Saturday, May 29, 2004

Friday was a busy day for me.

It started out at the elementary school where people who had volunteered throughout the year were treated to a very nice breakfast.

Next I drove down to Charlotte (about a 35-40 minute drive) to teach Session 2 of my Introduction to Fair Isle class.  The project is a pillow (no gauge to worry about), and my students had been given a few weeks to work on their knitting.  I was so excited to see how the colors they had chosen turned out.  See for yourself:

Gorgeous!

Four of the seven students were ready to prepare and cut their steeks.  Two chose to machine sew, which I forgot to take a picture of.  The other two chose to do a crocheted steek:

Then we used the scissors (I try not to say the word "cut", to avoid that panicked look people get when they think about cutting into their knitting), and then we were ready for my favorite part -- steam blocking the "opened" knitting to create phenomenal pieces of fabric:

I love the smell and feel of freshly steamed wool!

On my way back to Haslett I stopped by the new yarn booth at the Mega Mall on U.S. 127 to check it out.  There wasn't a lot of stock of any one thing, but there were quite a few brands of yarn I hadn't noticed around Lansing before, like Magic Garden (maker of LynnH's beloved Buttons yarn), Silk City Fibers, Naturally, Southwest Trading, SRK Kertzer, and Patons.  They also carry Reynolds, Peace Fleece, Artful Yarns, Mango Moon (I hadn't seen the ribbon before) and America's Alpaca.

Because of that quick stop, I was late getting back to my house for my afternoon Fair Isle Sweater class (oops!).  I forgot to take a photo of my students' beautiful projects, but I did snap this shot of Marsha wearing a gorgeous Koigu sweater she made after taking my Seamless Sweater class (hooray, Marsha!):

What a perfect color for her, don't you think?

After that class I had a little down time while my sons got their hair(s) cut, so I worked on Anjuli at the salon.  I had been nervous about working on Anjuli again because I hadn't checked my gauge in quite a while, and after my gauge fiascos of late, I was afraid it would be way off.  Much to my surprise and relief, it's dead on, so I've been picking that project up to work on when I need a brainless garter stitch distraction.

I stopped by the grocery store on the way home to pick up a couple of things, and finally walked in the door at 6:15 to see Rob and Matt unloading boxes out of their Explorer.  Fifteen minutes later, our first party guest arrived, and then I completely lost control of the rest of the evening.

Let's just say there were knitters and yarn and sweaters and dogs everywhere and call it good.  I'd like to give you a blow-by-blow description of how the night went, but I was so overwhelmed I can barely remember a thing.  I'd like to show you photos so you can see how crazy things were, but I forgot to get my camera out until the end of the evening (which was actually the wee hours of this morning).  Sharon's significant other was busy clicking away all evening, though, so keep an eye on her blog for photos (and be kind if you catch a glimpse of me -- remember I had a busy day).

In attendance were:

My husband and I, our two kids, Keiko (dog), and Mica (cat)

Rob, Matt, Connor and Tate (their two canine pals, for those of you who don't know)

"Regulars" -- local knitters I can always count on to be here for both regularly-scheduled and emergency knit-ins

"Irregulars" -- local knitters I don't see as often, who were able to juggle their busy schedules in order to be here

Students from my classes, both past and present

Knitters I had met on-line or through e-mail, some local and some from out of town

Knitters (in spirit) from New Zealand (Hi Penny!), Indiana, North Dakota (Hi Linda!), Great Britain, Texas (Happy Birthday, Sylvia!), Montana (Hi Robin!), and Connecticut (Hi Cyndy!)

After almost everyone had left, I suddenly thought of my camera, but there wasn't much left to take a picture of.  I took this one especially for Chris, but I think it represents the evening fairly well:

That's the Child's Cabled Rib Vest from the Men in Knits trunk show.  It's gorgeous, Chris!  Knit in Dale of Norway Svale, which was an excellent choice for that vest.  Underneath you can see pattern books from Rowan, little sheepy tape measures from Lantern Moon (a big hit!), and some of the yarn that was left after the frenzy, including some of the most beautiful yarn I've ever seen, from The Great Adirondack Yarn Co.

Keiko was a very gracious hostess to Connor and Tate, much to my relief (she was insanely jealous when I held Tracy's baby earlier this month, so I was nervous about how she'd feel about other dogs in the house).  Mica hid in the basement.

My family was VERY patient while their small house was overrun by crazed lunatics for a day (and continue to be patient the next day while their mom is useless and incoherent from lack of sleep).

