There's been precious little knitting shown here of late, an egregious oversight for a knitting blog. As usual, I plead too much work and too little time, with the added complication of kid graduations/celebrations - Elder Daughter from high school, and younger daughter from elementary school.

Fun events to be sure, complete with family/friends, but time consuming none the less.

What little time I've had to knit I've used to work on my olive tablecloth, which at this point is better named "The Blob"

Right now unstretched it's about 24 inches from needles to center, with something upwards of a thousand stitches on the needles and I'm not done yet. You can see how densely the stitches are packed onto my too small needle:

That's a 2mm, by the way. At this point I don't dare let it free from the stitch keeper unless I'm actually working on it. The thought of dropping those thread-fine stitches makes me hyperventilate.

The good news is that I'm only 40 or so rows from completion. At the rate of 1.5-2 rows per week, I'll be working on this for quite a while yet.

I do have an interim knitting decision to make. This is NOT a good piece to take with me on our midsummer vacation. It's best worked on in one spot (you can see I didn't move it far from my favorite knitting chair for the photo, above). But what to bring?

Perhaps I'll bring along the Kyoto I still haven't finished for Elder Daughter. I'm mid sleeve, in boring stockinette, with just the last 8 inches of sleeve to go plus finishing. And I'm also considering bringing my Truro Counterpane. At this point it's a traditional summer knit for me, and with only nine mega-motifs done I still have miles to go before I can deploy it as a blanket. Or I may decide to do something else entirely. I've got a few sweater-sized lots of cotton stashed, any one of which would be an excellent quick-knit summer top for me. Decisions, decisions...

Technorati : knitting

I'm being eaten alive by work deadlines as usual, limiting my time for knitting and blogging, but I did take off this afternoon to work on the Resident Male's Fathers Day present. Elder and Younger Daughter helped, of course.

Back story: Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai movie is one of this household's all time favorites. On more than one occasion we've pointed out that the Resident Male is vastly outumbered here, surrounded as he is by a sea of females. And on more than one occasion I've threatened to make him a "odd man out" banner inspired by the one raised to rally faltering spirits in our favorite move:

Today we did it. We made a beach flag inspired by the movie. The movie banner says "Farm," but in our case "Sand" is more appropriate, because we intend on flying this on our annual Cape Cod vacation. Calligraphy for "sand" is courtesy of Ted Goodman and family, local Aikido instructor and all around good guy. (Thanks again, Ted!)

Younger Daughter helped with the sewing, learning to use a sewing machine in the process. Elder daughter helped create and ink the circles and triangles.

Resident Male was quite tickled by the gift, which we gave early - there being no effective place to hide a four foot tall banner in this house.

Technorati : knitting

An uneventful birthday weekend, squandered on laundry, work, housecleaning, and more work. Sigh. Still I am of the opinion that if one doesn't celebrate, then the event didn't happen and the incremental addition to one's age need not be acknowledged.

I also have to report a misfortune occurring in our wider circle. Long time readers here will remember that my kids adore Roads End Farm - a paradise on earth for horse-mad girls, run by the Woodman family for more than 35 years.

Elder Daughter spent about nine summers there, Younger Daughter has been there for three. Apparently over Memorial Day weekend there was a fire at the farm. No horses, humans or other critters were harmed, but the camp lost its dorm block and a storage barn just two weeks before the start of the early summer session. Roads End does not go down easy though. They are planning on rebuilding and as far as I know will be opening for the season, albeit with some improvisation on living arrangements. If you're a REF alumna who has landed here, please consider writing a note of support and appreciation to Tom, Alicia and the whole REF family (address at link, above). They've worked hard to keep the magic in the place, and now could use a wave of our collective wands to ensure that it stays.

In knitting news, I continue on the green tablecloth. It's big and getting bigger. Unfortunately, it's not photogenic. Yet another blurry picture of a huge olive green snood is not going to be an edifying experience. So I soldier on, visually undocumented.

One thing we are looking forward to here at String is Elder Daughter's high school graduation this weekend. Soon she'll be off to the wide, wide world of college. Another knitter released to the wild.

A bittersweet week to be sure.

Technorati : knitting

Not much knitting progress this week. I picked up the olive tablecloth after my sock urge was sated, continuing to produce a couple more inches of the spiderweb section. Then I moved to the set-up round for the final edging. Unfortunately, I made a mistake early on that I did not catch for four more rounds. At ten zillion stitches per round (most of them incorporated into double decreases separated by double yarn overs), the tinking back has been painfully slow. But I'm finally past it and moving forward again. In the left hand shot below, you see the spiderweb section. In the right hand shot, a bit of the center medallion's outer band motif.

To recap, the center of this tablecloth is from The Knitted Lace Patterns of Christine Duchrow, Volume III, edited by Jules and Kaethe Kliot. The center is on page 72, charted on p76.

As I neared the end of that medallion I decided I wanted to make the cloth bigger. Thumbing through the same book I found the edging on page 56, charted on p. 57. I apologize for not having pix of the edging, but my scanner is playing dead tonight.

