What do Hardanger, Rabbits, and Cotton Have in Common?

They're all in my blog this week, that's what!

First, the hardanger. This is a photo of my mom's first attempt at hardanger embroidery. It's a bread cloth, mofidifed from a pattern in a Burda book. All she has to do is mend some blanket stitches at the edge, and it will be finished. Mend, mom, Mend!

Next comes the Rabbits. Here you see an angora .... something. It starts with a g, or so the recipient informs me, but the rest of the word is lost. The tie goes under the chin, the rest of it over the ears and head .... anyone know what it's called?


And last comes the cotton. Here's a cotton doily - my Very First Knit Cotton Doily. (I've knit two lace doily swatches before, for level III of my Master Knitting course. This one is from Marianne Kinzel's First Book of Modern Lace Knitting) I rather like it. It need re-blocking - but at least now I know that 1 tsp cornstarch to 2/3 cups of water does stiffen a doily sufficiently.

My OTN project is a sock. Sock number 2 of a pair, and it's at the heel. I also acquired two skeins of sock yarn today to make two pairs of socks for my mom. And I'm pretty much decided on knitting the Icarus Shawl from the latest Interweave Knits. Gotta have something to do work on while we're travelling to Ohio!

I received my Entrelac swatch back in the mail today ... what a fast turnaround time! Last Monday I sent it off, and this Monday I get it back. Along with a 'Congratulations!' letter. Dum da dee dee dum... I think I'll memorize the letter. I'd be better off memorizing the first letter, with the list of improvements I can work on, however.

I'm reading A Thomas Jefferson Education now. Fascinating book. I've talked my mom into reading it as well so I will have someonewith whom to discuss the ideas therein. There's a list of 'books to read' piling up on the bookmark in it as well -- and all this just at the beginning of our summer break! How fortuitous.

Now, if I can only stick with the reading, and not have things go in one ear and out the other.

The Box Came Back

The Box came back on Wedneday. Not an ordinary box, mind you, but a Priority Mail box from the west coast. It contained a sweater, a hat, eighteen swatches, and enough pattern directions to start a small encylopedia (so long as it was truly very small), and a very nice letter. The bottom line is ... I have a swatch to redo.

Actually, I had a swatch to redo. The New and Improved version is blocking at the moment. The white and tan swatch is the Old and Needs Reworking swatch. The blue threads point out the Awful Parts. The grey and purple swatch is the Improved version. I sat myself down yesterday, book in lap, yarn in basket, needles on table, and proceeded to knit. And experiment (with acrylic, none the less). And after not too much analysis, I discovered that 100% of those blue threads were caused by ssks. No p2togs rated a blue thread. So I addressed myself to improving the ssk.

An ssk is a left-leaning single decrease. It is formed by slipping one stitch knitwise, the another, then knitting them together by either transferring them (without twisting) back onto the left-hand needle and knitting through the back loops, or else not transferring them and inserting the left-hand needle into the loops and knit them together. It's supposed to be a perfect mirror of a k2tog. The problem is, it's easy to stretch a stitch or two out of shape and end up with a cracked mirror - in this case, mis-shapen stitches. The usual solution is to work on the tips of your needles so as not to stretch the stitches.

Working the stitches on the tips of the needles didn't improve the situation. Working the stitches on size 0 needles didn't improve the situation. BUT the alternative left-leaning decrease, the "slip one, knit one, pass slipped stitch over knit stitch" (s1 k1 psso) behaved itself beautifully. And so, a new swatch was born. First in acrylic, then a sample in alpaca/silk leftovers (which did not behave at all), and finally, in plain ol' wool. I also did some experimentation with wrapped stitches and made some improvements in the first and last row of the swatch. It was a lovely learning experience. I'm not sure I will ever love entrelac, but I do plan on making at least one entrelac sock, so I will a) know how to do it, and b) know if I ever want to do it again.

The Moebius is finished. Multiple headbands got finished.

And some lace got started.










In my non-knitting life, I'm studying II Thessalonians, editing, and juggling end-of-the-year school with medical appointments. Next on my 'to read' list is Grace Abounding, John Bunyan's autobiography.

It's soft, it's fuzzy, it's pink ...

and it's FINISHED! The fuzzy pink wrap which, last week at this time was languishing at Hobby Lobby in unloved balls, is now finished and wrapped.

For dd, it's time for beginning a new project. Here she is hard at work on the first round of a poncho. I'm not sure if it is her first first round, or her second first round. After a successful, untwisted beginning, she set down her knitting to get some sleep (one of those things parents insist on at least once a day). When she picked it up again, it somehow got twisted, and stayed that way for 5 rounds.

Here is the rest of the yarn for the poncho, along with the Yarn Guardian. Every knitter should have one.

And here, a picture of the view from one of our schoolroom windows. The bleeding heart (lower left) are in bloom now, and the lily of the valley (lower right) look to follow them shortly.

