Wednesday, March 10, 2010

The computer is being slow this morning, just when I need to rally the troops to go to Strathardle. We vaguely plan to come back on Monday – maybe sooner, if the ground is still rock-hard.

Yesterday was frustrating on the knitting front. I tried to swatch Koigu. Here is some of it, laid out for deployment. The orange balls are Rowan 4-ply soft, which I think would fit in thickness-wise. There are a couple of odd-balls of Louet Gems Merino, too, which is very similar to Koigu.


I found that the wavy stripe file Theresa had sent me, won’t load on my older machine. I found that I don’t have Barbara Walker’s afghan book, in which she does a wavy stripe. All the others, but not that one. That left the Lizard Ridge afghan pattern from Knitty which Anonymous pointed me to.

That one has a 14-stitch repeat. I thought I would probably prefer a longer one – Theresa said her pattern was a 32-stitch repeat. But I thought I’d try the Knitty pattern to get the idea, and I didn’t like it -- all that short-rowing and turning around and trying to find the wrap to knit with the stitch.

So I retreated to an earlier thot, and tried just knitting ribbon stripes, fancy Koigu interleaved with plain, narrower stripes. I thot I would do the latter in reversed st st, expecting them to recede like the purl stitches in a rib, thereby revealing on my part a pretty basic ignorance of the fundamentals of knitting – reversed st st stripes balloon outward, forming a welt.

It’s just as well we’re going away. The whole problem can marinate in my subconscious for a while.

The decision on the country front is to go on with the Strathardle sweater -- the dusty pink Araucania -- this time, thinking hard. It’s a Sweater Wizard pattern, only slightly tweaked from Ketki’s ’08 Calcutta Cup sweater. Here she is in it, with her sons in Scotland rugby gear. Do I want such a sweater?


[While we're at it, here are my other two Calcutta Cup knittings -- Alexander's Fair Isle sweater for '06, now a bit snug, and the centre of Kirsty's Christening shawl, from '00.]


Helen C.K.S.’ Post-Knitting Disappointment Disorder, mutatis mutandis, is my own this morning.

Nothing from the Schoolhouse, either. Very odd. Staff problems?

Back here Tuesday, insh’Allah.

4 comments:

  1. Cynthia9:15 AM

    I have been trying to find a chart I have for garter stitch honeycomb, which is very easy to do. The closest thing I could find was this link to a garter stitch pattern.
    http://knitting-and.com/wiki/Honeycomb_Patterns

    Second pattern on the page. I don't see why you couldn't do a much longer repeat between the slip sts. I used this once on a yoke and it was very attractive.

    Did you see that Vogue is having a 60% off sale on its downloadable patterns, through March 15; enter the code VKM 395. Just in case you're still looking for an asymmetrical swing jacket.

    Cynthia

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  2. I converted the wavy lines to a rich text format and will send it again.
    I hate knitting disappointment days when nothing seems to get accomplished.

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  3. I love the picture of your yarns laid out for deployment. I'm sure you just enjoy sitting and looking at those beautiful colours and THINKING.

    That picture of the patterned Calcutta Cup sweater is a reminder of when I started reading your blog.

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  4. would be glad to call SHP for you... let me know when you get back.

    also let me know about the BW pattern.

    hope all is well in the country

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