adrift in a sea of vacation? Probably not. But we're off to a good start there. Diogenes: Maxim is coming along nicely as well - the first writing project is due tomorrow. Reading the models is bittersweet, as I remember vividly which sentences caused me such anguish in their diagramming. I think I'd rather diagram the apostle Paul than Benjamin Franklin. For one thing, Paul capitalizes and spells correctly. And I can but hope that it was clearer in Greek. Ben? No excuses there. Traditional Logic II is moving nicely, and thanks to Leslie's question I now have Uncle Asinebop as part of my logic arsenal. Science is, well, science (I can't wait for chemistry! Stoichiometry was such fun) and to my surprise Peter Saccio's Shakespeare lectures seem to be the highlight of the week. This week, and next, we'll be reading/watching A Midsummer Night's Dream.

And that's school. I'm keeping up with the Puritan Reading Challenge, and also the Plato Reading Group. And may have two knitting classes starting next week.

Filius and I are happily awaiting the first snow. Canis happily awaits Filius' arrival downstairs each morning. Filius brings blankets, and Canis jumps on the blankets and burrows before they get anywhere close to their intended resting place (on top of Filius, on the couch.) It can be dangerous to plop down on a heap of blankets in this house during the next several months. Something may be in there!

Ponder ponder

The twined mittens are done. My hands can now relax from the twist twist twist so inherent in twined knitting.

Now, I get to cable mittens. I *think* I've got the right stitch. (Anyone who doesn't think so, and can tell me why not, please PLEASE please leave a comment. I've got the right blue. I almost have the right cream. But I do not have the right gauge. And, knowing how the yarn works up on larger needles, I'm suspecting I may not have the right yarn. So. I'll start off with a child's size mitten, and then play with gauge later. The mitten on the left is, as the discerning reader will note from the needles at the top, the one I am knitting. The mitten on the right is the one from Latvia (pause for reflection on the journey this mitten has taken.)

I'm also, somehow, in the middle of a lace moebius scarf. Well, not in the MIDDLE middle, as that's the cast on row, and I'm beyond that. Thankfully. The first three hours of knitting on it were enough to make me grumble about my faithful Boye Needlemaster set. Cables and connectors and exposed threads, Oh My! But the next morning, as I began work on row 2, I realized I was just dealing with First Row Agonies, and all has gone well since.

And that's my knitting for this weekl. Mitten here, lace there, and a quiet week in which to do it.

Filia's cast has filled up quite nicely with signatures. She only gets to enjoy it for another 3 1/2 weeks, though. We are not sad.

Needles, needles, what's on the needles?

Version 2.0 of a felted mitten is on the needles now. But I'm on the phone with the IRS (have been on hold 23 minutes, after taking 10 minutes to find a number that didn't lead to technical difficulties and a disconnection. We're trying to get Filius reinstated as one of our children, near as I can tell.)

While I was at the hospital with Filia, I played with a new pattern for a striped hat. It ended up being a stripey argyle. With a smaller yarn, I'd have more room to play with the diamonds. It's got definite possibilities.

Then there's the Pumpkin Spice Mittens. They're finished now, but the camera is far, far from here and I like them so much I wanted to share an in-progress photo. See my ball of yarn? To deal with the twist, I S-plied the two strands together, so I can just knit knit knit. The yarn untwists as I knit it, rather than get all twisted up. So much nicer! Has anyone else discovered this? Is it a common thing to do, but my books just don't say so?


Our LYS had a sale, and I decided to get some more yarn for another striped hat. (What can I say? I like making them. And if I teach a class in them one day, I need to have some handy yarn for a nifty hat.) The yarn is akin to Noro rather than Mirasol, so I am looking forward to seeing how the gradations turn out.


Then there's the Starfish Tam. I'll order yarn to finish it with my next KP order. So far, that's the only thing I need so this is languishing on the needles. The hat has potential for disaster ... I calculated that there are 40" of stitches on it at the widest point. And it's for a 2 year old. It could be scary.

And here are my next mittens, sort of. The mittens came from Latvia, and I'm going to try and make a copy of them (before I have to return them in a month). The cable is something I've not seen before, but I have two areas of inquiry that look profitable (thanks, TwistedinStitches and Trakaigirl!) and once I get the current mitten done I'll start experimenting.

And that's what's up in my knitting life.

Still on hold with the IRS....

Hospitals Are Fun

Let me begin by saying that I know not all hospitals are fun, nor do all people have fun in hospitals. However, it seems to be a truth universally acknowledged that an unmarried female faced with the proposition of surgery must be a miserable specimen of humanity.
I'd like to present some visual imagery to you, proving that this is not the case. These photos are unaltered (except for six gleaming red eyes which have been recolored with the marvels of modern technology) and were fairly unstaged. No minors were harmed in the shooting of these images.

First, we have Filia and the Bobbsey Twins. This photo was the only 'staged' one, since three females knitting do not normally sit close enough together for an interesting photograph. This photo was taken the night before surgery. Do you see any fear, panic, or trepidation in that face?

Next, we have Filia, the Night Owl, up in the pre-op room at SIX THIRTY IN THE MORNING. (She's been up for 1.5 hours at this time.) Tessie the Bear is cheerfully snuggled up to her. The polar fleece blanket is a gift from the hospital auxiliary. The only thing wanting is a particular doctor to bring a particular pair of mittens in for our careful examination. (And tucked under my chair is a box full of mittens and knitting books. We come prepared! Spare clothes, of course, stayed in the car. Who needs those in the pre-op?)

