You Should Be Knitting, Yeah!

Fountain Lace

Knitting is so good for what ails the soul. The rhythmic click of the needles, the concentration on a lace pattern, counting stitches. It relieves my mind of things that are wrong with the world even as I am listening to the news or reading Twitter. The situation in Iran is especially upsetting. I watched a video of students who had been shot and beaten the other day and I sobbed. I can't watch any more. Just knowing that is going on and hearing the voices like the woman who called CNN yesterday and begged the US for help is heartwrenching. I feel powerless and yet I want to do something. It seems all I can do is pray. Keeping me occupied lately are the Firmaments Lace Shawl and the Montavilla Market Tote from Knit Picks. This is how the shawl looked a couple of days ago. I have about 4 1/2 repeats of the Fountain lace pattern done today, so the pattern shows up much better.

Center of shawlStarlight Lace Pattern

I love lace. It keeps my mind occupied. It is one of the first things I do when I wake up in the morning. According to my DH, I should make it my occupation since it is what I am obsessed by. That makes sense since knitting is one of the first things I think about in the morning and one of the last things I do before bed. I haven't quite figured out how to make money at it yet. It seems I only spend money on it! I did have a look at Etsy.com and discovered that folks are selling hand knit garments. I wish there was a way to tell how many sold. In any case, my big dream is to design. I started on a fingerless glove several months back but it is currently hibernating. I think it will be a case of carving out specific times that I can work on design rather than simply knitting other's designs. I learn a ton from other people's work. The Firmaments Lace Shawl is one example of discovering how to make wonderful lace. It is almost a sampler. I don't quite get how the movement of the stitch markers doesn't throw the symmetry off. It just works. I want to use some of these lace patterns in other garments. One of my friends has a sweater she got from Mervyn's that has a lace pattern in the yolk. I have been trying to figure that one out for months and the Fountain Lace pattern is pretty close to her sweater. I will try some modifications and see if I can't figure out what is going on. I think I am closer now for having worked on the shawl. I was particularly inspired by Cookie A's new book, Sock Innovation.

She talks about the design process and particularly about how socks can be the "perfect first step toward learning to design." I think I could probably do the same kind of thing on an even smaller scale with gloves and mittens. Off to lunch with DH now. I'll talk at ya later! I just found out that you can look at the number of sales a shop has on Etsy. Off to do some research...

She's Come Undone

I'm almost finished with my Herringbone socks from Interweave Knits Winter 2008! Yeah! A couple more modifications and I'll be done. This has taken me a while to finish. Mostly because I had my new grandbaby's blanket to finish. She's almost here too! If DD doesn't go into labor by Sunday evening they are going to induce. Not quite sure why this is necessary, she was 10 days late herself. I guess the Dr. doesn't want an overdone baby, heh heh. Ok, back to the socks. In this post I told you about the modification I made on the heel. I didn't like the way the stripey goodness broke because of the short row heel. So I ripped back and inserted a heel of chocolate brown. I like it. Now at the top, I went up a needle size, 3s, to make sure my ribbing would stretch enough. Instead of using the multi colored yarn I made a contrast with the brown again. I'm loving this. (They fit well too.) Here's a riddle. How do you knit a toe up sock and finish at the toe? I decided to unravel the toe and make them brown too. I love knitting. It's the first craft in which I feel I can be truly creative. I don't know if anyone actually reads this blog especially since I update it so sporadically. Last night we went to see Anivl at the NuArt Theatre in LA.

GO SEE THIS MOVIE!

What a compelling story! They are the real Spinal Tap. If you live in Southern California, the show will be playing there for a couple of weeks. If not, go see it when it comes to you. Buy the DVD. It's funny and touching and REAL. Lips and Robb were at the theatre to answer questions after the show. Here's a review of the movie. I hope it is huge for them. Sacha Gervasi who wrote the screen play for The Terminal is the director of this amazing documentary. I felt tempted to laugh at times and then I realized that these are real guys and this is their life.

I don't know why, but you really fall for these guys. They are just normal family guys, - following their childhood dream. I don't even like the genre of music. I thought hair bands were silly. My (70s) music was much better! ;) I had never heard of them before last night. Now I'm a fan. I hope they get what they're after. It seems really promising. Gervasi says: “The only way you can fail is if you give up.” I have to agree.

Today's Sweater is a Wrap - "Literally"

Apologies to Brenda Dayne and Saturday Night Live for that title. A while back I wrote about some lovely yarn that I acquired at my LYS. I had my eye on a wrap that one of the girls was wearing and noticed how lovely it was draped across her shoulders. I couldn't stand it so I bought the yarn. I know, I'm weak. Who could resist this? The yarn is Schaefer Laurel in the Susan Sontag colorway. I noted at the time that the colors reminded me of the beach. I also noted that when I got home and started working on the pattern that they wrote out for me, my brain decided that it couldn't be right. My memory kept thinking that the ribs were thicker and there was more substance to it. It kept looking like a shopping bag to me. Actually, this would be a great stitch pattern for a shopping bag. I think the yarn might be overkill for a market bag though. Anyway, it was driving me crazy. I went to the web to look for stitch patterns. I found Lacy Diagonals and that was better, but still not giving me the thicker ribs I was looking for. I modified that and came up with the pattern below. Actually, this is the first pattern that I have written out. I named it Sky Wrap because it reminds me of clouds in the sky.

By the way, I was wrong. I went back to the store and compared my wrap to theirs. Stephanie's wrap was exactly as she had written it. She liked what I did though. My ends slant, hers were straight. My memory thought that her ends were slanted. What a brain fart! Anyway, mine's an original and I love it! I wore it all over Amsterdam in September.

At some point I'm going to post the pattern, but until I remind myself of what I actually did, I'll have to leave it off. Remind me to remind myself to refigure it out.......

Confession Time

Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. In church last Sunday the lady in front of me was wearing a sweater that distracted me so much I couldn't concentrate on the sermon. I spent most of the time looking on my Ipod for a fern leaf knitting pattern. She got the sweater at Mervyn's. I want to make one. It was a wrap type sweater with the leaf pattern on the yolk front and back. The bodice was plain stockinette and had a few pleats at the center back. Probably on the front panels too. I don't remember. I spent all day yesterday trying to work out the pattern. I found something here: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/leaf-bookmark. There were only 4 "leaves" on each stem and it had a clover like pattern in between the leaf. It's driving me nuts!

I just finished Josie's baby blanket.

I bound off using a size 7 needle and the 6th bind off on this page: http://weebleknits.blogspot.com/2003/05/stretchy-bind-offs.html

I want to keep this handy because I keep referring back to it. I hope someday I'll remember how to do this automatically. The easiest thing is to just use larger needles.

My daughter didn't want traditional pink or yellow. She chose purple for her new little girl. This yarn has a pearly white strand running through it that adds a bit of "glitz." I think she'll like it.

I finally got the invitations to the shower mailed.

I had forgotten that Monday was a postman's holiday. Hopefully everyone will forgive me that I asked them to RSVP so quickly. It's ok, in all we have invited about 60 guests. If the laws of invites hold true, 75% of them will come and that leaves us with about 45. Now to figure out the food. Do I make it myself or buy pre-made? I'm being a little Martha Stewart-y about all this. I have to count tables and chairs and tea cups. I'll probably end up buying paper ones. I wish they were shaped like tea cups rather than coffee cups. Other than that I hope it doesn't rain. It would be nice to do this in the backyard. Martha would have a conniption about my back yard though. Maybe she would get up early in the morning to plant petunias!