Knit, Bead n Tat

On Being an Elf

2011-12-06T14:35:00.001-05:00

I don't know why I thought Santa needed an extra elf this year, but just before Thanksgiving I decided to change my mind and knit a few Christmas presents. I don't know why I can't seem to make these decisions earlier, like September or something, but I never do. Call it an impulse, or maybe a flash of inspiration. Either way I'm buying yarn in colors I wouldn't typically purchase for myself and knitting projects like a mad woman. Now if that isn't being an elf I don't know what is! The best part? I'm having so much fun! Too bad I can't show you what I've been up to, but we can't spoil Santa's surprises can we? HO HO HO!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Go Vols - Hat!

2011-11-25T22:10:00.000-05:00

I'm on a roll trying to finish some of the half-knit projects in my UFO basket. I sketched out the colorwork section of this hat and knit it last winter. The first go around the hat ended up being too small for my rather large head, so I frogged and reknit it. By the time I got the knitting done it was too hot to wear the woolly thing. All I did tonight was add teh pompom adn weave in the ends. Finished and ready for those COLD basketball nights. GO VOLS!!!

It's Basketball Time in Tennessee!

2011-11-25T13:49:00.000-05:00

Mondo Cable Vest

It's that time again - it's basketball time in Tennessee! And since basketball is played during the winter one must have some warm orange and white garb to wear to the games. I picked up a few things last year, but I knew I wanted to make some new things for this season. Since it can get mighty chilly gong back and forth to the games and a bit drafty in Thompson-Boling Arena I decided I needed to tackle a sweater this time around. This might not sound like a big deal for most knitters, but for this skinny yarn, lace knitter a sweater is a challenge!

So how did I get myself into this predicament? It all started the day my Best Fiber Friend (BFF), Paula, unpacked a huge box of new yarn at my LYS, The Yarn Haven. The yarn was Pacific, a new worsted weight washable merino/acrylic blend from Cascade. There were oodles of great colors, but when this Tennessee Orange came out of the box my mind started racing. I don't buy yarn on impulse anymore so I left the shop without the yarn but it didn't stay there long. I went back a few days later and bought enough to knit this vest plus an extra skein for some accessories.

I cast on Bonnie Marie Burns' Mondo Cable Vest right away and worked on it during the month while I was sick with a nasty respiratory virus. While I was sick I didn't care that the knitting was mostly stockinette and rather boring. For a couple of weeks boring was good, then it was awful! I thought the plain stockinette part would *never* end! The top-down construction of this vest sounded like a wonderful thing at first, and it is, but the execution of the design for the upper portion is terribly fiddly. I wasn't too thrilled with how the pattern was written/edited so I wouldn't suggest newbies try it unless they have a mentor to guide them through. The actual knitting isn't difficult, but following the pattern is a bit cumbersome IMHO. Maybe my negative attitude is because I'm used to the precision of lace patterns, but I expect more from self-published (not in a magazine) patterns.

The designer intended for this pattern to be either a vest or a shell. As such, I expected the armholes to be rather shallow for stand-alone wear. I knew I'd be layering my vest over a loose-cut turtleneck so I dropped the armholes by 4 rows. The fact that my row gauge was a bit tighter than the pattern called for contributed to my decision. In the end I needn't have bothered as the armholes would have been plenty deep without modification. Live and learn. The vest was written to end at the high hip and I wanted mine to extend to the low hip so I added one extra repeat of the cable motif. I could have added a few more rows, but I'm satisfied with the length as it is.

I choose to knit one size larger than I normally wear as I wanted plenty of positive ease in my vest. Who wants to wear confining clothes at a basketball game? Not me! I love the overall fit of my finished vest so I made the right choice for me. Even with the extra length added to my vest, I ended up using ~150 yds less yarn that the pattern called for. This surprised me, but 400 grams was plenty. Now I have 200 g to knit a beret plus something else, possibly mittens. Whatever, I am ready to show my Tennessee Volunteer Spirit, sing Rocky Top, and cheer on Coach Martin's Basketball Vols. Go Big Orange!

If it's July it must be...

2011-07-15T23:33:00.000-04:00

time for the Tour de France. And if it's TDF time, then it's time for lean, mean, spandex-clad cyclists on fast machines (bikes), awesome rear-view scenery (woohoo!), sunflowers, lavender fields, the Pyrenees, and the Alps. It also means it's time for my annual TDF knitalong project - another lace shawl. TDF knitting projects need to have some French connection and mine does. First of all, I am knitting the Omelet shawl from Knitty.com. Omelet, or omelette, is French for thin plate, so I'm knitting skinny French eggs for 3 weeks. More specifically I'm knitting a lavender-infused Provencal-style omelet as the yarn is a gorgeous skein of Tosh Lace in the Wood Violet colorway. My Le Tour de Omelet shawl is not quite halfway done though the TDF is past the halfway point. I think I have a lot of lavender eggs to eat, um knit, this next week. Vive le Tour!

Cades Cove Black Bear

2011-06-01T10:20:00.001-04:00

I met a friend in Cades Cove yesterday to go looking for bears and wildflowers. We arrived just after sunrise and just in time for breakfast - the bear's breakfast that is. Good thing he was more interested in grubbing a rotting log than us! We've had a bumper crop of black bears in the Smokies this year :-)

Spring Flings II: Tennessee Civil War National Battlefields

2011-05-03T16:36:00.000-04:00

At the end of March I headed to middle Tennessee en route to Kentucky for yet another knitting retreat. Since I don't often get this way I took advantage of the opportunity to pursue another one of my interests - the American Civil War. On my way to Kentucky I detoured through Clarksville, TN, home of the US Army 101st Airborne Division "Screaming Eagles" and Austin Peay State University.

McGregor Park, Riverside Drive, Clarksville, TN

It was cold and rainy - not a pretty day for sightseeing but I persevered anyway. Hey, at least nothing was crowded - I pretty much had everything to myself! We'd had heavy rains much of the week and the Cumberland River showed the cumulative effects of all the rain that had hit the Cumberland Plateau of Tennessee and Kentucky. Can you say FULL? This was the view of the river from a small museum and park in downtown Clarksville. Definitely not canoeing weather for sure.


Fort Donelson National Battlefield Entrance

The drive over to Dover and Fort Donelson National Battlefield takes you along the southern border of Ft. Campbell. To the north all you see is a big fence and very tall trees, to the south it is all relatively flat farmland. It's very pretty but definitely different from East Tennessee's hills. Dover is a very small hamlet located on the west bank of the Cumberland River/Lake Barkley just south of the Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area. A couple of stoplights and you've passed all of town and arrived at the entrance to the National Battlefield.


Confederate Monument, Fort Donelson National Battlefield


Confederate Canons on the banks of the Cumberland River

If you want a peaceful, contemplative afternoon at an important Civil War battle site, go on a rainy day in March. I saw the movie (very good!) at the Visitors Center by myself, bought a couple of items at the gift shop (support your National Parks by getting your goodies at an official park gift shop!), and headed out to see the monuments and the canons. I anticipated the markers about the Union and Confederate Armies, the earthenworks, the canons overlooking the river. What I didn't anticipate were the eagles. Not the 101st Airborne Division Screaming Eagles based out of Fort Campbell, but American Bald Eagles! I'm reading interpretive signs in a forested area just past the canonball-stacked gates to the riverfront area when I notice a smaller sign to my right. The sign tells visitors the area is off-limits because it is an eagle nesting area. I glance up just in time to see a huge eagle clutching something in it's talons swoop among the trees right at eye level. I gasp!


Bald Eagle

I get in my car and drive to the riverfront overlook to look at the canons, appreciate the view, and contemplate what happened in this place. I pull out my new tripod and camera to take a few photos, positioning to camera to capture a big tree in the foreground. It is then that I look up and see THE EAGLE perched not even 25 feet away from me. We are alone - the river, the canons, the eagle, and me - standing in the drizzle. I am awestruck. I am humbled. I am wet. I take pictures - lots of pictures.

Fort Donelson National Cemetery


Fort Donelson National Cemetery

After my eagle experience I drove over to the nearby National Cemetery where many of the Union Soldiers are buried. On a wooded bluff high above the river is a beautiful house and the classic white marble headstones which tell the truth about war. Men died - lots of them. I did what I always do at National Cemeteries filled with fallen soldiers - I cried. It was raining and I was alone so who would know?


Dover Hotel

My last stop was in town at an old hotel/tavern that I'm sure was a nice place 150 years ago. The Dover Hotel has a majestic view of the Cumberland River and was the headquarters for Confederate Major General Simon Buckner. It was here that General Buckner was given no other option but Unconditional Surrender to Union Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant. General Grant was known forever after as unconditional surrender, U.S. Grant. The loss at Ft. Donelson opened the way to Nashville and Union invasion of the Deep South. It was one of the earliest, critical battles of the Civil War.

Spring Flings I: Fibery goodness

2011-04-16T12:41:00.000-04:00

I have been taking advantage of my improved health and flexible schedule to go on a number of Spring Flings over the last couple of months. I've put an unusual number of miles on my car as I have driven to different locations. met new and old friends, and pursued a diversity of interests. I can't tell you how much fun this has been!


Sunrise over Rich Mountain from Tuckleechee Cove

My first adventure was in late February at a knitting retreat in Townsend, TN sponsored by my LYS, The Yarn Haven. We stayed at a spacious retreat center in Tuckaleechee Cove with spectacular views of Rich Mountain and the western boundary of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. I took the above photo on a chilly morning - it's a Smokies classic with mist in the valleys and clear blue sky above. We had a lively group of knitters from TYH at the retreat, which made being there a blast. I had fun teaching a class on Beaded Knitting Friday night. On Saturday Mimi had us all indulging in her "drug of choice" - Noro Silk Garden - as we created embellished cell phone bags. So I have a great bag, now I need the cell phone!

I've been teaching quite a few tatting classes this spring at TYH in addition to my role as mentor to the lace knitting group. The word that I am a tatter and I teach tatting has spread. Suddenly my skills are in demand! Unexpected issues with a scheduled instructor left vacancies in the workshop schedule at the Smoky Mountain Fiber Arts Festival (SMFAF) in mid-March. I was contacted about teaching and found myself doing a 4-hr class on shuttle tatting on Friday and my Essentials of Lace Knitting class on Saturday. I confess the preparation was a bit stressful as I further refined my classes, but once I got to the festival and started working it was so fun! I did mange to get to Townsend early enough on Saturday to go over to the Visitors Center to see the demonstrators, the Suri Alpacas, and the sheep shearing. Everything was wonderful!

On this day in Tennessee History

2011-02-09T23:11:00.000-05:00

One hundred and fifty years ago today Jefferson Davis of Mississippi and Alexander Stephens of Georgia were elected Provisional President and Vice-President of the Confederate States of America. On this same day a referendum was held in Tennessee to determine whether or not the state should hold a secession convention. Unionist candidates outnumbered Southern Rights candidates three to one. Tennesseans decided not to assemble a convention by a vote of 69,772 to 57,708 and Tennessee does not secede from the Union at this time. Nevertheless, deep divisions in the Volunteer state were evident--divisions that would play a pivotal role as the Civil War bloodied every corner of the state. Even now as we begin to commemorate the sesquicentennial of the American Civil War evidence of a once deeply divided Tennessee remains. While on this day 150 years ago Tennessee did not secede, later the state did leave the Union. Tennessee was also the first state to be reclaimed by the Union in battle. It was a high price to pay, a very high price.

To honor this day I have chosen to feature a photo of the Tennessee Monument located between the North Carolina and Virginia monuments along West Confederate Avenue on Seminary Ridge in the Gettysburg National Military Park. I was fortunate to visit Gettysburg last summer. A knowledgeable tour guide took me through the events of those bloody three days in July, 1963. I walked the Hallowed Ground where tens of thousands of men, as Abraham Lincoln proclaimed, "Gave the last full measure of devotion." Late in the afternoon, after my tour was over, I returned to the site of the Tennessee Monument. By this time very few people were in the area so I was essentially alone. The inscription on the monument erected by my state to honor those who fought says, "Valor and courage were virtues of the three Tennessee regiments." I sat down on the edge of etched stone slab and stared out across the grasses of the battlefield. I thought about what it means to have valor and courage. I thought about what it must have been like to walk hundreds of miles in all kinds of weather, often without adequate food, clothing, or shelter. I thought about what it took to leave one's family behind to fight in a war about things that may or may not have impacted them personally, about going to war because it was the honorable thing to do, about following the orders of your commander, not knowing if he was making wise, informed decisions or not. I looked across the fields that once were covered with bodies and blood--and I cried.

I am the offspring of immigrants. My people did not live in America at the time of the Civil War; nevertheless, the Civil War was fought for my benefit. America would not be the nation it is today had we not endured the tragedy of the Civil War. Caught up in our fast-paced self-centered society, too many Americans have forgotten the lessons of our Civil War (or they never learned them in the first place). Now is the time for us to make sure our Hallowed Grounds remain hallowed. Now is the time for us to first learn, then teach the lessons of the Civil War to the future generations. We need to know the major names and places, but also need to know the stories of the little-known people. Real names, real faces, and real places make the war real in our contemporary lives. It is in that reality that we are most mindful of terrible damage that inevitably follows when leaders refuse to listen to one another, refuse to work together, and stubbornly insist that their ideology is the one and only true way. If we cannot unite as One Nation, we will fail. We should not forget. I will not forget!

Did you notice?

2011-01-31T23:14:00.000-05:00

That all my blog posts the last few months have been more about my photographs of the great outdoors than what I've been knitting, tatting, or beading? Well, I have a confession to make -- I have been running away to the mountains with my camera a lot more than I've been knitting lace shawls. Hey, for the first time in years I was able to head for the hills and I wanted to see the beauty of the Smokies in the snow. Trust me, this is progress!

When I haven't been in the Smokies or the Blue Ridge Mountains I've been at Thompson-Boling Arena cheering on my University of Tennessee Vols and Lady Vols basketball teams. At the last home game I was accompanied by my nephew and his daughter. Isn't she the cutest junior Vols Cheerleader ever? OK, so I may be a bit biased, but then that's my job!

Lest you think I haven't been knitting or tatting, I have. I just haven't been taking any photos of my projects. I'm almost done with a Go Vols hat and I have two new shawls OTN. I've been teaching tatting classes at The Yarn Haven and making little hearts too. One of these days I'll post some of those pix :-)

Snow, Snow, and more SNOW!

2011-01-09T19:26:00.000-05:00

Growing up as a kid here in the Tennessee River Valley of Knoxville, snow was a rare treat. We didn't get much, it never lasted long, and we had to make our snowmen and snow angels while it lasted. Playing in the snow was a good thing to do since snow on the ground usually meant snow and ice covered roads, which was hazardous driving at best. You just stayed home! Of course as an adult, things were different. My university classes and hospital clinicals went on no matter the weather. Once I was working as a nurse I was expexted to get to the hospital and don't be late or the nurses on the outgoing shift would give you an evil stare that would kill faster than rifle fire! When my career took me to Utah I got used to living with snow. Things were very different in Utah, they had things like street crews with lots of snowplows and light powdery snow instead of the wet, sloppy ice-forming flakes typical in Tennessee.

We've had more snow in East Tennessee in the past month than we've had in the last 5+ years! Crazy! Rather than hibernate like a black bear I decided to take advantage of a good road day following a storm to head to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park with my camera and see what I could do with a simple mid-range camera. Needless to say I wish I owned a seriously good digital SLR but that's just not going to happen any time soon. I'm making do with what I have. The snow was mostly melted at the lower elevations of the park, Cades Cove and the Little River Road, but at the higher elevations it looked God had taken a giant sifter and dusted powdered sugar over everything! Whether I was standing in the snow or simply looking up at the snow-covered peaks, it was all gorgeous.

The snowy photos above were taken along Newfound Gap Road (US 441) at the Chimney Tops Picnic Area and above the Alum Cave Trailhead. The rest were taken in Cades Cove, my personal favorite location in the park. While traffic through the park was relatively light, most were there with cameras doing exactly what I was doing - marveling at the beauty of the Smokies on a snowy January day. Gorgeous!

The Aftermath!

2010-12-18T22:44:00.000-05:00

The problem with baking is the aftermath! What a mess I had to clean up. Does handwashing mixing bowls and pans burn off enough calories to offset the cookies I ate? No, don't answer that question...it's Christmas after all :-)

The After

2010-12-18T22:41:00.000-05:00

Despite the 17" half-sheet pan, my blondies runneth over and maketh a big mess in the freshly cleaned oven. Of course! But they were scrumptious and a big hit at the Relief Society cookie exchange party.

The Before

2010-12-18T22:39:00.002-05:00

Ghiradelli White Chocolate Chip-Gingerbread Blondies
adapted from a Martha Stewart recipe

The Spirit of Christmas

2010-12-11T13:35:00.003-05:00

The weather has been terribly cold here in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. We've even had snow flurries -- something not common in early December around here. I put up my Christmas tree and started baking a few cookies, all things that help me get in the holiday mood. But the thing that really helps me feel the Spirit of Christmas is music. I've been singing and playing music my whole life. For much of that time I was in either a choir or an orchestra rehearsing for December concerts and Church meetings. It's the songs, carols, and oratorios that speak the loudest to my soul about what Christmas is truly about, the birth of Jesus Christ.

Of course my favorite Christmas music is Handel's Messiah followed closely by the simple carol Away in a Manger. Given my background as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints I have a special fondness for the Christmas music performed by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. I have been blessed to have opportunities to sing in the Tabernacle on Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah, first as a member of the Utah Oratorio Society and later The Mormon Youth Chorus. Now that You Tube is a household word, I can share some of my favorite Mormon Tabernacle Choir videos with all of you. May this music spark the Spirit of Christmas in you!

First the choir's most recent video of the Hallelujah Chorus, followed by Mack Wilberg's amazing arrangement of The First Noel. Last is another Wilberg arrangement featuring one of my favorite opera singers, Renee' Fleming, singing What Child is This?. Merry Christmas to one and all!

On this day in history...

2010-12-02T23:00:00.002-05:00

On this day in 1859 the abolitionist John Brown was hanged in Charles Town VA (now WV) for leading a raid on the Federal Arsenal at Harper's Ferry. Brown's brazen act was just one of the highly controversial actions which ultimately contributed to the onset of the American Civil War. I visited Harper's Ferry last June and took this photo of the fort John Brown used during his raid, now a part of the Harper's Ferry National Historic Park. Located at the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers near where the states of Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland meet, Harper's Ferry was a critical point of crossing from Washington, DC to the Western United States and an important focal point at various times during the Civil War. Now a scenic and serene place except when the trains come roaring through, Harper's Ferry serves as a tangible reminder of the conflicts of our past.

Over the next few weeks and months we as Americans will be given the opportunity to pause and remember the events that transpired as we commemorate the sesquicentennial of the Civil War. It started with the succession of South Carolina on Dec 20th,1860and was followed by the attack on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861. The Stars and Stripes didn't fly over Fort Sumter again until April 14, 1865, more than four long years later. The Civil War marks a horrific period in our country's history. It's history is multifaceted, the originating conflicts complex. Too many of today's history books portray slavery as the salient issue behind the war. The reality is that slavery had little to do with the onset of Civil War, becoming an issue only after the war had started. While important, the Civil War was about much more than just slavery. It was about regional differences, about state's rights, and about westward expansion. It was about humble farmers and hunters and owners of large plantations. It was about large factories and big cities and taxes and tariffs. It was about the powerful few and the humble majority. It was about one group and ideology trying to impose their will and power over others of different values and circumstances. It was also about ignorance, miscommunication, and misunderstandings. Most of all, it was sad that so many felt that war was the only answer to the problem.

As we look back 150 years I can't help but wonder what could have been done to prevent such an atrocity from happening. Perhaps if the citizens of that time had been less concerned with power, pride, ignorance, & greed and more concerned with mutual respect and understanding this ugly war could have been avoided. Perhaps if those with political clout had been more willing to listen with open hearts and work to find an acceptable middle ground and had been less concerned with self & party-focused wants, maybe war could have been avoided. I also wonder about what is happening in our country today. While we are not involved in a civil war per se, deep divides once again exist in the USA. Politics and parties, pride and prejudices continue. The power struggle is as fierce as ever and it is ugly. Can we not learn from the bloodstains of our past? Can we not learn to work together to truly be "One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all?" Surely we can find a better way if we try hard enough. Let's not repeat the same mistakes that ultimately led to the Civil War. America can be better. Americans can do better. Our very lives and liberties depend on it. God Bless the USA!

Black Friday Sunset

2010-11-26T22:33:00.000-05:00

I looked out my window and this is what I found. I grabbed my camera, quick!

Cumberland Gap and Wilderness Road

2010-11-03T13:53:00.016-04:00

Today I'm playing a little catch up and posting about my recent adventures in the Cumberland, Blue Ridge, and Smoky Mountains. After having survived such a rough summer I was determined to enjoy the month of October with all it's scenic wonders as much as I possibly could. This year, for the first time in forever, I conquered October and had a blast doing it. I started things off by visiting the Cumberland Gap National Historical Park which is located in the Cumberland Mountains where NW Tennessee, SE Kentucky, and SW Virgina meet. The gap in the mountain range played an important role in the westward exploration and expansion of the USA by such famous persons as Daniel Boone and Lewis & Clark.

I chose to venture up to Cumberland Gap on this particular day, October 1st, because it was a gorgeous day and because the park was hosting their annual Fall festival, a Raptor Festival this year. They had a huge tent erected in front of the Visitor Center where rescued raptors from bald eagles to peregrine falcons, owls, and kestrels where on display. Park volunteers and local groups offered all kinds of hands-on encounters with wildlife. There were also historical displays about the Lewis and Clark expedition as well as reenactors portraying Rachel Carson, John Muir, and John James Audubon. It was quite a lovely event -- simple but very educational and entertaining.

Cumberland Gap NHP is a hiker's paradise, with lots of trails plus a large underground cave to be explored, but for wimps like me a simple drive up the Skyland Road to Pinnacle Overlook is enough joy. The narrow road filled with hairpin curves takes you to the Virginia side of the mountains where one can look out over all 3 states and see everything and anyone who may be trying to cross the gap. No wonder both the Union and the Confederate Armies each had possession of the gap during the Civil War. A relatively small number of soldiers with strategically placed artillery such as this canon at the earthworks Fort McCook were sufficient to keep the enemy from crossing the Gap with supplies communications important to the war effort.

The Skyland Road ends at the Pinnacle Overlook, so named for the rock formations which protruded from the tree-covered hillside.

From the overlook you could look north into Kentucky and see Fern Lake or look south into Tennessee across Powell's Valley and, on this exceptionally clear day, over to the Smoky Mountains and Cherokee National Forest.

Over the course of the summer my mailbox has been filled with travel brochures and information about the Civil War from TN, VA, WV, MD, PA, & NC. Reading though all these brochures has been an education and offered wonderful diversion for those nights when I couldn't sleep. One booklet was all about the VA state parks and I discovered that there was a nifty little park just 10 miles from Cumberland Gap called Wilderness Road which features a colonial period outpost called Martin's Station. The historic log structures had been reconstructed and it was quite an extensive community with numerous buildings and livestock and gardens to support life on the western frontier. Reenactors demonstrated everything from tanning deer hides to making rifles and blacksmithing. I loved seeing the muddy pig, woolly sheep, horses, and colorful chickens. It was a great place to visit!

Punishment and Rewards

2010-10-24T13:10:00.008-04:00

Those of you who know me well know that I have been through a very challenging year as I have made major changes in the way I am managing my chronic health problems. The changes are a very good thing, but the process has been a brutal, punishing event. It has taken all the courage and guts I have been able to muster to get through the countless weeks of misery. During the past 7 months I have been a grump, insufficiently attentive and loving to friends and family, neglectful of life's little details, and only marginally able to do the things that typically bring great joy and satisfaction to my life. Through it all my dearest friends and family have been exceptionally patient and caring, even when it wasn't easy for them to do so. I consider myself very fortunate to have such amazing people in my life and am grateful for their care.

Through this healing journey, there have been moments of joy which have empowered me with enough beauty and strength to endure the tough times. The first came back in June when my dear friend Diana once again welcomed me into her home and helped me laugh as we knit together in the company of delightful friends at the 3rd Annual Rustic Tarts & Old Farts Gathering. I was desperately sick at the time, but was blessed to have enough energy to not only knit with friends but also to make shorts visits to Gettysburg, Harper's Ferry, Antietam, and Lexington, VA -- all Civil War history sites that I have wanted to explore. Without Diana and Tony (and Mom & Dad) I would not have had this glorious experience, which sustained me all summer.

I made it through the long, hot summer by pretty much staying indoors where the air-conditioning keep me cool. I can't say that I accomplished much. Even my knitting and tatting have been languishing -- a rare thing! Now that fall has finally arrived and the temperatures have moderated I want nothing more than to get out of the house and get back out in nature. Let's just say I need to get my soul filled up for the next phase of my journey which will take me through the winter. My reward for a long miserable summer was a two-day excursion to the North Carolina High Country and the Blue Ridge Parkway earlier this week. My newest BFF Paula and I escaped earlier this week to Boone, NC and the surrounding area for a little taste of Autumn in the Blue Ridge Mountains. I'm still editing photos and thinking about all the places we went and things we experienced so it will be a few days before I can share more, but I thought I'd start with just a couple of photos of the fall colors (Grandfather Mountain and the Linville River near the BRP Visitor Center). I'll post more later after I recover from the nasty respiratory virus I came down with after I got back. Punishment - reward - punishment... a never-ending cycle! But, Paula and I had a great time and that's all that really matters!

Falling in Love with Fall

2010-10-16T21:29:00.007-04:00

During the last couple of years I have overcome my I-lived-in-Utah-and-Fall-means-it-will-snow-soon aversion and have fallen in love with Fall all over again. Things got cooked up last year with a couple of trips to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in late October. This year, both the fall colors and I hit the Park sooner, camera and tree identification book in hand, ready to savor the season. My most recent adventure led me back to the Smokies and up to Newfound Gap on the Tennessee/North Carolina state line where the Appalachian Trail crosses over.