My knitting project for this week is to Finish the Moebius. It's been hanging around in my travelling bag for too long, and as such needs to be removed. Since I don't permit UFOs to hang around the house, the removal will be accomplished by completing it. The last Moebius I made took me two days to knit. Amazing what a difference using laceweight yarn instead of worsted will make. Part of the problem is also the Norwegian Sweater, Faux Russian Stole, Frost Flowers and Leaves Shawl, socks, brioche scarf, capelet, 12 headbands, and pink diamond stole I've made since starting it. Its time has come.

The Last of the Argyle

As promised, here's a picture of the capelet. I like it, and it's eminently comfortable ... but my row gauge in the pattern worked out to be just a wee bit small at the bottom circumference, so it's not quite as cape-y as I'd hoped. I'll have to find someone with smaller shoulders to wear it, and I think I only need look over to the couch to find someone.

I've also finished my last Christmas present - 2005, not 2006. I'm not THAT ahead of things, and besides, if I were, I'd've given them all as Easter gifts and be starting from scratch for Christmas 2006. I do not have a calling to do intarsia, so they are labors of love. It's funny, though, that once Labor #2 started (it was postponed in favor of getting a third ball of navy. The one I had left wasn't enough to finish the sock, and the intarsia just worked better with two balls of navy. Truly), it behaved itself and went nicely. (Considering I had only done the ribbing of Sock #2 on Friday, and it's now Tuesday and finished, I think it went very nicely.)

Of course, I have to have a 'next project' now, don't I? I've got yarn to make angora headbands, more yarn to make something to cover the ears and part of the head and tie under the chin with strings .. which begins with a G, but neither I nor the requester has any idea what the rest of the word is. Any ideas? They were fashionable quite a while ago...

Shawls seem to be calling my name as well. Tomorrow I'm going on a yarn hunt for some soft pink fuzzy machine washable yarn for a rectangular shawl. And after that, I will probably succumb to something elegantly lacy. And socks, Latvian mittens, two-end knitting .... plus lace edging. There's simply no shortage of things to knit.

Goals for this week? Headbands.

:) Carolyn

Fluted Rib Capelet

I'm wearing my new capelet, knit with KnitPicks Shine Sport in Orchid. I knit knit knit for close to the 56 repeats specified, and then decided to measure ... and instead of having a 20" neck, I had a 26.5" neck. Oops. I connected the capelet to my ballwinder, frogged about 100 yards, and re-knit the final four rows. I like it. Pictures will come, eventually. Right now, though, just think of me as a walking example of why one should measure one's knitting periodically even after having knit a gauge swatch.

I've got 9 Angora Headbands finished, and will be getting more lucious yummy angora yarn this weekend to make some more. They're grand take-along projects, except for when I am wearing a black skirt. It's one thing not to get the fibers stuck in your olfactory organ, and another thing entirely to keep them off your lap.

Since The Shawl is finished, and the capelet is done, and I'm not ready to start making dd's summer wrap yet (first, I'd like her to find where the room of her floor went, then we'll figure out something appropriate for a 10-can't-I-be-16-yet fashion-conscious lover of pink), I have unearthed The Argyle. I am finishing the pair, and not tossing it in the trash, out of sheer love for my husband. There is no other reason I can think of for completing it. I have thought about completing X amount on it each day, and starting another, more comely, project ... but whom am I kidding? That would just prolong the finishing. It's going to take however long it takes, and the sooner I just do it, the sooner it can get lost in his sock drawer.

Goal this week: Finish the patterned portion of The Argyle. (progress before today: ribbing. progress today: a bit over half of the first (of 3) large diamonds)

And, because one can never have too many pictures of lace around ...

Frost Flowers and Leaves Finally Finished

Eleven balls of KnitPicks Palette in Purple, five repeats of chart 2, and twenty four feet of edging later, yes, the shawl is Done. Or at least almost done... I have some ends to weave in, but that doesn't count as knitting. If it were knitting, I'd've done it by now.

To the right, you see my long-suffering husband displaying the shawl to advantage. It's large, so I needed to find a model bigger than my 10 year old.







On the left, you see the shawl while it's drying. The little ruler in the picture is a yardstick. Underneath is a close-up of the pattern. Pretty, ain't it?

To block it, I ran a piece of crochet cotton through the edging. I think it would work wonderfully if I had used stronger thread (ie, small rope) and if I had something more than quilting pins in carpeting to hold it. I thought about using tent pegs and staking the shawl outside, but decided that would be best done with two people.

I've one more angora headband to do - for a total of 9 - and then that project will be finished. The books did finally reach the end of their editing process ... only to sprout some blatant typographical errors, omissions, and type-setting faux pas (pax? passes? What is the plural of pas? And does faux change to agree with it? Help, O students of French!). They are all taken care of, and I'm ready for my next editing project to arrive. While I wait, I shall knit.

