Enough already?
 

The current batch of socks. Except for the Broadripple, in the foreground, they're just plain ol' socks and only the Broadripple has one sock complete. I try to work a little on each pair everyday. I like them all and enjoy watching the patterns show up.

There are at least two other pairs of socks around here somewhere that I've just barely started. They'll move into the current line up when I finish some of these.

The Wednesday night class went well and there were no requests for crochet help. Well, except for one special knitter who made the trip in to give me a hard time. She brought her charming mom though so it was okay.

Photo finish
I lugged my camera and tripod to Skein today to try one more time for a photo of the Lost Points shawl. 


It looks better on the mannequin than I expected it to. But it's really more of a scarf than a shawl. 



You can see the diagonal line of increases, if you look carefully. But maybe it's easier in this shot.

But that's it. No more.

It was pretty quiet most of the day except for the usual flurry around noontime. And that was pretty intense. I did have a couple of students in the mid-afternoon, a mother/daughter combo. They were a lot of fun to be with. Totally different in their ability to grasp the concept. The daughter really had difficulty understanding the step where you pull the yarn through the stitch, you know, back through the window. I've noticed that lots of people have trouble at this point and I can't figure out why. But anyway, by the time they left they were both comfortable with the knit stitch, casting on and binding off. And we had had some good laughs.

I'm covering for the Wednesday night teacher tomorrow. She usually teaches crochet as well as knitting. I hope there aren't any crochet students. My crochet technique is pretty free form. I never crochet except to set in sleeves or maybe put an edge on something. Don't ask me about shaping. But I may try it again just so I can make a hippy shawl on poncho.

 

 

Another post with no pictures
 
I tried to take a picture of the Lost Points shawl but none of the three were usable. I spent part of the morning trying to block it to see if I could stop or reduce the curling. As soon as I spread the towels on the living room floor Patrick came and stretched out. Then he was very interested in all the pins I was using. But I got it all laid out and then noticed a loose stitch that was starting to run. Out came the pins. I fixed the loose stitch and decided to try steaming the shawl instead. It helped some but wasn't a permanent fix. So I'm taking it to Skein tomorrow and giving it to Ann Mary. I'm done.

I finished the main section of the mañanita poncho and have started the border. It took me a while to get started because I thought the border would be worked counter clockwise. But it isn't. I don't have many repeats done but I'm beginning to remember the pattern. There are only a few stitches per row so I have to turn the work all the time and that's kind of irritating. I think I'm going to see about getting this blocked professionally.

Tonight it's sock knitting, for sure. Too hot to handle anything bigger.

 
 

Public Service Announcement
This is a pretty neat feature of the new Blogger. You can select color from a drop down menu and it just does it for you. For me that's a big deal.

But the public service announcement I really wanted to make is here. Lisa sent me this link a week or so ago. If you're in the San Diego area, or anywhere really, you might be interested in helping out.

It continues to be hot and humid around here but that doesn't seem to deter the knitters. It was slow for a while this morning but then the crowds arrived. I had four students and two kibbitzers most of the afternoon. We're still selling the ponshawl like mad. Poncho mania. I may have to practice my limited crochet skills if this keeps up.

We had our Thursday night knitting group last night. We haven't met for a couple of weeks so it felt great to be back together. Smaller group than usual. Summer does that. Next week we're having a yarn re-distribution. I've already seen some of the available yarns. I hope there's no fighting.

Way done!
 
Did you hear any trumpets last night at 10:31? Well, I didn't either but I certainly wanted to. I bound off the last stitch of the Lost Points shawl. I must say the shawl is even less interesting than I thought it was going to be. Also, it's way smaller than it's supposed to be. I'm going to try to block it out a little. Plus the edge is rolling. A lot! Given the pattern instructions that should not be a surprise. If you work stockinette all the time that's what's going to happen. I have a few ends to weave in and then, that's it. There may be pictures later.

So now I can get back to the mananita shawl. And the moving cable sweater and my beloved socks. I'm also looking around for my barely started heart patterned scarf. I know it's here somewhere. Serves me right for trying to tidy up my projects. I know someone who could really use a little scarf with hearts on it right now.

