Spring is ... where?

It's a lovely spring day today,and the forecast is calling for 2-6" of white stuff in the next 24 hours. I couldn't be happier. Filius, however, has decided the time for sledding and snowmen is past, and he's ready to be tree climbing and reading in cozy places several feet up. He is hoping the forecast is wrong, and it's a bit on the skimpy side (earlier this morning, it was for 4-8". Even better.) I do realize it will melt shortly after falling, and that will lead to Mud, the fifth season ... but that's the good thing about being a homebody. If there's a good roof on, and a wood floor, the mud isn't much of an issue.

Leave the shoes on the porch please.

The Sampler Stole is going along swimmingly. I ordered a pair of pointy needles yesterday, in the hopes that the knitting will go faster with the proper tools. Working with non-lace Addis can be rather like trying to use a ballpoint pen to push a thread through the eye of a needle. Futility. It is also the only excuse for the decrease known as KSP that I have come across. Can't get that fat needle through two loops for a K2tog? Regroup and KSP. Knit the first stitch, slip it back to the left needle, pass the second stitch over the first stitch, and pass that back to the right needle. Incredibly fiddly (and don't change the stitch orientation!), but fiddly is better than frustration. I'm on the 6th repeat, and have learned that 6 hours of knitting gives me a stiff neck. Should have worked on a sock somewhere in there, right? Percentage-wise, I'm around 25%, if my calculations are correct. Two more repeats--roughly 90 rows--and I get to start a border pattern! Joy, joy, joy.

I'm almost finished with The Godly Man's Picture, by Thomas Watson. One sentence struck me in my reading today: "Men, for a little smoke, will quench a great deal of light; God, for a great deal of smoke, will not quench a little light. .... this is our nature, to aggravate a little fault and diminish a great deal of virtue..."

I'm so glad knitting is good for thinking.

Knitting merrily away

This past week saw:

My first knitting class. I had four students, and in two hours of class time we got the first 6 or so rows done of a sample Latvian mitten. After the fringe, everyone agreed that the braid was a piece of cake. Here are my 'Scottish Latvian Mittens' that I started during the class. The main color is leftover from my tourniquet sock, and the other colors were bought in Minnigap, right around the corner from Newton Stewart, Scotland, back on vacation in 1991. Definitely a pair of stash mittens.

Next Thursday in class I'll talk about mitten closures and thumb treatments. Since I remembered the existence of the thumb several rows past it's proper location, both these mittens will be excellent examples of an afterthought thumb.

Next on the agenda was finishing off Anu. I cast on late Saturday (had to get the Latvian mittens finished first, didn't I?), got a few rows done, and finished off the second glove on Sunday. They're still not blocked, but they're done!

On Monday, my husband popped over to the post office and brought me a stack of mail. The bottom three items took up more of my time than the rest. I love getting boxes in the mail! (Even if I just get to look at the contents and then mail them off again.)

Still, a knitter must knit. My mitten-knitting quota for this month has been met, so I hearkened to the call of the Sampler Stole and cast on. One hour later, I had 0.6% of the stole completed.

You're not impressed? I'm thrilled. It's going to be lovely. I can hardly wait to get started on it tonight. In an ideal world, I will get it finshed by Mother's Day Weekend so I can start in on the Sanquhar gloves as soon as I get the yarn for them. There are about 1720 rows of edging to knit on this thing ... so we'll see how close things are to 'ideal' after I get a chunk of edging done. And the edging comes after over 600 rows of non-body.

The votes are in, and the winner is ....

Cast on Saturday, finished on Sunday. Now, to make the second one.







Also on Saturday, I finished a second pair of socks for Renee. The yarn for two more pairs is sitting in my knitting basket, but I haven't cast on yet. I'm experiencing a small (VERY small) project crunch.

Tomorrow night, I'll be casting on for a pair of Latvian mittens. It's my first night of class! So that will be one project. The baby blanket is is my only project on the needles at the moment, and it doubles as traveling project AND home project. Such flexibility! It's also almost done.

I need to do some thinking in print to figure out which needles go where. Anu, obviously, gets the same needles that the first glove got. 3.0 mm? Whatever is out. The socks get 2.75 mm needles. So the Latvian mittens will get the 2.5 mm set. And may I be very, very careful if I get the 5th needles from those three projects in close, unused proximity to one another. I should probably measure the needles carefully before I store them, too.

Sanquhar, I am sad to say, has been bumped from April. I didn't have a good feeling about working gloves in laceweight alpaca, so I am going to be making them in wool. Since I have no appropriate white/cream wool, and since I think KnitPicks is about to come out with some new yarns (which makes it unwise to order from them at the moment, lest the new catalog arrive the next day), I will save my laceweight wool hunting for the Shepherd's Harvest Sheep and Wool-type festival in May, and then make the gloves in June.

April, then, will be open for the Sampler Stole!

I love planning things out. It promotes such a feeling of competency.

A Glovely Dilemma - please vote!

I am in the midst of a dilemma.

I don't know what to knit next.

No, it's not THAT bad. I do have two projects on the needles, and two pair of socks waiting to be knit after the current sock is finished. And all for the same person, in the same perfect-for-traveling stockinette pattern. But, I have determined to knit the Sanquhar gloves in April. And I bethought myself that it might behoove me to knit a glove in something other than laceweight before attempting the Sanquhar gloves.

