Bona Fide Knitter

Need My Knitting Mojo Back

2012-01-08T11:15:00.022-05:00

For months I've been putting knitting catalogs in the recycling container without even opening them. Last week I opened one. I started thinking maybe a new project would bring my mojo back. I almost convinced myself buying something new rather than starting one of the new-still-in-their-packaging projects I have would really get me back to knitting. The culprit catalog is KnitPicks newest, Winter 2012. There's a garter stitch afghan, Viola Afghan Kit, that keeps calling my name.

My knitting guru (You remember who you are, right?) was on a garter stitch afghan knitting spree at one time. In fact she continues to do them in one form or another: log cabin, mitered entrelac, etc. I'm lumping them all together as garter stitch because they're all knit, knit, knit the whole afghan. I was tempted to jump on board then, but I know me, I would never finish it. My guru knitted them all of a piece and ones in squares that needed to be fashioned together. But I know me. Even if I finished all the squares, would I ever sew/knit/crochet them together? I hate projects that need further real work after the knitting is done. That's why I love knitting socks. When they're done, they're done. One day I'll take some pictures of a crocheted granny square coverlet I started when we were negotiating to buy this house . . . 43 years ago. Most of the squares are done, some are even sewn together. However, it's not finished . . . yet.

I have an afghan pattern given to me by my prolific guru a few years ago, Fiber Trends' Home Is Where the Heart Is. I bought the bulky red yarn to make it. In fact I made one false start at it which I prefer to call a gauge swatch. It could be a perfect entree back into knitting since we are coming up on Valentine's Day. (Afghan pattern has hearts, yarn is red, get it?) And it's knit in one piece. But something new into the house might be the answer . . . or not. Oh, I'm such a mess!

But the KnitPicks Viola afghan is 206 squares that have to be put together! And it even needs a backing!! Maybe I'll just finish *Beach Socks 2011.

Bona Fide Knitter

*Beach Socks, for those of you who wonder, are socks I knit while lounging on the beach. They usually have some cotton content and after a ribbed cuff they are plain stockinette stitch, simple enough to knit in my sleep. Beach Socks are usually summer socks, but not for wearing on the beach.

Happy New Year 2012

2012-01-02T16:27:00.020-05:00

I'm making 2012 my comeback year. The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and just life in general took me out of commission in 2011. I've not been knitting. My sock machines, looms and dolls remain neglected. But 2012 is going to be MY YEAR!

This was started as a knitting blog not a nit-picking blog so I will not bore you with the details of my trials and tribulations. However, I will give you a rundown on the months since my last blog entry. Could it really have been as long ago as last April?!!! I was in the throes of a cupcake baking frenzy. I eventually gained all the pounds that were sure to follow from being my own cupcake tester/taster/sampler.

After cupcakes, I abstained from fattening hobbies, but I did not go back to knitting. I found that my knitting was suffering from my inner turmoil. The knit project that I still love still lies mouldering in its project bag. That would be Volt. Remember it? Since there are no resolutions for 2012, (I stopped making resolutions years ago.) I can only promise I will finish it. I'm at i-cording the edges for goodness sake!

Someone turned me onto the Dukan Diet and as much as I am against any diet that excludes food groups, (I'm a Weight Watchers woman.) my cupcake-induced bloated belly made me willing to try anything. It works!!! I lost the bloat. My stomach deflated in a week and I lost almost 20 pounds in a few weeks more.

Over the summer and autumn I spent many weeks on Cape Cod. In fact I was there for the hurricane that never quite made it there even though we evacuated from the forest to what turned out to be what I believe was a hot bed motel. We had a few drops of rain, lots of wind and some power outages.

In October, while I was on the Cape for autumn, my contractor was here in my house knocking out walls and turning my kitchen, dining room, living room into a great room. Since my house is small I call it my "mini great room." That's a perfectly accurate oxymoron for the space.

I spent the rest of the year trying to make order out of the chaos my contractor left after working around and through all my homeless cake pans, ice cream making equipment, dishes, glasses, napery, cookbooks, collectibles, memories, mementos, hobby supplies and equipment and other accumulations. Whew! He performed a miracle and it has been up to me to clean, organize and stage it.

Collectibles and Cookbooks

Mementos and Memories

My knitting account above was not quite accurate. I did knit. I started Beach Socks 2011. I didn't get far, but what is summer without a pair of socks knitted on the beach while listening to an Audible book. Okay, so I didn't ever sit or knit on the beach. I did walk on it a couple of times. I started the socks on the porch though and they won't be the first year's beach socks to get finished back home during the winter.

More knitting content to become the norm this year. I promise.

Bona Fide Knitter

I Knitted . . . and made red velvet cupcakes

2011-04-14T10:52:00.007-04:00

I made the Red Velvet Cupcake recipe from Ina Garten's How Easy Is That. The cupcakes are good. I'm not jumping up and down about them. They are a little dry.

I don't know if I left them in the oven too long (don't think so) or they dried out while cooling (maybe). They don't have as much flavor as I would like, not chocolatey enough. That could be because instead of the name-dropped Pernigotti unsweetened cocoa powder, I used my home state's Hershey's. Or maybe red velvet is supposed to have a subtle chocolate taste. I never had it before.

The cream cheese and butter frosting is yummy, but the recipe made enough to frost quite a few more cupcakes than the 15 the recipe called for. So there I was with with 12 leftover cupcakes to store. I didn't think they were worthy of gifting.

How to store them in the freezer to keep them fresh as I keep consumption down to no more than one a day? I dug out my old Tupperware large cake keeper/transporter. It's a plastic tray (harvest gold colorway from the 70's) with an opaque white, deep, snap-on airtight lid. I placed cupcakes on the tray, but not enough fit. Stacking was messy and unstable. Hmmmmm. I turned the lid over and placed the cupcakes in layers inside. The side of the deep lid kept the layers stable and less messy. The tray became the lid. I snapped it on and had airtight cupcake storage for the freezer. Am I resourceful or what?!!!

However, the big, round container takes up too much space in the freezer so off I went to Amazon to find something more suitable. A rectangular, three-tier cupcake keeper (in an up-to-date greenish color called lemongrass) is on its way to me along with a vegan cupcake cookbook.

***KNITTING CONTENT ALERT***

I knitted quite a few rows on a purple stocking (Ladies' Useful Stockings) I'm making from Nancy Bush's Knitting Vintage Socks. Yaaaay! I got my knitting mojo back . . . somewhat.

Bona Fide Knitter

Not Knitting

2011-04-09T10:20:00.012-04:00

I have not knit a stitch in weeks. Volt lays mouldering in my knitting basket, i-cord edging almost half finished. Deadlines of 2/15, 3/15 and now 4/15 are dead. I'll finish when I finish. Spouse's health status has taken such a turn even knitting doesn't work as my go-to therapy. In fact the i-cord was starting to show my stress. I'm not liking the i-cord along the side. It's not nearly as neat and nice as the top edge. There is a loopy stitch along the right side of the edge.

I'm not even sure my stress is the culprit. It might be just a rogue occurrence. The wrong side of the edge looks fine.

What's up with that? I'm thinking of crocheting a chain stitch into that loopy i-cord stitch, or maybe ripping the whole side out and redoing the i-cord from the wrong side of the shawl so that the good edge winds up on the right side. Are you totally confused by it all and wish I'd move on? Okay!

When the going gets too tough, the too tough gets baking. I've made Ina Garten's apple cranberry cake from How Easy Is That. It was the next choice of the cook-along I'm stalking. I've made the cake twice now. That is just a small indication of how good I think it is. The recipe calls for cranberries and a Granny Smith apple. The tartness of those two comes through and the slight sweetness of the brown sugar that has been tossed with the fruit and the white sugar in the cake are perfect foils for a big scoop of vanilla ice cream on a warm piece of the cake.

Hmmm, hmmm, good!

Ready for the oven . . .

Hot from the oven . . .

First piece cut . . .

Ready for the first taste . . .

I'm going off on my own for the next recipe. I'm doing Red Velvet Cupcakes today. I feel a cupcake phobia coming on. I've been watching too much Food Network's Cupcake Wars. I have two new cookbooks devoted to cupcakes only. Look out world!

Bona Fide Knitter

How Easy Was That!

2011-03-02T14:40:00.020-05:00

One of the bloggers I follow is in a cooking club with family and friends. The club is making recipes from Ina Garten's latest cookbook, barefoot contessa, how easy is that? They plan to cook their way through the whole book. I didn't join the club, but I'm sort of a closet member. I have the cookbook and the cute Dutch oven required for their first recipe choice,

so I thought I'd tag along in secret and make the recipes that appeal to me.

The first club selection was easy parmesan "risotto." I'd never made risotto and always wanted to after seeing many a fledgling chef being read the riot act for getting it wrong on Hell's Kitchen. I finally got around to making it today.

The recipe is really easy, made in a Dutch oven placed in the stove's oven at 350 degrees. No standing over the pot and stirring as in other recipes. I made only half the recipe (2 to 3 servings instead of 4 to 6) and in the future will remember to reduce the time in the oven as well to avoid having to add a couple of additional splashes of broth to get the creaminess desired.

I used a reduced salt, boxed chicken broth instead of homemade stock. Even so, thanks to a note made by my blogger, I used only a pinch of salt instead of what half the recipe would have required.

The parmesan risotto was creamy and delicious!

What's next?

Bona Fide Knitter

P.S. - Knitting content will return any day now.

No Agitation!

2011-02-27T10:10:00.011-05:00

What was I thinking when I let them take my washer away and replace it with a new model?!!! Well, I was thinking that the dryer had died and, like the dryer, the washer was over 20 years old so both should be replaced.

I was not thinking of felting knits. So I guess my felting days are over, not that I've felted anything since the felting fever of 2003 - 2004. Back then I knitted and felted three handbags, knitted one handbag (the Oregon Tote) which still needs a few finishing rounds and i-cord drawstring and handles before felting, and an entrelac tote/bowl that still needs some ends woven in before felting. Oh well, seems like I'd already stopped felting.

How was I supposed to know that new top loading washing machines have no agitator when my last laundry room purchase was when appliances came in Almond (called Biscuit or Bisque now)? The purchase before then was in Harvest Gold. Remember that color? The new color is white (we've come full circle) with a touch of stainless steel. And inside there is just a big open drum.

All I thought in the store was 'hmmm, more room for clothes.' Then there's the water saving feature. The darn thing uses hardly any water! I was always into using less soap and deep second rinses with Downy. Getting all the soap out made everything last and look good forever. The jury is still out on the new washer in that respect.

But back to felting. I think my obsession with it might as well be over. Although I have a Bev Galeskas book, varied and sundry Fiber Trends and Two Old Bags patterns, I no longer have a top loader with an agitator. How agitating! I do have a cheapo little bucket washer bought for my summer place. I wonder would that felt. No? Well, I guess my felting days are truly over, not just on hiatus.

So you wonder why no mention of Volt? Rest assured it is still being worked on weekly. The i-cording never ends. Whew! . . . any . . . day . . . now . . .

Bona Fide Knitter

The Agony of Defeat!

2011-02-07T08:41:00.007-05:00

What was I thinking?!!! No way could I complete all that i-cord even if I had a three-day headstart. I needed a week at least. Especially if I planned to eat or sleep during that time and allowing for the everyday interruptions.

So I didn't win the bragging rights. I did get 3/4 of the bind off row completed. Actually I had changed my goal to just finishing the bind off row as my Knitting Super Bowl accomplishment. I couldn't even do that. Around nine o'clock I found myself "sleep knitting." Did you ever do that? I'd start the series of eleven stitches to bind off one stitch and somewhere in the middle I'd wake up and wonder at what point I fell asleep. I finally threw in the towel (sorry, couldn't think of a football metaphor) and went to bed before 9:30 p.m.

Yes, the series of stitches to bind off one stitch totaled eleven--eleven moves made to bind off one stitch! Here's how: (Four stitches were cast on for the i-cord bind off.) k 3, sl 1, yo, k1, pass sl st and yo over the k1, sl 4 sts back to left needle. Do the math: 3 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 4 = 11!

Had I known that before I started I would have known it was not a quick finish to be done on Super Bowl day. I have 395 stitches to bind off on each end and over 200 rows on each side. The ends alone require 395 x 2 = 790 stitches to bind off x 11! It was too much for me to accomplish in a day even with a headstart and without a predawn drive to pick up husband from the ER, physical therapist and cable guy interruptions, stress and sleep deprivation.
Considering, I think I did okay. Better would have been to at least finish the bind off on one end, thus my slight twinge of the agony of defeat.

As for the Super Bowl, who won? I only watched the Black Eyed Peas portion.

Bona Fide Knitter

Knitting Super Bowl

2011-02-06T07:57:00.005-05:00

Well, today's the day! But you know what they say about the best laid plans. I finished the last row of Volt last night as planned and read the instructions for the i-cord cast off and realized I was completely blank on the process. Off to You Tube for a few quick lessons. In the midst of it all I had to drop my spouse off at the neighborhood hospital ER. If I seem flip about it, it's because it's a common occurrence, a place he goes at the drop of a hat. But that's a story for another blog. I drop him off at the ambulance entrance and head back home.

I got all the i-cord information I needed from You Tube upon my return. Special thanks to Kelley Petkun of Knit Picks. But by then it was too late to get my headstart on the knitting. I knew starting knitting then would result in tinking in the morning. The LWDs and I went to bed.

Now remember, I was to start my personal Knitting Super Bowl at dawn. Well, at dawn I was on my way back to pick the husband up from the ER. No, they didn't keep him a few days this time like they did weekend before last. Ooops, again TMI for this blog. I need to save it for my book. Yes, I could write a book about it . . . but I digress.

So now I'm back. I have been refreshed in the i-cord cast off and edging procedures. I am good to go! But now I'm hungry. Time for breakfast and I think I want mini waffles. A little labor intensive and although I heard the Super Bowl will not start until 6:30 p.m., there is a lot, I mean a LOT, of i-cord to get done and I need as big a headstart as possible. I might rethink the mini waffles when I get to the kitchen. More later . . .

It is now later, noon to be exact and I have only three stitches bound off. Count 'em one, two, three. I'm in big trouble. I've lost the game before it starts. However, I will press on! Why have I gotten so little done? You think it's because of the mini waffles?

first pan of mini waffles w/bacon on the griddle in background

a baker's dozen ready for butter (actually "I Can't Believe It's Not . . ." spray) and syrup

They were cooked and eaten in a flash.

What stopped my progress was the physical therapist who came to see the husband today making up for snow days (more for my book) and the cable guy who came and only succeeded in letting me know it would take more skill and equipment than he had to get my two new cable outlets installed and Anywhere DVR boxes set up throughout. He set me up for the "wall wire feeder guys," for whom I'll be charged by the hour, to come tomorrow morning between seven and nine. Urrrrrrrgh!!!

In the interim I found a group of even more helpful videos (my thanks to You Tube and pasticheknitwear) and put a roast in the oven for dinner. Now to get back to my nonexistent headstart.

More much later . . .

Knitting Super Bowl Prep

2011-02-05T16:11:00.010-05:00

I'm having my own personal Knitting Super Bowl tomorrow. It's nothing like the Yarn Harlot's famous Knitting Olympics. For one thing, nobody knows about it. Secondly, I just made it up today. And third, it only lasts a day. Here's how it's going to work:

Today I will finish knitting the Volt shawl from The Fine Line.

Tomorrow, day of my personal Knitting Super Bowl, I will (1) cast on and complete the i-cord edging for it, (2) knit, knit, knit from dawn until Volt comes off the needles completed, or when the game's final whistle (horn?) blows, whichever happens first. Do they blow a whistle when the Super Bowl ends or is it a horn? And does anybody know about what time that might be in Eastern Standard Time? As you can tell, my interest in the game is somewhere between NONE and NOT ANY. Perhaps if my home team had made it that far . . . but I digress.

So, it might be prudent for me to get a head start. There is a lot of territory to which to apply i-cord. Volt has 395 stitches for cast-off x 2 to include the provisional cast-on, and 216 rows x 2 for left and right sides. Hmmm, I'd better start today. I have just one last purl row to do before starting the i-cord bind-off/edging. Yep, I'll cheat and start now. After all I will have to stop tomorrow for meals and potty breaks. TMI?

If you have some project that needs just a few more hours to complete and aren't having a big football-watching party or just want something to do while you watch the game, join me tomorrow. Oh, and you can make up your rules as you go just as I'm doing. I'm making it an all-day-into-the-night affair. You might want to start at kick off time and stop when the game ends. It all depends on how much you have left to do on the project you chose. The prize is that when you finish your creation you can say, "I made this during the 2011 Super Bowl Game" no matter when you started it or finish it. It's your own personal Knitting Super Bowl! Rules? Shmules!!!

Bona Fide Knitter

Snow! No!! Go!!!

2011-01-29T17:46:00.006-05:00

It's been some week! A week of snow, some weak and some not so. Sixteen and a half inches total in my neighborhood, on top of what was still there from last week.

My Backyard Winter Wonderland, Second Storm

Between snowfalls I had a little time to shovel a spot on the porch so the LWDs could make yellow snow while remaining somewhat sheltered.

I took pictures of the pine tree that hasn't been the same since last winter's harsh ice storm. It didn't lose any more branches yet. The baldness is from last winter's snowmaggedon. So sad.

I used my Snow Joe, a shovel, two brooms and two neighborhood boys with shovels. I'm still somewhat snowed in. The boys did the driveway and as they went down their shoveling got narrower and narrower. I guess I can squeeze the minivan through the two snow banks at the curb. My street is covered in packed-down, iced-over snow. We could use a Zamboni. I haven't been out since Wednesday. The two big snows were on Thursday. The worst that has happened is I missed my hair appointment. Things have to be pretty bad for me to miss a hair appointment! This was bad. I rescheduled for next week.

And when the going gets tough, the tough get baking a deep dish apple pie for dessert after the pork chops for dinner.

Believe it or not I've been knitting as well. The replacement Italy sock is complete. Volt is at the last half of the last stripe. I'm on a roll.

Bona Fide Knitter

I'm Not in New York

2011-01-22T10:46:00.005-05:00

I did not go to New York for the Vogue Knitting thing. I vacillated all week and all yesterday. When I went to bed I wasn't 100% sure I wouldn't bolt up at 5:00 a.m. and ready myself to be on the cold, dark and Saturday-morning-lonely commuter train platform in time for the first train at 6:13 a.m. However, when I woke at five and heard the temperature was 13 degrees I felt good about a decision not to go.

Yesterday I figured out I'd have to get the first train available to get to NYC and the venue anywhere near 9:00 a.m. when the marketplace opened. Then I figured out I should leave the venue in NYC by 2 p.m. to get back to my train station at a reasonable hour . . . meaning before it became too cold, dark and Saturday-evening-lonely. Allowing for a meal, that wouldn't leave enough time for perusing the marketplace to make the trip worthwhile.

So here I sit in the bright warm comfort of my studio preparing to knit the day away watching reruns of Monk's first season, LWDs sleeping in their beds in front of the TV. Ahhhhh, bliss.

Bona Fide Knitter

Fifteen Random Thoughts and Things

2011-01-15T10:09:00.016-05:00

Today is the fifteenth, the middle of January 2011 already! I've set some goals and made some plans. Always a bad move. Just ask Murphy. But first, another apple cake coming out of the oven:

I love this Italian apple cake recipe. It's more apples than cake and light on the sugar. Perfecto!

Okay, so on this day int the middle of January in the new year, I have decided I will finish the replacement Italy sock next week then devote my full attention to finishing Volt, including the i-cord edging and blocking it by March 15. Yep, you read it here first folks! That will be one year from the date started. Why would it possibly take a year to do this easy knit? Don't ask.

After the replacement sock is finished I will start a marathon pair: Ladies Useful Stockings from Nancy Bush's Knitting Vintage Socks. I've had three balls of purple Opal waiting for years to become these socks. Now is the time. The goal is to have them off the needles before it's time to start this year's beach socks. (July!)

Between projects from The Fine Line I will make the entrelac hot water bottle cover. I've already gotten the bottle itself. Check it out:

It's a Fashy bottle, made in Germany. I went for the clear version. I can see how much water I'm putting in. Then I will cover it in Noro entrelac. I want to use it before this winter is over.

We've had another snow storm and I was able to use the snow thrower. Oh happy day! It wasn't fun, but it beat the heck out of shoveling. It's just a little Snow Joe, enough for my walk, driveway and poop/pee lanes in the backyard for the Little White Dogs (LWDs). They prefer grass rather than making yellow snow.

My Backyard Winter Wonderland

One of the bloggers I admire and follow made a statement the other day that got me thinking and determined to change my ways. She wrote, "I really am a one-project-at-a-time kinda girl." That is sooooo not me! But I want it to be!!! So, ONE project at a time . . . errr . . . one stay-at-home and one portable . . . So, TWO projects at a time is what I will work on in 2011. I have to have a pair of socks on the needles at all times. I learned that lesson knitting Volt. Socks help me stay focused. Without them I slack off or scatter to the four winds. I've been knitting using the shotgun approach. As of today, I'm moving to the rifle approach. Maybe for 2011 I can get at least (AT LEAST!) 12 hand knitting projects completed. Stay tuned.

That's about 15 thoughts and things. I'd better get knitting before I lose my bona fides.

Bona Fide Knitter

When the knitting gets tough . . .

2011-01-09T12:16:00.014-05:00

. . . the tough start baking!

