This and That

I've been doing a little knitting, though not much. I finished some plain green ribbed socks for me, started some purple and black socks for me, started a couple of hats, and I think there are few other things in progress right now. I don't have any new knitting pics today, though.


Last week I wove this scarf:


And a close up:


I used a hand-painted 100% merino sock yarn for the warp and a solid black 75% wool/25% nylon for the weft. I'm pleased with the resulting fabric, though I have still got a lot to learn about creating nice selvedges. In this case, I was trying so hard not to have my weaving draw in, I ended up with a lot of slop along the edges. Sooner or later I'll get that down.

Today I finally finished a shirt I started sewing several weeks ago. There's no reason that this should have taken more than two days, except that I think I was avoiding it out of fear that it would be a disappointment.



This fabric is a bit of a mystery to me. I think I bought it on a remnant heap somewhere, without any clue to fiber content. Since I know I paid next to nothing for it, it was kind of a test run for the pattern. I'm not entirely happy with the pattern and not sure I'd use it again. The front view looks ok, but the fit in the back is pretty sloppy. It's made to be a shirt-jacket and have enough ease to wear over other clothes, but even so, it's probably not the best choice for a woman with a lot of curves. It'll be a nice extra layer in transitional weather, so worth the effort of sewing it. But it's more for comfort than style.

Our cat Guy Noir had a close call with a car in mid-October. He spent nearly a week at the emergency animal hospital. He had broken his pelvis in two places, and the base of his tail. They did surgery to put a pin in his pelvis, to keep the worse of the two breaks in proper position for healing. He came home October 20, and is to be in confinement with minimal activity for 4 weeks. He has about 10 more days of confinement, then a slow re-introduction to normal activity.

That's the news here.

We're Keeping the Cat!*

(Click pic for bigger image)

This summer we've been befriending this cat, whom we've dubbed Guy Noir. He has half a tail, a tough-guy swagger, and a heart of gold. On Monday we got him to the vet and had him neutered and since then, he's showing all signs of being a great pet. He's still pretty jittery and rarely relaxes completely. But he's getting there. He prefers to spend his nights outside still, but I expect that to change in the fall when it starts to get chilly at night.

In other news, I've been working on getting Knitcircus #7 ready for the printers between battles on the domestic front. It's all coming together nicely!

Don't forget, Alt Knitting Camp happens August 2-4, at Devil's Lake State Park, campsite #110. We still have room for 6 more overnight campers, and day visitors are welcome, especially if they bring some goodies to share with the pack! Just email me at elizabethmorriso (at) gmail (dot) com.

*The Ravelry Rubberneckers will understand what this means.

New Lace Scarf; New Photostylist

This is the Fountain Lace pattern from Barbara Walker's The Craft of Lace Knitting, which I'm sure was rolled into one of the re-releases of her stitch dictionaries. I just don't know which one. I am loving this so far for several reasons.
1. I like a knitting pattern that gives a pretty good effect for minimal mental outlay.
2. This stitch pattern has only four "action rows."
3. I'm using some yarn from a sweater I got at the Digger's Outlet last week. So, my cost for this project will amount to about 25 cents when it's all done. If that. The sweater was a wide-ribbed cowl neck with the biggest cowl I've seen in a while. Seriously, that cowl could almost double as an afghan. (OK, I'm exaggerating. But just a bit.)
4. The yarn is proving to be very lace-friendly. The manufacturer's tag says that it's 43% rayon, 39% nylon, 10% angora rabbit, and 8% cotton. I'm honestly not feeling the synthetic content at all.

So, I was barely out there, taking my pictures, when my "helper" arrived.



All Your Lace Are Belong To Me




It's a nice sunny day for a roll on the bricks, eh? Don't you just want to rub that belly?

Updates

More of the same


The Blue Faced Leicester from Sandy's Palette continues. I'm really really really loving the results I'm getting. Two 70 gram skeins so far, the first has about 205 yards; the second, about 220. This makes a nice sport weight kind of yarn. I'm a bit over half way through the batch.

More of the same, again


The basic garter stitch scarf from early handspun. It's about 45 inches long at this point. I think I'll be able to make a smallish hat out of the same yarn when the scarf is a good length. Either that, or keep on with the scarf until ridiculous proportions, a là Tom Baker/Dr. Who. Well, not quite. Getting a 20 ft scarf out of 7 ounces of fingering weight yarn would be a feat worthy of the TARDIS, which I don't possess.

A Problem

I'm cruising along last night, thinking I'm making such great progress. And I count stitches on one half of the front, to see how many more neckline decreases until the shoulder.

Hmm, seems a bit off.

Count the other side.

Uh Oh! I have a couple extra repeats of the design on one side than the other. Which means I've placed one of the steeks for the armholes in the wrong place.

Having pondered the Fix-It options, I know I have to frog.

I think I'll just let that project be for a few days. The weather is nice. The weeds are over-taking all the flowerbeds. The lawn is getting long. More baby buckthorns are springing up under shrubs. (I do like the thrill of pulling the small ones. It's nice knowing that's one less pain-in-the-butt weed tree in the world.)

And my family needs me to go to the supermarket today.

Here are two recent pictures of my cats enjoying the spring!

Mead Scarf Progress

Before we get to knitting, here's a macro picture of a spiderwort that I took in the rain the other day. Yeah, I'm nutty like that.

I wish you could all see it full size on a big monitor. The thready bits around the stamens are very interesting.

On to knitting...

The Mead Scarf is measuring over 50 inches long. I still have a bunch more yarn. I'm hoping to make it to around 60 inches. I really want it to be a long scarf when it's blocked, ideally more than 6 feet.

I enlisted Mr. SABLE's help to hold it up in the sunlight and the Little Emperor wanted in on the action. He's about 52 inches tall these days.

And every knitting blog needs an occasional gratuitous pet picture. This is Ossie, our boy cat, who was out catching a few late afternoon rays on the bags of path-building supplies.