Two hours after arriving in her room post-op, Filia is hard at work on the computer, posting updates on her surgery to her friends. She would have done it sooner, but Child Life had to find a computer for us to borrow. We love Child Life!

Child Life arranges other fun things, like dog shows for the hospital inmates. Three therapy dogs did a meet and greet, as well as various tricks. Filia and her roommate were still hooked up to all their equipment (which staged beeping wars) as the dog show was the day OF surgery (and after), but they both popped out of bed and into a hospital wheelchair to attend. Perhaps 'popped' is too strong of a word? Anyway, there they are. A little wan looking, perhaps, but that can go with the territory. You can't go around looking TOO cheerful right after surgery, or insurance may decide it should be outpatient.

And more therapy dogs! Otis the mastiff came by the first day (before the dog show.) Otis is huge, but small for a mastiff. Sparkie is small for a Basenji (which is an entirely different thing from being small for a mastiff) but that just meant he could snuggle on the hospital bed!

It's all way too much fun. Filia is wondering if her left leg would benefit from any fixing the doctors can do, and how soon she can go back.

You know a hospital is serious about patient care when the catering staff hunt down a wayward patient at the air hockey table in the clinic reception area to get her supper order. (She beat me. Twice. And she beat the Bobbsey Twins once, and lost once.)


All is well with us. School starts in earnest on Monday, and I should have some decent knitting posts next week. I spent some time in Ravelry today to get it up-to-date ... next week is the week of catching up the blog.

And we're back!

Have been back for a while, actually. Surgery went well, and Filia bounced back from it very quickly (chatted with the nurses on the way into AND out of the operating room.) She would have run out of yarn to knit, were it not for the kindness of TwistedinStitches who both gave her some on Monday, and brought more on Wednesday. Me? I packed enough. The trip saw a pair of socks completed, a twisted hat begun (and finished today), a Starfish Hat from America Knits begun (and not finished ... I need more yarn!), and some very unclassical books read.

After finishing the hat, I've cast on for a twisted mitten. It's not a mate to the one sitting in my knitting box, but rather version 2.0. Dh did comment that version 1.0 fits him perfectly, and he seemed to like the felted feeling. Maybe if he's good, I'll make a match for version 1.0 for him. But he doesn't like mittens... but they'd fit OVER just about anything, for a double layer. We'll see.

Because recovery went so quickly, we were out of the hospital before the swelling was down enough for a cast. Tomorrow we shall remedy that, and get rid of the plaster/cotton/ACE bandage dressing. And we'll visit Half-Price Books, and the Olive Garden, and maybe a yarn store or two....

And we're (almost) off!

Filia and I are taking a mother-daughter break this week. It's not the traditional mother-daughter stuff, done over the weekend and involving lots of shopping. (If it's not yarn, I'm generally not a shopper. And even if it is yarn, I'd rather shop for one project and start knitting than just 'shop'. Maybe that's why my stash is in the shape it is.) No, our mother-daughter break will take place at a hospital, and it will involve a literal break, to be followed by a cast. Hopefully (according to Filia) neon orange. Two or three days and much knitting later, we'll head home. Sound fun?

We think so.

The pre-op doesn't involve anything remotely like 12 cups of Go-Lytely (akin to the stuff one drinks before a colonoscopy), and there are no incisions to hurt while sitting up ... what's not to like? Nurses, yummy hospital food, visitors, more videos than one is normally allowed to watch, no chores. And lots of knitting time. Plus,it means the start of school gets delayed. What's not to like?

Filia hasn't decided what she's going to bring to knit. I'm working hard to figure out what I can safely leave home. I think my spinning wheel will stay home (just not that much room in the hospital!), which means I need to get some yarn plied for easier twined knitting. I finished the mitten I was working on, and it's become a 'sample' since it didn't shrink widthwise In The Least. 10" circumference before felting, 10" after felting. At least the mitten had the good grace to shrink lengthwise, all of 10%. I love how it feels. Twined knitting with fingering weight yarn and felting ... mmm, mmm, good.

I've got a pair of socks on the needles as well, and will be swatching for Filia's sweater if both they and the mittens get done. And there's yarn for the nifty starfish-shaped hat from America Knits, so I need to jot the pattern down. I can't see bringing a HUGE book along for the 13 lines or so the pattern is. Unless I need reading material? Maybe I should bring it. And maybe some spare yarn in case I want to cast on for a Latvian mitten.

Packing for the hospital isn't the challenge, though. No, it's packing for the overnight BEFORE the hospital We don't want to get up at 4 AM and drive for 2+ hours, so we're imposing upon someone who just happens to live closer to the hospital than we do. And she knits, and wants to pick my brain about knitting. And so, I've got to bring my mitten box. And my twined knitting books. And my fair goodies. And and and and. We're going to have fun. (If we have too much fun, I won't have to worry about waking up early. I'll still be awake!)

Besides the twined mitten that came off my needles, I have made another pair of felted slippers (argh. The opening is too big. Next try - felted clogs), and finished my legwarmers. Two hats have contributed to stash depletion, too.

And that's the knitting and non-schooling news from the non-hurricane-prone North.