The weather forecast was for clouds and ultimately rain. By the time I got to the Park the clouds had parted and the sky was sunny and crystal blue for the lower and mid-elevations. The skies did cloud over by the time I reached Morton overlook and I got a little drizzle at Newfound Gap but it really didn't matter as the trees were stunning! I took an excessive amount of photos without guilt thanks to the digital era and photo editing software. Even shots I doubted would turn out could be rescued with a few mouse clicks. WooHoo!

Despite the gray skies and clouds over the North Carolina side of the park, the view from Newfound Gap was amazing. There was a fairly large sugar maple tree that was ablaze in a golden orange hue that reminded me of Tennessee orange. There was fierce competition from visitors to capture the perfect photo by that tree. I had to compete to get my shots with no people in them!

On my way back down the mountain I took the little River Road all the way to the Townsend Entrance. This Past Spring & Summer the NPS received enough funding from various sources to do several major repaving and renovation projects in the park. Included was a major overhaul to a favorite waterfall and swimming hole area known as the Sinks. I just had to stop and check it out. The new overlook is wonderful, yet you could still access the cliffs without much trouble. There was more color at the Sinks than I expected, but I especially was impressed by the strong red hues in a small white oak tree that was growing out of a cliff. Amazing!

It was early in the color season so most of the leaves were still on the trees. Even still, I found a few lovely specimens perched on the cut-stone steps at the Sinks that just begged to be photographed. Such beauty in simple things! It's good to be back in the Smokies in the Fall. I love it!

I'm a Big Girl Now

2010-09-09T13:30:00.007-04:00

Well, a Big Girl Lace Knitter that is! You know you are all growed up when you can grab yarn and needles and successfully knit a semi-complicated project that you couldn't couldn't do before. For me that project is Evelyn Clark's wonderful Trellis Lace Scarf, first published in Interweave Knits, Spring 2006. Excited after completing my first lace project, an Old Shale scarf, before Christmas 2005 I had just finished knitting my 1st lace shawl, Kiri, for the Yarn Harlot's Knitting Olympics (which coincided with the Winter Olympic Games in Torino, Italy in February, 2006). Those two projects sealed my fate -- an addiction to lace knitting. I was ready to take on the lace world...or so I thought.

I fell in love with the Trellis Lace Scarf immediately. My first order of lace yarn from Knit Picks had arrived and I was ready to conquer anything lace. But pointy-tipped lace needles were not readily available in 2006 as they are now and I was using Addi-Turbos. The 7-into-5 cluster stitches which are the hallmark of Clark's design had me befuddled. I just couldn't get my needles to gather up 7 sts once, let alone 3 times to form the 5 sts needed for the lace patterning. After multiple attempts I finally gave up and repurposed the yarn for another shawl. I was not ready for fancy stitches just yet. You can't run a marathon if you are still mastering the art of walking.

After finishing my Echo Flowers shawl, I had an odd ball+ of yarn left over -- just the right amount for a lace scarf. I love my shawls, but scarves are so much easier to wear day in and day out and I could use a few more in my wardrobe. A quick survey of my pattern options and I came across an old working copy of Trellis. Perfect! It's amazing how readily I can purl super loosey-goosey sts on the row before the cluster sts, then scoop up all 7 sts and come up with 5 nowadays. It's almost like magic, but I know it has everything to do with all the nupps I've knit over the last year or so.

I'm adding a few 8-0 seed beads just to the edging. I like the little touch of bling and the beads add just a tad of extra weight which really helps a lace scarf or shawl drape nicely when worn. I'll probably knit a few more repeats of the 16 row lace pattern so I'll have the option of wearing the scarf doubled as is the current rage. I have lots of yarn so the only question will be do I have enough patience to stick it out when I'm sick to death of knitting the same thing over and over again (the problem with scarves). We shall see!

A few photos

2010-09-03T21:34:00.004-04:00

I finally managed to haul out my camera and snap a few photos of what I've been knitting on. Tonight I'll just post my latest FO -- the Echo Flowers Shawl. This shawl has been all the rage among lace & small shawl knitters on Ravelry. The orignal design called for 100g of sock yarn, which really ups the popularity factor for many knitters. Me? I still prefer knitting with lace weight yarns, so of course I grabbed a couple of skeins of my favorite go-fiber, baby alpaca, for this little beauty. Throw in just a few seed beads for a touch of sparkle in the border, and this shaped triangle shawl is pretty darn close to perfection, as far as lace shawl designs go.

I am quite enamored by the intricate motifs in Estonian lace knitting, and these 9-stitch flower clusters are no exceptions. Now that I have mastered the tricks of knitting perfect nupps, I no longer feel the need to shy away from complex Estonian lace patterns. The wide nupp (and bead) border really distinguishes Echo Flowers from some of the other popular Estonian-inspired triangle shawls that are popular right now. The border is what people really see so ending a shawl with a flourish is really important.

The scoop for this project is:
Pattern: Echo Flowers Shawl
Designer: Jenny Johnson
Source: www.nyansera.se or Ravelry
Yarn: Cascade Alpaca Lace - col#1408 (yellow heather), 2 skeins (437 yds/50g; 82g used)
Needles: US 5/3.75mm
Beads: Matsuno 8-0 SL Champagne Pink
Cast-on: 18 July 2010 Bind-off: 26 Aug 2010
Size: 42" across shoulders at back neck X 28" neck to point after blocking
Details: I knit the flower clusters as mirror images, knitting the right side as sssk and the left as k3tog for the flower bases. I did 14 repeats of the Flower Chart

Footvol - Swiperboy (twitter.com/Swiperboy) EXCLUSIVE NEW MUSIC 2010

2010-09-02T23:25:00.000-04:00

So Long Summer...Hello Fall

2010-09-02T21:07:00.005-04:00

September has finally arrived and I can thankfully say so long to the summer of 2010. With a few wonderful exceptions, like my trip to the Rustic Tarts & Old Farts Knitting Gathering back in June, the rest of this summer has pretty much been lousy. I've been working with my health care team to make drastic changes in the medications I take to manage my fibromyalgia. The end result will be very positive, but the journey has been anything but. I've been sick as a dog pretty much all summer. Add to that the excessive heat and humidity we've had here in Smoky Mountain Country and, well, I'm ready for Fall to get here and for life to get better. Much better.

When I haven't been sleeping --or not-- I've been watching sports on TV and reading novels that have been collecting dust on my bookshelf for years. My knitting output, especially in August, has been minimal. I spent July watching Braves baseball, Wimbledon Tennis, and the Tour de France. My TDF KAL project was an amazing Estonian-inspired lace shawl called Aurantium Blossom, which I knit in a delicate pink baby alpaca laceweight yarn. The lace patterning is comprised of two different Estonian flower motifs, accented by a simple leaf motif edging. Never one to leave things as is, I chose to gild the lily just a wee bit by adding pale pink silver-lined AB 8-0 seed beads to the edging. When the light hits the beads just right they look like raindrops. Beautiful!!! AB is one of the prettiest shawls I've knit to date.

Inspired by the stunning outcome of AB, I cast-on another shaped Estonian Lace shawl, Echo Flowers, the last week of the TDF. Having mastered the 3-into-9 stitch flower cluster I figured I could whip out EF in no time at all. Yeah, right. NOT! I was so sick I hardly touched my knitting for 2+ weeks. I barely managed to finish EF before the start of the La Vuelta in Spain(another 3 week road cycling Grand Tour Race, another KAL hosted on Ravelry). A shawl that I could normally knit at my leisure in maybe 3 weeks took closer to 6 weeks to finish. SIGH!!! The good news is that EF is perhaps even more stunning than AB because of the wide nupp and flower border that finishes the bottom edge. Once again I used baby alpaca lace yarn, this time in a butter yellow with rosy pink heathered highlights, and added a touch of bling with a few champagne pink SL 8-0 seed beads. The shawl is blocked, but I have yet to take FO photos. Stay tuned!

In the meantime I have several knitting projects I'm working on in fits and starts. The Atlanta Braves are in the NL East pennant race and playing better. Tennis has moved on to the US Open in NYC, the Schleck brothers are cycling in the sweltering heat of Andalucia, and beginning this Saturday it's FOOTBALL TIME IN TENNESSEE! GO VOLS!!!

If I finish a few...

2010-07-02T12:10:00.005-04:00

...lace shawls, then maybe I can start some new ones, right??? Well, that's what I'm hoping. In the last week or so I finished two lovely lace shawls, Haruni and Trachtentuch B. Both shawls are crescent-shaped triangles knit from the top down with stunning wide leafy edgings. With my love for lace doilies and such, knitting shawls with similar characteristics really float my boat. Hence, I loved knitting both of these shawls.

I started the Haruni Shawl last March when the peach tree in my back yard was in full bloom. I bought the yarn a couple of years ago from an Etsy shop called Prairie Daisy Homespun -- a merino laceweight in lovely shades of pink and pale spring green called Peach Blossom. With those colors and that name I couldn't pass it up! With my tree in blossom I just had to cast-on a shawl with my peach tree yarn and Haruni was calling my name. I normally would not use a handpainted or variegated yarn to knit a lace pattern with such a statement edging, but the overall lace patterning of the shawl body helped persuade me to try it out. While I would definitely use a solid or semisolid for this pattern the next time I knit it, I do love how my lovely pink Haruni turned out. Sometimes "rules" are meant to be broken!

I broke no "rules" when it came to knitting a very traditional German Trachtentuch. this lovely shawl is a vintage design of Erich Engeln, who created numerous lovely lace patterns for tablecloths, doilies, and other home goods in the mid-to-late 20th century in Germany. This is the second, or "B" version, of the trachtentuch patterns, which I chose to knit in a heavy laceweight cashmere cotton blend yarn. The original design was knit in a fine weight cotton thread, and was scarf-sized, but I wanted something just a bit larger. I was the intrepid leader of the Knitalong group in the Small Shawls forum on Ravelry, where a number of knitters created beautiful versions of the two shawl designs. It was rather quite fun!

I totally love the leafy edging on my German shawl, though blocking such a detailed-shaped shawl is a bit tricky for those who haven't done it before. I did take photos of the process and will try to post a quickie tutorial shortly. Meanwhile I am moving on. I have an Elizabeth Zimmerman classic Pi shawl and Eugene Beugler's new Circle of Life shawl in progress, and will be casting on a new shawl tomorrow morning as a part of the 2010 Tour de France KAL over on Ravelry. FUN!!!

Randon Fun

2010-07-02T12:08:00.000-04:00

Take the Quiz here!

Eco-friendly

2010-05-14T12:56:00.004-04:00

Everywhere you turn these days you run into someone or some entity preaching the redeeming qualities of being eco-friendly. Everything we eat, everything we buy, everything we do is supposed to be eco-friendly if you are to be considered hip, savvy, or at the very least politically correct. Um, yeah....OK.

I know these "preachers" are talking about saving the planet from doom and destruction, or at least "global warming." I have another take on how to be eco. Call it Kristina's way. My eco is driven out of a little kindness, the generosity of others, a desire to improve the World, and dire necessity. My eco is economy-minded and has only a little to do with "living green." Above you will see Exhibit A of my Eco-K: a stunning ruffly-pink gem of blooming wonderfulness. This gorgeous bloom is on a Japanese tree peony located in my front flower bed just in front of a hedge of deep pink azaleas. It started blooming in mid-April and the last flower is just now fading. A wonderful knitting friend, Leo, gifted these peonies to me two years ago when he couldn't find space for them in his family's garden. It was a most generous gift to be sure. I read the catalogs and know what the sellers want for these high-end plants. I doubt I would ever splurge on them myself, but thanks to a good friend my spring garden has an extra dose of delight. Thanks Leo!!!

Below that gorgeous peony is Exhibit B: the flowerbed outside my bedroom window. This is a marvel of eco at it's best--composed mostly of plants found on the "scratch and dent" sale table at a local garden center. The towering foxgloves were marked down because bad weather an insufficient watering left them with broken flower stems. Who wants to pay $8-12 for a huge pot of busted blooms? Not me...and I didn't. There were 3 plants in each pot, so now I have a self-sowing, self-perpetuating perennial that is an eye-catcher in my garden and requires a minimum of care. I've grabbed foxglove "steals" twice now, once 2 years ago and again 2 weeks ago. Oh boy!!!

The pretty peach and sultry deep purple iris rhizomes came in a bargain box I was gifted a few years ago. Irises don't bloom for long, but while they do the aroma and beauty is unmistakable. They cover a lot of red clay too--and I have gobs of that here in Tennessee. I also have amazing blue irises that have the fragrance of the finest of perfumes...and I didn't have to go to Nordstrom's to buy it!

Finally, the spiky stems covered with pink and white flowers is another "scratch and dent" steal that also self-sows--Nora Barlow columbine. I've seen this plant on sale for cheap in catalogs before, but always preferred the more traditional columbine form of the Winky series plants, both the deep periwinkle/white and the pink varieties. I've changed my mind. Both are wonderful in the spring garden. Add a few bleeding hearts in both the cultivated and the native wildflower forms and I had a show outside my window! Now that's my kind of eco... Eco-K! And oh, that's pretty "green" too :-)

Fat Yarn, Fat Needles

2010-04-12T22:21:00.002-04:00

Since the day I finished my first lace knit scarf about four and a half years ago I have been in love with skinny yarns and tiny needles. That scarf, an "Old Shale" lace knit in a white mohair/silk blend yarn on US size 6/4.0mm needles sent me on a path where my knitting had never gone before. It's been exceedingly difficult to persuade myself to return to fat yarn and fat needles and to try knitting sweaters again. Let me define "fat" for you. By fat yarn I mean anything worsted wt or heavier and fat needles are anything bigger than a US 7/4.5mm. Such yarn feels more like rope in my hands, the fat needles more like broomsticks.

Returning to the "fat" way of knitting has been a real challenge, but I was determined to give it a go. Besides the added bulk of everything was my fear of knitting sweaters. Me? Afraid? YES!!! Why? Because I have yet to ever knit a sweater than fit well and flattered my curvy self. I've done big-enough-for-two-to-wear-at-the-same-time sweaters, I've done boxy, oversized, drop-shoulder, you-just-gained-20-pounds-by-putting-this-on sweaters. I've done multi-stranded, super chunky, cropped OhMyGosh! sweaters and no-pattern-innovate-falls-off-the-shoulders sweaters. And (oh yeah!) the one it's-kinda-snug sweater (you mean dk wt is different from worsted wt????) that I did wear even though it left marks on my arms where the sleeves were binding (so much for puffed sleeves of the 80's). I have learned that accurate gauge swatches are not only important, they are essential to good sweater knitting. Sigh.....

When the new Spring/Summer 2010 issue of Vogue Knitting showed up at my LYS I picked it up and started to thumb through the pages with my usual skepticism for VK. But wait! This time VK came through with lots of lace and plus-sized sweaters that even I wanted to knit. SHOCK!!! When I came across the lace tunic designed by Project Runway contestant Gordana Gehlhausen I knew I had to knit one for myself. I bought some lovely lavender cotton blend yarn (dk wt. :-) and started in. My gauge was perfect using a size smaller than the pattern calls for needles (sz 8). I couldn't stand the thought of having to heft around sz 9s!

Knitting WW cotton yarn sweaters is physically more taxing than lace shawls, so I have had to pace myself. I found that I can do it in the morning, but not at night. Even still, I am only a few short rows from being finished only a month after starting. This is very good. Once I am done there will be photos to share, so keep tuned. In the meantime I chose another summer cardigan/top from a back issue of VK for my next sweater project. Sweaters are great for my wardrobe. I think I'll try and knit some more :-) Shocking, I know :-)

Rant : TNNA

2010-04-07T20:07:00.004-04:00

This evening I received an email asking me to complete an online survey for TNNA, the National Needlearts Association,the professional trade association for "hand needlearts" in the USA. I followed the link and filled out the survey. I willingly indicated the needlearts I practice and how competent I am in each discipline. I counted up and categorized every project I completed last year and summarized my spending for materials and related supplies as queried by the survey. I filled in all the blanks. Fine. Then why the rant? Why am I so irritated???? Because of the narrow vision of TNNA.

The only needlearts TNNA wanted to know if I was either skilled at or practiced last year were: knitting, crocheting, needlepoint, cross-stitch, or hand embroidery. PERIOD!!! What?????? Not once in any of the survey, even when they were asking about "other" things like sewing, quilting, scrapbooking, or beading did they even think to mention a single form of lace making. No tatting. No bobbin lace, no needle lace, NOTHING!!! It's no wonder that only one published needlearts magazine in the USA ever has anything about tatting (Interweave Piecework) and the only company that publishes tatting patterns (Handy Hands excepted) is Annie's Attic...and that ain't much to speak about. If it weren't for Lacis and a very small handful of other retailers (Nordic Needle, etc.) the lacemakers in this country would have practically no industry acknowledgment or support at all! That's pretty shameful considering the last time I checked folks used needles and related hand implements to make lace in its various forms.

I know, I know! I shouldn't be surprised by all this...and I'm not really. Nevertheless, I'm still angry at the narrowness of TNNAs vision in light of how much tatting and lacemaking has grown over the past decade. At the end of the survey was a place for comments. I wasted no time in chastising TNNA for ignoring tatting and lacemaking, both in their survey and in their acknowledgment of what constitutes needlearts in the USA. Shame on them!!!

Mystery Solved!

2010-03-30T21:45:00.000-04:00

Since March is National Crochet Month (and National Craft Month) my LYSO Sandy decided to host a "Mystery" CAL (Crochet A-long) for customers purchasing a ball of her newest cotton thread offering -- Presencia Perle Cotton No. 5. Being a good customer and wanting to support my LYS, I decided to join in. I bought a ball of bright geranium pink thread, dug out an old #7 steel crochet hook and waited for my daily clue to arrive in my emailbox. I teased my friends at The Yarn Haven that we were making crocheted covers for rolls of toilet paper. Hey, they used to be the "in" thing for any fashionable bathroom decor, esp if they were pink! After working each of the 26 rounds given, plus adding one more of my own to "improve upon" the outer edge it is what I had suspected all along. A DOILY. Mystery solved!!!

PS. I have no clue what I'll do with an 18" diameter pink crocheted doily. It's pretty chunky looking compared to my delicate knitted or tatted doilies. I can't say this pink thing floats my boat and it doesn't really go with much of anything in the house except my room...which has no space for a doily this big. Any suggestions???

Been Dancing

2010-03-29T17:42:00.003-04:00

I've been distracted from my creative ways the past few weeks because I've been "dancing" with my team, the Tennessee Vols Men's Basketball Team, in the NCAA Tournament. After what can only be described as an unpredictably difficult year, Bruce Pearl and the Vols soldiered on through much adversity over the past year. They were valiant and worked hard to get an invitation to the "Big Dance", though they were a bit disappointed to receive only a #6 seed in the Midwest Region. Little did anyone expect that the Midwest bracket would be turned upside down the first weekend with top-seeded Kansas losing to a Northern Iowa team no-one ever talked about. It was a sign. The Vols beat a fiesty San Diego State team to advance to the 2nd round, then dominated Ohio University to return to the Sweet Sixteen. Very few of the experts thought the Vols could beat National Player-of-the-Year Evan Turner and Ohio State, but they did. Only one gave them a chance against Michigan State in the Elite Eight. The Vols had never made it to the Elite 8 before, but they came out and played marvelously. The teams proved to be evenly matched, with one never able to place much distance ahead of the other. It ended as the whole game had been played, neck and neck with one hitting the right shot in the closing seconds of the game. When the buzzer sounded the Vols were one point short after a crazy scurry of activity by both teams. Only one can advance, and this time it was Michigan State. It could just as easily been the Vols...and that was hard to watch.

It was hard to see my Vols lose by one point in the closing seconds of the game against Michigan State, but I have never been more proud of a group of Vols basketball players for what these hard-working, dedicated guys pulled off this season. When Tyler Smith made his huge mistake and got three other players in trouble for it, Wayne Chism and JP Prince took ownership of the team and led a scrappy bunch to huge, unexpected wins over top-rated Kansas and Kentucky. They played with heart. They played with class. They honored the coach and the University that had given them so much the past 3-4 years. They stuck it out when the going was rough, tough, and downright ugly. They did what the naysayers bragged a Tennessee team couldn't do. They went where no TN men's basketball team had ever had the opportunity to go. Vol fans are proud they made it to the Elite Eight.

Just an aside...I was especially tickled by (CBS-TV announcer) Verne Lundquist's charming comments about JP Prince's "salute" after he made a big slam dunk or alley oop. Lundquist has been a Vol fan for decades (also a fan of Chism and Prince), so it seemed fitting that he called our tourney games. What he and most folks didn't know was who JP was saluting after those plays. It wasn't an act of ego...just the opposite. It was one guy's way of silently acknowledging his father, the grade and high school basketball coach who had given so much to his son. JP was just saying "Thanks Dad, I love you!". I think that's pretty cool. And in the post-game interviews when Wayne Chism was asked his feelings about playing in the Elite 8? He swallowed hard a couple of times, paused, then croaked... "blessed." That's a pretty special player in my book...and He led a pretty special team. Championship trophies are great, but they aren't everything. Winning comes in many forms, and this year the Vols were the best kind of winners in my book. I'm very proud to be a Tennessee Vol alumae *and* fan. I too feel very blessed. Thanks Wayne!

Making plans

2009-12-28T21:11:00.004-05:00

Now that Christmas is over it's time to finish up a few WIPs from 2009 and make plans for my knitting in 2010. Don't get me wrong, I still have an abundance of WIPs that need attention, one way or the other, after the first of the year, but I'll get to that later. Some I *will* finish but I think a few will go to the frog pond in favor of more compelling projects. I still intend to knit a few more shawls to give as gifts just as I did for Christmas. The joy of knitting something that I know will delight the receiver is the best kind of elation I know.

Thanks to Ravelry I have at least 3 knitting goals set for 2010. The first is fairly simple and straightforward -- knit 10 items start to finish in 2010. I know I can do this. The next challenge is a bit more daunting -- knit 10 shawls in 2010. Since the term shawl has been loosely defined as projects requiring a minimum of 250M of yarn, with 2 shawls using at least 500M, this goal is not as lofty as it sounds--at least for knitters like moi who use primarily laceweight yarn. All of my Christmas one week "quicky" shawls used between 400-550 yds of lace yarn. I can do this as long as I knit some smaller projects in between the 1000+ yd monsters.

The third goal I have will be my Knitting Olympics/Ravelympics project, to be knit during the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games in February. It's hard for me to believe that it has been four whole years since I knit my very first lace shawl as a participant in the Yarn Harlot's Knitting Olympics during the Torino Games. Little did I realize then what a lace knitting addict I would become!!! I have not chosen my Olympics project just yet. I am debating between making another shawl or knitting a doily, perhaps a Niebling or Engeln project. I have ~6wks to decide so I have time.

I have one more goal that is mine alone and not influenced by any group I belong to--it is the cabled jacket from the Winter 2009 IK. The yarn I need has arrived at The Yarn Haven and is waiting for after the 1st of the month when my budget will allow me to retrieve it. This may be my most ambitious project ever as it involves things that scare me most, such as knitting a sweater that fits and flatters and using worsted wt. yarn and big needles (US 7, 8, 9?). But I'm smitten in love with the design and I know I can do it if I really try. All my friends at TYH are behind me on this one and have promised much cheering and encouragement. What more can a girl ask for????? Courage! I will do it!

The Joy of Christmas

2009-12-23T13:59:00.009-05:00

Christmas is supposed to be a season of Joy, but once you grow up past the kid phase it's sometimes difficult to find true Joy in the season. Once Santa and tinsel no longer cut it then you have to work to find your own kind of Christmas spirit. In recent years I have found the holidays to be rather ho-hum and not especially jolly. Don't get me wrong, I'm not talking Bah humbug here, I just want a little more Ho Ho Ho in my Holidays. The good news is I think I found it this year.

In the early part of October I found myself feeling a little depressed. I even indulged in a brief pity party. I thought I was justified and I had a decent-sized list of reasons to support my cause. I felt myself falling prey to the trap that is what believers might label "calling others to repentance." I knew it was a trap, but I indulged a little just the same. Not too long afterwards the Spirit sent the Call my way. I got the message: Think a lot less about yourself and a more about others.

In looking around I saw many wonderful examples of this true Spirit of Christ in action, but just one person really stood out for me: Alison Jeppson Hyde. Alison is the author of Wrapped in Comfort, a lovely book of lace shawls patterns knit in mid-weight yarns on moderately large needles.
The patterns are nice, but it is the stories behind the shawls that grab my soul. Each shawl was carefully created from scratch for its intended recipient -- someone whom Alison had come in contact with and felt impressed to knit for. When most of us limit our shawl gifts to only the closest of friends and family, Alison knit for folks she barely knew. She never let the fact that she was severely ill with multiple chronic diseases stop her. Once she felt impressed to knit for a person, that was it. On Alison's blog she tells little tidbits about the people she knits for. It's a feast for the soul, for MY soul.

I have been greatly inspired by Alison's acts of Christian service and have chosen to follow her example beginning with this Christmas. I started small with a few large scarves/small shawls lovingly knit for women who have blessed my life in recent years. You saw a couple of these shawls in the previous post but I've added one more this past week. I can't begin to tell you how fun it is to receive that little whisper of inspiration about who I should knit for and what color, yarn, and pattern I should use. For example, gift #3 needed to be very soft and it needed to be red. No other color would do. Once I knew about the red, then I started to look for patterns in my goodly stash. None spoke to me. Why? Because this shawl had to have hearts in it. When I couldn't find the "perfect" pattern I followed Evelyn Clark's example and designed my own. Let me introduce you to the "Let me Call you Sweetheart" Lace Shawl. The design is still a bit rough and needs tweaking, but it was perfect for it's intended recipient and that's all that matters right now.

I hadn't yet given away the red hearts shawl when learned who I was to knit for next. This one is more challenging because it has to be brown...a color I don't care for and never knit with. My 1st thought pattern didn't work out so I'm on the hunt again. This is so much FUN!!! Watching the faces of these women as they receive their gifts is priceless. I am having the most enjoyable Christmas in a very long time. Thank you Alison!

