Duly Noted: Evacuation Day

On November 25, 1783, British troops left New York City, which they had occupied since 1776.

Links:
Entry for The Battle of Brooklyn in this blog's Duly Noted section
Wikipedia article about Evacuation Day
Wikipedia article describing the history of New York during this period (and section of the main article detailing the city's history)

Duly Noted: Accession of Elizabeth I

I realize I still haven't posted about Rhinebeck a month ago (long story), but I'll just note that November 17 is the anniversary of the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, 450 years ago today.

Links:
Elizabeth I on Who2
Elizabeth I on Wikipedia

A Long Day

I woke up very early this morning -- alarmingly so, even -- to make a 7AM bus. (When I left the house this morning, it was still as much dark as it was light. In October. In New York City.) The bus was heading up to the fiber festival up in Rhinebeck, a good two and a half hours from here. I got back at 8:30 or so, and if I was a little tired then, I'm that much more so now that I'm off my feet and am no longer running on excitement and fiber fumes.

I fully intend to write up a longer post tomorrow, but in the meantime, two photos. First, there's a picture of yarn (in small form to hide the vague blurriness):


And second, a much better picture of some of the foliage up there, which is beginning to seriously turn:

This one is better viewed large and on black.

Photo: two sheep

I went to a fleece festival in Ringoes, New Jersey, earlier this month, and have been too lazy to post about it until now -- now that I'm heading off to the huge festival tomorrow, that is. Here's one of the pictures that turned out well:


With the prospect of my first trip to Rhinebeck, I kept my purchases to what I think of as a minimum, buying two skeins of yarn (a worsted-weight ringspun and a laceweight, both hand-dyed), a blue roving, some mohair to blend with something, and a pair of spinning magazines. But more on that will have to wait until my computer figures itself out and starts behaving itself again.

News off the Blogs: This can't be good.

I've been cleaning up my feed reader lately, and found an unlikely item in a Gowanus Lounge post from Monday. A Dutch sub was spotted off Bay Ridge.

The Dutch did manage to reclaim New York/New Amsterdam for a while not long after they first lost it to the British back in the 17th century, but it didn't stick. I can't imagine they think they'd be getting back at the Brits now though. (We took care of that ourselves with a revolution. And if memory serves, the Dutch were, along with the French and Spanish, quick to recognize us as a separate entity.)

Link: Things Are Bad: Dutch Submarine Stalking Bay Ridge

Yarn Harlot on Tour!

The Yarn Harlot (Stephanie Pearl-McPhee) is currently on a tour which tonight brought her to my neighborhood Barnes and Noble. She spoke, and read a little from her most recent book, Free Range Knitter.



Really, she talked as much about publishing as she did about knitting, often sticking to the overlap of knitting and publishing/blogging. Things like she's learned not to say that she writes/blogs about knitting if she can at all avoid it: somehow writing/blogging about knitting is automatically not a "real" book/blog to many. (I think people who think a book/blog about knitting isn't a "real" book/blog need to be stabbed repeatedly with sock needles, cut up, carded and spun.)

The whole thing had a vaguely This American Life sensibility to it. I wonder if Ira Glass would be willing to extend the "American" part to include Canadians.

And there were the obligatory photos-of-crowd-with-Sock she posts on her blog -- and, apparently, sends to her mom. I'll come back with the link to her post when she gets it up. And if you're familiar with her blog, you'll know she posts sometimes posts pictures of people with their knitting. Quite a few people tonight took pictures of her with our knitting. I offered her a choice of two projects and she suggested both:



One's a scarf, using the "Ostrich Plumes" pattern from Barbara Walker's Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns. The other is the "Silk Purse" pattern (in wool) from Véronik Avery's Knitting Classic Style. And the junk stuff on the left's mine, but I was practically tied to it and couldn't put it anywhere.

---

UPDATE:
Pearl-McPhee's blog post about this stop is up. It can be found here.

