A Silken Shadow

It was a good knitting weekend, since my friend Pouri (mom of our house guest Elmira) was here cooking amazingly delicious Persian food, and she also knitted a bit with me. She was trying to make a simple-looking cable scarf, but the "free" instructions from Michael's were all in prose, plus she wasn't familiar with American knitting abbreviations and terms. It was slow going. I KNOW if I'd had a graph, it would have been easier for both of us!

Because I had knitting friends, I got a lot done--so much, in fact that I actually managed to finish something! It only took me a month to make the Shadow vest out of Shibui Heichi (raw silk). Here's a nice photo of the yarn.

You can see all the extra colors in the yarn. And dog hairs. Thanks, Scrunchy.

The yarn looks great in seed stitch, and it has a really nice rustic texture. However, it is a bit hard to knit with. You really have to tug to get the yarn to go all the way through the stitches, as I think I mentioned before. I think I managed to make adjustments so there aren't any big ugly holes. The small amount of yarn in each skein meant a LOT of ends to weave in, too. I may actually end up dabbing Fray Check or something on the ends to make sure they stay put.

After I finished the vest, I took a picture of it, which was spectacularly unsuccessful. It's a rather large three-layered rectangle, and you can't see the nice row of cables going up the side, either. Here it is, against one of my now-traditional loud-patterned tablecloths.

Shadow on the table. Hey, there is my foot!

Well, that's just not a great looking item. It does show you just how much seed stitch this thing entails! I sure am glad I knit continental! So, I guessed that, even though it was 100F outside and it is the blazing middle of summer with incredible humidity, I was gonna have to put it on and get photos.

My dear spouse did try to take some pictures inside the house. While I look smashing, other than my giant humidity hair, you can't really see the garment.

That's me in skinny jeans in a blurry vest.

So, we reluctantly went outside and stood in front of the neighbor's garage door to get better photos. Now you can see the vest. I wanted side views, too, so maybe the cables would show up.

Side view. Can't see the danged cables because of my arm. Why do I have arms? Oh I need them to knit.

I look so festive. I like how the vest hangs, so it does not look so square.

Why yes, this IS the front view. Ah, do I feel a little nip of fall in the air? Why no, I don't.

The back. Wow, my hair is long, and wow, it looks like I have chicken legs, just like my son does in his skinny jeans. Only his legs are a lot longer.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this tour of the Rusty Shadow vest. I was about to pass out from the heat, so I also hope you appreciate the sacrifice I made.

With that project over, I am actually STILL plugging away on the second Hitchhiker shawlette. I usually work on it in the car or at meetings. Next weekend I am going to North Carolina to pick up the older boy, who's been there all summer doing an internship. I will also be visiting my dad's dear widow, Flo, so I predict lots of knitting time. Since I'm flying, I will just take that small project with me. I probably mentioned already that I am going to give her one of my place mats.

I did finish weaving the two jewel-toned place mats in my second batch of mats, and am starting one of the yellowish sock yarn. As I do these next three mats (repeats of the first bunch), I am trying to figure out what size I want the matching napkins to be. I could make little 10" x 10" napkins (I have some that size that I bought in Mexico), or I could make bigger ones. I have to practice actually making a square!

The weaving is improving. My edges look a lot better on this batch.

So...what's next in knitting? LATVIAN MITTENS. That yarn is sitting over on my dresser LOOKING at me, so I better make up four cute little Latvian colored wool balls and get to work on those. I love the color and patterns so much! I know I don't have lots of reasons to wear mittens. But I sure do love to make them.

Latvian Fun

My friend and colleague, Mike, went to Latvia on vacation, to visit his former exchange student. I knew there was a strong fiber arts tradition there, so I was very excited to find out what kinds of things he'd discover (also he discovered beautiful scenery, castles, museums, churches and monuments...but the fiber stuff was what I was mostly interested in).

I got a taste when he posted this picture to Facebook:

Learning to weave in Latvia

Someone's learning to use an inkle loom! Later, when he came back, he showed me some amazing photos of exquisite weaving, many pieces with gorgeous crocheted borders. There were also some really cool crocheted lace outfits, and wonderful traditional knitting. I sure appreciated those photos! And to prove how much they value knitting, check out the plane ticket he's holding here:

Air Baltic, they love knitting

Yes, that's a two-color knitting schematic on the border! You have to love a country that values its crafts so much!

My surprise when he got back to work was this:

A box!

What an intriguing box! That shape is familiar! What's on the back?

