When Jonathon was visiting last month, Bob took him off for a day of Christmas shopping. They were exhausted and quite pleased with themselves when they got home late in the afternoon. Now, Jonathon is at Camp Pendleton training for his assignment in Iraq. That leaves Bob as the "wrapper". Sustained with plenty of Thanksgiving leftovers, he tackled the job with enthusiasm. The larger gifts, not in the photo, were wrapped with old copies of the Wall Street Journal!
Xena's breeder, Lora, has been waiting for her Suri Dream shawl much longer than I care to admit. The greatest obstacle to my getting started was finding a pattern that would work well for Lora. The pattern I choose for another friend's Prayer Shawl turned out to be my answer. As soon as I finished Elizabeth's shawl, I cast on the Black Forest version.
Lora travels a lot and prefers to wear black, grey and white for simplicity's sake. I love my long, narrow Suri Dream shawl that I use as a blanket when I'm sitting in an airplane seat. It also works well as a pillow or even as a true shawl.
Lora is the first non-knitting person to whom I've given a shawl. It dawned on me that "blocking" was not something she would appreciate having to do whenever she washed her shawl. Handwashing is fine but weaving in blocking wires, etc. would be a bit much to ask. I soaked the shawl in a Kookaburra Woolwash bath, wrapped it in a large towel, spun it in the washing machine and then draped it over our drying rack. Since the pattern is so simple, it was easy to "faux" block the shawl this way. I will explain it to Lora and I'm sure she will be able to repeat the process.
When I purchased this roving, I thought it would spin up into a warmer green. As I started to spin it using my wonderful Golding aromatherapy drop spindle, the orange streaks blended into pink and the cream toned down the green. I continued spinning until I had enough to ply together in order to knit a swatch. Tina was perfect! I showed it to her and she said, "That's not your color!". We are going to have a fiber/yarn exchange in January so I know this lovely fiber will find a nice home with someone else in the building.
Luckily I organized my yarns and fibers in a cleaning fit a couple of months ago. It felt wonderful to be able to grab the plastic storage bins and pick something more appealing. I'll start on it this weekend. I have absolutely no idea what I will do with the finished yarn. I won't have enough for an entire sweater but I'm thinking of trying a raglan from Spin To Knit. Probably knit the body and sleeves in a commercial yarn and the yoke in my handspun.
I used to go crazy casting-on and knitting the very center of a circular shawl. But, now I start with Emily Ocker's cast on and then use the Magic Loop method rather than struggle with a set of double pointed needles and a very small number of stitches. I use the Magic Loop as if I were working in a tiny sock leg. Half the stitches on each cable section that are increased at regular intervals. After awhile I will have enough stitches to fit around a 24" circular needle. From then on, things are relatively easy. I'll even move onto a 32" circular needle eventually.
I'm not sure when I will pick up the shawl again. November and December seem to flash by and I'm not sure I will have time to continue before the new year. But, I haven't finished planning my travel projects for Australia. Umm....
After three false starts, I've finally settled in with a Log Cabin pattern from the first Mason Dixon Knitting book. I am going to get to projects in the new book but not until I've finished knitting my last three baby blankets.
For some reason, I struggled with the color blends for the Moderne Baby Blanket that I've made for several babies. By the time I had gathered yarn for three versions I was completely frustrated and had a huge pile of yarns!
I had seen the log cabin design in the book before but I'd always been so happy with the results of my previous Moderne Baby Blanket projects that I never thought about a change. With the Mason Dixon Knitting book laid out on the floor, I played around with my pile of yarn and finally came up with the plan you see here. Three purplish yarns and three greenish yarns. Bright yellow in the middle and as the i-cord border. I'm also going to over-stitch with yellow. You will see that later.
Both blankets are knit using garter stitch. But I am enjoying the more frequent color changes in the log cabin version. Just a bit more to think about but I can still read and knit at the same time.
I wandered over to Flickr and searched under "Log Cabin Quilt Block" and found some inspiration to share with you.
Bob's youngest son, Jonathon, is a new officer in the Marine Corps. He spent a week in Portland before reporting to his base in California. Walter certainly enjoyed the rides on Jon's shoulders.
And, Xena was pleased to see him as well.
Having Jon visit gave me a renewed sense of urgency for my Socks for Soldiers knitting. Just to give you a quick update - the military has changed their color guidelines. Unfortunately, the Marines are sticking to black, but the other services are using Drab Green (Sarge - Essential) or a Dusty Tan (Buckskin - Essential).
