Suzannah's Tiara

This has nothing to do with knitting or crochet. And I've already emailed my friend Cynthia about this. And to save time I've just copied the text from my email to Cynthia to save time. So Cynthia, you need not read any further. You've heard this story already.

This is such a cute story and I want to save this memory. So here is the story of Suzannah's Tiara:

Suzannah showed her crafters' spirit today. She made herself a tiara out of a paper snowflake and a couple bobby pins. She wore it all day Sunday. So far this week everyday as soon as she gets home from school she'll get busy putting on her tiara to wear until bedtime. It finally tore today. So I asked her if she wanted Santa to bring her a real tiara for Christmas and she said, "no, I can always make another tiara myself."

Now that is a true Crafty girl at heart. This year at Stitches East I saw an older Asian woman with her 20 something daughter shopping for yarn together. I hope that will be me and Suzannah in 15 years.

Tahki Torino, Berroco Pure Merino, Karabella Aurora 8

I finally got to test drive the Tahki Torino. I tried the regular Torino and not the Torino Bulky.

IN the pic are a strand of Berroco Pure Merino (light grey) , Berroco Pure Merino Heathers (dark grey), Tahki Torino (red), and Karabella Aurora 8 (pink).

The Torino looks like it should knit up to a different gauge than the other three, but all three have 4.5 as the suggest stotckinette stitch gauge. However both Berroco yarns suggest using a US9 (5.5mm) while the Karabella suggests using a US 7- 8 (4.5 - 5 mm) and the Tahki suggest using a US8 (5mm). I got the suggest gauge of 4.5 sts on a US 4 (3.5 mm) needle for all four yarns. Kathy at the Colonial Yarn Shop says that a yarn that suggests getting a gauge of 4.5 stitches on an US 8 will knit up differently than a yarn that suggests the same gauge but on a US 9 or US 7. I think fiber, ply and twist are far more important to yarn substitutions than what is printed on the ball band.

All four are irrestringibile (meaning they will not felt). All four did not change gauge after washing and blocking. All four are wonderful to work with, producing nice crisp cables and stitch definition. All four average about $7.50 - $8.50 per ball. All four come in 50 gram balls.

Here are the differences:

Karabella gives you 98 yards per ball. Tahki gives you 94 yards per ball. Berroco gives you 92 yards per ball.

Pure Merino Heather was the least soft of the three. Slightly dry feeling, but still very soft. Karabella was the slickest of the three (would not want to use it for anything that was to be steeked). PLain Pure Merino and Tahki were about the same in feeling.

Tahki Torino was the most loosely twisted, and sometimes the plys came apart. It was the easiest to accidently snag a loose strand. Tahki Torino also had the most loose fibers, not enough to produce a true halo, but just a little bit more fuzz than the Karabella Aurora 8 and Berroco Pure Merino and Pure Merino Heather.

Tahki Torino had the most drape of the three yarns. I could see how if I had to choose between the three yarns for a heavily cabled sweater I would choose the Torino. It would be the least dense and heavy. Maybe the loft of the yarn explains how it looks thicker than the other three, and knits up drapier. The Karabella Aurora 8

Berroco Pure Merino Heather and PUre Merino were the most tightly twisted, and the most dense feeling. The two Berroco's knitted up to a dense solid feeling yarn. For something that needs structure I would choose one of the Berrocos.

In any case if I had a pattern for either Karabella Aurora 8, Tahki Torino, Berroco Pure Merino, or Berroco Pure Merino Heather I would not hesitate to interchange or substitute any of these yarns for each other. They are all lovely cabled merinos.

swatching for Suzannah's sweater

Suzannah picked out the Wonderful wool by Steadfast Fibers for her picture day 2008 sweater. Label suggests 4 sts per inch. I swatched on a 4.5 mm and got 3.75 sts per inch. Then I swatched on a 3.75 mm and got 4.5 stitches per inch.

Why did I jump from 4.5mm needles to 3.75mm needles and skip the size 4.00mm needles? Becuase the swatch on the 4.5mm needles biassed like crazy. It leaned like all the stitches were italicized. I read in Clara Parkes' wonderful book The KNitters Guide to Yarn a suggestion to knit single ply yarns at a tighter gauge to try to conteract the bias. That is why I skipped the size 4.00mm needles.

