kmkat and her kneedles

Did I ever show you this?

After searching the blog it seems to me that I never showed you photos of Alex's lace shawl after it was blocked. How I could have forgotten to do this is a mystery, since this is a project of which I am over-proud. If pride were a sin, I am doomed. Oops.

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And now, the money shot.

Pattern: Haruni by Emily Ross
Yarn: Dream in Color Baby in 'Spring Tickle'
Needle: Signature US#4 circ, an awesome needle.
Mods: None (on purpose; a few inadvertent ones that of the type that are usually referred to as "mistakes") 

Lame.

I have accumulated four five FOs, four new yarns, two WIPs, and a whole bunch of photographs to share here. But this working thing? It cuts into my free time. Only 30 hours/week -- not even full time -- but still, I fear that those previously mention FOs, etc., may have to wait until after October 15.

How do people who work full-time do it? (Well, first of all, they have more energy than I do because most of them are at least twenty years younger. Yeah, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.) 

* * * * *

On Saturday I attended a knitting event held in a my area. Indoors, so no sheep or llamas or alpaca; but well-attended nevertheless. 

It was held in a grade school gym. Remember grade school?

I was greeted by this guy propped up in the hall -- maybe the principal? Maybe some children's television actor of whom I am sadly ignorant?

The gal at the check-in desk was showing off her apple cozy, which her mother had crocheted for her to protect her daily apple from bumps and bruises in her lunch bag. Clever, eh?

The day started with several speakers who talked about 1, how to avoid knitting-induced aches and pains (a physical therapist who crochets but didn't knit*); B, making an art yarn batt full of sparklies and surprises (the owner of the yarn shop where my knitting group meets); and iii, a short personal account of a knitting-related experience (a local resident; more on her later).

Those of you from Wisconsin and the Twin Cities might recognize the lady in the background, or you could if I had remembered to bring my camera and hadn't had to rely on my iPod:

That is Dixie of Yellow Dog Knitting, who was one of the vendors. She did it in a very clever and rather less stressful way than any of the other vendors: she brought along knitted samples, of course, but not a lot of yarn. Instead she brought one skein of each color of the yarns used in the samples. People could see and touch and stroke and squeeze the yarn, then order it from her. No shipping charges. Smart. I hope she made a killing.

One of the vendors was offering parafin [sic] dips for $5. That is my five dollar bill on the table.

On her table was a container of melted wax. She sprayed the customer's hands with a sanitizer and massaged them with lotion, then the customer dipped each hand into the melted wax three times to coat it. The wax was hot but not burning hot. She immediately put each waxed hand into a plastic bag and an insulated mitt, and the customer wandered off for five minutes to let the warmth soothe her hands.

After five minutes the customer came back to the table and the vendor removed the mitt and plastic bag and rubbed off the wax. The warm wax and the lotion left a lovely feeling, and the vendor was busy all day, her business limited only by the quantity of insulated mitts she had brought with her.

Attendees were encouraged to bring along a project to display.

Guess whose green lace shawl that is?

There will be better photos eventually, I promise.

Okay, now for the most awesome part of the day, the local knitter's experience.

I first heard of Sharon last February, when an acquaintance told me about his neighbor's wife -- that would be Sharon -- who was in the hospital. She had scratched her arm on something out in the barn or the barnyard, no big deal, but she woke up that night in terrific pain. Her husband took her to the emergency room, she was admitted, and the doctors found that she had gotten a horrific staph infection. Yes, the flesh-eating kind. She was in a coma for days, the doctors gave her something like a 1% chance of surviving. One day she was fine, the next day she was fighting for her life.

But she fought. (I'm a tough son of a bitch -- her own words) The docs eventually had to amputate her arm and shoulder to save her life, but she healed and lived and came home.

Remember how she was a knitter?

She learned to knit one-handed.

Sharon was gracious enough to allow me to photograph her for the blog.

It is difficult to see because she was knitting with darkish yarn and because of the less-than-clear photos, but she props the left needle in her crotch and does everything else with her right hand. Of course, she knits more slowly now -- I was a really fast knitter, she told me -- but she can still do it and enjoy it. She was especially happy that she could still knit for her new granddaughter.

She also said that she has managed to do nearly everything that she could do before... except ride her horse. She is still working on that.

..

