To the Upholstery Hostelry

I was out of town last weekend, so today was my first chance to see about getting a piano bench cushion made out of the Big Dotty fabric I finished up a few weeks back.

There are a couple of upholsterers in my part of town, but I settled on The Upholstery Shop, mostly because it had some good reviews on Yelp. Based on my experience so far, all those people were right, and I’m really glad I chose them.

Veronica, who helped me this morning, really listened to what I wanted and clearly explained some options. She came up with an ingenious solution for attaching a cushion that still allows for opening the lid to the storage area – a few thin straps running from the bottom of the cushion and under the lid, fastening with velcro. She suggested this when she noticed that there was a bit of clearance on the front and back edges when the lid is down. Genius!

We chose a green canvas fabric for the backing that matches the darker green in the fabric I knitted, and she’ll make a pillow with my giant swatch to match. Veronica really listened to my questions and answered them patiently. Oh, and her prices were very reasonable. She was a complete joy to work with. I wish more business transactions worked like this. I can’t wait to see them – stay tuned for the unveiling in a few weeks.

Since my last post, I haven’t been knitting regularly, but have managed to make a bit of progress on the second of the pair of  October Woodland Winter Mittens. I’d say I’m a little over halfway done with the body. I’m really liking the patterning on the back of this – perhaps more so than on the first. I especially like the little darker leaves along the cuff. But I’m going to have to quit dawdling if I want to get these finished up before October.

Leafy Greens (and Browns, and…)

I was going to wait a bit before posting mitten progress, but I was able to get most of one mitten done in a weekend! It was so addictive, and I didn’t have much else on my plate, so I was able to just knit around and around and…

Before I knew it, I was done. I’ve made these with the cuff in the large size (only 4 more stitches in circumference) and the body in the small size (about .5 inches shorter. Not much difference, really). I’m going to start the second mitten before adding the thumbs – I still need to think through how I’m going to make the thumbs wider.

This is a beautiful design. It seems realistic and abstract at the same time. The dark background gives the impression of stained glass, especially in the pattern that runs across the palm, while the leaf pattern on back of the hands is very tapestry-like. The color scheme is more to my liking – lots of green and brown. Very October-ish. Ah, October – only a little over two weeks away. I sure hope it’s cooler than it was today. We’re still over 100 in the afternoons. But the light is starting to take on that fall-ish quality, which is one of my favorite things about this time of year.

I’m so looking forward to rain and coolish, if not downright cold, weather. In the meantime, close your eyes, relax and listen to this rendition of Autumn Leaves by Nat King Cole. It helps a bit.

Nat King Cole – Autumn Leaves

Cushion Squooshin’

Amazing what you can do when you set your mind to it. Just two weeks ago I decided to re-tackle the piano cushion that had been lurking at the back of mind – and in a cardboard box -- for three years. And today, it’s all over but the upholstering.

I finished knitting it yesterday afternoon, and last night I washed and blocked it. First, I wet it in the sink and knocked it around a bit – I’ve always heard that linen softens up a bit when treated roughly, so before popping it in the machine I whacked  it against the side of the tub a few times. No need to call Flax Protective Services – it seems to be just fine. I’m not sure if it expanded or fluffed up the fibers any, but it doesn’t look like it hurt anything, either. One thing that is quite apparent – the colors weren’t spun the same way. The light green yarn was noticeably thinner. I hope it’s not too noticeable in the final product.

It’s just the size I wanted it to be – this time. As you can see in the picture, it’s quite a bit larger than it’s former version. And I never even had to access the second ball of yarn in the non-white colors. My plan is to take the fabric and my piano bench to a nearby upholsterer and see if this can be turned into a fitted cover with just a thin padding underneath. I’d like it to be sort of elasticized around the top, because the seat lifts up for a shallow storage area. The example in Mason Dixon Knitting shows a cushion tied to the bench, but I’d like to avoid that if possible. I’ll see what the upholster can do. It will be a few weeks before I can get around to that project.

So in the meantime, I’m tackling the 3rd pair in the series of 6 Woodland Winter mittens from my Knit Picks kit. I was originally going to do the March mittens, but since October is rapidly approaching, and because the pattern is my favorite, they’re the ones on the needles now. The leaf pattern is just starting to appear. I’ve got a bit of a plan for modifying the thumbs so that they aren’t quite so narrow. And, I’m not catching floats nearly so often – I’ve been a bit dismayed at how much they’ve shown up in the previous two pairs I’ve made.