However, even at the tighter gauge once the swatch was washed a blocked it had a definite bias. Not as bad as the looser swatch, but there is definitely some leaning going on. Darn it!

What do I do now. Suzannah has said she doesn't want any lumpie bumpies on her sweater. Yet she has choosen this single ply that will bias in stockinette. Do I substitute another yarn or do I add some purl and knit patterns, or do I just knit a sweater that leans?

If you notice in the middle of the swatch above I slipped in some seed stitch. First to test Suzannah to see if she likes the seed stitch and to test myself to see how long I could stand knitting seed stitch. I detest seed stitch. Even though seed stitch cancelled the bias, I can't bring myself to designing an entire sweater out of seed stitch.

Gotta sleep on it.

Comparing Cabled Merinos

I've been swatching my lonely single ball of Berroco Pure Merino Heather all day yesterday. KNitting with it was absolutely addictive. I couldn't put the needles or the yarn down. Berroco has some real winners of yarn with their Comfort (a machine washable acrylic that is ab fab), Ultra Alpaca (a wool alpaca blend that takes away the problems that comes with 100% alpaca), and Pure Merino. If I were stuck on a desert island and could only have access to two commercial yarn companies it would be Noro and Berroco.

So far I've tried three cabled spun merinos: Baruffa's Merino Sei, Berroco's PUre Merino Heather, and Karabella's Aurora 8. THe three have multiple plies spun in a twist that is almost perpendicular to the yarn - which I've learned from reading Clara Parkes new book The KNitters BOok of Yarn is called cabled yarns.

All three are very soft and non-felting. The Aurora 8 is very slick, almost like it was coated with Teflon. THe yarn does not want to stay in a neat and tidy ball. I remember seeing the display at the Wooly Lamb and seeing a jumbled mess of Aurora 8 in the bin. Now that I have a few balls at home I've discovered that in the night Aurora 8 likes to turn itself into a jumbled tangled mess. Knitting the Aurora 8 was also a slippery experience. One the addi turbos I kept dropping stitches left and right. I did much better on Addi Naturas with the Aurora 8. The finished fabric was light and the stitches were very even. THere was no change in gauge after washing.

The Merino Sei had a definite change in gauge after washing. It was less slick than the Aurora 8. O.k. so the Merino sei has a different suggested gauge than the Pure Merino and the Aurora 8. But I like comparing the three since they have the same kind of wool and the same kind of construction. Of the three the Merino Sei was the most spongy and had the most elasticity. I'll bet that Merino Sei's bigger brother Merino Otto has the same properties.

Pure Merino Heather was the least slick of the three. It had just a tad bit of grab on the needles. I won't say it was scratchy feeling, just a little drier feeling. Berroco has three versions of its Pure Merino yarn. ONe is the Pure Merino, then there is Pure Merino Heather, and lastly there is Pure Merino Nuance. I don't know if the difference between the three is only in color or not. I'm wondering if the Pure Merino is a little less dry feeling than the Pure Merino Heather. Will have to find out.

Since I've gotten to the point that I'm sick of felting and have more than enough felted bags/totes lying around the house, I'd be happy to trade all the left over skeins of Cascade 220 I have stored for more of the Berroco Pure Merino and the Baruffa Merino sei.

I'm totally jealous of Jane Slicer-Smith and Nora Gaughan, not only for their amazing vision and talent as knitwear designers, but also because I imagine that with their jobs that they must have unlimited access to the Berroco and the Baruffa yarns. I wish I could have a full bag of every color of those two yarns (plus more time to knit it all).

Stitches East 2007

Stitches East 2007 was a blast. I went to the convention in Baltimore for three days and two nights with my friends Tracie and Rae Ann. ALso had the oppurtunity to meet up for dinner with Barbara Rutt one night and with Melanie Brown the other night. It was knit talk all night. We talked for hours just about knitting. Being at Stitches made you feel like you could knit anything and had all the time in the world to knit. It was tempting to buy too much yarn.

