Nothing Like

It doesn't take much to encourage me. A few admiring comments and I am all over this like Quaker on oats. I started on My Sister's Scarf. (Note the emphasis on "my." It modifies "scarf.") I made a design decision to go with one color for the beads - the pseudo-hematite (well, it can't be real hematite, they're glass).

I strung my 270 beads (actually 280, just in case. Taking as a rule of thumb the number of needle sizes up from the suggested gauge, I cast on using a US size 8/5 mm needles (she went from a US 1 to a US 6).

And started fudging and swearing my way through the pattern. It's one of those that make sense if you already know how to do what she's telling you to do, but if you're not sure and you don't speak knitting in her particular idiom (that is, if you are me) the only thing to do is start knitting. Trying to read the pattern and just figure it out are not going to work.

It turns out it's pretty simple. Two rows of garter stitch and one 2 row pattern stitch where the pattern creates a dropped stitch. I have done this before, just not the way she does it. The double wrap is the same, it's the way she drops the stitch. The pattern says to unwrap one strand and knit the remaining, now a single very long stitch. I think it's way easier to insert you're needle under the two wraps, knit the front leg of the stitch and slip the whole thing off in one motion. Just sayin'.

That, however, is not the real issue. After knitting a couple repeats ( it's only 30 stitches wide) I came upon a fundamental difference in vision. One that has nothing to do with whatever variations there may be in knitting vernacular. Each complete pattern repeat/4 rows only works out to about an inch. The pattern calls for adding beads to only the first and last 9 pattern repeats. Do you understand what that means? Only the ends are beaded. I want the whole scarf to have beads. And I do not want an 18 inch scarf. This is more that poo-tay-to, po-tah-to. This is more than po-tay-to, pomme de terre. This is po-tay-to, asparagus. Possibly po-tay-to, pomegranate.

I believe the phrase we're looking for here is, "Oh, snap." I have to do some Math. I have to swatch.

Then I have to string a lot more beads.

Quick! Quick!

We interrupt our regularly scheduled blog to bring you this PSA.


Let me guess. You're drowning in stash, right? You know you need to get rid of it, right? You know it's too late for the sidewalk sale at String Theory, right?

Tan-tan-tan- aa! Let me help you. More accurately, let IBOL Guy help.

This is really immediate. The deadline is less than a week away. Go see IBOL guy, leave him a comment and he'll send you the address. Besides, he can write.

It may sound like he only wants sewing stuff, but if you check the FAQ's he says "Of course there’s love for knitters. Send yarn. Send needle thingies. Send the Yard Harlot" so I think we get to help.

Or you could use it as an excuse to shop the closeouts at JoAnn.

And thanks and a hat tip to Kathleen for blogging about this.

My Sister's Scarf

Over the course of the summer, I went missing for a while. Perhaps you noticed. At one point, I had so many things to write about and so little time to write that when I'd sit down to post I couldn't decide what to start with. So I didn't post. On the one hand, it meant if you showed up here, it was like walkinginto an unexpectedly empty room. The furniture was there, but nobody was home. On the other hand, I have lots of stuff left to write about. One of the posts that never got written was the one about my sister's scarf.

This is from early July. I work on this local 4th of July parade. Have for years and years. Since before John was born, as a matter of fact. As a result, it's become something of a tradition for my sister's family to join us for the parade and a picnic afterward. Since the parade steps off at 11 AM, we're all free to go off to fireworks or other festivities for the evening. This year, my sister's crew had tickets to Mary Poppins, the play. My sister's going-to-the-theater ensemble included a - scarf. A fabulous scarf, casually draped around her neck and hanging open over the front of her jacket, just as if it weren't a work of art. Fine yarn. Sparkly. Beautiful colors. I wanted it. Really badly. We're talking a serious case of apple-green envy here. I needed a scarf like that.

I've been in pursuit, admittedly as an on and off sort of thing until lately, ever since. It's been there, nibbling at the edges of my consciousness, every time I went into a yarn store, every time I browsed online. The search got earnest over these past few weeks. I have finally tracked down the components. I found the pattern - or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof, on Ravelry. Since then I've been hunting yarn. I was thinking silk.

Yesterday I hauled Marco off to Knitche, ostensibly to check out their bagged yarn sale. In reality, however secret and un-admitted, I wanted my scarf. That, and there was the problem of not remembering nearly as much as I thought I did about knitting with beads. I could not figure out the pattern directions. At Knitche, I found my yarn, which is not silk, nor is it the fingering weight that pattern called for. It's Prism Saki in Woodland.

