Life as a Spectator Sport

This is the first repeat of the Clapotis. I'll have to set it aside to finish some other things, but I wanted to see how it would look.

I love this yarn! The picture doesn't do it justice. It's almost iridescent. I wish I had bought another skein of it to make socks with. But the Clapotis will be lovely, and as soon as I finish the Wavy Scarf, I'll come back to this. If I'm lucky, I might just have it done in time for Rhinebeck.

Saturday, September 29, 2007

Too much knitting

Never thought I'd say that! I'm used to knitting in ten or fifteen minute spurts, a few rows or rounds, and then an interruption of one variety or another. Today I sat and knitted for a couple of hours without much of a break, and my wrists are telling me that was too much.

But it was fun, and I'll probably go again. I'm not good with crowds, and would have enjoyed it more if I had known anyone else or if there had been fewer people. But it was still a nice break from my usual day.

One odd thing occurred. The organizers had multitudes of door prizes, and periodically called out badge numbers and gave away interesting fiber-related things. At one point, the woman with the microphone said the next door prize was a knitting bag from Mosaic in Blacksburg. Mosaic is the closest thing to a local yarn store for me, and I was thinking how nice it would be if I won this time, when she called my number! I leaped up, accepted the bag, gushed something about how much I had hoped I would win that, and returned to my seat to examine my prize. To my amazement, what I was holding was not a knitting bag at all, but a plastic shopping bag imprinted with the name of a completely different store in Roanoke, with a bunch of business cards and a ten dollar gift certificate inside. I stammered something about having been given the wrong thing, but no one paid any attention, and I decided it would be a bit churlish to make a scene over it.

So I have a gift certificate that expires at the end of this year for a shop that was closed when I drove by on the way home, and that I will probably never get back to. I'm not going to use five dollars worth of gas to drive to Roanoke to redeem a ten dollar gift certificate. If I'm lucky, I'll have work up there on a day when I can take time to run by the store again, but otherwise that door prize was a bust.

But I did score some yummy bright red, blue and purple roving from Misty Mountain. I've never spun up anything quite this loud before! I have eight ounces so I can make socks, or a scarf, or a hat and a pair of gloves, whatever strikes my fancy.


I also bought two skeins of their lovely sock yarn to make a Clapotis. The pattern calls for worsted weight yarn, and it had never occurred to me to use anything lighter weight. But several people today had brought Clapotis' made from sock yarn, and I loved the lacier look and feel of them. 800 yards of any really nice worsted weight yarn would have made a substantial dent in my budget, but the same amount of sock yarn was a fraction of the cost.


Finally, in the goodie bag handed out, there was a skein of Claudia hand painted merino sport yarn in the Bearded Iris colorway. This is something I would be unlikely to ever buy for myself, so it was a truly lovely gift.


And when I got home, there was the yarn I had ordered from Ray at Knitivity, some very pretty fingering yarn in his Carina colorway (named for its resemblance to the colors in the Carina Nebula). That was just for stash, because I liked it.

So in spite of the foul-up with the door prize, the day turned out very nicely, and I'll certainly take part in this again next year.

And we're off to NoSoKnit

Just a quick post before I leave for the day, blessedly unencumbered for once with Clarence. We're taking a huge chance to leave him alone for close to nine hours, but he has his Rescue Alert button and he seems confident that he'll be all right. He's had his breakfast, his lunch is in the refrigerator and he has a filled syringe for his lunchtime insulin.

Here is the other Tychus Hat, one of the two I'm taking as my charity submission. It was made with two strands of Red Heart acrylic, and even with only four gores, it's almost too large for me. So I'll use only one strand any time I make this in the future.

The Ducky Blanket is finished, but needs some ends woven in. I didn't manage to complete it in time for my grandson's birthday, though :< Even with that for motivation, I couldn't make myself work with that yarn for more than a few minutes at a time, and I'm glad I won't ever have to touch it again. I'm almost reluctant to send this off to a child, though I'd feel worse if it were going to a baby. This is more along the lines of fulfilling a promise to his mother than giving him something he's going to use very much.