News off the Blogs: Parrot Residency Expands

According to a Gowanus Lounge post today, the famous wild-parrot population has expanded recently -- into new territory and new kinds of parrots in one fell swoop. I concur that the new parrot does not look like the pictures I've seen of monk parrots (the kind that have been building nests near Brooklyn College). And this is the first I've heard of parrots loose in Carroll Gardens.

Video: Shakespeare's Who's On First

This funny video is a Shakespearean edition of the Abbot and Costello routine "Who's On First".

Extreme Plying

This weekend, with the help of a Google search and some how-tos, I picked up a new skill: Andean plying. For those who don't spin, Andean plying is a neat way to turn a single skein of handspun into a single skein of two-ply handspun, using nothing more than a drop spindle and your left hand. The problem happens when you've got more than a little yardage to ply. There are some pictures in this post from the Bumbling Bees blog illustrating what happened to someone else with a yardage problem. By the time I got finished winding my singles around my hand, it was damn near impossible to see the finger I looped them around -- even on the neater second skein I plied yesterday. That finger still hurts.

The upside is that I have a 60-odd-yard skein on my niddy-noddy, and a second skein on my plying spindle, still waiting to be wound off.

Duly Noted: The Battle of Brooklyn

Today is the 232nd anniversary of the Battle of Brooklyn, also called the Battle of Long Island. (It's a little busy here at the office today so I won't go into detail, but I bookmarked the following a while ago.)

Further Reading:
Barnet Schecter, The Battle for New York, and
David McCullough, 1776.

Links:
"Battle of Long Island" on Wikipedia
Articles can also be found here and here.

Sidebar:
Gowanus Lounge reports on a possible location of a burial ground from this battle. See post for details.

News: Madrid plane crash kills nearly 150

A plane crashed during takeoff at Madrid's international airport. Of more than 170 passengers and crew, only about 28 have survived. The death toll still varies by source, but most put the number at around 150.

Links:
New York Times: Nearly 150 Are Dead in Madrid Plane Crash
CNN: Madrid plane crash kills dozens, and Plane in Madrid crash a 'workhorse'
AP: 149 dead in plane crash at Madrid airport
BBC: Many dead in Madrid plane crash
International Herald Tribune: About 150 killed leaving Madrid on Spanair flight

News off the Blogs: Battle of Brooklyn stuff

Gowanus Lounge has a pair of posts about events to commemorate the Battle of Brooklyn (also called the Battle of Long Island). One post lists a bunch of events; a second post appeared this week with information about further events at The Old Stone House.

More information about the Battle of Brooklyn/Long Island can be found on Wikipedia, GL's post the first also posted this link about the battle.

Duly Noted: the Wonder Wheel and another pair of 8's

According to a post on the Gowanus Lounge, the Wonder Wheel, the famous ferris wheel in Coney Island, turns 88. This double-8 day is in addition to that other event of the day -- the start of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

News: Earthquake Hits Southern California

An earthquake hit southern California today. It was centered near Chino Hills, not too far from L.A. Initial estimates put the quake's magnitude at a 5.8; several sources say that it's since been reduced to 5.4. So far the sources I've seen are reporting no injuries.

Coverage:
The New York Times
CNN
Reuters
Washington Post
The BBC

Photos (as promised) of Yesterday's Knitting

Yesterday afternoon I reported that I was nearly finished with a pair of armwarmers. I finished them yesterday, and took pictures. They're a bit fuzzy (the photos, that is), but if you're on Ravelry, you can check the project page there in a week or two: hopefully I'll have some better shots up by then.

In fact, though I took three pictures that made it as far as my Flickr photostream, there's really only one photo in which you can get any sense of what these things look like:





The pattern, Alexandra Tinsley's "Salad Wristers" (from Presents Knits) is knit as directed, except that I worked the first five rows in knit 1, purl 1 ribbing. I used Cascade 220 in Charcoal Gray for this pair, but I expect to make more -- this is a great pattern to be knitting when you expect to be waiting around a bit, but not for extended periods at one go.

Links:
Project page on Ravelry
"Salad Wristers" pattern
"Salad Wristers" pattern on Ravelry
Cascade 220 on Ravelry
Cascade 220 on Yarndex.com

Duly Noted: NASA is 50!