Weedwacker cord and Basting Pins?

I'm not quite ready to try Rosemary's Circular Needles yet, but having a cable to transfer stitches on to sounds a whole lot better than putting them on a piece of yarn. And so, with 40 ft of cord, leftover plumber's tape, and some packing tape, I embarked on an adventure. If it ends with 1,232 dropped stitches, I will be mildly miffed with myself.

Having finished the main body of Frost Flowers and Leaves, I determined to connect the cord to one of the cables. Wonderfully enough, the cord I chose just fits inside one of my cable connectors, so I secured it with some tape, wrapped it, and nudged, cajoled, tugged, and otherwise manipulated one quarter of my shawl onto the cord. It looked nice.

Nice is pleasant, but when there's brand new edging to knit, the edging calls louder. After a few rows, Ι discovered that the seemingly regular edging isn't. Because of where the repeat was placed, the 'every 6 rows' stitch doesn't happen every six rows. Sometimes it happens after six rows, and the other half of sometimes it happens every 10. Yuck. I do hope it's an error. It sounded like a good question to have answered before I move forwards, so I decided to tempt fate (and 1232 dropped stitches) and moved the other 3/4 of my shawl onto the weedwacker cord.


With a few basting pins, I secured the corners (or something close to the corner, in the case of my 3" of edging) to various coverings on furniture, including our dog's blanket, and snapped a picture. This is *not* blocked dimensions (despite the 5 1/2' diagonal) It's the 'laid out somewhat flat' size. Blocking is going to be fun. Especially if I thread the weedwacker cord through appropriate holes and just pin that out. Flexibile blocking wire!!!

Posting when nothing happens

Not much is happening. The weather outside is getting springy, my children are getting antsy, and I, of course, am still knitty.

If you'd like an updated picture of my shawl, just imagine a purple blob. That's really what it looks like. In some lights it's a red-violet, in other lights, blue-violet. But regardless of the lighting, it's a blob. I'd use some plumber's tape and weed whacker string to de-blob it, but it's just not worth a 30 minute trip into town to get the cord.

I did pretty miserably on my goals this week. No letter written, no books at the end of their editing process, and I have a large chunk of Bible study preparation to do this evening. On the positive side, I did finish off my 7th ball of shawl yarn, and made progress on the headbands. I had to set a gray one aside because there wasn't enough yarn in that shade. There was an *impostor* ball of gray in the bag, but once I started knitting from it, its impostrosity became apparent. I removed the impostor, and placed the headband on waste yarn so it could be finished later when the proper bunny yielded up the proper amount of fur.

My daughter has been knitting. Here's a picture of her first pair of socks. They're not quite identical ... she picked a different heel for the second sock than I had her work for the first and sock #2 has a better foot length. She's not about to frog back sock #1 and add an extra stripe before the toe decrease, though. She's just about finished with her Barbie veil, and has started a scarf out of some stash (working from MY stash?!? Eeeek!) using worsted yarn and size 19 Lincoln logs ... um, needles. Her next official project is a poncho for her cousin. We need to pick a pattern and get some yarn ordered. I'm going to order some Dancing sock yarn, since it's being discontinued and I happen to like it. Machine washable, great feel ... if only it didn't have so much orange and yellow!

Now, *this* week I hope to finish editing a book set. All the finer points have been hashed out, as of late yesterday evening, so it's just me and some files between finishing. I also hope to finish chart three of the shawl - there are 13.5 very long rows to go - and get started on the edging. Will four balls of yarn be enough to do 13 rows and some edging? Time will give the definite answer, but...

I now peer into the future with my Calculator of Yarn Estimation. Careful examination reveals that one ball yields about 11,000 stitches, and I estimate the edging to contain ... 22176 stitches (about 1232 stitches in a row, bound off by knitting edging 12 stitches wide, and four stitches get bound off every 6 rows of edging ... so 1232 divided by 4 yields 308 bind-off groupings, times 6 rows times 12 stitches ) Wow. How's that for close? I only have 16000 or so stitches left in the main body of the shawl, so I think I'll have enough yarn with 4 balls.

I de-blobbed my shawl by draping the center of it on the arm of our couch. You can only see part of chart 1 -- none of the 5 repititions of chart 2 - but it's something!

George Mason did what?

My knitting basket is rather disorganized these days. I was working on an argyle sock, but need another skein to finish it, so it got bumped down the priority list. That accounts for the wine, navy, and tan yarns in the basket. Then there's the Moebius cowl, which was begun as a take-along project. It got bumped this past week by some angora headbands. Those - except for grafting - are the quintessential take-along project. Knit fourteen. Turn. Repeat for 18 inches. The chart in the background is for The Shawl.