It's an apple cake made with just five Golden Delicious apples. I happened upon the Live Well Network (LWN) while knitting (Yes, I still knit.) and couldn't wait to try the recipe for Nonna's Homemade Italian Apple Cake, by Chef Deborah Dal Fovo. Mmm, Mmm, good with a cup of Earl Grey tea. Yummy with a dip of homemade apple butter ice cream which I made the next day.

And then as I got back to knitting, a storage box (below) caught my eye. It's a box of finished items I made back in the beginning, before I was "Bona Fide," and thought after each bind-off, "What was I thinking?!!!"

One such project (above) came from my favorite knitting book, The Knit Stitch by Sally Melville. The pattern is the Knit-Round Scarf which could double as a mini skirt on a young, svelte body. However, on me it was not even comfortable as a scarf. Hot, binding, can't move my elbows from my sides. What was I thinking?

And now it is 3-2/3 balls of Noro rewound into a center pull yarn cake with a 1/3 ball on the side. The repurpose, you ask? I'm going to make an entrelac hot-water bottle cover from the book Hot-Water Bottle Covers by Chrissie Day . . sooner or later. Right now I'm on a mission--two missions: finish Volt and make the replacement Italy sock.

The hot-water bottle cover was made with three balls of Noro Silk Garden and I now have three repurposed balls of Noro regular. How providential!

Whew, I've got some knitting to do. My 2011 queue grows ever longer.

Bona Fide Knitter

Happy New Year . . .

2011-01-01T09:32:00.014-05:00

. . . and a Happy Knit Year as well.

I am considering going up to New York City for Vogue Knitting Live to shop the Marketplace for a day. It isn't until later in the month and I will have talked myself into and out of going many times before then. I certainly do not need to add to my stash, but I do need to see what's going on outside of my self-inflicted hermitude. "To go or not to go?" that is the question. To be tempted by all that fiberlishousness is not a good thing for me. But on the other hand . . .

Pros:

A needed day out
Lunch in NYC
Fashion shows
Book signings
New products
Raffles and FREE stuff

Cons:

Getting up and out before dawn
January cold commuter train platform
Buying more yarn
Buying more books
Buying more tools and gadgets
Buying, buying, buying

Oh well, time will tell. In the meantime I am getting my Knitplan 2011 together in my mind. Of course the first thing I plan is to reduce the UFO pile. I want to commit to one a month, but I'm tired of not meeting my commitments so I'm not making any specific ones. I will get some UFOs finished this year. There! I've said it, "some" is that four? We'll see.

I have decided to get back to some other interests this year. Using sock machines could really put a dent in the sock yarn stash. My dollhouse miniatures have been neglected for way too many years. I'm planning a comeback. I have a new loom. A few rectangular stoles are in the plan. So many hobbies, so little time.

Dollhouse Miniatures

And on the needles and active today is . . . I don't even want to talk about it. You've been hearing about it since last March. It will be finished before this March. After all, I have another waiting in the wings to get started on. I have a sock on the needles as well. The first in a while. It's the one to replace the shredded disaster of a couple of weeks ago. Having a sock on the needles grounds me. I should never be without one. I find that I knit more when I have a sock going at all times.

Sock in Progress

Again, Happy Knit Year,
Bona Fide Knitter

Merry Christmas

2010-12-25T12:17:00.009-05:00

Merry Christmas One and All!

My Christmas Cactus (cacti) bloom merrily in the kitchen window in honor of the season. Unfortunately their biological clocks have been out of sync for years. They bloom every year in November. The photo was taken on Thanksgiving.

How much are these doggies in the window?

Left to right: Icecream and Snowball modeling velveteen ruffs

The ones with the waggly tails . . .

How much are these doggies in the window? My sweet Bichons are not for sale!
Left to right: Icecream and Snowball modeling taffeta ruffs

Left to right: Snowball and Icecream outside looking for Santa on Christmas Eve

Back to knitting content soon.

Bona Fide Knitter

Sockatastrophe!

2010-12-15T13:01:00.020-05:00

It's a catastrophe, a sock catastrophe, a sockatastrophe. My Italy Socks are ruined!

I call them my "Italy Socks" because I had planned to knit them while in Italy in 2008. However, I had another sock on the needles at the time and didn't actually begin the Italy Socks until on my way home, literally. I cast on for the first sock while in the van on my way to the airport in Rome for the return trip to the US. Oddly, they were a problem from the beginning. I had to frog and cast on twice more on the flight home before I got that first sock going.

The Socks:

The Sockatastrophe:

One sock turned into spaghetti in the washing machine. What's up with that?

Evidently something started feasting on my socks and only got as far as one.

From the frayed and wispy strands of wool and the places where it is severed completely, something had a very good meal.

The yarn is Colinette Jitterbug Sock Yarn, expensive and ruined! What to do? My first thought yesterday when this happened was to frog and reknit. Then I remembered I have most of another hank of this yarn because another of the problems with this pair of socks was I ran out of yarn, a first! Although it was supposed to be 110 grams, 318 yards I ran out of yarn at the toe of the second sock and had to buy more. making them aa $45 pair of socks!

Using my basic pattern that works perfectly every time for Lorna's Laces, Opal, Regia, Trekking XXL, etc., the completed socks were big (wide). I finally wore them after two years and afterwards decided to wash them in the washer and maybe get some shrinkage. They didn't shrink, but one certainly shredded! There were no holes when I wore them. I didn't notice their condition when I loaded them into the washer with my delicates a week or so later. I can see in what is left of the one sock that there are stitches that are eaten through. Thus the shredding from the agitation in the washer.

I've located the leftover yarn cake made from the second hank I had to buy and will knit the sock again then wash it with another load of delicates and have a matching pair of Italy Socks once again. I will store them more carefully this time. No more Colinette Jitterbug for me!

Of other knitting news there is none. Volt continues the grow at the polar opposite of leaps and bounds. (tiny steps and little bounces?) BTW, Volt appears in the Holiday 2010 issue of Vogue Knitting. Perhaps mine will be completed by January 15, 2011, 10 months late.

Bona Fide Knitter

P.S. I had a charming and witty Sockatastrophe blog entry written and signed. Somehow it disappeared off the face of the earth before I published it. You get this instead.

Happy Thanksgiving?

2010-11-26T11:11:00.009-05:00

Okay, so I'm a day late and am asking was your Thanksgiving happy. Mine was happy enough. I cooked dinner for two, well four if you count the Little White Dogs. We had turkey with all the trimmings and I'm looking forward to leftovers today. The day-after turkey sandwich is better than Thanksgiving dinner if done right. The "right" sandwich calls for sliced white meat on white bread with mayonnaise spread on both pieces, a layer of cranberry sauce and a layer of cornbread stuffing. Mmm, mmm good! The next days you can have hot turkey sandwiches with gravy and even turkey sandwiches with lettuce and tomato. By the fourth day all the turkey should be gone or you won't want any for Christmas!

I made sweet potato ice cream in honor of the day to go with the Mrs. Smith's sweet potato pie I bought at the supermarket. And while I had the DeLonghi Gelato Machine on the counter I made raspberry ice cream as well. No, I did not eat some of all of those! Any I missed I will try today.

Here are pictures of the DeLonghi Gelato Machine in action when I made blackberry ice cream last week. This is a great machine that does not require freezing the freezer bowl 24 hours in advance. It makes a quart of ice cream at a time and if that isn't enough you can make quart after quart with only a five minute wait between batches--just long enough to empty the bowl and fill it again. I has its own self-refrigerating compressor. I was lucky enough to find a new one for a great price on eBay. I love eBay!

Ice cream base:

The macerated and strained blackberries added:

Soft serve ice cream is ready:

Soft ice cream put in carton to firm up in the freezer:

Lidded, labeled and ready for the freezer:

Although the box it comes in and product descriptions everywhere list the amount as 1.5 quarts, the actual capacity of the DeLonghi freezer bowl is 1.2 liters or 40 ounces. There was something lost in the translation from Italian metric liters to American imperial quarts. However, you will not want to put more than a quart (32 ounces) in the bowl unless you want a disaster. The ice cream mix expands as it freezes. Less is better. Trust me.

Thanksgiving evening I decided to cast on for the Pangea Cardigan. That was a change of plans from the hat I had intended to start. Bottom line is I haven't cast on and started anything new in so long I hardly remember how. I love working with long circulars to knit small circumferences in the round. Knitting socks made me an expert at it. However, a few days ago I COULD NOT DO IT! The hat called for casting on eight stitches. I could not get the first round going. I finally gave up and decided to start with dpns. Forget it! I was totally all thumbs. What has happened to me?!!!

So last night I decided to start the sweater, which begins at the left sleeve with a cast on of 76 stitches and calls for dpns and a 40" long circular needle. Magic Loop here I come! Easy for a sock knitter who usually starts with 60 stitches on a 32" long circular . . . I thought. So far I've cast on three times and have yet to get the first round done to my satisfaction. Me, The Sock Lady! So my goal for today is to get that left sleeve started at the wrist!

In my own defense I think I would have made it on the third try if I hadn't had to answer the phone, got a cramp in my hand holding the needles, dropped the cone of yarn . . . and the dog ate my homework.

Here is my fourth attempt waiting for me to pull the cable through between the 38th and 39th stitches.

Maybe I'll add a few pieces to the jigsaw puzzle first . . .

Bona Fide Knitter

What I Now Know to Be True

2010-11-19T17:13:00.014-05:00

I have realized some truths this week that I will share with you.

I now know that I knit best when I have more than one project going at a time. I need always to have a pair of socks on the needles, something mindless and portable, so that when a major project gets too complicated or grows too big to cart around I can knit socks. After all I am the self-proclaimed Sock Lady. Knitting plain vanilla socks feeds my knitting soul and restores my knitting equilibrium.

I thought devoting 100% of my knitting time to the Volt shawl I fell in love with would get it done in no time. Instead that idea has made it take longer. Knitting in public became tinking in private, too many distractions. So I stopped taking it with me. Not having anything else to knit I found myself getting used to not knitting and didn't always pick it up again when back at home. Not good. So today I will cast on a portable project--a hat, one of the two projects I couldn't live without from WEBS latest catalog. The other is a sweater that will not be started until after Volt.

I now know that when the going gets tough, meaning out of my control, I take control of my diet and exercise regimen. I eat right, exercise, energize and get a lot accomplished. OR I cook, bake, eat too much, laze around and hold pity parties with a guest list of one. Presently I am in cook/bake/laze mode. Thus the ice cream obsession.

I now know (which is very hard to admit) I AM OLD! When did this happen?!!! How shocking it is to hear or read an account of an event where they describe a person as "elderly," state her age and that age is THE SAME AS MINE!!! When did I become elderly? It makes me want to fall on the floor kicking, crying and screaming NO, NO, NO!!! Now does that sound elderly? Having a temper tantrum is not an elderly thing. It's quite the opposite. Therefore, I AM NOT ELDERLY! Old maybe, but not elderly. Okay? You got it? If so, you might want to remind me every now and then.

Bona Fide Knitter

November?!!!

2010-11-01T10:47:00.015-04:00

It's November! When did that happen? Where did summer go? When did summer go? Probably while I was indulging in my newest obsession--HOMEMADE ICE CREAM!!!

Let me back up a bit. It's been a long time since I've been here. Saying the summer was not one of my favorites would be a major understatement. I will omit the gory details but suffice it to say the summer was so bad my knitting suffered. Now that is really B.A.D! My knitting obsession, Volt from The Fine Line, became a nemesis rather than a catharsis. I lost my finally finished vanilla, vanilla socks. And I refused to start anything else until Volt is finished, especially socks.

And then I found ice cream. It all came about because I decided to make my own gelato to appease myself when I couldn't go to Italy in September. I have an old ice cream maker, a Krups I was never very satisfied with, but for this (thanks to rave reviews from BFF Judith) I bought a new Cuisinart. I bought the gelato cookbook, Artisan Gelato and a bottle of Prosecco (it having nothing to do with the ice cream making). Then I went crazy buying all kinds of ice cream recipe books: Ben and Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream and Dessert Book, The Perfect Scoop and The Ultimate Ice Cream Book.

I happened to have some very over-ripe bananas on hand and decided to try using my old Krups machine while I waited for my new machine to come. Free shipping sometimes takes forever! Those bananas turned into delicious ice cream. I was hooked! The recipe books (cookbooks) gave me much more insight into the making of ice cream than the little books that come with the machines. Had I bought books before ordering the new machine I might have been satisfied with the results from my old Krups. It does a decent job--now that I know that the ice cream should only be expected to freeze to "soft serve." For a firmer product it should be put in the freezer for 30 to 60 minutes to reach the desired firmer consistency.

Krups and Prosecco

Oh, and what good is homemade ice cream without homemade cones? So I bought a cone maker as well. Here are my first cones cooling on the rack. Yeah, I had to have a cone rack too. Peeking from behind the cones is the new Cuisinart ice cream maker.

I put away the old Krups when the new Cuisinart arrived and proceeded to make the best ice cream I've ever eaten! Strawberry, raspberry, blackberry, peach, chocolate with almonds, butter pecan, lemon, corn (yes corn!), mango, pumpkin, tiramisu, cheesecake, honeydew sherbet, cantaloupe sherbet, and probably some others I've forgotten. Oh! I made bacon ice cream!!! Yes, and it was scrumptious!

Somewhere in the midst of it all I got a gelato maker, a self-refrigerating DeLonghi, but more about that another day. This is supposed to be a knitting blog. I'd better get knittin'!

Bona Fide Knitter

Been So Long

2010-08-09T15:03:00.010-04:00

I am reminded of that old song by the Pastels. Okay, so the Pastels were a singing group long before your time and the song, Been So Long, is really a love (or lack there of) song. My point is it has been so long since I put an entry in my blog. Four months! Why? Because life threw me more lemons than I could handle. I couldn't make lemonade fast enough. I was drowning. When the going got really tough, tough-person-that-I-thought-I-was went shopping. But an iPhone, two Kindles and a designer handbag later I was still drowning. So I withdrew. I withdrew from my blogs, from my e-lists, from Ravelry, from society. I knitted. I read novels. I listened to audio books. The lemons continue to arrive, but I'm over it. I'm trying to make a comeback. Bear with me.

I continue to knit Volt, the shawl from The Fine Line I fell in love with way back when. I still love it. It should be finished in time for the first cooler weather. The black cropped pants, crisp white shirt and green Birkenstocks await.

Bona Fide Knitter

Remember the Green Shoes?

2010-04-08T11:18:00.012-04:00

Remember those green Birkenstocks I was moved to buy because of the green (actually yellow-green) stripe in the Volt shawl that has consumed my life?

They are from a previous year, discontinued and almost impossible to find unless you have short feet. Mine are long. When I couldn't find them at the usual online sites, I Googled them. I usually find what I want on Google on the first, maybe second page. For the green Isis sandals I went all the way to page five before I found them listed in my long, narrow size. I ordered immediately, thanked my lucky stars that they were discounted to less than half price, and breathed a sigh of relief.

Much to my dismay and after the confirmation email, I received an email of regret. The shoes were no longer in stock after all. Boo-hoo! How disappointing. Was nothing related to this shawl going to come out right without a big hassle? Was it a sign? I already knew that the green of the shawl was more yellow than the green of the shoes, but that was okay. No need to be too matchy-matchy, right?

The shawl is finally on the right track and on its way to the fast track. I needed the shoes to keep up my good luck. I turned to my never-failing source for everything--eBay! The few available were not my long, narrow size. I put in a request to be notified if a pair were listed and within a day I was notified of a new listing. The size in the listing was my length but "medium" width. The description led me to believe the shoes were actually narrow width. Every Birkenstock connoisseur/collector knows the filled in footprint in the footbed means "schmal" or "narrow." (An outlined footprint means "normal" or "regular.") A little emailing with the seller, a bid high enough to win and I am now the proud owner of the green shoes at one third (including shipping!) the retail price.

Volt is moving along. I have the rhythm of it now. Following my knitting guru's lead, I switched to Addi lace needles. They are wonderful! Fast, pointy, slick tips with a little drag on the shaft and non-glare when under lights. Perfect!

I bought green nail polish when I knew the shoes were on the way. In the late summer if you see a stylish, older woman on Cape Cod or in Philadelphia wearing black cropped trousers, a white shirt with the Volt shawl thrown over her shoulders, green ankle strap Birkenstocks showing a green pedicure, it will be me.

Bona Fide Knitter

The Volt Drama Continues

2010-04-01T08:02:00.020-04:00

Here I am about to start my first green stripe on Volt and drama rears its ugly head again. But more about that later.

It's April 1! The window wabbit takes a last look at the green yarn stash that resided there all of March. Time for some Spring colors he thinks.

After my rant about the length of time it took to get the Isager yarn for Volt from knitisager.com, I never mentioned the great little gift I received with it.

The little pouch is a Chico Bag.

It contains an attached, generous-size project bag. And when not in use, you just stuff the bag back into the pouch which is always inside the bag. Neat-o!

Now about that Volt shawl that might be a Volt scarf . . . Yes, it seems small to me. My gauge is a little off. Enough to go up a needle size and start over? I don't think so. I don't know what happened. It could be that I was tense and knitting tight. I'm half finished the black section and I've used half the ball of yarn. I certainly don't want to go up a needle size and run out of yarn! So far the plan is to knit on and when finished, block it into submission!

This has become quite a project! I had to reorder KnitPicks needle tips when I couldn't find the wooden ones I have, then reorder again when I decided to switch to nickel plated and couldn't find those either. And with all the snag-free stitch markers I own, I had to order more--ones without black wire so I would stop knitting them into the fabric--one bead ones for row 1 and two bead ones for row 2. Clever?

I've just ordered more in a larger size so I will stop losing them in the fabric, in my lap and on the rug.

When my knitting guru speaks, I listen. The Scarlet Knitter told me she sometimes prefers Addi lace needles for their nonglare shafts. So I have two of them on order, doncha know--one for Volt and one for Dawn (for which I already have the yarn . . . shhhh, don't tell anybody). Too bad I didn't consider going up a needle size before I ordered those Addis! The Fine Line, the pattern book by Grace Anna Farrow really hooked me hard. Now if only I can get Volt onto the optimum needles with the optimum stitch markers which make the knitting easiest . . . and the right size.

Stay tuned . . .

Bona Fide Knitter

Third Time the Charm?

2010-03-25T18:02:00.011-04:00

With four rows complete and a stitch or so off, I left the work on the needles, cut the yarn and with new needles cast on for the third time. How could one reasonably easy pattern cause me so much trouble? I have a list of reasons: (1) number of stitches, (2) counting, (3) different dec and inc than those that are second nature, (4) black yarn and stitch markers with black wire (5) and having mumble, mumble year-old eyes, (6) Addi turbos with blunt points, (7) wooden KnitPicks with too much drag, (8) . . . I think those seven just about sum it up.

After more than 6,300 stitches (which includes the crocheted provisional cast on stitches) and a week and a half of time (which includes weaving a seven foot triangle shawl), I finally have the right formula. The false starts were practice which served me well.

Picture this: headgear with magnifying lens, Ott floor lamp even during the daylight hours, KnitPicks nickel-plated circulars, thin pink (for knit rows) and blue (for purl rows) stitch markers, 3x5 cards with pattern and stitch count and a Post-It note for keeping my place.

For the first time I finished a fifth row of the pattern and can actually see the points taking shape. Maybe before long I can remove my security blanket--the stitch markers. But for right now, I'm in Volt heaven. I am on my way. The third time is the charm. knock on wood

Bona Fide Knitter

Volted

2010-03-18T11:15:00.005-04:00

I didn't realize how many interruptions I have until I cast on for Volt! It's day three dawning and I have the cast on and only four rows completed, count 'em, FOUR!! And count 'em fast because I'm gearing up to tink that fourth row. I came up with an extra stitch in there somewhere along the way.

Setting up this pattern is a counting nightmare. "Nightmare" for me because I can't count to 25 without an interruption or distraction, even on so-called free days. Sheesh! I've never counted so much in my life! When rows 1, 2 and 3 came out perfectly though, I thought I had it licked. By row 3 I'd even placed markers in the pattern so that recounts didn't have to begin at the beginning of the row each time. My confidence led to my downfall.

So this morning I will tink the last row hoping I will uncover where I went wrong. There hasn't been enough fabric created to spot a mistake by just looking. It does not help that I'm working with black yarn and that the Addi needles I used to love seem to have such blunt tips now that I've been using KnitPick needles exclusively for the past few years. I will tink with sharp-pointed KnitPicks Harmony needles and continue from there by either keeping the work on the KnitPicks wooden needles or switching to KnitPicks nickel-plated when they arrive, probably tomorrow. If need be, I will frog the whole thing (two days work!) and start again--or just consider those rows a swatch and start over. It doesn't bother me much. It will be easier the second time around and I love the process.

Bona Fide Knitter (or Tink-er)

At Last!

2010-03-15T16:45:00.007-04:00

At laaast . . . my yarn has come along. My waiting days are over. And life is like a song. Oh, yeah, at last. The skies above are blue . . . da da da da da da . . . I'm singing like Etta James. Can you hear me?

The Isager kit for Volt arrived late this afternoon. I'll enter my new project on Ravelry and make yarn cakes immediately. After that I might accomplish the cast on before the night is over. If not, tomorrow is a free day and I will cast on and knit, knit, knit, knit, knit! Oh, yeah, and purl too.

Bona Fide Knitter

Near Tears Here

2010-03-13T14:17:00.015-05:00

The window weeps.

The swift awaits.

