Birthday Cards

I got a birthday card and note from my favorite niece in the whole world (she's actually my only niece, but I still recognize her superiority at being a niece). She told me that she bought herself a Kindle 2 after reading my posting on mine. She has always been a great reader, like me, which I think has made us closer over the years. I have to admit to having aided and abetted her reading habit; I would buy her books when we visited Iowa and even now we give her Amazon gift certificates.

Still, to convince her, with just a few words, to buy a Kindle 2.... Fortunately for my auntly reputation, she loves it with a passion. I am so pleased to hear that from her, since I love mine, and her, so very much.

She is a wonderful person. She's really good at dealing with people, which is a large part of her job (she's a fairly high-level manager at the hospital system of a big Midwestern university), and she's very intelligent. She got her MBA at that same university while working full time, with excellent grades. We are so proud of her and her success. She's also a wonderful aunt to her four nieces and one nephew. She graciously gives me a much-needed outlet for knitted goods, by accepting and wearing warm woolly scarves.

Maybe she'll start leaving the occasional comment here. I didn't even know she was reading.

No-Roll Stockinette Scarf

This is my pattern for a no-roll stockinette scarf. The latest version is made of Debby Bliss Cashmerino Astrakhan, which is a very textured yarn. There's no point in wasting a pattern on it and I prefer stockinette to garter stitch.

The pattern is more a recipe than a pattern. Pick your yarn and select the recommended size needles. If you know you're a tight or a loose knitter, adjust the size accordingly.

You want a nice firm fabric with some drape to it, not too loose (it won't keep the wearer warm) and not too tight (it won't drape around the wearer). I make my scarves about seven inches wide and seven feet long, because I'm knitting them for Iowans, South Dakotans, and Pennsylvanians.

Compute how many stitches it takes to make eight inches (look on the ball label) and subtract 10%. Cast this number of stitches on, using any cast-on method you like.

Bottom border:
Knit six rows (three garter ridges on each side), slipping the first stitch purlwise, with the yarn in front.

Body:

1. Slip the first stitch purlwise with yarn in front, knit 4, purl to 5 stitches before the end, knit 5.
2. Slip the first stitch purlwise with yarn in front, knit to end of row.

Repeat rows 1 and 2 until the scarf is about five stockinette rows shorter than the final length you want, or until you're almost out of yarn.

Top border:
Knit six rows (three garter ridges on each side), slipping the first stitch purlwise, with the yarn in front.

Bind off, using a method that doesn't cause the end to flare. I like the knit two together, knit one, knit two together bind-off that Cat Bordhi uses for her Moebius scarves.

Weave in ends, wash gently, roll in dry towels (or spin in washer), and pat out into shape. Let dry, out of the sun.

The Dramatic Stole Is On My Mind

It's kept me awake a couple of nights, fretting about it. My friend J. picked up some Lion Brand Incredible yarn in the Rainbow colorway when our local Hancock Fabrics closed up. She wanted a Dramatic Stole and she's exactly the right person to wear one. She's tall and carries herself beautifully. Drama becomes her.


I, being a knitter who is always looking for projects, said I knit a dramatic stole for her and we went to the new LYS and picked out some Blue Heron Rayon Loop in Blueberry, which is a very nice boucle. I haven't knitted much boucle, so this promised to be an interesting experience. And the colors are so luscious. Boucle knits up into a unique fabric in garter stitch. It's too loopy to knit into fancy stitches, as they won't show.


For a textural contrast, we chose Yarn Place Vivace (bamboo) in Purple Rain. Believe the promise of the yarn in the skein, as you pick it up and feel its soft slinkiness. It truly is soft and it has that wonderful heavy drape of rayon and silk. It also holds a stitch nicely.


So here's the total collection.


My first thought was symmetric stripes in random widths starting at the center back, sort of like the spreading zone in the middle of the Atlantic. I tried that, starting with the Vivace and following with the Rayon Loop, but it really didn't work. The Vivace needed more of a pattern and the gauges were just too different.

Even that little bit of knitting with bamboo yarn had kind of hooked me, so I'd gone back to my LYS and picked up three balls of SWTC Bamboo, which is DK weight, and restarted Faina's Scarf[1]. I got about halfway though it and had an idea for the Dramatic Stole. I decided to make lace panels in the Faina's Scarf pattern in Vivace and join them with garter-stitch panels in the Rayon Loop. I've knitted two lace panels. The panels are about 11" by 22", although I can change the size a fair amount.


Here's a close-up of one of the panels. I should point out that this pattern is copyright Fibertrends, so I won't be showing the whole thing in loving detail or anything.


And here's a close-up of the other.