Knitting on the Road

This weekend, we’re visiting my in-laws’ in the north Texas town of Granbury. I had a hankering to visit a yarn shop, but, since Dot’s closed several years ago, I’ve had to drive to Fort Worth – which has at least one great yarn store. But I didn’t want to roam that far afield.

So I plugged yarn into Yelp!, and ran across Artèfactz on the square right here in Granbury. It’s one of those shops  that does a lot of things – from art glass to baby clothes, but the whole upstairs is dedicated to the fiber arts, with an especially local spin on things. Apparently, the area is crawling with alpacas and those who love their fibers, as this little tableau attests. There were examples of hand-spun alpaca in the store, and even some hanks of Buffalo Gold from nearby Burleson. And, for such a small space, there was an amazing variety of yarn, books and other knitting accoutrement.

I bought some heathered Berroco Ultra Alpaca Fine sock yarn in a colorway called Peat Mix, because you can’t ever have enough green sock yarn. Not exactly local, but in the spirit of things. The shop owner told me that Artèfactz was part of an association of arts groups and stores that do demonstrations on the square in the evening on the last Saturday of each month. She’s says a lot of spinners show up and the fiber fairly flies around the square.

Looks like we picked the wrong weekend to come to Granbury. I’ll definitely be sticking my head in the door on future visits.

Sasqswatch

This weekend, I turned what I thought was a failed project into the world’s largest swatch – all in preparation for getting back on that horse and tackling the project all over again. I need to ride this wave while I can.
This is my version of the Big Dotty cushion from Mason-Dixon Knitting. I started it three years ago and made way too much progress before realizing that it was about 3” too narrow. So I threw it in a box. This weekend, I dragged it out and weighed it – 180 grams. Then I weighed the linen yarn I still had left over from the project – over 600 grams. I had plenty to start all over. I had thought that I’d have to cannibalize the first attempt to have enough yarn for the second, but since that clearly wasn’t the case, I bound off what I had, threw it in the washer, and blocked it. Very inspiring and motivating – it blocked out so nice and smooth. I might use this “swatch” to make a pillow or something.
I’ve made about 6 inches of progress on the new version already, and, although the dots on the new version seem slightly larger, I think it will pull in nicely once I’ve washed it and blocked it. I’m really happy that I was able to get back to this and that I have enough yarn to complete it. I can now remove those embarrassing zzz’s that have been floating over the icon in Ravelry!
In other news, my local men’s knitting group (Guys in Austin With Yarn in Ravelry) celebrated its first anniversary this week. One of the guys made some de-lish cupcakes and the shop that hosted this week’s meeting brought a delicious cake as well. It was so thoughtful. I always get a kick out of knitting with these guys – a diverse group of very talented knitters and crocheters. Here’s to  more good times knitting, crocheting and laughing together. And to more cake! Plus we had a visitor from San Antonio, Dino Foxx, who is involved with the yarn-bombing Yarn Dawgz of San Antonio. He’s a nice guy and his group does the coolest stuff. If you’ve seen that Prius commercial, he’s the guy in the hayloft.

Birds in the Hand

A long-sleeping project was roused from its slumbers this week and completed. Lately, it seems I’ve been tackling Lazarus projects left and right. This week, I worked on and finished the February Woodland Winter Mittens.

These are the second pair I’ve knit from the kit of six patterns from Knit Picks. I finished the January ones back in February, and I’ve finished the February ones here in August. Not a great track record, but I did get them finished. As I was finishing them up, Jeff’s sister came by to visit, so I asked her to try them on. She really liked them, so they’re hers. She seems really excited to have them and even agreed to model them outdoors on this day when it’s predicted to reach 108° outside. Texas women are tough!

I’m not really sure why these languished for so long. I just kind of lost interest. Of the six patterns, I’d have to say this is probably number 5 on my list of pattern preference. I think it’s the colors more than anything else – a bit bright for me! But upcoming patterns fall more along my palette preferences, so maybe the pace will pick up. I realize I don’t have to make ALL the mittens in the kit, but I kind of want to.

