Wednesday, May 25, 2005

Sun?  What’s a Sun?

We’re on our I-don’t remember how manyth day of wind, rain and unseasonably cool temperatures.  Getting a little old, frankly.  The temps I can live with - even rain now and again.  But I sure do miss the light.  And, to add injury to insult, the feeder blew off the tree, smashing in the alleyway below.  Just when we were getting our customers back, too.  Oh well, a trip to WalMart will fix that but I’m going to be afraid to hang the new one until the wind subsides some.

I’ve made a little more progress with the stole, as you can see :) I’m liking the cable patterning very much and it’s coming out nicely.  I believe, if I continue this project, that I will twine the center cable all the way from beginning to end.  The side motifs will intertwine periodically and symmetrically, but not continuously. 

There are two things threatening this.  The first, and probably most curable condition is the needles.  They are incredibly slick so that doing the cabling-without-a-needle trick is an exercise in terror.  I have resorted to the old tried and true method using my gull-wing cable needle and that works just fine.  However, it interrupts the flow of the work something fierce and really slows down the progress.

Solution?  Try wooden or bamboo needles.  My Brittany walnuts are probably long enough to handle the number of stitches so I’m going to give that a shot.  Probably… If I can make peace with the second issue which is…

This color is dull.  Green isn’t my favorite in the first place (I had originally gotten this yarn with the idea of making an afghan for my father who does like green) and this heathery abomination grates on my nerves.  But I have a bunch of it and I really should use it for something.

This is nearing conclusion though the jury’s still out as to whether to end it when the first ball of yarn runs out or continue onto the second ball to see what the colors will do as the rows get long enough to span the color shift.  Part of me wants to be done with the project because this yarn is so funky to work with.  The other part, of course, is really curious to see what happens with the colors.  I guess I’ll know when I get there :) Yesterday, Myria asked me if this yarn came in pink.  It does :)





For all my bitching about the boucle, I have to admit that the fabric is nice - soft, plushy and surprisingly warm so I believe the shawl will be useful after all.  This might make a nice baby blanket.  While it is synthetic, acrylic and nylon, I think, it has a nicer feel to it that, say, Snowflake or any of the similar kid’s fluffy yarns that were so popular this past year or so.  This is just my opinion, of course.  While the boucle is a bit of a challenge to work with, the resulting fabric is pretty nice.  The feel of the fluffy-puffy yarns makes my skin crawl and I don’t think I’d be able to work with them even if I wanted to.

I think maybe I’m going to track down a new bird feeder this afternoon.  Since I’m planning on dropping by my dad’s, going a bit further north afterwards shouldn’t be any big deal.  Any bets that dad’s built an addition on to the house since I saw him last?  Why let a little thing like a broken hand slow you down, after all?

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1. Oh Robbyn.... I hear you. Incase you are wondering it is the 5th day of rain. My dock is ready to float away. The cable stole is gorgeous. I like the Seraphina shawl too.I squished the yarn at JoAnn’s the other day. I could not decide whether I liked the feel. I just made my stepdaughter a “Trellis Shawl” . I used Red Heart “Plush” . It is very soft and quite warm. I need to post a picture tonight. Hope you got a nice feeder for your feathered friends. I am so enjoying my Balitimore Orioles. I bought another feeder for them the other day.

   Posted by Maureen  on  05/25  at  07:37 PM
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2. Maureen - I guess we’ll just have to live through it, eh?  And hope there’s still sunshine on the other end :)

   I’m real curious to see your V-stitch shawl :) Think I’ll head on over!

   Posted by Robbyn  on  05/25  at  09:22 PM
   Location : Wandering in the wilderness...



3. Oh, Robbyn, I do not support having to knit with any yarn you consider an abomination.  (I say this even as I am trying to figure out what to knit in my gorgeous heathered green yarn...which I love) My motto: No such thing as “gotta knit it.” There is always someone else who will love it.  I just removed several batches of cotton yarn from my stash on just that principle.

   Posted by Rob  on  05/26  at  10:49 AM
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4. Rob - If I were knitting solely for myself I would agree.  But I sometimes find myself in the position of knitting for someone else and even though the color/texture/fiber isn’t to my liking, it may be something they just adore :)

   Posted by Robbyn  on  05/26  at  11:55 AM
   Location :

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