I took one class : Seven Principles for Perfect Sweater by Sally Melville. Loved the class. Even though many of the principles were techniques I already knew, there were also some techniques that I didn't know. The class was worth every penny. Most of the things Sally went over in class are covered in her Knitting Experience books. But it really made a difference to hear it and see it, rather than just to read about it. I wish the next book in her series would get published soon. But I've heard rumors that it may never get published.

For the class swatched I used Paton's Classic Merino. Using size 3.5 mm I got 19.5 stitches for a 4 inch square. Here is a picture of my class swatch complete with the excercise on picking up stitches and button holes. I like Paton's Classic Merino. It is a good basic yarn. Readily available at Joann Fabrics. Not real exciting, but not too bad either. Definitely the best thing going at the chain stores.

Then while at Stitches I fell in love with a Jane Slicer-Smith mitred (mitered?) pattern and had to have it. I bought the pattern and the yarn at the Great Yarns Booth. It was my biggest purchase out side of the cochenille software I also purchased. THe yarn for the mitred pattern is Baruffa's Merino Sei. It is the same type of wool as Paton's Classic Merino, but what a difference. They are as different as apples and oranges.

Here is my first swatch of Merino Sei. Becuase it is many more plys than the Paton's it is easier to accidently snag just one ply. But it is also loftier and springier. The gauge also changed drastically after washing and blocking. Before blocking I got 5 stitches per inch on a 3.75 mm, 5.5 stitches on a 3.5 mm and 6 stitches on a 3.25 mm. After washing the yarn bloomed and I then got 4.5 stitches on a 3.75mm , 5 on a 3.5mm and 5.5 on a 3.25 mm. Over all a very lovely yarn. I'd like to have a full bag of this in every color. Can't really afford that. So for now I'll be content with the 18 balls I purchased at Stitches. THe Merino Seit is also a superwash merino - so it isn't feltable.

So if I had to pick between the Merino Sei and the Classic Merino for a project which would I pick? Well definitely the Classic Merino if I'm going to felt it. Outside of that consideration, as long as my budget allows I'd pick Merino Sei any day.

I took out four yarns from my stash for Suzannah's sweater. Like Goldilocks selecting which porridge to devour, Suzannah proclaimed that one was too orangey, one was too greeny, one was too scratchy, and one was too yellow.


Here is a picture of the rejects. I've removed the labels to protect the innocent.


I've been so good for the past month: only knitting from my stash and buying very little new yarn.


I had to break the only knit from my stash for Suzannah. She picked out this yarn by Steadfast Fibers in Lemon Ice. My 4 year old has proclaimed this yarn to be the perfect yarn for her sweater, both in color and softness.

Every year I knit a sweater for my kids' school picture day. I started this with my son when he was three. He is now 8.



Last year was the first year that I let him pick out the yarn for his picture day sweater. I made his sweater out of Noro Shinano with a stripe of Schaefer Miss Priss in the middle. It was a great sweater.



This year he requested a vest and picked out some Noro Silk Garden. I have to have his vest done by November 1. Not a problem. I'm doing it in the round using the color he picked out for two rows and a contrasting Noro Silk Garden for two rows. I'm about 4 inches from where I need to separate the front and backs. Easy peasy.



Now 4 year old Suzannah has been expressing her wishes for her picture day sweater. Maybe it is because she is my youngest child and I treat her more like a baby that it didn't occur to me to ask her opinion. Last year she requested a yellow sweater and I made her a purple sweater. This year she requested a yellow sweater again. She even drew a picture of what she wants her sweater to look like and told me that she wants a yellow sweater, with buttons on the front, that comes down to just before her fingers, a round neck, no lumpy parts and no cats!

Now I'm trying to figure out what she means by no lumpy parts. Does she mean that she doesn't like yarn that is thick and thin like Colinette Point 5? Or does she mean that she doesn't like textured stitch patterns? Or is it cables she dislikes? Or maybe entrelac? Hmm.

