robknits

Conundrum, with short rows

The picture is not the conundrum.  It is a piece of stained glass that I bought a couple of weeks ago at the Texas State Arts and Crafts sale in Kerrville.  There was almost no fiber-based art at the fair at all, but I kept running into women who use blow torches and work with glass and metal   The artist who created this, Jan whose-last-name-Ijust-forgot, will be at next week's Texas Folk Life festival too.  I will make sure to pick up another of her cards.

The conundrum is about the Pearl Buck Swing jacket from Interweave Knits's Winter 2005 issue.  There are actually two conundrums.  The first involved my idea about lengthening it a bit.  I didn't think of that til I had already completed one side of the front up to the beginning of the armhole.  So if I want to lengthen it, I need to go straight up for a bit, though I don't think I would do it for more than 2 inches.  This blog entry by Bluestocking Knits, in what was apparently a knitalong for this jacket, mentions some concerns about lengthening a jacket that has a yoke and a pleat in back.  I still think it would be possible to lengthen it below the armholes and the yoke, but that pleat would need to be taken into account.  So then I thought, I don't need to lengthen it, I need to do some shortrows on the fronts of the cardigan so that the front will hang at the same length of the back despite my much curvier front.

And there's the conundrum.  I have quite a library of directions and instructions and explanations about short rows but I don't think a single item mentions doing this for cardigans. Usually when using short rows to create bust darts, the instructions talk about knitting them across the front piece of the sweater.  You work the extra rows from point to point, so to speak.  So, in a cardigan, do you make a separate pouch for each side of the cardigan?  Somehow divide the short row section in half so that it actually does continue across the entire front of the cardigan?  Does anyone know?

In addition, the band of the cardigan is knit along with the fronts, and has a charming design knit into it that is worked, of course, across a predetermined number of rows.  I could certainly incorporate the design of the bands if I were working separate short row sections for each side of the cardi -- basically the band would be put on hold as the short rows were being worked, and in the row when I return to working all the way across the piece I would work the next row of the design.  Right? 

I love this design, but think I especially need those short row sections on a short swing jacket.  So please chime in with recommendations.

And on the shawl/stole front, I have decided to use the purple copper novelty yarn for something other than the Lattice lace shawl.  Bascially because I found a stockinette swatch I did with this yarn and it is stunning.  So I am going to develop a stole pattern that uses a lot of stockinette for this particular yarn, and go back to the lattice lace stole some other time.  I also fell in love with Knitty's Jeanie, a wrap that uses fingering weight yarn, cables and drop stitches, but I am trying to resist buying 3 skeins of Dream in Color Smooshy.  Though I think it is a perfect yarn for that pattern.  I can feel my resistance dropping, oozing from my pores.  The only fingering weight I have enough of for this pattern is the self-striping Jojoland Melody, which I bought for another shawl.  And I don't think self striping is right for Jeanie.  I also have enough of Knitpicks Gloss in burgundy.  A gorgeous yarn, but I want something with subtle color changes or a heathery look.  OK.  I think I'll try to find the pattern I bought to use with the Jojoland.  That way, I can start something cool, use yarn I have already bought, and put off the purchase of the Smooshy for a bit.  Anyone taking bets on the odds of my actually doing this?  I might, because that would mean working on this intriguing stole:

You can see it at the Jojoland site, at knittingsoftware.com where Carol Wulster also has some notes about knitting it, and at the Knitting Zone, where I bought the yarn and the pattern.  All I have to do is find the pattern, which gives me some much needed motivation to tackle more organizational tasks here at the house.

Two steps forward...

     Lots of unpacking in the craft room took place last night chez Rob.  As usual, once I gave myself permission not to do what had to be done, I was able to motivate myself to do it.  It is too weird that I respond to my own urges by saying, "Hey, you're not the boss of me!"  But hey, whatever works.

     The heaviest yarn is piled up in bags at one end of the ginormous walk-in closet, waiting for clear plastic bins.  After living here for a year, I will determine if I will ever again be able to touch aran weight wool and mohair, or if it has to be redistributed throughout the fiber world.   The sock yarn is being stored, appropriately, in a hanging shoe bag on the garment rack.  While at the moment even the sock yarn feels too woolly to touch, I don't want to give up making socks.  I could happily live in sandals and clogs for the rest of my life, but I found myself cooing over the handknit socks as they emerged from suitcases and laundry bags.  So I am holding off on the sock-yarn afghan idea.

