A Four-Day Old Project On The Needles

This is my latest project, a feather and fan stole. It's knitted from a lovely hand-painted sock yarn according to my own pattern. I mean, it's pretty straightforward. There's a six-stitch-wide border (chain selvedge and five garter stitches) on each side and five repeats of an 18-stitch feather and fan, making it 102 stitches wide.



I started it with eight rows of garter stitch, which you can see, along with the feather and fan, in this photo. The colors are a little darker than this shows, with black, dark purple, and wine red.


I maybe should have knitted fewer garter-stitch rows, as these have a slight tendency to cup. By the time I figured that out I had about eight inches of stole knitted, so I decided I'd live with it. The digital knitter is a pragmatic knitter.

Here's something I find amusing, but then, I'm easily amused. I wound a great big skein of yarn into a big center-pull ball that was flat on top and bottom. As I've knitted away the ball has changed shape markedly. The bottom is still as flat as a pancake, but the top has gotten more and more domed. The ball is now a lot thicker than it came off the winder. I'm sure this growth from the friction when I pull yarn out as I knit.


I haven't gotten a lot knitted in the last few days. My husband's college roommate and his wife came over from Whittier to visit yesterday (Sunday). We hadn't seen them for a while, so it was a really nice long visit. I'd spent Thursday and Friday getting the last cartons either completely unpacked (sf books to live in Palm Desert, for example) or packed (knitting books to go back to Lancaster for the summer). Then Saturday we went to the supermarket and had a wonderful time shopping in the service deli and bakery. Four kinds of meat, five kinds of cheese, four kinds of rolls, salad, and a beautiful lemon and cream filling cake. Of course, I got the usual produce for sandwiches, too.

The deli salad was very interesting. I'd never had it before, but it looked so good I tried it. It's called fried corn salad and it has sweet corn, pozole, black beans, onions, sweet potato (I think), and green olives in a vinaigrette. Everyone really liked it. I had so much food on the table that I forgot the potato chips entirely, not remembering them until about six p.m.

We all had a wonderful time and they're probably going to come back in a couple of weeks. Considering that they live about a hundred miles away, it's not the shortest trip for them, but they said it was an easy drive, easier than fighting their way north to Lancaster.

As soon as I finish the stole, I've got to get started on a baby blanket. Here's the yarn, Great Adirondack superwash merino worsted weight in Bahama Mama. I'm going to use the Argosy pattern for it. It has to be done by August.


I was going to have the yarn for this custom-dyed, but I fell in love with the Bahama Mama colorway and decided to skip that step. I also got two skeins of Bahama Mama Chinchilla, for what I don't know. I just love the Great Adirondack colors and yarns.

My husband has been recording Knitty Gritty for me, using the DVR in our bedroom. I spent this afternoon watching a week's worth. I took my stole knitting, my new book on modular knitting, and my diet Coke and went back and camped on the bed to watch. I loved the skirt in butterfly stitch but didn't think much of the sushi toilet paper roll cover. I just adored Annie Modesitt's corset and intend to make one after the baby blanket.

The fourth show was on modular knitting, which I didn't know when I picked that book out, and the guest was Iris Schreier, author of Modular Knitting. That was the very book I'd been clutching to my bosom. I've decided I need Vivian Høxbro's Domino Knitting, too. One of the blogs I read has featured a sweater knitted in mitered squares and the techniques look very interesting to me.