shawl pins from Yarn Overs

I am back amongst the living. This flu-thing was horrible. I still have little energy. But at least I feel sort of OK. All I can say is… get your flu shot!

Thank you, gentle reader, for your kind wishes. Really, it meant a lot to know that people actually wonder what happened to me if I disappear.

Speaking of disappearing… Has anyone heard from Maia? She hasn’t blogged for a long time and isn’t responding to my emails. I would just like to know if she is OK. If you have heard from her, please let me know!

OK. I have actually pseudo-knitting content — pseudo because I haven’t actually been knitting anything at all. I went to knit night last Thursday at Tangle, knit about three rows, sat and stared at everyone, and left early to go home and go to bed. Really exciting around Chez PI it has been lately, let me tell you.

So here is pseudo-knitting content.

These lovely pins, being modeled by the PNW Shawl, are from Yarn Overs: Handcrafted jewelry for you knitted garments, and are hand made by Robert Howard in Colorado. The one on the left, Rings, is brass. Leaf, on the right, is copper. These two, and others of Robert’s creations, are available in copper, brass and nickel silver.

These are not small pins. Leaf is 3″ long and Rings is 2-1/2″ wide. The size makes them suitable for sweaters, jackets and scarves as well as lacy bits of shawls. These would make lovely gifts for any knitter in your life. (I’m not sure of the timeframe — they may have to be post-Christmas gifts, now.)

Go. Order. You know you want to!

So what are y’all doing for whatever winter holiday you celebrate? #1 Son is currently in California on tour. He will be back in time for Christmas (our holiday of choice, more or less), but will be leaving again on New Years Eve and will be gone for 5 weeks. I will miss him as he will not be able to call me much. But the little birds have to fly, eh? Somewhere in there I can hopefully catch him long enough to get a picture of the scarf.

… that I don’t love my child.

I have no pictures today. I have no pictures because I’ve been sick all week and I’m still sick. For one reason or another, I had to go to work every single day last week. By Friday, I felt like I’d been rode hard and put away wet. I came home early, crawled into bed, and stayed there.

Mostly.

Because a week ago, as you will remember, #1 Son came over to do laundry and cook dinner for me. He asked me to knit him a scarf. Now, I’m not really much of a scarf knitter. I find them sort of tedious, actually. But I agreed that I would. Because, after all, #1 Son rarely asks me to knit anything at all, and I can’t let my child walk around with a cold neck, now, can I? I didn’t have suitable yarn, but I figured I could pick something up at Thursday knit night at Tangle.

Except I was too sick to go to Thursday knit night.

So by Friday I was starting to panic, in a cold-drug-addled sort of way, about yarn and scarfs and children with cold necks. I called Tangle Friday morning and the phone was answered by the lovely Kay. I explained that I needed yarn and gave some vague requirements for colors and asked her to pick some out for me and I’d pick it up on my way home. Kay listened to my sad tale of woe and told me not to worry, it would be taken care of. And it was. Tangle didn’t have quite the colors that #1 Son was looking for, but I ended up with Louet Gems worsted weight in Black, Mustard and Marigold. The Marigold is actually plied strands of different colors — ecru, brown and burnt orange. Mustard looks more ecru to me than actually mustard, too. But, whatever… I digress…

Aside to Kay: You were so right. It was plenty of yarn. I didn’t need the extra skein. My only excuse is that my brain was not working well enough to add.

#1 Son had seen a scarf in a book that he liked. So I will show you a picture of the book, having no other visuals to offer.

I came home and actually swatched because #1 Son was very specific about the size he wanted. Then I cast on a mess of stitches and started a simple garter-stitch scarf worked lengthwise: K 4 rows, change colors, K 4 rows, change colors, lather, rinse, repeat. Over and over again until the thing was wide enough. It was mindless and soothing and exactly the sort of knitting I needed in my sicky state. Black, Marigold, Black, Mustard, Black, Marigold, Black, etc. When it was wide enough, I bound off and added fringe, thereby avoiding having to weave the ends in.

Last night I crawled out of bed for a PI Christmas tradition: Dinner out with #1 Son, Bro J, SIL L and niece Z, followed by the Christmas With The Trail Band concert. I blog about this concert every year. Really, if you are in the Portland area, this is a show that is well worth seeing. This was my and #1 Son’s 10th year of attending. J, L and Z have joined us for the last 4 or 5 years. They are marvelous musicians and always have wonderful guests.