I cast on for a third pair (March) this morning, but since the cuffs on all of these look the same, there’s not much point in a picture right now. However, I’m motivated to bring back yet another purgatorial project. More on that next time…

Deliciously Dizzy

I worked like crazy on my Chocolate Spiral Socks over the weekend, and finished them up yesterday. After much turning and turning, I think they’ve come ‘round right.

I didn’t add the heel until after totally completing the rest of the second sock. Since I knew how big it needed to be, I didn’t need to fiddle with the length of the foot as I did for the first sock. All in all, I think they turned out great. My only real regret is that I didn’t do the toes in the same contrasting solid brown yarn as the heels. I supposed I could chop the toes out and put some in, but I’ll leave them alone for right now. I’m going to do contrasting heels and toes for the next pair I make – I think it will look cool. What I like about contrasting heels and toes is that no one can see them when you’re wearing shoes. It’s a weird thing to get thrilled over, but sock knitters will understand, I’m sure.

I can really recommend afterthought heels. It’s a good technique if you’re worried that you don’t have enough sock yarn for your project.  They’re also perfect for when you don’t want to interrupt a pattern of self-striping yarn. That wasn’t the case with this yarn, but you can still see it works fine. Having the decrease lines running diagonally from the heel to the instep looks unusual, but I can’t feel it. I’m also surprised how seamlessly the two yarns work together, even though they consist of different fiber combinations. 

When I got in my car today to leave work, the thermometer registered 112. By the time I got home, things had cooled down to a balmy 109. I took these pictures quickly on the front porch and got back inside before all this delicious chocolate melted away.

Much Thought After

My recent knitting project polygamy is slowly getting reined in as I get projects out of the way. This week, I returned to the Chocolate Spiral Socks that I started several months back.

I’m using a new technique (for me) on these – the afterthought heel. Not exactly an appropriate name, since, as executed, it does require some planning ahead. In theory, I think you could whip out your scissors à la Elizabeth Zimmerman and just whack out a row of knitting, but I like this method better. I chose this way because some of the original yarn was eaten by one of our resident basenjis, and I thought I’d use a contrasting yarn (Cascade Heritage Silk) at the heels to make sure I had enough of the main yarn. If I’d really thought about it, I might have made the toes in contrasting yarn, too.

The pink line of yarn you see in the photo above is where the afterthought heel is going to be inserted. I used some excellent videos posted at YouTube as a guide, created by my good friend Janelle. They’re quite clear, and very helpful.

In a nutshell, you put in a half-round of waste yarn along the sole of the foot where the heel is to go, and then just keep knitting what amounts to a tube sock. You can do this either cuff down, or toe-up. I’m doing this toe-up. Then, when you’re ready, just take out the waste yarn while picking up the stitches on either side, and then make like you’re decreasing and grafting a toe on a sock. In a typical sock for me, I’m usually grafting around 10 or 12 stitches across the toe, but since a heel is wider, I grafted 16.

Unfortunately, when I tried this on, I found that I’d made the foot of the sock about 2 inches too long. When I put my heel where the heel was in the sock, my foot was swimming around in the rest of the sock. So I ripped back. A little annoying, but at least I’ll have more yarn for the cuff.

Places, Everyone!

I can finally put this project to rest. All eight of the Twill Stitch Placemats are now complete. I finished the last two, made of the leftover ends of the original three balls, in the past week since we’ve returned from our vacation. The last of the Espresso-colored ones came up an inch short, but I’m okay with that.

We’ve been using some of these as I finished them, and they’re working well. They are stretching a bit with use – which is a good thing, in my opinion, although I haven’t yet tried washing any of them. That’s coming up soon, because we’ve already had a few spills.

In these pictures, I’m using some cool crystal goblets with stars on them from the early 60s that we got from Jeff’s parents. They were given to her by a friend, and she passed them on to us. The set has iced tea glasses, water goblets, wine glasses, sherbet cups and cordial glasses. We’ll have to come up with a fancy dinner that includes all of those some day.

The dishes were my paternal grandparents’. My grandmother hadn’t wanted to mess with fancy china, but my grandfather insisted that they get some while they were stationed in post-war Germany. In the end, I think she was glad that they did. I know I am. That wheat pattern never fails to make me think of Thanksgiving -- which is still several hot months away.

