Archives for December 2005

When people keep repeating
That you’ll never knit enough
When everybody keeps retreating
But you can’t seem to knit enough

Let Bohus open the door
Let Bohus open the door
Let Bohus open the door
To your heart

So here you are:

Still working on the front. But the next time you see the Bohus pictured here, I’ll have started on a sleeve. I hope.

It’s Thursday

And that means that it’s contest time: Week Four in the Birthday Month Contest.

And the question you must answer this week:

How old will Wendy be on her next birthday? I know this is an easy one for a lot of you.

Submit your guess (one guess per person, please) to The Official WendyKnits Contest Email Address by 3:00pm EST on Monday, December 26 with your guess for the day of the week on which I was born. I’ll draw a name for the winner from among the entries with the right answer. The winner and prize will be announced in Monday’s blog entry.

If you are unable to use the mailto: link, leave me a comment, and I’ll email the correct email address to you.

Okay, Rabbitch.

I humbly apologize for dissing the art of the dishcloth. By the way, Ann says she would like red dishcloths, please.

And Lucy would like Diamond to know that while she appreciates his interest, her heart belongs to a tuxedo kitty named Lucky.

Try to break it to Diamond gently, ‘kay?

Ho Ho Ho Indeed

We are pleased. Why are we pleased? Because we will not be returning to the office until Monday, January 9, 2006.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I love use-or-lose leave.

Barring unforseen circumstances, I will be at the back table at Knit Happens tomorrow, knitting away on the Bohus.

I’m just mad about Bohus.
A-Bohus is mad about me.
I’m-a just mad about Bohus.
She’s just mad about me.

They call me Bohus Knitter,
Quite rightly.
They call me Bohus Knitter,
Quite rightly.
They call me Bohus Knitter.

So here’s today’s progress pic:

Looks like yesterday’s, only a wee bit longer.

And here’s what happens when one leaves one’s Bohus-in-progress unguarded Chez WendyKnits:

On Squeezing in Time for Knitting

Kenny commented:
Here is my problem. When I knit, I need to really sit and concentrate. I find it really difficult to pick up my knitting here and there throughout the day. Maybe I’m just an inexperience knitter?

Like I couldn’t really pick up something that has increases or decreases or colorwork and just knit for 20 minutes while in the doctor’s office. If I did that, I would totally screw up.

This is a really good point. If you are a new or new-ish knitter, it can be difficult to just pick it up and throw it down whenever you have a spare minute or two.

Because I’ve been knitting since the era when dinosaurs roamed Central Park, I tend to forget that.

However, a new knitter could use this sort of stop and go knitting as an aid to honing one’s skills. Keep a dead-simple project with you — like a garter-stitch dishcloth. Whip it out whenever you have a few free moments and knit a few stitches. And so on.

If you screw it up in your stop and go knitting, it’s not a big deal. It is, after all, just a dishcloth. Those are minutes you’d otherwise not be using to do something constructive.

If you make a mistake, try to fix it. The worst that can happen is that you kill a dishcloth. If you complete a square that has obvious errors in it, who’s to care? It’s a dishcloth, and it will still work to wash dishes.

Another idea on a slightly larger scale is to use this time to knit small blankets out of machine washable yarn that you can donate to your local animal shelter or rescue organization to use as cage blankets. The animals won’t mind if there are obvious errors in your knitting.

And the more you do, the more your knitting will improve. Wax on, wax off.

Speaking of Rescue Organizations

Commenting on Lucy’s crossed eyes . . .

Yeah, I guess with her coloring, she does have some Siamese in her somewhere. (Though she definitely does not have a “Meezer” voice). I’m not well-versed in kitty genetics, but that must be where her crossed eyes came from.

Speaking of which, I recently found the very first photo of Lucy that I ever saw:

That was the photo that accompanied her listing in Petfinder, when she was at the rescue organization, waiting to find a new home. Look at that desperate little face! One look at that and I was putty in her paws.

Lucy sez:

“You still are.”

Happy Solstice!

