Dad and I went to a local Italian restaurant last Saturday.  Despite the fact that dad won’t eat onions, tomatoes or garlic (or anything made with those ingredients) - which disqualifies almost every type of Italian food for him, he is able to find enough there to make him happy.  For example, since it’s in New England it has clam chowder.  It seems to be a rule that any restaurant opening anywhere in New England is required to offer clam chowder - regardless of said eatery’s own specialization.  So you see things like: Minestrone, Pasta e fagioli, Clam Chowder or Egg Drop Soup, Hot and Sour Soup and Clam Chowder.

The restaurant is very good, the food is of excellent quality and is quite plentiful.  But the thing that really sets them apart is their bread.  This bread tastes like it just came out of your grandma’s oven - homemade doesn’t begin to describe it!

And they sell it by the loaf for the princely sum of $1.85 - about half what I would pay in the supermarket bakery for something of equivalent quality and taste :)

One of Dad’s problems has been an advancing case of rheumatoid arthritis which has made moving around very difficult and painful for him.  He has been wearing the socks I’ve made for him because, being hand made and of DK/worsted weight yarn - they have much more substantial body than the little nylon cheapies he’s been buying for the last 40 years.

I had thought he was just wearing them around the house, but a week or so ago, I saw him cramming them into his sneakers because it would have been too difficult and uncomfortable to exchange them for something lighter.

I asked him if he would like me to make him some more socks but he said not to bother.  What he had was fine.

Yeah, right :)

So I started another pair of socks for him - in sport weight yarn this time.  They will still have (I hope!) the body that makes them easy for him to put them on.  And, they will be lighter weight and less bulky than the ones he already has.

I had started a pair of Primavera socks with this yarn.  About halfway down the cuff, I knew I was never going to wear them because I didn’t like the colors - too dark and too masculine.  However, it seemed like the ideal thing for a pair of dad socks so I cast on Saturday morning and went to work.

And when I told dad that I had done so - he was so obviously pleased I had to laugh :)

I made an odd but interesting discovery while working on the sock.  This is sport weight yarn (Woolease, sadly discontinued) and I’m working the socks on size 3 US (3.0 - 3.125 mm) needles.  I had started them on an old aluminum set.  I like metal needles for socks and that’s what I almost always use.  However, these were a dark green color and the combination of them and the dark, variegated yarn made the stitches almost impossible to see - even with two lights on!  There were blue needles too, but they were also dark and there were only three of them anyway.

Aha!  I have bamboo needles in the right size!  Light colored needles would solve the problem nicely, so I switched the greenies for the bamboo and knitted on.

You knew there was a “but” coming, right?  I do like bamboo needles for some yarns - but this yarn clung to them (in my mother’s immortal phrase) like sh*t to a blanket.  I could move the stitches but only with some difficulty.  The combination of these needles and this yarn were not making for especially fluid knitting.

And then last night, rummaging around in my needle vase (doesn’t everyone have a jar/bottle/vase full of needles on their coffee table?) I found a set of nickel-plated brass double-points - size 3!  I had acquired them some time ago, had no immediate use for them, put them away and forgotten all about them.  So, I switched the sock over to them and… Well, it was like ice skating on new, sharp blades over clean, smooth ice - just enough friction to keep things manageable and otherwise - swift and easy :) You can see them in the picture of the sock above.

So now I’ve meandered to the point.

I don’t use size 3 needles very often.  Hardly at all.  In the smaller needle sizes, I’m far more likely to reach for 2s than 3s.  So how in the world did I wind up with four sets of them?

Knitters are certainly many good things, but I can tell you from first-person experience - some knitters are nuts :)

Chatters is on tomorrow night for those of you who aren’t on vacation and wish to indulge :)

See the “Knitting Chatter” button on the side bar for more information.

It’s always such a good time - drop in for a few (or a lot!) if you can!

On Saturday morning, Myria invited me to come over and look at something on her desk.

There’s no doubt these are Jade’s footprints; they’re way too small to have been made by Goldie’s hooves :) She doesn’t get up on the desk very often but, apparently, some time Friday night she got curious about something, jumped up, traipsed through the dust behind the monitor and then exited via the mouse pad.  Of course this may say more about my (lack of) housekeeping skills than I would prefer but the footprints were so cute that I had to share.