In any case, the math worked out, so I decided to merge the two patterns. Success however isn't guaranteed. Although the spiderweb portion is very forgiving in that it will resist ruffling due to the ability of its brides (the horizontal twists of the double YOs) to compress, it may well ruffle when the peacock like terminals of the pattern are added. The trick is to make the spiderweb portion wide enough. It's a clear gamble. Too wide, and the cloth won't lay flat. Too shallow and the piece will ruffle at the edge. Add to that the fact that the pattern as written is for edging a smaller circumference; that I'm working in a fine linen thread - guaranteed not to be a cooperative, stretchy blocker; and that I'm working with all of the stitches jammed onto a way too small circ, making it hard to judge how flat everything is working out. It's an Adventure in Knitting, to be sure.

Even with all of these disaster factors and putting the piece down for several months, I'm having fun with it. I find that I really enjoy noodling out lace. With the end in sight on this one, I'm not sure what I'll do next. Probably something more scripted with a lower chaos factor. One possible candidate is Heirloom Lace's Princess Shawl. I bought the pattern a while ago, before it was revised and expanded. I am considering doing it up in the black laceweight I just bought.

But there are so many other things to knit. I need to work more on my North Truro Counterpane. I would dearly like to finish it off and use it as a summer weight blanket. Someday. And if I don't finish Elder Daughter's Kyoto and dragon skin Rogue, she'll have my head. And there's the Sempre pullover from this past winter. And projects even older languishing in my Chest of Knitting Horrors(tm).

Finally, some folk have written to me to complain that I mis-characterized the gentleman spinner in the last post. Apparently he's Dan of Gnomespun Yarn, and he's got a huge following in the hand spinning/blogging community. I meant no disrespect. On the contrary, I was quite taken with his matter of a fact attitude and general uber cool confidence. So was my photo-taking friend. So all the best to you, Dan. Should our paths ever cross again, I'll be sure to introduce myself and buy you a drink to make amends. Any other complaints about this blog or its contents can be sent to me either care of this website or at my wiseneedle inbox on Ravelry.

Technorati : knitting

As promised courtesy of Friend Merlyn (she of far better photo sense than I ever will have) is our day at the New Hampshire Sheep and Wool Festival. All the photos here are hers, reproduced here by permission.

To start, no sheep festival is complete without its eponymous totem. Here are a couple of girls, still in their fluffy finery, checking us out for illicit snacks.

By contrast, this guy is far more aloof. "Snacks? I disdain the possibility of snacks. Ooh, do I see hot sheep chix in the next stall?"

Which leads us to sheepy strippers.

That's a lot of fuzz. Spinners and dyers were in a special heaven at this show because of all the raw and semi-processed fleece, dyed fleece and roving; spinning gear, and dyeing classes and supplies.

Here's one tough spinner:

"Yo. You wanna talk grist? I'll see your grist and raise you 5."

Actually, there were quite a few men at the show sitting and spinning (or like this guy, wandering around with a drop spindle).

Which takes us on to my main target of opportunity. Yarn. A day of selective yarn acquisition. Selective because there's a mismatch between my imagination - what I can see myself doing with the yarn - and available time/yarn budget dollars.

Here are the three of us, daughters large and small, and (in my first appearance on this website) a small shot of magenta-clad me, poking through the Bartlett booth, then buying some laceweight at a totally different venue, from a vendor whose name I neglected to note:

I've got an eye bending, giant lump of black Jaggerspun 20/2, elder daughter's buying the same thing in screaming russet. (She's thinking of doing a Paisley, but that thought is still quite larval.) Even younger daughter got into the spin of the day, making a felted snake at the American Textile History Museum's booth:

But back to the vendor displays. As I wrote earlier, I was especially taken with the creativity of the Tsock Tsarina patterns, on display at the Holiday Yarn booth. I'm not quite sure how I'd wear or care for these art object socks, but the exuberance and detail of these designs are fantastic. And I enjoyed the opera theme of the entire line:

The colors and abundance of the yarn on display for sale was spectacular. Who wouldn't be inspired by all of this?

And the day had its non-yarn amusements as well. I've decided that alpacas are animals designed by anime artists: those long, snaky necks and staring oversize eyes; the fluffy hairdos, and overly earnest expressions; the stylish baggy-leg look. The only thing missing is gigantic, oversized feet and "!!!"s floating over their heads:

Since plenty of shoots and leaves were on the menu for the day, we got a kick of of this class announcement, too.

Special thanks again to photo documenter Merlyn for providing today's run of eye candy. You can check out the rest of her sheepy shots here.

Technorati : knitting

The offspring, Friend Merlyn and I went to the New Hampshire Sheep and Wool festival this Sunday past. We had a good time, with lots of sheepy things to look at, from fleece on the hoof to finished product. I do however note that Saturday rather than Sunday is probably a better day to go. It looked like some vendors and displays had already packed up and left, and some of the remaining sellers were displaying much depleted stock. There were still sheepdog trials going on when we got there, but the advertised horse show was among the events scratched for the day. Younger Daughter especially got a kick out of what looked to be a children's llama agility course, in which youngsters led their equally young beasts around a set of gentle obstacles. It was hard to pick out who was cuter, the clearly concentrating little kids at one end of the lead ropes, or the gangly legged, long necked fuzzballs at the other.

