Pink

Good Heavens, how did it get to be this late in March? What have I been knitting?

Well, knitting Rage progresses.  I've added some eyelet rows to break up the stockinette a bit.  The jury is out on using the side-by-side kfb for the increases.  I'm starting to wish I had used twisted yarn overs.  I am not, however, so sorry that I'm going to rip back and begin again.  I'll just hope the note here reminds me when I go to knit the next in-the-rectangle blanket (and we know there will be a next one, don't we).

The Lord Protector's Blanket proceeds apace.  In fact, I have reached a major milestone.  I finished the last grey section.  One more skein of the navy and it's done.  I'm trying to forget the close inspection I did on the beginning section where it looks like I introduced a row or two from the odd lot skein.  If I did, that means I won't have enough yarn to make the ends match.  Although, come to think about it, I'd actually hit a similar snag in the knitting on the previous navy section, and the fudging I did there may stand me in good stead for this bit.

I'll write about them in more detail and with pictures another time.

Because then there was pink. I think I've noted in various places that I'm not a big fan of pink.  It's not my least favorite color - that dubious accolade might belong to orange.  Or maybe some shades of brown. It is not, however, ever the first color I would pick to knit anything from. For a gift, though? A gift for a bride-to-be?  Yeah, I'll suck it up for that. 

This particular young woman is quite dear to me.  Shopping from her registry was important.  Even 37 years later, I remember that I didn't get some of the things I really wanted and needed.  Shopping from a registry, though, seems so unimaginative.  I also remember that some of my most favorite and used gifts came from people who shopped off the registry. 

Anyway, duty done, I was casting about for a way to make the gift more, what? Personal?  Individual? Hand-made? And thought of my first Stitches and the felted oven mitts.  Mine have been in daily use for the last almost 7 years.  They are only now beginning to wear out.  There are thin places near the tips and if I'm not careful the heat from the pan penetrates. I have my two new skeins of Lamb's Pride Bulky in Blue Flannel, but I've been putting the knitting off because it involves dpn's and a thumb gusset, and a thumb (ever notice that there are no mittens on this Blog? Not one, much less a pair).  All that, and the original class was an all day class.  Six hours of knitting and I came home with one almost finished oven mitt.  Twelve hours to knit two?  For a shower on Saturday when this was Monday? And me without a skein of pink bulky, or even worsted, yarn in the stash and not a yarn store open.

Hoping that the felting craze was still on, I tried the two crafting giants.  I would like to take a moment here to report that apparently the felting craze is over.  Not a single skein of non-superwash, all wool at the one store.  The other did have real wool worsted, but the closest thing to the color I needed was a light pink/blue/purple heather. Beggar that I was at that point, I bought it.  Three skeins just to be safe.  Got it home, dug out my size 11 dpn's -- that I don't believe have been used since that first Stitches class -- and found I'd lost the pattern. Two copies of it, in fact, since there should have been the original from the class and the one I bought the year I contemplated making the oven mitts for Christmas gifts (I didn't, so there's no point going looking for the post).

All I can say at this point is, thank God for Ravelry.  I downloaded two or three free patterns and between those and the Blog posts from the original set, I've cobbled together a pattern that is at least a close relative.  I cast on, and here's the thing.  When you've been knitting for 7 or 8 years, you get better at it.  I had the first mitt finished, except for the thumb, and the second almost to the half way point by the time the Princess got in from work.

She took one look and got very quiet.  As a rule, this is not a good sign. Looking at them through her silence, I knew what she was trying to get her nerve up tactfully (since I was a bit wild-eyed at that point), trying to draw my attention to.  Pale pink/blue/purple heather is not this bride's shade of pink. 

The whole thing dragged to a halt while we considered our alternatives.  No place nearby carried Lamb's Pride Bulky.  That Tuesday, for me, was out for a yarn hunt anyway. The Princess, however, had gotten pretty invested in the idea, or at least in the idea of humoring the crazed look in my eye.  She stopped at Loopy after work and came home with four skeins of Cascade 220 in the perfect shade: 7805, Flamingo.

Compare that there on the right with the bit on the left. The Princess' silence becomes understandable, doesn't it.

I cast on Tuesday night.  Switched from the dpn's to a 16" circular almost immeditately, and finished the knitting Wednesday afternoon.

This with several corrections and rip-backs as I fine-tuned the pattern (Cascade 220 doubled isn't quite as thick as Lamb's Pride Bulky, so I had to adjust the stitch count. The first thumb came out looking like an onion.).