I leave you with a photo of my hostess gift from the guys:

Tee hee!

And now off to bed, to dream of yarn and friends and happy things . . .

Sarah

Thursday, May 27, 2004

I just spent a lovely afternoon with my knitting friends Jessica and Tamsyn, enjoying lunch at Hobie's in East Lansing (I was thrilled to find out they were still in business -- I used to eat there regularly many (MANY) moons ago, but had forgotten all about them), followed by a jaunt down to Charlotte to hang out at the new and improved Yarn Garden.  What a fun day!  Thanks, ladies! 

While in Charlotte, my cell phone sang it's lovely song.  When I answered it, I got the most amazing news:

ROB AND MATT ARE COMING TO VISIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Like, NOW.

Rob and Matt are the guys from ThreadBear, in case you're not in the know.  They decided on the spur of the moment to run up to Michigan for a day, because they love me and I've been whining really loud.  Hooray, hooray!  And guess what?  Can you guess?  No, wait, you're too slow.  I'll just go ahead and tell you.

WE'RE GONNA HAVE A PARTY!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm opening up my house for an impromptu knit-in on Friday night (that's TOMORROW, May 28), so if you can get here, please do so.  If you know the guys and would like to see them while they're here, or if you've never met them but have always wanted to, or if you just want to hang out and knit, please show up tomorrow night any time after about 6:30 p.m.  E-mail me (address on the left) if you need my address or directions to my house, but be warned that I'll be in and out all day and may not be able to get back to you until late afternoon.  Or you can find my address on my work website if you're even a little bit resourceful. 

Please keep in mind that due to the aforementioned "being in and out all day", I'll have zero time to prepare, so the house will be a mess and I don't know what I'll have in the way of food, but there's always tap water and we can order out for pizza or Chinese if we have to.

Oh, and did I mention?  They're bringing YARN, including some fabulous Koigu.  AND they're bringing the trunk show they just got in, which is all the sweaters from the Men in Knits book.  The ACTUAL sweaters from the photo shoot for the book.  How cool is that?  Pretty damn cool, I'd say.

Did I leave anything out?  Let me know if I did, and I'll update as needed.  Gotta run, though -- I've got a class in a few hours and two tomorrow to prepare for.

Hope to see you here Friday night!

Sarah

Tuesday, May 25, 2004

Just a quickie post tonight, because I have to go see how badly I messed up the taping of 24.  Was it the season finale?  PLEASE tell me I didn't tape the wrong channel, like I did a couple of weeks ago.

Not a good day in the knitting department.  Almost done with all the duck-related knitting, and now I have to sew everything together.  Ooh -- I detect some negative feelings there.  How about:  Now I GET to sew everything together?  Better? 

I've torn out the V-Neck Shell.  Despite vigorous swatching (vigorous?  I think I meant rigorous), the body was only 16 inches wide.  MY body is not anywhere NEAR 16 inches wide, so I'll have to try again with more stitches.  My knitting advisors at tonight's knit-in asked for a looser gauge, too, so now I have to swatch on a bigger needle.

I've also torn out the Basketweave Tee, much to my dismay.  The fabric was gorgeous, but, alas, too narrow (a recurring nightmare theme today).  Yes, I swatched for this one, too.  Not very well, apparently.  I don't dare cast on again until I locate another source for Blue Heron yarn, because I'm positive I won't have enough to complete my sweater.  And that sweater is GOING to be completed. 

That's all.  I'm not going to knit anything while I watch 24, because I know I'll just have to tear it out later. 

Sarah

Monday, May 24, 2004

I got my new Patternworks catalog in the mail today.  Have you seen it?  If so, go look at the cover.  If not, go look at the website.  "Everything for the hand knitter"!  That's ME!  It's ALL for ME!

Thanks for the birthday greetings, everyone!  I'll be responding to you individually, but haven't had time today, sorry.

I can't believe no one wanted to figure out how old I was.  I thought it was too easy -- even my husband can figure it out -- well, after I explained it to him (hi, honey!).  Yesterday I said "the month, day and year (2-digit) each either are, add up to, or subtract down to the same number", but I deleted this:

May:  05, which IS . . . um . . . FIVE.

23rd:  2 and 3 ADD UP TO . . . FIVE (see a pattern yet?).

The (2-digit) year:  First digit and second digit SUBTRACT DOWN TO . . . you guessed it . . . FIVE.  So the year must be either '50, '61, '72, '83, or '94. 

