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Knitting Friday
A short post today so everyone can relax from the festivities last night. We had no fests last night (I fell asleep before 9 p.m., less than an hour into the all-night Thin Man marathon I was prepared to watch as I knitted wine cozies - my new project(s) for the new year.) But I had a right to be tired.
Yesterday, I hosted an Appreciation Party for all the residents of my community who deliver the newsletter. I had decided on this little gala when I realized our newsletter prep day was New Year's Eve morning, and what better time to hold a party?
It was a simple affair: coffee, non-spiked eggnog, rugala, bagels, cookies and homemade corn muffins. I didn't have high hopes for attendance when the snow started falling by 7 a.m. but we got a good crowd and I think those who came felt appreciated; which was the whole purpose of the party.
So with a party, kids, doing the wash and changing the bed (yes, I always have clean sheets for the new year; I have no idea why) and with all the other "stuff" I was beat by evening and quite happy that our usual NYE early supper with friends had been postponed for a time of year with better weather.
I'd better start talking about knitting now or this won't be a short post but just one more side trip: What is up with Word Perfect? I love that word processor. It is far superior to Word but it crashes horribly. I awakened in the wee hours of this new year to have it crash 3 times. Finally, I opened Word (and why can't I get single spacing in Word? - that's just one of my many complaints - though I do love Publisher) and put my document there. What is wrong with Corel Corporation which owns WP? They have a great word processor in Word Perfect but they seem to treat it like Cinderella.
OK, some knitting. The document I wanted to type into Word Perfect, and finally did place in Word ,was the MMario swatch which I worked up early, early this a.m.
For those who don't know him, Mario of MMarioKnits is a fantastic and generous lace designer who shares his patterns free in his Yahoo Group: MMarioKKnits@yahoogroups.com
Anyone can join and Mario has files of finished lace patterns and also "Patterns in Progress" which are, as it says, in progress. If you find a mistake you contact Mario so he can check and apply the fix.
The only downside of Mario is that he writes his lace pattern in arcane symbols which he says from his learning lace from really, really old patterns. Like A = a double decrease and N = K 2 together. But that's a small problem for such great patterns. (I do a global "find and replace" to change his symbols to the ones I know.)
Starting today, Mario is having a Mystery Shawl KAL and he had posted a swatch for practice, some time ago. At 3 a.m. today, I awakened and finally worked the swatch. That's when I realized that this swatch would make a nice shawl on its own. So if you join the KAL or are already a member, here's what I did to tweak the swatch into a shawl.
CO 11 sts (as stated) plus 4 sts for a 2 stitch seed pattern at the beginning and end of each row. The swatch directions say work 5 rows of garter on the 11 stitches. I worked 5 rows of seed. Though, I might work fewer seed rows and add more seed stitches to each row like: 3 rows of seed and then 3 stitches of seed at the beginning and end of each pattern row.
Then, with the seed border, work the pattern as written but don't end at the end of the swatch directions. Just keep going with increasing the number of times you do the repeats by one more times each 8 pattern rows. This is not complicated and you'll see what I mean right away.
Reading the directions for the first clue for the mystery shawl (which has been posted) and reading the comments to those directions, I think I might have to opt out of this KAL. It might be just too complicated for my little brain; but I know I can work this swatch into a shawl. And, now that I have all this leftover wool from the Super Mario blanket my stash is ready to go. Oh, did I mention this is swatch/shawl has every even row as knit? That means it's reversible. Heaven!
Enough for now. Enjoy your New Year's Day if you are in that part of world where it's still January 1.
Happy knitting.
Yesterday, I hosted an Appreciation Party for all the residents of my community who deliver the newsletter. I had decided on this little gala when I realized our newsletter prep day was New Year's Eve morning, and what better time to hold a party?
It was a simple affair: coffee, non-spiked eggnog, rugala, bagels, cookies and homemade corn muffins. I didn't have high hopes for attendance when the snow started falling by 7 a.m. but we got a good crowd and I think those who came felt appreciated; which was the whole purpose of the party.
So with a party, kids, doing the wash and changing the bed (yes, I always have clean sheets for the new year; I have no idea why) and with all the other "stuff" I was beat by evening and quite happy that our usual NYE early supper with friends had been postponed for a time of year with better weather.
I'd better start talking about knitting now or this won't be a short post but just one more side trip: What is up with Word Perfect? I love that word processor. It is far superior to Word but it crashes horribly. I awakened in the wee hours of this new year to have it crash 3 times. Finally, I opened Word (and why can't I get single spacing in Word? - that's just one of my many complaints - though I do love Publisher) and put my document there. What is wrong with Corel Corporation which owns WP? They have a great word processor in Word Perfect but they seem to treat it like Cinderella.
OK, some knitting. The document I wanted to type into Word Perfect, and finally did place in Word ,was the MMario swatch which I worked up early, early this a.m.
For those who don't know him, Mario of MMarioKnits is a fantastic and generous lace designer who shares his patterns free in his Yahoo Group: MMarioKKnits@yahoogroups.com
Anyone can join and Mario has files of finished lace patterns and also "Patterns in Progress" which are, as it says, in progress. If you find a mistake you contact Mario so he can check and apply the fix.
The only downside of Mario is that he writes his lace pattern in arcane symbols which he says from his learning lace from really, really old patterns. Like A = a double decrease and N = K 2 together. But that's a small problem for such great patterns. (I do a global "find and replace" to change his symbols to the ones I know.)
Starting today, Mario is having a Mystery Shawl KAL and he had posted a swatch for practice, some time ago. At 3 a.m. today, I awakened and finally worked the swatch. That's when I realized that this swatch would make a nice shawl on its own. So if you join the KAL or are already a member, here's what I did to tweak the swatch into a shawl.
CO 11 sts (as stated) plus 4 sts for a 2 stitch seed pattern at the beginning and end of each row. The swatch directions say work 5 rows of garter on the 11 stitches. I worked 5 rows of seed. Though, I might work fewer seed rows and add more seed stitches to each row like: 3 rows of seed and then 3 stitches of seed at the beginning and end of each pattern row.
Then, with the seed border, work the pattern as written but don't end at the end of the swatch directions. Just keep going with increasing the number of times you do the repeats by one more times each 8 pattern rows. This is not complicated and you'll see what I mean right away.
Reading the directions for the first clue for the mystery shawl (which has been posted) and reading the comments to those directions, I think I might have to opt out of this KAL. It might be just too complicated for my little brain; but I know I can work this swatch into a shawl. And, now that I have all this leftover wool from the Super Mario blanket my stash is ready to go. Oh, did I mention this is swatch/shawl has every even row as knit? That means it's reversible. Heaven!
Enough for now. Enjoy your New Year's Day if you are in that part of world where it's still January 1.
Happy knitting.
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