Wendy Knits

Here it is . . . the wrong side of Frogner.

I picked up and knitted the front bands yesterday.

And I picked up and knitted the neckband as well.

I haven’t done the button loops yet. The pattern directs you to crochet button loops, but I plan on doing teeny tiny i-cords instead.

Could I Be Any More Senile?

Sometimes I worry about myself.

I knew I had some Dale of Norway yarn stashed for projects I couldn’t remember. This past weekend I hauled them out — two bags of Heilo and one of Daletta. I wrote down the color numbers and amounts I had in each bag.

The Daletta was easy to figure out — Beito, in the blue colorway.

And I figured out the first bag of Heilo was for Empire Canyon, from the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Collection, in the white colorway.

The second bag of Heilo was for Norge 2000, done in the deep teal colorway.

Some of you may recall that I knitted Norge 2000 in the Norwegian blue colorway in March 2002. I must have bought the wool for the deep teal colorway at some point before that. I have no recollection of doing so.

Lucy only hopes that I remember to feed her.

Ooh! Ooh! Isn’t it cute?

I’ve been on quite a roll with the socks lately. I went through a period of sock doldrums this past Spring, but now I’m back in the sock-saddle again.

As it were.

But after I knit the mate to this little cutie, I am going to knit a pair to give to my dad for Christmas. That would be my dad who has size 13 feet.

The horror.

The horror.

You can be durn sure his socks will be knitted from sport weight, not sock weight yarn.

Knitting Kitty Kuddles

(Sorry about the kutesy spelling there.)

We’ve had some discussion in the comments about lap cats and knitting. Lucy is the first cat I’ve had who will happily lie in my lap and let my knitting in progress not only touch her, but lay on her, drag over her, etc. It does not phase her. Given an opportunity, however, she would gladly chew on my prized ebony needles.

She will never be given that opportunity.

Oh, I forgot to show you — look what I got:

This is Daletta, ordered from the wonderful Bea Ellis, to knit this, the design I mentioned in my blog a couple of weeks ago.

This is design #10903, from Dale book 109.

Don’t you all think this looks like a Solveig Hisdal design? I bet she designed it. I mentioned that to Bea, who told me that Hisdal did design for Dale, and that Dale doesn’t credit individual designers, so it’s not mentioned in the pattern book.

What do you guys think?

Have a great weekend! See you Monday.

Must we have these battles, over and over again?

Apparently we must.

In case you are wondering, I’m talking about the skein of Opal I’m using for my current SIP. I am of the opinion that it’s a center-pull ball and it thinks it isn’t. I am pulling yarn out of the center in great big globs that I have to untangle and wrap around the outside of the skein.

Doncha hate when that happens?

Uusually this phenomenon just happens at the start of the skein. You are groping around in the center of the skein, looking for the end, and you wind up pulling out half the skein. Which you then have to untangle and wind around the outside of the skein.

This ornery skein of Opal has barfed up a messy glob of yarn from its center four times so far. The only other skein of yarn I ever remember this happening with was . . . uh huh . . . another skein of Opal.

I’ve been told that you have to pull out the end from the top of the skein (which can be determined by the direction that the label is put on the skein) for the yarn to come out smoothly, but it doesn’t seem to make a difference sometimes.

Thank goodness my Daletta is behaving like the well-brought-up, refined yarn that it is. It allows me to find the end, pull it out, and actually knit from it, drawing it neatly out from the center of the skein.

New! Improved!

Just because I’m such a sweetheart, I’ve posted some revisions to my Generic Toe-up Sock Pattern. I added some tips and put a bit more detail in the instructions for the heel. I did this just for you!

Now . . . don’t you feel special?

Lucy is jazzed.