Scarves are needed!

I follow a bunch of blogs. One of the more enjoyable is Anne’s of Knitspot fame.

Today she posted that the Red Scarf Project needs scarves! They are short by about 2,200 scarfs. And by the way, they need not be red.

In an effort to get a bunch more scarfs for this very cool cause, Anne posted this on her blog today:

Here’s what we’ll do: we’ll create a stickied thread in the the knitspot ravelry group where you can post a photo of your completed red scarf project and chat with other participants. everyone who commits to making a scarf can participate there, but only those that post a photo of a completed scarf will be eligible for a drawing to be held at the end.

On december 16th, we’ll pull one name from the ravelry thread (it MUST be someone who posted a completed scarf) and send that person a wonderful surprise package.

I’m sure any surprise package from Anne will be stunning!

If you follow the first link, the Red Scarf Project one, there’s also a contest there for monetary contributions. No need to break your Holiday knitting mojo if you got one going. Just send cash.

If you are of a mind to knit a scarf or two or three by the December something deadline, here are the detailed specs directly from Norma’s blog:

If you are able to eke out a scarf, or another scarf, before the December 15 deadline, (or even somewhere close to the deadline will be acceptable) I hope you will consider it. Remember the guidelines, but please don’t be paralyzed into inaction by the guidelines. The goal is a nice, unisex scarf, and the preferred color is red BUT there are hundreds of shades that are unisex… just stay away from pink and lilac. And there are dozens of unisex designs… just stay away from the lace.

Here they are again: 5 to 8 inches wide, 60ish inches long. Unisex. Sport, DK, or worsted weight. (bulky or super-bulky will not fit into the shipping boxes)

Mail completed scarves to:

Orphan Foundation of America
The Red Scarf Project
21351 Gentry Drive
Sterling, VA 20166

So, tell a friend, or two, or a dozen! I just made my contribution. How about you?

The RNK proposed that we

not buy each other Christmas gifts this year. Instead, he suggested that with the economy so messed up and both of us having relatively stable jobs, we should give to our local food bank instead. I liked the idea and we agreed.

Yesterday he found a pair of shoes he wanted and when I suggested I buy them for him for Christmas, he agreed to that too. To his credit, he did change his mind a few minutes later; but, it does underscore how hard it is to change our consuming ways.

It takes some effort to fend off the never-ending barrage of sales pitches for material things that are sure — or so the pitch suggests — to make life better, easier and more wonderful or to make us more lovable, successful and appealing.

It seems we need some fundamental changes to our way of thinking. Is it the holidays that brings out this train of thought? Do I circle around to this “bigger than me” view of humanity only when reminded of the giving season? It could be. It could be the best thing about the holidays. This year it’s hitting me earlier. Perhaps it will stay longer.

If there is any silver lining to the poor economy in this country right now, this could be it: these tough times will serve as a catalyst to help us find happiness in less material ways.

With this thought in mind, so far this year, I have contributed toward a knitting basket at Heifer International. One thing I really like about this organization is that they have honored my requests to not put me on their mailing lists. I can give and I don’t have to worry about my gift translating into a never-ending barrage of catalogs and pleas for more gifts. I like that. I hate when I feel like a contribution toward something I believe in turns into something I don’t believe in — cutting down more and more trees for mailings that will simply hit the trash can.

How are you going to celebrate the holidays this year? Are you cutting back on gift giving? Are you changing the types of gifts you give? Have you, or will you, contribute to food banks and organizations like Heifer International?

I would be interested in hearing what others are doing this holiday season. Overall, I believe knitters are such creative and kind people. I am interested in your thoughts.

And because I think pictureless posts are, well, pictureless, here’s a sunrise sequence I took the other morning from our deck.

Twelve and three quarters to go

I’m counting the sold skein of Poison Nr. 5 Wollmeise as my second stash-busting project. It’s gone. I didn’t knit it; but, it’s gone. That’s good for something.

Project number 1 is finished. The socks are ridiculously short in my opinion. I had yarn leftover. I tried to pick up the cast on edge and add a pattern to the top. No matter what I did, it looked stupid. An add on. A mistake. Too tight. Too frilly.

I made them the exact same height as the other pair of Socks that Rock lightweight thinking that I would use every last bit of this lovely yarn. The other pair was either the second or third pair of socks I knit. Was my tension way tighter or something? I have about one third of the total weight of each sock left over in additional yarn. I could have made the legs a full two or three inches longer. Bummer.

With no leg extension idea I liked and the pressure on to get through 15 projects ASAP (so I can buy yarn with abandon once again), short socks it is. If I have to reknit the heels, I’ll have plenty of yarn for that. I did use a pale brown reinforcing yarn on the heels already, so hopefully, it will be a long time before I need to make repairs.

I always reinforce the heels on my socks now. I’m trying short row heels because this style of heel makes reinforcing easier. However, my wraps look like crap. [There's a poem in there somewhere.]