They felted down (two hot water wash/cold rinse cycles), but I never got a chance to take pictures.  You'll have to take my word.  Three dishcloths (pink,white and green) and two tawashi's (pink-and-green and green-and- blue), rolled up and attached to barbeque skewers made a kitchen utensil bouquet in a flour sifter vase.  No pictures of any of that either, though. Sorry. It was down to the wire knitting and frenzied day-of-the-event gift assembly.

Pink Yeti mittens.  I'm so proud.

The photos with the ruler are to help me the next time I have to reinvent these.  The mitts themselves, unfelted, measured about 12.5 inches (little longer than the ruler).  I held the Cascade 220 doubled to make up the bulky weight. Knit on Addi Turbo 16" US 11/8 mm needles, switching to bamboo dpn's for the tips and the thumbs.

Coming Up Short

After serious and deep consultation with the Princess, we decided to go with the Silver, Kansas and Provence combination.  Some good knitting fairy prompted me to weigh the skein of Silver that was already wound.

That is not a full skein of yarn.  I'd forgotten I'd used it, along with some scraps of Provence, for my Stitches Midwest class with Franklin Habit two years ago.

We went back to the drawing board, or in this case the dining room table, and started playing with colors again.  None of them worked as well together as the original three.  I did not, however, want to buy another skein of yarn when all I needed was 30 grams. 

We did some serious stash searching. We dug through my stash, her secret stash, odd corners and old knitting bags. Nothing. At which point the Princess got inspired.  She has a grey sweater, not a hand-knit, that came with a belt she never wears.

 It looked darn close to me, even in the bad winter light of a February afternoon.

Raveled, it looks pretty close to worsted weight.  I've wound it around the backs of a couple of chairs, wet it down to get the kinks out, and started knitting the Silver.  Of course, now I'm knitting dark blue and gray in the middle of winter again, but I have yellow and red to look forward to.

I feel so proud, Eco-friendly and frugal.

What I Know

Because I never posted about these and because now, more than a year later, I can't remember all the details. 

I know all the yarn was superwash wool - because these were gifts and I don't give non-knitting people huge swaths of wool that they can't wash if, say, a bottle of orange pop overturns while one is wrapped up in a hand-knit afghan during a particularly exciting episode of Dr. Who.

I know the pattern is Stephen West's Garter Squish Blanket from Ravelry.  The pattern calls for US 15/10 mm needles, and while I can't put my hand on any right now, I know I had them to knit the pumpkins, and I know that when looking at the Original Garter Squish that I thought the gauge was too loose, which is why I'm knitting the new one on US 13/ 9 mm.  So we'll call the needles Addi Turbos, US 15.

I know the yarn was Lorna's Laces, Dream in Color and Squoosh Fiberarts.  In fact, the one color I am absolutely sure of is the red. It's the Squoosh Superwash and the color name is Velvet. I think.  I'm pretty sure the gold, the navy and the pink-ish peach are Lorna's Laces.  And I think they are Harvest, Cookie A's Deep Dark Secret and Brick, respectively. I know I recognize China Apple and the green version of Cloud Jungle and I think that brown must be November Muse, all from Dream in Color and the really dark whatever just might be DIC Black Parade. I just don't think I can sort them all out.

I know I knit three more of these, but never took pictures.  I really wasn't thinking like a blogger back then was I?

We're Having Weather Here

It's cold here. It's been cold here. It is going to continue to be cold here. As we approached record-setting low temperatures last night, The Princess and I were noting how useful wool blankets are. In fact, it occurred to us that a couple more couldn't hurt.

I went stash diving today. Turns out I have 8 skeins of Cascade 220 in 9336 Lapis. I also have two skeins each of 2437 Kansas, 2425 Provence, 2448 Mallard, 8400 Charcoal, 8401 Silver Heather, 7818 Blue Velvet, 9326 Colonial Blue Heather and a grey-ish green that I think is either 4011 Sparrow or 2446 Bronzed Green.

I feel a Garter Squish coming on.  I'm thinking I'll double-strand like colors on this one and make a seven stripe, that way I'll have Lapis on each end.

That leaves me with only one decision.

 

Colors?

Or neutrals?

Either way, I'll end up with a lapful of wool.  Which, in this Artic environment, is a most desirable condition.

Multiples

In the Seven Per Cent Solution, there's a Sondheim song called "The Madam's Song". It has a line, "I Never Do Anything Twice." Once I would have said that line was the theme of my knitting life.  Then came last Christmas with the Garter Squish Blankets and the Inspira Cowls (neither of which ever got their whole story - must do something about that).