Chevrons and diamonds, to summarize. You can probably just see that there's a chain selvedge on the side of the panel. I'm going to knit a Rayon Loop panel, picking up the selvedge stitches, to join these panels. There will be five lace panels and six boucle panels. Then I'll edge the whole thing with Incredible, in a knitted-on i-cord, and add the Incredible fringe. That should be dramatic enough, even for her.

[1] More about the Faina's Scarf soon. I need to take photos in good light because the yarn is all blues and lavender, which doesn't photograph well in poor light. The colors are beautiful and I want them to show up in all their glory.

Another New Scarf

I started another quick scarf, after buying three balls of SWTC Bamboo yarn from my LYS. This isn't a very good photo, partly because the yarn is very shiny (and soft) and partly because it's been cloudy here. These are also difficult colors for the digital camera. The yarn is variegated from a light lavender to a medium teal via light green blue. The colors are actually very pretty and not all faded out, the way they look in both these photos.


The colors are a little better here. The pattern is Faina's Scarf, from Fibertrends. This is at the end of the first chart, the increase at one end.


See the pretty seed stitch border? it's also got a slipped-stitch selvedge that is visible along the left side. While this is lace, it's not very lacy, which sounds contradictory, but isn't. I started this scarf once before in red Lion Brand Microspun, which is very nice yarn, but was way too heavy for this scarf. The Bamboo, which is DK weight, is really a bit too heavy, too, but it's a lot closer. The pattern wanted sport weight, but I didn't have anything really pretty in sport weight.

I'm actually almost done with the second body repeat, but it's too cloudy to get a better photo. As soon as it clears up I'll snap a photo to show it off in its true colors.

Lace Shawls And Blocking

I thought it would be interesting to show before and after blocking photos of the lace Diamond Fantasy Christening Shawl, to show how much it stretches and how much flatter and lacier it looks after blocking.

This is the before photo:


And this is the after photo. See how much bigger the yarnovers are and how flat it is? It's a lot less dense and the shawl really grew.


I'm still working on the Floral Lace Shawl; I'm somewhere between 2/3rds and 4/5ths of the way to being done. That is to say, I'm nearly at the end of the fourth ball of yarn but I don't know whether I'm going to use five balls or six. I think I may have to go to the next longer cable (Knit Pick Options Harmony interchangeable circular needles) before I go much further. The current one is getting kind of crowded. I meant to measure the christening shawl before and after blocking, to help me estimate how big I wanted to make the current shawl, but I totally forgot. Since this shawl is for me, I'll probably use up all the yarn. I don't think there's much I can make with just one skein of it, as they're fairly small.

I mentioned the whatever I'm knitting for what's-her-name earlier. I'm sorry to say I seem to have mis-measured the gauge swatch and have to frog nearly six inches of 2x2 ribbing, 440 stitches per row on circular needles. It seems to have come out about 150% bigger than I thought it would. If I'd kept going, it was going to be the heaviest and warmest scarf knitted in the history of the world, including the Dr. Who scarves that are such perennial favorites. I'm going to abandon this for a while and make an entirely different whatever for someone else. Fortunately, I have enough victims friends and relatives in colder climates that finding someone else won't be too hard.

If you look here you can see the next lace shawl I'm going to knit (this won't be the next thing I knit, just the next shawl). I got the pattern in November, from Elann, and I've got several choices of yarn in my stash. I'm thinking that blue, rather like Wendy's, might be nice. I married into an entire family of blue-eyed Iowans, mostly with brown hair, so I buy a fair amount of yarn in colors that will look good on them. I've also got some lovely natural (cream) merino from Knit Picks in both lace and fingering weight, but I think a mildly variegated yarn will look really good in this pattern.

An FO At Last

I have finally finished my pretty Bigfoot Shawl from Wrapped In Comfort by Alison Jeppson Hyde. It's knitted in Knit Picks Gloss, which is a fingering-weight blend of 70% merino wool and 30% silk. This is a very robust yarn; I ended up re-knitting about three inches of this shawl about four times and the yarn stood up to it very well, looking just as good the last time I knitted it as it did the first.


The pattern called for three balls of Gloss but I used an extra three-quarters of a ball. This was the result of my decision to knit until the shawl was 16" long unstretched. At the end of the third ball the shawl was 16" long somewhat stretched, but that seemed just a little skosh to me, so I knitted on. The pattern calls for 16" in length, no other description, which is why I had two options. Of course, it was easy to decide to press on after three balls because I had, with my usual caution, bought an extra ball. This leaves me with more orphan balls that I probably need, but it avoids that nasty sinking feeling you get when you're out of yarn but not out of pattern.


