Fiber Dreams

I’m feeling more awake than I have in days. Slept the sleep of the dead—well, not dead dead—the last two nights, and am feeling fairly human again. Finally. Hopefully I’ll be able to sleep again tonight. Fingers crossed.

Canterbury Bells is coming along wonderfully. I nearly have the first half done. The central panel is done, as well as nearly half of the border. The border’s just a four-row repeat. See all of those little points? Each one represents four rows of knitting. Hopefully I’ll have time to get a bunch more done on that border this afternoon. Hopefully. We have a pile of errands to run today. Keep your fingers crossed for knitting time, too. One never knows how long errands will take when Dave is in tow. They tend to grow. Exponentially. Then end up in a pub. For sustenance.

Oh, in case you’re wondering, those are my knees on the left side of the left-most picture. And down in the lower left corner you can see one of Ricki’s toy mice. The dark blob to the right of the mouse is the cone of yarn I’m knitting from.

I got a little done on Tilt the last couple of days. Sure helps using bamboo needles. My knitting gauge is back to normal again. With luck, the second sock will match the first one. This time. As you can see in the photo, I’m done with the ribbing, and have knit up the first repeat of four for the cuff. Woot!

As an aside, I used the word “woot” in an email conversation with Dave the other day. He hadn’t heard it before, so he looked it up. Found it online, though spelled a trifle differently, spelled with zeros where the “o”s go: w00t.

The Loopy Ewe finally had the time to get the patterns I sent them up on their site. They’re busy bees over there. If you prefer printed copies of my sock and lace patterns to the .pdfs I sell here, that’s a place to get them.

Yesterday Helen of EarthFaire contacted me, asking if she can sell some of my lace patterns in her store. I said yes, we took care of some paperwork and such, and I packaged up some printed patterns. They’re going out in today’s mail. She’ll get them next week. Soon after that, I’m thinking, you’ll see them in her online store. Very cool.

I also got a wholesale query last week from Kathy at Shepherd’s Choice. She wants some blocking wire sets. We’re working on those for you, Kathy.

I decided to donate another prize to a cause. This cause is Summer of Lace 2008. Helen and friends Maria and Alyse are working at getting things set up. They have a Ravelry group going, and have or will be setting up a Flickr group. I found two Flickr groups. Don’t know which is the correct one. If someone knows, please tell me. I’ll make sure that link ends up in my blog. They’re also working on an official Seasons of Lace web site. I’ll link to that when they get it done. What will I be donating? Why a lace pattern of course. I offered a .pdf of the lace pattern of the winner’s choice.

That’s it for now. Gotta go get ready to run said errands. Hope you have a great weekend.

I don’t have much today. Just a few things. I’m too tired to think past that. Got up some time between 4:00 and 5:00, and slept poorly while I was in bed. Nearly got up at 1:00… It was amazing that I lasted in bed as long as I did. Let’s see. Oh yeah. Socks. Tilt. I started sock two yesterday evening. I didn’t exactly get a lot done, but it is started.

I got caught up on Canterbury Bells yesterday afternoon, plus one repeat. I would have gotten farther ahead, but at some time during the afternoon I was tinking back along the row (again), and dropped a stitch. Badly. I pulled the knitting off the needles, and frogged eight rows of lace. Eight rows. I carefully unzipped the next row while I put the newly freed stitches back on the needle. Then I straightened them all out so they were going the correct direction. Then I carefully, oh-so carefully tinked back one more row to make sure I had everything. I did. I think I actually managed to get passed that spot, and made a little more forward progress.

Sorry, no pics. For some reason I didn’t take any of Canterbury Bells when I was wandering around the house with the camera a little while ago. I did manage to get a picture of a cat sleeping on Kliban (of Cat fame) sheets that I’ve had for about a million years now. You know what? Those cats with red tennis shoes still crack me up.

Let’s see. What else? Oh yeah. I’m donating sock patterns as a prize to Summer of Socks this year. Whoever wins this prize will get a .pdf of all of the sock patterns I have for sale at that time.

Oh. And this. This is very cool. Lime & Violet chose my South Seas Stole pattern as their shawl of the week. Posted it yesterday. Thank you, ladies! Huge welcome to everyone who visits because of their link. Thank you, Kristie, for letting me know!

I think there was more, but I can’t think for the life of me of what it was.

Need more caffeine.

I finished Mingus yesterday—after working on the pair since January. It feels like I’ve been knitting these socks forever. I’m so glad they’re done! Mostly because I can now wear them. Woot!

