KnitMe

In step with a season...

...just not this season. The cherry trees have bloomed, there's a big bird party in the trees, and flowers are popping up everywhere. I love these:

and this...

So, what am I knitting? You'd think some breezy cotton number to take advantage of the warming weather, but no. My current project has been Oat Couture's Celtic Cardigan:

I had originally started this project in some overdyed hand spun, but it sat abandoned for about a year, a sleeve and a half away from completion. I finally decided that I didn't like some of the color variegations that were happening, and that I was never going to finish the beast. I ripped the whole thing out and started over again in some Briggs & Little that I had in the stash. The color is called Grey Heather, and in these pics, it actually does look grey. In real life, it's much greener. One of my favorite features of this pattern is that the buttonhole placement is figured into the band pattern - very handy. The pattern is well-written, easy to follow, and error-free, as far as I can tell. Here it is kinda/sorta put together:

Here's a detail of the left front band:

I've been wrestling with the digicam, so these pics are a bit grainy, but with a little more fiddling, the FO pictures should be better. Interior house painting took precedence over knitting this weekend, but I'm about halfway through the second front band. I should be able to finish it up tonight and start seaming together. Yay!

LOTSS of lace

The finished, blocked product.

(Pattern is sold here.)

LOTSS and LOTSS...

... of work. LOTSS of time. LOTSS and LOTSS of PINS! Legends of the Shetland Seas is finally finished!

Sorry this photo is so big, but this thing turned out to be bigger than I expected, 25 inches across and about 84 inches long.

I soaked it in a weak cornstarch solution before pinning it out, in hopes of defeating merino's natural tendency to spring back and reject a good block. We'll see.

This is the center panel.

This is the border pattern, my favorite part of the shawl.

This took from September 16th until today to get done - I don't think I've ever made anything that took so long or was so challenging. I used Skacel Merino Lace, and I ran out of yarn with one side of edging left to complete. One hank is 1350 yards so I owe a big thanks to Leigh C. who sent me a few scraps to finish so that I wouldn't have to buy another 1350 yards.

It is drying quickly so maybe there will be an in-use picture tomorrow.

I was beginning to resent this thing, because as long as it was in work I didn't feel I could start another lace project - so it became LOTSS's fault that I couldn't start anything new. But now it's done and all is forgiven, I am trying to think how I can hang it up for display without ruining its shape - I hate to fold it up and stick it in a box someplace.

Miraculously I'm back to only TWO WIPs. Something is going to have to be DONE about that...

New York knitting

We had a wonderful time in NYC, and I had a great knitting experience. There is lots of knitting in New York, and I ran into knitters everywhere. I went through every airport security check without a hitch, but I must report that knitting needles are not allowed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art! They seem to be welcome everywhere else, though. I knit the Autumn Tam on the plane, and it wasn't a great experience. I ran out of a few colors, which I ended up substituting with Rowan 4-ply leftovers I had with me, fortunately. I also thought the decreases happened too fast, and will use a different pattern for my next tam. However, it is done, and certainly wearable.

For walking around, I knit on the Lavold sweater. I have a picture of me, wearing the A-line aran, in the Natural history museum, which is knitter-friendly. I am next to the model of the moon, holding the knitting. It doesn't want to seem to want to upload now, so I will do that later. For theater knitting, I knit on a sock out of Sock It to Me Harlequin yarn. It went really quickly, and I finished it during "Gypsy" and "Wicked", so when we went to "Rent" I knit on the Dacapo. It is boring, so I won't show that, but here is the sock and the Lavold back as far as it got.

We walked several miles each day, I swear, and we saw lots of interesting things. The highlight, however, was the musical "Wicked", which just opened in October of 2003, and is an absolutely wonderful experience. My whole family was simply enthralled from beginning to end. We all wanted to skip everything else the entire trip and just see it again, but tickets are not easy to come by. It is worth going to New York to see this show before the stars, Kristin Chenowith and Idina Menzel, leave. They are phenomenal talents. See www.wickedthemusical.com for more details and some music clips.

