Some progress

Everyday, I knit a bit on each of these projects.

The curtain gets a minimum of two rows per day, 200 stitches per row. I estimate I am about halfway done, plus 10% for shrinkage, plus curtain rod sleeve.

When I started the shawl, I knit ten rows a day. Now that there are 295 stitches on the needles, it too gets knit at least two rows a day. (The next row is an increase row, then it will be 319 stitches.)

The curtain requires a lot of counting, not so much the shawl, except for the increase rows. Some days I am tempted to work on something short and sweet, but we all know where that path leads - more UFOs.

The trouble with denim

Denim is one of those yarns where I like the destination more than the journey, because it is so inelastic. Unfortunately, it also shrinks lengthwise, so one needs to knit about 10% more than the measuring tape indicates. And since, I am knitting a curtain, there will also need to be a bit extra for the sleeve for the rod.

This is going to be one heavy curtain. Linen (another inelastic yarn) would probably have been a better choice, but denim is what I had, so denim is what I knit.

The trouble with shawls

Most shawl patterns start with about 3 stitches. Initial progress seems rapid, despite the increase rows. But once there are over 200 stitches on the needles, things bog down a bit.

The photo above was taken around row 98, 223 stitches. I'm now on row 112, 247 stitches. The finished shawl will be 176 rows, 391 stitches. Gah.

Pompomless

I had every intention of making pompoms for my golf club covers. In fact, I did make some. My g'daughter glommed onto the first one, the second one turned out okay, the third one fell apart when I tried to tie it off. Then I decided I was not a pompom kind of girl.

Pattern: Basic Golf Club Head Cover, by Sheila Toy Stromberg
Yarn: Purl Essence Sincerely Baby, colorways 'Sincerely Pink' and 'Sincerely Gray'
Needles: US8
Modifications: fancied them up with Fair Isle interspersed with solid stripes to indicate the club number (no striping on the putter cover)

Since I play on a par-3 course, I don't have much call to use more than one driver. And I find fiddling with the covers to be a PITA. However, the covers are cute and add a bit of panache to my tired old clubs.

KIPing, WIPs, and a new tool

Ordinarily, I am not shy about knitting in public. In fact, I find it the perfect activity when stuck somewhere, waiting, waiting, waiting. The other day, the waiting occurred in the car dealer's lounge, while my Honda CRV had its allegedly defective air bag replaced. Yet, I was hoping no one would start up a conversation with, "So. What are you making?" When others ask that, they expect to hear something like "sweater" or "baby blanket" or "afghan". But I was working on a curtain for my master bath. To another knitter, it makes perfect sense to knit a curtain or a towel or a golf club cover, but others immediately want to know WHY IN THE WORLD you would knit something so easily purchased?!?

I have to admit that, while working on this particular item, the same question sometimes occurs to me. It's a lot of knitting that is not all that interesting, in a yarn I don't particular like working with. The wrong side rows are all purl, another aspect I don't like. BUT. I am convinced that I will like the result. So I force encourage myself to knit a bit on it every day.

The denim curtain is an indication that my knitting mojo is returning. Starting a shawl is another sign. I'm not much of a shawl wearer. However, on our trip to NYC, when in an environment that felt a little chilly but not cold enough for a sweater, I was wishing I had a light shawl, like several of the women I saw who were smarter than me about AC in airports. There even was a pattern in my Ravelry queue, one that also designated which yarn from my stash to use. Kismet.

Like most shawls, it doesn't look like much at the outset. Knit from (splitty) alpaca, it may also be too warm for summer use. Knitting ten rows of garter at a sitting is a snap right now,but I'm sure it will devolve into drudgery when those rows are hundreds of stitches long. However, I am again convinced that I will like the results.

The above project required a trip to Simply Socks to purchase some new circs. (Although basically an online venue, their brick-and-mortar store is open one day a week.) While there, I also bought this sock ruler.

