I'm on Ravelry!

I've been invited to join Ravelry, and that's been a lot of fun posting my projects on and seeing who else is making/made the same thing or who else is stashing as much Magpie as I've been. To check it out, go here.

Check out the 3 hats I finished up for the Ships Project. I redid the red part of the slip stitch striped one (it has the vertical stripes); the red on that one is Beaverslide Dry Goods wool/mohair, otherwise the rest of the yarn is Rowan Magpie.




I'm still not a huge fan of doing color knitting; cables and texture and lace will always hold sway in my heart. But I can almost conceive of doing a real Fair Isle project one day. Lord knows I've spent enough time drooling over AS' colorways and I do love color, especially her use of color.

I must have some second sock syndrome; I'm nearly done with the second watermelon sock (past the gusset and about halfway up the sole) and just am not interested in working on it. And I"m nearly done with the Baby's Breath socks I started out of Meilenweit (the pattern is by Jeanie Townsend; her website is called Just Me Jeanie). Instead, I started Evelyn Clark's Lupine socks out of a skein of Sundara sport merino in Blue-Violet over Cotton Candy. This is so much fun to knit; I like her sock patterns a lot. Think there's an Evelyn Clark Sock Pattern fan club out there somewhere. I'll have to join.

My Kate Spades came into the optician's last week. DD#2 says they look better on me than the old Escadas; DD#1 says they look modern, unlike the Escadas. So why do I miss my old Escadas, which didn't even fit as well as the Kate Spades, so much?

DD#2's debut at Lincoln Center

Here she is, yesterday right before her marathon 8 hour rehearsal and concert debut with the NYC Opera, George Manahan, Music Director conducting. Program: Excerpts from "La Boheme." Yes I know she's in front of the Met Opera House; the lighting was better. OK, how's this:

Got the whole picture this way, right? I took more photos, you can see them here.
Of course I took some knitting, since I had to be there the entire day. Here's a new hat for the Ships Project, yarn is Rowan Magpie, and the pattern is on the Ships Project website (link is on the sidebar).
Is that great for a soldier to wear or what?

And I did get my Kate Spade glasses. DD#2's verdict- better than the Escadas. So there! Tomorrow we are off to Baltimore, my home town, where DD#2 will have her college interview with my alma mater Johns Hopkins and DD#1 will have a mole removed from her foot by the Chief of Plastic Surgery at Johns Hopkins, whom I've known since he was Chief Resident and I was a student. He's a great person and of course his skills as a surgeon are nothing to sneeze at. DD#1 couldn't be in better hands.

Those wildfires in SoCal have been much on my mind. I've been calling my parents, e-mailing friends. My husband can't believe that the fire cut a swath through to the beach where he used to work in San Diego County. We'll still be going out to LA in January but what a different feel to the trip. Hope the Santa Ana winds really do break tomorrow as forecast by the weather service.

What a Week

When we went to Lincoln Center for the Philharmonic Concert little did we know that I left my very expensive prescription sunglasses with Escada frames and brand-new lenses at Mike's Bistro! it was dark when we left Mike's and headed back to Lincoln Center, it rained the next few days, so by the time I needed them and figured out where I'd left them, they were history. Maybe because the frames were sooo pretty. Maybe because they are now impossible to reacquire. Aaaaargh! So a trip to the optician's was in order. Did I find more Escada frames? No. I found these terribly expensive Kate Spade Vita frames instead:

That was Monday. I was promised the new glasses to be ready on Friday. Meanwhile they are not ready today, maybe not tomorrow, and I get blinding migraines from the sun. So I can't drive at all in the daytime. I've gone through a pack of Maxalt XL this week, plus added painkillers for break-through pain (and I take a migraine preventive too). I have not suffered this much from migraines in years. Tomorrow cannot go to the optician's because it is DD#2's concert at Lincoln Center (where I have to be all day; she has to be there at 8 am for rehearsal. Concert time is 3 pm if you want to drop by State Theater. She'll be playing the first clarinet part.) So a bit of pampering was in order. I had to get this lipstick color, a limited edition, supposedly what Princess Graces wore on her wedding day.

Then because I am going to LA for 2 weeks in January, I had to get this one to wear with a fake tan:

And this to wear while tootling around the hotspots: Malibu, Beverly Hills (where I'll be staying part of the time), San Marino (all right, near San Marino! Duarte, if you must know), Hesperia (the High Desert, dahling), and so forth.

