I have a plan

It's Christmas Eve and once again I am wrapping a gift with the knitting needles still in the stitches. My son will understand that he isn't getting one lonely sock. He will be happy to get the second sock.... eventually.

I thought things were under control and all gifts would be complete. Perhaps I should have started my Christmas knitting before December 1st.

I have a better plan for next year. Before January 1st I will go through my stash and put kits together for gifts. There will be sock kits and scarf kits all packaged together in zip-lock bags with sticky notes attached. It will be my personal gift club.

Another key element of "the Plan" is the calendar that has all the knit-worthy Birthdays and Christmas gifts listed. If I complete one gift each month, I should have all my gifts wrapped long before Christmas.

I realize that there are difficulties with my plan. New babies will not be on the calendar. Any new arrivals might possibly mess up the whole system.
A second more worrisome possible occurrence is that I will find the perfect shawl pattern that I must knit. I might decide that I need to knit myself an extra pair of socks, or I might find another sweater that will not let me rest until I knit it.

It is much easier to get organized than it is to stay organized.

False Advertising

It was December 1st. The Christmas knitting rush had started. I needed to knit another pair of socks and while the logical part of my brain told me that I should knit Roundy-rounds, the insane half said to pick a pattern. After all, I had many simple patterns in my stash and I would be much happier knitting a pattern that had a bit of challenge to it.

I grabbed the pattern and the yarn and I cast on. I ripped it out and cast on again. I ripped it out again. Finally, after the third try, I was happy with the toe. Yes, I was attempting to knit another pair of toe-up socks. I was not happy with the result in the past but this time it would be different.

I continued up the foot. I ripped it back again. I knit some more.

I was at the heel without further incident. Cautiously I started on the heel. The directions seemed to make sense. I knit on. I made stupid mistakes and ripped back. I found the section of the heel where the directions were not so clear and ripped back...again.

I was past the heel and starting on the leg...the home stretch. And I ripped back again. This time I ripped it out because I didn't like the design.

My stitches are all picked up again and I am hoping that I remember all the changes I made so I can duplicate them for the second sock.

And what was this simple pattern? Brainless.

I think the next pattern I knit will be "If I only had a Brain"

Success and changing plans

My wallet went on a road trip. I didn't plan for it to take a vacation and I certainly didn't plan to be without my driver's licence, debit card or various charge cards for the week. My plans for the week had included buying groceries and stopping off at the farmer's market. My plans had to change. And with no groceries, I couldn't possibly be expected to cook anything.

I had a new plan. I had no choice but to cozy up in my favorite chair and spend the week knitting. I finished the Baby Cable shawl. The pattern got a little boring but the yarn was marvelous to knit. 70% bamboo, 15 % bison and 15% silk. It is so soft and the drape from the bamboo is glorious.

I'm in love with this shawl.

This sweater also was cast off....sort of. My original plan was to knit Ruby Red from Knitty, fall 2009. I knit the body and then realised that I wouldn't be happy with it. I changed the sleeves, and the neck, and the front edging. I'm still not happy with the front edging and I have to figure out a closure for it but it needs some rest time first.

Three skeins of Katydid "Bugga" were wonderful to knit with but caused some of the problems. I'm left with maybe 25 yards and I don't think that there is enough to knit the edging that I'm thinking of. There is also more negative ease than I like. I hoping that blocking will help it.

But, I did finish two projects, plus I lengthened the sleeves on P's sweater so I felt perfectly justified in starting some new projects.

This is "Maia" in Wollmeise Pinie. The beads are too small for the yarn and a struggle to put in so while I like the effect, it may hit the frog pond.

I think this yarn really wants to become socks.

"Electra" in Malibrigo sock is also destined for frogging. The beads don't show up and the yarn is pooling. Part of me say to knit it for awhile longer and allow the pooling to shift but the logical part of me says "RIP".

I realise that as I knit things, they don't always turn out the way they were planned. There is a greater possibility of success if I follow the pattern exactly and use the same yarn and color as the original project. That philosophy works if the project is the ultimate goal.

Sometimes the process of discovery is part of the enjoyment of knitting. Experimenting with different colors and beads and stitches may take more time and involve more ripping but it also leads to a greater sense of accomplishment with the project.

