WolfWeave

Crisis averted! Only a few days later than promised, my scrumbles are finally finished and in the mail, or shall we say post (or perhaps we had better just say quite expensive global priority mail), winging their way across the continent and the Pacific Ocean to Prudence in Australia…hopefully to arrive in the advertised 3-5 days. [And Prudence, although the scrumbles have been steamed flat, they may take it into their heads to curl up during shipment, so feel free to beat them into submission when they arrive!] My knit and crochet scrumbles, soon to be absorbed into the greater good of a cape and shawl, are hereby submitted for your perusal. Of course, my last-minute photographs cannot begin to capture the colors, let alone the textures of the yarns or stitches used, and fail completely to show their three-dimensional qualities. My sincere hope is that Prudence’s daughter Dimity (a much more talented photographer than I) can take more revealing photographs of the scrumbles when they arrive Down Under.

First, we have the two previously seen medium sized scrumbles:

Next, the elusive Gem:

The origami-folded Butterfly (which began as a flat piece of knitting)…the photo does not show how 3-d it is:

The previously steeked Lace scrumble:

The Mermaid:

and, finally, a mini-scrumble, to tuck in wherever needed:

It should be obvious that the first scrumbles are destined for the gem-tone cape and the last for the underwater-themed shawl. I wish you could see them in person. The Butterfly for example. It started life as a flat piece of knitting made up of 3 separate threads held together: two yarns from Blue Heron: a multi-colored cotton chenille in “Sunset” and a petite raw silk in “Early Meadow,” and some Rowan Kidsilk Haze in “Marmalade.” Then I folded the sides inward, origami-style, to make it thicker and stitched the center together with some unidentified shiny red glittery yarn I had. I stitched the bottom pieces of the folds down with an old ball of dorothée bis “dorothée lamé frisette lurex.” Another unidentified ball of gold and bronze glitter lines the bottom edge, while the top edge is crocheted with an old ball of Gemini Innovations Knitting & Crocheting Ribbon (100% rayon) with 2 lines of gold thread running through the ribbon. Then I used some Trendsetter Aura in maroon to outline the center and top edge.

Finally I tortured myself by emphasizing the bottom edging and making butterfly line markings through the wings with surface crochet using some multicolored railroad yarn from Schachenmayr Nomotta called “Scala.” All of which leads me to this (aside from pointing out that there is no possible way a photo can show you what this scrumble looks like in person): who the hell invented railroad yarn and why? I mean, heaven knows I like novelty yarns as well as the next person; I’m certainly not a plain wool or cotton purist; but railroad yarn is just plain torture to crochet with (and I was using an H hook) and I can’t imagine knitting with it. I know thousands of trendy people have made extremely lovely scarves with Eros and other railroad yarns this past winter but I cannot imagine the torture they put themselves through. This yarn is designed to snag the tip of your needle or hook at every stitch; that’s how it’s made…WHY would you knit with it??? WHY would anyone invent it??? Sure, it’s shiny and cool but so are hundreds of other novelties and they don’t make it their mission to snag your tools. Well, it’s beyond me and that’s my rant for the day! Hope my package arrives safely in Oz.

As a result of being sick the past few days, I made a really stupid mistake in one of my scrumbles (which was really 2 knitting swatches put together) for Prudence in Australia (see below); i.e., it wasn’t until I’d finished knitting the whole second swatch that I noticed its right side was attached to the wrong side of the first swatch! Here you can see the purl side of the multicolored “feather & fan” attached to the knit side of the “diamond lace”:

Here you can see the knit side of the “feather & fan” attached to the purl side of the “diamond lace”–definitely not what I meant to do:

As you can see, I tried to detach the second swatch by carefully putting its pick up/cast on edge stitches onto a needle and then undoing the bindoff edge of the first swatch–which might have worked (in theory), had the first swatch not been a lace stitch knit in mohair. I tried to catch the stitches but kept losing some and the mohair was a bitch very difficult to undo, (Maybe someone out there knows a more intelligent knitting way of releasing the castoff edge of one piece from the bound off edge of another and maybe that superior being would care to enlighten me?) so suddenly it came to me–why not try steeking? What have you got to lose? At this rate, you’re going to lose the whole lace swatch anyway.