A placemat for everything, and everything on its placemat!

Peabey

I promised another creature of the ice last time, didn’t I?

Meet Peabey the Polar Bear, designed by Snowden Becker, and knit over the last few days by yours truly. Snowden even sent me the yarn with which to make him, a very interesting yarn of unknown origin – other than the fact she picked it up at a neighbor’s yard sale and it had probably been sitting in a California attic for decades. To find out the story behind the yarn, check out Snowden’s blog.

I’m totally blown away by this pattern. This isn’t just a generic bear – but very definitely a polar bear. The sleek, sloping head, the long neck, the turned-in rear toes, the fat backside – it’s a polar bear’s anatomy through and through. He has a very life-like stance, too. Snowden did such an amazing job with this. Her instructions call for cotton yarn, but I really liked knitting this in angora. As I knit for myself mostly, I’ve never used angora. It was fun trying out a new fiber. I was amazed at the lightness of it. And even though I had to break out the lint roller a few times, it was worth it. It gives him a nice, fuzzy halo.

The pattern is easy to follow. Absolutely no seaming, and just five little Kitchener grafts. I’m still not confident in my ability to embroider, but I did manage some decent, if beady, French-knot eyes, and at least the nose and claws are recognizable.

As we head past 50 days of 100+ degree heat this summer, it’s nice to have the company of someone from cooler climes.

Sonja’s Sweater

While waiting to climb Mt. Marcy during our rain-delay in the Adirondacks (was it really only 6 days ago?), we spent the day in nearby Lake Placid, seeing the sights. We did a little tasting of some Finger Lakes wines, enjoyed the rarity of precipitation falling on one’s person, and visited a quite interesting museum that grabbed my interest on many levels.

The 1932 & 1980 Winter Olympic Museum was kind of hard to find, buried in the bowels of a building that housed the ice arenas built for the two Winter Olympic games held in this small town. I didn’t know that the 1932 bid, paid for almost entirely through local bond efforts, was spearheaded by Godfrey Dewey and his aging father, Melvil. This just warmed the cockles of my librarian heart. Both Deweys were active in the local Lake Placid Club and the Adirondack Mountain Club, from whose Adirondack Loj (Dewey aficionados will understand the unusual spelling) we started our Mt. Marcy hike.

Anyway, in the museum, I ran across this beautiful hand knit sweater, once owned and worn by Sonja Henie, the “Pavlova of the Ice.” I’d heard her name, but didn’t know much about her. Quite famous as an athlete, she later parlayed her skills and beauty into a Hollywood career of ice-skating films – a sort of frozen H₂0 version of Esther Williams. She won the gold medal in ladies’ single figure skating in 1932 (and in 1928 and 1936, for that matter), before moving on to the big screen.

The details in the sweater are beautiful, and it looks like it could have been knit yesterday. The little buttons are perfect for it, and there seems to be a red placket-like lining behind them. Also, the choice of red and gray was quite stunning and seemed a bit unusual to me. I was also struck by it’s smallness. It’s perfect. Just look at those neat and tidy, uniform stitches.

I had to share this. It makes me feel better thinking about flying along the ice in something cozy, instead of looking out the window at the scorched earth that is central Texas these days. Next time, I’ll post about yet another beautiful creature of the ice…

Adiraindacks

We Had planned to tackle Mt. Marcy today, but the weather conspired against us. Tomorrow promises to be clearer, so we changed our plans a bit.

We spent the day wandering around a soggy Lake Placid. One highlight was the Winter Olympics museum -- I was fascinated by all the examples of medals and relay torches they have there. Plus, they had a hand-knit stranded warm-up sweater that used to belong to figure skater Sonjia Henie -- cream with red and gold yolk and cuffs. I took a picture with my "real" camera, so it will have to wait for later.

I also dragged Jeff into Adirondack Yarns on the north end of town. It was a very warm and welcoming place, with coffee and some of the best store samples I've ever seen. Ah, to be able to dress oneself in garments like that for 9 months out of the year!

I thought the be-mittened bear out front was a nice touch. Here's to not running into any tomorrow, mittens or no.