     Bookshelves and cubby units are now holding books, spinning and weaving equipment, weaving stash, and fabric.  Another storage unit thingie is awaiting assembly.  Then I have to decide where the work tables go.  There are still boxes left to unpack, but a very manageable number of them.

     You may have notice that no pictures accompany this entry.  My computer suddenly decided it does not recognize my camera.  After a number of attempts at correcting this (turning things off and on again, using a different USB port), it occurred to me that perhaps the problem was the cable.  But get this: buying the official replacement cable will cost over $40, while other folks insist they have the equivalent for about, oh, $5.  Hmmm.  I am going to shop locally and then, hissing in frustration when I drive all over town with gasoline at $3.45 per gallon without being able to find it, I will have to decide which to order online. 

     Meanwhile the creative ideas keep bubbling up.  Once I can find everything (more or less) I want to get started on a number of projects, lots of them experiments for decorative or art pieces.  Ideas keep exploding for:

• lace or modular pieces done with the small bits of weird Habu yarns that I have
• an art quilt done with two beautiful pillow tops I bought, some gorgeous and emotionally resonant fabric that used to be window treatments in my mother's bedroom, and some other designer fat quarters in the pretty-much-never-used quilt fabric stash
• finding and resuming work on Campanula.
• Some small weaving projects from Time to Weave and Handwoven's March Bag of the Month.

All, of course, while I continue to work on the house and learn my new job and meet new people and take Pilates classes. 

Sounds good to me.

Musings, and an astonishing splurge

     You know that quote from Elizabeth Zimmermann, the "Knit on through the crisis" or something like that?  Apparently, I don't.  If I had a crisis that had me sitting in a waiting room, I guess I would, or had me housebound.  But crises that require action ... I don't knit at all.  I am in constant "go" mode at the moment, and have not knit anything on the Winter Eclipse second sock since my last blog entry.  I did do another 10 rows on the Free and Easy Pie-Wedge shawl but that was days ago. 

     But that situation has me thinking a lot about fiber arts.  Instead of focusing on minutiae of WIPs, or even on the next pattern-in-waiting, I have been thinking more creatively.  Packing meant touching every skein of yarn and every batch of fiber and every bit of fabric in the house.  And not in tandem with looking at published patterns.  My urge to spin has revived and I see more clearly the kinds of yarn I want to spin, and what I want to do with color, and even more importantly, I have gotten some glimpses of how I am going to do it.  And that brings me to the incredible splurge.

     Just as the move was becoming a reality, I got an unexpected refund.  I had enrolled in an ASL class this fall, that I had to drop, late enough, I thought, where I really didn't expect a refund, or not much of one.  Then a check appeared in the mail.  A check that had not been factored into planned expenses.  I could have just dropped it into the general funds -- we all know how expensive moving is, even with a moving budget from my new employers.  I kept deciding to do that... and then undeciding.  Because I have been drooling over a Majacraft Suzie Pro spinning wheel at my LYS for the past year or so.  And when I let Molly know, she said she had bought it before the dollar tanked.  'Cause the Majacraft wheels are more expensive now, because of the exchange rate.  And she could let me have it at the pre-tanking rate.  And with an additional price break, since she had been using it in the shop for demonstrations (and obviously with her shoes on.  Spinners will know what I mean.)

     I talked myself out of it twice.  Then I drove out there and bought it.  I brought it home and immediately packed it for the move.  But now, of course, I can't wait to unpack it and start spinning. 

     My first wheel, the Columbine, is a direct drive spinning wheel. That means one long band goes in a  figure-8 loop over both the flyer and the bobbin  to move flyer and the bobbin and create the tension AND pull the fiber onto the bobbin.  The Suzie Pro has what is called a Scotch tension -- two bands are used.  One goes from the wheel to the flyer, and another to the bobbin.  So adjusting the tension is different and there will be a learning curve.  From what I understand, the Scotch tension lets you separate "twist from pull" as they say on this very useful page.  For the non-spinners, that means that on the Columbine, the same mechanism that helps me put a twist into the fiber also pulls the fiber onto the bobbin.  The spinner can modify how quickly the fiber is taken up onto the bobbin, but I always feel I am battling the wheel's desire to pull it on!  On the Scotch tension wheels, those functions are mechanically separate, theoretically giving the spinner more control.  Theoretically. There will definitely be a learning curve before anything like control will be found.

