Right as Rain

I'm a Weeble, People, a Weeble. You can knock me over, but you can't keep me down. This sick thing took its toll; bleary eyed and hacking away for over a week, nary a stitch was stitched. But now I'm back and ready to rock. Except for the hacking. And a wee dip in stamina. So where were we...

First of all, I missed my anniversary. My first year blog anniversary. Was it only last January that this adventure began? And less than a year earlier that I took up knitting as a Serious past time? There have been a lot of hits and misses since then, I have decidedly grown as a knitter during that time. So while I hold on to the new stuff just a little bit longer, lets take a brief walk down memory lane... (And, as always, you can click on any picture to view it in full size.)

January brought my first FO of 2007:

childHood by Natalie Wilson

Like most of my beginning projects, this one came from Knitty. And like many of my first offerings, this was made up in acrylic. Hard, icky acrylic. I made this up in both the hooded and hood less version (I much prefer the hooded one.) Given the right circumstances, a do-over may be in order. I still think it is rather a cute cardi and for the right little girl and the right yarn I'd give it another go.

February's cold was a natural inspiration for scarves and Scarf Style was the first pattern book I bought. Having it shipped to me in Israel made the anticipation that much greater.

Of course, Knitty was still a major force on my life and I was already a true Argosy addict. In February I completed my 4th. (I've picked up my snoozing 6th again, BTW, and I fully intend to knit a minimum pattern repeat per day so I can finish this up.) I also knit up my Funky Chunky Zigzag scarf (by Debbie Bliss,) Midwest Moonlight (by Ivy Bigelow) and started a few more.

Still in the scarf groove, March brought Lacy Ocean (much of which was done in Eilat, on a surprise mini-break UM & AB sponsored,) Elbac (by Laura,) and Backyard Leaves (by Annie Modesitt.)

I would venture to say that it was Backyard Leaves that turned me from a knitter to a Knitter. My first chart and first true lace pattern, where each row, RS and WS, was different. It inspired the book purchase as well as the first on-line yarn purchase. Yes, it was Knit Picks, in Andean Silk Lettuce colorway. And though more exotic yarns would come, this scarf is still a treasured favorite.

April was the month of the ughs. Endless hours were spent in pure joy working on Nora Gaughan's Capecho.

Imagine the bitter disappointment when I, like so many others, learned that VK's cover shots were a wee bit misleading. Although I toiled into the next month, I never finished it and am still sad every time I see the pictures or the miles of frogged yarn; a lovely, not inexpensive, dusty rose yarn from Gedifra (Airmix, a merino, cotton mix.) April also saw the failed Entrelac experiments. The technique I got down cold, but never completed a project using it. The desire is still there. Next try will be Eunny Jang's Entrelac Socks (IK Spring '07.) Shapely legs I've always had, but the calves run to the large size so I'll not be making the knee high version, nor will I be using the tassel!

May, the month of my birth, brought all the joy that is Arietta. Though she remains a UFO I love her no less.

Why, you may ask, if I love her so much does she remain unfinished. Two reasons. First, all that cotton was drying out my fingers and as the weather turned colder I needed some squishy wool goodness. Second, try as I might, I have yet to lose the girth that stands between me and my love. So, though this is not a forum for resolutions, (goal will be addressed in a couple of days,) I hope this year to lose the necessary bulkage to fit into my Arietta when the time comes. Other UFOs remaining from May are the Windchime scarves and some TBD skinny version of Clapotis, just to say I did.

June saw no photo shoots as my mind was mostly on the, finally public, impending departure from Israel.

Tomorrow should see us through the balance of the year, followed by goals for 2008, including a virtual UFO Hall of Shame to get me back on track with some forgotten friends.

Entrelac Intricacies

Before I begin I just want to let those of you who are less familiar with the Blogger site that you can click on any of the pictures to see them full size. Additionally I have linked all the free patterns back to their original sites.

Now let's talk about Entrelac. Wikipedea defines Entrelac as "a knitting technique used to create a textured diamond pattern. While the end result resembles basket-woven strips of knitted fabric, the actual material comprises interconnected squares on two different orientations."

The first time I saw entrelac was in the Fall 2006 Vogue Knitting. I am sure I have seen completed pieces of entrela but of course I never knew what it was called or really thought about how it was made. Then I bought my first VK and saw the "Entrelac Workshop" article and just HAD to try it out. I didn't much like the coat pattern that the workshop was supposed to help me with but I did want to know the technique. So I set off on my sample swatch.

