Knitting Resolution

My commitment to my knitting passion for this week (or two) is to finish the almost done pieces! Actually yesterday I DID finish a pair of socks. I use a little chimney technique to close up the toes, makes a perfect Kitchener type of stitch. The seamless “seam“ . Without the little mouse ears. Lately I always have a sock- in- progress going on.

I also finished another piece by putting the silk ribbon fringe on a scarf I made for a close friend..It was my first Machine Knit tuck patterned piece too. If you don’t count swatches and play learning piueces. Fun. Now she is getting interested in machine knitting. I will prolly set her up with my Singer LK 100. Good basic machine for getting going!

The scarf was made from a nice Angora mix I purchased at a Holiday Machine knitting guild swap based meeting. Most everyone brought yarn to either put in the charity bin or sell, and a few knitting machine items showed up too. I saw my first linker, looked interesting. An antique machine swapped owners too. There was huge stash of very nice coned yarn from the estate of a woman who had died, and the guild became the lucky recipient(s). I bought 8 cones, including the Angora, for next to nothing. This all was a fund-raiser too; the guild made 250 dollars.

In March the Guild will have a 2-Day Special Sandie Cheerie seminar, which everyone is excited about. I always stay for the extra/ guest session the guild meeting has each month. So far I have seen penny socks on ribber/main bed (in the round), a quickie, no ends to sew in poncho technique, shortrowing of skirts and a shirtrow hat. Cut and sew, hand felting and felting adornment of pieces, to name a few. I am still wet behind the ears with Machine knitting but am getting up to speed with lace, patterning, reading patterns, basic techniques. Next Saturday we will be shown as many attachments as we have time for!

One of the more insightful aspects of the guild is the show and tell portion; hand knit or machine knit. Seen some nice designs and brought my latest pieces-a yummy Noro Kureyan sweater, felted bag and felted hat samples(. Berets, bowlers, cloches) and a scarf I accidentally felted. Good thing short, ascot length neck wraps are very in around here (as well as long and “skinny”).

I had this very ancient favorite cashmere scarf-knit up at a Driving School Day years ago-that was tossed in the white wash- read: hot, one cycle. Soak overnight. Run through full cycle. Opps..ended up in the dryer too. Beat up into a great peice! At first I was a bit sad.. my soft and cozy scarf was gone..then realized it had this neat wavy edge. Tom calls it the lasagna noodle scarf since it is white, wavy edged. I wore it with a little Christmas tree pin holding it all together and it received rave comments. It actually had become a bit ragged but had been transformed into something very interesting, The crochet edge has morphed into an edge with a ripple!

Next project I’m going to have to do is rip/frog a piece I changed by mind about. FUG Poncho, what was I thinkng! I had revamped the Martha Poncho into a little just around the shoulders piece and now can’t stand it. Oh well..rippit, rippit coming up. So much for never keeping to a pattern. I usually have better luck with my own stuff anyway.

I have been knitting up a BIG lot of this nice pink yarn at a Church rummage sale - Was prolly a set destined for an Afghan and forgotten about...feltable too. It has provided me with the basis for lots of experiments in socks, hats, felting, baby sweaters. It is perfect for my bulky machine, which had remained in the box so far but I am itching to get it set up.

In the meantime we are redoing our loft, so I have to wait a bit. I live in a nice big loft, and with some transformation of space ~ a new workshop area is coming up for me, courtesy of the loving efforts of my best friend /SIG-O Tom. He is transforming a contiguous area for my craft persuits to be more handy. Instead of co-mingling with my Computer stuff /office space and living room; these areas are getting a bit out of hand.

Later this week I can set up the bulky and get going with it. I will be getting a shipment of dye for protein this week to and have yarn ready to go for some working on mixing colors for dyeing too.


Keeping a knitting blog is fun!

Happy New Year!