be sorry before

Revisiting the Past

In the spirit of knitting from my stash for 2007, I looked through various UFOs, and settled on yet another Clapotis ahh - those patterns of yore!

In my period of purity, I finally had to make one out of its original yarn, Lorna's Laces Lion & Lamb, and I found -at least to me - the perfect colorway:  Lakeview!


how DO I make these pictures larger, anyway?  Can someone please tell me?

And it's in the process:



and who knows?  maybe it will be the first FO of 2007!

Coco doesn't want to know anything about it...



all HEALTH and HAPPINESS for the coming year.

the best evening of a notsogood day

I decided to visit my daughter today in Chelsea - Manhattan residents all know where it is ...  we had a lovely visit, which consisted of walking around the block to the video store, stopping along the way to buy her a hat, gloves, and scarf from a street vendor, all in PINK, her favorite color.

I left her in a fairly good mood (her, not me) due to her new ownership of two new videos (OK, one was a DVD) and hopped on the M5 Limited heading uptown.

I started knitting, as is my wont on such trips, and there were two young ladies behind me who tapped me on the shoulder and asked me what I was knitting:
and then they said "que linda!" (or would it be "upside down exclamation point que linda!"? - not sure).  Believe me, I'm this close to finishing it, in between the pashmina scarf for Froggy and various other guilt-provoking projects.

They were both adorable.  It seems that they were happy after having been to their yarn mecca,
and were both from Santo Domingo (where there seems to be no yarn to speak of) and they showed me their caps that they had knit, and their scarves, and they could NOT believe their luck of running into (or sitting  behind) a real live knitter... ps:  they both had taught themselves to knit on the web!

I told them that they should head back downtown from the Bronx and should visit these two stores before they left: Knitty City and Yarntopia, (yet to have its own web presence but able to carry Rowan and Noro away from the evil YarnCo mileage limit), since these are the two new yarn presences on the Upper West Side (long a bastion of only ONE LYS, unfortunately for many of us who didn't want to be doomed to walking up a flight of rickety and dangerous stairs and then being subjected to the girls' "yarn haven").

They thanked me profusely and got off the bus at 42nd Street.  They were 23 yrs old.  My daughter's age.

It was, as I said, both a good and a sad day.

...and I in my cap ...

with abject apologies to Clement Clark Moore, 'Tis the day of Christmas. 

I was taken with this hat pattern from elann, (which by copyright I cannot even link you to it - you'll have to find it on your own).  It's very clever construction, and I wanted to try it using their Esprit cotton which is identical to Fixation.

this is how it looked 12.23.06 after the body of the cap was done and just before the first ruffle was added.

and here it is after the first ruffle was done.

480 stitches on 16" circs? umm... I don't think so!

 

and here she is, folks!   

estimated knitting time: 12.23-12.25.06 probably about 10 hours, using probably about 1-1/2 balls of Elann Esprit cotton/elastic, 186 yds per 50 gm stretched and 100 yds relaxed.  It was a relaxing knit, and I didn't stretch it too much!

constantly interrupted by this little devil adorable kitten, who was constantly jumping over and around the flat-panel TV screen, thereby causing me to have no pictures or sound on today of all days. 

Guess I'll just have to read me a good book, or just celebrate Festivus.

Jitterbuggin'

I have too many well-meaning friends. Well, what I mean is, one of them (and you know who you are), turned me on to Colinette Jitterbug

and all of these pix show you  the colorway 118, Velvet Plum - it's marketed as sock yarn, but, due to the fact that it's a tad short on yardage, i.e. 267m/294 yds per 100g, and 100% merino, socks are almost not an option - at least for yours truly; I would rather have them a touch longer on the leg than this yardarge would allow, thereby necessitating two skeins for a pair and some left over - and no nylon content - so, what do you think I did? 

I decided that it might be better as a shawl - so five skeins came home with me - I drool over this colorway!  And another friend (and you do know who YOU are as well), was my lace/shawl guide, explaining to me that 1335m/1468.5 yds would definitely help me to make anything in Victorian Lace Today in the #2 weight suggestion.  Thanks, pal...

and XRX boys, (you DEFINITELY know who you all are) you should live and be well.

I found the Jitterburg yarn at Knitty City which happens to be my extreme LYS (half a block away from my house), and I understand there are also tons of it waiting for you at The Point.

If any of you were interested, here's the progress on the Noro Canna scarf - I frogged and re-cast on with 22 stitches and it's now close to perfection:



just started on the full skein and should have a decently warm scarf upon completion!

How many of us are old enough to remember the late 50s/early 60s song "Flying Purple People Eater"?  We're dating ourselves.

