Virtual Yarns posted new offerings.

I should have been done with Roscalie by now but ended up reworking the upper body after messing up the decreases several times.

To make things even more confusing I extended the body by 8 rounds without thinking of how that would affect the line up of the design at the shoulders. Traditionally Fair Isle sweaters are planned so that there are no partial designs at the shoulders or sides. But  as Baldrick always says, “I’ve got a cunning plan” and should have more to show next week.

Last weekend I dropped by The Weaving Works hoping to find a copy of Favorite Socks. No luck, they were already sold out. I did however find a new pattern to add to my list of potential projects. It’s this cabled cardigan by Kathy Zimmerman for Classic Elite. It was hanging in the shop with other items from that pattern book, although this is the only one that spoke to me. If I do ever make this one, I’ll probably find a soft Aran type yarn rather than Montera.

The Pacific Northwest had a huge storm roll in Thursday night. In Seattle it rain about two inches in one hour! I’ve only seen that kind of rain during the rainy season in Thailand.

Many areas are still without power and/or phone service. We were lucky and didn’t loose power or have any trees fall on our house. Our ISP, however, is located in an area that got hit hard so our Internet connection has been down and was just restored a few hours ago.

Since I’m making slow progress on my mitten design I decide to get clicking on another small project. It’s Sunrise-Sunset socks by Jaya Srikrishanan from Big Girl Knits. The photo shows my swatch. Yeah, I do swatches even for socks.

I’m not sure if I like the colors. The red/purple yarn is beautiful but the blue/purple is a little bright for my taste.

Instead of following the pattern, I started from the toes using Judy’s Magic Cast-on and adjusting the size to fit my feet. The pattern is for a specific size but the book also includes a section after the pattern that describes how to adjust a pattern to fit  a specific foot and leg.

This week I’ve been reading “A History of Hand Knitting” by Richard Rutt. I just had to laugh when I got to the last section on page 161.

Socks and Stockings were the most frequently hand-knitted garments from the beginning of popular knitting until the 1950’s. Today they can hardly be seen, and only the old can remember how to turn a heel with out referring to a book. … A few patterns only remain in print; and hosiery wool, though still spun, is not readily available. Stockings were always dull work. Today’s knitter expects more pleasure from the craft.

I wonder what he thinks now (if he’s still with us).

The girls went to the vet for their spay surgery yesterday. Mittens came home today but her sister Sophie was too active after waking up from surgery and opened her stitches while recovering at the vet. They’ll fix the stitches today but that means Sophie won’t be home until Monday. It’s hard not to be nervous about this after just loosing Toby last spring.

This week I’ve been web surfing finding mittens and fingerless gloves for inspiration. Here’s what I’ve found.

– Early 19th century mittens in the National Museum of American History

– A blog tour of mittens in a Selbu museum

– Fair Isle mittens, gloves, hats and sweaters offered by Shetland Collection

– Check out Eunny’s Anemoi Mittens

– Not gloves or mittens; but I love the pattern on this purse

I’ve been working on sketching a snowboard related motif to go on either fingerless gloves or mittens.

These two youngsters came home with us yesterday. No official names yet. Both are adjusting well to their new home and the other feline house guest. We haven’t tried knitting yet; that will probably have to wait until nap time.

I keep meaning to write more about my fiber finds in Catalonia and the Pyrenees but just couldn’t put the Swallowtail Shawl down long enough to get anything done. It was started on the plane trip back and I just finished it last night. Besides the nupps (which I would call knitting speed bumps) it’s a really quick knit.

Last week I meet Evelyn (the designer) at a local knitting group and asked her my burning question about this pattern. Why does it suggest placing a safety pin on the wrong side? She said that when the pin serves as a reminder that the  last two stitches need to be knitted (not purled) to maintain the garter stitch border.

Finally, an excellent opportunity to use the dressing wires that I purchased this summer while attending the NWRSA conference.

It was easy to slide the wire into the yarn-over holes on the edges but figuring out how to keep the shawl spread out was a bit tricky. The best solution was to clamp the wires to my bookcase which happens to be the same width.

By the way, I couldn’t resist getting one of those shawl pins made by Romi.

So, now it’s back to finishing those darn buttonholes on Firebirds. I promise.

Just got back from a week long holiday in Catalonia and the Pyrenees.

Firebirds didn’t make it into my pack so there was no progress this week.  However, I did find some buttons in Barcelona that might work out well.

I didn’t set out to make this a fiber holiday but did manage to visit a few yarn stores in Barcelona and two Mohair goat farms in the Ariège region.

More details and photos to come later this week.

On the flight over I asked if it was OK to take my knitting on the plane and was told at the check-in counter that Heathrow security probably wouldn’t let the needles through. When I heard this I decided to put my needles in my checked baggage.

Most of the week I was too busy to knit but was itching do some on the flight home so this time I decided to go ahead and see what would happen and risked having my needles taken away. I was pleasantly surprised when I made it through Heathrow security with my bamboo circular needles and was able to start the Swallowtail Shawl from Interweave Knits.

I’ve got to say, that while getting the needles on the plane wasn’t a problem, knitting while squeezed into a middle seat with my elbows tucked at my side wasn’t all that comfortable or fun. I finally gave up knitting mid-flight.

Gosh, I sure do have lots of yarn left over.

I ordered enough yarn for the extra large sweater thinking I would make a large. I wanted to make sure I didn’t run out of yarn so I thought ordering enough for one size larger would be a prudent idea. Turns out that I had  second thoughts about how wide the large is and  I ended up making a medium sized one instead.

OK, now for the truth. I’m showing this pile of yarn because I don’t have much progress to show. I got stuck on in the middle of the last band while making button holes. I made one and didn’t like how it looked. Now I’m not sure whether I want buttons or clasps. It’s a tough decision.

Thanks for all the wonderful comments and encouragement.

It’s almost finished but there are still a few more things to do.

* Finish the right front band
* Trim the steeks
* Darn loose ends
* Dress the sweater using a woolly board
* Find and sew on buttons (maybe)
* Take  and post a photo of me wearing it

I haven’t knitted much this week but have found lots of eye candy on the web.

I like color.

Last week I popped over to the Interweave website to see when the next issue of Spin Off was coming out. While looking at the blurb about the next issue I noticed a picture of a very colorful felted bag. When I went back to their website a few days later, the photo had been replaced with the cover of the Fall 2006 issue. I wasn’t sure if I would ever see that bag again since it wasn’t on the cover.

Yesterday, my copy of arrived and I found the bag on  page 60 with an article by Nancy Roberts called “Machine Knitting to Dye For”. This morning I got a chance to read through the article and it amazed me. She describes how she knits plain white yarn on a knitting machine creating “blank” fabric, dies this fabric and then unravels the yarn to use it for a totally different object that is knitted by hand.

I did a bit of searching and found a picture of Nancy’s work including that bag. It’s is the one in this picture with wooden handles. The article says that it was knit with two colorways in a stranded pattern (a.k.a. Fair Isle Knitting?). I’ve been thinking about this concept of knitting with two colorways ever since knitting my Fair Isle socks.

Check out this shawl by Anni. Isn’t it amazing. Looks like she used the same multi-colored yarn but started each strand at a different color. Doesn’t the yarn she uses look very similar to the type Nancy dyes?

And if that’s not enough eye candy, look at these socks by Sara Lamb. I found her blog while looking for more information about Nancy’s technique. I’ve seen her work in Spin Off and admired it. It tempts me to take up weaving.