Flagel Knitting Files

Phew, it has been busy around my workplace.  As the academic year winds down our concentration of work severely increases; the worst is now behind us.  Having said that we didn't miss Knit Nite on Thursday. Take a look at what Tena's been working on, a lovely lace scarf made with  Ava , a yarn by Classic Elite Yarns.  The pattern for the scarf, called Notre Dame, can be purchased here  from the Ravelry designer.  It makes a 7 foot or a bit more than 2 meter long scarf.  And the Ava yarn has a lovely single strand of sparkle mixed with the merino wool (not that it shows very well in my photo) adding a simple elegance to the look of scarf. Ten's Notre Dame scarf  Knitting anything that long takes a great deal  patience and persistence and Tena manages both characteristics perfectly to finish this project.  Never once did I hear she complain about the repetitions or tediousness in knitting this scarf.  And like almost all lace projects, the thing doesn't look lik

Part I - Shoes Both shoes are now completed for the M doll.  I am very happy with the way they turned out.  The pattern calls for eyelets and an I-cord to keep the shoes in place so I just did what the pattern said. Funny how that works, everything came out just the way it should.  A duplicate stitch in gray gave the rather heather-colours I was hoping for.  One of the pants legs is done and the other is on the needles.  The M doll is moving along very well. M doll shoes Part II - Gravity Last week part of my work group (those who work most directly with students) celebrated the end of the year with a dinner and program.  (Just as a reminder I do work at a university.)  These events are always high energy, celebrative and a whole lot of fun.  Since I head up the group I'm often asked to say a few words to thank students for all they do for my department. Don't know that it's been mentioned here before, but I will retire from my day job within a couple of months

M doll has taken up most of the knitting air in the house during the past week.  It is amazing how much time can be spent knitting up one 25 inch or 63.5 cm toy.  When we left off yesterday I was trying to figure out what to do with the hair.  Well it has been determined to be brown and short.  The style you see in the photo below took me a remarkable 4 hours to sew.  Yes, I find that number hard to believe, and I did it.  Creating hair takes a certain amount of repetition, of going over the same area several times, so there are no "bald spots" showing through.  The great fun was deciding where to leave the few stragglers.  It was also decided that the lips needed to be bigger so one can see I changed them from a single thin line to two with the middle filled in.  The satin embroidery stitch was used to fill in the spaces.  The idea of big prominent features appeals to me. I cut up an old pair of white pantyhose to keep the stuffing contained and firm for the head, body and

As a prelude, this post was started on Sunday, April 12 but not finished until today.  A friend called yesterday to see if I was OK since I hadn't posted anything for over a week.  She had me, Paul or any one of my direct family members seriously ill.  (It is nice to have close friends who care so much.)  Nothing has happened except a bit of writer's block; a few posts were started during the last week and none finished.  So in order to avoid future calls about my health, I thought there should put some closure on these starts.  Perhaps the block has loosened. - - - - - - - - - - Spring hit the Vancouver region beautifully during the weekend of April 11 and 12th.  The temperature reached into the 70's F or about 17-18 degrees C.  The sky was clear and there was an ever so slight breeze.  It was time to get out and look at the lovely cherry blossoms or as the Japanese refer to this, do some  hanami .  (Although the term hanami refers to flower watching, it seems to be appl

Steam blocking is the last of the blocking techniques I know and use.  It works best with wool yarns too delicate to get very wet.  Although very similar to spray blocking, steam is used instead of water. Since it takes so much heat to get steam this technique should always be used with great care. If you want to be quite adventuresome with acrylic yarns you can use steam blocking sometimes referred to as "killing the yarn."  The steam will literally breakdown the qualities of a stiff acrylic yarn and make the end product quite different.  I  have used this technique successfully in the past, but you have to be willing to take the risk because it is not precise; leave the steam hovering over an acrylic too long and it starts to melt it.  Some suggest using a towel to help protect yarn during this process,  but I find it takes far too long to get the knitting heated up if a towel is placed between the steam and yarn.  If you do use an iron rather than a steamer, never place