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, better known as NASA, was formed on July 29, 1958. (As with the anniversary of Beatrix Potter's birth -- mentioned yesterday -- Google has a special logo.)

Linkage:
NASA's home page.
NASA on Wikipedia.

A Pint-Sized Sweater (and some other stuff)

Back at the beginning of June, I told you I'd gotten the yarn for my knitting circle's first-ever Knit-Along. We chose Elizabeth Zimmerman's "Baby Surprise Jacket" through a complicated (read: messy) process involving several rounds of voting on two different websites. While I don't yet have the ends woven in or the buttons sewn on, the sweater is, essentially, done. The yarn pooled nicely, don't you think?



In a week or two, we'll be starting our next knit-along. The pattern, the Foliage hat from Knitty's Fall 2007 issue, came in a close second in the voting. (The pattern was my first choice; details on why can be found in this post from late May.)

Among my other knitting updates, I'm within a row of binding off a pair of ruffled armwarmers (pictures to follow within a few days). I printed out the pattern last month, shortly before I left for Seattle, and finally got them started three weeks ago. And now, after a false start involving the wrong cast-on method and too-small needles, I'm nearly done. I'll tell you more about them when I post the photography.

Duly Noted: Beatrix Potter's birthday

Author Beatrix Potter was born on July 28, 1866. Her books, mainly (entirely?) for children, featured such charecters as Peter Rabbit, Jemima Puddle-Duck, and Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle.

Links:
Beatrix Potter on LibraryThing.
Beatrix Potter on Wikipedia.

Update (3:50 PM): Who2's Editorial blog has a post featuring the graphic Google has on their homepage today. (That graphic is how I found out about the anniversary.)

Travel Video: SushiCone

As much as I'd like to get back into the swing of blogging things, the computer I'm sitting at is having one of its paroxysms of what can best be described as navel-gazing. I'll just post another Seattle video and let it get on its way.

Travel video: When Fish Fly

One of the things I saw in Seattle was the flying fish (also known as the fish toss) at the Pike Place Market. It's practically a required sight, but a lot of fun. I managed to figure out how the video function on my camera worked and got this clip.



The neat thing about the fish toss is that the entire staff gets in on the noise. The camera is meant for still photos, so the sound's crappy, but you can still hear them.

I'll keep posting stuff as I get it uploaded, which is easier now that I'm back. So keep watching this space.

A Few Words about Seattle

Today's post comes to you from the 10th-floor reading room at the Seattle Public Library's central branch. The building is a funny-looking lumpy-looking thing that makes for interesting architecture, but doesn't get as much use as one might hope (especially if there's a librarian in the family). Here's a photo of a tiny little corner of it:



That photo is the best I've got up on Flickr yet, but I'll be putting more up when I next get a chance. The complete photoset can be found here.

I've only had a few days here, but I spent them exploring. Downtown was a bit quieter than I thought it might be, but then it's mostly offices and I'm used to Herald Square. I also looked around Pioneer Square and stopped by Elliott Bay Books -- which is definitely worth a visit if you have any interest in books. And I managed to get to Pike Place Market to see the fish toss there (the fish toss may be easily identified by the crowd of tourists, but is worth waiting to see). I haven't forgotten the yarn, either, and stopped by one highly recommended store this morning and have another on the agenda for tomorrow.

The weather so far has not been what I expected. We arrived late Saturday (I kept thinking it was the wee hours of Sunday); since then, today has been the closest we've seen to stereotypical Seattle skies. Sunday and Monday we had beautiful weather, and the clouds are breaking up -- making it rather difficult to see what I'm typing, with all the sunshine pouring through all that glass. It stays light much later than I'd have thought, I figure because Seattle is (I think) farther north. The sun doesn't set until 9-ish. That's 9pm, Pacific Daylight Time.

That's about all I can fit in at the moment, but I'll post more eventually. Even if it isn't until I get back.