• Pattern: Mingus, by Cookie A.
• Yarn: Dream in Color Smooshy, Nightwatch, 1 hank.
• Needles: Size 1 (2.25 mm), Crystal Palace bamboo DPNs, set of 5.
• Elapsed time: January 16 to May 12.
• Notes: These socks took forever. Or seemed like it. I definitely had some troubles in the beginning. Once those got sorted out, though, the socks were a delight to knit. Very satisfying. This is one of the very rare times that I knit a pattern from the recommended yarn. Thank you, Kristie, for the wonderful birthday present—yarn and pattern. I can’t wait to wear these socks! Between my short feet and the generous hank, I have 40g of yarn left. If I’m careful, I think I might have enough yarn left over to knit a pair of anklets. Maybe. I’ll leave that project for later.

In the meantime, since the CP DPNs are free, it’s time to re-knit Tilt sock two. That means it’s also time to rip back the half sock that I’d done on the other needles.

So. After I re-wound the left over Nightwatch into a nice, neat cake of yarn, I put the outside end of the cake of November Muse on the winder, and… wound. It got a little interesting when the old ball got too small to hold itself down while I was unwinding it, but after that part it was easy. I just pulled the needles out of the offending sock, held said sock in one hand, and turned the crank with the other. Before long I had a full cake of yarn—and no more sock. All is in readiness for me to cast back on this evening.

Kathryn, who’s going to test knit Canterbury Bells for me, did a little online yarn shopping the other day. She’s getting two different shades of Zephyr Wool-Silk, Violet and Ice Blue, and plans on knitting the stole with whichever one comes closest to the actual color of the Canterbury Bells that grow wild near her home. That got me to thinking. How can I possibly justify knitting a blue flower in hot pink yarn? Well, I can’t. So I ripped out the 68 rows of pink knitting that I’d done, and cast on again—this time with a pretty navy blue yarn from Valley Yarns, their 2/14 Alpaca Silk. It’s a little extra work, but it was only four pattern repeats, plus a tad, so it wasn’t all that much. So worth it. Already I’m so glad that I made the change. This yarn is lovely. So, so soft. The color is much, much better. I got two pattern repeats done at knit night last night. End result: almost caught up with where I left off knitting, and I like the results a lot better.

It doesn’t just seem like it. I really have been getting a lot of books lately. It’s been wonderful! About a one and a half weeks ago I got an old stitch dictionary from Mon Tricot, 1030 stitches. Won it on eBay. It’s a little beaten. It’s a little shopworn. It’s spine has dinks, its cover and pages are bent and torn, the paper is getting a little dark around the edges. But come on. It was printed in 1963, and it’s obviously seen some use. Some love. This slim volume is older than a lot of people I know. But you know what? For all the things that are wrong with this poor old dear, it’s pages are all still firmly attached, the text and photos legible.

This is the English translation of the original French book. And it’s wonderful. It starts with the basics, casting on, binding off, knitting, purling, you know the stuff. It works you into various types of increases and decreases, corners, selvages. Then it gets to the meat of the matter. The knitting stitch patterns. There are a lot of real gems in here: lace, textures, cables, color work, even a handful of crochet stitches. It’s love.

Denise (sadly blogless), I looked it up since we weren’t positive. You were correct. “Mon tricot” means “my knitting.”

I’ve been wanting to get my hands on a copy of Evelyn A. Clark’s Knitting Lace Triangles for quite a while now. Quite a while. So when I sold the last batch of printed patterns to The Loopy Ewe—yes, she has them. No they’re not on her site yet. Soon, I’m sure—I treated myself, and bought it. Finally. It was shipped the next day, and since Washington is just up the coast from here it arrived in no time.

I haven’t had time yet to do much more than thumb through it, but oh! I’m definitely looking forward to spending some quality time with this book.

Clara Parkes reviewed Knitting Lace Triangles a while back. When I was searching for a site where I could buy the book, I stumbled across her review. There are only a handful of places where the book can be purchased. I personally recommend that you get it from Knitty Noddy. Evelyn herself signed the receipt. Oh, and though it wasn’t immediately apparent, part way through the checkout process I was able to specify media mail shipping, so was able to pay a little less to get the book here. I always appreciate that.

Speaking of books… I finished Anne Bishop’s Black Jewels Trilogy last night. Wow. I wondered a few times, especially near the beginning of the trilogy, about reading a story where three of the protagonists were named Saeton, Daemon a.k.a. the Sadist, and Lucivar. Yes, they were the good guys. See? It was kind of odd at first. But the story was good, the writing wonderful. I was sunk. I couldn’t put it down. Especially after finishing the first book, Daughter of the Blood. I was glad, too. I really enjoyed the story. The final book could have been a trifle longer. I’m not sure what she would have added, but if it were longer I wouldn’t be done yet, wouldn’t be suffering from reader’s remorse. You know, the kind that sets in after you’ve rapidly consumed a fabulous story only to find that its… done. Over. There is no more to read. Yes, Anne has added to this world. The latest book, Tangled Webs, was released in March. It’s not the same, though. Especially since I don’t have that book, so can’t immediately dive back into that world. Drat.

