SPQ Part Deux and Angelina's Sweater

Scroll down to the next post for info about my contest to find a women's sweater pattern--deadline for entries is Sept. 5!!

Here are answers to some more probing questions from the SP11 hostesses:

1. What is the one knitting accessory you could not live without?
My Visa card. ;^)

2. If you're heading on vacation, do you take knitting with you? If so, how much and what type of project?
Yes, I take knitting on car trips (using dramamine makes this possible) and most other trips as well, unless it might offend a host or something. It does, sometimes. Go figure.

3. Where have you traveled to that you'd consider your favorite spot?
Here's a contender: Horsetail Falls, near Lake Tahoe. This picture is looking away from the falls. Did you kno-tice I was knitting?

4. What is your favorite knitting book at the moment? Do you own it?
I don't have a favorite but I love reading anything in Mason-Dixon Knitting, since the writing is so good, and the authors' voices come through and make them real people.

5. Do you listen to podcasts? Which is your favorite(s)?
Haven't done this yet--I'm still a bit of a tech neophyte. I am hearing more about them so I think I will figure it out--KnitPicks has one, and I know there are many others out there.

6. If you could only knit with 1 color for the rest of your life, what color would that be?
Gray. So many shades! Just like life!

7. If you were far into a project and then noticed a mistake near the beginning what would you do?
I have a great answer (I think!) to this problem and have done it once before. I unraveled the cast on edge and tinked back from the beginning, fixed the mistake, knitted back the first rows and cast off at what was the original cast-on edge.

8. Where is the most unsual spot you've ever knit?
I wish I could say something truly hilarious like the gynecologist's table or something but really . . . nothing comes to mind.

But Much More Important, and Newsworthy . . .
Here is a picture of Angelina, the Angel Baby, in the sweater I made her. Her mama has been really sweet about the present and also HELPFUL about the ways the sweater wasn't sized quite right. For next time, I know I can make a better-fitting kimono! Meantime, I am still pretty proud of it!! And Pat should be proud of what she made!!! Ain't she sweet!

Photo Heavy Catch-Up!

Like to Win Stuff?***
Scroll down to the gorgeous blue yarn to find out details of a little contest I'm having! You could win!

***And if you've already entered the contest but I don't have your email addy, how can I contact you to tell you you've won?? How about emailing me offline to let me know, and then you can remain a bit more anonymous! My email contact is: keramoso@yahoo.com

The end of summer finds me back at meetings, getting ready to start a new school year, mourning a bit the end of luxurious stretches of free time, looking forward to the return to routine. But first, a summation, and a reminder to self of all the knitting that I will enjoy in the near future.

WIPs (or soon to be WIPs)
From the left, I'm working on a child's hat done in stockinette and doubled over, sewn so it's two layers, and quite warm and soft. It's about 2/3 knitted and is mindless repetition for times when that's what I need. The yarn is fuzzy though, so I can't knit it in any place that's warm. Next, the three skeins of grays I'm going to use for the bobble scarf. In the green and brown bag, my white mulberry silk, in a tank I started that I have set aside for a bit. Peeking out of the Pottery Barn bag is the ruffled edge of a scarf I started, hoping to finish up some Homespun I had. Never want to knit with that again! Then the two cones of Habu, one maroon, one navy, for the kushu scarf. Last, the double-knit slipper I started last week. I also have that brick red scarf I'm doing for the Orphan project that I've shown you enough pictures of!

New Obsession: Vintage Books on Knitting
Because of some threads on knitting novices and the knitlist, I have gotten on an antiques kick this summer, finding vintage knitting manuals and historical books online through eBay and other sources. While some of it is just the cool factor of having something I can read and through it imagine life in another era, I also think some of the patterns are ones I might use, particularly for vintage-minded* people I know and love. This one is from 1948.


Not this dress, though, no worries!
*by vintage-minded, I do not mean senile!!



















Here is a booklet from 1934. This was apparently like Lion Brand at the time--one of the biggies. It has all sorts of patterns in it, most of which make perfect sense to me!



These two booklets hail from 1944 and 1951 respectively, and have wonderful patterns in them.





























This is my especial favorite, Knitting and Sewing by Maud Churchill Nicoll. It's from 1918, as WWI was ending, and had all sorts of patterns for making soldiers warm clothing. That is what the one above was as well, just for WWII, but this one, with its great drawings and photographs. For the worst winter conditions, soldiers needed clothing like doddies, knee caps, trench stockings, puttee stockings, all sorts of things I think sound familiar, and which I should know, but don't. And for gunnery soldiers--wow. There are the fingerless gloves, the rifle mittens (no index finger or thumb), the thumb-less half-mittens, the hand protectors. And it turns out that doddies are those fingerless gloves with a mitten top one can pull down over the fingertips when needed.

