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100 Free Hours!

Flora v. Morning Glory? Turned out to be an easy decision! My ball-winder, 26 years old, broke while I was winding my first skein for Flora, and I'm certainly too lazy to wind skeins by hand. So! Rather than fret, I hied myself away for the evening to join the Weavers and Spinners Society of Austin.

To my great delight, the evening's program was on building your own drop spindle from CDs, then spindling away with some lively Kool-Aid-dyed merino roving.

See my spindle! See the beginnings of my overspun single!

I've seen this before, but never tried making one of my own, much less spinning on one. WOT LARX AN BLEVE ME .

You can find instructions all over the Internet on how to turn those pesky throwaway CDs into useful and even somewhat elegant, certainly nicely balanced, drop spindles. Here's one link, you may know of others.

Guilds and fiber societies are like many other organizations, in that the more you put into them, the more you receive from them. I never belonged to one until the past few years I was living in NJ, and mygoodness, I love my Shore Fiber Arts Guild! I feel quite lucky that I've been able to move here and find such lovely knitters and spinners and weavers plying their crafts in such creative and friendly ways.

Circular Sutures

There have been some questions about my use of this term as a method for closing up little holes and such in knitting. It's a technique described in the Lucy Neatby book Cool Socks, Warm Feet, and I don't feel competent to describe it in my own words. Neatby says, in the introduction to this little book, that "Great knitting is a sum of small parts." There are a wealth of "small parts" in this book, which I think make it worth the price (around $20). A number of decorative cast-ons (yeah! I'm using them on gloves!) and many, many techniques, including the circular suture, explained very clearly, and there are six patterns with multiple variations for self-patterning yarns. You can see a few of the socks here. I don't have my copy handy, but I believe Neatby mentions that the circular suture for knitting gets its name from the surgical technique. This book is like Sweaters From Camp in the sense that while perhaps you won't make all of the items in it, the techniques gathered between the book's covers make it invaluable. JMOSVHO.

Pups

Friday! Mikey says Tramps Like Us, Baby We Were Born To Stroll.

Enjoy your Friday! We wish you a happy weekend, with lots of time and good weather for both strolling and knitting. Hey! Maybe you can do both at the same time!

Flora! Flora! Flora!

Ho! We didn't think we would be able to knit along, but here is proof-positive that we can, direct from Canada and delivered to our door this afternoon:

And inside?

Slurp.

Anne of SheEweKnits put this together for me. And what a sweetheart she was to hurry it on its way to me! Isn't it a lovely bunch of wool? Anne included with the wool a question about Morning Glory, another project she helped me assemble, and naturally, that made me remember Tuesday's vow to finish up the WIPs before moving on to Flora. Here's Morning Glory, where we left it, right at the armhole steeks:

It's pretty, isn't it. And just languishing there. Hmm. Me must fink, as Lucia would say. Cast on Flora? or finish Morning Glory?

Teresa's Got it Going On

I love this sweater. If you haven't seen it yet, go take a look at the Shirt-Tailed Fair Isle from Sweaters From Camp by Ann Feitelson that the lovely Teresa is knitting. (T, are you feeling much better today? I hope so. Woofs to Sade.)

Pups

Mike and Della are enjoying being Top Dogs since Dyna's arrival.

Thursday! So many choices! Mike and Della say When in Rome, do as the Dachshunds do.

Happy knitting!

Herringbone Herringdone

They aren't washed or blocked yet, but I'm finished, so here you are:

And a view of the lovely salt and peppered palm:

I'm very pleased with these gloves, as you've been hearing all along ;-) My gauge varied slightly from the original pattern, 9 st per in rather than the called-for 10 st per in. Using the Koigu for stranded knitting makes a very soft and cushiony glove; they are very comfy and will be very warm. I used the Double-start Cast-On from Folk Knitting in Estonia with doubled wool, and unblocked, it only rolls a little. Next pair I will probably add a discrete Purl-When-You-Can (per Meg Swansen) row immediately after the cast-on.

Let's see, what else...oh, yes, Caroline F's took a little over one skein of the background color, while mine took nearly exactly one skein of each color (had a little leftover of the handpaint). The charts for this pattern are terrific, and if you are left-to-right challenged, as I sometimes am, scan the charts into an image editing program and flip them for the second glove. I used sizes US 2s for the hands and US 1s for the fingers.

