Interesting work

I am finding my journey with unusual yarns and stranded colourwork fascinating. I'm not surprised by this. I have always seemed to be drawn to things on the small scale. Stranded colourwork mittens are never going to be a thing that changes the world, but they do have the capacity to entertain me, to stimulate my brain, and hopefully at the end to give someone a warm pair of hands on a cold winters day. They might not change the whole world, but they are changing me.

Exhibit one:Excuse me while I stop and just admire these for a moment. They are so unexpected and I still am amazed that I made these.

Exhibit two:After I showed these to my Fair Isle instructor, she asked me if I was holding my tension really tight on one or the other yarns. She suspected that the reason that the black yarn was so deeply inset from the white was a tension problem. She was wondering what happened on the place in the palm where the little black bloorf is (the section where the black is even with the white near the thumb) After some thought I realized this had to be the place where I almost lost a stitch, had a really really big open stitch, and planned on pulling it back in to place after blocking. I didn't think the tension was unbalanced on the rest of the mitten but I did decide to play close attention to it as I worked up mitten two.

Along comes mitten two, and I really have paid close attention to my tension, not just on the suspect hand, but on both yarns. I am erring on the side of really really easy tension and yet...

This is a view of an unblocked portion of the inside of the hand from this mornings work. As I look down the tube, the exact opposite is happening on the inside, the black is playing a more prominent role than the white, but looking deeper into the tube, the tensions appear to be very even. The strand lengths are pretty even.

If any of you can see something I am missing, please let me know, but I just can't help but feel this oddity of tension is coming from unbalanced yarns. This is why at the beginning of class they tell you to use well balanced yarns.

Love It is a slightly stretchy, bouncy cotton and acrylic yarn. Phil Bamboo is a not at all stretchy slightly finer yarn. Probably not a smart combination, but the yarns were there when I needed them and that has to count for something too.

The only way I would really know is if I worked a quickie mitten in wool where the only difference was colour. Or if I worked a swatch in two colours of Love It, or two colours of Phil Bamboo. I might do all three of these things in search of the answers but not right now. Right now my focus has to be completion of these and the other gift knitting.

Cause I tell you, the days are speeding by awfully fast, and that big 25 is not very far away.

The sky is falling

I worked on mittens this weekend and scarves and wrist warmers too. Wrist warmer, scarf and mitten set for my sister in law who helped me out in a very big way. You will notice the absence of beads. They were large beads, and once knitted in, looked like a fish out of water. I took them out, and re-knit. I am disappointed but I probably should have chosen smaller beads, and worked in multiples. My large beads were just wrong.

Tonite I am going to finish this pair of mittens. Mitten two is well under way. I'll show you some interesting stuff with these tomorrow.

So far colour work has been a fairly speedy feeling knit. Time moves fast while you are so engaged in a project, even when the pattern is easy enough to do. It's almost hypnotic.

The downside is that I could not finish it up yesterday because my eyes pooped out. I worked about 3 hours, until I could no longer focus on the graph paper and had to move on to something else. That is how the sister in law's gift happened to get finished, but I really really hankered after the black and white.

This is holiday knitting, big time and I am now far enough along to feel very very complacent. In laws, check. Sister in law, check. Sister, partial check. Son and wife, partial check.

Looking at it that way, I don't have a lot done at all.I still have a couple of hats, and at least two pairs of mittens to do. As usual, when I start to feel complacent, the sky falls.

And here I was wondering what I keep bumping my head on.

Bead Knitting

I'm about to put beads onto the knitted fabric. Thanks to all I have seen and read about on the net, I was able to take my time and really think about the look of the finished project and my goals for the beads. After much serious consideration (or none at all), I have the right solution.

Had I strung the beads onto the yarn, easy enough with only 3 beads, the beads would have sat between the stitches, and be visible from both sides and the beads would have sat with the hole horizontal to the fabric. The strong black edges of the beads would have worked in the opposite direction of the columns of knit stitches.

By using a crochet hook to get the beads onto the knitted fabric, the beads lie on top of the fabric and their strong edge colour echoes the columnar look of ribbing. Prominence looks right.

Thought, logic and sense had very little to do with my reasons for choosing to apply the beads with a crochet hook rather than stringing them along. I chose it because it was easier to contemplate this early in the morning before coffee.

I took the easy road, and surprisingly, it is the right road.

I'll post some photos later today after I have another bead laid on the knitting.

Litte things that thrill me.

Need I say more?

Glove one, reasonably well worked, reasonable fit, and ...

All right. There is nothing at all reasonable about how thrilled I am with the way this mitt turned out. Its not perfect, and there is a strong possibility that I will redo the decreases on the thumb, and it may yet come to pass that the hand might have a few more rows knit plain before the decreases start to form the top of the mitten but I can put it on my pudgy hand, so it will fit the giftee just about perfectly around her knuckles.

One mitten used a skein of the black Love It and the better part of a skein of Phil Bambou. The fibres split more than is ideal for stranded colour work, but over all work quite well. The little bit of stretch in the Love It and working fairly loose gives the mitten the stretch it needs. The fit is fairly close so that down the road, when the fibres relax, the giftee will still have mittens that work.

The single biggest yarn issue was that the two yarns were not perfectly matched. I had hoped to compensate for that by making the slightly lighter gauge white my dominant colour. It worked marvelously. The yarns seem quite balanced in the end. It has been just a really pleasing knit.

There ought to be a brass band on standby for such occasions and fireworks, maybe even a parade with a float I could sit on while I wave to the crowd. I'd wear the mitten, naturally. We'd be famous.

There are no brass bands, no parades, no crowds, no fame. There is just me, who knit a really nice mitt.

More not knitting content, but

it still is pretty important.

Yesterday, in the mail, I received the first of spring 2009's seed catalogues. I have mixed feelings about getting the first seed catalogue this early. It previously arrived between Christmas and New Year and was my respite to get through winter thinking about something else.

I don't think I'd mind so much, but we don't have any appreciable amount of snow, and everything is dry and brown. It isn't even all that cold. In every way that counts, it is still fall, so don't be rushing next spring.

There will be knitting today. Mitts for Christmas this morning, and knitting with friends this afternoon. this evening there will be still more knitting, but in between, there might the occasional sneak peek at the
Seed Catalogue.

Looking at a seed catalogue is really a lot like looking at yarn and planning a project. First you dream the really big dream of a perfect sweater in yarns you cannot afford and patterns you'd never wear. Then you come down to earth, look at what you really like, what you wear, what you need, and what you can afford.

I'll dream of a pretty garden and bountiful produce. I'll dream of gardens crisp and green with nary a weed in sight. And then by the time spring comes, I will have accepted that I don't have enough sunlight to grow crab apples, and cherries and will have been beguiled by the many hostas and berries I'll find on its lovely pages.

Big Days

Sometimes I forget important days but I think that has a lot to do with the way I was brought up.

My sister and I have birthdays 9 days apart in January. I am 1 year and nine days older than she. At the time my sister was born, my brother was not yet 3. That is a lot of diapers in a very very short time span. (Several other sisters followed after us, but there was some time between the other girls.) There were some birthdays where we had a friend over for dinner or a sleep over, but sometimes, we shared a birthday in between our birthdays. Birthdays were marked and counted but were not big splashy celebrations.

