purlsandmurmers

Kansas: the pause that refreshes

As we were preparing to leave for the airport last week, G reminded me to take my camera.  I was not inclined.  I am not, by nature, a picture-taker, but I thought he had a point and it is small so I tossed it into my purse.  I suppose it was a good thing I did because I was able to take the above picture at the Lied Center at the University of Kansas in Lawrence.  Note this is the only photo I took during the entire trip:  no pictures of rolling Kansas hills, no charming farm scenes, no cows grazing on the plains, no pictures of a happy toddler bouncing up and down on my brother's leg as he cooked Thanksgiving dinner or of same child being lifted up to the ceiling by my other brother.  One picture.  I love the play of the light and shadow, the angles and the color.  I am happy.

The lack of pictures makes no commentary on the quality of the trip, except perhaps that I was enjoying myself so fully that I did not have to occupy myself running around snapping pictures of everything in sight.  It was a great trip and we had a great time.

Of course I packed far too much knitting.  There was no progress on the socks; they could have stayed home, but had I been bored things might have been different.  Only one sleeve of Mermaid was partially finished:

It was nice to relax in the mornings and evenings at the hotel, sometimes reading, sometimes knitting, with no thought of what had to be done, no schedule, just pure indolence.  I apparently needed this little period of refreshment and things look so much more positive now than they had before, less harried and pressured, although nothing has really changed.  Only I have changed, in little ways perhaps, but a calmer Mardel seems to have returned, calmer at least than the one who left.  We will see how long she lasts.

Off to Kansas

We leave early tomorrow for Kansas and will be gone for the week.

My bag is packed and not even full even though I have both knitting projects (mermaid sleeves, and the socks), two books, and the little speaker/charger device for the Ipod so that we can have music in the hotel room.  Even though I have the small 21" suitcase, I am not planning on carrying it on as G wants to check his bag anyway.  That is OK with me.  I don't mind waiting and I do increasingly mind hauling stuff around with me.  I wish to travel through life as unencumbered as possible, when my back lets me.  I also have an extra feather pillow in that small suitcase, and I am only carrying a purse on the plane, albeit a roomy purse.

We are planning to spend a little time in Lawrence on our way from Kansas City to Manhattan and I have scheduled a visit to Yarn Barn of Kansas.  Gee I guess I can even take my purchases with me, although I was planning on having them shipped.

No computer is making the trip so there will not be likely be any updates until I return a week from Monday.

Be Thankful!

Moving on

Looking at the ripped and wound yarns that I had planned to use for Twisty Turns, I seriously doubt my powers of observation or attention to detail.  These two skeins could not possibly work together:

bright autumn

muted plums.

What was I thinking?  I have trouble believing that they looked at all similar in the skein either and am inclined to think I was blinded by love and fiberly over stimulation.  That I didn't notice while I wound them up is another matter, but it was late afternoon and I was in a hurry to run out the door, yarn in hand.

Needless to say they are now destined for entirely different and separate projects, perhaps hats and scarves for the children at Morse School.  I will be happy to have knit them into something used, if not loved, by someone.

Most of Thursday knitting was spent unknitting, rewinding, and then winding sock yarn into skeins.  I took the Hydrangea  sock yarn from Sundara, thinking this might be a possible travel project as well, although I am still planning on working on Mermaid's sleeves as well.

I had a great deal of trouble untangling the yarn from the skein, getting it on the winder, and winding it into a center-pull ball.  I had enough trouble with the first skein that I asked for Theresa's help with the second and she grumbled a bit as well.  But we managed. 

I absolutely love knitting this yarn!!! However I have little progress to show yet:

I had started on the recommended size 2 DPNs, knowing better of course, but as usually hoping beyond hope that it would work.  The first sock top came in at 6 stitches/inch when it should have been 8.  I am not following the pattern exactly, I am sticking on my now favorite picot edge top and then perhaps I will follow the pattern, no commitments have been made as yet.

But back to gauge: I was 2 stitches too loose which means I need to go down 4 needle sizes, or at least that was what I was taught as a mere novice knitter, and I have found that advice to be pretty good so far. 

But I balked.

I immediately realized that I would have to knit on 000 needles.  I don't mind knitting tiny, my other socks have been 7 1/2 to 9 stitches per inch, but not yet on 000's.  I own the 000's and even 0000's but no 00's, so the triple 0's had better work.   

So far it looks good, but I don't have enough to really tell.  The fabric is firmer which is good as the first sock was too floppy.  My only complaint is that I can't find tiny tiny needles in 6 inch lengths, which I prefer, and I find the 8 inch 000's a bit more cumbersome to work with.  My only other caution at this point is that I am not sure if I can knit these socks on these needles on the plane, but I don't have two circulars this size.  I have never had problems with knitting on flights, but then I have never tried carrying 5 long narrow pointy 8" size 000 double points either.  They look like weapons to me.

