Well, I’ve got an FO finally :)  I finished the bag last night.  After I bound off the knitting, I switched over to crochet and did a round of double-crochets interspersed with chain ones for the ties to go through and topped that with two rounds of shells, the second being slightly larger than the first so as to create a ruffle kind of effect.

It still needs to be lined although, for the very light duty this is going to get, I’m not really sure that’s necessary.  I am really happy with the way this came out, the way the moss stitch balances the cables and bobbles and the look of the whole thing.  I even like the way the crocheted shells suggest a kind of flower at the top when the bag is closed (peony?).

And I started a little, narrow, moss stitch scarf to go with it.

The yarn for the scarf is ever-so-slightly lighter than the yarn for the bag.  I’m using Classic Elite Flash and what I got came in two dye lots.  The dye lot of the bag yarn is a bit more intense, a bit brighter.  I’m hoping that because the dye lots are for two different items (as opposed to, say, using both dye lots in a single item), the slight difference in appearance won’t be jarring.

The shawl is coming along too, a bit at a time.  I must confess, contrary to my expectations (expectations of myself, you understand) it’s coming out very nicely and every time I spread it out to have another look at the whole thing, I get a little more excited :)

The shawl picture isn’t very good.  I have the suspicion that the mohair kind of dissolves in the image making things look a bit fuzzy.  And, of course, there’s nothing to give you any idea of size.  Currently it’s about 20” across and about 12” deep.  I don’t know yet whether I’m going to do the lace edge or not; the idea of picking up all those stitches makes me feel faint.  I do know that I want a fairly sizeable shawl so if that means sacrificing edging for overall size, so be it.  I’ve got 1400 yards of this yarn and I’ve gone through about 150 yards.  We’ll see how far this gets me :)

I find it interesting that I get into the rhythm of the lace patterning and the right-side rows absolutely zoom by.  So it’s amusing to notice also that the wrong side rows, which are all simple purling, seem to take longer :)

And Myria made her Magical, Mystical Meatloaf last night with potatoes, carrots, onions and mushrooms - aaaaaahhhhh!!!  So yesterday was, all in all, quite wonderful :)

Did you all have a nice weekend?

I’m sitting here looking at still more snow.  This is the snowiest January I can remember for quite some time - we seem to get more white stuff every other day or so!  I guess I’m lucky not to be in the mountains, eh?  It’s not really the snow I hate, it’s the constant cleaning off of the car that gets to me :)

The bag is nearing completion:

This is about as big as I want it.  I had thought that a feather and fan swath around the top would be pretty so I did the eyelets (clumsily, to be honest) and increased for the correct number of stitches for however many sections of the lace pattern that was going to be.  I had worked one repeat before I realized things weren’t working out - nor were they likely to.  I pulled it all out and decided, while I was at it, to re-do those clumsy eyelets - out they came too.  Now I’m back to my original idea which was to use crochet for the lace. 

I stopped into Joanne Fabric (not a place I generally go) over the weekend, looking for lining fabric and found a beautiful deep red/crimson/violet print on sale for $2.00/yard.  It was 100% polyester, but it was a substantial feeling fabric with a hand that I more associate with rayon - drapey and heavier than it looks.  It was beautiful, perfect for the bag and the price was certainly right.  So I grabbed the bolt and went over to have it cut only to find a line of about a dozen other women, several of whom had shopping carts full of bolts.  I thought about it long enough to realize that this was going to take forever and then I’d be getting back in line behind these same folks at the register too.  So I put the bolt back; it just wasn’t worth the time to me.

Joanne’s craft department looked like a tornado had hit it.  It wasn’t as though it had just been busy, it was in serious disarray - about four aisles (or half-aisles) of uproar, mess and craziness.  I had to see if they had anything interesting in the way of yarns or needles, since I was there, but finding any particular thing in that corner of the store was nigh onto impossible. 