I usually don't have trouble reading instructions, but these did get a bit confusing. I think the difficult part was that the article mixed the instructions with explanations of what I was supposed to be accomplishing and that mixed me up a bit. Also it took me some time to differentiate between rows of stitches and rows of rectangles. That first swatch was a square with two base triangles of 20 sts each. Somewhere along the way I lost my side triangles and new something was majorly wrong. Nevertheless I persevered and began a new swatch with two major changes.

The first change I made was halving the stitches to 10. I was not going to make a pillow, handbag or any of the other suggestions of what to do with the swatch. I just wanted to understand what I was doing. Which is why I made the second change. I decided to change color for each rectangle so I would understand the placement. And it worked. Here is that first swatch.

Now with the swatch completed I set of to make the Danica scarf. This scarf was designed by Jesse Loesberg aka Yarn Boy. His blog is one of my favorites and I recommend it highly. With the swatch under my belt, the Danica instructions made total sense. My first attempt was using acrylic in colors I thought would look nice together, but as Yarn Boy himself stated in his blog, sometimes skeins that look good together when you hold them side by side don't always work out. The feedback on this wasn't so positive and it was going to be a present for my BIL but my sister said not to bother, he NEVER wears scarves, so this was relegated to the stash bin.


Still determined to make this scarf I tried again with a few modifications. The rectangles on this are big and lend themselves to being a man's scarf. In order to "fem" it up a bit I changed the instructions from 2 sets of 10 sts to 3 sets of 7 sts thus keeping the overall width but decreasing the size of the rectangles. I also used a self striping yarn from Gedifra: Fashion Trend Fino Stripe.

I do admit to breaking the yarn in strategic places so that the colors changed the way I wanted them to. The thing is, as I was knitting I thought it would be perfect as a pillow and the scarf was still a bit "heavy" looking. So now I need to do some frogging and start again. I think as a pillow I will finally love it!

OK, third try. I had bought a few balls of Teddy Wool Superwash Merino to see if I could do the VK (Fall 2006) black and white Cabled Jacket I was crazy for. Besides having a hard time with the swatch, I saw that when I frogged the swatch a couple of times the black yarn had dyed the white yarn gray. This didn't bode well so I've put that project on hold indefinitely. Instead I thought I'd try this yarn out for Danica. So to these balls I added a hot pink one and tried again. Unfortunately the same thing happened. White turned gray. I'm not sure what I am going to do with the yarn but I definitely will pair it with something darker!

So with no scarf and a pillow that I have put off for the time being I set my sites on something else. I liked the idea of a coat or sweater but hadn't found a pattern I liked. I revisited my growing magazine collection and found John Brinager's A Foreign Affair (VK Holiday 2006). I like that it uses Entrelac, but also stockinette and thus has more shaping.

The pattern calls for Colinette/Unique Kolours Lasso but 10 skeins at about $24 a piece is a bit beyond my budget. I started a sleeve with Teddy's Sympatic (below). It obviously won't have the same drape but it might work. What do you think?

Now for a scarf update. First I finished my 4th Argosy scarf. I still don't know what to do with the first one, and gave No. 2 & 3 to my cousin and sister, respectively. So this one is for me! I made it in the same colorway as No. 2 and am very happy with my results. Argosy is now retired for the foreseeable future!

I also made Ivy Bigelow's Midwest Moonlight using the same Lanas Stop: Yes Please yarn, but in a subtler colorway.

Here is a close up of the stitch work.
I am almost finished with my take of the Debbie Bliss' Zigzag Stripes. I call mine Funky Chunky Zigzag and I used Teddy Wool's new Himalaya yarn in F. I just need to buy one more ball of yarn to finihs it up. This nice chunky yarn knits up very quickly and since it is self striping it went a lot faster and smoother than using separate colors.

I also worked up a swatch of Amy Modesitt's Backyard Leaves. I did it with some of that leftover acrylic that I didn't use for Danica and am waiting patiently for the real stuff to show up so I can get to work. This is by far the most complicated thing I have worked on. Chart only and 15 different symbols. I had to restart the swatch a few times until I got the hang of it and now I can't wait to start. Can you see the leaves? Fantastic!

The last three scarves all come from scarf STYLE from Interweave Press.

And of course I am still working on the Wraparound Sweater for T, Banff for myself, the Entrelac pillow as well as few other things. So until I something to report...