     The wheel shows signs of use but not much.  There is some gunk on the pedals, from the bottom of shoes.  Like a lot of spinners, I tend to spin in my socks.  That didn't develop out of any concern about preserving the wheel (the Columbine is made of metal), but because it gives me a better feel of the wheel.  There is a rub on the wood where the top part of the Suzie folds down.  Otherwise, perfect. 

     A completely irrelevant aside:  three of the Majacraft wheels are named, respectively, the Millie, the Rose and the Suzie.  My grandmother's name was Rose, my mother's name is Millicent though she hates being called Millie, and my sister-in-law's name is Sue and she hates being called Suzie.  The most interesting (to me) of the electric spinners is called the Roberta (my full name).  And, hey, sis, the newest yarn from Schaefer is called Judith, and it is alpaca!  My sister Judy loves alpaca.  They haven't yet named anything after the dog.

     Moving timeline: The moving van comes Monday or Tuesday.  It would be nice to have an address in San Antonio by then. 

Another one off the needles

     There is a difference between an FO -- finished object -- and an OF -- off the needles project.  The difference is blocking.  The project that went off the needles yesterday or the day before, the Pacific Grove pullover shown in my last entry, is not an FO because I have to redo the sleeves.  But Ostrich Plumes is off the needles, waiting to be blocked, as is a narrow alpaca lace scarf I finished in the spring.  Also now off the needles and ready to be blocked: the neverending vest for my mother.

     This was knit from a novelty yarn I bought at Stitches West one year, from Newton's.  Those of you who have attended Stitches and other knitting conventions know the Newtons booth -- long tables full of hanks of their own yarns.  I took one look at it and knew my mother would love the colors.  It is made of everything.  I lost the label but there were at least 5 or 6 fibers -- the ones I remember are mohair, cotton, and rayon.  So I designed a cardigan vest to her very specific specifications (not a redundancy when you are dealing with my mom) using Sweater Wizard.  It is all in stockinette, with a seed stitch border at the bottom.  I finished the front edges and armhole edges with two rows of single crochet.  Making things for other people, especially when they have such strong likes and dislikes, makes me very anxious.  Now I am worried that it will stretch, and I don't know how to block this yarn.  But I have some swatches, and some yarn left over, and I am just going to have to experiment.  I am tempted to just take it to the dry cleaners. I do like how the crocheted edges look.  I always thought of crocheted edges as fussy, but this single crochet edge actually looks rather tailored.

     So, I tackled two longterm UFOs.  One still needs work but I am interested in it again, though sleeves do seem to go on forever.  I also pulled out two other WIPs, that I put away when it got hot.  One is the Bamboozled lace panel tunic, which I am making with Rowan's Kid Classic.  Remember this?  The weather finally broke here in Pennsylvania, wearing socks is once more a delight, and I can once again work in aran-weight wool and mohair.  So I am going to go back to work on this.  You can see the very nice lace panel in the pic on the right.

     The other WIP was the Garden Gate cardigan.  It is an Ann Norling pattern that I am making using a mystery yarn that I had had in my stash for about 20 years.  I was disappointed that there isn't enough yarn for the sleeve, I think.  The body of the vest is done, and I am going to finish the neck and button band trim and see what's left.  On the left is an early picture that shows off the yarn.  I don't know that I love the results but I keep reminding myself to make no judgements until it is blocked.

Amazing, huh, that I am pulling out WIPs instead of starting a new sweater.  I did swatch for one but this finishing stuff feels good.  Who knew?

     And despite all my doubts about Ravelry, I spent hours on the site adding stash yarns.  My earlier attempts at keeping an inventory have all died miserable deaths -- lost files, random notebooks lost for months under piles of other paper...  So while I am not going to enter every single skein of sock yarn, the entire painter's palette of Lamb's Pride, all the random skeins of worsted weight wool, I am entering the stuff I still find interesting, stuff for which I am always searching for ideas.   And the pretty new stuff.  I have also joined 5 groups -- the Chatters group, Stranded Knitting, Lace, and the Norah Gaughan group.  Hmm, that leaves one out.  Can't think now what it is. I was absolutely gobsmacked by some of the groups that have formed.  Knitters of blue yarn who watch particular TV shows while eating certain brands of microwave popcorn.  Knitters who use one brand of yarn.     Knitting accountants.  Knitters who like kittens. Knitters who like the same book (singular).  Knitters who share the same astrological sign.  Oh yeah, my 5th knitting group is the I Make Mittens, because the pictures are amazing.  The benefits of the Norah Gaughan group is that she participates, and answers questions about her patterns.   Great idea.

