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Thursday Thursday Thursday

What a wild week! It's been packed to the gunnels with busy-ness. Last night I only managed four rounds on the colorful sock-mate before deciding I was finally too tired to even knit. However! There's still some news! Remember the Special Guild Project that my wonderful guild was working on, in which all members spun various colorful wool-mohair rovings to be used as the warp on a woven afghan? Our weaver finished it up, and so Monday night we met to finish the fringing of our made-with-love creation.

Here we are fringing:

And here we are checking the collective length of the fringe:

The alpaca weft has made this the softest afghan ever, and it has a beautiful drape. Plus, the purple band contains my very first full skein of handspun!

We're all very pleased with our collaboration, and will present this to our much-loved recipient at our August meeting.

Pups + Cicadas = Ewwww!

Are you familiar with that amazing summer buzz that comes from the cicada? The little critters spend up to 17 years underground, then emerge to morph into scary-looking winged insects that produce that wonderful summer sound. Mike and Jack have found that the cicadas are a particularly toothsome dachshund delicacy. Imagine spending years on your personal growth, only to be devoured by dachshunds who find you crunchy. Nature can be quite cruel, right? Jack is certainly not going to give me a puppy kiss with that mouth today.

Happy Thursday! When you hear those summer cicadas today, think about that ol' miracle of life, and enjoy yourself!

Reconnected

Happy Wednesday, knitters! I'm pleased to be here! Nothing like a little enforced absence from technology to make you appreciate the old bits and bytes of life. How wonderful it was to read your comments; thank you for leaving them! I'm very appreciative of my online pals.

Della and I are still feeling a little discombobulated from our technology breakdown:

But we expect to make a speedy recovery. Late last night while I was still reinstalling software, I came upon this BBC report that proposes for technology-types, loss of email is "worse than divorce." My! I dislike myself for being the type of person who is so wired that being un-wired freaks me out, but yes, Teresa, It Freaked Me Out!!! Totally!

Knitting Dept.

No progress to report on the remaining sleeve of the Giant Latvian Mitten Cardigan! However, there's another tech support sock finished:

I'm working my way through my sock basket; I seem to have fallen prey to Second Sock Syndrome, in which I knit one colorful sock, then neglect to cast on for its mate. Satisfying summer knitting, for sure.

Cryptic Dept. Update!

Okey-dokey! I'm happy to see you all today! The painters are coming in less than an hour to finish the small bedroom, so I better bust a move. Have a great Wednesday, y'all.

Tech-Support -- How Sweet It Is

Here I am, back online again after a hard-drive failure. I've spent most of the afternoon re-installing stuff! Nearly-catastrophically, my techies were able to salvage everything BUT my dissertation, so tomorrow I'll be trying to cobble it back together. I was surprised at how anxious it made me feel to not be able to blog. I had wondered if the urge to blog was only urge-nt if I posted regularly. I know for sure now...I missed you.

While waiting for news on my hard drive, I finished my Regia socks:

They don't match very much, do they? And I also knitted a bit on another sock that's been languishing in my workbasket, plus the Giant Latvian Mitten Cardigan sleeve. But mostly I worried and fidgeted about the extent to which files could be recovered from the drive.

Luckily, I have dachshunds who are always ready to let me know what's important in life. That's right: Belly Rubs!

See you tomorrow! And by the way, you might want to BACK UP YOUR HARD DRIVE, okay?

Fast Friday Updates

Somehow I'm off to a late start before I've even started this morning. So this blog entry is going by in a bit of a blur; try to keep up, okay? Or, ask a question in the comments, and I'll get back to you.

Giant Latvian Mitten Cardigan Update

It's from Wool Gathering #67, available from Schoolhouse Press, and is being knitted in Jamison and Smith jumper-weight wool.

Tapestry Update

My tapestry-weaving pal Rose came by to talk about a workshop she'd been in recently. While I've been knitting on the GLMC, Rose has been working on samplers...aren't they cool? These are being woven on an Archie Brennan copper pipe loom, designed to bring tapestry art to the people.

Cool, right? Don't you want to be a tapestry weaver?

Cryptic Dept. Update

Pup Update

Smiley Jack!

Okay! I gotta run! Have a most wonderful weekend! See you Monday!

We Interrupt Your Very Hot Weather

Still very warm here! We report no further progress on the Giant Latvian Mitten Cardigan. But we did knit down the heel flap on the Regia socks. But let's look at this first:

Okay. I think I can carry on with the wooly parts of the blog now.

Sock progress:

Here's the exciting s1, k1 heel flap.