Today is going to be busy. My wallet comes home today and I can't postpone the errands any longer. But I also have some new shawls to cast on.

It's Still Not Purple!

The "Jewel " sweater is finished....sort of.


I will be taking the rolled hem off the sleeves and adding an inch of length to them.


Not only is it difficult to find knitting time with toddlers in the house, it is also diifcult to get them to pose for pictures.

All Things Change

On September 12, 2006, I started working at Make 1 Fibre Studio. Since that day, I have learnt more about knitting and spinning and dying yarn than I ever thought that I would. I have also learnt that I still dislike computers and Macs are not better than PCs.

What I treasure the most about my time working is without question the friendships that I have made. I have been amazed by the skills and talents of knitters. I have met so many people that I now count amoung my closest friends.
And I have laughed. It has been four years filled with much laughter. There have also been moments when I have worried with my friends and sometimes cried, but there have been far more hours spent laughing.

This is where I now draw a cheesy comparison to knitting so feel free to skip the next sentence.
Would we really enjoy the finished knitted project, if we didn't have to rip out our knitting once in awhile?

I am taking an extended leave while I wait for my name to come to the top of the list for Cataract surgery. This doesn't mean that you won't be seing me. I will be around. I will still be going to Guild meetings and various knitting days. I just won't be at work on Tuesdays.
Thank you Amy and Sandra for opening the amazing store that is Make 1 and for hiring me initially. Thank you Bess for buying the store and and for letting me continue to work there. Thank to everyone who ever worked there and helped me in my never-ending battle with the computer.

Excuse me while I now climb onto my soapbox.
Cateracts are often thought of as a disease of the elderly. They are becoming common in younger people because of lack of eye protection in childhood.
Get those sunglasses out! Put them on your kids. Protect your eyes.
Cataract surgery is a fairly routine proceedure and my eyesite should be corrected completely. Surgery dates are not actually being booked yet for for next year but I am looking at a seven month wait. This strikes me as slightly ridiculous.

So for the next year, I forsee that I will be driving less, and knitting more. I guess it's not all bad.

The "It's Not Purple" sweater



I have proof. The ball-band tells me that the colour is "Jewel". I sure hope that Paige likes her pink, fuchsia, and magenta sweater.

FOR SALE
Only used for eight days and 113 miles.

I'm back from my little walking trip across England. I now realize that I had several misconceptions when I started this whole trek.
I thought I was in fairly decent physical shape.
I thought I had done enough training. We had been up and down the ravines of Nose Hill several times.
I had seen pictures of English landscapes and thought it was going to be gently rolling countryside that we were walking through. I had even been to Stonehenge before. I had seen the terrain.
Someone even told me that it should be easy because England is a small country.
I thought I was prepared with good boots and my wool socks.
I was wrong.

I actually thought that I might have time to knit while stopped at a lovely English meadow while we had our lovely sandwiches and tea. We would have time to check out some of the towns and perhaps even have a chance for a pint in one of the local pubs.


We started out and I soon realized how wrong I was. There were no rolling hills. They are straight up...and straight down.
While we did walk through some pastures, we carefully stepped around sheep and cow droppings. Sometimes we missed.

There were paths through the woods where we crossed streams and dodged tree roots.


We did have time at the end of the day to stop for a pint, and this was the only time on the walk that the sock actually got pulled out and knit upon.

This was the Roman Road. Now the term "road" makes it sound like it should be easy to walk on. Another misconception. Approximately seven miles of hills and stones. Each step was on a loose stone that twisted our feet and made us sure we were going to twist an ankle. That was the first day I seriously began to doubt the worth of my boots. I began to develop a third layer of blisters.

Each day the bus came to get us to take us back to our B&B for a wonderful dinner and a rest before the next day's walk.....except for the day they forgot us. I was going to visit the Fish and Chip stand across the road but was told it would spoil my supper.

See that path up the hill? We had just walked down that path after walking up one equally as long and steep on the other side of the hill. That was also the third hill of the day.
We walked up many similar hills. We saw fields of heather, monuments to Cook and the patchwork quilt that is the English landscape.

But we finished. There were thirteen of us and our leader when we started and only ten of us made it the full way.
English walkers are completely different people. Their idea of fun is to go for a 15 mile stroll on a Sunday...every Sunday.