All of which is probably why I seldom visit Joanne Fabric :)

I did finally decide on a shawl pattern:

This is the beginning of Stephanie Pearl-McPhee’s beautiful Snowdrop Shawl (link opens a .pdf file of the pattern).  I’ve looked at this pattern a dozen times over the last couple of weeks but the fact that’s it’s substantially lace (and that I’m substantially chicken about lace) made me pass it over every time.  Last night I decided to try it and gave it a dry run with regular acrylic worsted on size 6 needles.  Hunh - well, that’s not too hard.  Finally I decided to give it a go with the mohair on size 10 needles and off we went! 

Because it’s mohair, it requires that I pay attention and not try to rush things.  As long as I remember this, I should be okay.  This is working up nicely and I know from my swatch work (how long ago was that now?) that the material will be even nicer after it’s been washed.  But this yarn loves to stick to itself and is just about unfroggable.  So, slow and steady is my mantra on this one.

I’m still plugging away on the socks too, but I won’t bore you with another half-finished sock picture.  The magic loop technique works fabulously for me and I’m really glad I tried it.  This makes all the difference between a chore and actually having fun :)

Currant Scones

1/2 c currants
4 c flour (all purpose)
1/4 c sugar
2 tbl Baking powder
1 tsp salt
8 tbl cold butter, cut up (1 stick)
1 3/4 c half-and-half

Put the currants in a bowl and pour boiling water over them to cover. Let sit for 15 minutes.

Pre-heat the oven to 375º F and grease a cookie sheet (even if it’s teflon).

Sift the flour, sugar, salt and baking powder into a large mixing bowl.

Add the butter and blend (with a pastry blender or your fingertips) until the mixture resembles fine crumbs.

Drain the currants, pat dry and add to the dry ingredients. Mix well.

Add the half-and-half and stir just until the dough comes together. This dough will be very soft.

Turn dough onto a lightly floured board and knead gently for about a minute.

Roll or pat the dough into a rough square about a 3/4 - 1” thick.

Using a very sharp knife, cut into 9 pieces (or however many you like - we like big scones :)

Transfer the pieces to the cookie sheet and bake for 25-30 minutes, or until puffed and golden.

Remove to cooling rack and drool while they cool down enough to eat :)

These are fairly plain treats, but the butter and the half-and-half make them quite rich. I don’t do the cream and jam thing at home, I just use butter. A scone is a wonderful thing to have with your morning coffee! Just put it on a paper towel and stick it in the microwave for about 20 seconds to warm it up nicely.

Of course, I’ve been thinking about other variations. I probably wouldn’t mess with the sugar as I like them just barely sweet. But I might, on future scone-making ventures, substitute any of the following for the currants:

Grated orange (or lemon) peel and grated ginger
blueberries
grated orange peel and cranberries
dried apricots, cut up finely
figs, cut up finely
tiny chocolate chips and finely chopped walnuts
cardamom, black pepper and cloves

I might even be tempted to try leaving out the sugar entirely and making a savory version with:

grated cheddar cheese (add 1/2 a tsp or so of dried mustard) and a bit of dill
grated cheddar cheese and some finely cut up ham or bacon.
chopped, sun-dried tomatoes and basil
chopped turkey and sage

Your taste buds and imagination are the only requirements!

Bon appetit :)

Having gotten the idea of trying socks on one long circular, I proceeded to obsess about it - LOL!  No surprise there, eh?  So yesterday I went in search of a long, size 1 (US) circular.  I kept thinking that A. C. Moore would have it; their needle selection is pretty good.  They had the needle in 16” and 24” lengths.  I wanted at least a 29” length and longer, if possible. 

The next stop was another craft shop, privately owned and not a place I frequent because it’s tends to be expensive.  But I had found needles there previously that I hadn’t found anywhere else.  I figured it was worth a look.  It didn’t look so good as I turned in and saw that the parking lot hadn’t been plowed but there were a few cars and the lights were on in the store, so I jiggled the car through the lot, parked and went inside.

Well, the door may have been open, but there was no business - craft or otherwise - living there any more. The place had been stripped to the walls (and part of the walls too, I think) and there was obviously some kind of construction going on.  I backed out quickly and quietly.

Well poop.

There was only one more option and that’s a fairly snooty shop that I don’t bother with often.  They have a lot of very beautiful, very costly yarns and a staff that tends to dismiss you quickly if you’re wearing jeans.  Unfortunately, they also carry about every brand, length, type and style of needle known to man and, of course, they had long size 1 circulars.