Because the ‘hus belongs to knitters
Because the ‘hus belongs to lust
Because the ‘hus belongs to knitters
Because the ‘hus belongs to us.

Ahem.

I realized that I neglected to answer some questions from the comments from the past few days, so here you go.

Theresa asked:
I’m still thinking about upsizing a Bohus and now I am wondering about the Angora. I’m generally allergic to it. I’m wondering what you think might be some good substitutes. It doesn’t seem like it would have quite the magical effect without the Angora. I wondered about some type of mohair…maybe too hairy?

Theresa, I think the mohair would be too hairy. You’ll not get the same effect from a yarn other than the 50/50 merino/angora that is used, but you could certainly sub another yarn, say, a fingering weight merino? Problem is, you won’t have the lovely halo that the merino/angora yarn has, and you might have problems finding all the subtle color variations.

If you made a cardigan from the merino/angora yarn, and always wore it over something else, like a cotton turtleneck, would you still have the allergy problem?

Mary asked:
The silk is just stunning. Stunning. Any plans for it yet?

(Mary’s talking about the hand-dyed silk from Solveig that I pictured last week in my blog.)

The skein is 350 meters — a lot of yarn. I’m thinking about a large lace scarf.

Laura asked:
I was also wondering about your flat knitting. In Poems of Color, the pattern has you knit the yoke in the round, do front and back shaping flat, knit the sleeves, then join all and knit down from the arm join in the round. I was hoping to knit my Blue Shimmer in the round from the armholes down. Do you think it would work?

It would work, but I think there’s a definite advantage to knitting flat and seaming. The knitted fabric of this sweater is very soft and delicate. Side seams will give it some support and structure, which I think it needs.

That’s my opinion. I prefer knitting in the round myself. But I’m knitting my Bohus as the pattern directs, because I think the resulting sweater will drape better and wear longer.

Christina asked:
You’ve probably mentioned this before, but what needles do you use for colorwork? I remember you mentioning Hotz & Stein rosewood needles, but the Bohus sweater appears to be on metal needles. I have a hard time maintaining the tension of my floats if I use Addi Turbos.

Before starting the Bohus, I checked my needle stash. The only wooden circular needles I have in the 2.0 and 2.5mm sizes are (much to my surprise) 16″ bamboos, and one 32″ Holz & Stein ebony in 2.5mm. I have Addie Turbos in both sizes in 24″ and 32″ lengths. I didn’t want to use the ebony needle because the main color of my sweater is dark green, and dark on dark? Not such a great idea for purposes of actually seeing what I am doing. So I went with the Addis, because I didn’t want to wait to cast on until I could get some light-colored wooden needles. What? Me? Impatient?

I paid close attention during the colorwork to make sure I kept the tension properly — uh — tensioned.

Here’s my Bohus progress du jour:

And here’s an extreme close-up:

A couple of you asked about the difference between the Kimmet Croft Bohus kits and the kits from Sweden. Here’s a close-up of the yarns, taken with my macro lens.

The red yarn is Kimmet Croft Fairy Haire. The green is the yarn in my Swedish kit. As you can see, the Swedish kit has a finer gauge yarn, and, of course, a finer knitted gauge.

Generally Speaking

Suzanne made a very astute observation:
I don’t finish knitting items anywhere even nearly as quickly as you do, but your comment about your knitting time made me think of something. I often get asked by nonknitters, “How do you knit so much and get so much done with your schedule?” What a lot of nonknitters don’t realize is how many perfect knitting opportunities there are throughout the day. I knit while waiting for my kids to come out of school, I knit at their activities, I sometimes knit at lunch at work, and of course, I knit every evening. I often wonder what these nonknitters do with themselves during all of these spare moments in life!

Yep, those spare moments really add up! On some days, I get more knitting done during “stolen moments” than during my designated knitting time in the evening. That’s the real answer to my volume of knitting, I think.

I get up every weekday and get ready for work, and I usually have 15 or 20 minutes where I watch the early early early news before I need to leave the house to go to the train. I knit during that 15 or 20 minutes (unless Lucy wants my undivided attention, which was the case this morning).