My Isager yarn is in HARRISBURG, scheduled for delivery MONDAY! I am in PHILADELPHIA wanting to get started SATURDAY! Why oh why couldn't it have been shipped USPS Priorty Mail instead of UPS which takes FOREVER!!! @&*%! @&*%!! @&*%!!! I could cry! Today is the type of chilly, rainy Saturday just perfect for marathon knitting. With a new book in my iPod I could have made great strides knitting Volt from The Fine Line.

So instead I bought a pair of Birkenstocks to go with the shawl I can't even start yet.

Don't ya just love 'em?

Bona Fide Knitter

Isager Yarn Where are You?

2010-03-12T19:01:00.010-05:00

It is Friday. I has been a week since I ordered the yarn and it was "dispatched." Did they send it from NM via Pony Express?!!! I am soooo ticked. And that's putting it mildly. My life is on the suck side this week and my excitement over Grace Anna Farrow's designs and starting the Volt shawl has been the glue holding me together.

...deep breath... ...deep breath... ...deep breath...

Okay I'm sucking it up and moving on. The Harmony interchangeable US 4 needle tips and matching set of dpns arrived today. But now I'm thinking I should knit the shawl with nickel-plated needles. Guess what, the US 4 tips are not in the case. Give me strength!!! However, I do have some Addi Turbo 4s at hand, and a size F crochet hook for the provisional cast on is right here as well.

Anyway, by the time the yarn is finally in my hands I will probably have found all my missing size US 4 KnitPicks interchangeables.

Right now a glass of wine and some inches on a second sock. Then to catch up with a couple of episodes of Project Runway and this rainy, windy, not such a good March day will be a wrap.

Bona Fide Knitter

- - - WAIT! I hate to end on a low note. Here is something to smile about. At least they always make me smile. Like someone who started a Fickr group said, "There is something about a sailor suit."

Is It Here Yet?

2010-03-10T08:52:00.016-05:00

I hope to receive the yarn today. My whole knitting life is on hold waiting for the yarn to come to begin
Volt.

I know I just ordered it on Friday and this is only Wednesday, but I want it NAAOOOWWW! ...whine...whine...

I've got the swift and the ball winder all set up. I've watched YouTube provisional cast on videos ad nauseum. I've researched i-cord in every respect, including cast off and attached.

I've got my KnitPick needle tips and cable on standby and exta Harmony ones on order. Today I will make a working copy of the pattern to keep the book pristine. I neeeeeeed the yaaaaarn naaaooowww!

The only things holding me back from a complete meltdown is I have a sock I can knit on and a timely gift that arrived Monday.

It's from my travel/shopping/knitting buddy Kathryn who knows me oh so well. Thanks gkat.

Bona Fide Knitter drinking calming, soothing herbal tea

Smitten!

2010-03-06T08:25:00.021-05:00

On Tuesday I read an email by my knitting guru, The Scarlet Knitter, describing her Stitches West experience. True to form I hung on her every word and went directly to the link she provided when describing the work of a particular designer. Stop the presses! Hold your horses! All bets are off! I was . . . "smitten" is the word that comes to mind. My dictionary provides the following definitions:

1. struck, as with a hard blow

2. grievously or disastrously stricken or afflicted

3. very much in love

Yes, I was and still am all three. After following that first link, I went to Ravelry and followed any related links and their related links to many places. I ordered the pattern book later on Tuesday and it arrived on Thursday. I reset my agenda, my priorities. UFOs be damned. USOs will remain so. I picked the cover pattern (I intend to knit them all eventually) and ordered the yarn on Friday. I stalked Ravelry for more people, more blogs referencing more patterns and followed them to the ultimate. I carry the book around with me, even to bed. I read it like a novel. I am definitely smitten!!!

This link will lead you into the depths: The Fine Line. Enter at your own risk.

Bona Fide Knitter

In Marches March

2010-03-01T11:08:00.016-05:00

Although the remnants of our snowy winter remain on the ground, March came in like a tamed lion. That is, not as gentle as a lamb and not as ferocious as a lion in the wild. However, we all know of tamed lions who have turned ferocious.

Anyway, as I look back at February and the "snowmageddon," blizzards and nor'easters I can say I got a lot accomplished in the studio while snowed in. Three 3' shawlettes and one 7' shawl woven, one shawlette and one cowl hand knit, the studio made fit for human occupancy and organization, organization, organization.

With the extra boost I got from listening to Jasmin (The Knitmore Girls Podcast), who is finishing up UFOs in 2010, during my studio organization I came across two sweaters all finished except for the finishing. You know what I mean. All the knitting is done and I need to block them and sew them together, another failing of mine. What can I tell you, I'm a process knitter! That's why I like knitting socks. When they're done, they're done . . . well, except for weaving the toe together, at which I am expert. Call me Kitchener Queen! Sock machine socks have given me plenty of practice . . . but I digress. One sweater is a navy blue, cotton pullover which was made so long ago I was a size (or two) smaller at the time. I'd still like to do the finishing on it though. I plan to be that size again one day in the not-too-distant future. The other is a SWTC Tofut-Tee from Stitches East 2008 knit in one piece with only side seams to join and still a stumbling block. Never mind that I took a finishing class at Stitches East one year and bought a book on finishing.

UFO talk is causing me angst. Time to change the subject. Speaking of The Knitmore Girls, they are starting a KAL today, Mondo Cable Pulli or Cardi. There is limited finishing to do. I would have chosen the cardigan. Thank goodness I didn't get the urge to join in before it was too late to get the pattern and acquire the yarn by today. (Please, nobody write to tell me it's not too late!) I am determined to stick to knitting what I already have although right now I am between projects, having just completed the black cowl. Swallowtail Shawl or Sally's Favorite Summer Sweater anyone? They are next on my agenda.

Enough for this first day of March. I am invited to a virtual birthday party. I've already shopped online for the gifts for me in honor of the honoree. Time to go get the Chinese take-out and champagne.

Happy birthday Dorisanne!

Bona Fide Knitter

Love Bites Redux

2010-02-14T12:02:00.019-05:00

Happy Valentine's Day

My window rabbit checks out some of my red stash.

I am no longer snowed in; however, the snow piles linger on and the temperature hovers around freezing or lower. I am content to stay inside until I absolutely have to venture out. Tomorrow is soon enough.

This being Valentine's Day and all, I thought I'd go back to previous years and see what I was up to. I went back to 2007 and found a very interesting February beginning. I won't rehash the details, but I'd like to bring back an oldie I think is a goodie. For the first 14 days I blogged what I called "Love Bites," a take on sound bites, one in every post for 14 days. Here they are again, all original and all under copyright:

Love Bites (originally posted February 1 - 14, 2007)

#1 Be your own best friend.

#2 Knitting is love.

#3 Find something that you really love to do and lose yourself in it.

#4 When love is losing, leave the game.

#5 Love is light and airy . . . tingly and touchy . . . heavy and humid . . . in turns.

#6 Left the love game earlier? Live life. Love later.

#7 Love isn't in the cards? Deal a new hand.

#8 Unconditional love? It depends on the conditions.

#9 Love is more than a one-day-a-year, heart-shaped box of chocolates.

#10 When the love bug bites, really think about the particular bug before you bite back. It might be a better idea to use calamine lotion and get rid of the itch.

#11 You can love a place. I love Cape Cod.

#12 Love can be like chocolate: semi-sweet, bittersweet, dark.

#13 Unlucky in love? Try "like" longer.

#14 Love is friendship.

Hmmm, now that I read them all at once, it seems there might have been a subliminal message running through there. Ya think?

Did you get the significance of yesterday's ending picture of snow falling at night? Look again. Tell me what you see.

Time to get my knit on,

Bona Fide Knitter

Oh Christmas Tree . . .

2010-02-13T08:25:00.015-05:00

The pine tree photographed from my bedroom window as a barometer of our snowfall suffered limb damage during the last storm. It was my baby, a tree we used to decorate with lights for the holidays . . . until the six foot ladder was to short to reach the top. It towers to the rooftop now and always had wide-spaced branches. Now that many are on the ground it looks quite threadbare.

The view from my bedroom window now:

There were many photo ops during the storm. It was truly a winter wonderland. Still is:

And while it snowed I wove. My second project came off the loom and was mailed away to Melissa who has since called to tell me it arrived and she loves it . . . Hmmm, was that "love" or "like"? Anyway, she was wearing it as we spoke, she said.

And while Melissa and I spoke I beaded woven project #3 and discovered a mistake. Why do I find the last lingering mistake after I have fringed and started to bead?!!! Melissa's had one as well. To fix or not to fix? I have decided that as before it will remain a design feature. As Melissa reminded me, great artists intentionally make a mistake and leave it in their work, sort of a signature mistake. I guess I am a great artist. I'm leaving it. Perfectionist tendencies/OCD be damned!

In the bright sunny day that followed the latest storm the LWDs could hardly been seen as they ran through their shoveled maze looking for good pee-pee/poop-poop spots. Can you see the LWDs in their snow trough?

Can I have a little privacy, please?

And this one seems especially appropriate as we turn the page to Valentine's Day 2010. Can you tell me why?

Off to the tri-loom,

Bona Fide Knitter

Snow Sandwich

2010-02-10T08:53:00.018-05:00

We're in the middle of a snow sandwich. We had the bottom slice of bread (if you will) last night into this morning. Now we are into the snow/rain/sleet filling for the sandwich. Later this morning and into the evening we've been promised the top slice of bread--snow falling at possibly three inches an hour. A cold and cripling sandwich to be sure. The schools are closed. They closed the government in Washington, DC. These are snow days of record breaking proportions for the Mid-Atlantic region.

Again the LWDs headed for the back door this morning. They did go out this time, but the snow was too high and wet for them to make the leap of faith off the step. They did wipe their paws coming back in.

Like on Sunday, we then headed for the front door instead and yellow snow was made at the first bush.

The picture from my bedroom window this morning shows the tree laden down with heavy, wet snow. One branch has broken off already.

Enough about the weather! The local TV stations have pre-empted the network shows once again for "live coverage of our winter storm"and are talking weather nonstop. Sunday it was "snowmageddon" today it's "nor'easter" or "blizzard." They talk weather ad nauseum and now I'm doing the same thing! There's weaving to do . . . after one last picture.

The view from my bedroom window just before dawn

I was out to replenish provisions yesterday. I bought milk, champagne and yarn. I have my priorities straight, don't I! And now I'm set for another day or two snowed in, weaving, knitting, having a Mimosa with breakfast.

Cozy and warm in my studio wearing Vera Bradley corduroy PJs, with a movie streamed to the TV screen and loom awaiting, all's right with my little world.

Bona Fide Knitter

Snowmageddon!

2010-02-08T08:52:00.020-05:00

In case there is anybody left that doesn't already know, we had a big snowstorm here in the City of Brotherly Love Friday night into Saturday afternoon, the second in as many months. This one they claim to be our second biggest in recorded history. Who's doing the measuring? And where?

I was so excited to be snowed in I couldn't sleep the night before. I popped up from bed every other hour to check the landscape for snowfall. It was like Christmas Eve in days of yore (when I was a child) when I popped up from bed to see if the landscape around the Christmas tree had changed, in other words, had Santa been there yet.

From my bedroom window:

I was up before daylight with the LWDs (Little White Dogs) for our potty time. When I opened the back door they use, the snow bank was taller than they are.

Two feet high!

They stopped in their tracks, looked up at me and said (with their eyes) "Are you kidding?!!!"

"Wipe Your Paws"

So off we went down to the front door. They are hesitant to step out the front door without being hooked up to leashes. It's a no-no under usual circumstances. I gave them the okay and they stepped out. The shelter of the porch kept the snow accumulation low and they were able to do pee-pees at the first bush.

They finished and ran back into the house shaking every trace of moisture off their newly coiffed coats. They had just been groomed two days before.

So, I had the whole day to weave, knit and look at movies streamed to my TV. Our local stations broadcast the weather all day long for goodness sake! It was like nobody ever saw snow before. The talking heads were in their element. Puh-leeze!

It was the kind of day to "put on a pot." Hearty meals were called for. Ham hocks and butter beans simmering away in my kitchen. After all there would be a whole lot of shoveling to do--NOT!!! We are past the shoveling age. We had our guy come with a snowblower and clear things out after the snow stopped. However, we did do the hearty eating. One must keep ones strength up. We (at least I) had to check the weather from all windows. You need strength for that. It was also a good time to call friends who are usually out and about. Everybody would be home. All that chatting takes strength too!

A work table I ordered had been delivered the evening before and I spent the time between meals, telephoning and looking out windows putting the table together. The table is actually a computer desk, but just the right size not to make too big a footprint in the studio. It also matches the TV table (coffee table) and side table, inexpensive things from Target that fill the bill. Actually I have filled the bill to capacity. The seven-foot loom and its tripod take up a lot of space when I'm weaving. When its free of weaving the loom is dismantled into three sticks and the tripod folds. The whole thing fits nicely into a corner. But while it has weaving on it, quite a bit of the room is taken up. Thus the need for small scale furniture . . . except for the large dog bed in front of the TV.

While I got no knitting or weaving done on Saturday I more than made up for it on Sunday. Lots of weaving, knitting and movie watching was accomplished. Judy, Janis and Melissa provided plenty of talk time as well. It was another wonderful snowed in day.

My studio is cozy and warm and calls to me. Time to start my third consecutive snowed in day.

Bona Fide Knitter

I'm Seeing Red!

2010-02-01T12:18:00.010-05:00

Well, it's February. That's why I'm seeing red. Valentine's Day is this month. Hearts. Red. Get it? But let me backtrack a moment. I am getting the studio set up and ready to rumble. Most fiber arts are boxed, shelved, but not quite as sorted as I would like. While trying to come up with a sort method for this sock-yarn-heavy stash of mine, I had many projects and yarns to revisit, fondle and decide where to file. When did it get to be so much?!!!

So now I've seen all the yarn, the kits and projects started (read UFOs) and unstarted I actually have. There is way too much, actually an overwhelming amount. But I have a new plan of action. Many of my UFOs and some FOs as well will never be all they can be because there is something about them that I didn't like, a mistake, an ugly color, started before my skill level matched the project, some finished and never worn, whatever. I am going to be doing a lot of frogging! I am going to be doing a lot of repurposing of frogged yarn and also of new yarn which will be recatagorized from knitting to weaving and from sock yarn to sweater, shawl or afghan yarn. I am finally going to focus. I am also going to shop my stash this year and as Tim Gunn says, "Make it work!"

I must confess that yesterday I bought yarn. It was Patternworks' fault! I had to buy yarn to get the free pattern for a cowl I cannot live without. I bought three balls of black yarn to make the cowl. And last night, just before the red month started, I went back to a mouldering KnitPicks cart that still contained handpaint Merino yarn in reds I've been hemming and hawing over and bought it. That's it! I'm done! Well, except for some Lion Brand Homespun I need to go with some I already have that isn't enough for the two shawls I want to weave. I am limited to buying only yarn needed to match some I have that isn't enough for the project in mind.

And then I checked out some of my red stash . . . My plan is to frog a red afghan I started some months (a year? longer?) ago that has a mistake that is driving me crazy. I'm not even two inches into it. I should have frogged and started over long ago knowing my OCD tendencies! So today it gets frogged and sometime this month I will restart it. After all, this is the red month.

Bona Fide Knitter

It's Twenty Ten!

2010-01-15T09:28:00.017-05:00

The first month of 2010 is half over and I am dutifully doing what I set out to do this year, move into my newly constructed "studio" and bring some order to my hobbies. So many hobbies, so little space. Actually I have space but just too many hobbies that require a lot of stuff. Right now I'm dealing with the "fiber arts" as I call my hand knitting, antique sock machine knitting and stash. Then there is my newest thing--weaving. Christmas 2008 I got a seven foot triangle loom and matching tripod stand. I knew I was in deep doggie doo when I had no space big enough for setup. And then there are the four sock machines and the sock yarn stash that had overtaken the space needed to use the sock machines.

This past summer I had the garage converted to a room I can devote to the fiber arts. It will also house my play doll collection. That is the play doll wall pictured above. I've gathered up yarn stash from all its hiding places and now to organize and store it in an orderly manner that is also pleasing to the eye. That has not been accomplished yet so no pictures will appear at this time. There is prior-to-organization chaos of which I do not want photographic evidence. Get the picture?

I am about to relinquish my title as the "Queen of Unfinished Projects." Please don't jump to the wrong conclusion. I don't intend to finish them all. I am going to take an idea from a podcast I heard and unravel them. Yes, unravel them! I'm sure you all have a UFO (or two or more) that you know you will never finish for one reason or another. Face it. Bite the bullet. Ravel, rest it and start over or ravel and re purpose that yarn! Thank you Jasmin of the Knitmore Girls podcast for causing that idea to finally sink in.

Speaking of podcasts, I grew weary of a few that I liked in the beginning and have narrowed my favorites to Cast On (Brenda Dayne), KnitPicks (Kelley Petkin), The Knitmore Girls (mother and daughter GiGi and Jasmin) and Sticks and String (David Reidy). I tried a new one this week, Savvy Girls (two sisters). So far, not bad. I'll listen to a few more episodes before passing judgement on that one. I also have three non-knitting related podcasts that I follow faithfully: The Splendid Table, Grammar Girl and This American Life.

So here we are, a year and a month later, and I have woven my first triangle shawl on the tri-loom. No pictures yet. I have the fringe to finish before I take it off the loom. In the meantime, watch this You Tube video that I turn to when I need calming.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M99sSC8TIOc

Bona Fide Knitter

December? It Can't Be!

2009-12-01T22:08:00.017-05:00

I have been living real life big time in the last few months. My knitting has suffered and also benefited from it. By "real life" I mean suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, taking arms against a sea of troubles, going through the heartache and thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to. Forgive me Mr. Shakespeare. It's been a rough few months in my life and that's enough said about that. On to knitting . . . and not knitting.

Lo and behold the vanilla vanilla socks got finished. That's one good use for ER waiting room, hospital and nursing home visits. The trouble is those visits do not lend themselves to the concentration needed for Kitchenering ("Kitchenering"?) the toes. Too many interruptions. So no pictures of the completed object yet. Further, the 2009 beach socks are moving right along. They should be completed before it's time for beach socks 2010, I should hope. The Butt Ugly Shrug is coming along as well. Lots of time in front of the TV hunkered down knitting. It has given me a good excuse to order the "blocking blocks" from K nitPicks. They should be here any day now and I can block the body and sleeves, sew them together and pick up stitches for the ribbed collar and band.

I rejoined Netflix, only one movie at a time this go round, and I bought a Roku box (since I have no X-Box, Play Station 3, Blu-ray or Ti-Vo) so I can stream movies to my television screen. I'm in movie heaven which makes for mucho knitting time.

The bathroom renovation is almost complete. The main part, the shower room I designed, is totally complete. I love my shower! My next water bill, not so much.

My studio is gradually being filled. I am not liking the wake-up call it is giving me on my yarn stash. I was better off not knowing. I have enough sock yarn to to keep all four of my sock machines humming and two Magic Loops at a time singing forever. I have just begun to move the sweater, jacket, shawl and afghan projects including ones bought as kits. OMG!!! All I have to say about the number of those is I'd better get to knittin'!

I'll leave you with a picture of the chair in which I plan to sit while knitting the winter away in my studio. I just ordered it. Draped in an afghan, a DVD or audio book playing and the knitting should be easy.
Bona Fide Knitter

Woes and UFOs

2009-10-01T07:13:00.011-04:00

Can it be a whole month ago that I last wrote? The short month of September seems to have flashed by in a flurry of UFOs and a load of lackluster days. Suffice it to say I've had better months.

My knitting is looooong suffering. The Seaside Shrug, the one I refer to as "butt ugly," has not been touched in many weeks. It was supposed to be finished by now and would be but for the sprained thumb and wrist I mentioned a month ago. Finished, it would have been a warm comfort this brisk fall morning. The needlepoint I started when I couldn't knit remains unfinished as well. I was going at a good clip and then we returned home for what was to be a very brief period before returning for our last Cape Cod retreat for 2009, the month of October. I unpacked the needlepoint for a little show and tell with a friend at lunch a few days after we were home and returned it to the beach tote in preparation for the next trip. It appears the next trip will not be happening this year. Spouse is sick. We are in extreme woe mode.

All the news isn't bad. The vanilla vanilla socks have grown by leaps and bounds this past week. And even better than that, when I returned from Cape Cod my STUDIO was complete! Yes, the garage conversion was done, finished, ready for occupancy. A trip to Ikea for the beginning of shelves and such, a lot of planning and a little moving stuff in happened. However, the room is so nice, so clean and uncluttered, I hesitate to mess that up.

While spouse unloads the van I take pictures of the room.

A little BEFORE and AFTER:

What was once a garage door . . .

. . . is now a bay window.

See all the Before, During and After pictures in my Kodak album.

Bona Fide Kniter

The Days Dwindle Down

2009-09-01T14:48:00.010-04:00

. . . to a precious few. September, November . . .

The lyrics to September Song seem appropriate today. I can't believe summer 2009 is, for all intents and purposes, over. Some children are already back in school, a great number started today and some lucky ones won't begin until after Labor Day, as it was way (way, way) back in my day.

The weather here in Brewster, on Cape Cod, is gorgeous today. Seventy degrees, sunny, not humid and a day to read on the beach, or knit beach socks. I will be doing neither. After a trip to the library and writing a few notes, there was not enough time between meals to get it all done. So I visited Town-Ho instead.