I know why she specified "no cats". I showed her a picture of the child's Kitty Cat Pullover by Vermont Fiber Designs. http://www.vermontfiberdesigns.com/patterns/children/506.php
I think it is a really great design. I love the graphic simplicity of it. I was thinking it would look great with a grey background and then for the cat using a handpainted primary colors yarn (specifically Schaefer Yarns Miss Priss in the Sprinkles colorway) . Then there was another sweater in the 2001 Vogue Knitting Special Kids issue with a cat on it. Again a really cute design; the cat was done in an angora yarn to give the illusion of fur. Suzannah didn't like either sweater. Sure surprised me.

I asked my friend RaeAnn if I should knit Suzannah her yellow sweater, or the sweater I want to knit. RaeAnn has college age children. She said that her kids will remember incidents that she thought was trivial at the time and they will bring it up as something that really shaped their attitudes and personality. She warned that years from now Suzannah might point to the fact that I didn't knit her the yellow sweater that she wanted at age 4 will some how be a pivotal point in our mother daughter relationship.

So now next week I'll be at Stitches East and my mission there will be to find the perfect yellow yarn for Suzannah's picture day sweater. Luckily her picture day isn't until March. So I have time still to ferret out exactly what she is expecting from this sweater. Already she has told me that two of the skeins of Cascade 220 in my stash were the wrong shade of yellow.

All this is coming from a little girl who's first word as a baby was "shoes" and when given the choice between new shoes or a new toy will pick new shoes. Is this what fashion designers are like as children?

Japanese knitting books

Last June I stopped at a Japanese book store in NYC. There I found Vivian Hoxbor's Domino KNitting translated into Japanese. I had bought the English version a few years ago. Then had sold it for a few pennies on Ebay when I was going through a purge of knitting books I didn't think I'd ever use. Of course just a week later in a class at Knitters Day Out Janet Szabo pulled this amazing swatch that she said she knitted using a technique she said she found in Domino Knitting.

So now I own both versions: the English and the Japanese. It is interesting to see the differences in the books besides the obvious. The knitted samples in the English version are all very dark and sombre. Most of them tend toward autumn colorways. Not particularly appealing to me. Also the directions are mostly written with only a few diagrams. Some of the wording is very confusing.

The Japanese book has a lighter feel. The pages are not as crowded. The samples have a lighter palette. The diagrams are clearer. Even though I don't read Japanese at all I think I would have an easier time knitting a project from the Japanese book. If I were to recommend one over the other I'd say get the Japanese version.

The picture on the top is from the English version. The picture on the bottom is from the Japanese version. While I don't really care for the pom poms at the bottom of the Japanese shrug, I am far more inspired to knit the shrug (and maybe changing the pattern to a full sweater instead of a shrug) than the English ruana (which looks a little like a heavy wool blanket) .

Shop Samples

Oh NO!

I agreed to create a pattern for a shop sample, but got carried away and didn't think ahead about how easy it would be to explain to people how to do this.

Kathy at Colonial Yarn Shop said that she has not sold a single skein of Noro Cashmere Island and asked if I could come up with a pattern that could help move the yarn. This summer I created a pattern for a summer tank that was half crochet and half knit. The customers loved it. My class for that pattern was full and Kathy sold loads and loads of the yarn used for that tank (Blue Heron Metallic Rayon, and Blue Heron Ribbon). It looked fabulous hanging in the shop even though I wasn't 100% happy with it. I was sloppy in matching the crochet gauge with the knitting gauge. I suffered knitting and crocheting that project. The yarn tangled at one point and it took me a full 8 hours to untangle it. PLus writting the pattern for sizes other than myself took me hours. I should have learned from that experience never to volunteer to knit a sample AND make up a pattern AND use a difficult yarn.

So my idea was that the Cashmere Island was too expensive for most customers to consider using it for a garment. The next thought was that a hat, or scarf might make people just think of using the cheaper alternative to Cashmere Island - which is Kureyon or Silk Garden.

Basically this is a top down raglan (used Sweater Wizard to come up with a pattern). The rules for using the two yarns (Noro Cashmere Island and Jo Sharp Alpaca Kid LUstre) are as follows.

