Lovely Knitting on a Midsummer’s Night

Ethel and her new phone (and towel hanger WIP)

Great knitting meeting this week!

Tricia worked on a sparkly white scarf

Tricia took a wash cloth pattern and extended it into a scarf!

Elizabeth’s crochet components

Elizabeth worked on an afghan in what she calls “granny strips”–her version of Granny squares, except they are long strips. The new purple strip will soon have a light lavender center. She will probably edge these in black.

Lois’s afghan, two panels-at- a -time cable construction

Lois is also making an afghan, with two long center panels. It’s easier when you make the same thing, two-at-a-time, she says.

Lois likes this cable needle best so far

Martin Storey blanket

The cats interfered with my new project, a knitted blanket from the Aran and Celtic Children’s book. One block at a time, in Rowan felted tweed yarn, with intarsia alphabet letters in each block. Ethel showed me how to weave in the intarsia loops that are formed on the back. (I took a little break from the Sophie Tunic—I’ll be back…) To see Martin Storey’s Fall/Winter brochure from Rowan look at this you-tube vid here.

Rachel and cotton knit cloth

So what’s on your needles this fine summer night?

 

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July Yarn Yarns

Aaargh! Another week of summer gone by without Wednesday Night Knitting. We even thought about temporarily creating Thursday Night Knitting, but this knitter felt too ill. I even skipped the Fourth of July festivities, worried that my wheezing chest and seemingly cracked ribs from coughing, might not appreciate labored breathing of gunpowder smoke lingering in the hot, humid, night air.

During my time of quarantine, some projects were miraculously completed.

Baby blanket and what was left of Color A

I’m not completely happy with the symmetry of it, but in my defense, it’s the very first blanket I’ve ever knitted. Reminds me of my ex-mother-in-law’s crocheted blankets, some of which were all uneven and wonky and were made of jarring color combinations. I can recall the looks of “no thanks” on my kids’ faces when I tried to pass along to them a memento of their granny’s loving handiwork, and hope that they don’t feel the same about some of my artifacts I try to press on them. This pattern was from the Summer 2012 issue of Love of Knitting ; theirs was in 2 shades of blue with white for the star pattern. As you can see from the pic, that was how much I had left of the pink. I used Caron Simply Soft acrylic sport yarn for the pink and gray, and Sensations Rainbow Boucle, which I had tons of, for the white.

I like that issue and want to make a few more things from it. I’ve already started on the “go green” felted bag. I just hope I can locate the woolly yarn stashed away.

Also, I finally saw my “grandchildren bracelet,” my Mother’s Day present from DH. It’s got a heart and birthstone for each one, even the most recent one for whom the Star-struck blankie was knitted.

Grandchildren bracelet

Oh! Thanks to an inspiring post from another blogger called crayons and milk, I decided to catalog my yarn stash. I made up a database with content, color, and size. I also listed where I got the yarn, and that was surprisingly easy to remember considering I have about 120 different listings, not counting the leftover scraps of skeins. Most of it is made up of skeins of acrylic yarn that were given to me. Thanks to all my generous benefactors! I’m excited to search for this new Entomology yarn by Malabrigo; just saw a tweet about it. So when are you going to tally up what you’ve got in your stash?

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Knitting Interim Activities

Wednesday Night Knitting has been re-directed due to some extraneous activities of some of the members. This post may be updated to show some of the alternative activities 🙂

a few little distractions

We are really excited to be welcoming Grandchild #18 (the 5th girl, total). Of course little boys are wonderful, but there is something WOW about little girls’ clothes, toys, coos, smiles, sparkles, spangles, sighs. I am working on a knitted blanket

three-color star-struck blanket

I found the pattern in Summer 2012 Love of Knitting. It has been so easy even I can do it with a minimum of angst while running around refereeing between rambunctious twins. I also found these two mags on the newsstand, and I felt that I just could not do without them. We’ll see.