 

Sweltering!
How many days 'til winter? Pity the poor firemen fighting the Santa Clarita blaze. It's hotter up there than Pasadena, even without the fire. That blaze is not close to where I live but there are hills and mountains above Pasadena that are as subject to wild fires as anywhere. So far, so good. We're just hoping that no one does anything stupid like go target practicing or even worse something malicious.
 
I thought I'd finish the Lost Points scarf today but didn't quite get there. I have another two rows plus the bind off. The last of the yarn is badly tangled so I spend most of the time undoing it. I now know, thanks to a friendly email, that the Melody yarn should be re-wound into a center pull ball before beginning to work with it. Should there be a next time, I'll be prepared.
 
The mañanita shawl has been stalled for a couple of days. Hope has finished hers and it's fantastic. If I can get anywhere near that one I'll be happy.
 
 

Orange you special!
 
When a friend, remembering how much you like sock yarn, and further remembering how much you like orange in your sock yarn, spies some, buys it, treks to the post office in the heat and humidity of summer, stands in line so she can send it priority and it arrives overnight, it seems meet and right to do something with it right away even though you said you would not start anything new until you had finished something else.
 

 
And so I did.
 

 
Thanks, Greta. These are my Brighter Day socks.

Even though I've been knitting there's not much to talk about. The Lost Points shop sample shawl is still giving me fits. The Melody yarn is without a doubt the most difficult yarn I've even knit with. The yarn just slides off the ball into a tangled mass. Patrick was eyeing it last night and I was sorely tempted to let him have at it.
 
I haven't touched the mañanita shawl for two days. I really want to get rid of the Lost Points scarf so I can forget about it. And I'm still trying to get back to the Artful Yarns Celebrity poncho I started last month. Who has time to even think about holiday knitting? The Broadripple socks are still at the one and half sock point. I wonder if I'll be able to remember the pattern. And I have two other pairs started that haven't been out of the bag for at least a month. The red Mexican Wave shawl isn't exactly stalled but I only work on it while I'm running the Ad-aware program. I'd better stop this list right now, before I get depressed.
 
I see that Blogger has changed their format once again. I wonder which font will show up when I hit publish.
 
 

The air is on

and I'm just waiting to feel the effects. I should have left it on this morning but I forgot that it was going to be so hot. I hope Patrick will forgive me.

I haven't heard any more about the fire except that it was put out fairly quickly, relatively speaking. There appeared to be another fire the next day but it turned out to be a house, not a brush fire. The speculation is that it was a meth factory that blew up. I'm waiting to hear on that.

I spent a large portion of yesterday working on the mañanita shawl. I finally stopped because both of my wrists were aching. They seem okay today. I started another row this morning but kept messing up the pattern repeat so I'll try again tonight. It's hard to stay on track when your cat keeps talking to you.

Busy day today at Skein. I went in an hour early because I was expecting my bi-polar student. Haven't seen her in a few weeks. She was there and ready to go. She gave me five balls of Gedifra Barocco to play with.



She said she thought she had some more at home somewhere and that she just couldn't work with it. It has a thin central core with tufts and strips of fabric attached. I've no idea what I'll do with it but I do have the Gedifra book that featured this yarn last year.

As weekends go

this one was exceptional. After a fairly busy day at Skein on Saturday I went home and spent the evening with Lisa. She came over to borrow my digital camera. Then she came back again on Sunday evening to load the pictures. We usually get together about every two weeks so being able to spend two whole evenings with her was extra special.

She needed to borrow the camera to take pictures of the new minister at her church. She also got this picture.



A brushfire had just started in the hills near where her church is. I haven't seen or heard anything in the local news about this fire so I don't know if it's been stopped or contained.

Summer seems to have finally arrived. It's supposedly going to be in the mid 90s for most of this week. I was planning to go out to lunch with a friend today but we had to postpone. So I'll be spending most of today on the mañanita poncho. If I can keep my focus, i.e. not start anything else, I'll be done with it this week. I'm not sure how I'm going to block it. The only space I have that's big enough is the middle of the living room floor. I'm not sure I can keep Patrick off of it long enough for it to dry.