This year, though in addition to two more Inspira Cowls (knit at the request on those who had not gotten one last year) I discovered the Piega Cowl.  At Thanksgiving dinner my Knitting Sister showed me the ones she was knitting for her girls ( She knit hers in Malabrigo Silky Merino - I think - and I can't remember if she used Silk cloud or if she went with Kidsilk Haze.) Anyway. It's a Shibui Knits design, and so the pattern calls for Shibui Baby Alpaca and Silk Cloud double stranded. My problem was the color options in the Baby Alpaca didn't sing for me.  Truth be told, I thought they were a little washed out looking.

I used Fibre Company Acadia instead of the Baby Alpaca for this set.  There are actually two more, one in Fibre Company Acadia Poppy and Cascade Kid Seta Syrah, but I never took pictures of it.  The other is mine, still Fiber Company Acadia, but with Kidsilk Haze.  Mine was the original and it's still not finished.

The construction was quite clever. Two stockinette rectangles with holes that you join and braid with a series of three needle bind-offs.

Blocking makes a difference.

Top to bottom, that's Acadia in Blue Heron with Silk Cloud Fjord. Then Acadia in Egret with Ivory Silk Cloud and on the bottom, Acadia in Bog (I know, awful, muddy name fore such a pretty color) and Silk Cloud in Fog. (Special thanks to Veronica for modeling)

So soft, shiny and pretty.  So clearly worth repeating.  Maybe I'll go finish mine.

A Rose by Any Other Name

I'm not convinced that Rage is a good name for this yarn. Yes, it's red over-dyed with black. Okay sure, I get it.  Yet, it is the most un-enraging red over-dyed with black you could imagine. Maybe it's the cashmere. Maybe it's the fact that I really like red.  Maybe it's that the knitting did its work by the end of the first skein.  Whatever it is, I really like this yarn.  I look forward to knitting with it.  I put aside all sorts of other things I thought I wanted before winter is over.*

This is a center out rectangular blanket. It started out with the Turkish cast-on.

Well, it started out with a little math and a WAG about what my gauge might be. I decided an 18 inch difference between the length and the width would be good.  I decided I'd probably knit pretty close to the recommended gauge, if I used a larger needle, multiplied my expected gauge by 18 inches and cast on that many stitches.  I say cast on. All you do is wind the yarn around two circular needles. You pull the bottom one so the stitches are wrapped around one needle and the cord, kit across those stitches, pull the top needle through and the bottom needle into the stitches and knit what are effectively the same stitches, just the bottom of them.  Trust me.  It works.  Most often for toe-up socks that you don't want a seam for, but just fine for center out blankets when you don't want a square one.

The tricky part was going to be the increase.  Generally, and this is the method recommended in Circular Knitting Workshop, you mark the first and last stitch on each needle for your corners, then build the blanket using yarn-overs on either side of that stitch.  I did that for the HPKY Navy Blanket and was never really happy with it. I'm also lazy, and I lose track of whether I'm doing a right or left leaning increase, and where and when and why I'm supposed to do them. I wanted something easy, in keeping with the simple, straightforward knitting I was planning.

More math.  Also maybe some very basic sketches. Also maybe some consultation with The Princess.

I set up my markers, but did KFB on either side of them.  Interestingly, I still seem to get a spine stitch.  It's actually the KF of the second KFB.

It seems to be working.  I'm almost to the end of the second skein, though, and now I need to make a decision.  Do I want to keep churning out the stockinette, or do I search out a pattern stitch and start alternating stitch patterns with every new skein?  If I go with all stockinette all the time, do I want to end the blanket with a broad garter stitch border, or something a little fancier?

Who knew knitting rage would be such fun?

* Partial list: Piega cowl out of The Fibre company Acadia and Rowan Kidsilk Haze, Color Affection in Malabrigo Silky Merino and Manos Silk Blend, To Eyre with Fleece Artist River in Raven.

Pumpkins

This is really a Stitches story. It's also a sisters story. And possibly one about how willing I am to follow along like a sheep in the wake of the stronger personality.

It might have been Stitches Midwest 2011, but I only think that because that was the first year I didn't write about Stitches.

Whatever year it was, Yarn Mountain  came to Stitches Midwest that year.  I noticed the knitted pumpkins in their booth right away.  I kept walking by and thinking how cool they were.  But the yarn was huge - roving wrapped with a thin nylon strand.  The yarn and the thought of the size needles I would need to knit it, between them, talked me out of it. Repeatedly. Then I walked into the booth with MySister.  MySister was also charmed with the pumpkins.  So charmed, that she bought a couple skeins of pumpkin-appropriate color yarns, and one purple and green combination that looked like Frankenstein's Monster to me. But she was planning one for each of her girls, and any girls there got to pick their own yarn.  I'm not quite sure how it happend, but I left the booth with three skeins of the yarn myself and the link for the pattern.