Seeing that made me happy

Hooray! It's a genuine Latvian mitten kit! How cool is that?

Inside with translations of motifs

Inside the box was a lovely card that translates all the traditional motifs and what they mean (the swastika was a GOOD thing in the olden days). On the right is the instruction booklet, which tells you exactly where the original mitten came from that the pattern's modeled on.

Yarn!

And of course, there is lovely, rustic two-ply wool to knit the mittens from! Won't that be fun? I am looking forward to stylish new mittens in the fall. Mike also got a kit for our boss, who is also quite the knitter. What great gifts.

And on Another Continent!

Mike is not the only friend to go on a cool vacation. Sylvia went to Ecuador and spotted this:

Loom action!

This guy is weaving so quickly that his hand is a blue. I have a similar piece of fabric from Mexico. If you look carefully you will see he is also wearing a hand woven belt.

It's so nice to have friends who remember your interests and share what they see with you!

Now to write another post about my knitting and weaving. I've been so busy DOING stuff that I haven't had time to write about it!

Wet Suna Mitts

Well, hooray. I did finally finish the ethnic mittens. I don't know why it seems like it took so long--I only took three weeks, in the end. I think the fact that the two-handed knitting goes more slowly than regular knitting in the round just got to me. I always had to drop the yarn to wrap whenever there was a 5-stitch gap, and then make sure I didn't get the yarn twisted, so it seemed to go slowly. But, here they are. They are wet, because the instructions said to block them, which should explain the intense color.

 Actually. Charlene Schurch says to block them inside out. I think that is to be sure the floats are well stretched out. So, here is what they actually look like right now:

They really don't look too bad on the inside. I find the ribbing is especially nice to look at inside out. I will give you a picture of the actual dried mittens on a hand once they are ready, but I had wanted to share their completed glory.

To summarize, these are sock pattern 21 from this book:


The yarn is Ella Rae laceweight, which I got at Yarnorama. They have (or had last time I was there) a really nice assortment of this yarn. I made the large size, since the yarn is so fine. I am glad, because you get more pattern in the large size!

I do think that I would have had a more successful finished product if I had chosen more contrast. I really need to pay attention to that--perhaps I need to go buy one of those red lenses to look at yarn through, to make sure I have enough contrast. I had the same problem when I used to make quilts, too. I guess we all have our areas for growth, don't we?

I think when I finish the current socks, I may make a pair of socks using one of these patterns--since they are 64 and 72 stitches around, the mittens should easily translate into socks, don't you think? That's another reason to buy the book, even if you don't like mittens--the patterns are really striking and fun. Of course, I can always try more mittens. I guess, even in Texas, I could use a couple of pairs of mittens!

I am looking forward to working on my shawl and other socks for a bit, but still have the Anna Zilboorg book, with all the top-down mittens (and socks). But, hey, isn't it true that there are so, so many more patterns out there that we'd like to make than there is time to knit. Even during 5 weeks of no work, I didn't get very much knitting done--life does get in the way.

Happy knitting, every one.

Yes! Suna Mitts!

No, I didn't finish them, but I just thought the post title was funny. I did get a lot of mitten done yesterday. If I wasn't so fond of throwing balls to cute dogs I'd have gotten more done yesterday over at Dawn's, but I enjoy her cute doggies. It's always good to relax with friends and knit, and it's always fun to watch the spinners spinning. I am grateful for the space and time to knit.

But, anyway, to prove I am working along, here's the second mitten's progress:

Progress on Second Ethnic Mitten

I'm to the point where I really am ready to do something else, so I'm going to hunker down and try to get this project done in the next couple of days. I am sure you'd like to read about another project!

Tomorrow is the farewell gathering for our long-time knitting friend Jen. I will miss having her around, but am glad she has her blog, so I can keep up with her! I have what I hope is a good farewell gift for her. I wish I was as great at making cards as she is, but I can at least write something nice, right?

I'm looking forward to doing some knitting fun over the weekend--I'll finally hand over the Linus Blankie and maybe help some of the other ladies get started on knitting their own projects. I'd like to show them the pattern for the Nana's afghan that I fixed up for someone in 2008. It's easy and can be either solids or stripes. They seem sort of excited about it. I'd actually hoped to go on a retreat this weekend, but it got canceled. At least I have good backup plans!It's always good to have a Plan B. I am learning that a lot, lately.