And of course the new clothes, since we are all going for my youngest nephew's bar-mitzvah, and we need all sorts of new outfits for for a chssidic bar-mitzvah in Southern California in January. If that isn't a sartorial challenge, I don't know what is!

Knitting stuff: Finished my mystery hat pattern. Take a peek:

That's the obverse. Here's the reverse side that faces you as you knit:

I suppose which side shows is a matter of preference. The way I have it is traditional but I kind of like the reverse side too. Guess if you knit it right it could be reversible (I had a knot so it didn't work out for me). The yarn is Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride worsted in Turquoise Sea (a bit more green than the photo shows) and the needle size was US 7 (Inox Express). Haven't done any more on Rogue; the warm autumn weather isn't inspiring me to finish socks, hats, or sweaters. Maybe when I get my sunglasses and my eyes go back to normal I'll be motivated again. still, this afternoon we trekked out to see "The Nightmare Before Christmas" in 3-D. Loved it even more this time around. Why isn't Danny Elfman in the movie composer Hall of Fame next to Howard Shore, please tell me? We'll see if wearing the 3-D glasses gives me a migraine. Sure hope not. Better go take the meds now; wouldn't do to have migraine during DD's debut tomorrow!

Some Colorful Knitting and Marvelous Music

Is this blindingly-colorful and super-patriotic or what? The pattern can be found through the link on the Ships project site, it's the slip stitch pattern, and soo easy. The blue and cream are Rowan Magpie done with size 9 circs. (and yes, that's a Guernsey cast-on to start) while the red is Beaverslide Dry Goods wool and mohair on size 7 circs. I redid the red part but didn't photograph it, just did not like the dec instructions, so did my own to make a smoother finish. Also made the hat longer, more like 9"long. And not pointy at top anymore either. What was I thinking?

Last night DH and I went to this concert. The NY Philharmonic was in top form, as was Loren Maazel. The guest cellist was superb. Don't tell Glenn Dictorow, but I half-expected a clarinet to tune the orchestra! DH is not yet convinced that DD#2 deserves an upgraded clarinet, though she lobbies hard... she wants what Stan Drucker the Principal Clarinet for the NY Philharmonic plays (in case you are curious, that would be a Buffet et Crampon model R13, in grenadilla wood).
That would also be about $4800 list for the thing, not including mouthpiece,ligature, barrel, reeds, and other assorted parapharnalia. Hence DH's reluctance. Though he did say last night that he could see (and hear) DD#2 sitting in Stan Drucker's place, leading the Fifth Symphony......

Rogue is done with the entire back and the left front is nearly completed. This is going much faster than I ever dreamed. So satisfying to watch it grow and grow. Did I mention how much I love Magpie? I'm sure that's more than half of it.

Check my side-bar to see the new Trees hat pattern I put up for the Ships Project. Each pattern is only $3.25 and all proceeds go straight to the Ships Project to defray the cost of mailing items to our troops. Which comes to $2000 per month.

Helping The Ships Project

Some of you may know that I knit hats for our troops overseas through a group called The Ships Project. When I started knitting for them, I had no idea how many devoted and talented knitters were busy knitting hats, slippers, scarves, gaiters, etc. for these young men and women. The mods shell out hundreds of dollars a month in postage to send everything. I've been donating monthly, then it occurred to me that knitter want to make hats for this and other charity- or non- projects. I started designing simple hats that knit up quickly in worsted/Aran weight yarn to raise funds for The Ships Project. I'll try to put a new hat or other item a month up on the nav bar at left. Patterns are $3.25, payable using Paypal. Right now you e-mail me and I invoice you, then send you the pdf file. Help is always an e-mail away. I'm trying to chart and write text for patterns, and any corrections from knitting readers will be welcome.
First up is the Anchors Aweigh hat. I have the Trees hat pattern done, and the Sand Rib Mystery hat nearly done (it's still a mystery to me how I'll tackle the dec rows). I have at least 4 more patterns floating around in my head.

Happy New Year & Insight on the Channel Island Cast On

Well, it's officially 5768 on the Jewish calendar. Can't believe Rosh Hashanah came and went, and today I am cooking already part of the pre-fast feast for Friday (split pea and barley soup today, to be followed by pot roast later this week, if the butcher ever gets a silver tip roast in, that is). Between work, back to school for DD#2, and getting ready for the holy days, I feel as if I live in a whirlwind. Not to mention helping DD#2 apply for college (she's applying to my alma mater early decision, ED in the lingo of today). AND - most important- DD#2 is concertmistress (Konzertmeisterin, if you're really picky) of the wind ensemble in high school the most elite music group. Not bad for a kid with perfect pitch and absolute pitch......

