Archives for February 2004

Yuh-huh, it’s Friday.

And there’s a bit more progress to report on Frida — but I’m gonna wait til Monday to show you. Cuz I was too lazy to take a photo.

More Q&A

Have you considered Ingeborg as your next project?

No, it won’t be next. I’ve not bought yarn for it yet and don’t plan to immediately. Right now, the best bet for my next project (are you reading this, Vanessa?) is Flora. Subject to change at my whim.

Do you find the sweaters you felt were tedious in the knitting process end up becoming favorites to wear or do you end up NOT wearing them as often because they gave you such a headache during their creation?

There seems to be no correlation between level of tedium and popularity of my sweaters. Some of the more tedious to knit are my favorites to wear. And some I loved to knit I never wear. Go figure.

Apple Butter Sock

Here’s a progress pic of my first sock, in mid-heel-turning!

And that brings me to something I’ve been thinking about lately. What’s this?

The one on the right is a Brittany birch US size 0 dpn. The one on the left is a white birch toothpick. Exactly the same diameter as a US size 0 needle — 2mm. I gotta box of a thousand of them in my kitchen drawer.

Hmmmmm . . .

Reading about Lisa‘s glove affair every day is starting to wear down my resistance. I think I feel some gloves coming on. And you know what would make absolutely fab glove needles? You guessed it! I could knit the fingers with toothpicks!

As the glove-worthy Lisa pointed out, there’s a great basic glove pattern in Handspun Handknit, which I’ve knitted several times in the past. And it’s not like I don’t have tons of sock yarn I could use . . .

Cross-stitch

Kind of a theme going on — here’s today’s offering. Stitched ages ago! On 22-count fabric. Ga-a-ack!

Have a great weekend, and be sure to stop by Rachael’s Glass House to welcome her home — she’s all moved in to her new place, ya know!

Lucy’s pooped just thinking about it!

Questions from yesterday.

If addis are ok for sleeves, why not for the whole sweater? I know you’ve said you prefer the “grab” of the exotic wood so why not use bamboo circs for the sleeves?

It’s not a matter of Addis being “okay” for sleeves. If there were bamboo (or other wood) circs in the 12″ length, believe me, I’d buy them asap and use them. But there aren’t. Are there? If anyone knows of any, kindly let me know.

Since you’re such a prolific and skilled knitter who gets easily bored with “mindless” knitting (altho the day I will EVER consider fairisle mindless, pigs will be flyin’ and hell will have frozen over!) why don’t you do some more intricate socks?

I only knit socks on the train to and from work. I need something small and mindless to knit on the train because of the, shall we say, less than ideal conditions. There’s usually not enough room to pull out a pattern, so making something I haven’t memorized is out of the question. It’s as simple as that.

So there.

How would you compare the Apple Laine to Cheryl Schaeffer’s “Ann”?

I wouldn’t and couldn’t, as I’ve never seen “Ann.”

Aren’t you glad you asked?

Are you going to make Ingeborg in the dark colorways or the lighter version. I like the dark because it shows the pattern well. Are you going to keep it a cardi or go to a pullover?

The colorway I like best is the one I posted in yesterday’s blog. For the uninitiated, there are two other colorways. I think you can find photos of all three online, possibly at the Allegro Yarns site. And it’ll stay a cardi.

And another Ingeborg question:

I suppose that wouldn’t be a good first dale (I do have some colourwork experience!).

For someone with colorwork experience — yes, it might be a good first Dale. I haven’t studied the pattern too closely yet, but It’s a nice regular pattern with a relatively short repeat, so I think it would be good.

Frida Update

Feeling guilty, I did a bit of work on Frida last night. Daisy, my new laptop, was calling out to me, but I remained steadfast, knitting on Frida for an hour before playing with my toy.

Here’s an over-exposed photo of the beginning of the front neck steek.

Counted Cross-Stitch

I realized I didn’t post a cross-stitch photo yesterday. Wow! I can’t begin to imagine the disappointment out there in blogland. All the crying and gnashing of teeth . . .

(Hmmmmm . . . am I perhaps in a bit of a sarcastic mood here?)

Anyhow, here is the cross-stich du jour:

I think it was supposed to be an eyeglass case, but I thought it was cute and framed it as-is. It’s one of the few cross-stitch projects I ever did in 14-count fabric — most of mine were done on 18- or 22-count. Or (gulp) 26-count linen. Too bad I have very few of these projects in my possession. I gave most of ’em away as gifts. This was when I was young and stupid, obviously.

But I have a few more goodies. Stay tuned . . .

Yesterday Linda asked the following about Frida:

It also looks like it might be a good project for a first Dale, would you recommend it as such? Also, are you using the little 12 inch Addi for the sleeves? Do you have two?