I'm still not into big splashy celebrations. For my birthday, I like taking a day of quiet contemplation, of reflection, of doing some of my favourite things, like watching a movie and having popcorn with real butter on it. For other days, I like a nice dinner out.

Today is my 29th wedding anniversary. We are going out to dinner tonite to mark the occasion, and I am looking forward to it. We wouldn't have to go out to dinner, it would have been OK if you forgot (which you did not). Those things are not what I hold so dear.

What matters today, what I am celebrating close in my heart is not that today is our anniversary, but that I have been lucky enough to spend all those other days in between, with you.

Happy Anniversary, Mr. Needles.

Black socks

These black socks are sucking the life out of me.

I worked on the nice little stranded mittens. I worked on the EZ vest, I work on the travel pair of socks, but nothing is distracting me from the soul sucking-ness of the black socks.

The soul sucking black socks are becoming mythic in my mind for their power to dominate my thinking in a very unpositive way. Every time I go to the work box, there they are. I have tried hiding them at the bottom of the pile, but the giftee looks at me most accusingly (He doesn't realize he is doing this when he walks into the room, but his spectre looms large.).

I am working with 2 balls of Kroy sock yarn, which as everyone knows is not enough yarn for a pair of men's socks with a medium long top. You know this I know this, but it doesn't stop me from not buying enough yarn. Running out of yarn on a project you are not all that fond of, generally means the project hits the frog pile. I was tempted, but there the giftee was, looming.

I grabbed a hank of Louet Gems at the store the other day, the only true black that I could find among the many sock yarns, and it's working out OK. Gems is a little bit finer, but alternating rows of yarn as I work up the calf is making the difference almost unnoticeable.

I'm going to put in a bunch of time to get these socks out of my hair. I am going to try to get sock one completed today (if I have to stay up late to do it) , and I am going to devote Sunday to sock 2. If I can get sock 2 past the heel Sunday, I'll be doing just about right.

Just making a firm schedule for the completion of these socks is making my day feel brighter. Nothing looming right now. No spectres hanging about.

Jumping for joy.

One of the interesting things I have learned since taking up blogging is that if something looks good to me in life, but looks bad in a photo, the photo is right.





I submit this.
It looks pretty good to me in the photo, so I'm jumping for joy. The black is Berocco's Love It, the white, Phildars Phil Bambou. Neither are particularly bouncy yarns, both are a little splitty, the weight of the yarns is mildly different (compensated for by making the white the dominant colour{I think})but they are working very well together.


I'm pretty sure I'll have a lot more to say about stranded colourwork before this pair is done, but for right now...

Well I'm going to go knit. I'm feeling just a wee bit obsessive about this whole knitting mittens in colourwork thing.

(I'm planning to get obsessive about working with beads next. Wait till you see what I found.)

Finishing

I enjoy finishing a project. Just getting done a thing feels good. I finished a pair of mittens yesterday, and even if the photo shows the thumbs on the same side,

these still work. EZ's mitered mittens really don't have a side. My kind of knitting.

The only thing I would change on the next pair? I'd start the thumb gusset before 5 and a half inches. 5 and a half inches works great with the afterthought thumb EZ uses, but at 5 and a half inches with a gusseted thumb, I have mitten a very long way up my arm. They will make a nice gift.

I'm back to square one with the stranded colour work mittens. The others were just too tight. I added 4 stitches, and now that the cuff is done, and I am on my way up the mitten, I am very very pleased to say these will fit just right. Its such a relief to get the size right. I was beginning to envision casting on hundreds and still having it be too small.

There has been one big bonus to all this knitting of stranded work. My tension is getting very even. From cuff one, to cuff three, I can see a marked improvement in the evenness of the lengths of the carried strands.

Its a beautiful morning for knitting mittens and the start of a great day. Can't you just feel it?

Looking for the perfect thank you

The other day, I ran out of gas (You'd swear I had teenagers again.) I managed to catch my very busy realtor sister in law at home, and she brought me gas so I could make it to work on time. I wanted to get her a little something to let her know just how much that meant. I spent the last 2 weeks trying to figure out what to get for her.

Not once did I ever think about knitting her something.

Sigh. She does not knit, she does very little in the way of hand made, and when she has, it has been made in a workshop she took. She likes the results, just doesn't enjoy the doing. I realized this yesterday as I drove in to work. She is the perfect candidate for something knitted. How could it have taken me 2 weeks to arrive at the obvious?

I picked up yarn yesterday, my much loved Lang Silk Dream. For a special project, there just isn't anything nicer than this. I've chosen colour 39 since she often wears that kind of soft warm tone.

The gift will be wrist warmers, simple, ribbed, possibly the Maine Morning Mitts from Clara Parkes Knitter's Book of Yarn, but I'd like to show a wee bit of open work to the knit part of the ribs across the back of the hand.

Or maybe some beads. There is a nice bead store in town, and I think I'll stop to see what I can find that will coordinate with this yarn. If I find nice beads, the beads will take place of the lacey bits.

Maybe it will be a shorter wrist warmer with a ruffly bit at the wrist, recalling, but not copying Mrs. Beeton's Wristwarmers.

This part of a project is always an adventure. A quick little yarny adventure where I can travel without a map, with only the vaguest notion of where I am going. Go west young man they used to say.

Knitting is often like that. Sometimes you end up heading east instead of west and sometimes you get lost. Sometimes you begin and end looking a lot like a puppy chasing its tail, but sometimes the traveling and the search will lead you to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

the Purple Thing

I had one goal this weekend. To finish the black socks. I didn't, but I'm ok with that. I had a lovely time, nice enough that the thought of black socks doesn't fill me with dread, nice enough that even though I know I am going to have to get another ball of black yarn, it doesn't bother me.

I've come under the powerful influence of Elizabeth Zimmermann. Reading her books, makes me want to just get something on the needles and see for myself, try something new, take a look at the shapes and forms that knitting can produce.

Whammo, you get a big purple thing.

Before I knew it, half a day was shot, and I had swatched and had half a front done for a rib warmer vest. The swatching and planning and first knitting happened Thursday, Sunday, after a little ripping back, and reknitting on the first corner, after this mornings thinking about fit and shaping on a shapeless design, I'm down to the second corner of the first half of the vest, and have my changes, plans and size adjustments worked out and done.

I'm having such a good time knitting this vest. Interesting shape, short enough rows that it fits on my favourite needles, short straights and a yarn in a rich tweeded purple. What's not to love.

The Little Guy Wins.

When I was a kid, there was a provincial lending library in Saskatchewan. Saskatchewan, being a very, very rural place, did the sensible thing in a land with relatively few roads, a lot of space and people far and few between. The library was a mail order library.

We used to select from a list of books, mail that in and in a few weeks you would get the book, and a new list of available books. You could have it for 2 weeks to read, and then you mailed it back in the envelope provided. Since I was fairly young when I first began getting books from the provincial library, I did not imagine I could ask for anything more.

They changed the mail system when I was 9 or 10, and had small libraries in any town that wanted them. The library rotated between the towns all over the province, so every 6 months or so, you had an entirely new library. Now, when you did not know what to read, you just asked the librarian for help. I will never ever forget the luxury of being able to pull the books off the shelf and just take them home. Even though it was only open a couple days a week, it was so good having it right there at my finger tips, it was almost sinful.

Today, with mildly improved finances, and a little bit of choice in the matter, I like to buy books for just me. Lately, many of my purchases have been knitting books (but you knew that).

