Flagel Knitting Files

You may have been wondering why I haven't been posting much lately.  It is a fair enough question and I do have an explanation.  Remember the flower wall hanging, the one I call the wall flower?   (How could you forget it, I mention it a lot.) What nearly 18,000 stitches look like Well I finished the white background.  It is made up of (90 stitches X 30 rows) + (120 stitches X 126 rows) or 17,820 stitches.  (I believe I unrepresented the number the last time I calculated it.)  It is knit solely with the stockinette stitch which is knit one row, purl the next, then knit a row, followed by a purl row for 240 rows (I am grinning as I write this because it is now finished !)  Frankly this is a rather boring task for an average type of knitter like me, but it had to be done. Next I start the duplicate stitch in black to form the flower.  It too will take a bit of time to complete so perhaps it will be another relatively quiet week. Tena, on ...

I acted on my decision to frog the wall flower project.  As I imagined it, the process should have been relatively easy, but in actuality it was more like an ordeal. The size was about double this by the time I decided there was a need to change. Intarsia knitting refers to a type of knitting that creates coloured blocks rather than smaller changes in colour done every stitch or two.  In order to create the blocks separate balls of yarn are needed (see above).  To insure there are no holes in the end results the knitter needs to twist one colour around the other on the wrong side of the work (Apparently this was something I seemed to have struggled with causing me to have to frog the thing in the first place.~~Who me upset by this, no I'm not upset~~ well maybe a little bit.)  At any rate these tiny twists mean if you wish to rip your previously knitted intarsia work out, the twists need to be undone.  This causes a great deal of stopping to twist th...

Yesterday was just another drop-dead beautiful Lower Mainland day.  The sun beats down pretty directly here in the North making even a mere 70 degrees F or 18 degree C day seem almost scorching (or is it because the sun has been such a long time coming.)  Yesterday also marked an Open House Carnival at my university so I got an opportunity to be outside talking to people about my work for most of the day. On top of our mountain the air is good and the sunshine even more intense.  It was a great day (Good planning Organizing Committee!) Then there is today.  The sun is not out, there's the threat of sprinkles and I have a house that should be tidied up and laundry to do but before then an update about my knitting (I know I said I'm generally a work first and play second type of person; this isn't by any means a strict rule as you can tell.) I've mentioned this before but it bears repeating, I love to take quick looks at the $l/Loonie shops' yarn  selection wh...