Okay, let me explain. Town-Ho Needleworks is a needlepoint shop up the road from here. That phrase has certainly taken on a different meaning in the years since the shop was named. Anyway, it is a wonderful needlepoint shop with rooms of eye candy for the needlework inclined. However, I was amazed at the prices. Years ago, when needlepoint was my obsession of choice, a fine needlepoint kit with painted canvas and Paternayan wool sold for $18. Now a similar canvas costs $45 or more and doesn't include the yarn!

After much restraint I bought a little kit I happened to find at a reasonable price. I had missed it on the first go-round. The second time, while fingering through a container of small kits, all of a sudden the flip flops caught my eye. Flip flops seem to be my theme this summer.

I wondered would I remember how to needlepoint. It's like riding a bike. Once the tapestry needle was in hand and threaded it all came back to me. I am not even tempted to wield it like sewing toes on socks. Maybe that is because it has been so long since I finished a pair of socks I've forgotten how to Kitchener.

One important fact I haven't mentioned is that I sprained my left thumb and right wrist (Don't ask.) soon after I got here and find it painful to knit. Now I have a little project to do until those ouchies feel better and I can get back to Beach Socks 2009, the ongoing Vanilla Vanilla Socks and the Butt Ugly Shrug. (Remember that one?)

Bona Fide Knitter

Traveling By Train . . . sometimes the only way to fly

2009-08-09T11:09:00.012-04:00

Morning rain today and the promise of thunder boomers during the day. Temperatures are forecast to rise to near records in the next few days with appropriate hair-wrecking humidity. Yuk! I need to be on Olde Cape Cod.

Yesterday I had a break in the humdrum and took a train Washington, DC, to meet my BFF from high school for our annual mini high school reunion which includes just the two of us. We went to the Kennedy Center to see The Color Purple (again). This time starring Fantasia (winner of American Idol a few seasons ago). She was fantastic. I've seen the show three times now and BFF has seen it four or five times. She's lost count. The music still gets to us.

I decided to take the train instead of driving which was a brilliant idea--except for the price of parking at 30th Street Station in Philadelphia. Thirty-two dollars!!! Yes, $32 for short term parking over four hours. It cost as much as my train ticket to Washington, DC! I'm still glad I took the train instead of driving. I got special summer pricing on the roundtrip tickets ($66) by purchasing in advance online. But next time I might not even drive to the station. I'll take the commuter train to the station. It will allow me more knitting time. I knitted and listened to a book on my iPod and I was in DC in no time. The plain vanilla vanilla socks have really taken shape . . . at long last.

BFF picked me up at the station and off we went to the Kennedy Center. I was pleased to stick a little shopping in before curtain time. There was a vendor stand in the lobby selling marvelous wooden figures by Cheryl Olney trading as Louise's Daughter. I bought a pin to remind me of the day. It's me in my best color, dancing in "Miss Celie's Pants."

After the show we had a marvelous, leisurely dinner at McCormick and Schmicks. Green Apple Martinis and fried calamari with three dipping sauces to start.

Then it was back to Union Station for my train ride home. More knitting and more audio book. It was a great day. Lots of catching up and laughter, knitting and reading (listening?), and a tiny hint of shopping. Yes, a perfect day.

Bona Fide Knitter

Missing Sweetwater

2009-08-03T09:14:00.008-04:00

I've been back from Cape Cod for a week now and I'm missing it already. I didn't do anything exciting up there. It's just that 'same stuff/different day' is more palatable in a forest.

Today is a good day to remind myself of how it looks coming up the road at the end of an afternoon walk.

When we get this close I let the LWDs lead the way untethered.

Snowball squeezes out one last pee-pee to mark his territory and Icecream heads for the steps.

I can feel the air and hear the pines sough in the slight breeze. I wanna go baaaaaaack!

Oh, wait a minute. I just remembered that we will be going back in another week or two. Aaaahhhh, I feel much better now.

Bona Fide Knitter

Knitting Short List

2009-08-01T12:55:00.016-04:00

It's Saturday. Do you know where your knitting is? Ha! A better question is, do I know where my knitting is.

Okay, I'm forced to make a mental note. I needed a small tote bag the other day and dumped the contents of the one closest at hand. Out came the "perpetual shawl." You might remember it by some other names I've called it: "never ending" "shawl of shawls" "shawl of a lifetime" and even its official name,"Rings of Supersock." Ack! I had forgotten all about it. Yes, it's time for a mental inventory, just a short list of works in progress, current works in progress, not to be confused with unfinished objects.

Right now I am waaaaay into my summer sweater project which, if you remember, is the shrug from the summer issue of Knitter's Magazine, the Seaside Shrug. I got a lot accomplished (for me) while I was away. I even worked through the odd phenomenon of my KnitPicks nickle plated needles becoming tacky, loosing their shine and no longer knitting slick and fast. I think the weather was so damp they started to mold or something. Once the weather dried they returned to normal, but are still a little discolored. I wonder what's up with that. I need to pose the question to the KnitPicks Community. Anyway, I completed the whole body and one sleeve of the shrug. I was almost at the end of the ribbed cuff of the second sleeve before we came home.

I referred to the picture of the Seaside Shrug in the magazine as "butt ugly." Now karma has come around to bite me I need not tell you where. My rendition might be joining the Butt Ugly Club. I'm not too pleased with how the colors compliment each other. Buying yarn online without a color card does not always pan out. The golden mustard and hot coral/orange combination I loved in a knit suit I had many years ago did not meet expectations in the yarn color choices I made for my shrug. Ugly or not here it comes.

The plain vanilla socks knit in plain vanilla yarn are still languishing away in my GoKnit Pouch. I haven't had that much waiting room or nursing home visiting time recently. I think I might just go ahead and push through that heel flat here at home and hurry those socks off the needles.

Okay, that's my short list: (1) Seaside Shrug (2) plain vanilla socks (3) Beach Socks 2009. I will have all three finished before summer is over. You heard it here first, folks.

Bona Fide Knitter

PS--I'll get back to the shawl of shawls come fall.

A Beach Day!

2009-07-18T10:18:00.007-04:00

I went to the beach yesterday. Can you believe it? I even started the beach socks. Now let me tell you the bad news. Going to the beach killed me!

I started the day with my usual routine: up by 5:30 a.m., let the dogs out for quick pee-pees, while I have a quick . . . TMI . . . They get a treat and a vitamin and I brush my teeth. Then we settle on the sofa to watch an inspirational TV program from 6:00 until 6:30. Back in the bathroom for me for morning ablutions after which I put the coffee on and the LWDs and I head off into the Forest for a morning walk. We are out for 45 minuets to an hour. After that I eat a light breakfast.

Yesterday after breakfast I headed out to the drugstore and supermarket in Orleans. On the way, since I was passing it anyway, I stopped at the Brewster Town Office to buy a beach parking permit for the season. After picking up prescriptions and shopping for fresh fish and a few grocery items, it was lunch time and the beautiful, warm day gave me the marvelous idea to make a sandwich and have lunch on the beach. After all I had my parking permit now, didn’t I?

So, when I got home, I changed from tank top and Capris to bathing suit and “beach" pajamas with matching flip flops and hat. I made a sandwich and filled a few sandwich bags with snacks–potato chips, pretzels, cookies. You can never have too many snacks at the beach. I quick-chilled a couple of bottles of water and packed it all in insulated keeper bags and put those into my beach tote. As you might have gathered by now I am very big on bags and totes of various responsibilities. Then I gathered sun lotion, bug spray, lip balm, PDA, iPod, earbuds, cell phone, ID, money, sunglasses and towels and added those to the tote. From the shed, my husband got a beach chair, umbrella and screw-into-the-sand base and loaded those into the minivan for me. Just in case I felt particularly ambitious when I got there, I also had him load the beach lounge chair, bigger umbrella and the heavy duty screw-in base. Then off I went with new parking sticker affixed to bumper, loaded for bear.

In the five minutes it took to drive to Breakwater Beach I felt my energy start to flag. Going to the beach for the first time in a season is a lot of work! Luckily I got a parking spot a few steps from the sand. The tide was out so there was no thought of even getting my feet wet. When the tide goes out in Brewster it goes way out.

I unloaded in two trips. I had no energy for he heavy duty beach stuff. I unloaded the smaller umbrella and set that up. Screw, screw, screw the base into the sand. Insert the pole. Unfurl the umbrella and put it in the pole. Aaah, a little spot of shade. I went back for the chair and my tote, set them up, stripped down to swimsuit, plopped down in the chair. Whew, I was worn out! I sat for awhile just relishing the mostly sky view, heavily breathing the salt air and wondering if I would ever be able to get up out of the low, butt-almost-in-the-sand chair.

I sprayed myself with Off because the flying beach bugs were already gathering for a chocolate feast. Mosquitoes and sand flies find me very appetizing. I realized it was HOT Even in the shade of my umbrella . . . umbrella . . . umbrella. Off with the hat, tie back the hair. Better. Maybe some food . . . I ate the sandwich and drank a bottle of water. Yes, much better. I was cooler and stronger. After a few potato chips, a couple of pretzels and a cookie, I cleaned my hands and broke out my too cute flip flop print bag containing the sock yarn and US 1 needles. Onto my KnitPicks Harmony 32 circular I cast on 60 sts and knit two rows of k2, p2 of ribbing during my time on the beach.

I will be making one sock at a time. Two socks on one circular does not float my boat. (A beach appropriate analogy, no?) I prefer my socks knit one at a time no matter how many times I try to like the two at once on one circular needle method. I do not suffer from second sock syndrome. In fact I actually enjoy casting on for the second sock and watching the miracle happen all over again and become an identical twin.

However, my strength and energy ebbed as the tide came in. I drank more water, ate more pretzels and another cookie and spent close to three rather pleasant hours on the beach, having to change chair to umbrella orientation only once before deciding it was time to make the effort to close it all down and schlep it back to the minivan.

The after-beach therapeutic shower that is normally so reviving didn’t work its wonders. After I was all clean and in fresh PJs I collapsed on the sofa and took a nap. I was wiped out for the rest of the evening and night. I roused once for pie and ice cream and again to go to bed at midnight. I am so totally out of shape! I need a healthier diet and a personal trainer!! Horror of horrors, I might need to join a gym!!!

However, I will remind you, I did make a paltry start on Beach Socks 2009.

Bona Fide Knitter

Beach Socks? Not Happenin'!

2009-07-18T10:14:00.008-04:00

Written July 16, 2009 ~

Beach socks are not happening. Laziness is. Or maybe it could be called contentedness. Is that a word? Anyway, I have not been to the beach yet even though the weather has been good for going. Yesterday evening we went to the beach to watch the sunset. This is where the sunset picture would be inserted if I had remembered to bring my camera to the beach. I took a picture with my PDA, but didn't bring the hot synch connection with me on vacay therefore I cannot download the picture to my computer in order to upload to Blogger. Du-uh!

The tide was in. The water was beautiful and inviting although I noticed the few remaining people on the beach were not in the water. We didn’t get out of the minivan. We left and stopped for ice cream instead. That seems to be our modus operandi these days. The Little White Dogs (LWDs) were a little disapointed.

--The video of the LWDs returning from the beach trip I tried to insert here keeps failing.--

The lovely yarn I brought along to knit socks on the beach is laying untouched in my beach tote. To appease my conscience for being such a do-nothing all these weeks, I bought a “sock bag.” It is a tiny bag to keep my sock project in as I work on it. Of course another knitting bag is just what I needed.

A few days ago we drove to Hyannis to the dock area from which the ferry, fishing and excursion boats leave. There is a little shopping area there, little buildings where artists sell their crafts. As I passed one shop the cutest little cotton bag attracted my attention, twisted my arm and made me buy it.

How could I resist? It is the perfect size to hold a ball of yarn and a pair of socks in progress. It also has my newest favorite thing depicted--flip flops.

This summer I have traded in my omnipresent Birkenstocks for pairs of Fit Flops, the shoes in which I was able to walk for miles and hours in Italy last September, and Vera Bradley flip flops to match three pairs of my VB pajamas. I’ll go back to Birks in the winter when I have to wear socks, but I digress.

Beach socks might not get started this trip, but at least the yarn has a cute keeping place until next month’s return trip to the Cape. I plan to spend many hours on the beach next trip. You heard it here first folks.

So that’s my beach sock story and I’m sticking to it.

Bona Fide Knitter

Happy Independence Day . . .

2009-07-04T10:08:00.023-04:00

. . . or what a difference a day makes.

A couple of days ago I drafted a blog entry with "Rain, Rain, Go Away" as the title. The lightning and thunder boomers made me rethink signing on to publish it and now my draft is out of date, but anyway here is what I wrote on July 2, 2009:

Rain, rain, go away . . .

We’ve had rain every day or every night since we arrived on Cape Cod almost a week ago. I’m starting to mold. There have been lightning and thunder more nights than my furkids would prefer. I’ve had more than enough nap and knitting indoors time. I’m ready to nap and knit on the beach, or even on the porch. Although we’ve had a couple of days with a few hours of sunshine, it’s been too damp and cloudy to hose the place down and expect it to dry within a few hours in order to set up the furniture and put the pads and pillows on. Even though my wicker furniture that was chic a dozen years ago and shabby/chic six years ago is just plain shabby now, it still makes for a comfy and inviting porch once everything is in place and all the chotskies are up, especially in the evening with some citronella candles lit.

Right now it is uninhabitable. We haven’t even removed all the blue tarps.

Rain, rain, go away.

Bona Fide Knitter

AND THEN I WROTE

Happy Independence Day . . .

. . . or what a difference a day makes

Sunshine, Vitamin D, how glad I am to see thee! My house plants, brought from home so they would not succumb to draught on the kitchen and powder room windowsills, have almost rotted away, except for the one I forgot to take out of the minivan. It remained in a cup holder in the back for the first few days we were here.

Heck, I almost rotted away! I'm sure I have a little mold somewhere. We have had rain for seven straight days either morning, noon or night or all three time periods. Yes, the sun did shine a couple of hours a couple of afternoons, but the rest of the time it has been foggy, cloudy or weepy. I haven't even bothered to go to get a beach parking permit yet. So although this is a beautiful beach day, I will not be going. This is not my choice of a beach day anyway because it will be too crowded with holiday bathers happy for some sun.

So, I was finally able to hose down the porch. It took a very long time to dry. And although even shabbier than I remembered when the tarps were removed from the wicker and the cushions brought out from their winter nest behind the living room sofa, the porch is now livable and inviting.

I'll meet you on the porch. Bring your knitting.

Bona Fide Knitter

Beach Socks

2009-06-25T14:28:00.006-04:00

It's that time again. It was time to pick yarn and plan to knit on the beach. I shopped my stash and came up with this sock yarn procured from my favorite LYS, Woolbearers of Mount Holly, NJ. However, I bought the yarn from them all the way down in Baltimore, MD, at Stitches East in 2007. The colorway drew me in. It reminded me of sea, sand, seagulls and rocks. It's superwash wool dyed by Woolbearers and although my Beach Socks* usually have some cotton content, these colors are begging to become my 2009 Beach Socks.

Sooooo, here is my last cake for awhile . . . a yarn cake!

This picture, taken with a little daylight filtering through the kitchen window, brings out the blue better than last night's picture taken in complete artificial light. Yes, it's the colors of Breakwater Beach in Brewster, MA, on the bay side of Cape Cod where I'll be knitting.

Bona Fide Knitter

*Beach Socks are not socks to wear on the beach. They are socks to knit on the beach.

Happy Anniversary to Me?

2009-06-24T08:50:00.014-04:00

My spouse had a hypoglycemic episode yesterday afternoon which thwarted plans for a celebration today, our wedding anniversary--more years than I care to make public and many, many more years than I thought I could bear. To commemorate the occasion I bought myself a gift. That's one way to make sure I get what I want.

I'd been wanting this ever since I saw it right after the inauguration. I finally came up with a reason for buying it other than "I deserve it" . . .

. . . although I certainly do deserve it.

The Obama Clutch Bag is by a fabulous Etsy seller who is an artisan in leather trading as ArmandoJavierDesign. My pictures are unstaged, taken in a hurry on a cloudly day with flash too bright. Even thrown on the bed and using no flash this bag still looks good!

And again, this time with the flash.

Both the workmanship and the message the headlines bring make this a bag to have! Yes, beautiful, wearable art at its most topical. A keepsake for sure.

Bona Fide Knitter

Wanna Cookie? Not While I'm Knitting!

2009-06-22T18:25:00.008-04:00

My latest baking masterpiece came out of the oven on Saturday...

What a cake! It looked just like a giant, Double Stuff Oreo cookie and tasted like one as well.

I'm using the past tense because it was all gone by Sunday afternoon. I had to give more than half away. It was not conducive to the health of my diabetic spouse who has no self control. I, on the other hand, could only take so much of the butter cream icing. It did not appeal to me. The word SWEET hardly describes it. Four and a half cups of confectioner's sugar and a stick of butter with a little vanilla extract whipped together until it becomes a fluffy froth makes a lovely filling for the cake, giving it that Oreo look, but is more than a little too sweet for me. Next time I will bake the cake, fill it with softened vanilla ice cream, then freeze it to firm it up. I can hardly wait. Ice cream sandwich heaven! And it will still look like a giant Oreo.

The pans that create the big chocolate cookies for top and bottom are a Williams Sonoma exclusive. The recipe comes with and is a winner. It's a cross between chocolate cake and a brownie. Delish!

The knitting pace is picking up. Unfortunately I'm having to do more tinking than I would like. How could I, also known as "The Sock Lady," possibly screw up heel flaps on plain vanilla socks! Twice! I tell you knitting two at once on one circular needle is not all it's cracked up to be. When you screw up there is a possibility that you will screw up twice. (1 screw up x 2 socks at once on one circular = 2 screw ups) Ask me how I know.

Yep, I started doing Eye of Partridge flaps and in the midst of it my brain had a blip and it became a hot mess. Tink! Then I decided to make them plain stockinette, something I never do. It was much too much plain-ness. Tink! I'm now knitting away in waiting rooms doing the old tried and true Dutch heel.

The Seaside Shrug, which in my case will be more of a "Sunset on the Sea" Shrug,

is coming along nicely. It's almost time to start knitting in earnest. Vacay is only hours away. That means I need to get cracking and get those plain vanilla socks off the needles to be replaced by beach socks, i.e., socks knit solely (no pun intended) on the beach while listening to audio books. Aaaah, blis!

Bona Fide Knitter, definitely back

Bona Fide Knitter . . . BACK!

2009-06-08T10:44:00.008-04:00

I'm ba-ack! I'm a knitter again. No baking for a week now, although I did just order two new pans yesterday. But I digress.

I've been knitting. Here's the evidence.

Okay, so it's not the Great American Afghan. It's a dishcloth. Whadidya expect? It's a start. While looking through my cotton yarn stash for something suitable with which to make facecloths, I found this lone ball of Lily Sugar 'n Cream in a colorway I remember buying because it said "Cape Cod" to me. The colors fit right in with the decor up there. Actually they also match my powder room here . . . hmmmmm . . .

Anyway, you will notice in the picture that although I am at the end, I did not bind off. You might also have been able to gloam in on a couple of mistakes. My tinge of OCD reared its ugly head and I just might frog the whole thing and do it over. It only takes a couple of nights in front of the TV. We'll see.

However, on a more substantial knitting note, my copy of the new Knitter's (Summer 2009, K95) arrived last week and I actually got an urge to knit, really knit. The magazine had been leaving me ~~cold~~ luke warm in recent issues. Even the big Soxx contest didn't stir me much. This time I have actually ordered yarn to start one of the sweaters pictured. It's the butt ugly shrug pictured on pages 74 and 75. Ooops, perhaps somebody who reads this intends to knit it as is. I'm sorry. It's not "butt ugly." It's just that the colors as combined are not to my liking. But (to use a different "but"), it is exactly the kind of shrug pattern I looked for during last winter. I even faved a few on Ravelry and never went farther because they just weren't it. I'd been looking for a BIG shrug and did not find the right one. I think this is it. I want something big to wrap up in and a shrug, at least any I'd ever seen before, was more of a skimpy shoulder and arm cover. Hmmmm, I guess that's why it is called a "shrug"--because it's for your shoulders--shrug your shoulders. Get it?

I think this more substantial one in Knitter's is just what I was looking for and I have ordered yarn for it from KnitPicks. I changed the colors trying for color harmony using a color scheme based on warm analogous colors. I can picture myself keeping the heat down low next winter wearing some flannel pajama bottoms (which I am going to make from my fabric stash) with coordinating tees (which I will buy from Chico's on sale) and wearing my coordinating hand knit or machine knit socks with Fit Flops (if I ever knit a pair of thong socks) or Birkenstocks, while working in my newly completed garage-turned-studio. I have just created an image that should get my knit back on for sure!

Hurry, KnitPicks! I need that yarn yesterday!

Bona Fide Knitter (needing instant gratification)

No Knitting and a Little Baking

2009-06-01T16:03:00.017-04:00

My weekend knitting, which was to be a Sunday washcloth marathon, turned into a day of searching the Internet for just the right cloth pattern for the Elann.com, Coto Canapone (52 % cotton/48% hemp) yarn that arrived last week just a few days after I ordered it. It is the closest I could find to a worsted weight linen or cotton-linen blend at a price I was willing to pay. I ordered color #3, White Sand. The nice oatmeal color is just what I had in mind for my washcloths. I envisioned spa-like color, not quite as soft as Peaches & Creme, perfect for the bath. Instead I got really nice yarn with a soft hand, slightly thinner than the worsted weight I expected and maybe too nice for washcloths. That being the case, the yarn called for a special pattern because it will become washcloths anyway.