1.Every time you change yarns do a *slip 1 wyf, knit1* for the first row, but make sure that the slip 1 does NOT line up with the last time you did a slip 1.

2.Never change yarns on an increase row.

Sounds easy enough, yes? This pattern has become complicated becuase

1. With the raglan increases sometimes you can just start with a slip stitch and sometimes you need to start with a knit 1 when you change colors.
2. THe slip stitch compresses the pattern and changes the row count and therefore changes the rate of increases for the raglan shaping.
3. I didn't plan when to change colors and just made it up as I went along.

It isn't hard to knit. JUst hard to explain.

I enjoy knitting with this yarn. If I were knitting this for myself I'd be happy with how it is turning out. If I had to tell an advanced knitter how to do something similar - but not exactly the same I'd be o.k. But I'm really scared of having to tell a beginning knitter how to copy the sweater exactly.

I should have decided on a stripe pattern before I started.

Ravelry

I got my Ravelry invite! It is the most awesome website I've ever visited. My friend Cynthia Spencer told me about Ravelry. I'm glad she did. I really enjoy the site.

Listing my works in progress on Ravelry has my head spinning. It is making me realize that I have way too too much on my plate. But also looking at other people's WIP and stashes makes me realize that I'm not the only crazy one out there.

I let my kids pick my screen name for Ravelry. It is Azalea.

Berroco Damask Bag

Here is the Berroco Damask bag (before and after felting) done in Ultra Alpaca in the colors Fig and Fennel.















It only took one cycle in the washing machine to get it felted. That Berroco Alpaca felts really well, and is heavenly to work with. I did most of the smaller areas in duplicate stitch.

lessons learned:

1. Always duplicate stitch smaller intricate areas of intarsia. I tried to do intarsia at the top of the motif and that was a bear.
2. To make the knitting easier I enlarged the chart by 200%. Since I don't have access to a copy machine I just opened the pdf file at Berroco.com and then enlarged the image. When I went to print out under print range I selected "current view" to get it to print out enlarged.

Augy's Opal Handpaint inside out socks

These socks look so misshappen off the foot, but fit Augy's foot really well. I think ribbing the insoles is a bad/good idea. A bad idea, becuase it took longer to knit rib than plain stockinette in the round. A good idea because it hugs the foot and provides a better fit.

This is an inside out sock becuase I did a 3/2 rib and garter stitch short row heels and toes and therefor there is no right or wrong side. I was already working on this idea when Socks that Rock came out with their Inside out pattern. STR is more complicated than mine with reversible rib cables. Mine is just ribs and garter. The first picture shows the colors more faithfully than the second. THe yarn is Opal handpaints in GREEN!

Noro Silk Garden Lite Entrelac Vest

This is the entrelac vest from Noro Volume 20 done in Silk Garden Lite color 2014.
The freaky thing about this is how the colors lined up. I did not cut the yarn or try to manipulate the color changes up to the under arms. It just turned out that all the bright colors lined up on one side of the best and all the somber grey blues lined up on the other side of the vest. How freaky deaky is that? If I had tried to make it come out that way it would not. It just happened to line up that way because by chance I picked up a certain ball and started at a certain part of the stripe. If you look at the picture of the vest all slayed out like a fileted fish you'll see how it is all just one long transition from one color to the next.

I should have continued the color pattern by doing the bottom ribbing for just half the vest in one part of the colorway and the other half in another part of the colorway. BUt by that point I was so ready to be done with the vest that my brain was not fully functional.

This vest was done as a shop sample. I will be teaching a class on this pattern, and needed to get this done at least a month before class started so that people could see it on display. Finished on August 29, 2007.

What I learned from knitting this vest:

1. Never again volunteer to knit an entrelac vest in less than one month.

2. Addi Lace needles are the perfect needles for doing entrelac. The sharp points make picking up a breeze. After struggling along using addi turbos (needles were too slippery - stitches kept falling off the needles), Addi naturas (tips were too dull), and Inox (join was too stiff) I purchased some addi lace needles from The Mannings, and then the knitting sped up and was much more enjoyable.

