tangled up

Scarf Style

Last night when I had trouble sleeping I paged through Scarf Style. A few weeks ago I had started Ruffles using Tahki Bunny in Lavender. It wasn't the yarn I had intended to buy, the gauge wasn't quite right and I planned to get a cream colored yarn in something like Rowan Calmer, but the idea of the project moving a little more quickly was appealing and the gray shadow to the Bunny was really interesting. Plus, the yarn is SOOOOO soft. Twelve inches later, the combination of yarn and pattern wasn't doing anything for me.

There are a number of patterns that I plan to make from Scarf Style, but the one that originally and still catches my eye is Vintage Velvet. As much as I've been gorging on yarn lately, though, I'm not going to spend the $70 or so it would take to make this scarf in the Muench Touch Me that it calls for. So, this morning, I frogged the Ruffles and started again using the Bunny to do Vintage Velvet. I think I like it:

It's definitely not velvety, but it shows off the yarn well. The pattern, which makes the scarf reversible, is very creative. Question is, when it's finished, will I be brave enough to try for a slightly felted look? Only time will tell....

Scarf Season

Making scarves my office and travel project has been an innovation in my knitting life this fall. I'm more than halfway through a pretty Koigu number that uses the simple drop stitch pattern of the Alligator Wrap. And I've used up half of my Big Kureyon stash with these numbers:

At home, I'm still working on completing Perkins -- the end is definitely in sight -- and that just may become my weekend effort. I was supposed to leave Sunday for travel to three separate places and two of the three trips have been canceled, leaving me the weekend and the beginning of the week in DC. I've also completed the back of a sweater using Wool in the Woods mohair in Mystic Ridge -- I LOVE that yarn. The front band is complete, too, and I'm just starting the cable pattern -- big question for me is to I make it a crew neck as the pattern shows or go for the V neck that I originally had in mind. Looking forward to returning to Sheerly There too, but that is going to wait until after I've sewed up Lara. Lots of knitting to look forward too, lots more in my head, and I still need to plot out holiday presents. Takes the mind off politics, even fleetingly.

Planes, Trains...

What a difference a weekend makes. I had two flights (roundtrip to Boston) and two train rides (roundtrip to NY) this week and used a good part of them to weave in the many ends of Perkins. What I didn't finish while traveling I finished this weekend.

Moving right along, I blocked both Lara and Perkins with a steam iron pinned to the rug in my den. Not the perfect set up but it worked. I intended to take pictures to document the process but I was downstairs, the camera was upstairs and I just plain spaced. Both sweaters looked so nice stretched out flat in their various shapes.

I didn't stop there. I attached the lace edging to the sleeves. The pattern calls for a slip stitch, but I tried it twice and it looked terrible. I ended up sewing them on and I think they look fine. Next came sewing up one of the shoulders -- I need to learn how to do short rows for the shoulder edges to avoid the ladder effect. Then came the button band, which was relatively painless. Finally, at least for this evening, setting in sleeve #1. I did get the camera at this juncture -- here's the construction site:

Hopefully, the end of this week will see the completion of Perkins except for the edging and possibly the sewing up of Lara. I'm making progress on my travel project -- the Koigu scarf is half finished now. Have to start thinking in terms of holiday presents.

Keep Hope Alive

I can't not comment on the election. I don't even know where to start. Rather than ramble, I'll stick to one of the best quotes I've seen so far to capture what I'm feeling. The fact that something written over 200 years ago has remarkable currency today is testament to the fact that this too shall pass. Thanks to William Gibson, who posted it on his blog,

"A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles.

"It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt.

"If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake."

-- Thomas Jefferson, in a letter of 1798, after the passage of the Sedition Act.

Knitting content will return later today....

VOTE TODAY!!

I've noticed that a lot of the knitting blogs I read regularly are posting about the election tomorrow. I've been very impressed by the thoughtful nature of the postings and the strong spirit that drives people to advocate voting and voting for John Kerry. I'll be at my polling place tomorrow at 7 a.m.

When I started my blog, I had in mind to keep it to just knitting; although I live in a world that is heavily focused on politics, I think of it as really separate from my knitting world. I haven't even gotten the knitting part totally down yet, but can't help but post occasionally just pointing people to political stuff they might not see elsewhere. If you were in Cleveland tonight like my friend Eric waiting for Springsteen and Kerry to show up, you might have seen this:

I'm headed up to Boston in the morning. If Kerry wins, no, WHEN Kerry wins, I'll stay a few days to help out. Don't expect to have much time to knit, but won't travel anymore without taking a couple of different projects with me. If nothing else, I'll knit on the plane. For this trip:

(1) my current traveling project, a Koigu scarf in the (simple) alligator wrap stitch pattern

(2) a ruffled scarf from the new Scarf Style book, using Tahki Bunny in a dusty lavender color

(3) the Perkins sleeves with a needle for weaving in the ends

My accomplishment before leaving (thanks to the pre-election Sunday shows): the knitting on my Lara is complete. This picture was taken before I finished the final cuff and I didn't have time to take another, so it will have to do for now. I'm excited to block and sew her up and ship her down to Georgia for my sister.

