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Entrelac Enlightment— $1

I've been knitting the Shimada Toshiyuki gloves rather absent-mindedly, as it has been impossible to forget the cuffs of the gloves from the same book that I had started before I realized Saarte and Nanette were knitting the other pair.

If you look it up, you'll find that entrelac, also known as basketweave stitch, and several other names, too, starts with a row of base triangles that are then built up with left- and right-leaning oblongs. Well! That clears everything up, right? NOT.

The cuffs of the gloves on the cover of Scandinavian Accessories have points at the bottom! (ISBN: 4529041409, btw.) Go figure! Since I couldn't quit wondering about it and apparently can only learn with my fingers, I went to the source closest to my knitting chair, Spun Out #31 from Schoolhouse Press. I started EZ's Basket-Cap, and once I got going round and round with the oblongs, I couldn't stop, so it's probably going to be rather taller than her design.

Cool technique. Not difficult after all, but it sure makes you feel as if you are some kind of knitting genius when you see the results.

I did that? Ennnnntrelac!

Thanks to EZ, I now think I know how to do the cover gloves and am very eager to finish the red and gray pair so as to dive back into the yellow pair.

The Basket-Cap is all the knitting there is to show; last Friday I came home from work with some kind of evil flu-variant and was low until Monday. Sunday afternoon, I still had E. Zimmermann on my mind from working on the cap, and since it was handy, I watched the entire Knitting Glossary (4 hours!) from start to finish. The DVD is an excellent improvement over the videos, not least because there are so many new techniques demonstrated (purling back-backwards!!) and it is indexed. Cool. I highly recommend it, whether you have the flu or not ;-)

Sister and I are working on bold new blog ventures and we were saving pup photos for that, but Mike is too cute. We're helpless.

Entrelaccccc. Too. Cute.

And Now, A Few Dachshunds

That's Mikey near the middle, doing the Joyful Dachshund Dance. Happy Friday, happy knitting!

Glove Train

Saartje and Nanette were talking about Shimada Toshiyuki's wonderful new Japanese book of Scandinavian accessories as well as the possibility of a glove-in, and as many know, I'm all-over glove-ins. I had my copy expedited and it arrived and I cast on only to have Close Encounters of the Entrelac Kind.

I headed resolutely back over to Saarte's and Nanette's for help and discovered they were knitting an entirely different glove! Saarte's are finished and beautiful, Nanette's are in progress and beautiful, and now, mine are coming along (slowly) as I catch up with some varigated gray and red wool.

The varigated background/foreground gives a kind of blurry look to the patterning; kind of Knitting-Impressionism. I like it. These gloves are companions to some mittens I'm working on for Anne, for when she gets tired of the mitts.

So! About this entrelac-stuff. Why am I getting a kind of knitted cone ^ at the intersections? And isn't the yellow simply glorious? It's the 'Abundant Harvest' colorway of merino sock wool by Kathryn Thomas, the Fleece Artist.

Wool Winder

If you take care of your tools, they can last a long time. My wool winder is 54 years old. Although perhaps you prefer to think of it as an Umbrella Swift?

I think of him as a wool winder.

Important PSA (you didn't think that just because I don't post so often or knit as much or keep the comments turned on that I would quit nagging, did you?)

Please remember that a number of organizations will accept your donation of pre-paid phone cards for the people most directly affected by the war. Toasty toes are wonderful, but a way to call your mom from Iraq or a hospital bed has got to be even better.