Fluffbuff

Thank goodness for friends. If it weren't for Kathy, I would have strangled the shawl, myself and possibly someone else, today.

She managed to disintangle my mess and see that I had not in fact cut the body of the shawl, as I had thought. The damage to the last few rows of the body was actually my fault, as I had ripped part of the border while still in shock and forgot that, at that end, it was knitted onto live stitches. That was a very good piece of news, and after Kathy did all the hard work of analysing the structure, picking up the stitches at the top of the body and on one side of the border, I was on my way to reknit just a few repeats of the border.

I sure learned a lot today. For one thing, I didn't realize how much harder it is to figure out how to pick up stitches from the bottom than from the top. When I cut and then ripped those few repeats, I was only able to pick up the stitches properly on one side of the border (where the teal markers are). I had tried to pick up the stitches on the other side (salmon markers) and failed.

So, around 3pm or so, I was done with the edge and ready to graft, when…

I saw a mistake several repeats down, and I mean several repeats before where I had reknit the edge. And I got so upset that I inadvertently pulled the needle off the wrong edge. I was ready to throw in the towel, but Kathy picked them up again and got me to the point that I could tink my way back all those rows. She would have unraveled those rows much faster, but I didn't trust myself to do it that way and preferred to tink to the point where I could start reknitting again. Thank you, Kathy!

I am now done with the tinking and the knitting and I'm back where I can graft the two sides of the border. Only, at this point I don't trust myself; I am mentally exhausted by concentrating all day on this. Tomorrow I'll be gone for the sock workshops at Unwind, so this may have to wait until Monday.

Posted by Francesca at 7:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)

After getting stuck with the first German Stocking, I casted on for new socks with the cotton/wool yarn I bought last week. The first one is almost done and I call them my sea socks because of the fiber and the colors. I thought I'd reacquaint myself with knitting socks since I hadn't done that in a while and I am taking two sock workshops this Sunday.

The issue with the German stocking is that the instructions are very precise about how to take measurements, but I don't understand one of those measurements so I'll ask Cookie A. on Sunday.

And tomorrow, a friend is coming over to give me expert advice and moral support for the fixing of the myrtle leaf shawl. If all goes well, next week there will be FOs. :)

Posted by Francesca at 5:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

No more running around with scissors for a while, and I'll try to keep my name out of the Darwin Awards for Knitters. Oh wait, there are no Darwin Awards for Knitters… yet. Maybe I should start that.

So life goes on and the injured shawl is still tucked away. I had planned to finish frogging yesterday, but I still couldn't bring myself to pick it up. Soon, I hope. In the meantime, I started the first German stocking, but I was so distracted that I kept making mistakes and have already ripped everything three times. I am now on my fourth start. Anybody wants to venture a bet as to how many times I'm going to have to cast on this sock?

Between ripping sessions, I spent some time going over Mimknits' brilliant lace tutorial and making most of the recommended swatches. Swatching is something I've always enjoyed and Mim's tutorial on lace structure is extremely helpful and clear. A+

Saturday I used the excuse that I needed some cheering up to do some retail therapy and since yellow makes me happy, I bought something yellow: a Kritter Case from Clover. There were also a green frog and a pink hippo, in case you are interested.

Other things that came home with me were a pair of Addi Turbos in size 2.5mm for the German stockings, since I couldn't obtain gauge with the sizes I had at home, and a skein of Lana Grossa cotton yarn for socks. I am not a fan of knitting cotton, but it's getting too warm, even in our old house, for wool socks.

The Louet Gems and the Lane Borgosesia lace weight yarn arrived in the mail last week from The Loopy Ewe.

To do: less frogging, more knitting.

Posted by Francesca at 9:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)

Some days go by entirely uneventful; others are packed full with things, good and bad. Yesterday was such a day. Lots accomplished on the work front and then a neverending series of small annoyances, until tragedy struck.

I had just finished my myrtle leaf shawl, finished! I still had the scissors in my hand from cutting threads after weaving them in and I don't know how it happened, a sudden movement… I cut into the shawl. I CUT THE SHAWL!

Disbelief. Panic. Oh no, I have to redo the border! Oh no, I cut into the body as well!!! I'm going to shoot myself.

Fortunately, I was able to cry on a few shoulders. I emailed a friend and then posted on Ravelry and got some good advice and virtual hugs from the knitting sisterhood. Thank goodness for that. My shawl is still in shambles, but I'm a little less upset.

The shawl is now hidden from view and from kitty paws (why tempt fate?) and I will not even look at it until tomorrow, when I plan to frog the border on one side and two corners, frog several rows of the body and let everything sit for several days so the yarn relaxes a bit. I'll probably pick it up again in a week or two.

For now, I cast on for the first of my German stockings. Needless to say, I was so upset that I made a mess of that, too, and had to start three times and there may be a forth, because I think my gauge is not as tight as Cookie A.'s instructions. I'll knit a few more rows, though, to get a better idea of the fit.