Anne

Voila

Voila: The French Market Bag.

The pattern is from Knitty. It was easy, and fairly fast.

The shaving was another story. The $30 trimmer I bought broke after 90 seconds, so I exchanged it for another one that didn't break but seemed stymied by felted shetland wool. I finally borrowed heavy duty clippers from a friend who moonlights as a hairdresser, and they did the trick. I am still thinking perhaps I'd have been better off buying a pack of disposable razors...

Followup

Here are followup pictures of the stuff from the other day.

An attempt to photograph the shoulder shawl in use:

The finished Barefoot Spinner yarn, four hanks of about 130-150 yards each, and the runt of the litter, still on the niddynoddy, about 30 yards. I'm not sure what weight I got (haven't measured wraps per inch) but it's probably going to knit up DK weight I think.

I'd show you my finished French Market Bag, except that - well - it isn't finished. I tried this morning to shave it with my Gillette Excel, and got really frustrated after about 15 minutes of accomplishing nothing, so I decided to run out and buy a beard trimmer. I stared bemused at trimmers in the local beauty supply store wondering what on earth made them cost $60. Finally I found one for $29 and rushed home to shave, only to discover I had to charge it for 16 hours first. FINE. So, I'll shave it after work tomorrow.

I'm feeling motivated to decorate it somehow to make it personalized. What could I do??

A TTE, A UFO, and Some Yarn

This was a 3 day weekend for me so I got lots accomplished.

First, a TTE:

This is a sort of shoulder shawl made from various leftover yarn that was too nice to toss in the oddball bin. The dark blue is Koigu left from my herringbone gloves, as is the one small stripe of painted yarn at the top of the photo. The wide painted section is the silk/wool I used to make the Rose Trellis pullover last summer. The pattern is 'Garter Lace' from Martha Waterman's traditional lace shawls book.

I blocked it hard with pins and wires and got it to be about 38 inches across the top and about 24 inches long. I'm wearing it today with a sweater clip to hold it together across the front, and it comes about to my waist in back and the points hang to the bottom of my ribs in front.

I don't really feel like I can call this a FO. The pattern was perfect for my situation because it starts at the bottom point and goes up, so I could knit until I ran out of yarn. Therefore I decided it is a TTE: a "Thing That Ended".

Next, a UFO. No, that doesn't mean what it usually means. In this case, it's a Unfelted Object, the French Market bag from Knitty, made with Jamiesons Chunky Shetland left from my last felting project.

I have since felted it and it's blocking. I had to felt it a long time in the washer before I no longer could find the ridges of the stitches. Despite the advice of the pattern, saying to use a towel to increase friction, I think I got better results when it was in the wash by itself.

To try to keep the squareness of the bottom, I used a book, and then I stuffed the rest of it with plastic bags. Hopefully it will be dry tonight and I can shave it tomorrow and take a picture.

Finally, the yarn. This is 3 of what will be about 4 1/2 skeins of wool/mohair yarn spun from the roving bought from the Barefoot Spinner at last year's Maryland Sheep and Wool festival. I think each of these is about 130-150 yards.

I tried to spin and ply tightly to keep the mohairiness under control. This picture just doesn't do justice to the brightness of the blue - when the whole lot is done I'll take it outside and try for a better picture.

This is what the ball looked like before (it was about 11 ounces):

I'm back working on LOTSS again after having received a nice package of little balls of Merino Lace in the mail on Friday. It's so nice to work with lightweight yarn and needles after drudging on the felted bag for a week, I have sore muscles in my forearms! I hope to have that finished by the end of the month.

Knitting Progress

I finished the anniversary sweater for Bill, but haven't persuaded my son to model it, yet. I finished the Chinchilla sweater for Deborah,

and the A-line Aran cardigan. It still needs to have the sleeves sewn in and the buttons added, but it is basically done.

