As The Yarn Turns

Pi On My Mind

Yes I really am still working on the Shetland Tea Shawl. I tell you what though. Those last rows get REALLY long, especially when I'm on the more complex rows of the Diamond Madeira pattern. Even though I say I'm going to do two rows a night, I'm lucky to get through one row. Some days the only thing that keeps me going through the row is the fear of putting it down and not being able to find my place again. But I really like the way it's turning out. Now if I could just get some good lighting in my house. The flash just doesn't cut it.

When we first started the EZasPi Knit Along, several people talked about the Sleeves in My Pi pattern, basically a Pi shawl with sleeves (Duh!). I was intrigued but I couldn't quite picture how it would look. Until lately though, it was only available in an old issue of Knitter's. Except now it's available in a new little book, Ponchos & Wraps: A Knitter's Dozen. I'm not a big fan of ponchos, but there are some other nice wraps in this little book too. I haven't bought it... yet, but I just might have to buy for that pattern alone. Now that I've seen it, I like the shawl but there's the problem of where on earth I would wear it. I'll have to think about it some more. Speaking shawls, I think I'll go work on mine.

by Sydney  |

Adventures in Lucet Making

About a month or two ago I needed a cord to go an a little knitted bag. I had never tried making a cord with a lucet, so that seemed as good a time as any. Only one problem, I didn't have a lucet. So I used this big plastic meat fork which was never any good as a meat fork. It worked well as a lucet except that I kept sticking myself with the ends. It was easy making a cord this way once I got the hang of it. The next step was to make myself a lucet. Lucets aren't all that expensive. It's just that we have extra pieces of wood around and woodworking tools. I just had to try making one. First I sawed the basic shape out of some oak with a band saw and drilled out a hole for the completed cord to go through. Okay, actually Rick did the sawing. I drew out the basic shape and supervised.

Then I used a rotary tool (Dremel tool) to grind down the edges and smooth it down. In hindsight, oak probably wasn't the best choice but it was available. Once I got it shaped up with the rotary tool, I sanded it down.

Then I sealed it, let it dry, and put some furniture wax on it.

Now if you've read all of this and don't have a clue how a lucet works, take a look at some of the links below. Much better than me trying to explain it with my little bit of knowledge.

http://www.stringpage.com/lucet/lucet.html

http://www.allfiberarts.com/library/bl/bllucet.htm

http://www.finniwig.com/lucetinst.htm

http://www.icanspin.com/lucet.htm (Quicktime video)

It's not exactly symmetrical and it kind of has a primitive look to it, but it does the job and I like it. If I had to do it again, I would choose a different wood and maybe make it a little bigger. Overall, though, I'm happy with my experiment. I might even try another one sometime.

On a completely different note, thanks to a mention on blogdogblog, I found the Mathematical Knitting Pages. If you need some inspiration, browse around. Until next time...

by Sydney  |

Blocking Away

Yes, that's right. It's the sign of a Ribby Cardi being blocked on the blocking sheet. It's actually a little more olive green than it shows up here. One of these days I'll get a picture that shows the colors right. I don't always block my sweaters before I sew them up. If I don't, I always block it after I sew it up. I don't have a standard routine. Sometimes I wet block. Sometimes I steam block. Sometimes I block the finished garment. A lot depends on what the item is. If it doesn't have much in the way of seams or if it doesn't roll much them I'm more likely to seam first and then block. If the edges roll, then I'll block it first. Whether I wet block or steam block depends entirely on my mood and sometimes the weather. Both ways work well but steam blocking can be tricky. If you get overzealous in your blocking, you can kill the yarn and flatten out any texture you have. In any case, I'm really excited to get this far. That means there's not much more to do to make it a sweater. Plus I have other projects that I need to finish and still more projects waiting in the wings to be started. I'm still chugging away on the Shetland Tea Shawl. It goes slowly because it's a lot of knitting and requires a lot of concentration but I'm managing to knit at least a row or two a day. Speaking of which I think I'll go work on it right now.

by Sydney  |

Happy St. Patrick's Day

My MacCubbin ancestors wish you a happy St. Patrick's Day. I'm not knitting anything green right now, so I will substitute my Shetland Tea Shawl on a green towel. I'm just a few row into the Diamond Madeira pattern.

I tell you what, 574 stitches is a long round to knit and the Diamond Madeira pattern in this shawl requires a lot of concentration, for me at least. I'm trying to do at least one row every night. This pattern is actually easier than I thought it would be, not that it's an easy pattern by any means. In a lot of lace patterns every other row is just plain knit or purl. This isn't one of those patterns. At this pace I think it's safe to say I won't be starting the next shawl in the EZasPi Knitalong this weekend. The next shawl for the knitalong group is a Stonington shawl. I would love to knit one but I'm way too scattered right now and need to finish something first. So it will have to wait while I plug away on the pi shawl.

Our ferret Balt says the Shetland Tea Shawl makes a perfect sleep sack for those dressier occasions.

Have a great day!

by Sydney  |

A Field Trip to Birmingham

Well I didn't do the knitting I planned, but I had a great time this weekend nonetheless. We ended up going to Birmingham on Saturday to visit with some magicians who are part of a "club" called PMZZ, short for Painting My Zig Zag (long story). Go ahead and check it out. I know you're curious. (My part in the illusion building is usually painting and finishing, especially if it requires a painted design.) Now road trips are actually good for knitting because Rick usually likes to drive the first leg which gives me plenty of time to knit. In this case I took along my long suffering May socks in Cherry Tree Hill yarn. I'm almost finished with one sock. As usual, I've adjusted the pattern. I'm not overly fond of textural patterns that go over my foot so the foot is plain stockinette. With any luck at all, I may finish these by May. I'm just not saying if it's going to be this May or next May.