Right now I am working my way up the legs of socks in Sarge. Yep, "up". I'm trying out Tina's free knitting pattern for Two At Once, Toe Up, Magic Loop Socks. I haven't gotten Kim's approval for this pattern so stick to the Official Pattern on the Yahoo Group website. The socks are the only knitting I am taking down to Los Angeles. I'm optimistically packing two balls of Essential Black to begin Jon's next pair of socks. I'll probably get a lot of knitting done because most of my time will be spent listening to lectures. Well, that and sitting in the cart as Bob takes advantage of the California weather to get in a couple of rounds of golf.
I'll be happy to send my contribution to the hundreds of boxes that Kim sends out every year.
Jessica sent wonderful photos of Fritz wearing his brother's "hand-me-downs". You have probably forgotten but the buttons I originally used on these kimonos, from Mason Dixon Knitting, were too small. They kept slipping out of the i-cord opening. So, before Fritz arrived, I took back the kimonos and sewed on new, much larger buttons. Jessica says that they are working much better!!
I knit these in Shine Worsted with the cream color used as an i-cord edging. I like that the cream i-cord makes the kimonos look like a "set" and gives the kimonos some substance.
As you can see, we have had ideal autumn weather this last week. I suspect that Jessica decided it was good light for photography.
When Bob and I were visiting his son, Adam, at Princeton, we picked up rompers for the boys. Walter and Fritz look very comfortable!
I thought it would be fun to look at Walter when he was wearing the kimonos. He has certainly grown a lot!
Note the too-small buttons!
Sometimes I like to follow charts when I knit lace. But, when there are a lot of changes in the pattern, like what happens with circular shawls, I prefer to use my tried-and-true 3x5 index card system. Marianne Kinzel is a very considerate designer. She provides charts and written instructions. And, the instructions have a space between each round. That makes it easy to copy the pages and cut each set of instructions into a small bit of paper. Then, I tape one round of instructions on its own index card. I used to divide the cards up by sections of the shawl. There is always a logical transition that works out well. I put the card groupings into a zip-lock sandwich bag. That way I can see the instructions through the plastic. When I finish a round, I move the card to the bottom of the pile and knit along.
So, Monday morning I walked over to Office Depot to buy a couple packets of 3x5 index cards. I was in for a very pleasant surprise. Some brilliant person had designed a sturdy, plastic binder for index cards!! Not a spiral binder, mind you! A ring binder! And, there were packets of cards with the holes already punched in the top! And, there were even two plastic tab pages! Be still my heart!!
I bought the green binder and lots of cards. Thanks to the binder, I am able to keep all of the cards for the Balmoral Thistle Circular Shawl all together. As I finish a round, I will just move the tab page up one step. Whenever I start knitting, I can just flip the tab and be right where I left off!!
I've come to the realization that drop spindles are becoming my ideal chocolate truffles. No calories and the pleasure lasts MUCH longer! And, there is the challenge of finding the "perfect" spindle truffle. I have discovered some favorites that I will always enjoy but I do like the excitement of finding a new spindle artist.
Last week I could not focus on my To Do list so I went off to Etsy and typed in "drop spindle". Just like heading off to a Godiva Chocolate shop, Moonstruck Chocolates or even Whole Foods for a quick chocolate fix. I clicked on SpinSanity Spindles and knew I had found a new truffle!!
Meet Shannon Fukuyama's Ornate Square Top Whorl Spindle. I had several concerns regarding this spindle but I felt that for the price of only $20.00, I would enjoy it as a bit of art. This spindle is amazingly lightweight - not even one ounce. I thought that it wouldn't spin very long without more heft to it. Wrong! It spins and spins and spins.
There is a surprise that comes along with the light weight. I have absolutely no concerns regarding my spun strand breaking and dropping the spindle. It's like having a fairy put twist into the fibers with no heavy pull. Magical!!
I find that I am carrying this spindle around the office with me because of the light weight and because the square shape is easy to set down if I need my hands. Yet another benefit of the weight is that my arms don't get tired. The only change I would make would be to have a Swan's Neck hook. But, not having one is a minor matter.
We are going to a high school football game tonight and I think I will take along my new spindle. And, the Golding Aromatherapy spindle. These two are turning out to be my favorite spindling treats.