It has come to my attention (thanks barb!) that the comments were not functioning properly earlier in the day.  They are working correctly now and I am looking into possible causes...sigh.

Sorry for the inconvenience and thanks for your patience!

Isn’t it lovely when you get surprises in the mail?  This came yesterday…

...accompanied by this!





These lovely things are from dear Bron who just thought I might like them!  Guess what - she was right!  The wool is Curious Yarns’ Portland (what they call their chunky weight yarn) hand-dyed in their Nectarine colorway.  Isn’t it awesome?  A marriage of opposite colors that somehow manages to work harmoniously.  There are three huge hanks of this and I will enjoy working with every inch of it!

The candle was made by Bron herself and is therefore doubly special, not to mention beautiful.  And the blue moon theme?  Perfection!  Thank you Bron for your thoughtfulness - your package really made my day!

In Monday’s post, I talked about a scarf possibility that I couldn’t resist casting on for :)

It’s going to be about 65” long, near as I can tell now.  The yarns are just about everything under the sun.  Well, they’re all wool or wool blends, but they’re fingering, DK, worsted and bulky weight as well as coming from Classic Elite, Knitpicks, Lionbrand and just about everywhere else :) I cast 201 stitches onto my 60”, size 9 US (5.5mm) Addis (a very convenient tool to have when knitting a lengthwise scarf!) and proceeded to work in seed stitch, swapping colors when the notion took me.  It’s one of my knitting eccentricities that when I’m working in seed stitch ("moss stitch” across the pond, I think?) I always cast on an odd number of stitches so that every row is worked the same.  If I’m using a pattern that calls for an even number of stitches, I’ll either drop one or add one so that the number is odd.

If you’d told me that I would enjoy working a 60 + inch scarf in seed stitch, I’d have said you were crazy - but you know?  The stitch pattern muddles any sharp lines between color changes as well as adding wonderful texture to the scarf itself.  This is a very interesting way of utilizing small bits of nice stuff and I’m having a blast seeing where it will go!

Notes

There’s a little more than a week left for the Dulaan 2007 Kick-off Contest (see the side-bar button).  Okay, so it’s a quiet contest - LOL!  Send pictures of your entry by noon 10/27/06 :)

Chatters is on for tomorrow evening - hope to see you there!

I did manage to finish the little blue chenille bag in time for Saturday!

Over all, it wasn’t that tough but man, I swear I don’t care if I ever work with this stuff again!  I wasn’t aware of any significant problems with my fingers until I went from the chenille to the nice sproingy wool scarf and my hands practically jumped up and down with glee :) I like the bag though; it has a lovely feel to it.  Those braided ties will have to go, however.  There’s just too much grab in the material and it makes opening and closing the bag quite a chore.

I also finished the scarf.  In fact I enjoyed the working of it so much that I could hardly put it down :)

Having not worked much with variegated yarn that I’ve dyed myself, I wasn’t sure what to expect and there was some flashing which I don’t really think sullies the general overall appearance.  But I will be trying to think of ways to either avoid this or take advantage of the tendency for future attempts.  4 oz. (approximately 130 grams) of heavy worsted weight yarn on size 9 US (5.5mm) needles produced a scarf 6.25” wide and about 48” long.





All I can tell you is that it makes me happy just to look at it and it’s a good thing it’s already in the Dulaan bag because if it were in constant view, I might be tempted to keep it :)

I got the heel turned on the cable sock…

...and it’s straight on down the foot now.  I’m hoping to have these done for my next trip which leaves November 4th.  I have never been terribly diligent about socks, but I’ll be trying to put in the necessary time to get this pair finished by then.

There’s also another scarf in the offing, but it exists more in potentia than in actuality.  I started by pulling out little balls and remnants that were clogging up my work basket and starting something in simple garter stitch…

...which isn’t really tripping my trigger and will probably be frogged.  But I like the range of colors and have been thinking all morning about what might be a nice way to use them together.  I even have a couple of full balls of yarns in appropriate shades that I could throw into the mix if necessary.  I’ve never been big on striping stuff, but the idea occurs that making the scarf by casting on the length rather than the width might be an amusing way to manage things.  Certainly they would be long rows to work, but there wouldn’t be many of them!  Slip stitch, maybe?  Hmmmm....

I had been hoping that since the jacket was finally complete, I could get back to work on my cable socks and get the first one finished, at least!  Well, that didn’t happen.  I got half-way through the heel flap and other things popped up - don’t they always?

For one thing, dad wants to go to a nice restaurant on Saturday for lunch.  I would like to wear my blue dress and new jacket and was pleased with the opportunity to do so...until I realized that my red leather winter purse wouldn’t go with that outfit very well.  I was so bothered by this (what - am I turning into a girl girl at this late date?!?!) that I dreamed about a bag pattern to make involving some very well aged stash in a couple of colors.

Lacking a better idea, I started this:

This is Sirdar DK Chenille and I’ve had it for quite a while because the stuff’s a booger to work with.  If you think cotton is inelastic and intractable, let me tell you - it ain’t got nothin’ on this stuff.  However, unlike most chenilles I have played with, this doesn’t worm - not in the slightest!  And it’s working up into a very beautiful, velvety fabric.  So okay - I’ll live with the awkwardness of the knitting - it’s just a bag.  Not like I’m making a carpet here :)

I also have a bit of a contrasting color:

In my dream, I had attached this color yarn in the center of each of the sides and worked a 3 stitch intarsia-type band up from the bottom, spiraling around to end in the center top of the next panel.  It looked beautiful but I now know I’m never going to make it work with this yarn.  It’s an idea to remember for a different yarn though :) Now I’m thinking I’ll do a central horizontal panel of checks and then switch wholly to the contrast color to finish.  I don’t think stranding this is going to be simple either, but what the heck - no reason not to give it a try :) Think I can finish this by tomorrow?  We’ll see :)

Now, let me direct your attention to the Yarn Harlot’s One Row Handspun Scarf.  Scroll down a bit for the pattern, but don’t blink or you’ll miss it - it really is a one row pattern and it works out splendidly!  I no sooner saw that than I was thinking about Citrine Curry and how would that work up?