Here's a not very good photo of the pattern, a variant of Fan and Feather. This is some of the part that got knitted four times. The yarn looks pretty good, with good stitch definition and shine, even after all that abuse. Knitting with black yarn can be a challenge, particularly for older eyes. I used the screen on my laptop to check my knitting.

So now I've got to block this circular shawl. That's going to be a first for me. I've looked around a little on the Web, as well as checking some books, for tips and hints. I have those rubber floor tiles I use for blocking, plus a zillion T pins and several tape measures. I'm not exactly sure how I should pin out the neckline. I mean, I know it's round, but what's the right diameter? I'm pretty sure this will become easy to see when I get right down to it.

So now all I've got left for my imperative Christmas knitting is a scarf made from Knit Picks Panache for my brother in law. This is such luscious yarn, 40% superfine alpaca, 20% cashmere, 20% silk, and 20% superfine merino. I just love knitting scarves from such luxurious fibers for my brother- and sister-in-law, both of whom I love dearly.

Here's a photo, one I've posted before, just to save readers the effort of paging back through previous posts to find it.

It's a little darker blue than this, not quite navy blue, though. The color is named Dusk.

And the last photo, just because I like the colors so much, is of the triangular shawl I'm knitting for myself. I won't be doing much with it until the blue scarf is done and the BIL and SIL scarves are on their way to Iowa.

This is very relaxing to knit. That may be because the pattern is quite straightforward and the colors are sort of unpredictable. I'd never dream of giving this shawl to anyone else because the colors are so vivid, even gaudy. And, of course, I have the option of frogging the whole thing back and knitting wristlets from it, more in accordance with the plan of the yarn's creator. It's sock yarn, but I don't knit socks.

One last item--I'm beginning to suspect that I may get a washer and dryer for Christmas. The washer doesn't always spin the clothes dry and the dryer seems to be stuck on really hot. We're going to go over to Lowe's and look at the Whirlpool front-loading washers and matching dryers. This isn't exactly what I was hoping Santa would bring me, but at least it's not coal.

What's New On The Knitting Front

I'm going to start out with the knitting for the March baby, my dear friend's first grandbaby.

First is the christening shawl. Traditionally this is worn by the baby at the christening and then, decades later, by the bride at the baby's wedding. Well, the baby isn't a baby at the wedding, of course, but you know what I mean. We don't know whether the baby is a boy or a girl, so I have to write very generally until March.

This shawl, knitted from the Diamond Fantasy Shawl pattern, is finished, with the yarn ends woven in but not clipped. It needs to be washed and dressed (blocked, dressed--I use the terms interchangeably for lace; everything else gets blocked). I got a blocking wire set just for shawls and I think I'll use them for this shawl. The yarn (Knit Picks Bare merino and silk fingering weight) is very nice and I think it will block beautifully.


A close-up, to show the diamonds.


Next is hand-painted Ultra Superwash Merino in worsted weight, from Karen Jorden (sharing.etsy.com). She's one of my favorite dyers as she has a wonderful eye for bright colors.
This yarn (five skeins) was custom-dyed for the March baby. This green is one of the mother's favorite colors and it's safely neutral. I haven't decided on a pattern yet, but I'm considering a ripple afghan pattern. I could make another Argosy baby blanket, I suppose, but I feel as if I should try something new. Be adventurous or something. We'll see.


And here's a slightly lighter version of the same color, in fingering weight. We didn't want to make the two exactly the same. Too matchy-matchy. This will become a shawl for the baby's mother. Like the worsted weight, this is just beautiful yarn. I really look forward to knitting with them.


Now, some knitting for grown-ups in Iowa. This is the start of a scarf for my brother-in-law. It's Knit Picks Panache in Dusk (the alpaca, cashmere, silk, and superfine merino yarn is discontinued, I'm sorry to say). The pattern is the Yarn Harlot's One Line Hand-spun Scarf, which is beautiful indeed in hand-spun yarn, and pretty good in regular yarn.


And this is a close-up of the garter-stitch scarf, knitted in hand-painted brushed Suri alpaca, for my sister-in-law. This yarn is so light and ethereal, it's just amazing how warm it is. The scarf, which is about nine inches wide and over six feet long, took only one and a half balls of yarn.


Here's a bigger photo, showing a section of it. I think the colors are just beautiful and I was ever so slightly tempted to keep this beauty, except that I've never worn a scarf for warmth in my entire life. Instead, I've threatened my husband with a throw knitted from this yarn, to keep him warm. He's not sure if I'm serious or if I'm kidding. Neither am I.


And here's the ball of yarn. It's one of those yarns that you want to cuddle and pet the ball, because it's so soft and nice.


And finally we get to some yarn for me. This is Claudia's fingering weight merino, hand-painted in the Tropicana color way. Yes, the colors are as bright as they look in the photo. Most people use this yarn for socks. Not me. I have six skeins of it.


