Like The Queen
Whatever happens to strike my fancy, but surely some sort of fiber content.

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I would have been a toad in a past life (You drift into altered states of consciousness freely and easily.
You also have the power to change luck and life a long life.)

We got over a foot here, I think, and I'm set up with a fire crackling, the wheels spinning and lots of projects to play with... what more could a girl ask?

By Blogger Amie, at 12:01 PM  

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Sunday, February 12, 2006  

We got snow!

All day I waited for the flakes to fall but nothing came down but a bit of drizzly cold rain till the sun went down. But in the night, beautiful fat flakes began to lime the trees and disguise the cars, turning them into hummocks of whiteness. The poor, overgrown arborvitae by the front door (a landscape disaster) are bowed nearly to the ground. I’ve swept them off once, but the forecast is for snow till mid-afternoon, so I’ll be out again at least two more times. Funny - I really want to remove them. I am sure I’ll have to cut them down, but I can’t bear to see them bowed and broken, so when it snows I go out with broom and whack away at the branches. They’ve grown so tall the outdoor light doesn’t illuminate anything anymore. They are crowding the passage from the front door. I ought to let them just break from the snow weight and then I’ll be motivated to remove them. Eh. There. Lots of things I ought to do.

I finished the front of the BSHP sweater, making the huge mistake of joining the front right shoulder to the back right shoulder before I’d finished knitting the front left shoulder. I won’t do that again. I had this huge sweater to slug around each time I had to purl back. Of course, you must all know I’m not purling back. This is a K3P1 rib pattern that is offset on the “purl” row, having you K3P1 going back as well. It’s highly textured, extraordinarily stretchy and breaks up pooling in a hand painted yarn beautifully. It’s almost a garter stitch sweater so I decided to take advantage of that to practice sewing pieces together. I actually enjoy the beautiful way a mattress stitch pulls two pieces of knitting snuggly into one, but not enough to purl half a sweater or knit half my stranded colorwork blindly. So there are very few sweaters that I knit in flat pieces. With this stitch I had the perfect opportunity to practice.

Also, I’ve never designed a sweater with a sewn in, set in sleeve. I’ve knit several, and the sewing in looked like C**P, so here was another area where practice was called for. How fortunate I actually want to practice. The design was inspired by Elizabeth Zimmermann’s brioche turtleneck sweater that her son is wearing I the new Opinionated Knitter book. Of course - he’s a broad shouldered flat bellied man and I am a short waisted big chested curvaceous woman. I don’t think we’ll create the same effect in similar sweaters but I am crossing my fingers that, once sewn together I will, at least, look cozy and casual. If I look ridiculous - I believe I will give this sweater away.

The yarn is Brown Sheep’s Handpaint which is a mohair/wool single that reminds me a lot of their Lambs Pride. It’s a gorgeous yarn, but could be knit into a scratchy sweater if the tension were too tight. This very elastic ribbing precludes tight knitting and the fabric created with this yarn and this stitch is utterly delicious; a bouncy, scrunchy, dig-your-fingers-into-it tactile thrill. I know I’ll enjoy wearing it. I just hope I won’t look like sausage in casing.

Ahh. Well. WW is still in force. The plan is one size smaller. The vision is sleek and stylish. Perhaps ... yes ... perhaps.

The kids gave BD a 2 month subscription to Netflicks for Christmas and throughout January we had a rapid turnover in ThingsToSee. Now, as we near the end of the second month, the turnaround has slowed to, not exactly a crawl, but certainly a leisurely stroll. So we have nothing new to watch on a snowy Sunday. There is always P&P - the good version - and all my fiber videos. But this past week the best of the new stuff we’ve watched was Batman Begins. It worked, mind, but let's face it, we were watching the story of a cartoon character! How much does it take for a movie about a cartoon character to work? It gets a C+ from me but I don’t feel like fiddling with the template enough to put a plus by the stars. Hence, the 3 star rating. And just in case you wondered what the stars mean:

Could just barely stand it - but something made me want to see how it turned out
EH.
Good but with serious flaw/s - or else trivial, in a Frosted Flakes sort of way
Pretty good
Wow

If I really hate every flick I watched in a given week - I’ll come up with some sort of frowny face ikon.

As for books - I gave up on After Dark. I’m reading Shirlee Haizlip’s The Sweeter the Juice now, because it’s the library book club choice for February. Beautiful sentences, now and then, and an issue that I’m still pondering, but not riveting, because I’ve already read this Quest For Origins thing before in a similar book whose title I've now forgotten. Better read a little more before I comment on this one. But I have a neat children’s book I can’t wait to dive into once I’ve finished my required reading.

So - happy snowy Sunday all you east coasters. May your soup bubble and your needles fly.

posted by Bess | 7:50 AM
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