robknits

Doing what I said I would do.

Well, not so much.

A number of WIPs were reunited with their patterns.  Caches of knitting notions were unearthed and organized (where did all those crochet hooks come from?).  WIPs with their patterns found nooks in an artistic tower of wicker baskets next to the couch.  It was actually possible to sit down and knit.

So I did.  But not, of course, on any of the WIPs.  First, I had to try an experiment.  At Yarnivore, a member of the Alamo City Knitters gang suggested trying different needles when I said knitting with the cotton-blend sock yarns made my hands ache.  I remembered how I had snapped every wood or bamboo size 1 needle  I had ever used.  But... a brand new Harmony wood laminate size 1 needle had arrived in the mail from Knitpicks. You see, I was already thinking about trying it out, remembering from somewhere that laminated wood tends to be stronger than plain wood or bamboo.  So I picked up the Sockotta I bought at Yarnivore and the new needle... and WOW.  I have most of the foot of the first sock done.  And I have not broken the needle.  No real ache in my right hand either.  I had bought, in the same order, the Harmony tips in sizes 5 and 6, and I am about to go back and order some more in other sizes, as well as more size 1 circular needles.   The Sockotta sock went with me to the doctor's office and the lab for a blood test today (sinus infection #376,421,686.  Or is it 376,421,687?).  Considering there were no magazines in the lab waiting room, that was a life saver.

I also was able to go ahead and start another project that had been percolating for quite some time.  Several years ago, when I treated myself to Stitches West, I bought some gorgeous yarn at the Newton's Yarn Country booth that I have tried to photoraph several times, unsuccessfully,  for the blog. Here's another attempt.  (The yarn is actually more purple and less blue than this appears on my screen.)  It is one of their novelty yarns, with a contents label that makes it sound like it has a bit of every known fiber in its make-up.  Visibly identifiable ingredients include mohair and rayon.  The right pattern just never appeared.  Recently though it occurred to me that I might like to do Lou's Lattice Lace Wrap in this yarn.  Lou calls for Knitpicks' alpaca lace yarn.  The purple and copper mystery yarn is heavier than that.  Last night I wrapped it around a ruler, decided it gets 16 wraps per in (wpi), and went to look up what that translates into in knitting weights.  Turns out 16 wpi is a fingering weight.  So I pulled out the new size 6 Harmony needle tips and cast on.  The combination of yarn and pattern might work very well, and the wrap will be larger than one done in lace weight.  I am close to done with the garter border, so will see soon how the yarn looks in the lace pattern.  I am not adding beads -- this yarn has occasional flashes of shiny stuff in it already.  Now, though, I want more of the Harmony laminate needles. :>  Lucky Kim, she got a complete set as a Christmas gift!

Designing my space/Meeting knitters in SA

     With so much going on, and not much time or energy left over at the end of the day, there is lots of blog fodder but few blog posts.  This entry might be of epic proportions or the first of many... I am not sure yet.   Topics to come include:  Designing my space, The Itch, Finding the Inspiration Collection, Why "Studios" was a disappointment, Shelves Bags Shelves Bookcases Hooks Cubbies Rollers, Fiesta, Meeting Local Knitters, and Oops I bought a front loader and suddenly want to make felt coasters.

     Designing my space and Shelves Bags Shelves Bookcases Hooks Cubbies Rollers are, I suppose, the same topic.  As the infinite regression of unpacking rule explains, in order to do something that appears to be simple -- i.e., oh, I think I'll start knitting a scarf -- you discover you have to take care of approximately 6 preliminary actions.  These can include everything from finding which box has the laceweight yarn to building an addition on to the house.  The studio is full of intimidating piles of stuff (see the photos of intimidating piles of stuff) and I needed to figure out how to organize everything.

After much waffling and delaying, I realized that I was trying to create permanent sorts of storage and work areas in a room I had never worked in.  Instead, the room needed modular, movable, redefinable storage.  I moved a couple of units like that (otherwise known as a bookcase and a little shelf unit) into the humungous closet in the studio, and then ran out and bought an inexpensive freestanding garment rack.  Designing a huge closet of built-ins before I lived and worked here??? Nuh uh.  I clambored over and through the boxes til I found the hanging sweater shelves that worked in my last yarn closet, et voila .. began unpacking yarn and tools.  So a bit of progress has been made, and maybe 4 or 5 more boxes were emptied.  I have some more pictures of the developing storage space, but the computer has just informed me it does not recognize the camera, and I am going to leave that problem for another time.