My latest quest, continuing in the tradition of lovely things, is for the book Knitted Lace of Estonia by Nancy Bush. I had an opportunity to get the book signed. A couple of friends were going to the Make One Yarn Studio retreat in Calgary, so I went out to Chapters for the book.

The book was not even in their system. It did not even come up on the list under the authors name. If it wasn't on the list, I couldn't even order it. Harrumpppppppph.

My friends brought me back an autograph from Nancy Bush, which is awaiting fixing in the book when it arrives. Because I like to support local book stores - I'd like to keep them in business - I went back just the other day and finally, the book is in their system showing a release date of November 30th. I ordered it.

I checked with Interweave. The book was released on November 1. It is just Chapters. They show the book slated for release on December 1, Amazon.ca shows its release date as December 1, but at the same time, my favourite online needle work book store, a Canadian operation, The Needle Arts Book Shop already has it. ( For all my American friends, the exchange rate is in your favour again)

I'd support my local book sellers, but it seems they are not ready to step up to the plate and sell me that which my heart desires. If they intend to stay in the book business, they are going to have to do better. This is of course why the little guy will stay in business, and I would whine at the big stores, but I'd rather keep my little online place in business.

Next book purchase, I'm buying online. It feels like a step back in time.

Pond Scum

I'm pretty sure about one thing in my life. I don't think like everybody else. This has been made clear to me many many times in the course of my life and in every subject imaginable.

Most people think linear-ly, like a river. Thoughts flow from the source of the stream, through a well defined channel and end in an ocean. There may be obstacles in the way, and they have to find their way through the delta, but the smart ones find a way around those obstacles.

There is nothing in me that thinks like a river.

Think of a smooth still body of water. Toss a pebble into it. Watch the ripples. There are no steps with tidy ends and beginnings, there is no point to point process, there is only ever a gentle wave moving along, in clarity and confidence and sureness. Toss in a second pebble at a different point in the pond and you have competing and complementing ripples. The complementing waves can carry me along to a whole other place of thought that is unexpected, often delightful, a tangent to where I was going in the first place. When the ripples compete fiercely, I have been known to hang on ever tighter to the first ripple.

Toss two pebbles into a river. The ripples are not nearly so clear in a river. River ripples are best seen near the edges, on the periphery, near the wall. Ripples might seem to be easily overwhelmed by the river, but they are there.

I think I am going to make a pair of socks with Socks That Rock Pond Scum just to remind myself that even though the ripple is perfectly clear to me, it may not be so to others. They will serve to remind me that sometimes I hang on to an idea just a little too strongly.

More than that, Pond Scum, of the mossy, warm, rich greens, will be to remind me that even though ripples may be overwhelmed in a river and pushed to the periphery, they are no less beautiful.

Mittens

Monday night, we got out first significant snow of the year. It might melt away in some places, but here in my yard, with all its high trees and north facing slope, the snow is here to stay. It is very right that I am working on mittens.

I'm continuing to work on the EZ Mitered mittens whenever my hands are tired, when I need to do some cooking or when I need a break from thinking. They are easy to whip up, little thought involved. I make the occasional mistake, but that is happening when I stop to think about what I'm doing. If I just put my brain in park, and let my hands take over, no mistakes. My kind of project.

I'm also working on my first attempt at stranded colour work mittens. Technically, black is not a colour and white is the absence of colour...well you know what I mean.

I've started with a knit 2 purl 2 cuff. You can sort of see that. The pattern is going to be EZ's Winter Spruce pattern from Knitting Around, though it may be more correct to say it will be an attempt at the pattern. I've already made a couple of mistakes and expect to make a few more as I go. Good thing I know duplicate stitch embroidery. I am a little concerned about how tight the mitten is. The stranded work is pulling things in far more than I thought. I might have to restart just a few stitches wider.

It would be a little disappointing to have to do that since most of yesterday was spent working on another mitt-let, of about the same size before I acknowledged that only an infant could get their hand inside it. If I do restart, I guess that the upside is that there won't be need for the embroidery skills.

One way or another, this first real stranded colourwork project is coming along, and I can see that there is going to be more of this. It isn't entrancing the way lace is, but it challenges me and I like that.

Though there are moments when a simple garter stitch has challenged me, this is so much more. This is challenging me to stay awake, to be in the no parking zone, to stimulate my brain. After I work on it a while, instead of feeling stressed and tired from concentrating on the pattern stitches, I am reinvigorated, and renewed. Just as a good physical workout strengthens you, so does good a mental health exercise.

I don't know, but more and more, I think I should be able to write knitting off my taxes.

Remebering

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields, the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below...

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved, and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields...

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields...

Lieutenant Colonel John Alexander McCrae

Second Battle of Ypres, May 3, 1915

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,

We will remember them.

Laurence Binyon, 1914

A Pair of Peculiar Mittens

Over the weekend, a very peculiar pair of mittens emerged. Not a pair really. Maybe more of a companion set. I've posted about the thrummed mitten before. These were supposed to be for my mom, and I do think she will get a pair, but not this single mitten. This is the just beta version.

Once I got to the point where I was knitting the thumb, it felt a bit bindy, and awkward. Not bad for a learning experience, with only the barest outline of a pattern. The next mitten will have the thumb gusset starting way down, only a row or two above the cuff and the gusset is going to have many more stitches. In a way this is OK, because now I get to keep a pair. Because they are going to be mine, I am not rushing to get the second one done. I'd rather be working on gift mittens right now. The yarn is an undyed Blue Faced Leicester aran weight held double and the thrums are from a slightly felted skein of Fleece Artist roving.

For the gift thrummed mittens, I think I'll use some of the same main yarn, but I have some lovely soft blue roving for inside them.

The other glove is a pair of mittens that were started as a work project. We had a really big windstorm and no one was out, so the boss suggested we start some of Elizabeth Zimmermann Mitered Mittens. These are being made of Mirasol's Hacho, a wonderfully springy yarn. This mitten is out of the beta stage (I ripped back three times, to get the right size, the right placement for the thumb etc.) and fits really nicely. It has a fairly long cuff, but this is a bonus. No cold wrist with these. The second of the pair is already on the needles and well along.

My next adventure is some stranded colour work mittens with Berocco's Love It. I played around with doing thrums from some corn fibre and while it works, I don't think the fibre is really quite what I want for long term wear. If I had some cotton fibre, ready for spinning, thrumming might go a little better. For the colour work, I have to pick up some white yarn, a bamboo yarn, I think, for the other colour along with the Love Its deep black. I am going to use one of the EZ's patterns for these.

So far it is a pair of mittens and techniques. There are dozens of more ways of knitting mittens, and Canada is a nation where you cannot have too many pairs of mittens. Maybe this year will be my year of the mitten.

Black sock heels

I'm working on black socks today in lieu of working on everything else that I should be working on. The black socks match my mood.

As suspected, there was no way I could do all the things I planned. I did not even get to the last load of laundry, because first things first, I had to load the dishwasher. Lo and behold halfway through the loading, one of the 4 little wheels that holds the top rack to the rails, broke off. After spending a great swack of time on the phone with the Maytag people, I find, they do not sell this little fifty cent wheel separately, that you have to buy the entire tray. For a hundred and fifty bucks.