Which, I am pleased to notel is growing nicely. I just started the 5th ball tonight, and am barely into the 4th repeat of chart 2. That adds up to being 35% done with the main body of the shawl. After that comes 24 feet of edging. I'm not going to think about that part, however. My fingers and palms have a distinct purple cast to them. Fortunately, I like purple, and don't mind having hands that look like they're severely bruised.

My daughter has been knitting a good bit lately. She's knit a shirt for a Ken* Barbie, and discovered how important it is to allow for ease in the shoulder area. The neckline goes up and down with Ken's arms. She's also finished Jackie's wedding gown, discovered that a slip is very necessary with some knit garments (especially when Mattel doesn't choose a neutral color for the painted-on outfit), and is now working on a veil. With Jaggerspun 2/8 wool. On my 000 needles. Addi needles. When I was her age, I had no idea that Addi existed. or that there was anything to knit with beyond Red Heart. (* not his real name)

My daughter has also broken 4 of my Brittany sock needles. I took Rosemary's advice and got a package of bamboo skewers, and borrowed some sandpaper from my mom. The skewers at Wal-Mart looked to be a size 5 or 6, but the ones at the grocery store I use looked sock-ish, and fit just perfectly into the 2.75 mm spot on my needle gauge. I gave my daughter the skewers, so she now has 80 sock needles to break, and I kept the *7* needles Brittany sent me as replacements. Let's see ... I started off with 10, lost one all by myself with no help, then four got broken, and I was given 7 to replace them. That makes for 12 sockie needlies, which means I could have a travelling sock pattern and a tricky sock pattern!

This week is not looking fortuitous for knitting. I shall, however, forge ahead, and report back in next week. Goals? Be finished with the current pair of books I am editing, write one letter, keep up with Bible Study,and finish 2 balls of purple yarn and 3 angora headbands.

(Today's title is in honor of my son, who is looking forward towards being old enough to have his own blog, in which he will wax eloquent about the state of sports in this nation.)

More yarn!

Blogger is not cooperating for pictures today, so no pictures.

That's not entirely bad. You can use your imagination to come up with how far one ball of purple yarn will go on a rectangular shawl. (Answer: Row 64) My unphotographed Brioche Stitch scarf will remain incognito. You'll have to knit one of your own to find out what an argyle sock designed to fit an 18" calf looks like. No, not for the kind of calf that says Moo. It's the kind attatched to a man's foot. And you'll have to use your imagination to picture the Moebius I was practically forced to cast on as a take-along project because I was running out of yarn for argyle sock 2 (and argyles are not take-along projects in any case) and I had no other viable project on needles. I'm using KnitPicks Shadow in Campfire, and it looks quite nice.

The socks which grew in the handwashing behaved appropriately when machine laundered, and reverted to their scheduled size.

My stash is actually shrinking at a steady pace, despite the fact that I haven't started my tea cozy which is lurking in it somewhere. The Campfire came from my stash, as did the Brioche Scarf. I also sent off 13 partial balls of sock yarn today to Major Knitter , who will be using them to make Knit Notes, the initial proceeds from which will go to charity.

To be honest, though, my stash also grew. I have 10 more balls of Purple Palette (so I'm going to work on your shawl tonight, Rebecca!) and an additional 10 balls of Shine in Orchid. That will become the Fluted Ribs capelet from WrapStyle, sometime, somewhen.

My daylight hours are filled with homeschool, household management, and editing. I cleaned up my desk yesterday (inspired by the YarnHarlot's new desk with a cubby for yarn!), cleared off the foot-high stack of Classical Writing books so that I could find the two books I am currently editing (and will hopefully finish before the next two books are ready for editing), and am generally not bored.

So unbored, in fact, that I think I'll go knit.
I still haven't started a tea cozy.

Purple Frost!

Sitting in a chair next to a sickbed is an excellent way to get lots of knitting done. That's exactly where I spent Saturday, which enabled me to finish up the Faux Russian Stole on Sunday - also spent at home with Sick Child, who was sick enough to stay home, but not too sick to pass a pleasant day as the Ruling Couch Potato, complete with books, knitting, stuffed animals, and live dog.

The shawl got washed in preparation for blocking...

then photographed...

and will shortly be shipped to an undisclosed location in Pella, Iowa.

Once I finished the shawl, I set to work on some socks with a vengeance. I am truly a 'one project at a time' knitter (not counting travelling vs. home projects. One simply MUST have knitting appropriate to the occasion at all times). The socks got finished, and even prewashed. They ended up being HUGE after handwashing. I'm going to toss them in the washer and dryer, see if that helps, and amputate the toes if not.

Finishing the socks left me with an as-yet unphotographed Brioche Stitch Scarf. My thoughts turned to dainty lace bread cloths for communion, and I was actually in the very middle of charting out a row-by-row pattern from the DMC Encyclopaedia of Needlework when my e-mail beeped at me. It was from the future recipient of my Frost Flowers and Leaves shawl. We've been talking yarns for over a week, and although we started out with a definite Iris Alpaca Cloud, that drifted over into a royal purple, settled on a laceweight Cashmere until I realized that this particular laceweight wasn't 3600 yds/lb, but 7000 yds/lb, drifted back to something thicker than a spiderweb, and landed - with that e-mail - on Purple Palette. Which I just happen to have in my stash.