I Love Evelyn Clark

2009-12-05T15:29:00.004-05:00

This year I decided to do something I don't normally do...knit Christmas presents for several people who have been especially thoughtful and caring towards me this year. No, I really can't knit something for everyone who has been meaningful to me lately (though I wish I could), but at least a few sweet souls will know that I love them very much. Some folks make most of their gifts, thus something of this nature would not be extraordinary. I am different. Having felt the sting of laboring over a handmade gift only to see it underappreciated on multiple occasions taught me to be excessively selective about such things. As such, I gave only little handmade things or purchased gifts to most folks on my list.

Deciding to be different this year set my mind in a whirl. What to knit that is beautiful, functional, relatively fast, and still expresses my feelings well. That's where Evelyn Clark comes in. I love Evelyn's approach to designing lace shawls. Knitting one of her shawls is a pleasure! So I did some stash diving to find the perfect lace yarns in my stash and patterns to match. I had my first project, the Sand Dollar Shawl, finished in just one week...very fast for lace shawls! I abandoned the thought of knitting a second shawl from the same pattern and splurged on a new design from Evelyn's website--the Icelandic Poppy Lace Shawl. I cast-on 3 days ago and should be finished by Monday at the latest. My body is protesting at the effort but I'm finding so much joy in knitting for others. I can't wait to start the 3rd shawl...whatever it may be :-)

I think this is what one could truly call the SPIRIT of Christmas. Merry, merry, Ho, Ho, Ho!!!

Gosh, Thanks!

2009-11-11T15:22:00.006-05:00

I walked into The Yarn Haven one afternoon last week and got surprised...big time surprised! You will recall that just a couple of weeks ago I was happily knitting away on preemie hats as a part of the 2009 Yarn Bowl Challenge: Alabama vs. Tennessee. Our Tennessee knitters and crocheters were absolutely amazing, creating 3,171 hats to warm the heads of tiny preemies and the hearts of loving families here in East Tennessee. Our worthy competition in Tuscaloosa, AL made 1,738 hats. That's a lot of hats folks!!! Here in Tennessee we were thrilled to win the challenge. We would have been happier is we had made that last field goal to win the football game as well, but I guess you can't win everything, right? We'll get 'em next year when the Crimson Tide comes to Rocky Top :-)

I particularly enjoyed knitting the hats because I used the experience to learn and improve upon my colorwork knitting skills. I did a little designing as well, creating girly hats with ruffles and bows and little guy toppers like a baseball-style cap. The last night of the challenge I put the finishing touches on a pair of hats perfect for any preemie-sized Vol fan. One hat supported the Vols while the other touted the Lady Vols as our favorites. It's hard to say I had a favorite hat, but I am particularly fond of these two.

I guess I was not alone in my inability to choose just one favorite hat. Apparently the anonymous, independent judge of the Yarn Haven hats also had a hard time choosing only one as well. That's where the surprise comes in. I created really cute hats (IMHO) because I was enjoying myself. I also did it because I *know* what such a simple thing means to preemie parents. My aim was for cuteness and quality, not quantity or anything else. I knew that Sandy, my LYSO, had announced there would be categories and judging at the end of the competition, but I paid no heed to all that. So when I walked into the shop that afternoon and was greeted by cheers and congratulations by my friends and fellow knitters I was stunned. I had won the most unique prize. Oh my!!! There was a nice gift certificate to the shop to go along with the kind words and cheers. What else can I say but thanks!!! The Yarn Haven is the BEST!!! It's such a good feeling to be associated with so many wonderful, caring people. I love ya'll!!!

Norris Dam State Park

2009-11-11T14:23:00.001-05:00

I continued my search for fall colors one afternoon last week by driving to Norris Dam State Park. Located just north of Knoxville, Norris Dam is a very tall, picturesque TVA dam on the Clinch River. I've visited the dam countless times in my life, I've skied on Norris Lake, but I've never taken the time to visit the historic pioneer village area that is a part of the State Park. I use the term village loosely as it consists of two structures really, a grist mill and a hay barn. On a dark, cloudy Wednesday afternoon in November I pretty much had the place to myself. While conditions for photographing the river and dam were most unfavorable, the yellow leaves behind the grist mill provided the perfect backdrop for great photos. I was shutter-happy for the time being, that is until I realized I had forgotten to put fresh batteries in my camera and the old ones were dying... fast! Sigh! Oh well... With some careful camera management I was able to capture some of the beauty of the day.

At Norris, the bottomland just below the dam was once the site of a forestry test project. Basically they portioned out the land into sections, planting one type of tree in each section. Now the area is a maze of easy walking trails and a haven for birds, white-tail deer, and other wildlife. I caught sight of the first deer emerging from the upper ridges in where else? The apple orchard of course! It was quite the sight as a few rays of sunshine had found their way out from below the cloud cover to illuminate the deer in a golden glow befitting a fall afternoon. Breathtaking!

Running Away from Home

2009-11-03T20:15:00.007-05:00

I have knitting things to blog about, but they will just have to wait for another day. I want to talk about running away from home. Running away is one of my most favorite things to do. The preparation is simple: A few guidebooks and maps, a camera or two, a cooler full of diet cokes, plus some random munchies--whatever happens to catch my fancy at the time. Pile all of the above into the car, make sure the tank is filled with gas, and GO! Go anywhere that is beautiful, inspiring, scenic, restful, or just plain fun. I've been doing this for years, sometimes with friends or family, but more often than not I go by myself. I love going by myself as I get to go where I want, do what I want, and stay as long as I want before moving on.

Ever since my last major escape to Diana's in West Virgina, I have been plotting more trips in the TN/NC/VA/WV/KY region better known as the Southern Appalachians. I call it heaven. When the Ken Burn's documentary special on our National Parks aired on PBS in September, my burning desire to escape was fueled further. I couldn't go very far...day trips or half-day trips only for now. Fortunately the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP)isn't very far, only an hour's drive from my home to the Townsend Entrance. My health and personal schedule were favorable for a change, so to the Smokies I went.

It's been too many years since I visited the Smokies at the peak of Fall color. With the abundance of rainfall this year, there was an abundance of leaves on the trees and I wanted to see them in all their red and yellow glory. Better yet, I wanted to photograph this glory using my digital camera for the first time ever. I did not hold back. To see all the photos you will need to go to my web album here. I tried to add captions and descriptions as I edited the photos, but suffice it to say that all these photos were taken in just a few areas of the GSMNP-- Newfound Gap Road, Little River Road, Tremont, and Cades Cove. There is much, much more! Enjoy the eye candy :-)

The photos I have uploaded here represent a little of what I saw on my 3 trips to the park. The first day (20 Oct) I headed for the higher elevations in the hopes of capturing what remained of the colors after a hard frost and light snowfall the previous 2 days. The snow took it's toll, but the yellows of the mid-elevations on the North Carolina side of the park were especially beautiful. Of course by the time I got to the other side of the mountains it was late in the day, so some of my photos aren't as stunning as I would wish. Even still, the scene was beautiful in person so I was more than happy.

I made my 2nd trip about a week later on a Monday afternoon. The park was extremely crowded so I headed to a lesser-known spot called Tremont. The Middle Prong of the Little River is the hallmark of Tremont, a densely forested area which has finally recovered from heavy logging in the pre-park era. It's hard for me to believe it's the 75th anniversary of the GSMNP this year! The only folks that spend much time in Tremont are those who "hike" on horseback (there's a trailhead and horsecamp at the end of the gravel road), folks attending the Great Smoky Mtns Institute (an educational thing), and fly fishermen. On the day I was there the fishermen were invaded by the photographers. I met so many neat people who were hauling tripods and fancy (expensive) camera equipment in search of the perfect photo. The little red tree in front of the river (shown above) was the focal point of many, many photographers--many of them professionals. I was pleased to shoot lovely photos of a fellow in his hip waders fishing like no one else was around. Pretty stuff I tell you.

I went a third time, to my favorite location in the park, Cades Cove. It is an excessively crowded area in peak season, like Fall color time, but I managed to find a day where the traffic was tolerable. I stopped at many of the cabins, including some I rarely if ever stop at any more. I also hit my favorite "hidden treasures" while I was there. The deer were unusually sparse during the first part of the Loop Road, but more showed up at twilight on the back side of the Loop. While there were fewer deer than what I'm used to seeing, the wild turkeys more than made up for it. There were oodles of the gobblers scattered throughout the cove. I walked/hiked around much more than I should have, esp. late in the day when I just had to get a specific perspective on my deer photos. I came home elated with the experience and otherwise exhausted. Now, almost a week later, I'm just starting to recover. We have a cliche for such things at our house: "No good deed goes unpunished." So I punished my body..and fibromyalgia screams at such punishment...but I don't care. I was finally there and I will have the photos to re-enjoy the experience forever after. There's nothing else quite like the colors of the trees in the Smokies in late October. I think everyone should see them at least once before departing this earth. Yeah, it's that good!

KAL Progress Report: Knits from the North Sea

2009-10-19T20:27:00.005-04:00

The Lace Knitting group at The Yarn Haven has almost doubled in size with the beginning of our Fall KAL featuring projects from the new book Knits from the North Sea: Lace in the Shetland Tradition. I have already made my thoughts about the book more than clear so I won't repeat the rant. My challenge was to edit the instructions in the book to meet the needs of group members. I have newbies, beginner, and intermediate/advanced intermediate lace knitters with a varying range of knitting expertise, thus my task has not been exactly easy.

The KAL group has had 2 meetings thus far. My 2 novice lace knitters chose to knit the simplest scarf--Carol's Peaches--but were struggling with the mohair yarn the 1st night. They weren't present at the second meeting so I'm concerned they may have been scared away. I hope not. All the beginners except one (she's an expert knitter, just new to lace) are knitting the Cockleshell scarf at my suggestion. Every knitter has struggled with some aspect of the pattern. The multi-chart pattern has been confusing as has the unclear language of some of the chart symbols/pattern instructions. AT least one has abandoned the Cockleshell pattern for a more suitable beginner lace scarf pattern (not in the book). The two knitters who have started the High Country Wrap are also finding it very challenging/frustrating but are soldiering on. One chose to use the size 1 needles recommended in the pattern (I didn't know about that until she had already started) but was having a bit of a go at it and was considering switching up to a larger needle. I have two more newcomers planning to join the group at our next meeting later this week. One decided in advance to knit something else for her project. Smart lady :-)

I'm making progress on my Cockleshell scarf. According to the book I'm done with the first side and halfway through the second side. Of course this is not nearly long enough to be a scarf IMHO so I still need to decide what I want to do to extend the pattern--just keep knitting the same lace rep or change it up to a Seaman's-style scarf with a rib knit center section. I'm leaning towards the latter but I'll make the final decision when I get there.

While this pattern books lacks much, I still love knitting lace and mentoring others in the art of lace knitting. After all...

LACE KNITTING ROCKS!!!
KNIT ON!

Just a few more days...

2009-10-14T23:04:00.003-04:00

Until the deadline for the preemie hats in the 2009 Yarn Bowl Challenge between the Alabama Crimson Tide and the University of Tennessee Volunteers. I have set aside my usual lace knitting for baby DK yarn and small circular knitting all to benefit the preemies I love so much. Each participating knitter or crocheter has their own purpose for knitting in addition to supporting our local LYS and NICUs. Some are knitting nice, functional hats. Others are knitting lots of hats to support of LYSO and increase our chances of winning the competition. some what to see if they can knit (or crochet) more hats than anyone else in the shop. Me? I want to create really cute little hats like the ones I would want my baby to wear if I were the parent of a preemie. I'm going for looks. And while I'm at it I'm learning a lot about colorwork knitting techniques, something I've been wanting to do. I'm also improving my design skills.

I lost count of how many hats I've knit. I did not count them, nor did I photograph them all. I did, however, try my best to capture decent photos of the hats I like the most. So far, so good. I started things out by trying to incorporate lace knitting into my hats, usually through knitting lacy edgings. These were sweet, but all that plain stockinette on top is mighty boring to knit so I moved on to color. At first I started knitting the brims in one color and the tops in another, then embellishing the girls hats with flowers and such. They were cute, very cute and my knitty friends at The Yarn Haven all liked them very much. I was happy.

After knitting a few more two-color hats with ties or flowers I was bored again. Time to try something else. I thought about hearts. What about knitting a row of hearts into the hat using a stranded technique? I broke out my graph paper and started sketching. Before long I had the cutest little pastel pink beanie with mint green hearts all around. Oh my!!! My lace knitting friend Paula was smitten. It looked like an ice cream parlor all that pink and green!

One success at colorwork led to another and I was hooked. I needed to do something equally wonderful for the little guys in the unit. Baseball caps came to mind. I had white and red yarn but no dark blue. Paula provided the blue and I figure out how to knit a 6-gore cap with contrasting brim. WooHoo!!! Next up was something Christmassy. Kori gave me the last of her Kelly green yarn. I found a bear motif in a stitch dictionary I had and the Christmas Bear Hat was created. This was my most complex colorwork to date as some rows used 3 colors of yarn. Thrilled by the bears I needed something in Christmas colors for the girls. I thought back to the hearts and decided to turn them into flowers by adding a green stem. I think this is my most favorite hat of all.

Last Saturday while watching the TN vs. GA football game I decided to succumb and knit an orange and white hat. Others had already done the checkerboards look...I wanted to be different. Then I changed the channel and saw Tiger Woods in a gorgeous argyle sweater--team apparel for the US PGA team at the President's Cup Golf Tournament. ARGYLE! That's it. More sketching and I had something figured out that would fit on a preemie hat. The orange diamonds were knit into the white hat and I embroidered the black lines using Cebelia crochet cotton. Fantastic!!!

I am having more fun coming up with these preemie hats. As I knit I reflect back upon my many years of experience nursing in the NICU. All the babies, the families, the blood, sweat, and tears. I miss it though I don't want to go back to the bedside any more. Maybe my knitting is a way of carrying on my legacy of love to the littlest of babies that have brought so much meaning and joy to my life. Knit on!

I Love Preemies

2009-10-09T20:29:00.003-04:00

After months, no, make that years of knitting beautiful lace I have been putting my needles to work in a different way lately. I've been making preemie hats. Lots of preemie hats. Pretty preemie hats. Hats I know stressed Mommies will love to see on their precious little bundle of joy. It's hard to believe it's been 10+ years since I last worked in the NICU. It doesn't seem that long ago to me. Back in the day I used to crochet custom-sized booties by the dozens to outfit the kids in the unit. You can't buy booties to fit, and most kids can wear them no matter how sick or small they are. But I was a much better crocheter than knitter in those days and I never cared for crocheted preemie hats so I didn't make them. Now that I'm a vastly improved knitter preemie hats are quite fun to create.

The sudden need to knit preemie hats comes at the challenge of the LYS in Tuscaloosa, AL to my LYS here in Knoxville, TN, The Yarn Haven. It's the Crimson Tide vs. the Vols and the big football game is in 2 weeks. Which shop will create the most preemie hats???? All I can say is that I've seen the masses of hats at TYH and I know that between the 2 major NICUs here in Knoxville (East TN Children's Hosp. and UT Med Ctr.), no tiny head will go bare for at least a couple of years. Yikes!!!

I confess I haven't taken the time to photograph most of the hats I've made over the past 2 weeks. Most of the ones I did were for little girls as they fulfilled my need to knit lacy edgings or concoct I-cord flowers. I've been practicing my meager colorwork techniques by knitting stranded hearts into the hats. A pastel pink and mint green version turned out esp. cute. I'm kind of sorry I didn't take a picture of that one. One of my knitty friends gave me a partial ball of lt. blue/white Dreambaby DK yarn, my newfound favorite baby acrylic (not iccky-crylic). Thus I felt encouraged to knit a few darling things for boys too. In reflecting back on my nursing days, I think I was a primary nurse for more boys than girls so it is only fair that the little guys get some Kristina-knit loving too. I'm playing around with some red, white and blue yarn and try to knit a baseball cap. So far so good, but I don't know if it will work or not. Playing with yarn for preemies is fun :-)

Review: Vogue Knitting Holiday 2009 Issue

2009-10-02T13:12:00.003-04:00

I thumbed through the Vogue Knitting Holiday 2009 issue yesterday at my LYS. It had just arrived. I look forward to this particular issue every year as I always find pretty things I want to make in it...esp the lace shawls. There have been lovely shawls by Karen Joan Raz the past several years as well as great sweaters and other holiday things. I was excited to see what treasure I would find this time. Sadly there were no treasures, nothing worthy of the purchase price. To say I am extremely disappointed with the content of this years Holiday issue is an understatement.

There were three items that appealed to me: lace socks, a beret, and one lace V-neck sweater. I liked the lace socks best--they were really pretty and would be a fun knit. BUT I have oodles of amazing sock patterns so I can't justify buying the magazine just for one sock pattern. There was a beret that was super cute and would also be a great knit for myself or as a gift. BUT I bought the Fall issue that has oodles of cute berets so no need to buy for that either. The V-neck sweater was designed with an all-over horseshoe lace pattern--one of my favorites. I would have seriously considered buying the magazine for this sweater but one look at the sizing stopped me dead in my tracks. The sizes ranged from an XS/SM (29" bust) to XL (40" bust). I hope the size 0-2 ladies out there enjoy this one cuz the majority of the knitters out there won't fit in the available size range. Maybe I can find another pattern that is similar one of these days...that has my size accounted for too. Typical Vogue!

I just don't get VK's obsession with super chunky yarns and super chunky sweaters, especially this Twinkle stuff that has been in every issue for at least 2 yrs. now. UGH!!! Who wears this stuff? (no one I know) Who does it flatter? (can't think of a soul) I know I certainly don't need the added bulk of super chunky yarns knit into oversized, mostly shapeless garments on my frame. Most slender or small framed women I know prefer to show off their pretty shape, not drown it in acres of fat yarn. Leave the tents to the Army or Boy Scouts and spare the sheep and fields of cotton of such insult. Beautiful fiber deserves better use.

The issue is good if you are into cowls/gaiters/wimples/neck choking stuff. There are pages and pages of patterns for these...many again knit out of super chunky yarns. I felt the need to gasp for air just looking at photos! I guess I don't get this trend either. Scarves and shawls are so much more versatile, can be as snug of as loose as you wish, and you can put them on or take them off quickly without creating a bad hair disaster. I laughed at the models' "perfect" hair flowing over these cowls knowing full well that your hair gets totally messed up every time you tug one on or off. Hey...it's a new style! You've heard of hat hair? Let me , um, let VK introduce you to cowl hair! Don't leave home without your combs, brushes, and misc. hair products or you'll be sorry...or at least very scary looking. EEEEK! I just don't get it.

The bottom line? I give this issue a big two thumbs down. Save your money and the recycle bin and just say no to VK Holiday

Equi-knocks

2009-09-22T13:17:00.004-04:00

This afternoon just before suppertime will be an astronomical event that I dread every year....the Autumnal Equinox. Why, you ask? I will answer in just one word. Light. That's it -- Light. I crave light. Daylight, sunlight, bright light that is not fluorescent or otherwise artificial, REAL LIGHT. And starting today there will be less of it in a 24 hour period and more of darkness. Darkness is confining, depressing, discouraging, and just plain old not fun or exciting.

After having worked far too many 12-hour shifts in windowless NICUs where it was dark when I drove to work in the morning and dark when I left in the evening, never having seen the light of day all day, I have this pathological thing about light. I have to have a window seat at restaurants, I wear light and brightly colored clothes. I don't wear black. My bedroom walls are a cheery shade of pink. I have at least 7 lamps in my room, just so it is light enough where I need it (studio table, desk, by the bed, etc.). I'll do most anything reasonable to fight off seasonal depression triggered by insufficient light.

Fall is always difficult for me. My fibromyalgia flares fiercely every year in October. This year the flare came a month early and I have been completely miserable. Mind you, I have spent one afternoon per week with my wonderful dentist, "Dr. Michael". I think I have paid for the private school tuition for one of his sons this fall with all the work I have had done. But I am now officially worthy of being called a QUEEN....and I have the gold crown to prove it. Ouch! I have coped as best I can by doing what usually helps the most...meds and knitting. But somehow my right shoulder got hurt last week...it may have been the serious cleaning and dejunking I was doing. Whatever, the pain has been so bad that I haven't been able to do much of anything, most notably knitting. ARRRRGH! This has made me one grumpy gal...my poor family is still putting up with me though.

In my restricted state I found I could not knit on my complicated, twisting, CookieA Clandestine socks, but I could knit "plain vanilla" socks. And so this morning I finished another pair of socks for Daddy. I dubbed this pair "Ugly Man Socks" because that's what I call all of his socks. After all, I use pretty, colorful yarns and interesting lace patterns for my socks; for his I use plain stitches and dark, rather boring colors. The irony in all this is that this pair of socks is really quite attractive. I love the yarn. If I hadn't knit daddy's socks from it I would knit socks for myself from it. Awesome yarn. Sigh. I never was any good at cynicism, sarcasm, or any other of those acerbic things. I should know better than to label something "ugly" before seeing the end result. Double sigh.

Better luck next time...with the next pair...or two...of socks. Knitting on!

Summertime Knitting

2009-08-12T20:04:00.007-04:00

Since I haven't been exactly diligent in keeping my blog up to date I thought I'd start back with a progress report (or two) on what I've been doing the past 3 or so months. First I must tell you what I haven't been doing as much of....gardening. The workload is getting to be more than this old girl can handle. I did turn the big Five-0 in June you know and I guess my age is starting to show along with the limitations of fibromyalgia. I still adore flowers though so my answer is flowering trees, shrubs, bulbs, and perennials. I think this Forever Pink hydrangea is stunning, yet it requires very little care at all. That's a plant I can dig!

On the knitting front, it's been a super lacy summer. Things started out last spring when I started knitting this gorgeous shawl as a part of the Spring KAL for the Lace Knitters group that meets at my LYS, The Yarn Haven. Each person chose a project from the recently published Knitted Lace of Estonia by Nancy Bush. KLE is an awesome book and this shawl, the Lilac Leaf Shawl, was perhaps my favorite design in the book. I love the leaf lace pattern and have knit it in a number of different projects, but when combined with the restrained addition of nupps (a type of cluster stitch that is characteristic of Estonian Lace) in a diamond border, it's a real winner. I knit my shawl using a luscious shade of a soft purpley pink alpaca & silk lace yarn (Classic Elite Silky Alpaca Lace) and US 5/3.75mm needles. I used a generous needle size for the yarn because this design was meant to be very open and airy. The finished shawl used ~1.5 balls of yarn and measured 20" x 66" which is just perfect. Everything about this shawl was a two thumbs up for me. WooHoo!

Braced by the positive experience of knitting the Lilac Leaf Shawl I next turned to a long-time WIP that had been hibernating in a basket for a seriously long time - Evelyn Clark's infamous Swallowtail Shawl. Zillions of knitters made this shawl, including many who had never knit lace before...or since for that matter. The original pattern was little more than a generous scarf with a pretty edging, but I wanted more. I wanted a big shawl...a BIG shawl. Why? Because I had discovered that the few little shawls sat in my closet and never got worn. Oh, OK. So I added many extra repeats to the top portion of the shawl, like 10 extra to be exact. The pattern called for 14 reps. The design demanded extra reps be added in groups of 5, but one set (19 reps total) wasn't big enough so I stuck it out (BORING) until I had 24 reps total.

I was already weary by this time, but when I hit the Lily of the Valley edging I kinda lost my love for the project. Knitting nupps was a huge pain in the you-know-what. Ugh. And so the shawl sat for more than a year while I found it in my heart to forgive it for being a pain and finish. I found a few helpful tricks for knitting good nupps and pushed my way through. The completed shawl used only one 2oz. ball of white Jaggerspun Zephyr, was knit on US 2.5/3.0mm needles (tiny!), and measured 30" x 60". So, after all that the shawl is a nice size, but it still isn't big. It is pretty though and I'm glad I stuck it out.

Book review: Knits from the North Sea

2009-08-09T21:59:00.005-04:00

I haven't done much blogging lately but I have been doing a ton of knitting. Lace knitting. I owe many explanations and photos and I promise I will post them, but I'm a bit distracted right now by a new lace knitting book that was just released, Knits from the North Sea: Lace in the Shetland Tradition by Carol Rasmussen Noble and Margaret Leask Peterson. Sandy, my LYSO showed us a flier from the publisher at our lace knitting group a couple of months ago. From the flier the projects looked wonderful and based on the success of our spring KAL using a book group members agreed that this new book would be wonderful as the source for projects for our fall KAL. We decided to go for it, sight unseen. Note to self: never ever commit to a book or pattern for a KAL sight unseen ever again. PS. Wait to see what the real contents a book are before blowing big bucks on a copy. PPS. Don't trust that a book labeled Shetland lace will indeed contain Shetland lace projects. PPPS. Never buy a lace book authored by Carol Rasmussen Noble ever again---it is bad for one's blood pressure and quality of sleep. That woman has some mighty crazy ideas about lace knitting.

I have spent a serious amount of time over the past week trying to decipher, decode, and or otherwise make sense out of the content of this supposed Shetland lace book. It hasn't been easy. I forgot to take note of the author when making the initial decision to use this book for the LK group Fall KAL. I was reminded very fast when I turned the introductory Tips and Techniques section and saw the recommendation to only use straight needles (not circular) when knitting lace. GROAN! Oh no, that crazy lady. I didn't purchase her previous lace book as a newbie lace knitter based on that blanket statement. The consensus of the online (international) lace knitting community is that using circular needles is not only perfectly fine, but frequently necessary to accommodate the large number of stitches in a project. My current shawl project, the Aeolian Lace Shawl has ~450 sts at present. That just ain't gonna ever fit on Ms. Noble's 10" straight needles. But I digress.