Perhaps it was the top down construction that caused my wraps to look so yucky. Nope. Toe up is no better as far as improving my wraps. I even tried a different wrapping technique on the current, in-progress pair. But, in spite of how crappy they look, knowing how many times I tinked and knitted the wraps on the Socks that Rock pair, I just forged forward. I feel guilty. Such shoddy workpersonship with such a lovely yarn.

Yes, it is Wollmeise.

My photo doesn’t do the color justice. It’s deeper and more purple and much more rich.

The pattern was taken from Barbara Walker and is called, if I’m remembering correctly, Japanese fan. It waves. Back and forth. I had to insert a row of purl ribbing down the sides of the foot to help balance out the waves. Without the ribbing, the waves made my foot look quite disturbingly misshapen.

It will be OK on the leg after I am knitting pattern all the way around. I hope.

I have a ton of yarn. Wollmeise comes in huge skeins. The pattern doesn’t show up too well in this dark color. However, I was thinking the length of this pair could make up for the lack of length in the prior pair. There is a purl row between pattern repeats. I may use that as a shaping spot and go for some really tall socks. After a few more rows, I am going to increase needle size so the pattern expands a bit too.

With my pasty white legs (as the RNK calls them) as a foil, the lace pattern should show up quite a bit more.

Hmmm. With all this prospective length, maybe I can’t quite count this pair as a quarter done. Oh well, close enough.

I looked through all the sock yarn

and decided that gifting/selling/or otherwise disposing of skeins could count toward my 15 project total. After significant deliberation, I decided to part with a skein of Wollmeise.

I listed Poison Nr. 5 on Ebay. I have never actually listed anything on Ebay before today. I am now an “official” seller with three items listed: the Wollmeise and two Day-Timer planner covers I bought several years ago as prizes in a contest that never materialized. I’ve been carting these two leather planner covers (in sizes I don’t use) around for a decade now.

The planner covers were no-brainers. Why not sell them? I hope someone buys them. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

The Wollmeise. Well, that’s a different story. I love this color. Trouble is, I don’t actually wear many clothes in this color and I like my socks to match my clothes. I have other skeins of hand-dyed sock yarn in purples and pinks. I don’t exactly know why I’m attracted to this shade. Fuschia was my favorite crayon color when I was little. I still love it. I just don’t wear it.

Besides, I have three other skeins of Wollmeise in blue/green shades that I will wear. No doubts! One is already wound in preparation for sock project #2. I looked at the three unwound skeins and after careful deliberation, decided, “What the hell.” Poison Nr. 5 is officially listed on ebay.

I suppose I might regret this decision. Or not. Depends how much it sells for!

When I worked for the

federal government, we had plenty of freezes. Spending freezes and hiring freezes topped the list.

Nicci, in the Tassie Stitchers Group on Ravelry proposed a Stash Freeze. I’m liking that. She said, “I am now formally on a stash freeze, and may not, not, not, purchase any more yarn until I have made at least 15 items from stash yarn. (in a small voice – unless someone asks what I want for Christmas – that can’t count).”

Well said! I jumped on board; I am number 6 to sign on. I will concentrate on socks to work on trimming the sock yarn stash (although I have heard that sock yarn never counts as stash). Pair 1 is on the needles.

A momentary aside: If that were true about sock yarn not counting, I would have to bail on the whole idea — I can’t even imagine how long it would take me to knit 15 sweaters or 15 lace projects — my other two primary stash components. Forget that. I could never keep away from yarn purchases for that long. So, in this instance, and perhaps this instance only, sock yarn counts as stash.

Thank goodness I got that last little purchase of the Tasmanian wool offered by elann.com in at the end of October!

It looks a little splitty to work with. No where near as nice as the Japanese-spun Tasmanian wool that they had at the Handweavers, Spinners and Dyers Guild of Tasmania. But at $2.98 a ball vs. heaps more, (I put that price right out of my mind) I can live with it.

It satisfies my “need” to have some Tasmanian yarn in my stash.

Show and tell

1. The trade. I definitely came out on the better end of this one! I traded the cardigan for this lovely shawl.

I love shawls. I have tons of shawl patterns and yarn for knitting them. I knit a shawl. Once. But for the last year or so, I just can’t seem to get off my sweater/sock kick to knit another.

This shawl is the perfect size for me. It fits around my shoulders and keeps the chill off my neck when we watch movies and yet it’s not so big as to be overwhelming. Absolutely perfect. It folds down into a very small little bundle which will make it excellent for traveling. The workmanship, Claire’s, is impeccable.

2. The slippers. They felted up OK. I still need to redo the elastic for the button strap on the left slipper. It shows too much from the outside. There’s a fine line between getting the elastic buried enough so that it doesn’t rub on the foot and getting it too close to the outside. I missed that line.

If you look back to a previous post, you can see that they felted down quite a bit. Same ruler. Felting is pretty weird.

3. Socks. We went to Santa Fe for the RNK’s birthday on Saturday. We ate at Cafe Pasqual’s and had a lovely dinner. On the way down, I got to knit in the car!