And the projects?  I started FOUR, worked on an additional THREE.

Am I the only one around here who twists numbers around to amuse herself?

Nanette and Penny tied for the most points for guessing that I'm 21, which is what I told my mom when she asked me to remind her how old I was.  My answer:  21 for the 23rd time (she got a kick out of that).  Chris and Penny (she had two entries!) tie for second for guessing that I'm five, which is very flattering, but just plain wrong.  Since there were no other guesses, that brings our little game to an end.  As well as any other guessing games I may have considered offering.  Ever.

If I had titles for my blog entries, this one could be called "Fringe Lunatic", because that's what I've been working on most of the day.  Or should it be "Lunatic Fringe"?  Whatever.  Here's the staging area:

I had to cut eight million 26 inch pieces of fringe, to be put through every fourth stitch the entire way around this afghan.  Next step:  tying lots and lots of knots.

I took a break for the end of "season" bowling party with the kids.  As bowling goes, it wasn't pretty.  But the bowling alley presented me with this:

It's a bobble-bowling-ball-head trophy -- my first trophy EVER!  I'm so proud!  You'll see that it has "Marvelous Pin Pulverizing Practitioner" engraved in solid gold on the front.  Oh, okay, it says "Marvelanes Pizza Pals Participation" and it's stamped on cheap plastic.  As Son Number Two said, "I'd like to thank everyone who helped to make this possible!"

I think we need to build a trophy room.

Sarah

Sunday, May 23, 2004

In honor of my birthday TODAY, I decided to revolve (resolved to revolve?) my knitting around my newly earned age.

I started the following:

A V-Neck Shell using the Adrienne Vittadini Adriana I found for 50% off at the Fibre House in Grand Haven last summer:

A Basketweave Tee using the Blue Heron cotton/rayon ribbon I bought at Stitch in Time in Howell for my birthday a year ago:

A Neckdown Summer Cardigan from Knitting Pure & Simple using the Rowan Summer Tweed I bought at both Stitch in Time and FiberWorks Knitting and Weaving in Toledo:

And some Secret Knitting that can't be discussed here, or it wouldn't be secret anymore.

I also worked on the following:

The Duck Hat and Bootees, using Plymouth Yarns Encore DK from The Yarn Garden in Charlotte Michigan, land of tornadoes.  The patterns (Melissa, pay attention!) are from Debbie Bliss's Kids' Knits for Heads, Hands & Toes.  They're not looking very duck-like yet, except for being yellow:

I washed Marissa's Grandmother's afghan, which evened out the colors amazingly well -- everything looks brand new, instead of various shades of gray, thank goodness!  Fringe application has begun, and is going to take a while.  Each clump of fringe gets divided in two and knotted to its neighbor, at least twice.  I'm still cutting fringe:

I also sewed together a sweater for a customer, and just have to weave in the ends.

Bonus points if you can figure out how old I am based on the following: 

I tell people they can remember the date of my birthday (most of which you can find at the beginning of this entry) because the month, day and year (2-digit) each either are, add up to, or subtract down to the same number.

Double bonus points if you can figure out how the projects I worked on related to my age.

In other knitting news, I decided to be a big girl and trash some projects that weren't benefiting from being shoved into the back of the closet.  Say good-bye to the Felted basket, which is now a twisted/knotted dog toy (although even Keiko is rejecting the felted intestine-looking thing).  Say good-bye to the Lucy bag, knit with a mystery yarn that turned out to be only partially wool, and therefore wouldn't felt in a useful way (deposited in the circular file).  Say good-bye to the Philosopher's Wool Circus sweater, which was bordered everywhere with those dang Baltic Braids that I just wasn't going to grow to love (sold off for parts at the annual Stash Relocation Sale last week).  And say good-bye to the Not-Knit-Round Scarf I started a couple of weeks ago.  I knew before I cast on it would never get worn, so why bother knitting it? 

Also trashed was the knitting-by-color gimmick.  Wasn't working for me anymore, although it started out well, since it made me work on some brown and yellow projects that would have been ignored otherwise.

The laptop fund was also allowed to die a quiet and humane death.  Y'all don't need to know how infrequently I go to the gym.

Although after all the birthday cake I had today, it would be a good idea to go first thing tomorrow, and stay for about a week.

Except I have all those new projects to work on . . .

