blogdogblog

Hiho, Thursday

Hello darlings, I am finding it more and more difficult to maintain the blog while doing a Yentala (working fulltime and going to school fulltime). This semester is much more demanding than last. I don't think I'm ready to abandon blogging, but I do think I'm going to have to establish a particular couple of days to blog. Is there a preference for when you like to read? What about Mondays and Thursdays? Sundays and Fridays? May we have an informal poll? Thank you! And in the meantime, if you install an aggregator, you'll be notified when this blog is updated.

Knitting

I can't decide if my mitten is or is not almost finished.

I could stop right here and add a nice double round of EZ's applied I-cord. But. The original, in Magnificent Mittens by Anna Zilboorg, has a pretty gauntlet cuff with round motifs. I'm not quite getting the concept of gauntlets. As with all knitted things, I may go ahead and knit it as per the original design just to see if I like wearing gauntlet mittens. I am afraid of falcons deciding to perch on me. Is that a reasonable neurosis?

Reading

By way of the Marvelous Minna and her blog, A Little Knitting Blog, a trade took place a couple of weeks ago and my share arrived earlier this week. Minna found an old second-hand Finnish mitten book that has 100 Finnish mitten charts, and now, thanks to the Post Office and Minna's generosity, I have a copy too! The book is softcover, and has about 20 pages of forewords in Finnish, then all kinds of grand mitten charts that have color indications noted at the bottom of each page. Minna very kindly made a little glossary for me of Finnish color names and basic knitting terms and included it with my package. It's a wonderful little book! If you want to seek one out for yourself, the author is Eeva Haavisto, and the title is Sata kansanomaista kuviokudinmallia, published by WSOY in 1947. Good luck! This chart will be my first mitt, I think:

Isn't it sweet? Butterflies! Yay!

Pups

Pups are rolling right along toward the weekend, of which we will have three days. After their hectic happy weekend with the kids, they are ready for a weekend at my speed, which in this case will mean lounging about and looking at wool and generally regrouping. The days after a visit from the children always feel as if we have forgotten something.

O Happy Thursday! We wish you a most pleasant one!

Allsorts

So busy! But there is a tiny bit of knitting to display. I'm working on a second design from Magnificent Mittens (ISBN: 0-9646391-3-0) and they really make me think of licorice allsorts, so much so that I'm considering a little hot pink and green duplicate stitch after the knitting is finished.

In other glove and mitten news, my copy of Håndplagg til bunader og folkedrakter arrived, and dear me! It is simply glorious. I'd like to buy a copy for each of the splendid stranded color knitters I know! Since I can't, I hope you'll think about buying it for yourself. It's expensive! But it's a great big heavy book you can keep on your coffee table! There are over 300 pages of gloves, mittens, beaded cuffs, lace cuffs, pulse warmers plain and beaded, and pages and pages of beautifully photographed Norwegian folk costumes. The book is in Norwegian, but all the designs are charted, so you only have to be able to count. My copy, from Nordic Fiber Arts, came with a list of Norwegian knitting words translated into English.

Many of the gloves and mittens have gorgeous embroidery on the backs. I e-spoke with our embroidery expert, Kim, and she told me that the embroidery is of the type known as crewel. (I feel so lucky that we have such a generous resource to call upon at all hours of the day and night with our emergency embroidery questions! Thanks again, Kim!) The embroidery is very bold and colorful, not dainty (as in a sampler, for instance), and predominantly satin stitch, sez Kim. I would love to be able to show you a photo here, but I don't have permission. Do check your public library, though, to see if this wonderful book is coming soon--if not, you simply will have to buy it :-)

This is a beautiful book that I think will be on every color knitter's wish list for birthdays and holidays for some time to come. It's fabulous. Read more about it here and here.

Pups

Our all-time favorite houseguests were here for nearly five days! The pups were delirious with joy.

We went out on the river and saw the bats, simply clouds of them—all 1.5 million, I think, although one or two may have stayed in. The pups were so excited that Mikey strained his back. Della and Jack were extra solicitous toward him, which, I think, would make anyone feel better. Mike does.

We wish you a happy Monday with *all sorts* of good stuff.