     As mentioned in an earlier, entry, the magazine Studios, a special production of Interweave Press's magazine Cloth Scissors Paper, came out just as I moved and was the first new fiber purchase to come to the new address.  But it was, unfortunately, pretty disappointing. Their solutions and studio designs consisted of lots of white shelving and baskets with contents organized by color.  Well, yes.    There were a couple of good ideas provided by some of the fiber artists they interviewed, but all in all, it was not much help and not even the ads were tempting.  I could have used a good article about lighting, or vacuums for fiber.  Though there was one studio, built in a hayloft, that had me drooling.  So I am working on organizing the yarn closet in modular movable ways, and then, once most of the boxes are empty, I will try to figure out where to put the two tables I have, what kind of lighting I have/need, and ... don't get me started .. the chair issue.

     With help from a new member of the Knitters Review forum, I have gotten back to work on the Free and Easy Pie Wedge shawl, and that's what I took with me when I finally got myself together and went to my first San Antonio knitting group meeting. (See Kim?  I made it.) This group meets EVERY Sunday ( oh bliss) in a wonderful, casual, funky coffee house/wine bar/ brunch-lunch/live music cafe called the Candlelight.  I met Amanda, a serious dyer of yarns with an Etsy store -- www.LoneStarArts.etsy.com -- who was knitting socks, and showed off one of Cookie's Monkey socks. Amanda is also a nuclear engineer.  (Really.)  She also told me that there is a fiber festival, aimed at weavers, spinners and, of course, knitters, in the town of Boerne in the fall.  That's very near here!!!!   Juanita was there, knitting socks from Amanda's yarn.    She is a graphic artist who, in order to test some machinery at work, printed out two decals about knitting that are now among my favorite possessions.  I will scan them when I get the scanner hooked up.   Where would you put a decal that explained that you knit so that you don't kill anyone?  Amy, who is a teacher, was at Candlelight too.  She is close to finishing the fish blanket (these are someone else's fish -- I couldn't find a picture of a finished fish blanket).  Amy started the blanket as a new knitter, which was very brave.  The cafe was great, the knitting was great, the knitters were great and I realized as I drove home that the route took me past Central Market, a Whole Foods kind of place.  So this might be the beginning of a great Sunday routine.

     The itch mentioned above is not medical, thank you very much.  It is a creative itch.  I have ideas galore that I really want to get to.  But the half-done state of the house is depressing, so while I found some of the yarn I have ideas for, and found the needles, I am going to stick to the Free and Easy Pie Wedge shawl and focus the creativity and energy (such as it is) on the house.  It is hard at this point -- I am very ready to be over the process of moving.  And it was very hard not being with family last night for Passover (especially since a series of problems and issues meant they didn't call).  But I just did my first load of laundry in the new washing machine (who would have thought that could be so exciting, but finally, it is here and installed), and I am going to get a LOT more done before bed tonight.  So I can get to that gorgeous purple and copper yarn you can see in the hanging shelves above. 

FO! sorta...

To my amazement, I sat down in a few free hours yesterday and finished the Pacific Grove pullover.  Not yet blocked, as you can see.  This is a pattern from Just One More Row designs.  I used Harrisville's Orchid yarn, in its earliest formulation as a soft spun wool and mohair-- I think they later added silk.  These are the steps that build this sweater:

• knit mitered squares onto each other to create the front and the back as two separate pieces
• do shoulder seams (if I remember correctly, by picking up stitches and binding off together)
• with the side seams still open, pick up stitches to knit the sleeve, forming the shoulder cap by knitting short rows.

Cool construction.  But this is what the shoulder cap ended up looking like.  My problem is that the shoulder cap extends about two inches farther than the top of my arm does, and then the decreases for the rest of the arm help make that stand out.  My pullover has leg-o'mutton sleeves.  Help!

     Blocking is NOT going to fix this.  The sleeves will have to be frogged (frogging this soft part-mohair yarn will not be fun.) I have to figure out how to change those short rows.   Obviously I need fewer rows in that short rowed area.  Since you do the short rows until all the sleeve stitches are live on the needle, one possibility is to do the sleeve over fewer stitches.  The knitter decides how wide that sleeve will be on this pattern.  So I am going to try the sweater on again and see how much I can narrow the sleeve. 

