Wednesday, November 28, 2007

I have been restored to something like normal comfort and functioning, but remain battered and wary. My hypothesis is that it was a side-effect of some of the anti-osteoporosis stuff I take, and it had better not happen again.

I finished the initials, and am rather pleased with them. I haven't managed to include the "T" in the photograph, but it's there. This gives you a pretty good idea of the effect. knititch, I agree that knitting letters is confusing – in color, in lace, and now seed stitch. It’s so un-rhythmical. The colour changes, the yo’s, the purl stitches seem to make no sense and suddenly they pull themselves together and make perfect sense.


(I’ll go see asplund the next time I’m on Ravelry. He sounds very interesting.)

So now I need to:
a) find that swatch; it must be around here somewhere;
b) decide where in the pattern I want to be when I arrive at the shoulders;
c) use that information to calculate the width of the plain section I’m knitting;
d) make appropriate allowance for the garter-stitch separator band; and
e) have another look at pattern placement – I’m afraid I forgot about the four seam-stitches when I did the original arithmetic.

All this requires Thought – I shall gratefully retreat to i-cording and end-tidying until the weekend.

Theo's been ski-ing. I wish I thought he could have this sweater before the snows melt. There’ll be other winters, but he probably won’t be in Denver for them. He and Tiger are doing important and mysterious things in preparation for the Democratic convention.

Comments & Miscellany

Dawn, thank you for the news of Lorna’s baby. Here's the link. She and John had long hoped, and almost given up hope – Frances Jean looks like a most satisfactory outcome.

Tamar, thank you for your further message about MWPhillips’ “Creative Knitting”. I am not interested in knitting with wire, and not much in free-form, and the price is horrific, so I’ll pass it by unless I find it for sixpence in a charity shop. (But Mar's got a copy, and I’m as good as she is…what selfish creatures we are!)

Kate, I’ve never heard of “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and will watch for it. Last night we watched “Night at the Opera”. Now there’s slapstick.

I still haven’t shewn you the latest arrival from the Yarn Yard – but today’s excitement in the yarn area is the Manos Silk Blend I saw on Joe's blog. November is the month when I am at my weakest when it comes to yarn-buying, and I’m owed something for the suffering of the past two days. And “Knitting New Scarves” provides the perfect answer to the question, “What are you going to do with it?” AND the Woolly Workshop has got it here in Britain – no need to fear the knock at the door from Customs and Excise.

And I’ve saved all that money by not buying “Creative Knitting”.

5 comments:

  1. it seems we have embarked on the same sky blue ship. looks very nice. oh yarn buying when it is cold outside is tempting.
    when it comes to knitting books i have got a few pieces of good advice that will allow me inspiration and technical support forever.
    and by the way i found a VK spring summer in a drawer. it used to belong to my mother who grew up in england. there is a very funny ad for nomotta that claims that you will not ever have to think about dye lots again. i find that so funny and optimistic. it is very worn at the edges and my mother must have used it a lot. would never have thought of it without your talk about VK.
    too bad that some of the old knitting books are soo costly. i do have a few that i would really like to get and maybe one should start beavering for investment. a hell of a lot more fun than stock market.....

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  2. Eternal Sunshine is one of my favourite ever movies. Jim Carrey is wonderful and so is Kate Winslet, and anything that allows me to look at her for the better part of two hours is just fine by me.

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  3. It's pretty unimpressive whent he medication you take to aid you ends up being more of a curse than a help. If the medication is helping with the arthritis pain, I hope the malaise was just the way the stars were arranged rather than then pills. Apart from the fact that you were robbed of good knitting time!

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  4. I just saw the Manos Silk myself for the first time tonight - so tempting - and the silk makes the colors appear even more lush! Nothing weakens my resolve more than to be in the yarn shop on a dark, cold, November night when I'm only looking for 1 more particular skein to finish a project. (One also has to admire a yarn shop that stays open until 8 pm two nights a week. Such enabling.)

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  5. Thanks heavens the most delicious one - that made my heart race to see it - the cream and grey and reds - is out of stock at Woolly Workshop! I don't need more to pack for Australia.

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