I knit on the first train — 25 or 30 minutes. Usually I wait 6-10 minutes for the second train, and I knit during that time. I’m on the second train for less than 5 minutes, so no knitting then. I knit at lunchtime, I knit on the 25 or 30 minute train going home. And any stuff like doctors’ appointments, trips to the post office, evacuation drills, etc — the knitting goes with me.

Lucy Sez

“Why, yes, I AM cross-eyed. What’s it to you?”

(And P.S. to Jenny in Duluth: “I am indeed a fuzzy-fuzzy-hooshie-booshie kitty snookums. Thank you for noticing!”)

. . . You got yarn on yo’ face
You big disgrace
Knittin’ your hus all over the place

We will we will Bohus
We will we will Bohus

(Well, look at that. I wasn’t done with the lame puns on song titles after all. Go figure.)

Renada asked:
I thought the Bohus collar was knit in the round, and then you separated for the front and back…so you did the colorwork ..dun dun dun…flat??

Nope, the colorwork is in the round (phew!).

You knit the neckband and the colorwork in the round, then after you’ve completed the colorwork yoke, you separate for the front and back and sleeves. It’s only the one-color part that’s knitted flat.

Thankfully.

I did complete the armhole shaping on the front.

Here’s a sorta close-up of the short-rowing on the front.

My progress is lesser today, as I did no lunchtime knitting. Instead, I went out to lunch with my boss — at the Acadiana Restaurant in DC (901 New York Avenue, NW — for those of you keeping score at home). What a fabulous time we had — it was so worth giving up my lunchtime knitting!

Besides, my Tuesday Lunch knitting group is meeting twice this week — Tuesday and Thursday. So I’ll have some extra time with the group, which is always so much fun.

Psst!

I have it on very good authority that Mary got the kit to make the Bohus Blue Shimmer, and she’ll be posting pix on her blog soon!

Knittin’ Time

I’ve been asked the question of how much time I spend knitting each day a couple of times recently.

The commute and lunch hour knitting combined generally adds up to 90 minutes total. Add to that 2 or 3 hours in the evening. It’s a fair chunk of time when you add it all up!

But it hasn’t been all Bohus all the time here. I started spinning this:

This is Cotswold roving in a delightful colorway called Plums and Berries, purchased from Nistock Farms. I really really like how the singles look.

Lucy Sez

“Did someone say Wild Salmon Treats?”

(Are you wondering how long I’ll be able to keep bastardizing song titles? Um . . . I think I’m about done. Maybe.)

There was a question in the comments about the new Bohus kit I bought — the Large Collar. On the Bohus museum webpage it’s listed as the Large Collar and on my pattern it’s called the Large Lace Collar. They are one and the same. Susanna, who translated the pattern into English, cleared up the mystery:

The exact translation of the the design “Stora spetskragen” is The large lace collar. It would appear that the museum is calling the design the Large Collar. Similarly, the Rose Collar/Yellow Collar are called Rosa spetskragen/Gula spetskragen so in this case the museum has omitted the word for lace [spets] in the English translation).

So there you have it. The straight dope, directly from the source.

My progress on my Bohus:

I completed the back.

And I’ve started on the front.

The front employs short rows on each side to lower the neck in the front. I’ve got the short rows done, so now I’m working on the armhole shaping.

The pattern has you complete the sleeves before starting the front, but I decided to do things out of order. You know — just to be ornery.

Spinning

Here’s a quickie: 50 yards of “Whipped Cream” spun from 1 ounce of Cotswold lamb/alpaca blend roving from Nistock Farms.

Birthday Contest

I chose a winner at random from the 66 correct answers to the day of the week on which I was born. The correct answer is Wednesday. The winner is Diana H.

Diana wins this:

Two 50 gram skeins of Cherry Tree Hill Possum Cotton (146 yards each) in the Winterberry colorway.

Thanks to everyone who played! Next contest will be announced on Thursday.

Ho Ho Ho

The King of All Remote Controls and I put up a tree Friday night. With help from Lucy.

Lucy really doesn’t get what the big deal is.