New beads, better swatch

     Neither of the swatches for the Secret of the Stole pleased me, or rather, neither of the beads I used pleased me.  So as an antidote to some extreme stress chez Rob,  I snuck off for a half hour and found some different beads.  At Joanns.  These are glass 6/0 beads in a range of amber colors.  And I think the amber works really well with this dark heathery green.  But, you see that right-most bead -- I don't think I will be using the lightest of the beads in the vial.  But I think the others look great.  They help bring out the amber-ish bits in this heather yarn.

     The Secret of the Stole project starts, I believe, a week from Thursday.  Or is it a week from Friday.  So I have a week to get some of the WIPs off the needles.  Particularly the Ostrich Plumes stole.  I have now done the number of repeats they recommend, but I am concerned that the stole should be longer.  The other ones I made this past year?  Well, I think they are too short for comfortable use.  That includes the Scotch Thistle.  So I think I am going to add a couple more repeats to the Ostrich Plumes before binding it off.  I have plenty of yarn left.  LOTS more, as a matter of fact.  So I think the way I will decide when enough is enough is by using the start off for the Secret of the Stole.  So one more week, max, of knitting Ostrich Plumes.  Then I have to figure out how to block something with a wavy edge.  I have always used blocking wires on stoles.  Looks like I am going to have to pin this sucker out pin by pin.  If I put just one pin at the furthest point out, I think I'll get a point rather than a curve.  So I think I will be putting multiple pins into each curve of this feather-and-fan variation.  Oh, joy.  Meanwhile, much sock knitting proceeds.

Signs of summer...

or rather of summer ending.  After working late last night, my walk home from the bus stop took place in the dark.  But I did find this gift of summer in the garden today.  Red, orange and yellow tomatoes, ripe and smelling of the garden.  A respite before the inevitable return to supermarket tomatoes with their styrofoam consistency.

    The knitting has all been comfort knitting.  Stressful times in casa Rob.  Busy times at work, with long days, though with the kind of work I like -- lots of teaching and study guides to prepare, lots of face-to-face contact with folks.  Very long days though.  And the visit home showed in stark detail the facts of life when parents age.  So, while I was waiting for the patterns I bought at Loopy Ewe to show up, I .. um.. ended up starting another pair of sock toes.  They grew into sock feet, and are now developing heels.  The yarn is a gorgeous colorway of the regretfully defunct Froelich Blauband.  And since this was definitely comfort knitting, so far I just have stockinette feet.  The legs will have a pattern -- I just haven't figured out which.  Probably one of the Stansfield (?) patterns from Sensational Knitted Socks.

     And, after saying very recently that I can't imagine doing a mystery shawl when there are so many visible patterns I would like to try, I signed up for the Secret of the Stole.  It's Robbyn's fault.  It did feel very cool though to shop my stash for the yarn and the beads.  I think I am going to use the mossy green shade of Knitpicks Shadow, which they call Lost Lake.  It is a gorgeous heather.

     I also have a small bead stash, and would like to use one of those for this project.  I bought some gorgeous beads from a wonderful little company called eebeads.com.  I have some coppery ones (called Bronze Copper at eebeads.com), some bronze ones (called Bronze :>) , and -- found in a shop in Seattle -- some light green clay ones.  Here is a little display of all the options.

On the left, obviously, the ceramic green.  They have a mottled color, which kind of goes well with the heathered yarn.  The one on the right is the bronze, which appears in this photo to practically match the yarn.  And the third one is the copper, which picks up a bit of the heathery bronze or copper in the yarn.    A swatch using each is probably the best way to choose, but what do you folks think?  Which would you choose?

Working my way back

     I couldn't resist.  After the very great satisfaction of finishing two pairs of socks, images of sugarplu some of the fancy sock yarns I bought this summer dancing in my head, I cast on with the Schaefer Anne.  While I used Anne for the Scotch Thistle stole this spring, this is the first time I have used it for socks.  Wow.  Double wow.

