Projects in the wings

I was going to try to demonstrate the amazing cast on for center out knitting with 2dpns, but after I spent two hours trying to photograph the process, with the camera's remote trigger clamped between my teeth, causing me to drool in an unsightly manner, I decided there has to be a better way, and it is probably has to be video.  So that post will wait for another day.

Shopping in your own stash is pretty remarkable.  When I was a young and stupid knitter (all of six years ago) I would buy yarn just 'cause it was pretty!  And on some rare occasions I bought enough for entire projects even though I had little sense for yardage.  During the great knitting famine of 2010 and 2011 my stash sat tucked away in bags, to be honest I think it did a little breeding, there seems to be much more yarn than I thought I had.   And there is a wonderful cache of Rowan yarns!  Years ago we had a great knit shop in San Jose, beautiful light, splendid shop, with heaps and heaps of Rowan yarns.  I lurked and bought.   And then one day it vanished.  Ok maybe that isn't exactly accurate, I did move to LA for a few years; any number of things could have happened (although I think the economy might have been a huge factor).  But this lovely shop on The Alameda in San Jose was so pretty and lured me off my hill....  Suffice to say I now have Green Planet Yarn in Campbell, and Imagiknit in San Francisco to keep me happy.  They are there when I need to look.  I'm still on that yarn diet...  mostly.

Instead here are a few of the things that I am working on, and or plan to start in the next few weeks.  And one thing I hope to knit before I get old and saggy!

This stunning tunic from Vogue Spring/Summer 2010 has been started and frogged more times than I care to think about.  Honestly I picked the wrong yarn.  I had a variegated mauve and beige yarn in mind for this, but it is absolutely horrid.  I will knit this beauty (using the fabulous center knit cast on) when I find the right yarn.  (A clear violation of shopping the stash).

Jeannie Atkinson's Butterfly has been on my wish list for years.  I dove into knitting this when I had no idea what I was doing AT ALL!  And I  have an embarrassing amount of Kid Silk in my stash.  This is the summer for Butterfly...  two reasons; I now know how to read a lace chart, and I need something stunning to wear to the 2012 Gatsby Summer Afternoon.

This is from the Classic Elite site, I have knit this scarf in every yarn under the sun...  The scarf is called "Silky Alpaca Lace Scarf"  and should be knit in Silky Alpaca Lace weight.  I love the pattern, I have knit it in lace weight, DK, chunky...  Its a fun knit, easy repeat.  This is a yarn that I purchased for a tunic that I loved, and I thought it wouldn't stripe quite so much.  In a scarf a definite stripe works, in this tunic it was loathsome.  And I have enough yardage to knit 23 scarfs!!!

Pretty silk and mohair hand dyed, hand spun that I bought at a lovely yarn store in Colorado...  sadly I can't recall the shop's name, but it was in Boulder.

This is some terrific lavender alpaca that I purchased at Stitches West in '06?  It was all there was.  It is my perfect color, warm grey or soft lavender - just perfect.  Yardage wasn't on my mind when I bought it.  About two years ago I started Nadine from Kristeen Griffin-Grimes' French Girl Knits (pictured below), and very clearly I don't have the yardage I need.

Teva Durham's slip stitch kilt will be knit.  I've lusted after this piece for years.  I have no idea how to knit in color...  That might have to wait for 2013.  But damn this skirt is...  well it needs to be in my closet!

Intarsia and color knitting are the things that I hope to learn next.  Lace is easy by comparison!

The best-laid schemes o' mice an 'men

Gang aft agley

Thank you Robert Burns.  Scot, poet, but I have no idea if he knit.


Today my intentions were bested by trying to make the blog look like a tech savvy knitter lives here, not just a person who plops a Blogger template over the top of it all.  I have not succeeded in making the blog look nice, nor have I succeed in getting a creditable post together.


I wanted to show this nifty cast on for knitting for the center out that I learned at Cheryl's knitaway, and that I have been practicing like a mad woman.  It is so simple and really, really FUN!  I will post this next week.


Instead I give you the perfect knitting chairs.  Recently my mom redecorated her living room.  She purchased a chair that her decorator had fits about, but she loved the chair, and honestly it is her living room so I think she gets to do what she wants.  It wasn't until I was examining her favorite armchair that I noticed something about it...  it lacks arms!  It is a lovely, well upholstered, comfy, supportive chair with no arms at all! Great for freedom of arm movement.  Then I realized something about my favorite knitting chair, similarly it is comfy, plush and pretty, and lacks arms!  I purchased this chair a few years ago to sit in a small area in my kitchen where arms would have been a liability.  I sit and knit there a lot.  Little did I know that its armlessness was a selling point for knitters.