Friday, September 28, 2007

The miracle of life

These lettuce plants are the grandbabies of the lettuce I planted last fall. I saved some seed from that planting, but before I had a chance to get it in the ground, a whole slew of volunteers came up, so I ate some and let some go to seed. Now I have seed from the second generation as well, but it almost seems pointless to plant it, because they just grow all by themselves. This is the third generation of plants from the original seed I threw on the soil in this planter.

I admired them, took pictures of them, and then I ate 'em. (There's more.)

Thursday, September 27, 2007

One down, eight to go

I've been wanting to make something obviously hand-knit to wear to Rhinebeck. Much as I'd like to finish a Luna Moth Shawl or a Central Park Hoodie, that ain't gonna happen. There aren't enough weeks between now and then, and I want to make something for Kay to wear also. So when I came across this neat little scarf from Knitty, and happened to have an appropriate yarn on hand, I grabbed some needles and away we went. Here is the first of nine repeats. The tiny blue speck is a plastic stitch marker to indicate the right side. That isn't absolutely necessary, since the scarf is reversible, but I thought it couldn't hurt.

It goes very fast, nothing but knit and purl. You do have to count rows religiously, however, and since I don't have a row counter, I did the old trick of hash marks on a piece of paper. Worked fine.

This also shows my improvised ball holder, the spindle portion of a 100-CD stack. I've been saving those as I used the CD's and have four on hand now. The balls from my ball winder fit perfectly on them. It's not as easy to use the center-pull end of the yarn because it's pulling from the part that the spindle is stuck into, but I sit the holder on the floor and unwind from the outside.

Besides wanting to get started on something for Rhinebeck, I wanted a project I could take to NoSoKnit on Saturday, something I could work on without having to refer to instructions or a chart, that would let me talk and pay attention to what the others are doing at the same time. This scarf doesn't really fall in the category of mindless knitting, since you have to keep such close track of the rows. But once you've started a row you don't have to look at the directions again until you finish that row and the next one, so it's easy to knit in company. I'll also have a sock with me, the Sockotta one that never seems to get finished.

For my other Rhinebeck project, I think I'll finish the felted tote I started months ago. If I can find both it and the yarn, that is, both of them having been put away for the time being.

Monday, September 24, 2007

When the hotel starts to look like home . . .

You know you've been on the road too long. We stay at a particular Comfort Inn in Richmond on the average of once a week, and it's beginning to look waaay too familiar. We should have been home tonight, but when I checked the agency website this afternoon, I found they had uploaded four more inspections in this area, so here we still are. Fortunately, this hotel has a laundry.

Knitting goes on the road with me, but I miss my spinning. One of these days, I suppose, I'll feel compelled to buy a travel wheel, like an Ashford Joy. I'd love to have one of Jonathan Bosworth's Journey Wheels, but those babies cost an arm and a leg.

Tomorrow night I'll be home. Maybe.

Thursday, September 20, 2007

More yarn fun

Back when I was making the Nubbins dishcloth, I wished I could find some fiber in a similar colorway to spin up for socks. Not long after that, I happened to stop in at The Woolery, and there was an 8 oz. bag of wool sliver from Germany called "Cotton Candy." The colors are a bit more intense, not the muted desert colors that I wanted to call "Sand Painting," or even the more prosaic "Buttercream" that Lily called their Sugar'n Cream dishcloth cotton. But the shades are pretty close, and I'm happy with how it's spinning up. I may ply it with itself, or spin some natural undyed merino to ply with it. Haven't decided that yet, and will probably have to do some sampling before I make up my mind. But it will be socks one of these days, with lots left over for other things. This much is approximately two ounces, so I've got to fill this bobbin to have enough for a pair of socks.

I've finally finished the blasted middle section of the Ducky Blanket, and started on the second end section. Now, with six other things hanging fire, I've got to hurry to get it finished in time. I'll be in DC this weekend, both to work and to attend a recital being given by the singing group Kate is in, and then there's a pile of work to do next week. My own stupid fault for setting it aside for a week, but I was really irritated with it.

Tomorrow I'm on the road all day, no blogging.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Petting session

My favorite online yarn store, The Knitting Zone, sent me a discount coupon to reward me for being a faithful customer. So what did I do, heh heh? I was an even more faithful customer, of course! Today's mail brought two skeins of Cascade 220, destined for some felting project, 2 skeins of Jojoland Melody, for socks, and 2 skeins of Jojoland Harmony, a gorgeous variegated lace weight that is going to end up being a Luna Moth Shawl, I think.

