I'm in love

And it's not with yarn. Well, I'm always in love with some yarn and am very keen on O-Wool at the moment having just ordered some (last two skeins of sky, sorry, and six skeins of oatmeal for I know not what) from Webs (closeout, people!). But I'm in love with a person this time...

Elizabeth Zimmerman is so great! I just finished Knitter's Almanac, She combines darling Anglicisms with Midwestern common sense. And I started reading Knitting Without Tears last night. More EZ goodness.

There are many knitters who want to make exactly what they see on the page, down to color of yarn. But from the moment I picked up the needles, I've been wanting to do my own thing. I still remember going to a certain yarn shop near the Green in a historic town (you locals will know which one) with my spiffing copy of Weekend Knitting and telling the woman who was trying to help me that I wanted to make the poncho but didn't want to use the yarn called for (wanted to use Manos instead, my first yarn love) and didn't want to do the baby cable, just 2x2 ribbing. Well, I think I broke her brain. She just could not understand why I didn't want to follow directions.

It's been the same ever since for me, and so far (knock wood or click bamboos) I haven't made too many absolute disasters.

Well, I have one at the moment. Not really a disaster, but I'm not feeling the love for the cardigan I just knit up for Isobel. Finishing isn't going well. What do you think of the frog pond? I was thinking of doing a February cardigan from the Almanac in a kid size on larger needles, since the Mission Falls is worsted, and I believe the February sweater calls for DK or fingering.

As for the Double Wedding Ring quilt (my blocking surface du jour), Sandra, I did not make it, my mother acquired it at some point. She has a passion for antique quilts and my parents have quite a few in their home. I haven't taken up quilting yet. Somehow it seems to much like my graphic design/art direction day job. Just like Pilates seemed too much like ballet class, so I stuck to yoga. And good eyes, Sandra, for seeing the quilt between the drying sweater pieces! BTW, I love that you raise sheep! At a previous art directorship I always said that I was going to quit and go raise sheep.

Seduction Shawl

Here is the beginning of my Flower Basket Shawl. I think this was after only one repeat of the flower baskets, and I'm now on the fourth (of ten). This is another Evelyn A. Clark pattern, which appeared in Interweave Knits. I didn't do the crochet cast-on for two stitches but did a backwards loop cast-on as she recommended in the Old Shale Shawl, which I find a bit less fiddly. Away from my full stash I don't have any smooth, waste cotton handy for the provisional version.

BMFA's Seduction yarn is very slinky and lovely. Perhaps slinky isn't the mot juste, since it doesn't slide right off the needles or anything. It's very nice, but I'm glad I'm using a Bryspun needle as I've caught one or two of the three plies (plys?) a few times and think it would be worse with other needles.

You can't find the pattern on IK's website anymore, but if you Google it, you just might find the PDF... Desperate times call for desperate measures, and my new library (Wilmette Public Library - "we have so much money, we have to renovate or add on every two years!") seems to have only subscribe to IK last year. I'm sure another local library has back issues, or I could buy my own, but I only had a minute the other day to explore my WPL options before Isobel ran wild through the stacks. She has no patience for Mommy's library time. Thank goodness she's almost old enough for the Storytime that allows you to drop off and pick up your child. An entire half hour in the library on my own!

Lace

Just found a great lace blocking tutorial of Stephanie's via an old post of Eunny's. So clever to use some thread. Why didn't I think of that?

I've started a Flower Basket Shawl from an old issue of IK with the BMFA Seduction yarn. Just started the Lower Flower Basket chart, and it's going well so far. Only one tinking episode, which I attribute to my parents' watching of CSI: NY. I am not an hour-long drama girl as a general rule, but when in Rome (and without my Tivo)...

Anyway, I'll try to snap some pics tomorrow, though we all know lace looks like a lump until it's blocked. And now I have some additional ideas about blocking. Yay!

Where does the time go?

How did it get to be May? Ugh. Sorry to go quiet there for a little while, but we went up Nort' to Door County, Wisconsin, for the weekend with my parents. This meant I got quite a bit of knitting done en route, since it's over four hours each way, and Isobel slept for some of it. Can't show you what I worked up, since it hasn't been sent to the intended yet, but suffice it to say it's pretty and soft and light as a feather (and blue). I bought the yarn at Montoya and the woman who helped me pointed out a piece in the window that she'd done using the yarn (suspiciously Kidsilk Haze-like, though it has no silk, just man-made fibers - sorry! I couldn't resist the color) as a carry-along fiber. She seemed surprised that I would use it on its own.

Anyway, I'm now working on some opera gloves in leftover Alpaca Silk from the Mermaid Sweater but seem to have lost the mojo there for a moment. I would my skein of BMFA Seduction Siren Song into a big ball yesterday and am waiting for it to tell me what it wants to be (of the shawl variety).

And my Rockin' Sock Club yarn arrived yesterday. Very nice. It's interesting that the BMFA ladies don't reskein the yarn, and cool that they include a reskeined "emergency" yarn, so you do get to see it all variegated up. Wish they'd show those on the website. Even those of us with advanced imaginations and color understanding sometimes have difficulty seeing the yarn as it will be.