I knew right away I was in for trouble upon looking at the first project, Carol's Mountain Stream Scarf. The knitter is instructed to use US1/2.25mm needles to knit a popular kid mohair/silk lace yarn, Douceur et Soie. Huh??? I have always used either a size 5 or 6 needle with the yarn as it has such a lofty halo from the mohair content. Trying to knit this stuff on a sz 1 could make a sane lace knitter suicidal, really! The whole book was filled with cra* like this. To make matters worse, very few of the designs used distinctive Shetland motifs, most were either plain vanilla, simply nice, or worse, from the Orenburg Russia lace tradition. If you can explain how that fits in a Shetland lace book I'd love to hear it. Don't tell me it's because both countries touch the North Sea cuz Orenburg is a far cry from the North Sea..like the whole of the Ural Mountains away. To make maters worse, all of CRN's designs are labelled and presented in such a way as to more closely reflect her Reno, NV home--not the Shetland Isles. Go figure?

My first reaction/recommendation is to save your money and don't waste it buying this book. Nothing in it is worth even the Amazon price of ~$17. But I have already committed to using this book for my KAL and the announcements are out so I have the unpleasant task of editing the errors and just plain nonsense and turning the projects into something my newbies can manage and my intermediate knitters will enjoy. Translation: much swatching and many long conversations with my LYSO on how to guide customers who plan to knit projects from the book. Martingale Press should pay me for all the work it has been fixing this mess. Never again I tell you.

I am knitting a couple of scarves from the book just so I can know how to guide the knitters in the group. The projects will be nice once I have finished editing the patterns so all is not lost. It's just a whole lot more work than I had planned on and the projects aren't what I had hoped for. Lesson learned. SIGH!

Gotthold Doily

2009-04-28T17:59:00.002-04:00

Gotthold
Originally uploaded by beadntat

I'm finally getting around to posting photos of my recently completed Niebling Doilies. This is Gotthold, from the folio Kunststricken: Grosse un kleine Decken that was reprinted by Verlag fur die Frau in Germany and made available in the US at Lacis. It is so nice to finally be able to access legal copies of vintage Niebling designs at an affordable price. Before then avid lace knitters either had to pay a King's ransom to buy the patterns on Ebay or they downloaded illegal copies from the internet. I refused to do either so I was out of luck. No more! Lacis says they will have another collection ready for purchase soon...and this time it will be translated into English and the patterns will all have been proofed and test-knit so they will be error-free. WooHoo! I can't wait :-)

Christel Doily

2009-04-28T17:52:00.002-04:00

Christel
Originally uploaded by beadntat

There were many long evenings of squinting and finger stretches, but at last little Christel is off the needles. I say little not because the doily is small, at 18 inches blocked it is anything but small, but the DMC tatting thread and the US000/1.5mm needles I used to knit Christel are most definitely small. Very small. Crazy small. Forget bifocals and ditch the glasses small. That's SMALL!!! But I really love this little doily. She is so delicate when compared Gotthold knit with sz 40 cordonnet and US 0/2.0mm needles. Yes, Gotthold looks huge!!!

Gotthold was my third Niebling Doily (Starry Night/Valentine's Day was my first, Mallins 44 the second) and Christel my fourth. I am most definitely hooked on knitting these vintage German designs. So much so that I dropped a small chunk of change on ebay last night for an old magazine filled with patterns by another designer, Erich Engeln. In German Engeln means tulip so it only makes sense that his lace designs frequently featured tulips. There are several doilies plus a large tablecloth with the most amazing tulip motifs that I can't wait to knit. I'm sure Mom will be thrilled since tulips are her most favorite of all flowers. She loves many types of flowers, as do I, but she loves tulips the most. Now all I have to do is contemplate thread choices and wait on the DM (Deutsch Mail, known to be notoriously slow at times) to send my little treasure on its way to me. I can't wait!!!

Happy Valentine's Day

2009-02-16T15:05:00.007-05:00

It's February, it's still winter (ugh!), and I, the Queen of Old Maids, have survived yet another Valentine's Day. Unlike times past I have now arrived at the age of wisdom where I know it is perfectly fine to be single and even better to celebrate the day in my own way. I did very good this year. Very good!

I started things out by doing what I love, knitting. I knit a wonderful doily known as Starry Night, but really it is the Valentine's Day doily because the center is a ring of hearts. I knit mine using red Cebelia 20 and 2.5mm needles. Sweet! I can now knit such lovely little masterpieces with reckless abandon because I am the chuffed owner of a proper blocking board. A what you ask? Yes, a board that is padded and covered with a iron-proof cloth that is imprinted with a precisely measured grid, both square and circular, which allows me to pin out soggy little starch-laden cotton strings into glorious lace. oh joy!!!

After purchasing said board at my local JoAnn's (using a 50% off coupon, of course) I went on a spree and blocked every new doily I knit last year. As if that were not enough, I then proceeded to test my eyesight and teensy tiny knitting skills by knitting more doilies...with skinnier thread...and teensier little needles...and more complex stitches. Call it the lace knitter's endorphin rush. It's been a blast!

I did have balance to my Valentine's celebrating. I do more than just knit after all. I went shopping. Mom (love ya!) took me shopping for some new jeans, and pants, and a lacy tank, and a super pink shirt. Yummy, yummy. I wore said jeans and tank with a proper orange and white sweater and hand-knit socks (my Vols Victory Lace socks, of course) to the Vanderbilt vs. Tennessee men's basketball game at Thompson-Boling Arena. Tyler Smith had a super game. Bruce Pearl's guys played better than they did the previous week and won big over arch rival Vandy. I, having degrees from both universites, could not lose as a fan...but make no mistake, I am a Vols fan all the way. GO BIG ORANGE!!!

Busy Bugs

2008-12-08T15:27:00.003-05:00

I just thought I'd post a quickie to let ya'll know I have not fallen off the face of the earth. I am alive and battling a respiratory bug which means I sleep even more than usual. When not sleeping I am knitting like crazy. I've had a acute case of finishitis followed by a case of blockitis. I have a number of new shawls ready to wear to show for it all. The unusually cold weather here in East Tennessee has prompted me to buy some fat yarn and use broomstick-sized needles to knit some toasty warm hats for my cold head. I made my first foray into entrelac knitting and I think I am hooked!

Before I hear the clamour about where are the pictures I will just say you have to be patient. I have taken them, but my poor old 'puter was so overloaded it just couldn't handle them. The good news is that Sinterklaas visited me on St. Nicholas Day and left me a present that was too big to fit into my wooden shoes...a new computer!!! A fast computer with lots of horsies under the hood (4G RAM/640G hard drive) and a big flat panel widescreen monitor. It's so clear and bright it almost makes my eyes hurt. In between naps I'm trying to move my files from the old 'puter to the new one. My attempts thus far to get my wireless access hardware to work and get online have failed miserably so I'm offline for the most part for a few more days. I do try and check my email every day or two so I will get important messages eventually. As for the projects photos, there are a bunch under beadntat on Ravelry. The rest will be forthcoming. Until then...Ho, Ho, Ho and don't sweat the small stuff...It's Christmas and you're supposed to feel a little joy, OK? Have a Holly Jolly adn I'll be back faster adn better than ever very soon. {{{HUGS!!!}}}

Halloween and other scary things

2008-10-31T21:19:00.005-04:00

The month of October has come to an end. It's Halloween, a holiday celebrated with almost as many parties and candy as Christmas. Halloween these days is quite different from the one I knew as a kid. I remember getting dressed up in simple (mostly) homemade costumes and going door-to-door in the neighborhood Trick-or-Treating. We used pillowcases to collect our candy. Daddy always went with us so that nothing bad would happen. Daddy went trick-or-treating twice as a kid...without parents as was the norm in those days...and both times he got beat up by neighborhood bullies who promptly stole all his candy (OK, so he was a wimp). Daddy wasn't about to let someone do that to his precious darlings :-) We came home, carefully sorted our candy, then negotiated swaps with our siblings to get rid of the stuff we didn't want (black licorice, malted milk balls, peanut butter "kisses") for better stuff (Snickers, Reeses', Butterfingers, etc.). That was pretty much it.

Things have changed. By the time the kids have worn their costumes to Halloween events (Trunk or Treat at Church, Boo at the Zoo, Trick or Treating at the Mall, "Safety City" at the police Dept., area corn maze attractions, plus the local park and school) for at least a week, going Trick or Treating on the 31st is rather anticlimatic. We won't go into details about how much more candy the kids haul in nor the sugar high they've been on all week long. Yikes!!! I call this EXCESSIVE!

While I'm ranting about excessive let me tell you about a shower I was recently invited to. The "invitation" was sent via a website that specializes in sending "e-vites", a rather interesting phenomena that I'm not all that keen on. It seems that the availability of a free internet service (sponsored by retailers that feature registry services for the bride or mother-to-be) for inviting people to showers and other parties is the easiest way ever to invite an enormous number of people to come to an event...and bring presents. Lots of presents! Cutting and pasting lists of email addresses is fast and easy not to mention cheap. I don't recall ever attending a bridal or baby shower where there were 70+ invitees in the days of hand addressed, stamped and post-office mailed printed/engraved invitations. Excessive is easy when it's free and online. At least this most recent e-vite was to a shower being hosted in a private home. Previously I was e-vited to shower held at a cafe where attendees were free to order food and beverages--and pay for it--if they wanted to. I guess I'm Old Fashioned, but I find such things to be terribly rude.

My most recent e-vite was for a baby shower. The honoree is having her 5th child. FIVE! Please RVSP and oh, btw the mom-to-be is registered at Baby R Us :-) OK...I totally get a shower for the 1st child...even the 2nd, but I remember the shower for baby #4 just a few years ago, and now it's #5. Forgive me for thinking that this is a bit excessive, but really???? I mean I like the honoree and all and I have no problems with having 5 children, but puhleeze! Five baby showers is excessive in my book. I have recently learned that many Moms-to-be being feted with showers are requesting gifts of disposable diapers. Add this to my list of things in appallingly bad taste. Why don't we just have a donation drive at church or the office or wherever and everyone bring a couple of boxes of Luvs to contribute so the poor child will have something new to poop on? What happened to offering gifts that are of lasting value, perhaps even sentimental value, or at least something that can be worn more than a few hours before being thrown away? What happened to beautiful blankets, silver spoons, or even crib sheets? When it is baby #5 I'd rather fuss over the mother with lotions, bubble bath, or a giftcard for a manicure than tie a ribbon around a box of wadded padding encased in plastic cartoons that will be in the landfill in a few short weeks.

I don't know, maybe my Old Maid is showing. After all, I've never best the honoree in a shower. No one ever gifted me with a crock pot, toaster, or a package of onesies. If you don't get married or have babies, especially in Mormon social culture, you are essentially overlooked...except to be e-vited along with all the other ladies at church to a shower for a dear woman who is having her fifth child. After careful consideration of the event and the time of day (10AM...yikes!)I politely declined the invitation. Having a chronic illness can be very convenient when you need an excuse to avoid stuff. Mom & Dad are going to be in Alabama that weekend so Mom has an excuse too. I'm not sending a gift either...surely the Mom has plenty of onesies and crib sheets. Heck, she probably has a silver spoon tucked away somewhere too. I doubt I'll be missed. At the very least I won't be at an event trying to gush appropriately while feeling like a hypocrite. If nothing else I am an honest woman.

The Best Laid Plans

2008-10-15T13:27:00.004-04:00

It was bound to happen. After all the careful contemplation of patterns, extensive swatching, a fair amount of math, and a sleeve aka lace pattern swatch I felt confident that I had done everything in my power to assure that this time the sweater I am knitting would fit. This one was not going to be wide enough for two persons like my previous attempts, after all, I am a much more experienced knitter now. O know what to do and I did it (that "S" thing).

I cast-on the stated 259 sts and started knitting this all-in-one-without-side-seams cardigan with great confidence. I knew the reverse stockinette stitch edging was supposed to undulate so it would take at least one repeat of the lace pattern before I could pass judgment on size. I chose to use a 60" Addi-Turbo needle so I could do a test "try-on" as I knit. Let's just say it didn't take a full repeat for me to know that once again, this cardigan was way too wide. It should be my motto...Way Too Wide. It was at least 4 inches too wide...possibly more. It was late at night (my best knitting time). I groaned and pitched the thing into a basket and called it a night.

The next morning I re-evaluated the situation. I did a bit more math, then I frogged the whole things and started over knitting one size smaller. The test-sleeve will have to be frogged too since the rate of increases is quite different in the smaller size. SIGH! This will be a beautiful sweater that fits...if it kills me!!!

In a fever of Startitis a couple of weeks ago I also cast-on a triangle shawl that I saw on Ravelry. It was a new pattern by an indie designer, Rebecca Hatcher of Archiknist, called Ariel. It was a simple top-down triangle shawl with one lace motif comprising the body of the shawl -- a style similar to that of my favorite designer Evelyn Clark. In a impulsive moment I purchased and downloaded the shawl. Then I dug out a cone of ColourMart merino laceweight yarn in a delicious pinky-raspberry shade and went to work. First I triple stranded the yarn to create a fingering weight (My ball winder and right shoulder have yet to forgive me for this), then I grabbed a big size 6 needle and cast-on. What a wonderful pattern! What a delicious yarn!! What a yummy shawl this is becoming!!! As of this morning I have ten repeats of Chart B (main chart) completed. I have lots of yarn so I'll knit until the shawl is big enough or until I'm sick of knitting on it. Either way it will be fabulous :-)

I didn't need to cast-on for the Ariel Lace Shawl because I have a backlog of KAL shawl projects that need my attention. But who's looking at the practical facts here? Not me. I also cast-on a brand new Stole from Birgit Freyer's Yahoo Group Knitting-Delight. I really love Birgit's design esthetic. Perhaps it is the German blood in me that bonds us, but she has more great designs that I would love to knit that I can ever imagine having the time for. The awful exchange rate makes it expensive for me to buy many of my favorites, but I do collect her free KAL patterns. When the 1st clue of her new Way of Life Stole was posted, I cast-on the same day using some Knit Picks Gloss Lace Yarn from my stash. This shawl is knit sideways having over 300 cast-on stitches. The pattern has been a geometric lace pattern that is repeated 17 times for the length of the stole. Not very complex really, but amazingly attractive and interesting. I have the 1st 4 clues completed and am anxiously awaiting the release of the 5th clue on Thursday.

All this spontaneity means I haven't finished several WIPS, nor have I written the sock patterns I have promised to do. I feel only slightly guilty. I will try to do better by at least getting the patterns done as folks are waiting on them. The WIPS are only about me, so they don't matter nearly as much. In the meantime, I'm trying to do as much knitting as I can given that my fibromyalgia is in a rage and my right arm fells like someone is trying to yank it out of it's socket. Yeeeouch! (that's a huge understatement). I rested it some on Sunday and Monday by taking time off to read Debbie Macomber's wonderful knitty novel The Shop on Blossom Street. The book was completely delightful and I've started reading the sequel A Good Yarn. If my shoulder won't let me knit then I guess I'll have to settle for reading about knitters. Such is life :-)

The "S" word

2008-09-16T14:58:00.008-04:00

I am living proof that you can convince an old dog to do the old tricks she never bothered to do before. Huh? Well this Old Knitter has finally learned that if you want the outcome of your knitting to be what you expect(ie, if you want the sweater to fit), then you must SWATCH. Whew! There, I said it...the S word. SWATCH. You know, that thing I never did way back when I first started trying to knit sweaters from craft store quality yarn, only to discover that the finished garment was big enough for two people at least 8 feet tall to wear...at the same time! Don't ask me why I didn't figure this out until the sweaters were finished. I don't know. They had big wide horizontal stripes too (eek!). And some were knit out of Sugar n Cream yarn, so they continued to grow, and grow, and GROW!

So... I am older and wiser now. I'm a much better knitter too. This means that I have repented of my sins and have given in to the knitting of swatches. LOTS of swatches. I have committed to Knitting Fearlessly along with the rest of knitting world that reads the Knitting Daily blog. For me this means I will knit a "big girl" sweater this year. Given that it is September already, my time is running out and I need to get going. I have dug through my yarn & pattern stash and conducted intensive "research" at my LYS and my favorite online retailers in preparation for this big event. But before any serious decisions about patterns and yarn could be made I knew I had to swatch. I'm talking serious swatching! And so I have! There are funny little blocks of knitted fabric scattered across my room/studio and copious detailed notes scratched into my sketchbook as evidence that I am making progress! Scary, I know.

Up first was some Italian 15/44 Extrafine Merino DK (aka Baruffa Cashwool) from ColourMart.com. Richard was very gracious to send me samples of 3 colors (Tartan Rose, Tartan Green, Geranium) I was interested in purchasing. The samples arrived last Thursday and I wasted no time in swatching to see how this yarn knitted up. Each yarn sample was 7g/~20 yds. I measured them at ~13wpi. Gauge measurements were taken at three intervals: 1)immed. after knitting with the swatch pinned out but not stretched, 2)after handwashing in very warm water with shampoo and towel drying (sample still damp), and 3)after tumble drying for ~15 min. on the low heat/knit setting. All swatches were stretched, rubbed and otherwise "abused" by hand while still damp. Here are the gauge measurements:

A. Tartan Rose - US 5/3.75mm Addi-lace needles, cast-on 30 sts
1) 24sts x 32r/4"sq or 6sts x 8r/1"sq
2) 26sts x 32r/4"sq or 6.5sts x 8r/1"sq
3) 24sts x 36r/4"sq or 6sts x 9r/1'sq
A fairly firm fabric, great for designs in St st that require body, great for a sweater; the yarn was easily split with the pointy lace needles.

B. Tartan Green - US 6/4.0mm Addi-Turbo needles, c/o 30sts
1) 22sts x 30r/4"sq or 5.5sts x 7.5r/1"sq
2) 24sts x 30r/4"sq or 6sts x 7.5r/1"sq
3) 22sts x 34r/4"sq or 5.5sts x 8.5r/1"sq
Knit wonderfully smooth on the turbo needles with no splitting whatsoever, a very nice fabric that was neither too firm nor too loose. My #1 choice for gauge :-)

C. Geranium - US7/4.5mm Addi-Turbo needles, c/o 26sts
1) 20sts x 28r/4"sq or 5sts x 7r/1"sq
2) 21sts x 28r/4"sq or 5.25sts x 7r/1"sq
3) 20sts x 34r/4"sq or 5sts x 8.5r/1"sq
Technically this is a worsted gauge, but the fabric was more open or loose, not as cohesive for a St st project such as a sweater, better for lace. This swatch stretched out quite a bit after washing, though drying returned the body back to the knitted fabric.

I found the yarns pleasant to knit in their original, unwashed state. Splitting may be an issue if pointy-tipped needles are used. The fiber bloomed beautifully after washing and a brief tumble-dry. There was no evidence of felting> I would briefly finish drying the completed item in a tumble-dryer the first time, but would not machine-wash or routinely tumble-dry this yarn. My final swatches were wonderfully soft and cuddly, perfect for sweaters or baby things. It is very evident that this is a premium/best quality merino wool yarn.

I fell completely in love with this DK merino yarn. It will be the best yarn I've ever attempted to knit into a sweater. That fact alone bodes well for the success of my project. I will be FEARLESS! I will also post about my other swatches as I get to it :-)

Nicht Mein Tag

2008-08-28T22:52:00.005-04:00

I was trying to wade through/delete all the knitting group messages from my overstuffed Yahoo mailbox tonight (blame the distraction of the Olympics) when I came across this message from Birgit Freyer, a German designer of lovely knitted lace shawls:
Oh jeeeh,heute ist nicht mein Tag ;-). Birgit, I couldn't have said it better myself. Loosely translated she said Oh jeez, today is not my day. Me neither Birgit, me neither. My German is pithy poor, but I know enough to be able to translate that line. Some aspects of my body clock/biorhythms are disgustingly predictable. Like every 4th Thursday I will have a migraine, sometimes a little one, sometimes a monster...a migraine that may last until Sunday. Blame hormones. Today's migraine was a real doozy. Not being able to find where mother hid the Excedrin (my most effective weapon) did not help matters. I take more potent pain meds for my fibro, but for some reason Excedrin works as well or better than any prescription migraine med I've ever tried. I've tried lots of them, and at around $15-20/pill those other meds are budget busters. I'll stick with Excedrin and a Diet Coke thankyouverymuch >:-(

And while today was nicht mein Tag,, I did make some more progress on the 3rd design in my series of Tennessee sock patterns. In this design I abandon lace in favor of the more traditional/classic look of the orange and white checkerboard. The checkerboard pattern is a revered symbol at The University of Tennessee. Football fans know the endzones at Neyland Stadium are painted in orange and white checkerboard, but did you know that the checkerboard is an architectural detail on the bell tower of Ayres Hall on the Hill? I was looking at some photos of Ayres Hall the other day and noticed the checkerboard for the very first time...how cool! So inspired I designed this sock with a checkerboard band at on the cuff, and intarsia Power T on the top of the foot, and contrasting orange afterthought heels and toes. It's an ambitious project for me as it's my 2nd ever stranded colorwork project and my 1st experience with intarsia and afterthought heels. This photo is not good as this lighting is way off, but I'll get a better one when the 1st sock is done.

I'm quite thrilled with the results thus far. I'm enjoying the learning process. Even more shocking, I'm loving the break from lace (gasp!). I know, shocking. I may get into this colorwork thing yet ;-) Kick-off is only 4 short days away.... GO VOLS!!!

Vols Victory Socks

2008-08-27T20:00:00.001-04:00

Vols Victory Socks
Originally uploaded by beadntat

The first football game of the season is less than a week away and I'll be ready to cheer on my beloved University of Tennessee Vols in my new Vols Victory Socks! The second in a series of UT themed sock designed by yours truly under the Plaasabilites Design label, the Vols Victory Socks incorporate a simple V patterned lace motif. Not known for my speedy sock knitting, these socks were a quick knit..only 4 days! Not bad for knitting and designing socks for this gal.

The scoop:
Pattern: Vols Victory Socks
Designer: Kristina Plaas
Source: Plaasabilities Designs
Yarn: J. Knits Superwash Me - Go UT!
Needles: US 2 (2.75mm)
Gauge: 8 sts/"
Started: 22Aug08
Finished: 26Aug08

Details: A top-down sock design with Victory Lace pattern, Eye of Partridge heel flap and Star Toe knit in the round using the Magic Loop technique.

Look for the pattern soon at The Yarn Haven in Knoxville, TN and online. Go Vols!!!

Vols Victory Socks

2008-08-23T16:59:00.001-04:00

Vols Victory Socks
Originally uploaded by beadntat

By popular request I am designing sock patterns to complement the J. Knits Superwash Me Go UT! sock yarn sold exclusively at The Yarn Haven in Knoxville, TN. I created another design last year when the yarn first came out, but I had mixed feelings about the pattern so I didn't write it up. To be truthful, my reservations were excessive and not warranted as the finished socks (Volunteer Spirit Socks) look great. But the Volunteer Spirit lace pattern did have some tricky aspects that would be challenging to less experienced knitters so I went back to my sketch book and tried to come up with something that still communicated the spirit of the Vols but would be more accessible to lees-skilled sock knitters.

And so I present the beginnings of the Vols Victory Socks. The V is for Vols is still there, but the lace is simple to knit. I am knitting the socks from the top down with an Eye of Partridge heel flap and, when I get there, a star toe (no grafting!). When I get finished the pattern will be made available for purchase at The Yarn Haven and online. The Volunteer Spirit Socks will also be available for purchase soon. University of Tennessee fans and those who knit for them will soon have their very own handknit socks to help them cheer the Vols on to Victory. Go Vols!!!

Play the Anthem, Raise the Flag..

2008-08-20T21:16:00.000-04:00

Bow to Bobicus Maximus, Wave to the Crowd, and say "Hi Mom!", I finished my Ravelympics Events with honor, and under the time limit. Yes indeedy, I cast-off my Angel Lace Shawl with beads last night. This morning I did the bath and blocking thing. I am done :-)

The scoop:
Pattern: Angel Lace Shawl
Designer: Evelyn Clark
Source: FiberTrends, purchased at my LYS, The Yarn Haven
Yarn: Misti Alpaca Lace - color: lavender, 70grams/613 yards
Needles: Knit Picks Options US 4 (3.5mm)
Beads: 8-0 Ivory Ceylon (Czech) - 415 total
Dimensions: 50" x 23" not stretched; 72" x 33" blocked

Final word: A great design; the only troublespot was my split plied splicing technique failed me at blocking and required repair. I think the Misti Alpaca is too fragile for this technique if a severe blocking is planned. I'll use a different technique with this yarn in the future.

Tag, you're it!

2008-08-19T21:07:00.002-04:00

A week or two ago I was tagged by Lovie, my nephew Tyler's mother-in-law, to reveal 5 things I love a lot. I generally dislike being "tagged" - it rates right up there with chain letters and spam for me. I refuse to tag others after me, but because I love your Lovie, I will respond to your request. I love many things, so limiting them to 5 is both a challenge an act of mercy on anyone else who is reading this.

First off I must say that I love my family. We're a small family, so staying in touch and being close isn't too hard. We each have very different tastes and preferences and are all strong-willed, so putting everyone in the same room at the same time and expecting all to be happy...well...no easy task. But we do love each other and look out for one another and that's the important thing.

Next I love the personal relationship I have with my Heavenly Father and my Elder Brother and Savior Jesus Christ. I love being a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) have a firm testimony of the truthfulness of the church, it's leaders and teachings. 'Nuff said.

I dearly love the beauties of this world. I'm especially passionate about the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and all the treasures I find there. But no matter where I am, I find joy in the flowers and trees and birds and everything that is beautiful around me.

The 1st three items on this list were easy. The rest of the list is just one of the many little things that fill my life with joy. I love good music. I played the cello growing up and learned to love classical music. I also love to sing and have a special fondness for sacred and classical music, opera, and good old American favorites from movies and musicals and other traditional sources. I also love the arts of almost every genre. I love going to galleries and museums and arts festivals. I love attending plays and concerts. But, lest one think I'm all artsy-fartsy let me assure you that I love sports too. While I am not gifted athletically, I'm a great fan of my favorite sports: college football, college basketball, figure skating, gymnastics, road cycling & the Tour de France, swimming, etc. And finally, I love being creative and learning new things. Whether it's contemplating nursing theory, discovering history, or mastering a new knitting technique, I'm always learning new things. Each discovery I make adds to my understanding of the world, other people, and myself. Each new thing prods me to think thoughts I've never had before, make things I've never made before, and expands my world. It's a wonderful way to be :-)

What does 08.08.08 mean???

