Knitting for Katie 1981

 While going through old albums looking for Christmas photos for the 2020 zoom Christmas parties, I found a couple of photos of Katie in her handknitted (by me) bunting.

And another with Katie in Jack's arms:

When Katie began walking I cut off the bottom and added ribbing so it was a sweater.  I still have the sweater in the playroom over the garage.

Jason and Mary's sweaters Dec 1976

I am working on photos for a slideshow for our zoom parties this Christmas.  And found this photo of Jason and Mar4y in the Matching sweaters that I made for them.  In December 1976 Jason would have been four and Mary would have been 2 and a half.  We were living on the farm in lavalette.  This property is now a part of Creekside golf course.  

Multiplicity by BarbAnn Pappas

So I gave up for now on the Allie Shawl....just too hard to get started for a Christmas knit.  Not only that I am not sure I don't want more contrast on my mosaic part...like black and white. So today I started Multiplicity by BarbAnn Pappas.  Inspire of the fact that the instructions look a bit hard, BarbAnn has gone to a lot of trouble to make everything very clear!  So I watched the Purl SoHo knitting version of how to do the double stitch and I am moving right along.

I am using the needle called for in the pattern:  size 8.  And the yarn is:

Three Irish Girls Binge Knit bought at Stevenbe in color Paddy's Pub which is an olive Green.  And uneek fingering by Urth in a variegated purple/blue/yellow hue. They look very good together and the green mohair makes the variegated yarn pop or the other way round?  So far I like it a lot!

The big needles make it go very fast.  

Allie Shawl by Jennifer Wood

 I am still working on my oink cowl, but it always makes me kind of nervous to not have any other project in the works.  What if I finish?  What if I get to a place where there is a mistake and I have to think?  The oink is fairly mindless this stage....but you just never know how long it will take to get something else started.  And indeed this project has been a bit slow to get going.  I have ripped out and restarted all week and still have only about 4 rows done.  I have also changed colors....and changed needles.  The yarn is a bit splitty and I changed to some sharper points. 

The pattern begins with a mosaic section and I decided that the white variegated yarn I had chosen to be color A was not a clear enough contrast to the other color in the mosaic...so I am doing the mosaic in the blue and the purple.  I am not sure how that will affect the rest of the pattern.

The yarn is Hedgehog fibers sock yarn in colors Bali, Deja Vu and Spell

And I am knitting on size 3 needles.  It is moving slow at the beginning.  Hopefully I'll report that it moves better when I finish the mosaic section.

Ok I give up ....I have started over too many times.  I need to start this sometime that is NOT December!  I first used the blue and white for the mosaic.  Then I switched because the white has flecks in it that match the purple and the blue too well.  So the Mosaic was not crisp enough to suit me.  Then I switched to the purple and blue for the mosaic, but I believe that I would prefer something a bit more crisp suchas the below:

  And I am having a terrible time with finding that when I pick the knitting back up, I can't make the next row work.  Perhaps I'll change colors?  Here is another color way that I like:

Scrap projects

 At the November Vogue Knitting live, one of the vendors showed a very pretty scarf/cowl that she made out of small amounts of colors.  I can not remember which vendor nor can I remember if I took a photo.  I'll try to update this blog post later.  But I didn't want to loose the thought.  

The Vendor actually sells bags of yarn that are random and many colored.  And she suggests that one purchase a neutral color of yarn that goes well with the bag of yarns.  Her version used grey as the neutral color.  

One knits with a color and counts the rows....then one knits with the grey the same number of rows.  It was very pretty.  I think perhaps she did a tube?

Halloween Cowl in Oink

I had bought yarn at Rebelle in Lexington on my way back from a genealogy conference in Frankfort....not sure when I bought it.  But it was serendipity that the woman who dyes Oink yarns was having a trunk show when I arrived at the shop.  And I chose this particular yarn and asked her if she had ideas for it.  She not only had ideas, but she had made a cowl from exactly this yarn and I had admired the cowl on my way in.  So it was meant to be....of course, I had to buy the yarn!

The pattern I am using is Citroen by Helena Bristow.  It is a fun knit and I like the way that it is turning out....however, it is not surprising that Halloween has come and gone and I have not yet finished it!  I have filed the pattern in the kitchen file in cowls and scarfs.

I finished the project winter 2021.  

Superwash Wool

I just finished my fourth Vogue Knitting Live.  It is interesting to me how much better some of the Vendors have become as they have honed their skills on camera on Zoom.  I have learned a lot.  But I have one huge burning question that has emerged from my shopping:  How do I feel about superwash wool.  The consensus of opinion seems to be that the process that gets the wool to this place is NOT ecologically friendly.  But at the same time the superwash wool takes dye in a much more vibrant way.  Thus many of the independent dyers use it to produce the wool that has such spectacular color.
 
I took a class in either June or July in which this question came up.  And one of the students asked if she was trying to avoid superwash where might she get colors that were as vibrant.  And the teacher suggested Sweet Georgia.  I will look at their yarn.

So here is a URL for a post about the superwash system:

http://consciouslycrochet.com/truth-superwash-wool/