The Cascade 220, one a bright red solid wool and the other a dark red heather.





This is the Jojoland Melody, a variegated 100% wool superwash sock yarn. I would probably not have bought more sock yarn at this point, but it was on sale and I really like the subtle muted colors. I'd like to make some patterned socks, but still be able to use a variegated yarn, and this is a good choice.


And this is the heavenly Jojoland Harmony lace weight, also 100% wool. Each of these tiny balls has 880 yards of yarn, amazing. More than eight football fields of yarn! The colorway isn't as bright as a Luna Moth's wings but I think the shades are similar, so that's probably what I'll make with one ball.


Now I have to upload them to Ravelry, to make my bloated stash list even bigger.

Gearing up for Rhinebeck

I've been to several of the East Coast fiber festivals by now, but this will be the first year for Rhinebeck. Strictly speaking, Rhinebeck is the NYS Sheep and Wool Festival, but because it is held in Rhinebeck, New York, it inevitably came to be referred to as just Rhinebeck. This year it takes place on October 20 and 21, and I had thought to make a long vacation weekend of it, taking my youngest, Kay, along with me. I'd drive to Baltimore on Thursday, stay overnight at Kay's house, and then we'd have an easy drive the rest of the way on Friday.

Unfortunately, my grandson, who has stayed with Clarence sometimes when I wanted a few days by myself, is now working full time and isn't available. I debated whether to call the whole trip off, but at this point I'm still planning to go. Having to take Clarence along means three nights in a hotel instead of being able to stay with my aunt in Hudson, for one thing, and it means driving straight through from here to Rhinebeck in one day, stopping in Baltimore only long enough to pick up Kay. Her bedrooms and bathroom are on the second floor, completely inaccessible to Clarence, so staying overnight in Baltimore would involve yet another expensive hotel stay. But Kay can drive a standard transmission, so she can help with the driving and let me get a bit of sleep along the way. Clarence agreed that he could stay in the hotel room by himself on Saturday and Sunday, which means he has to be supplied with sandwiches or other easy to retrieve finger foods, filled syringes of insulin, and Rescue Alert's 800 number if he needs to call me. I'm always a little apprehensive when we do that, but so far it has worked out all right.

I signed up for Blogger Bingo, which by all reports was hilarious fun last year. One commits to being either a square on the Bingo card (if you have a blog), or a player (if you don't), or you can do both. Over the two days of the festival, you look for other "squares" and mark all whom you find (squares wear or carry some identifying item with the Blogger Bingo logo on it). I added the logo to the sidebar of the blog as well.

Now I just have to start saving money for the inevitable yarn and fiber purchases, sigh.

Monday, September 17, 2007

An unexpected visitor

As I was walking down to the mailbox the other day, I noticed a vaguely familiar looking plant, a weed about waist high with large seed pods at the top. I was in a hurry and didn't really pay attention to it, but later, sitting at the spinning wheel with my hands engaged and my brain in neutral, it burst in upon me that it was milkweed.

I haven't seen a milkweed plant in so many years that I had nearly forgotten what they look like. But here were two of them, a few feet from a busy highway, calmly making seed pods.

Another anomaly is that we've had more Monarch butterflies this year than in quite a while, and of course milkweed is one of their favorite snacks. So I'm wondering whether there is a lot more milkweed here that I just haven't noticed yet, and that is what has drawn the Monarchs. In any case, I'll be watching it over the autumn as the seed pods dry out and split to release the seeds. I loved milkweed as a child, and it's reassuring to see it flourishing here.

Not a baby tychus any more

Like the Tychus hats tend to do, this baby tychus growed into a mama tychus, even though I made only four wedges instead of five. Oh well. Guess I'll have to get out some other yarn and make another smaller one.

This photo doesn't do a good job of showing the pattern, but the purple and white one will. More photos when it's finished.