I was pretty sure I had beads left over from the class. That didn't stop me from taking a side trip to Michael's (the bead store next door to Knitche didn't open until noon) and, let's call it, expanding my options.

Not only that, before we left Knitche, I found a Reference Work. I love Reference Works.

Okay, if I got determined a bit, I could probably locate the folder Susanna Hanson provided for the class on beaded knitting I took at Stitches a couple of years back, with all the tips and tricks I'd need, making the purchase of the book sheer self-indulgence. I'm justifying it by saying the patterns are pretty and the book covers two other beading techniques - neither of which I need to make this scarf.

Now all I have to do is locate my beading needle (I think it may be in my button box) and start stringing those 270 size 6 glass seed beads called for by the pattern.

Huh. Stringing 270 beads. Maybe I don't want this as much as I thought I did.

I Got This Idea

And it didn't work. Let's state that right up front. But when has that ever stopped me from writing?

After I posted Friday, I sat and looked at the project so far, with those 21 cast-on stitches and 20 picked-up stitches and I began to wonder. There had to be a way to knit this the way I wanted to. Some way that would that keep my diagonal pointing in the right direction and keep the top of my knitting consistent.

Question #1:What if, after I cast on and picked up the stitches from the top of square #8, what if I kept going and picked up the stitches I need to join the new square to square #3?

Answer: Think about it. If I cast on and then pick up stitches across the two adjacent squares, where will my yarn end up? That's right. At the top of square # 3, 20 stitches away from where I need to start knitting.

Question #2: Okay Fine. What if I pick up stitches down square #3 and across square #7 and then cast on. Huh? What about that? Could I then knit on the 41 right-most stitches - that is, the cast on stitches and the picked-up stitches from square #7 -- and knit the last stitch together with the picked-up stitch from square #3?

Answer: Oh honestly. Think about it. All the decreases -- and thus the pattern -- would end up on the wrong side of the work instead of the right side.

I'd like to tell you I figured this all out in my head and therefore held fast to the recognition that Erin really meant me to pick up one leg of the last stitch in each row to join the sides of squares #3 and #8. I'd be lying.

I'll be good now, though. I promise. This whole thinking thing is over-rated.

(Oh, and before anyone asks. Yes, I picked up the wrong leg for the first two rows. No. I don't intend to go back and fix it. I've knit those 8 rows so many times the yarn is starting to turn back into roving. Enough is enough.)

Terminology

It's the po-tay-to po-tah-to of knitting. Pick up and knit versus pick up a stitch. This time I'm feeling confounded. I thought the two phrases we synonymous, at least more so than less. But Erin want me to "pick up and knit" stitches when I'm joining at the cast-on stage, but pick up and knit together when I'm joining row by row, if you know what I mean. Maybe not.

Okay. Here' what I think pick up and knit at the cast on edge looks like. I'm pretty sure this is right.

I'm stuck when it comes to joining this square to the rest of the blanket. I'm supposed to knit to the last stitch of a right side row, then pick up a stitch from the adjacent square and knit the two together. In practical terms, I thought this meant, slip the last stitch to the right hand needle. Insert the left hand needle into the slipped end stitch of the adjacent square and pull up a loop of the working yarn. Slip the stitch on the right hand needle back to the left hand needle. Knit the two together, as in knit two loops of the same yarn. That felt pretty awkward and besides it didn't actually work right. I ripped it out before I thought about taking a picture.

I decided to try something else. I knit to the end of the row. Picked up a loop of the working yarn through a stitch from the adjacent row to join. Turned the work. Knit the two together (on the wrong side). Decidedly less cumbersome, at least for the way I knit. Except I didn't like the result, again. I ended up with these horizontal squash colored bars encroaching on the variegated squares (you can see this at the bottom two rows of the square in production).

I came to the conclusion that, for this pattern, pick up a stitch is not the same as pick up and knit. Now I think maybe I need to slip the last stitch to the right hand needle. Insert the left hand needle into the last stitch of the adjacent square - without pulling the working yarn through. Slip the stitch on the right hand needle back to the left hand needle and knit one leg from the end stitch of the adjacent square with the last stitch from the square still under construction. This is, I'm pretty sure, what the pattern requires, especially considering that the next (wrong-side) row begins with slipping the first stitch. Only I don't like the way it looks, either (that would be the top two rows of the square in production).

