PDXKnitterati

Back to normal, and a contest

Posted on August 8, 2008 | 35 comments

On double pointed needles and enjoying every round. All is well. I’m actually a lot further than in this picture; there was some good dvd knitting time last night, and coffee with the crafty moms this morning. I’m down to the first elbow and need to decide how long the sleeves really want to be.

I passed 50 posts and 15,000 page views this week, and I’m having a contest to celebrate! I started this blog in March as a way to give my patterns a stable home on the ‘net and to keep track of my knitting, and it’s been way more fun than I expected. I hope you’re enjoying it, too. I know, most bloggers wait until their blogoversary, or their 100th post, but I’m happy NOW.

The contest? Leave a comment on this post and tell me how you found my knitting blog, and if you’re a repeat/regular visitor, what keeps you coming back?

The prize? This sweet book, Knitalong, Celebrating the Tradition of Knitting Together, by Larissa Brown and Martin John Brown. It’s by a local Portland knitter, and I believe she threw the first pitch at the Seattle Mariners game last night! Sorry I missed it.

Contest closes on August 20. I’ll choose a winner at random. Make sure you leave info on how to contact you, either your Ravelry name, or a hyperlink to your blog, or email, or….

35 Comments

Posted in Knit

Tagged contest, february lady, Knit

In which I learn a new technique

Posted on August 6, 2008 | 10 comments

And reject it out of hand.

I finished the body of the February Lady sweater, and it’s lovely. I’ve been knitting with Lantern Moon ebony circular needles, my favorite. I thought I’d try magic loop for the sleeves so I could continue using the same needles. I found some tutorials on the web and tried it. I’ve knit eight rounds of sleeve so far. I DON’T LIKE IT. There’s too much time spent dilly-dallying with scooting stitches around on the cable every half a round. Feh.

There she is, sitting on the hammock, looking like some kind of crazed Mickey Mouse. See the loopy ears?

I briefly considered using two circulars (I have 26 and 40 inch cables), but that also involves the scoot. I knit fast enough that the half round comes around way to soon. No thanks.

So it’s back to the double points. My dpns are Brittany Birch. I do love these, too, especially the skinny ones for socks, because they’re so “grippy,” but I wonder if that grippiness will change my gauge? The ebony needles have been so smooth; the stitches slide right along. On the other hand, my gauge working in the round on the sleeve may be different than my gauge working flat on the body, anyway. I guess I should just go for it.

Option three is to buy ebony dpns! That would be extravagant on my part, since I do have workable options already…

10 Comments

Posted in Knit

Tagged Brittany, february lady, Knit, lantern moon

Some enchanted evening

Posted on August 2, 2008 | 12 comments

Piano and pinot was grand!

I love the whole process of a party, cleaning the house, getting out the nice china, crystal, and silver, setting the table. It’s like playing dress-up with the house.

The event was a fund raiser, and we served 12 different pinot wines: a sparkling white pinot, pinot gris, pinot blanc, pinot noir, pinot meuniere, a rose (sorry, don’t know how to find the accent mark), and some sweet late harvest dessert wines. All were from local Willamette Valley vineyards: Brick House, LaVelle, Penner-Ash, Willakenzie, Winter’s Hill. My favorite was the LaVelle sparkling wine, but I’m a bubbly girl. No picture of the wine-laden buffet; I forgot.

Desserts included cheesecake, cream puffs, a raspberry/blueberry tart, and a dark chocolate and raspberry cake. Yes, that’s a gravy boat on the table, but it’s filled with chocolate sauce. Recipe at the bottom of this post.

Our pianist played Bach (C# prelude and fugue), Mendelssohn (Song without Words), Debussy (first Arabesque, Clair de Lune, La Fille aux Cheveux de Lin, Golliwog’s Cakewalk), Grieg (Andante from a sonata), Rocherolle, and more. She was fabulous!

This picture was taken before we put the lid on the high prop stick. The piano sounded glorious; it was such a treat to hear someone else play it. The sound experience is different out in the room; I’m used to hearing it just from the bench.

I have a fridge full of leftover wines and desserts, and I get to enjoy a still-clean house!

In other news, remember how I mentioned that the squirrel had won the bird-feeder battle? It turns out that he has a friend. I saw them taking turns at the bird feeder. I chased one off, and while he was on the telephone pole, the other one appeared. They’re pretty brazen; they don’t mind me taking pictures from fairly close range.

