Etherknitter

BloPoNawMor #18 2018

Full tilt boogie to Thanksgiving!  All preparations progressing.  I tried to change up recipes (vegetables, dressing/stuffing, cranberry recipe).  Anticipating insurrection and revolt from one or all guests, I finally (only) added a lovely local pork shoulder, and will call it a Day.

To soothe the frenetic pace, a few stitches are occasionally knit.  I am working on a little boy sweater, Knitting Pure and Simple pullover pattern.  The boy is born, is growing faster than I can knit, and I am hoping the 12 month size fits this Brogdingnagian child.  I finished the body, bound off today, and will do neckband and sleeves next.  It is far far easier than a blankety blank.

The counter is filling with raw materials.  And the sweater is a beautiful yarn, Uxbridge sport weight SW merino, held double, dyed by Ballandskein Judy, in colorway Stormy Weather.

 

NaBlahPloMo #17 2018

This small crane appeared in the house.  I knew she was coming.  She is early.  I can never remember who is the Thanksgiving cactus, who is the Christmas cactus, and who claims to be the Easter cactus.  Doesn't matter.  The answer becomes easily obvious.

These are the kinds of plants you can never throw away.  They don't die.  And since my dead mother gave it to me over 20 years ago, you can tell she and I have been and will be in it for the long haul.

NaBoPolVolt #16 2018

We got the snow.  It was pretty.  It was soaked with rain.  All the plow boys were eager to make some money in the early season, so the roads were in good shape.  I watched horizontal snow this afternoon for a brief time.  Drama.

This weekend will be Thanksgiving ingredient acquisition activities.  It will be problem solving.  (How does one rake snow-covered leaves?  How does a refrigerator hold all that needs to be colded?  How will all the food turn into Thanksgiving?)

The lists are growing faster than I can manage them.  

A Verb For Keeping Warm is tempting with more mittlets.  There may be a theme here.

 

NaMoBloPeep #15 2018

It was a tough day, and it is very hard to blog right now.  Let's just say that it is snowing now, and that is good.  It is going to turn to ice, and that is bad.  At some point, it will turn to rain.  (That is where the weather forecasters get fuzzy, as always.)  There is still a bit of yard work to do, but the snow will melt by the weekend, and that is good.  The run-up to Turkey will be cold, and that is good.  But work never ends, surgery happens all the time, and that is bad.

I am dying to knit EVERYTHING, and this is the latest everything.  Donna Kay designed it.  She is good.  So is the yarn.

It is Finullgarn, again with the good honest yarn that needs to be knit.  

Let me leave you with something Mr. E showed me on the web.  It has something to do with the StarTrek universe, with people who have too much time on their hands, and with the genius things they do with that time that endlessly amuses me.  And others.

 

NaPoMoJo #14 2018

Kinda blew the numbering on the last post (yesterday).  Fixed.  Don't go back and read it again.

The young staff are baby booming.  It is a remarkable stream of infants.  Some need knitted objects.  Some don't.  I'm drowning in those who do.

I saw the Bounce baby blanket, and liked the pattern.  Unfortunately, the hand-dyed kit was selling for ~$140.  Of course I have a great deal of respect for the amount of time, energy, and cost associated with hand-dyed yarn.  But I could not spend that much dinero on a baby blanket.  I went to Webs to color-pick Cascade 220 superwash.  With the addition of a main color (MC), I could get two blankets out of one set of colors.  The cost was something less than half, so, yes, two for the price of one.

The first one was a sequence of 10 colors, reversed in the middle, and a honking number of ends to weave in.  It was well-received by the mom.  So when another baby rolled around, I had to do it again.  This time, to halve the ends, I knit the colors in stripes of two each.  So instead of one-one-one-one-one x 20 etc., it was two-two-two x 10.  Not quite half the ends, but close.  By the time it was done, I wanted to stick the proverbial needles in my eyes.  I could barely finish the last color.  But I did.

I haven't blocked that one yet.  You will have to wait.  But I have blocking pix of the first one.  Do know that the quintessential problem with being a Yankee, is that I STILL have enough of the contrast colors to knit ANOTHER BABY BLANKETY BLANK.  Which is how it has become known around these parts.  It will have to be a different pattern.  I'm betting they don't even make strait jackets anymore, which is what I would need if I did it again.