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Charity knitting

I've knitted hats for local shelters and charities for years, but never participated with anyone else in doing so. This year I'll be going to the Roanoke NoSoKnit (North/South Knit) on September 29, to knit with 99 other knitters, a bunch of LYS owners, and whoever else Rae Creedle, the organizer, has invited. NoSoKnit is limited to 100 registered participants, and I'm darn lucky to be one of them, because although I knew about it in plenty of time to sign up, I forgot about it until it was mentioned in one of the Ravelry groups I belong to. I was #102, but two others dropped out, so I'm going!

The price of admission to NoSoKnit is a knitted item that they will donate to a local charity or hospital. This is one of a group of Tychus hats currently in progress for my donation. The construction isn't obvious from this picture, but it involves five (as written) or four (which seems to be more usual) wedge-shaped pieces of short-row knitting, which magically make a hat with vertical stripes instead of horizontal ones. Besides just being really attractive, it's amazingly versatile. The original directions call for worsted weight yarn used double, but this particular hat is worked with a single strand of bulky yarn, and I've made it with doubled fingering, doubled and single sport weight and DK, and a single strand of worsted. Each makes a different size and appearance. Since I never know who the eventual recipient will be, I don't have to worry about gauge, just get a reasonably good match between the yarn weight and the needle size.

This is some of the Bernat Baby Boucle that I bought for the Ducky Blanket. I would still be working on the Ducky Blanket at the moment, except that I discovered I had worked the middle panel four inches beyond where I should have stopped. The boucle yarn can not be ripped back. The stitches just disappear into the overall texture of the fabric, so there was no hope for it but to unknit every one of the 20 or so rows of 72 stitches. I was so aggravated that I stuffed the blanket back into its plastic bag and threw it in the corner, and cast on for this hat. I had already started one in purple and white, and one with three colors--gray, pink and blue.

It occurred to me that you could felt a Tychus, but the ones I'm making right now for NoSoKnit have to be made of non-wool machine washable and dryable yarns, so felting was not an option. But I found that someone else had felted a Tychus, and the results were about what I had feared, a heavy stiff bowler of a hat. It might still be an option, though, with the right yarn.

Another thing I haven't tried yet is to make the hats with each wedge a separate solid color, like the adorable ones Knitting Nonni made to go with her equally adorable Baby Surprise Jackets. I think I'll try this variation next.

More photos when they're finished.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Coffee Swap

I sent the package off to my swap pal yesterday, as soon as I unpacked the box that finally arrived from Stash Tea. I had assumed they would have regional warehouses, like the other large online merchants. Nope, it all came from Oregon. Now it's all on the way back to Colorado, via priority mail this time.

Now, of course, I wish I had taken a picture of the goodies before sending them off. But there were the two skeins of Noro Blossom, a really pretty Portmeiron teacup and saucer, a Stash Tea sampler, a pound of my own home-roasted organic Honduran coffee, the Nubbins dishcloth, and a little bauble, also from Stash, that I had originally intended as a Christmas present for Kate, but decided to stick in the gift box instead (sorry, Kate, I'll get you another one).

I haven't received my own swap box yet, but going by the number of people on the coffee list who said they were shipping this week, it shouldn't be long. This is fun, and not something I ever expected to do, such a girly thing. Men swap stuff, of course, but not in such an organized fashion. Men put things out on tables and in piles on the ground at swap meets, and paw over each other's offerings, and I have to confess that up to now, I've thought that was a pretty good way to do it. But this was really fun, and I'll probably indulge in it again one of these days.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

That's a funny looking bootie

This poor mis-shapen floppy thing sure doesn't look like a baby bootie, does it! I pinned the sides together and stuffed it with paper to approximate the final shape, if not the final size, but it still doesn't look like anything you'd want give to your favorite grand-niece. I tried to resist felting the first one before I even started the second one, but that was hopeless, and now I think I did the right thing. This way I'll have a finished bootie to compare with when I felt the second one.


Wow, what a difference! But only about half felted at this point. You can still see the stitches, even though it's much smaller.


And here it is, felted down to about half the original size, with no stitch definition left. What surprised me, more than the expected change in size and texture, was the loss of absorbency. Water just ran off the surface, and when I squeezed it, the color changed instantly to nearly the same shade as the dry yarn. I suppose I knew that wool felt was very water-resistant, but I'd never seen it first hand.

