Flagel Knitting Files

You may have thought I really had given up writing the blog or that I fell off the planet.  Neither has happened.  There has been a ton of stuff going on in the past two weeks, none of it having anything to do with knitting, all of it about family.  It was so much fun I didn't even bother to take time to write a post.  What I will do now, however, is give you a brief overview, just so you can rest assured I haven't been slouching around.  Let's do this reporting in reverse order because the most recent is oh so much clearer in my mind than two weeks ago: June 30 - I spent 2.5 glorious hours alone with Miss M, my grand daughter.  We were into walking, swinging, blowing bubbles, sweeping, shoveling, dancing, sidewalk chalk art, and just playing around.  I had my 10,000 steps in before noon.  She is such a honey, so direct and clear minded, a girl after my own heart.  Loved every second being with her. That girl who captured my heart today, again. June 29 - I sa

This is my personal public announcement that Saturday, June 13, 2015, is World Wide Knit in Public Day.  Yes, this decade long event encourages knitters to leave the privacy of their homes and enter into the world carrying their knitting to join other knitters doing the same thing.  Knitters from Australia, China, England, Finland, France, Ireland, Norway, South Africa, Sweden and the U.S. plus other countries will be participating.  I know where I will be for a few hours tomorrow.  Should you need more info about the event check out this website .  And if you need to see if there is an event happening in your area, the same site can help answer your questions as well. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ My table is now free for dining.  The Eastlake Dummy Clap shawl/scarf is dry and ready for its own photo shot.  Since today is gorgeous I tried for a few different outside and inside shots.  As you might have imagined I am trying to up my game with photography.  Here's the best of

It is a rainy day here in Minneapolis.  The last few days have been warm, up to 90 F, approximately 30 C on Tuesday.  Plus the humidity has been relatively low with a nice breeze.  Last night as I enjoyed a concert across the street the breeze was delightfully cooling. Knowing it would be an inside-day today, I purposefully worked to finish the Dummy Clap shawl last night.  And contrary to my custom of missing self-imposed knitting deadlines, this one was hit.  I even had time to tuck in all the tails.  It was so satisfying, but the most satisfying was dropping all those stitches.  There are 12 columns on my Dummy Clap each with approximately 3,425 stitches.  That means I got to drop over 41,000 stitches on purpose.  If you knit, you can imagine how much fun that is.  The first couple of columns were dropped individually, then I decided to do two at a time and finally three.  It seems as if my middle finger could do the most damage in dropping stitches with my index a close second.

Tena's Clapotis scarf inspired me.  It is so light and lovely I thought if I could find just the right yarn I might be able to make one for myself.  I took time to study the pattern  and felt fairly confident I could do it. A completed Clapotis that is NOT Tena's Additionally I have a stash and located this cone of Eastlake yarn from  Yarnia .  There are 437 yards/400 meters of a combination of cotton-rayon, bamboo and acrylic threads.  This combination makes it relatively light weight for a DK yarn, plus it is soft and drapes beautifully.  As with all Yarnia yarns, the threads are not twisted together meaning this yarn uses four strands that have to be carefully knit so no one strand is missed.   But it is the colours of lime and sage greens, bright blue and a variegated brown from light tan to dark brown that seemed to be calling me to make something with it.  It was of course these colours that caused me to purchase it. Meet Eastlake I wanted to use this projec