On another note, have you signed up for Summer of Socks 2008 yet? If not, and you want to, you’d best get on it. Sign-ups close on May 15. Sock knitting commences on June 21, so you’ve plenty of time to plan your summer sock projects.

I finally got smart and started a Google group/announcement list. Sign up if you want to get email from me when patterns are released. This is an announcement-only list. Your inbox won’t be filled with chatter because of joining this list. You’ll only receive notes from me, and only when I have a new pattern out, or some related announcement.

The Dulcavina pattern is done. It can be purchased on this page, or if you’re on Ravelry you can get it here.

Off to send out email messages to those who requested them. Thank you for your patience! I hope you enjoy the pattern.

I’m knitting flowers again. Couldn’t help myself. I was pattern stitch diving the other day, came across this flower pattern, and fell in love.

I had to change it a tiny bit, though. See that two-stitch trough between the repeats? You can see up above where I replaced the two reverse-stockinette stitches with one stockinette stitch. I like it much, much better that way. You should see the second swatch I’m working on with just the one stitch between the motif repetitions. Much better. Soon, very soon, I’ll be casting on the real one, with the Dianthus Zephyr Wool-Silk that I have left over from knitting Garden Party. I think it’ll be pretty in that color.

I have the perfect edging picked out, too. It’s delicate, flirty, fun. And it’s only a four-row repeat, so there’s hope that I might have a chance of memorizing it before I’m done with the scarf. Kathryn has agreed to test knit the stole version of this one for me. Isn’t she a dear?

This new pattern has a name already. I know. Can you believe it? After all that I went through trying to name Dulcavina. The main stitch pattern is called bellflower. I plugged that word into Wikipedia to see what I would get, knowing that there’s at least one flower that uses that as its common name. I found tons of them. I didn’t look at all of them, but saw one that I liked right off, the Campanula family. Glancing down the list of plants in the family I saw a name that I really liked, Campanula medium, or Canterbury Bells. Love it. It’s perfect, absolutely perfect.

The second Mingus sock is coming along swimmingly. The gussets are done, so is the first pattern repeat on the foot. The second repeat has begun. Fewer than 30 rows remain before I start the toe decreases. That’s all good.

The not so good part is Tilt. Remember how I got new needles to replace the cheap ones that were splintering? Well, the Knit Picks Harmony needles are giving me a totally different gauge than the bamboo of the same size. A much tighter gauge.

Check out the width of these two socks.

You can really see it when they’re piled one on top of the other. While the original one knit on the cheap, splintery bamboo needles fits perfectly, the second one knit on the Harmony needles barely goes over my heel.

What’s a knitter to do? You guessed it. Riiiip.

I haven’t ripped it out yet. I’m going to wait (probably) until the second Mingus is done, then rip it out, and restart the second sock on those bamboo needles.

Drat and double drat.

Have you received your summer Interweave Knits magazine yet? I got mine late last week. Though overall the designs are better than in the latest Knitter’s, there are still way too many horizontal stripes to my way of thinking. This is the main reason that I don’t like any of the patterns in the Sand and Sea group. Lots of stripes: Delft Tiles, Elinor Tunic, Drawstring Tunic. What’s with that bust-flattening geometric design going up the center of Imprint Tank? Even the Tapestry Skirt. I usually like knit skirts. They’re certainly fun to wear, feel good, but horizontal stripes? Around my butt? Uh, no thanks. Is it the skirt? The stripes? The white background she’s posed against in the large photo in the magazine? From the front it looks like she has no hips at all. Why would I want to hide my girly shape? If I ever knit it, it’d be all in one color. It’s more likely that I’d simply knit a completely different pattern. But I like her shoes. Where can I get those pumps?

Though there aren’t any stripes in the Summer Greenery group the only sweater I like is the Brick Pullover. I’d knit it without that slit in the front, though. Either that, or make a proper Henley out of the neckline, and put in a button placket. The Wallace Cardigan leaves me cold. Gathered shoulders? Gathered sleeves? Please tell me this style isn’t returning. Ugh. The Folded Cowl Tee has nice details near the hems, but that’s it.