Sarah

Thursday, May 20, 2004

Classes are finishing up over the next couple of weeks, and then I'll be done until mid-summer when I'm going to start a few evening classes (schedule will be posted soon), so I'll be free to be Taxi-Mom during the summer days (woo hoo!).

I got an e-mail notifying me of a new yarn store in town.  Felt 'n Full Yarns is located in booth M7 of the Mid-Michigan Mega Mall on Larch Street, north of Lansing.  Open 10-6 every day (10-8 Thursdays).  I haven't had a chance to visit yet -- if anybody makes it up there, let me know what it's like, will you?

Son Number One's math teacher is going on maternity leave very soon (hopefully not tomorrow), and he (Son Number One, not the math teacher) (who is a she, obviously) asked me to knit her a little something before she goes.  I let him go through my patterns, and the first thing he came up with was an Intarsia blanket, which I nixed right off the bat.  In retrospect, though, I suppose I could have taught him to weave in the ends for me.  Hmm.  Might not be a bad idea to teach him that anyway.

We decided to go with his second choice.  It's GOING to be a baby bonnet with a duck bill and matching ducky booties, but right NOW it looks like this:

It's constructed just like a giant sock heel so far.  Kind of cool.  As cool as a giant yellow acrylic sock heel/duck hat can be, anyway.

My knit one purl one ribbing at the bottom looks horrible (flashback to the TKGA swatches that I abandoned for the same reason).  I obviously need to figure out what I'm doing wrong.  I tried re-knitting the ribbing and working the wrong side rows backwards to see if that would even out my tension.  While it was an interesting exercise, it didn't help.  I'll have to pull out the notes I filed with my swatches and see what else I can try. 

But not right now.

I've got a duck to knit.

Sarah

Wednesday, May 19, 2004

Wow!  Last night's Guild meeting was chock-full (or should I say "sock" full?) of action!  (What the heck does "chock-full" mean, anyway?  Oh -- I just looked it up -- it means "full to the limit" or "crammed".  Perfect!).

We ate and ate and ate (see Sharon's blog for photos of our dinner catered by Olive Garden).  Are five desserts too many for one person to consume in an evening?  No?  Good.

We shopped and shopped and shopped (at our annual "Stash Relocation" sale).  I sold about half of what I took there -- more than enough to pay for this:

That box is full of Paton's Grace 100% Mercerized Cotton, the dark purple ball is Euroflax linen, and in the middle is some vintage Noro "Kureopatora".  Oh, and on the left is an action shot of Keiko's nose.  She was snuffling around the box of cotton.  I tried to snap up all the purple I could find at the sale.  There was a small fistfight over the Noro, but I was victorious, as you can see.

And THEN we had the main event -- our first ever sock swap.  Lynn's photo is better than mine, but here's my attempt (how embarrassing -- those are my empty shoes on the right hand side!):

What fun this was!  Knowing that every stitch of those socks was made with the recipient in mind made each gift incredibly special.  For some, it was their first attempt at knitting socks (all very successful attempts, too!).  For others, it was a chance to try a nifty yarn or stitch pattern.  The person I made my socks for wasn't there last night, but we showed them off anyway and sent them on their way to her. 

I lucked out.  Big time.  The socks I received were made with love by none other than LynnH, the "Sock Queen", as Tracy described her last night.  See for yourself how perfect they are:

A perfect fit, perfect colors, and wonderfully luscious to wear!  And they arrived in a sparkly purple gift bag stuffed with bright orange (ORANGE!) tissue paper.  THANKS, LYNNIE!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy sigh.

This sock swap was so much fun that we immediately decided to make it an annual event.  Maybe scarves or hats next time -- who knows?

Keiko thinks we should make doggy sweaters next.

Although she doesn't wear the one I made her a couple of years ago.  She said something about it not matching her eyes.

Ungrateful mutt.

Sarah

Monday, May 17, 2004

So Sweatergirl (pre-Elizabeth) and I made this No Yarn Buying Pact back in August, signed in blood, that expires at the end of this month.

Mmm hmm.

So Sweatergirl (and Elizabeth) and I hit the Spring Cleaning Sale at Yarn for Ewe bright and early this morning, where I found this:

And Sweatergirl (and Elizabeth) got umpteen million balls of machine washable yarns for baby sweaters (for Elizabeth).  Machine washable, 'cause Elizabeth is too little to do her own hand washing yet.

And then we went to lunch (Georgia Reuben, if you must know).

Mmmmm!

Thanks for a great morning, Sweatergirl (and Elizabeth)!

