Spring fever is a pain in the patoot, albeit a lovely one.  I have little focus, practically no attention span, and very little desire to do much of anything.  On the other hand, I am delighted at the bird song that is increasing every day as our feathered friends all return from their winter vacations.  The air has that peculiar soft feeling that it only has during the last two weeks of March and the first two weeks of April - the robins are back, flowers are poking tentative leaves out of the ground and all my windows are open :)

It’s a very odd time.  I am looking for a lace pattern to float my boat and not having any luck at all.  But I know, sure as I’m sitting here that some of these patterns are things that positively thrilled me six weeks ago and will, more than likely, thrill me again a few weeks hence!  I can’t even settle on little projects.  I can’t tell you how many socks and scarves have been started and abandoned in the last couple of weeks - makes me want to tear my hair out.

But I also know it will pass.

I went back and looked at the things I was doing at this time of year - it’s always a surprise to me what good journals blogs make :) Last year it was this:

The Dulaan Scarf - and I remember working on it on the plane flying down to Florida.  Apparently I had some ambition - a little anyways - last year :)

The year before, I had just acquired this:

...and was awash in the possibilities :)

Spring is a good time, maybe the perfect time, for dreaming.  This year it feels as though there is some portentous knitting in the offing and I want to keep an eye out for it.  A splendid shawl, the socks that will bring the world to its knees - something.  So I’ll keep looking at patterns, casting on and abandoning, and in there, somewhere, amongst all the angst and indecision, maybe something will begin to grow.

It only takes a seed - or maybe a seed stitch!

I’m as dizzy as a spider spinning daydreams,
I’m as giddy as a baby on a swing!
I haven’t seen a crocus or a rosebud,
Or a robin on the wing.
Yet I feel so gay
In a melancholy way,
That it might as well be spring…

Rogers and Hammerstien, from State Fair, 1945

Sorry I’m late, folks - busy morning :)

Among many other things, I’ve been thinking about socks lately and I returned to have another look at one on my list of like-to-trys.  It’s “Judy Sumner’s” Bell Lace Wool-ease Socks.  I have always like the look of the stitch pattern so, having nothing better to do yesterday afternoon, I grabbed a ball of Woolease and cast on.

I did increase the cast-on stitches to 48 and then increased another two stitches when the ribbing was done for a total of 50 sts (pattern repeat is a multiple of 5) because I knew it would be too small otherwise.  After several repeats of the lace (kind of moose lace - but it still qualifies, I guess), I slipped it all to a circular needle so I could try it on.  Perfect!

The lace is a pretty cute trick as it’s five rows tall and four of those rows are knit!

In the round: Cast on a multiple of five stitches.

Rows 1, 2, 3 and 4:  *K3, P2*; repeat to end of round
Row 5:  *YO, slip 1, K2tog, pass slipped stitch over, P2*; repeat to end of round.

My only problem now is that I keep thinking this would look terrific at a smaller scale - say on size 1 or 2 needles.  So I’m hesitating about going on and trying to decide whether to try this in fingering or sport weight. 

The other thing that’s making me hesitate is that having put away the entrelac afghan for the spring and summer hasn’t resulted in any decrease in my desire to do entrelac :) I have several ideas floating around in my head including the amazing entrelac socks in Socks, Socks, Socks! - and I have some lovely variegated sock yarn to use for them too!  Ahh, how to choose amongst the myriad possibilities!

Last, but not least, I scored some more of the gorgeous Classic Elite Wings yesterday and managed to get six hanks of the same color!

So I’ve actually got enough to make something besides toddler socks - not that toddler socks are a bad thing.  I love this stuff to work with - soft, and silky and warm.  The possibilities for this are (acquires a dreamy expression) endless!  No, decisiveness is not my long suit!

See you tomorrow night for Knitting Chatters!

There are some great ideas in the comments to Friday’s post and I experimented with some of them over the weekend.