* She was sitting at our table and said that she wanted to learn to knit. Once upon a time someone had shown her how but she had forgotten. Over the lunch break I refreshed her memory on the knit stitch  (she was knitting like a pro after five stitches) and taught her how to purl and how to cast on. Another crocheter comes over To The Light.

Eeeek!

No, not a mouse.

Worse! Dropped stitches in The Shawl Of Doom Wonder!

I found the dropped stitches after I had bound off, in fact, when I was pinning it out to block it.

Did I rip back to fix them? Are you kidding?

Surely you jest.

I threaded up a needle with some yarn and sewed those suckers down. 

The home stretch.

This is the Shawl of Doom Loveliness being bound off. Only 300+ stitches to go...

Thoughts whilst knitting lace.

• When I showed you the tools that have helped me conquer this first lace project I left out a very important one: the needle.
  
  
  
  That is a 40" US#4 Signature circular needle, and it is the finest circ I have ever used. Bar none. The points (medium; you can specify middy (above) or stiletto) are perfect, the joins are smooth and strong, and the cable is as flexible as certain politicians' stance on the issues. 
   
• 
  Flexible, man, flexible!
   
• The needle was $40 plus $8 shipping, which is a lot to pay for a knitting needle. I keep reminding myself that, 1, I spend a lot of hours with this tool in my hands, and B, part of the reason it was expensive is that it was made in the US by US employees, subject to FICA and Medicare and FUTA and who knows what else, and probably union members to boot; not Chinese slave labor.
   
• I find myself reciting the pattern as I knit it -- "Yarnover, knit 2 together, knit 5, slip, slip, knit, yarnover..." This helps me keep track of where I am and ensures that I am Paying Attention.
   
• It amuses me greatly to shout in my head, Threeway! whenever I have to do a double decrease.
  
  
• Don't judge me.
  
  
• I also forgot to praise the yarn, Dream in Color Baby. Some yarns (Malabrigo, I'm looking at you) are wonderful to touch, like buttah through the fingers. This is not one of those, but it is nicely woolly. The main thing is that It Does Nothing Wrong. It doesn't split, doesn't tangle, doesn't break, has no knots, no vegetable matter. It just does what it is supposed to do and does it perfectly. In all my [actually minor] struggles with this lace, none have been with the yarn.
   
• I was knitting away on the lace today and realized that I was also watching the news and chatting with my husband (!) Quite a change from when I started and could only work on it fully caffeinated, alone, no distractions, no interruptions. I told my husband I Was Da Bomb. We will not speak of those three (3!) yarnovers I missed; that kind of thing also happened under the previously described optimum conditions.
   

* * * * *

This is  how we learned of #2 Son's engagement. Hurrah for electronic communications! That photo was taken in the parking lot of the [something] Cowboy steak house in Custer, WY.

 

Catching up and stuff.

I am slowly catching up on blog reading, where catching up =  reading the blogs in my Google Reader Must Read folder and hitting Mark as read on all the rest. Or maybe it is the other way around, I'm not sure. The heat and humidity here are playing havoc with my brain.

I need to walk down the stairs, out the front door, into the mini-mini-motorhome and retrieve the bag of dirty clothes so I can do the laundry. Because I am wearing my last clean pair of underwear. (Knew you wanted to know.) But I have been procrastinating on that task for 5 hours so far and there are no indications that it it going to happen soon. Heat and humidity, you know...

In the meantime I am catching up on blog reading. Because that is the most important thing to do right now. 

Not laundry.

Not grocery shopping.

Not unpacking the m-m-mh.

Not clearing the wild raspberry bushes that have taken over Lucy The Wonder Dog's poop yard.*

* * * * *

In knitting news, I now understand in a visceral way why people like knitting lace. It.Is.Addicting. As I emailed to BGFE earlier today, once I got into the flow of knitting the lace shawl it became like a good crossword puzzle or a particularly complex tax return: a challenge, but one that I knew I could work through.

I find myself scrutinizing things on Ravelry that involve lace. Scary, I know.

* * * * *

One teeny-tiny bit of news: #2 Son and BGFE are engaged (!)

We were notified by an email from #2 Son last Friday. I saw the subject line -- "I'm engaged" -- and burst out with something dignified like, Holy sh!t! Matthew's engaged! Smokey and I couldn't be happier for the two of them. They are so obviously delighted together and good with each other. They say they won't be tieing the knot for a couple of years, though, until she is through school. 