But I don't know which ones to make. Here are my choices:

1) Anu's Christmas Gloves. More pictures are at Ravlery if you can get there. I'd make them in gray and white Palette.
2) Merike's Gloves. And at Ravlery as well.
3) Vanalinn Gloves Ravelry photos

(ps - do you see why knitters like Ravelry? Everything is there!)

I just noticed that all three of these are by Nancy Bush. That 'splains that. But, Which One should I make?

All my class knitting is finished. I'm also compiling a nice batch of mitten-shaped gauge swatches, using Palette on size 2.0, 2.25, 2.5, 2.75, and 3.0 mm needles. There's a jump of 8 stitches per inch from 2.0 to 2.25, so I suspect one of them is blocked and the other not blocked, or some other thing went seriously awry there. Otherwise, the gauge jumps about two stitches per four inches per quarter millimeter.

First, we have the finished St. Patrick's Day Latvian Mittens. They really are this green, if not a bit greener. I thought the grass green in the fringe would be the most obnoxious color, and so assigned it to the least used color. The mint then took grass's place as Most Insidiously Green Color Ever Invented. If you look at it long enough, the next mittens will start to have green undertones as well.

The second pair of mittens was knit to show how my two-color mitten will work, for those who do not wish to tackle Latvian fringe, braid, stranding, AND oodles of ends to weave in. I spaced the lice a bit further apart (how do you say 'lice' in Latvian?) Those mittens are gray and Blue Note Heather, one of my favorite KP heathers in Palette. They knit up nicely in about a day each. After doing three pair of fringed mittens this year, I think I'm ready to teach fringe. The handouts are written, ready to be copied ... and class starts in one week. Do you think I'll have any enthusiasm to impart?

The rest of my life:

Reading: The Godly Man's Picture is moving along nicely. It is an excellent book, and I'd be hard pressed to know whether I like it or The Bruised Reed better. The Hounds of the Morrigan is moving along excellently, and will probably go down as the Fastest Readalong Ever Done. We're getting about 40 pages done a day, and no one wants to miss it. We did read The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe in one sitting about 9 years ago ... but that was sitting in the bathroom while someone had a seriously misbehaving GI tract, so I don't think that counts. THotM has just the sort of humor that appeals to my children. Nawnchalonkly? Or Napoleon Barmy Potty? tee hee. However, it's probably not the best book for families that are avoiding Irish mythology.

The National Latin Exam is happening next week. I'm not expecting any perfect papers, but perhaps we'd be in the running for Fastest Time. I think they took the practice test in about 3 minutes today, with another 2 spent looking over the answers. Now, to spend the next few days working on Testing Skills. Ack.

Fountain Pens: I have discovered my favorite color of ink -- Noodler's Pasternak. It's a lovely lavender blue, and works well in my pens. It makes me happy to write with it. And if I dump my hot tea on my knitting notebook, I won't lose anything I've written because it's waterproof! (bulletproof, actually ... anything that stops short of destroying the paper will not disturb the ink.)

Stay tuned for Which Gloves End Up on the Needles!

(ps - I'm thinking of making the Sanquhar gloves in Alpaca laceweight. Anyone had bad experiences with that? I know about the slippery knitting bit, but wonder about the elasticity of the gloves)

St. Patrick was not Latvian

I know that, you know that ... but still, I here present to you...

St. Patrick's Latvian Mitten. If the design looks familiar, it's because it's the Child's Mitten/Sampler from the District of Latgale. A lovely mitten to make if one wants to learn to knit fringe, braid, and work with 2 and 3 colors per row; Traditionally it's done in white, red, blue, and yellow. But I'm almost out of white, cream, and even black in my fingering stash. And I'm very uncertain about mixing and matching other colors (not that it stops me much, but still ... uncertainties lurk). I had four greens in my stash, and St. Patrick's day is around the corner ... and so St. Patrick's mittens were born. This one is growing nicely, and may get finished tonight or tomorrow. My other knitting right now is a baby blanket (hibernating until I've got all my handouts for classes prepared) and a second sock.

I bought some yarn this month, and to be fair, I really think I should be adding that sort of thing into my stash. So ... 200 grams of yarn for a baby blanket (which has already gobbled up 200 grams, and should eat up the new 200 very nicely), 350 grams of sock yarn (for 3 pairs of knee highs), and 50 g alpaca laceweight for my lovely Sanquhar gloves. God willing, I will cast on for them in April. I haven't decided which Knit Picks laceweight I"ll use for the dark color. I've got a blue alpaca which would match fibers, and several wool colors. Am I insane for thinking of making my first pair of gloves in Alpaca? We'll see. I got 000 needles the other day just in case I needed them for gauge. Folk Knitting In Estonia was at the same yarn store, so I came home with that as well.

But you know, anything thicker than fingering weight yarn is starting to sound fat. The needles in this mitten feel thick ... and they're 3.0 mm. You can get used to just about anything, they say.

I finished The Mystery of Providence by John Flavel. Reading a bit each day is working for keeping on pace. I will have to stick to it in March, since I'm adding those knitting classes and leading a Bible study. It will keep me delightfully busy, and make it easier not to sit at the computer wandering around the web when I should be doing other things. The other things will be breathing down my neck! There's preparing music for Easter services, too.