I'm making a triangular shawl with it. Here's a photo of about half of it. It's too big to lie flat on the needle cable, so I bunched half of it up and spread out the other half. Bright, isn't it?


Here's a close-up, showing the pattern.


And here's another, closer close-up.


This shawl is knitted in the flower motif from this book:


This is a wonderful book by an exceedingly talented designer. I have many of her lace shawl patterns from Fiber Trends and various magazines and books. This book shows how to knit a triangular shawl in four different motifs, either singly or combined, and add a scalloped edging.
With this book a knitter will understand triangular shawl construction and be able to go much further, designing original lace shawls with a wide variety of lace patterns. I highly recommend it.

It's Raining All Over SoCal

What a dismal gloomy day we're having. It started raining at about 0845 and it's still raining almost five hours later. It's not a hard rain, so there's a good chance a lot of it will soak in instead of running off. Fortunately the storm is coming up from the south and west, so there's no chance of snow for us down here, although it's snowing and sticking at the mountain resorts. The storm is dumping snow on the Four Corners area, in particular my birthplace, Durango, CO.

This is all supposed to go away by tomorrow and we'll have a pretty, if cool, day for the UCLA-USC game. If USC (boo, hiss) wins, they'll go to the Rose Bowl. If UCLA (go, Bruins) wins and if Arizona State later loses, then UCLA will go to the Rose Bowl. Since I bleed Bruin blue and gold, you can tell where my heart is. USC is my second favorite, though. (I'm somewhat less partisan about football than basketball.)

The weather may affect the game, though, because it's being played in an outdoor stadium with natural grass. They've gotten about a half-inch of rain down there, which shouldn't affect the field too much, but if it keeps raining the field may get soft. Neither team is very accustomed to soggy fields.

Speaking of soggy fields, did anyone else see this week's Monday Night Football game, where the field was all but under water? On one kick, the ball came down and stuck in the ground. It didn't bounce at all. It was just standing there, right where it hit, pointy end embedded in the glop. All the yard lines and hash marked were washed away, too. I love watching football games played in real weather, particularly pro games. There was a fairly recent game in a driving snow storm (at Lambeau Field, maybe?), so heavy you couldn't see the far side of the field, and another in such thick fog you couldn't even see that far. Now that's football.

Last night I washed and dried a rollerball pen with a load of medium-colored clothes, mostly cotton knits. What a mess! The dryer drum had a lot of black streaks and my clothes were almost all spotted and streaked and smudged with black ink. The dryer cleaned up pretty well, so that I could dry the load in the washer. I gave up about then and didn't even try to re-wash the stained load. I'm going to do that as soon as I post this. Fortunately, a lot of the load was nightgowns and briefs, so the world won't end if they end up with a few gray splotches. However, one of the victims was one of my favorite U-2 (airplane, not band) tees and I'm a little worried about it.

I've once again put aside my Bigfoot Shawl for another project. I got two balls of Suri Dream handpainted in Rose Quartz in my recent order from Knit Picks. The box showed up on Tuesday and I managed to resist until last night (Thursday), but I caved in and started a scarf. This yarn is just beautiful. It's really soft and so light, but still warm. The colors are very good, too. The scarf is just garter stitch with slipped-stitch selvages, 24 stitches on US 11 needles. It's about 8 in. wide and I've got about 24 in. knitted already. I've weighed the ball of yarn a couple of times and I think I'm getting about an inch of scarf per gram. I'm thinking that I should order another ball of yarn and make two six-foot scarves. I'll try to get a reasonable photo tomorrow if it's sunny enough.

Photo Time

Ta-DA!

Forest Canopy Shawl II
Originally uploaded by Mary The Digital Knitter

This is the Forest Canopy Shawl II, knitted from Knit Picks Shimmer, in Turquoise Splendor. I took this photo in the hope that everyone can see how light and airy it is, moving in the very faint breeze. As I've said before, I'm not fond of knitting with lace weight yarn, but it does make beautiful, delicate, gossamer lace.

Here's another photo, that shows a little more detail.

There's half a mile (880 yd) and 100 grams (3.5 oz) of yarn in this shawl. It took a while to knit, but that was mostly because I was working on other projects at the same time.

This shawl has gone to the friend it was knitted for and she loves it. It was a total surprise and she had no idea at all that I'd made it for her. I love surprising someone so totally. The blues in the yarn make her eyes look so blue it's almost startling.

Here's a photo of the unblocked lace, taken while I was knitting it.

And here are two close-up photos after blocking:

Isn't it amazing how much difference blocking makes?