I waited till Mr. Needles came home, but my mood was such that knitting was not really possible. (thankfully, we still have an old tray in the garage, with some spare parts)

I wound yarn instead. I've not posted much about my yarn purchases of late, because well frankly I am a little embarrassed by them. It all started with red and Knitty.com.

You know how sometimes you just need a really good red to jump start your day? No? Well, once I saw this at Knitty, I just had to have red. So began a quest for the perfect red. Along the way, I changed my mind about making the sweater, but I still needed a good red. So I searched till I found one. I had a few other accidents, because as we all know, looking at yarn, even if you are focusing on red, can be a dangerous dastardly game that yarn will eventually win.

I did find a great red, a red filled with black and garnet and deep warmth.but not before I found a seriously fine forest green, so fine that photos cannot do its foresty goodness justice.and the there was a particular taupe that fell into my lap too. There was not quite enough of the taupe for what I plan for it, so I picked up some charcoal for accents. Three sweaters worth for me.Then there was yarn, in various permutations for Mr. Needles requested fair isle project. I still cannot think of it as a vest.

You'd think this would have been enough for a sane woman. I am clearly not sane, so I fell just a little further down the rabbit hole.

I fell into some Socks That Rock.

And a few other good things. Some Drops Silke Tweed, for a scarf I began but did not like. The yarn is going to do a couple of lace scarves, though I might need another skein of each (and so it goes)

Some really divine Colinette Sock yarn, that will be something nicer than socks because it is so pretty.and some Mirasol Hacho for a pair of mitered mittens from Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitter's Almanac.

The really sad part is there is a little more, but I am going to be late for work if I tried to fit it all in.

It seems like a lot of yarn. It is a lot of yarn and yet I have a plan for each of these skeins. I don't buy yarn without knowing exactly how I am going to use it. Buying yarn is much better than drug therapy and healthier for me than if I took up drinking. My black mood is gone, just looking at the pretty pictures.

Buying yarn did get out of control lately. Not fiscally hurtful, but really not a sane amount. Considering the previously noted health benefits I have gained, one ought to be able to write this off of ones income taxes as a health care item. I wonder if Mr. Harper and Mr. Obama would agree?

Too much rushing around.

I've got a ton of things to do today. The blogging is going to be just a little shy.

Oh there will be knitting a plenty. There will be the fixing of the fishy mitten. Thanks to the frazzled knitter - her Ravelry name - one of the evening knit group ladies, for the thrummed mitten tips. I don't mind learning by failing but your experience makes the learning happen more speedily and effectively.

There will be, with luck, the binding off of the first of the Christmas knitting. There will be reknitting of the sweater shoulders, and blocking to prepare for finishing the hood and button bands.

There will be be completion of laundry or at least a close facsimile to completion. There will be clean hand washed scarves, socks and shawls.

It would be lovely to finish the pairs of socks I have in my bag, start two of the ten thousand other projects I have in my head, read at least part of one of the books that has nothing to do with knitting, vacuum and clean the cupboard today. I feel as if I could.

There is a new sense of possibility in the air and I like that.

Of course, I'll be lucky to get the laundry done, but I can dream, can't I?

If it looks like a fish...

If you take some of thisand add a little of thisshould you get a fish?I don't think so.

Its not a fish, I tell you. Its not a fish.It does bear a passing resemblance to the M-113 creature. Or a lamprey, which is in my mind fish-like...

OK, Needles, feet back on the ground. You are weirding people out. Back to knitting.

I am trying to make a pair of thrummed mittens for my mother, who walks a couple of blocks to get to work. Since she is in Saskatchewan and winter is here, I think she is going to like them. It's a mildy larger than normal mitten, with thrums, which are little bits of fibre twisted and worked into them every so often. The fibre felts over time with the heat of your hands, and forms a very warm and comfy inside. The M-113 creature like maw is what the fibre filled inside looks like from the top of the mitten. Neat isn't it.

The unfortunate fishiness of them comes from the stubbiness of the hand. I've got to go back to the part where I started decreasing and work another inch and a half before I start decreasing. Then I am going to do a standard sock like toe decrease, 4 stitches on every alternate round. I am a little concerned about the thumb opening. I'll have to put the stitches onto a different kind of stitch holder to check for fit. Who knows, I may be going back to the thumb.

I keep telling myself that I don't mind ripping. I do and I don't. I hate losing the working time on a project when you have to go back and rip. It hurts when you are on rip three, with knit 4 coming up. Yet, I don't mind ripping because I know that there are sound reasons to rip back and before I accept that ripping back is the right decision, I've usually learned something about my knitting or myself.

The lesson here is that a mitten should look a lot more like a sock toe than you think it should, even when it is thrummed, and that the fearless inner knitter who rushes to see a finished product, ought to listen to the sensible inner knitter when she is all but screaming that this mitten is too short.

Having it good.

I've had a pretty good run of luck with employers over the years. These ladies at River City Yarns are real gems.

First off they are smart enough to own a yarn store. Isn't it pretty much a dream to have your own yarn store right at your fingertips? It is certainly one of the things I'm trying to recreate when I stash yarn. To have it all right there, just waiting for me. It is almost as good as having a personal library.

Secondly, they not only own a yarn store, but began it with a particular philosophy. In some ways that philosophy has grown and changed to accommodate the realities of the business world, but the basics still ring true and I can see that in the store, in action, every single day. More, I love participating in that philosophy every day.

And third, at days end, they make you feel that you are part of a team, that if they thrive,you will thrive.

I am honoured, thrilled, elated and utterly delighted to be allowed to work in such good company. So when your employers leave to go on the annual store sponsored Wool Wine and Wheels Trip copyright 2008, leaving us behind, it feels really really good to know that they trust you with something so precious as their store and they leave you behind a special little treat? You are flummoxed when that happens.

They left us with a delightful little knitting bag, filled with some treats. The bag is a great little thing for take along knitting. It looks ordinary until you turn it around. There be chickens knittin'.

The little pocket could hold a pair of double points or any of a number of small travel knitting accessories. I'll have to go searching for some fold up scissors, and a little tape measure, maybe a set of little markers too, to tuck inside, so I have these things with me no matter where I go.

And then the big treat.

The brilliant mixed skein is Nova Sock yarn from Fleece Artist and the lovely turquoise/marine blue is a skein of sock yarn from a small independent dyer.

Sometimes, I feel rich beyond measure. For now these lovely things will sit, to be fondled and petted. I'm going to have to do something special with them, and I don't want to rush.

Following up the silly things

If you finish up a week doing something silly, you really should bracket that with something good. So I did. The picture just does not do this fun little thing justice. The colourway panned out very close to what I had hoped for. Only on the very last few rows did I play with the sequence at all. As the work progressed, I realized that the outer parts of both balls were the very light tan brown. I had hoped to end with the darkest shades (next time I'll end one ball on a black colourway), so just where the last light stripe is, I cut the yarn, and started working from the soft tan outside of the ball and put the darker yarn on the outer edge. I am really really pleased.

The Noro sock yarn did just as everyone says, and softened up right away once washed. It eases around my shoulders in the nicest of possible ways. I'm not quite certain how I will wear this shawl to work. At home, this small shawl is great just sitting on my shoulders, with the fronts just hanging in the crooks of my arms. At work, things need to be tucked and pinned which on this small triangle, means it is going to appear more scarf-like. Either way, it is a nice addition to a mostly black wardrobe.