We finished reading The Scarlet Pimpernel. Anyone who has tried it and got bored by the beginning ... persevere! The latter half of the book went quickly, and we are going to see if we can find the old film version of it. The new readaloud is The Hounds of the Morrigan (thanks, Shan!) During our break week, I had the children pick new books they wanted to read, one book each for the next six weeks. Filius, not in his teens (and his older sister isn't in her teens yet either) picked Plato, Dante, Shakespeare II, Darwin, and Various Shakespearean Plays. Why, you might ask? Because he wanted to make sure he would pick hard books so I couldn't ask him questions about them, since he wouldn't have understood anything.

The intent of the whole thing was to nudge them out of re-reads , Star Wars DK books, and Calvin and Hobbes. There's lots of good books out there we've not read yet. But Plato? I'm not ready for that yet. He's been interested in Plato ever since he learned Plato talks about Atlantis (he read that in a book somewhere. The boy reads everything in a book somewhere. And that somewhere covers a wide variety of locations. We usually can find them before they're due, though.)

Gulliver's Travel is the book of the week for him, though. Much easier than, say, Darwin. Or Plato.

And, for all of you down south of me who are hogging the snow ... send it north, please. Not too far north ... they've been hogging the snow too. But if due east of here 5 hours has had 84" this year, and we've had around 12" ... someone is Not Sharing.

Smitten by Mittens

Catchy title, no?

But really ... before I headed over to write, as I was knitting I was thinking of all the mittens I can make this year. One that is inching it's way up the probability scale is the Sanquhar Gloves. Ah, the beauty. Ah, the fineness of the yarn. Oooh, the teensiosity of the needles. Yes, I can see why these are calling my name. And more twined mittens, and more Latvian mittens, and Rovaniemi-type creations. A year might not be long enough to spend on mittens.

Of course, there's the Sampler Stole, and a dazzling Nordic-style sweater lurking in my mind as well. The last one will wait until fall. It's no fun knitting wool sweaters when it's 85 degrees inside.

An order - this year's first, I believe - from KnitPicks arrived this week. I've added 450 grams of sock yarn to my stash. Three balls of three colors each, all to make three pair of knee-high stockings for a friend. And I also ordered 200 grams of DK Merino Bare so I can finish the baby blanket. As projected, I ran out last Thursday, and started a twined mitten. The mitten used just shy of 1 ounce, so I immediately started in on the next one. I decided to use a contrasting yarn in the cast on, and found some scraps (2 yds or so counts as scraps, right?) or red yarn that I bought in Scotland back in 1991. Most of the yarn went into a Fair Isle for my mom (I should get a picture of that, shouldn't I?), but bits and pieces of it remain. It runs like the dickens.

Heathered colors aren't idea for showing detail, and you can't see most of the patterning on the mitten (cuff, back of hand, and a cute little diamond on the thumb). Still, for posterity, here's my first twined mitten of 2008. It's mate is growing nicely, and is just about to start the 10 rows of plain knitting before I put stitches on a spare piece of (red) yarn for the thumb.


I finally got the Swallowtail off the green carpeting where it was blocked, and in the same room as the camera to get a photo. I'm not particularly enamoured with the finished product, but it was a nice knit, and used some yarn I had handy. It'll make a nice gift come Christmastime, unless Filia snags it first.

Weekly Check-in

The Endpaper mitts were finished in plenty of time for show and tell, blocking, and drying, and they are now happily living with Beth. Black makes a MUCH better seam stitch than does light pink, and this pair only took 38 grams, so my 34 grams of green (yes, that's a heathery mossy green) was plenty. I like these mitts, and wouldn't be averse to making more.

But first, I'm going to be teaching two knitting classes in a month, my First Knitting Classes Ever, and I need to prepare. So, no Endpaper mitts at the moment. One of the classes is for a Two-Color Twisted Hat, and since neither my husband or mother are willing to give up their favorite hats in the middle of a Minnesota winter, so it can be stuck up on the wall of the LYS, well, I had to knit another one.

It's so cute! In retrospect, I should have put a black line above the first set of rectangles, but it's still cute. I've gotten the outline of my class materials written down, so for that class, I just need to encourage my pattern tester (Filia) to make one for her American Girl doll, and put together illustrations and written explanations of the technique, plus a chart or two with sample motifs.

Next week is my week to put together materials for my other class, on Latvian mittens.

In the meanwhile, I'm working away on a stash-gobbling baby blanket. It did such a good job eating up the two hanks I had alloted it (a third hank went to the edging, lurking in Filia's room) that I had to order two more hanks. After I finish the yarn on hand (tomorrow is my guess), I'm going to use some yarn from my grandmother's stash (Bernat Pringle, anyone? 79 cents for a 1 oz skein? No gauge, yardage, needle size, or washing instructions mentioned?) to make a Twisted Mitten in one color. And depending on how much yarn it uses, I may even make two mittens! I've got 3 ounces, and it looks to be fingering weight. It could be close.

The Swallowtail shawl is finished, but I haven't unpinned it from the carpeting yet. The final pinned-out size is a bit smaller than the pattern stats, which means it is VERY small. Still, it's a lovely little purple thing, and I am sure it will find a home. The nupps weren't a problem for me at all. Must be the Boye Needlemaster tips.