One Very Nice Mitten

First, thank you for all the nice comments on Jodie's immense shawl! MMario is indeed, as John-Francis pointed out, a dude who knits, and we should support them whenever possible. And I do, believe me--I read plenty o' men's blogs from the "famous" ones like Brooklyn Tweed and Franklin Habit (who I even met once) to people I consider personal friends like Colin Andersson and Ray Whiting. I guess I should write a post about my favorite knitting dudes and their products and projects some time!

But wait, I was gonna blog about this:

The first of my Orange Ethnic Mittens is done. It took longer than I expected, because I keep doing other things, like tarot bags and cooking for the family (I am sure you will be jealous of the delicious organic liver and onions, baked sweet potatoes and steamed cauliflower we had last night--weird combo but good). But I digress, again...

The pattern is lots of fun to make, and I have a feeling these mittens will be like Cookie A socks for me--once you make one, you want to make the rest of the patterns in the book! I keep thinking of different color combinations and trying to decide which of the patterns I like the best. Then I thought of making matching socks. I should have enough yarn left over to make socks. But, before that, perhaps I should finish the other mitten, huh? Stop with the incessant blogging and go knit!

But wait, I did want to give a hint for anyone who wants to knit patterns from Mostly Mittens, by Charlene Schurch. On her charts, decreases are shown by the pattern rows getting smaller. I had a bit of trouble remembering where to decrease, so I drew symbols for SSK and K2tog on the edge stitches, where the decreases go, to remind me what to do. The other hint I have is to not forget to go back to the general guidelines for each section of the mitten when you start doing something different--there are useful guidelines in there! But don't worry, other than mis-counting every so often, I didn't find this pattern difficult at all. I encourage you to give these a try--they make great gifts if you live in Texas (I plan to wear mine at high school football games--I have needed some for the last 5 years--my gloves get chilly).

If you are so inclined, please think of me today, as I have a first interview for a REAL job, and those are very, very rare for technical writers/instructional designers in Austin. Having work to do will cut me back to my more normal blogging schedule again, but I promise to not do a big drought like I went through early in the year.

PS: I added the tarot bag to Ravelry, so if you make one, please link to this!

What Do You Think about This?

I wanted to show you the progress on the mitten I am knitting. It's the beautifully named (ha ha) Pattern 21 from Mostly Mittens, as I mentioned earlier in the week. Here is what it looks like now:

Mitten in Progress

My concern is that the colors are too close together, so they obscure the pattern. When I look at the photo, I think it looks fine. It is more subtle than it would have been in red and blue or something, but you can certainly see the design. Do you think it's good enough to keep going, or should I unravel the yarn and make socks?

I do think the next pair will be out of more contrasting yarns.

I am glad I switched to the "large" size of the mittens, since this Ella Rae Laceweight is really fine yarn. Right now, it fits great. I am enjoying working on the mittens, though wrapping every three stitches in the 5-stitch stretches sure slows me down, even when knitting with both hands. I guess there's no way to do fast stranded knitting! Or did I miss a hint somewhere?

I hope you are enjoying my daily posts while my work is still on hiatus. Lots of time to type now! Off I go to take my daily walk, have a tiny lunch, and knit!

Braved the Storm

Last night was another fun Monday with knitting friends. It's becoming a very nice almost-weekly event to head over to Dawn's and knit and snack for a while!

This week we had three birthdays to celebrate, and we had quite a party. Kim got tiaras and wands for me, Suzanne and Aggie (March 5, 6, and 8). And I brought ice cream and Suzanne and Aggie each brought cakes. Even though I am on a diet, I had to eat some Italian Creme Cake from the wonderful Upper Crust Bakery in Austin. I will not pass up that kind of opportunity!

Yes, we stuck our wands in our shirts. We thought it looked "classy." I'm just glad that one day a year when I am older than Suzanne is over! She can't call me an old lady any more!

We all had a great time knitting and chatting, which is good, because a big rainstorm blew in, complete with very loud thunder and bright lightning. So, we stayed until it had passed. Like it used to be in the LYS, we certainly touched on some "interesting" topics. Laughter is the best medicine, and I am pretty sure we all went home feeling a lot better, no matter how we felt when we arrived!

The new mittens are going well. I am an inch or so into the patterning part, and am a little concerned that once again I picked yarns without enough contrast. I am going to keep going, though, and even if the yarns don't contrast enough, I'll wear them. I so have other yarn that definitely DOES contrast to try another pair with.