This is the Sivia Harding Diamond Fantasy Shawl II that I started a couple of days ago. This is about a third done, but I should put it aside and work on other projects. This shawl is to be a christening shawl for my friend Pat's impending grandchild. The baby is due in March, so I have a little time left. Considering that I knitted a third of the shawl in two days, though, it might not affect the other projects much if I just went ahead and finished it.

I think this is one of the most beautiful lace patterns I've seen and I really enjoy knitting it. The yarn is Knit Picks Bare Merino/Silk Fingering Weight yarn and the shawl will take less than two skeins (each 440 yd, 100 gm). This is beautiful yarn. It's so soft and has such good stitch definition. The fabric has a beautiful hand, with the supple weight of silk.

Here's a close-up photo. I just wish there were some way to transmit the feel of this.

Here's the main project that I've put aside to work on the Diamond Fantasy Shawl II. It's the Bigfoot Shawl from Wrapped In Comfort: Knitted Lace Shawls, by Alison Jeppson Hyde. It's knitted from the same merino and silk yarn, only in black. When it's dyed, Knit Picks calls it Gloss.

It's a circular shawl, which means that the rows are really long. The pattern is a variation of Feather and Fan, which I like, and this shawl is going to be so nice. It's soft and cuddly and just the thing to wear around one's shoulders when it's a bit cool or drafty. I'm knitting it for my cousin's wife. She finds restaurants very uncomfortable in the summer, when she's dressed up and the air conditioning is set to keep men in wool suits cool. This should look dressy enough, with the silk in the yarn. At least, I hope it does.

Now photos of a trio of scarves. The first is a modified version of the Dragon Scales Scarf, knitted in Classic Elite Posh (70% silk, 30% cashmere) in Merlot.

Then there's the Breezy Scarf, knitted from my own pattern in Lang Breeze (merino and nylon) in Orchid.

This is a big scarf, about nine inches wide and over six feet long. It's for our niece in Iowa City. It get cold in Iowa so I get to knit warm scarves for everyone.

And last, but certainly not least, is Reggie the alligator scarf from Morehouse Farm. He came out of the blocking wondrously soft and merino-y. I think I'm going to send him to our goddaughter at Penn State.

Another Shawl and Three Scarves Finished and Blocked

Yesterday I blocked the turquoise Forest Canopy Shawl I've been knitting off and on for a couple of months. It's absolutely amazing how different lace looks after blocking. The yarn is Knit Picks turquoise Shimmer, 70% alpaca and 30% silk lace weight yarn. I used two skeins, totaling 100 grams and half a mile (880 yd). I find lace weight yarn irritating to knit with, but as I knitted I got more used to it and less irritated. The yarn produced a good-looking shawl.

I also washed and pat-blocked Reggie the alligator scarf, the dragon scales scarf, and the big fluffy cream and orchid scarf. Reggie got a lot softer after washing (Morehouse Farm merino) and the other two stayed about the same. The dragon scales scarf is merlot Classic Elite Posh in cashmere and silk and the big fluffy scarf is orchid Lang Breeze in merino and nylon.

I got a new lace book from Elann that I highly recommend to every lace knitter. It's Knitting Lace Triangles by Evelyn A. Clark. Ms Clark is one of my favorite shawl designers and I have most of her Fiber Trend lace shawl patterns. I'm not the only one who likes her work; Elann is having a lot of trouble keeping the book in stock. Essentially, this book shows the lace knitter how to knit a triangular shawl using one or more of four basic patterns and a scalloped edging with or without beads. Of course, after knitting one or more of these shawls and understanding the basic technique, the knitter can substitute any lace pattern.

I have a list of projects that I absolutely, positively must knit before I start any other projects. The list comprises a circular shawl for my cousin (over half done), two stoles for my neighbor (one just started), a christening shawl, a baby blanket, and a lace shawl. The christening shawl and baby blanket have to be done by March and the two stoles should be done before the New Year. I can sneak a few scarves and other little projects in, of course, but nothing big.

I'll take photos of everything today or tomorrow, including the yarn for the planned projects, and post them all. With links to the patterns, where available, even. Ravelry has raised my standards for how much information should be included. I can't wait for it to go public so I can just link to the projects there, instead of repeating it here. I don't know when it's going public but I do know that they're issuing invitations very quickly these days. Sign up at ravelry.com. I'm digitalknitter there.

Breezy Scarf

Breezy Scarf
Originally uploaded by Mary The Digital Knitter

This scarf is finished. It's 9 in. wide and well over 6 ft long (I haven't measured it). I don't know whether I'm going to wait to send it to Iowa until I have several more scarves to go with it or just send it on now. It's really too warm for such a heavy scarf, so I'll probably wait.