I’ve figured out how Onan and Conan access the feeder. They jump from the trellis on the front of the house onto the top of the feeder pole. It’s about five feet, laterally. No problem for these guys!

Here’s the recipe for the chocolate sauce:

Chocolate Sauce

24 oz semi-sweet belgian chocolate chips
One pint heavy whipping cream
1/2 cup butter, cut into chunks and softened

Five 8 ounce jelly jars

Place the chocolate chips into a large heat-proof mixing bowl; place the bowl over a large pot filled with hot water. Let the chocolate melt as you proceed with the recipe.

In a small saucepan, bring the cream to a boil, stirring constantly. Pour the cream over the chocolate chips, stirring until the chocolate has melted and the mixture is smooth. Stir in the butter until blended. Ladle the sauce into jars; cool completely before screwing on lids. Store in the refrigerator (all that butter and cream!). Scoop out the sauce as desired and warm it on low power in the microwave. Or eat it by the spoonful directly from the jar. 😉

Makes about 5 cups

12 Comments

Posted in music, piano, recipe, the squirrel

Tagged chocolate, piano, squirrels, wine

February in August

Posted on August 1, 2008 | 6 comments

Now that Josephine is done, my knitterly attention has turned back to the February Lady. This Dream in Color yarn is so lovely to work with, and it smells good, too. A multi-media experience! I put the sweater on a 40 inch needle this morning, and tried it on. It’s beautiful, feels great, and it fits! The fronts *will* overlap, due to my adding 5 stitches to each side so that they’re wider than the back. I just need to decide how long to make the lace section; it’s at my waist now. Here’s the obligatory progress picture, but not on me. I fail at taking my own picture in the mirror.

I’ve been enjoying seeing all the finished Lady sweaters on Ravelry. It’s great to see how people have made this pattern work for them. There’s lots of variation! I’m in the knitalong group there, too. I’ll miss the KAL group at Twisted this week; I’m hosting the pinot and piano event this evening.

I love this shirt Sharon gave me.

Thank you, Sharon!

6 Comments

Posted in Knit, ravelry

Tagged february lady, Knit, ravelry

Josephine!

Posted on July 29, 2008 | 12 comments

I don’t know why I let her languish for three weeks, unseamed. I think I was afraid she wouldn’t fit. And I didn’t want to know that.

Last week, I pinned it together and realized that it would be fine. I started the seam and then got sidetracked by the toe-up sock. So many projects, so little time!

Last night, I finished seaming. It didn’t take long. And voila! C’est Josephine! It’s very comfortable to wear. Kids were still asleep when I left the house, so no action shots. Maybe tomorrow. But here’s a detail of the neckline. I love the rolled reverse stockinette edging.

The same edging is on the seed stitch sleeve. (And this picture below is pretty close to the actual color.)

The little cord tie is sweet. I laughed out loud when I read the instructions: “Cast on 300 stitches. Bind off all stitches.”

Details:

Josephine Top, Summer Interweave Knits, 2007

Karabella Vintage Cotton, 6 balls for smallest size

Started: May 22, 2008 Finished July 29, 2008

Mods: I made it shorter, adjusted so the ribbon goes *under* the bust, and raised the deep V neckline so I wouldn’t have to layer over another garment. Skipped the rolled reverse stockinette edging on the hem; the cable cast on is a nice edging in itself.

I’m happy with how this turned out. I didn’t love working with the yarn; it has a lot of spin and kept twisting back on itself while I was knitting. The knitting also biased, partly due to the twist, and partly as a function of the lace pattern, I think, but steam blocking took care of it.

Happy dance!

ETA:

12 Comments

Posted in Knit

Tagged Josephine Top, Knit

Away from keyboard; be right back…

Posted on July 29, 2008 | 5 comments

Sometimes you just need to unplug. It was beautiful on Saturday, so we went to Multnomah Falls. Us and a bazillion other people! But it was a good time, anyway.

Multnomah Falls is 620 feet high; it’s the second highest year-round waterfall in the US. This is just the upper portion of the upper falls. There’s a paved trail to the top of the falls. The trail gains 600 feet in elevation over 1.2 miles. Don’t think I didn’t notice.

Photo ops make a great excuse to stop for a moment:

Somehow this fern looks like a sock pattern to me.

We eventually made it up to the top, and could look down at where the water falls over the edge of the mountain.

In this photo, you can see Multnomah Falls Lodge and the parking lot in the upper right corner. It’s a long way down.