I can't remember what this style of heel flap is called, but it's the first one I learned and I always seem to knit it before remembering Wendy's more beautiful short-row method. But on the NEXT pair, I'm determined to try it. Short rows rock my world ever since I read Bonne Marie's article about them in Knitty.

Now. Let's see. What was I thinking? Oh yeah. IT'S HOT.

The pups wish you a cool day.

Oh! The Humidity!

94%.

Gack!

It's very hot and sticky here. It's the sticky part I dislike; I only like stickiness in wool. Did you know the normal temperature of longhaired dachshunds is between 101-102 degrees F? I guess that's why they think cuddling up on me (at only 98 degrees F) is as cool as an ocean breeze. And I guess that's why it was finally too hot to work on my Giant Latvian Mitten Cardigan yesterday. So I worked on the mate to a sock (Regia 5281) I finished a while ago instead.

It's on two needles, and that makes it a lot easier to throw across the room when I am tired of it.

I guess it's Wednesday, so that's a good thing. Little Jack reminds you to stop and smell the geraniums along the way today.

Muggy best wishes, comin' at ya. Cheers!

Color My World. Please.

Hello knitters! I'm just working away on the second sleeve of the Giant Latvian Mitten Cardigan, so no update photo today. However, Cat asked in the comments yesterday about process in choosing color. Selecting colors for stranded knitting is very difficult for some people, so let's talk about how I chose the colors for the GLMC, which are FC8, 203, and 125.

Step 1: I spent several feverish weekends fussing over Jamison and Smith shetland wool color cards.
Step 2: I narrowed my choices down to 37.
Step 3: I agonized over the 37 and trimmed them down to 18.
Step 4: I agonized over the 18 and trimmed them down to 7.
Step 5: I climbed on top of the refrigerator with my cell phone and called Schoolhouse Press and, between hyperventilating and raving, told them I simply couldn't decide what went best with FC8.
Step 6: Meg, Eleanor, and Michelle calmly took over, added 203 and 125 to my rusty FC8, and mailed the wool out the same afternoon.
Step 7: The pups and I sat quietly until the wool arrived.

Doesn't sound like much of a process, does it? I would actually still be embarrassed about it if I didn't love the colors I have so much! But having 160+ colors to choose from in the J&S line of jumper-weight wool was too much for me. I hope this story doesn't disappoint anyone, but instead, serves as a testimony to the wonderful help available at the Schoolhouse. Choosing colors is hard for me, and I much prefer knitting to choosing colors. So this process actually worked out perfectly for me. And yes, I agree with you, Cat, this combination sings to me, too. I love it.

How do you choose your colors?

Cryptic Dept.

It's Tuesday; better get along, little dogies. Have a good one!

One Sleeve Down

And one sleeve to go! That's right, I finished one Giant Latvian Mitten Sleeve over the weekend. Here's a crummy photo:

As noted last week, I decided to add the bottom borders of the cardigan body back into the sleeves. I like it. That's a PWYC cuff, by the way, rather than corrugated ribbing.

I'm eager to finish the second sleeve now, because that's about all that's left to do before a "next" project. The cardigan will be finished with a round of EZ-applied I-cord, and since the steeks are crocheted, there will be very few ends to weave in. So I'll just add clasps (don't you love norwegian sweater clasps?) and be done.

So? How was your weekend?

Have an excellent Monday, everyone. See you tomorrow!

Fast

Everything seems to be picking up speed here, including dachshunds and my Giant Latvian Mitten Cardigan sleeve:

I'm almost at the decision point for adding the lower bottom borders back into the sleeve. I think I'm set on the idea, but still, I hesitate when I look at the original design. (Scroll down to view it here in its original gorgeous-ness.)

My plan is to add this to the lower third of my sleeves:

I'm pretty sure it will be fabulous. The only thing that makes me hesitate is spoiling the effect of the Uninterrupted Motif running magically from cuff to cuff. However, I'm thinking it could run magically from forearm to forearm, right?

Friday!

There is a lot to do around here, including sleeves, but we're still planning on playing hard, too.

Hope you have plenty of playtime hardwired into your weekend! Have a good one, and we'll see you Monday.

Q&A Thursday

Thanks, everyone, for the kind comments on my Giant Latvian Mitten Cardigan yesterday; I appreciate your supportive attention, and felt inspired to knit knit knit on my magic sleeve last night. Another two inches, and I'll switch charts and color. Photo tomorrow!