Then I somehow ended up with a set of US 15 circulars from the HiyaHiya booth.

And then I got home and stared at my purchases and wondered where my brain had gone during Stitches.

The needles got buried.  The yarn eventually worked it's way down to the bottom of the stash.  MySister knit her pumpkins. They came out fantastic (she even figured out a pattern for leaves). But mine stayed theoretical and I was happy to have it so.

Until this past fall.  I don't know why I decided I needed these this year, but I did. The construction is really quite clever.  You divide the skein in half and alternate skeins in the same row to make the lobes.  The inside looks like a spider web.

They need to be stuffed.  I got all green and ecological and used plastic grocery store bags.

The pumpkins are different sizes based on the number of bags I crammed into each section.

Details.

Yarn: Kraemer Yarns Bear Creek in (counterclockwise from the left) Peach Cobbler, Spice and Pumpkin.
Needles: HiyaHiya circulars and ChiaGoo bamboo DPNs in US 15/10mm (ouch!).
Pattern: Bear Creek Pumpkin by Clara Masessa for Kraemer Yarns (scroll down to Miscellaneous, it's free!)

For the record, these were every bit as much not fun to knit as I expected them to be.  On the plus side, the misery doesn't last long. And now I have these cool knitted pumpkins that can come out for Halloween and stay out through Thanksgiving.

So there you go. Pumpkins

Knitting Rage

Long, long ago, I bought a super-wash merino/cashmere worsted blend by a small company called "Have You Any Wool"  (aka as knitmommy on Etsy) from Eat.Sleep.Knit in a colorway called Rage.  I like red and it looked like a good one.  As it happens, it's more of a strong red over-dyed with black. 

I've had this for at least 4 years (knitmommy went on hiatus in 2011 and hasn't been back that I can find). Over those years, I would pull the yarn out for whatever project I was contemplating, and put it back. Every time. I began to realize I was superstitious about the yarn.  After all, did I really want a sweater or shawl filled with Rage?  How could I bear to wear it? Why would I ever want to knit such a thing?  Who wants to knit in a rage?  Think of what it would do to your gauge.

It's been a tense time here at Chez WoolGathering.  It's political, in the sense that you put a group of people together and you get politics, and affects, not so much work I enjoy, as work I do in support of work I love. It's nothing that has anything to do with knitting or the Blog, or most of life for that matter, except that it's sucking time and joy like a sump pump and I resent it.

I'm a great believer in knitting to overcome the garbage that life can hand out, but I was finding myself hating everything I started as I try to deal with this stuff.

Saturday evening, I got an idea.

It was time to knit Rage.  A lot of it, since I have way more than those three skeins (I bought the whole dye-lot). No more soft silvers.  No more warm golds.  No more calm blues. I will knit through Rage and come out the other side in a better place.

It's going to be a blanket and it's going to be cathartic, by Harry, or I'll know the reason why. 

Well, the stash-busting part isn't to be sneezed at, either.

I'll Do Better Next Week

Ack! How did it get to be the end of the week? Time to finally post that September entry about Summer.

I really will do better next week. After all, I've never told you about the pumpkins.

Sabotaging Myself?

I actually can think of a number of other things to title this post.  "What Was I Thinking?" would be one.  "Why Do I Do These Things To Myself?" was another.  "Insanity" was yet another.  All would have been appropriate, they just wouldn't all fit in the title box together.

I've joined another Mystery Knit-along.  Let's review my  history with MKALs, shall we?  In the gaps in last year's blogging, I failed to mention that I have fallen for been suckered into joined several such things.

Failure #1 -
About this time last year I decided to try Ysolda's first MKAL, the Follow Your Arrow Shawl.  That didn't end well.  Keeping up was not a problem.  I tried to make sure I would like the ultimate result by waiting for others to post spoilers of the clues so I could choose the one I liked best.  I even added it to my Ravelry projects. No go.  I think I made it through clue 3. Maybe clue 4.  Then I faced the music, 'fessed up, and admitted I hated it.  It was a sad waste of some fabulous (and now discontinued) fingering weight yarn.  I listed it as frogged on Ravelry, but it is in fact, still on the needles.  I'm toying with the idea of binding it off and calling it a scarf.  Once I've lost all my other scarves, I'll probably (maybe?) be glad to have it.

