green.ketzle.net: knitting

i can't find the camera proper, so here is a cellphone pic that will do quite nicely until such time as i get a better picture.

27 july 2013 comfort

i just realized i hadn't posted a picture of the shawl for ingrid.

i had already given it to my mother to send to germany in a box of other small comforts, but luckily, it had not yet been mailed, so i have pictures! ingrid is very slender so it will lay a little longer on her, just perfect for sitting in the garden in the cool evenings, but still small enough it can be used to wrap around one's neck in the cold winter. all seasons' loveliness.

please ignore the fact that my mama is wearing it inside out. here is a better picture of it from the right side, where the pattern is more visible. and the colors show better as well -- blacks and blues and even a few browns which might just be a figment of my imagination, or might just be the way the two colors mix sometimes. in any event, it is lovely in the sun, and lovely in the shade, and oh, so soft.

i have another skein of this yarn and i might just be selfish enough to keep it and make something for myself. or maybe i make it into a shawl for ingrid's daughter, my cousin, so she has her own small comfort.

time passes differently when you are out of your normal routine.

so it was with some slight alarm i realized the month is half over and the blanket is not half done. well, then, must work more often and more quickly.

to that end, i swapped out the wooden interchangable cable needle i was using for a bright and shiny aluminum one. the other cable kept slightly unscrewing itself and then the yarn would catch on the little break. no matter how i cranked it down, it always came loose -- i must have some sort of strange twisty torque going when i knit. anyhow, new needle has no such join issues, so it has been going more quickly.

i reckon if i do 3 to 5 repeats a day, i'll be good. unless my math is bad, in which case, i'll be knitting like a freak on the 30th and 31st.

06 july 2013 something old, something new

i really thought sitting first in a hospital bed, and then on the couch at home, would afford me a lot of knitting time.

not so much, really. there has been a lot of dozing, a lot of poking and prodding and going walk-about [in hospital] and dozing and going walkabout and watching the tour [at home], but the urge to knit just hasn't been there. i did pick up the woodland shawl and knit a few rows but then the cable broke. terribly annoying and i didn't have another, nor another set of needles in the right size. so i managed to recapture all the sprung free stitches on a slightly smaller needle, and knit one row to make sure everything was in order, and then two more to see if the gauge change was going to drive me nuts, and then i cast it aside.

and then i remembered - camp loopy, project 2! knit something popular on ravelry that uses at least 500 yards. behold! the beginnings of a pine forest baby blanket. my coworker is expecting his first child, a boy, in september, so the timing of this project is perfect.

i am knitting it in 'spring night' from cascade 220 superwash; easy care is important for first babies...

saturday, sitting in the hospital, in a surprisingly comfy armchair contraption, i finished the socks.

they look different lengths but i can assure you they are exactly the same, except the heels. i used this pair of socks to try out two new-to-me heel constructions because i still sometimes get gaps with the traditional short-row heel; i'm not a big fan of the heel-flap business as it never seems to fit my foot properly.

neither of the heels were executed particularly well, but that was more me than the instructions; i wasn't feeling well and i was rushed, so i zoomed through them and in one case, i'm pretty sure i lost a stitch along the way. no matter --they are both heeled and wearable and if the heels die, i made sure to leave enough yarn such that i could drop in an afterthought heel -- picking out the original. in theory. unless i lose the leftovers. i should have a better system for leftovers.

this, i am fairly certain, is the japanese heel, knit without the aid of the pins.

and this is the yo-yo heel. this is the one i liked the best and i think if i practice a bit, it will become my new favorite. or maybe not, maybe straight up short-row will still win out. must knit more socks to really make a decision.

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