A few questions arose, so here are a few corresponding answers. Caroline F asked about the wool, and yes, it is Jamieson and Smith's Jumper-weight, rather than the original-to-the-design Satakieli. I love J & S! Anne asked how I was knitting this in the heat of summer. Well . . . it has been cooler here. But it's J & S Jumper-weight! Even with the whole thing on my lap now while I add the In-Pattern sleeves, there are only about 9 ounces of wool sitting in my lap. Jumper-weight is that lightweight . . . 12 ounces total for the whole cardigan. That's less than a pound, and refreshingly less than the usual 35 pounds of miniature dachshunds who like to be little hot hairy lapdogs all at the same time. Yes! A lapful of cardigan is cooler than a lapful of dachshunds. So it's all relative, I guess.

Here's Something Interesting

I was browsing through Metafilter's offerings yesterday, and came upon a link to fabric origami:

Seems like this could have an interesting application to knitted squares and such...click on the Fabric Origami link within the website. Ornaments and Selections from the left nav-bar when you are ready. Would you necessarily have to stiffen it? Hmmmm.

It's Thursday!

Mike and Della say stay alert! See you tomorrow, with sleeve progress.

Mid-week

Motivated by Jerry's sleeve progress, I worked on the Giant Latvian Mitten Cardigan sleeve. Here's my progress up close, with its astonishing Uninterrupted Motif:

and here's a picture of the big picture:

Cool, eh? Betcha wish you had one right now, with no discernable break in the pattern between sleeve and body. I think Picking Up the Sleeve in Pattern as per Meg Swansen is an inspired bit of knitting magic. I've decided to alter the original pattern somewhat on the sleeves, and work the bottom border color back into the lower third, along with a Purl When You Can cuff. Yep.

It's the middle of the week! Della says do some prancing!

Sleeveless in NJ

I was checking Jerry's progress on the beautiful white gansey yesterday, and found he had finished a sleeve!!! I'm so impressed with this sweater that he's knitting...it's quite obviously an heirloom, even while still on the needles. Really beautiful work. Like our wonderful Wendy, Jerry also concentrates on one big project at a time. I think it's a very noble idea, and one that I've been trying to adhere to since I began blogging. My purpose always feels renewed when I see the amazing progress others have made, particularly the one-big-project-at-a-timers, so I'm motivated again to get the sleeves of the Giant Latvian Mitten Cardigan finished. No point in being sleeveless in NJ.

Textile News

Saw this on boingboing yesterday and was filled with delight . . . Electric Plaid, from International Fabric Machines. Go take a look at the specs on this color-changing textile! Whoo-Hoo! Yeah! Can you stand it?? I'm so eager for stuff like this to reach the knitting world...what a brilliant way to color your fair isle knitting!

Pup News

Yesterday we realized we had a new dachshund to admire . . . the lovely Anezka who owns Shannon over at bitter-girl. A new cousin! Little Jack is simply delighted! Or is he leering? Do dachshunds leer?

Happy Tuesday! Work those sleeves!

Watching the World Go By

It was simply gorgeous here over the weekend, and the temptation was to do as the pups did, and just admire the backyard.

Lows in the mid-60s, highs in the low 80s...perfectly lovely. However, I did do a few rounds on my sleeve, which, you may recall, I was raving about last week because it features a technique that is new to me: Picking Up In Pattern. Here is my limited weekend progress:

Can you tell where the body ends and the sleeve begins? Hint: There's only an inch of sleeve done, but align the crosses to see the seam, okay? Cool, right?!! Uninterrupted Motifs!

Linda M. asked on Friday if I thought the crocheted steek would work on Norwegian-type yarns, such as are found in the Poetry in Stitches sweaters. Answer: I don't know (yet). Haven't tried it. But I did write to Meg Swansen, originator of the crocheted steek technique, to ask her about the possibility of steeking with less-hairy yarns. She replied that she was a bit leery of slicker yarns like Heilo and such, but that she had successfully done it with Satakeili, a non-hairy fingering weight yarn from Finnland. So my best answer right now, Linda M, is try it! And let us know what happens! I'll be trying it on a Dale swatch as soon as I finish my Giant Latvian Mitten Cardigan. I will definitely create a larger steek, say seven stitches, than is usually called for in Norwegian-type stranded knitting, just to have a little room for error, and possible emergency stitching.

Monday!

Mikey says have a happy one!

Steekin' Friday

The delightfully cooler weather motivated me to work the crochet steeks on the armholes of the Giant Latvian Mitten Cardigan (Wool Gathering #67) yesterday. Hold on tight, here we go now:

Crocheting the 2nd and 3rd stitch of the 7-stitch steek...

