All Over the Place

Tomorrow is the launch of Twist Collective. The thumbnails that have been revealed over the past 2 months have been piquing my interest. What about yours?

Peter, surprising creature that he can be, has asked for lace curtains for the front door and foyer windows. What a surprise! I guess that will get done sometime this fall or winter. Several things are in mind for the fall already. Hyrna Herborgar (ravelry link) has been decided on as the United Way project and a small shawl or large scarf for a neighbor friend. The Handsome Triangle (ravelry link) should be picked back up and finished for my sister-in-law.

Picking up Markle Sparkle’s wedding socks on Sunday afternoon seems to have turned the knitting-interest crank up a notch. Perhaps it was thinking about how to best knit the gusset that did the trick. Since the wedding was a couple of weeks ago, and autumn approaches, it’s definitely time to get these socks off of the WIP list and onto Mark’s feet. The Leafling (ravelry link) socks provided the inspiration for the gusset. Of the 120 stitches around the ankle, 49 are used for the heel, with 31 stitches for the instep. Typically half of the stitches are used for the heel, but it just looked like too many. Gusset shaping takes place outside of these 31 instep stitches. Just over 4 cm (1.5”) of the gusset and heel flap were worked on Sunday, and it has returned from it's fitting. Since Mark’s foot and ankle are not even close to being a standard size, this part was knitted in hopes the increase rate would be correct, and that it fits without constriction in this area. Truthfully, I expected to have to frog this first effort, but it fits well. While not totally excited about this particular project, at least there’s some knitting action going on this week. That alone is cause for celebration.

Phoenix Rising was made combat-ready on Sunday morning. That last row was tinked back and it now awaits attention. It will wait for a little while longer. As you can probably tell from that aggressive combat statement, we are not yet on speaking terms. That dropped/running stitch thing really hurt my feelings, Things are, however, on the mend between us, and a play-date is sure to happen in the near future.

The 4Luv blanket saw some action last weekend as well. It’s hard to tell how much progress is being made on it. Since 4 balls of yarn are being worked each round, not much comes off of a ball. It is growing, and measures about 60 cm (18”) square. That might represent ½ - ¾ of a ball, of which there are 8. About 65 stitches per side are on the needles.

And speaking of needles, they are Addi Lace needles. They. Are. Wonderful. I think I am the last to find this out. Why doesn’t Addi expand their line to make these in straights too? Straights are my favourite for knitting. I would absolutely purchase a complete set of straights with this sort of tip.

Emergency Scarf Knitting. Help!

My father-in-law's birthday is early next month. Now, I know that whatever is mailed from here will take 3 weeks to get to San Francisco, but whatever. Last year, when we were visiting, I noticed he wore a shortish cashmere scarf around his neck almost every day. I have 2 50 gram skeins of Handmaiden Swiss Cashmere/Silk (65%/35%) in the Mineral colourway. It is deliciously soft. That represents 360 metres (~395 yards) of fingering weight goodness. I'd like to do a reversible pattern so he doesn't have to care about right sides and wrong sides. Other than a rib, do you have any ideas? Really. I do not want another small rib project on the heels of the Markle Sparkle wedding socks (3 x 2 rib in an enormous size). Any suggestions deeply appreciated. I've got to get moving on this one.

Dreams

Last Friday evening, Marci and I took a drive to Port Dover for dinner. We sat on the pier afterwards, watching the sun set and talking about dreams. Here are some of my recollections that had us laughing it up on a lovely summer’s evening on the shores of Lake Erie.

Here Kitty-Kitty
In the early 1990’s I lived in Santa Paula, California, about 12 or 15 miles inland from Ventura, and had been thinking about adopting a cat. At the time I was considering something with a pedigree, and almost made an appointment to see some ocicat kittens. During the time of consideration, I had this dream where I went to visit the ocicats.

Me: Wow. These kittens sure are exotic looking.
Breeder: Ya’ wanna see exotic! I’ve got exotic.

The Breeder takes keys out of pocket and opens the door to a spotlessly white room. In the middle of the white room, a black microwave oven rests on a counter-height stainless table. She opens the door to the microwave oven and out prance 10 or 12 transparent, blow-up giraffes with vibrantly coloured spots. They like to have their heads scratched between the horns.

Shortly thereafter, I was having supper at a favourite restaurant in Ventura and the waitress asked me if I wanted a kitten. That was my first cat, Idgie Threadgood, named after a character in Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe. He was crazy and in general, not representative of cats I have known since.


