Moving On

Last week is behind me. I worked hard and played over the weekend. Now the new week is upon me and I need a plan, including my knitting.

A starry green kimono sweater

The green kimono is done. Instead of doing the spider webs again (that would be so August for me) I decided to do something else. Not being all that good at embroidery at the moment, I thought I'd be able to do stars. I made a pattern, outlined the stars and thought I'd be able to figure out how to fill the space with some kind of embroidery stitch. After several unsuccessful attempts, the stars were left unfilled, except for the orange button stars I found at Mom's recently. I added to them the tiny stars I found this weekend, and viola a sweater is finished.

See on the right? The black colour block has a problem.

Now it is back to finishing the other WIPs waiting for me to pick them up. It is time to get the flower wall hanging done. As I pick it up to see where in the project I had left it, I just shake my head. Do you see those stray black stitches in the sea of white on the right? Obviously they don't belong there all alone like that. The work must have played a nasty little trick on me because I left it unattended for so long. Why there just can't be anyway I actually knit this and didn't see it, am I right? (Paul, please, it has now become one of your jobs to ask me each evening if I've actually looked at my knitting before I set it down.) Had I stopped some time ago to look at the piece I wouldn't have to decide what to do next. (As I've said before I don't need much to entertain me, I provide all types of entertainment for myself.) Now what to do to fix this:

Pull everything out to the mistake which means pulling out about a third of the project.
Act as if this was really the design and hope no one else thinks those stranded stitches look out of place.
Try to make sure once the accent coloured I-cord is made it is perfectly stretched over these stitches to hide them.
Duplicate stitch over the white yarn with black in hopes it will hide the stitches well enough to not be detected.
Remove the errant yarn by cutting the work and then sew the live bits back together using the kitchener stitch.

I do contemplate my options. Doing #5 means cutting yarn mid-project, something which can create a great deal of fear for most knitters, this one among them. The kitchener stitch is called the grafting stitch which would make perfect sense for this situation. But before I go for the drastic cutting method I decide to do the less risky duplicate stitch first.

The duplicate stitch uses a tapestry needle to embroider over the Vs in the stockinette stitch. One does not need to cut anything and if it works, it is the easiest and safest way to fix this mistake. And since I am covering white yarn with black, it just might solve my problem.

Fixed!!!

I think it worked. Yeah! The kitchener stitch, it lives on to be used another day. Now to finishing this project before it joins the Blue Boy Sweater as one of my least favorites.

Ode to the Cat

It has been six months since Mike, the cat's, passing. I think of him every day and miss him especially when Paul is away. Mike was a being in the house with me and we were close. Grieving his death has been muddled with my Dad's passing and sometimes I feel guilty about that happening. As time passes the ache becomes less hurtful for both and I am starting to get mostly good memories in its place. Recently I helped celebrate Pablo Neruda's birthday with Jami, my poet and overall very creative friend. Guests were asked to select one poem written by Neruda to read to the small group who gathered for the celebration. I picked this one: Ode To The Cat -- Pablo Neruda There was something wrong with the animals: their tails were too long, and they had unfortunate heads. Then they started coming together, little by little fitting together to make a landscape, developing birthmarks, grace, flight. But the cat, only the cat turned out finished, and

Anatomy of a Sock

I've been knitting socks for a relatively short time. One of the disconcerting things for me as I started following patterns for socks is the pattern designer assumes the knitter (in this case that would be me) knows all the parts of a sock. So I thought I'd devote a post to improve my own knowledge about the anatomy of a sock and maybe some of you will learn something about the humble yet necessary sock as well. Here's the names of the parts of the foot as I know them. #49 ankle, #50 heel, #51, instep, #52 ball, #53 big toe, #54 toe, #55 little toe, #56 toenail. There are some parts more important for this discussion; first the heel of a foot is generally used to refer to the entire C-shape from the ankle to the instep. Speaking of the instep, it refers to that curve near the bottom of the foot. And what seems to be missing in the design above is the sole which generally refers to the bottom of the foot in total or plantar aspect in more technical terms. (BTW

Yarn Barf

It's back to quirkiness and time to step away again from the cuteness for a while. But as you see I'm someone who slips from one to the other without much effort so anticipate this back and forth to be my new normal. A dramatization of me in the midst of my startitist frenzy Yarn barf . I'm willing to bet you hadn't thought of putting those two words together, had you? It just so happens yarn barf can be a reoccurring pain for those of us who use yarns that come in a skein instead of a hank. (No pun intended regarding the current Noro virus, well maybe a little pun.) Skeins of yarn wound by the manufacturer These are hanks which need to be wound into balls If you look closely at the picture on the right you'll see the start on the millet yellow skein at the centre right of the photo. Its start can easily be seen coming from the centre of the skein onto the violet skein to the left. Easy to find, right! Sure but what about the remaining 4

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Ode to the Cat

Anatomy of a Sock

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