I took “More Sensational Knitted Socks” with me. In the end, I just winged a pattern, alternating a K6P2 ribbing a bit because I love this yarn and I didn’t want the pattern to detract. I can’t remember the name of the color, but it’s Socks that Rock lightweight. So far, I am pleased. The heel is a bit funky. I have only done one other short row heel with wraps. I hope the other sock turns out a bit nicer.

4. Opal. She’s such a bright spot in our lives. Always entertaining. Today, she had a chipmunk trapped under a flagstone walkway.

Chimpmunk lovers, don’t fret. No chipmunks were actually harmed in the making of this blog post.

I have a tiny office

made even smaller by the fact that it includes three dog beds. Two for the dogs; one for the cat.

In spite of that, Opal seems to find my chair a more comfortable spot:

Today, I managed to squeeze her far enough back that I do have a small ledge to perch on. Comfortable? No!

Jakob is more accommodating. He sleeps in one of the dog beds:

Is he comfortable? Apparently. This is his preferred sleeping posture. It offers a great glimpse of his gap-tooth smile:

There has been knitting. I’m trying my first felting project, a pair of house slippers. Freaky!

Yes, that is a 12 inch (30.5 cm) ruler inbetween the pair. Can they possibly felt down that much? Not yet. But I’m still working on it. It’s harder since my washer is a front loader and it doesn’t work well with a single-item load.

Does anyone have some alternative felting method suggestions for me?

The sweater found

a new home yesterday. I wore it and as I was sitting in a meeting I could almost feel it “grow.” By the time I finished petting the horses and feeding them treats, the cuffs were getting hard to keep out of the way.

I drove to town, thinking about the sweater and the talented knitter, Claire, I was going to have lunch with. Hmmm. She knits gorgeous shawls (that sold like hotcakes at the Taos Wool Festival in early October). She’s taller than me. This would be a good color for her. Perhaps she would consider a trade?

Yes! Well, tentatively yes. I am giving her some time with the sweater to decide if she really likes it enough to trade. I know I love her shawls because I look at them every time she’s out and about offering them for sale. I just can’t justify buying one of them because, well, I’m a knitter. How can a knitter with an unmentionable amount of lace yarn and shawl patterns justify buying a shawl? Somehow though, as much as I love shawls and lace yarn, I just never seem to get around to knitting one. I would feel guilty buying a shawl. But, a trade. That’s another story!

Besides, the sweater looks really nice on her! See:

Don’t you agree it looks great?

It’s done!

Well, almost. It still has to dry and I have to sew the buttons on. And perhaps, tack down that ribbon strip.

After I washed it, it grew and grew and grew. I couldn’t believe how huge it was. The arms were over 24 inches long! I tried patting it all into place and squishing it in and shortening it up.

I messed with it for quite a while yesterday and again this morning. At least I have a nice view from the sunroom where it’s drying.

It looked kind of OK on the fronts, but the back was all scrunched weird and it just wasn’t right. So I threw the sweater and the towels it was drying on into the dryer for about 15 minutes. Maybe even a little longer.

Much, much better!

Stitches evened up and the texture smoothed out. The texture isn’t as overwhelming as I feared it might be. Of course, I won’t really be able to tell until it’s bone dry and I try it on.

I positioned the buttons over the buttonholes to get the “effect” of when they are sewn on. I like the buttons.

I still have to decide if that ribbon (see previous post) is useful inside the bind-off around the bands and collar. It did not get weird in the washing. It’s just fine. But is it a benefit? I don’t know. It doesn’t seem to be a detriment. Maybe I should leave it because if I pull it out, It would be a bear to put it back in later if I decided I really did need some stabilization along the button bands.

The collar seems to lay just fine with it in. Probably would lay just fine without it too.

Do I like the sweater? Am I pleased with the result? Would I recommend the pattern?

As far as the first two questions go, I always have this love/hate relationship with my knitting. I love the yarn; I love the pattern. I hate the finished product. However, I just pulled out two of my last season’s projects out last week (Refined Raglan and Textured Raglan) and was totally delighted and surprised at how well they fit and how nice they felt on. I’m not saying they are fantastic sweaters or anything like that. But, I’m not ashamed to be seen in public wearing either one. I even got a complement on Refined Raglan when I wore it to town.

As far as this one? Well, right now, I do not want to burn it. That’s a good sign.

Would I recommend the pattern? Yes. It is well-written. I found the knitting to be entertaining with all the do this every 8 rows and this every 16 and this every 4th or 5th or whatevers. Yet, it was repetitious enough to be able to learn the stitch pattern. I would describe it as a moderately challenging knit.

It is a very clever design (designed by Deborah Newton for Classic Elite). If you think that someday, you would like to try your hand at sweater design, I highly recommend knitting this one to see how it was shaped. The shaping is very well-done in this pattern. It is hidden, yet at the same time, not at all hidden. The shaping becomes part of the design. Nice. Kudos to Newton on this one.