Yesterday I found HIS and HERS at Etsy for $4. I'm still waiting for the email with the pattern PDF. Today I found His Cloth and Her Cloth for FREE (my favorite four-letter word). I also found free Easy Peasy Dischcloths which are knit on large needles using double yarn. That might be the answer for this slightly thinner yarn. I don't I want to go as high as 9 mm (US 13) needles as suggested though. I feel a swatch coming on.

Baking is happening much easier than knitting these days. This past weekend's masterpiece was a cake baked in my newest pan, a Lemon Tea Cake. Yes, it tastes as good as it looks and was "easy peasy" to make. I feel another cake pan purchase coming on.

Bona Fide Knitter . . . really

The Bake Goes On

2009-05-27T14:13:00.021-04:00

I am still baking and not knitting. Well, not knitting enough and baking too much. I actually forgot, FORGOT, to take waiting room knitting with me on three, THREE separate occasions. Woe is me! I'm at the heel flaps for the plain vanilla socks and at the first round of color B on the shawl. I just printed off a couple of dish cloth patterns. I need a break.

But back to baking: On Memorial Day I created my first disaster. It was to be limoncello cupcakes with limoncello buttercream icing. My 12 cup muffin pan was missing, probably lost in the kitchen redo of a two years ago. However, it was a perfect opportunity to use one of my cupcake cake pans. Instead of the giant cupcake cake pan, I used the one that makes four "mini" cupcakes. (They are really very large, two-part cupcakes.) I used a recipe from a blog I stumbled upon.

At one point when I looked in the oven, the batter in four of the wells had overflowed and risen and four had fallen! A little while later, close to time to take them out, they had all fallen. Disaster!

They were like cookies, cookie liners for a cupcake pan! And they had the nerve to be tasty! I couldn't get them out without a chisel so I soaked the whole pan in water and threw the sodden mess away. What happened, you wonder? So did I. In printing the recipe from the blog some mysterious symbols appeared in the printout. What did me in was a "1" that showed up in front of the "1/2 cup" of sugar. I used a cup and a half of sugar! No wonder I got cookies instead of cupcakes!!

So, off I went to ACMoore and Michael's with 40% and 50% discount coupons in hand and bought a 12 cupcake pan, some cute cupcake print paper linings and matching boxes that hold four cupcakes each.

Unfortunately, my next disaster was about to occur. I used another blog recipe to make Martha Stewart's Gingerbread Cupcakes. I should have used the recipe straight from Martha's site and I would have known to use "large cupcake papers and two jumbo muffin tins" to bake these cupcakes. Or at least I would have known to bake 18 - 20 standard size ones. Here is what I got:

and these that overflowed because I filled them too high trying to use all the remaining batter:

And then the yummy limoncello cream cheese buttercream icing was a little too loose to get a thick coat on them. Too much limoncello I'm afraid.

Not the prettiest and not for gift giving, but they taste really good. Another lesson learned: I will not use my cute lining papers on dark cupcakes again. You can't even see the design. Light papers need to be used to contain light batter, not gingerbread and certainly not chocolate. Who knew?

All was not lost over the holiday weekend. I can end on a high note. The day before the cupcake fiasco I made a beehive honey cake. It looks good and tastes even better.

Bzzzzzzz.

Bona Fide Knitter

Bona Fide Baker?

2009-05-16T09:38:00.021-04:00

While my knitting vibe vacillates, my addiction to the Food Network has taken over. I am now the owner of a waffled pancake pan, an ebelskiver pan, and a shortcake basket pan, all of which I have used this week. They will reside alongside the Belgium waffle iron and the giant cupcake cake pan and its sister that makes four smaller cupcake cakes.

The shortcake basket pan arrived late yesterday afternoon. In the evening I had these:

I made the recipe included in the packaging. I thought it would make the exact amount I needed. However, it overfilled the wells just a tad and they looked like muffins that didn't quite rise. Perhaps my partially melted butter (instead of softened) and skim milk (instead of whole) made the difference.

Anyway, they turned out of the pan just fine.

And the resulting strawberry shortcake was scrumptious . . .

. . . even up close and personal.

Strawberries are plentiful and very reasonably priced in my neighborhood right now. The markets are full of them and thus, so is my refrigerator. They are not just for dessert or cereal. I found a place for them in a "toad-in-a-hole" breakfast (egg, cinnamon raisin toast).

Knitting still consists of the shawl of a lifetime and the plain vanilla socks. The socks are at the heel turn. The shawl is at the first color change, which isn't very far along considering the rounds so far have 1,800 stitches. My mind has turned toward another old standby, "warshrags." I have an overwhelming desire to knit a few linen or linen/cotton blend wash cloths. I have loads of Peaches & Creme and Sugar'n Cream, 100% cotton, worsted weight, but I want some linen content. I absolutely cannot use the hybernating Sasha Skirt's pricey, stashed Euroflax and Claudia linen. Is this an excuse to buy a little yarn, ya think? I'm afraid so.

Bona Fide Knitter/Baker

Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival

2009-05-04T12:42:00.010-04:00

Saturday I had a wonderful day out, a day trip all by myself with an audio book (The Street Lawyer, by John Grisham, a favorite author of mine, narrated by Frank Muller, my favorite narrator) for company on the 2.5 hour drive to and fro. Dunkin Donuts decaf on the way down and cinnamon and sugar encrusted almonds on the way back, aaaaah bliss.

The Festival was, as always, mobbed and chock full of fiber, equipment and supplies. Of course there were the usual live suspects: sheep, goats, rabbits, llamas, alpacas, old friends and new friends, and of course food, lots of food.

I may have been so relaxed and laid back having a day to myself that I leaned toward feeling jaded. I found nothing to get excited about. Sock yarn? No, been there/done that, got the stash to prove it. Weaving yarn? Yes, a little. I haven't done enough triangular loom weaving to know what I need or want, but I bought some silk/wool blend skeins that should work up nicely on my small (18") tri loom. I also succumbed to four large skeins of the denim blue mohair that was being sold at a price I couldn't refuse. I have visions of a seven foot fringed shawl that goes great with jeans. I can dream, can't I? But no sweater or felted bag kit beckoned me. I think I've had my fill.

One of the high points of the day was when a shopper walked up to me and inquired, "Bona Fide Knitter?" I was so surprised! My avid follower proceeded to make me feel very good about my efforts, so good that I'm going to get back in the swing of it. Thanks Melodye!

It was good to run into three of my fellow sock machine enthusiasts during the day and catch up on what I've been missing and learn I've been missed from the fray. The sock machine demonstration started at 3:00 p.m. I was just an hour from home by then. A couple of years ago I was one of the demonstrators. How the mighty have fallen. My space-consuming hobbies have been put on hold while a garage conversion is being planned to give me a "studio" where it can all be kept together. Well, maybe not all of it . . . That's a story for another day.

The fiber thrill just wasn't there for me this year. It seemed to me that there was an inordinate amount of roving being offered--naturals, colors, wools, silks, you name it, all lovely. I missed last year's Festival so perhaps this trend has been forming and I didn't notice it. Every hobby has its day. I think spinning is really coming into its own. I don't spin. I've been tempted, but I don't spin. I have no wheel and don't want one. I don't spin. I have no drop spindle and I don't want one. No spinning for me. You heard it here first folks.

Anyway, I didn't have my usual MD Sheep and Wool vibe on, but I thoroughly enjoyed the half day I was there and am happy with my purchases. Oh, I forgot to mention the maple syrup and cranberry honey. Yum!

I didn't take my camera with me so I will end with a favorite picture from the 2007 Festival:

Hey! Watch those clippers!

Bona Fide Knitter

Mayday, Mayday, Mayday!

2009-05-01T06:53:00.011-04:00

It is actually May Day, May 1, which has a different meaning altogether. It's either a labor or pagan holiday depending on where you live or what you feel like doing. However, this is the perfect day for me to take liberties with the international call of distress which is "MAYDAY" said three times in a row. A Mayday call may only be made when life or craft is in imminent danger of death or destruction. My craft is in imminent danger of destruction. Okay, so I'm stretching the meaning of "craft" quite a bit. I'm talking about my knitting. My life is in imminent danger of destruction from overwhelming responsibilities and excessive pity parties. But I digress.

Since this is, for the most part, a knitting blog, let me tell you about my knitting, or lack there of. I have not blogged since April 1. That should tell you something. Anyway, when last I blogged I had cast on 1,800 stitches to start the mind-numbing shawl of shawls. As it turned out, I had cast on only 1,790 stitches, a mistake I discovered by accident and corrected by doing 10 increases on the second knit row in the area where I was 10 stitches short. With all those stitches in such fine yarn (finer sock yarn than the pattern calls for) the fix will never be noticeable. So I am knit along alternating with the plain vanilla socks when out and about and it's all well and good except I have no . . . joie de vivre. That is as close as I can come to describing how I feel. "Joy of living" is what it means literally. I'm getting no thrills, no excitement, from this knitting is what I mean. No, what I really mean is . . . I don't know what I really mean. Evidently it's a feeling I need to express in another language and I don't speak any other language.

Getting back to "crafts" I have a boatload (pun intended) of UFOs I could work on yet none of them are calling to me. I haven't even been tempted to start something new. I got the new Interweave Knits magazine a few days ago and felt a slight twinge when looking through it, especially at the Grotto Wrap, but nothing that lit a real fire under me.

Check out the bonus pictures. The pattern is a free download.

It's a rainy, dreary May Day here. This picture from a window shows the roof of my minivan and the houses across the street.

Maybe a day of solid knitting by the TV is in order. But alas, responsibility beckons and I might have to weather the storms and make an across town trek. I guess if I can brave similar weather tomorrow to drive three hours to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, a 40 minute trip across town today should be doable.

Bona Fide Knitter

1,800 Stitches Cast On

2009-04-01T09:33:00.008-04:00

April Fool!

Well, not exactly. The supersock shawl really does call for 1,800 stitches to be cast on and I do have 1,200 of the 1,800 required stitches on the needles. I would have them all cast on by now, but I paced myself waiting for my KnitPicks order to arrive. I'm casting on using Denise needles and cable. I decided that I need turbo speed needles if I plan to complete the shawl within my productive years and I that need a thin, pliable cable of the first order. Enter KnitPicks once again.

Although I have both sets of Options (Harmony and Nickel Plated), the additional sizes and duplicates of some, I decided that along with a 60" cable, I need another pair of size US 5 nickel plated needles to hold this shawl of many stitches. Who knows when the former Queen of Unfinished Projects will be able to free up this set. I might need US 5s many more times before the shawl becomes a FO (Finished Object). If my timing is right, I will have all the stitches cast on just in time to knit them off the Denise and onto the KnitPicks for the first round.

Another thing about this blog entry that makes it suitable for an April Fool prank is the very fact that I'm blogging twice within a week/seven days. Can you believe it? I guess there should be a picture in here someplace, but I'm coming to you from my laptop where my pictures aren't.

And now back to reality.

Bona Fide Knitter

What to Do? What to Do?

2009-03-25T17:34:00.023-04:00

My life is in limbo. I am at sixes and sevens. I have finished one knit project and can't decide on what to do next. Actually what should be done next is to sew the last finished project together. However, my dilemma has me immobilized. What to do? What to do?

In the meantime I'm working on the ultimate vanilla socks . . . slowly, very slowly. You might wonder why I would even want to make plain white Regia wool with cotton socks. Sometimes, especially in spring and summer, I need white socks and not of the athletic or terry type.

I've agonized over what to start (or continue) so long that I've considered starting something brand new that will be of marathon proportions and use up a lot of my sock yarn stash. I even took it with me to cast on this morning when I knew I had an hour of waiting time to endure. The monumental project is Rings of Supersock, a shawl made of sock yarn. I bought the pattern a few months ago when I saw someone in my knitting guild working on one. I have a sock yarn stash to die for, enough sock yarn to hand knit forever and knit on sock machines indefinitely. With new fibers, colorways and techniques happening daily, this project would be a good way to use up some of my old inventory, get rid of some of the first purchased and make room for some new. In a way that would be working on old stuff, not UFOs, but at least *FIFO instead of **LIFO. Okay, so I can rationalize anything.

I didn't get the Rings of Supersock cast on this morning. It calls for a monumental number of stitches to be cast on to begin and I had a brain blip and couldn't get the long tail cast on started. Was that a sign? Was that a hint I should really start working on something else? The projects in the running are UFOs. Remember, what I just finished was something new and my new rules call for a UFO next.

Since it is spring now I have considered going back to the lacy flirty skirt. However, the weight I wanted to lose to be able to wear it is not going off as quickly as I had envisioned. My new toy, a Belgian waffle maker, is not helping the weight loss issue. This is what I had for dinner night before last:

But I digress. The next UFO under consideration is a sweater from Knitters Spring 2008, Faded Ribbons, I started last summer hoping to finish in time to take to Italy last September. I didn't. After Italy it went into the UFO pile. If I remember correctly, I have half the front finished.

Another UFO being considered is a sweater from Knitters Spring 2007, Sectional Citrus. I ordered a yarn pack and by the time I got it spring was over and I got only as far as swatching by casting on and working a few rows of the pattern.

There were others under consideration, but spring sprung while I deliberated, vacillated and generally got on my own nerves. So now I think I'd like to go with something not wool. In the meantime maybe I will cast on for the Rings of Supersock. The cast on is a project in and of itself. It calls for 1,800 stitches!

Bona Fide Knitter

*FIFO = First In First Out
**LIFO = Last In First Out

Relinquishing the Crown

2009-02-16T18:44:00.005-05:00

Yes, that's me. And I have the boxes and bags full to prove it. However, I have been working on UFOs diligently. You might recall I'm working on reducing my UFOs and my yarn/project stash, working one oldest, one newest. The object is to meet somewhere in the middle and have all my yarn, kits and projects knitted up.

So February is more than half over and I have finished knitting the Tofuties Tee. I have the binding off, sewing together and blocking yet to do. In the meantime I've been trying to decide which of my UFOs to pick up. Dare I go back to that bane of my existence, Sally Melville's Favorite Summer sweater, yet again? I've decided not. I'll wait until I lose 10 pounds. No sense in working on something that no longer fits. My other choices are a side to side jacket or an Absolutely Fabulous (AbFab) Afghan. The jury is still out. Neither one of those is calling to me.

In the meantime I have not had any new socks on needles in over a month. No wonder I'm feeling out of kilter. So Saturday, out of sequence, I cast on a pair of plain vanilla socks. These are truly plain vanilla--a white pair of my basic sock pattern. You can't get any plainer than that. To add some interest I'm doing them two socks at once on one circular, a process that I don't particularly care for because of the yarn tangle that develops every time I try. I have no Second Sock Syndrome issues. I enjoy starting the second sock and watching the miracle happen all over again. However, since the yarn is a 100 gram skein of Regia I thought I'd try the pulling the yarn from the center and the outside method and see how that goes.

Except for the fact that I could only find one very stiff-cabled Addi needle size US1, 40 inches long so I'm working with a 32 inch, so far so good. Have you seen my KnitPicks US1, 40 inch needle? Or how about the other Addis I have in that size? There must be at least two around here somewhere. I bought them when Magic Loop was introduced and they have soft pliable cables . . . wherever they are. I'd order another from KnitPicks except that I've sworn off shopping for the month and I'd have to order enough to earn free shipping.

Oh well.

Bona Fide Knitter

After the Ball Was Over

2009-01-26T12:05:00.011-05:00

I went to an inaugural ball. The picture was taken after the ball was over, back at my friend's house, a little the worse for wear.

At this time last week I was in Maryland celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. My best friend from high school invited me down to her house for a brunch in honor of MLK and to attend an inaugural ball in Washington, DC the next night, after history would be made with the swearing in of our 44th President, Barack Obama. I went, I saw, I conquered.

Oddly enough this blog entry will have knitting content. I drove down to MD on Sunday. I knew there would be many hours of down time, watching the before, during and after inaugural festivities on TV. I took the Tofuties Tee along to work on. I still have no socks on needles so the Tee is moving along at a good pace considering I was away for three days.

I knitted though the HBO star-studded special on Sunday at 3:00 p.m. and then again during the 7:00 p.m. replay. I knitted though all the news, weather, traffic reports and updates on Monday afternoon from Oprah to late night. On Tuesday I watched everything from 6:00 a.m. throughout the day. I saw the early morning arrivals at the mall, the traffic trying to get to Metro parking, the Obamas going to church, to swearing in and the beginning of the parade. I just love pomp and circumstance. And then it was time to get myself out into the fray.

Our limos picked us up at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday to take us to the Willard Intercontinental Hotel in DC., 1401 Pennsylvania Avenue, located just two blocks from the White House and the National Mall. It was almost impossible to get there. In the District, streets were still closed and detours were the norm. Limos, stretch and otherwise, clogged the streets. I saw many people parking their cars and walking blocks in the frigid weather in their ballgowns and tuxedos trying to get to their venues. Everybody was in a festive mood and didn't seem to mind the cold, even the women with bare legs and feet in sandals. We were lucky enough to get dropped off at a corner of the hotel and have only half a block to walk to the hotel entrance.

No, President Obama did not make an appearance at the ball I attended, but what a night! We partied like it was . . . January 20, 2009!

Bona Fide Knitter

I Hate When That Happens!

2009-01-02T17:28:00.010-05:00

The Tofutsies Tofu Tee pattern I have has a mistake. I hate when that happens! At first I thought it was just awkwardly written. What do you think this means?

"Work in St st, knitting 1 st and last 4 sts of every row."

My first take on it was to knit 1 stitch at the beginning of every row and to knit the last 4 stitches of every row. Upon reflection (doing it once) that didn't seem right. Look at it again.

"Work in St st, knitting 1 st and last 4 sts of every row."

Okay, how about knitting the first and last four stitches of every row"? I tried it. I liked it. It puts a garter stitch edge at the seams.

Then, since I'm trying to do better at organization in the new year, I went to Ravelry to list my new project. That led to looking at other renditions of the same tee and the listing of the pattern by the designer, Joan Somerville. She has a note: " . . . should say “Work in St st, knitting 1st stitch of every row” instead of “Work in St st, knitting 1st and last 4 sts of every row.” Switch to the garter stitch edging when you start the front and back parts."

So much for my interpretation. That's why I hate when that happens! The correction seems to be to knit the first and last stitch of every row at the sleeve portion and switch to knit first four and last four stitches on every row of the body. By the time I read that I was into that part some 12 rows or so. I saw pictures of other renditions that showed the garter stitch down the sides and decided it's alright if my underarms have garter stitch at the seam. Who's gonna know? In another life I would have frogged what I had done and started over. The new me has one row with first stitch knitted and last four stitches knitted and all the rest with four knit stitches at each end of the rows. So the underarm as well as the side seams will have the garter stitch. So shoot me.

Bona Fide Knitter

. . . In With the New

2009-01-01T08:44:00.009-05:00

Happy New Year!

As I said yesterday, I don't make "resolutions." I plan to start anew and do better. The first thing I plan to do better is knit. My knitting itself is alright. It's my completion of projects which falls short, waaay short. A few weeks or so ago I came up with a plan that is working so far. I can start one new project after I complete one old project. I have this all figured out in my mind, but it's hard to explain unless you could see my project stash. Yes, "project stash." Those are projects I have in kits or bagged pattern and yarn combinations that I haven't started yet. Then there are the UFOs. Those are projects I have in kits or bagged pattern and yarn combinations that I have started.

Here is how it's working so far:

OLD - I finished a scarf from a pattern and yarn combination I bought from Stitches 2001 when I began a knitting comeback after a 30-year hiatus.

NEW - I started and finished a shawl, free pattern, yarn purchased November 2008. Sorry, no picture. I boxed it up and mailed it away before I thought about the camera.

OLD - I started and finished the other scarf from that long ago Stitches. I frogged the whole thing after a mishap.

NEW - I started and finished the shawl from Stitches 2008.

OLD - I reknit the long ago scarf that I frogged and mentioned above.

NEW - I started a sweater last night from Stitches 2008. Picture below.

I intend to continue working my way back through projects I have stashed in 2008 and forward from projects I have stashed since 2001. One day, in some year, I will meet in the middle and declare all UFOs finished!

Not to be too hard on myself, when I come to an unstarted project that no longer lights my fire, I will add it to my queue on Ravelry for some later time. When I come to a UFO I will give myself choices: (1) finish as is, (2) ravel and redo or (3) frog and forget. I will not agonize over getting the chronological order perfect. I have only vague memories of when some of the project stash items were purchased/acquired (a few were prizes or gifts). However, I will stick with OLD and NEW until the twain meet. I will one day put some socks on needles as well. Sometimes I just have to have a small portable project that can go everywhere. Waiting rooms are not always conducive to a big project bag.

And now off to Ravelry to get my first project of 2009 listed, the sweater I started last night. The sweater is a Tofutsies Tee made with five skeins of yarn of different colorways. Check it out.

Happy Knit Year!

Bona Fide Knitter

Out With the Old . . .

2008-12-31T15:31:00.011-05:00

It's New Year's Eve. The year 2008 is almost over. For me it had some highs and some lows. One of the highs was so high it mitigated the lows.

I flew to Rome, spent a couple of days there then I went on to Venice by train for a Mediterranean cruise that stopped at Croatia,

Turkey

and Greece.