First, a model and a bit of info so you know how I did things :)

I used the same yarn, needles and pattern for each swatch.  The yarn was Peaches ‘n cream cotton and the needles were size 7 (4.5mm).  The pattern is one of the halves of the Dragon Skin pattern.  I chose this to work with because it shows both right-leaning decreases (RLDs) and left-leaning decreases (LLDs).  The little call-outs in the above picture show you the lines both decreases follow.  That will be the same in every picture that follows.  All that has changed is the method used to perform the LLDs.





Sl1-K1-psso

This one is the first one I learned and, as far as I know, is the oldest method of the lot.  The LLD is performed by slipping the first stitch from the left to the right needle.  The next stitch on the left needle is knitted and then the slipped stitch is picked up, passed over the knitted stitch and dropped off the right needle.  It’s not really sloppy, but you can see that the stitches don’t line up smoothly - in fact it looks as though every other stitch is looking the opposite way.

SSK (slip, slip, knit)

I ran into this in the Barbara Walker treasuries first, but didn’t fully understand how it worked until I read Nicky Epstein’s Knitted Embellishments.  I find this technique faster than the first one, but also sloppier as (at least in my idiosyncratic knitting) both the slipped stitches get loose.  For this method, slip the first stitch on the left needle knitwise, then do the same for the next stitch on the left needle.  You now have two slipped stitches on the end of your right needle.  Insert the left needle into the front of these stitches.  Bring the yarn over from behind and down between the needles to knit these two stitches together.

SSK variation

This is performed very similarly to the last method but the way the stitches are slipped in the first step is different.  In this case, the first stitch is slipped knitwise and the second stitch is slipped purlwise before they are knitted together off the right hand needle.

Knit 2 together through the back loops

This is probably the quickest path to an LLD, easy and fast.  Insert the right needle into the back loops of both the first and second stitches on the left hand needle and knit them together.  While the stitches this technique produces aren’t unattractive, they bear no resemblance to the neat row of RLDs on the left-hand side of the piece.

There were also a couple of suggestions late Sunday.  Jo Ellyn suggested slipping the first stitch of an SSK purlwise, slipping the second knitwise and then knitting them together from the right hand needle.  I’m glad she suggested the possibility because I never thought of it.  I will certainly give it a shot and see how it looks.  Likewise, Kimberly also mentioned a variation on the SSK which consisted of slipping the first stitch knitwise, the second stitch purlwise and then knitting them together through the back loops.  I’ll try this too :)

I think part of the intrinsic problem with the LLD is that it is a two-step process (at least!) where the K2tog is not.  Each of the above pictured methods are long-used and well-loved by many knitters.  However, while I do use them, none of them give me the exact mirror of that neat, K2tog decrease curve and that’s what I’m looking for.

Onwards :)

The second Knitting Chatters was even more fun than the first.  We passed around cookies and coffee along with some spring water (all virtual, of course!) and talked about many things.  If you can clear an hour of a Thursday evening, come and join us!

I had asked about those pesky left-leaning decreases.  I can’t get them to look even and neat like the right-leaning decreases, not with an SSK or a Sl1-K1-psso.

Just above the yellow line on the right is the column of K2togs - the right leaning decreases.  Just above the aqua line on the left is the column of SSKs - the left-leaning decreases and they don’t look nearly as nice.  I really would like them to look better, neater than that.

One suggestion was to K2tog through the back loop.  Another was to work the SSK normally, except when slipping the stitches, slip the first one purl-wise and the second one knit-wise.  I will try both these options and report back to you on Monday :)

Monday, Monday...

Oops!  Sorry - got stuck in a time warp there for a minute :)

I also got a note this week from someone who was confused by the pick-up-and-purl direction in the entrelac tutorial.  The pick-up-and-whatever instruction confused me for a long time too so I’ll also be doing a tutorial on that in the near future.  I also have a non-standard (you’re shocked, right?) method that makes this picking up business a lot easier to manage - even kind of fun :)

Finally - another question :)

For years now, I’ve kept my straight needles in a tall, plastic coffee mug.  It’s worked just fine up until last week when it got knocked over three times!  I haven’t figured out quite what the problem is - and it doesn’t really matter.  Obviously the situation has changed somehow and the needles are no longer entirely safe in the old arrangement.