The rest of my day was pretty crappy.  I'll spare you the details (you're welcome).

But the secret sock buddy socks are done, washed, and drying for tomorrow night's Guild meeting.  Hooray!

Will they be dry in time?

Hmmmm.

Sarah

Sunday, May 16, 2004

My computer has been a little under the weather.  The pop-up fairy has been WAY too generous of late.  My webhamster has been hard at work all weekend scanning, cleaning, uninstalling, installing, and defragging (is that a word?).  I'm back up and running, a little slower than before thanks to all the added security software, but now I can't read/write comments at blogs that use pop-up commenting windows, like KnitDad's and Nanette's.  Pout. 

So what was I doing while I couldn't use the computer?  I slept through most of Saturday.  Son Number One and I had a mysterious, 24 hour sleeping sickness, which seems to have been cured with loads of sleep (and the passing of the aforementioned 24 hours).  I spent Friday and Sunday cranking out a pair of Bearfoot Socks, to be handed off to my secret sock buddy at Tuesday night's Guild meeting.  Here's a color-accurate shot of the first of two:

And here's a color-inaccurate shot of the sock in action:

I made a plain foot using my own Toe-Up pattern, the Ripple Stripe Pattern from Barbara Walker's Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns (page 8) on the leg, and a picot hem at the cuff (thanks for the idea, Ola!).

You might have noticed that you're not seeing the second sock in those photos.  It's on the needles, with just the cuff left to do.  Honest! 

I also made significant progress on Marissa's Grandmother's Afghan, which you'll see shortly.

We have another newcomer to the TKGA Knit-along.  Say hello to AnDy, who saw the TKGA Knit-along button on a page of knit-alongs posted to the KnitList.  Cool!  Hi AnDy!

One of my knitting buddies found the Rowan Summer Tweed that I needed in the EXACT SAME DYE LOT, in a yarn store two hours away from where I bought mine a year ago.  Amazing.  Thanks, knitting buddy!

I'll leave you with a photo of Kim, owner of the newly relocated Yarn Garden in Charlotte, Michigan.  She attended an elegant luncheon, fashion show and book-signing with Maggie Jackson (of the newly published Maggie's Ireland) at the Frederik Meijer Gardens in Grand Rapids, Michigan a week ago.  Click HERE for a memorable shot from that lovely event (used with Kim's permission and blessing, even though I offered to say it was an anonymous passer-by).

What a goofball.

Sarah

Thursday, May 13, 2004

I've had a bunch of inquiries about the pillow I use for my Beginning Knitting class.  The pattern for it and a companion pillow are available on my website, in case you're interested.  I hope to get some more patterns written and posted this summer, including the one for the Entrelac bags from my Intro to Entrelac class, and also the free Hooded Scarf pattern that I promised back when it was Hooded Scarf weather.  Since, you know, I'll have nothing to do this summer. 

ATTENTION:  We interrupt this blog to bring you an important announcement.

Yesterday, I gave in to my orange obsession and purchased this:

Look, Larry -- ORANGE!  Little Red Schoolhouse Yarn Shop filled up their sale baskets recently.  I'm helping to empty them.

And now back to your regularly purpled blog.

I'd like to use this:

to knit the Neckdown Summer Cardigan from Knitting Pure and Simple, but I'm a skein short (as usual).  I'll have to start shopping around.  Good thing my No Yarn Buying Pact is coming to an end this month!

Sarah

Wednesday, May 12, 2004

I think you'll see a theme running through today's entry.

I finished this shop model for my Beginning Knitting class:

And the collar and front bands on my Entrelac Jacket:

Karen bribed me asked to see the new sweaters I'm starting.  I aim to please!

A basketweave tee with my Blue Heron cotton/rayon ribbon from Stitch in Time in Howell:

An Entrelac (with triangles) tee with my hand dyed cotton from Woven Art in East Lansing.  I still need to pick out a contrasting color:

The Not-Knit-Round Scarf (aka the lace capelet) from Sally Melville's The Purl Stitch, in Garnstudio Silke-Tweed from ThreadBear:

And today's theme?

PURPLE!

Sarah

Monday, May 10, 2004

Sorry -- I'm getting a bunch of things taken care of around the house, so not much to blog about today.

Although . . .

I put the front bands and collar on my Entrelac Jacket (still have buttons to buy and ends to weave in -- oh, and the sleeves to knit).

I finished the front of Son Number Two's Entrelac pillow (can't decide what I want to do on the back).