Have a good weekend everybody.

Posted by Francesca at 3:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (18)

Cookie A. is coming to LA next month to teach some sock workshops at Unwind in Burbank. I'm in love with her German Stockings and couldn't let this opportunity pass me by, so I signed up for two of the three workshops offered at Unwind:

1. Toe-Up Socks
2. Top-Down Sock Design
3. Troubleshooting Your Feet

For some great pictures of the German Stockings, check out sock prØn.

The workshops will be about sock design and not specifically about this pattern, but I don't care. I figure that I'll pick up enough sock design goodness to be able to tackle the German Stockings pattern. In fact, I hope to design my own socks and stockings after that.

Since I can't bear to post without pictures, here's something totally unrelated, just because. Oh, and for the record, I'm going to have to frog everything I knitted last night as well. Getting senile, I suppose. Grumble, grumble…

Have I mentioned that, in our free time, Ben and I are basically laps for the felines?

Posted by Francesca at 2:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (22)

Sunday I finished the body of the Myrtle Leaf shawl and started knitting the border. It took me three starts because I got myself into trouble over a couple of things. One was the YO at the beginning of the row. Fortunately Google brought up a tutorial that showed clearly how to handle that (thank you Purlwhites for that). You'd think I could figure it out on my own, but I guess you have an inflated opinion of my mental abilities. Never mind… once the YO issue was taken care of, I made good progress. Til last night, that is, when I realized that I had a couple of boo-boos along the edge that I couldn't possibly live with, so frogging I went, and started the border again.

Posted by Francesca at 12:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

My first official Sand & Sea meeting was fun and informative. I had met some of the people in this knitting guild last month, when I attended the Bohus workshop with Susanna Hansson, but yesterday was my first time attending one of the regular monthly meetings. Same friendly, relaxed atmosphere I enjoyed at the workshop, including carpooling with some new and old friends. So friendly, in fact, that Pamela brings one of her Bearded Collies, a very handsome puppy called Ghillea. Is he cute or what? No, he doesn't sit on her lap all the time! He was amazingly well behaved and never even made a sound or moved while we were having demos and show-and-tell.

One of the things I learned yesterday is a useful tip for planning yarn purchases. When estimating yardage for a project, keep in mind that yarn is sold by weight and yardage quantity is usually approximate. Dark colors weigh more than light ones because of the weight of the dye, so when buying the same yarn in different colors, you may need to buy a little extra of the dark color. Thanks Aila for this tip! Aila took the Domino Knitting workshop with Susanna Hansson last month (I missed that one) and found out this the hard way. The project for that workshop was a domino scarf in three colors and she chose the "DNA" variation, where two of the colors cover exactly the same area so she purchased a ball of each color. Because of the different weight, she ran out of the dark yarn before the scarf was completed. Fortunately, someone else had enough of that color available that she could finish the scarf.

For those of you who knit Fair Isle, this might be the reason for the problems you occasionally run into when buying Fair Isle kits where you run out of some colors sooner than you expect. Marina, I'd be interested in hearing from you since you had this problem twice in the past few months. Was it the darker colors you ran out of?

This reminded me of another instance where the same yarn behaves differently depending on the color: felting. I knitted and felted a bag last year and used three colors of the same alpaca bouclè yarn — black, dark gray and light gray — and they felted to different degrees. I think the dye had something to do with that, too, but I'm not sure. Maybe Janel can shed some light on this issue, since she has a chemistry background and is an experience dyer. By the way, congratulations Janel on making the cover of Spin Off magazine!

Posted by Francesca at 10:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

Sometimes it comes down to blogging or knitting and this past week I found myself more inclined to spend my evenings on the sofa making progress on the Myrtle Leaf shawl. Thirty-one repeats done. I'm thinking I'll have the body finished by mid June, which makes me very happy. And it's starting to look as if I might have enough yarn for the whole thing after all.

Other than that, not much craftiness to report. I missed a lovely LAF guild picnic last weekend (business got in the way), but this Saturday I am planning to attend the Sand & Sea knitting guild meeting in Malibu. What with working at home and the foot still in not-so-good shape, I'm not getting out much and I look forward to spending a few hours in good company.

Some progress on the vacation planning front: we settled on Portugal. Two weeks is not enough time for two countries, so Spain will have to wait for another time. I bought two guides — "National Geographic Traveler: Portugal" and "Rick Steve's Portugal" — and I'm doing my homework to figure out the itinerary. I'm pretty much sold on the idea of renting a car so we can include some countryside viewing in the mix, and I'll see if we can fly to Lisboa and leave from Porto or something like that. I am really excited about this vacation. I want to learn some Portuguese before the trip, but I only have an audio course in Brazilian Portuguese and I'm not sure how different that is from continental Portuguese. If I learn on the Brazilian tapes, will that get me into awkward situations in Portugal? Should I even worry?

Posted by Francesca at 5:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)