2008-08-18T18:56:00.004-04:00

It's supposedly a very lucky number in China. How convenient that it happened to fall on a Friday this year...perfect timing for the Opening Ceremonies of the XXIX Olympiad in Beijing, China. I love watching the Olympics - everything from the Opening Ceremonies to most of the competitive events (nix wrestling, boxing, and a couple of others) to the Closing Ceremonies - it's all fascinating to me. Some sports I follow all the time - gymnastics, swimming, cycling are among my favorites. Some sports are novel to me. This year I've learned a little about the team sport handball. And to think I thought handball was a game played by 2 people in a racquetball court!

A more recent "sporting event" added to my "Olympic experience" has been knitting. It all started 2 years ago when Stephanie Pearl-McPhee aka The Yarn Harlot got the wild idea to have an international knitting event of challenge and goodwill in association with the Winter Olympic Games in Torino, Italy in 2006. And thus the Official Knitting Olympics was born. The KO is be held every 4 years in true Olympic tradition associated with the winter games. But the idea caught on in an enormous sort of way, so with the Beijing summer games looming on the horizon a comparable, but distinctly different Olympic event for fiber fanatics seemed inevitable. And what is the biggest thing to come along since The Yarn Harlot and Torino? Why Ravelry, of course! I love Ravelry, or at least most of the time I do, so it was the logical venue for hosting an Olympic-sized event. And so the Ravelympics were born. The knitters and crocheters, representing their unique teams, cast-on for their respective events during the Opening Ceremonies and work feverishly to complete their projects before the Olympic Flame is turned off in Beijing.

I was a beginning lace knitter 2 years ago during the Knitting Olympics. My chosen project was very ambitious - my 1st lace shawl. I knit Kiri in a heavy laceweight/light fingering weight red cashmerino. I finished in time, basked in the glory of my triumph, and forever sealed my addiction to lace knitting. Now, 2 years and many shawls later, I'm still knitting lace and loving it. This time the choice of what to knit was difficult as there were so many awesome patterns to choose from. I signed up for Team G.R.I.T.S. (Girls Raised In The South, one of the Ravelry groups I participate in) and entered the Shawl Relay, Laceweight Long Jump, and Balance Beads. That was the easy part. The rest was hard. I needed to use yarn from The Yarn Haven, my favorite LYS as I am also participating the int shop's Olympic event. That limited my pattern options some. The rest of the decision should have been easy--choose something you like that you know you can do. But could I do that??? No way! No, I desperately wanted to knit Mystic Meadows, an ambitious cables and lace stole that would be hard to complete in the 17 days of the Olympics. I quietly entered 3 shawl projects into the Ravelympics, knowing I would knit only one. Every good gymnast has an alternate plan for each routine, right? Right!

OK, so that's the scoop. Now to the event. I cast-on during the Opening Ceremonies. I started my ambitious project - the Mystic Meadows shawl. I calculated in advance that I needed to knit between 25-30 rows per day in order to finish the "race". It was ambitious, but doable, I thought. But 3 1/2 hours and 13 rows later, with a fair amount of tinking to correct mistakes, I knew I was in over my head. Could I knit this shawl in 17 days? Absolutely. Could I knit the shawl AND watch the Olympics? Nope. No way. Mystic Meadows demands too much concentration. Too much counting. And so I set it aside and cast-on the Angel Lace Shawl, my alternate plan.

The Angel Lace Shawl is another wonderful pattern by one of my favorite designers, Evelyn Clark. Like many of Evelyn's shawl, Angel Lace is a top-down triangle shawl which starts with a few stitches at the neck and increases as the shawl progresses. I'm using a favorite yarn, Misti Alpaca Lace in a pretty pastel lavender, and adding ivory ceylon 8-0 seed beads to the "face" of each angel and along the bottom edge. I started on August 9th knitting the 1st chart and 4 repeats of the 2nd chart. I added 1-2 repeats each day until I completed 16 repeats last night and declared the shawl big enough. Today, the 10th day of Olympic competition, I started knitting the edging so I should be ready cast-on Tuesday or Wedsnesday. The Shawl relay referee decided that blocking was required for the "race" to be complete, so I will be doing that as soon as I finish casting off. I will triumph once again! And best of all...I will have another wonderful shawl to wear with pride and joy! Yea team!

When Kool-Aid meets Sock Yarn

2008-07-17T23:17:00.001-04:00

DSCN0267
Originally uploaded by creativelydyed

This is what you get! Or at least this is what I got when I took Dianne's class at The Yarn Haven on Tuesday. Kool, huh? And yes, the yarn smells like grape and cherry Kool-Aid. Soon it will be a pair of anklets...that will smell better than most socks do ... a lot better !!! ;-D

Dyeing is Kool!

2008-07-17T23:11:00.001-04:00

DSCN0265
Originally uploaded by creativelydyed

This photo is evidence that I did create my own hand-painted custom-dyed skein of sock yarn in Dianne's class at The Yarn Haven. We learned how to use Kool-aid to dye yarn..it was fun! Dianne encouraged me to get crazy with the colors, and I tried my best. I thank her for taking this photo and hope she doesn't mind that I'm sharing it with you. I had so much fun! I came away with the itch to start dyeing my own yarn. I also fell hopelessly in love with Dianne's own Creatively Dyed Yarn. Truly no two skeins are ever alike as she paints each one individually. There are no standards shades or stock colors...a unique thing in the dyeing world. I bought one skein of fingering weight alpaca in shades of hot pink and pearl gray. Of all the yarns Dianne delivered to the shop on Tuesday, that was the one that screamed at me the loudest. I just love it when yarn starts talking to me. Thanks Dianne...you ARE the BEST!!!

Creatively Dyed Yarn

2008-07-17T22:51:00.001-04:00

DSCN0270
Originally uploaded by creativelydyed

It was a red letter day for yarn lovers in Knoxville. Dianne of Creatively Dyed Yarn personally delivered the first of what will be many shipments of custom-dyed/handpainted yarns and rovings to The Yarn Haven. Ohmigosh, the socks yarns were TO DYE FOR delicious!!! Dianne taught 3 classes on yarn dyeing using the Kool-Aid method. I was in the last class of the day and I had a blast. This picture of Dianne (left) and Sandy (LYS owner, right) was taken in back of Dianne's trailer after the festivities were over. Can you believe they were still smiling (and ignoring how much their feet hurt)? I was standing just to the side of the trailer when this picture was taken...so I hope Dianne doesn't mind that I'm sharing her picture with all of my knitting friends. I was a great day!

Ketchup??? Fessin' Up!

2008-07-02T21:18:00.005-04:00

Now if that title didn't grab your attention, I don't know what would :-) But the time has come for me to ketchup on my blogging and fess up as to what I've been doing for the last few weeks. My last few blog posts were filled with images of my spring garden. I love sharing my garden with ya'll, but the truth is I was working on a Top Secret knitting project so I couldn't blog about it. Why? Because the intended target always reads my blog, of course! Now the the mission was accomplished, I can tell all :-)

Several months ago I sent my dear friend Diana some yarn to finish a shawl she was knitting as a gift. She had that dreaded I'm almost done and the yarn is gone! experience. Fortunately I happened to have the very same yarn from the same dyelot even. Cool! So Ms. Di sent me her snail mail addy and I discovered that she lived in a really neat historic town in West Virginia--just the kind of place I love to visit. I dropped an atom bomb sized hint that I would love to come for a visit and see the territory. Diana figured it out and invited me to come. Oh joy!!!

Now my Mother raised me to be a proper lady and I know how to be a good houseguest (thanks Mom!). I started to think about what I could bring as a hostess gift. The first thing that came to mind was something knitted, of course. I was inspired by some Malabrigo lace yarn at my LYS in Diana's favorite color - purple. I bought 2 skeins and headed home to figure out what to make with it. Then I learned that Diana's beloved Father-in-law Bill was ill and she was very concerned. That's when I knew I had to knit a lace shawl. I scoured my files and the 'net for the right pattern, found one I liked, and cast-on. About 25 rows in to the bottom-up triangle shawl I realized the pattern wasn't right for the task at hand, I frogged the whole thing and started my search all over again. I had 1 month left to knit the shawl.

I learned that Bill's health was deteriorating about the same time that I ran across Myrna Stahman's pattern, Alix's Prayer Shawl, in my files. At last, the perfect pattern! I knew I had the right yarn and the right pattern, but the combo of the two demanded that I add beads as well, and so I did.

Cast-on: May 8th
Knit, knit, knit. Bead, bead, bead.
Cast-off: June 8th
Whew, just in the nick of time!

The scoop:
Pattern: Alix's Prayer Shawl
Designer: Myrna Stahman
Source: DebbieMacomber.com
Yarn: Malabrigo Lace, 2 skeins (100g) color-Jacinto (~80g used)
Needles: Addi-Lace US 5 (3.75mm)
Beads: Matsuno 8-0 clear silverlined, ~25g (513 beads used)
Knit Main Chart (a-d) + 8 reps of section d = 11 reps + 1rep modified edging.
Final stitch count (before last row and cast-off): 441 sts
Blocked Dimensions: 76" x 38"

I gift-wrapped the shawl along with a lavender "bottle" made with fresh lavender from my garden, packed my car and headed to West Virginia on June 11th. After an 8-hour drive up I-81 and a little jaunt through the country side I arrived at the humble home of Diana and Tony. Eager to see her reaction, I offered up my gift of love that night. The look on Diana's face was priceless. She was almost speechless...almost ;-) I think she liked it... a lot. I was *very* happy.

To be continued...

Birthday Surprises

2008-06-06T22:11:00.004-04:00

A middle-aged single woman with no kids and a fairly quiet and unexciting life doesn't really expect much of any significance to happen on her birthday. It's the side effect of being childless...no "Happy Birthday Mommy" to follow you for the rest of your life. My Mom always remembers and celebrates with food (dinner out, cake, etc.) and a modest present/treat of some sort...one not usually wrapped up in paper and ribbons but always wonderful. If any one else remembers or acknowledges my birthday it's a treat - much appreciated but never anticipated nor expected. I think that's why I am so stunned tonight. Let me explain.

I slept in this morning like usual. So when I did get out of bed I headed over and turned on my computer so it could do it's thing and be ready when I am.It's an old computer now and has way too much stuff on it, so it's moves excruciatingly slow at times. While I waited on the 'puter I peered out my window to look at my garden and check the weather. Surprise number one was the little critter in the first photo. Yup, a baby chipmunk was feasting on sunflower seeds from the bird feeder. They're cute so as long as they don't munch on the wrong things (ie. my flowers) I let them stick around. Besides, Miss Emme my dachsy just loves chasing them! Now that's fun to watch! Of course Emme never catches the chippers or the squirrels tho' she almost caught a skink yesterday before I snatched her away. Poor critter scooted for his/her very life! Mother and I just hooted over that chase until it became clear Emme was going to win! But I digress....

Now awake, medicated, and DietCoked up, I sat down to read my email. Jiminy Crickets!!! All my emailboxes were loaded....with kind wishes for my birthday! Well I never in my life have seen so many folks take the time to drop a quick line to wish *me* and Happy Birthday. It was already amazed by the time I got through the email, but Ravelry put me over the top. Apparently Ravelry adds a little birthday icon to your Ravatar on your big day letting everyone know it's your birthday. Ohmigosh! I still haven't read all the private messages. There were numerous kind words on several of the forums I frequent in addition to the private messages. You know, it's pretty cool to have lace knitting friends across the globe offering cheery birthday greetings. These are such great people! I mean I knew that before today, but today affirmed it. Thanks ya'll! you're the best!!!

While still stunned by the email birthday messages (before I saw Ravelry) I went out to do my morning walk around the garden. Even before noon it was unusually hot and humid today. The roses are fading from their first wave of blooms, but the calla lilies, daisies, veronica, and balloonflowers are coming on strong. in addition, I have a hedge of Stella D'Oro daylilies the like of which I've never seen anywhere before! Massive waves of golden yellow flowers! And to think it all started with one measly plant purchased oh, say 6 years ago? They will have to be dug and divided this fall. Right now I am most smitten by a intensely saturated pink hydrangea in the front bed. Called Forever Pink, it is a repeat blooming hydrangea that is always supposed to be pink, regardless of soil pH. I bought 2 small plants 2 years ago, but they have never had a serious bloom since the Easter Freeze last year zapped all the hydrangeas. I was lucky any even survived.

Fueled by Martha Stewart Living, Victoria, and Southern Living magazines, I am now hydrangea crazy. I just can't seem to get enough of these amazing flowering shrubs! And since I have a barren back fence line that needs to be filled with sun loving things, I now have a place to put new plants that will grow to be fairly large. I bought myself 2 hydrangeas on clearance for Valentines Day, and they are settling in nicely along the north fence, but I want more! So when mother and I went to Lowe's for peat moss and compost/manure mix today I just couldn't help but lust over all the hydrangeas the vendors were hauling in off the trucks this afternoon. My lust was satisfied when mother spied the blue flower shown the above photo. I get to buy what Mother sees and likes :-) this time it's a Forever and Ever Hydrangea...also a repeat bloomer but one that is blue or pink depending on the soil pH. For now it is blue, tho' I suspect it might change when it gets planted in the ground where the pines once lived. We'll see!

Although the blue hydrangea wasn't on sale, I did stroll past the Stressed Plants table to see if I could find any bargains. I struck paydirt! Yup, for a whopping $2.99 each I toted home 2 everblooming white gardenias. The tag says they'll grow to be 2-3' tall and bloom all year round. We all know how yummy gardenias smell, so I am excited! I almost wish I had grabbed one or two more while I was at it. Heck, I may go back tomorrow and see if any are still there.(there were lots today). Now I have lavender and tuberose and gardenias and roses all growing in my garden...that's what I call a fragrant garden! Yum! Happy Birthday to me!!!

Don't be delinquent

2008-06-03T21:50:00.003-04:00

in posting to your blog or you too could be tagged into writing messages you never even considered writing. Gee, thanks Goddess Di! The Di insists she and others want to know trivial things such as the following:

1. What was I doing 10 years ago? Well, I was living in Salt Lake City and working as an Advance Practice RN at the Univ. of Utah Hospital Newborn ICU...and trying to survive. My health was failing fast due to fibromyalgia and I had just made the gut-wrenching decision to resign my job and move back to Tennessee where I could stay with my folks, not work, and go back to grad school. I was stressed, depressed, in great pain, and exhausted beyond words. Yikes! (you had to ask, didn't you?)

2. What are 5 things on my To-Do list today (in no particular order)?
- Get out of bed, get dressed, and do something useful (I'm serious!)
- Check out the South West Trading Co. Trunk Show at Loopville and see what Jinka (shop owner) has been up to ("trunk show" was an exaggeration, at best there were a few shop samples featuring SWTC yarns with free patterns for the saking--same ones already on the website..nothing I didn't already know about...but Jinka seemed her usual self)
- Run past Barnes & Noble and see if they have the current issue of PieceWork that I haven't been able to locate elsewhere (bonus...they had the new issue and an overlooked copy of the previous issue...both with great knitting and lace patterns!)
- Check on my garden: talk to roses and lavender, deadhead petunias and daylilies, check squash plants rescued from veggie bed that neighbor's maple tree fell on yesterday (grrr), check on germinating seedlings: marigolds, zucchini, cukes, cosmos
- Prewash fabric bought on sale yesterday and dig through stash for perfect pattern for cute summer outfit that *fits*

Oh, and KNIT!!!

3. Snacks I enjoy: If it's sweet or fattening, then I probably like it...from the ridiculous to the divine. Simple stuff: chex mix, saltine crackers, Pop-tarts, brownies, blondies, asorted cookies; the good stuff: great pastry ie. eclairs, napoleons, lemon tarts, croissants (the real kind..not purchased in multi-packs at Sam's Club), cherry pie, creme brulee', Dolce de Luce Ice Cream, Almond-raspberry torte, rich airy buttercream frosting on a feather light genoise cake, ..... shall I go on???? Nah, you get the idea :-)

4. Things I would do if I were a billionaire: Oh gosh, I can hardly imagine... Let's see, 2 modest, comfortable homes: one in the Smokies, the other in the Carolina Low Country (Hilton Head). Traveling: there are so many places I would love to go see, esp. in Europe, NZ & Australia. Philanthropy: I'd try and do a little something for a couple of my pet charities. Future planning: most would be carefully invested so I would never have to worry about income or health care/living expenses ever again. And I could buy whatever yarn I wanted without having to scrutinize the price of each ball and calculate whether or not I can afford to buy it...I'd just buy it and be grateful.

5. Places I have lived: Salt Lake City, UT; Forest Grove, OR (don't ask...I don't remember a thing!); Reno, NV; Nashville, TN; Knoxville, TN

OK Di, that's it. Oh please don't tell me I'm supposed to tag more people? (whine, I don't wanna, no!)

Oh May May Go.....

2008-05-31T21:05:00.006-04:00

Oh May may go where 'ere she will,

Through clouds and rain or sun-filled skies,

In flowery fields or wooded shade,

The cardinals twitter, the mockingbirds trill;

May yields Spring's glories
To Summer's searing parade.

Hurray it's May!

2008-05-05T22:33:00.004-04:00

May might just be the most perfect month out of the year. April is awesome, but there are still too many cold days so it can't be in 1st place. June has traditionally held 1st place for the best month of all in my mind, but that has been heavily influenced by the fact that my birthday is in June...and as a kid, school let out for the summer in June. June is still very good, but it does get hot in late June so I think I'm going to let it fall to 2nd place and grant May the top spot.

One of my reasons for adoring May is the flowers. You know the story...April showers bring May flowers...well, it is true! I have worked like a dog for about a month now trying to get my garden and yard into better shape. Most of the perennials have been dug up, divided, and replanted. The roses got a good hard pruning and it shows! They are shooting up like mad and are full of buds. The climbing Queen Elizabeth rose in the front bed is just starting to bloom. There were maybe 6 blooms today out of the 30+ on the bush. Just wait till Mother's Day next Sunday when the bush will be in peak bloom. Ah, it will be stunning. As for now, the pink roses are hard to pick out because of the abundance of blossoms on the azaleas this year. All the TLC I've given over the past several years is finally paying off. The puny things have become fat and glorious. They should do even better next year because I will have moved the rosebush to more spacious quarters, thus giving the azaleas more room to spread.

While I'm talking about flowers, I should identify today's photos. Up first is the exquisitely fragrant blue beaded iris---the State Flower of Tennessee. This hybrid has a delicate periwinkle hue and a delightfully sweet aroma that I find to be intoxicating. I want this scent in a bottle! When I came home 10 years ago this iris patch had one miserable clump clinging to the chainlink fence. It was surrounded by rocks, red clay, and the lawn and was well-shaded by a huge maple tree. The tree is gone, I turned the area along the fence into an authentic flower bed, and the iris patch has grown so much that I must dig and divide this fall. Digging iris is a chore, but I'm thrilled to have this one multiply to it's hearts content so I'm happy to dig.

The second photo is this year's pleasant surprise. You see about 3 1/2 yrs. ago I bought a bunch of spring flowering bulbs and planted them. The following year the tulips bloomed, so did the daffodils. Even the miniature narcissus and hyacinths bloomed. But the Dutch Irises did not. For the last 3 springs I have watched the green shoots of the Dutch Iris start to come up in October and November...growing bigger over the course of the winter and early spring (which seems very odd to me), but no flowers. I presumed things would be the same this year and planned to give up on them and pull the plants this summer. And that's when the things decided to flower. Surprise! The Dutch iris in the front bed are all in flower today. The ones in the shady bed in the back have buds, but no blooms yet. I think they need more sun so I will transplant them later this year.

I threw in the last photo to give you an idea of how one of my smaller aquilegia (columbine) plants looks in it's current covered-with-pink-blooms state. This is a Winky Rose acquilegia...one of 3 in my garden at present. Encouraged by the success of these columbine, i bought a new plant off the half-price "stressed plant" table at Lowe's last week. The new plant is a Nora Barlow which has a different shape to the blooms. There is one shoot with buds on it...the other taller shoots were spent and I trimmed them. The plant was a bit dry and pouting after a very cold night the day I bought it, but now in the garden she's perking up quite nicely. I also snagged a pack of pink snapdragons off the bargain table, but they were a bit more stressed being annuals. I potted them in Miracle-Gro Mix to baby them. Pots are useful in that I can move them around in the hopes of prolonging the life of the flowers once the temperatures start to sour and the snaps start to pout in the hot sun.

I've focused on reclaiming two major areas in the backyard over the last 2 weeks. One area is right behind the house where the English Ivy is trying to take over the world. I'm maybe half-way through the chore...and some of the scariest work is left to do...scary because it's the densest places where scary things/critter could be hiding. I'm being brave though and working on things now before the spiders really get going. Later in the summer it's way too terrifying for me to get in there ;-) The other spot is at the very back of the yard where the neighbor's formerly tall pine trees used to shade everything. Now with the trees gone, the entire area turned to nasty weeds and other native growth. Slowly, section by section, I have hauled countless wheelbarrow loads of weeds...with the roots also dug out by hand...out of that stretch and dumped into the far corner of the yard to "return to nature". It has been a massive task...and I'm not done, but the progress is really showing up. Saturday night I cleared out one area (~5-6 sq ft)and freed a wild dogwood tree from the clutches of a vicious weed called bedstraw. Today I rescued a second dogwood, but it was more work since it had competing "weed trees" also trying to smother it.

I have one more garden "surprise" to share, but I'll wait until the next post when I have downloaded the photos off my camera so you can see. With all the heavy yardwork I haven't made as much progress knitting as I would like. Frankly, I couldn't knit more as the pain and stiffness in my hands was the worst I've ever experienced. The fibro pain has been justifiably bad...and well-drugged, but I'm starting to see the effects of degenerative arthritis in several knuckles, esp. in my right hand. This is not good when I'm knitting with 20wt cotton thread and size 1 needles. Yikes! Yes, this is the Colonial Bouquet Doily from the August 1956 issue of Workbasket that I found in my collection. It is stunning. I have about 12 rows left to knit...photos will follow! I'm on the last repeat of the budding lace section of the Swallowtail Shawl..almost ready to switch to the Lily of the Valley border! I've added a few more rows to the Orkney plus I started a Fancy Fulness Shawl from Birgit's Knitting Delight Mystery KAL. The I hope to gift the FF to someone dear to me, so I won't say much here...lest the intended recipient find out about it! Sometimes surprises are wonderful :-)

Now that I've tried to cram a week's worth of stuff into one post...sorry guys! I promise to update more soon. Speaking of updates...did you notice that I've been fixing my sidebar? Yes, I've been working on my KAL buttons and links, the blog links, and other stuff over there. It's getting better but I still have lots more work to do. I haven't forgiven Blogger yet for lying to me about the saved back-ups..but I'll get there eventually. But...my friends have been wonderfully supportive...and have offered great tips on what to do. Gee, thanks guys!

The Price of Progress

2008-04-28T23:13:00.006-04:00

I've been avoiding my blog for a week now, irritated by the enormous changes I didn't know I was making. Oh I knew I was making some changes, but just a few changes...not turning the entire fruit basket upside down. I have discovered a few things in the process. In the "new and improved" version of Blogger I can no longer have a list on my sidebar that contains both text only and text with links components. Pick which one you want...you can't have both. I spent tonight reconstructing my WIP and FO lists...now without clickable links to photos. Sorry. I tried to restore my Flickr box that I had previously...the one that was a collage of photos. Nope, that's out too. Gotta use Blogger's slideshow feature and pick which photosource you want...Flickr or Picasa...not both. And speaking of not both, remember that nice list of buttons with photo logos of my KALs that click through to the KAL homepage. That's gone too I guess. I can add one photo...with a header, but not a series of photos; or I can add a series of links...without photos/buttons. Can't do both at the same time. This really s*cks. I am not happy.

In all fairness I have one more option left to explore...the one where I can paste in a block of html coding. I hope this will allow me to get my FiberArts & Lace Knitting Blogring links/banners restored, but I'm too tired to try tonight. One of the rings has has changed away from ringsurf, so I have to redo it from scratch anyway. SIGH!

I have a bunch of garden things to share, but they got top billing last time so I'll talk knitting this time. I'll start with the small stuff first--doilies. Now that I've knit a bunch of lace shawls and scarves, my interests in lace knitting(LK) are starting to diversify. Lately I've been quite taken with knitted doilies and what I've chosen to call "table laces". I figure table laces include everything from the smallest doily to a large tablecloth and everything in between. In LK circles, the hot topic is table laces designed by a German gentleman by the name of Hebert Niebling. His designs are distinctive and include intricate flowing compositions of leaves and flowers that have remarkable dimensionality. Now deceased, Niebling's works are held in highest esteem by lace knitting experts and the most popular designs in OOP pattern magazines are fetching outrageous prices on the secondary market, ie. EBay, etc.

I decided to venture into knitting simple doilies, which caused me to join the DoilieHeads Forum (DHF) on Ravelry. The DHF has both knitters and crocheters, so to encourage folks to crossover and try their less dominant technique they offered a simple KAL. Two patterns similar in size and appearance, one knit (Flacon)& one crochet (Antlia), both free online were chosen for the KAL. I made both doilies out of some yellow Cebelia 20 in my stash and the photos shows the completed doilies side by side. Flacon is pinned out, but neither has been properly blocked. The difference is quite striking. The crochet doily is clearly more dense and weighs more than twice as much as the knit one, yet the finished diameter is the same for both doilies. Fascinating!

Over the last 6 months or so I've looked at the vintage lace knitting patterns on Ebay hoping to pick up some of those German Anna magazines that have Niebling patterns in them. I keep my bids very modest as I can't afford to drop $50 on a craft magazine, but I've had a little success. Then one day I was thumbing through some old Workbasket magazines I had picked up for their tatting patterns. To my great surprise one issue had a lovely knit doily on the cover that looked every bit as beautiful as the ones I'd seen in the German magazines. That was my challenge. I decided to look for American magazines with knitted table laces. So this month I picked up about 6-7 years worth of Workbasket magazines from the late 40s-early 60s. What a goldmine of great stuff! I've had a blast carefully thumbing through the yellowed pages and finding all this great lace--crocheted, tatted, and yes-knitted! Yeehaw!