The happy family group, pre-engagement, in Hill City, SD:

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* Lucy cannot even get into it at present. Smokey has had to take her down the stairs and out the front door to the other side of the house, and that is not easy when one has rheumatoid arthritis and incipient heat stroke.

Amusements.

To me, vacations are a time to knit and read. How can I stand the excitement, you ask? Don’t try this at home, folks – I’m a professional.

Reading.

 

Perdido Street Station by China Mieville
Feed by M.T. Andrewson
Zoo City by Lauren Beukes
A Dark Matter by Peter Straub
The Compassionate Carnivore by Catherine Friend
Vanished by Joseph Finder
The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis
Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution and How It Can Renew America by Thomas Friedman*
CO₂ Rising: The World's Greatest Environmental Challenge by Tyler Volk
Night of the Grizzlies by Jack Olsen
Children of the Sun: A History of Humanity's Unappeasable Appetite for Energy by Alfred W. Crosby 
Earth, The Sequel: The Race to Reinvent Energy and Stop Global Warming by Fred Krupp and Miriam Horn
Oil on the Brain: Adventures from the Pipeline to the Pump by Lisa Margonelli

Heh. Can you guess what I was obsessed with when I chose my vacation books?

So far I have read Vanished (suspense novel, supremely mediocre) and Night of the Grizzlies (nonfiction account of two 1967 fatal grizzly attacks in Glacier National Park; recommended by soxanne; glad I didn’t read it before we went to Glacier last year) (headline in Thursday's local paper: Man Killed in Grizzly Attack in Yellowstone National Park. Eeep.). The top three paperbacks are all sci-fi, the other is probably horror; all excellent, non-demanding amusement. I started The Compassionate Carnivore – by the same author as Hit by a Farm – before we left home. It is a nice blend of humor, introspection, and ethics; I might be able to handle it. The others, mostly nonfiction, may be too much for my vacationing brain.

On the audiobook front, so far I have listened to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Steig Larssen. I had read or listened to all of them before but wanted to do it again in one continuous string; #2 and #3 are really one story. Then I listened to A Study in Emerald read by the author, Neil Gaiman. That was a short one, less than one hour.

I just finished Grave Peril, #3 in the Harry Dresden series. I heartily recommend listening to the audios of this series. The read has the sexiest voice on the planet, plus he reads them as though he were telling the story over a beer the day after it happened. Much more enjoyable (again, imho) than reading them.

* Last night I couldn't fall asleep so I grabbed a book from my stash -- in the dark -- and a headlamp to read until I got sleepy. This was the one. Friedman is such a wretched writer and egoist that I made it to page 32, skimming large parts, before my eyelids drooped. Success!

Knitting.

I brought along enough knitting projects to sink a battleship.

The Lace Shawl of Doom  Delight for BGFE.

 

This is coming along swimmingly. I have finished the first chart and am ready to start on the border. That simple statement belies what lies ahead, though; the pattern warns that most of the knitting is in the border, plus chart 2 is altogether different and appears far more complicated than chart 1. Stay tuned.

Fast Forward, for the Red Scarf Project.

 

This is currently about two-thirds done but was put on hold when I took up the Lace Shawl of Doom again. Nice pattern, nice yarn – I’m using Louet superwash merino worsted left over from my kimono sweater.

Palindrome, also for the RSP.

 

Notice how well-defined the cables are? Not. The yarn is Drops Alpaca Sport, luscious stuff but not at all suitable for good stitch definition. I have since frogged that effort and am instead doing a mistake rib pattern that works much better with the yarn. It is also nice mindless knitting :-)

 

Actual color is somewhere between the two photos, orangey-red like the second but darker like the first.

Sock for me.

 

This was to be my fall-back project, the one I would carry into restaurants, etc. Instead the mistake rib scarf has become the take-along. That’s okay; I’m not dying to have the socks done. Yarn is some OnLine Supersocke 100 Circle Color that was on sale at Webs last year.

These last two projects got packed to come along when I was apparently on drugs and in a fantasy daze, thinking how awful it would be if I ran out of knitting projects. The chances of either of them even getting cast on during this tripe is roughly... zero.

Yarn for a narrow Montego Bay scarf for me.