       Another possibility would be to change how the short rows are done for the shoulder cap.  The pattern calls for starting with the width of that triangle you see (this is the top of the sleeve, where you pick up the stitches), and short-rowing out. That is, I picked up enough stitches for the sleeve, knitted back to the far end of the base of this triangle, and then started doing the short rows, knitting the width of the triangle, wrap and turn, do the same on row 2, and then each row after that you knit the wrap and the next stitch together, wrap and turn, etc etc until all the stitches are live.  Maybe I should try doing the short rows every row like that ONLY for about half the rows called for, and then simply knit across all the sleeve stitches.

     I am going to give that a try, but I am concerned about how well the yarn will stand up to being frogged.  Any recommendations on how to frog this sort of yarn gently are greatly appreciated.  'Cause I have to call this FO on account of shoulders, and frog both sleeves.

     In other news, I am now on Ravelry.  I set up my "notebook," and joined some groups, as RobKnits (creative naming once again).  I am not at all sure how I am going to use Ravelry, or if I will, but I am going to give it a try.  I am not sure I want to see lots of other versions of something I have knit, and I change patterns anyway.  I am looking for cardigan and jacket patterns now, and I found way more looking through all my back issues of Interweave Knits than I did by searching Ravelry.  And while groups are fun, well, that's how I use Knitters Review.  But it is always fun looking at pictures of people's knitting, so maybe that's what it will do for me.

    And, the Secret of the Stole.  I have knit rows 71-76 several times now.  For some reason I keep coming up with an extra stitch, which means either an extra YO or a missed SSK or K2tog somewhere, but so far no luck in getting it right.  I put it away for a day and finished (temporarily) Pacific Grove instead.  I did want to finish the Hint #1 chart before Hint #2 came out.  Oh well.  Hint #2 was released today.  Here's a picture, anyway, of the left point from the first chart, up to about row 72.

    Wish me luck with this weekend's knitting!

Ready, set... [edited -- off the needles!]

     Not an imaginative title for this entry.  But I am ready for the start of the Secret of the Stole.  The first clue will be out on Friday, I think.  I tried to upload a picture of my three swatches to the Yahoo!Group page, but couldn't get to it.  So here is my comparative swatch. As usual, it is not really visible unless you click on the thumbnail to see the full-size photo.  I am struggling to find ways to improve the photos of my knitting.  This was an attempt in natural light (gorgeous day here) using a piece of muslin as a background.  The larger swatch was the first one, with the copper beads at the top and the bronze beads at the bottom.  The small swatch was the third one with the amber beads, which is what I have decided to use.  I am glad we are about to start the stole, since I began looking at the other lace yarn in the stash and wonder about other possibilities.  But this is it: Knitpicks Shadow lace merino, in colorway Lost Lake, with glass size 6/0 amber-colored beads from Joanns.   Kim is doing the stole as well, so we will have a little local team as well.

      We have a knitting group that meets every few weeks at work, and one of the members came running up to me in the halls between meetings to show off the beginnings of her first toe-up socks.  I loved the yarn.  So I went over to a LYS I don't visit often enough, and discovered it was Claudia Handpaint, which Kim has shown me before.  I had hesitated, since it has no nylon in it and I am hard on my socks.  But then I saw this colorway, and I fell.  And this, at least on my monitor, is a very good representation of hte colors.  To my concern, the color name on the yarn label is ... wait for it ... Oops.  Yup, this color is named Oops.  I went to the Claudia website, could not find this colorway anywhere.  So I don't know what she was aiming for, but I think she ought to find a less disturbing name for it and do it again!  To counteract my concern about merino socks with no nylon or mohair, I am going to knit this yarn using two circular needles, using a size 0 for the toe, sole and heel, and a 1 for the instep and leg.  The only other yarn I fell for that does not have nylon is Smooshy.  I will do the same with that yarn.  As it is, I have two pairs of socks on needles right now -- yes, four socks, each on their own needles.  I started the plain teal ones while figuring out what pattern I wanted to use for the Anne yarn, and am now working exclusively on the teal, trying to finish those before going back to the Anne. 