So where, how and in what do you keep your needles?  Does it work well for you?  Convenient?  Stable?  What would you change, if anything?  Thanks in advance for any thoughts on this matter.

Her Majesty and I wish you a fun and pleasant weekend!

In yesterday’s comments, Rob over at robknits mentioned her favorite baby socks.  I went and had a look (although I didn’t get there until this morning - for some reason, my browser kept freezing up when I tried to access that particular .pdf!) and they really are cute as can be:

This is Cat Bordhi’s (Socks Soar on Two Circular Needles) Baby Lifering Socks pattern and so is written for two circulars.  I’m going to have to sit down with it and re-write it a bit so I can do it on my DPNs :) But the socks truly are adorable and definitely something I’d like to try.  They look like little moon boots to me :)

I have also started Daisy, one of Stephanie Pearl-McPhee’s contributions to Knitty’s on-line magazine.  I’m not sure how I feel about it just yet so am not certain whether or not it’s got a long life span on my needles :) Time will tell!

Barb-in-east-texas also sent a link for the Loving Memories Lacy Bunting from Lionbrand.  It’s a beautiful piece, and though I grow faint at the idea of shaping, set-in sleeves and button-bands, it is so charming I may give it a whirl anyways.

About the diet - I was astounded that none of my doctors had any suggestions as to what kind of diet I should undertake nor had anything to say about what I should eat or not eat.  So I put my own regimen together (not that any of them have asked - I could be eating nothing but bananas for all they know) and seem to be doing reasonably well with it.  It’s basically a 1500 calorie/day diet, very low in fat, sugar and sodium.  Typically, breakfast is a cup of non-fat, no sugar yogurt and fruit of some kind.  Lunch is often a tuna sandwich (lite bread and low-fat mayonnaise) and a cup of soup with another fruit.  Dinner is a piece of boneless, skinless chicken breast or low-fat fish (mahi-mahi is seriously wonderful and has only about 100 calories per 4 oz!) and a vegetable or two, sometimes a potato.  If we’ve had a busy day (like yesterday when we ran around from 8:00 AM to about 6:00 PM), we’ll have a Lean Cuisine entrée.  To my vast surprise, this stuff doesn’t taste like “diet” food, but like real food.  The Swedish Meatballs are awesome and Myria is quite fond of their little pizzas.  We also budget for a small late supper which, for me, is usually oatmeal with another fruit of some kind.  In the cold weather, something warm in my tummy before going to bed really helps getting to sleep.  That will probably change as the weather warms up and I begin to feel more kindly about salads (don’t really want cold meals in the cold weather).

Our biggest assets in this endeavor are our George Foreman Grill and our Oster Steamer.

The grill is a small one and it enables us (with the help of a bit of no-stick spray) to grill chicken and fish without adding any fat.  It does take a little getting used to as it cooks from both top and bottom, so cooking times are reduced - but it does a wonderful job.  Myria has evolved a method of seasoning (no salt, no fat) that is absolutely heavenly and makes a masterpiece out of half a chicken breast or a few ounces of fish.  It also works well for veggie-burgers.  We usually keep a few of these in the freezer because they’re easy and have a lot fewer calories and fat than a hamburger.  We’ll probably try grilling vegetables on it too - we’re both fond of eggplant and I love summer squash and zucchini.

The grill is fairly new to us but we’ve had a steamer for years.  I was never particularly big on vegetables until Myria started cooking them in this.

This Oster model is the one we have and use right now.  We both love spinach and broccoli and asparagus and brussel sprouts and done in the steamer, these bear almost no resemblance to their frozen or canned counterparts.  They have actual flavor for one thing and retain a nice, rich color.  Best of all, they are very low in calories and can be indulged in with relative impunity.  We also steam fresh beets, but we do that on the stove with a steamer basket hung in a kettle because, well because we don’t want a pink steamer :) Oh, and we’ve also started picking up a few fresh lemons now and again.  I generally cut them into wedges (half a lemon = 4 wedges, enough for dinner) and we use them on fish - and the taste a few drops of fresh lemon juice brings out of green vegetables is almost unbelievable.  A couple of grinds of the pepper mill and you’re feasting - well, at least I’m feasting :)

We also keep a little bowl of sugar-free hard candy on the kitchen counter.  Life-Savers “Sorbet” are particularly toothsome morsels and Baskin-Robbins chocolate mints aren’t too shabby either.  Best of all, they are only 7 or 8 calories apiece.  One or two a day isn’t going to hurt anything :) And we have sugar-free jello from time to time but we aren’t really big on dessert as a rule.