Taking it On the Road

I'll be leaving town tomorrow. Not for good, mind you -- just for a week or so. Mom has a conference in Seattle, and she's letting me tag along. (Apparently, I would be cheap. Mom said something having enough points to cover my airfare, and the hotel room would only cost, what, $10 more a night?) We'll even have a few days left over to dash up to Vancouver.

However, tomorrow is also World Wide Knit in Public Day; the fact that we're leaving tomorrow is that I'm going to have to improvize knitting in public. I won't be able to participate in the festivities here in New York (as I will be packing and heading to the airport), and we won't land until the events in Seattle are over (and we'll both be wiped). That said, I did think to go to the TSA website and print out some of their information. Knitting implements are indeed allowed on planes -- I highlited the line that says so -- which means I should have no trouble whatsoever participating in my one-knitter celebration: World Wide Knit in Airport Day.

I also thought to post a message on Ravelry asking for yarn-store recommendations in the Seattle group. I got a few of these before the thread spiralled into a discussion of elevators. In all honesty, however, that was probably my own damn fault: when someone said something about downtown Seattle being flat and someone else disagreed, I piped up that flat and nearly flat are all the same to me because I live in a walk-up. Well, threadjackings happen, and are usually no less unplanned.

In my rush to get stuff printed, I also made sure I ran off a pattern or two, including the one for Salad Wristers (available from Presents Knits). I'm still working on the Baby Surprise jacket I'm knitting (mostly) with my knitting circle, of course, but I'm not exactly betting the yarn stash that Mom and/or her employer sprang for seats with elbow room.

That's about all I'll spit out at the moment, but watch this blog: I'll be bringing a computer with me, and finding wi-fi in Seattle should be, I'm told, no problem.

More wooly goodness

Tonight my knitting circle is beginning our first knit-along. Despite my objections to a larger project and/or one for a very specific type of recipient (and my stated preference for a small project that is not especially difficult and has no confusing assembly issues), the final winner was Elizabeth Zimmerman's Baby Surprise Jacket which has acquired both a following and a shorthand name ("BSJ"). The fact that it's acquired a following doesn't mean much in itself: Fetching has a following as well, but only got a single vote in the final round of voting, if memory serves. But still.

I must say that my recommended pattern, Foliage, was only a few votes behind the BSJ when the results were in. I'll probably be starting a knit-along for that pattern as soon as this one gets finished. Anyone who can knit an amoeba and turn it into a baby jacket has no reason to complain about a mere hat. So what if it's a lace hat? It's not like it's a difficult lace pattern.

Despite my general lack of babies to knit for (there's only one baby in the family, and she lives several time zones away) -- which probably means I should be sticking to gender-neuteral colors -- I did buy a yarn in a colorway that is clearly better suited to one kind of baby than the other. The photo, of course, doesn't do it justice. I fell in love with the colorway and actually sent one of the staffers downstairs for the second skein I needed (believe you me, I wouldn't normally do that).



The yarn is Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted in "Vera", and contains a bit more of the dark brown than one might think from the photo. There are 225 yards to a skein, which is on the high end. And yes, it's incredibly soft and, of course, superwash. We'll see how it looks knitted (I tend to use yarns with only one color to them). Stay tuned for photos.

Sign Gone Missing

Earlier this afternoon, I noticed that the post office on Seventh Avenue between Second and Third Streets in Park Slope is missing its sign. The most likely reason I can come up with is that it's being replaced, but personally, I'd much rather they used the money they're spending on a sign to clean up the interior.

Duly Noted and/or News off the Blogs: More on the Birthday Bridge Festivities

Gowanus Lounge has several more posts about this weekend's bridge festivities. These include two posts about the fireworks Thursday night, one containing a video, and another containing a photo gallery. It's a bit late in the day for the post about today's events to be of much use, but keep your eyes peeled for tomorrow's (and possibly Monday's).

Also posted are an account of the actual opening, 125 years ago today, and a special "Brooklinks" post which, like the post you are reading now, contains links to other Bridge-party links.

Though not specific to the bridge which bears the borough's name, another post mentions that Brooklyn has, apparently, shrunk.