I have been obsessing again - of course!

About entrelac :) Anybody surprised?  Heheh…

I have been trying to find out about the origin and history of the technique.  I discovered two one-sentence references to entrelac being a Finnish technique (and saw it referred to once as Finnish Basketweave) and that’s about it.  I managed to find the Finnish word: konttineule, but using it as a search term only brought me to Finnish knit-blogs - of which there are many.  Though they presented much beautiful work, there was no history of entrelac, no story of origin.

Also, evidently, Finnish nouns are required to be at least a half-mile long.  While it’s entirely possible that I may learn enough terminology to, say, follow a Finnish pattern (have you seen the Finnish on-line knitting magazine - Ulla?), I don’t expect to be speaking it any time soon :)

I still have a few things I want to check out, but if anyone who happens to read this blog can point me in the right direction, would you please?  I can live with almost anything but an un-satisfied curiosity :)

Now, back to the footprint thing…

Since I seemed to have cat feet on the brain (and when Goldie climbs up to roost on the back of my chair that becomes a literal rather than a figurative!), I went looking for paw print lace patterns.  I found two with possibilities.

This pattern is adapted from one that was done in garter stitch - I think the stockinette version looks nicer.  It’s the newer of the two versions and is more the kind of thing I had in mind.  The other…





...is based on an old Shetland pattern.  The knitting of it (after a bit of fiddling around, of course) didn’t give me what I was looking for but did produce a rather nice pattern.  I was trying for a...well...a cat-leaving-dusty-footprints kind of effect and had staggered the repeats within the 11 stitch wide area I was experimenting with.  What I got was a sort of zig-zagging garland effect - not what I’d hoped for, but worth remembering for later use :)

Lastly, there’s this which I found here in Jennifer Fleury’s Cat’s Face Lace Socks…

I’d had the thought that the face and the first paw print above might combine well in an entrelac presentation.  Initially I was thinking about a lace scarf but the designs seem a bit whimsical for that.  Perhaps a child’s blanket?  Definitely something I want to play with :)

I have had an ultra-busy week so there hasn’t been much time to post.  Which, you know, is just as well because I haven’t had a lot of time to knit either :) A few more blocks on the baby blanket and the heel turned on the slipper-sock.

Things should slow down to a dull roar for a while now, so I hope to be able to do more of both!

I did want to let you know, however, that Chatters is on for tomorrow evening.

See the “Knitting Chatter” button on the side bar for more information.

Same bat-time, same bat-channel :)

I hope you all have had a great week and that you have an even better weekend!

Dad is making progress - slowly - but we’ll take what we can get.  He is venturing out more and trying to do more all the time.  Mostly he is succeeding which improves his confidence and helps motivate him.  He still tires very easily and he is still eating poorly.  For that matter, my energy levels aren’t what they once were so, as you can probably imagine, we make an interesting pair as we stumble through the market on impulse power, creaking all the way :)

I am spending a lot of time with dad these days so not a great deal of knitting is getting done.  However, the blanket is about half finished -

I believe I am going to do a border for this, but I don’t quite know what it will be :) I like the thought of a knitted border but the thought of picking up all those stitches around the perimeter makes me a bit dizzy!  A crocheted border would be nice and sturdy too.  And what color?  A darker blue?  White?  Pea green?  Heh… All in good time, I guess.  I’ll know when I get there.

I have also been playing with the idea of combining entrelac with mosaic knitting.

I’m not quite sure how, or even if this would work but I’m hoping I can figure it out because it would be seriously cool!

I also have a notion for a sock/slipper that I think I will start working on fairly soon - maybe over the weekend.  I sure do like the image in my head - now to see if I can squeeze it down through my arms and fingers out onto the needles and into the yarn!

I finally got some more pins yesterday and am hoping to be able to dress the shawl over the weekend.  I confess I’m having some problems in writing the pattern for this but I promise it will be available eventually.  I still haven’t come up with a name though.

The Horse you Rode in on

The Galloping horse

Lucky Horseshoes

Eh....

I met a friend for breakfast on Tuesday and we had such a lovely time, chatting, knitting (me) or crocheting (her) and just peacefully and happily sharing the day.  I had a crepe that was stuffed with fresh strawberries and bananas - wonderful!