Luckily my sewing machine happened to be out (and staring at me with a very stern look I might say, as I am way behind in working on my Art2Mail and Postmark’dArt 2005 swap postcards, let alone starting my 2006 ones) so I just turned it on and ran a tight straight stitch as close as I could get to the needles without running into them (actually not as close as I would have liked but the presser foot wouldn’t go down until the needles were out of the way) and then ran another line of stitching about half an inch away. Then I reinforced each line again (for luck?).

Then I cut between the lines and, guess what, nothing unraveled past the stitching. Not even the lace. Imagine that!!

Steeking really does work!

I also used, for the first time, my Scunci steamer,

to block the bejeesus out of my lace piece (which demonstrated how tight my row of machine stitching had been–but, hey, I’ll cover it up with some crochet). As others have pointed out before me, Scunci does a fine job of steaming. Here are some before and after being steamed photos of the steeked bits:

Diamond lace (purl side) before steaming:

Diamond lace (knit side) all relaxed after its nice steam bath:

And “feather and fan” after being steamed out:

Now, on a completely different note, a round of applause please…I am officially a member of the Knitting Blogs ring!! So the button link in my sidebar will now work. (And I don’t know what has happened to the FiberArts blog button but it seems to have disappeared from everyone’s site, though the ring still works.)

In lieu of any actual knitting (because there sure hasn’t been any knitting going on here), I offer these outdated gratuitous photos instead. An artsy shot of my first multidirectional scarf:

and two photos from our trip last spring to Seattle. One of my favorite shop, Hilltop Knitting:

and the aptly named So Much Yarn:

Enjoy this brief interlude. Hope to be back with actual knitting progress to report soon! (If not actual knitting progress, then at least photos of actual knitting purchases!)

I honestly don’t know which is worse…trying to figure out the tiniest elements of this html coding which might as well be (and is) Greek to me (but you’ll notice my sidebar does look a lot better, as I was able to learn the paragraph sign trick of separating the blog buttons), or trying to figure out a new pattern. I spent a couple of hours (all I had available before I fell into the nap of the dead) yesterday trying to learn the Channel Island cast-on (which I finally did, or think I did, yay!) and then trying to start a swatch for the Calliope pattern but, honestly, I tell you–size 2 needles with sport weight yarn? I mean, who are they kidding? How long is it going to take to knit this shell? And how tight is it going to be? And size 2 needles?–I might as well be knitting lace or socks or something! Anyway, that’s just my rant from yesterday afternoon as it became painfully clear after only 2 rows where I could hardly see what I was doing, that I am definitely going to have to start over and use ring dividers to separate the pattern repeats. Basically it seems as though the pattern repeats are easy enough but, again–size 2 needles?–I could hardly see what I was doing, so how would I know? I was thinking about working up a swatch in Shine Worsted with size 4 or 5 needles just to get the hang of the pattern but that would hardly test my gauge for the shell would it? Anyway, in frustration, I put it all away and took a much-needed nap intead.

Then last night I tried to clean up my sidebar and entered the land of the lost alien coders from outer space, searching some “html for dummies” webpage and finally asking my 15-year-old son how to separate all the blog buttons so everything didn’t look so crowded together. I had figured out I needed the paragraph markup but he told me you only had to put it at the beginning and not, with a slash, at the end as well. So, I separated everything, moved things around, shifted my knitting blog and fiber arts blog buttons to the left and went to bed feeling very pleased with myself, as everything looked quite beautiful and, most of all, organized.

Then I wake up this morning and the fiber arts blog button has disappeared and I’m sure it was something I did in my sleep. So, I’ve fiddled with it for the past half hour, instead of knitting, which I had decided to do since I was so rudely awakened at an early hour (ostensibly to separate yolks from whites for waffles…but actually by my 17 year old son screaming at his father who was surreptitiously trying to remove the Playstation from his bedroom as a “punishment”). Anyway, after much copying and pasting and fiddling and coder’s angst, it turns out not to be my fault at all, as the fiber arts bloggers main page has this notice on it: “This account has been temporarily suspended. For more information, and to restore the account, please contact One World Hosting Customer Service.” So, I assume someone will notice after Easter and the fiber arts blog button will return to my page and to everyone else’s.