On the way down we were listening to one of the baseball channels on XM radio and the announcer mentioned a good baseball song by John Fogerty, "Centerfield". Now I've never paid much attention to John Fogerty and I'm terrible at hearing lyrics, but I had no idea that was a baseball song. (Rick can't understand this because there are not many things more important than baseball to him.) For example, a main part of the lyrics is "Put me in coach". To my ears, I could only hear "Put me in co....". The final letters just got lost in the music. My brain just made up those final letters to make it "Put me in cold." No wonder the song never made much sense. So to my high school choir teacher who every day emphasized that we should over-enunciate those final letters, I finally understand.

Anyway we met at Jim 'N Nick's Bar-B-Q for lunch and had way too much fun. We created quite a scene to the point where people were coming up asking who we were. I'm the one on the left in the olive green shirt.

After lunch we went to Woodcraft. If you aren't familiar with it, and I wasn't, it has all kinds of things related to woodcrafting, whether you carve wood or make furniture. They also have a good supply of nice wood of all kinds. I have only the simplest woodworking skills - drilling, nailing, sawing - but wood carving seems to be calling me. I don't really need another hobby but I might have to try it one of these days. Another woman in the group carves horses of all sizes up to life size. (Yes you read that right.) They are quite beautiful too. I've painted almost all of my life but haven't dabbled much with 3-D work. So there's my next thing to try.

by Sydney  |

Mail Day

This is what came in the mail on Thursday.

Yes, it's a bunch of old Spin-Off magazines in great condition. I've been eyeing the index of Spin-Off Magazine but a bunch of the articles that interest me are in issues that are no longer available. So I went Ebay shopping and came away with this bunch of Spin-Offs at a great price. So you know what I'll be doing this weekend. It's a great source of information on anything related to spinning. Lately though I've been interested in learning more about dyeing and color theory. As luck would have it, there are several good articles in this batch of magazines. The only bad thing is that they are very inspirational. I keep wanting to start more projects and I really don't need more projects right now. Ha! That's never stopped me before. So I'm off to get some sleep in preparation for a fibery weekend.

by Sydney  |

Just a Little Sunshine

No pictures today because its been cold, gloomy, and rainy/snowy. Plus I was running pretty much all day and part of the night yesterday. Hopefully today won't be quite so hectic. Today we're back to sunny weather and, so far, a more relaxed day.

Every time I try to take pictures of my knitting or spinning at night with the flash or artificial light, the colors come out dreadful. I have lots of windows in the house, so normally I try to take pictures when I can take advantage of some natural daylight or I will even take them outside. So this is the long way of saying you'll just have to try and visualize this. I'm almost finished with the second sleeve of the Ribby Cardi, which means I can block that sucker and start putting it together. Hopefully I won't find any dread problems lurking. I haven't really had a chance to work on my Pi Shawl at all this week so maybe by the weekend I can focus on that again.

This is a short report so I'll leave you with something to think about. If you've been dying to knit a tea cosy or you have the tea cosy to end all tea cosies, well I have the competition for you. It's the World Tea Cosy Making Competition. ...Later.

by Sydney  |

Feels Like Spring

It seems like we've been alternating between spring and winter all winter, but today definitely feels like spring. The daffodils are up, the sun is shining, and it's almost 70 degrees outside.I'm sure we'll still have some cold spells but I can feel the trend starting.

The weekend started on a hectic note but it ended up being a very good weekend. On Friday morning, one of our ferrets, Balt, was limping severely. So off to the veterinarian we went. As it turned out, he had a dislocated knee. Other than putting his kneecap back where it should be and some soreness for a week or two, he seems to be on the mend without any surgery required. That's a very good thing. Ferret knees are very tiny.

In more fibery news (drum roll please), I have actually finished the second lace pattern in the Shetland Tea Shawl. There has been so little time to work on it lately that I was starting to feel that I would never be able to move on to the third lace pattern. I'm trying not to think about the fact that I'm still not even halfway through.

I know I'll have a lot of long rows to slog through from here but it still feels good to reach that milestone.

by Sydney  |

Time, The Final Frontier

Yes, I'm in search of free time. I'm having a really hard time making knitting and spinning progress lately. Heck, even when I do make progress, I'm having trouble finding a minutes in the daylight hours to take a picture of it. Now that's not such a bad thing. After all, work brings in money that can be used to buy yarn and fiber plus we've been having a lot fun at work lately.

Honestly, though, I have made some progress on the Ribby Cardi and the Shetland Tea Shawl. I'm on the second sleeve of the Ribby Cardi. These sleeves seem to go quickly. With any luck at all, I may finish the last sleeve this weekend. But then luck isn't something that comes easy for me, good luck that is. The only downside is that it looks like I make have to make the collar in the same color as the fronts. I have enough yarn for the sleeves but it will be tight for a collar. The good news is that I overestimated yarn for the fronts and back and have several skeins left over. So here's a picture of the second sleeve in progress

Even better news is that I'm almost finished with the second lace pattern of the Shetland Tea Shawl. I debated for a while whether to do the Diamond Madeira lace for the third lace pattern as shown in the book or whether to substitute something else. It seems several people in the EZasPi knit along had problems with it. I've decided to just plow right ahead with the Diamond Madeira lace, though. I can always rip back and substitute another lace pattern if it becomes too frustrating.

Until next time I'll leave with a website where the knitting has a sense of humor. I saw this site mentioned on another blog (and I can't remember where now). Whoever you are, I thank you for pointing it out. I just love the gloves and the bird earrings.

Felieke van der Leest, Jewellery and Objects.

by Sydney  |