Anyway, personal life is stinky. But Isobel is great. We bought her a potty today. Very exciting. Oh, and she does her own knitting now! Well, not really, but she loves to have her own skein and some needles to play around with and has been "making shawls for you" for me and my parents for the past few days. What a hoot!

Blue Moon

OK, so I'm mooning over the Blue Moon Fiber Arts website, obsessively checking my account to see if they've shipped my new Rockin' Sock Club kit (no, "sigh"), and I wanted to mention that some of the yarn at The Fold was stuff I haven't seen on the site. Colorways and fibers. I've only seen the Bliss yarn is snagged in a sock kit BMFA sells. And the Siren Song colorway is not on the site at all. Stalk The Fold, people! And BMFA, of course.

What do you think of Lucy in the Sky? Of course I heart "plain" Lucy. I remember Nodding Violet was just as pretty in person. Why didn't I get it? I think panic set in. We'll have to see about going out to visit Grandma again soon. She'd get a shawl out of it for sure.

Oh, I've stalled on sewing up Isobel's cardigan.

I checked out Twinkle's book at Borders today, and am considering an addition to the knitting book pile. It will just be a matter of figuring out which size to really knit up and possible yarn subs.

New motto for Purly

With almost 150 posts, I'm no longer the latest knitting blog, so I've got a new tagline courtesy of the Yarn Harlot. In her new book, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee Casts Off,* she says "we don't think of ourselves as obsessed, but rather as exquisitely focused in a very narrow direction." And, of course, my direction is knitting with the occasional crochet edge.

*The link is to Amazon, but be sure to check your local, independent book store first, if you haven't gotten your copy yet.

So, what have I been focused on? Turning this pile of Mission Falls 1824 Wool (ignore that swatch - it didn't work out)



into these bits and pieces for a picot-edged cardi for Miss Isobel, using the numbers in The Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns. I'm going to use it for a vest for Dad, too. Combined with that little, laminated Interweave Yarn Requirements dealie, I'm all set on basics.



Notice anything? One of these things is not like the other.



Seems I'm not terribly good at reading neck-shaping directions twice. Oddly, I messed up on the first one. The one where you don't have to reverse the directions in your head. Sigh. There will be a little frogging tonight I think, once we're dry. And then there will be sewing up and a knitted on button band/collar with picots. Should be cute and plenty big for her to wear next fall.



In the meantime I'm working on a shawl in some destashed Kidsilk Haze in Dewberry. Not a color I would have chosen in a shop, but working on it is a bit of a revelation, and I'm happy I snagged those two balls. I am now thinking of doing Icarus in three skeins of KSH Heavenly. ... Mist is pretty, too. Well, they're all gorgeous! Anyway, this shawl is basic stockinette worked from center neck edge out and down thanks to four YOs every knit row. My plan is to knit up the first skein, see where we are, and then think up a big edge plan with the second skein. I'm doing this on 4.5mm (US7s - I'm trying to learn the metric system for knitting).

Interesting about all the purple, eh? Next up, starting the vest once I get a US4 (3.5mm) circular (and figure out if I want to do stripes on the front or venture into Argyle territory - Dad is a very tall man, so I'm not sure about venturing). Perhaps I should do the Alpaca Silk Opera Gloves, since I have DPNs.

Knitting as ...

Wendy is getting somewhat contemplative about knitting, which brought my thoughts about knitting to the fore.

As you know, life has been a challenge for the Purly girl lately. And that has led to a LOT of knitting: Since January I have knit two sweaters for myself, two shrugs, a pair of men's socks, a pair of gloves, a hat, a purse, a shawl, a shawlette, along with starting another sweater for me, another shawl, a sweater for Isobel, and a vest for Dad. And most of those items are not in bulky yarn. We're talking many, many stitches.

Now, I can't say each one is a prayer or anything, but I have found knitting to be a life-saver. With knitting I've found something to concentrate on other than my situation. Creating stitch after stitch is meditative, though I don't think of knitting as meditation in the strict sense of the word. And working out a new stitch pattern or reworking a size stretches the mental muscles - mine have been getting stuck in some yucky grooves lately, so adding a picot edge to Isobel's cardigan helps to break me out of that groove.

People have been saying for a few years that "knitting is the new yoga". I know what they mean, but isn't that a facile comment? Knitting is knitting, and yoga is yoga. The two share some elements, requiring us to focus on something both inside and outside of ourselves. Modern folks have a tendency to navel gaze (see "yucky grooves"), don't we? Knitting is very personal, but it can also be communal and generous.

Yoga is, of course, navel gazing in the name of health. Breathing is central. And shouldn't we all breathe while knitting? Repetition is important in both practices and leads to increased flexibility and more even stitches. Remember your first knitted item? I still have the "scarf" in my stash, though some day I might frog it and do something else with the yarn (turquoise Manos del Uruguay - I believe in using the good stuff all the way). Remember your first yoga class? Luckily, I've always been flexible, as I started practicing ballet at age three, but I had no idea what I was doing! Now I can do Downward Dog properly and sometimes achieve a Headstand (what a rush!).

Next time: "Crochet is the new Knitting," "Grey is the new Black," and other brilliant observations. Just kidding!