Yarn Rambles

I'm ready for a vacation!

Ok, yes, it is Saturday and I am working in the office but tomorrow morning, my sister and I will be heading off to Victoria, B.C. for an entire week! And, I did have a small introduction to my little holiday last night. Bob and I went to dinner at a friend's home. I had been looking forward to it all day! They have a beautiful home with an even more appealing back deck. I unfolded the Sonata and started spinning. What a pleasure! Good company, good food and an evening in front of a crackling fire as the air chilled down.

I will be traveling light so no computer for a week. In exchange, I will have lots of time for knitting. I am taking along my new camera and we are going to spend one afternoon at the Butchart Gardens. Victoria is so filled with photo ops that I am thinking of the trip as a short photography class.

Before I leave the office this afternoon, I'm going to do some searching for more Magic Loop knitting tips. Once I get home, I'll need to give Xena a bath and pack up my small suitcase. Oh, and a quick repair job on toe polish.

 

Mathematically challenged

Ok, I was so pleased with my lace border calculations yesterday! But, inevitably, I made an error. I forgot that you only attach a body stitch to the border patter on every other row. One row is, of necessity, knit across moving away from the body while the next row is knit towards the body ending with knitting together with one body stitch. So, instead of 57 lace repeats to work all the way around the shawl, it will take 114. That means I will be knitting two body stitches every 19 complete lace repeats rather than every 9 repeats.

Consider this a lesson of caution to those of you tackling a lace project. Sorry for the confusion.

How about some grand baby photos?

Tiny Walter in his car seat

Swaddled and napping

Daddy Matt

and, doggie Montana

Started the border of my Pi Shawl!

I am ridiculously happy with my Pi Shawl at the moment. I chose to knit the completely plain shawl in the vain attempt to actually finish it within the month of July timeframe. Still, it looks like I will be able to wear it by the end of August. I am in love with the look of the lace border accenting the plain body stitches. The border is going to be rather wide and I think it will give the entire shawl a dramatic look. I just can't tell you how addicted I am to knitting on the border. The more I do, the better I can imagine the finished look!

Here is the Spanish Christening Shawl from Folk Shawls by Cheryl Oberle. I chose to use its border.

And, the beginning of my shawl.

I need to do some calculations to get all of the repeats to work with the 576 stitches. I need to eat up the extra 6 stitches because the border repeat takes 10 rows.

570 stitches translate into 57 repeats of the entire lace pattern. 57 divided by 6 gives me 9.5. Ok, that means, at the beginning of every 9th repeat, I will attach two body stitches to the border instead of one. That should be easy enough.

I used an invisible cast-on at the beginning. That should allow me to graft the two ends together seamlessly.

Ready for a knitting weekend

For some reason, this week has been very hectic. I am so close to finishing off the body of my Pi Shawl! Two more rounds of 576 stitches and then I can begin the border. I have all sorts of plans for this weekend - Pi Shawl knitting, computer cover knitting, baby sweater planning and some spinning. After all my July house cleaning, I can indulge in this sort of fiber filled weekend guilt-free.

All week I enjoyed being able to wander around the office and work wherever I wanted thanks to my new notebook computer. I spent some time in the Knit Picks department and then visited Connecting Threads. Xena refuses to give up her lap space so I have had to learn to balance things delicately!

Serendipity

I have become quite the electronic gadget freak the last couple of weeks. First, my new camera and now a very "cute" notebook computer. The guys in the IT department aren't comfortable with my referring to a computer as cute but that is the only word that works other than "precious". I have a feeling it is going to become as constant a companion as my iPod.

The computer arrived last week and I quickly discovered that finding a sleeve for it was going to be a challenge. I don't need a whole case since it is small enough to slip into my oversized bag. As I became more frustrated, the knitting gods came to my rescue.