Knitting on the Road

Not much knitting happening while on our Northeast Holiday. We've seen yarn shops from time to time -- Bee's Yarn, Sweaters & Candy in Bar Harbor, ME, for instance -- but they've all been closed.

Today, I got lost trying to find a laundromat in Stowe, VT, and looked up to see I was in front of Stowe Fabric & Yarn. The nice proprietor pointed me in the right direction, and after I got my load started, I went back to visit before closing. They had a nice selection of yarns, including some locally grown alpaca and Romney wool. I could sit on that porch and knit all day...

Oops. The dryer beckons.

107

One hundred and seven. It’s the 28th prime number, the element number for Bohrium, and darn close to what the temperature around here has been lately.

It also has other magical properties. Turns out, it’s exactly what one of my new placemats weighs in grams. And, after making three in one color with brand new balls of yarn, the three small leftover balls add up to…..107 grams. So I should just be able to squeeze out a fourth placemat in both of the colors. If it gets close, I can always cheat the final placemats by a few rows. We’ll see.

In a few days, Jeff and I are going on a trip out of town for a few weeks. I imagine I’ll stumble upon a yarn store or two. If so, I’ll post reports. I don’t know how much (or if much) knitting (or posting) will happen on the road, but I plan to take a few sock projects along just in case the opportunity arises.

I’m so looking forward to climes with temperatures below 107.

Swealebrity

At my men’s knitting group on Sunday at the Knitting Nest, we had a surprise (and delightful) visitor. I just have to share.

We had noticed some people sitting and talking at the big table, and thought it looked awfully like an interview. Afterwards, one of the group, came by to ask us what we were all knitting. The topic of stranded knitting came up, and she pulled out The Sweater.

The maker of this fine garment was Adrienne Martini, author of Sweater Quest: My Year of Knitting Dangerously, which outlines her crusade to complete an Alice Starmore fair isle sweater in a year. The pattern she chose was Mary Tudor. It’s gorgeous – all the more amazing to realize it was her first big stranded knitting project. Talk about go big or go home!

I’d first heard about this book and this project when Adrienne was interviewed on Brenda Dayne’s Cast On Podcast (Episode 77). And there it was in front of us – we got to put our grubby paws all over it. So amazing to see an actual artifact that’s been documented so fully. Kind of like all the sock samples I saw from Nancy Bush’s Knitting Vintage Socks at the sock summit a few years back.

It was great meeting Adrienne. She had been in Houston giving a talk, and decided to come by Austin to see old friends and grab a bite at Threadgills.  She was witty, knowledgeable, and friendly – like most excellent knitters. Now I really need to read her book .

Oh, and last night, when we were deciding where to go for dinner with Jeff’s parents, the first thing I thought was, “Threadgills.” It was de-lish.

Perfect Fourth

Not much to report knitting-wise this week. In between reading classic science fiction, preparing for an upcoming trip, and working on de-cluttering the office, I’ve managed to squeeze in a few moments of knitting on the Twill Stitch Placemats.

This week, I managed to crank out two more. Placemats seem to be the “it” project in these parts. Check out the nice granny circle placemats that Meg is making. Nice – nobody takes better pictures of her craftiness than Meg. And those colors she picked for the edges are perfect. They remind me of a set of anodized aluminum tumblers my grandmother used to have.

Back to my vivid brown masterpieces. I have four complete, two in each color. I’m trying for eight, at which point, I’ll need to get a card table, pick up some canapé recipes, and learn how to play contract bridge.

A Place for Everything

So far, the placemats are turning out great. They’re fast to knit, easy to pick up and put down without losing one’s place, and, being cotton, they’re not causing my thighs to break out into a heat rash while knitting in this horrific heat. Which is probably more detail than you wanted, but there you go. The Espresso color look especially good with our Silver Pine china. I can’t quite get the pale turquoise color to come out right with my camera, but it looks especially nice against the dark brown.

Now that I’ve got the system down, it’s just knit, knit, knit. Actually, this pattern actually has a lot more purling in it than knitting, now that I think of it. I bought a ball for each placemat that I planned to knit, three of each color for a total of six. But I think that with the leftovers from the first three, I may have enough to knit a fourth in each color. That way I can set the table with alternating placemat colors, or go all in with or the other. We’ll see if I’m still as gung-ho after knitting six of these things. But two done so far!

