Archives for July 2003

Why did I think that Lucy wouldn’t want to help when I made the button loops for Frogner?

Doesn’t her fur make a lovely backdrop for showing the button loops in progress?

As Alison correctly pointed out, the button bands are very narrow and there is no room for buttonholes. Hence the loops. The pattern directs you to crochet them, but I’m doing a two-stitch i-cord instead.

And here they are, completed!

And a closeup of the neckline:

So I’m continuing on with the first sleeve (one sleeve at a time for me, thank you very much). This sweater does have machine stitched steeks, and they are already done. All I need to do is knit the sleeves and sew them in.

I really prefer doing all the finishing work on the body before the sleeves are done. I really don’t like finishing work, so having it out of the way is a bonus!

Lucy News

Here is Lucy in her favorite spot (try to ignore the mess, eh?)

She drapes herself over the back of my desk chair while I’m at the computer (she’s there right now). By the way, in the photo that’s your blog, Claudia, on the computer screen. I think Lucy was hoping for a glimpse of Igor!

Lucy does not eat her Fancy Feast out of a crystal goblet, but from a handmade pottery bowl that has a little cat painted in the bottom. I bought it at Appalachian Spring, a crafts gallery at Union Station in Washington DC. L-B, I think an Appalachian Spring will be opening in Richmond. Beautiful stuff, but it ain’t cheap.

Speaking of beautiful . . . here’s the glamour puss!

I was surfin’ around blogs yesterday and came across a surprise.

I went to a blog I’d never seen before from a link on another blog. I started reading and halfway through the current entry I opened up blogrolling and added a link to this blog from my blog because I enjoyed what I was reading.

Imagine my surprise when I got to the last paragraph of the entry. The blog author was bemoaning the fact that her blog was the only knitting blog that I don’t link to. She said it made her feel bad.

Yow. That made me feel bad.

In this case, the only reason I hadn’t linked to her was because I hadn’t discovered her blog until yesterday. I left her a comment explaining that, and saw another blogger had left a comment earlier telling her not to feel bad because I don’t link to her blog either.

Double-Yow.

Okay, now I feel really bad.

Linking to other blogs. It’s an art, not a science. And an uncertain art at that.

I have a long list of blogs that I read on a regular basis, and the list changes from time to time. I post this list on my blog for my convenience. If someone hasn’t updated their blog in ages, I generally drop it from the list, because I get tired of checking it and finding no updates. If I stumble across a new blog that I like, I’ll sometimes link to it on the spot. Sometimes I don’t, meaning to go back later. Then I can’t find it again.

I’ve had people who email me and say — “Here is the URL to my blog. Please link to it because I know I’ll get lots of hits from referrals from your blog.”

Okay, this one makes me feel really really bad. Particularly if it’s a blog I’ve visited and am not interested in readng every day. For whatever reason. If the main blog content is something I’m not remotely interested in, I’m not going to add it to my regular reads.

So . . . uh . . . no. Sorry. I’m not gonna link to something I don’t read just so the linkee will get more hits. (And I think the individual who emailed me that, verbatim, has incredible chutzpah to tell me out-and-out that the only reason he/she wants a link from my page is to ride on the coattails of whatever popularilty my blog has.) If I read it and like it, I’ll link to it. Besides, contrary person that I am, if you tell me to do something, I’m more likely not to.

What do my fellow bloggers think? What is good blog link etiquette?

So just in case you wondered . . . my list of blogs I read is not necessarily exhaustive, nor is it my final answer. Subject to change from time to time.

Note to the blog owner mentioned at the start of this post: I hope you are not offended by my mentioning this. I bring this up as an ongoing issue. Yesterday’s incident brought it to the front of my somewhat addled brain.

And another thing (while I’m whining). If you are a commercial enterprise, please do not email me and ask me to put a link on my site for your business. I have no commercial links (apart from occasional links in my entries for places I’ve bought stuff from and liked) and I don’t want any. I’ve been getting a lot of emails like this recently and I don’t want to have to spend good knitting time emailing back and explaining my policy (which is stated clearly on my blog etiquette page).

So there. (stamps foot)

On to Knitting

Whenever I knit a Dale, I always get a question about the neck shaping. Did I do it according to the pattern directions (back and forth) or another way?

I lifted this from my May 7 blog entry:

Because I’ve elected to do a neckline steek rather than knit back and forth, I’ve had to alter the neckline decreases a bit. The pattern directs you to cast off x number of stitches for the center of the neck on the first row, then to decrease x number of stitches (i.e., more than 1 stitch) on subsequent rows to shape the slope of the neck.

And I find it sooooo much easier to simply do a steek rather than knit back and forth.

Straight from the horse’s mouth, as it were (whinney).

You’ve plowed through all of the above, so you are rewarded with a photo of Frogner, front bands and neckband completed.

And I’m working on a sleeve too.

Senility

I haven’t yet forgotten to feed Lucy. She would never let me. She has dry food available all the time and in the evening she gets some Fancy Feast.

When I get home after work, she is always waiting at the door for me. She says:

“Mommy, it’s time for dinner. Meow! Dinnertime, dinnertime, dinnertime. Don’t forget the Fancy Feast, Mommy. Fancy Feast, meow, meow! Dinner, dinner, dinner, dinner, dinner! Meow!”

She repeats this until I serve her Fancy Feast. I’m surprised she doesn’t require a sprig of parsley on the side.

Here, Lucy offers her opinion of Frogner.

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.

It was mentioned in my comments on Friday that for a girl who claims she doesn’t like cardigans, I sure have been knitting a bunch of them.

Yes, I have, haven’t I?

I still do prefer pullovers to cardis. But there have been a heckuva lot of cute cardi patterns that I’ve wanted to make!

But for Dale 10903, I’m going to knit a pullover — it’s one of the pattern options. (By the way, Vera, the gauge is 28 stitches and 36 rows to 10 cm on size 3mm needles.)

Which brings me to a question . . .

What Will Wendy Knit Next?

I’ve got lots of projects waiting in the wings! Some have been waiting longer than others. Like Marina (from AS Scottish Collection), which has been patiently waiting since last summer when I bought the Jamieson & Smith shetland for it.

Then there’s the Poetry in Stitches leaf sweater that I bought the kit for when I got my promotion in May.

And Dale 10903 I just mentioned.

And . . . ahem . . . another Dale design I haven’t mentioned yet, because I . . . uh . . . just ordered the Daletta (from the ever-wonderful Bea Ellis) for it.

Lotus.

Oh, did you notice that it’s a cardigan?

Also, I wanna knit an aran out of the blue Cascade 220 I bought last spring.

What’s a girl to do?

Big Sock News!

Last week a knitting buddy in Germany, Sabine Bröhl, translated my generic toe-up sock pattern into German and posted it on her site here. It’s that cool? I’m multi-national! Thanks, Bine!

The German version is linked to from the pattern on my website, too.

Frogner Update

I finished the body.

And I started a sleeve.

I did machine stitch all the steeks on the body, in preparation for doing the front bands, the neckband, and setting in the sleeves. This was the first time Lucy’s seen me use my sewing machine and she got very excited. So much so that she had to take a rest afterward.

Hi Mom and Dad!

My parents left last week on a trip to Scandinavia, to visit my dad’s relatives. Here they are arriving at the airport in Vasa, Finland last Friday.

Have a good Monday, everyone.

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.