I don't know why someone has not thought of this handy little tool before. Or, more honestly, I wish I had thought of this. As far as I know, Simply Socks is its only vendor.

How's your summer knitting going?

My new addiction

No, not a new fiber addiction, but a new-found love of GOLF. I took some lessons this spring on a whim, and have been out on a 3-par course a couple of times since. My clubs are some old cast-offs from a friend. None have covers, so I decided to knit my own.

The set has three woods and a putter of unknown origin. Each cover for the woods will have stripes in the Fair Isle to correspond to the club number, e.g., 1, 3, 5. The colors will be reversed for the putter. Oh, and they all get pompoms. This is a fun and easy, one size fits all, who cares about gauge project.

What to do with those leftovers from the 1970's

My SO and I recently spent a few days in NYC, running ourselves ragged in an effort to experience as much as we could in three days. My first night home, I slept the sleep of the dead, that's how exhausted I felt. But it was fun!

Among the places we visited was the new Whitney. The current exhibit is "America Is Hard to See", showcasing American artists. My favorite pieces were the two below.

Despite what the placard that accompanied these pieces says (see last photo), I view this one as a history of my early crafting experience: the obligatory granny square afghan, the yarn octopus, homemade dolls, macrame, etc. If I had kept all that crap, I could create my own version of this work of art.

Anyone who came of age in the late '60s/early '70s might have a collection of candles such as this one. Again, it reflects what could be in my closet if I had not long ago tossed it all. Quite the shrine to the Counter Culture.

Just for grins and giggles, here is what the placard for these pieces says. A bit more lofty than my interpretation. What do you think?

These works led to a discussion of what kind of art I could create with all the old computer equipment that I have yet to dispose of. Possible titles: A Pyramid of Technology, Digital Detritus, My So-Called Career. Then I could donate it to a museum.

Almost famous

The Little Shop of Spinning, where I purchased my wheel, was recently featured in Spinning Daily, here. The caption on the bottom photo is incorrect - that group of people is not from the Fort Wayne Flax and Fleecers Dye Day, it's from a one-day workshop I attended last winter. Guess which person in the photo is me.

I made something else

Still no knitting going on here, but I did work up another bit of weaving. This could be another coaster, or a doll blanket, or an area rug for a doll house. My g'daughter will probably abscond with it, and the tied off ends will probably unravel, as the instructions were rather vague about how best to finish things up.

The travel knitting may devolve from socks to golf club covers, which are rather sock-like. I may even knit them "toe" up, with a bit of Fair Isle. What say you?

I made something

My knitting mojo appears to be on summer vacation, even though it is only May. Meanwhile, I bought a toy loom and have been playing with that a bit.

This is a coaster, I guess, with fringe. I thought using the frame itself for the sides was a smart move, but while that kept the sides straight, it also meant more threads to tie off.

My SO and I will be traveling soon, and I'm contemplating what knitting to ignore take along. Even if there is no hotel knitting, there undoubtedly will be airport and airplane knitting. I'm thinking an easy pair of DK socks.

On hiatus

I haven't been knitting much, but Opal has. Enjoy! (I "borrowed" these from GoComics.com.

Time out

I took (another) tumble a couple of weeks ago. Injuries include a sprained wrist, so I rested it until the swelling went down. It is still wrapped in an Ace bandage, but I find I can knit again. And type.

Not that the knitting has been going that well. I'm still slogging along on the Easy as Pie blanket. All the circles are squared, but I decided to redo the first six, slipping stitches knitwise, as it makes for a smoother fabric. The first one I picked up to redo was missing a row on color one. No problem, I'll just pick up an extra stitch for that quadrant. Things were going smoothly, until I reached the final quadrant, and instead of having 30 stitches left, there were 39. Gah!

I tossed that one aside, and several days later, after I had recovered from that disappointment, I checked the remaining five. All the circles were as they should be. I am still going to resquare them, and then I'll decide whether to completely redo the screwed up circle or reduce the blanket from 4x4 to 3x5.