Next up: the Kaleidoscope group. Well. Hm. I like the basic design of Roped Shell, the cover design, the stripes are broken up a bit with some horizontal bars, but still… If I knit it I’d either knit it in a solid (more likely) or in two shades of the same color. But I doubt I’ll knit it at all. I like the cable hems, cable straps, but the straps are too thin to hide bra straps. That won’t do. I like the idea behind the Windowpane Socks, but I want to see a better picture of them. Close up. The other designs in this group? I’ll be nice and just not mention them.

The last group is In Green Lace. I find the Eyelet Surplice Dress a little boring. Same with the Gossamer Stars Scarf. I guess the Leaf Kimono Top is okay. Huh. The Après Surf Hoodie would be better if it wasn’t a hoodie. Just don’t see the reason for a lace hood. Doesn’t it defeat the purpose? My favorite in the whole issue is the Wakame Lace Tunic. I like how the leaf motif is repeated in different directions in different parts of the tunic. I think it’d be better with a V neck, though. Something to give the wearer a little shape. Even here, horizontal stripes around the hips. Why? I don’t get it. But then, I never claimed to be a fashion maven.

I have to say that I’m very glad I took Dave’s advice on Saturday, and left the house nearly two hours before I was due to meet Anne, Kim (sadly blogless), and Jocelyn in Encinitas for lunch, a little knitterly companionship and fun. Encinitas is a small coastal town about 20 miles north of San Diego, about 70 miles south of my house. On a Saturday morning I didn’t think there was any way it would take two hours to get down there. I was planning on getting my car washed or (more likely) a short little walk on the beach before finding our meeting spot at noon.

No such luck.

Traffic. There was lots of traffic. Tons of it. Three separate backups conspired against me and my walk on the beach. The last one was the worst. I got caught in the line of care trying to get off the freeway to go to Legoland. Jocelyn heard on the radio that they were expecting 70,000 cars to show up at their amusement park that morning. Being one of the cars caught in the backup, I believe it. I also believe that they need to do some serious work on the roads to handle that traffic so that it doesn’t affect people who are not going to Legoland, but that’s another topic altogether…

By the time I found the knitting store, the “art park” across the street, a parking place, and made my way to the place we were to meet it was just a couple of minutes after noon. Whew. Made it.

I recognized Anne from the back at 30 paces—in spite of the fact that I’d never seen her in person before. Thank her David for all those wonderful photos he takes of her for her blog and patterns. Yes, and that beautiful woman standing next to her must be the friend she’s staying with, Kim. Anne turned as I walked up, immediately knew who I was, and gave me a big hug. It’s wonderful meeting good friends for the first time, don’t you think? A couple minutes after I got there, Jocelyn arrived. More hugs and introductions all around.

The “art park” where we met turned out to be the Encinitas Seaside Bazaar, a fun place with a wonderful variety of unique handmade goods. When I found them, Anne and Kim were looking at Dan Townsend’s Palmfish. These things are hysterical! Dan creates colorful fish, mostly to hang on the wall, from used egg cartons and dried palm fronds, and paints with with bright colors. Kim and Jocelyn both talked about buying some of the fish to decorate sons’ rooms with. Some of the fish had wicked teeth… I chortle whenever I think of these fish. They’re great!

Hunger soon won out, though, so we wandered down the street to find a place to eat. There were plenty of restaurants to choose from, a nice variety of ethnic foods. Someone spied a place from across the street, Q’ero, a Peruvian restaurant. We agreed right then and there to give it a whirl. Oh! Were we ever glad we tried it. None of had had Peruvian food before, and everything we had was fabulous: appetizers, wraps, sandwiches, soup, even the ethnic drinks. If you’re in the area, I’d definitely recommend giving them a try. Yum.

After lunch we wandered down the block to Common Threads. This is an amazing store. From the front it doesn’t really look like much, just a small room that leads to another, and that’s about all you see. These rooms, though, lead to other small rooms, before the place opens up into a larger one with a huge window and a comfy couch. We paused here to share some WIPs and finished projects. Through no real fault of my own, I actually have a couple of pictures! Unfortunately, the only one I have with Anne is a little blurry. Anne and Jocelyn, luckily, both have much clearer pictures. In the first (blurry) picture, from left to right, are me (!), Anne, and Kim. Next up we have me (again), Kim, and Jocelyn. I don’t know when I started holding my head so that it looks like I have a double chin. I don’t! I wish I’d stop doing that. Arg.

After leaving Common Threads we walked four blocks back the other way, passed the restaurant where we had lunch, and went into The Black Sheep. The two stores couldn’t have been more different. Different store layout, this one your basic rectangle, one room, with large windows all along one side, different yarns and supplies, but both wonderful.

I was so good, too! Two wonderful yarn stores, tons of fabulous yarns, and I didn’t buy a thing.