Some knitting did get done- check out the hats completed for Ships Project:

From left to right, starting at top: out of Lamb's Pride, a 2-color version of Blueberry Waffle and Smariek's Utopia hat out of some leftover Galway. Next row: red Beaverslide Dry Good wool/mohair in Smariek's Asherton pattern, middle is the debut of my own gansey-patterned hat (used the anchor motif I found in Gladys Thompson's book on jerseys, guernseys, and arans; debating how to publish pattern-stay tuned), and last but not least another shot of Claudia in the round.
I'm doing another guernsey-motif hat, but using my own motif, and a Channel Island (CI) cast-on. This truth came to me yesterday, probably because i was up at 5 am to eat before the minor fast and then take DD#2 to Brooklyn for her ACT exam. Since DH had to work after Sabbath, then came home in time for SNL (and had to watch it), I got only 4 hours of sleep before heading to the Big Apple. I just bought Beth Brown-Reinsel's gansey sock pattern (it's at www.theknitter.com, btw), in which she uses a CI CO. OK, I figured I should a CI CO for my new hat. Which is being made out of Moss Magpie from Rowan, once again I deplore Rowan's decision ever to discontinue this marvelous wool. Now, for CI CO, you make a slip knot to secure (remove it later), then doing a little wand, er, needle waving to make the YO secure, then scoop up the multitude of strands wound 'round your thumb. Remember I am left-handed, and have trouble looking at images and doing the mirror-image (try it sometimes, it's not easy). I really, really was not liking my YO's at all. How to make nicer YO's? Well, why make YO's in the first place? Why not just use the ol' thumb- and do the simple CO instead? Or do the same motion with the index finger (the more orthodox CI CO). So I did both ways, and now the YO's come out right, and the index finger does its dance just like in the descriptions, and the little knots I nudged into places and voila! the Channel Island cast-on. Truly, not for the faint of heart.

On other fronts, one new piece of jewelry was completed:
See the nice Czech button of vintage glass used for the clasp again? I love these buttons, I may make necklaces featuring them in front. The purply beads coming from the weaving really match the rest; they are color-change vintage Lucite beads, with exceptional clarity. you'd swear they are crystal, if you saw them. This color change is seen in a lot of jewelry from the '40's and '50's; Swarovski called the color Alexandrite. It's real unusual in Lucite.

And one collie distinguished himself with some pathos:
See Egmont the bunny lying face=down on DD#1 knapsack? Egmont is the treasured toy of the older collie, Rocky, who treats stuffed toys like puppies - bathes them, asks us to let them out for the bathroom, etc. Skye, however, treats stuffed toys like any other chew toy.
See Skye, the younger collie? He spent the previous day with DD#1 at work (she's a surgery vet tech, or animal nurse). Rocky knows where Skye has been (he has a nose!). We think Rocky put Egmont the bunny in DD#1's knapsack so she'd remember to take Rocky along to work.

Oh the soup! Must run.

Here's Claudia

I promised a shot of Claudia knit in the round, and here it is. Tah dah! It is almost done, I've started the dec (though I may run out of Jo Sharp, hmmmm.... will probably finish it off with some navy tweed Harrisville orchid line, being a silk/wool blend that knits to the same gauge). Navy and burgundy- a nice color combo. PS- no bias on this hat, must have been the st I used that cause the biasing with the other hat I made out of the Jo Sharp Silkwood. Knit and learn.
Speaking of color combos, here are some yarn duos I picked un on sale for more Ships Project hats. First, Beaverslide wool/mohair in Indian Fire and Deep Creek.

Next, Lamb's Pride in Winter Blue and Turquoise.

I'm going to try a bicolor brioche with 1 combo. Never was into multi-colored knitting, but there's a request out from the troops for brightly-colored hats, so I'm willing to try. If I really hate it, at least I have gorgeous bright colors to work with. I decided that I won't make any more hats out of acrylic yarn, only wool or wool and other natural fiber blends. Read somewhere that synthetic fibers are like plastic: they never break down. So call it my push for greener knitting.