     First, a sock toe.  I actually have two of these, luxuriating in knitting both socks of a pair at the same time, but I only scanned one.  I use the wonderful Turkish cast on that Meg Swansen wrote about in Vogue Knitting.  I used to use Judy's magic cast on but this one is even easier.  And the yarn ... knit at its standard gauge, Anne is absolutely amazing.  This yarn is a mix of wool, mohair and nylon.  It is incredibly luxurious to the touch, just a tremendous pleasure to work (and pet).  And since mohair is known to be durable, I am hoping that the combination of mohair and nylon means these socks will be very long lasting.  That helps assuage my ... guilt?  embarrassment? horror? ... at the cost per pair of socks.  But wait!  This skein of yarn has something like 560 yards.  So who knows, I may get more than one pair from it.  That would be perfect.  It might be expecting too much but I was surprised at how much yarn I had left over from each of the two recently completed sock projects.  Hey, if I buy two skeins in the future, I would easily get 3 pair from the two skeins.  That would bring the price down per pair a bit.  Anyway, my pleasure in knitting with this yarn is tremendous.  I am getting a much smaller gauge than I usually do with sock yarn, so folks are right when they say it is lighter in weight than some fingering yarn, though it doesn't feel like it at all when you work it.  I am getting a great fabric using a US size #1 needle, getting about 10 stitches to the inch.  So this sock is being done on a few more stitches than I usually use -- the 60 stitches that did NOT work with the Opal yarn.

     As usual, I started the toes before I decided on the exact pattern I am going to use.  I decided I wanted something like  this, or this or this (though definitely not in that yarn.)  Notice anything about the three?  Yeah, I may have bought 3 very similar patterns.  So that leads me to a goal for this fall.  I seem to have a mental block preventing me from figuring out how to convert flat stitch patterns into circular patterns.  If I could figure that out, I could sit down with a standard stitch dictionary and create a gazillion sock patterns.  So that is my next knitting goal -- figuring that out.  My biggest problem is getting patterns to line up, but now that I am comfortable with charting, I hope that will help me get it right.  Actually, it seems like it would be pretty simple if I chart it.   

     Isn't there an image in one of the Harry Potter books or some other fantasy epic of someone plucking scattered flying objects out of the air and putting them in their place?  That's how I visualize my attempts to create some order in my life.  Not quite the effort of throwing myself bodily across the thing like they do putting away the quidditch equipment, but it is difficult -- as soon as I place a flying whatsit in its place it takes off again, darting across my life.  It takes constant routine attention to keep ordinary life going smoothly and I am terrible at constant routine attention.  Instead I tend to disengage.  I am feeling and sounding better because I am slowly re-engaging with things at the moment.  The completed socks show that I re-engaged with my knitting.  I am showing a surprising (to me) amount of engagement with my house.  Instead of moving (don't laugh -- I have done it before), I am actually dealing with issues with the house -- got an electrician in to deal with several problems, bought a new vacuum cleaner, participated in a yard sale that got rid of all kinds of things I should have gotten rid of years ago.  The big issue for me now is re-engaging with my job.  The beginning of the semester helped with that, and I have been more productive in the last couple of weeks, getting a satisfying number of things completed (and enjoying the work).  How silly is it that a knitting-obsessed, reading-obsessed unathletic middle-aged (!) woman is a sort of adrenalin junkie?  Turns out it doesn't always mean climbing mountains or gambling.  But the beginning-of-semester burst of energy doesn't last very long, and I need to find ways to motivate myself other than designing new careers!  So instead I took on an intern, got started on some projects that had been left in corners, and have made plans to start blogging about language for my library.  As a friend pointed out to me yesterday, I periodically re-engage with my cello.  As a matter of fact, that's been on my mind.  All I need to do first is dig out all the crap in piles in the study, to make room for the cello...   'scuse me, gotta go.

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.