Oh, my sweet older son got me a knitting-related birthday gift, the Joy of Sox book. I did have a copy (at first I couldn't remember if I'd just looked at someone else's copy or had one), but I was impressed that he took the time to think of an appropriate gift, but also couldn't resist the pun.

So, hey, two posts in two days. Obviously I need to get back to that job hunting--still waiting for my other job to pick up again!

Making Mittens and Keeping Friends

I think I told you that I got a couple of books on mittens recently. I really wanted to try a pair of festive ethnic mittens. I do have some yarn that I want to make mittens with, but of course, more yarn keeps creeping in.

Like this stuff here! I got it last week on another pilgrimage to Yarnorama in scenic (small) Paige, Texas.

Ella Rae Lace Merino

I went with Suzanne and Susan, so we definitely were on "Sue" name overload. Much of the fun on these trips is the conversation and camaraderie. It makes me almost (but not quite) want to learn to spin so I could go to the spinning Saturdays. We had a fun trip, and especially enjoying the farm animals. Susan is an expert, so it's fun to have her around. We saw this fine fellow at a really cool Brahma breeding facility, where there are these beautiful bull apartments, each with one spectacular bovine specimin.

Brahma Bull in eastern Williamson County, Texas

So, anyway, we met some nice folks in the knitting group there, and I saw that orange yarn above, which is the color of butternut squash and is a semi-solid, and chose the other one as a good contrast. I also got their yarn of the month colorway, which is definitely bright and happy:

Yarnorama sock yarn in "The A-Ha Moment" colorway.

My birthday gift to myself on Friday was a knitting day. I started a pair of mittens from this book, using the two new yarns:

Mostly Mittens: Ethnic Knitting Designs from Russia

by Charlene Schurch

 

The ones I am making are second from right on the bottom row. I cast on the medium size and knit through the cuff and about 6 rows into the pattern, but decided that using this laceweight yarn and 0 needles made it a bit snug. So last night I frogged it while I had a helpful older son visiting to help unwind one of the balls of yarn. But, before I frogged it, I took a photo so you can see how the colors work out (done with the phone camera, so not the best and NOT accurate):

Corrugated ribbing in Ella Rae Laceweight. Colors in earlier photo are more accurate.

I was having trouble going back and forth from the mitten guidelines to the chart, so I missed an instruction to knit the first row rather than rib it, so the new version is already better. Also, the rows are not numbered on the charts, and that bugs me a bit. It would keep me on track with the thumb and hand rows if they were numbered. The new version still isn't too big, just less snug. I look forward to knitting this along with my shawl. And luckily we got a new printer (ooh, ahh, color laser), so I was able to photocopy the chart for easier reading. 

I was also going to talk about keeping friends. After the nice trip to Yarnorama, we went to a meeting of people from our old LYS, which closed shortly after I stopped dropping in there (no surprise, when a yarn shop stops ordering yarn and needles for over a year other than a couple of dribs and drabs, stops paying teachers, and no longer has any employees other than the owner, it's a hint). It was at a nice La Madeleine restaurant that let us use their meeting room. I guess when I said I was going I didn't realize all who would be there. But, I think I made it through the meet-up pretty well. Interestingly, the folks who de-friended me on Facebook and sent me the helpful email telling me how poorly my breakdown reflected on me were not there, so that helped. The other members of the LYS in crowd who hadn't asked how I was or checked in with me in over a month were quite friendly, so that helped my comfort level a lot. I was repeatedly told to "be a big girl," which somewhat got old, but, heck, it will be fine. It was nice to see how everyone was doing and catch up on news. I have nice knitting friends, including the ones who invited me to the meeting, which I really appreciated, and I'll just enjoy all of them! I will try to make another of those meetings at some point, though this week I am making my dear husband a nice meal before choir on Wednesday, so I won't be going out. Sometimes family comes first!

A little aside about being a big girl, for any of you who may have to deal with disliking how you or others are treated: it IS a sign of being a "big girl" or maturity, even, to take yourself out of situations that aren't good for you or where you feel uncomfortable. Yeah, in a job you have to be around whoever you are assigned to be around, but in optional activities, if people treat you or others unkindly or repeatedly show a lack of compassion, you can choose to be elsewhere! Life's too short to torture yourself! Surround yourself with love and friendship, because kind and generous people by far outnumber the sourpusses!

And on that note let me say that I look forward to our new Monday meetings at Dawn's house, and really enjoy the atmosphere of respect and support for all that is maintained there. I wish you all could join us! I am glad that Dawn, John Francis and others are stepping up to host meetings so the community that developed at the LYS is not lost.

