Resurrection

Started this in March 2012.

Hope to wrap the wrap soon.

Drove me crazy. Don't know why. Poor light? Sore hands? (Oh, yeah, remember that hand surgery in April 2012? Duh!) Impatience? Cobweb yarn + small hook = delayed gratification.

On a mission to complete the UFO's and unfinished design projects, so up it comes. Re-animated! Really enjoying it this time around. 

The yarn (Spirit Trail Fiberworks Decima)is a dream. Enjoying the simplicity of my design. Look for the pattern soon. Maybe not all that soon:) The garden is calling.

Jump for Joy

Right. Not Friday. FO any day, anyway.

Love this shawlette.  Birthday gift (okay, belated birthday gift)for my aunt, who taught me to knit decades ago.

Capriole by Rachel Henry

The Capriole KAL got me to read Mary Stewart's Airs Above the Ground, which was a very enjoyable vacation read: feisty heroine, romance, mystery, scenic setting, Lippizaners. What else could you want? 

New England Spring.
No, it's not very green.

Carved

Took next to no pictures on vacation. 

A few things caught my eye in the British Museum.

The intricacy of the carved drapery worn by a Nereid. Looked like gauze blowing in wind.

The simplicity of a carving from an Egyptian temple.

If it weren't for imperial pillaging, I'd never have seen any of this.

Fibery Deity

No idea what this would have represented to an Ancient Egyptian. I'm a lazy sightseer with a bad memory, after all.

Okay, I looked it up.
Amun in the form of a ram protecting King Taharqa.

Liked the shapes and textures, though, and the fiber connection. 

Hm-m-m-m. Look closer. Represents stash in proportion to stature: a bit overpowering, no?

Need

What's need got to do with it? Need more yarn like I need another hole in my head, or another dust bunny under the bed, or another pine needle on the driveway.

Nona 

The March 2013 installment of the Spirit Trail Fiberworks Knitting Club, double option. (That would be greed, not need.)





Excuse me while I grab a bib to absorb the drool.


Nona, Heavy Laceweight
50% SW Merino, 25% Cashmere, 25% Bombyx Silk




100% gorgeous.



A chance, admittedly not a good chance, this will become a lacy summer sweater before it is time to wear it.

Heroic Stitch

Little knitting or crocheting whilst on vacation in London. Not one visit to a yarn shop for souvenir yarn. That happens when traveling with teenaged nieces who prefer cupcakes to cashmere.

Not a naked mole rat.
Wrong color.
No teeth. 

Did have a knitting moment in the National Portrait Gallery. This handsome military man caught my eye amongst the explorers and soldiers who were Heroes of the Empire.

Could that be a needle case in his hand?

Horatio Herbert Kitchener, Lord Kitchener of Khartoum, and deviser of the Kitchener stitch. The tag beside the portrait gives as much space to his stitch, which was designed to make a more comfortable sock for soldiers, as to his military exploits.

Vacation

So much vacation,
So little time to knit

Had every intention in the world of scheduling posts or blogging on the go during vacation.

Hah! Hah! Hah! No trouble taking needles or hooks onto the plane. Wi-Fi readily available at destination. But chasing around London with two teenagers in search of culture, history, and the perfect cupcake, combined with wonky lighting in the flat where we stayed, didn't lead to much progress. 

Knit a few rows of a shawl. Crocheted a cowl with last-minute addition to suitcase. Best one-skein crochet project ever. So one FO to show.

Regal

Wear this cowl and feel like royalty, not because of the quality of the knitting (mine), but because of the caliber of the design (hers).

Sublime Sublimity  by Sivia Harding. That woman has a way with beads. Just enough to make a statement,not enough to weigh you down in bling.

Lady in Shining Armor

Was hoping for FO Friday, but it didn't look good late Thursday. When I got to the neck, though, I could not stop. The beauty of a bottom-up design with decreases. Later for the matching cuffs (included in the pattern).

Lost Lace

Oldest UFO in the heap.
  

Not much progress since 2008.

