Sunday, January 24, 2010

I have been struggling with a research assignment for my husband – to figure out exactly which member of the Torlonia family was Duke of Bracciano in 1832 – and the effort has eaten rather severely into blogging time. The Italian Wikipedia finally cracked it – I should have thought of them sooner. My husband doesn’t use the Internet, but appreciates it, and has assignments for me which seem to multiply by the day.

However, there’s not much to report here anyway. I joined in a 5th ball of yarn to the Grandson Sweater yesterday, and decided that the percentages in the Progress Bar were altogether too cautious. I bought 15 balls of white, and started off by assuming I’d use all of them. I now think ten will be plenty, and have adjusted accordingly.

I think I’ll take today off and wind yarn and maybe cast on for Rachel-the-Younger’s ear-flap hat. The pattern begins with a couple of inches which get folded under to make a hem – that’s where I got in trouble last time, trying to pick up stitches from the cast-on edge to knit the hem in place on the fly, so to speak.

My idea this time is to knit the inside portion in a bright colour which will peep out. I can’t find a true red, but I’ve got a nearly-red which should do the trick. The main body of the hat will be in a browny Araucania Multi. As for the hem, we’ll see.

Non-knit

Shandy (comment yesterday), I like the idea of objects to encapsulate history a lot, although I have an innate prejudice against archaeology in favour of the written word. We heard only one of Neil Macgregor’s broadcasts last week, the hand-axe, and it was good. I find I can record the programmes on our television set, and I thought we could listen to them after we have watched “Neighbours” and the news, but my husband prefers something visual. I’ll have to listen here in the morning on my computer, while composing my prose.

Today is Greek Helen's birthday. She avoided coinciding with The Poet by a mere half-hour.

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous11:09 AM

    Why not try a provisional cast on for the ear flap hat, makes it so much easier to pick up stitches to join for a hem. I'm in the throes of a series of top down sweaters for 3 generations of our family (Dad, husband & grandson, so covering 4 generations I guess!) & have found a crochet provisional cast on a very useful thing for crew necks. I find sewing down hems etc considerably less satisfactory, much easier to get the tension right when knitting together, and anyway I'm not keen on sewing things up generally!

    Christine

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  2. I also enjoyed the broadcast on the handaxe, and the convenience of listening to it at leisure on the i-player. However, what puzzles me is the assemblage of artifacts, some totally utilitarian and others with a symbolic function. Easy to estimate significance for the earliest items and much harder later, when even what constitutes history might be a matter for debate.

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  3. I agree with Christine. A provisional cast on will make the hem easier to construct. I did that with the Rogue sweater and it made a really nice hem.

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  4. =Tamar8:56 AM

    My only experience with knitting a double brim is first, knitting up from the brim to the crown, and then picking up a round inside and knitting down, finally casting off together with the cast-on row. That required picking up the bar between the stitches and finally knitting together with the bar between the cast-on stitches. To knit a folded brim on the fly, I'd have to knit into the upside-down original stitches - tricky but possible.

    I suppose I'd knit double-layer earflaps first and then knit upward, doubleknitting the brim, but then why stop with a double brim when you could have the entire hat double thick?

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