Failure #2-
It took me until this past Fall before I let myself try another.  This one was Kaffe Fassett's for Rowan Yarns.  My arguments to join were much the same as the ones I used to talk myself into Follow Your Arrow, starting with how much I liked and admired the work of the designer involved.  Plus, this was Rowan.  It was a blanket and I love knitting blankets.  The knitting here was simple, a series of striped squares knit on the bias, because the focus would be on how to use color and I am weak at combining colors.  I didn't even pretend I would keep up this time, but figured I would be so glad to have the pattern and the notes and did I mention that Rowan had Kaffe do a series of YouTube videos on the project? The problems started when people stared posting photos of their squares in various combinations.  They all made my eyes hurt.  When we got to the final clue and it confirmed that the most painful possible combinations were the ones we were supposed to use I lost it. They were like optical illusions, or Pop Art where all the lines fly off in different directions and nothing makes any sense.  I like my blankets to make sense.  So now I have a huge collection of Rowan Pure Wool Worsted Super-wash, in a lot of colors I will never use again. 

Failure #3-
I only got as far as buying the pattern this time. Well, that and the yarn (Malabrigo Mechas in Pocion).

Had I read the notes on the group MKAL page, I would have known the project was a poncho and I do not do ponchos.  But it was, again, a designer I really like (Laura Aylor, she of Lizard Ridge Blanket and Faberge Shawl fame)(I begin to see a pattern here) and it was the end of the year and the end of the year had been pretty sucky, so when offered a MKAL  called "Just For You" what was I supposed to do?

Which bring us up to this year, and what have I gone and done?  Signed up for Ysolda's Follow Your Arrow 2 Mystery Knit-along. Only the first clue has been released, and I've finished it already.  But, and here's a big but, much as I like the short-row shaping, this clue calls for a picot edge.  Have I ever mentioned how much I despise picot edges?  It's a chicken and egg thing.  Do I hate them because I'm bad at them, or am I bad at them because I really, really, really hate them? 

Why did this take me by surprise?  What did I think it was going to be when I had to bind off two stitches at the start of every row?  Or when the designer stated that the garter tab would be 118 rows long and I would have 59 "points" when I had finished it?

Isn't one of the definitions of insanity to do the same thing over and over, expecting a different outcome?

Physics

For every action 

 there is an equal and opposite

reaction.

Newton's Third Law.

Finding Inspiration

I really thought I'd have this sorted by now. I think I'm a person with reasonably good taste. I like to knit.  I like to knit with pretty yarn.  I have lots of pretty yarn.  And yet.

I've given up on the Mrs. Crosby shawl.

In fairness, I should mention that the yarn is superwash worsted with a very - firm  - twist.  Springy doesn't begin to describe it.  While I may have been unduly harsh in my previous assessment, I'm still not enjoying it.  I think it's the pink.  Technically "Vintage Port".  The more I knit with it, the less I want to.

So I switched over to the regular Lorna's Laces.  The original Heart Shaped Shawl is done in neutrals.  Even the green used for the contrast is muted.  Heaven knows, the LL Ravinia is muted.  It is also variegated.  I thought I'd try using it for the single garter stitch ridges as well as for the yo/k2tog rows (the Winter Wheat and the Vintage Port sections in the above shawl) and use (can you see the train-wreck about to happen here?) the Manzanita (yes, the pink) for the contrast band. 

Strangely, I like the pink in the Shepherd's Worsted, just not in this shawl.  Or perhaps just not with this color.   Or perhaps just not in combination with anything else.

I don't think I was distraught about this development.  Yet, the Princess felt the need to take pity on me, or at least to offer up her own stash of Lorna's Laces.  I was thinking about switching out the Manzanita and using the cranberry instead.  

Then I came across this phrase in the novel I'm reading "Dawn over the marshes was grey and gold, a severe winter beauty all it's own."  And a few paragraphs further on, "The vast expanse of water gleamed like steel."

 

So maybe I should be substituting the Cedar (marshes)?  Or the Pewter (metal)?

Or maybe I just want to knit another one, using Pewter and Denim with the Ravinia.

Even My Changes Come Out the Same

This all started with this latest Midwest cold snap. I decided enough with the fingering weight shawlette/scarflet/shoulder-cozy thing. I want a big worsted weight shawl and nothing in the stash was inspiring me. Which is sort of ridiculous, because, even continuing to ignore the long-neglected Fenna shawl (Fleece Artist Blue Faced Leicester anyone?), I have three skeins of Madelintosh in Tart, which has to be the best red out there and when do I ever not want to knit with red yarn? You'd think either would galvanize my knitting, but not so. I decided I needed to step out of my comfort zone. Try something new. Be brave. Be daring. So how did I end up with these two extremely unexciting sets of skeins?