For example:
Ann (front row far left) walked 1800 miles last year and her goal for this year is to walk 2000. She's 76 years old and never quit. We would sit down every chance we got but she would stand and then keep going. She never said a word of complaint even when we were walking through the pouring rain and all getting soaked.
Next to her is Sarah. She climbed over every stile even if there was a gate we could walk through. and kept track of the numbers. There were 150 stiles on our walk. The rest of us probably went over only 100.

I realize that it may sound like I had a horrible trip. Not so.
We had great weather. The first seven days, the sun was shining and there were a few clouds so that it didn't get too hot. The last day it rained but that only proved to us how fortunate we were for the first days of our walk.

It was an incredible trip and while I have never been so exhausted in my life, I'm glad that I did it. There were days when we would sit down to eat lunch and I was too tired to eat. The last mile of every day was torture. I felt like sitting on a rock and crying rather than continuing on. I knew that there was no choice but to have a drink and a snack and continue on.

Would I walk across England again? No way! Once was enough.
We have talked about doing other walks and I would recommend the trip to others IF they have trained enough before.
It was a walk that I'm glad I made but I don't want to make it again.
My next vacation will be on a beach where I don't even have to walk to the bar for a Margarita.

Not Everything gets Ripped

You may have seen this picture before. It is my Heroine jacket. It was quick to knit and the perfect project to take knit on it the car. It has nice square pieces and is knit on big needles.


Okay, you may have looked at the picture and have wondered why I didn't rip it out. It's seems like it is the perfect candidate for the RRRRIIIIPPPPP.

This is what Heroine looks like after having a vigorous bath in the washing machine and drying for three days.
The sleeves were still a little long after the original felting so I wet them with my plant mister and threw the whole thing in the dryer for ten minutes. They shrank another inch and are now the perfect length.

I am going to make another slight modification. Instead of the front flaps being folded over, I will be removing the buttons on the right side of the jacket and sewing buttons on the inside. The two front flaps work perfectly when overlapped to create a very warm jacket.


Ahhh Moonfleet. This was a mystery stole based on the book Moonfleet. It was interesting to knit because the pattern changed several times, but unlike may other shawls and stoles, the patterns all flowed smoothly so there was never a distinctive break between the patterns. The borders are two completely different patterns but they still match each other.
My one disappointment with this shawl is with the color of yarn that I picked. I knit from four closely shaded yarns but they were so close in color that It appears as though I only knit from two mismatched balls of the same color.

And socks have been knit.

Green Roundy Rounds out of Fleece Artist Casbar (81% merino, 9% cashmere and 10% nylon).

After ten months of allowing the yarn to age and mature on the shelf I knit the teal Roundy Rounds out of Bugga (70% superwash, 20% cashmere and 10% nylon)

The orange socks are Glynis and are knit out of shibui.


I now will go rip out my Geodesic cardigan.

"Ophelia, you're breaking my heart.
You're shaking my confidence daily" *



"Using the long-tail cast-on, Cast on 626 stitches." ** The next step was to join the stitches and knit in the round. I thought that if I used a provisional cast-on, I could then graft the stitches at the end and avoid a seam down the middle of the shawl. After five rows, I decided it wasn't going to work.
I went back to the original design and cast on 626 stitches with the long-tail cast-on. I joined them in a round and started knitting. Five rows later, I checked to make sure that the stitches weren't twisted. You know they were.

Again I cast on all 626 stitches and started knitting again. I pinned the cast on edge onto a pillow so I could be sure they weren't twisted. I knit, I increased stitches and after two days I checked.

They were twisted again. I don't know how. I don't know why. They should have been straight.

I forced them into the right direction and continued on.


I have been knitting this shawl for ever. It never ends. It needs some time out in the basket.


Aeolean had been rescued from the basket but it is going back until I can get more beads. I have knit one and a half tubes of beads so far and I have ordered more. The last half tube of beads will be kept until the new ones come in and I can mix them together if there is a color difference.

The only thing I can do now is start a new project.

*with apologies to Simon and Garfunkle.

**Ophelia is started at the center, knit in the round to the outside edge and then seamed in the middle.

I Hate These Socks!