Electioneering

I just posted the final poll to select a pattern for my knitting circle's first knit-along. (Members will be getting an e-mail about it as soon as I have a link for this post. Non-members may join by clicking on the big red and white thing at left.) After an extended period of nominations and preliminary voting, the finalists are:

• Calorimetry.
• Baby Surprise Jacket.
• Foliage.
• Fetching.
• Basic Sock Recipe.

I've already knit three of these patterns. As I mentioned last week, I've managed to crank out three Foliages (among other things) since January. I've also shown off one pair of Fetchings I knit with leftovers from the first of the hats -- the third pair of that pattern I've made. A second also uses Cascade 220 in an unidentified shade of blue (I lost its ID tag); a third uses Road to China, a very shed-prone yarn from The Fibre Company.




I even knit a Calorimetry a while back:



Of the five finalists, I'm partial to these three. My logic is that the other two are more likely to cause trouble. The Baby Surprise sweater is a large project for a first knit-along (and not as simple as it looks, apparently), and not all of us have babies at hand to show off our knitting skill. And socks are something that seem to require a lot of attention on the first pair, attention we don't necessarily want to lavish on something at the moment.

Fetching, on the other hand, is a tiny project (heck, I knit up a pair using leftovers) and requires nothing more advanced than double-pointeds and a few cable rounds. Foliage, my personal favorite, takes some attention and a circular needle, but is still reasonably small -- especially if you go for the version with the bulkier yarn. Calorimetry runs big and will need some raveling and tweaking (even if you have the gauge specified), but again, it's small and simple and a fairly painless introduction to short rows.

So, my advice is this: vote Foliage. If you don't feel up to that pattern, vote Fetching (or perhaps Calorimetry, if you don't mind adjusting to size).

Duly Noted: Happy 125th birthday, Brooklyn Bridge

Just a quick post, to point out that there are celebrations this weekend for the 125th birthday of the Brooklyn Bridge, kicking off tonight with a concert featuring (of course) the Brooklyn Philharmonic. Festivities also include films, walking tours, and other lectures and performances.

Further links:
* Gowanus Lounge included several bridge links in today's edition of their "Brooklinks" column.
* The New York Times has an website includes this article about the bridge (which includes the link I posted in the first paragraph).
* And there is a Wikipedia article about the bridge. But you already knew that.

On the Needles -- a trio again, but of scarves

Scarf, close-up
Originally uploaded by The Loopweaver

It's about time I posted projects in progress, and not just the ones I got done. At right is the scarf I'm working on now. (In fact, it's in my lap as I type this.) The pattern is variously called "Feather and Fan" or "Old Shale." It's a popular pattern which can be found all over the web -- though I got it from Barbara G. Walker's upbiquitous A Treasury of Knitting Patterns.

I have a few more scarves that are at various stages approaching completion. Two of them are meant to illustrate stitch patterns -- from that same Walker book -- on Ravelry. The first of these, my "Cloverleaf Eyelet Miniscarf" (using the "Cloverleaf Eyelet" pattern) can barely be called in progress, as all that's left is to sew on a button and weave in two yarn tails. A picture of it at an earlier stage:


My third in-progress scarf is near enough to being finished that I'm not bringing it to the office for fear of being cought without knitting. I've had to troubleshoot it a few too many times recently, anyway. I'm calling it my "Trellisleaf Scarf," a shortened version of "Trellis-Framed Leaf Pattern" the name of the stitch.

Links:
Plumberry Stripes scarf, on Ravelry
Feather and Fan Stitch, or Old Shale, on Ravelry
Cloverleaf Eyelet Miniscarf, on Ravelry
Cloverleaf Eyelet pattern, on Ravelry
Trellisleaf Scarf, on Ravelry
Trellis-Framed Leaf Pattern, on Ravelry
Barbara Walker's A Treasury of Knitting Patterns, on Ravelry
Barbara Walker's A Treasury of Knitting Patterns, on LibraryThing

Photo: Face

A sculptural decoration on what used to be John Jay High School in Park Slope. I'm not sure if it's supposed to represent something, but I didn't exactly research it, either.