Today I want to write about spray blocking which refers to pinning the project in place to the dimensions mentioned in the pattern, lightly spraying it with water and letting it dry. As you can imagine this is a very gentle method and is most often used with delicate yarns like cashmere, silk or blends using them.  Or if you just aren't sure what type of fibre is in the yarn this type of blocking would be a safe bet.  In addition spray blocking is used when the yarn, because of what it is made of, should not be completely saturated with water, either because it will disintegrate or because it will diminish a special feature of that yarn.  Mohair and specialty/novelty yarns like eyelash are examples of the latter. Here's a cowl inspired by a recent visit to a downtown yarn shop. The shop had made up this  Churchmouse  pattern called Crocheted Moebius Cowl Pattern.  It has a very ethereal quality because of the mohair yarn used; the cowl weighs virtually nothing.  I thoug

Blocking is the final process in knitting something.  It is the step that takes a finished project off the needles and turns it into something handmade not homemade.   Unfortunately, it is a step often skipped by knitters because it does require a different skill set.  I was driven to blocking because I knit so many baby things and wanted to clean them before passing on to baby.  Once I saw the difference blocking made I vowed to always block everything before giving them away. According to Sarah White:  "Blocking is a method of stretching and shaping a finished knitted piece to reach the dimensions suggested in the pattern, to make two pieces that need to match the same size, or to make your stitches look nicer and more even."  Or it can do all three at the same time. You don't see many of us write about the blocking process because frankly, it isn't all that exciting.  But as dull as it might be, it is vital if you want your end result to look great.  Blocking

M's Dad can be a very creative person.  He shows this creativity in many ways like cooking and baking, his parenting skills and in giving me ideas about what should be knit for his daughter.  Just after Cornelius, Mr. Chicken Waffle was delivered, Dad asked if I could knit M an M doll.  It would have to be 25 inches long or about 63.5 cm.  Of course there is no pattern so an example to follow is necessary.  This is the photo we decided I should use for that purpose.  (Photo removed)  I should be able to determine the proportions from this photo to knit a doll like the one I did of Queen Elizabeth only much larger.  I have located the yarn in my stash and intend to then knit a number of outfits for the doll.  The sunglasses can probably be knit with velcro attached so they can be removed.  I do believe this is doable and look forward to getting started.  Here's some other outfits I think need to be made. So M has become the motivation for a lot of my future knitting.  I

I have heard from more than a few readers asking something to the effect, or specifically:  And the baby?????????  Sure the condo photos are nice and all, but what about that baby girl, you didn't showcase her one bit.  So here goes a brief review of my time in Minneapolis with M and family, in photo format  (Photos removed) Here's M's introduction to Cornelius.  It can be said she didn't dislike him, but he didn't make her laugh either.  There was a lot to take in at this moment. M and Cornelius united, note the skull and X-bone leggings We all agreed this version was a pretty good likeness of the original. However, it had not been clear that the idea was that he should be able to stand on his own. Or at least that had been Dad's thought. Knitted items are notorious for not being self-supporting without something like a dowel or styrofoam, neither of which seem appropriate for this application.  Dad found the softball shape of Cornelius intriguin

So I've been on the road again.  Back to Minneapolis to close on a condo and see family.  And as might be expected of Minneapolis it greeted me with a snow storm.  It wasn't a whiteout type of snow storm, just one that started out with rain, morphed to big heavy wet flakes and then to the smaller colder flakes.  That was Thursday, by Friday morning everything was covered with a thin coat of ice.  Sunday it was over 60 degrees F or about 15-16 C.  Welcome to Minnesota in the spring. Here's a few photos of my downtown condo.  It is right on Nicollett Mall so I'll be in easy walking distance to parks, museums, Orchestra Hall, shopping and dining, when I'm in town.  I'm one happy camper! One side of the galley kitchen; that there's a granite countertop, my first. The view off the deck into a recently remodeled courtyard. Count them one, two, three closets in the bedroom  A not-so-perfect photo looking back from the balcony at the living room