As I was laying the shawl out to dry last night, I realized I am a shawl person. I know some people who make a lot of scarves and shawls but never wear them, but I seem to be wearing mine all the time. My very first shawl of really fine yarn (Estelle yarns discontinued Vespa and in comparison to whatever can be found at Walmart) has been worn so many times over the years, that it is losing its fluffiness. My second shawl (acrylic boucle) is already standing guard in my study, its mildly worn comfort still working on the back of my chair.

The Truly Tasha's Shawl made last winter is my favourite. I have worn it many times to work and on several chilly occasions (before the furnace kicked in), to bed to help ward off the cold. Its been washed and shaped several times in its short life. I'll be making more of these, right down to its mistaken twisted garter stitch heart.

I like the way a shawl hugs warm and comforting, just there around your shoulders, quietly keeping you warm. Even a fine knitted lace shawl speaks very softly when you wear it. Its finery is hidden in its folds, there for those who wish to look and see, but otherwise, unassuming, there only to provide comfort and warmth.

There are so many shapes and stitches still to try. There are so many other lovely things to knit, but if I could knit only one thing, it surely would be shawls.

The stupid things we do.

I had a class scheduled yesterday with Fiona Ellis. I slept right through it.

I woke in the morning feeling sluggish, to the point that I stayed in bed until 6 a.m. (dreadfully late) and I had a feeling that I could have slept much later. When I did get up I knit for a couple hours, but by 10 a.m. I was snoozing in my chair. I could hardly stay awake, I had a dull throbbing headache, so I crawled onto the couch and went to sleep, which is when I slept right through the start time of my course. I did wake for bits and pieces through the day, I did have a lucid moment or two, but not one in which time or date registered.

Mr. Needles came home and made dinner for himself, and I called the shop to let them know I was alive and dreadfully sorry that I missed the workshop. After that, I went straight to bed, where I slept the evening away. I slept undisturbed through the night, and right up till the first alarm went off this morning. Sleeping through the night undisturbed, never happens to me. Ever.

This morning I woke hale and hearty and feel pretty darn good. Who wouldn't with all the sleeping I did. I think this was my version of the flu-like thing Mr. Needles had suffered from for most of the week. I have been fighting off something for the last couple of weeks with the help of Cold FX, and maybe I just finally succumbed. Either way, I hope it is over.

All in all, its probably a good thing I did not go to the workshop last night. I'd likely have given the bug to everyone around me, and what is the good of that.

Somewhere in my life, I will hope for the opportunity of attending another one of her workshops. For now, I will just bemoan my untutored mind.

EZ

Way back in the mists of time, when I hoped to know knitting, I probably read some articles by Elizabeth Zimmermann. I bought a lot of knitting magazines back then. Though I was deeply inspired by all I found, but I was not ready to understand. I got lost along the way and only now, when I most needed salvation did I discover knitting and Elizabeth Zimmermann.

I love her no nonsense approach. I love that she encourages you to make knitting come not just from your hands and a pattern on a page, but from your head and your heart. I love that she wants us, teaches us to take ownership of our knitting, to walk away from what we did yesterday and learn and explore what else there is. I am completely overcome by her sense of the adventure of knitting, by her exploration of simple things that in the end, make grand statements.

Her way of looking at knitting suits the kind life I am trying to build. Sensible, simple, unburdened by the excess of modern living, by the demands and overload of technology. Like Elizabeth and knitting, I'll keep and use the sensible stuff like the Internet and a good postal service, but I am in charge of my connection to the world, technology isn't in charge of me. No running off to get the latest 'i' thingy just because it is out there. I'm looking for balance and harmony with the air and water and land. Elizabeth inspires me to take ownership not just of my knitting but of my approach to life.

I already had the Knitters Almanac and Knitting Workshop and learned much. I craved more, so I ordered the rest of her books from the store, and today I am the proud owner of Knitting Around, The Opinionated Knitter and Knitting Without Tears.

I am not going to review them. No way will I ever know enough to do that. I will be inspired by them, will continue to explore my knitting and my life in these books. I don't think I've even scratched the surface of the wisdom within.

Elizabeth Zimmermann started out just trying to change the way people looked at knitting. What she ended up doing was changing the way people looked at life.

The Middle

In the beginning of a project, there is a flush of new, of hope and delight in something just a little different. At the end, there is the thrill of success and completion and sometimes, just utter joy that you never have to do another stitch of that particular project.

It occurred to me this morning, as I was picking up my work, that I am in the middle of almost every project.

The sweater might be seen to be just past the middle. I have several pairs of socks that are definitely in the middle. No pictures of these. They are just not that inspiring.

There is the first of the Christmas knitting that is right there in the middle. T

here is a pair of Elizabeth Zimmermann mittens, begun during the big wind last Saturday while I was at work (how good is it that I can on occasion, knit while working?). Middle of the first mitt.

These will have to be ripped back. 48 stitches is not enough for my pudgy hands.

There is the shawl. This is yesterdays picture. It looks just like this, only bigger. (Wouldn't it be nice if you could click to embiggen some shawls?)

It could be argued that the shawl is still in the start up phase. I started Monday night but half of each ball is knit up, therefore, I am in the middle.

I am in the curious stage where knitting sometimes bogs down, where it is easy to lose interest, where it is possible to lose the love.

And yet, these projects are all tremendously interesting. (Except the socks. The socks are black. It is hard to think about these, much less, find energy for excitement about black sock knitting )

I am really enjoying this phase of the sweater. I can't wait till SS comes out to try it on again, before I move forward to knit the hood and do the finishing details. I am utterly diverted when I knit the alpaca scarf. It is just so soft and divine to work with. The mittens are so quick, and the shape of them is such an elemental part of the design. I'm having so much fun with them, that even facing ripping back is just dandy. The shawl is still captivating. If anything, it is even more entrancing, watching the colours play out as the shawl grows.

I'm sure that there are a whole bunch of important and significant things that could be said about knitting middles, but I'm too busy enjoying all these middles to wonder about them. There is a clarity to middles that is not there with ends.

With ends, you have to wonder and worry and choose. With beginnings I keep asking myself, do I have enough yarn, is this the right project for the yarn, is this the right yarn for the project. Do I really need another shawl?. With finishing, I wonder if the recipient is going to like it, will it fit, will I be lonely without working on it, will it be everything I hoped for and what on earth am I going to do next.

With middles, there is the sureness of just moving, of sticking an established pattern, just knitting your way right along. Its nice having a project that will fit for almost every situation. Its nice knowing that I still have time to work with each of these yarns. Its nice knowing that a direction I took is going to work out, or, as with the mittens, not work out. Middles are a comfortable place. Middles make me feel good.

Which isn't such a bad way to feel for a Wednesday morning in October.

Its everywhere, Its everywhere!

I see that it's not just me taking a liking to this shawl, its a lot of you. My work so far.

I came home a little late so I am not as far along as I had hoped, but it is progressing rather nicely. I am pleased with everything about this shawl to the point that it was painful to come down to the computer to blog.

Its that kind of project. Its very simple, but there is lots to keep you going. Just when you are about to get bored, you have to switch something, changing the balls you are working from, or the changing from garter to stockinette. If those are not enough to entertain you, then wait a minute, something about the colour will change in the way only a Noro yarn can.

It shows how distressingly little it takes to keep me entertained but I take some consolation that not everything has to be complicated to teach me a thing or two. (This one is teaching me how distressingly little it takes to keep me entertained.)