Knitting coverage continued: Leftovers

Yesterday I promised to tell you what I did with the leftovers from those three hats. The short answer is that I made a pair of gloves, and three swatches to test stitch patterns. The long answer -- that is, the illustrated one -- is as follows.

The brown Foliage hat only used half a skein of Cascade 220. I used the other half to make a pair of fingerless mitts. The pattern, which appears on Knitty, is called "Fetching."



Neither of the other two hats left enough yarn for much in the way of obviously-useful projects. Instead, I knit up swatches from the two stitch dictionaries I have. The point of these is threefold. First, I get the hang of a new pattern; with said hang I also get some idea of the relative difficulty of various patterns. Second, should I decide to keep the swatch, I end up with a record of the properties of different patterns. Most of the time, I remember to make a note of the pattern, yarn, and needle size I used: I have a bunch of file cards I've cut in half and put holes through for just this kind of tagging. Third and finally, I've joined the effort to enter these patterns into Ravelry's database; if I'm entering the pattern into the database, I feel I ought to at least make some effort at illustrating them.

I made three swatches with the leftovers from my hats: the "Vertical Lace Trellis" pattern from Barbara G. Walker's A Treasury of Knitting Patterns, and the "Larkspurs" and "Little Lace Diamonds" patterns from the Big Book of Knitting Stitch Patterns.

I made the "Vertical Lace Trellis" swatch using leftovers from the green foliage. I had a very hard time getting photographing it.


I made the "Larkspurs" pattern using the rest of the Cascade 220 from the green Foliage (and the swatch above). This is how it looks unblocked:


As you can probably guess by the photo below, the "Little Lace Diamonds" swatch with the leftovers from the blue hat. This swatch is also unblocked. I hope to get blocking wires soon: this promises to look even better once I've gotten it to shape.



Links:
Projects:
My brown Fetchings, on Ravelry
My green Vertical Lace Trellis swatch, on Ravelry
My green Larkspurs swatch, on Ravelry
My blue Little Lace Diamonds swatch, on Ravelry

Patterns:
"Fetching" pattern, on Knitty
"Fetching" pattern, on Ravelry
"Vertical Lace Trellis" pattern, on Ravelry
"Larkspurs" pattern, on Ravelry
"Little Lace Diamonds" pattern, on Ravelry

Books:
A Treasury of Knitting Patterns on LibraryThing
A Treasury of Knitting Patterns on Ravelry
Big Book of Knitting Stitch Patterns on LibraryThing
Big Book of Knitting Stitch Patterns on Ravelry

Photo: Orchid

Orchid
Originally uploaded by The Loopweaver

"My office has an orchid, its..."

It's... Well, it's blooming, even if I haven't fully thought through how I'd rewrite the Oscar Mayer jingle. It bloomed about six months ago, and I got some really good photos of it then, too.

Partial knitting coverage -- three hats

It's probably about time I covered some of what I knit in that multimonth absence. For lack of a better starting point, I'll begin with the hat pattern I knit from in triplicate.

The hats, all made using the "Foliage" pattern in last fall's issue of Knitty, are as follows.

The first was knit strictly to the pattern using Cascade 220 Superwash in brown. I don't have a picture of me in the hat, so I'm stuck posting a photo of my knitting in the hat:


Bear with me while I skip ahead to the third hat. It was more or less squarely knit to pattern, using the version for thicker yarns. The only change was neccessitated by the fact that my gauge tends to be short as well as fat (the latter often meaning I have to use smaller needles than is normally suggested; this is, I think, the source of the shortness). All I did was repeat the dozen-row repeat a third time beween crown and ribbing.


The second hat was also knit in Cascade 220 Superwash (like the first), but in green. But while the brown was perfectly content as an ordinary Foliage, the green wanted to be a slightly looser version. I started on needles a size larger than I used for the brown hat, then changed to needles yet another size bigger at the point in the crown chart where those knitting the big-yarn version would depart for the hat body. I knit the leaf lace an extra time through, before doing an extra half-repeat back in the original needles and going on to the ribbing. Believe me it sounds worse than it is, and it came out well:


That's the hats. Stay tuned to hear what I did with the leftovers!