Until the way back and we stopped at Chuao, a South American chocolatier. They were giving away free samples of hot chocolate that day (yum!). But that wasn’t enough. I needed to feel some chocolate between my teeth, so I got one small truffle, a little something with loads of dark chocolate and touched with chili powder. What a combo. Did I say, Yum?

It was nearly 5 pm when we parted company. More traffic and 1½ hours later I was finally home again. It was a wonderful day. I have some knitting pictures for you, honest I do, but I think this post is probably quite long enough for one day. There’s always tomorrow.

It’s one of those basic things. Planned for, knit for, tested, tried and true. But a part of me is still more than a little surprised that the socks I knit actually fit my foot.

I’m sure that a large part of this is because I have short feet, and since my feet got to this grand size of 6½ when I was in sixth grade, store-bought socks have always been too long.

So now, when I knit one (or a pair!), and put it on my foot, and it is the correct length, I’m still a little startled—pleased, to be sure—but a bit surprised, all the same.

The second sock is on its way. Ribbing? Done. First full pattern repeat? Done. It will progress more later today.

Books

“Need” is such a relative term. Don’t you agree? One would think, if one weren’t a major book person, that two people with as many books as we have would never need any new books. There are enough books in this house to keep us both entertained for decades. No fooling. Yet when Dave read that the Orange County Register was having a book fair, giving away books the newspaper had received from publishers for the last year or so, limit five per household, we jumped at the chance. So, yesterday morning, at the appointed time, we took ourselves down to the newspaper office.

As we’d suspected there was basically no order to the books they had. The books were tilted on their sides so the titles could easily be seen—at least they started out that way—on eight (nine?) long tables. Both sides. Yup. Book-lover’s dream. They had a wide variety of titles, including books on such topics as weight loss, exercise, pregnancy, having babies, fertility, adoption, parenting, single parenting, coaching lacrosse for dummies (no fooling—can’t imagine too many people buying that in the store, can you?), travel, history, culture, cooking, a smattering of fictional works, and more. Most books were first editions, some were advance reading copies, some were uncorrected proofs.

This is what we came away with: Book Business: Publishing Past, Present, and Future by Jason Epstein, How to Get Ideas by Jack Foster, Flawed by Jo Bannister (a Brodie Farrell mystery), and Black Ships by Jo Graham.

The best, the absolute best book of all, one that I definitely did not expect to see there, thinking that if it even had been there that by the time we got there, got to that table, that it would be long gone: Things I Learned From Knitting by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. Score!

I’ve been doing pretty well on the book front lately, haven’t I? So much fun.

Whine

Our next door neighbors travel. A lot. At times it seems that they’re gone more than they’re home. Often they’re just gone for a couple of days. We wander next door, scratch the dogs, make sure they have food and water, talk to them. They do much, much better when left at home than in a kennel. When they’re going to be gone for more than a couple of days they make other plans for the dogs, they feel bad about asking us to care for them so often, especially when they’ll be gone a while. Like this time. They’ll be in Europe for a couple of weeks. Arranged for two different people to house-sit for them, take care of the dogs, you know. That stuff. Day before yesterday their first week house-sitter backed out on them. They called up. Asking. Begging. Pleading. Will we do the first week? Week two is still handled… Of course!

Yesterday, before they left, they gave a call to tell us to check the front door when we got home—we were out getting free books. We thought, gee, how nice. They’ve left us a bottle of wine. We got home to this fabulous gift basket. Not just wine, but a wonderful looking zinfandel, Zinfusion from Castoro Cellars in Paso Robles, a pair of hand-blown Polish wine glasses (check out how huge those glasses are!), and a generous gift certificate to be spent at Whole Foods. What a nice little note from the doggies, too. We have wonderful neighbors.

• Pattern: Dulcavina, my own devising.
• Yarn: Malabrigo Lace, 2 hanks Forrest, 1.04 hanks Black.
• Needles: Size 5 (3.75 mm), Knit Picks Options Harmony, and Knit Picks 8 inch Harmony DPNs, same size.
• Elapsed time: March 5 to April 29
• Notes: O.M.G. I love it. It’s so incredibly soft, airy, lacy, viney… everything I was looking for. Except for the continuing saga of the black yarn, and only needing about 2 grams of the second hank (yes, really), this stole went together like a dream. (It’ll work up easily with three hanks of Malabrigo Lace, if they’re all the same color.) You should feel it! Lovely. I want to wear it to bed, cuddle up in it. I can see why people are so in love with this yarn. Yum. As I said before, I’m hoping to be able to release the pattern about mid May. Let me know if you want to be notified.