I finished the foot of one of the toe-up Bearfoot Socks (need to try it on a foot at the Tuesday night knit-in to see if it's okay).

I knit the last row of the facing for the border of my Fair Isle Cardigan (now I just need to tack down a gazillion stitches and then sew on the buttons.  Oh, and knit the sleeves).

I registered for four classes at Stitches Midwest (Susan Lazear and I are going to be spending some quality time together).

I started to clean out my stash in preparation for the guild's "Stash Relocation Sale" next week (that's my name for our annual yarn "garage" sale).

As part of the aforementioned preliminary stash cleaning, I pulled out all of my summer weight yarns and patterns and did some frivolous swatching (ready to start at least three new sweaters!).

Okay, so there IS a lot to blog about, but that's all you're getting right now (not tonight, dear -- I have a headache).

Except to ask why gas jumped from a dollar ninety-something to $2.18 today?  Yikes!  What's going on?  I'll live off of my 3/4 tank of "cheap" gas for as long as I can, thank you very much (which will probably only last me through the weekend, unfortunately).

I heard the hike in dairy prices was due to having killed off a bunch of cows due to mad cow disease (although I also heard it's because the dairy cows are being killed for the beef industry). 

I told my kids the hike in gas prices was for the same reason -- less cows = less gas.  You know -- GAS (my kids think I'm hilarious).

All I can say is, thank goodness for parentheses (I'm glad my blog entries aren't being graded).  

Sarah

Friday, May 7, 2004

Clarification:  I neglected to give proper credit yesterday to designer/teacher/author Sidna Farley for the seamless Entrelac shoulder technique.  She had a beautiful seamless Entrelac sweater design in the summer 1992 issue of Knitter's Magazine, in which she explained how to accomplish this amazing feat.  I took two Entrelac classes from her and one from Joan Schrouder before I was confident enough to design and knit my own Entrelac sweater -- it was a seamless, two color pullover (minus the blips) that is shown on my "work" website's homepage and again on the page for my Entrelac Design class.

Yes, I'm tooting my own horn lately with all the links to my "work" website.  One reason is that I've been showing you sweaters that I'm working on for my classes (Fair Isle Cardigan, Entrelac Jacket, Beginning Knitting pillow).  Another reason is that I recently joined a new webring hosted by Gwen Bortner of  Knitting is Fun and Knitability.  Knit Biz Blogs links bloggers who make knitting their business (literallly).  Cool!  It's still hard for me to think of what I do as a real job.  I've been teaching knitting for five years now (um, I think it's been five years -- I've kind of lost track), and have been in business for myself for just over a year.  Yay, me!   

I'm also proud of myself for being able to teach Nanette something yesterday.  You know Nanette -- she's that Master Knitter who everyone looks to for technical information.  You know, I really need to get serious about the Level 1 Master Knitter program.  I wish I could magically clear my knitting schedule and work on it exclusively for a month or so.  If I'd stuck to my original schedule, I would have been done in April.  Sigh.

Please welcome Melise to the TKGA Knit-along!

Oh, and Heather in MA . . . don't worry.  I was kidding about the Starmore books.  First, I'll never ever want to sell them, so re-sale value wouldn't matter.  Second, I had a hard time convincing myself that it was okay to put a spiral binding on my Montse Stanley book, but it just would NOT lay flat no matter how hard I tried.  The only other book I've had re-bound was a paperback cookbook that exploded from overuse. 

"Overuse" being a relative term, of course.  I cooked from it, like, twice, and then it burst into flames. 

A sad commentary on my cooking life.

But hey -- I'd rather be knitting.  Isn't that why we're here?

Sarah

Thursday evening, May 6, 2004

Now I seem to be posting twice a day, every other day.  Don't get used to it, 'cause it ain't gonna last.

Spring is here!  Compare this photo with the one I posted on Monday.  Besides the amount of blooms, the main difference (that you can't see) is that today's temperatures were in the eighties rather than the thirties! 

Between the last minute birthday gift shopping, birthday supper shopping, cake pick-up, classroom treat delivery, car pick-up (with new brakes), and lunch with friends, I ran in and out of Kinko's with this:

I had them put a spiral binding on my Knitter's Handbook so I can open it up flat without putting twenty pound weights on each side to hold it in place.  I was really nervous about it, but it turned out great!  Do I dare take in my Starmore paperbacks? 

Ready to talk about Entrelac for a minute?  I'll try not to make it as boring as my crocheted steek discussion from Monday.  If you're not interested in Entrelac, skip the Entre-babble and go look at the last photo.