Trash!

There are four sofas lined up on the curb in front of my condo. It looks like a cross between New Year's Day on Colorado Blvd. and a parking lot sale. These sofas, as well as the mattress across the street, have been left by people who no longer want them but don't want to take the responsiblity to dispose of them. Who do they think is going to haul them away? I know at least one of the sofas belonged to one of the tenants living in my building who moved away in the middle of the night. The owners of the unit have listed the condo for sale and are apparently cleaning it out.

I hate this kind of disregard of others. The idea seems to be that if one leaves it on the curb it's no longer one's problem. Anymore than the trash that flies out of car windows or the food containers that are dumped in the parking lot or thrown on the lawn or shopping carts left in the middle of the parking lot instead of returning them to the collection points or the store are problems. Who do they think ends up paying for this? These people are the true trash.

So much for the rant.

We had the good sense today to eat lunch early. And it was a very good thing. I don't think we stopped from noon until around four. I had a few students for most of the afternoon but I was able to work on the shop sample scarf for most of the time. I'm almost back to the point where I was when I had to start all over. The Bamboo yarn is a pleasure to work with but the Melody is terrible. Railroad yarns are bad enough but this one is also limp and saggy. I have to watch every stitch to keep from dropping one of the "rails" or slipping a stitch.

The mañanita shawl is progressing. I only have another 25 rows to go and then the border. But those are some very long rows. I'll probably get three or four more rows done tonight it the cat will leave me alone. He's been gorging himself for the past week. I have to walk him to his dish every time he wants to eat. I know that's dumb on my part but otherwise he just sits and wails pitifully. I can't stand that. So, anyway, I'm up and down most of the evening. Don't tell me you wouldn't do the same thing.

I managed a few more rows on the mañanita shawl last night and this morning. I'm finally up to 500 stitches which I think is the max number. I may have dropped a stitch on the last round. I won't know for sure until I start the next set of repeats. Fortunately the Wildfoote holds on to stitches pretty well so if I did drop a stitch it should be easy to find and pick up. Or maybe I just miscounted.

We had an invasion of pregnant Chinese women today. Just as we were finishing up the early morning rush and were getting ready for lunch a group of ten or twelve women came in. Of the group at least six were pregnant. Ann Mary said they were probably all staying in the US waiting for their children to be born here. They weren't buying yarn to make baby things but instead were buying yarn for scarves and shawls. They were there for at least two hours. I was happy that a new student came in for a lesson which took me out of the mob. And I had a second student before it was all over. Neither of us had lunch until after three o'clock. I didn't even get the shop sample scarf out of the bag.

My friend Renee came in to look over the new yarns. She and her husband and son just moved into their new home this past weekend. We're all very pleased and excited for her. There were so many delays and fiascos along the way that I imagine she's just glad it's all over. I hope she can relax now and begin to enjoy it. We went for an early dinner at Amigos and had sangria and margaritas.

No knitting night this week. Mendy and her husband went off to celebrate her birthday and their wedding anniversary over the weekend so she's home catching up on all her paperwork. Next week should be fun.

Mañanita, maybe

Thanks to Lynn H I now know how to insert a tilde. And I can tell you that I only completed two rows on the mañanita shawl last night. The rows are long but that wasn't the problem. There are just so many other things to get done before I can sit down and knit. Errands that I don't get done in the morning, playing with the cat, answering emails and phone calls. And dinner and dishes. But I did get those two rows done.

I had four new knitters today, not quite all at the same time but they did overlap. A school librarian, an elementary grade school teacher and a mother/daughter combo. Two of them were really quite comfortable with what they were doing in a fairly short time. The other two, well, it will take a while longer. Even though it's summer the shop continues to be quite busy. Most of the traffic is in the afternoon now. More shelves have been added but the yarn just keeps coming in. A few fall/winter things and more books. Some gorgeous hand painted skeins of Cherry Tree Hill lace weight that will make beautiful shawls. There's a couple that I'd like to have but I don't think I'll get them. Or maybe just one.