I did rip it back to the beginning last evening. I wondered if I would get a better effect if colours on both balls were more sequential. That might very well have been the goal of splitting it into two balls. If you did that, just imagine how long the colourways would be as you worked this up. I wound both colours up on the ball winder, one from the outside strand and one from the inside strand, so imagine the difference if I had wound them up in a regular ball, so that the ball wound from the outside would be worked from what was the inside of the yarn from the original skein. I can see all kinds of interesting ways to play with the look of the shawl just by making small changes.

I did play around with it, and decided, that nope, this shawl, fate and Mr. Noro are in the drivers seat. The colours are going to be just as they come.

At just 450 yards, this is going to be more of a shawlette, than a full sized shawl. I can see another long colourway version in the future, using two balls of yarn softly waving these gorgeous tones across my shoulders.

I can also see this yarn worked up in a feather and fan pattern, Shetland style, or maybe a la Shoalwater Shawl. I'm going to get a lot of dreaming mileage out of this shawl.

OK, back to knitting. That is enough of this blogging thing. I have an obsession to work with.

Small mercies

Sometimes when I get up early in the morning, I read a bit and gander among my various bags, debating what to work on. This morning, I went directly to the sweater, and finished the 2nd sleeve. All that is left now is to put it together, knit the hood, and redo the front button band. So close, yet so far.

That early burst of success moved me forward to get the balls ready for the next little project.

What is that you say? Little projects? It seems that I do big projects and little projects. I don't think this is uncommon among knitters at all. The little ones are a reward for finishing a big project. Drat it all, I haven't finished the sweater, now have I, but this yarn was sitting there, shouting out my name, insisting it get equal time.

The yarn is Noro Kureyon sock yarn, and is in the tan/brown/ black colourway. This colourway has not been moving much at the store, and yet, I love these soft colours better than any of the bright strong ones. It speaks to me of elegance and warmth and the earth.

In my wandering through shawls the other day, drawn to colour as I was, I came across this shawl. The Simple Yet Effective Shawl from Cosmicpluto Knits. Instantly I could see these soft striking colours switching back and forth between stockinette and garter. It will be a small shawl, but its is going to be a really good display for the yarn and with a yarn like anything Noro, showing the colour to its best advantage is a must.

I thought I would just wind the balls and get ready to knit this evening, after I blocked the sweater parts, but I had a few minutes to knit so I began. I knit for a bit and noticed the clock was dangerously just past 7:00. By 7:00 I must be at the desk writing the blog, or the blog will be in peril for the day.

So I knit a little bit more.

I knit to the end of the second section of garter, and looked up again. Half an hour? How could half an hour have gone by so fast?

So here I am at the desk typing lighting speed, so that I can blog and still be ready to leave for work on time. Thank goodness I did my laundry before I began to knit this morning, or right about now I would be wondering what I earth I owned that was clean.

Small mercies, indeed. I wish I could say it was good planning, (Good planning would have included charging the camera batteries, so I could show you photos of this advneture) but, I did not plan to fall down this rabbit hole it just happened.

Planning and taking it as it comes.

I'm quite sure that others see interesting things on the net all the time. I usually get lost among one thing when I planned on looking at something quite different.

I got lost yesterday looking at shawls on Ravelry. I found some really interesting things, like Cuspid, a short row colour shawl worked in a very interesting way. And Anni's shawl (click on the picture to make it bigger). And then there was colourfulknitter's Vagabond Poncho. I can't link to it but do go to Ravelry and check it out.

What caught my eye yesterday was colour. Bright rich strong colour. I'm no doubt being influenced by all the fair isle I have been looking at. Or maybe I'm trying to hold on to fall by thinking of the rich purples and bright golds and rich warm reds.

Either way, it was lovely wandering lost through the shawls, enjoying but not really planning. If I was planning, I'd have to clear a couple other shawls out of the way first. If I was planning, I'd have to say that the next thing on the list is a vest, and some scarves, and various other holiday knitting. But that was if I was planning, rather than just taking it as it comes.

This whole winter will probably be fair isle games. The vest, which is next up, since it was asked for. A pillow top for me (see Eunny Jang's Delft pillow top in the Interweave H0ldiay Gifts ), and maybe even a plain sweater for me too. And socks, and maybe a tea cozy... I'll take those as it comes.

Thanking Ravelry

For the last little bit, we've been trying to get a regular evening knitting group going locally. We being myself and another knitter. A lot of people have stopped and talked to us, a few have said they'd like to come, but so far it is just we two.

Last evening, a lady stopped by who said, you must be the Ravelers. she had forgotten to put her knitting in her car but stopped and talked till she had to leave.

It got me to thinking how many people I have met from knitting, but also from Ravelry. In my day to day world, it is meeting local to me people that has been Ravelry's greatest blessing. It got me to thinking how limited my circle of friends was before. Small offices are lovely places to work, but when you combine a workload and volume stress, a small office and long days, there just wasn't a lot of time to find people who enjoyed the things I like. I didn't have the energy.

Ravelry has linked me with so many fine people, that today is going to be my own private Thanks to Ravelry day. I'm going to head over there, and click all the add links I can. I'll probably find all sorts of new and interesting things too.

Maybe I should go hide my wallet first.

Over the top

The sweater continues apace, both sleeves, half way done. I'm making really good time. One of the ladies at knitting had a couple of new books with her, and somewhere along the line, I mentioned that I input my whole library of craftiness in Library Thing

With just the crafting part of my library recorded, I am halfway to my book limit. You can see my library by clicking the Library Thing Tag in my sidebar. As you see, there really are a few general categories of craftiness. All of them have to do with string things.

Well almost all. I seem to have quite a few about miniatures, and there are a few unusual books of a historical nature that show up too. They are in that part of my library because they are used by me, for inspiration to knit, to embroider. But this is just one small part of my personal library. It is after all, just a mere two shelves of my books.

The next collection that I am considering adding is my cookbooks. There are so many of these I forget sometimes, which ones I have. At last count there are 60. I think I stopped counting about then, I might have been counting wrong, there was, after all wine involved and the numbers were highter than 2 (always bad for accuracy). After the cookbooks, I would have to buy more Library thing space.

The rest is a kind of an amorphous pile of stuff, but it a really big pile of stuff.

There is a lot of history, British history in particular. I became fascinated by English history as a child reading the old Book of Knowledge that my dad bought. It was a treasure trove of thinking, seeing and doing. It was an introduction into art and literature, and oh so many avenues of reading. I have those books right now, though at some point in the near future, they will go to my nephew Aaron, who loves them as much as I do.

There are a lot of the classics of literature. Somewhere along the line, I picked up 3 different editions of Chaucer (I really do need Library Thing), I have a whole range of books written by some of the earliest novelists, and a few of the newer modern literature gems.

There are some seriously fine biography's and some that others would not quite class as biographical in nature, but they are that to me.

I have many many novels best described as popular fiction. Tom Clancy, Robert Ludlum, Helen MacInnis, Agatha Christie, Edward Rutherford, and a whole bunch more. If I sat down and thought about it, there is a fair bit of stuff that falls into this category by writers who are not nearly so well known as these top sellers. OK, I just looked, its two shelves, two books deep. More than a 'bit' now that I think about it.