Well, that took up an hour! It’s back to waffle time. Now to mix all the ingredients with the egg yolks and let it sit for another hour before attempting to whip the egg whites and wake the teenagers. Think I’ll get to knit in that hour? With any luck, I’ll at least get as far as ripping out what I did yesterday and finding my tiny rings to use and maybe for the swatch I’ll just cast on in a simple fashion so it won’t take so long and I can actually see what I’m doing.

Oh–Channel Island Cast-On–Must remember to give MUCH THANKS to several websites (will post them later) without whose drawings and photos I never would have learned what it was, let alone how to do it.

I’m back…you’ll notice that I’m not knitting. I have, however, searched through all my ring markers for some tiny enough to fit on size 2 needles. I love my Clover rings but even the smallest is a bit large (though the packaging assures me it fits size 2 on up). I have a thin red ring (from whatever cheaper ring markers I used before the Clover ones…they must be somewhere…but it also is a bit large. I do have some orthodontic rubber bands that are almost the right size, just a bit tight…they are hard to slide along. I have a lot of O rings from the hardware store but, since I bought them for beading, are all too large. However, a redeeming value for our trip today to Home Depot–I can search for tiny O rings to use as ring markers. Yes, we must visit Home Depot today to order a storm door (which we managed to do without for most of the winter but now it’s summer and it would be nice to open the back door for some fresh air without having the wasps fly in and the cats jump out) and look at new flooring for the kitchen (first in a long line of possible home improvement projects). And, yes, Home Depot is open from 8-5 today, or as the young man on the phone so pointedly told me, “…despite the fact that most of the associates would rather be spending the day with their families!” O…kay.

Totally confused as to what day it was, I finally woke up enough (I’m on my 4th Diet Coke) to realize it was the 15th. Taxes due, but we’ll have to worry about that tomorrow (I’m assuming they don’t have to be postmarked until Monday). Phone rang with sad news that the father of a friend had passed away–funeral on Monday. And today is the day I’ve been waiting for, when the Knitting Blog webring opens up to new comers. I almost missed it, thinking that tomorrow was the 15th (duh!), but just realized, and, with much sweat and few tears, managed to get not only the site code up and running on my sidebar, but also the blog button properly inserted. And I did it all by myself, so there!! (A few judicious pats on the back due here!)

And, now, that task accomplished, I’m off to knit…I have at least an hour before the boys return home looking for more food. I can either head back to the neverending Squares or try to start the Calliope swatch. Hmmmm…..what a choice!

Whatever happened to this week? I think I’ve been hopelessly adrift in the Sea of Time (again) and without my knitting needles. First, we spent Sunday and Monday on a college visit (to Case Western Reserve–oh, the walking around that large campus–I’d forgotten how hard it could be!) and even though I had only the best of intentions to start knitting on my summer top while there–yes, I finally chose the Knitpicks Calliope Summer Shell:

and carried yarn, needles and pattern everywhere, I got no further than laboriously translating the chart pattern into longhand directions for the swatch (in between class visits and department head visits and campus tours and dorm tours, etc.). I am still uncomfortable reading a pattern from a chart and wish all patterns would include both types of directions. I was unable to knit on the plane, as it proved to be a small one and the ride was only 50 minutes–not even long enough to be worth putting on my iPod. I started a mystery paperback instead, the first in a series of mysteries that swirl around the owner and employees of a tea shop in Charleston, SC. I enjoyed it, and I don’t even drink tea—it was comforting and elegant refined and just slightly old-fashioned and it could just as easily have been written about a knitting shop (anyway, it was Death by Darjeeling by Laura Childs).