Links:
"Foliage" pattern on Knitty
"Foliage" pattern on Ravelry
The brown version, on Ravelry
The blue version, on Ravelry
The green version, on Ravelry

Signs of Misdirection

I have a thing for signs. Especially signs that seem to say something they don't mean. Or, alternatively, have been modified to say something they don't mean. I've seen a few posted on Gownus Lounge recently. One features a sign with a misspelling which, like confusing its and it's (and inventing its'), leaves the capabilities of the sign's poster open to debate. Another sign was merely bent, but in such a way that could very easily create confusion.

Similarly, I spotted a few such signs on my own. One of them suggests that East 90th Street and Madison Avenue is not an intersection, but a single street.


Another sign was deliberately modified, to create a similar effect I'm calling the "all paths lead to 10th Ave":


My contribution to the rash of misspelled stuff is this sign, in front of a soup store that is now (perhaps fortunately) long closed.


But I'll close with a few messed-up one-way signs. (I once saw one that was pointing straight up. As in vertical. If only I hadn't been in a moving car at the time!)

I'm back!

I'm back after neglecting my blog for an extended period. As a re-inaugural cange, I've put in a new quote at the bottom of the page. I expect to come up with a few good tidbits to post while this computer continues to recover from a virus scan that lasted a good hour and a half.

Knitting Pattern: Not-Exactly-Garter-Stitch Scarf

Green Stockinette Stripes
Originally uploaded by The Loopweaver

This scarf was literally my first full project. The stockinette and reverse stockinette stitch sections are small enough to keep the scarf from rolling, but it's not as boring as ordinary garter stitch. Sooner or later, I'll create the "neckwarmer" version.

Here's the pattern:

Not-Exactly-Garter-Stitch Scarf
Easy Stockinette/Reverse Stockinette Scarf

Yarn: GGH Savanna (50 g, 80 yds), 2 skeins. I have no idea what the color is, besides "green" -- I knit this scarf several years ago and no longer have the band.
Gauge: 4¼ sts = 1” in St st on U.S. size 9 (5.5 mm) needles
Needles: U.S. size 9 (5.5 mm), 1 pair

Pattern:
Cast on 20 stitches. Work three rows stockinette stitch and three rows reverse stockinette stitch as follows:

• Row 1: Knit
• Row 2: Purl
• Row 3: Knit
  
• Row 4: Knit
• Row 5: Purl
• Row 6: Knit

Work this pattern until scarf is the desired length, ending on a Row 3 or a Row 6.

Bind off all stitches.

Links:
* The pattern page on Ravelry.
* My version of it, also on Ravelry.

Was that really a month?

Well, I successfully managed to lose track of my own blog for a full month. Initially, it was the whole Christmas giftmaking mess, but that was shortly followed by world events. Without anything "relevent" to say, I decided to keep my trap shut. (And kept it shut for a month.)

In knitting news, I recently listed the Susan Mitts pattern from my previous post on Ravelry. Half a dozen people have favorited them and, unbelievably, someone else has started their own pair. I also finished the cabled scarf I was working on. Here's a newer photo of it:


I started another scarf, and just to be brave in my knitting, it's a lace pattern knit in a nylon/mohair blend. It isn't even an existing scarf pattern, but a stitch pattern: the "Openwork Leaf Pattern" from Barbara Walker's A Treasury of Knitting Patterns. I perched it on a hat perched on a soda bottle for this photo:


Anyway, here's to being back in the saddle.

Links:
* Susan Mitts pattern on Ravelry
* My grey cabled scarf, which I'm calling "Pewter Bells", also on Ravelry.
* "Mohair & Lace" scarf on Ravelry
* "Openwork Leaf Pattern" on Ravelry
* Barbara Walker's A Treasury of Knitting Patterns on Ravelry
* Barbara Walker's A Treasury of Knitting Patterns on LibraryThing