Life's a Stitch

Remember my post from the beginning of November when I was trying to locate some yarn I remembered seeing at a particular shop? It had teeny snow balls attached to the yarn. I called the shop and they had no idea what I was talking about. I told them I remembered something made of it hanging on the wall in the shop and they were still clueless. I had the opportunity to visit that shop while in WA; it was Jennings in LaConner. Sure enough, hanging on the wall was the poncho I remembered knit out of yarn with tiny snowballs. It’s Online Linie Iceland and looks like sleet or little hail pebbles attached to the yarn. It was a bit pricey for a sweater and I don’t need another poncho, so I bought two skeins to make a scarf; maybe in mistaken rib.

I’m hoping it stops raining here this weekend. We are having a monsoon and it’s rained over 220mms over the past I don’t know how many days. Apparently our town has been declared a disaster area because of mud slides. Although we are pretty high up the mountain we are on level ground with no steep inclines nearby. Others have not been as lucky. It has been a strange year weatherwise.

Wishing you a safe and dry weekend.

I went for my not quite on time yearly physical the other day, complete with humiliating routine exams of multiple orifices. A couple of hours later I had a message on my cell phone:

"Hello Li, this is Rita from Dr. J’s office. It appears you have left the office without completely dressing."

A pregnant pause.

My mind races through the list, hands checking off my thoughts:

Panties? Check.

Bra, Check.

Whew.

My earrings, wedding ring and watch that I removed to weigh in lighter? Check. Check. Check.

Jeans? Check.

Turtleneck? Check.

La Boheme Drop Stitch Scarf? Check.

My mind works fast under pressure.

"You have left your belt in the exam room."

How do you spell relief?

C-h-e-a-p  l-e-a-t-h-e-r  b-e-l-t. Thank goodness it wasn’t the scarf!

Speaking of scarves, this is the progress on my Multidirectional Scarf.

Due to too many meetings, I won’t be posting tomorrow. See you Friday.

AARRGHH! I tried on my blocked Fleece Artist sweater and the fabric loosened up so much that even though it blocked to what I thought was a perfect size, when I put it on, it stretched hugely. It was downright baggy.

What to do? A hem? A controlled shrink? I know someone who was so disappointed in the large size of her Fair Isle that she actually felted it. It looked great but I wasn’t sure if I was brave enough to try that. But, this sweater was so soft and floppy it could do with some stiffening up somehow.

I fretted for an hour or two and decided I was really unhappy with the size and decided to take the hot water plunge. I knit a swatch and felted it for seven minutes. It looked close to its original knitted state, a little less flopsy with a bit more body. What the heck, I thought. Back to the washer I went with a large sweater bag and some towels. Plopped it in and carefully timed seven minutes. At the end I stopped the washer, opened the top, steamed up my glasses and couldn’t locate the sweater bag. All I could find were the towels. The water was scalding hot and I couldn’t manage to reach in far enough to find the sweater bag. I grabbed an old long handled paint brush and rescued my sweater, having been in the bath for two minutes longer than the swatch. The adrenaline was pumping through my veins as I opened up the bag to find a somewhat harder smaller looking sweater. With a bit of wrestling it blocked out to the proper size. It has a different look, more like a light weight boiled wool jacket. Go figure. I’m definitely happier with it, the texture is so nice! My hands however, are crying for lotion. If there was a medal for knitting bravery I would submit my name. Here is the finished product:

I have finished my Fleece Artist Garter Stitch Cardigan. I was getting a little nervous toward the end hoping there would be enough yarn for the sleeves. Remember, I decided to knit the jacket longer than the pattern instructions; risky with a kit. A quick yarn weigh in on my kitchen scale reassured me. After it was all put together the sleeves were a tad short, I guess I was too anxious to get them done because there was enough yarn to knit them longer still. I hoped the blocking would solve the problem and it looks like it will:

The house reeks of wet goat. Funny how wool smells when it’s wet. I’m not worried, it was fine while I was knitting with it and I used Eucalan which helps as well. The boy stated that he loves the wet goat smell, bringing back memories of the petting zoo at summer camp.