Today's tasks are to get a little further on my sock and confirm that I am on gauge and also to seam the body of Mermaid so I can measure and start the sleeves.   Once I have decided on the travel knitting, I can move on to packing those other, less necessary items.

Love is Blind...

...and disappointment often follows.

I have hit a wall on Twisty Turns:

The first skein was wonderful knitting.  I loved the color combination and knitting the scarf.  Even though it was looking increasingly likely that the purple/orange/maroon combo was looking, overall, a little too much on the orange side to be my best color, I couldn't help but be enthralled with the colors and how they were knitting up.

Then I started the second skein  (left above).  The first think I noticed was a little bit of green that I hadn't seen in the first skein.  Then the differences became more obvious.

I checked the labels, I know I bought them from the same hook at the Decadent Fibers booth.  The labels are the same.  There had been three skeins, the first skein, the orange purple was the one I fell in love with first.  I picked the companion that looked most similar in the relatively dull light inside the barn at Rhinebeck.  Perhaps I should have picked the second two skeins and put the first back, but it was the first, the orange/purple, that I truly love.

Will it work out?

1.  I should have knitted alternately from each skein and I could rip out and do that still.

2.  It is possible that the way the wrap goes together they will look OK in the end, I think the entire wrap will end up with a wide row of skein 1 next to a wide row of skein 2 all along the wrap but I don't have the directions here.  I left them at Yarn Central last week.  I think I seam the thing along the length to make the twisty wrap. -- but I'm not sure if I like them together or not, sometimes I think yes, but when I look at the photo it is a definite NO.

3.  The problem isn't just the color.  The  first skein was pretty uniform in thickness throughout.  The second skein is much variable and most of it is much thinner than the first skein.  I do not think I am getting the same gauge.  But then again, it might not matter.

4.  Perhaps I should just wrap the whole thing in a plastic bag and throw it in the back of a closet and forget about until some unspecified future date.

If I don't work on Twisty Turns, what am I going to do at group tonight???

Blocking Mermaid

The body of mermaid went up on the blocking board yesterday.

Although it is a lightweight sweater and should dry quickly the weather has been very cool and damp with steady rain.  Even in the house, the air seems damp, so Mermaid was not yet dry this morning, although I do think she will be dry tonight.  Whether I have the energy to seam her shoulders after going out knitting with Alexine this evening followed by a late dinner remains to be seen.  Luckily not much seaming is required.

The sleeves will be knit side to side, so I need to try the sweater on and check the length needed for the sleeves before I start knitting.  I am not going to knit the sleeves more than once. 

I was planning on working on Twisty Turns tonight anyway as I always manage to mess up my seaming in company.  I had truly hoped that I would be further along with Twisty Turns, but the lack of rain over the weekend meant that I as finally able to catch up with the yard work and am now pretty much set for the winter.  Well, I still have to wrap a few of the more tender shrubs with burlap and layer some mulch around them, but that can't be done until the ground freezes, usually mid December, although it wasn't until January last year. The stakes are all up and ready though, waiting for the cold and their burlap coat.

Taking a turn on something new

By Thursday morning I was desperate to finish the body of Mermaid.  The last four rows had progressed quickly on Wednesday, the i-cord edging more slowly.  I finally collapsed with about 5 inches to go.

Still, I was determined that the i-cord would be cast off before I went to lesson/knitting group Thursday night.  Obviously, I did not realize how determined I was to begin Twisty Turns until I actually got to group and started knitting (see below).

Thursday was a crazy day, filled with meetings, a visit to the dentist, work, and the normal craziness of life but I did get home in what I hoped was adequate time to finish Mermaid, make dinner, and head out the door.  I did not count on a conference with yet another contractor and yet another incursion of "job materials" into our ever shrinking living space.  The only good thing about the ongoing storage of construction materials is that at least I am seeing visible progress outdoors now, not just a big wet pile of clay and an ever-increasing pile of materials and debris. 

Needless to say, there was not enough time.  I knit the last row of i-cord, cast off the stitches, and tossed Mermaid on the floor beneath my chair with just minutes to spare before I was "supposed" to leave.  I hadn't even gathered the materials for twisty turns yet, and the yarn was still unwound, in big giant skeins.

It wasn't until I was well ensconced at Yarn Central, knitting away, that someone noted that my outfit was coordinated with my project:

I thought I had selected that skirt because it was a summer weight; it as a warm day and I thought it my last opportunity to wear that skirt until spring.  Of course, I am coordinating a lightweight cotton skirt, with a very warm, bulky weight wool wrap, again, not intentional.

But then,  I obviously dislike these colors intensely.

No knitting or blocking today, although I see it is not yet 10 PM so I can probably knit a bit tonight yet.  Today was the day I reclaimed my house from the incursions of boxes, dirt and "stuff", rearranging and cleaning house like a woman obsessed.  It is a rare occurrence for me.  I keep a passably neat and clean house, but I am no clean freak.   Thursday just pushed me over the line in terms of loss of control over my territory, that and the concrete and fiberglass dust that appeared on Monday.  It was good.  I feel like the space is mine again.  More contractors again tomorrow, this is the second week in a row they have worked through Saturday, and I have a walk-through with a new electrician, but knitting and blocking time should be available.