3. Noro yarns will never cease to surprise and amaze. I've never done a project with Noro that didn't turn out fricking fabulous. Can I have a warehouse full of noro at my disposal please?

4. Picking up an little bit in the corners of entrelacs keeps you from getting holes (old news, but I thought I write this done to remind myself). I learned this from a Japanese knitting book, more on this some day later.

5. 9 rib stitches equals 6 stockinette entrelac stitches.

Knitting Successes and Failures

Here is a tank I designed using Blue Heron yarns. one side is crocheted with Blue Heron's Rayon Metallic, and the other side is knit using Blue Heron Cotton Rayon Woven ribbon. It was an excercise in combing knit and crochet. I took into consideration the fact that crochet is thicker than knitting and used a thinner yarn for the crochet side than the knit side.
Here is a close up of the two textures. THe only thing I forgot to take into consideration is that rayon is heavier than cotton. So since this tank is hanging up at colonial yarn shop the rayon crocheted side has started to grow more in length than the knit side. I think I have to do this experiment again, but with different yarns. Next I have to plan not only that crochet is thicker than knit but that it can be heavier.

This is the Black Sheep Dorothy Bag using Kureyon before it was felted.
Here it is after felting. Very easy pattern. Couldn't put it down. Too much fun.
THis is Tide cropped cardigan from Louisa Harding's Beachcomber collection. I used Schulana Merino Cotton 90 yarn and Louisa Harding's Glisten. I would definitely use the Schulana again. Schulana really gets ignored by the knitting mags. I was suprised at what a great yarn it is.

Here is the tide on me. Unforutnately I knit this as a shop sample for Colonial Yarn Shop. So I won't get it back to wear until next year. I made the size small and it fits! My surprise at it fitting isn't becuase of knitting or gauge issues. It is becuase this is the first size small I've ever knitted for myself. This is great motivation to keep my weight down. I can knit smaller sizes faster and cheaper than knitting the bigger sizes.

socks that rock

Apparently so many women sign up for the Socks that Rock Club that the bank thought they were doing something illegal and shut them down, and Yes I am one of those thousands of women who tried to sign up for the Socks that Rock club.

http://www.freakonomics.com/blog/2007/01/19/bank-cracks-down-on-wily-yarn-merchant/

The first installment of the Socks that Rock club arrived yesterday. And WOW! It came with some great yarn, a cute keychain with a itty bitty skein of yarn, a folder, a pattern, a button, a folder , and interesting foot facts.

I was a little wary signing up for this club. I have so many skeins of sock yarn all ready in my stash. PLus there are so many other items I want to knit besides socks. BUt I am so excited with this first shipment from the club. The pattern is great. It is the first sock pattern that I've been excited about in a long time. The yarn isn't a colorway that I would have choosen for myself if I were looking at colorways on a monitor. Too dark and too muddy. But the yarn is luscious, and I think I could grow to love the color. I woke up this morning thinking about the yarn and the pattern.

So I promptly finished the Cherry Tree Hill Birchs socks. I wanted to free up the needles. They are top down with short row heels and toes. I ended them about 2 inches too short for myself. Luckily they fit Augy perfectly (right now - who knows when his next foot growth spurt will be). PLus they are masculine enough of a colorway that he likes them. So win-win: Augy got socks in a color that he likes, I got to free up some needles to start my socks that rock.

PIc is very fuzzy, but at least you get to see the colorway.

But here is is 10:30 pm and I have still yet to cast on for my socks that rock. Why haven't I cast on yet on a day that I don't have any rehearsals, concerts or students? Becuase I was trying to finish a tank for the shop sample. ONly it turned into a great big Uh-Oh. Total disaster. The biggest crocheting, knitting disaster I've had in a long long time.

More on this with pics later .

pattern from One Skein - Miss priss yarn
Pattern from Yarn Play - Cash Iroha and Silk Garden
Pattern - my own - yarn - unknown
pattern - my own - yarn - Steadfast Fibers Mostly Mohair and Wonderfully Wooly in Columbine.