Not quite spring

    Central PA is resisting spring, though at least it hasn't snowed in a few days.  It is a crisp autumn day out there at the moment, on April 15 13.  Some of the daffodils are showing, and I have seen one -- exactly one -- forsythia in bloom.  In Pittsburgh last weekend I saw they are as usual about 3 weeks ahead of us here in the central mountains, with all the daffs up (and a bit frozen from the Easter snow) and some trees in bloom.  The trees here are still stark though the lawns are greening up.
     Here's the progress on Scotch Thistle.  I am through the third segment now.  I had to frog it and start that segment again, so I am being more careful with lifelines.  I got careless and began treating lace knitting as if it were mindless knitting.  It's not.  But I am just using lots of lifelines and paying a bit more attention.  Weirdly enough I was messing up on the purl rows, which is just carelessness.  It will be very interesting to see how this blocks out.  At the moment the end, as you can see, is narrower than later sections and segment two forms bumps.  It will also be interesting to see how this rather hard-twist yarn blocks out. 
    I succumbed to another skein of Schaefer Anne on ebay.  Gorgeous colors, possibly even those in the original Scotch Thistle.  I don't know what shawl or stole this will be yet but the colors are gorgeous. (Oh wait, I said that already.)  This photo doesn't show that on the other side the skein also has some magenta and gold that really sparks it up.
    And, for the first time in a long time, some fleece got washed.  This is some Romney lamb's fleece that I bought almost exactly a year ago.  It took a LOT of work to get it clean.  The tips were brown with lanolin and dirt.  But I reread the chapter on scouring fleece in Lee Raven's Hands on Spinning and decided to trust her when she said that only the cut end will felt.  The cut ends were clean, so I went back, used enormous amounts of Dawn and added teapots of hot water to the sink, along with turning up the temperature on the hot water heater, and WASHED those tips.  As you can see, not all the fleece retained the lock formation, but I don't think I felted it.  I am really looking forward to spinning this.  It is so so soft.  I am not even going to dye it first, as I have always done.  Instead I am going to spin it into yarn and dye the yarn.  I will also have to figure out how to spin the soft little clouds this combs into.  It just takes a swipe with the dog comb, and I have a cloud.  A cloud with a 3-inch length.  That's shorter than anything I have prepared before this, so I need to think about how to set up the wheel.  Faster?  Slower?  Less pull to let it grab the next bit?  Help!  I also realized I have dyed earlier fleeces in rather light colors, so this yarn might end up a more brilliant one.
     And finally, that Pingouin Silk from the past.  Digging around I found 9, count 'em, 9 balls of this stuff.  That is 1260 yards of what turns out to be worsted weight yarn.  I know, the label says DK, but a closer look (glasses off) at the little gauge chart shows they recommend knitting it at 5/in.  And I must have another ball somewhere, attached to the quickly abandoned original project, since these are all virgin balls of yarn.  Hmmmm....  That could be a summer cardigan. 

Playing

 

   Sick all weekend, without even the energy to knit.  So I just let things percolate and on Monday began just playing, as Robbyn suggested, with the lace yarn I was so eager to knit with.  I grabbed another pattern from the 2005 Knitting Pattern a Day calendar, this time the Bias Lace Scarf (Feb. 23) and started it just to get the feel of the yarn.  This is the beginning of the scarf in KnitPicks Alpaca Cloud.  And yes, it is blue green (and another poor picture). 
     The good news: I can't remember what all the trouble was with lace weight yarn.  I can read my stitches with no problem.  So that's a giant step forwards.  The other good news -- without realizing it, I did a .... whaddya call it? .... oh yeah, a swatch.  Turns out, using a size 5 needle on this yarn?  Nuh uh.  When I stretched it as if to block, the solid sections were no longer solid at all.  So I am really going to use this as a swatch by binding off here and blocking it wet, to see if the yarn blooms at all.  If not, I get to use a smaller needle.  Like maybe a 3.
    The pattern on the other hand is not such great news.  Unlike the South Slocan scarf pattern from the same calendar, which I thought was well written, this one is full of holes (forgive the lousy pun).  There is more to writing a pattern than choosing a lace stitch and slapping a garter border on it.  All kinds of information is missing.  Supposedly info is given for both lace weight and worsted weight.  No estimated yarn yardage is given for either.  Only a size 10 needle for the worsted is mentioned.  No dimensions are given for the finished scarf in either yarn weight.  The instructions say to cast off, "tuck in ends and enjoy."  A lacy newby would be really up the creek.  But since I know to use a smaller needle with lace weight yarn -- and now I know to swatch it! -- and since I know that, as you can see, this lace pattern needs to be blocked, I will probably keep this pattern as a doodle.  Y'know, for small amounts (I think) of lace weight yarn or as a good swatch pattern.
     Meanwhile, the four Heartstrings patterns I splurged on arrived from Heritage Yarns. I am delighted with them all -- links to them all on my last blog entry.  There is a discussion on the Lace Knitters Yahoo!Group about the Scotch Thistle lace stole that once again addresses the use of variegated yarn in lace patterns.  The stole, as pictured on the pattern, is done in Schaefer Anne yarn, which is a variegated, and looks so pretty.  But I realized that I couldn't tell you much about the lace pattern.  So from a knitting-technique standpoint, the yarn is too busy -- it takes away from the lace pattern.  From a less technical standard, the stole is gorgeous.  And I love knitting with variegated yarn, since watching the colors develop is so interesting, and am concerned that a whole shawl of solid yarn might get a bit boring to knit.  I would love to find more subtly variegated yarns for work like this.  In the meantime I am enjoying the Knit Picks alpaca and merino lace yarns, which are heathered, and wish there were more lace yarns like that.