Capitalism - Feudalism without the King
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Knitting Friday

 

Sitting on the front porch yesterday, waiting for the hospice nurse, (not because her patient had taken a turn downward (she had) and I wanted to speak with her but because I didn't want her to ring the bell and awakened the pup who now has a temporary abode in the darkened laundry room where the right-off-the floor AC vent is her and her stuffed dog pal's favorite place to sleep,) I had a straight view of the front garden shrubs with their new growth which the Association gardeners have not trimmed for the season yet and I thought: Just what is the purpose of humans? The best I could come up with is: to husband and nurture all the new growth on this planet. Pretty much of a Hallmark greeting card type of philosophy but that was the best I could do at the moment.

 

Which leads me into my mea culpas: few pictures today, little knitting all week. As I've said earlier, I thought I would be knitting up a storm in my down time but it's not happening.

 

But I do have some pattern links for you; sort of my wish list:

 

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/maraschino-lace-shawl 

 Again, a Ravelry link but this time it's a knit. A little backstory: During a trip to A.C. Moore with one of their rare discount coupons for everything regular and sale price, I picked up some heavy black nylon thread. Memories are iffy but I think I was into knitted jewelry at the time. Well, that ship has sailed and I'm looking at 150 yards of this beauty and no pattern. I think the Maraschino Lace Shawl may be the solution. It is such an easy pattern with big holes so 150 yards will "expand." A couple of hints based my on swatching it:

1. Lace metal Chiagoo needles are lovely but slippery with the double YOs.

2. The pattern calls for US 6 needles. My swatch is on US 11 and it's working well on DK weight.

3. Other knitters on Ravelry say that the edge stitches where you increase with a K front and back gives a tight edge so knit them loosely. I'm not having that problem but then I'm a loose knitter.

4. Watch the double YOs when you work them on the next row. These rows are all purl except for the double YOs which are P1, K1. This is counter intuitive  since you want to just purl across.

5. A possible variation which I haven't tried yet: Don't work Chart A. Cast on 16 stitches and start with Chart B. I wonder if this would give a crescent shape? This needs exploring.

 

The second project I'm swatching is:

 

http://www.lionbrand.com/patterns/clc-vest.html?noImages= 

 

This is a Doris Chan (crochet queen) Lion Brand vest. Which has slight sleeves so it's more of a cardi than vest. It only got a 2.1 score (pretty low) out of 24 reviews. I have a feeling this pattern was revised from the original, though there are no corrections listed. I'm only through Row 5 so trouble could lay ahead but I think if you just work each row as written, you'll be OK. One suggestion: be sure to mark the corners after the first row. If you forget: looking at the vest before you start Row 4 and counting the beginning Ch3, DC as your first 2-DC set, the corners are the 2nd, 5th, 9th, 12th 2-DC sets across. Good luck with this one. I'm excited about this project. More on this another day.

Now for some pictures:

#1 This isn't knitting!

Well, not knitting pictures but on the left is the skirt I made from a sun dress whose top had seen better days. I really liked the print so now I have a summer skirt.

#2 Still not knitting

On the right is another recycled skirt. I loved the hem on this one but you can see that the cut off top (right in pic) was pretty skimpy. So this sun dress has another life as a skirt. Shows you what elastic and a sewing machine can accomplish quickly.

#3 What was I thinking?

And finally, remember this (#3) from last Friday? I was saying how the bottom hem flared but that was OK. Well, it wasn't OK. I ripped out the hem and redid it on a much smaller crochet hook (F). Haven't tried it on yet but if it's still too wide, I'll have to skip some stitches along the bottom hem.
But I do love the yarn in this top!

That's it for today. See you next Friday. Happy knitting.