Funny (non-knitting-related) Video

I so enjoyed watching this little spoof, I decided to share it with you all.  (Advent starts this coming Sunday!)

And, just so you know, I LOVE chant — but that’s not what this is.  I guess I love a wholesome laugh even more. 

Lots of Knitting (Scandinavian and Otherwise) and Girls in a Tree.

Before we get to the knitting, I’d like to show you my DDs in their new favorite hang-out.

And, just how high is that? 

They’ve gotten a few scrapes and scratches, but declare the tree to be “awesome”!

On to the knitting.

As you may recall, I finished the vest for Cast On’s spring 2010 issue, just in time to join a knitalong hosted by Schoolhouse Press.  The first design was a neck-scarf in the Icelandic style.

In the beginning, you can see the pink diamond shapes, above the green provisional cast-on.

But as you go along, the decreases fold the piece up the middle and in at the sides, making the diamonds look like grid squares.

When the 2 sides collapse together at top-center, you carefully decrease/graft the final stitches together, and then pick up the cast-on to begin the border.

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The border gets pretty frilly toward the end.

I switched to a contrasting color midway through.

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The Kidsilk Haze yarn knit up like a cloud on 4.5 mm needles (US size 7).

The scarf is light and, I think, oh so lovely!  Thank you Marilyn van Keppel and Meg Swansen and all at Schoolhouse Press!

Isn’t that a lovely, drapery, wispy thing?!

I’m planning to give it to my SIL for Christmas.  She loves pink.

While I was working on the scarf, I finished a 3-color spiral cap. I used my basic pattern (Ravelry link), but changed the cast-on to Judy’s Magic and began the other 2 colors right away.  I like that better  (– need to update the pattern soon!)

3-Greens Cap

Once that was done, and once I finished the scarf, I went a bit nuts starting Too Many Things.

I got hold of myself!

The green and white circlet to the left, I’ve pulled off the needles and laid aside for later.  (a cap to match the “Peek through the Windows” Cast On vest)

The gold lace cap, with the 2 green possible-yarns, I’ve returned to the get-around-to-it stack.  (I hope to write up the pattern.)

The blue is in that same stack.  (potential swatch for potential sweater)

The dark multi has progressed to half a hat, and moving quickly.  This is the first I’ve used Wisdom Yarns’ “Skye” bulky; it feels pretty good.

The dark Lamb’s Pride is way-way to the back of my mind, for one-day some-day nice color.

The pink is another Cast On submission in-the-making that I don’t want to show yet. . . .  The Cascade “Venezia” suits it well, I think.

Meanwhile, the second project in the Schoolhouse Press knitalong was posted on Wednesday this week.  Faroese footlets/slippers.

Another design in a Scandinavian style by Marilyn van Keppel:  first Iceland, now the Faroe Islands!  One more to go after this: modular footies (begins 2 November, 2009).

(link to the KAL)

I’m finding more slow going than the lace, and not as much chatter in the Yahoo group.

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Today, I’ve done some knitterly playing around.  Two swatches.

One, of some stitch patterns used by designers in the book, 101 Designer One-Skein Wonders.

The lower pattern was a simple lattice, but the upper pattern involved twisted-st garter stitch, an ususual bind-off that I had to see to understand, and columns of dropped stitches.  Here’s a series of photos to show the process.

Every 4th stitch left live on needle during BO

Pull needle out of remaining stitches

Drop down the freed-up stitches, one at a time.

All stitch-columns now dropped. See the ladders.

Blocking

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Widens out substantially!

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In the second swatch of the day, I tried to adapt the neck-scarf’s lace pattern-stitch to a rectangle.  After several false starts, I figured that out to my satisfaction, and added on Marilyn van Keppel’s border at the top.  Perhaps this idea could become a sister-scarf to the triangle.  (I wonder how my other SIL feels about pink/purple?  She usually wears black and other “strong” colors. . . .)

Busy, busy!

I also posted some new videos to YouTube.  One on washing woolen handknits, especially intended for “my” pipers with special socks, and one (in 2 parts) demonstrating a tubular bind off for circular 2×2 ribbing.  (I’ll post the former here — not sure if it’ll link or embed.)

Back from Texas Travelling

I spent the past Thursday through Sunday in Texas, delivering my teen-genius son to Rice University {sniff} and visiting family and old friends.