Happy Merry to all!!

THANK YOU, JUNO AND STEPHANIE...

for giving me the perfect pattern for this Noro Canna which was given to me by a sensational friend - I love it, had no idea what to do with it, but Juno announced the completion of her "manly scarf" made in Unikat - but I decided that this would SO WORK with the Canna -
and it does, and it will ...






my biggest problem is - I don't know how long this scarf is going to be!  I am on the first part of the gift (like, half a skein) and then there's another whole skein to go - I'm SO not scarfic - we shall see - this is 22 stitches on size US15 (10mm) Lantern Moon 10 inch needles in ebony ...

keep your fingers crossed, as the cats will cross their bodies ...

DO BLONDES HAVE MORE FUN?

Well, for a change, I was right!  The new Lantern Moon blonde needles arrived.  Everything about them is identical except for the color - which makes the knitting of the pashmina scarf so much more enjoyable:





which means that I actually may finish it before the weather turns (thereby saving my poor old eyes in the process. 

Poor little Coco was not to be left out, so she got another mind-enhancing item:



that's one intelligent kitten!

Stash Reduction

Following Wendy's lead, I have made the executive decision to try reallyreally hard to knit exclusively from my stash for 2007.

Froggy must have heard me thinking about it read my mind; he asked for a black cashmere scarf (well, didn't actually ask, but said that he saw one in a store and he really liked it, but didn't want to spend the $$).

So yours truly volunteered. 

What was I thinking?  Even though he wanted a thin and relatively short one, I forgot how impossible it is to knit black anything.

I was spurred on by my recent fit of reorganization:

which led to my rediscovery of a ton (and I mean that in the truest sense of the word) of Joseph Galler pashmina cashmere in black that I had purchased a really long time ago back in the 20th century. 

It was to have become a massive shawl, which I knit and then proceeded to rip, since it was catching on everything it passed.

So a small portion of the stuff is going to become the scarf:

at this point,

I'm thrilled about the flash,

since the stitches can be easily seen (maybe I should keep the flash on the whole time I'm knitting - just to be able to see the stitches!)

I grabbed a pair of US5 3.75mm needles, and cast on 47 stitches.  It's done in the mistake-stitch rib,(take any number of 4+3, Row 1: K2,P2* repeat until last 3 sts, K2,P1. All following rows:  repeat Row 1. that's the total pattern.) and so far, it meets with his approval.  He's extremely picky when it comes to anything sartorial.

ps:  the Lantern Moon needles happen to be ebony, not a happy mix with any dark yarn, so I remember ed that Seaport Yarns was having a sale on blonde LM 10 inch straights - so a pair of US5's is on its  way to me right now... I know - it's still 2006!

The Biggest Chanukah Candle in the City

or is it Hannukah?                        

while driving up 6th Avenue just after sundown, Chloe and I caught the Empire State Building lit up in honor of the Festival of Lights.

Hooray for our town!!

Scarfed It All Up

I've been reading a lot of blog entries over the past weeks about red scarves. 

And then there are pink scarves.

And I wanted to practice crochet. 

I dug out a ball of School Products red cashmere, one of three that had been sitting in my stash for at least three or four years, dug up a free pattern on the internet, and set about learning how to crochet a "curly whirlie" or "potato chip" scarf or whatever they're called.  This particular pattern is the Corkscrew Spiral Scarf.

I've knit a number of them over the last couple of years, but never got around to trying to crochet one.

I'm on the second of three required rows:

and, it's looking kinda nice, if I do say so myself. 

No, I'm not keeping it for myself...or maybe I will ... but... I think I'm going to give it to my dear, dear friend, who got some really, really bad news this past week in the health department. 

I've got to do something to make her feel better.

And Coco helped me with the laundry today--

she heartily approved!

Good health to you all.

HUMP DAY

So, today in the big apple was gorgeous, weatherwise, and filled with what I thought were going to be errands. 

But I ended up helping a dear friend, who truly needed my company.

I also am still in the throes of stash arrangement; I would hope and pray that by the end of the week I will have contained (and catalogued) all of my errant yarngoblins!

I've put some stuff up for sale - click on "what's for sale" on the right of the blog (scroll down to find it) and see if anything suits your fancy... more to come, definitely.

Meanwhile, there are some kittens in this house who have decided to grow a bit - here's an example:




WOW!! when she first came to us, Coco basically fit into my husband's hand ... but now, she's twice as long as the laptop - and I was lucky to catch her sleeping (which she doesn't love to do when the humans are home).  She's 18 weeks old today.

And I leave you with a definite imprint of how she might match Wendy's latest handspun marvel:
see that little patch of red on her hind leg??