Reading in The Mystery of Providence is proceeding apace, but with much less delight than The Bruised Reed. Reading of Beverly Lewis' books in the Annie's People and Abram's Daughters series has been going along as well (and much faster). The Scarlet Pimpernel, our readaloud, has finally gotten to a point of exceptional interest, and that's about it for my current reading. If you ignore knitting books, that is.

Our switch from Saxon Algebra I to Singapore NEM 2 has gone very well. The struggling child is struggling no longer, and the child who doesn't like to write things down now has material sufficiently complex that doing it in the head isn't remotely feasible. "If 3/4 of one of the acute angles of a right-angled triangle is 15 1/4 degrees larger than 1/6 of the other, find the acute angles."

Just two days ago, Filius was wondering where the word problems had gone. Upon request, they appeared!

Super Bowl Knitting

Our church has a Super Bowl party at a member's house each year, and a good chunk of the church gathers to watch the game and talk. I tag along to knit and talk. But this year, my only project OTN was the Swallowtail shawl -- not exactly ideal for a potentially not-well-lighted corner. And the Endpaper Mitts weren't quite a good fit, either. So, when we left for church in the morning, I was toting both the Swallowtail Shawl and Filius' sweater that he's outgrown in length. I have no idea how many stitches I picked up at the bottom (knit bottom up), but I picked up a goodly number of them, then snipped a thread and started removing the garter welts at the bottom.

I ended up helping my husband in the nursery at church, but it was pretty quiet so I pulled out the gansey to work on ... and one of the children in the nursery wanted to work on it. She actually ended up doing a good portion of a row, and while she was doing that, I pulled out the shawl. It actually got to row 3 of the last chart before church was over. Then we were off to a friend's house -- no sense in driving 30 miles home, staying 2 hours, and driving 40 miles back to watch the Super Bowl, so we descended upon a friend who lives closer to town -- where we munched, chatted, and of course, knit.

Then I left Interweave Knits there, and have no clue what to do on the Swallowtail next. It was almost a knitting crisis, since the gansey was going so well. Whatever would I do during the football game if I had No Project? But all worked out well. I wove in the last tail of the 6" longer gansey with less than a minute to go in the game, and that was that.
Monday promised to be a day of snow, and the kids were dragging after a late night, so it became a Snow Day. I cast on for an Endpaper Mitt, finished it Tuesday, and am ready to start the thumb gusset of the second one. The colors work well together, and black is much nicer as fake seam than pink was.

I'm still admiring my Rovaniemi mitts. There was an error in the pattern, so if you are planning to make them, watch for the errata from Piecework. It was minor, so if you don't find it and come across a troubling p4, go with your gut instinct. I wonder what color combo I should use in my next ones?


Puritan reading is trotting along nicely, as is harp practice, and playing with my new computer. Life is going smoothly. Whatever is around the bend?

I shall leave you with a quote from Flavel's Mystery of Providence:

It was well observed by one that, 'as God hath stretched out the expansum or firmament over the natural; so he hath stertched out his Word over the rational world.' And as the creatures on earth are influenced by those heavenly bodies, so are all creatures in the world influenced by the Word, and do infallibly fulfil it, when they design to thwart it."

Rovaniemi and Puritans

I love these half-mitts. The technique is sublime, the working of it lovely. If you despise Intarsia and don't have the coordination for handling two colors at once ... this is still a viable technique. Only one color is in the hand at a time, and the mitts are worked in the round. They're lovely. I'm not sure how I will keep from wearing them until after the State Fair (or if the fair accepts half mitts in the mitten category), but I will try.

Now, on to the next thing. Beth's Endpaper Mitts. And back to the Swallowtail Shawl. And figuring out what to knit in a dimly-lighted room full of Super Bowl watchers. And what to bring along as a food offering.

Last month, I read The Bruised Reed by Richard Sibbes. This month the book is The Mystery of Providence by John Flavel. It's not online, as last month's book was, but Monergism has online several books by the same author. Charity is what sticks in my mind from Sibbes. I look forward to learning more about Providence this month.

Currently on the needles

subtitled: I'm having so much fun with my new mittens I want to share them with you during a quick hot cocoa break.
And my traveling project, the Swallolwtail shawl ..

What my needles have been doing

A small cable stash hat. Pattern comes from the Knitting 2008 Pattern-a-Day calendar.

Another stash hat - the Inga Hat. A wee bit long, as you can see, but it can be folded under nicely to keep the ears toasty. On my next hat, I'll start up several rows. It uses about 4 yards more than one skein of dark blue Merino Style, and less than a skein of cream.

The next balaclava. Handy for Minnesota, when you don't want your cheeks and nose to freeze. Stash project using up leftover legwarmer and husband's balaclava Shamrock yarn.

Happy Filia in finally finished cardigan. Drops 88-4, I think, with 8 skeins of Swish DK. Happy me is glad to be done knitting a cardigan.

Latvian Mittens. They're finished now, and I thought I had a finished picture, but I can't find it, and the mittens are currently at my LYS for a photo session.

My needles are now working on the Swallowtail shawl (9 repeats of the bud pattern done) and dreaming of starting the Rovaniemi Mittens.

I've finished the January book for the Puritan Reading Challenge. And I'm taking advantage of my new computer's faster speed (from 800 Mhz to 2.6 Ghz) to download lectures and the like. Some people watch TV while they knit, I like to listen to things. And now that my computer has speakers, I will!