Thought process

Even though I am not knitting DK boot socks right now, I like to have a pair of socks on the needles at all times. At first, I picked out the pattern for Errant Socks (from Mason-Dixon Knitting Outside the Lines) for my next sock project, but I could not easily figure out how to modify it for my big feet. Then I decided I'd knit them for my daughter. Then I decided if I were knitting for her, I should use the yarn I purchased for making her work socks, which is black because she almost always wears black slacks at work. Then, while knitting the first toe, I realized that black yarn was not the best yarn for this pattern because of the cables; also, my eyes are old. So I switched to the Dead Simple Lace Socks pattern (from Socks from the Toe Up). But since I had already started the toe, I stayed with the more rounded one from the Errant Socks pattern. Does this make sense?

The sock yarn I am using for this is Lang Yarns Jawoll Superwash 4-ply fingering. While pulling the first yards from the skein, something seemed to be holding things up. I fished around inside of the skein, thinking there was a cardboard core or something in there, only to pull out a spool of black thread. WTH?

I think I have never seen this before and couldn't imagine why it was there. Turns out it is 2-ply yarn to use for reinforcing toes and heels. I hope this is not a bad omen for the yarn in general, nor the fact that this yarn has been discontinued.

FO - another pair of boot socks for me

Even though I am not officially "cold sheeping", I decided to stick to projects for which I have yarn. That means plowing through skein after skein of DK sock yarn. There is one more left, but I am saving that for travel knitting.

Pattern: none to speak of, just plain ordinary toe-up socks
Yarn: ONline Supersocke 6-Fach Milano, colorway 1618
Needles: US3

The weather has finally turned, so I don't anticipate wearing these until next winter. There is nothing like handknit wool socks to take the bite out of bitter cold.

Knitting on the hoof

There was some kind of knitting thing in Freimann Square a while back. The only trace that remains is a bit of finery for General "Mad" Anthony Wayne. The scarves seem fitting for the kind of winter we have had here.

Indigo-go

A week or so ago, I attended another workshop on natural dyeing, this one including indigo. I've been a little obsessed with the idea of dyeing with indigo ever since I read Kay Gardner's post on shibori, a.k.a. resistant dyeing. Not so obsessed to actually try it, but obsessed just the same. At this workshop, we worked only with yarn, but I learned how to dye with indigo, so when the itch must be scratched, I am ready (as soon as I accumulate the necessary equipment and ingredients).

In the previous fiber dyeing workshops I have attended, we mordanted the yarn before dyeing. In this one, we learned a one-pot method whereby the mordant was added to the dye pot. Either way, the yarn must be soaked beforehand. The instructor supplied one-ounce skeins, enough for each of us to have five. (That's a lot of niddy-noddying!)

The first dye batches we did were marigold and cochineal. The former produced a golden mustard color. The latter initially resulted in coral rather than red, probably due to the fact the cochineal was wrapped in cheesecloth; when simply added to the dye bath, it produced a rich red.

Then it was time for the indigo. We had two pots going, one for blank yarn, one for overdyeing some of the already dyed yarn. Indigo is fussy, but magical. The dye bath looks greenish yellow, as does the yarn when first pulled out. But contact with oxygen in the air quickly turns the yarn blue, right before your eyes. If you are not satisfied with the shade of blue, the yarn can go back in the pot repeatedly.

I chose to overdye the coral skein and one of the mustard ones, the latter producing a lovely green.

The instructor also tried dyeing with some turmeric root that is now available at the local food co-op. It produced a pale yellow that I like better than the mustard gold.

Here are the class rsults: indigo on the left, then marigold overdyed with indigo, then cochineal overdyed with indigo, then the two shades obtained from the cochineal, and in the back the marigold.

I had to skidaddle at the end of class for grandma duty. While driving the g'daughter to my house, I told her what I had been doing all morning. Of course, she wanted to dye some yarn, too. So I dug out some blank sock yarn and Kool-Aid, and we dyed our own. Being four, she did not quite get what we were doing, but I hope I am planting seeds for the future.