I also find myself thinking about every second page, "Yeah, war is hell."

I am certain I'll make some of the men's caps in this book, and I'm thrilled I found it. It is in fabulous condition too, so I feel very smug.

Recent Acquisitions--Stash
















A handspun skein of delicious scarf-worthy yarn from YoYo Knits (on etsy). It's made of wool, alpaca, tencel, angora, and mohair. I also got four skeins of that cotton Berroco "Love It" from the destash blog to use for baby things. I am going to try the baby kimono in this next, since the yarn is the right weight for the pattern.

Now for the latest yarn acquisition and THE CONTEST

Back story: Here is enough Green Mountain Spinnery yarn to make someone a sweater. It will not be a next-to-the-skin type sweater, but it will rock!! The blue is what they call Yarn Over, and is supposed to get softer with each wash. The off-white is their Mountain Mohair, the same type out of which my MIL made my DD2 a sweater for her graduation gift, a sweater that is to die for. [Most certainly not to die FROM (at least not from hypothermia!) because it will keep her tres tres warm.] That girl had better keep a close eye on her closet when I'm there next week. ;^)

Contest: Now as for MY Green Mountain yarn, I need a woman's sweater pattern that is of about medium difficulty (Knitty would say "tangy"), and it could be top-down or seamed, either way I don't care. Not a cardigan, but any type of pullover would be in contention. I guess I'm thinking of the cream yarn as a contrast edge or stripe.

If you have a suggestion and you leave me a comment on this entry, with a link to a pattern or a reference to a specific book's pattern that I can easily find at the bookstore, I will put your email addy in the hopper, and on September 5, I will draw out a name for someone to win a PRIZE! Your pattern suggestion the one I choose? YOU win TOO!

Recent Acquisitions--Gew-Gaws and Tchotchkes (but better!)

I have found my knitting related paraphernalia mostly on cafepress.com. In the US, that's the best way, and these are artists and crafters who use cafepress to get their stuff out there. For example, these many buttons came from various sites. Couple bucks apiece, max.


Then there is this stationery (I don't think "exquisite" is too strong a word for it--great watercolor work always gets me) that I first found through Jejune's blog, but which, if you're in the US, is more easily purchased from her cafepress site. She has SIX images in this series (and another on the way), with different types of warming drinks and different types of knitting lying to the side just waiting to be picked up and worked on some more. I esp. like the cutwork lace tablecloth on this one with the coffee. Below is a blank book (sketching ideas? writing important info? keeping a "To-Do" list?) on the cover of which her designs can also be reproduced.

And, drumroll please, here is the last acquisition of Summer 2007


Got it from KnitPicks, and as a knitting bag, it is ideal! Not a huge suitcase of a messenger bag, not clunky. It has three zipper compartments, other zippers on interior sides etc., and a clear pouch for supplies. I am already in love with it.

If you read to this point, you should win a prize regardless, because this has been one flipping long blog entry!!

Now what sweater should I go for???????????????

Ravelry Update--Just Might Get an Invite Someday!

• You signed up on June 26, 2007
• You are #11147 on the list.
• 1302 people are ahead of you in line.
• 16727 people are behind you in line.
• 35% of the list has been invited so far

Everything I've explored on ravelry convinces me this is SO COOL, and I can hardly wait. It will probably take a ton of time to get up and running, and the inventory of my stash could be a bit revealing. But I love the many options and the idea that the first thing I'll see on my site there is all my UFOs. Motivation!

At the backtoschool party last evening, I got to talk knitting with my friend Kathy who is far beyond me in skill and experience, and who knits a damn fine clapotis. She showed me her latest, whereupon I wondered, "Now why do I never knit myself a shawl I can wear on the chilly evenings we get in NoCal?" I smell a new project.

When I get a minute this weekend, I'll take photos of my newest stash acquisitions--some purty stuff. I also forgot to update on that super secret project I was working on, which has been given as a birthday giftie now, to DD2, a scarf in her new school's colors blue and brown (how cool is that? a college with those colors? not something hideous like orange and black?). I discovered doing that project that there's something I need to learn, but it didn't hinder me from finishing the scarf whilst I was underway--and when I do figure it out (how to switch colors without the odd jog and messy stitching), I'll make her another, better one!

Enough of this flipping insomnia. Time to try to sleep for a few more hours.

Happy knitting, wherever you are in the world!