I've frogged back to the cast on, and I've got one last trick I want to try. Jane's Booties use a similar technique to join the instep to the sides, admittedly while knitting in the round.

I've threaded a smaller dpn through the loops I need to join and want to see if I pick the stitches this way if I can improve the the finished product. We'll see what things look like once I finish a square. Maybe (she said with a desperately hopeful note in her voice) it will look better then?

You say pomme de terre and I say po-tay-to.

Following the Rules

For this newest baby blanket campaign, the a4A website reminds us, and I quote: "Please avoid white and very light colors that soil more easily. Afghans like all colors. Mix up a bright and cheery palette."

Bright. Cheery. Not light. I'm doing my best here. The Malabrigo project certainly fulfills those criteria. The yarn slides through my fingers and I think, "Ooh. That's a pretty stretch of color." I knit a little farther and think, "Hmm, maybe I should see if there's a semi-solid in this shade. Just in case I do need to widen the border."

Well, for the record, that may not be what I think when knitting the solid; the gold is just a little too reminiscent of squash for me. Autumnal as all get out, I grant you, but still, squash. (I hate squash. Really. Even if it's been prepared properly.)

Still, the knitting is entertaining. I do love me a pattern that decreases to transmogrify itself. I finish off a variegated square and start a squash gold one. I'm engaged with the whole knit-it-all-together-at-once-and-watch-the-afghan-grow experience (as opposed to the whole knit-a-pile-of-squares experience).

Then I step back and actually look at the thing. Cringe. It's still bright, cheery and not light. So how is it that something can follow all the rules and still be so - unappealing? That green border had better work a miracle.

And it may. I can't help noticing that the photograph with the black background isn't nearly as off-putting as the one from my kitchen table. Of course, if it doesn't, it will certainly be a joy to send this one off. No second thoughts at all. The peace of mind that comes with knitting according to Hoyle.

"What if I Just . . ."

I think it's fair to say we have established that them is dangerous words around here. Still, sometimes one just needs to keep busy. Sometimes one is just nervous and excited. Sometimes repeated losses at computer Solitaire are just not enough to keep impatience at bay. Sometimes one has a severe case of that Mr. Roger's song "Let's Think of Something to do While We're Waiting" Syndrome.

Clare has been in England the past two weeks. She is en route home and has, in fact, achieved North America at this point. She has a layover in Ottawa, though, and then has to get into O'Hare Field on a Saturday Afternoon in August. I need to keep busy. (Oh. Ahem. Yes. Full disclosure compels me to admit that, in between all those loser's hands of Solitaire, we've been logging into one of the online flight trackers since her flight left Heathrow).

Before life went haywire, Clare did two things for me. She emptied all the mystery boxes out of Fibber McGee's closet, and she replaced the completely useless (and therefore total waste of money), so-called "student desk" that has occupied space in her room since she was about 8, with a clever college-student construction involving crates from Michael's and a table top from Ikea. The original plan was to send the useless desk off to Salvation Army. Then we looked at my so-called kitchen desk.

Yes, well, and ahem again. Perhaps you can see why her desk just sat in the front hall under all the mystery boxes for lo, these many weeks. Stoically enduring getting banged into whenever the front door was opened. Suffering patiently while I found all sorts of excuses to just not get on with things.

Today, it was rewarded.

Isn't that better?

(Before I go, is this the point where I hope Cathy is still reading and admit that one of the things excavated from the kitchen desk is her baby sock kit? This week. I promise!)

New Campaign

The problem with neglecting the blog is that I forget things. A couple weeks ago now, I got the email from the a4A group. It's time for another baby blanket campaign for CURE Hospital in Kabul. Details are here. New KAL blog is here.

Okay, that's the important part. Here's the fun part. I've mentioned off and on that I joined the Malabrigo Club at Eat.Sleep.Knit (have I mentioned how much I like E.S.K.?). I think it absolutely serendipitous that this month's package was, once again, yarn I would never buy for myself in a million years. In fact, I think I would back away, slowly so as not to encourage an attack, forming a cross with my two index fingers. Why then, you may wonder, is it all wound up and ready to go? Why would I call its arrival serendipitous? (And - what about Naomi?*)

Well. Look at the pattern Erin designed (have I mentioned how much I like Erin's designs?). It decreases steadily, so the colors of the variegated yarn won't pool too much. It's garter stitch, so the squares will actually come out, you know, square. And, because it's all ridges all the time, each color will be broken up further by the subsequent rows. It's assemble as you go, so we won't be seeing that Other Issue I have with mitered squares. All right, so it means I have to use the backward loop cast-on. I despise, not so much the cast-on itself, which is easy and fun, but the first row knitting into it where I have to knit so slowly and carefully and not yank my yarn too hard (tight knitter!) or else end up with all this extra yarn that came from I don't where.