There is one slight problem with my chair.  I have competition for it....

Atticus is quite the lounge dog, and this chair suits him well.


Here is a glimpse at the nifty cast on for knitting from the center out.  It truly is a great way to cast on, and works like a charm - you can actually knit quite a few rows with just three needles!!!!  No more porcupine knitting!

I realize this just looks like center out knitting... but the cast on is so clever!!!  Can't wait to share.


One final note, since I am experiencing a personal knitting Renaissance I dug out my stash.  I have a yarn store in my attic!  Most yarns were destined for some project or another, but now are ripe for re assignment!  I plan to revisit Butterfly from Rowan....  I have enough Kid Silk squirreled away to knit it , and a  new confidence in reading charts!


Until next time, be creative!

Inspiration three years in the making...

Last week I attended a "knitaway" with my mom with the  amazing Cheryl Oberle in Denver, Colorado.  I learned so much, enjoyed myself tremendously, fell off my yarn diet wagon in a hard way, and learned something very important about knitting, myself and creativity.  Simply, you can't knit in a vacuum.

I have realized that over the past few years I have knit less and less.  I still read the magazines, still lurked in knit shops, still marked projects that I wanted to do, but I knit less.  My intense periods of knitting creativity happened when my mother was visiting, and she and I would sit and knit together, drinking tea, nattering about this, that and the other, after 5pm adding wine to the mix and then dropping lots of stitches, but we knit together.

Yes sitting in the living room watching TV at night is a fine place to knit, but when you can't look over at the other person in the room and say, "Damn, I just got through that lace row, I need a break!", or "ARGH I have to rip this out!", or "Do you think anyone will notice that I did a ssk decrease and not a k2tog???"  Partners are all well and good, and some of them are wonderfully supportive, like my own who understands when I respond "62"  to a mundane question like "where did you put the muffin tin?", that I am counting and not to be disturbed.  Another knitter knows...  we speak our own language, and its not just a language of stitches, we have a community that speaks fiber, stitches, patterns, ideas and above all a shared history (and there is so much to be written about the history of knitting!!!)

I can't come up with enough superlatives for Cheryl.  She is funny, creative, grounded, talented, patient, honest, a master knitter, a true craftsperson, and quite possibly one of the most self actualized people I have ever met.  It is a rare person who can invite eight very different women into their studio and make us all feel like we belong!  Then again I think it might be the magic, the alchemy of our shared love of those two humble little ways of making string hang together "knit" and "purl".

And I learned this week.  I learned more in five days at her studio than I have been able to teach myself.  I am largely a self taught knitter.  Mom did teach me to knit when I was in about fourth grade, and there were the inevitable piles of knotted yarn that she patiently dealt with as I grew up.  She reminded me of the bikini that I  knit in junior high - yup, knitted bikini in about 1980.  The yarn was ugly and so was the result.  And of course as fiber began to get better and knitting entered the mainstream this century (!!!!) I started to knit.  I am an intrepid knitter.  If I didn't understand what I was knitting I made it up.  I didn't know about knitting help at yarn stores, or Stitches, or even really about Knit-aways, although my mother has been participating in them for years.  I learned how to read a chart!!!!!!  Seriously!  I've knit some really nice lace (don't look at it too closely), but I wrote out all the rows on index cards, put them on a ring and tried to remember to turn the card at the end of each row!  I learned some fantastic cast ons for knitting center out, one that only requires three needles, so you aren't knitting with a porcupine!

To bring it back to the 'inspiration' part, I learned that knitting with fellow knitters is the most engaging and fulfilling way to knit.  Several of the women knit with guilds, the rest of them knit with charity organizations.  I am not going to sit on my hill and knit alone anymore!  I am going to knit with my fellow knitters.  Now I just need to find them!

Here are a couple of things that have me really on fire right now:

Cheryl Oberle's Center Panel Shawl

Which was the project we all started at the Knitaway...

I will knit it in a gorgeous natural Alpaca that Cheryl carries at her studio (in addition to the yarns she dyes herself!)  Here is my progress so far, center lace panel knit, stitches picked up around the edges...

I plan to knit Cusco from her book Knitted Jackets: 20 Designs from Classic to Contemporary

In this lively grass green from Cheryl's Dancing color line.

There is so much more that I want to add.  But I think at this juncture it is enough.  I'm on a mission, find knitters!  Finish projects.

Next: the perfect knitting chair, and the best label for your hand crafted projects.

It feels good to be back!  Now just have to learn blogger again, reconnect with knitters and...