I've got yellow yarn, just like this, for another similar scarf, as well as superfine (baby) alpaca in both purple and rose and alpaca, cashmere, silk, merino blend in both blue and black, for winter scarves. Working with such luxurious yarns is a real delight, and making just a scarf avoids bankruptcy.

Today was a real reading jackpot between USPS and UPS. The letter carrier brought me a carton of ten books (one crockpot cookbook and nine mysteries) from Zooba and UPS brought me one book (1634: The Bavarian Crisis, an alternate history book and the newest in a series) from Amazon. I'd been waiting impatiently for the 1634 book and I'm really happy it's here.

Speaking of reading and of knitting, I've figured out a good way to read while knitting. Baen Books offers a wide variety of free books for download, many by authors I really like. It's easy to download one and read it on my laptop as I knit. Of course, this only works for simple knitting.

Fat-Yarn Scarf Time!

Breeze Scarf
Originally uploaded by Mary The Digital Knitter

I mentioned earlier that I'd ordered some chunky and bulky yarn for scarves and I was going to abandon the lace-weight yarn and US 5 needles of the Forest Canopy Shawl II for scarves when the orders arrived.

Well, the first order, from Elann, arrived yesterday at about 1130. It was opened and the yarn, Lang Breeze Color, in Orchid, was being petted at roughly 1131. By 1145 I'd dug the never-before-used 8-mm (US 11) Brittany birch 10" needles out of the bottom of my knitting equipment crate, gotten a new Diet Coke, snagged something to eat, and settled down to knit.

I started with a triangular tip in stockinette, with garter-stitch border, but decided I really didn't want to spend my time knitting all that stockinette, so I carefully frogged that and just cast on 28 stitches. That's 1 stitch on each side for the chain selvedge (see it in the photo? looks nice, doesn't it?), 1 stitch for garter stitch on each side, and 24 stitches for the 3-1 traveling rib. This is a variation on a scarf I made for my goddaughter, which had a 5-1 traveling rib. Well, it may not be an actual traveling rib because the stitches don't cross, but I've always heard it called a traveling rib.

I should have used 2 stitches on each side for garter stitch, as the edges are rolling slightly, but it's not too bad and I'm not going to frog over a foot of scarf to fix it. Roving yarns don't hold up well to a lot of frogging and re-knitting, in my experience. This one might, but I'd rather not risk it.

Anyway, by about 1600 all the first ball of yarn was knitted up and I started taking photos for the blog and Ravelry. In addition, I photographed all the yarn in the order (five colors of Elann Baby Silk and Baby Cashmere, for the circular shawls in a new book, Wrapped In Comfort: Knitted Lace Shawls) and the yarn from three stash bins. Then I spent hours putting titles and descriptions on the photos at Flickr and then filling in the data for Ravelry.

As I rummaged through the bins of yarn, it occurred to me that rather than knitting tops from sport-weight cotton yarn, with small needles, I could knit lace, with larger needles. Or knit with two strands, as worsted weight. So now I'm looking at my stash quite differently. Particularly at the Classic Elite Avignon, which is tussah silk and Pima cotton and a lovely yarn. And looking through my shawl patterns, particularly the ones that accommodate various yarn sizes.

I should get this scarf finished about when the Knit Picks orders arrive. The first order is mostly the new Harmony wooden needle tips and the second is fat yarn. They've both been shipped and will probably show up early next week, a couple of days apart. I might even have some time to work on the shawl, which is now over half done, before I throw myself back into the scarf jungle.

Half Done

I'm half done on the Forest Canopy Shawl II. I just started the second ball of yarn. It does go slowly, with fine yarn on US 5 needles. The photo is a close-up in which I hope you can see the leaf pattern


I'm expecting an order of bulky alpaca and cashmere blend yarns from Knit Picks in the next few days. I plan to put this shawl aside and knit some soft, luscious scarves for my friends and family members in South Dakota, Iowa, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.

You'd think I'd learn my lesson one of these days and stop buying lace yarn, wouldn't you? I haven't. Not yet, anyway. Although I have noticed that some lace weight yarns are thicker than others. I've got some Knit Picks Gossamer, which is quite a bit heavier than the Knit Picks Shimmer I'm using for this shawl, and I expect to like it a lot more.

New Book

The newest Donna Andrews book The Penguin Who Knew Too Much showed up at my house at about 1730 this evening. I had to make dinner and quickly finish the book I was reading (I was almost at the end anyway) but now, as soon as I send this, I'm going to start reading it. There were six other books in the box and I didn't even look at them. Nor did I open the other Amazon box that arrived at the same time. I won't be back here until I'm done with it.

I love Donna Andrews' books, particularly the Meg Langslow series. They so funny and so well written that I just can't resist them. Some people think some kinds of yarn are crack; with me it's good books by favorite authors.