Yum

Knitscene Accessories has a wonderful line-up of smaller projects that look very compelling. And a whole brand new magazine all about Noro? Absolutely. If for nothing else but eye-candy, well worth the price and effort to snag.

I’ve been seeing some interesting sibling=specific type experiences through all this. Bob scratched one of the twins about his eye (the result of a lot of heavy-duty tail pulling, no doubt) and his brother was the one who was upset enough–and I mean outraged enough– to retaliate by body-slamming the poor unsuspecting cat. In cat years, Bob is an old man, a grandfather-age old man. I don’t know that in all his long life, he’s ever dealt with two different agents of doom and destruction who have the same DNA. Well, now he knows.

Hey, I’m just trying to get my 16 hours of sleep here

Each of my other kids who are brother or sister to the one who just had the new baby, called to express their feelings about having a new niece. “I’m having those really strong new baby happy feelings!” one said. One, who delivered grandchild #12 at the same hospital a few years ago, a baby who succumbed to a congenital heart defect, said she couldn’t come up yet to visit. “Too raw,” she said. The other sibling was texting (through the medium of his wonderful spouse) at midnight the night before and early in the morning, craving updates. So, there is this family connection as if the heavens opened up and thunder rolled and we heard it and felt it!

BTW, as a great anticlimax here, WNK has been awarded the Versatile Blogger Award! Actually, it’s not that big a deal because I was nominated for the award by myself, in the guise of my other blog posting persona, jenyjenny of Project Remnant Redo. Project Remnant Redo, my sewing blog, is my primary blog, and this knitting blog is sort of the red-headed step-child in terms of account servicing and overall recognition from Word Press. So I did take advantage of a little “hey, look at me!” opportunity for the knitting blog. And I will spare people the daunting tasks of having to recognize 15 other blogs in kind, and then post 7 personality quirks or life events, or whatever to fulfill the obligation of using the award button to brighten up the margin here. I may comply with the rules and conditions more fully later on when i have more time….Have a great knitting week, knitting friends!

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A little post-Burns’ Night haggis-inspired knitting

Wednesday Night Knitting’s first February session of 2012 had many of us knitting the same old’s, but we seem to get renewed energy when we meet together. Ethel finished the lamb on site, adding legs she had knitted and stuffed with little pieces of wooden dowel, to keep little fat lambie erect in posture, as he tended to plump down onto his tummy when stood up straight.

Ethel and lamb (before legs)

Lamb standing

I found these haggis-flavored potato crisps at Fresh Market, a post-Burns’ night (see last week’s post) treat which lists haggis* as one of the ingredients. The taste–to echo the recommendation of the cashier–is “a little weird”, but not repulsive at all: “nae skinking ware That jaups in luggies” to say the least!

haggis crisps

We washed it down with some chocolate Lindor truffles.

chocolate chasers

Debbie continued working on a fluffy baby blanket.

Deb and blanket, with Pauly guarding

Lois and socks

Lois began working on the ribbed cuff of a sock, trying to keep it from sliding off into oblivion by keeping it on regular needles until absolutely necessary to change to dpn’s or to put the two socks together on a magic loop.

Tiffany and basketweave stitch afghan

Tiffany came to join us again! We always have wonderful conversations about sports, historical dating practices, pregnancy, travel, Colin Firth, and loads of fun things with Tiffany, who will soon be finding out whether her upcoming twins will be boys, girls, or both!

Ethel with poncho

Ethel continued working on the poncho of many skeins, which is now very thick and long but needs to be 5 or 6 inches longer. I worked on the fingerless gloves–maybe by next week I can lay down that burdensome size 1 circular needle and say I’m finished.

fingerless gloves in self-striping "Carnival" sock yarn

Ethel got these gorgeous flowers last week!

still life

*sorry, it actually lists “haggis and cracked black pepper seasoning” in the ingredients, not pure haggis.

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