Most of the elderly UFO's have something in common: lace, skinny yarn, tiny needles.

Hm-m-m.

Time to try color work?

Even Keel

Spring seems, at last, to be happening in New England.

Several projects nearing completion.

Happy with new yarn choice for Capriole, and ready for Mystery KAL Clue 3 to arrive.

Enjoying the lack of knitting drama, eve though it makes for dull blogging.

Clue 2 Completed.

Cool Tool

Replaced the phone. New one has a good camera.

Didn't get a new hand.

New camera couldn't help the old hand, the shaky one.

Pics still blurry, even if exposures were better.
There's a tool for everything.

Joby Tripod

Range of motion not quite enough to take pics of knitting laid out on the floor or table. Tried setting the tripod on a slant. Yes. I did. Tripod fell over. Mechanics not my strong suit. Thought about sticky putty. 

Oh,what's that, reposition the knitting on a slanted support? Oh. Yeah. Can do.

Design Age

The Waterworks Museum.

Engines and pumps from the 1880's & 1890's three stories tall.

Textures, shapes, colors to inspire.

Spiral Stair

Pump. Wrench.

Brownstone Motif

Just what they will inspire remains to be seen.

FO Friday

Does a book count?

It's alive! What (Else) Would Madame Defarge Knit? Have you knit any good reads lately? 

See the designs.

My essay Intrepid Lady Detectives and cowl pattern, The Lady is a Ninja, inspired by Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White, are among the more than twenty news designs and essays.

Thrilled to be included in such an accomplished collection.

ORDER

Clue Two, I Love You

Started on Clue Two of Capriole.

Relaxing project. As the fabric grows,the lace is easier to read.  Luxurious yarn is soothing to the touch. Attention can be given to adjunct delights of this design.

New vocabulary: capriole. Always fun to learn about something unfamiliar like dressage. How amusing that the "capri" indicates goat, as in a goat-like back kick.

Winged hat; flying horse.

Old favorite author: Mary Stewart. She's written a lot more books than the ones I've read. Thanks for the reminder, remcat. They are all on my libary list, starting with Airs Above Ground.

Trash?

No.

Destash.

Not even the half of it.

Voting them off Stash Island was the easy part.

Throwing them in a heap? No problem.

Only have to see them once or twice a day.

Now to find the camera, the tripod, the time.

Then to photograph, upload, describe, offer.

Destash. Great theory. Tough practice.

More Cowbell

Or, Playing With Camera Apps.

Or, Easily Amused Crafter.

Knitting Sublimity a gorgeous cowl by Sivia Harding.

Noticed the Camera Awesome app on my phone; must have gotten there by late-night clicking.

This is my knitting.

This is my "awesomized" knitting using "More Cowbell."

Sometimes my knitting is calm.

Sometimes it glares at me and  screams "More Cowbell." 

Sometimes it's easier spend more time fooling around with the FX than the YO's.

Unintentional

Any pursuit can be a text of revelation. Especially, it seems, a Mystery Knitalong.

Revelaltion, for the most part,of every bad habit of mind one possesses.

Wishful thinking, indolence, overanalyzing, thought-induced blindness, distraction, procrastination, and giving free rein to the chattering monkeys of mindlessness.

Step 1. Knit a swatch.

Solid Citizen

Step 2.  Knit Clue One

Going Rogue

Step 3. Notice nothing. Keep on knitting.

Step 4. Experience The Duh! For bonus points, identify the error of my ways;) Probably much faster that I did.

Yeah, that smooth triple increase in the swatch is K, YO, K. The extra holes along the spine in the actual shawl? YO, K, YO.

Inadvertently reverted to correctness after Row 17. Did wonder why the neck edge didn't snug around my neck as the designer described it; did wonder why the neck edge was more of a scalloped Dracula collar. What the heck, that's what blocking's for, right? Just keep knitting.

For the record, the pattern Capriole is lovely, the charts are clear and perfectly accurate. This is a pure case of the chattering monkeys gaining control of the pointy sticks.