just another raveller

My sister Christina has pointed out that my last post was a full month ago. And where haven't I been these few weeks? I feel as though I've hardly sat down until today, when I decided that enough is enough and I put my feet up. I started the month with a visit to the Federal Building in Buffalo to be fingerprinted for my new green card. I learned that your fingerprints can actually wear off. Some of mine are almost gone. The officer taking my prints paused and regarded me with great satisfaction. "That's from work," she said. It didn't occur to me in time to say that it was probably caused by knitting needles. Books don't rub off your finger prints, tho if they could... From there, we went on to tour the Frank Lloyd Wright House at GrayCliff on Lake Erie. We cruised through Cattaragus county , stopping only for Tim Horton's. We flew past the Zoar Valley which I really want to visit one of these days to it's waterfalls and old growth trees. Finall...

I have interpreted the completion of the GS Catharina as a of license to start a whole host of new projects. The Swing Jacket is brought out only when mindless knitting is on the menu. It won't take long to finish it and the cold weather will motivate me soon enough. My logic may be bit shaky here, but knitting oughta be fun, right? Here is some of what I have been up to. As mentioned in my last post, I started with playing with mosaic knitting , trying to take the technique beyond its usual geometric, crafty look. I used two pale shades of Berocco Seduce, a fine linen/microfibre yarn. One is off white and the other is a variegated blue/gray. I knit a 12' x 4.5" rectangle. I shaped one end of into a flap and sewed up the sides. The resulting fabric feels like a good linen suit jacket. Here's a close-up. You can kinda, sorta see the mosaic pattern. Click. Click. It's held shut by a snap underneath the button. You get to pore over your button collection for this proj...

The book : Mosaic Knitting by Barbara Walker. A stitch dictionary of charted designs for mosaic knitting . I have only used this technique in small projects such as little bags to carry things inside another bag, ipod cases, glasses cases, etc. You could knit a variety of squares and sew them together. The yarn : Berocco Seduce . 4% Rayon, 25% Linen, 17% Silk, 11% Nylon. A stiff and shiny yarn with no memory. I looked at it for months before biuying 2 skeins to try it out. It's kind of like knitting with a stiff flax. The needles: 2mm / zero US. Warning: knitting stiff yarn with small needles can result in a headache, but otherwise, the result is good. There must be some yoga exercise for this. I was warned that this yarn could be frustrating because it doesn't wind well and won't stay in a ball. I don't remember where I saw this in practice, but it came to mind that capturing the balls of yarn immediately after winding in footlets would work and did it ever! It's ...

I've finished the Garter Stitch Catharina II and blocked it. I'll put it away until I find the right someone who can wear this strange clay/pink/purple colour. I could in a pinch. I just love this pattern and will probably knit it again. The garter stitch really shows off the yarn quality. I'd knit it again. Doesn't it look like it should be slithering along the ocean floor? I've been sticking to my plan and just today finished re-knitting the back of the Noro Swing Jacket. After this, I think I'll get on to small projects and swatches for a while. It's taken a lot of discipline not to get sidetracked. I'll post about my swing jacket modifications in a few days.

I'm still plugging away at the Swing Jacket and the GS Catharina shawl, both of which I had expected to be finished with by now. I've re-knit the two fronts of the jacket and cast on for the back, finally. I managed this while waiting at the the Waterloo Outlets . I had 1.5 hours of straight knitting, surrounded by serious consumers, many shopping for back to school items. A band struck up, playing Beatles tunes for the shoppers. And there I was in blue jeans, wearing that blue mesh summer top that I knit earlier this month and a wide brimmed hat. Even my knitting was blue. Felt like a prop for the band. Hmmph. Here's the beginning of the end of the GS Catharina shawl - finally the edging has begun! Thanks, Ms Marty. I keep trying to make it to the Seward House there, but I always get distracted along the route and run out of time. Yesterday, we walked on the wonderful pier. Is there a yarn shop in Auburn? Talk about yarn shops, I recently heard that there's a new shop...

With the excuse of signing up for a bus trip to Rhinebeck, I made a trip to the LYS yesterday, specifically to Yarn Boutique . Really, I was only trying to console myself about having to unravel the three pieces of the Noro Swing Jacket. I looked at patterns. I admired a great deal of yarn. In the end I held off buying the yarn and bought two Berocco booklets, no. 288 and no 298. I'm not the type to spend $9.50 per skein, unless it's something very special. I decided to look in my stash to see if there is anything I could use to make Reid in place of the 9 skeins of Blackstone Tweed called for by the pattern. I have 9 skeins of Fibra Natura Heaven purchased at Mouline this summer. Hmmm. There might not be enough yarn considering the gauge is smaller than the Blackstone tweed. Tempting though...I could end up with a worse problem than I'm having with the Noro. Must dig deeper into the stash. In my typically disciplined way (ha ha), I re-started the Swing Jacket after ret...

This is about the time when it hits children that the summer is coming to an end and that school is about to start again. It's a special time of year, either sad or happy, depending on how you feel about school. The feeling can last for life, resurfacing each year around this time. Frankly, I had mixed feelings about school - I cycled between dread and happy anticipation. Come mid August, my garden looks more grey than green to my eyes, a little deflated, but there are still some striking blooms, and there are scads of tomatoes and cucumbers on the vine. Time to make gazpacho. In knitting, I have been alternating between 2 projects, a second Garter Stitch Catharina and a second Noro Swing Jacket. The GS Catharina is almost finished and looking like it's supposed to look. The Noro Swing Jacket has me sweating bullets, however. I can't believe that I've been stitching so mindlessly! I knit the two fronts and the entire back in the largest size with Noro Retro. It's ...