Next came the needle decision. The pattern called for size 6, but that's with laceweight yarn. And I knit tight. But I don't like lace that is so holey in stockinette that one can't see the intended holes. I considered using size 7s, and might have, but for the fact that I have a) a set of four, and b) metal dpns. One thing I know about lace is that one does NOT want to begin by working a square shawl with a cast on of 8 with slippery, heavy needles in a triangle formation. I do have size 8s, 5 of them, in plastic (ick.) So size 8 it was -- and I still had my Boye Needlemaster size 8s handy from finishing off the Russian Stole.

Without further ado, I used my handy dandy copier to make a working copy of the pattern, popped it into a page protector, slapped on the magnetic strip to keep my place, flipped to the back of the book which showed 'Circular Cast-ons' and began.

Bliss. Sheer bliss.

According to the spreadsheet from the Knitalong, I'm closing in on 2% of the shawl done. Hooray!

Another week, another project

Note to self: If one wants to complete 200 rows in a week, it is helpful to record how many rows have been previously done.

The Faux Russian Stole is growing apace. I am on the 5th repition (our of 5 1/2). That makes roughly 400 rows since February 28th, so I think I met my goal of doing 200 rows this past week. I'm not sure though. There were days when I felt like I went backwards more than forwards, but as the net result has been forward progress, I must be feeling wrong.



My daughter postponed Friday until tomorrow (you can do that when your temperature has three digits before the decimal point), allowing her to spend today lazying on the couch. She's not being entirely lazy, though Look what came off her needles today!

My latest pair of socks is growing nicely, but they didn't start growing soon enough to prevent my casting on a new project, a Brioche Stitch Scarf in a yarn that is acquiring a reputation for flexibility. So far, it's been a sample cable hat for my MK coursework, and a trial piece for unventing increases and decreases in Brioche knit. The scarf is about 18" long at this point, and the toe-up sock is 2-3" above the ankle.

For those of you waiting to hear how my MK submission was received, stop waiting; it's going to be a while. I did call the Guild today to make sure my submission got there, since I've not gotten a postcard informing me of that fact. I am pleased to report (and relieved to learn) that my box arrived on the 23rd of February, and shipped out on the 24th to An Examiner.

I didn't get the yarn ordered for the Frost Flowers and Leaves shawl yet, mostly because the recipient and I are still tossing around yarn ideas. The color will be Iris ... but Iris Alpaca Cloud, or Iris Zephyr, or an iris-color in Cashmere, or Iris something else?

Homeschooling did manage to continue. I've even joined in. We received our Calculadders Masterpacks this past week, and I've joined my son in working through Book 2. I started off miserably with Two Wrong Answers, but have since picked my jaw up off the floor and am using the correct brain circuits to answer the questions. I don't know that I've read anything but knitting books and curriculum lately. Chesterton hasn't gone much of anywhere yet, and I need to get listening to Adler (Aristotle for Everyone) before the cassettes have to go back.

Our living room/school room is changing color from White Drywall Mud to Late Tomato. The improvement is immense, and the chaos is staying manageable. I knit while my husband paints. What could be more romantic?

Penny's Bag, or the Slip Stitch Swatch

Well, it's not really Penny's bag yet, since she hasn't made it. But it was her question about it that got both Rosemary and I swatching, trying to determine how a particular zig zag was made.

Here, without further ado, are the patterns. For technical niceties, please notice the imaginary asterisk immediately after the colon in each Row, and do not disregard the invisible 'Repeat from * to end of row' immediately following the . MC = main color, CC = not main color.

1. Row 1: (MC) K1 sl 1. Row 2: (CC) K. Row 3: (MC) Sl 1 K1.
2. Row 1: (MC) K1 sl 1. Row 2: (CC) K. Row 3: (MC) K1 sl 1.
3. Row 1: (CC) K1 sl1. Row 2: (CC) K. Row 3: (CC) Sl 1 K1.
4. Row 1: (CC) K1 sl 1. Row 2: (CC) K. Row 3: (MC) K1 sl 1.
5. Row 1: (MC) K1 sl1. Row 2 (CC) Sl 1 K1. Row 3: (CC) K1 sl 1. Row 4: (MC) Sl 1 K1.
   
6. As Pattern 5, but please insert a Row 2.5 in between rows 2 and 3. Row 2.5: (CC) K.
   

I'll be totally fair and admit that Pattern 3, the worst zig zag of the bunch, was my idea for 'best way to achieve zig zag.' After swatching Pattern 3, however, I quickly invented a new method, Pattern 4, and gave that a try. I think that one is the best of the slip stitched lot.