Is this perfect for a4A or what? Bright colors. Green border. Okay, so the finished size is 32 by 36, which is too small. I feel sure even I can adjust that without screwing up. All I have to do is make a wider border. If there isn't enough green I can either use my (anticipated) left-overs from the squares or mine the Stash.

Not only that, it's fast.

I realize I'm giving you more garter stitch, instead of the promised saga of stockinette, but at least it's bent garter stitch.

* I just threw that in for all us old Electric Company fans. The one with Morgan Freeman, Bill Cosby and Rita Moreno.

Ex-Incommunicado

I don't feel at a loss for words very often, yet here I am. So many sketchy posts in a row make me feel incredibly out of step. The equation is supposed to be: knitting+life=posting. There's supposed to be a balance, isn't there? Instead life kind of took over and while knitting has been happening -- I have, after all, come pretty clean on the "Yes, I'm still knitting and yes, I'm still screwing it up" bit (which is, you must admit, rather the theme of this blog) -- I haven't done a very good job of checking in with anything substantive, have I?

Well. Time to re-connect. What would you like, life or knitting? Yeah. I thought so.

I think this latest batch of knitting can be traced back to the Red Shawl. No. I take it back. It goes back to Stitch-A-Palooza 2008, where we saw all those knitters swanking about in shawls made out of fabulous yarns and where my terribly smart and generous knitting sister got me my shawl kit. (Note to self - ask for another copy of pattern to replace copy apparently filed away too thoroughly). I do have shawls to show you; just not that one.

Fenna. I am deeply and irrevocably in love with Fenna and by extension Myrna Stahman.

My infatuation remains staunch and abiding, both for it and Fleece Artist Blue Face Leicester. I think I may need to make another with this color-way. I'll convince myself that it's not greed, it's stash-busting.

The Not Quite Tweedy Ruffle/Not Exactly the Wool Peddler's Shawl is All Better.

Everything is lining up and the knitting is proceeding with a straight spine (the shawl) and a happy face (me). I still haven't decided on what color to make the border/ruffle. I had been thinking brown/neutral (Cascade 220 in Pumpkin Spice comes to mind). Clare suggested pink? I am, shall we say, open to other ideas.

It occurred to me, however, that what I have to show you is, well, not to put too fine a point on it, garter stitch. Can I hope to woo you back with garter stitch? Even with fabulous yarn and knitting idiot stories? I fear not. I've pattern-hunted and stash-tossed and come up with (drum roll and trumpet blast) another shawl: Ilga Leja's Lake in the Woods capelet.

Since I don't live in the Canadian woods, I chose a yarn to march my lake. My lake is moody. It glimmers silver. Glowers thunderhead gray. Gleams deep cadet blue. It doesn't glow in the vivid and lighthearted blue expressed by the colorway the pattern features. My lake is best reflected in this.

Handmaiden Lady Godiva in Stardust, purchased during a love-at-first-sight moment from Eat.Sleep.Knit.

Is this the point where I mention that my other knitting is all stockinette all the time? Maybe not. That will give you hope that I have something else to write about. It would seem word-less-ness, for me, is a transient condition.

So. Didja miss me?

It Should Have Worked

But it didn't. Several times.

Then it went downhill.

Straighten Up and Fly Right

Diane, looking at my poor deformed green shawl,

questioned my statement that the repair would be ugly.

"Really?" she wondered.

"Yes. Really."

Second Shawl Syndrome

Did you notice that I only gave you progress on Fenna up to our departure from Peoria? What, I'm sure you're wondering, did I do for the 3 and a half hours it took us to get home? That, my friends, is a sad story. A testimony to the importance of Myrna Stahman's clever stitch-marker trick. (Can you tell I am completely enamored of my Shawls and Scarves book? The woman is a great unventer. The Elizabeth Zimmerman of shawls.)

First up. The trick itself. She recommends a fine thread. I kind of lazied it and stole some of Marco's sock yarn - it was handy.