Finished crochet on the 2nd and 3rd and 4th and 5th stitches:

Snipping the "ladders" in-between the 3rd and 4th stitches:

The awesomely finished edge:

Is that gorgeous or WHAT? Not an end in sight! After admiring my handiwork lavishly, I then picked up the armhole stitches In Pattern and worked enough rounds to see that it's going to be very cool. The diamond-rose motif continues uninterrupted across the shoulders and down the arms. . . I'll show you on Monday when there's a full motif to admire.

Comments — I Love 'Em

In yesterday's entry, I asked about peplum designs, and readers came through. Deb posted the url to a lovely free pattern, and reminded me of the very beautiful Sheilavig from Virtual Yarns, while Pubah reminded me of the cleverly constructed patterns at White Lies Designs, and Janet reminisced about her trip to York with Jean Moss. The White Lies reminder made me think of Bonne Marie's wonderful, wonderful article about short rows in the Summer Knitty. Read it again, it's outstanding. Thanks to everyone for the peplum pointers!

Racoons!

Sister has some adorable racoon updates on her blog . . . check 'em out and see how big the baby racoon has grown. And, have a fabulous Friday!

Inspiration in the Mail

Ooooh! It's cool and rainy here this morning and the pups and I are delighted. Blogdogblog has featured a lot of weather entries this month, but today's entry is complaint-free.

So! Yesterday when I got home from work there was a catalog from Peruvian Connection waiting for me. While I tend to ignore catalogs, this one drew me in because the cover features an awesome stranded knit in blues and oranges. Did you get this catalog yet? If not, call 1-800-255-6429, or visit the website and ask for one. Do it now, okay?

Here's a sweater that caught my eye, among many eye-catchers:

There are a lot of intarsia knits, including an eye-popper designed by Kaffe Fassett. While these designs are knitted mostly in pima cotton or alpaca (drool), there is plenty of very worthwhile knitted eye-candy. Highly recommended for summer reading, if you are not already reading Life of Pi.

The sweaters in this collection feature a lot of design details that I find quite interesting. Someone needs to point me to a pattern that includes scallops and a peplum. Peplums appear in many of these beauties, and I think I want one. A peplum, that is. Send suggestions, please.

Stargazing

Thanks to Katherine: for the very interesting French tidbit on dog days...it's in yesterday's comments, so enlighten yourself via Katherine regarding canicules.

Okay! On with the knitting, and on with Thursday...have a very happy one!

Dog Days

Another hot one.

Why, I wondered idly, do they call them the Dog Days? Even though I do not believe that Google is God, it's sure a handy thing to have around. Through Google, I found this explanation for Dog Days over at Phrase Finder:

"The ancient Romans noticed that the hottest days of the year, i.e. in late July and early August, co-incided with the Dog Star being visible. They thought the star contributed to the heat of the day."

And here is a lovely bit of info on Sirius, the dog star, from APOD.

Here's what the Dog Days look like at my house:

Pardon our messy backdrop. But you get the idea.

Della says Bleh.

Be cool and be safe, everybody.

Measure Twice

I have a beautiful little tape measure that I received as a birthday present from my son, who in turn bought it from Halcyon.

It's made of Black Acacia wood, and is quite lovely and useful. Beautiful tools are a pleasure to use. And so I took pleasure last night in measuring twice before crocheting and cutting my arm steeks, because I found I still had two inches left to work on the shoulders. How the heck did that happen? I can only think it was the heat that made me think I was finished and ready to rock on with the sleeves. Measure Twice, Cut Once: words to live by in carpentry and knitting!

How hot is it?

Just ask Mikey:

Off to walk while it's still bearable and then off to work; I'll chant while I walk that you have a wonderful Tuesday! Sure, the other walkers at the park will look at me curiously, but you online knitters and spinners and weavers mean that much to me! See you tomorrow.

Tattered

My excellent guild had a tatting workshop over the weekend. Tatting is a type of lace-making that uses a shuttle and fine thread:

Tatting has been around for at least 200 years as a fiber art. The lace produced is very fine, and I've read that it was originally an attempt to imitate Venetian lace. Tatted lace is shaped over the hand in a series of tiny knots.

Here is our instructor, Eleanor, who happens to be our Treasurer's mom, demonstrating:

Aren't her hands amazing?

Tatting is an endless series of small knots, like macrame, I suppose, on a microscopic scale. After approximately six hours of tatting, this was the result:

However, Eleanor could have accomplished this much in about six minutes. Really! It's a very tiny way to work. I'm always glad to learn new things, especially historical fibery things. But I think I'll wait to take up tatting until, oh, I don't know...the 12th of Never?

