Long Time, No Post

I've been busy avoiding rain, snow, winter weather, and also, being lazy and just knitting. And this weekend I went through some of my stash in order to record where each skein is stored. I had put my stash on Ravelry (or FB for knitters as my younger daughter, who is not a knitter, calls it) but I hadn't indicated where they were stored. My LYS is no longer holding knit nights (@#$%^&). Since the shop is about 15 miles away and I don't go there usually except on knit nights, I guess I will be doing more shopping from stash. Now I know which location each skein is: bin one, bin two, turquoise cabinet, or the closet. 

What fun going through it. I found yarn I hadn't remembered that I had! Too bad I don't know what projects I might have bought them for, but some are so pretty, I can name them and call them pets:

Does anyone know what this is? There is no label.

100% mink!

They are so FLUFFY!


AND, over the weekend, I finished this:

What hot water bottle doesn't dream of a turtleneck sweater?! It is made from soft, soft, soft Malabrigo Rios.  It would have been an easy project had I read the instructions a little more carefully.  

I read the measurement for the ribbed flap at the bottom as 3/8" instead of 3"/8cm. I realized the error when I had almost finished the cozy. Knitter Anna suggested I just pick up stitches and knit until I had 3".  It worked!  And Hey!  I read instructions! Not carefully, I admit, but at least I did read them.

And to cap off the weekend, I found that I could stream my favorite British police drama DCI Banks.  PBS has only played series 4 and I love it, the stories, the actors, the characters they play. I've started streaming from Amazon and it's fun to see how the characters started out, how they all met and worked together, and to watch the character development.

I have half of series one, all of series two and three to go!

Snow? Rain? I don't care!!!

So There We Were,

Sallyknit and I, sitting in our usual spots at last night's knit-night, minding our own business, swearing at knitting away on our Spectra scarves, when out of nowhere came a voice.

Have you seen, it said, what so-and-so's class is making?  It is beautiful.

We looked up long enough to say, No, haven't seen it.  What is it?

Dangerous question.  

This is what they are making:

And the shop has all of the colors in the yarn called for, the voice continued.

So, about two hours later, and after much discussion and changing of minds on colors, and did we REALLY want to make one?, Sallyknit and I (and a couple of other people) each ended up with our own collection of Rowan Fine Tweed yarns. A quite large collection.This is mine:

ooops.  Photo includes two of same color/missed one skein

Ten colors, several in each color.  

The pattern appears to be very simple, and last night we thought it said that there were only 132 rows in the whole wrap.  On size 3 needles.  We should have known better.  A closer reading today reveals that there are many repeats of the 132 rows, so, SURPRISE!

When we teased Candi, owner of the voice, about her successful evening of selling yarn, she said that "selling" is the reason she is there.

But we think she enjoyed the "enabling."

Wouldn't You Think

That friends would tell a friend as they were all leaving knit night together that she was WEARING the knitting needles she had pulled out of a project?

Said aggrieved knitter went to Publix on the way home from knitting and bought Halloween candy...WEARING the aforementioned knitting needles.

She did not discover this until she arrived home.

Thanks guys.

OK, Knitting Perfectionists

You know who you are.

From television legal shows (fictional, yes) I have learned that it is never wise for a lawyer to ask a question of a witness or client that he doesn't already know the answer to or doesn't want to know the answer to. A surprise in front of a jury is never a good thing.

This works in real life too. Never ask for knitting help if you sort of didn't want to know the answer.

Last night at knit night I asked two knitters if the mistake I found in a project was really a mistake, and if so, did it need fixing, and if so, how would I do that?

Because (I discovered) they are apparently perfectionists, they said Yes, it's a mistake, yes, you MUST fix it, and yes, here's how.

Rats. I kind of wanted to ignore it and then use some thread when the whole thing was finished to sort of hide the error. I really shouldn't have asked for help and I kind of think I knew it. What I had really wanted was confirmation that I could just ignore it.

So here it is, all fixed, perfectly, I might add. No one will ever know that there was even a mistake.

This is the first of the two rows I ripped back to get to the mistake.

This is what the final fix looks like now---completely and perfectly mended.

Now I know not to ask for help and advice unless I really, really want it.  
I am prepared for law school.

On an almost completely unrelated note, this is what the sky looked like when we left the shop at 9:00 last night. This was not sunset; that had occurred earlier. The purply-red was redder than this, and extended left and right for a ways. It almost looked like pictures from California fires, but it was just a weird storm. Behind us was a rainbow, in the dark sky, something which Sallyknit said that the news reported was a very rare occurrence--a nighttime rainbow. 

We were lucky to have gone outside when we did. Seconds later, lightning filled the red sky. Very weird. And very beautiful.

[Thanks to Candi for the photograph.  It is much better than my washed out one!]

YUM!!!

Anna, Sallyknit and Lucille organized a birthday party for me during last night's knit night and Sallyknit brought these WONDERFUL cupcakes!!!

The picture doesn't really show the height of the icing-as high as the cupcakes themselves. And just some of the flavors available at Gigi's Cupcakes......Caramel Sugar Mama, Coconut Snowball, Chocolate, Wedding Cake, Key Lime, and Pina Colada (with the umbrella).

They were so good that I announced that I am having another birthday next Thursday.

Maybe someone will bring cupcakes!!!

And aren't knitters wonderful people?!

The Copycat Reese Witherspoon Wrap

I am finally, after five starts, making progress on the wrap I promised younger daughter in exchange for her putting all that mohair fringe on my wrap when she was here in July.

This is the first project I have ever made without a pattern, but with, instead, just an idea: the wrap worn by Reese Witherspoon in one scene in Sweet Home Alabama. I started out knitting it completely in garter stitch, but that was boring and kind of plain. Then I went through sizes 7, 8, 9, and now size 10 needles until I got a fabric I liked. On tens the fabric drapes nicely. I took the whole thing to last week's Knit-Night and asked for help. Thank goodness for kindred knitters!

Lucille (thanks Lucille!) showed me a project she had started using a stockinette border, seed stitch body, and increases to get the angled side. On my first attempt, I used a knit or purl into the front and back of the next-to-the last stitch on the front side for the increases and ended up with a wobbly edge. Lucille suggested a yarnover increase, and that has worked beautifully - giving the edge a tiny bit of the look of lace.

The yarn is Cascade Pastaza (50% Llama and 50% wool) in color 289, a really pretty sort of blue/gray. I started with three stitches and increased on the front side until I had forty-five stitches. The wrap will be about fourteen inches wide. I'm not sure how to do the decreases on the other end in order to have the same lace appearance, but I'm very sure that Lucille will know!

More Short-Attention Span Knitting

At last night's Knit Night I bought yarn for two more quick projects-a project bag and a really cute stuffed bunny with a cloth attached. The bunny will be for Elizabeth for Easter. The bag? Who knows.....

The Marble Chunky ball is even larger than it looks in the photo. It's 100% acrylic, something I NEVER knit with, except for this project, and the other is Plymouth Yarn Heaven, and it is 100% nylon, something I NEVER knit with, except for this project. What can I say? I am a wool snob!