New computers are fun. But does anyone have an idea why, or better yet, how to fix, the glitch that is causing ctrl+p to CLOSE MS Word (97) rather than open a Print dialog box? Even if I select it from the menu, the program closes. The print button works fine, though, as does ctrl+P in Excel and Works.

Annoying, but for the speed, I think I can live with it. Blogger can even keep up with my typing now! It had a rate of 10 wpm or so, and I am a bit faster.

Many Thoughts

My first thought was that I'd have a blog entry last Wednesday, with charming photos of the pink and blue Latvian mittens I made, with charming information of the trials of their decreases and thumb placements. It didn't happen. And, due to a slight log jam in the quantity of things I hope to do in the next 3.5 hours, there won't be photos of the mittens today either. Photos may be at Ravelry, or not ... I forget. But the mittens are done, blocked, and in a nice little mitten pile, waiting for display.

Another thought I had was that I'd be blogging once or twice a week about the Puritan Reading Challenge. As you will have noticed, that has not come to pass either. However, and more importantly, I have been doing the reading. And thinking about it. And yesterday -- oh, the joys that were at the post office yesterday -- I got a real, live, printed book (25 of them, actually), two of which were this month's book, The Bruised Reed. I can now curl up with a blanket, tea, fountain pen, notebook, and a REAL BOOK and continue on with the reading. I'm on chapter 14 today.

Given that this is an election year, permit me to share with you a paragraph from the book that took me the better part of my reading time one day to decipher. Insolent behavior toward miserable persons, if humbled, is unseemly in any who look for mercy themselves. Misery should be a lodestone of mercy, not a footstool for pride to trample on. Sometimes it falls out that those who are under the government of others are most injurious by wayward and harsh censures, herein disparaging and discouraging the endeavours of superiors for the public good. In so great weakness of man's nature, and especially in this crazy age of the world, we ought to take in good part any moderate happiness we enjoy by government, and not be altogether as a nail in the wound, exasperating things by misconstruction. Here love should have a mantle to cast upon lesser errors of those above us. Oftentimes the poor man is the oppressor by unjust clamors. We should labor to give the best interpretation to the actions of governors that the nature of the actions will possibly bear. Stop. Consider that. (First, decode what his beautiful use of mostly abandoned English sentence structure obscures from the mind that may not be used to such gymnastics.) Then go one further, and think what you may need to change in your own conduct as a result of this exhortation. If you don't like it, think about why you don't. Are your reasons sound?

Oh, it will be such fun to continue on in this challenge, now that I have BOOKS! (12 for me, 12 for mom, and two that aren't here yet.)

The observant among you will have noticed that twice twelve is not 25. 'Tis true. I got another book in the mail yesterday. To be precise, not a book, but a magazine. But what a magazine! I'd wave it before your eyes, but that doesn't fit in to my log jam of things to do. The January/February 2008 Piecework arrived at my mailbox yesterday. I, driving through the blustery winds zipping down from Canada and through South Dakato to our lonely 2-lane highway before chilling Wisconsin, wisely had my daughter turn to the appropriate page and feasted my eyes on the long-awaited pattern for just a half-second. The cover of the magazine proclaims Exclusive! Ancient Arctic Technique Revealed p. 12. Be still my heart.

Really. I am sooooo excited to finally have this technique set out before me. I haven't cast on yet, because I want to have time to savor the project ... not tuck it into stolen moments between churchnewsletterchurchwebsiteroyaltiestaxessettingupnewcomputer- knittingevaluationhomeschoolinglaundryanddidImentioncooking. But believe me, I have read over the article, and carefully studied the one little bit that has been puzzling me since I saw the technique on Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's blog. I understand it (happy dance!) and am ready to put that understanding into practice. Hopefully I'll settle down enough to read the whole article with a bit more depth first.

And these are my bloggy thoughts for the day.

Accountability thoughts:

• Stash 2008 - going well. One skein of Shadow is working up into a Swallowtail, and 3 hanks of Swish Superwash have found a baby to be a blanket for. I get to do the center, Filia gets to do 120 inches of edging. I get to sew it on.
  
• Mittens 2008 - goal for January met.
  
• Scarlet Pimpernel - plodding along

Final thoughts: Go read!

A Post For Denise

Yes, Denise. This post's for you. The mysteries of my knitting box are about to be revealed to your tender mind.

My knitting box was a Christmas present to me from my mom a few years back. The box has a few dents in it, but has held up well. Incredibly well, since it gets daily use and a not insignificant amount of travel. From here to Ohio to Minneapolis to Omaha to Des Moines, it has accompanied me on many a trip. Every so often - like the last ladies' craft day - I wonder why I'm lugging this big box around, and decide to take a small tote instead. But then when I try to put in everything I'll need for my project, and everything my mom will need for hers but doesn't bring since she just uses a Chubs box, and everything I'll need to help out with unknown knitting problems, and a spare yarn catalog or two ... I dump the tote in the box and make sure it can shut.

First revealed to your gaze is the tray. The tray contains a variety of tools, including jump rings, interchangeable needle tighteners and other small hardware, coilless safety pins, hand lotion, circular needles, pencils, pens, a measuring tape, stitch markers, a row counter bracelet, yarn cutter pendant, cable needle, crochet hook, and several sets of dpns.

