His knitting might be possessed — like this.

Nah, that’s just wrong — it would look like this. Eeeeek!

Okay, enough of this silliness. Let’s look at a sedate photo of Izzy to calm down.

Yes, Izzy is back to normal — I made her lay off the catnip last night. And took away her computer privileges.

Many of you reacted favorably to seeing some of my older, pre-website stuff. I appreciate your interest! So without further ado, here is the first in a series:

Wendy’s Old Knitted Stuff

Ta-da!

Here is a gansey. It is from Traditional Sweaters, edited by Debbie Bliss. (Note: This book is out of print, but the link there takes you to its listing on Amazon.com, where they have several used copies for sale. All at exhorbitant prices, though. But it’s an excellent book, and if you can find it anywhere at a reasonable price, I recommend that you pick it up!)

I knitted it in Bovidae Farm sportweight wool, rather than the 5-ply guernsey wool the pattern called for (though I knitted another of this same sweater out of 5-ply guernsey wool — you’ll be seeing it eventually). I love this sweater — it’s one of my all-time favorites. It’s oversized, cuddly and warm, but not too bulky, as it’s knitted at 7 st/inch. and I love the color, which is much prettier in person — a golden brown.

I’m a big fan of Bovidae Farm wool and have used it for years on a number of projects. As a matter of fact, I used their sportweight wool in the old Fulmar I showed you yesterday. Their wool is reasonably priced and comes in many glorious colors. I use their fisherman weight wool as a subsitute for AS Bainin.

Bovidae Farm doesn’t have a website, but you can email them at bovidae@madison.main.nc.us

Tell ‘em Wendy sent you!

Tales of Transit Terror

I forget. Did I tell you guys the one about the man on the train who changed his clothes completely one afternoon?

This is my Mommy:

This is my Mommy on drugs.

Any questions?

Meow!

This is my cat on drugs.

Any questions?

How to be a Speed Demon!

Some Fulmar comments . . .

It looks like a complicated design, but it really isn’t. I memorized the pattern after one repeat. It’s easy to do if you break things down.

In the body pattern, there are four different motifs that are repeated, and two of them are simply mirror image of each other, so that’s really just three different motifs. Two of the three have a twelve row repeat, and the other has a twenty-four row repeat.

If you have a good memory, you can quickly memorize on what rows you have to do cable twists and move stitches. I do use a row counter, because by keeping track of what number row I’m on, I know what cable I’m supposed to be twisting.

I keep track of the twelve row repeats. The one pattern that has a twenty-four row repeat is easily divided into two sets of twelve. The first set of twelve makes a braided rope, the second set of twelve fans the braid out, then in again. And it’s obvious in the pattern which half of the total twenty-four you are working on.

Does any of the above make sense?

Once you have the pattern set, you can get along pretty well without having to refer to the charts. Just look at what you did in the previous pattern repeat.

My other tip for speed is to learn to cable without a cable needle. This really speeds things up, particularly on this sweater because you are moving stitches on every right side row.

So . . . here is Fulmar.

And . . . I’m losing my mind. I thought I gave away my old Fulmar I knitted a few years ago. I didn’t. I still have it. Here is a closeup.

And for the sock fans among you . . .

The Regia Stretch in progress:

The Regia Ringel in progress:

And now for something completely different

Here, for Caroline F., is a photo of an old sweater knitted in Jamieson & Smith shetland jumperweight . . . at 6 st/inch.

Yep, and it don’t look half bad knitted at that gauge. This is a design by Meg Swansen that appeared in Knitters magazine ten or so years ago.

Would y’all like to see a selection of other old stuff I’ve knitted from time to time? Stuff that’s not currently on my website? Huh? Would ya?

Sitting on the train, yesterday morning, more or less pleasantly enveloped in my usual morning fog (made foggier by virtue of it being Monday), blindly knitting on the sock-in-progress.

A young man sits down next to me.

He: “What are you making?”
Me: “A sock.”
He: “A baby sock?”
Me: “No, an adult sock.”
He: “Oh, the reason I asked is because my girlfriend missed her period so I guess we’re gonna have a baby its due sometime next summer so I’m going to have a kid and I don’t know what to do because I’m gonna have a kid and what would you do here if you were gonna have a kid are you sure that’s not a baby sock?”
Me: (to self) “Why me?”

Sigh.

Quasi-productive evening. Came home, put some chicken in the oven. Burned the crap out of my arm taking chicken out of oven. Ouch. But it’s not a knit-impeding burn.

Did a little knitting but I kept dozing off, due to sleeplessness of the previous night. Here’s a Fulmar pic:

And here is a photo of the full width of it. The color is wa-a-a-ay off, but I lightened it up to show detail. The close up photo is much closer to the true color.

Happy U.S. Election Day. Don’t forget to vote.

Happy Monday to all. Hope you had a good weekend. I did. I learned that a Hershey bar with a vodka martini is a very yummy lunch.

I started Fulmar this weekend. Here’s a pic.

Not a great photo, as this is another one that’s difficult to photograph after dark with a flash. Since the time change it’s getting harder and harder to take good pictures after I get home from work.

I wound the wool I’m using into balls. It comes on 500gram cones and I bought it from Frangipani Knitwear in the U.K. On the whole cone, there was only one knot and the wool was consistent quality all the way through the cone. It knits up like all other 5-ply guernsey wool I’ve used and I’m very pleased with it.

In answer to a tag-board question, I did indeed get the color cards before ordering.

This sweater is knitted on sizes 1 and 2 US needles with this very substantial wool so it knits up very firmly. I think I’d do well not to knit on it too long each evening because it is tough on the hands.

As a matter of fact, I started knitting it using one of my ebony needles, but I quickly switched to an Addi Turbo, because I was afraid I might snap my ebony needle.

And I would not be amused by that.

I’ve got a design to knit up for Knitty magazine, so I’ll probably start on that this month as well — it’ll be a nice break from Fulmar when my hands start to get tired. But it’s hush-hush, so I won’t be talking about it too much in the blog.

Another tag-board question I got over the weekend — I mentioned recently that Ozyarns.com had a free sock pattern that has a different technique for a short row heel. In answer to the question, no, I’m not using that technique — still using my double-wrap short row heel.