 

Worsted weight silk from Alchemy.

Yarn for Braided Glory for me.

 

I was thrilled to match this yarn with a pattern. The yarn is 1600+ yards of Brooks Farm Acero, a sport/DK blend of superwash wool, viscose, and silk. It is not enough to make a sweater for me and has been yearning for a pattern for several years. I think it will be perfect for this shawl, although the pattern will use only about half of it. I am not wild about wearing shawls, but this one seems like it will stay in place without fussing.

As I typed that, the vision of a short- or three-quarter-length sleeved lace cardigan came into mind. Lace takes less yarn than stockinette, right? And I am now lace-qualified, right? I may need to investigate that. I have some other, not-enough-for-a-sweater yarn in my stash that would work for the Braided Glory, actually better than the Acero. Stay tuned.

Triumph!

Reading your comments on the lace saga post, I realized that I had not accurately conveyed my current situation. The lace has simply FLOWN  off the needles since I wrote that post. I finished the body of the shawl late last night and will start the border later today when I am fully caffeinated, alone, no distractions, no interruptions. We will meet up with BGFE and #2 Son tomorrow in the Black HIlls, and I am delighted that I will be able to show her a nearly-completed shawl. Keep your fingers crossed for the border :-)

Happiness reigns!

 

The lace saga continues.

 

The lace shawl continues s-l-o-w-l-y. Back around row 45 I figured out how to read my knitting and felt very proud. I continued with great confidence – and care – but around row 55 or 60 I found that I had screwed up something royally. Perhaps I could have fixed it, perhaps not. I did not even try, just threw up my hands and frogged back to the lifeline.

Imagine my horror a few rows later when I discovered that my mistakes had begun BEFORE the lifeline. That column of stitches that is the stem of the openwork leaf? It should continue and become the stem in the next leaf above it. That was not happening in part of the shawl.

I put down the knitting and walked away. Over the next few weeks I would pick it up, look at it, try to figure it out, and put it down again.

Eventually I put in about a gazillion markers, counted the stitches, put in some more markers, figured out where the yarnovers and k2tog/ssks should be, recounted the stitches, wrapped waste yarn around certain stitches, and after much concentration located the errors in the row on the needle. The pattern is such that each half of the shawl is exactly like the other; I have made almost no mistakes in the right-hand half and multiple mistakes in the left-hand half. The mistakes were not apparent when looking at the lace unless the viewer knew exactly how the motifs were supposed to line up above each other; then one could see that I was one column of stitches off in a couple places on the left side.

With great care I knit the next row, making whatever adjustments were necessary to get the knitting right again. A few rows later I caught a new error and adjusted for it. One too many stitches between the markers? Do an extra K2tog. Forgot a yarnover in the previous row? Pick up the strand between the stitches and create the yarnover while purling back. None of these are news to anyone who has ever knit lace, but I was pleased to have come far enough that I could *fix* my errors.

I am nearly back up to row 60 and feeling a tiny bit cocky. That is a sure sign that I should be extra careful.

Here are the things that have helped immensely in this lace saga.

Stitch markers. A commenter recommended putting markers between the repeats. Hallelujah! What a great idea! I had not actually realized before that this was a 10-stitch repeat (duh). Now I would know immediately whether I had the correct number of stitches.*

 

Anal soul that I am, I used different colors for each half and other colors to mark off the center stitch.

 

Lifeline. No explanation needed. (Color is way off in this photo. Auto-correct scores again... not.)

 

Row counter. I have no explanation as to why it took me so friggin’ long to begin using a row counter.

 

Before I started using the row counter, every time I picked up the knitting it took me many anxious minutes to determine which row I was on. During the long pauses in the shawl knitting I started a couple scarves for the Red Scarf Project: Fast Forward and a modified version of Palindrome. Fast Forward has a 68-row chart for the pattern at each end, and I threw a row counter onto my needle as soon as I got to the chart. I knew from knitting Palindrome several years ago that I needed a row counter to cable at the right row. When I finally went back to the lace shawl I immediately awoke to the need for a row counter. Lesson learned.

Highlighter tape. Best $2.89 I ever spent.

 

I started out using 3x5 Post-Its but they lost their stickiness pretty quickly, plus I had to use at least 3 to mark the entire chart row. The highlighter tape works soooo much better, plus it allows me to see the row below.