Felting it took a lot of squeezing, kneading and temperature shocking, by the way. It didn't want to felt at all at first, which is probably just as well, because in looking at it after the first minute or so, I discovered a thin place I hadn't mended before starting the felting process, and fixed that before it became a real hole. Bev Galeskas, the designer, mentioned in her book, Felted Knits, that anything resembling a small hole in the original knitted piece would almost certainly become a large hole during felting. I could see that she was definitely correct about that, and I'm glad I stopped to see what was going on before continuing the process.

Unfortunately, this pattern suffers from some poor editing. My Ravelry comments spell it out, so I'm not going to repeat it all here. If anyone wants to know the details and doesn't have access to Ravelry, just email me (link on the sidebar).

Labels: Fat Baby Booties, felt, Galeskas

Fat Baby Booties under way

Two nicely wound balls of Cascade 220 heathers, and the beginning of the felted booties. The cast-on edge is the middle sole, and the darker color of the last two completed rows is the edging around the sole.

I didn't think Cascade 220 was a DK yarn, but apparently it's considered to be on the light side of worsted weight. My gauge swatch was actually a bit small. I decided not to go to a larger needle, but to knit less tightly than I usually do, and let the felting process determine the final dimensions.

These are knitting up very fast indeed, and I expect I'll have them both finished and ready to felt by tonight. Tomorrow I'll be on the road again, so the actual felting may not occur until this weekend, depending on how much more work comes in during the week.

Monday, September 10, 2007

Fat Baby Booties

I have just seen The. Most. Adorable. infant footwear ever, the Fat Baby Booties in Interweave Press's special felting issue. I have considered some of the many felting projects out there, said, "Oh, that's nice," and went back to knitting. I even have a half-completed tote bag that will eventually get felted. One of these days. But if I never felt anything else in my life, I will make these baby booties. I can't find any pictures of them other than in the magazine, so pics will have to wait until I make them.

The embroidered satchel is gorgeous too. Wish Interweave had posted pictures of the projects on their website, but all they have is a picture of the cover.

Where's the damn baby!

Anyone listening in at my house this morning would have heard a puzzling, possibly a distressing conversation.

Me: Mutter, mutter . . . Where's the baby? I thought I put it in here [rummaging through a basket of fiber and yarn].

Clarence: Huh?

Me: The baby! I can't find it! Clarence! Are you sitting on it? I had it in that chair!

Clarence: I'm not sitting on the damn baby! [moving, to prove it]

Me: Oh, yeah. I threw it in on my bed after I took the pictures.

The baby, of course, is a more or less newborn sized doll, the closest thing I have to a real baby to model baby things on. Unfortunately, it isn't growing along with Lucinda, the real baby, so this is only going to work for a very short time. I might have to make a year-old sized stuffed dolly.

Sunday, September 09, 2007

Finished baby cap

My niece, for whose baby this is intended, likes to describe things in terms of the food they resemble. She said the Baby Surprise Jacket looked like raspberry sherbet, and the red and white socks like crushed peppermint candy. I like the red and white yarn a lot better now than I did, because of that! I'm waiting to hear what this color looks like. No doubt it will be some variety of blueberry.

Now I need a baby to try it on. I may wait until next week to send it off, and see if anyone turns up at the coffee shop for Saturday morning knitting with a baby.

Coffee swaps and weekend knitting

Swaps of one kind or another are endemic on the knitting and quilting lists, and probably among all the fiber enthusiasts. People swap handknitted socks, scarves, quilt blocks, yarn, fabric, you name it. I haven't been tempted to participate in one of these up to now because I cannot commit to knitting for someone else within a prescribed time period. My own life is just too unpredictable. I could have participated in a yarn swap, but I never seemed to come across one of them at a point where they were taking signups. And the ones I did find were in groups where I didn't know any of the participants. But I'm in a coffee lovers group on Ravelry, and someone suggested a coffee swap. That I thought I could manage, and while I don't know any of the group members personally--face to face, that is--there is the common bond of both knitting and coffee.

