Thursday, March 22, 2012


I suddenly had a searing sore throat on Tuesday evening, accompanied by uncontrollable coughing. It lasted about an hour and then both symptoms melted away, leaving me feeling battered, and newly aware of the precariousness of life. I sort of took yesterday off. I'm fine this morning, so today we’ll go to Strathardle for a two-nighter, back here Sunday. Glorious weather.

We’ll need to do better than that from here on out, if I am to have a garden this year. But two nights will do for now.

I have sorted out two generous bags-ful of lace yarn for the knitters at the Session House. I have retained enough to keep me going for the rest of my life, if I knit nothing but lace. However, for the first time since this vague clean-out began, I have the feeling that there is less yarn in that cupboard than there used to be.

The one box that never gets touched, of course, is the one with my Koigu collection. I really must get going with implementing one of my ideas for that, if it is not to be thrown ignorantly away after my death.

And I have ordered Candace Strick’s sock book. “A revolutionary approach to sock knitting”, written by a friend. How could I resist? It’s coming from Amazon.com. Amazon.co.uk doesn’t have it, and Candace’ own website suggests printing out the order form and sending it to her with a check, which sounds to me about as useful as sending cowie shells.

I’ve finished re-knitting the back of the vest, and have embarked on the front. The next job, now pressing, is to re-calculate the rate of decrease for the new, shallower v-neck. Re-knitting great stretches of something already signed off as an FO turns out to be fully as dispiriting as you might imagine. The temptation is great to throw it aside and get on with the next sock. This time, at least, I will have the wearer try it on before knitting the neck and sleeve-hole ribbing. Although the thought of a second failure is too dreadful to contemplate.

And I’ve been thinking about my forthcoming snood.

Fiona, thank you for the tactful pointer (comment, Tuesday) to the fact that there are two versions of the Shibui Gradient snood pattern. I hadn’t noticed  -- I took the two measurements, on a hasty first reading, to be inches and metric rather than First Size and Second Size. Whatever, I will have only the four skeins from the kit, so it will have to be the smaller one. 45” sounds OK.

I have been spending quite a bit of contemplation time, the last two days, (=while washing up, or walking about, or knitting) thinking about the question of yarn use with this pattern. If you wind a skein carefully into three balls of equal weight, and then knit for a while with all three held together, and then drop one and add a different colour, and then drop a second and add a second of the different colour…you get the idea.

If you do all that, the three balls from the colour you started with will diminish unequally. I think I’ve got my head around the problem and its resolution, but it’s an effort.

Gerri, we need to talk about your question: is Jared's knitted-on i-cord the same as EZ's? I don't know yet, is the short answer. 

9 comments:

  1. Hello Jean,
    Enjoy your visit to Strathardle. The weather here in NL is also springlike and the garden is calling to me.

    Regarding the gradient, here is how I see the use of the four colours:
    abc (drop a, add d, and so on)
    bcd
    cda
    dab
    Then you have used 3 balls of each colour.

    I think the gradient will look great with Jared's pattern. I certainly wouldnt want to knit seed stitch with mohair!

    All the best,
    Dawn

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  2. Don't fret over that the balls will be different sizes when you finish the first colour. You're over thinking it.

    Just knit the pattern exactly as written and it will work out.

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  3. Theresa I11:18 AM

    Your symptoms from Tuesday night sound like allergy. Maybe even from a food. An allergy attack of that nature always leaves me feeling as though I have been "drug through a knothole".

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  4. I just realized the pattern for the Gradient cowl is available as a free PDF at the Shibui website. Hmm may give my sock yarn box a look to see if I can come up with a stash-busting equivalent. Intriguing!
    http://www.shibuiknits.com/Patterns/Detail.php?Pattern=Gradient

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  5. I am glad to hear you have recovered from Tuesday's illness. I agree with Theresa's comment that said it sounds like an allergic reaction to something.

    I understand your worry about your Koigu being thrown out should something untoward happen to you. I have the same worries about my sock yarn stash. Perhaps it is time to visit a lawyer and have a section devoted to stash distribution added to my will. :-)

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  6. Anonymous4:21 PM

    I'm thinking of naming a special "knitting executor" myself, to avoid ignorant disposal of yarn and knitting library.
    -- Gretchen

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  7. Anonymous4:40 PM

    Lisa R-R - I just checked out the pattern you mentioned. There are directions for grafting in seed stitch on page 3 - well worth printing out the pattern for that alone!
    Thank you.
    Beverly near Yosemite
    (I knit continental and rather enjoy seed stitch. To each his own.)

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  8. Sarah JS5:54 PM

    As with others have written before me, your ailment presents as an allergic reaction. Hope you get that sussed.

    Enjoy Strathardle.

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  9. I shall be interested to hear what you have in mind for your Koigu collection, the skeins are such little gems that I hesitate to actually use them.

    I will also be interested to hear more about Candace Strick's sock book, her designs are always interesting and original. I have some of her 'Merging Colours' yarn and I have been thinking about using this for something akin to Gradient.

    And that reminds me - the Shibui yarn will be so very easy to join (simple overlap for several stitches) that I think the unequal diminishing will not matter in the slightest.

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