Wanna’ take a Trip
A couple of weeks ago, I dreamt I was deported from Canada to China. Yes, I did say China. Why I was deported from Canada, the land of my citizenship, is beyond imagination, and I cannot remember the reason from the dream. When I arrived in China, I was very, very upset. Upset mostly because I couldn’t talk to anyone, nor read anything. Somehow, I managed to get back to Canada only to be deported back to China. Where once again I’d be annoyed since I could neither read nor speak Chinese. Repeat deportation/return to Canada part of the dream. I was exhausted and thoroughly disoriented from all that traveling upon waking. There are no travel plans on my agenda,


Laugh-in
Do you remember watching Laugh-in in the 60’s. You know the scene with Arte Johnson and Ruth Buzzi where they are on a park bench together. Arte used to slide over to get close to Ruth and she’d slide over to keep her distance from him. Replace Ruth with me on the bench and you’ve got the basis for the dream. He’d move over, I’d move over. He’d move over, I’d move over. Until I rolled off of the top bunk and hit the floor with a thud that brought my parents running into the room.

On the knitting front, it was nice to pick some needles up and actually get a bit done. Not much, but at least it hasn’t been a total waste of time.

Uber Cranky

There’s something rotten about waking up at 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning and not going back to sleep until about 5:00. 45 minutes later the alarm sounds. Every day for 3 weeks. This has rendered me incapable of even the most basic of knitting. Routine matters such as a cast on cannot even be considered. Cranky doesn’t even begin to describe the mood. Adding to the cranky factor, the Wollmeise and Rockin' Sock Club packages arrived yesterday. Since no one was home at the time, they were returned to the post office for pick-up today. Wah.

Last Friday saw me home alone all day in that foggy state with Phoenix Rising. Unfortunately, almost all of that knitting had to be frogged due to a dropped stitch that ran for 12 rows and could not be successfully reworked. What a drag. Each right side row is now taking 35 minutes, and the wrong side 25. Needless to say, it has not been picked up since. One row still needs to be tinked to get the knitting back into a suitable state for further progress. It does not look like there is enough yarn to knit the whole thing, even though the needle size was dropped in anticipation of that eventuality. Wahhh haaa...

The heel on the first Fratello has been finished. Making a toe-up heel flap in this fashion is fun. My friend Susan was over for an early supper on Saturday, and tried it on. I’ll have to slim the ankles down for her, but the foot fitted perfectly. The Fratello’s will end up being anklets, since there is not enough yarn for a pair of socks with a cuff. Susan is very, very tall and has proportionally large feet. I’ve tried to start the second sock, but have been unable to cast it on. Whine.

This was started about a week ago. It’s the beginning of a blanket in Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock Heavyweight. Yarn donated by BMFA – it’s a charity project to be returned to BMFA when the knitting is finished. Lovely colours. It now rests on a 4mm circular, with 4 balls of yarn dangling off of it. It's a fun project. Too bad I am not capable of working on it. Yeah, that was another whine.

What do Knitters and Those who Live with Knitters Eat?

Why, lambs leaf lettuce, of course. With other things on top.


Source: epicurious.com

I used to make this salad all of the time and for some reason, forgot about it. It's quite fresh tasting and has become a much requested dish this summer. We have had it as written, with no protein other than the black beans, and with chicken.

No knitting content because I just suck at all knitting these days.

Special Deliveries

Yesterday was a big day around here.


Zoe sent me a B.I.G. box of things. What a delightful surprise to receive such a bounteous box of goodies. All this for a tiny donation to Iowa flood victims. The yarn and pattern are delicious, It will be interesting to use those needles – I’ve not used needles like that before.
The books are wonderful additions to my library. Thank you very much. It was good to be of service during your de-stash.The History of Hand Knitting is being saved for a special occasion. Thank you again Zoe.

And what’s this you might ask?

Well, it’s the second year of lace installment. Yep, it arrived yesterday. To be honest, I'd given up on it's delivery. It’s very different from the first shawl – a safer choice in the colour department that’s for sure. The yarn is lovely, and the pattern looks sugary sweet. Now to finish the first one.

So, get this. Zoe’s box was sent from California just last Saturday. Yes, California. Now, California is in a completely different country, just so you know. A delivery attempt was made on Monday for that package. Make 1’s package was sent from Calgary on June 24 using expedited post. Three full weeks for delivery. Whaaat? Canada Post must have hired someone to personally walk the package from Calgary to Hamilton. That can be the only explanation. Though how they can do that for just over $10 is beyond imagination.