It will be okay

I've been marching along, working on the Easy as Pie blanket, squaring up the circles. Only four more to go! But I was beginning to worry that the squared circles would not lay flat when done. Then I got the bright idea to block one and see how it turned out.

Whew!

Picking up a UFO after such a long time is problematic. I could not remember if I had already switched to the Irish cottage knitting style when I started (I had but had not yet learned to upsize the needle to make up for tighter stitches). While seeing if the pattern specified how to M1 at the points, I realized the slipped stitches were supposed to be slipped knitwise; I'm not sure I did that, but I am now. I want to do my best, but some days my best is not very good. Since this is a blanket for my 4-year-old g'daughter, and it will remain here at my house, I'm not concerned about perfection. Next time I will do better (I hope).

Fixed object

When my SO first brought me his injured Fibonacci vest, I thought he had snagged it on something. On further inspection, I realized that the damage occurred where the individual rounds of the button/neck/bottom band began and ended. Did I do a lazy job of weaving in ends? Did the fact I skipped blocking the vest allow the ends to work their way loose? Was this just too stressful a spot to begin and end the rounds (upper right shoulder)? No one - least of all me - knows.

I was slow to repair this, primarily because I was not sure how without completely removing the band, something I was prepared to do if necessary, but I really did not want it to be necessary. Eventually, I undid the bind off and tinked back two rounds (which saved me from having to remove buttons and redo button holes). Then I tied together the ends of rounds that were still intact, added a "patch" to the mostly still intact round, then reknit two rounds and the bind off. (Fortunately, I had made a note in Ravelry about the bind off, as I had done a yarn-over bind off around the bottom.) I carefully wove in the ends and blocked the thing to help weld those ends to the fabric.

Were I to knit this vest again - or if I had to remove the entire band - I would do one (or more) of the following:

• Knit the band in one color instead of changing colors each round
• Start the rounds at a less stressed spot, like somewhere around the bottom
• BE MORE CAREFUL

It's still cold here (-4 F when I got up this morning), so the vest is now doing its job of keeping my SO warm. He says it feels like a big hug.

Not fashion forward

I guess one could call this a "grandpa vest". Nothing special, just an exercise in top-down knitting. I also used up the last of the Wool-Ease Chunky left over from this project.

Pattern: Sleeveless Sweater by Barbara G. Walker
Yarn: Lion Brand Wool-Ease Chunky, colorway 115 'Bay Harbor'
Needles: US11
Modifications: Stuck with a plain vanilla design, for simplicity's sake and to avoid running out of yarn.

This project was quite the learning experience. For one thing, I started with a different pattern and different needles before settling on the final ones. I struggled with gauge. I learned how to do an invisible cast on (eventually) and how to get the arm hole borders to lay flat by the armpits. Using a store-bought vest to help me with things like width, arm hole size, etc., I sized the knitted vest to the external dimensions of the store-bought vest, forgetting that the chunky yarn would subtract from the internal dimensions, so the fit is a bit snug. I redid the bind off for the neck and arms multiple times, finally settling on EZ's sewn bind off, and the arms are still a bit binding.

BUT. It is comfortable and warm, if rather plain and dowdy, perfect for wearing around the house or under a jacket.

Mystery hat solved

In an incredible stroke of foresight, I actually wrote down the name of the pattern for the hat project that was languishing in the car: Graham. It's a slouchy hat that has already been claimed by my daughter, since for some reason she has been hatless this winter.

Pattern: Graham, by Jennifer Adams
Yarn: Plymouth Encore, colorway 520 (dark gray)
Needles: US7 and US9
Modifications: none

Graham is a super easy knit with easy to follow instructions. And instead of abandoning the knitter to "continue in pattern", Ms. Adams provides explicit directions for the crown. If you need a quick, stylish hat, this is the one to knit.