#1 Son pronounced his scarf perfect and even really nice, Mom. The colors, while not exactly what he had asked for, are (in his words) nice neutrals that would go with everything.

I have no pictures of it at all, so you will have to imagine what it looks like.

I came home and crawled back into bed and here I stay. I will have to foray out eventually. But not yet.

Wings Of A Dream (so far)

There hasn’t been a lot of knitting going on at chez PI this week — or at least not much that I can show you. You might notice from the right-hand sidebar countdown that Christmas is coming quickly! I do have a little bit of holiday knitting to complete. Hopefully it will be done today or tomorrow.

I have knit a bit on The Wings Of A Dream. I have finished the first chart and I’m about 1/4 through the second chart.

You will recall that this is Blue Moon Silk Thread in Thraven. I am knitting with a double strand, because this yarn is truly about the size of sewing thread. But, ohhhh…. gentle reader, this is very, very nice to knit with. Is there anything nicer than silk? I admit to being a total silkaholic. I wish there was some way to really show you the colors in the yarn. But it’s pre-dawn early so I’m stuck with artificial light. This was the best I could do. Sometimes it looks black, sometimes it looks blue. Love it, love it, love it!

I still don’t have a decent art-shot of the PNW Shawl (aka The Great Green Glob). Every now and then, Mother Nature likes to remind us that we do, in fact, live in a rain forest. If you have been watching the news lately, you may have seen that we were sort of inundated here in the Pacific Northwest this weekend and early this week. We really had a lot of rain. A lot. I saw one reporter on the news who said, It must be a lot wetter than normal because even the natives are carrying umbrellas. I don’t know if you saw the video of the salmon swimming up I-5? That was interesting. I don’t ever recall I-5 being closed for so long because of flooding. It might not be open again until next week. Since that is the major route between Portland and Seattle, it’s kind of hard to get to there from here. But the trains are supposed to be running maybe today, so that will help.

Chez PI weathered the storm with no problem, although I did lose my power for about 5 hours on Monday. But so many areas were just devastated. The clean-up is going to take years, I’m afraid. My heart goes out to those who have lost their homes and businesses as entire towns were drowned.

Last Sunday, #1 Son braved the weather and came to my house to do laundry. But the really nice thing about his visit was he also kicked me out of the kitchen and cooked a really nice, spicy curry. Yum. He can do laundry any day if he’s going to cook, too! Although it may seem impossible when they are teenagers, strangely enough, our children do grow up.

#1 Son also asked me if I’d knit him a scarf. He rarely asks me to knit anything for him. So a scarf will be on my needles very soon!

First, just a bit of non-yarn-related info: #1 Son has managed to purchase the ticket for his out-of-the-country trip in January. Of course, he has absolutely no money left and will have to live on water and the good graces of others, but he has 30 days left to figure out how to earn a little spending money. I am, actually, quite proud of him.

In more yarn-related news, I really, really want to show you pictures of the Pacific Northwest Shawl, but the weather refuses to cooperate. As I type this, it is snowing gently and the light is completely flat. According to the weatherpeople, we are expecting a humongous storm later this weekend. But one site reports the chance of scattered sun this afternoon. Should that happen, I will run quickly out and snap as many pics as I can in the hope that I will get one or two worth sharing. But even inside, there’s just no light.

Ann in Richmond mentioned that I had the presence of mind to record the whole repairing-the-GGG process. In reality, after standing across the room, swearing in abject horror, the first thought that really came to mind was I so need to blog this. I grabbed my camera before even edging in for a closer look. How sadly geeky does that make me?

But all of this is not what I really want to talk to you about today.

All knitterly creation stems from one simple element: yarn. It is the baker’s flour, the jeweler’s gold, the gardener’s soil. Yarn is creation, consolation, and chaos all spun together into one perfect ball. It’s a simple concept, twisting fibers together into a continuous thread of yarn. But the variety of fibers, blends, and spins is truley infinite. So is our relationship with yarn. We love it, we covet it, we are knocked senseless by it. Yet sometimes we are baffled, thwarted, and betrayed by it.

Clara Parkes (of Knitter’s Review fame) begins her wonderful new book, The Knitter’s Book of Yarn: The Ultimate Guide to Choosing, Using, and Enjoying Yarn, with that lovely, evocative paragraph.

I immediately wanted to know more. And more. And more.

Want to know how wool and silk are the same (or different)? Where cashmere comes from? What the term worsted really means? Why silk sometimes stinks and how to de-stink it? How viscose is made? What’s good about acrylic? It’s all here. Section 1 contains a ton of information about all of the different fibers, from angora to yak, the special properties of each and how to evaluate them.