And then I have what would be best described as ... ... ... romance novels. The fat ones. With all the racy scenes. But most of these that I still keep, I really do keep for the stories. If they took out the racy bits, some of them were good entertainment. Take LaVyrle Spencer. A really good writer, not great but really good. One of her last books, 'Then Came Heaven', is one of the finest pictures of small town North American life ever written.

I have a huge and ancient collection of Harlequins (which really are an entire class all by themselves). I know. Not classy, you could not buy other books in our very small town, and the library was not open every day of the week. If you read everything you had from there and the school library, and it was a Saturday morning, and you were after all working just down the street and from there had to go babysit, what else was a girl to do? It was the time before all night TV and VHS, and you had to entertain yourself somehow and I did a lot of babysitting. You bought what you could get your hands on and you read. That's what you did.

Anyway, suffice it to say, I have a lot of books. I don't know if it is a library to be proud of, or to shout to the world about it, but just like string things, books have always been there, solid, quiet, carrying all the dreams of a small town girl, who sometimes felt like no one else could hear all the stories inside her head.

More sweater knitting

It was a very busy day at the store. No time to knit last evening. I didn't make it home till late but have cleared my schedule for a whole lot of knitting today.

My goal is to finish sleeve one, and to move on to sleeve 2. With any luck at all there will be no need for sleeve 3.

The other interesting thing I am working on right now, is those black socks. Last evening I waited in the drive through while my dinner was being prepared (I know fast food, but its the first time in a long while), I took out the socks and knit. The black socks in semi light is as close to knitting without seeing that I have done. (Knitting without thinking. That I am an expert at!)

I know I messed up at least one stitch in 2 rows, maybe 3. I'll have to do some dropping down to fix it, but I doubt that whatever I knit, will have harmed the socks irreparably.

Today, in good light I'm going to look and see how I knit practically blind. Next up, knitting while not looking. I can do a little of this, but not a lot. The goal is to be able to read while knitting. If I can read while knitting, there is nothing I can't do.

I'd say Bwahahahaha, but I hear it is passe.

What is small and...

tubular and part of a sweater?

A Sleeve.

I am thrilled to bits to be on this sweaters sleeve, and even more thrilled to see it moving along so fast. Its not looking like a particularly fat sleeve, but it is the ribbing doing that. It will fit the wearers very slim arms.

Mr. Needles is away today following his fall pursuits but immediately before he left, he asked me to make him something. This something has warped my world and made me stop and think about parts of a life, and expectations and the funny things people do that you really don't expect them to do.

Mr. Needles asked me to make him a vest. Not only that, but Mr. Needles asked to make him a vest, much like his father had left behind after the last family wedding. He said he kind of liked the way it looked (the article in question was commercially made).

I admit, I did just sit there a little dumbfounded. To say that my mouth was hanging open would have been a little bit of an understatement. I have after all just taken a Fair Isle workshop, and will be taking a second workshop given by Fiona Ellis on colour placement in Fair Isle work. The world obviously has deemed that this will be my path because the vest in question was a Fair Isle look vest and the part he liked was the little designs in it, and I would I need the vest as a pattern, says he.

My being dumbfounded was not only because of the intersection of events, it was more.

Mr. Needles does wear vests, the large down filled, many pocketed vests of the northern outdoorsman, but all our lives he has pooh poohed the idea of knitted vests and cardigans. Those items were for other people, for older people. Not that any one doesn't look fine in vests, it just was the norm in our small town world.

Mr. Needles and I are in the time of our lives where we are unconsciously making choices 'older' people would make. That they are sensible choices does not take away from the breathtaking reality of it all, that one is older I mean. It really is just that the day you realize you are making older people decisions, you really ought to feel just a little more like the 'grownups' we envision in our childhood.

But we don't. We just feel like us. We are older, we both feel warm with the chill off our backs, I in my shawls and him, soon in his vest.

We are in the vest time of our lives. Sigh.

The Brides Memory Bag Pattern

I might be cheating, just a wee bit by doing this today. Really 3 posts about the silly thing in a week is a little much, but as they say, it's all blog fodder.

The Bride's Memory Bag

Comes to mind, I have a little duster pattern I said I was going to post the pattern for. Its probably time to get to that too. I figured out a way better way to make it than the first time I made one.

Very fine yarn

There is some seriously fine local yarn at the store right now. It comes from a local to Edmonton alpaca grower whose fleece just happened to take top prizes at the Olds Fibre Festival.

It comes in natural colours, in a mixture of weights, lace to something close to a worsted weight yarn, and a little of everything in between. The display skein of this weight appears to be a worsted weight, but the softness and lightness of this fibre pronounce that it cannot be. It seems to work up to a DK or '3' weight yarn.

The fibre I choose is an 80/20 Alpaca/silk 2 ply yarn. There is a lace weight in this blend that I covet and some utterly wonderful 100 % Alpaca yarns too. I've never seen anything bloom like this. The more I handle it, the more it seems to bloom and the softer it gets and yet, it still seems to hold its yarny integrity. If there was a way to communicate to you the softness of this yarn, I would do it. It is a sigh of a yarn. It is clouds and down and that soft fur on my kitties neck. If you had enough, you could just climb inside it and hide there forever.

I don't know how sturdy a yarn it will be for the long haul but for scarves and accessories, for those little things we make that say I love you when words won't do, this is yarn surely speaks volumes.

I am working with this 80/20 alpaca and silk mix for some Christmas knitting. My plan is to knit just a bit more, and then to see what happens if one ribbed section starts crossing, winding its way to the other side and back again. I saw the idea in a knitting magazine early this year, and it has intrigued me ever since.

Once I get the first rib crossed I'm going to block it and let it rest to see if the light cabling idea is a good match for this soft yarn. I'd really hate for its splendor to be hidden by a poor stitch and pattern choice.

If you are looking for a yarn for something special, and you don't mind paying for it (its not cheap. 38 dollars for 400 m), this yarn is as wonderful as anything made in heaven.

Harumpffffff

I spent the last hour writing the pattern out, editing it and just as I was about to post the blessed thing it morphed back to the version you saw yesterday. I am out of time this morning, so I have to go, and get ready for work.

Will complete the darn thing later. Not happy, not happy at all. Drat you Blogger. Drat you computer.

and it was really good too. Almost legible.

The Bride's Memory Bag

Bride's Memory Bag

We had 3 family weddings this summer, and I really needed to find a nice acceptable way to knit. I'm not much of a partier and I am always the designated driver and I really need to keep my hands busy till its time to go.

After watching a prayer shawl workshop this spring, the idea came to me. Wouldn't it be lovely to pass along my joy for each of these lovely couples? It had to be something I could complete quickly, with minimal finishing so that it could be given to the bride before the end of the evening. The makings had to fit inside my hand bag. It had to be simple enough to knit without using a pattern, and it had to be easy enough that I could knit it while sipping my lone glass of wine.

Following the inspiration and example of the prayer shawl ladies, I knit each project solely on the day of their wedding, from beading the string to tying the tie, capturing my good wishes and the spirit and joy of the entire assembly.

Yarn: Lang Silk Dream (any dk or 3 weight yarn will work well)
Beads: 10-15 drop beads, and 30-40 smaller beads
Needles: 4mm dpn
Gauge: Not critical

Time to complete: approximately 4 hours.