I've been busy. IN the five weeks since my last blog I've finished two adult sweaters, a toddler sweater, a pair of gloves, one sock (started it months ago), and half of a tank. I also worked the Super Bowl Sunday sale at Colonial Yarn shop. I wore my poppy sweater there and at least 5 ladies bought the yarn and book to make the same sweater.

At Colonial Yarn Shop I taught Japanese Short Row socks, Reversible Rib Scarf, Beginning KNitting, and started the first class for the Tote'Em Modular tote class. Also I taught two classes at Stitch Your Art Out - Japanese Short Row socks, and Reversible Rib cables. Whew!

Time flys when I'm knitting or talking about knitting.

Harrisburg Symphony just emailed the repertoire list for 2007-2008!
HSO Masterworks Series - 2007-08 Season

October 6-7
Wagner Tannhauser Overture
Dvorak Violin Concerto
Tchaikovsky Symphony #2

November 17-18
Rossini La Gazza Ladra Overture
Hindemith Mathis der Maler
Brahms Piano Concerto #1

January 12-13
Sibelius The Swan of Tuonela
Chopin Piano Concerto No. 1
Bartok Concerto for Orchestra

February 16-17
Diamond Rounds for String Orchestra
Mozart Violin Concerto No. 5
Mendelssohn Symphony #3 "Scottish"

March 8-9
Rimsky-Korsakov Capriccio Espagnol
HigdonPercussion Concerto
Walton Partita for Orchestra
Ravel La Valse

April 5-6
Vaughan Williams Dona Nobis Pacem
Beethoven Symphony #9

May 10-11
Copland Appalachian Spring
Strauss Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks
Stravinsky The Rite of Spring

YUCK! There is nothing on this list I'm interested in performing. Maybe it is time to hang up the viola. ONly problem - how will I pay for my yarn addiction?

no duh weight loss program

Nothing about knitting today. Except that I'm working feverishly on my poppy sweater to get it done by super bowl Sunday for my first day at work as a yarn store employee.

I'm not going to post any before and after pics, but just trust me when I say that I've lost 30 pounds in 3 months. How did I do it? I did a no-duh diet program. I cut out cakes, pies, cookies, candy, ice cream, juice, soda, and sugar in my tea. Then I went to the YMCA and excercised on their eliptical trainers and did cybex weight machines 3 to 5 days a week. Results - 30 pounds in 3 months.

I didn't change anything else about my diet. I started out slowly with the work outs. At first all I could do was 10 minutes at a time on the elipticals and only maybe 5 to 20 pounds on the weight machines. Gradually I added one minute more, until now I do 45 to 60 minutes of cardio, and 40 - 180 pounds on the weight machines. I started out going only 3 days per week and now I alternate 4 days and 5 days a week.

Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas were hard. I did eat a few sweets, but I limited it to just a tiny sliver of candy and just a quarter of a slice of pie.

This really is the no - duh diet: cut out sweets, add cardio and strength workouts and you'll lose weight. Is it a pain in the neck to have to reserve 2 hours out of the day to work out. But I get those 2 hours back because I'm not as tired and don't need naps like I used to.

I went from a size 16 to a size 8! Maybe I'll get down even smaller by this summer. Keepin ght sweets out of my diet is the hardest part.

Reversible Rib Cables

Taught my first Reversible Rib Cable class last night. It was a full house (10). The shop where I teach can only handle at most 10 students at a time. I think the class went well. If my students walk away from a class feeling like they learned something they couldn't get from a book or figure out on their own, then I feel like it was a success.





For those of you unfamiliar with reversible rib cables here are pics and a description:





This is a knitting pattern with no wrong sides, ribs, and a different cable on each side. Perfect for afghans and scarves where reversibility is desired.
The two blue swatches are the same swatch (different sides). It was done with Cascade 220 and was my first experience with reversible rib cabling.








The bottom grey scarf as a different cable pattern on either side. It was done with Cascade Baby ALpaca Chunky with done double stranded.
The Cascade baby alapaca Chunky was heavenly soft, but a little too slippery for this project. Plus it didn't block very well. I've started another in Sirdar Nova that I think will go much better.