The rules call for yarn, coffee or tea, and a pretty mug or cup, plus whatever else the giver thinks the recipient might like. I picked up this gorgeous stuff, 2 skeins of Noro Blossom, at Mosaic on my Labor Day trip, and after handling it and looking at it at home, I regret not having bought some for myself too. Like all the Noro yarns, it is spectacularly beautiful. I'll also send some home-roasted coffee, and a pretty Portmeiron cup and saucer, if the blasted order from Stash Tea ever arrives. I'm also going to tuck in my Nubbins dishcloth. I thought about stitch markers, or some other knitting related goodie, but not knowing what my swap pal already has, I figured everyone can use a dishcloth. If she doesn't want to use it for its intended purpose, she can always make a hot pad of it.

My knitting seems to have fallen into a pattern. During the week, I work on whatever larger project is on the needles. Right now, it's the Ducky Blanket for my grandson, and it's coming along very well. One side panel is finished, and the three times larger middle panel is more than half done. Good thing too, because I just learned that his birthday is ten days earlier than I remembered. But it will be finished in plenty of time.

Weekend knitting has begun to assume a life of its own. At first, I picked up something different just because I had seen something I really liked, had a suitable yarn for, and could complete quickly without taking too much time away from my "regular" project. But more and more now I've been deliberately setting aside my primary UFO in order to make something that can be completed within the weekend, like the dishcloths, and last week's Suede Booties.

This weekend's project is the Norwegian Baby Cap that I've been wanting to make ever since I first saw it. In this photo, it is just about half finished.

It almost didn't get off the ground at all. The knitting itself is as simple as can be, just round and round stocking stitch, with adroitly placed increases and decreases for the shaping. Just the sort of knitting it really like. But I ran short of yarn on the first long-tail cast on, started over, was still short the second time, pulled out a huge long length of yarn, and finally managed to get it cast on with most of the huge long length still hanging off the end. I didn't have exactly the right needles, 2.5mm and 3mm circulars, but since I prefer dpn's anyway, and I did have a set of 2.75 bamboo dpns, I decided I would just use them for the whole cap, knitting rather tightly at the beginning to simulate the 2.5mm size, and looser at the point where the directions said to change to the 3mm needle.

So far, so good. But 125 stitches proved to be too much for my 5" dpn's. Stitches kept sliding off the ends and having to be rescued and worked back up. No matter how I distributed the stitches, the decreases always seemed to come close enough to the end of a needle that I'd have to slip stitches from one needle to another to accommodate them, and I eventually got really aggravated with it. So I ripped it all out and started over with a 12" 2.5mm circular, the one I had decided against to begin with because it seemed too short.

Well . . . it was too short. The 12" circular needles have a bend at the cable end to permit the needles to be held at more or less a ninety-degree angle when knitting, since there isn't enough cable length to do so otherwise. Unfortunately, that means it's almost impossible to hold them parallel to each other as you need to do when you're knitting two stitches together through the back loops. I finished the first seven rows of garter stitch without too much trouble, but the first increase/decrease row defeated me. I had to slip the two stitches to be knitted together to another needle, do the decrease, then slip the resulting single stitch back to the working needle. Way too much trouble. So I set the whole thing aside until I could get some 16" circulars of the correct size.

The new needles came in on Friday, and yesterday I started over. I wasn't happy with the join I'd made using the 12" needle. Again, because the needle is so short, it was impossible to do the kind of join I prefer and I'd had to just pull the beginning and ending stitch together as tightly as possible. It didn't look good. So I ripped it all out again, cast on again (only took two tries this time), and finally have it mostly finished. I'll complete it by tonight and take another picure.

One works ten rounds of combined increases and decreases, and then just the decreases until the last eleven stitches. I've decreased to the point where I couldn't work on a 16" needle any more, and transfered it back to the dpn's for the last few rounds. Once the initial hurdles were over with, it went very fast, and I love the subtle contrast of the Koigu yarns. I'll definitely be making more of these, and may try it on heavier yarn next time for a larger size. Like a lot of simple patterns, it would be very easy to size up.

Thursday, September 06, 2007

Just too much

I'm not easily shocked, offended or grossed out. A houseful of kids and three years in a volunteer rescue squad saw to that, and I could never have claimed "delicate sensibilities" to begin with. But the commercial that Kellog is running right now for its All-Bran cereal has me totally disgusted. I'm not sure whether I'm irritated merely by the actual content of the commercial, or insulted that its creators think there is anything subliminal about its message. If that's the case, their target audience must be about ten years old.