The small pocket in the lid contains circular needles, various notations on whose foot is which size, and the Handy Guide To Yarn Requirements. Plus whatever I've stuck in there that hasn't gotten re-filed. That pocket can hold a lot of goodies, but many goodies doesn't mesh well with closing the lid firmly.

Under the tray you see the guts of the box. This is the state of the box after it's been to a craft day. Normally, I don't carry around a bolero, but mom was interested in seeing how CotLin worked up (and she took the two balls that were in there). There's my grandmother's set of crochet hooks, my Endpaper Mitts, spare Brown Sheep Sportweight (one-ply ... any guesses as to how old it is?), and Harmony Sock Needles. Gotta love 'em. Also in there is a second set of crochet needles, and my beloved Boye Needlemaster set ... 23 years old last Christmas. In the lower left corner is my emergency ration. There may be two or three in there. It also contains Filia's Cardigan in Progress, waiting for more yarn to arrive from KnitPicks. There's an entire cardigan in there, minus 1/2 sleeve and a rolled collar.

To the right of the knitting box is the rug my knitting chair sits on, and a few mittens draped over a wooden bowl I found at the local thrift store. One of the mittens you've seen before, and the other ... will be the subject of another post. In the bowl is ... more yarn. The bit of blue peeking out between the mittens is my project notebook. Project notebooks are handy things to have if you are planning on baking a mitten, melting it, and reknitting it on the same size needles a few months later. The bowl also has Latvian Mittens, spare skeins of yarn, and the directions for the cardigan marinating in the bottom of the box. Plus miscellaneous jump rings that have not found their way back home.

The Puritan Reading Challenge 2008 is going along well. I haven't gotten my books yet, but I found the first book on the web and have been reading. Some of what Richard Sibbes writes even applies to knitting!

Things of greatest perfection are longest in coming to their growth. Man, the most perfect creature, comes to his perfection by little and little; worthless things, as mushrooms and the like, like Jonah's gourd, soon spring up and soon vanish."

I completely agree with him and his original intent. But it also applies nicely if you delete the part about Man, and just consider chunky scarves and heirloom lace. And the mittens I kick out in two days as well.

The Year begins

Here it is, Tuesday, and we're back into the swing of school. Saxon has been dumped in favor of Singapore, and the scholars are rejoicing. I think I know why it is that asking Filia to do three problems involving exponents results in three bad guesses, while asking her to do thirty of them results in 29 correct answers. Her brain was made dizzy by the Spirals of Saxon. I didn't enjoy having two children with 'math brains' (ie, they come up with accurate ways to solve problems that I, who tested into Calc III for college, have to wrinkle my brow to contemplate) getting less than 50% on weekly quizzes. We switched, and all is going well.

The knitting proceedeth apace. I am out of yarn for Filia's cardigan, and have ordered more. One half of a sleeve and a neck treatment are all that remain. Work has begun on the second Endpaper Mitt, but I've been spending more time staring at a monitor than knitting. I found a site that teaches HTML basics, and was caught at a weak moment (having spent some time trying to paste code into my blog for the 2008 Puritan Reading Challenge). After the schoolwork was done, I unleashed my children on it. Filius is happily designing a Dayton Flyer Unofficial Fan Page, and Filia has made some lovely buttons with the names of all her friends as options. Me, I'm still working on that image thing. (You can see how it's going with the photos on this post. It should be scary for a while, but I have hopes I'll be able to do a bit with them. Then again, they don't show up. Argh. Is it possible to simply paste an img src="http:..." into Blogger with < and > and have it work? If not, why not? Obviously, an hour of HTML is not helping enough.)


I've been asked to teach a class in 'advanced mittens with colorwork' for a local knitting store. Whee!!! But ... I've never taken a knitting class. If anyone has been in a class and has advice on what to do, or what not to do, please chime in.

And a closing quote from my new Book of Quotations:
Men's evil manners live in brass; their virtues
We write in water.
Henry VIII (1613) act 4, sc. 2, 1.58

The Year in Review

Today being the last day of 2007, it makes sense to look over what I've been up to this year. My handy sidebar tells me this includes:

• 30 pairs of socks
  
• 39 stash projects
• 2 spinning/knitting projects
• 9 mittens
• 9 hats
• 8 shawls/wraps
• 2 frogged, unresurrected projects

Those are nice totals. I *did* knit from my stash, and I even spun from my stash.

The year is ending as next year will begin ... doctor's appointment today, doctor's appointment on January 2nd. Whee. It does get me into town, and provides a nice excuse for grocery shopping. And yarn shopping. No, not for me. For Filia. The hat she made for mom simply JUMPED off mom's head some time in town, and is missing. So, time for a replacement.

And, since I've two blogs to update, and dishes to wash, and a shopping trip to make ... this review shall be declared at an end.

Poof!

Why I don't do UFOs

My current project is a cardigan. It's got oodles of ribbing, and cables to boot. My left thumb hurts just thinking about knitting on it some more. I could start another project ....

and I will. Because I will eventually need a traveling project. At this point, however, the cardi will serve nicely in that role. It won't fit in a sock bag, true, but I don't have any socks to stash in there either. 2008 is my personal Year of the Mitten, so mittens will be tucked into the sock bag. Two color and/or twisted mittens, to boot. Unless they don't work well for traveling, in which case I may do stash reduction for traveling.