After returning to Venice it was another train ride to start a week-long stay in Italy's Umbria region for food and wine and knitting and fun. The whole trip was enveloped in shopping, shopping, shopping. Divine! My travel buddy is my friend and doll-collecting knitting guru and traveler extraordinaire, the one who proclaimed me to be a bona fide knitter. I couldn't have made the trip without her.

My knitting year started off slowly. I had to miss the Pottstown Knit In and Maryland Sheep and Wool because tendonitis in my ankle made walking impossible for the first five months. I sat and knitted, but can't think of a thing to show for it except socks. However the year ended on a knitting high. After knitting all over the Mediterranean and Italy in September and on Cape Cod for a month in October, I went to Stitches East in November. I allowed fiscal responsibility to finally take hold and was conservative in my shopping. However, accustomed to pampering after the cruise, I think I spent more money on the luxury hotel and room service than yarn. Well, maybe not . . . quite.

Recently I've been on a roll and have something to show other than socks for all my knitting time. Without the ubiquitous sock my needles, I have been able to finished three projects in record time. And I can remember what they are! I went back to my knitting guild meeting in November and December. Next year I'm going to take advantage of all the features of Ravelry and keep track of my projects, yarn, needles and books. Yes, it's that time again. Time to "start anew and do better" (in lieu of "making resolutions").

More on the fruits of my labors tomorrow.

Bona Fide Knitter

UFOs to FOs

2008-12-18T17:27:00.016-05:00

I think I've hit upon something big. It will be a boon to my UFO reduction. I went back to my first UFO from this current reincarnation of knitting (2001) and finished it in a few days. Then I started and completed in another few days the second project I bought back then and had never started. They were so easy to do now that I'm a "Bona Fide Knitter!" I will not dwell on the fact that I messed it up ON THE BIND OFF ROW and frogged the whole thing! That touch of OCD I have kicked in.

In case you're wondering, it is . . . er . . . was a triangle scarf made of two Trendsetter novelty yarns held together. It was quite hairy upon completion. The yarn was bought at Stitches 2001 when scarves of novelty yarn were in vogue. When I was near the end I wondered if I would ever wear it. Maybe messing up the bind off was a Freudian slip. Are there Freudian slips in knitting? For the moment the point is moot because the scarf is no more.

I frogged it and I started a new item, the ribbon shawl from the fall foliage colored ribbon I bought at Stitches East this year.

That's my strategy--one old project and one new project, one at a time. Once the shawl is done I will make the hairy scarf again. Then on to a new project--one old, one new, that is the plan. The plan contains a moratorium on sock knitting, but I don't know if I can stick to that.

In fact, right now I am contemplating making toe up socks to use the remainder of that extra ball of yarn I had to buy to finish the Italy Socks. I'm thinking "2 on 1, toe up." Translation for non sock knitters. Two socks done at the same time on one circular needle, from the toe up. With Cat Bordhi's help I will master Judy Becker's Magic Cast-On.

So, right now on the needles--the working needles, not those which are hibernating--is the colorful ribbon shawl. I need to go put some inches on it.

TTFN,

Bona Fide Knitter

Needle in a Haystack

2008-12-09T16:53:00.013-05:00

How do you find a needle lost in a haystack, or more accurately, big honkin' Addi Turbo size 19 circulars with plastic tubing as the cable? One would think a needle that big would be very easy to find. Not here. Not in this den of chaos and clutter. I can't start the shawl of the ribbon in fall foliage colors until I find that needle.

So far in the search I've found:

at least 15 circular needles

at least half a dozen cables missing from my various needle sets

two red Kotcha-Kotchas (row counters)

more UFOs than I care to mention

multitudes of patterns printed from the Internet

many purchased patterns in their plastic sleeves

innumerable hanks, skeins, balls and cones of yarn forgot I had

a bevy of little pattern books

more knitting bags/totes/carriers than I could count

a few dust bunnies bigger than my Bichons

What I didn't find was the Addi 19s. Oh, and I didn't find my Swiss Card.

Drats! I've finished a project and can't start the next one until I find those needles! I refuse to pay $30 to buy them over again.

The good news is I found the project that began my new love affair with knitting.

Picture this: it was 2001. I went to my first Stitches. It was Stitches East held in King of Prussia/Valley Forge, PA. I was enthralled. I was smitten. I bought yarn to create the latest rage--a scarf! Not just any old scarf, but one made with novelty yarn, pretty novelty yarn in a colorway that called to my love of purple. I had not been what I would call a knitter in over 40 years (if I don't count the little bit of doll-size knitting I was attempting to do).

That scarf, begun on size US11 aluminum needles from my 40+ years-old needle collection, became my first UFO in the present reincarnation of my knitting. I knitted on it today. I knitted it off the old aluminum straight needles onto some shiny, slick KnitPicks nickel-plated circulars, then after learning the hard way that they were too slick, onto some smooth, fast KnitPicks Harmony wooden circulars. Aaaaah, much better.

I don't have any socks on the needles at the moment. What to do . . . what to do . . . ?

Bona Fide Knitter

Italy Socks

2008-12-07T12:43:00.008-05:00

The additional skein of Colinette Jitterbug arrived and I finished the Italy Socks.

I took the picture with them folded differently. At the top of the sock on the left you can see the Eye of Partridge heel flap. On the sock on the right you can see the wider toe I like. I end my socks with 32 stitches to Kitchener instead of the usual 16.

Then I spent an inordinate amount of time looking for a toe-up pattern that wouldn't tax this old brain too much. I've never done toe-up socks because, quite frankly, provisional casts-on are my undoing. No pun intended. I've decided to try Judy Becker's Magic Cast-On for Toe-up Socks. I've even watched Cat Bordhi demonstrate it on YouTube and I'm set to give it a go . . . I think.

Aside from the ubiquitous socks on the needles, I'll be ready to cast on something else this week. No, I'm not ready to tackle any of the UFOs right now. They are for 2009. Perhaps if I start my latest project and work my way back, when I start doing UFOs in January 2009 and work forward, by December 2010 I will have knit up everything! That gives me two years and does not allow for starting anything that isn't already in house. What do you think? Can I do it? It's a two-edged sword. Can I knit that much AND can I not buy anything else? Check with me this time, 2010.

Bona Fide Knitter

Thirty Days Hath November

2008-11-30T12:57:00.012-05:00

Gee, that means tomorrow is December. I reached another age milestone in the two weeks since last I wrote. Where did 2008 go? Is time moving in fast forward since I got old? There is only one month left to knit all those UFOs I'd planned to finish. It ain't happenin'! Not only will I not finish the earlier ones, I added more in 2008!

I promised you knitting wows and woes. UFOs are my woes. Hmmm, "UFOs Are My Woes." Should write a song about it. No, should knit or rip them. Anyway, here is one of my woes which occurred through no fault of my own:

These are "Italy Socks," so named because the slightly feminized camouflage color yarn caught my eye just shortly before the trip and I'd planned to knit socks from it in Italy. However, I had "Beach Socks 2008" left over from summer on the needles and they were finished during the trip. I didn't cast on the Italy Socks until the ride from Hotel Villa Pina, Frescati, to Rome Fumicino Airport for the return trip home.

For the first time in my sock-knitting-by-hand life, I ran out of yarn. It was a 100 gram skein of sock weight yarn, Colinette Jitterbug, 128. Using a US 1 (2.5 mm) as usual and doing my usual two inch, 1x1 rib cuff and six inch leg, scant 2-1/4 inch EoP heel flap and 7-1/2 inch foot before toe decreases, I had only the small amount of yarn left (shown above) when I reached that point on the second sock. I have a long foot and short toes, but not that short. Aaaaack! What to do? I went back to my favorite yarn shop, Woolbearers in New Jersey, where I bought it. The cupboard was bare. Myra ordered another skein for me last week and it's there now. These will be my most expensive socks to date, if I don't count my $3,000 first pair of sock machine socks. These will be $45 socks! I will mitigate the cost by knitting another pair, toe up, two at once, with feet long enough for my spouse and legs as long as I have yarn for.

I noticed that the first sock was wider around than usual. The yarn has a different twist than most and is quite springy. Did I swatch? Of course not! Sock yarn? What's to swatch? I can knit socks in my sleep, for goodness sake! Sock yarn weight doesn't vary that much. Famous last words. Will I swatch before the next pair? Of course not. I'll be using Opal or the like. I know what that does. More famous last words.

I need to come up with a knitting wow to end on a high note. Hmmmmm, let's see. Oh! I went to Stitches East in October and didn't break the bank. Driving down I-95 to Baltimore the Fall colors were at their peak and I thought some yarn in those colors would be beautiful. The first thing I saw at the Market Preview Thursday night was wide nylon variegated ribbon in the exact colors at Judy Ditmore's Interlacements. I had to buy it.

I wish I could start and finish the shawl before Fall is over. And if wishes were horses, then beggars would ride.

Stay tuned.

Bona Fide Knitter

It's Not Over 'Til the Fat Lady Sings

2008-11-11T16:42:00.015-05:00

I'm the Bona Fide Knitter and it's been exactly six months since my last confess . . . er, blog entry.

Where have I been, you wonder? Well, it was not to see the queen, but I did go to Italy and almost saw the pope. Before I give a full accounting of my absence I want to tell you just one small part about my time in Italy because the last time I posted to my blog was Mother's Day and there is a picture of my mother and me with Minnie Mouse in Disney World. It is only fitting that I start posting again with another mention of my mother before I get back to my knitting wows and woes.

One of the many pleasurable times I spent in Italy, was sitting by the pool at Castello di Santa Maria, in the Umbria region, where I stayed most of a week back in September while on a knitting themed vacation. The setting was idyllic. The Castello is high on a hill and overlooks the valley. The view in any direction is astounding. My travel buddy, Kathryn, and I shared a cottage on the grounds and our cottage overlooked the pool which is surrounded by fig trees, pomegranate trees and rose bushes. One particular afternoon the plan was to spend the few hours between one meal and another, or was it one excursion and another, by the pool, knitting. It was cool up on the hill, not swimming or sunbathing weather, but the sun was warm and inviting if you were fully clothed. At one end of the pool I arranged a canvas sling chair facing the sun with a garden chair in front to put my feet upon.

After baking in that direction for a short while I turned my arrangement away from the sun, having the sun against my back. The other women of our group were in lounge chairs along one side of the pool, a little distance away, chatting amicably about knitting and . . . I don't know what. They were just far enough away that their voices carried out over the valley much of the time.

The sun warmed my back through the canvas chair. I had a shawl draped loosely over me. My knitting needles began to get heavy and I rested the knitting on my lap for a while. My eyelids grew heavy. I remember Diego, our innkeeper/chef, coming out and walking to the opposite end of the pool. I saw him open the door to the little shed at that end of the pool before he made his way to a chair to sit down to relax far away from his guests. And then the music started.

Okay, I'm in Italy, in Umbria, at a castle in fact. The language I'd heard most for the past several days was Italian, loads of lyrical Italian. I was even beginning to understand more of it. The music began, a woman singing, her clear, rich voice enveloping me from invisible speakers. It seemed to be coming from the valley. Quietly, richly, warm like the sun, I was bathed in the voice of Natalie Cole, in English, singing The Very Thought of You. I am so sure Diego played that particular CD just for me that you need not even try to convince me otherwise--an African American lady singer for the African American lady guest. Grazie, Diego.

What he didn't know, and I didn't either at first, was that particular singer and those particular songs would evoke some wonderful and pleasant memories and feelings for me. The CD is Unforgettable: With Love. After the initial song it goes on to It's Only a Paper Moon, Route 66, Mona Lisa, Straighten Up and Fly Right, Nature Boy and Unforgettable, to name just a few. Yes, Natalie sings her father's songs and ends in a duet with him singing Unforgettable. I am on my first transcontinental trip . . . all the way to Italy! I'm lounging by a pool at a castle in Umbria no less. Natalie Cole sings Nat King Cole, the music of my childhood, the music recorded on 78s that my mother, Margaret (I called her Mar) and my aunt, Ruby, played and sang along with on the big Zenith console radio/record player we had in our living room in the three-story, brick and brownstone, row house I grew up in. Most of you were not around for 78 rpm records, but you've heard of them I'm sure. They were before 45s and 33-1/3s--not to mentioln eight tracks, cassettes and CDs. This was in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

In the last three years I've lost both my mother and my aunt. Those songs brought Mar and Ruby there to Italy with me. I could feel their presence. Actually what I felt was that on some level I had my mother and my "other mother" with me on this marvelous trip to Italy. As I nodded off and on and the familiar songs washed over me, I remembered fun times back then when we were all young and they were like older sisters to me, my grandmother being the mother of all three of us. My mother was a young widow and my aunt hadn't married yet. Their planning parties, singing along with Nat King Cole and including me in the fun is a wonderful memory. What I thought there by the pool was, 'Look at me, Mar and Ruby! I'm in I T A L Y listening to Nat and Natalie Cole sing our old favorite songs. It's 2008! Who woulda thunk it in North Philly back in 1948?!!!'

I could go on and on along this vein, but I won't. It's a fascinating marvel to me and probably no big whoop to anybody else. The feelings come back to me just typing about it! It was a great day, a great time, a great memory. I dozed. I napped. I snored and woke myself up a couple of times! But the music played on, over and over. There are over 20 songs on the CD and it played more than once. Diego dozed at his end of the pool and I dozed at mine. When The Very Thought of You came on again for the second (third?) time I roused myself thinking, 'This is where I came in.' Diego was gone. When did he leave? The sun was waning and I moved over to join the other women who were nice enough not to mention my snoring . . . that is until I asked, "Did you hear me snore?" It seems they heard snoring in stereo, Diego and I having both ends of the pool covered.

Diego, again I thank you. Grazie.

Bona Fide Knitter

Remembering Mar on Mother's Day

2008-05-11T09:58:00.006-04:00

Marilyn, Minnie Mouse and Margaret
Disney World 1990(?)

On Mother's Day my thoughts are with my mother Margaret. I called her Mar. She passed away in February 2006. We had some fun times together. The picture above, a fading Polaroid, was taken during our dollhouse miniatures days when we did craft shows up and down the East Coast trading as Mari-Mar Miniatures. We went to Florida for two weekend shows, one in Ft. Lauderdale and one in Daytona Beach. We spent the intervening week in Disney World. What a fun time we had there. I believe the picture above was taken the day we were eating lunch in one of the park restaurants and it was announced that anyone wishing to march in the parade down Main Street "must line up now!" We shoveled the last bits of our salads in our mouths and bolted from the restaurant leaving our spouses behind with instructions where to meet us after the parade. We lined up and strutted our stuff down Main Street with kids and other adults as uninhibited as we were.

Happy Mother's Day!

Bona Fide Knitter

Rows, Can Ya Count 'Em?

2008-04-25T07:30:00.008-04:00

After freeing myself of the projects that weren't doing it for me by either cutting them from the yarn source, frogging and rewinding or filing in the UFO box, I returned to my extreme comfort knitting without guilt. I started another pair of socks, plain stockinette on one US 1, 32" long circular, letting the coloring of the yarn do the work.

The yarn isn't colorful, just neutral. It's wool with a little nylon, 75/25% give or take. I think it's Opal. The ball band got misplaced during windings. It had been wound from a skein to a cone for using on the CSM. However, such a light color might not have fared well on a machine that has been turning out dark wool socks. The color (or lack there of) is good for summer and good for hand knitting and mental therapy. So I wound it from cone to yarn cake, bought a hot pink GoKnit pouch to carry it around, as if I don't already have enough sock totes, and started striving to reach my zen. Buying the pouch was also a good excuse to boost a KnitPicks order up to free shipping level. I finally ordered that super-duper electronic row counter that I decided is the answer to all my problems when it comes to remembering what row I'm on in a pattern, or in plain stockinette for that matter.

Concentrating when the need to count rows arises, which seems to be all the time when I veer from sock knitting, is a major downfall for me these days. So much so that I have become obsessed with acquiring row counters of varied and sundry sizes, shapes and systems. I have a few of those red Kacha-Kachas; however, I just ordered a mini one, a green frog from Patternworks. He's just the right size to keep me in line while using my GoKnit pouch. To round it out, I ordered an indie-made beaded row counter. Not a bracelet, more of a stitch marking row counter. I can't explain it any better than that. Go see for yourself. Hurry, they sell as soon a they are listed on Etsy. They are mainly one of a kind right now. I ordered a red Chinese crystal number. Let's hope my fried brain can follow the directions for using it.

Bona Fide Knitter

How's that working for you?

2008-04-15T12:04:00.007-04:00

How's that working for you?" That question is one of my favorite Dr. Phil-isms. I've been asking myself the question about my knitting quite often recently, each project I start anymore, it seems. My answer is, "It's not." My knitting is not working for me! I have started many projects that became UFO's. Those from six years ago (I'm talking six or so years ago not 30!) were the result of my taking on something beyond my abilities as a rank beginner of knitting, I mean really knitting, the year I learned I was purling backwards, corrected the problem and my knitting took off! In recent weeks I have started many projects only to find they were not working for me.

Lately, nothing takes off for me. The flirty lacy skirt took off for me in the beginning, until I reached the lacy part and ran into some yo's before and after knits and purls and got flummoxed. I wove in a life line with scrap yarn and went back to where all was well. I haven't gotten back to it. It's not working for me right now because I think I need to lose 10 pounds to fit in it. That's about how much I gained while staying off of my tedonitis ridden ankle and watching my belly get bigger.

I've swatched and started an afghan, a sweater, and a sock. When I can't get through a sock, something is definitely wrong. When I don't have at least one sock on the needles I am really in bad shape. I. don't. have. a. sock. on. the. needles. at. the. moment! I finished the mini marathon of Kureyon Sock socks. The lastest pair are these: (a little faded out from the flash)

They have been off the needles for weeks. I don't want to make another pair of Kureyons right now. I don't want to go back to those three projects I started. They are not working for me. They give me the heebie-jeebies just thinking about them. I don't like them. I'm feeling peevish. I need a change. It's time for: Now you see them . . . Now you don't. And off to the frog pond with them.

I feel better already, just making the decision. I'm falling in love with the the flirty lacey skirt again. I'm feeling the urge to finally block and send my samples in for Basics, Basics, Basics. I am not feeling an urge to start the afghan again, or the holey sweater, or the waffle socks after I frog them. I need NEW on my needles. But I'm not ready for the Vivia Hoxboro or the Hanne Falkenberg. What will it be? When will I do it? You'll just have to wait and see.

Bona Fide Knitter, just trying to make it work for me once again

Spring!

2008-03-22T08:53:00.005-04:00

I wanted to start with a photo of forsythia in bloom, budding trees, something flowery from outside my window, but alas, there is no forsythia blooming and the budding trees are hardly visible because of the gray and gloom of this morning's weather. So here is the next best thing:

http://www.procreo.jp/labo/flower_garden.swf

Click and drag your cursor over the page and create your own spring garden.

My mention of being off my feet and off my feed had some wondering if I were worse off than I actually am. Not to worry. It is tendonitis in my ankle. I ended up in a soft cast and have been vegetating in a chair with my foot up as much as possible for the last month. No exercise, no activity and some dental planing had me off my feed as well. What a mess I am from head to toe! Just when I was about to wallow in woe I listened to a knitting podcast where someone was reveling in the fact that she recently had a full day to knit. So how can I complain? I've had four weeks of almost every day being full days to knit.

Too much of a good thing? Yes, I fear it would have been. I broke it up with limping trips out for provisions, a few restaurant meals and lots of laptop Internet surfing and shopping--the latter not being such a good thing.

I've made three pairs of Noro socks, finished an afghan, made some discoveries about my flirty skirt (If I gain another pound sitting around, I won't fit in it if I ever finish it.), swatched for another afghan and plan on swatching for a sweater today. No it is not for the Hanne Falkenberg Mermaid jacket. I am hoping that my Guru who will guide me through the knitting of this masterpiece is not ready to begin. "Let sleeping Scarlet Knitters lie" is a good mixed metaphor for the moment. I have some prep work to do, like rewriting the directions to include every little nuance row by row. No "AT THE SAME TIME dec 1 st inside the outermost 2 edge-st of the collar" for me. I need it spelled out row by row. I also need a new row counter. I have a collection of Kotcha-Kotchas, but this calls for one of those electronic marvels, the ultimate one that keeps track of multiple counts.

Since the weather outside is frightful, I will leave you with the view inside my kitchen window . . .

Bona Fide Knitter

Where Have I Been?

2008-03-11T15:03:00.016-04:00

I can't believe a whole month has slipped by since I last blogged. I've been off my feet and off my feed. Noro socks have been flying off my needles during this period. Check this out:

Remember the pair of socks that brought out the OCD in me because they didn't match? I've made them into two pairs, matching pairs. This pair:

And the pair on the right:All is right with the world. I'm currently working on another Noro sock which I am determined will have a matching mate. I have a Noro sock yarn stash. I'm in a Noro sock yarn frenzy.

I also finished the throw I started last winter, a Knit Picks pattern the Abundance Throw, soothing garter stitch of from Knit Picks. I love the sand and sea colors of it and the soft comfy feel. I'm saving it until the garage conversion to "my studio" is complete. Hopefully that will occur before summer is over. I have plans to move my hobbies, which have taken over the living area in this little house, into their own domain. The Abundance Throw will be my security blanket when I work in my new room next winter. I can see it all now . . . the room might get a little chilly and I will hunker down in a comfy chair with my feet up and knit to my heart's content with audio books or TV as company, my yarn stash as insulation, my comfort of dolls for company. Neither dogs nor spouse will find my studio comfortable for long periods of time, no bed or comfy sofa.