This kit is reasonably priced for hand dyed yarn. There were two yarns included – a loopy mohair and a plain mohair. The label indicated that both hanks were of the same weight. The plain mohair has more length so there’s some left.

The final step will be sewing on the two pewter clasps I picked up in WA. This was a very quick enjoyable knit.

Over the years I’ve been slowly building my collection of Addi turbo needles. The one pair I have used the most is the US size 8 – AKA 5mm. I bought them from Philosopher’s Wool about a year and a half ago in anticipation making my first Fair Isle sweater. If you are familiar with Philosopher’s Wool Fair Isles you know they are pretty heavy sweaters as you knit them in the round and carry the colours along. I once broke one of my Denise interchangeable needles on a Philosopher’s sweater. I like my Denise’s, but not for everything. I thought the Addis, on the other hand, were the workhorse of knitting needles. Not so. While working on my multidirectional scarf I discovered that the needle is coming apart from the cable on one side. I’m hoping that this is a defective needle and that the weight of the fair isles haven’t done them in. I’ll keep you posted when I receive a reply from Philosopher’s.

Lynne asked about photos of my WA trip stash enhancement. I’ve been slow to get photos up, but this is one of them. Three skeins of Classic Elite Bravo silk mohair. I’m thinking of a lengthwise scarf with thicker stripes of the pink and thinner ones of the green. I left the yarn in the bowl and the next day discovered Bryant had added a prop – a fork and spoon looked ready to serve a yarn salad. Enjoy your weekend.

…to bring you a multidirectional scarf. Have you ever intended to knit a swatch and it turned into a project? It just happened. I was so excited to swatch the Fleece Kid from Fleece Artist and I just couldn’t stop. Oh boy is it beautiful. I’m using 5mm (US8) needles which is comforting as I was expecting to use teensy tinsy ones after discovering the yarn was two ply instead of the four ply I was expecting. It is so soft and rich with colour and the pattern is high on the "just one more row" factor. This is my new favourite scarf pattern:

With two out of three kids back at school it was time to take Gracee to the groomer. They prefer the shaggy Grace to the groomed one. What do you think? I think I have to learn how to fix ‘blue eye" in dog photos.

Can you identify what happened here?

How about a close up:

Using your best Maxwell Smart voice: "Would you believe I was trying to dye my yarn with red wine?"

The truth: I am a fairly easy going person. I take things in stride. When I get frustrated I find that winding yarn is an excellent way to burn off those feelings. I was EXTREMELY frustrated tonight. Mostly angry, but I’ll spare you the details. So off to the winder I went accompanied by a large glass of red wine. My winding stuff is on a pull out desk and the wine was carefully placed on the desk’s hutch. I wound for a bit and paid attention to make sure the glass was not moving. Not enough attention as when I hit my stride rehearsing the conversation I would love to have with the object of my anger, off the glass jumped, shattering into two million pieces including the ones that embedded themselves into my hand and foot as I tried to clean the mess. I would have had far less mess and far more satisfaction had I thrown the glass, but I’m not that kind of person.

The solution:

These products have come to our red wine rescue on more than one occasion. I know someone, whose husband is a supreme court judge who wouldn’t allow company to drink red wine in their white carpeted house. If they had only met my two friends pictured above, life would have been more pleasant for them.

Moral: Drinking and winding don’t mix.

I’ll be back on Thursday.

Mari convinced me to drive her back to the dorm rather than drop her off at the ferry to fend for herself and all of her stuff. She bribed me with 90 minutes at the Beehive Wool Shop in Victoria, easily the best little yarn shop in BC.

So, Elina, Mari and I took off with enough time to catch the 10:00 am ferry. As we crossed the bridge, 20 minutes ahead of the terminal, Mari started saying "Uh-oh, Uh-oh, I had the schedule wrong, they are on the odd hours, not the even hours." No big deal, we spent an hour eating muffins while waiting for the ferry.