I've been reluctant to go into detail about how to join Entrelac seamlessly at the shoulders, out of fairness to my Entrelac Design students who have paid big bucks (I wish) for the same information.  I'm fine with outlining the general idea, though, with the hope that anyone who is familiar with Entrelac can take the idea and run with it.  Fair enough?  Of course, if you want me to hold your hand while you work your way through a sweater like this, you can send me a check and I'll send you my notes and my undivided attention -- that's what I call a "Virtual Class" (scroll down to the bottom of the "Classes" page).

Anyway, here goes:

Seamless Entrelac shoulders:  If you've been knitting the front and back from bottom to top, stop when you have two complete rows of blocks left to knit across the top of the shoulders.  Once you determine which square to start with, you can alternate working a block from one side (front or back) with working a block from the other side (back or front), attaching to existing squares ON BOTH SIDES (on both knit AND purl rows) (except when working that first square or at various places around the neck opening).  I recommend drawing a map of your sweater on graph paper, complete with arrows showing the direction each existing square was knit.  You can see Sharon's map in her 05/02/2004 entry, although it wasn't quite right (she's working on a revision, which I hope to see Saturday morning at Starbucks).

How's that?  Clear as mud, right?

Here's an alternate (and easier) method, that I didn't figure out until we were almost done knitting our sweater bodies from the bottom up:

Alternate method for seamless Entrelac shoulders:  If you start your sweater with a provisional cast on at underarm height on either the front or the back, you can work your way up one sweater side, split for the neck opening, work the left and right sides separately across the shoulders, cast on again to close the neck opening, and work your way down to the underarm on the other side.  Then you can take out your provisional cast on, join your front and back, and work circularly the rest of the way down.  Sleeves are also worked circularly from the shoulder down.

Preventing background colors from peeking through:  Nanette asked how I kept blips of the "background" color from showing through when working Entrelac in more than one color (as in yesterday's photos).  New blocks are attached to old blocks in Entrelac by working decreases that join a new stitch to an old stitch.  When you're switching colors at the same time, the old color peeks out from underneath the new color.  Nanette guessed that I don't slip the edge stitches.  Good try, Nanette, but incorrect -- I DO slip the edge stitches!  I learned a secret in a class I took with Joan Schrouder a number of years ago.  She said to work a preliminary row with the new color (picking up stitches along side edges and knitting across the stitches on the needle) every time you change colors.  Once that base row is complete, you work your row of Entrelac blocks with the same color (WITH slipped stitches, if you like), and then when you work your decreases to attach a new block to an old block, the two stitches involved in the decrease will be the same color.  Therefore, blipless.  Cool, huh? 

And finally: 

A dimple is worth a thousand words!

Sarah

Thursday morning, May 6, 2004

I'm still plugging away on Son Number Two's birthday pillow.  It will definitely be given to him on the needles, but I think he'll be fine with that.  I'll stick some Yugi-oh cards in the box, too.  Here it is as of 9:45 this morning:

And a close-up:

He requested Detroit Pistons colors.  No problem.

Tonight, if I survive the birthday hoopla, I'll tell you a little story about seamless Entrelac shoulders. 

But only if you behave.

Sarah

Tuesday evening, May 4, 2004

I spent most of today cleaning and cooking in preparation for tonight's knit-in at my house.  I've been hosting the knit-ins on the first Tuesday of each and every month for at least ten years, so it's fairly routine now.  I'm grateful for the motivation to get my house in order once a month, although I've learned that the knitters show up whether I've cleaned or cooked or not.  Of course, now that I teach out of my home a couple of nights a week, I try to keep it looking neat all the time so there's less work to do when people are coming over. 

(Psst!  Wanna know something?  That "keep it looking neat all the time" idea?  Doesn't work.) 

A few pieces of furniture have been moved around lately, which freed up some giant dust bunnies, and I finally got around to knocking down some of the dust bats in my kitchen today, so I needed to do quite a bit of clean-up (achoo!).

Speaking of dust bunnies:

I "caught" these three teenagers playing leapbunny in my backyard yesterday.  They're Reasons Number One, Two and Three why I'm not planting vegetables this year.

And while we're on the subject of bunnies, look what I found when I was peeling carrots for vegetable soup this afternoon:

Truly freaky. 