 
The areas highlighted in pink and yellow were that way on the original pattern;
I printed this on a b&w printer so had to improvise.

There are a few bummers, however.

This pattern is long. Here is where I am.

 

…and here is how much yarn I have used. See the big hole in the center where I have been pulling out the yarn?

 

I didn’t think so. (To be fair, that was a 600-yard skein and the shawl will require 480 yards, so I won't use all of it. But still...)

I may need to rethink my goal of finishing this while on vacation. We have 11 10 days left.

* Using stitch markers also created a lot of angst... until I realized that the 10-stitch repeat moves one stitch to the right every right-side row, which necessitates moving each stitch marker one stitch to the right as well. Is this characteristic common to triangular shawls that increase 1 stitch at each edge? I sure wish the pattern writer had mentioned it. Would have spared me any number of gray hairs.

Let's do some random.

Guess who has his own IMDb page?

#2 Son!

His page may not get any bigger, though. He is no longer the assistant colorist, having been promoted to being the engineer for the firm. Now he is the guy responsible for making sure the million-dollar machines work properly, plus being the all-around computer guy. He loves this, and it suits his talents and temperment better. Win-win.

* * * * *

 Speaking of #2 Son, he and GF participated in the Smooch! project.

If that isn't endearing I don't know what is...

* * * * *

Why, yes, all the men in my life have beards. Doesn't everyone?

* * * * *

Yesterday was the first day I sat on the deck and knitted. It was glorious.

It was actually a brilliant sunny day, but I waited until the sun went behind a cloud to take a photo. Otherwise my iPod camera would have shown you washed-out sunny areas and blacked-out shade. I was way too lazy and lace-obsessed to go into the house and get a proper camera.

The shawl for GF is no larger than the last time I showed it to you but not for lack of knitting. I have knat the last inch of it at least five times, maybe more. Yesterday, however, for the first time I felt like I was beginning to be able to read my knitting. That column of stitches that runs up through the center of the lace/pine cone motif? It should continue through the solid stockinette and become the center column of the subsequent lace/pine cone motif! Hallelujah and praise jeebus! If it doesn't (as happened on the right-hand half of the shawl) there is something wrong.* When I take my coffee and knitting out to the deck today** I hope to be able to break through the barrier that seems to hover around row 42. 

* * * * *

I finished a scarf and two pairs of socks since I last caught you up on my knitting, but they all remain to be photographed. You will have to wait with bated breath for another post on those.

* * * * *

Smokey got himself a new watch.

Okay, now, all you former hippies: what is that watch face a replica of?

Look familiar?

* * * * *

Did I ever show you this?

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* My eternal thanks to the commenter who suggested putting a marker between pattern repeats. That tip is the one that enabled the knit-reading.

** Or not. Today is 60˚ and cloudy. I may be knitting in the porch instead.::le sigh:: It's a tough life...

Look, Ma, I'm knitting lace!

Hold on to your hats, kids. The Kat™ is knitting lace.

The yarn is Dream in Color Baby in the Spring Tickle colorway; DiC Baby is a woolen-spun (see how smart I am getting?) 2-ply laceweight of superwash Australian merino. The pattern is Haruni.

What happened, you ask? What about my phobia against lace? 

I offered to knit something like a shrug for #2 Son's girlfriend and sent her a link to a search for shrugs on Ravelry. She came back with this. I gulped and immediately emailed back, Okay, now let's figure out the yarn. And we were on.

Happily, this pattern is fairly easy lace (I think; I am nothing if not inexperienced in lace). Yarnovers, k2tog, ssk, and an occasional double decrease -- all things I can do, no problem. It's the counting and paying attention that has always screwed me up in the past. But so far, so good. I never had to rip the whole thing out and start again, and I never had to tink back more than half a row. That last is because the shawl is exactly the same on both halves; the chart is for one half, and the knitter just repeats the chart on the second half of each right-side row, after the center stitch. 

I find it intimidating every time I start a right-side row and immensely rewarding when I get to the end of the chart row and discover I have the right number of stitches. It will get a bit more difficult in a few rows, where I use just part of the chart and repeat it across the row. Might need to purchase some of that magic knitter's tape to help keep my place. So far, a couple large Post-its have been sufficient.

This opens up a whole new realm of knitting...(and I got to add a couple new categories on Typepad)