Trip Down memory Lane and Entrelac Scarf in Diadomina

Trip down memory lane.
These pictures are from the summer of 2005 when I Crocheted Suzannah a Martha Coming Home poncho in Lion Brand Landscapes yarn. Yes, I was caught up in the Martha Stewart Coming Home Poncho craze. I crocheted a total of three ponchos (of course bought enough yarn for 5 ponchos - but only completed three). One for Suzannah, one for Heidi and one for Zina. All in Lion Brand yarns.

This is the Lucy Neatby Garter Stitch Entrelac Scarf http://www.tradewindknits.com/threvgar.html done with Diakeito Diadomina yarn. Love, love love the yarn and the pattern.

The yarn had the same self patterning in wonderful colorways as Noro, but is much more polished. Diakeito is like a more refined version of Noro. I bought the yarn and the pattern at The Mannings in East Berlin, PA.

These pictures are of an unblocked scarf that has been worn everyday for two months and wrung and twisted every which way.

I started this scarf last summer after I signed up for the "Engineering in Entrelac" class at Stitches East. I signed up first then read the pre-requisit that you must have done entrelac before taking the class. After an exhaustive internet search for an appropriate first entrelac project I was at The Mannings "just looking" and this yarn and this pattern just grabbed my attention.

As with all of Lucy Neatby's patterns it was well written and there wasn't a thing I'd change about it.

Most Entrelac patterns I've seen look, well, yuck. Yuck colors, in unflattering cut. I never met an entrelac pattern that I wanted to knit until...........

Normally I'm not drawm to neutral colors. But this looks like it would be very flattering to my body type. One of these days I'm going to sit down and decipher this pattern and knit it (it is in Japanese, and contrary to popular belief American born Chinese aren't born with the ability to read Japanese).

Right after the 2,000+ other projects I want to knit and crochet.

Tote Em Tote

Finished the Tote Em tote from Knitter's magazine #84, Fall 2006. Here is a link to color various parts http://www.knittinguniverse.com/flash/webfeatures/paintbox/k84toteem.html





I knit this with Cascade 220 and Artful Yarns Shakespeare. The original tote in the magazine only used three different colors. I used a total of 5 different colors (I'm going the Shakespeare as only one color even though it is multicolored). I'll be teaching a class at Colonial Yarn shop this spring on making this tote. I counted 58 different times you could change colors in this pattern. I think maybe I'll make another one and see how many different colors I can use and have it still look good.





Here are some of my modifications (in addition to using more than three colors):





For an easier pick up edge I made sure to keep the selvedges in stockinette and to move the decreases in one stitch from the edge. Since I used a multicolor for the center squares I didn't want the colors just to stripe in a diagonal. So I used the pattern from Barbara Walker's Learn to KNit Afghan book for the garter stitch square knit from the center. I used a temporary cast on when making the gusset. PLus I put the final stitches of the gusset on a stitch holder. Then when I finished sewing the gussets to the fronts I took out the temporary cast on. Then I had live stitches on both ends of the gussets as well as the tops of the fronts to do the i-cord bind off.





MIstakes:


I forgot to braid the handles before felting. I did the outer ring of one of the fronts all in one piece and knit too many rows. The shakespeare is a pain in the neck to frogg.


I did a slip stitch edge on the gusset thinking it would make sewing easier. I should have kept that in garter to practice my mattress stitching in garter.



I wasn't very neat in sewing the handles to the bag. Next time I'll have to remember to braid the i-cords before felting.

Questions:
I wonder if I tried making the gusset with my ADdi Turbo Express KNitting machine if it would felt ok. The addi machine only makes stockinette. The Tote'Em tote pattern calls for garter stitch. Would a stockinette tube attached to a garter stitch piece felt o.k.? I'm thinking of trying a mini tote'em (halve all the stitches) to test the tube sewn to the garter stitch front idea. The gussett and the i-cords were the only tedious portions of this pattern.


This was a fun pattern. Good thing I had a deadline to make it for display at the colonial yarn shop, or I would have toss the gusset strip aside and maybe finished the darn thing in 2 or 3 years.