In my Ebay surfing, I picked up a couple of German magazines too, including a 2006 Lea special issue containing 27 doily designs. The aqua doily is #20 in the magazine and a nice, simple knit. I chose a simple doily for my 1st venture as I didn't have an English translation for the instructions or the charts and I was winging it. I goofed up one symbol and fudged the stitch in my doily, but you can't tell at all so I'm happy. Now I just need to buy a bottle of liquid starch so I can properly block all 3 doilies and give them just a bit of stiffening to help them maintain that blocked look. I am addicted!

Also a couple of weeks ago now I finish knitting the sample shawl for our Summer Lace KAL at The Yarn Haven. Before I let this yummy blue Flower Basket Shawl go I just had to do an artsy photo shoot. I hauled the shawl across the street and everywhere taking photos with blooming dogwood and weeping cherry trees and among the spring flowers. Just before going in the house I decided to take a couple of shots by the bleeding hearts even though it was terribly dark. so guess which location yielded the best photos? Yup, the bleeding hearts :-) You just never know when you are taking photos....

Now that the FBS is done I'm back working on the Orkney Pi Shawl. I have 213 rows completed at this point. I took a couple of shots of the last section, which is cat's paw lace and the beginning of more trees. At 1280 sts/round progress is painstakingly slow and hard to see. but I keep checking off the rounds with my pink marker so I know I am getting there. I'm working on a white Swallowtail shawl as my portable project and plan to cast-on more doilies for that quick FO fix. After all, sometimes a knitter just needs to see Finished in lights to know that she's getting somewhere :-)

Call me stupid

2008-04-18T21:46:00.003-04:00

So I had this brilliant idea this afternoon, inspired by visiting a relatively new blog, that I would update my blog template. You know, give the old girl a facelift so to speak. Good idea...not so good results. I read the instructions, which said that Blogger would have a copy of my old template if I wanted to go back. Confident that anything I did could be undone I forged ahead. What a sucker I am! I picked out a new template, chose some colors that fit my personality and hit a few buttons. Poof! New look to blog page. Poof! All the things I put on my side bar in the last year are gone!!!! Can I find them back? Not a chance. Only after digging through the "not really helpful" help files did I find the fine print which says you should save a copy your html coding to a text file on your hard drive before making any changes to your template. Yeah, now you tell me that. Where was that little bit of info before?????

You know, I didn't think I'd been all that diligent in keeping up with my blog, until I just watched a year's worth of work disappear into cyberspace never to be heard from again. And now I have to figure out a whole new template configuration and formatting system to fix it. NOT HAPPY! Nope, not happy at all. The sidebar is totally trashed, but at least the posts are intact...or at least I think they are. Things are never as simple as they seem...I should have known better. Silly me. Bad Blogger.

So to all my visitors, pardon the mess while I try to put things back together again. It's going to take some time. I'm really sad to lose my counter, which was just about to hit 10,000 visitors...a figure that blows my mind. I miss all the KAL and blog buttons that I so diligently uploaded in html coding (after figuring out how to do it too). I even miss my Flickr photos. Reconnecting to my blogrolls is going to be a bit tricky. Why, oh why did I hit that change template button???? Grrrr

Ahhhh, Spring!

2008-04-16T12:18:00.002-04:00

As ya'll know my favorite season of the year is spring. Ah spring! It's finally warm, but not too warm. The sun shines more than the moon does and the song birds sing the sweetest songs ever heard! I've worked hard to make my garden a welcoming place for birds and they come to the birdbaths and feeders in great abundance. Red headed woodpeckers, cardinals, mockingbirds, crows, and blue jays dominate the forest that abuts our property. But even the bullies of the bird world can't intimidate the tiny little titmice, carolina wrens, purple finches, song sparrows, and chickadees. Watching the guys get sweet on their little gals is such fun to watch. There is a pair of finches that come to the feeders at suppertime each evening. He feeds his little woman beak-to-beak..it's almost as if he's persuading her that he will take good care of her while she sits on the nest. Male persuasion never ceases I guess :-)

We had a cold snap again this spring, but fortunately the temperatures did not drop as much as expected, nor as much as they did last year. These late frost periods are called "dogwood winter" since they tend to coincide with the blooming of the dogwood trees. Now that the cold has passed, it's now relatively safe to start planting annuals, veggies, and tender perennials. My early spring perennials are really looking good. The first photo is a Winky Rose Aquilegia (columbine) that I planted 2 years ago. they are doing very well. I also have the Winky Blue & White variety which is rather enormous in it's 3rd season. It will have to be divided next year.

Dividing perennials is the smart gardeners way to make their flower dollar stretch. I've been working hard for almost 2 weeks now dividing and distributing dwarf shasta daisies and pink and blue scabiosa. I think I'll wait until next year to divide the hostas and Stella d'oro daylilies again. My reward for all this frugality? A new tree. Specifically the one tree I don't have in my yard and have always wanted...a deep pink dogwood tree. I found a tree at the garden center that was small enough that I can plant it myself and the branches have perfect form...important for a beautiful tree 10 or 20 years from now. I had hoped for more rain this weekend to help with the planting, but it didn't happen. It is so dry!!!

I'll end this post with a photo of my great-niece Isabella. She and her Mommy Mary Catherine came to visit last week..one last chance to see the great-grandparents before they return to Hawaii this week. I will miss them fiercely, but I'm so thrilled to know that my nephew Tyler has such an amazing wife and a beautiful baby that is getting all the best kind of mothering a child could ever hope for. It does this Old Maid's heart good to see MC doing such a great job :-) I love you MC!

A Wild Ride

2008-04-07T17:48:00.003-04:00

It was a wild ride in East Tennessee this weekend. Forget that the weather went from cool, cloudy and raining to sunny and warm. Forget that I got mega sick early Sunday morning and had one of the worst days of my life. Forget all that because the Lady Vols were red hot last night, determined to win their Final Four match against rival LSU. The odds were not in the LV favor given that Candace Parker was playing with a dislocated shoulder. It certainly was not their best game...but then LSU wasn't playing at it's best either. It was a fiercely physical game...more like a boxing match than a basketball game at times. Watching Sylvia Fowles and Candace Parker go at each other, esp. away from the ball, well...it made a lot of the guys playing the game look like wimps! Yowzer!

Kudos to the AP for taking these awesome photos, which I found on the Lady Vols Sports website. The championship match between Stanford and Tennessee should be awesome. The match-up between Candace Wiggins and Candace Parker should be equally awesome. Candace Wiggins received one of the big national awards last week, so she has been recognized. But....Candace Parker got the big one again this year...the Naismith Award. I was so happy to hear that she won, esp. after the deep disappointment of not receiving the SEC player of the year award this year...a real shock to LV fans. Way to go Candace!!!!

My knitting time has been devoted to a blue Flower Basket Shawl. I cast-on early last week, and I hope to be finished by the end of the week. Since this is a shop sample, I'm not going to knit a Kristina-sized shawl (that means BIG). I've got 9 repeats of the 2nd chart completed and I figure I'll do somewhere between 12-14 repeats before adding the edging. Right now I've used only half a ball of the Misti Alpaca (~25g or 220yds.)..not very much really. I took the photo a couple of days ago, so the size has grown considerably, but you can still see the color and fabric produced on US4 needles.

It was a gorgeous spring day today, so I couldn't leave without sharing a photo from my garden. These are pink narcissi...a later blooming variety with t delicate blush pink trumpet. I have them in my pink rose garden bed along with pink tulips and pink hyacinths. What could be more joyful than that??? Perhaps a lace shawl knit out of a very fine pink lambswool???? That's what I had in mind last weekend when I made my long-anticipated journey to the northeastern corner of the state to meet up with my knitty friend Regenia. It was a rather gray and rainy day...I drove home in a deluge...not fun. But the shop hop, dinner in a great little place, and the friendship more than made up for the rain. Reg took me to Knits and Pearls in Kingsport first where I met Andra. I loved Andra, I loved her shop, and I really loved her amazing knitwear designs!!! Sadly I couldn't afford to buy the yarn I lusted over, but I did pick up some great beads and 2 of Andra's patterns--one vest adn the other a pullover. One of my Knitting Fearlessly goals this year is to knit a sweater...that fits ;-)

Our next stop was Yarntiques in Johnson City. Located in an old Victorian home, the shop was as quaint and delightful as it's location. They had yarn and etc. tucked into every nook and cranny...it was rather like going on an adventure hunt. The shop was filled with women so it took awhile before Reg could flag down the owner so I could see the lace yarns. Apparently they are kept in a back room out of reach of curious toddlers with potentially sticky hands ;-) They shop was a bit of a zoo, but I found the yarn I had been searching for...Lacey Lamb. It was a bit over my budget for the end of the month, but I bought 2 balls to knit that yummy shawl from Vogue Knitting. Now I just need to find time to cast on. I got to meet the man in Regenia's life, Matthew David, who treated us both to dinner at a fun little converted house, now restaurant in Jonesborough, TN. I totally loved the place and the food was simple, but delicious. I hadn't had a good hushpuppie in awhile, so I was very happy :-) MD is a great guy, I liked him immediately. I think he and Reg are a great match and I wish good things for both of them *wink, wink*

All the News from Lake Plaasbegone

2008-04-04T20:22:00.004-04:00

It's Friday night here in Lake Plaasbegone and it's been raining cats and dogs (thankfully not nieces and nephews) all day. My recently overseeded and fertilized lawn is growing greener and taller by the hour. Add rain to tall grass and you get a dachshund who doesn't want to go out to do what doggies do outside. There are no more stubborn canines on the planet than dachsies. I've seen them more stubborn than my sweetheart, Miss Emme, but she holds true to the breed's reputation just fine thank you very much.

Much has transpired since my last post. The highlight, without question, was a visit from my nephew's wife, Mary Catherine, and her daughter, Isabella. When Tyler and Mary Catherine eloped, I was a bit concerned that Tyler had rushed into marriage before he was ready. Well, I don't know much about that, but I do know that he's the luckiest sailor alive because his wife is a gem. With each opportunity I have to spend time with her, I am more and more impressed with what a wonderful woman she is. Little Isabella has the best mommy! MC and Isabella came to visit just after Easter. MC arrived bringing a delicious lunch with homemade chicken salad and lemon bars, all beautifully packed into a picnic basket. Wow! And everything tasted as good as it looked! My parents were simply delighted by the whole experience.

I. being the great-aunt with the camera, took lots of pictures of Isabella. Mom and I brought out two of the Beatrix Potter stuffed animals from the family collection for photo ops with Isabella. We took pictures with the same Peter Rabbit and Jemima Puddleduck when Tyler was a toddler. The 3 ft. tall Peter Rabbit is a treasured part of my Beatrix Potter collection, but the Jemima is destined to go to Isabella as she just belongs with Tyler's family. Beautiful Bella was quite taken with Jemima and her shawl and bonnet, so it's a perfect match.

On the knitting front, the Orkney Pi continues to grow. This photo shows the shawl with three sections completed. Section four is progressing at a slower pace given the fact that each round contains 1280 sts. and takes about an hour to knit. Depending on which option I choose, this section will have ~130-160 rounds in it...that's a lot of knitting time!!!! I've got the monster on a 60" circular needle and am plugging away on it. It's hard to get photos at this point, so there probably won't be any until the shawl is completed.

The Orkney is having share time with another shawl. Call it "and I have promises to keep". Sometime after Christmas I was feeling generous (or maybe foolish?) and volunteered to help lead a summer lace shawl KAL at my LYS, the Yarn Haven. The target audience is knitters with some lace knitting experience, or at least comfort in working basic lace stitches...not complete newbies. I thought about the shawls I've made and patterns that would be easily accessible to Sandy, the shop owner. I also took into consideration the flexibility of the pattern in accommodating various yarn sizes and differing options for the finished size of the shawl. The more versatile the design, the better I thought. And so I chose the Flower Basket Shawl (FBS) by Evelyn Clark.

I knit the FBS as my 2nd ever lace shawl...right after the red Kiri shawl. I don't remember it being a difficult pattern and it's very pretty. I pitched my idea to Sandy a couple of weeks ago and she thought it sounded wonderful. I dropped in to the store earlier this week and picked up some blue Misti Alpaca Lace yarn to knit a sample for the shop. Sandy just got the yarn in stock and I've been looking forward to trying out this very popular lace yarn. The yarn is fabulous. Enough said there. I pulled out my FBS pattern and cast-on Tuesday night. By Thursday morning I had a couple of repeats of the Lower Flower Basket chart completed...and was tinking back to fix mistakes. The pattern suggested US5 needles, so I grabbed a US4 Addi-Lace needle. I don't like how open my lace looks, and I found it rather challenging to read my knitting. In fact, the knitting seemed more challenging than I remembered too.

I started to freak out. Should I frog and start over with a size 3 needle? Uh, I'll have to knit forever if I do that, and I need to get this sample done fast! So I'm forcing myself to live with the very lacy FBS. I'm not keeping it, I rationalized, and everyone else will think it looks awesome. OK, fine. But what about the pattern???? What if everyone really is a newbie and they all get confused and frustrated the 1st week...and it all becomes more than I can handled myself. Yikes???? What have I done???? Needless to say I didn't sleep very well last night with all these crazy thoughts swirling around in my head. I'm a little less freaky tonight, but I still have doubts. Sandy does have beginning lace classes going on right now so I just need to chill out and trust that things will be OK. And I think I'll have Sandy get an alternate pattern in stock for those who want to play along, but really aren't ready for the FBS. Evelyn Clark's Leaf Lace Shawl will be the perfect alternative. Now I just need to stop freaking and knit. Why oh why do I have to be so detail oriented? Most folks wouldn't even have the idea that they needed to freak out over the "what if" possibilities. I can't stop thinking about every little detail that could go wrong.

And one last parting note.... My Tennessee Vols and Lady Vols basketball teams. The guys played their hearts out...and did quite well. But they showed the same weaknesses in the SEC and NCAA tournaments...and it cost them both times. Combine that with the toughest bracketing and it's hard to feel bad that they lost to a hugely talented (translation=NBA quality) Louisville team in the sweet 16. A better bracket would have had them playing in the elite 8 before losing, but brackets are what they are. The Lady Vols survived a terrifying night at the elite 8 when Candace Parker dislocated her left shoulder twice in the 1st half of the game and couldn't play for much of the game. Yeeeouchhh! The national semifinal game is Sunday night and Candace says she's ready to play. Great! The flip side? They're playing the same fierce LSU team that beat the Lady Vols in the SEC championship. It's gonna take a miracle for Candace and the LV to get to the championship game, let alone repeat as national champions. What a tough break!

Orkney Update

2008-03-23T21:13:00.004-04:00

"And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified.
"He is not here: for he is risen, as he said." Matthew 28:5-6

Although the wind was icy cold, Easter arrived this morning bringing bright sunshine and cheery spring blossoms. While I didn't see my wild rabbits this morning, I was greeted by the singing of the cardinals and the carolina chickadees and the rat-a-tat-tat of the red-bellied and downy woodpeckers. The sweetest pair of white-throated sparrows danced among the orange pansies and King Alfred daffodils outside my window. A big fat robin dominated the lawn as if was his job to announce the arrival of Easter. It was a feast for the eyes and a delight to my heart.

I took my camera out into the yard and snapped these photos on Friday. The pink flowers come courtesy of a wild black cherry tree that spontaneously popped up in my yard several years ago. Apparently there once was a mature cherry tree in my neighbor 's yard, but he had removed it because of an insect infestation. After listening to mother's graphic descriptions of the ugly mess, I figured I should cut mine down while it was still a sapling and easily removed. But I didn't. Instead I pruned the lower branches and tried to encourage an esthetically pleasing shape from the askew split trunk. The following year I found the first pink blossom on the tree and vowed to let the tree remain and grow. Any tree that makes pretty pink flowers in the spring can't be all that bad :-)

The white mass of flowers in the second photo are the Bradford Pear trees in the front yard. The pear trees are 6 or 7 years old now, and they are mothers most favorite plant in the entire yard. Looking up at the crystal blue sky through the branches filled with snowy white flowers is almost more fun than an grown-up should have playing in the yard ;-)

I started out strong working on my Orkney Pi at the beginning of the week, but things slowed down considerably as the week progressed. Sometimes you just need a break from working on a huge project. So I wasn't caught up when the next clue came out on Friday. I finished the 3rd clue today. I'm quite glad to be done with knitting swirling diamonds. I put in a couple of extra circular needles knitting the last purl round so I could stretch the shawl out some and take a few pictures. The shawl measured about 40" in diameter unstretched...but that's a very rough measurement. This baby is going to be huge!

In looking at the 4th clue, it looks like we're going back to the trees and cat's paw lace. Liz provided lots of options for sizing the shawl, giving 3 or 4 options for when to quit depending on what each knitter wants to do. Of course I had planned to knit the full version, but it's nice to know I can safely chicken out if things get too tedious. A smaller shawl is better than a UFO hanging out in a basket somewhere gathering dust.

I'm headed back to my needles to knit the doubling round-1280 stitches...yikes!!! The Lady Vols are just starting their 1st round NCAA tournament game, so it's a good time to knit. The men managed to escape with wins in their 1st 2 games...but it was way too close for comfort in the 1st game against American University and it got downright scary in the 2nd game against Butler. After leading the entire game, the Vols allowed Butler to tie it up and send the game into overtime before Bruce adn the guys pulled out the Victory. Whew!

And so it goes

2008-03-17T12:53:00.003-04:00

It's Monday morning, St. Patrick's Day, so I suppose I should say "Top 'o the Morning to You!" But then that would be a terribly Irish thing for a little Dutch/Deutsch girl to do, now wouldn't it? My mother always wore *orange* on St. Patty's Day to make sure folks knew she was Dutch. I thought it was a bit strange then, but I think it's cool now. but enough of that....

The wild, weird weekend is over. Tennessee basketball fans are not happy. they did not get to see their team play in the SEC tourney because of the change of venue required by the tornado that hit downtown Atlanta. Then the team lost in the closing seconds of the semis to Arkansas, which was stunning. Even more stunning was the fact that the worst team in the conference this year, Georgia, won the SEC tournament by overcoming outrageous odds. You have to be happy for them, because it was such an amazing feat! The the NCAA announced the brackets for the "Big Dance" last night and we got a no. 2 seed (not happy, but not surprised) in the East bracket...which has the strongest teams including No. 1 North Carolina. That's like ranking TN 8th, or the lowest among the No. 2 seeds. That a really rotten deal. Placing the Vols in the East sends them first to Birmingham where they should win their 1st two games, then on to Charlotte. Upsets notwithstanding, the Vols will have to get past a tough Louisville team to arrive at the elite 8 with the golden opportunity to play North Carolina...in North Carolina. Good luck guys...you're gonna need it :-) It was pretty interesting watching Bruce Pearl & the guys maintain their composure at the post-announcement press interviews after getting such a raw deal. So much for having the highest RPI and playing the toughest non-conference schedule in the nation...and winning almost all of the games. It didn't pay off as much as it was supposed to.

So enough about the Vols, let's talk knitting :-) Being sick with a nasty virus and lots of basketball tournament games to watch make for productive knitting time. I just finished off the 1st 100g ball of yarn on my Orkney Pi yesterday. I'm up to row 154, which is the latter part of the 4th repeat of the swirling diamonds/640sts section. I should start the 5th and final repeat tonight, which places me a couple of days ahead of schedule and ready for the next clue which I think comes out on Friday. Designing Pi shawls by inserting various lace patterns into the distinct sections of the shawl is not as simple as one would think. Oh, the process of choosing your favorite laces and using them is simple, but getting the right combination to produce an cohesive and esthetically-pleasing look is challenging. i say this because I've seen some less than attractive (to my view) Pi shawls. But trust Liz Lovick to know just how to put classic Shetland Lace patterns together to get that just right look. It's a great shawl!

With the Orkney Pi being so time consuming, and sickness keeping me at home (no need for portable knitting), the Swallowtail Shawl has been neglected for more than a week. I'm using the white Jaggerspun Zephyr I had in the stash left from the Spring Things Shawl which I frogged because I ended up not liking the design. I knew I had an issue with the lace patterns chosen for Spring Things, but I also blamed the yarn for my unhappy experience. I just couldn't see what it was that makes so many knitters go "Zany for Zephyr." I used Zephyr for one of my earliest shawls, a Nancie Wiseman design, and it turned out OK, but not wonderful in my view. But the idea of knitting Lily of the Valley nupps in white lace yarn has been in my head for more than a year now, so the white Zephyr seemed perfect for Swallowtail. To cut to the end of the story, I get it. After knitting the upper body of the Swallowtail with the Zephyr, I now get why people adore this yarn. It is wonderful for lace work!

Success in lace knitting is in the details. Each little detail must be evaluated, then carefully combined to yield success. You have to choose the right fiber(s), the right yarn, the right needles, and the right patterns. When one or more of these is off, then knitting is frustrating and the result less than pleasing. Find the right combination and knitting lace becomes a joy to work and the project a treasure. You don't have to use the most expensive yarn or the most complex or fancy pattern to knit a stunning piece of lace. But when a project is thoughtfully planned then executed with reasonable precision (not perfection), the end result can't help but be something wonderful. My somethings wonderful are starting to accumulate now that I'm a confirmed lace knitting addict, and I'm amazed at the joy these little beauties bring into my everyday life. It's something wonderful indeed!

When a tornado hits Atlanta, or Vols win?????

2008-03-15T16:24:00.004-04:00

Let's see, yesterday was March 14th, or 3-14 aka Pi Day for lovers of all things mathematical, or fans of Elizabeth Zimmerman's approach to knitting circular shawls based on the concepts of the Pi formula. One could also say that on 3-14, what goes around, comes around...and around it did indeed come last night in Atlanta! Still in my somewhat zoned out funk from the nasty little virus that I picked up, I was watching yet another of the SEC Men's basketball tournament games from the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. The Vols already escaped with a win over South Carolina earlier in the afternoon, but I was interested in seeing who our potential competition would be in the semi-final and hopefully final rounds. The 1st game in the evening session was a close one between Alabama and Mississippi State. A last second shot tied up the game at the end of regulation and they were playing the 1st OT period when suddenly the hardware suspend from the roof of the Dome started to sway wildly and stuff was falling from the ceiling. By golly, it was a tornado!!!!

The nightcap game of the tournament was postponed until this afternoon. The news footage this morning revealed the massive amounts of damage that were done to the heart of downtown Atlanta, including all the facilities key to the SEC tournament. So the games were moved to the arena at Georgia Tech University, the schedule changed, and the fans sent away as there was no way to fairly accomodate all who had purchased tickets. I think it may just be a sign of good things to come for the Vols. The Vols haven't won the SEC tourney in who knows how long...decades. It's kind of like the Vols will win when hell freezes over...or a tornado hits downtown Atlanta in the middle of a game! Yup...now I *know* Bruce's Boys can pull it off :-) They just need to beat Arkansas in tonight's game to prove me right :-)

Stay tuned for the next installment of As the Vols play Ball, which will include an update of all things knitted during tournament viewing and other "sickie" activities :-)

Wheeeeee!

2008-02-26T19:40:00.003-05:00

are Number ONE!!!! Yessiree it was quite the game. It truly lived up to all the hype as 2 very evenly matched basketball teams hit the hardwood in Memphis last Saturday night. But the Vols beat the Memphis Tigers in a close game to earn their way to the top ranking in both the AP and the USA Today/ESPN polls. I screamed so loud at the end of the game I hurt my voice and I was so stoked I couldn't sleep for hours afterwards. And on Sunday I was totally crashed out with a fibroflare. What a surprise! (not)

So I spent Sunday and frankly, most of Monday recovering...and knitting of course! I'm more than halfway through with the 2nd side of the Vision of Delight scarf. I want to get it done before the weekend when the Orkney Pi Shawl KAL begins. I don't know how much progress I'll make tonight as it's basketball time once again. It's another big game for Bruce's Boys as the Vols have to go to Nashville and play my other alma mater Vanderbilt. Vandy is always tough to beat at home and they have a couple of very strong players that will have to be contained if Chris Lofton and Co. are to escape with another win on the road. If they can beat Vandy tonight then the Vols really deserve to be #1 in the nation. Tip-off is in an hour so i guess it's another night for me and ESPN. GO VOLS!!!!

It's a Big Orange Night

2008-02-23T19:05:00.003-05:00

It's only a little more than an hour away....the Big Event I've been anticipating for months now. It's almost tip-off time for the University of Tennessee Men's basketball team to play cross-state rival Memphis. Last year the game was in Knoxville and Memphis suffered a stunning 18 point loss to the up-and-coming Vols under still-new coach Bruce Pearl. Pearl is now a well-established icon at Tennessee. This year the game is in Memphis. The rest of the college basketball world cares because Memphis is ranked #1 in the nation, the Vols are #2---a ranking they've never experienced in Men's B-Ball before. The scalpers are asking 4-figure sums for tickets on Beale St. this afternoon and the pre-game festivities look more like a Saturday afternoon in October...not February. How cool is that???? I'm so stoked !!!

I'm so excited about the game that I knew concentrating on other tasks might be difficult tonight. So I'm getting things done. I've knit 20 rows on my Vision of Delight Scarf already...no guilty feelings for not making progress there today :-) But before I tell you about the scarf, I have to acknowledge that cute little blue box of sunshine. More than a week ago I was offered this big burst of sunshine from my friend Kat. I was having a crummy day. I'm terribly late with this, but gee THANKS!!! I will do as is intended and pass it forward, but give me a day or two to think about it first. I'm a bit distracted at the moment. The ESPN guys just said a pair of game tix sold on ebay for $10,000! That's insane! Of course Memphis is unbeaten thus far this season, so the hype is over the top. I hope Chris Lofton & the guys can change that statistic just a wee bit :-)

So here's the weekly knitting update. I've spent too much time surfing Ravelry and the net and not enough time with the needles clacking so progress on my Vision of Delight Scarf is slower than it should be. I finished the 1st half on Thursday and am almost done with the 1st chart on the 2nd side as I write. I was disappointed to discover that my scarf wasn't working out to be a wide as the designer's measurements. There isn't anything I can do to change that, but I was concerned about the scarf being too short, too. I could do something there. The easy answer was to add one repeat the length of the little curlicue motif along the side border. Nice, but that would add 36 rows of stockinette to the middle...BORING!

