Flagel Knitting Files

I flew yesterday from Vancouver to Minneapolis via Dallas/Fort Worth.  It was another smooth trip and I walked into the condo before 11 pm.  Since I seemed to be very short on wool scarves in this cold-weather town I brought two with me that I had recently made.  The Jeweled Cowl, sans the "jewels" and this quick one that I call the YO Cowl.  Sure enough as I was about to board the light rail a 20-something said to me "I love your scarf."   For some reason this always catches me off guard but I did manage a thank you before she was out of earshot. So here's that scarf hanging around in British Columbia waiting for this trip.  It did keep my neck and head nicely warm as I trudged through some light snow last night. My very own YO cowl The condo is just the way I left it, except a friend had fixed a hole in the wall left when my TV was removed from it.  (It now lives on a stand in the living room where I will actually use it.)  He did a wonderful job and t

Today I want to talk about Frank Sinatra.  For starters my Mom really liked ¨Old Blue Eyes¨ and I could see her spirits lighten every time she heard one of his songs.  He was the crooner of her time, much like say Paul McCartney was of mine, my spirits lighten at a McCartney song.  Sinatra made tons of movies and did a stand up show in Las Vegas for years with the Rat Pack.  Frank, again during my time, helped make his daughter famous by singing duets with her.  That would be Nancy Sinatra of These Boots are Made for Walkin  fame.  So certainly I know of Frank Sinatra although he wasn't really a part of my era. About six months ago, this statue of him came into our house: As can be seen, he has an enormous head in comparison to the size of the rest of his body.  Should you look on eBay you will find the asking price is somewhere between $100-$150 for this 16.5 inch (42 cm) tall statue.  (I can't tell if anyone is actually buying them for that price or not.)  There is, of

Nina E. Olson, head of the National Tax Payer Advocate, an independent arm of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for the U.S. said something about knitting today.  The Annual Report about the IRS came out today and it was not all that good.  (What a surprise!) I have written a few times about odd combinations involving knitting in the past, including   how knitting helped to topple a Prime Minister as well as knitting a scarf and the most recent Winter Olympics .  So this is my next adventure, the IRS and knitting. She looks as if she might knit socks, don't you think? Back to Ms. Olson's comments, she was talking about how U.S. taxpayers who call in to talk to someone for help with their 2014 returns will be put in a long queue (if they are lucky enough to get through at all) because of the cuts in the IRS budget going back five years.  She suggested it would be appropriate for the caller to have some knitting available because that queue would be very long.  In a C

If you've knit you have more than likely experienced times like this. Free patterns have a reputation for not being appropriately checked for errors before they are made available to knitters.  These patterns can be designed by one person who knits up the item a couple of times and then shares the rudimentary instructions or perhaps the pattern is prepared by someone new to designing.  Depending where you look for free patterns, you might be able to find the errata (plural for erratum, meaning a sheet listing errors in printing or writing).  Other times you are on your own to figure out the mistake.  Of course, you get what you pay for and having errors in this type of pattern is almost forgivable. However, a person commented in a forum today s he purchased a book of patterns recently where 16 of the 60 listed sets of instructions had mistakes.  She came to realize this as she started checking out why the instructions she was using were not working out as expected.  I find t

I am always on the look for new knitting items. They might not be new in terms of just introduced to the public, but they are something I either have never heard about or used.  Jelly Yarn fits this category so let me share details with you just in case it is new to you as well. Some of the vibrant colours of Jelly Yarn Jelly Yarns appears to have been around since 2007 created by a company called Yummy Yarns.   The ¨yarn¨ is made with 100% vinyl and is a cord rather than a plied yarn.  It comes in bright colours and some actually glow in the dark. The yarn was developed to knit a patent leather purse and because the yarn is vinyl, it is waterproof.  This I suspect does not make it suitable for making wardrobe items so it is used for accessories like:  purses, handbags, beach bags, belts, bracelets, ornaments, hair accessories, toys, and coral reef projects.  Ravelry has 90 items made with Jelly Yarn; check them out here .  One of the more beautiful applications I found are the

Today there's no yarn/wool involved in this post.  Today I want to write about yesterday.  There's two retirees in our house and that means we can do things differently.  Yesterday we took a quick trip out of the country and drove 1.5 hours to Bellingham, Washington.  Bellingham is a city of approximately 80,000 with a good deal of culture (IMHO) for its size.  It has been rated in the top 10 affordable cities for retirees to live in the U.S.; and this shows, there are plenty of restaurants, movie theaters, local plays and yet with the Western Washington University campus in town there is also a youthful vibrancy.  Wikipedia says: (Bellingham) is also famous for the large quantities of  Canadian  tourists and shoppers that flood in daily to take advantage of relatively cheap gasoline, airfare and other products.    Most consumer products and restaurant meals are significantly more pricey in Bellingham than elsewhere in the  United States , but still often cheaper than in  Can