I know this is vacation time for many folks but Chatters will be available at the regular time on Saturday evening.

See the “Knitting Chatter” button on the side bar for more information.

Drop in if you have the time and the inclination!

Have a wonderful Independence Day, those in the states.  And for those in the rest of the big, wide, beautiful world - have a great weekend!

God save me from supermarkets on Friday afternoons :) I’m not the most patient shopper in the world to begin with and when stores are crowded and aisles are too narrow to allow two carriages to pass one another, I get a little frantic.  I’m not a full blown claustrophobe, but when I get boxed in and can’t move backwards or forwards, I get just a little panicky.  However, dad needed a couple of things and I wanted to have enough on hand so that we wouldn’t have to go out this weekend if we didn’t want to.

Mission accomplished :)

I’ve been watching Boston Legal (the first three seasons are available on DVD) which I have been meaning to check out, but which I had never seen before this week.  I highly recommend it.  Shatner and Spader work wonderfully together and Shatner is especially impressive as the eccentric Denny Crane.  More than that, the show can be utterly hilarious - something I did not expect from a prime time program involving the legal profession.  My only objection so far is that all the women are Barbie Dolls - pretty, plastic and brains optional.  I know that Candice Bergen joins the cast at some point and I’m hoping that her presence will correct this somewhat.

The baby blanket is coming along nicely and I’m really enjoying the almost mindless knitting.  Everything just flows nicely and it’s all very soothing :) The only thing I was concerned about - and you all know I get a little obsessive about this - is whether I’d have enough yarn.  Having reached the end of the first skein this morning, I can tell you now that I should have more than enough - so I don’t have to worry about that any more.  Yippee!

See the “Knitting Chatter” button on the side bar for more information.

Chatters is definitely on for tomorrow evening - drop in if you can!

And have a sensational weekend!

I bound off the shawl on Saturday afternoon.

I’m pleased with it so far.  Obviously it isn’t blocked yet :) I have been too busy with dad, for one thing and our weather has been very humid, for another.  This has to be able to dry in a day so I’m waiting for a less muggy stretch of weather.  Also, I’m going to need more pins - a lot more pins!  I think this is going to grow considerably with dressing - not that there’s anything wrong with that :)





I have started what I thought was going to be a baby blanket for the little fellow downstairs.  My landlord’s son is just short of a year old and was christened over the weekend.  I had intended to make the baby something all along, but I never came up with an idea I liked and eventually the whole thing just got away from me.





I went with entrelac, since it is a technique I really enjoy doing and am alternating rows of stockinette blocks with rows of broken (beaded) rib blocks.  The yarn is Caron Simply Soft in Light Country Blue and the needle is a Knitpicks Options circular, size 8 US (5.00 mm).  It’s going great guns and I’m enjoying working it up, but…

It’s going to be considerably wider that I had thought.  I keep forgetting that with entrelac, you’re measuring on the diagonal for the width of the piece.  Here, there are nine blocks across; each is 11 stitches wide.  The diagonal on the blocks is just a hair over 5 inches so I’m going to wind up with an overall blanket width of at least 45” - more if I put on a border.  That’s a bit big for a baby :) Still, I don’t think I want to frog it and start over.  Perhaps in a larger size, it will be useful for a longer period of time.

We’ve been watching the degus carefully for signs of another pregnancy.  There haven’t been any.  Our current surmise is that Emma was expecting when we brought her home and that Sunny (formerly Sundance) was simply another young female.  This is a relief.  They have gotten their home the way they like it now (the babies have gone back to the pet shop) and seem to be relaxing and enjoying life.  They’re eschewing their house these days - the warm, humid weather, I think - and have built a rather large nest out of hay and fluff at one end of their cage.  They sleep in the nest, curled quite endearingly around one another :)

Dad is improving a little more every day - definitely a good thing.  I have been taking him wherever he needs to go and I know he’s feeling better because he’s begun telling me how to drive.  Before this, he didn’t have the energy to complain :) He has/had three follow-up appointments in Boston over the next week.  We did the first one yesterday, there’s another on Friday and the last next Monday.  By then, he thinks, he’ll be ready to venture out on his own - at least for small trips like shopping and paying bills.

I hope you’re all having wonderful weeks and that summer and the world are treating you kindly!