Conflict of Interests...Yarn Harlot, I know what you're up to!
So, yesterday I receive in the mail my anticipated gift from Amazon - Secret Life of a Knitter, Meditations for Women Who Knit Too Much, and Knitting Rules. All books by the famed Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, aka Yarn Harlot. All books that are very good and very hilarious. All books which have now shown themselves for what they truly are...competition with knitting!! Now Stephanie, isn't this a conflict of interest? As you go about trying to encourage your readers to develop a knitting lifestyle, to verge on (or throw yourself full force into?) the obsessive, you have us not knitting, but READING. Reading. Reading. And more reading. That thing that all good-intentioned obsessed knitters always intend to do more of but supposedly.....never do. I guess that takes me out of that club. I guess that rejects me from the whole community of knitters. I guess that makes me a loser. I guess that makes all of us that read your books losers and
you the only cool knitter left. Thanks. Now that I stop looking through your books in bookstores and libraries and actually make them my own and read them cover to cover...I have become a loser, not a knitter. But, nonetheless, I am a happy loser...or if I may create a new category, a loser-knitter. Watch out world, here I come!
(and watch out Ms. Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. I will have words with you during your Powell visit... The nerve.)
Have a great day everyone, and don't forget to order these books. They're hilarious!
The Loser-Knitter
aka Abbie
NEWS FLASH: Ruffle Edgings cause insanity!
Here are some pictures of my shawl/wrap. I am finally done with the body (yay!) but am now on the ruffle edging which is taking FOREVER to complete. Since I used different yarn than the pattern called for and changed the pattern accordingly, the body of the wrap was 400+ stitches per row instead of 250. This in itself makes for a long row. Add to that for the ruffle edge a whole bunch of "M1"s and "K1 in front & back of stitch"s and you end up with about 1000 stitches to a row. Ok, that's a lot but whatever, it's do-able. (I just barely was able to fit all those extra stitches on the circ.) Then comes the final row of the edge: "Cast on 4 stitches, bind off 5 stitches" until row is completely bound off. In other words, to work just one of those 1000 stitches on my needle I have to work another 4 first. A little quick math will show that I must work 5000 stitches to bind of the final row. But do not make the mistake of thinking I will be done at this point...that was only the top edge. I still have the bottom and side edges which will all be done the same way. WOOHOO!! So, on the one hand I have the not-so-nice prospect of working another approximately 15,000 stitiches (insane) to finish all the edging, but on the other hand, it does look really nice now that I've got about 1/3 of the top edge bound off. Hopefully the pics below are clear enough that you can get a good idea of it's look. Actually, I'm pretty happy about how this is turning out. Since I substituted yarn and changed the pattern and altered a few things I was hoping I really had done my homework well and it would all look really nice when done. Though I don't want to congratulate myself too early, I really like how it's looking. I also tried it on in the car on the way to our vacation camping trip last week it was so soft and warm and looked very stylish with the earrings I was wearing (gold chandeliers). I have hope that I may have made something that is not a fashion wreck! For all you non-style conscious people out there, there is (I think) hope...
(By the way, thanks for the nice welcome back comments!)
Decreases: (2 columns, splitting the wrap into thirds)
The ruffle edge is falling over the top of my foot:
Ruffle edge & diamond pattern:
Soon (am I crazy?) I'll be able to get this off the needles and display it flat!
You may be able to see the red carrying-weight strands coming off the bottom edge. My original plan was to knit this in every few rows but after one row of that I was no fan and decided to wait and weave it in using a needle after the wrap was all done. Being almost done now, I am not sure I am actually going to do that either. I rather like it as is and may just cut the threads out out of the bottom. Or, on the other hand, I may just weave the carrying yarn in to only the ruffle edging. Not quite sure yet what will look best.
There is also no question now as to blocking the wrap. I will not block it for the simple reason that the edging is not at all stretchy. Really that's no problem though because I think I like the diamond pattern as it's showing now, w/out blocking, just fine.
Well, that was a lot of blather...have a good night!
Back from vacation, back to blogging...
Hi! I'm back from a great vacation at Wikiup Lake in Central Oregon and back to blogging. We have a much better internet connection at home now so I can begin the blogging again! Tonight I post simply a few pictures of our vacation (most featuring Eina), a cell phone case I knit up one day while we were out on the boat fishing (clearly I wasn't doing the fishing) and a picture featuring my new glasses (love them!). I hope all of you in the Knitosphere have been well and I'm glad to be back!
Cell Phone Case...
Eina w/ Auntie Tracy (kept warm while on boat fishing)...
Eina striking a pose...
Striking another beautiful pose...
Eina w/ Daddy @ campfire...
Eina & Mommy b/f camping (can't remember where this pic was taken)...
And my new glasses...