Hmmmm, I’m thinking no, not a good first Dale project. You’d be better off with something that has a smaller design repeat. And I think fewer colors. The Sirdal pullover knitted in Heilo or the equivalent is an excellent choice for a first Dale.

Another good choice is, I think, the Fana cardigan. The now out-of-print book 109 has a Daletta version of it, and the new book 126 (which I got in the mail on Monday — thanks Bea, for the once again great service) has a Heilo/Falk version.

Why did I buy Book 126? For this!

Be still, my heart.

Oh . . . back to the question.

I started my sleeves on 12 inch Addi turbos, yes I did. I only have one in each size, but in the sleeves photo I posted the other day, one is on a size 1 and one is on a size 2. I started the first sleeve on the size 1, then switched to the size 2 for the yellow/red section as directed by the pattern. Then I started the second sleeve on the now freed-up size 1.

I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck, you know.

Be all that as it may, I did not knit a stitch on Frida last night. Why, you ask? (You did ask, right?)

Because of this young lady:

This is my brand new, loaded with everything, Dell Inspiron 8600 laptop. Her name is Daisy. Isn’t she beautiful?

The display is awesome (dude). 15.4′ WUXGA display with a resolution of 1900 x 1200, thank you very much. The photos in no way do justice, but here’s a non-flash pic of her display.

I’m thinking about setting her up on a network with my desktop computer. She has a wireless card built-in. Or I may just sell my desktop computer and use Daisy exclusively. That would make more sense.

It warms my little geek heart.

But Wait!

I did do some knitting last night.

I started a sock for the “Wendy & L-B Sock-along.” We’re both knitting socks from the beautiful “Apple Butter” yarn from Apple Laine. This sock yarn is 60% wool, 25% mohair, and 15% nylon.

Here’s the start of my sock, in color “army surplus.” My yarn was a gift from L-B.

Lucy seems impressed doesn’t she?

A note to Rachael:

If you are here, reading my blog, stop it right now, missy! You are supposed to be packing, not surfing blogs. Move along now, nothing to see here . . .

From chugging around the knitting bloggers ring, I noticed more than one person mentioning that they have the blahs, so at least I’m in good company.

But I did get a nice surprise in the mail yesterday:

A lovely ball of Opal from Lisa K. Thank you Lisa!

Here’s something else in an attempt to spice things up:

A red wyvern!

I bought the kit in Wales, not surprisingly, if you can make out the word around the perimeter of the piece: Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwyllllantysiliogogogoch. That translates into “The church of St. Mary in the hollow of white hazel trees near the rapid whirlpool by St. Tysilio’s of the red cave.” For the uninitiated, that’s the name of a town in Wales that boasts of having the longest place name in Britain.

Sorry for the lousy photo quality — I might have been over-zealous in my file compression.

Yes, I’ve been to Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwyllllantysiliogogogoch.

Lucy doesn’t care.

E-Mail Call

You should know that I’m currently getting more than 50 knitting-related emails a day. Yesterday I got 67. These are for the most part from people I don’t know, asking for help, advice, or free copies of patterns. Most of the questions can be answered by reading my FAQs, or simply by reading recent blog entries.

If I took the time to answer every message I get, I wouldn’t have time to knit.

How do I read and knit at the same time?

Most days at work I knit and read at my desk during lunch. I prop my book open on my desk with my stapler holding it down on one side and my tape dispenser on the other side. Necessity is the mother of invention.

Cross-Stitch!

I used to be quite the cross-stitch fanatic, and did most of my work in the 1980s. As I recall, I went through long periods when I did only cross-stitch and didn’t even have anything I was knitting. Some of the girls I worked with were into it too, and at lunchtime we’d get together and stitch.

I’ll post some more cross-stitch photos later this week if you like.

Why did I stop cross-stitching? The main reason is that it’s too hard on the eyes. The sampler I showed you on Friday was completed entirely during lunch hours at work. When I was younger I’d cross-stitch at night too. But low light and aging eyes put a stop to that.

The last cross-stitch I did I completed in October 2000. It’s a sampler of maritime signal flags that I made for my dad (retired Navy Captain) and it’s really cute. He has it hanging in his study. But all while I was working on it I kept saying to myself “This is the last cross-stitch I’ll ever do.” And it probably was.

Glitzy Scarf!

Not to be outdone by Jackie, who posted photos of her fabulous scarf in her blog on Friday, here’s mine.

My scarf is wrapped twice around the neck and is still plenty long. It’s supposed to be cold this week, so it’ll be put to good use!

Thanks again for the beautiful, fun yarn, Becky!

Frida

Contrary to my plans, I did not get to the front neck shaping on Frida. Due to very poor planning on my part, Frida and I were in one place, and my off-white yarn was in another, so I ran out of my current skein of white before I ran out of knitting time. Sigh.

But I did use the time to start both the sleeves!

See? I’m not a complete idiot.

Here is Lucy, being totally non-judgmental.