Reading about Knitting: Almost as Good as Knitting?

I have no fun knitting photos to share, but I can report that I am on the last row of the Linus blankie. I got distracted from that by yet another project I can't share, because I am test knitting for my friend. The end product is really cute, so I hope to share it with you all soon. And it uses up sock yarn, another bonus! That project has so many instructions that I've had to only work on it at home for a while, but now I am in a long easy section, so I'll be able to tote it around and finish it. Sadly, nowhere to tote it, though, because our Monday knitting hostess is sick. Get well soon, Dawn!

The blankie has gotten so large that I can't really transport it. I can work on it while riding around in the truck with Lee, which is how I got a little bit done this week. I had to resort to true comfort crafting: I am making simple, traditional granny squares out of the leftovers from the mitered square blankie. I'll edge them all in black and figure out some creative arrangement for them whenever I finish, and I'll have a second Linus blankie!

I've been browsing afghan patterns looking for something to make out of all that Marble yarn I got a couple of weeks ago. I found a nice book at Half Price Books, called Under Cover: 60 Afghans to Knit and Crochet. There are a lot of ideas in it, using standard inexpensive yarns. I found a square that looks like a flower, a bit, in the center, then turns square, so I think I'll try that one.

I've enjoyed quite a bit of knitting reading this week, none of them new books, but ones I hadn't looked at yet, so they were new to me. I enjoyed the new Interweave Knits, and also got another oldie at Half Price Books, Men Who Knit and the Dogs Who Love Them. It has cute dog patterns and fun profiles of men who knitted a few years ago. Since my dog sweaters apparently will stay with the former LYS, I ought to make more at some point, for my future skinny short-haired dog (none of my current dogs need a sweater, even the pug).

The books that have really fascinated me are two books about mittens that were recently reprinted. Now, I have made mittens, but never kept them--they have all been gifts, and have all been standard ones from the Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns (see photo above). I'd been admiring all the fancy mittens I've seen on other people's Ravelry pages and in some of the magazines, but hadn't decided what I wanted to make yet. So, I ordered two mitten books and thoroughly enjoyed looking through them while watching Winter Olympics. The books complement each other well, because one is all about mittens knitted from the cuff up, and the other is about knitting them from the top to the cuff!

Magnificent Mittens and Socks: The Beauty of Warm Hands and Feet,by knitting treasure Anna Zilboorg is so much fun to go through. Zilboorg's personality just shines through, and the photography is lovely. The socks she designed that are similar to her mittens are a great addition, making it quite worthwhile that they re-issued the book to include the socks. These mittens have spectacular patterning and amazingly fancy cuffs. They don't look like something a person living as a solitary in an isolated cabin would come up with! Her technique makes a lot of sense, and I look forward to making a pair of these, just for fun.

Mostly Mittens: Ethnic Designs from Russia, by Charlene Schurch (whose sock patterns you have seen me praise if you have read this blog for a long-ish time) has slightly less extravagant patterns, and they use the more standard cuff-up construction approach, but I love all the things she did with the traditional designs of the Komi people. I learned a lot about them in the book, which was an added bonus. Learning about different traditions is always fascinating to me. I will see what I think about her thumb techniques, but I know I will love making more than one of the fascinating patterns, which look way more complex than they actually are to knit. This is another book that was recently re-issued. I remember when both originally came out (because I am old), but I wasn't in a mitten-loving phase back then.  I'd say Mostly Mittens is more practical, but both are so inspirational--and the designs could easily be translated into hats, bands on sweaters, etc., so I'd get them just as interesting stitch pattern references.

Finally, I want to encourage you to find the Knitting Traditions magazine put out by Piecework. This is more of a reference than a magazine, and has 43 projects that originally appeared in Piecework (which is a magazine that covers all kinds of hand-work).  There are many lovely socks, and some particularly nice shawls, as well. And of course, there is at least one pair of ethnic mittens (Swedish). I enjoy the articles, because they talk about a technique used in the past, then share a modern version of the technique. I've learned a lot from these articles over the years.

So, that's Suna's book report. I need to go work on ye olde secret project for a while. By the way, I really appreciated all the comments on my last post--thank you, kind readers--and I do hope to visit Gauge one Sunday and knit there! I know a lot of my blogging friends are experiencing posting droughts, so it is not just me. But I thank you for your patience as I plow through a bit of a rough time.