Click on the photo for a nice view of Mount Baker from the ferry. 2.75 hours later we landed in Victoria and headed straight for downtown.  After a Chinese lunch buffet I spent my allotted hour and a half at the Beehive while the girls were at a uniform shop buying scrubs for Elina’s job in pediatric cardiology – Clifford the Big Red Dog, the Pink Panther, Nemo…

I bought one skein of Fleece Artist Kid Silk in my usual jewel tones. It’s kid and silk and has enough for two nice scarves, one for a gift and one for me. I’ve decided there will be no more guilt over stash enhancement. OK, maybe just a little guilt. I know my stash is smaller than many and right now I have a little money to spend on yarn. In a few years that might be different and I’ll have to depend upon my stash. I’m usually good about using up what I have. This sound like guilt talking, so I’ll stop.

Afterwards, I convinced the girls to let me stop at a button store to add to my collection of Scottie buttons. Then a quick trip to the dorm and back onto the ferry with no time to spare.

Everyone on that ferry has a story. There was the ancient Volvo with the tall guy, the black dog and every possible possession packed into his car. The brand new Toyota Matrix, driven by a 70+ year old woman, the car still with protective peel off stuff on the hood and a sticker on the window; she looked very cool. Then there was the multiply pierced young woman in the cafeteria being bothered by the shaggy guy pouring beer into his coffee cup. The treat was the Chinese senior choir practicing on the top deck and of course, the BC ferry clam chowder. A perfect day.

The boy  has successfully learned to knit and purl. He’s had some troubles with the first and last stitch in each row, but he’s learning quickly. He found some camouflage yarn on clearance at Joann.com (a boy after my own heart) and a coupon for free shipping (he really takes after me), so for $2.18US, he will have enough yarn for wrist bands, and a scarf.

Bryant also knows that my level of TypePad can support up to three blogs and announced, "If I get serious about this knitting I can have a blog and I’ll call it Son of a Stitch." That’s my boy! I’ll fess up, he named my blog as well.

An almost finished front side of the Autumn Silk Cardigan. It has a v-neck:

I know, you must think I’m giving my child a complex. It’s just that I’m so used to having girls that when my son does anything that is stereotypically male, I think back to those magic words. Congratulations, it’s a boy!

Background info: for the past 14 years, we have rented out our condo in WA as a vacation rental. After a week at a condo people leave weird things behind. We’ve found underwear, Rolaids on more than one occasion, and a Hustler magazine (all together now, "Eeewwwww"), but this trip revealed the most odd item of all. Why don’t they leave Addi turbo knitting needles? No, the last renters left a .50 cal blowgun. This "survival" item was left in a bedroom. Lord knows what they were doing in there.

Mari and Bry came back home a day ahead of us. We received a panicked phone call that night because Mari saw the bag of bread jiggling on the counter. When she bravely prodded it, out jumped a small mouse who proceeded to the toaster oven for shelter. Mari looked in the toaster window and was nose to nose with said mouse. I understand that it was a scene similar to one seen on cartoons – both with shocked looks, paws and hands in the air. Mouse proceeded to the stove and disappeared into the wall.

When we arrived home form WA, Bryant greeted us proudly, showing off the blow darts he made out of pencil erasers and sewing needles. You know where this is going, don’t you? We are a peaceful, non-violent, non-hunting kind of family, but my son, the boy for whom I was congratulated upon his birth, tonight has two notches in his blow dart gun for the two mice he has "successfully" hunted, his father enthusiastically egging him on. The have even fantasized mounting the heads of their prey as trophies of their success. Congratulations…

I’m thankful for "problems" like these when the world is coping with war and disaster. With no daily TV in our lives, one very visual day of US TV this past week really put things into perspective.

As I’ve said before, when under considerable strain, "someone get me my knitting!" And they did. Here is the start of the sleeve on my Garter Stitch Cardigan.