47” long!  Not what I had expected to find but hey :)  It was the longest needle they had and I figured better more length than not enough.

Last night, I got the sock transferred from the DPNs to the circular, worrying that I wouldn’t be able to figure it out, that it wasn’t going to work, that it would be a waste of time and money.

But it turned out to be easy.  I highly recommend the tutorial mentioned in yesterday’s post.  It is clearly written with nice big photographs.  I was up and running in less than 5 minutes.

I worked on this for two hours last night without the slightest hint of crampy hands or unhappy fingers.  The single circular really made a difference in terms of comfort, is much faster to work with than the DPNs and much less clumsy than two circulars - though the technique is quite similar.  This is very cool and, assuming the needle stands up well, will be well worth the chase and the price.

Even if it isn’t your preferred method, I guess I’d recommend trying it.  As has become clear to me over the last few months, there are lots of ways to do circular knitting.  Some ways will be good for some things and other methods better for other projects.  It’s comforting to know that I can apply any technique I want to any given project.  Ahhh - learning is a wonderful thing!

The cats and I hope you all have wonderful, knitterly, enlightening weekends!

Well, it’s a learning process, eh?  I started this bag on DPNs, first three and then four when there proved to be too many stitches for three needles to handle.  Then I went to two circulars and found that to be quite a lot easier and faster than the DPNs, but still awkward when going from one needle to the other.  Last night I remembered the Magic Loop.  I had first read about the technique at String and Air, Judy Gibson’s knitting pages.  And of course there is the booklet (which I haven’t seen), “Magic Loop” by Bev Galeskas and Sarah Hauschka.  Finally there is this instructional web page by K. St. John.

I didn’t refer to any of them before I started because I figured that all I needed to know was that you pull the cable slack through the stitches.

I’ve got 108 stitches going around here on a long size 6 (US) needle.  There aren’t quite enough to meet for comfortable, standard circular knitting.  So, after I had knitted all the stitches onto the circular needle, I pulled out a loop of cable to take up the slack.

This is a Susan Bates needle and I love it for a couple of reasons.  The finish on the needles is conducive to quick, smooth knitting.  The stitches never get hung up on the join and the cable itself is very soft and flexible.  I believe it’s one of their Quicksilver line.  Anyway, as you can see in the above picture, I pulled out the loop about 3/4s of the way around the knitting.  That way, the loop was out of the way of my hands and I wasn’t hitting it every time I made a stitch.

When the loop had worked its way around so that it was below my left hand, I just moved it by pulling the cable out again back where the loop had been in the first place. 

Doing it this way, the knitting was fast and easy - no juggling DPNs while trying to establish cables and bobbles, and no weirdness where needles met and swapped off.  I couldn’t believe it was this easy!

Of course there’s more to it than that.  What I did more closely resembles the kind of thing Judy Gibson writes about,  But it doesn’t work on small circumferences (I know, I tried last night - socks?  Socks?  All on one needle?  Let me at ‘em!!!).  That’s not to say that the magic loop technique doesn’t work, only that the way I employed it wouldn’t work.  This morning while I was ferreting around, digging up the links I wanted for this post, I read through St. John’s tutorial (linked above) and the actual technique is a bit different than what I was doing.  So I’ll be returning to that tutorial and working out the right way to do it.

Cause, boy, making socks this way would rock the house down!  And what do I need a house for as long as I’ve got nice, warm socks?

Last couple of days have been moderately hectic so not much knitting has gotten done.  Well, unless you count the hours I tried out shawl patterns and the ever-growing pile of reject swatches on the table beside me.  I got a bit more done on the bag and that’s about it.