Yesterday I wanted to cook a Lebanese meal of stuffed zucchini and eggplant on my own.  I could follow the recipe out of a special cookbook Paul has had for years.  But I also know he doctors the recipe.  I can saute onions and brown ground beef; I can add allspice and a pinch of cinnamon.  The quantities are something though are things Paul knows from years of experience of cooking the recipe.  So several times I would carry a teaspoon of what I had for him to taste to see how I was doing.  My downfall was when he recommended more tomato be added.  I added too much and we agreed I made a version of Sloppy Joes with allspice seasoning instead.  I was well out of my own cooking element and it showed.  Recipes of foods made often are like this; guidelines to be sure, but it is not unusual to play up certain ingredients and downplay others.  A seasoned cook familiar with the end product can do this easily.  And sometimes exactly the same thing is expected in a knitting pattern. For exam

Marsala is Pantone's Color for 2015. It is described as ¨a subtly seductive shade, one that draws us in to its embracing warmth¨ says Leatrice Eiseman, Executive Director of Pantone Color Institute.  She goes on to say:  ¨This hearty, yet stylish tone is universally appealing and translates easily to fashion, beauty, industrial design, home furnishings and interiors. All the shades of Marsala Although I personally find the Pantone ad campaign for this year's selection over the top, the colour itself is wonderful.  Marsala will work for both men and women and for all sorts of skin tones.  This dark red-brown colour is versatile because it pairs well with lots of colours from orange and cooper to dark teals and metallic grays. So what have yarn manufacturers done with Marsala?  The most evident thing is they are not calling the colour Marsala.  Instead it is being referred to in more conventional terms like wine, merlot or burgandy.  I assume marsala reminds most of

In yesterday's post there were listed several WIPs on my 2015 knitting list.  All of these projects have been hanging around for some time and weigh heavily on my knitting psyche.  Yesterday I decided there was a need to finish something; one of those projects simply had to be done.  So I picked the easy one and did just that. The ¨O¨ scarf is now completed except for the drying process.  Yesterday the grey block was finished as well as the final set of ¨Os¨.  Last night I added the fringe and to my surprise it actually does a wonderful job of closing up the openings at both ends as well as completely covering the cast-on and bind-off rows.  I went to bed happy that at least one thing on my knitting to do list for 2015 was knit and less that two weeks after Xmas.  (You might remember the scarf was meant to be one of Paul's Xmas gifts.) This morning I started the blocking process.  It required the use of a colour sheet, a product I didn't know existed until this project

If one knits one substitutes yarns but it is tricky business.  Today I want to spend a bit of time discussing why knitters substitute yarns and some things to keep in mind as we do it.  (I have focused on this because one of my resolutions for 2015 is to knit down my stash.  I will be be substituting yarn a lot this year.) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Why do we substitute yarn? Anyone who has knit more than a couple of projects from a pattern will be able to write this segment because we all have had to substitute yarn. Most of the time knitters are using patterns designed by experts, if not knitting experts, at least experts in getting the type of fabric they want for a particular project.  The designer has gone through several samples using different types of yarn in order to get the drape, sturdy structure, breezy see-through, dense or other type of fabric they have envisioned.  The yarn mentioned in the pattern when knit to gauge will guarantee the same finished project.  The problem is

Paul and I rung in the New Year with a rather routine ritual.  We always have some sort of seafood at home, pop open a bottle of bubbly and settle in for the night.  The end of 2014 and start of 2015 was the same.  We were crawling into bed just as the fireworks were being set off by neighbours around the inlet. Yesterday was a day of college football bowl games.  Both the Wisconsin Badgers (my team) and the Buckeyes of The Ohio State University (Paul's team) played.  Since the Badgers played in some obscure bowl game because they were ranked something like 19th in the country, I had to listen to the play-by-play broadcast on the radio using my iPad and the new speaker Paul bought me for Xmas.  It sure is great for knitting because you don't miss seeing a single play.  I have to make a note of that for future reference. Paul is in the habit of waiting until his team has played the entire game before deciding to watch it or not.  He records the game and watches if they win,