Or , to be more accurate, I hate this one sock...no, half sock.




I got this yarn in a sock club last year and I dutifully cast on the correct number of stitches. I worked away on the pattern that was sent with the yarn but soon realized that I was not thrilled. The sock went into the bad knitting basket.

Several months later, I knew that I would not finish them using the original pattern. I ripped.

I started again with the good old Eleanor pattern. It has worked before, It would work this time.

I wasn't feeling the love. The foot was too loose, so I changed to a smaller size needle . I thought I could salvage the work the had gone into the sock so far.

So, if you have read this blog before, you know where my story is heading.



Maybe this yarn really wants to be a scarf.

Best Laid Plans....

Once upon a time, back in June to be more exact, I got brilliant idea. I had a trip planned to OK at the end of June and I thought that if I ordered a Kindle, I could bring it back with me and avoid the shipping charges and the Duty charges that would be added if I had it sent here.

I logged into the Amazon site and ordered my Kindle. They were in stock and with more than a week before my plane landed in OK, there was lots of time for it to arrive. There were a few other things on my wish-list that my daughter had placed there. I thought I might as well order them too. I was sure that they were all very important items or she wouldn't have added them to my wish-list.

A week later, I arrived to find that the kid's golf game was waiting for me. Annie's Kindle that she ordered after I ordered mine was there.

Two days later, the Tyrannosaurus hand puppet arrived.

My Kindle was nowhere to be seen.

It arrived two days after I left. So much for brilliant plans.

Why did it take so long? There was one more item on the wish list.

My Chia pet golf ball head. I'm sure it will look much less ridiculous once it has a full head of green grass hair.

And my Kindle arrived safely too.

How Many Is Too Many?


I have been contemplating my knitting life and have come to the conclusion that I am surrounded by my knitting. When I pulled down the bin of finished socks, I wondered if I should knit any more for perhaps I already have too many pair. And that's not counting the six or maybe seven pair that are still on the needles. I will need a bigger bin when they get finished.*


Which leads me to my next question. How many WIP are too many? Last year, my knitting guild sponsored a friendly competition in which we attempted to complete many of our dusty UFO's . I finished 10 projects, which was fewer than half of my uncompleted projects. I have added to that number since then. Have I exceeded the maximum number of projects to still be considered sane and normal?**

In a previous post, I admitted to having a few too many shawls, stoles and scarves. I haven't stopped knitting them, but instead have found several more that I wish to knit. I have restrained myself from casting on more only because I don't want to add to the pile of projects in the basket.

How many is too many?

And can you really belong to too many sock, shawl and yarn clubs? I've been told that perhaps, just perhaps, I signed up for a few too many. Since that last intervention, I have dropped some club memberships. Which leads me to this.

I was asked a few weeks ago how many skeins of Wollmeise did I have. I took a wild guess and was wrong. I needed to double my answer.
My yarn stash is growing at a faster rate than I thought. Do I have too much? I don't think so especially since I know several people who have far more yarn than I do. (I won't name my fellow collectors. We all know who they are)

I have seriously thought about destashing but then I begin to fear that If I don't have the will power to stop buying yarn, I also might not have the will power to stop selling it. The mere thought that I could sell all my yarn and come home to empty shelves gives me slight panic attack.

So fellow knitters, the questions have been asked.

*Since most of my yarn stash is sock yarn, It is quite likely that I will be knitting more socks. A bigger sock bin is definitely in my future.

**It's a vicious circle. If I finish all my UFOs, I will then realize that my needle collection has outgrown the cases that they used to fit in. Extra question for bonus points. How many Needles are too many?

I can live with some mistakes.

I was knitting my Evenstar shawl. I was only on clue five and I knew that others were already working on clue seven and the edging. I kept plugging away.

I knew that I knit my towers in an unique manner. I was prepared to call it a design element.

There is another error just before the switch from 280 stitches to 560 stitches but since I had corrected that one with a couple of decreases, I decided it was an acceptable fix.

Then, while I was knitting the seventh row of clue five, I saw it




Back on clue three. I thought about restarting, from the beginning with a different yarn but I will rip.....41 rows ... 21,850 stitches. I will then attempt to pick up those 260 and to find my place on the pattern. Did I put in a "lifeline"? Of course not.