The leapfrogging bunnies and the mutant carrot are obviously telling me I should be working on something with cables.  Or maybe they're telling me it's time to work on the Baltic braids on my Philosopher's Wool Circus sweater.  Or maybe they're just excited about the upcoming Twined Knitting workshop with Beth Brown-Reinsel.

Or maybe they're just bunnies and carrots.

MAYBE I'll actually get some knitting done tomorrow.  Son Number Two is definitely getting a partially completed project for his birthday on Thursday.  Chris is right -- he won't care as long as there's $omething el$e tucked in with it!  (Okay, just to let you know, I refuse to give my kids money for their birthdays.  I'm not above (beneath?) adding gift cards to Schuler's, though!)  ("Above" or "beneath"?  I'm too sleepy to figure out which one I mean.)

Yawn!  (Goodness, what a boring blog I have!)

Sarah

Tuesday morning, May 4, 2004

I'm getting really stressed out by my knitting. 

Everything I've been working on is either a big project or has met a major stumbling block.  Or is Intarsia and is therefore being ignored.  I decided to cheat on restructure my project list and crank out a little quicky project in time for Son Number Two's birthday on Thursday.  I cast on last night, did a little more this morning, and then spent the rest of the day doing two things:  1) getting almost caught up on paperwork (a very, very good thing), and 2) swatching for new projects (a very, very bad thing). 

I'm blaming Rob at ThreadBear for that second thing.  He sent a "ThreadBear Sampler Pack" (his words) via my husband, and I had to drop everything, go through my pattern library, and start swatching.  Which means I now have to pay for a bunch of the yarn he sent up, and will be requesting more.  Ya knits it, ya buys it (my words, not his).  Sneaky bass-turd.  (Sons Number 1 and 2, if you're reading this, your naughty Mommy is talking about fish poop.)

So no knitting progress today, although a lot of knitting occurred, most of which was subsequently un-knit. 

I need to post about Entrelac shoulders, and TKGA swatches, and short row wraps, and the fifth sentence on page 23 of the nearest book, and I really REALLY need to rag on KnitNet, but I'm not quite ready to do any of those things yet, so I think I'll go work on Son Number Two's birthday present a little more, which he doesn't know about, so therefore he won't be disappointed if it doesn't get done, but he DID request it oh so many weeks ago, and I hardly ever get requests for knitted things from my family, so . . .

I wonder if he'll care if it's still on the needles when I present it to him?

Sarah

Monday, May 3, 2004

Hmm.  I seem to be blogging in the mornings rather than the evenings now.  How did that happen?

I've been knitting and knitting and knitting, but I don't feel like I'm making much progress. 

I finished yet another sample for my Beginning Knitting class (this one will be taking up residence at Little Red Schoolhouse Yarn Shop):

Okay, so it's not FINISHED finished.  Almost, though.

I've been knitting for what seems like forever on the border and facing for my (blurry) Fair Isle Cardigan:

Two rows of navy left to knit on the facing, and then I get to tack down over 400 stitches.  Then all that's left are the sleeves!

I tried (again) to work on what should be a minor Sweater Repair for my sister:

But I can't see those little tiny stitches well enough to graft them together (they're smaller than the U.S. size 0000 needles I have them trapped on).  so I bought this:

Lighted!

My friend Jacquie told me that Joann Fabrics offers a discount to teachers, so I asked about it.  They asked to see a pay stub.  "I'm self-employed," I said.  "I don't have any pay stubs."  They asked for a note from the principal at the school where I work.  I repeated:  "I'M SELF-EMPLOYED!  THERE IS NO PRINCIPAL."  We (Joann and I) have decided that I'll return with newsletters from the stores where I teach, showing that my classes are on their schedules.  I'll throw in a business card and a printout of the class schedule on my website, for good measure.

My husband returned from his soggy golf weekend last night, bearing treasures from ThreadBear.  This one is definitely a keeper:

Ten balls of Rowan Calmer, in Onyx (that's black, for all you color-challenged folks).  Mmmmm.  I'll be browsing through my pattern library as soon as I post this entry.

Right outside my front door is a weeping something or other tree (Red Jade something or other, to be more specific).  I know it's finally Spring when it bursts into bloom.  We're almost there:

But not quite:

That says that at 9:03 a.m. on May 3, the outdoor temperature is 33.8°F.  Which is an improvement over the 29.2°F temperature when I sent my children off to school, but still cold enough to freeze your noogies off if you go outside to take a picture of your weeping something or other tree without a coat on.

Brrrrr!

Sarah

Previous month's archive