String beads onto a sturdy string (I used pearl cotton size 8 for all the bags). Pearl beads were used for the first two Bride's Memory Bags, and Swarovski crystals for this last. They were usually strung so that each drop bead was separated by 3 to 5 round beads (depending on the size of the bead and the yarn you are using).

Using Judy's magic cast on, cast on 30 stitches on each of two needles for a total of 60 stitches.

Row 1: Knit 1, Pick up bead string and knit it along with your yarn for the next stitch. Knit 2 or 3 stitches, picking up the bead strand just past the second drop bead, knit 1. The goal is to have a swag of little beads between the drop beads. Continue knitting the beaded strand in every 2 or 3 stitches across the first 30 stitches. Knit the remaining 30 stitches.

Row 2: Knit all stitches

If you are using dpns, slip your stitches onto 4 needles as follows: The last 5 stitches from needle 2 and the first 5 stitches from needle 1 onto one needle. 20 stitches from needle one onto another needle. The last 5 stitches from needle one and the first 5 stitches from needles 2 onto a third needle. 20 stitches from needle 2 onto a 4th needle. If you are using circular needles, place stitch markers at these positions.

Continue working in stockinette till the bag bottom is about an inch from the cast on row. Then begin to work the lace panels on the 20 stitch sections of the bag. Each 10 stitch section forms the side of the bag, framing the lace panel. Continue working these stitches in stockinette.

Lace Panel

Row 1: Knit 1, *knit 2 together, yarn over* Repeat from * across till you have only 1 stitch remaining, knit 1.

Row 2: Knit all stitches.

Row 3 Knit 1, *yarn over, knit 2 together*Repeat from * across till you have 1 stitch remaining, knit 1.

Row 4: Knit

Repeat row 1 to 4 rows to form the lace panel until the lace panel is roughly square. End on a row 4, and continue to work around all stitches in stockinette until the top is about an inch and a half long.

Tie section

Work 3 repeats of the first 2 rows of the lace pattern above. Do this across all stitches on all needles.

Then knit in stockinette on all stitches for an inch and a half. Work 1 repeat of the lace pattern made by row 1 and 2 of the lace panel, and bind off.

Knit a 3 stitch I cord, or crochet a foundation single crochet chain about 18inches long.

Lace the tie through the center of the 3 repeats in the tie section. Weave in all ends.

Present to your bride and groom.

Other technical stuff

I began by stringing the beads, first thing in the morning, and worked each bag till the lace section was established. The rest of the knitting was between service and reception, after dinner while the speeches are going on, during the general cheer of each party. I finished each in ample time.

Your lace may look a bit different than mine. For my own ease, I knit the 2 stitches together always through the back loop. This means my decrease will lean the other way, but for this bag it is not important which way your decrease leans. You could, if you wish work the centre doing an entirely different lace design.

The bag could be made out of any size yarn. You could use it instead of wrapping paper for a baby gift or shower gift. Have fun with it.

As always, please respect my copyright, and do not use the bag for commercial purposes.

(the original, worked flat and seamed up the side, with a base worked in garter stitch)

©D Renneberg 2008

A Blushing Bride.

I'm not sure if you can call what I did a deep cleaning. It really was more of a deep sorting and de-garbage-ifying. (Is that a word?)

I really would like to understand how it is, when you carefully pack stuff up into boxes and set them in a place, as time goes on, half of what you packed becomes garbage. And how when I next look in those boxes, they will again be half garbage. And so on, and so on. Yet each time, I end up with the same amount of full boxes. How is this happening??? Why???

It seems clear to me is that the miscellaneous stuff of my life has been giving birth in the corners of my house, and I'd really like to know what kind of birth control to provide it.

This weekend brings me to the last of my Bridal memory bags. This one is special because the bride is one of my girls, nieces who were close and so have had to bear the terrifying ordeal of having me as an aunt. This particular bride is the one I worked with for the last several years at my old job, and whom I have come to know in an adult non-auntie way.

I was privy to some of the early sweetness between this bride and her sweetie, and could tell early on, that he was the one, or soon would be.

It had nothing to do with the day she wore a scarf round her neck when she never wears a scarf and the little thing she was trying to hide. Nothing to hide at all. It had nothing to do with her blushes.

Seriously, the girl just cannot hide her glow and it has been a delight watching her fall in love.

After this weekend, I will write out my bridal bag recipe and will show you photos of a completed bag.

After this weekend, I start the red hag bag project. Details a little closer to the launch of that scheme.

Cleaning out more corners

I'm swamped today cleaning out more corners and deep archives. Really, I should pretend we have to move once every 3 years or so. There are way too many places with deep archives round here.

I'm not expecting more yarn finds, just things that I really ought to toss. There are boxes under the pool table that really need to be gone through and looked at so we can put more things under there (A pool tables principle reason for being is to give you under the table storage, not for playing the game of pool) There are corners with musical instruments and piles of old coats that just need to be sorted and moved on to a final resting place.

I've been looking at pictures of rooms with corners, and contemplating the inside of empty boxes to prepare for this event. Looking at the meeting of all these angles in one place could be a little frightening after not seeing them so long.

So, having girded my loins with a good stiff coffee and after having taken far too long to write this post, I am going deep. I may not come up till tomorrow, but when I am done, there will be piles of things to take to the Sally Ann and many things to recycle.

There will be corners and empty cabinets here.

My mind is full of baby things.

I read my horoscope pretty much daily. I have no idea why I do this. It certainly isn't because I live my life by it or even really believe it. I think it amused me one day when I needed amusement and it just continued. This is what it says today.

"Your key planet Saturn is locked in a tense dance with healer Chiron today and it's up to you to figure out how to take this uncomfortable energy and turn it into a positive expression. You have the potential for grace in your life now..."

I am surely full of 'uncomfortable' energy right now. It does feel like I am locked into a dance with some force or other. I am having a terrible time settling into a project, and meaning it. I know what I have to do, but I'm struggling to stay true to it.

I have these baby things to make and I'm working on what may well be the tough part of the project, the bunting bags. I think once I get those out of the way, I'll be OK. I'm going to pour my heart out on the blankets, so I can get to where I really want to be, which is the baby sweaters.

For the baby sweaters, I'm going to use a slip stitch pattern based on an idea I saw years ago in a Walmart on a little free pattern on a hanger. It was essentially stripes of colour, a vibrant pink worked 4 rows, then switching over to another vibrant colour for 4 rows and then back to the first colour again. Every so often on the first row of this part of the work, you knit way down into the last row of the first colour below. Or that is what I remember. Or maybe it was some sort of slipped stitch thing. I'll have to experiment. The idea was to be striped but with columns of the main colour forming visual blocks over the bright many coloured stripe.

At the time I rendered the baby sweater in crochet, where the long drop down to rows below is quite common. Can't you just see stripes of richness in these brilliantly coloured piles of yarn?

OK, right now the boys pile looks a little tame, but there is a yellow, which isn't in the picture, and I might yet go and pick up another colour or 2. The girls sweaters will be the same, but the boys sweaters, will have a different major colour. In part, this is to work with the yarn I have and in part, so people other than their mom and dad and brothers, can tell them apart.

My horoscope says it is up to me to take this uncomfortable energy and turn it into a creative force, so I guess I will. I'll work on the baby bags, and get them done, so I can play amidst colour and brilliance as winter comes upon us. Except I really really hope to have them completed long before real winter hits.

"You have the potential for grace in your life right now" or so says my horoscope. I'll work on that too.