Reading. I really need to set some time aside each day to read to myself. I read to the children (currently working on the Scarlet Pimpernel. Jellyband reminds me of Butterbur. Filia has no idea who Butterbur is. A gap in her education which will be rectified.) There's a proofreading handbook on my desk, as well as Heretics/Orthodoxy, Livy's Early History of Rome, The Search for Delicious, the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, and the original Pinocchio. I have such a difficult time prioritizing between two good things.

Harp. I'm not taking lessons any more, but I *will* keep on practicing. Call me on it if I don't mention it. (Hmm, the idea of a Monthly Report is sounding like a good accountability plot. Anyone want to join me? Come up with things to do on a regular basis, and report in a post once a month on what you've been actually doing? Say, perhaps, not buying sock yarn? Or donating it all to good causes?)

But the cardigan. It's not going to become a UFO, because I will work on it daily. It will be my home project (although I do reserve the right to work on another project at home if I do more than one skein of cardigan yarn in a given day.) And if this cardigan pulls the same stunt my last one did, and turns into yarn balls? I will let out a sigh of exasperation, and give myself one week of playing with mittens before starting the hunt for another suitable pattern. Or maybe I'll just delegate the cardigan to Filia. Sure, that's it. She can knit her own cardigan, and I can have her gift certificate!

Why do I think that won't go over well?

Cynics regarded everybody as equally corrupt. Idealists regarded everybody as equally corrupt, except themselves.
~ Robert Anton Wilson

Milk is easier to get off dark skeins

subtitle: Why I should have been more careful setting my Hot Vanilla down this evening.

(Hot Vanilla: 1 cup hot milk, 1 t vanilla, 1 t (or T) sugar. Mmmm. Sticky.)

I set my mug down in its usual resting spot in the top of my workbox. Except the top of my workbox wasn't squarely settled in the box, and it tipped. 11 ounces (I saved one) of hot milky beverage all over

• The balled yarns from Fililus's frogged pullover
• The Leisure Arts raglan sweater booklet which has been in my family for two generations
• The yarns for the Endpaper Mitts
• The yarns for my buttonhole article
• Filia's gauge swatches for her cardigan
• Several needles and a needle gauge
• The floor
• The rug under my chair
• My dog
• A ruler

I will have some sticky yarns to work with for a while, I think. It did miss my 'pretty basket of yarns' and the bag I'd taken with me to Knit Night, so I have some breathing space before facing yarns that go crackle in the night. And really, most things got off with just a dollop or so of milk around the edges. The raglan book got the worst of it, and it's clothespinned to the stove hood.

Elmer's glue really is water-soluble. I have another glue drying this very moment, hopefully securing the lip of the box tray to the actual tray. The Elmers washed off quite nicely with the hot beverage.

Filia's swatch tags, written in beautiful fountain pen, are illegible. This is a perfect reason to finish my Pendemonium order off with some bullet-proof inks. I really do need them! Britannia's Blue Waves, or one of the Russian inks, or Iraqi Indigo, or ???

The Refined Aran Cardigan is no more. It, too, requires a sport weight yarn. I have a DK yarn, and this morning Filia and I picked out a Drops design which will work. The gauge swatch was PERFECT until I tossed it in the dryer, at which point it grew width-wise and shrunk lengthwise. And it looks ratty. So, this Swish DK cardi will be machine wash, air dry. It's going to get started (because Filia has finished the Baby Surprise Jacket, thus freeing up my long cable) as soon as I finish NHM #8. I've got the thumb and a bit left, so tomorrow should see the start.

Then, whatever shall I have for a travelling project?

Knitting Resolutions

The year is drawing to a close, and I - being the personal global planner that I am - like to think about the next year, and what I will do with it.

I like keeping track of my projects in the sidebar. It's a handy place to see what I'm up to, what I've accomplished, and what's lurking in the future. Ravelry can do the same sort of thing, but not so as everyone can see it quite yet ... so I'll keep that part of my blog.

I'm in a very mitteny mood. I've got to do Filia's cardigan next, but after that's done I see many mittens on my needles. Latvian, Selbuvotter, Twisted ... you name it, I think they will be there. In fact, I think 2008 will be A Mitten (pair) A Month. More suited to acronymization is the Year of the Monthly Mittens.

Also, I want to knit a lace stole suitable for the State Fair. Once the initial mitten frenzy dies down, I will cast on for the Sampler Stole - I think from A Gathering of Lace - and get that going. If it develops separation anxiety during blocking ... I'll cross that bridge if I come to it.

And of course, I'd like to keep working my stash down. Mittens should be good for that. 2008 shall also be the Year of the Monthly Stash Project (YOMSP), which may be the same as the Monthly Mitten Project.
Sockies ... another pair is done. The little tail you see on one sock is all that was left of the skein. The other sock had about a yard extra. It was close. Three yards to cast off 96 stitches? It was very close.


If you have used cusenaire rods, you may recognize the colors and sizes of these rods. But perhaps you never thought of building an inverted pyramid? Architecturally minded boys would.

Or how about balancing a new gyroscope on Mimring? Nope. I never would have thought of that either.

Filia is knitting madly on a Baby Surprise Jacket. The book (The Opinionated Knitter) is AWOL, but the working copy I made for myself from the book was found next to the slipper pattern (which was used to replace the inadvertent casualties of the Severe Cleaning she subjected her room to), and the jacket will be done shortly. I think she's 3 ridges from the end. (Two slippers and a BSJ since the 21st ... not bad!)