Hopefully at my next writing, there will be a new President-elect....

Happy Halloween!

Red Sox Red Heart Halloween

Perfect evening to see the Sox win the World Series and have an excuse to sit in front of the TV and knit. Last night, however, rather than finishing that last cuff on Lara or weaving in ends on Perkins, I knit for Halloween. Every year, for quite a while, I traditionally pull together the costumes for three children who are a big part of my life. Fiona, who is now fourteen and no longer a child, does her own costuming now. Nathan, who is twelve, and Gabriel, who is nine, still allow me the joy of that task. Some years have been extremely complex -- the year that Nathan was Legolas and Gabriel was Gandalf was probably the most challenging and rewarding. This year, Gabriel is going to be a pirate, which just entails lots of searching and assembling (where do you find one of those white peasanty shirts for a 9 year old boy?). Nathan chose to be Stan from South Park. Not sure how he got to Stan; he started as Kenny and then switched with another kid, so Stan it is. It's not that hard a costume -- a brown coat, a pillow to tuck under it for a tummy, blue sweat pants, a pair of red mittens and a blue hat with a red brim and red pompom. I bought or located everything but that hat. That's where the Red Heart comes in. Guess what I spent last night making as I watched the game:

Ann Budd's Handy Book of Patterns helped me whipped this right up. I didn't get the Sweater Pattern book when it first came out b/c I wasn't sure I'd use it, but now I'm rethinking.

I want to give a shout out to Elisabeth for mentioning me on her blog Curls and Purls NYC. I'd been reading it for a while, but I met her when she offered for sale some beautiful Kid Classic (which I think is going to become an Apricot Jacket if there's enough yardage). She's given me some fabulous insight into this world, bringing me into this amazing virtual (and real for some) community and giving me something to strive for in terms of creating a blog that is interesting, entertaining and educational. None of my close friends are into knitting so the knitting blogs are my knitting world. The mention even inspired me to get the camera out, but if I mess with the WIP photos now, I'll never get to work. More later....

If a Tree Falls...

...in the forest and there's no one there to hear it, does it make a sound? if I knit and don't blog about it, has it really happened?

My schedule has been tough again so far this week but I have gotten some knitting done. Haven't had time to take photos so I'll have to post them next time.

(1) Perkins is almost complete. Only the bottom edging band remains, plus weaving in all the ends, plus blocking it, plus sewing. Well, I said almost. I spent the afternoon at Woolwinders at Saturday hanging out and knitting. I did purchase a pile of Koigu, which will merit a photo when I get to it.

(2) The Big Kureyon multi-directional scarf that was my project at work is finished (there have been a lot of conference calls). It just needs blocking and ends woven in.

(3) I've started a scarf out of Koigu that will be a truncated version of the Alligator Wrap. I hadn't knit Koigu on size 3 needles before (I work the Charlottes on size 6), but it's going smoothly.

(4) Lara has benefitted from the World Series and I'm down to the final ribbed cuff. It has been a breeze to do.

On Sunday, I had a family occasion in Baltimore and looking on the map, there was a yarn store on my way home open on Sundays until 5. I don't know what it is with me and yarn lately, but I stopped by and fell in love with some mohair from Wool in the Woods. The colors are luscious. Now they're mine.

LYSs Today

Saturday errands today are going to include two local yarn stores. Yarns International for the Rowan Vintage Style book. Koigu at Woolwinders. Hope I don't get into too much trouble....

So Much Yarn...

So little time. Here's a photo of the three items that have arrived in the mail this week -- the Silk Garden, the Diarufuran and the Koigu Fancy. It's pretty easy to tell which is which.

The construction of the Diarufuran is really interesting -- it's chained. The color is truer in the photo above, but this gives a clearer sense of the texture:

And here are the gifts from my Secret Pal -- there's no way I'm giving that card away....

Last night during the game, I finished one Perkins sleeve and I'm halfway through the second. The knitting is going very quickly now, though I still dread weaving in the ends. Hope to finish the knitting this week, except for the edging around the bottom. My current idea is to weave in the ends, block each piece, sew it together, then do that last piece of edging so that it fits exactly right. As for the Big Kureyon scarf at work, it's halfway through, judging by the two-skein method.