Patterns 5 and 6 were knit with a slip stitch technique, but they are not slip stitch patterns. So, what's the difference between slip stitch technique and slip stitch patterns? I dare not speak officially, since I have no reference books on the subject - although I hear Barbara Walker covers them quite well in one of her Treasuries. To my mind, though, a slip stitch technique is what you do when you're working with two different colors in one row in a Fair Isle style pattern, and you choose to only work one color at a time. You'll notice that in Row 1 of Pattern 5, I worked the stitches that were in the main color, and then in Row 2, I went back and used the other color to knit all the stitches not knit in the previous row. Some people prefer this method to working with both colors at once. Some authors heartily dissuade knitters from even attempting such a daring feat. Rosemary and I will go on record as cheerfully ignoring that advice, although in our own separate ways.

A slip stitch pattern uses a slip stitch technique, but goes one step further. It has elongated stitches - but not the kind created by extra wraps around the needle which are later dropped. Look at Pattern 1. See the humongous dark Vs? Those were created by slipping the dark green stitch in Row 3 of the pattern. They sure stick out like a sore thumb, and are meant to. Slip stitch patterns can be quite pleasing to the eye. One, a Mosaic pattern, is going to end up on the Tea Cozy I keep talking about making. Patterns 1-4 all have elongated stitches in them, stitches that were pulled just a bit larger than others in their row when they were slipped and had to stretch further than just the next row. In Patterns 5 and 6, no stitch is elongated since Rows 1 and 2, combined, knit each stitch once, and Rows 3 and 4 combined do the same. No stitches have to stretch anywhere.

In other knitting, I finished the second reincarnation of the Embossed Leaf Socks,
and made good progress on the shawl. In my scholastic endeavours, I am parsing portions of The Merchant of Venice, and enjoying 3rd declension nouns in the beta version of Elementary Greek: The Third Year (my title, not the publisher's).

Mom has been feeling a bit better every day since Monday, and today she actually feels good. I, being a dutiful daughter, told her to play sick for a few more days while her body continues to recover. Mom is working on a Hardanger bread cloth. I'll have to put a picture of it up here when she finishes it. It's her first Hardanger!

Does anyone besides me find it totally unfair that KnitPicks has come out with a new yarn? A Merino/Pima blend. I'm glad it's worsted weight. I can resist stuff that thick fairly well. If it was fingering weight, I'd have it in my shopping cart already. There's another new yarn, Spinnaker. A super bulky cotton they didn't even mention in their promotional e-mail.

This week I'd like to get about 200 rows done on the shawl, get another pair of socks on the needles, order the yarn for my next shawl, make some headway in G. K. Chesterton's 'The Man Who Was Thursday', and keep up with general house stuff. Oh, homeschool too.

Of Socks and Shawls

Life gets interesting sometimes. What was supposed to be a lovely day of shopping and girl stuff for my mom and I turned into a knitting marathon at Urgent Care on Saturday. I got quite a bit of my sock done, while mom wished the doctor would just hurry up and tell her she had the stomach flu so she could go home and sleep. It wasn't the flu, but half a sock, and X-ray, a CT, and other tests, we did have a diagnosis. I'll have more knitting time on the 22nd, because there's yet another test scheduled for then and I'm the designated driver. If the socks in the photo look familiar, it's because they're the second pair of socks made using the same yarn. First pair was a bit loose, and too long. So I tossed the pattern figuratively out the window, frogged both socks, dropped down a needle size, skipped a half-repeat at the toe, and reinvented the toe pattern to make the leaves line up. Plus, since I was at Urgent Care and away from my trusty scissors during heel time, I worked a short row heel rather than a flap. Um, I changed the cast-on too, so that it matches the description rather than the directions. I kept the lace pattern the same though, honest I did.

Stacy's lace shawl is unfortunately not growing very fast. In fact, it's gone nowhere since Friday, when I finished off the one ball of yarn I did have. More should be arriving soon. I quiz my husband, a trained postal professional, each time he comes home from the post office. Should he forget to bring it home after work, he has keys and can go right back to get it. I do know that I ordered enough yarn. One ball of Palette, with me knitting on size 8 needles, yields almost one complete pattern repeat plus a bottom edge. The pattern has 5 1/2 repeats, so six balls of yarn will do it. I did take a picture for Beth (Hi, Beth!). The bottom of the shawl is at the top of the photo, and my live stitches at the bottom. What you see is one full (give or take 3 rows out of 90-odd) repeat ... imagine 5 1/2 of them, and you'll have a 24x70 rectangular stole.

School continues, much to the chagrin of my children who would rather read and clean their rooms than work math problems or parse Latin anythings. The end is almost in sight. Our summer vacation will be in June, and it's Tradition to finish up the school year before vacation. (It's also Tradition to continue with some form of math, as well as vocabulary review, during summer break.) The editing for the Homer supplemental books is drawing to a close, or at the very least, seriously winding down while proof copies are being printed.