     I am also racing to finish Ostrich Plumes.  When I hold it in one hand and stretch it with the other (i.e., kinda like blocking) it is almost fingertip to fingertip.  I think it will be more of a scarf than a stole, since I used laceweight instead of the fingering the pattern calls for.  That's ok.  You can see (in this rather vertigo-inducing photo) I have just a little yarn left in this ball, so I am declaring this finished when the yarn runs out and when I start the Secret of the Stole.  I have only used one skein (500 yds) of the 3 I bought of this Tess Yarns merino lace weight at MDSW.  So that leaves me with 1000 yards to use sometime later for another project.  Stash lives! 

Breaking news: Ostrich Plumes is off the needles!  Anyone know how to block the curved sides feather and fan type stitches create?

SK2P/S2KP

     It is all-lace, all the time here these days.  I have 3 lace projects on the needles and maybe next time I will rethink that.  Take, for example, SK2P and S2KP. 

     Campanula uses SK2P.  That means "Sl1 as if to k, K2tog, psso." That is, slip 1 knitwise, knit the next two stitches together, and pass the slipped stitch over.  The ostrich plume stole uses S2KP.  That means "Slip two together as if to knit, knit 1, and pass both slipped stitches over."  Now move from project to project.  With your glasses off.  Yup.  Never a dull moment around here.  Unfortunately I have been tinking as much as knitting on Campanula.  Not because of the SK2P.  Somehow I have been messing up the lace pattern and only notice a repeat later when the diamonds don't form properly.  A generous use of lifelines has kept me from going completely nuts, but I would love to figure out how I am messing up.  At this point the pattern feels routine but obviously... not.

   Oh, enabling alert: oh, well it was going to be an enabling alert. There are huge sales going on at knit2purl2.com.  Like Lorna's Laces sock yarn for $5.50 a skein.  I bought.  But I just checked and she is so overwhelmed with orders she has shut down her shopping cart!  She confirmed my order but we'll see if I get the colors I wanted. 

    Today I am going to turn the air conditioning on (predictions are for 90+ temperatures), try to keep the house from falling down around my ears, weave a little, and play with my cats.