That there on the left is Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted in Ravinia and Manzanita. I'm not terribly fond of golds and beiges. And yet for my first foray off my beaten track, I bought yarn that's gold and shades of beige. I'm not sure that it's being called "Ravinia" is enough of an excuse. What was I thinking? I decided it needed something to liven it up. Something that would make me look forward to reaching the end of the third skein (yes, there is a third skein). Hence the Manzanita.

I don't knit pink. Yet I decided that the Ravinia had some pink undertones and that perhaps the Manzanita would bring them out, lifting the whole thing up into something warm and cheerful (recall that cheerful was one of my criteria for new knitting.) It may work out, but I had my doubts.

I set the project aside and looked for new inspiration, in other words, I went back to internet yarn shopping.

This latest foray led me to Mrs. Crosby. I've been reading the praises of Mrs. Crosby. It's one of the current Power Boost yarns at Eat.Sleep.Knit. Which means I get extra yardage credit in my Yarnathon account. Ordinarily, extra Yarnathon points are not enough to make me buy a particular yarn. Apparently, this winter isn't ordinary, because here I am, stuck with more beige-gold and more pink. Worse, it's purplish pink. Then there's the green -- which I do like quite a bit -- sticking out like a sore thumb. 

I actually started a project with this set, and I don't even despise the way they're knitting up.  I love the pattern.  It's Brian Smith's (a.k.a. "ravelryguy") Heart-shaped Shawl.

I hate the yarn.  It's like knitting with kitchen string.  Not, note, kitchen or dishcloth cotton.  Kitchen string.  What you would find in the housewares section of the grocery store. Coarse, hard, and ungiving.

Maybe I should try it with the Lorna's Laces?

Testing, testing

Good heavens.  How did it get to be Thursday already? And me with no real knitting progress ready.

It's been a week of experimental knitting.  I did not, in fact, sew in all the ends of the Cornerstone Blanket, although I managed a few.  I was met with the disheartening find that our two rescues, Zoe an Remy, are very fond of that blanket.  Very fond indeed.  It's covered in pulled stitches where they've kneaded it into the proper texture for napping.  Worse, some of their nap-prep has been so enthusiastic that they've broken the yarn and unraveled parts of the squares. I know this can be fixed with Kitchener-ing, but that is not the type of knitting I was looking for when I last posted.

Instead I picked up the Lord Protector's "Always Winter" blanket and did spent some time with it. The, not bad news exactly, but news-that-makes-me-disinclined-to-work-on-that-project is that I passed the last green stripe he was willing to allow, so from now on it's all navy and gray all the time.  

Also not the type of knitting I was looking for.

Not mentioned before, but in progress from mid-December until last night was a Quaker Yarn Stretcher Shawl by Susan Ashcroft. It starts at one end with just a few stitches and increases across one edge, which is what makes it curve.  I bought Manos del Uruguay Silk Blend in Stellar specifically for this project. Yes, Stellar is variegated, but I was convinced the construction would keep the yarn from pooling, and that where it did, the garter stitch sections would distract the eye from it. 

 

I was wrong.  I still like the construction technique, and will probably scrounge through the stash for a semi-solid option, but not today.  The Stellar will probably get set aside for another Color Affection.  I've been curious about how one would work up in a heavier weight yarn.  I have a fair bit of Malabrigo Silky Merino in Cape Cod Grey (a nice silvery grey), but no third color. 

I spent a lot of time last night internet shopping for possibilities, but came up empty. Else I would start that.

I want something pretty. Something cheery. Something not dark. I've even done some secret stash accumulation in pursuit of these goals.  Okay, not so secret, the yarn is spread out across the dining room table.  I'm just not sure those additions fill the bill either. I expect the plan today should be to experiment with them and let you know tomorrow.

Now What?

This happens to me sometimes. I don't know what to knit. Having succumbed to knitting on a deadline for Christmas, which means I am pretty much never not knitting, my hands aren't happy when they're still.  In a confusing and confounding turn of events, all that mandatory knitting - where I went, head down and unthinking, from one project to the next to the next - has dulled my brain and now I can't think what I want.

Winter has gotten here, so large quantities of wool seem sensible. The Lord Protector's Blanket seems the logical choice.  He would probably be pleased if I had it finished in time to take back to university. It does require paying attention, though, and while we are finally almost virus free, so I feel that any project is possible, I'm not sure I want knitting I have to think about.  (Did I mention we fell like dominoes, one after the other, to the flu?  Silly question, of course I haven't.  But for the first time in over thirty years we spent Christmas Eve at home.  I would have been sad, except we were all so worn out that when My Knitting Sister called to say they, too had succumbed, and would not be having us all over, it felt like the best gift ever).