During my confinement I did quite a bit of Internet shopping. More yarn, more patterns and a Hanne Falkenberg kit, the Mermaid Jacket in shades of orange.

What was I thinking?!!! Actually I was thinking more easy, soothing garter stitch. However, this is not your grandmother's garter stitch. Start with an I-cord border. Pick up stitches in color A. Or was that B? Knit. Short row. Keep going and in the meantime shape neckline. What?!!!

My knitting Guru, The Scarlet Knitter, is going to hold my hand through this. She's the one who got me all gung-ho to do this particular Hanne Falkenberg knit. "It's easy," she says. I cannot lay too much blame at her feet. I am very impressionable when it comes to hobbies. Just mention something to me and I'm off and running.

Which brings me to another activity I've been engaging in during my down time, . . . Ravelry! Oh boy do I love looking at the projects and people in Ravelry! I end up finding people who, in addition to knitting, have other interests similar to mine. Cross stitch comes to mind. I went through a cross stitch period some years ago. It was right after my needlepoint phase. Needlepoint . . . hmmm, but I digress. I find myself being tempted to whip out a little cross stitch project just to see if I remember how. So many hobbies, so little time.

I really do wonder if there are any needlepointing knitters. I think I'll go check Ravelry now . . .

Bona Fide Knitter

Noro Sock Fraternal Twins

2008-02-10T21:14:00.000-05:00

I'm not so sure about these Noro Kureyon socks. They were a pleasure to knit, therapeutic and tendon-healing. However, they are not identical. Okay for twin siblings, but not for twin socks that I will wear. They bring out the Monk in me. I think if they were less close to being identical I could tolerate them better. Since I knew they would not match, I should have made sure they were far from matching. As they are, they look like a mistake. No? Maybe it's just me . . . and Monk. I guess one reason I'm so bummed out about them is that I could have made them identical. I thought that the long color runs would make it impossible, but I had well over two color pattern repeats in the skein, more than enough to make two identical socks in my size using my own basic sock pattern and Magic Loop method.

Anyway, the boring, mindless, resorative knitting was just what I needed. In fact I think I need some more. Just as well because I'm going to knit another pair of Noro socks in the same colorway and see if I can get two pairs of matching socks. God forbid I should end up with four mismatching socks. Or maybe that's the answer! I'll make sure the next two are far from matching each other or either of the first two, giving me four different socks with just the same colors, two pairs of really fraternal twins! I've already purchased another skein of each of the Noro colorways in my stash. I could be knitting Noro fraternal and identical twins well into spring.

Now about those Blueberry Waffles . . .

This is where I left off when tendonitis reared its ugly head and my mind had turned to mush. Yum, yum, blueberry waffles--NOT! My waffles stayed in the waffle iron too long in some places. Looking back on my work I can see my brain was in turmoil and knitting these socks did not put me in the zone. Look closely:

See where the waffles waffled a bit on two rounds? See where the 2 x 2 ribbing decided to be 1 x 1 instead? Those are brain blips. This sock is a picture of my mental turmoil at the time. Now of course nobody will see that when I wear the socks because, quite frankly, anybody up my pants leg (I only wear socks with pants.) and that close to my calf should be my spouse and he never notices anything. However, Monk and I will know those brain blips are there. To frog or not to frog? That is the question. Maybe I'll start the second sock and see if my state of mind has improved. I could compare the two and then decide.

But right now I have a Noro Kureyon Sock marathon looming. Boring stockinette stitch in the round with a heel turn thrown in for excitement at the halfway point. I love it!

Bona Fide Knitter (aka The Sock Lady)

I Like to Knit

2008-02-07T12:55:00.000-05:00

Yes, I like to knit. Before you accuse me of stating the obvious since I have blog about knitting, let me 'splain. I like to knit. I mean I like to KNIT. I like to do the knit stitch, over and over, ad infinitum. Purling is okay. I have nothing against purling and I do it well. It's just that I like to knit. Knit and knit and knit. Borrrr-rrrring! I know. But what can I tell you? I like it.

I am a thrower. English or American as opposed to Continental. I've learned Continental and do it with color work, but otherwise I'm a thrower. Continental is said to be faster, less arm movement. I don't care. I like throwing. I also like using circular needles exclusively. They really make the method faster. With the yarn in my right hand, wraped around my little finger, under my ring and middle fingers, over my index finger, I've become a pretty fast thrower. Especially when I'm knitting what I like and get into a zone. When the stitches are at the right place near the tip of the needles I need only flick my index finger to throw the yarn. I go into Zen mode. I can do it with my eyes closed. I can do it in my sleep.

I am a sock knitter. I like to knit socks. Socks, socks, socks and more socks, in the round, on a 32 inch Knit Picks circular needle, usually size US 1 (2.5 mm) and using sock weight yarn. I know what I like. I used to be strictly an Addis girl until Knit Picks came along. I still like Addis, but my Knit Picks cables are more pliable more consistantly. That is because my Addi needle collection contains some Addis purchased during a period of producing stiff cables the company went through a few years ago.

I am a plain knitter. I like knitting plain socks. I'm happy without waffles, jaywalkers, cables, ribbing and the like. I do succumb to 1 x 1 ribbing for the cuffs and will even resort to knitting, slipping and purling for a heel flap. Sometimes I go so far as an Eye of Partridge heel flap. Wooohooo! I never have Second Sock Syndrome. I like starting the second sock so that I can watch the same miracle happen again, preferably identically. Turning a heel turns me on. What can I tell you? I'm easy.

You probably wonder why I ever consider knitting anything else. So do I.

Bona Fide KNITter

We're Waiting . . .

2008-02-02T09:18:00.000-05:00

The projects are waiting, all lined up, for me to get back into the swing of things.

In the meantime the therapeutic sock knitting is going well. I took a few days off from knitting, totally off, and spent a few days knitting a few hours. The Noro sock is coming along nicely. You will not believe how much just plain stockinette knitting in the round (all knit stitches) soothes my soul. Some say it bores them to tears. For me it stops the tears, the pain, the mental turmoil, or whatever else I'm going through. I reach my Zen.

Before I slip completely into the raptures of the knit stitch, let me tell you about Noro Sock. I like it . . . I think . . . with qualifications. The colorways are lovely per Noro fame. The hand is a little scratchy, there are some barnyard elements here and there (dried grass bits or something--not excrement!) and so far I have not come to a knot that I did not put there myself. Which brings me to trying to wind Noro Kureyon Sock onto a cardboard cone for my sock machines using an electric cone winder. It was a nightmare!! The yarn sticks to itself. It tangles unmercifully. I had to break it many times and tie knots. There was no way I would run that knotted cone through a sock machine and try to catch all those knots before they knitted up. So handknit it is for the first of four skeins of Noro Kureyon Sock.

So far the knots have not posed a problem handknitting. I just make spit splices (my own version) eliminating the knots and breaks and keep on knitting. The twist of the yarn varies from tight, tight thinnest lace-like to puffy, fuzzy untwisted roving-like slubs. I don't think any of the four skeins I've purchased will be machine knit. Even rewinding the coned yarn into a yarn cake on the manual ball winder was a test of my patience, I who have the patience of Job . . . so they say.

The yarn is not soft. From the reports of others who have washed it, it does soften up a bit, but does not become an Opal or Lorna's by any stretch of the imagination. However, the wearing is said to feel just fine. My next step is to buy two of my remaining three colorways over again so that I might make socks that match. Remember, I have this aversion to fraternal twins. The socks I'm working on, colorway S92, will look like two completely different socks having the same colors in them. I will wear them though. Heck, if I can wear shoes painted that way on purpose, wearing the socks should be a breeze. However, most of any other pairs of Noro socks I make will be identical. I only wear socks with pants and mainly clogs. I want my heels to match! So sue me.

No Super Bowl for me on Sunday. My husband will sleep through it and I will watch reality show reruns while I compete in my own personal Sock Bowl--a pair of machine socks and more hand knitting on the Noros.

Bona Fide Knitter

Too Much T and A

2008-01-25T09:09:00.000-05:00

That's Tendonitis and Agitation for those of you with other thoughts.

Both my wrists, hands and thumbs are giving me trouble. Two years ago I ended up in a wrist brace on the right and getting a needle in my left palm for "trigger finger." Knitting needs to be classified as a sport. I keep getting these sports injuries from it. I had a second needle in my left palm a year later. The doctor says next time it will be "snip, snip, cured." Another year has passed and the trouble is beginning again. I say no "snip, snip" for me!

Anyway, I've been at my wits end even without the tendonitis. I'm agitated. I'm fairly vibrating with agitation and don't know why. My houses must not be in the right order. There is a full moon. Maybe that's it. My house I live in is quite a mess of clutter and disorganization. Maybe that's it. Whatever, I'm not knitting for a few days, my own prescription for my hands and wrists. I've bought two new support gloves with wrist bands to wear a few hours every day. Blueberry Waffles (socks), Flirty Skirt (lace), Rose Hearts Shawl (lace) and Basics, Basics, Basics (TKGA) are on hold.

For the agitation, I'm chillin'. I'm freeing my mind and making lists. Lists always bring order and calm. However, not knitting brings an increase to my agitation level so I am starting some calming knitting, easy on the tendons, my fave--plain stockinette socks! I hate it when my spouse doesn't follow doctor's orders and here I am already going against the prescribed few days rest from knitting. Hey, wait a minute! I prescribed that. I'm not a doctor--I'm a knitter! So I will just cut back on the knitting for a few days and wear the support gloves for some therapeutic knitting.

The therapeutic knitting will be done using the new Noro Sock recently added to my stash. I'd wound one ball onto a cone for knitting on my Circular Sock Machine (CSM) and it was such a bad language inducing process resulting in many breaks in the yarn, I've decided to hand knit it. That way I can manage the breaks and there will be no knots in the socks. It would be an ordeal trying to knit on the CSM with yarn knotted at all those breaks. I wouldn't catch them all and the socks would end up with one or two knots in them. I hate when that happens!

No pictures today. My hands hurt! Let the plain stockinette knitting begin.

Bona Fide Knitter

Pottstown Knit Out--Not

2008-01-20T12:03:00.000-05:00

I didn't go. I paid my money and I didn't go. I have no excuse. I just didn't go. There will be no pictures of the alpaca for my blog this year. For flavor, check my blog archive for last year's festivities, January 20, 2007. Oh well, maybe next year.

However, the good news is I have been given special dispensation by the guru of the Rule of Three to expand to a Rule of Four and start the Rose Hearts Shawl. Now if only I could settle on a yarn.

You saw the dark red. I started the KAL yesterday (on time) with the dark red. Let me tell you right here and now that the provisional cast on is not my friend! I had to do one once before for double knitting--disaster! This pattern calls for a crochet cast on with waste yarn and knitting into the back of two out of four chains. I did it, but it was not my friend. Undaunted I completed the first 10 rows and decided I'm not too happy with the yarn. Even though I'm using the rather pointy KnitPicks needles, I'm getting split stitches if I'm not really careful.

Wonder of wonders another Knit Picks order arrived in the afternoon and it contained some lace weight yarn (I'm working with sport weight.) in PURPLE. Hmmmm, . . . maybe I'll go down a needle size and start over. Okay, you know it. I've already frogged the 10 rows I did and am winding purple yarn cakes.

Bona Fide Knitter

Fish or Cut Bait

2008-01-15T12:13:00.001-05:00

I am floundering. Which goes well with the title of this post. I got a KnitPick order the other day and can't for the life of me remember what the dark red yarn was for.

I took the picture on the floor in a little ray of sunshine hoping it would light a bulb in my head. The yarn is Andean Treasure, 100% Baby Alpaca. The color is Embers. I vaguely remember wondering would four balls be enough for the pattern. It's sport weight and four balls give me 440 yards. Could it be for the Rose Hearts Shawl KAL? But I already bought yarn for that in lace weight. But I was considering doing it first in DK weight knowing my penchant for a short attention span when it comes to pattern knitting. Talking this out here on my blog I have come up with the answer to the dark red yarn question I'm afraid. Afraid because why in the world did I want this color for the shawl?!!!

And how much more red am I going to buy? I have two huge cones--one for socks and one for a lace top--and a bag of 10 worsted weight wool bought from Webs at Stitches East 2006 for goodness sake! They are various shades of red, but red nonetheless. Am I channeling my guru the Scalett Knitter? If so I wish I could channel her productivity. I really need to fish. I've already cut too much bait.

I've taken the white lace socks off my project list in Ravelry. I just do not enjoy doing those socks. Is it the yarn? Wildfoote splits like crazy using 000 needles. That must be it because the pattern was not giving me any trouble. I moved on to the Blueberry Waffle socks which are coming along, but require more concentration on my part than they should. Ach du liber himmel! What is wrong with me? I am floundering.

On Saturday I am signed up to attend the Pottstown Knit Out. I am hoping for the shot in the arm I need. I'm not where I had planned to be in my projects. The Flirty Skirt was supposed to be finished by now so that after my class in shadow knitting in Pottstown I could comfortably start the Vivian Hoxbro jacket.

It is not to be. Vivian Hoxbro will have to wait. I will stick to my modified Rule of Threes. Uh-oh! The Rose Hearts Shawl KAL starts January 18. What to do? What to do?

Answer: Fish and stop floundering!

Observation: My bait (stash) runneth over!

Bona Fide Knitter

Houses

2008-01-10T07:55:00.000-05:00

I am thinking houses. Yesterday I sold the family home, the house purchased, according to the deed, by "a widow and a singlewoman" who were my grandmother and my aunt. My grandmother, my mother and lastly my aunt (who later married and was widowed) are all gone now and yesterday I sold the house I grew up in. It's been a traumatic four months and my knitting has both saved me and suffered. Now I'm thinking of knitting houses.

Not to worry. I haven't forgotten The Rule of Threes. I am still working my Blueberry Waffles (socks), the flirty lace skirt is at my feet. I have not felt settled enough to pick it up again yet. The third project, Lesson One of Basics, Basics, Basics is at my elbow and I've purchased the office supplies necessary to label and tag and bag each swatch. Presentation might count. But my mind has turned to houses. I want to knit houses. Not yet. I have to finish the skirt or Lesson One first. But a girl can dream, can't she?

So I'm researching house knitting patterns. I woke up with Kaffe Fassett's house pattern in my mind's eye. In his Knits Again there are a shoulder bag and a vest using his house patterns.

There are many other house patterns for knitting and another that comes to mind is . . . actually my mind just went blank. I realized what I was thinking of are all the house quilting patterns I have. That's a hobby for another day. I Googled and I checked Ravelry and found some wild and crazy things, but nothing to further stir my creative juices. Do you know of any house patterns? No knitted houses, tea cozy cottages or gingerbreads, please.

Bona Fide Knitter

Happy Knit Year

2008-01-01T11:23:00.000-05:00

and Happy New Year as well.

I've come to grips with my UFOs. I think some are destined to remain unfinished and I've decided to move on. I am back to an adaptation of my knitting guru's Rule of Threes. It works so well for her, but she is very prolific and can finish items lickety split before her fingers itch to start something else as mine often do. Also I am not a fast knitter.

I used to be a slow knitter. Now I am not. I guess I'm sort of medium, whatever that means. Anyway, at my speed, knitting daily, I get a lot done in what seems like not a whole lot of time. My problem of late has been being able to knit daily. Right this minute I have not knit by hand in over a week. The last few rounds knit were on the Blueberry Waffle sock. And then I had to unknit them. My brain was absent and I could not keep even that simple pattern straight in my head. Did I just knit 2 or were they purls? Should they have been knits? Am I on a knit 2, purl 2 round or an all knit round? Even the 2x2 ribbing suffered due to my absent brain syndrome. Normally a perfectionist, I left the blips in the ribbing to remind me of how out of sync I was in December 2007. No one will be able to see them. (If you have pulled up my pants leg and are that close to my lower calf, you need to back . . . . . . . up!) But I'll know they're there. I'm hoping the second sock will be perfect from beginning to end as life gets smoother in 2008.

Okay, I have Blueberry Waffles on the sock needles, the "flirty skirt" is ripped back and ready to go forward once again as my current project, and today I start TKGA's Basics, Basics, Basics. Those are my three current projects, no UFOs to muddy the waters. With Essential yarn in solid colors from KnitPicks coned and ready to knit on the Circular Sock Machine (CSM), I shall begin 2008 in knit harmony--Rule of Threes in place for hand knitting and a sock machine set up for diversion. I can do this!

Bona Fide Knitter

Agility of the Brain

2007-12-13T12:56:00.000-05:00

Can I keep this brain agile or is it too late? One of my knitting gurus (You know who you are.)referenced an interesting article in the NY Times earlier this week. It had to do with keeping your brain agile as you advance into your septua- and octogenarian years. The idea is you need brain stimulation: work, travel, play cards and board games, work with computers, write books, do puzzles, knit . . . Whoa! Was that "knit" I saw as I skimmed the list? I'm there!

I cast on the lacy socks that were not comforting to knit and decided to switch to some mind-numbing, plain stockinette socks. Then I read the complete article. It seems for the stimulation to be beneficial it was found that novelty was crucial for the aging brain. Doing the same thing over and over again, without introducing new mental challenges doesn't cut it. So the article warns me if I knit, I must challenge myself with more than simply stitched socks. I should try a complicated pattern or garment. I'm almost tempted to start Koigu's Charlotte's Web Shawl. I said "almost." I'm ready for more stimulation, not a nervous breakdown.

I shopped my stash and found the navy Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock purchased four or five years ago when I first became addicted to knitting socks and collected patterns by the binder and box full.

I'm going to cast on the Blueberry Waffle Socks (fingering weight). In my current level of life's stresses the lacy skirt is challenge enough and I need some comfort knitting. I will make the Blueberry Waffles--simple yet stimulating--at least more stimulating than knit every row and less hair pulling than lacy socks knit with splitting Wildfoote.

My guru puts me on the right path yet again.

Bona Fide Knitter

In Search Of: Comfort and Joy

2007-12-11T07:37:00.000-05:00

I am having a heck of a time. 'Tis the season to be jolly. Oh great ti-i-dings of co-om-fort and joy, comfort and joy. I'm looking for some comfort and joy. I'm in search of it here, there and everywhere. Even in my knitting.

The lacy flirty skirt, as I call it, has been ripped back to the lifeline and the lace begun again. I worked on it last night while watching Wynton Marsalis' Red Hot Holiday Stomp live from the Lincoln Center on PBS. I'm not very much of a jazz fan, but that show brought me much comfort and joy with arrangements of Christmas classics (Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer never sounded so good [cool, hip] before!), other songs and a Maya Angelou poem set to Wynton's music and danced by Jared Grimes. Check your PBS listings and catch the next showing.

The 2007 Beach Socks are finally finished. Fraternal not identical and they're not freaking me out.

Wait'll next year. I fully intend to actually knit the 2008 Beach Socks ON THE BEACH!

I put some new socks on the needles, a pair of nemisis socks that I started once before, before I was a "bona fide knitter." They were too advanced for me. I gave up on them that time. They are lace, knitted on 000 Addi Turbos, a Nancy Bush pattern from Folks Socks. They are no longer too advanced for me and now I have figured out the problem with them. They are not fun to knit! The yarn, Brown Sheep's Wildfoote, splits like crazy when using those 000 needles, especially during SSK and K2tog and there are a lot of those in the pattern. Urrrrgh!

I have so much else going on giving me agita and angst I do not need that from my knitting, especially my zen inducing sock knitting. When I have a few minutes later today, I will cast on another pair of socks, solid color, Lorna's Laces, no pattern more involved than 2" of 1x1 ribbing and some good ole stockinette, knitting every round on a long circular. Just writing it soothes me.

Bona Fide Knitter

HELP! Throw Me a Lifeline!

2007-12-02T12:15:00.000-05:00

The linen skirt is back on the front burner. The beach socks ( which were not made on the beach) are just one waiting room visit from completion. Winter has come with snow and icy rain. All is right with the world.

I put a lifeline in the linen skirt and will rip it back to the vicinity of the increase row for the lace to begin. I have a new take on the YOs thanks to my first lesson in Basics Basics Basics. Who said I didn't need to take that course?!!! I think I was doing YOs right, but the first round of YOs might have had a boo-boo or two. The YOs occur on purl rounds. After the pattern is set up in rounds 1 through 6, they go like this:

Rnd 7: *P12, YO, K3, YO: repeat from * to end of round.

All even rows are "knit the knits and purl the purls."

Rnd 9: *P12, YO, K2tog, K1, SSK, YO; repeat from * to end of round.

Rounds 7 and 9 are repeated alternately until ending with row 57. There is a note after the list of rounds to be worked as Rnd 7, "NOTE: your knit sts will increase by 2 with every rnd worked." After the list of rounds to be worked as Rnd 9 there is a note that "your sts between your K2tog and SSKs will have increased by 2 with every round worked."

And finally this little bit of information, 12 purls + 25 knits = 37 sts in each repeat.

From the pattern directions to my needles is all I can say!

I plan to use stitch markers, do what I think I should, be consistent and go for it! But first I think I'll check with the Ravelry members who have made this skirt. Du-uh! Why didn't I think of that three weeks ago?!!! Heck, I might even make a graph as well.

Anyway, that is my December challenge and now it's time to go crank out some socks on my new sock machine, right after a quick look in Ravelry. Is there such a thing as a "quick" look in Ravelry?