Frown…

I guess I’ll stop worrying about that for now and try to decide whether I want a sweater and whether I have any real chance of finishing a sweater project - not just in time for the trip - ever :) 

I finally got all my Christmas knitting delivered yesterday.  Everyone seemed to like their gift - the mitts, the shawl, etc were all happily received. But the hat (this hat) went over especially well.  From my point of view as the maker, it couldn’t have been better- the color was ideal for the recipient, and the fit was perfect.  Even better, though, was her reaction which was to immediately put it on, parade around modeling the thing and then come back to pout that it was too warm to wear indoors but she didn’t want to take it off.  As an unbiased observer (cough!) it was utterly adorable on her too.  Ahhh - that was fun :)

I do understand that a lot of people out there are more than happy to let others do the work for them.  But I also know how confusing issues like gauge, sts/inch, weight and length (of the yarn in the ball) can be to someone.  It took me a while to get comfortable with these things; I think very few people get it immediately.  To a new knitter, or someone not very mathematically adept, these things can seem quite intimidating.

Last week on one of the e-mail lists, someone asked the perennial favorite question about how to figure out substitutions between one yarn and another.  The question was answered, rather nastily (I can’t imagine why they even bothered since it obviously pissed them off no end) by someone who clearly felt that the asker was being lazy by not looking up the particulars herself .

What made all this particularly stand out in my mind is the many times recently that I’ve seen knitters referred to as exceptional, caring people, both on the web and on the lists.  What does that mean?  We’re willing to throw a few bucks at our favorite charity but we can’t take the time to answer a question without being all snide about it?

One of the things that makes winter tolerable (maybe even desirable) for me is the availability of fresh, affordable citrus, mainly oranges and grapefruits.  This year, things haven’t gone so well with the citrus crops so availability is limited and prices are high (at least in New England).  But, to my surprise, two different chains had sales this week, one on oranges and one on red grapefruit.

I haven’t tried the grapefruit yet (though I plan to almost as soon as I finish this post!) but the oranges are sensational!  Peeling and eating an orange is such a sense-involving experience that I was really feeling bad about the possibility that there might not be any at casa de wolfandturtle this year.  The market had both Florida and California oranges.  I have no idea whether there’s a difference, but I asked Myria and she suggested the Californias.  They certainly are awesome!

And I’m afraid you’ll all have to excuse me now, I need my second cup of coffee - and I’ve made myself hungry!

After all the precipitation last week, we got another 7 inches dumped on us on Saturday.  Dad and I had been planning to drive up to Maine but it was out of the question.  We went to Skip’s and sat, warm and snug and watched the snow coming down - very heavily indeed.  Skip’s is a very comfortable place and serves what you might think of as plain, home cooking.  I had one of their Saturday specials - baked lamb and rice and I want to tell you, I’ve had lamb in places that would consider themselves much better than Skip’s - but I’ve never had better lamb than I did Saturday :)  If you’re ever in the Chelmsford/Lowell, MA area, I highly recommend it.

We’re making slow progress on the sock but it there was enough of it tp finally try on last night - another advantage of making the socks from the toes up - you can try them on as you go.  For me, this is a serious consideration, especially since between the fine yarn and the teeny needles, my tension goes to hell.  But it fit fine and felt wonderful which inspired me to work on them a little more than I usually would at one go.  It is so fun to watch the sock and the design of the yarn take shape as you go around and around!  I would never have thought I could get into making socks so this is a bit of a surprise :)

The bag is maybe about half as tall as I want it, perhaps a bit more.  After I had complained in Friday’s post about how awkward I found working with 5 DPNs, Becca recommended trying two circulars instead.  So Friday night, I searched through my needles and found that I did, indeed, possess two, size 6 (US) circular needles and gave it a try.  While there’s still a bit of awkwardness when going from one needle to the other it’s nothing like the DPNs and has made the work quite a bit easier.  Thanks Becca!

Okay, the reason I am making this bag (and considering a fancy shawl and maybe even a cotton sweater - gulp!) is because I’m going on another cruise.  It was pretty unexpected but dad found an exceptionally priced trip (an Atlantic crossing) on a line he really likes (Crystal Cruises) and asked if I wanted to go along.  So at the end of April, we’ll be sailing across the Atlantic from Ft. Lauderdale to Lisbon.  There are no stops on this cruise.  Just nine lovely days on the ocean :)

So, I did spend some time thinking about what type of shawl might be appropriate but didn’t really get anywhere.  And again I am considering the possibility of a sweater - somewhat ruefully - because my track record with such things is appalling - as you know :)  Maybe this will be the charm?