JAALA!!!!

This is Jaala. Sing with me: "Isn't she lovely? Isn't she wonderful?" Aside from walking in beauty like the night, she is good designer and a really good knitting camper. She designed the sweater she is wearing. I think I might knit it. I'm going to get the pattern from KnitCircus magazine which will be delivered right to my door any day now. It's full of other nice designs to knit. It's a good magazine. She and Elizabeth(sidebar) publish KnitCircus. Ask for it at your LYS or go here to see the patterns and to order a copy or subscribe. Here's Jaala's blog.

I accidentally left Jaala's name off the list of campers even though we caravaned and arrived at knitting camp together, even though we had a shouted conversation through an open window at park headquarters while she was outside in her car and I was inside on line with 30 people. Even though she let me have the short chair. Shame on me.

I love you, Jaala.

Aced the Test

My friend Bev is a knitting designer. She asked me to test knit a simple but beautiful hat, or maybe I asked her if she'd allow me. The pattern is very well written. She made the stranded colorwork easy. It's called the All-American Baby Hat and it's availble for $4.00 in Bev's Etsy Shop or from Ravelry where she is known as knittersjourney. Not having a baby head handy, I photographed it on some laundry. Here is her blog post about the hat with nice pictures.

Isn't it cute?

I made a shawl.

I started this last summer. I know I had it at Alt. Schmores Knitting Camp '08. I finished it right before Alt. Schmores Knitting Camp '09. It is two skeins of Suri Alpaca. I don't know the name anymore. It just reached. I probably could have done one more row because I had about a foot left over. The shawl is designed to tie around the shoulders at chest level to keep you warm and have your hands free. It's a copy of a gray one I remember from years ago that my roommate, Gwen, gave me. At least she gave it to me for a few months, but then she moved and she wanted it back. I had no choice but to knit my own 20-some years later.

I got back from knitting camp this week. The company was terrific--smart and funny, the food was sehr yummy, we found the best campsite ever, and even the weather was perfect. I saw a lot of these butterflies, but this is the one I saw first:

I neglected to take a picture of everybody. I won't torture anybody by posting her picture since I can't torture everybody. You should come next year, at least for the day. You don't have to actually camp. Think of it as a day in the park with knitting. A knitting picnic.

MollieBees, Elizabeth, Sue, Helen, Christy, Janice, Sheryl, and Jen, thanks for the memories and the treats including 3 kinds of marshmallows.

Glove Love and the GIANT UFO

This glove had been making trouble for months in the pile o'crap important knitting paraphernalia on my couch glorified futon knitting area. It's mate was there, too. I think they would meet furtively somewheres in the fluidity of the mass that is my well-organized, systematic storage facility. There they would snicker like Beavus and Butthead and hatch diabolical plots, pitting yarn against yarn. I'm sure they were high fiving on the one hand and and high zeroing on the other over acts of sabotage such as what you see pictured here. I expect my yarn to be tangle free now that those 2 miscreants have been put in their place, the top shelf of the hall closet.

I received the black yarn in a swap with my Monday night knitters last December. I've got an oatmealy color of it also, perhaps 2 balls. I've got most of one of the black balls left. It's got some angora in it, which provides the nice halo which I can see (and feel) and you can't. Well, maybe you can see it a little. It's got other natural fibers in it, maybe silk and definitely wool. It has a felted feel, but actually it's got 2 plies. It knits in an aran gauge. Sooner or later I'll come across the other balls that still have labels. No gloves fit better than gloves you practically knitted directly onto your hand. They are plain stockinette.

How to Knit a Glove

I used my basic method where I knit the cuff then a couple of plain rows where I increase 1-4 stitches for the palm. Then I increase 1 for the thumb gusset and put markers on either side of the increase. After that I increase at both markers every other row or so until the gusset is 15 stitches, then I knit straight until I think the level of the knitting has reached the big valley between the thumb and index finger. Then I put the thumb stitches aside and forge on. Of the fingers, you have to knit the baby finger first because its valley is 2 rows lower than the other valleys. With this yarn I needed 13 stitches for the Baby, 14 for the Weakling, and 15 each for the Tall Man, Pointer and Thumb. I used approximately 10-12 of the live stitches for each finger and picked up and cast on evenly on sides between the fingers. In order to close up gaps I had to pick up more than the necessary number of stitches, so I decreased gently to get the right fit. I didn't know in advance how many stitches I'd need until after doing the pinky. From there I could estimate, but trying on was the key. Closing the fingers was a little more difficult for me to get the exact right length. I had to be willing to rip and reknit those last few stitches, which I was, but it was only on a few stitches. The decreasing there is all done in the last 2 rows before stringing the remaining stitches and pulling up tight. Figuring out that the finger doesn't need to be carefully tapered has saved me a good deal of knitting angst.

I call this my method, but I read it somewhere else first. I don't know where. It is probably an amalgam of patterns. I just hope I get a lot of use out of them before I lose one. But when I do, since it is ambidextrous, it will make a pair with any singleton I have, most of which are lefts.

As I go to press, the picture of the pair of gloves is vertical. It's not supposed to be. Perhaps it will have fixed itself by the time you visit.

The Hill: Grass and weeds subtracted, rocks added. I have erosional thinking. I played around with this hill for years, trying to get things to take over the grass. Now I've hired a neighbor. My tweezer method wasn't very effective, but we'll see about the sledgehammer method. Now it's a race to get it all planted, but I can't decide what to plant. I might hire a woman I've met who is a landscape designer to plan the space. There are some ground covery things planted at the bottom toward the side with the phlox (the big green strip). They are starting to fill out, just a bit. It's been raining everywhere but here for a few weeks now. See how dry the ground is?

Cat added for scale.

First a Kitty

Musette. That's not her tail, it's a mushed up kitty pi. That makes a total of 3 knitted items in which she is nesting. The red thing, knitted by the illustrious Laura, is a sweater which I've altered but still need to reknit the button band. Hi Laura. The rainbow thing is the circular blanket. This had to happen. All the little packages finally got the upper hand. It was like the scene in the first Harry Potter where all the letters are shooting in through the fireplace and the mail chute and flapping around trying to get attention. I need to tie a needle gauge to it.Oy. I'm working on this now. It's going to be a stole. The pattern is Swing Stitch from Barbara Walker #2, p. 264. I spent a good 2.5 hours knitting tonight only to end up having knit one more row than when I had picked it up. Counting Fail. Lifeline Win! The lurid green highlights are due to having messed with the color values to get the knitting to be this shade of purple. I think it's pretty accurate. It's interesting that the color of the unaltered picture was pretty close to the pictures in the online stores. Maybe I'll get another skein after all.These are finished. I finally located the original pattern! I had to have help from the Patterns forum on Ravelry. They are called Rise and Shine socks. The author is Tikru who blogs at Made By Myself. Forgive me for posting so many pictures of them. I love them so. I'm working on another pair. If I don't watch myself carefully I'll frog the plain one and reknit it as a Rise and Shine sock. Maybe I'll make the zigzags further apart.

I'm invited to a wedding, but I need your help. Chicken, fish, or vegetarian?