I finished Reggie the Alligator yesterday. I've got to get my yarn needle out and finish him up, as well as the Dragon Scale and Noro Argosy scarves. Then I have to wash the See's chocolate off Reggie and gently block him. The other two scarves don't have any chocolate on them, but they'll still get washed and blocked.

I got some of those rubber foam tiles for blocking, after reading about them on a couple of blogs. I'd give credit but I can't remember. They're great. Two sets of four 2x2' interlocking tiles, with edges. Amazon, intended for work-out rooms and free weight work. Inexpensive. Recommended.

Reggis Gets Bigger

Alligator Scarf
Originally uploaded by Mary The Digital Knitter

As you can see, Reggie has grown quite a bit. He's up to ten rows of bumps, of sixteen, but he's got a long tail beyond the last row of bumps.

The smudge of chocolate on the center bump of the seventh row is from a See's butterscotch square. He attacked me for it, I swear. I didn't just drop it on him.

I'm still on the first skein of yarn, so it looks as if I won't have to worry about running out, even though I didn't get gauge.

Cute, Isn't He?

Alligator Scarf
Originally uploaded by Mary The Digital Knitter

I'm very taken with Reggie. He's actually quite a bit darker green than the photo would indicate, because the photo was taken with flash. Think dark green, just lighter than forest green.

I'm not quite sure who I'm going to inflict with him but I'm sure there's someone I know who will find him as cute as I do. Maybe my friend Pat. I was going to give him to my goddaughter, the Penn State student, but he's just not soft enough for her. The next one, in medium olive green Gedifra Living (100% new wool), will be for her, I think.

This alligator scarf is a kit from Morehouse Farms. I've bought a number of their kits, mostly for scarves. This alligator is definitely the cutest. There's only one flaw with it, which is VM (vegetative matter, a euphemism for nasty little bits of plants) in the yarn. I don't know why the yarn isn't cleaner. Their fancy handpainted merino yarns are.

In the last six months I've gotten some books on modular knitting and now I'm thinking that a turtle shell would be easy to make with hexagons of hand-painted yarn. Maybe a pillow.

Not Much Happening

I haven't posted anything recently because I really haven't had much to report. I've got a couple of scarves going, but they're experimental and I think I'm about to frog them. Wow, is that Classic Elite Posh, being cashmere (30%) and silk (70%), wonderful or what? And the color (Merlot) is so rich and deep. I've got to find the perfect scarf pattern for the two skeins I have. Dragon Scales isn't it, though. Maybe I'll try Reversible Cables.

The Mystery Stole 3 was going beautifully, I thought, until I discovered I was a stitch short. Unfortunately, I discovered it about thirty rows or so after I misplaced it. I was thinking of just reknitting that section, but now I'm thinking it'll be easier to start over. I'm only on Clue 2, after all.

We've got the guest room at my Mom's almost empty. Most of what's left goes to the thrift store, having come from there originally. The volunteers would go through the donations for items that were appropriate for the baskets they raffled off at Christmas. She assembled the items throughout the year and only had to put the baskets together just before the raffle.

We're also doing well on the office and it's about half empty. Again, there are thrift-store donations; this time items that had been set aside for the homeless shelter. She'd accumulate enough to make the trip worthwhile. We've got several cartons packed up and only one or two more to go.

The hardest part is going to be the garage, mostly because it's so hot here. Her garage was used as auxiliary storage for the thrift store and a lot of what's in it will just go straight there, no sorting or repacking required. There even a spinet piano. However, there's a fair amount of other stuff, too. We may end up taking it inside so we can work on it in the air conditioning.

Not very exciting, is it?

Even Stockinette Stitch And Packing Up

I'm resting up after packing four boxes and one (!) under-bed storage bin full of yarn to go to Lancaster. You may remember I had two boxes, three bins, and a bunch of yarn still in the closet a couple of days ago. I thinned down what I'd already packed up and then added the last bits I couldn't live without, which was another box. Even though I have four boxes, they're a lot less densely packed than the first two were. And I can get the lid on the bin without it bowing upward.

I've got two or three 1 cu ft boxes of books, mostly sf and actual science. I might have not quite one box of knitting books, but I sent another box back earlier with my friend Pat. I'm leaving over half the books I brought down here, but I did buy a few new ones that I can't bear to leave behind.

I have food and clothing and a few personal things, like prescription medications, to pack, too, but that's a lot easier. We have a lot of duplicates at each house, so that we don't have to take everything both ways, just a few things. The clothes just go out last, on hangers, and get laid on top of the boxes in back. Food, mostly perishables, goes into ice chests or grocery bags.