NaMolBloPol #13 2018

Last year, the annual agastache was an underwhelming flower.  A 3 inch lavender spike with indistinct florets poked its way up towards the sun.  I crossed it off my list of repeats.

Until the flowerhead matured.  It was swarmed constantly by little yellow birds.  They had it for breakfast.  They had it for lunch.  They invited their friends for dinner.  This year, they threw goldfinch orgies on the plant that I bought for them.

So much for believing that the garden is about me.

  

NaBoPloMo #12 2018

And just for the sake of completeness, I found pix of the hemmed, finished rag rug -

The hem is woven of half thickness rag weft pieces, and then is folded over three times before being sewn to the body of the piece.

BloPoMoNa #11 2018

Before leaving for Sweden, I looked online for yarn shops.  The data stream for such things is not particularly helpful, and it isn't up to date.   Only one yarn shop per country, I decided.  

A practical and pragmatic decision, it fell apart in Stockholm.  The one store I chose (lots of nice reviews, reports of hand-dyed silk, one picture on the website that made the yarn look irresistable) was a bust.  We walked to Gamla Stan (Old Town).  The proprietress apparently was more of a weaver than a knitter, and her shelves were bare.  No nice silk, and shelves partially filled with what looked like the remnants of yarn from other projects.  

Onward we walked.  I'm looking at cobblestones so I don't trip and fall on my face.  Mr. E calls my attention to a yarn store.  I said "Thank you, dear, but I said one, and we have already been there."  He encouraged me to look, so we went inside.  

The LYS owner greeted us.  The first thing she said was that she had no yarn made in Sweden in the shop.  I laughed.  It apparently is the first thing most knitting tourists ask.  (I guess traveling knitters have morphed from yarny omnivores into picky gourmets.)  

She stocks only yarns that have a pattern presence on Ravelry.  There are very few patterns written for Swedish yarn.  She explained further.  Swedish knitters will only knit a pattern in the yarn that is specified in the pattern, and often, even in the same color as the sample done in the pattern.  She holds classes to help knitters learn how to substitute other yarns, but does not think she is making much headway.  So, of course, she has Brooklyn Tweed yarn, and Madelinetosh.  And Genmou. 

What, you ask, is Genmou?  It is a softly, almost untwisted, merino single, DK weight, bound with another skinny ply of merino.  Deceptively, if you tug on the yarn, it will not break.  She had a length of yarn that she uses to demonstrate this.  I bought some.

I started a brioche scarf, but am not sure what it will become.  I may have cast on too many stitches.  Or perhaps I should make a hat instead, as I am fairly certain the yarn may pill.  But it is soft, and lush, and reminds me of Sweden, and of Stephanie, the LYS lady, who also volunteered to translate any Swedish weaving draft (by email) that puzzles me.  

What a country!

MoPoBloNa #Ten 2018

Vavstuga tempted once again.  It is ridiculous to think that I signed up for the rag rug class 12 months in advance.  Tensile time e x p a n d s because the class will never come.  And then relativity reverses and how could a year have passed but the class is now.

Rag rugs have a recycling, use what you have, make do kind of appeal.  Techniques are straightforward, but you have to know what they are to make a rug that wears well.  Most weaving edges (the sides) are best formed without twiddling with the yarn.  Rag rugs have edges that are formed with maximal twiddling.  Most warp threads are set pretty close together to make a fabric that doesn't fall apart.  Rag rugs have threads set WAY apart so that the rags take the brunt of the wear rather than the warp.  Big fat rag versus small warp thread - it is clear who will win over time.

Pictures:  The rags I chose (in typical iPhone orientation), then the first few picks, then the throwing in of the blue, then finished product before it was hemmed.  (Hemming is hand sewing, painstaking, slow, and hard on the hands.)  It is about 18 1/2" x 24 1/2".  I like it so much, that I doubt it will go on the floor.

But the next one will.  

 

MoBloNaPo #Nine 2018

 The small surprises of the season lie in the violation of seasonality.  Nepeta calamintha calamintha has never bloomed quite so forever.  The bees and wasps are gone, but the flowers please the fall gardener.  And the witch hazel?  How could it be blooming now?  It blooms in February.  But then the mystery takes another turn: which cultivar did I actually buy?  Was it one that blooms in the fall?  The answer is lost to garden history.

The rain tonight soothes the landscape, promising lovely winter sleep and beautiful spring awakenings.