just another raveller

A group portrait of boys from the Western New York Institute for Deaf Mutes located at 1545 St. Paul Street. The boys, wearing dress jackets and ties, are pictured here with knitting needles making socks for servicemen overseas. The socks, along with other knitted items, will be included in Red Cross packages sent to the WWI soldiers. Notes Printed in Rochester Herald, February 3, 1918. Image from the Albert R. Stone Negative Collection, Rochester Museum & Science Center I don't think there's a single one of these guys who is not into his knitting, do you? It's been a busy week in knitting for me, although I don't have any new pictures. I'm just finishing up the second blue sock that I talked about last week, the one with the lavender scented strand of mohair knitted in along with the sock yarn. These are for my Auntie Margaret. I'll push on to make a second pair for Michael. Can't have him setting out for the golf course smelling like lavender, though...

It's been a busy week. I have socks to make. I also did a lot of work on the Pine Tree Palatine shawl, but I've had to put it aside. It was hard to put it down. Too hard. In fact, was having a very difficult time parting from it each evening and not much else was getting done. I'm still on the last wedge of the Wedgette cardigan skirt - awaiting further instructions from Nora Gaughan. Meanwhile, the Fingerlakes Fiber Festival has come and gone for another year. I love this festival. It's a manageable size and it's fun. You always see lots of local people that you know and have a chance to catch up. The weather Saturday was perfect. While there, I purchased a quarter pound (ca 3800 yards) of laceweight mohair for $11. It is suffused with a strong scent of lavender, which leads me to wonder about the M word, but nevermind. I put it to immediate use in one of the socks. See, I'm knitting it in with the sock yarn ( Wildfoote ). The shade of the sock yarn is called ...

Wedgette is a pattern that Berroco designer Nora Gaughan is currently developing for her Ravelry Fan club  to celebrate reaching 2000 members. It also appears on the Berroco design blog . You can see a drawing of it there.  So far, we have the pattern instructions for the bottom half of the cardigan only. It will have an empire waist (shades of Jane Austen). The "skirt" section is knit sideways starting at the center front and working around back around to the other side of the front. The slight flare is created by knitting short rows similar to those in Berroco's Wedge Scarf.    I'm using  Cashsoft DK  rather than Berroco's new yarn, Inca Gold  as suggested. I'm enjoying the knitting very much and also the excitement of seeing the design evolve. At least two different versions have emerged. The first has a gentle flare like some of Nora's other designs such as the Eastlake sweater. The second has a more exaggerated flare. One person has introduced diffe...

We need this rain, we need this rain, we need this rain. Mantra. I've been feeling shattered all week. A tooth broke off at the gum line. I'm anxiously waiting for my passport to be renewed. Work is well, work.  I've been turning for solace to the Pine Tree Palatine Scarf. It's a big project for me. I'm on row 49. The rows seem long and until tonight I thought I was knitting back and forth on the long edge of the scarf. I have now figured out that I have been knitting on the narrow edge, that is the width, and it's actually very wide. I have 225 stitches on the needle. There is no way I'll have enough yarn. I'm using a lace weight called Impressions by "A Touch of Twist."  They're located between Amsterdam and Rotterdam, New York (I just had to work that in). Hopefully, they will be at Hemlock again this year and I can buy more in a close enough match. Actually, I just noticed on their web page that they will dye yarn to specifications. We...

Tonight was the first night of 08/09 season of the Rochester Knitting Guild. Fantastic turnout as usual. The room was packed and a big room it is too. We have over 300 members and there must have been a good 150 there tonight. We had a good show and tell with people showing off the results of their summer knitting. There was a skein exchange (put a skein of yarn from your stash on the stage, take a number and wait until your number is drawn and select a skein from the pile). It was fun, even at the end when the pickings were very slim indeed. I donated my second skein of Sockotta sock yarn (good yarn - just not my colour) and took away a heavily petted skein of dark brown mohair. News flash - no one likes fun fur anymore - leave it at home, please next time! Sue Sayre brought several knitting sheaths she had got a carpenter to make and some of us tried them out. He's going to be at the Hemlock Fiber Festival later this month and will bring some of them with him. That's all I k...

So, I was saying about the fir. About sitting under it. Did I mention I had a bad cold? I do, but it's getting better. I overdid it last Friday at work and woke up the next day feeling my throat was in a vice. As a result, I've been doing a certain amount of sitting under the fir and, yes, knitting. Somehow, with the change of seasons the sunshine now plays all morning on the back porch. I've been driven to the back of the garden. Here's the view ahead: You can see that I was working on the Heartland Lace Shawl. I worked on it enough that the 20 row repeat of the Bison Tracks portion of the pattern became almost like music in my head. Boring music.  I watched the turquoise ball getting smaller and smaller and started thinking that maybe I'd stop while I had enough for a pair of gloves. I did one more repeat. I looked at the ball and thought, well, just one more and then there will be enough left to embellish some gloves knit in a darker colour. Then one more.  I sto...