Fur Piece

My vacation got off to a rocky start.

When I got home from work yesterday afternoon, I heard a hissing sound by my garage. Not a snakey hissing (which would be bad), but a watery hissing. Either my house or the front yard retaining wall shifted, breaking our main water line right where it enters the house. It wasn’t exactly spewing, and I’m pretty sure that it hadn’t been doing that when I’d left in the morning, but it was pretty disconcerting. Jeff got a plumber out (at after-hours rates, grrrr) and we had it fixed by 8. At 10, we were able to turn the water back on, so all’s well that ends well. Still, scary.

Jeff and I went out for breakfast this morning, and then, while he headed to campus to finish up his grading,  I went to Joann’s to pick up some more Lion Brand for placemats. I accidentally turned down the wrong aisle and ran into a wall of “fun” fur. Yikes! It was all so weird looking. And funny. And sad. I like to think I’m not a yarn snob – knit with what you want, I say. But I just do not get the appeal. It may be fast, and you can use giant needles with it, but how they heck can you see what you’re doing? Any beginning knitter starting on this stuff isn’t doing him or herself a favor.  I think fun fur’s time has come and gone, but it can still be found. It almost always seems to be on clearance, though. That’s gotta be saying something.

Back to the placemats. They only had three more balls of the Clove color in the dyelot I’d purchased earlier. And the dyelots were radically different. So I’ve decided to knit three placemats in Clove and three in a new color I picked up, Espresso. You can see what I’ve got so far, here. I’m hoping that the Clove and Espresso will go well with each other and the widely divergent colors of plates that we have.

So things are much more relaxed today than they were yesterday evening. Here’s to calm days ahead.

Plan B

The Tunisian crochet just wasn’t working for this yarn. It was taking way too long and it was way too fiddly. I’m blaming it on the cotton. It’s still a really cool technique, but not for this yarn.

So I’ve switched to knitting and using the twill stitch. It’s a four-row repeat over a multiple of four stitches plus one. For these placemats, I cast on 49 stiches. It turns out they they are only about a half-inch narrower than my existing placemats. I’m knitting these from the side across. I may do all of them sideways, but I’m also toying with the idea of making half of them from the bottom edge up. Here’s the pattern:

First Row: KPKPKPKP…….K
Second Row: P
Third Row: KPPPKPPPKPPPKPPP…….K
Fourth Row: P

Not too complicated. Easy to read in the work, and great for mindless TV knitting. The yarn is Lion Cotton in a semi-solid color called Clove (136). The website describes it as a “dark burnt orange,” so it makes sense that my local Joann’s in Austin had tons of it. My goal (which is really more of a wish at this point), is that I can squeeze one placemat out of one ball. I’m about a third of the way through the current one – and it looks like I’m a third of the way through the ball.

This could be a race to the finish…

Tunisian Uprising

So, sweater finished, it’s on to other projects.

First up, a set of new placemat. I’ve been using the same old raggedy placemats for too long. Time to knit new ones. But how?

Ever since seeing the video by my good friend Staci, I thought I’d like to try this crochet technique called Tunisian (or sometimes Afghan) stitch. Tunisian crochet uses these freaky frankenhooks that are basically crochet hooks, but really, really long and with a stopper on the end. In Tunisian stitch, you pick up stitches across the face of the fabric, and then chain back across. Here’s a one of Staci’s helpful videos that shows you how to do it.

 

Tunisian Crochet

 

Simple, right? Except I figured out how to make things difficult. Because I want to be able to wash these things, I decided I’d make them out of cotton. And it’s just not working for me. To start with, the cotton wasn’t very forgiving when trying to cast on – which involves picking up stitches from the spine of a crochet chain. And since then, I’ve just not quite gotten the hang of it.

Here’s what I have so far. It’s not bad, but it’s just not good. It’s hurting my hands, and it’s going very, very slow. Crochet is supposed to go fast. I still really love this technique, but I’m thinking it may not be the way to go with this project. I’d like to make at least six of these things, but I’m just not feeling the love.

I’m considering switching to knitting and using the twill stitch that I used when making my Whitfield Jacket. What do you think?