So right now I'm trying something different with my Faina's Scarf. I've got the tip and half a body repeat knitted on US 4/3.5 mm needles, but I think that's a little tight for the Micro Spun (which, if you want my opinion, should be named Annoying Micro Split, but it is soft). So I'm starting another scarf, using US 5/4.0 mm needles. I think that's going to work better, but I won't know for sure until I finish the tip and start on the straight body section. It's there that I'm unhappy with the tighter-knit version because it cups. If I were using wool, I might be able to convince myself it would block out, but not with a synthetic.

So, you ask, what does this have to do with even stockinette stitch? I'm like a lot of knitters, I have a little trouble getting the purl rows and the knit rows to be the same size when I knit stockinette flat. This is more usual with yarns that aren't very stretchy, of course; stockinette in merino looks pretty good without much effort. I tried using a smaller needle for the purl rows, but then they're too tight (I probably need a needle about half a size smaller), so I mostly avoided large stretches of flat stockinette early in my knitting career.

A long time ago I had an epiphany. I was watching a friend knit on the tips of her needles, with the yarn wrapped tightly enough around her fingers to almost cut off the circulation. She produces the tightest knitting I've ever seen. She usually goes up about three or four needle sizes to get gauge.

The epiphany was that she wasn't knitting on the needles, she was knitting on the tips, and this is why her knitting was so tight. Well, that and that her stitches were so close together there wasn't any slack. My purling is too loose knitted on the needles so why not try knitting them on the tips, with the stitches close together? So I did. And it worked.

I was taught to slide my new stitch down past the tip onto the barrel of the needle and I usually do so. I still do so for the knit rows of stockinette. When I'm doing stockinette with non-stretchy yarn, though, I form the purl stitches at about 2/3rds or 3/4ths of the tapered tip and I don't slide each stitch onto the barrel of the needle, but just leave it there and knit the next one right beside it. Knitting this way makes my stockinette stitch very even because my purl rows aren't looser than my knit rows.

If any of you are plagued, as I was, by uneven stockinette, I hope this technique will help. It may take some practice at first, but give it a try and let me know.

A New Needleholder And Some Progress

Two days ago I got the most beautiful knitting needle case in the mail.


Here it is opened out so you can see the entire outer side. The black panels are ultrasuede, and the narrow red strips and the Hawaiian print are cotton. The Chinese knot frog is shiny red cord.


Here's the inside, with the Hawaiian print also used for the flap that keeps the needles from leaping out of the case.


And here's a photo of the cream brocade pockets. Lots and lots of pockets, aren't there? I haven't had the nerve to put my scruffy old needles into this beautiful case. I don't want to sully its perfection with reality quite yet, so now I just open it up and admire the cleverly designed pockets and stroke the ultrasuede and wonder how she knew how much I like Hawaiian prints.


It's a gift from Karen, known as sharing on Etsy. I've bought quite a bit of yarn from Karen, as has a friend of mine, and I think very highly of her. She's very talented and has an exceptional color sense. Her hand-dyed yarns are just beautiful, with wonderful color combinations. She has started offering needle cases like mine now. Go have a look at her shop; I think you'll like it very much.

I've made quite a bit of progress on my feather and fan stole. It's about half done now. It goes pretty fast since there are only 102 stitches and three of the four pattern rows are plain knitting or purling all the way across the row except for the garter-stitch edges. The actual pattern row is fairly easy, too, being six-stitch blocks of k2tog or yo, k1. We're going to have company tomorrow and Saturday, so I probably won't get a whole lot done on it this weekend.


My neat little center-pull cylinder of yarn had managed to develop a dome on top some time ago. Now it's turning into a cone.


The bottom is still quite flat:


I've pulled enough yarn out of the center of the ball that the yarn is no longer fluffing up enough to fill the hole in and the bottom is just starting to get a bit concave.


Fortunately the yarn is mostly, if not entirely, wool so the ball isn't going to fall apart into a dreadful tangle the way slippery yarn does. However, I'm handling it very gingerly, just in case it's more fragile than I think it is.

My Fiber Trends Faina's Scarf pattern arrived last week and I've been poking around in my stash for yarn for it. I've found several possibilities and now I'm wondering whether the required 450 yd of sport weight yarn includes the yarn used to make the fringe or not. And, if it does, how much that took.

Image copyright Fiber Trends.
Borrowed (not linked) without permission.

I'm thinking of putting a nice fat tassel on each end, instead of the fringe. The two points are just begging for tassels, don't you think? It has crossed my mind to use black rayon chainette and black merino fingering weight for the body of the scarf and just the chainette for the tassels. That wouldn't be the warmest scarf in the world, but it would be pretty. Or maybe silk and merino sport or DK weight for both, with the chainette added to the tassel.