I came home a little tired of the miniature and had to finish up the body of my Giant Latvian Mitten Cardigan to feel as if I had actually accomplished something.

Tonight I'll be crocheting the armhole steeks and then picking up my sleeves In Pattern...very exciting stuff!

Have an excellent Monday; see you on Tuesday. Oh, here's an excellent time-waster, quite beautiful in fact, and in Japanese, from Metafilter.

Independence Day

I have my straw hat, flipflops, my knitbloggersread Life of Pi, and half a seedless watermelon waiting in the icebox. Oh. And bug spray. So I'm going to do some sunny day knitting today and then watch some fireworks tonight. Here are tips for photographing fireworks, courtesy of The New York Institute of Photography.

I ran myself completely into the ground yesterday accomplishing everything except getting my Giant Latvian Mitten Cardigan advanced to the shoulders. And then last night there was a mosquito in my bedroom pestering the doggies and me. When I finally was able to find and swat vindictively, my bedroom looked like a crime scene. All that rain this spring has made our mosquito population particularly vicious. I tell you this in hopes that you'll forget that I promised an update photo today ('cause I don't have one). Monday, fer sure!

Have a good holiday weekend. See you on Monday!

Special Project

Remember my guild project, The Special Afghan for a Special Person, that I told you about? (See the June 6 entry in my archives to see the handspun skeins.) Last night we visited our weaver's home to check its progress (bonus! she kindly served us homemade lemonade with homemade chocolate cake!).

Louise had warped her big loom with our skeins:

Then she began weaving

Louise has a computer hooked up to her loom, an innovation I was unaware of until last night. Pretty high-tech for the craft of weaving, right?

She sampled the warp with white, light gray, dark gray, and black handspun alpaca weft:

And then we had to choose which weft was the fairest of them all. Here's Louise and three beautiful spinners weighing color, value, and contrast.

It was a very tough call but I think we settled on the black weft. It's going to be pretty, isn't it?! And you should feel it; the wool warp plus the alpaca weft is simply luscious to the hand.

I'm off to a late start today, so I'll rush forward into my schedule and promise a photo of the Giant Latvian Mitten Cardigan progress tomorrow. Thanks, Lola, for carrying the ball in my comments!

Have a great Thursday; I'll see you tomorrow!

Short-Row Wednesday

Hiho! We had a winner early yesterday morning in the form of Swatchy! I love her attitude toward the question I posed. "Good Morning. Here's how I would do it. Knit including the last stitch that is not grey. It looks like the one with the + symbol. Wrap, turn, slip. Notice that on the next row up, you have another stitch in the + color but it is one stitch in. Start the next row there."

Isn't that totally authoritative? I love it, and am doing exactly as Swatchy would do. (By the way, go check out the beautiful Arum she is working on, okay?)

The important thing about this bit of short-row stuff is that to make the knitted-in border angle at the neck-shaping, you have to build up the side of the design that is closest to the border on each front.

Notice the border in this little cropped photo...it goes straight up the front, then turns the corner very sharply. That's from the short-rows.

The other important thing to keep in mind is that you don't want to mess up the motifs. So Swatchy's solution is perfect, and the one I'm going to use today to finish up the body of the Giant Latvian Mitten Cardigan.

Thank you, Swatchy! Please send me your mailing addy (and color preference) so that I can send you some gratitude in the form of Opal sock yarn! Lola, better print this out for your working copy!

Little Jack sends Swatchy a big kiss, too!

Happy Wednesday, everyone...see you tomorrow with an update GLMC photo!

Thoughtful

We're feeling thoughtful here today.

(We had a Look-Thoughtful Contest this morning...Jack won.)

We have arrived at the neck shaping on our Giant Latvian Mitten Cardigan, wherein we work two sets of short rows to angle the beginning of the corner.

We KNOW how to work short rows, especially the wrap-kind, because we are sock-knittin' fools here, but we are unsure where to turn around in the GLMC. We could call Schoolhouse Press again, because they are always helpful, but we are afraid we are turning into the Peskiest.Customer.Ever.

Here's a photo of the chart, with the two gray rows representing No Stitches.

First knitter to tell me (so that I understand) where to correctly turn around to angle my V will win a 100 gram ball of Opal in a pattern of my choosing...any takers?

Slow News Day

Here's a recipe for something called Silk Road Salad, taken from the online version of the Moscow Times. Who knew?

Wishing you a wonderful Tuesday!