Still on my list of things to do today: renew my TKGA membership. I joined last year for the sole purpose of working on the Master Knitter classes (which were dangled before my eyes by the same Beth mentioned previously). Even though I've got the last level submitted, my husband tells me I should renew anyways. He also thinks there should be annual recertification required for Master Knitters.

The box goes out

Tomorrow morning, The Box will travel to the post office.


On Sunday, The Baby Surprise Jacket will be in the same building as the Baby.


On March 7th, the Sweet Pea Scarf Cowl (free pattern from KnitPicks) will be bequested to the wearer.


One of these days, the washcloth will get finished.

Saturday will see a Design Party for a scarf, and a yarn ordering party with KnitPicks is scheduled shortly thereafter.

Until then, I will be working on the Faux Russian Stole from A Gathering of Lace. I didn't exactly do a gauge swatch, but I did do the entire bottom border and 6-8 rows of the main rectangle. I discovered an error in the border, and frogged the whole thing that I might start afresh. I suppose I could have saved the first 2 repeats of the border .. but it would have taken more time than simply reknitting them. There's an odd sort of satisfaction in setting a ball of yarn atop a yarn swift and spinning the swift around while something unravels.

I have discovered - thanks to a homeschooling friend - LibriVox. I can download audiobooks onto my computer and listen while knitting! My daughter and I have enjoyed Sara Crewe, my husband and I are enjoying Mark Twain's 'The Awful German Language' and I'm nibbling at a book of Chesterton's from ChristianAudio's free book of the month.

I have no idea how far I will get on the shawl this week, especially as I only have one ball of that color at the moment, but the week promises to be busy enough that I will not be found knitless. For one, there's the answers to Homer Book B to finish off. Diagramming things like "Petruchio still kept growling and scolding at the servants so that Kate might see how unbeautiful thing an ill-temper was" is fun. I wonder what my collaborators would think if I used knitting needles as diagramming lines? With yarn (self-striping, of course) for participles?

I *am* going to get through Week 6&7 of Elementary Greek this week too. Third declension nouns in Greek have an uncanny similarity to 3rd declension nouns in Latin. Both are pesky, behave in a different fashion from their older siblings, and pop up with distressing frequency all over the place. I'm sure I am smarter than a noun, though, so with perseverance, they will be made to mind. I just keep repeating... "- os i a es wn si as" and all will be well. There are fewer cases than Estonian, thank goodness.

And it's done.

It's done. Tra la, tra la, tra la.

Whatever shall I do next?

The Neck

It's here. The time when I need to decide exactly what I am going to do with the neck of my sweater. Unless I put it off by weaving in all the ends first? That's a good idea.

Although I like the idea of a simple ribbed neck, I just can't see it on this. The neck is going to be too visible, given where it hits on the wearer. I'm leaning heavily towards a mitred hemmed neck. For pattern? How about a simple row - with 3 rows of black on either side - of the white band with black crosses? That seems understated enough not to clash with the rest of it.

I've got a new Olympic Knitting Goal: get The Box to the post office before closing ceremonies. Before next Wednesday, actually.

Lice-B-Done

Can it be? Can it truly be that I am *done* with lice on my sweater? That I have only four inches left on the second sleeve? The sleeve that I thought would be a good Knitting Olympics challenge?
After counting four times, I will affirm that this is the case. The sweater is drawing to completion. I have four inches to knit, one sleeve to attatch, one neck to design, knit, and tack down, a small plethora of ends to artfully weave and tuck, and some patterns to proof and polish. Wow. I *am* going to get this things done by the end of February.

A friend's blog led me to a knitting poll entitled "What kind of Knitting Needle Are You?" Being a sucker for knitting polls, I discovered that I am bamboo needles. I rather thought I might be a turbo, but I'm not displeased with the results. Bamboo needles do have their uses (apart from dog toothpicks) and turbos are not high on my list right now since they do not come in sizes to match my US needles.

In fact, why don't I do an informal survey right now. Let's call it "What kind of needles are you using?" (Okay you knitters reading this ... here's fodder for your next blog entry.)

• Norwegian sweater: Inox size 2. Also will be using Crystal Palace bamboo dpns size 2, Susan Bates size 2, and Addi Turbo size 1 (I-cord bind-off can get needle-intensive) and something in a size 1 for the neck, I think. If I own it, and it's between 2.0 and 3.0 mm, there's a good chance I'll be using it. I used the Boye Needlemaster 2 for the body.
  
• Dishcloth: Boye metal single point size 8
• Scarf Cowl: Susan Bates metal single point size 5
• EZ Baby Surprise Jacket: Boye Needlemaster size 8

The Baby Surprise Jacket is a, well, surprise. I started it last night, and hope to finish it by this weekend. It's for a good cause ... stash reduction cum baby's birthday present. Since the sleeve is going so swimmingly -- and I still cannot believe I am working at the rate of one sleeve every four days, not counting attatching it -- I decided I could stick in another project this week.