I studied Birgit's design and decided the perfect answer was to replicate the tulip motif she had repeated twice at each end border. I added a 3rd one in the center with an extended stem anchoring it to the border. It was the perfect solution to my problem and frankly, I think it takes an already good design and makes it better. When I had the 1st side completed I discovered one more thing I would change if I were to knit this scarf again. On the end, the "tulip"motifs or curly things had a diamond centered at the end...something not found on the center motif. I would add that little diamond to both ends of the center as well.

Also on the knitting front, I've been hunting and gathering in anticipation of future projects. I picked up a couple of balls of Cebelia 20 in white to knit a larger doily/table mat out of. I knocked out most of yesterday afternoon searching and researching doily patterns online. I was surprised at what I learned and just how much really is available. To top it all off, my postwoman dropped off a box from KnitPicks late this afternoon. My yarn is here for the Orkney Pi KAL that Liz Lovick is leading on EZasPi starting next Friday. I'm stoked!!! I really wanted to order a cone of Shetland Supreme Lace yarn from Jamieson & Smith for this shawl as many others are doing, but frugality is more important right now so KnitPicks Bare it is. For the same amount of money essentially, I got all the yarn I need plus 3 circular needles and 4 sets of dpns...all in small sizes so I can really be ready to knit more socks and lace. It was a wise choice for me and my Orkney shawl will still be amazing despite being knit out of Peruvian wool. Life is tough.

Well, that's about it for this week. the pre-game shows are on. I have enough time to add a few more rows to my scarf before tip-off. I'm thinking I may be able to wind one or two hanks of Bare into balls while I watch the game as it requires much less concentration to wind than it does to knit. GO VOLS!!!

Visions of Delight

2008-02-16T16:55:00.005-05:00

OK, so I don't post a word for almost 2 weeks and then I jump in and post twice in a day? What's up? Well, I just had too much to say for only one post. In other words, I was too chicken to trust that the computer would hiccup and loose it all if I put it into one long post. I'm no fool...I know what computers are capable of doing to meassages that push the limits :-)

So here are a couple of pictures of my newest project, the Vision of Delight Scarf. This scarf is another in a series of amazing lace designs by a German knitter, designer, and yarn shop owner named Birgit Freyer. Birgit markets her designs under the label Knitting-Delight through her online shop Die-wollust.com. Last fall she decided to organize a Yahoo Group aimed primarily at the German-speaking/European market to teach lace knitting techniques. I found the group in January just as they were about to start on a KAL to knit this large scarf/small lace stole. My timing was perfect!

When I finish a really big project like Mystic Waters, I do like to knit a smaller project. I need the boost that comes from increasing my FO list :-) Vision of Delight was just the right size and provided me the opportunity to try out a popular lace yarn that I had not used yet. I headed over the The Yarn Haven and picked out a beautiful deep turquoise blue shade of Malabrigo Lace yarn. Malabrigo yarns are a single-ply loosely spun, very soft yarn from Uruguay. There is a very large, very vocal fan base for this yarn. Knitters get gushy about how soft and yummy this yarn is and I knew I needed to try it out. It's not an inexpensive yarn at ~$11 for a 50g (470yd) skein, so knitting a large project isn't the most feasible thing for me (although I would save up for one if sufficiently motivated). I bought 2 skeins and brought them home to test out on my still-new swift. I was very glad I had a swift as this yarn tends to stick to itself and it would have been a royal PiTA to wind otherwise.

The VoD pattern calls for laceweight yarn and US 6 or 7 needles to knit a scarf measuring ~17" x 71" I decided to swatch using US 5 needles, knowing that a 6 would be too loose. I was afraid I would need to drop down to a 4, but the 5 looked fine so I proceeded with that. The scarf starts at the center with a provisional cast-on and each of 3 charts is knit out from the center to the each end. It's one of my favorite ways to knit a scarf or stole--and much better than knitting 2 halves from the end to the center, then grafting the 2 sides together. The charts are in large-print and very easy to follow and the techniques required are simple as well. Once I reached the 100 row mark this morning I stopped to take a few pictures. I also learned a few things:

First, what I thought was US 5 (3.75mm needle) ended up being a US 6 (4.0mm) needle after all. that's what I get for storing both needles in the same basket without their packages. The good news is, I like how the fabric looks, so I'm OK. The next discovery was not unexpected--my scarf is much smaller than the published dimensions. At 100 rows completed, mine measures 13" x 13" when gently stretched and pinned (as shown in the photos). I suspected the designer's original and others I've seen knit by other KAL members were knit using fingering wt. yarn rather than a true lacewt. yarn, so I was not surprised to find my scarf was smaller. It doesn't matter so much in the width, but I do like my scarves to be nice and long. I have sketched out a minor modification to the design to add extra length while still keeping true to teh designer's intention. Sp stay tuned to see what emerges...it should be pretty cool!

Saturday Summary

2008-02-16T15:16:00.004-05:00

It's been more than a week since I managed to gather my wits and post an update about the goings on here at beadntat. There have been distractions...things like illness, visiting relatives, Ravelry, and yes, even knitting! But the week-long migraine and related temperamental tummy have chilled out, the visitors have gone home, and I'm starting to return to life. Give me a couple more weeks, a little more daylight and warm, sunny spring days, and I should emerge from my winter cave happier than a groundhog :-)

When last I posted, I had gleefully announced the completion of my Mystic Waters Shawl (MWS). Of course no lace shawl is truly completed until it has been properly blocked. That big event happened last Wednesday night. The operative word here is BIG as my MWS ended up being very big. Note in the first picture that the top edge of the shawl was wider than the length of the full-sized sheet I used as my blocking surface. The final measurements were 106" across the top and 51" from top to tip. This was my first experience with cash/cotton yarn and I found it left a fine purple lint on the white sheet. I assume this is due to the cotton content. That same cotton also makes this shawl especially cuddly next to the skin. This was well-tested as I wore the shawl over my PJs around the house the week I was sick. I predict this one will see much use!

I wore the MWS over my sweatshirt to the Friday Night Knitting Club at The Yarn Haven last night. It was a big hit!!! Sandy even took pictures :-) I confess it's pretty cool to see folks who know knitting really appreciate the beauty and complexity of my lacework. It's my kind of endorphin rush :-)

So, with a huge project finished I've spent a ridiculous amount of time debating what my next move should be. The problem is there are too many great projects to choose from and I want to knit them all. But recent heated discussions about Herbert Niebling and his unique designs published mostly in Germany in the late 20th century really stimulated my interest in knitting doilies and other table laces. I've been collecting patterns, but didn't feel quite ready to break into my stash of tatting threads and give it a go. But, with a migraine coming and going last week I figured I'd try out a sweet little doily designed by one of the gals on Ravelry & Lace Knitters. Called Little Flowers, this doily was just the right size for a first doily project and it was charted and the instructions were in English. Call it 3 stars! I cast-on late one night and had it finished the next night. Sweet!

I knit Little Flowers using some very nice Opera 10 from my stash and 2.5mm dpns. I didn't have a 16" or 24" circular, so I ended up using 8 needles. It was logical for the 8 point motif, but that's a lot of needles to worry about falling out. In the end, I felt the doily looked a little dense to my eye. In the future I will use a 2.75-3.0mm needle for size 10 crochet cotton, or better yet--go down to a finer thread. I don't care for size 10 thread in tatting...I think I will ultimately feel the same way for knitted lace as well.

Energized by the success of the Little Flower doily, I had to jump right in a knit a second doily. I decided to thumb through my vintage pattern booklets and see what I could find. I hit a tattered gold mine in a book called Sparkling White Doilies, a book containing patterns for crocheted, hairpin lace, tatted, and knit doilies. while most were crocheted, there were 2 knitted doilies in the book. There was a small problem though--I had complete patterns but no pictures because the back cover was missing. This extra challenge added to the intrigue so I decided to knit a "Surprise" doily. I did use a finer thread this time, Cebelia 20, and the same 2.5mm needles--a perfect combination! I found a 32" circular needle and "magic looped" this doily after I had the first several rows knit on dpns. This combination worked perfectly and I ended up with a very pleasant surprise. I'm totally hooked on knitting doilies..there will be more in the future :-)

WooHoo! Super Success!

2008-02-03T23:27:00.000-05:00

Eli Manning ROCKS!!! Yes, the little Manning that could chugged his way to victory in today's Super Bowl. It was a major defensive match and an even bigger upset victory. I'm a huge fan of the Manning family so I couldn't be more pleased that both Peyton and Eli now have Super Bowl rings and MVP trophys. Awesome!

And as if that wasn't enough, I had my own super accomplishment of the day by casting off the last stitch on the Mystic Waters Shawl. It's one honking big shawl! It also beautiful. I didn't have the courage to get in the floor to block it tonight so final pictures and measurements will have to wait. It did weigh in at 172g making this the heaviest shawl I've ever knit.

I suppose I should include one little errata while I'm at it. Never trust the media when it comes to silly details about holidays. I managed to hear two different verdicts attributed to yesterday's Groundhog predictions. Apparently the poor critter did not see his shadow after all and Spring is supposedly right around the corner. I hope that prediction is correct, but then here in Tennessee winter isn't that big a deal anyway. I was reminded of that this weekend watching all the TV footage of Pres. Hinckley's funeral in Salt Lake City. There was plenty of new snow covering everything and it was clearly cold at the graveside service at City Cemetery. I do not miss those Utah winters one bit. We had a mild weekend here and my spring bulbs are shooting up slowly. Watch out groundhog....the daffodils are coming!

Groundhog Day

2008-02-02T16:41:00.000-05:00

It's a rather strange holiday if you ask me... Groundhog Day? The sole purpose is for an excessively pampered pet Groundhog to emerge in the early morning hours in Punxatawny, PA and the pompous men in top hats then declare whether or not the groundhog sees his shadow...or not. A shadow is not good news, as it means 6 more weeks of winter weather. And so the celebratory folks gathered in the cold morning hours this morning, declared a shadow was not seen, and theoretically spring is just around the corner. Yeah, right. It all sounds quite silly, but as a kid it was something fun to cheer up an otherwise dreary winter day. That turns silly stuff into a good thing in my eyes since I am plagued by seasonal depression.

I'm continuing to work on the edging on the Mystic Waters Shawl, but I did grant myself permission to take a couple of days off as the work on the shawl was beginning to get to me. But the top is fairly mindless knitting at this point, so it was good company as I watched President Hinckley's funeral on BYU-TV today. The services were lovely and I maintained my composure surprisingly well for a woman with a mushy heart. I didn't start crying until the end of the graveside service when a lone bagpiper emerged from behind an enormous 100+ yr old pine tree in the Salt Lake City Cemetery playing first Danny Boy, then Amazing Grace. Pres. Hinckley so loved Danny Boy! There's something about the plaintive, rather mournful sound of bagpipes that just can't be duplicated. It was a fitting tribute to the man who's ancestors hailed from the UK, a place he loved so much.

I finished the 1st Volunteer Spirit Sock very late Thursday night and have cast on for the 2nd sock. While their are still some aspects of the design that are a little rough in my eyes, overall I'm quite pleased with how they are turning out. I have a new appreciation for the challenges of creating a lace pattern from scratch. I looked for an existed pattern that would communicate the Volunteer V, but found none suitable for a top=down sock. That left a sketch book and pencil and swatching.

I wanted the eyelets to be the important feature of the V lace pattern, rather than the lines formed by a series of decreases. This idea has it's strengths, but I'm not certain it lends itself to self-striping yarn as well as it does to a solid color. The half-pattern offset gives a diamond appearance to the fabric from a distance. I like this look, but it adds significantly to the difficulty of the knitting by placing YOs at the beginning and end of each needle. I may write an alternate version of the pattern which eliminates the offset and goes with just the simple V lace pattern--a better choice for beginning sock knitters or those not experience in lace knitting techniques.

I would have preferred to knit the cuff with a larger needle, but the yarn demanded that it be knit on sz 2.25mm dpns. I'm not all that impressed with the J Knits Superwash Me sock yarn. The yarn is skinny, a light fingering weight similar to Schaefer Anne, but without the body and cohesiveness of Anne. I found it to be surprisingly splitty and easily snagged, even when using nickel-plated needles. At $25/100g skein I expected a better performing yarn. Even still, the true test of durability will come with wear and washing so I'll reserve final judgment until I see how well they hold up. I may look for another mostly orange yarn for a second test-knit of the pattern. I saw one on The Loopy Ewe that looks promising.

In memoriam: Gordon B. Hinckley

2008-01-28T17:06:00.000-05:00

Gordon Bitner Hinckley, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, passed away Sunday evening, January 27, 2008 in Salt Lake City, Utah at the age of 97. He is now reunited with his beloved wife, Marjorie, who preceeded him in death a few years ago. While I know he is grateful to be released from the heavy burden of responsibility in leading The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and happy to be reunited to his wife, my heart is heavy with sadness at seeing him go. I will miss him intensely.

I knew his days with us here on earth were numbered. Just 2 days ago I saw a press release which showed a picture of Pres. Hinckley offering the dedicatory prayer at the rededication ceremonies at the Utah State Capitol 2 weeks ago. In the photograph he looked small and very frail, even more so than he had looked in December at the Christmas Devotional or at General Conference last October. He never looked small or frail to me before then. Yet knowing in my heart that he wouldn't live much longer and coming to grips with the his death are quite different. I still feel a bit shocked at this point.

I felt a special closeness to the Hinckley family for some reason. I was living in Salt Lake City at the time he was called, ordained, and sustained as Prophet and President of the Church. I lived in the same neighborhood as his daughter Virginia. We were in the same stake (a group of LDS church congregations) and I felt as if the Hinckleys were a part of our close knit family in the Parley's Stake. I attended many events in which Pres. and Sis. Hinckley were present and I felt nurtured by their love, just as millions of members of the church across the world did. Pres, Hinckley was kind, gentle, articulate, witty, and very forward-thinking. A wonderful compilation of many of his accomplishments can be found here.

As for me, I think I'll take away from Pres. Hinckley's life his great love and compassion for all people everywhere. I'll renew my efforts to follow his counsel by doing a little better at standing a little taller, by trying a little harder to do a little better each day. I'll try to honor him by being more loving, more understanding of others, more tolerant and less critical of myself and those around me. It's not hard to "scatter sunshine" everywhere you go once you start. Being good and kind is the best kind of habit to get into. When coupled with honesty, hope, and faith, an ordinary Daughter of God like me can do much to bless the lives of others...just as I have been blessed by the life of Pres. Gordon B. Hinckley. Pres. Hinckley, may God be with you till we meet again.

Row 367 - Check!

2008-01-26T22:28:00.000-05:00

Yup-- I checked off the last row on the last chart of the Mystic Waters Shawl. Getting through that last chart proved to be a hellish experience. Long rows can be perilous! Why? Because you don't realize you did something wrong until 100, 200, or more stitches have passed. Tink, tink, tink!!! If I was a drinking and swearing woman, which I am not, I could have been tempted to outdo any sailor. Good thing I don't engage in such behaviors ;-D

It was terribly frustrating because I don't typically have such issues when knitting lace. Perhaps it was the very dark purple yarn which made things hard to see, despite my very excellent halogen gooseneck lamps (Ott lights give me migraines). Perhaps it was the very long rows and the relatively heavy, bulky pile of yarn-now-shawl in my lap. Perhaps it was fatigue, although I typically do my best work late at night. I don't know. While the stitches were simple, the shawl's design was complex. You really couldn't relax or take comfort in repetition either, because there was very little of that. Of course the same features are what made Mystic Waters such a fascinating shawl to knit! It's different! It wasn't just another triangle shawl knit from the top down ala Evelyn Clark-style with a handful of lace patterns from the Walker Treasuries. Don't get me wrong, I like those shawls too, but there are times when a gal just needs to knit something different. Mystic Waters is very different.

So the last row has been knit. All that remains is the sideways knit-on edging along the top. It's kinda cool because this finish resembles the yo/garter st edging of the sides, something i haven't encountered before. I wasn't sure about knitting this strange finish and was considering doing something more typical. But I hit the photo files on Ravelry in search of a picture of a finished shawl. I needed to *see* this edging as I couldn't visualize it in my mind. Once I saw it I knew it was the perfect finish. It's one of those "takes forever" knit-on edgings so it may be days before I get through it. You'll all know about it 'cuz the earth will shake when I cast-off the last stitch. Kidding, just kidding :-D

So, with Mystic Waters almost done it's time to move on to new things. And what could be a better than to start off a new year of knitting with a brand new swift? I'm deliriously happy about getting a swift. I've wanted one for more than a year, but swifts are expensive...and I am poor so I didn't think it was possible. Then a fellow member of the Lace Knitters list mentioned getting one from JoAnn's.com using a 50% off coupon. I got a coupon in the mail a few days later which made the price just right and I ordered one right away. I chose the big birch wood model because I've had problems winding very fine lace yarns or very large hanks using the smaller metal & plastic swifts. I've wound 2 balls thus far and my new swift passed the test with flying colors. Happy, happy, joy, joy!

As for the new year/new projects I cast on some new socks last week while sitting in the hospital with my father. I took my JKnits Go UT! sock yarn (which has been sitting on my desk for months), several pairs of dpns, and my sketchbook with me to the hospital. I had already decided to create an original sock design that reflected that Tennessee Vols spirit. So I sat in a dark corner of Daddy's room at UT Hospital with my orange and white yarn, sketch book and pencil in hand, and the UT/Vanderbilt Men's basketball game on TV, and started to sketch out the lace motif. After a few few tweaks to the design I cast on for my Volunteer Spirit Socks. I knit a good portion of a cuff before the ballgame ended (we won---big!) and continued with it the next day while doing my daughterly duty as the "night shift nurse." Once I had the cuff almost completed I decided something didn't look quite right. I wasn't sure I liked the placement and slant of my decreases relative to the yarnovers. So, I grabbed some leftover yarn and did a little swatching, trying out several variations until I found the one I think looks best. The fabric of the knitting on my 1st version was too loose and didn't look good either so I frogged the whole thing. But I did think to snap a picture before the frog croaked. Ribbit, ribbit. I have cast-on once again and reknit the ribbing. Stay tuned for another progress report :-)

It's Chemically the Same

2008-01-12T23:49:00.000-05:00

That's what my Mom always said after she had concocted something edible that didn't end up looking like it was supposed to. so the dish looks terrible, it's chemically the same---so eat it! This represents the opposite of what she normally says every night before the blessing is said over the amazing dinner she whipped up out of nothing that looked a smelled amazing: "it's not much folks, but it'll just have to do." Decades later she still says the same thing, although the amazement factor is less frequent an event now. Most nights I just want to reach across the table and choke her because I'm so sick and tired of hearing her whine about it all. But I don't and I, the dutiful daughter, gush appropriately over her efforts.

So why do I mention this tidbit of trivia from my kitchen? Cookies. Chocolate chip cookies, to be precise. And not just any chocolate chip cookies, but The Original Toll House Cookies, complete with Nestle's morsels. I've been craving CCC for about a week now, but haven't manged to make them until today. Now I'm a smart girl and a very good baker (it's genetic--got it from my grandpa who was an amazing professional baker). I've also watched the "Good Eats" episode on making CCC many, many times. Despite this knowledge I followed the recipe and used unsalted butter.

As a kid we always used Blue Bonnet margarine, but margarine today bears very little resemblance to the margarine of 25 years ago and frankly, the stuff creeps me out. I'm not an it's gotta be organic, uber healthy food fanatic--not by a long shot. But I find it very hard to believe that all those chemicals and fake stuff in margarine is better for you than straight from the cow butter. I trust the cow. But butter makes for CCC that are thin, crispy, and that spread like the dickens from those nice little mounds of dough you started out with. I did not end up with nice perfectly round cookies that stack up into tins with all the ease and elegance of Martha Stewart. And yes Martha, I did use my 1 Tbsp ice cream scoop so they would be perfect--like yours :-)

I did not, however, use Silpats to prevent sticking. I don't own any since they are a bit pricey and Mom has said no to them every time I've asked about getting some. For what I've spent on parchment paper I could own at least 2 or 3 Silpats by now, but that's another story. It's not MY kitchen. I am not in charge. I followed the recipe which called for ungreased cookie sheets. My very spread out, thin, crispy, gooey chocolate chip cookies did not want to come up nicely off the cookie sheets. I should have sprayed them with PAM. But I did eventually free most of them from their pans and set them out to cool on a tea towel. The most pathetic looking batch of CCC I think I've ever produced. BUT... they're chemically the same.... and they tasted fabulous!

Next time I listen to Alton Brown and substitute shortening for 1/2 the butter and do as Martha does and use SilPats. Good Eats are a Good Thing ;-)

R is for...

2008-01-11T23:25:00.000-05:00

I recently joined a year-long knitting/fiber-related KAL hosted on Flickr called ABC 2008. Participants are to post pictures which reflect a specific letter of the alphabet during each ~2 week period. I haven't posted my photos yet since i just got accepted, but my 1st one is ready and waiting: A is for Angel scarf knit out of Alpaca yarn with Amazing beaded tassels. How cool is that?

So, now I have letters on my brain...which brings me to my next New Years goal, which is to finally finish or frog all my ufos. And so the letter is R. R is for finally coming to the Realization that I Really don't like either option for finishing the blue MS3 stole that I started last summer during the KAL. And so Really, Really late last night I had a private Ribbit party to say farewell to the half-done stole and Reclaim the really beautiful cashmerino yarn for yet another lace shawl. The Release I felt while Rewinding the yarn was Really amazing. I am a free woman.

And so I am rethinking my relationship with online KALs, especially the "mystery" KALs where you have no idea what you are going to get. Well Forrest Gump, Life may be like a box of chocolates, but when I open that box from See's or Russell Stover's I have a fairly good idea of what's under that robe of chocolaty goodness. I know if it's a caramel or a cream or a nut cluster. That's more than you know with a mystery KAL. I really enjoyed knitting the MS2 the summer of 2006 and the Scheherazade Stole is among my most favorite projects knit to date. I'm also loving the Mystic Waters Shawl I'm currently knitting, but I know what the end looks like since I wasn't able to keep up with the speedy knitters in the group. But the fiasco of the MS3 KAL left me, and many others, more wary and less confident that the mystery will turn out to have a happy ending for us. For example, I didn't cast-on the SOTs stole last fall because I was 1) too busy with other projects, and 2)I didn't like the double pointed starting edge. Tincture of time let me know that the rest of the design wasn't my style either and I was glad I didn't jump in and blindly follow along. But... at the same time I didn't start Secret of Chrysopolis either, even though I liked the 1st clue. It's an awesome design that I hope to find time to knit one of these days.

Now the spring KALS are starting up and instead of 1 or 2 lace shawl KALs there are 5! I'm feeling the pressure to decide which one or two to knit, but if I knit the KALs I won't have time to knit other lace shawls on my wanna knit list. Now the not-knowing is stressful--it's no longer fun and adventurous for me. And after a little dialogue with some knitty friends (thanks Kat!) and with myself (yeah, I talk to myself--it's healthy!) I have granted myself permission to not cast-on any of the KALs when they start. if I'm ready for a new project and I like what I see in the KAL design, then I'll have the files saved and I'll cast-on and happily knit on. Whew!

Now, having said all that, the 1st two clue for Spring Shawl Surprise are out and I've checked the photo files...it's looking really great thus far! The shawl calls for skinny lace yarn and little needles which is right up my alley so I may knit it next. There's a bunch of knitted lace in the SSS, something I need more exposure to doing, so that adds to the appeal for me.

The Trouble with KALs...

2008-01-10T16:04:00.000-05:00

...is there are so many of them! I've joined most of the lace/shawl KALS, esp. the "mystery" ones. I knit the MS 3/Swan Lake last summer, which was "the" mystery KAL that really put the concept "on the map" so to speak. By fall there were 3 lace KALS: Chrysopolis, SOTS, and Mystic Waters. I could only cast-on for one and I chose Mystic Waters because the start was different and looked interesting to me. I didn't start the SOTS because the start was a bit too different and I was skeptical. In the end, my 1st impressions of those KALS held true to the end. I wish that I had been able to knit Chrysopolis as it turned out to be an exceptional design. Someday I will knit it :-)

I'm now at row 260 on Mystic Waters and I have to decide whether to go short or long. So, I knit the shawl onto a 47" lace needle which allowed me to stretch her out a get a good look at the shawl. With only a mild stretch she measured ~55" across the top and 35" from top to tip--a nice size but not big enough for my kind of shawl. So this means I'll be knitting another 100 very long rows to finish MW.

With MW still OTN with at least 3 weeks of knitting left to go, what am I to do about the new KALs? The 1st clues for Spring Shawl Surprice are out and they look awesome. SSS is a big project with 12 clues and it's calls for skinny lace yarn. My cone of pale yellow cashcotton from ColourMart arrived in the mail yesterday and would be perfect for SSS. Then there's the VLT KAL which I need to do because I still haven't knit a project from that luscious book. I guess I won't any time in the next few weeks either. And last, but not least is SOTSii which starts next week. I have a gut feeling this design will be more to my liking, so my wanna knit list is getting longer. Thankfully Moni and her German-based KALS Fischer and Bad Nauheim won't get going until later this spring, with Fischer starting in Feb. Thank you Moni! What's a lace knitter to do with so many choices???