Growing my own

     Returning the heddles that didn't fit to the LYSO, I showed her the draft for my now orphaned MAFA draft.  She mentioned freeware online that let you put in the threading you have on the loom, and a treadling pattern and it then shows you a graphic representation of the fabric that would result.  Wow.  Double wow.  Talk about studying the relationship between the threading of a particular warp and what you then choose to do with it.  So I ran home and last night began searching the Web.  There are several software programs for sale that do this, and a review of them available online from Interweave's Handwoven site.   Don't want to buy anything yet though.  Laritza recently posted a very useful list of freeware for crafters, including a link to the Handwoven reviews.  Her recommendation a while ago for a knitter's font led me to a great resource that I use all the time now to chart stitches, and I am about to start using Google's bookmark file resource so that I have my bookmarks no matter where I am online. 
So I am going to start experimenting with the demos for all the weaving software, to decide which I want to save up for.  At the moment though, I am using the free online WinWeave. It has already given me great ideas for how to weave this warp.
     It is a pretty minimal program, of course, and I can't find any help files at all.  So I am still trying to figure out, for example, how to change the colors of the weft thread, and how to edit the colors (which the home page says you can do) so that I can get colors more closely related to the ones on my loom.  But wow.  By a click of a menu option you can fill the treadling chart "tromp as writ," one of those apparently very obscure weird weaving phrases that actually means something very straightforward.  It means you take the threading chart (the draft, that tells you that thread #1 goes on shaft #4, thread 2 goes on shaft #3, etc.) and use it as your treadling guide.  Well, it is easier to show than explain.  Anyway I did that and decided... ehhh, maybe not.  So then I tried just the treadling for block B, and loved it, followed it by some plain weave, loved it .... and am going to keep going.  I have to figure out how many inches of each treadle pattern I would want.  That is, in the 3 yards of fabric I want to produce, how many inches will have the Block B treadle pattern, how many inches of plain weave...  I am going to take into account the design guidelines I learned from Ruth Lantz and Judy Ditmore at Knitters Connection: odd numbers, Fibonacci sequences, etc.   I am also going to work my way through the demos for the commercial products, and decide which I want.  Laritza is leaning toward Fiberworks Silver
      I also finally answered the call of the lace weight stash.  It had been calling my name beseechingly while I have been knitting the sport weight Campanula and the aran weight Bedazzled lace.  Finally I lined up the lace stash -- not looking at patterns -- and picked up the one that was waving its little hands frantically saying "Pick me! Pick ME!."  That was the Tess Yarns merino lace weight that I bought at MDSW.  It is amazing how comfortable it now feels to knit with lace weight yarn.  And I really wanted to -- one of those tactile knitting demands my hands make from time to time.  Then of course I had to choose a pattern.  I ended up using the Knitspot pattern Ostrich Plumes.  (That link opens her catalog, by the way.  And looking at it I see her new pattern Bee Fields is available.  I also see I want to buy her Starlight Wrap pattern.)
      So here is the beginning of Ostrich Plumes.  As usual, unblocked lace looks more like a scrunchy than anything else.  This is the first feather and fan-type pattern I have knit (weird, huh) and I am enjoying the rhythm -- one pattern row and 3 stockinette rows.   I am hoping, also, that once this is blocked I will see that the lilac/gray yarn is not striping.
     I did also notice that this stitch -- Ostrich Plumes -- is just a slight variation on the one in Barbara Walker's Treasury, with a 2-stitch garter border on each side.  And the other pattern I have from Knitspot, the Japanese Feather stole, basically does that too -- a stitch from the Barbara Walker Treasuries with a simple border.  I think they make for gorgeous stoles, and I am delighted with the Knitspot patterns, but it does make me realize that I can also pick up a hank of lace weight yarn calling my name and go through Treasuries to find a pattern that pleases me.  I do want to figure out how to put different lace patterns together in a rectangular stole.  Six feet of the same lace pattern and I begin to get bored (who, me?).   We have been talking about this on the lace forum on Knitters Review.  Can it really be as simple as finding the common stitch count denominator for several lace patterns?  I still haven't figured out the "pattern stitch +x" issue.  That is, if one lace pattern is worked over something like a 6 stitch repeat +3, and another is an 8 stitch repeat + 5.  Oh wait.  If something needs an 6 stitch repeat +3, and I do, let's say, 10 repeats of the pattern, I would need 63 stitches (let's leave out borders for the moment).  I would then need another stitch pattern that would need a total of 63 stitches -- for example, a  7 repeats of a 9-stitch pattern.  But that seems really hard to do. It is beginning to make me think I would rather do the gardening.  Perhaps that's where tweaking the Barbara Walker patterns comes in -- making a pattern variation over 9 stitches instead of 7.  I am going to take a look at how the Knitspot designer modified the stitches.  And I am going to go back to the Heartstrings Scotch Thistle pattern to figure out how she moves back and forth from one pattern to the next.

     Finally, I created two annual albums -- items finished in 2006 and, so far, in 2007.  I liked doing that -- I had thought I would hate it, thought it would be a way of nagging at myself over what I hadn't finished.  The results though are instructive -- 2005 was definitely a mitten year, 2006 was hats, and this year (no surprise) is turning into lace.

Zen calm (and FO addendum)

     Well, hardly. 

But progress is being made on Campanula, and on Bamboozled.

I have wanted to start something else.  Both of these projects are sweater sized, which means they will take me a while.  Of course I do have two pairs of almost finished socks on needles.  It suddenly occurred to me that -- ta da!  -- I do NOT have to knit them until I run out of yarn.

A mindbending realization! Since I make my socks toe up, I can do that, but I don't have to do that.  So since I am bored with the wool-cotton socks I start almost a year ago (gee, wonder why I am finding them boring) I completed a K1P1 rib at the top of one, am about to do that to the other, and will bind them off today.  Again, TA DA!  I will have an FO to show off tomorrow.  I will do the same for the other pair of socks as well -- the ones done in the Regia Line Step beige. 

     What I really want to do is another rectangular shawl.  I love wearing the Scotch Thistle, and so want more.  The next one though will be a bit longer than the Thistle.  So I am trying to NOT look at patterns, and instead look at the stash and work from there.  Of course too many possibilities are occurring so I haven't yet cast on for anything.  But after finishing the two pairs of socks, that is going to go on the needles next.
     I still feel funny about posting about my latest crash.  I am not interested in writing a blog about attention issues.  But since this is a blog about progress in creative projects, and I do them (mostly) in bouts of huge energy interspersed with moments of being overwhelmed, those crashes and recoveries will reoccur here.  I am aiming now for smooth and steady.