I love knitting.

To the right you'll see a photo of a) my fingers, and b) a kitchner'd seam. Knitting and purling are very different animals when kitchnering, and it's not the easiest thing to switch from one to the other, especially upside down.

In a future post, I'll have to share some Steek Slicing Pictures. This one has enough photos, though, and a Baby Jacket is calling my name.

Bamboo, hmmm.

The Angst of Knitting

The sleeve is progressing. Not, however, without some backtracking. Yesterday evening was particularly bad.

First, I had it in my mind that I was increasing until I got to 194 stitches. I did so, and began the first row of notes thinking to myself, "Wait a second - 194 isn't divisible by 12. 192 is!" And so I looked at my notes for the pattern, whereupon I discovered that 192 was indeed the magic number I was aiming for. I made the virtuous decision not to simply 'lose' two stitches in the current row, and frogged back four rows. That gave me the opportunity to see how the sleeve fit the sleeve opening - my silver lining - and it did indeed fit well. I got my stitches picked up on 000 needles, and began reknitting. Except somehow, I managed to put a fleck in a wrong spot. And after that, about 17 flecks went into a similar misalignment. Ick. Since I'd had enough of frogging, I decided to fix the stitches on the next round. I knit so quickly, though, that I was past them before I thought to look for them. And so it was the *next* round that saw me with wrinkled brow peering closely at my knitting. As the corrections went on, the brow became more wrinkled, especially when I realized that my first 8 fixed had a twisted stitch in the first corrected loop. Double ick. I still maintained my aversion to frogging, though, and fixed THOSE stitches with a crochet hook on the next round. After some simple rounds of black - during which I made no errors - I started in on the notes pattern. All went well, until I got to the second line of the second set of notes.

Double argh. I started the pattern one space over from where I'd started the white notes. No frogging, remember? I worked the whole second round slowly, swapping colors into the right places as I got to them. Let's see ... 192 stitches, or 32 note repeats. Two stitches to change per repitition. So I re-did 64 stitches ... that's still a large savings over tinking! Still, after that row, I put away my knitting for the night.

There's less than an hour of knitting until I can delicately cut open a steek, pick up 192 stitches around the opening (evenly spaced, of course) and put the sleeve on the sweater. Right side up, please. One sleeve, one neck, a scant two dozen ends, and the sweater will be MADE! Almost definitely before the Knitting Olympics are over. I'm starting to feel like the end to Master Knitting Level III is in sight. I have no delusions that all my swatches will pass, and I'm sure I'll miss a typo somewhere ... but still, once the box is out the door, I will be free until it comes back.

Free, that is, with respect to knitting projects that I have started and have yet to finish. Unfree, however, with respect to the list of things I am going to make/have promised to make/wish I could get the time to make. Still, those too shall pass, and they're a whole lot smaller than Level III *and* they have no paperwork.

Speaking of the Olympics, Torino would love to have the snow outside my window. I'd offer to send it to them, but that sort of thing doesn't work, and I rather like having a white view outside my window.

Progress

The sweater is moving along nicely. I've got some pictures of the back, a close-up of the front, and my progress on sleeve #1.











I hope to finish the first sleeve this week and get started on the second. And while I am working away on this, projects are mounting up in my head. Lace is the foremost, but twined knitting is a close second. I did get Anne Maj-Ling's Two End Knitting book, and it looks to be full of information. It's not a nice coffee table book, like A Gathering of Lace, and is quite scanty on photographs. I will just have to work out the various patterns in there to see what the result is, and play from there. A twisty-knit dickey sounds lovely ... or socks, or just about anything.

I finished the cabled hat. The red line is where I kitchnered. I'm hoping it will show up well enough in an enlarged form to be helpful to someone. Some day when I'm not working on the sweater, I will replace the red with some cream yarn, and bequeath the hat somewhere.

My current travelling project is a scarf cowl. After that, I think it will be socks.

The rest of my life is busy. I'm reading Kristin Lavransdatter, listening to 1776, and creating an answer key to Homer SW B. Yesterday, Runkle's Geography arrived, so we started that this morning. My son was delighted to have a real live geography book at last.

It's true I don't have camera batteries, but I do have a scanner! Here is a scan of the body of my sweater. The left edge is about 2" above the armhole steeks (visible in the photo as horizontal black and white lines ... sew twice on each white line, cut once on the middle black line), and runs up to the shoulders, which I haven't bound off yet. The neck steek is the short steek at the top right.

I decided not to worry about making my patterns be mirror images around the neck steek, or even balance. The big one balances perfectly, and that's what I was aiming for.

Sleeve 1 begins tomorrow!