Pretty nicely, I think :) Granted, this isn’t handspun yarn, just hand dyed - but I think that’s okay.  This pattern would be beautiful in almost anything.  And I just love that it’s reversible - no right or wrong side to it!





I am hoping to get to those socks soon though.  We’re supposed to get our first freeze tonight and the toes could use the insulation!





My two wish you and all of yours a pleasant and beautiful autumn weekend!

Knitting chat tonight - all the conversation and giggles you could want :)

To enter, click on the button on the sidebar.  Be there or be quadralinear :)

I stumbled across this as a method of closing sock toes when it became painfully and messily apparent that I was not going to be able to graft.  Why this remains beyond me, I can’t say - though I do keep trying it every now and again.  Hopefully I’ll be able to master it at some point, but in the meantime, I still have to close sock toes smoothly and unobtrusively :) There are other instances too - like the cable band for the Coronet hat, where grafting - or a reasonable substitute - is called for.

In the picture above, a stockinette strip has been knitted from a provisional cast-on.  There it is in all its curly-sided glory :) I am going to join the cast-on edge to the working edge by means of goofy grafting.  The first step is, of course, to release the provisional cast-on and place those stitches on a needle.





Now, leaving a long tail, cut the yarn and bring your ends up so that they are side by side making sure not to twist the strip of knitting.  Make sure the working end of the yarn is on the far left side of the stitches on the left hand needle.  Of course if you were making a moebius strip, you would want a half-twist in the strip of knitting and goofy grafting would be one of many ways to join the ends.





Proceed as follows:

1.  Slip the first stitch on the left hand needle to the right hand needle.
2.  Pass the second stitch on the right hand needle over the first stitch and off the needle.
3.  Slip the first and second stitches on the right hand needle to the left hand needle.
4.  Pass the second stitch on the left hand needle over the first and off.
5.  Slip the first and second stitches from the left-hand needle to the right hand needle.
6.  Pass the second stitch on the right hand needle over the first and off.

Repeat 3-6 until you have only one stitch left

This makes a neat, flat, flexible seam.  It isn’t invisible, but it isn’t intrusive either:

This works a little differently on sock toes because you can’t easily have the needles side by side.  It’s the same procedure, just executed a little differently.  For socks, the stitches are removed alternately from each of the two working needles onto a third needle.  Then the first two stitches are slipped to an empty needle and the second passed over the first.  Another stitch is slipped and what is now the second stitch is passed over that...and so on until all the stitches have been worked.  There is another explanation of this plus pictures in How to Make a Little Sock - scroll down, it’s almost at the end.

And that’s all there is to it.  Not strictly according to Hoyle, I know, but quick, easy and not without merit :)

Notes:

I am dying to see your pictures for the Dulaan 2007 Kick-off contest and we’re moving towards the due date of 12:00 PM, EST, October 27, 2006.  If you are unfamiliar with this contest, click the button on the sidebar for the full skinny :)

Chatters is on for tomorrow night - hope to see you all there!

Have a westful Wednesday...heheh :)

I finished the second Coronet over the weekend.  I had been aiming for a smaller, more child-sized version, and this one is smaller, but not by very much.  I did 15 repeats of the cable pattern and wound up picking up 80 stitches to work the body of the hat.  Perhaps 14 or 13 repeats would have been better?  It didn’t come out badly…

...just not quite as much smaller as I had thought it would be.

The cable and the top-knot are the very last of the Come Sail Away yarn.  In fact, this is all that was left:

And I did, finally (!) finish fiddling around with the Circle Jacket.  It got plain, braided ties because I couldn’t think of anything else to do.  Actually, I had pulled some quartz and dyed howlite beads (blue, of course) out of my old beading stash thinking they would be pretty and interesting on the tie ends.  And then it occurred to me that sending stone beads through the washing machine would probably not be good for them :) So, since I do want the sweater to remain washable, I wound up with plain old braided ties.  Should something better come along, they will be easy enough to replace.





This is quite an old-fashioned look and I really like it.  In the comments to Friday’s post, Charlotte recommended washing the sweater first and seeing how that worked to relax the fabric.  If that didn’t do the trick, then I could try the boiling water trick.  That was a good thought and that’s exactly what I did, though I washed in fairly hot water - not so hot that you couldn’t put your hands in it, but almost.  And that worked very nicely indeed :) The collar uncurled and the shells relaxed and lined up perfectly.





I really like the look of this.  It is very graceful - and I need all the help I can get in that area :) I’m very tempted to try another one in another (or a couple of other) colors.  Given the way the body and sleeves lengthened after the washing, I’d have to rethink the notion of adding more rows to the body.  I was certain that I would want to make future versions of this sweater longer but now, after the blocking (heheh...), I’m not so sure.

The cats are in full sun-seeking mode as the temperatures have been down in the 40s every morning for a week and we’re expecting our first hard frost almost any time now.  I’m really hoping that will put paid to the allergy stuff which has been particularly annoying this past summer.  It would be nice not to have a park a tissue on my upper lip to catch the constant drips and I could do with out the sinus pressure and headaches too :)

But it is a beautiful morning out there and I’m going to make a foray to the supermarket in a little while.  I love the sunshine (Myria has hazarded the opinion that I’m solar-powered) and sunshine is sunshine, allergy-laden or not :)

Happy Monday!