I did manage to pick up some excellent buys. From left to right, 665 yard/8.3 oz hank of gray sport weight alpaca, from the Times Remembered booth - super soft and probably a bit more yardage than advertised on the label (labels were pre-printed with sport weight target yardage but hanks varied in weight, I picked a more weighty one); two skeins of sock yarn from Dorchester Farms; and an oversize lace weight yarn, one in black of 13.3 oz, probably around 4200 yards from a bargain bin in a booth whose name I neglected to note. At the same spot Elder daughter got some orange/russet lace weight of about 6.5 oz, probably around 2000 yards. Both pods of lace yarn were at a bargain basement prices. I also got some white cotton, close to 30 weight suitable for filet crochet at another stall that was offering mill ends. The two of us together spent less than $75 total on yarn, and garnered enough for winter's worth of scarf, hat, sock and shawl knitting and crocheting for us both (lace is especially cost effective in terms of dollars spent on materials vs. hours of knitting enjoyment). Finally, in the center is the felted snake Younger Daughter made at the Textile Museum's booth.

I almost bought a sock kit from Harmony Yarns/Tsock Tsarina - the sock kits there were the most original thing I saw on display, and I got a big kick out of the opera themes of the design. The Tsarina herself was working on a pair on a theme to match "Daughter of the Regiment." I was tempted by the Firebird and Kitri socks, and admired the sculptural cleverness of the Vintage. The only drawback is that these are socks as art objects. They'd be difficult to add to the daily wear and wash rotation. Still, I took the card (they were out of kits in my mega-flipper size), with the intent to do up one or more of them in the near future. I meant to pick up some more Mostly Merino fingering weight, but although I pegged their display as being on the "zip back after full reconnoiter for purchase" I didn't manage to loop around to them. Which was a shame because they had some beautiful yarn there in the highly saturated colors I prefer.

There were many other vendors of note although my yarn budget would not let me stretch to buy everything I liked. I especially enjoyed seeing all the micro producers in addition to the larger (yet still not big business) concerns like Bartlett Mills and Green Mountain Spinnery. Hand dyed/variegated yarns predominated, with natural off-the-animal colors a close second. Lots of bunny and mohair - sadly both fibers I avoid because they make my hands itch when I try to work with them. Most vendors on Sunday had short quantities of most products, although some of the larger booths did have full sweater lots left. I missed seeing one vendor I thought might be there: Nicks Meadow Farm, a New Hampshire sheep farm/yarn seller I've seen at local Gore Place Sheepshearing festivals. I like their scoured Maine style rustic wool and have used their heavy worsted/Aran weight to good effect in the past.

I did not take any wandering-around or day-out pix (as you can see from my feeble attempts at photography here, cameras are not my forte). However, Friend Merlyn did. I'm hoping to link to some of her shots when they're posted.

Technorati : knitting

I don't know if anyone reading here is within striking range but if you are, the New Hampshire Sheep and Wool Festival is this weekend. I'll be headed up there tomorrow. Not sure if I'll be dressed in something recognizable, but it's a good bet that the offspring (both small and large) and a friend of ours will be wandering the grounds and exhibit tents there for the better part of the day. I'll try to take pix.

Technorati : knitting

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, I've stumbled across a box of unfinished stitching, packed away in a prior move and long unseen.

This piece I can date pretty accurately. I was working on it just before I joined the SCA, in January-February 1975. The counted thread patterns are from a mix of historical sources, mostly pix of antique band samplers, and illustrations in embroidery books. The composition was (of course) my own. The bottom panel was going to sport an Adam holding the apple, and an Eve rolling her eyes. They were going to be surrounded by an assortment of standard fauna and flora. I had just started the snake on the tree when I put my needle down. The brown thread for the tree's trunk is coiled on top of the snake in the center.

My color choices on "Eve Was Framed" weren't very good. I was working from a student's stash of small quantities of floss, and never actually sat down and planned layout or color coordination. "Clashing haphazard" however was a common color set of the time. The faux linen butler's tray cloth I was using as a ground was even weave, but rather coarse, about 24 threads per inch (12 stitches per inch). I stopped working on it when I realized that although many of the patterns had precedents, the work as a whole was a sad mish-mash. I wanted to spend my time doing more historically accurate pieces. So I shelved my subversive sentiment, rather than finishing it to hang on my dorm wall.

I will say that many of these styles and patterns are better known today than they were when I was doing this piece. You can buy pattern leaflets, design books and even full commercial kits today to make reproductions of historical band samplers, and patterns from period pieces have informed the work of many contemporary stitching designers. But back in '75 there were very few people doing this type of stitching. And certainly even fewer using it to make trite political statements.

Technorati : embroidery