I don’t post much about knitting these days, although when I first started my blog that was one of my main topics. I’m making an exception today. Noro Silk Garden is known as a “rustic” yarn. It’s made of a combo of wool, silk and mohair, and a lot of people don’t care for it because it feels a bit […]
I’m in the process of paring down my sizable stash of yarn — most of it is recorded in my Notebook on Ravelry, complete with photos I’ve taken of each yarn entry. I’ve always tended to choose yarn based on colors and soft textures. But I’ve also learned the hard way that balls of yarn full of gorgeous color combinations […]
The theme of Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge this week is Needs to have at least 5 letters and start with P. Let’s see how creative you can we can be on this challenge. Have fun with this week’s challenge.
I shared in a previous post that I’ve been working away on the Ashton Shawlette, a free pattern by designer Dee O’Keefe, which I found thanks to Ravelry. I’m actually doing it twice over. Since I haven’t had a whole lot of luck knitting lace shawls, I wanted to make sure I wouldn’t come to grief again while using some special yarn. […]
The Daily Post Weekly Photo Challenge for the week of June 3, 2016. Equations. Clock faces. Cash registers. Numbers are everywhere: this week, share a photo that puts them front and center. As a rule, numbers and I don’t get along very well. Most of the time, the thought of doing any sort of math causes me to break out […]
I’m getting back to knitting after wrist surgery. The weather is gradually warming up here in Northern California, so I want to wear shorts, but inside the house it’s still too cool, especially in the mornings. So I had the bright, if belated, idea to knit myself a pair of leg warmers, using (discontinued) Louet Gems Opal in Sage Green. However, […]
The Daily Post Photo Challenge for the week of January 1 Most knitters, whether they’ve learned to spin their own fiber into yarn or not, will feel the urge to sit up and take notice whenever they spot one of these: I’ve no interest in learning to be a spinner, but when I saw this old wheel in the Folsom History Museum, I felt duty bound to take some pictures. Because even though, these days, most yarn does not come from such a spinning wheel but rather from big industrial machines, those of us obsessed with the craft feel a firm connection to knitters in the past, who didn’t have the convenience of a quick trip to the local yarn shop or ordering online. The ones who had to prepare the fleece and spin up their own wool before they could knit a pair of socks or a hat.
A week or so ago I started knitting my Chris’s Blues wrap using three balls of a beautiful hand-dyed blue worsted wool I’d bought last August on eBay. I bought this yarn on impulse, just because the colors appealed to me (as well as the price). But it came with very little information. I bought a hank that weighed 150 g (no yardage listed), and when I began winding it on my swift I soon realized I had three separate balls of yarn. Which was a relief, because it explained why I had six different ends sticking out all over the place. “> But not knowing the exact yardage confused me; I wasn’t sure how to choose my project. My original idea was to knit up a sort of keffiyah with it; the mix of blue colors complements my skin tone perfectly, so I thought this was a brilliant idea. Except I didn’t know exactly what a keffiyah was supposed to look like, and of course there are no patterns for such on Ravelry. Instead, I settled on the New England Stole (Ravelry link). It’s a very nice, simple pattern done in beautiful wool. Except that the wool used for the original is nothing like what I’m using. It’s bulky; I’m using worsted. Her gauge is 3 stitches per inch; mine is closer to 5 stitches per inch. The original yarn is put up at 100 g (138 yds) per […]
I’ve been away for a bit — ran out of things to say, I guess, and then I got very busy. Keeping up a blog is a serious business! It takes dedication, organization, and discipline; and while I’ve got the dedication I don’t have a whole lot of the other two ingredients. Oh, well. This week’s been busy, as I […]