Yesterday I was working on book reviews for this week's podcast. The first book was Never Knit Your Man A Sweater Unless You've Got The Ring! A very nice book. As I was flipping through the pages, I saw a knit computer cover!! I ask you, is there any problem knitting can't fix?! Given where I work, it didn't take long for my enabling co-workers to get me set up with some Shamrock yarn and a circular needle. I cast on and knit the first couple of inches and I am very pleased. Nice and cushiony and it will knit up quickly.

Don't worry, I went back to my Pi Shawl last night. I only have four more rounds of the 576 section and then I can begin the border! I am so excited to see how my rather simple border will look. I decided last night to knit all the rows rather than purl back so the border will be reversable. I don't mind the purled side of the body of the plain shawl but I want both sides of the border to be pretty.

Finally getting to my spinning!

When Karen asked if I was planning to stay for Craft Night, I realized what I really wanted to do was bring in my Sonata wheel and spin! Despite all my enthusiasm when I bought it at the Black Sheep Gathering, my frantic knitting for Walter kept me from sitting down to spin for even ten minutes.

Wednesday night, I neatly folded up my dear wheel and put it in the car to take to the office Thursday morning. It took all of two minutes to set up and away I went! Karen took two photos. One when I first started and Xena was relatively patient as long as her bed was close to me. But, she eventually felt neglected so I had to learn a new spinning technique.

I was a little surprised at how easily spinning came back to me. I had a very pleasant three hours and ended up with half a bobbin towards Bob's sock yarn. This weekend, I will have plenty of time for more spinning and Pi shawl knitting. It's going to be a wonderful weekend!

Party!!

Not much knitting accomplished this weekend due to a large gathering of friends at our home. Saturday morning we had some time to enjoy a leisurely breakfast. My sister, Paula and her husband Michael, had come up from Bend, Oregon. Xena loves Sissy, which is how I refer to my sister.

After that we had to get to work moving around furniture and cleaning up the kitchen to make room for food preparation. Sissy and Michael wisely fled to Portland to shop for the day.

Walter, at three weeks of age, was the star of the party. Jessica was very nice about letting him be passed around. Walter's cousins, Steve and Lynn, grabbed him up quickly.

Bob was thrilled to be able to hold his grandson!

Sunday was a very lazy day. We finished eating "brunch" around noon. Sissy and Michael headed home, Bob and our Australian visitors went off to play golf, I napped and read on the deck. We had leftovers for dinner.

And a Baby Surprise Sweater

A Pile of Kimonos for Walter

Sewing buttons!

Craft night came to my rescue again! I got a head start at about 4:00. Everyone was still working so I sat down in Karen's office. It took me awhile to gather up everything - needles, thread, scissors and, most important, my iPod with a good mystery. My first guess at button placement was not good. It was too far off to the side seam and pulled the kimono fabric in a funny manner. I carefully cut the sewing threads and go some advice from Tina and Karen who had begun their projects. Yes, it had taken me from 4:00 to 5:00 to gather supplies and sew on one button!

You will be pleased to learn that, once I got started, it didn't take too long for me to sew all seven buttons. One of the things I enjoy about Craft Night is that it always seems someone has a more disagreeable chore than whatever I have chosen for the evening. In this case, Katie obliged. She had sewn a long section of her quilt with the wrong side facing. That meant about fifteen minutes of ripping out the small stitches with a seam ripper. I watched her as I ate my Guinivere's Garden Personal Pizza from Round Table Pizza. By the time I was finished with my dinner, I was ready to finish the last four kimonos.

After consulting Tina, I decided to skip the inside flap buttons. There was no way to sew them on that wouldn't look horrible. The original pattern called for ribbon ties that I decided I didn't like. Tina thinks the friction of the outside flap will hold the inside flap in place.

That means they were finished!! I had thought it would take hours and hours to sew on the buttons so I had not brought along any knitting. Since Bob and Ben were off golfing, I decided to head home and enjoy a quiet evening. Tina encouraged me to take advantage of my button sewing enthusiasm to finish off the Baby Surprise Sweater once I got home.