I'm going to finish the second blue and white "Landra's Gloves" as I promised myself, but I'm going to use it as a secondary project while I finish up some odds-and-ends before Wendy begins her Flora. I'll be knitting along with her, and making the original version in 2-ply shetland, rather than the extremely luscious but very expensive version that is made in VY's Hebridean. Flora has long been a favorite of mine, so I'm going to clear WIPs as fast as I can.

[Update—12:33 a.m.—Wendy's started Flora! I thought Ingeborg was next on her list! All bets are off on my knitting along!]

Pups

Pups are dashing through the dandelions with Dyna. What a life, right? Woof!

Wishing you dandelion-dashing time today. Enjoy your knitting.

I See Herringbones

We had a treat in our e-mail inbox today; some photos of a completed Herringbone Glove knit by Judy, sometimes found here, but always here. Imagine our delight!

Here's Judy's Herringbone Glove back:

and here is the salt-n-pepper palm:

Fabulous! Could our e-mail delight get any better? Since you've asked, why, Yes! It did get better! Judy also kindly sent along a photo of one of the finished pair of socks she knit recently for her sister-in-law. Get a load of Herta's Socks, color knitters:

Isn't it beautiful? And so restful on the eyes! Judy says she knit the socks with Jawoll at ~8 st per inch, and that the pattern is based on a design by Woolen Collectibles. I love love love it when color work is done in shades that differ so subtly from one another. Sometimes I think that the closer the colors are to one another, the more sophisticated the outcome. Beautiful! I feel quite honored to be able to introduce you to Judy's Herringbones and Herta's socks.

Judy also knit a pair of gorgeous Sanquhar gloves during the Glorious Glove Project; you can see them here. Her pair of Herringbone Gloves makes me stop to think how many knitters have been knitting these...hmm. Saku first? Then Minako and Noriko, Mari and I joined in soon after. Caroline F, now Judy... that's seven pairs of Herringbone Gloves that we know of, each completely lovely. Anyone else out there working on Herringbone Gloves from the ABCs of Knitting? Let us know, please; since we have enough for a gallery!

Two-End News

I found out today that I am indeed going to be one of the lucky participants in the very small workshop being given in Austin by Carol Rhodes on Two-End Knitting. Carol Rhodes translated the recently published Two-End Knitting, and is an expert two-end knitter in her own right. My assignment is to learn to cast on continental-style. I'll have to look it up, but I don't mind, because I want to be ready to twine when this workshop happens.

Pups

The fascination with Dyna continues; here is Little Jack looking quite gigantic while he adores Dyna-mite:

Tuesday. Little Jack says Discretion is the Dachshund part of Valor. Semper Knittus, you-all.

Construction Zone

Slowly, I'm completing the Herringbone Gloves, but before they are finished and never referenced again, I'd like to note what I think is the distinction between the glove patterns at ABCs of Knitting and other gloves, and why that distinction seems to make the gloves appear much more elegant than, say, The Good Basic Gloves designed by Rita Buchanan. (I hasten to add that Rita Buchanan's gloves are a joy to knit, and exactly as described in the design name: Good Basic Gloves.)

In a manner that is similar to the Sanquhar Gloves, the Herringbone Glove designs by Tata and Tatao includes something more than a simple tube for the fingers. Knitting the Sanquhars (three-sided fingers) and the Herringbones (four-sided fingers) in the traditional manner makes the fingers seem more boxy than round. I tried to find a photo of this effect on the Sanquhar gloves, but you mostly have to guess at it in my photos (scroll down). Here it is in the Herringbone Gloves, though:

I hope you can see the difference (and thus what I'm trying to explain) between the decorative space between the fingers in the Herringbones, and the plain space between, say, the Austrian Gloves.

I prefer the Herringbone and Sanquhar type of fingers; don't you agree they are more elegant?

Oh! Oh! Oh!

I have been loving these mandalas (and potential tam tops) created from images of Mt. Fuji. Select any one of the mandalas, and you'll see the image of Mt. Fuji from which the mandala was created. Beautiful. I'm using one of these images on my desktop each day this week as an homage to the creators of the ABCs of Knitting.

Pups

My big dogs (gee! until just last Thursday they were my little bitty miniature pups!) are completely fascinated with Sister's new smooth baby dachshund.

It's good to be fascinated! Especially on a Monday! Enjoy your day, and we sincerely hope you become fascinated by someone or something pleasant.