This Blog Going Inactive

Sorry, y’all, but changing priorities and schedule have meant I’m not blogging these days.

If I start posting again, you’ll see it here!
Thanks to all you regular readers, and to the occasional visitors as well.

Spring Eye-Candy

Found my camera — hurray!!!

Even my cuttings are budding -- Spring!!

Tubular Cast On How-to, plus Fun Cooking Videos

DD and I found this fellow Nicko and his YouTube cooking videos this week, and have been enjoying watching them.  I used to live where folks spoke with an accent similar to the host’s, so that aspect is fun for me as well.  I’m planning to make something just a BIT like this tonight — using commercial bratwurst “mince” as filling.

My camera has been lost since 25 March (!!), so I haven’t been able to take photos to share for a while.  I could talk about some slightly older stuff. . . .

Here are steps for one way to work a tubular cast-on.

Crocheting stitches over knitting needle with smooth scrap yarn

Begin with a provisional (i.e. temporary, removable) cast on.  I favor ones that use a crochet hook.  Here, I’m crocheting loops over a knitting needle with smooth scrap yarn, unto half my desired total number of stitches (12, to end with 24).

Then, with project yarn, work 4 rows of stockinette, beginning with a knit row (this is different from what Montse Stanley says in her reference book, Reader’s Digest Knitter’s Handbook).   I like to work a few plain chains after all my over-the-knitting-needle loops are done.  Pull the far end of your scrap yarn through the last chain to “finish off”; perhaps tie a small knot in the end, to distinguish it from the beginning end.  (This will matter later!)

Now join the bottom and top edges of this short piece of knitting into a long, shallow tube (hence the “tubular” name) as follows.

Knitting and purling from alternate ends of piece

Knit 1 stitch from knitting needle.

Purl 1 st from CO edge.  (See the loop of project yarn peeking out from between loops of scrap yarn?  That’s what you purl into.)

Continue across. alternating a knit from the needle with a purl from the CO.

The final loop to purl is hard to see — fiddle until you find it, so that you’ll end with an even number of total stitches.

Final gray loop in CO edge

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Continue in 1×1 ribbing, knitting the knits and purling the purls as established.  After a few rows, you’re piece looks like this.

A few rows of ribbing above CO

(You may notice that my crochet chain has some extra links in it.  Because my scrap yarn was considerably smaller-gauge than my project yarn — the largest I had in cotton — I worked a plain chain after each over-the-needle stitch to give extra stretch.)

You may remove the provisional cast-on now.

Removing provisional cast-on

Pull the knotted end of the scrap yarn back through the last crocheted chain to free it up, then gently pull the strand, popping each chain one at a time, undoing your provisional CO.

This is amazing to watch — so clever!

Chains all unpopped.

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Pull strand entirely free from your knitting.

Done!

Tubular Cast On complete!

Tweedy Knitting and Glove Repair

I’ve had the treat of marathon knitting and designing this past Friday and Saturday, as DH and DDs went on a Spring Break camping excursion to someplace warm and remote.  Turning this . . .

Rowan Felted Tweed yarn, 10 balls

into this (etc.).

Swatch for decreasing in pattern

It kept me VERY busy!

And will continue to, until I get through that whole bag of yarn!

(another design project for Cast On magazine)

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In the meantime, I thought I’d tell y’all about some mending I did recently.

First request was for the thumb of a pair of Latvian mittens, bought for me by a dear friend on her trip around the Baltic, and then gifted by me to DS.

Glove, holding "hoot!", both to be mailed to DS at college.

hole in end of thumb, loose stitches stabilized by safety pin

repair made with darker brown yarn

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Second request was for several tears in a pair of Norwegian gloves well-loved by our church organist.

Charly's Norwegian gloves

Observe: Norwegian's do NOT tuck in ends -- they knot and leave them!

And unused colors are twisted and carried up at end-of-rds. Also see hole in finger end.

I do not have “after” photos, because a super-cold day came and I really RUSHED to finish these and get them back to their owner!

At least you can know that your “loss” was definitely his “gain”.

 

Pi Day and Yak Yarn

It’s Pi Day today — you know, the number 3.14 etc from geometry, denoted by the Greek letter pi — and today’s date is 3-14.