And that’s about it!  It’s difficult sometimes to ignore pizza and ice cream and a big fat hamburger covered with cheddar cheese and bacon but it’s not as difficult as I thought it would be.  Myria is a good cook and a creative one and that’s a tremendous benefit for a diet!

Oh, one more thing - I keep a diet-journal.  It lives on the kitchen table and everything that goes into my mouth gets logged - along with its calorie count.  Also what I weigh that morning.  I do find it useful for tracking and it helps me to stay honest.  Maybe not for everyone, but an asset for me, definitely!

Knitting Chatters is on for tomorrow evening!  The doors will open at 7:30 PM, EST.  Virtual coffee and cookies will be provided :) Hope to see you there!

Saturday, I succumbed to a temptation I’d been wrestling with for a little while.  I kept telling myself I didn’t need it and it was too expensive anyway.  Besides, when would I ever use it again when I was finished with this?  Remember how I got the second, size 9 circular for the shawl?  Well, it just wasn’t working out the way I’d hoped.  For one thing, the cable remained as curly as a piggie’s tail no matter what I did to try and straighten it out.  Maybe it needs a couple of days on the rack - geez, where’s the Spanish Inquisition when you need it, hunh?  So, after fighting with the thing for a week, I finally headed a little ways north on Saturday to the only shop I know that carries Addi turbos :)

What I was hoping for was a 47” needle.  I’m expecting (hoping?) for the shawl to at least approach 80” in width and I figured the 47” needle could hold it without too much crowding.  I was also afraid that the size 9 that I needed might have the newer “tube” cable (looks like something you’d use in your aquarium) which I haven’t heard much good about.  As it turned out, the shop did better than I expected.  It not only had an Addi turbo in the correct size, with the preferred slender, soft, flexible cable, it had one (only one, mind you) that was 60” long!

Well, I wrapped my sweaty little paws around that sucker and danced!  My God, 60”!!  The wide open spaces!  It was awesome!  When I got back to the car, I slipped it out of it’s plastic bag and unwound the cable.  The needle extended from one side of the car to the other!  I was practically chortling with glee and people passing on the sidewalk were beginning to look at me funny, so I lovingly put the needle away and went on my way.

Of course when I got home, I couldn’t stop talking about it, how they had an even better version of the needle I wanted than I had hoped to find and how lucky I felt.  I said to Myria, “I didn’t even know they made a 60” needle!”. 

Dryly, she said “Yeah, but you’ve had plenty of guys try to convince you their needle was 60 inches.”

Ahem....

Anyway, I got the stitches all transferred over to the new needle.  My heavens, what a sensuous experience it is knitting with this thing!  I have heard people swear that they knit faster on Addi turbos, but I had been skeptical.  I mean you knit how you knit, right?  Some people are naturally quick and some are slow - how can a needle allow you to knit faster without multiplying errors (which is what always happens to me when I try to work more quickly than I usually do)?  And yet, I sailed through an entire repeat on the shawl in an afternoon.  I am normally a somewhat slow knitter so this is just amazing as the shawl is now up to 238 stitches.  I know, compared to some kinds of lace work, that’s not really a lot of stitches - but it is to me.

It has come to my attention that there is going to be a new baby in the family sometime this summer.  I spent a lot of time looking around at patterns yesterday (and have a few that look promising!) but I’d like to ask what your favorite baby patterns are?  I have no experience with the little critters or their clothes, so I would be maudlinly grateful for your assistance :) Hats, socks (or booties) and simple sweaters are what I’m looking for right now.

I have lost 24.8 pounds so far.  24.8!  I would so have loved to start spring with an even 25 lb loss, but noooooooooooooo.

All together now - to the tune of everybody’s favorite little-kids show:

Happy first day of spring!