I know it looks like a messed up ball of kitchen twine



but really it's the current status of my Mananita shawl. I've just started row 27 so I have less than 40 to go, not counting the border.



Here's a close-up of the big holes. These are interesting to make. I sure hope when the shawl is washed and blocked that the stitches will look neater. Using a size 10US needle with yarn that calls for a size 1 makes for some loose knitting.

I know there's a special code for creating a tilda over the first "n" in mananita but I don't remember what it is. Anyone?

Happy 5th of July!

I hope you had a great 4th! This extra day that many people get due to the holiday falling on Sunday is one of my normal days off. Skein is closed on Monday so I never really get those extra holidays that I used to get when I was working in the real world. So it's not much of a holiday since I still have to do all the usual chores that I do on Monday. And I won't be getting any mail.

But I don't have to go anywhere so I'll be able to spend several hours on the Mananita poncho/shawl that I started yesterday. The pattern is in Shawls and Scarves from XRX and is a Meg Swansen design. I'm using Wildfoote sock yarn from Brown Sheep. The pattern calls for a 24" size 10US circular. I thought I had every needle size known to mankind but apparently I don't. So I'm using a 16" which seems to be okay for now even though I currently have 250 stitches. I'll probably switch to a 29" later today if things get too tight.

The pattern is not very difficult but it's a lot more fun than the plain knitting scarves I've been making lately. It's definitely one of those just one more row type of things. It took a while for me to figure out the charting though. And creating 18 stitches on three yarn overs it a little fiddly until you get the hang of it.

So, even though I have several other projects that need attention, this is my holiday knitting.

Happy 5th of July!

I hope you had a great 4th! This extra day that many people get due to the holiday falling on Sunday is one of my normal days off. Skein is closed on Monday so I never really get those extra holidays that I used to get when I was working in the real world. So it's not much of a holiday since I still have to do all the usual chores that I do on Monday. And I won't be getting any mail.

But I don't have to go anywhere so I'll be able to spend several hours on the Mananita poncho/shawl that I started yesterday. The pattern is in Shawls and Scarves from XRX and is a Meg Swansen design. I'm using Wildfoote sock yarn from Brown Sheep. The pattern calls for a 24" size 10US circular. I thought I had every needle size known to mankind but apparently I don't. So I'm using a 16" which seems to be okay for now even though I currently have 250 stitches. I'll probably switch to a 29" later today if things get too tight.

The pattern is not very difficult but it's a lot more fun than the plain knitting scarves I've been making lately. It's definitely one of those just one more row type of things. It took a while for me to figure out the charting though. And creating 18 stitches on three yarn overs it a little fiddly until you get the hang of it.

So, even though I have several other projects that need attention, this is my holiday knitting.

All better

Thanks to a lot of help and suggestions from friends and readers (plus Lisa) I'm now clear of pop-ups. The puny pop up blocker in my SBC/Yahoo is once again blocking. I installed Adaware and it found 367 items to quarantine. I will also install a couple more that will provide some backup to Adaware.

We celebrated Mendy's birthday tonight. What an incredible chocolate cake that was! It was all a lot of fun with perhaps a lot less knitting than usual. I know I didn't make much progress on the red shawl or the current poncho. We'll be skipping next week though. It's a good thing we had a second cake. At least I won't be behind on desserts.

I taught a couple of 10 year olds today. I thought they did well and they seemed pleased with their efforts. So were the grandmother and great aunt that brought them in. I had one other knitter going at the same time so it was a little intense for about an hour. Kids are fun to work with when they're really interested. Generally they don't have any of the "I can't do it" attitude that many adults have. I think it's also their ability to focus on what they're doing without all the other mental distractions that most adults have.

We're already receiving some of the fall yarns. They're not out on the floor yet. But it won't be long. From what I've seen so far I'd say the colors are deeper and richer even than last fall/winter. Still plenty of novelty stuff though. But I've been seeing some interest in more traditional looking yarns and traditional knitting. More classic shaping. I tend to believe that fashion is an emotional reflection of the times. I'll be watching to see just how conservative things become.