We said goodbye to DH/DF and DDs/DSisters at the airport.  (DS is a great big brother!)

.     .     .     .       During our layover, we met with cousins Dick and Angela from Ft. Worth.

Angela is also a knitter!  (She’s the one who got me involved in SockMadness back in 2007.)

Check out her blog, “Purls Before Frogs”.

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Then, in Houston, we met up with cousin Briana and her husband Alejandro and baby-coming-in-October Gabriel.

And had a really good visit with Mrs. Hall, my chaperone on summer overseas student-group travel during high school.  Now 92, she retired from teaching high school this past year (!) so that she and her daughter (and 4 dogs and 2 cats!) can move to Wasilla, Alaska at the end of August.  (That’s a BIG change from Houston!)

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What did I knit on the journey?

I worked a little bit on The Sampler (mini-sweater) from Beth Brown-Reinsel’s book Knitting Ganseys.

But mostly I knit ’round-n-’round on this top-down cap in Noro Silver Thaw.Airport security had no problem with the 16″ plastic Bryspun circular.

Videos: Piping and Weaving

I spent most of yesterday wrestling with iMovie, YouTube, Facebook, and CyberDuck.  Here’s some of the fruit of that labor:  a short (31 seconds) video clip from Sunday’s Celtic Festival in which Robert Watt pipes while wearing his new kilt hose.  (He gave me permission to post this.  Thanks to Nanette Blanchard for requesting it.)

Follow this link to another interesting video I found from Knitting Daily TV:  Liz Gipson weaves on a rigid heddle loom (followed on that blog page by another video on weaving with knitting yarns.)  http://www.knittingdaily.com/blogs/daily/archive/2009/07/20/why-weave.aspx#v1

A Video by a New Master Knitter

Swatches, sweaters, and kitties — check it out!  (Fun, lipizzanknitter Leslie — thanks!)

Video about Free Patterns at Berroco

Today, I enjoyed watching this short video hosted on the Berroco site; it’s about How to Find Free Patterns (knit or crochet) at Berroco. Their (weekly?) KnitBits newsletter led me there.

[Embedding is not working -- I think you can follow the link, though]

And Greetings from my little Lady of Leisure. 

Interesting Color-Work Videos

I watched some interesting YouTube videos today, both using 2-color vertical stripes. One is done in “regular” 2-color knitting, the other is a 2-color brioche stitch.  [Tried to embed them, but I can't get that to work.  Links will work, though!]

This is a 2-color brioche or “double-dutch” stitch technique, demonstrated by BellaKnitting — goes with a Double-Dutch Hat pattern that I don’t have, but the technique is interesting anyway.

Here is a video by knitwhits that demonstrates color-dominance in 2-color knitting (also working one kind of cetered double decrease in vertical stripes) while making a “Nepali hat”, another pattern I don’t have.

Fun!

Color amid the White

Some delicate pink in my kitchen window:

See, I “rescued” a broken geranium stem from my neighbor’s driveway back in October/November.  Only a month ago, it looked like this: I love seeing it each day, and thought you might too!

Blogiversary Book Giveaway

I feel like doing another book giveaway!

My second blogiversary is coming up this month (the 28th), so that’ll be the occasion.  Here’s the book I’m offering up:  Debbie Bliss’ Classic Knits for Kids. 

Full disclosure:  This is a used book.  No marks inside, but the top corner is a bit crumpled.

To enter, leave a comment that includes a clean, kid-safe joke or riddle.  That’ll be fun!  (If you can’t come up with a joke, that’s OK.  Just say something nice about your interest in Arans,  Guernseys, and/or knitting for kids.)

I’ll select one commenter on Jan. 28th.  The comment form should ask you for an e-mail address, and I’ll write to you there.   If I don’t hear back from you within 5 days, I’ll select another recipient.

Tale of the YarnStealer

I woke up this morning to this disquieting sight at the foot of my bed, and knew something had happened during the night.  I followed the trail of evidence.

On the outer side of this kitty-door, the trail continued.  And at the other end of this hallway. . .  The victims!

Meanwhile, back at the scene of the kidnapping, er . . . yarn-napping. . . Aha!  The culprit!

She doesn’t seem to be having any troubles with her conscience.