Bona Fide Knitter

I'm Still Here

2007-11-29T07:26:00.000-05:00

My muse seems to have left me. My linen lace flirty skirt has attacked me. I've been tagged TWICE! and I just can't seem to put pen to paper . . . er, fingers to keyboard. I've probably lost the small following I had. Come back, pleeeeeease!

First of all, after I made my list and checked it twice I remembered a lot of projects that should be incorporated into that list of priorities. I'm going back to my modified version of Guru Laura's Rule of Threes. More on that to come.

Secondly, the first plunge into the lace of the flirty skirt has derailed me. "Knit the knits, purl the purls" has me all a shook up. Are YOs knits or purls when you get back to them on the next round? When you're doing YOs is there such a thing as a purl YO? In my shaken up stage I took another plunge and enrolled in TKGA's Basics Basics Basics which wasn't to arrive for weeks. It arrived in days--so fast it made my head spin! So now I'm shook up and my head is spinning. Not good when at the threshold of the big holiday season, especially when you're trying to clear out and sell two houses and clear out and remodel the one you're living in. But I can do it because I'm a woman--W-O-M-A-N!

And last but not least, in this entry are seven random and/or weird things about me you probably don't want to know and couldn't care less about. 'The reason for these seven things?' you ask. My guru Laura, The Scarlet Knitter, tagged me. To make it even more interesting one of the other people she tagged, Necessary Chocolate, also tagged me. Thanks ladies! Now do I get to write 14 random/weird things about myself? I can do it, but I'll limit myself to seven right now:

1. I'm left handed until my right hand thinks it can do the job better and then I become right handed. I write right handed, eat left handed; draw right handed, color left handed; wield a knife left handed, cut with scissors right handed; juggle? I use both hands and still can't do that.

2. I love Cape Cod. It makes me happy. It is my Laughing Place.

3. I'm a hobby junky.

4. I'm a collector, a very bad thing when you are a hobby junky. I have doll, rabbit, dollhouse and coin collections. Also yarn, fabric and needlepoint stashes. I mean COLLECTIONS and STASHES! I won't even list the minor ones.

5. I hate heights. I'm talking about higher than the second floor. Flying requires much psyching up on my part. Forget walking across a bridge. Save me from those glass capsule elevators providing a panoramic view as I rise or fall. (Well, it feels like falling!) And don't even think about getting me over to the observation window in a tall building. Just writing about it makes me weak in the knees. Steps with no risers? There'd better not be very many!

6. I can keep a secret . . . forever.

7. I am a loyal, protective and trustworthy friend. After all, I will carry your secrets to the grave.

Second seven to follow. Right now I'm trying to come up with three others to tag. Problem is many of those I'd like to tag don't have blogs. Kind of defeats the whole purpose, doesn't it?

Bona Fide Knitter

Making a List . . . Checking It Twice

2007-11-05T08:02:00.001-05:00

I went to a dollhouse miniatures show on Saturday. Dollhouses were my passion three hobbies ago. There is knitting, sewing, doll collecting, quilting then dollhouses. Before that there is needlepoint with a little cross stitch and crewel thrown in and crochet. What can I say? I'm a hobby junkie. And you will notice that I don't refer to any of them in the past tense. Anyway the biggest most prestigious show in the area, Philadelphia Miniaturia, was held last week in Cherry Hill, NJ.

I hadn't attended the show in years. My mother, Margaret, and I used to attend yearly without fail when we were Mari-Mar Miniatures. We were never vendors there, not good enough, but we knew many there from other shows we were part of and we'd spend the day shopping and getting the inside info from friends in the know. We retired from the miniatures game and my mother became unable to attend the shows. She passed away almost two years ago. When I first got there yesterday it was odd not to be able to reach out, grab her arm and say, "Mar, look at this!"

Oddly enough the show was almost too big. There were sooooo many vendors--two ballrooms and a lobby full! Many were new to me, but there were still some friends left from the old days. We talked about the show's beginnings in Philadelphia, actually Willow Grove, a Philly suburb. It was held in a seedy motel, the George Washington Motor Lodge, and was the show not to miss. All the best miniaturists were vendors there. This year's show was the 39th year and the vendors are even more talented. Miniatures have come a long way since using acorns, bottle caps and "found" items to outfit a dollhouse. I watched some of it evolve in the 80s and 90s, then missed a decade. In the new millenium, miniatures and dollhouses are really something to behold!

I was determined not to buy anything. I have a workroom full--a miniatures and dolllhouses stash to rival any yarn stash! Looking on the vendors tables I was freshly reminded of just how much I do have. However, around my third hour there, I succumbed. It was the needlework that got me. I know I have many needlepoint kits of the fine scrim--40, 54 and even finer--that I gave up on when my eyes aged, but I didn't have any knotted work or punchneedle. I do now! What the heck! My eyes have been rejuvenated with surgery. I can see again. I'm going for it. I also bought another magnifying headgear thingy as insurance. I should be good to go.

Which brings me to the list I'm making and checking twice . . . I'm packing in new projects for my hybernation this winter as if I don't have enough already packed in! However, it is now time to rein myself in and make a plan. I'm currently working on the lacy skirt without regard to time, temperature, meals, obligations or completing the beach socks. The skirt has grown unwieldly and can no longer be my take-along project so I will go back to completing the beach socks while on-the-go. The list continues as follows: finish lacy skirt and start lacy socks, finish Abundance Afghan then start the Vivian Hoxbro sweater. If my timing is right this should occur right after I've had a class in shadow knitting at the Pottstown Knit Out and Crochet Too in January. That's as far as I'll go with the list today. I'll check it later and again tomorrow.

I have another list to make. I've been tagged! More on that in the next entry as I have real life and the real world intruding on my hobby schedule today. I'm outta here.

Bona Fide Knitter

Stitch Markers--Just What I Needed

2007-10-28T11:40:00.000-04:00

Yesterday my knitting guild, Liberty Bell, to which I returned last Monday after many months absence, just in time to sign up, held a beaded stitch marker workshop and luncheon at the Riverton Country Club in NJ. Aching face and newly painful foot did not keep me away. Neither did the torrential rains.

Our little group had a room to ourselves with two round tables set for lunch and a long table down the middle of the room with chairs on each side to accommodate us and containing a smorgasbord of beads in separate packs and on paper plates. There were place settings with packets of tools and supplies for each of us.

We began by claiming a packet of tools and supplies and perusing the bead smorgasbord to select four larger beads and eight smaller ones to compose our first four stitch markers. There were so many to chose from it was a hard decision which got changed many times as the morning progressed.

We learned to twist the wire, add beads and finish off. That is the short version. It was a little more involved, especially the first one. By the third one I was off and running. There were very few mistakes that could not be turned into design features. We stopped for a lovely lunch of chicken Caesar salad topped of with apple pie a la mode. Mmmmm, yummy! Then back to the beading.

Delphia was an excellent teacher. This is the first workshop or class of any kind that I have taken and been pleased with the take home results. I usually learn the process, hate what I've done in class, then go home and construct masterpieces. This time I have very nice stitch markers, one of which I'm using to mark the beginning of the row as I knit like crazy on my lacy skirt. Where's the lace? It's coming. What you see at the bottom is the casing for the elastic and closer to the needles the first purl row where stitched will be picked up for the first row of lace.

I didn't have my camera at the workshop and the pictures I took with my PDA of the guild members refuse to transfer over to Blogger. However, here are some pictures of the stitch markers I made in class. I am trying very hard not to become addicted to making stitch markers.

A bona fide beader? I don't think so!

Bona Fide Knitter

Back from Stitches East

2007-10-15T11:59:00.000-04:00

I am coming down from a knitting high and a buying frenzy. Stitches East in Baltimore was a blast in more ways than one: *classes, shopping, dining, pain. Repeat from * three times, ending at shopping on the last day.

I arrived in Baltimore disorganized (left my blouse, hand knit sweater, camera and Stitches name card holder at home) and unprepared (didn't have all my homework swatches finished). Luckily things went uphill from there. I didn't need another white blouse or a heavy sweater (although I wanted to wear something I'd knitted for once). The weather was wonderful, warm and sunny each day. As for the name card holder, I used the el cheapo they give you and was only a little inconvenienced by not having a place for pen, bank card and hotel keycard. About the camera, there were a few times I wished I had one, but the one picture I saw of myself made me hope that I don't appear in any others. Which brings me to the pain. I was having some kind of sinus/neuralgia/who-knows-what episodes each night. It started Wednesday night at home, excruciating pain on the right side of my face. It returned every night I was in Baltimore making for sleepless nights and swollen eyes and face days. What a sight. You can see for yourself. The cute one is my knitting guru, the one who declared me a bona fide knitter, Kathryn.

I found Stitches East to be smaller, less well attended and a little subdued this year. Some old favorites were among the missing, but some newly acquired favorites more than made up for it. That is not to say that I didn't enjoy it just as much, maybe even more, without the throngs of people. On Thursday evening at the Market Preview, after the Kaffe Fassett slide show, I was able to walk right up to him for the book signing. It did help that I already had the book and didn't have to wait in line to acquire it. The book is lovely, colorful eye candy. If you wanted to make the Foolish Virgins sweater years ago and were intimidated by the magnitude of it, there is a scarf--Foolish Virgins at half the angst.

Most of the Market Preview I was on a mission to buy a Vivian Hoxbro sweater kit. I saw it first at the Mannings' booth, but they didn't have the colorway I wanted with them.

I found it at The Needle Lady. Love it! A touch of purple, worn closed or with lapels, no buttons, lots of knit stitch, my kind of project.

Both vendors were very generous in allowing me to try on the samples. However I am still not sure what size I should make. Both booths said their samples were S/M but the one at The Needle Lady was larger and fit me better. Hmmmm, do I make the S/M (anything with "small" as part of the size makes me nervous) or do I go with the L/XL? Suppose I'm really a M/L. Anyway, another booth had something that caught my eye that will delay the start of the Vivian Hoxbro Rainbow Jacket.

Fine Points from Cleveland, Ohio, was the booth that kept drawing me back and had me pulling out my bank card again and again. I even resorted to cash a couple of times! I bought the pattern and yarn for this skirt. I bought a T shirt on which I based my color selection for the skirt, earrings to match and another day, hand painted shoes!!! They will not be worn with the skirt ensemble however.

Here is a picture of the sample skirt: (Fine Points' picture used with permission)

My colors are these:

And here are my over-the-top shoes:

I've been writing this blog entry for a week (Don't ask!) and Stitches East is becoming just a pleasant memory. Quickly, before it fades away entirely, here is a fast forward recap: Took classes and bought books for reinforcement on finishing techniques, Intarsia and needle felting. Met and talked to old friends and new. Bought everything from sock yarn to a sweater kit. Had wonderful seafood dinners at a restaurant whose name already has escaped me and a couple of pleasant room service meals. Spent more money than ever before--I even bought an iron for goodness sake! But back to the meals: we enjoyed one dinner all the more because of the company. Eugene and Ann Bourgeois of Philosopher's Wool fame were seated beside us and we became a foursome. They are an informed and interesting pair. Dinner became a delight. In addition to being entertaining, The Philosopher, very cunning and quick on the draw, picked up our check and insisted on paying. Ann, whose free online video clip of her two handed Fair Isle technique is worth her weight in gold (or my weight since she doesn't weigh very much), was in total agreement. Ya gotta love 'em!

The painful part of my Stitches East experience was, and still is, excruciating facial pain I am experiencing each night and now sometimes during the day. Yes, I have been to the doctor, but no, not the dentist. X-rays yesterday. Diagnosis soon. In the meantime I am knitting away on the underskirt of my "flirty skirt." Nothing has enthused and sustained me as much as this skirt since the Noro Kureyon I purchased at last year's Stitches East that had me knitting like a madwoman until I finished my first sweater which, by the way, was the one I forgot and left at home this year.

Let my momentum continue!

Bona Fide Knitter

How Bittersweet It Is

2007-09-26T07:27:00.000-04:00

I'm knitting again. Not great masterpieces but my comfort knitting, socks. In the three weeks since I last posted an entry here I lost my dear aunt. Ruby passed away on September 11 at 95.66 years of age.

This picture was taken on her 95th birthday on January 14. She had a good life and a peaceful passing. It was hard for me to let her go. I'm still trying to fill the void. I've returned to knitting.

I am doing comfort knitting. I'm knitting socks. Presently I am working on the second of this year's beach socks, so called because the yarn has cotton content and was meant to be knitted on the beach on Cape Cod. I didn't get to the beach this year. I needed to stay closer to home. So the pair of socks have taken an inordinate amount of time to complete. Unfortunately I didn't knit on anything else in the meantime. I'd lost my knitting jones.

It's back, or at least it's coming back. I'm knitting socks on my circular sock machine as well. I've knitted three pairs. I've also knocked the whole thing over onto the computer keyboard, magnetized my ribber needles and turned my electric cone winder into a whirling dervish. But that's a story for another day.

I have a desire to start another pair of socks, one that might qualify as an attempt at lace knitting. They are the Chaussettes de Dentelle (Lacy Socks) in Nancy Bush's Folk Socks done on size 000 needles using Brown Sheep Company's Wildfoote. Folk Socks was the first sock book I purchased and the Lacy Socks was the first pattern I attempted from the book. They were to be a shower gift for a bride-to-be. The couple married, bought their first house and are expecting their first baby. The socks were never completed. They were far beyond my ability when I started them. I think I can do them now that I'm a "bona fide knitter." I think I need the concentration involved.

It's autumn. Time to think Stitches East. It's almost here. I have homework to do for my classes. I need to get that done. I hate homework! I miss Ruby.

Ruby at TGI Friday, March 2006

Bona Fide Knitter

Going Into Autumn

2007-09-05T09:20:00.000-04:00

Now that for all intents and purposes summer is over, my thoughts are turning to fall knitting. I've already jump started my gym regimen and I'm working on my eating habits. (Kitchen renovation is not diet friendly.) So it's time to get my hobbies in order as well.

Walking the treadmill for an hour gives me lots of podcast listening time and I've found another to add to my list of favorites: Sticks & String Podcast "by an Australian bloke who knits" named David Reidy. I love this bloke! I've not yet listened to the requisite six podcasts before forming an opinion, but I've listened to the promo and three podcasts and I can tell. This guy is good! And he speaks the language without 'air fillers' (uhms, errrs, aaahs), has nice music choices and no fits of giggles. He provides information on what he's knitting, why and for whom. There are book reviews and even "patten" reviews. ("Patten" is Aussie for "pattern" as we say it in the States) And speaking of the Aussie accent, I love it. It's very easy on the ears and so is David Reidy's voice. Shades of Crocodile Dundee. There has been an enjoyable essay in each of the episodes I have listened to so far on such topics as why we give away what we knit and why we meet to knit. Give this bloke a try. I've already succumbed and subscribed.

Okay, I can't avoid mentioning my knitting any longer, or should I say 'my not knitting.' I'm about to make a list and check it twice. Then I'm going to eliminate the naughty and concentrate on the nice. Santa Claus is coming to town. By that I mean I'm making a list of the items I am going to work on next. The list will not include any of the exasperating UFOs. It will consist of only the items I plan to complete this year, maybe by Christmas. I will follow the advice of David Reidy and not let deadlines take the fun out of knitting. I will just enjoy the process. Sooooo, I am allowing myself plenty of time to complete a gift project by starting it now and the other items on my list will be knit when they're knit, and in some semblance of order. Part of the enjoyment of the process is the visualization of the completed item. I have visualization down pat. I need more actuality. Completing AFOs (Actually Finished Objects) is my plan going into autumn. The list? Coming soon.

Bona Fide Knitter

Summer's Over!

2007-09-02T11:35:00.000-04:00

I can hardly believe we are at the weekend heralding the last weekend of summer. I know, I know, there is still some summer left, but for all intents and purposes, it's over. Where did it go? Where did I go? How did I enjoy it? What did I knit?

Summer started for me with at trip to My Laughing Place (Everybody's got one. More on mine another day.) where I dropped off spouse and LWDs and continued on to Portland, ME, for the Sasha Festival, a doll collector conference. It was a wonderful long weekend full of fun with like- minded people with the same interests.

I returned to Cape Cod and lazed around until time to return home. I never got to the beach that trip. I just barely got the screened porch hosed down for future reading and napping. We dust-covered it and returned home to a blistering heatwave that rocked the city in July. I was further rocked by the rapidly declining health of my elderly aunt, Ruby, who is 95.

It was just by the skin of my teeth and urging by my family that I went off to Frederick, MD, for a long weekend for the Circular Sock Machine Conference. I returned home after that to the start of my kitchen renovation which continues. It's been delayed by my changes and additions and an attempt to get a vacation in. I had a couple of nights and a day of shopping at a B & B in Rehoboth Beach, DE, the outlet Mecca. Then, after a couple of postponements,we went back to Cape Cod.

While back in MA I went to a doll 'show' and sale where I met with my doll guru and we had a wonderful day shopping and eating at an Asian buffet. After that wonderful Sunday (Could it have been only last week?), the next day I received disturbing news of my aunt and returned home ending my vacation in less than a week. And here I am. Home for the holiday weekend, making sure what is best (as best I can) is done for Ruby and catching up on my blog.

The danger of being home with no pressing errands to run, no kitchen counter granite samples to track down, is Internet shopping. All those books I'd been considering at Amazon might make their way to a cart today. I came this close to ordering bar stools from Overstock.com for a breakfast bar that I don't even have yet and might not get! It must be time to start knitting again.

Knit? Did somebody say 'KNIT'? I have been knitting somewhat halfheartedly on the omnipresent waiting room sock, which was to have been my beach knitting, for weeks and weeks now and am just about at the toe of the first sock. Knitting has really taken a backseat this summer. Too much heat, humidity and real life. I have done good by my Legare sock machine though. I've made a few pairs of socks and finally put the summer anklets up in my recently launched Etsy shop. Yes, they were to be summer anklets and they were made in time for summer, but just didn't get listed until now.

I do get around to doing most of the things I set out to do, like this blog entry I've been trying to get around to. Well, this was it.

Bona Fide Knitter

Knitting? Not!

2007-08-10T19:00:00.000-04:00

How telling is that?!!! I found that appropriate bit of lace wall hanging in a little shop in the seashore town of Rehoboth Beach, DE, where I spent a couple of days with my friend and knitting guru, Kathryn. There were many little hangings and this was the only one with that on it. There it was, hanging apart at the front of a peg with some others with a different message. It was down at knee level and seemed to leap off the rack at me just as I walked by. I wonder why.

Kathryn and I had been planning a knitting getaway ever since Stitches East. She found this great little B & B on the Internet and we set a date, booked the Garden and Wedgwood Rooms and met there, she from VA and me from PA. Although she brought the book One Skein, yarn and needles to make cupcakes from the pattern inside, we got no knitting done. I brought my ubiquitous summer sock along, my latest started sweater and the yarn and pattern for something I haven't started yet. Still, no knitting was done. I didn't even knit a stitch on the sock. We shopped. I mean WE SHOPPED!

The Rehoboth Beach area is an outlet mall Mecca and the regular shops in the town and in Lewes were great as well. We did the obligatory yarn shop crawl, but were disappointed to some extent. We went to Knitty Gritty in Rehoboth Beach and found it to be a knitting and needlepoint shop. It has been my experience that stores that try to cater to more than one hobby usually fall short. Knitty Gritty proved my point. There were needlepoint and knitting yarn and supplies. I score it needlepoint 3, knitting 1. Needlepoint wins the game at Knitty Gritty, but not by much. Both were lacking. I do not have to visit there again unless I revive my needlepoint obsession. And maybe not even then if I check my stash. Yes, I have a stash of needlepoint canvases and Paternayan yarn from 1970 something. So what!

We also went to Ginger Moon in Lewes, DE. It turned out to be an antique store which carried knitting yarn, "Fine Yarn & Antiques" it says on the card. There we met the proprietor, Evie McPhee, who was knitting away on some fabu something in a myriad of fine yarns. All the yarns she carried were indeed fine. All kinds of silks and wools and combinations, all top end, grouped in colors and spilling from drawers and doors of antique chests and cabinets. The effect was quite enticing and had I a pattern in mind I might have bought a skein or two of something. The displays were that striking. However, I came away with only the new Vogue Knitting Special Collector's Issue for Fall 2007 in the knitting category.

Then, from the antiques category, I bought a non antique new cotton rag rug in bright yellow and pale sky blue for my new kitchen-in-the-making and, lest I forget, a rabbit picture hand painted in "o3" on a weathered board that was to be for my new kitchen also, but will better match the rabbit theme at the Cape Cod place. It is also 'non antique.' The "03" is 2003.

I will return to Ginger Moon. The yarn and antiques work very well together and there was enough of both. I just need to have a project in mind and many ducats in my pockets.

In another shop in Lewes, Twila Farrell, I bought my find of the day. In addition to "The Sock Lady," I could be called "The Shoe Lady." My shoe collecting had been stuck in a Birkenstock and Crocs rut lately, but I am redeemed. I got this brand new, fabulously funky pair of Dick & Jayne platform, peep-toe, slingbacks at half price. Shades of the 1940s! I feel I need some black trousers, a white rayon shirt and a snood. I could knit a snood!

Back at the Rehoboth Beach outlets there were some very good bargains which came home with me from the LL Bean store--three pairs of pants at $4.95 each for me and some shirts and knit tops for much more for the darling husband who would be unloading the minivan upon my return.

Although a great time was had, there was knitting--NOT! . . . Maybe next time.

Bona Fide Knitter