Addendum: FO  I did in fact finish the pink socks, using Zimmermann's sewn bind off.  Here they are.  Started in June 2006, finished July 11, 2007 (oops.).  Yarn: Meilenweit Color Fun, a cotton, wool, nylon blend.  Pattern: my own toe up basic sock, using a garter rib pattern for the leg.

    And just for fun, more in the continuing saga of Maggie's issues with weaving.

Creativity surge

    

Robbyn says I sparked her current interest in lace.  In turn, she has sparked a re-interest in dyeing for me.  The funny thing is I have never dyed yarn, just fleece, which I have then spun (or stashed for future spinning). She provided temptation Thursday night during her knit chat when she told me that Knitpicks is now offering a Bare version of their Gloss yarn.  That got me thinking (and drooling).  Then  Chez Casuelle emailed me to say, oops, they don't have the Twisted Sisters Zazu that I ordered in Copper after all.  Which actually is OK, since I want a summer shawl and was beginning to wonder if fingering weight wool might not be a bit warm.  So I began thinking of buying silk, or rayon, or tencel. And then, a minor miracle... an ancient, rusty synapse in my brain fired.  I ran downstairs to a basket that holds yarn so old I don't even have it with the rest of the stash.  Sure enough, there are piles of a natural-colored silk, much of it still in the original ball with labels still attached. I bought it in the 1980s as a newbie knitter, surprised to find silk yarn that wasn't shiny and bothered by its lack of elasticity.  So the sweater never happened, but I had bought enough for a sweater for the 1980s-version of myself.  Probably not enough for a sweater for the somewhat larger 21st century self, but PLENTY for stoles and shawls. 
     Next issue: I want it copper-colored.  And I have the feeling copper is not going to be the easiest color to obtain when dyeing, since I do NOT want orange, rust, sienna, umber, or terra cotta.  I reread my color and dye books.  Orange with some blue?  I really don't want to end up with brown.  Then I found that Jacquard has a liquid dye in a color they call Aztec Gold.  So experimentation may begin.  How nice to have enough to experiment with.  This is DK weight, by the way. 
     Also....
    Ta Daaa! The bias lace scarf is finished, though not yet blocked.  It is off the needles. Whew.  The problem with scarves for me is that the same pattern goes on for goddam ever.  So ... Robbyn is promoting designing my own.  I may work my way through parts of the Margaret Stove book on designing lace and start coming up with my own rectangular stole patterns.  Scotch Thistle, with its various segments, should stay interesting, and the Anne was wound and staring me in the face...  So I cast on and started knitting Scotch Thistle.  I am finding the chart very easy to read (thanks Jackie!) and my system of marking off the segment repeats (in bright pink marker) is working very well.  Here are the few couple of repeats of the first 4-row pattern.  This colorway is mostly teal with some olive and a wee bit of that dusky mauve I mentioned.
    Once that synapse fired a couple of others suddenly farte fired.  I had gone back to drop spinning some painted lace roving I had bought at MDSW last year (might be nice to get it spun in time to buy more this year :>). It suddenly occurred to me that I was having trouble with the roving breaking and dropping the spindle not because I am out of practice (or not only...) but because my one-ounce Jenny spindle, which I like a lot, was too heavy for the thin strands of silk roving!!!  Silly spinner.  Anyway, I immediately though "Gotta buy a lighter weight spindle" but wait...  I have a Spindolyn.  I have 2 Spindolyns, the second one being a light weight.  So hey...  try spinning the silk on the light Spindolyn!!!

     Of course, all this creativity and problem solving burst into being because I am supposed to be doing something else -- laundry and packing for a weekend visit to friends in the 'burgh.  And can I find my iPod, used primarily for long-distance driving?  Of course not.  Gotta run.

Scotch Thistle preparation, with P.S.