Then, what was left of the week was taken up with preparing for, cooking for and celebrating the start of Passover. I was even less prepared this year than I usually am–due to the college visit, I seemed to be a day behind and, as a result, ended up making endless small trips to the grocery store for items that somehow hadn’t made it onto my grocery list. With the usual complaining, we switched the pantry and refrigerators over to only Passover (Pesadich) food and I cooked and I baked and I’m already way tired of the whole business. We’ve had 2 seder dinners and 1 sabbath dinner and now there’s only 6 more days to go! So far I’ve made brisket and matzo ball soup (twice) [and forgotten to make the asparagus (twice)] and flourless chocolate orange cake and chocolate chip cookies and frosted sugar cookies and endless matzo pizzas and lemon honey chicken and oven french fries. Still to come are waffles and pancakes and matzo brie and a birthday cake (sponge cake?) and noodles romanoff and brownies and who knows what else. I end up doing more cooking in this one week than I do all year! Talk about burnout!

So, no knitting accomplished this week. Hey, I haven’t even read a newspaper since last Saturday. One thing I did manage to sneak in this morning while the boys were at services was to register for Stitches Midwest before all the classes I wanted sold out. Debbie New, Sally Melville, and Maggie Jackson are just a few of the highlights this year and I am so excited. I have been waiting and waiting for Debbie New to come to the Midwest! I am only disappointed she isn’t teaching Swirl Knitting but have signed up for her classes in Freeform Knitting and Cellular Automaton Knitting. Sally Melville seems to mostly be teaching lessons out of her latest book on color

but I really want to meet her so I signed up for Stripes. Ditto with Maggie Jackson so I signed up for her scarf class. Now I have an incentive to finish the sweater I started last spring that is a compilation of several of the sweaters out of her book, Maggie’s Ireland

Here are 2 parts of the sweater (sleeves?…I can’t remember!) that I had started:

Then I also signed up for 2 classes on short row techniques, one with Candace Eisner Strick and one with Maureen Mason-Jamieson. And those were just my first choices (at least they were my first choices this morning; who knows what my first choices would be tomorrow or what they would be by August)! There were so many good classes, it was hard to choose. I also wanted to take classes with Joan Schrouder and Merike Saarniit and Colleen Davis and Chris Bylsma and Susanna Hansson and Galina Khmeleva and Barry Klein and Ginger Luters and…and…it was just too hard to choose and there was just not enough time! I just hope I won’t have to cancel, as I did last year due to my back injury. Well, at least I accomplished one knitting-related task in the midst of an otherwise vast wasteland of a week.

Another grey day (what a surprise!)

Though I am up to 11 rows on my Square Holes Sweater…that IS progress!! However, I seem to need want crave another project, a simple project, a mindless, sure-to-work-out project to break the monotony of the never-ending holes (I think there will be something like 1200 total holes in this sweater)…something I can actually knit on without totally concentrating (as one has to do with the holes), maybe something I can actually knit while watching my backlog of Tivo’d television programs, like Masterpiece Theater. (That sounds a little highbrow! Okay, let’s be honest: also Desperate Housewives, Grey’s Anatomy, Invasion, ER, Scrubs, The Daily Show, etc. which are also clogging up the Tivo.) Oddly enough, I was able to knit holes while watching House last night and didn’t make any mistakes–hmmm. Maybe it wasn’t that great an episode.

So, anyway, I have been searching (though my collection of books and magazines and downloaded patterns) for a simple but interesting summer-weight cap-sleeve shell. I want to start this simple project immediately for 3 reasons: 1) I need something to do while I am procrastinating on the Square Holes Sweater; 2) I need a project to start over this weekend while we make our college visit to Case Western Reserve; and 3) I want to f-ing wear something I’ve made myself already! And not a scarf! (And the silk shawl doesn’t count–where am I going to wear THAT? The grocery store?) Last year’s 2 too complicated attempts at summer cardigans are languishing unfinished in the closet, as I smacked up against that wall of “major problems” and never continued. And I’m not quite ready to tackle the Modular Knits P90 Diamond Triangle Top, even though it seems like half the group is engaged in a knitalong. I don’t want to deal with silk yet…I want to make my mistakes in cotton, dammit!