See how it anchors the stitch marker in place and keeps it lined up with the yarn overs? Big deal, you may be thinking. You may have noticed that I don't seem to have any problem keeping my yarn-overs in line for the Barn Raising quilt squares. What's so important about attaching a tail to your stitch-marker when you knit a shawl?

Did you ever notice how you can get along just fine doing something until someone points out that it really is, not wrong so much as risky. You may think you like living on the knitting edge, but once you know, once you've been warned, ignore the warning at your peril.

There I was, happily knitting away on my green shawl as we wended our way Chicago-ward. Anticipating showing off all my progress. Idly thinking how amazing it is that different yarns and garter stitch could still be so engaging. Fondly smoothing my knitting out on my lap. And seeing this.

I really haven't even had the heart to repair it. It's going to be ugly. Those are, after all, increases on either side of the crooked spine of my shawl. Three stitches at the top row are going to increase to 5 stitches, then 7, then 9, and so on, and so on, and so on. Insert heavy sigh.

So, is the lesson here a polemic against greed? Unlike socks, mittens and sweater sleeves, is the rule one shawl at a time, madam, one shawl at a time? Or (more likely to my mind) have I stumbled across a corollary to Second Shipwreck Syndrome?

Fenna

Has it really been almost a month? How did that happen? Where have I been? For that matter, what could I possibly have been doing that would take me away from The Blog for this long?

Okay. Well there was the parade. Then there was Peoria, which we missed most of and I never did find a yarn store, although the kids had a couple of nice walks along the river.

There were hawks.

And I've kind of been in a seminar for the past week (where Diane and I have unearthed another knitter!) and it goes on into next week and the week after, so there was preparing for that. A lot of preparing for that. Reams of it. Stacks of it. My dining room table and parts of the floor are missing and I keep losing things. Like Clare's current reading which disappeared Thursday and that I released uncovered today.

But I digress. You want knitting, don't you? I considered having Clare pinch hit, but I think her knitting is not ready for Prime Time and I do have two knitting stories I can tell you. How about one tonight and then let's see if I can get back here at some point tomorrow (before I have to finish prepping for next week) and tell you the second.

When last seen, I was setting myself up for Myrna Stahman's Fenna shawl, yes? Ah, yes (I checked the Blog). When we left for Peoria -- in the dark and into a steady downpour that devolved into a thunderstorm (not conducive to travel knitting, garter-stitch or no garter stitch) -- I had only knit the back neck-band. Note the cleverness of the construction implicit in that statement.

This is a faroese shawl from the top down. After a short provisional cast-on, she has you knit the border that will rest at the back of your neck, pick up those stitches, release the provisional cast-on and then start knitting the body of the shawl. The border stitches of the shawl carry on from that neckband. The first 15 to 20 rows are filled with excitement. Yarn-overs and mirror-image make-1 increases a la Elizabeth Zimmermann while you shape the shoulders. Then everything settles down into lovely swaths of garter stitch.

Lovely, of course, if you have the right yarn. Which the Fleece Artist Blue Face Leicester most decidedly is. Despite a day spent in fruitless searches for a yarn store and having to attend Functions as a Lawyer's Spouse, this is what I had when we left Peoria.

I tell you, nothing like a good minor league baseball game (the home team won) to help you churn through garter stitch. Or is it, nothing like a bout of garter stitch to get you through a minor league baseball game?

Either/Or

Closer examination of the yarn from yesterday's post revealed that, while I have skeins and skeins of the stuff (it's that Dream in Color Classy in Not Really Cloud Jungle from this), the differences between skeins are considerable. The variations I like best, I don't have enough of. The sensible thing to do would be to knit from two or more skeins at a time but that just seems like too much work. I have enough complicated stuff on my plate right now (parade, Peoria, 4 seasons of Dr. Who, water streaming out of my bathroom ceiling, seminar, Arizona, high school, sheltered workshop - you would not believe the number of agencies who feel they should be involved in that last decision). Honestly, you should be impressed that I'm blogging at all.

Besides, I have complicated knitting aplenty. Two. No, three. No, counting Christopher's gray gansey -- which isn't fully charted yet but I'm getting there -- four guy sweaters. Frankly, at this point, even John's Island Embrace/Splendid Sofa blanket is too complex. I know it's all garter stitch, but there's those three balls of yarn to deal with (see problem with shawl above).

