Monday 3 December 2007

If only there was more time

I had a wonderful weekend. Friday and Saturday the house were mine, and I was alone. Son 1 and his dad were off hunting, and GF of Son 1 was out with friends and wisely choose to stay in town and take taxi's rather than driving home (She is a very smart girl). I think that is the first time I have been alone for any amount of hours since the kids came back. Much as I love them, it was lovely just being alone.

Friday evening I took Son 2 out for his birthday. He taught me how to use chopsticks, and how to best open those cool little tubular sugars packets, and how to use my stupid cell phone. We also discussed how I might be the only person in the world who has yet to figure out how to get photos from my phone, to my computer, AND who has actually taken pictures of her computer screen to use as a wall paper for her phone. We had a lovely time, even if he spent most of it laughing at me.

I went home and worked on socks for the rest of the evening. Saturday by 10, both socks were done, so I played a little on Ravelry, where I am canadiannneedles. I uploaded most of my stash.

Playing with my stash led me to wanting something nicer than socks for the next gift for a lady. I had this really fine Colinette yarn, in Velvet Damson, just crying out to me, begging to be more than socks. A search on Ravelry led me to a pattern, The Tiger Eye Scarf from Stitchin Girl. I worked on that for a few hours, but kept making an error, and I could not figure out what I was doing wrong.

I left that behind for the pattern Annie Modesitt uses in her class. Thank you Annie, because look here!

I have knit feet of this already. What an absolutely marvelous pattern for a gift, fast, almost brainless, but with enough interest to keep you going. As I work along I'm working out the little problem I seem to be having with decreases, where the edge is not very tidy. If I work a wee bit more firmly on my purl rows, the edge on the decreases which are leaning to the left become nice and even. I love the edging she showed us in the class. Its gives the sides wonderful body. I opted for garter stitch to begin with, because I am not yet satisfied at how my i-cord casts on looks, but you can't have everything all at once.

I can do quite a lot in a hour of work, so this one is going to be my lunchtime project. First intentional gift down, and onto the second, and looking for a good timely completion. I'm very very pleased with the way the weekend worked out.

And yes, I will have more of this kind of Colinette yarn in my stash as soon as the holidays are done.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I love the tiger eye scarf - and that they give the option of doing it without grafting. I feel amateurish for doing things that way, but I'm not sure I'm quite up to doing scarves in halves yet - so it sort of validates my simple way of doing things - although I worry about the design being upside down. I made a scarf using a cat's eyelet rib, which doesn't have a really obvious up or down to it.

mostlylurking