A Makeover for the Caudia Hat

Since sending wool hats for the Ships Project will recommence next week, I've been knitting as many hats as I can to send. The website has links to acceptable hat patterns, and the Claudia Hat is very attractive. Now, Smariek designed it to be knit flat. I started it flat, then decided I wanted to knit it in the round. So spent a few hours charting the pattern on Excel, and started knitting. The proof of the charting will be in the knitting. The yarn is the lovely Jo Sharp Silkwood Aran mix. Needles are 5 mm Addi Turbos. The chart is below. Note that on rounds 15 and 25, the right twists are split in half, if the rounds were to start on the same stitch for those rounds. To compensate, I whipped the 1st sts of those rounds around to the back needle (I use the Magic Loop technique), then did the right twists as the last 2 sts. If you know a better way to explain this, please tell me.

Right twist: Slip next st to back, k1, then k slipped st
Left twist: Slip next st to front, k1, then k slipped st
Note: When working in the seed st part, I did either k1 or p1, depending upon what was required for the moss st. I didn't want to make the chart very complicated with separate symbols for the crossed twist sts.
I haven't taken a photo yet of the hat, but works, it really works. Once you start the pattern and get into the flow, you can figure it out quite easily; in fact, I stopped looking at my chart after a couple of rows! I'm up to row 30-something, so the pattern is just about finished. Will take a photo and post when the pattern part is finis.

VA Training, Part II

Also known as knitting at taxpayers' expense. Well, I had to spend the past 2 days at the VA sitting through the remaining part of orientation. Which consisted of 10 out of 18 mandatory training sessions, most of which have nothing whatsoever to do with my job (or the jobs of most attendees). So I wouldn't be too antsy (and in the spirit of the VA), I brought along hats for the Ships Project, now that mailing of wool things will begin again in September. See the hat I completed above? It's made of Jo Sharp Silkroad Aran Tweed, a yummy blend of wool and cashmere and silk. The baby cable rib biased though, that never happened when I made this hat before with other yarns. I have another ball of it; I'll do something different and see.
Now see the trio below?

The sock I worked on a little yesterday when I finished the hat (worked from the gusset dec start to where it is now). Both hats were only casted on (first 2 rows worked in the flat), then the rest was done today at the VA. I am not kidding! Had I not run out of wool, I would have finished 1 of them. That is how I spent 8 1/2 hours today in stultifying ennui relieved only by my knitting. The details: the hat in the middle is the Blueberry Waffle hat (yes, it is based on the famous sock pattern), and it is being made of merino wool, Zegna Baruffa Maratona. The hat on the right will use up the remaining Plymouth Galway I have in stash; it is the Zig and Zag hat.
And now for a little jewelry treat, another Dutch spiral necklace:

The purple and gold flower beads are vintage Lucite; I've been waiting for the right project to incorporate them. They really aren't that pink but closer to the heliotrope color of the main set of beads. Really. I'm going to make a special clasp for this; ordered the special accessory for it. Check back to see it and tell me what you think.

Necessity is the Mother of Invention

I finished the necklace! See the neat sparkly beads along the sides? Those are vintage Lucite beads I found at Ozzy Beads. I love to mix vintage with new beads when I make these things. Check out the beaded toggle- I had a bunch of sterling circle parts left from some project, so I took some sterling wire, and beaded it up, with a loop in the center and loops at the ends. Got the idea from reading how to make woven beaded toggles. But when I wove some beads into a toggle, it was too fat to fit. Necessity truly is the mother of invention.

On a new knitting note, I started a hat for the Ships Project out of luscious SilkRoad Aran Tweed wool/cashmere/silk yarn by Jo Sharp that I got from a fellow KR member for a song. Nothing but the best for our troops doing the hard stuff.

A New Hat for the Ships Project

One benefit of doing swatches for the Walker Treasury project is seeing how I like a pattern for these hats. I've been doing ribbing patterns for this very reason. This stitch is called little shell ribbing; it winds up looking almost like a mock cable, to me at least. The yarn is stretchy (Baruffa Maratona 100% merino wool, won 8 skeins in this nice blue on eBay) but I think this pattern would have nice stretchiness to it. Would make a nice sock, don't you think?