But this picture is my favorite. It’s a little waterfall just before the big one. You wouldn’t know it’s there unless you went to the top. It looks mysterious and secluded, but it’s right next to the viewing platform at the top of the falls.

5 Comments

Posted in Blogging, travel, Uncategorized

Tagged multnomah falls, waterfall

Fifteen seconds of fame

Posted on July 27, 2008 | 9 comments

My blog is mentioned in the local newspaper’s online knitting blog today!

Backstory: Last fall, I went to our local high school’s fund raising auction. I purchased five messages on the readerboard. After wishing Kid2 a happy birthday last winter, I couldn’t think of anything else to put up. So I finally did this:

Several friends told me that they saw the sign, but I guess it got more attention than I thought!

9 Comments

Posted in Blogging, Knit

Tagged Knit

That photo mosaic meme…

Posted on July 26, 2008 | 5 comments

I’m not even sure what a meme is, but out in blogland there are a lot of them. I think it means many people doing the same thing? This one has been going around for a while. I was slow to jump on the bandwagon, but I knew I would get there, eventually. Hey, I’m a sheep! But that’s not a bad thing for a knitter. Here’s my mosaic, and I think it looks cool.

1. Ponte San Michele – Vicenza, Italy., 2. Artichoke Lover, 3. Made in Oregon, 4. Blue Morpho, 5. Mozart’s Starling, 6. Lemon drop, 7. Notre Dame at Twilight, Paris, 8. lemon bar, 9. French Knitter, 10. Snowmen family in TX, 11. Tender Love and Care, 12. Piano Innards As Art

In case you want to try it, too, here’s how to do it.

Instructions:
1. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
2. Using only the first page of results, pick one image for each question.
3. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into Big Huge Lab’s Mosaic Maker to create a mosaic of the picture answers.

Questions:
1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name.

In other news, I had the piano tuned this week. It’s pretty stable, tuning wise. I always get the treble voiced down a bit when it’s tuned, because it gets a little too bright as the hammer felts pack down with use. It sounds divine right now. I’m hosting a piano and pinot event next week, so this is perfect timing. I’m not the pianist next week; I just have to clean the house! And serve dessert, pour wine, and enjoy the music.

Oh, I started seaming Josephine this morning. Tiny stitches, but it’s going pretty quickly. I love mattress stitch; it looks so good on stockinette.

5 Comments

Posted in Blogging, Knit, piano, Uncategorized

Tagged photo mosaic meme, piano

A heel is turned

Posted on July 25, 2008 | 5 comments

There’s been some progress on the toe-up sock:

I turned the heel!

It’s exactly the way I wanted it, heel stitch on the bottom of the heel instead of the back. I mostly wear clogs, and the back of the heel doesn’t need reinforcement. I adapted the heel turn from Wendy Johnson’s sport weight toe-up sock pattern; it took a little stitch juggling to figure out where to start/stop the heel stitch and make it look right (centered). It didn’t help that I was using a different number of stitches.

The foot is a perfect fit! It’s very comfortable.

I was getting a bit frustrated with the heel turn last night because of the heel stitch. I considered abandoning the whole thing in a fit of pique. This morning it went fine. Not sure if I can exactly duplicate it on sock two. Will there be a sock two? Or was this merely an academic exercise?

I still can’t decide if I like this method any better than the cuff-down method, but it’s a good thing to have in my bag of tricks. And the toe that started it all still looks great!

5 Comments

Posted in Knit

Tagged heel turn, Knit, toe up sock

Judy’s Magic Cast On

Posted on July 22, 2008 | 7 comments

It’s magic! It makes a beautiful toe, no provisional junk to deal with. I’m making a practice sock with some Louet Gems that I had on hand.

The stitch pattern is “oblique openwork” from Charlene Schurch’s Sensational Knitted Socks. I haven’t decided what kind of heel to use yet; I think I want a heel flap with heel stitch on the bottom of the heel, because that’s where I tend to get holes. I’d adapt Wendy Johnson’s gusset heel for that. But I could make this sock into a total learning experience, and learn to do a short row heel. We’ll see.

Here are close-ups of the toe:

So far, I like the sock, but I’m not absolutely sold on toe-up. I can see using it if I had a limited amount of very special yarn, and wanted to maximize the length of my socks. But I find it a little discombobulating to be working the stitch pattern on just the instep, and stockinette on the sole, when I’m just learning the stitch pattern. It’s easier for me to learn it if it goes around, and around, and around the leg.

7 Comments

Posted in Knit

Tagged judy's magic cast on, Knit, sock