Commit Already

Despite having been awake since 3:24 am, it’s been a great day. After several months of stalking the website on Fridays, I managed to score 3 skeins of Wollmeise sock yarn this morning, and also enjoyed a good day at work. And Phoenix Rising (Ravelry link) is no longer being ignored. The Russian join that’s been the whole excuse for not working on it was finally attacked this morning, and the end of the first pattern section is in sight. It will be good to finish with this and get on with the triangles. There are two more knots in the yarn, which will probably result in other periods of abandonment for the shawl, but oh well. This morning’s session with it was very nice indeed, and I am looking forward to spending more time with it this evening. That and a bit of spinning.

Speaking of spinning, ~4 oz of blue faced leicester in the Spring colourway from Lisa Souza. There are 4 more oz of this colourway to spin, and another bobbin has begun. Lots of thin/thick spots, consistency getting better, and loads of meditation watching the fibre go by.

The Fratello’s have been started, and have been enjoyable so far. There wasn’t going to be any way to get the left and right leaning cables to look more or less the same for the Cleopatra’s. (Ravelry link) That really isn’t a good reason to reject a pattern since the differences between the sides would mostly be taken up through a couple of wearings. The knitting was just so ugly at the crossover point they had to go. So far so good on the Fratello’s though. I suck at toe-up socks. The toes generally take more time than they should. This one took much longer because it is reverse stockinette, a process that eats my time up in the round, most assuredly having to do with poor technique. The gusset is being worked at the moment, and they’ve come home from the office with me for the weekend. Perhaps the heel turn will be finished by Sunday evening, but don’t hold your breath. It would be nice to complete this pair of socks before the next installment of the RSC gets here, but the right to pitch them aside for any other project is reserved. The colour shown in the photo is way too blue. It's really more purple than I can capture.

At the moment, commitment issues plague my knitting life. These issues often get in the way of just picking something up. The best knitting path for me is to stay true to one project at a time. More or less. If simple socks are on the needles, along with a complicated project, that seems to do the trick. These days, no such commitment can be made for anything. A few rows here and there on a gazillion different projects does not result in much getting done at all. That’s been the way it’s been for the last two months. Phoenix Rising, the Fratello’s, Na Craga, a blanket or two, and some number of other things are all clamouring for attention. The List of Shame (LOS) continues to nag, yet circling the list are also a number of other projects ready to become one with said list. Yarn, needles and pattern await. All shiny and new projects. Impatiently ready for the slightest whim to place them into the hands of this fickle knitter.

The Flirty Ruffles Shawl and the Seashell Shrug have both been frogged. Frogging does not remove them from the LOS, since the yarn has to be used in order to clear the project. Inspiration for the Flirty Ruffles yarn seems far away, but there’s a project in mind for the remains of the Seashell Shrug – a couple of Phildar Tendances Winter 2007 patterns are battling it out. One of them is sure to make the LOS in the near future.

Really, the Neighborhood isn't that Bad

Our neighborhood is nice. It's not a posh one, and it does have several apartment buildings, but overall, it's nice. We are, however, a little too close to the main drag. Yesterday morning, while having coffee with Peter in the back yard, an SUV pulls up and stops in the middle of the privately owned alley behind our house. We got up to investigate, and sure enough, it was a working girl and john that wanted to play a game of tug-this. We got up to stare at them through the fence, and they quickly got the message and left. It's happened a few times since we moved into the house, and it seems to happen only during the day. I guess there are other places to go at night. Disgusting.

Phoenix Rising is moving along quite slowly, but it is moving. The fifth of the main body repeats is being worked. The knots in the skein prevent me from attacking this project with much vigor . All that Russian joining puts me off. Cleopatra's Stockings from the Rockin' Sock Club were started and they are being frogged. My lack of technical expertise precludes doing a nice job on these, as evidenced by the photo. One side of the sock looks great, and the other? Check out the cabeling. Well, there are no kind words for that. They will probably become Fratello's instead.

Mystic Meadows is Ready

Happy Independence Day to our neighbors south of the border! Hope you are all having a great, sunshine and bar-b-que filled summer day.

After finding a place for Mystic Meadows, I thought of the woman that will eventually wrap herself in it's sugary pinkness, hoping to instill comfort into the stitches. A stranger I will never meet, yet whose plight is so terrible, tears pool in my eyes every time I think about it. I don’t have children, and never wanted them. So why does this situation move me so much? Without further ado, here's Mystic Meadows – a knitted prayer for someone unknown.

Mystic Meadows
4.25 mm Clover Bamboo
2 skeins Brooklyn Handspun Signature in Vegas