Thursday, July 31, 2008

No Finishing (Almost) Knitting

First, thank you to all who have supported me in this time of loss. It's been exhausting, what with a new job, extra training for my very part time water fitness teaching. I am surviving, barely. But onto the knitting!

I love Elizabeth Zimmermann. The woman was a genius, and my only regret is that only recently did I find her books and start into her wonderful world. I can't figure out how, having knit for so long, I managed to miss her.

So, I've been plugging away at a sweater for afghans for afghans for a while. I used her percentage system, and while the first one I did came out a bit squirrly, this one is going beautifully. You knit bottom up, in the round, do the sleeves (which I did at the same time on two circulars, so that they would match for once), connect it all together for the yoke. Brilliant, the woman was brilliant!

I changed the bottom ribbing from this
IMG_1287

to this

IMG_1295


because the ribbing didn't go with this yoke that I created (notes on this are on my Ravelry project page):

epsa4a1d

I have to say that I really, really like how this turned out, and since I'm not a yoke-sweater kind of girl, this is saying a lot!

When you cast off this sweater, the best part is that it looks like a sweater! The only "seams" are a total of two small sets of stitches to graft at the underarms:

epsa4a1e

and then all I have left is weaving in ends (yes, some of it occured in the knitting, but not all of it).

Next up, a sweater for my little cousin it's Ariann (ravelry link) from Chic Knits in Berrocco's Ultra Alpac. I knit her sister Allison a sweater for her birthday, and now it's time for Rachel to get one. She picked this pattern out of three cardigan patterns that I gave her to choose. I may make one for myself after I finish hers -- it's cute! Now I have to get her on the phone to find out her bust measurement to know what size to make...20 somethings can be hard to reach. Anybody know how to text?

The other project is part of the Ravelympics -- I'm captain of the Afghans for Afghans team, and I'm entered in the sweater sprint with another sweater for Afghans for Afghans -- I got some wool superwash when I was down in LA on one of my trips at the San Marino store A Stitch in Time.) I think this one will be a top-down raglan cardigan in the round.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Gratitude for Knitting

On June 19th, my world changed. In San Jose at a national conference for my church, I received a phone call from my mother, who told me that the police had come to her house to notify her that my brother, Randy, age 56, had died. It was a total shock. We will never know what happened -- the coroner has said that his cause of death is undetermined.

The intervening weeks have been a blur. I have put a lot of miles on the car, flown to Denver and back, and dealt with what I have had the energy to deal with.

Thank goodness for the knitting. My Knitpicks lace sampler kit had finally come, and I wanted to make a shawl for the Afghans for Afghans project. I had started the shawl just before leaving for the conference, and it became my sanity-saver the past few weeks.

It started small,
a4ashawl5

and grew and grew:

a4ashawl1

I knit the whole thing in just 3 weeks. It was my prayer for my brother, my mother and me...

I also finished knitting a scarf:

Multidirectional scarf detail

Two easy knits, one of which that I can wear into the future, the other of which that will brighten the world of someone carrying many more burdens than myself.

I thank God for knitting.

Friday, July 4, 2008

Fair Weather Knitting

This year I was inspired to enter some of my knitting by my friend, Judy, who entered items last year and did well. She did well this year too! A baby hat and cardigan:

JudysBabyHat&cardiganMCF08

And Judy also submitted Socks:
JudyssocksMCF08

and Handspun in a couple of kinds, and a beautiful Tuscany shawl.


To my surprise, my Hanami shawl won the other special awards:
HanamiMCF08a

and this mystery item also did well:

BabyHatMCF08bJPG copy

Since I'm thinking of submitting this as an original pattern, I must not show a photo!

Many of you know that a family loss has occurred, and I want to thank all the knitters for their support. I will be blogging more about this soon, including about the solace of knitting in times of loss...