Nutella Drinks and other Comfort Foods

Nutella Hot Chocolate is a recipe from Hot Chocolate. The recipe is pretty simple .. take one serving of Nutella, add to one serving hot milk, and mix. I highly recommend NOT using an immersion blender in a full mug. There was a sad and drastic loss of Nutella that day.

Nutella is a favorite spread in this family. I wish I could get it in larger jars than what is sold in the supermarket. If it's more popular than peanut butter worldwide, one would think it came in containers larger than 8 servings. Filius took this photo of his favorite snack.

While we were up at the hospital, Filia met some of the wives of the Minnesota Twins players, and the mascot TC. TC was quite impressed with her cookie, and presented her with an autograph. She was more interested in cookie decorating with the Twins' wives than The Yarnery.



And in keeping with the food theme, allow me to show you what was in the oven with the loaf of bread pictured above.

Yes, mittens were drying in the oven. Mittens baked in the oven. Did you know Trekking changes color at 350 degrees? My camera was staging a focusing strike, so you can't see the cripsiness of the mitten, but believe you me ... it was crispy. I was able to salvage the mittens by cutting off the offended top and knitting a new one. That Trekking yarn is getting quite a workout! From padded footlets (frogged) to mittens (toast), to reknitting toasted mittens, and now the rest of the ball is being used by my mom to make some half-mitts.


Filia was bit by a serious cleaning bug earlier this week, much to the detriment of her schoolwork. I thought it a worthy tradeoff, since my plan was to get schoolwork done and then encourage a hearty room cleaning. She spent the better part of two days sorting, tossing, tossing, donating, and putting away things. Her room is lovely ... and Filius was the recipient of some beanies.

The time, it flieth

It's time for a few posts, and I think I'm caught up enough that I can actually write some.

My needles have been busy. My sewing machine has been busy. My crochet hook has, sadly, been employed. At least it was to good purpose.

Icarus is finished. I used two skeins of Misti Alpaca Laceweight, and had a smidge left over. The pattern was knit as writ, although if I make it again I'll just do 3 yos instead of 4 in that particular pattern round. It's sitting near the radiator, snug under a desk, waiting to meet its new owner on Sunday.
The Legwarmers are finished. I think I've taken the off a few times ... but I do like them, and they are a definite plus in our cool house. The pattern came from Melville's The Knit Stitch, and used 3 skeins of Shamrock.

Filius's cardigan is finished. Really finished. A few days into working on it, I realized that he never wears anything but sweatshirt or oversized shirts in the winter, and who wears cardigans over things like that? Anything that goes over something of that size is called a coat. I had a small sinking feeling, but decided to finish. There are more boys than one in the word, after all.

The next day, I finished a sleeve ... the stitch count was off at the bottom a bit, but that wasn't too problematic. I was getting gauge, and the sleeve looked quite proper, and so I picked up stitches for the next sleeve and got ready to start down.

Then I decided to count my sleeve stitches. And there weren't enough. So I backtracked. What could have gone wrong? True, I didn't count to make sure there were 309 stitches on the needle when I set the sleeve stitches aside, but who would do that? There were directions to take care of the stitch number, and I'd followed them, hadn't I?

Well, yes. But not quite all of them. One line told me to increase X times, another told me to work increases at the front edges (V-neck, you know) Y times every Q rows, then Z times every R rows, then N times every S rows. I'd done fine with my YZN, but had missed the X part. Wouldn't X = Q+R+S? No, it did not. It was off by 8. Which means 4 increase rows. Which makes for 32 stitches. Which, at 5 stitches per inch, makes for 6" shrinkage in the sweater yoke above the sleeve division. It was suddenly seeming less likely that the finished project would be wearable.

So I cast on some socks. (Sorry, no photos. They're wrapped, too.) And thought, pondered, and otherwise contemplated my options. The next day, I brought a ball winder to craft day, stuck it on the table, and about 10 minutes later ... pfssst ... I have a row of lovely balls of yarn, occupation unknown.

After the socks, the Balaclava was cast on. The pattern (um, springboard?) comes from Homespun, Handknit. I made a few tweaks, took lots of photos of the making of the eye opening, and finished it off today. It's in the Basket of Things To Be Wrapped, and will not be a surprise to the recipient, but wrapping it is still fun. Especially if one's mom does the wrapping.

Now, for the End of Year Contemplation. To be fair, I've been thinking about posting this since early December, but I got otherwise occupied and the idea has been on the back burner. Towards the end of 2006, I had thoughts about working my stash down. There was the Stash of Whole Skeins, and the stash of miscellaneous acquired objects. I'd like to report that, based on my sidebar, I worked 39 projects from stashed yarns.

• The Tesselated Socks used 2 skeins I had bought 'for some pair of socks'
• The Latvian mittens used two colors of Palette from my Palette sampler
• The Anatolian MIttens used two colors of Merino Style from ... where else? ... my Merino Style Sampler
• The Quilt was finished
• The Rambling Rose afghan has been taken over by my daughter, who will probably finish it in 2008.

Admittedly, nothing was done with the Shadow sampler. I have noticed that the Swallowtail shawl takes only one skein, so I may be making one of those this coming year. After my doodle with Angel laceweight, perhaps?

And lastly, it's amazing what a boy can do with K'Nex.