This craving for simplicity is what sent me to the Mustaa Villa version of the Wool Peddler's Shawl in the first place. Alright, alright. So I found it through Kay, but let's face it, if you're thinking garter stitch thoughts, Kay is one of the best resources out there.Then the yarn failed me.

Did I mention my summer resolution to only knit from stash (stop it Diane)? I have, as Clare comments from time to time, a "fabulous stash." Once I actually went looking, I found an amazing embarrassing exhilarating number, a lot of choices. In Cascade 220 alone, I think I could make 6 shawls. I settled on Veridian/4007 for the body. I do so love a nice Cascade 220 Heather. I'll figure out the border when I get there (Pumpkin Spice? Charcoal? Navy?).

Wait. There's more!

In between tossing the stash and making sure (again) that Falco gets the better of Severina Zotica, while poring over Ravelry trying to find something that would let me use up the D in C, I noticed a lot of shawl patterns from Myrna Stahman's book. I knew of her from the Seaman's Scarf patterns, but hadn't focused on her lace and shawl work. In one out of many moments of deep and blinding frustration, I ordered it.

It's wonderful. It would be worth the purchase price just for the stitch marker tip (She does this thing where, to keep the YO's from overwhelming the marker, she fastens a length of waste yarn to it with a lark's head knot. I can't wait to try it). It also had this.

This is the Fenna shawl. It's a top-down Faroese shawl in all garter stitch. A neckband and 13 or so rows of fiddly stuff and then plain and simple garter stitch - with four YO's per row to keep you from falling asleep. Note that it's knit with a hand-dyed variegated yarn. Note how beautifully the shawl displays said yarn. Remember that fabulous stash? It contains some of this.

A fabulous hand-dyed variegated yarn, to wit, Fleece Artist Blue Face Leicester DK in Hercules, purchased a Long Time Ago from Tidal Brook Yarns. Stahman comments that the shawl looks best worked at a gauge of 4 spi, so I'm swatching on US 9/5.5 mm needles.

Either/Or is for sissies; I'm going for Both/And.

What To Do, What To Do?

I had a plan. It's not working. Now what?

Indecision is a terrible thing.

Gravity Is Not My Friend

This is not the post I expected to write. When next I discussed the Bubbly Curtain I was anticipating an entirely different outcome. One that involved victory and me modestly murmuring, "'Aw. T'weren't nuthin'. "

The warning signs were out there. Did I really think Ann and Kay would specify "The curtain shall be small" if they didn't mean it? And what about those pictures on Ravelry and elsewhere? Very few of the larger curtains actually end at the windowsill. Did you notice that? I noticed, I just didn't let it stop me.

I've blocked this this 3 times now. Okay, the first time I blocked it to 30" by 54" instead of 32" by 52". (Hey. They both add up to 84.) At first I was comforted. I knew it had seemed too squooshed. Blocking wider would open the pattern up better. Fifty-two inches would just graze the window sill.

Only it didn't. It still draped 3 or 4 inches beyond. I blocked it again, this time to about 35" by 49". Still too long. I basted in a hem/rod pocket. Still too long. I rolled it another couple of inches and basted again. Fine. At last. I figured I'd let it hang up for a day or so, experience the excessive humidity that comes with this bathroom (I sometimes suspect Marco was a selkie in a former life), then frog it down a few inches or six and re-knit the finishing rows.

Except it keeps growing. Like Silly Putty. Like warm taffy. Like honey spinning down from a spoon.

I'm beginning to explore alternative solutions. Maybe I want to "hang" the curtain by its sides. Maybe I need to make two curtains, the top one picking up the pattern where the bottom one leaves off. Maybe I need to knit shorter and wider and see what gravity does then. Maybe I just want to go ahead and buy some white Rowan Wool Cotton and start over.

In the meantime, I'm starting a shawl.

Hiding

Sometimes I need to have it pointed out that my brain wanders down strange and obscure paths. I was having coffee with one of my favorite knitters this morning. Something she said made me aware that yesterday's post was not the paragon of transparency I thought it was.

Therefore, let me state, simply: the knitting is done. The Very Big Bubbly Curtain is off the needles.

You may not recognize it here. That's because it is in stage two of the blocking process, undergoing that step in metamorphosis that is the knitting equivalent of caterpillar to cocoon. There it is. Concealed. Secluded. Wrapped in an old, colorfast, cotton towel whiling away the time while the miracle of osmosis does it's work. (That's a fancy way of saying I want to go from one sopping wet and one dry object to two damp ones.)

