Whatever happens to strike my fancy, but surely some sort of fiber content.
|
|
| Like The Queen Whatever happens to strike my fancy, but surely some sort of fiber content. |
|
1 Comments:I became dreadfully ill last February, and was nearly hospitalized in the process. Once I started feeling better but was still kept home from work by the doctor, I realized that being a kept woman wasn't all that bad a prospect. The bug has been in me ever since... ah, days off... time to set on my own... mmm.... Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom] Thursday, September 30, 2004 This vacation stuff is simply grand! I am in love with staying home - walking from room to room, on a Wednesday, after lunch, just touching something or looking at something else. Whew. Talk about heaven! After leisurely lolling about in the a.m. yesterday I took a phone call from one of the library volunteers, with news that a very fine local artist, Marion Elizabeth Simonson, had died and her heirs wanted to leave one of her magnificent paintings to the library. Trouble was, they were leaving town on Thursday and could I arrange for someone to pick up the portrait? Could I, indeed. Perhaps it is not even correct to say she was a local artist, since she had a substantial career in New York as a professional portrait painter - specializing in official portraits of judges. She did all the restoration of the portraits in our own courthouse when it suffered a fire in the 1960’s. BD and I hustled on down to town and met with the cousin. The more we chatted, the more paintings she pulled out of corners, closets and storage rooms. We ended up taking her entire art book collection, as well as two more portraits, including one of Ms. Simonson, back to the library. So - even though it is vacation, one must take care of business, right? I didn’t write any more on the travel log - baaaaad Bess. I shall attempt to do so today - though I make no promises. What I did do was to knit away on both the Anny Blatt sweater and the BRCA sweater's swatch hat. I am officially naming that sweater today. I’ve been thinking of calling it Bricca ever since I typed out the acronym - it sounds Celtic enough even if it’s really a town in Roman Gaul, the present day town of Breches. After typing yesterday’s post I switched to a #8 needle and knit about half another pattern depth. This is coming in much closer to gauge - though I still think I should block the whole before making a final decision. I like the look of the knitting better - I think. I have been knitting my purls using the Combination purl - wrapping the yarn clockwise around the right hand needle. This tends to tighten up the purls substantially. It makes my knitting much firmer. I was creating a fabric of reverse stocking stitch - maybe 50% of this sweater - that was very smooth and flat; not tight, but definitely firm. The cable parts, all the st. st. parts, were rather bumpy and uneven, but not more than a good blocking would take care of. Remember, I nearly always wet block. Not only do I love the process, but also, I don’t care for steam blocking. It produces too uneven a result for the effort. Only if the fiber can’t take the water do I resort to other sorts of blocking - or bypass that step altogether. With the #8 needle, the cable parts are much softer, smoother and more even. They are also a good deal longer, so my row gauge is much closer to the pattern’s. What I’m not sure of is the reverse st.st. part - it’s pretty enough, slightly more textured, but it seems a trifle loose. In fact, this part of the hat is altogether much softer looking. I like it well enough - but I’m not sure the loose RSS parts will support all the cables, once this thing is a complete sweater, hanging off my shoulders. Ah well. No use conjecturing. Let me finish up the last 2 rounds of yarn left from this single ball, block it out and see exactly what I get. Perhaps I shall take it with me to the Montpelier Fall Fiber Festival this Saturday, where I can get feedback from all the Knitters Review folk who’ll be there. LD&GF came for dinner last night and we regaled them with Travel Talk, complete with photos - and this prompts me to get back to work on my own posting about Niagara Falls - so, off I go to continue my reminiscences. posted by Bess | 7:44 AM |
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
||||
|
|||||
40