Uber-preparation, maybe.  Or maybe I deserve a gold star from the ADD Foundation.  Anyway, in preparation for starting Scotch Thistle, I took a look at the pattern and saw that you do not work straight through the chart.  Instead, there is a sequence you work that includes things like, oh, rows 1-4 6 times, then later on you go back to rows 1-4 etc etc.  I was concerned that I would get on a roll and just keep going according to the chart.  Mary Moran, who is hosting the KAL at www.knittingzone.com, came up with a spreadsheet that let you know that row 56 of the shawl meant knitting, for instance, row 4 of the chart (that is not necessarily right -- I just made up the numbers to show how it works).  But I was doubtful of my ability to match up the spreadsheet and chart accurately at any given moment.  So here is my Uber-prep method (I do know that there should be an umlaut over the U but haven't figured out how to do that in Typepad.  Said the foreign languages librarian, defensively.)
     First, I numbered the sequences of chart rows as given in Jackie E-S's pattern.  There are 14 sequences.  Then, I copied the chart 14 times.  I numbered the charts 1 through 14, and marked the rows to be knit, and the number of times they were supposed to be knit, for that part of the sequence.  They are now stapled together in proper order (I proofread it.)  So now, in theory anyway, I can just use a row counter to make sure I am knitting the correct row, and tick off each repeat next to the chart, and move on to the correct next sequence.  (I blurred the chart so as not to mess with Jackie's copyright.)
     I am so proud of myself.  When is the association gonna send me my gold star?
     I am also proud of the fact that when I sat down to knit last night, I did not cast on for Scotch Thistle.  Instead, I kept working on the bias lace scarf.  Really really eager to finish it.  Hung it around my neck to see if I could reasonably bind off now.  I think so.  I will check again, and if so, bind it off, block it, and cast on for Scotch Thistle.

     Almost forgot.... what is it with the names some folks give their gorgeous handpainted yarns???  I have fallen in love with the yarns at Chez Casuelle at  www.chezcas.com (I think that's the right URL).  But two of the colorways I were admiring??? Very off-putting names.  One colorway I almost put into my virtual shopping cart was named.... Ed Sullivan.  Ed Sullivan????  Not a favorite of mine in any way, and I sure as hell don't want to wear him.  Another I just found, beautiful subtle colors, is called... In Cold Blood.  What?!  Not good marketing, folks. I did however put some gorgeous Twisted Sister Zazu fingering weight merino in color Copper in that shopping cart.  Hot hot hot!!!  For a lace stole to wear over a slinky copper-colored sleeveless top this summer.

Startitis

     Both the bias lace scarf and the Bamboozled Tunic are going well, but now that they are well underway, of course, I am itching to start something else.  I would like to get the focus together to start my weaving sampler but it is soooo much easier to just grab a ball of yarn and some needles and cast on.  (I need a smilie -- a rueful smilie).  If I start the warp for the sampler, I get to work with red and gold, instead of teal. 
     I might also knit some more Barbie clothes for my little Barbie-crazed friend.  I took her to school the other day (how do working mothers do it?  To my very great pleasure, I pitch in to help and got her to school while her mom taught an 8 am class) and before we left I noticed she had a plastic storage container piled high with Barbie bodies.  When I said, "Wow, look how many Barbies you have," she said, "Oh, I have more."  Most were naked, or partially so, and she mentioned she had plenty of ball gowns but not much in the way of regular clothes.  She loves the few things I have already made for her Barbies -- a poncho, a small white boucle rectangle that is used for everything from a blanket to, it seems, an ice cream sundae, and I think there was something else -- so one possibility to assuage the need for something new and the need for something not-green might be to produce some "regular clothes" for her Barbies.  Out of bits and pieces of sock or other fingering weight yarn. 
     The other possibility -- I am itching to cast on with the Kid Merino Fall Herbs, pictured on the right with all the teal and purple that usually comprises my stash.  I know anything that hairy is hard to frog, so I want to try something pretty manageable.  One possibility is just a feather and fan stole with a garter border.  But the other, gaining in excitement over the feather and fan, is to do Icarus in this yarn.  A lot of Icarus is stockinette interrupted with eyelet lines -- easy enough to get boring for a lot of folks who did it.   And I may want to figure out how to start the lace border if I make the stockinette-and-eyelet body a bit smaller.  But it might be a good combination of pattern and yarn.  What do you think?  There are lots of pictures of in-progress and finished Icari (?) online and some folks used Kid Silk Haze, which Kid Merino resembles.  The only concern I have is that I might not like the way the variegation works up.  If not, I will get some more Kid Merino to make this, which is also a very cool pattern and that combines the variegated Kid Merino with a solid.