I can live with some mistakes but not with others.

40 grams of yarn, 400 yards and 2 hours later....I'm still working on it.

Searching for the perfect project

I have been ripping out alot of knitting lately...and I mean ALOT. I have been searching for the perfect project and not been succeeding.

I go through my stash and pick the perfect yarn and match it up with the perfect pattern. The next step is to find the perfect needles. They must have a nice point and a smooth join and be the exact right length for the project. Invariably, they are in a WIP and must be rescued from the Bad Knitting Basket.

Once I have all the elements ready, I start knitting.

After I spend one or two afternoons knitting, I realize that once again, I have failed in my quest for the perfect project.


Clapotis was the latest project to earn my disfavor. I love the yarn. Bugga is a wonderful soft yarn and each stitch was a joy to knit.

I was using my favorite ebony needles.

It was the pattern. While I liked the wraps that others had knit, I could not see my self spending another moment on a pattern that I was not enjoying knitting and that would probably not see the light of day once it was finished.

I ripped.

The yarn is now being knit into a Ruby Red. It appears as though it is close enough to perfection to avoid being ripped.

I am now looking at my Cleopatra shawl. Once again, I love the yarn. I'm having fun knitting all the sparkly little beads into the lace, and even though I wasn't using my favorite needles, they were suitable for the project.

The unique shaping that appealed to me before I started now just looks silly.


I don't need a collar on my shawl. If I really did feel that a collar was necessary, I would knit it so that the right side of the collar was the first thing that was seen, not the wrong side.

It is in the Basket now but it will soon revert back to the skein.

It's been five days since I've ripped anything and the fingers are getting itchy. You might want to keep a tight grip on your knitting.

The lost has been found
Flirty Ruffles is back where it belongs....folded up neatly on the shelf with the rest of the shawls.
Actually, I cannot lie. It was there the whole time, tucked under all the other shawls I wasn't wearing, waiting for me to find it. I don't remember putting it there. and I am sure that I looked on that shelf not once, but three times.
Before you ask, I have taken the test.

It Had to Happen

I was was pulling some supplies together for a class I was teaching and had to make several trips into the sewing room.* I was pulling beads and Zephyr and plastic bags. I finally had everything together and was heading down the stairs for the last time when I caught something moving and I turned around to see this.


There it was. The yarn that wanted to be knit and was not happy at being left behind. It jumped off the shelf and was starting to follow me down the stairs.

I will admit that I had laughed at my friend when she had an avalanche in her yarn room. I was sure that I didn't have nearly as much yarn as Crafty Grammy .
I was smug in the knowledge that unlike Knittingrammy I hadn't misplaced my Koigu because I had so much yarn I would loose track of where it was.

And yet, the evidence was there....right behind me. The yarn was tired of waiting and was going to chase me until I cast on a new pair of socks.

Perhaps "Nutkins"

*No sewing occurs in the sewing room. It's more like a giant closet for yarn and books etc. There is a sewing machine in there but it doesn't get pulled out often. When the machine is used, I sew at the Kitchen table. Perhaps it's time to rename the room.

Fridays are for Ripping.

Last Friday the socks were the victims.

Circle socks were the first to go. I should have knit them on 2.5 mm needles and rather than continue on and give them to someone with smaller feet, I ripped.

About the same time I realized that I wasn't enjoying knitting Dreaming socks out of a brown yarn. This was the second attempt at finding the perfect yarn for what is a really nice yarn. I was just not feeling the love for it . I am now looking for a new sock pattern.

Today was finally the day to say goodbye to Norwegian woods. I have been fighting with this shawl since the day I started it. I didn't have enough yarn in the first color that I started with.

Then I misread the pattern and it was too small. I thought everything was perfect on the third start until I realized that while I had enough yarn, I also had two very different shades of the same color. They were the same dye lot, but different colors.



It has been taunting me for too long. I could hear it calling me every time I walked into the sewing room. It was time to silence it. .

Frost flowers is another project that I have spent far too much time on.

I started this one back in 2005 as part of a Yahoo group KAL. When I started, I did not realize how big this shawl actually was. After I started, I found a picture in which it was used as a canopy for a wedding.
I had completed only four of the seven repeats and there was an edging to knit after that. I had already knit 98.7 gms of yarn into a shawl that I don't particularilly like. As I was ripping, I did momentarilly stop and think about finishing the repeat that I was on and just casting off the edge. It would have been big enough.

