Almost there

I have completed the 35th row of the 36 rows of purple in the last section of Chris's Doctor Who Scarf.

Why have I not finished it? (Other than the fact that I'm at work and shouldn't really be knitting.) Because I'm not sure if I should knit the 36th row and then bind off, or bind off at the 36th row. And how to bind off? :) Yeah, I'm a geek. Have to Google around a bit and see what the best bind off for garter stitch is. (Probably a regular bind off but in purl.)

I think I'm also avoiding that whole wash and add tassels thing...

For the record, sometime late July or early August I got almost to the end of the last gray section:

... and realized I did not have enough yarn to finish it. So, after procrastinating a bit, I ordered one more skein from KnitPicks (along with a bunch of other stuff, which is neight here nor there, thankyouverymuch). Once it arrived, I knit every other remaining gray row alternating to blend in the new yarn (since I had no idea how visible any dye lot differences might be).

Knowing I was this close to finishing the scarf seems to have kept me going at it pretty well. (I also seem to be on a bit of a finishing-things-up jag, which is extremely out of character but rather productive so we'll go with it.) I found if I park near the girls' preschool then I can knit about two rows walking from my car to the office, and another two walking back at the end of the day, so that was at least four rows done any work day.

So anyway, here's one last graphic for the scarf:

Next time I'll post pictures.

Continuing scarf adventures

I have a new needle, so the work goes on. Progress! Perhaps this fall Chris will have his scarf. :)

The truly exciting thing is, I'm officially done with one color — that big section was the last green part in the scarf. Two rows into the yellow will mark 80% (more or less). It can be done!

About Chris's "Doctor Who" scarf

...and this was how far I was when the first needle broke...

Cross crafting

Dorothy's Baby Blanket,
originally uploaded by sbweber-knits.

I sew quilts (among other things) and, even more than I sew quilts, I design quilts. To do this I use Electric Quilt software, a product I can't recommend highly enough. Recently, I have realized that this software can be used for some of my knitting projects as well.

I'm working on a baby blanket for Dorothy, using the " Baby Blocks" pattern by Ann Norling — a lovely, simple pattern. Too simple for me — which is no criticism of the pattern as written, just a recognition of my own preferences.

So, I "drew" up the pattern in EQ and started playing, representing the stockinette in one color and the reverse stockinette in another. This is the variation I came up with: a second internal border of the smaller checks, and a central diamond. My new pattern is still pretty simple, but it will be enough more challenging to keep me happy as I knit it.

And for that matter, it would make a lovely simple quilt, too!

"Making math with yarn"

"Coral reefs can be crocheted. The atmosphere can be knit. And a stop sign can be folded into a pair of pants. ..."

How can I not post the link to a story that starts this way?

New math tricks: knitting and crocheting
Yarn work helping to provide answers to wide range of math problems

Um ... right

My mom and I were recently going through my granny's knitting books (mom's mom). Most were not of any particular interest to me, though I allowed Mom to give me a copy of Leisure Arts' Seamless Raglans by Marion Graham.

I was thumbing through a copy of You Can Knit Better by Lois Larking (copyright 1967) when I found the following:

YOUR FIRST PROJECT

One of the best knitted articles for a beginner to make is a V-neck sweater. Practically all of the all of the problems that arise in knitting will present themselves at one time or another and must be solved during its making. Working (and "working" is used advisedly) a scarf or some other very simple article is dull and tedious and seldom inspires further effort. On the other hand, a sweater you have made and can wear with pride, provides the incentive to knitmany more beautiful additions to your wardrobe. From that point on, the sky is the limit!

O-kay ... that's one way to think about it. *grin*

The author also has this to say:

THOSE CHANGING STYLES!

If you remember the '40's, you will also remember that skirts dropped from three to five inches in length almost overnight! It will be a real economy to buy two to three extra skeins of yarn if you are making a dress or suit. That knee length skirt may have to be lengthened to the new proportions and, if you do not have extra yarn of the same dye-lot, it will have to be put away for that mythical "seven-year" period when styles supposedly change back. ...

The author goes on to point out that you should make sure the extra yarn gets cleaned as often as the garment does, and in the same way.

My current reason for not knitting

2008-04-01_b,
originally uploaded by sbweber-knits.

Born March 25, I'm pleased to introduce Dorothy Ellen.

She's shown here sleeping on the blanket knit for her by her grandmother (my mom) and with socks I'm knitting for her eldest sister (the picture was taken for the Yarn Harlot's sock scavenger hunt, an international freestyle entry).

What better reason could there be? :-)

Links to my Flickr photos

If you're interested, you can find photos of some of my projects at Flickr, both knitting:

www.flickr.com

... and crochet:

www.flickr.com

A bit o' history

Since I did promise this would be the topic of my next post...

As I remember it, my first experience with any form of needlework was when I was in kindergarten or maybe first grade. My mom sketched out a cross-stitch pattern of my name for me to follow. I believe my brother, a year younger, did his name as well (on a separate piece of fabric).

I continued to do at least some cross-stitch until shortly before my first daughter was born; I have since discovered that for me at least, cross-stitch does not blend as easily with having young children as various other types of needlework.

I learned to hand sewing sometime in elementary school, machine sewing in junior high school. (I vividly remember being annoyed that by the time I got truly good at making doll clothes, I was too old to play with them.)

My aunt tried to teach me to crochet when I was in my tween or very early teen years, but I ended up teaching myself when I was sixteen (from a "Learn to Crochet" article that I still have, somewhere). I actually crocheted a fair amount in high school, during class — it helped me focus, and I was fortunate enough to have teachers who didn't mind as long as my grades stayed good.

I made my first attempt at knitting sometime in late high school, a dolman sleeved sweater to be made from a pink/gray variegated acrylic yarn — what can I say, it was the 80s. I got several inches done before deciding that I would stick with crochet.

I pieced my first blanket top, a log cabin pattern, from material I had tie dyed myself during the summer before I went away to college. I didn't return to piecework and quilting until the spring of 2004, when I made a baby quilt of my own design for a friend (at left). I've since make one other baby quilt, when I took a class on paper piecing in 2007. Both of these can be seen in my Picasa Web Album:

Quilting

In the fall of 2006 I decided to give knitting another try and took a class. Fortunately for me, the instructor looked at how I was holding the needles and said, "Oh, you'd do better with Continental knitting than American..." She was right, it suits how I already hold yarn from years and years of crocheting, and I've been happily knitting every since.

And what that doesn't cover, no one needs to know! (It's questionable whether anyone besides me needs to know this muc. *grin*)