And I think I'd finish off today's ramblings with a picture of the finished ends of my Angel Pearls Scarf. Sivia suggested applying beaded tassels to the points at each end of the scarf. Now I can't stand yarn tassels or fringe as they look ratty after a few wearings and horrible if washed. Yuck! However, the idea of a beaded tassel intrigued me and I do think pointy ends deserve embellishment. So I grabbed a spool of gold C-Lon and some Thread Heaven from my beading stash and came up with my variation on Sivia's beaded tassel. I had to modify the design just a bit because I didn't have enough beads to do the slightly bigger and longer tassel. Nevertheless, the tassels seem to add a bit of panache without being too heavy or too garish so I'm pleased. While staring at the finished, tasseled ends I was horrified to find yet another dropped yo in a place where there are decreases on both sides of the knitting--the true lace areas. Man oh man have I learned how tricky this stuff can be! Of course i fixed it just as I did the previous spot, and no one will ever find it---even though you know the repair was made 'cuz I told you so. Maybe I should shut up and not confess these things, but I believe it good for others to know that we all make boo-boos, novice and experts alike :-) My tongue-in-cheek motto: If I were perfect I wouldn't be here! (Just think about that for a second...)

Knitting on!

The Angel is Done!

2008-01-08T22:06:00.000-05:00

I'm pleased to announce the completion of the Angel Pearls Beaded lace Scarf, my 1st FO of 2008. I really thought I would be done in no more than a week, but a few interruptions for things like Christmas and another unplanned hospital admission for my Father sort of delayed things a bit. Well, that and the fact that I was so afraid my scarf would be too short that I kept adding extra repeats of the main chart. The pattern called for 10-11 repeats and I finally stopped after 15. You know how the story goes: you finish knitting a repeat and you try the thing on to see if it's long enough OR you grab a tape measure and run the numbers. You hmmm a bit and decide it's too short and knit another repeat...and another...and another...and well, you get the idea :-)

At 14 repeats I figured I was OK, but I decided to knit one more just to be sure. Well, after a nice warm bubble bath to get the machine oils and grime out of the yarn, the finished scarf headed to the stripped down "blocking bed" (formerly known as the guest bed). I gave the scarf a nice block, but not as severe as I typically stretch my lace. I was concerned about the fine, cobweb wt fibers breaking, so I was gentle. From previous experience I have learned that alpaca does not hold a crisp, sever block anyway and I'm thinking a gentle block has a better chance of keeping it's structure. We shall see. Anyway, I was so surprised to find my finished scarf measured 77" long and 6.5" wide. That's at least 10" more than I anticipated and I'm so pleased! By the time I add the beaded tassels to the points it'll be 80+ inches! Cool!

The finished shawl used only about 40g of yarn. After some fancy calculating I used roughly about 236 yds. of the triple stranded yarn. That's pretty much spot on with what Sivia used in her original scarf out of Kid Silk Haze, so that's also good. Oh, I forgot to mention how I solved them problem of the HOLE. Some careful scrutiny revealed that I had dropped a yo stitch from a k2tog. After playing with it a bit I realized I could do a repair job that would be essentially invisible, thus avoiding having to tink/frog back the better part of a repeat. So after casting off, I went back with a single strand of the cobweb fiber and caught the yo loop up to the next row where it belonged, weaving the yarn tail before and after the catch-stitch. You can't even see it and I'm happy. Those of you who know me well know that I could never just leave a boo-boo like that. If I couldn't have made the invisible repair I would have frogged back for sure :-)

New Year's Eve

2007-12-31T22:26:00.001-05:00

It's just another New Year's Eve, just another Auld Lang Syne -- sounds like a familiar Barry Manilow song, doesn't it? ;-) I'm another year older, maybe I'm a little bit wiser or at least I finally have the PhD to prove it, and life goes on. It's been a very good year on the whole, and my knitting has progressed significantly. It's hard to believe that it's only been 2 years since I knit my 1st lace scarf, now I'm addicted to lace knitting. My latest project, the Angel Pearls Beaded Lace Scarf has reached the half-way point and it's really quite lovely. Or at least that's what I thought until this afternoon when I spread it out to shoot a couple of photos. There it was!!!
Here's a closer view...can you see it? A HOLE. A big ugly hole!!! I was aghast. It's about 1.5 repeats from the top, or the equivalent of what I knit late last night before falling asleep. I'm not exactly sure what happened, if I dropped a stitch or simply missed gathering one up in a cluster, or if it's simply a tension disaster. It could be any or all of the above. The alpaca is very slippery and it's not the easiest thing to knit with 3 strands I'm trying not to separate. So it's been hanging out for the evening while I decide whether to frog back (PitA) or forge ahead and do a sneaky repair later. My go ahead side is reminding me that it's at the back of the neck place in the scarf--the place where no-one will ever see it. Of course the perfectionist me wants to frog/tink it, but I know that the risk of losing even more stitches is super high with this yarn. Perhaps my 1st New Years Resolution needs to be getting over my need to have everything done to perfection. Honestly, this gap in the lace really isn't a big deal, isn't it????
I kind of want to finish the Angel scarf before I cast-on and resume working on Thistle's Epistle. It's a great stole, but I know finishing it will test my tenacity to the max cuz it's reached the sigh, ho hum, BORING! point where I want to do something else. Another resolution: finish the UFOs. I did really well this fall finishing stuff, so my WIP/hibernating list is fairly short, but I still have serious get-it-done work ahead of me.

Dick Clark's Rockin' New Years Eve with Ryan Secrest is on, it's 11:00PM here and I'm signing off to go and knit in the New Year. I'll let you know what happens to the BIG HOLE on the flip side. Until then, I wish you PEACE, HOPE, and JOY! Happy New Year :-)

Merry Christmas!

2007-12-25T22:15:00.001-05:00

Another Christmas Day is coming to a close and I can't help but reflect back on what's happened. The long-awaited socks for Daddy were unwrapped, not with surprise, but with a great deal of joy. Daddy put them on immediately last night and declared them perfect. Ever the critical eye, I thought they looked just a smidge on the snug side. Next time I'll try either a slightly fatter yarn or a few more stitches for some extra give. They also looked a little snug across the toes. They didn't feel too tight and Daddy said they weren't, but once again, I'll add maybe 1/2" on the next pair. He wore the socks with his dress loafers when we went out today and he showed them off to everyone. For as much as I did not enjoy knitting those socks I know I have to knit another pair for him very soon. It's the very least I can do to help his poor aching and sensitive feet find a little comfort.

I showed mother what I had knit on her lace stole thus far. I have dubbed my adaptation of the HeartStrings Scotch Thistle Lace Stole pattern Thistle's Epistle. I kind of like the ring to it, and I got into knitting an adaptation because I didn't go back and read the pattern instructions (the "epistle"). Her response was favorable, although she was so tired and grouchy that any hint of a positive response was a miracle. But, since the stole wasn't going to be under the tree, I gave her a new set of Wolfgang Puck knives--ones that are sharp and safe, unlike the scary things she's using now. I refuse to touch those knives--scary!

A few days ago I was feeling the need to knit a little something simple, yet lacy as a perk me up alternative to the big shawls and stoles I have OTN. I was surfing the FOs at Ravelry and someone posted a scarf by a popular lace designer, Sivia Harding. Off to Sivia's website I went in a flash, threw open the lace files and coughed up some cash! (My apologies to Mr. Clemens, ahem) There are 3 Harding designs I'm eager to knit, 2 of which are med-lg shawls. The other is this sweet beaded scarf called Angel Pearls, knit from a single skein of Kid Silk Haze. After a little math and some scary yarn manipulations I turned a cone of cobweb wt. baby alpaca singles into a triple-stranded center-pull ball. The yarn is a rich golden yellow so I chose silver-lined gold beads to go with it and I cast on. Failure to concentrate did necessitate tinking a row here and there, but I have 1.5 repeats of the center chart completed and things look good. The yarn is a bit tricky to work with as it's very slippery and easy to split the strands, but the fabric it produces is lusciously soft and enhances the lace. The best part of this scarf design--it's knit in one piece from start to finish with no grafting or provisional cast-ons or anything complicated. I'm finding such designs in lace to be hard to come by, so this is a big deal.

My Christmas was everything I had hoped for. I knew what most of my presents were beforehand, but Mom did surprise me with a few things from Coldwater Creek. I love everything I received, but I'm especially liking the new pajamas. A nice, heavy cotton jersey, the red pants are covered in preppy plaid and green triangle "trees" with a white top emblazoned with the word Celebrate right across the "girls". My "big" present was a red suede jacket, which I adore, but I Bet I wear the PJs more ;-D

Ho Ho Ho, it was a very Merry Christmas after all!

Whoa!!!!

2007-12-18T13:19:00.000-05:00

I'm pulling on the reins, but it's not because I'm Santa telling Rudolph and the reindeer to take off with the Sleigh full of gifts. Not hardly, rather it's me yelling whoa! Time is going by too fast, faster than my fingers can finish knitting the stole I'm concocting for Mother's present. I have accepted the reality that I cannot complete socks for my sister, nor any other major knitted gifts for other family members. This is not so terrible as I wasn't certain my sister would wear the socks, and everyone else wouldn't really appreciate how much work such things take. Simplify, simplify, simplify, quoting Ann Morrow Lindberg, has become my motto.

I thought I'd share the last photo I took of the Mystic Waters Shawl (MWS). I haven't knit any more rows in about 1.5 weeks, but I think I'll go back to it so I can switch between Mom's shawl and the MWS. Working on 2 shawls really helps with the tedious aspect of repetition. The last clue of MWS was posted last week and Anna posted a picture of her finished shawl on her blog just the other day. She used a finer yarn than I am using, and her finished wingspan was over 90" with a depth of 50+". I suddenly realized that if I knit the whole thing, my shawl would be 100+ inches by 60+ inches-- way, way too big. I'm afraid I'll have no other choice but to knit the "small" version and hope that it isn't too small. My guts tell me I really wanted a finished size somewhere between the two but I don't want an afghan. Stay tuned to see what happens!

I had a difficult time deciding what pattern to use for mother stole. Finding a balance between easy-to-knit and interesting-to-knit with the limit of no knit-on edgings made the pickings a bit slim. But I was delighted to discover that Sandy at The Yarn Haven is carrying patterns from HeartStrings FiberArts, including the hot pattern of the summer, the Scotch Thistle Lace Stole. Problem solved! Well, sort of. The pattern calls for fingering wt. yarn and I planned on using a cone of laceweight cashmere (thanks ColourMart!). OK, so I doubled the yarn and kept the recommended needle size. I read through the pattern after I brought it home, but when I cast-on I just started knitting from the chart. It looks nice, but it doesn't look like the one in the picture. Why? In the written directions you are instructed to repeat specific rows multiple times before proceeding to the next part of the chart. Whoops! I briefly considered frogging back, but decided to go on, unventing the pattern as I went. The unventing is a bit interesting but it has called for a few tinking sessions when I hated the choice I made. You didn't think I was wise enough to throw in a lifeline before forging on did you??? Ha! not a chance (OK, I regretted not having a lifeline last night after tinking about 5 rows, ugh!)

I'm taking notes to share when I'm done with my version of the stole (with apologies to Jackie E_S). I'll post pictures next time. Until then, HO HO HO!!!

Christmas Bliss

2007-12-08T20:02:00.000-05:00

I had an experience in Christmas bliss last night that I shall not forget. A bit of background--I am a singer as well as a knitter. I have been in choirs, large and small, for most of my life, singing the classical repertoire for the most part. Excellent choral music is a large part of my joy in life. No one in the family was more delighted than I when my nephew Christopher fell in love with choral music as a freshman in High School. He was in a magnet high school and had an exceptional professor who carefully tutored Chris' talent. He was selected to the All-East State honors choirs every year, and All-State his senior year (maybe jr. too...I don't remember). His gift for music was rewarded with college scholarships and selection for a special a capella men's group called the Seven Bucks his sophomore year. Now a junior at East TN State University (ETSU), he is singing with the ETSU Chorale, a modest-sized group of about 80 singers. Last night was my 1st opportunity to hear him perform with the choir at their Annual Christmas Concert.

The concert was held at the Munsey Memorial Methodist Church in Johnson City, a beautiful old cathedral-style church in the heart of the historic downtown district. In the first picture I tried capture the exquisite architecture of the chancel area. Above the altar was a soaring brass fretwork engraved with images of Christ and the apostles. It was difficult to see the detail from where I sat, but I was impressed nevertheless. The choir did not use the chancel area, rather they stood on risers in front of the pulpits and along the outer aisles. For the opening number, an early 17th century work by Allegri, a quartet stood in the rear balcony, the women were on the risers and the men in the aisles so the audience was literally surrounded by a glorious polyphonal sound. It was breathtakingly beautiful to listen too. I could not believe my ears I was so stunned by the exceptional quality of the Chorale. I consider myself to be fairly knowledgeable about choral music and *very* picky about things like intonation and timbre and the like. Frankly, I never even considered the possibility of music of this quality coming from a small university in the hills of Appalachia. I was so wrong, it was that good!!!

Perhaps the most joyous aspect of the experience for me was simply watching Chris sing (the redhead in the center on the top row). It wasn't hard to see that he was loving every minute of it. He was a bit nervous about his part in a solo quartet in a Ralph Vaughn Williams number, but he sang well. Daddy made the journey with me and he simply glowed with joy over the whole thing. It truly is a miracle that he even had strength to come and sit in a crowd for that long so late at night.

After the concert we were pleasantly surprised to learn that Alison(the ex) brought Matthew(nephew #3) and Connor(#4) up from North Carolina for the concert. The boys were *so* excited to see their Grandaddy! It was a Fuji moment and I was lucky to snap a couple of pictures--good pictures! (From left to right: Chris, Connor, Grandaddy, & Matthew) Matthew looked, well, (can an aunt say this???) HOT! He was decked out in a beautiful suit and tie--boy he cleans up good! Connor was in great spirits too, so it was a great family moment for us all. It was a concert event that will be the highlight of my Christmas this year. Ah, bliss!

Narcissistic Yarn, Acts of Desperation, and Other Random Thoughts

2007-12-06T21:13:00.000-05:00

Today I added a few photos to go with the ramblings on of a distracted mind. Here's my completed "Smooshy Socks" aka Socks for Veronik. The yarn lives up to it's name. soft and smooshy! I wore them yesterday and got gushing raves everywhere I went. That's pretty impressive for socks. With each pair of socks I knit, I learn something new. From the smooshy socks I learned how to knit socks that would fit around my curvy calves and still fit at the ankle. At last I can knit a sock with a longer leg, right? Not so fast.... They fit just great, they just don't want to stay there. Chalk another one up for gravity as the socks retract comfortably to just above where all my other socks sit. Some battles just weren't meant to be won. Back to knitting 4-5" cuffs.

I knew I had to go to the doctor's office yesterday and with no "current" socks OTN I needed a project to take with me. So I resumed work on Daddy's Christmas socks. I knit the heel flap over the weekend and got all the stitches picked up for the gusset. Lots of stitches since these are big socks for big feet. I was testing the limits of my favorite KnitPicks needles with all those stitches. Desperate times call for desperate acts. I knew I couldn't just pitch these socks into my purse and go without losing stitches everywhere, so I grabbed my 32" KP circular and started knitting a la Magic Loop style. My stitches are saved from drop-offs! It's pretty awkward in that you have to fight the natural curvature of the cable, even if it's a super flexible cable. Messing with the loop is fiddly and I'm not yet convinced this is superior to dpns. I am knitting in all stockinette at this point, so that's pretty simple, but working in pattern may be more tricky. Magic Looping does demand the use of stitch markers, things I never used on dpns as the spacing of stitches across the needles served to mark where you are at in the pattern. I may switch back to dpns once the gusset decreases are done, but for now it's magic loop time I guess.

My last photo is symbolic of how my day has gone today. We had terrible wind storms last night, I didn't take my usual sleep med (forgot to get it refilled) hence I didn't sleep too well. So I'm not in my best form when my four-legged friend came to see me this morning. Miss Emme, aka Her Royal Majesty of Supreme Rottenness, decided it was time to be picked up and put into my bed. Dachsies are short, my bed is tall--enough said. Emme has her favorite way of occupying my bed, and this morning's offering was not up to her expectations. It was a rough night, after all, so there weren't many blankets left on the bed. I was trying to knit on THE SOCKS (they will be done this year, Daddy, I promise!) but NO! I must move. I must fix the blankets. I get up and start to make the bed, but before I can crawl back in She took over. Rotten I tell you, rotten. Parked right on top of my heating pad. I know when I have lost. I relocated to the recliner with my knitting, sans the heating pad.

This should have been a sign portending things to come. I picked up a new shawl pattern while I was at the Yarn Haven yesterday. Oh yeah, I hit the LYS! I bought another skein of Araucania Ranco to knit socks for my sister for Christmas (or her B-day if I don't get done in time). While I was there I thumbed through Sandy's pattern collection. She's been expanding these things and I was happy to learn she is carrying FiberTrends and HeartStrings patterns. I've been looking at HeartStrings patterns for awhile, but didn't have a convenient source--until now. I loved Jackie's Scotch Thistle Stole design when she released it last summer. Others liked it too, as there was quite a rush on the pattern and dyed-to-match Schaefer yarn that was meant to go with the pattern. When I saw it at TYH, I knew it was my answer to what to knit for Mother for Christmas.

After careful deliberation and review of finances, I opted to forgo buying new yarn and use some cashmere from the stash. This is the pretty brick red yarn that I ordered hoping for a ruby red. Sweet Richard at ColourMart found some ruby red and sent me both cones. The Brick is perfect for Mom, and if used double stranded, is perfect for the Thistle Stole. No problem, right? I'll just wind off half the cone with my trusty ball winder, then knit from both for the stole. I've done this many times without a hitch, but not so today. They say yarn has personality. Different yarns say different things, like "Hey. look at me! I'm bright and sassy" or "I'm soooo soft and sweet, don't you want to pet me?" The brick cashmere has a personality all right, a narcissistic personality. It's very fond of itself. It's also quite flighty, as in flying off the spindle when I had about 40g wound off. That means the ball gets to sit on the floor next to the partially unwound cone to go through the winding process all over again. Bothersome, but not problematic, right? Wrong! I've heard folks whine about yarn barf before, you know, the big globs of yarn that spew forth from center-pull balls to crate havoc and knots while you work. Yarn Barf! I'd never had any bad barf before, but this self-absorbed stuff puked constantly and didn't want to be separated into one long line. Bad yarn! I hissed my way through rewinding and now I have yarn ready to knit. I hope it behaves better while knitting. I put some nice hand cream on while rewinding the yarn in the hopes of discouraging it's stuck-on-self ways in the future. And here I thought narcissistic people were difficult to deal with. Who knew yarn could be too!

Frivolity

2007-12-03T14:51:00.000-05:00

There's nothing like a Monday afternoon to engage in frivolity. You know the stuff-- fun, interesting, or pleasing but generally unnecessary activities. Well, maybe unnecessary in somebody's point of view. I am in the midst of decorating the house for Christmas. That means setting up 2 Christmas trees, one upstairs (mine) and one downstairs (the family tree), plus all the other accoutrement that makes our house suitably attired for the season. I intend to have fun doing the decorating this year. Last year was not fun as I was in the throes of my dissertation and very stressed out. Last year the downstairs tree & decorations never emerged from their off-season hiding place.

But hauling boxes around and setting up trees (those beautiful, pre-lit trees are HEAVY!) is physically demanding and not especially compatible with my fibromyalgia-ravaged body. This means I have to take frequent rest breaks. More frivolity I guess, since I saw this on someone's blog and decided to take the quiz. It's called your personal DNA and it's kind of a take-off on those personality tests you took in freshman psych class (ie. Myers-Briggs, etc.). Anyway, here's what they said about me:

Animated Inventor

Hmmm, sounds pretty OK. There are a few things I questioned, but then I had a hard time answering quite a few of those questions where sometimes I'm one way and other times I'm the opposite--a true Gemini. Some of the rest reflects more of what I used to do/be or would like to do/be, but not necessarily what my life is like right this minute. Geez, I could over-analyze anything half to death! Thinking, thinking, thinking.... One of my favorite bloggers calls this stuff useless blather. I agree.

On the knitting front, I finished my Smooshy Socks for Veronik yesterday. No FO pix just yet, but I'll get some posted later. I'm quite happy with how they turned out and I look forward to seeing how well they wear. Some recent dialogue about sock yarns on Ravelry brought to light the importance of reserving judgment on the wonderfulness of a yarn until after the finished item has been worn/used and laundered for a period of time. Things that seem great at first don't always retain their wonderfulness. I wore a pair of socks I knit a year or so ago using some soft Knit Picks Sock Garden yarn. I think I pulled 2 dozen fuzzy balls off of each sock---the stuff pills like mad! It's no so bad for house socks, but I wouldn't be so pleased if it was a sweater.

I picked up Daddy's Socks out of the UFO basket and resumed knitting on them. He will get them, finished and ready to wear this year! I'm still in anguish over what to knit for Mom. Do I suck it up and knit a black shawl, which is what she wants (and I dread the mere thought of), out of fingering wt. yarn, which would make it warm (what she wants) and fast to knit (good for me). I would have to buy yarn for this as I have nothing black. But, I have some beautiful cashmere from ColourMart (Thanks Richard!) that is a lovely heathered brick shade that would go with lots of her clothes and would look fabulous on her. Decisions!

Promise Kept

2007-11-30T14:46:00.001-05:00

I've had an longstanding promise to take my father for a drive to our favorite place, The Great Smoky Mountains National Park. More specifically, there is a small isolated community at the very edge of the park called Cades Cove that is our most favorite place to visit. There is a narrow, winding one-way road that makes an 11 mile loop around the cove, passing the restored cabins and churches and other places that were the home of a thriving mountain community in the late 1800's. Each time we visit we stop at one or two of our favorite "points of interest" to see what has evolved.

The first photograph was taken from the front yard of the Missionary Baptist Church. I was smitten by the brilliance of color and light in the distant fields and the contrasting dimness in the shadow of the trees surrounding the church. I usually stop at the Methodist Church as it's my favorite, but lately I've been intrigued by the architecture of the Missionary Baptist Church, with it's protruding chancel (is that what it's called???) at the front of the church where the pulpit is located. It's really a very fancy detail for the period and setting and none of the other churches in the cove have this feature. The old wood of the interior walls and pews make for amazing acoustics. Daddy and I can't help but break into an old gospel hymn like Amazing Grace when we visit.

Our next stop was at Abrams Creek. With the severe drought we've suffered this year the water levels in the Smokies are lower than I can recall ever witnessing before in my life. Just after the Loop Road crosses Abrams Creek there's a short road to a parking area at the head of a group of hiking trails. As we pulled off the main road, daddy noticed these unusual plants than were in an area that is traditionally moist and a bit like a bog. I have no idea what these are, but they had a large seed pod that is shaped like a bird's body and is about 4-6" long. When the pod splits you see at the 1st inner layer of tiny, flat brown seeds. Attached to each seed and comprising the innermost layer is a silky, feathery fiber that is ~2-3" long. It was shimmering in the sun and had the fluffy nature similar to a dandelion seed, only much stronger. The fluff just glistened in the sun and truly looked like silk. I was completely fascinated and took a number of photos to help me identify the plant. Very cool!

We proceeded on to the parking area and stopped to take a little stroll along the creek. Once again I was stunned by how low the water level was, and how different the creek looked there by the bridge that crosses it. You could see through the clear steely blue/teal water to the creek bottom. A natural dam had been created by a fallen tree. Subsequent limbs and branches flowing downstream got caught in the fallen tree creating a bit of a pond upstream, and a mill-race-like waterfall for the water that moved overt he top of the mass of sticks and leaves. The sounds and the colors were rather eerie and I thought of the Mystic Waters Shawl KAL I'm participating in. I was looking at real mystic waters! Double cool!

By the time we got to the backside of the Loop road it was getting later in the afternoon and the white-tailed deer were starting to come down from their daytime hideaways in the mountains to the green fields in the Cove for their evening meal. November is rutting season and by this point the dominant bucks have stated their claims over the does and are stalking them until the perfect day when its time to mate. They only get 24 hours once a year. This 3-point buck was standing in the middle of a large field, apparently alone. But on closer inspection there was a single doe sitting in a brushy are on the edge of the field. Clearly Big Daddy Buck was waiting and watching over his girl. Not just yet big fella! As we drove on around the bend there was a field full of does, maybe 8 or 10. We decided they were all a part of that bucks harem. Let's face it, the deer have it very good in Cades Cove.

Quarantine Over

2007-11-27T20:24:00.000-05:00

It was a nasty little virus. Sneaky in it's approach, insidious at best, but boy oh boy did it knock me out of commission! Almost 2 weeks it's been since the initial migraine and sinus congestion. I think I can safely say it's over now as I ended the day with yet another migraine. The miserable things, they get you coming and going.

So I slept a lot, contemplated knitting projects a lot, and got a fair amount of knitting done. The downside--it had to be relatively uncomplicated knitting most of the time because my head simply wasn't up to knitting complex shawls. Uncomplicated means socks. I love my Monkey Socks. I love the pattern enough that I might just knit it a second time, with a few changes of course. Some of the folks over on Ravelry have knit the lace motif without the purl stitch sections on the 1st few rows. They chose to knit those little wedges instead, making it much easier to execute without detracting from the esthetic appeal of the lace.

Right now I'm working on the "Socks for Veronik" pattern from the latest IK Holiday Knits magazine. I'm calling them my Smooshy Socks since I'm using the Dream in Color Smooshy sock yarn I bought at the Yarn Patch. This is truly luscious sock yarn---so soft and squishy, lots of loft. In fact, it's a bit deceptive becasue the yarn looks much fatter in the skein than it becomes once knitted up. It's that smooshy factor I guess. Whatever, the yarn is delicious and the subtlety of the variegated dyeing adds richness to the look of the sock without competing against the lace. I wonder if I can convince Sandy or Jinka to carry this yarn?

I may not be able to buy DEC Smooshy here in town, but I did score a skein of orange and white sock yarn the Sandy at The Yarn Haven had custom-dyed by J Knits. Called Go UT! this is the Superwash Me sock yarn that I've alos heard very good things about. I picked up my skein this afternoon when I stopped by to drop off the Havenly Scarf pattern. At $24.99, it is a bit on the pricey side, but it was a custom order and the skein is huge! Mine weighted 125g which is practically enough to do a pair of short-cuff socks and a pair of footies. I will definitely be casting on this yarn for my next pair of socks. The question is, what pattern should I use? There are oodles of great sock patterns out there plus the socks that are merely ideas in my head--it's no wonder I have trouble making decisions about what to knit next :-)