tangled up

last look at Mrs. Gandhi

Here's a photo of Heidi modeling the Pooling Indira Gandhi scarf. She'll get a lot of use out of it in Rochester, Minnesota, where she lives, much sooner than she would here in DC.

Yarns International didn't have their Koigu out on the shelves yet, which leaves me something to look forward to next Saturday. But I more than made up for it at Woolwinders. I mostly stuck to stuff on sale (well, mostly) and got some really great buys. Most of it is cotton that I'll put away until the spring, but there's a nice selection of winter stuff too, including a cache of Cash Iroha. When I’m feeling less embarrassed about it, I’ll take a picture or two (I left with 4 bags, to give you some idea).

I also brought home a sample project to make for them using Yorkshire Tweed. Knitting a sample or two on occasion will definitely help feed my yarn habit. I never got to the sale at Stitch DC, but I don’t know that I could afford to…

In terms of the finishing list, I’m one down, three to go. The Torino silk mini-poncho is finished. It’s pretty mini, but I continue to think that it’s what Mom had in mind. We’ll see soon enough. I’ll take a picture of it tomorrow, but to get the real sense of it, I’ll have to wait until she sends a picture back with her modeling it. I didn’t love working the pattern – it wasn’t the fault of the pattern but I kept forgetting to increase or decrease where it called for. Have to start looking for another one to use the yarn I got for my sister. I’m also going to block the flower basket shawl before I go out tonight – is it possible that I can accomplish it all this weekend?

Pooling Indira Gandhi

Barbara, I have to give you whatever credit is deserved for my Pooling Colors Indira Gandhi Blossom scarf -- if I hadn't read your blog and seen the photo of your completed pooling colors scarf, I would have just kept going on my multi way. Question is, now that I did a turnaround, can I be an honorary member of the Pooling Colors Scarf knitalong? It's a significant deviation from the pattern, but it's definitely the same concept. I could have done a better job composing the photo, but that could be said of most of my photos.

The tip Barbara noted that was most useful to me was to vary my gauge in order to keep the colors lined up. On size 15 needles with a yarn as loopy as Blossom, that wasn't hard and unless you look really closely, nothing shows. I ended up looping yarn at the ends eight times in order to keep the colors straight, which won't be too much of a chore to clean up after I block it. My fear that it wasn't going to be very long was realized, but I dealt with that, effectively I think, by inserting a keyhole.

One decision left -- I haven't decided yet how to block it -- it's going to curl no matter what I do because it's straight stockinette except for 4 rows of garter stitch at each end. Not sure if I should give it a full bath or just steam it. My aversion to the full bath approach was cured in large part by the blogger who suggested using a salad spinner to get the excess water out of the garment rather than the spin cycle of my washer, which means trooping up and down the stairs or sitting in the basement waiting for the machine to run its course. I used the salad spinner on Seville Charlotte and it worked perfectly.

Viva Seville Charlotte

Today is my friend MT's birthday and the Seville Charlotte was a present for her. It looks terrific on her. Even 9 year old Gabriel had to dance around in it (though he wouldn't have done it if his friends were around. That's one down for the Charlotte Knit Behind, two more off the needles in varying states of completion and Noir Charlotte about halfway finished.

The weekend is over and I didn't have a chance to block the flower basket shawl. Unless I have a burst of energy some evening, it will have to wait until the weekend. After writing about the Schaefer blossom earlier, I decided to not to give up on trying to pool the colors. I frogged the 12" or so that I had completed and began again. On the first try this time around, it worked (give or take; photo tk). My only concern now is that the scarf is at least one third wider than I had intended and I'm a little worried that there won't be enough yarn to make a scarf of any significant size, but we'll just have to see, won't we?

basil & blossom

Have to post my first non-knitting photo today. Some friends and I are getting together tonight to celebrate several of our late August/early September brithdays and the end of summer. We've set up long tables in my back yard and if it doesn't rain, it should be a wonderful evening. It seemed like the perfect occasion to harvest the basil I've been growing and use it for pesto. It thrived with a variety of tomatoes in a whiskey barrel -- an unintentional container garden that resulted when I couldn't deal with the hundreds of white cicada larvae I was digging up when I started to plant in the ground this spring. So here's most of the basil, sitting on my back deck, waiting to be pesto for 20....

I stopped by Yarns International yesterday thinking to buy Schaefer yarn to join in the pooled scarf knit-along, but none of the skeins of Anne did anything for me. They had a trunk full of other Schaefer yarn and I bought this Blossom in the Indira Gandhi colorway thinking that I would try to pool the colors without doing the lace pattern. I had seen a beautiful completed scarf that attracted me to it on Barbara's blog and I have brand new respect. After about an hour, I had gotten four inches and then the pooling just fell apart, after starting over about half a dozen times. Ultimately, I just gave up and decided that the scarf will be just fine with all the colors mixed together. It's knitting up beautifully on US15s. I started with 4 rows of garter stitch, then switched to stockinette, slipping the first stitch of every row. It will make a great gift for a friend who is coming into town at the end of the week.

Still trying to figure out why the color fades on all these photos when I save them for the Web in Photoshop. Need to start hunting around on the Net for a tutorial, I guess. These are good enough to give an idea, but the originals are significantly deeper in tone.