In one of her books (Knitting Around, maybe?), Elizabeth Zimmermann tells the story of how Gaffer explained to her the concept of pi:  “Whenever the distance from the center doubles, the distance around doubles.”  Thus, the Pi Shawl was born; doubling the number of stitches whenever you’ve doubled the number of rounds:  say, CO 7 sts; rd 2, inc to 14; rd 4, inc to 28; rd 8, inc to 56; rd 16 double your sts again; and so on.

I’m hoping to make something round and yummy.  “Pi Pie”!  (well, actually, bars made in-the-round.)

"Pi Pie"

In other “yummy” news,
I received as a gift some yummy “yak down” yarn, and am considering what to make with it. I’m thinking a lacy shawlette. Any ideas or recommendations, y’all?

Bijou Spun, fingering weight, 1 oz., 100 yds

BTW, the cat decided she preferred the tissue paper for chewing.  (Phew!)

Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper and Dishcloths

I always love going to our church’s pancake supper on the last night before the Lenten season begins.  Always a cheery evening with good food and good friends.

One of the students even provides some musical accompaniment.

The college students and their chaplain do the cooking: pancakes & bacon, plus fruit, syrup, OJ, milk, coffee.

Younger and older eat and chat together.

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Meanwhile, I’ve been enjoying some low-key knitting.

Dishcloths!  — Doesn’t matter that they turn out Just So, and one can easily try out a new stitch pattern.  (The Chinese Waves pattern, by Margaret K. K. Radcliffe, is free and available as a 224K PDF from Maggie’s Rags by clicking here.)

3 variations on heel stitch make a dense, sturdy dishcloth

"Chinese Waves" stitch pattern -- like Eye of Partridge on a garter st base

Adding Button Finally Finishes Short Scarf

Yarn-mixing Scarf fastened with button

The yarn-mixing scarf I’ve been working on (on and off) since December is now done!

double buttons

It had reached  only about 3 feet (1 meter) in length when one of the yarns ran out, and I didn’t want to join in something different.  So I decided on adding a button. . . but where and how?  The gauge is loose enough that a button can be pushed through the fabric pretty much anywhere, so I picked out 2 buttons, joined them together back to back with yarn, and the wearer can attach the scarf’s ends together as high or low as desired.

6 yarns, knit together

Almost all of these yarns, light-to-medium neutrals, came in a box of leftovers I “inherited” from a knitting friend.  The last one is a fine-gauge metallic.

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And how did I deal with all those ENDS?

One at a time!

running one end up along the side of a rib

Hey, note my right sidebar: I’ve been adding more links to instructive videos. Check out Kristin Nicholas’ series of videos on adding embroidery to knitwear!

Indoors and Outdoors

red geranium buds

pink geranium buds

off on a walk -- to a birthday party up the street

Calorimetry Headband FO

Calorimetry was first published in the Winter 2006 issue of knitty.  I just knit a red tweedy one in a yarn by Naturally called “Allsorts” from their “Magic Garden” line.  Only took me 9 days, which is quite fast for me.

Pattern opinion:  “Potato chip knitting”, as one podcaster called it — keep wanting to do one more row, as they get shorter and then longer, and then you’re done.  I added stitches to get the turns to fit symmetrically within the ribbing.  Bound off with EZ’s “Casting-on Cast-off”, which may be found in her book, Knitting Without Tears.  Kinda’ fun to make, but I’m not sure I’m comfortable with how the wedge shape of the FO fits my head; time will tell.

Yarn opinion:  Not fluffy or especially soft, almost string-y feeling like cotton eventhough it’s wool — probably somehow due to the extra long bits of pulled colored threads that give the yarn its tweedy appearance.  DD finds it “a bit itchy”.

the yarn and CO

Knitting done!

choices, choices. . . .

back view -- every tried to photograph the back of your own head?

front 3/4 view

Botanical Eye Candy

Some visual miscellany for your mid-week.

pink geranium a week ago -- night shot, with flash

pink geranium in western window -- morining/noon light

pink geranium in western window -- afternoon/evening light

recognize this blossom?

spider plant!