Not a spinner? (note: I am not) Never been up close and personal with a llama? Section 2 explores how yarn, from indie to mass-marketed, is prepared, spun and dyed and where you can get organic and minimally processed yarns and fibers in all stages of preparedness.

There is a whole chapter on pills. Not the kind you swallow here, gentle reader, but the kind that form on sweaters (and hats and blankets and scarves and…). Parkes not only explains what to do to remove pills, but also why they form in the first place and how to evaluate a yarn to determine its pill potential. I now have a much better idea of why my Noro Silk Garden jacket always pills like there’s no tomorrow, but my Noro Kochoran sweater, although it is much fluffier and fuzzier, does not.

from Cabled Tea Cozy

Section 3 begins with an exploration of plies, and why we as knitters care. Starting with single-ply yarn and continuing through various numbers of mutiple-plies, Parkes explains how the twists cause the yarn to behave and how knitters can work with that behavior. Following the guidelines here, knitters can match yarns and patterns that will work together. Did you know that simply rewinding a skein of single-ply yarn will stop its tendency to bias in stockinette stitch? I didn’t either, but Parkes explains how and why. Following the chapters on plies are chapters on cabled yarns, textured yarns, and neat things like boucle and chenille. Section 3 ends with a chapter on why yarns felt, why sometimes they won’t, and how to get the best felting results.

Every chapter in Section 3 includes patterns, and every pattern includes a note from the designer about how the yarn was chosen to work with that pattern. And what designers! This is a who’s-who list, gentle reader. Knitters from adventurous beginner to experienced knit-guru will all find patterns here to pique their interest. There are one-skein quickies and lace, blankets and sweaters, bags and socks. You will want to knit them all. Or at least I do.

The book ends with a reference section. How to take care of your yarn, with special notes on different fibers. Determining WPI and yardage requirements. The standard yarn-weight numbering system vs. the older non-standard systems (i.e. #1 = sock / fingering / baby), along with typical gauges and recommended needles for each. A list of abbreviations, including how-to instructions. A recommended reading list; designer bios and a glossary.

I love yarn. I love all the yarns. I love to gaze and fondle and squeeze and pet and smell. Even yarns I would never in a millions years knit with, I love. The Knitter’s Book of Yarn is devoted to such sheer fibery knowledge, with tons of gorgeous yarn-pr0ny pictures, that my inner yarn-geek is fed in the best possible way and I want to just grab my nearest needles and start knitting up a storm.

This book instantly earned a prominent place on my reference shelf.

We can’t all be yarn whisperers, but with The Knitter’s Book of Yarn in hand, we can at least understand our yarn and learn to work with an appreciate it even more than we already do (if that is possible).

The book ends perfectly: Let the journey begin.

starting the repairs

Thank you, everyone, for your kind thoughts and encouragement on the hole-ish disaster during the Great Green Glob blocking.

Today I picked up the GGG from Tangle. I will have to stop calling it the Great Green Glob. While still green, and hopefully great, it is no long globish in any sense of the word. But for this post, I’ll call it the GGG just for old time’s sake.

So, I picked the GGG up and brought it home to assess the damage.

By suturing with sock yarn (I’m not sure, but I think that is STR Rooster Rock), I had stopped the general hemorrhage of dropped stitches. But the repair had left a scar. The GGG still required a bit of plastic surgery to minimize the appearance of the wound.

My surgical implements included a bit of left-over yarn, my cool crochet hook/dental pick tool, tapestry needles and pins. The plan was to duplicate stitch (and in some cases actually create knit stitches) with the yarn to hold the whole thing together and make it look at least similar to the non-damaged part of the shawl.

half done

The cool thing about blocking lace, apart from the general magicalness of the whole process, is that the yarn stays in the configuration it’s given during blocking. That meant that I could take the sock yarn out and even tease the stitches apart with the dental pick, and not risk more dropped stitches. The rest of the yarn just stayed exactly as it was blocked.

Taking a harder look, I think what happened was that I had dropped a stitch when attaching the border. Twice. Oops. I had two holes that needed to be fixed. I wove the piece of left-over yarn through the stitches to hold everything the way it was supposed to be. There were no stitches missing, just one or two that needed a little help staying where they were.

This picture shows one of the fixes completed. The pin is there to hold the tail of the fixer yarn so it doesn’t get misplaced. This stuff is fairly fine, after all.