I ordered what seemed like an ideal pattern from Knitpicks–the Calliope Sleeveless Shell and the 12 balls of bright cherry red Shine with which to knit it. This yarn was reviewed quite favorably by Knitter’s Review by the way. However, the pattern proved not to be as easy as it looked. For example, it advises using size 2 and 3 circular needles with the sportweight Shine (normally listed as size 3-5 needles). Then, it starts off with the “dainty edging in a Channel Island cast on” without bothering to explain the Channel Island cast on. Thank goodness for Google–I’ve printed out 3 explanations with photos. Looks like a useful edging; all I have to do is learn it. Then the pattern is filled with charts–sigh–according to armhole shaping, which I’m afraid might be beyond me altogether. Then there is a note: “This is a ribbed lace. The lace will draw in quite a bit by the time the back or front is complete….the stitch pattern relaxes quite a bit when blocked.” If only I could relax quite a bit about the pattern! Maybe someone should block me first! Here’s what I had ordered from Knitpicks (Shine, Shine Worsted, and 2 balls of Andean Silk and 2 balls of Crayon to try out):

Next, I got all excited about this pattern on the cover of the May issue of Creative Knitting. I thought it would be perfect–the pattern was easy to understand and follow; it used a worsted weight cotton (and would be even more drapey in Shine worsted), so would knit up quickly:

but the project uses Plymouth’s Fantasy Naturale and a size 8 needle and, no matter what I did, I could not get gauge with Knitpicks Shine Worsted, Tahki Cotton Classic, or any of the other worsted cottons I had lying around. I went to my LYS, Three Bags Full, where I found the yarn, which looks a lot thicker than most worsteds, so it must knit up to a thicker gauge. Unfortunately, they didn’t have more than 4 skeins of any one color. However, they did have a yarn sale going on, at which I bought some odd balls at half off:

and the new Manos Cotton Stria book (not on sale), which has some interesting tops in it that could be adapted to other yarns.

So I have also been looking at Grumperina’s Picovoli t-shirt pattern, which lists Knitpicks Shine as a yarn substitute, so I’d be all set. I’d need to figure out how not to make it fit so tightly though–that’s just not my style yet. Then I also have printed out the Quick & Easy Shell from Kate Winkler Designs for Dove Cottage, but that uses a worsted weight yarn…and although I did order a few balls of Shine Worsted to try, I don’t have enough of any one color. Last, but not least, under consideration, is the Shapely Tank, a free pattern from Joan McGowan-Michael, which can be made with or without sleeves and does have the option of not being made so clingy by omitting the shaping at the side seams. It uses a DK cotton though, not a sport weight.

So…I’m pondering (when I should be swatching). I also just received these two books in the mail:

and the temptation mounts just to veg out and read them. Also, my husband finished Allegra Goodman’s latest novel and passed it on:

so there’s that too (not to mention I’m only about 10 pages into the latest Sue Grafton that I bought well over a month ago. Maybe I should just bring a book with me this weekend. I want to knit…I really do. But why can’t anything be simple!? Why can’t I just sit down with a pattern and a yarn and have it turn into an acceptable finished object? I know, I know–swatch and gauge and finishing and blocking and all those other details that make us pros. I want to jump ahead a few spaces on the game board of KNIT! Quick–somebody roll the dice for me!

note: I never did get that fabric postcard sent in to Arizona in time but have posted photos of my not-quite-finished freeform scrumbles 2 posts below.

Must be April…and, yes, it is still spring break. So, since there has been no sunshine with which to take photos, I thought I would post a few photos (rescued from the failed hard drive) from my past blog (which disappeared into the ether when our server crashed) of finished objects from long ago (like last year):

My first sock:

My second sock:

My 3rd sock:

Needless to say, I never finished the second sock of any of these “pairs,” so consider them all practice socks! Here is a baby sweater I made for the new grandbaby of a friend. The baby, who has long since outgrown the sweater, was living in England about this time last year but recently moved to Texas.

Next is a bead I covered with crochet for an experiment (when Prada first started showing oversized bead crochet necklaces for last spring’s collection):

And now a photo of my version of the ubiquitous Clapotis:

And my version of Annie Modesitt’s Falling Leaves Scarf (from the book Scarf Style), still not finished, I’m afraid:

I think that’s enough of a trip down memory lane for one day! We’ll have to do this again (if, and when, I recover some more of my photos, hopefully from farther back in time!).