With any luck it will emerge this afternoon and the final transformation will begin. (That means the pinning-out will commence.) After which it will take it's rightful place in the back (not the company) bathroom and you will know where to find me for the next few days.

Knit On*

Let's see. When we left our intrepid heroine she was running a lifeline. Now? Well . . .

The little things that you say and do
Make me want to be with you
Knit on. It's a crazy feeling and
I know you've got me reeling
when you say, "One more row." Knit on.

Well, knit on. It's a crazy feeling and
I know it's got me reeling
I'm so glad that your revealing yourself to me.
Knit on, knit on tell me,
tell me not to be lonely.
Tell me there's the weaving in ends only.
Knit on.

*With Apologies to Buddy Holly.

Reaction

My life has gone all boy-centric lately. All the mad activity of late May and early June has culminated in the family's second graduation. (I actually have a post that I'll finish up and publish about all that. Someday.) It's just that I forgot to think beyond. Now, John is out of school and Marco is on half-days and they're rather lost. They might be, dare I say it, bored. This is a bit of a strain. While I don't feel it is my job to provide them with endless entertainment -- I have even been heard to say that boredom is good for them -- I can't deny that watching them fluctuate between constant videos and aimless wandering about the place is not conducive to peace of mind.

I think all the looming boy-ness is having an effect on my knitting. Once I knew I would fail to finish the bubbly curtain as part of the Graduation Frenzy, I expected I would discard it until the next Family Event loomed. That would be Marco's Graduation. In two years. Plenty of time to pull it out and knit to another artificial deadline. Imagine my surprise, then, when I found I had so much curtain in my lap that the project had become unwieldy. No longer portable. People, this is lace, complete with all the baggage attendant thereupon: yarn overs, k2tog's, and lifelines. I like lace only slightly more than I like stranded knitting, which I despise only slightly more than I despise socks.

Yet it grows. If you look closely, down there on the bottom of the photo, toward the left, you'll see an orange stitch/row marker. B.G. (Before Graduation) ( that would be June 1 through June 5) I knit from there to a couple inches beyond the lifeline. Now we're Post Graduation and instead of stopping and turning to some other, more overtly congenial project, I'm here tracking a chart, counting stitch repeats. It's been marvelous, actually. I'm so occupied counting and muttering that I forget to entertain the resident males. Heck, I forget they need to be entertained.

Things had gotten to the point where standing on the toilet seat and holding the knitting up to the window no longer gave any useful information. The time had come to do a serious measurement, hence my takeover of the kitchen table.

It's pinned out to 30 inches wide, although I could probably yank another inch or so out of it. At that width, I've passed 44 inches. As of yesterday, when I conducted this investigation, I had less than 10 inches to go. Pinned out, my actual row count it 7.2 rows per inch, not the 5 I was guess-timating. Even still, the end is in sight, completion looms, there's a light at the end of the tunnel and it may not be a train.

Not only that, John has started perusing summer program brochures.

UFB

That's an Unidentified Flying Blogger. Definition: Long absent blogger who flies by her computer and attempts to placate her dwindling readers with the most rapidly conceived and written post she's ever done.

It's not my fault, though. We have another graduation here tomorrow. The ceiling fixtures are done. Apparently that wonky branch on the kitchen light that stopped lighting weeks ago? It just wanted to be clean. I've pulled everything down from the top of the cabinets and washed them (the stuff and the cabinets). The thing is, if the cabinets and tchotchkes were that grubby (and they were, trust me), imagine my kitchen curtains. There's really no way to sugar coat this. An examination revealed that they're, well, fuzzy. As in my husband suggested this morning that if I left them, we could start petting them. We were not amused. Those suckers are going to be washed and ironed by the time he gets home. You betcha by golly. I am alive, though, and if not well (I despise washing curtains), at least more or less accounted for.

Now to the placating part. I have some month old yarn pr0n for you. I know it's a month old, because we just got the notice for the June shipment. I'd like to hold out the hope that there's at least another yarn pr0n post in the near future, but I really can't see beyond tomorrow at 5:00 PM.

This is what Erin at Eat.Sleep.Knit sent for the Malabrigo Club May offering.


Ooo. Pretty.

Speaking of curtains, I have breathed life into a long dormant slog. Yes, I had some mad idea that one of the graduations would impel me to finish it. Ten inches per 50 row repeat, Think I can knit another 135 rows and block it by tomorrow?

Me neither.