Then I turned my attention to the second hole. This one had stitches actually missing — i.e. a mistake in my knitting — as well as stitches dropped. Some of the fix was made by pulling the stitches into shape and holding them there. Some of the fix was made by creating new stitches with the fixer yarn.

a little blocking

Once all of the fixes where done, I trimmed the tails of the fixer yarn and spit-spliced them to the main shawl. This merino felts if you so much as breath on it, so this was not as drastic as it sounds.

Mission nearly accomplished, I pinned out just the fixed area and applied a bit of water and steam with my iron and then left it to dry and block.

It’s not perfect. Nothing really could be perfect, gentle reader, except not making the mistake in the first place. But it’s not bad. As it dries, the patch is becoming less and less noticeable. I think that once I take the pins out it’s going to look reasonably OK.

Whew.

I will show you the results as soon as I’m home when there’s light and I can get some decent pictures of the finished product. It’s purdy. And will henceforth be known as The Pacific Northwest Shawl or The PNW Shawl if I’m in a hurry.

half blocked

Anyone who wonders why I love knitting lace has only to look at this picture.

The Great Green Glob was too big to bock — even at Tangle — all in one go-round. Only half would fit on the blocking board, and there just wasn’t room for the whole thing. Saturday I showed up at Tangle and pleaded my case (no blocking wires, not enough room, etc.) to the lovely Alice, who said that of course I could block in their class room and use her wires and blocking board. I blocked out 1/2 of The Great Green Glob, knit for awhile with the local knitters — Alice has tons of new yarn to fondle, too!

Sunday, I unpinned The Great Green Glob and removed the wires.

To me, blocking lace is a miracle that never gets tired. On the left, lovely blocked Pacific Northwest Shawl. On the right, unblocked Great Green Glob. Every time I do this, I can’t believe that it will actually stay the way I pinned it out. I love blocking! So after everyone oooed and ahhhed over the blocked part, I started in industriously blocking part the second back in the classroom.

OMG! WTF!!! ACK!!!

I tugged gently on the diagonal to stretch it out.

Ting! OMG! A stitch dropped. I jumped back and then stood in abject horror. I’m usually a pretty relaxed knitter, even in the face of adversity. But I actually felt sick to my stomach.

I apologize to any Tangle patron who might have heard some rather colorful language from the direction of the classroom. Really, I’m usually more refined. I hope you will understand that I was feeling extreme angst.

I stood and pondered and tried to figure out what to do. Note, that this whole time I’m standing all the way across the room from that hole, because I didn’t want to even breath on it for fear the whole GGG would collapse into a great green pile of tangled yarn.

I took a deep breath and eased closer. OK. It looked like a dropped stitch. I know how to fix dropped stitches, even in lace. I can handle this.

emergency surgery

I started searching in my knitting bag. OK. I had some sock yarn that had been left over from some pair of socks. I had this really cool little tool that’s a crochet hook on one end and a dental pick on the other. I had pins.

The main thing now was to do enough emergency surgery that the patient could survive blocking. Then, once I could get it home, I still have plenty of that green merino laceweight. I could repair it better at home and with it already blocked. That, at least, was my working hypothesis.

I carefully examined the hole. It really does look like a dropped stitch. To actually repair it, I’d have to unravel all of the I-cord and most of the border. Not going to happen. But, I reasoned, I could fix the holes and then, when I get it home, duplicate stitch with the same yarn. It should, I hope, be fairly unnoticeable when I’m finished.

I hope.

So here the emergency surgery is in process. I have some stitches being held by pins, some already tied together with sock yarn, and I’m in the process of closing up the last part of the hole.

blocking

Once everything was tied together, I finished stretching and pinning. I had to hurry now in order to get it pinned before the classroom was needed for the Sunday afternoon kid’s knitting class. Although they might have actually enjoyed watching me block, I wasn’t sure I was up for that right then.

Once it was all stretched out and pinned, I set the blocking board in the hall, where it would be out of the way. Note the orange sock yarn sutures tying up the wound. The already blocked half is carefully pinned up at the corner to keep it off the ground.

I could have blocked it larger than I did, had the blocking board been bigger or more room been available. I didn’t block it as severely as I sometimes do. But I do like the way the blocked part looks.

Of course, the real mystery is: how did I drop a stitch and not notice it all the way through finishing the last few rows of the shawl, all of the edging, and all of the I-cord. How did that stitch hold together all the way through that without forming a hole?

Stay tuned for updates on how the surgery turns out.

I don’t think I will ever again feel quite so cavalier about blocking lace.