We leave tomorrow for a few days in NYC to explore the museums and see Broadway musicals. We have tickets for Gypsy, Wicked and Rent. I am taking my Sandy Blue Autumn tam for airplane knitting, the DaCapo for theater knitting, and some sock yarn for walking around knitting. I am also starting the companion sweater to my husband's anniversary sweater, the feminine version Tordis, in the green Silky Wool. This is a much simpler sweater and should go faster. I am really looking forward to the trip, but am thinking of all at the Pink Tea soiree today.

Anne

The WIP count at my House

The WIP count at my house is going the wrong way.

First, there's LOTSS, which is stalled with one long edging run left to go, while I wait for some more yarn from a kind soul who'll share (I need less than 200 yards and hate to buy 1300). Sailor's Rib doesn't look much different than it did last week, it's just bigger.

The ones I'm actually making progress on:

Rosarie:

This is not being as enjoyable a knit as I'd hoped - the chart is not easy to memorize so I'm a little slow, and I don't get as much time to work on it as I'd like. But I know I'll like it when I am done. Since I will never wear it buttoned, I'm thinking of just doing the garter bands without buttons and buttonholes.

This is the 'Garter Lace' pattern from Martha Waterman's traditional shawls book - I'm using up various leftovers that I thought might coordinate. The navy is leftover Koigu from my gloves (I used half, and the other half will go at the top). The paint is a silk/wool blend from a company called 'Color Me' that I don't think is made anymore. I'm hoping it'll come out big enough for a little shoulder shawl, I know it'll stretch a lot when blocked.

I also started the 'French Market Bag' from Knitty, because I want a felted knitting bag for work knitting that outgrows my Pink Tea lunchbox, but it's not photographable yet.

My spinning is photographable, however. This is 3 of what will be 4 bobbins of my Barefoot Spinner wool and mohair.

This is some Shetland I'm using to try to get back into spindling - it'll be slow going but it's so open and airy that it's easy to spin. This was a pound of roving that came in a box less than 12 inches square but has expanded to fill a small garbage bag when given the chance.

And this is what is keeping Emily distracted while I photograph and type - amazing what appeal a toy has when it's been in the attic for 2 months!

Prudence

WIPS du jour

Here's what is in the works Chez Prudence.

This is 'Sailor's Rib' by Nancy Bush from the Best of Knitters Arans and Celtics book. It calls for 6 inches of ribbing in a men's large but at 5 inches I gave up - it looked like more than enough ribbing to me - and started the pattern. It's a very simple pattern, so I memorized it quickly and this is my commuting/lunch hour knitting. I'd forgotten how quickly something knits up in worsted weight yarn on 4mm needles! I'm using Plymouth Galway out of stash for this one.

This is the first 6 rows of Rosarie from Virtual Yarns. I am probably the only person I know who likes these garter stitch checked bands, I don't in the least mind knitting them because I like the result so much.

The colors are hard to capture, but the background is mostly Calluna which is a dark green, with some Kelpie which is sort of navy blue, and the foreground is mostly Poppy and Red Rattle with a little Clover. The best thing about this pattern: It's a VEST! NO SLEEVES!

No LOTSS pictures today, still waiting for some yarn from a share I've worked out. And I've started the 'Garter Lace' triangle shawl from Martha Waterman's lace book, to use up some leftovers including the Koigu left from my gloves - we'll see if that turns out to be photo worthy.

OK, no knitting content today,

OK, no knitting content today, I'll get some photos over the weekend. I'm about 10 inches up the back of 'Sailor's Rib' by Nancy Bush from the new Best of Knitters Arans book, I'm half way through the LOTSS edging and waiting for more yarn, and I cast on for Rosarie (Virtual Yarns) last night but didn't even knit one row.

However, I have this beautiful pen to show you:

It was made by Caroline Morse of Fiber Arts and Fuzzy Creatures, who also has a business called A Twist On Wood (you can get there from her blog). It's ebony, with titanium fittings, and uses my most favorite pen insides in the world (Parker Jotter ballpoint). All together now: Oooh, Aaah.

Knitting content in a few days, I promise...

It's been 60 degrees here every day since I finished my herringbone gloves so they are still sitting on my dresser looking gorgeous. Sigh.

Prudence