A Toe-Up Attempt

You are looking at the toe of a future sock, in case you couldn't tell. A toe made not with a figure-8 cast-on or with a Turkish cast-on but with short-row shaping and no wrapping. Yes, this toe was made by casting on half the final number of stitches onto waste yarn (a provisional cast-on: knit a few rows with waste yarn then connect the real yarn and you are done). The toe shaping comes from Pegg Thomas of Twin Willows Farm; it's in her 2-needle sock pattern, which is how I learned to knit socks in December of 2006 (seems like I've knitting socks forever!). When I switched to magic loop on 1 circ, I realized that the toe could be adapted to this method. Here's proof! I casted on the circ and knitted back and forth to create the toe as I did here. then put all stitches on my long size 3 circ (yarn is Filatura di Crosa 501 in Lilac with Cebelia cotton for reinforcing) and continued the pattern as written. The pattern may be found here. As these are for DD#2, I had her try them on. She is very picky but these meet with her approval (whew).
As for Twisted Flower, they will be made of that lovely eau de Nil green FdC 501 for DD#1 (also picky, but in a different way). She wears not clogs, so I shall do a normal heel in heel stitch for her, makes the pattern easier to adjust to my gauge.
And the waving lace socks? I'm wearing them today; here they are:


The denim blues hat is done; I really like the way the variegations made thick stripes. Do you agree?

Next hat will be of Baruffa Maratona (why did they discontinue it? WHY???) and I'm using a neat pattern I found in my Barbara Walker Treasury #1, the little shell ribbing. DH thinks it's cute but soemthing masculine enough for him to wear on a vest (he's not a knitted hat kind of guy, more of a Scottish tweed cap guy). The color is a light royal blue, I'd call it.

Almost done with the back to EFA, then block and assemble. I'm excited, so excited I'm going to end this post and go knit it!

Waving Lace, Waiving Twisted Flower (for now)

OK, I wimped out again on the Twisted Flower sock! If the charge is that I crave instant, well, fast gratification, I'm guilty. Truth be told, my gauge is going to be very different from the 9 sts/in the pattern calls for. I can compensate in part by doing 1 fewer flower repeats; since I'm giving them to DD#1 (who wears not clogs), I can make a standard heel stitch heel flap. But really, what with wrestling with EFA, work, Passover, and everything else, I just wanted some relaxing and mindless knitting of an evening. If you haven't tried this pattern by Evelyn A. Clark, please do. It's in the Spring 2004 issue of Interweave Knits (and maybe sold as a separate pattern through their website). It's easy to memorize, relaxing, easy to convert to magic loop (or 2 circs).
On the charity front, I completed this hat out of Cascade 220 wool donated for the Ships Project from a fellow Knitters Review member:

The pattern is mine, just sets of 3 st mock cables offset by 3 st clusters of moss st, after 2 1/2 inches of 1x1 ribbing. Did the mock cable every 5th row. Since it was knitted on 2 needles, I crocheted it closed using a slip stitch. Now I'm in the midst of this one:

Pretty denim blues yarn; it's Plymouth Encore wool and acrylic blend. I bought it from a Knitswap member for her fundraising project. When I told her what I was going to do with the 2 skeins, she kindly sent me 2 more in forest green. This hat is just 2x2 ribbing that segues into baby cables, and you can see that it's being knit by the magic loop method (size 7 circs and they are the Inox made in Mexico).

On the EFA front, rather, back, I've completed the charted section (yay!!) and have in reality started the armhole dec, although the pictures don't show it yet.

Close-up of the trees in the middle:

And here's how I'm going to block this section: I'm going to fold it in half, stuffing some socks along the fold (so it won't create a crease - in theory), then pin it to the correct dimensions on my weeny blocking board. This should work because, see the fruit tree in the middle? It's not part of either front. So I should be able to stuff something in back of that part, because it comes from extra stitches for the most part. The 2 ends of the back correspond to the left and right fronts. So I'll pin through both layers but not through the middle section, except for 1 pin at top and 1 at bottom. If I wind up with a little ridge, I can spray it and pin it to dry afterwards. Or steam it with the iron. The back will come out slightly wider than the 2 fronts, but I figure that when I add the button and buttonhole bands, more width will be added to the fronts anyway. Once I know what the final width of the back is, I can modify the bands accordingly. And then do the collar last. Wish me luck!

The Ships Project Hats

Do you know about the Ships Project? Brainchild of Ellen Harpin (who won a Knitter of the Year Award for it), it's a central site to get knitters and crocheters to make useful items for our troops on ships, especially in the Persian Gulf region.
Go here and find out more about it:
Ships Project
There are nice patterns there (I've made a few of the 2x2 ribbed ones - upper left and middle right). Other patterns I used include EZ's Prime Rib from her Knitting Without Tears (lower right), a mock-cable pattern (middle left and upper right), and a heart cable pattern I was designing (the red one, lower left).



I'm going to post the pattern for the red hat, with matching scarf, soon.