So Close ...

As the end of the body of Mermaid has approached I have become increasinly obsessed with finishing.  Even so I did not spend enough time on the weekend; progress was still painfully slow.  Two movies-worth of knitting time was not adequate (Match Point and Good Night and Good Luck).  When no further progress was made on Monday I declared Tuesday a knitting day.

I worked most of the day, but by about 4 I was ready to declare myself absent from work, turn off the computer, and turn the ringer off the phones.  And so I knit.

I knit to the entire audiobook version of Memoirs of a Geisha and still I wasn't finished.  The book was enjoyable and I always have a soft spot for a happy ending.  I always mean to listen to more books than I do, and I carry on internal arguments about whether listening is as good as reading.  But I did enjoy listening to this and although I enjoyed it, it is not a book I would probably have saved.  So this worked well:  nice story, nice knitting, sweater still not done.

I turned on the election results and knitted some more, knitted pretty constantly except for a few excited moments which required jumping up and down, a few moments of disappointment, and the pouring of a drink.  I knitted until my knuckles hurt and I was falling asleep. 

There remain 4 rows and the i-cord edge.  I do hope to finish this today, although the demands on my time are far heavier.

Quiet Time needed, with knitting.

After a week's absence, I finally picked up Mermaid again Thursday evening.  Unfortunately I did not do so during my normal Thursday Sanity Saving Session (knitting group) but in the short lived quiet at home.  Short-lived because DH came home early, always welcome of course, and conversation and later television encroached.  These are not necessarily bad things but they were not welcome last night, as I gradually kept reducing the volume on the TV until it was barely above a whisper and grew visibly paler and more strained each time I was forced to engage in conversation.

It seems I have been plagued by my annual (or is it semi-annual now) sinus infection, and my head feels like a pulsating bomb about to explode at any time.  Any motion or sound can make my head feel like it is about to implode.  Even the pressure of thought (does the brain swell when thinking?  Is is jut the electrical impulses generated by the rapid-firing of those neurons?) makes me feel like we have begun the final countdown.

Needless to say I did not drive to Hopewell, although the driving itself might not have bothered me had all the other drivers stayed off the road and the deer decided to stay deep in the woods.  I did not think this was a likely possibility.

Mermaid was a relatively easy knit at this point, simple, soothing, no pressure, no decisions, several hours of knitting on small needles before I reach the next area of shaping or decision making.

I did pick up the new Interweave Knits, which arrived yesterday, and looked briefly through its pages.  I didn't have even the mental stamina for serious consideration of knits although I was particularly entranced with these two:

Eunny Jang's Venezia is really lovely with a sophisticated choice of colors and lovely shaping.  Even the thought of knitting 8 1/2 stitches to the inch on size 0 needles (or smaller given my loose-woman reputation with the knitting needles) doesn't turn me off.  I seem to be slowly working my way that direction.  But looking at the pattern and thinking about the potential for alternate colorways and the math involved in altering the shaping and patternmade my already explosive pound even more, to the point that I felt nuclear disaster may have been imminent and I had to stop.  I think this will not be something I knit right away.  I am still dreaming of quicker-to-knit projects for the short term at least.

Veronik Avery's Enid Cardigan is also quite lovely and this might be a little higher on my list, primarily because it requires less math with the combination of alterations for length and dealing with the resulting affect of those alterations on pattern and design.  I do really like the wide neckline sliding toward the shoulders and think this is both classic and modern.  I have a yarn that I can envision in this sweater but have a sneaking suspicion it may be DK rather than the sport weight used here.  Still this may prove to be a simple enough conversion.  More research is needed.

But now I have been thinking too much this morning, even though my head is better.  There has been too much effort spent finalizing hotels and Thanksgiving travel plans (Kansas) as well as preparing and booking a trip to Arizona and Southern California in February, along with various other Friday morning distractions.  Time to find a quiet hole and knit.

Perfect new scarf for an old coat

The Prism Scarf is done and the greens in the yarn are a perfect match for an ancient, unstructured, Irish tweed coat that seems to be in permanent rotation in my coat closet.

The neckline is fairly wide and low on this coat and I have had trouble over the years finding just the right scarf.  I like the combination of the fluffy chenille with the rather rustic tweed and unstrutured style.  The little bits of gitter in the yarn are just enough that it doesn't look too rustic -- as if I were traipsing over the hills  to sell my eggs at the next village -- the reason I never wear a cabled scarf with this coat, and at the same time it is not too formal, it fits the attitude of the coat, at least as I wear it.

So, I suppose it was fate at work last week when my knitting stopped and the shopping demon temporarily overtook my brain.  Now I can brave the elements with dash and daring, if not au courant style.