To be brief, the commercial opens with a safety-helmeted middle-aged man holding up a box of All-Bran and explaining how he needed to be "loosened up." Okay, no surprise there. But as he speaks, a poopy-colored I-beam slowly emerges from a hole in the concrete wall behind him and falls onto the ground. In the next scene, a series of round barrels (you don't need me to make the connection for you, do you?) rolls off the back of a truck. Finally, still behind the speaker, a huge mass of muddy looking dirt slides out of a dump truck onto the ground, and we fade to the next news segment.

Come on. Is the American public so jaded that it takes something like this to get their attention? Or, God help us, is the target audience's brains really working at about the fourth grade level? I feel more and more as though I'm living in a different world from a large part of the population, and I don't think just getting old accounts for it.

Monday, September 03, 2007

More pictures

These came out so well I just had to take more pictures of them. And they knit up extremely fast, only a couple of hours. Now I really want to make them in other colors. The pattern would be very easy to size up, so they will probably appear again in larger sizes and various colors. Gotta use up that Plush somehow!

Sunday, September 02, 2007

Some things are just cute

Even people who run screaming from the whole idea of "cute" would have to admit that these baby "Uggs" are cute. That is the only word for them. They were designed by Candi Jensen, and shown on a Knitty Gritty episode back in about 2005. I couldn't find a date on the website, but the oldest versions I've seen on Ravelry seem to date from then. The brown yarn is sueded nylon ribbon from Berrocco, called, as one might expect, "Suede." The white is a chenille type yarn, also nylon, also from Berrocco, called "Plush." I've also seen versions made in pink, purple, green and red Suede and in varying colors of other yarns. My niece would not thank me for making them in pink, but I might make another pair in the green Suede. One knitter also lined them by making an additional bootie in Plush, sticking it into the Suede bootie and grafting the tops together. It had occurred to me that these probably were going to be more decorative than warm, so I might try doing that.

Besides the cute quotient, they have the virtue, from my point of view, of shaping themselves as they knit. This shows the outside as it looked before I added the white edging and sewed up the back and sole seams. The lower edge is the middle of the sole seam, with the toe sticking out like a little nose. All this is accomplished with no more than increases at strategic points on the sole, and decreases on each side of the toe area. The color shift is because the flash didn't go off. If I had realized how much difference it was going to make in the color values, I would have retaken it. The top picture is very close to the actual color.

I think that when I make these again, I will make the leg portion longer. That's the only thing that concerned me about the design. It looks as though it would come off the baby's foot pretty easily.

Saturday, September 01, 2007

Round and round and round it goes . . .

And when it stops (the ball winder, that is), you have a neat little center-pull cake of yarn instead of a long twisted skein.

I've been having fun winding the skeins of yarn I bought today at Mosaic Yarn Shop in Blacksburg. Gina is having a huge sale--30%, 50%, even 75% off much of the yarn--so I helped a bit to clear out the shelves. Most of it was skeined, so I dug out the ball winder and wound about half of it into balls.

Koigu Merino is certainly pretty in its original form. This is much more purple than indicated by the picture, a lovely lavender and denim-y blue blend.

But it's equally pretty, and infinitely more useful, wound into a ball. Here are both the colorways I bought, one skein of each, to make a baby cap. They are actually shades of purple, not shades of blue. I don't know whether it's my camera or my monitor that is distorting the color.
I also scored a couple of balls of Louisa Harding Kimono Angora, which may become gloves for me, or perhaps a lacy scarf, ten skeins of Elizabeth Lavold Silky Tweed at 50% off the original price, and a couple of other small things. Everything in the store was at least 10% off, so I played fast and loose with the plastic. Now I have to get the rest of it photographed and loaded up on Ravelry. Ravelry says I already have 38 items in my stash, and that doesn't include all the old Red Heart crap that I'm making the granny square afghan with. I keep finding things. Every time I pull out a box or open a drawer, there is more yarn.

Back to the ducky blanket, which is coming along surprisingly fast.

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