Nope, I was done with it. It's gone.

Come back next week to see what's next to hit the floor.

Festivus for the rest of us

This is the Festivus stole. It started out as an interesting project to knit. It was a good project to take on the airplane. The chart was large and easy to follow.

Perhaps too easy. By the time I was a quarter of the way through, I was no longer thrilled with it. At the half way point, I was annoyed because the color in the second ball of yarn did not start out in a controlled way. I pulled out part of the ball and knit on....reluctantly.

The knot that i ran into annoyed me more. Again I pulled out part of the ball of yarn and tried to match stripes so I could have identical stripes. By this time, I was really not enjoying the knitting and had started calling it Crapicus. I wanted it to be finished.

But it wasn't long enough. I thought about making a short stole but I knew I wouldn't be happy with it and I would have yarn left over. I kept knitting.


I finished it. I really didn't take me that long to knit it but it did make me think about the kind of knitter that I am.

I love starting new projects. I love finishing projects. I get bogged down in the middle.

Long, repetitive patterns like this stole are not the kind of projects that I should start. Lace projects that continually change are better than stocking stitch patterns.



Hurani was as close to being a perfect pattern. I finished it in less than a week so it didn't hang around taunting me for a long time. Long before I got bored with the repetitive easy first chart, the pattern switched and I was into the edging. The second chart was finished in a flash and I was on to the crocheted cast off.

It's a great little shawlette to wear, I love the color and the only thing that would make it better would be some beads.

I have started another pair of socks. I'm not loving them. It's the third time I've knit the Eleanor socks and while I like the pattern, there are very few patterns that should be knit more than once or twice. You may hear me call them the Crapinor socks before I'm done.

Swallow your morning coffee before listening.

Never not knitting

And 2010 continues...
In the past 7 seven days, I have been knitting two sweaters for a very cute little girl.

I will spend this afternoon ripping them out.

One step closer to scrap booking.

2010 has been a Baaaddd knitting year. I knit. I rip. I knit more and I rip more.

I spent a day knitting the Snow Queen, a beautiful circular Estonian shawl. I spent 5 hours perfecting a circular cast-on and nupps.
The next day, I decided that if I continued, it would be smaller than I wanted. It's gone.

I started the Fern shawl. A lovely triangular shawl with more nupps. Another five hours gone.

And it's not just lace shawls that are driving me to start scrapbooking.

I started a pair of socks from the cuff edge and totally ignored that they had been designed toe-up. That was my first mistake. I ripped them out and started them again from the toe up. The toe was done and I had finished one pattern repeat. My knitting friends convinced me that if I continued to knit on the needles I was using, that they would never fit. I ripped again.

I pulled the needles out of another pair of socks that were just plain ugly. The time I had spent knitting them was less than the time I would need to spend to finish them. I refused to listen to the taunting any longer. The yarn has been designated to be a different project.

I thought that I would start a simple wrap. It would be my travel project. I would be able to knit and still carry on a conversation. What I didn't realize was that I had forgotten how to read. If the pattern says to cast on 189 stitches, I didn't need to cast on 289. Another one gone.

Evenstar is temporarily out of the bad knitting basket. After the fourth time I cast on, I was finally happy with the needle size. Clue 1 was completed without problems. Clue 2 has been ripped back a couple of times but it is done and I am working on Clue 3. The second half of Clue 3 has some strange symbols on the chart.

Tomorrow will be a better day to face the challenge.

Today I will be casting on a new project. I will attempt to defeat the Baaaddd Knitting karma by casting on a very simple baby sweater...top down...on big needles. My friend Alana assures me that it can be knit in a day.

I hope she's right.

Closing Ceremonies





All things must come to an end. Some events have grand closing ceremonies with music and fireworks. There is cheering in the stands as thousands watch in fasination. The cameras flash and there are smiling faces everywhere.



Other endings happen on cold mornings in February in a quiet kitchens. There are no marching bands. There are no flags waving. There is only the realization that what was once looked forward to with great anticipation has ended.

Farewell to "Whistler"