Stash shopping has left me singularly uninspired.  So, unexpectedly, has trolling Ravelry.  I want something soft and colorful and requiring a lap-full of wool, which actually gives me an idea.

Back last summer I really did knit a Cornerstone Blanket.  It was kind of a guilt gift - something I planned to use to get out of an event there really was no escaping. I argued that if the gift was spectacular enough, I wouldn't actually need to show up.  I lost that argument and went to the event (sigh), but then decided I got to keep the blanket.  Duty done deserved a reward, even if I gave it to myself.

Once the pressure was off, however, I decided to ignore the back of the blanket where all those ends live.  Four mitered squares per section times six sections, plus two background ends per six sections work out to a lot of ends.

I do believe I'll sit in my chair with BBC's Earthflight and a needle, and weave, and figure out what I want to knit next.

International Delurking Week

It used to happen the first full week of January, back when blogging was all the rage and all the cool kids were doing it. Given my bad performance as a blogger this past year (these past years?), I was going to skip de-lurking week (again).  After all, blogging has become pretty much moribund. Besides, it is hard to ask anyone to de-lurk when there's been nothing to lurk for. Then I found this old badge and it made me laugh, so I decided to use it and celebrate the fact that, despite the long absence, I am still a blogger of the old-school variety.

Anybody still out there?

Let us welcome the New Year

Full of things that have never been. (Rainier Marie Rilke).

I've been thinking of all the knitting I've done since May, and all the knitting that I didn't write about before that. There's rather a lot. To begin with, all that Christmas knitting from last year that got mentioned but not really documented: those 6 (7? 8?) Garter Squish blankets (thank you, Stephen West) (here's one):

the 6 Inspira cowls, only one of which got its story told, and which in turn grew into two more this Christmas;

the Lord Protector's Blanket, the one that was like knitting a winter night for thousands of stitches and how he consented to add a little green to it. At least that last story is still ongoing.

I went looking into my blog drafts, and I didn't even start the stories of the Cornerstone Blanket, or the 5 Churchmouse Shoulder Cozies, or the newest Before and After Scarf (also Churchmouse), or the exciting (not) forays into bulky yarn that I did for the local Christmas Market this year, or how, after vowing to not fall down the slippery slope of Christmas gift knitting again, I ended up knitting 4 Piega Cowls, all because My Knitting Sister showed me one of the ones she was working on at Thanksgiving, which made me decide I really needed one, which knit up so fast that half-way through I decided to knit some for Their Father's mother and sisters, and then one for my Mom, all of which means that it's frigging freezing here in the Midwest and my Piega languishes half-done.

Just to keep the log complete - I frogged the Follow Your Arrow Shawl (Ysolda's Mystery Knit-Along from last January). Completed the copy of my Color Affection Shawl in February. I knit the HPKY Rome Bias Shawl (birthday yarn, March 2014). Finished the Green Sweater I didn't have ready for last St. Patrick's Day.

For a lot of this most recent knitting, I don't even have pictures(how did I let that happen?). In fact, except for three or four entries for National Poetry Month (April) which I never seem to remember to post, or worry myself into copyright issues over, the last entry I started was the story of our Company from across the Atlantic and the only one before that was on the death of Maya Angelou, which, admittedly, had nothing to do with knitting, but this is my journal and if I want to deviate from the stated topic, I can. Still, I never published it. I never even wrote about Stitches and how I didn't take a single class - nope, not one.

Let's face it, 2014 was a hard year. Truth be told, at midnight, January 1, I couldn't pull that old kitchen calendar off the wall fast enough. So. New Year. New Journal. New Knitting (see what I got for Christmas this year?).

Okay, maybe some picture posts of old knitting to help me keep straight what I did and why. And maybe I'll go ahead and publish those two drafts, once I find a picture or two.

Where Have All the Bloggers Gone? September 2014

Once upon a time, part of my daily ritual was a cup of coffee at 10-ish and time spent with my favorite on-line knitters.  It made sense to check in every day, because pretty much everyone had something new to say. Someone would write something that reminded me of a story or an event or a project I wanted to make and I would be off to the races,  inspired to make my own contribution, to add to the conversation.  Now?  Now I go weeks without checking my blogging roll.

It's been busy here at Chez WoolGathering.  We had company from Across the Atlantic, which meant summer was pretty much non-stop and the place hasn't looked this good since the last time it looked this good. Every cabinet and drawer in the kitchen got cleared out and lined with new shelf liner.  The linen closet, the credenza, the bookshelves -- all gone through. Fibber McGee's Closet no longer lives up to its name. I think Their Father was on a first -name basis with the people at Salvation Army by the time we finished. (Someday I'll write about the bathroom renovation.  Someday I will, by all that's holy, understand why it took a month to take out the old tub, sink and toilet in the front bath and install the new - a whole month.)

It was an astonishing 10 days in August with Our Company and they got to set foot in two states besides ours (Iowa and Indiana) and saw the Mississippi. They've been gone almost a week now and the apartment stills feel empty without them.

The part you're probably interested in though, is the part where I got yarn.  They brought me yarn.  From England.  Beautiful, beautiful merino-silk handspun from the real Worstead (you know, like worsted yarn?)

I've been playing with patterns and projects.   At first glance the yarn may present as tweedy green, plain and simple, but that merino-silk blend has bits of blue and a yellowish, springy green that pop up when you're not looking. It's soft and elegant feeling and I want to knit something that will show off the yarn, not something with a lot of pattern stitches.  I need something simple but classy.  Something that would showcase the yarn. Which led me to Churchmouse Yarns patterns.

As it happens, neither the Before and After Scarf nor the Beaded Mohair Scarf were willing to adapt to handspun.  I thought that the Shoulder Cozy might work. It didn't.

I'll keep searching. I've never knit a cowl for myself.  Maybe it's time to think about that. 

Maybe I should go read a few blogs and see what they're doing.

Cowl in the Afternoon

It could be said that my knitting tends toward the staid and conservative.  Which may be why the Eldest Niece gifted me (well, actually all of us Stitches types) with this for our party bags last August. 

That's another story, except for the part where it inspired me to try something different.

See this?  

This is Mountain Colors Moguls.  It has been sitting in my stash for longer than I care to remember.  It arrived with my second abortive attempt at an Ab-Fab blanket. It was supposed to fill the slot held by the Colinette Zanziba.  I'm actually attempting another one and was convinced that the Moguls would be perfect.  I was wrong.  While the yarn looked anything but maroon in the skein, context is everything.  Sandwiched between layers of Colinette mohair in Tapis, it presented as red. Not what I thought it would do.

So here I am, stuck with this incredibly active yarn and no place to put it.  It's years and years old and, even if I could convince my over-active conscience to return it, I have no idea where it came from anymore.

What to do? What to do?  It's only 65 yards per skein. And it's busy.  

I went looking at and for cowls. Cowls must be boring to knit, because pretty much everyone introduces some type of stitch pattern or design element.  With everything that's going on with this yarn -- Mountain Colors describes it as lumpy and bumpy; I would like to add that it's also curly, thick and thin and variegated -- the last thing it needs is a cable. Or Kitchener stitch.

I gave up and invented my own.  The most basic, unimaginative, ordinary knitting I could think of.  Ribbing for the top and bottom borders and stockinette for the body.  Anything more and my knitting would cross the border into Art and I hate knitting that is Art.

I have two more skeins of this in Pheasant (very similar colorway, minus the orange and yellow).  Lest its very simplicity renders it un-rememberable, I'm recording what I'm pretty sure I did.

Recipe for a Cowl in the Afternoon:

2 skeins Mountain Colors Moguls ( this is Sunburst).

Needles Addi Turbo 24" circulars. US 15 (a.k.a. big honking needles).

Cast on 56 stitches (or whatever multiple of 4 will get you the diameter you want).

K2P2 for 1 round.

Join to knit in the round and place a marker to mark the beginning of the round. (Careful not to twist, which is much easier when you've done a row of knitting (thank you to Graphica of Inspira Cowl fame.).) (Can one nest parentheses like that?  Must check my Chicago Manual of Style someday.)

K2P2 for 2 more rounds.

Knit (and knit and knit and knit) to the end of the skein

Count your rounds so you'll know when to stop knitting the second skein and start K2P2 ribbing (I think I had 26, counting the 3 rounds of ribbing).

Spit splice skein 2 (unless you really want to weave in those two extra ends).

Knit (and knit and knit and knit).

Count rounds until you have the same number as the first skein, less the three for the ribbing.

K2P2 for 3 rounds

Bind off (I used Jenny's Surprisingly Stretchy Bind-off).

Weave in the two ends (start and finish).

Here's the kicker. Turn it inside out, which emphasizes the funky element, but avoids Art.

Call it done.